Chapter Text
The first lash appears after the hunt on water ghouls.
There’s nothing special about the case at first. Lan Wangji arrives in the town and talks to the locals. It doesn’t take long for him to figure out what’s going on.
The reservoir near the town has been the site of several mysterious disappearances over the past months. Kids went skinny dipping and never came back, empty fishing boats washed up on the shore with no trace of their owners, good swimmers drowned as if something pulled them under. It’s easy to come to the conclusion that the waters are infested by water ghouls.
The sun is low when Lan Zhan arrives at the lake. A thick fog is rolling around, and there’s no sound but the calls of water birds and the gentle slosh of waves.
That’s why when he hears the first tone of a flute, he thinks it's just the wind in the branches of the tall trees bordering the shore. But soon, the sound carries to him, and he recognizes it as a melody. Hearing the dizi makes him shiver, like touching a tooth with your tongue and finding a gap in its place, the nerve raw and bleeding.
He follows the gentle lure of the song. The melody surges and falls. The more he listens, the more he realizes how crude the sound is, but that train of thought is lost when he sees the figure on the edge of the water.
He looks like a dark shadow shrouded in the mist rising from the water. Lan Zhan's heart gives a hard thud. It's been decades since he ran into another cultivator, and he only ever knew one who used the flute for cultivation through music outside of the Gusu Lan Sect.
The man is standing still, his back straight but not in the stiff way Lan Zhan holds himself. There's something relaxed about him, an easy kind of elegance, like a dancer.
Lan Wangji takes a look at the flute pressed to the man’s lips. It’s no wonder that its sound is so unrefined. The flute is more of a carved twig than an instrument.
Despite that, Lan Wangji can feel the hum of magic on his skin. The man's eyes are focused on the water's surface as he spins a spell with his song. The lake, or whatever dwells in its depths, reacts by bubbling and splashing.
Lan Wangji forces himself to tear his eyes off of the man and gets his guqin ready.
The moment his fingers touch the strings, the other cultivator turns slightly to look at him over his shoulder. His lips curl into a small smile as he draws in a breath before he resumes his melody. The smile is like a stab under Lan Zhan's ribs, but he doesn't know why. People smile at him with gratitude, with hope, but never like this.
He focuses on his instrument. His fingers are flying over the strings with practiced ease. The tones of the guqin merge with the sound of the flute as if they were always meant to play together.
The splashing intensifies, and the water looks like it's boiling. The hairs on Lan Wangji's arms rise as the charge in the air grows.
The flute cuts off abruptly as a dark shape darts out of the water and hurls itself towards them. The man takes a step back, dodging the ghoul. Before the creature can aim for any of them, Lan Zhan unsheathes his sword in one fluid movement and slashes through its body.
More ghouls come after that. The flutist resumes his melody, but it's changed. It's sharp and nerve-wracking.
Lan Wangji dances to the melody, his sword in his hand swishing through the air.
The ghouls die after being cut in half by his sword or squirm in agony under the impact of the new melody.
The furious dance ends as the last dark body hits the ground and dissolves into a puddle of foul-smelling liquid. Lan Wangji breathes out and sheaths his sword.
"That was cool," a cheerful voice says. Lan Wangji doesn't flinch thanks to the sheer power of will. He didn't even realize the melody had ceased. He turns toward the other man who's now facing him in an even more relaxed stance, twirling the flute in one hand.
Lan Zhan takes the chance to take a proper look at him.
He has shown that he possesses a cultivator's skill, even though he doesn’t look like one.
Lan Wangji appreciates modern clothes for their practicality, but from an aesthetic point of view, he despises them.
The man's outfit is the epitome of everything that's wrong with clothing in the 21st century.
His sturdy black shoes are the only article that fits the occasion of monster-hunting. The rest is as impractical as it gets. His black jeans are too tight, exaggerating the length of his legs. His clothes are layered with no sense, shades of black split by bright red. With his leather jacket cinched at the waist, wide at the chest, and adorned with silver buckles and studs, he looks like he might belong to a gang or a band.
