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Yiling was not a prosperous town.

Up until recently, it was a dying town.  The local economy was shrinking year over year as jobs slowly dried up.  The population was dwindling as many of the younger generation chose to leave, to find anywhere else in the world that might give them a better life. The air and water were tainted, years of mining and poor infrastructure slowly poisoning the city with every breath.

Of course, the rampant resentful energy from the nearby Burial Mounds helped nothing.  Every year that went by without a steady cultivator presence, the city sunk further into disrepair, sunk further into the grave it seemed destined for.

The change, when it came, came slow. 

The realization that things had changed was a series of recurring shocks.

Auntie Yi realized it’d been a month since she’d heard of anyone going missing in the dark of the night.

Auntie Chun realized that her garden was finally growing without a fight, and was stunned when she stumbled across a hefty cucumber slowly escaping the bounds of the garden box.

Uncle Yizi realized after a long walk home after work that he hadn’t coughed once… and when he thought about it, he couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d had a bad coughing spell, after spending most of his life hacking resentment-polluted air.

Theories flew thick and fast in the tea shops, in the markets, at the nail salons.  A local god had finally woken up and was taking his duties seriously.  The dead of the Burial Mounds had finally been dead long enough that their strength was waning.  Someone tried to suggest that the larger sects were finally taking their duties seriously, but they were shouted down immediately – any sect cultivator would demand attention and praise for something they should have been doing all along.

Tragically for the desperately curious, no one stood up to take responsibility.  But the changes didn’t stop – they continued by inches, by fractions, but relentlessly.

Shops started staying open later, no longer worrying about losing clientele to the things that go bump in the night.

People found renewed ward talismans on the local schools and clinics, clearly professionally made, more complicated than anyone had ever seen.  

The markets started to pick up, merchants more comfortable in the city than they were before.

It was nearly a year into the mystery when someone finally spotted him.  It was suitably dramatic – a waitress heading home late at night, realizing that the street was too dark, too quiet, too cold.  She tried to run, but it wasn’t long before she could hear the clatter of something with too many feet, moving too rapidly, chasing along behind her.  She had forgotten how scary the night could be, how dangerous, and now she was going to die for it.  She ran faster, crying, but she already knew she wasn’t going to make it home.  Her parents would never know what happened to her.  

That’s when she heard it.

Someone was playing a dizi – it wasn’t a song she recognized.  She wasn’t sure it was even a song, the notes meandering like a lazy river at times, sharp as a drawn sword at others, but the music had an almost physical presence, filling the air.  

Shielding her.

She stumbled to a stop, leaning against a wall as she tried to catch her breath.  There was a… something, further down the lane, shadowy and indistinct and shrinking as if being compressed into a smaller and smaller box as the music continued to play.  

Then she spotted him.  He was perched on the corner of a nearby shop roof, one knee drawn up to his chest.  He was wearing the robes of a cultivator, but in a striking black and red that wasn’t the colors of any sect she knew.  He wore his hair in a high ponytail, a bright red ribbon twisted in his flowing hair.  

He was gorgeous, and he’d saved her life.

She hoped he wouldn’t be mad that she took his picture, the click of her phone’s camera lost in the dizi music.  How was she supposed to resist, with him looking like that?  Besides, no one would believe her if she didn’t provide proof.

Thus, the story of the Yiling Laozu was born.

Lan Wangji, the Second Jade of Lan, the heir to the Lan until his brother figured out exactly what it was he was doing with his romantic life, arrived in Yiling on a fairly unremarkable Tuesday afternoon.  He wasn’t really due in town until Friday morning.  It had taken a remarkable amount of stubbornness on his part to be allowed to come to this abandoned corner of the cultivation world, but he’d been intrigued by their efforts at putting together a cultivation school not formally associated with any one sect, accepting any who would come.  It sounded more interesting than the rounds of diplomatic meetings and too-crowded night hunts that his life had become otherwise.  It turned out that being the Sect Heir was a job that came with the extremely unwanted downside of being very highly social.  His brother was becoming a very busy man, so far too many people had come to the deeply erroneous conclusion that trying to hang around Lan Wangji was the best way to gain influence with the Lan Sect Leader.

If Lan Wangji never went to a cultivation conference again, he would be entirely fine with that.

So, when an open position was advertised for a cultivation teacher, Lan Wangji had leapt upon it with the desperation of a man who could possibly escape Jin Guangshan’s parties forever.  Comments about ‘shining the light of proper Lan cultivation style and superior Lan morals’ seemed to eventually convince the elders, and he was granted the freedom to go.

So here he was.

It only took him a few minutes to realize that this was a town that wasn’t overly enamored with sect cultivators.  There was a pattern to the looks he was getting in his Lan robes – curiosity, recognition, and then, bizarrely, scorn.  No one was openly rude, but no one was openly friendly either.  He remembered there had been a note in the welcome packet from the school mentioning that most of the teachers worked in modern clothing, not cultivation robes – he’d thought it was another accessibility step, to attract teachers who might not have access to more formal wear or not want to risk what they had around children, if it would be difficult to replace.  

Maybe that wasn’t the reason.

With that in mind, once he checked in to his rooms at the local inn - a temporary hold-over until he could pick up the keys to the official teacher’s housing he was given as part of the position - he quickly changed into the shirt and trousers he’d bought especially for this trip.  They felt… odd, but when he looked at himself in the mirror, he could imagine himself blending in with the townsfolk.  

The old anxiety of feeling like he was doing something wrong gnawed at the back of his brain.  He knew shufu wasn’t entirely pleased with his choice, didn’t understand why he couldn’t just teach the sect children as usual.  Didn’t understand why he had to go do something different.

He didn’t know why he couldn’t put it into words his uncle would understand – he wanted to make a difference in the world.  Not something that would get him in the history books some day, or have his name on a tome in the library.  He wanted to help people.  He wanted to make their lives better, in whatever way he could.

The fact that there wouldn’t be a single member of cultivator high society out here to harass him was just a (much appreciated) bonus.  Here he could help, he could guide new cultivators who would be connected with this area that had been historically underserved, he could help directly with night hunts the sects weren’t helping with – it was everything he hoped for.

He could do this.

