Chapter Text
They’re going to sing him to death.
Wen Qing has never had a high opinion of the great sects and their high-handed measures, but she thought better of the Lans. With a reputation and a motto for righteousness, surely she could expect more from them. Wei Wuxian thought better of them, or he would never have agreed to surrender the DafanWen to the GusuLan.
“The Lans are incredibly stuffy, but they’re good people,” he told her. “You’ll be okay with them.”
But perhaps Wei Wuxian had known all along. He’s always acting like he was invincible. Wen Qing would not be surprised to find that he thought this was an acceptable price for just the chance to attend his sister’s wedding, and to remain in YunmengJiang.
She overheard the argument between Wei Wuxian and his brother–how could she not? This is the agreement they reached. Wei Wuxian returns to Lotus Pier, and the DafanWen go to Gusu. The only reason why the Lans agreed to this was because of their Hanguang-jun. Wen Qing once had a high opinion of him too. She doesn’t anymore.
The only thing the Lans want out of it is to purify Wei Wuxian of resentful energy. Wen Qing stands at the entrance of the Cloud Recesses when she learns this, and suddenly the austere, cold beauty of their ancestral home looks a lot more repressive. Any fool can see that Wei Wuxian is falling apart as he stands. The only thing that’s keeping him together, sometimes literally, is his use of resentful energy. And the Lans want to purge all of it from him, because they cannot tolerate the use of resentful energy. The Lans are righteous, for a given definition of righteousness.
“Is that the only way,” Wei Wuxian snaps.
There’s a line of Lan elders watching their group with barely-hidden disdain. Wen Qing knows what they look like, this rag-tag group huddled behind Wei Wuxian like half-drowned rats. She sees them frown as they look over Wen Ning. She doesn’t understand how they can look at Wen Yuan and find something unworthy, but that’s their problem, not hers. They’ve agreed to set aside a small valley in Gusu for their use. Wen Qing could get used to that, farming for the rest of her life with her family. It’s a far cry from the Jin prison camps.
“Yes,” says one of the elders.
Wen Qing holds her breath and waits for Wei Wuxian to say no. She already can’t believe the selflessness of this man, that he would put aside anything and everything for a group of people he’s never met, who share a name with the Wens who burned Lotus Pier to the ground. All because she asked.
She waits for Lan Wangji to step in, or for the kind-faced Lan Xichen to speak up. Neither of them do. Lan Wangji looks straight ahead, impassively. He doesn’t so much as look at Wei Wuxian. Lan Xichen glances between Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji, and the elder, looking just a tad worried.
“Fine,” Wei Wuxian bites out. “On two conditions.”
Lan Xichen loses his worry. “Assuming that the conditions are reasonable, of course.”
“I want Wen Qing to be there.”
Wen Qing’s first reaction is surprise, but her second is understanding. Wei Wuxian has a secret to protect, one only she and Wen Ning know, and her little brother is not an option for so many reasons. All the Lans look at her, then, standing just a step behind Wei Wuxian and refusing to dignify any of them with a smile. It almost feels like she’s back serving under Wen Ruohan again, in that moment. She’s never been the sword or the one who holds it, but she’s always been there to witness, she’s always the one to clean up the mess these blood-minded men leave behind. The Lans look at her and see a doctor.
“That is acceptable,” Lan Xichen says, still smiling. “And your second condition?”
There’s tension in every line of Wei Wuxian’s body. He acts as if he’s being hunted. But is he not being persecuted? Wen Qing wants to demand how they dare ask for his conditions to be reasonable. She wants to shake Wei Wuxian by the shoulders and tell him not to do this. But she is, in the end, still a selfish, selfish, woman. She’ll set aside morals to protect her family. She can’t ask him to do this, but she’ll stand aside and let him. What a terrible person she must be.
“I want Hanguang-jun to be the one to perform it,” Wei Wuxian says, looking directly at Lan Xichen.
