Memory One You are playing a flute. As you play you watch as a man, Jin GuangYao, collapses beside Lan XiChen. Whether because the bleeding and the pain intensified at his arm and stomach or from some other reason, the glisten of tears can be seen in his eyes. But before he has a chance to catch his breath or lick his wounds, Nie MingJue turned around after he pulled his fist back and stared hungrily in his direction.
The harsh, stern expression on his rigid face holds a sense of judgement that was no different from before he died. Even his tears had been scared away as Jin GuangYao turned to Lan XiChen for help, his voice trembling, “Brother…”
Lan XiChen turned the direction in which his blade pointed You and Lan WangJi speed up their melodies as well. But the effects of the whistle has already been overcome. It will be much harder than before for it to take effect again.
At this point, somebody at your side suddenly calls, “Wei WuXian!”
You answer immediately, “What?”
Only after you answer do you realise that the one who called you is Jiang Cheng, your brother. You feel surprised. Jiang Cheng doesn’t respond directly. Instead, he takes something out from his sleeve and tosses it towards you. You catch it by instinct and look, only to find a black, gleaming flute along with a crimson tassel.
It is the ghoul flute, Chen Qing!
It is a flute you are much more familiar with, you don't even have the spare time to feel surprised. Without hesitation, you lift it to your lips and call, “Lan Zhan!”
Lan WangJi nods. No more words have to be exchanged as the notes of the guqin and the flute sound in unison. The former was like a frozen river and the latter like flying birds; one suppressed while the other lured. Under the duet, Nie MingJue’s body wavers before it is finally half-forced to move its steps away from Jin GuangYao.
One stride at a time, controlled by the guqin and the flute, he walks towards an empty coffin, limbs stiff. You and Lan WangJi follow, step by step. The moment he falls into the coffin, you both kick the coffin lid, which lies on the ground, at the same time. The heavy lid flies up before it falls. You flip nimbly on top of the coffin and stick the flute, Chenqing, back at your waist with your left hand and quickly bite into a finger of your right, smoothly painting an entire string of wild, bloody incantations without a moment of pause from top to bottom!
Only then do the beast-like howls from within the coffin die off gradually. Lan WangJi puts his hand over the seven vibrating strings and halts the guqin’s sounds. You let out a light breath. You wait for a while, cautiously. Only after you are finally able to determine that energy no longer comes from below the coffin lid do you stand up, “What a bad temper, right?”
You are much taller standing on the coffin. Lan WangJi put his guqin away and looks up at you with a pair of light eyes. You look down and can't help but touch the fair face with your right hand, adding a few blood-red marks, by accident or on purpose.
Lan WangJi doesn't seem to worry too much about it, “Come down.”
You hop down with a grin before you are caught inside those arms.
Memory Two
“Congratulations. You’re under corpse poisoning.” You announce cheerfully to the group of boys in front of you. They are all teenagers, most of them wearing white robes but with a few other colours dotted amongst them.
One of them speaks up. “How is this something to congratulate someone for?!”
“It’s another life experience.” You explain, “It’d be a conversation starter when you grow older.”
One of the boys, Lan SiZhui spoke, his voice worried. “Young Master Mo, will anything happen to them?”
“Nothing at the moment. When it goes in the bloodstream and travels all around the body and enters the heart, then nothing could help anymore.”
“Wh-what will happen?”
“Whatever happens to corpses will happen to you. If you’re lucky, you’re just going to rot away. If you’re not, you might become a long-haired zombie and you’ll only be able to hop around for the rest of your life.”
All of the poisoned disciples gasp.
“So you want to cure it?” You ask.
Everyone nodded. “If you want to cure it, then listen up. From now on, all of you have to behave and listen to whatever I say. Every one of you.”
Many of the boys aren’t familiar with you but considering that you can intimately call HanGuang-Jun by his birth name as if you were from the same generation, that you were all stood in the middle of a ominously foggy haunted city, and that they were both poisoned and feverish, they felt particularly anxious, instinctively wanting to depend on someone. And, since anything that came out of your mouth somehow has a tone of confidence that eliminated all worries, they can’t help but listen to your words, answering in unison, “Yes!”