Three months in, Lan Wangji was settled into his routine, and life was surprisingly good.  He had his students, he had a favorite tea shop…

And he had Wei Ying.

Wei Ying had been a surprise he couldn’t have possibly planned for.  He’d started the class’s day the way he’d begun classes for the Lan sect students for years now – with a lecture.  Straight-backed, hand behind his back, his tone measured and flowing – he might never love public speaking, but he could lecture about his topics of interest for hours.

He hadn’t accounted for the students.

“Um.  Um.  Excuse me?”  One of the students, a young boy with a cowlick that seemingly resisted all taming, had his hand thrust in the air as far as he could go, and (not taking Lan Wangji’s failure to call on him as a hint) interrupted the lecture.  Lan Wangji blinked at him.

“Interruption is not allowed.”

“But I had my hand up.”

“And I did not call on you… Li Yan.”  He added, consulting the desk map.

“But I have a question, Lan-laoshi!”  

“Interruptions are not allowed.”  He repeated, realizing that the logic here resembled nothing so much as a circle, but there was nothing he could do about it.  He returned to his lecture, happy he’d managed to remember his place.

Li Yan was not so easily defeated.  He kept his hand up, wiggling it from time to time, stretching himself to try and get his hand even higher, making sad little sounds to himself that didn’t quite count as interruptions, but did manage to slowly draw the class’s attention away from the lecture, and towards Li Yan’s desperate bid to be heard.  

Finally, Lan Wangji, famed cultivator, admitted defeat.

“Yes, Li Yan?”  Maybe it was something pressing.  Maybe there was a medical issue. 

“Are you really our teacher?”  Or… maybe it was just as ridiculous as he feared.

“Yes.”  He agreed, but when he raised his notes again to re-find his place, that little hand was back in the air.  “Yes, Li Yan?”

“Forever?”  

“No, for this year.”  Lan Wangji corrected, then blinked in confusion as the class erupted in giggles.  They didn’t seem to be mocking him?  But they were… laughing.  At what he said.  He hadn’t meant to be humorous.  He retreated to his notes.

Li Yan had his hand up.  He was pretty sure he didn’t want to know, but at this point, resignation had set in.

“Are you really…”  Li Yan started, but Lan Wangji never found out what Li Yan was questioning he was ‘really’ part of, because the door to his classroom opened, and a beautiful man stumbled through the doorway after tripping on the mantel.  

“Oh, haha, sorry, I forgot there’s a class in here now, just come to raid your first aid box.”  The beautiful man had explained, his grin wide and friendly and ridiculous.  Lan Wangi opened his mouth to ask if the beautiful man was hurt (hopefully managing to not actually say ‘beautiful man’ out loud), but he never really got the chance.  The beautiful man just kept talking.  

“Hi, you must be the new teacher, I’m Wei Ying, Wei-laoshi to this miserable lot.”  He waggled the fingers of one hand at the assembled students, who giggled at him as well.  The other hand he had partially wrapped in paper towels, the white of the paper slowly turning red.  “Small incident with a ruler and some newspaper, physics gone wild, you know?   You try to do a practical presentation, and it bites you in the butt.  I’d use my own first aid kit but those little hooligans took my very last bandaid – it’s because I stock the cool ones, I get it, but still, at least leave me one, right?  So rude, I’ll have to get creative with my punishments.”  He barely paused for breath while talking, but he efficiently found the first aid kit, propped it open, cleaned what looked like a superficial laceration with one of the disinfecting wipes, applied a little antibiotic cream, and slapped on a bandage all one-handed while he chattered away.  

“Right, time to go see if anyone actually understood the point of that demonstration of surface area and force, and if that perhaps sparked some thoughts about the application of talismans for suppression, or if I’m going to have to spell it out.  That was a hint for next year, guys, keep it in mind!”  He added cheerfully as he put the kit away and tossed the trash in the bin by the door.  “Thanks!”

And then he was gone.

Lan Wangji hadn’t managed to say a word.

“That’s Wei-laoshi, he teaches talismans.  And beginning swordwork.  He’s cool.”  Li Yan opined, sounding firm in his beliefs.  Lan Wangji could definitely believe that Wei Ying was, indeed, cool.  

He hadn’t expected to see Wei Ying again for a while, but his lunch two hours later was interrupted by Wei Ying’s bright presence.   He arrived with a lunch tray loaded with every spicy dish option from the hot bar, with a few extra hot sauce packets tucked against the plate.  

“Hey, is anyone sitting here?  You shouldn’t spend your first lunch with us alone!”  Wei Ying asked, and while he certainly looked inclined to just plop himself down, he did wait until Lan Wangji nodded before settling down and unloading his tray.  

“Hey, thanks for letting me interrupt your class earlier, you’re a lifesaver!”  Wei Ying grinned, ignoring the horrified look Lan Wangji was giving his violently red bowl of noodles.  

“It was not a problem… are you really going to eat that?”  Lan Wangji could not help but ask – it looked inherently violent, but Wei Ying tucked in with every evidence of contentment.

“Yup!  A little spice never hurt anyone.”  

Lan Wangji hadn’t known what to say to that, but it didn’t seem that Wei Ying necessarily needed the encouragement of answering conversation – he had barreled along between bites of his food, unbothered both by the heat of the spices and by Lan Wangji’s reticence.  He had given a comprehensive run-down on how things really worked at the school – which teachers the students respected, which ones were on the edge of causing a student riot at all times, which copier actually worked reliably, who was the go-to person in the administrative staff.  All of the information that would never make it into an official handbook, but was necessary to work here, day-to-day.  And he said it all with the air of one talking to a friend long-missed, which… 

It was new.  He’d never really had that, outside of conversations with his brother.  He considered questioning it, but..

Well.

It was nice.

He hadn’t expected a friend here – duty, certainly, and the joy of seeing students learn, but not… friendship. Not something that was potentially more than friendship, after more lunches, and walks, and dinners.  

It’d come out on accident, really, that Wei Ying had once been a cultivator.  He’d been ranting about the quality of soup available at the school cafeteria, and how criminally unnuanced it was.

