WIP preview I guess? (Guardian)

[extrapenguin]

Have a fic snippet I wrote ex tempore!

Of the majority of people who had soulmates, every one of them had their soulmate's name written on their left wrist. The name would be written clearly and legibly, and every single person who had a soulmate could find theirs with the help of asking people or, in the modern era, the internet.

Everyone, that is, save Zhao Yunlan.

His soulmate's name was written clearly and legibly on his left wrist – in a script no-one could read. He'd gotten a degree in ancient scripts, and based on that, he could guess that the script was alphabetic, but none of his professors could figure out anything beyond that.

He'd mostly made his peace with it, though. After all, it wasn't like everyone had a soulmate, so whether or not he was the one making intimate first contact with aliens, as some of his classmates had once suggested, he had plenty of short-term relationships to have if he felt like it.

So when he was at Dragon City University with the hapless new recruit and met a hot professor, he of course went right for the soulmate reference to figure out whether the hot prof would be potentially amenable. "Shen Wei? That's a very good name! I bet your soulmate is overjoyed to have it on their wrist."

Shen Wei let out a sound of dejection and a betrayed expression spread on his face. "I-"

"Ah, sorry, sorry, I shouldn't have assumed." Zhao Yunlan put on an apologetic expression and noted that Shen Wei still hadn't released his hand. At his pointed gaze Shen Wei finally released it. Interesting; the professor shouldn't be this flustered. "Wasn't it that one in ten people don't have a soulmark? Chatting to you has been nice, but alas, I must now go follow other leads. Here's my business card. If you have any worries or clues, please call."

"Of course," Shen Wei said, gripping the business card to his chest like a maiden in some period drama who'd just received a handwritten note signed by her soulmate.

Zhao Yunlan waved as he led his entourage elsewhere. Far enough that he knew Shen Wei wouldn't hear, he stuck a lollipop in his mouth and said, "That was weird."

"Yeah," Da Qing said, now back in his human form. "What the hell is up with him?"

"M-maybe his soulmate died tragically while saving him from a traffic accident?" Guo Changcheng offered, and okay, that would explain someone having a strong reaction to offhand comments about soulmates, but not the type of reaction Shen Wei had had.

Even mulling it over a bit in his mind didn't give Zhao Yunlan an idea. Shen Wei's reaction to hearing Zhao Yunlan's name was awfully similar to what someone's reaction to hearing their soulmate's name would be, but there was no way to map Shen Wei's name onto the sixteen letters on Zhao Yunlan's wrist. Even if the hot professor were a part-time villain from Dixing, the name on his soulmate's wrist would be in nice and legible hanzi, not an alphabetic script Chu Shuzhi had never seen in his life.

The situation was interesting enough that Zhao Yunlan put a mental note next to it, but not reason enough to go pursue it immediately. Perhaps life would provide Zhao Yunlan with a future opportunity to investigate.

Thoughts?

Comments

[phyrry]

Hah! I was thinking Shen Wei's name might be written in some sort of obscure Dixing seal script, but sixteen letters? Curiouser and curiouser.

Oh Shen Wei, ever destined to have way more clues about what's going on than his soulmate, and yet, be completely unwilling to reveal them. Sigh.

And Zhao Yunlan?
...like a maiden in some period drama who'd just received a handwritten note signed by her soulmate.
... yes, that's... that's exactly what just happened. (Except the handwritten part, but come on, digits.)

[extrapenguin]

Oh, in this case, the author has more clues than Shen Wei, who is actually pretty baffled and betrayed by the day's happenings. The Dixingians used to have their own language, script, naming conventions, etc. before being assimilated into the human norm. The rest of the fic would deal with that, in addition to the get-together and first dates.