Of course you push it further, “You have to do whatever I tell you to. Be obedient. Understood?”
“Yes!”
You clap your hands, “Stand up. Those who aren’t poisoned can carry those who are, preferably over the shoulder. If you can only lift them on your front, remember to position the head and the heart higher than the rest of the body.”
Lan JingYi speaks, “But I can walk. Why do we need to be carried?”
“Brother, if you jump around, your blood is going to circulate quickly, and it will enter your heart sooner. So you shouldn’t move too much. It’s best if you don’t move at all.”
The boys immediately stand as still as boards, allowing their peers to lift them up. Carried on the shoulder of another disciple from his sect, one boy mumbles, “The corpse that sprinkled the poisonous powder really did breathe.”
The boy who carried him complained as he panted on, “I already told you. If it knew how to breathe, then it’d be a living person.”
Lan SiZhui, “Young Master Mo, all of them have been carried. Where will we go?”
Lan SiZhui is the nicest, most obedient, and least worrisome one. You answer him, “At the moment, we definitely won’t be able to leave the city. Let’s knock a few doors.”
“Knock the doors of what?” That is Jin Ling, he is not nice, obedient or un-worrisome.
You take a moment to think. “Is there anything else that has doors except for houses?”
Jin Ling again “You want us to enter these houses? It’s already this dangerous outside. Who knows what things are hidden in these rooms, watching and waiting for us.”
The boys shudder in fear. “True. It’s hard to say whether outside the houses or inside the houses is more dangerous. But, since it’s already like this on the outside, the inside can’t be any worse. Let’s go. There’s no time to lose. We still need to cure the poisoning.”
You instruct them all to hold the sword sheath of the person in front of them, so that they didn’t wander off amid the dense fog. From house to house, you knock on the doors. Jin Ling pounds for awhile, and doesn’t hear any response from within the house, “There doesn’t seem to be anyone inside this one. Let’s go in.”
“Who told you to enter if there wasn’t anyone inside? Continue knocking. We need to go into a house that does have someone inside of it.” You instruct.
Jin Ling, “You want to find one with someone inside?”
“Yes. Knock nicely. Your knocks were too strong. It’s quite rude.”
Eventually you find a house and sweet talk yourself and your young charges inside. The woman who let you in has a hunched back, seemingly elderly though on second glance she can’t be more than middle aged.
You keep your foot in the door so she can’t close it, perfectly prepared to kick the door down if you need to. To get these boys inside.
The room is pitch-black again and you look at the woman. “Manager, why do you not open the lights?”
The old woman shakes her head. “The light is on the table. Light it yourselves.”
Lan SiZhui is closest to a table. He fishes out a fire talisman and lit it up. You regret asking for light.
Within the shop’s central chamber, a roomful of people are crammed inside, shoulders to shoulders and heels to heels. Each and every single one of them had their eyes wide open, staring at you without a single blink!
The boy loosens his hand but you save the oil lamp just as it was about to hit the ground. Calmly brushing it against the burning fire talisman on the other hand, you light it up and set it onto the table,
“Did you make these yourself, Manager? They’re quite well-made.” Because they aren’t people in this room, they are mannequins. Very realistic, but just made of paper.
“Would it be possible for us to borrow your kitchen?”
The old woman almost glowers at the lamp, as if she disliked the presence of any light, “The kitchen is in the back. Use it as you please.” She ducks into another room and slams the door loudly.
Jin Ling exclaims, “There’s definitely something wrong with the hag! You…”
You cut him off. “Okay. Hush. I need somebody to help me. Any volunteers?”
Lan SiZhui hurries, “I can come.”
Lan JingYi is still standing as straight as a stick, “Then what do I do?”
“Remain standing. Don’t move if I don’t tell you to.”
