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Xichen’s little brother had always been terrible at communication, but the four-word text Wangji sent Xichen early even by Lan standards one morning reached new levels of vagueness. It was also two weeks after it would have been relevant, which was an additional level of ridiculous.
“Really, Wangji? Hasn’t he been there for two weeks?” Xichen asked his screen, shaking his head. He tapped out a reply: I’m glad you finally remembered to tell me. See you tomorrow.
“Er-ge?” Xichen shoved his phone back into his pocket and looked up to smile at Yao. They were waiting patiently for the other clan leaders to trickle into the conference room. Meetings like this were always complicated and took forever to begin. “Is someone visiting...Hanguang Jun?” Mentioning Xichen’s brother had turned into something like anathema in the cultivation world. Yao was better at not being awkward about Wangji’s existence than most other people, but he was still never natural about it.
“What? Oh, no. Wangji is just texting about...a new job Sizhui has.” Xichen had always been good at lying. If no one expected you to lie, you got away with it easier. “He only just remembered to text me about it, even though Sizhui already told me.”
“Oh. Good for him.” Yao glanced anxiously towards the door. A few of the leaders of smaller clans were clustered at the far end of the table, watching Xichen and Yao with the nervous stares of people in the presence of celebrities.
“A-Yao, do you want me to go find the other leaders?” Xichen asked, reaching over to press the other man’s elbow. He let his hand linger, just for a moment.
“Yes! Thank you, Er-ge.” Yao’s face split into a smile, and Xichen returned the expression. He stood and walked out of the conference room.
Carp Tower, like all of the other residences of the clan leaders, was an ancient building with the occasional modern renovation. The room Xichen was walking out of had once been a banquet hall, and was still used as such when such events were held there. It perched at the top of steps leading down to the courtyard, and was surrounded by similar buildings. Carp Tower was less a tower and more a large complex. Xichen walked down the steps, holding the skirts of his formal robes up, and looked around the gardens. He spotted Jiang Wanyin and Clan Leader Yao huddled by a topiary. They were locked in an argument; Wanyin was gesturing violently, and Clan Leader Yao was shaking his head. Both of the other clan leaders were wearing modern business suits, which was standard for the other clans. The Lan clan had always been strictly traditional. As a teenager, Xichen had tried to move his clan away from wearing robes, but as he had gotten older he had decided that he did not really mind. Robes were more comfortable than suits, much of the time,
“Clan Leader Yao, I’m telling you, there is no way Wei Wuxian is alive! Stop showing me shit from conspiracy forums!” Xichen paused a few steps away from them and adjusted his face into a benevolent, curious smile.
“That picture wasn’t edited!” Clan Leader Yao insisted. “I think I would know that horrible man if I saw him, Jiang Wanyin, and that was definitely Wei Wuxian.”
“Do you think I don’t know what my brother looks like?!?”
“What are you two talking about?” Xichen stepped into the conversation and looked directly at each of the other two men. Clan Leader Yao started and began stammering out something resembling an explanation, but Wanyin bowed stiffly.
“Excuse us, Zewu Jun,” he said to the stone of the courtyard. “Clan Leader Yao has been spending too much time reading into conspiracy theories.”
“It wasn’t on a conspiracy forum!” Clan Leader Yao protested. “Zewu Jun can clear up this argument. Look.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and, after swiping frantically, held it out to display a heavily zoomed-in photograph of a man standing in front of a stall in what Xichen recognized as the Cayi Town marketplace. He was wearing jeans, a dark blue knit sweatshirt that hung off of his shoulders in a way that indicated it belonged to a larger person, and his head was turned to the side as he waited for the vendor to finish bagging bok choy. He was also clearly Wei Wuxian. Xichen bit back an un-Lan-like curse and handed the phone back to the other clan leader.
“They certainly look like Wei Wuxian,” he said cautiously. “I am not sure if a dead man can be walking around, though.”
“How do we know Wei Wuxian is dead?” Clan Leader Yao asked.
