Chapter Text
When Lan Wangji was a child, he’d lost his mother. With her death, he’d lost her quick laughter and her surprising hugs. He’d lost the comfort of her warm, little cottage, where laughter and hugs were allowed. Her rooms filled with bright colors and flowers, the only place on the mountain where things could be just a little bit messy. Lan Wangji felt as though he’d lost not just his mother, but the home she’d given him as well. He’d lived for the moments with her in those bright rooms, but when she was gone, the door closed forever.
It was a difficult thing to lose.
Lan Wangji had seen that familiar pain on Wei Wuxian’s face at Qiongqi Path. Even the rain, pouring down in sheets, hadn’t been enough to conceal Wei Wuxian’s heartbreak. Wei Wuxian knew of course, much better than Lan Wangji, what it was like to truly be without a home - first as a child, then when Lotus Pier had burned. At Qiongqi Path, Wei Wuxian was forced to chose between his rebuilt home and his own sense of justice. He’d chosen justice, turning away from Lotus Pier, from his family, and from Lan Wangji. Turning to the cold comfort of principle, but Lan Wangji had seen how it had hurt Wei Wuxian.
Months had passed and rumors say that Wei Wuxian and the Wens are building a village in the Burial Mounds of Yiling, a new home perhaps. But when Lan Wangji finally works up the courage to visit, it doesn’t feel like a home. Resentful energy simmers constantly, even in the areas that Wei Wuxian has cleared for the village. Over the Burial Mounds, the sky seems gray, and the area is strangely quiet, birds and small animals avoiding the place. Wei Wuxian puts on a cheerful face, he always does, but the villagers Lan Wangji meets look hungry. Only the child, Wen Yuan, seems not to understand their situation, and his ignorance of anything better is its own kind of sadness. Leaving Wei Wuxian there, holding Wen Yuan in his arms, Lan Wangji feels like he’s abandoning them both.
So when Lan Wangji sees a chance, he takes it, suggesting that they invite Wei Wuxian to celebrate the birth of his nephew. When Jiang Wanyin, Jin Zixuan, and, inexplicably, Jin Guangshan don’t object, it seems like the door stands ajar. If Wei Wuxian can walk through it, maybe eventually he can go home to Lotus Pier.
That’s the noble wish. The unselfish part of Lan Wangji wants only that, for Wei Wuxian to be happy and at home, even if his home is far from Lan Wangji. The more selfish part of Lan Wangji thrills at the idea of seeing Wei Wuxian again, even if only for a few day. At the idea of seeing Wei Wuxian not in the dark shadows of the Burial Mounds, but in the sun. Wei Wuxian’s bright smile was meant for the sun.
Of course Lan Wangji knows that Jin Guangshan and others have their doubts about Wei Wuxian. How could Lan Wangji not know? When Jin Guangshan starts to talk of taking away the Tiger Seal, Lan Wangji worries. They all seem so sure that Wei Wuxian will easily concede, will just give away the only thing protecting him and the Wens.
Lan Wangji knows better, but Wei Wuxian is more than capable of defending himself, his mind so much quicker than almost everyone else, his power, as dangerous as it is, unmatched. And, even here in Koi Tower, Wei Wuxian would be surrounded by his family. Jiang Wanyin, a sect leader, and Jiang Yanli who is, after all, a member of the Jin clan now. Lan Wangji has seen her fierce devotion to her brother. Surely, as Mistress Jin, she could protect Wei Wuxian?
And Lan Wangji would be there too. With his own sect leader brother who would stand by his side. Together, maybe all of them could clear a path for Wei Wuxian to walk home, to set him free from his exile on the mountain of the dead.
So Lan Wangji persuades. He sends the invitation. He waits. Lan Wangji lets himself imagine the smile on Wei Wuxian’s face when he understands that he’ll be allowed to meet his nephew, that he’ll be allowed to see his sister once again. Lan Wangji lets himself hope.
#
In the days that pass after Lan Wangji sends the letter, there’s a rumor about some sort of confrontation in a Yiling market over Wen Qionglin, or the Ghost General, as some have taken to calling him. Lan Wangji can understand why the common people, or why even most cultivators, fear Wen Qionglin. What Wei Wuxian has done for him, to him, is so unknown, so unprecedented. But none of the rumors mention anyone being hurt in the conflict, so Lan Wangji tries not to worry.
The day that Wei Wuxian is supposed to arrive, as the hours stretch on, a mix of unsettled feelings threaten to break through Lan Wangji’s careful calm. He attempts to meditate, but quickly gives it up for a sedate walk through the most scenic parts of Koi Tower instead. Lanling spreads out beneath him, striking in a different way from the Cloud Recesses, its beauty the careful work of human hands rather than the natural grandeur of the mountains.
Koi Tower is different in other ways from the Cloud Recesses, busy with people of all types, nothing like the calm, predictable patterns of the Cloud Recesses. Lan Wangji doesn’t know the habits of this place, can’t quite tell if this rushing back and forth is normal day-to-day business, or if the event is creating this buzzing effort. Even the family seems involved. Lan Wangji sees first Jin Zixun and then, following, Jin Zixuan rushing down into the city.
What could they need to do? Lan Wangji can’t figure it out, and it leaves him with a hint of unease. He finally gives up on his walk and goes to the main hall to ask Jin Guangyao about it, but Jin Guangyao, for all he seems to oversee every detail in Lanling, doesn’t have any answers.
Lan Wangji is thinking of leaving again, another walk perhaps, maybe attempting to meditate once more. Lan Wangji is out of place here with the family, Jiang Wanyin softly talking to Jiang Yanli as she holds Jin Ling - the baby sleeping peacefully in her arms. Jin Guangyao is technically family too, and also there’s that particular skill of his, always seeming to fit in any situation. Lan Wangji is the opposite, never quite fitting anywhere except for the Cloud Recesses. He should go. Wait somewhere else until Wei Wuxian arrives.
Lan Wangji is trying to think of how to excuse himself, trying to find a natural break in the conversation, when a servant walks in, breaking through the talk with only his presence. For a moment, Lan Wangji feels a fleeting sense of amusement at his own struggle compared to the ease of the servant. Then he notices how low the man bows, even for a servant, clearly afraid that the news he has to report will not be taken well, and Lan Wangji feels a sting of worry. Lan Wangji turns all his attention on the man, and so Lan Wangji hears clearly when the man says that the Yiling Patriarch has been killed by young master Jin.
