Four
In the morning, WuXian woke with bruises up and down her arms and throbbing pain along her back. Mǎnyì had turned from ash black to the white of freshly fallen snow against her skin in response to her mourning the loss of Hua Míng, the sibling she would never get to meet and who would never get to draw their first breath now. The spiritual shield settled against her skin, squeezing lightly to apply comforting pressure to the bruises it touched and send a warm pulse of healing energy against the skin that was damaged by her curse. The feeling of her shixiong’s soul cultivation curling protectively around her meridians was like a balm, soothing the physical (and emotional) pain she was in enough for it to not become obvious to others that her curse had injured her yet again.
Jiang Cheng seemed to know as soon as he saw her face that she wasn’t going to be talking for a while. The periods of complete silence from WuXian could last anywhere from a few days to a few months, and the Jiang Sect knew that there were rarely if ever warning signs for when these times would start. She had started living there during one such period of silence, and it had taken nearly five months into staying with the head Jiang family before she had spoken a single word. They’d had to rely on a book that her shixiong and former ai’xah had made that interpreted her expressions for those who couldn’t read what she meant in the things she didn’t say. Not that they ever understood why or how there was 'nothing' wrong when the healers checked. The healers that didn't even check anywhere other than WuXian's throat and mouth for anomalies.
“It’s good that I brought all five copies of the Book with me when we left Lotus Pier just in case. I’ll make sure to be your voice until you can speak for yourself again, a-Xian.”
She nodded, and went to get dressed in the white Gusu-Lan guest disciple robes instead of her usual ensemble, exchanging her red ribbon for a white one with yellow chrysanthemums embroidered on it (she knew they were yellow because it was her mourning ribbon). She was mourning the loss of someone who never was but could’ve been, and wearing black and red instead of white would only undermine and minimise how much she was actually grieving. There were lotus flowers embroidered on the shoulders, to represent Yunmeng-Jiang, and it only furthered that as far as anyone else was concerned her Sect and Clan weren’t hers.
Wordlessly, WuXian held out her hand for Jiang Cheng to hand her one of the copies of the book that interpreted for her when her voice refused to be heard, and he handed it over with only slight reluctance. She would need it with her for when she did her punishment with whoever Gusu-Lan’s head of discipline was. They would need to be able to understand her, but speaking would be impossible for her for an undetermined amount of time. The hand language that had originated as a means to communicate with those who either couldn’t hear or were completely incapable of speech was hard to learn fully for people who had always taken hearing and speaking for granted, as if they would never lose either ability. WuXian was sure that the Nie clan would be willing to learn it if it were phrased as a way to silently communicate without others possibly overhearing, and the Lan clan was always willing to accept knowledge they didn’t already have. But the Jin and Wen clans would consider such a means to communicate beneath them and there was no guarantee that the Jiang clan would be willing to set aside the time needed to learn so that WuXian could communicate clearly even when she couldn’t get her voice to function.
“I’ll inform Lan-laoshi that you won’t be able to speak for the present, as he was warned about possibly happening in the letter we sent along with our acceptance of coming here for the lectures.”
WuXian nodded in response, and her martial brother walked out of the room since he’d apparently gotten dressed as soon as he woke up.
“You… you aren’t able to speak right now?” Nie HuaiSang sounded concerned, from where he’d sat up on his bed.
WuXian shook her head, and held up the book that interpreted her expressions in lieu of having to teach everyone around the hand language that her mothers had made sure she knew once she first experienced one of her periods of silence. Nie HuaiSang took hold of it gently, and began flipping through the different pages. Once he started to read the entries, he relaxed a little and seemed less like he was about to demand for them to go see the healer.
“So these times of not being able to talk are not caused by physical injury… is there an easier method to communicate when you have no voice than having to rely on people looking at the pages of this book?” Nie HuaiSang asked, looking up at them.
WuXian made Expression 294 in response, and Nie HuaiSang flipped through the pages until he reached the one that depicted what their face looked like at that moment.
He read aloud the caption for the expression, “yes there is,” and turned to look at WuXian again, “will you be willing to teach me, or give me the materials needed to teach myself this method? It doesn’t seem like it would be very fast to have to look through the pages of this book every time you need to communicate something while your voice isn’t cooperating.”