“It’s lacking in anything that might be called character, Lan Zhan!  If this were served at Lotus Pier, heads would literally roll!  Uncle Jiang…” Too late, Wei Ying seemed to realize what exactly he’d let slip, and went silent.  Lan Wangji had already suspected that Wei Ying had at least grown up around cultivators, maybe had a sibling in a sect with how easily he took to explaining talismans, but he’d never said anything about affiliation with one particular sect.  

“Wei Ying… you don’t…” He didn’t get any further, his hesitating words cut off by Wei Ying’s over-bright smile.  This was the one he deployed when he wanted to hide the hurt, and it was one of the few smiles of Wei Ying’s that Lan Wangji hated.  

“It’s alright, Lan Zhan.”  Wei Ying evidently could correctly interpret Lan Wangji’s expressions as well, something only his brother had accomplished before now, and his smile softened to something gentler.  Sadder.  “I… was part of the Jiang sect.  I’m not anymore, obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t be here, would I?  And then I would have missed you!”  He made as if to pull back, become more self-contained, and Lan Wangji couldn’t allow it.  He grabbed for Wei Ying’s hand, and missed.  Just a little.  His hand ended up around Wei Ying’s wrist, and it was almost impossible to miss the lack of spiritual power flowing through the meridians under Lan Wangji’s hand.  Something o his shock must have shown in his expression.  Wei Ying sat, frozen, seeming suddenly as brittle as an ice sculpture.

“It’s gone.”  He said, distantly.

“And they threw you out?”  Lan Wangji asked, confused.  Stunned.  Horrified.  Certainly without a core Wei Ying couldn’t have been an active cultivator, but there were still tasks he could have performed, and if he lost his core in service of the Jiang, he should be cared for.  Not here, where the Burial Mounds were only a short hike away. 

“Don’t worry about it.  I’m fine.”

“Wei Yi-“ 

“I’m fine, I said.  Leave it.”  All of the warmth had left Wei Ying’s voice.  Lan Wangji couldn’t blame him, even though it hurt.  Could he manage to even be half as calm, if their positions were reversed?

Absolutely not.

He bit back the rest of his questions.  Wei Ying was right, though it pained him.  It wasn’t his problem to solve, though he wanted to.  It wasn’t his right to wrong, though it burned him.

Instead, he let Wei Ying’s wrist go, and opened his arms in invitation.  They’d never really hugged before, but every day they’d been getting closer to it.  He wasn’t sure now if he’d ever…

His thoughts ground to a halt as Wei Ying took the offer, his lean frame and strong arms fitting perfectly in the space Lan Wangji had left for him.

Oh.

All was not lost after all.

On his days off, Lan Wangji went night-hunting.  When he was drawing up plans to move to Yiling, he had thought his main difficulty would be balancing his time between his students, and what would surely be a mountain of work needed to keep the citizens of Yiling safe from the resentful creatures at their doors.  What he wasn’t expecting was that his main difficulty in Yiling, to date, was keeping Li Yan occupied long enough to get some real teaching done.  

It wasn’t that there were no resentful creatures in Yiling.  He had a few fierce corpses under his belt here, along with one measuring snake that had startled a local farmer, and a ghost some distance from the main body of the town.  But that was all.  This was the sort of activity he’d expect around Caiyi Town, not a place that not only had one of the most haunted places on earth just outside of its borders, but also boasted its very own necromancer.

Lan Wangji couldn’t say he’d actually met this supposed necromancer in person – as far as he could tell, no one he spoke to really had.  There was a whole cottage industry surrounding the man, however.  They’d even named him – the Yiling Laozu, the man who commanded the dead, who walked the ghost path, who would even command demons to do his bidding.  Most of the shops in town had some amount of Yiling Laozu merchandise, ranging from tawdry to prohibitively expensive.  Even the tea shop across from his apartment, which was rapidly becoming his favorite, wasn’t immune – they carried a smoked black tea they named after this person – or perhaps myth would be more correct.  Even though Lan Wangji spent most of his free time searching for trouble to help correct, he never ran across this mysterious person the town hailed as a sort of dark hero.  

Uncle would have gone into a rage.  Lan Wangji… wasn’t sure the man even existed.  Surely if a town was ruled over someone who dabbled so freely in energies known to corrode the soul, the town would be nearly overrun with resentful energy.  A man who consorted with demons would hardly take a care to make sure normal people weren’t poisoned with every breath.  What he found, however, was a town kept safe.  Someone was patrolling, of that he was sure, but it wasn’t this ‘Yiling Laozu’.

The sun was shining brightly one spring afternoon as Lan Wangji and Wei Ying sat outside of a local café, finishing up a leisurely lunch.  Lan Wangji wasn’t sure if this officially counted as a ‘date’ – while neither of them had put words to how they seemed to spend more and more time together, Lan Wangji was perfectly willing to take that step.  He just… wasn’t at all sure how to make that clear to Wei Ying, without horrifically embarrassing himself.  He was considering how to bring it up when his thoughts were interrupted by brash shouting.  A man in a rather bold outfit – red underrobe, black robes, and a bright red ribbon in his hair, had set himself up on the opposite side of the square, and was calling for attention.

“I am the head disciple of the Yiling Laozu, the infamous necromancer!”  The man called, waving sheafs of talismans in the air to catch the eye of those passing by.  “He is far too important to come down himself, but he has sent me to help in his goal of protecting this town!  As everyone knows, the Yiling Laozu is the only one who cares for us here.  See, look, he sends his talismans!  And they are all so very useful!”

There was a derisive snort from Wei Ying.  Lan Wangji looked over, expecting Wei Ying to be amused by this overtly ridiculous display, but instead…

He was furious.

“That idiot is going to get someone killed.  Useful, my ass.  Someone’s going to trust in a trash talisman for protection at the wrong time, all because this idiot wants to cash in on something he thinks will make him rich.” 

Lan Wangji supposed this ire made sense – talismans were Wei Ying’s area of focus, something he could still do despite his lost core.  If Lan Wangji’s cultivation was taken away, and he was only left his qin music, he’d plot the murder of the entirety of the Su sect before too long.  

“Surely before too long he will gain a reputation for untrustworthiness, if his talismans fail to work?”  He offered, wishing for some of his brother’s diplomatic skill.

