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One
When a 5-year-old Jiang Cheng asks his mother if she knows any “Wei-gongzi,” she breaks a vase with a quick lash from Zidian.
“Do not say that name ever again,” Madam Yu seethes before she walks out of the room, leaving Jiang Cheng with tears in his eyes and fear in his heart.
Who is “Wei-gongzi?” Why isn’t he allowed to say those words when they’re his soul mark, the first words he’ll hear coming out of his soulmate’s mouth? Doesn’t she want him to meet his fated cultivation partner?
Jiejie and A-Die just give him a sad smile when he asks them. “You’ll understand when you’re older,” they both say. Jiang Cheng won’t know how true their words are until three years later, when his life is changed forever.
Two
“A-Cheng, this is A-Ying. He’ll live with us here in Lotus Pier from now on,” A-Die says with the biggest smile Jiang Cheng has seen on him. Jiang Cheng already knows by then that he won’t like A-Ying.
It only gets worse when his puppies are sent away, all because A-Ying is a scaredy-cat who’s terribly afraid of dogs!
He hates A-Ying! He wants Princess, Little Love, and Jasmine back!
He’s already told A-Ying that he’s not sharing HIS room tonight. To go and get lost. The kid ran away crying, but so what? A-Ying can go back to his parents! In fact, he’s going to tell A-Niang right now that he wants A-Ying gone!
He’s about to knock on the doors of her rooms when he hears an angry voice from inside. “You dare bring her son here!? Do you have something to tell me, Jiang Fengmian?”
“Qizi , you know I would never dishonor you that way. But I owe it to Wei Changze and Cangse---”
A loud smack. “Wei Changze was your servant! You do not owe him, nor his wife the responsibility of taking in their child after they’ve died!”
Jiang Cheng has never heard his mother this angry, not since he asked her about his soul mark so many years ago.
And now...the name ‘Wei’…
He looks down at his wrist, where the words “Wei-gongzi” lay stark on his skin, and knows that A-Ying is the child they are arguing about.
He knows that A-Ying is the “Wei-gongzi” on his wrist.
A-Die brought A-Ying here because his parents are dead. A-Ying has nowhere to go.
Maybe A-Ying is here for a reason , Jiang Cheng thinks as he looks at those words again. If his soulmate must say A-Ying’s name, then Jiang Cheng needs to be near A-Ying, right? A-Ying will bring him to his soulmate; maybe that’s why fate brought him here!
He excitedly runs back to his bedroom, eager to tell A-Ying that they can be friends now, that it’s fine for them to share Jiang Cheng’s room. But when he gets to his rooms, A-Ying is nowhere to be found.
Of course, he wouldn’t be here. Jiang Cheng told him to get lost. Even when it’s so dark and cold and scary already...
He cries at his own selfishness, and he doesn’t even bother to wipe the tears away as he runs to his jiejie’s rooms.
Three
At fifteen years old, Jiang Cheng has resigned himself to never meeting his soulmate.
Wei Wuxian is to blame for it. After all, when you’re as sociable and shameless as Wei Wuxian, you’re bound to have everyone calling you “Wei-gongzi!”
Jiang Cheng cannot count how many times he’s snapped his head to someone who said “Wei-gongzi” and said something back, only for them to ignore him in favor of his rambunctious foster brother. No one ever reacted with a pleasant surprise; Jiang Cheng would even be willing to have a violent reaction at this point rather than none at all.
Stupid Wei Wuxian only says, “Don’t worry Jiang Cheng. Your soulmate can always be the one to tell you they’re stuck with you for the rest of eternity!”
Of course, Jiang Cheng punches him for it, and they spend a good few minutes rolling all over the floor, playfully slapping and chasing and punching each other.
Truth be told, as long as Jiang Cheng has his family, Wei Wuxian included, he doesn’t really need to find his soulmate. His parents aren’t soulmates. A-Jie’s soulmate is a good-for-nothing peacock who’s better off away from her. Wei Wuxian doesn’t seem to care about the words on his wrist. Everything will be fine.
(He never notices the surprised face that the meek Wen cultivator Wei Wuxian befriended makes when he shouts to his brother, “What are you doing now!?”
He’ll never notice it.)
Four
A-Die and A-Niang are dead. All his friends are dead. Lotus Pier is taken over by the Wens.
His golden core is gone.
Jiang Cheng is tired.
He wants to die, to give up on this cruel world. After all, Wei Wuxian will take care of his sister. Will take vengeance for Lotus Pier. He’s not needed anymore. He’s better off dead.
Wei Wuxian scolds him for these thoughts later, when they’re hidden away by the Wen medic and that meek Wen boy from the archery competition. Wen Qionglin? Wen Ning? Who cares. He doesn’t matter. No one matters.
Yet the boy shows him nothing but kindness, feeding him soup and giving him medicine, telling him he needed to get better so Baoshan Sanren can give him a new core. The boy is his only company as Wei Wuxian and the medic huddle at the corner of the room, hissing to each other in low voices that he could barely hear.
“Jiang-gongzi, please, drink more broth. You need to get better…” The Wen boy says softly, reminding him of his sister whenever he fell ill. His jiejie, where could she be right now? Is she safe? Did that stupid peacock do the honorable thing and save his soulmate?
Soulmates...Where could Jiang Cheng’s soulmate be? He hopes she’s far away, safe from the evil clutches of the Wen. At least he knows she’s still alive, wherever she may be.
Would she grieve if Jiang Cheng died and her soul mark turned white?
He wordlessly drinks the soup the Wen boy feeds him, head in the clouds as he imagines a reclaimed Lotus Pier and a new, loving smile.
Five
With the Sunshot Campaign won and Lotus Pier once more the territory of the Jiangs, Jiang Cheng starts to dream.
