deercountry | i once knew a man who learned such a thing

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i once knew a man who learned such a thing | october catch-all

Who: Jin Guangyao + select closed prompts + OTA
What: Settling in; an encounter with a draugr; trying to locate some much needed chill; continuing a TDM thread.
When: /waves hands, throughout the month.
Where: Willful Machine, along a nondescript thoroughfare and by the canals; the Pale Sanctuary in Cassandra; the Boardwalk
Notes: If you're keen on threading something, hit me up on plurk @ ragweed and we can figure something out.

Content Warnings: Blood, gore. Allusions to memories of a murder victim. Frank discussion of a child's murder (his son).

I. Cleaning house. (OTA)
The siheyuan has good bones. Whoever built it understood the importance of craftsmanship, though whether there is any prosperous energy in Trench for a south-facing house to welcome is anyone's guess. But someone had lived here before, once; there are height marks scratched into the wood of a door frame, seven of them, one for each birthday celebrated by a child. When Jin Guangyao first notices the marks while affixing spirit-repelling talismans to the walls in auspicious locations, he very deliberately does not think of his son.

With the talismans in place within the courtyard and the rooms themselves, he steps outside and onto the thoroughfare sidewalk to affix a few of them to the gate. Trailing behind him is his omen, a lean steppe fox whose winter coat has already begun to come in.

II. Second Death at the Canals. (Closed to Sasuke)
OOC note: Timing of this event is sometime after JGY snags himself an address, and finishes up his conversation with Mike Enslin (see below).

It is late in the evening, well after what passes for dusk in Trench, when the screams rip through the air near the canals. What follows is an immediate mad scramble of bodies and limbs of all shapes to escape the scene unfolding by the water's edge, where a draugr has pinned a man in pale gold robes to the ground by his throat.

Right now, only two things separate Jin Guangyao from death: the first is the blade of his spiritual sword, Hensheng, which he has thrust through the draugr's throat and embedded in what passes for its spine, and which in combination with his faltering spiritual power serves only to keep the monster's still-gnashing jaws from descending upon him. The other is his omen, who has transformed herself into the menacing shape of a large huli jing, and is harrying the draugr with ear-splitting fox-bark screams and yodels that keep the thing distracted, but not deterred. Every so often it swipes ineffectually out at her with the hand not at its quarry's throat, before she lunges away.

The draugr has taken much from Jin Guangyao over the course of the last month to the point where his outrage and fury over the theft of his memories is only overwhelmed by the sheer terror he experiences when the monster at last manifests itself and forces him to look at its face (and forces him to remember a face he wishes he could forget, dead but still seeing him, still hating him, still suspecting his every decision, hesitation or sideways glance--)

Ichor from the gaping throat wound above him splatters down towards him. Jin Guangyao jerks his face away and grits his teeth, and twists beneath the monster's bulk to edge a foot against its stomach--not because he thinks that he has the power to actually kick the thing away, but because any barrier he can put between the draugr's teeth and himself is better than nothing. Still, this is a grim situation, and his eyes dart about himself in terror and outrage as he desperately tries to come up with an escape plan.

III. Exploring near the Pale Sanctuary. (OTA)

The pale, bloated tree at the heart of the Pale Sanctuary does not look like it should be a place of spiritual tranquility. Jin Guangyao stands slightly out of its shadow and considers it in silence, being sure always to keep his expression as inoffensive and absent of any outside judgment as possible. The thing alarms him, there's just no getting around it, and hearing the murmurs among the nearby Disciples regarding just who this entire district was named for strikes him as doubly inauspicious. No one in the cultivation world would think to name a place of spiritual sanctuary and healing after the Yiling Patriarch, surely.

He doesn't venture near the door that leads down into the sanctuary itself--that's a big 'nope, no thank you, not interested' at least for the moment--and instead takes his time walking the circumference of the tree, being sure to give it as wide a berth as possible as he looks it over in detail, committing what he sees to memory.

