Inquiring Minds
holy shit, i finished a thing. well, a draft of a thing, but still counts!
based on this post about wwx being just dead enough be susceptible to the compulsion of inquiry
--
It was, in retrospect, the stupidest possible way to be found out. Wei Wuxian will readily admit that. Unfortunately, the level of stupidity was not a determining factor for the level of reality — as was the case for so much of Wei Wuxian’s life.
It all happened because one of the two dozen Jin disciples who bothered to show up to the war got a little drunk and a lot prideful and ended up starting a fight he couldn’t finish. Or, that was the going theory, anyway. The Jin leadership — such as it was — wanted an investigation done. As if they had nothing better to do. As if there weren’t reasons to be conserving spiritual power and not wasting it playing Inquiry for a guy who had decided to pick a fight — hopefully, hopefully it was a fight — with a Nie disciple who, granted, did not have the startling musculature of some of her shixiongs, but was still a fucking Nie disciple!
This guy was not worth their time. This guy was not worth Lan Zhan’s time. Or his attention, or his spiritual power, or the stress it would put on his guqin strings— okay, maybe Wei Wuxian should have taken a moment to purge some of his resentment before walking into the tent.
But he didn’t. This is important.
Because then Lan Zhan began to play.
And there was this strange… tugging sensation in the pit of Wei Wuxian’s gut, right where his golden core was supposed to be, pulling him toward Lan Zhan, or toward the empty space in front of Lan Zhan.
Wei Wuxian shouldn’t have ignored it. He gets that now. He does. But he always wanted to be near Lan Zhan, and his body had been doing all kinds of weird shit since he’d had his core cut out, and who was to say this wasn’t just another weird side effect.
Well. It was. A weird side effect. After a fashion.
But that’s not the point!
He should have noticed then. He should have left then. But he didn’t.
The melody changed and the tugging sensation stopped. Which was great!
Until something else started. It felt like a kind of drunkenness, light and hazy in his head, loose around his tongue. Three or four bowls in.
He shook himself to dislodge it, but the motion only drew a sharp glare from Jiang Cheng.
The tent was full of spectators. At least two representatives from each major clan were present, plus several “close friends” of the victim -- like four of the fifteen total Jin disciples -- who probably just wanted something else to do outside of eat, sleep, and fight. Wei Wuxian couldn’t blame them, exactly, war was remarkably boring most of the time, but it was getting awfully stuffy in there.
Lan Zhan changed the melody again, something almost lexical about it. Wei Wuxian could almost hear the question being asked, even before Zewu Jun’s voice chimed in, translating for anyone who didn’t know the qin language — which was pretty much everyone else in the tent besides the Twin Jades — “What is your name?”
Wei Wuxian caught his own response between his lips, pressing them together tightly, as the guqin sounded three distinct notes which Zewu Jun reported as Jin Zixin.
So, good. It was the right guy. That was great. Nothing weird at all.
He should have left then. He didn’t.
Lan Zhan played again, and again Wei Wuxian thought he understood the phrase, the question, even before Zewu Jun said for the tent, “How did you die?”
Wei Wuxian felt the answer fly to the tip of his tongue and bit his teeth around it, through it. His cheek bled with the force of keeping quiet.
It was weird. So weird. But maybe, Wei Wuxian justified to himself, maybe it was just an effect of holding a secret inside for so long and having someone actually ask the question out loud. Maybe, it was just the same automatic reaction of answering with your name when someone asked for it. Maybe he was just too fucking tired, and the resentment under his skin just wanted something to laugh at, something to entertain itself with. Like the five of ten Jins standing in the back of the tent. War was boring, okay?
The notes from Lan Zhan’s guqin hung in the air, resonant and waiting. The moment seemed to stretch out too long. It dragged and Wei Wuxian gradually felt the words stop fighting him to escape.
But the Jin ghost didn’t answer either.
When Lan Zhan played the same phrase over — “How did you die?” echoed on Zewu Jun’s tongue — the compulsion was much stronger. This time it was like Wei Wuxian could feel Lan Zhan’s spiritual power pouring through him; the strongest of wines, several jars of it.