Lan SiZhui follows you to the kitchen in the back. It smells terrible and Lan SiZhui visibly struggles to remain in the room. Jin Ling has followed as well, but he leaps outside again immediately, fanning the air as fast as he can, “What in the world is this?!! What are you doing here instead of thinking up cures?!”
You just smile at him. “Hmm? Perfect timing. How did you know that I was going to call you over? Lend me a hand.”
Jin Ling grumbles, “I’m not here to help! Urgh! Did somebody kill someone but forget to bury them?!”
“Young Mistress Jin, are you coming or not? If you’re coming, then come in and help; if you’re not coming, then go back and tell someone else to come over.”
Jin Ling rages, “Who are you calling Young Mistress Jin? Be careful what you say!” He pinches his nose for a while, as if debating what to do and finally humphs, “Well I want to see what on Earth you’re trying to do.” With this, he storms inside. And on cue you open a chest, filled with old, bad, meat. The source of the stench.
Jin Ling flees the room. You pas him the chest, “Throw it away. Anywhere works, as long as we don’t smell it.”
While he is gone you and your obedient helper draw water and begin cleaning the kitchen.
Jin Ling demands as he returns, “What are you doing?”
Lan SiZhui answers for you. “As you can see, we are cleaning the kitchen hearth.”
“What’s the use of cleaning the hearth? We’re not making food or anything.”
You look at him. “Who told you so? We are making food. You can sweep the dust. Get rid of all the cobwebs up there.”
The boy obeys and you open another chest, making him dart out again. This one is safe though, no smell. The three of you work quickly. The house finally seems a bit more lively, no longer haunted and long-abandoned. In a corner, there is some already-chopped firewood. You pile it into the hearth and set it alight using a fire talisman. You rest a newly washed pot on the hearth and begin to boil water. You pour some glutinous rice out of the second chest, wash all of it, and pour it into the pot.
Jin Ling speaks up, “You’re making congee?”
“Uh-huh.”
Jin Ling hurls the cleaning rag onto the ground. You look at him again, “You see how you get mad after working for just a bit? Look at SiZhui. He worked the hardest and didn’t even say anything yet. What’s wrong with congee?”
Jin Ling, “What’s not wrong with congee? It’s so watery and tasteless! Wait… I’m not mad because there’s something wrong with congee!”
You shrug. “It’s not for you anyways.”
Jin Ling is even more angered, “What did you say? I worked for so long, and I don’t even get any?!”
Lan SiZhui finally speaks up, “Young Master Mo, is it that congee can cure corpse poisoning?”
You smile at him, “Yes, but it’s not the congee that can cure corpse poisoning—it’s the rice. This is folk medicine. Normally, you apply the glutinous rice to the scratched or bitten wound. In the future, if you ever find yourselves in such a situation again, you can try this. Although it’ll hurt a lot, it definitely works efficiently. But, since they swallowed corpse poisoning powder instead of being scratched or bitten, we can only make some rice congee for them to eat up.”
Lan SiZhui seems to realise something, “So that was why you intended to enter a house with someone inside. Only a house with someone living inside could have a kitchen. Only a kitchen could have glutinous rice.”
Jin Ling argues though, “Who knows how long the rice has been here for? Can you still eat it? This kitchen hasn’t been used in at least a year. There’s dust everywhere and the meat’s even rotten. Don’t tell me that the hag hasn’t eaten for an entire year. It’s impossible that she has practiced inedia. How did she survive?”
You don’t have clear answers “It’s either that nobody has been living here and that she really isn’t the shopkeeper at all, or that she simply doesn’t need to eat.”
Lan SiZhui lowers his voice, “If she does not need to eat, then she would be dead. But the old woman clearly breathes.”
Using a spatula, you nonchalantly stir the pot of congee, mixing in ingredients from various bottles and jars, “Right. You haven’t finished explaining. Why did you come to Yi City together? It wasn’t just by chance that you ran into each other and then us, was it?”
