Chapter Text
Prologue
The five major clans owed their success to the blessings of Dragons. How else could a mere Lan monk, or a humble Nie butcher independently build empires that stood atop the many cultivating clans of China? But, with the rise of human empires came the decline of the ones that helped them grow.
And Dragons themselves disappeared, becoming a creature of fairy and folktales.
Still worshiped as a symbol of prosperity and power, they stood as creatures, both divine and corporeal. Some spoke of Dragons’ distaste for humanity’s greed and corruption - they took to the sky, abandoning their corporeal bodies in disgust of the ones they had once protected. Others spoke of dragons becoming too powerful; thus, the gods divided them into three parts. Their bodies, their spiritual cores and their treasures.
Without their bodies, they could not interact with the living world. Without their cores, they held power no stronger than that of a human. And without their treasures, they could not transform into the serpentine creature that roamed the skies nor could they disobey the commands of the one who hoarded their treasure.
These stories recounted the fate of dragons. They were forced to wander the world bodiless. Or fated to wander the world as a human, their treasure lost. Sometimes, the one who held this treasure enslaved them.
And the dragons were reminded of the depravity of humankind.
Chapter 1: A corpse among corpses
Wei Ying smiled as he fell.
He smiled because of all the deaths that the gods could have granted him for his sins, this one was almost a gift. The only two living souls whom he cared for in this world were before him. Alive. And even if one of their faces contorted with anger, and the other with grief, it didn’t matter. Their hearts would continue beating even when Wei Ying’s stopped, their souls would remain whole even when his did not.
And that was enough.
But, Wei Wuxian did not die upon impact.
Mounds of corpses, bloated and dessicated alike caught his body among their flesh and bone. But, aside from impeding his imminent death, they did nothing to cushion him from the fall: shattered bones, sharpened by air and age pierced through his skin. His own bones, fractured by the fall, pierced flesh and organs from the inside.
The Yiling Patriarch would be nothing but a skewered corpse by sunset.
A gurgle of a laugh bubbled out of bloody lips. It was a fitting end , Wei Wuxian thought. For one who caused the deaths of his own sister, of her husband, of the ones who raised him, and of the ones who’d relied on him for life when the clans had all but condemned them as rabid dogs to be put down, this was nothing but karmic retribution. He almost felt ashamed of the relief he’d felt as he fell, believing that he’d been granted the gift of a swift death with the reflections of his loved ones as his last memory.
This death...made more sense.
This death was more one he deserved.
He could feel resentful energy writhing among the bodies that served as his bed and prison in death. They shifted around him, excited at the new addition to their ranks. They slithered around his limbs and inside his wounds and eyes, infusing their hatred into his body. The moment his heart stopped beating, his soul would become one in their despair and darkness. Unrecognizable, and inseparable from this singular mass of resentment.
Wei Wuxian could not even struggle against this fate. His spine was in pieces; he could not even flinch away. His core floated above him, in a body that was not his own; he was too weak to fight the resentment that threatened to overtake him. All he could do was gurgle a sigh and accept his fate.
(Are you not afraid to die?)
Wei Wuxian closed his eyes, wondering which manner of being spoke to him. The voice was an echo, both in his head and not. Resentful energy already clouded his vision, and he could see nothing in the haze. Was it the resentment speaking to him? Was it himself? Was it the gods? Was it just a delusion from the edge of death?
No, I’m not, he answered, entertaining the voice simply so that the time towards his death would feel shorter.
(Why?)
This is my fate.
(You do not wish to live?)
Wei Wuxian huffed in annoyance at the voice. If it was resentment speaking to him, it was the most inquisitive resentment he’d ever known. If it was himself, he hated his mind for not even allowing himself even a sliver of a dream on his deathbed. He could’ve been harvesting potatoes in Burial Mound with the Wens and offering Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng and A-jie some tea in the demon slaughtering cave. He could’ve been buying A-Yuan a toy without worrying about money and laughing as the child attached himself to Lan Zhan’s leg at the Yiling market even as Wei Ying huffed and puffed about how he bought the toy. Or he could’ve been presenting his gift to Jin Ling while A-jie smiled at him, and Jin Zixuan finally admitted ‘Wei-gege, I am awed at your greatness’ and Jiang Cheng grudgingly asked him to make one for him too.
He could’ve been imagining the life and chances he destroyed for himself.
I don’t , Wei Wuxian stated.
(You do not wish to live?)
