Chapter Text
Death was such a weird feeling, Wei Wuxian pondered.
It stroke fear and intimidated even the hearts of the strongest, for it was an eraser to everything that had value to a person - their dreams, their feelings, attachments built through time. Everyone always had something to lose when death came to their step.
Everyone except someone as the Yiling Patriarch.
Left without support and with no arms to return to or a smile to relieve all consuming anguish and misery, his family broken once more and his friends’ ashes scattered to an unkind wind, his heroic deeds and what not lay forgotten on a pile of blood, him turned devil of the world just to appease others - so death was fine, because what place was there for him anymore beyond the Afterlife?
In the end, the cruel ending of his so greatly unfair past had not been what consumed his heart to a bottomless pit, nor had the crooked path he’d taken due to circumstances shredded his soul and turned him into a ghost. Wei Wuxian had been alive the whole time, despite most people’s belief, to seek vengeance and offer solace, to kill mercilessly those who have earned it and protect the ones who were defenseless in face of the unfariness set in stone for them.
He had been wronged too much to seek forgiveness - and what could he ever be seeking from those who deliberately set him up?
Written as a wild, damned being on every history book just to be made an example of wrongness, while the real demon still lurked in the earth, their wicked laugh tainting the air.
Now, breathing in his lungs a power damned by all, evil thoughts lurked and lingered in his mind, a pile of negativity that was slowly easing as he abandoned himself to the nothingness he now belonged to…
Except that—
His counscious was still there, pretty much functioning and intact.
Moreover, the pain of bites and torn flesh had long dissipated, now leaving behind a soreness printed in his skin (one that yet did not match the storm in his crumped heart). But when he pondered whether the dead was actually supposed to be subdued to this kind of feeling, his awareness insisted that such was not illusionary, and did not vanish as he awaited for his counsciousness to slip away once and for all.
The air was still but very much present and breathable, and slowly, unbelievably and leisurely so, Wei Wuxian came to notice that the blackness in his eyesight was not from the pit that led inevitably to death, but only drawn curtains over his eyes, shut tight.
The light was blinding when he went to greet it and no farwell was bid, walking through a dark tunnel leading to a stain of pure white.
‘Have I reached the Afterlife?’ he thought, laughing weakly to himself. ‘Is there even one for the Yiling Patriarch?’
But neither Heaven nor Hell welcomed him when his eyes finally adapted to the light.
When he woke up, experiencing a queasy dizziness in both mind and soul unlike any other, thoughts swirling messily in his head, his body was very much intact and his heart still beating, but one look around sent it racing and thumping frantically against his ribcage even before he could adapt to the feeling of being alive once again (though he clearly rememberd his every inch being chewed up by zombies).
The first thing he saw upon opening his eyes was the rendering of two stick figures kissing that he had carved into the headboard in his room in Yunmeng - it was a silly thing, but his heart filled with yearning and a dizzy nostalgia.
The more awake he grew, the more details of that room he found familiar.
Feeling nauseous to the bones, he shot on his feet and clung breathlessly to the wall of his supposed room in Yunmeng, dragging his buckling legs step after step until he forced the door open.
Even before he could ask himself why had he woken up there, he couldn't help but gaze at the scene before his eyes.
Lotus Pier was an incredibly gorgeous place in Wei Wuxian’s eyes, its beauty undeniable and objective, but it was also a box filled to the brims with memories he had tucked away against his will - high towers meant for sighting where he, Jiang Cheng and Yanli would cling at night to better gaze at the sun when it settled and at the starless sky when it blended with colours, unending ponds of clear water stuffed with Lotus flowers that smelled so much of his favorite soup, the joyous laughters of three happy brothers as they ran across the pier without a care in the world, Uncle Jiang’s kindness and his Shijie’s smiles. The emotional attachment he felt toward this place held no competitors: this was the one place he had been given a second chance, one to live a more dignified life and heal his wounds, smiling for once with meaning after so many years spent as a beggar on the streets of Yiling.
Now Lotus Pier was as breath-taking a view as it has been in the whole of his childhood, but it was also very different from the last memories he had printed in his brain after the fire burned the real thing to ashes: the sunlight remained, but its warmth had diminished, and even the thought of the hot summers he loved to spend on the boat across the lake to eat Lotus’ seeds and smile happily at his Shijie while they goofed around felt now no different than a stiff and austere deadness.