WuXian found themself making Expression 503, and nodded while reaching for Zhìlì and pulling out the four books that held the written depictions of the hand language. There were more copies of each volume within the qiankun pouch, enough for ten people to be learning at a time if WuXian so chose. They handed over the one for people just beginning to learn hand language, and Nie HuaiSang accepted it with a relieved looking smile. The one he held now taught how to spell out words with the hands, in case there was some sort of difference that was only noticed with spelling and not the word itself. The second book taught how to form names for someone from the hands, a name that would work in place of one’s real name since those were considered too hard to configure into hand language unless one was spelling it out. WuXian’s own hand language name was Yīhuā, First Flower, as a way to call attention to them being Yiling-Hua’s first heir without overtly stating so. Not that there would be a Second Flower anymore, not now that their mothers had lost Hua Míng before the child had even been born. They wanted to scream at the world for daring to take away the sibling they would have cherished before they could even meet, but before they could even attempt to do that their voice would have to return to them.
“Is it alright if I keep this book for a while so that I can learn this method fully?”
At Nie HuaiSang’s question, WuXian handed over the other three books that taught the hand language so that he wouldn’t have to go back to WuXian each time he finished studying the books and learning the language that WuXian wanted to be able to rely on again when their voice wouldn’t work. They already knew Shǒuyǔ by heart, had memorised it when their mothers first found the books needed to learn the silent language in the Clan Library.
Sitting for breakfast turned out to be a bit more uncomfortable than WuXian had anticipated. Everyone at the guest lectures knew by now that they were never able to follow the rule of no talking while eating over the past three weeks the lectures had been going on, but now they were completely silent. WuXian wasn’t hungry, they had no appetite at all. But it would only worry Jiang Cheng and others if they didn’t eat at all, so they would still make themselves eat the food that was being served. The golden core they didn’t need but had still cultivated hummed under their skin like it was whispering to them, telling them that everyone could see and everyone knew but they knew that no one saw or had even an inkling.
They were mourning, and only their fiancé knew that they had lost someone. They were mourning a sibling that will never be, a sibling that could’ve been, a sibling that should’ve been but now never would.
WuXian went to the Discipline Hall to receive his punishment for breaking the rules, and followed his fiancé (who turned out to be the head of discipline) to the Library Pavilion to write down the rules, all of the Conduct ones anyway. Copying down the 67 Rules of Conduct was an easy enough task, monotonous and mechanical in how it required barely any thought. Lan Zhan seemed to be either upset or worried about something, but it probably had nothing to do with WuXian so he only paid attention to it as it was something bothering his fiancé and so it was something that also concerned him.
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WangJi observed Hua Yingtai as they wrote down the Rules of Conduct, taking in how they had changed their clothing choices and weren’t wearing their usual ensemble. They had exchanged the black and red robes for the white ones with simple embroidery offered for guest disciples to wear if they so chose, and their usual red ribbons had been exchanged for white ones that had pale yellow chrysanthemums embroidered on them. They hadn’t said a single word this morning, and Shufu had explained to both WangJi and his brother XiChen that this was because WuXian had a condition where their voice would go silent for periods of time. The only thing that could be done was waiting the silence out, and they had been provided with a book that would interpret Hua Yingtai’s expressions so that two-way communication could still be done. The handwriting in the book had been that of Madame Yu though it had been stated as a copy, and that the original was written in unfamiliar handwriting and most likely done by the hand of someone who had known Hua Yingtai before they had been taken in by the Yunmeng-Jiang Sect as a favour to the Sect Leader’s deceased friend. The deceased friend that everyone assumed Hua Yingtai was related to, to the point that they all called Hua Yingtai by the wrong name.
This period of silence was likely caused at least in part by the news Hua Yingtai had received about their mothers’ miscarriage of the child that would have been called Hua Míng had they survived to birth. WangJi had mentioned that Hua Yingtai had received bad news about their family the night before, that they had told him themself and that it might be one of the causes for this period of silence to have begun. XiChen had inquired as to why he called ‘Wei Ying’ by a different name, and WangJi had dutifully answered and told his brother and uncle that Hua Yingtai had explained that their name never was Wei Ying but that no one had listened to the point they had given up correcting others on the mistake. That they had started crying in front of him because their parents had miscarried the child that would’ve been their sibling and it had only been made more hurtful with how they hadn’t been called by the correct name by anyone around since they were eight years old.
