Chapter Text
Rumor 1: The Yiling Patriarch will steal your children
Wei Wuxian was selling radishes in the Yiling marketplace like he always seemed to be doing these days. Truly, his hatred of radishes was only slightly exaggerated. They were so bland and it was only recently that they had started to be able to afford a few spices to flavour their food. Eating the same thing everyday was almost sickening, but nothing else grew well enough in the Burial Mounds for them to make meals out of.
Of all the things Wei Wuxian had been through in his life, being limited to radish-based meals was actually one of the mildest things that had happened to him. He had learned quickly from his years on the streets that being picky about food was no way to survive. As someone who had learnt to scarf down even rotten food with nothing but spice to mask the taste, eating fresh radishes everyday was almost pleasant. More recently of course, there was the three months he had spent in the Burial Mounds when it was much less habitable— he didn’t even want to think about how he had managed to survive there. The place the Burial Mounds was now was almost heavenly in comparison to how it had been.
Really, he complains so much about the food because it is the only thing he can complain about. If he stops to think about any other terrible thing in his life, he might start crying and screaming and just never stop. He’s only holding himself together by pretending that everything is alright. Complaining about a triviality makes him feel like the food is his biggest problem, which is the only way he is managing to keep a handle on his feelings.
After he manages to sell less than half his radishes, the crowds start dispersing, and he begins preparing to call it a day and go back. He can already hear Wen Qing’s irritation which masks the same worry he feels about being unable to feed A-Yuan a balanced diet. Though, he imagines that as a doctor, Wen Qing knows the dangers of malnutrition more graphically than he does, even if he had once been intimately acquainted with the thin hair and brittle nails that come with starvation. Suddenly, he feels a tug at the hem of his robes.
Turning to see who had been pulling his clothes, he notices a tiny child holding a fistful of his robes, large inquisitive eyes peering up at him. Immediately, he crouches to be at level with the child. He smiles, trying to seem as non-intimidating as possible. Upon seeing his smile, the child’s eyes widen further.
“Hello,” he says, pitching his voice to be even and keeping his tone light. “Can I help you?”
The child blinks at him. “A-Mei.”
“A-Mei,” he repeats. “Is that your name? Are you A-Mei?”
The child nods vigorously. Her grip on his robes loosens slightly, but she looks at him with a seriousness that is uncharacteristic for a child so small.
“Where are A-Mei’s parents?”, he asks. She’s too well dressed, too well-groomed to be a street kid. Too trusting of a stranger, too.
“A-Mei is lost. Mother told me to stay close, but buying vegetables is boring! The butterflies are fun!”, she replies. She says it in a matter-of-fact way that surprises him. She doesn’t look distressed at being lost, though Wei Wuxian is willing to bet the mother is currently losing her mind in worry.
“Where did you see your mother?”, he asks patiently.
A-Mei points to a stall. There is a large crowd between where they are and where A-Mei’s mother presumably is. “Will gege take me to mother?”, she asks, her lip wobbling. “Mother said if I get lost, I should ask someone nice to find her for me. You look nice, gege. Will you take me to mother?”
“Of course,” he says. He’s not going to let a kid wander the streets alone. Him helping her find whoever she was here with was never in question, though many would disagree with her assessment of him as ‘nice’. He gives her his hand. “Hold on tight, okay? A-Mei shouldn’t get lost again.”
She giggles and takes his hand. As they walk, she tells him about the butterflies and a story she had apparently been making up about them before she had gotten lost. Wei Wuxian listens to her animated narration while keeping an ear out for anyone calling out for the child. She’s almost finished with her stories when he hears cries of “A-Mei” coming from his right. He quickly cuts through the crowd and sees the woman near a stall crying for her child.
“A-Mei,” he gently interrupts, “Is that your mother?” he points to the panicking woman.
A-Mei’s face brightens immediately. “Mother!” she yells, launching herself in the woman’s direction. She doesn’t let go of Wei Wuxian’s hand until she’s halfway to her destination, so he finds himself tugged along for part of the distance.
When the mother notices A-Mei, relief overtakes her features. She runs to her child, wrapping her in a hug before immediately scolding her.
“A-Mei! How many times have I told you not to run off like that?”
A-Mei grins unrepentantly. “That gege brought me back!”, she says pointing at Wei Wuxian.
“You could have been in danger!”, the mother insists, not even looking in Wei Wuxian’s direction, which he is thankful for. If the mother asks for his name and recognizes it, things would go very badly.
“But I wasn’t! I found gege and he brought me back!”
