It happens on a night hunt, obviously. Senior Wei is eccentric and strange but even he doesn’t handle bones in his spare time.
Probably.
Sizhui doesn’t actually know.
After watching Senior Wei grouch on the ground for far too long, Sizhui walks up to him and asks, ”What is it, Senior Wei?”
”Hm?” he asks, glancing up with a strangely blank look in his eyes. ”Ah, A-Yuan. It’s nothing.”
He’s holding a bone in his hand.
Sizhui’s eyes dart to the small, pale thing. It’s slender and delicate—if you can say that about a human bone—and it shines dully in the low evening light. He wonders if Senior Wei realizes he’s clenching his hand around it.
”Sizhui?” Lan Hong calls out. ”We’ve finished clean-up.”
”Mn,” he says and takes one last, critical look around. ”You can return to the inn. Senior Wei and I will follow in a moment.”
Jingyi’s absence is glaringly obvious in the lack of vocal prostetation that follows; he broke his leg on the last outing and was forced to stay behind in the Cloud Recesses. Sizhui misses him fiercely.
He turns back to Senior Wei, now standing, and clears his throat. Senior Wei doesn’t seem to notice. He’s looking over the field, shoulders slightly hunched, still gripping the bone in his hand. It’s quiet, no sign of the restless souls that milled around only a short while ago, filling the air with their wails. It was a gravesite, hastily filled and then forgotten, no rites or remembrances to soothe the dead.
”Pointless,” Senior Wei mutters under his breath.
”Death often is,” Sizhui says softly.
He wonders about the memories that live in Senior Wei’s mind; the shadows, the people he’s loved and lost, the ones who never got the chance to really live and prosper. He wonders how many regrets Senior Wei still carries hidden behind his carefree manner and quick smiles. He wonders if Hanguang-jun knows.
He wonders if Senior Wei knows himself.
”Come on,” he finally says, touching Senior Wei on the elbow. ”We should get back. You need rest.”
”Aiyah, you,” Senior Wei huffs, covering his shiver with bluster and a laugh. ”I’m not an old man you need to herd.”
”Of course,” Sizhui says.
”A-Yuan, A-Yuan,” Senior Wei sighs. ”Lan Zhan has taught you too well. What am I supposed to do?”
”As you are told?”
Senior Wei cackles, and Sizhui ducks his head to cover the pleased smile blooming on his face.
Each Lan disciple is required to do a rotation in the healing halls as a part of their general education, just like they’re required to learn cooking, cleaning, mending clothes, and caring for their swords. Some disciples stay for the required time only. Some stay longer.
For Sizhui, the healing halls have held a special meaning for as long as he can remember. At first, he thought it was just his nature—that he felt as drawn to the healing arts as to the sword cultivation, but as he got older, his interest only increased. After learning who he is, the lineage where he comes from, he feels he owes it to the family he knows only through the stories.
There are a lot of simple tasks that are almost meditative in nature: sweeping the floors, changing the sheets, boiling and rolling the bandages… For some reason, Sizhui is very fond of the latter. There’s something soothing about picking up the long bandage and rolling it neatly, setting it into a basket, and then picking up the next bandage. It lets his mind either wander or stay very still while his hands work.
He’s been thinking about the need for bandages lately, the way they press against wounds and seal them and support them, and the way blood seeps through them, staining the linen reddish brown. He wonders who originally came up with the talisman that helps to keep the bandages pristine and white because he doesn’t think boiling does the trick all on its own.
There used to be a pile of bandages next to Hanguang-jun’s bed, neat rolls in a neat stack, ready to use. Sizhui doesn’t actually remember even seeing them applied, but he does remember the stack’s height varied. Sometimes the pile was as tall as Sizhui. Sometimes there were only a couple of rolled bandages left.
It’s highly unlikely that those bandages are still in use. It’s been well over a decade, and while the Lan healers tend to be frugal, he has a feeling that Hanguang-jun’s bandages were a separate set from the regular stock. Even so, Sizhui likes to think that as he rolls the clean bandages into neat rolls, he’s smoothing his hands over the scarred skin that no longer bleeds but that never stops aching. It’s not penance (and if it was, he knows Hanguang-jun wouldn’t welcome it), but it is an act of service of a kind. Of remembrance.
Sizhui places the neatly rolled bandage on the basket and picks up another.
Sizhui knocks on the door and waits. He’s patient—sometimes Zewu-jun invites Sizhui in right away, sometimes he takes longer to react. Sizhui is in no rush (he never is when visiting Zewu-jun); he stands straight and holds the tray, a neutral look on his face.
After a moment, he hears rustling from inside and a hoarse voice rasps, ”Come.”
Sizhui ducks his head, takes a step forward, and slides the door open.
The Hanshi is dim inside, curtains drawn and no candles lit. Sizhui sets the tray on the low table and peeks a look at Zewu-jun, taking in the dove-grey robes, the drawn, pale face, and hollow eyes. He doesn’t seem to really notice Sizhui but he doesn’t mind—this is neither the first time he’s visited Zewu-jun nor the first time he’s been this vacant.
