Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sixty-four years ago, Lan Wangji spent several months living in a stone-and-brick house on a bluff overlooking the water. Bright green moss and pale lichen grew on the dark slate shingles that paved the roof. It was far from Gusu and far from Yunmeng, separated by an entire ocean and half the globe. Everything was different. The house was surrounded for miles by tall straight pines with thick ridges of gray bark and tiny flat needles that grew on symmetric limbs far above his head, like an army of giants huddling together for warmth on the slopes leading down to the rocky shore. Nothing like the picturesque mountain pines of Cloud Recesses, with their complex, winding limbs and age-smoothed bark, their sweeping brooms of needles rustling like sleeves as they swayed gently in the wind.

The salty waters below ran deep and cold. Waters far too foreign and inhospitable for showy, delicate blossoms and broad leaves balanced on slender stems that needed to reach from earth, through water, to the sky. Sometimes, he saw orcas leaping in the sound from his bedroom window.

On the opposite side of the house, the mountains in the distance were mighty, full of hard angles and fresh stone. They felt younger and somehow more ambitious than the ones from his childhood, and they were certainly much taller. Some were eternally capped in snow. Nie Huaisang had once, when visiting, joked that they felt like his brother Mingjue.

Sixty-three years, eight months and seventeen days ago, he had fallen asleep sitting at the bedside of his only housemate. His head had fallen in the other’s lap as he had nodded off. The other hadn’t noticed, for he had fallen asleep hours earlier.

His housemate was a far smaller man, tiny and delicate with age. He had been shorter for many years now, but he had also lost so much weight during their stay in this western dwelling, far from home. His hair had gone entirely white and had been cut to shoulder length. He had a short, wispy beard, which Lan Zhan secretly thought was adorable, even if his housemate had a tendency to stroke it in imitation of Lan Qiren. Lan Zhan carefully helped the other trim it once a week.

The older man woke first, just as the earliest birds started to sing in the mist-enshrouded forest outside. The back of his bed was raised so that he was only half reclining, to place less stress on his breathing. He struggled up a little further and looked around the dark room briefly, disoriented, then felt the weight in his lap and relaxed. He smiled gently down at his companion's sleeping face.

“Lan Zhan. Hey, Lan Zhan.” The old man tried to pat the younger’s hair with a wrinkled hand but received no response. “Lan Zhaaaan.” He tugged at the other’s smooth black hair. It was a weak tug, but the other woke immediately.

Lan Zhan gazed up at his husband, golden eyes glowing with a cultivator’s vitality. He didn’t move, but a switch by the door clicked, and several lamps scattered across the room lit with steady yellow light.

Wei Wuxian grinned back. He had a deep set of laugh lines engraved across his face, and when he smiled so broadly, his eyes almost disappeared in the crevasses. “I never get tired of that trick. Electricity! Huangdian!” He wiggled the fingers of both hands, the universal gesture for magic.

Lan Zhan sat up and pulled Wei Wuxian’s left hand closer. He placed two fingers against the pulse point, then looked up, eyes wide. Wei Wuxian turned his wrist over, away from his husband’s fingers, away from the stream of spiritual energy already flowing from them. With effort, he reached out and grasped Lan Zhan’s hand in both his own, one hand’s bony fingers buried in Lan Zhan’s thicker palm, the other interlocking digits from behind. The man’s hand was so warm.

“It’s alright, husband. I feel fine.” Lan Zhan shook his head, but Wei Wuxian kept talking.

“Poor A-Yu. It took so long for me to form his golden core, and then I couldn’t catch up to you or either of my xiongdi. And now I’ve used his poor body all up!” Wei Wuxian winked lecherously at his husband.

“Wei Ying.”

Wei Wuxian saw the droop of his husband’s eyelids, the slight furrow between his brows, and his heart twisted with the weight of it. He smiled and squeezed Lan Zhan’s hand as best he still could.

“I’ve had hundreds more years than I ever expected! Every day has been a gift. And besides, I’ve been holding you back these last few decades. I’ve been troublesome for you.”

“Never trouble.” The other man paused, thought briefly. “Sometimes trouble. But not this.”

Wei Wuxian chuckled, a little wetly. His heart was so heavy and tight. “Ai-ya, my clever, perfect Lan Zhan. I’ll miss you, as a spirit or in my future life. But don’t wait another thirteen years for me, okay?”

“Will wait. Will always wait.”

Wei Wuxian quirked his lips at those words. Of course his stubborn husband would refuse to give up, even after so many years fighting in vain against his slow, inevitable decline. He settled back against his pillows, arms stretched to still hold on to Lan Zhan’s hand. Lan Zhan gently moved his arm up so that his palm touched his husband’s slowly moving chest, careful not to rest any weight on his laboring lungs.

