Content warning : heavy emotions ahead!
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Being bedridden is not something anyone likes, especially when you have been bedridden for almost an year before.
Lan Wangji, for all his stony features and blank expression is quite expressive about this thought.
Though you will have to squint to actually catch a glimpse of his expressions or mood but for someone who had spent a lifetime in reading him and trying to decipher the meaning hidden in the minuscule frowns, turning of lips, a ghost of a smile, a twitch of a muscle, microscopic crinkling of eyes, the shifting of his eyes and the reddening of his ears; it's easy. At least easier than others.
Needless to say, Wei Ying is quite proud to be fluent in Lan Zhan's language.
He spends most of his time in Jingshi, where Lan Wangji was brought after the healers checked him.
Ever since moving in the Jingshi, Wei Ying had transformed it in his own way, marked his presence in a way nothing can ever erase it, except one if he wishes. Though the extent to which the echo of an unmaterialistic reality can be wiped out is unknown.
A low table which usually occupied Wangji has become used to the presence of stacks of talisman paper and notes with ink stone and brush somewhere underneath the pile.
The corner near the entrance has now two sets of boots, one balck with grey linings and other stark white with baby blue lining.
Another corner in the room has a cloth bag open haphazardly, with the contents nearly spilling out of it but not falling, miraculously.
Wangji lies in its white cloth wrap, with Chenqing usually lying on top of it.
The self near the wardrobe which was empty before now has a wooden carved rabbit and a stone carved lotus on it. Some other trinkets lie on it too, though tiny in size like they have been picked just for savouring the simplicity of their craft and life of their creator.
A wind chime is hung out on the porch, where it jiggles whenever someone or the wind feels mischievous. Sometimes, the birds join the chatter and chiming— making a improntu melody which never seems to dissolves even after everything has quietened down.
The Jingshi is now never quiet unlike it's name, only silent when the source of the cheerful chaos is submerged in work or thought.
In those moments, the wind chime fills the silence, lulling and cajoling the disrupted minds, guiding it with a soft push in the correct direction; away from all the conflicts.
And if two fluff balls find their way inside the Jingshi sometimes, no one gets to know.
Neither about the soft scene they make nor about the breathtaking smile they create.
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Healing without the aid of a golden core is something which not many cultivators experience. It's not something they would wish to experience anyway.
The speed of recovery slows to that of a normal human's level and the body has to work extra hard to fight off any infection since the immune system has been dormant for so long. The tissues take longer to mend and blood clotting depends on many factors ( which won't be discussed here as this story is not sci-fi ).
Still, a body knows, it remembers.
It remembers many things.
But for the time being, those memories are kept secured.
Lan Xichen passes spiritual energy to his baby brother everyday and though the energy won't have the desired effects, it helps in its own way.
While the arrow wounds heal at a normal pace, the whip scars seem to have come to life. No matter how much the healer tried to knock Lan Wangji out of it— no needle, herbs, acupuncture or pressure point worked.
He was in a delirium for most of the day, lying on his stomach and the scene haunted Lan Xichen.
He had hoped that Wangji will not have to suffer through the same amount of pain again but fate had other ideas. It didn't help that the scars were never going to heal properly, the pain in his back bound to torture him for at least a week every year apart from seasons. Now, it was worse.
The scene was almost nostalgic if not mocking....
Lan Wangji's screams were almost quiet, an echo of the pain amplified in the silence of Jingshi. The white knuckles, the sweat lining his brows, his feverish body and a vain try to writh against the hands treating him, the silent sobs when the touch seemed too much, the tears wetting his eyelashes but never escaping—held at bay by the last claw at self control, the tears in the pillow and scratch marks on the wood, never noticed before.
It was this silent pain that finally made Wei Wuxian snap.
The next day, terrifying and bloodcurling screams could be heard from one corner of the Cloud Recesses. The horror continued for almost half a day, subdued by the time someone dared to come and check.
No one heard the exact words which were exchanged but—
everyone whispered a warning,
a call barring ,
The voices jarring,
the words marring;
hushed like they feared,
soft like a deer—
all doubts smeared
The silence, clear.
Come night, no one questions a vibrating and mumbling Wei Wuxian when he trudges through the path of Jingshi, with a jar of Emperor's Smile in one hand and Chenqing in another.