Wei Wuxian | Perky
Themes: music, family, mentoring, sacrifice
Memory One You are playing a flute. As you play you watch as a man, Jin GuangYao, collapses beside Lan XiChen. Whether because the bleeding and the pain intensified at his arm and stomach or from some other reason, the glisten of tears can be seen in his eyes. But before he has a chance to catch his breath or lick his wounds, Nie MingJue turned around after he pulled his fist back and stared hungrily in his direction.
The harsh, stern expression on his rigid face holds a sense of judgement that was no different from before he died. Even his tears had been scared away as Jin GuangYao turned to Lan XiChen for help, his voice trembling, “Brother…”
Lan XiChen turned the direction in which his blade pointed You and Lan WangJi speed up their melodies as well. But the effects of the whistle has already been overcome. It will be much harder than before for it to take effect again.
At this point, somebody at your side suddenly calls, “Wei WuXian!”
You answer immediately, “What?”
Only after you answer do you realise that the one who called you is Jiang Cheng, your brother. You feel surprised. Jiang Cheng doesn’t respond directly. Instead, he takes something out from his sleeve and tosses it towards you. You catch it by instinct and look, only to find a black, gleaming flute along with a crimson tassel.
It is the ghoul flute, Chen Qing!
It is a flute you are much more familiar with, you don't even have the spare time to feel surprised. Without hesitation, you lift it to your lips and call, “Lan Zhan!”
Lan WangJi nods. No more words have to be exchanged as the notes of the guqin and the flute sound in unison. The former was like a frozen river and the latter like flying birds; one suppressed while the other lured. Under the duet, Nie MingJue’s body wavers before it is finally half-forced to move its steps away from Jin GuangYao.
One stride at a time, controlled by the guqin and the flute, he walks towards an empty coffin, limbs stiff. You and Lan WangJi follow, step by step. The moment he falls into the coffin, you both kick the coffin lid, which lies on the ground, at the same time. The heavy lid flies up before it falls. You flip nimbly on top of the coffin and stick the flute, Chenqing, back at your waist with your left hand and quickly bite into a finger of your right, smoothly painting an entire string of wild, bloody incantations without a moment of pause from top to bottom!
Only then do the beast-like howls from within the coffin die off gradually. Lan WangJi puts his hand over the seven vibrating strings and halts the guqin’s sounds. You let out a light breath. You wait for a while, cautiously. Only after you are finally able to determine that energy no longer comes from below the coffin lid do you stand up, “What a bad temper, right?”
You are much taller standing on the coffin. Lan WangJi put his guqin away and looks up at you with a pair of light eyes. You look down and can't help but touch the fair face with your right hand, adding a few blood-red marks, by accident or on purpose.
Lan WangJi doesn't seem to worry too much about it, “Come down.”
You hop down with a grin before you are caught inside those arms.
Memory Two
“Congratulations. You’re under corpse poisoning.” You announce cheerfully to the group of boys in front of you. They are all teenagers, most of them wearing white robes but with a few other colours dotted amongst them.
One of them speaks up. “How is this something to congratulate someone for?!”
“It’s another life experience.” You explain, “It’d be a conversation starter when you grow older.”
One of the boys, Lan SiZhui spoke, his voice worried. “Young Master Mo, will anything happen to them?”
“Nothing at the moment. When it goes in the bloodstream and travels all around the body and enters the heart, then nothing could help anymore.”
“Wh-what will happen?”
“Whatever happens to corpses will happen to you. If you’re lucky, you’re just going to rot away. If you’re not, you might become a long-haired zombie and you’ll only be able to hop around for the rest of your life.”
All of the poisoned disciples gasp.
“So you want to cure it?” You ask.
Everyone nodded. “If you want to cure it, then listen up. From now on, all of you have to behave and listen to whatever I say. Every one of you.”