IV. Encounter on the Boardwalk. (Closed to Mike Enslin)
[continued from here!]

'Napkin guy.' That's a new one. It's much better than his last nickname. Jin Guangyao's expression softens by a hair's breadth of a margin, and though he doesn't smile--that particular mask wouldn't be appropriate, not now--he makes a sound somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. Then, "Thank you," the stranger says, and Jin Guangyao bends his head in wordless acknowledgement of the courtesy.

As for the rest--

"Yes," he replies. He looks away from Mike to allow him the courtesy of tidying himself without a scrutinizing audience. There is so very much else happening on the boardwalk to draw the eye anyway; the masks, the lights, the myriad of different beings and bodies that are as alien to him as that tape recorder, if more frightening. When one being makes sustained eye contact with him for too long, Jin Guangyao is quick to avert his gaze in as non-threatening a manner as he can manage, and turns his attention back to Mike.

"Xiansheng, please forgive this one's lapse in manners. I am called Jin Guangyao." Just in case the stranger felt so inclined to actually refer to him as 'napkin guy,' henceforth.

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Wei Wuxian lives in Cassandra. The house that has traveled worlds with him is located in this area of Trench and is where he currently lives and works. He sells incense and teas out of the building and is constantly researching different ways to combat the various symptoms that people have to endure. Its the best way he knows how to help people in this place.

So it isn't surprising that he is wandering past the Pale Sanctuary. He has long gotten used to the appearance of the tree but he doesn't usually go inside of it. He has learned that it is often unwise to travel into certain places because the world likes to play games. And the last thing he wants is to get stuck inside some sort of blood tree. No matter if they call it a sanctuary.

But this time as he wanders past the tree there is a familiar figure studying it. He stops in his movements and observes for a time. It has been a few years since he has seen the face of Jin Guangyao. Not since that fateful night in the temple. A night that he had hoped would be the last time he would put his eyes on the man that basically turned the cultivator world upside down with the tricks that he pulled. Of course, the same could be said about himself.

"You're going to see far more interesting things then this tree while you are here."

Neither of them are men who are the best versions of themselves when backed into a corner.

Jin Guangyao turns quickly at the sound of Wei Wuxian's voice, his eyes gone very wide. In truth, his reaction could have been worse, and likely would have been were he still navigating the deadly pitfalls of Jin Guangshan's court. But this is Trench, and though the last he'd heard of the Yiling Patriarch was his death in the Burial Mounds, he at least knows enough of this place to know that anyone from his past could turn up here.

"Yes, Yiling-laozu," he agrees, polite even while is stare is sharp enough to cut glass. "That he stands before this one now is proof enough of that."

(He is afraid. In an outright fight, he knows he stands no chance at all, and even understanding that this place will vomit him right back up onto the beaches does not reduce his instinctual fear of pain and death. He takes a few small steps away from Wei Wuxian, trying to extrapolate the best avenue of escape from this confrontation, just in case Wei Wuxian goes for Chenqing.)

Edited 2022-10-13 16:22 (UTC)

Wei Wuxian is observant even on his worst of days, and he can tell that this is not the Jin Guangyao he last encountered. If it weren't for the fact that the man seemed at least marginally younger then their previous encounter, it would be because he seems surprised to see Wei wuxian alive.

The flute that the other man is so nervous about it very obviously tucked into his belt. If he desired to use it then he certainly could, but he has no intention of attacking. It wouldn't do them any good. Wei wuxian isn't as impulsive as he was in his youth and his time in Trench and Deerington has tempered him. He might not like the man that stands before him, but he knows that they are stuck together in this place and there is little they can do about that.

But he also knows that he might have to defend himself. The Jin Guangyao he knows wouldn't hesitate to strike if he felt he was threatened. The burn of a sharp string across his neck is easy to remember. The last thing he is going to do is let this man get the drop on him.

"Seeing me alive will be the least surprising thing you will encounter once this world really starts to make itself known. A full year has been spent in this place and still new things appear all the time."

He has no means of getting the drop on anyone, at present. In every way that matters, Wei Wuxian has the advantage, and Jin Guangyao knows it.