“Shut up !” Wanyin snapped. “I wish you would learn to think before you start saying shit!” He turned on his heel and marched towards the conference room. Xichen and Clan Leader Yao watched him go.
“Young folk these days,” Clan Leader Yao said, shaking his head. “They don’t know how to treat their elders!”
“I would recommend not bringing such things up, Clan Leader Yao.” Xichen smiled his best approximation of Yao’s customer service smile and gestured to the other man. “Would you care to join us in the conference room? I believe a-Yao is planning on beginning soon.” Clan Leader Yao gave an irritated snort and stalked across the courtyard after Wanyin. Xichen watched him go. The last few clan leaders hurried up the steps–Nie Huaisang tripping on the tail end of the group–leaving Xichen alone in the garden. He hesitated. Yao would not start without him, and he wanted his boyfriend’s meeting to go smoothly from here on out, but he should warn his brother of this latest development. Texting was no good; Wangji rarely looked at his phone. He would have to invest in buying one for Wuxian so that he could actually communicate with his brother in a timely manner. After a few more moments of wavering, he pulled his phone out and called Wangji.
“ Wéi? ”
“Wangji, it’s me. I’m…” Xichen glanced around to make sure he was alone. “Is Wei Wuxian there? At home?”
“Yes.”
“Tell him to not go out without disguising himself in some way anymore. You remember Clan Leader Yao?” Wangji’s silence was inconclusive over the phone, but Xichen guessed that it meant the answer was yes. “I just came across him arguing with Jiang Wanyin over a photo he found somewhere on the Internet. Of Wei Wuxian.” Wangji was silent again, but this time Xichen could hear the tension through the speaker. “I was worried this would happen. I know there are people out there who have always been convinced he would come back. When I’m there this weekend we can figure something out.”
“Okay.”
“How are you...otherwise? I haven’t talked to you all week.” Xichen had been busy helping Yao prepare for the conference and had not had time to call his brother every evening, as he was accustomed to doing.
“Good.” A thoughtful pause. “Wei Ying is good.”
“Should I start planning for that wedding?”
“ Xiong-zhang. ”
“It’s about time.”
“Would Grandmaster let you marry us?”
“He wouldn’t have to know. I’ve been lying about where I go on the weekend for thirteen years; I can lie about this.”
Wangji was silent for a while, as if he were collecting his thoughts. “I don’t know if Wei Ying is ready.”
“He has only been back for two weeks,” Xichen agreed. “I’ll be waiting for that invitation, though!”
“Go back to your meeting.”
“I love you too, Wangji. I’ll see you on Friday. Say hello to Wuxian for me, and give my love to a-Yuan.”
“Okay. See you.” Wangji hung up, and Xichen tucked his phone back into his pocket. He sighed and turned around to walk back to the room.
“Er-ge, is something wrong?” Xichen had always been a calm man under pressure, but he could not hide his shock at seeing Yao standing behind him.
“No, nothing’s wrong, a-Yao,” he said, smiling. “Wangji just called to confirm what time I’ll be there on Friday. He forgot I had a conference today.” It was a flimsy lie for anyone who knew Wangji well. He would never use the phone unprompted, and rarely forgot scheduled events. Yao seemed to accept it, though. He smiled and extended a hand towards Xichen. Xichen took it, and they walked towards the conference room together. It was only later, while Xichen was riding the train back home, that he realized he had no idea how much of his conversation Yao had heard.
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Jiang Wanyin leaned his head against the edge of the window and watched the fields flickering past the train. Cultivation conferences always made him feel unreasonably angry. The other clan leaders, with the exception of Zewu Jun and Huaisang, were always trying to suck up to Jin Guangyao and gain his favor. Wanyin had a grudging respect for the Chief Cultivator–he was Ling’s other uncle, after all–but he was still suspicious of him on the basis of his status as Jin clan leader. After everything that had happened with Wuxian and the Wen remnants, Wanyin maintained a mistrust of the Jins. This conference would have been better than usual if Clan Leader Yao hadn’t confronted him about that fucking picture. Wanyin was ashamed of how he had reacted, but he had been so angry that Clan Leader Yao would shove something like that in his face. Hadn’t he been through enough at the hands of the other clan leaders?
