The Untamed 陈情令 Fanfic - Untold Stories

Chapter 3 - "Gusu Part 1"

Dreams.

A vision...a time capsule of one's past.

Often times, they are a manifestation of one's unconscious thoughts. The kind that the mind wishes to fulfill, scenarios that could or could not happen that are allowed to run their course.

Other times, they're memories -- forgotten, fragmented, or even changed. Bringing forth reveries that could be doubtful, but the emotional attachment was still the same.

Without these reminders, visions, inventions or imaginations wouldn't exist. Most importantly, human connections may cease. We need dreams for growth as much as we do for daytime ponderings.

But there are times when dreams bring sleepless nights to those whose hearts were no longer the same - damaged, from either fear or tears. Those memories were brought to the surface whenever consciousness was lost.

The Wei family he was born from, the Jiang Sect which had adopted him, and the Wen clan he chose to protect. Warmth, shelter, and purpose.

From the time of his resurrection, not for a single day had he dreamed of anything other than his lost families. These dreams started with laughter, teasing tones and comforting words. All the good times he wished to return to, until his worst fear was brought forth. In those moments, when the end was near - their voices would begin to fade, their fingers slipping from his outstretched hands - that's when the ghosts of the past would be resurrected, covered in crimson blood within the smoke of darkness.

The stronger the emotions, the more vivid the visions.

A punishment well deserved. After all, he had killed thousands of innocents at Nightless City.

Awake, Wei Wuxian could smile, laugh and play, but when evening arrived, his demons came back to haunt him. Until the day he took his last breath, these vengeful spirits would never let him rest.

However, there was an exception. Lan Zhan's melody, the light at the end of the tunnel. Nothing could dissipate the resentful energy like HanGuang Jun's tune. His music was the strongest medicine, and admittedly, Wei Wuxian's only cure.

Until the day Lan Wangji left him on that mountainside. Since then, the nightmares had returned.

On a few occasions though, when Lan SiZhui was present, out of desperation, he had asked the youth to play HanGuang Jun's tune. Although the song did not suppress the nightmares completely, it was enough to ease him to sleep for the most part. That's when Wei Wuxian realized - the original Master is still the best - but there was no way he would crawl back to Gusu to ask HanGuang Jun to help him sleep.

Wei Wuxian could only imagine HanGuang Jun's reaction if he were to show up, demanding the Chief Cultivator to play his original song, like a child's request for a bedtime story. A delicate attachment he did not wish to form, but still yearned.

Forever long, he always knew, he missed the music of Second Young Master Lan's; the distinctive notes, the powerful rhythm, the waves that pushed and pulled, easing his dissociative mind and saving him from the abyss of his own making.

Gentle as his touch, soft as his smile, his notes floated freely among the floating lanterns of their youth. Wei Wuxian wanted, he still craved. The music of Guquin's song, the name he had yet known.

But then, God must have taken pity on him, because now within the dreamlike world, the song he never thought he could ever hear again, was playing in the back of his subconscious. Plagued by the past that refused to let him go, returned was the melody that took away his woe.