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one.
Wei Wuxian first hears the song while he’s at the Cloud Recesses. It’s sometime after his punishment is up in the Library Pavilion, where he somehow managed to turn Lan Wangji’s dislike of him into full-blown hatred.
He is playing around with Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang in a nearby stream when he hears it. A deep voice humming softly. Wei Wuxian has a basic understanding of music, although nothing like the GusuLan sect probably does, considering their preference for musical cultivation.
The song is pretty, Wei Wuxian thinks. The notes leave him with a feeling of longing, of yearnfulness for something Wei Wuxian can’t place.
“Do you hear that?” he asks Jiang Cheng.
Jiang Cheng pauses. “What? Hear what?”
“Do you hear that?” Wei Wuxian asks again. “Someone is singing.”
Jiang Cheng looks even more confused. “What singing? What are you talking about? All I hear is the water.”
“No,” Wei Wuxian says, shaking his head. The voice continues, still maintaining the same quiet that is impossibly loud in Wei Wuxian‘s ears. “Someone is definitely singing right now.”
Nie Huaisang perks up. “Wei-xiong! Could that be your soulmate’s song?”
Oh. Wei Wuxian isn’t unfamiliar of the concept. He’s heard of the soulmate song before from Jiang Yanli before, a bedtime story to help put him to sleep at night when he was still coming to terms with his new family and home at Lotus Pier. The soulmate song, she had told him, is a song for just you and your soulmate. Sometimes it is a song that already exists, sometimes it is a song that someone in the soulmate pair creates. But once it is made, if either in the soulmate pair sings it, the other will hear it in their head.
It’s a nice thought, a confirmation that someone, somewhere, is his fated other.
“You might be right about that,” Wei Wuxian tells Nie Huaisang.
Jiang Cheng scowls. “Cut out that creepy smile. It’s fucking gross. I hope you never meet your soulmate.”
Wei Wuxian raises an eyebrow. “What? Jealous that you’ll be single for the rest of your life and I won’t?”
Jiang Cheng growls and bodily pushes Wei Wuxian into the water. Wei Wuxian, as the more mature and older of the two, retaliates by pulling his brother in right along with him.
two.
Despite his birth parents dying from it, Wei Wuxian had never come to terms with the dangers of being a cultivator until he and Lan Wangji are trapped with the Xuanwu. They manage to kill it, yes, but there is still no sign of Jiang Cheng or the others coming back from them and neither of them have eaten in days. Inedia can only take one so far.
And that’s without mentioning that Lan Wangji was still walking around with a broken leg, hastily wrapped with a piece of bark and Wei Wuxian’s brand mark on his chest had long since started to blister. He’s sure the two of them are also covered in scratches and minor cuts.
The scent of blood and swampy water made the air heavy around them, and being so close to the fire left Wei Wuxian lightheaded.
Wei Wuxian tries to make conversation, asking after Lan Wangji, how he is faring after what happened to the Cloud Recesses. His fever is making his head spin.
“Do not fall asleep!” Lan Wangji says sharply.
Wei Wuxian blinks heavily. He props himself up against the tree weakly. “Then sing me a song,” he says.
Surprisingly, Lan Wangji opens his mouth to do just that. Instantly, his thoughts empty and a familiar tune fills his head. His soulmate must be singing now too.
It’s strange timing, Wei Wuxian thinks to himself, that his soulmate happens to sing at the same moment as Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian closes his eyes. He’s sure whatever Lan Wangji is singing to him is equally as beautiful, but right now, all he wants to hear is his soulmate’s soothing tune.
“That’s a nice song,” he says on the edge of deliriousness. “What’s it called?”
He opens his eyes just slightly. He thinks he sees Lan Wangji say something. The edges of his vision are blackening. “What did you say?” he asks him.
Wei Wuxian has no idea whether or not Lan Wangji answers him. He blinks once, twice, and then his eyes close as the last of his consciousness leaves him.
-
When Wei Wuxian wakes up, back in Lotus Pier with the relieved look on Jiang Cheng as he hovers over him. The last thing he can remember is seeing Lan Wangji’s face illuminated by the dying flames. The last thing he can remember hearing is the song in his head.
Then, the burning of Lotus Pier takes place, and all thoughts of Lan Wangji and his soulmate’s song escapes from his mind completely.
three.
