Abide With Me

Seeking One Eye

Taking a deep breath, he tracked Lan Zhan down just as Bichen touched down on the planks of the Pier. "Lan Zhan! I need to talk to you!" "Just as soon as I greet Sect Leader Jiang, Wei Ying," smiled Lan Zhan. Inhaling the heady scent of lotuses opening to the sun, Lan Zhan turned to Wei Ying, a question in his eyes. "You know I can never sleep without you around!" mumbled Wei Ying. Lan Zhan's ears turned pink as Wei Ying linked their hands and snuggled into the crook of his neck. "Mn," said Lan Zhan, rubbing circles on Wei Ying's back.

After a leisurely breakfast with Jiang Cheng and paying their respects at the Ancestral Hall, they left for Cloud Recesses.

Back at the Jingshi, Wei Ying gave into his silent craving and pouting, went and plonked himself unceremoniously onto Lan Zhan's lap. "Lan Zhaan," he whined, "I am bored."

Lan Zhan gazed at Wei Ying, inviting him to elaborate.

"It's just... boring here!" he said.

"What does Wei Ying want to do?"

"I want to travel," he said.

"But Wei Ying just came from Lotus Pier," said Lan Zhan, slightly raising an eyebrow.

"Not there!" Wei Ying sighed.

Lan Zhan nodded in understanding. Restless after two years spent in Cloud Recesses with occasional trips to Yunmeng and Jin Ling Tai, Wei Ying was itching for something, somewhere new! Lan Zhan smoothed Wei Ying's hair, pulled him closer and said, "Where shall we go?"

Wei Ying grinned in delight and rewarded him immediately, kissing him breathless!

"Remember I wanted to tell you something earlier?" asked Wei Ying. Excitedly, he related his vision from the previous day at Lotus Pier and how he saw One Eye.

"Does Wei Ying know where this One Eye was?"

"In the library!"

"What? Lan Zhan almost stood up, but remembered Wei Ying was on his lap, just in time.

"Explain! Wei Ying was looking for something in the Forbidden section".

"Yes, I am working on a way to getting to One Eye."

Teleportation was a skill Wei Ying had mastered long back during the Sunshot Campaign and it had saved his life many a time.

"Usually, in order to teleport one needs the coordinates of the place one wished to go to," said Wei Ying. "Experienced cultivators could visualise the place in their minds and teleport. How does one go to a new and unseen place?" asked Wei Ying.

As Lan Zhan listened, his expression adoring, Wei Ying brought out from his sleeve the parchment he'd written out in the Forbidden Section.

"This is how Xingyun ShenMi* a disciple of the legendary pilgrim Huen Tsang, did it!"

Wei Ying drew a series of symbols in an archaic script in the air.

"Wei Ying knows the Hokkien* dialect?" Lan Zhan looked on with surprise and pride. Wei Ying blushed and tucked an errant strand of hair behind his ear and wrote rapidly.

Soon the air in front of him shimmered and hummed. The shimmering air parted and a man-sized hole opened like a door across a threshold.

"Now this next part, Lan Zhan, is my own invention," he shrugged modestly. "Watch!"

Wei Ying added a couple more Hokkien characters onto a talisman, closed his eyes, and visualising One Eye, tossed it casually across the still humming threshold.