Chapter Text
When Jiang Yanli married Lan Xichen, Meng Yao decided—objectively—there had never been a more beautiful bride nor more enraptured groom.
(Judging from Nie-gongzi’s look of starry-eyed adoration as they bowed to one another, he felt the same.)
Meng Yao had not expected an invitation, given he had no true connection to either family, but he had been delighted to accept when it did arrive. He had only just returned to Qinghe on the heels of a particular errand when Nie Huaisang had bustled into his room to deliver the news and demand that Meng Yao accompany him to the tailor to ensure he had something appropriate to wear.
Meng Yao, flustered by the attention but grateful for it, felt his new robes suited him rather well, though he did wonder at the subtly embroidered lotuses for which Nie Huaisang had given direction. Hopefully no one would question it, as it might give rise to speculation regarding divided loyalties.
Though Meng Yao might have told anyone who suggested it had it not doubtless been misconstrued: his loyalties would never be divided, as he had only one person to whom he had sworn them, albeit silently. And as long as she remained close to the Unclean Realm, he had no trouble working on their behalf.
Shortly after Jiang Yanli’s departure from her first visit to the Unclean Realm—there had been seemingly countless since, over the past two years—word had reached him that his mother’s contract had been purchased and Nie Niubai had granted him permission to not only go to see her, but to bring her back to Qinghe.
As your friend, I would like you to tell me your true heart’s desire.
Yu Xinhua, forever thankful for Meng Yao’s involvement in saving her younger son’s life, had welcomed Meng Shi to the Unclean Realm little over a week later. And while he appreciated their warmth in greeting a woman many would have deemed unacceptable in society, he had no doubt who had arranged for her freedom.
His mother now occasionally accepted embroidery commissions, but mostly spent her days happily ensconced in tea houses with other women her age, exchanging information masquerading as gossip.
No, he thought, shifting in place. No one else would ever command his loyalty as Jiang Yanli.
Once Jiang Yanli and Lan Xichen disappeared following the ceremony, Meng Yao looked up and smiled in genuine pleasure, heart tripping over itself and warmth flooding his veins.
“Da-ge,” he greeted with a broad grin.
Yu Zhuliu inclined his head in greeting, appearing silent as a shadow at his side. The other man had smiled during the ceremony, an expression Meng Yao had not often seen on him before, despite several months spent in very close company over the past year.
“Will you have a drink with me, Da-ge?” Meng Yao asked. “Once they’ve decided to break their own rules, Cloud Recesses appears to spare no expense.”
“Thank you, yes,” Yu Zhuliu said. Meng Yao poured for them both, and they tipped their cups at one another before drinking.
He noted with some interest that Nie Mingjue had escaped after Jiang Yanli and Lan Xichen with all the subtly of a water buffalo suffering from a particularly tenacious case of croup. Nie Huaisang fluttered about the room next to Jiang Wanyin, distracting everyone from his brother’s absence. No one would have noticed; the leaders of the older generation were much too embroiled in their own conversations to take note of Nie-gongzi’s absence—save, perhaps, the man’s stepmother, who appeared deeply satisfied by it.
“I thought Yanli-jiejie would have tasked you with keeping an eye on her brothers,” Meng Yao said.
“They have individually vowed to be on their best behaviour,” Yu Zhuliu said. The smallest smile touched his lips. “And I believe they lost too much face crying during the wedding to want to draw further attention to themselves.”
Meng Yao chuckled.
“Wen-zongzhu looks especially happy this evening,” Meng Yao continued. “I’m glad the mourning period ended before the wedding. He would have been sad to miss it.”
They both glanced across the room towards where Wen Qionglin had been quickly roped into Wei Wuxian’s easy manners and quick-igniting friendship. Lan Wangji hovered at Wei Wuxian’s side, pleased enough that even those who did not know him would have been able to confidently call him happy. Meng Yao believed that they’d all become close during their tenure at this year’s guest lectures. Good. The new leader of QishanWen needed as many friends as he could manage. His sister, unfailingly competent as Meng Yao himself, already had her hands full with the lingering loyalists within the sect who had never given up on Wen Ruohan’s vision of Wen dominance, not to mention her engagement to Jin-gongzi. Wen Qionglin absolutely needed friends with such far-reaching connections as Wei Wuxian, honourary nephew of their newly ascended Chief Cultivator.