Lan Wangji hears it. He hears it. He hears it and it falls on him like a curse, freezing Lan Wangji’s whole body as surely as a well-made talisman.
Somehow Jiang Wanyin is still capable of moving, of speaking. He makes the man repeat his message two times, anger and fear turning Jiang Wanyin’s orders harsh. Despite the man’s fearful stutters, the message is the same each time, cutting into Lan Wangji deeper with each repetition. By the third telling, still only bare fact with no explanations to be had, the servant has prostrated himself completely on the floor, forehead pressed to the stone.
He should have started that way. Now it’s too late, his face, the sound of his voice, both are seared into Lan Wangji’s mind forever. The man certainly does not deserve the way that Lan Wangji hates him. Lan Wangji never wants to see the man again. Never wants to hear his voice. Lan Wangji is relieved when Jin Guangyao sends the man away, even as a more remote part of Lan Wangji’s mind sees how the man shakes as he stands, that small, reasonable part of Lan Wangji noting how unfair the situation is to a servant.
That small, thinking, empathizing part of Lan Wangji is buried under a larger numbness. It is as if all his emotions are too big to feel, like the moment a bone breaks - first there is only nothing, only the horrible sound of it, and then...
Lan Wangji can’t think about later. His whole body feels remote which is good. He doesn’t want to think about his heart beating while Wei Wuxian’s doesn’t.
Through his haze, Lan Wangji sees Wei Wuxian’s family, the people who have a right to grieve for him. They aren’t slow to react like Lan Wangji, aren’t too cowardly to face it. Jiang Wanyin and Jiang Yanli hold each other up against it. Their bodies curve around Jin Ling, the boy who Wei Wuxian named but will now never see, the three of them making a self-contained unit, the last of the Jiang family. Jiang Yanli is crying, long, shuddering sobs, her tears running down her face and on to Jin Ling who wakes, and, unsettled, starts crying too, almost as if he understands what’s happened.
Jiang Wanyin doesn’t cry, but his jaw is tight like someone punched him and he’s trying not to show the hurt. He doesn’t look like the steely sect leader he’s become over the past few years. Instead he looks like the boy that lurked under Lan Wangji’s fellow soldier during the Sunshot Campaign, back when they were united in their fear for Wei Wuxian, in their refusal to believe that Wei Wuxian could ever really be gone. They’d been right then, and Lan Wangji wishes he could make it true again.
For once, Jin Guangyao looks out of place, his sympathy, his attempts to comfort Jiang Yanli sliding off the tight sibling bond like rain off an umbrella.
Lan Wangji can’t watch the matching grief of Wei Wuxian’s family for a moment longer. He studies the floor and tries not to let the numbness fade, even as a pain too big to understand, too big to hold - an empty, yawning hurt - starts to crawl up his chest. It wants to fill his mouth, to make him scream, or gasp, or sob, but what right does Lan Wangji really have? As Wei Wuxian had made clear over the years, first when he’d miraculously survived the Wens, then over and over when he’d refused every offer to shelter at the Cloud Recesses, Lan Wangji is not someone who has the right to mourn him, at least not with with the open, messy grief of family. But surely Wei Wuxian was too kind to deny Lan Wangji his private mourning?
Some time must pass as Lan Wangji struggles to swallow his pain, to make it quiet and hidden and appropriate. Perhaps a long time, perhaps not much time at all, but then Lan Wangji’s brother is there, a hand on Lan Wangji’s face. When Lan Wangji looks up, Madam Jin is there too, gathering Jin Ling from his mother’s arms. Madam Jin sweeps Jin Ling out of the room, soothing his wailing as they go. Lan Wangji feels absurdly jealous of how easily the baby calms, a few soft words, the warm arms of his grandmother, and nothing can be that bad.
Lan Xichen’s hand on Lan Wangji’s face feels warm too, but perhaps that is only because Lan Wangji is cold. He’s always been cold of course. He knows what people say about him - that he’s made of ice, that his heart is just as cold as his face. It’s never been true before, but maybe now if Lan Wangji can just hold onto the fleeting numbness, the ice, maybe he can freeze the hurt, freeze the raw pain that it trying to fill him.
His brother’s hand moves to Lan Wangji’s shoulder, shaking him once. Rough in a way that his gentle brother never is. Lan Wangji makes himself focus on Lan Xichen, only to find himself confused. His brother is kneeling? The heavy, sect leader robes - the robes that his brother secretly hates, but must wear for such occasions, are dragging on the ground. It confuses Lan Wangji for a moment until his brother pushes at his shoulder again and Lan Wangji realizes that he’s kneeling too.
No. Lan Wangji is not even neatly kneeling. He has fallen to his hands and knees, his palms pressed into the marble floor of the Jin’s hall. At some point he’s gripped the rough stone hard enough that two of his fingers have started to bleed, and there are red streaks against the snowy white of the marble. So much for private mourning. But Lan Wangji has been betraying himself in one way or another since the first time Wei Wuxian smiled at him, once more doesn’t matter. Not now. Not again.
His brother grasps Lan Wangji’s other shoulder too, and gently tries to push him back into a kneeling position. “Wangji,” he says.
Lan Wangji lets himself be pushed back on his heels. If he doesn’t do it himself, if he just stays still, then maybe the numbness will come back and settle over him again, freeze the pain in his chest.
Lan Wangji’s brother has placed himself between Lan Wangji and the small flood of servants that are now pouring into the room, between Lan Wangji and the Jins and the Jiangs. His hands still rest on Lan Wangji’s shoulders. Perhaps the gesture is meant to comfort, but Lan Wangji can’t help noticing that the position also lets his brother’s wide sleeves block Lan Wangji from view. Hiding Lan Wangji’s grief. Out of kindness no doubt, but also out of concern for the the dignity of the clan, for Lan Wangji’s position.
“Look at me, Wangji,” his brother says.
