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Lan Wangji unlocked his luxury apartment and flicked on the lights. Then he carefully toed off his indoor shoes, set his keys on the side-table, and greeted his rabbits. They scrambled to the edge of their enclosure, whiskers twitching in excitement. It was the same routine he did every single night without fail. Go home. Feed his rabbits. Make dinner. Eat dinner. Play with his rabbits. Night shower. Read for thirty minutes. Bed.
Nothing changed, and that was how Lan Wangji preferred it.
He returned his book to the shelf a few minutes before nine o’clock. After making sure all the lights were shut, he retreated to his bedroom, only pausing at the threshold for a few seconds.
“Go away,” he whispered into the dark before shutting the door.
That didn’t stop him from hearing the reply.
“Lan Zhan.”
But Wei Ying never listened to him. Alive or dead.
*
After another three weeks of utter agony, Lan Wangji decided it was about time he sought professional advice. By professional, it could only be Nie Huisang. He wasn’t ready to talk to his brother about this, so that only left one other person.
“You’re haunted?” Nie Huisang nearly choked on his hipster Brooklyn coffee. “Fuck. Is this, like, a psychological thing?”
In hindsight, Lan Wangji should have asked anyone but Nie Huisang.
“Perhaps,” he allowed. “But Wei Ying died over a decade ago. If my grief resulted in hallucinations, shouldn’t it have happened earlier?”
His eyes widened. “So… Is Wei Ying here right now? Watching us talk?”
“No,” said Lan Wangji. “I only see him in my apartment.”
“Have you tried exorcizing him?” Nie Huisang asked. “I don’t know anything — really, nothing at all — about the cultivator shit, but da-ge exorcizes people.”
Both the Lan and Nie families were among the Chinese-American immigrant population in New York City, but their traditions went back a long way. A very long way. While neither Lan Wangji or Lan Xichen practiced cultivation, they had been raised on (condensed) Lan precepts, meditated regularly, and carried on their family legacy.
“I’m… afraid he’s real,” Lan Wangji admitted, staring into his latte art. He couldn’t stomach the sugary sweet latte Nie Huisang had ordered for him. “And if he’s real, I don’t know if I should put him to Rest.” Could put him to Rest.
“Weeeeeeellllll,” Nie Huisang stretched out the word, leaning back into his seat. “Well. This really isn’t my area of expertise… But have you tried talking to him?”
Lan Wangji must have done something with his face because Nie Huisang reached out to pat his hand sympathetically. “I miss him too, you know.”
“I know.” His throat felt tight. They all missed him. Wei Ying had only been twenty-two when he died, and now the world had gone on. He had a wedding he never attended, a nephew who he never met, and too many friends that lived on.
Wei Ying was gone, and Lan Wangji had been clinging to his ghost long before the ghost spoke back.
*
That night, Lan Wangji went through his usual routine. Feed his rabbits. Make dinner. Eat dinner. Play with his rabbits. Night shower.
But instead of reading for thirty minutes, he cautiously set out his guqin. Since he was a music teacher, he rarely played at home. It was ordinarily better to separate his home life from his work life. Ordinarily. These past few weeks had been anything but ordinary.
As always, he ignored Wei Ying who would drape on various surfaces in the living room, talk and talk about how bored he was all day, and intermittently whine Laannn Zhaaaaan whenever Lan Wangji appeared particularly focused on anything.
Lan Wangji closed his eyes and played. His fingers flew over the strings, and he hummed along with the music. He had not played this particular song in nearly five years, but the notes were etched into his heart. He could no more forget it than he could his own name. His yearning, his love, his song.
“You asked me what I named this song,” Lan Wangji opened his eyes, meeting the gaze of ghost Wei Ying sitting on the other side of the guqin. “I told you to figure it out for yourself.”
“I thought I recognized it.” A complicated smile played on Wei Ying’s mouth. “I never figured it out, Lan Zhan. Not before…”
“I know,” Lan Wangji said simply.
In the time following Wei Ying’s death, Lan Wangji asked himself over and over again if his feelings were returned. If there was a moment where they had both loved each other. That they had both understood. But Lan Wangji was thirty-five now, and he had long accepted that perhaps they had only ever loved each other in different ways. Wei Ying had certainly not realized his feelings.
