[PALACE GAME - LAN WANGJI RUN]

[laughitoff]

Everything is red. You are dying, somewhere far beyond pain, the very essence of yourself going to pieces. You’re shattering so badly you don’t know if you’ll ever find all of yourself again, if you’ll ever put yourself back together. There are teeth on you, ripping, tearing, devouring. There are teeth inside you, carving their way out, and those are worse.

This is a memory, happening at a remove. It is not yours. This is not happening now.

Everything is grey. You wake up in a prison cell, eyes wide, the ceiling flat and blank and unfamiliar above you. For a moment you simply think, no. You think, Please, wasn’t it over? Wasn’t it enough? You consider closing your eyes again and refusing to get up, until oblivion reclaims you. Even if you’re no longer dying, everything hurts.

This is a memory, happening at a remove. It is not yours. This is not happening now.

What is happening, then?

You–

–sit up.

Comments

[strikingchords]

[DOES THAT ALSO HAVE NO EFFECT ON THE GHOSTS THEN

goes inside the building??????]

[laughitoff]

[The inside is indeed an ancestral hall, a medium-sized, lantern-lit hall with kneeling cushions and incense burners in front of a broad display of wooden tablets with the Wens' names inked and/or carved on them. It has the feel of a place of veneration and respect, though not quite worship.

The ghosts are still frozen.]

[strikingchords]

[hmmm well his tablet was redundant in this case, but if the spear with a flag on it is now a tablet with names on it and the building itself is now a different building, he's not really sure what else there is to change...? is there anything he's missing]

[laughitoff]

[There doesn't seem to be anything else he's missing.]

[strikingchords]

[...

tries using Heresy instead, to sand the names on the tablet away and carve in Wen Qing's and Wen Ning's instead; to let them rest with their family]

[laughitoff]

[This also happens without incident.]

[strikingchords]

[HE IS NOT SURE WHAT ELSE TO DO HERE THEN. leaves the memory here and heads for the empty lot]

[laughitoff]

[This is the one bannered area that none of the monstrous crowds are flocking to. In fact, they seem to be actively avoiding it...? The banner itself is blank, flapping from an upraised pole.

White chrysanthemums are planted around the square's borders.

There's another huge pool of blood that takes up most of the square, very similar to the one in the cave where you started out. What's this doing here?]

[strikingchords]

[great question...?

he will reach to touch the pole and banner?]

[laughitoff]

[The pole is wood. The banner is silk, once he pulls it down off its high spot on the pole. Nothing changes.]

[strikingchords]

[he can TOUCH A BLOOD, then]

[laughitoff]

[The blood's warm.

The flickering fragments crowd around his hand to investigate it, then immediately recoil, swimming away to the bottom of the pool. No thank you.]

[strikingchords]

[love you too guys

does he have to jump into the pool of blood to follow them or figure this out. touches a chrysanthemum just in case?]

[laughitoff]

[Mourning.

He can jump in the pool of blood if he wants, but it really does just seem to be a twin of the pool in the cave he came from. It's not giving him a ghost or memory.]

[strikingchords]

[...

he'll leave it and the pole, then, and pick a chrysanthemum to take back to the Wens...]

[laughitoff]

[They're still there where he left them.]

[strikingchords]

[all right.

he'll use Orthodoxy to heal the wounds on the ghosts, if he can.]

[laughitoff]

[It works; they're restored to how they were in life, though still transparent.

As the ripple of power fades, he'll note a dull gleam of metal by his boot.]

[strikingchords]

[FOR THE RECORD HE WOULD HAVE ALSO MOVED THEM SO THEY WERE ALL INSIDE AND NOT CLIPPING THROUGH WALLS ANY MORE, WITH THAT ATTEMPT.

bends to pick up the piece of metal...?]

[laughitoff]

[THAT'S PROBABLY MORE COMFORTABLE FOR THEM! HE'S DOING GOOD!

The metal is tarnished, carved. There's a little mental itch on contact: This is a piece of the Treasure.]