Lan Wangji does, instinctively obeying. He regrets it immediately. Not the act itself, but how quickly, how easily he did what he was told. Isn’t that how this happened? Lan Wangji had followed the rules, has always followed the rules. He had wanted Wei Wuxian to do the same. Lan Wangji had been so sure that if Wei Wuxian did, he would be safe, he could go home to his family, and Lan Wangji would get to see him again. They’d all be able to live well, safe inside the neatly circumscribed laws of the world. Instead, Wei Wuxian is gone.
Wei Wuxian is gone and Lan Wangji will never see his bright smile again. Wei Wuxian is gone and Lan Wangji will never hear his teasing voice again. Wei Wuxian is gone and Lan Wangji will never feel the glancing brush of his wild hair again, or feel the radiant heat of his body when Wei Wuxian gets just a little too close, or hear him think out loud, his brilliant mind always working at angles that no one else can see. Wei Wuxian is gone.
All of Lan Wangji’s worries, his deepest, aching fears, they’ve all come true and Lan Wangji could have prevented it. His bloody fingers suddenly seem fitting - the metaphorical blood on his hands manifesting for everyone to see. Lan Wangji wrote that letter, he had pushed for Wei Wuxian to be invited here into the mouth of the wolf when Lan Wangji should have just left Wei Wuxian safely in his little village. If Lan Wangji’s need to see Wei Wuxian- No. Not need. Not even that. His desire. If Lan Wangji’s desire to see Wei Wuxian was so great, then he should have been the one to go. Lan Wangji should have stepped down from his clouds, scaled over the walls that would separate them, and walked onto that narrow bridge with Wei Wuxian, that winding dark path. Why not?
Why not?
Wei Ying, oh Wei Ying...
Lan Wangji startles when his brother touches his face again. He belatedly realizes that his brother has been saying something to him, talking in a low, intense voice. Lan Wangji doesn’t know what his brother had said and can’t be bothered to try to figure out what he’s saying now. Lan Xichen’s hand comes away from Lan Wangji’s face and his fingers are wet. Lan Wangji doesn’t know when he started crying, maybe he’s been crying this whole time. It’s not his place, but Wei Wuxian wouldn’t begrudge Lan Wangji this, would he? Not now.
Lan Wangji’s brother squeezes his shoulder, trying to keep Lan Wangji’s attention on him. Lan Wangji tries. He can see that his brother is afraid for Lan Wangji, hurt for him and Lan Wangji doesn’t want to cause his brother pain.
And yet…
Lan Wangji and his brother had grown up close, with only each other to rely on. Lan Xichen’s soft smiles made people think that he was easy to read, vapidly transparent, but it’s not true. Lan Wangji’s brother has been raised to lead a sect, has been raised every bit as strictly as Lan Wangji and then more. For all the Lans like to think of themselves as removed from the world, their uncle was too practical not to train Lan Xichen in diplomacy and politics, knowing how young he would be when he had to take on his role as sect leader. Lan Wangji’s brother is kind, he prefers to be open, but he can hide if he chooses. He can hide from everyone but Lan Wangji.
So Lan Wangji can see how Lan Xichen’s genuine worry, his own grief for Wei Wuxian, is shaded with his practical concern for Lan Wangji’s reputation. He’s shielding Lan Wangji because it’s what Lan Wangji needs, because Lan Xichen can see how devastated Lan Wangji is, how this threatens to break him. His brother is also shielding Lan Wangji because he wants Lan Wangji to be able to stand up from this floor, to wipe his face and be second young master of Lan again. The Second Jade. Hanguang-jun.
Lan Wangji wants nothing of it. Right now, Lan Wangji doesn’t care if those people, those other parts of himself, are as dead as Wei Wuxian. Being a second young master, or a Jade of Lan, or Hanguang-jun has never brought Lan Wangji half the happiness that Wei Wuxian’s most fleeting smile has.
Perhaps more time passes as Lan Wangji tries not let himself get completely drowned by his own saltwater grief. It can’t have been that long, because Lan Wangji is still on the floor, still hidden in the sheltering circle of his brother’s arms, when Jin Zixuan comes running in.
Lan Wangji hasn’t been paying attention to anything past his brother, has hardly been paying attention to anything past his own racing thoughts, past the pounding tide of loss threatening to engulf him, but the quick movement of Jin Zixuan running full tilt to his wife, catches Lan Wangji’s notice. Jin Zixuan’s expensive cream robes are stained from shoulder to hem in blood, much of it still a fresh, bright red.
That red, the horrible proof of it, is enough to jolt Lan Wangji back into the world, breaking through the smothering ice of his grief, sounds and colors rushing back like Lan Wangji has actually surfaced from under a freezing tide, his eyes and ears clearing.
Wei Ying...
Lan Wangji struggles to stand on his numbed legs, letting the clear anger fill all the places where there had only been pain a moment ago. He doesn’t know what he’ll do, but this man took Wei Wuxian from him, took him from the world.
When Lan Wangji had first gone to war, he had kept careful track of the lives he’d ended. That had lasted up until the first major battle. After that it was a blur of blood and exhaustion, of just keeping to his feet in the mud, of making sure that his sword only struck enemies, of not letting himself look too closely at what his sword had done to those it did strike. So, Lan Wangji doesn’t know how many people he’s killed, but today, now, he’s prepared to add one more to the list.
Jin Zixuan only has eyes for his wife, he doesn’t notice when Lan Wangji scrambles to stand and he doesn’t notice when Lan Xichen uses his grip on Lan Wangji’s shoulders to stop him, sending Lan Wangji back to the ground in a undignified heap.
Lan Wangji is considering trying again, weighing his pure loathing against the sure knowledge that he’s in no condition to best his brother right now, and his deep horror at the idea of fighting his brother in earnest at all. Before he can decide, he hears the familiar crackle of Zidian. The sound only pulls him closer to the war, to the terrible things they’d all done then. Jiang Wanyin is standing sentinel at his sister’s side, his jaw clenched, and the familiar purple lightening running over his fist. No one is holding Jiang Wanyin back, and part of Lan Wangji urges him on.
But Jiang Wanyin has a sect to manage, a sister and a nephew to worry about. Despite his well-known temper, Jiang Wanyin has always been been very aware of his duty and he holds himself back now, even as every line of his body is tense as Jin Zixuan approaches Jiang Yanli.
