#because he's not a fierce corpse not really a ghost either so ... generally undead it is ^^

[inessencedevided]

Wei Wuxian enters the Underworld Chamber with several scrolls clutched in his arms, struggling to keep them all together but he is able to settle them down on a table next to the one that is holding his client with a great clatter. For a moment he entertains himself with thinking what the Second Jade who was known to be very rule abiding would say to his general … everything. He would probably have those straight, black eyebrows furrowed and reprimand him with a single word.

“Let’s see what we’ve got here, hm?”, he offers and sifts through his collection of scrolls from the library of the Lan sect. “Your older brother gave me access to some very interesting scrolls, you know?! Your sect is famous for musical cultivation, he told me that you were on your way to become the best guqin player, close to Lan Yi. Fascinating stuff, this. Inquiry. Talking to the dead through the means of music. Maybe this will help me before I use Empathy. Which is a method I invented.”

He does this a lot, chattering away at people to break the ice. There is not a lot of ice to break because the person he is talking to is dead but it still feels nicer than to be completely quiet. And according to ZewuJun, his brother is still here, so maybe he will feel less alone like this. So he shuffles over to the guqin that seems to have been repaired. There is still some brownish-red residue on the wood and he knows that it only can be one thing. Blood. “Alright. Let’s do this,” he says softly. Carefully, he follows the movements that are described on the page, lets the notes ring out, waits for an answer in the dark.

There is silence for a moment and he is afraid he played so badly that the ghost is somehow offended and doesn’t want to come. But then, suddenly, there is an answer. No unnecessary embellishments, played slowly so he can understand but still so beautiful that he knows who it is. Who it only can be.

Who are you sings the instrument and he makes an excited sound, shuffling even closer. Wei Wuxian he answers, carefully playing out the notes. Your brother. Asked for help. he answers haltingly. It is almost like learning a new language. I go through memories. Am I allowed? There is another moment of silence, then he swears the answer sounds almost surprised. Yes. You may, Wei Wuxian. He giggles and bites his lip. “Call me Wei Ying,” he tells the room before remembering that he should have used the guqin. The instruments sings out, completely unprompted. Wei Ying.

His grin threatens to split his face and he gets up, walking towards the body, taking in the serene face, the inky hair, the creamy skin. He really is a beauty. “Just a moment,” he tells him and pats his hand, walking to the door and calling Lan Xichen in, who comes without any further prompting. “He gave me permission,” Wei Wuxian explains and then hands the sect leader a Clarity Bell, a thank you from Jiang Yanli for helping her sect when it called for it. “Ring this when things get sticky or I do not wake up. It will call me back.”

ZewuJun nods, taking the Bell, settling in, watching them both with a worried expression but Wei Wuxian just smiles and kneels next to the body, taking his hands, noticing how cold and yet soft they are, callouses at their fingertips from playing the guqin. “Lan Wangji,” he whispers. “Show me. Show me what is keeping you here.”

The memories feel like the first snow beneath naked feet, dropping into a body of cold water but also like standing on a mountain and letting the winds rush by. They start with a little boy kneeling in front of a house surrounded by gentians, clad in the same white the whole sect wears. He is six at most and why this memory is shown, Wei Wuxian doesn’t know but he keeps concentrating, diving deeper. He sees a strikingly handsome teenager studying in the library, copying old scrolls, playing quin and sneaking vegetables to the back hills where white bunnies roam. The images flash by, a lecture with disciples from other sects, Wen Chao and his entourage arriving and making a scene.

One moment stands out. The same teenager who must be Lan Wangji catches a young female disciple roaming the back hills, a Wen from the red of her robes. He walks away with her and the scenery shifts. They are in a building that is most likely the home of the sect leader, ZewuJun and his brother who stands next to him, straight-backed and breathtaking. He can hear voices, hears them talking of something Wen Ruohan wants, that he will raze the Cloud Recesses to the ground for it. The Yin Iron. Part of it is hidden away here. They will need to prepare for the worst.