Perhaps he’d taken too much, he thought when Madam Yu’s words echoed in the back of his head, loud and fierce, perhaps he had been too greedy here.
Now those happy times were lost memories that had left space to an undying dullness, and it was all his fault.
“A’Xian! You’re awake.”
So vividly loud echoed the gentle voice that once filled his mind with happiness and that lately crowded his dreams with despair and sorrow.
Like struck by lightning, Wei Wuxian’s body jerked and his breathing stilled around a startled gasp.
Once fearless, the great Yiling Patriarch didn’t dare neither move nor turn around. He stood frozen even with his ears stuffed by the sound of rushing steps and a delightful voice that bounced in his direction, happy and light and graceful as only Jiang Yanli could ever be.
When she slipped in his line of sight, he sucked in a painful breath.
“A’Xian, why are you out of bed?” she asked, smile genuine but shaped around concern, her hand crawling up to brush stray locks out of Wei Wuxian’s star-struck face. Despite the latter’s concerns, her figure did not vanish, and the disquietude that this could be anything but reality was quickly extinguished by the palpable evidence of her touch against his forehead and cheek.
“You are still warm, you shouldn’t move around yet. You had a severe fever and were unconscious for three days and nights.” she berated, but blood was rushing fast under his skin and his eardrums could not reach further to grasp the meaning of her words, couldn’t go past the simple and melodic sound of her unhurt, painfree voice.
Filling his sight of nothing but the young woman before him, he choked.
“Shi…jie?”
Yanli drew her hand away, her words marked with worry.
“What is it, A’Xian?”
Wei Wuxian didn’t feel the stinging in his eyes before tears started to fall, stream of white glistening above the flushed skin, alerting the young Jiang Yanli even more.
Suddenly the burden weighing on his back became unbearable and his legs succumbed weakly beneath him; his body dropped to his knees right before a very startled Jiang Yanli and his shoulders sag as he pressed his forehead against the wooden pier, hands flat in between, his body quietly wrecked by loud, breathless sobs. He barely heard Yanli’s hasty attempt to get him to rise before she tried to use her strenght to drag him upright from his arm.
“What’s wrong A’Xian? Please stand up!” she repeated erratically, eyes frantic and on the edge of tears as she witnessed such a scene. Within some time, disciples and members of the Jiang Clan surrounded the duo, rushing to help when they caught sight of two.
“A’Cheng!” Yanli started screaming after a moment, hands wrapped around Wei Wuxian’s arm but unable to move him. “A’Cheng!”
It took Jiang Cheng some time to dissolve the crowd, but then he took in the two of them and his heart plunged: through her own state of uneasiness, his sister kept clutching on Wei Wuxian and gesturing toward his body, wrecked by sobs with his shoulders jolting up every now and then, shaking beneath the weight of something too stealthy for their eyes to grasp.
“A’Cheng! A’Xian is acting strange!”
Without wasting time, Jiang Cheng crouched down next to his sister and swiftly replaced her hands with his much stronger ones, Wei Wuxian staying as light as ever to him.
“What are you doing idiot, worrying A’jie sick like this?” he reprimanded him, words biting but tone too gentle to be offensive. “If Mother saw you like this she would be furious.”
His words drew an unexpected reaction from him, and Jiang Cheng watched every muscle in his body tense - felt the bicep he was holding on stiffen - before he sternly tugged him off the floor so that the two siblings could take a look: it was plain as daylight that whatever had gotten him like this, so despaired and sorrowful, must have been no laughing matter as they knew how hard to intimidate Wei Wuxian was.
He sniffed, the sound loud and broken, when he met his martial siblings face to face, the two crouched down before him.
“What happened?” Jiang Cheng asked him with hurry, wearing concern at its fullest, but his brother did not answer him and instead bumped his head against his shoulder, the last bits of strenght boiled away. “Are you okay? Ehi!”
Darkness crept up within the cracks of his skull and sipped aggressively in his head before he could be granted a chance to explain - but perhaps it’s better like this, as he himself had been left out of whatever plan Hell had stored for him in his deathbed. Last he felt was Jiang Cheng tighten his grip on him as he was propped on his back, led somewhere his brain did not endure to learn.
