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Close to the Harvest Festival, the Lan Sect elders decided to hold a conference in the Cloud Recesses to discuss some events of importance. All the sect cultivation leaders were invited to a banquet, and amongst those heads, Jin Ling was one of them.
Now, it chanced about that Jin Ling, upon emptying his late uncle’s treasure room for assessment, had discovered a hand mirror with ornate designs as a trim, but the mirror itself showed no reflection of the person it was held up against. Realizing it was probably a cultivation tool since it was a vault containing precious items and a defective mirror was essentially useless, Jin Ling decided to take it to the Cloud Recesses with him, so that perhaps Wei Wuxian could look at it and deduce if it possessed any resentful spirit.
After the solemn banquet and what seemed like a long lecture and lifeless discussion, the attendees dispersed to spend some time in their quarters for the night. The younger Lan Sect disciples had invited Jin Ling to spend some time together before bed, but the boy had more important things to do. Immediately he fetched the mirror and brought it to Wei Wuxian to examine.
The young man poked at the mirror a few times and after carelessly putting it down and sliding it back towards Jin Ling, he yawned, “There is nothing wrong with it.”
“Nothing? Is there no negative energy? It was from my late uncle’s treasure room.”
At that, Wei Wuxian smiled his flippant smile. “Not everything your uncle had in his life was bad.” As if understanding something unsaid and agreeing, Lan Wangji looked up from the book he was reading and silently caressed his lover’s head. Jin Ling however, did not understand, and he looked at the two, almost feeling dissatisfied by the explanation.
Nonetheless, the Yi-ling Patriarch was hardly ever wrong concerning these matters. At times he allowed the boys to figure things out for themselves in night-hunts, cases and the like, but this was one of the times where he was actually scrutinizing something and coming to a conclusion. Taking a deep breath, Jin Ling withdrew from the room, taking the mirror with him. As soon as he had turned his back there came some teasing and laughter from the sliding door, and several questionable noises. Jin Ling went red in the face and hurried away back to his room for the night.
As the night passed, Jin Ling found himself roused awake on his own. He tried a few more times to sleep, but soon gave up. He thought that perhaps a quick walk around the compound and getting some fresh air would help, and got up and dressed. Not wanting to leave the mirror behind lest it caused any trouble without his knowledge, he set out with it in his hand, almost stumbling over a retainer who was fast asleep.
Jin Ling bit back a sigh. During the time Jin Guangyao was the head, the servants and officials hardly dared to take bribes or slack on their job. But nowadays they even dared to sleep on their job. As he looked on he noticed that the reflection on the mirror in his hand had grown cloudy, and images had begun to appear. Gingerly, he held up the mirror against a tree—it merely turned dark, and then nothing. Furrowing his brows, the boy pointed it around, and when it fell on the sleeping man before him, images floated onto the surface.
It at once hit him—this mirror could peer into the dreams of others!
This was all too much for a boy his age to handle. It was a harmless object, alright, but extremely harmful to one’s itch if one did not do anything about it! Whether it was his inherited wild spirit or Wei Wuxian’s terrible influence on him, Jin Ling without a second thought decided to go around looking at the dreams of people he knew.
He strolled off silently to where he knew the dormitory was. The Lan Sect disciples were all housed there, and were quietly asleep by now. Incidentally some arrangement for the night may have been changed, for he stumbled upon Lan SiZhui and Lan Jingyi in the same small room, having climbed through a window. At once he pointed the mirror at the slumbering Lan SiZhui.
The mirror fogged up, and then the reflection turned green and gold. The device remained silent, though, only playing pictures, without a sound to be heard. This was likely because it was just a mirror. But Jin Ling continued watching anyway, not at all minding. Just looking was good enough, and sounds would wake the dreamer up anyway.
The reflection was green and gold for a reason. Lan SiZhui was dreaming of a field with yellow flowers. The scenery spun around for a bit before it settled on what looked like butterfly wings. Suddenly, Jin Ling bit back a laugh.
Lan SiZhui was dreaming that he was a giant butterfly! He still had his head, which was comically placed on a fat butterfly’s body. As he travelled around flower to flower, he greeted the other equally chubby butterflies, all with human heads on them—they were the Lan Sect disciples. On a giant dancing moth was the head of the Ghost General Wen Ning, and Wen Ning was busy giving out honey cakes to the other butterflies. Suddenly, a butterfly with golden wings appeared, with the body of a dog wagging its tail and Jin Ling’s head. It looked so ridiculous that Jin Ling moved the mirror away from the boy before he could burst into laughter.