The scene shifts again, to Caiyi and Lan Wangji walking through the busy market, holding his sword in his hand, one hand in a fist behind his back like a proper gentleman. He can hear crying and both of them look for the source of it, Wei Wuxian constricted by the limited sight he has. It is little girl with braided buns, crying heartbreakingly next to a stall with animals made from colourful cloth.

The cultivator with the severe face and the countenance of a remote, snow-capped mountain, kneels next to her and hands her a bunny rabbit made from colourful cloth, just purchased apparently, waiting for her to talk. “I lost my gege,” she sobs and shuffles closer, hugging him, getting his white robes dirty. He does not seem to care, instead looks at her and gently lays a hand on her shoulder. “I have a gege as well. I would be scared if I lost him in the crowd,” he says and oh, his voice. It’s calm and deep, trying to settle the little girl. “Shall we look for him together?”

She sniffles and nods, taking his hand in hers, looking up at him in awe and Wei Wuxian can relate. After just a moment, they have found her big brother and the little girl runs to hug him with a shriek of delight. He can see the corners of Lan Wangji’s mouth tilt up into a soft smile, barely noticeable but it is there. He seems to be content with a job well done.

Another shift. They seem to come quicker now, more talk of the Yin Iron, someone he recognises as Lan Qiren taking stock of their most valuable scriptures, letting it be taken away. It is terribly busy but Lan Wangji is a mountain in a rushing stream, carrying what he can with his impressive arm strength.

Yet another and the Cloud Recesses are burning. The disciples are running, many of them armed, some carrying instruments. Caiyi is in disarray as well, people barricading their homes, locking up their animals. Lan Wangji is making a sweep through town, his immaculate robes already stained with soot. The little girl from before runs towards him and hugs his leg, tearful and scared but she knows she is safe with the young cultivator. He gently pats her head and does the same to her rabbit doll.

Then, his face grows serious and he kneels down to look at her, reaching up and undoing his ribbon that falls into his hands, carefully tying it around her wrist. “Keep this safe. Go and take your brother, your parents and look for a grey mountain with yellow veins. This will give you free passage through the secret entrance. You will be safe,” he tells her gently and gets up. “Look for a man who looks like me but older. Lan Xichen.”

Another shift. This one seems to be the last. Lan Wangji is riddled with arrows, bleeding profusely, staggering but still standing upright. His forehead is bare, his hands around the hilt of his sword are bloodied but he carries himself with grace and sheer bullheaded stubbornness. What was that saying again? No matter how the wind howls, the mountain cannot bow to it. He is so very brave. Wei Wuxian can feel his need to protect the ones who are hidden in the cave behind him even at the cost of his own life.

He seems to have set his mind on something, following Wen Xu, even as another arrow buries itself in his back and a voice cries out “A-Zhan! No!”. A sharp crack, bones crunching. His leg is broken but Wen Xu is dead, staring into nothingness. Lan Wangji does not cry out, instead uses his sword to get up again, breathing hard, spitting blood but still, there is a defiant light in his eyes. Someone trips him up and he falls to his knees, his head held high, his guqin on the ground next to him, strings bloodied. As the sword finds its mark, Wei Wuxian does not look away. Dares not look away. Lan Wangji stays proud and brave until he crumples to the ground and stops breathing.

Ringing, silvery and gentle, pulls him out of the cold waters, guides him back into his own body. As he comes to with a gasp, he notices that he has been crying. He wipes his eyes and looks at the body in front of him, at this brave and stubborn man who died defending those he cared about. “You were so good. So good, Lan Zhan,” he whispers, the personal name slipping out as he squeezes the cold hands, looks into his serene face. “The best.”

He turns to Lan Xichen who looks like he has been crying as well. “He died with the deep wish to protect still ingrained into him. He wants to make sure you are alright. And… he is guarding something. I… you spoke of the Yin Iron.”

The way Lan Xichen pales is answer enough.

- 🍄 anon

(Part one for all who didn't read it)

Omg!!! You sent me through every feeling IMAGINABLE 🍄 anon 😭😭😭

That line about there being a lot of ice to crack made me laugh and then you just came at me like that with feelings about lwj dieing! Not. Fair. 🥺

And lwj + little kids = love :D

[lady-of-the-lotus]

No, But I Will Be

Xue Yang will do anything to make the newly-resurrected doazhang stay.

