Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

i

"The birds have vanished down the sky.

Now the last cloud drains away.

We sit together, the mountain and me,

until only the mountain remains."

Zazen on Ching-t’ing Mountain, Li Bai. Translation by Sam Hamill

---

Wen Qing is standing at the window when Wei Wuxian steps out of the hospital room. He catches the door with a hand, softening its close. 

They haven’t had time to actually talk in a while. Wei Wuxian doesn’t know how much of that is due to how busy they’ve been these last few months, and how much has to do with them actively avoiding each other. Probably a bit of both. 

She doesn’t seem to have noticed him, or maybe she’s chosen not to acknowledge him yet. Her eyes are distant as she stares into Wen Ning’s room, chewing at her thumb. Wei Wuxian knows that it’s an anxious habit she's been trying to break, knows any other time he’d tease her for it. She’d roll her eyes and bat at him, maybe make a comment about his own habits, but be quietly grateful for the reminder. In the same way that she is quietly grateful for many things, and he is in turn. 

As it is, today he merely sidles up to her side, crossing his arms and staring back into the room. He sees what he has just left behind, Wen Ning laying in a hospital bed in a room that is too empty. 

He’s so pale. Wen Ning is usually a bit flushed, red from being cold or sick or shy. This Wen Ning blends into his surroundings, the only color in the room the stark darkness of his hair against the pillow and a splotch of yellow flowers in a vase that Granny Wen had brought during her last visit. They are much too cheery for the room but no one would dare remove them. 

“I have a shift at the restaurant soon,” he says, tone casual as if they’d already been talking. “Uncle Four is letting me use the car for the weekend. When do you get off work?”

“Late,” Wen Qing answers, her eyes sliding to him and then sliding away. “Not until eleven. I picked up another shift.”

That’s no surprise really. He and Wen Qing have always been uncomfortably similar at times. Her double shifts at the hospital are no different than his at the restaurant. They’re both trying to keep too busy to think. 

“Okay, I’ll come pick you up.” He checks his phone for the time, purposely ignoring the way Wen Qing’s eyes flick to him. 

For a moment it seems like she’s going to push back but then she just nods and agrees. 

“Fine. A-Yuan needs to be picked up at-” 

“At three,” he cuts her off, tugging his bag up his shoulder. “I know, I know. I already checked in with Granny to see if she’d come over to watch him while I do deliveries.” 

There’s a moment when Wen Qing looks surprised but it disappears quickly. She gives him a weak imitation of her usual disdain. “When did you get so responsible?” 

“You wound me, really.” He pouts exaggeratedly, putting a hand over his heart. “I’ve always been responsible!” 

“I’ll believe it when I see it.” She snorts, sounding more genuine, and flicks a stray hair out of her face. 

Wei Wuxian laughs in delighted surprise and for a moment, it’s easy. The rhythm of their conversation makes sense. But then Wen Qing is looking through the glass again, and she’s chewing on her thumb again. Her expression does something strange, flickering with something that’s hard for him to parse.

“To be fair, these last few months... they would have been a lot harder without your help.” 

“Well.” He shifts a bit, distracting himself by tugging at the fraying edge of his flannel. “I mean. I owe you, so.” 

Wen Qing sighs through her nose, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. “We both know that’s not true.”

He and Wen Qing, they don’t ever talk like this. Everything is suffused throughout teasing and arguing, so this feels... unnatural. Uncomfortable. But she’s right. They don’t keep track of their debts to each other. They haven’t for a long time. 

When Wei Wuxian doesn’t say anything, she turns to face him more directly. Her gaze flickers over his face, eyes narrowing. 

“Have you been sleeping?”

“Have you?” He counters, probably a little too fast and a little too defensive. 

It’s a moot point, though. She must see the light from under his door when she goes out to the living room in the middle of the night, if only because he sees the light under hers when he does the same. They pass by each other in the kitchen, both claiming to be getting water and both knowing the other is lying. 

“Are you going to be alright driving like this?” She continues, frown deepening.

Wei Wuxian snorts. “I’ve had to do a lot more than deliveries on a lot less sleep. I’m fine.” 

 She gives another sigh and some dormant part of Wei Wuxian’s brain whispers that Wen Qing’s sighs are almost as bad as Jiang Yanli’s, a thought which he quickly shoves back into the corner of his head where he keeps the things he’s not allowed to think about. 

He makes himself look at his phone again, just to not have to look at her, thumbing the cracked screen as he starts to back towards the end of the hallway. “Okay, I’m actually gonna be late if I don’t go now. See you at eleven?” 

“Mhmm,” she responds, too knowingly. “Drive safe.” 

Wei Wuxian acknowledges that with a wave of his arm and then pushes through the door into the lobby. 

It’s visiting hours, so the waiting room isn’t totally dead, but there aren’t many people around regardless. Everyone is so quiet in this part of the hospital, not because they have to be, but because they all have a mutual understanding. If you have someone to visit here, you want to be left alone. Wei Wuxian appreciates it now, letting his smile slip away now that Wen Qing is out of sight. He’ll have to perk up again by the time he gets to the restaurant, but he allows himself this moment of reprieve.

He’s thinking this and then, of course, he hears a shocked voice calling, “Wei Wuxian?”

There’s this horrible second as he tries to identify the voice, mentally running through who it could possibly be. None of the Wens should be around, Uncle Four is at the restaurant, Granny Wen at home and he literally just left the only other people he’s been in contact with for the past year back in that hallway. It could be literally anyone from any of the numerous families that he used to have to interact with through the Jiangs. 

(Or it could be a Jiang, which was worse because why are they at the hospital- ).

“Wei Wuxian, right?” The voice is closer now, and not immediately recognizable, so he turns cautiously, not really sure what expression he should be wearing. “Holy shit, it is you!” 

It takes him a long moment to recognize the person in front of him, possibly because he hadn’t expected to see Mo Xuanyu ever again. He was kicked out by his family years before Wei Wuxian was by...anyways.

Regardless, it’s been a very long time since he’s seen him, probably since high school at least. The Mo Xuanyu of his youth was very deep into a goth phase and had long hair that he used to cover his eyes, which he wore rimmed with thick eyeliner. (Not that Wei Wuxian could judge, his high school look was largely the same...). 

The young man in front of him still has long hair, but it’s tied up out of his face, and he’s not wearing a black band t-shirt but instead a set of blue scrubs. It looks like he’s getting off his shift because he has a light jacket on and a beat-up bag over his shoulder. His face is clean of makeup but it’s also brighter, somehow, than he remembers. Like Mo Xuanyu is happy now, livelier. 

All of this is to say, it takes a moment to place his face and then, another to even react. 

“Mo Xuanyu,” Wei Wuxian says mildly. “It’s been a while.” 

“It has!” The smile on his face is a little jarring, both in that it’s incongruous with the image of Mo Xuanyu he has in his head and it’s rare for Wei Wuxian to run into someone so happy to see him. “Probably since that benefit dinner in ‘11. What have you been up to?”

The silence that follows that question isn’t pointed so much as... sharp. It makes sense, on a rational level, that because Mo Xuanyu has been out of the loop he wouldn’t have heard about anything. But Wei Wuxian still doesn’t know where to start and just furrows his brow as he tries to come up with something to say that’s both impersonal and will put a quick end to this conversation. 

Mo Xuanyu, for how little they’ve interacted, still picks up on the tension. A knowing sort of look comes over his face and he tugs at the strap of his bag. “Ah. Tough to talk about, then?” 

With a pained smile, Wei Wuxian nods. “You could say that.” 

“Hey, I get it.” He tilts his head to the side and digs into a pocket, pulling out his phone. “Look, I know we didn’t really talk much in high school but if you’re ever free, we could grab a drink or something?” 

That makes Wei Wuxian blink in surprise. He gives Mo Xuanyu a quick once over and considers it. It’s been a really long time since he’s been on a date but...

“Ah, I’m really flattered, and ordinarily I’d say yes but, I have some stuff going on right now-” it’s probably his least graceful attempt turning someone down and Mo Xuanyu just throws his head back and laughs. 

“No no, it’s fine. I just want to catch up, that’s all.” Mo Xuanyu is a little red in the face. “But if you’re too busy right now...” 

Wei Wuxian relaxes a bit and laughs quietly. “No, that sounds nice. I’d love to catch up.” 

He’s given a warm smile and Mo Xuanyu passes over his phone. Wei Wuxian can’t help but notice that his nails are still painted black, just like they used to be and it makes something funny and nostalgic curl in him. Not so different from the old Mo Xuanyu, then. 

They exchange numbers quickly and then Mo Xuanyu adjusts the strap of his bag again and backs towards the door. 

“I gotta run but just let me know when you’re free! I have most weekends off.”

Wei Wuxian just sort of waves and nods, watching as he leaves and then staring down at the new number in his phone. He’s not really sure what his feelings about all this are yet, but so far they seem mostly positive. 

Someone clears their throat from behind him and he whips his head around to see Wen Qing has come to the door. Her eyebrows are raised and, from the look on her face, she’d been there for a while. Wei Wuxian gives a shrug and a helpless half-smile, and something about that makes her expression soften. It only lasts a moment before she sobers, tapping pointedly on her clunky watch.

“Don’t you have work?” 

“Shit, yeah.” He checks the time and gives her another wave. “Thanks, Wen Qing, I’ll be back to get you tonight!” 

He can hear her laughing at him as he heads out the door and can’t help his grin. It’s a nice sound to hear.

It’s only a week later when, during a blissfully free morning, Wei Wuxian sends Mo Xuanyu a text asking if rather than getting a drink they could go grab coffee that afternoon. A-Yuan is at daycare for the moment, and Granny Wen was going to pick him up and have him at her place for the weekend, so he’s free for the next few days. 

The response is almost immediate. 

Mo Xuanyu

u have great timing, im off work today :) 

He shares the address of a little coffee shop that’s actually nearby Wei Wuxian’s apartment. 

The coffee shop is in a quiet little corner of the city. It’s close enough that Wei Wuxian just ends up walking there, head ducked as he passes people in the street. He’d never been one to shrink away from other people, before. Lately, it’s been...hard. When Uncle Four or Granny Wen are around, it’s easier. It’s always been simpler to pretend things are fine when he’s around people he has to act for, people he’s worried about keeping happy. He tries for Wen Qing but he knows she doesn’t really buy it. 

The shop itself is fairly small. It’s quiet inside, the lighting all yellow and warm and the floors are a pale wood. Mo Xuanyu is already there when Wei Wuxian pushes through the door, his head pops up at the jingle of the bell. They wave at each other and Wei Wuxian goes up to the counter to order and then joins him. He’s dressed in a way that’s more familiar today, his hair is still up but here is the black band tee shirt and ripped jeans, a thick denim jacket tossed over the back of his chair. When he gets close, Wei Wuxian can see that he even has a bit of eyeliner smudged around his eyes. 

“Find it alright?” Mo Xuanyu asks and he nods in reply. This is a level of small talk he can definitely handle. 

They talk a little bit about the weather (getting warmer as winter comes to an end) while they wait for Wei Wuxian’s coffee. Once it arrives, there’s a lull in the conversation, both men not really meeting each other eyes. 

“Okay, to be completely honest,” Mo Xuanyu starts very suddenly, sounding shy. “When I first asked, I was sort of asking you on a date.” 

Wei Wuxian gives a little snort. “I thought so. Sorry that I turned you down in such a mortifying way.” 

“It’s really fine!” Mo Xuanyu is quick to assure him, smiling as well. “I probably should know better than trying to pick up someone at the hospital.” 

That makes Wei Wuxian actually laugh, loudly, which actually draws the attention of some of the other patrons. Mo Xuanyu is giggling along with him so he can’t really feel bad. Besides, he never used to care if his laughter bothered other people. 

When he calms down, Wei Wuxian fans lightly at his face. “At least I know now that you haven’t made a habit of it.” 

“Not at all!” He agrees and then turns a little red. “Uh, to be honest, I thought you were very cute in high school and kinda just...wanted to shoot my shot for my younger self’s sake?” 

“Oh wow,” Wei Wuxian is more than a little surprised, and genuinely flattered. “I really had no idea.” 

“Yeah, well. I just thought you had a really nice smile and never seemed to be worried about things. It was nice to see, considering I was so worried all the time.” Mo Xuanyu tucks a stray lock of hair behind his ear, staring down at his drink. “But I never said anything. And you were always pretty busy with your family anyway.”

“Ah,” he says faintly, looking away. He’s not sure how to proceed. 

Luckily Mo Xuanyu continues without him just fine. “I have another confession actually, uhm. You remember Mian Mian? I still talk to her sometimes and I asked about you the other day.” 

“.....ah,” Wei Wuxian repeats and when he looks up, Mo Xuanyu is watching him with a sort of intense expression. “I see.” 

‘Mian Mian’, though maybe he should call her Luo Qingyang now, had been there during the big scene at that Jin party. He doesn’t really want to think about what she’d have to say about him, having seen what happened then.

Maybe Mo Xuanyu picks up on that because he waves his hands quickly. “Don’t worry, she didn’t tell me much. Just that...you’re not living with the Jiangs anymore.” 

He can’t really help the face that he makes at that. As much as he had been up for catching up with Mo Xuanyu, he doesn’t know if he really wants to get into all this right now, with someone he doesn't even really know. 

“You don’t have to talk about it,” Mo Xuanyu assures. “I guess I just wanted to say...if anyone understands, it’s me.” 

Again, he’s left a little surprised. It’s not like he’d forgotten that Mo Xuanyu had been kicked out, but he’s never really thought of their situations being similar. In some ways, they aren’t. The Jins were horrible to Mo Xuanyu and basically ditched him and his mom as soon as he came out. All things considered, the Jiangs had always been good to Wei Wuxian. Maybe too good. 

But they’ve both lost family, that’s true. And they’re both removed from the insane world of the elite that they’d at least partially grown up in. 

“Shit was bad for those first few years, but living with my mom was really good. And actually, once I wasn’t technically a Jin anymore, a lot of scholarship opportunities opened up. That’s how I got into med school.” Mo Xuanyu explains, his face is almost achingly sincere. “And...well. I didn’t always want to be a nurse but I started school because of my mom. She wanted something good for me, you know?”

Trying to settle into this line of conversation, Wei Wuxian nods. “Yeah, I get it. How is she?” 

“Oh, uh.” Mo Xuanyu’s expression shutters a little. “She passed away last year, actually.”

Thrown off-balance, Wei Wuxian’s brow furrows. “Oh god. I’m sorry.” 

“It’s alright.” Mo Xuanyu shrugs. “Well, it’s alright that you asked, you didn’t know. It’s not actually alright, but it’s getting better.” 

Wei Wuxian nods. That’s something he understands. It never really gets a hundred percent better, it just gets less bad. 

He glances out the window for a moment, watching all the people pass by the coffee shop. People-watching makes him feel small, and a little inconsequential. He never feels less important than when watching people he’ll never know go about their lives. In some ways, it’s painful, in others it's comforting. How little his problems seem to matter, in the grand scheme of things. 

“I...I get that. I’ve been having something hard like that happening lately too.”

“I figured, I did run into you at a hospital,” Mo Xuanyu’s smile goes a little crooked. “And look, me telling you about my problems wasn’t to trick you into talking about yours.” 

“No no, it’s okay. It would be nice to have someone to talk to about it, I think. Everyone around me right now is too... involved I guess.” Wei Wuxian scratches his neck a little sheepishly. “If you don’t mind.” 

“Not at all!”

Wei Wuxian lets himself take a moment, sips at his coffee as he gathers his thoughts. “Basically...the people I’ve been staying with, they’ve been like my family for the past couple years. Do you remember Wen Qing and Wen Qionglin? From school?” 

“Oh shit, yeah,” Mo Xuanyu nods, looking surprised. “I hadn’t heard about them since all the shit went down with their uncle.” 

“Yeah, basically part of the reason I’m... I moved in with them after ‘all that shit’, basically.” Wei Wuxian explains. “They have another uncle, on the other side of the family, who runs a little restaurant. I’ve been working there full-time, mostly doing deliveries and waiting tables. And uh, they live near him and their grandma and their cousin. Technically he’s like a second cousin twice removed or something, but he’s so little, he might as well be their nephew. He’s just turned five.” 

A smile tugs on his face when he mentions A-Yuan. He’s been extra clingy lately, probably picking up on the way everyone has been feeling. He’s too smart for his own good most of the time, too attuned to the grown-ups in his life. 

“And you live with them too?” Mo Xuanyu prompts. 

“Yeah, I have been for three years, since A-Yuan was a baby. He’s... basically in everything but law, he’s my kid.” It has taken a lot of hounding from Wen Qing for him to be able to admit as much. “I take him to daycare and pick him up, I pay for most of his stuff, he sleeps in my bed most nights.” 

All of a sudden Wei Wuxian can’t stop talking about A-Yuan. He’s never had anyone to talk to about him that doesn’t know him, so it all comes out. He talks about his first steps, his favorite foods, the dinosaur phase he’s still in. How mischievous and smart and lively he’s become as he’s gotten older, how much trouble he gets into.

“Wow,” Mo Xuanyu says in a lull. “It’s kind of wild to think about you with a kid.” 

“I know, I had never really thought about if I even wanted one until I had one.” Wei Wuxian stares down at his hands. “And...and Wen Qing and Wen Ning have been really good to me. I was sure that they would want to be his legal guardians- technically their grandma is but she’s having a hard time keeping up with him lately. But we’ve been talking about it being me.”

“That’s great!” Mo Xuanyu nods, smiling. 

“Yeah,” he agrees, sort of absently. “We’ve kinda put all that on hold for a bit though because...because Wen Ning’s in the hospital.” 

He hears the sharp inhale of breath from across the table and plows on. 

“He’s always gotten sick easily, basically anytime the seasons change he gets a cold. I guess he had a lot of medical problems as a kid and they’ve mostly gotten better with age but... I don’t know really. He got his usual cold back in December and he just kept getting worse and worse. It got to the point where he couldn’t eat cause he was coughing so much.”

“Shit,” Mo Xuanyu mutters.  

“We brought him to the ER when it got really bad,” Wei Wuxian stares resolutely into his coffee. “They put him into a medically induced coma to try to get some fluids in him...he should have woken up within a week but...it’s been three months.” 

Mo Xuanyu sort of hisses, “oh my god.” 

For a moment, he almost laughs but he knows that Mo Xuanyu would think he’s insane. But it’s funny, he’s never had to explain this to anyone out loud before. Everyone he talks to these days already knows.

He closes his eyes, continuing. “We’re kind of running out of options. We can’t really afford to have him in the hospital like this and we’ve been draining all our savings trying to keep him there. I can’t get another job, I’ve been trying, but I’m either overqualified for it and they don’t want to give it to me, or I’m underqualified and they want to know why I never finished my Master's program. And Wen Qing...she’s taking on as many shifts as she can but she had wanted to go back to med school next year, become a doctor.” 

“God,” it’s quiet for a moment and then, slowly, Mo Xuanyu’s hand comes up to touch his. “I don’t really know what to say. I’m so sorry.” 

“I-” he cuts himself off. “You don’t have to say that. To me, that is.” 

Mo Xuanyu’s hand slides away, and he tilts his head to the side. “What do you mean?” 

“I mean, like, my feelings don’t really matter. Wen Qing is the one who is actually hurting right now. And like...A-Yuan doesn’t really understand where his uncle is and Granny Wen-” 

“Sure,” Mo Xuanyu interrupts. “But like you said, they’re like family, right? Why would that mean your feelings don’t matter?” 

Wei Wuxian stares at him for a moment. Distantly, he realizes, his hands are shaking. Why is that? He looks away. 

“I owe them a lot, the Wens. They gave me somewhere to be when things fell to shit. I guess... I just want to fix it.” 

“Hmm,” Mo Xuanyu hums, head still tilted. “Do they really think you owe them? Like, actually?” 

Wei Wuxian’s eyes narrow and he pulls his hands off the table back into his lap. “I don’t really know if that’s any of your business.” 

Instead of pushing, which is maybe what Wei Wuxian was expecting, Mo Xuanyu turns red. He waves his hands quickly, shaking his head. “You’re right, sorry, sorry. I’m being nosy.” 

Feeling himself relax a bit, Wei Wuxian almost smiles. Maybe he’s used to people putting up more of a fight. 

“Anyways. I’ve been trying to figure out what to do, you know? The best thing would be to have more money. But short of taking out a loan or something, I don't really know where I’m going to find any.” 

There’s quiet and then, “Have you tried asking-” 

“No.” It comes out sharper than Wei Wuxian means for it to, but he can’t really reign it in. “ And I’m not going to. Jiejie ...Jiang Yanli just had a baby of her own and Jiang Cheng has so much shit to deal with between taking over the business and-” 

He cuts himself off. He doesn’t need to air out the Jiangs’ dirty laundry to someone who is, in many ways, a stranger. Not to mention he just was shitty about being nosy. It’s more than a little embarrassing that he’s dumped this much on him at all.  

Again, quiet. For a while, all he can hear is the sound of the other patrons talking. He doesn’t know if he’s been loud during this conversation. Abruptly, he’s too tired to really care. 

“Okay.” Mo Xuanyu says, almost under his breath, like he’s trying to psyche himself up. “Okay. Uhm. I might have something for you.” 

Wei Wuxian raises an eyebrow. “If it’s a loan or something, I’m not really interested.” 

“No, nothing like that.” Mo Xuanyu fidgets in his chair. “You’re going to think I sound fucking crazy, and that’s okay. But I...I can’t just not offer, right?” 

“Right?” Wei Wuxian agrees but is still at a complete loss. 

“So. Uhm. Basically, there’s this... legend in my family about ways you can- uhm. Get things that you want.” 

Wei Wuxian feels himself tensing a bit. Ah. He should have expected something like that. Lots of the big families have their rituals and stuff around luck and success. Hell, everyone does. He’s not really superstitious, he’s always had to rely more on himself than any sort of old wive’s tale. But part of him wants to hear Mo Xuanyu out, especially because he’s acting really weird for something as innocuous as some sort of ritual. 

And anyways, the historian in him is curious. One of his areas of study had been superstition and ritual practice back in the days of cultivation. It should be interesting to see if he already knows about this particular ritual if nothing else.  

Mo Xuanyu bites his lip and looks down at the table before looking up abruptly. “Basically you have to make a deal with a mountain spirit.”

“A deal?” Wei Wuxian makes a face and tilts his head. “Is it like a prayer sort of deal or more of an offering?” 

“No, it’s...I say mountain spirit but it’s a.... a dragon. You have to make a deal with the dragon and live in his castle for a year.”  

Wei Wuxian almost, almost laughs. He would if Mo Xuanyu didn’t look so serious. As it is, he can’t help but smile. He knows it’s not a nice smile because Mo Xuanyu looks surprised, shrinking away from him. He startles when Wei Wuxian stands. 

“You’re a better actor than I would have expected,” his voice is low, almost thoughtful. “Congratulations, though. You really had me.” 

“Wait, no,” Mo Xuanyu is panicking, standing up as well. “I know it sounds crazy, but I can introduce you to someone who’s made a deal with him and things are going really well for her now-” 

“Was all that shit about high school and your mom and ‘being in the same boat’ a lie? Who am I kidding, you probably had this planned from the hospital. Wouldn’t be the first time someone wanted a closer look at the fuck-up, but I have to give your props for originality. ” Wei Wuxian says bitterly, shoving in his chair probably too hard. “I hope you had fun.” 

He can hear Mo Xuanyu calling him as he storms out of the cafe. He can feel the other patrons' eyes on him. 

He doesn’t look back. 

---

It’s not until he’s home that he lets himself get properly pissed off. He stomps into the apartment and chucks his phone at the couch as hard as he can. It’s been buzzing since he left the cafe. The only reason he doesn’t slam the door is that it might draw Granny Wen out of her apartment (which is conveniently three doors down...) and he doesn’t want to have to pretend to not be angry right now. 

Wen Qing doesn’t even look up from her book, flipping a page idly. “I’m guessing it didn’t go well?” 

“Just another shitty Jin subjecting me to their shittiness.” Wei Wuxian heads straight for the fridge. He doesn’t even have the energy to be surprised that she’s home at the same time as him for the first time in weeks. 

“Again?” She asks sort of absently, and he hears the rustle of paper as she puts her book in her lap. 

“You’d think they’d run out of Jins to be shitty but alas,” he mutters to himself, yanking the fridge door open. There’s a case of beer on the first shelf, right at eye level. He stares at it a long time and then makes himself grab a bottle of green tea instead. 

Later.

For now, he wanders back into the living room. Wen Qing is turned around on the couch, his cell phone buzzing in her hand. She holds it out to him, eyebrows raised.  

“I wasn’t sure at the hospital, but that was Mo Xuanyu, wasn’t it?”

Wei Wuxian huffs in response and grabs the phone, hitting decline after a brief look. Then, after a moment of deliberation, he turns it all the way off and drops it on the kitchen counter. 

“I’m taking a nap,” he announces, trudging down the hallway to his room. 

“I’m going to go visit A-Ning later,” Wen Qing calls after him. “You can come with, if you want.” 

Normally he would but at the moment, it’s the last thing he wants to do. He doesn’t need another reminder that he was being an idiot today, thinking that someone wanted to actually help him. Doesn’t need to feed the guilt that’s churning in him.

“No thanks. I’ll go see him tomorrow.” He closes the door behind him quickly and firmly, leaning against it for a moment. 

His room doesn't have much in it; he has his bed, a junky little dresser he got in an estate sale, and an equally junky desk that he hardly uses. It’s weird how that’s familiar now, compared to what his room looked like growing up. He used to have more stuff than he knew what to do with and now his possessions can be summed up in his clothes, his furniture, a couple of books. He spends most of his money buying A-Yuan stuff, these days. 

But this line of thinking is rarely productive. Comparing then and now is pointless so he shoves the thoughts away and throws himself face-first on the bed, smothering his face in the pillow and trying to decide if he wants to scream. 

Eventually, he decides against it and flips over to glower up at his ceiling. To be fair, he hadn’t expected much but he certainly hadn’t expected to be ridiculed. Serves him right for talking about his problems with someone he doesn’t even fucking know. 

There is absolutely no way he’ll be able to nap when he’s this keyed up, and he doesn’t want to skulk out to the kitchen to retrieve his phone, so he picks up a book from his desk instead. He’s pretty sure it’s one of the few required readings from his Master’s program that he never managed to resell, a chronology of textile work in the Ming Dynasty. It’s certainly not the most riveting book and wasn’t even really relevant to his thesis, but it’s something to pass the time while he ignores his phone. 

He actually gets sucked into it at some point, something about the droning quality of the academic writing eventually makes him start to space out. It’s unclear how long it’s been when there’s a knocking on the front door.

Rolling out of bed and padding down the hallway, Wei Wuxian glances at the clock in the kitchen to find it’s already almost midnight. Not that late for him to be awake, but late for someone to be knocking. He frowns, glancing back down the hallway. He’s not sure if Wen Qing came home, but if she did, she was either quiet or he was distracted enough not to hear her. But unless she stayed out late and left her keys somewhere, there's no way it’s her at the door.

Wei Wuxian answers it and his gaze immediately has to shift downwards. Granny Wen is wearing her pajamas and a night robe and is holding A-Yuan’s little hand in her soft, wrinkled one. A-Yuan is in his pajamas too, a set of airplane print ones, and he’s wearing his big winter coat and a frown. His cheeks are red and puffy like they get when he’s been crying and he tugs out of Granny Wen’s grip and barrels straight into Wei Wuxian’s leg. 

“He couldn’t sleep, he kept asking for you,” Granny Wen says apologetically. 

“Ah.” Wei Wuxian nods in understanding before lowering into a crouch. “A-Yuan, you’re supposed to be visiting your grandma tonight.” 

His voice is gently chastising but he pulls A-Yuan into a hug all the same. A-Yuan buries his face into Wei Wuxian’s shoulder, mumbling something into his t-shirt. 

Giving his arm a little tug, Wei Wuxian dips his head to catch A-Yuan’s eye. “What did you say?” 

“I missed you,” A-Yuan says balefully, sniffling a little. 

Any trace of anger left over from his disastrous coffee date melts away. He knows he’s smiling too wide as he reaches up to wipe under A-Yuan’s eye with a thumb. 

“Ah, what will I do with you?” He shakes his head, turning to look back up at Granny Wen. “I’ll take him tonight, Granny, if that’s okay.” 

“Of course,” she waves her hands, pulling her robe tighter around her. “You can just bring him over in the morning, or come get his things if he decides he wants to stay.” 

There’s something very soft in her expression, something that Wei Wuxian can’t make himself look at directly. He thinks he knows what she’s thinking. If he decides he wants to stay, then they’re both going to let him stay. 

He nods and rises to his feet, taking A-Yuan’s hand in his own. “Thank you, Granny. I’ll see you in the morning.” 

“See you in the morning, sleep well, and be good for your baba, A-Yuan.” 

Wei Wuxian feels a tingle go up his spine when she says that, and he has to consciously keep his grip from tightening. He gives her a silent nod and waits until she’s walked up the hall into her apartment before closing the door. 

It’s not hard to convince A-Yuan to settle down, the poor kid probably wore himself out crying. They both go through their nightly routine, Wei Wuxian puts on his pajamas and brushes his teeth because he wants to be a good example. A-Yuan demands to sleep in Wei Wuxian’s bed, which is pretty much how most nights go anyway. He hasn’t liked to sleep in the room that he shares with Wen Ning since he went to the hospital, he doesn’t seem to like to be alone at night. 

With A-Yuan curled up at his side, Wei Wuxian knows he isn't going to get any more reading done for the night. He turns off all the lights and settles down for sleep. 

---

It’s not until she’s shaking him awake that he remembers that Wen Qing isn’t home yet. 

He doesn’t know what time of night it is when he wakes back up. It’s completely dark outside, and A-Yuan has taken to starfishing in the middle of the mattress. He blinks into the darkness and looks up, almost flinching when he realizes someone is standing over him. A little bit of light streams in from the hallway and it’s enough to make out Wen Qing’s face. 

Her cheeks are wet, her face carefully blank. 

Wei Wuxian hurries to disentangle himself from the blankets and A-Yuan, getting up and quickly guiding Wen Qing out to the hallway with a gentle hand. He closes the door behind him and turns to her. 

“What happened?” 

She doesn’t respond, her voice raspy as she asks, “why haven’t you been picking up your phone?”

Wei Wuxian feels at his pockets but then remembers he left it out in the kitchen in an attempt to ignore Mo Xuanyu. “I turned it off. What happened? ” 

“A-Ning started seizing,” Wen Qing stares at a spot on the wall over his shoulder as Wei Wuxian jolts. “He’s stopped now, but they’re not even sure why it happened. Seizures usually only happen, if at all, within the first week of encephalitis. They’re less sure of their diagnosis now.” 

She’s doing that thing where she turns distant, clinical, as she talks about something painful. She could be talking about any random patient, not her little brother that’s been in the hospital for months. Her face is almost calm, despite its paleness, despite the tear tracks. What gives her away is the way her hands clench into her shirt, turned white from her grip. 

“Shit.” His mind is reeling. “Shit. Okay, what can I do?” 

“You can’t do anything.” Her gaze is still distant, her voice too direct. “They moved him into intensive care. He can’t have any visitors until he’s stabilized. They don’t know if he will stabilize. There’s nothing you can do.” 

“No I’ll...I’ll figure something out.” He paces out the living room, looking around for his jacket, his wallet still in the pocket. He knows he’s moving too fast but he can’t stop. “There’s a place up the road that’s hiring, I talked to them a few days ago. They want someone to work more hours than I have free right now but if I talk to Uncle Four and move my shifts around-” 

“Wei Wuxian,” Wen Qing says suddenly, sharply. 

He turns to her quickly, one foot in a shoe, one arm in his jacket. She’s standing at the place where the hallway becomes the living room. Her expression spasms when they make eye contact and she holds out a hand. Wei Wuxian stares at it a moment before pulling his jacket off and reaching out to take it. Her hand is cold in his, almost jarringly so. 

“It’s late, there’s no way they’re open. Just sit with me for a while,” her voice is very quiet now and Wei Wuxian lets himself be tugged to the couch. 

