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1
Lan Zhan stills as Lan Qiren plucks out the first notes on his guqin, Yishan. As Lan Qiren continues, right and left hands moving in well-practiced concert, Lan Zhan’s small frame practically vibrates with excitement. He’s feather-light and sweet in Lan Qiren’s lap. Lan Huan had been much the same during his first guqin lessons only a few years earlier.
His nephew watches avidly, switching concentration back and forth between each of Lan Qiren’s hands. Lan Qiren brings his hands closer to his body to pluck at the seventh string, the highest and lightest of the strings, using an yin to press with his left and pluck with his right. He shifts his left hand, modulating the note and ending with a vibrato, the well-earned callus on the outside edge of his thumb protecting the tender flesh of his hand.
When Lan Qiren lifts his hands from the strings, Lan Zhan leans back against his chest and looks straight up, forehead nearly pressing into Lan Qiren’s beard, which has grown too long for its own good. His nephew’s eyes are wide with wonder, his mouth an ‘o’ of curiosity.
“Would you like to learn how to play, Lan Zhan?” Lan Qiren asks quietly. The air between them rings with the echo of his song.
Lan Zhan pauses with consideration, then nods. Always so serious, his Lan Zhan. Lan Qiren rubs a hand over the crown of his head, thumb ghosting over the filigreed center of his nephew’s forehead ribbon. A small smile blooms across Lan Zhan’s lips. He knows he’s made his uncle happy.
“Let’s start.” Lan Qiren says, pulling Lan Zhan’s attention back down to the instrument in front of them. “This is called a guqin.”
By the end of the lesson, Lan Zhan can identify the parts of the quqin, recognize the basic right and left hand techniques, and pluck out a serviceable, if mistimed, version of “A Sound of Laughter in the Vast Sea”.
Lan Qiren feels his chest swell with pride.
----
Lan Qiren hears a less-shaky version a mere week later during his approach to the Gentian House, followed by clapping and exaltations. Lan Qiren decides he can be a little late to retrieve his nephews that day.
Armed with positive feedback, Lan Zhan practically throws himself into playing the guqin. He’s hungry to learn a new piece each month so that he can bring it to his mother as a gift. Quickly, his fingertips go from child-like softness to the thick skin of a seasoned professional. Occasionally Lan Qiren has to slow him down, redirecting his energy into mastering his existing technique before he can add new fingerings and complexities.
He demonstrates the beauty of a precise performance, first by recreating Lan Zhan’s current style, and then repeating the song with exact timing and pitch-perfect notes.
“It’s not a race, Lan Zhan,” Lan Qiren cautions. “Like many things in life, music is worth putting in the time to do correctly. It is better to do a few things perfectly than to do many things poorly.”
Lan Zhan’s brows come together and his lower lip briefly wibbles before his expression relaxes with understanding.
“Your mother will enjoy watching you improve.” Lan Qiren continues, attempting to reassure his nephew.
Lan Zhan’s expression fully clears and is followed by a serious nod. “Can we start from the beginning again?” he asks in his quiet, well-articulated voice
Lan Qiren nods in agreement and walks Lan Zhan through the eight right-hand finger techniques until his pi and tuo and mo and tiao are unimpeachable.
----
The first guqin lesson after Lan-furen’s passing is different.
Lan Zhan sits properly, small hands poised to start, but when Lan Qiren plays a phrase for Lan Zhan to echo, his nephew instead bows his head and weeps. He’s nearly noiseless in his grief. His wet, hitching breaths seem loud in the stillness of the Yashi.
Lan Qiren watches for a long moment, uncertain of what to do, before rising from behind Yishan to sit next to his nephew. So consumed by his feelings, Lan Zhan startles when Lan Qiren pulls him into a hug. He’s still for the length of two breaths before he climbs fully into Lan Qiren’s lap, pressing his flushed face into his uncle’s neck and wetting his collar with his tears.
Taking in the impeccable tidiness of his rooms, Lan Qiren feels unequipped to handle Lan Zhan’s outpouring of emotion. When his nephews were toddlers, they’d been cared for by a myriad of servants since the main branch was -- and is -- woefully underpopulated. Lan Qiren had missed the peak years of emotional instability. He’d been present, but felt more like a teacher than a parent. The distance was safer, easier to manage.
Lan Zhan’s sobs eventually subside into hiccuping sniffles. Lan Qiren strokes a hand up and down Lan Zhan’s sweaty back and presses kisses into his hair. He realizes his nephews essentially have no parents.
They deserve some.
Lan Qiren helps Lan Zhan wipe away the remnants of his tears with a handkerchief. With one final sniff, Lan Zhan pulls himself out of Lan Qiren’s lap and resumes his guqin-playing posture.
