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offaeandcreation · 2 years

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To Live Without Regrets

Summary:

“If you regret killing me…”

Jin Guangyao could almost see Wen Ruohan leaning over him, his hair pouring down his shoulders like an ebony waterfall, a wide grin full of teeth, and scarlet eyes twinkling in false crinkles.

The invisible grip tightened on his neck.

“I’ll make you regret betraying me.”

Five times Jin Guangyao refused to regret his choices and the one time he did.

Pairing: Wen Ruohan/Meng Yao | Jin Guangyao

WC: 4,100

Warnings: Gore, Mild Horror, Physical Abuse shown/mentioned/implied, Non-con on screen but not too detailed, Bullying, Dysfunctional Relationships, Daddy issues (non-sexual), Sexual Content Implied,

AO3

Meng Yao saluted at his father’s feet.

The way his mother taught him, correcting his posture by tapping his back or knees with the gentleness of a butterfly, whispering to relax here, bend more, bow his head, and look at the floor.

He stared at his father’s dark boots, shiny leather with gold peony embroidery that glinted in the sun. The type that by stepping into too wet dirt would ruin them for good. An interesting choice considering they were at war.

“He’s too much a coward to walk on anything not laid in silk or gold.” A familiar voice sneered into his ear, “Did he even step into the battlefield?”

Meng Yao’s gaze flickered to the corpse laying beside him. Dirk caked silk white robes and the bloody stump where the head used to be no longer glistened with fresh blood.

“I have brought Clan Leader Wen to you, Fu- “Meng Yao’s breath caught in his throat, “-Clan Leader Jin.”

He received no response, and the rains did not grace the patch of dirt he stuck his nose into with any puddles to see his father’s reflection.

“Where’s the head?” Jin Guangshan finally asked, “I recall asking specifically for it.”

Only years of practice kept Meng Yao from brushing the Qiankun pouch attached to his hip, “… Lost in the chaos. My greatest apologies.”

Wen Ruohan burst into laughter, “If he doesn’t accept you, will you suddenly find my head?”

Meng Yao’s lips thinned. The pouch tugged at his belt, as if someone suddenly dumped a case full of logs into it. The silence stretched for several beats.

“It’ll do.” Blessedly, Jin Guangshan said, “Stand up, Jin Guangyao.”

Meng Yao stared at the dirt caking his dull boots. Did he hear that right?

Jin Guangyao?

Jin.

Jin Guangyao lifted his head. His father towered above him wearing gold silks and peonies, with only the vermillion mark between his brows glinting like a jewel. He flicked open his expensive fan, dripping in gold paint and priceless landscapes, and hid his unsmiling lips.

Finally.

Finally he could go to his mother’s grave and share the good news. Even with his cultivation lagging behind, even amid a deadly cultivators’ war, only with the gifts of wits and character his mother had granted him made her dream finally come true.

For the first time in his life, Jin Guangyao’s eyes watered along as a genuine smile tugged at his lips. He gave into it with a salute, “This lowly son thanks Fuqin for his acknowledgement.”

Jin Guangshan flinched.

“You’re dismissed.” He said as he waved his free hand in a half-hearted dismissal. And turned his back to him, “Someone, get rid of the corpse.”

“Was that really what you wanted all this time?” Wen Ruohan’s voice whispered.

Jin Guangyao’s eyes glanced to the side, half expecting to see the former Clan Leader Wen standing beside him. Only to be greeted by the Jin disciples crowding around Wen Ruohan’s headless body, some sending the occasional glare at him while others muttered to themselves about burning the body, that he won’t be reincarnating anyway without his head.

“Nothing I ever did could have replaced your desire to be acknowledged?”

Jin Guangyao bowed his head slightly to hide the movement of his lips, “It was my mother’s dream.”

Wen Ruohan cackled, his ringing in both of Jin Guangyao’s ears even when he turned his head, “You really fooled me then into thinking I meant something to you. Why bother with the pretense now?”

The Qiankun pouch pulsed with barely concealed resentment.

Jin Guangyao clapped the pouch, “Stop throwing a tantrum.”

Ice surrounded Jin Guangyao’s throat, like a pair of cold, clawed hands around like a scarf. He could barely swallow…

“Let’s make a wager.” Wen Ruohan crooned, “If you regret killing me…”

It was too easy to imagine Wen Ruohan leaning over him, his hair pouring down his shoulders like an ebony waterfall, scarlet eyes twinkling in false crinkles, and a wide grin full of pearl-white teeth.