Wen Qing keeps her eyes closed for a long time, squeezing his hand almost too tightly. He can see in the painful quirk of her brow that she’s thinking, trying to decide what to say. Trying to decide how honest to be. 

“We...I’m so grateful, Wei Wuxian. For everything you’ve done.” She speaks so abruptly that it startles him. Or maybe it’s the words that make him flinch. “You’ve stood by us when literally no one else would.” 

“Wen Qing-” he starts, pleadingly. 

“No, no. Listen to me for a second.” She opens her eyes and glares at him. He shuts up quickly. “You’ve helped us in so many ways. No, you have. And...and I could never pay you back for it.” 

“You don’t have to,” he insists, waving his free hand. “You really don’t have to. No debts between us, right?” 

“Right,” Wen Qing agrees on a light sigh. “If only because you insist on helping us again and again and I could never hope to break even with you. But I’m not going to sit here and watch you run yourself into the ground trying to fix something you can’t fix.” 

He wants to protest but Wen Qing must sense it because she levels another glare at him. 

“You can’t fix it, okay? None of us can. We just have to trust his doctors and hope-” and her voice cracks for a moment, expression breaking, and Wei Wuxian has to look away. “And hope that he wakes up.” 

Wei Wuxian continues to not look at her, staring instead at the wall across from him. There are water stains there from the time the apartment above theirs flooded into his room. Wei Wuxian had to sleep in the living room for a month before it got fixed. Wen Ning had offered him his own bed every single night, even after he’d assured him that he was fine on the couch. 

Something solidifies in his mind. It feels a bit like resolve. 

“Wei Wuxian?” Wen Qing says, and he’s not sure how long he’s been silent.

He doesn’t know what to say, so he says nothing. They sit quietly for a while, Wen Qing starts leaning heavily into his side. He puts an arm around her and just sits with her, though his mind is still churning. Eventually, she starts to yawn and he pulls her off the couch, ushers her to her room, closing the door after exchanging soft ‘good nights’. 

In the living room, he takes up his phone and turns it back on. There are dozens of missed calls from Wen Qing and a few texts. He ignores that shame that claws down his back and scrolls past them to all the missed calls from Mo Xuanyu. Leaning against the counter, he clicks on the contact. There’s a text from a few hours ago. 

Mo Xuanyu

i kno u don’t believe me but like i was saying at the cafe, i can arrange for someone for u to talk to! but if u don’t want to, i understand and i’ll leave u alone forever. 

Wei Wuxian stares at it for a moment. A wish-granting dragon, huh? He taps his fingers on the counter. 

Me

I don’t care about meeting anyone. Just tell me what I need to do. 

It doesn’t take long to come up with a story. 

He’d already been job hunting for a while now, so when he gets recruited to be a research assistant on a big project up north, no one bats an eye. 

“It’s really convenient,” he tells Granny Wen and Uncle Four. “They don’t even care whether or not I have my Master’s degree, they just need more hands. Maybe it could be a step towards me going back to school.” 

Uncle Four assures him that he’ll find someone to cover his shifts and Granny Wen just smiles and nods, something strangely sad in her expression as she agrees to take up looking after A-Yuan more often. He tries to ignore it. 

Wen Qing is the last person he tells because he’d like to have his story as iron-clad as possible by the time he gets to her. He repeats everything he’s told the others by rote. 

“And they’re paying me pretty well, I’m gonna send a chunk of my paycheck home each month for you.” He finishes, smiling at her across the table at Uncle Four’s restaurant. He’d purposely chosen neutral ground. 

She stares at him from across the table, nails clacking against her cup of tea. The look that she levels at him is much too perceptive for his tastes. It seems like, for a moment, she’s trying to decide whether or not to call him out on his bullshit. 

It’s very surprising when she doesn’t. 

“I think some time away would be good for you,” she says instead, sipping serenely at her tea. “Will you need a ride?”

“I’m carpooling with another guy from the city who is heading up there,” he responds automatically, at a loss. 

“When do you leave?” 

“Next Monday.”

She nods and Wei Wuxian can’t help but feel like he’s miraculously dodged a bullet until she says, “You’ll have to be the one to tell A-Yuan.” 

That had been the plan anyway, though that doesn’t mean he’s dreading it any less. 

He ends up asking Granny Wen if he can take A-Yuan during the weekend again. She happily agrees, her gaze knowing and wistful. Again, he tries not to think too hard about it. 

It’s the best weekend he’s had since.....well, for a long time. He probably spends too much money, but it’s worth it to see the way A-Yuan lights up when they go to the zoo and he gets to see all the animals, or when he gets to pick out a huge stuffed rabbit from the gift shop, or when they go get lunch somewhere nice. Wei Wuxian lets himself forget about everything but him and A-Yuan for a little while. He carries him like he’s still a baby, to the point when A-Yuan starts complaining about it, but Wei Wuxian distracts him by blowing kisses into his pink, soft cheeks and spinning him in circles until he’s screaming with laughter. 

They stay up too late watching half of A-Yuan’s favorite animated movie until the little boy is drooping and then Wei Wuxian forces himself to get up early the next morning to make them breakfast. 

It’s over breakfast, early on that Sunday morning, that Wei Wuxian forces himself to tell A-Yuan about his ‘trip’. He’s been putting it off all weekend but he’s meant to leave tomorrow and he doesn’t have any more time to waste. 

“A-Yuan,” he calls, leaning over to brush some of his hair out of his face while he eats. “Wei-gege has something to tell you.” 

A-Yuan looks up from his plate, rice stuck around his mouth, “what is it?” 

With a little laugh, Wei Wuxian stands, going to the kitchen to receive a wet washcloth. “Ah, you’re so messy, let me clean you up first.” 

A-Yuan closes his eyes tightly and makes a face, but tilts his head up while Wei Wuxian cleans away bits of rice and sauce. He’s surprisingly tolerant, even when Wei Wuxian has probably been wiping at him for longer than really necessary. It’s ultimately just another indulgence he allows himself. 

“Wei-gege is going away for a little bit,” he says when he has put the washcloth aside and managed to gather up his courage again. 

“Away?” A-Yuan asks, head tilting. “Where to?” 

“Somewhere pretty far,” he hedges. “And I won’t be back for a while.” 

“How long?” 

“A year.” 

“Oh,” A-Yuan looks down at the table, his little face scrunching. “That’s a long time.” 

“It’ll be over before you know it,” Wei Wuxian promises. “You’ll blink at I’ll already be back.” 

A-Yuan looks highly dubious about this, frowning in a way that’s too serious for his sweet face. “As fast as a blink?” 

“Yup, that fast,” he puts a hand over his heart, nodding solemnly. “I promise.”

A-Yuan still looks unsure, but Wei Wuxian mentions finishing their movie from yesterday and that distracts him. It’s not until Granny Wen has come by to pick him up that A-Yuan turns around and gives him a tight hug. 

“I’ll miss you, Wei-gege,” he says very quietly and Wei Wuxian glances up in shock, making eye contact with Granny Wen. She gives him another sympathetic smile and backs into the hallway, giving them space. 

It takes him a moment to put his arms around A-Yuan again, hugging him back just as tightly. “I’ll miss you too, my A-Yuan.” 

It’s not until he’s saying it that he realizes how true it is. His eyes feel hot and he closes them tightly. 

When he manages to pull back, A-Yuan is looking at him very seriously, and says, “Be back in a blink, okay?” 

Wei Wuxian laughs a little wetly and nods. “I will.” 

“You promised, so you have to, okay?” 

“I know! I know,” he laughs again, giving A-Yuan’s cheek a little squeeze. “Ah, where did you learn to be so demanding, huh?” 

A-Yuan allows the pestering, though he squishes his face. Wei Wuxian pats his hair and straightens his little jacket, finding himself fidgeting. 

“Be good for Granny and jiejie. And be good at school, okay? Make lots of friends.” 

“I will,” A-Yuan puts his little hand over his heart, mirroring Wei Wuxian earlier. “I promise.” 

Wei Wuxian’s eyes are still stinging and he clears his throat quickly, rising to his feet. He gives A-Yuan one last pat and then ushers him out into the hallway, stealing a quick look at Granny Wen. She’s still looking at him with that sad smile and he can’t make himself smile back, for once. He watches until they disappear into their apartment down the road. 

After he closes the door, he feels something drip onto the collar of his shirt. Reaching to his face, he feels wetness on his cheeks. 

Ah . He realizes. I’m crying. 

Much later, when he’s curled up into his bed and drained from crying all afternoon, he realizes it’s the first time he’s let himself cry since Wen Ning got sick. 

As far as car rides go, it’s not the most uncomfortable one Wei Wuxian has been on, but it’s pretty high up there. 

Mo Xuanyu keeps glancing over at him from the driver's seat, fingers tapping a nervous rhythm on the steering wheel. He had explained, apologetically, that the radio in his dinky little car doesn’t work. That and the passenger seat doesn’t move, so Wei Wuxian has been sitting with his knees nearly to his chest the whole drive. He sincerely doubts the heating would work if he asked, but that’s not too big of a problem seeing as the weather has been warming these last few weeks, and it’s actually sunny out today. Maybe Wen Qing will take A-Yuan to the park for the first time since last fall. Maybe she’ll even convince Granny Wen to come with and get some fresh air.

He wonders if Uncle Four really will be able to find someone to take over his shifts at the restaurant. He wonders what A-Yuan will think of school when he starts in a couple of weeks. He wonders how long it will take for Wen Ning to wake up, once he’s gone through with all this. How angry Wen Qing will be with him if she ever figures it out. 

“What did you tell them?” Mo Xuanyu asks suddenly, and the question is so in line with Wei Wuxian’s thinking that he’s startled for a moment. But, realistically, what else do they have to talk about?

“I said I got a paid research assistant position for a study up north.” Wei Wuxian responds eventually, staring at the window as the city passes by. 

“That’s smart,” Mo Xuanyu’s voice is a little quiet. “It’ll explain the money too, when it comes.” 

“If it comes,” he corrects, maybe a touch too sharply. 

He turns to see Mo Xuanyu sigh and deflate, his brow furrowing. “I don’t know what else to say to convince you. It’s going to work, I’ve seen it happen before. And besides, why would I lie to you? People like us have to stick together.” 

People like us, Wei Wuxian thinks, propping his head upon his hand. Three years ago, he wouldn’t have thought he and Mo Xuanyu were alike, other than in their somewhat humble beginnings. But now, after everything, they have more in common than not. 

Perhaps the main difference is Mo Xuanyu is mostly happier now that his family has kicked him out and Wei Wuxian, in many ways, isn’t. But that is a thought that he’s not allowed to have if he wants to stay composed.

It’s quiet in the car for a beat until Mo Xuanyu asks, “Why would you even go if you didn’t think it was true?” 

Wei Wuxian continues to stare out the window, watching as the buildings start to get smaller, more spread out. It always surprises him how quickly the city melts away into the countryside, how little time it takes to leave the place he’s been in his whole life. Despite the fact that he hasn’t always lived in the same neighborhood, he can count on one hand the number of times he’s actually left the city proper. 

So then, why leave at all? It’s not like he hasn’t been asking himself the same thing countless times over the last week. 

He knows more than most people about the cultivation world. He’s read about their methods, learned their practices, read about the monsters they fought. There were monsters in the world once, though they all disappeared at some point. A wish-granting dragon living in the mountains isn’t even the weirdest thing he’s heard of, despite the fact that no one has encountered a spirit or creature for hundreds of years. At least, no one has been able to prove it, if they have. 

And, that being the case, why go through with this? Why believe in this random myth, above all others? 

The truth is, he doesn’t really believe. Not yet. But he doesn’t really have a choice.

“Because I’ve run out of other options.” That’s the sum of his thoughts and what he tells Mo Xuanyu now. “And I’m desperate.” 

If Mo Xuanyu has a response to that, he doesn’t make it known. Instead, the car falls into silence once again. He can’t find it in him to really mind. 

One moment Wei Wuxian is following the wires of telephone poles and then all of a sudden, he’s waking to a gentle hand on his shoulder. He blinks into wakefulness, glancing out the window to see that the light has changed. He doesn’t even really remember falling asleep. 

“We’re here,” Mo Xuanyu murmurs and leans back into his seat. “The road gets too narrow for cars up ahead, so I have to drop you off. Besides, you’re supposed to go the rest of the way by yourself.”

Through the front window, he can see that the little gravel road they’re on does indeed narrow abruptly, the dense trees curving over it like walls of a cave. The clock only reads two but it’s dark here, as dark as if it were the middle of the night. 

“Are you ready?” Mo Xuanyu asks, his voice tentative. “We can wait a second, if you want.” 

Something tells Wei Wuxian that if he waits any longer, he’ll lose his nerve completely, so he shakes his head. “No, I’m ready.”

It takes some maneuvering to get out of the car, and even more to tug his duffel bag out of the backseat. Mo Xuanyu had told him he wouldn’t need to bring much, but it was more for the Wens' benefit than anything. It wouldn’t make sense if he left for his “internship” without any clothes. 

Mo Xuanyu leans across the center dash and cranks the window open, looking up at him. 

“You just keep following the road for a few miles, until you reach the shrine. Trust me, you won’t be able to miss it. You’ve got the extra incense, right?” 

Wei Wuxian nods, feeling his resolve set back in. You can’t fix it, Wen Qing had said.

Well. ‘Attempt the impossible’ was the motto the Jiangs always recited while he growing up. Just because he's stopped being a Jiang doesn't mean he doesn't still believe in it.

“Good luck, Wei Wuxian,” Mo Xuanyu says, leaning back into his car. “Don’t be afraid to call me in a year, yeah? We’ll get coffee again.” 

“Sure,” Wei Wuxian agrees easily, tugging his duffel bag more securely over his shoulder. 

Mo Xuanyu reaches to close the window but Wei Wuxian raises a hand to stop him. “If you end up being right...I’m going to owe you a lot more than a coffee.” 

“Nah,” he smiles, shaking his head. “You don’t owe me anything. Like I said, we have to look out for each other.” 

He rolls up the window and, when Wei Wuxian steps back, starts reversing down the road. He waits until he can see the trees get wide enough for Mo Xuanyu to turn around, and watches until his bumper is out of sight. 

He glances down the road, a gust of wind makes the trees tremble. He can’t see where it ends. 

He starts walking.

---

It’s definitely not just in his head that the trees are getting closer together as he walks. Wei Wuxian starts feeling a little claustrophobic at one point, like the branches are going to start pressing down at him, pushing against him until he can’t move. Like they’ll grab him and hold him here forever, and he’ll just be some idiot who let a near-stranger drop him off in the middle of the woods to die.

It never happens. Wei Wuxian walks for several hours, and the branches get so close that they scratch his arms with every step. But then they grow sparser, the path opening back up. Ahead, the way lightens all at once and he’s stepping out of the forest onto a green patch of grass. 

The sun hasn’t even set, which is surprising after walking in the dark for so long. It’s dipping into the horizon and he’s on the top of a hill, standing over a valley of even more forest. The valley curves up in front of him into a mountain, a looming purple silhouette against the orange and pinks of the sky. 

Mo Xuanyu had been right when he said the shrine was fairly obvious. It’s to the right of the path back into the woods, embedded in the tree line. It’s very small, no bigger than a phone booth. As he approaches it, it’s clear that it hasn’t been well maintained. There’s a lot of ash on the small altar and a little vase of rotten flowers. There doesn’t seem to be any incense around he can use, nor are there any offerings out. 

Wei Wuxian frowns and looks around. He’s already been out for a few hours, what’s a few more minutes to freshen up the shrine? Maybe it will be appreciated.

On the hill there are a few patches of wildflowers. He drops his duffel next to the shrine and walks down the hill to the nearest patch, grabbing some of the prettier-looking ones. Once he has a good handful, he comes back up to the shrine, carefully removes the dead flowers, and replaces them. 

He crouches to unzip his duffel and grab the incense he brought with, a clementine and a little lighter. It’s not the most elegant offering, but it will have to do. He lights his incense and kneels. 

There isn’t a godly statue at the shrine. Instead, there’s a long white ribbon set on the altar. It looks surprisingly clean and is folded carefully to display the intricate cloud patterns at its center. A strange thought comes unbidden that someone, somewhere, is missing this ribbon. That he needs to give it back. He brushes that thought aside and places his incense.

Gathering his thoughts, Wei Wuxian waits a long moment before speaking. “Hello. My name is...Wei Ying.”

Something feels right about using his given name here. It feels more honest, somehow. 

“I was told to come here by a friend... well, sort of a friend. We knew each other in high school and then he got kicked out by his family and- and you probably don’t care. Anyway, he told me that I could make a deal with you. I normally wouldn’t do something like this but... I’m out of options.” 

He takes a deep breath, stares at the ribbon as hard as he can as if by willing it, his words will reach the shrine’s deity. He feels half like all of this is crazy and he’s just talking to himself in the middle of the woods, and half like he’s already ruined his chances by being an idiot and not getting to the point. But he’s come way too far to give up now. He takes another breath. 

“If it’s okay with you, I have two wishes. The first is to wake up my friend, Wen Qionglin,” Wei Wuxian can’t make himself look directly at the ribbon anymore and instead, stares at the incense burning in its holder. “He’s in a coma. He’s always gotten sick easily, it was worse when he was a kid, but it’s never been like this. The doctors don’t even know what’s wrong. He just got a bad cold, fell asleep, and never woke up. It’s been three months now.”

He closes his eyes now, thinks about Wen Ning in his hospital bed. Wen Qing haunting his room, cleaning his face with a warm washcloth. Sitting with him on his time off, holding his hand and telling him about A-Yuan’s day, how things are going at the restaurant. Having to watch Wen Qing get more tired and withdrawn as the months go on. 

“He has a jiejie who needs him and a little cousin who misses him. And...and me. I need him and miss him too.” 

He can tell the sun is beginning to set behind him from the way the light is dimming, the sky turning an inky blue. 

“My other wish is for them. His little cousin...A-Yuan, he’s starting school soon. He’s never had very much. I want him to not have to struggle anymore, to be able to ask for toys and get them, to have clothes that fit him as he grows. And Wen Ning- Wen Qionglin’s jie, Wen Qing...she deserves to not have to worry and work so hard all the time. For them, I ask for some money. Not a lot, just a little bit each month to help them get by.” 

He thinks of A-Yuan now, imagines a world where he can have everything he wants. Where there are no worries, no questions if he’ll get to go to college. In his mind, he holds the picture of A-Yuan’s round, smiling face close. He pictures Wen Qing without bags under her eyes, pictures her going back to med school and becoming the doctor she’s meant to be. Imagines his friends if not happy, then content. 

“I know I am asking for a lot, but I know the price. I’m prepared to pay it. I hope you will consider my offer.” 

The smoking end of his incense is barely enough to cast light over the shrine now. It drops ash in front of him and Wei Wuxian sits, holding his breath for a few long seconds.

Nothing happens. 

As his shoulders drop, he almost laughs. He doesn’t know what he was expecting. It was always going to end up like this. Him, in the middle of fucking nowhere, talking to himself at a shrine, with no way of getting home and no closer to fixing things than he was before. He doesn’t have a backup plan, he doesn’t know what he’s going to say to the Wens. Fuck. 

Then all at once, the wind starts to pick up behind him. Without the sun, the little bit of warmth from the day has been leached away and he shivers. He turns to face the wind, hair blowing out of his face as he stares across at the mountain, which seems to loom even more in the darkness. The individual trees are hard to make out now, the wind making them ripple like waves in the ocean. 

It’s because everything is so dark that he can see the slash of white. At first, he thinks it might be a bird flying in the air somewhere between him and the mountain. The trees sway behind it and he realizes it’s further away than he thought, following the curve of the mountain into the valley. It almost looks a bit like a ribbon, the way it twists and curls in on itself. But it appears too heavy, its movement is too direct. 

Wei Wuxian slowly rises to his feet and watches the shape grow larger. The wind is intense now, pushing him back, and he’s drowning in the sound of the trees, all shaking and smacking against each other. 

As it gets closer, it starts to come into a clearer focus. It glides over the trees, appearing leisurely in its approach, and then, too suddenly, it’s upon him. It twists over his head, coiling over itself, and then lands before him, its claws sinking into the dirt.

The dragon lowers his neck and stares at him with huge, yellow eyes. 

His head is bigger than Wei Wuxian’s torso, and he can’t get a read on his height while the dragon bends for a closer look. Two long whiskers float off his snout, and he has a ruff of fine white hair, longer than the rest of its fur, that seems weightless. There are ridges on his forehead that twist into two giant, curving antlers. His scales seem to glow from the inside, light shimmering along their sharp edges.

The dragon has to turn his head to the side to see him clearly, and when he opens his mouth, Wei Wuxian can feel his heavy, hot breath. His teeth are the length of Wei Wuixan’s hand. He could probably snap him in half with one bite. 

He’s very beautiful and absolutely terrifying. 

“Wei Ying,” the dragon’s voice is almost jarringly quiet. 

Wei Wuxian would have thought that the dragon’s voice would rattle the trees, shake the earth with its force. Instead, his voice is small and a little raspy. He speaks slowly, as if it is difficult to speak at all. 

“I accept....your offer,” he says painfully. “You know....the price? No leaving...until this season comes again...do you understand?” 

Wei Wuxian doesn’t feel fully in his body as he nods. “Yes.” 

The dragon rumbles low in his throat and Wei Wuxian’s hair stands on end. What sounds like a growl turns out to be a hum of approval because he dips his head further to the ground. 

“Grab....your things. Climb...on.” 

Wei Wuxian staggers, doubling back to the shrine to grab his duffel bag. When he turns back, the dragon is almost lying down, his strange yellow eye following his movements. 

He approaches again cautiously, staring at the dragon’s back and trying to figure out how to get on. Before he can move, the dragon opens his mouth again. 

“Do you have...warmer clothes? It will be cold.” 

“Oh,” Wei Wuxian says in surprise and then tugs open his duffel bag. “Yes, actually. I brought a coat.” 

The dragon makes his petrifying humming sound again and waits very patiently for Wei Wuxian to tug his coat on. It’s a ratty thing that he’s had for a couple of winters now, but it will do. He zips it up tightly and then makes himself move with surety, reaching up to grab one of the dragon’s horns and using it to leverage himself up. 

The dragon leans with him, helping him onto the spot above his shoulders, right in his ruff. The fur that had looked so fine from a distance is surprisingly thick. It’s still very soft, but easy to hold onto and dense. Once he’s all the way up, he feels a lot more stable than he was expecting. 

Then the dragon rises off his haunches and he jolts, reaching forward to grab onto the antlers with a white-knuckled grip. The dragon doesn’t react to this, just continues to rise to his full height and stretch out. His ears are long and furry, almost rabbit-like, and they twitch as Wei Wuxian yelps. 

“Hold on...tightly,” he can feel the dragon’s voice rumbling in his throat, underneath him. “Long journey ahead.” 

Wei Wuxian nods and then realizes the dragon can’t see him and says, “Okay.” 

The wind picks up again, swirling around them like it’s inviting them up into the sky. He can feel the way the muscles in the dragon’s shoulders tense once, bending slightly and then pushing off. 

And then they’re flying, gliding through the air back towards the mountain.

---

At the shrine.

The ribbon, cloud-laden, taut.

The string of a bow pulled back.

Stretched across the years, away from-

Penance.

--a pink face, wondering, afraid.

There are rules. 

This is the way it must be.

To the mountain. 

Until only the mountain remains.

Wei Ying.

The flowers are fresh.

Chapter Text

ii

"I am familiar with the full range of fear. I know what it's like to start singing and to set off slowly through the narrow mountain pass that leads back to the stranger in me, to my own emigrant... And in the morning, when you are afraid of finding yourself dead (of there being no more images); the silence of compression, the silence of existence itself. This is how the years fly by."

-Primitive Eyes, Alejandra Pizarnik

---

Wei Wuxian doesn’t expect to be able to sleep for fear of falling off the dragon’s back. But as they fly up the mountain, and then up, up past it, into the cloudline, he realizes he’s in for a longer trip than anticipated. He takes a moment to stare out over the clouds, curling like seafoam under them. The dragon seems perfectly capable of flying higher, but for whatever reason, he chooses not to. His feet will sometimes drag through the clouds, long ribbons cut by his claws. 

Unbidden, the thought comes that the dragon is simply doing it for his own enjoyment. Wei Wuxian isn’t sure why he thinks that. 

Despite being completely wired by everything that’s happened, Wei Wuxian feels himself start to droop. It’s cold up here and he braves it for a while, before giving in and pressing his face into the warm fur of the dragon’s ruff. It’s thick and long enough that it almost covers him completely. He’s reminded suddenly of burrowing down into a sleeping bag while camping, trying to fight off the morning chill. His breath warms the fur around his face and eventually, his ears don’t feel so numb and his eyes slide close. 

Before he knows it, he’s jolting awake from the pressure popping in his ears as they start to descend. He really has no idea how long he’s been asleep, or even where they are now, but he hadn’t hoped to keep track of that anyway. He wasn’t planning to try to leave early and break their deal. 

It’s still dark as they come down through the clouds, probably the middle of the night. He can’t really make out where they’re heading, except to see a solitary mountain peak jutting out beneath them. As they get closer, it’s clear that the peak is relatively large, and soon Wei Wuxian can start to see little specks of light. 

All too quickly the dragon dives down, and Wei Wuxian grips the antlers tight once more and ducks his head. The wind rushes past him and then abruptly comes to a stop as the dragon finally lands. 

Wei Wuxian lifts his head as the dragon lowers his, and blinks at the scene around him. They’ve landed in the middle of a courtyard of a compound. There are what appears to be pathways leading out to more buildings and other places that he can’t see in the darkness. The lights he had seen are lanterns marking doors and gateways, and they shine with a strange, flickering white light.

The dragon suddenly tips to the side and Wei Wuxian finds himself sliding. He’s quick to tug his far leg over and off and then finds his footing. The ground beneath him is made up of little white stones that shift slightly as he lands, and when he goes to step, he finds that his legs are unsteady. 

Maybe the dragon had expected this because his head is suddenly beside him. Wei Wuxian steadies himself against it, and stares down at his big eye in surprise, straightening quickly.

“This way,” the dragon says and then heads towards one of the paths branching off the courtyard.

It’s a bit strange to watch the dragon walk, his big, clawed feet shifting rocks underneath them. His body looks too long for his legs to hold him up, but they do, and he almost seems to glide. The white light of the lanterns against his scales makes them look like shards of mother-of-pearl, their strange, internal light amplified. The dragon turns his head, almost bending in half to glance back at him. 

Wei Wuxian realizes he’s waiting and hurries to follow. 

It’s quiet as they walk. Around the buildings, there’s a bit of forest and from it Wei Wuxian can hear rustling leaves and the call of a single, solitary owl. The dragon doesn’t turn to check on him again, but leads him down a winding path behind the main courtyard, into a more wooded area. It opens suddenly after another gateway into a small clearing, a modest building placed at the edge of it. There’s a placard over the door reading ‘ Jingshi ’. 

The dragon walks partway up the steps and then stands at the front door, looking back at him expectantly. After a moment of hesitation, he hurries forward and slides the door open, stepping inside. 

The floor of the main room is made of dark, shiny wood with a single rug towards the back of it. There’s a desk there, and a window behind it facing out into the trees. There are rooms branching off to either side of the main space, both with large mats covering the floor. To the right, there is a daybed with clean, white blankets carefully folded on it. To the left, a small table with a tray in the center filled what looks like several small pots. 

Wei Wuxian hovers in the main room, staring around him when there’s a slight bump in the middle of his back. He turns quickly to see the dragon drawing his head away, lingering just outside the doorway.

“I have business elsewhere,” the dragon says in his quiet, dry voice. “Eat....rest.” 

Wei Wuxian glances over at the table where the tray is laid out and realizes he can see steam rising from the covered pots. He is reminded of the fact that he hasn’t eaten since this morning (yesterday morning?) and is immediately ravenous. 

There’s a sound from outside, the shifting of rocks under a huge weight. He just manages to catch the dragon twisting up off the ground, the wind rising with him, and then watch him take off over the trees into the sky. 

Approaching the door again, Wei Wuxian leans to try to get a better look at the buildings back in the main courtyard, but it’s too dark to see clearly. His stomach clenches and he rests a hand on it, glancing back at the table. 

“Alright, food first, then worry about everything else,” he mutters, sliding the door to the house shut.

There are two cushions on either side of the table and Wei Wuxian drops down onto the nearest one. It feels wrong to wear his ratty tennis shoes inside, not to mention in such a nice house, so he tugs them off and sets them down off of the mat. He drops his duffel bag nearby, glancing behind him to see a wardrobe. Maybe, if this is meant to be his home for the next year, he could unpack his things into it? 

For now, he’s more concerned with eating. The pots are all white and jade-colored, and when he lifts the lid, a mild smell drifts off them. There’s a pot of soup with a light, almost clear broth. There’s also a little tray of salted vegetables, a bowl of rice, and a teapot of green tea. 

Wei Wuxian tucks in and is amazed by the fact that the food is fresh and warm. He hadn’t seen any gardens while walking by, nor does he think there’s anyone here to cook.  All at once, he’s too tired and too hungry to care about the logistics. The food isn’t really to his taste, a little too mild and light with absolutely no meat, but he eats it all hurriedly and refills his bowl twice. He drinks down three cups of tea before he feels quenched. 

It’s still dark out when he finally feels full and he yawns and stretches, glancing back over towards the bed. He can’t pin down why, but he doesn’t want to go sleep in it. It feels...strange. Wrong somehow, like it isn’t his to sleep in. 

Instead, he grabs the cushion from the other side of the table and tucks it under his head, curling up on his side on the floor. He tugs his arms out from his jacket and pulls it over himself like a blanket. As soon as he’s laying down, all the lamps in the room start to dim. Wei Wuxian blinks, lifting his head to watch as the white light fades to nothing and then he’s in complete darkness. 

He should probably be scared, alone in a strange house with a dragon who-knows-where. But he’s full and warm, and the ground is surprisingly comfortable, and very quickly he finds himself drifting off to sleep. 

---

Wei Wuxian wakes up once in the night to the sound of the door sliding open. He’s half asleep but distantly aware of light footsteps on the wood floor. Someone moves towards him, and then away, across the room. They return and a large blanket is draped over him, tugged firmly into place.

He stirs slightly as he hears whoever it is pick up the tray from the table. They pause and then murmur, “go back to sleep, Wei Ying.” 

And he does. 

He wakes up again to bird calls and sunlight coming in through the windows. 

As he rises, a heavy duvet falls off his shoulders and he stares down at it in surprise. It appears to have come from the bed, though he doesn’t remember grabbing it for himself. On the table in front of him, all of last night’s dishes have been replaced by a single, covered bowl and a fresh pot of tea. 

Maybe because he’s less exhausted (and terrified) now, Wei Wuxian allows himself to study the room he’s in. 

Most of the walls are made with thin screens that let a decent amount of light filter through. There are lots of the lanterns in here as well, and the feeling of this little house in the morning light is much homier compared to how it felt in the darkness the night before. It’s all dark, oiled wood juxtaposed with gauzy white curtains and pale blue ceramics. 

He opens the bowl to reveal some steaming congee. Propping himself on the table with his elbow, he begins eating slowly. He’s much less hungry than last night and now truly notices that, while well cooked and warm, the food is a bit...bland. The tea is very light as well, almost transparent with just a hint of floral flavoring. 

It’s unfair for him to be picky, he thinks. Maybe this is part of the deal. So he eats the bland congee and sips at the tea until he’s full again, and then leans back in his seat. 

The doors are still closed and for a harrowing second, Wei Wuxian thinks that maybe he’s not meant to leave and is supposed to stay in the Jingshi for the entire year. Before that thought can fully settle, though, he reasons that the dragon never said as much, while making the rest of the rules of his stay fairly clear. Until this season comes again, no leaving. There was nothing about not being able to explore his prison. If the dragon gets mad well...he’ll figure it out later. He’s always been fairly good at talking his way out of things. 

Abruptly, he imagines trying to argue with the dragon like he would with anyone back home, trying to charm and cajole him as he stares back with his giant eyes and unreadable face. He doesn’t know whether to laugh or shiver at the thought. The reminder that he’s not going to see “anyone from back home” for a year makes something curl in his stomach that he tries to ignore.

