Chapter Text
Her husband.
The silence that follows is not dignified.
Jiang Cheng is the first to recover.
“Husband?” he repeats, incredulous. “That’s not possible.”
Wei Wuxian blinks. Once. Then twice.
“…Oh,” he says.
Everyone looks at him.
Jiang Cheng’s head snaps around. “Oh what.”
Wei Wuxian frowns. “Right. That’s… a thing.”
“A thing?”
“Mn.”
Jiang Cheng looks like he might want to strangle him.
“You’re processing,” he says tightly, “I get that. But speed it up, or I’ll think Jin Ziyan is back from the dead and has come looking for his lost bride.”
Wei Wuxian plays absently with a loose thread on his sleeve. “No, no. Jin Ziyan is dead. Very dead. Extremely dead. Trust me.”
“That’s not what I asked,” Jiang Cheng snaps.
“He’s not the husband,” Wei Wuxian continues quickly. “The attempted groom, yes. Also, unfortunately, the father. But not the husband.”
Jiang Cheng stares. “Attempted.”
Wei Wuxian gives him a thin smile. “He didn’t live long enough to attend the ceremony.”
Lan Wangji’s hand tightens in his sleeve.
Elder Lu says nothing. Her gaze flicks once – brief, assessing – to Wei Wuxian’s posture, the faint tension in his shoulders. She files it away and keeps watching.
Jiang Cheng drags a hand down his face. “Then who,” he demands, “is standing at my gate calling himself her husband?”
Wei Wuxian hesitates.
That alone is answer enough.
Jiang Cheng goes very still. “You know him.”
“Yes,” Wei Wuxian says quietly. “Or – Mianmian did.”
The disciple shifts, sweat beading at his temple, clearly aware he is witnessing something far above his station.
Wei Wuxian exhales. “His name is Zhao Wen. A merchant. No cultivation to speak of. They met after she left Jinlintai.”
Jiang Cheng handles this information in visible stages.
“…She was married,” he says slowly. “All this time.”
Wei Wuxian grimaces. “Briefly.”
“How brief.”
“Three days.”
The room tilts.
“Three,” Jiang Cheng repeats.
“They had a small ceremony,” Wei Wuxian says, “just the two of them and a few friends standing as witnesses. A few days later, she got the letter requesting her return to clear up some sect matters.” His mouth twists. “She told him she’d be back within the week.”
Jiang Cheng’s jaw tightens.
“She did not go back,” Lan Wangji says quietly.
Wei Wuxian nods.
“They never saw each other again.”
That lands harder than anything else has.
Jiang Cheng turns on Wei Wuxian, anger sparking bright and sudden. “And you didn’t think he’d come looking?”
“She didn’t think he’d come looking,” Wei Wuxian fires back, just as sharp. “It’s been over five years, Jiang Cheng. With nothing in the way of contact. She could have been dead for all he knew. She may as well have –” He stops. Takes a slow, steadying breath. “Mianmian thought he’d moved on. She hoped he had. She… needed to believe he had.”
Lan Wangji shifts, half a step closer to Wei Wuxian without meaning to.
Everyone in the room notices.
Elder Lu clears her throat once – quiet, but it cuts a clean line through the tension.
“Whatever you intend to do,” she says coolly, “you will do it without elevating your heart rate.”
Wei Wuxian winces. “Yes, Langzhong.”
“And what,” Jiang Cheng turns back to him, voice low and dangerous, “do you intend to do?”
Wei Wuxian doesn’t answer right away. His gaze drifts toward the door, unfocused.
“…I should speak to him.”
“Absolutely not,” Jiang Cheng says immediately.
Lan Wangji: “No.”
Elder Lu: “You will not.”
Wei Wuxian lifts his hands. “I’m not suggesting a confrontation. I just –” He exhales. “He deserves to know.”
“Know?” Jiang Cheng snaps. “Know what, exactly? That his wife is dead? That her body is now occupied by the Yiling Patriarch? That you’re carrying a Jin bastard conceived through caibu?” He throws up a hand. “What’s your opening line, Wei Wuxian? Sorry, I’m not your wife, I’m just a ghost with limited bad options – tea?”
The disciple makes a small, distressed noise, looking positively faint.
Wei Wuxian opens his mouth – then shuts it.
For once, the humor doesn’t come.
“…I wouldn’t say all of that,” he mutters.
Jiang Cheng laughs, sharp and humorless. “Oh, that’s reassuring.”
