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The first time, the worst time, had been in the depths of despair. There was nothing but emptiness where Lan Wangji's heart should have been. Nothing but the fire of thirty-three excruciatingly slow healing whip-cuts and the haunted eyes of a frightened, fevered child.
Wei Ying, how am I supposed to do this?
The silken seal broke, revealing a sweetness long burned into his memory; the crack of porcelain splitting open on the pale gravel stones, and the heady smell that bled into the coolness of the moonlit air. Then; laughter, cut off at its breaking, abrupt, as Wei Wuxian himself had gone.
For a long time, Lan Wangji sat with only the sticky, slightly acrid scent of the opened jar for company. A scent that had clung to the robes of Wei Wuxian as he ran through the Cloud Recesses, as he ran through Lan Wangji's confused thoughts. As he ran, roughshod and unflinching, straight into Lan Wangji's heart. It was long past dark in the Jingshi, and the Cloud Recesses were silent. In the light of a single candle, warmed and expanded by a brass mirror, Lan Wangji gripped the jar of Emperor's Smile and downed a gulp in one fast pull, the way he'd seen Wei Wuxian toss back spirits in Caiyi Town.
It burned his throat, threatened to choke him, spread across his palate and into his sinuses with the same speed and ruthlessness as resentful energy in Nightless City. It brought tears to his eyes that had nothing to do with grief. Lan Wangji coughed, sputtered, sobbed in silence. He brought the edge of his sleeve to his eyes and held it there, but the tears that were now falling were for grief, and the delicate robes of Gusu Lan were not enough to stem their tide.
Lan Wangji felt soft around the edges, hollowed out and indistinct. In a haze he took a second, slower sip of wine. It did not burn as much as the first. Much in the same way Wei Wuxian had scorched and then slowly warmed him, the wine spread in his chest like sunlight against his skin. He put his head down on top of his folded hands, his forehead ribbon pressing into the back of his knuckles.
How am I supposed to live without you?
There was not much he remembered of the after, perhaps a kindness. Lan Wangji woke on sweat-soaked sheets in the Jingshi, his back stinging raw, his head heavy, and a new tightness in the skin over his heart. Lying on his side with the soft tones of Rest ringing behind him, clear and gentle as only his older brother could play. The sound of the xiao tempted him to sink back into the dark nothingness of sleep, but Lan Wangji had awoken with a weight cupped in his open, outstretched palm.
A small, rounded cheek, the delicate shell of an ear. The precious head of a feverish boy, half-starved and slowly recovering. Wen Yuan's sleeping breath puffed warm against Lan Wangji's wrist, his eyelashes twitching as he dreamt. His little hands had captured the first and last fingers of Lan Wangji's hand in his fists, clutched tight against the fresh white of his new sleeping robes. Lan Wangji could still feel the boy's steady heartbeat in his fingertips, even if the healers had threatened him, during those horrible three months of the Sunshot Campaign, that he would lose all feeling there if he continued to play Inquiry without rest. Perhaps he would, now.
"Brother."
His voice was barely there, a shy wind in bamboo. Lan Wangji had heard that liquor could rob the body of its water, tighten the throat and cause ache behind the eyes. He was suffering it all, but despite his inability to speak with volume, Liebing trailed off its song. Even when he was silent, his brother would always hear.
"Wangji." Lan Xichen's own voice was a whisper, wavering slightly with concern. "Didi, how are you?"
"Tired," he admitted, for that was the easiest, and least worrying for his brother.
"We will go soon, and leave you to rest. A-Yuan woke in the night and you were missing. He would not sleep without you."
"Missing?"
From over his shoulder, there came a soft sigh. Not of disappointment or weariness, but the near-silent one Lan Xichen made when he needed to do something difficult. It was one his brother had been using a great deal lately.
"Didi, you mustn't harm yourself. The mark of one spiritual weapon is enough punishment for you to wear." Lan Xichen sighed again. His voice became like slow-falling snow. "He wouldn't want this, Wangji."
Lan Wangji closed his eyes, focusing on the steady rhythm of A-Yuan's heartbeat in an attempt to master the wave of despair that crashed over and threatened to pull him under. It warred within him, the memory of a seventeen year old boy, offering to carry Lan Wangji on his back. At odds with the twenty-two year old man, who threw off his hand in a final, terrible breaking of his promise to let Lan Wangji help him. What Wei Wuxian would have wanted for Lan Wangji was a question no one living could answer.
"I apologize," he croaked. "For upsetting A-Yuan. For worrying you."
"There is no need," Lan Xichen promised. "But the Elders are concerned."
"I will accept punishment."
Another sigh. "Three years seclusion to the cold pond. Kneeling and reflection, until your mind is clear and your heart is still."
A stiff punishment for drinking within the Cloud Recesses, and further proof his crimes in the eyes of the Elders had clearly not been appeased by the thirty-three gashes across his back.
"Brother." Lan Wangji's fingers curled around the sleeping boy nestled in his palm.
"The Elders are the Elders," Lan Xichen agreed. "But the Sect Leader is the Sect Leader. You will return to the Jingshi each day, and care for A-Yuan until he is old enough to enter the Junior's Dormitory."
Lan Wangji pressed his lips together against the weight of his gratitude. It would cost his brother something for this act of solidarity. Lan Xichen had strode tall and righteous into the disciplining grounds, knelt before his brother, and firmly clasped Lan Wangji's hands. Begin , he'd ordered, and never faltered in his grip or the steady flow of his spiritual energy, even when Lan Wangji could no longer stop himself from digging his nails into his brother's wrists, nor when he grew unable to hold himself upright and fell forward into his brother's chest, or even when the whip tore skin, and his blood sprayed itself across Lan Xichen's robes and face.
Lan Xichen rose to his feet in a rustle of fabric, leaned over Lan Wangji and carefully picked the sleeping boy up from the bed. In his place, he draped a small blue ribbon over Lan Wangji's palm, bearing the metal cloud emblem that only Clan-born disciples could wear.
"You will have to decide how to write his name in the family register," his brother advised. "Rest now, I'll bring him back in the evening."
Lan Wangji closed his hand around the ribbon, the metal cool in his palm. There were several texts in the Library explaining how to prepare for oncoming parenthood, and the proper procedure for giving a child their first forehead ribbon. Which end was to be held by which parent, and how the first knot should be tied, special and intricate, an indication of the hopes of two people in one new being.
This child… is mine! I gave birth, giggled a memory, and Lan Wangji stifled a sob into his sheets. There were procedures, as well, for when the mother died in childbirth, or the father was slain in duty. Rules and regulations for every scenario, but nothing to explain how a ribbon should be tied on the last surviving member of a condemned clan, lovingly nurtured in extreme conditions by a pariah, and smuggled into the Cloud Recesses by a hero fallen from grace. It made him bark a soft, tragic laugh; how Wei Wuxian would enjoy circumventing all their careful traditions, how he'd grin to know he'd broken the mold yet again.