He couldn’t fight it.
His mouth opened.
I fell. I fell. I fell.
“I fell.”
All eyes in the tent turned to him.
Jiang Cheng’s elbow caught him in the ribs. He didn’t even bother to glare. He said, “Not you, Idiot.”
The qin sounded and everybody looked back to Lan Zhan and Zewu Jun, waiting to hear the Jin disciple’s answer.
Zewu Jun hesitated for the barest of moments, stuttering into the start of his translation before finding the confidence of his voice once more, recounting whatever it was that the ghost had strummed out.
Wei Wuxian didn’t hear a word he said. He was, instead, pierced on two sides.
On one: Jiang Cheng muttered to himself, “Wait,” and then his eyes went wide as he looked back at Wei Wuxian.
On the other: Lan Zhan’s fingers froze above the strings of his guqin and he turned to stare over his shoulder at Wei Wuxian with something like horrified understanding dawning within his gaze.
Wei Wuxian finally realized he should fucking leave. Immediately.
He wanted to run. He knew better. Knew what that would look like.
Instead, he was going to simply walk out of this tent as he had walked out of so many already during this campaign. Gravel crunched under his heel as he turned.
But his brother knew him too well. Jiang Cheng’s hand clamped tight around Wei Wuxian’s bicep, his grip unyielding. With his golden core, Wei Wuxian might have been able to break it. But the real bitch of it was that it was his golden core that was holding him in place.
Jiang Cheng tensed as if readying for a fight, but Wei Wuxian already knew how that fight would end. So he let himself be restrained.
He turned back to face the Inquiry.
Lan Zhan was still staring at him when Zewu Jun finished speaking. He was still so stuck in place that his brother had to prompt him into finishing the ritual. Which he did, with all the grace and skill expected of him. He really was just so beautiful to watch.
All the while, Wei Wuxian listened to the music and bit through his tongue to keep it silent. The questions continued to drag at him -- “Do you know who killed you?” Wen Chao. “Do you have any last requests?” To leave this fucking tent. -- though the pressure to answer eased significantly as the Jin ghost became less stubborn about it. Wei Wuxian settled for reciting the answers to them in his head until they no longer felt pressed against the thin seam of his mouth.
It took approximately sixteen-hundred years.
All seven Jin disciples supporting the war effort left the tent after the ghost had recounted his final moments. The attempted sexual assault was not unexpected, judging by their faces, but still disappointing to hear about. Clearly not the entertainment they were hoping for. Luckily for Wei Wuxian, they were apparently too wrapped up in their Jin nonsense to realize new entertainment was fidgeting in the corner and trying not to sever the tip of his tongue completely.
The Nie, represented by Nie Mingjue and Nie Huaisang, left shortly after the ritual concluded. If Nie Mingjue had to tug his brother away, Wei Wuxian was too busy keeping his mouth shut to comment on it.
And then there were just the four of them. Plus the corpse. But they were like six months into a war, so the corpse didn’t actually seem to bother any of them. It hadn’t even started to smell yet. It was still pretty intact, too, and now that it was verifiably a criminal, Wei Wuxian wondered idly if the Jin would let him use it in their next battle. Probably not.
His idle wondering ceased abruptly as his brother’s fingers bit deeper into the meat of his arm.
“Wei Wuxian,” he said, all of his surely filial worry for his gege boiling over into a spitting, incandescent fury. He never had to say he loved his brother, Wei Wuxian could always tell. It was the teeth gnashing that gave him away. “What the fuck do you mean you fell?”
Right.
Wei Wuxian played it as cool as he could with a definitely-not-bleeding tongue. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jiang Cheng.” He shrugged, but his arm didn’t move very far.
“You answered Inquiry,” said Lan Zhan. Succinct as ever.
“No!” Wei Wuxian said, maybe a little too loud, but not at all childishly.
Zewu Jun narrowed his eyes and pulled out his xiao. Wei Wuxian tried not to flinch about it, he did. But Zewu Jun only played a short, non-Inquiry melody, and a shimmering, blue barrier manifested around the interior of the tent.
