E. Hyde's Archives

Are you there? Are you there?

I've been certain of your presence all my life, and suddenly I'm having doubts. It's just nerves, I think. I haven't done this before, have you?

No, of course you haven't. It's supposed to be a one-time thing—your part of it, anyway.

I don't know why I'm so nervous, you're the one being exorcised, not me.

Only—you've never been scary. You've never done anything to hurt me; you've hardly done anything at all. I tried to tell that to Hanguang-jun but he brought me to the mingshi right away, even though it's past curfew, and I think he's going to do the exorcism right now and—I think if I were a ghost, I'd be afraid of Hanguang-jun, the way he is right now.

Are you afraid of him?

"Just—give it a chance," I say. "Liberate first?" I hardly need to tell Hanguang-jun the proper way to liberate a spirit, but I don't want him to hurt you.

When he doesn't answer, just presses two fingers to my chest to lock my body in place in the center of the mingshi's wards, I think I know why. “Father, it’s really me talking, it’s—”

No wait, stop! What are you doing? I’m trying to help!

My tongue twists in ways I never told it to go and you say “Lan Zhan, I’ll talk to you. Don’t put A-Yuan through this.”

You know Hanguang-jun well enough to call him Lan Zhan?

And he’s looking back like he knows you, too—or did I imagine that? It’s gone now.

Anyway, it’s really uncomfortable when you do that, can you stop? Hanguang-jun is going to play Evocation, you can talk to him through the guqin, or—

I guess...maybe not? That’s for disembodied spirits or haunted objects, and I already have a voice you can use...I don’t like it, though. I know you don't mean any harm, but I don't like it.

“This will guarantee your honesty,” says Hanguang-jun. I know the chord he just played, and it’ll do more than that, it’ll force you to answer, too. But, please, only say what you need to, alright?

"I guess you've got me there," you say. You didn't need to.

I circle my tongue inside my mouth, just a little, because I need to know that I still can.

Hanguang-jun puts a hand on my shoulder. There's kindness in his eyes—maybe he saw the panic in mine. You're not controlling every part of my face. "A-Yuan, it will not be long," he says.

Hands back on the strings, Hanguang-jun begins. "For how long have you possessed Lan Yuan?"

This isn’t what he’s supposed to ask you first, he’s supposed to ask what is your name or how did you die .

“Ten years,” you say. I knew this already, knew it because I’ve had your nightmares as long as I can remember.

"Did I bring you back with him?"

Oh—

—oh so—

—so this is how I’m going to find out where I came from.

Somehow I hadn’t realized we’d get there tonight, for all I knew you must be connected to my past.

"Yes," you say, but that's all you say, and this time, a single word isn't enough. Keep going! Bring me back from where?

Are you forcing me silent, or is that part of the spell? Hanguang-jun is taking too long, and I can’t tell what he’s thinking. Shouldn’t he at least ask who you are?

"What was your intention?"

“Ah, Lan Zhan, would you believe I didn't mean to possess him at all? I'm not even sure how it happened. At first I only stuck around to make sure he'd be alright, but then I couldn't figure out how to leave...I know that doesn't sound plausible, but—”

“You cannot lie,” Hanguang-jun says, out loud this time.

“...point.”

"Did you ever harm A-Yuan?"

“He has my nightmares,” you say. “That’s harm enough.” No, no, don’t say that, they’re not—I mean, they’re bad, but I know you don’t mean it. “I’ve distressed him, ever since he realized I was here. I’m distressing him right now, aren’t I?”

You are, a little bit, just in the way you’re using me to speak, but you know that’s not the sort of harm Hanguang-jun is asking about, don’t you?

And then you say, “A-Yuan lost his memory. I never meant to do that.”

You—

“You didn’t,” Hanguang-jun says, but he says it too quickly. You didn’t, did you? “He had a fever.” He’s looking at you in a way he’s never looked at me in my life, and he says, “Wei Ying.”

Wei Ying?

Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Patriarch? You’re the Yiling Patriarch?

“I could be anything from the Burial Mounds,” you say, and you twist my mouth into a sly smile. “You’re not even going to ask?”

“There is no need,” says Hanguang-jun, but all the same his fingers pluck out "Wei Ying, is it really you?"

“Yes,” you say. “Well, there you have it, Lan Zhan, you can go ahead and exorcise me. I...I am glad that I got to see A-Yuan grow up. Thank you for that, Lan Zhan. Thank you.”

