Work Text:
The house in Yiling was usually quiet in the mornings. Wen Qing liked it that way. She was an early riser all her life, and a light sleeper too.
Completely opposite to Wuxian, but they worked out their routine, not unlike the one they had in the Burial Mounds. He set up his workshop away from the main house, so he could toil away happily deep into the night, and make all the noise he wanted, and she had her office in the main room, as her quiet work would not disturb anyone in the morning.
A-Ning in turn took over the garden and kept irregular hours that suited him, but she and Wuxian were in agreement that A-Ning would never disturb anyone, and if he somehow happened to, then that it would not be unwelcome.
Right now, the house was quiet in a different way. It was still early, a time when Wuxian was usually asleep, even on the days when Wangji visited, but the presence of Jiang Wanyin had thrown the entire house into- well, she wasn’t quite sure what. It wasn’t quite an upheaval, it was quiet and stilted, but with an underlying tension that seemed to soak into the walls, linger heavily in the air.
It might have been worse, if not for Sizhui, she mused. She carefully measured out the tincture she was working on before letting herself laugh, so as to not have her hands shake when she did.
It had been so strange to learn that Sizhui was their little A-Yuan. To reconcile the poised young Lan master with the child who had a propensity to, on occasion, eat handfuls of dirt.
But she could see that child in the young man too. Despite everything he went through, A-Yuan had been a happy, trusting child. Some days he had been what kept many of them going through their days in the Burial Mounds. It was not perhaps fair to the child back then, to carry their hopes like that, but most of them couldn’t help it. Even Wen Qing, who has spent years with A-Ning being her sole focus in much the same way, couldn’t stop herself from focusing her hopes in the survival of their clan, of her family, on the child.
Their hopes had been realised, she thought. Not in a way they would have wanted, but Sizhui was still the one to carry the Wen legacy. That was even less fair on him, on the man he was now, but that at least was a burden he was choosing consciously. He was as much of a Wen as he was a Lan, and he was making sure of that. Wen Qing rarely cried, but she might have bawled her eyes out when Sizhui brought in things his father and uncle gathered for him in secret, preserved for him.
Her whole clan’s legacy amounted to that, to the books and writings and heirlooms and the young man who was so careful with them, and so curious about them. They’ve spent days going through them, Wen Qing trying her best to rake her memory for every detail she could unearth.
He was like her sometimes, she thought with pride and worry. Desperately devoted to his family - all of his family. That has torn her apart once, and she would not let it happen to him. At least she knew she was not alone in that.
She saw the rest of her family in him too. He shared A-Ning’s sweetness, the trusting devotion they both offered too early and too fiercely. She could see Granny in him sometime, when he’d laugh and fuss over his friends. And sometimes his smile was a little like Uncle Four’s, when he thought of a joke. He was all of them.
He looked like his father the most, perhaps, the cousin Wen Qing barely met twice or thrice, but he also- he resembled the father who brought him up even more, and it went beyond the mannerisms, and he resembled Zewu-jun just as much, in same and similar ways. Wen Qing had no ways of checking that, but she suspected a connection somewhere there, perhaps through A-Yuan’s mother she had never met, or through Madam Lan of whom she knew even less. But that was idle speculation that did not truly matter, for Sizhui was Wangji’s son in all the ways that counted.
And Wuxian’s son. It surprised her and then again it did not. Back then, it felt like they all were raising A-Yuan, neither of them stepping into a strictly parental role. Wuxian spent a lot of time with the child, but she had not seen it as clearly as she did now, with Sizhui confirming it today.
There was a knock on the door, pulling her out of her thoughts. She smoothed down her robes, calling out for whoever it was to enter. She did not expect to see Jiang Wanyin, but perhaps she should have. “Madam Wen,” he said, with a deep bow. “If I could presume on your time.’
“Sect leader Jiang,” she offered, standing up to bow as well. He grimaced immediately, and she almost, almost laughed. “Why do you presume on formality, then, if you don’t want it returned?”