Jiang Yanli lets Jin Zixuan approach her, even covered in her brother’s blood, and with her own face wet with grief. Lan Wangji doesn’t know what he’d do in her place, if somehow Wei Wuxian had come to him still stained from murdering Xichen. Lan Wangji doesn’t know if he could manage the calm dignity Jiang Yanli has as she asks Jin Zixuan what happened. As if there can be a reasonable explanation. As if any explanation can be meaningful now.
Jin Zixuan seems shocked to be so easily allowed to offer his side of the story, perhaps as shocked as they all are to be listening to it. Today was supposed to be a happy day, a day of celebration. The first step back into the sun for Wei Wuxian. Instead, he is gone and they stand listening to his murderer explain why.
The explanation is confused and winding. Jin Zixuan seems nearly as unsure of how it happened as any of his audience. He says he’d seen his cousin Jin Zixun leading some cultivators in the direction that Wei Wuxian would be traveling, and that he had mistrusted his cousin. He’d followed and found Jin Zixun in the middle of accusing Wei Wuxian of cursing him with the hundred holes curse. Wei Wuxian’s denials had not meant anything to Jin Zixun who planned to kill Wei Wuxian, convinced that Wei Wuxian’s death would be his cure.
Here the explanation only becomes more confused. Jin Zixuan had stepped between the two of them, but neither would be soothed. Wei Wuxian had brought out his flute and called up some low level corpses, which had disgusted the cultivators present. What else was he supposed to do, Lan Wangji wonders. Alone, apparently without his sword again, and surrounded by people trying to kill him, what was the polite thing to do? Simply let himself be killed?
Jin Zixuan’s voice shakes as he relates that he’d drawn his own sword, meaning only to keep them all apart, to keep anyone from being harmed, when suddenly Wei Wuxian had lost control of the corpses. They’d gone from protecting Wei Wuxian to aimlessly attacking anyone in the area, and one had flung Wei Wuxian right in the path of Jin Zixuan’s sword. The same sword that Jin Zixuan holds now, its normally beautiful, ornate hilt stained a rusty red.
Jin Zixuan’s words seem to fail him at this point, gaze distant, but his free hand presses into his own chest, just above his heart and no one present can mistake the gesture, the silent explanation it offers.
Lan Wangji’s own heart aches, his mind hopelessly imagining Wei Wuxian’s face when he’d felt the pain, when he understood what it meant. Without even really meaning to, Lan Wangji surges to his feet again, but Lan Xichen sends him tumbling back down once more with hardly any effort.
But a new thought occurs to Lan Wangji and he surges up again before his brother expects it, managing to get fully to his feet this time. Lan Wangji strides over to Jin Zixuan in an instant. “Where is he?”
Jin Zixuan startles, seeming to have only just noticed Lan Wangji. Jin Zixuan’s gaze darts past Lan Wangji, to Lan Xichen who has followed Lan Wangji, and is reaching out to touch Lan Wangji’s shoulder again. Lan Wangji steps forward, out of his brother’s reach, having no more interest in being contained.
“Where is he?” Lan Wangji asks again.
Jin Zixuan swallows and looks once more at Lan Xichen and then at Jiang Yanli, as if looking for someone to make sense of the question, for someone to make sense of Lan Wangji. Jin Zixuan tentatively says, as if Lan Wangji is an idiot, “Wei Wuxian is dead.”
Jin Zixuan stops there, as if Lan Wangji is so mad with grief that hearing it will send him into a fury, as if Lan Wangji’s mind has broken so completely that he needs to be treated delicately, or at least as delicately as Jin Zixuan can manage, a man so awkward that he’d almost failed to wed the woman whose marriage to him had been arranged since birth.
Well, maybe Lan Wangji is broken, but delicacy is the last thing he needs now. He asks bluntly, his voice clipped with frustration, “Did you leave his body there?” Lan Wangji has no patience for this stupidity, especially not from a man standing there streaked in his heart’s blood.
Comprehension washes over Jin Zixuan’s face and he darts a guilty look at Jiang Yanli. “No. At first he was- At first we thought that Wen Qing might- I took him to the Burial Mounds as fast as I could, but he didn’t-” Jin Zixuan takes a shaky breath and finally answers the question. “I left him with the Wens.”
The explanation is fractured, but the picture it paints in Lan Wangji’s mind is clear, especially accompanied by the bloody backdrop of Jin Zixuan’s robes. Wei Wuxian and Jin Zixuan working together to staunch the blood, Jin Zixuan sweeping Wei Wuxian up on his ostentatious sword. Jin Zixuan was a talented cultivator, fast in flight, more than capable of carrying another person at speed, but it wasn’t enough. Wei Wuxian dying in the arms of the man who had killed him, in the arms of someone he’d hated since they had all been just boys. Lan Wangji had always thought that hatred unfounded, childish in the way that Wei Wuxian could be at times, but now it seems prescient.
Lan Wangji doesn’t stay to hear more. Doesn’t stay to ask where Jin Guangshan has been in all of this, where Jin Guangyao has disappeared to, what happened to Jin Zixun. He needs to see whatever is left of Wei Wuxian one last time, to make sure that Wei Wuxian receives a burial worthy of him. Lan Wangji is out of the hall, to the high balcony, Bichen already rising when Lan Xichen catches up to him, grabbing his hand this time. This is probably more than they’ve touched outside of a spar since their mother died and his brother had tried in vain to get Lan Wangji to stop kneeling outside her cottage. Lan Xichen had pulled at Lan Wangji then too, asking him to come home, not knowing that Lan Wangji’s home had died with their mother.
His brother doesn’t ask him where he’s going, there’s no need. “What good will this do, Wangji?”
“None,” Lan Wangji replies, honestly. “There’s nothing I can do now.” Saying it out loud changes nothing. It does not persuade Lan Wangji to stay.
Lan Xichen clearly sees that. Still, he tries again. “Come home, Wangji. You can take time in seclusion, no one will bother you there.” He wants Lan Wangji to take his place in the Lan pattern, to do what a good Lan does when faced with grief. Lock themselves away, never let anyone see the unseemly emotion of it. Wither. Hollow.
