The caravan leader was an unpleasant man with breath that reeked of alcohol and greedy eyes that glinted like sparkling copper coins. He had pronounced himself inconvenienced when Ma Jun had informed him that a certain Yin-daozhang wanted to meet him at the Lucky Toad Inn, but he had come, which counted for something.
Wei Wuxian made it his first order of business to get the alcohol flowing, ordering three jars of the inn's best wine which successfully exchanged the caravan leader's grumbles for listening ears.
As they got acquainted it quickly became apparent that the man had no real qualms to betray the customers who had broken contract by being, well, too dead to confirm their order, but he still seemed determined to make Wei Wuxian work hard at his own pitch. They finally got somewhere once Wei Wuxian had extracted the price Wen Chao had originally agreed to pay and offered double that amount.
"Commander Luo has lately found herself in the market for arrows," he explained. "Xiansheng must understand, as the commander who chased the Coalition out of Ezhou and continues to hold the city to this day, she is generally open to meeting dealers of war supplies. In short, she is the person xiansheng will have to convince of the quality of his goods." He topped up both their wine cups. "If he chooses to do business with the Sunshot Alliance, that is."
It wasn't even a lie. The last time Wei Wuxian had seen Luo Qingyang she'd reported that Jin Zixun had raided a fletcher she'd wanted to do business with, and while she could have secured another supplier by now, Wei Wuxian knew from his own time at the front that there was no such thing as too many arrows. Add to that that this would be stealing a merchant from the Wens, and it would have been a good idea to secure this deal even if Wei Wuxian hadn't had any additional secret motives to do so.
The caravan leader knocked back his drink, then smacked his lips. "And you, you're really part of them. That Sunshot Alliance," he said, squinting at Wei Wuxian over the rim of his cup. "What's an enemy of the Wens doing all the way out here? Courting death?"
"Scouting for merchants with a taste for profitable ventures, among other things," Wei Wuxian bullshitted. He pointed at his mask. "Xiansheng sees my disguise. My role is very dangerous, but of vital importance."
"Hmph. How do I know you're not just some crook throwing big names around? My original client may still arrive."
Wei Wuxian reached into his money pouch and let some silver rain onto the table. The caravan leader's glinting eyes rapidly darted back and forth, counting the money in a flash. He didn't reach for it—not yet—but his fingers were twitching around his cup.
"As for xiansheng's other worry," Wei Wuxian continued, keeping up his air of unconcern. "If the lesser payment his original client promised is already satisfactory to him, this one will naturally understand that xiansheng must remain in Buzhai Village for however many more days, or even weeks, his original client will yet make him wait. This one will simply have to move on and search for arrow merchants elsewhere..."
"I get it, I get it! No need to get smart with me, boy." The caravan leader waved a hand, then—unable to resist—picked up one of the silver pieces to test its shine against the flickering light of the table candle. He hummed at its luster. "So, tell me more details. Is this Commander Luo woman expecting us? I won't travel all the way to Ezhou just to be turned away at the gates."
Wei Wuxian pulled out a neat little envelope from his lapels. He had painted the cloud insignia of Gusu Lan on the outside to make the thing look as official as possible. The message itself was encrypted so that only Luo Qingyang would catch the second meaning hidden in the business proposal or know who exactly its sender was.
He meaningfully slid the document across the table. "Show this to the commander and you will have no issues."
For a moment the caravan leader still hesitated. Then he made his decision, snatching up both envelope and the remaining silver pieces.
As Wei Wuxian raised his cup he was toasted in return and they finished their wine at the same time, sealing the deal.
While the caravan prepared to leave for Ezhou, Wei Wuxian slipped out of the village, following an inconspicuous little footpath to the edge of the forest. Ma Jun was waiting for him there with a simple carriage.
"Deal's on," Wei Wuxian reported. "How about here? Are things all set?"
Ma Jun nodded. "I'll bring up the rear so your friends can easily slip in and out of my carriage without the boss seeing them."
Wei Wuxian was truly lucky the person who had picked him up from Wen Zhuliu's corpse was so kind. "I really can't thank you enough," he said, saluting gratefully. "Yet again you're doing me such a big favor. I hope a better deal will make up for some of it at least."
Ma Jun frowned. "I hope you didn't let the boss rip you off too much! Ah, uh." He winced. "Please don't tell him I said that."
Wei Wuxian just laughed. "I guessed he was likely exaggerating the original price, but I still offered double the amount, plus some extra silver for the long journey."
"Well, that'll more than make up for any extra effort on my part! Are you sure you can afford to pay that, daozhang?"
Oh, Wei Wuxian definitely could.
Wen Chao had been stingy with these merchants—would have been stingy even if the price the caravan leader had given was accurate. Clearly, he'd been making full use of the perks that forcefully controlling so many trade routes granted Qishan Wen. A market couldn't exactly regulate itself naturally with a metaphorical—and, sometimes, probably literal—sword hanging over its head.
