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In the end, there was not even a body to collect.
Only ash, only bone.
For three days and three nights, you search. Kneeling amongst the piles, the corpses that have yet to be claimed. Every flutter of red stops your heart. Your lungs seize at every lock of hair.
Your nails split and bleed, your knuckles rubbed raw and caked with dirt, you look into every shattered skull to see if it is him. The madman who killed your sister, the shixiong who broke his promise, the brother you had both loved and hated in equal measure.
Your mouth tastes bitter. with disappointment. For what or for whom the disappointment is for is harder to discern. You have never been good with feelings, let alone communicating them.
That’s okay, Cheng-Cheng, when you’re sect leader, your shixiong will do all of the talking on your behalf. Just scowl and look appropriately threatening--hahaha--exactly like that--and between the two of us, we’ll make things work somehow.
Liar, liar, liar. Your eyes burn. The bilious hatred leaps forward like a tiger, mauls your veins, chokes all sense but pain. Zidian crackles around your wrist, attuned to your anguish. Your fingers dig, tearing through cloth and sinew and finger, searching for what might fill the crevice where your heart used to reside.
Fate answers your call when there’s a hullabaloo at the top of the cliff. A lone golden figure basks in his finest hour as he triumphantly brandishes his sword, a spoil of war while the rest of the cultivation world titters and gapes in awe. Something breaks.
You study the length of murder, nearly hewn in two. Before anyone sees, you stow it away in the qiankun pouch without a word. You ascend the slope for the first and final time.
On the way, you pass by someone who looks like Hanguang-jun, only you must have mistook him for another. How could such a proud and righteous cultivator appear so wretched?
Cultivators drink deeply from their cups that night. You drink until you pass out, and are disappointed when even then, the burn of liquor does not chase away the pain.
*
For all of the unsavory rumors regarding its origin, Chenqing was an ordinary dizi. Not torn from the spine of an unlucky Wen as hearsay would have it, Chenqing was but a bamboo flute lacquered black. Scarcely three chi in length, the musical instrument that killed A-Jie fits easily in the palm of your hand. Holes unevenly spaced but meticulously carved by hand, the edges rubbed smooth by the pressure of clever fingertips. The maw of the inner bamboo spills like intestines in the candlelight. Scuff marks mar the glossy sheen, the end of the dizi worn down to the bone with the teeth marks belonging to that of perhaps a small child. The di mo flakes and peels off like a scab, having applied with cheap cornstarch slurry instead of the traditional ejiao .
Of course. What sort of donkeys would be found in the middle of the Burial Mounds, except for the undead type. It would be just like him to do something like that--to raise the dead just so he could harvest the material to fix his flute.
So much for ingenuity. Look at where cleverness got him. Your hands clench, the splinter digging until the meat of your palm beads bright with blood. Flames crackle impatiently, devouring gobs of fat, eviscerating rivulets of steam. Your hand hovers above hungry tongues, poised to finish the deed.
A wail rips through the air. You bank the fire, abandon the remnants in a hidden desk drawer.. As you shush and rock your nephew to sleep, you can only think about how these rough, fratricidal arms are a poor substitute for his mother.
*
Winter is hard. The fall harvest is meager and hollow bellies cry themselves still. The lumber that had been set aside for Lotus Pier’s reconstruction is reappropriated for heat and fuel. You strip the halls of your ancestors bare, exchange silk for cotton and hemp. Your mother would be furious to see the sect leader of Yunmeng Jiang clad in cheap textiles, but dignity is nothing when your people are suffering. You bargain, you negotiate, you beg. He was always better at this sort of thing, but when a silver tongue is absent, the stubbornness of iron must do.
“With all due respect, it’s too late in the season for planting,” Lao Gao, the rice merchant, relents, the way one must when in the presence of people who are starving. “Why not ask help from Lanling? Or Gusu? Of course, in this weather, transportation will be slow…”
“We will take anything, everything you can afford to sell.”
“Well, I have some radish seeds. You know what they say about radishes-”
--they’ll grow anywhere! So much you’ll grow sick of them. Ah, Jiang Cheng, what I wouldn’t give for a tasty potato-
“We’ll take them.” Lao Gao names his price, though immediately seems to regret it when you remove the silver guan from your head.