In the end, Lan Wangji will tie A-Yuan's forehead ribbon on with the lover's knot reserved for weddings, will write his name Lan Yuan, for hope and honesty, and choose the courtesy name Sizhui, in honour of the man who Lan Wangji will raise him for. He will go into seclusion to calm himself as the Elders required. Though his mind had settled as soon as Sizhui reached tiny, reverent fingers up to touch the cloud on his forehead, and shyly asked, in his little voice, if he might tie Baba's ribbon on for him too.
This is how I will live, Lan Wangji promised the altar in the cold pond, kneeling where he'd once sworn a different oath, hand-fasted before an Elder, with the boy who'd claimed his heart. Upholding justice, and raising our son.
It was not uncommon for Lan Wangji to be greeted by children as he returned to the Cloud Recesses, sword in hand, guqin across his back, and another problem efficiently dealt with. He'd gone farther afield than normal, his first trip beyond the borders of Gusu. Three years seclusion had limited him to the cold pond and the Jingshi – the frigid hours alone only made bearable by the blossoming boy he tended to, who squealed with giggles at being tickled with cold fingers. But three years had not necessarily earned back trust. His back had healed into scars and his golden core was strong, but the Elders still viewed Lan Wangji with a level of suspicion. His brother was careful to supply him with only the cases the sect had no time or want for. It suited his needs with an appropriateness he did not point out, lest they be taken away from him. Lan Wangji had no desire for glory. His talents were best used among the common folk.
His free time, coupled with his friendship with all the rabbits on the back hill, had slowly made him a fixture to the children of the Cloud Recesses, all of whom were too young to understand why he'd been in seclusion. To them, Lan Wangji was merely quiet and patient, his large hands helping them to calm a particularly fussy rabbit. He'd believed, at first, that it was Sizhui's presence that made his own bearable. But once he and the children had gotten over their initial shyness, they began to seek out his company, and he enjoyed theirs in turn. The devotion grew to encompass the junior disciples, and it became rare, when Lan Wangji was in residence, to see him in the Cloud Recesses without a child or four in his wake.
He'd sent word ahead of his arrival, so Lan Wangji had expected two or three young ones at the gate. He always returned with sleeves weighted down with small toys and sweets, to be distributed amongst them as an apology for his absence. The children knew to wait, quiet and diligent for him, but when he alighted from Bichen and passed through the barrier array, a chorus of small voices rang up at once, a coterie in white robes. He frowned slightly, overwhelmed at the noise, until one of the older children stepped forward, bowed, and explained, succinctly and clearly, what all the fuss was.
"Lan Sizhui is in trouble with Lan-laoshi."
"Mn."
Lan Wangji took off promptly with long strides, too big for many of the little children to keep up without succumbing to running. A train of children followed behind him, arranged necessarily by age, leg length, and stamina. Halfway to the Lecture Hall, he was met by Lan Xichen, cradling an incoherent, sobbing Lan Jingyi to his chest. He’d run to fetch the Sect Leader for help. Silent consensus was reached between the brothers instantly; Lan Wangji carried on with faster steps, while Lan Xichen began to herd the anxious children into a pack, and led them towards the Hanshi.
Uncle was red in the face and spitting a little, looming over Sizhui when Lan Wangji quietly closed the Lecture Hall door behind him. Lan Qiren's tirade had reached incomprehension. Sizhui was holding out his hand in resigned acceptance, very bravely attempting not to cry. As Uncle raised his heavy ruler to strike Sizhui's palm, Lan Wangji strode forwards and caught his wrist in a crushing grip.
"Uncle," he said flatly.
Lan Wangji was a larger and more appropriate target for Lan Qiren's disappointment. It was easy to place himself between his uncle and his son, and protect the latter from the threat of the ruler. He felt Sizhui's hands grip the back of his robes.
"You will stand aside, Wangji!" Lan Qiren thundered, the same tone and phrase he'd screamed on the Burial Mounds. Much as he had on that day, Lan Wangji raised his chin in bold denial.
"Lan Sizhui is my son. This disciple will not."
"You!" Lan Qiren pointed the ruler at him, the tip quivering in his rage, and then thrust it towards his desk. "Just look at what your son has done!"
Laid out on the desk was an unrolled scroll. The border around the rows of neat black characters had recently been decorated with bamboo groves, rabbits, and two small cultivators battling a series of monsters. The scroll itself was a copy of Lan An's Treatise on Patience, the original of which was housed in the Library, and the irony of the subject matter was not lost on Lan Wangji.
"Uncle," he said quietly, bowing with Bichen held before him. "This disciple seeks permission to discipline Lan Sizhui in this matter."
Lan Qiren harrumphed loudly, to show exactly what he thought of that idea. Lan Wangji bowed a bit deeper.
"We will replace the scroll."
Lan Wangji had the best calligraphy in the Cloud Recesses, possibly in the entire cultivation world. A scroll of his making was largely held to be akin to a work of art. Uncle harrumphed again, quieter, in begrudging acceptance.
"For your interference, Wangji, two copies."
"Mn."
He remained bowed until Lan Qiren had stomped off, heading, no doubt, for the Hanshi, where he was likely hoping for a sympathetic ear to his plight. Instead, he would be confronted by seventeen children of varying ages, drinking honeyed soy milk under the comforting benevolence of their Sect Leader. Lan Wangji allowed himself a brief moment of appreciation, and then turned towards his son. Sizhui had turned his back to him, and was crouched down with his arms wrapped around his knees, his head bowed.
"A-Yuan."
In company, they kept propriety, but alone, Lan Wangji indulged in Sizhui's birth name. But Sizhui did not answer by calling him Baba, or even the Hanguang-jun he used in public. Instead he remained crouched on the ground, shivering. The Cloud Recesses had taught Sizhui how to cry in silence, and Lan Wangji briefly mourned the loud, bawling three-year-old who'd clung to his foot in Yiling. Sizhui was nearing eight now, and too big to succumb to his fears in such a way anymore, but Lan Wangji often wondered and worried over what sort of child the Cloud Recesses was growing A-Yuan into. How he might differ from a child raised under the love and care of his former circumstances.
He knelt in front of Sizhui, and laid Bichen on the ground at his side. Lan Wangji let his hands rest loosely atop his knees, careful not to cast his shadow over Sizhui's lowered head.
"A-Yuan," he said again, quiet. "I am here."
They waited like that, together on the floor in the empty Lecture Hall, Sizhui sniffling faintly, and Lan Wangji with his heavy, concerned heart beating out of his chest. He had just begun to weigh the merits of unwrapping his guqin to play Calm, when Sizhui's breath hitched.
"Lan Yuan is bad," he whispered brokenly.
