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The lanterns hanging in the entryway to Lotus Pier sway minutely in the wind. They are old and heavy, bamboo wood panels framing delicately painted silk. There is a story in the art, Jiang Cheng is aware, but he has not looked at it closely since he was young enough to have someone to ask about it.
In the warm light of the setting sun, the art is faded and impossible to make out. And there is no one left for him to ask about what it is he can neither see nor understand.
The tassels brush through Jiang Cheng’s hair as he leaves.
Faintly, as though a trick of the light, the air sizzles from the remnants of summer heat.
Jiang Cheng’s unhurried footsteps wade through the ripples. Dry leaves crunch beneath his heels.
There is still one moon cycle before the cold will begin to set in, and yet beneath the bustle of Yunmeng exists a fragile sheet of thin, chilling atmosphere.
Many say that the port town, Yunmeng, is a prime centre of commerce, upon which the divine can only look and smile.
The pier witnesses regular activity of ships docking and departing for trade. The main streets are filled from end to end with vendor’s kiosks. The shops and teahouses all welcome a steady flow of clientele. Yunmeng is always dense with people, locals and visitors alike—patrons fascinated by alluring displays, children weaving through the forest of adults’ legs, and those with little else to do but spread fearmongering rumours. Noise fills every space—from the bartering between vendors and habitués, the storytellers weaving tales to enraptured passers-by, and the musicians posted in teahouses.
In such a busy town, disappearances are not easy to hide. Silences can be rather loud. And when an entire person, and then many others, disappears, the public as well as people like Jiang Cheng tend to notice. When people notice, they talk.
Decades of practice allows him to tune the general clamouring out, attentive only for peculiarities that can aid him in his search.
There is talk of a serial murderer:
A hushed whisper behind a fan, over a grill. Too many deaths, too close to each other. A murderer?
In Yunmeng? When Sandu Shengshou is around?
The hiss and sputter of oil on high heat. And what of Sandu Shengshou? A disgraced hero—
There is talk of a ghost:
One, two, three, four beats of a jump rope on the ground, kicking up dust. It’s a ghost, A-Niang says.
If it’s a ghost, then the cultivators should have dealt with it already.
If it’s a ghost, then the cultivators will deal with it soon.
How soon? After more…disappearances? A quieter tone. You know, one of the…was Old Ye’s son? He was going to get married. Old Ye says it’s the cultivators’ fault.
Cultivators are people, too. They make mistakes, too.
But are they supposed to?
There is talk of—something strange.
Jiang Cheng latches onto it.
The familiar clanking of sheathed weapons. Steady, practiced footsteps. Perhaps they took an immortality elixir.
An immortality elixir? And then they disappear? This is not a tale old ladies tell.
That’s not what I mean! I heard there’s been something going around…some pill that grants immortality.
Another fraudulent formula? How many great men must fall to these before people stop believing in them?
You never know! Perhaps those who took it just—died.
Like poison?
I suppose.
And disappeared?
Yes…?
Don’t be ridiculous. Poisons leave bodies behind.
Laughter. Yes, however…
Jiang Cheng’s brow furrows. Hastily, he begins to close the distance between him and the two gossiping foot soldiers. This is information that Jiang Cheng cannot possibly afford to ignore, and he—
He trips.
The sensation of tripping is similar to that of falling, and yet not quite. Falling is when Jiang Cheng was still young and inexperienced and his stance made his feet liable to slip off the flat of his sword and into the cold river, or onto the hard ground, or into his father’s waiting arms, below. Falling takes a handful of moments, enough for Jiang Cheng’s heart to rise to his throat and his arms to flail for command of Sandu.
Tripping is instant. There is no time for Jiang Cheng’s insides to force their way out through his orifices, only time for them to lurch within him dizzyingly. Between one heartbeat and the next, Jiang Cheng finds himself sprawled mortifyingly on the ground. It is decades of honed reflexes that save him from further humiliation; he has caught himself with his hands, and the stinging in his palms notifies him that he has stripped the delicate skin there, like a naughty child who has been told over and over to be careful and yet refused to listen.
Frustrated, his fingers curl into tight, bleeding fists and slam into the dirt.
