Chapter Text
Chapter One - <<十年生死两茫茫...>>
When he brings Sandu through the fragile neck of the last soldier and then slips his blade through his sleeves to clean it free of dirt before sheathing it again, the blood soaked ground of the battlefield is finally silent without much else, nothing but a sparse land littered with bodies, cruor melting into the soil, staining the horizon.
The fighting ends. A war finally, finally, conquered. Chu soldiers rounded up if surrendered, knelt on the ground and surrounded by the cavalry. The lasting resistance is slain by deft swordsmen much quicker.
In time to come, they will strip the faceless soldiers of their armour to salvage them. A monument will be built to remember this bloody war, attributing the foundations of the dynasty built atop and only made possible by the violence of the years. A memorial will be built somewhere close by for significance, to honour the fallen, to praise the brave.
For now, it is finally quiet.
Jiang Cheng directs his squadron to recover their fellow fallen soldiers; line up those that can be buried or recognised, to send them home to their families for a proper burial. Pile up those that cannot. Count them all.
His soldiers rope in the others who are lost in the disorder of the victory, giving them direction. Rest will come later, better to toil now and sleep peacefully after.
Leadership falls onto Jiang Cheng's shoulders now that the cavalry cannot seem to find their Generals, and he gladly takes the reins if only to not let his mind wander.
Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are somewhere in the forest nearby, he knows. It's uncharacteristic of them to be distracted from their duties in light of protecting the secret of their relationship but it also won't be the first time. Jiang Cheng won't deny them their much deserved reunion; four years at war and under much scrutiny of unscrupulous observers. Their love transcends time and the lives they live through. He has no right to interfere, not when he is nothing more than just a lieutenant to Wei Wuxian. Never a brother anymore.
As for Lan Xichen, his stolen heart is nowhere to be found, not amongst the wounded nor another voice directing the footmen. The battlefield feels colder without his presence, and Jiang Cheng—
Jiang Cheng knows before he is even told.
Absence, not just in the cavity of his heart, a yearning emptiness moulded in the shape of his love, but by his side as well.
He closes his eyes to the weight of the sun above him, knowing. Wei Wuxian's Golden Core forever spinning inside his chest, healing his wounds until the sting of his injuries can no longer hide the chasm ripping open inside him again.
"Tongjun! Jiang Tongjun!"
He opens his eyes to a soldier running haggardly towards him in the distance, his hand clutching something.
He pulses Wei Wuxian's Golden Core, his spiritual energy flooding the battlefield imperceptibly, his soldiers blazing with life roaming the gruesome field, traversing over a hundred thousand bodies as each of them light up in dying embers, faded lives clinging only to bones, those dead for hours having become nothing but inanimate objects to him.
His energy floods the field until he can discern the beating hearts of his soldiers from the dead, until he can make out the flecks of insects coalescing on congealed blood.
He passes his brother's weak coreless energy, Lan Wangji's indomitable one, two heart beating, both slow, before his senses settle on another familiar energy, fading fast, gentle like the wind even in death.
Jiang Cheng starts towards him, shouldering past the soldier who had come to inform him, straight in the direction that he'd come from, giving the Jade amulet in his hands only a passing glance.
“Tongjun?”
He doesn't need to run. He merely makes his way over the bloody grounds briskly, only savouring the lasting dredges of his lover's energy, tethering so loosely to his skin, soft and tangible as if he was wrapped around him.
Lan Xichen curls around him in his sleep, his cold skin placated only by the blazing hearth of Wei Wuxian's Golden Core. Jiang Cheng snuggles closer into his chest, let the arms around him coil tighter, let him have all his warmth.
It's not the first time his love had gone without him. Sometimes he wonders if he'd just stuck close to him like a second skin after he'd stolen him from his true soulmate, perhaps there would come a day that Lan Xichen will live to old, perhaps one day will come when he can watch as they all do.
Lan Xichen presses him down, presses him close, hair plastered to his back, skin burnished red, ragged breaths cascading over bare chests as they move against each other. He gasps as he comes, exposing the long column of his neck that Jiang Cheng readily covers in kisses.
But then when it comes to it, Jiang Cheng could never bear to subject Lan Xichen's fate to his will, could never squander his life under his protective thumb. He has already stolen him from his destined lover, the snake who will never fail to treat him better, a chance for everlasting peace if he doesn't decide to plan any treachery.
