Requests open <3
Request Summary: Wei Ying returns from the Burial Mounds obviously broken with a mysterious rogue cultivator by his side. Lan Zhan is concerned and maybe just a wee bit jealous.
CW: Again, dabbling a little in the horror genre. Graphic depictions of violence and gore.
Sorry if this is just a hot mess honestly I can't tell it's 4 am and I am half asleeeeep
•••
Lan WangJi had been lost in a never-ending winter from the day he departed Dusk Creek Mountain.
But it wasn't the mountain he'd left behind.
It was the boy he'd left within it.
He had left his soulmate with nothing but a fever and a secret confession written in zither notes.
Then Lotus Pier was burned to the ground, its people were slaughtered, and Wei WuXian was never heard from again.
Lan WangJi agonized over his guqin every day. He called for Wei WuXian's soul through inquiry—it never sung back. He played WangXian until he'd worn the tips of his fingers to the bone, yet all he had to show for it were bandaged hands.
He blamed himself for abandoning Wei WuXian.
Thus, when he heard the rumors that Wei WuXian had been cast into the Burial Mounds, he didn't hesitate to request (read: demand) a battle assignment in Yiling, as did Jiang Cheng.
To both men's surprise, there was a new player on the battlefield already wreaking havoc in Yiling. The absolute carnage this person left behind in every Wen outpost was nothing short of demonic.
Lan WangJi swallowed thickly. Limbs shoved down throats, bodies dangling from banisters, soldiers suffocated by their own intestines—not even in his most sadistic fantasies could the Jade fathom such gore.
"Lan Er Gongzi, we can't waste time here... Wen Chao is on the move," Jiang Cheng reminded.
Closing his eyes, Lan WangJi nodded once.
In an abandoned outpost, they finally found their targets. Jiang Cheng and Lan WangJi located a hole on the building's roof and peered inside. The Young Wen Master was rocking back and forth on his bottom, muttering nonsensical riddles about flutes and death.
"I need to apply a balm to your wounds," Wen ZhuLiu said.
When Wen Chao pulled back his hood, the men on the roof felt their eyes go wide. The Wen was nothing but a dried-out molt of who he used to be. His entire body was covered in traces of fingernails and human teeth, and his head was naked of any hair. Layers of skin peeled back to reveal muscle and bone like someone had tried to dig out his brains.
He howled in pain as Wen ZhuLiu applied the medicine.
"You mustn't cry. If you do not receive this medicine, you will die-"
Without warning, a candle was snuffed and Wen Chao wailed. He pushed Wen ZhuLiu away and crawled pitifully into the nearest corner.
"It's the flute! I hear it, I hear it!"
"It's the sound of the wind," Wen ZhuLiu tried to assure his charge, but to no avail.
On the roof, Jiang Cheng announced, "Someone's coming."
Wen ZhuLiu felt it too, for he abandoned the Young Master on the floor. The Core-Melting Hand stood haughtily in the doorway ready to reaffirm his title.
Footsteps ascended the stairs agonizingly slow. Lanterns clattered together as if scrambling over eachother to escape. The footsteps stopped. A tall shadow was cast across the room, and slowly, its caster stepped into the light and into the view of the men on the roof.
Jiang Cheng gasped. Lan WangJi's heart stopped.
It was Wei WuXian—beautiful, horrifying Wei WuXian.
"Wei Ying."
After three long months of barren winterscape, a familiar warmth penetrated the frost. Wei WuXian was back, alive, standing right beneath them. Lan WangJi could touch him again, brush his skin again, sing for him again, love him again.
But... then came the cold again. It welcomed Lan Wangji back with frostbitten kisses and hypothermic hugs.
Colored a waxen gray, Wei WuXian's skin looked like an omen of death.
He was an omen of death.
And it was in that moment Lan WangJi realized the harbinger of carnage was Wei WuXian all along. He who'd ruthlessly slaughtered, who'd desecrated corpses and tortured soldiers, was his Wei Ying—the kind, compassionate and forgiving soul with an affinity for harmless mischief.
He was not alive, not in the way he had been before. Living, but not alive.
Lan WangJi clenched Suibian tightly. His thumb traced its intricate ridges.
As Wei WuXian stepped further into the ambient light, Lan WangJi noticed he was far too thin. When he fingered his black flute, white knuckles popped and willowy wrists trembled like twigs. His collarbones could collect rain water better than porcelain bowls. Even his waist had slimed. The leather belt at his hips, rather than hold his robes together, seemed to be a secretive accessory worn to hide his body.
He wore his exhaustion in his face. His eyes were weighed down by red and purple dunes, and each blink came with the obvious struggle of opening his eyes again—it was clear he hadn't touched a bed in far too long. Lan WangJi longed to run his hands through the other's hair as he slept in his lap, just as he had in the cave.
Wei Ying, what happened to you?
"The Second Jade of Lan is as beautiful as they say..."
"Lan Zhan, I drew this for you!"
"Did you hear that? We're soulmates."
"I, Wei WuXian, wish I can always stand with justice and live with no regrets."