Sometimes he dreams of sweet kisses peppered on his neck, tickling him until he gasps out in laughter. Sometimes he dreams of long, precise hands combing through his hair, braiding the strands into a style that his father used to wear.
Tonight, he dreams of hunger, desperation, and fatigue. He doesn’t know where he is, just that his body bucks with the weight of a large boulder, that his lungs wrack with illness and defeat. The rain makes the mud under his feet impossible to trudge through, and he begs the heavens, “Please, let me live another day. Let me protect my family. I don’t want to die today.”
Then the slap of a slaver’s whip hits his back, making him trip and fall, hitting his head with the boulder he’d been carrying.
The world goes dark.
Jiang Cheng wakes up.
His heart is pounding hard in his chest as he breathes in shallow pants. What was that nightmare? Why would his brain make that up right now? Why couldn’t he just have a night of restful sleep?
Then he feels his wrist start burning.
He pulls it up, and it doesn’t take much light to see his mark has gone white.
His soulmate is dead, and Jiang Cheng’s chest heaves with deep sobs, weeping for a person he’s never met.
A few weeks later, his mark turns black again. It’s a sign of reincarnation, of the soul finding its body once more. His soul mate must have been a good person for the heavens to bring their soul back so soon. But Jiang Cheng couldn’t stomach the idea of pursuing someone twenty years younger than him, so he puts it at the back of his mind. Cultivators live long lives anyway.
He has enough to deal with, now that Wei Wuxian is angering the rest of the sects all for a handful of Wens.
(He doesn’t know that his soul mate has awoken, deep in a cave in Yiling. He doesn’t know that his brother had brought Wen Ning back, not just because of Wen Qing but also because of the words that streaked the corpse’s wrist.
He knows nothing of the secret Wei Wuxian swears to keep to the grave.
He doesn’t know of the tragedy that will follow.)
The one .
“Liar!” He screams as he throws Suibian down, punching Wen Ning in the chest. Even the accusation feels like ash on his tongue, the doubt piercing through the denial in his mind.
Wen Ning staggers back, but he picks up Suibian and sheathes it. Then he shoves it into Jiang Cheng’s arms again, imploring him to take it to the banquet, to the training hall, anywhere he wanted. To see if anyone else could pull it out, to prove that Wen Ning is lying like he’s so eager to claim.
Wen Ning utters scathing words that strike deep into the cold, scared place that is his heart, but before he can kick the fierce corpse away, “Wei-gongzi!”
What? He’s looking at Jiang Cheng, so why is he calling…
“Wei-gongzi! That’s your soul mark, isn’t it, Sect Leader Jiang!?”
His hairs stand on end as he seethes, “Did he tell you that too, huh!? Are there any more secrets he’s--”
“No, Sandu Shengshou. That secret was mine to keep.” Then he reaches his hand out, close enough for Jiang Cheng to see.
What are you doing now
The words aren’t familiar at all.
But deep in his soul, he knows .
He knows, and he cannot accept it.
Plus one.
There are many truths that Jiang Cheng has learned, if not to accept, then merely to live with.
His golden core, a secret gift.
His hatred for Wei Wuxian, unwarranted.
His soul mate, a man brought back not by the gods but by his own brother.
The last is surprisingly the easiest to accept.
He sees Wen Ning more often than he’d like. The fierce corpse had taken to shadowing Jin Ling at every turn, and Jiang Cheng couldn’t protest it because of the fragility of Jin Ling’s station. The Jins as a clan are vicious hounds who would prey on your every weakness; having the Ghost General as Jin Ling’s bodyguard kept most of those cowards at bay. But beyond that, Jin Ling has taken to Wen Ning’s presence like a duck to water. Though it would be more apt to say they seemed like an orphaned cygnet with a protective mother duck.
It’s disconcerting how children are so quick to forgive.
He sees moments of familial intimacy, like how Wen Ning not only protects but also tends to Jin Ling or any junior disciple’s wounds. A memory flashes of a living Wen Ning treating him the same way, and he remembers how he’d been reminded of A-Jie from that bedside manner.
Stupid. He was so stupid.
Dead or alive, Wen Ning was - is - his soulmate. And now that he’s seeing Wen Ning in a new light, the idea doesn’t seem so terrible anymore.
So when he visits Jin Ling’s rooms at night to find Wen Ning singing a whispered lullaby at Jin Ling’s bedside, he doesn’t interrupt them. He merely stands by the door silently, waiting for Jin Ling’s soft snores, before motioning for Wen Ning to follow him outside.
When they’re a good ways away, standing at the Pavilion that used to be his mother’s grounds, Jiang Cheng says, “You don’t need to atone for your sins. You don’t owe Jin Ling anything.”
A long pause, then, “I’m not doing this for atonement, Sect Leader Jiang.”
“Then why?”
“I have nowhere else to go.”
That...He didn’t expect that answer. But he should have. He understands, to a degree. But Wen Ning has no family and no home. Even at his lowest, Jiang Cheng still had someone to live for and a goal to achieve.
That’s something he’s still trying to accept. That he isn’t the worst victim of the war. That he doesn’t deserve all the concessions that people give when he demands them. That he should be the one begging for forgiveness instead of waiting for it.
Jiang Cheng does not apologize, and if that makes him a terrible brother, uncle, soulmate, then so be it.
But he will make amends. And he’ll start now.
“You’re free to stay here in Lotus Pier when Jin Ling doesn’t need you. Or if you need a change of pace.”
Or if you want to see me , goes unspoken, but Jiang Cheng knows it’s clear in his voice anyway.
On that night, he learns that Wen Ning can laugh and smile.
It’s a sight that he wants to see every day, for the rest of his life. And perhaps in the next one, if the heavens will it be.