Maybe Lan Wangji will return later, maybe he will follow in his father’s shameful footsteps, but at the moment Lan Wangji feels like this blow has knocked him into a shape that will never fit that neat Lan pattern. Like whatever home Lan Wangji had in the Cloud Recesses has been lost forever. Again. Or maybe it had started to slip away the very first time Wei Wuxian had turned his clear smile on Lan Wangji and Lan Wangji had just never realized it, hadn’t known until now that his true home was somewhere in the corner of that smile.
Lan Wangji shakes his head at his brother.
Lan Xichen’s frown grows. “It won’t be safe.” His voice is heavy, and it occurs to Lan Wangji that his brother has seen at a glance what Lan Wangji had been too distraught to consider until this moment. That, without the fearsome Yiling Patriarch, the sects will come for the Wens in a heartbeat. More than that, Lan Wangji thinks, they’ll come for the Tiger Seal. If Jin Zixuan hasn’t already taken it.
Lan Wangji dismisses the Seal. It doesn’t matter to him. Not after it has already stolen what mattered most. Instead, Lan Wangji’s thoughts turn to Wen Qionglin, to all of the spells controlling him that could fail now, to little Wen Yuan and all that’s left of his family, there on that mountain of resentful energy with all the wards down around them, and with the greed of every sect, small and large, turned on them.
Lan Wangji finally pulls his hand from his brother’s. “You’re right. Maybe there’s some good I can do after all.”
“Wangji.” Lan Xichen says, still holding out his hand, not raising his voice, but serious. In the past, that gentle reminder would have been enough, but the rules and traditions that have guided Lan Wangji before, mean nothing now, outweighed by his grief, his guilt, and his regret.
His brother sees it and lets his hand drop. Lan Wangji is on Bichen and gone in seconds. His brother does not call after him again.
#
The trip passes in strange dollops of time, some moments disappearing entirely. Moments where Lan Wangji’s grief is so unwieldy that it blots everything else out in long, terrible gasps of agony. He emerges from these moments only to be filled with a belated shock - the realization that, while he was lost to the world, he could have fallen from the sky. The idea fills him with a displaced terror, all the instincts that should have saved him in the moment kicking in too late, when the crisis has already passed, leaving his heart racing and his muscles tense to no purpose. Lan Wangji hasn’t worried about falling from his sword, at least outside of a battle, since he was still young enough to draw a proud smile from his uncle with how fast he mastered the skill. Lan Wangji doesn’t let himself think about what his uncle would say today.
Other slices of time pass in this heightened awareness, Lan Wangji’s muscles aching as he braces himself against his attention slipping, and the ground passing steadily below him. In this way, Lan Wangji moves closer to his destination, to Wei Wuxian, both quickly and slowly.
When Lan Wangji finally arrives at the foot of the Burial Mounds, it’s quiet. He’d half expected to find some small clan there or Jin Zixun, a bloody fight already in progress, but there’s no one, only the eerie stillness that blankets this land.
When he moves closer, following the path that Wei Wuxian had led him down all those months ago, Lan Wangji feels the wards press against him. He only recognizes them for what they are because he’s been through them before. Wei Wuxian has cleverly built wards out of the resentful energy that is everywhere here. Without knowing what to feel for, they appear to just be part of the swirling evil of the place. Lan Wangji reaches out with his own spiritual energy, gingerly testing. Last time he was here, he’d had Wei Wuxian with him, and the spells had been damaged by the sheets of energy thrown from Wen Qionglin’s transformation. Now, Lan Wangji can feel how the spells are built as much to confuse as to block, gently peeling any would-be invaders away to find themselves somehow walking back to town. Brilliant and effective, like all of Wei Wuxian’s best work.
Lan Wangji can also feel that the wards are faltering. Without Wei Wuxian, they are unraveling, unable to sustain themselves.
Lan Wangji has to work his way carefully through the remaining tatters, unpredictable and still dangerous even in their diminished state. He moves slowly, in the unnatural stillness of the Burial Mounds, only the softest rustle of the trees joining the sounds of his robes and his carefully steady breathing. He’s standing in the very last vestige of the wards, nearly through, when he sees Wen Qionglin, as still and silent as everything else in this land of the dead. Wen Qionglin is watching Lan Wangji, calm but immovable. The last defense of the last of the Wens.
Lan Wangji goes still himself, studying Wen Qionglin, looking for signs of lost control now that Wei Wuxian is gone. Unlike the wards, Wen Qionglin looks steady, with the same wistful, pale face that Lan Wangji had seen before. Before, when Wei Wuxian had done the impossible and brought Wen Qionglin back to life.
Lan Wangji doesn’t know Wen Qionglin well. He’s never really understood how Wei Wuxian had grown so close to him, with the both of them on separate sides of a war for nearly all of their friendship. But somehow they’d become close enough for Wei Wuxian to throw away his home for the man and for his family. And now, Wen Qionglin stands here, the last defense of that family. It seems too much weight for someone as gently timid as Wen Qionglin has always seemed to Lan Wangji.
Wen Qionglin studies Lan Wangji with just as much caution as Lan Wangji is directing toward him. Finally, he seems to come to some conclusion, politely asking, “Second Young Master Lan, you are here for Young Master Wei?”
Lan Wangji can only nod, throat tight with the brief wish that he was here for a social visit, that Wei Wuxian will be waiting for him, his bright smile lighting up even this dark place. But no.
Wen Qionglin steps to the side, letting Lan Wangji work his way through the last of the wards, the dark energy buzzing unpleasantly, but yet familiar. Even in the few minutes that Lan Wangji has been picking his way through the wards, he’s felt the power draining out of them, the last of Wei Wuxian slipping away. That fading only makes Lan Wangji’s throat tighter, thick with tears he cannot shed right now.
Once on the other side of the remains of Wei Wuxian’s work, Lan Wangji stands next to Wen Qionglin and raises the best wards he can, protecting this place in Wei Wuxian’s stead. Sealing himself in.
Wards are not something that Lan Wangji has spent as much time thinking about as Wei Wuxian had. Lan Wangji has never been given the opportunity to protect something as precious as Wei Wuxian’s little village was to him. What’s more, Lan Wangji lacks both Wei Wuxian’s deep well of creative genius and his ability to draw on the Tiger Seal.