He's learnt what overprotectiveness would do to a Wei Wuxian, over the lives he'd encountered of his. Like squandering a flame constantly fuelled with oxygen, caging a bird meant to soar the skies. He's not about to let the same thing happen to anyone else.
Lan Xichen smiles apologetically as he places down the winning stone, because Jiang Cheng has never taken a win against the man in all his lifetimes, doesn't want to either. His lover is brilliant and he likes to relish in it.
Lan Xichen, Lan Xichen, Lan Xichen. Why have you decided that my heart is the best place for a home?
But he's also not here. He's gone. The dissipating energy fading into the world around him, becoming one. Jiang Cheng draws back his energy at once, if only for the delusion that Lan Xichen will be part of him, his soul.
Jiang Cheng crosses over maroon-stained soil, over dead bodies of his men and his state enemies, over pieces of armour strewn wide and stray blades broken or missing an owner, until he comes to Lan Xichen.
His hair is matted with his own blood, loosened and tangling with the countless arrows skewering him. His armour is caved in places where swords and maces have finally broken through, and he still bleeds out sluggishly from gashes that have opened him wide.
Lan Xichen's eyes reflect the blue skies overhead, the morning having already come and gone, tranquil clouds ebbing by insouciantly within his unseeing vision.
Jiang Cheng kneels, gently lifting his limp head onto his lap, combing down hair once silken. He wipes away the dirt and the dried blood caking his face, reaches over to tug the arrows out of his chest, what a fight he must have put up, his love, so many wounds on his body speaking of his relentless will to live to the end.
He caresses his cheek, tries to smile over the numbness riding up from his chest. Over anything else, it has been too long since he felt anger, the choking need of vengeance.
"You've must have fought well, hm? How valiant." He has to pry his fingers open to let go of the hilt of his broken sword, but even so, the stiff fingers do not hold his hand back. "There will be songs in your memory and poetry written about you, my love. On the anniversaries of our victories today, people will chant your name."
He bends to kiss his forehead, in guidance where he cannot follow, before peppering the rest of his face with his lips lovingly.
I love you, do you hear me? I love you.
"Tongjun! Tongjun! A great catastrophe has befallen us! Jiang Tongjun! It’s about Wei Jiangjun! Wei Jiangjun!"
Jiang Cheng looks up numbly to another footman clambering closer. The soldier has tears in his eyes.
"Jiang Tongjun!" The soldier stumbles over some body's leg, skidding on his knees forward with the mud made by blood and soil, but he is desperate to make his announcement. "Tongjun! Wei Jiangjun has—
Died.
The word echoes in his head, rattling around the hollow cavity of his chest, already empty.
Ah. Yes. Of course.
The weak energy that he had sensed of his brother earlier was not because of his weak core. It was because he was dying in Lan Wangji's arms in the forest beyond, leaving the world for the umpteenth time before he should, before he'd have any chance to live to fulfilment.
The resignation of Lan Wangji’s slow beating heart to the gradual slowing of Wei Wuxian’s.
Behind the footman, he dazedly catches on the distant form of Lan Wangji emerging from the forest line, the tsunami of his grief crashing over the fields and cresting against his own, his arms carrying the limp body of Wei Wuxian.
As always, we both come full circle, somehow. A lover, a brother. Parallels. Fate has always worked like this.
His gaze falls back to Lan Xichen's unseeing ones absently, watching his reflection in glassy lifeless eyes.
Jiang Cheng folds over him. He doesn't cry. He doesn't rage.
He's just tired. He's so, so tired.
He rouses slowly, tranquillity settled on his skin, weightlessness over his loose shoulders like his body doesn’t yet know what leaning over a desk through the night with his brush never leaving paper is.
His arms are crossed under his pillow and he feels the distinctive stickiness on his left cheek and the damp patch on the silk beneath that tells him that he has drooled as if he's still fifteen and yet to correct the disgusting habit.
He hears the chirping of birds, noisy. And when he spreads his senses, loosening his warm Golden Core to dive deep into a gentle state of soft awareness, he can hear the quiet quick-footed sliding of people outside his room, the hushed tones of indecipherable words being spoken weaving through the open window from the outside.
There are walls of muteness around him as if screen doors are capable of holding back the overwhelming buzz of the world beyond. He feels like he is in a bubble.
He is at ease. His muscles do not ache, they are not tense. His mind has woken up blissfully empty of worries, no anxiousness over the day or the previous’ rushing back into his thoughts like a broken dam. He doesn’t quite understand why, but he likes this.