Glancing down at his shirt, he gives it a light sniff and finds it smells a bit like the dragon’s fur had. It’s not an easy scent to pin down, it’s somewhat musty and earthy, a bit like the smell of the forest floor. And it’s not an unpleasant smell, per se, but it’s completely foreign and Wei Wuxian looks around for his duffel bag.  

It‘s still where he left it last night, near the wardrobe. He pushes himself to his feet, leaving the duvet on the ground behind him and shuffling over to his bag. There really isn’t much in it, if any of the Wens had been around when he was packing they probably would have been confused by how little he brought for a whole year away. But he didn't know how far he was going to have to travel, or how he would get to wherever it is he is now. 

It occurs to him that he’s going to have to figure out some sort of laundry situation, and makes a mental note to keep an eye out for....detergent? Or maybe just soap? For now, he just folds his clothes and leaves them in a pile by his bag. 

As it is, he doesn’t even know how showering is going to work. He sees a basket near the table that, after he’s changed into something that doesn’t smell like dragon, he opens to find it filled with warm water. There’s a little ladle too that he ends up using to transfer water to his hands to scrub at his face. With a small hand towel, he dries off, feeling a little more grounded despite everything. 

Before he leaves, Wei Wuxian resolves to do a little bit more exploring of his rooms. He doesn’t discover much, the room is empty of any sort of identifying possessions, other than a beautiful, brown guqin on the desk that he can’t make himself touch. There are some shelves near the dining area with rolls of bamboo scrolls, there’s the desk in the main room that has a stand, presumably for books or sheet music. And there’s the bed, that still feels too distant and strange for him to approach. 

With the intent of making a simple map of the estate, he retrieves a bit of parchment from the main desk and stares at the brush and intricately carved inkstones before grabbing a piece of charcoal instead. It’s very hard charcoal, almost to the point of being like a modern-day pencil, and it reminds him of the art classes he snuck into his undergraduate degree. It makes him feel warm and nostalgic until he remembers that, presumably, he could start drawing again. There really isn’t anything else to occupy his time...

At this point, he forces himself to approach the door out. His shoes are still sitting nearby and he grabs them by the laces, using one hand to slide open the door. 

Wei Wuxian half expects the dragon to be right there, waiting for him in the courtyard. He pictures the dragon lunging at him, punish him for trying to leave the Jingshi by scaring him back inside. But it’s just an empty courtyard, surrounded by trees and bushes, the quiet sounds of the forest passing through it. 

Taking a deep breath, he tugs on his shoes and steps out.

---

For his first few days on the mountain, he doesn’t cover much ground. With his map in hand, he starts plotting out the closest buildings. For whatever reason, his rooms are removed from the main part of the estate, and there are even more buildings further up, with those same white stone paths leading the way there. 

He’s not too worried about exploring the whole estate right away. He has plenty of time to figure out the layout. 

The two places he’s most concerned with finding are the kitchen and some sort of washing room. He’s unsurprised when every building he enters looks similar to his own and all styled in the traditional way. Well, not styled. The more he looks around, the more he’s convinced that this place has just existed like this, a sliver out of time, for what could be hundreds of years. 

He finds what he’s looking for fairly quickly. There’s a kitchen to the west of the main courtyard, with big stone ovens and a surprising amount of fresh food. There isn’t much variety to the food stored there, lots of vegetables, but he stops to have lunch that first day after figuring out the stove and travels back there for every meal but breakfast. 

The most exciting discovery of these early days is a bathroom that looks fairly modern. There’s a pipe system that funnels clean, hot water out of a faucet that he can then use to fill up a large bathtub. There’s also a not too unpleasant toilet situation, similar to a lot of toilets in older buildings, as well as a bamboo bucket that looks like it would work for doing laundry. He’ll have to do it by hand, but at least there is a plethora of soap stored in the bathroom for him to use. 

His nights each end in a similar way. After he’s gotten tired of poking around the various rooms, he makes his way back to Jingshi. Each night he waits to see if the dragon will show up, and each night he doesn’t. Having had dinner in the kitchens, he pulls the duvet off the bed and drags it over to the table, laying down at the cushions. The lights go out until the room is uncomfortably black and he sleeps. 

Every morning he wakes up to a steaming bowl of congee and a fresh pot of tea. One night he tries to stay up late enough to catch whoever (or whatever ) is leaving it out for him, but he falls asleep before the sun rises. He thinks that, once he’s settled down a bit more, he’ll take more time to be freaked out by it. For now, he just eats his breakfast gratefully and then heads back out to explore. 

---

Three days pass before he sees the dragon again. 

It’s the afternoon when it happens and he’s sat on one of the pathways, his map placed on the ground as he scribbles in more rooms. The paper is starting to get crowded, but the rest of the parchment in the Jingshi is the same size, so he resolves to find something bigger. There was a sort of classroom-like hall in the main courtyard, and he decides to double back to it after he’s explored his next room. Maybe there will be a wider variety of writing materials there. 

The strange thing is, this estate is furnished like it’s meant to be full of people, well stocked with food and soaps, paper and ink. But he’s certain it’s just him here unless whoever else is here is extremely good at hiding. Which may very well be the case, considering he still hasn’t figured out the breakfast thing.

While he’s thinking about this, there’s a sudden rush of wind, and finds himself looking to the sky only to see the dragon descending from the clouds. It happens so quickly that he can’t even be surprised, just watching wide-eyed as the dragon folds himself into the courtyard.

“Um.” He says, staring at him. “Hello.” 

The dragon merely rumbles, curling his long back and watching him impassively. 

Wei Wuxian is uncomfortable, so he does what he always does when he’s uncomfortable. He cracks a wide, crooked smile. 

“Know where I can find more paper?” He asks, holding up his map and giving it a little shake. 

Surprisingly, the dragon dips his head in what seems to be a nod and then makes for one of the buildings on the outskirts of the courtyard. Wei Wuxian is frozen for a moment, and then he’s scrambling to his feet, almost tripping on the rocks as he runs to catch up. 

The dragon pauses to look back at him, something in the set of his brow reading as critical. “No running.” 

Wei Wuxian’s arms pinwheel as he skids to a stop. The dragon watches him for a beat longer and then continues forwards. Frowning at the back of his head, Wei Wuxian starts to follow again, feeling a little wronged. He considers just accepting it, but he’s grown somewhat comfortable in his few days here. He feels like he should be able to run if he wants to. 

He’s never been good at not pushing boundaries.

“Is that like...an arrangement-conditional rule or just a preference thing? Like, if I run, are you gonna call off the deal, or are you just going to be annoyed?” He prods, hurrying to reach the dragon’s head while keeping a bit of distance between them.

The dragon’s eye is very wide when he stares at him, and in the daylight, he can make out flecks of green, brown, and gold around the eye’s center. It’s very beautiful, he thinks, and a bit frightening. But that’s kind of the dragon’s whole thing. 

“...it is a rule.” The dragon’s voice is even slower than usual as if struggling through his answer. “But not... conditional.” 

“Hmm,” Wei Wuxian hums, not wholly convinced. Though, even though he protests, it’s not like he’s actually going to go against the dragon’s wishes. Less so because he would probably eat him and more so because he doesn’t want to jeopardize their deal. 

Also maybe a little bit because of the eating him thing.

They stop in front of a building to the east of the main courtyard that he has yet to explore and, once again, the dragon waits for him to open the door. He sort of idly wonders if the dragon isn’t able to open doors himself. That would explain why he’s gone all the time, not a lot of use being around if you can’t even go into any of the rooms. It would also eliminate him from Wei Wuxian’s mental list of what could possibly be bringing him breakfast, though he wasn’t really on that list, to begin with. If he can’t open doors, it stands to reason that he can’t use a stove. He’s also pretty sure the dragon wouldn’t fit in the Jingshi or the kitchen. Maybe that’s a little obvious.

He makes himself hurry up the stairs to open the door and then gasps. 

Before him is definitely the biggest room he’s seen so far, except for perhaps the classroom. It’s sort of a circular space with big tapestries hanging from the ceilings and low rise desks tucked into little nooks. In the center of the room on a platform is a desk that looks almost identical to the one in his room, down to the book stand resting on it and the inkstones. 

But that’s all unimportant. The most exciting part of this room is the floor to ceiling shelves of books and huge stacks of fresh paper. 

Wei Wuxian has never been a big book guy, which has always made history a strange subject to find himself studying. He likes history though, likes learning about it, and that involves a lot of reading. But he’s always cared more about the practical application of things, studying the old sects and learning about how cultivation actually worked, less so memorizing tomes of poetry or the like. 

He has to admit, the last couple of days being in essentially a perfectly preserved traditional compound has been scratching at an itch that leaving his Master’s program had left behind. But a library, with books that both somehow look ancient and perfectly preserved? That calls to the deeply nerdy part of himself that he keeps locked away and he’s itching to start digging through the shelves. Maybe he’ll actually find some primary sources on cultivation, or developing a golden core, or even the very taboo Yin Iron that ended up tearing the cultivation world apart-

His thoughts are brought to a halt by the dragon actually pushing past him and into the library. It’s spacious enough that he fits in the room but it’s still jarring to see him inside a building. 

He sort of gestures to the middle-most desk with his head. “Paper.” 

“Ah, thanks.” Wei Wuxian scuttles up the last step and into the library, headed for the desk. 

He hops the little bit of fencing and settles himself on the cushion, propping one elbow on his knee as he lays his map out in front of him. He’s just started reaching for a fresh sheet to transfer his writing to when he hears a loud huff from across the room. 

Wei Wuxian glances up at the dragon. He’s had to twist himself up to fit in the library, antlers almost reaching the ceiling. That judgmental look is on his face again. 

“Sit properly,” he prompts when Wei Wuxian gives him a confused look. 

“Are you serious?” Wei Wuxian sits up anyways, years of Auntie Yu’s sharp reminders of the same exact thing too ingrained to do otherwise. “Is this another you-rule or a real-rule?” 

The dragon is quiet for a moment, then taciturn as he says, “what is...the difference?” 

“Breaking a real -rule is going to result in you kicking me off the mountain,” Wei Wuxian leans forwards again, crossing his arms on the desk. “Breaking a you -rule will just make you mad.” 

He seems to consider this for a moment. “Most would assume that..... those are the same thing.” 

It’s the longest sentence he’s managed to get out of the dragon so far and Wei Wuxian can’t help the grin that splits his face. He tilts his head to the side. 

“Yeah well, unless you’re going to kick me off the mountain cause you’re mad, I need to know which rules are which.” 

Again, the dragon takes this in. Then, he turns quickly and carefully makes his way to one of the other desks. Wei Wuxian watches as he manages to grab a book in his giant claws (hand? talons?) and walks back over on three feet. 

“These are the rules,” he announces as he drops the book on Wei Wuxian’s desk as carefully as possible. “They are real... and they are mine. Familiarize yourself... with... them.” 

His speech grows more stilted as he goes on, and he nudges the book closer. With a raised eyebrow, Wei Wuxian picks up the book and starts flipping through it, before sputtering. 

“There’s got to be a thousand of them!” He sputters, flipping back to the beginning and looking closer. 

“3000,” the dragon corrects, and if he didn’t know better, Wei Wuxian would say he sounds a bit superior about it. 

Wei Wuxian lets out an affronted hiss. “And they’re in classical Chinese .” 

The dragon doesn’t deign to respond and goes back to the shelves. He carefully tugs out a rolled-up scroll with one claw, and then even more carefully manages to pull the drawstring and unroll it. Then, surprise of surprises, he lays down with a level of grace something that big shouldn’t have, and starts reading. Somehow, despite the fact that he’s laying down, he still seems to be sitting with good posture. 

Frowning, Wei Wuxian stares back down at the book of rules. He’s torn between being annoyed that he can’t start rifling through the other books (at least, not while the dragon is here) and being a little excited that his... host seems to have a personality. So far, that personality seems to be stuffy and particular, but it’s something.

He peeks up again. The dragon would appear to be a perfect marble statue if it weren’t for the flicker of his eyes over the scroll. He seems deeply engrossed in whatever he’s reading, but then his gaze is suddenly on Wei Wuxian. Pointedly, he looks down at the book of rules and then back up. 

Wei Wuxian resists making a face and flips over to the first page. His map, and exploration, will have to wait for later. 

---

It takes him about a week to work through the whole thing. Auntie Yu made him take classical Chinese courses after school when he was younger, and the nature of his undergraduate degree meant he had to take even more. But he’s rusty, and the language is surprisingly poetic at times and just blatantly opaque at others, so he has to translate as he goes. He thinks that the combination of not having a dictionary to work with and not having a lot of context for any of the writing makes it harder. 

The dragon is around during that time, meaning he really can’t get out of reading it. He mostly keeps to himself, reading his own scrolls on the floor of the library. They don’t ever talk as much as they did that first day, Wei Wuxian always pointedly says ‘good morning’ and ‘good night’, and a few times tries to start a conversation. He doesn’t get much out of the dragon other than ‘neutral hums of acknowledgment’ and ‘pointed hums of disapproval’. He wonders how much of their lack of conversation is due to the dragon having a difficult time speaking and how much it is because he just doesn’t want to talk to Wei Wuxian at all. 

It’s not a particularly comforting thought, so he tries to stay on task. Although, he occasionally gets distracted watching the dragon reading, and then the dragon will look up and give him a disapproving look, and Wei Wuxian will hurry back to work. 

Can he really be blamed? He is sharing a space with a very big, very scary, and very pretty dragon! Of course he gets distracted. 

Said dragon is always awake before Wei Wuxian and leaves before he finishes, so he doesn’t know where he goes during the night. He’d like to try following him to see, but also knows he probably pushed his luck enough during their first interaction and now is paying the consequences for it. What he wouldn’t give to be reading anything else in the library but some old sect’s book of thousands of rules. 

That, at least, he’s discovered. A lot of the rules seemed to have to do specifically with how the sect’s cultivators were meant to conduct themselves. Some of them were actually interesting, getting into some of the more minute details of daily life in the cultivation world. A lot of them were just pointless, including Do Not Be Overly Happy and Do Not Associate With Evil . Life for this particular group of cultivators must have been very boring. 

The night he finishes, the dragon heads out before him as usual. Every night he leaves with the same pointed look that seemed to imply that Wei Wuxian was to continue “ familiarizing himself ” with the rules. Well, he finally finished and now he feels vindicated. As he rises from the desk and stretches, he wonders why a dragon cares so much about the rules of some random cultivation sect anyways. 

In the kitchen, he scarfs down a late dinner of rice and vegetables. The rice is a bit watery because he still hasn’t figured out cooking it with a wok over an open flame, and he’d give his right arm for a bit of meat, but that’s something to bring up after there’s been some time since he’s last pestered his host.

It’s not quite cold as he walks back to the Jingshi, the path lit by the white lanterns, but it’s certainly not warm. It’s still too early in spring for the nights to be anything other than balmy, and he wraps his arms around his middle and tries to hurry. His rooms are always fairly warm, and there are blankets there. 

He doesn't really expect the dragon to be waiting in the little courtyard outside the Jingshi when he gets there. He hadn’t been after the last few days they had spent in the library together. But he’s standing near the door, seemingly waiting for him. 

“I finished your book,” Wei Wuxian calls loudly as soon as he’s close because he is nothing if not himself.  

The dragon hums and Wei Wuxian elects to interpret it as an approving sound rather than a neutral one. He takes the stairs two at a time, which isn’t technically against any rules but also probably falls under one of the many variants of Do Not Do Things Needlessly, which is kind of Wei Wuxian’s whole personality, so. 

Wei Wuxian lingers at the door before opening it, twisting to look at the dragon. “Did you need anything or...? Maybe more required reading?” 

This elicits a huff, which Wei Wuxian has cataloged now with his other dragon sounds, and he shakes his head, ruff rippling. 

“Why do you... sleep on the floor?” The dragon asks and Wei Wuxian starts, frowning at him. He’s not really sure how he knows that. 

“Uhm, no particular reason.” He scratches the side of his nose, shrugging. “I just like it, I guess.” 

He doesn’t want to try to put to words the strange feelings he has about sleeping in the bed. It’s similar to how he felt when he’d tried to stay up to see who was leaving him breakfast. There was just something forbidden about it, something that he couldn’t really name. 

The dragon looks strangely serious. “It is for you.” 

“I just read all your rules, you know, and I’m pretty sure ‘you have to sleep in a bed’ isn’t one of them.” It technically isn’t, again, but probably falls under one of the nebulous behavior ones. If he thought about it he could probably come up with one, he’s always had a good memory about the things that don’t matter. “If I don’t sleep in the bed, are you going to kick me out?” 

He means it as a joke, to lighten the mood a bit, but the silence that follows his question is not light. He blinks at the dragon, who is still watching him with that grave expression.

“What, seriously?” 

“It is....for you.” The dragon repeats, speech slowing. There’s a weirdly desperate note to his voice. “Conditional. Real.....rule.”

“Okay, okay,” Wei Wuxian raises his hands in acquiescence. “I get it.” 

The dragon stares at him some more, before dipping his head in acknowledgment and then gliding out of the courtyard.

Wei Wuxian slides the door open, toeing off his shoes and trying to place his feelings. He’d been teasing, mostly, about the whole real rule thing but...this one just seems weird to him. But the dragon doesn’t seem to want to explain, or rather can’t explain, and the last thing he wants to do is risk their arrangement, so. Bed it is. 

He works his way through his nighttime routine, starting with changing into a pair of old gym shorts and a t-shirt for bed. As he stacks that day's outfit in his ‘dirty’ pile, he realizes he’s quickly running out of clothes. Either he’s going to have to figure out laundry tomorrow, or he’s going to have to wear some of the robes he found in the wardrobe. That actually doesn’t sound too bad, he saw some black ones that had looked appealing, but there’s a finite number of robes and he’ll run out eventually. 

“Laundry tomorrow, and maybe the library,” he declares to no one in particular while washing his face, then brushing his teeth (a surplus of toothbrushes and toothpaste is something he had to thank his past self for packing).

Then, when he doesn’t have any other way to stall, he approaches the bed. It looks extra pristine at the moment, which doesn’t make sense because he’s been grabbing the duvet off it every night and putting it back every morning. But that wrongness rises in him again and he grimaces.  

He’s always been a ‘rip the bandaid off’ kind of person, so he tugs back the blanket and slides in as quickly as he can. 

Unsurprisingly, the world doesn’t end or anything and that weird feeling dissipates.  He shuffles his feet around, getting cozy before sighing contentedly. The bed is actually  very comfortable and he feels kind of stupid for having slept on the floor for a week. Never again. 

Once he’s laying down, the lanterns all dim, like they do every night. Wei Wuxian keeps his eyes open the whole time, watching until they’ve gone out fully and then settling in for the night. 

---

He doesn’t know how long it is before he hears the door slide open. 

It's very quiet, but it sticks out among the sounds of crickets and trees rustling. Wei Wuxian’s eyes fly open, fly to the door, but it’s too dark to see anything. He strains his ears, and maybe he can hear the sound of footsteps against the floorboards, or maybe that’s the wind outside. 

He finds out soon enough. Someone ( something ) lifts the blanket and then slides in beside him. 

For a moment, there isn’t much happening in his mind other than a chorus of “ what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck-” . 

The mattress is too firm to feel the weight of whoever is in his bed, but he knows they’re there. He can feel the way the blanket is raised over their body and just make out the sound of their even breaths. 

It’s pitch black in the room and he can’t make himself turn his head to look. 

For a moment, he wants to reach out and grab whoever it is, call out to them and demand an explanation. But that forbidden feeling comes again and he can’t speak . He can’t even open his mouth. He’s just frozen on the bed with some stranger laying next to him who, if he judges by sound alone, is already asleep. 

Maybe they’re not fully a stranger. It doesn’t take a lot to put two and two together and determine that his mystery bedmate is probably also his mystery breakfast maker. It would be strange if there were two other people hiding somewhere on the estate. 

They’re still as they sleep, and they’re also a very respectable distance away. Weirdly, the longer he lays here in the dark thinking about it, the less freaked out he gets. The only thing he hasn’t found in his exploration so far has been other beds, so maybe this is the only one in the estate. Maybe they’ve been coming in here every night and were just as surprised as him that someone was already there. Maybe this is their bed and the dragon had offered it up without knowing, though that doesn’t seem entirely likely. 

Does any of this explain why he can’t talk, or why the person wouldn’t just announce themself and explain? Not really. But maybe they’ve also made a deal with the dragon, and these are their rules, in the same way that the sect’s rules are apparently for him. Maybe they’re just as stuck as he is. 

The more he rationalizes like this, the more he relaxes and soon he’s close to sleep. He thinks maybe before he closes his eyes, there is a slight shift on the bed next to him. Like maybe, the stranger has relaxed with him. If he strains, maybe he can hear a light sigh, like someone letting go of a weight. 

And then he is asleep.

The dragon doesn’t show up again for a week, but his mysterious bedmate comes in every night. 

That first morning, when he’d woken up to an empty bed and his room in its usual order, he’d tugged on his shoes and stomped out the library. The feelings of ease and peace he’d felt the night before were very distant, and he was feeling both alarmed and a little angry. Not a great combination, so he hadn’t made a real plan, just knew that he was going to demand answers. But the dragon wasn’t there and hasn’t been there every morning since. It’s almost like he was waiting for Wei Wuxian to start sleeping in the bed or something just to disappear again. 

Weird. 

In the meantime, Wei Wuxian gives himself two projects. The first is not terribly interesting and is mentally labeled as 'Project Figure Out Laundry'. It mostly consists of scrubbing his clothes and then beating them with rocks until his arms ache. Then he hangs them the railings of the various pathways and sort of hopes they’re clean. Some of them dry a little stiff, probably because he didn’t manage to get all the soap out, but it’s better than wearing dirty clothes.  

The more fun part of this particular task is 'Project Laundry 2, Try On a Bunch of Robes'. In his exploration, he discovers a room that is crammed full of robes, mostly in various whites and blues, but with a few color variants that are appealing. It takes a bit of experimentation to figure out how he’s supposed to layer them, but soon enough a few black, grey and red robes have worked their way into his wardrobe and he’s wearing them more often than not. It might be extremely dorky of him, but there’s not really anyone around to see. 

There’s one red robe that he finds in his sorting that causes him pause, if only for how fancy it is. It’s in a trunk by itself, carefully folded, and when he pulls it out, the silk ripples. There’s delicate golden embroidery, patterns of flowers and birds around the hem, and there’s a sort of floaty quality to the outer robes. He knows what he’s holding even before he pulls out the veil, it’s not like he’s never seen wedding robes. He’s struck with the thought that the last time he did, they were on Jiang Yanli and she was shining and beautiful in the middle of his shitty apartment.

If he closes the trunk too roughly after that thought and tucks it in a corner out of sight, no one is here to question him. 

His other project is called 'Absolutely Devour Every Book on Cultivation He Finds' which is infinitely more interesting than laundry. The one drawback of it is, unlike laundry which is fairly straightforward, Wei Wuxian has next to no context for a lot of the texts in the library. 

He puts together fairly quickly that the clan that people who had lived here were the Lan Clan, and that the estate itself is actually the clan’s main hub called ‘The Cloud Recesses’ which certainly rings a bell. Based on what he remembers, they played a key role in the Sunshot Campaign. The weird part is, so did the Jiangs and the Nies, and even the Jins, and they’re still kicking around today. Lots of the big families that he grew up around are the long time descendants of the last of the cultivation sects, to the point where they throw parties to commemorate important events from way back when. Wei Wuxian’s been to his fair share over the years, though none recently. But at all those parties, he’s sure that he never ran into a Lan, and he’s not entirely sure why. 

He also discovers that all the texts in the library are from before a specific time, which is only apparent because of how thoroughly everything is labeled. There aren’t any books or writings past the end of the Sunshot Campaign, which strikes him as odd. It’s not like the cultivation world stopped existing then, it took at least another fifteen to twenty years for that, so why are there no texts from that time? And why is it that the Cloud Recesses have been left undisturbed by anyone but the dragon?

It's definitely something to puzzle out and it takes his mind off the stranger-in-his-bed thing, for now. There isn’t much to be done now, but when he sees the dragon next, he’ll interrogate him about.

---

That’s his plan, at least, up until the moment the dragon is crashing out of the sky and into one of the buildings across the compound. There’s a horrible sound of splintering wood and shattering glass and then nothing. 

“What the fuck?” Wei Wuxian is already on his feet, taking the stairs down from the library two at a time. 

His heart is beating in his throat as he runs. It looks like the dragon fell in one of the rooms near the classroom, though not into the classroom itself. When he reaches it, it’s clear that the building is completely demolished, debris thrown outwards from the center like an impact site. Which, as it turns out, is an accurate description. 

The dragon is in the center of it all, laying on his side. From where he stands, Wei Wuxian can see the frantic rise and fall of his chest, the boards that had settled back over him shifting. 

“Are you okay?” He feels stupid as soon as he asks, picking his way over the broken wall. “What happened?” 

The dragon’s head whips up and Wei Wuxian freezes. There’s an unfamiliar expression on the dragon’s face and it makes his hair stand on end. His pupils are narrow slits, his teeth bared as he lets out a deep growl that Wei Wuxian can feel in his chest. And he can see the blood now, smeared across the dragon’s maw, dripping from his back, the broken boards. 

He thinks that it’s the first time he’s been really, truly afraid of the dragon. 

Pinned in place, Wei Wuxian tries not to breathe as the dragon glares at him. All at once,  the dragon’s growl dissipates, replaced with a low whine as he tries to move. Wei Wuxian frowns as the dragon shifts some more and whines louder and then-

“You’re hurt- ” Wei Wuxian realizes, spurred into moving closer. 

The dragon rears back as he gets closer, trying to growl again but all he can manage is a sort of hiss. Wei Wuxian ignores it, rolls up the sleeves of his robe (a grey one made of soft linen, today) and starts tugging debris and boards off and away from the dragon. There’s blood on some of it, and it’s definitely getting on his hands and arms, but he keeps at it. 

The dragon stills abruptly as Wei Wuxian works, and when he’s gotten most of it off of him, he looks up to see the dragon’s eyes look less angry and more surprised. 

“Can you move? We should get you away from the broken glass.” 

The dragon blinks before trying to lift himself up on his feet and immediately collapsing, giving a pained groan. 

“Whoa! Whoa, careful,” Wei Wuxian waves his hands. “Here, let’s just-” 

He starts clearing away more of the rubble, making a circle of clean ground. He loops around the dragon’s back and then gasps. 

There are huge lashes across the dragon’s back, dripping blood onto the ground where the scales have broken off. They look fresh and deep, some longer than Wei Wuxian’s arm.

“Oh, holy shit,” he reaches out instinctively and pulls back at the last moment. “What happened?” 

The dragon doesn’t respond, just lays on the floor panting. He hadn’t really been expecting an answer anyway but he frowns deeper, all the same, eyes tracing the lashes. What could have possibly done this to a dragon?

Once he’s gotten the ground as clear as possible, he circles back to the dragon's front. “I could...I could get water to clean your back? And maybe some bandages?” 

He’s not sure where he could find bandages big enough for the dragon, maybe if he ripped up some of the robes...

The dragon groans again and shakes his head, his voice raw as he says, “no.” 

“What do I do then? I don’t know how to help.” He twists his hands into the front of his robes helplessly, probably getting blood on them. 

“There is a....a spring....in the woods.” Every word sounds painful and Wei Wuxian leans closer to the dragon’s head to hear. “The water.....heals.......will help.” 

Magical spring water? Wei Wuxian’s mind whirls as he straightens. For whatever reason, between deal-making dragon and mysterious invisible bedmate, that’s what is tripping him up. But if the dragon says it will help...

“Okay, which way is it?” 

---

He follows the dragon’s stilted directions into the forest with a bucket in hand. He’s yet to explore the woods around the Cloud Recesses, but he doesn’t really look around him as he takes off into the trees. There’s a clearly marked trail that leads towards where the dragon directed him, so he follows it, breathing shallowly as he runs. He has to slow down a little as he crests a hill and turns a corner, then he almost trips over his own feet as he comes to a screeching halt. 

“What the fuck ?” 

There’s a little clearing in front of him that is absolutely packed with rabbits. They litter the path, gather in little clumps near the trees. He stares at them a moment, slack-jawed, trying to get his bearings. A rabbit jumps towards him, sniffing at his shoes curiously, and then hops away when it determines he is uninteresting. 

He feels like he’s lost momentum a bit, as he picks his way around the rabbits. But there’s still an injured dragon to get magical spring water for, so he breaks into a run once he’s on the other side of the clearing. 

There’s another little hill up the path that dips down into a much steeper decline. From the top of the hill, he can see the spring. It sprawls out under him, mist rising from the water, and Wei Wuxian heaves a sigh of relief that it was easy to find. 

He passes over a bridge quickly and lands on his knees near the edge of the water. The spring appears to be fairly deep and extends back into a small rock face that juts out over the water. It looks like there might be more to it to the other side of the rocks, but he’ll worry about that when he’s not retrieving life-saving water for his host. 

He sticks the bucket into the water and then yelps, dropping it. 

The water is ice cold because of course it is and he just winces and bears it, drawing up a bucketful. He runs back towards the compound, his speed hindered by the weight of the bucket but he still gets there in record time. 

“I’ve got it,” he gasps when arrives, stumbling into the ruins of the building. “What do I do?” 

The dragon’s big eyes are closed when he reaches him and they open slowly. Wei Wuxian watches with a sort of morbid fascination as a second eyelid slides out of the way and then returns his attention to the matter at hand. 

“Pour it...on my back...” he instructs and Wei Wuxian nods, lugging it around the dragon’s back. 

Contemplating how to best execute the pouring, Wei Wuxian looks around for a moment and finds a surprisingly intact teapot on the ground. He uses it to scoop up water, wincing again as he dips his hands into it and starts systematically pouring it onto each of the gashes. 

At once, he is startled by how quickly each cut starts to bind itself closed. He watches, wide-eyed, as the skin knits itself together. They don’t heal fully, but they stop bleeding profusely, becoming strokes of pink among the scales of the dragon’s back. Wei Wuxian counts thirteen strikes in total, and wonders again how this could happen. 

The dragon has been silent the whole time, not making a peep as Wei Wuxian cleans the wounds, but his back twitches with each pour. Wei Wuxian tries to speculate what the dragon would say if it were easier for him to talk, if he’d say anything at all. Or if he’d be just as quiet, just as withdrawn. 

When he’s done, his hands are red and numb from repeatedly dunking them into the bucket, and the ground is wet with blood and water. He is aware, distantly, that his shoes are soaked through, as are his robes, but as he wipes at his brow with a damp sleeve, he looks back on his work with gratification. 

“Okay, that’s all of them,” he announces, and sets the teapot down on a broken table. “What next?” 

The dragon’s eyes are closed again, but he shifts a little and starts to get up. 

“Whoa, wait a second!” Wei Wuxian moves before he thinks about it, putting a hand on the dragon’s shoulder to stop him. “Slow down, you’re still hurt.” 

With wide, bright eyes, the dragon stares at him and Wei Wuxian realizes this is the closest they’ve been since he rode on his back. He withdraws his hand, stepping back almost sheepishly. The dragon is watching him with another expression he doesn’t recognize, his gaze heavy.

“I will go meditate... in the Cold Spring.... continue to heal.” The dragon declares and then rises from the ground fully, apparently more able to move now that his back is a bit better.

“I could bring you more of the water,” Wei Wuxian protests. “You probably shouldn’t move just yet, what if you open one of the cuts?” 

The dragon gives him a long, searching look and then says, “I have suffered worse.” 

Wei Wuxian balks. “What the hell? Is that supposed to reassure me?”

“Wei Ying,” the dragon rumbles and it sounds almost indulgent, which is just ironic. “I will be fine. Thank you.”

It’s been since he first arrived that he’s heard the dragon say his name, and something about his deep, strange voice makes Wei Wuxian go all tingly. He huffs to cover it, backing up with his hands in the air. 

“Fine! You know best, O Venerable One. See if I come help you the next time you come crashing through the ceiling.” It’s all talk, of course. If the dragon did fall out of the sky again, he’d definitely help. 