Wei Wuxian thought about the moment he fell and the pain on Lan Zhan’s face. He remembered the blood dripping off the man’s arm as he held onto Wei Ying’s arm with such desperation that it was almost like he would die if he let go of him. He remembered the pain on Jiang Cheng’s face even as he screamed for Wei Ying to go to hell. He remembered A-Yuan, wondering if there was any possibility the boy was alive while all his caretakers hung above the entrance of Nightless City.
I don’t...want to die, he admitted. He wanted to tell Lan Zhan that everything was alright. He wanted to bury the Wens. He wanted to find A-Yuan’s body. He wanted to tell Jiang Cheng he was sorry. He wanted to bow in front of A-jie’s grave and burn paper money so that the afterlife would have no choice but to treat her well. He wanted --
-- to live.
But, he wasn’t afraid to die. Because, if fate dictated this moment to be his death, he knew it would be a well-deserved one. Despite his regrets, the death of the Yiling Patriarch would beget peace, even if for a moment.
(But--)
Wei Wuxian wondered when his mind would shut up and let him rest.
(--you want to live?)
This time Wei Wuxian did not answer, but the voice seemed to know regardless. It continued speaking.
(I will grant that wish.)
Wei Wuxian wondered if he would still have his own thoughts once the resentful energy consumed him.
(In gratitude to the one who saved the last of my clan --)
He wondered if his soul would be recognizable in the end. If Lan Zhan would try to talk to him through inquiry, if he could answer as himself.
(--and respected my people when their honor was scourged--)
Wei Wuxian closed his eyes, feeling the resentful energy saturate even the edges of his consciousness as his breathing stuttered to a stop.
(--I will allow you to live)
Wei Ying’s heart stopped.
.
.
.
... human.
Do you regret this?
No?
..ah...you are right. It was death either way.
.
.
.
...human.
...your memories may not survive this.
….you do not wish to continue?
...you will become powerful.
...no?
...are your memories so important?
.
.
.
...human…
...I will seal those memories of yours...
...they will not be destroyed…
.
.
.
...it is almost done.
... I will gather your golden core and your treasure…
...and it will be complete.
...Leave them? What do you mean?
...I see...then you will wake up powerless.
...that is fine?
.
.
.
...human…
...ah, I suppose I cannot call you that anymore.
.
.
.
..goodbye.
Wei Ying woke up on a bed of red dust and stone, feeling strangely light and empty. He wondered why he thought it was strange to feel this way. All he could remember were those feelings so wasn’t that normal? If it was all he knew? Oh wait, his name. Wei Ying? That was his name, right? It felt right.
Wei Ying. Yes, that sounded right.
Wei Ying staggered to his feet, noticing threadbare black and red robes. They were well worn and aged, the black and red both sun faded to a faint shadow of their former glory. But he didn’t remember putting them on, nor wearing them for - from their state - what looked like months or years. His skin showed no fresh injuries, not even a scrape from the rough gravel that sprinkled the stone floor where he’d been laying. But, scars littered his body, old cuts and punctures almost overtaking the unmarred parts of his skin.
They did not hurt.
Wei Ying breathed in deeply, his lungs filling to the brim with cold air; he sighed in content, feeling as though it was his first unburdened breath out of a thousand. He stretched, his joints cracking as he warmed up stiff muscles. Then, he froze. He blinked at his scarred arms, at puncture wounds that matched on both sides of them - as if whatever hit had pierced through.
He could not remember where they came from.
His mind echoed his name comfortably, whispering Wei Ying, Wei Ying like a paperweight to his thoughts - steady and stabilizing. But.
He could not remember his mother. Did he have one? Did he know one?
He could not remember his father. He could not remember his home. His life.
Wei Ying’s heart pounded against his chest. He shuffled forward, squinting at the sun rising in the distance as he exited--his cave? He was in a cave? Why? His lungs took in more cold air, a little more dusty than his first breath. And all he could see was stone.
Stone, dust, dust , stone, stone, stone, and corpses.
Wei Ying left his cave just to enter a canyon with walls that raised themselves to the heavens, a stone prison of nothing but dust, walls, and corpses. His cave was lifted a little off the floor of the canyon, hidden away into a small part of the wall but, even from there, Wei Ying could see the sheer amount of bodies that littered the canyon floor. They were an unwelcome reprieve to the unending expanse of red-black-grey stone. With blue sky and sunshine above, and mounds of neverending corpses at the bottom, the man wondered.
Was he in hell?
Why was he here?
