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Chapter Text

It was more or less, not supposed to be a difficult case. 

Lan Wangji had been night hunting around Gusu jurisdiction when he heard of the distress of a certain village down south. 

A yaoguai who had been ravaging the crops of the farmers, and later started killing their livestock. The villagers claimed that they have sent for cultivators to deal with the yaoguai, but they never heard back from them.

Reports from the small sect claimed that they tried to deal with the yaoguai, but after sending a second group of cultivators they never sent one again, as the last groups have all but gone missing.

It seems that the leader purposely neglected to report this to a superior sect, fearing that they would be seen as weak and unreliable in the eyes of their citizens. 

With that, Lan Wangji decided to take the case and eliminate the beast himself.

Though it did not go well as he planned.

He had the yaoguai cornered in a desolate village at the border of Moling, a great bear who seemed to have died by being disemboweled, and upon seeing a person it had started rampaging.

The second jade starts by trying to soothe the raging bear, though it's clear that the act is futile as the yaoguai carried a great deal of resentment. So Lan Wangji unsheathes his sword and moves to eliminate the beast.

It was a mistake for him to think that the village was completely desolate, he had wounded the yaoguai greatly when it changed tactics and sought to retreat. Just as he moved to chase after it, his eye caught sight of something moving in the darkness.

A child. He thinks, and when he looks a bit more closely he stiffens. Children.

Unfortunately the second jade wasn't the only one who caught sight of them, the bear paused in his retreat and suddenly ran towards them, probably hoping to eat something and replenish his strength.

Cursing his own hesitance, Lan Wangji quickly recovers and runs after it, strumming the strings of his guqin that sends a wave of attack towards the yaoguai to give him more time to reach the children.

He lurches forward, pushing the frightened children behind him as he brandishes his sword, ready to meet the bear's claws.

That was his second mistake.

The yaoguai, it seems, had actually taken to distract Lan Wangji with the children, in time for it to escape his grasp.

Spirits, the Lan has seen be sly, but a beast, Lan Wangji has never seen a yaoguai with intelligence.

The second jade quickly sends out a flare of GusuLan and works to tend to the children.

And that's where he is caught at, a week later chasing down the yaoguai bear accompanied by a few disciples of his sect, across Yunmeng jurisdiction.

His brother has sent word to the Sect Leader of YunmengJiang, writing a heads up about their presence in his territory and asking for permission to hunt the yaoguai and bring it back to Gusu. 

They continue their chase to Yunping, then to Jiangling until they are no longer sure where they are.

One of the junior disciples that came along, Lan Jingyi, commented loudly (and in a way his shufu might have fainted) that their surroundings have changed greatly, and when Lan Wangji took notice of it, he too felt suspicion rise.

The leaves of the trees are a group of vibrant orange, yellow, and red. Which would have made sense, if not for the fact that they were currently in the middle of spring and nowhere near fall. The grass had similar treatment, as if having absorbed so much of the sun that it turned a shade of yellow. 

Observing more of his surroundings Lan Wangji comes to a conclusion that they have entered an abandoned mining village, no sign of life can be sensed in any corner of the location.

His observations are cut short by a very loud, animalistic growl and they whip their heads to see the bear yaoguai come out of a mining cave. 

"Hanguang-jun! It's here!" One of the senior disciple shouts. 

Without needing his commands all the present disciples unsheathe their swords and move into a combat stance, the bear sways a little as if drunk, the beast is covered in blood from head to toe, and something hangs from its mouth.

It drops the chunk in its mouth once it takes notice of the cultivators and roars, mindlessly charging into the hoard of white.

With more people in Lan Wangji's aid he can freely sheathe Bichen in favor of his guqin, strumming the strings swiftly as it sends a strong wave of spiritual energy towards the yaoguai. The creature takes the hit, and the delay in his actions gives the disciples enough time to start attacking it. 

The Lan disciples were divided into two groups, the first one attacked with their instruments, playing Vanquish while the second group attacked with their swords.

While their second jade focused on attacking the yaoguai with his guqin, others circled the beast and slashed at any opening it gave. The beast falters, unable to protect itself from the flurry of blades, it attempts to fight back by swinging its claws at the disciples, which they dodge almost narrowly.

After what felt like a lifetime to them, the yaoguai falters completely, falling to its stomach and stops moving. 

Were they any other sect, they would've shouted and cheered in joy in their victory. But they were Lans, and as Lans do they only acknowledge each other's achievements and pat themselves on their backs. 

(Though there is one exception named Lan Jingyi, who shouted a very passionate "yeah!" And collapsed to the ground.)

Not losing any moment, Lan Wangji steps closer to the resentful beast and kneels. 

"Cleansing." He tells them.

The Lans understand immediately and one by one they move to play again, but to cleanse instead of eliminate.

~🎵 ~

Soon the body before them is void of resentment, and only the smell of rot and flesh is left.

They bury the bear properly and pay their respects, and as they ready themselves to finally go back home, a shout breaks their somber peace.

"Hanguang-jun!" The man whips his head towards the distressed voice and sees a disciple run towards them in panic.

"I-it's! I don't know what it is! But there's something coming towards us!" 

Before Lan Wangji could ask her anymore there were more panicked shouts, then what followed was a loud, ground shaking roar.

Many of the Lan disciples fell to their knees, the second jade had been quick and immediately pierced his sword into the ground to steady him, he held the disciple by her shoulder to keep her from falling to the ground but it was futile, as she fell on her own in the end when she looked back at what roared.

When it finally came into Lan Wangji's view he felt the hair of his back rise.

It was huge, the size of a house, it wore scales that resembled crystals and rocks. 

Another yaoguai? But it couldn't possibly be… Lan Wangji has never seen a yaoguai who had scales like this… now that he realizes, the creature had big forearms, and it had sharp claws.

Claws that are currently headed his way.

Quick, so quick that the second jade barely had the time to react, he pushed the female disciple out of the way and brandished his guqin once more.

Lan Wangji has felt fear before, many times before the war and many times during.

But he's never felt the crushing pressure of the fear that he was going to end, just like this one.

In the span of five seconds his mind had spoken more words than his mouth, and for the first time in his life, the second jade's fingers strum hard on strings out of impulse, out of deep fear.

The impact of his spiritual energy was weak, it had hit the creature of rock, but it did nothing.

Excess pride is forbidden for Lans, Lan Wangji is aware of that, but he always held himself proud for being strong, for being able to protect others. And now faced with a creature he cannot defeat, he does not know how to defeat, it's as if he was a child again.

Helpless.

Helpless as he waits with bated breath for the pain of the claws to be felt on his skin.

All he can do now is wait and wait-

But it doesn't come.

Instead what comes is the sound of something whistling in the air, and before he can register what it is, the creature of rock is thrown to the side by an invisible force, and it growls in pain.

He feels his knees almost buckle under, but remembering where he is and who he is, Lan Wangji quickly regains his strength and unsheathes his sword.

"Fall back!" He orders the disciples, but they are all still so shaken that none of them move. 

The second jade's focus unconsciously brings him back to the creature of rock, and where it is crouching and swaying, he catches sight of something in its right eye.

An arrow.

An arrow that had pierced through the creature's eye, and had thrown it across the field?

When his own guqin couldn't attack it?

His thoughts are interrupted by the creature's pained roar, as it steadies itself once more, ready to attack.

"Get away from it!" Someone shouted.

Thankfully the disciples seem to have recovered some of their wits, and without questioning who made the command, they all stumbled out of the creature's path and hid behind trees and rock terrains.

Lan Wangji almost unconsciously followed to do the same, but he reminded himself that he couldn't just hide away like that, these Lan disciples were under his care and he was responsible for their safety. He will protect them. 

Bichen rests on his hand as his grasp tightens, the creature regains its speed, and starts running at the first thing it sees: Lan Wangji.

Before it can attack however, whistling fills the air, sharp and trill and entirely different from the sound he heard from the arrow. The creature suddenly howls, crashing into the rock terrains in its wake. It looks in pain, continuously jamming its head into boulders and sharp edges.

That's when Lan Wangji gets a closer look at the creature's face, and realizes that the arrow in its right eye is twisting, covered in a flurry of teal that he can only guess is spiritual energy. It gets deeper and deeper until the creature roars louder.

Another projectile shoots past the second jade and hits the creature, this time on the forehead, between the juncture of two rocks and it sends the thing toppling to the ground.

Lan Wangji waits, holding his breath and stares at the body of rocks, as if expecting the creature to stand up and continue its rampage. 

But it stays on the ground dead. 

He will forever refuse to acknowledge the deep, shaky exhale of relief he didn't make. 

When he turns his back from the Lan disciples to ask if they're alright, something appears next to the body of the creature.

"Are you guys alright?" It's an unfamiliar voice, but one they recognised to be the voice that shouted at them just a while ago.

(("Get away from it!"))

Everyone turns their head to the source of the voice, and there, they see a man.

A man with a youthful face, who smiles once he sees the absence of any fatal injuries in any of them. He had long black hair tied into a braid, silver eyes that shone so brightly with the company of his smile. A bow in one hand and a quiver worn on his back. And a very foreign, yet somewhat similar style of clothes, to what Lan Wangji is used to seeing.

He cuts his observations short, deeming it quite rude to openly stare at the person who just saved his and the disciples' lives. Instead, he clasps his hands and bows deeply to the young man.

"I thank you, deeply, for coming to our aid, gongzi." 

The man sputters and waves his hands wildly. "No need! No need for thanks daozhang! Anyone else would have done it, I just happened to be here!"

Still, Lan Wangji remains sincere with his gratitude. 

"All the more gongzi, we are indebted to you with our lives." 

His eyes wander back to the creature behind the man. 

"I've never seen a creature like this before." One of the junior Lans quips up, saying what the second jade was thinking exactly.

"Ah," the young man pats the rock-like scale with his bow and says.

"That is because geovishaps don't often come to these specific locations. I, myself, was surprised to see it in the Bishui Plains." 

Geovishap. Lan Wangji traces the word in his mouth, he doesn't know what that is, let alone where in the world Bishui Plains is. 

Then the man makes a small 'ah!' noise and twirls around to face them, throwing the bow over his shoulder and saluting to them.

"Where are my manners? Allow me to introduce myself. I am Wei Ying, courtesy Wuxian, are you perhaps from Inazuma daozhang-men?" The man named Wei Wuxian asks them.

Lan Wangji would like to ignore the fact that he doesn't even know what Inazuma is. 

He salutes once more, but this time the Lan disciples follow shortly behind him.

"This one's name is Lan Zhan, courtesy Wangji, we are cultivators from GusuLan." 

The second jade has seen different reactions to the name of his sect, most are delighted and surprised, sometimes grimace and fear.

This however, was not one of those reactions.

Wei Wuxian does what others may call a double-take, the moment he hears the name, his silver eyes widen into saucers and his mouth is frozen into a smile 'o'.

"Gusu?" He asks in a quiet, and –if Lan Wangji was correct to read it– almost hopeful voice.

Curious of this reaction, the second jade nods, "Mn. Far up the north."

But Wei Wuxian didn't seem to hear that part, he was solely dazed at something, before recovered, and what replaces his expression is complete awe and excitement.

"You're cultivators from the jianghu!"

That was a reaction Lan Wangji was familiar with, he nodded.

"Oh!" The young man laughs lightly, almost so happy with himself.

(Something itches behind Lan Wangji's ears)

"Forgive me for not recognising you daozhang-men! We don't get visitors like these often! Well, we had one, but they aren't here right now." The man is now rambling, he probably realized that too because he stops and clears his throat in embarrassment.

"Sorry." He says. And somehow, Lan Wangji, a man who was known for hating noise, didn't mind at all.

"Well uh– I hate to be rude, daozhang-men but…. Gusu is quite far from Liyue, what brought you here?"

The second jade raised an eyebrow, though he was the only one who could see it, because to everyone else he was an unreadable wall of jade, excluding his brother.

The reason though, is because, being born in the jianghu, he's never heard of a Liyue.

And he is certain that they never crossed any sea or desert to end up in another nation.

However there is no Bishui Plains in the jianghu, Lan Wangji would know.

So, where are they?

.

.

[End of chapter 1.]

Chapter Text

"That's an easy question." Wei Wuxian tells Lan Wangji when the second jade asks him the question on his mind.

"We are currently in the Bishui Plains of Liyue, though I'm sure that's not what you meant to ask me?" He says a bit jokingly.

Again , Lan Wangji does not know where Liyue exactly is, so he sighs and shakes his head.

As if sensing his dilemma, Wei Wuxian gives him a reassuring gesture with his hands, and smiles. 

"Worry not, Lan-daozhang , you and your sect disciples have not ventured out of the jianghu. I'm particularly confident that you are not far from home either." 

Hearing that, Lan Wangji lets himself sigh in relief, he turns to head towards the curious Lan disciples, who took the opportunity to explore the little mining village that they previously entered.

"Then we will waste no time." He bows to the young man and readies himself to call the disciples' attention.

"Our mission is finished, we are going back to Gusu." He tells them, and the second jade gets a wave of 'yes Hanguang-jun!'s from the juniors.

As they finish packing their instruments and cleaning their swords, they start walking towards the path of where they had come from but-

"Ah! Wait!" The young man behind them says.

Lan Wangji stares at the path that leads them home. Or, he stares at where the path is supposed to be.

It's gone.

It seems the Lan disciples have noticed this too, because they've all gone and silently panicked behind him.

"Ah…that's what I meant to tell you.." Wei Wuxian says in an apologetic voice.

Sometimes there's a little voice in Lan Wangji's mind that tells him that he's allowed to cry and whine, allowed to complain, panic and fool himself. 

Right now there's a very strong alarming sound in the back of his head that tells him he should break down and he gracefully pushes that into a locked door. 

He's been feeling too many emotions today that he is very unused to, and it's so overwhelming.

He breathes in, and exhales, then turns back to Wei Wuxian, asking him with no tremble in his voice.

"What happened?" 

Wei Wuxian looks a bit sheepish, he scratches his cheek with his left hand and gives them an awkward smile.

"...there's not an easy answer to that."

•><•

"We are…here." Wei Wuxian says as he lands his finger on an area near a body of water, next to it is the text that says Bishui Plains . 

He smoothens the map with his hands once more as it lays on a wooden table; they've decided to rest here for a while before travelling again, as the Lan disciples had tired themselves out during the fight with the yaoguai.