Many of the boys aren’t familiar with you but considering that you can intimately call HanGuang-Jun by his birth name as if you were from the same generation, that you were all stood in the middle of a ominously foggy haunted city, and that they were both poisoned and feverish, they felt particularly anxious, instinctively wanting to depend on someone. And, since anything that came out of your mouth somehow has a tone of confidence that eliminated all worries, they can’t help but listen to your words, answering in unison, “Yes!”
Of course you push it further, “You have to do whatever I tell you to. Be obedient. Understood?”
“Yes!”
You clap your hands, “Stand up. Those who aren’t poisoned can carry those who are, preferably over the shoulder. If you can only lift them on your front, remember to position the head and the heart higher than the rest of the body.”
Lan JingYi speaks, “But I can walk. Why do we need to be carried?”
“Brother, if you jump around, your blood is going to circulate quickly, and it will enter your heart sooner. So you shouldn’t move too much. It’s best if you don’t move at all.”
The boys immediately stand as still as boards, allowing their peers to lift them up. Carried on the shoulder of another disciple from his sect, one boy mumbles, “The corpse that sprinkled the poisonous powder really did breathe.”
The boy who carried him complained as he panted on, “I already told you. If it knew how to breathe, then it’d be a living person.”
Lan SiZhui, “Young Master Mo, all of them have been carried. Where will we go?”
Lan SiZhui is the nicest, most obedient, and least worrisome one. You answer him, “At the moment, we definitely won’t be able to leave the city. Let’s knock a few doors.”
“Knock the doors of what?” That is Jin Ling, he is not nice, obedient or un-worrisome.
You take a moment to think. “Is there anything else that has doors except for houses?”
Jin Ling again “You want us to enter these houses? It’s already this dangerous outside. Who knows what things are hidden in these rooms, watching and waiting for us.”
The boys shudder in fear. “True. It’s hard to say whether outside the houses or inside the houses is more dangerous. But, since it’s already like this on the outside, the inside can’t be any worse. Let’s go. There’s no time to lose. We still need to cure the poisoning.”
You instruct them all to hold the sword sheath of the person in front of them, so that they didn’t wander off amid the dense fog. From house to house, you knock on the doors. Jin Ling pounds for awhile, and doesn’t hear any response from within the house, “There doesn’t seem to be anyone inside this one. Let’s go in.”
“Who told you to enter if there wasn’t anyone inside? Continue knocking. We need to go into a house that does have someone inside of it.” You instruct.
Jin Ling, “You want to find one with someone inside?”
“Yes. Knock nicely. Your knocks were too strong. It’s quite rude.”
Eventually you find a house and sweet talk yourself and your young charges inside. The woman who let you in has a hunched back, seemingly elderly though on second glance she can’t be more than middle aged.
You keep your foot in the door so she can’t close it, perfectly prepared to kick the door down if you need to. To get these boys inside.
The room is pitch-black again and you look at the woman. “Manager, why do you not open the lights?”
The old woman shakes her head. “The light is on the table. Light it yourselves.”
Lan SiZhui is closest to a table. He fishes out a fire talisman and lit it up. You regret asking for light.
Within the shop’s central chamber, a roomful of people are crammed inside, shoulders to shoulders and heels to heels. Each and every single one of them had their eyes wide open, staring at you without a single blink!
The boy loosens his hand but you save the oil lamp just as it was about to hit the ground. Calmly brushing it against the burning fire talisman on the other hand, you light it up and set it onto the table,
“Did you make these yourself, Manager? They’re quite well-made.” Because they aren’t people in this room, they are mannequins. Very realistic, but just made of paper.
“Would it be possible for us to borrow your kitchen?”
The old woman almost glowers at the lamp, as if she disliked the presence of any light, “The kitchen is in the back. Use it as you please.” She ducks into another room and slams the door loudly.
Jin Ling exclaims, “There’s definitely something wrong with the hag! You…”
You cut him off. “Okay. Hush. I need somebody to help me. Any volunteers?”
Lan SiZhui hurries, “I can come.”
Lan JingYi is still standing as straight as a stick, “Then what do I do?”
“Remain standing. Don’t move if I don’t tell you to.”