He smiles, though no part of the expression reaches his eyes, which is to be expected under the circumstances. He continues taking small, careful steps backward from Wei Wuxian, marshalling his courage to keep his fear well contained. "I have had enough surprises to satisfy me for a lifetime, Wei-gongzi. I have no further quarrel with you that was not ended with your death in the Burial Mounds. Even if I did, I have no means of achieving it here, do I?"

It is almost amusing to see the man trying to inch his way away from him. He has forgotten what it was like to strike fear in people. It's not something he particularly enjoys but when it comes to Jin Guangyao, he doesn't feel necessarily bad about it. This one might not have yet made the sins of his older self, but those sins are likely to still happen whenever he leaves this place. And because of that Wei Wuxian can't easily forgive it.

He folds his arms in front of his chest an gives a slight tilt of his head as if he was studying something particularly interesting. "You can thank one of your relatives for the fact I live." Of course the number of relatives that exist because of this man's father is fairly large. He can let that little bit of information be the next surprising thing that he encounters.

"Any ill intentions have long been satisfied. It does me no good to draw them out into this world." Isn't he kind to give Jin Guangyao just a little bit of peace of mind?

"One of my relatives," Jin Guangyao repeats Wei Wuxian's words back at him with the barest crease forming along his brow. He gives his head the barest of shakes, something that is almost not perceptible at all, and rakes his mind back through his past to try to come up with someone he might recall who would have a vested enough interest in reviving the Yiling Patriarch to actually go through with carrying it out. He can only think of Xue Yang, but gifted as he is at his particular skillset, bringing a dead demonic cultivator back to life in this condition is beyond him--that, and their lack of formal kinship ties, has Jin Guangyao ruling him out.

Trying to solve this puzzle has at least made him stop trying to inch his way to freedom, because if there's one thing Jin Guangyao cannot abide, it's not having all the information. He frowns back at Wei Wuxian. "Forgive my ignorance, Wei-gongzi," he says, ever polite despite the circumstances, "I--don't understand."

Wei Wuxian is not going to offer him any more information on the subject of his return to life. He would rather see the other man stew over the lack of it. Chances are Jin Guangyao has no idea who Mo Xuanyu even is at this moment. He can't be sure exactly when their paths cross for the first time. He was deep in the depths of death at that point. So even offering the name isn't likely to gain him anything.

"Carrying our feelings and grievances into this world gains us nothing. Even if I wanted to harm you, doing so here is meaningless." There is no one else here to witness it. No one that can know the depths of this man's disgrace. He has seen too many people bring their rivalries from their own worlds being brought into this one and the outcome is never good. Neither party can be happy when they don't at least make a compromise to exist in the same space amicably.

"I'm not going to attack you without reason." Just don't give him a reason...

"And what reason would that be?"

His gaze sharpens and fixes on Wei Wuxian again, eyes wide and attentive and shrewd. He gestures around them. "In this moment, Wei-gongzi, it seems clear that of the two of us, I am the one at a disadvantage, am I not? I am a weak cultivator. I have no allies in this place. Like you, I did not choose to be pulled into this world, and like you, I am here regardless."

He pauses, taking in the disgust that shadows Wei Wuxian's expression, parsing it, filing it away to be mulled over later. "You look at me now as though I was the one who used demonic cultivation and murdered thousands at Nightless City. What threat could I possibly be to you? What reason could the great Yiling Patriarch have to dispatch this lowly Meng Yao?" Speaking his birth name curdles something in his gut, but he endures it to make his point.

He gives an amused sound from his throat. Not a laugh because there is very little reason to laugh in this moment. BUt there is amusement. This lowly Meng Yao has such a grand future ahead of him. He wonders how many of the steps he has climbed towards the great goal in his mind. How many people have fallen to his schemes by this point in his life?

"One thing you should realize about this world is that people can come from any point in time. The way I see it...if there was a way to cut you down now and know you won't create all the chaos of the future...many lives would be spared. But that is not how this place works."

He wishes it was. He wishes that his own world could be free from the future decisions of this man. But he knows that it is not.

"Give me this bit of information and I will give you a piece in exchange...what was the last thing that happened before you came here?"