"No." Lan Wangji said it with such certainty, and so quickly, that it made Sizhui raise his head a little, to blinkingly meet his father's eyes.
"Do you know what you have done wrong?" Lan Wangji asked.
Sizhui nodded, and quoted rules twenty-seven and one and hundred-thirty-five verbatim in his watery little voice. "Do not destroy property. Respect others belongings as your own."
"Correct," Lan Wangji agreed. There was perhaps another lesson to be taught about not bending to Lan Jingyi's schemes, no matter how enjoyable they seemed. Jingyi was clearly the imaginative force behind the designs upon the Treatise, and Sizhui merely the better artist – but that could be addressed later. Lan Wangji smiled, the way he only did for his son. "You are good," he explained, "because you understand your mistake."
"Baba," Sizhui sobbed, "I am sorry!"
"There is no need–" He was cut off by the requirement to open his arms when Sizhui threw himself into Lan Wangji's embrace.
"Baba," Sizhui hiccupped, hands fisted in Lan Wangji's white outer robe. "I was scared, Baba!"
Lan Wangji set one large hand on Sizhui's back. "Baba is here now."
It took a bit of time for Sizhui to cry himself out. Lan Wangji waited and did not shush or reprimand him. Just as he was adamant Sizhui would not suffer the kinds of harsh punishments he himself had been subjected to, it was equally important to him that Sizhui be given space and time to experience his emotions. Instead he spoke quietly and calmly, soothing reminders that he was there, and that Sizhui was good.
Twilight was creeping over the Cloud Recesses when Lan Wangji carried Sizhui out of the Lecture Hall, his face tucked into Lan Wangji's neck. Uncle often scoffed that Sizhui could walk and was too big to be carried like a baby, but so long as Sizhui wished to be carried, Lan Wangji would continue. There would come a time, he knew, when his son would no longer want to be held; Lan Wangji was not willing to surrender a moment still freely given. He kept Sizhui close with one arm, and carried Bichen and the Treatise in the other. On their way past the Hanshi, Lan Xichen came out to the porch, alerted by his footsteps on the white gravel path.
"Wangji," he called softly.
"Brother." Lan Wangji did not bow, encumbered as he was. "I have returned."
"Just in time," Xichen agreed. "How is Sizhui?"
"Ready for curfew," Lan Wangji hazarded, which caused Sizhui to sleepily grumble into Lan Wangji's shoulder.
Lan Xichen laughed, his smile fond. "Visit me in the morning for your night hunt report, Wangji," he offered.
"Mn."
It took longer than normal, with Sizhui worn out from his ordeal, to feed, bathe and dress him for sleep. He clung to Lan Wangji's side in a way he had not done for months, and asked to have his hair combed, for Lan Wangji to stay next to him on the little stool beside his bed. He played Tranquility, Rest, then Calm. Sizhui's breath grew deep and even. Lan Wangji folded Sizhui's hands beneath the blanket, and tucked it up under his chin. He left a soft-glowing ball of his own spiritual energy hovering over the stool, in case Sizhui awoke in the night, and carried his guqin from Sizhui's room and into his own quarters of the Jingshi.
Waiting there, upon his desk, was the Treatise. The night was clear and crisply pleasant. Lan Wangji removed the guan and ornamental combs which held back his hair, and took his own bath. Dressed in clean robes for sleep, he knelt beside his bed and felt for the latch beneath it.
He'd been surprised to discover the remaining bottles of Emperor's Smile intact, still hidden beneath his floorboards from his last foray into drinking. Either Lan Xichen trusted him, or he hadn't imagined Lan Wangji would buy more than one jar. It was fortunate; he kept more than just contraband liquor in his secret hiding place. Lan Wangji lifted out a rolled-up painting and threaded one end of the red ribbon tied around it through his fingers. A stolen secret, tattered at the ends from the ordeal it went through in the Dusk-Creek Mountain cave. Lan Wangji had loosened Wei Wuxian's hair to help him rest more comfortably in his fever. At the time – his home burnt, his uncle wounded, his brother missing, and trapped with the slowly dying object of his longing – Lan Wangji had believed he had reached his capacity for hopelessness. It was almost quaint to think back upon. He would later learn he had a far greater limit.
Lan Wangji had only teacups in the Jingshi, and so it was into one that he poured his wine. His hair unbound, he reclined on the porch with his two scrolls, overlooking the pond and its one stately heron, watching it patiently fish in the strengthening moonlight.
It was a night like this, when we met.
His guqin rested on the table within the Jingshi, idle now. Music was forbidden at night, and so Lan Wangji quietly sang. Softer than he had in the Dusk Creek Mountain cave, for only himself and perhaps the heron to hear. It was not a song he played freely in the Cloud Recesses, not since Sizhui had grown out of nightmares, and learned to sleep through the night. It was a song solely for Lan Wangji, kept locked beneath the floorboards of his heart.
Like this, Lan Wangji slowly finished his teacup of wine. It warmed his ears the way Wei Wuxian's smiles had, made his heartbeat more pronounced. It was pleasant, in this way, to sit in the cool summer air and remember the good and the bad in equal measure, savouring both and allowing his emotions freedom. It could be exhilarating, calming, heartbreaking or encouraging, to feel. It could be many things at once, with his pulse thundering as he became overwhelmed, or it could be a singular thing, soft or sharp as the memory warranted, but no less poignant.
Lan Wangji had lived almost his whole life tightly and vigorously controlled, regulated by the rules of his Sect and the reminder he wore around his forehead. Alone in the Cold Pond, he'd untied that knot, and given himself over to his emotions. It had healed his back, strengthened his core, and furthered his cultivation much faster than any traditional meditation he had been taught. Lan Wangji emerged from seclusion stronger, richer, and more assured of his heart. And he was determined, more than he'd ever been, that Lan Sizhui would know love and friendship, would never kneel, confused and lost before a closed door, desperate for the parent he needed.
His laughter is like music. Wei Ying. He is so perfect.
Lan Sizhui was easy to love. His quick smile and gentleness, the way his emotions shone on his sweet face, how free he was, both in seeking and giving physical affection. It made Uncle mutter under his breath, but Uncle did not approve of anything that meant Sizhui was not a silent little statue, though there was nothing in his conduct that detracted from him being a promising student. His proximity to Lan Wangji had advanced Sizhui's cultivation beyond that of classmates his age, and despite being prone to small mischiefs, he was thoughtful, intelligent and poised. He had latched instantly onto a firm friendship with Lan Jingyi, and Lan Wangji had done nothing to discourage it, despite the Elders’ frequent frustration with their youngest disciple. He reminded Lan Wangji a little too fondly of Wei Wuxian, and his readiness to hug Sizhui, make him laugh, and defend him, far outweighed Uncle's disapproval.