Lan Wangji’s voice cuts in, controlled but edged. “You do not owe him anything that would put you at risk.”
Wei Wuxian looks at him.
Something soft flickers there. Something stubborn follows close behind.
“He loved her,” Wei Wuxian says. “And she loved him. That didn’t stop being true just because Jin Ziyan decided he could take her as he pleased.”
Jiang Cheng’s hands curl into fists.
“He should know that Mianmian didn’t leave him,” Wei Wuxian says. “She was cornered. Pushed. And when she ran out of places to run –”
He swallows.
“She chose something awful because it was the only way she could think to protect..." He squeezes his eyes shut, briefly, like he's trying to erase a memory. He finishes quietly, "... her child. She wasn’t able to save the first one. She refused to let it happen again.”
The room goes very still.
Lan Wangji’s gaze drops. Not from Wei Wuxian, but to the faint curve of his abdomen hidden by the loose fabric of the violet skirt he’s wearing – courtesy of a female Jiang disciple. His brow furrows, as if recalibrating something internal.
When he speaks, his voice is steady, but lower than before. “You are not obligated to reopen that wound.”
Wei Wuxian looks at him.
“I know,” he says quietly. “But he didn’t abandon her either. He waited. He came looking. That counts for something.”
“And you think,” Jiang Cheng says carefully, “that walking out there and telling a non-cultivating merchant any version of that is going to end well?”
Wei Wuxian’s mouth twitches. “I wasn’t aiming for ‘well.’ Just… honest.”
“Your idea of honest gets people killed,” Jiang Cheng snaps. “Or taken hostage. Or worse –”
Elder Lu clicks her tongue sharply. “Enough.” Her eyes cut to Wei Wuxian. “You are not making decisions while your body is under stress.”
Wei Wuxian sighs. “Yes, Langzhong.”
Jiang Cheng turns back to him, arms crossed. “So what exactly were you planning to say?”
Wei Wuxian hesitates.
For once, the joke doesn’t come.
“…That Mianmian didn’t forget him,” he says at last. “That she didn’t choose to leave. That when she stopped writing, it wasn’t because she stopped loving him.”
Jiang Cheng watches his face carefully. “And what happens when he asks why she never came back.”
Wei Wuxian’s smile is small, and tired. “Then I tell him the truth I can tell. And I let the rest stay where it belongs.”
Lan Wangji steps closer.
Wei Wuxian glances at him, expression easing.
Elder Lu folds her hands. “This decision is not being made today,” she says firmly. “And it's not being made in this state.”
Jiang Cheng nods immediately, turning for the door. “I’ll speak to him first.”
Wei Wuxian opens his mouth.
Jiang Cheng cuts him off without looking back. “That’s not up for discussion. You stay here. If he deserves answers, he’ll get the ones that don’t put you back in my infirmary.”
Lan Wangji inclines his head once in a rare form of agreement.
The junior disciple looks like he might actually cry from relief as he hurries to follow his sect leader from the room.
When the door closes behind them, Wei Wuxian slumps back against the bed. The adrenaline drains out of him, exhaustion hitting hard and fast.
“…He waited,” he murmurs.
Lan Wangji looks down at him. “For the one he loves.”
Wei Wuxian lets out a quiet breath.
“Imagine that,” he says softly.
Lan Wangji’s fingers curl, just slightly, around nothing at all.
“At least someone will mourn her,” Wei Wuxian adds, voice steady. “Not everyone is so lucky.”
He closes his eyes and doesn’t see the way Lan Wangji’s expression finally breaks.
~
[Five years earlier]
Zhao Wen doesn’t understand, at first, that something has gone wrong.
Luo Qingyang leaves before dawn, careful and quiet, the way she always is when she thinks she might disturb him. He wakes to an empty bed and the faint chill where her warmth should be, and for a moment he thinks nothing of it – only rolls onto his side, half-asleep, still reaching for her.
The note is waiting on the table.
It tells him where she’s gone. It tells him she’ll be back soon. It tells him not to worry.
He reads it once, then again, fingers worrying the edges of the paper as though it might change its mind and say something else if he looks closely enough. She packed lightly – her sword is gone, one set of traveling robes, her comb – but the house is otherwise untouched.
The room itself suggests she has every intention of coming home.
So he waits.
At first, it’s easy. Cultivators don’t keep time the way civilians do. Roads are dangerous. Letters go astray. She’s left before and returned before, always with an apologetic smile and a story she insists is far less dramatic than it sounds.
