Chapter Text
Wei Wuxian squirms, trying to twist his body so it isn’t so uncomfortable, but a sharp pain in his chest makes him stop abruptly. It means he has broken more than just his leg.
He tries to hold onto the rock tighter. He knows the river ends in a water fall, and he truly will not survive the fall if he’s already like that. He tries to breathe, moving his face away from the water. It has turned metallic from the blood seeping through the deep wound on his stomach.
Just as he feels himself slipping, he hears commotion from the bank. He stills, contemplating whether to let go willingly or not. It is better he dies rather than get captured by the enemies.
But no, he can’t die tonight. There is so much on the line, there are people who depend on him. Jiang Cheng would be waiting for him by the docks and his Jie-jie would make new soup bowl instead of just reheating the last. He can’t let go just yet. He moves his free hand towards his hips where he usually conceals a blade and gets ready to pounce.
The person–if it is a person–near him with intention, as if they know exactly where to find him despite the darkness. Water splashes along their feet. He holds his breath and immediately pushes himself, eating up the last reserves of his energy to take down the enemy with him. He stabs them, he’s not quite sure where. They had been carrying a lantern with them, and they immediately let go of it on being jumped. It falls in the water, leaving them in darkness again. He hears them grunt and he huffs in satisfaction.
The water makes him shiver a last time before his resolve breaks, his body hot and weak with hypothermia. His eyes close in its own accord and his grasp spills off the rock.
***
Whether he gets captured or dies at the bottom of a waterfall Wei Wuxian did not expect he’d be able to open his eyes again and still be seeing light. He’s delirious from the fever when he wakes up, but he still forces himself to look around and figure out his surroundings. He seems to be an old looking shed. The door is wide open, letting warm sunlight stream in. He is laid flat on a pile of hay. There is a small brazier by his feet, keeping his legs warm. He is rolled up in piles of white and yellow robes, not enough to keep him warm, but he could appreciate the efforts for what it is.
He tries to move, and realises his hands are tied. Panic dawns in. He squirms, trying to realise himself by force. He can tell the knot’s not made by expert hands. In fact, he isn’t even tied by a rope. It’s just a thin, white ribbon. If he used enough force to twist repeatedly he could easily wear down the threads and break free.
“Stop that,” someone speaks from the door, having just come in.
He looks over at his captive. He’s a young man, probably the same age as him. He’s clad in all white. He’s holding a basket wrapped up in a dark blanket that he puts down immediately and moves in to push him down.
“The restraints are not permanent. I will release you if you’re not violent.”
He huffs in amusement. “I don’t need my hands free to kill you. Give me a good reason why I shouldn’t right now.”
The man frowns slightly, a single twitch that stays too long. “I am not here to hurt you.”
Wei Wuxian moves his tied up hands to hold onto the hand on his shoulder and reels him in. He flips them over, climbing on top of the man. His joints ache in protest and his chest screams at him, but the adrenaline keeps him steady for the most part. Fingers wrapped around the other’s neck, Wei Wuxian crowds him completely. “Funny, someone meaning to hurt me would say the exact same.”
He applied a bit of pressure, the inkling of strangulation. The other’s eyes widen and he immediately tries to push him off with his hands on his shoulders, but Wei Wuxian doesn’t budge.
“I am not lying. I carried you from the river last night.”
“Why were you there?”
Wei Wuxian feels him gulp under his palm. “I happen to be around.”
Even in a delirious state, Wei Wuxian could tell that the man had known he was there, making a bee line for him immediately. He was there for him specifically. He clenches harder, cutting off the other’s air circulation for only a split second. “Liar.”
“I-” The man clenches around his wrist in a desperate attempt. “I came to get you.”
“Who do you work for, are you a Wen?”
“N-No.” he struggles to speak so Wei Wuxian lightens his grip on his throat. “There are no Wens here.”
“Where is this? Who are you?” He tightens his grip one last time for good measure. “And you better tell me the truth.”
The man hesitates a moment too long to go unnoticed, but before Wei Wuxian can force him to talk, he begins, his voice slowed, “This is Caiyi. I am Lan Wangji.”
“Who sent you to get me?”
Here he stays quiet, eyes piercing through Wei Wuxian’s, as if searching intensively for something. It sunsettled him. A fear tactic, perhaps?
“A seer did,” a new voice comes from the side. Wei Wuxian looks to see a young woman in pink, her hair tied behind to show a face full of fierceness. Ever more fierce was the way she pointed her sword at him, feet only lightly on the ground. “A seer had foretold your arrival to Lan-er Gongzi. He came for your rescue. Let go of him this instant.”
“A seer?” he jeers. “Sounds too convenient to be true, doesn’t it?”
“The less convenient thing would be your corpse found floating in Caiyi’s river in the morning. Count your blessings.” she steps toward with purpose, sword still drawn high. “Now, unhand him.”
Wei Wuxian doesn’t relent, pressing further. He gets distracted for a moment when the man below him whimpers in pain. When he risks a glance, he sees red seeping through his white robes.
“He’s bleeding,” the woman says before he can.
She lowers the sword and almost pleadingly says. “Let him go.”
“I will if you leave the sword here and go outside.”
“You’ll hurt him.”
“If you decide to stay, you’ll be doing the same.”
She frowns deeply, but sets down the sword on the ground. She walks backwards to the entrance, and fully moves out, but does not stop facing them.
Wei Wuxian glances at the man, whose arm has blossomed red under him.
“Is this the wound from last night?” Wei Wuxian asks, almost conversationally. Having the upper hand now, he moves slowly, letting go of the pressure on the man.