You would be proud. Lan Wangi unrolled the Treatise, admiring its new decorative border in the moonlight, and then untied the red ribbon to reveal a portrait of himself reading a bound copy of the very same text, a peony tucked behind his ear. His brushwork is so very much like your own.
Lan Wangji brought the red ribbon to his lips and closed his eyes, his memory painting vividly before him a drab, dead woods, and the two figures who stood on the path through it, watching Lan Wangji go. The red at Wei Wuxian's wrists and tumbling from his hair had been bold and bright, drawing the eye to his small pale hands and handsome, tired face. He'd seemed so thin, so strong in spite of it. Lan Wangji left his heart there, on that precarious path in the foothills of Yiling, in the barren soil where his love had no hope of putting down roots or flourishing. But he left it there just the same.
Only the gods could know if bringing Wei Wuxian to Gusu would have spared his life, but it had saved A-Yuan's. And in every way too, Lan Wangji's. He would have been prepared to follow Wei Wuxian into nothingness, if not for the needs of his son. Today's events had rattled him more than he wanted to admit; that his promise to uphold justice as a cultivator and his duties as a father could be at odds, that the former would take him away from Lan Sizhui, where he was still needed, and wanted to be.
In this world, everyone has their own things to do, their own paths to walk, whispered a memory, and Lan Wangji gazed once more at the pictures spread out before him, where he noted that the two small cultivators had been depicted, in one corner, with a tall and guqin-wielding companion. Lan Xichen had been gently hinting, in his indirect way, that the devoted manner in which all the children seemed to hang off Lan Wangji's every succinct and elegant word would make him an ideal candidate to teach. His older brother seemed to think it a fine strategy to build goodwill with the Elders as well; if Lan Wangji could demonstrably uphold the Sect Rules for his students, then surely there was no longer a risk of his turning astray.
Never astray, he corrected, looking at his portrait. Lan Wangji had only ever acted in righteousness, but being righteous and being viewed as right were not always the same. It was a grave and heavy lesson, one Wei Wuxian had paid for with his life, Lan Wangji with his unblemished skin. He was not sure he could impart it properly upon others. But perhaps that was his responsibility, here, in the after – to try. It was another way to uphold justice, was it not, to teach others how? It was certainly a thing he could ask his brother for, and certainly a thing that would allow him to spend more time with Sizhui. The more he turned it over in his mind, the more he could picture it.
Lost in his thoughts, Lan Wangji finished a second teacup of wine. The heron startled and flew off, its dark wings a whisper in the moonlight. He watched it go, his toes and fingers warm, his eyes unclouded. Carefully, he stoppered his jar of Emperor's Smile, and retreated into the Jingshi. His secret liquor and the two precious scrolls – now rolled together and tied securely with the red ribbon – safely stowed beneath the floorboards, he eased himself into bed. Lan Wangji would dream that evening of being in the body of a heron. Of soaring up, up, beyond clouds and stars, chasing the red crest and black-tipped wings of a proud crane, its body gleaming white.
Upon returning to the watchtower, Lan Wangji sat apart from the others, afforded a quiet table with an ink stone and a fresh pot of tea so he could compile his night hunt report. The students were meant to be doing the same, but as it was only their fifth attempt at field experience, and first with Lan Wangji accompanying them, he left them to their own devices. The case had been an exciting one for them. A small fox demon had been killing chickens in the neighbourhood – not a great cause for alarm, but escalated into a full-fledged problem when a goat had also been killed – and they'd cornered it in a storage shed. Lan Wangji had given each of them an opportunity to suppress the spirit, and then bound together all of their attempts into one array that exterminated the resentment and allowed the animal to pass on. It was the first time any of the junior disciples had used their own spiritual energy in this way, and there was an aura of accomplishment about them. The students had performed well, all within the expected level of their development. Even Lan Jingyi, who Lan Wangji had been cautioned was skittish. He made certain to mention Jingyi's achievement specifically in his report.
He was reviewing his notes when the Guard Captain presented himself at Lan Wangji's table with polite deference, and explained that a communication had arrived for him from Sect Leader Lan.
Lan Xichen had sent a spiritual message, and that alone was cause for caution. The glowing blue kingfisher set itself on Lan Wangji's shoulder. To anyone else it would sing a sweet song, and only in Lan Wangji's ear would its true message be heard. The junior disciples, along with their supervising senior Lan Changpu, were dutifully and politely indulging in the refreshments offered to them by the watch tower guards. As Lan Wangji listened to his brother's message, they murmured together quietly. But Lan Sizhui, nodding along to whatever Lan Jingyi was telling him, still kept his own large dark eyes upon his father's face.
"When was this delivered?" Lan Wangji asked the Guard Captain.
"Just an incense stick ago, Hanguang-jun."
He would need to go at once. "Mn."
Later, he would think on it, the speed with which he moved, but not now. Lan Wangji instructed Lan Changpu to lead the junior disciples back to the Cloud Recesses on his own. Lan Changpu was steadfast and responsible, he asked Lan Wangji no probing questions. Lan Sizhui however, was nearing eleven, an age where childish inquisitiveness and the forbearance of adulthood began to intersect. He followed Lan Wangji out into the courtyard.
"Hanguang-jun?"
Bichen hovered a foot from the ground, waiting for Lan Wangji's direction. Sizhui held his own sword in a way that suggested he might draw it to follow Lan Wangji. It was clear he had noticed his father's distress.
"A-Yuan." Lan Wangji could not help himself. He strode forwards and set one hand upon his son's shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "Look after the others, mind how Lan Jingyi flies." The youngest disciple occasionally became distracted, and could lose the focus necessary to direct his sword.
"Yes, Baba," Sizhui promised. He looked like he wished to say more, but Lan Wangji took the larger and heavier of the two purses he carried from his sleeve, meant for group expenses, and pressed it into Sizhui's hands. His second, smaller, personal purse, pink and embroidered like a lady's perfume sachet, would do for him alone. Lan Sizhui stared at the weight of his new responsibility in his hands, his plans for following his father forgotten as Lan Wangji had hoped.
"Report all you have seen on our night hunt to the Sect Leader," he added for good measure, to ensure Sizhui went through the gate. Lan Xichen would keep him busy until Lan Wangji returned.
Sizhui brought his hands together dutifully, bowing with all the decorum and grace one ought to show a respected teacher. "Yes, Hanguang-jun."
Lan Wangji allowed himself a moment to look upon the soft face of his son, growing more each day out of the roundness of childhood. Then, with a final nod, he stepped up onto Bichen, and into the air.
In the encroaching darkness, he flew faster than was probably safe. The cool air whipped through his hair and nipped at his clothes, bit into his skin. There was a hint of ozone in it, the promise of a gathering storm. Lan Wangji would think on this later as well.
