Chapter Text
Rumors of Lan Wangji’s beauty reached even the Burial Mounds, trickled their way into the ear of the Yiling Patriarch, who sat on his throne of bones and listened intently.
(His throne wasn’t really made of bones. Oh, there were enough bones in the Burial Mounds to build a throne; there were enough bones in the Burial Mounds to build the whole palace out of them, but the idea of it made Wei Wuxian’s skin itch. He’d had enough inadvertent contact with bones back in his younger days, when he’d crawled among them, had gnawed rotten flesh off of them out of desperation. The throne was made of wood, polished and painted to resemble bone. He had a reputation to uphold, after all, an aesthetic.)
“Tell me more of this Second Jade,” he’d said, leaning forward. The Ambassador from Nie leaned forward as well, enthusiastically. Wei Wuxian liked him, despite himself. The boy was prissy and delicate, lifting his skirts to pick his way across the fake-blood soaked flagstones, but he hadn’t blanched at the fake-bones guan Wei Wuxian wore or the fake-bone throne. He suspected that the boy could tell it was made of fake bones and might even have a few tips for improving it.
Nie Huaisang fanned himself and said “very few people have actually seen him. The Lan Sect is very secretive, you know, and because of his curse he’s restricted in where he can go. But my da-ge, that is, Sect Leader Nie, and Sect Leader Lan are good friends, so I’ve met him.”
“And he’s as beautiful as everyone says?” Wei Wuxian asked, admiring the fan. He wished he could wave one about rather than the flute. It got hot in the Burial Mounds in the summer. But, you know, sigh, aesthetic.
“More,” Nie Huaisang said, nodding in emphasis. “More beautiful than any words poets could utter. To look upon him is to look upon the face of spring; the vital energy of the Earth. He is every beautiful thing of nature concentrated. Where he walks flowers bloom and birds sing.” He coughed.
Nie Huaisang sighed and drank from the cup of wine Wei Wuxian handed him. “That’s not poetic license. That’s the curse. It causes havoc on the farms and vegetable gardens of the region.”
Wei Wuxian raised an eyebrow. “Is it possible?” he asked, “that the Earth itself is responding to his beauty?”
Nie Huaisang sighed. “Perhaps? The Lans speak about it as if it’s a curse, but as far as I know he doesn’t have a curse mark.”
“But what is he like in temperament?” Wei Wuxian asked. “The same who praise his beauty speak of a chilling personality.”
“He is shy,” Nie Huaisang said. “And not outspoken. When he speaks he cuts to the truth. This is not amenable to those expecting flowery phrases and flattery. The Second Jade does not lie or simper.
“But his brother often speaks of his kindness to children and animals, of his gentle nature. He spends much of his time playing music and doing calligraphy, reading books or poetry and philosophy. And yet, I do not wish to delude the great Patriarch- he has been trained as a warrior and is just as fierce with a sword as he is skilled with a qin or gentle with a child.”
“It must be an odd sight,” Wei Wuxian remarked dryly, “to see flowers sprouting all over a battlefield.”
“Oh, thankfully, the Second Jade has not been called upon to use his martial skills,” Nie Huaisang said, quickly.
“Mn,” Wei Wuxian said. “Thanks to me,” he said. “Who protected the Lan Sect- and the Nie Sect- against the Wens.”
“Ah,” Nie Huaisang agreed quickly. “Indeed, indeed.”
Wei Wuxian looked at him steadily.
“Have we gotten to the part where you feel like you have sufficiently tempted me?” he asked.
Nie Huaisang feigned confusion very well.
“Oh!” Wei Wuxian responded in mock surprise. “You have not come with an offer from the Lan and Nie sects? I thought for sure, after that impressive display I was going to be handed a betrothal contract.”
“Ah,” Nie Huaisang said in an equally skillful display of mock distress. “Would the Patriarch be interested in a betrothal? I can think of a few likely candidates… I wish I had known ahead of time- I would have prepared more thoroughly…”
Wei Wuxian burst out laughing. “Ah, Nie-xiong, I like you so much,” he said, wiping his eyes, then looked around, feeling guilty. If Wen Qing had heard him say that she’d skin him alive. You were not supposed to say things like that to your opponents in the middle of negotiations.
