Shooting Star [Never Let You Go, Again Book 2]

39: Love Is Gone

Bam! Bang! Wham! Crash!

On and on.

Wei Wuxian flailed his fists at the tree trunk, punching with all his might and exerting all his energy, tears splashing all over the place. On the sixth punch, the tree finally toppled over.

Wei Wuxian sighed and looked at his fists. Blackened knuckles bled profusely, the muscles in his fingers swollen and red. But he shuffled to the next tree and repeated the punching.

Thud! Thud! One by one, at six punches each, tree by tree fell onto the tufts of grass and the bunnies scattered away to safety while their mad second master went on crashing through half the forest.

**********

Wei Wuxian sat amidst the bunnies. Both Rouruan and Little Ying snuggled up to him. The entire cluster of bunnies was silent and sad: they seemed to sense the loss of their esteemed master. So they clung onto their second master as close as they could as though they were afraid he would let go too.

Wei Ying stroked every last one of them as he stared at the rock beside the river in front of him. He'd brought Wangji from the Jingshi and placed it here. Bichen lay beside him. Chenqing sat on his lap. For the past two days, he'd spent day and night, not eating, not sleeping, just playing Inquiry on his flute. Having played incessantly for fifty hours, he gave himself a break and sat there, looking up at the night sky.

A-Zhan, you liar, promise-breaker, heart-tearer, falsifier, idiot. I don't care what gege and A-Cheng say.

The whole world claimed me dead and yet you waited. So why can't I? Hmph, so there!

Someday you'll remember this terrible husband of yours. I'll wait till then, Wei Wuxian sulked as he picked up Chenqing to resume calling out.

And guess what? I beat you! You've got thirty-three, I've got thirty-six altogether! How's that? He wiped the tears streaming down his face with a shivering chuckle.

I've broken my own promises to you three times. So there are three extra whips. You, my sweet lying lover, are getting one too when you come back. How about I give it myself? A nice little scrape from a fingernail should do...

You... You will come back, won't you?

He played the gentle music with intermittent pieces from Our Song — the melody that was theirs, to which he still didn't know the real name, so he called it Our Song instead.

For two and a half months, he stayed in the forest, playing Chenqing, staring up at the night sky occasionally. Until one night, his two friends came to find him.

"Wei Wuxian?" A gentle and deep voice echoed from within the thicket as the man and his husband approached him.

Sighing, Wei Wuxian turned his head to nod to them. "Hua Cheng, Xie Lian, hello."

"Hello," they mumbled as they sat beside him.

"Wei Wuxian," Xie Lian shuffled closer to him and put an arm around his shoulder. "Goodness, look at you..."

Wei Wuxian's hands were still bleeding. The thirty-six scars across his back were bright red, thirty-three of them only just dried up. He had discarded his shirt long ago, because it was getting drenched with his blood.

Xie Lian shuddered. He gave Wei Ying's hollow cheeks, black eye orbits and bony body a distressed once-over. "You better start eating. Or at least resting."

"How do you know?" Wei Wuxian asked, not really looking at them but staring up, counting the stars.

"We've been watching you for quite some time now. Though I can't bear it anymore so forgive me for interrupting your Mourning Session. But you've got to eat and rest!"