67 The Nine-tailed Fox makes a friend

When Wu Yun finds Lan Tian he doesn't know how to tell him what he found in the diary, but he drops it at his feet, and yips, jumping up and down on his front legs.

Lan Tian picks up the diary, and then looks into Wu Yun's anxious dark eyes. "Do you want me to take this to Lu Jiao?"

Wu Yun wiggles his tails and swivels his ears sideways, in a way he hopes convey affirmation.

Lan Tian chuckles and picks him up under the arm, as if he weights nothing. "Let's go then, little fox."

Wu Yun would have bitten his fingers if he wasn't so worried about what he read in Zou Qiao's diary, it gnaws at him like a living thing.

Lan Tian notices his unusual stillness and hurries his steps.

---

The calm rustle of the wind through the bamboo shoots just outside Lu Jiao's rooms is at odds with the charged atmosphere inside.

The frown between Lu Jiao's eyebrows deepens with each passage of the diary Bai Xiaoli reads out loud, over her shoulder, mostly for Lan Tian's benefit.

 When she gets to the last entry Lu Jiao sighs deeply, and supports her forehead on her open palms. 

"This is all my fault. I'm the one who sent Zou Qiao to Immortal Mountain all those years ago, when Fei Lin first started complaining he was becoming unmanageable. I just assumed he was bored. I never even asked him if something was happening."

If Wu Yun could speak, he would agree that some parcel of guilt does fall on her shoulders.

"And this Huang Yin? You've really never heard of her?" Lan Tian asks.

Lu Jiao shakes her head. "There has never been anyone in Kunlun going by that name. Fei Lin wasn't ignoring Zou Qiao, in that regard. Huang Yin never existed."

"But he started having the dreams about her before ever going to Immortal Mountain, so does that mean Lian Feng got her hands on him before that?" Bai Xiaoli asks, frowning as she leafs through the diary.

"It's possible, he was always restless, never seemed to fit in or have many friends, so Fei Lin sent him on errands outside often. They could have happened upon him in one of those instances, and implanted the false memories on him," Lu Jiao says.

"This means Zou Qiao was lying, we need to find him before he manages to get in touch with Lian Feng," Bai Xiaoli says, her hand hovering just over Lu Jiao's shoulder, as if she wants to comfort her, but doesn't yet dare touch her.

"I don't think he's going to find her to cause harm to Kunlun," Lan Tian says.

Nestled in his arms, Wu Yun yips, and waves his tails. He shares the same opinion. It fills him with warmth to know that even without communicating he and Lan Tian can still agree.

"Based on what he told you, and on his actions in the past days, I think he now believes that Immortal Mountain were the ones to harm Huang Yin," he says, while scratching underneath Wu Yun's chin. "Wu Yun thinks so, too."

Lu Jiao sighs again. "You might be right, in any case, we still have to find him, before he acts rashly. We're already preparing for a possible confrontation, but it wouldn't be good to escalate things."

Wu Yun wonders what preparations Lu Jiao is making, but he's currently unable to be as nosy as he would like to, and he knows Lan Tian is too polite to ask himself. 

What Lan Tian does is offer to continue helping. "We can try and find Zou Qiao, but he wasn't in the Foxes' Burrow."

"We need to stop him before he does something he might regret," Lu Jiao says.

---

Zou Qiao doesn't seem to be anywhere. Which makes Wu Yun frantic with dread. 

He runs through what seems like all of Kunlun looking for him, without much success. All the while he climbs ever improbable heights, and gets his fur dirty with all manner of dirt and grass, his mind is spinning with the atrocities Immortal Mountain is committing. 

It's impossible for him to wrap his mind around Ling Yan belonging to that sect. Could he really talk, and feel so fondly about them, knowing they were doing all that?

Or is this a much more recent development? Can it have started when Lian Feng became sect leader? Or maybe this is why Ling Yan killed his own Shizun. Could it be that he found out the truth about his former sect and couldn't stomach it?

His mind is spinning with possibilities, when he remembers the one place he hasn't searched yet. 

Lan Tian has been keeping pace with him, humouring him by following him to every nook and cranny he wants to explore.

He's curious when he sees Wu Yun suddenly change directions. "Where are you going?"

Wu Yun jumps up and down, long muzzle pointing at the sky. Lan Tian shakes his head, he still doesn't understand.

Wu Yun huffs and bites the bottom of his robes, to drag him along. He'll understand once he gets there.

Lan Tian lets himself be pulled, without offering any resistance. "What a determined little fox," he says, smiling down at the way Wu Yun's tails twitch with the effort of pulling him along.

He might believe Wu Yun is choosing to ignore his teasing, but Wu Yun is just lulling him into a false sense of security, because he plans to get back at him as soon as they are alone, and the present crisis is averted.

He finally comes to a stop in front of the spidery stairway carved into the side of the Dragon's Roost. 

"You think he's up there?" Lan Tian asks.

Wu Yun sits down on his hind legs and nods. It's the only place they haven't looked yet, and everyone they asked was adamant they didn't see Zou Qiao leaving.