Anything.

Xuexiao - E - read on AO3

*****

Xiao Xingchen has been back for a full month before Xue Yang notices anything wrong.

If you could go so far as to call it wrong. More like suspicious.

No, not suspicious.

Just slightly off.

If that.

It’s just after dawn, and Xue Yang opens his eyes to the daozhang sitting up in the pink morning light. Xingchen is running a slim white finger along the raised scar on his neck, thumb brushing his throat and collarbone as if remembering the feel of gushing blood.

Idiotic, that last part. Even if Xiao Xingchen does remember anything that had happened the day he died—and Xue Yang is certain he doesn’t—he had bled out too fast to remember the sensation.

It’s nothing, really. Nothing at all. Though Xingchen has never asked about it, he’s bound to be curious about the mysterious scar he feels on his throat…

Xingchen hears Xue Yang stir and stops touching the scar, turning away slightly and tightening the blindfold over his sightless eyes.

Xue Yang keeps a close eye on him all day and is satisfied that it’s nothing by the time they make camp that night. The daozhang had been his usual self all day, smiling at Xue Yang’s jokes, giving money to a beggar in the town they’d passed through, and making sure “Chengmei” remembered to eat and drink.

Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing at all…

Xue Yang curls up against him as the campfire goes out. The daozhang doesn’t need food or drink, but Xue Yang is proud to have produced a sophisticated fierce corpse that needs rest every night.

And one with a pulse, who can cry, breathe, and produce warmth. Far better than the Yiling Laozu’s shoddy prototype or even his own previous work on that meddling priest.

True, the Ghost General and Song Lan could see, at least, but Xue Yang could have easily given Xiao Xingchen new eyes if he’d wanted to.

But a sighted daozhang would ruin everything.

He drapes Xiao Xingchen’s arm across his chest, drawing it around him so the daozhang is holding him tightly. Sometimes Xingchen needs to be reminded of things like this, as if he’s reverted to the shyness of their early days of sharing a bed back at the Coffin House, as if he doesn’t remember how much he likes falling asleep with Xue Yang in his arms, but not often.

The daozhang has gone out of his way to look after me, if anything, Xue Yang reminds himself. Not just because he’s grateful for Xue Yang’s devotion, or that he’s thankful Xue Yang spent seven years tirelessly working to bring him back.

No, it’s because he’s happy to be back with Xue Yang, glad to pick up where they left off. Not back at the Coffin House—Xue Yang can’t risk a return of memory—but better: traveling the world, nighthunting, letting Xiao Xingchen get his fill of helping people while Xue Yang gets to kill things with Xingchen’s blessing.

The only thing that would make it better would be for the daozhang to be more outwardly affectionate, but that will come, in time, as Xingchen adjusts to his undead state.

Xue Yang keeps the spirit-trapping pouch that had held the daozhang for so long. Unwilling to let it go, he’s modified it into a qiankun pouch and has slowly been filling it with magical and demonic cores from the various spirit beasts and monsters they’ve hunted.

“To infuse another fierce corpse with, if necessary,” he tells Xingchen, the closest either of them has come to so much as alluding to A-Qing.

But he still kicks himself for saying that much when, three months after the daozhang came back to him, the second suspicious thing occurs.

Not suspicious, not really. Natural, if anything. Xue Yang just wishes it hadn’t happened.

They’re in a small town haunted by a yaoguai, and Xiao Xingchen, as always, asks their guide’s name, as if it matters.

“Qing’er, daozhang,” the girl says, bowing, and Xiao Xingchen stops walking for a moment before shaking his head as if to clear it and hurrying after her.

“What happened to A-Qing?” Xiao Xingchen asks him later, after they’ve killed the beast and Xue Yang has a potent new demonic core for his qiankun pouch. His question is hesitant, as if asking despite himself, but with no preamble or build-up to soften it.

Xue Yang has known this moment was coming for three months, but that doesn’t make it any easier to answer.