His hair is long, the only thing Lan Wangji would expect of a cultivator. It’s tied in a messy bun, though, and held from his face by shiny hairpins. The contrast of their red color with his black hair is almost vulgar, but not as much as the long red tassel of his earring. To top all that, he's wearing a broad grin, the kind that turns his eyes into two crescents.
Lan Wangji has seen many faces in his very long life. They all seem the same to him. This one shouldn't be different. It shouldn't.
"Thanks for the assistance, but I would have handled it," he says with confidence. There’s an undercurrent of laughter in his voice as if he finds slaughtering water ghouls amusing.
"I doubt it," Lan Wangji replies coldly as he turns to leave.
"Wait!" Warm fingers close around his arm, and he freezes. He turns and gives the hand holding his arm a look so hostile that the man withdraws it in an instant and lets out an apologetic chuckle.
"You are one of the old ones, right? A true cultivator. I’ve never met one before."
Lan Zhan leaves without a reply and heads back toward the town. The man doesn't seem to be phased. He catches up with Lan Zhan and walks by his side.
"It's the hair, you know? And the-" he gestures around his own forehead to imply Lan Zhan's ribbon. "And there's just something ancient about you. No offense. I like it."
Something strange squirms in the pit of Lan Zhan's stomach. He ignores it. He tries to ignore the man too, but it's hard.
"I also liked your guqin. Very classic. And you make it disappear so you don't have to carry it around. Practical. Oh and your sword, that was the coolest."
"You talk too much."
"Uh, sorry." He doesn't sound sorry at all. "It was a job well done. Let's get a celebratory drink."
"I don't drink."
"Celebratory coffee? Tea? Don't tell me you don't drink tea. You look like the type who loves tea."
Lan Zhan comes to a halt so suddenly, the man stumbles his last few steps.
"Where did you learn spiritual songs if you never met a cultivator? Who is your mentor?"
He shrugs carelessly. "I don't have one. I just kinda know what to do."
Lan Wangji frowns. At least his inquiry seems to be what finally drives the man off.
"You know what? I'm gonna get the drink. I heard they have great wine in this region. I'm gonna drink one in your honor," he says.
Lan Zhan opens his mouth, suddenly intrigued, but before he manages to get anything out, the man waves at him with another dazzling smile, turns, and heads in the opposite direction.
Lan Wangji watches him for a moment. There's a spring in his step, and he's twirling his flute again.
The sight of him evokes a strange feeling in Lan Wangji. Like an itch he can't scratch. Like a word on the tip of his tongue.
He closes his eyes and takes a calming breath.
He returns to the town, accepts a dinner offered to him as payment, and collects some stories that might lead to other cases.
The encounter slips off his mind.
A hot shower is Lan Wangji’s favorite modern invention. Standing under the spray, he feels his muscles unwind. As he closes his eyes, he lets all the hustle and bustle of the modern world be washed away. He misses the quiet of old days, misses the places he used to go when he needed to clear his head and calm his heart. Most of them are destroyed or crowded by tourists nowadays. He’s quite sure there’s a spa built on the cold pond in Cloud Recesses.
He doesn’t think about that, doesn’t think about either the water ghouls or the mysterious flutist. He forces himself not to think about anything at all and just enjoys one of the few merits of living in the modern world.
After a few minutes, he lets out a long breath and turns the water off. There’s no point in indulging himself too much. His wet hair is heavy on his back, and he wrings the water out of it with his hands before re-tying his forehead ribbon. Goosebumps are rising on his back as the cold air hits his wet skin. He’s getting soft. It’s all the central heating and global warming. He dries off and slips into his comfort clothes - a simple white robe.
He likes to keep his windows open even when the weather isn’t the warmest, but there is too much light and noise coming in from the outside. His was the only hotel in this town, and it is on a rather busy street. As he closes the window and pulls down the blinds, he notices a group of young people stumbling drunkenly down the street, singing off-key and laughing. He wonders if it’s Friday. Such things don’t matter much to him, so he forgets to keep track.
With the window shut and the blinds down, the room sinks into quiet darkness. As he makes himself some tea, he thinks about being isolated from the outside world. He doesn’t need windows for that, though. It’s natural for him, as if he’s living on a different layer of reality than the inhabitants of the strange new world.