Even this late in the year, Yunmeng was verdant; lush greenery and emerald rivers, deep clear lakes full of riotous lotus blossoms. Yunmeng was a place of vibrancy and life, it choked Lan Wangji each time he visited. He never went to Lotus Pier. Lan Wangji was not in the habit of being where many cultivators were gathered, save his own home. But the needs of the people were everywhere, and to deny those who lived under the jurisdiction of the Jiang Sect for his personal grudges was cruel. He knew before he arrived that he was overstepping. Lan Wangji called forth his guqin anyways, the heavy notes paralyzing ghouls and purple-clad cultivators both. He dropped from the sky like a stone from the heavens, burning with a righteous fury that vibrated in Bichen and eased the sting when it clashed against Zidian, a blinding eruption of white against purple light that turned the spiritual whip aside.
"Lan Wangji!"
He ignored the shout, erecting a barrier of solid blue light, and instead gave his attention to the body behind him. Splayed upon the ground, flayed open, bleeding from eyes, nose and mouth. The clothes had been reduced to tatters, but still recognizable as robes of black and deep red. Lan Wangji set two fingers to the pulse point at the neck, and felt nothing. He limned his fingers with spiritual energy and felt deeper, drawing away only when he had control of his emotions. It had been his own mistake to come to Yunmeng, but the draw of the lands so dear to Wei Wuxian had overridden his better judgement. It was a fool who thought they could practice demonic cultivation within the borders governed by the Jiang Sect, and Lan Wangji was more the fool for thinking, with deep hope and desperate longing, that only one man would have been thick-faced enough to try.
It had not been him.
Lan Wangji rose to his feet and dismissed his barrier. The Jiang disciples were shaking off the power of his guqin's command, staggering behind their Sect Leader with slow movements, beginning to purge resentful energy from the ghouls scattered about the field. Jiang Wanyin stood straight with fury, Zidian crackling from one fist, Sandu gleaming cold in the other. Lan Wangji gripped Bichen tighter, but did not draw.
Like this, they faced one another, a more even playing field than that day in Nightless City, when Lan Wangji had held his entire world in his faltering grip, and Jiang Wanyin had loomed over him, armed, powerful, and willing to sacrifice Lan Wangji's life for his grief. It was shock and Nie Mingjue that had prevented Lan Wangji from killing Jiang Wanyin where he'd stood that day, and only his enduring conscience was preventing it now.
"Get the fuck out of my way," Jiang Wanyin hissed, "before I whip you another thirty-three times, Lan Wangji."
He'd forgotten, with time and distance, that Sect Leader Jiang had a terrible efficiency for getting under a man's skin, for poking at unhealed scars, and voicing things regardless of propriety. It was fortunate no juniors were currently present to see Lan Wangji lower himself to Jiang Wanyin's level.
"Impossible, to kill someone a second time, Sect Leader Jiang."
The satisfaction was only momentary, the way the sneer on Jiang Wanyin's face moved into a gaping, wounded surprise. Lan Wangji was not a man of many words, but the ones he did choose to speak were always pointed and correct.
Lan Wangji looked away in dismissal. He had no desire to trade more words with Jiang Wanyin, and the disciples at the Sect Leader's command appeared to now have things under control. He gave the barest nod of his head – as though Jiang Wanyin were a low-level, visiting junior disciple, and not a Sect Leader worthy of Lan Wangji's deference – and strode from the clearing, deaf to his insults. In truth, it was necessary to hold himself so rigidly, lest he fly apart. Lan Wangji moved almost by rote, a streak of white in the night sky as he flew, a column of misty beauty as he walked the evening streets. The picture of a gentleman, outside of himself and the torrent of his heart. Until he was seated at a low table in a private inn room somewhere in Meishan, with a sparse meal and an open jar of wine before him.
Lan Xichen had taught his younger brother his trick to metabolize alcohol shortly after the incident with the Wen Iron, worried for Lan Wangji's safety. He hadn't had to use the method, and he refused to do so now, throwing back his dish of acidic wine and letting it burn down his throat like the crackling lightning of Zidian, brought fully to bear against his sword. He huffed at the sting, but just like Bichen had thrown the spiritual whip aside, he did not falter against it.
Forgive me, but I hate him, Wei Ying.
Lan Wangji pressed his fingers to his lips in an effort to control both his temper and his desire to pour another dish down his throat. There had been a time when Jiang Wanyin and he had been close comrades – both orphaned by war, both seeking vengeance for the injury done to their homes and clans, both searching, desperately, for Wei Wuxian. People had expected them to swear brotherhood at any moment, and Lan Wangji supposed that if asked he might have, so fraught with his own feelings for Wei Wuxian that he would have ignored the fundamental differences between himself and the young Sect Leader.
The trouble was that Jiang Wanyin and Lan Wangji were two sides of the same coin, forged together by the absence between them. It had been as true then as it was now. They knew each other too well because of it; the hard stance of the Jiang Sect upon those cultivating the demonic path was merely the desperate attempt of a lonely, guilty man to ensure his brother could rest in peace, just as the reputation Hanguang-jun had for appearing in chaos was Lan Wangji's own regret. His stubborn refusal to accept that Wei Wuxian, in any form, was beyond saving. In this way, they were forever locked within the same battle they'd begun on the cliff-side – or perhaps, even earlier, in the Wen Supervisory Office, when their opinions on how best to care for Wei Wuxian had fractured and diverged.
Lan Wangji could not forgive the way Jiang Wanyin ignored the obvious signs of Wei Wuxian's distress, or the way he seemed willing to overlook it. There had been something terrible beneath the surface of Wei Wuxian, beyond the demonic cultivation, that spoke of his being abused. For Wei Wuxian had been brilliant; capable of devising a thousand methods which would have won the war and not required the desecration of the dead, yet he'd clung hard to the dark path and gave no explanation why. That Jiang Wanyin was too closed-minded or stupid to recognize that there must have been a reason, beyond revenge, that would cause Wei Wuxian to abandon the cultivation methods at which he so excelled, was unforgivable to Lan Wangji. That as a Sect Leader to a disciple, as a brother, he would wilfully allow Wei Wuxian to destroy himself in the name of becoming a horrifying tool of war. It still grated at him, that Lan Wangji had all the concern but none of Jiang Wanyin's familiarity. How Wei Wuxian had allowed his brother to hug him easily, and yet shut Lan Wangji out.
In his hand, the liquor jar was in danger of cracking; Lan Wangji loosened his grip and was surprised to find the bottle nearly empty. His mouth tasted bitter, like the tightness that had risen in the back of his throat each time Wei Wuxian sauntered late into a meeting or loosened Lan Wangji's grip on his wrist. His heart burned in his chest, a mixture of shame and frustration and self-loathing, the same violent cocktail of emotions that confronted him when Wei Wuxian had accused him, betrayed, of worrying Jiang Yanli.
Why did you not trust me? Wei Ying, why couldn't you lean on me, too?
