Chapter Text
Leaves had begun to fall thick and fast in Lotus Cove.
Autumn was Jiang Wanyin’s favourite season. Nobody else thought so, at least, nobody he’d met. There was just something so - bleakly tender, about it. How the lush green lotus leaves curled and darkened like bugs into a chrysalis, ready to burst free come Spring.
The curl of hot oils atop warming soups.
The scent of moss and the charr on felled birds in harvest season.
Now more than ever, it was comforting. No matter how many times the world shrivelled up and turned lifeless...it always revived itself, eventually. Unlike many things, it was predictable.
...Madame Yu (for he daren’t, still, call her Mother in his mind - it felt too near) would chastise him for being a simpleton. For being so dull. Not like Wei Wuxian, never like Wei Wuxian.
His Excellency, the Chief Cultivator Hanguang-Jun stuck out like a sore thumb amidst the browns and greens and purples of his surrounding decor.
Still and statuesque, a blinding fireflash of white amidst the scarlet and gold clinging to the trees across the river.
Like a sharp ivory tooth in a bloodied mouth.
“You LOST him.” Lan Wangji said, jaw clenched, his eyes as cold and black as obsidian.
The patriarch of Yunmeng drew himself up to his full height as if he were a puppet tugged with a string. His lips curled. His snarled fists sat stiff as if bound at the small of his back.
To the casual observer, it would seem as if they were frozen, facing one another: profiles vexed.
As if carved into a facade of rosewood and chalkstone.
But! Look a little closer. And you will see that the two men are damn near vibrating, tiny facets of their bodies rebelling against their control. The air crackles as if sucked of all heat. Here are two kindred spirits that could not be more divorced from one another, and the result?
Usually a disaster. And not a little mess.
Breaking the silence with a tone like a whip cracking the air apart, Jiang Wanyin retorts sharply “If I did, so did you! Do you really think I control where he goes, and what he does?! Tch.”
He COULD round on his heel in disgust. He could.
It is just - those EYES are on him, and he feels somehow caught. Do not misunderstand him: he is not SCARED, certainly not intimidated. No matter his airs, to Jiang Cheng, this is still just Wei Wuxian’s poxy classroom crush.
No more; no less. And no less infuriating.
...he had NOT lost Wei Wuxian. How could anybody LOSE Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian had gotten himself lost a thousand times, and always returned! Like a curse, or a plague, damn him.
Even as the words formed themselves in his mind, Jiang Wanyin felt a sickly feeling slither in his belly. Those voices, those damn, hushed voices: strangling like endless oroboro around his heart and snarling, guilty, guilty, guilty.
Hanguang-Jun’s left lip corner twitched, sharply, a furious dimple denting his otherwise flawless marbled cheek “I would expect,” he said, with indelicate precision “A competent Lord to take an interest in the affairs of his province.”
THAT landed like a kick to the gut, perhaps lower.
The patriarch of Lotus Cove was amongst that elite group of people who’d been subjected to the prolonged disdain of Hanguang-Jun. He didn’t recommend it one bit. The divine bastard could cut you to your wick just as easily as one slices a soft candle with a knife: he was a savage.
...come to think of it, it was one of the longest sentences he’d ever heard from the righteous, stony-faced, stuck-up, ARROGANT, priggish, prudish-!!!
Lan Wangji tilted his white chin a fraction higher, as if in silent challenge: it said so much.
‘You do not care for him.’
‘You are incompetent.’
‘You are weak.’
‘You are nothing, and I am his everything. He is mine, and not yours.’
Magenta sparks lanced across the air as Jiang Wanyin took a lumbering step forward, vision FILLED with rage “Lan Wangji, you-!”
“Hanguang-Jun!”
They both blinked in rare unison, and turned to their interloper.
Jin Rulan (another DAMN Lan, thanks to Wei Ying) was panting gently, palms on his knees. He must’ve heard the commotion from the central promenade, and come running. His lower lip quivered now he had their attention, as if he hadn’t expected it to work.
The boy hesitated. A dozen emotions ran rampant across his face. Confusion. Resentment. Impatience.
Finally, they settled upon Belligerent Determination “H-Hanguang-Jun, we...we.” he toed the wooden dock grudgingly, addressing it “We are sorry. Uncle…”
Jiang Wanyin shot his nephew a black look. How DARE he apologise on his behalf! He had nothing to apologise for.
At least, not to THIS stubborn so-and-so (even the great A’Cheng ran out of insults occasionally).
“That is. Wei Wuxian. Was only going to catch some fish from the river, he said.” Jin Ling affirmed, gold adornments jiggling placatingly as he nodded his head “There was no reason for us to suspect…”
Lan Wangji said nothing at this. Jiang Wanyin harrumphed, and folded his arms, a thunderous pall descending above his head.