“I mean it, husband. I don’t want you to waste away in these white mourning clothes ever again.” He tried to shift a hand to pluck at Lan Zhan’s pale sleeve, but his hand, thin as it was, was still too heavy. He smiled a little wider, instead, and tried to enforce his message through his gaze and force of will alone.

“Be happy, sweetheart. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.”

A small sound, low and hoarse, escaped from Lan Zhan’s throat. Ah, my husband, Wei Ying thought. Even with such sorrow, you are still so beautiful.

“I’ll...go ahead for now. I love you.” With a sigh, Wei Wuxian closed his eyes.

“Wei Ying.”

“Wei Ying!”

Chapter Text

Six months ago, Jiang Cheng coordinated a buy-out of a movie studio. As deals went, it was pretty small, but he’d had to do it fast, an all-cash deal, before a certain rigid brother-in-law went off and created an international incident by flattening a building in broad daylight using nothing but a fucking zither. And with the stupid internet and extra-stupid social media, it was getting harder to suppress those stories. Not that the uncompromising Hanguang-jun cared about such things. If Jiang Cheng weren’t immortal, he’d have chronic ulcers. He wasn’t sure he wouldn’t develop them anyhow.

If someone had told him four hundred years ago that there was something more annoying than sect politics, and that he was going to have to deal with it, he would have thrown them off Lotus Pier. Even a hundred years ago, if someone told him he’d spend the majority of this time dealing with non-cultivators and their temporary, ridiculous obsessions, he’d have strung them up with Zidian. Well, threatened to, anyhow. He was pretty sure he hadn’t actually killed anyone that way since that Wen asshole, but it was still a whispered tale among the younger cultivators. According to A-Sang. (There were also the extremely long years when he kept Hanguang-jun almost entirely immobilized with Zidian after Wuxian’s death, but he was pretty sure A-Sang was the only other person who knew about that, and then only because it was his idea in the first place.)

Of course, it wasn’t that surprising that the new generations made up increasingly ridiculous stories about his history. Over the last century, Jiang Cheng had somehow become the man considered most responsible for keeping the cultivation world hidden from the rest of humanity, the leader of the San Shengxian. Mostly because Hanguang-jun had no subtlety (and therefore could not be trusted to hide any damn thing, much less his flying, magic music-making ass), and Nie Huaisang, also called Yinxiao-jun, had too much (and therefore would never be caught doing any such thing). Jiang Cheng was certain his job would be a lot harder if A-Sang got bored with helping out, but he was also aware he had no idea what the sneaky demon actually did half the time. Other than attend a lot of fashion shows, recently.

Six months ago, as he sat on call after call, listening to his attorneys shock and awe the studio execs into a deal (with no commitment on continuing certain early stage projects of course, how could they even ask for such a thing, did they not know that the entertainment world was full of uncertainty), he didn’t think about how there used to be four of them and not three. He didn’t think about how Wei Ying had been the real leader in those early days, figuring out how to misdirect the Westerners infiltrating China away from discovering (and likely abusing) the secrets of cultivation, navigating how to deal with an increasingly smaller world as humanity knitted itself together with steel, steam, and copper wiring, and finally helping hide the sects away from most of China itself in the waning years of the Qing. He didn’t think about how the Yiling Patriarch and Hanguang-jun would have thrown all that secrecy away after the massacre at Nanjing, if his brother had been even fifty years younger. He definitely didn’t think about how horrifyingly effective his brother would have been on the fucking Internet. Wei Wuxian was dead. Jiang Cheng would protect at least some part of his legacy.

Four and a half months ago, Jiang Cheng had received another of Huaisang’s weird gifts that he periodically, and unpredictably, bestowed upon his sworn brother. It was, as usual, brought into his office by his assistant, who found it on her desk just now even though, in her words, she had been sitting right there and it certainly wasn’t there thirty minutes ago when she stood up to get coffee. It drove her crazy that she never saw who delivered them. She’d asked the mailroom team about it extensively, and got exactly nowhere. His current assistant was not a cultivator. His prior assistant was, and he’d had no more luck.

This package was a shoebox. Jiang Cheng was somewhat surprised to find that it actually contained a pair of shoes (and not, say, two-and-a-half books and a pound of dried fish). Well-made shoes of high quality leather, except that it was a bewildering combination of pale purple and black, with three thin, parallel zig-zag shapes cut through the top and down each side that went all the way through the leather. They would expose his socks. They were impractical. They were absurd. He checked the number on the box — they were in his size.

There was a folded piece of paper tucked in the left shoe. Jiang Cheng fished it out and flicked it open. All it said was, “These shoes have a secret!”

Well, unless the secret was that it magically transformed into something that was neither lavender nor full of unnecessary holes, he wasn’t interested. Jiang Cheng hooked a finger through a pair of cutouts and scowled at the offensive footwear. Fashion.

He dropped the note back in the box, then shoved the box under his desk. He’d think about it later. He had a call to join.

Three months ago, A-Sang had texted him at six in the morning. 