They chose one of the shelters in the village that looked less worse, and a few of the disciples had taken to gathering some edibles for the journey.

"Lan-daozhang, you said that you entered the mining village from that area over there?" The young man asks as he points at the group of trees and the general direction of where they came from.

"Mn."

Wei Wuxian nods, seeming to not mind that Lan Wangji hasn't spoken a word at all after they entered the shack.

"Well, as far as I'm concerned, that way-" His finger moves to another area on the map, presumably the direction he had just pointed at, "leads to the Minlin ."

Lan Wangji feels a headache coming on, he's certain of which way they've gone from, but nothing on the map is what he's observed of his surroundings from coming here.

"How?" He says quietly, feeling the dread of being unable to come home rise again.

But Wei Wuxian puts water over that simmering flame immediately, when he looks at him and smiles– a gain.  

(Something about that smile makes Lan Wangji want to stare at him longer– but that's rude, and creepy, so he discards those thoughts immediately.)

"Don't worry Lan-daozhang , I think I know what brought you here to Liyue. "

He takes out something from a pouch dangling on his hip –a charcoal stick, he realises– and turns to look at Lan Wangji.

"Do you perhaps have a map of your jianghu? Or a solid description of it?" 

No, Lan Wangji did not have a map of the jianghu , he had long since memorised the terrains and geographical structures of it at a young age under his elder's supervision, so he had no use for such a thing.

Frankly, it was a wonder how their unusual surroundings went past him so easily.

Though he believes that describing it to the man will only garner much confusion too.

Luckily though, Lan Jingyi did have a map, and he announced so with much excitement and pride. 

Wei Wuxian thanked the Lan junior with a pat on the head –to which Lan Jingyi sputtered– and he unrolled the map onto the table.

His eyes, the second jade thinks he imagined it, but it shines bright with awe when he takes a look at the map before him. He looks breathless, and he whispers something too quiet for either of the Lans to hear.

But then he breaks out of his trance with a snap, and coughs awkwardly, and his cheeks redden a bit in embarrassment as he speaks.

"Right! Uhm, daozhang could you point to me your trail while you chased after the yaoguai?"

He nods and gets closer to the map, pointing at Gusu.

"Here." He says as he points to the south village, then moves to the village border of Moling . "Here."

Then he slides down, stopping at Yunping , then at Jiangling , then finally, his finger stops at a certain forest outside the city. "Here."

Seeing his finger stop at a certain location, Wei Wuxian hums in thought, bringing his right hand to his chin and his left to his hip.

"After that, you guys noticed the trees changed, so you were already in Liyue." He said, recalling the statement that Lan Wangji had given him. 

The Lan nods. 

With that confirmation the other man nods and his face shifts in understanding.

"You passed through a spiritual gateway." He concluded.

"Spiritual gateway?" 

Wei Wuxian nods again, though his gaze is still fixed onto the map. 

Then as if suddenly realising that the person he was speaking to did not understand anything, he breaks out of his mindspace and turns to him.

"Ah so you see, Liyue is still part of your jianghu, in a way, it's just…" the man pauses, contemplating on his next words. 

"Very very, very , well hidden." Seeing as Lan Wangji still did not understand this, Wei Wuxian pushes the maps aside and places a sheet of paper on top of the table. With his charcoal stick he starts writing something on it.

On the left side of the paper he writes the characters for 'jianghu' and on the right 'Liyue' , then he draws a vertical line between them like a border.

"This is Liyue." He circles with his charcoal stick, "Our region is on what you may call, uncharted territory. You know, your mankind never got around turning every stone in the jianghu , so there are still many places that people left unexplored or refused to explore." 

"Because of that, our civilization grew separately from yours. Our lands have different textures and look differently from yours, and… our spiritual activity and system are entirely different from yours." 

Wei Wuxian draws another circle outside of the first one and writes 'barrier' . But he doesn't explain it.

" Liyue's ancestors were from your jianghu , or so I've been told, and when they discovered that Liyue was far beyond unique, they kept it a secret from the world, fearing what would happen to it if it was discovered." 

He points to the word 'barrier' and Lan Wangji understands.

"So they erected a spiritual barrier to keep Liyue safe." And receives a nod of confirmation.

Had he been any other person, he wouldn't have simply believed a stranger so easily, a stranger from a strange region, which he has no idea what contains. 

But right now he and his sect's disciples are standing in unfamiliar grounds, and the second jade fears that if they walk around unknowing, they might encounter more than just a geovishap.

Lan Jingyi frowns, "But what does that have to do with our situation?" To which the other man pouts.

"Aiya! So impatient gongzi! I'm getting there! Just wait!" 

To which Lan Jingyi childishly pouts back. 

" As I was saying." He continues.

"When the generation after the Liyue ancestors were born, a few of them were curious of the barrier, and tried passing over it."

He draws a line from inside the circle to the outside. "They found out they could leave Liyue . But outsiders couldn't enter. "

Then he draws a line outside the circle that cuts short right in front of it.

"That's where the spiritual gateways come in."

Lan Jingyi makes a faint 'ohhh' sound of understanding.

"After the third generation was born, they discovered that the spiritual barrier had areas that were weakening at a significant pace. But not many of them learned the way of your cultivation, they had developed a different type of arts back then."

"So they couldn't replicate and fix the barrier." Lan Wangji helpfully supplied. There's a small, deep curiosity in him that urges him to ask about more.

The man nods again. "You catch up fast Lan-daozhang!"

" Of course!" The Lan junior behind them harrumphs. " Hanguang-jun is the face of Gusu Lan! " 

"Is that so?" Wei Wuxian chirps curiously.

Sensing the moment Lan Jingyi had opened his mouth to speak again, Lan Wangji quickly spoke again. "Off-subject. Continue."

"Ah! Right, right."

"So yes! Basically the third generation of this Liyue couldn't replicate the work of their ancestors, so they had to improvise with their own arts."

"But that wasn't strong enough you see." He draws little holes in between the first and second circles and shades them with charcoal; the second jade can only assume those represent the gaps in the barrier.

"The ancestors were already immortals when they erected it, and their descendants could only do so little. So they had to change some of the sigils that made the barrier."

Wei Wuxian writes on the corner of the paper, the characters for 'hide', and 'maze'.

"The original sigils for the barrier were ' protect' and 'preserve'. Preserve hadn't worked in the way it was supposed to during those years, so their descendants of rewrote it as 'hide' and 'maze'."

Suddenly the second jade comes to a full understanding, Wei Wuxian must have seen it too, because his whole face lights up and he turns to Lan Wangji slightly expectant.

The attention is on him now, so he has no choice but to speak.

(Strange, there were many times where people were expectant of him for the same thing, yet he did not care for it.)

"They repaired the gaps with their own arts, but it wasn't as strong as the original barrier. So they changed the sigils to better protect those gaps."

"Yes!" Wei Wuxian pipes in joy, "Ah, it's really nice to have someone so smart here!"

Lan Wangji feels his ears heat up behind his hair.

"But as you can see. Those gaps were now wide openings . As outsiders can accidentally enter Liyue , without even meaning to." Like you guys , was left out hanging in the air, but he understands.

He helpfully draws a bridge between the characters 'jianghu' and 'Liyue' and writes 'spiritual gateway'.

"But it's not such wide openings." The second jade comments a moment later.

The other man nods again. "The path that you took outside of Jiangling that led you here to the plains is gone, that means that the barrier is still functioning properly."

Lan Jingyi makes a sound. "Gone?! You mean we can't go that way again?!"

Wei Wuxian waves his hand carelessly, "It's not gone persay, it just moved."

"If it moved, we can just find it again." He concludes.

And the man in front of him nods and makes a noise of confirmation. 

"But," Jingyi frowns as he looks at the map of Liyue. "This place looks so big! How are we going to find another one? Didn't you say it was hidden?"

Wei Wuxian places the charcoal stick down onto the table and gives Lan Jingyi a big, ear to ear grin. "We won't need to! I know where the next spiritual gateway will be."

"Really?!" Jingyi exclaims. "Then why didn't you just go with that in the first place!?" 

Lan Wangji glares at him meaningfully, it's quite rude to shout at a man who's obviously trying to help them. 

His message is duly received, as the junior straightens up and murmurs an apology. 

Wei Wuxian laughs at this and waves a hand. "I figured some of you might be curious! Afterall, you lot just appeared in the middle of an unfamiliar region! Surely you were begging for information."

Speaking of which.

"Is it alright for you to tell outsiders this information? Won't you be punished?" The second jade asks.

The other man blinks, and then chuckles lightly. "Ah, who's going to punish me? I'm a man who never stays in one place! They can't catch me even if they wanted to."

That doesn't ease Lan Wangji's worry, but Wei Wuxian continues.

"Besides! I'm sure it's fine if it's you. I've heard that the Lans are righteous people, and that they would never purposely hurt those who don't deserve it."

This piqued the Lan's interest, Wei Wuxian claims that they are far separated from the jianghu. How does he know about GusuLan then? Is it possible that the people of this region always knew about them but the people of jianghu never knew about them ?

But he does not have the leisure time to ask, it seems, because one look at the sky and he realises that the sky has turned yellow. It will be dark soon, Lan Wangji does not want to risk the safety of his or the disciples' lives by sleeping… here , he'd rather be safe back in the dwelling of his own room.

He says so to Wei Wuxian, though not quite that way, and the man understands, nodding at him as he goes back to the map.

"The next gate isn't far away, we just need to pass Dihua Marsh ." He says and points to an area that reads Stone Gates.

"I hope you don't mind if we take a boat across, it's much safer in the water than the land, considering…." 

Considering the fact that they had been attacked by an otherworldly creature, and that they would do anything not to encounter any more of them.

The second jade nods at the suggestion and packs his belongings. He motions for Lan Jingyi to come closer and the junior follows.

"Tell the seniors to gather up the disciples, we're going to move as soon as possible." 

The junior salutes, "Yes, Hanguang-jun!" And runs out the door so unlike a Lan.

•><•

After everyone packed they started moving out of the village, the juniors awed at the sight that beheld them, like children at a sight-seeing trip. Had Lan Wangji been any stricter like his shufu he would have berated them for their insolent behaviour.

But he is no shufu, so he lets them gawk and explore. It's good for them, he thinks, to have more knowledge of their surroundings even if they did not live here.

The seniors have slightly warmed up to Wei Wuxian, who had chattered and joked the entire trip, none of the Lans seemed to mind though, rather, they were particularly soothed by the familiar presence of a human being in a strange place.

Some of them would go up to the man and ask, 'what is that?' Or, 'where does this go?' And so on and so forth, the questions came tirelessly, but Wei Wuxian never seemed to mind.

Finally they reached a point where Lan Wangji could see the shore line, they kept walking until they reached a small docking sight that had two boats tied to its end. 

Wei Wuxian signalled them to stop and rest for a minute, as he hefted himself onto one of the boats and started to untie its leash.

While he did that, the second jade ordered the disciples to count off, they were ten in total, eleven if you include Wangji, six senior disciples and four juniors. Lan Wangji looked back at the two boats and deemed it was big enough for ten.

"The juniors can ride on this boat with Lan-daozhang. " The man says, as he finally unties both boats. 

One of the senior disciples suggests that Wei Wuxian ride on the juniors' boat too, and that the senior disciples will huddle into the second one and follow behind them. It seemed like a logical suggestion, so the man agreed. 

With a paddle in the man's hand, he looks at the second boat and deems that they are ready to go, so he walks up to the front of the first boat and starts to paddle off the shore, the senior disciples quickly follow after.

The ride on the boat is quiet, save for the whispered conversations of the juniors and the little 'oohh's and 'ahh' s they made. It seems Wei Wuxian was entirely focused on getting them to the opposite side of the shore quickly.

Lan Wangji glanced at the sky once more, their trip from the village to the shore was not that long, so it had not colored and darker yet. 

Something glows in the corner of his eye and he turns to it. 

"Look at that!" One of the juniors shouts and points at a tiny creature glowing in the air.

It looks like a butterfly, though bigger and the wings left trails of light. A bright yellow and brown colour that glowed beautifully in company with the setting sun. Soon, another one joined it in its flight, and they flew around each other like orbits. 

"Ah, those are crystalflies." Wei Wuxian tells them helpfully, "Very beautiful creatures right? We usually use them to guide us back home in the dark, they're attracted to highly spiritual induced areas." 

Highly spiritual induced , Lan Wangji thinks as he watches them play beside their boat, it seems it was attracted to us because it sensed our golden cores.

Their stop wasn't long after, and their boat stopped with a slight 'thud' on the shore. The second boat immediately shows up after.

"We'll make the rest of the trip from here! Don't worry, it's not that far off now." Wei Wuxian says helpfully, as he gets off the boat and ties the leash onto a nearby tree.

They get off one by one, the juniors ever so curious and look around, while the seniors help dock the boat and tie it. 

Once they finish Wei Wuxian walks up to where the second jade was standing and faces to his left, "We'll be going this way." He says, and adds, "By the time we get there the sky will be darker, so when you leave for your jianghu you'll be safe in familiar grounds."

That's a relief, it probably shows on his face. Lan Wangji wonders if his unmoving face has faltered during their trip, as the other man has continuously been reading and sensing his emotions ever since.

It seems not when he looks at his sect's disciples.

They start moving after that. 

Though something pipes up in Lan Wangji's mind. But before he can go through the painful ordeal of opening his mouth and speaking; one of the seniors starts to talk.

"That reminds me, you gave us a short walk through of what you told Hanguang-jun and Jingyi, so I have a question." She starts.

Wei Wuxian hums and nods her way, signalling her to continue.

"You said that the spiritual gateways appear in random places right? So doesn't that mean when we leave this place we'll land in a random place in the jianghu? "

The man makes a look that shows he's thinking of his answer, before he nods with an 'mn' and explains.

"The maze part of the barrier will lead you to wherever, because that's the point of it. But." He pauses and smiles at them.

"I've heard about this one time where someone from Liyue left the barrier and landed in the place he desired to be in." 

That receives a wave of curious noises from both the seniors and the juniors.

He adds: "All he did was wish desperately for a home that would understand him, and when he left Liyue, he got what he wanted."

"I'm sure that won't be very hard!" He laughs. "Since you all seem to be dying to go home."

