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lacommunarde · 1 year

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For @guardianbingo April bonus prompt: ancestors (yes, I'm using Pangu as being ancestor to Kunlun here)

Summary: After Gui Mian's gone and Shen Wei's been told in no uncertain terms not to lie to Zhao Yunlan again, Shen Wei knows he should really tell Zhao Yunlan that he is getting memories that feel a lot like how he imagines reincarnation memories must feel for Zhao Yunlan, except he's pretty sure these are somehow Gui Mian's memories and memories of someone else holding heaven and earth apart and he's really not sure what that means for him.

The first few times Shen Wei woke up from a nightmare where the entire weight of the world was resting on his shoulders until it crushed him, he thought nothing of it. After all, he had had the weight of the world happen to him, all those years before, and then he had been the only one around to carry it. It made sense that now that he finally had someone to share the weight of the mountains and rivers with, now that he had Kunlun back to himself lying beside him in bed, only now was he releasing stress born from those years of carrying it.

Every time, Zhao Yunlan murmured sweet nothings at him in his sleep to calm him and hugged Shen Wei even tighter, burying his face into Shen Wei’s shoulder, neck or hair in a way that did in fact bring Shen Wei peacefully back to the present and guide him back to tranquility and sleep.

But after the first few times, he began to have a more concrete idea of what went on in those dreams.

He was holding a gigantic axe, much like the one Gui Mian had held in their several fights, and then lay it down on the earth and watched it start to grow foliage over the top before lying down by it himself.

In another, he could feel the bright soul-fire as it landed and pulled him up out of the earth and out of his slumber, and then picking up a similar axe to the one he had put down and twirling it around and then grinning at another who looked exactly like him.

That one he had a couple times. Going to the bathroom after it to wash his face and calm himself always provided a disturbing feeling of everything being wrong. But everything wasn’t. Everything was going so well. But then the feeling subsided and he tucked himself back in next to Zhao Yunlan, who once again nuzzled into him and called him saccharine pet-names until he slept.

It took several repetitions of that particular nightmare before he awoke with a realization that the one he was grinning at was himself, and that in that nightmare, he was none other than Gui Mian.

The gasp he awoke with was loud enough to actually drag Zhao Yunlan to full consciousness, so that he propped himself up on his elbows and stared down at Shen Wei with a lover’s tender concern in his eyes.

“Babe, you okay?”

“Particularly vivid nightmares.”

“How long have you been having them?” Zhao Yunlan said it in a tone that said he knew Shen Wei had been having the dreams for a while, that this wasn’t the first one. Shen Wei had wondered if Zhao Yunlan remembered the ones he’d talked him down from before, but a glance at his face said that he remembered them slightly, or at least that they had happened.

“Not long. Only since…” He pressed his hand to his forehead where the little soul-fire had disappeared between his brows.

Zhao Yunlan played with his shoulders and a spot on his neck that he dearly loved when Zhao Yunlan played with. “Mmm. Could be the consequences of having hun souls now.” He leaned up and left a delicate kiss on Shen Wei’s cheek that left Shen Wei wanting to chase his lips down to get a proper taste of them again. However, now Zhao Yunlan was just out of reach, instead holding him comfortingly, and gently stroking his forehead in soothing sweeps of his fingers, so he couldn’t easily chase him. “Something we might have to get used to with all you’ve seen over the years.”

“Are they always so vivid though?” Shen Wei murmured.

“Sometimes yeah.” Zhao Yunlan studied his face some more, and Shen Wei wondered what he was seeing. “Do you want to talk about it?”

It wasn’t something he really wanted to disturb Zhao Yunlan with, but he’d promised not to lie and Zhao Yunlan was gazing down at him with such concern in his eyes that Shen Wei wanted to indulge him. “At first, I dreamt that I was being crushed by the weight of the world. Which I felt a little of when you first left it to me, but in my dream it was so much heavier than it felt back then.”

Zhao Yunlan’s brow creased a little, and Shen Wei reached up to smooth it. Zhao Yunlan caught his hand and kissed it, giving him a small smile that smoothed his forehead by itself. “And then?”

