Work Text:
Winter in Yiling is harsh, especially towards those with weak constitution. Every year, mountains of snow rains the land heavily, covering the clear roads like heavy blankets, and hence forcing merchants and farmers to stop their activities in favour to protect their fragile bodies from hypothermia. Which, unlike cultivators, who were protected by their golden core to regulate their body temperature.
Cultivators rarely felt cold.
And the snow never stopped.
This year, the weather seems to be more ruthless than ever. Civilians of Yiling didn’t dare to step outside, in fear of meeting their death in a town potent with resentful energy. In result, the town that used to be bustling with business, now was in silence so eerie that one could speculate a fierce corpse managed to run rampage. But that wasn’t the case.
Meanwhile in a room of an inn near the centre of Yiling, there sat a child with silver eyes not dissimilar to the moon, accompanied by a dimly lit candle while the child clutched onto a qiankun pouch left by her parents in case of an emergency.
The characters of Wei and Ying were neatly stitched on the fabric with golden threads, woven by skilful hands that is Wei Ying’s mother, Cangse Sanren. Wei Ying’s knuckles turned white when she thought of her mother’s voice, now distant in a room devoid of life. Now, she wished that it wasn’t so quiet.
Wei Ying thinks of her joyous laughter whenever she had retorted a clever remark of whatever nonsense her mother had said, “Aiya, my little baby has outsmarted me! My A-Ying is growing more like her father, hm? Husband, how would you allow this to happen? I carried our child for 9 months and I ended up having two Wei Changze(s) with me! Your poor, poor wife, destined to be tied with two fuddy-duddies for her entire life!”
And Wei Changze had responded, “Mn.”
For her entire life, she has said. Surely this wasn’t the entire life she had meant? Maybe she just needs some time, maybe if Wei Ying waits for another day, they will come back. (Liar.) Wei Ying is patient, she can wait if her mother told her to, and she waited, even if her parents were two days due from their promised returning time. But she continue waiting, patiently, in the room where the silence is stifling, where the food had gone cold when the servant brought it up in worry she would starve….
But what was the point of living if her parents weren’t coming back?
For a 10 year-old child, Wei Ying is proven to be an intelligent child. She understood things faster than her peers, which simultaneously delighted and worried her parents when they discovered of her talent. Wei Ying excelled in the golden core formation Cangse Sanren taught her, and she flourishes whenever Wei Changze taught her a new skill from the six arts.
Wei Ying is a child prodigy, so she knows. Her parents never told her, but Wei Ying has realised lots of things anyway. When she was exposed to her parents’ line of work, she has seen the risks and dangers of a rogue cultivator, and she was distinctly aware that their lives are on the line, that their deaths were right in the corner every time they went on another night hunt, and everytime, Wei Ying prays for their safety.
Until now.
Its a mistake made from her carelessness. Wei Ying was too distracted by her meditation that by the time she realised, her parents was gone, with a promise of return by Cangse hanging in the air. The ghost of a kiss lingered on her forehead, and Wei Ying realised a little too late after the day of their promised day to return came.
“Buy yourself a good meal while your father and I have a date!” Her mother wrote on a piece of paper before she left.
Forever, Wei Ying mentally added.
Wei Ying knew there’s no use for her to stay in the inn, aside for safety reasons she never cared. Her golden core is strong, thrumming actively in her dantian as the flow of warm qi flooded her meridians as she breathed. She stood up from her lotus position, smoothing her dress as she grabbed the last remnants of her parents’ belongings; her father’s flute and her mother’s weimao.
Both of the items were placed in her qiankun pouch, safely placed in her wide sleeves for later use.
The payments for her room was dealt swiftly with the inn’s owner, even if the older woman was sceptical of letting a young child wonder alone in such an unforgiving weather. But Wei Ying insisted, and the owner is forced to acquiesce.
Wei Ying stepped out, her body weighed nothing on the thick layer of snow underneath her feet as her hair flew lightly from the wind. She turned left, where a certain location comes in her mind as she walked.
In a place where the winter is harsh and cold, a child walks down the road. Her small figure paved through the thick snow with ease, her eyebrows sat determined and her silhouette disappears into the horizon.
No one saw the child after that day, even when a certain sect leader adorned with purple silks searched frantically through the alleyways, desperately hoping to find the silver orbs he missed so much.
“Wei Ying…where are you?”