The dragon seems to know this, which is disconcerting, because he merely hums and steps elegantly out of the broken walls of the room. If Wei Wuxian didn’t know better, he wouldn’t be able to tell he was hurt at all. 

He reaches the edge of the courtyard before Wei Wuxian calls out.

“Hey! You get to know my name but I don’t get to know yours?” His mouth tugs into a smile and maybe it’s a little bit cheekier than he should be, but he doesn’t care. The dragon’s blood is soaked into his shoes, he thinks they’re close enough. “What am I supposed to call you?” 

The dragon has paused at the edge of the courtyard and turns his head back. The sun is starting to go down, which Wei Wuxian hadn’t even noticed, and the dragon’s eyes seem to glow. He doesn’t respond for a long moment, and Wei Wuxian thinks he might not respond at all. 

But then, in his dry, strange voice, he replies. “Lan Zhan...you may call me...Lan Zhan.” 

Wei Wuxian can’t help the smile that spreads across his face or the way that tingle has returned. 

“Okay, Lan Zhan.” His voice is a bit coy as he beams. “You’re welcome.” 

---

That night, after a long hot bath and a halfhearted attempt to get some of the blood out of his robes, his mystery bedmate climbs in beside him. For a moment, he thinks that maybe they’re moving a little slower than usual. That maybe they hold back a small sound, as they settle in. Maybe they linger for a moment, before laying down.

But he’s probably just imagining it.

---

This is how the years fly by.

There are rules. 

The wish must be sincere. 

Health for the brother,

Money for the family. 

Wei Ying is good. 

(The flowers are fresh.)

Laughter in a hollowed-out room.

But there are rules. 

When broken-

Wei Ying should be-

-punishment. 

Pulled bow-string taut.

Hurts. 

Hurts. 

But Wei Ying is good. 

Anointed in cool water.

Fear that turns to worry,

That turns to laughter.

“What am I supposed to call you?”

Chapter Text

iii

I want to look back at everything, forgiving it all,

and peaceful, knowing the last thing there is to know.

All that urgency! Not what the earth is about!

How silent the trees, their poetry being of themselves only.

I want to take slow steps, and think appropriate thoughts.

In ten thousand years, maybe, a piece of the mountain will fall.

The poet dreams of the mountain, Mary Oliver

---

To say things change after that moment would be to greatly understate how different life in the Cloud Recesses is following that incident.

Lan Zhan is, all at once, everywhere all of the time. That first morning, Wei Wuxian had found him at the Cold Spring, coiled up with only his head and part of his back above the water as he healed. His back looked significantly better than it had the night before, but Wei Wuxian couldn’t help but follow the long, pink lines where the lashes had once been. He’d intended to do some more exploring, but decided at the moment to leave Lan Zhan to rest.

“I’ll leave you be,” he had said as Lan Zhan crept one eye open.

But the dragon had lifted his head, great rivulets of water sloughing off of him. 

“Wei Ying...may stay.” 

And that had been that. Wei Wuxian assumes that meeting was just a fluke and that things will go back to how they were for the weeks before, but they never do. 

They meet in the library, in the courtyard. Wei Wuxian starts eating breakfast with the doors open, allowing him to watch as Lan Zhan reads in the clearing near the Jingshi. In contrast to the month alone, Wei Wuxian is a little shaken to suddenly have someone to talk to. 

But the thing is, they don’t exactly talk. Sure, Wei Wuxian talks at Lan Zhan and receives hums and rumbles and huffs for his troubles. But he doesn’t learn anything about Lan Zhan from the dragon himself. Every scrap of information he gleans must be observed, and then hoarded close to his chest. 

One of the first things he discovers about Lan Zhan is his love for the rabbits. He decides that he’d like to poke around the Cold Spring again, now that Lan Zhan is no longer healing in them. On the way there, Wei Wuxian sees Lan Zhan resting under a tree in the rabbits' clearing. He isn’t conscious of his feet changing directions, he just suddenly finds himself at Lan Zhan’s side. 

“They really seem to like you,” he observes, settling down next to him. 

It’s true too. The rabbits don’t seem alarmed by Lan Zhan’s presence at all, and in fact, huddle around his legs where they’re folded elegantly under his body. Wei Wuxian can’t quite keep a smile off his face at the sight. 

He settles on the ground near Lan Zhan and tries to coax the rabbits over with gentle cooing and bits of grass and is summarily ignored. He huffs in annoyance, crawling on his knees to get closer to where a group of them are resting, but they jump away when he gets too close. 

“How can you be fine with a dragon but be afraid of me?” He whines, flopping down onto his stomach, glancing over at Lan Zhan.

“Hey, Lan Zhan, why do you have all these bunnies anyways?” He props his head up on his hand. When he doesn’t receive an answer, he gasps dramatically and sits up quickly. “Wait! Don’t tell me you eat them!” 

Lan Zhan’s head whips his way, his expression a bit scandalized. Wei Wuxian throws his head back and laughs, causing the rabbits that had been gathering near them to retreat.

“I wish you could see your expression!” He snickers, holding his stomach. 

The dragon’s eyes narrow and he pointedly turns his attention to his book, which is no good, because then he’s not paying attention to Wei Wuxian anymore. Rolling up to sitting again, Wei Wuxian leans forwards, waving a hand in front of Lan Zhan’s face. 

“Ah, I’m just teasing! I know you wouldn’t eat them, Lan Zhan. You like them too much.” 

Lan Zhan’s eyes widen at that, and he turns his head away a little further. There’s an expression on his face Wei Wuxian hasn’t seen before. If he didn't know better, he’d say Lan Zhan looks shy. 

“Oh ho! You really do like them, huh?” He feels unusually endeared.

After a beat, Lan Zhan’s eyes slip to him, and he replies with a quiet, “mn. I do.”  

The fondness grows and Wei Wuxian feels his smile go a little lopsided and sappy. Lan Zhan stares at him a moment, then turns back to his reading. Wei Wuxian decides he’s teased enough, for now, laying back in the grass with his hands behind his head. 

It’s funny, for a 20-foot long dragon, Lan Zhan can be surprisingly cute. Something about the contained, subtle ways in which he reacts to things tugs at Wei Wuxian’s desire to tease bigger reactions out of him. He was worried, at first, that he’d have to tread carefully with his host. After the recent shift, though, he isn’t as concerned. He thinks it would take a lot more than harmless teasing for Lan Zhan to call off their deal. 

He smiles again, eyes closed against the noonday sun. It’s been warm lately, it’ll be summer soon. 

“Hey, Lan Zhan. If you’re not going to eat them, can I? Rabbit stew sounds nice...” 

“Wei Ying!” Lan Zhan’s voice is shocked and a little sharp. Wei Wuxian laughs and laughs. 

---

Another thing he discovers is where the food actually comes from.

The only time that Lan Zhan doesn’t seem to be around is once a week, Sundays by Wei Wuxian’s estimation, though he stopped keeping track of the exact days at some point. For some reason, he finds himself feeling a little lonely on those days, and sits in the library with the doors wide open. He tells himself that it has more to do with the weather getting better than waiting for the dragon to come back. 

But that does mean the doors are wide open when, on one of those days, Wei Wuxian looks up from a particularly interesting book on core development to see his host land in the courtyard with a gust of wind. 

“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian drops his book and hops up to his feet, taking the stairs down two at a time as he tries to catch up. 

Lan Zhan waits a moment for him and then starts to head towards the kitchens. Wei Wuxian notices large, woven baskets secured to his back, almost like saddlebags. Pausing, he watches as Lan Zhan reaches the door and then uses his teeth to tug at a strap that makes the baskets fall to the ground. He’s busy pushing the baskets towards the door of the kitchen with his nose, but Wei Wuxian feels curiosity rising in him, and when the dragon’s head is turned he darts forwards and opens one of the baskets. 

It’s filled to the brim with fresh vegetables. 

“This is where the food comes from?” He asks, surprised, and opens another basket to see bags of rice. “You go get it from somewhere? How do you even get it in the kitchen?” 

Lan Zhan doesn’t respond, grabbing one of the baskets by the straps with his mouth and putting it by the door. 

Wei Wuxian smiles a little crookedly. “Another thing I’m not supposed to ask questions about, huh? Well, you already did all the work bringing it here, I can take it inside.” 

Finally, Lan Zhan looks at him, something like surprise coloring his features. Wei Wuxian’s smile grows and he ducks under Lan Zhan’s head, sliding open the kitchen door. He rolls up the sleeves of his robe, grappling a bit with the baskets to get them inside. They’re fairly heavy, though he has been eating vegetables for like, every single meal so that makes sense. 

“You should get some peppers next time, or spices,” Wei Wuxian huffs as he tugs the basket full of rice. “Or some meat, I’d trade you another year just for some meat.” 

Lan Zhan gives the air of raising an eyebrow without moving a single facial muscle and Wei Wuxian just laughs. 

“I’m joking, I’m joking! You’re so serious.”

That earns him a neutral huff, and then the dragon dips his head. “Thank you.” 

“No need for thanks,” Wei Wuxian waves one hand while using the other to tug at his sleeves back into place. “You’re the one who did all the work, really.”

“Mn,” Lan Zhan allows and makes his way towards the library, Wei Wuxian hot on his trail. 

Wei Wuxian doubts it a coincidence when, a week later, one of the baskets is full of dried peppers, seasonings, and carefully wrapped cuts of meat. He’d like to think it’s because Lan Zhan is coming to like him, or at least tolerate him, and not because Lan Zhan is trying to prevent him from eating the rabbits.

He does learn, in time, that there are things he can’t bring up.

In the aftermath of Lan Zhan being attacked (because he’s sure of that, there’s no way those even, calculated cuts could have been an accident ), and in the midst of settling into life with Lan Zhan around, he almost forgets about his mysterious bedmate. 

Almost being the operative word here. It’s impossible to forget about them when they’re still sliding into his room every night, settling next to him. 

He’s put together a few things on his own. One, he’s fairly certain they’re human. From the gentle sound of them padding across the floor, to the general size of them on the mattress, they must be at least human-like. 

Two, they’re definitely the same person who brings him breakfast. Unless there’s another person somewhere in the Cloud Recesses, there’s no one else that enters his room other than himself, and it seems unlikely that there are two other people hiding away. In fact, he wouldn’t even know about the one if they weren’t sleeping in his bed, due to them being clean and brutally efficient. There’s never dirty dishes in the kitchen in the morning and the grates of the stoves are always clean. In fact, cleaner than he left them.

Three, he is no longer certain that Lan Zhan isn’t his bedmate. 

It had occurred to him initially, of course, outside of his late-night thoughts of his bedmate being “too small”. He is aware, of course, of the lore around dragons shifting shape. It is possible Lan Zhan has a human form, or perhaps a smaller version of his dragon form, and he’s kept quiet about it. Maybe he doesn’t want Wei Wuxian to see it or something like that. 

Something in his mind rejects this idea though, despite it being the most likely possibility. He thinks it has something to do with not being able to conceptualize a human Lan Zhan at all. All of that grace and beauty and power, condensed into a person? He can’t even picture it. 

It’s when he’s thinking about this very thing that he finally gets the guts to bring it up to Lan Zhan at all. They’re in the library, as they usually are, both working through their own books. It’s his seventh week here, and he still doesn’t feel like he’s made much headway on understanding a lot of the texts, and he’s getting annoyed. Mostly with himself, but Lan Zhan is right there, looking as untouchable and unaffected as ever. It makes him want to push. 

So he leans against his desk, face overly innocent as he calls, “Lan Zhan.”

The dragon turns his head, at once attentive. That’s something he's come to appreciate about his host. Even when he’s in the middle of doing something else, even if he doesn’t speak much himself, he diverts all his attention to Wei Wuxian once he asks for it. The rush of warmth he feels at that is almost enough to get him to come up with some other reason to ask for his attention, but his stubbornness and boredom win out.  

“Who is it that comes into my room every night?”

If he thought that Lan Zhan has resembled a statue before, it’s nothing compared to this moment. It looks as though he isn’t even breathing.

The thing is, Wei Wuxian knows, alright? He knows that he isn’t supposed to bring this up. That he is supposed to accept it as part of the deal, as some rule or edict that he’s just supposed to live with. But he’s never been very good with rules or being told what to do. That is, in part, why he’s here at all. 

As soon as he’s asked it though, he also knows that he’s made a mistake. The moment that Lan Zhan stops being so shocked, his expression shutters and goes distant. Something tightens in Wei Wuxian’s stomach uncomfortably to see it. He knows he’s messed up but he doesn’t know what to do next, so he waits. 

“I...” Lan Zhan begins. “We cannot... must not ... speak of it.”

“Why not-” he should let it drop but for some reason, his mouth is running away from him, and then-

Lan Zhan moves quickly, faster than he’s seen in a while. There is something markedly distressed about the way he stares at Wei Wuxian, something in the set of his shoulders, the quirk of his brow. 

“Wei Ying,” he intones in his low, rasping voice and Wei Wuxian can’t help his shiver. “We must not speak of it. Rules.... real -rules....conditional...” 

He recognizes this particular justification, from when he first started sleeping in the bed. He always recognizes Lan Zhan’s tone of voice, how panicked and desperate he sounds. 

It occurs to him, perhaps too late, that the last time he heard it Lan Zhan had shown up with 13 cuts scaring his back, so hurt and tired he was barely himself. Wei Wuxian opens his mouth to say something, then closes it with an audible click.

Lan Zhan is still standing, still staring at him entreatingly, and Wei Wuxian has to look away from his big, yellow eyes. 

“Right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have-” He cuts himself off with a sigh, scrubbing at his face. “I forgot, for a moment, I guess. That you’re...that I’m here as your...” 

Prisoner isn’t the right word, because he chose to come here. But what else is he, if he cannot leave? If he cannot ask questions? If he must accept the rules, without agreeing to them beforehand? (He can’t think of them as Lan Zhan’s rules for some reason, because he seems just as upset over them as Wei Wuxian is. Lan Zhan’s only rules are the ones of the Lan sect, and that is another matter entirely). 

For some reason, his apology seems to upset Lan Zhan further, who shifts closer, his antlers almost going through the ceiling.  It's then that Wei Wuxian notices that it's started to rain outside, a heavy sort of rain that batters against the roof.

“Wei Ying...is not at....fault. Didn’t know....can't tell you...” This is familiar too, the way Lan Zhan gets irritated with his own inability to speak. He can see it in the way the dragon grits his teeth, in the way his breaths come just a touch too fast. 

Wei Wuxian tries to smile. “I understand, Lan Zhan. It’s okay.”

Lan Zhan’s face does something complicated and Wei Wuxian is struck by how familiar this dragon has become in such a short time. How carefully he watches now for every shift in expression. 

“Wei Ying is not at fault...” Lan Zhan forces out. “The rules are not...they’re not...” 

Because he is watching so closely, Wei Wuxian sees the exact moment that Lan Zhan starts panicking. His breathing is even faster and his eyes go a little distant. It reminds him of how Lan Zhan had looked right after he came crashing through a roof and Wei Wuxian rises, alarmed, as Lan Zhan growls to himself. 

“Whoa, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian is moving to him before he really thinks. “Calm down. It’s okay, it’s okay.” 

His hands come up towards Lan Zhan’s head and he pauses, before making himself reach out and put a careful hand on Lan Zhan’s snout.

It seems to startle him, causing Lan Zhan to freeze again. But as Wei Wuxian slowly, gently, pets his snout, he can see how Lan Zhan settles. His head lowers a bit and, when Wei Wuxian checks, his eyes look normal. 

He starts letting his hands travel further, stroking past Lan Zhan’s eyes. They close when his hands skirt by them, and then remain closed. Wei Wuxian notes, sort of absently, that the fur on Lan Zhan’s face is much shorter than his ruff but very soft. They’re both quiet for a long time, Wei Wuxian matching his breath to Lan Zhan’s. 

Eventually, Lan Zhan opens his eyes. His gaze isn’t sharp, but still intent as he is watching Wei Wuxian. Hesitantly, regretfully, Wei Wuxian removes his hand. 

“I’m sorry,” he says again, though this time in a whisper. “I should have known that would upset you. I know it’s hard for you to talk.” 

Lan Zhan rumbles at that, which makes Wei Wuxian smile a little. It fades away as something occurs to him, something that makes his stomach turn. 

“Lan Zhan, are you...are you trapped here too?” It comes out before he’s thought it through and he rushes to add, “ah, wait. You don’t have to answer that. 

The way Lan Zhan’s eyes widen is answer enough. There’s a feeling rising in Wei Wuxian suddenly, something that he has a hard time naming. He thinks about one of their first conversations, the differentiation between ‘real-rules’ and ‘Lan Zhan’s rules’. He thinks about the panic that he saw in Lan Zhan when he pushed against the real rules. He thinks about the scars still on Lan Zhan’s back. 

He thinks about “Conditional”.

“Ah. I see.” And he does. “Okay, I understand now. I’m sorry.” 

Lan Zhan’s head rises, somehow dignified despite everything. 

“There is no need... for sorry... between us.”

Wei Wuxian huffs at that and smiles again. “Okay, okay. That means the same from you though, alright?” 

“Mn,” Lan Zhan agrees and then moves back towards his books. All at once, it’s like nothing has happened. Even the rain has died away.

But Wei Wuxian stares at his own book without reading a single word, mind spinning. Lan Zhan is trapped here too. Lan Zhan is beholden to someone else’s rules. Someone who hurts him when he breaks those rules. That feeling rises in him again and his stomach turns. 

He doesn’t know how, but he knows that he’s going to put a stop to it, whatever it takes. 

One of the bits of information Wei Wuxian learns about Lan Zhan that he truly treasures is how much he loves music. 

As spring turns to summer, he starts looking for new ways to entertain himself. There’s only so much wading through academic text one can do before they get tired of it. The Cold Spring is a nice reprieve from the increasingly hot and humid weather, but it’s not deep enough to swim in and that’s what he’s longing for. So, he turns instead to the rooms he’s explored but not yet put to use. 

There is in one of the upper buildings of the Cloud Recesses a whole room of instruments, from guqins to xiaos to a simple bamboo dizi that he had made note of when he first saw it. He started to play the flute in middle school and continued all through high school and into college. Only when he left his Master’s program did he give it up, having left the orchestra behind as well. His flute is actually one of the first things he sold, after getting kicked out, and while he misses it he can’t regret having had a bit of money in those early days. 

The guqin in the Jingshi has always been singular to him, because it’s in the room on its own, and because of its delicately carved designs, its carefully maintained strings. It looks like it’s something that’s been cherished and tended to, and has always been untouchable. 

He chooses instead to fiddle with the other instruments. 

Despite the fact that he’s the most interested in the dizi, Wei Wuxian finds himself going to one of the guqins first. He sits cross-legged in front of it and gives one of the strings a strum. It thrums with a low, rich note. 

He leaves the doors and windows open of every building he enters now, which means that when Lan Zhan appears on the pathway in front of the instrument room, he watches it happen. That doesn’t mean that his sudden appearance doesn’t startle him a little. But then it occurs to him that Lan Zhan had shown up so quickly, he must have flown, and he’s chuckling. 

“Ah, if I had known that all it took was a little music to summon you, I would have come up here ages ago,” he teases, beaming. 

The room isn’t big enough for Lan Zhan to enter, so he settles himself on the ground right outside, head in the doorway. He watches closely, his gaze unusually intense. If he didn’t know better, Wei Wuxian might say he looks eager.

As it is, Wei Wuxian feels a little shy with an audience now, and he plucks a little more tentatively.

“There’s music...on the shelves...” Lan Zhan prompts when Wei Wuxian after he’s messed around for a while, trying to get an idea of how the strings are tuned. 

Wei Wuxian scoots across the floor to said shelves, plucking a bamboo scroll at random. He turns back as he opens it, eyes flickering across the slips before frowning. 

“Ah, Lan Zhan, I can’t read descriptive notation,” he explains, apologetic. “And to be completely honest, I probably couldn’t play this even if I could read it.”

There is a subtlety to Lan Zhan’s disappointment, but Wei Wuxian picks up on it all the same. He wants, abruptly, to wipe that disappointment away. 

“Here-” he starts, tucking the sheet music back into its shelf and then retrieving the dizi. “Give me a moment.” 

It’s not the first time he’s played a dizi, but it is the first time in a long while, so he takes a little while to test things out. It’s surprisingly easy for him to figure it out again. Auntie Yu had made all of them learn classical Chinese instruments and of course he had chosen the instrument he could play the loudest and most obnoxiously-

But that’s beside the point. 

Once he’s got a grasp on the fingerings, he turns to Lan Zhan and smiles widely. Lan Zhan has been waiting patiently, quietly, this whole time and he feels like he ought to reward him. 

“Ready?” He asks and Lan Zhan blinks, bemused, before nodding. 

Wei Wuxian lifts the dizi and starts to play. 

He begins with a simple but pretty folk tune that he had learned during his dizi classes. It comes fairly naturally, and when he can’t remember a bit he just sort of flubs something that sounds right. He thinks he remembers there being lyrics to this song, something like “I yearn for my love in the mountain ”, which for whatever reason feels appropriate. 

It’s not a particularly long piece and when he is done, he lowers the dizi into his lap and glances up at Lan Zhan. 

When he says he has a mental catalog of Lan Zhan’s expressions and noises, he’s not kidding. He feels like, most of the time, he’s fairly adept at reading the dragon’s mood through the subtle furrow of his brow, in the way he holds his jaw. There are outliers, of course, times he can’t pin when Lan Zhan is thinking, but those get cataloged away as well. They are precious, in their own right, little mysteries that Lan Zhan gives him to solve. 

When he looks at Lan Zhan now, he is gifted with one of these expressions. 

Lan Zhan’s face has never been so open, his eyes soft and wondering. His gaze is always intent these days, but now it’s like he’s looking right through Wei Wuxian, into something deep inside of him. Normally such a look would make him flinch away, try to cover with jokes or teasing, protect what is in him that is ugly. 

But Lan Zhan doesn’t look like he’s seeing something ugly. Wei Wuxian feels like he has been opened up to the core of himself and for once, not been found wanting. 

He looks away very quickly. 

“Should I play some more?” He asks and ignores how ragged he sounds. 

At least Lan Zhan sounds equally breathless when he says, “yes.”

He plays for hours. Not just folk tunes either, once he’s feeling more sure of himself he dips into more contemporary music, even Western pieces. Plays a little Beethoven, Clair De Lune because he must, dips into pop music and Baby Shark for A-Yuan. By the time it gets dark, his mouth is numb and he’s feeling stiff from not moving. 

But Lan Zhan is still watching him, his eyes luminous in the lantern light. And Wei Wuxian tries to capture his expression in his mind with as much detail as possible because he thinks he might be smiling. 

(For the next many, many mornings, when he’s only half awake, he thinks he might hear the gentle thrum of the guqin playing. By the time he’s awake, it’s gone quiet again.)

Wei Wuxian is not completely oblivious. 

The easiest connection to make is that of Lan Zhan’s name and the Lan clan. It is clear that, if he isn’t ( wasn’t? ) a member of the clan, he is clearly connected to them in some way. Perhaps even a minor deity that the clan worshiped, though he can’t find any mention of that sort of thing in the texts. 

There is also something very telling about the missing years from the library. He can’t decide if it is intentional or not. Sometimes, he thinks that the Cloud Recesses must be so well hidden from the rest of the world that it was never discovered after the Lans died out. At others, he thinks that this place is merely a snapshot of the Cloud Recesses in a specific time, removed in some way from the true estate. 

(When he walks to the edge of the forest and discovers that the mountaintop just ends in a straight drop down into misty emptiness, he isn’t sure which theory it better confirms.)

There is some connection then, between Lan Zhan and the Cloud Recesses and the Sunshot Campaign. Where he starts to lose the thread is what that connection could possibly be. All of this would be a lot easier if he could just talk about it directly with Lan Zhan, but after his last attempt at such a thing, he is hesitant. 

He’s going to need a bit of tact, he decides, which is not exactly his strong suit. 

As summer starts in earnest, Wei Wuxian has taken to grabbing books for Lan Zhan and himself and carrying them out to either the rabbit clearing or to some other, shaded area. He noticed how much it frustrates Lan Zhan that he has to carry his reading in his mouth and that by taking them for him, he can both feel good about doing something nice and protect Lan Zhan’s pride a bit. 

When he started, he made some offhand comment about liking to flip through whatever Lan Zhan is reading for the day, which isn’t entirely a lie. He’s gotten good enough now at reading Lan Zhan’s expressions to know that he sees right through him, but that he’s grateful. 

Holding up the book Lan Zhan’s chosen today, a comprehensive bestiary for the various kinds of water monsters that Wei Wuxian himself had looked at the week before, he sighs and says “ah, what will I do when I run out of books?” 

He peeks up at Lan Zhan, a smile going sly. “Lan Zhan ah, Lan Zhan, how will you keep me entertained?” 

Wei Wuxian isn’t quite sure what he’s expecting, ideally for Lan Zhan to offer to sit down and explain his relationship to the Lan Clan, and the fallout of the Sunshot Campaign, in detail. Instead, Lan Zhan tilts his head consideringly and then drops a bomb on him. 

“Could teach Wei Ying...cultivation?” 

“What!?” He almost drops all their books. “You can just do that ?”

“Mn,” Lan Zhan dips his head in assent and makes his way out to the courtyard. 

Wei Wuxian sputters as he follows him, books gripped close to his chest. “Hang on a second! You’re telling me I could have been learning how to cultivate this whole time?” 

“Wei Ying has been reading....cultivation texts ‘this whole time’.”

“That doesn’t mean I’ve been like, actually figuring out how to develop a core!” He protests. “Plus no one has successfully done it since the cultivation sects dissolved.” 

Lan Zhan makes a slightly pained face at that and Wei Wuxian mentally chastises himself. Probably not a great idea to talk about the end of the cultivation era, considering they’re living in the hollowed-out home of one that Lan Zhan was probably a part of. 

“Why have I been reading books this whole time if you could have been teaching me?” He demands, setting down their books in a pile. “I’m tired of books, teach me how to fly on a sword!” 

“Not that simple...” Lan Zhan frowns lightly. “Wei Ying is also...older than most would be...when they start cultivating.” 

“Don’t call me old, I’m 26!” He admonishes, faux indignant, but laughs at Lan Zhan’s vaguely startled expression. “I’m teasing, I already know. I know it may be hard to believe, but I actually learned about cultivation and the history of the cultivation sects at university so I have a general idea of the theory, just not of the execution.” 

“Mn. Not hard to believe...Wei Ying is very well studied.” Lan Zhan observes and Wei Wuxian laughs nervously. 

“Aha Lan Zhan, I didn’t even finish grad school, I’d hardly call myself ‘well studied’.” 

Lan Zhan makes a noise of disagreement. “Wei Ying has extensive knowledge... on methods of study in cultivation... as well as night hunt practices... Would have made a good teacher.”  

He can feel his face heat up, distracted both by the compliment and the insinuation that Lan Zhan was around for the teaching and practice of cultivation. Which, ultimately makes sense, it’s not like dragons are ever young but...

“That’s beside the point,” Wei Wuxian decides. “Can you teach me?” 

“Mn.” Lan Zhan nods and then hesitates just a moment, which makes Wei Wuxian lean in with surprise and anticipation. “Will be...difficult. Strenuous.” 

He snorts and waves a hand. “I’m tougher than I look. How hard can it be?” 

---

In classic Wei Wuxian fashion, he’s eating his words within the day. 

Cultivation, even after having studied it for five-plus years, is not something one can just jump into, apparently. Reading a lot of theory on something doesn’t suddenly mean you can do it, despite Wei Wuxian’s wishes. 

When he says as much to Lan Zhan, the dragon responds with a knowing, “where did you learn that theory?” 

“From school?”

“Specifically...?” 

“Uhm.... oh, from books... wait, Lan Zhan! Are you making fun of me!”

“...mn.”

He’s too delighted to take offense. 

It’s slow going though, for several reasons. For one, Lan Zhan has a hard time speaking for long periods and that certainly puts a hinder on any teaching. Usually around the hour mark of “lessons”, as they start to call them, Lan Zhan’s speech slows and weakens until he can’t speak at all. Wei Wuxian would much rather have shorter lessons and be able to speak to Lan Zhan throughout the day than have longer lessons and not, so they end up only getting half an hour of instruction in every day. 

The rest of the day is spent reading, practicing sword forms, and meditating. 

Lan Zhan picks out specific books for him to read (“I thought we weren’t going to have more required reading...”) and surprises him by revealing a secret door in the library that leads to a secret hidden area. 

“Is it okay if I go down there?” Wei Wuxian asks, standing at the top of the stairs leading into the hidden basement. There’s no way that Lan Zhan will be able to go down there with him, the door is way too narrow, and people usually aren’t keen to let Wei Wuxian run amok in their secret, private rooms. 

“The knowledge here... shouldn’t be locked away....should be used.” Lan Zhan replies, weirdly intense, and Wei Wuxian doesn’t even pretend he wants to argue. 

Lan Zhan gives him specific books to retrieve from the basement, but that doesn’t stop him from picking out some light reading of his own. Unsurprisingly, a lot of the books kept there are on all the taboo subjects that he finds deeply interesting and that are never discussed in the classroom. He nabs a book on channeling spiritual energy through music, but unlike many of the books upstairs, it’s about how to harm the listener rather than to help. He also grabs what looks to be a rogue cultivator’s journal on demonic cultivation, slipping them in with the rest. 

They start having music lessons too, which mostly consists of Lan Zhan painfully trying to explain how to channel spiritual energy through an instrument. They work from a few different books, and Lan Zhan appears to have an extensive knowledge of the Lan's body of spiritual music. He even starts figuring out how to read the classical notation, learning what notes the scrawl of characters represent. 

Most of it is written to the guqin, but Wei Wuxian picks the dizi, of course. That involves having to transpose a lot of the music, which provides its own challenge. He spends a lot of afternoons leaned over the texts while he tries to understand what Lan Zhan means by “breathe your qi into the notes”. He thinks he sort of figures it out, and practices at length on those days that Lan Zhan leaves to gather food. It’s hard to tell if he’s actually doing anything, without a ghost or creature to test the music on, but he does feel calmer when he’s played through Clarity a few times. 

The sword forms are tough to parse out too because he has to work from guides rather than an actual person explaining them to him. He actually has experience with martial arts, Uncle Fengmian had put him into Ta Chi classes as a kid, at the prompting of Auntie Yu. Her reasoning had to do with making him learn how to sit still and be respectful, or something like that. Predictably it didn’t go well, and he only took it for three years. It had been a whole thing when he wanted to quit, and the only reason he’d been allowed to was because Jiang Yanli had-

Anyways. He’s retained a little of it and tries to use what he remembers to help the way. Again, it might be easier if he had someone who wasn’t ten times the size of him teaching him how to do the various forms. He starts calling Lan Zhan “Shifu” jokingly, though stops after he reads some combination of wistfulness and sorrow in his eyes every time he says it. 

He wonders if Lan Zhan was once actually someone’s Shifu, or if he’s missing his own. He’s pretty sure that dragons don’t have masters, which complicates his theories about Lan Zhan’s origins even more. 

That is another problem with the whole “building the foundations of his cultivation thing”. It’s distracting, to the point of drawing him away from his self-assigned task of figuring out what is keeping Lan Zhan trapped here and how to stop it. 

Not that he was making much progress on that anyway. He’s pretty sure that all the individual pieces, the Sunshot Campaign, the Lans and the destruction of their sect, the Cloud Recesses, even Lan Zhan’s wish-granting and the rules that come with it, fit together into some sort of answer. But he just can’t figure out what that is, and with less and less free time on his hands, it’s not becoming any clearer. 

He has the thought that it’s fine, as long as he is able to figure it out before the year is up, but all at once it’s the summer is ending and autumn beginning and he’s already been here for half a year. 

But a big part of the reason he’s distracting himself by working so hard is to not have to think about that. As with all things, he throws himself into his cultivation while still trying to balance his own desire to learn about the cultivation sects, learn about the Lans and Lan Zhan and the Cloud Recesses. 

And also, to learn about what might have brought it all to an end. 