The note stays folded beneath the bowl where she left it. He carries it with him some days. Other days he leaves it exactly where it is, afraid that moving it will make the absence more real.
When the week stretches into a month, unease settles in his chest like a stone. When the month stretches into three, he begins asking questions.
By the time half a year has passed, the questions have answers – just not ones that bring her back to him.
He closes the shop. Packs only what he can carry.
Lanling is larger than he expects. Jinlintai larger still – looming, self-contained, its gates less an entrance than a boundary meant to remind you where you stand.
He goes to the gates and says her name.
The guards look at him with polite disinterest that sharpens quickly into irritation. There is no one here by that name, they tell him. There are no records. He is not permitted inside. He is advised – firmly – to leave before he must be forcibly removed.
He leaves.
He comes back the next day.
And the next.
Eventually, he stops approaching the gates at all.
Instead, he stays.
He establishes trade routes through Lanling and sets up a modest shop near the marketplace. He sells what people need – grain, cloth, salt – anything that keeps him present without attracting attention. He learns who drinks too much and talks when they shouldn’t, who likes to feel helpful, who fills silences with rumors rather than questions. He befriends servants and outer disciples who pass through the market regularly. He listens.
He hears her name rarely, and never cleanly.
He learns another name, too:
Jin Ziyan.
Advocate. Patron. Protector.
He hears words like dual cultivation, discipline, misunderstanding – and knows, without anyone needing to explain it to him, how they knit together into something airtight. How protection becomes obligation. How obligation becomes captivity. How a woman can disappear inside a narrative that insists she is being cared for.
It explains why she never came home.
What he doesn’t believe – what he refuses to believe – is that she chose it.
What he does next is quiet.
He doesn’t storm Jinlintai. He doesn’t shout in marketplaces or beg at sect gates. He knows better than that. He is a non-cultivator with no banner and no leverage, and spectacle would only get him silenced faster.
So he writes.
He seeks out rogue cultivators and wandering practitioners who work without sect sanction. He sends anonymous letters to minor sects first, then to larger ones despite knowing they will likely never be read. He keeps his words careful and spare – facts only, no accusations he can’t prove. He asks whether there is precedent. Whether there is recourse. Whether anyone is willing to look.
The answers, when they come, all sound the same.
Jinlintai is untouchable.
Jin Ziyan is protected.
There is no proof that would matter.
Some doubt him outright. Others offer sympathy sharpened into advice.
Are you certain she didn’t leave of her own accord?
It is Jinlintai, after all.
Zhao Wen stops writing after that.
Not because he believes them – but because there is nothing left to ask that he hasn’t already answered for himself.
Years pass.
Over time, the waiting changes shape. It grows edges. Habits. Rules. He stops hoping for letters and begins hoping for fractures – for any sign that what is holding her has slipped.
And then, finally, it does.
The rumors come messy and uncontrolled, leaking through the cracks no matter how tightly the Jin sect tries to contain them.
Jin Ziyan – dead by means of demonic cultivation. A raised corpse.
Luo Qingyang – named openly this time and tied to the Yiling Patriarch in whispers meant to explain what no one wants to examine too closely.
Zhao Wen doesn’t trust most of it. Not fully.
But he hears one detail that stays the same no matter who tells the story.
Sect Leader Jiang arrived in person.
The perpetrator was taken under Jiang colors.
To Lotus Pier.
…The place where those accused of demonic cultivation go to die.
Zhao Wen doesn’t wait to hear more.
He packs what little he owns and takes the river route south by commercial barge, because it’s the best a non-cultivator can manage. The journey is slow and segmented – checkpoints, forced stops, tolls at every border. It stretches far too long. He spends most of it staring at the water, preparing himself for the truth in whatever form it takes.
If she’s alive, he will see her.
If she’s dead…
Either way, by the time he reaches Lotus Pier, he’s prepared.
He stands at the gates and asks to see his wife. He doesn’t shout. He doesn’t threaten. But above all, he doesn’t leave.
Eventually, they lead him inside.
And when he’s told the sect leader himself will come to speak with him, the weight of it nearly cracks the composure he’s been holding together by sheer refusal – but his purpose remains unwavering.
They seat him at a table in a side hall that smells faintly of water and lotus pollen. They bring him tea.
Zhao Wen doesn’t touch it.
He sits patiently, heart steady, breath measured, trying very hard not to let the scale of the place overwhelm him.
When the sect leader enters, Zhao Wen stands immediately.
He bows.
Deep. Correct. Civilian perfect.