Truly, the tragedy which had informed the change in sect leadership served as a cautionary tale to everyone. Rumour had it that Wen Ruohan had been experimenting with unorthodox cultivation which had somehow destroyed his golden core, rendering him helpless when Wen Chao and Wen Xu had decided upon patricide as an appropriate route to power. He’d managed to kill them both before succumbing to his wounds.
Meng Shi and the various aunties over whom she held court, had been very meticulous in ensuring that everyone knew that such things were solely the consequences of their own actions. Every waiter in every teahouse from Laoling to Gusu knew and shared the story with anyone who cared to ask. Hopefully it would be a deterrent towards similar ambitions, though Meng Yao had heard whisperings that Jin-zongzhu may have decided that the contributing factors to his dear friend’s downfall might be improved upon.
(If such contributing factors had not been thrown down the Koi Tower stairs at age fifteen, Jin Guangshan may have stood a better chance.)
He’d never thought about putting his talents to such use, but the threat to Jiang-guniang could not be ignored.
In this he’d found a reliable and loyal ally in Yu Zhuliu. Few people both cared about Jiang-guniang's safety and well-being and were ruthless enough to take necessary steps to guarantee it. In this, Meng Yao knew, he’d found a true soulmate.
“Excuse me,” a timid voice said behind them.
Meng Yao and Yu Zhuliu turned, then both bowed to Wen Qionglin, greeting him with a joint, “Wen-zongzhu.”
Wen Qionglin seemed surprised at this very basic show of respect. Wen Qing, Meng Yao decided, was going to have her work cut out for her.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, Meng-gongzi, Yu-gongzi,” he continued. “Um. Wei-xiong, Lan-xiong, and Jiang-xiong have asked me to ask you if you might be so good as to distract Madam Yu if she comes looking for them?”
That was, of course, the moment Meng Yao realized that Nie Huaisang, Lan Wangji, Jiang Wanyin, and Wei Wuxian had all disappeared. He took another sip of wine. He’d done well more than enough for the benefit of the cultivation world; someone else could handle that disaster in the making.
“I will,” Yu Zhuliu agreed with barely a beat.
Wen Qionglin smiled, then backed away and bid a hasty retreat back to where his sister and grandmother were tutting over Madam Nie. This pregnancy, her fourth which had lasted beyond the first few precious months, had taken its toll on her. Nie-zongzhu had been endlessly attentive, but Meng Yao suspected that having one of the foremost medical cultivators in the world available to consult matters would go quite a long way in appeasing his concerns, even if they did happen to share a surname with his now-dead enemy.
“You agreed quite quickly, Da-ge. You’re not worried they’re up to some mischief?” Meng Yao asked. Heavens knew he already had his suspicions, but those were secrets he’d gladly keep for the sake of those involved.
(Across the room, despite her very apparent and attention-seeking discomfort, Madam Nie seemed quite pleased with herself indeed.)
“We must all serve our own masters,” Yu Zhuliu said slowly. He refilled their respective cups with wine. “Fortunately, I trust in the goodness of mine.”
Meng Yao considered this a moment, then tipped his cup agreeably in Yu Zhuliu’s direction.
Lan Xichen lifted Yanli’s veil with shaking hands and exquisite care, gently easing it away from the glorious golden decorations in her hair. In his life, he didn’t think he’d ever seen anything half so beautiful. His attention glanced off a hundred small details: her red lips, the embroidered gold of her wedding clothes, the way her eyes creased at the corners because she could not control her smile. Nor would he wish her to; he probably looked terribly foolish himself, given his cheeks hurt from the size of his grin and the weight of the feelings behind it.
He had no words. Nothing sufficed. Ancient poets would struggle to articulate the breadth of his joy. He leaned in to press a chaste kiss to her lips, afraid to do more in case he found himself overcome.
Yanli swayed into him and pressed her palm against his chest. “Wait,” she whispered. Lan Xichen drew back immediately. He found it no trial; it gave him a better vantage point upon which he could look at her smile.
“I have a surprise for you,” she whispered.
Lan Xichen heard the scrape of footsteps behind the privacy screen across the room, and looked up as Mingjue stepped out from behind it. His mouth dropped open, his breath catching in his throat as heat flooded into his ears. The other man smiled, broad and quietly certain. Of them, Lan Xichen realized, Mingjue was certain of them.
“Madam Lan,” he said, for the pleasure of speaking the words, a new way to claim his guiding star as his own.