"Your goods are topnotch," Wei Wuxian assured. "As long as the arrows arrive safely in Ezhou the price will have been worth it."
Footsteps could be heard. A moment later Jin Zixuan and his mother stepped out between the trees, thick hemp shawls and straw hats concealing both their faces.
Ma Jun excused himself to get his donkey.
While Madam Jin just gave Wei Wuxian a gruff nod of acknowledgement before climbing though the carriage curtain to stow away herself and the large bag of travelling supplies Wei Wuxian had bought, Jin Zixuan remained outside, looking somewhat forlorn.
"So this is it, huh?" Wei Wuxian took the initiative, nudging the peacock in the shoulder. "You're going to be fine travelling as a stowaway, Jin-gongzi? I'm guessing it's not going to be a bed of roses."
Jin Zixuan nodded, determined. "Still better than rotting away in a prison cell."
True.
"If any problems come up, tell Ma Jun," Wei Wuxian suggested. "He seems to be a decent guy. And as soon as you're in Ezhou Luo-guniang will take care of you. Knowing her she'll even be glad to get a chance to pay you back."
Jin Zixuan grimaced.
While Madam Jin had eagerly seized the opportunity to cash in a life debt owed to her son by a commander of the Lan sect, the peacock had been reluctant to take advantage of it, insisting that he hadn't protected Luo Qingyang in that cave on Mount Muxi just to have her owe him. As noble as that sentiment was, it also couldn't be argued that he currently didn't really have the luxury to choose the noble route—not if he wanted himself and his mother to survive.
Wei Wuxian nudged his friend in the shoulder again, fond. "Anyway, see that you stay quiet in there. Even if your ass gets tired from sitting around, don't complain! I'll be pissed if I hear you've managed to get tossed out by the caravan leader in some random stretch of wilderness. I won't come rescue you again!"
"You won't have to!"
Madam Jin's voice interrupted them. "Zixuan, it's time. Say goodbye."
The peacock squared his shoulders. "I do not know what the future holds," he declared stiffly, slipping into the cadence of someone who had memorized his words beforehand. "But I will never forget what you have done for me and my mother today, Wei Wuxian. And maybe—uh, m-maybe, one day, I will be a man worthy of asking A-Li for her hand!" He squeezed his eyes shut. "Wh-when that time comes—please deal with Jiang Wanyin for me since I'm sure he won't give his sister away to a mediocre man!"
Wei Wuxian threw his head back in laughter. "Now here's a request worth hearing! Ahaha, rest at ease, peacock, I'll gladly fight Jiang Cheng even without a reason!"
"Zixuan!" Madam Jin called out again.
The peacock jumped. "I'm c-coming, a-niang, in a moment, I..."
"What, you've got another speech? You want a goodbye kiss?"
"What?! How can you be so shameless? No, it's just... we... we're still friends... right?"
Hah? "The fuck are you talking about?"
"Well, you—It's just that... well, I think—no, I'm sure you're the truest friend I ever made... well, right now you're probably my only friend, actually..."
What kind of mushy talk was this?!
Breaking out in hives, Wei Wuxian quickly dumped Jin Zixuan into the carriage. "Of course we're friends. You're a good man, peacock. And one day I'll see my shijie laugh on her wedding day, dressed in red with you."
Fuck, who was being mushy now?!
Once again, Madam Jin came to the rescue by interrupting.
"As Zixuan put it, what you have done for us shall not be forgotten in a hurry," she said, inclining her head at Wei Wuxian. "Until now I have failed to realize just how fortuitous it was that my son forged a new friendship during his time studying at the Cloud Recesses. In future, let it not be said that Zhang Ya forgets the debts she owes, even to the junior of a different family."
Wei Wuxian saluted, a little embarrassed by her formal praise. "Farewell, Jin-furen. And good luck." With that he stepped back, letting the carriage curtain fall to conceal mother and son. When Ma Jun returned with his donkey Wei Wuxian pressed a piece of gold into his startled hands, jumped on Suibian and rose into the sky, flying towards a cliff from where one could oversee the road leading east.
Watching the caravan set off from Buzhai Village and gradually become smaller on the horizon, Wei Wuxian couldn't help but ponder Jin Zixuan's strange fate. Born with the most golden spoon that had probably ever been, he had spent his childhood being taught that the world should bow to his whims, only for that world to break apart completely in his teens.
Wei Wuxian didn't know how he would be coping in his friend's place, how far he would have fallen if Lan Qiren hadn't stepped in front of him on the night Lotus Pier had gone up in flames. He was pretty sure that most young masters of their generation would take losing their golden cores so terribly it did not bear thinking about. The peacock could have been forgiven for actually losing his mind with grief in that prison cell. It probably would have been the easier thing to do.