“Ah, I’m very fond of you as well, Yiling-xiong,” Nie Huaisang said, producing an elegant scroll from his sleeve. “If I did not, I would not be giving you this,” he said, handing the scroll to Wei Wuxian. “Sect Leader Lan is extremely fond of his brother and wished me to only present this to you if I thought you would treat him well.”
Wei Wuxian raised his eyebrows. “I was under the impression the Lan Sect could not pay their debt to me. Isn’t this marriage being offered in lieu of payment?”
Nie Huaisang inclined his head.
“And yet the Lan Sect Leader would have kept his brother back if I was found lacking? That is brotherly affection indeed. It is also defaulting on his loans and I would be forced to take retribution, but still commendable in its own way.”
“Would you not burn it all down for the sake of a younger sibling?” Nie Huaisang asked.
“I have,” Wei Wuxian murmured, looking over the terms outlined in the document. “What is this?” he asked. “I must agree to have no other spouses or concubines?”
“Sect Leader Lan does not wish his brother to become embroiled in inner court politics,” Nie Huaisang murmured.
“What of children?” Wei Wuxian asked.
“Does the Patriarch not already have an adopted son?” Nie Huaisang asked, mildly.
“Well, yes,” Wei Wuxian said.
“Surely adopted more children would not be a difficulty then,” Nie Huaisang said. “We have quite a large selection of unattached children in Qinghe- I could send some over for you to consider.”
“Ah,” Wei Wuxian said, taken aback. “Perhaps not at the moment.” He rolled up the document. “I will have to look at this more closely with my advisors,” he said, “before making any kind of response. To be honest, I had not considered marriage.”
Nie Huaisang nodded. “It would have a number of advantages beyond the obvious,” he said.
“The obvious being?” Wei Wuxian asked.
“Having the most beautiful man in the world in your bed,” Nie Huaisang said.
“Ah,” Wei Wuxian said. “Right. And what are these other advantages?”
“Increased legitimacy for your sect. The Lan Sect is small and poor, but they are the oldest and most well respected of all the cultivation sects. And your husband will have had all the benefit of a classical cultivation education, which you have not had. He will be able to instruct your disciples in the six gentlemanly arts and well as in classical cultivation techniques.”
Wei Wuxian scratched his nose. “I could just hire a tutor,” he said.
“You’d never be able to afford one with the knowledge and skills of the Second Jade. Not even if the Lan Sect were able to pay you in full.”
Wei Wuxian laughed. “Fair enough,” he said. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
His advisors, well, advisor, well, Wen Qing, was dead set against it. “We don’t need some prissy pampered little prince coming here and expecting us to wait on him hand and foot,” she claimed.
“I’m told he’s not like that at all,” Wei Wuxian said.
“Would you tell people your brother was a stuck-up bitch if you were trying to sell him to someone?” she demanded. “Anyway, since when did you want a husband?”
“There are other advantages,” Wei Wuxian said.
Wen Qing gave him a look. “Promise me you won’t just marry this pretty boy because you got drunk with the Nie ambassador,” she said.
He sighed. “Fine,” he promised.
But the thought of it- a man so beautiful flowers sprung up everywhere he went!- stuck with Wei Wuxian. He twirled his flute and thought and thought and thought.
A few days after Nie Huaisang left, Wei Wuxian packed a small bag and told Wen Qing he was going on a trip.
She looked at him skeptically.
“Just a short trip!” he promised. “I’ve got to… ah… get more potato sets!”
Wen Qing rolled her eyes and didn’t argue, though Wei Wuxian suspected she was the reason why A-Yuan showed up in the entrance hall and clutched onto his legs and cried about how he didn’t want his a-die to leave.
The trip to Cloud Recesses was uneventful. Wei Wuxian traveled by talisman once he was outside the Burial Mounds wards straight to the edge of the Cloud Recesses wards.
Getting inside the Cloud Recesses was shockingly easy. If he went through with this marriage he should give them some new wards as a wedding gift, he thought, as he used light steps to run down the waterfall to the forest beyond.