Though, that too is set aside when Lan Zhan discovers him reading the journal on demonic cultivation. Wei Wuxian hasn’t been trying to hide it from him, per se, but he figured it’s not something Lan Zhan would like. 

That is confirmed by his friend’s reaction when he finds Wei Wuxian sprawled out on the porch of the Jingshi, pouring over the journal. 

“What are you reading?” He asks when he first arrives, appearing interested. 

A little guilty, Wei Wuxian holds up the cover and says, “ah, I’m reading a journal from the restricted area. It’s by a man named Xue Yang?” 

Lan Zhan visibly stiffens at the name and Wei Wuxian is quick to start placating him. 

“I know, I know, you’re all upright and probably have a moral aversion to reading about demonic cultivators, but this guy was really interesting! And, granted, very crazy. But I honestly think he was onto something with some of this stuff, like the whole ‘redirection of resentment’ thing. There had to be times when the usual methods of liberation or suppression weren’t possible-” 

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan interrupts, and there’s something in his voice that makes Wei Wuxian sit up straight. 

Lan Zhan looks mad, truly mad, unlike the exasperated look he takes on when he’s being teased. There’s a light quiver in his frame, though at his scale he’s shaking hard enough to make the rocks beneath him buzz. 

As they stand in a deadlock, it starts to sprinkle, fat drops of rain turning the rocks from white to gray.

All Wei Wuxian can think is “ what did I do now? ”

“That journal...is not- you shouldn’t read it...” Lan Zhan intones, sounding ragged. “Demonic cultivation is not something... you should be contemplating.”

“I’m not contemplating it, I’m just learning about it,” Wei Wuxian counters. “And besides, what happened to ‘this knowledge shouldn’t be locked away’? What is the point of having these books around if no one is going to read them?”  

“ Not about this...Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says and it’s forceful. “You may read any book... ask about anything. I will tell you. But not about this.”

It sits completely wrong with him, and before he’s really thought about it, he says, “oh so now I can ask about anything? When did that change?” 

Lan Zhan gives him a long, haunted look and then turns quickly and leaves. It's raining so hard now that he has to go inside and close the doors to keep the water from coming in.

Later, he feels bad about it. Anytime he’s brushed up against one of the things that set Lan Zhan off, it’s something that he should have known better than to bring up. His bedmate, the rules, and now this. It’s all a part of the same thing, essentially, tied to what is keeping Lan Zhan here and what ended the cultivation sects. 

Wei Wuxian is beginning to think those are the same thing. 

To apologize, Wei Wuxian climbs back up to the music room and takes a seat in front of the guqin. On the days that Lan Zhan leaves to get food, he’s been practicing it a little. He’s not great, and the tune he manages to pluck out is very, very simple. But he keeps playing it until Lan Zhan shows up and then continues to until his fingers hurt from playing. 

The next morning, there’s a dizi made of lacquered, black bamboo in the Jingshi. He gives it a try and it rings clear and sweet. 

He thinks he’s been forgiven.

It occurs to him one day as he is lying spread eagle in the grass, panting up at the sky after that day's training, that he’s never asked about the Wens. 

In the beginning, it had been because he felt he couldn’t, mostly because Lan Zhan wasn’t around. Then, when Lan Zhan was around, he didn't know where they stood. Sure, Lan Zhan was fairly friendly and was nearby most of the time, but that didn’t mean they were friends or even acquaintances. They were brought together by circumstances and, in Lan Zhan’s case, probably because they were the only people around. 

Now though, he’d like to think that they’re friends. He enjoys spending time with Lan Zhan and thinks that Lan Zhan more than tolerates spending time with him. Wei Wuxian likes to tease reactions out of the dragon, feels greedy for every one. He also puts value in the words he is granted, knowing that Lan Zhan has to carefully pick which ones he shares. 

And he thinks, under different circumstances, he would still seek Lan Zhan out. Still want to be his friend, even if they weren’t trapped here together. 

So really, he has no excuse for not asking. If he is being honest with himself (which is...rare) he thinks he might be afraid of the answer. Not because he doesn’t believe that Lan Zhan has held up his side of the deal, but because thinking about the Wens stirs up a lot of feelings that he would sooner ignore. 

But he makes himself bring it up anyways while laying in the grass, looking at the clouds instead of Lan Zhan’s face. 

“I never asked Lan Zhan but... about our deal, how did it go?” 

He hears more than sees the way Lan Zhan turns to him. There’s quiet while Lan Zhan picks his words, but Wei Wuxian is used to that by now. He thinks he’s gotten more patient while living here. 

Although, maybe just for Lan Zhan. 

“Wen Qionglin is awake and well,” Lan Zhan says eventually. 

Wei Wuxian blinks in surprise, tilting his head back against the ground to look at Lan Zhan upside down. “Oh, you know his name?” 

“Wei Ying told me...when the deal was made.” 

Blinking some more, he frowns, trying to remember. “Huh. I guess I did. And the- the money? They’re getting that?” 

“Mn.” Lan Zhan agrees, and like he already knows what Wei Wuxian wants to ask next. “They’re receiving 20,000 yuan a month.” 

“What?!” Wei Wuxian sits up so fast it makes him dizzy, twisting to stare at the dragon. “Lan Zhan! That’s too much!”

Lan Zhan makes a noise like he disagrees. 

Sighing, Wei Wuxian scoots himself around until he’s facing Lan Zhan. “Look, I don’t know how much you know about current currency and stuff, but that’s a lot of money! Like, way more than I could reasonably make in a month. Ah, Wen Qing’s gonna kill me.” 

Brow furrowed, Lan Zhan tilts his head in that way he does when Wei Wuxian has truly baffled him. “Kill you?” 

“Not literally,” he assures him. “I told my friend, Wen Qionglin’s jie, that I was doing a research assistant job and that I would send home a little bit of money each month. Ugh, she’s probably realized something is up and is gonna pester me about it when I go home...” 

Lan Zhan is quiet for a moment, considering. “You didn’t tell them... where you were going?” 

“Pfft, of course not!” Wei Wuxian snorts, shaking his head. 

“Why?” 

With a laugh, Wei Wuxian stares down at the grass, tugging at it absently. “Well, for one, I doubt they would believe me. Dragons aren’t exactly common out there in the world, you know. And for another...well. Wen Qing was pretty positive that I couldn’t do anything about Wen Ning- that’s Wen Qionglin, by the way- being sick. She’d probably be mad if she found out what I did.” 

He laughs again but it doesn’t come as naturally this time. Still staring downwards, tearing up the grass, Wei Wuxian thinks about how things would have gone down if he had been honest. He sincerely doubts that Wen Qing would have let him go at all, probably would have wanted him to go to a doctor or something, or god forbid, a therapist. 

“Wei Ying...didn’t tell his family...what he was doing for them?” Lan Zhan’s voice has taken on soft quality. Wei Wuxian can’t look up, isn’t sure he wants to see what’s happening on his friend’s face. 

“Well, yeah. I didn’t want them to worry or anything. And they’re...they’re not technically my family, just sort of my friends....that I live with and stuff. They’ve done a lot for me so... I wanted to help. But uhm, yeah.” 

Another pause and then, “Wei Ying is very kind. Noble.” 

“Huh?” His head whips up and he waves his hands, grass dropping from his fingers. “No, no, I’m not kind or noble, I just was helping out my friends.” 

The dragon’s eyes narrow in response and he moves his head closer. Wei Wuxian is met with the familiar feeling of being pinned by Lan Zhan’s yellow gaze. 

“Wei Ying is kind,” Lan Zhan insists, voice soft again. 

“Lan Zhan-” 

Lan Zhan does that thing where he gives the air of raising an eyebrow without actually doing it.“Do you not trust me?

“What? No, I do! I just-” 

“Wei Ying is kind,” Lan Zhan repeats, and something in his voice doesn’t leave room for arguments. 

Wei Wuxian would really like to look away, but he can’t take his eyes off of Lan Zhan’s. He squirms a little where he sits, twisting his hands in the soft linen of his robes. The dragon watches him expectantly, clearly waiting for some sort of response. 

“Okay, okay. I’m kind.” Wei Wuxian says, and his attempt at nonchalance is minimized by how raspy his voice is. “Are you satisfied?” 

Lan Zhan makes a rumble as if to say he is very satisfied before finally looking away and Wei Wuxian can breathe again. 

As the days get shorter and the nights start to get colder, Wei Wuxian realizes that he’s going to need warmer clothes to get through the winter. 

At some point during the summer, he had decided that linen pants and robes were superior to the tee shirts and denim jeans he’d brought with him, and transitioned into wearing robes all the time. The linen was much more breathable, and he found himself less hot and less likely to get sunburnt, due to being pretty much completely covered up. It was also a lot easier to wash than denim. 

He’d ventured back to the room of robes, grabbed anything that was black or gray or red, and carried it back to the Jingshi. He hasn’t been back since. But it’s cold enough now that he finds himself heading back to the robe room to try and find some more layers, or maybe some thicker layers he missed last time. 

It’s as he’s digging through the copious amount of white and blue robes when he encounters the trunk he’d tucked away the first time he was here. 

He sort of grits his teeth and plans to set it aside, but it occurs to him that even if he doesn’t wear the whole thing, he might be able to grab some of the layers from it. Laughing a little at his tendency to be overly practical, he opens up the trunk. 

The red robes are still folded neatly inside, and as he pulls them out, the fabric ripples in scarlet waves. It’s just as beautiful as he remembers, and makes his heart clench just as badly. But he also feels sort of mesmerized by it, the way the embroidery catches the autumn light, the way the silk shines. 

Before he really knows what he’s doing, he’s stripping out of his outer layers. 

There are six layers to the robes in total. There’s a set of pants that he puts to the side, electing to keep on the pair he’s already wearing. Something about the idea of putting on the pair that comes with the robes, put into the context of what these robes are for, makes him feel strange. 

So he moves to the next layer, a light, red robe that sits close to his skin. Next comes a slightly heavier robe that sits higher on his throat, made to stick out from under the outer layer. Then, the robe with the longest sleeves, with the first bit of embroidery, the inside material of the sleeves a shifting maroon satin. A thinner layer goes over that, the sleeves long but not quite as long as the previous, and then a thick belt with strips of golden detailing. Finally the gauzy, heavily embroidered outer robe that almost seems to float as he pulls it on. 

When he’s fully dressed, he feels kind of silly. It’s not like there’s any full-length mirrors around, just small bronze ones. Short of walking all the way to the Cold Spring to try to get a look at himself in the water, there’s no way he can really see how the robes look. 

But it does feel nice, the silk soft against his skin, the layers all swishing as he allows himself an indulgent spin. He’s been wearing robes for months now, but this one has a lot more movement and is looser than he’s used to. Distantly, he remembers Jiang Yanli letting him try on her dresses late at night, when they knew they wouldn’t get caught, spinning in dizzy circles around their rooms. Auntie Yu found out about it and put a stop to it eventually, of course, but not before they managed to get Jiang Cheng to join in. 

Ah. Thoughts of the Jiangs, especially in relation to weddings, are...tricky.

Luckily, his attention is quickly diverted to the sound of rocks shift outside. He spins around to see Lan Zhan standing outside the doorway and beams. 

“Ah, Lan Zhan! What do you think?” It’s easy to drop into a playful lilt, using his hands to make the robes sway back and forth. “Pretty, right?” 

When he doesn’t respond, Wei Wuxian glances up, worried that he’s done something wrong. It is possible that these robes belong to someone and he’s overstepped-

But no. Lan Zhan doesn’t seem offended at all. There is, once again, that open, vulnerable look on his face. They stare at each other for long, quiet moments, neither of them quite willing to be the first to move or speak. 

And then, Lan Zhan sighs. It’s a light, longing sort of sound that seems to sweep its way out of him. His eyes are very wide and intent, and Wei Wuxian can only look at him with his own wide eyes.

“Very pretty,” Lan Zhan says, after what feels like hours but must only be minutes, and then leaves. 

Wei Wuxian stands frozen for a moment, and then quickly disrobes. He folds everything back into the truck, none of those layers would be very warm or practical to start wearing, and closes it firmly. Then he gathers the things he did find and walks with brisk, long strides to the Jingshi.

It’s odd. Earlier he’d been worried about the cold, but at the moment his face feels unusually hot. 

---

Wei Ying is strong.

Faster, brighter every day.

All that urgency-

Ever hungry.

Ever searching. 

But kind.

Giving-

Too giving. 

Eyes on what is before,

what is passing. 

Never on what is his.

What will be left, 

When he has found

What he seeks?

But. 

Forgiving it all. 

A bloom of red petals

Through the doorway. 

Caught between,

White teeth, his smile,

Breathlessly. 

Maybe. 

Maybe. 

At last,

hope.

Chapter Text

iv

“Come down from the mountain, you have been gone too long

The spring is upon us, follow my only song

Settle down with me by the fire of my yearning

You should come back home, back on your own now”

Ragged Wood, The Fleet Foxes

---

It’s probably because of the conversation they’d had about the Wens that Wei Wuxian can’t get them off his mind. 

In between his sword practice in the morning, reading in the afternoon, and practicing his dizi in the evenings, he somehow finds the time to constantly be thinking about them. He coaxed very little information about how things are ‘in the real world’ out of Lan Zhan, only learning that the Wens were doing well and receiving their monthly stipend. But he can’t really fault him for only having that to tell, it’s unlikely that Lan Zhan is able to check on them when he leaves. 

Still, his thoughts continue to drift to them. A-Yuan should be more than halfway done with his first school year by now, and he wonders how it has gone. If he’s made friends, if his teachers like him. He must be doing fine, Wei Wuxian rationalizes, because A-Yuan is exceedingly clever and friendly and funny, and there’s no way anyone could meet him and not immediately love him. 

He also wonders about Wen Ning, how his recovery has gone. There’s probably been a significant adjustment period, after being asleep for three months, but with Wen Qing there to guide him and the extra money to cover medical expenses, it’s probably alright. In fact, the Wens are probably thriving now, with their extra spending money and Wen Ning up and moving again. 

He’s just sad he hasn’t been there to see it. 

But it’s fine, he tells himself. He wasn’t necessarily doing any of this for himself, it was all for the Wens. Maybe, by the time he gets back, they’ll be doing so well that they don’t even need his help anymore. Maybe, with the added income, Wen Qing can go back to school. Maybe she and Wen Ning could work less and even have the time to look after A-Yuan. It will have been a year by the time he goes home, maybe they’ll have decided they want to adopt A-Yuan after all. 

It’s even possible that, after a year, A-Yuan will have forgotten all about Wei-gege and Wei Wuxian can slip quietly out of Wen's life. Stop being a burden on them. 

The thought makes his throat close, for some reason. 

It gets to the point where he's so preoccupied thinking about his friends that Lan Zhan starts to notice. 

“Wei Ying,” he calls in a gentle voice while Wei Wuxian is trying to nail a tricky line in a piece of music that focuses on suppression. 

“Yeah?” He doesn’t look up from the sheet music, characters swimming in front of his eyes as he tries to make sense of them. 

“You haven’t had dinner.”

Wei Wuxian glances up, blinking, to see that the sun has set and that the lanterns are on. “Oh. I forgot I guess.” 

When he packs up in the library, making his way to the kitchen, Lan Zhan trails a bit behind. He looks unusually tentative. The door to the kitchen is too narrow for Lan Zhan to stick his head through, so Wei Wuxian leaves it open even though it’s getting cold. The fire of the stove will keep him warm, anyway. 

Wei Wuxian crouches in front of the stove and starts the fire quickly, having gotten fairly good at it in his time here. Lan Zhan doesn’t speak for a while, just watches as Wei Wuxian cooks in silence until it seems he can keep quiet no longer. 

“Wei Ying has been....distracted, lately.” 

“Hmm?” Wei Wuxian glances up from the wok, where he’s steaming vegetables. “Ah, have I?”

“Mn. What is on your mind?” 

Frowning down into the wok, Wei Wuxian gives a half-hearted shrug. “You know. This and that.” 

Lan Zhan hums, clearly unsatisfied and Wei Wuxian laughs a little. 

“Ah, Lan Zhan, it’s really nothing,” he scoops the vegetables out into a bowl and then proceeds to dump a bunch of chili oil on it. “Just thinking about home recently, I guess.” 

He sits cross-legged on one of the tables while Lan Zhan seems to process this, digging into his dinner. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t realize how hungry he is until he’s eating and is quiet while he eats, for once. 

“...your friends?” Lan Zhan says eventually when Wei Wuxian has finished most of his meal. 

Wei Wuxian bobs his head, abnormally focused on chasing a piece of cabbage with his chopsticks. “Yeah. Just like, how they’re doing and stuff.”

Lan Zhan merely rumbles and doesn’t bring it up again until a few days later. 

“Tell me about them,” he requests out of nowhere. 

Wei Wuxian looks up a set of sword forms and gives him a confused smile. “Who?”

“Your friends.” 

“Oh!” He exclaims, surprised. “Really? I’m sure you’re tired of hearing about them, I feel like I talk about them a lot...” 

Lan Zhan shakes his head. “Wei Ying has only mentioned them...not told me about them.”

That seems odd to him, but maybe he’s just been thinking about them so much it feels like he’s been talking about them. So he puts the training sword he’s been using aside, leans against a tree, and starts to describe the Wens to Lan Zhan. 

It’s surprisingly easy, or maybe not so surprising. He’s known both Wen Qing and Wen Ning since high school and after falling out of touch for a little in those middle years and then meeting back up a few years ago, has been around them constantly since. He finds himself talking a lot about Uncle Four and Granny Wen too, as well as their other relatives that have been around in some capacity or another. 

Wei Wuxian smiles as he describes Wen Qing’s fierce protectiveness, her sharp mind and wit, the way she can always keep up with his banter and grounds him when he starts to drift. And Wen Ning, with his more gentle attentiveness, but passionate in his own way when he needs to be. They’re so different from each other, but manage to compliment each other perfectly, and are united by their shared desire to care for others. 

“Yeah, I latched onto them and they haven’t been able to shake me since,” he laughs, thinking fondly of their high school days. 

It had taken a little while for them to trust him, but eventually, they’d bonded over being orphans and having complicated relationships with their adopted parents. Wei Wuxian had seen something in them that he’d recognized and hadn’t wanted to let go. 

And then things got complicated with their uncle, and in turn with his own family. But he doesn’t tell Lan Zhan about that, skimming over the loss and fear of that time, trying to ignore the clench in his chest. 

It’s easy, and less painful, to jump into talking about A-Yuan. He could talk about him for hours if he was given the opportunity. Wei Wuxian finds himself rehashing a lot of what he told Mo Xuanyu all that time ago in the coffee shop, but also new things he hadn’t shared then. He talks about the hard times, about figuring out how to handle tantrums and colds, and A-Yuan’s picky phase where all he wanted to eat was carrots. 

“I tried to get him into other foods by having him grow them with me, so he could see where they came from and have a vested interest in them. I guess I thought that if he participated in the growing, he’d be more likely to eat it? There’s a little garden at the apartment complex that we can use and we planted a bunch of turnips and potatoes and stuff. We waited for months but nothing ended up growing. I’m pretty sure the dirt was cursed or something,” he laughs, shaking his head. “He was so disappointed when his turnips didn’t grow.” 

“It was a good idea...all the same.” Lan Zhan tells him warmly and Wei Wuxian waves a hand. 

“Yeah well, this was also during the peak of his questions phase, where he wanted to know about everything. Somehow he’d heard about jiejie being pregnant and between me trying to figure out how to explain  that and the gardening, his wires got crossed. Now he thinks that babies grow in the dirt like plants. Wen Qing was so mad when she overheard, she bought him a bunch of books with titles like ‘Me and My Amazing Body’ to try and sort it out.”

Wei Wuxian is still laughing up until the moment Lan Zhan asks, “you have a sister?” 

Something sort of short circuits in his brain for a second and he’s left backtracking through what he’s said, trying to remember when he mentioned a sister. 

“Oh. Uh, yes... technically? I’m not sure if I was ever legally disowned so...” Wei Wuxian can tell he’s alarming Lan Zhan a bit. “Don’t worry Lan Zhan, it really wasn’t a big deal, haha. And it was ages ago, now. And I lived with the Wens right after.” 

Not exactly right after, but Lan Zhan doesn’t need to know about the three odd months that he was technically homeless...

“You’ve only lived with...the Wens for three years.” Lan Zhan observes. 

“Yeah, like I said! Ages ago.” 

Lan Zhan frowns and Wei Wuxian hates that, so he rushes to reassure him. “It really was nothing, Lan Zhan. I just did something really stupid and got in trouble for it. That’s all.” 

Again, just a technicality, but it was Jiang Cheng who did something “really stupid” but he wasn’t going to say that either. He didn’t want Lan Zhan’s first (and only) impression of his brother to be one of his worst moments. Better to just stick with the fiction, only he and the Wens knew the truth about that mess anyway. 

Lan Zhan still doesn’t look convinced but Wei Wuxian really doesn’t want to talk about it, even to Lan Zhan, so he starts in on another story about A-Yuan being cute and charming. Those are very good for distracting people, he’s found. 

It does actually make him feel better, despite the blunder. At least for a while. 

---

Then things start to take a turn. 

It gets harder and harder to pay attention during his lessons with Lan Zhan. His sword forms start to flag, meditation is practically impossible, and even his dizi playing takes a hit. At night, he finds himself tossing and turning, feels the way that his bedmate is kept up with him.

(Some nights he has nightmares that are more memories than dreams, and wakes up shouting in the middle of the night, causing his bedmate to startle and shift.)

He forgets to eat a lot of the time. It’s not that he’s consciously choosing not to, it just slips his mind more often than not. He’s too locked into his reading, most of the time, and the usual hours for lunch and dinner just pass him by. Breakfast is always a constant, and he can’t help but notice that the less he eats during the day, the more hearty it becomes. Soon, there’s even noodles and meat and side dishes to go with his usual congee and tea. 

There’s an uptick in the amount of guqin music he hears in the morning as well. The music plays for longer, so long sometimes that he could swear that the front door closes just as he finally gets out of bed. He starts being able to place the music too, recognizing the familiar strings of Clarity and a few other pieces for rest and healing. 

There’s one piece he doesn’t quite recognize but finds, even as his mind gets hazier from exhaustion, stays with him. A gentle, plaintive piece that feels at once familiar and entirely brand new. He finds himself humming it to himself, as he stares at his books, unable to read the words on the page. 

Lan Zhan comes to him one day, sometime near the beginning of winter. He’s not actually sure of the date anymore, lost track of it recently. It might be December now, and the Cloud Recesses are starting to get covered in a light fall of snow. His birthday happened, at some point, but he hadn’t felt like celebrating.

Wei Wuxian had planned to read on his porch but finds himself staring out at the snow, mesmerized by the fall of flaky clusters of snowflakes through the night. 

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan calls, his voice sounding tight. “Have you eaten?” 

“Hm?” Wei Wuxian blinks at him, his friend’s worried face slowly coming into focus. “Oh. No, I’m not hungry.” 

“Wei Ying needs food...rest.” Lan Zhan insists and it rings of his first night here. 

Wei Wuxian makes himself smile. “It’s fine, Lan Zhan. I’m fine.” 

Lan Zhan gives a huff, sounding aggrieved, and then uses his nose to push at Wei Wuxian. He gives a little yelp, hands coming up to brace himself against Lan Zhan’s face as the dragon shoves him into the Jingshi. He can’t push him very far, just as far as his head reaches in, but he directs him pointedly towards the bed. 

“ Rest, Wei Ying.” 

He doesn’t really have the strength to argue, so he just sighs and nods, heading to the bed. He is feeling a little tired, he realizes as he lays down. 

This is the earliest he’s ever turned in for the night, and at some point, he’s distantly aware of his bedmate arriving. It’s dark now and he’s mostly asleep, but he thinks he feels a cool hand on his forehead, a quiet call of his name. But the memory of it fades by morning. 

The next day, as he picks at his breakfast under Lan Zhan’s watchful eyes, Lan Zhan asks him, “what would help?” 

“I don’t know,” he admits because he’s past the point of pretending nothing is wrong. He’s too tired for pretense.

As much as he loves it here with Lan Zhan, as much as coming to the Cloud Recesses had been a much-needed break, Wei Wuxian has always been a restless person. He's used to being able to get up and go somewhere on a whim, whenever he felt like it. Maybe it shouldn't be surprising that he's starting to feel a bit trapped here, considering the circumstances. But he likes it here, he likes Lan Zhan, he likes learning how to cultivate and sitting with the bunnies and playing his dizi for Lan Zhan in the slow, peaceful evenings. He thinks that if there were a few more people around he'd feel less on edge, or if he were able to leave-

But he can't. And now he's homesick. He misses the Wens, he wants to bicker with Wen Qing and see Wen Ning awake and well. He wants to see A-Yuan so badly, his birthday is probably soon and he wants to be there. 

He feels guilty too because he chose this, and he doesn't want Lan Zhan to think that he is unhappy here. For the most part, he isn't unhappy at all. He's just feeling...stuck. 

(There's another layer to it all, underneath the first bit of homesickness. He thinks he's been missing a home he hasn't had for a long time. He thinks about a room with two beds, a clear divide between the room's inhabitants in the amount of mess on the floor, the combating posters on the walls. Staying up too late with Jiang Cheng, laughing and arguing. Uncle Fengmian and Auntie Yu's room, the dark wood of their dressers, the clean lines of Auntie Yu’s vanity. The smell of her face powder as she would get ready in the morning, her stern eyes when she would turn him out of the room and tell him, “Hurry up! Get ready for school!" Jiang Yanli giggling and finding his shoes for him, retrieving them from under the big leather couch in the formal living room from when he kicked them off the day before. Uncle Fengmian's smiling eyes as he wrapped a scarf around Wei Wuxian's neck and gave his shoulder a firm pat.

And deep, deep under that, he thinks maybe, he's been missing something his whole life, something that he can barely remember outside of vague impressions. Smudges of his childhood room, the idea of a bed with soft flannel bedding. Two sets of hands smoothing down the blanket, smoothing down his hair. Being content and unconditionally loved.

But those are all things that are no longer his.)

“What about...going home...?”

Wei Wuxian looks up quickly, feeling more aware than he has in weeks. “Is that...something I can do?” 

“Mn,” Lan Zhan nods, but his eyes are wide and deep and sad. “For a little while. A month.” 

“A month,” he repeats to himself, staring down at his hands. His wrists look bonier than he remembers. He clenches them into fists. “When?” 

“Tomorrow,” Lan Zhan declares and then leaves, snow billowing behind him. 

There isn’t much to pack. 

Wei Wuxian chooses not to bring any robes with him, despite having grown fond of them. He doesn’t think there’s any reasonable way he can explain them to the Wens, so he regretfully changes into a pair of jeans and a sweater. He trades out his long socks and shoes for his sneakers too, wincing as he steps through a thick patch of snow and soaks them through. 

Lan Zhan is waiting for him, looking uncharacteristically anxious as his claws dig into the white rocks of the pathways. 

“There is money...for the train, in the library.” Lan Zhan tells him, and it’s odd to hear him say the word ‘train’.

He goes inside and finds there is indeed a large stack of cash at his usual desk. There’s a moment when he’s tempted to grab one of the books, but something feels wrong about it. He doesn’t want to accidentally leave it somewhere for someone else to see or forget it at home. And he wouldn’t want Lan Zhan to think he was stealing it, betraying his trust in that way.  

“This is a lot more money than trains cost, by the way,” Wei Wuxian announces when he comes outside and Lan Zhan merely dips his head in acknowledgment. 

He moves to climb onto Lan Zhan’s shoulders as before, but he’s stopped with a gentle, “wait.” 

Staring up at him expectantly, Wei Wuxian finds that Lan Zhan’s expression is difficult for him to read. It’s even more stoic than usual. 

“You must return...before sunset...in one month,” he imparts. “Must stay...another month...past your arrival.”

“I understand.” He’d been expecting something like that. 

Lan Zhan’s face sort of twitches and he lowers his head further. His eyes are wide and seeking, staring right through Wei Wuxian. “Your family...will want you to stay. Must be careful...of your jie .” 

“You mean Wen Qing? I told you I was joking when I said she was gonna kill me, Lan Zhan. Or, at least, exaggerating.” 

Shaking his head with a huff, Lan Zhan just bends further to allow him to climb up. 

It’s the inverse of the last trip. They circle the Cloud Recesses for a moment, Wei Wuxian taking a long, lingering look at it before they go. Lan Zhan does not drag his feet through the clouds this time and Wei Wuxian is awake for the whole trip, following the path of the sun above them. Sometime near noon, Lan Zhan starts to descend, and they come out over the mountain near the shrine and then settle on the hill near the forest where Mo Xuanyu had dropped him off. 

Wei Wuxian wonders if anyone could see them flying over the trees, and then assumes that some sort of glamour kept them hidden. He thinks if people were seeing dragons coming out of the sky, there’d be a lot more fuss about it by now. 

Lan Zhan is quiet as Wei Wuxian slides off, watching as he rights himself. 

“There is a town...not far to the east. You can... buy a train ticket there.” 

“You’re surprisingly knowledgeable about these things,” Wei Wuxian teases, feeling lighter than he has in weeks. 

He gets a hum in response, Lan Zhan looking at him with what seemed like a bit of fondness. His expression sobers quickly though, and he leans close again. 

“One month...no longer.” 

Wei Wuxian huffs a laugh, nodding indulgently. “I know, I know. One month. Ah, the Cloud Recesses will be so quiet, what will you do without me, Lan Zhan?” 

He means it as a friendly jab but Lan Zhan closes his eyes and then nods slowly, replying, “I will miss you.” 

It catches him off guard and his heart clenches painfully. He has been ignoring this truth, in his excitement about going home. That Lan Zhan will be in the Cloud Recesses all by himself, waiting for him to return. 

He steps forward, arms reaching hesitantly, and is surprised when Lan Zhan moves to meet him. Wrapping his arms around Lan Zhan’s snout, he presses his face into the soft fur between the dragon’s eyes. He breathes in that musty, dragon-smell that he’s grown to associate with his friend over all these months. 

“I’ll miss you too, Lan Zhan. Don’t be too lonely.” 

Lan Zhan leans his weight into the sort-of hug, giving a quiet sigh through his nose. “Mn. I shall try.” 

He leaves soon after, disappearing back up the mountain the way he came. Wei Wuxian watches for a long time, blinking rapidly. Then he slaps his cheeks lightly, a little annoyed with himself. 

“Get it together, Wei Ying. It’s just a month.” 

The walk out of the forest is long, though the walk up the road toward the town Lan Zhan had told him about is surprisingly short. The first time he sees another human it’s jarring, and he probably ends up scaring everyone he passes on the street by smiling maniacally. 

He makes small talk with the teller at the train station, just because he can, much too enthusiastic in simply talking about the weather. Then, when he’s on one of the last trains to the city, he tugs his phone out of his duffel bag. It’s been off since his first week in the Cloud Recesses and when he turns it on, dozens of notifications pop up at once. He bypasses them completely, opening his messages to Wen Qing. 

Me

Got some time off, is anyone around to get me from the train station? Should be there in two hours.

---

Wen Qing is the one to pick him up from the station, and she’s yelling at him before he’s even out the door. 

“No word for eight months and then a text out of nowhere saying you were going to be here in two hours ?” 

Wei Wuxian just laughs heartily and pulls her into a tight hug. “I missed you too!” 

“You are such an asshole,” she mutters into his coat, but she’s hugging him back just as fiercely. “Are they feeding you? Why are you so skinny?” 

“Ah, you know me,” he pulls back a little. “I get so caught up in my work that I just forget to eat sometimes. 

She frowns and slaps his arm, then grabs him by it and starts tugging him towards the parking lot. “You need to eat, you jerk. And why do you smell like a dog?” 

The ride back home is spent bickering back and forth about this and that. “We didn’t agree on that much money, Wei Wuxian” and “Did they not have reception? You couldn’t even send a letter?” and more complaining about him being too skinny. Wei Wuxian just smiles the whole time, laughing at things that would usually make him argue. If Wen Qing notices that he is watching her too closely, or staring out the window too much at all the cars and people, she doesn’t mention it. 

