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1. Qinghe
“I don’t see why you let them bully you like that,” Lan Jingyi says as he and Sizhui trail a few of the senior disciples in the halls of the Unclean Realm. Wei Wuxian, lounging on the roof above them, temporarily pauses in his consumption of the third-best alcohol in the nation. He may, he despairs, need a clear head for this.
“They’re not really bullying me,” Sizhui denies.
But Lan Jingyi argues, “You’re still red! Look, your ears—”
“I guess it’s been a while since our last night hunt together?” Sizhui says with an edge of slight embarrassment.
And just what have Jiang Cheng’s little disciples been up to on these night hunts, Wei Wuxian would like to know. Does Jiang Cheng know they’re harassing Sizhui? He probably doesn’t. He probably would kick out any Jiang sect disciple he caught within a li of a Lan disciple without proper supervision. After all, subordinate to the Jiang imperative to do what you know full well you can’t was an implicit preference to never repeat past mistakes when there were so many brand new ones to make.
Wei Wuxian steps lightly from one roof to the next. He is now actively following the disciples. Not by choice! But the senior disciples are all still on the move toward the guest quarters, and Lan Jingyi and Sizhui’s voices begin to fade if the distance between them becomes too great.
“Well…” Lan Jingy says, signaling with this single drawn out hedge that he will allow Sizhui’s flimsy defense. “And the last conference was months ago.”
His half-hearted concessions drift unnervingly well up to the eaves for the fortified home of a major sect.
“But still, you can’t go around letting people think it’s just all right to treat Lan disciples any way because we won’t cause a fuss.”
“I’m telling you,” Sizhui insists, “I really don’t think they’re being malicious. It’s just a bit of food--”
“Spicy food!” Lan Jingyi says. “It’s spicy food that burns your mouth and makes you cry. They know it’s going to make you cry. They give you spicier food when you stop crying.”
For the record: Wei Wuxian is absolutely on Sizhui’s side in this. Of course he is.
But.
It is pretty funny, imagining the way Sizhui must react to the kind of food that’s typical to Yunmeng. Full grown Lan adults don’t have the tolerance Yunmeng imparts on its softest toddlers . Anyway, it can’t be anything truly awful, or else someone would have said something to him by now, right? And, hadn’t Sizhui eaten Wei Wuxian’s own cooking? He’d complained, sure, but he’d been ok! This is nothing serious. What a relief. Wei Wuxian can finish his alcohol in peace. Anytime now.
Down on the ground, Sizhui reminds his friend, “You’ve met Senior Wei. I think they’re all just— like that.”
There’s a longer pause before Lan Jingyi says, “They might be.”
Lan Jingyi is an unfilial, unpious, heartless traitor.
“But! You could just say no.”
“That’s how surprise dishes end up on the table during evening meals, you know,” Sizhui replies with amusement. “At least if I just let them give me what they want, I already know what to be careful of.”
.x.
2. Yunmeng
Fighting with Jiang Cheng takes forever. Not because he holds grudges (he does), but because he never starts by arguing about whatever he’s actually upset about.
No, Jiang Cheng first exhausts a list of every extraneous point of contention. This, often, also serves to exhaust his opponent. The less experienced find they’re ready to yield to Jiang Cheng’s onslaught by this point, but this is all before Jiang Cheng ever even breathes a word of what had set him off to begin with. The actual crux of Jiang Cheng’s rage is no less meticulously detailed, and is usually enough to bring even those more experienced with the attrition debate style Jiang Cheng prefers to their knees, weeping in surrender.
Then Jiang Cheng holds a grudge.
Fortunately, Wei Wuxian is the most experienced at fighting with Jiang Cheng, so the second half of si hour which Jiang Cheng has already devoted to lambasting Lan sect’s sartorial choices hasn’t even made a dent in Wei Wuxian’s composure. The day is young, the scent of lotus flowers is sweet in the air, and there is a rolling rumble in the west that promises relief is coming for the wet heat rising up from beneath the pier.
Grumpy Jiang Cheng is still grumbling. “We didn’t fight a war so they could traumatize impressionable children.”
“Sorry, what?” Wei Wuxian asks, generally amused but much more saliently confused at the moment. They’ve never reached the true target of his contempt so early in a fight before. “Jiang Cheng, what?”
“It must be very easy to convince someone of the righteousness of their own death when they’re already dressed for the grave,” Jiang Cheng steamrolls on.
Ah, this is still about the color of the robes. The white does wash Sizhui and Lan Jingyi out, a bit, but it does that to everyone indiscriminately, and what else is a Lan to wear? And it’s not all white all the time, anyway. There’s some blue, too.