Shen Wei sighed and then confessed in a quiet voice, “This past one, I dreamt I was Gui Mian.” He wrinkled his nose.

Zhao Yunlan got a contemplative look on his face. “Do you feel for him, now he’s gone?”

Shen Wei shook his head. “No. He considered me his brother, but I never considered him kindred with me at all. I suppose what I feel for him now is just a series of questions. I didn’t think he had it in him to do what he did, so I find myself wondering what else I didn’t know about him. Other than that, there is no missing him in my heart.”

Zhao Yunlan nodded. “It’s okay to feel weird about him, to not know if you miss him or what might have been or wonder if you knew him.”

Shen Wei shook his head. “It’s not that.”

Zhao Yunlan brushed his hair out of his eyes and peered down at him. “Do you want to describe what it is like? And we can figure out what it is that’s bugging you together?”

Shen Wei shook his head. “No, I don’t think I can exactly.”

Which wasn’t it exactly. He knew what it was that was bugging him. But he didn’t voice it because it was too silly to even give voice to. Plus, there was no way to verify what it had even looked like. But none of that changed the fact that as Gui Mian, he had felt with certainty that the axe he carried was Pangu’s, or at least looked the same as it. And now that he had felt that as his brother, he himself felt in his gut that certainty that it was the same axe too. But that weapon, surely the only one who could draw it was Pangu. Just as only Kunlun’s incarnations had been able to draw the Guardian Order. Just as he was the only one who could draw his Soul Severing Blade.

Zhao Yunlan studied him and then leaned down to kiss his forehead and his nose and his cheeks and draw little relaxing circles around his ears, by his temples, and on his scalp under his hair. Soon enough, Shen Wei was relaxed again and leaned up to kiss back until the two of them fell asleep.

Zhao Yunlan ducked into the library the following day to find Sang Zan still at work, enjoying the cellar library. “Sang Zan, I need you to find all references to what exactly happened to Pangu when he died.”

Sang Zan nodded and set to work.

Zhao Yunlan had always read fast, particularly when it related to mythology, and his recent upgrade in knowledge and understanding had only helped with that.

Still, the stack of books that Sang Zan found took him all day and until Shen Wei typically got home, and there was also the promise of even more the following day if Zhao Yunlan wanted it. However, what he found that day was all basically the same: Pangu created split heaven and earth with his axe, held apart the earth and heavens for 18,000 years fearing a return to chaos, and then figured out that they were stable, and lay down on the earth and died. Then his limbs became the four directions’ mountains. His blood became the rivers; his sweat, the rain and dew. His teeth and bones became the minerals and rocks; his flesh, the soil of the fields. His left eye became the sun; his right eye, the moon. And his axe became the five sacred mountains.

As for Pangu himself, a hairy creature born from an egg. Zhao Yunlan found himself wondering if that egg was out of stone, like Shen Wei’s flower, (like Sun Wukong’s egg, though Zhao Yunlan would never - could never - utter that he associated the two births from stone objects with each other around Shen Wei), and if Pangu’s hair, prior to becoming what it became, had had a similar inky chaos quality to it as he knew Shen Wei’s could achieve. After all, he was literally born before chaos was separated. It would make sense if his hair had the same inky chaos quality as Shen Wei’s.

But he knew he had to approach it carefully, lest Shen Wei run off in embarrassment and terror again.

In the first place, he saw more than he let on, including what he was fairly sure Shen Wei wanted to keep to himself. There was occasional swearing - or Shen Wei swearing, which was so prim and proper that he was certainly Guo Changcheng could and did say worse on occasion - at the mirror in the bathroom as though in surprise or shock. He wasn’t sure what Shen Wei was seeing then, as Shen Wei always came out looking like nothing had happened, but whatever it was, it was unpleasant to Shen Wei, and that wouldn’t do.

So, one night when Shen Wei had another nightmare that must have been particularly vivid, as he had to be coaxed back down with many kisses on Zhao Yunlan’s part - which Zhao Yunlan never minded, just the fact that Shen Wei seemed so scared by his nightmare - Zhao Yunlan decided to bring up his theories.