He doesn’t realize they aren’t headed for the apartment until they’re pulling up in front of an unfamiliar building. “Wait, where are we?” 

“We moved,” Wen Qing declares as she turns off the car. “Which you would know if you had ever picked up your phone.” 

“You moved? How did you move?”

“I’ve been saving for a long time, you know,” she tells him while ushering him into a nice lobby and an elevator that doesn’t smell like dirt. “And then you were sending us so much money that there was no reason to stay in that place.”

“I liked that place,” he says, feeling weirdly wrong-footed about not knowing. 

“No you didn’t,” she snorts as they approach one of the doors, one of only four on this floor, and she tugs out a key and unlocks it. 

Wei Wuxian is about to retort when the door swings open and a small body slams into his legs. 

“Wei-gege! ”

“A-Yuan!” He catches his head, making sure A-Yuan doesn’t smack it against his knees. “Ah, look at you! Have you gotten taller?”

A-Yuan is very indulgent of his fussing, arms wrapped around his legs while Wei Wuxian brushes his bangs out of his eyes. “Wei- gege, you said you’d be back in a blink!”

“Technically I said a year,” he points out and then laughs at A-Yuan’s pout. “Ah, you’re right, gege made you wait. I’m sorry.” 

A light cough comes from deeper in the apartment and Wei Wuxian looks up, surprised, and finds Wen Ning sitting on the couch with a blanket in his lap and a small, shy smile on his face. 

“Wen Ning!” He gasps, stepping past A-Yuan. “How are you?” 

Surprise flickers across Wen Ning’s face. “Ah. I’m good. You knew I was awake, Wei-gongzi? Jiejie wasn’t sure.” 

Wei Wuxian huffs at the old nickname (is it a nickname if it’s an overly formal title your friend insists on calling you?) and glances at Wen Qing. She appears surprised too, eyebrows raised slightly. 

“I started going through your texts on the train,” he explains, grappling for a convincing story. “Trust me, I freaked out about it plenty then, probably scared some of the other passengers.” 

“So you read the texts about that and not about us moving?” Wen Qing raises an eyebrow. 

He laughs and scratches at his neck. “Ah, I didn’t read all of them. Must have missed the one about that.” 

It’s enough to get Wen Qing off his case, though she still narrows her eyes at him suspiciously. He knows this probably won’t be the end of her interrogation. Though what exactly she is planning to accuse him of, he’s interested to see. 

“Alright, alright, we can drop your stuff off in your room then we can all catch up.” Wen Qing decides, taking his duffel out of his hands. “Granny will want to see you so I should probably go get her.” 

He blinks for a moment, before asking, “my room?” 

“Yes?” Wen Qing gives him a weird look. “Did you think we were going to move somewhere that didn’t have space for you or something?” 

That is pretty much exactly what he had thought, but he doesn’t voice it for fear of making Wen Qing mad. Instead, he follows her deeper into the apartment, looking around as he does. 

It’s a lot nicer than their old one, that’s for sure. There’s a decent-sized living space with a couch and a dining area, and the kitchen is more than just a counter and a stovetop. As she leads him down the hallway, he glances at the pictures on the walls, seeing himself mixed in with the ones of the rest of the Wens. 

Wen Qing opens the first door on the left, stepping aside as she says, “we haven’t decorated much, just moved your stuff over here. We wanted to let you do it when you got back.” 

Feeling thrown, he steps into the room, staring around in surprise. His bed is there, though there’s new bedding on it and what looks like a blanket made by Granny Wen. There’s a new desk too, a nice sturdy looking one, and while Wen Qing said they hadn’t decorated, his framed pictures are set up on it along with a lamp. When he steps further in, he discovers that there’s a whole bookshelf for his truly mediocre collection of books. 

“Wen Ning insisted we get that,” Wen Qing says from the doorway, leaning against the frame. “Said you’d want to fill it up.” 

He is completely off balance, circling in the middle of the room, trying to place his feelings. 

“Um. This is...nice.” Wei Wuxian manages, retrieving his duffel bag from Wen Qing, unable to fully meet her eyes. 

She snorts at him and stands straighter. “I’m going to go get Granny, don’t disappear or something before I’m back.” 

He sees the jab as what it is, Wen Qing giving him an opportunity to make the moment less serious, more comfortable. “Would I do that?” 

She gives him a speaking look and then sweeps off down the hallway. 

Wei Wuxian hears the sound of the front door closing and hears A-Yuan’s animated voice talking to Wen Ning’s softer one. 

In a little while, Granny Wen will be here and he’ll have to come up with an explanation of what he’s been doing for the past eight months. Sooner than that, A-Yuan will probably come to find him and make him play. He’s got a whole month of lying ahead of him, but also a whole month of being home.

For now, he leans back on the bed and lets it all wash over him, feeling an unlocking in his chest. 

The weeks go by too quickly. 

It’s actually pretty easy to talk about the “work” he’s been doing because he has actually been doing a lot of reading and research. When Granny Wen or Uncle Four ask, he just describes some of the texts he’s been going through, and that works well enough. 

When Wen Qing eventually comes to hound him about the money thing, it’s also pretty easy to come up with an explanation. 

“I know I said it was doing a research assistant position, but it’s more like, helping this guy sort through a private collection?” He explains over drinks one night. He feels energized by being in a bar, the loud bustle of other humans around him exciting rather than irritating. “I didn’t want to tell you cause it’s not super legit, but the guy is loaded and just keeps throwing money at me. But he’s also paying for my room and board, so I’ve just been sending most of it to you.” 

Wen Qing appears mostly satisfied with that explanation, but she still argues that it’s too much money. 

“Yeah, you try telling that to Lan Zhan,” he laughs into his drink, not catching his slip until Wen Qing raises an eyebrow. 

“Lan Zhan? Is that the guy who hired you?” 

“Um, yes.” Technically not a lie. 

Wen Qing’s eyes narrow. “What’s he like?” 

That too actually ends up being easy to talk about. As long as he doesn’t mention the whole dragon thing, there’s plenty of anecdotes for him to share. 

“We didn’t really get along super well at first, mostly cause he was always away on business. But when we actually started working together we got a lot closer. I’d say we’re friends now,” he concludes after waxing poetic about Lan Zhan for the better part of an hour. It makes his heart squeeze a little bit to think about him, and he has to remind himself that he’s going back soon enough. 

“Hmm,” Wen Qing takes a sip of her beer before saying, “so are you going to tell him you like him?” 

“What?” Wei Wuxian sputters, almost spitting out his drink. “What are you talking about? Lan Zhan and I are friends .” 

“Uh-huh, that’s why you spent thirty minutes describing his minute expressions and love of rabbits.” Wen Qing says doubtfully. 

Wei Wuxian waves a hand. “It’s cute! Trust me, if you met the guy, you’d be surprised that he likes bunnies so much! It’s very at odds with his appearance.” 

“And that’s because...?” 

He huffs. “Well he’s like, beautiful and regal and stuff. Like, otherworldly levels of beautiful. There is a poetic sort of dichotomy to someone who looks like him sitting with a bunch of rabbits.” 

“You are literally proving my point right now.” 

Luckily she drops it, because if there’s one thing Wei Wuxian doesn’t want to have to do on this trip, it’s examining his feelings. He’s already having feelings about the fact that, once his time is up at the Cloud Recesses, he’s probably never going to see Lan Zhan again. That is a thought that he doesn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole, so he throws himself into being as present as possible while home. 

Since he’s not working, and he still has all that “train money” Lan Zhan gave him, Wei Wuxian takes to treating people to lunch and dinner and taking A-Yuan on little adventures. A-Yuan tells him in detail about his class, about his nice teacher and his friends Jingyi and Zizhen. All that worry he’d felt that A-Yuan would forget about him is thoroughly destroyed when, at A-Yuan’s sixth birthday party, he is swarmed by a bunch of kindergarteners who want to meet A-Yuan’s Wei- gege. 

Even his teacher, a gentle-looking man named Xiao Xingchen knows who he is when he picks A-Yuan up from school one day, and Wei Wuxian is startled by how nice he is to him. He doesn’t remember the last time someone who knew who he was before meeting him was nice to him. 

“Ah, A-Yuan, you’re ruining my street cred,” he tells him as they walk out of the classroom hand in hand, but he’s smiling much too wide. 

He ends up spending a lot of time with Wen Ning too, though mostly within the apartment. He’s been up for almost a year now, but he’s doing a bit of physical therapy and tests. Wen Qing explains to him that the doctors don’t really know why he woke up, just that he did and that he had seemed almost unusually well. She’s slightly exasperated by it, as a doctor it’s frustrating to not know what happened, but Wei Wuxian can see that she's happy too. Much more herself than when he left.

And because of that, he can’t find himself regretting anything. He’s missed his friends, of course, but it appears like it’s all been worth it if everyone is this happy. 

He doesn’t have a doubt in his mind that he’s made the right choice. 

It’s week three of his visit back home when there comes a tentative knock on his door. 

He tries not to hole himself up in his room too often, it feels too reminiscent of the three horrible months when Wen Ning was asleep and he was constantly wrecking his brain for what to do. But he’s grown used to quiet in the last year, and learned that even he needs time away from people to recharge. Luckily, the Wens are more than understanding of this, giving him space when he goes quiet and contemplative. 

He’s got a book in hand (which isn’t that a laugh, considering how much he was complaining about being bored of books) and calls, “come in.” 

“Wei-gongzi,” Wen Ning greets, looking soft and cozy in his sweater and house slippers. “There’s....there’s someone here to see you.” 

“Oh?” Wei Wuxian sits up, checking his phone. He doesn’t have any texts from anyone saying they’re coming over, and Wen Qing is at work. “Who is it?” 

“Um, it’s....i-it’s,” Wen Ning stutters and Wei Wuxian looks at him a little more closely and realizes he’s red in the face and looks a little panicked. 

“Wen Ning ah, calm down,” he stands, putting a gentle hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I’ll just go see, no need to stress out.” 

He steps out into the hallway, Wen Ning follows like a nervous shadow and he’s laughing a little, saying something like, “what has got you so worked up?” when he steps out into the living room and turns to see Jiang Yanli standing in the doorway. 

Time seems to slow for a moment as he stands frozen in the living room. It’s like every second is stretched out, he can see the way her smile creeps up her face in increments, see her eyes lighting up. 

“A-Xian,” she calls.

He is broken open. “ Jie .” 

She’s wearing a pale yellow coat (something in the back of his mind whispers Jin colors ) and a big white scarf and her cheeks are pink from the cold. And she’s smiling at him so big, her whole face glowing. 

“I’ll go...be in the other room.” Wen Ning says when it’s been quiet for a long time and suddenly Wei Wuxian remembers that he is there, blinking at him in surprise. 

“Ah, you don’t have to-” he begins, but Wen Ning cuts him off. 

“No, you two should...you should talk.” Wen Ning insists and then disappears down the hallway. 

Wei Wuxian watches him go and then turns to Jiang Yanli again. He doesn’t know if he should offer her a seat on their ratty couch, or get her a drink or run away. 

Then she says, “aren’t you going to give your jiejie a hug hello?” and he’s crumbling, taking long strides to reach her. He hugs her gently, but she holds him almost painfully tight and at once he feels very small. It’s like he’s six years old again, and he’s been locked out of his room in the middle of the night by Jiang Cheng, and Jiang Yanli has found him sniffling in the hallway. She still smells like vanilla and lotus flowers. 

It’s amazing how much you can be missing something and not even know until it’s right in front of you. 

His face feels wet when he pulls away, but he’s comforted by the fact that Jiang Yanli’s eyes are just as shiny. Eventually, he does offer her a seat on the couch, and he gets her a glass of water because that’s all they really have other than beer. He sits near her but keeps his back straight and his hands clenched on his knees, unsure what to do next. 

“Your hair has gotten long,” she observes, reaching up to tuck a piece behind his ear. 

He gives a jerky nod, turning his head, “I haven’t gotten a haircut in a while...” 

“It looks nice,” she insists, ducking her head to catch his eye. “A-Xian looks very nice. But too skinny.” 

He can’t help but bark a laugh, saying, “Wen Qing said the same thing.” 

“Mm. I’m glad she’s looking after you, then.” She says, gentle, and then her face goes a little serious. “A-Xian, I actually came because I have something important to talk to you about.” 

He feels his stomach sinking. Of course. There was no way she was going to come to see him just to visit. He tries for a smile anyway.  “Ah. Not because you wanted to see me?” 

“Oh!” She looks startled for a moment and then reaches to take his hand. “Of course I want to see you, A-Xian. I just didn’t know... I didn’t know if I was welcome.” 

“What?” He feels like the earth has been flipped on its axis. “Why wouldn’t you be welcome?” 

Jiang Yanli looks at him for a long moment, and then looks away, her hand resting on his. “You never called after...after everything. I wasn’t sure if you wanted to see me.”  

“Jie,” he gasps, chest aching. “No, I...I thought I couldn’t- that I shouldn’t bother you.” 

“Oh, A-Xian,” she turns to him again and her eyes are so bright. She rests her other hand on his cheek and he can’t help but close his eyes and lean into it. “You could never be a bother. I’m always thinking about you, worrying about you. Hoping you’re okay.” 

He feels his brow quirk, feels Jiang Yanli’s thumb catch on the corner of his eye. He thinks he might be crying a bit. But she just keeps smiling at him, keeps looking at him like she doesn’t hate him. He doesn’t know what to do with all these feelings, doesn’t know why he could ever think Jiang Yanli could hate him. It’s embarrassing, at once and he slides off the couch, onto the ground, and rests his forehead on her knee. 

“Jiejie, I missed you,” he mumbles, sniffling to himself. 

Her hands come up to pet at his head as she laughs quietly. “I missed you too, didi.” 

Something about that just makes him want to cry harder, and he clenches his eyes closed. They stay like that a while, Jiang Yanli carefully petting at his shaggy hair and Wei Wuxian trying to feel like he isn’t freefalling through the sky. 

“A-Xian,” his sister calls eventually, giving his shoulder a little tug. “I really do need to tell you about something.” 

Wei Wuxian uses the sleeve of his sweatshirt to swipe at his face, lifting his head. “What is it?” 

“I-” she hesitates and her expression twists in worry. “I know about...the dragon.” 

It’s like electricity has been shot up his spine, causing him to sit up straight. He stares up at Jiang Yanli, trying to decide if he should play dumb or not. But something in Yanli’s expression makes him think that would be a bad idea. 

“...how?” 

“A-Xuan first told me about it when I married him.” She huffs when he makes a face at Jin Zixuan’s name and chides him gently. “Oh, be nice. I’ll be honest, I didn’t believe him at first, but he showed me proof. His family are the ones keeping the dragon under control.”

“Under control...?” He remembers, briefly, Mo Xuanyu mentioning that “the dragon”, Lan Zhan, was connected to his family. It occurs to him now that he’d never said which family that was. 

“I’m worried, A-Xian,” Jiang Yanli’s brows are furrowed and her hands clenched tightly. “It’s not safe for you, there.” 

“I- It's not like that. Lan Zhan isn’t dangerous.” 

Her eyebrows raise. “Lan Zhan?” 

“That’s his name,” Wei Wuxian says hurriedly, feeling like he has to somehow defend Lan Zhan. “He’s safe, I promise. He’s...he’s really smart and kind and he’s been teaching me about cultivation. The Cloud Recesses, that’s where I’m staying, it’s very comfortable and Lan Zhan brings me good, fresh food every week. It’s not dangerous, he’s not dangerous.” 

It's like now that he can, he just starts spilling about Lan Zhan and the Cloud Recesses. All the details that he’d kept from Wen Qing, he tells Jiang Yanli now. Everything from the rabbits to the dizi to the cold spring. The only thing he doesn’t bring up is his mystery bedmate because he knows she’d just worry. 

Turns out he shouldn’t have bothered because she brings it up on her own. 

“I want to be completely honest with you. It’s Jin Zixun, A-Xuan’s cousin, who told me where you were,” she admits, still looking drawn and nervous. “And he told me about your- your nightly visitor.” 

Wei Wuxian curses internally. It would be Jin Zixun, wouldn’t it?

“That’s fine too,” he is quick to explain. “I’m fairly sure it’s also just Lan Zhan but...smaller? He’s very respectful.” 

“A-Xian, you’re too forgiving.” 

Which, that’s not something he’s really ever been accused of. Granted, Jiang Yanli has always seen parts of him that others don’t seem to, so maybe she’s right. 

“Can you really be sure that the person coming into your bed is your friend?” She continues, looking distraught. “If dragons exist, who knows what else does? Can we be sure that whatever is sleeping beside you is safe, or even human?” 

“I- I don’t know.” Wei Wuxian admits, eyes flicking down to his hands. 

“And besides, the fact that you thought you couldn’t tell me speaks to you knowing it’s... unusual if not outright frightening. I want to believe you that the dragon, that your Lan Zhan, is good but I’m scared for you. There are too many unknowns, too much that is being kept from you. Has he kept other things from you?” 

He thinks about all the books in the secret part of the library, about the argument he and Lan Zhan had had about the journal. Something must show on his face because Jiang Yanli gives a quiet sigh. 

“I am not going to tell you what you should do, but please be cautious.” She reaches for her purse and Wei Wuxian has a moment of panic ( I made her so upset that she’s leaving already ) but she just opens it and pulls out a dark red candle. “This is something I got from A-Xuan’s mother. She said that if you light it, it won’t go out.”

The look she gives him says that she knows about the strange darkness too. 

“Jiejie ...” 

“You don’t have to use it, if you choose not to. But at least take it and decide later,” she holds it out to him, cupping his hands in hers over the candle. “It will help me worry less.” 

With a small nod, he accepts the candle and sets it aside. 

“Now!” Jiang Yanli declares, pulling up her phone. “How would you like to see pictures of your nephew?” 

---

Wei Wuxian shoves the candle into his duffel bag when he’s packing again, telling himself it’s just for jiejie and he’s not going to actually use it. He resolves to not even unpack it when he gets back to the Cloud Recesses. 

A-Yuan is practically inconsolable when Wei Wuxian stands at the door, saying his goodbyes. 

“But you just got back!” He cries, rubbing his snotty little nose onto Wei Wuxian’s jeans. 

“Only two more months, okay?” Wei Wuxian crouches down to be at eye level with A-Yuan and give him a proper hug. “It’ll be less than a blink this time, less than half a blink.” 

A-Yuan pulls back, blinks pointedly and exaggeratedly. Wei Wuxian just laughs and pulls him into another hug. 

Wen Qing gives him a ride to his train, and then a punch in the arm at the station. “Don’t completely ignore us this time, okay? We miss you.” 

“The reception is really bad, but I’ll try,” he says, rubbing his arm and knowing he’s lying. 

For whatever reason, the ride back up north and the subsequent walk to the shrine feel way longer than they did on the way home. He pushes out of the forest and onto the hill with his duffel bag in hand and glances at the sky. The sun hasn’t quite set, but it’s a near thing. 

Wei Wuxian kind of agonizes over whether he should light another stick of incense at the shrine, but the choice is made for him when the wind picks up. He looks to the sky again and Lan Zhan is already upon him and landing nearby. 

“Lan Zhan!” He calls joyfully, running to meet him. 

“Wei Ying.” Lan Zhan replies, smiling in that his eyes are narrowed, gaze soft. 

Wei Wuxian smiles lopsidedly. “Did you miss me?” 

“Mn. Very much.” 

“Ah, you’re not supposed to be so honest.” He tugs his coat up a little higher to hide the blush in his cheeks and tries to ignore the rush of joy he feels. 

“Mn,” Lan Zhan says, though it sounds less like an agreement and more like an ‘I will take that into consideration’. “Are you ready?” 

“Yes! Take me home, Lan Zhan!” He declares and then freezes, mind catching up with his mouth. “I mean, take me to your home.” 

The face Lan Zhan is one he’s only seen a few times, but he’s sure now that it is a smile.

He really, really tries not to think about the candle for the next month. 

As he planned, he doesn’t even take it out of his duffel bag. In fact, he doesn’t unpack at all, changing into a robe as soon as he gets the chance. And he throws himself back into his cultivation with an enthusiasm that seems to both surprise and please Lan Zhan. Everything seems to come easier than it was before his trip, and he feels like he’s making actual progress. 

That should be enough to keep him distracted, right? But his mind keeps going back to that conversation with Jiang Yanli. 

He’s assumed for a while now that his bedmate is Lan Zhan, in some capacity. Whether it’s a human form, or a smaller form, or even a ghostly form, it feels like Lan Zhan. (He doesn’t like to think about the implication of a ghostly form, though). 

The thing is, there is no way to know for sure. For the first time since the early days, he tries to speak when his visitor arrives and finds that he still can’t open his mouth when the lanterns have gone out. Maybe he’d be less wrapped up in it if it weren’t for that fact, that something was magically preventing him from speaking. 

What would happen if he were allowed to? What could possibly be the reason for preventing it? 

Despite being in a better place mentally, he finds himself having nightmares again. He dreams of turning over in the night, somehow able to see through the dark, and looking at the back of his bedmate. He sees long, black hair pooling on the mattress, and he reaches out. But before he can touch them, they turn to him abruptly. They don’t have a face, just a black, gaping hole. 

He always wakes up screaming and his bedmate always slips out of bed hurriedly, and out the door into the dark. 

Lan Zhan doesn’t bring it up during the day, and Wei Wuxian doesn’t know if it’s because of the rules or because it’s not him in the bed. The thought swirls in his mind, unwilling to be swept away despite all he does to try. 

And, in the end, there isn’t anything in particular that sparks it all. Wei Wuxian spends a normal day training, reads through a regular journal and not Xue Yang’s, and then goes to the Jingshi after dinner with Lan Zhan. 

He closes the doors, as he always does, and stares around him. The Jingshi has slowly but surely become his space. There are pages full of his writing on the desk, books he’s been reading crammed into the shelves, his black robes in the wardrobes. There’s a painting he did of Lan Zhan laying out to dry, and his black dizi resting nearby it. The bed is a little messy because he rarely makes it in the morning, but his bedmate always, always folds the blankets carefully back over him. This space is more ‘his’ than the room back home, in the Wen’s new apartment. 

His duffel bag is tossed into the corner and he goes to it, pulls out the candle, and a lighter he had packed. Just in case.  

That night, his bedmate arrives as he always does, about half an hour after the lanterns dim. The door slides open, then shut. He can barely hear them walk across the shinny, oiled floors (are they really walking? Or are they drifting?). They slide into bed, settle onto their back, and sigh very, very lightly. 

Wei Wuxian stays up a long time, staring up at where the ceiling would be if he could see it. He’s holding the candle in one hand, the lighter in the other. 

His bedmate sighs again, though this time in sleep. 

Slowly, very slowly, Wei Wuxian sits up. He tries to speak one more time, but his mouth is sealed and something in his mind shifts. He knows what he’s going to do. He knows that he shouldn’t. He is going to do it anyway.

The lighter flashes in the dark, and he sees a brief flash of the room before it goes out. He curses silently and then tries again, this time the flame barely catching against the wick of the candle. And then he can see.

Somehow the candle seems to cast a red light over the room. There is someone in the bed with him, and he can see their black hair spilling over the mattress, their head turned away from him just as in his dreams. Unlike in his dreams, Wei Wuxian doesn’t reach for them. 

Instead, he shifts onto his knees and carefully leans over their head until he can see their face. He prepares himself to see a monster. 

He does not see a monster. 

His bedmate’s brows are thick and straight, furrowed slightly in his sleep. His lashes are long and the light of the candle makes the shadows of them flicker across his face. His nose is regal, his jaw is strong and his mouth is full and pink. He’s wearing a white sleeping robe, pulled slightly open to reveal a sliver of his chest. 

He is the most beautiful man Wei Wuxian has ever seen. 

Shaken to the core, Wei Wuxian moves to touch the man’s shoulder, though he doesn’t know why. He just knows that he must wake up his bedmate, he has to see his eyes. As he shifts, a single red drop of candle wax falls from the candle and onto the man’s chest. 

The man gasps and awakens. Wei Wuxian gasps in turn and reels back. 

His eyes are yellow, with flecks of gold and brown and green. Lan Zhan’s eyes stare out at him from this stranger’s face, and they are wide with horror.

“Wei Ying,” he says and Wei Wuxian flinches at the torment in his voice. It too is Lan Zhan’s, though it is clear and low, none of the usual roughness there. 

“Wei Ying, what have you done?” He asks and all at once, all the lanterns flood on. 

“Wh-what?” Wei Wuxian can’t get his thoughts together. He’s staring at Lan Zhan (because it is Lan Zhan ), staring at where the candle wax has landed on his chest. 

“We only had one more month,” his voice is a whisper now, and he’s looking past Wei Wuxian, through him. “Only a month.” 

The wind that he has come to associate with Lan Zhan flying starts to stir around the room, and it builds, making the papers fly off the table into the air. 

“What is happening?” Wei Wuxian asks, frantic, as the wind starts to tug at him. “Lan Zhan were you...were you under a spell?” 

“Yes,” he says, and the wind is getting louder, making it hard to hear. “I had to spend my days as a dragon and by night, share a bed with another for a year. Then I would be released.” 

“So...so what now?” 

“Now,” Lan Zhan says with resignation. “I belong to them.” 

“To- to who ?” Wei Wuxian demands over the roaring wind. “Lan Zhan!” 

But the wind continues to swirl, and it feels like the building is going to come down around them. Wei Wuxian covers his eyes, bowing his head, and the Jingshi shakes for a long horrible moment. 

Then, out of nowhere, it stops. 

And when he lifts his head, he’s alone in the bed.

It isn’t Wei Ying’s fault. 

Lan Zhan has agonized over being able to tell him for so long. Never before has he wished to be able to tell his charge the truth. Never before have he cursed his inability to speak so thoroughly. 

Wei Ying is curious, this he knows. And he knew he was meant to stamp his curiosity out, at risk of breaking the rules, and in hopes of breaking the curse. 

They must not ask too many questions. He had used his clan’s silencing spell over his charges every night, just to keep them from asking. Wei Ying is not the first of his charges, not his first attempt, but he is the one who has let it lie the longest. Lan Zhan had thought they might make it to the year mark.

Wei Ying’s curiosity is beautiful. And it is what has doomed them.

But it is not Wei Ying’s fault. If Lan Zhan could have, he would have told him everything. He wanted to, he asked to. He has never made requests of his keepers before, outside of their assistance in granting his charge’s wishes and providing food. 

They did not like it. He is not meant to ask for things.

And now he is here, in the room where he was-

Hurts, hurts, hurts.

-staring into the face of one of his keepers. The current patriarch of the Jins stopped dealing with him long ago, moved that duty onto one of the children he has pretended he hasn’t sired. 

“Aw, it didn’t work out? How sad.” The child says, and if it weren’t for the ironclad seal on Lan Zhan’s spiritual energy, he would rip him apart. “Guess I should have expected it from Wei Wuxian.” 

Lan Zhan will not let him know he has surprised him. Maybe he should have known that these people know Wei Ying. Should have known that they hate him. 

Only people like this could hate Wei Ying. 

“Well, I suppose we should start getting everything ready,” he declares, overly grandiose. He reeks of insecurity, he stinks of ambition. It makes Lan Zhan’s stomach roll. “We have a lot to do before we show off the pretty little cultivator to the world.” 

He closes his eyes. He imagines that he is in his dragon shape (a shape he shall never be in again). He pictures his claws ripping through the man’s chest. He pictures bringing down the wind and the rain and destroying this place, this room. He pictures soaring back to the Cloud Recesses (home, he had called it ) and gathering Wei Ying into his arms. 

He says nothing. There is nothing to be done. 

Chapter Text

v

“They ask me why I live in the green mountains. 

I smile and don't reply; my heart's at ease. 

Peach blossoms flow downstream, leaving no trace- 

And there are other earths and skies than these.”

Green Mountain, Li Bai. Translation by Vikram Seth

---

Wei Wuxian doesn’t know how long he stays in the Cloud Recesses after that. It’s long enough that he runs out of food. 

In the first moments immediately after Lan Zhan leaves, Wei Wuxian feels like he’s sitting in the aftermath of a plane crash. He wonders if this is what Lan Zhan had felt like when he landed in that building all those months ago. If he had laid in the middle of it, staring at the sky, surrounded by the shards of his hurtling. 

There is a specific moment, this time, when his brain comes back online. He’s been moving through the motions, doing his meditation, his sword forms, cooking at the right times of day if only because Lan Zhan would be upset with him otherwise. It’s like in the absence of being able to think, his body took over and walked him through the days. 

The moment he wakes up is when he goes into the kitchen and reaches for a cabbage only to find that there’s nothing there. All he has left is a bag of rice. 

He realizes then that he has to leave. 

The Cloud Recesses are surrounded by cliffs. He’s walked along them before, walked through the forest to their end, and found that there is only a sheer drop into nothingness past them. He’s circled the whole mountain peak and found it to be the same. The only way someone could leave was by flying or climbing. 

Flying is no longer an option. 

Wei Wuxian searches the whole compound for any sort of rope. It’s an uncomfortable mirror of his first week here, going into every room, rummaging through every trunk for anything he could use to grapple down the cliffs. He comes up with nothing. 

On his second pass through every building, he pauses in the robe room. There are dozens of sets of robes here, each with four or more layers. An idea forms in his mind, not one that he likes, but he doesn’t have time to come up with something else. 

He sits down on the floor of the robe room, grabs the first robe he can reach, takes it into both hands, and rips off a long strip. When he’s made two strips, he knots together as securely as he can. 

It takes hours. He only stops to stretch his wrists, and once to go eat a lunch of plain rice. Then it’s back to work, trying to ignore the way each tear feels like he’s ripping something in himself. These were Lan Zhan’s. These robes belonged to his clan. The only way he can justify it to himself is that he is going to use them to save Lan Zhan. He doesn’t know exactly when that becomes the plan. Past getting out of the Cloud Recesses, he doesn’t know what he’s going to do. But, he is himself and he’s going to worry about that when he gets to it. 

It’s mid-afternoon by the time he finishes tearing the robes apart. The only ones he can’t bear to destroy are the wedding robes. Lan Zhan must have kept them for someone and he wants to give them back, if he can. 

Once again, there isn’t much to pack. Wei Wuxian folds the wedding robes into his duffel bag, along with the dizi Lan Zhan gifted him, the painting he’d made the day Lan Zhan left.

The last thing he does before he leaves is to visit the rabbits. They’re still in their clearing, completely unaffected by the absence of their keeper. Wei Wuxian crouches in the clearing, unsuccessfully trying to beckon the rabbits to him. 

“I’m going to bring him back,” he promises. It occurs to him that they’re the first words he’s said since Lan Zhan left. 

Then, with his makeshift rope wrapped around his arm, he heads to the edge of the mountain. 

He picks an area at the edge of the forest, where there are old, sturdy trees to tie his rope to. If he’s being honest, he doesn’t know the first thing about grappling, or even knots, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is leaving the Cloud Recesses. Finding Lan Zhan. 

As best as he can, he ties his rope to a tree and approaches the cliffside. He’s never been afraid of heights, but as he stares down into the abyss, his heart beats in his throat. It’s not until he’s standing there that he really thinks about this choice. But, ultimately, it’s this or eventually starve. He’d rather risk his luck with the cliff. 

Wei Wuxian ties the end of the rope around his waist so tight it’s slightly painful. The rest he loops around his arms and across his back. His plan is to let it out little by little, hopefully allowing him to descend slowly. 

Bracing his feet against the edge of the cliff, he starts to shuffle down. 

It’s agonizing. It’s painful and slow and there’s a few times where he loses his footing and he’s left hanging from where the rope is tied around his arms. He thinks he pulls something in his shoulder at some point but he just keeps going, lowering in inches of rope, in half steps down the side of the mountain. 

And then, his foot slips. Instead of his rope catching on his shoulder, it slides off his arm and suddenly he’s released too much rope in one go. He’s falling through the air, and he thinks that there’s a scream coming from his throat but he can’t hear past the wind. 

Then it’s dark. 

---

Wei Wuxian wakes up in a chilled patch of grass. 

He sits up too fast, his shoulders protests as he pushes himself up. When he looks around, he sees a mountain ahead of him, wildflowers in the grass. He turns and there is the shrine, and there is the forest. He doesn’t have any clue how he got here.