“Jiang Cheng, Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian laughs, “forget it. It’s all right.”
“It’s fucking demoralizing, looking like your own corpse all the time,” Jiang Cheng says with a dissonant calm of someone who has only ever seen a corpse lying agreeably in its coffin and not upright, lunging for one’s intestines.
“You hardly even notice, after a while,” Wei Wuxian tries to counter. “In fact, it’s sort of relaxing? They kind of just—blend in, with the buildings and the mountains and the general mist, you know?”
Jiang Cheng, at last, swings his judgmental glare from where Jin Ling, Sizhui, Lan Jingyi, and an assortment of junior Jiang disciples are either having an archery contest or playing push-the-non-Jiang-cultivator-in-the-pond-and-see-if-they-can swim. It’s not entirely clear. Lan Jingyi is still up on dry land, Sizhui would probably be fine, and Jin Ling definitely is, so nothing to be concerned about.
With visible effort, Jiang Cheng twists his mouth around to repeat: “Relaxing.”
“Relaxing, relaxing!” Wei Wuxian feels as if he’s said something more vulgar by far at the rebuke in Jiang Cheng’s tone.
“Compared to what,” are the words Jiang Cheng barrels callously through next.
“The world, Jiang Cheng! It’s a very messy place. There’s a lot of chaos, and it gets exhausting.” Jiang Cheng must know this. He is a sect leader.
Jiang Cheng fires back, “Wei Wuxian, you are the chaos you see in the world.” He pauses, briefly enough to change tracks, not briefly enough for Wei Wuxian to respond. “Are you calling Yunmeng too chaotic ?”
Wei Wuxian said no such thing. “I said no such thing!” he objects.
Unmollified, Jiang Cheng glares at Wei Wuxian’s head hard enough that Wei Wuxian swears he can feel it physically, boring through his skull and driving shrapnel into the soft tissues. Ah, what a headache is forming...
“Jiang Cheng,” he sighs under that relentless gaze, “isn’t this kind of conversation too early?”
As if Jiang Cheng could be confined to you hour. They trade a look acknowledging the inanity of this query. Jiang Cheng turns away first.
“Jin Rulan! Lan Sizhui!” Jiang Cheng barks across the pier, so fiercely Wei Wuxian is nearly startled off the edge of it. “Lan Jingyi,” he adds, singling the teens out from the group of disciples more adeptly than their much maligned robes. “Come along.”
Jin Ling immediately protests. “ Uncle!”
“The Jiang disciples,” Jiang Cheng yells over Jin Ling, stressing his own name, “have more important work to do than babysit you lot.”
“This is how you treat a sect leader?” Jin Ling yells back. Sizhui and Lan Jingyi, wisely, remain quiet. They are not experienced with fighting with Jiang Cheng. Not at all.
“I am taking meetings in the Audience Hall until the lunch hour,” Jiang Cheng announces, sweeping up the boards and back into Lotus Pier.
“Ugh,” Jin Ling screams feelingly at the sky before they all stomp away after him.
.x.
3. Lanling
There is some idiot in Jin Sect—actually, there are a lot of idiots in Jin Sect. There are an unacceptable number of fools in Jin Sect, and Jin Ling should do something about that. It is his duty as Sect Leader to Handle This, although it was Jin Guangyao’s duty at Sect Leader before him to not leave such a shitty collection of loud-mouth, uncouth, layabouts of no cultivational talent for Jin Ling to inherit, so perhaps it is Jiang Cheng’s duty to Handle This...?
There is some buffoon in Jin Sect who thinks it is still acceptable to harangue Jiang Cheng’s nephew re: his lack of proper maternal guidance and the (alleged) subsequent dearth of manners or any knowledge of comportment among proper society in his possession.
“Oh, no,” Wei Wuxian, having made this mistake before himself, winces.
“Yes,” Lan Jingyi agrees with delight. “So, if you could please…?” He gestures mildly away from the garden Wei Wuxian had been enjoying the morning sunlight in.
Wei Wuxian picks up his robes, climbs up the steps, and follows Lan Jingyi through the labyrinth of glamorous halls to the site of the impending murder. Wei Wuxian follows after Lan Jingyi with rather more haste than Lan Jingyi himself , which makes it awkward to follow him. Fortunately, Jiang Cheng’s never been one for subtle , so it doesn’t take long for Wei Wuxian to discern his location on his own from Jiang Cheng’s rising bellows.
When Wei Wuxian skids through an arch, back out under the sky, down the steps, and into yet another garden —oh. here’s where the peacock had planted Shijie’s lotuses— Jiang Cheng has nearly reached the peak of his performance.