Did u figure out the secret yet ;)

No.

...u forgot about my gift until just now, didnt u, Cheng-xiong?

Yes. I’m going back to sleep. Sang-xiong.

That was a lie. Jiang Cheng got dressed and headed to work early. His sworn brother never followed up on his presents. Jiang Cheng had once purposely refused to acknowledge an assortment of strangely colored fungi, and A-Sang never mentioned it.

Arriving at his office, Jiang Cheng leaned down and pulled the shoebox back out. Still a pair of ugly shoes, half athletic shoe and half sandal. Still full of holes. He pulled one out, and then the other, checking each for anything tucked inside. Nothing, though the black cloth insoles appeared to be woven with some sort of high quality thread that created a subtle shimmering effect. Why even bother?

A-Sang better not think he was actually going to wear the damn things. He sighed, then inserted his hands into the shoes, one in each. Nothing. Well, that was a stupid idea anyhow. He flipped his hands over and glanced at the soles. They had an unusual pattern of shapes in the rubber, somehow familiar. He paused. If he merged these shapes, and those….

Jiang Cheng channeled some spiritual energy through his hands, and some of the lines between the shapes lit up, forming the characters for purification. Each shoe was a talisman!

He stamped the right shoe down on the floor, and it left a shimmering print of energy in the carpet, visible only to cultivators. Another stamp, another undetectable talisman for pacifying restless spirits. Someone walking in these shoes could pace a barrier around a building, or leave an entire trail of purification across tainted ground, without having to paste or draw talismans every time. And no non-cultivator would ever know. He wondered how long each print would last. Perhaps it would depend on how much energy was channeled.

Crouching, he walked his hands across the floor of his office, laying a row of shoeprints using different amounts of spiritual energy. They looked consistent, but he’d keep an eye on them throughout the day and see which started to fade first — he heard a cough.

He looked up, on his hands and knees, still wearing the shoes on his hands, the open edges of his suit jacket fluttering open below him. His assistant was standing in the doorway of his office, holding a stack of sorted mail, eyebrows raised. Well, fuck.  

Twenty minutes later, after he shut the door on her and could no longer hear her laughing at him through that door, he texted his awful but also brilliant sworn brother. 

Sang-xiong, how did you make these shoes?

lol, figured it out, huh? and i dont know

Nie Huaisang.

I really don’t! I didn’t make them, or design them!

Then where did you get them?

It’s the same designer I told you about at Lotus Pier! Isn’t he clever?

You didn’t mention he’s a cultivator.

Well, I may have been teaching him a little.

Mostly talismans! I think he’d make a good cultivator,

but I didn’t want to teach him more than the basics. 

He’s a Jiang, after all.

And I’m still no good with a sword.

u there?

I’d like to meet him.

Two months ago, Nie Huaisang brought a shoe designer to the offices of Shengshou New World Media. 

He walked into Jiang Cheng’s office beside A-Sang, slouched down to chatter to the shorter man in a mix of Italian and Mandarin about something or another. Jiang Cheng didn’t think he looked like much. Scrawny and so young, mid-twenties at best, with a mop of unruly dark brown hair that stuck out in all directions. He was practically buried under a giant, dark purple sweatshirt, three sizes too large, but wore ragged skinny jeans, the once-blue denim washed so pale it was almost white. Jiang Cheng noticed his shoes were a match for the pair still tucked away under his desk.

A-Sang had dressed to match, but in an olive green sweatshirt and dark gray jeans. He was wearing the yellow sneakers again. At least the damn eye-searing coat was missing this time. He already had his fan open and across his face, but Jiang Cheng could tell he was pleased. But about what? Bringing a wayward son of the Jiang Clan back into the fold? Jiang Cheng made sure to document all his descendants; he was sure this man would be in the records if he checked. And that wouldn’t be enough to explain the mix of anticipation and smugness emanating from the cheerful and usually inscrutable Yinxiao-jun. The last time A-Sang looked like that, that short French man had just split his forces between chasing the Prussians and fighting the British.

Jiang Cheng stood up from behind his desk and walked forward to shake hands. To his surprise, the young man stopped several steps away, brought both hands up, murmured “Sandu Shengshou,” and made a passable bow. When he straightened afterwards, Jiang Cheng realized the other was a good deal taller than he was. Possibly even taller than Hanguang-jun. The new generations really were getting bigger.

A-Sang wasn’t even hiding his smile now. This was either going to be the start of something fantastic or really, truly awful.

“Ah, Cheng-xiong! Let me introduce you to Jiang Xibie, a promising student of the cultivation arts and your great, great, great, well you get the idea, grandson.”

Jiang Cheng looked into his descendant’s eyes. They were unusually pale, a muddy brownish green that the Westerners called “hazel.” He must be from a branch that intermarried with Westerners, probably fairly recently if he still had a Chinese name. The brown hair was likely natural, then. He had the Jiang cheekbones. 

