Chapter Text
It was an undeniable truth that Lan XiChen came out of seclusion to become proper cultivation partners with his intended. Not that he would say he had healed fully from the burden of his sins. He would carry the blood of his sworn brothers in his hands for the rest of his life, but he found it easier to face his demons with Jiang WanYin beside him. And that fact encouraged him to step out into the world once more.
What he didn’t expect was how truly and badly it was needed for him to indeed fulfill his role as sect leader of the GusuLan sect.
No, it was not a problem regarding his sect per se.
“Jiang Cheng…”
His greeting fell on deaf ears as the two men continued their conversation, one with a simmering heat in his arguments and the other with a light but firm melody in his. Their backs were to him, their heads huddled over a pile of documents interspersed with scribbled notes. Lan XiChen patiently stood behind them, catching snippets of their debate.
“Those idiots wouldn’t know ‘compromise’ if it bit them on the nose. How about I shove Zidian down their throa—”
“Nice try.” A sigh. “Much as I fully support the use of torture to get them to see things our way, we can’t afford to burn down another pavilion.”
That had been Jiang WanYin’s doing, apparently, during a meeting in Lotus Pier. Lan QiRen had come home with strands of his goatee still singeing from the incident and his eyebrows quivering from a fury barely held back. Jiang WanYin had been banned from Cloud Recesses for a week.
“Just have them sign a liability contract. I’ll pay for whatever damage I cause but it’s completely their fault if I get tired of their travesty.”
“A liability contract sounds good.” The sound of a quill scratching on paper. “What do you say we have Wei WuXian use Soul Transfer to look for some materials we can negotiate with?”
At this point, Lan XiChen could not allow the talk to go on any longer. One would think that the brash and rough Sandu Shengshou was the deadlier of the two friends, but it was actually the calmer Nie sect leader that really should not be crossed lest one wanted their whole life ripped to shreds, one secret at a time.
“Jiang Cheng.” He raised his voice. Just a bit.
Again, he was unheard. The younger sect leaders were seemingly too immersed in their planning to notice the new presence behind them. Lan XiChen was not quite sure how to feel about being forgotten by his own cultivation partner in favor of a hushed exchange with a close ally. He knew he should be jealous, because that would have been the natural reaction—
A reluctant frown graced his beloved’s features. “Let’s leave that as a last resort. Don’t you have those underlings of yours to do the digging?”
Cue a mocking gasp, then a fan being opened to cover a mouth. “That only works if silver is on the table.”
“You know that’s not even going to be a problem between us.” Eyes were rolled..
The other man’s brows raised in ecstatic wonder.
—but now Lan XiChen was more concerned with the fact that Jiang WanYin was being influenced by this masked trickster.
He cleared his throat, much louder this time, enough for the other two to jump and finally acknowledge his arrival.
“Lan Huan!”
Jiang WanYin immediately scrambled on his feet to greet him, that loose, boyish smile opening his face up only for him to see. Lan XiChen gave himself a few seconds to enjoy the sight before he sent Nie HuaiSang a sharp smile.
“Please, my friend, I would be honored to hear about all your plans for the coming conference.”
With a squeak and a whine, Nie HuaiSang put back on the table all the sketches and notes he had been hiding away. Not even Jiang WanYin himself could distract Lan XiChen from preventing what could possibly become a pandemonium involving his partner.
Ignoring Jiang WanYin’s fumbling for an excuse to steer him away from the issue at hand, Lan XiChen rounded the table and sat on the other side, across Nie HuaiSang. Jiang WanYin had fast given up and surrendered to sitting beside him. Lan XiChen vaguely noted the way he was fidgeting with Zidian and wondered how long the strange alliance between Nie and Jiang had been going on.
This was not the right time to be jealous, he told himself. For now, he had to straighten out these two wayward cultivators.
The first point in Nie HuaiSang’s scribbles: Calculated amount of damages predicted.
What?
It was Jiang WanYin who cleared his throat when they realized that Lan XiChen was blinking at this line. “I tend to destroy something during meetings. Or break someone’s arm.”