Lan SiZhui was mild-mannered and sensible; never would anyone think that he ever dreamt silly dreams like this! People were surely full of surprises. But it seemed like all the boy was dreaming about was the people he knew in a different setting. This was not usually unexpected. Lan SiZhui had a gentle and kind heart, so the setting was kind as well.
Presently, Jin Ling turned the mirror to his other friend, Lan Jingyi. The reflection started to change and grow hazy, and then turned glittery. He saw the figure of Lan Jingyi running after a girl in golden robes, a flower in his hand. From the back she looked like a maiden from a very rich household, a Young Mistress in very expensive clothes.
Now, one of the rules of the Lan Sect was that one should not be promiscuous in any way, and here was a Lan Sect disciple dreaming of chasing a girl and trying to court her. Jin Ling would have laughed, but at the moment he was filled with curiosity as to how the girl looked from the front. He now knew that Lan Jingyi liked rich, well-bred girls, but what about her face?
The Lan Jingyi in the dream ran for a while, and finally caught up with the girl who had by now spurned him many times. He turned her around, rather wildly, and both shyly and violently shoved the flower he was holding into her hands. This was when Jin Ling got a violent shock himself.
The Young Mistress’ face was none other than his!
Rapid rage crept up to Jin Ling’s face and he angrily kicked Lan Jingyi awake. Lan Jingyi sat up furiously, so annoyed that he did not even realize that Jin Ling was not supposed to be in the room with them in the first place. At once they began to bicker.
“Why did you kick me!?”
“You! Lan Jingyi! Why did you dream of me as a woman!?”
From the ruckus, Lan SiZhui had also roused up from his sleep. He looked at his two bickering friends in surprise, even more so at Jin Ling being present in the room. However, his wits acted very swiftly, and not wanting them to draw trouble by waking everyone up and getting themselves punished, he quickly separated the two.
“Don’t shout. Jin Ling, why are you here?”
At once Jin Ling simmered down, remembering where he was. He looked at them guiltily and presented them the mirror in his hand. “I brought this here for Wei Wuxian to inspect. It is a mirror that can peer into other people’s dreams.”
“So you saw our dreams!” Lan Jingyi exclaimed. “That’s why you knew I was dreaming about you—“
He fell silent almost immediately, his ears turning pink. Still annoyed at being depicted as a woman, Jin Ling opened his mouth to argue, but was right away stopped by Lan SiZhui, who had registered what was happening. This was a big discovery!
He huddled the other two together and whispered. “You two… that is enough. This mirror of yours, Jin Ling, what else can it do? What did Senior Wei have to say about it?”
Jin Ling thought for a while. “He said it was harmless, and there was no negative energy. I believe my uncle had just kept it for amusement. That’s what he told me, anyway. While I was watching your dreams, it made no sound. I only saw pictures. As long as someone was sleeping and dreaming and I pointed the mirror at them, I could see it.”
Lan Jingyi’s eyes gleamed and he leaned in. “So we can look at anyone’s dream?”
The three boys looked at each other silently, and then drew apart. As if in unison, Lan SiZhui and Lan Jingyi got dressed quickly. The trio went towards the open window and was outside in a flash, gleefully making their way towards the Silence Room.
They slid the door apart as silently as they could, and peeked in. The room was mostly dark, but the boys could somewhat make out the figures. On top of Lan Wangji lay Wei Wuxian, flopped over messily like a human blanket. The boys shook their heads; even in sleep Wei Wuxian was careless and frivolous in his form.
Jin Ling, still holding his mirror, lifted it up and pointed it first at the sleeping Wei Wuxian. The reflection in the mirror clouded over, and the boys huddled close to see what a genius was able to dream of. After few moments, however, they recoiled in shock, blushing right up to their ears.
“How shameless! They’ve obviously fallen asleep after making love, but are still making love in their dreams!”
“Oi! How do you even know they made love?”
“Because I heard it behind the door right after I left consulting with Wei Wuxian.”
“......”
An embarrassed silence crept over them. After a while, Lan Sizhui spoke up, coughing lightly. “Ahem. It was just Senior Wei’s dream, wasn’t it? He has always been a bit promiscuous, anyway, so it is to be expected. I’m very sure we can learn something proper from Hanguang-Jun’s dream. Let’s look at his instead. There could be cultivation techniques.”
