When Wen Ning is rapped on the head, it isnāt as if he feels pain, any longer, and yet itās only human to react to impacts and blows before the body even processes any pain - so it is that Wen Ning says, mildly,Ā āAi,ā before another human instinct, this time of startle, makes him blink even though he doesnāt need to.
āI - I would follow Young Master Wei anywhere,ā is what he says, and itās true, both because he would willingly follow him and because if he were summoned he would respond whether he desired to or not.
At the genuine question and the ensuing silence where Wen Ning realizes heās meant to actually answer, he hesitates and thinks about it. What doesĀ he think about this place?
āI donāt u-understand it,ā he says, simply.Ā āAny of it.ā
He was a simple fierce corpse, after all, only a little less simple because he could speak as he does now, but still a corpse.
Wen Ning is not much given to melancholy, if only because he understands that there is little point to it, anymore, but Wei Wuxian has asked, and so Wen Ning acquiesces.Ā āI⦠want to be home.ā
Home, of course, being a vague and nebulous term that he does not explain.
āI do not want to live under the water.ā
As if suddenly aware heās complaining, he stands up straight and would have blushed if he could.Ā āWh - what about you, Young Master Wei? Have you been alright?ā
That was, after all, what was more important here, wasnāt that so?
At Wen Ningās admission of his own lack of understanding, Wei Wuxian shrugs. āIād like to see even someone from the Lan or Jin sect explain all of this,ā he says, waving his hands around dismissively.Ā āIf any of them could, then my last name wouldnāt be Wei any more.ā Itās simply not something that a cultivator would ever give thought to---as far as he knows, this is a first for them all.Ā
Although it leads him to wonder whether or not the sects have noticed them missing, and he feels himself smile in spite of himself at the sort of commotion that would stir up: the Yiling Patriarch and his fiercest corpse, disappearing into thin air? He can imagine Jiang Chengās face turning red at the spectacle.
His smile drops at the next words out of Wen Ningās mouth, though. The Burial Mounds as we knew it are gone, too, his brain helpfully supplies, but he doesnāt say it aloud; Wen Ning knows it as well as he does that thereās nothing left on that hill but the cold graves it was meant to be composed of from the start. Instead, he sighs and laces his fingers casually behind his head.Ā "Home... well, who knows? Maybe one day theyāll get tired of hosting us here and send us back. Although, arenāt you sick of having to tail me and Hanguang-jun all the time? The cultivational sects are all after us, too.ā
He flashes a look at Wen Ning when the subject changes, expression unreadable for a moment, but then grins as brightly as usual.Ā āWen Ning, you should know by now that Iām like a cockroach. Wherever I get put, Iāll be sure to go as wild as I please.ā Mere days after arriving and heās already made himself quite at home, arguing with shopkeepers, wandering where he wants.Ā āIām sure that if Lan Qiren could see, heād faint from shock.ā