Hi my dearest readers,🤗
This is a special work I started to celebrate the birthdays of our favorite couple and also the other members of SID. As there was no specific dates mentioned in the story, I'm using the actual birthday dates of the actors w...
It's the Fourth Uncle who lets them in. Zhao Xin Ci steps into the hut, letting the curtain in the doorway fall shut behind him, and then they're alone in the dimly lit room. Alone with his son's body.
Slowly, reluctantly, Xin Ci crosses the room to where Yun Lan's laid out on a long, sturdy table. The people of the Snake tribe did their best washing his body and cleaning his wounds but the history of what's been done to him in the last twenty-four hours is clearly written on his bruised and battered skin.
He suffered terribly, Zhang Shi whispers deep inside Xin Ci's mind. His voice's very small, very quiet.
Xin Ci doesn't reply. He doesn't need to. They both saw Ye Zun's broadcast, they both - together with all the Haixing - bore witness as the Dixing leader tortured Yun Lan, for his own pleasure, to make a point...
Tears burn in Xin Ci's eyes when he reaches out and rests his hand on Yun Lan's forehead. His son's skin, pale and lifeless, is cold to the touch despite the stifling heat of the room. Yun Lan's been dead for hours now, gone from this life.
Will you let me fulfill his wish? Zhang Shi asks, looking down through Xin Ci's eyes at the young man he considered his son, too, Xin Ci knows.
Could I stop you? Xin Ci asks back.
There's a pause. Then, No. But I hoped to do this with your blessing. It was his last request of us.
Xin Ci swallows hard, blinking hard, as he gently strokes Yun Lan's hair. He hasn't touched his son like this, with love and tenderness, for more years than he cares to admit, even to himself. And now it's too late. Too late for amends.
Be good to him, Zhang Shi, he tells the alien inside him. Yun Lan isn't here anymore but... be good to him. Treat his body with respect and kindness, fulfill his legacy and make him proud. Please.
I will, I give you my word, old friend, Zhang Shi replies earnestly.
Xin Ci nods.
And then, then he can feel the alien that's been a part of him for so many years gather himself at Xin Ci's core and slither down Xin Ci's outstretched arm and through his hand and fingers into Yun Lan's body–
That gasps loudly, its eyes flying open, as its dead heart starts beating again.
Xin Ci feels empty, hollow without his alien friend inhabiting the hidden corners of his mind. And as Yun Lan's body sits up slowly, haltingly, as it stretches and breathes again, he feels all the emptier and hollower. Because the body might be alive again - but Yun Lan isn't.
This isn't his son. His son's dead and he's not coming back.
