Chapter Text
"Xiongzhang, who is she to you that you can protect her like this?”
The response to the question was an action. One in which Lan Qizhang, sect leader of Gusu Lan and Qingheng-Jun of the cultivation world, brought his hands behind his head, untying the ribbon that was secured against forehead and placing it in the hands of the young woman who stood beside him. He turned back to his brother, Lan Qiren, and smiled.
Murmuring spread through each Gusu Lan disciple that had crowded around at the return of their sect leader. No elder would tell them to be quiet even though they were breaking a rule; how could they when they too were shocked into a similar state of wanting to question what they had just seen?
“Lan Qizhang, I cannot accept this! This woman is a murderer and should atone for her wrongdoings, not be accepted into our sect for her actions.”
“I am not asking her to be accepted into my sect,” Lan Qizhang said. “I have asked her to be my wife, as such, I will take responsibility for what has happened.” His words were unwavering in their conviction and left no room for anything else to be said on the matter. Addressing the crowd and making it known to all, he spoke aloud to everyone who he could see before him, “If any problems are to be had with Qiong Liyin being spared, then you may try and take her life but know that I will shield her from any harm no matter the toll it takes on my body.”
Taking Qiong Liyin by the hand that still clutched on to his forehead ribbon, Lan Qizhang led her to his quarters and away from the eyes of the onlookers.
“Shixiong, what are we to do about this?” One disciple asked Lan Qiren as the sect leader and his newly declared wife departed. Lan Qiren was lost as to how to react and merely dismissed the gathering, stating that what his brother did was of his own volition and they could only accept it and move on.
Nothing could prepare him for what came next though.
His brother’s announcement of going into self-meditation was the same as his announcing he would be going into seclusion. He couldn’t begin to fathom how this woman, the stranger that his brother had found one night hunt, had managed to turn all of their lives upside down and inside out and all wrong.
Qiong Liyin had been found a house further in the mountains, kept away from the rest of the sect and the rest of the world, and as soon as she had so had Lan Qizhang.
Lan Qiren did his best to run the sect in his brother’s absence but it was a struggle to accept such a thing when, on nights when the moon would shine down with a light a little too bright to allow him to sleep, he would walk out to his brother’s new house to just see him once again only to find no one there. He wasn’t oblivious nor was he stupid – Lan Qiren could see how smitten his brother was with this woman and he could see how she had startled and shied away from his touch. The feelings that his brother held were not requited and yet he still would sneak out of his seclusion to see her?
Because of this, Lan Qiren made sure to teach the current disciples the rules upon the wall of Gusu even more than he ever had before. Each rule would be read, recited, and written as many times as possible to make sure it stuck in the head of every Lan clan member so never again could such a series of events occur within the Gusu Lan sect.
On the days on which Lan Qiren managed to meet with his brother, for even just a few minutes, he would try to convince him to take a different path to his future.
“Xiongzhang, please, that woman gives you nothing but grief. The sect would happily let her leave without any trouble if it meant we would get our leader back,” he reasoned, for his brother and for himself. The devotion that Lan Qizhang had for Qiong Liyin meant nothing when she held no such devotion for him in return. It hurt to see him like this at the hands of a woman like her.
“And my happiness would leave with her,” Lan Qizhang inhaled deeply and clapped a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I know you mean well and I don’t mean to go against our teachings but the happiness of the sect is not something I can put above my own this time. I want to hope she will come to love me.”
“But why?”
“Because I love her.”
And perhaps it was luck, or the blessings from the God’s, that allowed his hopes bear fruit.
Stuck in her own little house, Qiong Liyin often thought of what her life would be like if she had refused the proposal from Lan Qizhang on that night. Would she still have her life to imagine a future with? She would never know either way.
One of the exchanges for her life and safety, even with her marriage to Lan Qizhang, was the sealing of her cultivation meaning, even if she wished to escape, she would not get far without a jade pass which would be hard enough to come across even if she could fight someone for one. Every meal time her cultivation would be sealed and render her as normal as any person without a golden core.
Almost.
It was laughable, really, how trusting Lan Qizhang was of her despite knowing nothing about her. He had willingly let a woman who cultivated an unjust path into his sect as his wife and knew nothing of it. Of course, Qiong Liyin was not one to cultivate in such a way very often – there was hardly ever a reason to after all – it was just something she had picked up during her time as a rogue cultivator. She wasn’t reckless enough to risk her life to try and teach herself to control the raw form of spiritual energy when she had no official teachings or way to control it if it went wrong.