The other two boys nodded, wanting the embarrassment to go away. The proper and strict Hanguang-Jun would likely set everything straight and also provide new skills to learn, even in his sleep. Jin Ling pointed the mirror at the slumbering figure underneath, and again the mirror clouded over.
For a few moments the boys huddled together to watch.
And then they recoiled with double the speed and distance, the crimson on their faces flaming right up and down to their ears and necks. The images on the mirror were ten thousand times worse than those in Wei Wuxian’s dream! Panting and clutching on to their hearts for dear life, they fled away from the Silence Room, only coming to a halt several minutes later under a magnolia tree.
“W-What was that!?”
“I don’t know!”
“Why was he using the library books like that… ah!”
The boys clutched their heads and their hearts, breathing heavily. They turned to each other, all looking rather sorry.
“Let’s go back already.”
Jin Ling nodded, and as they were about to separate, something caught his eye and he paused. He stared at the quarters nearby, and noticing that he had stopped, Lan SiZhui and Lan Jingyi turned around.
“What’s wrong?”
Jin Ling looked at the two. His fingers gripped on the mirror tightly, almost wistfully. “That’s my uncle’s sleeping quarters.”
At once Lan SiZhui understood that Jin Ling was wondering if his uncle ever dreamt about him. He smiled gently and patted his friend on the back. “Come, let’s take a look.”
The three went towards the sleeping quarters. There was no servant or guard there, but then again, it was widely believed that Jiang Cheng never needed any protection or help for anything. He could defeat evil with just a strike, at any rate, and could do everything on his own. Jin Ling held the mirror up at a crack gingerly, his hands trembling as he respected his uncle very much. What would he see in his dream?
The reflection in the mirror clouded over, and soon images of a table on wooden planks began to play. Around the what looked like a wooden veranda were several lotus flowers, and there was a family having a meal. It struck the trio that Jiang Cheng was dreaming of the Lotus Pier.
A younger version of Jiang Cheng was seated at the table, smiling. On one side was what looked like a mother and a father, and beside him was a sister. She was smiling while serving him broth and they both looked like they were making very happy banter. In her arms she was cradling a baby.
The three remained silent, but tears crept up and welled in Jin Ling’s eyes, flowing down as if it were a quiet waterfall. He had, as a child, been too young to remember his mother alive and only knew what she looked like from tapestries. Seeing her animated in the mirror, in a way he had never seen her before, her kind smile and loving temperament, reminded him of what he might have had.
His friends looked at him silently crying, but said nothing for a while, letting him watch the family meal play out. At long last, Lan Jingyi opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, Lan SiZhui had wrapped an arm around Jin Ling’s back, patting it and consoling him in a circular motion. As if craving for warmth and affection, Jin Ling leaned left towards his gentle friend for support. Lan Jingyi turned his face away.
The three squatted there for several minutes and then they got up. By this time Jin Ling was already done crying, wiping his tears away with his sleeve. Lan SiZhui patted his back, and smiled.
“I just thought of something. Why don’t we go and clear our minds and hearts after this with something soothing? Zewu-Jun has been meditating and cultivating in seclusion. He is calm like a moonlit lake. It might help us calm down after all this by looking at his dream.”
The other two agreed that this was a good idea. It would take Jin Ling’s mind off his longing for a bit, and centre their attention back to cultivation. They took off to Lan Xichen’s known chambers, quietly creeping into the moonlit garden right outside.
As per the Sect rules, Lan Xichen was fast asleep at this hour. They slid his door slightly open and, nodding at each other, Jin Ling pointed the mirror at him. He was dreaming, and the mirror’s reflection clouded over.
In the dream, Lan Xichen was lying in what looked like a simple room, bruised and battered. It felt calm, however, and the surroundings were glassy as if from a memory. Two hands with slim fingers wiped his brow and face and tended to his injuries extremely carefully, as if trying their best to not cause any unnecessary pain. The Lan Xichen in the dream looked up and the mirror panned from his gaze to the other person. Jin Ling sucked in his breath. The other person who was tending to the battered man was none other than his late uncle, Jin Guangyao!
For a few minutes the figures in the dream talked while one was being tended to, both with very pleasant expressions and graceful movements. The boys could see great relief and serenity on the dream Lan Xichen’s face, mirroring the one they saw on the bed under the moonlight. As they looked the mirror clouded over again, this time taking on a golden light tinted with pink and red.