“I’m sorry I interrupted our lesson, Shufu.” Lan Zhan says. His voice is raised half an octave with congestion.
Lan Qiren strokes another hand over his still pink and flushed cheeks. “Let’s try something different today.” Lan Zhan turns to him more fully, curiosity widening his eyes.
He rises and rearranges their lesson space, placing his table and guqin directly next to Lan Zhan’s. “Sometimes it helps to express our feelings through music.” He closes his eyes and plays the song he composed when his brother first went into seclusion.
He has to blink back tears when he finishes; Lan Zhan is watching him avidly.
“Now you try.”
Lan Zhan resumes proper posture at his guqin and plays his heart out. It’s a messy thing, frantic and without grace or precision. Beautiful and passionate in its despair.
It’s perfect.
2
Lan Qiren is returning to the Yashi when he hears the strains of a song. It’s nearly curfew and Lan Qiren’s days have been insufferably long of late. It’s always difficult to host guests in Cloud Recesses. It’s double -- no, triply -- so when one of the guests is the son of the infuriating Cangse Sanren.
Wei Wuxian is a credit to his mother. Lan Qiren's headaches are nearly equal in intensity to the ones he experienced all those years ago, when the disciple of the legendary Boashan Sanren attended GusuLan guest lectures.
Lan Qiren pauses on the gravel path, listening. The music is coming from Wangji’s residence. The Jingshi is situated up a short hill, slightly separated from the majority of the Lan clan’s homes.
He pauses longer, wondering if he can recognize the piece. It must be something difficult, because Wangji keeps starting and stopping.
Or perhaps it’s not that the piece is technically challenging so much as the act of creating is arduous. When the same six-note sequence repeats with a minor deviation at the end, Lan Qiren knows he won’t recognize the piece from any repertoire.
Wangji is composing.
----
Through the years, Wangji has reserved composing for processing complex emotion. He’d taken Lan Qiren’s example at his mother’s death to heart. Unlike Lan Qiren, he rarely records his pieces. When asked, Wangji shyly explained that he hadn’t felt a need to codify the experience. His compositions are mostly an expression of inner turbulence, an outlet. He wants his emotions out of his system, not captured and crystalized and maintained.
Wangji generally prefers to perfectly execute an existing piece, one with literary merit and appropriate context to express himself. It’s only the most extreme emotions that he gives himself the leeway to be anything less than immaculate.
Wangji fretfully searching for the right combination of notes and techniques to convey his inner thoughts is something new.
Lan Qiren wonders what inspires him.
The next afternoon, Lan Qiren requests for Wangji to stay after the lecture is dismissed. Wangji’s brow is furrowed when he approaches Lan Qiren on the dais. His lips shift into a moue of curiosity when he recognizes the bindings on the books. They belong to Lan Qiren’s private collection.
“For your composition,” Lan Qiren explains. He taps his finger on the topmost book's cover. “This one has excellent advice on structure and creating meaningful transitions.”
Wangji’s entire face blanks as he gently receives the stack, expression retreating in the face of his embarrassment.
Lan Qiren knows better than to press his nephew for more information. Maybe someday he’ll hear the piece in its entirety. In the more distant future, he hopes Wangji will share why he wrote it.
3
Lan Qiren startles awake. His heart thumps in his chest and his sleeping robe is drenched with sweat.
It’s not an uncommon occurrence. Wen Xu’s attack began at night; he’d managed to get a hold of a gate token. Obediently, the wards had yielded, allowing the Wen’s invaders into the sanctuary of Lan Qiren’s home. Half of the residences were aflame by the time Lan Qiren realized the Cloud Recesses was being systematically destroyed.
With shaking fingers, Lan Qiren disrobes and then gives himself a quick wipe-down. By the time he’s securing the ties on a fresh robe, his heartbeat has calmed and his breath is even. Still, unease prickles at the back of his neck.
Exhausted, he continues dressing, pulling on progressively heavier layers. There’s a chill that’s crept under the floorboards. Snow has not yet come to the Cloud Recesses, but it will arrive soon. He shoulders a fur-lined cloak and sets out into the quiet night.
Under the moonlight, the clan residences are beautiful, almost ethereal in their elegance. They look whole and warm and nothing like the hollowed-out shells they had been in the wake of the attack.
Lan Qiren walks. Only the sounds of nature and the crush of his footsteps on the gravel path keep him company. Eventually, he makes it to the main buildings. Here, the wooden planks of the walkways are well attended; not even a creak accompanies his silent tour. He walks further.
He ends up in front of the greenhouse, because of course he does.
