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The voice of a woman Lan Xichen barely remembers says, “A-Huan, strong men bend—they do not break. They twist and turn but, in the end, they always end up back upright.”
Mere minutes after entering seclusion, Lan Xichen disappoints the woman of that voice—he shatters so irrevocably that he knows he will never again be whole. But, then, he pulls himself back together. Stacks all of the pieces of himself and finds that he’s still standing as tall as ever.
It’s just—something is off. Something is wrong. He does not notice.
Once upon a time, a man in pale green kneeled in the very middle of the Hanshi. Back then, his face had been young and clean—devoid of wrinkles…and yet, he’d definitely seemed older than his age.
Lan Xichen remembers sitting in front of that man, head tilted downward and posture rigid. Eight years old, he recalls, or maybe nine. Either way, he’d been small and impressionable and the thing he’d wanted most in the world was his father to be proud of him—proud enough to actually try to be a father.
Every achievement that he presented to Qingheng-Jun was met with a look of vague interest at most. Sometimes he would hum as Lan Xichen talked, nod every now and then, and—if Lan Xichen was lucky—make consistent eye-contact. But after every time he spoke, Qingheng-Jun would just let a silence marinate between them.
Lan Xichen eventually stopped saying anything. It was not a decision he made on his own. He remembers, clear as day, when his father said in the silence after Lan Xichen’s sunny account of winning his first spar, “Lan Huan, talking excessively is forbidden in the Cloud Recesses.”
Lan Xichen bowed his head. He thought his father was just giving him sage advice, helping him grow as a cultivator. Now, as a grown man sitting in his own seclusion, Lan Xichen realizes that his father simply wanted to shut him up. It took him twenty-nine years to realize that—how pathetic.
Eight days before the resurrection of Wei Wuxian, Lan Xichen and Nie Huaisang were together in the Unclean Realms, naked and sweaty on Nie Huaisang’s bed. The rules that he’d broken were of no concern to him—he would punish himself when no one else was looking—because he was content. He was sated. He was happy.
Nie Huaisang’s grip on his waist never wavered an inch, and the way he mouthed at Lan Xichen’s neck had distracted him enough that he barely thought a thing of it when Nie Huaisang said, “Sect Leader Lan, you’re the very picture of perfection.” Lan Xichen did not care enough to respond. “You’re the perfect Lan.” Such sweet nonsense. “You forgive so easily.”
Lan Xichen wrenched himself out of Nie Huaisang’s grip. Silence descended upon them before Lan Xichen let out a strained laugh. “Huaisang,” he’d said, “why does everyone think that I’m the most patient man in the world?” His mother killed a Lan teacher. His father married her and imprisoned her. His uncle threw scrolls at unruly students. His brother fought beside a mass-murderer.
Why did everybody think that Lan Xichen was any different? He could be so, so different, but he merely didn’t allow himself to be. He made sure he was content in the present, no desperation or impulsiveness in sight.
Lan Xichen and Nie Huaisang did not talk for the rest of the night, and they did not sleep together all the way up to Guanyin Temple. Lan Xichen has never been blind. He could always hear the lies in Nie Huaisang’s words when he begged him and Jin Guangyao for help, but he didn’t think—surely he wouldn’t—
He met Nie Huaisang’s eyes and suddenly, viscerally knew that he really would. Strangely enough, it was not a surprising conclusion.
Surprised or not, though, he cannot deny that he lost a lover that he’d intended to pour his heart and soul into. His life of contentment had vanished right before his eyes.
Contentment. He hates that word. He was content in the peace before his home was burned, content in the bookstore that Jin Guangyao—then Meng Yao—had hidden him in, content in the peace after the Campaign had been won, content in the knowledge that Wei Wuxian was dead, content in the knowledge that surely—surely!—Jin Guangyao wouldn’t do something as terrible as take multiple prominent Sect members hostage.