"This is what you meant when you said we weren't all that far from home?" The second jade asks.

"Mn!"

After that there is peaceful chatter, coming from their guide anyways, and some time later one of the senior disciples pull out their xiao and start playing some leisure music.

"That sounds so nice! GusuLan is quite known for their beautiful music huh?" He asks.

The senior who played flustered a bit at the compliment, a few others cooed at him as he started playing again. 

"Mn." He answered after a short while. "We are a sect that cultivates with music." 

"I imagine how soothing it must be to be a spirit cleansed by a Lan." The other man says jokingly.

•><•

They are almost there, as Wei Wuxian claims, when they stop at a particular area because of curiosity.

"What is that?" Lan Jingyi asks.

It's a statue, Lan Wangji thinks, but not like the statues that they passed by a short while ago.

This one is quite different. The bottom part of it is built like a pillar, with the base lain design with a gold-colored crown-like shape. The middle of the pillar is glowing blue, also surrounded by a golden colour, but this time it's shaped like a diamond. 

The top of the statue, though, is that of a hooded man, who is sitting lazily on a throne, one hand resting on his lap while the other holds out a box object. The Lan was too far to recognize it.

(Though really, he recognizes nothing during their entire trip.)

As always, their guide always came to answer.

"I'm sure you guys have gods in your jianghu right?" He asks, though it's more of a confirmation than a question.

When he receives a nod to his question he continues;

"Well we have ours too. They are what you would call patron gods, while here, we call them Archons." 

"So that man up there is an Archon?" Jingyi asks.

"Yup, that's Liyue's Archon. Rex Lapis, the God of Contracts and Lord of Rock." 

Before they can ask again, Wei Wuxian walks up to it and puts his hands together. Likely in due respect, he looks back at them, seemingly expecting them to follow.

Since they were here anyways, they might as well.

So when they crowd in front of the statue, Wei Wuxian whispers something that the second jade cannot hear. 

Suddenly the statues glows blue, and it startles them all, but they're too distracted by the sudden feeling of energy that entered their veins to react bodily to it.

"What was that?!" A junior squeaks. 

Wei Wuxian seems unaffected by this, likely because he's done it multiple times already.

"Prayer statues like these can be seen everywhere on Liyue, you pray to them, and they help you recover your spiritual energy, as well as heal you."

That explains the sudden intrusion of energy, and how his golden core easily accepted it.

"I figured you'd need the strength while we travel, now let's continue! Not much longer now!" He pipes up and starts walking ahead of them.

It was indeed, not much longer like he said, because a few minutes or so later, they came to face a guard post, elevated slightly with wooden scaffolding between two rock mountains.

"The Stone Gates lead to another forest in Liyue. " The other man says, as they walk up to the bridge.

"But in your case, it's going to lead you back home."

Home

Oh, how Lan Wangji longs for it now.

They stop at the border of the bridge, "Just walk right through."

But before they do, the Lan disciples and Wangji turn to him and bow deeply.

" GusuLan thanks you for your aid. Wei-gongzi. " 

"Aye! Like I said! Anyone could have done it!"

Lan Wangji looks at the bridge, then at Wei Wuxian again.

"We won't forget what you have done for us, even if we do not meet again." He says with full sincerity.

The man smiles, showing all teeth as his eyes crinkle into crescents.

"Don't worry about it Lan-daozhang. It was a pleasure meeting you all!"

"Now." He pauses and bows to them as well.

"I hope your journey home is nothing but safe."

The second jade nods and walks up front, the disciples follow immediately as he steps onto the bridge, walking forward without looking back.

When they step onto the opposite side of it, he turns to look, expecting to see the guard post between the mountains, but instead, what he sees is the bustling streets of Caiyi.

They're home at last.

.

.

[End of chapter 2.]

–{Bonus}–

Wei Wuxian waves the cultivators goodbye as they walk towards the bridge without looking back. 

A moment later the tails of their white robes disappear from sight. And nothing but silence accompanies him. 

He stands there for a few minutes, relishing the fact that he just met outsiders from the jianghu.

And cultivators at that! 

The wave of excitement that hit him the moment he met them still hasn't faded. 

He lets the calm wash over him when suddenly, a heavy aura breaks his peace.

Wei Wuxian sighs deep, feeling his qiankun pouch burning at his side as its content omits strong, pulsing power.

Looks like his peace wasn't going to last so long.

_____

hi! Just wanted to tell you that i drew wwx’s adeptus design, Right here!

Chapter Text

"Good morning Wuxian!" A woman pipes up over her counter when she sees Wei Wuxian.

"Good morning boss lady! How's the rush today?" He says, waving back at her as he smiles.

Goldet huffs at the given nickname, and shakes her head, "It's starting to die down a bit! Which is a relief for all of our staff. We were all worked to the bone you see!" 

As if to support her argument she rolls her shoulders and the man laughs.

"The excitement is still there I guess, it's still a day right after the Moonchase festival!" 

The woman laughs along with him, seeming so energetic for the start of the morning, when she stops with an 'oh!' and sinks behind her counter.

Goldet comes back up with a round box in her hands and shoves it into Wei Wuxian's own.

"The fishermen the other day came by and asked me to give this to you Wuxian! They were very eager." 

Out of curiosity the other man takes the lid of the box off with one hand, and is presented with delicious looking dumplings.

He puts the lid back on and smiles. "Tell them I said thank you!" 

"No problem, xianren!"  

"Oh, and." Wei Wuxian says after hugging the round box with one arm. 

"Is shixiong here?" 

Goldet nods at him and points towards the third floor, "He's up at the balcony as always, no one there to disturb you both!" 

He thanks her again before climbing up the stairs, taking pleasure in wolfing down one dumpling from the box.

When Wei Wuxian reaches the last step of stairs he sees a familiar figure outside the balcony already. 

" Shixiong!" He greets, waving his free hand at the man. 

The figure turns to him, his face softens from its guard when he recognizes Wei Wuxian.

"Wuxian." He nods in greeting.

The man in front of him, who goes by the name of Xiao, is an adeptus Wei Wuxian has been looking up to ever since his being was born.

To many he is distant and aloof, he was to Wei Wuxian, but it's been years . And the other man is proud to say that all that waiting, prodding, and poking were worth it.

The yaksha slides his gaze onto the half-open box in the other man's arms, seeing this, Wei Wuxian picks up a dumpling to show his shixiong .

"Fisherman Ru and the others gave them to me! Would you like some?"

He walks closer to the other, but not before the silent permission of Xiao's shoulders to let him approach, and shoves the box right under his nose.

Xiao observes the dumplings in a quiet manner, like an animal observing some wet plant, his eye twitches and he shakes his head and looks away.

That's a no, then.

He obediently closes the box and places it on the rails, Wei Wuxian takes the chance to look at the view. Exhilarating, no matter how many times he's seen it.

"I'm sure you didn't visit me just to give me dumplings and enjoy the view."

The soft, timbre voice breaks through his calm. He looks back to see the yaksha looking at the same view as him, but his focus was entirely elsewhere.

Wei Wuxian pouts, you know, like a child. "Aiya! What if I just wanted to visit my shixiong?" He says jokingly.

The latter man raises his brow at the familiar childish acts and sighs again. "You certainly aren't doing that now. You speak more than the count of words on the wall of contracts, it's as if the world would end with you not speaking."

" Shixiong!! " The younger man beams. "So you do like listening to me speak!"

It's visible how much Xiao regrets saying that, as his eye twitches again in annoyance, facing the other instead of the scenery.

"What do you want?" He says, no nonsense business.

Wei Wuxian has had his fill, he thinks, so he nods obediently at his shixiong and moves to grab the qiankun pouch by his hip.

"I spent yesterday in the Bishui Plains." He starts, carefully untying the strings of his pouch.

"When I came across this." When he digs in to grab something inside, Wei Wuxian immediately winces, as he pulls out the pouch with an object in hand, the tension in the air suddenly darkens and doubles, threatening to stomp anything within a radius down.

Both he and Xiao visibly grimace, feeling too much of it; he quickly drops it back into the pouch and ties it extra hard. Only then did the pressure lessen once again.

“It…” He starts, frowning, “It wasn’t that strong yesterday!” His fingers fiddle with it like some kind of vile object.

“What is it?” His shixiong asks, brows furrowed. 

“It’s the eye of a vishap.” 

“Why does it carry such… heavy energy?” 

Wei Wuxian sighs, “That’s what I wanted to know as well. When I examined its body, it was oozing with the heaviest karma I've ever felt in my entire life."

"Truth to be told, I wasn't the first one to discover it. I found it attacking a group of cultivators." 

He's still wondering whether it would be a wise decision to tell anyone about their origin. Though they have been visited by a traveller, who absolutely had no ill intentions, hell, even helped them save their city. The people of Liyue are much more wary of outsiders who come from the jianghu . 

They have always been aware of their hidden existence, and no one really sought out to change it. It was safer for both sides.

"Where are they now?" The other man asks, breaking Wei Wuxian's train of thought.

"They're safe, back in their homes." He says, and it's not entirely false.

Xiao nods, he seems to be in deep thought, with his right hand cupping the edge of his chin, and his eyes sharpen at the sight of the pouch, like if he stared long enough, it would disintegrate with only the force of his piercing gold gaze.

"Bring it out again." 

"Is that wise shixiong? We…" Wei Wuxian pauses and looks down at the second floor, indicating to the countless customers who are happily playing and eating.

His shixiong shakes his head, "It's alright, bring it out."

So hesitantly, the other man unties the pouch and picks the eye up again.

They wince in unison but don't move to drop it into the pouch, Wei Wuxian obediently holds it with his hand while Xiao examines it properly.

"There's a wound over there." He points.

"Ah I," He pauses, visibly nauseous from the heavy pressure. "I hit it with an arrow when I noticed the eye was different from others. Twisted it to get it out easier."

"Hm." The man grunts, seeing as he was done examining it, the younger man immediately encloses it within the pouch once more.

Xiao quietly grunts, though not so quiet that Wei Wuxian couldn't hear it. He uses his hand on his chin to pinch the bridge of his nose as if pained. 

Ah, he must have absorbed some of the karma unintentionally. Wei Wuxian thinks. Or intentionally.

"The signature of the energy is… quite familiar." His shixiong says after a while. 

"Is it?" He says, widening his eyes.

"En. The dark suppressing energy is similar to karma, but also entirely different. It feels similar to a corrupted leyline."

"And, the colour of the eye, dark hues of blue and purple. Did you see those white dots connecting to each other?"

Wei Wuxian is sad to say that he did not observe it a lot, his mind focused so much on trying not to keel on the ground. But he did observe it minutely when he pulled it out the vishap, and yes, it looked like that.

"Almost like…" He says.

Almost like the cosmos .

"Do you think that's the reason?" He asks.

Xiao sighs, "We cannot jump to conclusions, for now, bring that… thing. And report it to Cloud Retainer and his lord. We will dig into this soon."

Wei Wuxian ties the pouch back into place and salutes to the other man. "Yes, shixiong. "

•><•

Lan Wangji gets exactly one week of peace.

When he and the disciples finally got home, they were attacked by a horde of concerned friends and families, whose worries had grown each passing day that they did not hear from them.

His brother was the worst among them all.

Lan Xichen had, upon hearing of his younger brother's safe return, cornered the second jade into the nearest wall and dragged him bodily into the Hanshi . 

Lans do not lie, nor do they exaggerate. As that was exactly what their Sect Leader had done, if you asked anyone who was present.

The first jade had called upon a physician to the Hanshi to get his brother checked, then like a possessed ghost, he examined every visible skin on Lan Wangji's person, hovering around him like a mother hen until he was finally deemed unharmed. 

Then, his brother pulled him in for a lung-crushing hug, and stayed that way for almost an hour .

When his excitement finally died down a bit, only then did he release his brother and speak.

"Where have you been? " He asks, the worry painfully visible on his face. 

Lan Xichen was always better at expressing his emotions than Lan Wangji, who was born with a face so cold and blank that even the sturdiest man would falter.

Right now though, the second jade is quite grateful for his unreadable face, because something in him leaps into a great cliff for what he's about to say.

Or what he won't

"We speak nothing of this." Lan Wangji tells the disciples as soon as they reach the entrance of their home.

 

"Hanguang-jun?" A senior disciple says in utter shock.

 

"About Liyue, and our journey there, we will say nothing of it." He repeats himself.

 

"But– lying is forbidden in Cloud Recesses!" Jingyi sputters.

 

The second jade regards the Lan with a nod, knowing full well of that rule. "It is not breaking the rules if you do not tell them."

 

If the younger Wangji could see his future self, he would have been inf uriated, for he followed the rules almost to a fault, unquestioning and unbinding. 

 

But as Lan Wangji grew older, he started to question those very rules. He does not rebel against it, rather, he wonders if the rules have judged the world correctly. Sometimes he does not like the answers that come.

 

The younger Wangji will have to understand, because not every truth has to be unearthed, the second jade realised that the hard way.

 

"You must understand the reason as to why they were hidden from us in the first place." He tells them.

 

"They worry for their own home, do we not with ours as well?" 

 

That stopped any further complaints as the disciples let those words wash over them.

 

The second jade recalled his conversation with the foreign man, how much he blindly tru sted them just because they were Lans. He was not going to prove Wei Wuxian wrong by putting them in danger.

 

"But." Jingyi says again. "What do we tell them then?"

 

"You tell them what happened."

 

"While we were tracking the yaoguai down, we went far off the path, it took us longer than we expected to get back onto the road." He explains to his brother. 

Then, with practised moves, he places his hands in front of his knees and bows. "Wangji is sorry for worrying xiongzhang ."

And for not telling you everything. He doesn't say.

His brother quickly moves from his sitting position to stop his brother from bowing. "Do not apologise Wangji! It is not your fault that the yaoguai ran far."

"Speaking of the yaoguai, you did manage to eliminate the danger, yes?" Lan Xichen switches topic, immediately sitting back down.

"Mn. The bear has been cleansed and buried, it will not endanger anyone again."

"That is good." His brother says, and flashes Lan Wangji with one of his familial, safe, warm smiles.

"As long as it is gone, and you are safe back home, that is good."

They speak more for a few minutes, then his brother lets him resign to his Jingshi to rest. 