“Jiang-zongzhu,” he says. “Thank you for seeing me.”
Jiang Cheng doesn’t return the bow. Nor does he offer pleasantries. He crosses his arms, fingers tapping his elbow. Zidian buzzes faintly.
“According to my disciples, you’re quite persistent,” he says. “That’s either admirable or problematic. I haven’t decided which.”
Zhao Wen straightens. “I’m not here to cause trouble.”
“That remains to be seen.”
Jiang Cheng gestures sharply then. “Sit.”
Zhao Wen obeys.
“State your business,” Jiang Cheng says.
Zhao Wen doesn’t hesitate.
“I’m here for my wife,” he replies. “Luo Qingyang. I’ve come to take her home.”
Jiang Cheng studies him for a long moment, eyes sharp and unyielding.
“You’re a merchant not a cultivator,” he says at last. “You don’t belong anywhere near my gates. So start by explaining why you thought this was a good idea.”
Zhao Wen meets his gaze without flinching. “Because she’s here.”
“That’s an assumption.”
“It’s an informed one,” Zhao Wen says evenly. “You went to Lanling yourself to take her into custody. Sect leaders don’t make moves like that without being noticed. News travels – even outside the walls of your great compounds.”
Jiang Cheng’s mouth tightens.
He finally sits at the table, pushing the tea aside with annoyance.
Whose idea was it to serve fucking tea?
“You’re walking into a place where people accused of demonic cultivation don’t leave,” he says. “Your wife was caught in the act. You understand that.”
“Yes,” Zhao Wen says – stiff, direct.
“And you still came.”
“Yes.”
Jiang Cheng leans back in his chair slightly.
“Then tell me this,” he says. “Are you here to accuse my sect of wrongdoing?”
“No.”
“Are you here to make demands?”
“No.”
“Are you here to involve yourself in matters that will get you hurt?”
Zhao Wen considers the question carefully.
“I’m here to retrieve my wife,” he says. “Whatever state she’s in.”
The words settle heavily between them.
Jiang Cheng studies him for a moment longer.
“And if I tell you to leave anyway?”
The effect is immediate.
Zhao Wen’s breath stutters – just once. His hands tighten in his lap, knuckles paling before he forces them still. When he looks back up, his expression hasn’t changed, but the effort it takes to hold it is suddenly visible.
“Of course,” he says carefully. “You are the sect leader. If you order me removed, I will have no choice but to go.”
A pause.
“But I will return,” he continues, voice steadying as he speaks. “And if I’m sent away, I will return again. I will come back as many times as it takes.”
Jiang Cheng’s jaw tightens.
“As you have already stated, I’m not a cultivator,” Zhao Wen says quietly. “I have no influence. I have no leverage. All I have is time – and I have already spent five years of it waiting, just for word of her. Now that I’ve found her, I will not walk away.”
Silence stretches.
Something unpleasant tugs at the back of Jiang Cheng’s mind.
This persistence. This maddening calm. This absolute refusal to be dismissed.
He has the absurd thought that he’s had this conversation before.
He immediately rejects it on principle and scowls harder, because whatever idiot this reminds him of, he does not have the patience to unpack that right now.
Jiang Cheng exhales through his nose. “You think she’s alive.”
Zhao Wen’s fingers curl once against his knee. Just once.
“I think,” Zhao Wen says, in the tone of a man who is reluctant to sound hopeful, “that if she were dead, I would have been told plainly by now.”
“And suppose I were to tell you otherwise.”
Zhao Wen doesn’t look away.
“Then I will take her body,” he says steadily. “She deserves to be laid to rest properly. By those who loved her.”
That – that – is where Jiang Cheng finally understands the problem.
This man is not here to bargain.
He is not here to threaten.
He is not here to be turned away.
Jiang Cheng watches him in silence, recalibrating.
“You don’t know what you’re asking for,” he says finally.
“I know exactly what I’m asking for,” Zhao Wen replies. “I have prepared to know the truth of it, either way.”
Zhao Wen lets the weight of his words linger a moment.
Then –
“Did she suffer?” he asks.
Jiang Cheng doesn’t answer.
Zhao Wen closes his eyes once.
“I see,” he says.
He bows again – deeper this time, as though to hide the quiet fracturing of his expression.
“Then I will wait,” he says. “Here, if necessary.”
Jiang Cheng straightens, spine stiff. Zidian prickles irritably on his forefinger.
“Fine,” he says sharply. “Have it your way. But you will be patient. And you will not make this harder than it already is.”