Xibie rubbed the back of his neck and scrunched up his face in apparent embarrassment. There was something familiar about the gesture. “Most people call me X.B., or Zib for short,” he said. 

Jiang Cheng decided to ignore the possibility that anyone would consider “Zib” to be an appropriate name. “Xibie, Huaisang-xiong says you are interested in learning sword cultivation. Is that true?”

Jiang Xibie, who had winced slightly at the use of his full name, caught himself and gave an enthusiastic nod. “Yeah, that would be amazing. My aunt used to tell me stories about Jiang Sect. I kinda figured they were family legends until I met Huaisang, uh Nie-xiong, and he started showing me a few things.

“I was really surprised when he started waving that big metal fan around, and then even more surprised when he kept doing it with no hands! But he says I’m probably better suited to a sword.”

He would have continued talking, but Jiang Cheng was used to dealing with A-Sang and cut him off. “And talismans? What gave you the idea for talisman shoes?”

“Haha, Nie-xiong said you’d ask about those! He was telling me about cultivators, and how your mission is to keep the restless dead from hurting the living? And how you have to keep hidden, because, obviously, there’s a lot of power to be gained from cultivation that could be badly abused if it gets entangled in politics?”

“Well, cultivators have politics too.” Nie Huaisang smiled politely.

“Unfortunately,” muttered Jiang Cheng.

“Yeah, well, an immortal Stalin is no one’s idea of a good time. Or even a really long-lived Stalin who can fly and command armies of undead Russians.” Xibie shuddered, then paused. “Actually, I’m not sure flying makes a huge difference on top of the immortality and zombie horde. Would make him harder to pin down, though.

“Where was I? Oh right, talismans. So Huaisang was talking about how these days you have to either use talismans disguised as other objects, or set up maze arrays if an area is too big, just to keep all us regular humans from wandering in and getting eaten. And I thought, well, what if the talisman itself was invisible? It’s like how you write sigils in the air, right? But if you could pre-write the shape, like a stamp? It’d be faster and safer, and one person could do a whole bunch to set up a barrier without having an army of cultivators, because large groups of unidentified people also looks suspicious!

“So I made a bunch of prototypes, and it turns out that stamping air is hard, but you can make something that places the spiritual imprint on flat surfaces, though I had some problems dealing with even the slightest bit of unevenness because it can throw the sigils off, and a broken line in a talisman is bad. Obviously, you know that. So then I had to figure out how to build in better tolerances and it works within a certain depth range now. Which turned out to be handy since the lines don’t always touch the ground in the shoes, either.

“Problem is that someone madly pressing a stamp against a bunch of walls is also kind of suspicious, even if it doesn’t leave a mark. But that was easy, since that was just about the time I graduated from design school. I landed a spot at Guppy and they assigned me to their footwear division. So it was easy to realize that you can channel spiritual energy through feet just as easily, and everyone has to walk, right? Well, not cultivators, because of the whole flying thing, but you know what I mean. It was a bit of a trick to get the right combination of materials that will channel spiritual energy and, you know, still make sense for a shoe, and it’ll be even harder to get a version that’s mass produceable, but I don’t actually know how many of you there even are, so maybe we won’t need that?”

Jiang Cheng blinked. He had inadvertently tuned out half of Xibie’s explanation, an old habit from dealing with Wei Ying’s periodic inventing frenzies. He could almost hear Lan Wangji saying “mn” periodically in his head. Oddly, A-Sang looked like he was paying full attention, but to Jiang Cheng and not Xibie. But then something from Xibie’s monologue caught his attention.

“Wait, you did all that as a hobby, during design school?”

“Well, yeah. It wasn’t too bad, really. I’d already learned all the talismans from Huaisang during high school and college.” He grinned, slyly. “All the talismans he’s willing to admit exist, anyway.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Huaisang blinked innocently at the kid, even as he smoothly leaned away to avoid a friendly elbow from the younger man. 

“Right, right. You don’t know much at all, even though you haven’t aged a bit since we met ten years ago. You’re ageless, and you look younger than even Honored Ancestor Jiang here, which means you’re the stronger cultivator, right?” Xibie froze, then looked back at Jiang Cheng. “Um, no offense.” Fucking Huaisang hid his face behind his fan again. 

Clearly Sang-xiong did not tell this kid that at their level of cultivation, either one of them could look however young they damn well wanted. Or that the executive of a major international corporation obviously had to look older than someone who flitted about and did whatever he pleased all day. Or — Jiang Cheng wrestled his temper back down.

Instead, he stared at Jiang ( Jiang !) Xibie. He wasn’t glaring. He really wasn’t, but the other was still frozen, with a dopey, wide-eyed look on his young face. Jiang Cheng had seen that expression a lot, once upon a time. “So Huaisang- xiong ,” Jiang Cheng emphasized the suffix, “taught you all about spirit-repelling talismans. What about spirit-attracting ones?”