You can’t be the Yiling Patriarch. The Yiling Patriarch wouldn’t talk like that, wouldn’t accept exorcism, wouldn’t have any connection to me.

And yet, you can’t lie.

I collapse. Hanguang-jun catches me; he’s released the immobility spell. “Wei Ying,” he says. “I will not exorcise you.”

“You...won’t?” Finally, I can speak. Only—only I don’t know what to say. I'm actually relieved, almost, not to do it right away—I have so many questions. You've been here my whole life, and I don't know you at all. But what does it mean, that Hanguang-jun isn't ready to exorcise you either?

“A-Yuan, there are many things I should tell you,” says Hanguang-jun. “It's late. Come back to the jingshi with me. We will talk.”

“It’s past curfew,” I say, as if after all of this, that matters. Does any of this make sense to you? When he didn’t know who you were, Hanguang-jun bound me immobile within the mingshi’s wards. Now he knows you’re the Yiling Patriarch, and he’s bringing you back to the jingshi? “You’re not going to exorcise him?” I ask, again.

“You will understand,” says Hanguang-jun. I only hope he’s right.

I follow close behind Hanguang-jun, so that if you turn my body and run he can stop you, but it proves unnecessary. You come along, just like you always have, and if I didn’t know you were here, I, well, wouldn’t know you were here.

When we reach the jingshi, Hanguang-jun slides open the door, looks back, and says “Wei Ying.”

People call Hanguang-jun expressionless. I've lived with him long enough to learn to read his face, and he's looking at you with a fierce, desperate hunger. Are you going to answer him? Are you going to take my voice, with nothing compelling you, and speak?

“...A-Yuan,” says Hanguang-jun, when you don't. “Come inside. There are things I’ve never told you.”

The tea he prepares is darker than what I usually drink, than what he drinks. It’s for you. “Hanguang-jun,” I begin. “Who was I, before I was Lan Yuan? What does the Yiling Patriarch have to do with me?”

“He’s your father,” Hanguang-jun says, simply.

...my father? You’re my father? That’s—that can’t be. Hanguang-jun is my father, even if we never say it out loud—

“Come on, Lan Zhan, don’t give him the wrong idea,” you say, and for once, I’m grateful you’ve spoken up so quickly. “I only took care of him, the Wens were his family.”

"You were family," Hanguang-jun insists.

"The—the Wens?" The Wens that I have nightmares about, that you have nightmares about?

“Mn,” confirms Hanguang-jun. “Your name was once Wen Yuan.”

The Wens were evil. Everyone knows the Wens were evil, just like everyone knows that turning against his sect and protecting the Wens was one of the Yiling Patriarch’s...your...most evil deeds.

That’s where I came from?

“Don’t just leave it at that, Lan Zhan,” you say. “A-Yuan, I know what you’ve been taught, but the Wens I sheltered at the Burial Mounds were no army. Your family—they were the only ones left, the weak, the elderly. The highest ranked among you was Wen Qing, a doctor.”

“Please, stop talking,” I whisper. You've sprung this on me so quickly, I’m still trying to take it in. It’ll be easier if my body is my own.

“This is not how I intended for you to find out,” Hanguang-jun says softly, and I know he means it as a comfort. “Any questions that you have, you may ask. I will answer them as best I may. As will Wei Ying, I am sure.”

He wants you to speak.

Suddenly I’m afraid to ask about the exorcism, about what’s going to happen next. “So you found me there,” I say. “After the siege.” Was he looking for you, even then?

Hanguang-jun nods. “Wei Ying,” he says once more. “Why didn’t you tell me you were here?”

I rise to my feet. It doesn’t surprise me when you, the Yiling Patriarch, talk through me without so much as asking—how you would ask, I don’t know—but Hanguang-jun? He shouldn’t—he’s my— “You don’t have any right to be upset about not telling, ” I throw at him, and before he can answer I turn and storm out of the jingshi.

Don’t turn back, please don’t turn back.

I can run away from Hanguang-jun, but I can’t run away from you. Even here in Cold Pond Cave, where no one else will disturb me, you’re here.

“Wen Yuan.” The name feels foreign on my lips, hearing it doesn’t make it real. I’m not even sure, not entirely, that I’m the one saying it.

I’m very conscious of the forehead ribbon on my brow.

The Wens burned the Cloud Recesses, once, and Hanguang-jun took one and raised me like a son. “He brought me back for your sake.”

