On the Heart [FIC]

[notturnito]

Title: On the Heart
Fandom: The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation
Rating: T
Pairing(s): Song Lan/Xiao Xingchen, one-sided!Wei Wuxian/Wen Ning.
Warnings: Body horror... I guess??
Notes: This is basically a fic where Song Lan and Wen Ning meet and they compare stories.

---

The sun is no longer up in the sky. 

It is in the middle of that transition between day and night, where a large patch of the sky is already dark and littered with stars, yet the edges still bleed red from the sun. Its final light slips through the forest, reaching Song Lan, before it slowly tapers off as the darkness descends to surround. 

Beside him, the river’s stream flows, downwards, southbound. The dome of the forest envelops him with the trees’ silence, with the distant cries of birds and the starting wake of nocturnal animals. 

It has been a long time since Yi City. 

Song Lan doesn’t remember when exactly; he’s lost the notion of time ever since he parted ways with Wei Wuxian’s group back then. 

He makes true of his words; he goes wherever, roaming places where no ordinary people could’ve gone to. He follows where the fengshui is at its worst and tries to solve the predicament. For someone who no longer belongs to this world, he does not lack things to do. 

Still, with no company by his side, time stretches on terribly long. 

He does know his purpose; they are kept under the folds of his clothes since the entirety of his journey, and the pulse of both souls sometimes reminds Song Lan of how it had felt like—being alive. It is more than enough to keep him afloat. 

When he was at Baoshan-sanren’s mountain, he’d met with Xiao Xingchen’s senior disciple-brother. He was a kind man like Xiao Xingchen. His hands were steady as he removed Song Lan’s bandages, as he treated Song Lan’s wounds. He had asked about Xiao Xingchen. 

“My shidi,” he had said, his voice quiet. “Did he manage to save the world?” 

Song Lan didn’t answer him, back then. He is still wondering on what to say even now, were he asked again. 

He knows this though: human souls are gateways to chances. Reincarnations are those chances given to right the wrongs that have been made. 

Song Lan wishes not for this to be the end of Xiao Xingchen’s chance. 

Something jingles. A twig snaps. Song Lan’s mind returns to present. Just as he unsheathes Fuxue, a figure stumbles out of the bushes onto the clearing. The jinglings sound clearer. 

Song Lan nearly mistakes it as a villager, having ventured out too deep into the woods, but the clothes aren’t right. Grey and frayed, mottled with dirt and more questionable things. Not even a beggar would wear those. Then Song Lan spots chains, braided down from the hackles on his ankles, his wrists. Then Song Lan spots the skin, and pauses. 

It is also grey. A fierce corpse’s skin. 

He is about to lift Fuxue when the fierce corpse looks up to him first, and from beneath the messy tangle of hair, a familiar face greets Song Lan. 

He lowers his sword from the surprise. 

Wen Ning stares at him, long. “Song-daozhang?” His tone is disbelieving. 

Song Lan can only stand, stunned. 
 

---

From the lack of anything to do, Song Lan starts a fire. 

It is not a quick affair, due to the stiffness of his limbs—fierce corpses can carry out heavy-labor tasks, not ones that need nimble fingers. But he figures it might be more welcoming if both of them could at least see each other. Wen Ning doesn’t seem as though he will leave without saying a word, at least. 

Once the crackle of fire sounds and the glow casts the darkening forest in red light, Wen Ning speaks. 

“Can you still feel the heat?” 

Song Lan turns, finding Wen Ning’s curious eyes on him. He looks worse than when Song Lan had met him before; his outer robe in shreds, the low part of his throat crushed so mercilessly. Song Lan’s eyes linger on a gaping hole in Wen Ning’s chest, before he looks away. 

Slowly, Song Lan shakes his head. 

Wen Ning deflates. “Oh, you too, huh.” A pause. “What about the cold?” 

Song Lan shakes his head again. 

Wen Ning hesitates. He places his hand on his broken, caving chest this time. “What about…?” 

Song Lan has to pause. During his time of continuing his journey, he has learned of how to use Shuanghua. It brings an awful longing whenever he does, to the place where his heart no longer beats. Song Lan just doesn’t quite know whether it is longing that he truly feels, or mere remnants of the past, from his memories when he was still alive. 

Wen Ning suddenly speaks. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…,” he stops mid-sentence, his eyes drooping lower. “My curiosity has given you offense. It was an oversight. I just… have never met anyone like me, before.” 

