Bound By It (Xianwang)

The Groom

Wei Wuxian

I have just opened my eyes when a sudden pain kicked in. My left jaw hurts so bad, I sat up on the bed holding it.

"Oh.....is the groom finally awake?"
'Groom?'
Cheng was angry for some reason the moment he walked in through the door and saw me awake.

I looked at the surrounding and realized that I had slept in the hospital yesterday and everyone close to me were there in the room.
Dr.Jin was sitting on the nurses' chair near the desk holding his face on palm. Haikuan ge who usually doesn't even move an inch away from him was standing near Huaisang on the other side of the room and was glancing at him every now and then (did they fight? But that's unusual too). Huaisang was sitting on the bed at the end of the room and Cheng too went and sat there. The assistants of Dr.Junbai and Dr.Yuzhi were standing leaning on the wall near the window.
The whole room was so quiet as if someone had died and in contrast to that, the sound coming from outside was loud.

"Dr.Jin, Dr.Zhan is calling you." the door open and poking head in, she said. That's when I saw Wen Qing. Though I smiled she didn't meet my eyes and left as quickly as she came.

Dr.Jin stood up to leave and Haikuan ge was about to follow him, he kept a hand on his shoulder which Dr.Jin angrily brushed off and left quickly. What had happened here?

"Usually it's Dr.Nie who gets into trouble, but he has never caused something like this. Wish we could just go home...."

"I don't think we can, this is gonna take time."
I heard Dr.Junbai's and Dr.Yuzhi's assistant doctors murmuring to each other.

I turned to call Cheng but as he was not even sparing glance at me, I thought it's better to ask someone else. Just then, the voices outside became louder, seems like someone was screaming during an argument. That made everyone in the room rush outside. Just before Huaisang was about to walk out of the room, I held his hand. He slowly turned to me, then closed the door behind him and sat next to me avoiding my gaze.

"Huaisang, what happened? What are all these noises outside?"

"Umm...Wuxian, it's...you don't remember anything?" he asked lowering his voice.

"Absolutely nothing. If I remember, why would I ask you? Why is everyone giving me that look? What happened between Haikuan ge and Dr.Jin? Everyone is avoiding looking at me. What did Cheng mean by groom? What groom?" I bombarded him with questions.

"Ok....so we drank yesterday, you forgot your wallet in the hospital and you went with Cheng to get it. Cheng and Dr.Wen said, on the way seeing an old lady hurt, you tried to help her and to stop bleeding, you....pulled off Wangji's headband and now the villagers say you have to marry him." he said in one go.

"Wtf Huaisang. I understood till the lady getting hurt." How did the thing go to a whole different level after that? What was Wangji doing with me? I looked at him as these ran through my mind.

"Hmm....Ok so, this happened near the shrine, and Wangji just happened to be in the shrine at that time. You just keep quiet and listen to me" He said fast before I could interrupt and then took a deep breath to calm himself down and continued "Wangji has been wearing that headband for a month, that's how it is here and these 5 days of Festival are important for them. Whoever touches their headband, especially in these 5 days are believed to be their soulmates which you did. So now on the 5th day, Binding Day that is day after tomorrow, you are supposed to marry him and settle down here with him is what they are saying. If you won't do it, they won't let us leave from here."

"You are kidding right?" I could tell from his face that he wasn't. How much I wish someone to just be like 'hey, gotcha, it's a prank' but no one did.