Wei Ying dragged himself down to the floor of the canyon to investigate. He stood on his tiptoes as he toed the space between corpses, trying not to disturb the dead. The bodies were so numerous that each step took a minute of analyzing just to find an empty space to stick his foot in. Reaching body upon body, Wei Ying noticed that none of them were recent: they were dried up, basking in the sun for years, at least. The robes were sun-bleached as well, though their colours were still distinguishable despite the fading.
Purple. White. Grey. Gold. Red.
The majority of the corpses were divided into the five colors, the largest being of red-robed corpses that bore the symbol of the sun. Sometimes, Wei Ying would come across a shackled corpse clad in rags, and other times he found corpses dressed simply in mute colors - contrary from the majority strewn on the canyon floor. They looked to belong to normal people, citizens that you’d see on the streets of any town or city.
Was this an execution ground? Were the coloured robes, clan robes?
Dark energy licked at his heels, and Wei Ying almost stepped back away from it until he noticed that was all it could do. It touched at his skin without harm, despite the strong malice emanating from it. Talismans, he noticed were placed on the chest of each body, aged and fraying at the edges - but, they still held. Wei Ying crouched down to examine the talisman, scrutinizing the characters and strokes; it was an evil repelling talisman, he noticed. But, the characters were a mirror image of the original - instead of repelling evil, they kept it in.
He laughed. “That’s genius,” he exclaimed to the corpses. “I wonder who--”
I’m the one that came up with that.
Oh.
Wei Ying’s laughter faded. The thought answered his unasked question, but left more in its wake.
Why. Why was THAT one of the few things he remembered?
Wei Ying felt that he should sit down and think about that. But, sitting on mounds of corpses didn’t seem all that comfortable, so he just stood there - on his tiptoes - scratching his nose. The question of what exactly DID he remember was the question of the hour and it took a few minutes for Wei Ying to browse through his scarce memories.
His name for one.
The talisman. Other talismans. He knew what arrays were. And quite a few things about spirits and monsters.
Wei Ying grabbed a sword from the nearest corpse, keeping it sheathed as he twisted his wrist and jabbed it in the air.
How to fight, apparently.
Wei Ying really needed to sit down. The question of why was starting to echo in repeat in his mind and the shock of waking up with no memories in a canyon of corpses was admittedly, tiring.
He stumbled towards a mound of purple clad corpses - decorated with a nine-petalled lotus flower - and reached out to touch one of them. Maybe if he touched something, his memories would miraculously appear. Wei Ying laughed a bit, that was unlikely but still, it didn’t hurt to try and maybe the corpse had something on it that could fill at least some of his empty memories.
Briefly, Wei Ying wondered why he was so drawn to the color purple. He was surrounded by corpses and any one would have done. But, the purple brought a sense of nostalgia to his eyes, and he couldn’t stop his feet from moving. There was a bell at the waist of the corpse and he reached out to touch it.
Wei Wuxian!
Wei Ying froze, his eyes still on the bell. A voice rang in his head and he almost stumbled back and tripped on the corpse behind him. He almost answered the call with a ‘ excuse me , my name is Wei Ying.’ But the voice so confidently seemed to call out to him.
Go to hell!
That had him stumbling back, tripping on the corpse and falling backwards to find himself face to face to a dried up cadaver dressed in white. Before he could question the voice in his head, his eyes found the white-blue ribbon that was tied loosely on the body's dusty forehead
Wei Ying!
Wei Ying flinched at the second voice. His mind seemed to enjoy screaming at him today.
Come back.
Wei Ying crawled backwards, his knees trying to find purchase on stable un-corpsed ground to pull himself upward. His eyes were starting to haze over with the brightness of a migraine and the alternating voices - one angry, one pleading - vibrated his brain.
Wei Wuxian! Wei Ying! Wei Wuxian! Wei Ying!
Go to hell! Come back. Go to hell!
Wei Ying slapped his palm onto his face, trying to block out anything - light, sound, everything. He didn’t understand, he didn’t know, he didn’t remember. Those voices. Those words.
“Give me a second,” he grit out. “Shut up. Get lost. Quiet. I can’t --”
( ...goodbye)
The third voice that echoed was just a whisper, but it silenced all the vibrations in his mind. It gave Wei Ying a chance to regain his mental bearings but all he could do was clasp his head, asking himself What is happening? What’s going on?
(The seal on...will weaken when...wake up)
“What?” Wei Ying asked aloud, as if to ask the voice to repeat itself.
