Chapter Text
Wei Ying is a tree.
Well, scratch that.
Wei Ying doesn’t know if he is the tree or if it’s only his soul that is trapped inside the tree. Either way, he doesn’t know what happened to his original form; you know, like the original human form with two eyes, two ears, two arms, two legs, two noses (sorry, one nose) ugh! He’s losing his damn mind and it hasn’t even been a millennium…
The thing is, Wei Ying was cursed. It was his absolutely terrible, horrible definitely-wouldn’t-wish-upon-anyone-else fate that had landed him in the wrong place at the wrong time and handed him this awful curse on a platter worthy of a five course meal (not that those celestials would understand! They survived on porridge–porridge—for heaven’s sake).
He still remembers his wide-eyed days from when he was an immortal-in-training. Gods! Why had he even snuck out that day? He failed to recall. But. What was done was done; he’d gone and offended some big-shot couple (how he had done so was beyond him, he’d only been minding his own business, thank you very much, albeit a bit late… okay maybe very late; like two hours after curfew late, but still!) and now he is a tree. Had been one, in fact, for eons. Would continue to be one till his ‘soulmate’ found him.
And for someone as fidgety as him, it was an absolute hell.
Even after a millennium (precisely one thousand, one hundred, twenty five years and exactly four days and still counting), he could not accept his predicament. He was a tree. A tree with branches and leaves and roots fixing him to one place and no voice and— and— He was a tree. Even when birds nested on his branches and the woodpeckers pecked the hell out of him in the mornings (damn did it hurt!) and snakes winded around his trunk… he still could not believe it. How had he gone from being one of the smartest and most promising students of his batch to… to… this! Whatever this was.
His life is very monotonous; and what else would you expect? He’s literally rooted to his position. Pun intended. Still. There are good days, bad days and extremely bad days. Wei Wuxian thinks he can safely classify today as one of his ‘extremely bad’ days.
Ever since he had woken up (with the sun! Can you imagine? He certainly could not…), he’d had a terrible persistent itch on his back that just wouldn’t go away. He tried to meditate, to ignore that itch that had spread like a thousand tiny ants descending upon his body with their full wrathful glory. It didn’t just request; it demanded that it be noticed. He wanted to scream. Why couldn’t it just understand that he didn’t have hands to scratch it! Nor could he ask for help (obviously!). He was a tree. Come to think of it, he had never ever thought that even trees have the devil-itches. UGH!!
If that wasn’t already bad enough, the dog howling in the distance definitely strengthened his sense of foreboding about his pretty imminent doom (a gross, gross doom) which was confirmed when the pesky little (or maybe not so little) thing bounded towards him as soon as he came into view.
No, no, don’t come closer. Nope. Absolutely not. DON’TYOUDARE—-
But who could hear him?
The brat turned his back towards him, lifted his hind leg and—
Fizzzzzzz…
Directly onto his roots.
Nooooooooooooo! Wei Wuxian wailed. Why him?
And the guts of the owner to say ‘good job’ to the devil when he sauntered back to his master!
Anger and despair warred within him. There surely were other trees around! No. Actually, couldn’t owners just build a toilet for their pets or something? Why did they have to dirty the roads just because they didn’t want a mess in their own houses?
Life was difficult as it was with so much concrete covering the areas where he could have spread his roots easily. Now, this!
God, he really hoped his soulmate found him soon.
He couldn’t live like this anymore.
🌳🌳🌳
The Gods had been bored. So, they had experimented.
But that wasn’t the story that had been passed on for generations.
The narrative spun that the Great Gods, the almighties who had created and maintained (and are still maintaining, though mostly as spectators; they had left most of the demanding and cumbersome tasks to the immortals; what could they say? It was really bothersome to keep mortals alive when they themselves were hell-bent on killing themselves…) the universe and the Six Realms, were lonely.
Compassionate as they were, they couldn’t bear the thought of any of their precious children being as alone and unloved as them; all very powerful but no one who would spare even a few minutes of their time for them. And afterall isn’t that what everyone wants? Someone to relax with after a tiring day, chat about everything and nothing at all, bask in comfortable silences, fight (because let’s be real: is any relationship complete without a good fight?) and make up…
So, they took each soul and charmed them to split into two (or three, or four, or…; there was nothing wrong with being over-loved, right?) interconnected by thin threads which became visible once the person turned eighteen.