Lan Xichen’s face crumples in relief, and Lan Wangji finally deigns to look at Wei Wuxian. His expression looks no different than it did before, but something about it seems intense in a way it wasn’t.
Lan Wangji bows slightly. “It would be my honor,” he says.
Lan Xichen looks relieved, like he’s grateful that his brother wants to do this. Wei Wuxian’s face spasms. Likely he’s in disbelief that Lan Wangji actually agreed.
“Good.” Wei Wuxian’s voice is dripping with something that sounds like disdain and tastes like sarcasm. “Great. I’ll see you in a week.”
He whirls around and pushes through the crowd of Wens standing behind him. There’s anger in every footstep, but if Wen Qing has ever seen a man entitled to his anger, it’s Wei Wuxian, right here, right now. She doesn’t try to stop him. The Wens follow behind him silently, down the winding path leading up to the Cloud Recesses. Wen Qing is the last, but she hesitates before she leaves.
“Is this really acceptable to the Lans?” Wen Qing demands. “What if he dies?”
Lan Wangji doesn’t even bother to look at her. Lan Xichen looks nonplussed. The Lan elders look at her like they can’t believe she dares speak to them, but she has to. She owes it to Wei Wuxian to try.
“Being purified of resentful energy,” says one of the elders, stiffly, “is the only service Wei Wuxian can provide the world.”
“It is better to die a righteous man than to live a dishonorable one,” another intones.
Wen Qing does not growl at him, does not shout or rage at these self-righteous men. She has spent too long in the court of Wen Ruohan to do that. Instead she inclines her head, just as stiffly. “Very well,” she snaps, and turns to leave.
The Lans are gracious hosts, Wen Qing will give them that. The DafanWen have almost free range of the Cloud Recesses during their move, not that they spend a lot of time there. There’s not a lot that they have to move, only an allocation of resources. The Lans do not have much to spare, which is one of the reasons why they didn’t take Wen prisoners to begin with. And although they make it clear that they don’t have anything to give the Wens, it’s not like Wen Qing was expecting supplies anyway. She and her family are still technically prisoners of war, despite their lack of involvement with the war.
Their new home is a beautiful little valley about half an hour from the Cloud Recesses by foot, in the opposite direction down the mountain from Caiyi. It’s nothing more than a collection of houses, a small village where the original occupants fled during the Wen occupation of the Cloud Recesses and later never returned, whether it was because they found somewhere better or they died during the war.
The Wens settle in nicely, dividing the houses up amongst themselves and organizing the little supplies they have. The weather is just starting to warm, but Wen Qing is confident that come next winter, they’ll have crops to trade in the market of Caiyi, in exchange for supplies they’re currently lacking in, be it bolts of cloth for blankets and clothes, or things they can’t make like pots and paper. Wen Ning has offered to hunt, but Wen Qing doesn’t believe that he’ll actually be able to bring himself to kill an animal. He’d probably apologize to target boards if he could.
Wen Ning is also paraded before a whole host of Lan elders, but they can’t find anything wrong with him other than the fact that he’s supposed to be dead. Some still think that he should be put to rest, but they are gracious enough not to say it to his face. They quickly learn not to say it to Wen Qing’s face, either. Ultimately, their biggest concern is Wei Wuxian. He’s the reason Wen Ning is still walking, after all. He’s a threat to the entire cultivation world, in their eyes.
Surprisingly, Wen Qing finds herself getting along with the Lan medics. They’re straightforward, and share her distaste for violence. She thinks it a shame she was not born into the Lan clan. She thinks she could’ve fit in here.
“What are the chances that I actually die?” Wei Wuxian says off-handedly one day, when Wen Qing picks up the argument with him again.
