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He arrived at dusk. Too late to start looking, really. Three years too late, his mind supplied bitterly.
He sighed. On some level, he knew that he should have stopped to rest in the last town. Stayed the night. Come in the morning.
But he was so close… What if the one night made a difference?
That didn’t make any sense. He knew it didn’t make any sense. After three years, with not a mention, not a whisper that he was here, how could one short night possibly make a difference?
But still. Once he’d crossed the border into Qishan, his heart had tightened, beat more quickly. He couldn’t have slept if he had tried.
Now he stood, looking down the cliff, the fire red glow of what had once been called Nightless City was all the light that greeted him. Though did he… had he felt an echo? Could he have seen?
A smiling face. Exhausted. Resigned. Falling away. Down… down…
He closed his eyes, breath catching. He summoned his guqin and sat. Played. Hoped.
“Wei Ying. Please. If you are there…” he paused.
In three years, he’d had plenty of time to think over what he should have said. Shouldn’t have said. Done. Not done.
But now, faced with even the prospect of reaching out to him, of saying something that could draw him close, but might push him away… What could he say, that he had not already said?
Come back? Come with me? The words had not worked before, not back then, when Lan Wangji could reach out, could hold on.
When he hadn’t. Couldn’t. And now all he had was the words. Words that had never been enough.
He played a few more chords. Simplistic, straightforward. Meaningless.
He sighed and stood, sweeping his guqin away again.
Maybe he just hadn’t found the right words. Or the right spot? Or maybe he’s truly–
That voice was quieted quickly.
He looked over the cliff, to the place he knew had been searched, thoroughly, all those years ago but…
But the Burial Mounds had been presumed empty too. And Wangji had still found a-Yuan there.
It was completely dark now. But this would not stop Wangji. He could not wait another night. Another night, maybe two, and a-Yuan might not have made it. He couldn’t risk it.
If you had searched the cliff base first, instead of fleeing to the Burial Mounds, what might you have found then?
Would a-Yuan have survived if he had looked for Wei Ying first? Maybe he would have. If he had known it would be to search here or the Burial Mounds, never both, would he have chosen different?
Would you have left a-Yuan?
He shook the thought away. He would keep moving. Keep searching. Why had he gone to the Burial Mounds anyway?
Because if he had survived, that’s where he would be… Because if he was gone, you didn’t want to see him, broken. And now you’ll never see him at all. Because the Burial Mounds were where you didn’t look for him last time, let him suffer for three months, failed to save him…
But that was just it. Wei Ying had been gone before.
But he had come back. He always came back.
For his brother. For his sister. For him, a small part of him dared to hope.
So why hadn’t Wei Ying come back for the child?
Lan Wangji swallowed as he worked his way around, down the cliffside, refusing to put together the truth of that statement, but making the connection in his refusal regardless. The path had eroded without the Wens there to maintain it. Just the kind of difficult to reach place that Wei Ying often found himself in.
He would keep looking, as long as it took.
He sat at the base of the cliff. The place where the Yiling Patriarch had fallen taking top priority when it came to cleansing even with all the war torn places still desperate for help.
But it still felt musty. Like a town abandoned after a haunting not prestigious or lucrative enough to attract the attention of a major sect.
Lan Wangji thought of the Burial Mounds. How full of life of peace it had been, how Wei Ying had, alone, survived there, then thrived.
He thought of a-Yuan, whose smiling face would not be gracing the Cloud Recesses if not for Wei Ying. He thought of his own demands, that Wei Ying return with him to the Cloud Recesses. That he stop whatever it was that he was doing, when it was so clear that all he wanted was to be left alone.
What if Wei Ying didn’t want to come back? To see him again?
But what if that was only because Lan Wangji had been too forceful? Had not shown Wei Ying that he still had someone who believed in him, even then?
He knew what he would play. Would play here, would return to the unprotected Burial Mounds to play, would approach Yunmeng. Or the Unclean Realm. Or the Xuanwu cavern. Or Dafan Mountain. Or wherever else he needed to try. To be sure he was heard, even if…
Wei Ying. There’s no need to reply, I only ask that you hear me. I’m sorry. I believe you. I will never forget.
But somewhere he knew that whether the failure to respond was by choice or genuine absence, the result was still the same.
This thought lay deep though. Muffled. So he repeated the phrases. Over and over, until the sky brightened, the sun having climbed high enough to peak into the deep, narrow chasm where Lan Wangji played.
The evidence of how late he was all around him – not a bone, not a skeleton in sight. And with each chord, each pause, it was only silence that greeted him.