*****
The instant before he returned to a state of unconsciousness, Wei Wuxian prepared himself to bid farewell to such cruel, but happy illusion and either be granted death or wake up to a world with a spiteful Jiang Cheng and no Yanli, the disclosure of one last happy dream nothing but a parting gift before Heaven condemned him.
And such thought he could not believe anymore when later on he began to wake to hushed voices exchanging frantic words between them.
“I really don’t know what happened.” Jiang Yanli was repeating frantically, her voice heavy with fear as she spoke. Wei Wuxian stirred his ears to listen but otherwise didn’t move quite yet, feeling lost and in a daze. Hearing her voice, so clear and umistakable to his ears and heart, made his heart buzz with happiness, but she sounded like she’d been crying - who dares make his Shijie upset?
“A’Li, calm down.” another voice, more mature and less frantic, another painful blow at Wei Wuxian’s struck heart, one that almost made him jolt up hadn’t he been so tired and drained.
“You should have seen him Father!” Yanli continued, still very upset and scared, “he looked so broken when he saw me. And then he— he kneeled on the floor a-and he was crying.” there’s a rustle of clothes followed by the unmistakable, gut-wrenching sound of a sob. “Father, A’Xian never cries!”
“It’s going to be okay A’Li, we’ll take care of him.” Jiang Fengmian’s voice was unmistakable, so firm beyond the kindness of his tone, the hint of a smile filtering through as he tried to reassure his daughter. “Listen to me. Go eat something and then rest.”
After a bit of convincing, Jiang Yanli slipped out of the door, leaving the three males of the Jiang family stuck in the same room.
“A’Cheng, do you have any idea about what could have happened to A’Xian?”
“I— No. He doesn’t tell me when he is in pain, and Lan er-gongzi hadn’t reported anything unusual that could have upset Wei Wuxian this much.”
Wei Wuxian frowned.
What about Lan Zhan?
There was a loud sigh from the other part. “I… understand.”
The few words they spoke were followed by a tight silence, stretching further for a bunch of minutes. Wei Wuxian decided it was time to figure out what was happening and confirm whether he was really stuck within the grasp of an endless, illusionary dream with yet the awareness of his death.
He shifted once more on the bed and slowly blinked his eyes open, adjusting to the light that filtered through the window. Soon enough, two figures appeared in his line of sight.
Wei Wuxian stilled.
Had he been prepered to see Uncle Jiang well and alive with his usual smile stretched across his lips? Yes. Did such knowledge make it any easier when it came to see him with his own eyes? No.
“A’Xian, how do you feel?” he asked, kind and unfiltered as he had always been towards him, who was not his own blood and flesh but the last memory of dear friends of his.
“U-Uncle—” a coughing fit interrupted him, and he was swiftly handed a cup of water to refresh his raw throat. Propped upright on the bed, he checked out both him and Jiang Cheng, the boy wearing concern and juvenile envy all over his face.
“Jiang Cheng. Uncle Jiang.” he called then, finally, but afterwards he stayed silent, his shoulders slumped against the wall and his face a mix of emotions he could not let through.
“How do you feel?”
Wei Wuxian looked at a loss for words, dazed and confused as though he’d just been shoved somewhere he didn’t belong and felt extremely out of place.
“I’m…” dead, actually, is this a dream?
“Uncle Jiang,” the words hurt like anything else. “What happened?”
Jiang Cheng and his father shared a look before he’s given an answer. “You passed out, A’Xian. A’Cheng just brought you back.”
“No, I meant— before that. Why am I here? What happened before? S-Shijie said I slept for three days.”
“You don’t remember?” he asked, looking puzzled and worried. “You and Lan Wangji fought the Xuanwu of Slaughter, but you caught an heavy fever. You were trapped inside that cave for 7 whole days before Jiang Cheng got to you.”
The— The Xuanwu of Slaughter?
Wei Wuxian’s eyes shot open as he woke up in one fell swoop, fatigue wearing off all of a sudden and energy flowing within his body as though it had laid dormant within him until this very moment of realization, suppressed and unbothered.
Spiritual energy? What— What is going on?
“Lotus Pier is—” he sealed his mouth shut, because of course Lotus Pier was still standing when its leader was right before him, safe and well and breathing while fussing over him like always.