“No,” Wei Wuxian said again, this time at a totally normal volume. “I was just… messing around. You know how I do that, Lan Zhan. Always a rule breaker.” He grinned, desperately trying to play it all off. Realizing faster and faster how very badly this was going for him.
Lan Zhan surprised him, then, saying, “Not when it matters.”
“What?”
“Wei Ying doesn’t break rules when they matter.”
Wei Wuxian didn’t know where the fuck that was coming from. But he couldn’t say he hated it.
Except that he did, because it was going to be a problem for this whole I’m just a silly rascal defense he was setting up.
Jiang Cheng still hadn’t let go of his arm. His fingernails were starting to split the fabric of his sleeve. And worse, his eyebrows were scrunched together in the way they do when he’s thinking through all the angles of a problem.
Zewu Jun still had his xiao in hand, and he was looking at Wei Wuxian like he was deciding whether to perform an exorcism or an execution.
But Lan Zhan… Lan Zhan hadn’t moved from his seat on the mat. He had turned his body so that he was facing Wei Wuxian, giving him his full attention, and was looking up at him with… pain in his eyes. Shining, wet pain.
“You died?” he asked. “Are you dead?”
“I don’t…” Wei Wuxian trailed off. He couldn’t find the words.
He didn’t know. Which was, possibly, not the best sign.
“I can’t be dead,” he said, looking over at Zewu Jun, Jiang Cheng, then back to Lan Zhan. “Can I?”
Zewu Jun, still wary, said, “You responded to the compulsion in Inquiry. Inquiry is a song that speaks to and compels answers from the dead. It does not generally work on the living.”
“Well--” Wei Wuxian started, defensive and scared. But again, he didn’t really know where to go with that.
“Where were you, Wei Wuxian?” Jiang Cheng asked him. “Why didn’t you meet me at the bottom of the hill?”
Lan Zhan and Zewu Jun shared a look. They didn’t seem to know what Jiang Cheng was talking about. But Wei Wuxian really, really, didn’t want to get into that whole mess. If anyone was going to see right through him and his flimsy tale about suddenly remembering the location of Baoshan Sanren’s mountain, it would be Lan Zhan. Actually, Zewu Jun would probably figure it out, too. And then maybe even Jiang Cheng. Now that he wasn’t all broken and desperate and gullible.
Fuck. With the way Jiang Cheng was looking at Wei Wuxian, the way his hand released some of the pressure around his arm, he might already have.
Wei Wuxian laughed, hoping it came off more smoothly than it felt in his chest. “Ah, Jiang Cheng.” He brought his own hand up to lay over his brother’s. “What if I told you--”
“No,” Jiang Cheng cut him off. “No more bullshit. Where were you?”
The mirth, false as it was, drained out of Wei Wuxian as he saw the pain building behind his brother’s eyes.
There was movement in his periphery and then Lan Zhan was standing on his other side. His fingers wrapped around Wei Wuxian’s other arm with a much gentler grip than Jiang Cheng’s. Something imploring about the touch. Like he was seeking confirmation to a theory, or maybe proving to himself that Wei Wuxian was actually there.
“I…” Wei Wuxian trailed off.
Zewu Jun’s gaze was hard as steel, but aimed, it seemed, at Lan Zhan’s hand, rather than at Wei Wuxian in general.
“There was a rumor,” he said in slow, even words, “that Wen Chao had thrown you into the Burial Mounds.” He waited a moment after he finished speaking, as if trying to reconcile the words himself, before he looked up to meet Wei Wuxian’s eyes.
Of course, Wei Wuxian didn’t want to meet Zewu Jun’s eyes. He didn’t want to meet any of their eyes. He wanted very much to be out of this tent and away from knowing gazes altogether.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t quite figured out how to teleport using resentful energy yet. So in the tent he remained.
He looked down at his feet. His boots were crusted with dirt and blood and other bodily fluids. War really was super gross, in addition to being largely boring.
“That’s ridiculous,” he said, still looking down. “Everyone knows that nothing leaves the Burial Mounds.”
Lan Zhan’s hand tightened around Wei Wuxian’s arm. Jiang Cheng’s loosened, but didn’t let go.