“What if next time someone who isn’t nice finds you?”, she counters.
A-Mei pouts and her mother seems to melt at the sight. Wei Wuxian stays long enough to see the happy reunion, but the moment he overhears the mother saying something about thanking the man who brought A-Mei back, he runs. He doesn’t want to risk being recognized, and calling attention to himself would probably lead to that. Even if he gives her a fake name, giving anyone in a public space an excuse to look at him for too long is genuinely a terrible idea.
The next time a child finds him, he’s on his way to refill his dangerously dwindling supply of talisman paper. He suspects it might be because he’s letting A-Yuan use his paper for his little doodles, but it’s not like he’s going to stop A-Yuan from doing anything that brings him joy. The poor boy has been through so much already, if ‘drawing like Xian-gege’ is what makes him happy, nobody is going to object, especially not Wei Wuxian.
He’s lost in thoughts of A-Yuan when a streak of blue runs in his direction and proceeds to use him as a shield. A number of boys come running from the same direction, looking around. As their eyes scan the area, he feels two fists tightening their grasp on his robes. The tight grip stays until the group of boys decide to go back the way they came from.
Wei Wuxian turns to take a closer look at the child hiding behind him. It’s a little boy with dirt smudged on his cheek. He’s sniffling and there are clear tear tracks down his cheeks, and though he’s making a valiant effort to stand tall, his hands are trembling. Immediately, Wei Wuxian crouches.
“Hey, are you alright?”, he asks the boy. “What’s your name?”
The boy sniffs, then furiously rubs his eyes. “A-Yu.”
“Nice to meet you, A-Yu,” he says.
Slowly telegraphing his movements so A-Yu can push him away at any time, he uses his sleeve to gently rub the dirt and any remaining tears away. The little boy stares at him- not flinching, but not doing anything else either
“A-Yu, do you want to tell me what’s wrong?’, he asks. When A-Yu’s eyes widen, he immediately adds. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. I promise.”
The boy sniffs again. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Hmm,” Wei Wuxian tapped his chin, pretending to be in deep thought. “Then do you want to get some candy?”
A-Yu perks up. “Candy?”
Wei Wuxian grins. “Candy,” he agrees. He points at a nearby stall selling a number of varieties of sweets. “Which one do you want?”
A-Yu points and Wei Wuxian quickly buys it for him, even carrying A-Yu when he asks. The boy's face melts into an expression of bliss as soon as the candy touches his tongue, making Wei Wuxian laugh. The boy frowns at him, then unwraps a new piece of candy and shoves it into Wei Wuxian’s mouth. It only makes him laugh harder.
As they’re walking away from the candy stall, A-Yu tucks his face into Wei Wuxian’s shoulder and mumbles something.
“Did you say something, A-Yu?” he asks, keeping his tone casual.
The boy lifts his head off of Wei Wuxian’s shoulder but makes no move to look at him, so Wei Wuxian continues to walk as he had been doing before. This seems to relax A-Yu enough to encourage him to talk.
“My cousins always call me a coward,” he says in a mournful tone. “I’m scared of worms, so they like to bring worms near me to make me scream. Then they laugh at me.”
Wei Wuxian hums comfortingly.
“My parents say I’m a big boy, so I shouldn't be scared anymore,” he continues after a moment. “But I can’t help it! Worms are scary!”
“Can I tell you something?”, Wei Wuxian asks. A-Yu nods, burying his head in the older man’s shoulder again. “I’m scared of dogs.”
At this, A-Yu’s head shot up and he looked at Wei Wuxian in disbelief. “But you’re so big! Like my parents! Grown ups aren’t allowed to be scared!”
Wei Wuxian smiles gently. “Even grown ups are scared of things. It’s okay to be scared, you know. Fear is what keeps us safe from danger.”
“So… so it’s okay to be scared? I’m not a coward?”
“It’s okay to be scared,” he confirms. “It doesn’t make you a coward.”
“Oh,” A-Yu says, his eyes wide. “It must be true if a grown up says so.”
As they round the corner, the group of boys run towards them, chanting A-Yu’s name in chorus as soon as they catch sight of him. They ignore Wei Wuxian completely as they fall over each other to be the first to talk to A-Yu.
“A-Yu, I’m sorry!” one exclaims. “I won’t make fun of you again!”
“We’re all sorry!” another one says. “We should have protected you.”
“Come back and play with us,” a third one entreats. “We promise we’ll keep the worms away from you.”
Wei Wuxian sets A-Yu down. The boy inches towards his friends, then turns and throws himself at Wei Wuxian again, hugging him around the waist.
