The tale of the fox and the dragon egg

Chapter 10 - A Demon returns

"Hello, my friend", Wei Ying whispered into the space, filled by the almost blinding red light. "You look good, even after all these years."

A crooked grin appeared on his face. The heat within the room made him sweat and even A-Yuan wanted to shake and flee out of the room. At least the heat dried and warmed them again.

It fitted so perfectly that Wei Ying wanted to cry.

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The fox almost fled out of the town.

He already missed the presence that had been right beside him until a few minutes back. It was new to him, something impossible for the last millennia that came to pass, but he couldn't stop it.

Lan Wangji – no – Lan Zhan was needed elsewhere.

And he had a place to turn back to.

His limbs relaxed only slightly when he was out of the crowds, away from the thousand scents and away from the loud noises only people could make. Luckily, the dragon child was still asleep inside his robes and didn't regard anything further. It will be strange for tiny A-Yuan, now that he came to know his cultivation teacher.

A hand of the fox gently patted the tiny being. He must have been exhausted from the days of travel and cultivation, something the little one hadn't witnessed before.

"Don't worry, tiny radish, we will see the stoic man again", he spoke. The fox wasn't sure if he even spoke to the child or himself, but it calmed him regardless.

Passing through the border was like diving into the stormy ocean. It made his fox traits pop out of nowhere, his body already accustomed to the surroundings.

Resentful energy was swirling around him once again, almost drowning him within its heavy waters. Once the fox was tossed into these cold waters, without any ability to swim. Within a swirl of thick black he almost drowned, being tugged deeper and deeper into the depths that made him fear even now.

With time he learned to swim. But it was a close fit.

The day within Yiling had been a cleansing time of calmness regardless and Wei Ying had enjoyed it immensely. It was a break he didn't realize he needed. The qiankun bag on his hip made it that much harder to return into the dark depths of a home for centuries, alone.

It took him three days to return and two more to ascend the mountain.

The burial mounds were a huge area, covered by a forest nobody knew how it grew. Temperatures were harsh, rain devastating and creatures deadly. There was no chance for him to rush along, for his and the life of his little one was in danger for most of the time.

It was even worse when he discovered two days in that he neglected the wound on his arm Lan Wangji had cared for so diligently.

The wound was a blazing red, aching in every place and stretched painfully across. It was the reason Wei Ying made his longest break yet. Within a yan-clearing he and his child rested for some time.

When he lowered the bandages, he could almost feel the second pair of hands that were lost to him glide over the skin there. Only with a careful clap towards his cheeks did he shake himself out of it.

The qiankun bag on his hip was useful. Very much so, for Lan Wangji had been careful to buy anything necessary for him to go on. Not only writing utensils and clothing lay still within; tasty food and especially the medicine, salves and two bottles of the most disgusting liquid he ever saw.

His sunkissed hands reached for the salve and opened the tiny containers. Immediately, his nose crinkled in disgust. It smelled of medicine like nothing before, but as his fingers massaged it into the skin around the wound it cooled him, a pleasant feeling.