Xibie laughed awkwardly. “Did Huaisang, uh, xiong, tell you about that? I was just experimenting, I swear! I figured if you could do one thing, you could probably do the opposite.” Jiang Cheng clutched at the edge of the desk behind him. 

“Yeah, maybe I should have just told you. You’re lucky you were doing it on campus, and the only ghost you summoned was a traffic fatality.” Nie Huaisang looked at his sworn brother, noted his white-knuckled grip, but continued blithely, “He even pacified it himself, by talking to it!”

Jiang Cheng had heard enough. He spoke loudly, formally. “Jiang Xibie, it would be my pleasure to teach you swordwork and to welcome you into the Jiang cultivation sect.” He paused long enough to see the pleased smile spread across the young man’s face, bright and warm, his eyes crinkling shut. Now that he was looking for it, it was impossible not to see the similarities in that grin. “Now please wait outside while I speak with my sworn brother here.”

“Sure, absolutely. And, uh, thank you! I’ll work hard!” Even someone as socially dense as Xibie caught the look between Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang, and he made a quick exit, quietly shutting the office door behind him. Huaisang promptly attached a silencing talisman to the door. 

Jiang Cheng didn’t immediately speak, and A-Sang seemed content to wait. The ensuing quiet gently filled the corners of the room. Then Jiang Cheng exhaled heavily. “How did you find him?”

For once, A-Sang didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I still don’t know for certain that it’s him. But I’ve gotten pretty good at soul divination over the years, and there are some uncanny similarities. Almost too similar, for reincarnation.”

“It’s also too soon.”

“Yeah...I hadn’t told you this, but I’ve actually found Mingjue twice since, y’know, we all went back and settled his ghost for good. It took almost two hundred fifty years the first time, and one-sixty the second. I’m certain I didn’t miss a cycle; he was my brother, after all. I’ve never heard of it taking less than a hundred. Less than forty is unbelievably fast.”

“So it’s probably not him.”

“I don’t know.” A-Sang started shaking his head, then caught himself. “Souls aren’t supposed to have any control over their reincarnation, but it’s Wei Ying we’re talking about here.”

“And maybe he was so annoying that the gods wanted to send him back as soon as possible.” Jiang Cheng pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting down the wave of hope that kept threatening to overwhelm him. Be practical. Look at facts, don’t hinge everything on an idiotic hope for miracles. But weren’t miracles merely another instance of achieving the impossible? No, making an assumption here, on this, would just leave him open for disappointment. Dammit.

So what did he know? Jiang Xibie has talent, work ethic, and a deep enough interest in cultivation to have developed something so unusual yet useful (even if it looked ridiculous). He is clearly worth teaching. So Jiang Cheng should teach him. Jiang Cheng will teach him. Regardless of who he might have been, regardless of whose soul Xibie might share.

Xibie, like A-jie’s name. Fuck it, he had to ask. “So if you’re not certain, then you didn’t give him his Chinese name, right?”

“No, that was actually his aunt. And a complete coincidence. Apparently she liked the poem a lot.” A-Sang shook his head in shared disbelief. Or maybe it was just habit. “I couldn’t believe it either.”

“And don’t think I missed that you found him ten years ago.” A-Cheng was not nearly as mad about this as he probably would be later, but Nie Huaisang was sure it was only because the man was emotionally overwhelmed right now. As expected, though he’d put up the silencing talisman just in case, anyhow.

“I had to confirm he’d actually be interested in cultivation! My brother’s reincarnations weren’t, after all.” Not that Nie Huaisang had any doubts that Wei Wuxian in any life would immediately latch onto whatever kept him close to Lan Wangji, but that was the other reason he had to wait until this kid had grown up and gotten some real life experience under his belt. Yikes. Oh, and the other, other reason. “Plus, he has to have some level of spiritual power for us to really prove his soul’s identity.”

A-Cheng scoffed. “It can’t be him.” Huaisang wasn’t surprised the other had already decided on the most pessimistic outcome, but noticed he had finally relaxed his grip on the desk. “I’ll bring him to Lotus Pier as soon as I can. He might need some more training first. You should be there when we test him. Let’s be certain before Wangji sees him, though.”

Sure, A-Cheng, you cautious grump. We’ll definitely do that. “Lunar New Year?”

“Fine.” The two sworn brothers nodded to each other. Jiang Cheng straightened back to his usual commanding posture, and Nie Huaisang slouched back down after removing the silencing talisman. Together, they walked out to speak with the soon-to-be newest member of Jiang Sect.

Lotus Pier was usually deserted, but many of the members of Jiang Sect, including all its cultivators, visited for New Year’s. Lan Wangji was convinced that the sect, especially the part comprising Jiang Wanyin’s direct descendants, were getting louder with each generation. Wangji didn’t like the noise. Nonetheless, he still visited during each festival before heading on to Gusu. Wanyin would always be family, but Wangji preferred the more austere rituals of Cloud Recesses. 