The answer was obvious, the Jiang siblings had been Wei Wuxian's family. But in his current mood Lan Wangji was unwilling to tread an easy path. Jiang Wanyin had let Wei Wuxian tear himself apart for the Jiang clan, and when Wei Wuxian had needed the protection of his Sect Leader in turn, Jiang Wanyin had abandoned him to the Burial Mounds, ran him through with Sandu, cursed his name. For Lan Wangji, who had stood for Wei Wuxian as best he could until it was too late, whose own brother had not abandoned him in his fall from grace because of it, it was inexcusable.
He poured the last bit of wine into his dish and took it to the window of his small inn room, where a blood-bright harvest moon had broken through the dark clouds, and now kept watch. In tear-stained bitterness, Lan Wangji toasted the silent, red hued sentinel, a peaceful friend turned briefly sinister, all for the benefit of a world who would not appreciate the sacrifice. At Nightless City the resentment had never touched the Yunmeng Jiang. Even at the end, Wei Wuxian had not forgotten them. Even when he was breaking, he'd still thought to put Jiang Wanyin first.
All these years, and it still cut him so deeply. Lan Wangji let the liquor burn him from within, and then he took his pain to bed. In the morning, he would remember nothing.
Lan Wangi was used to the whispers that followed his person. They were nothing new; all his life Lan Wangji had been prone to quiet, and this had given others leave to speak about him as though he was not there. As though his silence meant he also could not hear. As he walked through the halls of the Unclean Realm, the whispers dealt in two subjects. Surprise at finding Lan Wangji at the Discussion Conference – he had not attended one since the Siege of the Burial Mounds – and the pale blue robe he wore, visible at this throat beneath his five other layers.
Lan Wangji had always been of the habit of extreme privacy; his reasons were his alone. He had come to Qinghe with twofold purpose – as a show of support for his brother and Nie Huisang, who had recently lost Nie Mingjue, and to see Sizhui participate in his first conference as a junior disciple. The blue under robe was not a new development. Lan Wangji wore the garment twice a year in quiet observation of two precious anniversaries, it just so happened that one of them overlapped the conference this year. It was likely, when he appeared once again in white tomorrow, that the gossip would deepen. No one would guess the real answer; that on this day a boy had climbed the northeast wall, liquor bottles balanced against his chest by a cord around the back of his neck, and changed the path of Lan Wangji's life. The other day was deep into autumn, after Zhongyuan Jie, a whiplash of emotions that took him to Yiling and back, where no one had to see. Death and life bookended around the scent of feeble lotus flowers, Emperor's Smile and joss sticks, which could never overcome the enduring rust-stench of the undisturbed blood pool.
Qinghe was a riot of peonies, the Jin Sect's signature sparks amidst snow overflowing from every garden, vase and urn, donated by the Chief Cultivator. Their scent overpowered, heavy against his memory. The small pink flower he kept pressed between the pages of Hua Ying Chin Chen beneath his floorboards had long ceased to smell, but everywhere in the Unclean Realm, its perfume lingered to remind him.
"What are you, chicken?"
Lan Wangji was generally apathetic towards other cultivators, and the current crop of Junior disciples of the Jin Sect left him largely unimpressed. A cluster of them sat on stone stools across the courtyard in the shelter of a small pavilion, gathered around a table of beverages and snacks. They laughed loudly at whoever was being deemed a chicken; a misplaced derision, for in his wanderings amongst the common folk, Lan Wangji had learned that chickens were not only productive stock animals, but also fiercely aggressive carnivores.
"If he said he doesn't want to, he doesn't want to!" shouted a voice at a volume unbecoming for the hour. One Lan Wangji knew very well.
"It's all right, Jingyi," Sizhui told his friend, quieter, and Lan Wangji paused upon the covered walk.
"We invited you to a drinking party," sneered a Jin boy. "That means you have to drink."
"Yeah," agreed another, as Lan Wangji's hold on Bichen tightened, and he changed course for the pavilion. "If you don't, it means you're shunning our hospitality."
"That's untrue!" Lan Jingyi sounded a little panicked, and Lan Wangji was close enough now that he saw Sizhui put a stilling, comforting hand on Jingyi's shoulder.
"Comport oneself with grace and respect in the presence of one's host," he heard Sizhui whisper.
"Sizhui!" Jingyi hissed, nearly in tears. "Drinking is forbidden."
The Jin boy poured nearly half a bottle into what looked like a small bowl meant for rice, and shoved it across the table. Sizhui picked it up with brave determination shining in his dark eyes, and lifted it towards his lips.
"Good evening," Lan Wangji murmured, and emerged from the lengthening shadows.
"Hanguang-jun!"
There was a shattering noise, as the Jin boy dropped his bottle and it smashed upon the ground. A susurrate flurry of golden robes as the Juniors rushed to their feet and bowed in obeisance with guilty haste. Sizhui's bow was calm and smooth, perfectly executed, but Jingyi flung himself down on the ground, too used to being disciplined by his seniors to treat this as anything other than meeting his executioner.
He made them all wait, bent over in their varying degrees of shame while he surveyed the table. Lan Wangji poured the bowl of liquor out onto the fine gravel of the courtyard, and picked up the remaining two bottles by their cord ties.
"Your names," he said.
The boys stammered them out – they were all of them Jin by birth, unsurprising and yet still disappointing.
"You will report this incident to your Sect Leader tomorrow," Lan Wangji told them, watching as a few of them traded relieved looks before he added, "in the presence of Sect Leader Lan. He will be expecting you."
One of the boys stifled a groan. Lan Wangji was certain Jin Guangyao would have swept this under the rug if not for his simpering need to appease Lan Xichen in all things. He did not approve of this sworn brother, even less now that Nie Mingjue was gone, but it was not for him to question his brother's choices. The distance at which Lan Wangji lived apart from the Sects had grown even more pronounced. Though he despised the cultivation clans, he could not fault his brother for wishing to have connection with them. Lan Xichen did not have Lan Wangji's reasons, and was benevolent in all things; his choice of brothers, and just as likely, his choice of punishment for the boys cowering before him now.
"Dismissed."
The Jin Juniors scattered, but Sizhui and Jingyi remained to accept discipline, one bowing and one shaking upon the ground. Lan Wangji felt the corners of his eyes soften.
"Help him up, Sizhui," Lan Wangji said, and then turned towards the covered path. "Come."
The guest room Lan Wangji had been afforded was the same one he was always given, thick with memories. He sat himself at the low table, the two stubby jars of wine placed in front of him in the same way Sizhui and Jingyi stood apprehensively before him.
"Do you wish to explain?" he offered, and ignored the way Jingyi winced.
"Before leaving the Cloud Recesses, Zewu-jun encouraged us to form new friendships," Sizhui attempted. "The Jin Juniors were kind to us; to refuse them felt… rude."