“Plague,” he says sadly, heart thumping. “She caught it tending to you…”

He tosses that last part in as a way to give her a little boost. He can afford to now that he has the daozhang all to himself.

Still, though he doesn’t regret many things, he does sometimes wish that he hadn’t been forced to kill her. If only she’d left well enough alone and stopped trying to set cultivators on him!

That night Xiao Xingchen lies down a good arm’s length from Xue Yang in the barn they’ve been allowed to sleep in as payment for the hunt, pretending to fall asleep before Xue Yang can close the gap.

But he’s back to himself the next morning, fetching Xue Yang water from the nearby well and making sure he eats breakfast.

Just like he used to…

***

Four months in, and Xingchen still hasn’t brought him a single candy, hasn’t so much as kissed him.

Doesn’t mean anything. They haven’t much money, and the daozhang is still adjusting to his dead-alive body…

It’s during their fifth month together that they annihilate a nest of fierce corpses and Xiao Xingchen completely shuts down. Says not a word as they make camp and cook Xue Yang’s dinner or settle down for the night.

Xue Yang is lying awake, staring up at the stars and telling himself that it’s alright, it’s alright, it had just been a long day, that’s all, when Xiao Xingchen suddenly whispers, “It doesn’t bother you?”

“What doesn’t?”

“All the killing? All the death?”

Xue Yang keeps his voice low and steady. Casual. “They’re not human, daozhang. You know that.”

Xingchen swallows hard. “…yes, I...I know…” He reaches up to touch his blindfold. “But I don’t like killing, not even monsters and demons, not anymore, not even for the greater good. I’m just…I’m selfish, I suppose…”

“You’re the least selfish person I’ve ever met.”

Xiao Xingchen doesn’t seem to hear him. “You enjoy the killing.”

“Well…I’m doing it to help people, right? I’m not just running around hurting people for no reason, am I?”

“And you don’t think about it all afterward, do you?”

Xue Yang wishes he’d pretended to be asleep. “Is this about the dead bodies we found today? We can’t save everyone, daozhang…”

Xingchen digs the heels of his palms into his eye sockets, staining the blindfold with faint red, and draws in a shuddering breath. “Forget it. It’s nothing. Just sometimes I wish…sometimes I wish I were more like…” And suddenly he’s rolling into Xue Yang, teeth scraping his throat, sucking on his skin as one hand slides around Xue Yang’s chest.

“Daozhang?” Xue Yang can barely get the word out. “What are you —”

And then Xiao Xingchen is on top of him, pinning him to the mossy earth. With seeming desperation he presses his mouth to Xue Yang’s and kisses him as if trying to swallow him whole.

I knew it was just a matter of time—

Xue Yang laughs and tries to return the kiss, but Xingchen is too fierce, half-frantic. He moves aside Xue Yang’s robes, knee digging into his leg, dead-alive hand warm around his cock.

“I want you inside me,” he whispers into Xue Yang’s throat, nails dragging down his chest, leaving bloody red trails on his flesh. “I want all of you inside me—”

Painfully hard but suddenly uneasy, Xue Yang grips his arms and tries to gently push Xingchen away. “Daozhang, there’s no need to rush.”

Xingchen releases Xue Yang’s stiff pink cock, laying his hand on his chest, digging his nails deeper into Xue Yang’s bloody skin. His face is chillingly beautiful in the pale moonlight, cheeks flushed, lips parted and trembling.

“Daozhang, are you alright?”

“I will be.” He bends back down to Xue Yang’s throat, biting hard enough to break the skin, raking his nails over his shoulder. His voice is a rough whisper. “Please, just take me into you, you into me—”

Xue Yang swallows hard. He’s been dreaming of this moment for years, so why does it feel so wrong? “Daozhang, let’s—”

“I’ll just do it myself, then!—” Xingchen scrapes his teeth down Xue Yang’s chest, over the scar he’d left on his stomach, one hand gripping Xue Yang’s hip so hard it hurts. His mouth closes around Xue Yang’s dribbling cock and suddenly Xue Yang relaxes.

