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Shortly after the end of the war, Huaisang sneaks out of Bujing Shi.
It’s not the first time, but Mingjue is tired of being afraid for everyone he loves, and although he won’t admit it, tired of everyone treating him so carefully, like a fractured firecracker waiting to detonate. He chases Huaisang himself, despite Nie Zonghui’s worried protests. It is a short hunt. Huaisang is many things, but sneaky he is not, and Mingjue quickly finds his brother in Yiling—Yiling of all places—strolling through the market.
With a growl, Mingjue grabs his brother’s sleeve, about to let loose all the pent-up fear and uncertainty when something lands on his foot. He looks down to find a stray baby clutching the hem of his robe, a little boy with messy hair and a trembling lip, and all the fight leaks out of him. He is so tired of anger, too.
Mingjue lifts the baby—too thin, he thinks—and tries to solve the welling tears with a friendly, not-so-Chifeng-zun smile. The baby smiles back, poking two dirty fingers into Mingjue’s rarely-seen dimples.
Mingjue laughs. “Let’s get you some food, eh?”
When the boy is reclaimed a little while later by a frazzled woman in a clean but threadbare homespun robe, Mingjue, Huaisang, and the baby have managed to eat five steamed buns, four youtiao, two sweet potatoes and three and a half sesame candies. They’re working on causing the disappearance of a stack of scallion pancakes.
“Aiyah, child, you will be the death of me,” she scolds, picking up the boy who solemnly hands her half of his sesame candy.
The woman looks vaguely familiar, Mingjue thinks, but she keeps her face averted, half-covered with a scarf. He wonders if she was scarred during the war and then realizes it’s a foolish thought. Of course she was. Everyone was.
“Do I owe you…” she starts to ask, but Huaisang, always quick to be generous with Mingjue’s money, waves her off, and she scurries away without looking back.
The boy waves at them over her shoulder, and although Mingjue is sorry to see him go, he doesn’t think about the baby or the woman again.
***
Wangji is tired and injured, and maybe he isn’t thinking clearly, but when he finds the boy hidden in a tree, he knows he won’t be allowed to keep him. He won’t be forgiven a second time.
But he must save A-Yuan. He must.
He goes to the only place, the only person he can think to trust.
Nie Mingjue might be known to hate the Wens, but he didn’t hate Wei Ying, not really. And he couldn’t possibly be the kind of man to hate a child (Wangji doesn’t have a good reason to believe that, he just does.).
As he staggers through the gates of Bujing Shi, Wangji hopes that even if Nie Mingjue could hate Wen Yuan for the mere fact of his existence, he would never turn away Lan Wangji, second Jade of Gusu Lan, Hanguang-jun, brother of his closest friend. They’ve known each other for years, trusted each other through a war. Nie Mingjue is, even, the man who gave Wangji his title.
He’ll be safe there.
They’ll be safe there.
And of course, he’s right.
***
It takes approximately six seconds for Mingjue to fall hopelessly in love with the weak toddler Wangji’s shaking hands give him. The baby snuggles against his warmth, clutching a braid in one too-thin fist like a lifeline, and sighs like he’s come home.
He needs love, Mingjue thinks, right before he sends Huaisang for every doctor he can find, and food. Lots of food.
When the Lan elders come, Mingjue has very good reasons for why Wangji can’t leave Bujing Shi. He was gravely injured and still recovering. The healers are doing everything they can to save his life. Qinghe Nie will not allow a hero of the Sunshot campaign to take further harm (Mingjue says this with as little censure as possible, far less than he felt after seeing the whip marks. He understands. He is the Nie zongzhu. But he does not understand).
He manages to keep Wangji safe for three months until Wangji insists he’s well enough to return to Gusu Lan for punishment.
“Stubborn fucking Lans,” Mingjue mutters, and Wangji’s grim mouth almost cracks a smile.
“I disobeyed my brother. My zongzhu,” he murmurs before he goes. “As long as A-Yuan is safe, I will not continue to defy him.”
Invoking Xichen is a dirty trick, but a successful one. Mingjue agrees.
He tells himself later that he had only gotten used to the regular presence of someone he is not related to, and this tight feeling in his chest is just a phantom reaction to change. He’s never liked change.