Once he is there he bathes, and plays his guqin, longing for the peace to prolong for a little longer.

Sadly, it only lasted for a week.

Because one morning as he readies for his day, a Lan disciple comes to tell him that his brother calls for him to the Hanshi.

It was not uncommon for him to be called upon, so he dismisses the disciple and heads to the kitchen to ask for a set of tea. 

What welcomes him within the home of his brother though, is not what he expected.

His brother, known for his smiles and elegance, is slumping on his table, with only his left hand supporting him by the head, on his desk there are piles and piles of paper which Lan Wangji assumes are night hunt reports and requests for aid from the common people.

" Xiongzhang." Lan Wangji calls out, approaching his soon-to-be puddle brother with a tray in his hands.

"Ah, Good Morning Wangji." His brother says with his signature smile, though it has been chipped away with the visible bags under his eyes. 

"Have you slept?" He asks worriedly, Lan Xichen looks haggard, his robes are slightly askew and his hair has seen many days without wash, his brother looks like a ghost.

"Slept? Ah, I'll probably sleep after I've finished these , not that much anymore." Lan Xichen responds. 

Lying is forbidden in Cloud Recesses, because those papers on his desk do not seem to be lessening, but Lan Wangji does not tell him that.

"What did you call me for?" He asks instead, sitting in front of his brother's desk and setting the tea tray down where the papers have not invaded.

He pours his brother tea, and urges him to drink it, comments lightly that it will help cool his head.

"Ah, so you see Wangji I…" Lan Xichen starts, and looks at his desk like it's somehow turned into a resentful beast.

He sighs, and sips on his tea. "We have been getting reports about sightings of unusual creatures rampaging about in many jurisdictions."

"Unusual." He repeats and his brother nods.

"They all vary each location, but they all have the same signature of energy. Dark and suppressing, it's similar to resentment, but stronger . One of the Nie disciples passed out on contact with it."

Lan Wangji notices a piece of paper next to him, and picks it up. Though it is forbidden to read the Sect Leader's reports, he is the second jade of their sect and has the second authority among all. 

The paper is a request for reinforcement from Guangling , claiming to have been defeated by a creature they are not familiar with, and pleads for help.

"How unusual?" He asks his brother.

Lan Xichen sets his tea down and rubs his finger on the rim of his cup. 

"In Qinghe, a horde of creatures with human-like physical traits, but their faces were like deformed and unmoving like masks, their heads were surrounded by wild fur. They were huge , and had axes and spikes as weapons."

"In Yunmeng, Jiang Wanyin reported that they were shaped out of water and sported the forms of animals; cranes, birds, and pigs." 

"In Lanling, there were flower-like monsters that hid under the ground and attacked the disciples with balls or flame and shards of ice."

His brother sighs, "There are more of them in Tingshan, Baling, and Yingchuan."

Lan Wangji nods, feeling sorry for his brother, "Gusu?"

Lan Xichen shakes his head, "Thankfully not yet, but with our neighbouring areas surrounded, I'm afraid it won't be any longer until it reaches us."

The first jade sighs woefully again, "All of this in one week…"

The second jade takes pity on his brother and picks up another report from his desk.

"How shall I help?" He asks.

"Oh, no no, no need Wangji-ah, you cannot trouble yourself with this."

Lan Wangji sighs and gives his brother a stern look.

"Mn, and leave you here to drown in your duties. Besides, you called upon me did you not?"

"I called on you because I needed company." His brother tries weakly.

"I will accompany you to your bed, xiongzhang. You need rest." He says, and motions to stand up.

"I can't sleep now Wangji, we still need to send out people to help-"

"I will go out with the disciples and aid them, do not worry brother." He interrupts, Interrupting is forbidden in Cloud Recesses. His mind supplies, but this is for the greater good . 

His brother is the greater good, and what he needs is rest.

Lan Wangji helps his brother up, ignoring all his brother's woes of protest and guides them both out of the office, and into his brother's bedroom.

"The sect will run a day without its sect leader, they will understand."

"But-" Lan Xichen starts, but abruptly stops when the second jade pushes him into the blankets of his bed.

"No buts, rest, xiongzhang. I will take care of it."

A few minutes more of grumbling protests from his sect leader, before he finally passes out and sleeps soundly.

As he exits his brother's bedroom, a silent knock comes from the outside of the Hanshi.  

When Lan Wangji opens the door, he is greeted by a disciple with scrolls in his arms.

The disciple looked visibly surprised by who opened the door, and dropped into a hasty bow as deep as the scrolls allowed him.

" Hanguang-jun ! My apologies for whatever I may have interrupted. I just wanted to pass these on to Lan-zhongzu …" the disciple says, and looks at the pile of scrolls his arms are struggling to hug.

"Mn. Xiongzhang will be taking a day-off, pass my word, I will be handling the reports for today." The second jade tells him, and helpfully receives the pile of scrolls from the Lan.

The younger man hastily salutes to him with a 'yes Hanguang-jun!' and immediately scurries away towards the Grandmaster's quarters.

With the disciple gone, Lan Wangji closes the door again and sets the scrolls down next to his brother's desk. 

His brow twitches slightly, Lans were known for their tidiness and absence of excess items. Looking at his brother's desk was quite a sight for sore eyes, Lan Wangji thinks he saw a brush roll under the cabinet.

The second jade sighs, and moves to organise Lan Xichen's table. Cleanliness first. He thinks. Duty soon after.

•><•

Soon after, Lan Wangji orders a disciple to gather up some seniors to accompany him to Guangling. He settled on reading the reports first to understand his situation, and decided to aid his neighbouring sects in-person.

Once they are all packed and ready, he stops by his shufu's quarters to announce his short leave.

"I hear these creatures are uncontrollable, Wangji." His shufu comments, brushing a hand through his goatee.

"Be wise, and retreat if you are unable to defeat it."

Lan Wangji bows to Lan Qiren and reassures him. "I will, shufu. "

The man grunts an approval and sends him on his way.

Leadership has been temporarily placed on the Grandmaster for a day, just until either Hanguang-jun returns from his mission, or until Zewu-jun has recovered enough to retrieve his position.

And with that, The second jade sets off for Guangling alongside his sect's disciples.

•><•

It was much worse than they expected . Lan Wangji thinks, as he watches what is played before him.

It's a disaster. GuanglingRen's guard stations are obliterated, devoured by the rage of great flames. Disciples are scattered everywhere, some are still fighting in the distance to be heard, some are wounded, dead. 

But the cause of the destruction is nowhere to be found.

Lan Wangji shakes his head, the creature can come later, right now, he'll have to aid a breathing person. 

" Tangxiong, tend to the wounded. The rest of you, put out the fires and scout the area."

They all salute to him before doing as ordered, his cousin, Lan Chuanli, their head healer in the group, takes a few disciples with him to gather the wounded. 

While they do that, the second jade runs to the direction of the frantic screams and shouts.

He stops in his tracks, noticing something in the corner of his eye. 

There, on the path, are marks dug deep into the dirt. Multiple claw marks, he notices, and belatedly registers the sight of blood as well.

The scream get louder at this point, less like war cries and more like terror –then, a loud, ear piercing animalistic shriek. 

So loud, that Lan Wangji almost curled into himself.

It resurfaced within him, the loud, ground shaking roar– the strong claws his way– the–

He shakes his head and throws those thoughts away. 

You don't need them now. He berates himself. You're supposed to help. Not be helped.

When he reaches the heart of the forest behind the station the screams are louder.

Everything explodes in his ears like white noise, what he sees before him almost makes  him want to hurl and run at the same time.

There are disciples fighting a wolf-like creature, or trying to. 

The wolf is huge, menacing, and deadly, towering over the surrounding trees. Its claws, Lan Wangji thinks, must have been the cause of the marks on the ground.

Because they are sharp, like iron nails. 

And those claws brought themselves upon three unfortunate disciples, who fall to the ground and stop moving.

Lan Wangji's breathe catches, not even his unreadable expression that he commonly uses can save his face from the utter horror he feels.

He moves, summoning his guqin with his left hand and Bichen with his right. 

The wolf has not acknowledged his presence yet, he takes advantage of this and sends a wave of attack towards it as it attacks a MolingSu disciple. 

It stops its fangs from coming down onto the disciple and whips its head towards the second jade, seeming to have forgotten its initial prey, the wolf suddenly gives Lan Wangji his full attention and approaches rapidly .

Wangji has only ever failed him once. And that was when he attacked the vishap. 

Now the guqin is weak against this creature as well, a creature they have no knowledge of, no clue on its weaknesses, no origin.

It scares Lan Wangji to realise that he might not be as strong as he is written out to be.

That does not matter how knowledgeable he is with his out home. There are other worlds outside his jianghu.

He's been naive.

He believed that the world was within the reach of his own feet.

Lan Wangji realises he might be wrong.

The second jade grips his Bichen tightly and holds his breath. 

Death once again. Is right in front of him.

As the wolf brings his claws down onto the second jade he narrowly dodges to the side, ducking rapidly to the ground when the sharp claws sway his way. He grits his teeth and slashes at the legs of the creature. 

No wound, no scratches. 

The wolf recovers quickly and claws at Lan Wangji again, roaring loudly and displaying its equally sharp fangs. 

This attack he couldn't dodge fast enough, but out of instinct he sent a wave of attack to the claws to delay its movement, it had not delayed it for long, but it was long enough that Lan Wangji managed to gain some distance from it.

Blades did not affect it. Spiritual energy worked, but only barely. It reacted to spiritual energy like it's familiar with it, perhaps if Lan Wangji attacked with a significant amount, it might work.

The sound of arrows raining down from the sky took his attention, they came from behind the wolf, diving down rapidly towards the large creature. Once they landed they did not stay, they all bounced around and hit the ground instead, further confirming the second jade's statement that normal weapons did not work on it.

(The sudden sight of arrows resurfaced a certain person within his mind. He too had used the same weapon, yet it only took him two arrows to take down a monster not even Wangji can defeat.)

A second wave of arrows commenced, the disciples seemed to have not noticed that it did not affect the wolf at all.

The wolf growls and bares his fangs, however it looks more irritated instead of affected, and when the arrows came crashing down, a large, strong swing from his tail had them rebounding and flying back.

The wind from the attack almost took the second jade down, but he planted his feet and kept his combat stance. 

The surroundings didn't take it so well though, when he rushed into the forest there were small fires everywhere, probably created from spiritual energy. But with the strong gale, the flames were fed and they grew and spread.

When the wolf turned its attention back to him, it pounced again, both its front feet separated from the ground, ready to capture Lan Wangji under him.

The second jade, who was a bit more wit collected now, managed to dodge by sliding underneath him and escaping from its back side. Before he did though, he attacked it on the stomach where the fur was less, with more spiritual input than usual.

That didn't affect the wolf either. 

It went like that for longer than Lan Wangji realised. 

He made a pattern of strumming his guqin at its joints, slashing with his sword along the parts where its skin is vulnerable. 

It went long and straining, until Lan Wangji's knees flagged and his attacks weakened in strength.

He uses his guqin to support him, letting himself catch his breath. 

The wolf however, has not faltered even once. A few hours after the second wave of arrows, a group of Lans and Nies picked up on the position and started raining arrows again, this time it had been coated with explosives. 

This did not help at all, since it supplied to the surroundings disasters and they stopped after the third attempt, and instead attempted to support the second jade by attacking it physically as well. 

When it was too quick and he faltered, a Nie would catch its attention and Lan Wangji would be able to recover, attacking once more. The Lans have taken to confusing it with talismans and other songs of their sect.

So as the second jade props himself onto his guqin, panting heavily, he looks at his hands and realises that his fingers are bleeding, there are visible marks on his fingertips of his guqin strings, and his nails are nearly painted with red.

He hasn't been this exhausted since the Wens.

Then suddenly the wolf roars loudly, and sways its tail at the disciples attacking it, causing some to lose balance or be thrown back into trees. The Lan disciples cover for the fallen and dive in to attack with their weapons, dodging and striking at any given opportunity. 

That's when Lan Wangji notices it.

Something glimmers in the fur of the wolf's neck. 

At first he was under the illusion that it was just something stuck on it. But when he looks closely at the object hanging by the side of the wolf's neck, his eyes widen.

A lone arrow.

Possibly from when they had been raining down upon the creature.

Where the second jade is standing, the wolf's back is currently facing him, its menacing tail and back claws swaying like drunkards and threatening to destroy anything that comes close.

But as the second jade focuses on the arrow now, where it was hidden among its deep fur. It's quite hard to miss. 

The weakness! Lan Wangji rejoices to himself. 

He doesn't want to be too careless and immediately jump to conclusions, afraid that he makes a mistake.

The second jade notices a bow near his person and decides on it. He picks it up and notches an arrow onto it, infusing the object with energy, aiming for the creature's neck from behind.

He takes a deep breath, and exhales. Pray he is right. And releases the bow.

In all its dangerous glory the wolf staggers and lifts its head to roar. The arrow stuck and it hit on the middle of its nape.

It worked!

"Attack by the opposite direction of its fur!" He shouts, all raspy and un-composed. For all he knows, Lan Wangji could have jumped in joy by now.

But he does not do that, save his dignity, and instead, gathers every last bit of his spiritual energy.

Luckily his voice was loud enough to pass everyone's ears, and soon they switched tactics, from striking the wolf's joints and exposed skin to attacking it behind its fur.

At first it was yet not affected, but one of the Nie disciples strikes their sabre by its torso with a significant amount of spiritual energy, and the strike had wounded, and bled.

The first damage, everyone had thought, and had begun cheering before they resumed their tiring combat.

Heaven knows how long it took them, fighting and rapidly losing to such a horrific creature, to finally discover a weakness. 

But it was long enough that almost all the disciples had been long since depleted of their energy.

Lan Chuanli had joined their battle a few minutes ago, presumably having finished setting up a healing station and came to help them, along with him the healer disciples.

His cousin had signalled to a few disciples, ordering them to do something that flew past Lan Wangji at the minute of adrenaline. He figured it out when they suddenly brought out their instruments as well.

When they suddenly played a piece, the second jade felt his core slowly glow to life again, he assumed that others were being given the same treatment.

Replenishing spiritual energy, he thinks. Is an arduous task if done by a living being. It is rather common for cultivators to replenish qi by meditating in an area highly induced with it.