...Jin Ling had spoken to Wei Wuxian? Did. Did that mean he HAD come by Lotus Cove?
It was true that the former Yiling Patriarch had infiltrated the straits of Yunmeng not three days prior. He had neither announced himself nor hidden himself: wandering at a snail’s pace through paddies and past ploughs, whistling obnoxiously.
Perhaps giving those who may not endear themselves to his coming a chance to make it known, a traitorous voice in Jiang Cheng’s inner ear muttered.
...he. He felt - curse EVERYTHING, he didn’t know how or what he felt. A part of him waited for a hide or hair of Wei Wuxian every day, and loathed himself for it. A good deal of his other parts wished never to see his former. B-brother. Ever again.
It hurt to see him. Hurt not to see him. No matter what, he lost. That was how it always was; how it had always been.
If Wei Wuxian had appeared before him - he likely would’ve scorned him.
Now Wei Wuxian had avoided him completely - he wanted to HIT him.
“Not your affair.” Hanguang-Jun declared, with cutting finality.
...no, Jiang Cheng supposed. Had he himself not said so? That Wei Wuxian should no longer consider himself a part of his family…? Was it not true? And justified! Well, perhaps, not SO justified, not now...but, he had been under the false illusion spung by the treacherous Jin Guangyao!
...by the ancestors, sometimes, Jiang Cheng wished he could inhabit anyone’s head but his own. How it blistered and churned.
...when he had heard how Wei Wuxian’s donkey had been found braying and bloodied and alone not far from them, he...he’d…
He’d barely had a MOMENT to process the news before the Chief Cultivator had appeared as if summoned by some spell, like a white wraith upon his dock. How?!
“Where.” Lan Wangji demanded, sharply but without ill temper, of Jin Ling.
The young man exhaled, tense shoulders heaving “They found his campsite up river. Just north of the Third Stem tributary, by the rapids.”
The Chief Cultivator nodded, infinitesimally, but by the tiny twitch of Jin Ling’s lips it was clear he understood this to be: ‘my thanks, and I shall retrieve the wayward idiot swiftly now.’
...when did his own blood NEPHEW become fluent in Wangji-ese?!? Was the whole accursed pack of them conspiring against him?!
For a long, hollow moment like a held breath, Jiang Wanyin stood still. The muffled cla-clunk of Hanguang-Jun’s retreating footsteps resounded like knuckles on a coffin lid.
“Wait.” he snapped, rounding on the retreating man “I am coming.”
Beside him, Jin Ling’s mouth opens and closes like a gormless catfish. The Yungmeng Patriarch resists the urge to raise a fist at him, and blush. Is it SO surprising?!
His excellency does not even deign to turn, nor pause in his stride “Not needed.”
Jiang Cheng could STRANGLE the man’s pretty, witty, endless neck.
He does not disgrace himself by rushing to catch up like a chastened child.
Instead he leaps, with power and aplomb, clean over that flash of silver and black to land in front of his (ally?) “As you say, your most esteemed and righteous excellency.” he grinds out, with forced politic “This is my province, and my affair.”
His brother. In Jiang Cheng’s heart, if not mind nor mouth. Always.
Lan Wangji does spare him the rarest of glances then, if only to convey his silent contempt. But he makes no move to deny him.
He always makes a man feel he is cowtowing in the wake of royalty. Jiang Cheng had loathed that piss-poor attitude from the start.
He recalls even at their very first meeting, he had turned to meet Wei Wuxian’s eye to share a scoff.
Only to find his companion staring open-mouthed at the retreating young man as if struck dumb (and NOT by the Lan curse).
It was the first of many, many instances he would seek Wei Wuxian’s gaze, only to find it drawn to the epicentre that was ‘Lan Zhan.’ Jiang Cheng remembered a mild anxiety, a foreboding pang, even at the beginning.
“Hanguang-Jun?” Jin Ling called, uncertainly, as the retreating figures strode in a miniature race towards the end of the dock in a whirl of lace and thick silks and linen “Uncle?”
The Yunmeng Patriarch whirled upon him “What is it?! We’re in a hurry! Speak, boy.”
“Just.” the young Jin chewed his lip gently, before scrunching up his face and stomping his foot “Please don’t kill eachother, alright?!”
“No promises on that score.” his beleaguered Uncle muttered; his chest heaved, and he called back “Jin Ling. I leave it to you.”
They had no way of knowing what force on earth had abducted Wei Wuxian. Weakened or no - this was no mean feat. He could not afford to take this lightly. Nor leave Lotus Cove leaderless.
He had learned such things the hard way.