Over the last few decades, Wangji had picked up a practice of also visiting Lotus Pier two weeks before New Year’s, before workers moved in to prepare the grounds for the celebrations. That way he could visit Wei Ying properly, without the constant disruption of cultivators who wanted to follow him around and sneak photographs of the legendary Hanguang-jun. Cell phones were not allowed in Cloud Recesses. 

Lan Wangji sat cross-legged in a side alcove of the Jiang family shrine, facing the black tablet with Wei Ying’s name. He habitually spent the night sitting up with Wei Ying, accompanied only by a few flickering candles, the scent of the incense sticks, and the ever-present sound of trickling water. The hours right after dawn were always the most difficult, and he felt more peaceful after spending them here. It never lasted, of course, but Wanyin had once angrily shouted at him to stop sending him messages about visiting and just go whenever he felt like it. 

Wanyin still tended to be foolishly loud yet indirect in his speech, but at least in this, his meaning had been clear. 

As he sat in the slowly brightening room, he heard the rhythmic metallic clangs of sword parrying drills. Only two swords, and the dull clash suggested they were merely practice blades. Unusual for this season and time of day. He had sensed Wanyin and Huaisang when he arrived last night, of course, but they would not be going through such a simple exercise. Perhaps the Jiang Sect had found a few new disciples, and brought them in to train and assist with the festival set up.

Huaisang was approaching the shrine. Not watching the disciples, then. Wangji closed his eyes as if in meditation just as Huaisang entered. 

Nie Huaisang chuckled softly, and Lan Wangji heard a fan snap, then a rustle as it was tucked away in a sleeve. Huaisang padded quietly over, cloth from his robes briefly brushing Wangji’s shoulder as he walked past to the other side of the alcove, where he sat down cross-legged an arm’s length away. Together they sat, not speaking, as an early beam of sunlight crept across the wooden floors and up along the carved characters of Wei Ying’s name. 

Lan Wangji remembered days like this, sixty years ago. Limbs bound tight by Zidian, Wei Ying’s sworn brothers immobilizing him lest he try to follow Wei Ying to the next world. When Wangji came back to his senses, he understood and approved of their caution, and even after he had mostly left such urges behind, he did not attempt to convince them otherwise. For what purpose had he for movement, for so-called freedom, for walking out into a world without Wei Ying? 

Instead, for most of six years, what remained of his life was held in a small room, with a single round carpet on a varnished pine floor and plaster walls painted with arrays of enforcement, but with wide glass windows on two sides looking out onto fields of wheat, and one or the other of Wanyin and Huaisang a constant presence nearby. For six years, he watched the wheat be planted in rich black soil, grow tall and green, ripen into brilliant gold, and be cut down by tiny mortals on their metal machines. For six years, he watched the wind caress the fields, causing the wheat to ripple and sway like waves on Biling Lake. He stared, unblinking, at terrible, black-crowned storm clouds sweeping in from the distance, watched curtains of rain batter the plants to the ground, felt gusts rattle the bones of the house, heard thunder like the hoofbeats of Wei Ying and the Wen riding away.

Somewhere in those six years, Nie Huaisang had developed a habit of stumbling into his room just before dawn, usually still bedraggled with sleep, hair tangled and untied, to slump quietly against a wall for a few hours, until the sun was fully above the horizon. While he always chattered at Wangji during his other visits, usually veering between wildly unrelated topics, he never spoke during the morning vigils.

At first, it was irritating. Irritating and distracting, and he did not want to be distracted from his mourning. But sometimes when he glared at his unwelcome companion, he saw the grief on Huaisang’s face, mirroring his own, and he slowly remembered that Wei Ying had loved his brothers too, and his brothers had loved him back. So Wangji had tolerated Huaisang’s intrusions, at least during the hours they sat alone in that room together, each sunk in their own memories as the rising sun futilely washed away the shadows. And day by day, season by season, year by year, such mornings became a shared ritual. (And sometimes, if Huaisang looked especially haunted after one of his trips away from Wangji’s room, out of sight of his windows, well, their mornings helped with that too. Wangji was vaguely aware that war had shadowed mortal civilization again, knowledge drifting in from Jiang Wanyin’s too-loud whispers and hints buried in Huaisang’s afternoon prattles.) Even now, with the war long ended, and with that house and that green-golden farmland only a memory buried beneath rows of identical beige mansions, they would sometimes continue their ritual as if they had never left off, on the not-infrequent occasions Huaisang found him in the Jiang ancestral shrine.