Jiang Cheng smiles to himself, digging his face into the pillow, content.
Just as he settles comfortably, his eyes flash open again when wood slams against wood, his door sliding open with a bang, who the fuck—
“Jiang Cheng! Still asleep! What a surprise!” Is all the warning he gets before Wei Wuxian pounces onto his back like an overgrown monkey. He tries to roll out of the way but is caught by the frame of a cot narrower than he remembers, earning a bump to his head sharply waking him up fully.
“Fuck!”
He cups the back of his head just as Wei Wuxian jumps back in surprise, white robes creasing as he falls backwards onto the bed.
“Shit! Sorry! Why the hell did you move?!” Wei Wuxian barks out with a laugh. Jiang Cheng scowls, shoving him away so he can sit up on the bed and Wei Wuxian flails over the edge of the cot onto the floor. “Eh! UWACK!”
“You dare ask me that!” Jiang Cheng shouts back, flinging the covers away to swing his legs over the bed. He senses someone approaching the open door and he tenses for a split second in horror of some stranger coming upon the chaos.
“A-Xian, you shouldn’t wake A-Cheng up like that.” A gentle voice chides from outside his room. The familiarity waterfalls over him and he relaxes instantly.
A-Jie steps through the open door, the blinding light of the morning (afternoon?) casting shadows over her body until she steps inside fully to slide the door close with a nudge of her foot. She looks radiant, glowing in the blue-tinted Lan Sect foreign disciple robes, cheeks rosy from the cool breeze of the autumn day.
She holds a food box in her hands, one that looks heavily packed with dishes that she had probably spent the entire morning preparing before waking Wei Wuxian.
Why didn’t she wake him up first instead? He could have helped her cook. Why did they let him sleep in?
He doesn’t realise he had spoken out loud until she smiles coyly. “Because you look like you were sleeping so peacefully, A-Cheng,” A-Jie coos, walking over to the table to set the box down. “I couldn’t bear to disturb your sleep.”
Wei Wuxian lets out a whine as he picks himself up from the floor. “Huh? Then what about me, A-Jie? I was dreaming something good when you woke me up just now too! I was dreaming about Lan—bleeghhh."
Jiang Cheng reaches up and shoves his face away to stop the next few words from spilling out of his mouth. He knows it’s relatively late enough in the morning to be afternoon, but he doesn’t need to hear that kind of shit ever in his entire life.
He’ll never be able to look at the Second Jade of Lan with a straight face anymore if that happens.
And if anyone catches him getting red in the face whenever he looks at Lan Wangji, it might send the wrong message and he’d end up with a preposterous scandal over how he may fancy Lan Wangji or something when it should be Wei Wuxian who should be under that kind of scrutiny instead.
Wei Wuxian squawks indignantly but Jiang Cheng pays no heed, darting over to the table to help A-Jie unload the box full of dishes.
The morning-afternoon feels welcoming, encouraging him to take things slow. He strides to A-Jie, leaving behind a Wei Wuxian who isn’t looking at him like he’s grown a second head for daring to do something as normal as touching him, walking over to a sister who is healthy and whole and so happy.
Both of them alive at the same time, nothing like the weight of death hanging between them.
He falls back into this natural camaraderie between the three of them easily like breathing. He can't help but feel like he has come home after a long and disastrous night hunt that barely left him with his life to crawl home .
“No one needs to know what kind of fantasies you have about Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian!” Jiang Cheng calls back nonchalantly, reaching over to A-Jie. She lets out an exasperated sigh and bumps his shoulder as he helps to set the table. He sniffs. “What? It’s true.”
“Oi! Who—who says—What makes you think I was fantasising about Lan Zhan?!” Wei Wuxian sputters before crossing his arms with a huff. Fantasising. He doesn't even deny that he was. “For all you know, it could be Sect Leader Lan because you wouldn’t even let me finish!”
Like anyone’s going to buy that kind of bullshit. Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes. “You wouldn’t be fantasising about Sect Leader Lan since you’re still calling him Sect Leader Lan right?”
“Eh! What—But they weren’t fantasies! It was funny! I dreamt of Lan Zhan getting drunk and he was stealing—
“Shut up! Shut up!” He shoves his fingers into his ears because by the end of this breakfast he still wants to uphold whatever reverence he has for the Second Jade of Lan as a fellow younger brother having to deal with annoying older brothers, and darts away expertly when he sees Wei Wuxian lunge for him, muscle memory allowing him to dodge his swipes smoothly.