“What’s this for?” Wei Wuxian asks, amused.
“Thank you, gege,” the boy mutters before running off with his friends, waving at Wei Wuxian, who stands there a while, thinking of the boy who had once promised to protect him from dogs.
Wei Wuxian sighs as he waits in front of the herbalist’s tiny shop. She was the closest thing Yiling had to a doctor, so when people were sick, she often had to close her shop to go to them, leaving any customers waiting. While the inhabitants of the Burial Mounds had never needed her medical abilities when they had the greatest medical mind of their generation on hand, they did need some of the herbs that refused to grow in their soil. Usually, Wen Qing was the one who bought the herbs, and she had what was either sheer luck or an uncanny ability that allowed her to know exactly when the herbalist was in. Wei Wuxian, unfortunately, had no such ability, and the past few years of his life were enough to show him that his luck was abysmal. So here he was, waiting.
As he waits, he feels a tug on his robes. Aiya, what is with all these children tugging my robes? Don’t they know any other way to get attention? At this rate, some child is going to tear a piece of it off, he laments to himself, but promptly crouches to the child’s level.
This one is a girl and she’s looking at him with determination, no hint of worry on her face. Her tugging was not urgent either, so he thinks she must not be in need of comfort. Nor does it seem likely that she is lost. He is just about to ask her what she wants when she speaks.
“Pretty-gege,” she says, flashing him a dimpled smile, “Will you carry me?”
“A-Yan!” hisses an older woman who must be the child’s caregiver. “You can’t run up to people and ask them to carry you! Apologize to the young master!”
The girl, A-Yan shakes her head definitively, flustering the woman further. She turns to apologize to Wei Wuxian herself, but before she can get the words out, A-Yan interrupts again.
“Auntie said she wouldn’t carry me because her back hurts,” she pouts. “Will pretty-gege carry me?”
The aunt looks even more embarrassed and apologetic, but before she can speak, Wei Wuxian picks A-Yan up.
“You shouldn’t trouble yourself, young master,” she says. “A-Yan is a stubborn, spoiled child and she doesn’t know how not to bother others.”
“It is no trouble, madam,” he answers, smiling softly. “I know how children can be. It is good to indulge them sometimes.”
“Only sometimes,” she says with a wry smile.
As he is about to reply, he feels A-Yan poke his cheek. He turns to look at her, showing her she has his full attention.
“Pretty-gege,” she says seriously. “Will you smile for me?”
“Smile? What for?” he asks, amusement colouring his voice at the absurd but simple demands children seem to make.
“Want to see,” she mutters.
Wei Wuxian chuckles. “Okay,” he says, then smiles at the little girl in his arms.
She brings her hands up to press against her cheek in an exaggerated motion, and he has to tighten his hold on her so she doesn’t fall.
“Wow!” she says, “Pretty-gege is even more pretty when he smiles.”
“Thank you,” he says, ducking his head slightly. “A-Yan is also very pretty.”
“No,” she shakes her head. “Not as pretty as pretty-gege.”
“True,” he concedes. “A-Yan is prettier.”
“No!” she says. Her jaw sets and she tilts her chin up in a stubborn look that wouldn’t be out of place on someone several years older than her. “Pretty-gege is most pretty.”
“I—”
“Say it!” she insists. “Say it, or A-Yan will cry.” Her lip wobbles and her eyes fill with tears almost immediately.
Wei Wuxian looks desperately at A-Yan’s aunt who is failing to hide her amusement. Children should be indulged, huh? her raised eyebrow seems to say.
“I did warn you that A-Yan is stubborn,” she says, her eyes twinkling with mirth.
He sighs. “Fine,” he huffs. “A-Yan is right.” He hopes she won’t actually make him say that he’s the prettiest, that would be beyond embarrassing and very narcissistic.
“Say it.”
And there go his hopes.
“Shall we make a deal instead?” he asks, hoping for some clemency. He cannot believe he is here, at the mercy of a child. He can imagine Wen Qing laughing if she ever finds out that he was bullied by a child not even a year older than A-Yuan.
“Deal?” she asks. Her eyes are narrowed. Wei Wuxian wonders where she learnt to act like an adult negotiator. Perhaps her family is training her to take over their business even from this very young age.
“I won’t say it, but I’ll smile at A-Yan again. How about that?”
“Hmm,” she thinks about it for a few seconds, then nods enthusiastically. “Deal,” she says.
The sight of the little girl acting so much like an adult is so adorable that Wei Wuxian doesn’t even have to try to smile again. He only stops when A-Yan begins clapping her hands in earnest, smiling back at him.
