"Best." But Lan Wangji invades here, tolerated. Counts his steps and his breaths and the pulse of Wei Ying's shadow-rot, incandescent, the residue of Yiling's death like sand granules and ground seashell when waves retreat after beating the shoreline. Here, Hanguang-Jun is the armour of his qi, bones and flesh curtailing it — lives, a woken candle, yet stoked at the largesse of the Patriarch. Breathes his breath, burns bright in his presence, demure.
Wangji rises, first, wash of silks brushed long behind him. If there is dust to traverse across the universe of Wei Ying's Wen empire, let his robes carry it, let their lace soak, let his steps carve. Let part of him claw and claim all that is Wei Ying's own through brutal physicality.
If not Jiang Yanli, then the dead Wei Ying fears wear names he ill remembers — spilled like pearls from the fevered mouth of young Sizhui, torn from his past through sickness. Uncles, aunts, many not of the blood, but chained to him in the way of stewardship the only weedling of barren grounds earns from each of his elders. If they knew more, Wangji might have arranged their silent altar. Instead, they yield rice and wine and fruit to the nameless passed, to Wen Qing, and to Wen Ning, before they knew the truth of his survival. Now, the ghost shares their table.
He trickles past the teeth of stone, teases their pointed sharpness with his palm. Considers, then, in a fit of whim, gives ghosts what is Bichen's by right: a scratch, a line of red, feeding. Gestures over generosity, with the dead — this alone may yet sate them.
"Use me." This, absently, to Wei Ying. "The guqin will agitate them." They are too many, too old, too confused, too united in their cauldron. "Inquiry will offend." As ever, with victims of slaughter. "Name me as a disciple. I shall work as the Patriarch wishes worked."
And his hand recedes, bled palm tight at his back, righting his posture. A strange thing, to serve ever as Wei Ying's instrument, gladly giving of himself.
no subject
Wangji rises, first, wash of silks brushed long behind him. If there is dust to traverse across the universe of Wei Ying's Wen empire, let his robes carry it, let their lace soak, let his steps carve. Let part of him claw and claim all that is Wei Ying's own through brutal physicality.
If not Jiang Yanli, then the dead Wei Ying fears wear names he ill remembers — spilled like pearls from the fevered mouth of young Sizhui, torn from his past through sickness. Uncles, aunts, many not of the blood, but chained to him in the way of stewardship the only weedling of barren grounds earns from each of his elders. If they knew more, Wangji might have arranged their silent altar. Instead, they yield rice and wine and fruit to the nameless passed, to Wen Qing, and to Wen Ning, before they knew the truth of his survival. Now, the ghost shares their table.
He trickles past the teeth of stone, teases their pointed sharpness with his palm. Considers, then, in a fit of whim, gives ghosts what is Bichen's by right: a scratch, a line of red, feeding. Gestures over generosity, with the dead — this alone may yet sate them.
"Use me." This, absently, to Wei Ying. "The guqin will agitate them." They are too many, too old, too confused, too united in their cauldron. "Inquiry will offend." As ever, with victims of slaughter. "Name me as a disciple. I shall work as the Patriarch wishes worked."
And his hand recedes, bled palm tight at his back, righting his posture. A strange thing, to serve ever as Wei Ying's instrument, gladly giving of himself.