Chapter 2
“What was that?”
Wei Wuxian tucked his flute into his belt and took the spirit trapping pouch from Wen Qing with a considering hum. “A very powerful, very angry spirit. One I’m not sure I could have controlled half so well if it weren’t already fractured.”
“Fractured?”
Before he could answer, Wen Ning’s mild voice interrupted them. “Pardon me, jiejie, Wei-gongzi, but I think your skills are still needed.”
The boy had collapsed on his side.
“Right.” Wen Qing was the first to move, swiftly striding over and shooing her brother out of the way. She knelt beside him in the dirt but didn’t reach out immediately. “My name is Wen Qing and I’m a doctor. May I see your wrist?”
The boy stared dazedly back at her for a moment before opening his mouth and croaking something incomprehensible .
“Well, that’s no good.” Wei Wuxian raked a hand through the hair that had fallen loose when he’d heard the screams and come running. “It sounds like the same language the other one was screeching in.” He raised his voice so the other Wens could hear him. “Anyone recognize the dialect?”
He glanced over at the aunties and uncles who’d yet to approach, but it was Wen Ning who answered. “I don’t think anyone here is going to be able to understand him. Look at his face.”
Bemused, Wei Wuxian took his first real look at the kid’s face and let out a startled curse.
He hadn’t noticed before, because of the strange glass accessory covering his eyes and reflecting the afternoon sun, but the boy’s eyes were green. A vivid, startling green to go along with his sharp, foreign features.
“How the hell are we meant to figure out what the hell all that was about if we can’t communicate with him?”
“Later,” Wen Qing scolded. “With his throat the way it is he probably shouldn’t be speaking anyway.” Using slow, deliberate movements, she reached out for the boy’s wrist. “That’s it. I’m just checking you over.” Her voice was softer than it would be if she were treating Wei Wuxian.
“So you do have a bedside manner after—”
“Shut up and get over here.”
Thanks to Wen Qing’s uncharacteristically gentle tone, it took Wei Wuxian a moment to realize she was talking to him. Concerned, he straightened and took four quick steps to kneel at her side. “What’s wrong?”
With the hand that wasn’t holding the boy’s wrist, she reached over and pinched his arm. Hard. And then, in the same deliberately mild voice, she said, “Keep your reactions under control. I don’t want to panic him.”
“...Right.” He let the tension drain from him and grinned sheepishly. “Sorry, Qing-jie. Do you want me to lay him out properly for you?”
“No time. I need you to examine the mark on his brow. I think a resentful spirit is leeching off him.”
It was difficult not to react. “...I see.” Keeping his face still wasn’t something he was particularly good at, so he smiled brightly instead. “Don’t worry. We’re here to help.”
Ignoring the sluggish flinch, Wei Wuxian took the boy’s face in hand and tilted his head up so he could examine the jagged mark. It looked normal enough. Inflamed and a little bloody, but otherwise just a shallow scratch.
The way it felt however…
“It’s like the other one, but worse,” he commented idly. He closed his eyes and concentrated. “It’s smaller. And more damaged, but definitely part of the same resentful spirit that was possessing the man.”
Wen Qing moved on to prodding at the boy’s throat. “Why didn’t your playing affect it?”
“It’s tethered to him. Bonded, almost.”
“Is he in danger of being possessed?”
Eyes still closed, Wei Wuxian hummed thoughtfully. “There’s something keeping the boy shielded from its influence. It feels…” he frowned. “Maternal?”
Wen Qing pulled her hand away from the boy’s battered throat to give him a dubious look. “What on earth does that mean?”
He shrugged. “They may call me laozu, but even I don’t know everything there is to know about the dead. I’d need to take a few days to examine him to know for sure.”
“I’m not sure if we have that sort of time,” she admitted. Her expression was pinched. “We can barely look after ourselves. How are we meant to take care of a foreign child with an unprecedented medical condition? What if it does to him what it did to the man?”
"You shouldn't doubt me, Qing-jie." Wei Wuxian smiled with boyish insouciance, stifling his own doubts. "I brought Wen Ning back, didn't I? After that, a parasite like this is nothing!"