Jin Guangyao stares at Wei Wuxian as he describes a plausible rationale for ending his life in this place, and stifles a mad little laugh. He tilts his head backwards to look up at the sky, as though what he has heard has solidified some decision in his gut, one that feels far too familiar. His chest aches.

Then he looks back at Wei Wuxian again and smiles.

"I took a bath."

His hand comes down to rest on Chenqing, as if to show that he could change his mind and attack at any moment if he doesn't like what the other man says. He clearly is not amused by the answer. But a deal is a deal. "I died in a dream." Since he came from the other world into this place his is not the most delicate of transfers. So his answer is equally as vague and not useful.

"Who has died so far before you came here?" How much blood is on your hands Jin Guangyao?

He doesn't lose his smile, but his eyes track Wei Wuxian's hand to Chenqing and stay there, at least until he can be certain that he isn't about to make use of it yet. Already his pulse is rabbiting in his throat, as though that gesture alone confirms his worst fears. He takes another small step backward, but he does not reach for his sword. What would be the point? He will be dead, or worse, before he unsheathes it.

If Wei Wuxian is going to kill him for speaking words he does not want to hear, then he will do it whether Jin Guangyao has a sword in his hand or not. Whether he answers honestly or not.

"This one is afraid that Yiling-laozu will need to be more specific," he replies. "There are many people who have died in our world for any number of reasons, and many more who yet live. How is this one meant to know who Wei-gongzi is speaking of?" There is a flicker of both genuine confusion and fear in his expression over the direction of this line of questioning.

Edited 2022-10-16 23:39 (UTC)

That little bit of fear is what Wei Wuxian needs to see. To know that he is still in control of the situation even if he hasn't yet gotten the information he desires. He ca piece a few snippets of information together and is smart enough to figure out some things on his own but he just needs a bit more. There is much that he doesn't know about those sixteen years he was gone from the cultivation world. But the important pieces of information are there. He just has to be careful how he words things because in many instances the people who died...did not do so directly by this man's hand. But rather an extension of it.

So instead he decides to switch gears slightly, letting himself keep his eyes on Jin Guangyao's expression for any small change in it by what he has to say. "What I know is that Nie Mingjue is dead. Jin Guangshan is also dead." If these two names draw no surprise then this Jin is quite young. So he moves on, "Jin Rusong is dead." A little further up the timeline and a bit of a jab if the man recognizes the name. If he doesn't...well it goes far to know when this man is from.

Jin Guangyao sees no reason to voluntarily divulge any information to Wei Wuxian in the face of this interrogation, and so only stares back at him, stone-faced, after he names Nie Mingjue. At Jin Guangshan's name his eyes widen a fraction and his breath catches, betraying shock? Disbelief? He'd thought of it after what he and Chengmei had overheard together, and the beginnings of a plan had begun to form, to coalesce, but if that means he did it, that he carried out that plan--

But then Wei Wuxian says, "Jin Rusong is dead," and he forgets how to breathe.

"What did you just say?" He barely lets Wei Wuxian finish saying his son's name before he steps forward, suddenly ashen as the bark on the tree beside them, and the look in his eyes is unfathomable, like black ice across a lake's surface with a slow crack running down the middle of it. He lifts a hand in an almost helpless, futile gesture, like if he can just touch--something, grasp something in front of him, he can make Wei Wuxian unsay what he has just said.

Then he shakes his head, a short, tight gesture, his jaw clenching. "You're lying. You're lying to--you're trying to provoke me into--" He squeezes his eyes shut, and then when they snap open again, red-rimmed and wet, he shouts, "What happened to my son!" and all thoughts of courtesy and decorum have fled him.

Edited 2022-10-17 00:41 (UTC)

And that tells him everything he needs to know. He might not have the exact year but he knows about approximately how deep into his plan this man is. The main players have started to fall and things are already in motion. He doesn't move as Jin Guangyao approaches. His expression is cold and doesn't seem intimidated in the least by the man's sudden flurry of emotions.