It was truly a beautiful place, especially after the desolation of the Burial Mounds. The forest was lush and green, full of flowering vines and trees laden with fruit. Everywhere he looked there were animals; an orchestra of brightly colored songbirds, clouds of butterflies that rose up from the meadows like dancing flowers, herds of tiny, wide-eyed deer, fluffy white bunnies coating on the forest floor almost as thickly as the clouds lined the sky above.
How was it possible that the Second Jade would ever agree to marry him? Wei Wuxian wondered. Surely someone would have told him of what it was like in the Burial Mounds, dead trees and not a bird in sight.
He sighed, trying not to feel envious of the miraculous surroundings when suddenly he heard music, intertwining so perfectly in birdsong that it took him a moment to realize it was an instrument. A qin. Nie Huaisang had said the Second Jade played a qin, had he not?
He snuck forward, double-checking his invisibility talismans until he emerged at the riverside.
He had to clap his hand over his mouth to keep from gasping. Nie Huiasong had not been lying when he’d described Lan Wangji as the most beautiful man in the world. Sitting on a rock in the middle of the burbling river, his qin balanced on his lap, he was the most perfect, graceful thing Wei Wuxian had ever seen, his face a serene mask of contemplation, his long fingers confidently moving over the strings, his eyes downcast yet somehow still sparkling with gold.
He was surrounded by animals; birds and butterflies perching on his white robes and dancing around him, fish jumping out of the stream to flash their scales in time to his music, deer and rabbits lined up on the edge of the stream to listen. There was even a chorus of frogs croaking a bass line to his song.
Wei Wuxian felt like he was having a heart attack. He felt like he was splitting out of his skin. How could this man possibly be real?
How could he ever ask this man to leave the magical paradise of the Cloud Recesses and come to the Burial Mounds?
And yet, as he journeyed home, slipping back through the insufficient wards of the Cloud Recesses, he couldn’t see how he could possibly refuse him.
Wen Qing was not happy and when Wen Qing was not happy, Wen Qing made her not happiness known far and wide.
She stomped about, which was adorable. Wei Wuxian tried very hard not to infantilize his terrifying older sister but she was so small and her little boots were so small and it was so cute when she was angry and stomping around in them. Her little scowls were adorable too, but she welded her acupuncture needles with a gusto that was probably unethical, considering she was a doctor, so he made very sure not to tell her this.
“Why do you even need a husband!?” she yelled.
Since the answer was ‘He’s the most beautiful person on Earth and my life will only be complete if I could gaze at his perfect face at him every day,’ Wei Wuxian mumbled some nonsense about sect affiliations and reputation.
“Where are we going to keep him?” she demanded.
Wei Wuxian opened his mouth to say that a husband wasn’t like a fancy statue; you didn’t have to build a special nook for him to sit in, when he closed his mouth and realized she was right.
He couldn’t marry that perfect, pristine creature and then expect him to spend his time in the horrible Demon Subduing Cave Wei Wuxian lived in, what with his messy straw pile that more resembled the nest of a large, not very particular, bird than a bed, his half-finished inventions strewn about, and the blood pool which was, if Wei Wuxian was going to be honest, growing more and more smelly every day,
“We’ll build him a pavilion,” Wei Wuxian said.
Wen Qing tilted her head and put her hands on her hips and Wei Wuxian, with great difficulty, refrained from cooing about how adorable it was. “Where?” she demanded.
“Um,” Wei Wuxian said. “By the stream,” he said.
“The stream so full of resentful energy all the fish swimming in it have grown tentacles?” Wen Qing asked.
“Yes,” Wei Wuxian said. “It will be a novelty attraction.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’ll have to clean out the resentment from the area,” she said.
“Yep,” Wei Wuxian said, scratching his head with his flute.
“Then the ground will have to be leveled.”
“Uh-huh,” Wei Wuxian agreed.
“We’ll have to buy building materials,” Wen Qing said. “Timber, tiles. Will you want a thatch roof or a tile roof?”
“Uh, I’m not particular,” Wei Wuxian said.
“How big should it be?” Wen Qing asked.
Wei Wuxian gestured vaguely. “You know,” he said. “Pavillion sized.”
Wen Qing sighed deeply. “Where are we going to get the money from it?” she asked. “Since we won’t be getting any money from the Lans, since you’ve decided to trade our payment for a husband .”