They hop around the table with practised ease in avoiding A-Jie as she ladles soup into their bowls, taking turns to swipe back at each other when they find the opportunity, deftly ducking away from close-calls that would've ended up in someone's hair being pulled.
Wei Wuxian suddenly raises a finger and upon seeing the few quick scribbles, Jiang Cheng barely manages to duck before the air-drawn talisman flew through wherever his head would have been.
His head swerves to follow the blue scribbles before it dissipates harmlessly in the air, recognising it as an immobility talisman that would’ve frozen him to a spot.
Indignance fills his bones. The effervescence of adrenaline, of joy and excitement, they almost spill over his heart. He straightens and points an accusing finger at Wei Wuxian. “You dare—
“Alright! Alright, both of you. Sit down and have a bite before everything becomes cold!” A-Jie interrupts with a gentle scolding. Jiang Cheng closes his mouth with a clack, feeling chastised at his uncharacteristic bout of childishness.
He drops his hand, glancing over at A-Jie before curling his lips at Wei Wuxian and receiving a stuck-out tongue in return. He rolls his eyes back at him.
A-Jie reaches out both her hands to grasp their elbows, tugging them down onto the seats. "Aiya, they are just dreams. It's fine if you've had a good sleep already. Nothing to squabble over."
"Yes, A-Jie."
"Orh."
His heart feels buoyant, floating over a gentle stream like a bubble. Peace with no worries on the horizon.
Quietly, he picks up his spoon to take a sip of the soup. A-Jie has made Lotus root and Pork Rib soup again, Wei Wuxian’s favourite. Most of everything else on the table, however, are Jiang Cheng’s preferences. What a treat. A-Jie never favours any of them more than the other. She loves them equally all the same.
He turns to A-Jie to compliment and thank her for the meal, but he finds her staring at him with a mournful smile.
There is an uncanny silence that has suddenly blanketed the table, and he now realises that it has spread over to the world outside.
What .
The bubble around him has popped. He can't stop staring at A-Jie.
“There is no one left who can order you to wake up now.” She says. What? Jiang Cheng snaps his head immediately to look at Wei Wuxian in confusion, guidance, maybe, but he finds the same pity unnaturally splayed over his brother’s face as well.
“But you have to wake up eventually, Jiang Cheng. You have to do it yourself. No one will help you." Wei Wuxian says solemnly, pity, pity etched into his face. No .
His heart seizes. River water logged in his throat, drowning but not killing him. A dream, a memory that will never pass again.
Jiang Cheng wakes up with a watery inhale, alone, tear tracks dry on his cheeks.
“Yifu, are you sure you want to do this?”
Jiang Cheng hums, looking up from his packed luggage, wondering if there’s actually anything else he’d need to have to move into the student apartment. “Of course. I know it’s been a long time since I’ve enrolled into a school, but you think I can’t keep up?”
Wen Qing winces, because doubting her adopted father younger brother is always been a mistake since he’s old and there’s practically nothing he can’t do, “I mean, I don’t remember you taking any classes ever.”
“His last certified education was a Masters in Archaeology and a Minor in Anthropology.” A-Zhu pipes up from where he’s lounging on the sofa, calling from below the loft. “I found the certs while renovating the pavilion.”
Wen Ning, who’s lying upside down on the bed beside Wen Qing as he watches his Yifu bustle in and out of the walk-in closet, scrunches up his face. “That’s dated before the 1900s right? You sure it’s still valid?”
“Before 1920, is it? It’s probably named under Jiang Yinsheng right?” Wen Qing says, “Jiang Yinsheng is dead, so…”
Wen Qing shrugs, slapping away Wen Ning’s irritating hand when he tries to snag a piece of her croissant. Not in a million years. A-Zhu had gotten them at her request from Paris during his business trip there. She doesn’t have the time to travel so far to get this priceless pastry when she’s so busy at the hospital.
Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes. “I can study, you know. I was a top student in every institution I enrolled in. You guys have too little faith in me.”
Yeah, well, he’s talking to three modern day University top-honour graduates. Wen Ning may have been the only one that actually struggled with his school work and social life, given that Wen Qing and A-Zhu are all monsters in their chosen fields of study, but the materials and courses that they’ve all taken on did stress them out for some time.
