Chapter Text
Lan XiChen
“You Master, you look like you need some help,” he bent down sunlight haloing his face. This is Meng Yao on the day you met him, barely seventeen, concern all over his face.
You’ve just escaped from the Cloud Recess. Burning. It was burning. But it seems so far away and unimportant now, because this is the past. This is too long ago.
You have tears in your eyes, because he’s so beautiful, was so beautiful. He doesn’t remember.
“Hey, it’ll be okay,” he says, patting you gently on the shoulder, an awkward reassuring smile on his face, “let’s work this out. Let me help you.”
This must be a dream, you realize. Or perhaps your entire life was a dream, and this is the reality, and you're still running away from the Wens, and he still hasn't committed a single atrocity, not yet hated by the world.
He takes you to his home and dresses your wounds, provides you with food and water, listens to your story and assure you with kind words. His voice is soft and gentle as he wipes your face, “it’s alright, Young Master, you’re going to be okay.”
In here, everything is simple, and A-Yao is whole.
What does it say about you that you prefer the past, where he was guileless, powerless, innocent?
You wake up to A-Yao resting in your arm. He opens his eyes, and something shatters in it as he sees you. You hold him with trembling arms as he opens his mouth in a soundless scream. All you can say is “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” like a mantra.
Ultimately, its all meaningless.
Jin GuangYao
You know that this is a dream.
He looks to you with an apologetic smile, ripped robe in his hands. “I’m sorry… I guess this is too hard after all.” You were youths again, and his eyes were tired but clear.
You push him down and put your hands around his neck, he doesn't resist.
But you can’t do it. You had, once upon a time, made a promise to yourself not to hurt this boy before you. You broke that promise, over and over, but you still can’t kill him, not even in a dream.
“I hate you.” I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.
Tears fall onto Lan Huan’s young, perfect face. Without a voice, he mouths, “I’m sorry.”
You wake up, safely nestled in Lan Huan’s arms, and he tells you “A-Yao, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” you wipe away his tears and lie, “it’s okay.”
You stare into each other’s eyes, and despite your appearances as youths, you both see it, a lifetime of mistakes.
And this moment, at the small inn not far from YunPing, was the moment of your undoing.
"What if we can start again?” you ask. You're Meng Yao, Jin GuangYao, LianFang-Zun, cultivation partner of ZeWu-Jun.
But this is just a dream.
“Let’s start again,” you say. You're Lan Huan, Lan XiChen, Zewu-Jun, cultivation partner of LianFang-Zun.
In the morning, you’ll wake up in each other’s arms, a lifetime of love and regrets. But in this moment, your fingers intertwine.
In this moment, everything is simple, and you’re both complete.
You smile, he smiles back.