Luckily, he has A-Yuan to distract him every day, and there’s nothing more distracting than an active three-year-old.
The boy heals remarkably well, and he is a bright, sweet child, if a little prone to digging in the dirt. He doesn’t talk much, and Mingjue suspects that whatever the boy’s circumstances had been, whatever reason had compelled Wangji to save him (Wangji had only narrowed his eyes when Mingjue had asked, and Mingjue knew better than to press a Lan who did not wish to speak) must have been dire. He doesn’t mind waiting. A-Yuan will speak when he is ready.
It’s a surprise when Xichen brings his brother back to Bujing Shi six months later, and a greater surprise that if anything, Wangji looks more withdrawn, his pale face nearly grey with silence.
“The elders did not punish Hanguang-jun for leaving,” Xichen explains with a tight smile that Mingjue interprets to mean they wanted to, and Xichen dissuaded them. “However, he must still serve his seclusion, and the elders are allowing him to serve it here.”
“He won’t stay,” Mingjue grunts, but Xichen assures him that, given the options, Wangji had chosen Bujing Shi.
“He hurt himself,” Xichen says softly when his brother is out of earshot. “I thought…there might be fewer painful memories here.”
But that isn’t it, Mingjue realizes. It is, he thinks, a practical decision, exactly what he’d expect from Lan Wangji, second Jade of Gusu Lan, Hanguang-jun. Qinghe is the furthest from Gusu, the closest to Qishan. And A-Yuan is here.
Wangji seems weak but determined to hide it, especially from A-Yuan, crouching with a smile to hug the little boy when he runs up to greet him. He looks up at Mingjue behind A-Yuan’s back, obviously close to tears, and Mingjue thinks the same thing he thought the first time he saw A-Yuan: he needs someone to love him.
No. Mingjue shakes his head. It’s a laughable thought. He’s overly-protective, that’s all. Wangji is like family. This is no different than nursing a broken bird’s wing, and it certainly wouldn’t be the first time he’s done that.
Once Xichen leaves, Wangji spends all of his time with A-Yuan. He occasionally tolerates Huaisang’s presence in the same room. He only acknowledges Mingjue when A-Yuan does, when the boy races to Mingjue on ever-stronger legs, arms upstretched, expecting to be caught.
Mingjue never disappoints him. It’s become his greatest joy, the sparkling sound of A-Yuan’s laughter, the revelation of love without condition.
Sometimes Mingjue tosses him in the air and sometimes A-Yuan rides on his shoulders to see the horses or watch the Nie disciples sword fight. But no matter where they go, Wangji always follows, hand tucked behind his back, a silent, reluctant shadow.
***
Wangji has a stubborn set to his jaw the first time he asks Mingjue if he can go to Qishan, as though he expects to be told no.
Technically, Mingjue should say no. After all, Wangji is only a year into a three-year seclusion. Mingjue is uninterested in enforcing seclusion the way the Lan sect would, but he’s well aware that this is a request outside the bounds of acceptability.
But Mingjue doesn’t argue. He just nods and says Qinghe Nie will go too. He’s rather pleased with himself when Wangji’s expression changes, flickering through surprise, confusion, and irritation, before settling on resignation.
They don’t find anything.
Of course they don’t. Mingjue didn’t think they would. He’s already looked.
They don’t find anything the second time either. Or the third, and it’s starting to pain Mingjue, the hollow grief gathering in Wangji’s eyes with every disappointment, the way he fades a little every time his hopes are dashed. Wangji is becoming a ghost, haunting Bujing Shi’s shadiest trees, its deepest corners, its darkest libraries.
Even A-Yuan seems concerned, trailing after Wangji, holding his sleeve, watching him with a furrow between his eyes that’s far too deep for a baby of four.
(A-Yuan insists he is not a baby, and all the other four-year-olds carry wooden swords, an argument that is slowly wearing Mingjue down. But he’s loath to give up the sweet baby who came to stay a year ago, who he used to rock to sleep. He can’t deny that A-Yuan is already skilled in meditating, and he will need a sword soon. Just…not yet.)