In this situation, the Lans are being the third party of it, by absorbing the energy around them, converting it with the instruments and directing it to the disciples fighting.

A difficult task to accomplish.

But worth the risk.

As the disciples replenish with their help, their newly given energy, they direct forcefully onto the creature before them. War cries tear out their lungs with newfound determination and they strike heavily more now than ever.

When Lan Wangji feels his meridians overflow with qi , he looks at his guqin with resolve. 

The wolf retaliates with his claws, swiping at the air wildly as it hits trees and ground, while the disciples move rapidly around it, dodging by narrow threads. 

Someone manages to shoot behind its ears, so close to where its eye is and the wolf groans in pain. 

It falters, knees sagging minutely and the second jade takes his chance.

He unwinds Wanji's strings and they come to life under the touch of his spiritual energy. He props himself on Bichen and gets himself close to the wolf's neck, hovering in the air just a few inches beneath its back.

When the wolf steadies itself again and raises its head. Lan Wangji wraps the string around its neck and pulls.

He has done this before, has done this alone . In a cave with a demi-Xuanwu, injured and unarmed .

And he is determined to do it again.

He pulls, and pulls, ordering Bichen to pull him back as far as it can, as the wolf howls and growls, struggling at its restraints wildly. The others take this opportunity to wound and delay the wolf even more, striking and stabbing at its abdomen and legs.

It pushes this way and that, baring its fangs at the air and claws at the ground, sometimes Lan Wangji gets pulled back in return, causing the immovable Bichen to slide through the air a few times, but he prevails.

Like how he spent possibly an entirety, with his hands bleeding and marred with mounds, waiting for the demi-Xuanwu to forfeit.

And just like that time, before the war, after he lost his home. When he was sent alone, injured and uncared for, to a den in the flames with lions. 

The wolf forfeits. 

It sags to the ground as its head limps to the side, and it stays dead.

Everyone waits, holding their breaths and swords yet to be sheathed. 

It stays dead.

What fills the forests now, is the victorious cries of men.

•><•

That had, unfortunately, not been the only time that Lan Wangji sent himself out with disciples to face a nameless creature. 

That had not been the only time that he came face to face with the figure of death.

After that incident the second jade had ordered his disciples to recover for the rest of the night, and had set out to go home the next day. 

Lan Xichen had been waiting for them all by the gate, and upon seeing their haggard figures he immediately sent word for healers to tend to them. Lan Wangji, after being treated and bathed, reported to his brother what had happened, as well as described what the creature was like in person.

His brother had been horrified, when he saw the healing marrs of the second jade's fingertips. Almost insisted that he removed himself from this case, but Lan Wangji declined.

They needed more man power right now if this was happening in many places, and he wouldn't forgive himself if he stayed back.

So his Sect Leader reluctantly stepped back and involved his brother.

One week later he set out to Yingchuan.

The next he was at Qishan. 

He came home last week, still standing. 

(But not always victorious)

Lan Wangji spent the fourth week replenishing his energy, having tea with his brother in the Hanshi.

After he came home with the disciples the second week, his brother had insisted on playing for him in the Hanshi . It became a silent routine for the both of them, which devolved into them talking about his travels over tea and music.

It was one of those days, where Lan Xichen was the one doing most of the talking while he interjected with little 'mn's and savoured the tea, when a distressed Lan guard came knocking on the doors as he shouted "Zewu-jun!"

His brother abruptly stopped talking, taking on a serious expression when he heard the distress within the man's voice. 

"Enter."

The doors of the Hanshi slid open, displaying a senior Lan panting heavily, as if he'd ran up the ten thousand stairs with no pause.

Before either of them can question him, he speaks up first; 

"There are– the hounds! Hanguang-jun, it's one of those wolves from Guangling! They're attacking Caiyi!"

The hair of Lan Wangji's nape stands straight, he had travelled from north to west of the jianghu, going where the chaos appeared and eradicated the danger. 

But in this whole month, he never had to protect Caiyi.

The Lan guard suddenly loses consciousness on the Hanshi doors, his brother quickly stands to catch the man.

"Go." Lan Xichen orders. "I'll be there, alert the others."

That's all he needs to hear as he grabs his sword and dashes out of his brother's quarters. 

.

.

[End of Chapter 3]

Chapter Text

Lan Wangji is ashamed to admit that he was confident this time.

For when he first encountered the wolf he knew nothing, still he came home that day alive. Now though, he has experience, and although little, knowledge. 

Lan Xichen didn't take long to rejoin him at the gates, being followed by senior and junior disciples armed with their weapons. He nods to all of them and they ride down to Caiyi with their swords.

When they land at the entrance of the town there is no one, not a single soul to be found in the streets. The magistrate must have done their job and evacuated the denizens of Caiyi to a safer location. 

When a Lan disciple ahead gives a hand signal that they are clear, their group advances forward. 

Suddenly, they hear the wheeze of a projectile, and then a loud BOOM in the air. They look up at the source of the sound and find the emblem of their sect glittering in the sky. It was a distress firework!

Someone shouts from a distance abruptly, then they hear a loud crash. 

Lan Xichen shouts a 'go' at the disciples and they run towards the chaos.

The wolf is there, thrashing the stalls with its enormous tail as the disciples try to parry it off, one of the disciples spot them and yelp.

"Zewu-jun! Hanguang-jun!"  

That seems to have been a bad idea though, because with the announcement of their arrival many heads turn to them and away from the opponent.

The wolf took advantage of it and swiped its claws at a nearby cultivator, the disciple noticed it but was unable to dodge, leaving him screaming in pain as he falls to the ground.

"Do not take your eyes off it!" Lan Xichen shouted, unsheathing Shuoyue from its scabbard and charges towards the wolf, fending its claws off as it tried to slash at another unguarded Lan.

Distracted, the wolf started attacking its new enemy, who blocked and fended off each and every one of its attacks. 

Lan Wangji had informed them all of the wolf's weakness beforehand thankfully, hopefully this time, it will not take them much longer to eradicate it.

Lan Xichen manages to wound its front knee, causing it to lose balance. On the second jade's signal swords fly from all sides and surround the wolf, circling the creature and attacking every opening. 

When a sword is caught between its claws an arrow would aim for its joints, making the wolf cry in pain and loosening its grip on the sword. 

Somewhere along the spiritual glares of blue and whites a blade manages to scar the creature's right eye. It shrieks loud and painful, causing some of the disciples to cover their ears with grimaces, a few of them carelessly loses focus on the grips of their swords, the wolf takes advantage of their distraction to charge towards a weaker group of disciples.

Just as it reaches its claws out to attack, the wolf is blocked by a strong glowing blade. Lan Xichen slides his blade across its claw and plunges deep into a joint, his attack is quickly followed by a strong attack from Wangji causing the wolf to stagger to the side. 

The first jade loses no time, making a wide upper arc with Shuoyue towards the wolf's neck precisely the opposite direction of its fur. It shrieks again, when Lan Wangji violently plucks another note out of the string, sending a wave towards the side of its face the wolf goes down on its side.

Lan Wangji sends Bichen flying together with Shuoyue as the wolf tries to regain its balance, when the former blade strikes at the nape it stumbles from where their legs are still standing, swaying like a drunkard. And when the latter sword is plunged into its abdomen, it gives a final, ear-piercing howl as it goes down.

It limps and rasps its breath, and after a few seconds, it stops moving altogether.

It's dead.

(Everyone can be heard dropping a big sigh of relief.)

There is no time for celebration, the Lans immediately split groups and tend to different tasks. 

Lan Wangji leads a few disciples to eradicate the body and his brother orders others to scout their surroundings.

"A-die! Ren Hui isn't moving!" Someone yells. 

When he turns his attention away from the wolf's body, he catches sight of a panicked Lan Jingyi holding an unconscious disciple to his chest. 

Lan Chuanli takes notice of this too when his son calls him and immediately takes to tend to the child in his hands. 

He returns to the task at hand and sees the disciples already hauling the giant body onto a crate. They later found out that these wolf creatures weren't conjured with resentful energy, having performed numerous exorcising songs on it the first time, it did not bring any results.

The body wasn't cleansed of its energy, nor did it dissipate. So they had to remove it bodily and burn the energy out of it.

It was not a yaoguai, it looked like a yao, but it didn't hold the energy living creatures often had to be considered alive.

One of the disciples ignites a flame talisman and throws it at the wolf's corpse, the flames immediately spread across the body, making it seem like an enormous bonfire in the middle of the town.

Seeing as his task was done, Lan Wangji turns and heads for the healing station, where there are a few disciples and civilians lying down on improvised beds. 

It looks concerning, he furrows his eyebrows. He kneels down next to a patient his cousin is currently treating, it's the junior disciple that his son had been holding onto, Ren Hui.

Lan Chuanli lets him hover as the man checks the child for injuries. When his cousin disrobes the child they are greeted by black lines decorating the boy's chest, it ends near his collar, but looks as if they're growing further.

His cousin sends a string of spiritual energy through the boy's meridians, something must've gone wrong, because when he releases Ren Hui's wrist Lan Chuanli sighs heavily.

"It's the same as the others."

Alarmed, Lan Wangji turns to his cousin. "Others?" He overlooks the beds occupied by civilians and disciples alike. 

"We found these black linings," Chuanli points to the marks on the boy's chest, "On civilians who were unfortunate and took a couple hits from the wolf while evacuating." As if to support his statement, one of the men next to him groans in his sleep, agitating his body as of paralyzed, and Lan Wangji spots the same black linings on his left arm.

"They took hits from its claws?" He asks. His cousin nods regretfully. "Thankfully, some of our healers were in town when the attack happened, they managed to treat the worst of the wounds but…" 

His cousin sighs, turning back to Ren Hui with a difficult expression. "The effects of the black linings are… concerning, and we haven't found a clue on how to reverse it." 

 Lan Chuanli pauses, as if contemplating on what to say to Lan Wangji. Instead, He offers the second jade the boy's wrist, silently suggesting.

He takes hold of Ren Hui's wrist and places two fingers over it, sending a string of spiritual energy. 

Since Ren Hui is a junior, it isn't abnormal for him to have less spiritual input than others, he is still young and training. 

That is what the second jade is thinking of, as he guides his spiritual energy through the boy's meridians. 

But junior's spiritual energy was not weak, no, it wasn't strong either.

His energy was gone.

Lan Wangji furrowed his brows, commanding his energy to prod at the boy's core. No reaction, he tried sending spiritual energy into the core, expecting it to be absorbed. 

Just as he planned the energy was absorbed by the core, but just as quickly, the presence of it fades away.

The second jade removes his hand from the boy's wrist with widened eyes.

"It is absorbing his qi ." He says gravely.

Lan Chuanli releases a shaky sigh. 

"The black marks are draining out our cultivators' qi. " He nodded.

Lan Chuanli's face suddenly contorted into a pained expression, as if he couldn't handle what was being shown to him.

"If it drains all if it away, I'm afraid I have no idea what it will take next." He adds, then side eyes all the civilians on beds. 

Thankfully, it wasn't that much, just four innocent adults. But it didn't change the fact that they did get attacked, they weren't saved from the disaster that came for them.

A wave of realisation suddenly hits Lan Wangji, and by the look of his cousin's face, he already had the same thought before him.

People who do not cultivate still have some amount of qi in them. Human bodies were born with both yin and yang energy, cultivators decided to, well, cultivate that energy into something they can weaponize.

Civilians leave their qi energy dormant and undisturbed, and they do not have as much as a cultivator does . 

So what are the black marks draining right now?

Quickly, the second jade moves his feet to the nearest patient and takes the man's wrist, Lan Chuanli had gotten the same idea, taking the seat as a professional medic he takes the wrist from Lan Wangji's hands and examines the man's body. 

He takes a pulse at three different places, the carotid artery, his inner wrist, and attempts to place his ear against the young man's chest. His eyes furrow deep, Chuanli moves to open the man's eyelids, his eyes are rolled back into slumber.

"His…" Lan Chuanli starts, "his heartbeat is slow and his breaths are short." The healer tries to softly jostle the civilian awake, calling out to the man in a soft voice. 

" Gongzi? Gongzi, please wake up." The young man shows no sign of hearing the healer, remaining unconscious. 

His cousin starts panicking, he gives the man's wrist back to Lan Wangji as he stands up, "Try giving him spiritual energy." He says in a hurry and runs out of the station. 

Following his orders, the second jade sends a string of qi through the man's meridians. The second he does so, Lan Wangji immediately flinches back, releasing his grip on the man. 

Draining energy. That was what the black marks were doing to their people. Draining any and every energy.  

Sending spiritual energy through the patient's meridians was useless, the man was completely stolen of it the moment it entered his body. Not only that, it felt as if Lan Wangji himself was being robbed of his own energy.

Before he can do anything else, someone barges into the healing station. 

"Hanguang-jun!!" He yelps. 

It's Lan Jingyi, looking all rumpled up and exhausted, he's visibly struggling to breathe slowly as if he'd had run instead of flown. 

The hand that holds his sword practically falls limp as he sways forward, the second jade quickly runs up to catch him.

"What happened?" He asks Jingyi, taking in the feeling of his trembling hands and shaky breaths as he sets him down.

"There's more of them, Zewu-jun needs you!" Lan Jingyi yells, but before he can say any more the junior faints, visible exhaustion catching up to him. 

"A-Yi!" The returned Lan Chuanli shouts, forgoing his position next to the head physician to run up to his son. 

"What happened to him?!" His cousin cries cradling his son's cheeks with both his hands. 

Lan Wangji moves to answer, but realises he himself does not know what happened. He hesitates, Jingyi said that his brother needed him, and seeing the boy's condition it's urgent. 

But 

Right now Lan Wangji is standing in a tent with patients lying on beds suffering from a fatal attack. 

It is urgent . 

But he himself does not know what the remedy is.

His thoughts are interrupted when someone walks up in front of him. 

"Wangji-ah." He snaps out of his blank trance to face the head physician. 

"Great Aunt." He greets. The elder woman in front of him, Lan Qingyuan, looks at him with a serious expression. 

"Go." She orders him, resting her hand on his shoulder. "We will do what we can here. Go help your brother."

Lan Wangji grits his teeth at his own hesitance, he salutes to her and exits the tent with a mad dash. 