Soulmates weren’t always romantic though. They could be platonic. They could also be ignored. Most mortals–humans– did ignore their soulmates. They were too impatient. Nor did they believe in such lores. They preferred to make their own decisions on life. Some might call them a touch bit too arrogant— thinking they were above nature and the ways of the universe. Hah!
It was different for immortals.
For them, soulmates were sacred.
They were special.
Little WangJi had grown up drunk on the stories of soulmates. His own great-great-great… Well, great-grandparents were the epitome of soulmates. They had met when they were barely adults and oh what a meeting it was!
Baoshan was starving. Rarely (or not so rarely; it happened more often than she was willing to admit) when she was too caught up in one of her ‘experiments’, she forgot that her body was mortal and required food for sustenance. That wasn’t the case now. Now, her body was rebelling; her stomach was a grumbling, bubbling, acid spewing monster she couldn’t control. Come to think of it, when was the last time she’d even seen anything remotely edible in front of her? Her recent experiments involved the darker parts of the world; the underground. She’d been in the mining fields for days trying to find the perfect piece of that new metal (supposedly lodged there) for further studies.
She hadn’t been lucky so far.
Her stomach lurched again. She groaned. That demanding little beast!
The thing about being a scientist in the cultivation world was that no one funded her. Why explore science when talismans could do all the work? Not that she didn’t have an interest in or didn’t appreciate the usefulness of talismans. She’d made and improved hundreds of them. But that wasn’t exactly of any convenience to humans with no spiritual power, was it?
Truly, it was a pity. For all their talk of fighting for the greater good of humanity, those snobbish cultivators in power, with power, cared naught for those less privileged than them. Or maybe it was wrong to say that they didn’t care, maybe they just didn’t know the hardships of life for people without any spiritual powers being as accustomed as they were to their own ways of life. But she did. She had lived it. And she was determined to change it for the better.
But then she’d gone and gotten herself ousted as a charlatan. Foolish, really. Was the extra money worth it? She’d needed the money she’d gotten by selling prophecies (false ones obviously, she was no oracle) to aid her research. True to its purpose, the money was long gone and spent. Worse, everyone knew her face, associated it with a cheat, and hence, none were willing to give her honest work. So, now, where the hell was she going to get food from?
Her stomach grumbled again.
Begging was not an option. She was too proud for that. And honestly? She didn’t think anyone had any scraps to spare for her infamous self. Stealing, however… She was not above stealing. Desperate times called for desperate measures, right?
A small tiny little bun surely wouldn’t be too much of a loss for the innkeeper. She took a deep breath, held her chin high (to confidently pretend that she had the money and good-standing to be able to even step foot into the albeit shabby-looking tavern) and sauntered in.
Her eyes swept around the room with hawk-like precision. Her initial thought had been to steal a couple of those hot meat buns on display when no one was looking but…
Aha! There he was! The perfect target! The gentleman was sitting in a corner partially hidden by an intricately designed folding screen. But that wasn’t the point. The point was that the man’s money pouch laid openly on the table in clear sight of her and no one was going to question anyone entering and swiping it right off the table because he was secluded, separated from the rest and appeared to be alone and... It’s not her fault the money was begging to be picked up! It was the man’s fault for leaving his precious possessions unprotected!
He looked so lost and innocent and too pure for this blackened world, Baoshan almost felt sorry for what she was about to do. Almost. Her monster of a stomach didn’t let her. She was sure the man wouldn’t even notice if the pouch went missing. He looked so loaded; all dressed up in blue-white clothes, and elegant jewellery, fine but not tacky; even his guan looked more expensive than her entire wardrobe.
Anyhow, just to be safe, she patted her pocket for her most precious possession: the datura. If she got caught, it would be helpful. Or… it might just be easier to use the datura. It’d been so long since she’d last stolen from anyone. She was bound to have gotten rusty. The risk of getting caught was too high, even when her target looked as naive as a newborn lamb.
Hmm, she would have to improvise then.
She cleared her throat, gave herself a pep talk and put on her most convincing travel-weary face (her stomach an unpaid actor in the grand scheme of things) and poked her head in to ask,
“Do you mind if I sit here? Everywhere else is full.”
He looked constipated as if he’d rather her not, but her stomach gave the loudest growl it had till date (and wow! What great timing! Her stomach really should be paid more…) and he refrained from rejecting her request outright. Instead, he merely let out an insufferable sigh and nodded.