But where did that leave him then? What kind of dream may this be, where he had woken up in a time when the entirity of the Jiang family was still alive?
Unless— Unless…
Wei Wuxian’s eyes widened with recognition and understanding. Had the blust at the Burial Mounds actually sent him flying back through time? Is that why right now he could still feel the spiritual energy surging through him, centered in his core and fighting the intrusion of the resentful energy that clung to his soul now?
“A’Xian? Perhaps it would be best to let the healer take a look at you again.” Uncle Jiang suggested, worried that his face had just turned pale all over, a sickish look clinging to his bloodshed eyes and dark bags.
“No I—” he swallowed tickly. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”
Fine he certainly was not, not now and not anytime soon, but what he could reassure both them and himself of was that his body had not been mutilated and took apart by the hungry bearers of death. Yet.
“You are not. You look like a wreck.” Jiang Cheng insisted, his usually spiteful and sharp voice lowered as worry sped through his eyes and hung on his face, on the curl of his eyebrows and on the frown of his lips, and Wei Wuxian was not used to it anymore.
Before any word was uttered though, he felt his chest constrict in waves of pain as the door slid open to reveal the very familiar frame of his beautiful senior sister.
“Shijie?”
Her face lit up in joy as she rushed to him with a tray of steaming food, the delightful smell of lotus root and pork ribs soup reaching Wei Wuxian’s nostrils and hungering his stomach.
She looked so elegant, so light and fragile, so easy to protect and cherish, and yet Wei Wuxian had seen that woman reach out for him in times of despair, when everyone had already drawn conjettures and forced on him the responsability of thousands of deathes - of her parents, of her husband.
“A’Xian, I made your favorite soup.” she looked delighted but sorrowful, chewing back worry as she favored liting up the mood instead of vocalizing her own pain. Always the selfless one.
“Thank you, Shijie.” he said, so genuinely happy to be granted the chance to see her again and live such a peaceful, albeit temporary moment with his family.
Clinging to that momentary span of normality, Jiang Cheng scowled at him. “If you really are thankful, then don't do that ever again. You scared a’jie.”
Yanli scolded Jiang Cheng for his harsh words, but Wei Wuxian uttered sincere apologizes to her nonetheless, catching a glimpse among blurred memories of her alarmed voice from earlier accompanied in the background by a soft, feeble plead as she laid in his arms, at first breathing and then lifeless.
Yanli held the bowl in her hands, offering it to him with a delighted smile. He couldn’t help but remember how he had longed for that flavor for so long when living in the Burial Mounds, fixed on the thought that he would never get a taste of that delicious, mouth-watering soup ever again.
Now, instead, the delicious dish and that beautiful smile of her were right before his eyes, as well as the man who brought him in and saved his life, death his last memory of them.
Was this really a second chance?
If Wei Wuxian greedly accepted the soup and devoured every drop of it in a rush, and if anyone noticed the big, fat tears leaking down his eyes and dripping from his chin within the bowl of soup, they didn’t say anything.
*****
Once Wei Wuxian had caught on with what had happened to him, how his soul somehow slipped in his body a few years back, days before Lotus Pier burned to ashes, he started making plans. Of course, he had seeked Clan Leader Jiang’s help, because it would be selfish of him not to share that his Clan would be overtaken in days by the Wens, marking his own death.
The inevitable question, ‘how do you know’, was asked, and unable to provide an answer - which he was yet unsure of -, Wei Wuxian had bowed his head before the Clan Leader.
“Despite Clan Leader Jiang’s kindness to treat me as family, I am but a servant of this Clan. I have been rescued from a sure end and a vile existence, and I would repay such favour with my life if it came to that. Now that I’m aware of a sure threat, I only wish to prevent it, but the forces we will have to fight against are too large.” lies, he could slaughter them all if he wanted to, “I understand it’s too much to ask, but I plead Clan Leader Jiang to listen to my advice and believe my words.”
His speech had left Jiang Fengmian without words, clearly not used to hear Wei Wuxian speak in such manner, no playfulness and all seriousness.
Please trust me, his massage screamed deep within Wei Wuxian’s eyes and racing heart, please trust that I am desperate to return the favour and want nothing but your safety.
Jiang Fengmian had read his expression like an open book, malimg him stand and smiling so kindly.