Day after day for years, Lan Xichen has found something to be content with—a reason to pull on his smile. And where has it gotten him? Alone in the Hanshi.
Lan Xichen has nothing to be content about. He lets himself steam in the knowledge of his own misinterpretation of the human condition, in the truth that he has misjudged himself.
On a slip of paper, he writes: “Find complacency in the present.” Then, he burns the slip.
At midnight in the Hanshi, three days after the disaster at Guanyin Temple, Lan Xichen peels off his mourning robes and pulls on his normal ones. What point is there to mourn the ones who have done nothing but hurt him? What point is there to mourn a lover who is not even dead to him, but has been completely erased from existence in his head?
He stays in seclusion.
One of the few lies he’s ever told was said to Jin Guangyao. His sworn brother had asked if he remembered the day they’d met and he’d agreed to hide him. Lan Xichen smiled and shook his head. “No, I don’t. Why?”
“It’s nothing, Second Brother.”
It’s not nothing. Lan Xichen remembers it as if it were yesterday—the adrenaline pumping through his veins, keeping him going despite lacking any sort of rest for several days. He was running from Wen soldiers, hiding where he could, keeping out of sight. He remembers stealing—another rule he’s broken—clothes and a pack, shoving his forehead ribbon away, until he looked like a peasant, no one impressive.
He remembers catching Meng Yao’s eyes—that boy who he’d seen once at some banquet or another. He saw the realization in those rich brown irises. The boy standing calf-deep in a river knew who he was.
For all of a second, Lan Xichen truly considered ending his life. He would not have even thought of it a week ago, but then, after dodging patrol after patrol, he’d truly stopped caring for the rules—all that mattered were the books in his pack and the thudding of his heart in his chest.
But, Lan Xichen had rules for himself—separate from the ones set up by the GusuLan. One of the most important of his rules was to not think badly of others.
He’d remembered seeing the boy roll down the stairs of Koi Tower—Lan Xichen was too far away, too horrified, to do anything—and thought that he could work with that. He called out to the boy and requested help, and he got help.
Now, Lan Xichen wonders if it would have been better to have killed him right then and there.
He writes on a slip of paper: “Don’t think badly of others.” Then, he burns the slip.
Lan Xichen is no longer that naive.
When Lan Wangji was twenty-one, he was dragged back to the Cloud Recesses and whipped thirty-three times. To this day, Lan Xichen does not know what was going through his brother’s head, but he knows very well what was going through his own.
Lan Xichen felt hollow—like someone split him open and scraped out every last shred of his emotions. He stood off to the side and watched it all happen with a blank face. Afterward, when he and their uncle helped Lan Wangji back into the Jingshi, Lan Xichen stayed silent. When he spied Lan Qiren crying behind the Jingshi, he stayed silent.
When Lan Wangji asked him what was right and what was wrong, Lan Xichen did not answer. Instead, he said, “There are rules, Wangji.” Rules that must be followed. Rules like not injuring elders, not loving murderers, not refusing to accept the error in one’s ways—
The question remains: what is right and what is wrong? Is morality static enough to justify Lan Wangji’s punishment, or is it dynamic in a way that the rules of GusuLan fail to account for? Lan Xichen hadn’t truly dwelled upon it until now, but he does finally reach a conclusion.
The question isn’t “What is right and what is wrong?” but “What is morality in the first place?”
In the Hanshi, while Lan Xichen sorts through the gifts that Jin Guangyao had given him over the years—which should he keep and which should he burn?—he decides that all morality is subjective. A construct of the human mind, not necessary to the human condition. What is right, what is wrong? They’re whatever you want them to be.
In that case, it is not wrong to keep the fancy chests and jewels and other expensive fairs, all bought on Jin money, as it is not wrong to burn the letters and paintings and hand-made knick-knacks. Superficial, maybe—but he decides if being superficial is wrong, and he decides that it’s not.