She plopped down on the seat opposite to him with no grace whatsoever. She’d already pulled the folding screen close to further obscure them from the rest of the inn and now took her sweet time observing her immaculate companion, hiding her prying eyes behind that awfully big yawn that threatened to dislocate her joint.
The man was more than just annoyed now. He was barely holding onto his composure; the strain visible in his clenched jaw and the tiny beads of sweat that had begun to make themselves known on his temple which for some reason (and she could not, for the life of her, tell why) delighted her immensely.
Plus,... he was drinking tea. Tea.
If that wasn’t a sign from the heavens that she’d picked the right person to con, she didn’t know what was. Just as he was about to reach for the teapot, her hands shot out to block him.
It was awkward (and that was putting it gently).
She’d had to jump halfway out of her seat to make this possible and considering the way she’d had her back arched and head tilted to pull off her over-the-top, over-dramatic, over-exaggerated yawn… it was safe to say he thought of her as a lunatic now (well, not that he would be all that far off).
“No, wait. Please. Let me serve you. As a… uh, token? Hm, token… of my appreciation for letting me… intrude on your ‘me’ time…?”
She cringed internally. ‘Me time’? What the hell was ‘me’ time? Actually, what the hell was that entire speech? Ugh, apparently stealing wasn’t the only thing she’d gotten rusty at. Her people skills needed polishing too. She’d forgotten how to speak poshly like the nobility. That wouldn’t do. What did she spend all that time writing petitions for funds from the nobility for? Cheesecake?
Thankfully though, her companion only looked at her with slightly narrowed suspicious eyes and backed off. She sincerely hoped she remembered the ‘proper’ way of steeping and pouring tea. She’d be damned if the man turned up his nose at her poor skills and refused to drink it altogether. Her plan would fail.
Nevertheless, she slipped in a generous amount of datura while preparing the tea before handing it over.
He blew on the tea a little before sipping it.
She watched with bated breath.
The effect was instantaneous. He slumped onto the table like a puppet cut from his strings. The teacup was about to clatter to the ground but she caught it before it could make a sound (Whew! That was so close!), scalding herself in the process. She barely noticed it though. She was running on adrenaline, her body ready for the pure unadulterated thrill of a chase, and a consequent successful heist. Checking her exit routes for any obstructions, she swiped the money pouch off the table and was about to make a dash for it—
But, wait. Something prevented her from fleeing. There was this tiny tug in her heart, a skip in the regular rhythmic beats, that compelled her to check if the person was alive. She tried not to care, to just leave the man to his fate, but—
She couldn’t. Her feet refused to move forward and take her away, to freedom, to food.
Frustrated, she stomped back to the man (curse her heart! Surely, she wouldn’t have added too much datura so as to kill the man! She had practice! That amount was only meant to disorient, not kill!), and pried his eyelids open to check on his pupils and see— the man was very much— oh, but oh— no, no, no…
Datura did cause pupils to dilate but they weren’t supposed to be this big, were they?
The man’s pupils were fully dilated.
And that only happened when a person was dead.
No no nonononooo—
She scrambled through her pockets for a leaf and placed it with trembling hands in front of the unconscious man’s nostrils.
The leaf did not move.
Oh no.
Had she done it?
Had she finally done something as irrevocable, irreversible and unforgivable as killing someone so innocent? Oh God. OhGodOhGodOhGod— she was a terrible person. She absolutely couldn’t leave the man there alone. But if she stayed— oh no! The innkeepers might be coming anytime now- they had promised to come back for the rest of their orders; they’ll come and find her alone with the now dead man and accuse her (rightfully so!) but she was sooo young! She didn’t want to go to jail! Or Worse! What if they sentenced her to death too? An eye for an eye; or rather a cultivator for a cultivator. It would only be fair. But nooooo— she didn’t want to die. What would happen to her experiments then? And what of her soulmate? She definitely couldn’t leave her soulmate high and dry in this big scary cruel lonely world! (Never mind that she’d never even met her soulmate. Unimportant technicalities… it was only a matter of when and not if) and what if…
She gasped. She could hear footsteps and they were coming closer. Think think think, Baoshan think.
Aha!
Didn't her master teach her how to control her pupillary reflex? Perfect!
With seconds to spare, she plopped down on her seat, slammed (quietly) her head into the table and closed her eyes.
“Would you like anything else—” The voice rang clearer as the folding screen was pushed aside.
