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On the battlefield, days blur together.
Wangji has left the eastern front to join Jiang Wanyin to the southwest, clearing the remaining Wen forces from what remains of Lotus Pier and routing them north toward the Nightless City, following Wen Chao. Lan Xichen stays to lead the Lan sect cultivators — they are hardly an army, not in the way Nie Mingjue’s forces are, or the Lanling soldiers — in organizing battlefield medics and caring for the wounded, in addition to laying the dead to rest and calming their spirits so they do not form masses of resentment that carve through towns like butter.
After two weeks of fighting, Xichen can no longer remember what happened from one day to the next. The only thing keeping him aloft at this point is routine, but even that seems to be slipping from him: he has never spent so much time alone, away from his family, his brother. He’s not overly fond of the feeling it brings.
On the fifteenth day, Lan Xichen has the genius idea to barge into Nie Mingjue’s tent at dawn to drag him to Xichen’s morning meditations.
“Whosit-what-the fuck?” Mingjue says when Xichen gently shakes him, summoning Baxia from its holder and to his hand, shoving Xichen off him and leveling the sword at his chest, not totally awake.
“Mingjue-xiong! It’s just me!” Xichen says, holding up his hands in surrender.
Mingjue groans and rests Baxia over his shoulder, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What the fuck? Xichen, why are you in my tent in the middle of the night?”
“It’s not the middle of the night, it’s morning!” Xichen says, clambering up to his feet from where Mingjue had knocked him on his back. “Come meditate with me.”
“It’s dark outside. It’s night time. Go the fuck to sleep.” Mingjue does not look entirely pleased with Xichen’s genius plan. “How are you so awake? Don’t answer that, I know it’s because you’re a Lan.”
“One ought to rise at five and sleep at nine, Mingjue-xiong,” Xichen says. He tucks one arm behind his back, extends the other to his friend. “Come meditate with me. It’s good for the spirit.”
Mingjue lays back down on the bed and closes his eyes. “Go to sleep, Xichen.”
“Mingjue-xiong…” Xichen whines like they’re ten years old again and Mingjue doesn’t want to come read with him in the Lan sect library. “Ming’ge…”
Mingjue cracks one eye open. “You’re just asking me because you’re lonely, aren’t you. Because your brother’s off with the Jiang sect and you can’t fuss over him.”
“Maybe! Doesn’t matter, we’re both awake, time to meditate. Come on, ” Xichen says, grabbing Mingjue by the wrist and tugging until his friend groans and gets out of bed and stumbles to his feet.
“Don’t see why we can’t meditate here,” Mingjue grumbles, slipping into his shoes as Xichen wrangles him toward the tent entrance.
“I can’t meditate in the Nie camp, you know this. Your blade spirits disturb my cultivation base.” Xichen snatches his hand as he goes to grab Baxia . “Leave it! You can’t cleanse your spirit or clear your meridians with that thing around.”
“ Baxia is not a thing!” Mingjue says indignantly, but leaves it nonetheless. “You don’t see me asking you to keep your sword away.”
“I cleanse Shuoyue of resentful energy nightly, and no Lan sect member has died of qi deviation in ten generations.” Xichen tucks his hand back into the small of his back, chin parallel with the ground. “My Lan sect’s camp has energy clean as a mountain stream. We can meditate there.”
“Your Lan sect aren’t the ones carving through this conflict, that’s my Nie sect,” Mingjue says. He folds his arms as if that will make Lan Xichen feel intimidated by him. Xichen’s seen him half-dressed and dunked in cold water that Huaisang had somehow rigged to fall on him when a door opened, he’s not sure he’s capable of being intimidated by Mingjue anymore.
Xichen looks away from Mingjue, as if he’s been offended. Mostly it’s to hide the smile he can’t suppress. “Well, I can pack my people up and head back to Gusu tomorrow, then…”
Mingjue punches him in the shoulder lightly. “Don’t be a dick.”
Xichen pulls aside the curtain that covers the entrance to his tents. “After you, Sect Leader Nie.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Mingjue huffs, ducking under his arm to come inside. “Okay. Let’s get this meditation started. Gonna ace it, just you wait.”
“Yes, yes, you’ll be the best meditation killer in the world,” Xichen says as he clears some fallen maps from the mat and lights the incense burner. “Come now, sit down with me.”
Mingjue obliges, folding into the lotus position next to Xichen. Xichen has meditated with Mingjue before, so the thrum of his energy isn’t distracting or too foreign. Xichen’s own energy is unique, he knows; diffuse and mutable like fog on a mountaintop, the north face shielded from the sun. It isn’t like Wangji’s whose core Xichen can feel pulsing, flashing like light off snow, clear and solid as ice. Together, they make a perfectly balanced pair, the sun circling a river-rock, revealing what should be seen and protecting what should not. When Xichen and Wangji meditate together, it is as if they become one person, so perfectly in sync that their hearts even beat simultaneously.
