Thread by @rikkainhaz

#chengxian #xiancheng 📼🎧💔

Summary:
Mad scientist (cultivator) WWX invents a magic talisman that allows for voices to be recorded and experiments with it prior to his first death as the YLLZ.

JC keeps the talisman in his bedroom and listens to it every night.
.
.
.

It's nothing more than a silly slip of paper.

So fragile, so easily destroyed, but it is one of Jiang Cheng's most valuable treasures. He keeps it next to him at all times, hidden in the inner pockets of his robes, right above his heart.

Call him foolish, clinging onto

the voice of a dead man, but Wei Wuxian was always a special existence to Jiang Cheng, ever since he snowballed his way into his life when they were merely snotty, stupid kids.

Unlike Chen Qing or Suibian, no one knows of this relic left behind by the YLLZ, except Jiang Cheng,

who was simply there at the right place, right time. The talisman was one of many, blown in the wind as the crowd cheered--absurd!--for the death of his once shixiong, like paper snow in the red sky. It landed on the top of Jiang Cheng's shoes, sticking relentlessly,

like the arm that Wei Wuxian used to have slung over Jiang Cheng's shoulder, impossible to shrug off, like they were conjoined twins.

Jiang Cheng had quietly bent down to pick it up, still reeling from seeing Wei Wuxian torn apart, left without a corpse, by his own creations.

Amidst the cheers and rabble surrounding him, the talisman lights up in his fingers and he hears, clear as day, a voice he would never mistake, never forget.

"...two, three--Wen Qing, how do you test this thing? HellOO? Are you working?? Ah. Ah. Cheng--stupid A-Cheng,

I bet I'm talking to myself, Jiang Cheng you IDIOT!!! Whew, that's better. Wen Qing, don't laugh!" A pause. Long enough that Jiang Cheng thought it was over, only to continue, "...I miss Lotus Pier...I miss Chengcheng...I miss Shijie...I want to go home..."

It ends as abruptly

as it started, leaving a dazed Sect Leader Jiang behind.

He swiftly slips it into his pocket, and walks away from the greedy cultivators clambering to raid the YLLZ's cave--imagine! the treasures!

Finding Chen Qing in the pile of bones and rubble was unexpected, but

nothing beat the surprise that was hiding in his pocket.

Jiang Cheng returns to Lotus Pier, victorious, yet also losing everything he held dear in his old life, before he watched his home burn and washed with the blood of his family.

He once had a mother, a father, a sister,

junior brothers and sisters, and a very special shixiong.

Jiang Cheng returns to Lotus Pier after the siege in the burial mounds with nothing but a flute without an owner, and a magic talisman that holds the voice of a dead man.

In the privacy of his room, he lies wide awake

in his bed and presses a finger onto the talisman.

Wei Wuxian's voice flows into his ears, comforting him in the darkness of the night. Truly, it's so stupid, such stupid words, he couldn't even offer him some final parting words.

Why did he have to die?

Jiang Cheng lets the errant tear run down his cheek. He replays the talisman. Over, and over, and over, until the hours have gone by and he finally falls to sleep.

During the day, Chen Qing sits in the arch of his sleeve, waiting for her owner, whilst the talisman rests above

his heart, soothing the ache of a lost loved one. During the night, it runs hot under the trembling fingers of a grieving man, repeating the words it holds, until one day, hoping, praying that the voice will return to him once more.

-END-