The invisible grip tightened on his neck.

“I’ll make you regret betraying me.”

_____________________

Jin Guangyao barely suppressed a hiss as he sewed the gash on his forehead closed. Dark blood oozed in droplets, streaming down his face and occasionally into his right eye. Violet bruises bloomed around the gash. Did Madame Jin really need to throw an iron teapot at him?

“If you haven’t used up all your spiritual energy to stay up in the past fortnight, you would have enough to prevent those ugly bruises.”

Jin Guangyao’s gaze flickered to the far side of his bronze mirror. A soft outline of Wen Ruohan’s head bobbled where his unused pillow on his bed was. The rest of his body would never appear, probably because Jin Guangyao only kept his head.

“You made a promise not to play with my vision.” Jin Guangyao snarled, wiping away the wayward blood that once again seemed utterly determined to blind him in one eye.

“Oho~ Did you just snap at me?” Wen Ruohan taunted. The faint outline shimmered and grew as if he moved from a lying to a sitting position. If he had his body, that was, “You must be exhausted.”

Jin Guangyao ignored him. Having finished the last of the stitching, he considered his makeup kit. Makeup could risk infecting the wound, and the benefits didn’t seem to outweigh the negatives. Even applying several layers only hid the worst of the purple underneath his eyes.

Would his cap be enough? Or the way it sat on his head also aggravate the wound?

The bronze mirror reflected the hazy outline of Wen Ruohan’s head, appearing just several cun away from Jin Guangyao’s ear. His hands, if he had any, would sit on his shoulders, pale fingers settled like butterflies.

“When was the last time you walked around so exhausted you could fall over? When was the last time you walked without malice-born bruises?”

The answer danced on Jin Guangyao’s tongue. Like sweet Tanghulu given to a starving child.

The body-less head smiled at him in the mirror, “Was this all worth it?”

“Madame Jin is mourning.” Jin Guangyao interrupted. “She lost her son, and she is lashing out.”

The outlines around Wen Ruohan’s mouth pinched. A full-lipped pout that only a toddler could compete with, “By such logic, aren’t you implying he was dead since you entered Jinlin Tai? Wouldn’t his death mean she will throw heavier objects at you? By the end of the year, people would mistake you for a man-shaped bruise.”

Jin Guangyao closes the mirror with a loud clunk, “Fuqin wishes to have Xue Yang experiment with your body. See it turn into a fierce corpse.”

Wen Ruohan went quiet.

“You were once a powerful cultivator. It would be a shame to let that go to waste,” He continues as if reciting a textbook. “The resentment you must have from being backstabbed should be enough to compete with Wen Qionglin.”

The candle on his desk flickered as resentment poured from the ghost. It flicked some of Jin Guangyao’s loose hair, but the piles of papers on his desk remained undisturbed.

If Wen Ruohan had his material body, he would be growling.

“I talked him out of it,” Jin Guangyao said, replacing the medical kit into its proper place, “Your head is missing and Xue Yang’s pins work through the temples, for now.”

“Is that a threat?” Wen Ruohan hisses.

Jin Guangyao gave a one-sided shrug. Dropping the conversation. He reached for the towering pile of paperwork sitting since dawn- no, now several piles. Someone had divided up the pile, if haphazardly, into several.

A ghost of a smile flickered on Jin Guangyao’s lips, “You managed not to knock them off the desk this time.”

“See if I do you such a favor again.”

He snorted, “Then don’t come to me complaining about being bored.”

Wen Ruohan huffed and floated back towards the bed.

If Wen Ruohan was in his living body, he’d carry his chin up high with the most over-the-top grouch that only a spoiled mistress could make.

Many times, Jin Guangyao made the mistake of turning his head to look for something that wasn’t there.

Such a shame fierce corpses couldn’t smile.

“You know, it suddenly occurred to me… do you watch over that brat because you miss the Fire Palace so-”

“Enough or I will change my mind about Wen Qionglin.”

______________________

“Son of a whore!”

Jin Guangyao’s hands tremble beneath his weight. A weight he could barely feel. It was as if Nie Mingjue had indeed unleashed Baxia and carved out all his innards, leaving nothing but a gaping emptiness with only the barest layer of his skin left.

“Jin Guangyao!”

Colors flood around him. A flash of a blade. Whisks of white.

“Guangyao!”

Sudden darkness, copper in his mouth.

“A-Yao!”