“He’s worried about you,” Mingjue finally ventures, when he finds Wangji sitting on a bench under a mulberry tree, A-Yuan curled up on his lap like a sleeping kitten.
I’m worried about you, Mingjue doesn’t say.
Wangji’s mouth tightens icily and he runs a hand over A-Yuan’s hair.
“There is no reason for him to worry,” Wangji replies with aggravating serenity, and Mingjue rolls his eyes.
“Sure, Hanguang-jun is perfectly fine, Hanguang-jun is a paragon of happiness and contentment,” Mingjue grumbles.
Wangji recoils like he’s been slapped, and it takes Mingjue a moment to realize his mistake. He never calls Wangji Hanguang-jun, always Wangji, a decade-old habit now, and he opens his mouth to apologize, but Wangji stands, lifting A-Yuan as he does.
“What reason does Hanguang-jun have for happiness?” he hisses and storms away, leaving Bichen forgotten on the bench.
Well. Not storms. Wangji never does anything as graceless as storm. But he definitely walks away quickly, back straight, shoulders square, and Mingjue watches him go, thinking….thinking something…something different…something…unexpected.
***
It hasn’t escaped Mingjue’s notice that Wangji never plays the qin anymore.
For some time, Mingjue hadn't been sure Wangji even could—his arm had been injured at Nightless City, cut to the bone. The subsequent whipping had done further damage to both his qi and his dexterity. Mingjue had also assumed it was why Wangji rarely carried Bichen anymore.
The doctors assure Mingjue that Wangji has recovered, physically and spiritually. Evidently there is another impediment.
“He left Wangji in Cloud Recesses,” Xichen tells Mingjue.
Xichen visits every few months, ostensibly to ensure Mingjue is enforcing the seclusion. Primarily, though, he sits with Wangji, talking about their home, their family, and the world outside Bujing Shi’s walls.
Wangji rarely replies.
“But if there was another qin, if he had a reason to play…” Xichen adds, leaving so many things unsaid, Mingjue wants to shake him.
Mingjue remembered the way Wangji had always looked when he’d played before, sitting across from Xichen, his face bright and open, like this was the one part of his life that truly brought him happiness. That and sword fighting. That and sword fighting and…
Well anyway, he never looks that way anymore.
Happiness, Mingjue muses. What is happiness?
Qinghe Nie isn’t exactly a musical sect, but Huaisang reminds Mingjue where he can find a qin, and Mingjue spends a solid month debating the repercussions of a gift. Particularly this gift.
It’s A-Yuan who makes up his mind one day, climbing onto Mingjue’s lap and touching the old qin strings reverently.
“Pretty,” he whispers when the string twangs.
If nothing else, maybe it’ll give Wangji and A-Yuan something to do besides read. Mingjue honestly doesn’t know how anyone can spend so much time reading.
“This was my mother’s qin,” Mingjue says the next morning at tea, setting the qin in its wrapping on the table next to Wangji. “Xichen…used to play Cleansing…when he visited. To settle Baxia’s spirit. But he’s been busy. If you wish to play…I would like to listen. It…helps. Sometimes.”
Wangji’s expression doesn’t change, and Mingjue feels like an awkward teenager, confessing to the hideous crime of needing help.
He flees before Wangji can hurl the instrument at his head for his presumption.
***
“I am taking A-Yuan to pick out a sword,” Mingjue says at first tea a few weeks later. “Would you like to come?”
A-Yuan shrieks and jumps up and down, climbing onto Mingjue and squeezing his cheeks hard enough to hurt, but only as much as a smile that lasts too long. Mingjue hugs him, enjoying the simple joy of baby affection.
Wangji frowns at them.
“Tea should be silent,“ he points out, and Mingjue shows him his empty cup with a cheerful grin.
The corner of Wangji’s mouth twitches, and even if it’s just exasperation, it feels like a victory. At least it’s not serenity or sorrow.
Mingjue doesn’t wait for Wangji’s answer, just scoops up A-Yuan and carries him outside, tucked under his arm like a giggling piglet. Laughter isn’t something Bujing Shi has had enough of, he decides. It’s addictive, and Mingjue lets himself feel it, as warm as the sun on his face.