Zhao Wen inclines his head.
“I have waited five years,” he says quietly. “I can wait longer.”
Jiang Cheng pushes to his feet.
“…Dammit,” he mutters, already turning away.
Because now there is no version of this that ends cleanly.
No dismissal that will hold.
No lie that will send the man home.
And no way forward that doesn’t drag Wei Wuxian directly into this.
Jiang Cheng leaves the room knowing exactly what he has to do next – and hating it.
~
The door opens without ceremony.
Jiang Cheng strides back into the room like a man who has already lost the argument he’s about to have.
Elder Lu looks up at once. “No.”
That is all she says. Just a flat, decisive refusal aimed squarely at his chest.
Jiang Cheng stops short. “I haven’t said anything yet.”
“You don’t need to,” she replies coolly. “I can hear it on your face.”
Wei Wuxian, slumped against the bed with his eyes half-closed, cracks one open. “Wow,” he murmurs. “Langzhong’s instincts are terrifying.”
“They keep people alive,” Elder Lu says, without looking at him. Then her gaze sharpens. “And they tell me you are absolutely not fit to be dragged into a confrontation less than a day after stabilizing.”
Lan Wangji turns his head slightly toward Jiang Cheng. He doesn’t speak, but his presence is unmistakable – quiet, anchored, attentive.
Jiang Cheng exhales through his nose. “He’s not leaving.”
Wei Wuxian hums softly. “Called it.”
“He’s calm. He’s prepared. He’s already accepted that she may be dead.” Jiang Cheng rubs at his temple. “And he’s not going to stop coming back. Ever.”
Elder Lu’s mouth thins. “That does not obligate my patient to shoulder his grief.”
“It obligates someone to,” Jiang Cheng snaps. He reins it in a second later, jaw tight. “And it’s either Wei Wuxian tells him the truth, or I spend the next who-the-fuck-knows-how-long inventing new reasons why Luo Qingyang’s body is… inconveniently unavailable.”
Wei Wuxian snorts. “Points for honesty.”
“Do not encourage him,” Elder Lu says sharply.
Wei Wuxian sobers. He sits up a little straighter, attention fully engaged now. “What did he say?”
Jiang Cheng hesitates.
“He asked if she suffered,” he says finally.
The room stills.
Wei Wuxian swallows.
Lan Wangji’s hand moves. He doesn’t touch, but he remains close enough that Wei Wuxian could lean into it if he chose.
Jiang Cheng notices – the unassuming care, the unwavering attention – and almost dismisses it just as quickly. He’s seen it time and time again. It’s familiar. Predictable. It shouldn’t feel any different now than it did every time before.
Except –
That maddening calm. That quiet persistence. That refusal to be sent away, to be dismissed, to stop standing there, fucking waiting.
Zhao Wen, sitting across from him at the table saying I will not walk away with that infuriatingly stubborn look in his eyes.
Jiang Cheng has seen it before.
In Lan Wangji.
Two years ago, standing in that reception hall saying I am not leaving without ever raising his voice.
That’s why it felt so familiar.
Because love, apparently, makes patience into a weapon.
Jiang Cheng feels the realization slot into place like a blade sliding between his ribs.
Two different men, under different circumstances, facing different stakes –
both carrying the same godsdamned devotion.
Oh.
No.
Absolutely not.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he mutters under his breath.
“What?” Elder Lu snaps.
“Nothing,” Jiang Cheng says immediately, too fast. He scowls harder, as if that might bully the thought back into its cage. “Focus.”
Wei Wuxian swallows.
“He deserves the truth,” Wei Wuxian says quietly.
Elder Lu rounds on him. “You do not get to decide that while your pulse is still elevated and your spiritual core is recovering from strain.”
Wei Wuxian looks down at the floor, considering.
Jiang Cheng watches him.
Then – inevitably – his gaze shifts.
Just a flicker to the side.
White robes. Stillness. That infuriating, attentive calm.
Lan Wangji stands exactly where he has been standing all along, saying nothing, doing nothing –
and somehow managing to look like the reason this conversation exists at all.
Jiang Cheng’s eyes narrow, sharp and accusatory, before he tears his attention back to Wei Wuxian.
“You don’t have to do this,” he says, voice low. Controlled. Almost careful.
Wei Wuxian gives a tired, knowing smile. “You wouldn’t have approved it if that were true.”
Silence stretches.
Lan Wangji speaks at last, voice low and even. “What do you want.”
Wei Wuxian closes his eyes briefly. When he opens them again, the decision has settled.