He decided to ask - in the morning when Shen Wei’s brain wouldn’t run away with panic - if he could summon up the axe too, like Gui Mian could. If he could, Zhao Yunlan would ask him if he could grow his hair inky and full on other parts of his body, maybe emulating Pangu. If not, it could be just nightmares, and indeed possibly a side-effect of having souls now.

Shen Wei came to, exercised, and then made them both breakfast and cleaned up, before sitting down for the first time since he’d gotten up. Zhao Yunlan was watching him. Even if it was the same routine he went through every morning, there was still a quality of restlessness about him. Normally, he’d stand still at some point during the morning routine. This morning, he had not stopped moving even once before he’d sat down.

Zhao Yunlan met his eyes. “What was your nightmare about last night?”

Shen Wei looked up at him guiltily and then looked away again. Zhao Yunlan peered at him in worry. He hadn’t been this nervous since the time he revealed what the ghost tribe actually was.

“Xiao Wei, you know I’ll still love you no matter what, right?”

“I was with you when Nuwa and Gui Mian had their fight. And at the time, I didn’t really care enough to look into it to get first hand data. There is no way I could know what went on at the time. And yet…” Shen Wei left off.

“You had a very vivid memory of it from Gui Mian’s perspective,” Zhao Yunlan finished for him.

Shen Wei froze. It was the first time either of them had called it a memory. Judging from the way Shen Wei didn’t meet his eyes afterwards, and how he hunched his shoulders, he had come to the same conclusion and was miserable about it. “I’m worried as to what that means about Gui Mian. Why are his memories now coming up for me?”

“Do they feel like the ones from Pangu?” Zhao Yunlan ventured.

That got a blink from Shen Wei. “You think that the ones about me getting crushed by something were… Pangu’s memories?”

“I only have a theory so far. As of yet, not even anything to prove one way or the other.”

Shen Wei studied Zhao Yunlan’s expression then turned his gaze away from Zhao Yunlan’s eyes. “Reincarnation, you think we were his reincarnations. Zhao Yunlan, even if that were the case, the one who could draw his axe was Gui Mian, and he’s gone now.”

Zhao Yunlan had seen the speed Shen Wei’s blade came to him and had seen it in action, the gracefulness and power behind it. With a blade like that, why would he need to think about summoning an axe? “Have you tried?”

Shen Wei seemed taken aback. “No, but if he could, based on your theory of Pangu’s reincarnation, then surely that would go against me being Pangu’s reincarnation.”

Zhao Yunlan said, “Maybe. Maybe not.”

Shen Wei frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m not sure. Plus, I obviously don’t remember Pangu at all, so I may be barking up the wrong tree entirely. But if anyone found a way to do weird stuff with their reincarnations, it would have been him. He was born before yin and yang were split. I’d say that any future incarnation of him would have to have chaos energy as part of them as well.”

Shen Wei stared. “You’re not joking.”

Zhao Yunlan shook his head.

Shen Wei considered. “How would we even go about proving or disproving that, Yunlan?”

“I think first we see if you can draw the axe. Then there’s a thing I want you to try with your hair.”

Shen Wei gave an indulgent smile and ducked his chin, ready to humor Zhao Yunlan on that part of it at least.

Zhao Yunlan noticed. “Yes, it does involve growing your hair out, but not just because I happen to like it. This does actually have a purpose. Either way, can you remember enough of what the axe looks like from your recent nightmares or from memory that you can draw it?”

Shen Wei frowned. “I can remember it. It’s the drawing it part I am unclear on.”

Zhao Yunlan shrugged. “Try. What’s the worst that can happen?”

“A false positive.”

“Huh?”

“You asked what’s the worst that could happen. I am answering that it would be if I could draw the axe, but if it still isn’t actually the case that I am Pangu’s reincarnation.”

“True, but if you can’t, you can’t.”

Shen Wei nodded and closed his eyes. “When I was first starting to draw my blade, I had to close my eyes to imagine it clearly. There were a few times I didn’t and it didn’t turn out right. So theoretically, if I imagine the axe and then use the same ability, it should…” He curled his hands in such a way Zhao Yunlan could easily imagine a much younger Shen Wei, who possibly still had claws pop out when he was using his abilities, doing it in much the same way.