“As if his lies weren’t evident already.  Head disciple, he says – have you ever seen a head disciple so ineffectual at controlling a crowd?  Maybe he could claim ‘only’ disciple and be convincing, but I guess that wasn’t grand enough for this idiot.”  Wei Ying was not calmed – if a glare could set someone on fire, the man awkwardly hawking his wares would already be ash on the wind.  

Actually.

There was ash on the wind.

The talismans were burning.  At first the effect was subtle, the edges smoking, lined in a red brighter than the messy cinnabar lines.  But with the ‘head disciple’s’ vigorous movements, the fire caught quickly and spread. In just moments, he had to drop the talismans - now only embers and blackened fragments of paper. The crowd did rush to him then – to stomp out the flames to prevent them from spreading, further destroying the talismans, grinding the ashes into the stones.  Wei Ying had settled back in his chair, his lips quirked up in a faint smirk that had no joy in it.  It wasn’t exactly confirmation that he somehow set the talismans on fire – it would be pretty difficult to do from here, so subtly, without a golden core – but…

Lan Wangji already knew it was Wei Ying.  

“Do you hate them so much?”  The Yiling Laozu didn’t exactly have a sterling reputation outside of Yiling.  Most of the cultivation clans dismissed it as either exaggeration or a myth, but a dangerous one – that a demonic cultivator could be anything but evil was an aberration.  Lan Wangji had certainly been taught as much.  Surely if Wei Ying was once part of the Jiang, he would have been taught the same.  Would have seen demonic cultivators first hand.

“They’re bottom feeders, preying on the weak and easily fooled.  They should all be run out of town.”  Wei Ying sneered, still glaring at the unfortunate talisman seller as the man slowly trudged out of the square, his wares now gone.  Lan Wangji hasn’t actually heard Wei Ying express so much hatred for anyone, or anything, since he met him.  He was perpetually seeing the bright side of every experience.  It was one of the things he liked… loved best about Wei Ying.  He had never seen Wei Ying look so cold.  Suddenly he realized – as a cultivator in a sect, he would have been on night hunts.  He might have run across demonic cultivators before.

He might have been hurt by one.

He realized, in a flash of icy cold, that he could guess how Wei Ying lost his core.  He couldn’t ask, of course – how do you just ask someone to talk about the thing every cultivator would have endless nightmares about?  But if Wei Ying was this furious about someone even claiming association with a demonic cultivator… well.  That had to mean something, didn’t it?

Lan Wangji cast about to find some other topic of conversation to lighten the mood, but while he was distracted, Wei Ying had evidently managed to settle up with the café owner for their meal, and was standing, shrugging on his leather coat.

“C’mon, let’s get out of here.”  Wei Ying was still frowning, but the grim fury had been tucked away again, away from public view.  Lan Wangji hurried to follow, quietly trailing in Wei Ying’s wake.  Two blocks away, the tension in Wei Ying’s frame unraveled, and he smiled – small, and rueful, but a real smile, which made Lan Wangji untense in turn.

“Sorry Lan Zhan, I was… that was pretty rude of me, huh?  I’ll make it up next time, promise!”  He nodded, with a three-fingered salute.  

“No need for sorries between us.”  Lan Wanji disagreed, firmly.  “It is fine, Wei Ying.  And I will enjoy next time as well.”

“Lan Zhan!  Have a care for this feeble one’s heart!”  Wei Ying protested, loud and petulant and entirely unlike the furious man from the courtyard.  Good.  This reaction entirely failed to discourage him from making such statements to Wei Ying.

The year rolled on a little further.  The weather turned more chill – it would never get as cold as Cloud Recesses here, but the rain came in cold drizzles that failed to make anything cleaner.  The cooler weather did not deter Yiling’s new booming business: 

Tourists.

Stories of the Yiling Laozu were escaping the bounds of Yiling.  People – mostly non-cultivators – were coming into town to see where this mysterious and dangerous rogue cultivator was making waves.  They came armed with maps, conspiracy theories… and money.

Money they gladly spent an astounding array of absolutely ridiculous products, in Lan Wangji’s opinion.  There were keychains with little Yiling Laozu figurines, each clutching a tiny black dizi.  There were artistic renditions of the scene most commonly claimed as the one time the Yiling Laozu was spotted, of a dizi player on a dark rooftop.

There were plush soft Yiling Laozu for the children.  At least one of them had now taken up residence in the youngest of the classes, ready to be cuddled if one of the children was having a trying day.  

Lan Wangji wasn’t entirely immune.  He found a small figurine in one of the small street markets – a tiny black bunny, with a red ribbon tied around one ear like the dizi player had been wearing.  It was truly adorable.  He’d bought it, setting it up in his kitchen to preside over the tea things.  

In his letters, Lan Xichen mentioned his worries about the growing popularity of the Yiling Laozu.  While there wasn’t any sort of conclusive evidence the man actually existed, with that many more non-cultivators streaming into town, if there was a demonic cultivator around, it could lead to trouble.  The vague sort of unspecified trouble that tended to cause unrest at cultivator conferences.  Lan Wangji replied every time that while the tourist traps that claimed to have links to the Yiling Laozu only grew every day, there wasn’t a palpable rise in resentful energy to match.

In fact, the town seemed just as free of resentful energy as it was the day he arrived.  There were maybe whisps, here and there, but just as much as a cultivator would reasonably expect in any town.

It was a miserable night in late spring – just warm enough to make it humid, but just cold enough to make lighter clothing uncomfortable, still enough that biting insects were out trying their luck in the moonlight, but windy enough that he could see a storm front slowly inching its way towards town, ready to remind everyone that winter hadn’t quite retracted all of its claws yet.  

Lan Wangji was meant to still be in Lanling, forced to attend a cultivation conference to show the world he hadn’t died or become evil or whatever strange bit of gossip was whirling around the cultivation world this time.  He’d had to get a substitute teacher for his class, and he hated it.  He hadn’t expected to enjoy his class as much as he was, but their questions were honest and refreshing, and showed how they saw the world without the lens of the cultivation sects.  

He'd put up with three days of posturing, three days of pointed asides from Lan elders who thought he should be back in Cloud Recesses on a permanent basis, three days of two-faced smarminess that made him itch to punch something.  Or someone.  Several someones.  He’d endured all of that – he’d heard worse, seen worse, before he had come to Yiling.  