He’s been avoiding his precious Lan Zhan, which Wen Qing finally realized because Lan Wangji eventually came to her trying to find him. Wen Qing finds herself resenting Wei Wuxian, then, for the secrets he’s forcing her to keep. She can’t believe Lan Wangji thinks that Wei Wuxian would want to talk to him, if he’s not begging him to take it back, which is not exactly Wei Wuxian’s style. Wen Qing is very much accustomed to backstabbing from living under Wen Ruohan’s roof, but this is different. The Lans were supposed to be righteous, for one. Wei Wuxian has always spoken so highly of Lan Wangji, and so familiarly, but apparently their friendship was only extended to a Wei Wuxian who did not use demonic cultivation. Is he looking to explain himself to Wei Wuxian? Wen Qing can’t say she’s surprised that Wei Wuxian doesn’t want to hear it. She wouldn’t either.
“At least fifty percent,” Wen Qing answers.
Wei Wuxian smiles, like that’s good news. “See? That’s not so bad! I’ve beaten those odds before!”
“That’s not how it works, Wei Wuxian!” Wen Qing argues. “And what will you do afterwards?”
Wei Wuxian just shrugs. “Pick up demonic cultivation again,” he says. “I never said that I wouldn’t.”
Wen Qing strides forward and blocks his path. Wei Wuxian is trying to rush past her again, in a hurry to get back to the little Wen village, mostly because it’s farther away from Lan Wangji. Lan Wangji has taken to traveling down here every morning, though, so she doesn’t think it’ll last very long.
“Are you really okay with this?” Wen Qing demands. “I know you’ve been avoiding Lan Wangji.”
He shrugs again. “I didn’t really think they would,” he admits. His tone becomes drier than dust. “After all, killing is forbidden in the Cloud Recesses.” Wei Wuxian finally looks at her, pasting a bright smile on his face. “So I’ve just got to live!”
As if it’s that simple.
Still, when Wen Qing is walking through the Cloud Recesses, she sometimes slows down while she passes Lan Wangji’s house. Inside sits Hanguang-jun, sombre notes floating through the air from his guqin. He sits as straight and proper as ever, but there’s the tiniest of frowns on his face, just the slight knitting of his brows, as he practices diligently for the day of the ritual.
Wen Qing clenches her fists, fantasizes of breaking his stupid guqin over his head, and walks away.
Lan Qiren is confused when Wei Wuxian first shows up. Wei Wuxian requested a week to help the DafanWen settle into their new home, and the Lan elders agreed, or so Lan Qiren heard. He knows that Wangji also wants the week to practice for the ritual. So he can’t imagine what business Wei Wuxian has with him.
“Master Lan,” Wei Wuxian says, more politely than Lan Qiren can ever remember him being. “I have a proposal.”
It would be rude to refuse him, so Lan Qiren wordlessly gestures for Wei Wuxian to sit across from him, and pours tea. If Wei Wuxian has come with another ridiculous theory of his, or if he’s looking to weasel his way out of the ritual he agreed to, Lan Qiren is fully comfortable kicking him out. In all honesty, he was pleasantly surprised when Wei Wuxian agreed to the ritual. His opinion of the so-called Yiling Patriarch rose just a notch.
“I have a…very important explanation,” Wei Wuxian says, once he has sat. “And I ask that you not tell anyone.”
Lan Qiren frowns. He is certainly no gossip, but he will not lie if asked. “Very well.”
Wei Wuxian looks assured, despite his grimace. He pulls out a document, and slides it over to Lan Qiren, who reads the title Theory on the Transfer of Golden Cores, author Wen Qing, before he notices Wei Wuxian gingerly rolling up his sleeve.
It’s absurdly easy to connect the dots.
Lan Qiren grimaces as well, but he still presses two fingers to the exposed wrist. It takes only a moment to confirm before he pulls his hand away. Wei Wuxian lets his sleeve fall back down, and Lan Qiren is left a mixture of astonished and confused. Wei Wuxian has no golden core. He glances between the medical theory on the table in front of him and the demonic cultivator across from him.