“But Qing-jie,” Wei Wuxian whined. “He’s so pretty .”
“Ah-ha!” Wen Qing cried, pointing her finger at him. “You went to go spy on him! I knew it!”
Wei Wuxian rolled his eyes. “It was pretty obvious,” he said.
“Then why did you try to hide it from me?” Wen Qing asked.
“Because you’re so mean,” Wei Wuxian said. “Anyway, it’s not like the Lan are going to be paying no matter what. They don’t have the money.”
Wen Qing snorted. “That’s a likely story,” she said.
“It’s true,” Wei Wuxian protested. “Sect Leader Lan loves his didi. He wouldn’t be marrying him off if he could afford not to.”
Wen Qing raised an eyebrow. “That’s what that little ambassador told you, isn’t it? A-Xian, you’re too gullible sometimes. Sect Leader Lan is probably sick of having a brother wandering around with a curse that plays havoc on local agriculture, and you’re the only person he can foist him off on, since we’re the only sect that lives in a graveyard instead of on decent farmland. It’s a bonus that it means he doesn’t have to pay off his very expensive debt to you.”
“But he’s so pretty, Qing-jie,” Wei Wuxian moaned again. “I want a pretty husband.” He pouted.
Wen Qing sighed and gave in. “We can probably afford it,” she said. “Let me look at the contract. Maybe I can renegotiate it. Get the Lans to pay for their spoiled prince to have a pavilion at least.”
Wei Wuxian smiled at her and bounced up. “You’re my favorite sister, Qing-jie!” he cried, kissing her on the cheek.
“You’re not my favorite brother!” she called to him as he bounded away.
The time between when Wei Wuxian saw Lan Wangji at the Burial Mounds and when the marriage finally happened was so long and tedious Wei Wuxian was honestly surprised he didn’t die of boredom. First, there were the negotiations, with the little Nie ambassador and the Lan Sect Leader, who looked enough like his brother that it made Wei Wuxian miss him even more (can you miss someone you have never actually spoken to? Wei Wuxian certainly gave it his best shot) but didn’t look enough like him that Wei Wuxian could squint and pretend he was in the presence of his breath-taking future husband. He tried anyway, only stopping when everyone else started giving him weird looks and Wen Qing elbowed him.
Wen Qing had gone into the meeting wearing bright red robes and a gold guan that added a solid half-foot to her height, and looked down her nose at the other cultivators present, an impressive trick considering she was a foot shorter than the shortest of them and said ‘I’m the Yiling Patriarch’s representative on this occasion. Under no circumstance is he to be asked to agree to anything, nor will anything he says be considered binding”, and the little ambassador and Lan Sect Leader had blinked down at her in confusion, and then she swept past and dropped to a seat. “Let’s get this over with.”
There was an awful lot to be discussed, it turned out, and it was all boring. The only part of it that wasn’t boring was when Wen Qing would say something and the other cultivators would give her looks of dismay and shock and then eventually agree. Wei Wuxian had been banned from having any input into the finances of their operation, but it seemed like they were getting the upper hand. Not only was the Lan Sect providing them with the cost of the new pavilion (including a sum set aside to pay for the removal of the resentful energy, which Wei Wuxian had opened his mouth to say was going to be him anyway, why were they paying for it, until Wen Qing had elbowed in the ribs), but the Lan sect would also be providing a monthly allowance to Wei Wuxian’s impossibly perfect future husband (just the thought of the words made him shiver) and any children they might have together.
Wei Wuxian had opened his mouth at this and, ignoring Wen Qing catching his eye and shaking her head, had said ‘adopted children?’ and the Lan Sect Leader had looked confused and then said ‘no, biological children’ and then Wei Wuxian had looked at Wen Qing in confusion and she’d elbowed him again, except softly this time.
Anyway, there had been the negotiations and both parties had to sign them, but since Wei Wuxian’s beautiful god of a future husband had tragically been absent from the proceedings it meant that the Lans had to bring it to him and then bring it back with questions and then bring it to him again and then bring it back with corrections and then, well, it took like a complete infinity for that to be done.
