Chapter Text
Chapter 1. Reincarnated as a Teenager in Shibuya?
(In which, Wei Wuxian dies in Yiling and meets a boy with white hair.)
Wei Wuxian had not expected his end to be peaceful. So, he was not really surprised when he died at the Burial Mounds.
Died.
That much was certain. The last moments still burned into his memory: the roar of fire eating away at Yiling, Jiang Cheng’s angry and broken voice, the betrayal and hatred of people who had once fought beside him, feared him, and perhaps even loved him. His dantian shattered, his golden core destroyed, his body at the edge of collapse; he had laughed even then. What else was there to do anyway?
Maybe he had even briefly thought of Lan Zhan in that moment, of his gaze, his silence that always said more than a thousand words. He remembered letting go. And then the world had gone dark.
Because he was... Dead.
Very dead.
Dead-dead, the kind of dead where you won't wake up ever again.
...So why were his eyes opening again now?
The first sensation was smell. Not blood or rot, more like strange herbs and... alcohol? Yes, that was alcohol. He twitched his nose in delight and almost sneezed. The second was the hum of something he couldn't recognize, steady like the drone of a thousand bees trapped in a glass jar. The third was… pain. He was lying flat on his back on something hard, cramped, and cold; that was not confortable.
A coffin?
Well. If they wanted to bury him, he wasn't complaining but they should have checked first if he was actually dead.
Wei Wuxian sat up abruptly and immediately banged his head on a low shelf.
Hard.
“Ah!” He clutched his head, scowling. “What kind of coffin has shelves?”
Blinking, he looked around expecting to see the black soil of Yiling, the fog, the bones, but no; he was in what looked like a narrow room piled with boxes of odd, brightly colors and bottles of liquids with shapes unlike any wine jars he had ever seen. The space was too small, too cluttered, and smelled like shit and the walls were made of… something smooth and white, not stone or wood as expected.
If this was a coffin, sure it was an odd one.
He shifted and froze at the sight.
Beneath him, drawn in lines of fresh blood, was a circle inscribed with characters he had never seen before. They weren’t talismans from the cultivation world, not Lan sect scripts nor sigils of demonic cultivation's summoning ritual; even if they looked like it, the style was foreign to him.
Wei Wuxian tilted his head, considering the absurdity and scratching his cheek. “Now that’s interesting. Who thought they could summon me?”
The blood was still wet, sticky under his hands; he wiped them on his robes—and blinked again.
His robes. His hands.
The black garments of the Yiling Patriarch were hanging off him like a child playing dress-up, the wide sleeves flopped over his too small hands, and the belt sagged pitifully. Wei Wuxian stared down at himself, then at his hands; younger, the skin soft in a way it hadn’t been for years.
He scrambled up to find a scrap of metal propped against the wall, polished enough to reflect; it showed a too young face. His face yes, but the one he wore at fifteen-year-old: bright grey eyes, mischievous grin half-formed in shock, hair still too soft tumbling loose around his shoulders.
“…Oh.” Wei Wuxian blinked. His voice cracked into a higher, unfamiliar pitch. “I’m young again. Hah! Heaven really does have a sense of humor.”
Whoever had summoned him apparently had also granted him a younger and stronger body, nothing like the one that had failed him in his last years.
The too small room rattled faintly as he laughed, but after a moment, he sobered, touching the too-large robes once more. Whoever had drawn that blood circle, whatever strange world this was, he needed answers.
He pushed at the thin sliding door; it resisted, at first, then gave way like everything else in his life with a dramatic crash as the entire frame popped free. Wei Wuxian stumbled out with a shout, dragging half the broken door with him—
—into sunlight. And noise. And chaos.
The street before him was like nothing he had ever seen: a river of people moving in all directions like brainless ants with boxes pressed to their ears, speaking loudly to no one, flashing signs that glowed with their own light even under the sun, towers of glass and metal that touched at the sky and boxes with wheels roared past.
Overwhelmed, Wei Wuxian stopped dead, clutching the ruined door like a shield between him and whatever that was.
“…”
He almost wished himself back into the tiny closet behind him.
A group of girls dressed in bright colors and robes too thin and short that no noble or poor lady alike would have wear, giggled at his sight. One whispered in a language he didn’t know, “Cosplay?!” Another squealed, “So cool! Are they shooting a period drama?” and lifted a strange box with a glass eye that clicked and flashed right into his face, blinding him momentarly.
Wei Wuxian stood there in the doorway, drowning in oversized black robes, hair wild around his face, staring like the country bumpkin he had once pretended to be.