They’ve never seen Yifu truly out of his depth and capabilities. Not like how A-Zhu was forced out of the comfort of home aspiring to be a Principal Architect, Wen Qing to become a World-class Surgeon, and Wen Ning to be an Olympic Archer. Their other adopted siblings are the same too.
Yifu is talented and well adapted to the ever-changing times. For him to be able to keep up with the pace of modern education, it’d only cement his awe-inspiring reverence.
Eh whatever. It’s already considerable that he’s been accepted into PKU. No one is going to be surprised if he graduates with honours too.
Wen Qing finishes the last bite of the croissant before swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. “When do you have to check-in?”
“On Sunday. Classes start next Monday, I think.”
“Have you enrolled in your modules already? Do you need help?”
“I helped him do that already.” Wen Ning chirps, raising a hand.
Jiang Cheng nods, reaching over his vanity for the family photo set on it. Everyone in their extensive family could barely fit within the picture without their faces becoming tiny.
“Do I need anything else?” He asks, standing back with his arms crossed to survey the luggage. The last time he enrolled into a university, he didn’t take up residence in the dormitory. This time though, he has a hunch to stay on campus, no matter how conspicuous it is in this age and time. Nothing like a good shroud of cultivating energy would solve, anyway.
“Probably an open mind. I know you’re staying in the best apartment, but you’re still gonna be sharing it with some other guy. I got a good housemate the last time but I think Wei-wei got a shitty one that partied almost every other night.” Wen Qing says. She’d wanted the full college experience so she’d stayed in the dorm too. All the compound's children, by choice, had been homeschooled up until High School, and then it was their choice to head out there in the world or not.
“Ah. Got it. Don’t worry about that. When do you know them?”
“When you check-in. You’ll get an email about your dormmates. I mean, you're sharing an apartment with only one other occupant right? So housemate.”
Jiang Cheng breathes out, smiling as he nods.
“Alright. Sounds fun. I’m done. Ask everyone if they want to eat dinner before I leave for Beijing or something, will you?”
"I feel like eating Zhajiangmian." Wen Ning says, nodding surely to himself. Beside him, Wen Qing scowls.
“We can have that anywhere. Let’s get Ah Ma to cook. We’ll help her."
“She’s just gonna cook the same thing, just less msg.” Wen Ning says with a scrunch of his face.
“Duh. And we don’t have to walk anywhere far.”
“Her kitchen is across the compound! We might as well take a boat to town and Ah Ma can relax for the night.”
“Yifu can eat Zhajiangmian anywhere in Beijing. I know like three good restaurants five minutes from campus. Come on, maybe we can get Ah Ma to cook fish head curry.”
“That’s the entire point of getting Ah Ma to cook isn’t it?”
“What are you talking about? Ah Ma cooks that all the time. But we’ve been back for a week and we’ve been eating nothing but food made by Murata just because she was craving Japanese on Monday.”
Jiang Cheng stares between them both and resolves to just not care as they bicker, zipping up his luggage and carrying them down the loft. A-Zhu meets him halfway down the steps with his attention partially distracted with his phone, because he’s always been a son that can easily anticipate his needs, wordlessly helping him set one of his bags down by the lobby despite not actually needing the help.
Jiang Cheng doesn’t have house servants like the rest of the courtyards on the compound since he’s never really needed them in a home that sits empty most of the time. He travels frequently and only ever times his home coming with the rest of the family.
He looks over to his boy leaning against the archway of the lobby, of a home he’d designed and renovated four years ago as a means for a school project just to show that he can , aspiring architect and all.
Somewhere out there, different courtyards of their compound sit in the portfolios of other students as a means of innovative design inspiration.
“What do you want to eat?”
A-Zhu shrugs without looking up from his phone, switching between typing an email and a message to several people at the same time. “The brain of my Hefei project manager.”
Jiang Cheng hums noncommittally. “Would that be nutritious at all?”
He’s not saying that he’s had someone’s brains before, but like–
“You’re right. He’s really dumb. But his assistant is really competent at his job so I can’t take his brain. The second designer though...” A-Zhu muses, pausing in his typing as if seriously considering it.
“What about now?”
“Anything is good.” No one in this house has strong opinions anyway. Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes, looking over to the other siblings as they bicker down the loft.
When he breathes in softly and quietens the world around him, he can feel the cooler warmth of his children. The three of them burning with their tiny developed cores within their chests, the many more spread across the compound, the city, the continent, the world, like miniature balls and specks of heat and gold revolving around the precipice that is Wei Wuxian’s burning sun.