All she did was dabble, experiment, play around with it a little bit while she was secluded and without access to her golden core anyway.
It was small things. It had to be in order to not be noticed as well.
There were many creatures amongst the mountains, most abundantly were the rabbits that had managed to grow their spirits to the point of Qiong Liyin being able to control the deceased of them. She assumed it was due to their close proximity to such a strong sect that had been cultivating for hundreds of years that they had spirits that were even possible to bring back.
She enjoyed the company of these shining little ghosts hopping around her room and amongst the greenery that surrounded her little house. Sometimes she could send them out, further than she could see to try and sense the world through them. They were her own way of seeing beyond the four walls that contained her – something that couldn’t be taken from her, no matter what.
Some nights she could sense someone wandering around the back paths near her home and perhaps it was boredom that caused her to call out to them but she knew there was another reason. One that took her almost a year to fully realise.
Swinging open the window, Qiong Liyin sat beside it and looked out to see if she could spot the person that hovered nearby.
“Who’s there?” She dared to call out into the night and the chuckle that came from the bushes was unmistakably his.
“I hadn’t expected you to notice me.”
“It’s been weeks that you have lingered here, husband,” the title was spoken in jest, to poke fun at the man, but his smile seemed to brighten at the affectionate name. “Should I have waited another week to speak to you? Perhaps I shall close my window and sleep, after all it is long been and gone nine so I should-”
“No, wait,” he stumbled closer to her window, placing a hand on the window sill so she couldn’t close it in his face. “Please don’t go.”
And she laughed.
And he sighed.
And she moved closer to the window to talk to him better.
“It’s awfully boring in here,” she admitted to him, sweeping her hair over her left shoulder, playing with it idly as she watched his reactions.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know how I can make it up to you,” Lan Qizhang’s eyebrows furrowed and his lips pulled into a tight line as if he were thinking of all the ways possible he could ease the loneliness for his wife.
“I shouldn’t be complaining, you did save my life after all.” A moment passed in silence between the two of them, the cold moonbeams lighting up their eyes and they looked at each other properly for the first time since they met.
Lan Qizhang cleared his throat and straightened his back, lifting his hand from the window sill, knowing that she wouldn’t just close it on him now.
“May I enter? Through the door, of course, not the window,” he clarified, flustering himself as he did so.
Qiong Liyin tilted her head to the side in thought and her smile faded. “I am a married woman; I shouldn’t have strangers enter my home.”
“But… Your husband is me.”
“Yet you are still a stranger,” she spoke again with no hesitation between her words and her own. “Qingheng-Jun, I am a woman who knows nothing of her own husband than the words the public have of him as a cultivator. I do not know you as a husband and you do not know me as a wife, let alone anything else. My agreement to your proposal was one made out of self-preservation as all humans are selfish enough to do and nothing more. Notice if you will the colours of my robes are not those of Gusu Lan and notice this the coming weeks when you come to visit me, because they will not change, the same as this truth that I hold within my heart will not change. I apologize if my words are harsh but as of this moment they need to be said.”
“What of the future?” Lan Qizhang asked.
“What?”
“Qiong Liyin, Madame Lan, I know this truth already,” he said and then he leaned through the window, just a little bit, to reach his hand over to take hers. “But do you know the truth that I hold within my heart?”
“I can’t say I do.” And at her words, he pulled her hand to his chest, pressing it flat against it so she could feel the way it beat beneath her touch.
“This is my truth. I find myself in love with you regardless of all other circumstances and while we don’t know each other now… I wish we can learn to know each other in the very least.” The sincerity in his words made Qiong Liyin’s face flush and a warmth blossom in her chest. It had been too long since someone had been so consistently honest with her.
“Then…” She said after a beat. “Will I see you again tomorrow?”
The answer to her question was the fact that he did appear at her window the next night, and he continued to do so.
In their seclusion, Qiong Liyin and Lan Qizhang found themselves with the time to learn how to truly understand one another. Perhaps not every single facet of their lives was shared in their minutes together each night, but like the plum blossoms in the winter, growing in spite of nature being against them, Qiong Liyin found herself falling deeply in love with Lan Qizhang.
It was the start of January when Qiong Liyin found herself catching Lan Qizhang’s hand before he left her window side.