The foot soldiers have probably blended into the crowds, by now. Jiang Cheng is not so astute that he can hunt them down just by the sounds of their voices.
He pushes himself upright with jerky motions, jaw clenched painfully. There is tension running through his veins, stiffening the fibres of his musculature. There are passers-by who have noticed him, lips moving noticeably despite their best efforts at maintaining composure.
Uninterested in hearing the tittering of is that Sandu Shengshou, Jiang Cheng turns to train a vicious glower on whatever it is that tripped him.
For the second time in a handful of short moments, Jiang Cheng is caught off-guard.
There is a rabbit before him. It is—unusual, to the say the least. Most visibly, most noticeably, most glaringly, is the sheer size of the rabbit.
It is as large as any of Jiang Cheng’s dogs.
The part in him which was ready to yell if it was a careless child who stumbled into his path quiets. Instead, he stares at the rabbit in confusion, moving away from the middle of the street as he does.
The rabbit follows.
It is not a regular animal, that is for certain. The air around it is heavy with ling qi, and yet not quite like a spiritual beast. It is almost—divine.
Its nose twitches.
“Heavens,” Jiang Cheng sighs. There is a ribbon about its neck, nearly hidden in the thick of its pale fur. Jiang Cheng reaches for it, somehow grateful it does not seem inclined to bite his fingers with its long teeth, and feels it. The ribbon lacks any identifiable marking, or at least, any of which Jiang Cheng is aware, but it informs him the monstrous rabbit does indeed have an owner.
Recognising that he cannot simply leave this strange rabbit alone in the centre of the shopping district, Jiang Cheng sighs once more and gestures for it to follow him.
The owner is easy enough to identify. He is the only person in the town with such a defined cultivation base and who does not look twice at the incredibly large rabbit.
“Master,” Jiang Cheng says, “your…companion.”
He nudges the rabbit. It does not move, but it brings the man’s attention to it.
“Oh,” he says with pleasant surprise, “thank you, hero.”
Jiang Cheng carefully does not grimace. “I am not a hero.”
“Still.” His smile turns a touch sincere at the corners. “I thank you for caring for my princess.”
Jiang Cheng purses his lips. “That is not necessary.” He stands for a second more, then bows dismissively. There is, after all, work to be done.
Spiritual beasts are the best companions a cultivator could have, truly. Jiang Cheng is of the opinion that they are much better company than other humans any day. It helps, of course, that they are incredibly capable beings.
“Good girls,” Jiang Cheng is cooing from behind a scarf. With cold fingertips, he scratches Feifei behind the ear. In his pouch, a note containing valuable information regarding the recent disappearances crinkles. The matter is not actually within the expertise of a cultivator, but there is no one else who will do it.
“We can take whatever route you like,” he told his beasts when they had led Jiang Cheng to some much-needed clues earlier in the day. “So long as we get home before the sun goes down.” As a result, they have been strolling the same streets for the last few hours. It does not snow in Yunmeng, but the late months arrive with chilled air and the stinging scent of frost. Jiang Cheng’s nose feels as though it’s been frozen to his face. Even with his golden core, his muscles are beginning to stiffen and quiver in turn.
He almost sighs with relief when his beasts halt in their seemingly endless trek.
“Are you finally finished? I refuse to carry any of you back,” he grumbles, only to clamp his mouth shut.
The colossal rabbit is there once more, just as ridiculously sized as she was when he last saw her. It has been a while, but Jiang Cheng is not in the habit of forgetting oddities, regardless of how much he may want to.
“Hello,” greets Jiang Cheng anyway. Moli and Feifei knock into his legs with much curiosity. Xiao Ai whines lowly. They are obviously regarding the monstrous rabbit.
Jiang Cheng does not know what he is feeling when he realises that the rabbit is large enough to sit on any of his beasts.
“Shall we…search for your master once more?” he asks without a lack of awkwardness. “Hm, um, princess?”
The rabbit ducks her head, ears flopping forward.
Before Jiang Cheng can dumbly ask the rabbit what that means, someone calls out, “Thank you, but that won’t be necessary.”
“Ah,” he spins around. He pretends his knees are not trembling underneath his robes from exhaustion. “Master Lan. I wish you well.”
