Chapter Text
It was a very tiring few years for Wen Li, his son Wen Ning is constantly crying. Wen Li knows little A-Ning wants his mother and that he misses her. Wen Li knows that, but he can’t do anything about it but sometimes cry along with A-Ning as he misses his wife dearly too.
Wen Li sighed wearily. At least he still had his daughter and son with him, he should be thankful, and he loves them, he really does, but sometimes it gets a bit too hard for him to stay with them for long periods of time, especially as his daughter, Wen Qing, grows to resemble his wife more and more each day. So to escape his own thoughts he decided to go for a night walk.
He was walking down the streets of a village under control of some small sect. He and a few of his subordinates were sent to patrol several villages to ‘check’ on the sects in charge of those villages. If you ask Wen Li, he would tell you that ‘check’ is just a fancy word for ‘control’ in the Wen dictionary. Luckily this was the last village they had to stay in, because of the orders he had to drag his daughter and his son along with himself onto the mission, as he didn’t want to leave them alone at home.
Wen Li shook his head, he really doesn’t approve of the growing obsession for power in the Qishan Wen Sect, but there really is nothing he could possibly do to stop it, he just prays that nothing will happen to his children in the inevitable backlash.
He was so lost in his thoughts that he nearly missed the soft whimpering of a child in between the barking of dogs. ‘What could a child possibly be doing on the streets in the middle of the night? Are they lost?’ Wen Li worried in his mind as he hurried into the direction of the child’s soft pleas for help, something wasn’t right.
As he turned a corner into a narrow alley, he was met with a sight of two dogs fighting over a half-eaten bun on the ground and another dog was tearing into a small child, who was curled up into himself, unable to fight back anymore, tears constantly streaming down his cheeks and small whimpers escaping from his shuddering form.
‘Oh no,’ Wen Li rushed into the alley to chase the dogs away, stomping his feet on the ground and shouting to leave the child alone, on the way. He didn’t really care if he woke anyone up by the noise he was making, anyway, as soon as they see his Qishan Wen Sects robes they will leave him alone.
The dogs got scared by the new unexpected presence of an adult human and quickly scrambled to run out of the alley, leaving the child and the half-eaten bun behind.
Wen Li hurried towards the child and reached out to check if he was ok, but before he could touch him, the kid flinched away, as if afraid he’ll get hit.
‘I shouldn’t have rushed towards him like that, I must have scared him.’ Deciding on a different approach, Wen Li slowly sat down in front of the kid, to appear less threatening.
“Hey there little one, I am not going to hurt you.” slowly he moved himself closer towards the kid, “My name is Wen Li, what about you, what’s your name?”
The kid hesitated at first but then murmured “..ing.”
“Sorry, I didn’t hear, what did you say?”
The boy looked up at Wen Li, he looked less wary of him now, he repeated, “Wei Ying, my name is Wei Ying.”
“Well, Wei Ying, I want to help you, will you let me look at the bite marks, so that I can make them better?”
After a moment, Wei Ying nodded, only then did Wen Li reach out to examine Wei Ying’s wounds. As he examined the kids' arms and legs, he said, “Luckily the bites aren’t too deep, so you won’t need stitches, but there are a lot of them, so some bite marks might get infected.” Wen Li looked up, back at Wei Ying. “I will need to clean them with some herbs, but sadly I don’t have any on me right now, I will have to run back to the room I am staying in to get some, could you wait for me h-” he got interrupted by Wei Ying grabbing his robes.
“Don’t leave.” Wei Ying was shaking, “Please.”
Seeing the clear distress on the child’s face Wen Li softened his voice and asked:
“You don’t have to be scared, I won’t leave you.” After a pause, “Where are your parents A-Ying, I could bring you to them?”
A-Ying shook his head “Don’t know.” his little fist tightened around Wen Li’s robe. “They said to wait and that they will come back, but they never did.”
“It’s ok A-Ying, I am not going to leave you here, I just need to go grab some herbs and I’ll be back before you know it, promise.” Wei Ying continued to shake his head, not letting go of the robe.
“A-Ying..I-”
“Please, don’t leave me alone, please, I am scared.” Wei Ying pleaded.
Wen Li sighed, he couldn’t possibly say no now. He smiled gently “Alright A-Ying, how about I take you with me to treat your wounds?”
Wei Ying looked up at Wen Li, hope blooming in his eyes, and quickly nodded.
Wen Li spread his arms “Come here then, I am going to carry you.” Wei Ying quickly climbed into Wen Li’s embrace, wincing in pain once or twice, but still settling down.
It took them a while to get to the inn, he rented for himself and his subordinates, as he tried not to jostle Wei Ying too much. Finally, when they reached the inn, Wen Li quietly snuck up the stairs and into his room, luckily without anyone seeing him. Who knows what kind of rumours would have spread if anyone saw him smuggling a child in the middle of the night.
He closed the door behind himself as he entered his room. Wen Li briskly walked towards the bed and gently placed Wei Ying on top of it.
“I am going to search for the herbs, ok? Sit here.” Wen Li turned around, lit the candles with a spell, and started rummaging through the cabinet.
Just as Wen Li pulled out a small bag of medicinal herbs from the cabinet, he heard the sound of the door opening and a soft sleepy “Papa?”
He looked in the direction of the noise and saw a small figure standing in front of an opened door.
“A-Ning? What are you doing here, why aren’t you asleep? It’s very late, you should go rest with your sister.”
He shuffled a bit, not looking up. “I couldn’t, couldn’t sleep, waited for y-you.” came a hesitant reply from little Wen Ning. Finally looking up, A-Ning noticed another person in the room, which made him even more nervous. He shyly asked:
“Wh-who is that?”
Looking back at Wei Ying, who was watching Wen Ning curiously, Wen Li answered:
“That’s Wei Ying, he got hurt by some dogs on the streets, so I brought him back to make him better.”
As soon as A-Ning heard that Wei Ying got hurt, his shyness evaporated and got replaced by worry.
“You got hurt by doggies?” Wen Ning quickly walked towards Wei Ying “Oh no, ar-are you fine? Does it- does it hurt?”
Wen Ning has a tendency of forgetting about his own worries and fears as soon as he sees someone else distressed or in trouble. Wen Li chuckled as he approached the unique pair.