Wei wuxian has never been one to have much tact and has never been afraid to speak his mind even when it was advised that he stay silent. And so striking the cord that will cause the most pain in this moment is just a necessary step in finding out what he needed to know. In some cases he would pull his punches and have a little compassion. Jin Guangyao deserves no compassion.

"I was dead when it happened." A simple statement just to make sure Jin Guangyao understands that he had absolutely nothing to do with this death, or any of the ones that he mentioned. This one cannot be pinned on him in any way. But also said to indicate he had no intention of telling this man any more then that.

"The details revealed themselves after I returned and showed just how much blood was spilled because of your schemes."

There is a dense white static ringing in his ears and a molten pressure building behind his eyes from a swell of emotion that is too massive, too all-consuming, too wild and despairing to be released through tears or words or even a scream. It defies Jin Guangyao's ability to categorize it, because it is composed of every black and horrible thought he ever had about A-Song and his wretched parentage, thoughts he had always kept bottled away and tucked into the darkest crevices of his heart; and it is also the smell of the top of his head through tufts of black hair when he was still a newborn, and Qin Su placed a baby in his arms for the first time; it is the shriek of his laughter and the sight of him in Lan Xichen's arms (a particularly sweet and acute pain); it is every pang of revulsion that caught him unawares, when he couldn't look at his son without remembering the truth; and it is the burning fury that is threatening to chew its way out of his stomach right now, knowing that Wei Wuxian knows how his son died, and will not tell him.

"My schemes," he echoes in a low, flat voice. He stares back at Wei Wuxian unblinkingly, either unaware or uncaring of his own tears, and shakes his head slowly like his words don't make any sense. His breathing is coming more quickly, raggedly, and wouldn't it be the height of irony if he qi deviated right here, right now?

He laughs. It is not a reassuring sound. "Wei Wuxian. Tell me what happened to A-Song, or I swear to you, I will ruin you. I will not rest until I have ruined you in this place for as many lives as that sea sees fit to vomit either of us back onto its shores, and in whatever foul place we are sent to next." His lip twitches, the barest hint of teeth, before he shouts again, "Tell me!"

The laughter that leaves his lips is full of bitterness and dark amusement. There is irony in so much of what this man says. Wei Wuxian can't help the breath of amusement that escaped him. He feels some of that darkness well inside of him that has been kept at bay for such a long time. It still lingers there in the depths of his soul and is only fed by the darkblood that runs through his body. A blood of this world that can be dangerous all on its own.

"Ruin me? Do you really think my life can be any further ruined?" There is a quivering in the rocks beneath their feet. His ability to control his surroundings far stronger then it was a year ago when he first discovered he could move things with his mind. A year of training himself and his abilities. But even he knows that without the calming force that is Lan Wangji, he can lose himself to the corruption this place encourages. He can't let himself get too worked up over this man.

"Do you think you have any power over me at all? Do you really believe you can force me into telling you anything?"

He startles when the ground trembles under his feet and looks down, watching the pebbles shiver and bounce against his shoes. Then he looks up again at Wei Wuxian with that same expression of wide-eyed mania writ large over his face. He's stunned, and terrified, and the absurd fact that Wei Wuxian would rather kill him than tell him what happened to his son puts him right at the top of the steps in Lanling City again, waiting for Nie Mingjue to bring down Baxia on his head.

"Kill me then," he spits. "Do it."

"What good would that do? No one truly dies in this place. You'll only come back and nothing will be gained at all. Death is pointless. Killing gains no one anything. A lesson that you should learn."

Wei Wuxian doesn't kill. Not anymore. It is the one thing he has vowed as each of his experiences in all of these worlds has shaped him. He barely sees any reason to even fight any more. THe fact that he has gotten this worked up is going to bother him later when he has had a chance to cool down.

"But what you need to understand is I know what lies in your future. We aren't from the same time. Possibly not even the same place. And you should remember that should anyone else we know arrives."

Because it is important. Anyone that is dead on their world can come to this place.

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i once knew a man who learned such a thing | october catch-all

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cw discussion of a child's murder

Re: cw discussion of a child's murder

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