None of them would ever achieve the same cultivation as the average cultivator thousands of years ago during his time, not all of them would even come to develop a core no matter how much they meditate like the rest of their siblings, but nevertheless, he can seek any one of them at any time just like this.
He’s not alone here. Not the only one left for miles where not a single human soul even roams.
“Yifu?” Wen Qing calls.
Jiang Cheng blinks to focus on the three of them in the room, no longer seeking the hundreds spread all over the world, confining his presence within.
He raises an eyebrow as if he hadn't just stoned out for several noticeable seconds. “What are we eating? Who have you guys already called over?”
The three of them shrug.
He rolls his eyes. Children.
::
Jiang Cheng thanks the campus receptionist, turning away.
He looks down at the email on his phone, smiling to himself. This is how he knows that Fate is working with him. For this entire lifetime, he’d not encountered him at all. Everyone that he was meant to know, meant to change the lives of, Fate had brought them to his hands.
In this cycle, Wen Qing and Wen Ning, literally borne into his hands. The rest of his adopted children brought to his doorstep, one by one taking their names, each one he was given the opportunity to give his love.
It is how Fate works. He could’ve tried to find him all he liked, but if he wasn’t meant to meet him then, he wouldn’t be able to. He had to learn this the hard way.
For now, he takes note of his shared apartment unit, heading to the apartment building.
Apartment 31b Occupants: Jiang Cheng | Wei Wu Xian
“Do you have any family, sir?” The man asks, setting a bowl of steaming clear soup in front of him.
Jiang Cheng blinks at it, then down to the fingers drumming on the table. His eyes follow the long arm up, clad in the dirt brown sleeve of simple threadbare robes.
Wei Wuxian blinks down at him curiously, worry in his eyes unmistakable because Wei Wuxian only ever wears his emotions on his sleeve. Sometimes they’re so complicated that no one can decipher them, an amalgamation of everything that he feels at once, but always, always so prominent.
He feels so numb that he can’t even think.
He doesn’t even know where he is. Some rundown moist wood shack with wind whistling through the holes of the shoddy woodwork.
He’s still shaking from the river, having emptied out his lungs barely an hour ago. He’s still feeling the strain and stretch of them, gradually growing taut inside his body, the pressure of his chest gradually reducing as Wei Wuxian’s golden core returns his physiological state back to the way it was. As always.
So he’s dreaming. He’s...he’s somewhat sure of it.
Didn’t he just come out of one?
Sunshine and weightless, A-Jie had...A-Jie had made breakfast. Had let him sleep into the late morning. Wei Wuxian was alive...alive and convivial, casual. His hands were unblemished, not a single bloodstain on his skin. He was warm. So, so warm.
“Why…” His voice is scratchy, hoarse and painful from the abrasion of the rushing water from before, but it heals immediately by his next attempt at words as if conscious thought makes Wei Wuxian’s golden core heal wounds. He knows it doesn’t work like that. If it did, he wouldn’t still be alive. “Why are you here?”
Wei Wuxian, the ghost, or a dream, blinks in surprise. “Hm? Do you know where you are?” No, but he doesn’t care where ‘here’ is.
“Wei Wuxian…”
“Hm? Yes! That’s me. How do you know my name?”
He’s a dream.
A fervent, fever dream. An illusion, if nothing else. A hallucination, if it really has to come down to it.
But he can’t. He can’t.
He’s been alone for so long. He doesn’t even know how long he has walked this earth, how long it has been ever since the last of Jin Ling’s descendents have died. Ever since anyone he has ever known has died or even spoken his name. He’s been walking through barren forests and stumbling through grasslands with nothing for miles, only animals and birdcalls for company.
He shouldn’t have left even if he’d become forgotten. The isolation had been worse than anything else.
“Wei Wuxian.” He chokes out again, his throat thick with emotion, burning. He can’t help but reach for him. He didn’t, just now, in the featherlight dream. He had pushed him away. He had thought that he would be there by his side and would be allowed to fool around with him forever.
But he died. Left him alone both times with his golden core. How long has it been?
His vision blurs, his eyes burn and the heated flush spreads down to his throat, choking him up with sputum thick sorrow. He reaches for him, hands finding a sleeve, then an arm, then an entire body wraps around him warmly and he cries into a solid chest.
He doesn’t care if this is a dream. It feels like it has been a few hundred years. His brother is in his arms, solid and burning with life against his river cold skin. If he's died and he hadn't known it, he doesn't care.