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I have a gift for you, Mo Xuanyu’s letter says. It’s ugly, but I tried. I read your notes, your longing, and they almost fixed me. I thought if you could yearn that much, love this so, perhaps I could love this pain too. I was wrong. Maybe we are the same in wholly different ways.
I have a gift for you, Mo Xuanyu’s body says. His hips are wide and his chest is just big enough that hiding it with bandages is a pain.
Wei Wuxian knows it must have been, not from experience, but the way the ribs hurt now at every attempt as drawing breath.
But for all the ugliness Mo Xuanyu ascribed to his body, Wei Wuxian fails to see any of it. A bath in a cold river, far away from the bloodied array, scrubs away the old paint, and ill-fitting robes reveal a starved and beaten beauty. There are scars alongside thighs and legs, interrupting otherwise pale skin. The hands too are much rougher than Jiang Yanli’s ever were; cuts from talismans opened again and again until the marks stayed.
And still, Mo Xuanyu had been given a shell that was beautiful and soft in all the ways Wei Wuxian had never been.
Naked in the cold river, Mo Xuanyu’s nightmares are laid bare and reveal themselves as gifts.
“Thank you,” Wei Wuxian says in a foreign voice.
It is light and might be suitable for singing in a way that pleases future husbands and their company. Wei Wuxian’s own voice learned to be soft when requesting things of Madam Yu, cheering up the heirs of Yunmeng Jiang, and threatening all the sects on behalf of a few stray Wens and old aches in a hollow body.
“I’d have given you mine,” Wei Wuxian tells the ghost of Mo Xuanyu, long faded. The height of that body might have pleased him, the rich laughter and the flat chest.
That body was less work for certain as blood trailing down the legs of this one promises. Stronger too, Wei Wuxian thinks, marching on old paths already exhausted. But there’s something lovely in the work of this one, the strength it carries differently.
People still stare for various reasons, most of which can be ascribed to all the treasures Mo Xuanyu couldn’t see and a young miss behaving so outrageously. Wei Wuxian can’t help it, there were no lessons on the manners of young women for the young masters of Yunmeng. Yanli indulged, perhaps wishing for a sister instead of two brothers, doing their hair even when Jiang Cheng protested, but Wei Wuxian never learned about the propriety expected of Mo Xuanyu.
For some coin, the women in the brothel are happy enough to speak of the arts and posture expected of good women and good wives, of which they are either only part-time, they say with a wink. They brush out long hair and do elaborate braids adorned with the jewelry gifted to them by their wealthy patrons.
Wei Wuxian sticks to the one Wen Qing preferred, not quite able to look in the mirror and see Jiang Yanli.
Rumors stir about the Yiling Patriarch, hidden lies and deceit as Wei Wuxian splurges money earned busking on new clothes. There’s never been a Yiling Patriarch and all this time away from resentment in a body with a brilliant core makes that person seem even more distant. Slowly, Mo Xuanyu’s body gains weight and strength, fills out just so that sleeping rough becomes more bearable.
Stories of incidents in Qinghe send people on the road, and false introductions become true as children of traveling caravans call for A-Ying to play a song and Wei Wuxian fades.
“A-Ying,” says a grandmother too old to mind the children Wei Ying entertains. “How much longer will you travel with us? Must I find you a good husband?”
“I can do that all on my own, grandmother,” Wei Ying reassures her and chases off three marriage proposals by the time the sects are faced with horrible truths, find foundations shaken, and brothers avenged.
There are thoughts of returning to old haunts and familiar faces, but Wei Ying saves a young miss from vengeful spirits and is distracted. The young miss feels horribly lonely with all her other sisters married into different households and her mother long dead. Wei Ying stays and attends classes meant for the young miss, learns how to dance at her side and finally wield the power of petty gossip. None of the girls surrounding the young miss seem to mind the presence of this older woman. They blame all the flaws they find with Wei Ying on the lifestyle of a rogue cultivator.
Wei Ying leaves with the first lotus blooms and the promise to return in winter if there’s no accommodation to be found. The young miss is much happier now and Wei Ying’s pockets are packed with unasked-for riches and old dresses.
“My sisters’ old clothes don’t fit me,” she’d said. “I’d rather you wear them, A-Ying.”
And so Wei Ying does, no longer unsure how to wear these robes, and perfectly comfortable in them when playing instruments in front of a crowd. The dizi isn’t Chenqing, but Wei Ying has rarely needed a tool that powerful in the last year.
Mourning its loss happens only when a horde of young cultivators enters the inn Wei Ying is entertaining. Even as the room slowly empties, the youths stay behind, discussing their nighthunt. They’re cute, and the one dressed in Jin colors reminds Wei Ying just enough of Jiang Cheng that most of the night is occupied with Yunmeng folksongs.
“Can you play something from Gusu next?” one of the Lan boys asks, all eager.
“I don’t know many songs from Gusu,” Wei Ying replies, a blatant lie.
There’d been something of an effort to learn the melodies of as many dirty songs from Gusu as possible in the past, but playing them for these kids seems a little out of place.
“Tell you what, I’ll play you a song a friend taught me once,” Wei Ying says and resurrects a half-forgotten melody. Lan Zhan probably hadn’t intended to teach him a Lan song, but Wei Ying hardly needs more than half a listen to memorize something so beautiful.
The boys are mostly in awe, except for one, who seems caught in a dream.
“Do you know the title of the song?” he asks when Wei Ying finishes.
Wei Ying doesn’t have an answer, and where that ignorance would’ve been insecurity and fear once, the prospect of learning now is exciting.
“I don’t,” Wei Ying replies. “Do you?”
“My father might,” says the Lan boy, frowning thoughtfully. “I could ask him?”
Wei Ying smiles. “Take me to Cloud Recesses then and I’ll ask him myself!”
The other boys splutter at the forward behavior, but Wei Ying can’t help it. The year has been kind, and finally settled in this body and life, there are some truths left to confront.
She feels quite ready for it.