He staggered forward, robes pathetically tangling around his ankles. Someone shouted angrily at him still in that strange language he couldn't understand, but the fast clipped syllables were the universal signal for 'pissed off'. Wei Wuxian didn’t recognize even a single word; it wasn’t Mandarin nor a stricter dialect of Gusu, Yunmeng, or Qishan.
The man kept yelling at him just as a box on wheels screeched to a halt a breath away before colliding with him, belching foul smoke from his back, or what Wei Wuxian presumed was the ass of the box. He hopped backward, robes flapping, people glancing, one said something that sounded actually approving.
Wei Wuxian blinked, then bowed instinctively. “Many thanks for your kind—”
The crowd laughed louder. Coins clattered at his feet.
“…donation?”
He bent down, picked up a coin, and squinted at it. Strange metal, odd markings, no copper or square hole in the center and the weight was wrong. “Well well, at least money still exists,” he muttered. “That’s one thing I understand.”
He clutched the coin like it was proof he hadn’t gone insane, then darted sideways into a narrow shady alley to escape the growing crowd. His mind raced; this wasn’t Yiling, this wasn’t anywhere he knew, and everyone—everything—was different.
But at least it was quiet in that narrow street.
Wei Wuxian leaned against the wall, exhaling. “Alright. Think, think, think, Wei Ying. You died, you woke up in a broom closet that stinked likes Madam Yu, you’re somehow fifteen again, and everyone is dressed like…” He waved vaguely at memory. “…like strange walking paintings. And no one speaks your language.”
A growl cut through his muttering and Wei Wuxian froze. The air thickened with the taste of resentment, and his hair prickled at the nape of his neck. That dark, foul, familiar aura.
He turned his head slowly.
From the shadows of the alley, something crawled forth: a twisted figure, all bones and sinew, grey face warped like melted wax. Its eyes hollow, its mouth stretched wide and contorted in a way that only half resembled human features.
Wei Wuxian’s lips curled smugly. “Ah. Finally, something I do understand.”
The monster lunged amd Wei Wuxian easily danced back, wide sleeves still flopping ridiculously.
He sidestepped, almost tripping on the too-long hem of his own robe. Ridiculous. He might look like a boy drowning in his father’s clothes, but he was still the Yiling Patriarch.
“Woops.”
He let out a boyish chuckle, as his fingers flicked through a pattern in the layers of resentfult energy twisting in the air like he’d done a thousand times before. He fumbled for Chenqing out of instinct, only to realize he didn’t have it, but a cultivator worked with what he had and improvisation was, after all, what he did best. So, he whistled instead, high-pitched, and sure enough the resentful energy pooled to him as if it had been waiting all along.
The ghoul faltered, its limbs stiffened.
Wei Wuxian beamed at that. “There, there. You’re mine now. Behave.”
The creature stilled, trembling, then slumped like a puppet with cut strings. Wei Wuxian whistled again, raised his hand, and the monster mirrored him, swaying gently as though awaiting its master’s next command.
He dusted his hands, satisfied with himself for the first time since waking up in that strange world. “See? Still the Yiling Patriarch, even in strange lands. Easy easy. Say hello to your new master.”
He was just congratulating himself when—
The puppet imploded.
A blue light orb burst through the allway and its chest and the creature crumpled inward on itself, shrieking without sound, until it collapsed into nothingness, vanished as if it had never existed.
Wei Wuxian stared at the empty space where his puppet had been. Then he shouted indignantly, “Hey! That was mine!”
A voice drawled behind him.
“Yoroshiku!”
Wei Wuxian spun as a boy strolled into the alley, hands in pockets, grinning as if the world itself existed solely as his playground.
Tall for his age, maybe the same fifteen years that Wei Wuxian now wore. Hair shock-white and short, a pair of ridiculous black and round panels perched on his nose hiding his eyes. His uniform was black as well, nothing like Gusu Lan’s strict whites that Wei Wuxian despised with a passion, too loose and casual, with a heavy bag slung over his shoulder.
The way he grinned, one corner of his mouth tilted high, was infuriatingly self-satisfied, like some arrogant pampered young master from some major clan who had just stepped out of a painting nobody asked for.
The boy raised two fingers in a lazy salute. “I said, you’re welcome,” he repeated still in that strange language.
The cultivator caught not a single word. “…What?” He crossed his arms. “I was handling it, thank you very much. Who asked you to interrupt?”
The boy gestured again loosely at the vanished ghoul, then wagged a finger at Wei Wuxian as though scolding a naughty child.