Song Lan unsheathes Fuxue, causing Wen Ning to snap up in slight alarm. He ignores that and uses the tip of Fuxue to write on the ground. 

It is fine. You didn’t offend me. He hesitates. Is Wei Wuxian here, then?

Initially, Wen Ning seems to relax at the topic. But when Wei Wuxian comes to mention, he slumps even further, pulling his knees closer to his chest. His chains rattle with the movement. 

“I am by myself,” he says. “Young Master Wei must be in Gusu, now.” 

He tells Song Lan about what had happened to them. About the sects, about Chifeng-zun’s true cause of death, about Jin Guangyao’s end, Lanling Jin’s seat of power finally falling to young Jin Ling’s lap. A deep part of Song Lan is glad; under that man’s hand, Lanling Jin had helped save Xue Yang’s despicable life. A new beginning for Lanling Jin ought to be carried out; he hopes it could be done under Jin Ling’s. 

Wen Ning tells Song Lan of returning to Nightless City, where he had last scattered ashes of the Wen sect along with Wen Yuan, now Lan Sizhui. 

“That’s why I am here now,” Wen Ning says. “I… have decided to split up with Young Master Wei. I would like to find my own way.” 

Song Lan doesn’t know what to say. He’d wish Wen Ning luck, but that doesn’t seem to be appropriate to say. 

Suddenly, Wen Ning lets out an odd sound. It might have been a laugh, once. Song Lan turns to find Wen Ning’s face scrunched up, his lips stretching in a semblance of smile. 

It looks somewhat bitter, illuminated by the firelight. 

“I don’t know why I’m doing this,” the harshness of his voice tapers off. His gaze is far away as he stares into the firelight. Black lines crawl up his neck veins as he speaks once more, his voice soft. “There is no place for the dead in this land of the living.” 

Song Lan stares. 

The fire crackles as he uses Fuxue to write again, the scratching sound making Wen Ning look up. He spends a moment of hesitation, before he finishes his scrawls. 

Still, he writes. You are here. 

When he looks, he finds Wen Ning craning his head to read his reply. The waning fire makes his black eyes unreadable, but Song Lan hopes the man understands. Being dead doesn’t make Song Lan undeserving to stay. It only serves him better for Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing to heal. 

The same also goes for Wen Ning. 

It’s a while before Wen Ning finally smiles. When he does, the shine of firelight in his eyes could be mistaken for the glitter of the living. 

“Thank you, Song-daozhang.” 

Song Lan nods, and they go back to a comfortable silence. 

It is a while before Wen Ning speaks up again. “How are Xiao-daozhang and Maiden A-Qing?” 

Nothing jolts within Song Lan’s chest, though he knows—were he alive—that he would be pained by the question. 

He wastes no superfluous movements—he reaches into the folds of his clothes and brings out two pouches. One glows stronger than the other in his palm; the pulse of that one’s soul somehow he can feel. That one belongs to A-Qing, a fighter even after death. During his journey, he has come to consider her somewhat as a younger sister. Someone he ought to protect. After all, she had lived with Xingchen, had taken care of him when Song Lan couldn’t. For that, Song Lan owes her an immense debt. 

Song Lan passes both of the pouches to Wen Ning. 

Wen Ning receives A-Qing’s soul first. His eyes are wide—he must’ve been surprised by how he could feel her soul when he couldn’t all else. He stares at A-Qing’s pouch for a while, and perhaps, perhaps, with longing—for the simple ability to perceive more. He seems satisfied though with A-Qing’s condition, turning to examine the other pouch. 

Immediately, he frowns. 

Song Lan doesn’t have to ask for the cause. 

Xiao Xingchen’s soul doesn’t show any signs of recovery. His spirit remains as though caterpillar cocooning itself from the world, pulsing weakly, as faint as the beat of a butterfly’s wings. 

Wen Ning holds Xiao Xingchen’s pouch for a while more, his expression more than grim enough. He returns both pouches to Song Lan. “Is there any improvement in Xiao-daozhang’s condition?” 

Song Lan shakes his head. He puts back Xiao Xingchen’s soul into his folds, where he has always kept him before; right beside his heart. 

“Ah,” Wen Ning says, and then no more. 

Song Lan suspects that he doesn’t know what to say, not that Song Lan blames him. 