The glittering comb that Jin Guangyao gifted him stays on his nightstand, where he can see it every day. It is not wrong to look at it and delight in the fact that it is here when Jin Guangyao is not—that, even in the end, Jin Guangyao’s existence in his life all depends on his own decisions.
Lan Xichen dishes out small mercies, and that is all.
(And, belatedly, Lan Xichen decides that Lan Wangji deserved the thirty-three whips. It was wrong of him to fight the Lan Elders, to protect a mass-murderer—to leave Lan Xichen collapsed in Nevernight, so exhausted that he could barely move, forced to watch his brother’s back as he flew away to save a madman at the expense of everyone else.
To Lan Xichen, Lan Wangji was just as wrong as Lan Wangji considered himself to be right.)
On a slip of paper, Lan Xichen writes: “Don’t disregard the rules of the Cloud Recesses.” Then, he burns the slip.
So many things to do, so many thoughts to unravel. He does not ponder on this further.
Three days before Nie Mingjue died, Lan Xichen had hurled his own ink box at the wall of the Hanshi. The liquid dripped down the wall, staining the floor so thoroughly that Lan Xichen would never be able to get rid of it—never forget his own loss of control.
Nie Mingjue was staying at the Cloud Recesses before they both departed to the banquet at Koi Tower. Nie Mingjue was falling apart from Qi Deviation so rapidly that few of the Lan disciples dared to get close to him. Nie Mingjue was unwell—and his choleric anger, it seemed, was contagious. Forget just Jin Guangyao, the very sight of gold would have him frothing at the mouth in rage, and Lan Xichen—
Lan Xichen wanted to grab his older sworn brother by the shoulders and shake him until he saw reason. He wanted to pull out his sword and beat him into submission. He wanted to climb on the rooftops and scream at the gods, demanding to know why two people he cared so much about could hate each other.
And Lan Xichen was not an idiot. He could tell that Jin Guangyao hated their oldest sworn brother just as much as Nie Mingjue hated him. He just thought that they would be able to sort it out by now—Lan Xichen’s own disagreements rarely ever lasted for longer than a week, and even then they were never as acidic as the hatred that rested between his sworn brothers.
Lan Xichen saw more than he let on—not a lot more, granted, but enough for people to somewhat underestimate him.
In the years after the Sunshot Campaign, it seemed that people had forgotten why Lan Xichen was the first-ranked cultivator of his generation. Underestimating him—underestimating his anger—would be a mistake.
But excessive anger was forbidden in the Cloud Recesses, as was starting fights without permission. And, really, what would his anger accomplish? More complications. More tension. Lan Xichen could not give in to his impulses, no matter what.
So, when Lan Wangji found him trying to clean the ink stains in the Jingshi, Lan Xichen smiled and explained, “I dropped it on accident.” His brother silently helped him clean up.
Afterward, Lan Xichen covered the stain with a mat, covering up his indiscretion.
Now, Lan Xichen has to wonder what would have happened if he’d given in—if he’d pulled his sword on Nie Mingjue and demanded a duel, if they managed to beat each other black and blue, if Lan Xichen screamed all of the thoughts flowing in his head the way Nie Mingjue was allowed to. He would have been punished, he knows—and severely, at that. His friendship with Nie Mingjue would have been ruined. Jin Guangyao would have either felt delighted or felt threatened.
And Lan Xichen? Even after being whipped and forced into seclusion, copying lines for at least a month…he has the distinct impression that he would have been happier than he would have been in a very long time. More at ease. No longer burdened with the expectation of being perfect—he’d be Lan Xichen: known rule-breaker.
It would have been intoxicating. Is that why, during that small frame of time between Lan Wangji’s punishment and Wei Wuxian’s death, his little brother was so morbidly complacent? Lan Xichen finally understands.
Lan Xichen should have smashed the ink box onto Nie Mingjue’s head that day.