“I want to tell him that Mianmian didn’t abandon him,” he says.
Elder Lu’s expression does not soften. “You are fragile.”
“I know.”
“This will be stressful.”
“Almost certainly.”
“You are carrying a child,” she adds pointedly. “A pregnancy already complicated by trauma, spiritual interference, and your body’s… unconventional status.”
Wei Wuxian grimaces. “When you put it like that, it sounds very irresponsible.”
Jiang Cheng huffs a sharp, humorless laugh. “You are irresponsible.”
“Yes, but consistently.”
Lan Wangji’s gaze remains on Wei Wuxian alone. “If you decide to speak to him,” he says, “I will be there.”
Jiang Cheng's scowl deepens.
Wei Wuxian’s shoulders ease, just a fraction. “I know.”
Elder Lu looks between them, clearly displeased, clearly outnumbered – and clearly unwilling to pretend this isn’t already inevitable.
“If you do this,” she says tightly, “it will be brief. You will be seated the whole time. And if your pulse spikes even a fraction, the conversation ends.”
Wei Wuxian nods. “Deal.”
Jiang Cheng straightens. “I’ll make the arrangements.” He pauses at the door, glancing back. “He’s not going to argue. He’s not going to yell. And he’s already braced himself for the worst.”
Wei Wuxian’s mouth twists. “Lucky him.”
Jiang Cheng frowns. “Don’t make jokes.”
Wei Wuxian sighs. “I won’t. Not unless it gets unbearable.”
“…That’s not reassuring.”
Jiang Cheng leaves.
The room settles.
Wei Wuxian stares at his hands for a moment, then glances up at Lan Wangji. “So,” he says lightly. “How do you feel about explaining to a non-cultivating merchant that his dead wife is currently alive, pregnant, and inhabited by a resentful ghost?”
Lan Wangji’s lips press together.
“Uncomfortable,” he allows.
Wei Wuxian smiles faintly. “Yeah. Thought so.”
He leans back against the pillows, drawing a careful breath.
“At least,” he says softly, “he won’t have to wait anymore.”
Lan Wangji’s fingers finally close – gentle, steady – around Wei Wuxian’s hand.
Wei Wuxian doesn’t pull away.
~
Jiang Cheng stops Zhao Wen just outside the room.
“Remember,” he says, keeping his voice level. “And this is the last time I’m going to explain this to you – the person you see in there will look like your wife, but it’s not her. Understand?”
Zhao Wen’s fingers tighten around his sleeves.
“…I understand,” he says, after a breath. He doesn’t, not really – but he nods anyway.
Jiang Cheng opens the door.
They’ve settled into a smaller receiving room near the main ward of the infirmary, open to the water on one side, screens drawn back just enough that the scent of lotus and river air keeps the space from feeling like an interrogation chamber. Elder Lu insisted on a chair with a high back and firm arms. Lan Wangji stands slightly behind it and to the side. Jiang Cheng takes up a position near the door, arms crossed, posture rigid with watchfulness.
Wei Wuxian is already seated when Zhao Wen enters.
Luo Qingyang’s face turns toward him.
Zhao Wen stops.
The recognition is immediate and brutal. His breath catches, his chest tightens, grief surging sharp and unfiltered –
– and then something doesn’t align.
Her eyes are wrong.
Too alert. Too careworn. Too full of someone else – someone who has endured untold scales of pain without letting it hollow them out.
The person who is clearly not his wife inclines their head, just slightly. “Hello.”
Zhao Wen swallows at the sound of that familiar voice, used in such an unfamiliar way.
He doesn’t step forward.
“As Jiang Cheng already told you, I’m not your wife,” Wei Wuxian says gently. “My name is Wei Wuxian.”
Zhao Wen’s hands tremble. He clasps them together to still them.
“…I see,” he says, though his eyes never leave Luo Qingyang’s face.
“I know how this looks,” Wei Wuxian continues. “And I’m sorry. I don’t expect you to understand it all at once. I’ll… explain what I can.”
Zhao Wen nods once. “Please.”
Wei Wuxian shifts and gestures lightly toward the chair nearest him.
“Sit,” he says, concern threaded quietly through that one word.
Zhao Wen hesitates only a moment before obeying. When he lowers himself into the chair, the relief is unmistakable, as though his legs had been operating on borrowed resolve alone.
Wei Wuxian takes a breath. He doesn’t rush.
“She told you she was called back to the Jin sect,” he says. “Under the pretense of clearing up unresolved matters. That was a lie.”