He carefully closes the door and breathes in peace. Meticulously-applied talismans maintain the interior’s climate. The air inside is humid and shockingly warm compared to the wintery air outside.
He’s come to think of this particular greenhouse as his greenhouse. It mostly hosts his collection of orchids. Standing in the midst of their grace is a balm to Lan Qiren’s soul. He’d lost his previous, fledgling collection. He’s been able to recover and regrow. His plants are flourishing.
When he leaves, the moon is lower in the sky. Lan Qiren raises a hand, measuring. More than a shi passed since he awoke in the middle of the night. His walk back is as pleasant and serene as his departure. He enjoys the beauty of the Cloud Recesses’ residences; new and old have been carefully blended and honored.
He makes it almost all the way home without sensing anyone else awake. As he makes the final turn towards the Yashi, faint strains of music drift down from the mountaintop. The tune is familiar, but difficult to place.
Lan Qiren turns his face into the light wind and realizes the music is coming from the Jingshi.
His carefully cultivated sense of well-being from the past shi fractures. His stomach feels leaden and his eyes sting. Wangji -- who Lan Qiren tried to save at the expense of his nephew’s spirit and flesh -- is awake. He shouldn’t be, but he is.
As he stands in the cold night, Lan Qiren identifies the piece.
It’s the one Wangji struggled with for more than a year. He’d started before the attack on the Cloud Recesses, before the Indoctrination and the Sunshot Campaign and the horrific aftermath with that scoundrel’s -- Wei Wuxian's -- death. The notes still come haltingly, but Lan Qiren recognizes that the quavering quality is an artifact of Wangji’s injury, rather than hesitancy over which notes come next. It’s clear Wangji completed his composition during the war.
There have been many difficult events for Wangji to process over the recent years. It’s a surprise that he’s kept to the same composition. Perhaps his nephew has rolled all of his troubles into one song.
With a sigh, Lan Qiren shakes his head to clear it. He continues onwards down the path, to his own peaceful home with its warm bed and his own half-finished composition -- a sketch of his own feelings of trauma and then recovery from the Sunshot Campaign.
Lan Qiren hears Wangji’s composition the following night, and then the night after that. And the night after that. He hears it during the days, too. Wangji seems to play it during most of his waking hours, the notes carrying down the mountainside like a fog in the Cloud Recesses.
As dexterity returns to Wangji’s fingers, the intentions of the song bloom forth. It inspires a feeling of yearning and beauty in Lan Qiren’s heart. It is a beautiful piece with excellent transitions.
If Lan Qiren had been interested in what inspired his nephew’s composition when he’d started it, now he is consumed with curiosity about why Wangji continues to play it. Why does he linger in his feelings? Why did he write it?
4
“Ah, I see Wangji’s song gets stuck in your head too,” Xichen says as he enters Lan Qiren’s greenhouse.
Lan Qiren hums in acknowledgement, interrupting his own rendition and studying where to trim next. The song is surprisingly catchy and easy to sing. “I’ve learned not to fight it.”
“Hmm. It is sad that he plays it after all this time.”
Lan Qiren straightens from his orchids, turning to look at his eldest nephew. “Is it?”
Xichen’s bland smile falters, dropping from his lips as his eyes search Lan Qiren’s face. The air is silent and still in the humid space of his enclosed garden. It takes on an unexpected heaviness as the moment stretches between them.
A small wrinkle between Xichen’s brows mars his expression. He shifts on his feet, belying his anxiety. His swallow before speaking is audible. “Do you not know for whom it was written?”
Lan Qiren’s back stiffens, tension coiling in his shoulders. “For… whom?” Lan Qiren echos faintly. He realizes he fears the answer, having gone unknown for so many years.
Xichen stares into him.
Lan Qiren has wondered, but never pushed. It seemed private to Wangji, for all that the tune haunts the wind. He’d found himself setting his curiosity to the side and respecting Wangji’s silence on the matter.
He’s never asked outright. And Wangji has never volunteered.
Xichen’s gaze grows heavy.
What event could have happened to Wangji that made him dwell all these years later? What started during the guest lectures? When Wangji had spent so much time with that malefactor Wei Wuxian --
Lan Qiren's brain skitters over the name.
Wei Wuxian.
Wei Wuxian.
Who Lan Qiren had been forced to punish Wangji for visiting.
Who had died suddenly and violently.
Who Lan Qiren had been forced to punish Wangji severely, permanently, for defending.
It had been better than killing Wangji, or exiling him from his home. Wangji will carry the whip marks for the rest of his life. So, too, will Lan Qiren bear the emotional wounds of choosing to hurt his own flesh and blood.