He didn’t answer, and instead stepped inside and closed the door. “Your brother,” he started and she tensed immediately, forcing herself to stand still when he continued, “told me you were the one to give me Wei Wuxian’s golden core. If I could presume on your time, I would like to ask you to tell me more about it.”
The way he said it, stilted, careful, repeating the same words he just said, she was pretty sure he’d rehearsed it before coming in. She hesitated for a moment before speaking. “Sect leader Jiang-”
“Please,” he said, and she wasn’t sure if he was asking about the core transfer or once again asking her to dismiss the formalities. It made her pause all the same.
“I should perhaps talk to Wuxian,” she said carefully.
“Why? He didn’t ask-” he started and then stopped abruptly, his jaw snapping shut. It looked almost painful. His fist clenched for a moment and then he visibly forced himself to relax, looking down and breathing out. “If you must,” he agreed.
That was probably what made her decide, that he left it up to her in that moment. “Please sit,” she offered. “What do you know?”
He looked up sharply, surprised, and then nodded, sitting down stiffly. She did as well, folding her sleeves. “That the woman on the mountain was you. That Wen Ning was there. And that you performed the transfer.”
She nodded. “And what is it that you wish to know?”
“Everything,” he said flatly, trying to keep his voice level even though she was pretty sure she could hear it shake. “From the beginning.”
The beginning was not on the mountain. The beginning was when Wuxian was looking and failing to find ways to reverse what Wen Zhuliu had done. She told him about that, about her own research, and the conclusions they arrived on. What Wei Wuxian found. The chances of success and their arguments about that. And then she told him about the transfer itself, the two days and a night spent on that mountain.
He didn’t speak much through it all, just asked for clarification on occasion, prompted her to continue when she paused to gather her thoughts. His hands were in his lap, fists clenched and knuckles white, nails no doubt leaving angry crescent marks against his palms.
She did not flinch away from the harsh details of it all. She was pretty sure he would not want her to do so, and would not thank her for any attempts to spare his feelings.
She had been surprised when A-Ning told her sect leader Jiang knew about the golden core transfer. She thought Wuxian would never tell him, and in this at least she was not mistaken - but she was somewhat surprised A-Ning would, after Wuxian implored both of them to never say anything of it, to anyone, least of all Jiang Wanyin. Wen Qing got the story out of A-Ning soon enough, and he had been somehow both remorseful and unapologetic about it.
It had seemed that he was right about the fact that sect leader Jiang, ultimately, needed to know. Wanted to know. She knew Wuxian would not be happy with her relaying the whole thing in minute detail, but she also knew he would be quick to forgive her.
He was always too quick to forgive.
It took her a better part of an hour to just talk through the research and preparations. What they found and what they dismissed, the painkillers she had prepared, the precautions she worked out. Everything she had to dismiss. The chances of it actually succeeding.
“Fifty percent?” Jiang Wanyin asked, his voice low. He has grown pale, his face a carefully set mask, as if he was afraid he’d crack completely if he allowed himself to let anything out. “And that idiot agreed?”
She gave him a look. “I think we both know Wuxian might actually consider that excellent odds,” she said dryly. She got a snort in return, an unhappy, broken one. She stood up, heading to the corner of the room she kept her tea set in. “Considering some other odds he’s faced, he is not exactly wrong either.”
She reached for one of the talismans Wuxian made for her, to heat the water up fast. The tea here was not for her usually, but rather for her patients, if the conversation was difficult, or if she thought they needed something to occupy themselves while they talked about what ailed them. Right now, she thought she needed some herself, because they were close to getting to the worst part of it.
“I understand why he might think the odds acceptable,” Jiang Wanyin told her, watching her hands as she poured the water first and then poured it out, warming the cups. She could have used the talismans for that too, but she found the motions soothing. “But you ought to know better.”
She would have bristled if it was accompanied by reproach in his tone, but instead, she could only hear resignation. And he said nothing she hadn’t said herself, to Wuxian too.
And yet.
“Between battlefields and night hunts, I am sure you have seen your fair share of wounded,” she said slowly, sitting back a little. “What do you know about prioritizing healing?”