Perhaps luck is something he can try wish, but no luck is given for free. Song Lan knows this better than anyone. Fate allowed him to meet a person who understood him best, and whose soul he understands as well. Then Song Lan lost Baixue Temple. Fate allowed him a chance to be reunited with that same person again. Then Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen both lost their lives. 

But regretting that? 

No, Song Lan has no regrets. 

Song Lan might’ve driven Xiao Xingchen away in his anguish and grief, but he had never truly meant that. Meeting Xiao Xingchen is his lifetime’s blessing. He just wishes circumstances were different. 

Either way, Xue Yang, the true perpetrator of Baixue Temple’s massacre, had met his end. Song Lan doesn’t have to avenge his family anymore. 

Song Lan pauses. His gaze lands on Wen Ning. 

He wipes the ground with his feet, turning it to a clean slate again. The action catches Wen Ning’s attention, making it easier for him to immediately read the question Song Lan scrawls with Fuxue. 

Wei Wuxian was one of the participants in the Sunshot Campaign. It is at this moment that Song Lan begins to realize that his question might be truly inappropriate. Why did you…

Song Lan hesitates. 

Wen Ning’s voice comes, softly, finishing what Song Lan could not. “‘Follow him’...?” 

Slowly, Song Lan nods. 

In Wen Ning’s silence, Song Lan writes again. Sorry. Some have said that I lack tact. You don’t have to answer that if you wish.

A memory overlaps with reality, and for a moment, Song Lan is pulled back to a time where he still could see Xiao Xingchen’s smile. 

A laughter as free as the wind. A flap of horse-tail whisk. 

“No one will suspect you of subterfuge, Song-daozhang.” The voice, gently teasing. “You are the most straightforward person I have ever known.”

It brings an ache again to Song Lan’s chest. He rests a hand over the place. 

“It’s fine,” Wen Ning suddenly says. “I don’t mind.” 

The fire crackles again, its flames casting a melancholic light over Wen Ning. His gaze is gentle, somewhat. He rests his head over a blackened arm. 

“I suppose I ought to hold a grudge,” he begins, his voice soft. Nearly fleeting. “But, I can’t, not against him. I know my sect’s wrongs. I won’t hold it against those who have received the brunt of it.” 

He pauses. “Especially when I know that he was one of those who had received the worst.” 

Song Lan knows of the Sunshot Campaign. Baixue Temple was too far for any of the actual conflicts to reach them there, but Song Lan had seen the repercussions. The villages near Baixue Temple had grown from the sudden influx of people from other sects’ regions. Some had even gone as far as to leave their children on the footsteps of Baixue Temple, seeing them as one last resort to have their children raised as cultivators. 

Wen Ning continues. “But Young Master Wei, he… he was kind to me. To my sister. To everyone else who were once left in my family.” Something in his gaze turns gentler, achingly so. “I won’t ever forget that kindness.” 

Kindness? Song Lan tilts his head questioningly, but the answer to his unspoken question has been said. 

“Perhaps you don’t know,” Wen Ning says. “But the Burial Mounds- Young Master Wei didn’t use the place for anything nefarious. He used it to house the remaining of Wen sect’s refugees.” 

I didn’t know, Song Lan thinks. 

When he writes this, Wen Ning only shakes his head. 

“No one would have believed,” he says.

Song Lan’s mind drifts to Xiao Xingchen again, to past memories. He remembers people’s talk of Xiao Xingchen’s elder disciple-sister, Cangse-sanren; of her fate and her husband’s, the laments over what had happened to their child. He remembers Xiao Xingchen’s slightly strained smile as he continued to push forward regardless. 

“I wish I could’ve met him,” he once told Song Lan, staring into the distance. His voice listless. “Perhaps I would’ve understood.” 

And with that memory, he presses Fuxue to the ground once more. 

I would like to hear more. Song Lan writes, and looks up to Wen Ning. 

His eyes is very bright when he sees what Song Lan has written. Brighter when he finally lifts up his head to stare at Song Lan. 

Then, he tells Song Lan of Wei Wuxian. 

He tells Song Lan of their first meeting at an archery competition—how humanly simple, how amazing that a chance meeting could turn into this legend. Of Lotus Pier burning to ashes, where he’d met Wei Wuxian for the second time. And then, the Sunshot Campaign. Of waking up in an undead body with his mind conscious and clear, his sister throwing herself onto him, her voice crying out his name in wonder and heartache. And then, of the unexpected warm life back there, living together in the Burial Mounds. 

Xingchen, Song Lan thinks. Your shizhi is just as kind as you. People had it wrong this entire time.