“Jiang-zongzhu!” But you refuse to break your bow and the rice merchant refuses to accept your pittance of payment, and instead, fiercely thrusts the bag of radish seeds into your arms.
“Your father was good to us, there are some of us who are alive to remember. Take it, zongzhu, with all blessings.”
Nothing else you plant before the snow grows. But the radishes alone flourish, their greens erupting from the frozen earth like milk teeth.
As you ladle out a bowl of soup to distribute, you think you can hear him laughing.
*
The first Qingming alone is the most difficult. Unlike the others that follow, you don’t remember much of it, only the fear in your subordinate’s eyes when they fish you out of the lake, delirious, vambraces torn to bits. Yan-daifu scalds and soothes you in one breath and you spend nearly a moon convalescing in the privacy of your chambers. You dream of starlight, of tranquil forest, of lotus that did not smell of smoke. You dream of sun-dappled afternoons and A-Jie’s hug. You dream of a boy with a smile as bright as the sun and the broken thing that was not your heart (you left it in Yiling) or your core (your cultivation has never been better) shudders, both drawn and repulsed by the beckoning light of the Naihe Bridge.
Jiang Cheng, A-Cheng, it’s okay, I’m here. Shixiong is here.
Your fever breaks. Your wrists heal under your new vambraces. When you’re well enough to escape Yan-daifu’s austere clutches, you escape to your office. You roll up your sleeves, grind your inkstone and set to work. Now that the sect is growing, there is so much to be done.
They never did manage to find your boots.
*
How fitting was it for your nephew to inherit a similar aptitude for music. You, with the single-minded determination that had netted you favorable trade agreements from Lanling Jin and several of their allied sects, gaze resolutely out onto the water, admiring the lotuses (not yet in bloom), while trying to block out the attempts of A-Ling strangling a duck. Hao-shidi, your second, wisely does not comment. You both make it through an appropriately indulgent amount of time--one incense stick’s worth--before you abandon all pretense of admiring the scenery (a heron faints, it’s the third one this week).
“Which one is it this time? I thought we agreed the erhu was not a good fit.”
“Definitely not the erhu,” Hao-shidi tells you. “He gave that up a month ago. Perhaps the guqin. Lianfang-zun certainly favors it.”
“It’s certainly lethal enough to pass for Chord Assassination.” It is petty, but you do not like the thought of your nephew learning something from an uppity brown noser who’d forsake a sect for his own personal ambitions. Besides, next to young Rusong, A-Ling would never come first. Jin Guangyao may be A-Ling’s shushu but you are A-Ling’s only jiujiu. A-Ling belonged to Lotus Pier as much as he belonged to Lanling.
“Jiujiu!” It’s irksome to see your nephew in robes of ostentatious gold when purple would suit him better, but his cheeks are rosy and he has A-Jie’s dimples as he clutches a xiao in one hand. Zewu-jun’s influence, undoubtedly, and something in you relaxes. Any Lan insane enough to take your nephew for a student would taste Sandu’s vicious bite.
The music tutor slinks behind, a hand pressed to his forehead like a swooning maiden. The urge to smack him is tempting. Your eyebrow twitches at the effort of civility.
Hao-shidi, ever the diplomatic one, asks A-Ling what piece he was practicing.
“Autumn Moon on the Calm Lake.”
Maybe an apocalyptic lake, you think, and can hear him snickering.
He definitely didn’t get the tone-deafness from me.
“Shut up.” The tutor’s stammering comes to a halt. You have no idea what he’s talking about but you press forward to save face. “At this rate, all of the birds with the misfortune to come within a stone’s throw of Lotus Pier will find themselves here for a permanent stay, and I don’t have time to deal with that nonsense. Pick a different instrument.”
“If it pleases you, Jiang-zongzhu, for a spirited young man like Jin-gongzi, perhaps something like the dizi--” A-Ling grows still. Something in you hardens.
“No.”