“Fly or ride?” he asks A-Yuan, but he raises his eyebrows at Wangji, who has predictably trailed after A-Yuan.
“Fly,” Wangji answers before A-Yuan can.
Mingjue doesn’t laugh at the sour frown on Wangji’s face. He is not fond of riding, and the highly inappropriate thought—not yet—crosses Mingjue’s mind, reddening his cheeks enough that he has to look away.
They go to Mingjue’s favorite swordsmith in Hejian and pick out a small jian, more like a knife, with a flock of birds dancing over the hilt. Wangji makes sure the blade is dull before he hands it to a glowing A-Yuan.
“Gege, thank you,” A-Yuan tells Mingjue with a respectful bow, and Mingjue ruffles his hair with a swell of pride he doesn’t hide.
“Thank your diedie too,” Mingjue gestures to Wangji, and A-Yuan obediently bows before skipping ahead, swing the weapon wildly.
Going to have to work on that, Mingjue thinks, chuckling to himself.
“Why?”
Lan Wangji’s question stops Mingjue in his tracks. He covers his surprise with a careless shrug.
“For caring about him. For bringing this happiness into my life. For being who you are. We owe you an endless debt.”
Mingjue likes the puzzled furrow of Wangji’s brow. He walks away before he does something foolish, but unfortunately, not before he feels something foolish.
They eat lunch mostly quietly as Wangji prefers (it’s far more difficult for Mingjue than A-Yuan), and then they walk through town not quietly at all.
A-Yuan asks Wangji about every single thing he sees, and Wangji answers with nearly infinite patience.
What are those? Ribbons.
Who are they? Acrobats.
What are those? Fans.
Who are they? Shepherds
Why? Because they have sheep.
What are they doing? Dancing.
Why? They are dancers.
What are they doing? Fighting.
Why? Mn. When you’re older, you’ll understand.
Mingjue bursts out laughing when Wangji resorts to an exhausted parental platitude and finally, finally, after almost two years, a smile ticks up the corner of Lan Wangji, second Jade of Gusu Lan, Hanguang-jun’s mouth.
They’re in public, so Mingjue doesn’t do anything so embarrassing as cheer.
He does something much worse.
He touches Wangji’s arm, squeezing for more than a heartbeat of time, long enough to meet Wangji’s golden eyes.
Mingjue doesn’t think about it on the way back to Bujing Shi. He doesn’t think about the flex of muscle under layers of Lan robes. He doesn’t think about the way Wangji’s eyebrows had flicked together. He definitely doesn’t think about the fact that Wangji hadn’t pulled away.
It didn’t mean anything, Mingjue reassures himself, and indeed, it doesn’t seem to have.
True, there is something less brittle in the way Wangji holds himself, and Mingjue sees him walking in the sunlight far more often than he used to. But his expression doesn’t change for Mingjue again. Whatever softness he shows is reserved entirely for A-Yuan, and Wangji is no more than polite to everyone else.
But one morning, there is music. Not Cleansing, not any kind of song, really. Just notes: some confident, some hesitant.
He finds Wangji and A-Yuan in a light-filled room, A-Yuan watching Wangji play the qin in rapt fascination, occasionally mimicking Wangji’s deft fingers.
Wangji looks up when Mingjue leans against the door frame. “If Chifeng-zun wishes to listen…”
He leaves the sentence unfinished, but the edges of his ears pink, and Mingjue bites back a triumphant grin.
“Thank you, Wangji,” he says, mimicking the Lan serenity he doesn’t feel.
Mingjue sits and Wangji plays Cleansing, and although it is beautiful music played by a master, and it does bring peace to the balance of his qi, it feels like he’s holding his breath the entire time, waiting for a wild bird to land.
***
Although he’s a little young for it, Mingjue doesn’t see any reason he shouldn’t teach A-Yuan the rudiments of sword cultivation: how to respect his sword, how to clean it, how to meditate with it. It’s something he honestly never thought he’d get to do with a child, any child, much less the child of his heart.
He never speaks of it, not even to Wangji, who he suspects would understand, but part of Mingjue is relieved that A-Yuan is a Wen, not a Nie. He couldn’t love him more if he was his own blood, and this way, Mingjue doesn’t have to feel guilty about teaching A-Yuan the jian and not the dao. A-Yuan will never know the demands of a Nie sabre. He’ll never feel the furious bloodlust every time he touches the hilt of his sword or the complicated fight for control. It’ll always be a peaceful exchange of qi.