But then they’d had to consult an astrologer for a fortuitous wedding date and of course, the new pavilion had to be built, and then the wedding robes and other nonsense had to be made and it was basically another ten infinities before all that was done and finally! the palanquin containing Wei Wuxian’s angelic future husband was making its way up along the road newly constructed for this occasion, thin flowering vines struggling to creep up through the crushed gravel in its wake.
Wei Wuxian felt a little bad for his divine future husband. Cooped up all his life in the Cloud Recesses and the moment he gets to travel the country he had to be stuck in this stupid palanquin, but his brother had assured Wei Wuxian it was necessary because his heartbreakingly gorgeous future husband’s effect on plant life meant that if he were to travel in an unwarded manner- on horseback for example- he would play havoc with the crops of the country he was passing through.
The palanquin stopped finally, and Wei Wuxian’s extraordinarily graceful future husband bent so his phoenix crown wouldn’t get caught on the top of the palanquin and took his brother’s hand and then stepped down to the freshly coated with fake blood flagstones and the moment his foot, encased in an exquisitely embroidered silk slipper that charmingly matched the color of the fake blood, stepped onto the flagstones all hell exploded.
Maybe it would be more accurate to say ‘all heaven’ exploded, because while there were a few moments of panic when broken flagstones were flying like shrapnel everywhere and the cultivators were uselessly pulling out their swords and Wei Wuxian was flinging talismans about trying to protect the civilian villagers and his ethereal future husband was slowly collapsing in the most elegant way possible into his brother’s arms, when the clouds of stone dust had finally died down and Wei Wuxian had ascertained that no one was seriously injured, except possibly his tragically beautifully unconscious future husband, and Wen Qing had convinced the cultivators that no, they weren’t under attack and, yes, it was not a good idea to wave your sword about when there was too much dust in the air to see anything properly and there were civilians about, everyone gaped in astonishment.
They weren’t in the Burial Mounds anymore. Or, well, they obviously were. Over there was the Demon Subduing Cave and here was Wei Wuxian’s half-hearted attempt at making a lotus pond, and back there were the huts the Wens had built, and up there, overlooking everything, was the pavilion constructed for Wei Wuxian’s so much more gorgeous in person and up close but despairingly still comatose future husband. But gone were the dead trees and grasses and scorched ground and questionable fog. In their place was a forest as verdant and beautiful as the one Wei Wuxian had seen at the Cloud Recesses, trees with their boughs heavy with enticing fruit, liana twining up the buildings and dangling heavily scented flowers, birds so colorful they seemed like they must be fantastic creatures, swarms of butterflies like petals drifting on the wind.
Everyone looked all around, amazed and possibly a little terrified. Not one shred of resentment lingered in the air. The water ran so clear all of the fish were visible, their scales and tentacles now bright and shining. The questionable fog had lifted and even the distant hills seemed bursting with bright flowers.
And then, as if they shared one thought, everyone turned and looked at Wei Wuxian’s unbelievably amazing, but unfortunately still unconscious future husband. Wen Qing was kneeling beside him, his brother was cradling him in his arms. Wei Wuxian felt a tiny, stupid pang of jealousy that he hadn’t been the one who caught him.
“His qi has been seriously depleted,” Wen Qing told the Lan Sect Leader. “He needs transfusions of spiritual energy as soon as possible. Bring him to his pavilion with anyone who can donate.”
She turned and looked at Wei Wuxian balefully, like somehow this was his fault. “The wedding will have to be delayed,” she told him. “Attend to the guests.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but she stomped away, and Wei Wuxian was too worried for his precious flower of a future husband to properly appreciate how adorable it was.
It would be deeply and overwhelmingly inaccurate to say that Wei Wuxian hadn’t previously regretted the loss of his golden core, considering how very detrimental losing it had been to his life up until this point, but now he had an extra reason to regret the loss; as much as he wished he could have knelt by his devastatingly beautiful and unconscious future husband, devotedly passing him every remaining shred of his spiritual energy, sadly that task had to be given over to the Lan Sect members and other cultivators who had come for the ceremony, while Wei Wuxian was run ragged trying to look after his wedding guests who had been a little discommodated by a forest sprouting in the field where the pavilion tents had been set up for their stay.