“I… don’t know now either,” he admitted. “But does it matter? Lan Zhan… You’re so lonely. You do the same things everyday.”
“I’m not too lonely,” Lan Wangji replied. He did do the same things everyday, so he didn’t bother refuting that.
“I don’t know how I’m here,” said Wei Ying after a few moments of silence. “Before you ask. I really don’t know. It was peaceful. Like sleeping. And then I suddenly woke up here.”
“Do you feel like time has passed by?” Lan Wangji asked. “Or that you’re as you were then?”
“Both,” said Wei Ying. “Did you see me all this time? I wasn’t sure. Not until yesterday.”
Lan Wangji regretted that go away . “I thought it was… all in my head.”
“Haha, maybe it is!” He threw his arms up dramatically. “Tell me everything though. How are you? How is… Jiang Cheng?”
“I’m well.” If this was all Lan Wangji could do for him, he eagerly would. “I’m a music teacher at Gusu Academy. I like what I do. Jiang Wanyin has been heading his family business in recent years. I believe Nie Huisang and him may have a relationship of sorts.”
“What?” Wei Ying grinned. “Really? The scandal. The gossip.”
Obligatorily, Lan Wangji rolled his eyes. “Yes. And Jiang Yanli… She recovered. Her wedding was beautiful. Her son is now twelve years old.”
“A son?” Wei Ying asked, voice hoarse. “What’s his name? Tell me about the wedding.”
“Jin Ling,” said Lan Wangji before speaking in great detail about a wedding that occurred over a decade ago. He described the music, Jiang Yanli’s dress, and the seating chart. He spoke longer than he ever did, and when he finished, the silence was heavy.
Wei Ying broke it, teary-eyed. “Ah, Lan Zhan. I missed you so much.”
“I missed you as well,” Lan Wangji waited.
“But,” Wei Ying began then hesitated. “But…”
“You want to go back.”
That was what Lan Wangji had feared and suspected the most. If Wei Ying was truly a ghost, his life had been one fraught with pain and betrayal. Even his closest friends had turned away from him in the end. Lan Wangji himself included. Death would have been a relief, and Wei Ying was no resentment-stepped ghost.
“I do,” Wei Ying choked out. “It still hurts, Lan Zhan.”
“I know,” Lan Zhan whispered. “I’m sorry.”
His fingers found the strings of the guqin once more. He wasn’t as familiar with Rest, but he practiced it enough as a youth to have the notes memorized. Rest, Wei Ying. Return to sleep. Be at peace.
“Wei Ying,” said Lan Zhan before the final notes. “The song. It’s called Wangxian.”
“Wangxian?” Wei Ying furrowed his brows. “Like… Oh. Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan .”
But there was nothing left for Wei Ying to say. He was gone once more. Lan Wangji smiled at the empty air, face damp with tears. Perhaps in another lifetime, they would play Wangxian how it was meant to be played. As a duet.
“Be at peace, Wei Ying.”
*
In the middle of the night, one late October, Lan Wangji died of a heart attack in his own home. He was sixty-four years old, age lining his eyes and gray weaving into his hair. His students were distraught. His brother even more so.
“I just — I just don’t know if he was happy,” Lan Xichen stared at his hands. “I’m afraid he died lonely and sad. Died of heartbreak.”
“What can you do now even if he did?” Nie Mingjue pointed out gruffly. “We can only grieve him.”
Lan Xichen’s shoulders heaved with another sob.
Jin Guangyao shot Nie Mingjue a quelling look. “I think he died happy, ge. You know him best, but I’ve never seen him more at peace.”
Lan Xichen forced himself to look inside the casket again. He barely could look at an image of his brother dead and gone when he should be healthy and happy. Sixty-four was still too young. Little brothers shouldn’t die before the older ones.
But Jin Guangyao was right.
“He… almost looks like he’s listening to music,” Lan Xichen whispered. “The song he composed. It’s that exact expression.”
“How does it go again?” Jin Guangyao asked.
Lan Xichen answered by humming. His brother had never intentionally played this song in front of him, but he had known Lan Wangji for a lifetime. As the years passed by, he heard fleeting notes and bars. His own rendition was clumsy, but it was the same song.
“Rest at peace, Lan Wangji,” he grasped his brother’s hand one last time. “I don’t know what happens next, but may it be filled with music.”