He tilted his head, and she could see him push down on impatience, and turn her question in his mind. “Help those who can be helped?” he said finally, and reached towards the tea pot. “May I?” he asked and she nodded. He doled out the tea leaves and poured carefully while she spoke.
“Close enough. First help those where your help will make a difference. It is the most important thing for a healer to learn, and sometimes the hardest one. There will always be ones beyond your help. And while you try to save them, those who could have been helped might suffer for your inattention. And there are those that it would be easy to help, but whom you should leave alone until others are attended to, because they can be left alone.”
He studied her for a moment, then poured her cup. “So which one was I?”
“It is not a perfect clear-cut example like that. But it is the case of priorities all the same,” she told him. “Wuxian was right in that he could live without his core. You, I feared, would not.”
“Did you really think me that weak?”
“Weakness or strength had nothing to do with it. I did not think in those terms,” she said firmly. “But your cultivation, your place in your sect, that is integral to you. Integral, it seemed, to your survival. It was not integral to Wuxian’s, and he seemed to understand it even better than I did. Prioritizing care means deciding who needs what in the moment you have.”
“You should have told me,” he said and she took the proffered tea cup and sipped it in silence for a moment.
“You wouldn’t have accepted the help then.”
“Of course not,” he said, and this time he bristled under her gaze, and she suspected he was less sure of it than he wanted himself to be. It would have been a terrible choice, she thought, accepting or refusing Wuxians sacrifice.
If she were to guess, she thought he would have refused, in the end. But the choice might have broken him all the same.
“Then I stand by my choice,” she said firmly. “I have not- For better or worse, you have been brought into my care, sect leader Jiang. And I have done my best to ensure your survival, by means available to me. I will not apologise for that.”
He grimaced and shook his head. “I did not come here for an apology, Madam Wen. I wish I had known. I wish I had- known better,” he muttered. “If anything, it seems I’m in your debt.”
He looked burdened by the idea of it. She knew what guilt looked like, and she could see it plainly in the set of his mouth, the hunch of his shoulders.
She felt it like a phantom weight on her own back.
“You were brought into my care,” she repeated. “I am a healer, before I am anything else. You owe me nothing.”
He shifted in his seat, jaw clenched like he was going to argue, mouth downturned with displeasure. She waited, expecting him to counter her again, but it seemed that in the years she had not seen him he had learned to pick up his battles, because he settled back into his seat. “The woman on the mountain,” he prompted. “That was you.”
She nodded, waiting as he moved to refill her teacup and then downed it before clearing her throat to pick up the story. She told him of the herb mix she used to put him to sleep before she administered the stronger sedatives, ones that would keep him under for hours. And how she discovered that she could not use the same ones on Wuxian, because his core would become too subdued for her to monitor, that it would then be in danger of fading into nothingness before it could be safely extracted and moved.
She kept her voice level as she spoke, outlining her thoughts process and her decisions, going step by step over every detail of the procedure.
She thought it would be easier on them both to keep it matter-of-fact and clinical, but perhaps it was making it worse. It was hard to tell. When she got to the part of the core extraction itself, noting that Wen Ning had to hold Wuxian down for it, Jiang Wanyin stood up abruptly, turning around and moving to the window, looking out into the garden.
“Keep going, please,” he said, in a tone that sounded wrecked and she bit down on an ugly laugh that threatened to rise in her throat, because she had not said it, but it was almost word for word what Wuxian said when she hesitated, whenever she checked in on his pain.
She took a slow breath now and then obliged, and kept her gaze on the table and not on him. It was, perhaps, nothing more than a courtesy, because she didn’t have to look to know his shoulders were shaking almost imperceptibly, that his hand gripped the windowsill until his knuckles went white.
Neither of them moved for a while after she finished talking. It all still hung in the air between them, heavy and stifling. If she was a different kind of a person, Wen Qing supposed she would try to say something comforting. But her bedside manner had never been her strongest suit, and besides that, she did not think Jiang Wanyin was the kind of person who wanted it.