Instead, Jin Zixuan had looked the ugly truth of his new reality in the face and was now actively refusing to let it crush him.
Wei Wuxian admired it.
He smiled, remembering the picture the peacock had painted for himself when interrogated by Yanling Daoren; roaming the world with nothing but the clothes on his back, loyal dogs at his side and a trusty hunting bow in hand.
It was a good picture.
Wei Wuxian turned away from Buzhai Village.
Whether it ever became reality or not didn't matter in the end. Jin Zixuan had been returned the dignity of getting to decide what to make of himself. That was the important part.
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Wei Wuxian had already crossed the border by the time Lan Wangji's next letter came. He had just stopped to make camp in a little grove not too far from the Yellow River and was busy brushing Da-Shanyang as a buzz of spiritual energy alerted him to the new message.
He fumbled with and dropped the horse brush in his haste to read it.
Wei Ying.
Even as I write this, I find myself utterly confounded.
Chifeng-zun has called a meeting to address recent occurrences at the Jining Tripoint, which is to take place in the Unclean Realm in three days' time, barring that the extermination of the restless dead in Jining necessitates further delays on my end.
Yin-daozhang is required to attend.
Xiongzhang's questions about your involvement grow rather more pointed each time I prevaricate. He and Chifeng-zun both undoubtedly depend on me to provide an explanation, since my coming to Jining at this time created the false impression that I am far more in the know than it has been seen fit I be.
Is it not so, Wei Ying? Or will you claim I am wrong for thinking myself intentionally kept in the dark?
You cannot.
Indeed, you must not.
You have hidden from me, leaving me nothing to find but ghosts whispering my husband's name like an intimate prayer.
I insist on being enlightened at last.
It was, all things considered, a pretty fair letter.
A little petty, clearly written in some amount of hurt and a lot of confusion, but Wei Wuxian had been bracing himself for something worse, for Lan Wangji's harshness to make a reappearance, had feared to be renounced without even a chance to explain himself.
This open frankness was much better. Wei Wuxian could handle it.
It still had his heart racing like mad.
He allowed himself to put off answering while he could still claim a need to finish with Da-Shanyang. Perhaps as punishment his thoughts ran rampant the entire time—he was unable to think of anything but Lan Wangji.
How had he looked while writing this letter?
Painfully elegant, no doubt, but what had his face been doing? Had there been a slight displeased tilt to his eyebrows, an angry spark in his eyes, a pout on his soft lips?
Or had Hanguang-jun's inscrutable mask been in place?
Would that mask be there, between them, when they finally saw each other again?
Da-Shanyang eventually decided she had been brushed enough and trotted away to graze, taking away Wei Wuxian last justification to make Lan Wangji wait any longer. It was time to create a situation he wouldn't be able to escape from even should his courage fail him again.
It was time to corner himself.
I can be on my way to the Unclean Realm tomorrow.
Let's meet up somewhere before the meeting. Hanguang-jun can ask me anything he wants to know face to face.
A heavy breath escaped Wei Wuxian once he had sent this reply.
There was no getting out of it now. The promise he had made to himself once, that he would come clean to Lan Wangji the next time they met in person, would end up coming true after all.
Unable to sit still as he waited for an answer, Wei Wuxian paced around his campfire.
Barring that the extermination of the restless dead necessitates further delays, that sounded like Lan Wangji was still very busy. And like he had persuaded Nie Mingjue that tying up the loose ends in Jining took precedence over having the meeting immediately. It couldn't have been Nie Mingjue's idea to delay getting his own answers for something so temptingly negligible as the security of a region behind enemy borders.
Though Wei Wuxian still felt a sharp stab of sadness when he considered his ghosts and corpses being exorcised indiscriminately, he also felt proud of Lan Wangji. Leave it to Hanguang-jun to assert himself against Chifeng-zun, to push for the safety of the common people and make no exceptions where duty was concerned.
A new message arrived, making Wei Wuxian jump.
The day before the meeting, be in the eastern side of the forest which advances towards the main gate of the Unclean Realm. As xiongzhang and Chifeng-zun will only arrive the morning of, there will be time to talk privately.
And that was all. All that Wei Wuxian had to be satisfied with. Nothing to paint a clearer picture of Lan Wangji's state of mind, of just how angry he was, of just how hard Wei Wuxian would have to work to be forgiven.
He fled into his bedroll. Not that peace awaited him there. As the embers of his campfire died down, Wei Wuxian lay awake, staring up at the stars and listening to Da-Shanyang's heavy horse breaths, all while feeling like he was going to throw up.
At least I'll be able to see Lan Zhan's face when I tell him, he thought again and again, trying to convince himself that this was lucky, that, if there was going to be an opening before shock turned to denunciation, he would be able to directly insert himself with another explanation, with pleas, with kisses—anything to conquer Lan Wangji's heart before it irreversibly hardened against him.