Nothing is wrong, he realizes with relief. So what if it isn’t as he’d imagined? Xiao Xingchen has just jumped straight to the passion of their final days in the Coffin House, skipping all the shy preliminaries of the beginning of their physical relationship—a compliment!

The daozhang forces Xue Yang’s cock deeper into his throat, deep enough to gag a living human, and Xue Yang spreads his trembling legs with a whimper and buries his fingers in Xingchen’s hair.

This is the daozhang’s way of taking care of him. The thought gives him more pleasure than Xiao Xingchen frantically deepthroating him, throat constricting around his cock, nails raking his hips and thighs and chest as he devours him. None of his usual finesse, just frantic sucking as if he’s desperately trying to draw Xue Yang as far inside him as possible.

“I want you inside me too, ” Xue Yang whispers, and Xiao Xingchen raises his head as if making eye contact through his blindfold, a string of precum and saliva connecting his lips to Xue Yang’s throbbing red cock, before ducking back down to suck on the swollen tip, suck so hard Xue Yang lets out a strangled gasp of mingled pain and pleasure.

Xiao Xingchen digs his nails deeper into his side, drawing more blood, and Xue Yang comes, filling the daozhang’s mouth with cum. Xingchen swallows it all, licking his lips, cleaning Xue Yang’s cock with his tongue as if desperate not to waste a single drop.

He lays his weight fully on Xue Yang, kissing him so that Xue Yang tastes his own cum, before lifting Xue Yang leg over his shoulder and sliding inside him without preamble or lubricant.

Xue Yang is relaxed from his orgasm, but it still hurts. He relaxes around Xingchen’s thick heat just a moment before the daozhang begins to thrust, rutting into him like a dog in heat.

“Harder— ” Xue Yang wants to say, but all that comes out is a smothered gasp.

Xingchen pins his wrists to the grass, fingers biting into his bone. The tip of Xue Yang’s half-hard cock bounces against Xingchen’s stomach as Xingchen thrusts, filling Xue Yang with deliciously frustrated lust at each brief touch.

Xue Yang closes his eyes, focusing on the sensation, relishing the burning ache between his legs, delighting in the proof of passion the daozhang has carved into his chest and hips.

Luxuriates in the knowledge that the daozhang is back, that he wants him, wants him badly—

Something grips his cock, and his eyes fly open. Xiao Xingchen’s long white fingers are wrapped around his glistening length, scraping his nails along his cock as he pumps it back to full hardness, as if knowing Xue Yang needs more pain with the pleasure this soon after his last orgasm.

“Please, please, make me forget,” he thinks he hears Xiao Xingchen whispering, but it’s been seven years and he’s too lost in the moment to pay attention.

Something hot drops on his chest.

A single blood tear.

He reaches up, touches the daozhang’s face. “I’m glad you’re back too, daozhang,” he says, and he slips a finger inside Xingchen’s mouth and clenches around his cock, pulling the daozhang deeper inside him.

Xiao Xingchen emits a half-gasp, half-moan, and at the sound, Xue Yang comes too. He prefers the sensation of being filled with the daozhang’s liquid heat but will take the daozhang’s pleasure as a consolation prize, the knowledge that of all the millions in the world, Xue Yang is the only one who can give this to the daozhang, the only one the daozhang has ever felt comfortable enough with to show this hidden side of himself—

He’d thought he was empty but his cock sputters in Xingchen’s hand, splattering them both with cum. Xiao Xingchen gives a few last thrusts and pulls out, then leans over Xue Yang and cleans his chest and stomach with his tongue, lapping at the milky white ejaculate as desperate to consume everything he can, before wiping the cum splattered over his own face and licking his fingers.

He collapses beside Xue Yang, breath still ragged.

“Daozhang—” Xue Yang whispers, turning on this side, burying his face in Xingchen’s silky black hair, hooking one leg around his. “I’ve been waiting seven years for that.” Seven years for proof that Xiao Xingchen did want to be with him, that everything that had happened on the terrible day he’d lost him had just been an overly emotional blip—

Xingchen pulls Xue Yang into him, heart beating fast against Xue Yang’s bleeding chest, fingers twined in Xue Yang’s hair, gripping him tightly enough to hurt.