And throughout that, how easy it is to see the brightness of love Wen Ning has for Wei Wuxian, shining through even after death. 

It makes Song Lan think back to the pouch he keeps beneath his robes, Xiao Xingchen’s fragile push of life. 

That train of thought is broken by Wen Ning’s sudden yet quiet exclaim. 

“Song-daozhang… I’ve always wondered.” He lifts up his head where it was just leaning on his arms. “What is Xiao-daozhang like?” 

Song Lan stares at him, stunned. 

Wen Ning takes a look at Song Lan’s face and hurries to amend. “If you don’t mind, of course.” 

How could he mind? 

Song Lan once hated to think of Xiao Xingchen, from the pain it would bring him every time. His avoidance of Xiao Xingchen’s memories led him down to qi deviation in Baoshan-sanren’s mountain. 

He’d awoken to warm spiritual energy coursing through his meridians, clearing out the impurities, to Xiao Xingchen’s disciple brother at his side. 

“Even,” the man had said, his voice trembling, “if my Xiao-shidi had become the perpetrator of your grief, please think of what both of you had shared before. At the very least, please think of how my Xiao-shidi had broken his oath only for you, Song-daozhang.” 

If Song Lan could return to that time again, he would tell Xiao Xingchen’s disciple brother of their experiences. Of what both he and Xiao Xingchen had done and had shared between them. Of Xiao Xingchen’s courage and brilliance. 

He couldn’t tell that to him now, but Wen Ning is here. 

And Song Lan is made of memories. 

I don’t mind, Song Lan writes on the ground to Wen Ning’s bright expression, and so he begins. 

Once he starts, it is easy for the rest to come. It is easy to immerse himself in memories of Xiao Xingchen, of Baixue Temple, of their journey together. Wen Ning is an attentive observer, he even helps Song Lan clean the ground when he runs out of space to write on. 

“He sounds kind,” Wen Ning remarks. 

He was kind. Song Lan writes. 

“His sense of justice is remarkable,” Wen Ning chuckles. 

Xiao Xingchen had never strayed to evil. 

Then, softly, gently: “You cherish him,” Wen Ning says. “With all of your heart.” 

Song Lan has to pause. 

I do, then he writes. With all of my heart. 

He loves Xiao Xingchen. 

“To roam the world to exorcise evil,” Wen Ning brings up. He sounds curious. “Why? Song-daozhang could just wait for the soul to heal.” 

There is a slight urge to raise his lips, to smile. There is no point in just waiting. Song Lan pauses. This is sentiment, perhaps, but I don’t wish for our journey—our legacy to end.

Wen Ning jolts, then, at reading Song Lan’s words. He mouths a word—’legacy’—Song Lan recognizes, something nebulous brimming within his eyes. 

Wen Ning lifts his head to face south—where Song Lan knows Gusu lies. 

“Song-daozhang,” Wen Ning begins slowly, turning to him. “I think I know what I am supposed to do, now.” 

Song Lan remembers a name, Lan SiZhui. He nods surely, and is about to wish him luck when Wen Ning suddenly speaks up again. 

“Do you regret it?” Wen Ning asks again, a head tilted to side. “Not being alive for him?” 

Song Lan takes a moment to ponder on the question, before shaking his head. 

In this form, he could even last for eternity. For Xiao Xingchen, he’d wait as long as he needs. 

Wen Ning smiles at him again, though the stretch of his lips makes it look unnatural. 

He says sincerely, “I wish you for the best then.”

They part at the first rise of dawn. It is fitting, Song Lan thinks. 

Wen Ning says his goodbye, chains rattling as he raises up his hands to salute. Naturally, he goes south to Gusu. Song Lan returns the salute with his silence, before he goes the opposite direction. 

The sun begins to rise, its light branding on Song Lan’s back. 

Perhaps he is just imagining it, but for the rest of the day, everything is warm. 
 

---

. 

. 

. 

One day, in a spring where everything was lovely, the flowers in bloom, and the view invited both he and Xiao Xingchen to rest by the dome of trees, Song Lan asked him this question. 

“Why did you go down the mountain?” 

Xiao Xingchen looked up to him. 

Song Lan stared back. “Baoshan-sanren is a renowned cultivator,” he tried to elaborate. “You wouldn’t be living badly with her.” 

A smile made way to Xiao Xingchen’s face. He let out a small laugh, sounding breathless. “Ah... that is...,” his gaze softened. The laugh receded. 