Now, he gathers everything he’s decided to burn and drags it behind the Hanshi, throwing it all into one pile. With a small bit of spiritual energy, he sets it all alight, watching with a smile as the delicate paintings and flowery letters and elegant carvings all wither to ash. As the fire rages, he does something else, too.
On a slip of paper, Lan Xichen writes: “Do not be consumed by anger.” Then, he burns the slip.
Inside the Hanshi, he pulls up the mats until the ink stain is visible, and he keeps it that way—a reminder of the time when he’d finally (finally!) come to life.
It’s three weeks before Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian come to visit Lan Xichen. When the newly-wed couple first appears outside the Hanshi, Lan Xichen nearly slams the door shut in their faces. But, instead, he smiles. “Wangji, Master Wei—come in.”
If they notice that he’s no longer wearing mourning robes, that the room smells permanently of smoke, that the mats from one specific corner are nowhere to be found, or that there’s a pile of ashes still sitting behind the Hanshi—well, they don’t say a word. Instead, Lan Wangji asks how he’s been, and Lan Xichen lies, “I’ve been better.”
He has never been better. He is doing wonderful, climbing a mountain of euphoria and he has yet to reach the top. If he admits just how much better he is doing, he’ll be expected to leave seclusion, but—he can’t. Not yet. He needs to keep going, keep climbing, make more revelations. He’s rebuilt himself from the ground-up and he needs to figure out how to be.
Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian accept his answer, and when they realize Lan Xichen has no intention of continuing to speak, the couple—or, rather, his brother-in-law—decides to fill the silence.
There’s something endlessly ironic about how Lan Wangji ended up marrying Wei Wuxian of all people, Lan Xichen realizes. After all, Lan Wangji is the Second Young Master of a Great Sect, and Wei Wuxian is the son of a servant. And what a pair the Twin Jades make when he remembers that he himself had sworn brotherhood to the son of a whore and slept with the incompetent half-brother of Nie Mingjue.
Maybe it’s an inherited trait, he muses. After all, their own father had married a no-name rogue cultivator.
But that’s ignoring the most important bit of information: they’re murderers, the lot of them. Wei Wuxian, Jin Guangyao, Nie Huaisang, the late Madam Lan who no one dares utter the name of. All of them are killers, and the oh-so-great Zewu-Jun, Hanguang-Jun, and Qingheng-Jun have been cursed to care for them.
And yet, Lan Xichen is the only one who’s managed to escape their grasp. The only one to recognize the flaws, to realize the wrongs that have been done to him. His father and brother both wasted away for years, helplessly loving a monster—at least Lan Wangji managed to get his happily ever after.
However, does he deserve it? It doesn’t take long at all for Lan Xichen to come to his conclusion: Lan Wangji does not deserve this. He dragged Wei Wuxian across China, splayed out all of Jin Guangyao’s wrongdoings like he expected Lan Xichen to vehemently disagree, raised his sword against people who were trying to help him, and completely ignored the greater good.
Lan Xichen closes his eyes and all he can see is Lan Wangji’s back flying farther and farther away, Wei Wuxian in his arms, leaving an exhausted and horrified Lan Xichen back in Nevernight when I couldn’t even move a finger—
He does not know when Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian leave the Hanshi, but by the time he remembers that they’re there, they’re already gone. Maybe they had recognized that they were not wanted—realized that there were revulsion and vitriol running through his veins instead of blood. He does not know; he does not care.
On a slip of paper, Lan Xichen writes: “Care for those close to you.” Then, he burns the slip.
Afterward, his euphoria reaches the climax, like the loudest section of a musical piece, where Lan Xichen is soaring in a world that no one else will ever see. He’s reached the top of his mountain, achieved perfection, fallen from grace in such a beautiful manner that he doesn’t even notice he’s fallen in the first place. And, from the top of the mountain, he has only one choice left: he goes hurtling downward.
The next day, Lan Xichen exits seclusion.