eastbound inbox.

[lanclan]

inbox for the mirror pendant of 'Average Sighren'.

“Please leave your message and I will attend it as soon as possible.”

Comments

[lanclan]

I didn't, I was too weak to face it. Hua Cheng scared it off.

What's wrong? Which ghost is bothering you?

[wifedup]

It's unimportant.

Did it ever come back, once Hua Cheng aided you?

[lanclan]

No, I thought it was native to Yancai. Has it been bothering you?

[wifedup]

Not yours.`

[lanclan]

When does it haunt you? At night? Between which hours?

[wifedup]

No, no it's not like that.

( Maybe if he were feeling better, more clever, he might know how to handle this better. But as it is, Wen Kexing has spent the last few days living off spite, wine, and very little sleep. )

Your brother truly has not mentioned it? I would have thought him eager to expose the truth.

[lanclan]

What truth? A-Xing, come to me. Speak in person if this is serious.

[wifedup]

It is because it is serious that I can't.

( He is also not very put together right now. )

[lanclan]

What is it? You're not normally this reticent. I won't be mad, I promise, but I want to see you. You're worrying me.

[wifedup]

I really think I am losing my mind this time.

( He is so tired, and the Valley Master lives once more behind his eyelids. It is only because he is so exhausted that he is not doing something even more insane, like burning the city to the ground. But no, he has to wrangle his control back. )

It doesn't matter, ignore me. I'm drunk.

[lanclan]

I am coming to you then.

[wifedup]

Ah, Huan-ge, don't. It's not pretty. Pretend I didn't bother you.

[lanclan]

A-Xing is many things, easily ignored isn't one of them. I'll be with you soon, try not to drink too much.

[wifedup]

( He briefly considers throwing himself out of the window, but it is instead with herculean effort that he gets to his feet to at least get his room looking less like he has lain his own corpse down to die. Empty wine bottles are hidden away though he keeps a half full one in his lose grip at all times, drinking from it sporadically. It isn't messy, but it's ... gloomy. The bed unmade, robes thrown aside, books scattered where he'd knocked into them earlier, the window covered by dark fabric to block out the light.

He paces clumsily, device in hand, wondering if he should find a way to dissuade the other man. )

I really will be fine.

( It's no good, he's not sure he will be either. )

[lanclan]

[ Too bad, bitch, he's using qinggong across the rooftops! He drops to the ground in time to enter and makes his way up to Wen Kexing's room like a blue cloud billowing around every corner, tall and silver in his guan with a sword in one hand and his flute hanging off a belt: no one stops him.

At the door, he knocks and enters without waiting for a response, too anxious to do more than give a warning. ]

A-Xing?

[ It certainly smells like there's been more than one bottle of wine in this room, the potent whiff of alcohol makes him blink a few times in the dim lighting. Spotting him, he closes the door behind and heads in. ]

A-Xing, what's wrong? Why were you asking me about a ghost?

[wifedup]

( He freezes a little, clumsy where he's stood in the centre of the room. It's dark, but that does nothing to hide that he's wavering a little on his feet, nor does it ease the shadows under his eyes. This is not the meticulous Wen Kexing he likes to show the world, nor the exuberant, affable drunk he usually allows Lan Xichen to see. This is the hollow boned version, and he is so tired of it. )

I --.

( He cuts himself off almost violently, the wine sloshing in its bottle when he lifts it. )

He really didn't say anything. ( More to himself than Lan Xichen, swallowing a mouthful of bitter alcohol before he shakes himself. ) I saw something. It doesn't matter. I just need to know it won't come back.

[lanclan]

[ His friend, the mess he always suspected him to be. He places his sword on a table, a touch sliding around Wen Kexing's wrist to ground him as Xichen veers into his line of sight. ]

Gossip is forbidden in Cloud Recesses. [ Wangji said nothing. Xichen's concern is tinged with a wry smile that fades quickly. ] What did you see?

[wifedup]

( Lan Wangji had done the same thing, holding Wen Kexing by the wrist as he had shaken with anger. He wants to find it funny that Lan Xichen does the same, but it just makes him feel sad that either of them had to. He blinks, his eyes damp, clearly struggling with himself on what to say. )

The Valley Master.