Jin Guangyao flinched at Wen Ruohan’s voice. The warm glow of torches outlined the empty sitting room. He stumbled forward, falling to his knees. The gold pillow sank underneath his weight, not enough to cushion the dull vibrating pain that clawed up and down his legs.

“A-Yao.” Wen Ruohan’s voice said. Quiet. Soft.

Jin Guangyao felt his mouth move, words that used to come easily, like blinking.

He kicked him down the stairs.

He called him a son of a whore.

He tried to kill him.

Again.

“A-Yao. Breathe.”

Air flooded down his throat. Jin Guangyao gasped and choked. Bile licked the back of his throat.

“A-Yao. No one is here. That ungrateful brat can’t hurt you because he isn’t here.”

Soft outlines materialized in the air in front of him. Like wisps of light blue smoke. This time, instead of the smoke-like patches, Wen Ruohan fully formed his features. A solemn expression painted with the finesse of an artist.

Jin Guangyao’s shoulders sank, and he collapsed against the table. His breath came out sharp and ragged.

“Like them,” He wheezed, “he was like them all along.”

Wen Ruohan watched him, his mouth too unstable to make out its position, expression twitching between curiosity, concern, and even a flash of vindication, “Oho, what do you mean?”

Laughter bubbled out of Jin Guangyao. It came out soundless, but he still doubled over, unable to take a breath, “Won’t you just ask the question, Ruohan? Ask if I regret it all? Regret killing you to save him?”

He expected a smile to bloom on Wen Ruohan’s face. Now was the opportune time to ask about the wager. And maybe Jin Guangyao would say-

“No.” The words formed on his lips with ease. Along with the placid smile he long learned to wear.

Wen Ruohan rolled his eyes, “And you went and answered it yourself. Why bother asking?”

“Nie Mingjue acted kindly towards me once before. Defended my mother by shutting down the insults.”

When they called him a bastard. A son of a whore.

“And then he went and did it himself,” Wen Ruohan bared his teeth, “you did so much for him and he repays you like this? Ungrateful little brat. Hooting his own faux morality until he is no less than a rabid dog that needs to be put down.”

Jin Guangyao bowed his head. The table he leaned on rattled.

Wen Ruohan hovered by him.

He didn’t ask him why he didn’t regret it.

Weeks later, Wen Ruohan kept a lookout as Jin Guangyao snuck into the secret underground library at the Cloud Recesses.

“Are you going through with this?” Wen Ruohan asked him once Jin Guangyao burned the sheet music in the fireplace.

Jin Guangyao looked up from the flames. His face was lax of all emotion. Only the staccato of his heartbeat in his ribcage hinted at the swirl of unease he hid deep in his chest, “I was under the impression this would entertain you.”

“Try again.”

Jin Guangyao breathed in, then out. His fingers threaded through his hair. A tick that he thought he long had gotten rid of, “It’s for his own good. Imagine how much he could hurt Huaisang with the way he is going. Hurt himself. It’s best to put an end to his suffering.”

Wen Ruohan hovered in front of him, an artful brow shooting upwards, “And here I was thinking you were getting payback.”

“It’s for his own good,” Jin Guangyao repeated.

“Just say you regret saving him and want his life as payment for his abuse, A-Yao.”

________________________________________________________

His mother thought of every excuse for his father for why he had never returned.

“He must be busy,” she whispered one night after entertaining ten men, the bruises still fresh on her throat, “that’s why he hasn’t come for you.”

“He’ll come soon.” She said, fingering the pearl button as the illness stole the meat from her every limb, not even sparing the soft curves of her cheeks.

“A matter must have taken his attention.”

She waited.

She died waiting.

In the end, when he replaced his family name with Jin, Jin Guangyao watched the man he called father shirk his duties onto his lap so he could run off to the next brothel.

He watched his father from the corner of his eye, waiting for the warmth that his mother promised. The same softness that crinkled around his eyes back when Zixuan was in the room. But when Jin Guangyao spoke to him, Jin Guangshan looked more interested in the ‘antique’ vase in the corner of his office.

Wen Ruohan raised his eyebrow at him after one such meeting.

Jin Guangyao waved him off, “I got all I wanted from him: acknowledgement. What else do I need from him?”

“Whatever helps you sleep better,” He grinned at him.

“You may comfort yourself with that thought.” Jin Guangyao replied.

“Meng Shi was a famous entertainer,” Jin Guangshan said to a prostitute near an open window of the brothel, “but as a literate woman, she would be too much trouble.”

Jin Guangyao’s smile froze.

“What of her son?” The prostitute asked. Perhaps the one warming his lap.