The sounds of sword practice had stopped. Wangji felt a moment of surprise. The time had passed more quickly than expected, and it was after mid-morning, nearly noon. He opened his eyes to find Nie Huaisang looking calmly at him. Unusually, Huaisang was dressed in his old Nie sect robes, though his hair was far too short to tie into his old style and instead remained tousled and loose on his head. Other than his hair, he looked almost exactly like he did in the days between Cloud Recesses, before the Wens attacked.

“Lan Wangji.” Nie Huaisang looked solemn. Wangji looked back, nonplussed.

“Jiang Sect has a new disciple.” A single new disciple? Yet there had been two swords.

“Cheng-xiong has been training him this last month, since he’s the only new disciple this year and has a lot of promise.” Even so, Sandu Shengshou teaching a single novice the basics of swordsmanship was highly unusual, given the demands on his time. And for a month, no less. Lan Wangji wondered how the disciple had survived Jiang Wanyin’s temper, alone with him for a month.

“We are planning to introduce him at New Year’s, and wanted him to be ready. He could catch up to the next year’s class, he’s that talented. Though he’s quite a bit older than most of them.” Lan Wangji did not shrug. The cultivation sects took whoever had talent and interest, whenever they found them. Even Lan Sect recruited from outside the Cloud Recesses, these days.

“Anyway, would you like to meet him? I think Cheng-xiong said he’s advanced far enough to pick a real sword, so he’s probably helping him select one now.” Huaisang had picked up a piece of yellow talisman paper somewhere and was twisting it slowly into shreds. Wangji thought briefly, and nodded once. He rose smoothly to his feet, and the shorter man sprang up as well, tucking the paper away and replacing it with his fan. Together, they exited the shrine, leaving the silent stone tablets behind.

As they strolled towards the main pavilion, Nie Huaisang kept uncharacteristically silent. Usually, after their mornings, he was chattering like a magpie, as if all his words had been building up and were now overflowing into conversation. This time, he seemed content to trail along at Wangji’s side as they made their way back and forth across the arched bridges and angular wooden walkways of Lotus Pier, as familiar as the winding paths and stone steps of home. 

Sound carried easily over the waters, and they were still on the labyrinthine paths behind the main hall when Wangji heard voices.

The first voice had the bright tones of the young, and a bit of an accent. Italian? “Can I really pick any of these swords? They all look so old.”

“Are you insulting Jiang Sect’s swords? You have some nerve!” Jiang Wanyin.

“No, I mean they look like they’re anc—er, priceless artifacts!”

“Psh, this is the least of the resources of Jiang Sect. Who ever heard of a cultivation sect without good swords!” A pause. “Here, try this one first.”

“Oh wow, this has got to be the old—um, the most artifact-y sword, right?”

“Shut up and see if you can draw it already.”

A pause, and then the clear sound of a cultivator’s sword clearing its sheath. Wangji and Huaisang stopped as one.

“This is so, so amazing. But what’s it say on the blade here?”

“That’s...that’s its name.”

“Oh? I’m not sure I can read it. Something-bian. Oh! Sui bian. But why is this sword named—”

Wangji took to the air.

Jiang Xibie looked up in surprise from his new (artifact) sword to see a man descending from the heavens above the main hall of Jiang Sect. His white robes fluttered like wings against the clear blue sky, his jet black hair shone in the sun, a pale ribbon tied perfectly straight across his forehead. He carried a sword in a gleaming white scabbard, and he was staring at X.B. with an unreadable expression, dark eyes focused but with pink lips slightly parted. He was gorgeous. X.B.’s heart thumped wildly.

Lan Zhan landed on the carved stone lotus of the main pavilion, three steps away from this slender young man who stood with his back to the water, and who held Suibian in one hand, its empty scabbard in the other. Jiang Cheng was a few steps to one side, next to the rebuilt stone balustrades, within reach of a wooden rack holding several other swords. Nie Huaisang had dashed around the main hall with all the speed he rarely exercised and was skidding to a halt behind him. Lan Zhan did not pay attention to either of them. He stared at the young man, proud and tall in purple disciple’s robes, with brownish hair and greenish eyes, face and arms still flushed from the morning’s practice. He had freckles.

The young man stared back. “Wow,” he said. “You’ve got to be the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.” And his eyes crinkled as he smiled shamelessly, as warm and brilliant as the sun.

Chapter Text

贈別 其二 (杜牧)
多情卻似總無情，
唯覺樽前笑不成。
蠟燭有心還惜別，
替人垂淚到天明。

Parting II (by Du Mu)
Despite such emotion, it seems I have none —
Facing this toast, I cannot bring myself to smile.
Candles have hearts and grieve our parting;
On our behalf, they shed tears until dawn.