Jiang Cheng hadn’t gone sneaking around for information on the mystifying rabbit’s inexplicable master, but a carefully worded letter to Nie Huaisang proved sufficient.
Lan Xichen, Zewu-jun, is a cultivator with unknown origins. He practices mainly in areas with little to no cultivation presence. Jiang Cheng has his theories.
“Hello, Master Jiang,” Lan Xichen says. Ah. “Thank you.”
Jiang Cheng clears his throat. “I’m glad you’re here. I’ll be off then.” He bows and whistles for his beasts. Retreat.
The action of flattening the creases in his robes with a palm is purely muscle memory, built from years upon years of etiquette fit for the heir of a prestigious family beaten into his very fibres.
Idly, Jiang Cheng does it again, soothing a hand over his knee where a rumple in the silk has formed. And again. And again.
It is, he recognises, beginning to resemble a nervous tick more than carefully practiced habit. He can hardly help it.
The teahouse in the centre of Yunmeng’s busiest street is a structure high off the ground and caters only to those who can afford it. In Yunmeng, there are not many who can.
The distance from the crowds dulls their busy noises. There is an instrumentalist in the main hall, a storey below, playing an unrecognisable, yet pleasant song that drifts throughout Jiang Cheng’s private room.
Across from him, Lan Xichen takes a slow, relishing sip of his tea.
Jiang Cheng was only distantly surprised when he had, once again, crossed paths with Lan Xichen.
“Oh, hello, Master Jiang,” said Lan Xichen with a smile, as though it was indeed a very happy coincidence that Jiang Cheng had walked into his way again.
Jiang Cheng, in contrast, wore a grimace. He had just returned from investigating a lead in the harbour, and the briny scent of the sea clung to his robes. He was not in the best of moods nor of appearances, and yet Lan Xichen found it in himself to invite him for tea. And Jiang Cheng did not find it in himself to refuse, although he did look.
It did help, of course, that Lan Xichen’s humongous rabbit was staring at him with beady eyes within all the fluff.
Said rabbit is now curled up by his lap. Jiang Cheng feels slightly better already.
“Are you enjoying your tea, Master Lan?”
“Ah, yes,” says Lan Xichen. His eyes have drifted shut as he breathes in the fragrance of the tea. “It is indeed the best in the region.”
They make small talk. Jiang Cheng is not great at it, but his mother’s lessons have been carved onto his bones. They occupy the empty space of the private room well enough with just the both of them; however, in the lulls of their conversation, discussions from the main hall filter in.
Jiang Cheng hears his titles twice or thrice. He lets the tea scorch his tongue. He has always been a popular topic among the locals.
Jiang Cheng wonders if Lan Xichen can hear them, too. Wonders if he can decipher the muted sentences detailing everything the public knows and thinks of Jiang Wanyin, Sandu Shenshou.
Jiang Cheng suspects he can when his head twitches. Jiang Cheng clears his throat, gesturing to the food on the table. With a tight smile, Lan Xichen eats a small dumpling.
“Master Lan,” he says, finally, when Lan Xichen’s eyes have once more narrowed, face tilted ever so slightly in the direction of the slightly ajar doors. “Do forgive me if I am being presumptuous, but there is no need for you to concern yourself with their worldly gossip.” He takes a sip of his tea. It has gone cool.
He gives the bell by his elbow a sounding tinkle.
“There is nothing they say that I have not heard before,” he adds. And before Lan Xichen can protest—because, of course, he is one of those people who are capable only of righteous anger—he continues, twisting his cup around until the tigers hand-painted into the glaze stare out at him, “Nor is there anything they can say that can hurt me.”
Lan Xichen does not sigh, but it is a close thing. “Master Jiang…”
“Or do you think me so weak?” he asks with a wan smile. “I am only mortal, after all.”
And Lan Xichen obviously is not.
Jiang Cheng has never pointed it out, nor has he ever dwelled on it, but there is always a glow to Lan Xichen. Otherworldly almost in its radiance. It is not something Jiang Cheng suspects most people are able to detect. But Jiang Cheng is a master cultivator, with many years of study and practice in his personal history, and that of his family.