Wangji always watches their lessons. He is not always expressionless. Sometimes—usually—he looks annoyed. But he never interrupts, and finally, Mingjue is tired of the silent judgement.
“Then show him yourself,” he finally yells one day when Wangji’s mouth flattens at some point of jian technique Mingjue is clearly doing wrong.
“Or better yet, Lan-shifu,” Mingjue adds, his voice full of mocking challenge, “show me.”
Wangji inhales sharply, his eyes narrow, and to Mingjue’s surprise, he pulls Bichen from its scabbard, the first time Mingjue can remember him even touching the sword’s hilt.
Mingjue grins, reaching out for Baxia in her stand, and she leaps to him, trembling when she lands in his hand.
“Go sit and watch,” he tells A-Yuan, whose face is alight as he scampers away, perching on a rock.
Wangji doesn’t hesitate even for a second, swinging Bichen in a wide arc and slashing down with the force of his golden core. Mingjue blocks, he and Baxia both welcoming the jarring pain of the strike. He’s missed this, fighting with a friend, someone he trusts. He’s long given up the hope he’ll ever spar with his own brother, he hasn’t seen Xichen in months, and no one else is even remotely his equal. Maybe, he hopes, Wangji is.
Wangji’s first few blows seem uncertain, as if he can’t remember the extent of his ability, the last thing Mingjue expected. He’s never sparred with Wangji, but he’s seen him fight. He’s extraordinary.
“Is that all you’ve got?” Mingjue asks the question with a teasing smirk.
Wangji grunts, spinning faster than Mingjue can follow with a flurry of upward chops Mingjue only blocks on instinct. He catches the last one on the guard and sweeps the blow aside, pushing Wangji with his free hand. Wangji doesn’t falter, not a single step, just whirls and attacks, a sweeping chop Mingjue has to sidestep.
Mingjue clicks his tongue. “Shouldn’t you have more respect for your elder?”
“Earn it,” Wangji snaps, and Mingjue laughs.
Wangji looks angry, but rather than being flustered by emotion, he gets better. Of course he does, Mingjue thinks, blocking a jab that vibrates down his arm. Of course he’s better angry, of course he’s more beautiful with his face locked in intense concentration, of course this was an idiotic thing Mingjue has inflicted on his libido.
The bout lasts a few more exchanges, Mingjue’s strength and experience only just a match for Wangji’s speed and technique. Mingjue knows if Wangji starts training again, he’ll be lucky to even pull a draw.
But this time, Mingjue does get lucky, the fight ending with Wangji blocking a heavy slice, Bichen crossed against Baxia between their bodies.
At least, Mingjue thinks, Wangji looks tired, his lips slightly parted and his chest heaving.
And yet…
The world hushes as Mingjue tilts his head, trying to read the expression in Wangji’s eyes, closer to the color of white tea today. It isn’t anything he recognizes, and he’s usually pretty good at interpreting complicated Lan expressions.
“Zhan-er?” Mingjue asks without thinking, and Wangji’s eyes close.
He makes a sound that might be a sigh, might be the momentary release of a thousand days’ tension, and Mingjue drops his sword arm, his other hand reaching out…
Wangji swallows and his chin snaps up. With an almost audible huff, he pulls back and shoves Bichen into its scabbard. He holds out his hand to A-Yuan and stalks away, leaving a very confused Mingjue alone in the ring.
***
“I am going to Qishan,” Wangji announces from the door of Mingjue’s study a week later, startling him with the sudden sound and the unprecedented rudeness.
Wangji hasn’t spoken to him in days, although he still comes to tea, to play the qin, and to observe A-Yuan’s sword training. Mingjue isn’t sure what to think about that, so he retreats into not thinking at all. Simpler.
When Mingjue looks up, eyebrows raised, Wangji looks away and bites the inside of his lip.
“Apologies, Chifeng-zun, but it is necessary,” he says softly.
Mingjue can’t disagree. What wouldn’t he do for someone he cared about?