Xue Yang falls asleep like that, tangled in the daozhang. Xingchen is up before him, as usual, with a pail of water and washcloth waiting for him.

“Did I hurt you last night?” he asks as Xue Yang wipes the dried blood off his chest and throat. He leans forward slightly, strangely intense.

Xue Yang grins. “Is that our new euphemism? Not as poetic as your old ones, but you can ‘hurt me’ anytime you want, if so.”

Xingchen looks away, fingering his slightly bloodied blindfold. Xue Yang watches him fondly as he dresses and tucks the pail into his qiankun sleeve.

How like the daozhang, to be upset he might have hurt Xue Yang!

It had been seven years since anyone had cared whether he’d lived or died, let alone had a few scratches…

But he’s glad Xiao Xingchen can’t see his slight limp as they start down the road. The last time this had happened, Xingchen, horrified, hadn’t touched him for a week.

Xue Yang slips his arm around Xingchen’s elbow as they walk, claiming the road is rocky but really just looking for an excuse to be closer to him. Xingchen flinches slightly, as if still upset that he’d hurt Xue Yang, and Xue Yang gives him a reassuring squeeze.

“We’re almost in an actual city,” he tells him. “Plenty of ghosts there, I’m sure.”

Xingchen nods, mood lifting as they near the large, bustling town. By the time they pass through the gates he’s almost giddy, pulling Xue Yang along behind him.

They banish three ghosts that afternoon alone and are paid in actual money, for once. Xingchen spares a precious coin to buy Xue Yang a stick of candied hawthorn.

Xue Yang grins so hard his face hurts. He knew it was only a matter of time! The daozhang couldn’t buy him candy till now, given how rarely they were paid in cash…

Xue Yang takes Xiao Xingchen’s hand and runs it up the long red candy. “Is this a hint, daozhang?”

He likes to tease the daozhang like that, make him blush, though in the past, Xingchen had been the one to initiate things between them half the time, once he’d gotten comfortable doing so.

But Xingchen doesn’t laugh or blush, just grips Xue Yang’s arm tightly as if seized by a sudden idea. “Are there people around?”

Xue Yang pulls him into an alley. “Not anymore.”

Xiao Xingchen grabs his face and kisses him on the mouth. His lips are trembling, as if he’s in a state of suppressed excitement. “Is there an inn nearby?”

“We can find one—”

Xue Yang is still spent from last night, and would rather just lie in bed with the daozhang and share the hawthorn, but he lets Xingchen pin him to the bed as soon as their inn room door closes behind them and begin pumping him erect.

He enters Xingchen this time, too sore to allow the daozhang inside him again. From behind, as the daozhang insists. His least favorite position when he’s not on the receiving end, but the daozhang seems desperate to have him inside him like this, for Xue Yang to come inside him, and Xue Yang will do anything to make the daozhang happy.

He slides a hand around Xiao Xingchen’s hip, steadying him. The daozhang’s legs are shaking, and for a moment Xue Yang worries that he’d entered him too fast. He should have told the daozhang no, gone slower—

But, “Don’t stop,” Xingchen whispers. "Don't stop, fill me from the inside, make me be like you—"

Xue Yang leans forward as he rocks his hips, kissing Xingchen’s sharp white shoulder blades, planting kisses up along his throat as his hand reaches down to wrap around Xingchen’s cock, but as his lips touch the suicide scar the daozhang reaches down, grabs his wrist, pulls his hand off his cock.

“Don’t touch me there—” Xingchen manages, and Xue Yang comes at the feel of him gripping his wrist, at him ordering to stop. He fills Xingchen before pulling out and collapsing beside him, breathing hard.

“I knew you’d be back,” he whispers into Xiao Xingchen’s hair, breath ghosting over the scar on his throat. “I knew you would be—I knew it—”

He tries to use the blanket to wipe at the mess leaking out from between Xingchen’s legs but is stopped again.