Lan SiZhui follows you to the kitchen in the back. It smells terrible and Lan SiZhui visibly struggles to remain in the room. Jin Ling has followed as well, but he leaps outside again immediately, fanning the air as fast as he can, “What in the world is this?!! What are you doing here instead of thinking up cures?!”
You just smile at him. “Hmm? Perfect timing. How did you know that I was going to call you over? Lend me a hand.”
Jin Ling grumbles, “I’m not here to help! Urgh! Did somebody kill someone but forget to bury them?!”
“Young Mistress Jin, are you coming or not? If you’re coming, then come in and help; if you’re not coming, then go back and tell someone else to come over.”
Jin Ling rages, “Who are you calling Young Mistress Jin? Be careful what you say!” He pinches his nose for a while, as if debating what to do and finally humphs, “Well I want to see what on Earth you’re trying to do.” With this, he storms inside. And on cue you open a chest, filled with old, bad, meat. The source of the stench.
Jin Ling flees the room. You pas him the chest, “Throw it away. Anywhere works, as long as we don’t smell it.”
While he is gone you and your obedient helper draw water and begin cleaning the kitchen.
Jin Ling demands as he returns, “What are you doing?”
Lan SiZhui answers for you. “As you can see, we are cleaning the kitchen hearth.”
“What’s the use of cleaning the hearth? We’re not making food or anything.”
You look at him. “Who told you so? We are making food. You can sweep the dust. Get rid of all the cobwebs up there.”
The boy obeys and you open another chest, making him dart out again. This one is safe though, no smell. The three of you work quickly. The house finally seems a bit more lively, no longer haunted and long-abandoned. In a corner, there is some already-chopped firewood. You pile it into the hearth and set it alight using a fire talisman. You rest a newly washed pot on the hearth and begin to boil water. You pour some glutinous rice out of the second chest, wash all of it, and pour it into the pot.
Jin Ling speaks up, “You’re making congee?”
“Uh-huh.”
Jin Ling hurls the cleaning rag onto the ground. You look at him again, “You see how you get mad after working for just a bit? Look at SiZhui. He worked the hardest and didn’t even say anything yet. What’s wrong with congee?”
Jin Ling, “What’s not wrong with congee? It’s so watery and tasteless! Wait… I’m not mad because there’s something wrong with congee!”
You shrug. “It’s not for you anyways.”
Jin Ling is even more angered, “What did you say? I worked for so long, and I don’t even get any?!”
Lan SiZhui finally speaks up, “Young Master Mo, is it that congee can cure corpse poisoning?”
You smile at him, “Yes, but it’s not the congee that can cure corpse poisoning—it’s the rice. This is folk medicine. Normally, you apply the glutinous rice to the scratched or bitten wound. In the future, if you ever find yourselves in such a situation again, you can try this. Although it’ll hurt a lot, it definitely works efficiently. But, since they swallowed corpse poisoning powder instead of being scratched or bitten, we can only make some rice congee for them to eat up.”
Lan SiZhui seems to realise something, “So that was why you intended to enter a house with someone inside. Only a house with someone living inside could have a kitchen. Only a kitchen could have glutinous rice.”
Jin Ling argues though, “Who knows how long the rice has been here for? Can you still eat it? This kitchen hasn’t been used in at least a year. There’s dust everywhere and the meat’s even rotten. Don’t tell me that the hag hasn’t eaten for an entire year. It’s impossible that she has practiced inedia. How did she survive?”
You don’t have clear answers “It’s either that nobody has been living here and that she really isn’t the shopkeeper at all, or that she simply doesn’t need to eat.”
Lan SiZhui lowers his voice, “If she does not need to eat, then she would be dead. But the old woman clearly breathes.”
Using a spatula, you nonchalantly stir the pot of congee, mixing in ingredients from various bottles and jars, “Right. You haven’t finished explaining. Why did you come to Yi City together? It wasn’t just by chance that you ran into each other and then us, was it?”