It may be too late for intervention.
“And what esteemed cabbage patch, which I have not had the pleasure to see in Lanling, were you presumptuously harvested from to be presented to me here?” Jiang Cheng spits out around his teeth.
The little Jin— clan, Jiang Cheng was always more disagreeable with those— disciple sways before Jiang Cheng like an autumn wheat stalk.
Behind Jiang Cheng, closer to the lotus pond, Wei Wuxian’s own little Sizhui gets the same pinched look Lan Zhan does when he witnesses a filthy, filthy hit.
“You dare,” Jiang Cheng rages, stoking his own fire, “impugn the righteous, moral character of someone who is clearly your superior?”
Ah, he should have stopped at the kitchens and asked for seeds. Actually—he turns to look at Lan Jingyi, who is politely, suspiciously quiet with his hands in his sleeves.
Lan Jingyi returns his gaze with a slight nod and then keeps smiling. “Senior Wei,” he says, perfectly respectful, and what does he want Wei Wuxian to do here? This is not the behavior of someone who wants a responsible adult to stop Jiang Cheng, who is anyway hardly being any worse than he usually is when he catches someone being rude to Jin Ling.
...Is he waiting for Wei Wuxian to join in ?
Wei Wuxian turns back to the tableau before them, the Jin disciple bending under Jiang Cheng’s tirade and Sizhui watching in mute deference. There are a few Jiang disciples, too, clustered together near an exit through which they can flee should their sect leader’s attention fall on them, presumably.
The Jin disciple, cowed but not particularly enlightened, directs his helplessly furious gaze over Jiang Cheng’s shoulder. Really, of all possible disciples to be embarrassed in front of, he should be thankful it’s Lan Sizhui, which just goes to show how stupid this Jin disciple is. Jin Ling should have him removed immediately.
Two things happen at the same time. One of them is Jiang Cheng ratcheting up a notch in his anger, shouting, “You dare look at him ?”, and the other is Jin Ling flying out of the building on the opposite side of the courtyard from Wei Wuxian and yelling at nearly a matching decibel, “Uncle!”
(Jin Ling says that word a lot. Wei Wuxian would be very surprised if it hadn’t been Jin Ling’s first word).
Ouyang Zizhen comes running out on Jin Ling’s tail. Jiang Cheng looks over at Jin Ling and does not yield one single chi. Sizhui looks away from Jiang Cheng and sees Wei Wuxian and goes pink in sympathetic embarrassment. Ouyang Zizhen looks across the courtyard and smiles with great satisfaction at Lan Jingyi.
The stupid, stupid Jing disciple salutes Jin Ling, and, without rising says, “Sect Leader, please allow this—”
“Oh, what was it this time?” Jin Ling cuts him off impatiently.
“He’s so proud of having a mother,” Jiang Cheng answers before the Jin disciple has any chance, “why don’t you send him back to his to learn his manners properly this time?”
“That again? I think we’ll live,” Jin Ling says flatly.
“Sect Leader Jin,” Jiang Cheng says, which is what he calls Jin Ling in front of all the Jin disciples he doesn’t like, “I trust you will address the galling insult which was leveled by your stupid disciple.”
Jin Ling looks at Wei Wuxian, then, and his face rearranges itself around an expression Wei Wuxian knows well because he has worn that expression, many, many times, always right before doing something brilliant and maddening that would have the nearest authority figure blowing smoke, but the only authority figures are Jin Ling himself and Jiang Cheng, so what is he planning?
“Fine,” Jin Ling agrees. “Will you apologize to Sect Leader Jiang?” he addresses the disciple. As if he is affording him a choice in the matter.
The disciple slowly, slowly, turns his salute toward Jiang Cheng instead. “This disciple apologizes for the ill-mannered insult to Sect Leader Jiang and his family.”
“Will you not apologize to the one you insulted?” Jiang Cheng answers in a complete fucking snit.
The Jin disciple peeks over his own arms at Jin Ling. Behind Jin Ling, Ouyang Zizhen cheeks must hurt with the size of his smile.
There is a moment where Wei Wuxian is positive he won’t, and that will be the end of it, because Jin Ling’s hardly going to let another sect leader, even if it’s his uncle, dictate the way his own disciples speak about him. He’d lose more face than forcing the apology could give back.
But the disciple does, does another little bow and dutifully, balefully bleats out, “This disciple apologies for his ill-mannered insult to the son of Sect Leader Jiang’s brother.”
Ill-mannered insult to who now?
“Lan Sizhui,” says Jiang Cheng, thundering, without even taking his eyes off the Jin kid in front of him, and yet Sizhui, polite and well-mannered and perfectly interested in his own self-preservation as he is, straightens his posture and responds immediately. “I accept your apology,” Sizhui says to the Jin disciple.