What he couldn’t put up with, it turned out, was the endless commentary about how horrible Yiling must be.  So far from the cultivation sects.  So close to the Burial Mounds.  What were they even teaching at that school, where Lan Wangji couldn’t see?  How depraved were the citizens in that town, to live in such an atmosphere?  The way he’d left the cultivation conference a full day early probably did not help the rumors, but it was a better alternative to physically making his displeasure known the next time someone disparaged people he had genuinely become fond of.  The little old lady who sold him his morning tea, the children in his classroom… Wei Ying.

So he’d left.  They’d talk, he was sure, but at least he didn’t have to be there to hear it.

And now he was patrolling a town that did not seem to need it.  The night was quiet and still, the moon beautiful.  He ought to go change, maybe call Wei Ying and let him know that he was back early, maybe…

A scream broke his thoughts.  He was running before he even properly thought about it, chasing down the sound.  Before the scream fully faded away, another sound arced into the night air – the high, breathy sound of a dizi.

His race across the rooftops was swift, but before he could get close, the inhuman growl of a yao shook the air.  Lan Wangji did not understand – he’d been here for months now, more than half a year, and while there were certainly stories about the Yiling Patriarch stealing young women away (though whether it was to take their souls or their beauty or their purity was a motive that changed daily), none of the stories were actually verifiable.  No one knew of any specific women who had gone missing – just a friend of a friend of an acquaintance.  Lan Wangji hadn’t really put any faith in the stories, but… as he raced closer to where the dizi was being played, they felt more real.  

He sprinted around the last corner, and nearly tripped over his own feet in his hurry to come to a stop.  There in the street loomed an enormous yao – possibly once a boar, before it had become corrupted, its hooves heavy enough to crack asphalt and its unnaturally long tusks dripping ichor.  Before the yao was a woman, sprawled on the asphalt, unmoving.

Between them stood a man.  He was armed only with a dizi, and with the roiling resentful energy that seemed to pour from him in an endless tide.  The man wore black robes, a mimicry of cultivator robes, and had tied his hair off in a red ribbon – one that looked so much like Wei Ying’s, he nearly cried out the name in horror.  But this couldn’t be Wei Ying.  Wei Ying had never been wreathed in resentful energy like this.  Wei Ying hated demonic cultivators, very firmly refusing to even talk about why he tensed every time someone claimed to be the Yiling Laozu’s apprentice.  

“Ah, a Lan, good – take her away, please?  She is bound to wake up again any second and is very grabby.”  The Yiling Laozu, for this must be him, drawled in a nonchalant tone.  Lan Wangji wanted to argue, wanted to not give the demonic cultivator the chance to slip away again, but it really would be best if someone got the woman safely away – she was not a cultivator, and should not be expected to withstand horrors.  

“Mn.”  He agreed, shortly, not willing to allow the woman to be injured just so he could keep tabs on a man who, before today, he’d just about convinced himself did not exist.  It did not take him long to find a café where other civilians had gone to hide, and make sure she would be taken care of.  He could hear the dizi behind him, though he did not know the song played, if it was a song at all.  It had no coherent theme that he could discern, threateningly low one moment and wheedling high the next, whining and screeching and moaning in a most unbecoming fashion.  Was the Yiling Laozu trying to annoy the yao to its own destruction? 

The air became more and more heavy, saturated with resentful energy that suddenly made the closeness of the Burial Mounds all too immediate.  Lan Wangji struggled not to choke on it as he turned to head back towards the battle – either with the yao, or with the demonic cultivator.  Hopefully not with both.  

With a suddenness that sent him staggering, the resentful energy disappeared as if it had never been.  The area felt clean again, airy as Cloud Recesses on a summer day. It only took him a minute or two to reach where he’d left the yao and the demonic cultivator, but the street was empty and silent.  It was only luck that had him look up just as the Yiling Laozu alighted on the rooftop of a nearby apartment building.  He seemed unbothered as he strolled away along the ridge of the roof, as if what had happened was completely ordinary.

Lan Wangji flew after him.  

He knew he didn’t make much of a sound when his feet hit the roof tiles, but the Yiling Laozu whirled anyway, alert as a fox.  There was a silver mask across his face, hiding everything but his cocky smirk, his eyes lost in shadow.  

“Ah ah ah, little Lan, you abandoned your damsel in distress so quickly!  How will she ever pay you back with kisses if you run away from her?  That’s terribly rude, you know.”  He teased, twirling his dizi carelessly.  Lan Wangji did not reward this teasing with anything but a cold look.  He could not loathe this man – the cultivation world certainly made great noises about doing so, but they had not lived in a town purportedly protected by him.  He worried though, that he’d cross paths with Wei Ying, whose hackles went up every time the Yiling Laozu was mentioned.  He worried that eventually working with resentful energy would turn this young man from a protector to a tyrant.

“Resentful energy damages the mind and spirit.”  He noted, his words made stiff and awkward as he realized it was a bit overbearing to lecture someone he’d only just met.  “It has always been so.”  He meant it as a warning, a plea – this town really was thriving under the Yiling Laozu’s watch.  People loved him.  It would make him turning even worse, in the end.  

“Rude.”  The Yiling Laozu laughed, sharply, making it somehow a deeply unhumorous sound.  “Did you want something, little Lan, or did you just come back to pick a fight?”  He twirled his dizi, the blood-red talisman on the end whipping through the air.  Lan Wangji desperately did not want to fight this man.  While his uncle might be aghast at the thought, it seemed the demonic cultivator was trying to do good… just in the most disturbing way possible.  But he could see how his words went astray – why would some stranger, some sect cultivator, want anything other than a fight?

“… The auntie by my apartment, who runs the tea shop, she made a tea blend in honor of you.”  He blurted out, the words at a tangent to his meaning, but at least closer.  The Yiling Laozu visibly stumbled over the non sequitur, nearly sending his dizi tumbling to the street far below.

“… What?”

“My students, in the cultivation school in town, have dolls meant to be you.  They take turns protecting the playground during recess.”  

“… What does this have to do with me?”