“It is,” the man–Lan Wangji, was it? –has unshed tears in his eyes, and his voice is uneven. Not used to pain, it seems. The woman did call him a Young Master.
Wei Wuxian slips off with a laboured limp. Now that the adrenaline wasn’t high in his head, his movements slowed down noticeably. Regardless, he snatches the sword off the ground. Even with his hands bound together, the ribbon had come loose in the scuffle. With much of his mobility back, it wasn’t a task to point his sword at Lan Wangji for good measure.
“So if I was to believe what you say,” Wei Wuxian begins. “You were sent by a seer who told you about me?”
Lan Wangji stuggles into a sitting position, hand pressing down on his wound instinctively to stop the bleeding, but the way his eyebrows scrunch he probably regrets it immediately after.
“Put down the sword, let me tend to him,” the woman says from outside.
He feels a sway in his steps from the fever, and deems it best that a capable fighter doesn’t enter the shed while he’s vulnerable.
“I quite like where you are standing now,” he jeers.
She frowns again. “Such insolence. Lan-er Gingzi had risked his safety to come and get you in the middle of the night. How could you treat an innocent man in such a way?”
“I can determine on my own if he’s innocent or not,” he steps closer to Lan Wangji, the tip of the sword right over his neckline.
He’s forced to look up, sharp eyes boring into his being. They’re golden, Wei Wuxian notices. They glimmer from the wetness, but his clenched jaw doesn’t betray any more sounds.
“Tell me wh-” Wei Wuxian’s world tilts to the side aggressively, his fever getting the best of him. His vision only blurs for a moment, not enough to lose his footing. When he comes back to his senses, Lan Wangji has already left his spot from the tip of the sword to his side.
He holds him firmly with his uninjured hand.
“You’re burning up,” he says. “You need to rest.”
Wei Wuxian jerks off his hand, the jolt of which makes him a little light headed. “Stay away.”
Lan Wangji steps back, as requested, but not nearly enough for Wei Wuxian to feel at ease. He points to the basket he had brought in before, sitting innocently in the commotion. “You should eat.”
“I don’t need fo-” he begins to say, but his body chooses the exact moment to overwhelm him again. His vision tilts to the side so aggressively, he has no choice but to let go of the sword and hold his head just to make sure it didn’t actually roll off.
The next thing he knows, he feels a horizontal surface below him. When his vision clears he’s back on the makeshift hay bed. Lan Wangji holds him down firmly, and just like that they’ve gone back to square one.
Wei Wuxian would click his tongue in annoyance, but he realises his body feels much too numb to do that without effort. By the next time he blinks, the woman from before has hurried inside and gotten hold of her sword again.
She pins him down with her glare before she does with the sword. “We should put him back in the forest and leave him to die.”
Lan Wangji simply shakes his head from beside her and walks back to get the basket he left by the door.
She huffs exasperatedly. “He tried to kill you.”
He stops in his tracks, hands frozen over the complex knot on the cloth covering the basket. His hand instinctively goes to touch his neck tracking the red left from Wei Wuxian’s hands. He hadn’t even held down too firmly, Lan Wangji was just too easy to bruise!
“And look at all the blood from your arm,” she pointed out. “We need to redress your wounds. If Lan Xiansheng sees you like this, he will never let you out of his sight again.”
Lan Wangji proceeds to pull the basket out from the jumble of clothes. When he opens the lid, the shed fills with a creamy aroma. Despite himself, Wei Wuxian’s stomach growls.
He pours out broth in a big bowl and brings it closer to him. Even with her earlier remarks, the woman leaves space for Lan Wangji to stand by him. “Can you sit up?”
Wei Wuxian stares at him, looking for any ulterior motives. For all he knows, Lan Wangji could have poisoned the food, but he could have also left him to die. “What did the seer tell you about me?”
His eyebrow twitches, but otherwise his face doesn’t crack. He looks back at the woman behind her, who immediately comes forward. “The seer saw that someone will fall into the river leading to Caiyi.”
“That’s all?” He questions. “Is that all you needed to come for me?”
The woman frowns at him. “Is that not enough for you?”
“Would it be enough for you?”
She frowns harder. Her lips curl down. Helplessly, she looks back to Lan Wangji who nods at her.
“The seer has been plagued by many uncontrollable visions,” she begins. “In all their visions, they saw Caiyi under attack by rogues and bandits. But recently, they saw a vision where someone defends Caiyi and subdues the bandits.”
Wei Wuxian frowns. “And you think that’s me?”
Looking at his incredulous look, the woman doesn’t look quite as confident anymore. She looks back at Lan Wangji again.
“We know it is you,” he says. “The visions are never wrong.”
Wei Wuxian raises his eyebrows at that. “Such blind faith in a seer?”
“He foresaw your arrival,”
“That, he seemingly did.” Wei Wuxian couldn’t argue with that. The vision did lead to him getting rescued. Between that and falling off a water fall, he would much rather be here.
“I’m quite injured,” he admits, despite himself. “Not to mention, completely alone. Are you sure you want to have this much faith in me?”
Lan Wangji nods firmly. “I do.”
Wei Wuxian huffs, amused. “It would bring great shame to my name if I disappoint someone who believes in me to this extent, wouldn’t it?”
Lan Wangji’s face doesn’t betray a single emotion, except his golden eyes glimmering in the otherwise dark and dusty shed.
He moves himself into a sitting position. After all the commotion, he only remembers his broken rib when it almost knocks the air out of him. When he struggles, Lan Wangji helps him into a more comfortable position.
After he settles down, Lan Wangji presents the broth to him with both hands. Wei Wuxian accepts it somewhat cordially. Behind him, the woman wordlessly sheaths her sword.