The dream had shifted, and it now showed what Jin Ling recognized as Glamour Hall. It was as luxurious as ever, the golden walls decorated with red flowers and silk tapestries, and gold ornaments hanging from expensive, jewel-encrusted branches. Large bouquets of yellow peonies sat beside each banquet table, and the guests were watching maidens doing a fan dance. On one end sat a groom and his bride, dressed in festive, brilliant red and gold. The boys recognized the groom as Jin Guangyao, but even as a groom he did not sit for very long.
As the maidens were dancing, he had gotten up and joined them, leaving his bride seated behind. Jin Ling furrowed a brow—this did not seem like a memory at all. His uncle would never breach protocol like that. As he watched, he realized that his uncle had danced all the way right in front of Lan Xichen’s table, still very graceful and pristine as he had remembered him.
There was something sensual and undulating about the dance, however. Jin Ling could not put a finger in it. It was provocative, but not enough, as if something was being held back. Lan SiZhui, as he watched, recognized some of the movements as similar to that of Wei Wuxian, but not as untamed and unbridled as the latter’s. It registered to him that this was probably how Lan Xichen had viewed his then best friend—as a married man he could not touch. Some of the movements appeared similar to Wei Wuxian’s, the young man who was in a relationship with his younger brother, and in contrast, a relationship that he, Lan Xichen, could not and could no longer have, now that his friend was dead.
Lan SiZhui wondered, had Jin Guangyao remained in the Cloud Recesses instead of having been sent back to the Lanling-Jin Sect, would things have played out differently? Jin Guangyao had seemed very different in the memory when he was still Mengyao, a nobody with a kind smile and gentle hands. If the boy recalled reading and hearing correctly, a lot of the crimes that were mentioned were done in Jin Guangyao’s father’s name.
He stole a look at Jin Ling, who was watching still, and said nothing. If things had transpired that way, Jin Ling would still have his uncles, father and mother. Having a cut-sleeve* for a relative aside, Lan Qiren would have a proper in-law, and not a frolicsome one who gave him heart attacks every time he saw his face. In stark contrast, however, the Yiling Patriarch would still be holed up in the Burial Mounds, not at all living in pink-tinted peace in the Cloud Recesses, frivolously lying about every day in Hanguang-Jun’s lap. Lan SiZhui himself would have grown up a Wen, only to know life in hiding as a Wen dog, never to have met the Lan Sect disciples and be brought up as one. There was no true happy ending for both possible outcomes, only one. Life was fair in its own twisted way.
As he mused, the scene changed again. This time steam was pouring from the red tapestries. The maidens had stopped dancing and disappeared. At this point Lan Xichen had already gotten up from his seat, going pale. He said something, looking concerned, and Jin Guangyao replied, still smiling. The boys could not make out what the words were.
Suddenly, they saw a door open from behind the two men in the dream. In stepped Nie Mingjue, angry and ferocious. He grabbed Jin Guangyao by his neck and held him up, the latter struggling and screaming. Lan Xichen lifted his hand and caught hold of his friend’s hand, only to feel it go slack. He reeled back and stared at the hand in his in shock—the entire arm had come off, staining his own white and blue robes crimson from the blood gushing from it.
While this was happening, Jin Guangyao was carried towards a large coffin, still by his neck. Steam continuously poured into the room from the red tapestries, staining the floor with their dye. Startled from his stupor, Lan Xichen raced towards where his two sworn brothers were, but stopped right at the moment Jin Guangyao, his throat all twisted up, lifted his only hand up to point a finger at him.
The boys who were watching could not hear what was being said, but they could make out the words mouthed by the former Jin Sect leader.
“This is all your fault!”
Instantly the mirror went blank. Lan Xichen’s eyes snapped open, and he sat bolt upright from his sleeping position, breathing in slightly heavier than he usually did. He got up and moved towards the guqin, and started to play a tune. In floated the moonlight, illuminating the frail man who had just seen a bad dream. He was indeed cultivating in seclusion, but he did not cry, and he did not mourn. Quite frankly, there were no more tears left to shed.
Holding their breath, the three boys stole away quietly into the garden, down the pathways, running and skipping over obstacles. They did not speak to one another for a long while, their faces solemn. Then, as silently as they had escaped, they nodded to one another and moved back in opposite directions, and flung their bedcovers over themselves once they entered their respective rooms, lying awake to think.
The sun rose and Jin Ling returned to Lanling with his retainers. As soon as he got into the Carp Tower, he went into the treasure room. There he put the mirror, covered it with a piece of cloth, and never touched it again.
If there was ever a lesson to be learned, it was that peering into something as private as someone’s dream is not always a good thing.
END