Wei Wuxian blinked, then burst out laughing. “What? You think you saved me? I had that ghoul dancing in the palm of my hand!”
The boy cocked his head, clearly not understanding either.
Wei Wuxian tried again, gesturing with broad sweeps of his sleeves.
For a brief moment, they simply stared at each other in mutual confusion, one smug, one exasperated. Wei Wuxian had half a mind to draw something in the dirt, stick figures worked well enough with A-Yuan, after all and this boy was not showing much more mental age than A-Yuan.
The boy tilted his head, baffled, then muttered something under his breath. Wei Wuxian caught only one word, garbled but familiar: Mandarin.
Wei Wuxian’s heart leapt. Someone here knew of Mandarin? “Yes, it’s called a civilized language. Can you speak it?”
The boy blinked, then, with the air of a thief about to commit a crime, the boy crouched like a thief, rummaged in his pocket, and produced a small glowing rectangle. He tapped its surface with rapid fingers, muttering and the object shone, strange symbols racing across it like fireflies in rapid sequence.
Wei Wuxian squatted down too, mirroring his pose and his attitude. If this was some kind of ritual, he wasn’t about to be outdone by some random smug boy.
The boy spoke into the object, then, with an air of triumph, he shoved it and inch from Wei Wuxian’s face.
Wei Wuxian leaned closer. A moment later, the object spoke back, voice clipped, halting, but finally in Mandarin.
“You are welcome! I saved your life. You not from here right? You lost? Why you stood there like a dead fish, leaking cursed energy like a bonfire, waiting to die with cursed spirit? Dumbass.”
Wei Wuxian blinked. Curses? Cursed energy? What the hell was that boy even talking about? Still, curiosity for the strange object won and his eyes lit. “Oh.” He poked the little box with a finger. “It translates differents languages? Instantly?” He poked again. “Does it works on spiritual or resentfult energy?”
Another poke.
At that, the boy frowned and took away the object, strangely defensive, glaring at him like he suspected he was a thief now.
Wei Wuxian laughed, delighted. “Brilliant! I should have invented something like this years ago!”
…Well, not that he’d ever needed it; who had he met before that he couldn’t already talk to? But still. The possibilities! If he had wanted to, surely he could have done it.
“Don't worry, I won't take it. For now.”
The boy snapped his fingers, impatient, and gestured at the box. The universal gesture for: your turn.
“Ah, you want me to speak into it too?” Wei Wuxian tilted his head, then grinned. He snatched the box, lifted it, and smirked. “Very well. Let’s see how you like this.”
He spoke loudly and smugly, relishing every syllable. When the boy retrieved the object back, it spat out its translation in the boy’s tongue, awkward, but apparently clear enough.
Wei Wuxian didn’t need to understand the foreign words to know the message had gone through.
“I had everything under control. Didn’t need saving. Also, your white hair makes you look like a ninety-years-old man, and those things on your face are ridicolous”
The boy’s grin slipped and he snorted and rolled his eyes behind those ridicolous things covering them; then his lips twisted into incredulous laughter and he barked something sharp and amused, pointing at his own hair, as though caught between offense and amusement. He spoke to the device again, and the metallic Mandarin voice returned:
“No one appreciate my Ray-Bans.”
Wei Wuxian squinted. “Ray-what?” He sniffed at the word, unimpressed. “Doesn’t sound tasty.”
The boy ignored him, muttering more into the device, and the object spoke again:
“I'm Gojo Satoru,.surely you have heard of me already. You are a Jujutsu sorcerer, yes?”
Wei Wuxian tilted his head, frowned at the box, then at the boy. His smile faded into a puzzled scowl, as his mind decided on which front he wanted to disappoint the boy first. The facts that he had no idea who he was despite the boy being so sure he should know his name? Better not; he looked like the type with a big fragile ego. It was safer to start with the fact that he had absolutely no idea of what a Jujutsu sorcerer was.
“Jujutsu sorcerer?” he repeated buffled. “What in the world is that supposed to mean?”
The boy leaned forward expectantly, as though awaiting confirmation.
Wei Wuxian straightened his sagging robe, lifted his chin, and declared with a bright smile and a perfect pride as he dropped what he supposed was big news: “No. My name is Wei Ying, courtesy name Wuxian. I am the Yiling Patriarch.”
Satoru’s smug smile twitched in confusion. He tilted his head, repeating softly, “Yiling… Patriarch?”