"Mn."
"We didn't know they'd be drinking," Jingyi added. "It was wrong of us to have assumed."
Both boys bowed abruptly, in near unison, the way they seemed to do everything these days. "We will accept punishment," they chorused bravely.
From the side of the table, Lan Wangji took two cups, overturning them upon the smooth cherry wood. "Which rules have been broken?"
Jingyi's head turned slightly, looking at Sizhui's profile in confusion. "Uh…"
"This disciple would have drank wine," Sizhui told the floor. "The intent to break the rule should be treated as though the rule was broken."
"Perhaps," Lan Wangji agreed, and indicated the boys should be seated. When they had settled neatly across the table from him, he also added, "and perhaps not."
Sweat had broken out across Lan Jingyi's brow, he was biting his lips with the strain of enduring Lan Wangji's drawn-out interrogation. Sizhui blinked his large dark eyes, less owlish now in his slender face. Just recently fourteen, Sizhui was old enough now that he would begin to travel unsupervised in a group, tending to minor grievances. Lan Wangji would have more time for his own pursuits, and more time also, to worry over how well Sizhui was navigating the world without him.
"One rule was prioritized above another," Lan Wangji said. He undid the waxed cord seal of the jar closest to Sizhui, and lifted the red cloth cover away. "Lan Jingyi, how many rules are carved into the mountain?"
"Four thousand, two hundred and eighty-three, Hanguang-jun!"
"Are you called each day, to observe them all?"
A small candle lit itself behind Sizhui's eyes. "Only when confronted with its breaking, can observing be achieved."
Lan Wangji broke a rule of his own. He nodded at Sizhui with pride. "The rules of the Gusu Lan are many. Each is imposed for a reason. Sometimes, following one may be in contradiction with another."
"Then… we have to decide which rules to break?" Jingyi frowned.
"Interpretation is the way to righteousness," Sizhui intoned. Not a rule, but a lesson Lan Wangji often tried to impart. He frowned slightly and bit his lip. "Was I wrong, Baba?" Sizhui asked quietly.
"Have knowledge of the consequences. Not only for yourself, but also for others." Lan Wangji poured a small slip of wine into each of the cups. "In this particular case, it is best to test the repercussions of drinking wine in the company of people you trust."
"Hanguang-jun?!" Jingyi sputtered incredulously.
"You may try it if you wish," Lan Wangji assured. "Without risk of punishment."
If I share with you, will you pretend you never saw me, teased a memory, as Jingyi and Sizhui looked at one another. Jingyi shrugged and reached for his dish, his eyes flickering between the wine and Lan Wangji's face, looking for a catch. Sizhui picked up the other, and held it aloft in a polite toast.
"May you always be in good health, Baba," he said, before raising his sleeve to shield his face as he drank. Jingyi forgot this decorum; he made a complicated noise of disbelief and excitement before downing the wine in his cup.
"Ugh!" Both boys grimaced, looking exceptionally betrayed.
Lan Wangji pressed his lips together and looked down at his hands for a moment, his heartbeat skipping in suppressed mirth. "Mn," he agreed.
"Does it always taste this bad, Baba?" Sizhui frowned. "Why do so many people like it?"
"I feel warm," Jingyi pouted, staring at his cup.
"Wines have different flavours," Lan Wangji explained. "Some are more palatable with food."
"Is that why the rule exists?" Sizhui asked with the innocence of youth. "To avoid excessive appetite?"
Lan Wangji did not have to answer. Lan Jingyi chose that moment to fall asleep, and his head would have hit the table if Lan Wangji had not put out a hand to catch him.
"Jingyi!" Sizhui cried, and leaned over to wrap his arms around his friend. "Has he been poisoned?!"
"In a way." He set Jingyi's head gently upon the table. "Wine addles the mind. He will recover with sleep."
Sizhui was stroking Jingyi's shoulder, face a mask of worry. "Is this going to happen to me too?"
"It may. Some people have a higher tolerance than others." He poured water from the pot on the table into a clean dish. "Water can help."
Sizhui drank it very dutifully, and then poured a fresh cup for Lan Wangji. "Thank you for this lesson, Baba."
"No need." Lan Wangji sipped at the water, cool and slightly sweet, undisturbed when Lan Jingyi lurched upright with hooded eyes.
"Jingyi," Sizhui exclaimed in panic, "are you all right?!"
Lan Jingyi turned his head with exaggerated slowness. "Sizhui," he slurred. "My fingers are tingly."
"Have some water, here." Sizhui poured a cup for Jingyi and then held it in place for him when it became obvious Jingyi lacked the awareness to bring it to his lips without spilling. When he had finished the water, Jingyi heaved a great sigh and slumped against Sizhui's shoulder.
"So nice to me," he groaned. "Even when the room is spinning."
"It is nearly hai shi," Lan Wangji observed. "Sizhui, can you manage on your own?"
"Yes, Hanguang-jun." He hauled Jingyi to his feet and bowed them both over. "Please rest well, Baba," he added, ignoring the way Jingyi giggled and whispered I'm a doll.
Lan Wangji inclined his head, stacking the used cups upon the table. "Rest well, A-Yuan."
Once the door closed, and when he could no longer hear Lan Jingyi's quiet drunken laughter, Lan Wangji composed a spiritual message and sent it to his brother. Lan Xichen would want to speak with both boys in the morning, though Lan Wangji cautioned against further punishment. Lan Jingyi would suffer enough, and Sizhui would learn the lesson without needing to undergo it; wrangling Jingyi would be a discipline in itself.
Message dispatched, Lan Wangji took the open bottle of wine and the last clean cup to the room in which he'd chosen to sleep. Robes loosened and then folded away, hair freed of ornament and neatly combed, he sat in only his blue robe upon the bed, and removed, from his spirit bag, his personal copy of the Lan Clan rules. It was beautifully bound in sky blue silk, all that remained of a robe he'd once been forced to surrender in. The elegance of the cover was in contrast with the spidery, rushed script; entirely legible but in no way beautiful. The personality of the calligrapher shone too brightly in the characters, and this made them priceless in Lan Wangji's estimation. He ran a finger down the characters for rule fifty-six, Drinking is forbidden.
His memories of his first drink were hazy, indistinct. A rage he knew now to be jealousy at finding Jiang Wanyin and Nie Huisang folded on top of Wei Wuxian. An irritation he knew now to be frustrated longing, when Wei Wuxian had pinched his sleeve between his first two fingers, and tugged. A madness that had descended over his mind even before the wine was at his lips. All in all, the encompassing emotion he felt for Wei Wuxian, which allowed for the abandonment of any such trifling rules which prevented their time together.
How beautiful you looked, then, Wei Ying.