Perhaps he might need it, but she did not know what to say.
Instead, she moved to the cabinet shelf, taking out one of the jars of liquor. It was there for medicinal purposes and as an ingredient in some of her tinctures, but as it was on her list when Wangji went shopping, it was the absolute top-shelf stuff.
She poured a cup and put it on the table with a clink, and Jiang Wanyin turned to look at her. His gaze slid over the jar and the cup and his mouth curled up, more grimace than a smile. “Do I look that bad that you think I need it?”
Wen Qing took a moment before she answered, looking him over. He was pale, almost ashen, traces on his cheeks that she would not comment on. He looked tired even as he arrived yesterday; now he looked exhausted. “Yes,” she told him.
He laughed, sharp and startling himself, then sat down, downing the liquor in one go. A few moments passed before he shifted again, leaning back a little.
“I didn't mean to take up so much of your time.”
“I do not mind. I just have one patient scheduled today, and not for an hour yet.”
Jiang Wanyin nodded and stood up. “Thank you. I should go all the same,” he offered. She did not protest, she supposed he needed to be alone for a while. “Wei Wuxian will probably talk to you about this, but I have invited him and plan on inviting Sizhui to Lotus Pier for mid-autumn. I would be honoured to host you and your brother as well.”
“Would you?” she asked quietly and he startled, her words clearly not what he expected. What did he expect, she wondered. He was not as easy to see through as he once was. “I wouldn’t think you eager to invite Wens into Lotus Pier.”
“Sizhui is a Wen,” Jiang Wanyin pointed out. “And he had made it very clear that we are family.” There was the same wistfulness in him when he spoke of Sizhui as when he spoke about Wuxian, but softer, easier, unburdened.
If there was one thing Wen Qing always saw and understood in Jiang Wanyin, it was his devotion to his family. It was fiercer than hers, and it was laced with anger while hers was laced with despair, but she understood it all too well, and his was not less desperate than hers. It was both what they had in common, and what ultimately was the divide between them.
And right now, she supposed, they shared almost all of the family they had left.
“Sizhui would understand if we did not go. I do not like leaving the house much, and he knows that.”
There was a quick, searching look from him, but she did not elaborate. He did not ask either. “If it is true and you wish to stay, then I will not insist. But if it’s for my sake, then there is no need. I-” he stopped and looked down, shifting in place, like he was bracing himself for something. “I owe you-” he started and she shook her head sharply.
“No,” she said and then sighed. “I do not think you ever owed me anything, and in any case I would prefer to think the scores between us were settled.” She did not say that even if there was ever any debt on his side to begin with, and she did not think there was, Wuxian has paid it in full and then some. She thought neither him nor Wuxian would appreciate her saying that.
He stayed still for a long moment again, looking displeased, perhaps even disappointed. Like he was bracing himself for her anger or for her reproach, and was waiting for it.
“Very well,” he said finally. “My invitation stands, Madam Wen, I would very much like it if you and your brother joined Sizhui as my guests.” She was a little curious about the omission of Wuxian in the sentence, but perhaps she was reading too much into it. Slowly, she nodded.
“If sect leader Jiang insists,” she offered and actually smiled when he grimaced again. “Jiang Cheng,” she corrected.
He left with a polite bow and she turned back to her work, but found it a little harder to concentrate than she had before.
She was not really unsettled by the conversation, though the memories had not been exactly the most pleasant ones. She was not upset either. But it was a nagging feeling of neither an absence nor a presence, like a calm lake that has been disturbed and the circles still spread, but the thing that caused it had long sunk all the way to the bottom.
She gave up her work on tinctures about ten minutes in. Her mind wandered too much, to her conversation with Jiang Wanyin, to him and to Wuxian. As long as she had this on her mind so much- She reached for her notes on golden cores, which grew thicker in the past weeks as she oversaw Wuxian slowly work on developing the one he inherited from Mo Xuanyu.
She had probably been the only doctor in existence who had attempted and succeeded at a golden core transfer. There was a lot to learn from that, and she had the time to do it now.
Her other thoughts could wait.