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There’s a story among the common folk about a cultivator whose soulmate was driven to madness.
The first time he sees his soulmate is on the rooftops of the Cloud Recesses, bathed in moonlight. There’s a sword in his hand and a wine-soaked smile on his lips and it lights a fire in his heart.
Emperor’s Smile! If I share one with you, can you pretend not to have seen me?
Ridiculous, his mind thinks.
Impossible, his heart says.
His soulmate is infuriating, reckless, irreverent, maddening. His quick wit and sharp tongue run circles around his peers and pierce through his opponents like carefully aimed barbs. He is arrogant, cocky, vain, proud. He knows he is prodigiously talented and handsome and he doesn’t let anyone forget it.
Lan Wangji does not, ever, forget it.
His soulmate is thoughtful, considerate, selfless, beautiful. He loves fearlessly, unconditionally, completely. He wears his heart on his sleeve, a smile on his lips, a spark of light dancing across the lakes of Yunmeng on a lazy summer’s day.
Lan Wangji doesn’t realise he’s fallen until he’s drowning.
His soulmate is righteous, just, courageous, good. He speaks out for the voiceless, stands for the fallen, fights for the weak. He does not hesitate, does not waver, does not bend to the will of the oppressors.
He does, however, break.
Lan Wangji doubles over in agony in the middle of a war council, a hand over his abdomen as his golden core burns and flares as if threatening to tear itself apart. But when his brother examines him and proclaims his golden core whole and hale, his heart cries out in dread.
His soulmate is changed. He is quick to anger and slow to laughter; his heart and mind are dark and unfathomable, hidden behind the shutters of his eyes, cold and immovable. His words are cruel and his hand heavy, fueled by cold fury and an unrelenting thirst for vengeance.
Lan Wangji is helpless.
His soulmate is hurt, is broken, is in pain. He lashes out like a wounded beast, all teeth and claws and desperation, and Lan Wangji’s pleas fall on deaf ears. He shrouds himself in resentment and anger, draws it into the very core of his being until there is nothing left but madness and grief, and tears the world apart with it.
Come back, Lan Wangji says, and receives no response.
Come back, Lan Wangji tries again. Don’t go where I can’t follow.
Get lost.
The last time he sees his soulmate is on the rooftops of the Nightless City, bathed in moonlight. There’s a sword in his chest and a blood-soaked smile on his lips and it turns his heart to ash.
But what happens then?
What happens when you kill your own soulmate?
How do you survive that?
The fan snaps shut against a bitter smile.
You don’t.