It's then when he remembers that Lan Jingyi never told him where, but he recalls his brother heading towards the forest the opposite direction of the sewers, so he heads for the bridge.

He spots two disciples at the entrance of the forest, they spot him in return and they shout for him desperately. 

"Hanguang-jun! Sect leader Lan and the others need help! They're– they're in danger!" The female disciple cries, she and her partner were injured, the other girl was being supported to stand and they both looked close to fainting. 

A whistle and a BOOM . The distress firework was set off once more, giving Lan Wangji the exact location of the fight.

Wasting no time he tells the disciples that the healers aren't far and he enters the woods. It's much harder to fly on his sword with all the trees in the way, so he resorts to running with his own bare feet.

The second jade gets close enough that he can hear the songs of his sect being played by numerous instruments. His breath catches when he hears loud growls drown the music and the screams of pain that followed quickly after.

He lets Bichen fly into the heart of the battle before he even sees it, hearing a loud clang! from the metal of his blade meaning it had hit something hard.

When Lan Wangji finally sees the chaos his ears are pierced with the wails of not one, nor two;

But four giant wolf creatures.

There's more of them. Jingyi told him. 

The first wolf had them falling into despair. The second one was no different, even if they had taken care of it, they still had rows of casualties.

Lan Wangji didn't want to assume what a third one would do to them, he didn't want to think much less what would happen to them if there were more.

Now he's faced with an answer he did not want to know.

Their disciples are injured, bloodied, laying on the ground. Some of them prevail, fighting, dodging, parrying, getting away from the wolf as much as they can. 

The ones who played their instruments are backed up against trees, unconscious as one of the wolves sway its tail at them.

It is chaos.

His head whips to the side when he hears the clashes of claws and swords together.

The second jade registers that some of their senior disciples are still fighting off two wolves, one of them slams a harsh note from his guqin and sends one of them tripping on its foot. 

He catches sight of a wolf standing in the furthest corner of the fight, it finds Lan Wangji's gaze as well and roars, charging towards the Lan with its intimidating fangs bared.

Lan Wangji sends his sword charging towards with fervour, catching the wolf off-guard by attacking on its side, the creature blocks it with a claw now engaged in a fight with his blade. The second jade brings his guqin out and strikes, plucking on harsh notes and sending waves towards his opponent. 

Distracted, the wolf looks his way again, determined to continue charging but gets blocked in the way by another shimmering sword. The blade slashes the wolf at its nose inevitably but successfully delays it.

"Go Wangji!" Lan Xichen shouts rasped from behind, the wolf growls and motions to sway its tail to attack the first jade.

Lan Wangji rapidly strikes his blade by the wolf's knee, following a strong spiritual wave that causes the creature to lose balance and stop his mid-swipe at his brother. 

The first jade takes the opportunity given to him and slices at the wolf's lower abdomen, making it shriek and stagger.

Before either of them can strike a finishing blow the creature suddenly wails loudly, the same type of shriek the wolf in Caiyi had made. 

Lan Xichen makes a loud gasp from where he stands, "Wangji watch out!!!!" His fave is stricken with fear as he grabs at the air in front of him.

The second jade feels a looming shadow appear behind him and quickly turns, when he does he's faced with another wolf's huge build, the top half of its body projected into the air as it brings its large mouth down onto Lan Wangji.

Time seems to slow down for him. 

His ears ring and nothing goes through it. The wolf had cried for help. The wolf in Caiyi, before it went down, wasn't howling in pain.

It was calling for its kin. 

They made a mistake. They shouldn't have stalled for too long, they should have gotten down to Caiyi sooner.

They should have been stronger.

But they were weak .

Lan Xichen screams for his brother as he watches the wolf jump on him.

It feels so surreal to Lan Wangji how much these creatures made him feel as if he were back in the cave with the demi-Xuanwu. 

As if he were close to death again.

And his last thoughts were that he regretted being weak.

"WANGJI!!!!"

Suddenly there is no shadow looming over him.

Suddenly there is no beast up to devour him.

He gasps for breath as if he were stolen of it.

The wolf steadily falls backwards on its back feet, mouth hung open as it crashes to the ground.

But that's not all he sees .

Lan Wangji's eyes widen like saucers as he watches the wolf stay unconscious on its back. He vaguely registers Lan Xichen running his way as the other wolves roar. 

Between its forehead, an arrow covered with a flurry of teal.

And then suddenly all the wolves are silent, whimpers and wails leave them, then nothing.

The second still has enough mind in him to finally move from his paralysis, his brother is in front of him, shaking him out of his trance and calling his name. 

The wolves?

He turns to the side, the two others are lying still in the ground with blood gushing from their bodies. The other, Lan Xichen had already killed.

They are all dead. 

Lan Wangji's first move is towards the wolf in front of him, his brother makes a distressed noise when he moves near the dead body. Its torso is covered in sword wounds, but none of them seemed to have contributed to the instant death.

He moves closer to the head of the creature and sees it. An arrow, plunged deep into the forehead of the wolf. It had a long crimson shaft that made it stick out, the fletching was a vibrant shade of red, yellow, and oranges.

(It almost resembled the place it came from.)

Lan Xichen by now has also taken notice of it, having helped the conscious disciples move the unconscious ones into a proper position– he had left Lan Wangji's side the minute he started examining the corpse, he was reluctant to tear away from him (his brother had almost died ) but the disciples needed orders and organisation, and Lan Xichen is supposed to be their sect leader– he too suddenly realised that they had not brought any archerers to Caiyi .

All of their combatants were swordsmen, save for the musicians and healers, they did not see a single bow nor arrow hitched onto any disciple as they charged off.

He's pondering this as he too examines one of the wolves shot down. The craft of the arrow and its colour is not a specialty of their craft makers and…

If there had been an archer in their sect so strong that it took only one arrow to the wolves' foreheads Lan Xichen is sure he would have known the disciple as a sect leader.

Lan Wangji returns to his brother's side soon after, holding onto a crimson arrow he removed from the creature's head, the arrowhead was covered in blood, wiping it off shows the deep orange shade of the tip, but neither are able to guess what the material is.

"Strange don't you think so Wangji?" He says to fill the silence.

The second jade nods his head with an 'mn' it takes him a few seconds before he hesitantly adds. 

"...I may know who it is." His brother's brows raise in question, but before he can ask the leaves rustle loudly behind them and before they know it, every conscious disciple has held their swords unsheathed. 

It may be because they were paranoid of what else the forest was hiding from them, they are all tensed up, inhaling every breath like it's their last as the rustling sounds come close like someone is nearing their position.

A hand darts out of the trees to swipe a branch aside and everyone unconsciously brings the sword into a combat stance.

Lan Wangji, however, feels like he could laugh and cry today.

Because the person who walks out between the flurry of trees looks at the swords pointed his way with a squeak, unconsciously raising his hands up in surrender. The man slides his gaze towards Lan Wangji and drops his jaw with a gape.

"Lan-daozhang ?" 

The second jade returns his expression with a slightly relieved gasp.

"Wei Wuxian."

Everyone looks between them both with confused expressions, but seeing as how their Hanguang-jun hadn't brandished his own sword, they hesitantly brought theirs lower as well.

"Wangji?" Lan Xichen interrupts from his side.

The second jade breaks away from their staring contest to look at his brother, who is wearing a wary expression.

"Do you know this person?" 

Oh, there is the matter of that, too.

•><•

"Why didn't you tell us this sooner?" His brother asks him.

Right now, they're sitting in the Hanshi , though not only them. Lan Xichen had thought it's be proper to call on their uncle and a couple others. 

So here they sit, their cousin Lan Chuanli, his great aunt Lan Qingyuan, his uncle Lan Qiren, and his brother Lan Xichen. Looking at him as he explained to them what had truly happened a month ago, when he and the disciples chased down the bear yaoguai.

Wei Wuxian had been excluded from this conversation, because although Lan Wangji had been familiar with him, his brother and uncle did not trust the other man so much, though they couldn't be discourteous to a man who saved their disciples' lives– and the second jade made sure to highlight to the two of his family members: twice now– they had invited him to go back to Cloud Recesses and he had agreed.

"We had our reasons." Is all he says in reply.

"Did he threaten you?" Lan Qiren asks with a furrow of suspicion. 

Lan Wangji sighs quietly, "He did no such thing, shufu. I ordered the disciples to keep silent about the situation myself, I was not influenced."

"But why ?" His brother asks him again, having the face of a person betrayed. "Why exactly did you keep it a secret from us? We had the right to worry for yours and the disciples' safety, Wangji!"

Lan Xichen stops short when their greatsaunt raises a hand, asking for silence. "Calm child, I am sure Wangji-ah has a reason, let him speak."

Almost flustered by his outburst, Lan Xichen apologises to their great aunt. 

Grateful for the opportunity the elder gave him, Lan Wangji let himself think for a second, contemplating how he would say it.

"I did not want to bring danger to his home. I believe they were hidden from us for a reason, xiongzhang. " He says, and quickly adds;

"I did not want to betray his trust by exposing something of his that I had no right to speak of."

We remember what happened the last time something similar occurred .

That was not said, but everyone seemed to have heard it anyway. Lan Xichen unconsciously flinches from the words hanged in the room but quickly recovers with a deep sigh.

"That is…" His brother starts, avoiding eye contact. "...logical, forgive me for my overreaction." 

Silence over takes the room in a suffocating way, but not knowing how to mend the wound, Lan Wangji keeps quiet.

Hesitantly, the first jade breaks it by clearing his throat. "So when you told me you knew who might have known who shot the arrows, it was… Wei-gongzi?"

There's still a bit of suspicion in his voice when he says the name, but he disregards it.

He nods, "I suspect that these creatures are from his homeland as well." 

His grand aunt raises a brow, "How do you suspect?"

"We encountered a similar kind of creature." The second jade answers. "It was large, had scales like rocks, I wasn't strong enough to face it."

Lan Xichen makes a pained noise in the back of his throat, obviously quite shocked that his brother would ever even encounter such a thing.

"Wei Wuxian came in and saved us from it. He was also the one who brought us home safely." 

"And set rampage the beasts of his home apparently." His uncle says, making the room a bit tense.

"Qiren." Lan Qingyuan scolds, "Do not jump to conclusions." 

Lan Qiren huffs, combing a hand through his goatee, but making no comment against her, as she had more seniority than him.

"But." He continues. "I admit that I am grateful for his presence. With him, we can find a solution to rid the creatures from the jianghu, am I wrong to assume that?"

Lan Wangji ponders this a bit, while it is true that Wei Wuxian was the solution to their problems, would he be capable of doing it alone?

He shakes his head. That's a foolish thought, the man might have not come alone, he shouldn't have jumped to conclusions.

But then, again. If Wei Wuxian went around the jianghu eradicating the monsters by himself, what if he is accidentally exposed? No one knows about these creatures, then all of a sudden, a man comes and solves a problem they had a hard time solving. It's obvious everyone will be curious.

Lan Chuanli speaks up, "Unfortunately, we do not have enough information to discuss this." He says, shaking his head with his arms crossed.

"No one in this room, not even Wangji, has enough knowledge of the situation to discuss any further. I truly suggest we invite Wei-gongzi to speak with us." 

Silence again, before the first jade finally sighs deep. "That is the truth." 

Lan Xichen turns to Lan Wangji, "Since you are familiar with him, please tell Wei-gongzi that we would like to speak with him after dinner."

"Very well."

•><•

When Lan Wangji exits the Hanshi , it's with the biggest sigh he's let out in his entire life.

Although he himself was not closely familiar with Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji feels that the suspicion his family was giving the man was a bit exaggerated. 

From what the second jade had observed (although little), the younger man was friendly in nature, very friendly in fact, maybe a bit too generous, seeing as how he had helped literal strangers get home without seeking favours. 

He was an outgoing man, although he was quite noisy, he got along well with the seniors that day. But he certainly was someone who wouldn't fit within the criteria of his sect, maybe that contributed to his uncle's dislike.

Lan Wangji sets out towards the guest quarters, hoping to relay the news to the man before dinner comes.

When he reaches Wei Wuxian's guest quarters however, he is not there. The room is empty, save for the cedar incense and a few open scrolls, the second jade guesses that his guest had gotten curious and decided to kill his time reading. 

But the guest himself is not here. 

He must have explored the grounds, Lan Wangji concludes and exits the quarters. When he spots a nearby disciple patrolling, he stops him to inquire;

"Have you seen a guest exit from this room?" He asks motioning towards the quarters.

The disciple takes a few seconds to respond, "Is it perhaps, a man with red robes, Hanguang-jun ?" 

The second jade nods, and the disciple points him to the direction back hills, 

"He went behind the training grounds Hanguang-jun." He says.

Lan Wangji thanks him and lets him continue his patrol, making his way to the back hills.

The area was a bit remote and desolate, so the second jade hoped that Wei Wuxian hadn't gotten himself lost. 

It was slightly a twenty-five minute walk from the guest quarters to the back hills, Lan Wangji took the opportunity to appreciate the peace and calm during his walk.

It was refreshing to be at home after such a stressful event passed through them. The second had often gone for a walk behind the training grounds when he was feeling worn-out, sometimes he would bring a basket of leaves with him to visit his fellow bunny pets companies.

While pets were forbidden in the Cloud Recesses, wild animals were not, and it just so happened that these wild bunnies decided to settle within the back hills, Lan Wangji would only come to give them company once in a while.

When he reaches a certain open area surrounded by bushes and trees, he hears multiple muffled voices not so far. 

"...at's that?"

"...t's called a vision! While in your…"

"That sounds so-!..."

The second jade manages to come a little closer to find Wei Wuxian as expected, but not only that, the said man is surrounded by a group of Lan juniors, lead by Lan Jingyi, who's supposed to be in the healer's pavilion recovering.

It takes the man a few seconds to realise that these were the same juniors that had gone to Liyue with the rest of them.

They seemed to be asking the man in front of them questions, judging by their engrossed expressions.

"Why does it always feel like autumn back there?" One of them asks.

"That's because the amount of energy contained in our lands is responsible for that!" Wei Wuxian chirps.

"The energy is so potent that it affects the surroundings of our land, because of that, our soil might be entirely different from yours, while your grounds remain flat on the ground, some of ours float! That's because of the energy."

There goes a bunch of 'oohhs' and 'aahhs' . Suddenly Lan Wangji is hit by the realisation of whether the man should really be saying all this. It's like he's been hit with some kind of déjà vu.