The axe appeared across his lap much as his blade had appeared when Zhao Yunlan had originally guessed that he was the Soul Severing Emissary. Shen Wei opened his eyes to gaze down at it, expression said that he was considering rejecting what his eyes were seeing. Zhao Yunlan wasn’t much better. “You know, I was kind of thinking the answer was going to be you couldn’t.”

Shen Wei nodded, unable to pull his eyes away, eyes looking more and more round by the second and shoulders looking more and more like that small youth he had been when he’d first found out Kunlun was dying. Zhao Yunlan found his gut aching hoping this time it wouldn’t result in anything as drastic.

“That it? That’s the one that Gui Mian also wielded?”

Shen Wei nodded again, but this time a shudder ran through him. Zhao Yunlan’s eyes shot to his face and he was startled to find that Shen Wei looked like he wanted to start crying.

Zhao Yunlan took his hand in an effort to comfort him. “Hey, darling, let’s not jump to the worst conclusion, ok? For all we know, you can draw it because you can imagine it. Haven’t you been able to call up all kinds of other things, just on sheer imagination alone? False positive, like you said.”

“Yunlan, I felt it connect to my heart, and it felt like bone-deep familiarity, older than bone, it felt like…” He clamored to his feet and pushed aside Zhao Yunlan’s hands. “It’s too much to take in. I spent all these years thinking I was never anybody’s reincarnation and now to be Pangu’s… I’m sorry. I need to be alone right now.”

Shen Wei escaped to their balcony to be alone and get some air.

Zhao Yunlan waited a quarter hour, and then made tea, deliberately banging around in their kitchen as he was making it to let Shen Wei know where he was if he needed him. After a while, the tea was done heating. Zhao Yunlan poured it over some leaves and waited until it had steeped. Then, he brought it out to Shen Wei, set it on the table in between the two chairs they had brought out there. He gave Shen Wei a once over with his eyes and then carefully and broadcasting his intentions, he sat in the unoccupied chair and poured them both a cup of the tea. He carefully slid the teacup in Shen Wei’s direction on the table. Shen Wei reached out a delicate hand and picked up the cup and sipped at it.

“What am I to do with the knowledge now?” he said finally.

“Why does anything have to be done with it?”

“Zhao Yunlan.”

“I’m serious. You can just sit with it. I’ll sit with you of course, if you want me to. But no one else needs to know until you are ready, if ever, and there’s nothing earth shattering going on now that requires you to use it immediately.”

Shen Wei turned to him. “There is another part that may be more relevant, and that part might require disclosure. It might also change our relationship. I know you want to respond that nothing could, but please wait on that sentiment; this might in fact be the area that might. But since the first part is turning out truer and truer, the second part might be as well.”

Zhao Yunlan tipped his head. He already could guess what the second part was, but he wanted to know what Shen Wei thought of it. “Go on.”

Shen Wei picked up his tea again and downed it like a shot. “I’m having Gui Mian’s memories too. More than just that one. Which could mean he’s still alive within me.”

Zhao Yunlan thought about it. That could mean a lot of things, since Pangu had been just as unique in the world as Shen Wei was before or now. For all he knew, Shen Wei could have picked up Gui Mian’s ghost - if the ghost tribe even had ghosts when they died - when he entered chaos, and now Gui Mian could be getting stronger and stronger. If anyone could pull off riding Shen Wei, it would be Gui Mian, even with Shen Wei being far Gui Mian’s superior in plotting and in power, in every way, but if anyone could. That might be enough to explain the memories. But if it was as Shen Wei no doubt suspected - and to tell the truth, Zhao Yunlan guessed more likely as well - then Gui Mian’s ghost and Shen Wei had come together and that was the first time Pangu had been together since he had initially died, and that this was why Shen Wei was only now having the memories. But it also meant that Gui Mian’s ghost had rejoined with Shen Wei’s. He could see why Shen Wei was terrified of that possibility.

But to be able to test which it was, he needed more information. “Are you having his feelings and thoughts too or just watching his memories like a movie?”

