Chapter Text
“Wei Wuxian, go to hell!”
“Wei Ying!”
Blood-slick hands wrenched apart. Resentful energy howled and tore him to shreds well before his body could smash onto the rocks below or vaporize in the molten rock that surrounded the Nightless City. Then, there was nothing. Sweet, merciful nothing.
Except fate was never so kind to Wei Wuxian. Consciousness returned like a candle flame flickering in strong winds, threatening to snuff out completely. He didn’t know why he clung to it when all he craved was the relief of oblivion. When he could give up, finally. He’d failed. He was at peace with that.
“Your reputation precedes you, Yiling Patriarch.” The man’s voice was deep and pleasant, honey-smooth, curled at the corners around a smirk. Wei Wuxian thought he could listen to that voice for hours, though it gave him a shivery sense of danger. “You’ve caused quite a stir.”
Who are you? Wei Wuxian wanted to ask, but his voice didn’t work. He wasn’t aware of his mouth, or the rest of his body for that matter. He saw-but-didn’t-see that he was hovering over a man’s palm, painted with a weak, blue-green light. That was him, he realized. Wei Wuxian was the light. A ghost flame.
That meant he really was dead. Which meant the Wens…
“I am the master of this city of ghosts, a ghost king, the Devastation known as Crimson Rain Sought Flower.” Hard to say whether he was responding to Wei Wuxian’s unvoiced question or simply introducing himself. The man’s face came into focus as though through a greased pane of glass. Strikingly handsome, despite the blurriness, his right eye covered by a black patch. “And you, Wei Ying, courtesy Wuxian, are my newest subject.”
Wei Wuxian absorbed this information with no small amount of confusion. It was difficult to concentrate on anything when he wasn’t quite certain how he was able to see and hear his alleged ruler. He’d always been a quick study, however, and he rallied every particle of his being to speak: “So, what happens now?”
The Devastation smiled like a scimitar. “Would you say you’re a gambling man, Wei Wuxian?”