“Jiang-zongzhu-”
“On second thought, you’re dismissed. A-Ling, come, we’ll find someone else. This one’s clearly incompetent.”
Contrary to the clear relief you’d expect for a reprieve from music lessons, A-Ling is quiet and pensive.
“Jiujiu, is the reason why you don’t want me to learn the dizi is because of him?”
“Of course not,” you say even as you hear him croon “liar” in your ear. “It’s because the dizi is a stupid instrument, anyone could play it-” If that servant’s son can play, so can you. Stop fooling around! “-it’ll be more beneficial for your cultivation to learn something refined.” See these runs right here? If I release my fingers and stop blowing at the same time on the last note, doesn’t it leave a stronger impression?
A-Ling looks glumly at the ground, an expression of unhappiness that is uncannily like his.
You cuff him on the shoulder. It works. Gloom gives way to indignance.
“If you think you can get away with having a free afternoon, I’ll break your legs. There’s still time for your mathematics lesson…”
Fuck, he’d been good at mathematics too, and enjoyed the exercise of playing with numbers for the singular purpose of driving their teachers nuts.
Jiang Cheng, didn’t you know? There’s a kind of magic in numbers too.
*
He’s shaking his head even before you finish unwrapping the remnants.
“For damage this extensive, I’m afraid…”
“Is it possible?”
The instrument maker taps one gnarled finger on the countertop. He lifts one hewn half, held onto its twin counterpart by a sliver of bamboo.
“The repair will be difficult.”
“I’m not asking if it’ll be difficult, I’m asking if it’s possible.”
Attempt the impossible, a maxim that has haunted your footsteps your entire life.
“Many things are possible, by virtue of the fact that they have not yet been attempted, Jiang-zongzhu.” The reproach resounds from him like a steady drum. “But that does not mean we do not acknowledge the difficulty of getting there.”
As an impetuous youth, you have never been good at apologizing. Now as sect leader, you can no longer afford to admit fault casually.
“You know your craft best. I defer to your expertise.”
The craftsman nods, mollified.
“You say this was a spiritual weapon? Ah, I feel it now. Who was the owner? It feels strong.”
“A former sect disciple, no one worth mentioning.”
“Whoever they were, they were quite the genius. The material is rough but the craftsmanship is skilled. Spiritual wood is very resilient, with resin and regular qi application, it is theoretically possible for the dizi to mend itself. Of course, the owner’s qi would work best…I’m assuming that’s not an option.” He pauses, the pall of horror stealing the calm in his features.
“Jiang-zongzhu, this dizi-”
“For the continued prosperity of your business, I trust you will keep quiet about this matter.” It repels you to threaten an innocent man but you have done worse things for less. You can see him process the rumors of demonic cultivators disappearing in Yunmeng, connect the dots and draw his own conclusions.
“May lightning strike me if my words prove false. I will never reveal the matter of our meeting today.”
Excellent.
*
On his way from Lanling after Rusong’s funeral, A-Ling is kidnapped.
You are so beside yourself with anger, you almost qi-deviate on the spot. You find yourself held down by no less than four Jin disciples while Lianfang-zun, whose head is so low, almost inappropriately so, repeatedly apologizes for the oversight in his security detail.
“Rest assured, Jiang-zongzhu, we are doing everything we can--”
“You dare to restrain me? Maybe if you weren’t preoccupied over your son’s death, this wouldn’t have happened.”
You take great satisfaction in seeing the man’s customary smile turn brittle.
“I can assure you that I am capable of caring for more than one child at a time.” The sharpness retracts and the patronizing gentleness returns. “I will not take offense, Jiang-zongzhu, since I know you are speaking from a place of grief.”
“Spare me your platitudes, you fucked up and you know it.” Zidian snarls from your wrist. “The only reason you’re still alive is that A-Ling likes you.”
Something gleams in the Chief Cultivator’s eye. You don’t like it. When he speaks, his tone is rebuking, like that from a superior to a subordinate.
“You are not the only family who cares about him.” These words pierce more deeply than any sword.
But he is mine, all that I have left of her!
