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Jiang Cheng doesn’t know how he got here.
He remembers meeting up with the rest of the regiment, healing fast but still weak—and suddenly, he’s assigned to do espionage work around the borders of Qishan. That’s war, he guesses. He’s never been in one, but he knows from stories and lectures that this is what usually happens.
Even when they’re on the tail-end of summer, the nights out in the open are still unbearably cold. Tall trees and low bushes partially shield them from the breeze, but it’s still not enough. Someone has to build a fire, but they first have to make sure there aren’t any nearby Wens to see the smoke.
They have this system set in place: first, the disciples disperse to check the perimeter at twilight. Then, they come back, save for two who are the first to stand guard. And finally, everyone who isn’t on their shift will stay in their campsite and settle for the night.
So when the disciples are off doing their initial patrol, that means Jiang Cheng is left to set up their camp with Lan Wangji. Everyday, they start the fire, prepare the meal, and never say a single word to each other.
It’s been weeks, and they haven’t gotten past this unseen wall that feels like it would never come down. That, and it’s only a few moments past twilight. Jiang Cheng had just sent his men to go patrol the border.
They won’t be back any time soon.
Jiang Cheng must admit, he’s not sure if he even has an opinion of Lan Wangji at all. This looming awkwardness is from all the second-hand information he’s heard over the years. His opinion of Lan Wangji is the same generic opinion of every boy their age—an untouchable concept that demands admiration and jealousy.
During this ordeal, Jiang Cheng realizes that he, in fact, does not know how to make friends. He’s been taught to lead, to rule, and to command. He doesn’t know how small talk works and doesn’t like imagining himself doing it.
Not everyone has to be his friend, but he’s sure there’s some unspoken political rule that Sect Leaders must maintain close relationships with members of affluent clans. If this is how his first run of politicking is going, he might as well step down soon.
Anyways.
That’s not the point right now. Lan Wangji works with him the same way those Lanling disciples under his command begrudgingly follow his orders.
He shouldn’t cause a scene now, not in the middle of a war where they’re bleeding money and men and territory on a daily basis. And definitely not in the middle of a forest, under a new moon, where Lan Wangji could kill him in his sleep.
Jiang Cheng stands to arrange the firewood, feels the skin and muscle on his chest grow tight, and winces.
Ah. He always forgets.
It throbs a little, warm and painful where it’s still chafing, but it’s not a big deal.
“Well, fuck,” he whispers, mostly to himself. Mostly to the Heavens. Hopefully at the Wens who decided everything they touch is theirs.
It’s not the physical pain he’s worried about, it’s how it sets his mind off. It plays at the back of his eyelids like fresh memories, and he feels Zidian zing to life at his sudden loss of control.
Pathetic.
He’s built more than this.
Clenching his teeth, he bends to pick up the firewood—but Lan Wangji gets to it first.
Jiang Cheng doesn’t fully grasp what just happened until he blinks to clear his vision. Lan Wangji is crouched right in front of him, quietly collecting the wood, in the closest physical proximity he’s ever been to Jiang Cheng.
This is strange. Even for their current situation. They usually never get in the way of each other. When they’re about to cross paths and entangle, Jiang Cheng would’ve taken the hint and stepped back.
But Jiang Cheng isn’t taking hints now.
The open wound on his chest hurts more than it did the first day, and it’s making him see things he shouldn’t see. He’s thinking of things he’s already sworn to never think of. Lan Wangji getting out of his way to alleviate his obvious suffering gets on his nerves.
Jiang Cheng feels a bit hazy, but he manages to bite out, “I’ll do it,” before he could think about it. “I’m fine.”
Zidian flickers once more, betraying him.
This happens a lot.
Sometimes, he feels pain shoot through his entire body, and the first unfortunate soul to catch his attention gets the brunt of it. It’s fine when it's a cultivator he doesn’t know, but Lan Wangji isn't unknown to him. He can’t throw generalizations at Lan Wangji to dampen the misplaced annoyance.
Jiang Cheng feels immense pain and it’s Lan Wangji he sees. It’s Lan Wangji he associates it with. His head points at Lan Wangji to blame him for Jiang Cheng’s pain.
All he knows is anger, and he doesn’t have anything to throw it at.
“Can you move?” Jiang Cheng insists. He can’t let go.
Lan Wangji glares at him, but says nothing. Instead, he picks up the firewood, walks to the middle of the clearing, and begins to arrange them.
Jiang Cheng’s entire body goes rigid.
“I said, I can do it,” Jiang Cheng says, which Lan Wangji continues to ignore.
He can’t explain the immediate heat he feels in his temples. Jiang Cheng walks and crouches to where Lan Wangji’s bent over the wood, nearly face-to-face, and starts arranging it himself. He does more to mess it up than help, but he feels like he needs to prove a point.
Jiang Cheng reaches for the top of the stack—
And Lan Wangji gets there first. He doubles down, as if already staking his claim on it. He’s quick, the bastard. Jiang Cheng looks up to glare at him, instinctive, only to be faced with Lan Wangji’s severe expression growing sharper.
That strange feeling of awkwardness takes over for a moment, and Jiang Cheng’s mind is at a loss.
This is the first time they have had any sort of close encounter. It isn’t like the short questions he asks about the terrain or the quick moments Lan Wangji asks him to look at something. Right now, the air is charged with inexplicable frustration, of pettiness, of Zidian’s flickering purple lightning.
Jiang Cheng counts his rapid heartbeat, too fast that he’s falling behind, but he doesn’t know how to go from here.
“Sect Leader Jiang is injured,” Lan Wangji declares. Jiang Cheng gears up for a who fucking cares, but Lan Wangji speaks again. “It’s a war. It is alright to be injured.”
“It’s a war,” Jiang Cheng says. “Most of our men are injured, and they need to fight anyway.”
Lan Wangji frowns, the corner of his lips twisting a little. It’s an expression Jiang Cheng has come to know in the weeks they’ve been working together. He isn’t very fond of it. “We are not fighting,” Lan Wangji says. “Reckless fighting does more harm than good.”
“ You would know a thing or two, would you.”
He doesn’t think he regrets it.
Jiang Cheng has never seen the Second Young Master fumble before. He has never even heard of him freezing up the way he does now. Lan Wangji goes still, tense, like an animal putting up his defenses.
He knows that Lan Wangji’s past decisions weren’t the only ones to cause Yunmeng Jiang’s downfall. Jiang Cheng thinks he should be angry at him. He thinks he should be angry with Wei Wuxian. He thinks he should be angry at himself.
Jiang Cheng thinks it’s satisfaction he feels, but he’s not sure it's worth it.
Lan Wangji recovers, smoothly and almost instantly, and he gets up. Without saying another word, he rummages their supplies for talismans to start the fire with. Despite the pride he feels, Jiang Cheng leaves Lan Wangji alone, takes his seat, and waits.
-
Jiang Cheng still needs more men.
The Wens didn’t come to Lotus Pier to teach them a lesson, they’d been looking to take over. That also meant they needed to eliminate every single Yunmeng Jiang cultivator to weed out spies and traitors from the very beginning.
It isn’t lost to him how grave the implications are. He knows there’s nothing left for him to lose, but he doesn’t think he’s ever stopped long enough to feel it.
Tomorrow, maybe.
“Steep incline,” Jiang Cheng announces, which gets grunts in return.
They’ve been walking through a tight forest path to avoid Wen soldiers, so now their four-day trip is getting delayed by three more days. Half of his men are young disciples from smaller sects in Yunmeng, the other half a group of spare Lanling cultivators.