He remembers clearly what Wei Wuxian had once told him; the man trusted that they wouldn't spread the information, even if they did, there was a gut feeling within Lan Wangji that told him Wei Wuxian thought no one would believe them anyway.

Yes, the Lans may be righteous people who must keep their promises. Lan Wangji finds it hard to believe that the man,– basically little to no less than a stranger for almost everyone here, someone who came from an unknown origin, a foreign place that was ignorant of the outside of their barriers– would believe that the second jade would keep his word, just because he's heard about their justice.

It unsettles something in him. Though the man obviously wouldn't gain any benefits from helping them, after all, their civilization had literally made sure that the jianghu would never discover their existence. It's obvious they didn't want to be involved with them at all.

It would be easy to gain the trust of men during their vulnerable times, especially when they are in need. 

It has happened once.

Lan Wangji shakes his head, no, he cannot jump to conclusions. So far, Wei Wuxian has been nothing but kind , it feels unfair to accuse him.

They continue speaking, asking questions and him answering. He doesn't seem annoyed by them, in fact, the man seems to enjoy their presence.

Earlier as they were walking back to the town, Lan Wangji had taken the opportunity to observe the other man properly– in a respectful way of course. (He was too busy internally fretting for the lives of his disciples to have even looked at the man properly the first time they met)

Wei Wuxian looked quite young, maybe close to Lan Wangji's age. He had fair, olive-tanned skin with fine jaw lines. His eyes were silver with a light hue of lavender when it hit the light, accompanied by the red eyeliner and long eyelashes. 

His hair was black and faded unnaturally into a dark red on the tips, bangs framing his face giving off a soft look, the braid resting on his right shoulder was tied with a silk red ribbon. The man was all in all, very good looking.

Wei Wuxian's attire was different on the other hand, he was wearing an outer robe that stopped shortly on the beginning of his legs, a vibrant red that faded into orange and then yellow at the bottom– though earlier he hadn't been wearing it quite properly, letting it hang off his waist only supported by the grey sash and a red belt. 

Lan Qiren had taken one look at him and would have spit blood for the 'indecency' if not for saving face, one of the seniors that he had gotten along with had to ask him to wear it properly.

His inner clothing was something that almost resembled a changshan, but was cut at the end of his shoulders and had hugged his body, it was a dark brown with the collars of it covering up one-fourth of the man's neck. He hadn't worn any sleeves either, only some closely fitted black fabric over both arms like gloves but had open gaps on where the fingers were. 

On Wei Wuxian's right wrist there were two accessories, one was a worn-out maroon colored bracelet crafted with traditional threads, and the other was that of a silver bell with a purple tassle tied to its end.

While on his left wrist there was a black bracelet that looked like prayer beads, and on the back of his glove was an intricate square shaped jewel, embossed with a gold colored material while the jewel itself was similar to the colour of an aquamarine. In the middle of the accessory however, was a symbol Lan Wangji had no knowledge of.

While there are few things in the style that the second jade was familiar with, everything else was absolutely foreign, Wei Wuxian certainly stood out. But if you were to give him decent clothing of jianghu , he would have fit right in.

His observations are cut short when the man himself finds his gaze right back at Lan Wangji. 

The second jade slides his eyes towards the unsuspecting children, pretending like he never looked at the man's way. 

"Ah, Lan-daozhang!" The younger man greets, very loudly, while waving his hands at the approaching man.

Lan Jingyi and the other disciples fumble at the sound of the given nickname and whip their heads towards him.

"H-Hanguang-jun!" Lan Jingyi squeaks, saluting to Lan Wangji as the others stumble to do the same, their faces are colored in red, possibly embarrassed that they were seen acting childish and out of their age.

Lan Wangji nods back in greeting, he looks back at the disciples first before saying;

"You shouldn't be wasting your strength, you are not yet recovered."

Lan Jingyi almost visibly deflates in relief at the fact that he was not being reprimanded, but then catches himself in a bow after realising he had been caught being outside instead of the healer's pavilion. 

"A-ah– please forgive this disciple Hanguang-jun, I know I was told to stay in the healer's pavilion, but I'm feeling very fine! Please don't tell a-die!" He squeaks.

The older man sighs, "Do not exhaust yourself." The junior brightens almost quickly.

"Return to your headquarters, evening is approaching." 

The youths all salute to him and leave.

Jingyi was always pretty out of the ordinary, or, in his brother's words: un-Lan. Despite being born and raised as one, if he were to be given robes of other sects, no one would bat an eye.

Thankfully the child was not part of the group who had fallen victim to the wolves' attack. Nevertheless, he was still heavily injured and should be under strict supervision. The second jade won't fail to report this to Lan Chuanli.

A light laugh erupts from behind him and he turns to see Wei Wuxian smiling. 

"They're very full of life don't you think Lan-daozhang? They're so curious of the world." The man jokes, eyes crinkling into crescents as he crosses his arms together.

"I apologise for the disturbance they might have caused you." Lan Wangji says.

"Disturbance? No! No no, don't worry about it Lan-daozhang, I was not annoyed by their presence, in fact, they were kind enough to show me around your beautiful home! It was the only way I thought of repaying them."

Ah, so he had indeed left to roam around. Not that the older man was upset, the foreigner did not need permission to explore. But it was nice to know he wasn't alone but instead guided.

But Lan Wangji is a little ashamed to have forgotten hosting his guest, leaving the man alone in the quiet, solemn room with nothing to do.

The man isn't well versed in talking, so he doesn't know what to say to Wei Wuxian next, awkwardly, he answers, "Mn."

Hearing that Wei Wuxian chuckles again, "You're not much of a talker are you, Lan-daozhang?"

The second jade has been told many times, he's grown used to hearing that phrase from people who try to associate with him. He's about to bow his head apologetically when the man interrupts it.

"Aye– It's alright Lan-daozhang! Don't bow, please! I did not mean any harm by saying that, just a small observation." Wei Wuxian tells him, waving his hands in front of Lan Wangji with a grin.

"Mn. Lan Wangji." 

The man tilts his head to the side. "Huh?"

"Lan Wangji. There are many Lans here."

Once he says that, the realisation is visible in the man's face. Possibly that he realised that calling Lan Wangji; 'Lan-daozhang' would create much confusion, as there were many Lans in the sect, and they were all cultivators.

"Ahh, but isn't that a bit too awkward I guess?" Wei Wuxian says. 

The second jade raises an eyebrow like he's asking, 'how so?' . 

Like a master reader the other man recognises the expression and adds.

"Everyone here treats you with respect daozhang! If I'd known you were someone important, I would have addressed you as so!" He says, a little too exaggerated.

Then after a second he brings a finger up, "Ah! I'll just call you what everyone else does! Hanguang-jun !" He exclaims, quite loudly, like Lan Jingyi. In a way they were almost alike.

Seeing as how the other man was set on his decision, Lan Wangji only nods his head at the title.

"So, Hanguang-jun . What brought you here?" Wei Wuxian asks, but laughs suddenly before adding "Oh! Of course you would be here, this is your home!" he says, chuckling to himself.

Ah, he had forgotten for a second, side tracked by his thoughts that he lost his reason to visit. 

"Xiongzhang wants to speak to you after dinner." He tells the man.

Wei Wuxian smiles at the news, "Ah, great! I was actually hoping to have a word with your leader as well."

"Related to the current situation?" He asks curiously, and receives a nod in return.

"So how are the affected faring?" The man asks in return.

The second jade nods with an 'mn' . "They are no longer being drained of their spiritual energy and are recovering slowly."

He smiles again, honestly, how many times can a man smile so much?

"Great. That's really good." He says, exhaling in relief.

"Thank you." Lan Wangji resolutely says. 

"Huh?"

"Without you, the Lans could have lost lives. You've saved us once again." He says, closing his eyes and going for a deep bow.

"Please accept my gratitude as the GusuLan's whole. We are truly indebted to you." 

He must have said a lifetime of thanks, usually Lan Xichen was the one who said these things, because when he's the one who says it people would know that he meant it. He was all smiles and politeness, the pride of Gusu .

Wei Wuxian awkwardly scratches his cheek. "Hanguang-jun, please, you're bowing again!"

"Gratitude is served, bowing is necessary." He responds.

"I've told you not to worry about it, Hanguang-jun , as I've said before. Anyone else would have done it!" He says laughing a bit awkwardly, as if the prospect of someone bowing deeply towards him is uncomfortable.

When the man tries to tell him to stop bowing, Lan Wangji whispers, so quietly that he almost misses it.

"But there was no one else."

There was indeed, no one else who could've helped them. Not how Wei Wuxian had. 

When they had gotten back to the healer's station, carrying with them their wounded disciples, the healers were scattered and panicked.

 

They had in fact not found a solution to the wolf's attack and almost lost the lives of the civilians, one of the physicians had gone out her way to continuously supply one of them with spiritual energy just to keep the young man alive.

 

She passed out in a matter of minutes, but thankfully the black markings weren't contagious, so the moment her hands separated from the patient, her spiritual energy stopped draining away. 

 

When Wei Wuxian entered the station, he immediately went and examined one of the patients. Seeing a foreign man enter their tent, naturally everyone reacted strongly. Lan Chuanli almost attacked the man when he had gotten close to Ren Hui.

 

Only when Lan Wangji interfered the rest of them stayed wary, but had let Wei Wuxian check the child.

 

The man's brows furrowed and he gasped, making the healers tense at his reaction.

 

He caught sight of the black linings on Ren Hui's chest, which everyone noticed had grown longer, reaching the child's neck.

 

"Are the other patients like this?" Wei Wuxian asked, which his cousin nodded reluctantly to. 

 

"Four civilians, seventeen disciples." He supplies.

 

"How long has it been?" He asks again, growing more and more serious.

 

"It's been more than an hour." Lan Chuanli says, almost regretfully.

 

The man doesn't even pause before he runs to the nearest civilian, examining him the same way he did with Ren Hui. 

 

His eyes widen in horror, quickly he pats himself down, as if looking for something within his own robes.

 

Concerned by this reaction, Lan Qingyuan approached Wei Wuxian, choosing her duty as a physician over her suspicion. 

 

"How bad are their conditions?" She asked him. 

 

Before answering her, he pulls out a small herb pouch out of his inner robes. 

 

Wei Wuxian looks at her hesitantly, his lips narrowing into a thin line. That's when Lan Wangji realises, that the reason why he must be hesitating is because he would endanger himself to exposure. 

 

The second jade is about to interfere again when the man starts to speak;

 

"Dire." He tells them, everyone sucks their breaths, his great aunt's lips narrow thinly, having already landed on that conclusion, but needed some kind of confirmation.

 

Wei Wuxian unties his herb pouch and plucks something out of it, a small, black orb the size of a pea. 

 

"They are going through something called Corrosion." He supplies, and quickly grabbing a mortar and a pestle on the nightstand, he starts grinding the black orb. 

 

Everyone has fallen silent, watching as the man did this and that, they can only watch, can do nothing.

 

Using the silence as an opportunity to explain, Wei Wuxian continues; "It does what it says exactly, you've examined the black linings on their bodies haven't you?" He asks them.

 

Seeing as no one answered, Lan Chuanli spoke, "It's draining their spiritual energy."

 

"Not just their spiritual energy." He says as he starts looking around the tent for something. 

 

Someone must've figured out what he was looking for, because a male physician bravely approaches with a brewing pot and offers it to him.

 

The man thanks the other, pouring out the now powdered orb into the brewing pot, filling it with water and slapping a heating talisman onto it.

 

"When they are corroding, their spiritual energy, life energy, basically all of what keeps them alive is being taken away, it won't stop until the body is nothing but dust." 

 

Oh, Lan Wangji's stomach drops. Oh this was a mistake.

 

He shouldn't have brought the junior disciples, they should have been safe in the walls of Cloud Recesses, not being endangered at a young age.

 

Now he's standing in a room, staring at the disciples laid on beds not knowing when their breaths will be their last.

 

"Lan-daozhang." Wei Wuxian calls out to him. 

 

His head snaps up from the patients to find the man standing right in front of him with a serious expression.

 

"Don't worry, they won't die today." He declares. "Not when I'm here."

 

To others it might sound awfully arrogant of him, but Lan Wangji finds himself completely trusting this man, a man he's only met once, just a month ago. 

 

But right now, it feels like this man could have all Lan Wangji's trust if he asked for it.

 

Once the pot has finished brewing he pours its contents out into a cup, not waiting to cool it before he brings it to the patient's lips and lets him sip on it.

 

The patient coughs violently, bringing his hand to his mouth and starts hacking. When he removes his hand, it's covered in some kind of dark liquid.

 

"You-!" Someone yells, alarmed by the violent reaction but gets cut off by Lan Xichen.

 

"What was that?" His brother asks.

 

"That's what's causing them to corrode." Wei Wuxian says, helping the slightly conscious man to sit better, and letting him drink the concoction again. 

 

"Gongzi, drink more of it, please." He pleads to the civilian softly, successfully getting the man to drink half of the cup.

 

A few minutes later, the young man jerks straight from his sitting position, bringing a hand to his mouth and heaves on the floor next to the bed.

 

He releases the same dark liquid, pooling the floor with it like a puddle, and passes out again. 

 

Wei Wuxian seems to be satisfied with this outcome, he helps the civilian lay properly again as he disrobes the man.

 

Everyone gasps, the marks have disappeared! Leaving only faint grey spots where they used to be.

 

Wei Wuxian brings the herb pouch to Lan Qingyuan, placing it into her hands when she offers them.

 

"Grind this and brew it, don't cool it down, the yang of the heat will help purge the Corrosion out of the body faster." He instructs. 

 

His grand aunt only hesitates for a second, and soon the tent is scrambling with action again, barking orders to healers and asking those who aren't in need to exit the station.

 

After a few minutes Lan Chuanli exits the tent to inform them that the patients are no longer in critical condition. 

 

Beside Lan Wangji his brother lets out a shaky, sigh of relief. 

 

Once the patients are stable enough to be moved, Lan Xichen orders the assembly to transfer to Cloud Recesses where they can have access to more tools. 

 

Seeing Wei Wuxian exit the tent, the first jade turns to him, "Wei-gongzi." He salutes.

 

"Ah." The man salutes back.