Zhao Wen’s jaw tightens.
“She went because refusing would have put a target on her back,” Wei Wuxian continues quietly. “And, by association, yours.”
Zhao Wen closes his eyes.
“She tried… not to worry you,” Wei Wuxian says. “She wrote to you. More than once.”
Zhao Wen’s head lifts sharply. “I never –”
“I know,” Wei Wuxian says immediately. “The letters never reached you. They were intercepted. She wasn’t allowed to leave. She wasn’t allowed to contact you.”
The words are measured. Clean.
“She became a captive,” Wei Wuxian says, voice steady. “Under the control of a man who used power, obligation, and fear to keep her there. He hurt her.”
Zhao Wen’s breath stutters. He grips the edge of the chair.
Wei Wuxian lets the silence sit. Then –
Slowly, deliberately, he brings a hand to his abdomen.
The gesture is small. But it speaks volumes.
“She would’ve endured until the end,” he says softly. “She would’ve kept hoping she could escape and come back to you. Some day.”
Zhao Wen looks at the motion. Frowns faintly.
“But then it involved a child,” Wei Wuxian continues. “And she knew… that she couldn’t protect it in that place.”
Zhao Wen’s breath leaves him in a quiet, broken sound.
“She made a choice,” Wei Wuxian says. “A terrible one. A desperate one. She called on me to protect her child in her stead.”
He swallows.
“I’m so sorry.”
The words finally break through.
Zhao Wen bows forward, hands pressed flat to his knees, breath uneven as he tries, and fails, to hold himself together.
“…Is the child,” he manages. “Is it –”
“It’s fine,” Wei Wuxian says immediately. “Healthy, as far as we can tell.”
Zhao Wen lets out a sound that might have been a laugh, or a sob.
“And now?” he asks hoarsely. “What happens now? Will I… ever see her again?”
Wei Wuxian’s gaze lowers. “I’m sorry. She’s gone.”
Zhao Wen nods slowly. Clearly agonized, but not surprised.
“…Is she in pain?” he asks. “Where she is now.”
Wei Wuxian looks up, meets his eyes fully.
“No,” he says. “She’s at peace.”
Zhao Wen presses his lips together. He bows his head.
For a long moment, neither of them speaks.
Then Zhao Wen inhales shakily and looks up again.
“Qingyang spoke of you,” he says quietly. “Years ago.”
Wei Wuxian blinks. “Me?”
Zhao Wen nods.
“We overheard rumors – rumors of the Yiling Patriarch’s terrible deeds,” he continues. “She told me not to believe them. Said people turn fear into stories because it’s easier than understanding.”
Wei Wuxian’s brow furrows.
“She said,” Zhao Wen’s voice wavers, “that you once saved her life. When she was young. That you were kindhearted. And brave. And that you stood between her and something awful without expecting anything in return.”
Wei Wuxian goes very still.
“I have been grateful to you, Wei-gongzi, for a very long time,” Zhao Wen says.
Wei Wuxian stares at him, openly stunned. “You… what?”
Zhao Wen rises from his chair.
Then he drops to his knees.
A full prostrate bow. Forehead to the floor. Hands flat. Shoulders shaking as tears spill freely, unchecked.
“If it weren’t for you,” he says, voice breaking, “I’d never have met my wife.”
Lan Wangji stiffens at Wei Wuxian’s shoulder. Elder Lu inhales sharply –
– but Wei Wuxian lifts a hand. Please.
“She lived,” Zhao Wen continues. “She found the courage to leave that place, to exist on her own terms. She laughed easily. She argued. She chose her own work, her home, her name. She loved and was loved, deeply. She was happy.”
His voice breaks.
“You gave her that, in saving her life that day.”
A jagged breath.
“And now… you're protecting her child.”
He bows lower.
“I cannot repay such kindness,” he says. “But I will remember it.”
Wei Wuxian’s throat tightens painfully.
“You don’t owe me anything,” he says hoarsely.
Zhao Wen lifts his head, eyes red but steady.
“I understand,” he says. “Even still, you have my gratitude. Thank you.”
Wei Wuxian blinks hard. His vision blurs for just a moment, the present slipping sideways as memory intrudes.
For just a heartbeat, memory overlays the room – sharp, earnest, impossibly far away.
I’m sorry.
And… thank you.
Wen Qing. Wen Ning.
The sound fades as quickly as it came.
Wei Wuxian lets out a quiet, broken laugh before he can stop it.