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It will take probably months from what the healers have predicted with the current pace at which Lan Wangji was healing to restore his previous strength.
Though whether he will be back to his optimum level was an unanswered question.
His joints had suffered and the right arm where there had already been a battle scar was in a critical condition.
Thankfully, no bones have been dislocated.
But Lan Wangji heals, albietly far more slowly.
And that's what important, Wei Wuxian tells himself. Not his frantic heart which won't stop thundering everytime he sees Lan Wangji lying on his stomach with his back a criss-cross of scars, angry red or shades of blue glaring at everyone in the room.
Not his whirlwind mind which won't stop conjuring up the worst images possible.
Belatedly, Sizhui reminds him that Lan Wangji also felt the same when Wei Wuxian was out in the world, without a core and defenceless against almost any kind of hurt.
Wei Ying realises he doesn't know.
Sizhui also told him something else. He was probably exhausted with all the bottled up emotions from the past month, kept hidden and suppressed to not worry anyone and finally cracked.
Just like his Rich gege....
So, Wei Ying coaxed him to spill the beans after watching his ball of sunshine mope around and being tense for this long.
A silent room, a bit of cajoling and a little bit of hugs was all it took to make the young Lan break into sobs.
That night, Sizhui was not a Lan, not Lan Sizhui, not the cultivator whom almost every little Lan kid looked up to, whom teachers and other sect disciples praised when he performed better than anyone else, whom Hanguang-Jun always silently praised in class— he was just...A Yuan.
With a red face full of tears and sobs and hiccups breaking through his body, all Lan rules out of the window; he confided in his Xian gege how he was afraid, how he feared, how lost he felt, how much he had to pretend to keep it together because the scene had triggered yet another memory of his.
The memory in which Wei Ying was gone.
" You were not there Xian Gege. Hanguang-Jun was like this, probably worse after the war during his seclusion. "
That night, Wei Ying learned how A Yuan was only allowed to visit Lan Zhan weekly or sometimes not at all.
It was only when he sneaked off enough times that Zewu-Jun finally started taking him to Jingshi with him daily so that he could meet his Zhan ge without any hindrance.
At Wei Wuxian's questioning eyes, Sizhui chuckled wetly " Zewu-Jun once thanked me saying I saved Hanguang-Jun's life. I didn't know how, and just called him that and said somethings.
I probably gave him that name after I learned his birth name somehow. He seemed to like it,so I usually called him like that till....."
He paused for a second, recalling something and then continued
" Till I stayed with him. As soon as I started my education, a teacher forbid me from calling him that. He said that I wasn't allowed to call him by his name or any other version of it because it was improper. But Zhan gege loved that name I think. He would sometimes close his eyes or smile his ' rare smile ' as some call it but he never told me to stop calling him that.
I told my teacher about it and he punished me for talking back. He said....he said that Hanguang-Jun was not in his right mind, that just because he allowed me something doesn't mean it's allowed. But I was confused. I sneaked back to Jingshi that night and found Hanguang-Jun standing on the porch...."
Those days were something Sizhui both treasured and hated the most.
" He was standing with his back to me but as soon as I took a step he turned like he sensed me. I told him about what the teacher had told me and he just hugged me and put me to sleep next to him.
The next day, he met with the teacher and that was probably the most angry I have seen Hanguang-Jun.
He argued with the teacher, and almost the whole Cloud Recesses was there. At last, Zewu-Jun had to come and settle the matter before they got violent. "
That teacher was probably asking for it...
But Wei Ying was not going to let some excuse of a teacher take his precious time with his self-adopted kid tonight.
They talked some more, Wei Wuxian desperate to know what he had missed and Sizhui happy to share his thoughts and tales with someone who had been a parent figure for him once.
Once all the tears had been wiped and face cleared, they sat together then slept there only. Sizhui too exhausted to walk as it was too late than his normal bedtime and Wei Ying buzzing with the need to keep his little radish near him.
The duties can wait, the people can be sate but warmth is something nobody can ever make.
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I am emotional now, so will be stopping here.
I don't want to cry and have to explain the tears,
I don't want to try and erase the fears,
For they make my strength spear and start my mind's gears.
Kindly don't copy, paste, repost, use the poetry in this chapter in any way without written permission of the creator. The piece belongs to the poet and is a copyrighted material.
3-6th August, 2021
Published : 6th August, 2021