“Wha-!!!” his nephew abruptly re-arranges his expression into one of dutiful respect “Uncle, I. Really?”
In truth, Jiang Wanyin knew his nephew the best in all the world. Jin Ling could be a directionless, gormless, foul-tempered brat, at times. But he was also brave: he felt things deeply. He was kind-hearted, somewhat reckless. Deceptively capable, when pushed.
...dammit, but he did remind him of...
“Act accordingly.” he scolded; his nephew winced, defiant eyes weakening a little. Jiang Cheng gathered the scarlet edge of his anger and softened it with more tender feelings.
“Take care.” he said, awkwardly, perhaps a little over-loud. Even Hanguang-Jun’s ears pricked at this.
The broad, delighted smile this elicited from Jin Ling was worth it “I will not let you down, Uncle!” he grinned, flinging a raised palm towards the sky and waving enthusiastically “Please rescue Wei Wuxian quickly so I can beat him up!!!”
That damned dog leapt as if from nowhere behind the teen’s skirts and barked enthusiastically, too. It felt like a bad, bad omen.
The Yunmeng Patriarch turned to find Lan Wangji unsheathing Bichen.
“Fall behind; I leave you.” he said, coldly, readying to fly.
Jiang Wanyin scoffed “You really do think very highly of yourself, don’t you?! His excellency; the wise and righteous Lan Wangj who was right all along, who is always, always right.”
“Correct.” the Chief Cultivator affirmed, with a rare flash of his true arrogance.
“Nggggh!” Jiang Cheng resisted the urge to tear his hair from his head “Well not SO wise, it seems. You truly think it faster to fly amongst those tall trees, risking collision, when the river runs high and fast downstream towards our destination…?”
An ominous silence from Hanguang-Jun. HA!
A few abiding citizens of Lotus Cove help them quickly prepare their fastest boat. A small, sleek vessel with a pointed front, optional sail, adjustable rudder for shallow waters and a bow soaked in special resin. It stank a little in the dwindling heat, the acrid stench of varnish stinging the upper nostril.
Dusk was fast approaching. It had crept, as it inevitably would, closer and closer to noon, eating the daylight away.
The Yunmeng Patriarch shed his useless decorative sleeves and cowl, stripping to his practical cloth and leathers. He ignored his knee-jerk instinct to proffer a helping hand as Hanguang-Jun stepped a little uneasily onto the boat.
There was something...not ladylike, about the man’s profile - just.
Just. Some essence that demanded etiquette. Gross.
he knew the gentlemen of Gusu-Lan Sect were notoriously seasick. He hoped the bastard suffered terribly.
...he would be sure to make the ride as rough (if still as swift) as possible, he thought, gleefully. Oh, what?! Could he not be afforded this small pleasure!?
“Too delicate to row?” he sneered, whipping up the long paddle to push them into the most rapid current.
His excellency lifted neither hand nor eye; but a sudden surge of power propelled them deftly forwards, pushing from behind and below. Jiang Wanyin flushed a little “Tch.”
The journey was wasted with mutual, hateful silence.
The trees on the riverbank cast long slatted shadows across Hanguang-Jun’s moonlike face; but he barely winced at the spatter-glare. In the sudden bursts of light Jiang Cheng could see that his eyes were not, in fact, black: but a deep, dark brown. Almost amber at their core.
...he looked. Tired. Wrought, no doubt with worry.
For the love of-! And why would Jiang Wanyin care if he did?! In fact, if he did NOT look appropriately vexed, he should probably smack the man. Was he not Wei Wuxian’s-
...his...his. GAH!
They came upon the bank of the tributary presently, but days could have passed for all the Yunmeng Patriarch knew. Let it NEVER become known to Wei Wuxian that he’d ferried Lan Wangji down a damn river like a damn gondolier on a damn picnic.
As soon as the bough kisses the crush of gravel at the shoreline, Lan Wangji has leapt clear of it, the long line of Bichen clutched in his left hand “...he was here.”
Jiang Cheng almost didn’t catch the hushed exclamation amongst the lilt of the cool sundown wind. It sounded like a prayer.
The camp was not a proper camp: more of an assembled mess. There was no camp roll, no cooking pot, no tent. Only a scorched circle where a fire once was. Some tired, foul-smelling fish strung up on string between two rocks, their scales slipping sadly from their sagging skin.
Deep gouges in the dirt and sandy, dry grasses: evidence of a struggle.
A broken pot of liquor leaking morosely into the darkening soil. Jiang Cheng’s heart leapt into his throat and strangled there.
Lan Wangji whirled sharply, mouthing a wordless, frantic ‘Wei Ying…’
A sharp, indignant bray replied from just beside the Yungmeng Patriarch’s right kneecap. He leapt about three feet into the air, startling the curious donkey “Stupid ass! Don’t DO that!!!”
