fkyb:

9) a penny, a witch, a dangerous deal

Tags : character death (past), magic au

They call her a witch.

Zhu Hong doesn’t mind; if they knew what she can do, what she has done, they would call her worse things. She knows magic, she knows its price and most importantly, she knows what she owes and what she is due. She never shied away from this, and that’s the catch, isn’t it?

People come to her with their impossible wishes and their impossible dreams, and blame her when the price is too high. It is only as high as your demand, she says every single time. Magic is fair, magic is balance, she explains every single time. Be careful what you wish for, she warns every single time.

It’s not as bad now as it was when she began practicing out of her hut in the woods. Back then, she was alone with Da Qing: two kindred spirits, lucky enough to have found each other among the humans surrounding them. As the years passed, her reputation grew along with the rooms she added to her little hut and with the number of people she let in. She saved them, one by one, and now they’re hers. Magic has a price, and Zhu Hong knows what she owes and what she is due.

“Someone for you,” Ge Lan calls from the herbs garden at the front of the house. There’s no need to specify who ‘you’ is; visitors only ever come for her. Zhu Hong says nothing, and Ge Lan knows to let the visitor wait by the fence.

She settles in the shadows of the doorway, hidden from a passing glance but not from prying eyes. It is the second test; the first one is to come to her. The man by the fence is tall, dark-haired and grubby looking. She takes him in and closes her eyes. She sees the face of a beautiful man, dearly beloved, his eyes full of laughter, and she sees a grave on a sunny day, with a fist pounding the freshly dug earth.

Dark eyes find hers quickly, and she steps back inside her house.

“Come in,” she calls.

Zhu Hong makes enough noise in the kitchen to guide her visitor by the sound alone. She rattles her pots and pans and mugs, and throws dried tea leaves into her ever-boiling pot of water.

“Good morning,” she says when the visitor stills in the doorway.

“Hey,” the man answers. His voice sounds rough, like it hasn’t been used in a while, maybe except for screaming at the sky at the unfairness of it all. She hears breathless laughter and soft ‘I love you’s, she hears his sharp inhale every morning when he wakes up and remembers. Oh, she thinks, I won’t be able to walk away from this one.

“Please, take a seat,” she says, motioning to the wooden chairs and table by the wall. “My name’s Zhu Hong,” she adds when he sits.

“I know,” he says. “That’s why I’m here,” he smiles tiredly, and she thinks he must have been very handsome, before the grief.

He extends his hand to her. “I’m Zhao Yunlan.” She grasps his palm, curious to know more about him and what brings him to her. With a touch, she feels the impossible pain in his heart and bones and soul and she reels back, as if she were burned.

“Ah,” he says with a bashful smile. “It’s true, then, what they say about you. I’m sorry, I should have warned you.”

“How long has it been?” Zhu Hong asks.

“It will be a year next week.”

“And you still feel this much pain?”

“Ah, it used to be worse,” he shrugs. “I can talk without screaming my throat raw now.”

Zhu Hong brings him a steaming mug of tea in silence. She’s witnessed great suffering almost like this one before, but the sufferers always let themselves die. It is too much to bear, and the price she asks is too high to pay.

“Tell me what you want,” she says once both of their mugs are empty. She already knows, it can’t be anything else, but she has to ask.

“My husband is dead. I want him back,” Zhao Yunlan states simply.

“Magic is about balance,” she says. “It can only give as much as you can pay,” she explains. “I’ll write you the price. Come back in three days if you find it fair.”

“I don’t care about the price. I’m ready to die if it means he’ll be alive again.”

“Come back in three days,” she repeats. She writes him the price, one of the highest she’s ever asked for, but she has no choice, and she knows Zhao Yunlan will be back in three days.

“You owe me a penny for the tea.” She knows what she is due, always.

“You’ll have it in three days.”

You made me cry, you talented witch!!! 😭😭 I knew I made a dangerous deal when I sent you that ask. I love how you made Shen Wei so tangible just through Yunlan’s grief. And I love this Zhu Hong. I’d definitely read the hell out of anything you feel like writing about her. I’m gonna shut up know and read this for the 20th time… and cry some more!!!