“The people of this town look up to you.  They would miss you, mourn you, if you fell due to your techniques.  They would be traumatized if one day they had to fear you.”  There, that was closer to what he was thinking, what he feared.  Much better than a lecture at random.

Lan Wangji could not make out the man’s expression clearly with the mask in place, but for the first time since he had run across the necromancer, the Yiling Laozu was still, his head cocked like a puzzled dog.  

“They did well enough without me before I came along.  They’ll do well enough after.  Besides, isn’t that what you’re here for?”  The masked man snorted.

“No, I… I came to teach.  At the school.”  Surely the Yiling Laozu couldn’t have missed the cultivation school that sprung up in his town, the most well-warded building present besides, perhaps, Lan Wangji’s apartment.  

“Well, I’m sure they’ll give you time to night hunt as well, if it becomes necessary.” The necromancer noted off-handedly, not sounding at all concerned about his predicted demise.  Was he so steeped in death that he no longer worried about avoiding it?  Lan Wangji started forward, intending to grab the man’s arm, to make him focus instead of being so ridiculously flippant.  Instead, there was a sudden whirlwind of resentful energy that forced him back, raising Bichen once again in defense.

When the resentful energy cleared, the Yiling Laozu was gone.

Spring gave way to early summer – the teachers were given a short break before summer classes were meant to begin, for those who required extra time to catch up with the rest of their classmates, and a short summer school for adult learners.  Wei Ying had fought volubly for it – the more hide-bound of the faculty did not see the point, at least at first.  Wei Ying had forced them to see the point – those starting this late may never form a golden core, but knowing basic defenses against resentful creatures, and knowing how to identify a good talisman versus one made to scam the unwary, never mind the overarching usefulness of meditation techniques, were all things even the most mundane person should know, especially in a place like Yiling.  Lan Wangji thought back to the faux disciple of the Yiling Laozu, and whole-heartedly threw his support behind Wei Ying’s idea.  Between the pair of them, they wore everyone else down.

And were then promptly rewarded by being tasked to set the curriculum and oversee the classes for this new course.  Lan Wangji could appreciate the almost Lannish poetry of the punishing reward.  Besides, it gave him even more excuses to spend time with Wei Ying outside of classroom hours. Of course, Wei Ying immediately had ideas about the curriculum, for new talismans and new applications that Lan Wangji couldn’t exactly refuse outright, but wanted to see in practice before he agreed to teach them to anyone.

They were up in the hills outside of town, land that no one farmed as it was too close to the Burial Mounds, the ground steeped in leached resentment to the point nothing grew.  The trees still standing were twisted and leafless, the grass only brown scraggly tufts, choked of anything that might be called life. Wei Ying had ideas about talismans that could purify the soil and make it usable for farming, which would definitely be something useful to teach – and would revolutionize the field of talismanic arts.  Wei Ying scoffed at the suggestion, much more cynical about whether anyone would accept a new talisman that didn’t originate from within a great sect.

They were arguing about whether the sects would care about such a thing (Wei Ying thought not, as most if not all sects had enough non-contaminated land that they didn’t need to scrounge back tainted land so desperately.  Lan Zhan thought he’d never met a sect leader who didn’t have at least half an eye on increasing the potential wealth of the sect.) as they approached the road where they’d left the rented car.  As they came up over the ridge, Lan Wangji realized he had missed something on the way out, as it was only visible as they looked over the highway stretching away towards town.  

It was a billboard for the Yiling Laozu.  

Or rather, it was a sign for a service that promised to relay commissions to the Yiling Laozu.  The man himself had been drawn, larger than life, a young man with a fierce smile and… fangs.  He wasn’t sure why they’d drawn the man with fangs, or with red eyes, or without his customary mask. He looked positively demonic; his hands held as if he was summoning the dead to rise at his command.  Lan Wangji came to a halt, blinking, trying to process this… thing.

“Hahah, man, they’ll do anything to fool the tourists, right?”  Wei Ying laughed, awkwardly, from beside him.

The sign promised the Yiling would summon demons, talk to spirits, and raise the dead.  All things he’d heard the Yiling Laozu accused of, of course, but that’d been in places like the Cloud Recesses or Koi Tower, not in Yiling.  Someone clearly had been doing market research.  ;

It was wrong.

He’d met the man.  For a moment, sure, and he’d been touchy, but Lan Wangji hadn’t expected him to be friendly to an obvious sect cultivator.  But he’d protected the town, he’d actively worked to avoid hurting anyone.  He wasn’t… this. Lan Wangji could feel himself becoming angry about it, but he knew he had to rein it in.  Wei Ying had been hurt by a demonic cultivator and was probably doing his best to avoid reminders of the local folk hero – and here he was, painted in the worst and most sensational light possible.  He snuck a look at Wei Ying, and as he thought, Wei Ying looked upset.  Anxious.  Like he’d rather be anywhere other than where he was, and completely unlike how happy he’d been rambling on about his new talisman.

“Ignore it.  He isn’t… that isn’t right.”  Lan Wangji advised, hoping to reassure Wei Ying that there wasn’t an evil necromancer rampaging through the town.  There was a necromancer, obviously, but Lan Wangji wasn’t so sure about the ‘evil’.

“He… isn’t?”  Wei Ying asked, not sounding particularly reassured, or even any happier.  Lan Wangji could feel his own frown deepening.  He wasn’t sure if Wei Ying was hearing the absurd rumors that flew through the cultivation world or… worse, if after being abandoned by his sect his former sectmates didn’t even talk to him at all.  He sincerely hoped it wasn’t the latter – while he wasn’t an extremely sociable person himself, he couldn’t imagine not being able to talk to members of the Lan sect anymore after a tragedy.

“No.  A demonic cultivator who would raise the dead and summon demons for his own pleasure would surely be hunted to the ends of the earth.”  Clearly there weren’t any cultivators here attempting to rid the world of the Yiling Laozu, so the sign was patently ridiculous.  The Yiling Laozu did manipulate resentful energy, and Lan Wangji was concerned about the long-term effects, but Yiling was protected, not harmed.  

“And you’d be one of the ones doing the hunting, huh?”  Wei Ying asked, still sounding upset.  His hand had wandered down to cover his lower dantian – Lan Wangji wondered if it hurt, if there was some echo of feeling where there should have been warmth.