“I will trust you.” he had said, and Wei Wuxian had then proceeded to share his plan with him - but as one would have expected, there were things left deliberately untold, secrets kept to himself that the Jiang family would learn the hard way.
Throughout the rest of it, Wei Wuxian kept walking forward with a rigid, stiff pace: his eyes burned when the sun was bright at the sky’s summit, his face twisted when its warmth and light scorched his skin - long used to the dark, cold and heavy air of the Burial Mounds, where the thick cloud of resentment made so no air and even less light could filter through. Worse things happen whenever his steps led him to any translucent surface of shallow waters, when he stared with distant eyes at the reflection of his younger body before a grisly glare would crawl from the ditch of the river and stare back at him from its depths, the clear azure colour turning black and crimson as though blood was slowly coming up and staining the clean water. It would take some time before his older, past self - or perhaps future? it was so messed up - slowly lived his eyesight and drifted away, fading from view as the waves broke the clean surface.
From those first days he spent in his own silence and tacit seclusion, it got stranger and stranger, an odd quietness taking over Lotus Pier and permeaning the air for the following couple of days.
The constagious chirps of laughter that more often than not filled even the soundless spots of Lotus Pier were now nowhere to be found, the air laying still and pliant but thick with tension - as though the whole universe was holding its breath in face of a tragedy that was yet to come, anxious to release an exhale that could take the entire weight of the world.
Whenever they crossed path with Wei Wuxian but managed to stay unnoticed, like peering from behind bushes or perking up from afar, his brothers would feel the hair at the back of their neck stand out. Laying eyes upon him in those moments of unawareness before he slipped away, they had the very strong hunch of a bottomless pit clashing with the spiritual energy nestled within his golden core, a tense cloud of uneasiness: around Wei Wuxian at times whirled an intense, obnoxious miasma that sometimes drenched the ring of air he was the center of.
But the change had been so sudden and unpresented, the doubt elicited by the unclear awareness of a change that Wei Wuxian had opted to hide from anyone, as if in their presence he could choke down that darkness into the hollow of his chest.
Yanli was getting more worried and scared, looking out for Wei Wuxian and spoiling him whenever he did not look like the personification of death, while Jiang Cheng seemed on edge, his hand just an inch away from choking him… more than usual. The only thing that kept them from demanding explanations was the serious, stone-cold shape his face wore all the time, the hollowness on his eyes when he stared vacant.
Wei Wuxian at times disappeared from Lotus Pier to travel somewhere far into the forest that surrounded their homeland, but never spoke to anyone about what he would do there. Sometimes they could hear the heart quake under their feet, the air knocked by a wave of energy that seeped deep within their bones.
“A’Xian, you’re always going out and you’ve barely recovered.” Yanli said to him one day, eyes full of concern as she curled her tiny, gentle hand around her brother’s arm. Wei Wuxian was strong and fearless, but in Yanli’s hand he was like sand entrapped by fingers, pliable and supple.
His eyes grew soft as he gently squeezed her hand. “I’m just training, Shijie. And I’m not straining myself, I promise.”
“If you really are training, then why did you ask Father to be excused from practice?” Jiang Cheng chimed in, leaning against the wooden pillar of the wall with an hardened look. “What is all this secrecy!?”
Wei Wuxian’s gaze sharpened like a blade, his jaw muscle tightly flexed. Hadn’t Jiang Cheng been angry and upset, he would have flinched in scare— but the hardened look in his eyes did soften, less tense but more open and honest.
Jiang Cheng had never felt anything close to fear toward his brother, no matter how talented or brave or stupidly reckless he was— sure, envy, rage and bitterness, whether it was due to a matter related to his parents or his own sense of inferiority toward his shixiong, and he had felt scared for him when he had no choice but to leave him behind in that cave while he searched for help… still, Jiang Cheng had never been afraid of him.
Wei Wuxian was brave, fearless and skilled - you could get scared in a battle with him - but he was also a troublemaker, a reckless idiot and a cheerful boy, not— not this.
Even if his curly ponytail was still bouncing happily around him, even if the scars on his body were jealously hidden, the blood dripping from his eyes could never evade anyone. The answer was clair, written in big uppercase letters and displayed in plain view, but something made it blur and slide off sight.
“Nothing you need to care about.”
And before Jiang Cheng could comprehend what had happened, he slipped away.