Only silence. Now, of all times, you choose to remain silent. “...say something?”

“No, no, he can’t have. Hanguang-jun is a good man, he wouldn’t have found you and left you to die.”

“But he didn’t have to raise me himself. There are—” It’s hard to speak, hard to even think about this. “There are so many points in between leaving me to die, and raising the enemy of his clan as his own son. That’s something you’d only do for someone you—”

Why won't you let me say it?

“He cares about you, A-Yuan.”

I know he does, I do. But back then, you were the one he knew. "So, then," I conclude, desperately, "you can't have been like what they say in lessons. You’re…” I don’t know quite how to say it. I wasn’t scared of you before. I’m glad I don’t have to be, now.

“Honestly, I tried not to pay attention to those particular history lessons,” you say. “But A-Yuan...they’re not all wrong.”

“I’ve had your nightmares, remember? I know.” But Hanguang-jun trusts you enough to let me run away alone, and cares about you enough to keep you here when he should be exorcising you, and I’ve always trusted you before. So I think I can, still.

“Oh, A-Yuan…” That comforting tone doesn’t exactly work, when you’re using my own voice, but it’s—familiar, somehow. Like I really did know you before.

You keep talking. “When I realized you were dreaming those dreams, I thought about announcing myself to Lan Zhan then and there. You didn’t deserve that, no one but me deserves to live through those. I don’t know why it happens, it’s weird—because if you can see my dreams, shouldn’t you be able to hear my thoughts? But I’ve tried directing those at you and I don’t think you can, unless you’re really good at hiding it, which—”

I’m not sure I’ve ever spoken so many words at once in my life as you seem inclined to do so at every chance you get. “The nightmares are fine,” I say. “This—the talking—is what’s unnerving.”

You realize it at the same time I do. “You interrupted me! Good, this is—ah, right, right.” My mouth closes. We’ll need to find a better way to do this; I can’t force it back from you every time.

“The nightmares are fine, now,” I repeat. “They’re not—personal? They’re not what’s weird, about having you here. And who you are isn’t what’s weird about it, either. It’s—”

“It’s that you need to live your own life. I still don’t know why Hanguang-jun didn’t exorcise me right away—”

Didn’t we just go over this?

“No, really, I don’t! I mean—” You purse my lips. “Maybe he wants to put me on trial before all the sects? Or hand me over to Jiang Cheng?”

I shudder. Both those things sound awful. If people knew that you were here, would anyone ever look at me and see me again? If they did, would they see a Wen? But you can’t really believe Hanguang-jun wants to do any of that.

“Whatever it is, A-Yuan, when it's over—I'll leave. I’ll let you live your life as you should have all along.”

“Before that,” I say, and swallow. Before , because despite trusting you, and maybe even liking you, I do still want you to leave. “Before that, Yiling Patriarch, there’s a lot to talk about.”

Footsteps clatter into the cave. How long has it been? We talked all through the night; it must be well past dawn.

“There you are!”

Oh, that’s Lan Jingyi. I mean—you know that. You’ve been living with me this whole time, of course you know my roommate. I still feel like I should be introducing you to everyone and everything.

“Hanguang-jun said I shouldn’t look for you, and you were spending the night in seclusion and you were fine, but you weren’t in class and you never said anything beforehand and what was I supposed to think?”

Laughter rings out. Your laughter, not mine. I clench a fist, digging nails into my palm. We talked about this, Senior Wei! You kept silent for ten years; it can’t possibly be as difficult to keep silent as you make it out to be, no matter what you say about the stakes being so much lower now. Remember our system? If you’re going to speak, or laugh, or—anything, tap a finger against my palm, first.

“Stop laughing, I was worried about you,” Jingyi says, and at least he doesn’t seem too confused when I abruptly fall silent.

“Sorry, Jingyi. It’s okay. I’m okay. Hanguang-jun wasn’t upset?”

“Would he really tell me if he was?” Jingyi asks. “But no, he wasn’t. Worried, maybe? Hard to say. Anyway, stay here if you want, but officially I’m here to feed the rabbits, and I bet they've missed you."

Oh, have you seen Hanguang-jun’s—?

Yes, of course, I don’t have to introduce them to you, either.

It’s weird. There’s so much for you to tell me, but you know every bit of my life already. Even the pieces I don’t know myself.