[strikingchords]

[...

tucks it in a spirit-trapping pouch

there might be more to do here, but he will check out the temple first]

[laughitoff]

[There's a small temple down one of the side ways, where far fewer monsters linger. It's a rather dim and sombre building compared to the rest, but candles lit around the banner over the door still proclaim it clearly as THE HUNT.

When you step inside, it's lit by a few other candles, creating an eerie effect around the central statue. The god the statue portrays isn't any you recognize, some black and eldritch crossover between an octopus and a serpent, but the gold koi charm dangling from one of its tentacles winks even in the scant light.]

[strikingchords]

[he will go to the koi charm and take it down...]

[laughitoff]

[Your mouth is still tingling from the mysterious stranger's stolen kiss, and Lan Wangji looks absolutely indignant at being dragged into the shrubbery with you, but your attention's on neither of those things. They're on your sister and her former fiance, Jin Zixuan, who have just come into sight on the mountain path. She's as demure as ever, clearly upset; he's as arrogant in demeanor as ever.

I just knew Madam Jin would get them to take a stroll together, you fume.

"What quarrel do you have with Jin Zixuan?" Lan Wangji asks quietly. He's calmed down too, noticing your distraction.

Because he's an asshole? Because he's ignored or scorned his childhood betrothed at every turn? Because he thinks he's too good for everyone? Because he accused your sister of tricking him and made her cry, for trying to secretly bring him food and take care of him in her way, during the war? Heavens, you hate his stupid face. You don't regret punching it when you were younger, even if it did get you punished and sent home from Lan Zhan's sect. You don't regret punching it AGAIN when he tried to humiliate her in public for her kindness. Prick.

On the other side of the clearing, he's found a dead monster and he's giving her inane facts about it -- even as a low-level cultivator she knows what a Mesuring Snake does, does he think she's uneducated too? She's clearly confused at being dragged out here and lectured. Your sister's really too polite for her own good, sometimes.

"...If you come to our clan's hunting grounds, you can see a lot of rare monsters," he's telling her. "If you're free sometime next month, I can take you."

Who the hell wants to go to his clan's hunting grounds!?

"Many thanks for your invitation, but there's no need to go to such trouble," your sister answers quietly, as though she heard you.

Jin Zixuan's taken aback. "Why? You don't like watching hunts? Then why did you come to this one? Wait...do you not like them, or do you not like being with me?"

"It's not that..."

"Fine," he sneers.

Your sister's staring at the ground. You can see the upset set of her shoulders. "I'm sorry."

"What're you sorry for? Think what you will. Either way, it wasn't me who wanted to invite you. So if you don't want to come, then forget about it."

Your sister's mouth quivers. "Please excuse me," she says, and turns to go.


The memory skips, blurs into static, and then resumes. A bit of time must have passed, because there's suddenly a lot more people in the clearing, most of them dressed in the same gold style of robes as Jin Zixuan.


You're turning to head back to the observation stands with your sister, when Jin Zixuan shouts, "Miss Jiang!"

You try to pull her away faster. "Let's go, quickly."

But he's insistent. "That's not it, Miss Jiang!"

He's being so loud you have to turn and acknowledge him, and everyone else is staring in your direction. The awkwardness in the air is thick enough to cut, and it only increases as he rushes up and shouts again:

"That wasn't it! It's not my mother -- I didn't invite you because of her! I'm not reluctant to be with you, not at all! It's me! It was all me! I was the one who wanted you to come!"

"...," everyone says.

He flushes so hard it looks like his head's going to pop off and staggers back a few steps to steady himself on a nearby tree. He looks up, then freezes at all the eyes on him. With a last, wordless shout, he bolts off into the woods.

There's silence in the clearing for a moment, and then his mother screams in outrage.

"You bonehead! What are you running away for! A-Li, let's talk back at the observation deck! I need to go catch him first!"

After witnessing this farce, you don't know whether to laugh or cry.
]

[strikingchords]

[puts a hand to his mouth, remembering all of that...]