“Leave it,” the daozhang whispers, sliding a finger into Xue Yang’s mouth, brushing his tongue, pressing his lips to the bruises he’d left on Xue Yang’s throat. “Leave it inside me…”

Xingchen is in the same feverish mood the next day, walking slightly ahead of Xue Yang as they leave the town. Xue Yang had wanted to stay longer in the city, but Xingchen had been suddenly unable to bear being around people.

He tries talking to Xingchen, joking about all the fine things he was going to buy with the money they’d earned, but Xingchen just drifts silently along the road in front of him as if embarrassed over last night’s passion.

Just as he was after our first few times together back at the Coffin House.

There are no towns within a day’s walking distance, and they’re forced to camp out in the forest.

Perhaps Xingchen was right. This is better than being in a town. Just the two of them under the moon and stars. Plenty of time for Xingchen to get over his shyness over what had happened between them…

He’s building a fire when Xiao Xingchen, who had been sitting there and watching him with sightless eyes, suddenly straightens and says, “I can’t do this anymore.”

Xue Yang looks up. “Do what?”

“Can’t go on like this.”

Xue Yang stops fiddling with his flint. “I thought you preferred camping, but we should hit a town tomorrow—”

Xingchen’s face is very white. “Not camping.”

“Not picking up what you’re putting down, daozhang.”

“I remember everything,” says Xiao Xingchen, and Xue Yang freezes.

“You what?”

“I remember who you are. What you’ve done. I don’t remember it, but I know you must have killed A-Qing, I know it…”

Xue Yang drops the flint, taking a deep, steadying breath. “That’s—that’s just a hallucination, some kind of side effect from the resurrection—”

Xingchen’s voice is strangely flat, but every word is like a kick to the gut. “You wiped out the Chang Clan, you killed Song Lan, you drove me to—”

Xue Yang is on his feet. “That’s not true!”

“I remember, Chengmei. And I—I can’t. I tried. I tried so hard! So hard…But I can’t. I can’t…”

“That’s—nothing has changed! I’m still me! I’m still Chengmei—”

Xingchen is on his feet too. “Goodbye, Xue Yang.”

“Wait! Where are you going?”

He begins to drift towards the road.

“You can’t travel on your own! You’re blind—”

“I did fine before I met you, and I will do fine after you.”

“Did so fine you picked me up on the side of the road!”

Xingchen lays a trembling hand on a tree. Flecks of Xue Yang’s blood are still trapped under his fingernails. “Goodbye, Xue Yang.”

Xue Yang kicks at the water pail, anger washing away shock. “Not even going to try to stab me? Remember that, daozhang? Remember sticking Shuanghua in my stomach before asking so much as a single question?!”

Xiao Xingchen starts down the road, ghostlike in the twilight.

Xue Yang follows him, grabs his arm, whirls him around. “I brought you back to life! You can’t just leave like this!”

Xingchen pulls away, recoiling from Xue Yang’s touch as much as trying to get free. “Goodbye, Xue Yang.”

“Fuck you, I’ll make you stay—”

Xue Yang snaps his fingers.

Xingchen collapses in his arms.

He carries him into the woods and gets to work.

***

Xiao Xingchen doesn’t know how long it is before he regains his senses, but he’s conscious of time passing.

He opens his eyes.

It’s late afternoon, sunlight dripping through the thick green canopy, coating the forest like honey and sparkling off a nearby stream.

The shock of the sight sends him leaping to his feet, heart pounding.

He can see—

He looks around, overwhelmed. The drooping green trees with their trailing leaves—the colorful wildflowers—the berry-laden bushes and tall yellow grasses and bright green bamboo thickets—

Near him, propped up against a tree, nestled in the tangled roots, sits a young man dressed in a green inner robe. In his lap is an empty qiankun pouch and beside him is a bloodstained knife.

On one hand is a familiar black glove.

Xingchen goes cold. Looks away. Forces himself to look again.

Chengmei’s face—Xue Yang’s face—is nothing like he’d imagined it.

All these months, Xiao Xingchen had been picturing the grinning baby-faced rogue he’d captured at the Chang Manor. The only half-human imp who’d laughed his way through an arrest, had gloated over the heaped Chang corpses and teased the Jin cultivators as they marched him off for sentencing.