Still, Lan Wangji knows how to raise a ward and so he does his best. Each sect has their own methods and the cool wall of the Lan variant falls around them, filling in all the places where Wei Wuxian’s wards are now no more than tattered suggestions. The wards, although, elegant in the way of traditional Lan workings, seem blunt compared to the subtle trickery of Wei Wuxian’s invention. They’ll block enemies from entry, but in a flat, obvious way. No one will be confused about what happened. Lan Wangji’s uncle would say it is more honorable, but right now Lan Wangji can only see how it is less effective.
Wen Qionglin’s expressions are muted of course, but his voice is sincere as he thanks Lan Wangji.
Lan Wangji only nods and asks, “Will you take me to him?”
Wen Qionglin says, “Follow me,” and starts up the path that Lan Wangji has walked before, winding narrowly through the ever-present gloom of the Burial Mounds. Last time, Wei Wuxian had been leading, and Wen Yuan had been a warm presence in Lan Wangji’s arms. Despite the panic of that moment, Lan Wangji wishes himself back there. He would follow Wei Wuxian forever, carry Wen Yuan forever. But Lan Wangji’s arms remain empty, and the figure in front of him does not change.
The ramshackle collection of huts that had made up the Wen village has grown since Lan Wangji was last here. It looks less like a hastily thrown together camp and more like an actual village, although the poverty of the people who live here is still obvious. More people than Lan Wangji remembered are sitting around in loose circles. They aren’t talking, everyone looks drawn, maybe with grief, certainly with fear. Lan Wangji sees Wen Yuan, face mostly hidden against the shoulder of the grandmother who was looking after him last time. Wen Yuan appears to be asleep, but she nods at Lan Wangji, an acknowledgement without hope.
Wen Qionglin leads Lan Wangji back to the cave where Wei Wuxian had slept and where he presumably has been brought for one last sleep. Lan Wangji doesn’t let himself falter as he steps inside, keeping his pace steady and his back straight, even though the finality of it sends a dizzying wave through his body, making him wonder for a moment if his knees will simply give out, leaving him on the floor once again.
Wen Qing is inside the cave, leaning over a body that lies motionless on the rocky ledge that Wei Wuxian had used as a bed. Even though Lan Wangji knows who it must be, it takes him a moment to accept that this body is Wei Wuxian. For a moment Lan Wangji can’t recognize him at all in the pallid shape, but then Lan Wangji steps closer, close enough to see Wei Wuxian’s face. In the background Lan Wangji vaguely hears Wen Qionglin telling Wen Qing that Lan Wangji has put up fresh wards and her thanks in response. Wen Qionglin leaves again and Lan Wangji should acknowledge Wen Qing’s thanks, but he can’t look away from the body, from Wei Wuxian. From Wei Wuxian’s still face, from his bare chest, half covered in the thick bandage over his heart, from the stormy mess of his tangled hair.
Lan Wangji had already known that Wei Wuxian was dead. There’s no new information to be gleaned from his corpse. Lan Wangji had even already known where the fatal wound had fallen. And yet… Oh it hurts. Lan Wangji hadn’t realized that any part of his heart had still hoped, until the hope is crushed and his heart with it.
Wen Qing doesn’t push Lan Wangji for a response, returning to her task. She has a bowl of water and a rag that might have once been clean, but is now stained pink. She’s washing the blood off of Wei Wuxian’s body, preparing him for burial. Lan Wangji wants to push her aside and do it himself, to have the honor of this last task, but it is not an honor that Lan Wangji has earned. Wen Qing has been at Wei Wuxian’s side, while Lan Wangji has chosen again and again the concerns of the world that had scorned the both of them. It is her right, and it is not his.
Lan Wangji takes a step closer. Wen Qing rinses and then wrings the cloth, carefully wiping dried blood from Wei Wuxian’s face. There’s a large smudge along his left cheek and jaw, leading down his neck to the carefully bandaged wound. Wen Qing’s motions are soft, almost as if she’s worried about hurting Wei Wuxian. The gentleness surprises Lan Wangji. Wen Qing had always struck Lan Wangji as brusque in her kindness. Someone who does good, but bluntly without any unnecessary softness. Her care with this shell that can longer feel pain seems uncharacteristic. But of course Lan Wangji knows Wen Qing as little as he knows Wen Qionglin, and Wei Wuxian had given up much to save her family, her younger brother. Wei Wuxian had been Wen Qing’s friend and companion here in their shared exile and perhaps it should not surprise Lan Wangji that she offers him her respect at the end.
Wen Qing continues her work, paying no attention to Lan Wangji as she carefully wipes the last streak of blood from Wei Wuxian’s face. She rinses the rag again, darkening the water in the bowl, which sits balanced next to a range of medical instruments, bandages, needles, and medicines.
Lan Wangji makes himself look away from her hands and back to Wei Wuxian’s pale face, to its disturbing stillness. Still in a way that Wei Wuxian had never been in life, not even when he’d been terribly remote after his disappearance, not even in sleep, or even in the Xuanwu cave when fever had threatened to take him. Wei Wuxian is even thinner than he had been when Lan Wangji had seen him last, the fine bones of his face too sharply defined, and Lan Wangji is filled again with a painful regret. A regret he will no doubt carry for the rest of his life. Whatever rules it broke, Lan Wangji should have found a way to bring Wei Wuxian and the Wens supplies. Money. Something. Anything. Lan Wangji could have accepted the punishment that would follow, should have taken it gladly. Wei Wuxian was proud about such things, but Lan Wangji should have found a way.
Lan Wangji’s gaze drifts over Wei Wuxian’s hair, a riot of tangles. Wen Qing has twisted it up and out of the way, leaving the worst of the knots in a nest on Wei Wuxian’s pillow. Lan Wangji can almost see how Wei Wuxian’s wild hair must have whipped and twisted as Jin Zixuan flew faster and faster, how it must have been still alive in the wind as life left the rest of him.