Day by day, he’s confronted with the reality that he isn’t contributing much to the war. The only reason he’s even in the war council is because they’re a Great Sect, whose only influence comes from its history and not much else. There’s Zidian, but he doubts there’s much merit to it in the hands of a young Sect Leader.
Jiang Cheng kicks a small rock and it bounces off Lan Wangji’s foot. He hadn’t meant to.
Lan Wangji stares at it impassively.
“Do you ever smile?” Jiang Cheng asks, out of the blue.
He’s tired, and these Lanling men he’s assigned to lead don’t want to talk to him. He’s bored. He needs to sleep in the middle of the day. They’re running out of supplies.
“I’ve been told I never do,” Lan Wangji says.
They aren’t friends and never were, but Jiang Cheng somehow knows it to be true.
Jiang Cheng checks back on his men, just long enough to know no one’s dallying, and trudges on.
-
When they reach high ground, Lan Wangji stares back at where they’ve gone. As the days pass, the further they are from Yiling. Jiang Cheng had dispatched four of the dozen or so disciples he had left to scour Yiling and the bordering cities. Even if Jiang Cheng wants to be reckless about it, he is just one man—he can’t wander around until he finds Wei Wuxian without losing so much time.
There is no time for a Sect Leader at war to grieve his losses. Jiang Cheng can’t just stop. If he wants to keep Lotus Pier, he has to heed orders.
He has considered the possibility of going rogue. These past weeks, he’s been mostly left to his own thoughts; so of course, he gets there. He can take A-Jie and Wei Wuxian with him, find his more reckless disciples and convince them to start a small sect on their own.
That hopeful fantasy dissipates as he feels the scar on his chest throb, then realizes they can’t survive this for long. For as long as the Wens and their allies exist, he is a wanted man. If he allows all the other Great Sects to do all the work, he will owe them more than he already does.
Jiang Cheng is no longer a boy. There is no turning back.
He sees Lan Wangji stare at the same winding path they’ve taken to get here, and he almost feels sorry for him.
“Sect Leader Jiang,” one of his youngest disciples calls. “There’s a boulder in the way.”
Jiang Cheng takes one last look at his unresolved mission, spins Zidian on his finger, and walks to where the others are.
-
They’re bleeding.
Jiang Cheng and his men encountered a group of traveling Wen soldiers by chance, right as they’re crossing over to Yueyang. They’re supposed to meet up with a larger regiment in Qinghe tonight, but as things stand, their added numbers won’t mean much.
He grits his teeth as he props himself against a dying tree, the charred trunk crunching under his weight. Jiang Cheng feels around for his injury, then finds a gaping wound on his upper arm.
That’s fantastic , he thinks. At least it’s not where I’m healing .
Jiang Cheng looks through his qiankun pouch for something to stop the bleeding, but a white strip of fabric lands on his lap before he can start pouring everything out.
He blinks at it.
His instincts are still a bit skewed from recently finding himself in danger, so he feels slightly dizzy trying to understand what’s going on. When he finally manages to snap out of it, Jiang Cheng finds his benefactor sitting down and tending to his own injuries.
Jiang Cheng feels that throb of bruised pride again, but he’s bleeding and hazy. He doesn’t think he’s capable of saying something intelligent.
It’s almost unfair. Everyone else around them—including Jiang Cheng—have either torn robes, bloodstains, or both. Lan Wangji had stepped into the same battlefield as they all did, but his robes are still unimaginably pristine. No dirt, no scuffs, not even some wrinkling. His qiankun pouch is carefully placed right beside him, not spilling out like Jiang Cheng’s.
“I have my own,” Jiang Cheng declares. He doesn’t know if he does, doesn’t know if he can find it, but he can always figure something out.
Lan Wangji huffs. He doesn’t even look up.
“No, I’m serious. Here. Take it back—”
“It’s already stained.”
Jiang Cheng feels an eye twitch. He looks at the piece of fabric again, and he’s not sure if he should be angry.
There is a stain. It’s his own blood. Which wouldn’t have gotten on the thing had Lan Wangji not tossed it to him without saying a word. “This is silk.”
“I have nothing else.”
“Then use it yourself.”
He gets ignored once more.
“Weren’t you Lans selling these?” Jiang Cheng blurts out.
He doesn’t think much of it until he notices how loud his voice came out.
The forests were dark, ominous, and very, very still. His men are all busy tending to their own wounds, the only other sounds are soft whispers of bandages and moving robes. Jiang Cheng’s the only one loud enough to break the stillness.
Worse, the silence stretches after he speaks, a gap that takes him off guard and makes him feel uneasy. Everyone is visibly looking down, busying themselves with their qiankun pouches. Jiang Cheng looks up and the unsettling quiet becomes oppressive.
Lan Wangji has gone still.
Fuck.
The Lans did sell their silks, but they never used to.
They’d pulled out the best ones, from a collection that the Wens didn’t manage to get to. Jiang Cheng’s heard they sold a lot of old heirlooms, too; traded them for new weapons and building materials.
Jiang Cheng immediately feels the weight of his words on his own tongue, how terribly cruel it’d been, how someone would’ve said the same thing to Jiang Cheng and it would’ve hurt.
Worse, everyone heard.
Regret floods through him, unexplainable, but the discomfort has a more tangible physical effect on him. Jiang Cheng himself goes still, then cold and dizzy. He thinks he needs to say something to break the tension, but he doesn’t find the right words.
The Wens didn’t drive the Lans out of the Cloud Recesses, not like they did to Yunmeng Jiang, but the fallout was devastating nonetheless. Or so Jiang Cheng heard.
Lan Wangji keeps looking down, thoughtful. He carefully ties his own strip of cloth around his ankle, where he’d landed so gracelessly a while ago, something Jiang Cheng forgot had ever happened. The corner of Lan Wangji’s lips looks a bit tight, but he doesn’t flinch nor glare.
The silence drags on a little more, painfully so; until finally, Lan Wangji says, “They’re already cut.”
“Ah,” Jiang Cheng manages, then he looks down and sees the distressed edges on the fabric.
It’d been stupid of him to imply they sell a torn piece of fabric anyway, definitely not in a size that small. He doesn’t always know why he tells Wei Wuxian to hold his tongue when Jiang Cheng clearly can’t do it himself.
Jiang Cheng feels antsy.
Both because they find themselves inexplicably around each other again, and because Jiang Cheng has no sense of self-control. The rest of his men—what’s left of them—start setting up for the night. Jiang Cheng sends two of the least afflicted cultivators to go on a patrol.
Then, the silence continues to drag on, almost to an uncomfortable extent.
“They can’t be sold,” Lan Wangji finally explains, long after the conversation died.
Jiang Cheng reconsiders why that must be, and notices that no one’s listening now. Everyone’s busy building a fire, and despite being in an open space where there are others, the conversation feels a little more private.
He looks away, picks up the silk, and tries to figure out how to wrap it around his arm. It keeps sliding off, but he’s thankful for the distraction. It gives him an excuse to look away and not confront the consequences of his own cruelty.
“Thanks, by the way,” he says.
“Hm,” Lan Wangji responds, sweeping his sleeves so they fall neatly around him.
It catches Jiang Cheng’s eye. He would never admit to ever noticing, but Lan Wangji started wearing less elaborate robes in the time since they last met. The training camp was it?
He’s more rugged now, as much as Lans allowed themselves to be rugged. Lan Wangji had always worn nicer robes, even during the rare times Jiang Cheng ran into him on Nighthunts.
Jiang Cheng always thought it’s the most ridiculous thing. Lans like to boast their asceticism, their restraint, but their restraint has always been about elegance and not the lack of grandiosity. They wear white, the least offensive color compared to the Jins’ tacky gold, but their robes are always made in the finest silks, their swords are crafted by the best swordsmiths, and their instruments are decorated with the most refined jade.