( hope...enough...to survive)
Wei Ying really needed to sit down. He needed to sit down and think even though his head seemed to be one thought away from killing him. His migraine was hammering away behind his eyes and Wei Ying was sorely tempted to lie down with the corpses instead of finding one of the few little expanses to sit on. Maybe he could just toss a few corpses on top of each other and clear out some space.
Yes, he’ll do that.
Wei Ying reached down to flip over a corpse, but his hand barely had time to grip the collar before he heard footsteps approach from above. Quickly, he released his grip, twisting around to find a place to hide. His cave was far and he stood among a sea of corpses. Wei Ying took a deep breath, reaching out to the corpse again and pulling it up as he pushed himself down. He let the corpse fall on top of him, noticing that it was one of those red-clad ones. He held his breath, lying prone as he let his hair fall on his face to cover his eyes enough to watch whatever came down. And, if he was seen, at least it hid the fact that his eyes hadn’t dried into his skull yet.
A group of sixteen men - clad in colours that matched four of the five of the ones the corpses wore - descended into the canyon. They arrived in single file from a slope that was only wide enough for one person to walk at a time.
Four men in gold.
Four in purple.
White.
Grey.
No red.
Each of the men seemed to have eye bags as deep as the canyon; Wei Ying wouldn’t doubt if they spent most of the day descending it, considering the height. In silence, each man marched into the canyon floor, not bothering to look around except to spot a corpse with matching clothes. They all lugged a body onto their shoulders, making their way back up with barely a minute spent on the canyon floor.
No wonder, Wei Ying observed, there were so many red corpses.
How selfish.
Wei Ying almost jumped out from his hiding place to confront them. There were so many red-clad corpses, so many bodies of normal people, and even of prisoners. Did they not deserve rest too? If Wei Ying had been one of them, an actual corpse beneath this red one, would they spend the day bringing him returning him to the sky? Bring him back to the family he could not remember, burn paper money so that his soul didn’t suffer in the after life?
Or would they leave him there, with the thought that he deserved to die in such a hell hole?
The thought left him cold and the echo of go to hell go to hell go to hell restarted in his mind.
Maybe, this really was an execution ground. And he was someone who’d been executed for his crimes. Maybe he killed a hundred people, maybe he burned a city to the ground.
A criminal.
Wei Ying shook the thought from his head in favor of observing the men that were trudging back up the incline. He noticed how the men seemed to double check each of the faces of the bodies that they brought up. Were they looking for someone? Were they just checking to see if it was someone they knew?
Whatever they saw must have left each man with a grim satisfaction - they all continued their climb - leaving Wei Ying behind, and under the corpse.
It was only when they had climbed a safe enough distance that Wei Ying wiggled himself out of his hiding place. With an eye up in case any of the clan members glanced back down to see a supposed corpse still standing, he made his way to the nearest non-clan corpse. He whispered a small prayer, apology, and a promise to come to bury the man and the rest of the corpses left behind, taking the clothes off the corpses as respectfully as he could.
As faded as his own clothes were, Wei Ying had a suspicion that the formerly rich colours of black and red would attract eyes his way. An almost burlap brown, he mused, would make a better camouflage. Fully changed (and with no time to speculate the sun-shaped brand on his chest) , Wei Ying shook his former clothes to make sure he hadn’t missed anything hidden. He blinked as he picked two shriveled lotus seeds out of his sleeve. A wave of despair and loss grasped at his chest at the sight of them. He stuck them into the chest pocket where they sat heavy near his heart despite weighing almost nothing.
Before he could grasp at the feeling however, the man set out to follow the cultivators that were almost out of his sight up the cliff. Wei Ying trailed after them with light footsteps, making sure to stick close the wall and only sprinting whenever they turned a corner. He caught up easily, unburdened by the weight of a body. The sixteen men were mostly quiet, conserving their strength for the upward climb.
But, sometimes they would sit and rest. They would lay the bodies down, and almost make a gesture to leave, stepping away quite a distance before they themselves laid their bodies down to rest (usually somewhere when Wei Ying could hear but not see them). Again, fatigue would seal their mouths but sometimes they would gripe about their task (rarely the White clad cultivators however).
“Can someone remind me again why we’ve been lugging corpses up when we can just fly them out on our swords?” one cultivator groaned, greedily slurping up water from his bamboo bottle.
“We tried,” another replied. “Remember someone dying when the resentful energy lashed out?”
“We put talismans!”
“They had talismans then too!”