Hanguang-jun finds us, and Jingyi disappears, and I bow deeply and apologize for the way I spoke. “I will accept whatever punishment is appropriate.”

“No punishment,” says Hanguang-jun. “There were…” He pauses. “It is a difficult situation for you.”

Surprised, I nod. Hanguang-jun has never been overly harsh, but he’s fair; he’s never given me special treatment before.

Is it me he doesn’t want to punish, or is it you?

You tap my palm. Not yet! There are things I want to say, first. “Senior Wei and I spoke together. There's a lot I still don't understand, but I think—I can carry him a while longer, if there are. Things. Left unsaid.” It’s almost funny. You’re the ghost, you’re supposed to be the one with unfinished business. “It was for my sake that he kept quiet before, and I—I still want my life to be my own, most of the time, but if, every so often, you’d like to talk to him? I mean—" I take a deep breath. "Would you like to talk to him now?”

Hanguang-jun has been trying to talk to you since he found out you were here, but still he blinks, startled. “Wei Ying?”

I tap a finger against my palm. Your turn. I’ll try to give you some privacy, for—for whatever this is. If I meditate while you’re talking, will it be less strange? Will I be able to tune you out?

Well, maybe with practice.

Oh, I thought you’d use this time to say goodbye, or make your feelings clear. You’re petting the bunnies. You’re talking about how soft they are.

I get it. They’re pretty cute, after all.

Maybe tomorrow?

Tomorrow comes, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. You talk about all sorts of things with Hanguang-jun, you laugh, you twist my face into smiles wider than I’ve ever worn in my life.

You don’t have nightmares so much, now.

Outside of that hour every day—getting to be longer now—I could believe I wasn’t possessed at all. And I’m getting better at tuning it out, at fading away into nothingness. If I start meditating before you take over, I hardly even notice.

So I guess—maybe if you don’t ever say goodbye—maybe that’s okay?

Tap, tap, tap—

We can’t talk now, I’m in the middle of lectures! Grand Master is teaching about the Sunshot Campaign, and it’s not that I haven’t heard it before, but I haven’t heard it since learning—well—everything.

Tap, tap, tap—

No! Listen, I know Grand Master is saying some pretty bad stuff about you, but we can’t actually interrupt to tell him it’s not true. I know it’s not true, that’s enough, okay?

It isn’t true, right?

I know it’s not true, because you told me the Wen settlement at the Burial Mounds was made up of the elderly, the infirm, and only the weakest of cultivators.

I know it’s not true, because you told me how the Ghost General used to carry me around on his shoulders and tell me bedtime stories.

I know it can’t be true, yet, Grand Master would not lie about what he saw, and he was there when—was there when—when—

Tap, tap, tap—

Tap, tap, tap—

Tap, tap, tap—

Song of Clarity has always been the most soothing when Hanguang-jun plays it. I don’t know if you’ve heard it before—

I keep doing this. Of course you’ve heard it before. You’re me. You’ve been me all my life.

Wait.

What happened? I was in lecture, but this is the jingshi...did I lose time?

Did you bring me here?

Hanguang-jun looks up as he plays the final notes of the cycle. “A-Yuan?”

What is going on?

“Still nothing,” you say, before I’ve fully processed that I should answer. “Lan Zhan, I didn’t mean to do this, I swear, I would never—to A-Yuan—“

“I know,” says Hanguang-jun.

“I thought I could help him—”

“Wei Ying,” says Hanguang-jun. “I know.”

I really should say something, shouldn’t I? I start tapping out a signal on my palm. I think I do? Oh, there it is. I wonder if it’s like this for you all the time, your mind out of place in my body.

“A-Yuan?” My eyes are tearing up, are you crying? “A-Yuan, are you here?”

I signaled, doesn’t that mean you should stop and let me speak? I’ll try again. Tap, tap, tap—

Silence.

Oh! Oh, I really should say something.

“Hanguang-jun.” I say. “I...my mind is calmer now. Thank you.”

“A-Yuan, what happened?”

What did happen? You’ll have to tell me. “I kind of—I didn’t want to think about—”

Tap.

“The Sunshot Campaign, the Wens, the siege,” you say. “That was the lecture today, and A-Yuan...shut down.” I’m sorry. I wasn’t even around then, or don’t remember it, anyway. I didn’t go through it like you did, but thinking that Grand Master might be talking about me —I panicked. I’m sorry. “Lan Zhan, let’s let A-Yuan be. What I’d like to focus on, is making sure this doesn’t happen again. Frankly, Lan Zhan...we’re lucky A-Yuan came back at all.”

