Chapter Text
Luàn Zàng Gǎng. Living up to names. Messy, vengeance, dead. Wei-Wu-Xian. No one could envy him.
Cold. Body.
Ice.
Light.
Days of lapping up a creek. Hunger — eating for living, barely. I am alive. I am alive, but I’m no different from you.
Shijie, crying — bring him back, promise me, bring him back —
The sensation of Jiang Cheng’s tears. Cold. Unable to breathe — 你凭什么 Wei Wuxian? Wei Wuxian. Wei Ying —
Yu Furen’s growl.
Liu Shidi. Wei Wuxian never...never did see him die.
Da Shixiong!
All these wanting voices. Son of a servant. Only has a name when he is needed.
A-Ying.
I SHOULD HAVE SAVED YOU.
Take good care of A-Li and A-Cheng.
A-Ying.
MY FAULT SHOULD HAVE SAVED YOU — MY FAULT SAVED YOU SHOULD HAVE MY FAULT —
Wei Ying.
Wei Ying.
The corpses are shambling. They want. Every part of him shatters, like they are eating him alive.
Sometimes, consciousness returns. Because he is a dead man walking. He is dead, and he isn’t done.
The 乱葬 understands him. But even more, he understands them. No one has ever come here and understood them before. They just died.
Lan Zhan is so bright it hurts. Inside of him, burning his home down. Such piercing golden eyes.
Wei Ying.
Lan Zhan doesn’t need anything from him. Lan Zhan doesn’t want. Lan Zhan doesn’t want anything to do with him.
It doesn’t matter what trickles down his throat and feeds him if he lives. It doesn’t matter where it hurts if he isn’t dead.
The warmth of an alleyway in winter.
“Wei Ying.”
Wei-Wu-Xian. No one envies him where he is. No one wants to be here.
“Wei Ying!”
And the sun rises again, but it’s blinding, and he can’t but look away.
He is held, anyway, by warm snow.
“Lan Zhan.”
He keeps his face turned away. This is a dream. This is a trick. This is just Luàn Zàng Gǎng. That’s it. That’s it. Just Luàn Zàng Gǎng and its mess of vengeance.
It is uncomfortable to be held so gently by a human being. To be touched in a way that isn’t meant to break his skin. But he cannot shy away.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“Wei Ying,” says Lan Zhan. He is right in front of him, around him.
“It’s been so long,” Wei Wuxian cracks out. He can still speak human speech.
“You should not be here.” This is it. Lan Zhan wants to take him away. And he’s angry. Rage smolders in every inch of his jade face.
Lan Zhan doesn’t understand.
“This is the only way.” But Wei Wuxian cannot pry his own hands from Lan Zhan’s robe. “Please, trust me, I have nothing left. Lián Huā Wù. Jiang Cheng. Shijie.”
A new something in Lan Zhan; not because of his face, but because Wei Wuxian hears how painfully his pulse orbits around Wei Wuxian’s body, like Wei Wuxian is the coveted golden core that no longer is.
“Just a little longer,” he either pleads or demands, voice rough with disuse. Maybe the spirits are speaking instead.
But, he learns to hear his own voice, even when his head will never be clear of this place again.
He learns each of the thousands of thousands of stories. He becomes a galaxy to home the dead.
For three months, he stays. Lan Zhan stays with him.