Wei Ying wakes up first, after a haunting dream.
A-Yuan.
He remembers bits and pieces, nothing that makes sense fully. First, there are happy memories of playing with A-Yuan, making silly noises and pretending that the toy Wen Popo stitched for him out of rags was a dragon. A fearsome legendary beast who tore down forests and cities with the vengeance of the Heavens, but whenever A-Yuan called out to him, he would turn into the Tickle monster. Of making that kid laugh and chortle, telling him all sorts of nonsense, making up stories that both entertained him while teaching him some kind of moral lesson.
Memories of burying him in the dirt on the promise that Wei Ying would grow him more brothers and sisters, other children for the lonely child to play with. In the Burial Mounds, there was only old people who couldn't run after him and play tag, Wen Qing, who was far too busy sticking needles where they most definitely didn't belong, and Wen Ning, who could offer no warmth, but his cold heart was big enough for everyone to feel the love within it.
And then, there was Wei Ying. Xian-Gege to a little boy with huge eyes and squishable cheeks, the cutest kid Wei Ying had ever seen, and the spark that lit the fire of his rebellion.
Together, they suffered through three years of living in that windswept mountainside, with only the screaming banshees of the dead for company at night. Food grown in soil saturated with blood, bones getting in the way of their planting attempts. They learned to scavenge for wild fruits when the seasons permitted, Uncle Four making a secret wine and surprising him with it, all of them giving up their shares of food for the perpetually hungry child. How the hardships brought them all so much closer together.
Wei Ying doesn't know, he can't pinpoint when exactly he started thinking of A-Yuan as his child. It was never a conscious decision between one day babysitting him while Wen Popo rested, to letting the mischievous toddler chew on his terrifying dizi hard enough to leave teeth marks. Of their connection, there was never any doubt. Both of them striving to make the other smile when it was far too easy to cry instead.
On that last day, Wei Ying recalls finding A-Yuan sleeping next to him when he woke up from Wen Qing's needle attack. The boy must have been frightened, probably cold and hungry, and confused because no one was around to feed him, or talk to him. Only his Xian-Gege, who couldn't wake up, even if A-Yuan might have tried rousing him.
He can't remember what his thought process had been, except that he was terrified that the Cultivation sects would arrive at the Burial Mounds ready to slaughter them, and there was no way Wei Ying would let them have his child. But he couldn't take A-Yuan with him, not where Wei Ying was going. Not where the killing of anyone that opposed him would be the tamest thing Wei Ying was going to do.
A battlefield was no place for a kid, but then, neither was the Burial Mounds.
That's when Wei Ying had lit up like a torch, anger consuming him from within.
How dare these people decide who had a right to live and who had a right to die? How dare they demand the lives of the innocent for the crimes that Wei Ying blamed himself over?
The Jins had promised the matter would be closed upon the Wens giving themselves up, but Wei Ying could never trust those golden robes to keep their word, because that was akin to accusing Jin GuangShan of being a pious monk.
So the only option he had seen-
Wei Ying bursts into tears. He tries to be quiet but Lan Zhan hears him and not long after that, both of his parents are hugging them tightly, trying to soothe away the monstrous hurt bursting into flames under his ribs.
"Wei Ying-" Lan Zhan begs him mournfully, hoping to stop him from crying more, but Wei Ying is too horrified at himself to think properly.
"Let him cry it out," Cangse Sanren murmurs, gathering him up into her arms. "He'll tell us when he can."