But he is alive. He could cry. There’s no time. 

It’s dark out, he doesn’t know how long he’s been asleep, but he pulls out his phone from his bag and turns on the flashlight. The forest looms before him but, unlike his first time here, he isn’t afraid of it. The idea of what will happen if he doesn’t walk through it is much more terrifying. 

He leaves his rope of robes on the ground behind him. Maybe, after this, he can come back for it. Or maybe some farmer will discover it and marvel over a rope made out of hundreds of years old cloth. 

As he passes the shrine, a flash of white catches his eye. He turns to the shrine more fully and sees again the white ribbon resting on the altar. With sudden surety, he knows it’s Lan Zhan’s. He grabs it and tucks it into his bag as well. 

By the time he is leaving the forest trail, the sun is coming up, which gives him a better idea of how long it’s been since he started descending the mountain. His stomach twinges with hunger but there had been nothing to bring with him. When he gets to town, maybe he can get something-

And then he realizes he doesn’t have any money. 

“Fuck.” Wei Wuxian sits down at the side of the road and buries his head in his hands. He doesn’t have any way to buy a train ticket, or even get himself food. Short of walking all the way home...

His hands are stiff with cold as he fumbles for his phone again. He tries calling Wen Qing, but there's no answer. Wei Wuxian tries Wen Ning, and Uncle Four, and Granny Wen. He even tries Mo Xuanyu, but no one picks up. It’s so early, there’s no way any of them are awake. 

The only person he knows who would be up this early (late?) is-

“Fuck,” he repeats before scrolling back through his contacts and dialing before he can think about it too hard. “Pick up, pick up...” 

There’s a click as the call is accepted and then, “ ...Wei Wuxian? ” 

“I need your help,” he says in a rush, free hand clenched in a fist. “A ride, or money for a Didi. I’ll owe you whatever you want. But I need your help.”

It’s quiet on the line for a long time and he squeezes his eyes shut against the morning chill. 

“Please. Please.” 

Another beat of silence. And then-

“Where are you? ” 

---

Wei Wuxain recalls thinking that his drive with Mo Xuanyu had been one of the most uncomfortable he’s ever been on. It doesn’t even light a candle to his drive back to the city with Jiang Cheng. 

At least this trip has the benefit of taking place in an actually comfortable car. Jiang Cheng’s Jag has a frankly lavish amount of foot space and seats that anyone could fall asleep on. 

Not that he is going to be sleeping at all during this drive. 

He thinks the thing that’s the most surprising is how quiet the first leg of the trip is. Wei Wuxian has had literally years to brace himself for a screaming match upon their reunion, but he doesn’t know what to do with all this silence. For once, he doesn’t feel the need to fill it. He’s too tired, and hungry, and his body hurts too bad to come up with anything to say. 

(That is what he tells himself, at least.)

Jiang Cheng is still wearing the work clothes from the day before, which he can tell because he’s not wearing a tie and his dress shirt has a few buttons undone. He looks tense, and a little tired, but good. Healthy. 

Wei Wuxian doesn’t realize he’s been staring until Jiang Cheng scowls at him and he turns his gaze away. 

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, the silence doesn’t last very long.

“You gonna tell me what you were doing stranded on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere?” 

Wei Wuxian winces, still looking out his window at the passing fields. “Um. If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me?” 

“You got ditched by a dragon after making a deal to help the Wens?” Jiang Cheng says cooly and Wei Wuxian turns his head so fast he hurts his neck. 

“Ow. Okay, what the fuck? Why does everyone know?” 

“Everyone but me apparently, as per usual.” Jiang Cheng raises an imperious eyebrow, not taking his eyes off the road. “I only found out because Jin Zixuan told me. Jin-fucking-Zixuan.” 

“Why does he know?” 

“Because he’s jiejie's stupid, rich husband, or have you forgotten that too?” 

“I wish I could,” Wei Wuxian covers his eyes with a hand and then drops it, turning in his seat again. “Wait a minute. Why are you so relaxed about the dragon thing?” 

Jiang Cheng snorts. “There's a lot of weird shit left over in the big families from the cultivation days. Mom’s ring turns into a lightning whip.” 

“What the fuck- ” he doesn’t know what’s messing him up more, the fact that Jiang Cheng knows about Lan Zhan or the fact that he’s talking to his brother at all. It’s probably a bit of both. “Okay no, that doesn’t matter. Lan Zhan- the dragon- isn’t some ‘weird shit’, he’s an actual person that the Jins are holding hostage.” 

“Ah,” Jiang Cheng says in understanding. “And so you’re going to go rescue him, right?” 

“Yes,” Wei Wuxian replies too quickly, before catching himself. “Well. That’s the plan.” 

 “Of course it is,” he says on an aggrieved sounding sigh. “Typical.” 

Wei Wuxian feels defensiveness rising in him. “What does that mean?” 

He gets another dirty look for that and he almost thinks Jiang Cheng isn’t going to respond, and then he takes one of his big, pre-yelling breaths. 

“You always have to be the hero, don’t you? It happened with the Wens and it’s happening again now. You can’t leave well enough alone.” 

“What? I...these are two totally different situations.” 

Jiang Cheng laughs, but it's not a nice sounding one. “Is it really? Let’s recap. The Wens got into some shit with their uncle, you bailed them out and ‘saved them from the Jins’. Your dragon gets into some shit, now you’re ‘saving it from the Jins’. Explain to me how these situations are different at all.” 

“There’s- the Wens were being blackmailed because Jin Guangshun is a shithead who lent their uncle money and then made them pay off his debt. And Lan Zhan is a person that the Jins are holding captive! You should be less worried about me ‘always having to be the hero’ and more worried about the fact that the Jins are clearly evil.” 

“I have a nephew who is a Jin and he’s not evil.” 

“He’s a baby! He’s not anything yet!” 

“We’re getting off-topic,” Jiang Cheng says, reprovingly. “Let’s talk about the shit you pulled with Wen Chao!” 

Wei Wuxian freezes suddenly, unease creeping up his back. “What is there to talk about?” 

“Don’t give me that,” Jiang Cheng sounds weirdly...tired. “I know, okay? I know about that too.” 

The silence drags long between them again, rife with tension. Wei Wuxian’s head hurts from the several sudden changes in tone. It’s been a very long day.

“How did you find out?” Wei Wuxian repeats, his voice small. 

“Wen Ning told me, after he woke up from his coma, which you also never fucking mentioned.” Jiang Cheng says bitterly. “I tried to get ahold of you after I found out but you were on a mountain with a fucking dragon.”

“What would you have even said?” Wei Wuxian closes his eyes painfully. 

“I would have asked why you did it!” He yells. “Why the hell would you take the fall for my fuck-up?” 

“So I was just supposed to let Auntie Yu find out?” Wei Wuxian demands, suddenly tired and angry at once. 

“It wasn’t for you to decide!” Jiang Cheng yells back. 

“Well it’s too late to change anything now, so why does it even matter?” 

Jiang Cheng suddenly turns off the freeway and some street in some random town. Wei Wuxian is too wound up to really notice until they’re stopping on the side of a random street and Jiang Cheng climbs out of the car and slams his door shut. Wei Wuxian flinches and then watches as Jiang Cheng stands with his hands on his hips on the sidewalk for a moment, glaring off into the distance. Then, he marches around the front of the car and opens Wei Wuxian’s door sharply. 

“Get out,” Jiang Cheng says sharply. 

“Jiang Cheng, you can’t-” Panic rises in him and he grips his seatbelt with both hands, because somehow he’s already managed to fucking this up, like he fucks up everything-

“I’m not leaving you on the side of the fucking road,” Jiang Cheng barks and gestures to the building they’re parked in front of. “I’m feeding you.” 

Wei Wuxian is so startled that he lets Jiang Cheng manhandle him out of the car without much resistance, and then lets him shove him into the restaurant and into a seat. 

He kind of spaces out while Jiang Cheng orders and comes to when there’s a big plate of chili covered meat placed in front of him and a mug of coffee shoved into his hands. Wei Wuxian blinks down at both for a while until Jiang Cheng gets impatient. 

“Are you going to eat or just stare at it?” He grosses, already eating his bowl of noodles. 

His first bite is greasy and spicy and amazing, and then he’s practically inhaling his food. Jiang Cheng makes a noise of disgust but continues to eat his own meal. It’s quiet again, like they weren’t just screaming at each other, and it’s still quiet when Jiang Cheng pays and rustles him out of his seat and back to the car. 

“When was the last time you showered?” Jiang Cheng complains as he stuffs him back into his seat. “You smell like shit.” 

“I-” Wei Wuxian realizes he doesn’t actually know when the last time he bathed was and decides it’s safer not to answer. 

Jiang Cheng loops around back to the driver's side and takes them back to the freeway. Wei Wuxian feels like his brain is malfunctioning again. 

“What the hell just happened?” He asks.

Jiang Cheng huffs, “I de-escalated the situation and fed you because you look like you haven’t eaten a good meal in months.” 

“Why do people keep saying that?” Wei Wuxian mutters to himself and then frowns further. “What do you mean you ‘deescalated the situation’?” 

“Well, after I found out that Wen Chao didn’t actually drop the charges for a violent misdemeanor and thought you were the one who beat the shit of him, I realized I need anger management.” 

Wei Wuxian actually laughs at that. “No, really though.” 

Jiang Cheng raises an eyebrow and Wei Wuxian sputters. 

“Are you serious?” 

“I’m in therapy now,” Jiang Cheng shrugs. “We had some fucked up shit happen. It’s nice to talk about it to someone who wasn’t there for it.” 

It echoes of what he’d thought when talking to Mo Xuanyu all those months ago. It still doesn’t make him feel better. 

“Who am I even talking to right now?”

“You should try it too, you know. Might help you sort out some of your hero complex shit.” Jiang Cheng says and he sounds entirely too smug about it. 

“I don’t have a hero complex!” He protests but that just makes Jiang Cheng laugh again. It’s less angry-sounding than the last one, but it still sounds mean. 

“You do, but you always have. I just don’t really get why you think people expect you to save them all the time.” 

“What the fuck?” Wei Wuxian is crawling out of skin. He wants to jump out the window. He’d rather do that than talk to his brother about feelings. 

“You do, don’t you? Think you have to save people all the time.” Jiang Cheng clarifies. 

“I don’t really want to talk about this!” Wei Wuxian knows he sounds strangled, but he’ll rather deal with Jiang Cheng teasing him about that than what is currently happening. 

“Fine, fine,” he concedes. “But, and my therapist told me I have to tell you this so just listen for a second, sometimes you have to let people get in trouble. I’m not talking about the whole dragon thing, cause that’s fucked up. But you can’t always stop people from facing the consequences of their actions.” 

“Okay, noted, can we please be done? ” 

He drops it, thankfully, because Wei Wuxian felt like he was going to get hives if that conversation went any further. 

“What are you planning to do about your dragon?” 

“He’s not my dragon-” 

“Bullshit, jiejie told me about how you were swooning over him. You need to call her, by the way.” 

“I will, I will! Later, okay?” He covers his face, long-suffering. “Anyways. I’m planning on calling in some favors."

 “Wei-xiong, you’re going to owe me after this,” Nie Huaisang voice comes out of the car speakers, sounding coy in a way that is comfortingly familiar. 

“Don’t you still owe me for helping you pass Physics 200?” Wei Wuxian raises a brow and Jiang Cheng snorts next to him. 

“‘Helping’, he says. Call it what it was, cheating.” He grumbles.

 “You can’t possibly expect me to remember something from so long ago! But since we’re old friends, I’ll call it even.” 

Wei Wuxian sighs and rolls his eyes upwards. "Just tell me if you know anything."

“Well,” Nie Huaisang turns conspiratorial. “I heard through the grapevine that the Jins are holding a big party, where they’re unveiling some sort of secret special project.” 

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian share a look, and Jiang Cheng’s brow furrows as he says, “I’m supposed to go to that, I think. It’s happening tonight, right?” 

“That’s right!” Nie Huaisang chirps. “Unfortunately, it’s an invite-only event. There should be a group invite for the Jiangs, though.” 

Wei Wuxian winces. “Well. I’m technically not a Jiang anymore, so that probably won’t work for me.” 

“Yeah, and whose fault is that?” Jiang Cheng says, though it lacks the bite to make it painful. Or, not very painful at least.

“Ah, it's so nice to hear you two getting along,” Nie Huaisang chuckles, sounding nostalgic. “But you’re probably right, Wei- xiong .” 

Wei Wuxian curses and scrubs a hand over his face. “I guess I could sneak in, somehow? If I get caught though...” 

“Not to worry, Wei-xiong! I think I have a buddy who could get you in pretty easy. How far away are you two?” 

Jiang Cheng glances at their GPS. “About two hours.” 

“Perfect! I’ll get ahold of him, and you can meet me for lunch at the regular place, alright? I’ll see you then!” 

When they hang up with Nie Huaisang, Wei Wuxian turns to his brother with raised eyebrows. “The regular place? Do you get lunch with him that often?” 

Shockingly, Jiang Cheng turns red and grips the steering wheel tighter. “Shut up.” 

“Wait, really?!” He exclaims, delightedly. 

“I don’t want to talk about it!” 

The rest of the drive is fairly relaxed, as relaxed as it can be with the two of them trapped in a confined space with each other. Wei Wuxian finds he can’t really mind, feeling comfortable in their bickering. It feels like this morning, how lonely and helpless he’d felt, is years away from him now. Jiang Cheng notices him giving him a smile that’s probably too sappy and pretends to throw up.

They get into the city around the lunch rush, and it takes them a little longer than they’d planned to get to ‘the usual place’, which ends up being a little restaurant near Jiang Cheng’s work. 

Nie Huisang is already at a table, and he waves exaggeratedly when they walk in. There’s someone sitting across from him, and when they turn their head, Wei Wuxian startles. 

“Wei Wuxian?” Mo Xuanyu says, wide-eyed with surprise. “I thought you were still...up north?” 

“Um, things ended early.” Wei Wuxian replies, grimacing and Mo Xuanyu’s eyes light up with understanding and worry. Not that he'd really suspected Mo Xuanyu of being a part of the Jins' bullshit, but seeing his reaction pretty much wiped any suspicion away.

“Ah, you two know each other then! Perfect,” Nie Huaisang scoots over in the booth to make room. “I ordered already. Wei-xiong, you still like your food hot enough to burn your tastebuds off, right?”

They settle into their seats, food arriving shortly after, and there’s a weird couple minutes of small talk. For a moment, it feels almost like they’re just a regular group of friends out to get lunch, despite the fact that Wei Wuxian is covered in sweat and dirt and Mo Xuanyu keeps looking at him and making weird faces, like he’s trying to communicate through expression alone. 

Then Nie Huaisang gets a sort of sharp look in his eye and turns to Wei Wuxian, “so, what are we going to do about your dragon?” 

Mo Xuanyu spits his drink out over the table, covering his mouth and apologizing shakily when Jiang Cheng gives him a scathing look. Wei Wuxian just sighs and passes over some napkins. 

“Should I even be surprised that everyone knows, at this point?” 

Mo Xuanyu sounds choked as he asks, “everyone knows? How is that even possible?” 

“The Nie family has their own secrets,” Nie Huaisang shrugs. “Stands to reason the other families would too.” 

“And what secrets are those?” Wei Wuxian leans forwards in interest. 

Nie Huaisang’s smile goes a little sharp and he covers his mouth with a well-manicured hand. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” 

“Fair enough.” Reading it as the dismissal it is, Wei Wuxian concedes and taps at the table absently. “You said Mo Xunayu could get me into the Jins' party?” 

“Oh, that’s what this is about?” Mo Xuanyu blinks, still red. “Ge, you could have just said so. I thought we were talking about...work stuff today.” 

That makes both Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian raise their eyebrows, turning to Nie Huaisang in tandem, who waves a flippant hand. 

“We were getting lunch anyways, I figured it would be faster to get everything done in one go.” 

It’s clear that Nie Huaisang isn’t going to be any more forthcoming, so they turn to Mo Xuanyu instead. 

“I usually work events for the Jins because Huaisang-ge -” Mo Xuanyu sneaks a glance at Nie Huaisang who shakes his head just a little. “Anyways. I guess that you could take my place at the party tonight?” 

“Okay, wait. You work at your own family’s events?” Wei Wuxian asks, incredulous. 

“Um...it pays well?” Mo Xuanyu peeks at Nie Huaisang again and then stares down at the table. “It’s not like they really know it’s me, in the moment at least. Their servers are usually masked. The coordinator said something about ‘not disturbing the guests with our faces’.” 

Wei Wuxian slowly puts his forehead to the table, closing his eyes tightly and breathing through his nose. “I literally hate them so much.” 

“This could work to our favor, though,” Jiang Cheng says, arms crossed and head tilted in consideration. “You two are similar heights, if you just show up in a mask and say you’re Mo Xuanyu, you can probably get in.” 

“Our favor?”

Jiang Cheng raises an imperious brow. “If you think I’m going to let you try this by yourself, you’re even stupider than you look.” 

Despite the dig, something warm coils in Wei Wuxian’s chest. He gives Jiang Cheng another wavering smile and his brother huffs angrily and shoves him a little. 

“Knock it off. I was going to go anyway.”

He just smiles wider. “Whatever you say, didi.”

“I am literally a week younger than you, asshole.” 

---

Here is what Wei Wuxian has time for between that lunch and the party. 

One, going to Mo Xuanyu’s place and retrieving his uniform and mask. He and Jiang Cheng part ways with both Mo Xuanyu and Nie Huaisang, who apparently need to have whatever chat they were supposed to have over lunch. 

“What does Nie-xiong even do ?” Wei Wuxian asks as they get back into Jiang Cheng’s car. 

“Fuck if I know.” 

Two, going to the Wens to drop off Wei Wuxian’s stuff and to give him a chance to take a shower. Wen Ning is the only one home when they get there, and he greets Wei Wuxian with surprise and excitement until he sees Jiang Cheng hovering in the doorway behind him. 

“J-Jiang-gongzi !” He greets, and despite his stutter, his expression has gone more frigid than Wei Wuxian has seen before. 

“I’m just going to go sit in the car-” Jiang Cheng scowls but Wei Wuxian just grabs his arm and tugs him inside. 

“Don’t be stupid. I’m going to take half an hour, tops.” 

Wei Wuxian doesn’t take half an hour, because he gets into the shower and cranks the hot water and feels all his muscles finally relax. He winces a little as he washes over the bruises from where the rope was tied around his arms, purple wrapping around his biceps and shoulders in strips. His back is probably just as bad, and as he turns to let the hot water soothe it, he thinks distantly of matching Lan Zhan. 

What Wei Wuxian doesn’t manage to come up with within that time is any sort of concrete plan. As he’s pulling on the dress pants and button-up Mo Xuanyu had given him (both a touch too short, but not too much to be noticeable) he mentally goes over what little he’s come up with.

Step one, sneak into the Jins' party. 

Step two, find Lan Zhan. 

Step three, break him out. 

Step four, ???

Other than that, he really has no clue what he’s getting into. In the past, he’s just made up a plan in the moment and it’s worked out fine. 

Usually. 

He’s about to come out of his room when he glances at his duffel bag and pauses. Tugging it open, he pulls out his dizi and then, after a moment of deliberation, the white ribbon from the shrine. He tucks the dizi in his waistband and under his dress shirt, and the ribbon he wraps around his wrist, hidden by his sleeves. He feels more comfortable with both of them and who knows, they might come in handy. Maybe he can wack someone over the head with his dizi. 

Feeling somewhat more sure of himself, he heads out to save his little brother. Which one is not yet clear. 

When he enters the living room, Jiang Cheng and Wen Ning are sitting stiffly on opposite sides of the couch from each other. There’s a variety show playing on the TV, but it’s obvious neither of them are watching. 

He clears his throat after he’s been standing in the hallway for a while and Jiang Cheng launches to his feet. 

“You ready? Let’s go,” he says, stomping to the door, a familiar line of tension in his shoulder. 

“Yeah, one sec,” Wei Wuxian sighs and then turns to Wen Ning, giving him an apologetic smile. “Would you mind not telling your sister that I’m back? I have some... left over work stuff that I have to deal with.” 

“She’s not going to like that,” Wen Ning frowns, looking unusually stubborn. 

Wei Wuxian just smiles and waves a hand. “It’s alright, I just don’t want her worrying. I just have to clean up a mess I made.” 

There’s something in the way Wen Ning stares at him, Wei Wuxian can see echoes of Wen Qing’s knowing look in it. It looks like the face that she makes when she’s trying to decide whether or not to call him out on his bullshit. 

Wen Ning’s eyes drift over to Jiang Cheng and then back and Wei Wuxian puts the pieces together. 

“It really is my mess this time,” he insists. 

Wen Ning’s eyes are too wide and dark as he blinks up at him. “You have lied about this sort of thing before.” 

A shiver runs through him at that. He tries to smile it off. “Ah, Wen Ning. You’ve gotten assertive while I’ve been gone.”

“Hmm,” Wen Ning acknowledges. “Jiejie is going to worry whether I tell her or not. Please just be careful, Wei-xiong .” 

His throat is weirdly dry as he agrees. 

---

Jiang Cheng drops him off a little ways away from the Jins’ big ugly mansion. They decided on the drive that it would be too conspicuous if they showed up together. Jiang Cheng throws a few bills at him for the bus and then a long, lingering look. 

“If I don’t see you in there, I’ll see you after,” he says, eyes intense. “Don’t run off or something. Meet me here.” 

Wei Wuxian snorts and nods. “I won’t run off.”

“You better not, asshole. I know where you live now.” He says and then peels away from the curb.

It’s only one bus stop away from the mansion and while Wei Wuxian is on the bus, he tries to calm his wildly beating heart. He’s been able to throw himself into just getting here, and ignored for too long the reason why. If everything goes right, he’s going to see Lan Zhan within the hour. If everything goes right, he’ll be able to fix things. He tries to use that thought to ground himself. 

When he gets off the bus, he puts on his mask. 

It is much, much too easy to sneak into this event. It’s at the Jin’s mansion because they have a huge hall for hosting such parties. He tells the person at the back door that he’s Mo Xuanyu and is waved in right away. No one even spares him a second glance.

It’s also much too easy to break off from the crowd of other masked servers and duck into a quiet hallway. He checks his watch (borrowed from Jiang Cheng, because he certainly doesn’t wear a watch ) and finds that there is a little over a half an hour until the party actually starts. 

So starts step two.

There are people around, of course, bustling to make sure all the gaudy vases are shining and floors sparkling. He walks down the hallway with absolute confidence and everyone leaves him alone. It’s amazing how much you can get away with just by looking like you know what you’re doing.

The layout of the mansion isn’t completely unfamiliar to him. He’d snuck off during plenty of events during his childhood and teen years. He has a vague mental map of the first floor at least. There are some guest rooms in the west wing that seem like a plausible place to keep a hostage. 

As he turns into that very wing, he hears a familiar voice behind him. 

Jiang Yanli is standing at the top of the frankly gigantic staircase, a small child in her arms, resting his head on her shoulder. She’s speaking to what looks like another server. His heart clenches and he pauses where he stands, staring at the child. 

That is my nephew. He thinks and then Jiang Yanli catches sight of him and he turns as fast as he can, and walks to the first door he sees. 

He might be imagining it, but he thinks he might hear her voice as he slips through the door. As soon as he’s in, he leans against the door, resting his forehead against it. Shit. It’s going to be harder to avoid people he knows than he thought. 

Trying to decide how long he should wait it out, he knocks his head lightly against the wood, and then a throat is being pointedly, politely cleared behind him. 

Wei Wuxian whirls around, back to the door. And Lan Zhan is there, sitting at a low table, watching him with a completely blank face. 

His long hair is half up, little wisps of it framing his face. They’ve put him in a dark black suit with a yellow dress shirt underneath that looks completely wrong for him. He is still watching expressionlessly, discomfort belied only by the clench of his fist against the table. There is a tension to his posture too, he’s holding himself too carefully. Tensed as if expecting a fight. 

He’s so beautiful that Wei Wuxian’s heart hurts. 

After a while, it’s clear neither of them are going to speak, and Wei Wuxian suddenly can’t think of what to say. He’s been driven only by the thought of reaching this moment, being in front of Lan Zhan, but he never thought of what he’d do when he got here. It’s like the momentum he’s been building since he started to climb down the mountain has been brought to a screaming stop and he’s left spiraling. 

“Lan Zhan,” he says after much too long, his voice hoarse. 

Lan Zhan, somehow, sits even straighter and the apathetic mask slips away, replaced with blind shock. “...Wei Ying?” 

Wei Wuxian is across the room before knows that he’s even moving. He kneels on the other side of the table, bracing himself with his hands as he starts to speak. 

“Lan Zhan ah, Lan Zhan. I’m here to get you out. You- we could switch clothes and you could sneak out the back. I’ll keep them distracted while you leave.” 

“Wei Ying.” Lan Zhan is frowning and one of his hands moves close to Wei Wuxian, across the table, and then stalls halfway there. 

“I have some money, you could take the bus and get as far as possible. Don’t worry, I’ll deal with any of the fallout, you just focus on getting away-”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan intercepts, sounding more forceful. “No.” 

Wei Wuxian straightens. “What do you mean ‘no’? We need to get you out of here.”

“I cannot leave.” Closing his eyes painfully, Lan Zhan lifts a hand to his throat and pulls at the top button. 

Wei Wuxian is frozen, watching his long, slender fingers unbutton his shirt. His throat goes dry as they part the silky fabric and reveal a thin string wrapped tightly around Lan Zhan’s neck. 

“What-” he’s reaching out as if to touch it, but catches himself before he can. “What is that?” 

“A seal.” Lan Zhan’s eyes are still closed, hand still clenched on the table. “I can’t leave as long as it’s on.”  

Wei Wuxian wants to lay his head against the table and curse the Jins all over again, but time is of the essence. “Do you know how to remove it?”

Lan Zhan sits silently a moment, before nodding. “It takes two people’s spiritual energy to unseal.” 

“Okay, then we just unseal it.” Wei Wuxian says and reaches into the back of his pants for his dizi. 

Lan Zhan’s eyes finally open and Wei Wuxian is reminded abruptly how bright they are, how piercing. 

“It will not work. The seal partially blocks my spiritual cognition. I need a conduit to be able to use it at all.” 

With a frown, Wei Wuxian asks, “by a conduit, do you mean an instrument?” 

“An instrument or my sword.” Lan Zhan dips his head. “But they have hidden my sword. There is a guqin, but it is being used in their...demonstration.” 

If Lan Zhan were anyone else, his lip would be curling in distaste. As it is, Wei Wuxian is amazing how much he can still understand Lan Zhan’s expressions like this. It might actually be easier now, what with his face being human and thus more familiar.

Wei Wuxian feels like he could spend a lifetime studying that face. 

“Would my dizi work?” He asks, holding it out to Lan Zhan, who stares at it for a beat and then shakes his head.

“Even if it did, I will not do it.” 

“What?” He feels like he was just dunked in ice, jerking in his seat. “Lan Zhan-” 

“Wei Ying said he would stay in my place. That is not acceptable. I will not trade my life for yours.” 

“It’s not a matter of trading your life, it’s a matter of breaking you out!” Wei Wuxian protests, voice rising. “I’ll figure something out, okay? I always do.” 

“Is giving up your freedom for a year ‘figuring it out’? Is tolerating strange rules and solitude and an unknown host ‘figuring it out’?” Lan Zhan returns, his voice too calm. “I will not allow you to consign yourself to more misery.” 

“Lan Zhan! I wasn’t miserable, okay? And this is a totally different situation!” It sounds too similar to his conversation with Jiang Cheng earlier today. 

“Wei Ying stopped eating.” Lan Zhan counters. “Wei Ying has time and again given up his happiness for others.” 

Wei Wuxian shakes his head. “It’s my choice, okay? I fucked up, let me fix it. What does my happiness matter, when it comes down to it?” 

Lan Zhan’s expression goes hard and stubborn. “Your happiness matters to me. This was not Wei Ying's fault. As you said, it is your choice. It’s also my choice whether I accept your assistance. I do not.”

“Lan Zhan- ” he starts, exasperated, when there is the sound of footsteps coming up the hall. 

Expression sharpening, Lan Zhan looks past Wei Wuxian and then to him. “Hide. The bed.” 

Wei Wuxian scrambles up from where he’s sitting and rolls under the bed just as the door is opening. 

“Hanguang Jun!” A rowdy voice greets and Wei Wuxian grits his teeth. Fucking Jin Zixun. “Your party starts soon, are you excited?” 

His question is met by long, angry silence. But instead of being dissuaded, the bastard just laughs. 

“Everyone is looking forward to your little performance. I’m sure it won’t disappoint, right Hanguang Jun?” Jin Zixun’s voice turns a bit less taunting and a little more threatening. “Wouldn’t want your little pet to get hurt, would you?.” 

More silence and then Jin Zixun is snorting. Wei Wuxian’s heartbeat is loud in his ears, the air is hot in front of him from his breath as he tries to puzzle out what that could possibly mean.

“I’m a little surprised he hasn’t shown up, you know. Maybe he’s forgotten about you already. Or maybe he just didn’t care. Knowing Wei Wuxian, he probably got bored of you. Moved onto the next shiny thing that caught his eye.” 

There is the smell of ozone in the air suddenly, and then a loud cracking sound and Jin Zixun yelps. Wei Wuxian is shaking from trying to keep himself still, trying not to peek out from under the bed to see what’s going on. 

“You ought to watch your temper,” Jin Zixun bites, but he sounds thoroughly rattled. “I can make your life hell, you know!”

Again, he is met with silence. Wei Wuxian listens as he lets out an indignant huff, and then listens to the sound of the door opening and slamming shut. He doesn’t move for a moment, trying to gauge how far Jin Zixun has gotten. 

“He is gone.” 

Wei Wuxian rolls back out from under the bed, brushing dust off of his legs. “You’d think with their money they could afford to clean under the beds, and yet.”

Lan Zhan acknowledges him with a hum and it’s so characteristic that it makes Wei Wuxian smile widely. His gaze drifts to the table Lan Zhan is at and his eyes widen as he takes in the crack through the middle of the wood. Lan Zhan’s fist is resting near it and his knuckles are red. 

Ah.

“Lan Zhan ah, is ‘Hanguang Jun’ your title?” He asks to distract himself, voice just this side of teasing. 

Lan Zhan dips his head in confirmation and Wei Wuxian’s smile widens. 

“Hmm, it suits you.” He says and then sits down next to Lan Zhan, as close as he dares. “Hanguang Jun~”

It’s so satisfying to watch the way Lan Zhan’s eyes widen and his face tries to keep still as he looks away. Wei Wuxian’s gaze catches on his pink ears and he almost reaches out to feel how hot they are. Almost. 

“Ah, I have this for you,” he recalls and pulls up the sleeve of his shirt. “It seemed like it was yours.” 

Now it’s Lan Zhan’s turn to stare at where the white ribbon is tied around his wrist. Wei Wuxian barely notices as he tries to loosen the knot, cursing his past self for making it too tight to undo with one hand. 

And then Lan Zhan’s hands come up and gently pull at the knot. His fingers brush the soft part of Wei Wuxian’s forearm and he shivers. Lan Zhan notices, glancing at him through his eyelashes and Wei Wuxian mouth slackens, parting slightly. He’s not sure, but he thinks Lan Zhan’s eyes might drift down to stare at his lips before he returns his gaze back to the ribbon. He manages to remove the knot and the ribbon slips off his arm. 

“It is yours, right?” Wei Wuxian says, breathless. 

“Mn.” Lan Zhan nods and then holds it up to him. “Will you help me?” 

Wei Wuxian doesn't really know what he’s asking until Lan Zhan brings the middle part of the ribbon to the center of his forehead. “Ah, yes.” 

He shuffles behind Lan Zhan, tying the ribbon under where a gaudy, golden hairpin holds up his hair. For some reason, he’s struck with the desire to tug it out and let Lan Zhan’s beautiful silky hair cascade over his shoulders. The color is all wrong for him, Lan Zhan is much more suited to jade and blues and silver. 