He felt something wet poke into his ankle, and he looked down to see Fairy sticking her nose into the gap between his boots and the cuffs of his jeans. She had spent the majority of their train ride lying on top of his foot. Ling was on the other side of the car, taking up an entire row and watching something on his phone, but his dog had chosen to spend her time with Wanyin. Wanyin reached down and scratched her behind the ears with a small smile. Fairy was technically a working dog, which meant they could bring her on the train and which made travelling much easier. She was not going to be staying with Ling at Cloud Recesses for lecture, unfortunately, but Wanyin hoped that having quality time alone with the dog would mean that he could try and train her to do more useful things. He knew this was wishful thinking, as Fairy usually ignored more complicated commands from him, but he was going to try.
Houses began appearing on either side of the train tracks, and the disciples began shoving books and laptops away into their backpacks. Most of the clans had ceased to hold lectures in these days of standardized education, but the Lans still offered a yearly lecture for teenage cultivators who were homeschooled or who wanted to take advantage of their wisdom. Wanyin and his siblings had gone to the local Yunmeng schools, but they had gone to lecture when they were of the age. It had been one of the more formative experiences of their lives for reasons that didn’t relate at all to learning cultivation from the Lans.
“Caiyi Town Station,” the electronic voice over the intercom announced as the train zipped through the main part of the city and came to a halt in the ornate, modern train station. Wanyin nudged Fairy out of the way and stood up, grabbing his jacket and duffle bag from the seat next to him. He and Fairy were staying the night in an inn and then travelling back to Lotus Pier. Ling dragged both of his suitcases down from the luggage rack, nearly hitting a nearby disciple in the head, and led their group out of the train car and into the busy station. Fairy trotted to the front to walk beside her Ling, and Wanyin hurried after her. He was clan leader, after all.
“Why are there so many people?” Ling grumbled, sending a distasteful look across the sea of humanity.
“Because this is a major metropolitan area,” Wanyin answered. He was busy scanning for where the shuttle up to Cloud Recesses was and didn’t have much time for the teenager’s complaints. He spotted a sign with the Lan symbol on it and began marching across the station floor, Ling and the other teenagers trailing behind him like cranky ducklings. A pair of Lan disciples in casual clothes were lounging against a rock in front of a bus that appeared to have been brand new long before Wanyin had been born.
“Clan Leader Jiang!” one of the disciples said, peeling himself off of the rock and bowing smartly to Wanyin. His companion followed suit. “Welcome to Cayi Town. And you are Young Master Jin. Lianmin, go open the luggage thing-y.” Lianmin ran to pull up the doors under the bus, and the Jiang disciples followed her to dump their belongings inside. Fairy sat down next to Wanyin’s feet and blinked up at the disciple. “You are the first clan to arrive,” the other disciple said, sticking his hands into the pocket of his jacket. He was around nineteen, and the t-shirt underneath was for the local university. “Very timely. Grandmaster will be impressed, I’m sure.”
“I have learned from experience to be on time to lectures,” Wanyin said vaguely, watching Ling and another boy argue about whose suitcase would go where. It did not seem like they were going to get heated enough to fight, so he decided not to intervene.
“Jingyi, I think the next bus is on its way down, so we can take them up the mountain,” Lianmin called from the cluster of Jiang teens. Jingyi gave her a thumbs up and turned back to Wanyin.
“I’m sure we’ll take good care of your disciples, and if anything terrible occurs, Zewu Jun will call you promptly,” he said. Wanyin wondered if this was something standard the disciples told clan leaders. The Jiang disciples bowed in unison to him and echoed their farewells, but Ling marched up to him and gave Fairy a good ear scratching.
“Be respectful to Zewu Jun and Grandmaster, or I’ll hear about it and come up to discipline you,” Wanyin warned his nephew. “Don’t insult their food, even if it’s not spiced, and above all don’t break any rules. I don’t want to hear about you having to do lines.”