Lan Xichen’s ever-present smile does not so much as twitch, though it does seem to harden, just so. “Master Jiang,” he says, almost stern, “I am very aware of your strength, as a cultivator and as a person. However, I must disagree. Regardless of whether or not such…drivel may hurt you, you do not deserve to hear it. Neither do you deserve to be spoken of in such a way.”
Jiang Cheng’s mouth is dry. His tongue is fat, clumsy.
“I…”
What is there to say?
Something like relief washes through him when the door to their private room slides open, the hostess coming in with a new teapot. She bows as she enters, expression serene—Jiang Cheng has to wonder if she had heard them or everyone else. Or both.
The teapot is filled with boiling water; steam blows into Jiang Cheng’s face as she replaces the old pot’s contents.
Lan Xichen and he both thank her before she leaves. That is the last they speak of the matter.
Jiang Cheng has finally made significant headway in the mystery of the immortality pills, but he finds that he cannot be delighted about it.
Instead, he is exhausted.
Jiang Cheng feels worn down to the bones. All he wishes at the moment is to sleep. Preferably until all his problems go away.
The weather, it seems, makes everything worse.
The cold burrows into his flesh and seeps into his cavities, until it weighs him down, down, down. It is hard to think, when it is as though every bit of him, down to his golden core, has slowed in tune with nature.
It is with blurry eyes that he regards Lan Xichen’s rabbit.
She is in an unusual spot today, a few ways into the outskirts of Yunmeng proper. But she is clean and uninjured—not evidently in any danger.
“Where is your master?” he asks her. His head is pulsing; for a brief moment, he closes his eyes and allows his mind to shut down. The next, he opens them and stares hard at the unearthly rabbit.
She cannot answer him, however. Of course.
He has neither the patience nor the wherewithal for this.
“I have to go,” he mutters. And then, he goes.
His beasts greet him when he enters Lotus Pier, curiously sniffing at him. Although he did not come into contact with Lan Xichen’s familiar, spiritual dogs are more than capable of detecting their trace scents and spiritual energy. The sight of their confused faces when they process what it is they have perceived reminds him of what he has just done.
If possible, he feels worse.
With a loud, deep groan, he scrubs a hand over his face and turns the way back from where he came.
He does not bother speaking when he returns to the rabbit. He hooks a finger through her ribbon and tugs it lightly. Then, he heaves her into his arms and nearly topples over from her weight.
“Heavens,” he spits finally. “What do you eat? Master Lan must feed you rocks, I’m certain.”
He continues grumbling when he gets on Sandu. This is probably the most reckless flying he’s done since he first got his sword, but Jiang Cheng’s knees are trembling even as he stands still.
When he reaches home for the second time, he places the rabbit down with great relief. She immediately hops onto his bed.
“Where is your master?” Jiang Cheng asks, already sinking his fingers into the rabbit’s fluff. Predictably, she does not reply. Her nose twitches. Her ears lie flat on her back.
“Girls,” he tells his beasts, finding it incredibly difficult to make intelligible sounds, “take care of her. Hm?”
It takes less than a breath after stripping down to his inner robes for Jiang Cheng to collapse next to the rabbit, deep asleep.
He wakes some time later gasping, arms throwing out and against Xiao Ai, who’s taken a seat on his chest. “Don’t do that, darling,” he croaks. Xiao Ai wags her tail and impatiently trots in a circle by the doors.
Tugging on the neckline of his inner robes, Jiang Cheng huffs and follows her to the entrance to Lotus Pier. He can hear the weather outside—sheets of rain slapping against the roof tiles and stalks of bamboo thwacking against window panes with the wind.
“What,” he mutters, pushing the door open, “is someone there?”
“Hello,” says Lan Xichen, with that unshakeable smile on his lips. Jiang Cheng stares at the pleasant curve to his grinning eyes for a beat too long. “I believe you have something of mine?” His hair falls in wet strips down the sides of his throat and clings to the broad curves of his shoulders. Jiang Cheng’s mouth goes dry just as his cheeks heat with distinct embarrassment.
Somewhat fretfully, his palms smooth down his rumpled inner robes. He doesn’t have to look to know that Lan Xichen’s terrifyingly huge leporine companion has shed white fur all over the silk.
“Please,” he croaks, stepping back and ushering Lan Xichen inside, “come in. She’s, ah. She’s in my bedroom.”