Mingjue’s cultivation is unlike theirs both, unlike anything they have constructed in Gusu. It burns so brightly it would make Wangji’s yang-forward techniques look as a candle before a blazing field. At times, on the battlefield, Xichen feels as if he will be consumed by it, a single cathaya tree against a forest fire.
Here, though, in the quiet of morning, as dawn stretches her fingers across the sky: here, it is the comfort of a crackling fire in winter, warm to the point of-almost burning. Here, Lan Xichen sits holding his hands like a cup and practices the careful redirection of energy through each acupoint and meridian, lets the simmer and hum of Mingjue’s energy be washed over by his like an ocean washes the shore. He lets his calm permeate, makes himself the heat sink Mingjue’s violent spirit needs.
When the noises of the Lan camp rising from meditation begin to sneak past the canvas of Xichen’s tent, he reluctantly unfolds himself from lotus and stands, stretching, settling his energy from his fingertips through his feet. Mingjue does the same, shaking out his shoulders and stretching his neck.
He seems more calm, more at peace than he did before. Xichen beams up at him. “See? Was that so terrible, Mingjue-xiong?”
Mingjue rolls his eyes. “I’m about to undo all the work I just did just to smack you for being smart, Lan Huan.”
“Ah, don’t be like that!” Xichen does not run over to the table, as running is forbidden, but neither does he dawdle. While they meditated, one of the disciples has brought tea; Xichen sets out a cup for himself and his guest and serves them both, gripping his sleeve to keep it from dragging on the table. “Here, come have tea with me, Sect Leader Nie.”
Mingjue sits with one knee up, as he always does, because “one ought not to sit improperly” is not a rule in Qinghe. He salutes Xichen with his cup and sips, grimacing. “This tastes like nothing.”
“So picky. Little mistress Nie, I’ll be sure to have tea more to your liking next time you come by my humble tent.” Xichen sips it as well — jasmine, Wangji’s favorite, admittedly a little mild even by Xichen’s standards. “This is my brother’s favorite tea. I may have to challenge you for the insult to his tastes.”
Mingjue just raises an eyebrow and says, “Wei Wuxian.”
“Ah! Mingjue-xiong!” Xichen covers his mouth to hide his smile, bites back his laughter. “We ought not speak ill of the dead.”
“Who knows if he’s dead? Scrappy little fucker; I wouldn’t be surprised if he came out of the Mass Graves swinging a femur like a club and drinking some kind of wine he made himself out there.” Mingjue takes another sip of his tea. “Your brother has terrible taste in tea and men, apparently. This is hot water, Xichen; you’re serving me hot water.”
“We’re in a war, you’re lucky you have that much.” Xichen crosses his ankles so he can tuck them under his stool.
“I’m bringing liquor tomorrow.” Mingjue turns his cup over when he finishes it like he can shake flavor in. “The less I have to be sober while listening to Jin Guangshan’s bullshit, the better.”
“Ah, is he coming? I thought it would just be his son.” Xichen tries to pretend he didn’t hear Mingjue say tomorrow, tries to pretend his spirit doesn’t jump at the thought of this becoming a part of his routine. “And no, liquor is prohibited.”
Mingjue snorts. “Not for me, it’s not.”
“Then drink in your own tent and let me be.” Xichen pours himself more tea. “Now shoo. I have sect business to attend to before we march.”
“You invited me here, Xichen,” Mingjue says drily as he stands up from the table.
“And you insulted my tea.”
“Who’s the little mistress now?” Mingjue stretches out his shoulders. “Hey. We might hit trouble on the road today. Have your men ready to circle the supply chain with a ward.”
Xichen rises and bows. “As you say, sect leader Nie.”
“Man, shut up,” Mingjue says as he leaves. Nonetheless, Xichen doesn’t miss the smile that plays at his lips.
As predicted, they hit a small complement of Wen soldiers, hidden in an ambush through a narrow pass. Mingjue’s men are hit the hardest, as they’ve been leading the march. Their losses aren’t heavy, but they’re enough. Xichen has his people bring the wounded back to the Lan sect camp, has his healers working overtime.
He’s rolled up his sleeves too, joined them in the tents, mostly transfusing spiritual energy into the patients that don’t require immediate medical intervention. That’s where the Nie sect messenger finds him at sunfall, bent over an unconscious Jin pikeman with his hands at two acupoints, feeding him spiritual energy and trying to calm his soul. The messenger makes his way through the tent and stops just before Xichen, bowing deeply and saying, “Sect leader Nie requests your presence in his quarters.”