Lan Qiren grimaces. Of course. Why hadn’t he seen it? Perhaps he hadn’t wanted to. They both bear the weight of Wangji’s devotion.
“Wei Wuxian,” he answers.
Xichen nods, eyes shining.
Lan Qiren looks down, breaking away from Xichen’s piercing look. The feeling of heaviness takes up residence across his shoulders; it’s like a physical manifestation of his conclusion.
He barely registers the gentle slide of the greenhouse door closing as Xichen retreats.
----
The next time Wangji’s song settles across his tongue, he finds his mouth is suddenly dry with sorrow. The song is a reminder of his failure to care for his nephew properly.
He couldn’t have saved Wangji from falling in love, but perhaps he could have spared Wangji some anguish if he’d realized sooner. Lan Qiren would have treated Wei Wuxian differently if he’d known, if he’d looked.
Wangji’s dedication had been, and continues to be, plain as day.
5
“The daughter of the AnpingRong Sect Leader is unmarried.”
“Is that because she is distasteful?”
“No, I believe she’s only recently come of age.”
“Enough,” Lan Qiren interrupts, voice harsh and strong. He stands abruptly, rudely. “We will not discuss this topic any further.” All around him the Lan Sect elders are staring with varying levels of surprise and annoyance. “Wangji will marry when he wishes. No sooner.”
He takes a moment to make eye contact with each of his peers and betters. “To be absolutely clear, I do not mean ‘wait a few months and bring it up again’.” Lan Qiren nods, adding finality to his words.
And with that, he sweeps out of the hall.
There will be ramifications for his little snit, but Lan Qiren can’t find it in himself to regret it. He feels further validated when Wangji returns from his nighthunt the following day and Lan Qiren is treated to a performance of Wangji’s love-lorn composition.
It’s become more refined over the years. Wangji plays it with different interpretations according to his moods. Lan Qiren likes it best when Wangji plays with passion. This means Lan Qiren favors the piece at its most cheerful, and, unfortunately, at its most lingering and despairing. The fact that Wangji still plays it -- nightly, when he is in residence at the Cloud Recesses -- means that Wangji is still consumed by his feelings for Wei Wuxian.
Lan Qiren knows his younger nephew is as damned as his father before him.
It would be deeply selfish to force a wife on Wangji while he’s preoccupied with his love for another. It would be a disservice to both of them and the sect as a whole.
Not to mention, there’s a precedence for leaving the Second Young Master unmarried. Lan Qiren has held himself separate from love and marriage for over sixty years. It’s not the life Lan Qiren wanted for his nephew. Wangji has always been shy and serious, but so sweet underneath.
It shouldn’t be so difficult for the clan elders to respect Wangji’s feelings. Lan Qiren is happy to argue on his nephew’s behalf, for as long as it takes.
It is the least he can do for Wangji.
+1
The news from the Guanyin temple reaches the Cloud Recesses before Xichen or Wangji’s return. Xichen staggers in a day later, bedraggled and blood-drenched. His eyes are frightening -- dark with rage and regret -- and his signature smile is absent, replaced with a deeply-lined grimace.
Wangji’s return, a week later, is a surprise.
Lan Qiren doesn’t realize his younger nephew has returned until he steps out of the Yashi and there’s a familiar tune on the wind. A few phrases in, it’s joined by another instrument. Something light and flexible and breathy. A dizi. It’s as plain and pedestrian as the guqin is marked with sophistication.
For once, that cursed flute’s notes are welcome.
The duet is a thing of beauty. Wei Wuxian dances along the melody, joining it for a section, then harmonizing in others, and then twisting away into something new. It adds a breath of life to a song that Lan Qiren knows like the back of his eyelids. He can sing it in his sleep, and often sings it during his waking hours.
He’s come to associate Wangji’s piece with doomed passion. To hear the piece transformed into something fresh and vibrant and unfamiliar is a delight.
It is absolutely infuriating that Wei Wuxian is such a suitable complement to Wangji.
For all that Wei Wuxian is an unpredictable and frustrating person, he adds something unquantifiable that can only enrich the Cloud Recesses. The juniors have been beside themselves with excitement and stories since their first interactions with the infamous -- no, famed -- cultivator. Wei Wuxian has somehow managed to make even Lan Jingyi interested in academics. What more could Lan Qiren hope for in a spouse marrying into the sect?
And they will be marrying, if they haven’t already eloped, Lan Qiren knows.
Lan Qiren stands on his veranda under the clear and open sky, sun warming his cheeks, and finally feels at peace. There will always be more things for him to worry about. For now, an unseen weight has been lifted from his being.
Wangji is settled.
Lan Qiren is filled with hope for the future.
.
.