The cups clink softly as Sizhui sets them on the table; congee and tea and pickled vegetables, a humble yet nourishing meal for the one in seclusion, then moves to open a window to let in some fresh air. He touches Zewu-jun on the shoulder to prompt him to eat and finally sits in the corner out of the way. For a moment, he considers taking out his guqin and playing something to ease Zewu-jun’s mind but decides against it. By the looks of it, it might actually do more harm than good today.
Sometimes Sizhui wonders why he isn’t angrier than he actually is (Jingyi actually asked him once but accepted Sizhui’s non-answer like the good friend he is), why he doesn’t feel vindicated by the pain Zewu-jun is now in. The cultivation world burned down Sizhui’s world and his whole family, and the man he considers his uncle was one of them. He would be well within his rights to be bitter and angry.
And yet…
Hindsight is easy, filled with I-told-you-sos and we-should-have-knowns. Even with everything he knows now, Sizhui can’t blame Zewu-jun for being the way he is (was? Will never again be?)—he was used as a pawn in other people’s games and he’s paid for them dearly.
No matter how much bitterness and anger Sizhui might feel, he believes Zewu-jun feels them manyfold.
He only hopes Zewu-jun doesn’t drown under his guilt. The past has taken too much from them all already.
At the table, Zewu-jun slowly picks up his cup of tea and takes a sip.
”Lan Sizhui,” Sect Leader Nie murmurs from behind his fan. ”It is good to see you. I hope everything and everyone is fine at home?”
”Thank you, Sect Leader Nie,” Sizhui says and bows. ”Zewu-jun and Teacher Lan send their greetings and apologies for being unable to attend this time. Senior Wei and Hanguang-jun have been delayed by a night-hunt, but they will join us tomorrow.”
”Good to know, good to know,” Sect Leader Nie says. He sounds amicable enough but there’s a strange kind of distance in his eyes that Sizhui can’t quite decipher. ”Do let me know if there’s anything you need.” He looks like he wants to continue and then changes his mind with a rueful smile.
”Of course, Sect Leader Nie. Thank you,” Sizhui says after an awkward pause and bows again.
A Nie disciple leads them to the rooms appointed to the lan delegation. It’s just Sizhui and two other Lan cultivators, as Zewu-jun is still in seclusion and Teacher Lan refused to leave the Cloud Recesses. In some other case, it could’ve been deemed an insult but considering that this is the first conference after the collapse of the Jin sect…many things have changed since the last cultivation conference.
The rooms appointed to the Lan delegation are airy and tastefully decorated, and way bigger than Sizhui would’ve thought reasonable. The rooms are excessive and he wonders if it’s a sign of Sect Leader Nie’s nervousness. Or if it’s a sign of anything at all.
”If you want to spend the evening sightseeing, you may,” he says to Lan Hong and Lan Bin. ”This evening’s dinner isn’t formal and doesn’t require our presence.”
Lan Hong and Lan Bin are quick to excuse themselves, leaving Sizhui to his thoughts. He unpacks and then contemplates between meditating and practicing his qin, and decides to take a stroll in the small garden outside their rooms. He plans on attending the dinner later, mostly because he thinks it’s the proper thing to do but also because…Sect Leader Nie is an enigma to him. Everything he’s heard about him so far has painted him as a useless figurehead, a flighty and spineless coward, a head shaker who is unable to make any decisions without consulting his sworn brothers. That all changed on one rainy day in the Guanyin Temple.
He wonders how Sect Leader Nie feels now, hosting a cultivation conference under his roof? Meeting all those fellow cultivators who sneered at him for years, snickering at his face and calling him names behind his back? And how must they feel, realizing something is drastically different but not quite understanding what has changed?
It’s a chill day, and over the Unclean Realm, steel-grey clouds hang low, dragging over the mountaintops surrounding the fortress. Sizhui can smell rain in the air. It feels appropriate somehow, adding to the desolate feeling radiating from the very walls around him. Is Sect Leader Nie lonely? He must be—after everything is said and done, after years of planning and waiting, what else is there?
The thing is, Sizhui doesn’t know Nie Huaisang, not like Senior Wei or even Hanguang-jun do. He has no fond memories of days spent together, of mischief and missions. He’s only met Sect Leader Nie occasionally and those meetings have always been accompanied by theatrics and tears, a performance, he now suspects. In the Guanyin temple, Sizhui had faced Sect Leader Nie but he’d been too preoccupied with Uncle Ning and Jin Ling, and frankly, hadn’t paid much attention to Jin Guangyao, Zewu-jun, or Sect Leader Nie. He hadn’t seen whether or not Jin Guangyao moved or not.
He believes the answer is no.
He also believes that, knowingly or not, Sect Leader Nie broke something that cannot be made whole again.
He wonders if Sect Leader Nie cares.