You would take in a child that is not your own and a man who never will be, his thoughts remind him, and he smothers them.
Mingjue nods. “When do we leave?”
Wangji frowns. “It is unnecessary for you to accompany me.”
Mingjue laughs, a more brittle sound than he means. “Your brother and A-Yuan would never forgive me if something happened to you.”
I would never forgive myself, he doesn’t say.
Mingjue doesn’t drag along any of the rest of the Qinghe Nie this time. It’s clear this is never going to be a rescue mission, and he doesn’t think anyone else needs to witness Wangji's pain.
He follows Wangji to the edge of the cliff in Nightless City, staying a respectful distance away from the grief that waits. It isn’t his place to interfere, not even to offer comfort, no matter what he wishes.
Wangji takes something from his sleeve: a ribbon, as red as blood. He says something Mingjue can’t hear and isn’t meant for him anyway, kisses the ribbon, and lets it go.
The wind catches the fabric, swirling it up at first, and then it falls, gliding out of sight.
When Wangji turns, there are tears on his face, the first tears Mingjue has ever seen him shed. It seems like too great an intimacy to share, but Wangji meets his eyes, and Mingjue doesn’t look away. This is a gift he can give, he thinks, unflinching sympathy for the things that are lost.
“Thank you,” Wangji says when he reaches Mingjue.
Mingjue blinks in surprise. “For what?”
“For being here,” Wangji says. “For bringing unexpected happiness into my life. For being who you are.”
And then he kisses Mingjue, hands clenched around the front of his robes. It’s not a hesitant kiss, not uncertain at all, just as single minded and stubborn as everything else Wangji does, and Mingjue wants, he wants so badly to reciprocate, but…
“I’m not him,” he says, pulling away. He touches Wangji’s face, smoothing away the drying tear tracks, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. Maybe it’s the only chance he’ll ever get, and he selfishly takes it.
“No,” Wangji agrees. He doesn’t let go.
“I can’t…I can’t compete with…”
Mingjue doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. How petty is it to say that he doesn’t want to be second place to a dead man, that he can’t compete with a memory?
“I do not expect you to. I do not want you to,” Wangji says, biting the inside of his lip. His ears are faintly pink, matching the color of his mouth, and Mingjue aches. “You need only be yourself. I know my own mind.”
Wangji frowns like he’s facing an unexpected task, and then he smiles—still sad, still a little sad, but also sweet and hopeful and true. It’s a smile that gives wings to all the eager birds in Mingjue’s heart.
“I know my own heart,” Wangji amends. “And I will not squander another chance.”
He kisses Mingjue again, and this time, Mingjue doesn’t argue.
“Will you take me back to Bujing Shi now, Chifeng-zun?” Wangji asks sometime later, a little out of breath, and Mingjue touches the red bow of his mouth, still a little stunned that he’s allowed.
“Only if you stop calling me Chifeng-zun,” he bargains. “I’m just Mingjue. Your Mingjue.”
“Mingjue,” Wangji repeats, a note of haughty warning in his voice that thrills Mingjue to the tips of his fingers and toes. “My Mingjue, I would like to go home.”
Mingjue grins. Home. Yes, he’d like to go home too.
***
A-Yuan doesn’t really notice how things have changed. After all, his gege and diedie still dote on him, practice sword fighting and play qin with him, read him stories and tuck him in at night. But he does seem to enjoy finding both of his favorite people in one bed every morning.
Huaisang pretends to faint at the news, and Mingjue is forced to pelt him with pieces of fruit until he runs away, laughing hysterically.
He does, however, teach Wangji how to braid his hair like a proper Nie and, more delightfully, how to braid Mingjue’s.
Xichen is less surprised than Mingjue wishes he was.
“You will have to marry him,” Xichen says with a mischievous smile when Mingjue visits Cloud Recesses, before Mingjue even has a chance to ask his permission to formally court Wangji.
“I intend to,” Mingjue grumbles. Just once he’d like to be a mystery to someone.
He makes the trip to Jinlintai out of courtesy. His sworn brother’s face shifts in a way Mingjue can’t decipher when Mingjue explains. He smiles and bows, but some tension Mingjue had never previously noticed slides off his shoulders.