...let it also never be known to Wei Wuxian that he was bested in espionage by a donkey.
Little Apple stared at them balefully, eyes wide and dried, tacky speckles of blood marring the leather about his ears. Jiang Cheng seized them immediately, and pointlessly interrogated “Where’s your stupid master, huh?!”
The voice that came from Hanguang-Jun in that moment was so laden with a dark, velveteen danger, it made Jiang Wanyin shiver “And who rendered him ‘stupid’?”
He rounded on the man, enraged “What?!”
The other man’s eyes were burning. His expression set in accusation, as if to say: ‘do not pretend you do not have ears.’
After all, Hanguang-Jun never, ever spoke anything aloud he did not want to be heard.
So this was how it came to blows, hmm? The cold-hearted son-of-a-bitch had finally said it. He blamed the Yunmeng Patriarch for this, whole-heartedly. Because he knew what Wei Wuxian had given to him.
Or, in his mind: what Jiang Cheng had TAKEN.
Suddenly, Wei Ying's hands and voice and eyes seem to be everywhere, bursting inside his brain in a torrent of sights and NOISE.
A wistful, mischievous smile: ‘I desire equivalence.’
Bulbous eyes filled with pity, horrendous, cutting pity: ‘If you can’t protect me…’
A sore thumb swiping his cheek: ‘All those things are like my previous life, now.’
How those final words had hurt.
Previous life. Former life. Former. Jiang Cheng, Senior Sister. Lotus Cove. It was all in the past, and now - at last, the only thing that lay ahead for Wei Wuxian was Lan Wangji. The only treasure from his past he coveted.
He had heard he even discarded Wen NING, at the end.
His future. His beloved Lan Zhan. And then...and THEN. He had LEFT. And Lan Wangji had stayed.
“Wei Ying told me.” a low, sonorous voice filled with contained rage cut the silence “To not keep hatred in my heart for you.”
Jiang Wanyin snorted derisively “My, my. Lan Wangji, Lan Wangji. Aren’t you talkative all of a sudden.” he folded his arms tight to his chest, and cocked an eyebrow “And? Can you fulfil such an abhorrent thing?”
The sun had slipped beneath the horizon now, and little to no light remained.
“I deny Wei Ying nothing.” Hanguang-Jun replied, carefully.
A bitter wind lifted a few stray strands of his hair, sending them tossing about the halo of his head. A coppery tang like metal dispersed into the air.
“Naturally not.” Jiang Cheng retorted, dismissive.
“Forgiveness, however.”
The Yunmeng Patriarch snarled, and boldly advanced three steps to snatch his fingers in the cool cloth of his Excellency’s lapel. Little Apple brayed wildly, alarmed.
“For once in your accursed life, Lan Wangji.” he hissed “If you have something to say: say it.”
The look Hanguang-Jun affixed him with would have turned lesser men to powder.
“If I could rip what you stole from your body and put it back.” he snarled, with a scarce flash of impossibly straight and pearly teeth “I would.”
Spoiling for a fight, to throw a punch, SOMETHING to end this intolerable stalemate, Jiang Wanyin shoved Lan Wangji HARD in the chest and half-shouted “Should I be afraid of second childe Lan?!”
Lan Wangji does not raise Bichen, oh no: that would be beneath him! Instead, strangely, he continues to use his rare, sought-after words “If you are not, then you truly are a fool.”
Jiang Cheng, as is his custom, searches within himself for the worst possible thing he can say.
“I will never understand why someone as pure and lively as Wei Wuxian would ever fall for the likes of YOU.” he spits, with all the honest ire he can muster.
On any other person, it would be the slightest bat of lashes. On Lan Wangji, the Yunmeng Patriarch knows, this is a FLINCH.
Aaaaaah. So there is a chink in that insurmountable armour.
Hanguang-Jun wrenches his gaze away, ears scarlet “You are the type who disgusts me the most.” he inhales sharply, as if restraining himself, but the words are coming fast and furious now, as if he cannot stop them “Inadequate. Weak. Unprincipled. Stupid. Cowardly.”
HA! Jiang Cheng thinks, leering, does he think I have not heard all this and worse before?! How childish.
Zidian crackles - when did he raise his fist…? And now, his mouth seems to take on a mind of its own, his body moved by the deepest thrums of his darker feelings “Oho, pomposity suits his excellency very well! Shall we go then, huh?!”
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Something moves, a foreign thing shot from beyond the treeline.
“MOVE.”
Jiang Wanyin barely registers the barked command, before a bony mass of lace and silver slams into his side and tackles him to the soft ground.