Shen Wei blinked. “I don’t know. I never knew him well enough to even know if I’m having his emotional reactions to the memories. My main concern with him has always been keeping him away from you and away from his goals of tearing down the pillars and punching another hole in the sky so he and the rest of the ghost tribe could come up and devour the world.”

Zhao Yunlan nodded and thought about that, and decided to try something. If there was one thing he had learned from listening to Gui Mian that last time before he had destroyed himself, it was that he had strong feelings about certain topics, topics that Shen Wei didn’t share his reaction on. “How do you think he felt about the ghost tribe? Have you gotten any indication as to whether he did actually feel for them, or was just saying that to make you feel bad?”

Shen Wei frowned. “Yes. He was always angry that you locked them up like that in that lightless, soulless place. He felt… he knew he deserved it, but some of the others had done nothing. Nothing in his view, of course, the ones who were old enough had still eaten everything in sight when they had come up but not all of them were… there were even a few he was fond of. He looked at them almost… like he’d adopted them as his children. There was another he viewed as a… that’s impossible though, for anyone in the ghost tribe to have had friends… and to have had children one didn’t view as extensions of self, but as someone one gave to, that would have been impossible. Friends would have been unthinkable.”

Zhao Yunlan said, “Like brothers and kinship should have been?”

Shen Wei took that like an electric shock. “I, Zhao Yunlan, could they have felt such emotions for one another? I’d thought they felt no more than lust. Certainly not love for one another. Certainly not love without any lust. Could they have felt such emotions and we locked them up for such a long time there?” He was recoiling, as though from something physical, but then realized that there was nothing physical to recoil from.

Zhao Yunlan slipped from his seat and squatted down in front of him, taking his hands. “Shen Wei, it was my doing, mine, Shennong’s, Nuwa’s, and Fuxi’s.”

Shen Wei shook his head. “They just wanted to kill them. I carried out the prison sentence for all those years.”

Zhao Yunlan rubbed the backs of Shen Wei’s hands in a way his mother used to do for him when he was little. “It was due to that that they even had a chance to be connected to the Wheel of Reincarnation. Besides, even looking at it now, I’m still not sure what else we could have done with them that would have been better.”

Shen Wei frowned. “I agree, but doesn’t kinship rely in part on… if we imprisoned them thinking that they had not developed souls, and then they went and did…”

Zhao Yunlan shook his head. “On souls? No, apparently not, judging by the fact that you gaining your souls connected the others to the Wheel of Reincarnation. Apparently, one could get to love and familial feeling through the three corpses alone. As evidenced by you, you know.”

Shen Wei pulled his hand back, forming little fists with them. “I thought the others could not. I thought I alone…”

Zhao Yunlan decided to hug him, slowly pushing himself up and leaning over to embrace him while giving him the chance to pull back if he should want to. When he got his arms around him, with Shen Wei resting his head against Zhao Yunlan’s shoulder, he said, “To be fair, I think only the highest tier of the ghost tribe managed it. You, Gui Mian, maybe four or five others. From what I saw of them, the others seemed to view each other as competition, objects to fuck, or food.”

Shen Wei nodded. “That is what I thought too.”

Zhao Yunlan said, “So you provided them a way to get on the Wheel of Reincarnation. Otherwise, they would have punched a hole in the sky again and brought chaos back. In a way, you being Pangu’s reincarnation makes sense. You were making sure heaven and earth didn’t come crashing back into one another.”

Shen Wei sighed. “I always thought I was unworthy of carrying out the task Pangu had started, that you had handed to me, but I did try to the best of my ability.”

Zhao Yunlan kissed his hair and hugged him tighter. “You were always worthy. I felt bad that it had to be left on your shoulders when you were so young.”

Shen Wei studied him. “Are you sure that they would have?”

Zhao Yunlan nodded. “Even with familial feeling, even with love, they still tried to devour everything in sight and punch a hole through the sky. They could have had all the feelings of kinship in the world and it not have prevented them from trying to destroy the world.”

Shen Wei leaned against him and then turned his face up to kiss him, finally relaxed enough to be willing to indulge him.