Now, Lan Wangji is dressed for war, but he’s also dressed down to accommodate the dwindling resources of a once prosperous sect.
The fabric slips from his arm once more, and Jiang Cheng sighs.
He runs his fingers on the silk, feels his skin effortlessly glide against it, as if he’s touching the surface of a still lake. “They sold everything they didn’t burn,” Jiang Cheng says, peeks at his companion for a brief moment. “Even the swords. They didn’t like the hilts or something.”
Jiang Cheng doesn’t know where this is coming from. Frustration? Exhaustion? Perhaps feels the need to compensate, because that’s all he knows about making mistakes. Never admit to being wrong, Sect Leader Jiang , his mother had once told him. Make up for it without admitting defeat .
Lan Wangji smooths out his makeshift splint and sits up.
He barely makes a sound, not even his robes shuffle or the dead log he’s sitting on creaks. He looks like a statue under the new moon, bereft of any flaws like the legends told in his name.
“They burned the Library,” Lan Wangji says.
Jiang Cheng nods, not even sure if his companion could see him. He’s not sure if Lan Wangji cares that he’s trying, but he sleeps better when he rights a few things that have gone wrong in his life.
Some things can’t be remedied, and he’s aware of that. He just doesn’t want to think about it right now.
“Ours, too. It’s not as well-curated as yours, but it’s still a library. Family records and Jiang history. That stuff,” he says. “Should’ve read all of it before they burned it, I guess.”
“Hm.”
He looks up again, and he swears he sees absolute sincerity in Lan Wangji’s expression. He doesn’t know how he can tell, but he does. It’s a different expression, less severe than the ones Jiang Cheng has seen before.
Jiang Cheng doesn’t know what to do with that.
There’s a gaping hole where his heart should be, and ashes where he once called his home. What would he have done if he’d read all the family records, he wonders. It’s not like he could write it all down without getting a few things wrong. Wei Wuxian might be able to do it, but he’s not here now. Jiang Cheng isn’t sure if he’ll ever be.
Not that it matters. It is no way to revive his parents, his shidis, and the halls he played in as a boy. History is what it’s always been, an intangible past. He can’t stay there. Sometimes, Jiang Cheng wonders if he ever had the time to properly grieve.
He hears more than sees Lan Wangji rise, his fluttering robes finally making a sound.
Lan Wangji steps closer, not at all hesitant, and Jiang Cheng is suddenly too tired to even snap at him for doing so. When Jiang Cheng doesn’t stop him, Lan Wangji takes another step, then another, until he’s right next to Jiang Cheng.
He silently drops to a crouch, the gesture oddly familiar, then takes the scrap of silk from Jiang Cheng’s hand. Lan Wangji gestures at Jiang Cheng’s injured arm, and asks, “May I?”
Jiang Cheng is exhausted.
He wants to do it himself, and he’s tried, but the makeshift bandage won’t go on his arm the way he wants to. The fabric is stained now, soaked with blood where he tried to repeatedly position it on his arm but can’t quite tie it with one hand.
He’s bleeding.
He’s lost half of his men.
His qi has to circulate several injuries other than his arm.
“Some wine would be nice right now,” he muses. He doesn’t say ‘yes’, but he makes no move to tell Lan Wangji off.
And yes, wine seems more appealing when you can’t afford it.
Lan Wangji says nothing. He takes the silk, and gets to work.
-
The idea of war that Jiang Cheng grew up with has been an amalgamation of embellished stories passed on from one generation to the next.
He and his parents had lived in a time of peace, where the only true conflict had been small scuffles that never got past the contained issues between two or three sects. Sometimes, there were devastating consequences for those involved in these small scuffles—people have gotten poisoned, backstabbed, and betrayed by family—but it’s always something Jiang Cheng and a great sect like his had the privilege to not experience.
Jiang Cheng always thought war was a magnificent thing—cacophonous, heroic, and dramatic—everything that the books and stories said about them. His story would be that of a tortured hero rising from the ashes of his home.
It is not like that.
War is slow and calculating. The deaths of heroes are anticlimactic. It involves days of unglamorous walks, thirst, and dirt. They can’t mount their swords and fly, like true mythical heroes, lest they get rained down by arrows on sight.
As they reach the border of the Unclean Realm, Lan Wangji takes a step closer to him, and says, “One of the Lan healers is in Qinghe.”
Then he walks ahead in a flurry of white robes.
-
Their arrival to Qinghe brings no significant progress whatsoever. What little that’s left of Jiang Cheng’s troops join the bigger army, only to be stuck until deployed for small skirmishes in captured territories.
To be fair, he’s still in the process of finding all the cultivators who weren’t at Lotus Pier the night of the attack. Most of them are older, others too young, and Jiang Cheng refuses to dwell on that to escape the pathetic guilt he feels at the thought.
He does have a non-personal reason to return to Yunmeng, though. Maybe not in Lotus Pier, but in the neighboring cities. Jiang Cheng is still a wanted man, and so is Wei Wuxian and his A-Jie. If a manhunt scares him, then he has no right to march into battle.
Shortly after their arrival, Jiang Cheng counts the days in his head, and asks to go on his own. Nie Mingjue initially refuses to allow it, until Lan Xichen steps in to speak some sense into Chifeng-zun. Lans are horrifyingly convincing in different ways, and it’s that quiet “let them” had been enough.
Jiang Cheng doesn’t know who “them” is, until Lan Wangji appears by his side at the front gates.
He doesn’t question the other’s presence, and takes a step forward.
“You have not seen the healer,” Lan Wangji says, which is true, but also unexpectedly irritating.
Jiang Cheng takes another step.
“It won’t take long,” Lan Wangji insists.
“My Core will take care of it,” Jiang Cheng dismisses, and takes another step.
Quick as lightning, Lan Wangji gets in front of him. “Recklessness does more harm than good,” he says, in a strange, poetic moment that stirs something in Jiang Cheng.
This time, Jiang Cheng doesn’t have the heart to use it against him.
“I need to return in twelve days.”
Lan Wangji—unbelievably—raises an eyebrow. It’s a faint, almost unnoticeable thing, which Jiang Cheng would have missed had he not been paying attention all this time.
It won’t take long, that expression says, and Jiang Cheng hates that Lan Wangji’s right.
Jiang Cheng scowls, huffs, and turns on his heel. “Stop looking smug.”
-
This is terrible.
He underestimated how long it would take to get to Yunmeng on foot. It’s been a full day, and now Jiang Cheng’s stuck taking an afternoon break in front of the river.
Worse, Lan Wangji’s in charge of dressing Jiang Cheng’s wounds, like his caretaker. This is a direct consequence of Lan Wangji stubbornly following him all the way to the infirmary, to make sure he wins the unofficial argument, then oversaw the whole thing as the healer fixed Jiang Cheng up.
So, here they are.
He watches as Lan Wangji carefully arranges the contents of his qiankun pouch, laying out strong-smelling herbs on the grass while carefully keeping the strips of bandages on his thigh where it wouldn’t touch the ground.
Lan Wangji’s attention to detail is unbelievably impressive. Though, Jiang Cheng supposes that’s what happens when you have thousands of sect rules. The enforcement of punishments makes you think about everything you do, he assumes.
Jiang Cheng takes in the calming rush of the river, and sighs. “What do you do on slow afternoons?”
Lan Wangji’s eyebrows draw together, faintly scrunching the skin of his forehead, thinking hard. He has this habit of thinking about what he says next, a discovery Jiang Cheng has achieved through a series of short, tense arguments.
