I'm kinda tired so I'll just drop this post. This is just a small post. I promise. It's tiny. You won't even notice. Can I just-? I'm just gonna...put this down right here...*places a potential new AU on my blog* Okay so admittedly, this AU was born entirely of a joke I was making on Discord, but it, like many things in my life, spiralled out of control. SO! Picture this. The Lans have known from the beginning of their clan's existence when the world was going to become overrun with the undead. The gods did not often give their devout worshippers any information but, when they did, the Lans listened to them. The first piece of information ever handed to the mortals by the gods, the first prophecy, was the warning about the day the dead would rise from their graves and hunger for the flesh of the living. So, they learned to live their life preparing for the day. It would not be for decades in the future, but they still wanted the younger generations to be prepared for the instance.
Okay so the Lan basically have the zombie apocalypse prophesised to them and they tell everyone else but they go "okay pal, you're crayzee." The Nies, however, listen. They become doomsday preppers, working with the Lans to be Truly Prepared for the apocalypse. Lan Wangji has grown up with this knowledge, and all of the training handed through the generations is practically pummelled into he and his brother because it is their generation that would take the brunt of this change. A month or so before the apocalypse begins, they bring Wen Qing into their fortresses because she is a pioneer of medical development and a damn good doctor, and all they need to do is take in her family as well. The Nie are chilling as all hell, basically so hyped up for the apocalypse (not Huaisang, he's very bored).
When the apocalypse begins, everyone else is like "SHIT we should have listened to the Nies and the Lans, we all gonna die" meanwhile the Nies and Lans in question are already working on a cure the second they have a zombie. The zombie in question? Wen Ning, who was lured out of the boundaries of the fortress to save a kid who had snuck out and got attacked by a zombie or two but managed to save the kid! He's really chill about it all, and maintains some of his cognition after an early test of the cure brings it about. He also appears to be rather allergic to brains after the early version of the cure does it's thing, so he survives on a substitute made by Wen Qing. He's also very fine with having 'experiments' done on him because he doesn't really have nerves or anything and it's all for the best, yay!!!
Meanwhile, everyone else is going crazy because of the whole evil situation of a zombie apocalypse and are really not faring as well. The Wen? Attacked. The Jin? Oof. The Jiang? Yikes. Wei Wuxian?....Sooo about that. Let's talk about zombies first. The zombies of this universe have a sense of smell because, as my amazing First Wife put it, 'scent is one of the first senses, so it makes sense for it to be one of the last to go'. Also that's horrific, isn't it? Zombies can smell blood and will go for the injured, picking them off from the group and forcing people to leave them behind because they are a liability, of course. Truly, things aren't going well for anyone outside of the fortresses, even as the Lan and Nie try and take in as many survivors as they can because they're not going to be assholes just because they were called crazy.
Now, how is Wei Wuxian doing throughout all this? Well. Sister dead, brother missing, the Jiang basically torn apart in front of him...haha. Yay. Also, there's the fact that apparently the zombies are very entranced by the fucking scent of him - he's like a rare and special snack that they all want to get their teeth into! And when they do manage to get their teeth into him, he's not even afforded the mercy of being turned. It's safe to say that he starts losing it a bit with every day he's hunted down by these monsters, dragged around and torn apart and yet he just can't seem to die. So, he starts trying to communicate with them, because what the fuck has he got to lose? He's already almost certain that when he speaks to them, they respond back with coherent sentences, so he must be truly insane.
They like it when he plays music. He's been carrying around his father's old dizi, unable to part with it despite all of the times he's almost been torn to shreds to retrieve it after dropping it in the first place, but...they listen to him when he plays. They stop and they listen. They react to his melodies, and it's not long before he's starting to figure out how they correspond with any given melody, and then he starts....he doesn't really want to say 'controlling' them. He swears that there is some glimmer of humanity or recognition in those otherwise empty, lifeless eyes, and he's just drawing that out when he plays for them. But anyway, he starts learning how to...influence them into making certain decisions, or moving in certain ways, or....well, killing certain people.
Everyone fears the zombies, yes, and he knows he should too. But he has been bitten and torn and tugged apart so many times that it's hard to fear them - they can't really kill him in any way that matters, and he has nobody else for company because everyone he loves is probably dead or dying. He can look and search for Jiang Cheng all he wants, but he's almost certain he died with the rest of the Jiang that night. The zombies are his only company, and he can pretend that they're alive every time they respond to his song, and he's content with that. He's all scar and skin and bone now, but sometimes he finds food and it's nice. It's nice to eat. His bones click funny from where they've been broken and wrenched, and sometimes it's hard to move. But he has the zombies, and they have him, and that's enough for him.