However, after a session of making out, Shen Wei once again had his thoughts on the topic. “What do we do about the fact that I’m having Gui Mian’s memories and his emotions?”

That was why Zhao Yunlan had originally tested if Shen Wei knew what Gui Mian had felt about the rest of the ghost tribe. He just hadn’t anticipated Shen Wei freaking out as much as he had, and had been almost ready to drop the questions if it meant Shen Wei didn’t freak out again..

Shen Wei continued, “By your theory of being Pangu’s reincarnation and by the fact that I can feel what his emotions were for the ghost tribe, that would mean that through his death, he and I became one person… wouldn’t it?”

“It is one of the theories, and not one we can rule out now that you definitely feel his emotions. But he could also just be riding you.”

Shen Wei shook his head. “I would know if he was. He tried to remove a piece of himself and put it on me before, so I can tell what that feels like. It was what led to my knowledge that I could do it to everyone else and that they’d think it was someone else.”

Zhao Yunlan met Shen Wei’s eyes in what he hoped conveyed that Shen Wei should not do that again.

“So if I am feeling his emotions about things, and if I am able to draw his axe, Pangu’s axe, and if Pangu was both of us…” Shen Wei turned in his arms to face him. “Zhao Yunlan, what if I become more like him? What if the conclusions I reach are his, rather than mine?”

Zhao Yunlan shook his head. “A, you’re still you, even with his emotions potentially in there in equal amounts, but ultimately, it is still you talking and you at the wheel. You can choose to accept or reject his conclusions as they come up.”

Shen Wei nodded, but was not convinced.

Zhao Yunlan decided to continue onto his second point. “B, he died, as in, he exploded, not just throwing himself into the Guardian Lantern and chaos. It might be better to think of the reincarnation as being a past reincarnation rather than another half of yourself. Just as in my past reincarnations, I recognize why I made the decisions I made, but in this lifetime, I would certainly not make all the same decisions, even if I can remember the emotions behind them and understand why they were made.”

That argument had the benefit that Shen Wei himself had discussed it with him a couple months before when Zhao Yunlan had remembered about a past reincarnation who had done things that while understandable, he did not agree with and would never do now. He could see Shen Wei reaching the same reference and for the first time applying it to himself. But he still didn’t seem entirely convinced.

Time for argument C then. “C, I don’t think that’s going to happen. I do think you might continue to reach your own conclusions about things that are perhaps different from what you thought before, but that the new conclusions are not necessarily due to Gui Mian. I think you are fair to be angry for some time that that was the best we could come up with for how to deal with the ghost tribe and that you got stuck watching it for five thousand years. I think you are fair for being angry at Difu, though I think you’ve already gotten your revenge on them for the way they treated you and kept suspecting you of everything, when you had already promised to die to give them back the Seal and your every day was a statement of that, so I might request you take it easy on them.”

“They were fair to think that, particularly if Gui Mian had partially gotten out years before and whispered to the Judge about how I was his brethren.”

Zhao Yunlan nodded. “Out of curiosity, how many years ago did he get out, even partially?”

Shen Wei blinked at him. “Didn’t you know? When I told you eight hundred years ago was the last time there was black smoke in the Thirty-Three Skies, you guessed it was related to Gui Mian.”

Zhao Yunlan blinked. “Ahh. I just didn’t know he got out that long ago.”

“Only partially, and I had to put the vast majority of his powers back, so he was harmless for another few hundred years. Even if he could come out rarely, he was still only able to whisper at people for a while.”

Zhao Yunlan continued the thought. “And the Judge was only too willing to eat up those whisperings. He was terrified of you.”

“He’d seen me put Gui Mian back down and patch the Seal that time. I think he only realized how powerful I was when he asked about what the Seal was, and then when he saw how much power I had to use to force Gui Mian back under it, it terrified him even more.”

Shen Wei made a face as though he’d tasted something bitter. “I think I preferred him being terrified to what he is like now.”

Zhao Yunlan laughed, remembering what the Judge had been when he’d last seen him at the rearranging of the courts. “Is he still obsequiously fawning?”

“Mmm. And there are even suggestions of things Difu should be doing for me, even one involving constructing a temple that I immediately put a stop to, going around, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he started them.”