The core transplant is excruciating. More painful than Wei Wuxian could have imagined. He grips Wen Ning’s offered hand as hard as he can. It must be hurting him, Wei Wuxian thinks. He knows his own strength, and that he is not weak by any means, so he’s surprised that despite his death grip, all Wen Ning does is shift uncomfortably. It’s a little impressive.
Wei Wuxian’s breath hitches as Wen Qing continues to poke around his open chest. He doesn’t know how long has passed since the operation had started, but several hours ago, Wen Qing had declared that the operation was halfway through.
This is for Jiang Cheng. He promised Madame Yu he would give up his life for Jiang Cheng’s safety. He was not going to deny a dead woman her last wish. He knows that he will never be able to pay back what they’ve done for him completely, but with this, he will pay back his debt to the Jiang family to the fullest extent that he is able to. It’s worth it. It will all be worth it. He can survive without a golden core, he reminds himself. Jiang Cheng cannot. This is why he is doing this. This is why it must be done.
More than the pain, it’s the sense of loss that hits him the hardest. The feeling of his entire soul being ripped out of him. It leaves him emptier inside than he ever could have imagined. Wei Wuxian clamps his mouth shut to muffle the scream that escapes him.
Wei Wuxian can survive without a core, but he doesn’t know if he can survive this. He bites his lip, hard. But dying here is not an option, he thinks to himself. He has to survive, to protect Jiang Cheng and his shijie, if nothing else.
So he does the only thing he can that will distract him. He hums the song he’s heard so long ago. Back at the Cloud Recesses, and then again with Lan Zhan with the Xuanwu. If Wei Wuxian could, he would laugh at the fact that despite his horrid memory, the basic tune of the song comes to him easily. He hums to the best of his ability, through gritted teeth and wheezed out breaths.
He hums, he hums, he hums.
It doesn’t help.
four.
Life at Burial Mounds is draining. The resentful energy seeps into everything Wei Wuxian does, lying heavy on his shoulders as he tries to sustain the forty Wen remnants he managed to rescue from the Jin concentration camps.
Today is slower than most. There are no errands in dire need of getting done, no houses that needed repairing, and Wei Wuxian is done testing out new talismans and creations for the day. With his rare free time, he would have simply called it a night and head to bed early, or make one last round in checking after all of the Wen remnants.
But word had gotten out that Wei Wuxian was sitting around idly, more specifically to A-Yuan, and the three-year-old had come running from his Granny’s hold to spend time with him.
Not that Wei Wuxian minds in the slightest, despite feeling dead on his feet.
Besides the frequent flirting he did with the villagers while he was a Jiang sect disciple, he had never properly thought about settling down with someone, marrying, having a child. Now, more than ever, the thought of having his own family is a pipe dream.
But A-Yuan... he is the closest thing Wei Wuxian has to a little one of his own, despite Wen Qing’s frequent complaints that he is much too irresponsible to raise A-Yuan properly. And sure, he taught A-Yuan some less than appropriate things for a child his age, but sue him! Wei Wuxian deserved to have a little amusement in his life.
“What have you been doing today?” he asks.
Immediately, A-Yuan launches in a detailed summary of his day, best he can for a three-year-old.
Wei Wuxian leans back on his palms, making commentary when appropriate. “You had a really busy day, huh?”
A-Yuan nods. He flops onto Wei Wuxian’s lap without a care. “ But Xian-gege, is there anything we can do right now? I want to play with you!”
Wei Wuxian pulls the child closer to him so that his face is practically buried in Wei Wuxian’s stomach. A child with no sins but the name that was given to him. He runs a hand through the boy’s short hair and smiles tiredly. “I can do you one better than that,” he says. “How about I sing you a song?”
five.
Wei Wuxian is about to die. It almost makes him want to laugh, that there’s so much bitterness in his chest that the thought can’t possibly make his heart ache more than it already is.
He hears the roars coming from the base of Burial Mounds. He smiles weakly at the fact. Even when trying to kill him, they are too frightened to storm the place. What is there to storm, he wonders. Everyone is gone. He may as well go out to greet his guests.
He huffs amusedly at his own sordid humor.
