#he's like.....the guardian protector of cloud recesses' backyard

[kachawo]

Have you heard? There's a ghost in the forests of Cloud Recesses.

He's been there since the siege of the Burial Mounds.

A beautiful man with long white hair, tied up in a ponytail with a bright red ribbon, wearing pristine white robes that looked unfit on him.

"How do you know so much? That sounds awfully detailed!"

"That's because I've seen him before!"

He wasn't harmful. If he was, the ghost would have been eliminated a long time ago. Unwelcome in the realm of the clouds.

Rather, he was quite.... gentle.

The ghost was quiet, it was already rare to catch a glimpse of him. Maybe it was shy?

Despite all the rumors within the Cloud Recesses, this ghost was actually very kind.

He wasn't evil like the Grandmaster had said. Not dangerous like the sect leader has heeded.

In fact, he was just like Hanguang-jun had described him as.

The first time a-yuan came in contact with the ghost, he was in the bamboo forest crying.

He scored the lowest in his swordsmanship class, he struggled to hold his wooden sword that he caught splinters.

Instead of getting it treated by the healers he left and hid in the back hills. He sat in front of a river, dipped his wounded hands in the colt water and hissed.

It wasn't a big wound, so a-yuan thinks it'll heal easily.

But it doesn't stop the warm droplets that fall from his eyes.

He stays like that, hugging his knees with hurt hands and sniffing his sobs, when suddenly he hears a rustle of the leaves.

The ghost watched him with unfocused eyes, it felt a bit eerie, he stared at a-yuan silently that the child almost forgot abot his own tears because of fear.

A few minutes later, the ghost continues forward, away and out of the child's sight.

A-yuan sighs in relief, but then winces when he moves his hands, he grasped them too tight, now they're bleeding a bit more.

Suddenly he finds himself a bunny dropped into his wounded hands.

Surprised, he almost flinches, but afraid of frightening the young animal, A-yuan forces himself not too.

Ghostly hands take the bunny into their arms and move them to a-yuan's lap, then they find themselves softly hovering over the child's hands.

When A-yuan looks up, he finds the same ghost from earlier, kneeling on the grass and looking at his wounds with faceless concern.

His finger, the child thinks, are cold. Just like Hanguang-jun's.

But at the same time it felt the warmest a-yuan has ever felt, it was soft, gentle. It was comforting.

A-yuan finds that his lap was now two bunnies full, then three, then four. Then as he looks at the ghost again, a fifth. It seems the ghost had come back with company, maybe to comfort the crying child.

The bunnies seem to agree with this plan, happily sitting in his lap and staying still as the child stroked their white fur.

With his lap and hands occupied, the ghost seems to decide that he should place a bunny on his head, and does exactly so.

A-yuan laughs into his now drying tears.

He could get used to this.

There's a ghost in the back hills. He's kind and harmless.

The ghost helps guide children back to their homes.

When they don't have one, he makes one for them.

There's a ghost in the back hills of Cloud Recesses, he accompanies the bunnies so they aren't alone.

He makes the birds sing for someone who cries.

He gives homes to those who don't have them.

There's a ghost.

[Inspired by @yinyuexielie 's ghost wei wuxian au]