Eyes sparkling with mischief, face round with youth and innocence. Untouched by war or famine or cruelty, safe in his memory. Lan Xichen had asked him, eyes hollow and red at Nie Mingue's funeral, how he bore it. In truth, Lan Wangji sometimes did not, though time had diluted his grief into something more mellow and easier to control.
In the not-silence of the Unclean Realm, Lan Wangji removed his forehead ribbon, and set it, along with his book, upon the table by the bed. There was not much he remembered of his first drink, only the feeling of Wei Wuxian's hands on him, steering him around the room, of his face rearranged in quiet, understanding sympathy, before settling into a small, kind smile. Not the large, boisterous one, but the one Lan Wangji would later learn to associate with Wei Wuxian's true heart. There could be clarity in the unclear, he had learned. After their evening drinking together Wei Wuxian was truer, more willing to open himself up to Lan Wangji's scrutiny. If the world had not crumbled out from under them, perhaps they might even have become true friends. Unburdened, perhaps their friendship might have become something deeper. Untainted, untamed, a bond that couldn't have broken.
Would you have loved me, afforded the luxury of patience?
Lan Wangji will never know. He had only the soft openness of Wei Wuxian's last words to him. Let me go, Lan Zhan.
For a long moment, he sat, eyes and thoughts turned inward. There was always noise in the Unclean Realm, but never the one he wished for. The roof tiles were silent above him, absent of the faint clinking noise a body in repose might make, drinking from a jar. Lan Wangji poured his wine into his cup, and raised both his eyes and the drink to the ceiling.
Let our son's life be easier, he prayed, bringing the dish to his lips. The wide golden path, or the single log bridge in the dark, wherever he chooses to go, let the way be smooth.
He closed his eyes, and let the wine take him into sleep. In the morning, before the sun could warm the tiles or rouse anyone to see, Lan Wangji woke upon the roof. He climbed back into his room through the open window, his ears stained faintly pink.
The air was turning cooler, a dampness at the tips of his ears and nose, a hardness in his guqin callouses, a muted warning in the scar tissue on his back. The days could barely be called short. Trees still bore their harvest fruit, and rice still rustled, golden, at the end of green plumed stalks. On the mountain it would be colder; Lan Wangji delayed his return to the Cloud Recesses, opting instead to take rest at an inn in a smaller town to the northwest. He was returning from a particularly lengthy journey that had taken him across Qinghe and into Qishan, and while he was looking forward to the comforts of his home - the solitude of the Jingshi, the still, natural quiet, and a tub large enough to accommodate him - Lan Wangji knew that Sizhui was away, that his brother was visiting Lanling, and no one would worry if he tarried on the road.
So close to home, and within the borders of Gusu, the innkeeper was determined to fawn over him, undeterred by Lan Wangji's laconic requests in their shared dialect that such behaviour was unnecessary. The room he was shown to was clean and spacious, furnished with a large bed behind thick drapes. An elegant low table was positioned at best advantage to the view from the private balcony. He watched the sun sink below the low eaves of the houses, staining the sky rose, vermilion, mulberry, until finally the night encroached. He ate a satisfyingly flavoured and fortifying meal, and when the innkeeper came to clear the dishes, he requested a jar of Emperor's Smile. The innkeeper winked at him, as though they shared a great secret. She brought the bottle on a small tray, accompanied by a dainty cup so fine, Lan Wangji could see the shadows of his fingers through it.
He left the bottle open and un-poured on the tray, fragrance perfuming the evening air. In soft candlelight, Lan Wangji unwrapped his guqin and examined it for wear, testing and tuning the silk strings. The guqin had seen heavy use on his latest trip, but there was no need yet to restring it. Hesitantly at first, then with less consciousness of his environment, he began to play. First, a song for a clear mind that was typically played at the opening of lecture every morning in the Cloud Recesses, then several secular songs he'd learned in his travels. A song about a dream, a song for welcoming home fishermen, a song meant to accompany a reading of a poem about geese. A song for waiting, and then, a song for farewells. Then finally, the song of his heart.
It has been sixteen years, Wei Ying.
More years than his age when they'd met, more than double the years they'd had, snatched between duty and war and the hubris of powerful men. Sizhui was fully grown now, nearly a man, approaching his graduation into a Senior Disciple. An exemplary cultivator, whose keen intellect, elegant manners, and respectful kindness were spoken of with satisfaction by Uncle and the Elders alike. It was likely Sizhui would become Head Disciple. If Brother remained unwed and childless, someday, Sizhui would inherit the Sect. The young man who Lan Wangji had given what he hoped was the best of himself, the boy who had once clung to his leg on a dusty Yiling street, who had loved Wei Wuxian, and been loved by him in return. The last of the Wen, now the very best of the Gusu Lan.
If he was honest with himself, without the Juniors to teach in the past year, he'd felt more aimless. It was the nature of children to grow. Perhaps it was also natural to feel the expanding gaps of time. He had not been idle. There were always people in need, problems to solve, things to be set right. He went where there was chaos, and no need was too small. And he had always been lonely, even as a child. Only now, he has begun to dread the idea of being alone.
Fingers stilled against the strings, Lan Wangji allowed himself one, indulgent sigh. There was no ache of longing in him; what once was constantly sharp and twisting had become a manageable pain, like the pull of scar tissue if he raised his arms too quickly. Never gone, but only occasionally felt. He had learned, without wishing to, to live with the absence of Wei Wuxian. In the same way that the items he'd carried have become part of the fabric of his life, so too had his grief. Another token, a pearl to carry in his spirit pouch, taken out when circumstance allowed. A pearl so small, that it rarely brushed against his fingers when he was looking for something else.
If I had not lost you, would I have loved you so deeply?
He thinks he would have.
Early in his mourning, Lan Wangji had entertained the painful game of imagining how their lives might have shifted if he'd made different choices. Blessed with hindsight, he could be as cruel to himself as his fractured heart had desired, but it has been several years since he's imagined Wei Wuxian in the world. Several years since he's wondered what he might have looked like, what he might have said, what it would have been like, for Lan Wangji to look up from his guqin and find Wei Wuxian sitting opposite at the table, already pouring himself a drink.
I used to think of you as my soulmate in this lifetime, admitted a memory, and Lan Wangji sighed once more, this time in wry fondness. He poured a slip of wine into his delicate cup, and cradling it in his long fingers, carried it with him to the balcony, where the moon had risen, and the stars now shone against the inky sky.
I still am, he promised. Always; it was an undeniable fact. He could not rid himself of Wei Wuxian without tearing apart the fabric of his being, without losing half his soul.
I once promised you, how I would live. Wei Ying, I will live for us both, now.
Lan Wangji raised the dish to his lips, but just as he parted them to taste the wine, a bright blue beacon exploded into the night sky. Gathering guqin and sword, Lan Wangji left a piece of silver on the table for the innkeeper, larger than required. In his haste, he left the cup sitting next to it, the pale sweet liquor undrunk.