Wei Wuxian begins his slow walk outside, to where the rest of the world waits. He begins to hum, the same notes he’s been hearing since he was seventeen. His soulmate’s song. It’s a goodbye song more than anything, to his fated other he’d never had the chance of meeting.
He wonders what they are doing while they hear his voice in their head. He wonders if he will see them amongst the masses of people ready to kill him at first sight. He wonders if they know their soulmate is the Yiling Patriarch, the most hated being in the cultivation world.
Well, Wei Wuxian thinks to himself. Whoever they are, they won’t have to worry about it for much longer.
He sings out the last note, and goes out to meet his fate.
six.
Wei Wuxian is somehow alive.
Head pounding and body aching, but unmistakably alive.
He’s taken care of the Mo family by request of the late Mo Xuanyu-- well, by association, if the healed marks on his hand mean anything. He’s seen Jiang Cheng, Jin Ling, and Lan Wangji all at once by some ironic twist. And now he was stuck in the Cloud Recesses until further notice, trapped in the jingshi with no jade token to leave.
He knows, distantly, that he and his soulmate have no connection anymore. That even if he sings their song now, there is no way that his soulmate will hear it.
But he can’t deny the way the song left him content, almost happy despite the conditions of Burial Mounds. He had played it for Wen Ning atop Dafan Mountain, desperate to calm him lest Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan caught him and finished him off for good. He’s certain he’s not remembering it correctly.
Maybe... maybe if he meets his soulmate, he can ask them to play it for him someday. He scoffs at the thought. As if they would ever accept him as the former Yiling Patriarch. Maybe Wei Wuxian should just stay as Mo Xuanyu forever. No one would have to know that he was Wei Wuxian in his past life. Lan Wangji, at least, seems to like Mo Xuanyu much more than he ever liked Wei Wuxian.
He hums the song quietly as he inspects the jingshi. It is pristine and clean just as expected of a man who earned the title of Hanguang-Jun. But then, he comes across a loose floorboard. He grins. Crouching down, he yanks it off with all his might. His eyes widen as he registers the contents underneath it.
Jackpot!
+ 1
“How long did you know it was me?” Wei Wuxian asks Lan Wangji. The two are cuddled in bed, Lan Wangji on his back with Wei Wuxian on top of him. Wei Wuxian rests his chin on Lan Wangji’s chest. “Hm?”
Lan Wangji raises an eyebrow.
“About me being your soulmate,” Wei Wuxian clarifies.
Lan Wangji ponders the question. “Sunshot Campaign,” he finally says.
Wei Wuxian nods. That makes sense, considering the first time he had sung it had been right before the crux of the war. “And how long did you know you were in love with me?” he asks teasingly.
Lan Wangji’s ears start to color, to Wei Wuxian’s delight. “Cloud Recesses.”
Wei Wuxian gasps. “When I was fifteen? That long ago?! And you didn’t tell me?!” Wei Wuxian makes an offended noise.
“You couldn’t figure it out yourself?” Lan Wangji replies, just as accusingly.
Wei Wuxian frowns. “That’s why you should have told me!”
Lan Wangji shakes his head. “You did not reciprocate back then. It is alright.”
Wei Wuxian gives in to that argument. “But still! There was no chance of me reciprocating if I never knew! And besides, I knew for certain that you hated me back then!”
“Never hated.”
“I know that now,” Wei Wuxian says.
“It does not matter how Wei Ying feels towards me. I will always love you.”
Wei Wuxian inhales sharply. His chest feels warm, his cheeks warmer. His throat feels tight at the declaration. “Enough of that. You’ll make me cry if you keep talking like this,” he threatens lightly.
Lan Wangji does not look bothered by the fact. He pulls Wei Wuxian forward so that he can lean in to kiss his forehead, then his eyelids, the tip of his nose, and lastly a lingering kiss on his lips.
Wei Wuxian cannot take it anymore. He rolls off of Lan Wangji and moves to grab Chenqing from the floor next to the bed. “I may not be able to hear it in my head anymore, and it is very much past your silly GusuLan curfew... but Hanguang-Jun, Lan Wangji, Lan Zhan, my Lan-er-gege,” he calls out. He waits until Lan Wangji is sitting up as well and looking at him once more. “Would you like to play our song with me?”
Lan Wangji’s lips turn up. “Mn.”
Wei Wuxian grins, and brings the dizi up to his lips.