“Yes, I would.”  He reassured Wei Ying firmly.  He wouldn’t allow Wei Ying to be harmed again.  This would be a good time, he realized, to explain how he felt.  They’d been dancing around making their relationship something closer, something truly romantic, and this was an obvious opening…

“Let’s just go.”  Wei Ying interrupted his thoughts, suddenly pulling away and hustling back towards the car, determinedly looking away.  Lan Wangji couldn’t help but feel disappointed, but… well, if Wei Ying was truly that upset by the sign and the reminder of the Yiling Laozu’s presence, maybe it wasn’t such a romantic moment after all.  He’d just have to try again later.

Later didn’t come.

It wasn’t that Wei Ying became unfriendly.  He still was perfectly pleasant at the school, still worked hard in building the summer school curriculum, still dropped by his classroom to the continued delight of his students.

He just suddenly and unaccountably became busy any time school wasn’t in session.  There were errands to run, chores to finish, or worst of all, he would already be gone when Lan Wangji freed himself from his classroom.  At first, he thought nothing of it.  Sometimes life got busy, he knew that well.  Even now he would be dragged away from what little social life he managed to build to ensure his uncle and the clan elders didn’t think he was defaulting on his duties as the sect heir.

It didn’t end, however.  Days became weeks, and the normal school year ended without a word from Wei Ying.  Lan Wangji attempted, once, at the school graduation, to apologize for what must have been an insult on that last hike – he still doesn’t know what he said, but clearly, he had done something wrong for Wei Ying to pull away so completely.

Wei Ying had only laughed.

“How could the peerless Hanguang Jun cause insult unknowingly?”  The words in anyone else’s mouth would have been reassuring.  

Wei Ying had never called him Hanguang Jun before, even when they first met.  So it had been an insult, somehow, and one Wei Ying was still intensely angry about.  At a loss, he’d let Wei Ying walk away.  After that, the only communication he had from Wei Ying were updates to the teacher’s app, outlining what steps he’d taken to set up the talismanic portions of the adult classes.  

Lan Wangji hadn’t realized until how much of his enjoyment of living in Yiling had to do with Wei Ying.  Without Wei Ying’s presence, and without the distraction of teaching, his life returned to nearly the same formulaic grey it had been prior to leaving Cloud Recesses.  It would be better, he told himself, once classes started again.  He would have students to distract him, and his days wouldn’t be as rote.

It was the last day before summer classes were due to start.  Lan Wangji was miserable – while the curriculum for the adult classes had come together nicely, Wei Ying had made a point to never be present on campus alone with Lan Wangji, always having something else that needed doing whenever Lan Wangji would come in to set up his part of the lectures.  Tonight, Lan Wangji was circumspectly staying away from the school – Wei Ying had some last minute classroom warding to set up in case of accidental talisman activation, and Lan Wangji didn’t want to go where he wasn’t welcome.  

So, he distracted himself from his misery with a night hunt.  Most of his night hunts ended up being dull patrols since the Yiling Laozu was, by all intents and purposes, extremely motivated to keep his territory safe.  It was still infinitely better than spending the night in his room, pretending he was meditating instead of moping.  

The night was almost oppressively warm, and as quiet as he thought it would be.  If he had more time he would go further afield to search for resentful creatures, but he couldn’t abandon his classes tomorrow.  Despite how uncomfortable his relationship with Wei Ying had become, he couldn’t abandon his duties just because he was frustrated and… well.  He was hurt.  He thought he and Wei Ying were closer than this, that he’d be discarded so thoroughly over something he didn’t even know was wrong.  

He just wished he knew.  At least then, he could apologize appropriately.  He hadn’t missed Cloud Recesses and its very clear rules so much in months.  In Cloud Recesses he’d know what he’d done wrong.  He’d also know exactly how to rectify the situation - and if somehow he didn’t, there were elders who knew the rules perfectly who could guide him.

He was so caught up in thoughts that he almost missed it.  He’d thought for months now that the Yiling Laozu must have some sort of warding system around the town, for attacks to be so rare, but he’d never been able to discern where it was.   It was only now because it was broken that it stood out, the talismanic runes clear where something had torn away part of the line.  He could feel the jagged edges of the incomplete ward from where he flew on Bichen, and it only became more obvious when he dipped down for a landing.  He could see now where subtle carvings had built and strengthened the wards, but something big had bowled over a few of the anchors in this section – one, a fairly big boulder, had been smashed with the violence of the thing’s passing.

Something big, and most likely powerful, had broken through the defenses, heading towards town.  Lan Wangji turned to look back towards Yiling, to assess what would be in the creature’s way…

The school.

The school, on the outskirts of town so they had plenty of ground for exercises, was directly in the creature’s path.  Normally all he would worry about in that case was property damage, but Wei Ying was there tonight.  Wei Ying was there, coreless, defenseless beyond his talismans, and Lan Wangji had no way of contacting the one known defender of this town for help.  

His heart in his throat, Lan Wangji leapt on Bichen, hoping he wasn’t already too late.

As he approached the school, the shriek of a dizi was just as noticeable as the coiling clouds of resentful energy.  A lone figure, features warped by the resentful energy he used, stood proud on the roof of the school, facing down a creature that looked like it could have been a bear before it was warped and mutated with the resentment that soaked through it.  The man – it must be the Yiling Laozu, though he wasn’t wearing cultivator robes this time – was less playing a song than a series of sharp rebukes, each more strident than the next as the yao kept attempting to strike.  

Lan Wangji landed on the roof with a thump, not bothering with a neat landing in his haste.  The dizi sang out again, and a whip of resentful energy lashed against the yao, knocking it back a few steps.  This wasn’t the controlled, almost effortless display Lan Wangji had seen months before.  The Yiling Laozu must have been caught off-guard, forced to improvise as he went.  Still, he wasn’t panicking so far as Lan Wangji could tell – as he drew breath to play again, he nodded his head to the left.  As the sharp notes started up again, Lan Wangji could see another one of those whips forming from the right – a coordinated attack would be more useful, he agreed.

