If the days had been busy with searching and hoping and needing to find his son, the nights were worse. At night, the nightmares came... dreams of seeing his son's dead body. Sometimes simply strangled, dark finger marks circling his neck. Other times, he was eviscerated. Or had his head chopped off. Sometimes Wei WuXian could see the child's ghost sitting by its corpse, crying loudly... screaming his hatred. And then turning that hatred on the men who failed him.
Nightmares of what he might find when they finally met up with Meng Yao interspersed with his nightmares from the Burial Mounds and the war.
One particularly interesting nightmare had Wen Yuan's fierce corpse sitting by Wei WuXian's side on the faraway mountain where he gave Jiang Cheng his Core as the firece corpse Wen Ning ripped open his abdomen with rancid, knife sharp, fingernails and ripped out his Core. "You deserve that, Baba," the boy intoned. "You can't even keep a child safe. You don't deserve to be a cultivator. You don't deserve that Core. I hope it kills you and you are sent to Hell with no option, ever, for reincarnation. Just eternal punishment."
Lan WangJi's nightmares were slightly less ghoulish, but no less intense and self-deprecating.
There were two ways to stop the nightmares: one, obviously, was to not fall asleep in the first place, and the other was to make themselves so tired that they didn't have the ability to dream. Wei WuXian found a few fellow cultivators who enjoyed the more brutal types of street fighting; bouts where they'd all stumble off to their bedrolls, thoroughly exhausted, covered in blood, bruises, and at least one broken bone, kept the nightmares at bay. After a healer told them to stop being stupid and wasting their qi on healing when they would need to be at full strength during the upcoming battle, Lan Zhan offered up his own method for exhausting each other.
His dreams from his youth of fucking Wei Ying inspired their nightly activities: brutal sex where the receiver was not prepared and no oils were used to ease the way. It was raw and painful and bloody and required more visits to the healer and lectures on properly taking care of their partner. Wei WuXian trying to explain that this was each of them taking care of his husband was ignored. The price of tears in their rectums compared to the nightmares of seeing his son repeatedly raped or mutilated or rambling as a fierce corpse? He'd pay that price every day of his life to keep his son safe from harm.
Jin ZiXuan arrived bearing more bad news. Jiang WanYin had wanted to go with him; unfortunately, the continued stress over losing her grandmother and then not knowing what was happening to the rest of her family plus grieving over the dead, had sent Wen Qing into early labor. "The other doctors and midwives at Lotus Pier are trying to halt the labor. It's early. She might deliver a stillborn, they say. Or the baby might die soon after being born. No one knows for certain."
Wei WuXian added Wen Qing to Meng Yao's tally. "Death by lingchi will be too good for him."
Jin ZiXuan's examination of the mirror/portal was much more efficient than Wei WuXian's. "I would like to ask everyone, except for Mo XuanYu, to leave the building."
"Why me?" his younger brother asked, surprised.
Jin ZiXuan straightened his back. "Family secrets."
Wei WuXian looked intrigued and begrudgingly left the room to the brothers. What kind of family secrets does that mirror hold? Does Jin GuangYao know them? Whatever the elder was imparting to the younger didn't take long. The others were called in to see that the mirror no longer reflected the room it was in: it showed a reflection of somewhere else.
Jin ZiXuan ignored his allies' questioning looks. "I see eight guards around the connected portal. There may be more that we can't see."
What they could see was... a room. A pretty plain room with no obvious decorations to lead the allies to understand where the hostages were being kept. Wooden walls, an empty bookcase, the edge of a window, scuffed floors. And eight men milling around.
Lan XiChen stepped closer, peering into the portal. "Is that...? Look at the top of the window frame? Does that look like...? I think it is?"
Nie HuaiSang pushed his way to the front of the mirror. "I see... a sun? Is that what you see?"
"A sun?" Wei WuXian swore under his breath. "They're in the Nightless City? I thought that place was razed to the ground.
"The palace was dismantled. Most of the city was left intact," Lan XiChen corrected. "After all, there were still people living there."
"So... we fly to the Nightless City, rescue the GusuWen and kill the demonic cultivators." Wei WuXian sketched out the plan. "A couple dozen of us can remain here and attack via the portal."
"Whoever stays here is on a suicide mission," Jin ZiXuan protested. "We can't know how many of those cultivators are guarding the room! Only one person can step through the portal at one time."
"One person is all that's needed." Wei WuXian looked at his brother-in-law, red creeping into his eyes, swirls of resentful energy winding their way around his feet, caressing his legs, playing with the folds of his skirts. "How many of Meng Yao's people are really prepared to fight the Yiling Laozu? Jiang Cheng and Lan WangJi know... They were there; they saw the aftermath of what my ghost army did to Wen Chao's men. I only had about thirty at the time I was pursuing him and Wen ZhuLiu. When Mo Gongzi opened the portal earlier, I could feel them... Wen RuoHan's victims. They were never pacified after the Sunshot Campaign. Never sung to an eternal sleep or a return to the reincarnation cycle. They hunger for justice against Wen RuoHan. They yearn for closure. I can give them... something, at least. Bodies to vent their anger and hurt on. And then I can help them move on."