His eyes, though…the smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
Well, no surprise there, Mingjue thinks. He hadn’t expected this to seem like good news to Jin Guangyao.
They don’t get married until after Wangji’s seclusion has ended, after a quiet courtship, after Mingjue learns many fascinating things about his beloved Zhan-er, Lan Wangji, second Jade of Gusu Lan, Hanguang-jun.
Like how loud his sneezes are.
Like the scattering of freckles across his ribs.
Like the way he laughs when Mingjue rubs his nose on them.
Like the way his breathing hitches when Mingjue counts his scars and kisses them, thirty-four kisses, one for every mark, one for every reminder of how deeply Wangji loves.
They watch their son grow and they teach him about his first family and his second. Mingjue regrets that he knows so little about the Dafan Wen and that he played such a terrible role in their story, but Wangji says he can’t change the past, only the future.
“You can be a better man than you were,” Wangji tells Mingjue, “a fairer one.”
He softens the blunt words with one kiss and then a second when Mingjue agrees that they will find a way to build a different future. Together.
When A-Yuan is eight, Huaisang marries a Nie girl six inches taller than he is and strong enough to carry him on her back, a silliness they engage in on a regular basis. They seem deliriously happy, and although Mingjue would have bet his best horse that Huaisang’s preference ran the other direction, they produce twin sons almost immediately and don’t stop there.
The future of the Qinghe Nie sect, Mingjue thinks, seems to be in fertile hands.
When A-Yuan is ten, Mingjue and Wangji tell him exactly what happened to the Dafan Wen, and Mingjue apologizes. He asks A-Yuan if there is any way he can make amends, any way they can honor the memory of his Wen family.
After some days of thought, A-Yuan says he wants Bujing Shi to be a place where anyone who doesn’t already have a safe home can go.
It’s a huge request, a daunting task to last a lifetime. But it’s no less than Mingjue can do.
When A-Yuan is twelve, when his golden core coalesces, they give him his courtesy name—Nie Sizhui, a name that makes Mingjue cry. He doesn’t begrudge Wei Wuxian this memorial. Without him, where would any of them be?
Sometimes when it’s late at night and Wangji is asleep—flat on his back, dead to the world, softly snoring—Mingjue traces the curve of his nose and the line of his jaw. He wonders why he’s been so lucky, what star blessed him so abundantly.
He knows what Wangji would say. You make your own luck, langjun. Or, if he’s in a more frivolous mood, You don’t need luck, you’re beautiful and good.
Mingjue has never been in love before, so he has nothing to compare this feeling to, but he thinks he has everything he could ever want, every happiness in the world. He vows every day, every night: he won’t squander this chance either.
And he doesn’t.
*** Epilogue ***
When Sizhui is sixteen, a scandal rocks Jinlintai. Lianfang-zun’s half-brother—one of Jin Guangshan’s many illegitimate children—is turned out of Lanling after being accused of harassing Jin-furen.
Jin Guangyao refuses to explain himself, but Mingjue can hardly believe the thin, shy boy he’s seen once or twice, only a few years older than Sizhui, could possibly have done such a thing.
Sizhui begs them to find Mo Xuanyu and offer him sanctuary. Wangji and Mingjue try everything, sending Nie emissaries everywhere Mo Xuanyu had ever lived, even checking nearby temples and jails, but with no success.
“I’m sorry A-Yuan,” Mingjue tells Sizhui, feeling like a failure for not being able to accomplish this small thing his son had asked for. “We’ll keep trying.”
When Sizhui is seventeen, a disciple comes to Mingjue’s study, interrupting what had been a very exciting accounting of the number of robes Wangji was wearing, which varied depending on whether he was attired in Lan or Nie robes.
(Usually there were two more Lan robes than Nie robes, but Mingjue liked to count regularly and thoroughly, particularly on Nie robe days.)
“There’s a man at the front gate who says he used to know you and Hanguang-jun,” the disciple says, keeping his eyes downcast. “He said he didn’t know where else it was safe to go.”
Mingjue goes to the gate, hand in hand with his husband, and they meet a man with a familiar face, a ribbon as red as blood tied in his hair.