But the young man sitting beside him is nearing thirty, face handsome but haggard, as if from years of grief and labor. His cheeks are thin and pale, once-bold black brows now melancholy, black-and-blue bruises ringing his eyes.

Not his eyes.

Where his eyes had once been…

Empty sockets gape up at Xingchen, dried brown crusting Xue Yang’s cheeks where he’d failed to wipe away the blood.

With a shaking hand, Xiao Xingchen reaches up, touches his eyelids lids, feels the soft curve of eyeballs that do not belong to him.

He makes a choking sound, and Xue Yang stirs.

“Still want to leave, daozhang?” Xue Yang asks. His voice is hoarse, flakes of dried blood caking his lip, as if he’d pierced his tongue with his teeth when he had—when he had...

Heart hammering, Xiao Xingchen sits down on the forest floor. “Xue Yang, you…”

Xue Yang tilts his head back, letting the light of the dying sun cast deep shadows in the empty black holes in his face. He licks at the blood crusting his chapped lips with a dry tongue, scrubbing at the blood on his face with a trembling white hand. “Chengmei.”

“….Chengmei.”

Chengmei smiles. It’s soft and sad and nothing like the demented grin he remembers.

Is that how Chengmei had smiled all those years in the Coffin House?

Or is this someone new, not altogether Chengmei or Xue Yang?

Doesn’t matter. They’re all the same person. The same depraved murderer…

He closes his eyes for a moment, suddenly overwhelmed by the sunlight, and opens them at the sound of rustling.

The young man is patting around for his thermos, shaking hands combing the grass. The thermos lies beside the tree across from him, out of his reach.

Xiao Xingchen watches him struggle. The sun is beginning to set, the golden light turning a melancholy blue.

Soon it will be dark. As usual. Only this time there will be a thousand brilliant points of light in the night sky…

Xue Yang sets his hand down on his knife, nicks his palm, stops looking for the thermos.

Xiao Xingchen hesitates, then uncorks the water bottle and holds it to Xue Yang’s lips. Chengmei’s lips. The young man’s lips…

He watches the young man thirstily downs the entire thermos. Long-healed scars cover his throat and hands and face.

How long had those scars been there? Had he simply failed to notice them when arresting Xue Yang all those years ago?

Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t change the things he’s done…

The young man sets the water bottle down, touching the inner corner of one blood-caked eye socket with a fingertip and quickly drawing it away.

“Daozhang?” he whispers. “Are you still here? I can’t hear you…”

Xiao Xingchen doesn’t move. The young man settles back in the hollow of the tree, trembling fingers playing with his knife, smearing it with blood from his cut. It’s dangerously near his wrists, wrists mottled with dark purple bruises as if from a brutal grip.

Xingchen’s grip…

“Daozhang?” he says again after what seems like an eternity. The night is dark but a yellow crescent moon floats over the treetops, accompanied by millions of bright silver stars. “Daozhang…”

Xingchen doesn’t speak. Breathing shallowly, Xue Yang rests his head against the tree trunk, still fumbling with the knife.

Xiao Xingchen watches him silently, watches the knife tremble in his weak white fingers, then finds himself picking up the blindfold from where it’s wound snakelike in the grass and tying it over the young man’s eyes.

The young man jerks slightly at his touch, then reaches up as he ties it on, brushing his hand with ice-cold fingers stained with dried blood.

“Daozhang,” he whispers, voice cracking. “You stayed.”

Xiao Xingchen closes his eyes, shutting out the yellow moon, the jewel-like stars, the helpless young man with the gaping black eye sockets, then opens his eyes.

“Did it work? I used all of the beast cores…can…can you see?”

“I can see.”

Xue Yang breathes a sigh of relief that comes from somewhere deeper inside him than his lungs. His quivering hand finds Xingchen’s face, traces his jaw, gently brushes the scar on his throat, his other hand resting on the knife. “Are you alright?”

“No.” Xingchen takes the knife away, sets it out of reach. Takes the pail from beside the cold campfire, rises. “But I will be.”

He tries to decide if he’s lying or not as he goes to fill the bucket.

He supposes it doesn’t matter.