“Yeah,” said Jiang Cheng, like an accusation, “it would be impossible.”
Wei Wuxian still didn’t look up from his feet which meant that he missed whatever silent conversation happened between Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan that had both of them tightening their grips on his arms just before fingers were pressed to the pulse points of his wrists. He struggled, flailing as much as he could, but against Lan Zhan’s golden core and his own, he stood no chance. He could barely budge them.
He screamed but the sound only reverberated inside the tent.
The only thing he could think to do was to call up the dead. The dead man still lying in front of them. The Jin. Rapist. Criminal. He could use that wicked corpse to fight off the people holding him down, taking his secrets. Smoke curled out of his sleeves and he--
He stopped himself.
It was over anyway.
Even if they couldn’t read his spiritual energy, or lack thereof, his fighting them was confirmation enough.
He went limp in their grasp. His knees buckled.
It really was the stupidest possible way to be found out.
“Where is it?” asked Jiang Cheng. But it was clear from his voice that he already knew the answer.
Lan Zhan was silent.
Zewu Jun looked to his brother for an answer, not understanding what they had just discovered.
“His golden core,” said Lan Zhan. “It’s gone.”
“Wen Zhuliu?” Zewu Jun asked.
But Jiang Cheng made a sound that was somehow both a laugh and a sob.
Wei Wuxian regained control of his arms. He sprawled himself out on the tent floor, exhausted from his struggle. He laughed, too. “After a fashion.”
Jiang Cheng fell to the ground next to him, hands cradling the place where Wei Wuxian’s core now spun. “What the fuck?” he said, quietly, to no one in particular. Then, loudly, to Wei Wuxian in particular, “What the fuck!”
His cheeks were wet. Jiang Cheng’s, his own. He looked over to confirm, and yeah, Lan Zhan’s too. Zewu Jun had nothing to cry over, except maybe confusion, but he was too cool for that, so he just stood in the middle of the tent, shocked, presumably, as his brother, another sect leader, and a demonic cultivator broke down around him.
Wei Wuxian stared up at the tented canvas ceiling and cursed himself for not leaving the tent when he first noticed something wrong.
“Jiang Cheng,” he started, but Jiang Cheng cut him off with a wet yell.
“Why would you do that, you fucking idiot?! What the fuck were you even thinking?! How did you-- How--”
He seemed to lose steam trying to figure out what happened on “Baoshen Sanren’s mountain” and potentially also why Baoshen Sanren’s voice sounded so familiar.
Zewu Jun’s voice was remarkably calm for a man witnessing-- whatever he made of what he was currently witnessing. He said, “Wei Wuxian, I believe your Sect Leader would like to know how you lost your golden core.”
Wei Wuxian laughed at that. Because yes and no.
“No, Zewu Jun,” he said, still laughing. He tried to stop, but it was just too funny. “No,” he said again, slightly more sober, “he wants to know why and how he now has my golden core.”
He didn’t really mean to say it. He felt drunk again, like he did when Lan Zhan was playing Inquiry. Ready to spill all his secrets at only the slightest provocation. Zewu Jun could probably ask him just about anything right now -- Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng too, for that matter -- and he would answer it. It wasn’t exactly a safe mindset to be in. But he couldn’t really do anything about that now.
At least there was some kind of privacy barrier over the tent.
Zewu Jun stood. Speechless.
Lan Zhan’s tears fell silently.
Jiang Cheng glared, hands clutched tight against his lower dantian -- whether to hold something inside or to tear it out, Wei Wuxian wasn’t sure.
Wei Wuxian felt light as a feather. Drunk and dizzy with it. A weight had been lifted, he supposed, but one he was never supposed to let go. His laughter died down to the occasional press of his lungs. Tears collected in his eyelashes until everything was blurry.
Emptiness yawned inside him, but it was gentler somehow. As if the secret itself had been clawing away at his slowly healing wounds.
“Fuck,” he said with a hiccup of a laugh. And again, quieter, “Fuck.”
He really should have left the fucking tent.
Also, wait. Was he dead?!
--
(7/18/24: now on ao3)