Fluffy WangXian Oneshots Book Two

The Voice of the Soul Part 2

CONTENT WARNING: BULLYING, NAME CALLING, FIGHTING THOUGH I HAVE TRIED TO IMPLY IT AS OPPOSED TO GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION. If you are worried about this, please ignore everything up until the section that starts with: Wei Ying isn't even sure why he was hanging around outside the Lan Manor.

There is a summary at the end of the chapter with all the important bits, though.

Intro

The days pass by and before Lan Zhan can stop and think about them, it is the weekend that he's been looking forward to, ever since the Monday when the school term started. He's by the lockers, getting his backpack and any other books he might need, when he's violently shoved from behind, banging his shoulder into the unforgiving metal.

Lan Zhan whirls around, fists clenched, and adrenaline running high.

It's Wen Chao and his cronies.

All week they've been hounding him since P.E. just because he refused to change with the other boys in the gym locker room, and that had started the name calling. A boy called Jin ZiXun and another, Su MinShan, told Wen Chao about the mute boy who didn't talk, and since then, Wen Chao had been on Lan Zhan's case, trying to get a rise out of him.

Tonight, they've been lying in wait, it seems.

Five versus one...not bad odds, but not great either.

Wen Chao steps forward with a sneer making him look even uglier, if that was possible.

"Not gonna say anything, Lan. Wang. Ji.?" He slowly enunciates each part of Lan Zhan's name, a taunting mockery. "Hmm...I wonder what it will take to get you to say something? Maybe if we hurt you real bad...what then? Will you scream?" He chuckles to himself, and his minions laugh along as if what he said was actually funny.

"Let's rip up his assignment books!" Su MinShan says with a glower, no doubt remembering when Lan Zhan refused to answer him when he offered to take him out for ice cream on Tuesday night.

Lan Zhan wants to put him in his place, put all these would-be thugs in their place. But fighting on school property is a sure-fire way of getting expelled, at the very least, a suspension. Uncle Qiren will not like that one bit.

Jin ZiXun suddenly lunges forward and yanks off the bunny keychain from Lan Zhan's backpack. His mother had given that to him.

For a second, Lan Zhan's heart drops to his feet, and he feels chills all over.

"Give that back." He says clearly, not knowing where the strength to speak has come from, but maybe it's a fight or flight instinctual response to being threatened. That bunny keychain was the last gift his mother had given him, a few days before she passed away.

They hoot and holler like a pack of jackals, wild and reckless and willing to push Lan Zhan to his limits.

"Oooooh! He speaks!" Wen Chao cackles and high fives Jin ZiXun for achieving what they haven't been able to up until now. Then the smile disappears from his face as a calculated look takes over his expression. "Or What?" he says, stalking closer.

Lan Zhan is ready to punch him. He keeps Jin ZiXun in his periphery, who is tossing the poor little plastic bunny up into the air and catching it again in his dirty fingers, while simultaneously watching Wen Chao.

Wen Chao shoves Lan Zhan's shoulder, and Lan Zhan lets it go one time, thinking hard and trying to come up with a solution that doesn't involve punching anyone's lights out. But as Wen Chao tries to do it again, he's shoved back by a huge black backpack with a red bunny embroidered on the back pocket.