“Why?” Is the only thing Lan Qiren can think of to say.
“I needed you to understand that I learned demonic cultivation because I had to, not because I wanted to,” Wei Wuxian answers.
It starts to make sense to Lan Qiren. Just a few years ago even this would not have excused Wei Wuxian, but now Lan Qiren has witnessed the great library of the Cloud Recesses burning, has seen his nephew get his leg broken and then be hauled off for the Wen “training camp.” He knows the damage dealt to Lotus Pier, and understands why Wei Wuxian would have felt the need to learn, once he no longer had a golden core.
Still. “Why did you not say you lost a golden core?” Lan Qiren asks.
Wei Wuxian curls in defensively, just a little. “He doesn’t know how his golden core got fixed.”
Lan Qiren wants to ask who he is, and how he can possibly not know that his golden core was replaced at the cost of Wei Wuxian’s core. But it is not any of his business, even though he has a good guess as to who it is. And it is not his place to reveal this secret, so Lan Qiren takes this answer at face value. If nothing else, it raises his opinion of Wei Wuxian again.
Instead of asking any of this, Lan Qiren sets the golden core theory aside. “What is your proposal?”
Wei Wuxian straightens. “I know that people look to me and think that they can try their hand at demonic cultivation. I thought if anyone could help me explain just how dangerous demonic cultivation can be, it would be you.”
This…is not something Lan Qiren is against. He is, in fact, an advocate against the use of demonic cultivation. He thinks he might find Wei Wuxian agreeable, now that he knows that Wei Wuxian feels the same way. In fact, he rather approves of Wei Wuxian’s willingness to lose his only power left.
“What would this entail?”
Wei Wuxian spreads his hands and shrugs. “I know a lot about demonic cultivation. I imagine you have a lot of things you want to say to demonic cultivators. I thought together we could explain why it’s a bad idea, or at least teach people how to not hurt themselves or others.”
Lan Qiren strokes his beard in thought. “I am…amendable.”
Wei Wuxian finally smiles. “Do you think we’ll be able to finish before the end of the week?”
Lan Qiren isn’t sure why Wei Wuxian will not be able to help after the purification ritual, but then, he’s not the demonic cultivator. “Possibly,” he says instead.
Wei Wuxian’s face melts in relief. “That’s good,” he says, and doesn’t explain.
Jiang Cheng shows up on the fifth day.
He glowers the whole way while Wen Qing shows him to the room where Wei Wuxian is staying temporarily. Part of the unspoken agreement is that Wei Wuxian will return to normal cultivation. Wen Qing doesn’t know how Wei Wuxian plans to explain his continued refusal, but a part of her suspects that Wei Wuxian is hoping to need no plan at all.
“You’re returning to Lotus Pier after the ritual,” Jiang Cheng says. “You’ve been avoiding your teaching responsibilities for long enough.”
Wei Wuxian doesn’t put up a fight, and that’s when Wen Qing knows. But if he thinks that she’ll let him go without a fight, he’s dead wrong. Screw the Lans and their rituals; they’re not taking Wei Wuxian from the world just yet.
“Let’s just get this whole business over with,” Jiang Cheng continues. “I thought you weren’t going to agree to it for a bit back in the Burial Mounds.” He looks pathetically relieved.
“I didn’t think the Lans would agree to it,” Wei Wuxian says.
“Well,” Jiang Cheng says uncomfortably. “Lucky for us they did, right?” He looks at the wall. “You have to come to A-Li’s wedding one way or another. We’ve been planning that since we were kids.”
Wei Wuxian swallows nothing. “Right,” he says. “Can’t miss it, even if she is marrying the peacock.”
Jiang Cheng doesn’t look very close to joining in on their usual jokes. Wen Qing should probably stop spying on them now, but she still feels like something’s about to go wrong.
“I’m just glad you agreed,” Jiang Cheng says abruptly. “This whole resentful energy business really hasn’t been good for you. You’ve been…wasting away.”