“A game of weiqi?” Jiang Cheng suggests. “Kites? Shoot arrows at random trees?”
“Reading,” Lan Wangji supplies.
“Ah.”
Now he’s backed himself into a corner again. Just great. Way to remind someone their entire clan history got singed just in the last month.
Lan Wangji stands, slowly moves to Jiang Cheng’s side, and crouches by his injured arm. “Also,” he adds. “Music.”
Jiang Cheng did not expect him to elaborate, so he’s caught off guard. He does manage to hide his surprise, by looking away when Lan Wangji asks him to stick out his injured arm. “You managed to save your guqin?”
“Hm.”
“That’s great.” Jiang Cheng looks down at Zidian when he says so, and pretends not to notice Lan Wangji looking at him spinning the ring on his finger. He doesn’t know when he started doing this himself, but he now knows why his mother did it so much.
It is an effective distraction. Busying his hands and focusing his attention on the river lets him unwind the knot that’s forming in his chest. The anxiety is coming from everywhere, so his best bet is to just forget about them when he can.
It’s apparently so effective that he doesn’t notice Lan Wangji take pause.
“What is it?” Jiang Cheng raises an eyebrow. “Something on my face?”
“I need to change your bandages,” Lan Wangji says, his face impassive as ever.
Jiang Cheng, too, stops moving. He’s frozen long enough for it to start getting awkward. He taps his finger on his knee, swallows, and stands up to disrobe.
He forgot about this.
The bandages are under his clothes now. Jiang Cheng hadn’t thought about it, and Lan Wangji clearly didn’t when he proudly took responsibility of seeing to him like a wounded rabbit.
It feels silly, though. Why would he feel awkward? It’s not like he hasn’t gone to the river for an afternoon swim, nor hadn’t he grown up with sweaty boys splashing each other in the training field. He’s even managed to wash himself with the others during his mission with Lan Wangji. Jiang Cheng had turned around, of course—and he may or may not have panicked twenty times in the middle of it—but that’d been for obvious reasons.
He finally manages to loosen his robes, slipping off the one shoulder but not past his elbow, and only enough to have access to his injury. Lan Wangji stays expressionless, then starts to loosen the old dressing.
After, they sit in silence for a few more moments. Then, they carry on.
There’s nowhere to go but Yunmeng.
-
Jiang Cheng has been raised to become a Sect Leader.
Sect Leaders are not supposed to be stupid, weak, or wrong. He isn’t prepared to become a wanted man, not when it’s so close to the place he calls home.
It’s a war, he thinks. It is alright .
He imagines it’d be much worse if he sets out to walk the streets as he had before. Jiang Cheng isn’t stupid enough to make the same mistake twice, not consciously. Not willingly. Wei Wuxian is an exception.
So, they take the long way again, through the growingly familiar woods. It’s become such a normal thing that Jiang Cheng’s forgotten what varnished furniture smells like. All he’s ever known for the past month are mildews, damp grass, and crickets.
He sees Lan Wangji feel around for something in his chest, somewhere underneath his robes, and Jiang Cheng battles with intrusive thoughts once more.
This isn’t a discussion they’ll ever have, he thinks. He’s not sure there’s any comfortable way to talk about it. Their only common ground is a person, who happens to not be here at the moment.
All he knows is that his guessing games have been working so far—and by guessing games he actually means figuring out what Lan Wangji thinks. He’s good enough at it that he can tell when he’s about to set off an argument, and Lan Wangji is thankfully not rude enough to be overly-confrontational all the time.
It’s getting really quiet again, though.
Hearing any more of the unending sound of leaves moving against the wind and he’ll go insane. At least when he had men to lead, he could bark orders here and there.
Jiang Cheng sighs. Fine.
“Your boats are much smaller,” he says.
Lan Wangji looks up from mindlessly staring at their feet, and blinks at him confusedly.
“The boats in Caiyi,” Jiang Cheng says. “They’re much smaller than Yunmeng’s.”
It’s unclear how Jiang Cheng’s come to recognize the look of understanding on Lan Wangji’s face. But it’s one of those things that’s so subtle he never would’ve spotted it without extended amounts of exposure.
His eyes become just a bit wider, too small a difference it looks like he’s twitching. What differentiates this specific expression from his look of surprise is how seemingly brighter his eyes are. When Lan Wangji is shocked, the change of expression would be less gradual.
Anyway.
Maybe Jiang Cheng’s just getting good at said guessing game.
“They don’t use it for shipments.”
Jiang Cheng hums. “So just transporting stuff within town?”
“Hm.”
“You should really think about getting bigger boats,” Jiang Cheng says. He flinches almost immediately at his wording, then he hurries to correct himself. “I mean, when you get to it.”
Lan Wangji steps over a protruding tree root. He hops over it like he’s floating, and Jiang Cheng feels both impressed and jealous. “The elders don’t want to overpopulate,” he says. “Not ideal.”
“Caiyi is pretty populated if you ask me,” Jiang Cheng says. He doesn’t think he’d have the courage to speak like this to any of the other Sect Leaders. To anyone older than him. Lan Wangji is different, because he knows as much about politics as Jiang Cheng. Probably even less, if he considers Lan Wangji’s nonexistent interest in politicking and feigned niceties. “You don’t have to accept new residents, you know. But new traders are good.”
If there’s any proof that Gusu lives off of old, accumulated wealth, this would be it. The change must be unbelievably drastic, if Lan Wangji’s more subdued robes are anything to go by.
“Hm. Brother hasn’t been assertive.”
Jiang Cheng shrugs. “He just came back.”
“He used to be.”
“Hah?”
Lan Wangji frowns. “He used to be assertive.”
Jiang Cheng hasn’t heard anyone talk badly about Lan Xichen before, not even a hint of it. He doesn’t know what to do now that he thinks he has.
The elders run the sect, he’d heard someone say once, and it seems to be true.
However.
“Don’t be a prick,” Jiang Cheng says, because he doesn’t know what to do with this new-found information. “It’s only been a month since he came back.”
“Hm,” Lan Wangji hums, not like the curt sound he makes when he wants to avoid a conversation. It’s more stubborn and very, very sarcastic.
Lan Wangji is the worst . Somehow, Jiang Cheng doesn’t think it’s a bad thing.
“I hate that no one will believe me when I tell them,” Jiang Cheng scoffs. “What’d you think your brother’s going to say?”
Lan Wangji faces ahead, frustratingly obstinate. The corners of his mouth are a little tight, like he ate something horrible, and it’s likely the closest to an unrestrained frown Jiang Cheng’s ever seen from him.
He doesn’t know what went down with Lans for this annoyance to fester, but Jiang Cheng thinks it might have to do with Wei Wuxian. Lan Wangji had been wandering around searching—that’s how Jiang Cheng found him in the first place.
When asked why Gusu Lan would allow a young cultivator to go off on his own, in the middle of a brewing war, Lan Wangji had said nothing.
“Sect Leader Jiang is assertive,” Lan Wangji says, as a matter of fact.
Jiang Cheng doesn’t think it sinks in fast enough. Before he can even react, Lan Wangji starts walking ahead, never looking back.
-
On the second night, Jiang Cheng leans against a large tree. This time, he takes his entire arm out of his sleeve, which made things so much easier. He still pulls his collar to cover his scarred chest, though. That’s not an awkward conversation he wants to have with anyone. Not yet. Not ever, maybe.
Anyways, it’s nearly time for them to go to sleep. At least one of them is. Jiang Cheng will have to take first watch, but he’d already been lying down by then. In a day where it’s full of walking around and trying not to get ambushed, any sort of reprieve from physical and mental exertions is fair game.