The innkeeper and his son had come to check if their esteemed guests required anything. This was the first time someone as important and influential as a high ranking Lan cultivator had graced their humble inn with their presence and if they were to leave a gracious comment about their hospitality or food or anything really, it would be good for business. So, they had to be on their best behaviour.
The son barely managed to keep his shriek inside on stumbling upon the scene. He had entered the compartment only to find two unconscious heaps of bodies and two half filled teacups. Scratch that. He definitely would have screamed if not for his father’s hand covering his mouth.
“Shh.” His father murmured in his ears.
“They might just be sleeping, right?” He said around the loosening grip of his father’s palm.
“Shut up.”
The innkeeper let go of his son, crept closer to Baoshan and cautiously pried open her eyelids. Her pupils were completely dilated. He shakily brought his finger near her nose. He felt no telltale signs of a breath.
“Did this happen because of the tea?”
“SHUT UP!” He glared at his son. Idiot. He didn’t bother checking in with the other person.
“Quick! Clean this all up. Not a word should get out about this. These deaths didn’t happen here, you understand? We neither made nor served the tea. Actually, they never visited this inn. Understand?”
“But Father—”
“But what? No one is gonna come for the girl and the Lan got killed doing whatever slish-slash they do at night and got stuck in a ditch. Now hurry, help me remove the bodies through the back door.”
“But—”
“BUT WHAT? Do you want to see our business doomed?”
Tearily, the boy shook his head.
“Then you will do as I say. Chop chop.”
Baoshan laid still and flaccid as strong arms picked her up, peeking one eye open only when a spluttering voice, followed by a sharp shriek and (a thump!) the sound of a body hitting the floor was heard. The Lan hadn’t been dead after all! She was sooo relieved she forgot all about being subtle.
She missed as the young boy’s petrified gaze slid from his (not dead) corpse to her. She missed as the boy lifted a trembling finger pointing at her. She was more interested in the boy’s trembling face with his undulating mouth, fluttering nostrils and nystagmic eyes.
“F-F-Father”
“What?” The two shared a gaze. Baoshan could feel the tremors starting.
“Your corpse’s eyes are open too.”
And Baoshan, who up until now had been curiously taking in the scene as the Lan’s shriek had startled the boy into dropping him and taking him for a resurrected ghost and had realised a split second late what she’d done, tightly shut her eyes as the innkeeper who’d been holding her shrieked and promptly forwent his grip on her and she fell. Right on top of the Lan.
Oof.
And that was when she realised.
He was a she.
What she meant was, he wasn’t a 'he' at all. Huh? No! Like.
The Lan was a woman. Whom she’d mistaken for a man. And who was groaning in pain under the entire weight of her heavy body.
And as she scrambled to get up, she noticed. The red string connecting their pinkies together.
They were soulmates.
Lan Yi, the daughter of the illustrious Lan sect and Baoshan, common thief extraordinaire and self-proclaimed scientist– soulmates. Hah!
Anyways, they’ve been together since. Hence, it was WangJi’s innate desire to have this one person to dote over and have them dote over him just like them. Nothing too dramatic a relationship like theirs. Just, you know, a relationship.
So, when on his eighteenth birthday, he’d woken up to a string winded around his pinky, he’d been ecstatic. Finally… Finally, he was going to meet his soulmate. He’d had it all planned out; first they’d be shy with evasive glances and rosy red blushes and rapid heartbeats and late-nights agonizing over feelings and then they’d become the best of friends (with the still unresolved feelings) and then… well, then they could take it on from there; wherever ‘there’ went.
The ecstasy dwindled when he realised on further examination that the string didn’t lead to anywhere. It didn’t connect to anyone. It just was; dangling uselessly, tapering into a wisp mere inches from his finger. Did that mean his soulmate was no more? Nononono—-
Heat flashed through his body and sweat gathered at his brow as the panic tried to claw itself out of him. The hiccups came unbidden.
Nononono—-
He tried to hold onto the string, to lengthen it, stretch it, twist it, anything; anything just so it would show him to his soulmate, just a hint, a single tiny hint… The string kept slipping through his fingers. There was no forcing it.
“A-Zhan… A-Zhan. Shhh… It’s okay. Look, the string isn’t black. A-Zhan, calm down. Look.”
Oh. I’m hyperventilating. He distantly thought.
There were arms around him.
Holding him tight.
Trying to ground him.
But he could only focus on one thing.
Yes, the string wasn’t black. The string wasn’t black. Which meant his soulmate was still alive.
He just had to find them.
But where?
And just what had happened to them?