“Right,” Wei Wuxian says tightly.
“Not in a–” bad way, Jiang Cheng doesn’t say, because there’s really no good way to waste away. He clears his throat needlessly. “Whatever,” he mutters. “At least you agreed.” He hesitates before reaching out. “Do you want me to be there?”
“No!” Wei Wuxian says, immediately and violently. He regrets his tone, if the way Jiang Cheng’s face shutters closed is any indication. “Jiang Cheng, wait, I meant–”
“It’s fine,” Jiang Cheng says shortly. He stands up. “I’ll see you afterwards, Wei Wuxian.”
Sect Leader Jiang strides out the doorway in an angry whirl of violet robes. Too soon, he vanishes up the mountain.
“Fuck.” Wei Wuxian buries his head in his hands. His shoulders shake.
Wen Qing decides it’s high time she stops eavesdropping, and she starts to move away as well when Wei Wuxian speaks again.
“He’s right, you know, Wen Qing.”
Wen Qing stops and walks around the little cottage to sit down properly across from Wei Wuxian. She won’t insult both of them by pretending she wasn’t eavesdropping.
“I’m wasting away,” Wei Wuxian elaborates, once she sits down. “My body’s been decaying ever since I got thrown into the Burial Mounds,” he says bitterly.
Wen Qing can’t deny it. She remembers how Wei Wuxian looked before she did the core transfer. And even back then, when he was crushed under the loss of his home and his adopted family, still injured by Madame Yu and the Xuanwu cave, he looked so much healthier than he does now. His complexion is pallid, his skin is unhealthily pale. He’s too thin for a proper Head Disciple, and his eyes are constantly accentuated with bags. He drinks too much and smiles less.
“You don’t have to do this,” Wen Qing says.
“I do,” Wei Wuxian snaps. “It’s the only way everyone’s happy.”
And what about you? Wen Qing thinks. What about your happiness? “What about the Lans?” Wen Qing presses. “Didn’t you say killing is forbidden?”
“They know what they’re doing,” Wei Wuxian says abrasively. He crosses his arms in front of his chest. “There’s always exceptions. I’m sure Zewu-jun didn’t hesitate when escaping the Wens that were burning down his home.”
“You’re still going to make Lan Wangji a murderer,” Wen Qing says.
“He knows what he’s doing!” Wei Wuxian stands suddenly, furiously. He’s almost snarling at her. “I mean, just look at me.” He gestures at himself, disgusted. “What does he think is going to happen? My body’s being held together by demonic cultivation and sheer willpower!”
“You asked him–”
“He wasn’t supposed to agree!” Wei Wuxian cries. He sinks back into his seat. “Fuck. It’s always been like this. I should’ve known. I used to do the most ridiculous things to get his attention, and then he’d–like it’s another game of chicken. He thinks he’s calling my bluff. Fuck, I was supposed to go to Yanli’s wedding.”
Wei Wuxian buries his head in his hands again. His breath rattles in the air. “Fuck,” he says again quietly, and nothing more.
Lan Qiren finds that he has grown far more tolerable of Wei Wuxian’s presence in the past week. He finds that when Wei Wuxian is not interrupting his lectures, and actually listening to him, their interactions go a lot smoother. He also finds that when he himself listens to Wei Wuxian, now that his crazy theories are, in fact, reality, he can appreciate how incredibly fast Wei Wuxian’s mind works. He knew back when Wei Wuxian was a guest disciple here that Wei Wuxian was a brilliant student who simply didn’t apply himself, but now he knows that Wei Wuxian does apply himself–to things he finds worthy of his attention.
Lan Qiren thought it would be a disaster, meeting with Wei Wuxian for several hours everyday, but three days in he finds that it has gone astonishingly well. His opinion of Wei Wuxian has changed rather dramatically in the past three days. But it isn’t until he takes lunch with his eldest nephew on the third day that he begins to think past the purification ritual at the end of the week.
