The red thread of fate《Zhanyi version》

Chapter 8

Author's POV

It was all dark before the storm, one moment, there were bright lights and sounds, and the next moment it was quiet.

The young man eyes wandered around, falling onto the sleeping man on the couch; no sound got heard as he breathed.

The only indication he was alive was his chest slowly heaving up and down in a soothing rhythm.

The sleeping man looked just like the person he once used to know, someone he highly respected, and the respect he got back.

Whether it was the kind features in his face, the tone he used to talk or his atmosphere, it was all the same.

Watching the sleeping man, it was as if he was he got a throwback into the past, so the young man sat down opposite of him, his legs crossed as the young man placed his chin on his hand, parts of old memories suddenly flashing by as the man let them come and go like he always did; after all, they were long out of his grasp.

The lively and careless kids we once were, but those times long ago faded away with the slightest breeze of the wind like a feather.

His mind was leading the way without my conscious being there. And without his own notice, he reached the place where once the flowers fell from the sky while Lan Wangji And Wei Wuxian were smiling lively, but everything changed.

Everything fell apart. Somehow, every sight of Yunmeng reminded him of Gusu, of a city within the clouds. The places were different, yet the same. It reminded him of a clean stream behind old, wooden buildings; it reminded him of laughter bought by punishments. But of all things, it reminded him above all of the joy. Things were so much simpler then. He remembered being so scared for Wei-ge, but he guessed some part of him knew. And that angry purple lotus...

The young man wondered how he is now, but he betrayed Wei Ying, and he'll never forgive him for that.

Shaking the thoughts away, he sighed, hiding behind my fan as he leaned back into the chair, letting himself disappear for a second into the time that slipped by me.

One moment everything was so lively and full of cultivators, and in a blink of an eye, everything changed, all the clans disappeared together with the existence of cultivation; it only is left as a folktale.

And here he was, stuck in a time that long passed mine, neither was he alive nor dead, he was just here, and sometimes he wished he weren't.

The young man didn't remember eveyrhting that happened, but he remembered the feeling of screaming the lungs out of my body, watching Wei-ge fall off the cliff.

From there on, everything became a blur from small fragments, and soon he would open my eye to another world, one where everyone hid behind small technology phones and not even lookup.

Everything he loved and was familiar with disappeared within a blink, and he was lost in between a galaxy of dreams and reality.

The young man wandered on a world that wasn't his for a long time, one he was unfamiliar with, and soon enough, he discovered no one could see him, he was some sort of ghost, yet when he touched them, his touch was something they felt.

In the beginning, no matter where he looked somewhere, he would see Lan Wangji or Wei-ge; at times, he would even hear the familiar melody of inquiry being played, only to be gone with the slightest breeze of cold wind.

Seasons came and went just like the years flew by without me noticing it; he was living in another time bubble, standing at places where he grew up.

The world was spinning in front of my eyes, slowly changing beside him, withering like a tree, but he came and went, no one to care or to notice just like Lan Wangji when he lost his Wei Ying.

It was until he saw him, the same face, the same atmosphere, the same cold gazes, the same body, everything was the same, even the ice burning inside his eyes.

To him, it was like awakening from a dream; some sort of deja vu feeling hit him on the chest, shortcutting his breath as he stared at the other man who was grinning next to someone who had the same face and body as him.

It was like looking into a shattered mirror to the young man, staring at the two other men opposite of him who had not noticed him yet.

Out of habit, he quickly pulled out his fan, hiding behind as he watched the two young men walk by him, still talking and laughing.

The man heard his heart ponder in his ears, watching the two other men pass by without noticing him, one of them accidentally hit him, but he kept walking. Or so he thought because the one bumping into him turned around, his eyes dark boring into his.

And it was that moment he knew that that man was able to see him, but before he could make a movement, the other man, his lookalike, pulled his arm, and they both turned to their front and continued walking as if nothing happened.

He stood there, nailed to the ground, his mind running in circles, not able to connect the dots yet. And amidst the crowd that passed without noticing his presence nor his emotions that were like a maze.

As long as the young man wouldn't come out of his bubble, life would move on, he thought, and he would someday turn into dust, but it didn't happen; nothing of that happened when his eyes met the eyes of someone he would recognize out of thousands.

It was one of the faces engraved into his memories, a face that held a name that could make one shudder, and a memory appeared again.

There seemed to be two figures outside the stall. Hand in hand, the one dressed in charcoal robes, chuckling, and the one in white simply standing there, patient.

They looked so familiar, and some part of him lurched forward.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji.

He surged forward, expectant, his hand stretched out in painful hope.

Then both faded before my eyes as if they'd been nothing but glittering mist. 

The face that had met him was a face he couldn't believe he just saw . . .

The almighty Hanguang-Jun . . .

Word count: 1161 words 

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His guys, sorry for the delay, I am having some personal problems, and the part of the memroies can also be found as a one-shot in my book the taste of loneliness under the chapter name "Recollections of broken dreams". The one shot was a collaboration with my Mei Mei edith343redwood she's an amazing author, so check her books out whenever you've time!!