Work Text:
Standing in front of the ominous cave mouth, Mo Xuanyu took a moment to re-examine his map. Was he really meant to come here, of all places…? To put it nicely, the place was a desolate wasteland.
Surely, if the Yiling Patriarch had somehow lived, he wouldn’t have chosen somewhere so… drab. At the very least there should’ve been some signs of life — or perhaps unlife — but there was nothing.
He took a moment to consider that this may have been a mistake after all. The cloaked man who had given him the map — with enough flourish that Mo Xuanyu could practically see him winking, despite never catching a glimpse of his face — must’ve been some kind of scam artist. There was no way—
The sharp whistle of a flute broke through his train of thought.
Holy shit.
Before he could even think of what to say, a way to assure that he meant no harm, that he wasn’t with the cultivators that had hunted the man down all those years ago, a shadowy figure made its way out of the cave. Mo Xuanyu’s first thought was that the man must’ve been very attractive in his prime. His second thought was that the man needed some food in him yesterday. His third thought was holy shit— I’m going to die and I won’t even be able to try and get revenge on my family, what the fuck was I thinking!?
His fourth thought was much calmer. A simple acknowledgement that he hadn’t been killed yet, and how weird that was. His fifth was more akin to panicked screaming than it was anything coherent.
In spite of it all, Mo Xuanyu was able to stumble out his planned speech. His words of sympathy towards the patriarch’s plight; his own mistreatment at the hands of a lot of the same people who had caused the man’s initial downfall; his pleas for assistance in getting revenge on his abusive family, and how he would end up dead if he couldn’t get them first, since getting away for good was clearly a pipe dream with Mo Xuanyu’s dogshit reputation — how he would help the man with whatever he wished in return, he just needed a way out—
“…Kid, what the hell are you talking about?”
A beat. A moment of silence, complete silence, not even a pesky thought to disturb it.
“…”
“…”
“Kid…?”
“Well, yeah. What are you, seventeen? Eighteen?”
“I’m twenty-seven!”