“I had not realized you were meeting with Wei Wuxian, Uncle,” Lan Xichen says.
“Hm.” It is their tradition to meet before lunch once a week, but Lan Qiren put him off for after lunch in order to finish working with Wei Wuxian. “It was not my intent to keep you waiting.”
“No, I understand, Uncle,” Xichen says. “Only, I thought that you and Young Master Wei…did not get along.”
“I did not think so either,” Lan Qiren admits. “However, we have been working on a manual warning of the dangers of demonic cultivation, and he insists that we must finish this week. He is…tolerable.”
Personally, he thinks that Wei Wuxian's insistence on finishing before the end of the week is because after the ritual, Wei Wuxian plans on returning to Lotus Pier and never coming back. Lan Qiren's not yet willing to admit to himself that he’s had more interesting discussions with Wei Wuxian than he has had with any Lan, and he’ll perhaps miss them once Wei Wuxian is gone.
Xichen raises his eyebrows. “Yet you still find him to be abrasive and rude?”
“He is certainly not…polite,” Lan Qiren says. He previously found Wei Wuxian outrageous for his casual abandonment of cultivation, but of course that makes sense now. For the sake of honesty, he continues. “I find him to be an upstanding young man, of righteous character. Surprisingly,” he adds, for old times’ sake.
His nephew certainly looks surprised, but he recovers quickly. “That is…quite fortunate,” Xichen says, breaking into a relieved smile. “Does that mean you would be amenable to thinking of Wei Wuxian as a potential future nephew-in-law?”
Lan Qiren feels a cold chill. “You…?” He is so not ready to talk about this with Xichen.
Fortunately, Xichen looks briefly panicked. “No, certainly not,” Xichen says hastily.
“Then Wangji…?” Lan Qiren questions, and gets his confirmation when Xichen looks vaguely guilty. So Wangji has a crush on Wei Wuxian. That is…not something Lan Qiren had been expecting. But he believes Xichen, which means he now has to consider Wei Wuxian as a potential future nephew-in-law.
To his surprise, he finds the idea tolerable.
“Do you think Wei Wuxian would be agreeable?” Xichen asks, with just a hint of desperation that tells Lan Qiren that Xichen has been trying to set them up for a while.
“I do not know,” Lan Qiren answers.
Nowhere in the past three days of conversations has Wei Wuxian’s love life come up, and Lan Qiren hopes it never will. There is, however, the issue of Wei Wuxian’s golden core. The other elders would never approve of Wangji marrying a non-cultivator, though of course they need not know of Wei Wuxian’s loss. But Wangji ought to, if they are to marry.
“Perhaps they may discuss it after the ritual,” Xichen suggests.
Lan Qiren strokes his beard. “Indeed.”
It takes Lan Qiren until the end of the week to unravel the final mystery. He is sitting across from Wei Wuxian again, as they survey the pile of notes and tentative manuscript that they’ve pain-stakingly compiled over the past week, and he wonders why me?
Wei Wuxian could have gone to any of the Lans. He could have even gone to Wen Qing, as the highly-praised doctor who already knew his secret. But more indicatively, Wei Wuxian could have gone to Lan Xichen or Lan Wangji, and instead he chose Lan Qiren, who he knew to dislike him. Why?
Wei Wuxian assembles their rough draft proudly. “You’ll finish the rest?” He says, flashing Lan Qiren an empty smile. He’s been smiling less and less over the past week.
Lan Qiren supposes that Wei Wuxian’s part is done, and he’s likely eager to return to Lotus Pier. He still finds it a little impolite to simply leave Lan Qiren to do the rest of the work. But then again, this is more or less what Lan Qiren agreed to at the beginning.
“After the ritual,” Lan Qiren agrees, and catches a hint of a grimace on Wei Wuxian’s face before it’s wiped away by another empty smile. It is then that he puts it together, all of Wei Wuxian’s grimaces and refusal to so much as say “ritual.”