There was something melancholic in the way he looked right now, in the way he was weighing his words. Then Xiao Xingchen looked up to him again. 

His voice, when he answered Song Lan, was resolute. His gaze, as he looked straight ahead into Song Lan’s eyes, was crystal-clear. 

“I want to save the world,” he said. 

Song Lan stared. Ah? 

Xiao Xingchen continued, stopping Song Lan’s thoughts—whatever he was about to think, now that the stone had been dropped, now that the hardest words had left his mouth. “Shifu,” he said, “told us of the wrongs of this world. Injustice. Villainy. Corruption. My wish is to right them, to shed light upon what was left in the dark. I want to help, somehow, in a way that matters.” 

He was silent for a while, before he added. “Staying in the mountain won’t do much.” 

Xiao Xingchen looked away, and still, Song Lan couldn’t help but to follow every of his movements. From the dark cast on his eyes, to the slight trembling of his lips, to his hands suddenly clasped together. 

From the time Song Lan had spent to know him, he had learned how much Xiao Xingchen’s appearance could be deceitful to others. He was elegant, too elegant for his age; his movements were carried with grace. He looked kind, having nothing but polite words and respect for those around him. Many compared him to Cangse-sanren, speaking of how her shidi had such a soft heart compared to her more willful nature, how different it was between the two disciples of Baoshan-sanren who had left the mountain. 

But could one, who was unwillful, say such outrageous dream with such conviction? Could one who was easily-swayed leave what had been his home for so many years, only to make true of his dreams? 

And how long had he been subjected to ridicule by it? 

Song Lan heard himself answer, as though in a daze. “It’s going to be difficult.” 

Xiao Xingchen’s head snapped to him. His dark eyes blinked owlishly. “What?” 

“Your goal.” Song Lan frowned at the reminder. “It won’t be easy to make true.” 

For a long time, Xiao Xingchen stared at him with none of the grace he had shown back then on the nighthunt they first met, his mouth slightly agape, closing and opening time to time again as though he was at lost for words. He looked less the former disciple of an Immortal he usually was, and more of a seventeen-year-old, uncertain with the ways of the world. 

He finally pressed his lips into a thin line, his eyebrows delicately furrowing. Then he smiled, hesitant at first, before the uncertainty dispelled and the smile grew larger and larger with Song Lan as its witness. 

When he looked away again, he was still smiling, as though he was trying hold back a laugh. 

“You are right,” he told Song Lan. His smile softened. “However, even though the road is perilous ahead, I still want to tread upon it.” 

The answer struck a note within Song Lan’s heart, as though it had been calling upon him, though he didn’t know for what. 

Song Lan considered that. “Then, you will need a friend.” 

Xiao Xingchen turned, wide-eyed. 

Song Lan met his bewildered gaze with no hesitance. 

In truth, this was the first time of his life that he’d ever dared to make such a daring move. The Great Master of Baixue Temple was not related to him by blood—none of them in the temple was. But the man was kind; he had taken up Song Lan as though his own child, had cared for him, had given him love that his own family could never give. Song Lan respected him from the depth of his heart and takes after Baixue Temple’s cultivation method as though garden taking water. He didn’t dare stain the temple’s name. 

However— 

I want to save the world. 

Song Lan tilted his head to side. Well? he urges Xiao Xingchen. Will you have me?

It felt abnormally long when Xiao Xingchen finally, finally, smiled at him. “Song Zichen,” his voice cracked on Song Lan’s name, and he quickly turned to side to hide it with a cough, ears red. Warmth suddenly appeared, coiling in the base of Song Lan’s chest. It’s not an unpleasant feeling. It’s not an unpleasant sight. 

“You...” he said, flustered, and Song Lan had never seen him this way, tongue-tied and searching for words. Xiao Xingchen finally settled for, “You never fail to surprise me.” 

Song Lan frowned. “I don’t intend to be.” 

It startled a laugh out of him. “I’m not saying it’s a bad thing; I don’t dislike it,” he said, and the words burned on Song Lan’s ears. “Ah, well. Where are my manners? For earlier, thank you, Song-daozhang.” 

The smile Xiao Xingchen gave him—it’s odd. Not by the utmost sincerity of it, which Song Lan was already being used to, with Xiao Xingchen’s constant honesty in conduct. Not even by the way it lighted up his face, the handsome lines of his lips, his eyes. 