Hanguang-jun nods. “What do you suggest?”

You take a deep breath. “You should exorcise me now,” you say, and I freeze. Do you really mean it?

But Hanguang-jun dismisses the idea with a quick shake of his head. “Not an option,” he says. “What else?”

You pause. “Lan Zhan, I don’t know what this is, you keeping me here. I’m dead , I’m supposed to move on.”

“I will not lose you again.”

“Lan Zhan...you always said you wanted to bring me back to Gusu, but I think the only one being punished is A-Yuan.”

Hanguang-jun frowns. “He has not been punished.”

“Maybe you don’t see it, you’re not around him as much as I am, after all—” Here you laugh, and I can taste how fake it is as you swallow back nervousness at the same time. “It’s been very hard on him. He deserves better than carrying me around with him his whole life.”

“Wei Ying,” says Hanguang-jun. “You are not a burden.”

“That’s not—” You’re blinking too much back at him, and my heart is beating faster, and maybe you’ve finally realized why Hanguang-jun doesn’t want to let you go. “This isn’t about me. This is about A-Yuan. Even if I was—even if I could be everything you want from me, Lan Zhan, he should have his own life! And the risk of what happened today happening again, happening worse, is too great, so—you should exorcise me. You should exorcise me now.”

“This is what A-Yuan wants?” Hanguang-jun sounds disappointed.

The man who raised me, almost like a father, is disappointed that I might not wish to live possessed by the man he loves.

“Ah, no, no no! My idea. Didn't really have time to discuss it beforehand. But, you know, it’s only what’s right, you can’t just—you can’t just invite a ghost in to stay like this, that’s practically demonic cultivation—”

“Your death,” says Hanguang-jun, “was not right.”

You’re quiet for a long time. “Lan Zhan,” you finally say, “that’s beside the point. I'm talking about what's best for your son.”

A beat. "Our son,” says Hanguang-jun.

Senior Wei, do you know, you’re the first person to call Hanguang-jun my father out loud? And in the next breath, he might as well have said it's never been about me at all.

“Lan Zhan, you gave him the home and family he deserves, I only took care of him on a dead mountain for a year or so—”

“Which I don’t even remember! Father—” Is it all right to say it, now that you have? “Maybe you want us to be a happy family of three, but I can’t. Not like this, I can’t.”

“Do not interrupt,” says Hanguang-jun, so I don’t. I stop.

I just...stop.

Are you still looking for me? You can stop. I’m still here. I’m just...here, just like you were. You go about my day, living my life like it's yours, and no one even notices, because my life has always been yours.

Do you see my dreams now? I don’t think you do. I don’t think I’ve ever had a dream of my own.

Every day you promise Hanguang-jun you’ll find a way to bring me back. You even went so far as to carve out a flute and try to exorcise yourself. If that didn't work, I don't think anything will, but you’ve spent every moment of free time since then in the forbidden library, poring over secret volumes I never knew existed, looking for another way to bring me back. I’m intrigued despite myself; I’ve never been allowed in here before.

“Who’d have thought, even the Cloud Recesses has records of this,” you murmur, before reshelving one particular manuscript: interesting, but nearly the opposite of what you’re looking for.

“You missed supper,” Hanguang-jun says when he returns and finds you there.

“A-Yuan is more important.”

“We will find him,” says Hanguang-jun.

You close a final volume and sigh. “I suppose it won’t do him any good to come back to a body that’s wasted away.”

“Stay in the jingshi tonight,” says Hanguang-jun. “I will play Inquiry.”

Inquiry won’t work. I haven’t gone anywhere.

He doesn't play it for long, anyway; the notes fade away and he holds you tight in his arms. "I know," you say. "I miss him, too."

Don't you understand that's not what this is?

I don't think Hanguang-jun is even looking, and it's fine. You can stop looking, too.

You gather up all my things from the dormitory. After however many nights in the jingshi, it only makes sense. There’s nothing left for you here, there’s nothing left of me.

Jingyi watches with that expression he gets when he’s trying really, really hard not to speak, and finally, he cracks. "You're—you're really leaving?"

"Oh—oh, Jingyi, I didn't see you there!" Which is a lie. You're trying to make this less awkward, and failing.

"You're just—packing up everything?" Jingyi's voice rises and starts to crack. Please, just leave as quick as you can.

