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Lan Xichen cut down the resentful spirit in front of him. Shuoye stabbing through it cleanly, easily.
He stared blankly as it fell.
Without lowering his sword, he approached the place where it had dissipated around Shuoye, hand shaking ever so slightly.
A ghost. Something that had once been a living human. What must it be like to be such a thing? Did it remember? Or was anger, resentment, all it knew?
Presumably the ghost, whoever it had once been, had once cared about something other than the violence and mayhem it had been wreaking until Lan Xichen had ended its spree. How much did the ghost still feel like that former person? Did it remember its life as its own, or only just enough of an imprint to answer to Inquiry – imitate, but not understand?
“Xiongzhang?”
Lan Xichen hastily sheathed Shuoye, turning with a smile towards the sound of the voice as Wangji stepped into the clearing.
His brother blinked, gaze traveling from the singed grasses behind Lan Xichen up to the older Lan’s gentle expression.
“That was the last one?” Wangji asked.
Lan Xichen nodded, “Yes, I think so.” He winced internally at his own breathlessness.
“Any trouble?” Wangji’s expression only seemed to grow graver as Xichen worked to lighten his.
Xichen shook his head, “No trouble at all.”
Wangji’s eyes narrowed, looking at him skeptically before the two turned to walk back towards the main paths. Xichen knew he hadn’t come close to convincing his brother, but Wangji didn’t press him further.
Still…
--
“Wei-gongzi, could I trouble you for a moment?”
Wei Wuxian blinked up in surprise, having resigned himself, the moment Zewu-jun had come in, to losing his husband to him for the remainder of the afternoon.
“Sure!” He recovered quickly, looking questioningly back to Lan Zhan. The other man only offered the briefest of glances up to his brother and his husband before returning to whatever query he was responding to. A blank look, but one that clearly communicated to both other men in the library that Lan Wangji had neither expected this request from his brother, nor would he try to stop his husband from responding.
Curious but a bit nervous, Wei Wuxian followed Lan Xichen out of the room, tapping Chenqing mindlessly on his wrist, “So, uh, Zewu-jun, you wanted to speak to me?” Wei Wuxian’s voice was hesitant, but didn’t reveal how his stomach turned itself over. He and Zewu-jun had always been friendly – allies, even, on occasion, when it came to Lan Zhan – but they’d never been close. Never really been alone, just the two of them, on purpose unless there was some other emergency afoot. Wei Wuxian wondered if there might be something he missed… something to do with Lan Zhan… or some wrong he’d committed that the sect leader hadn’t been able to ignore…?
“Wei-gongzi,” Zewu-jun sighed deeply, closing his eyes before pressing on, “Would I be able to… to ask you some questions about resentful energy?”
Resentful energy? Whatever he had expected, it had not been this. Wei Wuxian blinked and looked back at the man. He was met with kind eyes, a soft smile. Lan Xichen looked just as he always had to Wei Wuxian. But this question… Wei Wuxian frowned.
“Zewu-jun,” he replied, crossing his arms, “I could tell you a lot about resentful energy, but you’ll forgive me if I ask what reason you have for asking?”
Lan Xichen blinked as though he had not realized until now how his question might come across to the man once hunted down then torn apart by such pursuits, “It’s purely academic, Wei-gongzi, don’t–“
“That’s what I said once,” Wei Wuxian said, cutting him off, “And I’m sure that many… others started with simple curiosity too.”
“I apologize. I am not phrasing my question correctly. That is not what I meant,” Zewu-jun shook his head, seeming faintly horrified, “I have no desire to expand my knowledge of the application of your expertise beyond the use of the spiritual lures and other tools you have created to compliment sword cultivation,” he explained, “I only… I only wondered…” Lan Xichen trailed off, not entirely sure how to put his request into words, “I wondered if you could tell me more about resentment itself?”
Wei Wuxian blinked. Zewu-jun’s brow folded inward, his expression pleading, desperate almost.
And suddenly it clicked.
Zewu-jun, as bound to his moral code as Wei Wuxian’s own husband was to his own. Whose ties to his code had left him, not with justice or redemption or with his beloved by his side, but alone, betrayed, confused. This was a man who had tried, to the very end, to do what was right, even if that meant questioning the path he had followed for the last two decades at least.
Wei Wuxian had never really understood Zewu-jun. Respected him, but didn’t understand him. Didn’t understand his prioritization of calm, of offering second, third, fourth chances at keeping his trust. His willingness to forgive, no matter the charges. Wei Wuxian himself had benefitted from those attitudes, as evidenced by the man’s tacit acceptance of the Yiling Patriarch as his brother-in-law, but a part of him couldn’t imagine doing the same if the roles were reversed.
So, Wei Wuxian realized, Zewu-jun wasn’t asking about demonic cultivation. Zewu-jun did not have the vengeful motivations that often drove people to such questions. As Wei Wuxian looked at those sad eyes, coupled with the smile that so rarely left his face, he knew. Zewu-jun was, truly, only asking to learn about resentment. He was trying to understand what drove people to such lengths. What made a spirit unable to move on even after their life had ended. He wanted to forgive – himself, his brothers – needing to know that the world was still one of moral greys. Needing to soothe himself with the notion that there still was no such thing as absolute good or absolute evil. That everyone, no matter what they had done, might have a reason, might be sympathized with. That it is actions, not people, that cannot be redeemed.
Because the only real absolute that Lan Xichen clung to was that there were none.
Wei Wuxian looked into the beseeching eyes and sighed. He attached Chenqing at his waist and reached out for the man, taking him by the shoulders. Gentle. Familial. For the first time, he felt for his brother-in-law something similar to how he felt for his own brother and sister all those years ago, during the quieter moments at Lotus Pier.
He spoke with a soft tone, hoping to channel something of his sister into his voice. Comforting, Without judgment.
“Do you want to talk about Chifeng-zun or Lianfeng-zun first?”