“Done,” he announces, voice raspy. It’s odd, he’s just doing Lan Zhan a favor, it’s no different than when he would carry his books around the Cloud Recesses. 

He makes himself move away from Lan Zhan because he’s worried about doing something embarrassing, like running his hands through Lan Zhan’s hair. Wei Wuxian folds his hands in his lap instead, moving to the other side of the table. Lan Zhan is watching him closely and, for once, he doesn’t allow himself to look away. 

“Wei Ying should go,” he says and Wei Wuxian is rocked by a wave of hurt. 

But what had he been expecting? He’s already ruined everything, he’s probably endangered Lan Zhan just by being here. He wouldn’t blame Lan Zhan if he never wanted to see him again. 

And he would leave too, if Lan Zhan wanted him to. But not before he creates a way for Lan Zhan to escape. 

Maybe Lan Zhan reads some of this in his face (and it occurs to him that maybe Lan Zhan has gotten just as adept at reading him as he has reading Lan Zhan) and opens his mouth as if to say something, but Wei Wuxian is already standing. 

“Lan Zhan,” he says softly at the door. “If there is an opportunity to, will you promise me that you’ll escape?” 

Lan Zhan watches him for a long, liquid moment, then dips his head. “If Wei Ying is safe. I will.”

Wei Wuxian wants to tell him he doesn’t have to worry, or feel guilty, or whatever it is Lan Zhan feels towards him. But he doesn’t. He just nods in turn and slips out the door. 

---

From there, he is caught by one of the supervisors and put to work. 

It’s not too hard to blend in with the crowd of other servers, what with their matching nondescript black clothes and masks. He runs around, doing whatever is asked of him and keeping his head down.  Before he knows it, people in formal dress are streaming into the main hall. A tray of champagne is shoved into his hands and he’s sent out into the fray. 

The main hall is just as annoyingly over-decorated as the rest of the Jin’s mansion. There’s a bar to the back, a big glass ceiling and a raised stage to the front where various puffed up chairmen and directors deliver speeches and the like. Of everything, this is not something he has missed at all. 

There are more than a few familiar faces and Wei Wuxian feels vaguely itchy, like someone is going to realize who he is and start yelling at him. He can’t find Jiang Cheng, too caught up in trying to keep his tray level and trying not to get annoyed every time one of the party guests pretends he doesn’t exist. He passes out drinks, accepts empty glasses, and shuffles into the bar to refill his tray or to the kitchen to grab hor d'oeuvres. 

At some point, he sees Jiang Yanli amongst the crowd and hightails it in the other direction. Nie Huaisang catches his eye later and puts his phone aside long enough to give him an encouraging thumbs-up. He can’t return it around his tray of food but nods towards him.

He’s been caught by some random guest, an older man who looks vaguely familiar, who insists on trying one of everything on his tray when a hand clamps on his arm. A shiver goes through him and he turns, wide-eyed, only to find Jiang Cheng.

“Chairman Yao, I need to borrow this server for a moment.” He says, sounding unusually cordial. “I believe I found a hair in my food.” 

Chairman Yao is left spitting out the deviled egg that he had just stuffed into his mouth as Jiang Cheng tugs him away. 

“That was Chairman Yao?” Wei Wuxian asks when they’re a safe distance away, trying to catch another look behind him. “I barely recognized him.” 

“That’s because your memory is shit,” Jiang Cheng huffs and then draws them to a stop in a fairly secluded corner. “Did you find him?”

Wei Wuxian grimaces. “Yes, but they’ve done something to keep him trapped here. I haven’t figured out how to break it.” 

Jiang Cheng’s face is serious when he says, “well you better figure out something fast, because I overheard Jin Guangshan talking about ‘transferring their new project’ overseas.”

“Fuck.”

“Exactly,” Jiang Cheng nods. “Do you think there’s a way you could-”

“A-Cheng,” a cold, sharp voice calls and both men freeze.

They turn in unison to see Auntie Yu stalking towards them, Uncle Fengmian not far behind. She’s wearing a vicious expression, glaring first at Jiang Cheng and then Wei Wuxian. 

“What are you doing? You’re supposed to be talking to Director Ouyang about the merger.” 

“Dear,” Uncle Fengmian sighs, resting a gentle hand on her shoulder that she quickly shakes off. 

She continues to go in on Jiang Cheng about something business-related and Uncle Fengmian turns to Wei Wuxian. He freezes, terrified that he’s been discovered, but Uncle Fengmian just gives him a bland, polite smile and inclines his head. 

“My apologies, we will let you get back to work.” 

Wei Wuxian nods quickly. “A-ah. Of course, sir.”

Maybe speaking was a bad idea, because Uncle Fengmian’s eyes widen slightly and his whole body shifts, turning to face Wei Wuxian fully. His brow furrows, and when he opens his mouth to speak, Wei Wuxian is already formulating how he can duck out, but then there’s someone clearing their throat into a microphone at the front of the hall. Uncle Fengmian’s attention is no longer on him, but then again, his own attention is wholly on what’s happening on the little stage up front.

“Good evening everyone, and welcome to the ninth annual Spring Gala.” Wei Wuxian doesn’t recognize the MC, can’t quite get a clear look at him over everyone’s heads. “I hope everyone has had a pleasant evening so far.” 

There’s a gentle murmur of agreement from the crowd while Wei Wuxian tries to decide if he should get closer to the stage or not. It would probably be too conspicuous, it looks like the other servers all stopped where they were when the MC started. 

“As you all know, Jin Corp uses this Gala to unveil some of our latest projects and developments,” the MC continues. “This year is no different. We have a very exciting project to share with you all today.” 

The lights start to dim and Wei Wuxian looks around a little worriedly as the murmurs pick up. Then, a projector shines onto the white wall above the stage and he freezes. 

The wall is covered in images from the Cloud Recesses.  It is so bizarre to see his home of the last year in still images. They do nothing to capture what it’s really like there. The peacefulness and beauty aren’t transferable to pixels. 

Wei Wuxian just stares in shock as the MC continues. 

“While Jin Corp mainly focuses on technological development-” at this, he hears Jiang Cheng snort. “Recently we have taken to the recovering and preservation of relics from the Cultivation Period.” 

The powerpoint flips through more pictures of the Cloud Recesses, and the MC says, “we uncovered a forgotten compound belonging to a long-dead cultivation sect. With the help of an expert in the field, we have begun cataloging the expansive library in the compound. Soon, we will be relocating hundreds of books and relics into Jin Corps private collection, and start working with universities and museums to have them displayed and studied.” 

Wei Wuxian grits his teeth, grip tightening on the tray. Of course they would portray it as them doing some great service to the academic world when they were just stealing what belongs to Lan Zhan’s sect. Of course they want to control who can see the books and relics. 

“In addition, with the help of the extensive collection of texts on cultivation, and the diligent work of our expert, we were actually able to facilitate a trial of a subject cultivating a golden core, successfully!” 

Gasps fill the room and Wei Wuxian’s hands clench so hard on the tray it almost tips over. Jiang Cheng gives him a sharp look and he just shakes his head. They can’t be talking about him, right? Do they know about him building up his cultivation? 

“And now, as a special treat for all of our generous friends and backers-” which is code for ‘give us money if you want credit when we break this story to the world’, “our expert and fledgling cultivator will give you a demonstration.” 

The word “demonstration” is what finally clues him in and makes him realize what’s really happening here. Somehow the Jins have managed not only pretended that they uncovered some secret, lost clan but they’re also taking responsibility for Lan Zhan’s cultivation. Fury rushes through him and he almost staggers under it. 

And then Lan Zhan is walking out onto the stage. 

It doesn’t matter that his shirt is the wrong color, or that his hairpin is too gaudy, he still looks beautiful. There’s another ripple of gasps through the crowd as he steps into the spotlight, looking tall and proud and untouchable. His expression is completely blank, but Wei Wuxian can read his anger from all the way across the room, can see it in the stiff way he bows and then settles himself in front of a low table. 

“That’s him?” Jiang Cheng hisses, coming closer to Wei Wuxian’s side. 

Wei Wuxian couldn’t take his eyes off him if he tried. “That’s him.” 

An attendant bustles onto the stage and lays an ornate guqin on the table before him. For a moment his breath catches, but the wood is too light for it to be Lan Zhan’s. They must have procured him another one. 

When Lan Zhan lifts his hands over the instrument, the crowd goes silent. 

There is a moment, so quick that anyone by Wei Wuxian probably doesn’t notice it, when Lan Zhan hesitates. Even though he’s across the room, he sees the flash of Lan Zhan’s pretty yellow eyes. Even though the crowd is in darkness, he doesn’t doubt for a moment that Lan Zhan sees him. He stares at him for a millisecond and then begins to play. 

It takes him a moment to place the tune. Wei Wuxian had sort of expected him to start playing Clarity or another healing piece, but instead he starts on a slow, palliative song. After a measure or two, Wei Wuxian finally figures out what it is. 

It is the song he’d heard pieces of in the very early morning, somewhere between dream and waking. It’s not in any of the music he’s read, or any of the scores Lan Zhan taught him. He knows, as he listens, that this is something Lan Zhan has written. It sounds like him, gentle and steady and charged with some unspoken thing. 

Then, Wei Wuxian sees the glint of Lan Zhan’s eyes on him, and understands. 

“Oh, oh.” 

Wei Wuxian turns to Jiang Cheng and hands him the tray. Jiang Cheng sputters in surprise but he’s already moving. 

At the bar, Wei Wuxian uses one hand to vault himself up onto it, landing on his feet. It is surprisingly easy to get himself up there and, distantly, he thinks all his training was actually paying off. 

“What the hell are you doing?” Another masked server hisses at him from the other side of the bar. “Get down!”

Wei Wuxian stands up tall and reaches into the back of his pants where his dizi is still tucked. People on the ground around him are taking notice, nudging each other and staring at the strange masked man in black who stands on the bar. Some look excited, like they think is a part of the show. That doesn’t matter, let them think what they will.

He brings the dizi to his mouth. 

He doesn’t know the tune by heart, but it's a near thing. Lan Zhan doesn’t flatter when he joins him, continuing through the melody as Wei Wuxian weaves around him. When he doesn’t know the notes, he creates new ones, bright and clear to contrast Lan Zhan’s low, questioning ones. Lan Zhan, in turn, responds with his own improvisations, lulling, sweeping phrases that fill the room. 

It is a conversation, a dialogue. Lan Zhan calls out, searching, and Wei Wuxian answers. 

Yes. Yes. Yes. 

Wei Wuxian tries to remember what Lan Zhan has told him about channeling spiritual energy through music. 

“It is not the music itself that matters,” he had explained. “It is the intent. What are you asking the music to do?” 

Here, today, Wei Wuxian is asking the music to free Lan Zhan. He is asking it to protect him, to keep him safe, to help him get away. He uses every happy moment with Lan Zhan to ask the music to keep him safe. He uses every moment of fear and worry to ask it to set him free. 

He feels more than sees the seal break. It’s an unlocking, a tug on the edge of his consciousness, the lift away.

Lan Zhan must feel it too, because he shudders slightly on the stage and then the piece slows to a halt. The room is still in the moments after the song ends. Then, the crowd burst into applause. The server who had scolded him before looks up at him, impressed. 

“I didn’t know they were planning this, that was amazing!” 

Wei Wuxian doesn’t react, eyes fixed on Lan Zhan, who is rising slowly to his feet. There’s a shuffling in the crowd, and Wei Wuxian’s eyes flick over to see men in dark suits and sunglasses making their way towards him. 

Lan Zhan doesn’t bow, but lifts his arm towards one of the hallways. There’s a sudden crashing sound from that way, and then yelps in the crowd as a streak of white shoots over their heads and into his outstretched hand. There is the dull sound of impact as he catches it, and then he brings up his other hand and unsheathes his sword. It glows bright white as he draws it and points it into the audience, Wei Wuxian following the line of it to a pale Jin Zixun. 

“Jin Zixun,” Lan Zhan’s voice sounds unusually loud in the quiet room. “You no longer have control over me. I am the last of the Lans, and thus lay claim to the Cloud Recesses and all they contain. You may try to take what is mine, but you will fail. You have strayed from the righteous path and must face the consequences.” 

The silence echoes and then, pandemonium breaks out. 

People are yelling now, at Jin Zixun, at the MC, and those who are close turning to yell at Jin Guangshan. The security is now shoving their way to him, and some are headed towards the stage. Wei Wuxian grips his dizi tightly and flips off the bar, landing on his feet with a startled gasp. 

“Since when can you do that? Actually, I don’t want to know.” Jiang Cheng appears out of nowhere and starts shoving him towards the nearest exit. “Leave, quickly.”

Wei Wuxian doesn’t need to be told twice, ducking his head as he pushes past people in the audience. He hears Auntie Yu call “A-Cheng, who was that?!” behind him. The security has lost track of him for a moment, but he can’t count on that for long. He manages to get to a door to the kitchen and turns, trying to find Lan Zhan. 

The crowd is parting as he floats off the stage and onto the hall floor. There is the smell of ozone again, the strings of Lan Zhan’s whitehead band fluttering out behind him like a flag. The glass ceiling of the hall is being pelted by rain and hail, sounding like it could give out at any moment. His sword is still pointed at Jin Zixun’s chest. 

Lan Zhan seems to sense his gaze because he turns to him for a moment and catches his eyes. Slowly, he bows his head and then turns away. 

That is the last thing Wei Wuxian sees before he’s pushing into the kitchen and then out into the rain. 

Long after the party, Jiang Cheng finds him at the bus stop they’d planned to meet at, soaked to the bone. He doesn’t comment on the way Wei Wuxian is dripping all over his nice upholstery, or the fact that the water on his face is not solely from the rain. 

He only says, “he got out.” 

And for the moment, that is enough. 

Wen Ning hadn’t been wrong when he said Wen Qing was going to worry about him whether she knew or not. As soon as he’s walking through the door, she’s checking him for fever and throwing him in the shower. When he changes into a tee-shirt that shows off the bruises from the ropes, she scowls and gives him an herbal salve to rub into them. 

He allows all the fussing with no resistance, letting himself be bullied into bed. As she closes the door, he hears Jiang Cheng’s voice from the living room and wonders why he hadn’t left yet. 

The first week is a little too much like his last days at the Cloud Recesses. Wei Wuxian drifts from his bed to the couch to the kitchen, unable to find solid ground. It’s nice to be home, but it feels different than last time. There is no assurance that, at the end of all this, he is going to see Lan Zhan again. It is, in fact, very likely that he never will. 

He can’t fault him though, his freedom was hard-won. He shouldn’t worry about baggage. 

It starts to get easier. Jiang Cheng is around a weird amount during that time, showing up in the evenings to sit with him on the couch and watch whatever sport is on TV, dragging him out to restaurants and bars on the weekend. He’s just a brusque as usual but he also seems to check in, making sure Wei Wuxian is drinking water when he’s drunk and getting home safe. Wei Wuxian is surprised every time he shows up and both grateful and a little irritated. He knows everyone thinks he’s fragile right now, though he’s not entirely sure why. 

He’s just trying to figure out what comes next. 

Jiang Yanli comes over a lot more often as well, sometimes bringing along her baby (which is wonderful) and once or twice her husband (which is awful). Jin Zixuan looks weirdly ashamed the first time he sees him and hands him a terrifyingly big check that Wei Wuxian suspects is hush money. 

“I swear to you, I didn’t know. My father put Zixun in charge of all that after I got married.” He says, stiff and uncomfortable in his nice suit on the Wens’ shitty couch. 

It’s an amusing enough sight that he almost believes him. Almost. 

Jin Zixuan never outright says it’s hush money too, merely strongly implies it. Wei Wuxian doesn’t really care, if his hunch is correct, Mo Xuanyu is collecting enough intel to take down Jin Corp on his own. Wei Wuxian doesn’t really have any of the same aspirations. 

A-Yuan loves little Jin Ling and quickly takes the baby (practically a toddler, at this point) under his wing. Jiang Yanli ends up planning playdates with A-Yuan and his other friends, because despite the age difference, Jingyi and Zizhen seem to love him too. They’re all endearingly gentle and not always understanding of why Jin Ling can’t keep up with them. But A-Yuan thrives with someone to look after, and more often than not, he slows down to Jin Ling’s pace and holds his hand. 

“He’s an angel,” Jiang Yanli tells him on the way home from a trip to the park, when both boys are passed out in their car seats. “If you need any help figuring out the adoption, just let us know. I doubt you’ll need it, but A-Xuan has good lawyers.” 

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me at all.” He snorts and laughs when Jiang Yanli bats his arm. 

Wei Wuxian starts looking for a job and is amazed when A-Yuan’s teacher gets in touch about a position at the elementary school. 

“One of the 6th-grade teachers had to take an extended family leave and they’re looking for someone to substitute,” Xiao Xingchen explains. “We haven’t been able to find someone but if you could cover until we do, that would be amazing. You’d be paid more than a usual sub for coming in so short notice.” 

“I don’t really think I’m qualified,” Wei Wuxian tries but Xiao Xingchen just shakes his head with a laugh. 

“It will only be a week or so, there’s no need to worry.” 

It doesn’t end up being a week or so. The 6th graders latch onto him with a ferocity that is a little bit terrifying. After two weeks, he’s called into the principal’s office (which is nostalgic, really) and is asked to stay on for the rest of the year. 

The principal, a slightly stern-looking man named Song Lan, assures him that his level of experience is fine and that no one is going to come after him for not having a Master’s degree in education. 

“If they did I think your class would come after them,” Song Lan admits, looking something between harassed and amused. “And trust me, you come highly recommended.” 

It’s not until a parent-teacher conference a week later that he learns that recommendation comes from Xiao Qing, one of his troublemakers, when she walks in and with Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan trailing behind her, holding hands. 

And so time passes.

Between having a fulltime job and suddenly having a social life again, he is almost too busy to think about anything else. There are moments, of course, when he looks at his almost empty bookshelf, or sees his dizi laying on the desk, or sees the red robes still tucked into his duffel bag. He’s restless now, in a way he wasn’t before, and he starts going on runs in the morning to try to blow off steam, and meditates in the evenings. Externally, it looks like his life is more together than it’s been for a long, long time. 

So why is everyone looking at him like he’s falling apart?

When he thinks about it, he got his closure. He managed to fix his mistake, he helped Lan Zhan go free, he even gave him back his headband, which seemed to have some significance. There’s nothing for him to do for Lan Zhan, no reason for him to seek Wei Wuxian out. So it’s fine. They’re done.

(Every morning he tells himself this and ignores the aching in his chest. Every night he goes to bed expecting someone to slip in after him.)

Almost four months after the party, Wei Wuxian is sitting in his bed when Wen Ning comes to the door. 

Wen Ning has been, surprisingly, one of the least cautious around him these last few months, but he looks nervous as he says, “there’s someone here for you.” 

It harkens back to when he said almost the same thing, before Jiang Yanli’s fateful visit. They had talked all that out and Wei Wuxian had assured her that, ultimately, she had thought she was doing the right thing. And, likely, had been manipulated into doing it. 

He shakes off the anger that leaves in him and stands. “Oh? I wasn’t expecting anyone.” 

Deja vu is not a strong enough term for the feeling as he enters the living room and turns to the door to see who is there. He lets out a sharp breath, feeling like the air has been punched out of his lungs. 

“Lan Zhan.” 

Lan Zhan looks as beautiful as ever. He’s wearing a flowy, blue shirt that is reminiscent of the robes in the Cloud Recesses, tucked into white slacks. He looks at home in those colors, like himself. His hair is tied back low bun, little whips of it framing his face, and his headband is tied neatly around his head. He looks at home in that too. 

Wei Wuxian stares at him for a long moment and wonders how he could have ever deluded himself into thinking he’d be okay never seeing Lan Zhan again. 

“Wei Ying,” he calls, his voice as lovely as the notes he plucks from his guqin and Wei Wuxian tries and fails not to shudder. 

Wen Ning makes himself scarce fairly quickly and Wei Wuxian clears his throat noisily. “Em. Hanguang Jun. I thought you would have gone back to the Cloud Recesses by now.” 

“Mn,” Lan Zhan acknowledges, though his brow furrows. “I have been.” 

“That’s- that’s good!” Wei Wuxian nods jerkily. “I’m sure there’s been a lot of work to do.” 

Lan Zhan dips his head. “Mn. There has.”

The way he speaks is just the way Wei Wuxian had been expecting, still reserved and careful in his words, but every single one feels precious. 

“Oh!” Wei Wuxian twitches where he stands and then turns. “I have something for you.” 

He rushes into his room and closes the door behind him, leaving Lan Zhan looking startled in the living room. He lets himself lean against it for a long moment, trying to catch his breath, then marches over to the duffel bag and picks it up. 

Back in the living room, he holds it out to Lan Zhan quickly.  “I held onto this.”

Lan Zhan accepts the bag, and their hands don’t brush as he does, but Wei Wuxian wants them to. Opening it slightly, Lan Zhan’s eyes widen as he looks down at the red robes. 

 “I had to...I used the other robes to climb down from the mountain and this is the only one I could spare. I’m sorry.” He explains, twisting his hands together. 

“I know, I found them,” Lan Zhan nods and then tilts his head. “It was resourceful of you, to find a way out. No need for sorry.” 

“Ah,” it suddenly dawns on him that if Lan Zhan has already been back to the Cloud Recesses and found the robes, he probably actually came for these robes specifically. Suddenly this all makes sense and he pastes on a fake smile. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Hanguang Jun?” 

Lan Zhan blinks in a way that is very cute, his eyelashes fluttering. That same quirk comes between his brow and he takes a step forward. “Wei Ying...” 

He pauses right in front of Wei Wuxian and he is forced to reckon with all that grace and beauty up close. Lan Zhan is just the tiniest bit taller than him, meaning he has to look slightly up to look into his pretty, shining eyes. 

“Why are you using my title?” Lan Zhan asks and Wei Wuxian startles, having been trapped in his gaze. 

“Oh um-” Wei Wuxian starts and stops, trying to grab onto a coherent thought. “I thought you might want me to.”

“Mn,” Lan Zhan hums. “No. I want you to call me Lan Zhan.” 

He shivers and nods, still staring up into Lan Zhan’s eyes. “Ah, okay. Lan Zhan.” 

Lan Zhan hums again, this time sounding pleased. Wei Wuxian is half-aware of him setting the duffel bag down on the ground, which seems weird because isn’t that what Lan Zhan came here for?

“Is there anything else...you need?” He asks after they’ve just been watching each other for a long time. 

Lan Zhan watches him again for a long moment, his blinks languid. It seems like he’s making up his mind about something.

And then his hands come up to cup Wei Wuxian’s face, and his breath leaves him. He can count on one hand how many times they’ve touched, and Lan Zhan’s cool, calloused fingers on his face is not something he thought he’d experience. 

He’s understandably winded. 

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says very plainly. “The only way to break the seal was if someone who cared deeply for me joined their spiritual energy with mine.”  

“Oh,” Wei Wuxian croaks, feeling caught out. “That’s- that’s embarrassing.” 

Lan Zhan huffs, and then very gently pushes on Wei Wuixan’s cheeks. “It would only work if I cared for them in turn.”

Oh.

“What is wrong?” Lan Zhan’s thumb catches under his eye and it’s only then he realizes he’s crying. 

He squeezes his eyes shut, tilting his head away, still embarrassed. “You- you were gone for so long. I wasn’t sure if you were coming back.”  

“Mn. I am sorry, I had some matters to settle. I came as quickly as I could.” 

“No need for sorry between us,” Wei Wuxian parrots back and when he looks up, Lan Zhan’s eyes are smiling.  

“Wei Ying is right, as always.” 

Wei Wuxian can’t help a watery laugh, raising an eyebrow. “I’m always right? What about all those things you scolded me for.” 

“Wei Ying was right about those too,” Lan Zhan’s face goes a bit serious. “If I- no. I was too afraid to explain to you why, but it frightened me when you asked about demonic cultivation. I will explain it to you, all of it, if you let me.”

“Of course I will.” Wei Wuxian responds breathlessly. “And I’ll... I have things I want to share with you, I think.” 

Lan Zhan smiles again, in his own way. “I have many things I want to share with Wei Ying as well.”  

“Ah, Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian covers his face, hands brushing against Lan Zhan’s hands. “You’re going to give me ideas.” 

“Good,” Lan Zhan says, and then gently draws Wei Wuxian’s hands from his face, keeping his hands in his when he does. 

Somehow, Lan Zhan drifts even closer. Wei Wuxian feels his heartbeat in his throat, feels like the only thing holding him on the ground is his grip on Lan Zhan’s hands. Lan Zhan is watching his face closely, eyes flicking down to Wei Wuxian’s lips. Wei Wuxian finds himself leaning in, and Lan Zhan is leaning in as well. And then-

“I have a son!” Wei Wuxian blurts out when their mouths are almost touching. 

Lan Zhan’s heavily lidded eyes open slightly and he draws away ( no!!! ) to give Wei Wuxian a bemused look. 

“That’s the first thing I want to share with you,” he continues and feels like he’s going to melt into the floor from embarrassment. 

“Ah,” Lan Zhan says, and he doesn’t sound mad and actually his eyes are creasing around the corners. “My courtesy name is Lan Wangji.” 

“What?” Wei Wuxian asks, breathless, staring at Lan Zhan’s soft mouth again. 

“That is the first thing I want to share with you.” 

“Oh,” Wei Wuxian whispers. “Lan Wangji? It suits you.” 

“Mn.” 

Wei Wuxian smiles a little bit, letting himself drift a little closer. “Hanguang Jun suits you too.”

“So you have said,” Lan Zhan’s eyelids are getting heavier and they are closer yet. It seems impossible that there could still be space between them now. 

“Lan Wangji,” Wei Wuxian murmurs, because he can, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Hanguang Jun~” 

Lan Zhan’s hands are creeping up his arms, fingers trailing up his forearms, over his elbows, stopping to hold him by the biceps. His bruises have long since healed, but Wei Wuxian imagines Lan Zhan’s touch searing away any trace of them.

“ Lan Zhan, ” Wei Wuxian says and then Lan Wangji’s mouth is on his. 

It went like this.

Once, many years ago, there were two brothers. While they weren’t princes in name, they were in status and duty, set to inherit their father’s sect. They were the pride of their people, twin jades embedded high in the mountains. 

The elder jade was kind and genial, his easy demeanor belying the sharp mind hidden by his smiles. As he became old enough to do so, he led their sect with a gentle hand and cared deeply for the people in their land. He often descended the mountain to visit with leaders from each village, and spent long hours in meetings with them, learning all their needs and worries.

The younger jade was cool as spring water, peerless in skill and beauty. His face was a still mountain pond that concealed the heart he revealed to very few. While his exterior was cold, the people saw him show his care in a different way, tending to their worries with the sharp edge of his sword. 

The people looked to their jades for guidance and protection, and found it in abundance. 

Then, the troubles came.

First, in the form a power-hungry clan to the north. Among others, the jades rallied their sect to drive them back. The war was long and hard. The princes saw their people struck down by the clan’s patriarch, saw the fields pillaged and their sacred library burnt to the ground. Eventually, the clan was defeated and peace once more restored. Both princes had been at the forefront of the fight and returned as heroes. 

But, as it often does, trouble comes in waves. 

It was found, in the time after the war, that the domineering northern clan had turned to demonic rituals to strengthen their attacks. Fighting broke out among the clans over who would be allowed to wield that power. Nothing at the scale of the war, but enough to cause discord across the cultivation world. It seemed it would not end until one stepped forward. 

It was a young man from the golden sect to the northeast, a key player in the war. He was a bastard of the sect’s patriarch, and had only been recognized after his efforts in winning the war. He was given station in his clan, quickly rising to amass great power. However, because of his legitimate younger brother, he could never ascend to the throne. For him, his position was not enough. 

He desired more.

With silver words and fool’s gold smiles, he presented a solution. The demonic relic that had allowed the northern clan to gain so much power would be locked away, hidden from all and unable to be used again. It was not hard to accomplish, with the elder jade on his side. The two were already close, had been since before the golden master claimed his birthright. It was easy for him to lay the trap, a few well-crafted words, a few tender gestures, and he had the elder prince’s undying support.

In his mind, it would then be a simple matter of using that same dark magic to claim his place at the head of the sect. 

The sects agreed, but the younger jade saw all this, and knew the truth of it, and tried to warn his brother. Unfortunately, his brother’s judgment was clouded by his love and devotion to the young golden master.  

“Wangji,” the elder prince said. “You are my dearest brother and closest confidant, but you are mistaken about this.” 

“Fine,” the younger prince said. “I will show you.” 

He searched tirelessly for proof of his suspicions and soon, uncovered it on his own. In a temple not far from the golden’s sects domain, he found the golden master, now leader of his sect, and the demonic relic. 

He leveled his gleaming sword at the golden master and cast judgment. 

“You have strayed from the righteous path and must face the consequences.” 

But the golden master had planned for such a thing. With the help of a demonic cultivator and an old retainer of the younger jade whose heart was full of spite, he contained the younger jade. 

“You are lofty indeed, Hanguang Jun.” He told him in that temple, deep in the night. “If you are to govern all that is righteous, allow me to assist you.” 

With the help of the demonic relic, he transformed him into the most righteous of beasts. The younger jade’s body stretched and ripped and burned until he was almost too big to contain in the temple. He was filled with the power of the waters and winds, stronger than he’d ever been, closer to a god than a mortal. But the relic bound him to the will of the golden master, and he could not use his strength against him. 

“The Yin Iron isn’t strong enough to keep you like this forever, unfortunately. And it only works when the sun is up.” The golden master sighed as he stared up into the young jade’s new face. “I shall give you an opportunity to break the seal.” 

Here are the terms he laid out.

For one year, the young jade must dwell with another, share their bed every night. At the end of that year, if the other is willing, they would break the seal together with their combined spiritual energy. But they must come to trust the younger jade completely, sleep silently at his side, not ask too many questions. 

The younger jade saw this too, for what it was. A way to keep them distant from him, prevent him from earning their trust. The bed-sharing too, was meant to make them afraid, make them leave.

The golden master allowed him a way to entice a person to dwell with him, the ability to grant them a wish. 

“The wish must be sincere. And they must sincerely wish to free you and care for you, as you must care for them. And if it is not done within 1,000 years, the transformation will break but the seal will be permanent. These are the terms. This is your penance.” 

“Penance...? ” the young jade growled through a throat that wasn’t made for speaking. 

“For thinking you are more righteous than us. Since you are so peerless, now you truly will have no equal,” the old retainer sneered. “Good luck trying to find someone to care for you like this.” 

The elder jade prince searched for his younger brother for years, and mourned him when hope was lost. He couldn’t have known that his dearest friend had locked him into an echo of their own home, near but unreachable.

And when, not even a year later, the cultivation sects crumbled, and his clan was wiped out, there grew fewer and fewer who could add their spiritual energy to his. Until there were none. He was released into the control of the child of the golden master, and then his child and so on for generations.

For years, he tried and tried again to find someone who would stay, who wished sincerely and wanted to set him free. But there was little hope of that for the young jade prince. 

That was, until Wei Wuxian. 

Later, there will be a lot to do.

‘Lan Wangji’ is someone who has been thought to be dead for hundreds of years. It will take time to solidify his place in the world once again. Luckily, Jin Zixuan has good lawyers, and a lot of guilt weighing on him. 

Later, there will be going back to the Cloud Recesses. There will be long days cataloging the library, sunny afternoons spent with the rabbits and quiet nights in the Jingshi. Lan Wangji will slip into bed after turning off the lights and Wei Wuxian will welcome him with open arms and gentle words. 

Later, A-Yuan will arrive home from school and ask “who are you? ” all while hugging Lan Wangji’s leg, and Lan Wangji will look at him with a fragile light in eyes. There will be a new generation of cultivators to teach, starting with A-Yuan and his friends, and Jin Ling soon after them. 

Later there will be talking, and stories, and apologies. There will be work. There will be good days and bad days and every kind in between. 

Later, there will be putting those red robes to use.

But for now, there is Lan Zhan and Wei Ying. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji. They are standing in the living room, they are tangling their fingers together as tightly as they can. 

Later, there will be work. But for now, there is a beginning.