“I won’t , Jiujiu. Who do you think I am?” Ling grumbled.
“Jin Ling, don’t talk back to me like that!”
“I promise I won’t break any rules,” Ling said to Fairy’s head.
“Make some friends,” Wanyin added. “I’ll see you in a month.” He patted Ling on the shoulder.
“Bye, Jiujiu.” Ling gave him a quick side-hug and ran onto the bus after the other disciples. Fairy barked once, then lay down on top of Wanyin’s feet.
“Cute dog,” Jingyi commented. “Have a good trip back, Clan Leader Jiang!” He bowed, then began to speed-walk towards the driver’s door, yelling, “Lianmin, I call driving!” Wanyin watched the bus pull out of the lane, then signaled to Fairy that it was time to go.
Cayi Town had not changed much over the twenty years since Wanyin had attended lectures. The streets were still full of people shouting across the road and mopeds contending with inattentive pedestrians. Wanyin and Fairy kept to the sidewalk, dodging street vendors dying to sell them tacky souvenirs and people with clipboards insisting that they sign petitions for this and that environmental cause. Once they left the area immediately surrounding the train station, things quieted down, but picked up again in the market district. The inn Wanyin always stayed in was on the other side of this area, but he decided to brave the crowd in the market proper. He knew exactly why, but he refused to admit it to himself. Fairy trotted along beside him, unconcerned with the problems of humanity.
Wanyin was so focused on looking around him that he barely noticed Fairy barking at him until she shoved her nose into his ankle. He looked down at her, then looked up at the wheelchair he had nearly walked into.
“Excuse me, I–” he began, then stopped as the person turned around and stared at him. It had been sixteen years, but Lan Wangji had not changed much in that time. He had lost some of the roundness of his cheeks, and there were a handful of gray hairs highlighting his neat bun, but he gave Wanyin the same look he had the last time they had seen each other. There was a bag of produce balanced carefully on his lap, and the hilt of his sword peeked out from behind his shoulder.
“Jiang Wanyin.”
“Lan Wangji.” They stood staring at each other, the tension between them so thick you could have cut it with a knife. “It’s been a while.”
“Hmm.”
Wanyin could not help his eyes tracing the length of the man before him. Over the past sixteen years, he had heard any number of rumors about what had happened to Wangji–Wuxian had made him into a puppet and had turned him against the Lan clan, Wangji had lost his mind after Wuxian’s death and had been banished, Lan Qiren had beaten him so badly for falling in love with Wuxian that he had lost both his legs–but none of them seemed to be true. The man sitting before him was not much different from the Hanguang Jun of sixteen years previously. All he could think of to say was, “I didn’t know you were still living here.”
Lan Wangji arched an eyebrow at him. “I didn’t know you visited Cayi Town.”
“I had to drop my nephew off at lecture. At the Lan clan.” Wanyin noticed with a start, although he should have known this would be so, that Wangji was not wearing his headband. He had seen the other man headband-less one other time, and that had been his brother’s fault.
“Oh.” Lan Wangji’s eyes drifted down to Fairy, who wagged her tail hopefully. Wanyin noticed the accusatory look the other man gave the dog on his behalf and sighed.
“She’s not mine. I didn’t bring her because...I didn’t…why would I bring a dog specifically because of Wuxian?” Wangji glared at him, and Wanyin shoved down the instinct to shout at the other man. “I have to go check into my inn.” He started walking away from Wangji, then stopped. Fairy was still sitting in front of Wangji. “Fairy, come.” Fairy came, but she looked up at him with something in his eyes. Spiritual dogs were too smart for their own good. Without turning around, Wanyin said, “Have you seen Wuxian?” There was an abrupt crunching of rock under rubber tires and the creaking of what must have been an abruptly activated break. “Well, have you?” He turned around to see Wangji staring at him with wide eyes. Wanyin did not have his brother’s talent of reading Wangji’s facial expressions, but this was not a particularly hard one to understand.