( Without context it sounds so easy, so innocent. But it is torn out of Wen Kexing all the same, something blood-soaked and violent. His words are a faraway murmur, as though the spectre has thrust some part of him back into the past. )

He killed my parents. He raised me. Which is worse, do you think? The thing he took from me, or the thing he made me to be?

[lanclan]

[ Xichen abruptly makes a point of sealing the room with a gesture; his soft blue qi fans out over every object until it hits the walls and mutes the world outside, creating a stable barrier around the whole room. ]

He can't reach you, not with me here. [ Horrible ghost to encounter on a normal day, let alone to be raised by (ahh, pieces start to fall together). He takes Wen Kexing's wrist again to guide him over to the bed, worried he will topple over. ] You are no such monster as he.

[wifedup]

But I am.

( A terrible, cruel monster who lets himself be led to the bed, sitting on it's edge like a puppet with it's strings cut. )

I am everything he made me, Huan-er, I'm the thing he tried so hard to create. ( He lifts a hand, scrubbing at his eye socket with the heel, the wine bottle in the other dangled loosely in his grip. ) I'm not a good person, I'm not even a real person, I have never been human not since he took me. Maybe not even before then.

[lanclan]

You are good.

[ That bottle is going to be subtly scooped aside and set on the floor. Xichen takes him by a hand in his lap and rubs Wen Kexing on the arm as if to sober him up that way. ]

It doesn't matter if you are human or not, you are not a monster. Do you think I would be your friend if you truly were? I would have known long before now.

[wifedup]

No, I'm not.

( He laughs, and it's hollow, ringing in the room. Something ugly creeps into his voice, face twisted in loathing. The hand in Lan Xichen's lap curls like his fingers would be claws if he knew how. )

I killed him, the Valley Master, I killed him. ( And then, a burst dam. ) I tore the flesh from his bones, inch by inch. I kept him alive for most of it, because I wanted him to hurt. He always told me I liked pain, and so I proved that I did by inflicting it on him. I threw his flesh to the monsters he made and had his skeleton left at the walls as a reminder.

( Desperate, and a little mad, and oh so sad in a way that seems to dwarf him. )

They call me Lunatic Wen for a reason. There's something wrong in me.

[lanclan]

[ He listens and feels the claws of those words more keenly than the nails digging into his hand. Unable to imagine the suffering Wen Kexing endured, raised by a lunatic who in turn demanded the same behaviour from a boy, then a young man, Xichen grieves for the pain his friend caused but not the man it was inflicted upon. He takes Wen Kexing's chin between a stern finger and thumb to turn it so he meets his eyes. Patient and thoughtful, not absolving but neither condemning; neither the sun or the moon, just a cloud with shades of all kinds of greys inside it. ]

I was fooled for a decade once before, there is no chance of my having made the same mistake. I am trusting but not a fool, Wen Kexing. If you were evil, I would know it.

[ His hand falls to Wen Kexing's front, curling in his robes. ]

You are not him.

[wifedup]

I'm the Ghost Valley Master now.

( It's a little like pulling a sword from his stomach, the fear gushing out like blood. )

I'm the thing that people are scared of, I'm the story you tell silly little disciples in the dead of night. Grow big, get strong, or the Ghost Valley Master will spirit you away in the dead of the night. The Jianghu made the Valley to keep the worst of the worst inside, Huan-er, and I'm the one holding the keys. Chengling doesn't have parents, doesn't have brothers, because I was so blinded by the need for my vengeance that I let them all out. I didn't care. I wanted --.

I wanted people to suffer.

( Miserably. )

I made him an orphan because someone did the same to me. I might not have been the one holding the blade but I knew, I knew what I was unleashing. I am mad, they're right, I can't pretend otherwise.

[lanclan]

You have been hiding this since we met, afraid to tell me.

[ He sits back, hands in his lap as he regards him steadily. ]

Am I to gasp and look upon you with horror, learning you caged monsters and now regret your unhappiness leading to their freedom? That is what this sounds like.