Ten years and some months ago, Nie Huaisang walked into a cafeteria of a small college in Tuscany carrying a tray loaded with a few glasses of ice water and far more chicken nuggets than was reasonable. The college campus was mostly emptied out for the summer but the cafeteria was bustling, thanks to the summer program that had rented the space. Like all the other adults in the room (and with that thought, he could imagine A-Cheng’s scoff at the idea of including Huaisang among the adults, not to mention Wangji’s slightly disapproving, you-are-being-purposely-ridiculous-and-are-not-cute-like-weiying expression), he was wearing a cheap white polo shirt printed with a reproduction of a Chinese brush painting of plum blossoms as a chest logo, where the front pocket would be. They were outnumbered by young teens in bright green T-shirts, the front of each shirt bearing a brush painting of bamboo. Nie Huaisang made a beeline for a table near the middle, where a crowd of kids were chattering loudly.

“Who wants extra nuggets?” He announced loudly as he squeezed onto the bench between a tiny, cherubic-faced girl and a smiling, gangly boy. “I’m Counselor Nie, but please call me Huaisang, or just Sang-ge. Welcome to your first day of Chinese Integrated Arts!”

A couple kids cheered as the group dove as one for the nuggets. The fryer in the kitchen had inexplicably (ha) malfunctioned, so only a few of the first people in line had gotten the nuggets earlier. And they smelled amazing. And were also still much too hot to eat. There were a few shouts of surprise as people discovered this. It made an excellent distraction.

The boy next to him was juggling a couple nuggets as he blew on a third, apparently unwilling to set any of them down. Nie Huaisang grinned at him. “So, what’s your name?”

“I’m X.B. Uh, X.B. Jiang.”

“Ohh, a ‘river’ Jiang?” The boy nodded. “I know a few Jiangs myself.”

The boy rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “Yeah, we aren’t all related.”

Actually, Cheng-xiong, obsessive patriarch of the Jiang Clan that he was, had extensive documentation showing that they were in fact all related, though there were a lot of adoptions in the family. But Nie Huaisang wasn’t going to tell him that yet. And obviously the adopted ones counted too.

“Sure, sure. There are a lot of Jiangs in the world, after all. But I’ll bet you’ve got a few relatives who are all about ancient China and its legends, huh?”

X.B. smirked. “Yeah, my aunt, definitely. She’s why I’m here.”

“Oh?”

“Got me interested in brush painting and calligraphy. Says if I want to be a designer, I should learn Eastern and Western styles. And with a name like mine, I should really know something about the Chinese side of my family.”

Nie Huaisang raised an eyebrow. “So X.B. stands for?”

“Xi Bie.”

Nie Huaisang’s eyes widened as he channeled from memory the facial expression he’d had quite a few years ago, when he had actually first learned the name of the child who had grown into this wry, skinny teenager. “Really? What a fascinating name.”

“Ha, thanks for putting it like that. It’s melodramatic, right? Not to mention old-fashioned. My dad says my aunt picked it. And I love my aunt, she’s the best and nicest person in the world, but man does she go overboard sometimes. She said my name came from a poem, by Du Fu. I can’t recite it, but I can recognize it when someone else does.” The boy bit down on a nugget, winced when he realized it still hadn’t sufficiently cooled, and looked desperately at the empty glass on his tray.

Nie Huaisang casually handed him a full glass of water from his own and watched as the other took several large gulps. “Oh...I think I know it. ‘Candles have hearts and grieve our parting; on our behalf, they shed tears until dawn?’”

X.B. swallowed another gulp of the ice water. “Phew, thanks.” Then, to Huaisang’s amusement, he went back to nibbling at the still-steaming nugget. “And yeah, that’s the poem.” Nibble. “Like I said.” Nibble, chew. “Melodramatic.” Bigger bite, grimace, gulp of water.

Huaisang wondered if X.B. took the same approach to spicy food and gleefully decided he would test that the next chance he got. ““It’s a good poem, at least,” he offered.

“Yeah.” X.B. stopped and looked around, but no one else at the table was paying attention to their conversation. “I always felt bad for the speaker, though. Not showing any emotion, and saying such things about candles instead? The man’s got all these feelings, but he’s absurdly repressed.”

Nie Huaisang laughed. “I agree! Times were different then. But anyone who could use a metaphor like that must not be too awful at knowing their own hearts, even if they project it all onto innocent inanimate objects. The poor candles have enough trouble in their short lives.”

The boy startled — and for a moment Huaisang thought he had somehow caught the layer of meaning hidden beneath his quip — then he just laughed too. His laugh was quiet compared to the overall noise of the cafeteria, but Huaisang heard it as clearly as if they were alone in a temple. The laugh was joyous, warm like the sun, and without even a hint of self-consciousness. How unusual for a teenager, Nie Huaisang thought. Very promising.

“So,” the centuries-old immortal asked, reaching down for the well-loved fan tucked in the cargo pocket of his khakis. “Want to see something as old as that poem?”

He was exaggerating by several hundred years, but it was all in the general category of “unbelievably ancient” to the kid. And he could see the surprise and enthusiasm already spreading across X.B’s face now, so it would be worth the eye rolls when he figured it out later. After all, first impressions were important.