Lan Wangji takes a deep breath and finally makes himself look Wei Wuxian’s chest which he’s never seen before, no matter how many times Wei Wuxian had teasingly threatened to undress in front of him. At the wound. At the place where Jin Zixuan’s sword took Wei Wuxian from Lan Wangji, from the world. Wen Qing has bandaged it neatly, a kind gesture if unnecessary. In fact, there’s a heavy poultice over the wound. Lan Wangji stares at that, trying to puzzle out what she was thinking, when Wei Wuxian’s chest moves ever so slightly.
Lan Wangji’s own heartbeat is thudding suddenly in his ears. He must be imagining it. He must be dreaming. But no. He sees...
Wei Wuxian breathes one shallow breath and then another.
Lan Wangji takes a quick step closer, suddenly in a rush, suddenly in a world where the passage of time matters again. Somehow his voice is level. “Jin Zixuan said that Wei Ying did not survive the trip.”
Wen Qing makes a noise that might almost be a laugh if it wasn’t so tight. “Skilled as he may be in other ways, that man is no doctor.” She’s washing the blood off Wei Wuxian’s neck now, carefully working her way down to the bandages. “He’s alive for now. I can’t promise any more than that.”
Lan Wangji’s mind is stuck for one more hopeless second, re-contextualizing the careful bandage, Wen Qing’s gentle hands, the assortment of medical implements. Wen Qing sounds calm, but Lan Wangji sees now how hard she’s worked to save Wei Wuxian, to preserve the ember of life that’s still burning in him.
Lan Wangji shakes himself loose, a terrible, gasping hope filling his chest as he takes the last step he needs to bring himself to Wei Wuxian’s side and take Wei Wuxian’s wrist, to pour what spiritual energy he has into Wei Wuxian.
Lan Wangji is also no doctor and it takes him a long moment in the rush of hope, in the joy at being able to do something, to notice that there’s no energy to connect with. He’s felt this before, in the aftermath of the Sunshot campaign, when Wei Wuxian had poured every bit of himself into winning the war, but Jin Zixuan had mentioned nothing on that scale happening today. Lan Wangji probes a bit more with his own spiritual energy - maybe given the gravity of the wound… but no, there’s nothing. No traces of the sky-bright energy that had filled Wei Wuxian before, that had made him such a formidable cultivator, that had run through him even after fighting the Tortoise of Slaughter, the first time Lan Wangji had seen Wei Wuxian like this, pale and fighting for his life. Then, Lan Wangji had been able to help Wei Wuxian, but now Lan Wangji’s spiritual energy is dissipating without anything to connect to. It’s like pouring tea over a cliff in a wind storm, it mists away to nothing, doing Wei Wuxian no good, now when he needs it most of all.
Was he... Was Lan Wangji just that one second too late? While Lan Wangji had been frozen, while he’d been misunderstanding, letting himself linger, between that one second and the next, had Wei Wuxian taken his last breath? But when Lan Wangji uses his eyes, when he actually looks, he can see that Wei Wuxian is still breathing despite the spiritual emptiness inside of him.
What then? Could it be that Wei Wuxian’s body is alive, but his soul has already escaped? Is his body too injured to hold on to his essential self?
Lan Wangji looks up at Wen Qing and sees that she’s looking back at Lan Wangji, he sees that she understands what he’s found.
“What did they do to him?”
Wen Qing doesn’t answer right away, turning to rinse the cloth again. But then she looks up to meet Lan Wangji’s gaze once more, and says with the bluntness that he expects of her, “You mean, what did I do to him.”
Lan Wangji shakes his head, not denying the honesty he hears in her voice, but not understanding what she means either.
“Do you remember Wen Zhuliu? The Core-Melting Hand?”
Lan Wangji nods. Of course Lan Wangji remembers the man. He can never forget seeing Wen Zhuliu die in that awful room where Lan Wangji had found Wei Wuxian alive, only to wonder if he’d lost Wei Wuxian after all, lost him in a way just as fundamental as death. Wen Zhuliu is long dead, how can he be involved in this now?
Wen Qing doesn’t look away from Lan Wangji. “During the attack on Lotus Pier, Wen Zhuliu destroyed Jiang Wanyin’s core. Wei Wuxian asked me to help his brother.”
Lan Wangji still doesn’t understand. Maybe on another day, maybe without Wei Wuxian still covered in his own blood, without the sound of Wei Wuxian struggling for breath beside him, maybe then Lan Wangji would understand what she’s trying to say.
Wen Qing swallows, the first sign of hesitance she’s allowed herself since starting this story. “Wei Wuxian asked me to help by transplanting his golden core into Jiang Wanyin.”
Lan Wangji’s heart thuds, one hard beat in his chest like an ‘oh’ that knocks against his breastbone.
He looks at Wei Wuxian’s pale face and is forced to reconsider the last few years, his mind moving quickly as if to make up for his earlier failings. The way that Wei Wuxian had turned away again and again from the path of healthy cultivation. A path closed to Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian’s sudden interest in dark cultivation. The only narrow path left to him. Wei Wuxian’s rejection of Lan Wangji’s offers to cleanse his spiritual energy. What spiritual energy? Wei Wuxian’s loyalty to Wen Qing and her brother. The doctor who had helped Wei Wuxian make this sacrifice.
Lan Wangji can’t even imagine the strength Wei Wuxian must have needed to survive the Burial Mounds after losing his family, after giving away the very core of himself. Still he’d managed to come back, only to be despised by everyone in the cultivation world, except when they needed his strength to do their killing for them. Wei Wuxian had given up the sword he’d loved and come back to be used as the dark blade of the cultivation world. Then when they’d tried put the blade away, sheath the power that they feared, they’d found he would not be put. They feared him and they exiled him and now here he lays, in shards where they’d broken him.
“Does Jiang Wanyin know?” Lan Wangji had thought Jiang Wanyin honorable, but to disown his own brother for this sacrifice…
“No.”
No. That is both a relief and not. How like Wei Wuxian to decide such a thing for someone else. The arrogance that comes from always being skilled enough to escape whatever trouble he found himself in. The self-sacrificing streak that comes from somehow still seeing himself as worth less than those around him. Lan Wangji could spend a lifetime puzzling out the contradiction.