One of the grey robed cultivators leaned against the stone wall. “It’s probably the Yiling Patriarch. I bet he’s keeping us from bringing back the corpses so he can raise an army when he gets back.”
The silence stretched long enough that Wei Ying almost believed the cultivators returned from their break. But, another man responded:
“It’s been three years. He’s probably dead.”
“They can’t summon his spirit though! We can’t say for sure.”
This time, the following silence really was the men returning to their hike. They dragged their feet back to their respective corpses, each one grunting as the weight of the corpse added to the growing weight of exhaustion on their shoulders.
The cultivator group made it to the top of the canyon well past the setting of the sun; Wei Ying, did not. The moment the sun disappeared off the horizon, the energy in his body disappeared as quickly as water cupped in the hands of a cotton-mouthed man. He crumbled in the darkness, the energy levels in his body merely a weak reflection of what it had been in under sunlight.
It was alarming.
This was wrong. It didn’t feel right. Even without his memories, Wei Ying knew:
It wasn’t normal for someone to become incapable of moving the moment the sun set.
But-- Wei Ying thought bitterly. He still couldn’t remember a thing.
He woke up alive among corpses. Why did he ever think he was normal?
Maybe he was cursed. Cursed with memory loss, cursed with sun-less immobility, someone must have hated him in his past? Life. Did he die? Was this his first life? Did losing his memory count as dying? Maybe this was a fever dream.
Wei Ying wondered if he was a fierce corpse. Maybe it was resentment fueling him cause some incompetent cultivator forgot to put one of those talismans on his chest. But, a fierce corpse still moved regardless of sunlight so that was a big no no.
Maybe, Wei Ying entertained. He wasn’t human. It was a bit of a laugh honestly. Even though this day was the first of his memories, his mind screamed that he was human. That he had human arms and human legs and a human face (that he hasn’t yet seen). But--
He shook the start of the thought away from his mind. Philosophizing his existence could wait until he could move his limbs more than a spasmic flinch away from himself. He didn’t know what would come in the night - if a cultivator would descend to find his prone body or if any spirits or fierce corpses would ascend from below.
Although it looked as though he was spasming on the ground, Wei Ying was trying his best to roll himself to the side wall of the inclining walkway: he needed to minimize his presence. If he rolled a bit further, he could eclipse himself in the shadow of the canyon’s height (though if someone walked by, he was one hundred percent dead). And, if he could gain enough energy to cut his arm on a sharp rock, then he could smear an evil repelling talisman on his chest. It would be sloppy with his numb arms, but so long as he didn’t encounter high level spirits, it would be enough.
The man squirmed haphazardly towards his hiding place, managing to flop his back against the wall. Sitting up was an impossibility, but laying down was the best option to remain unseen anyways. Wei Ying jerked the top part of his own robes opening, biting the inside of his mouth when he couldn’t find a sharp rock to score his arm against. He let both blood and saliva dribble onto the rock, letting it pool enough for his finger to dip into it like paint. With shaking hands, he painted the talisman on his chest. It took the rest of his energy to finish it, and all he could do was hope that after it dried, he would be able to survive the night.
Even though he knew it was simply the night, the darkness left an ugly hole in Wei Ying’s chest. It choked him enough to bring fear; he didn’t understand the fear, nor where it came from. But, it clawed at his chest every moment that he could not see the light. The fear almost convinced him that if he closed his eyes - allowed his mind to welcome more darkness - he would not wake up.
The night sky brought no comfort.
It was a void: the energy of resentment tainting everything from hell to heavens. And Wei Ying laid in the middle of it, defenseless, prone, unmoving, knowing nothing nor understanding anything of his predicament. But, to pity himself would disrespect the corpses that he woke up among; he could’ve been one of them, but he was not.
He could have been dead, but he was not.
He could’ve been caught, but he was not.
Wei Ying had everything to be grateful for, as much as one who had woken among corpses could be.
So he lay there in darkness, stilling the fear in his heart as he waited for dawn to break into the sky.
But, he did not have to wait until sunrise for light to fill the sky.
Laying on cold ground, he was illuminated by a multicolor of lights in the sky. Arrays of white and blue and yellow danced in contrast to the clouds, bathing down rays of light upon each part of the canyon. The light was a welcome break from the dark, but recognition transformed the welcome into a chill.
A summoning.
Then, the shouts and chanting began.
“Wei Wuxian! We summon thee from the void!”
“Answer our call!”
“Yiling Patriarch! Come forth!”