"Go ahead then, you might have an easier time getting to him than me." He goes down to his knees and pets Wu Yun's long ears. "Feel free to bite him, if he proves too unreasonable."

Wu Yun runs up the stairs thinking that what Zou Qiao needs right now is a friendly ear, he wonders if he can be that.

---

As he suspected, there's a lone figure on top of the cliff, sitting under that solitary tree by the small pond. His feet are hanging over the edge, with only the blue of the abyss to welcome him, if he were to jump.

Wu Yun approaches him carefully, but one of Zou Qiao's ears still twitches backwards when he hears him approach.

"Who are you?" he asks, tilting his head to the side, trying to see a familiar face in Wu Yun's fox form.

Wu Yun sits down at his side and uses his paw to write his name in the soft dirt at his feet. It's terrible, even for the standards of his admittedly awful calligraphy, but Zou Qiao manages to understand it.

"Ah, Yun-ge, it's good that you're getting your powers back," he says, smiling sadly. "Us foxes are powerless enough as it is."

His words make something sour settle in the pit of his stomach, he can't even imagine the depths of hopelessness Zou Qiao must be feeling.

"Did sect leader Lu Jiao ask you to find me?" he asks.

Wu Yun nods, after a moment of indecisiveness. 

"Then she must know already, about what I helped Lian Feng do, what I did."

It's not a question, but Wu Yun still nods.

Zou Qiao's sigh is as heavy as a mountain. "Do you believe that I really didn't know what I was doing? That I thought I was helping?"

He remembers the words in that diary vividly. They were raw and artless, and above all, brimming with loneliness. Wu Yun nods again.

"You might be the only one who does." Zou Qiao's smile is mirthless. "It's hard to explain, but when you've felt like an outsider in your own family, in your own clan, for so long, and then someone shows up, saying that you're special, that you're important, it makes you want to believe everything they say."

Wu Yun doesn't know what he means. He has never been alone, ever since he developed conscience, it's been him and Lan Tian. That kind of bone-deep loneliness is not something he ever experienced.

Although, he suspects Ling Yan came to understand it intimately. 

"I wanted to prove my worth so much, and in the end, the only thing I did was prove how right everyone was to ignore me. Their instincts were better than mine, all along." Zou Qiao is smiling as he says all this, but the words seem to choke him. 

He seems to have reflected deeply about everything that led him here, to the edge of this cliff, but Wu Yun isn't sure if he reached the right conclusions. He bumps his head against his arm, he wants Zou Qiao to understand that no one was right to ignore, or dismiss him. Lest of all him.

Zou Qiao smiles and it almost reaches his eyes. He runs his fingers down the soft fur on Wu Yun's flank. "Yun-ge, have you ever felt so guilty you thought it would swallow you whole?"

That is a feeling Wu Yun is familiar with. He doesn't know if it's all him, a natural propensity for guilt and remorse, or something that he and Ling Yan have in common. But ever since Jiang Tanmei fell dead in Lu Meng's arms, guilt has been a constant companion.

He nods, and Zou Qiao closes his eyes, inhaling deeply. "How can you bear it?"

Wu Yun tries, as best as he can, to make the words legible. "Try to make it right."

"Yes, I suppose that's the only thing to do," Zou Qiao says, looking out at the distant horizon.

They remain silent for a long time, until Zou Qiao finally says, "I should get going, I've been taking too much of Yun-ge's time."

Wu Yun shakes his head, and writes simply "friends."

Zou Qiao's first genuine smile is heartbreaking. "Friends," he says out loud. "I would like that.

Wu Yun hurries to write, "don't leave Kunlun, everything will be fixed", but Zou Qiao is already shaking his head before he can even finish.

"Yun-ge doesn't need to worry about me, I won't be making the same mistakes. I'll be going first, enjoy the rest of your day."

Wu Yun watches him leave, and wonders how many people must have failed Zou Qiao for him to have learned how to smile through his pain so well.

---

Lan Tian informs Lu Jiao that Zou Qiao has been located, and that he's fine, before taking a dispirited Wu Yun back to their rooms, where he promptly curls up on himself among the soft sheets.

"Where is your smile little fox?" Lan Tian asks, petting the fur over Wu Yun's back. "Aren't you happy that you managed to find Zou Qiao safe and sound?"

Wu Yun sighs, making the dainty bones of his forelegs rise. 

"Such a big sigh for such a small fox," Lan Tian says, and on the next pass of his hand Wu Yun snaps his head around to nip at his fingers.

"This is probably the first time, you don't have a smart answer for me," Lan Tian says, trying to pet Wu Yun again. "I almost miss it."

Wu Yun really wishes he was able to speak, so he could tell Lan Tian how much he's going to torture him for making fun of him all day. He knows he's the one who started it, but Lan Tian is always the bigger person, why couldn't he continue the trend?

Just as he's thinking that, he feels that searing pain again, and has to shut his eyes in a whimper. When he opens them again, his eyes are almost level with Lan Tian.

He's naked in the bed, and he doesn't miss the way Lan Tian's gaze is immediately drawn to the curve of his spine, the swell of his ass.

That gives him an idea, and he smirks, looking up at Lan Tian from under his full lashes.