A few heads snap around, forehead ribbons fluttering in the stagnant air. Xichen’s going to kick Mingjue in the shins for that phrasing. “Is this a matter of urgency?”
“He says it is, yes.” The messenger is looking increasingly uncomfortable under the weight of several Lan stares. Good. Hopefully Mingjue will get the message. “Should I tell him you’re otherwise occupied?”
Xichen turns to his lead field medic. “Dr. Li, if I go to meet with sect leader Nie, will your patients suffer adverse consequences?”
Dr. Li shakes her head and turns back to her work. “Go. I’ll send a runner if we need you.”
Xichen stands and bows to her, then to his other medical staff, then nods to the messenger. He does not rush, but the worry sets in as he makes his way toward the center of the Nie encampment— maybe this is more than nothing, maybe Mingjue needs something more urgent. The Lan family curse may be an overwhelming love, but the Nie family is cursed with a violent death, and Xichen doubts the blade spirit is quieted by these troubled times.
He walks a bit faster.
As he ducks his head into Mingjue’s tent and his eyes adjust, he sees that indeed Mingjue has Baxia laid out over his lap and is cleaning and polishing the blade. Xichen bows in greeting. “Mingjue-xiong sent for me?”
“Do you have your xiao ?” Mingjue doesn’t look up from where his hands are on the blade. “ Baxia ’s having some trouble sleeping.”
Xichen opens his mouth to make a comment about how he isn’t a wet nurse for a troubled sword when it hits him like a tidal wave: murderous intent, hot and roiling, strong enough that it literally sends Xichen stumbling back a few paces and fills his nose with the scent of rotting flesh.
It’s vicious. Xichen’s training is the only thing that keeps him walking calmly forward once he’s regained his footing, summoning his xiao from his qiankun bag and coming to sit by Mingjue. “I’m going to play ‘Rest,’” he says, and Mingjue nods.
He raises the xiao to his lips. Mingjue resumes polishing the saber. He plays until the scent of the blade is no longer nauseating, until he can see past the red at the edges of his vision and the energy of the room runs clear and silver as moonlight.
When he lowers Liebing, Mingjue sighs. “Thank you. This fighting’s been feeding her a bit too much. I feel like I’ve spoiled her, and now she won’t behave and quiet herself.”
“Has this been happening often?” Xichen fiddles with the tassel on his xiao , threading the silk strands through the jade and pulling them back out. “I wish you’d come to me sooner. The blade spirit is nothing to play with.”
“I know that; you think I don’t know that?” Mingjue’s words are frustrated but his tone can’t quite match them. “I had it under control before. I think the ambush made it worse. I’m sure all this fuckery isn’t helping; god, did you see Jin fucking Guangshan has decided he’s not coming out to a war council after all? I’m going to ride to Lanling and kick his ass down his stupid fucking tower, I swear to the heavens —”
Xichen places a hand on Mingjue’s arm. “Mingjue-xiong. Breathe. The blade spirit is affecting you, too.” His hand is gentle where it rests over Mingjue’s bound sleeve, but taut and white-knuckled around Liebing .
After a moment, when Mingjue’s breathing has evened, Xichen pulls his hand back into his lap. “Let me play the songs of Clarity for you. We need you sharp and clear-minded,” he says.
I would not see you suffer unnecessarily , he does not say, but hopes it is understood nevertheless.
Mingjue stiffly nods.
Xichen raises his xiao and plays.
The music is difficult, but familiar. At some point during the playing, he finds himself leaning back, supported by a shoulder Xichen’s stood at many times, the rocking motion of Mingjue’s arm moving to polish his saber lulling Xichen into a trance-like state. He plays through the song twice, not stopping until he can feel the restlessness in Mingjue’s spirit settle, until his hands stop moving ceaselessly across Baxia ’s broad back, until he’s resting back against Xichen too, the two of them balancing each other.
When he lets the music fade, Xichen feels a familiar wave of tiredness hit him and stifles a yawn. Mingjue snorts. “Ah, it’s bedtime for little Lans, is it?”
Xichen elbows him in the ribs. Mingjue yelps and has the gall to look indignant. Xichen glares at him halfheartedly. “After I came all the way here to help you put your sword to sleep…” he says. “Such ill manner is unbecoming of a sect leader, Nie Mingjue.”
Mingjue rolls his eyes. “Go to sleep, Xichen. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, when you drag me out of bed at ass o’clock to go meditate.”
“If you woke up on your own I wouldn’t need to drag you.”
“Good night, Xichen.”
On the battlefield, days blend together.
But at sunrise, Lan Xichen has Nie Mingjue to meditate beside, and at sunset, he has his friend’s troublesome blade to put to sleep. There is always a task ahead, always a place to go next.
Xichen smiles, hand still holding the tent flap open.
“Good night, Mingjue-xiong,” he says. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”