"Hanguang-jun is like my father, it makes sense that I'd live with him," you insist.

You're terrible at this, please just stop.

"It doesn't! Nothing makes sense! You've been weird for weeks now, A-Yuan!"

I freeze.

"You...you noticed?" I say. I say it. I do.

"Of course I did! It's pretty easy to tell when my best friend doesn't want to be my friend anymore!"

I drop the bags. "I do!” I say, I say, and find that I do. Jingyi, who has nothing to do with you, who is mine. I do want to be his friend.

Then, because I’m not saying anything else and Jingyi is staring, you say “I’ll explain later” and race out of the room. “A-Yuan? A-Yuan, say something!”

Just—just stop, for just a minute, and let me?

You don’t stop. You run into the jingshi and nearly knock down the door as you shout “Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan! A-Yuan’s back!”

Hanguang-jun slides open the door and he really does seem glad, I’ll give him that. But you’ve gone and left Jingyi even more confused, run away from the one thing I wanted to be here for.

You didn’t even tap.

“I can’t do this,” I say. “I just—I can’t.”

I can feel my eyes widen and it’s none of my doing; in the weeks you’ve been in control you’ve grown accustomed to having all of me, not just my voice. “Lan Zhan, you need to exorcise me,” you say.

“Wait,” says Hanguang-jun.

“There is no other way,” you insist. You sound like you’ve been over this before. Maybe you have. “Do it now, before it’s too late.”

And what’s too late? I wasn’t gone, I was just...here, ish.

And, I suddenly realize, I don’t want that. If my life becomes your life, and it will—there’s just so much more of you than there is of me—I don’t want to be here for it.

I was so excited, when I saw Jingyi, and thought I had a chance—

“We’ll find a way,” Hanguang-jun insists. “We’ll make this work.”

I turn and run while I still can.

You’re trying to stop me, but I can stay in control if I really try. It’s easier if I only focus on what’s important, so I’ll let you talk.

“Go back,” you say. “I’ll find a way to convince him.” But I remember enough of what you did in my absence; I’m not entirely convinced you want to go.

This time I hold no illusions that Hanguang-jun will leave me be, even in Cold Pond Cave, but no one else will find me here. I strike my hand against a sharp rock. I'll have to work quickly.

“A-Yuan! What are you doing?”

"For the blood." You know what I’m doing. You were the one who pointed it out to me, in the library that day. I don't know how long it's been since then, but I remember the array perfectly.

"No, no, don't do this," you say as I start drawing. I won't let you throw me off balance, I won't let you stamp out the lines as I slowly drip them out. Isn’t it funny? I’m fighting hardest for control to do the thing that will give it all up. “At least talk to me, A-Yuan, please!”

“It has to be me or you,” I say. “And Hanguang-jun won’t let it be me.”

“He loves you, he loves you so much, A-Yuan.”

But not more than he loves you.

Do you really think he’d choose me? We can find out. It’ll hurt more, for both of us, but we can find out.

I finish the array. I stand in the center, still, stone-still against everything you push at me. I wait.

“A-Yuan?”

Hanguang-jun stands, tall and dark, backlight by the mouth of the cave.

“He’ll do it before you reach the array, Lan Zhan, he really means it. Lan Zhan, exorcise me now!”

“This is—?”

“Body offering,” I say. “You won't have to pretend to worry about me anymore——he doesn't want this, Lan Zhan, help me get through to him——are you going to do it?" Because you're right, I don't want this, but I can't see another way out. "Lan Zhan, please, save A-Yuan——do you want me or do you want him?"

He's not going to choose me. We all know it.

"—both," Hanguang-jun pleads. "Both, you cannot ask me to choose!" I feel some sort of vicious relief that his distress, at least, is real, but don't think it changes anything.

"Lan Zhan, I'm dead——then get lost!" I pull the words from another nightmare. "Get lost!"

His eyes widen.

I lower my hand to mark the final line—

—the chord rings out.

"Thank you," you whisper as the notes keep coming, and then Hanguang-jun wraps his arms around me, and we both collapse into the weight of each other, and don't move for a very long time.

I still find myself talking to you, for all that it's been two years. Some days, I still wake up from your nightmares. Everything's just like before.

Sometimes, Hanguang-jun talks to me as if you’re still here, too.

He gave me a courtesy name. Sizhui. A fitting name, don't you think?

Tap, tap, tap.

Are you there?