If Wei Wuxian could have predicted something like this would have happened he would have tried harder not to lose his golden core, or else would have studied medicine so Wen Qing could have handled the task of finding sleeping quarters for fifty of the world’s preeminent cultivators while Wei Wuxian could have stood around looking tragic while making grand statements about the health of his ravishing future husband for as long as he remained comatose.
Instead, he scrambled around, relocating the cooking pits and making talismans to mend tents that had been torn apart by trees suddenly growing up in the middle of them, and assuring various cultivators that the wild animals that had suddenly appeared were perfectly harmless (Wei Wuxian assumed they were harmless. They looked harmless. Wei Wuxian’s splendid pearl of a future husband wouldn’t have magicked up dangerous squirrels, would he have?)
It wasn’t until very late that Wei Wuxian was able to fall tragically to his knees by his breathtakingly handsome future husband’s sickbed and sob on his perfect shoulder, a scene which was made much less effective by Wen Qing commenting dryly that there was a perfectly good chair right there.
Wei Wuxian shot her a baleful glance and sat in the chair, still clutching the smooth, warm hand in both of his. On the other side of the bed, his future brother-in-law, a sad imitation of the awe-inspiring perfection of his perfect future husband was bent over his other hand, feeding him spiritual energy.
“I believe that his curse caused him to expend most of his energy cleansing and restoring life to the Burial Mounds,” Wen Qing told Wei Wuxian. “As far as I can tell, the expenditure seems to have wiped out the curse.”
“You mean he’ll no longer be a danger to agricultural communities if he travels?” Wei Wuxian asked, frowning down at his future husband’s peerless features. Would he want to travel now, rather than live with Wei Wuxian?
“I believe that this is the case.”
“If only we have known,” Sect Leader Lan said, “we could have erased the curse much earlier.”
“Since it was only achieved by nearly wiping out his spiritual energy and killing him,” Wen Qing said, dryly, “I wouldn’t have advised it.”
“But he’ll recover?” Wei Wuxian asked.
Wen Qing nodded. “I have no reason to think he won’t,” she said. “It will take a few days, but he should wake up soon.”
“What about the wedding?” Sect Leader Lan asked.
“As far as I am concerned, you may hold it as soon as he is able to stand,” Wen Qing said. “But he will not have the stamina for the extended banquets that were planned for a number of weeks- and of course there is always the astrology. The favorable date for the wedding has passed- the next that was identified is in three months.”
“Three months!” Wei Wuxian exclaimed, looking down at the sleeping man. “But we were so close. Surely we can just skip that step?”
“Let us wait until Wangji wakes and can make the decision with us,” Sect Leader Lan suggested gently.
Wen Qing left soon after, and strongly hinted that Wei Wuxian should go to bed, but he refused, content to sit and stare at his future husband, magnificent even while sleeping.
The cultivators passing Lan Wangji spiritual energy changed every few hours, and it wasn’t until the early morning when Sect Leader Lan had returned to his post at his brother’s side that Wei Wuxian’s lovely future husband began to stir and blink his long, delicate lashes open.
He looked at Wei Wuxian for a moment, his flawless face composed and serene but blank, and then, suddenly, his expression seemed to soften, his lips parting in the slightest of smiles. “Husband,” he whispered, his heavenly voice full of awe and love, before falling unconscious again.
Wei Wuxian’s heart squeezed in his chest as he looked at his divine future husband in astonishment.
“You know me?” he asked, but when Lan Wangji did not respond, he looked up at Lan Xichen. “He knows me?”
“When Nie Huaisang first proposed the arrangement,” Sect Leader Lan said, calmly, “Wangji disappeared for a week, somehow escaping through the wards.”
“I’m not surprised,” Wei Wuxian muttered. “Those wards are as strong as wet paper.”
Sect Leader Lan ignored this. “He did not tell us where he had been when he got back, but after that he was adamant about wanting the marriage. I assume he had somehow come here to observe you.” Lan Xichen looked up and smiled. “He must have liked what he saw.”
“He did?” Wei Wuxian asked, amazed. He felt like his heart and soul had been like the Burial Mounds, dry and full of death after everything that had happened to him, and suddenly now everything in him was blooming.
He stared down at his sleeping unparalleled future husband as joy overwhelmed him.