But by how relieved he looked, as though what he’d said to Song Lan was his paring down his entire soul. 

This time, it’s Song Lan’s turn to look away. He tried to ignore the hotness spreading on his face, and the wild beat of his heart beneath his ribcage. 

He grunted as an answer, and only dared to look at Xiao Xingchen again once he gave him a question. 

“Well, enough about me. What about you, Song-daozhang?” 

“What about me?” 

Xiao Xingchen raised an elegant eyebrow. “What of your own dream?” he paused, before correcting himself. “Your goal, I mean.” 

Song Lan paused. 

Bring honour to Baixue Temple. Make the Temple Master proud. Reach Nascent Soul stage of cultivation, and if he could, push through until reaching Immortal Ascension. These were the answers he would have given had he been asked the same question by any other person. But something was holding him back, and the reason was related with Xiao Xingchen. 

The truth was, Song Lan yearned for something else, something not even he had told the Temple Master just yet. It was something he had thought of in fleeting passages as he cultivated and participated in nighthunts and exorcisms. It was naive. It was the result of a fool being too high up in the clouds. 

However— 

I want to save the world. 

If Song Lan were allowed a dream with such a grand scale, he wanted— 

“You mentioned that you want to save the world.” Xiao Xingchen was still looking at him, and Song Lan averted his gaze. His pulse quickened, his blood was racing. Deep in his chest, there was a primeval fear that had made root within, that had besieged his heart, now even as he spoke. Song Lan wondered if this was what Xiao Xingchen had felt earlier, when he’d tried to speak of his dream. 

“I... what I want,” what Song Lan wanted was— “A world where people have abundance of love. For the children, especially.” 

Song Lan’s throat was dry. He had never been good at talking. This explaining was something new to him, but he had to try. 

“I’ve seen a family throw away their children for being unwanted. I’ve seen family that values blood more than love.” He’d experienced the former firsthand. He’d experienced the latter in reverse. “I’ve seen children experience cruelty that is undeserving for them. And I...” I want to see a world where people can live through their childhood, and proclaim, ‘I have loved, and been loved.’ 

Song Lan helplessly continued, “I don’t want to see that ever again.” 

Perhaps, what afterwards ensues was silence, but what Song Lan could only hear right now was the pounding of his heart in his ears. 

“It’s foolish,” he said, through the bruising beat of his heart in his chest. “It’s naive—” 

“No.” 

Xiao Xingchen rushed in front of him. “Song-daozhang,” he cried out, his hands raising up as if to touch. They stilled mid-air, as though reluctant, before finally touching Song Lan’s shoulders. 

“It’s not. Your dream- it’s not foolish at all,” Xiao Xingchen said, his eyes wide. He shook Song Lan’s shoulders, hard. “Do you hear me, Song-daozhang? Song Zichen, believe in me. Your dream is not foolish.” 

His next words were shaky, spoken with breathlessness. “I... I want to see that world, too, the one you have dreamed of.” 

Song Lan’s breath hitched. He could not look away, and he would not avert his eyes in the slightest. Not when Xiao Xingchen was looking at him in determination, in full trust. The look of trust is a rare privilege. He carved Xiao Xingchen’s face in his heart right at this moment, and didn’t stop even the slightest, until he knew he would never have to look back hard to seek this memory in mind. 

Eventually, it ended. Xiao Xingchen breathed as his palms slid down to cup Song Lan’s elbows, before pulling away. 

And Song Lan breathed, cold without the warmth of Xiao Xingchen’s touch, light as though his soul had been set free. 

He was still in a bit of a daze. It made him speak the first thing that came to his mind. “They say that a thousand-mile journey begins with the first step.” 

Xiao Xingchen turned to him, and their eyes met again. 

Song Lan’s heart was light. A smile came unbidden to him, softly. 

“Where shall we go next?” 


 

. 

. 

. 

Song Lan pauses in his steps. Both souls in the pouches right beside his heart pulse gently. 

In truth, their dream was naive. In truth, it was foolish. 

But they were seventeen years old. They were both still too young, too innocent to know what might’ve lurked outside the cultivation world. They didn’t know what would happen to them back then, thinking that what they have would forever remain the same. 

It is a memory that feels as though a lifetime ago. 

That dream of yours was beautiful, Xingchen. Song Lan tips his head, until the wide blue sky comes to view. Had you lived, it would surely…

Song Lan closes his eyes.

.

.

.