“No, wait,” she grasped onto his hand and stood. “Please don’t go.”
“Liyin, are you alright?” Lan Qizhang asked, stopping immediately and brushing the hairs that had slipped in front of her face back and behind her ear. He held her hand, interlocking their fingers.
“I…” think I love you. But her words wouldn’t come out so she did the next best thing she could think of. Pulling Lan Qizhang close to her was easier than she had expected and the way her lips brushed over his, lingering just a moment before she pulled away, exhaling deeply and still not letting go.
Neither of the young cultivators said anything in the minutes that passed afterward, content to hold on to each other and share their warmth in the chill of the night.
“Liyin, did you… mean to do that?” Lan Qizhang couldn’t bring himself to believe it, even though he was elated at the small kiss that Qiong Liyin gave him.
“Of course, I did,” she replied, letting go of his hand in false offense, then giggling at his sad eyes. Quickly, she took both of his hands in hers and with the confidence she had spent weeks building up she kissed him again. “Wait here, just a second.”
And with that she was letting go of his hands once again to shut the window and shuffle around inside her abode.
While Lan Qizhang couldn’t see what was happening within, he trusted Qiong Liyin enough to stay by her window as she did whatever it was she had to do. It was mere seconds stretched to feel like they were like minutes and hours under the watchful eye of the moon and the trees.
The doors of Qiong Liyin’s house were opened wide and footsteps sounded, light atop the stones until there stood Qiong Liyin in her beautiful dark blue dyed robes accented by the darker still undershirt and belt around her waist. The way her eyes would twinkle with that little sparkle that always appeared whenever she met with Lan Qizhang and her glowing visage were the brightest things about her.
Well, that wasn’t quite true.
It took Lan Qizhang a moment to notice it, but wrapped tightly against Qiong Liyin’s forehead was a familiar cloud patterned headband, flat against her skin and standing out against all the dark that it was contrasted against.
Upon seeing the simple piece of fabric worn with such pride by Qiong Liyin, Lan Qizhang’s breath caught in his throat and he couldn’t stop himself from running to her side again and kissing her deeply under the moonlight.
“Husband,” Qiong Liyin gasped as they parted, hands sliding up his chest to cup his face and slightly squeeze his cheeks as a thumb swept lovingly back and forth on his skin. “My husband, may I be so forward as to ask to make our marriage official?”
“L-Liyin, are you sure? I don’t want you to feel as though you have to-”
“Ailang,” Qiong Liyin tightened her grip just a touch. “I am asking being I wish to, not because I have to.”
If Qiong Liyin were to describe her time in Gusu she would say she were sleeping through the days. While she would awaken to get dressed, to eat her meals, and occasionally make use of the skills still available to her, everything was done with an unawareness of the world and the passage of time. Whenever Lan Qizhang would come to her window, that window would open and give her a view of the moon, the stars, and the sky, and just momentarily she woke up. It wasn’t until the moment she first kissed the man who had grown to be her most beloved of all that she understood. It wasn’t the night that woke her up from her life of routine and normalcy, it was him, it had always been him, and it would always be him.
Nine months passed, bringing Qiong Liyin to the month of October and to the birth of her first son to whom she gave the name Huan. Her time with her child was short, a decision made by the elders of the Gusu Lan sect, against her and her husband’s wishes. Such a child should never have been born with both parents in seclusion and yet here he was, crying into the open air, a miracle to all who saw him. A child born to bear the title of heir to the sect.
With her child taken from her side, Qiong Liyin could do little more than cry herself to sleep each night and hold on to him with her life when he was given to her for one day each month. She wanted to keep him close, keep him safe under her wing, and with her own power (whatever it was she had left at her disposal), but the elders were insistent that Lan Huan would be raised as the child of Gusu Lan that he was.
There were more and more nights that Lan Qizhang could not be with Qiong Liyin. After the attendants who came to deliver Qiong Liyin’s meals and those that came to seal her powers had realised she was no longer wearing her own robes but those that marked her as a true member of the Lan sect, they assumed something must have happened. It was when her pregnancy was noticeable that they knew, and as such Lan Qizhang was kept under a close watch. They needed not any rumours circulating after his mysterious disappearance and his unknown wife who was seen just as often as he was these days, that is to say, not at all.