Lan Xichen’s eyes crinkle at the corners. He is bent at the waist to toe out of his shoes; it is such an awkward position that he really should not look as divine as he does when he glances at Jiang Cheng. “She’s a good sleeper,” Lan Xichen informs him.
It is with no small amount of shame that Jiang Cheng says, “Yes. I know.”
Warmth rushing to his face, Jiang Cheng clamps a hand over his mouth and says, gracelessly, “I’m sorry, I did not intend to abduct her. I just…I wasn’t feeling well and I couldn’t look for you.”
“It is much alright,” Lan Xichen says. No, Jiang Cheng is about to argue, it is not. I left her behind before I felt guilty about it and went back to get her. “Did she help?”
Jiang Cheng’s mouth opens. Then closes.
With difficulty, the admission comes rough, “Yes.”
Lan Xichen’s smile turns impossibly brighter, impossibly kinder, impossibly more likely to have Jiang Cheng wish to fall into it. An elegant hand lands on the rabbit’s head, thumb tapping just between her eyes. “Good girl.”
In Yunmeng, there is not much to do. Winter is rapidly fading, the natural yin and yang gradually approaching balance. The townspeople are in the midst of preparation for the upcoming festivities.
Jiang Cheng and Lan Xichen walk closely, keeping a leisurely pace, content to occasionally purchase snacks from operating stalls. It is idle and purposeless and so very strange, and yet Jiang Cheng cannot remember the last time he has felt anything so similarly warm.
Privately, he is grateful for Lan Xichen’s sudden visit.
It is some incredible luck that they so frequently meet each other unplanned. Jiang Cheng has since passed the point of denying the subtle pleasure Lan Xichen’s company provides him.
When he had appeared in Lotus Pier this morning, inviting Jiang Cheng out on a walk—a walk—Jiang Cheng could hardly refuse him.
Instead, Jiang Cheng tugged on his shoes and asked Lan Xichen about his rabbit.
“My princess is with my little brother,” he replied succinctly, and Jiang Cheng staggered.
Oh. He stringently did not question if this little brother of his was like him, that is, immortal. But Lan Xichen seemed to read the query in the lines of his face and disclosed that his little brother was, in fact, immortal.
Jiang Cheng does not let this bother him.
He also does not think about how the only person Lan Xichen has ever spoken of familiarly is his also immortal brother.
The wind blows and Jiang Cheng squints against the cool blades of it, lowering the stick of glass candy from his mouth. He steps closer to Lan Xichen and lifts a finger into the air. “The east wind thaws,” he recites.
Lan Xichen’s eyes light up with understanding. “Spring is close.”
“Yes.” He feels the spring breeze sift past his fingers. “Soon, hibernating insects will wake and fish will swim beneath the ice.”
“Yes,” Lan Xichen agrees and reaches for his hand. The touch is warm, firelight bright, and new. But it is not soft; calluses and scars from decades, upon decades, of swordsmanship, archery, and cultivation catch against one another.
Lan Xichen searches his eyes.
Jiang Cheng cannot return the gaze. Instead, he twists his wrist, ever so slightly, and slips his fingers into the spaces opening between Lan Xichen’s.
The festival arrives with the lighting of paper lanterns.
The faint, persisting aroma of the small flames is impossible to ignore for Jiang Cheng, who has always been wary of fire. But the lights are beautiful, and the red glow of them in the sky washes the town in a warm, cheery hue.
He does not linger for long, however. After all, he has done this every year since he was but an adolescent. He combs through the stalls shortly for candles and incense sticks, in the precise scent and colours he prefers. Just as he is about to leave, a display of snacks for animals catches his attention.
Jiang Cheng supposes it is alright to pamper his beasts.
“May your wishes come true,” someone tells him as he passes. And Jiang Cheng, unable to remember their name or their connection to him, inexplicably feels heat gather in his throat. Jiang Cheng has never been one for platitudes, even those of the festive, seasonal sort. But the words are not spiteful, and the smile by which they are accompanied is not vicious.
Perhaps, they are even just a touch kind.
He cannot find kind words to say and so replies, bleak, “Happy Spring Festival.” Then, he leaves.