“Wei Ying!”
Overlapping shouts echoed across the canyon, so much so that he could feel it in the stone. He shuddered at the sound of his name on so many lips. It felt wrong to hear it being yelled with such angry vigor - as if calling to him was a personal offense to the ones attempting the summon. It brought him comfort to realize that the use of ‘Wei Ying’ was one that was far and in between, the majority summoners opting to use ‘Wei Wuxian’ or ‘Yiling Patriarch.’
Was this ‘Wei Wuxian’ that they spoke of in such determined anger really him?
Was this ‘Yiling Patriarch’ that they yelled out with barely concealed fear, him?
Wei Ying examined the arrays in the sky.
A spell to summon a ghost.
A spell to summon an evil spirit.
A spell to summon a demon.
So many littered the sky, all having the same or similar meanings to the next. It was almost like watching fireworks, beautiful, bright, and colorful; and, he would have enjoyed it, had he not known the implications.
They were summoning him , whom they believed to be a ghost.
Him , an evil spirit.
Him, a demon.
Wei Ying. Wei Wuxian. The Yiling Patriarch.
Wei Ying wondered if he was actually some manner of creature that they were summoning. He didn’t feel like a ghost, evil spirit, or demon. But well , with the memories of 7-8 hours, who was he to know?
“I am--” he declared to himself. “A big, bad, spooky monster.”
He laughed nervously. The declaration sounded wrong. But, at the same time it didn’t. He couldn’t describe the feeling. However, regardless of the declaration it was an ugly realization:
Wei Ying woke up to a world that hated and feared him.
“A big, bad, spooky monster--” he continued. “--who can’t even move at night.”
What a weak ass monster.
“I’m a big, bad, spooky monster--” he repeated. “--who gets hungry.”
Wei Ying wondered if someone could hear him talking to himself. But, the chants and shouts were so overpowering, he was sure that he was the only one who could hear his voice. He wondered if, in the silence, people would hear his stomach growl - there was an empty rumble in his belly that shook up to his tongue, making him crave things on his taste buds that he couldn’t remember the name of.
“I want to eat…”
Lotus root and pork rib soup
“...something warm... and spicy.”
“I want to drink..”
Emperor’s smile
“Something cool….and spicy.”
Wei Wuxian laid in the cold, without energy, without food or drink, without warmth, and without memories. If he couldn’t hear his heart beating strongly from his chest to his ear, he would’ve thought himself dead. Death seemed to be the next step down, just a shuffle away from his current condition.
But, he thought. Maybe I came up from death. And it’s the next step, but in the opposite direction.
Wei Ying sighed. He was surprised that he could maintain any optimism in his situation; but, pessimism wouldn’t help him. With that in mind, the man closed his eyes, ready for a fitful rest until dawn. But, just as he began to drift into a shallow sleep, he heard a command echo through his mind.
Wei Ying. Answer me.
The voice was a whisper: soft and pleading.
Wei Ying’s mouth moved automatically, as if his body bent to the command before his mind could process it.
“What?”
Wei Ying.
Wei Ying opened his eyes sluggishly; no one had descended or ascended the canyon’s slope. He was alone.
“What?” he repeated. At least, what little energy he had allowed his mouth to move.
Are you here?
Again, he wondered at the voice in his head but Wei Ying couldn’t bring himself to be surprised. Voices, it seemed, we’re going to be a regular fixture in his life. Still, Wei Ying recognized it, the pleading of ‘Come back’ echoing with his realization. It was the nice voice he thought sleepily, the nice voice was calming, so kind it was to not tell him to go to hell.
“I’m here”, he answered.
Wei Ying.
Can you hear me?
“I can hear you,” he murmured.
Wei Ying.
Are you at peace?
Wei Ying paused at the last question, thinking as he bathed in the lights of a crowds’ attempted summoning of himself. He thought about his powerlessness, his unawareness, his hunger. Then he answered truthfully.
“No.”
He waited for the next question, comforted by a voice so starkly contrasting the commands and lights that accosted his eyes and ears. But, the inquiries simply repeated themselves; and, his answers remained the same.
Wei Ying.
Are you here? Can you hear me? Are you at peace?
Yes. Yes. No.
They repeated themselves five times further, leaving Wei Ying to the conclusion that whoever asked the questions could not hear his answers. The thought left a sort of sadness in his chest but, his tiredness and hunger forced his body to shut down before he could let the feelings spread.
He slept in the cold when silence fell.