“You dislocated Sect Leader Yao’s leg last time.”
“He fights like someone made a poor imitation of Wei WuXian’s Painted Eyes with the spiritual energy of a duck.”
“He nearly started a sect war with you.”
“He challenged me to a duel. That point is moot.”
“Please,” Lan XiChen interrupted the exchange, already feeling a headache about to start. So that was why there was point number ten: Liabilities .
Point number two was… Self-relaxation methods.
Lan XiChen didn’t even think he needed an explanation, but Nie HuaiSang was already supplying it. “Also for Sect Leader Jiang’s benefit.” At this, he was smiling proudly. “I’ve been teaching him ways to avoid harming anyone.”
Lan XiChen was dreading to know, but he just had to ask. “For example…?”
“Instead of acting it out, he can simply imagine how it would be like to grab the person’s neck and strangle—”
“Do continue no more,” Lan XiChen almost groaned. He didn’t need Jiang WanYin to get any more violent than he already was.
At point number three— Strategic locations to place Lan WangJi and Wei WuXian to allow for dual cultivation —Lan XiChen decided to stop and take matters into his own hands. Now he understood what Lan QiRen had been saying about those “two foolish sect leaders leading the cultivation world into a circus show.”
Picking up the list, he folded it several times before tearing it up, then calmly set the pieces on a small pile on the corner of the table to be thrown out later. He smiled at Jiang WanYin’s furrowed brows first then at Nie HuaiSang’s nervous grimace.
“Let us please plan this properly like the adults that we are, shall we?”
In retrospect, everything had rather gone well. Better than Lan XiChen feared, if he had to say it.
The first two days had been uneventful. The arrangement of the seats had been such that leaders of opposing sects were far apart so no unnecessary arguments could be started. The food and drinks were bountiful and delicious, and the lodgings had been customized according to each sect leader’s preference, so no one could complain about accommodations. Lan WangJi and Wei WuXian, due to Lan XiChen being active once more, did not have to join the conference, so scandalous moments had safely been avoided.
Lan XiChen himself served as the buffer to Jiang WanYin’s easily triggered temper. Whenever he felt Jiang WanYin tensing and saw the sparks going off on Zidian, he would tighten his hold on his hand under their tables, rubbing his thumb in circles on the back. Jiang WanYin wouldn’t look at him, but the tension would fade, his shoulders would loosen, and Zidian’s hissing would quiet. That had been a good preventive measure against Sandu Shengshou wreaking destruction on everyone else.
That was until someone had turned their sneering on Lan XiChen himself.
It was the head of a small sect. Lan XiChen wasn’t narcissistic that he thought no one had anything against him. But it was surprising for someone from an upstart sect to drawl about the ease with which the GusuLan leader, despite having done something as cowardly as entering seclusion, could easily demand respect. Meanwhile, leaders of small sects like his couldn’t even make themselves heard without making a fool of themselves.
Lan XiChen didn’t even realize he wasn’t holding Jiang WanYin’s hand anymore until he saw the man in purple stalking down the seats and stopping in front of the offender.
He might have heard Nie HuaiSang breathing a faint, “Oh, no…” from the other side of the empty seat before all hell broke loose.
Everything was a blur by then. Lan XiChen couldn’t even care to remember what exactly transpired, or how everything had been managed. He did remember pulling a seething Jiang WanYin out of a crumbling building before it totally collapsed. The target of his partner’s ire had been rescued, thankfully, and no one was actually hurt by the incident.
“I meant to scare him,” Jiang WanYin later admitted, much to Lan XiChen’s amusement.
“So scaring Sect Leader Nan meant destroying the pavilion?”
“I didn’t mean to break the pillars! Zidian is much harder to control when I’m angry.”
Lan XiChen had simply chuckled and kissed the frustration away from Jiang WanYin’s brows.
Now, in bed, with Jiang WanYin leaning on his shoulder and snoozing while he drank his tea and remembered the incident earlier, Lan XiChen decided that yes, it had gone better than expected.
At least there were no broken bones this time.