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"Wei Ying!" wrests itself from Lan Zhan's throat.
His mind goes numb for a second and the ringing in his ears won't cease.
Hot tears roll down his cheeks and his legs give up on supporting him. He falls down and crawls on his hands and knees to the edge of the cliff, clothes and skin ripping open, where his heart—his Wei Ying is falling—crashing down towards the rocky ground beneath them.
Everything feels like it's happening in slow-motion and Lan Zhan can't do anything to stop it. His friend—his unrequited soulmate—is going to die and Lan Zhan can't save him.
He can vaguely feel someone approaching him from behind.
"Wei Wuxian is dead!" The person calls to the rest of the clans.
A wave of delighted shrieks and hollering is met by the statement. Lan Zhan can't really hear what the sect leaders decide over the ringing in his ears but he doesn't need to because he knows exactly where they're going—the burial mounds.
Everything is a blur.
The sects destroy everything, even the wilting lotus petals and the turnip fields.
He fights them. They make their way to raid Demon Subdue Cave but Lan Zhan steps between them and draws Bichen, pointing the sword at their leader. He doesn't recall his name, it's not important.
Then his uncle comes to take him away—but not before Lan Zhan finds young Wen Yuan. The small boy has a fever. He's dirty and shivering when Lan Zhan brings him back to the Cloud Recess.
Lan Zhan refuses to let people take him away before a healer tends to Wen Yuan. Once he gets his wish fulfilled he lets them drag him away.
Lan Zhan finds himself buying Emperor's Smile the night before.
The alcohol burns it's way down his throat, leaving an unpleasant taste on his tongue. Somehow he gets why Wei Ying likes— liked , he corrects himself—it.
Lan Zhan finds himself searching for his dead friend's flute Chenqing in a fit of drunken grief. He becomes increasingly annoyed when he can't find it, because the flute is at the bottom of a ravine where the body of his friend also is. Instead of finding it he comes across the Wen branding iron.
He finds himself not to be in control of his actions as he presses the scalding hot iron to his skin—right where Wei Ying's scar used to be from the fight in the cave of the Tortoise of Slaughter—tears from both pain and grief rolls down his cheeks.
The beating the next day hurts, but not nearly as much as it did when he saw Wei Ying fall to his death or when he branded himself the night before. He knows it should hurt more than it does but he can't find it within himself to care when he subconsciously replays Wei Ying's death over and over again in his head until the details blur together into a painful memory.
He receives thirty-three lashes—one for each Gusu-sect senior he hurt while protecting his friend—and he spits blood. Because of his injuries the healer demands he be bedridden for the coming weeks. His uncle further punishes him by secluding him from the world.
Lan Zhan gets to meet Wen Yuan during his seclusion. His uncle and brother ask him who Wen Yuan is. Lan Zhan simply tells them that he's an orphan from the Sunshot Campaign.
Wen Yuan eventually becomes Lan Yuan. Then he quickly becomes A-Yuan to Lan Zhan.
The wounds on his back slowly heals and because of the cold facade he puts on people start to believe that he's fine and that what happened to the esteemed Hanguang-jun was simply a passing phase—that he was tricked by the Yiling Patriarch but had at last regained his senses. People begin to move on.
He gets out of seclusion after three years and makes his way toward Nightless City. While in seclusion, Lan Zhan has heard that bones where the only thing found left of the Yiling Patriarch, but when he arrives not even bone fragments remain. He drinks another bottle of Emperor's Smile that night.
Slowly but surely he's allowed to resume his duties as Hanguang-jun. He eats dinner with A-Yuan every evening and plays inquiry every night in an attempt to possibly contact Wei Ying's soul. He never gets an answer but he never gives up hope on his love either.
As the seasons change, Lan Zhan watches A-Yuan grow. When he's of age he receives the courtesy name Sizhui and he turns out to be one of the brightest Lan disciples of his generation.
Thirteen years blur together as Lan Zhan's broken heart begins to heal. He still plays inquiry, though, in hope that someone will finally reach out but they never do. Disappointment wears at Lan Zhan's heart some more every time he plays the instrument and he can't help the tears rushing down his cheeks when he's finished.
His brother checks up on him once in a while and even if Lan Zhan doesn't show it, he's grateful for his brother's company.
Lan Sizhui visits him once a week for dinner. He has his own friends now and with work and his studies he doesn't always have time for dinner with Hanguang-jun every day.
It's a quiet life—but the quiet can't stop the nightmares from haunting him every so often. The memory of Wei Ying falling from the cliffs at Nightless City, to the rocks below is something that's imprinted in Lan Zhan's mind for good—so who can really blame him for rushing into action whenever there's a conflict somewhere, only to be disappointed beyond belief every time. However that doesn't stop him from hoping.
Lan Zhan has gone away for a night hunt with the juniors when it finally happens.
It's in the middle of the night when Lan Jingyi's distress signal flares across the starry sky. He had initially decided to stay away and let them take care of the fierce corpses on their own however as soon as he sees the blue light, Lan Zhan grabs his zither and heads toward it.
When he first arrives at the scene he has to demobilize a few fierce corpses with his zither.
The disciples gather before him like a flock of bunnies. "Hanguang-jun!" They call.
Sizhui takes the lead. "Hanguang-jun, what is the evil thing transformed from? It's so vicious."
Lan Zhan examines said "thing" in his hand before answering. "It's not an evil spirit, but the spiritual energy is of first class spiritual tool." He turns the item over. "It hides inside. Maybe it's a sword ghost..."
He mutters the last part to himself rather than to the juniors but they hear him anyway.
"A sword ghost?" One whispers to another who shrugs.
"A first class spiritual tool," Jingyi ponders aloud, a little perplexed. He throws Sizhui a look which his friend returns. "Why does it have such an amount of hatred?"
Lan Zhan can't help but to examine the item again.
Sizhui is the only one who seems to be thinking of the same thing as Lan Zhan. "Is it?" he asks.
"Stygian Tiger Amulet," Lan Zhan breathlessly agrees.
Sizhui and Jingyi share another look. "Stygian Tiger Amulet? You mean that the sword has a trace of the Stygian Tiger Amulet?" Sizhui inquires.
Lan Zhan can't bring himself to answer. Could this mean—
"But the Stygian Tiger Amulet was ruined in the battle of Nevernight," Jingyi counters. "Maybe... Maybe the Yiling Patriarch didn't die!"
The disciples throw hopeful looks in Lan Zhan's direction, searching for confirmation in his cold features.
Lan Zhan swallows, hope daring it's way back into his heart. Could Wei Ying really be alive?
Then Sizhui begins searching for something. He casts a puzzled look around him before turning to his best friend. "Where did senior Mo go?"
The other disciples follows suit and begins looking for this "Senior Mo" when a shadow of someone flitter across the courtyard.
Lan Zhan springs into action, grabbing Bichen, as the disciples scurry to do the same.
He lands on the stone pavement outside of Mo Manor to an empty and sleepy village, heart hammering in his throat. He casts glances around him for any sign of a ghost from his past.
Wei Ying , he barely dares to hope. Is it really you?