Thus satisfied, Jiang Cheng turns dramatically on his own heel, purple robes billowing out like one of the lotus flowers blooming in the pond behind Sizhui.
And that’s when he sees Wei Wuxian. Jiang Cheng nearly falls over, but he catches himself before enduring such humiliation. Jiang Cheng’s face twitches first in futile effort and then in the realization that he can’t possibly scowl any harder.
.x.
4. Gusu
“Senior Wei,” Sizhui calls, but they’re in the meadow and there’s no one else around, so Wei Wuxian waits him out as he escalates to “Xian-ge,” and then finally sighs and with great affection settles on, “Dad.”
“A-Yuan!” Wei Wuxian acknowledges the boy with genuine enthusiasm. Has he grown since this morning? He looks like he’s grown since this morning.
Sizhui smiles down at Wei Wuxian in his pile of bunnies. He sits down before him, robes arranged as if there were only ever one way they would fall, and that was perfectly, orderly splayed across the spring grass. Exactly like a portrait. Lan Zhan taught him so well, honestly. Where are his brushes when he needs them?
Wei Wuxian says, “A-Yuan, my A-Yuan, have you come to see me or the rabbits?”
“The rabbits,” Sizhui answers with a wicked smile.
“Don’t be cruel to your father, A-Yuan,” Wei Wuxian chides him in direct contrast to his own smile egging Sizhui on. Much as he loves to see Lan Zhan reflected in Sizhui, it always feels like someone has reached into his chest and pulled out his heart (lovingly) when Sizhui matches his own impish impulses instead. Wei Wuxian says, “Just who raised you to be so disrespectful?”
Sizhui replies, “Father says I’m a delight.”
Lan Zhan would say that. It’s true, after all.
“Well, what do you want?” Wei Wuxian asks.
Sizhui—squirms, a little.
Wei Wuxian’s eyes narrow. “Is this it? This is it, isn’t it? Ok,” he breathes out harshly, “ok. We can do this.”
“This?” Sizhui echoes, visibly confused.
“You want to ask me about dual cultivation, right?”
“Um,” Sizhui starts and then stalls.
“I should warn you,” Wei Wuxian tells him as gently as possible considering he is going to have to explain sex to his son. Which his son will presumably do. With … someone. Can he find out who? Does he want to know? What kind of question is that, he has to know, it’s one of the few parental duties time has left to him.
He’ll just have to alert Lan Zhan to the situation over dinner, and they’ll draw up a list together of probable young cultivators who’ve somehow gained the impression that Sizhui would make a suitable partner. (They’re right, but they’re not supposed to know it for several more years. )
“I should warn you,” Wei Wuxian tells his son, “that I did not dual cultivate at any point at all before—dying, actually, and from my understanding and admittedly singular experience, it is different when the people involved have the same—”
“Please stop,” Sizhui says at the exact moment Wei Wuxian is saying, “Level of cultivation, Lan Si-zhui, what did you think I was about to say?”
Sizhui ducks his head. “Dad. I’m not asking about sex. I’m sorry, did you want to tell me about—”
“Absolutely not,” Wei Wuxian answers immediately, and then nearly trips over himself backtracking with, “I mean, I do. I will—do that. As your dad. Who loves you.”
Sizhui smiles.
“And also your father, of course. Who I have sex with, so—”
“Let’s go back to stopping,” Sizhui interrupts him, rudely, but Wei Wuxian is grateful to move on to the topic Sizhui has actually sought him out for.
Wei Wuxian gestures magnanimously toward Sizhui. “Go on, then.”
There is a moment in which Sizhui hesitates. Wei Wuxian can’t imagine what for.
“Dad,” Sizhui says again, deliberate, and Wei Wuxian’s attention automatically draws back around, like any object of inconsiderable size in the orbit of something larger. “I received something.”
“Oh?”
“In the post,” Sizhui says next.
“As opposed to the divine, prophetic, oneiric way?”
“Dad,” Sizhui says one last time, and means shut up and let me talk.
Wei Wuxian complies.
Sizhui hesitates, again, before reaching into his sleeve and pulling out a small wooden box. “I was wondering… Well, I was hoping. It’s not that it’s complicated, you understand.”
“Our A-Yuan is a smart one,” Wei Wuxian can’t refrain from saying, which Sizhui allows with a wry quirk of his lips as he removes the top of the box.
There is a silver bell in the box. There is no need to describe it, as there is only one kind of bell that would ever be so important.
Sizhui says, “Would you mind helping me tie it on?”
Would he.