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“He was dead anyway, a ghost... I stayed as long as I could, he said. Now look at the moon.” - The Worm King's Lullaby, Richard Siken
Whatever dark magic Wei Ying used to control Wen Ning, his ghost general, and whatever trickery brought the Yiling Patriarch back to life must be of a similar kind. Ever since they met on that mountain, a gaggle of night hunt participants, a furious Jiang Cheng, and, of course of course of course, Lan Zhan on their tails, ever since then Wei Ying feels an ache in his chest. It's a remembrance of power and hurt and so much blood. It feels like one of Wen Ning's chains got lodged in there, pulling, always pulling.
Wen Ning should be dead. But so should Wei Ying. Feels too complicated to split hairs about this now. He walks through the grassy lands with Little Apple and wonders where Wen Ning is. And in what state he has been all these years. Wei Ying cannot remember anything between the horror on Lan Zhan's face when he saw him fall and waking up in the Mo residency. He feels different, older maybe or just exhausted, but still, all the events that led to the last battle between the clans and the Yiling Patriarch seem to him like they happened just a few days ago. Does Wen Ning remember the past years? Did he hide out somewhere? Or was he asleep, in some kind of not quite dead state in some cave somewhere? Wei Ying wonders if he should have killed Wen Ning years ago, one last kindness before the Yiling Patriarch left this uncaring world behind for all the vultures to squabble over his leftovers.
He knows he could kill Wen Ning if he asked him to, his ghost general, his turnip salesman, his best friend.
When they meet again Wen Ning seems less alive than ever and Wei Ying feels human raw. It's like the boy he knew once is there again, awake eyes and shy smile, falling over himself despite his chains and deadly sharpness. But this can't be real, this can only be some kind of sad copy of the original, some ghostly afterimage of the last son of the Wen Clan. This is Wei Ying's fault, he made this monster, he brought him back from certain death and kept him around because he couldn't bear to hurt Wen Qing, couldn't bear to lose Wen Ning again.
Wei Ying reaches out to him, almost expecting his hand to grasp nothing but cold air, but there is a body, solid, under his hand, rough texture of worn out robes and some kind of heat seeping out from beneath it.
“How are you feeling,” Wei Ying asks.
Wen Ning cocks his head to the side, unsure, thinking. “I feel fine. I don't feel a lot anymore. There is only this thing-” He places a hand over his chest, over his heart, “this thing that keeps pulling at me.”
“If I asked you... Is there a thing you wouldn't do if I asked you?”
“You don't have to ask me. Just tell me what you need.”
Wei Ying looks into the earnest eyes looking back from this thing he made. Wen Ning still trusts him. Trusts that if Wei Wuxian is telling him something, it's the right thing to do. After everything, he still trusts him.
Or he just can't help himself, another voice speaks in Wei Ying's mind. Maybe there is nothing left behind those big eyes but a flimsy excuse for a personality to please Wei Ying. Maybe he would do anything Wei Ying told him to because he is an empty vessel, a tool for Wei Ying to use, who is too weak to take a lashing of Zidian anymore.
“What is it, Wei Gongzi?”
Wei Ying wonders if there is something he can do to find out. He knows with a certainty that chokes him up that Wen Ning would kill for him. Anyone, any name he could say and Wen Ning wouldn't hesitate. Wen Qing might have been the exception. But it's too late for that.
But there is something else he could try, something else to find out how far he can push Wen Ning until he fights back. If he fights back.
Wen Ning's face is ghostly white but unchanged beyond that. Age cannot reach him now. He will forever be the young handsome man he was at the day of his death. Wei Ying can still feel the rain beat on his face.
They are alone in an alley in the dead of night. Wei Ying uses the hand on Wen Ning's shoulder to push him further into the shadow of the building. Wen Ning goes easy, a question beginning to form on his face. Wei Ying steps further into his space and remembers with a sudden jolt all the times he thought about doing this. When he was going insane with heartache for Lan Zhan on top of the mountain in Yiling. His self chosen exile, and nothing there to occupy his time but his own thoughts and memories of Lan Zhan, all his regrets and fantasies of what their life could have been. Back then his eyes sometimes got caught on Wen Ning's broad shoulders, a hair sticking to his cheek, his lips. He had never followed up on these thoughts, too occupied with his own misery.
“Is someone there,” Wen Ning whispers, throwing a glance over Wei Ying's head back to the street.
Wei Ying sighs and thinks about taking this way out. But he already got him here, got enough liquor in his body to take the edge of any bad decision, and Lan Zhan is still too elusive to stay in his grasp.
“No, Wen Ning,” He says, laying both his hands on his shoulders. “You said to tell you what I need. This is it.”
Realization dawns on Wen Ning's face. Wei Ying must look desperate. He feels desperate. He wants Wen Ning to push him away, to tell him no.
Wen Ning settles on a kind look, and oh, that one hurts. That one has the weight of all the death and misery behind it. Before it can chase Wei Ying away though, he feels a hand on his face. Wen Ning strokes his thumb over his cheekbone.
“You looked so upset,” Wen Ning says, “I thought we might have to face all the clans of the cultivation world again. But nothing easier than this.”
Wei Ying's racing thoughts finally come to a halt, fizzle out and disappear to the sound of nothing easier. There is only Wen Ning's hand on his face, his other hand heavy on his hip. And then Wen Ning pulls him in all the way. He kisses him soft and gentle.
Wen Ning is right. It is easy. The ache in Wei Ying's chest finally recedes. He can fall into Wen Ning's sure arms and it makes more sense than he expected it to. Wen Ning's lips are cold from the night chill but his mouth is human hot, alive hot. Wei Ying presses into him like he can share that aliveness somehow, like it can make him feel less like a walking ghost.