He just can’t believe Lan Wangji managed to get him to adopt the Lan sleeping schedule, that’s all.
“Are all your medicines like this?” Jiang Cheng says, as he lets Lan Wangji put herbs and ointments on him. It doesn’t smell like how they make it in Yunmeng; it’s stronger, smells bitter, and it warms the skin when applied.
“Hm,” Lan Zhan affirms. “For bedridden patients.”
Jiang Cheng hesitates before he says, “And the milder ones?”
“Burned.”
“Ah,” Jiang Cheng says, tries hard to stay as casual as he can. “That’s unfortunate.”
“Hm.”
His arm is mostly healed, but it’s getting replaced by new skin now. It still feels thick and restrictive. He needs to get used to it until his Core can fully get rid of the scarring. It chafes when he moves too fast or exerts too much effort on the afflicted arm, something he’d probably forget mid-battle, but not right now.
Definitely not right now, for some reason.
In this calm forest, he feels every small thing. The damp grass under him, the slightly pointy bark poking through the fabric of his robes, the cold breeze whistling faintly in the background. He supposes he’s still allowed to feel these small discomforts, even when he’s been subjected to immeasurable pain before.
Jiang Cheng jerks his chin at Lan Wangji’s general direction. “What about your ankle?”
“Just a sprain.”
“Right.”
Lan Wangji looks him right in the eye, as if to put emphasis on it, and says, “I went to the healers as soon as possible.”
Lan Wangji is the worst.
Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes. “I can’t believe you gloat. You’re the most annoying gloater I’ve ever met.”
Seemingly deaf to his confrontation, Lan Wangji finds fresh bandages, and sets aside the used ones to be washed.
Jiang Cheng had given up telling him not to wash them, because that’s unnecessary and almost embarrassing to be served like this. But Lan Wangji had looked at him like he didn’t make an ounce of sense, then turned to the river to wash the bandages by his own hand.
“Shouldn’t waste resources,” Lan Wangji had said, and Jiang Cheng shut up and never said anything about it ever again.
Jiang Cheng watches him closely. It’s unavoidable. They’re so close like this that Jiang Cheng can feel Lan Wangji’s warm breath against his cheek.
He knows why Lan Wangji’s sticking by him.
This arrangement has the highest chance of finding who they’re looking for. They’re better off with two sets of eyes than one, and safer with someone covering their backs. It’s a decent plan, and Jiang Cheng appreciates it now even when he would’ve refused to do it before.
There is, however, something that remains unclear.
“Why do you insist on this?” Jiang Cheng asks, because they’re in between territories and it’s late into the evening. Because Lan Wangji isn’t stupid enough to leave right now, when it could leave them both vulnerable to surprise attacks. Because he believes Lan Wangji to be stubborn and vindictive, but he isn’t cruel.
Jiang Cheng might leave, if that petty encounter with the firewood is anything to go by. He’s just thankful Lan Wangji isn’t a fucking idiot as often as he is.
Lan Wangji doesn’t look up at him, but his eyebrows knit together again, and he says nothing.
The lack of response still triggers an instinctive reaction from Jiang Cheng. He can’t help it. When his A-Jie refuses to talk to him, it’s always because she’s rightfully mad at him. A-Jie tries not to make it seem like she’s ignoring him, so she always tells him not to worry, hums at him, or points at something he can look at. Wei Wuxian does the same sometimes, but he’s always the first to apologize.
Lan Wangji is rather fine with silence, Jiang Cheng finds.
“I know why I’m obsessed with control,” Jiang Cheng says, allowing himself to slump more heavily against the trunk. “I’m always this close—” he gestures with his pointer finger and his thumb, looking at the darkness ahead instead of Lan Wangji. “—to being perfect at something. I always forget a small detail, though. It’s always just one. I try not to.”
“Hm.”
“I'm good at sparring,” Jiang Cheng says, and he’s surprised it doesn’t feel like boasting. Usually, he says something like that to prove something, to assure himself of his worth, but right now, it’s just context to a full story. It’s just a passing detail in a casual conversation. “But I always miss something. I don’t plant my foot right or I don’t lift Sandu high enough to parry perfectly. I always practice it, but forget when I’m in an official match. Frustrating.”
Lan Wangji carefully places the bandages around his arm, lays out the fabric slowly and carefully, the bandages smooth and secure. Jiang Cheng almost expected the amount of control it requires to be the Second Young Master of Gusu Lan, but only in the midst of his recent injury does he see it in action.
It’s something about the way Lan Wangji smooths out wrinkle after wrinkle on the bandage, how he picks out stray stems from the herbs, how he warms the ointment before applying it to Jiang Cheng’s skin. It’s that level of control that Jiang Cheng tries but never manages to.
“How do you do it?” Jiang Cheng asks. He doesn’t specify what he’s asking, but he thinks he’ll be alright with any response.
It’s the same noise all around them again—swaying leaves, damp grass, and crickets—he needs a focal point to latch on to. Jiang Cheng doesn’t always do well in the quiet, a self-discovery he made since he’d been forced to run and hide.
Or maybe, just maybe, the quiet reminds him of something else. But that’s another issue altogether.
“Once spilled ink on a scroll,” Lan Wangji confesses. “I am more careful now.”
Jiang Cheng hums in agreement, but tries to hide his appreciation. Lan Wangji doesn’t really owe him this, inasmuch as he doesn’t owe Lan Wangji his own stories. But here they are. “Did you knock the ink well over, or...?”
“Pulled a piece of paper from under it.”
He can almost imagine what the mess looks like—ink slowly bleeding into the scroll and spreading on the varnished wood like the night sky. Jiang Cheng’s not the one wearing white, but he grits his teeth at the mere thought of having to scrub that off his own robes.
“Too quickly?”
“Hm.”
“Oh, that’s annoying,” Jiang Cheng groans. “I grazed my sleeve on a wet ink block.”
Lan Wangji visibly flinches, and Jiang Cheng thinks he should win some type of award for that. Having the ability to make an untouchable Jade flinch should be a lifetime achievement for anyone, to be honest.
“I still make mistakes,” Lan Wangji says, like a passing thing. Like a casual conversation.
Jiang Cheng doesn’t know why that feels like a milestone. Something about it just feels significant, as if that’s changed the entire world somehow. Then again, Jiang Cheng’s felt the world shift around lately, multiple times.
He must really be deep in his thoughts, because for some strange, inexplicable reason, Jiang Cheng says, “You can play your music in Yunmeng, you know.”
Well.
It’s there before he thinks about it, out of the blue but eager. He doesn’t know why he feels the need to say it, but the way Lan Wangji gratefully sighs in relief justifies his unusual thought process.
“Not here. We’re still trying to hide,” Jiang Cheng says, awkwardly gesturing at the forest floor. “But in an inn, perhaps with silencing talismans…”
Lan Wangji nods, and they set up camp for the rest of the night.
-
Jiang Cheng had been too optimistic.
Going around Yunmeng isn’t easy. Skirting Lotus Pier but not crossing its territory, always wary of an ever-present danger around them. The closer they get to their destination, the clearer it is that they can’t go into an inn without drawing suspicion.
They attempt to pass through the crowded streets, hopefully blend in, but Jiang Cheng’s panic sets off Zidian and Lan Wangji steers them right back. He tries another time, and the anxiety gets the best of him before he can even get past the line of trees.
So. They’re out in the open once more, under the waxing moon, and Lan Wangji dresses Jiang Cheng’s arm.
“Lan-Xiansheng said four days,” Lan Wangji corrects him.
“Lan-Xiansheng recommended four days.”