Wen Qing is washing Wei Wuxian’s hand now, painstakingly using a folded corner of the rag to get the blood out from between his fingers, from the beds of his nails, and from the soft lines of his knuckles. “If he still had his golden core, he would almost certainly be able to heal from this. Now…”
Lan Wangji is still clasping Wei Wuxian’s other hand as if to transfer energy. He should let go, but instead Lan Wangji holds on as he tries to pull himself together, tries to figure out what to do next.
Wen Qing hands Lan Wangji the rag, freshly wrung and gestures to the hand he’s holding. Lan Wangji belatedly notices that it’s as bloody as the other had been. The story that tells, the idea of Wei Wuxian desperately trying to staunch his own wounds, to live even as the whole world seemed to want him dead, is almost enough to ruin Lan Wangji’s careful control. Instead he takes the rag, and slowly, methodically cleans Wei Wuxian’s hand, trying to find something meditative in it.
Wei Wuxian’s hands hadn’t been the first thing that Lan Wangji had admired about Wei Wuxian. Of course it had been Wei Wuxian’s shining smile, the way it lit his beautiful face. But in those early days, when Lan Wangji had noticed everything about Wei Wuxian, had been so aware of him that it was like swimming in his presence, it hadn’t taken Lan Wangji long to notice Wei Wuxian’s hands. How nimble they were. How they handled a sword and a brush with equal skill. Lan Wangji had noticed the elegant shapes Wei Wuxian’s fingers made as he used his talismans and, later, as he played that flute, making even raising corpses seem like art.
Lan Wangji has touched these hands before and been touched in turn. Brief, glancing touches. Life or death situations. Conflicts. But sometimes, Lan Wangji had dreamed about soft touches, about tracing each long finger, and, shamefully, about all the intimate things that those hands could do to him. Now, Lan Wangji has Wei Wuxian’s hand in his, and he’d give away every one of those dreams for Wei Wuxian to wake up, even to use those hands to push Lan Wangji away.
Of course the heavens don’t make trades, so Lan Wangji focuses on his task. On leaving each finger free of rust, then the lines of the palm, down to the bones of the wrist. When Wei Wuxian’s hand is as clean as Lan Wangji can make it, Lan Wangji feels calmer. He gives the cloth back to Wen Qing and says, “I will play a song of healing. After the Sunshot Campaign I did this for him.”
Of course then Lan Wangji had also played songs to promote clear cultivation. Had thought that Wei Wuxian had merely drained himself by using the Tiger Seal. Wei Wuxian had not been seriously injured then. But it’s all Lan Wangji can do, and so he will.
Wen Qing looks thoughtful. “I think that could still help. Such methods have been known to work on non-cultivators although generally not as effectively as they would a cultivator.” She drops the bloody rag in the bowl, her mind already elsewhere. “You should try it now, I’ll monitor him to see if it has an effect.”
Lan Wangji nods, and glances around the cave until he sees a flat spot with a low rock where he can place his guqin. It’s a few strides away from the bed, but not so far as to affect the power of the song. Lan Wangji sets the guqin onto the rock and sits neatly beside it. He takes a moment, mentally sorting through the songs he knows. Lately he’s been focusing on songs of clarity, on songs to soothe disturbed or darkened cultivation. Songs that, as it turns out, have nothing to offer Wei Wuxian. Lan Wangji finally settles on an old song, known only to the Lan sect. A song that has serious healing power, but takes serious spiritual energy in turn.
Lan Wangji throws himself into the music, pouring his energy into it, into this chance that he can do something for Wei Wuxian. It’s draining, but the effort it takes is soothing in its own way. The energy needed, the focus required to get each note just right, both prevent Lan Wangji from thinking about how much blood Wei Wuxian has lost, how pale he is, the break in Wen Qing’s voice when she’d talked about Wei Wuxian’s missing core.
Wen Qing interrupts Lan Wangji before he can truly lose himself in the music, but it’s fine because she says she thinks it’s working, at least a bit. There’s a new determination in her gaze and Lan Wangji lets himself mirror it back to her with a firm nod before he throws himself into the music with renewed efforts.
Lan Wangji plays, giving as much of himself as he can to the music. He welcomes the strain of it, the distraction. Besides, doesn’t Lan Wangji deserve to suffer at least some small fraction of how Wei Wuxian is suffering? For not noticing for all of these years what Wei Wuxian had done to himself? For writing the letter that had led Wei Wuxian to the point of Jin Zixuan’s sword? For being too much of a coward to offer Wei Wuxian the help he needed?
Lan Wangji plays through a book’s worth of Lan healing songs, and then starts again. It takes nearly all of his energy, until he’s half tempted to pull back the power he’d put into the wards. Lan Wangji can still feel it out there, through the little connection he’d kept to monitor for attacks. He could divert it into the healing. Strategically it would be a terrible idea of course. But Lan Wangji feels like right now he could let the world burn and himself with it, if it would save Wei Wuxian. Lan Wangji doesn’t do it. Wei Wuxian would never forgive Lan Wangji and he would be right not to, these people deserve Lan Wangji’s protection. Lan Wangji will not betray the promise he and Wei Wuxian had made all those years ago, not even for this.
Lan Wangji plays and it drains him, but it centers him at the same time. It lets him sort out his thoughts. Thoughts that have been shattered since the Jin servant had stuttered through the announcement of Wei Wuxian’s death.
Lan Wangji plays and eventually he knows what he has to do.
Lan Wangji has been loosed from the neat Lan pattern that he’d spend a lifetime in. With one ill-informed report, once more a door had closed just as the door to his mother’s cottage had once been shut forever, sealing away that bright light beyond. But now, knowing that it was a mistake, that a sliver of light remains, Lan Wangji cannot simply take his place in the calm of the Cloud Recesses again.
Lan Wangji will stay here. For as long as Wei Wuxian is alive, Lan Wangji will stay. If Wei Wuxian dies, then Lan Wangji will still stay. Lan Wangji will take up the work that Wei Wuxian had started. Lan Wangji will protect these people, who are no more guilty than any other group of people and far less guilty than many who fought in the war. And if Wei Wuxian recovers… If Wei Wuxian recovers, then Lan Wangji will stay for as long Wei Wuxian wants him. However long or short a time that may be, Lan Wangji will stay in the glow of Wei Wuxian’s light.