All at once it is so obvious why Wei Wuxian chose to come to him: he trusted Lan Qiren to not care. Lan Qiren could not have been Wei Wuxian’s top pick for “Lan to spill secret to.” He could, however, reasonably be considered to be the Lan who dislikes him the most. If he were a lesser man, he might find a way to get Wei Wuxian out of the ritual. His demonic cultivation offers untold powers, ones that the Lans would have access to if Wei Wuxian does in fact become a member of the inner clan. Moreover, Lan Qiren has spent the last week reviewing just how toxic its use is, and how dangerous its effects can be for Wei Wuxian, especially since he does not have a golden core.
Wei Wuxian rises to leave. The next time Lan Qiren planned on seeing him was after the ritual, but he finds he has something to say before Wei Wuxian leaves.
“Wei Wuxian,” he calls.
Wei Wuxian stops at the entrance and turns around, looking almost hopeful for a moment.
Because if Lan Qiren did not care about Wei Wuxian, did not care about his health, what would the point of the ritual be? Lan Qiren is against the use of demonic cultivation because of its corruptive capabilities and its harm to the user, though in truth he thinks Wei Wuxian has the highest chance out of everyone of successfully turning it into a proper, safe method of cultivation.
Wei Wuxian went to Lan Qiren trusting that his old teacher wouldn’t care, but Lan Qiren finds that he does.
Lan Qiren clears his throat. “I believe you made a mistake in judging my character,” he says stiffly, because that is as close as he can come to saying I care. “Therefore the ritual will proceed tomorrow.”
He watches as Wei Wuxian looks first confused, and then his face settles into something blank. Wei Wuxian nods stiffly and leaves without a word. It is not quite the reaction Lan Qiren expected, but he imagines that it is quite the inner conflict for Wei Wuxian, who is doubtless eager to be rid of resentful energy, but also scared of living as a powerless person.
Lan Qiren holds out hope that he can cultivate again, as his core was not destroyed but surgically removed. Before this week, he saw the ritual as good for the cultivation world in general. But now, he sees the purification ritual as really, truly, for Wei Wuxian’s own health.
Wei Wuxian walks the winding path down the mountain back to the new Wen village on shaking legs. He refuses to cry, but a small part of him wants to. It’s not like he’s particularly close with Master Lan. Before this week, he would’ve said that Lan Qiren disliked him the most out of all the Lans. But he thought something changed this week, or at least he assumed it did. Lan Qiren actually seemed to listen to him, and care about what Wei Wuxian had to say. Perhaps Wei Wuxian is the fool for thinking that meant something.
You made a mistake, he said, and clearly Wei Wuxian did. He hadn’t quite hoped that this week would be enough to change Lan Qiren’s mind about the evils of demonic cultivation–it’s all they’ve talked about, after all–but maybe he thought he could show that he had it under control. But of course, the Lans have already agreed to the purification ritual. They cannot possibly go back on their word.
The Cloud Recesses disappear from sight as Wei Wuxian treks further and further down the dirt path, until the view is entirely covered by trees. The next time Wei Wuxian will see it will be the morning of the purification ritual. He breathes in the heavy scent of pines and wishes, for the last time, that ritual could’ve taken place in Lotus Pier, where the air smells of lotuses, spice, and home. He thinks he almost would not mind it, that way.
Wei Wuxian made a mistake in thinking that Lan Qiren could possibly care about him, but he refuses to believe that the manual itself is a mistake. He doesn’t want to leave a legacy of demonic cultivation behind him, and he trusts that Lan Qiren will finish it and hopefully mitigate some of the damage Wei Wuxian unwittingly caused by inventing demonic cultivation.
Wei Wuxian heads down the mountain for what is quite possibly his last evening, and wonders who will miss him once he’s gone.