Lan Wangji levels him with an annoyed glare, which Jiang Cheng’s quick to snort at. “Like you asked your uncle if you could come here,” Jiang Cheng snorts. “You’re not defying orders if you didn’t ask for permission in the first place.”
Jiang Cheng feels the bandages suddenly go tight around his arm, not painful but unexpected, and he squeaks.
What.
The silence that follows is that of surprise and disbelief.
Jiang Cheng feels his entire face go hot, because why. This has never happened before. He looks to snap at Lan Wangji—who still has his fingers on the bandages—ready to lecture him over nothing. Jiang Cheng opens his mouth, but hesitates, because he doesn’t really know what to say.
Lan Wangji is looking down.
He’s staring at an uninteresting spot on the ground, eyes slightly wide and full of wonder. It does not comfort Jiang Cheng one bit.
“That—” Jiang Cheng thinks he might actually faint. “Don’t pull so hard, you brute!”
Lan Wangji looks up at him with quiet amusement, then nods, “Hm.”
-
On that same night, Lan Wangji walks too far from their camping spot.
Jiang Cheng really shouldn’t be this agitated. Lan Wangji is close to being an officially grown man. He’s slaughtered a legendary Tortoise. His swordsmanship is better than most adult cultivators.
He’ll come back.
When he doesn’t for what felt like a long time, Jiang Cheng does what a stupid man would do: he gets up to find him.
He manages to take ten steps away from their camping spot before he spots Lan Wangji’s white robes. Jiang Cheng feels a frustrated rebuke rising up to his throat as he marches forwards, closing the distance so he doesn’t have to shout so loud—
“Sect Leader Jiang,” Lan Wangji says, and lifts his arm.
Jiang Cheng swears he’s about to go off, but he sees what’s in Lan Wangji’s hands.
Lan Wangji innocently blinks at Jiang Cheng, as if he didn’t understand what he’s done wrong. “You said you wanted wine.”
Jiang Cheng thinks he lost his voice for a good few moments, before he manages to say, “What?”
“You said you wanted wine,” Lan Wangji repeats, with that same mild scowl that shows up when he’s made to repeat something. “The merchant was packing for the day.”
“Are you kidding?”
Lan Wangji looks confused. “No.”
“Are you an idiot? You know people recognize you, right? What if it’s poisoned? What if he tells people we’re here?”
Lan Wangji considers this, then looks down at himself. “My robes are plain.”
“That’s...that’s not the point!” Jiang Cheng hisses under his breath. “It’s white. You’re wearing a very obviously embroidered ribbon.”
“Not everyone knows my face.”
“What the—Lan Wangji!”
Jiang Cheng takes a moment to wonder if he’d shouted, but by the looks of how calm his companion is, it seems like it isn’t the case. Regardless—
“Already tested it for poison,” Lan Wangji says, as if that’s a thing you say on a daily basis. “The merchant is old. He could barely see me up close.”
“And the street?”
“The only stall left.”
“And If we get drunk?”
“I don’t drink.”
“Lan Wangji—”
“Doesn’t Sect Leader Jiang boasts how much he could drink in one night?”
Jiang Cheng feels his frustration rise, but not charged with the same irritation and anger as it used to. If anything, Jiang Cheng thinks he might actually laugh, but that’s strange, right? He never does that about something he’s frustrated at.
His A-Jie does, though. She’d be tired and worn and so, so frustrated with him back then. But she’d laugh. And that laugh had been fond.
Jiang Cheng doesn’t think he’s, in any way, fond.
He looks behind Lan Wangji, waits for someone or something to ambush them, but it doesn’t come. Jiang Cheng looks in every direction, tries to strain his ears for anything that resembles footsteps, but there’s nothing. He stares at the jar of liquor in Lan Wangji’s hand, pathetically longing for something so unimportant in the context of a once-in-a-lifetime war.
Fine.
He peeks at Lan Wangji, who’s still trying to look impassive, but it’s obvious by the way he stands that he’s feeling overly-smug about the whole thing. Lan Wangji doesn’t drink, though. Jiang Cheng thinks it might be polite to still offer the drink anyway, that’s how it is, right?
But he tries not to be an idiot. One, because they can’t possibly defend against an attack drunk off their asses. And two, no matter how ridiculous Jiang Cheng thinks some of their rules are, he isn’t an asshole that’s going to tell someone how to live their life.
“Are you sure you don’t want any?” Jiang Cheng asks anyway, out of practiced propriety, and walks back to their campsite.
Lan Wangji follows. “Hm. I don’t drink.”
Jiang Cheng plops down, suddenly tired from all the emotional labor his panic caused him. He never thought you could exert yourself worrying too much, but it’s a thing that’s gotten worse as the days passed and his Shixiong is still nowhere to be seen.
He thinks about the emotional labor he’s going through as he gets daily reports on what’s happening in Yunmeng, his frustrations about not helping enough with the war, his insecurities about his own lack of experience as Sect Leader—he could go on.
“You really don’t drink, huh?” Jiang Cheng sits, as he watches Lan Wangji struggle to open a jar. “Give me that.”
He takes the jar and opens it himself, as Lan Wangji sits in front of him.
It smells...kind of sour, actually. It’s on its way to becoming vinegar. He wants to point this out, but Lan Wangji clearly had to pull out some money for this, and Jiang Cheng’s not that horrible.
“You have to tell me what kind of food you like,” Jiang Cheng says, and takes a careless swig directly from the jar. He’s right. It is verging on turning into vinegar. He holds back a gag. “I clearly can’t pay you back on alcohol.”
“No need.”
Jiang Cheng scrunches his nose. “Of course, there is,” he says. “That’s what they all say, tell people “no need” when they offer to pay you back. It is the polite thing to do.”
Lan Wangji carefully sets Bichen on his lap, pulls out a piece of white cloth, then starts cleaning his blade. “I do not say what I don’t mean.”
“That includes things you say to Wei Wuxian, or is that just how you are?”
Lan Wangji pauses, his knuckles going tense. He looks like a Jade statue with Bichen on his hand. Maybe that’s the appeal of the white silk robes.
“It’s fine,” Jiang Cheng says, then he nearly chokes as the vinegar-wine goes down the wrong way and comes up to the back of his nostrils. He manages to contain himself, but he hacks up a few times.
Great.
Now he needs to explain that the wine is bad. Wine that Lan Wangji wasted what little’s left of the Lans’ money on, and Jiang Cheng can’t manage to even shield him from the fact.
When he looks up, Lan Wangji is standing close and staring down at him. This is neither the first, second, nor third time they’re this physically close to each other, but Jiang Cheng still has to suppress a gasp.
Lan Wangji looks concerned, which is a strange thing.
“It’s fine,” Jiang Cheng repeats, because he can’t think when his eyes keep wandering it’s way down Lan Wangji’s strong jaw. At night, they’re often covered in shadows. What little light that comes through hits the right panes of Lan Wangji’s face, making him look like he’s all sharp lines and strong edges.
It takes him a moment to realize Lan Wangji had asked him a question. “Do you need water?”
“No,” Jiang Cheng says, then coughs again. He doesn’t get to say more as Lan Wangji starts looking through their supplies for his water bag.
It’s...a bit embarrassing.
This isn’t exactly how he wants Sect Leader Jiang to come off to anyone, but at least it’s not in the middle of a conference, right? Lan Wangji doesn’t laugh all through his cringe-worthy encounter, as he hands Jiang Cheng some water and waits until he recovers.
After he manages to wash off most that’s lingering in his mouth, Jiang Cheng keeps holding on to the jar. He deliberately takes his time with it, because he is neither ungrateful nor impolite.
Lan Wangji reclaims his spot in front of Jiang Cheng, and turns his attention back to Bichen.