Wei WuXian held his ground against his husband, brothers-in-law, and friends alike. "Yes, I'm aware I could lose my Core," he assured Nie HuaiSang. "It's a small price to pay for the safe return of the DafanWen and my son." To Lan XiChen, he added, "I will die to keep my son safe from harm. Do you not understand that? They are... A'Yuan is worth... everything." To Lan WangJi, he pleaded. "You know this is the only way. You will attack the Nightless City from the outside and I'll attack from the inside. I promise I won't take stupid risks. I swear I will be careful. I will see you at the end and go home with our son. I promise." In the end, he was left behind with a small group of YunmengJiang cultivators including Mo XuanYu.
As midnight approached, Wei WuXian asked Mo XuanYu to open the window in the portal. Another group of men, six this time, stood guard over their end of the mirror. "What can you tell me about the portals? The more I know, the better this will go."
"I don't know a lot, Wei Laoshi," Mo XuanYu sounded small and weak. "I didn't receive the best education in Koi Tower."
"Anything will be helpful," Wei WuXian reassured the younger man. "Without giving up Jin secrets, of course."
"Jin secrets?" Mo XuanYu's entire demeanor changed from unsure to spiteful. "Why would I feel the need to protect a sect that doesn't want me? Jin ZiXuan seems almost nice. But I know that he wishes our father never met my mother.
"So... portals. Each portal is a single object. This side and that one? It's the exact same mirror."
"Two mirrors are actually one mirror," Wei WuXian frowned. "How can two objects in two different locations be the same object?"
"I have no idea, Wei Laoshi. But that's one of the secrets to the portals. Both sides are a single mirror."
Wei WuXian scrunched his face up in utter confusion. "But I clearly see a front and a back to this mirror."
Mo XuanYu shrugged. "I don't know how the spell works, but that's some of what Jin ZiXuan showed me earlier. This mirror and that mirror are the exact same mirror. If you crack the surface here, the same crack will appear on the other. If you open the portal from this side, it opens the portal on the other side, too. The only time they're separate is when we spell the surface to be a window. Somehow that stays only on one side."
Wei WuXian stared at the portal, as if that would force it to give up its secrets. "One mirror existing in two different spaces simultaneously...." he mused. "What else could you do with that...."
What else benefits from being in two locations at the same time? Other than those portals I thought of before.... No sense thinking about that now. I have a job to do. He focused on monitoring the guards' movements. There was no obvious formation. The guards appeared to wander or sit as they pleased. And only the same six were ever visible. "Open the portal," he ordered the younger man.
"It's not time yet," Mo XuanYu protested. "We're supposed to wait for Lan ZongZhu's signal!"
"You can wait for his signal," Wei WuXian reassured. "Until then? Open the portal for me."
"He'll kill me for letting you through before it's time."
"I'll be saving lives by going through first. Meng Yao doesn't know what I did during the war. He read about it in reports, yes. But a report doesn't give the whole picture does it? It doesn't tell you exactly what I did. Or how I did it, does it? Let my ghost army fight Meng Yao's demonic cultivators. Let him see first hand exactly how... vicious demonic cultivation can be. Open the portal."
As the boy activated the portal, Wei WuXian started gathering in resentful energy. Not surprisingly, this Wen village was full of it. My friends, he smiled as the cold, formless tendrils wound their eager way around his body, not unlike a cat or snake.... Baba, Mama? Are you there? I... lost your new grandson a few days back. It wasn't my fault, but at the same time, it was. I should have stayed with him. I'm going to get him back at any cost. And I do mean any cost. Will you be upset if I lose my Core again? After everything my friends did to give me a new one? After all the effort I put in to make myself stronger? I don't want to die.... But if I do? Will you be there for me? I don't want to die alone. Will you stay by my side as I fight to get my son back? Will you stay by my side if... if I have to pay the ultimate price for his safety?
And after... Please watch over Lan Zhan and A'Yuan. They're going to need all the love you can give them if... if I die. Baba... please take care of Lan Zhan. Please help him to be the greatest father in the whole world. Mama? Please help A'Yuan. Please. He must be so scared.... He's lost his grandmother and so many relatives and friends. Plus being kidnapped for a second time? He's going to need so much love and support to help him recover. I... I want to be there for him. And I will try. But if I can't? Will you? Please?
Maybe you can find Lan Zhan's mother and A'Yuan's parents and Popo? Between the six of you... there should be enough love for them both.
Dearests...
#sorry-not-sorry
Again.
- Aitch.