The immortal binding ropes fall in a useless heap at his feet. Another detestable trick learned from him. You break a nose, likely belonging to someone inconsequential. “I’ll look for him myself.”
When you find A-Ling, traumatized but sound, you are so relieved that you don’t even bother to take your time with his kidnapper. A-Ling turns green when he sees the blood on the ground.
So unsightly! Beautiful people should only look at beautiful things.
“A-Ling, let’s go home.”
*
Zhongyuan one year, you burn an incense stick and make an offering of lotus seed buns.
“Don’t think too much of this. It just so happens the kitchen made too many and these were too ugly to make it to the offering table.”
*
Years pass. The pain does not leave, but like the crack in your shixiong’s dizi, something new grows over the wound to dull its bite. You handle the bamboo with care, infusing the resin with your qi. Your qi is not your brother’s, will never be as good, as strong, as bright as his, but as you watch the fibers lengthen and revitalize, there’s a satisfaction from doing something that he could not. If only your brother had helped, if only you had been in a position to offer help, the Twin Heroes of Yunmeng would be more than an unfulfilled promise.
“A-Ling’s been getting into fights,” you tell him as you offer incense on a perfectly unremarkable day. “He doesn’t get along with kids his age. He’s--he’s too much like me. He’s not good with feelings. With people. They tease him, he doesn’t know how to react, so he hits them.”
You sigh. A-Jie would be so disappointed at how her son had turned out.
“You were always good at making friends.”
“Lianfang-zun got him a dog. First good thing he’s ever done for A-Ling. I still don’t like him. A-Ling loves her, keeps her close. Little Fairy. Yeah, I know. Don’t even start. I think it’s a perfectly good name. She’s a good girl, you would have been terrified of her. Real smart, but of course spiritual dogs are. I wonder if A-Die would have allowed me to keep them if they had been spiritual dogs instead of regular ones? I would have been able to train them, keep them away from a distance you felt comfortable with. Of course we’ll never know now.”
You kneel long after the plume of incense has vanished.
*
“It’s official, I’ve been blacklisted by every matchmaker in Yunmeng. You probably think this is funny but it really isn’t. We are facing a very serious problem. I’m deeply concerned about the lack of women of good bearing and education in Yunmeng. Good women should not be this hard to find!”
*
“Wei Wuxian, why did you leave me? Didn’t we make a promise? Aren’t you a man of your word? You cared so much about the Wens you didn’t think about how much I needed you. I couldn’t even give A-Jie a proper wedding dowry, and our people had nothing but rice water and lotus seeds for weeks."
*
“Fuck radishes. Wei Wuxian, if I ever have to see another radish in my life, it will be too soon.”
*
“A-Ling won his first official duel by biting his opponent’s ear off. I can’t decide whether to be proud or to be ashamed that he won in such an embarrassing manner. I’m making him come back to Lotus Pier for the summer to drill those form basics. Suihua has made him overconfident.”
*
“I caught three demonic cultivators today. One of them was seriously off his rocker, carving drinking bowls from human skulls or some nonsense, but the other two were mostly hungry and cold. I killed the first and fed the other two before letting them go. Maybe old age has made me soft. I know what it’s like to be hungry.
“You were so thin when we saw you in Yiling, A-Jie was so worried for you. She would have wanted to see you at the wedding, but the time wasn’t right. It wasn’t safe. She was scared of what might have happened. I was scared I’d be bringing your corpse back.
I couldn’t even do that. What a fucking failure.”
*
“Fifteen years later, my thoughts on this have not changed.
Jin Rulan, really? Could you have been more obvious?”
*
“Fuck you, Wei Wuxian. Fuck you. How dare youhowdareyoudareyoudareyoudare. I hate you. I hate you so much. I wish you had never come back. How dare you show up, playing your stupid trills--our dizi instructor would have an aneurysm from your fingering--how dare you come back, how dare you hurt A-Ling, A-Jie would cry, how dare you make her cry. You of all people should know better than to pull the orphan card. How dare you throw yourself in Hanguang-jun’s arms like some deranged lover, oh gross, I think he actually likes you??
Here’s your fucking flute. I imagine you’ll need it at some point.”