"Lan Zhan, sing for me."
They watched on as Wei WuXian smirked at the aloof Core-Melting Hand, taunting, "Do you really think you can protect him," he trailed off, tossing his eyes towards the cowering Young Master on the floor. Finally, he concluded, "From me?"
"I will die trying."
"What a loyal dog you are."
"I do what I must to repay His Excellency."
"What a joke!" As Wei WuXian's anger picked up, so did the wind. "Why must others pay for your debt to Wen RuoHan?"
Wen ZhuLiu had no answer.
A second later, Wei WuXian pulled out his flute, licked his lips, and began to play. Lan WangJi quickly cast a protective charm over the roof, deafening his and Jiang Cheng's ears to the song of death Wen Chao had warned of in his ramblings.
Plumes of black smog rolled off of the dizi in waves. A womanly figure emerged from the smoke. She donned a red robe and had claws for nails. The ghost toyed with Wen Chao and overpowered Wen ZhuLiu with ease.
The Core-Melting Hand was smart, adaptive. He quickly realized he had to cut off the head of the snake to kill the body. So, Wen ZhuLiu charged towards Wei WuXian with his infamous hand extended. Lan WangJi's eyes widened. He drew Bichen only to freeze where he stood on the roof. An obsidian blade had swung from the shadows, gliding through Wen ZhuLiu's wrist in one smooth motion. His hand landed on the floor just a few feet away with fingers still curled like talons ready to strike. Before the Core-Melting Hand could register his loss, the mysterious blade was imbedded in his heart.
There was someone else in the room.
Wei WuXian, unphased, finished his devastating melody. The ghostly woman in red began to devour Wen Chao. Alive. She tore his face off in bloody, bite-sized chunks, growling gleefully like an entire pack of chittering hyenas. Her gnarled fingernails scooped out his entrails. The thick, red ropes swung from her teeth, side to side, as she ravaged every piece of him. In the end, infuriated by Wen Chao's bone-chilling howls, she chomped down firmly on his neck and ripped his throat right out. Once satisfied by her meal, she retreated back into the black smoke.
Lan WangJi would never forget those horrible screams.
Until a sound much worse disturbed his ears.
The sound of his soulmate moaning in another man's mouth.
Wei WuXian was kissing the man in the shadows, intimately, deeply, and so relaxed it seemed natural.
"What the fuck!?" Jiang Cheng seethed. He couldn't watch anymore. He crashed through the roof with Zidian to confront his brother.
Lan WangJi, however, was frozen in his skin. Something in his chest ached like his heart had become tangled in vines of arteries. The sight of his soulmate tangled in another man's lips had him feeling sick with pain and anger and regret.
He jumped down beside Jiang Cheng.
Wei WuXian said nothing more than, "Lan Zhan."
"Wei Ying."
"You kept Suibian safe for me," he said with no emotion, nodding towards the sword in Lan WangJi's hand.
"Mn."
As he handed over the sword, Lan WangJi eyed the stranger (and in the process, completely missed the way Wei WuXian looked at Suibian mournfully). Admittedly, the man was a fine beauty. He had high cheekbones with beautiful brown eyes placed atop them like jasper. His hair was well-groomed and his robes humbly elegant. No distinguishing markers linked him to a clan or sect—it was evident he was a rogue cultivator, someone the likes of Xiao XingChen and Song Lan.
"Thank you, Lan... HanGuang-Jun." Wei WuXian's whisper pulled Lan WangJi from his thoughts.
Lan WangJi's heart cried, That's not right! Call me Lan Zhan! Tease me! Laugh at me!
"Wei Ying." He failed to hide the tremble on his tongue. "Where have you been?"
Not one man in the room missed the way Wei WuXian flinched under the tenor of his question. Lan WangJi especially didn't miss how Wei WuXian sidestepped closer to the unknown man.
"It doesn't matter," he answered firmly.
"'It doesn't matter' my ass! Where the hell were you for the last three months? Huh? Off with your 'friend' while Shijie and I—while Shijie worried sick!?" The Jiang fumed. He landed a punch square on his older brother's chest.
"Jiang Cheng, I'm sorry," Wei WuXian insisted genuinely. "Bai Xing helped me when I first left the Bu—he helped me when I was injured. We both lost people to the Wens, so we decided to team up... Anyways, A-Cheng, we were going to return after killing Wen Chao and Wen ZhuLiu."
Jiang Cheng raised an eyebrow. It was clear he didn't like this newcomer either, though not for the same reasons as Lan WangJi. He snapped, "'We'? Just who is he, Wei WuXian?"
"Ah, yes, um..." He stuttered. A red hue stained his face. Lan WangJi clenched his fists.
The man chose that moment to step forward and offer up a sincere bow. "Bai Xing, curtesy name Bai LiQin. Wei WuXian and I are courting."
•••
Bai LiQin: Beautiful white zither
Bai Xing: White star
Hehe this is a teaser, all the good stuff is coming soon in part 2 & 3 😈
Requested by TlkFluentSarcasm
I swear you're my only reader at this point 😩💀 luv u xoxo