Right in this moment, Wei Wuxian felt quite equal to literally begging on his knees, no matter how insincere his apologies would be.
For, even now, nauseous with nerves and unable to sleep, he could not bring himself to truly regret anything, or anyone; not the late Mu-furen, not the temple keeper from Lingshan, not the lost inhabitants of Yanling's graveyard, not any of the dead from the Jin prison.
No. If just for their sakes, Wei Wuxian was unfortunately very certain he would make the exact same choices again.
Da-Shanyang suddenly released a loud breath and lifted her head, ears twitching nervously.
"What is it?" Wei Wuxian whispered, sitting up and reaching for Suibian, just in time for a cold breeze to sweep through the forest. The dying embers in the fire flashed green for just a moment. Da-Shanyang immediately darted to her feet.
Barely visible in the shadows of the trees, a woman had appeared. Her body was emaciated and dressed in tattered rags. Her hair was wild and dirty, like strings of black kelp.
A little child with a rotten face was hiding behind her legs and peeking out at them.
Wei Wuxian stared, completely taken aback. They were, without a doubt, the ghost and the little ghoul he had picked up in Lanling Jin's prison. Had they followed him all the way from Jining?! They must have!
They'd always been the strongest among his hoard of undead—but who would have thought they'd manage to give Hanguang-jun the slip!
'...Master,' the female ghost spoke up in a shockingly soft voice.
"You're here," Wei Wuxian breathed. "I wonder, are you the only ones who made it?"
With a happy shriek the ghoul child darted towards him, making Da-Shanyang jump back with an angry snort.
Perplexed, Wei Wuxian watched the ugly little child crawl into his lap, gripping his hair and pushing its face against his thigh. A few maggots rolled out of its cheek in the process, flopping around helplessly on the black fabric of Wei Wuxian's outer robe, deprived of their food source.
"What, are you tired?" Wei Wuxian asked.
The dead child did not react to the question, still busy getting comfortable. Only when Wei Wuxian put a hand on its cold head did it finally settle.
The female ghost came to sit next to them, still weirdly calm.
A long while passed without any movement, as though the child had really fallen asleep. But the dead did not sleep. Spurred on by a suspicion, Wei Wuxian eventually rolled the small corpse over, cradling it properly in his arms so it wouldn't fall while he took a good look at its face.
He was met with nothing but vacant decay.
He held the corpse for an entire shichen while humming Yunmeng lullabies, wanting to make absolutely sure, but the child never moved again.
'Shoo, shoo, little peach,' the female ghost cooed, reaching out a finger to touch the greasy tuft of hair on the dead child's head. Her fingernails were no longer elongated and sharp like daggers, but instead cracked and bitten, like those of a deeply anxious person incapable of caring for herself.
"Let's have a proper funeral," Wei Wuxian suggested, wishing the child still had eyelids he could close. "This is as good a spot as any."
'Proper?' the ghost mumbled questioningly.
"A proper funeral. A good grave in a good location and the correct rites to assure peaceful rest."
She thoughtfully chewed on one of her fingernails. Then she nodded.
Using Suibian it didn't take Wei Wuxian long at all to dig a hole the size of a child at the edge of the grove. One of Yin-daozhang's sturdy underrobes was sacrificed so that the little corpse could be wrapped in white, before it was gently lowered into the earth and covered up. Since Wei Wuxian didn't have a name, he carved Little Peach onto a rock that functioned as gravestone. A nickname was better than no name at all.
He sent a prayer to thank the child for the service it had rendered him, placed a meat bun onto the grave just in case the little ghoul's hunger made a reappearance, and played Rest. Somewhere in the middle of it Da-Shanyang deemed herself safe enough to lie back down and continue dozing.
'Me?' the female ghost asked as soon as Wei Wuxian had finished with Rest, studying the new grave with great interest.
"Your body is not here, jiejie, so I cannot bury you," Wei Wuxian apologized. "But if you tell me your name, I could make a cenotaph."
'Ceno... cenotaph?'
"Yeah. Here, look, I'll show you."
Jumping to his feet, Wei Wuxian quickly found a good branch and some long grass.
Cutting everything to size, he tied together a wooden cross.
"Like this. See, up here I would carve your name, so that passersby can read it and send you prayers or burn paper money for you. I could also play my music again, just for you this time."
Looking pensive, the ghost slid one bitten finger over the empty space on the wooden grave marker where her name was supposed to go.
'Me?' she asked again.
"You," Wei Wuxian agreed.
A smile spread over her thin face. Almost too quietly to be heard she whispered a name into the wind.
By the time Wei Wuxian returned to his bedroll, he and Da-Shanyang were alone again and sleep found him easily.
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