Jiang Cheng clears his throat to say something, but Lan Wangji says, “the wine is bad.” Lan Wangji manages to convey a question through a monotonous sentence, and it’s still some unknown wonder how he does it.
“It’s alright,” Jiang Cheng takes a small sip to prove a point. “Tastes better when you don’t drink it all in one gulp.”
Lan Wangji looks thoroughly unconvinced, but he continues to wipe his scabbard. If he keeps at it, he might dent the thing. Jiang Chengs begins to spin Zidian around his finger again, because Lan Wangji’s discomfort is palpable. And because Jiang Cheng doesn’t know how to deal with someone else’s discomfort when he’s responsible for it.
He shouldn’t have asked.
Didn’t he already decide they weren’t going to talk about it? Jiang Cheng’s sure there’s been an unspoken understanding even. They haven’t spoken about his Shixiong and they’ll never say it out loud, but they both know what they’re here for. Jiang Cheng thinks he would’ve reacted the same if Lan Wangji had rubbed it in like he unconsciously had.
“My bad,” Jiang Cheng says.
He’d hoped for it to be dubious enough. Jiang Cheng always does this—say something he wants as vaguely as he can—so he doesn’t have to deal with any of the consequences. There’s no explanation as to how this habit came to be, he just finds himself doing it all the time, and it works for the most part.
Lan Wangji’s eyes snap up to look at Jiang Cheng from under his lashes. He looks so calm in everything else other than his frantic hands. “Confusion changes what you perceive to be true.”
Jiang Cheng shrugs, and takes another large gulp of vinegar-wine.
-
They reach Yunping, and Jiang Cheng feels like he’s getting slapped in the face over and over and over again.
He isn’t so sheltered that he thinks things will go as smoothly as possible. He’s never thought that every single household he went to would blindingly support him.
But perhaps, Jiang Cheng is too young. Despite having gone through what he thinks is the worst for anyone to go through, he still never expected things to go the worst way possible. Again.
For every painstakingly tense moment of working up the courage to knock—him and Lan Wangji wrapped in thick cloaks months before winter—he gets a terrified “no” and “I’m sorry”. He maybe had one willing supporter for every fifteen doors he comes to. And when this is over, he still needs to leave before anyone decides to report them to the Wens a town over.
On the last leg of their venture to Yunping, Jiang Cheng gets so frustrated that a growl comes out of him. He says, “Yunmeng Jiang has wasted resources on your sons, and you have the gall to pay us back like this?”
The man behind the door flinches. He’s shaking down to his knees, too frozen to slam the door in Jiang Cheng’s face.
But Jiang Cheng is extremely upset. He doesn’t think too highly of his father, but only in the sense of how he ran his home. Jiang Fengmian was no ideal husband and father, but he was a decent sect leader.
Jiang Cheng takes a step forward, intending to rudely barge in, but a firm hand yanks him back so hard he collides against a solid wall of flesh.
It doesn’t soothe his worsening temper. He snaps his head around, ready to throw their covers and shout—
“What Sect Leader Jiang means,” Lan Wangji says, voice low and conspicuous. Not at all as uncomfortably loud as Jiang Cheng’s. “Is this war involves all of us. The Wens are closing in on Yunping.”
The man behind the door continues to shake, but he looks up at Lan Wangji, then Jiang Cheng. He shakes his head, then slams the door in their face.
Jiang Cheng stills, and feels like he might actually explode.
“Jiang Wanyin—”
“Why?” Jiang Cheng turns around, hissing, but he walks straight to the forests. They’ve blown their cover. It won’t take long until someone runs to collect money in hopes of turning Jiang Cheng in to the Wens.
Lan Wangji follows behind. He catches up without problem, and something boils inside Jiang Cheng that threatens to pour out of him right here and right now.
They barely cross the threshold of the woods when Jiang Cheng spins around and says, “What gives you the right to do that?”
There is no instantaneous reply.
Lan Wangji walks further into the forest, following Jiang Cheng, silent but steady. He waits until they’re far enough for the sound of the streets to dampen, far enough away that it won’t alert anyone if they start screaming.
Then, Lan Wangji explains, “You were about to break our cover.”
See, this is what Jiang Cheng hates about Lan Wangji—he’s calm, collected, and very intentional with every word he says. He feels out the tenseness, gives it time to disperse, and speaks so plainly. What’s worse is that he’s always right, no matter what the situation is, and Jiang Cheng is usually left to rethink his actions.
He does not give Jiang Cheng the excuse to be openly—and unnecessarily—angry.
“You—” Jiang Cheng starts, then he swallows. “You do not have the right to talk over me.”
“I did not.” Lan Wangji readily admits.
Lan Wangji is painfully polite. Jiang Cheng knows his politeness is sometimes coated in sarcasm and stubbornness. But Jiang knows enough to tell if the politeness is actually passive-aggressive, and has never once in the past felt as if Lan Wangji wanted to be deliberately rude or inappropriate.
“And I apologize,” Lan Wangji adds. He looks Jiang Cheng in the eye, politely asking forgiveness but sure in his decision to step in when he had. “But—”
“But I was about to make bad choices,” Jiang Cheng cuts in, but he feels the anger start to dissipate. “Can you…”
He doesn’t know what to say.
No one in his life has handled an argument like this. It almost feels like he misses the shouting, like he needs it, because no conflict resolves itself this fast. It has never not stung. Conflict should not, and would never be, resolved so easily and quietly.
But Lan Wangji waits him out. He does not cut him off. He waits for Jiang Cheng to simmer in his thoughts and pull himself together.
Jiang Cheng jerks his chin in Lan Wangji’s direction, and feels the tension unknot and diffuse. “Warn me next time, yeah?”
Is this weakness? What does his mother say about never admitting defeat? What was that about Sect Leaders never admitting to being wrong?
He is not angry, but Jiang Cheng is extremely confused. There is a sense of calm, but also a hint of hopelessness. He doesn’t know how to put things together and make sense of it.
“Hm,” Lan Wangji says. “We need to leave now.”
He sounds closer, like he’s right in front of Jiang Cheng’s face. It is unclear, until Jiang Cheng realizes Lan Wangji is right by his ear.
Lan Wangji is leaning towards him, voice low, rumbling, but soothing. He has a hand on Jiang Cheng’s shoulder, steady and calming, and offers Jiang Cheng comfort he hasn’t felt in a long time.
“Let’s go,” Jiang Cheng says.
He doesn’t know if he’d meant to sound so meek, but he spins Zidian around to free himself from further speculating.
-
Jiang Cheng continues his personal mission with the same, endless frustration. He gets even more “no’s” and “I’m sorry’s”, then the occasional “I’ll see what I can do” that’s most likely to end up in rejection anyway.
Lan Wangji holds him by the sleeve each time he speaks to anyone, like an anchor. He pulls lightly each time Jiang Cheng feels his temper rise, before Jiang Cheng says something he regrets. At some point, Lan Wangji had pulled closer. Their thick cloaks hide most of it, as Lan Wangji steadies him with a hand on his elbow.
He meets up with a surviving elder along the border, one of the many that came out of retirement to uphold their loyalty to Jiang Fengmian. Jiang Cheng inquires after Meishan Yu, and the response is just what he’d expected.
“They are too close to Qishan to join the war against Wen Rouhan,” Elder Mo says.
He’s not surprised. Since his grandparents died, Jiang Cheng’s other relatives have stopped pretending they care about him and A-Jie. They’d send gifts, but never invitations to spend their summers in his mother’s childhood home. They tried, at least, but then the incentive to keep trying had run out.