His sister used to plan her well-wishes in advance. Wishes are important, she would always stress, brush in hand. Each wish is significant. Each wish must be well-thought.
Jiang Cheng never cared for it. He supposes he still does not particularly care.
Perhaps, however, there is merit in some pretty words.
He remembers little of his journey back to Lotus Pier. His family home is built on land that used to be the centre of Yunmeng, but it has been decades upon decades since the Jiang have truly been the centre of anything.
Damp noses nudge at his full hands and he manages to wear something like a splintering smile for Moli, Feifei, and Xiao Ai. Their tongues and tails wag with pleasure and unfiltered delight.
Indulgent, Jiang Cheng allows them to tug at his arms until his burdens are within reach of their mouths and they may stick their snouts in to search for their treats.
“Okay, you spoilt infants,” Jiang Cheng says and rights himself. He points with his toe to the main house. “Off you go. Go home.”
When they are gone, dark fur disappearing behind bland wood, Jiang Cheng’s every bone is suddenly hollow and unbearably heavy all at once.
He stumbles to the section of the river that knocks against Lotus Pier.
He has been alone—has done this for so many springs that it takes only muscle memory to prepare for his ritual.
As his hands move with little input from his consciousness, he thinks of his parents. His sister. The men and women who all swore themselves to his family and their town.
When he first learnt to swim, he was so very small. It is natural to him, now, to move in water; everyone seems to be able to do it, and it is nearly unfathomable that there exists someone in Yunmeng who is incapable. It was his sister who taught him, holding onto his pudgy hands as she sat on the dock—this same wooden dock, before it burnt and had to be rebuilt—and told him, Just float and kick, A-Cheng. I’ve got you.
And she did. And when Jiang Cheng could bear letting go and kept his head above water, his parents and all the hands loitering to watch the Jiang heir take his not-quite first step congratulated him.
They had such high hopes for him.
He sinks into the river, his formal garments momentarily dragging him down before slowly rising to float around his waist, and gathers lily pads to himself, grabbing them by their floating roots, one for each person he has failed. He continues to gather them, fingers working seemingly tirelessly. Endlessly.
He works in silence.
It is interrupted only by the burst of colours in the sky above Yunmeng—flashing lights of fireworks that signal celebration and not urgency. The chant of people singing reaches his sensitive ears; he snips the roots of the lily pads and watches as they float away from him, drifting along with paper lanterns. The ink of his wishes are stark against the flickering candlelight.
He closes his eyes.
When he opens them, Lan Xichen is there, at the end of the dock. His robes are, as always, pristine, barely ruffled hems flitting about his still feet. He does not look like he belongs here.
In his hands, he has a small, red packet. Despite himself, Jiang Cheng smiles and rolls his eyes heavenward. The intention is obvious.
“It is only right,” Lan Xichen says, approaching Jiang Cheng with graceful, measured steps, “that a junior receives one.” Jiang Cheng thinks it could be an attempt at a joke, but the humour falls flat, off-kilter.
Jiang Cheng accepts the packet anyway. It is hefty with coin, and Jiang Cheng almost wants to ask if Lan Xichen sees him as a child. He refrains, however, at the shine that enters Lan Xichen’s eyes and satisfies himself with smoothing his thumbs absently over the calligraphy and feeling the barely-there ling qi woven into the silk thrumming beneath his touch. He tucks it to his chest, basks in the rectangle of warmth against his skin, before he slips it into his inner robes.
He has the grace to thank Lan Xichen for his little surprise.
Then, they exist in welcome silence.
With Lan Xichen this close, Jiang Cheng is forced to look up at him, tilting his head back and squinting against the rays of the setting sun bouncing off his dark hair. At the motion, Jiang Cheng feels his own haphazardly tied hair fall loose, spilling down his neck and his back.
From where he is standing, Lan Xichen can take in Jiang Cheng’s inappropriate appearance, the water that has soaked his inner robes to his neckline, the lilies gradually drifting away. Jiang Cheng wonders what Lan Xichen sees.
“Jiang Wanyin,” Lan Xichen says, “may I ask you something?”
Jiang Cheng laughs, a dry exhale. “You need not be so polite with me. Just ask.”
Lan Xichen stares at him very seriously. For once, his ever-present smile is gone and replaced with hesitant blankness.