Wei Wuxian smirked and crouched lower, knees popping and waiting for a reactions; fear, probably, or terrore. The rumore about him had gone wild after all. The white-haired boy mirrored him, hunched like alleyway delinquent, the glowing device held between them like a sacred treasure or a weapon. Satoru squinted at him, hard, considered, then resumed his tapping at the device with exaggerated flair and shoved it forward.
“Yiling-what?” The machine croaked stiff: “Never heard of it, duh.”
Wei Wuxian’s jaw dropped, his pride screamed. Did he just—?
He yanked the device from Satoru’s hands, almost snarling into it. “You don’t know who I am?”
When the garbled Japanese spilled out, Satoru’s smug grin only widened as he forced himself to contain a mocking laugh; clearly, the insult he intended had landed.
Wei Wuxian’s eyes narrowed dangerously. He spoke at the box with sweet little syllabes: “Then let me return the courtesy, I don’t know who you are either!”
The device relayed this back at Satoru, who froze for half a second. His sunglasses hid his eyes, but his entire posture bristled with stung pride, before he burst into incredulous laughter, clutching his stomach. He snatched the device back like a child snatching candy and grumbled.
The machine spat out in Mandarin: “You live under a rock or what? Gojo Clan. Limitless. Six Eyes. Rings a bell? One of most powerful Jujutsu lineages in Japan!”
Wei Wuxian blinked at him blankly as he mumbled in the device. “Japan? Gojo Clan? Never heard of them across the whole cultivation world!” He tilted his head and beamed. “But so I was right! You are a pampered young master!”
The device burbled his words back into Satoru's face, making his arrogance crack for an heartbeat. Then it came back double.
Satoru tilted his head, smiling like a shark as he muttered into the device. “Better pampered young master than backwater bumpkin who never heard of Japan!”
Wei Wuxian cackled, clapping his hands. “Oh, I am so wounded. You strut around with your hair like snow and your eyes hidden behind little windows, and I’m the bumpkin?” He leaned into the box again: “If your clan is oh-so-famous, why does no one know you where I come from? Maybe you’re not that important at all.”
Satoru made a wounded sound, but his grin only widened. He muttered furiously, rapid-fire as the machine translated: “Not important? I am one of the strongest sorcerers alive!”
Their fingers fought over the box, tugging it back and forth. The device wobbled between them, squeaking out half-translations as if exhausted by their oversized egos.
Finally, Wei Wuxian gave it a hard tug and glared down at it. “Fine. Strongest brat alive. Happy now?”
The other boy barked a laugh so loud it echoed off the alley walls. Wei Wuxian huffed, though his lips twitched; he was starting to enjoy this too much. Somehow, he thought, that strange world had just gotten even stranger, but perhaps it wouldn’t be so boring after all.
Yet, the laughter faded, and his grin faltered. A thought slipped through the cracks of bravado: Backwater bumpkin or not… I really don’t know where I am.
He looked at Satoru again. Arrogant, insufferable, loud, but undeniably competent maybe the only competent one around. That blue orb earlier had destroyed the ghoul in an instant, and he moved like someone used to danger and resentfult energy. Wei Wuxian pressed his lips together and his voice dropped more serious as he leaned toward the device again. “I am lost. I don’t know how or why I ended up here. I need to know how to return, or at least...”
Or at least how to die properly this time, he concluded mentally.
The mechanical Mandarin came out halting, but clear. Satoru tilted his head, the grin slipping just slightly and for the first time, he really looked at the other not like a brat.
Wei Wuxian squirmed under the stare; it was exaggerated, comically slow, like a street performer inspecting a curious bug. Satoru tapped his chin, shifted his sunglasses higher, revealing too bright blue eyes, then squinted dramatically as if the act of studying him required every ounce of theater.
Finally, he leaned to the device. It translated: “Maybe I can take you to a place with people that might be able to help you. Might.”
Wei Wuxian’s heart leapt. “Really?!” He grabbed the box, grinning so wide his cheeks hurt. “Excellent! Let’s go right now!”
Satoru didn’t move.
Wei Wuxian blinked, and his smile never dropped so fast in his life. “…What now?”
The other boy smirked wider than ever as he tapped the device. The Mandarin voice droned: “Wait, wait.”
The cultivator’s hopeful expression collapsed. He could already predict where the conversation was going, as he muttered to himself, “…Ugh, you really are the worst kind of young master, you little snow-haired extortionist. I can’t believe this!”
Satoru leaned closer, lowering his sunglasses again just enough to proudly peer at him directly. His grin turned wicked as he spoke into the device again:
“I never said it's for free.”