“Forget it.” He hand-waved.

Xue Yang roared with laughter beside him, cursing out words that blended perfectly with the stampede of the crowds in the bustling red district of Lanling city.

Jin Guangyao’s smile remained pasted as he entered the brothel to retrieve Jin Guangshan. It remained on his face all the way back to Jinlin Tai, even with Xue Yang’s prods and Clan Leader Jin’s drunken rants.

He started trembling the moment he stepped into his room. His favorite clay pot rattled when he tried to lift it over the hot coals.

“Why are you acting so surprised?” Wen Ruohan materialized across from him. The ghostly sway of his hair blended with the curl of smoke from the coals. He wore a thin smile, as fake as the trinket Jin Guangyao’s “father” gave his mother.

“I’m not in the mood for your antics,” Jin Guangyao said, replacing the pot on the coals again. The top nearly popped off with how hard it rattled.

Wen Ruohan ignored him, “You knew he would crush you beneath his heel the first chance he got.”

Jin Guangyao’s hand tightened around the handle.

“I thought you sought acknowledgement for your mother’s dream?” Wen Ruohan’s head tilted to the side, as if to consider.

“Wen Ruohan,” he warned. The edges of his vision blurred in the deep ochres of the waning sun and a tint of light blue of Wen Ruohan’s ghostly form.

Blue pupils, long since unblinking, met his. “You wanted him to love you.”

“This is your last warning,” Jin Guangyao hissed through his teeth.

“You know what confuses me?” Wen Ruohan ignored him, “You weeped how your father kicked you down all of Jinlin Tai’s stairs when you first came groveling for acknowledgement. And now you are upset that he doesn’t love you when you forced him to give you the Jin name.

Why would you assume he would start loving you when all he saw was a waste of space?”

Jin Guangyao slammed his fist on the table. A sharp spike of pain flew up his arm. The teapot barely budged; it shook more when he held it, “My mother died waiting for him!”

And he never weeped.

Wen Ruohan watched him with a blank expression, “He never was going to come back.”

Jin Guangyao swung his head towards the ceiling. The solid wood of the dark table anchored him from to the tempest of fire brewing deep in his chest. A tear dripped down his cheek.

“You want me to admit I regret killing you? That I should have known from the start that the acknowledgment from my sorry excuse of a father was a mistake.”

Jin Guangyao smiled at Wen Ruohan. His cheeks aching from tension, “You know, I have a theory, Clan Leader.”

Wen Ruohan’s eyes narrowed, searching him. It only made Jin Guangyao smile wider. “What you really want is me to acknowledge I loved you. That it all wasn’t an act. That you were more than a stepping stone.”

Wen Ruohan’s nose flared. The ghostly smoke swirled, like ink dropped into water and then stirred, to the point only a cloud of blue floated in the place of his head.

Jin Guangyao waited patiently, pouring hot water from the clay teapot into the tea leaves he prepared. The handle a pleasant burn in his palm.

Only after he replaced the tea leaves did he continue, “I planned to kill you from the start. Not once did I reconsider.” He glanced at the ghost.

Wen Ruohan’s features slowly returned, rough patches where the eyes and mouth should have been, but still placed with an artist’s eye. It betrayed no expression, blank like in one of his meetings, or when the news came of loss after loss after loss.

“And I loved you. I didn’t fake a thing.” Jin Guangyao took a sip before reaching for the Qiankun pouch at his side.

“Men- Jin Guangyao, what are you doing?” Wen Ruohan shot forward, his head bobbing above the smoking tea.

“You’re right. I shouldn’t be surprised,” Jin Guangyao said as he untied his belt, “Fuqin is trash who I shouldn’t have expected better from. And do you know what you do with trash, Clan Leader Wen?”

Wen Ruohan’s eyes bulged as he removed his decapitated head from the pouch. Eyes closed with every lash in place and mouth relaxed. Outside the pallid skin, sunken cheeks, and missing body, it almost looked as if he were asleep. Even his hair barely tangled—the preservation talismans did their job.

“Throw it out.”

“That was what I told you.” Wen Ruohan muttered later that evening, “I told you to throw trash out.”

Jin Guangyao smiled at the dark ceiling. The only downside of a fierce corpse head companion is the lack of body heat, “To be exact, you said to burn trash so it may be reborn from the ashes.”

“So I did. Were you planning on trying that with my head?”

Jin Guangyao huffed, “I considered. But I had a better idea—let the flames cleanse the dirt so a temple could be built instead.”