An announcement was made to the cultivation world that Qingheng-Jun was officially no longer to attend any meetings as the sect leader of Gusu Lan and his wife would make no appearance due to an incurable disease that left her bedridden. It was not a statement that didn’t make questions arise but it was one that sated the curiosity of the world enough that it wouldn’t be pried into.
On the days that Lan Qizhang did manage to meet with his wife, his heart would break for her as it did during the days she was first imprisoned in her little house in the mountain. Her tears, while not flowing when they first met after the birth of their son, were evident on her face, making her eyes red and her cheeks stained. When he hugged her that night she crumbled in his arms, weeping and wailing over the loss of her son.
“Alone! He’s all alone down there without his mother and he doesn’t even know,” she whimpered out. “Will he even recognise me as his mother when they finally let us be together again?”
“He will, Liyin, he will.”
“Husband, won’t you please do something for him,” her pleas were irrational. She knew he could not, would not, not even if she asked, “for me?” The way his grip tightened around her waist and the way his face was pressed into the crook of her neck as they sat upon her bed made her feel worse for even thinking of saying such things but it was impossible to stop. “I miss him, my baby, my son. I just want to see him again. Not every day but more than once a month! I wouldn’t even tell him about my past, about how I used to cultivate, I just want to be his mother. Properly.”
One of Lan Qizhang’s hand curled into a fist, crumpling up the clean, crisp, white robes of his wife. He didn’t speak again and neither did she.
It wasn’t as if he didn’t know the pain she must have been though the past two years. Being ripped from the life she had known and sewn into someone else’s tapestry only for it to be done rushed and poorly in the haste, so as for other to not know how she was not stitched in at the same time as the rest of them. It was, if anything, more blatantly obvious and each stitch that held her there was pulled taut so she had no escape.
Neglected and left alone in a corner that was no longer worked on, with only him to be beside her unwaveringly.
And now the same was happening to her son. Picked from the threads of his mother and placed somewhere unknown, only this time he hadn’t become accustomed to the beauty of which he had been born into and so all he would know would be the new.
An ache spread through Lan Qizhang’s chest.
Weeks later, Lan Qizhang had found a solution. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t what Qiong Liyin had asked for. What it was though, was something more than she had before.
He had knocked on her window, a single tap, knowing she would be awake to hear and respond. It had taken some time to plan and to execute, but if it was for her then he was willing to spend as long as he needed to do so.
The window was opened, cracked open a little bit at a time and not at all like the extravagant way she usually opened it to greet him with, her face downturned but not crying in the very least. He touched a hand to her head, petting her slightly and kissing her forehead where his old ribbon still sat.
“Liyin, look what I’ve managed for you,” he tilted her head upwards and moved out the way for her to see the garden that had previously been empty that sat behind her little home.
Gentians were blooming across the entire expanse, as far as her eye could see, a beautiful blue sea of flowers glittering in the moonbeams.
“Qizhang, what…?” Qiong Liyin found herself speechless at the sight before her.
“I can’t do much for you,” Lan Qizhang admitted, putting an arm around her shoulder as she leant out the window into his touch. “I find myself punishing myself and you with my decisions and my actions and yet you still love me and still I cannot do a thing. I’m making a promise to you tonight, my wife.”
He let go of her, foregoing the door as he crawled his way in through the window and taking his position beside her.
“The blue of your tears will never go unnoticed by me. I will do all I can to keep our family together and while I apologise I cannot bring Huan-er to your side I can promise he will never forget you. Look,” he gestured to the flowers and to her robes. “This blue will connect you, outside your home and outside his, through the flowers, through your tears, and through these robes we wear – though different, they are all blue and they all belong to us. Something that can’t be taken away, no matter how hard the elders may try. Huan-er will see your face and he will see these symbols and he will know. Forever.”
It worked, for a while, to soothe Qiong Liyin’s fears and worries but it didn’t take long for her to realise that no matter what would happen, she couldn’t allow her baby to be alone down there while his family were living above.
She begged Lan Qizhang to have another child with her, but even at her insistence he refused, wanting to wait until Lan Huan was at least a little bit older. He didn’t know a lot about pregnancies or female bodies, but he did know cultivation. Qiong Liyin’s cultivation, something that she had relied on for the majority of her life only for it to be forcibly sealed away by the Lan elders would take its toll on her body.