“Zewu-jun,” she teased back. “I do have some experience in sneaking a lover through my window, if you recall.”
He kissed her again, helpless not to, though his grin made it an awkward affair. He’d barely touched his lips to hers when Mingjue crowded up against his back and brushed the long drape of his hair aside to mouth at the back of his neck.
Lan Xichen pulled away from Yanli and tilted his chin towards Mingjue for a kiss. For all they’d done this before—in the Unclean Realm, during the emergency Discussion Conference after the death of Wen Ruohan, once or twice during official visits when they could manage—this felt different. In the deepest recesses of his heart, where hope and love tangled up into an impossibly bright future, he knew it to be different. A promise like the one he’d made to A-Li.
He only drew back when Yanli touched his elbow. She smiled at him and then manoeuvred herself between them to claim a kiss of her own from Mingjue.
They broke apart and looked at him. Mingjue looped his arm around Yanli’s shoulders and pulled her into his chest, where she rested her head beneath his chin and smiled at Lan Xichen.
The sight struck Lan Xichen as remarkable. It stole his breath away and left him staggered. These two remarkable people were his past, present, and future. Everything he’d ever wanted or aspired to be presented to him with deep, abiding, and reciprocated love. He leaned forward to kiss her again and again.
And then a knock on the door interrupted everything.
Muscle memory hearkening back to those frantic days of their youth when Lan Xichen had snuck into her room at night, he sprung away from them both before catching himself and laughing; Yanli married him. He was permitted to kiss her. And more, though his ears still heated at the thought and probably would for many long days to come.
Yanli looked up from Mingjue’s chest, eyes wide. Mingjue stood, effortlessly rising to his feet with Yanli in his arms, preparing to duck behind the same privacy screen behind which he’d been hiding.
“It’s us!” came Huaisang’s voice from outside.
“A-Sang?” Mingjue whispered with a furrowed brow. He glanced at the screen, still prepared to hide behind it. Undoubtedly their brothers knew something was going on; Wangji, at least, was perceptive enough to have asked Lan Xichen if his feelings for Mingjue would hurt his Jiejie, and accepted the unorthodox answer with effortless grace. But Huaisang?
Lan Xichen tugged his robes back into order and headed to their door, intending to only open it a crack to hide the rest of the hanshi’s current occupants.
Huaisang, Wangji, Wanyin, and Wuxian all stood outside. Huaisang held a tray laden down with a full tea service.
“Good evening,” Lan Xichen said, trying to keep his voice polite. “I’m sorry to say Madam Lan and I are not prepared to receive visitors this evening.”
Huaisang stared at him as though this very reasonable comment was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. Wuxian crossed his arms over his chest and sighed. Wangji looked disappointed in him.
At least Wanyin seemed just as confused as Lan Xichen felt.
“We’ve come for the tea ceremony, Er-ge,” Huaisang said. He stuck his foot into the space between the door and the frame and pushed it open.
“The tea…?” Lan Xichen repeated.
“For your marriage,” Wangji said.
“But we’ve poured tea already.”
Wangji’s disappointment intensified.
“Da-ge, come on out!” Huaisang called, setting the tray down on the table in the middle of the room.
Wanyin’s eyes widened at the same time as Lan Xichen’s. Wuxian laughed and guided his brother down to his knees, then turned towards Yanli.
“Jiejie,” he said very seriously, “This is what you want?”
“Oh, A-Xian.” She tapped his nose. “I think we both know that yokes are for cattle, not people.”
He looked at Wangji with a shy smile and nodded, then helped her settle down next to Xichen.
Huaisang dragged Mingjue out from behind the screen and bullied his elder brother to the floor.
“Not orthodox,” Wangji said, nudging the tray forward. “But appropriate. Pour for us, bow to the heavens, to us, to each other. We are your family. We support you.”
This felt like more than Wangji had said in front of such a group for many years. The gravity of it carried Lan Xichen forward. He reached for A-Li’s hand just as she grabbed Mingjue’s, the three of them a line unbroken and destined to remain unbroken.
Their families would doubtless disapprove, but eventually he would be Lan-zongzhu and Mingjue would be Nie-zongzhu, and with the power wielded between them and A-Li’s remarkable ability to win the loyalty of the world, they would make this work.
Because their love, in all this unexpected glory, deserved the faith he had in it.