Lan Xichen’s external countenance is unfailingly conscientious, as though the presentation of his emotions must be appeasing and palatable to all those who see it. Jiang Cheng, who despises empty facades, has always found this mildly uncomfortable, something he allows himself to be upset over in the privacy of his own thoughts. But he finds he prefers any of Lan Xichen’s other expressions to this. He almost reaches out to forcibly quirk his lips.
Smile, he thinks. Smile, please.
Lan Xichen’s question is worded with care, “For whom are the flowers?”
Jiang Cheng does not allow himself to dawdle. His admission is quick and quiet, as though he hopes it drifts away with the wind before it can reach Lan Xichen’s curious ears: “My family.” Two words, and he croaks. It is pathetic how he is unable to even look him in the eye.
But Lan Xichen does not seem to mind. He takes Jiang Cheng’s confession as it is. Instead, Lan Xichen settles beside him naturally, lowering himself to the dock’s edge without bunching the fabrics of his robes. He is never clumsy, always certain in his movements, but he does seem to hesitate before he lets his robes dip, ever so slightly, in the water. He does not take his boots off either.
Jiang Cheng has no such reservations. He drags his bare toes on the surface of the river. The weather is almost too cold to do so at this time, but cultivators run hot. A little cold is nothing he cannot handle.
He remembers, briefly, of doing the same as a child, with his mother scolding him from the table she would make his father or their servants bring outside when the weather was not too humid for it. His sister was always beside him, teasing his hair into pretty loops he never felt suited his face. His father was hardly around to be so vivid in his memories of idle days, but the dogs he let Jiang Cheng keep never left him even then.
When the cold finally breaks through his thick skin and seeps into his bones, Jiang Cheng notices it only from the manner in which his fingers begin to tremble. Silently, Lan Xichen offers him a hand and a kind, warm smile; he assists Jiang Cheng from the river, heedless, it seems, of the water Jiang Cheng inadvertently splashes onto his otherwise unspoilt robes. With steady hands, he guides Jiang Cheng back into the outer robes of his hanfu, and, when Jiang Cheng does not make a sound, ties them close over his chest neatly. He is careful to attach Jiang Cheng’s clarity bell onto his waist—it tinkles lightly, but Jiang Cheng knows it is unlikely Lan Xichen can hear it. Sandu is affixed to his sash.
Finally, he asks, fingers lingering on Jiang Cheng’s hips, “May I stay?”
Finally, Jiang Cheng speaks, twisting his fingers in Lan Xichen’s immaculate robes, “I won’t let you leave.”
Their eyes meet, and Jiang Cheng stares at him with something like indignation. His heart beats in his throat; his fingers tighten in white fabrics, disturbing them further.
But there is no sign of whatever it is Jiang Cheng was afraid would be on Lan Xichen’s face. Instead, he appears to be flattered, pleased, and he holds Jiang Cheng’s face gently between his hands. Jiang Cheng allows himself to lean into his touch.
Lan Xichen is so warm.
Impossibly sincere, impossibly steady, impossibly impossible, he murmurs, “This one is honoured,” and the words pervade the space between them and fill Jiang Cheng’s entire chest.
“There are lanterns in the entryway,” Jiang Cheng says later, when the two of them are seated for tea, side by side. Their knees are touching, and it makes Jiang Cheng warm in a manner with which he is unfamiliar. He sinks into it and the comfort it offers him. “Have you seen them?”
“Yes,” Lan Xichen replies readily, and Jiang Cheng is not surprised. Lan Xichen has an inclination for beautiful things, as all people, even immortals, do. And the lanterns, Jiang Cheng knows, are beautiful. Exceptionally so, despite having forgotten so for a very long while. “They tell quite a story.”
“Oh?” Jiang Cheng leans into him, until their arms brush. Lan Xichen moves boldly, opening a space for Jiang Cheng to press against his side. His hand rests on Jiang Cheng’s opposite hip. Inside him, throughout him, flames are kindled. His tongue is fat and loose, his soul quiet. “Can you tell me about it?”
He isn’t looking, but he can feel the smile Lan Xichen is directing his way. And, as though he has only been waiting for Jiang Cheng to ask, he says, serene, “Of course.”