He launched himself into the fray, doing what he would have once thought unthinkable – trusting a demonic cultivator to protect his back, as he protected the demonic cultivator in turn.  He didn’t have time to focus on his battle companion, his attention needed on the yao to keep safe from the massive, slashing paws.

The beast was ferocious, and wickedly intelligent.  It learned quickly that Lan Wangji was the one attacking directly and kept trying to get at the dizi player behind him, foam and ichor flying as it roared in furious challenge.

The fight felt like it went on for hours.  It was draining, and dangerous… and thrilling.  He had never fought with someone who could anticipate his moves as well as the Yiling Laozu, or one who seemed to know intuitively how best to help.  Even when night hunting with his own brother, he hadn’t felt this well matched.  If he wasn’t so worried about Wei Ying, who was hopefully taking shelter somewhere in the school below, he wouldn’t have minded if the fight took all night.  

As it was, finally the Yiling Laozu was able to lasso the yao and pin it while Lan Wangji decapitated it, sending the body slumping to the roof and raising the immediate concern about the roof collapsing under the pressure.  Both of them froze, watching for signs of structural failure.  After some truly ominous creaking, it seemed they were safe, at least for the moment.

Finally, Lan Wangji turned to look at the Yiling Laozu fully, intending to thank him and ask if he’d seen Wei Ying.

Wei Ying, in a t-shirt and ripped jeans, holding the dizi that had just been shrieking commands into the night, blinked back at him.  There was a terror on his face that Lan Wangji hated – terror and defiance all balled up in a sort of despair he never wanted to see again.

There was a pencil stuck through his ponytail – Lan Wangji had seen it there many times before during brainstorming sessions for lessons, an absent-minded habit that once had claimed six pencils before Wei Ying had realized where they’d all gone.   There was ink on his nose – he’d probably rubbed his nose in thought at some point tonight and hadn’t yet realized he needed to wash it off.  He was supposed to be setting up a classroom, not fighting a yao.

“… You’re wearing crocs.”  Lan Zhan noted, still reeling, his mind grasping at the ridiculousness of it all.  They were a sparkly red, with a variety of charms poked through the holes, including a dragon, spurs, two toes, and a peanut with the word ‘deez’ on them.  They were horrific.  

“That’s really what you’re leading with?”  Wei Ying asked, after a beat of stunned silence.  

“They’re not proper footwear for… um.”  For anything, really, as far as Lan Wangji believed, but he realized there was no good way for that sentence to end.

“They’re comfortable.” Wei Ying retorted, awkward, now spinning his dizi in a move Lan Wangji realized must betray his anxiety.  “Lan Zhan…”

“You’re the Yiling Laozu.”  He interrupted, even though he knew he shouldn’t, even though decades of rule-following screeched at the rudeness.  Wei Ying drew himself up abruptly, most of his shell-shocked openness disappearing behind the tense readiness he recognized from his run in months ago.  

“Yeah.  I mean, I didn’t come up with the name, that’s all the aunties’ fault, they saw a marketing opportunity and ran with it, but… yeah.  What are you going to do about it, Hanguang Jun?”  There was ice in Wei Ying’s voice, and Lan Zhan immediately hated it.

“We need to fix your ward.” 

Wei Ying blinked, thrown, and some of the tension leaked out of his frame.

“Come again?”

“Your ward, about five li from here – that’s how I knew there was a problem, the yao broke through there and disrupted it.  We should fix it before something else can sneak through.  I’ll stand guard while you work.”  He explained, nodding back towards where he’d been.

“… What happened to hunting me down?” Wei Ying retorted, clearly aiming for brashness, but there was an injured twist to his voice, a bitter curl to his lips.  “To the ends of the earth, didn’t you say?  Since I’m so corrupted?”

“Wei Ying, no.”  Lan Zhan was aghast, the missing pieces of the lonely puzzle of the last few weeks clicking into place.  “Wei Ying is good.  The Yiling Laozu is good.”  

Wei Ying swayed as if struck, falling out of his defensive stance.

“Wait.  What?  You said…”

“Resentful energy corrupts, it has always been so – I meant you should take care.  There are many here who would be upset if you were hurt.  I… I would be upset if you were hurt.  The sign at the edge of town was not you.  Was not the Yiling Laozu who protects the town – that was a caricature of the worst rumors I hear when I have to go to cultivation conferences.”

“… Oh, so you don’t…?”

“I hate it.”  Lan Wangji retorted fiercely to Wei Ying’s hesitant question.  “I hate they cannot see the good that is being done, if by unorthodox means.  That they cannot bother to care about the person who must be hurting themselves to do that good.  That they cannot care about you, Wei Ying.”

“Y-you cannot say such things.”  Wei Ying protested; his voice nearly as high as his dizi.

“I can.  Will.”  Lan Wangji snapped, resolute.

“I am a fragile man, Lan Zhan, you can’t just be like that, I will.  Um.  I will… What are you doing?”  He trailed off, wide-eyed, as Lan Wangji stepped closer, intent.

Another shriek pierced the night, this time from Wei Ying, as Lan Wangji scooped him up in a bridal carry and stepped onto Bichen.

“Lan Zhan!”

“Can you make the body remove itself from the school?”  He asked as they lifted off from the school rooftop.  

“… Yeah, I can move it with resentful energy.”  Wei Ying seemed too flummoxed to argue.

“Then we will remove the yao, and fix the wards first.”  He declared, and then waited for Wei Ying to get on with it.

“First?  If that’s first, what’s second?”

“I have missed you, Wei Ying, and want to kiss you.”  He’d missed his chance the first time, and while a post-battle, mid-makeup confession was hardly ideal, he wasn’t about to let a second chance to confess slip through his fingers.  Wei Ying made another strangled squawk, covering his face with his hands.  

“You… you’re impossible.  You are a horrible atrocious man and I’ll have to kiss you a lot about it, okay, because I missed you too and I thought you hated me and it’s been awful and I can’t believe this is how my night is going.  But.. um, yeah, we should get rid of the yao first, before he drops into the classroom.  I put a lot of effort into that room, and I don’t think yao guts will really help the décor.”

“Mn.”  Lan Zhan agreed, smugly, tightening his hold until Wei Ying stopped flailing.  

It was going to be a wonderful summer.