“Sorry,” he says, almost sheepish. “People don’t normally thank me for things. I’m… not used to it.”
Zhao Wen bows once more.
He remains kneeling for a long moment after that.
No one rushes him. Not even Jiang Cheng who still waits, stiff and impatient, by the door.
Lan Wangji places a gentle hand on Wei Wuxian’s shoulder and squeezes it once.
Elder Lu scans her patient with a discerning gaze – red-rimmed eyes, clenched, trembling fingers, but nothing medically urgent.
When Zhao Wen finally rises, he does so carefully, as though his bones have learned a new weight and are still adjusting. He doesn’t sit again. Instead, he stands with his hands folded before him, gaze lowered, breathing slow and deliberate.
There is something he wants to say, though the want itself seems to trouble him. He hesitates, weighing it carefully before allowing it voice.
Wei Wuxian notices it immediately.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “Whatever you need to say, you can say it.”
Zhao Wen wets his lips. Hesitates. Then inclines his head.
“There is… one thing,” he begins quietly.
Jiang Cheng stiffens.
Zhao Wen continues before anyone can interrupt, voice steady but unmistakably careful. “I know I have no right to ask for anything further. You have already done more than I can name.”
His gaze flicks briefly to Wei Wuxian’s face, then away again, as if holding it too long feels like presumption.
“You saved her once,” Zhao Wen says. “You brought her body out of Jinlintai. You ended the man who trapped her there.” His breath hitches, just slightly. “And now you’re… carrying the child she died to protect.”
Lan Wangji’s hand on Wei Wuxian’s shoulder tightens only so much that it’s noticeable.
“I do not take that lightly,” Zhao Wen says. “Not for a moment.”
Silence holds.
He draws a breath.
“…But if it is permitted,” he says, “I would like to remain close by.”
Jiang Cheng’s head snaps up. “Absolutely not.”
Zhao Wen bows again, fast and deep. “I don’t mean within your walls,” he says immediately. “I won’t interfere. I won’t speak to anyone without permission. I don’t expect access, or updates, or –”
He swallows.
“I would only like to be near enough to know when the child is born,” he finishes quietly. “And when the time comes… to meet them. Once.”
Jiang Cheng’s voice sharpens. “You think you can just –”
“I claim nothing,” Zhao Wen says at once, lifting his head to meet Jiang Cheng’s glare. His eyes are red, but clear. “Not as a husband. Not as anything. I know the child isn’t mine.”
A pause.
“I only want to see them,” he says. “To know that what she gave her life for made it into the world, safe and whole.”
The room stills.
Wei Wuxian exhales slowly.
“That’s fine,” he says.
Jiang Cheng whirls on him. “Wei Wuxian –”
“You can stay,” Wei Wuxian continues, mild as ever. “Honestly, it’d probably be easier if you stayed within the sect. Less skulking around the gates, fewer misunderstandings.”
Jiang Cheng looks like he might erupt on the spot.
“You don’t get to decide that,” he snaps. “You are not the sect leader, and you are definitely not in a position to be inviting non-cultivators to –”
“Jiang Wanyin.”
Elder Lu’s voice cuts cleanly through the room.
He stops mid-breath.
She turns to him slowly, expression flat and unimpressed. “You’re raising your voice at my patient.”
“I am n –”
“You are,” she says sharply, “standing in an infirmary, yelling at someone whose pulse I only just coaxed back into behaving.” She inclines her head, formal and precise. “I mean no disrespect, Zongzhu, but if you would like to continue this discussion, you may do so outside. By yourself.”
Jiang Cheng stares at her.
Then at Wei Wuxian, who looks utterly drained.
The redness bleeds from his expression, slow and reluctant, leaving him pale at the edges.
Wei Wuxian, for his part, smiles apologetically at him. Then he rubs at his eyes, the expression left behind dry and exhausted.
“Ah, well,” he says, smile widening just enough to seem slightly deranged. “Look at us, huh?”
His gaze sweeps the room, lingering on Jiang Cheng’s clenched jaw, Elder Lu’s flat disapproval, Lan Wangji’s steady, impossible calm, and Zhao Wen standing alone in the middle of it all, not composed so much as refusing to fall apart.
Jiang Cheng seems to sense the direction of the thought before it reaches Wei Wuxian’s lips. He stiffens.
“Don’t you dare say what I think you’re –”
“One big happy family.”
Jiang Cheng pinches the bridge of his nose.
“…Idiot.”
Wei Wuxian only hums, satisfied.