An alliance with the Jiangs had only been useful before the sect was nearly wiped out. It makes sense to support the Wens, at least for them. Jiang Cheng’s so detached from those left in Meishan that he finds no offense or heartbreak at the thought.
“If it’s any consolation, Sect Leader Jiang, it proves Madam Yu’s marriage was a defiance of family orders,” the Elder says. “Your mother was not here out of obligation.”
The Elder salutes Jiang Cheng, then Lan Wangji, and leaves like nothing happened.
-
They manage to find an inn.
Out of the way of the path they’ve taken so far and close enough to the forests to make an escape. When it’s dark and late into the night, they bowed their heads as they approached the tenant, and shared a room so one of them could keep watch as the other slept.
It’s pathetic how Jiang Cheng misses the smell of varnished wood and freshly washed linens, of the walls dampening the sound of crickets and fluttering leaves. These small comforts feel tragically foreign, even when he’s been to a few Nighthunts that have led him to sleep outside.
Jiang Cheng doesn’t mind taking a quick bath from behind a screen, thankful that he’s finally able to change out the traveling robes he’s been wearing for three days straight. These are personal comforts he’s always had the privilege to enjoy, and it feels silly now when there’s so much going on outside his need for a nice bath and a new set of clothes. He contemplates how his day has gone, counts how many heads he’s managed to get to fight for him, and impatiently washes himself of the grime and sweat.
On the other side, Lan Wangji moves like a ghost. He makes no sounds, but the cups and sloshing tea do. By the sounds of it, he’s setting up the table for supper. For both of them. It feels a little too relaxed, almost instinctual.
Jiang Cheng wonders where he’d started feeling this comfortable around him. How it’s come to the point that he catches himself drifting into the recesses of his own mind, comes back, and expects Lan Wangji to be there. Jiang Cheng expects to see Lan Wangji when he wakes, feels wrong when he doesn’t, and seeks him out when he needs to vocalize the thoughts that plague him.
Could it be?
He spins Zidian again, much easier to do now that he’s in the bath. He needs to take his mind off that direction. He doesn’t want the thought to fully form, and has never, ever allowed it to. Jiang Cheng doesn’t know what he’ll do when he does, and how it’ll affect his mind when it finally follows him in every waking moment.
Jiang Cheng closes his eyes shut and shakes his head. He thinks he might get a headache from all the thinking he’s done for the day, so he focuses on each and every task. He takes one item of clothing at a time, counts the time it takes for him to put them on, narrating every move in his head.
This is bad.
His thoughts aren’t as pervading as they used to be, at least not about this. He knows how to handle it. He knows how to live with them. He has done so for many, many years.
He gathers his thoughts before he steps out, and it doesn’t make things better.
Lan Wangji openly stares, which isn’t really an odd thing. He’s been known to keep his thoughts to himself, but has never been truly dishonest about what he thinks. First, he looks at Jiang Cheng in the eye, and the gaze shifts, towards the ends of his wet hair, then the loose front of his robes.
Jiang Cheng refuses to look away, but he still feels mortifyingly shy. He hovers his thumb over Zidian and presses down, centers his focus on the cold metal instead of what’s happening around him.
“Tea,” Lan Wangji says, in an aborted tone that sounds like he’d cleared his throat. Fortunately for both of them, they don’t get to simmer in the implications of that, because the innkeeper knocks to deliver supper at the right moment.
Jiang Cheng keeps to the sides, head bowed, as does Lan Wangji. The innkeeper praises and marvels at them, but only in the pre-planned way innkeepers flatter their customers. Lan Wangji strategically moves when she’s about to get a full view of him, but manages to bow and thank her as she walks out the door.
Lan Wangji returns to the table, and neatly arranges the bowls and saucers around. He noticeably places all the milder dishes on his side, while giving Jiang Cheng all the spice-packed, heavily salted ones.
Jiang Cheng is making it sound like a grand feast, but it isn’t. It’s standard food traveling merchants would choose, not a lot of choices and too little portions. And yet, this is the first time in a while that they even had a proper table to begin with. Jiang Cheng remembers eating standing up in his own small guest quarter in Qinghe, too tired and uninterested to go to the dining hall and socialize.
He must have been deep in his own head again, because he hears Lan Wangji call to him, and Jiang Cheng snaps out of it and sits.
“I have a silencing talisman,” Jiang Cheng offers, then pointedly looks at the guqin carefully laid on one of the cots.
Lan Wangji looks down, then a corner of his delicate lips pulls upwards. The movement is small, very inconspicuous, but his entire face changes. He almost looks shy, maybe content, maybe some other expression Jiang Cheng needs to see more often to properly attribute an emotion to.
“Is there a song you want played?” Lan Wangji asks, and it distracts Jiang Cheng from his heroic effort to not think of this.
Jiang Cheng wonders how he’ll go about his days knowing what he knows, now that he’s finally seen Lan Wangji smile.
-
On the last leg of his mission, Jiang Cheng sets up a location to meet up with his men from Lotus Pier. These are all the people all the retired Masters have gathered so far—a good forty young men—which is more than he expected.
Forty men will be enough to back him up when he wants to scour towns for his Shixiong. Forty men will make him confident enough to walk the streets, knowing he has a few people watching his back. It’s more than enough, at least for now. He can worry about getting more people once the Great Sects declare it’s time to storm Qishan.
“You look bothered,” Jiang Cheng says, seeing Lan Wangji’s scowl deepening. “Not that you don’t always look like that.”
Lan Wangji’s eyes narrow. “I do not wish to speak out of turn.”
“Speak.”
And because it’s Lan Wangji, it takes a while. Jiang Cheng’s allowed to be audacious enough to suggest the Lans open trading routes, while Lan Wangji is out here holding back when he has something to say. To be fair, he isn’t a political genius, but so is Jiang Cheng at this point. Might as well bounce off stupid ideas off of each other before someone wiser hears.
“The Elder,” Lan Wangji says, choosing his words carefully. “He says you had eighty willing to fight for you.”
“Oh, that?”
Jiang Cheng has given instructions to include disciples a year or two his junior, but never younger than that. He doesn’t think his conscience allows it, and—even when Jiang Cheng’s sworn to never to listen to him—he thinks it’ll disappoint his father if he’d recruited children to fight in the war.
He tells Lan Wangji this, and sees those golden eyes bloom with wonder.
“You’re impressed when I do the bare minimum, huh,” Jiang Cheng snorts, with no real heat to it, and runs his thumb along Zidian.
Lan Wangji steps closer as they walk along the forest path, as he places a steadying hand on Jiang Cheng’s elbow.
They’re far too early to expect anyone to be here, but they needed to leave before daylight. Visibly and anxiously looking down while hiding behind their cloaks isn’t the most ideal way to leave the inn.
Jiang Cheng is exhausted and upset more times in the day than he could count. So he doesn’t think too much about it when he leans into Lan Wangji’s warmth, the only steady thing in his life since Yiling.
“We need to talk about this,” Jiang Cheng says, vague as ever, because he doesn’t know how to deal with the consequences. When he does this, he almost always wants to be misconstrued, but he’s not thinking like that right now. He almost wants Lan Wangji to understand, because he can’t keep going like this without setting things up for all of it to explode in his face.
Lan Wangji’s hand curls around his elbow, slides against the fabric of Jiang Cheng’s cloak. There are so many layers between them, but Jiang Cheng is still hot where he feels the press of Lan Wangji’s hand.
“Hm,” Lan Wangji hums, and runs his thumb against Jiang Cheng’s elbow. “Tonight.”
For the first time in more than fifty days, Jiang Cheng sighs in relief. He runs his finger along Zidian, and pushes further into Lan Wangji’s space.