The method they used made it obvious that her body was not coping with it well. Her golden core was growing weaker with less use and less access to it – they no longer needed to visit her every day but every month, and Lan Qizhang knew before long that they wouldn’t need to do so at all very soon. Qiong Liyin was being stripped of all that she held dear to her bit by bit and he wasn’t even sure if she could tell yet. Having another child, especially so close to her first would no doubt be troublesome to her.
Still, she was determined to have another child, for no reason other than to make sure her Lan Huan would always have someone by his side. Lan Huan was barely past two years old when his brother was born, a small thing born prematurely and with the brightest eyes Qiong Liyin had ever seen, golden in the sunlight.
“Lan Zhan, Zhanzhan, A-Zhan, my baby, my dear, my darling,” Qiong Liyin rocked her baby in her arms, back and forth as she sat propped up on her pillows on her bed. She knew it wouldn’t be long before someone would come along to take him from her and while she was prepared for it in her mind, in reality she wasn’t prepared at all.
She didn’t know how she did it.
“Madame Lan, if you would please,” one of the women who had come to retrieve Lan Zhan spoke, readying her arms to take the baby from his mother.
“A little while longer, just a little while longer, please,” Qiong Liyin said, not looking at the woman but only her baby. The woman took a step closer to them.
“Madame Lan, the elders are expecting the child so they may introduce him to Lan Huan gongzi.”
“Just a little while longer,” she spoke more firmly this time, turning her head to look at the women who were invading her home. They shuffled awkwardly for a moment as if debating what to do, a look in their eyes shared as they understood they could not go against their seniors and they made their move towards Qiong Liyin again.
In a split second they found themselves face to face with animal spirits, flinging themselves through the window of the house each poised to attack the women. The Lan cultivators drew their weapons and at this Qiong Liyin’s eyes widened, her entire body going to shield her son as she curled into herself and turned her sight away from the monsters in her house.
The sound of swords slashing through the air grew quieter as Qiong Liyin assumed the cultivators managed to lure the monsters away and out of her house but her hold on Lan Zhan didn’t let up in the slightest.
Where had they come from?
She had seen them before – they were the spirits she had called upon on nights she was lonely but never had they been so violent and never had they acted without her ordering them… Or had she ordered them? She couldn’t let anyone know. Her life was being barely tolerated in the Gusu Lan sect and with a reason such as demonic cultivation pitted against her then there would be no hope, no matter how much Lan Qizhang would vouch for her, if he even could after finding out.
Lan Qiren was the next person to come visit Qiong Liyin in her abode up in the mountain.
Qiong Liyin couldn’t tell how long it had been since the female cultivators had left but she knew it was longer than it should have taken for them to rid themselves of the spirits.
Her brother-in-law looked down at her as she sat upon the bed, still holding onto Lan Zhan and not making a move to stand before him.
“Qiong-shi,” he greeted her, sparing a glance to the baby and then immediately looking back at her.
“So distant?” Qiong Liyin asked, a statement posed as a question. “Am I not your jiejie as your brother’s wife? As your nephews’ mother?” She dared to tease him with as straight a face as she could managed so as not to offend.
There had been few interactions between her and Lan Qiren but she knew he was not someone who respected her place as his brother’s wife despite everything that had happened since the murder of the Lan elder those years ago. He clearly didn’t forgive her for what occurred that night and while she understood that, she would never understand the animosity he held so quietly as if he thought he was hiding it.
He ignored her words and continued to speak, “I have heard the reports of demonic creatures invading your room. I trust the child is alright?”
“Yes, A-Zhan is fine.”
“Gusu is not a place in which demonic creatures roam freely – we are prompt in our extermination of them within our own home,” he spoke, pacing across the length of the room, stroking his beard between his forefinger and thumb as he did so. “You reside up here, alone, and yet this has not happened before? Have you never met these monsters before?”
“Never,” Qiong Liyin made sure to look him in the eyes and not break eye contact before he did. She couldn’t let them connect her to the spirits no matter what, and with a tightened grip on Lan Zhan in her arms she started to speak again. “Without my golden core I would not be able to protect A-Zhan up here, please, look after him for me along with A-Huan.” She stood, walking over to Lan Qiren.
One of her hands held tight to Lan Zhan and she manoeuvred Lan Qiren’s arms into position to receive her child. Pressing a gentle kiss to her son’s head, she placed him in Lan Qiren’s arms and smiled at the man.
It was safer this way, for her and her children, and that was a sacrifice she was willing to make if it meant she could stay together with her little family in the mortal world longer.
“Thank you, Qiren-di.”