Around his mother’s grave. And Guanyin shaped to her likeness so she may reincarnate into a better life.

Wen Ruohan floated in front of him, a blue wisp of cold fire in the darkness of night, “Do you regret it?”

Jin Guangyao laughed. Deep and loud.

He didn’t know.

_______________________________________________________

“Do you like it, Fuqin?” Jin Guangyao taunted from behind the curtain.

The parade of ugly, old prostitutes sat on Jin Guangshan’s lap, working like they would any client. Rivers of tears poured down his father’s face with his wails muffled by the cloth muzzle tied securely around his mouth.

“You ask for prostitutes almost every day,” Jin Guangyao continued, “I got you so many. I did as you asked. Aren’t you happy?”

A bonfire lit in his veins, pulsing in his ears like war drums.

His mother suffered because of him.

He suffered because of him.

Blood, sweat and tears just to get his acknowledgment.

Was it a sin for a child to want their father’s love?

Blood. Sweat. And tears.

For a man who wouldn’t spare them another glance.

And now, Jin Guangshan, bare-boned and sick, tied to the bed, with his legs splayed out like his mother was forced to do for years. But even if every prostitute in the room sat on his lap one thousand times, it would only be the fraction of the men his mother had to entertain.

What a pathetic, weak little man.

Wen Ruohan roared with laughter beside him. Watching the spectacle as he would on a good day at the Fire Palace.

“I always loved your taste in punishments.” He wheezed, “Claim to only humor me back then or not, but truly, your ideas are something else.”

A smile dripping venom bloomed on Jin Guangyao’s face. A thrill of pure glee, hot like molten metal, bubbled in his chest.

He gave his “father” so many chances. Who else is he to blame but himself?

Wen Ruohan’s eyes met Jin Guangyao’s, flashing like rays of a bright star, “No regrets?”

Jin Guangyao laughed at him. A deep belly laugh that only Wen Ruohan could stir within him. “Regrets? Who in this world has time for regrets? I have a sect to run and a future to strive for. He’s as good as dead.” He grinned so much it hurt, “I can live now!”

Wen Ruohan paused, his own smile frozen on his face, “What of Nightless City? Weren’t you free then?”

“Only if I had your fickle regard,” The words spilled out so easily, as if Jin Guangyao was drunk, “What if you changed your mind about me? What if you found out I was a spy? You would kill me.”

Wen Ruohan’s good humor disappeared. His eyes, now only strokes of blue, bore into his, a seriousness that rarely graced his features.

“I knew.”

Jin Guangyao balked, the glee dissipating, leaving behind a gaping hole in his chest.

“Since when-”

One prostitute interrupted with a scream, “He’s dead!”

_____________________________________________________________________

Wen Ruohan didn’t dare appear during the chaos at Guanyin Temple. Dealing with a demonic cultivator and Nie Mingjue’s reanimated corpse was far too risky. And it wasn’t like he could do much, with not even his entire soul intact.

But then, after, it was too late.

“You wouldn’t let me live!” Jin Guangyao shouted at Lan Xichen before running towards the coffin, “Fuck you, Nie Mingjue, you think I’m scared of you?”

And in the next instance, Nie Mingjue’s corpse snapped his neck.

The seal on the coffin holding their corpses would last a hundred years. They wouldn’t be able to reincarnate, souls trapped to fight one another until one such day they could pass.

With his head still hidden in the Qiankun pouch by Jin Guangyao’s side, neither could Wen Ruohan.

Perhaps it is due to this that Wen Ruohan passed through the wards unchallenged. He floated over the coffin, yet to be buried.

“A-Yao?”

No response.

“The wager is off.” He continued, “I won’t make you regret betraying me. I promise.”

No response.

“It shouldn’t have ended this way. Come out so we can complain about it until they deem us ready to reincarnate together. I always keep my promises. You can come out now.”

Silence.

No, not quite. Just the groans of two fierce corpses buried below.

A tug pulled his attention, so slight he almost missed it.

Just by the coffin right on the outside, flicks of resentment fluttered around a stain of blood. Wen Ruohan floated closer.

Two characters scribbled on the side of the coffin. As if in a rush.

Regret.

Wen Ruohan settled by the coffin, right by the characters. He stared out through the broken door, watching the sky change from pitch black to light blue.

“You know, A-Yao… I never wanted to win.”

#wen ruohan #meng yao #jin guangyao #yaohan #ruoyao #jin guangshan #Nie Mingjue mentioned #angst #hurt #comfort than I sucker punch you #tragedy

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