“Well you did save the entire Difu court and have to set up a new court in the aftermath of what went down following the new Seal being set up.”

“Yes, and there’s a reason I have been up here in your company ever since. With all the petitions they write to me, it feels like being bothered by a thousand gnats all day long. I don’t think I could bear either the embarrassment or that the number of gnats would only increase if they were to do any of that.”

“I know, right? I had to stop a suggestion by some of the yao tribes to build a temple in the Kunlun Mountains to renew their connection to me. That would be awful.”

“Mmm. Plus, I imagine they’d all want you to share a bottle of baijiu with them.”

Zhao Yunlan winced. “A homemade bottle too. I’d be drunk in a single sip. I’d have to have you drink with me.”

“Let’s not repeat the experience with Mr. Lang, thank you. And I’d have to have you do Difu paperwork with me if Difu gets its way.”

Zhao Yunlan laughed. “Potentially, you could have it leak that you are getting Gui Mian’s memories and until that settles down, anyone that bothers you about unnecessary stuff might meet Gui Mian’s temper rather than your eternally patient one.”

Shen Wei froze again. “Weren’t you just saying that…” Then he realized Zhao Yunlan was suggesting something he could say, not necessarily the truth and let out a small huff of laughter. “I could not do that, even if it’d certainly get it to stop. Some of what the Judge might deem unnecessary is actually of key importance. More of it probably if he’s too terrified to bother me. I’ll find another way.”

“Just saying.”

“I’ll consider it. But, Yunlan, returning to the topic, do you not mind if that is actually the case? I fear…”

“I think it would inevitably happen that you form different opinions even without Gui Mian’s memories. Some of your long held beliefs were based on your hatred of the ghost tribe, your views of them certainly were, which was in part due to you literally being out of the three corpses without anything to offset them. Were you anyone else on the Guardian Order, I would recommend you go see a therapist about how that affects how you see yourself.”

“Yunlan.”

“I said anyone else! You’d just charm the pants off whatever therapist you got, or I’d have to follow along and make the therapist forget if you mentioned a topic civies don’t know about.”

Shen Wei still gave him a look.

Zhao Yunlan continued, “So, now that the hatred from the three corpses is no longer overwhelming…”

Shen Wei concluded, “You think some of the changes might be more related to that than related to Gui Mian.”

“Got it.” Zhao Yunlan nodded. “Besides, Gui Mian did explode himself while he was out of the Seal and out of chaos. Technically, he died and there’s no proof that you are doing more than remembering him and his emotions.”

“Could that have been what led to my souls?”

Zhao Yunlan shrugged. “Possibly. It’s up to you whether you want to find out. We don’t have to find out or even decide on everything now.”

Shen Wei considered. “Yunlan, thank you for being here with me while I go through this.”

Zhao Yunlan kissed his forehead again. “As long as we face it together, we can face anything. Besides, you are also there for me as I’m still coming to terms with my reincarnations. Which I still haven’t examined half of them.”

Shen Wei nodded. “Yes. And I will continue to be.”

Zhao Yunlan smiled at him. “Then I will continue to be here for you as you go through this one.”

Shen Wei leaned his head against Zhao Yunlan. Then something else occurred to him, and he pulled away to gaze back at Zhao Yunlan. “You know, if I am Pangu’s reincarnation, does that technically mean I’m older than Kunlun was? Does that change how you feel about me?”

Zhao Yunlan turned to gaze back at Shen Wei. “You know I’ve never…” he started, only to see Shen Wei smile as though at a joke. Zhao Yunlan started laughing and sought out Shen Wei’s hand with his fingers and laced their fingers together as though in a question, and Shen Wei squeezed Zhao Yunlan’s fingers in reply. They were still alright and would face whatever new discoveries they made about their reincarnations together.

But there was still a question Zhao Yunlan had. “So, about the long hair thing, can you grow it everywhere on your body? I want to see what Pangu would have actually looked like.”

Shen Wei stared at him. “How about I grow mine out again and you can play with it to your heart’s content?”

Zhao Yunlan decided that was an acceptable trade off.

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