He slips into their lives to get rid of resentful energy, lets them pay for his room and meal, and then he’s gone. He might become an interesting story to tell their friends, but for him, they are just drops in the vast ocean of grey faces.
He can see them, and he can interact with them, but none of them touch his life.
Flash of red and black among all that grey.
A bright smile. A twirl of a flute.
He breathes out through his nose and finishes his tea before he settles into the lotus position to meditate.
Lan Wangji doesn’t dream often, probably thanks to regular meditation, cleaning his head, and sorting his thoughts.
He dreams that night, but the dream seems shattered like pieces of jigsaw scattered on the floor. There are people and places he used to know, and some he never saw before. Shards of memories distorted into something he doesn’t recognize.
Waking up is like breaking the water’s surface. Trying to get a hold of the pictures from his dream, he desperately reaches into the depths but all the images slip between his fingers.
He’s breathing heavily, his hair is sticking to his sweaty forehead.
There’s pain, hot and fresh burning in the middle of his back. He thought it was part of the dream but it’s too real. It must have been what woke him up. He twists his arm to touch the painful spot and hisses. His fingertips are dark and sticky with blood when he looks at them.
He rushes into the bathroom. The harsh electric light hurts his eyes when he turns it on. He pulls his shirt off and cranes his neck to see his back in the mirror. He frowns when he sees the long red line running across his back. The skin is broken and bleeding in the middle where the scratch is deepest.
Did it happen during the fight with the ghouls and he didn’t notice?
He draws in a calming breath and looks down at the red stain on the shirt in his hands.
Maybe he pulled the wound open when he was moving in his sleep and it started bleeding. That seems like a reasonable explanation.
He doesn’t go back to sleep, he’s feeling too unsettled by his nightmare and the mysterious wound. He meditates instead and makes plans for the next day.
The rumors he collected in the town with the water ghouls lead him to another mysterious disappearance, but when he arrives at the town he learns that the local police have already solved the case. They found the body with evidence that led to them arresting the victim’s spouse, the same person who came up with the story about strange sounds at night and monstrous shadows on the walls. He confessed later, and the case was closed.
“It was all over the internet,” the policeman says.
Lan Wangji doesn’t tell him he doesn’t trust the internet, just apologizes for taking up his time and leaves to find himself a place to stay.
It’s a bigger town than the last one. An old woman who rents rooms in her house lets him stay when she recognizes him as a cultivator. Sometimes being a living myth is enough to earn him food and lodging. He draws some blessing talismans for her anyway.
He dreams again that night. It’s clearer, less jumbled than the last one, but no less unsettling.
Waking up feels like untangling himself from brambles, thorns digging into his skin as he pulls himself free. He’s relieved when he realizes that what he saw in the dream is long gone. The pain, the grief, and the guilt are all real, though.
Lan Wangji curls on his side, gripping his pillow, and lets his body tremble with the emotions the dream reawakened.
The wound on his back must be bleeding again because the physical pain almost matches the suffering of his heart.
He should get the wound looked at. It might be infected because it feels like it’s not closing as it should be. He doesn’t trust doctors, though, and there are no cultivators he could ask for help. A harsh breath rasps out of his lungs almost like a sob, and he buries his face in the pillow.
A case comes up after all. A cursed object causing its owner to sleepwalk and hurt their loved ones. The family he helps to get rid of the curse insists on paying him no matter how much he protests. He tries to pay the old woman whose place he’s staying at, but she rejects. He draws more talismans for her and plays a healing song for her arthritic knee.
“Did you get hurt on the job?” she asks. “There’s blood on your back.”
“Hm. During the previous hunt,” Lan Wangji says.
“Let me look at it. I have some homemade salve.”
He accepts her offer with gratitude. He takes off his shirt and sits down on the stool the woman offered before she left to fetch the salve.
She returns with a jar of a light green salve giving off a herbal smell.
“I make it myself how my laolao taught me,” she says as she steps behind him. He tenses when he hears her gasp. “Ah, these look nasty.”
“These?”
“Yes, there are two wounds,” she says.
Lan Wangji frowns. He’s sure there was only one gash last night.
He hears her hum as she gently touches his back applying the salve.
“Ah poor thing, it must hurt. If I didn’t know better, I would say you were whipped.”