Shufu and XiChen had both looked to be at least mildly upset by this, with Shufu admitting that he had probably begun to form a bias against Hua Yingtai under the assumption that they truly were related to Wei ChangZe or Wei ChangZe’s wife. With the newfound knowledge that Hua Yingtai didn’t share blood with either Wei ChangZe or Cangse SanRen, that bias had hopefully been stopped before it could fully take root. XiChen had offered to see if they had any books about the Clan or Sect that Hua Yingtai’s family came from, to learn more and try to understand what principles and disciplines Hua Yingtai had been taught before they were taken in by the head Jiang family.
“Hua Yingtai,” WangJi spoke softly, and the teen with flowering braids in their hair (always seven, no more and no less) looked up from the rules they were copying down.
He saw their eyes for the first time, and needed a moment to just take it in. Hua Yingtai’s eyes were a captivatingly fathomless grey, like a full moon shining down at midnight or untainted slver or grey mist, with a hint of purple tinting them an even more impossible colour. The exact same colour of the eyes that WangJi saw on that mesmerising being in his dreams. There could not be any doubt in his mind now, Hua Yingtai and his Chánjuān of were one and the same. He would need to tell Shufu and XiChen later, so that they might request a courtship on WangJi’s behalf.
They tilted their head a little, and WangJi thought through the expressions he’d read through in the book that interpreted for Hua Yingtai to communicate when they couldn’t speak. Expression 743, a response to a call of their name that was both question and answer in return.
“Might you be able to tell me more about your Clan later? I would like to try and understand better how their teachings might interact with Gusu-Lan’s teachings.”
Hua Yingtai reacted then, expression brightening a little and sitting up a bit straighter as if in anticipation. This was expression 82, one that conveyed excitement and a want to comply with whatever had been said. Each expression had an exact sentence as the caption it came with, but WangJi felt that the sentiment behind the sentences was an easier way to interpret since some of the sentences had very specific sentences applied to them. Expression 14, as an example, had the caption of ‘Shixiong’ as it’s interpretation with four exclamation points, and the expression conveyed excitement and joy and care. Whoever this ‘shixiong’ was, they were someone that Hua Yingtai cared a great deal for; they were likely one of the many people that Hua Yingtai had been separated from through whatever events had led to them living in Yunmeng-Jiang instead of wherever their Clan and Sect resided.
He very carefully didn’t mention the signs of damage on the copy of the book that he was using to interpret what Hua Yingtai wanted to say, not wanting to draw attention to it and bring their mood down.
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Lan Zhan wanted to know about Yiling-Hua and what his Clan and Sect were like. He wanted to know about WuXian’s family, he wanted to know things that no one else had ever asked about or tried to learn. For the first time since WuXian had been sent away from his mothers for his safety and to break his curse, someone actually wanted to know and learn about the things they held dear.
“Hua Yingtai?” Lan Zhan spoke again, and hearing their name be spoken felt like a balm just like the first time they had heard it from the mouth of their fiancé.
WuXian pulled Zhìlì out of their sleeve, and pulled out the book that depicted Yiling-Hua’s traditional musical instruments as a starting point for him to learn about the Clan that they were born from. Gusu-Lan was also a Clan that was known for musical cultivation, it was a point of similarity that made WuXian have hopes that when their twins came that their son and daughter would be taught both Gusu-Lan and Yiling-Hua styles of musical cultivation. They wanted to know all the similarities and differences between the two styles on top of the Gusu-Lan style favouring the qin first and Yiling-Hua’s style favouring the hulusi above all.
“You keep the books of your home with you,” Lan Zhan said with quiet awe, accepting the tome and beginning to read it as WuXian turned to finish copying down the Gusu-Lan rules of conduct for their punishment.
The so-called ‘punishment’ was actually very light compared to the offense that WuXian had committed, which was probably Lan Zhan’s doing in light of how it was caused by their grief over losing Hua Míng before their sibling had even drawn first breath.
WuXian finished copying down the Rules of Conduct two shichen later, and Lan Zhan had finished reading through the book of Yiling-Hua’s musical instruments and descriptions of how their cultivation used qi to tell stories or defend, with very few offensive pieces that could be used. WuXian had developed some of their own offensive musical cultivation pieces but hadn’t yet found time or reason to put them to use.
“Would you be willing to show me an example of one of the story telling pieces that your Clan has? I would be most interested in finding out what it looks like to an observer,” Lan Zhan said once WuXian had put down their brush for the final time.
He was asking to hear them play. WuXian’s fiancé had just asked if they would be willing to play one of Yiling-Hua’s stories for him to see how it was done.