“Clan Leader Jiang!” Zewu Jun appeared out of the crowd, a surprised expression on his face. He was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt over a blue t-shirt, which was the most casual Wanyin had seen him since the Sunshot Campaign. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here. Are you dropping Jin Ling off for lecture?”
“Zewu Jun.” Wanyin bowed to the other clan leader. “I was, and now I’m going to my inn. Have a nice day. Come on, Fairy.” He bowed again, then began to hurry through the market. Neither Lan called after him, although some part of him hoped they would. He kept his eyes fixed ahead of him and his feet hurrying forward. He was almost to the inn when he spotted a flash of black and red in the corner of his vision. Wanyin turned quickly and stared around the crowd. There, walking with a spring in their step and carrying a canvas bag in one hand, was a slender person with their hair tied up in a ponytail and a red flannel shirt hanging from their shoulders. They were wearing combat boots, and there was a dizi in their free hand. Wanyin began walking forward towards them as if his feet were being propelled by someone else’s willpower. A name floated on his lips and stopped in time with his steps. What was he doing? There was no way that was really his brother. Even if it was, did he want to see him?
“What the hell am I doing, Fairy?” he asked. He turned around and walked to the inn. Only once he was alone with the dog in his room, sitting on the neatly made bed and staring at his reflection in the TV, did he let himself cry.
------
“You look grim, Lan Zhan. Did you see something abominably terrible while you were buying vegetables?” Wei Wuxian bounced out of the crowd barely a minute after his brother left, a bag of bread and other products swinging casually in one hand and his flute dancing through the fingers of the other. Based on his attitude, Xichen guessed that he had not encountered his brother. “Here, I can add that bag to this one.”
“No, nothing terrible,” Wangji replied, passing his bag of produce up to his boyfriend. “We…” He glanced up at Xichen, as if asking his brother whether telling Wuxian who they had seen was a good idea. “We saw someone.” Xichen looked over his shoulder, but Wanyin had vanished into the crowd.
“Someone?” Wuxian folded his arms and pouted. “Don’t be so vague, Lan Zhan. Was it a good someone? It wasn’t...oh. It was Jiang Cheng, wasn’t it?” Xichen was impressed at Wuxian’s ability to pull information out of Wangji’s expressions. He had known the two were good for each other since the beginning, and he was glad to have more positive confirmation. Wangji nodded, and Wuxian looked around. “He didn’t even want to wait and say hello? Typical.” There was a falseness to his joking. “Well, let’s go home and put all of this stuff away.” They began to walk back towards the apartment, Wangji taking the lead. People tended to overcorrect around him when he was in his wheelchair, and he took advantage of this fact by heading directly into large groups and trusting that they would clear the way. Xichen let his steps sync with Wuxian.
“Wangji thinks your brother knows you’re alive,” he said. “I agree. Clan Leader Yao was making a scene over some forum post he found, like I told Wangji, and he was specifically talking to Jiang Wanyin.”
“He won’t tell anyone,” Wuxian said, keeping his eyes fixed on the back of Wangji’s head. “He’s too ashamed of me.” Xichen wasn’t so sure of that, but he didn’t say anything. “I wish he had...no. Never mind.” He sighed. “What was he doing here? Lectures are coming up, aren’t they?”
“He was dropping Jin Ling off,” Xichen affirmed.
“Jin Ling…” Wuxian sighed again, this time heavier. “If things had been different….but they aren’t. And I have a-Yuan to worry about. And Jingyi, although he’s more your problem.” The grin came back onto his face.
“Jingyi is not so much of a problem anymore,” Xichen said. “When he was younger, though…” He shook his head and laughed. “He reminded me of a certain young student who attended our fine lecture.”
“I’m sure he makes Grandmaster very proud.” Wuxian laughed as well. They left the marketplace proper and made their way along the winding streets of Cayi Town. Wuxian picked up his pace to catch up with Wangji, and Xichen trailed behind, watching the two lovers. It had been such a long time since he had seen Wangji so happy, and that brought him peace. Wuxian was alive, and his brother was smiling, and everything was right with the world.