“Pretty-gege, tell me a story,” she demands. She does not ask, she demands.
He tells her a story.
Wei Wuxian is so glad no one here knows who he is. If they saw him cave to a toddler’s demands this easily, no one would ever respect or fear him again. Although perhaps that wouldn’t be a bad thing. It would certainly rehabilitate his image. Then suddenly he has the vivid mental image of a toddler held in Jin Guangshan’s arms, demanding he hand over the Yin Tiger Seal, and he quickly dismisses that train of thought.
A-Yan seems content to listen to the stories he tells her until the herbalist returns. A-Yan’s aunt listens too, occasionally laughing, even asking questions. He is in the middle of a story about the first time he stole lotus pods, careful not to mention any names, when A-Yan’s aunt informs them that they need to go.
“No!” is A-Yan’s immediate response. “Want to stay with pretty-gege!”
“A-Yan,” her aunt sighs as the child’s arms tighten around his neck. “Your gege has to go to his home too.”
“No,” she insists. “Pretty-gege will go home and forget me. I won’t leave him.”
Wei Wuxian sighs. “A-Yan…”
“Pretty-gege will forget me,” she whispers and looks so close to tears. Honestly, Wei Wuxian cannot tell if she’s faking it this time.
“Shall we make another deal, A-Yan?”, he asks. She perks up immediately, but her eyes are still watery. “The next time we meet, I will get you a gift.”
“Promise?”, she asks. “Pretty-gege will come again?”
“I promise,” he says.
A-Yan finally agrees to go back home with her aunt. She waves enthusiastically at him until they turn the bend.
Wei Wuxian sighs again. So much for not telling Wen Qing. If he asks to be the one who bought the herbs occasionally, she is bound to ask questions. He resigns himself to being mocked about this for years to come.
It had been Wen Ning’s idea that in addition to selling crops, they could benefit from some supplemental income. Selling talismans was, of course, out of the question. Not only would it draw undue attention to them as cultivators, there were enough people pretending to be the Yiling Patriarch’s disciples to sell their fake talismans. There was no guarantee that people would buy their talismans over anyone else's. When Wen Qing and Wei Wuxian had pointed this out, Wen Ning revealed that he had actually intended that they sell paintings or trinkets.
A few of the Wens had apparently trained in jewellery making, and in the absence of precious metals or jade, they began making jewellery out of beads. Few more of them were well-versed in the art of making lanterns, some others contributed wood carvings. Wei Wuxian himself began to paint some of the more beautiful things he had seen in the past— the tall mountains of Gusu, the warm summers of Lotus Pier, the bold architecture of Qinghe. They found that this stall was often more profitable, though it was anyone’s guess whether this was due to the variety or the quality of what they sold.
Once the stall really took off, one day a month, Wei Wuxian would man the stall himself. He would do his painting there, while also offering to sketch the portraits of anyone who was willing to pay for it. Many of his customers, first time visitors to Yiling would marvel at the accuracy of his portraits, but complain about the price. This amused Wei Wuxian who wondered if them finding out that their portrait was painted by the Yiling Patriarch would increase its value in their eyes, or if that would make them summarily burn the portrait.
One consistent event that occurred every month was that a number of children would gather around to watch him paint. They would crowd round him in excitement and clamor for his attention in a way that Wei Wuxian found extremely adorable. They were easily impressed too, in his opinion. They ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’ every one of his paintings, watching with fascination even when he painted a place they had never seen, and never might see. He had offered to teach them, but all of them had refused.
“Our parents will force us to learn when we’re older, gege,” seven-year-old A-Li had told him once. “We don’t want to paint, we just want to watch you do it. You’re so talented!”
As the rest of them chimed in to agree, Wei Wuxian had simply laughed and continued to paint.
Without fail, every time, the parents would show up to pull their kids away, and the children would beg and whine and plead to watch just one more painting. Some of them had to be physically dragged away from Wei Wuxian’s stall because it was their bed time, or because they were running late for a visit.
“It’s like you’re stealing our children,” a merchant had said laughingly to Wei Wuxian one day. “They would probably go to you without complaints.”
Wei Wuxian had laughed very uncomfortably at that. The man would probably say those same words if he knew who he was really speaking to, except they wouldn’t be filled with so much good cheer. It would probably be a rallying cry to unite everyone in baying for his blood.
He was sort-of stealing the children of Yiling, wasn’t he? But he had never intended to do it. It had just… happened, like most things in his life. At least this wasn’t a bad thing, just unexpected.