 

"Just in time, we were about to head back to Cloud Recesses, and I was hoping to invite you back." His brother says, smiling politely. 

 

It was clear that his brother hadn't fully trusted the man, but Wei Wuxian saved the lives of his disciples, it might be a little rude to discredit him.

 

The man agrees to go back to Cloud Recesses with them.

 

Wei Wuxian is silent for a little while, having heard Lan Wangji. 

If he hadn't come to the jianghu , how many lives might have been lost?

The man smiles at him, bringing the mood back up. "Alright, I accept your gratitude." 

•><•

Wei Wuxian politely declines the invitation to eat in the dining hall, claiming that he wasn't hungry. Seemingly a stubborn man at times, Lan Wangji asks someone to send him food to his quarters and the man relents.

The second jade stops by again after dinner, requested by Lan Xichen to bring the man to the Sect Leader's office.

The walk to the Hanshi was quiet, not that Lan Wangji minded, the night was at the right amount of cold and the moon was out, basking both of them with light as they walked through the paths.

"Your home is beautiful at night, Hanguang-jun." Wei Wuxian says with awe.

Not knowing how to respond to a compliment of his home, the second jade responds;

"Not as much as yours when the sun sets." He says.

The latter man laughs, a sound that breaks the cold. "Ah, but when you live in a certain place for all your life, you get used to such sceneries." He says.

"Though, I feel like this view will never get old for me." 

The rest of the way is peaceful silence, occasionally some small comments from the younger man, but he never seems to expect any replies, which is alright for the second jade.

Lan Wangji knocks on the doors of his brother's abode. "Xiongzhang, I've brought Wei Wuxian." 

There is a few rustles and muffled words before someone behind the door answers;

"You may enter."

He slides the door open slowly, being greeted by the presence of both his uncle and brother. 

Stepping in first he holds the door open for Wei Wuxian to enter as well, when he does, the man immediately salutes to Lan Xichen as the second jade closes the door behind them.

His brother speaks first; 

"Good evening Wei-gongzi. I'm afraid I haven't properly introduced myself. I am Lan Huan, courtesy Xichen. Sect Leader of GusuLan and otherwise known as Zewu-jun . This is my uncle, Lan Qiren, and the Grandmaster of GusuLan"

Wei Wuxian smiles in greeting. "This one greets Lan-zhongzu and Grandmaster Lan . My name is Wei Ying, courtesy Wuxian."

Lan Xichen nods his way and beckons him to take a seat.

"My brother has already informed us of a few details, but I was hoping to ask more from you." He says.

There it is again, the slight hesitance, but he quickly covers it up with a nod and a smile. 

"Of course, Lan-zhongzu ." The man replies, but before his brother continues, he adds.

"Although," Wei Wuxian starts. "I'm afraid there will be things that I cannot tell you, due to…" He cuts off, looking away from Lan Xichen and at the wall to his left.

His uncle stays silent throughout.

The first jade realises what the man implies, "Don't worry Wei-gongzi, I won't press you for answers you do not want to give."

He smiles and nods.

"Would it be presumptuous of us to suspect that these creatures originate from your territory?" Lan Xichen asks.

"Not at all, Lan-zhongzu. You are correct." 

A grunt from Lan Wangji's right.

"Is it possible to ask; why they are roaming around in our lands?" Lan Qiren says.

"Respectfully, Grandmaster." Wei Wuxian says, and suddenly drops into a bow.

"I'd like to apologise to you first, on behalf of our people, for bringing our danger into your lands. We truly did not intend for it."

"Ease, Wei-gongzi . You are not at fault." His brother says.

When the man straightens from his bow, he starts to explain;

"A month ago, creatures from our region started getting out of control." 

A month ago, which was the same time they started showing in the jianghu.

"Me and my companions spread across the region to round these creatures up, with the intention of eradicating them." 

"We thought it was contained within Liyue , we were wrong to think that." He says regretfully.

"Just yesterday in fact, I was chasing the pack of riftwolves down when they suddenly left the borders of Liyue . It was alarming to me since I've never seen a creature exit our boundaries."

"So I left my region to chase it down, worried about the destruction it might cause."

"Are there others like you in our jianghu, Wei-gongzi?" His brother asks and receives a shake of a head. 

"No Lan-zhongzu, only me, I couldn't inform them of the situation because of the hurry." 

So he had indeed come alone, contradicting Lan Wangji's presumption that he had come with a partner.

Wei Wuxian speaks again. "It's come to my attention that this isn't the first time you've encountered these." He states.

Lan Wangji is the one who answers.

"No, we have come across foreign creatures for the past month, all across our jianghu. "

The man looks down shamefully, as if he failed to serve a duty he was assigned with. 

"Can you describe to me what you have fought, Hanguang-jun ?" He inquires.

Many, and easy to describe, since it's so distinct and different from anything he's seen in his life.

"Mn. Plant-like creatures that produced fire. Humanoid ones with masks and fur, giants that wielded shields and axes. Ones that float and make ice." As he describes a few more, he notices a small pattern in the creatures he's encountered.

Most of them manipulated natural elements, like fire, ice, rock, one even summoned thorns from the ground. 

"It seems they've trespassed earlier than I expected." Wei Wuxian says grimly.

"Do you have a solution to this?" His uncle asks. 

The man falls into a pondering state, before he looks at Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren with resolve.

"I do have a solution. Although I might need your help for this." He says.

The solution, of course, is that Wei Wuxian would be the one going around and eliminating the monsters himself, but he needs the certain locations. And he suggests using GusuLan's name when someone investigates him. Still fearing the danger of being exposed to a world he is unfamiliar with. 

Lan Wangji knows how that feels.

Wei Wuxian declines the idea of bringing a group of disciples with him, his reasoning being that they have no knowledge of what they'd deal with, and he didn't want any more casualties. 

"But then, who will help you with your journey?" Lan Xichen asks him.

The man is about to suggest no need, that they can just give him a map of the most infected area and a fake letter that proves he's from the Lan sect.

The second jade doesn't know what brings him to say it, but when he does, it's already too late, he cannot take his words back.

"I will go with him."

.

.

[End of chapter 4]

Chapter Text

They set out for Qinghe the next day.

His brother had suggested Yunmeng first, for the reason that it was closer and therefore they'd be able to help out faster.

But Wei Wuxian had told them that Qinghe currently needed more aid than Yunmeng. Compared to the water creatures the man called 'hydro mimics', the monsters in Qinghe could cause severe damage and possibly tear the sect apart.

It felt a bit exaggerated for both Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren, after all QingheNie was one of the five great sects that prioritised strength rather than strengthening their political stand–not that they needed to– and Nie Mingjue was a leader whose resolve was made of stone; steady and strong.

But another side of their mind quietly realised that it might not be so dramatic. From what the Grandmaster had heard from his eldest nephew, they barely survived the ambush from the wolves. They came home with half of their unit on stretchers being rushed to the pavilion. 

And his youngest nephew came home the past month with injuries he only gained during the war.

So both Lans relent.

Wei Wuxian also waved a hand on the suggestion to send disciples to aid Yunmeng, repeating his claim of not wanting any more severe cases of lives lost. The man tells them to refrain from dispatching their cultivators to any of these cases, just to send those to him and he'll handle it.

Of course on this section of the discussion they weren't too keen on agreeing. The man was a stranger to them, no matter how much it takes to convince both the Lans. Lan Xichen was just a bit easier to convince, seeing that his young brother hadn't made any noise of protest to any of Wei Wuxian's plans, instead calmly facing forward and occasionally sipping tea. 

It showed that Lan Wangji had fully supported this plan.

…

Except maybe the part where he accidentally volunteers to accompany Wei Wuxian on his journey.

Ah, but he's already released his grasp on the bow string. You cannot stop an arrow that's already shot. 

So instead of retracting his offer of coming with, he keeps the decision. 

"Are you sure, Hanguang-jun? Surely there are more important things waiting for you here." Wei Wuxian asked him that night, when the second jade walked him back to his guest rooms.

There probably are important things to do in Cloud Recesses, like helping his brother manage the sect and other likes.

Lan Wangji doesn't really have a solid reason for why he wanted to come along, it all came to him so suddenly that he didn't even rationalise it. 

"Mn. I would like to accompany Wei Wuxian." He decided to say, and didn't elaborate.

Thankfully the other man hadn't asked any more, he greeted good evening and slid the doors close.

It didn't take long for them to get set and leave. Wei Wuxian hadn't brought much baggage, only two qiankun pouches on his person. 

The second jade himself didn't need longer to pack, bringing only three pouches with him; one for spare clothes, one for rations and the other was a regular pouch for money. 

He strapped Wangji onto his back and secured his sword on his side, closing the Jingshi doors behind him as he headed for the main entrance.

On his way to the gates he passes by many disciples, who bow at the sight of him and greet him good morning. 

What greets him at the gates is Wei Wuxian and his brother having a stern conversation, the former man has reverted back to his original outfit, only this time he has a dark red and black bow slung over his shoulder and a quiver strapped to his right thigh. 

Lan Wangji wonders how the man's mobility wouldn't falter from that, the heaviness of the arrows would surely be disadvantageous. 

It's Lan Xichen who catches sight of him first. 

"Ah, Wangji." His brother says, gracing him with a smile.

"I just wanted to see you and Wei-gongzi out, making sure you had everything ready." Is what he says, his eyes however, ask the second jade if he's sure of this decision. 

"Mn." He decides to say, an affirmative for both. 

The first jade nods in defeat. He plasters a soft smile for both of them as the second jade takes his position next to the foreigner. Wei Wuxian nods at him with a smile and he responds with a quiet nod of his own.

"Well then." Lan xichen says, "I will not delay you any further."

He puts his clasped hands in front of him as he lowers into a cultivator's salute. "I hope you have a safe trip. Wangji, Wei-gongzi."

Wei Wuxian smiles and returns the salute. "Be safe Lan-zhongzu."

The first step out the gates Lan Wangji unconsciously takes a deep breath and releases it. The wind hits his face as he trots down the stone steps with the other man following behind.

"I'm awfully unfamiliar with your region, Hanguang-jun ." The younger man says, a bit of a skip in his steps.

He grins wide, ear to ear, like he held the answer to every question. "I will be in your care!" 

•><•

Lan Wangji discovers, as soon as they leave the protection of Gusu, that Wei Wuxian is a very curious-led man.

He knows that the latter man is very talkative, like he never seemed to run out of words. The second jade had vaguely listened to how he chattered with the senior cultivators on their way home.

But currently being the receiving end of his conversations, Lan Wangji finds difficulty in stopping him.

If he were any younger, he would have found Wei Wuxian absolutely infuriating. 

The younger Wangji would have glowered at the man until he shut up, or maybe he would have lost patience and simply cast a silencing spell on him.

Growing older means being wiser, also being exposed to certain elements he disliked, it's safe to say that he's more patient than when he was younger.

Instead of irritating, the second jade finds that the younger man is very overwhelming. 

The way Wei Wuxian's curiosity leads him off path for a few minutes. Lan Wangji has to call his name to make him remember what they're travelling for. 

If he's not off being distracted his attention is fully on the older man, not at the second jade himself, but the answers he had to offer. 

The simple 'what is that?' to anything remotely eye-catching. Once he had gone down into a one-sided conversation of how similar fierce corpses were almost similar to creatures in his homeland called 'hilichurls'.

Lan Wangji was barely catching on, all he could do was nod every time the younger man looked his way. 

He was certainly an energetic person just as he had thought he would be, no doubt, it was like overseeing three six year old Lan Jingyi's in one body. 

And Lan Jingyi himself as a six year old was already a bit handful.

"Ah." The man beside him says, cutting himself off his own rambling, in the process he also manages to get the second jade's full attention again.

Wei Wuxian's cheeks tint slightly as he gives Lan Wangji a small, apologetic smile, bringing his right hand to scratch the back of his nape. 

"I'm rambling! Hanguang-jun, you should have stopped me!" He says, clicking his tongue. 

Oh, so he is aware of his own overwhelming-ness, not that the second jade minded.

"It is alright. You are curious." He answers. 

Both of them stop when a flurry of kids run past them, shrieking laughter and holding up kites.

Currently, they landed in a small town in Shangqiu, located not too far from Qinghe. 

Lan Wangji discovers earlier that, back in Wei Wuxian's home, flying on swords was not a common concept. 

The man had a bow, but did not carry a sword like every cultivator would. Or the second jade assumes that Wei Wuxian is a cultivator. 

He constantly sensed some kind of energy in the man akin to a golden core, or something that resembled it, sometimes it felt like it was even more. But what made him curious was how it always felt closer to external than internal, the older man only thought that it was just because the younger was exposed to more pure energy than him, and he basically radiated it.

But since Lan Wangji was the only one with a sword between the two of them, they had to make do. 

While they could have taken horses for the trip, it takes two weeks to get to Qinghe on road with short stops, but it takes only two days on a sword. One day if the cultivator had a strong enough cultivation base. 

But carrying two people on Bichen deemed to be a tiring feat, the younger man noticed the Lan's exhaustion and suggested taking a rest.

They left Gusu at the rise of the sun (a bit late in Lan Wangji's opinion, but the other man had risen two hours after he did.) And had travelled by sword until noon passed, so when they landed in the outskirts of the town, the sun had already begun to sink.

Luckily, according to their geography, it would take them only a few hours to get to Qinghe on horseback from where they're resting. 

Wei Wuxian's eyes swim across stall after stall, crossing his arms together as he speaks up. "I'm always curious!" He says with a huff.

"Someone once told me that it wasn't a valid excuse to talk a person's ears off." The man laughs. 

The younger man looks at his way with a smile, "What about Hanguang-jun? I'm sure you have questions yourself!" 

Oh, he has many questions he wants to ask. 

Instead of answering Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji walks forward spotting an inn down the streets. The younger man seems to find no offense in it, only following after him.

They take two rooms and resign themselves for the rest of the evening.

•><•

Lan Wangji had originally planned to eat inside his room, he used his time to meditate and replenish his energy, he only rose when his body clock told him it was dinner time.

So he travelled downstairs to ask for dinner to be brought up to his room. 

But before he got off the last step of stairs, laughter erupts from among the dining tables and the second jade's attention is suddenly taken.

In one of the tables Wei Wuxian is sitting with a young waiter and happily chatting, in his hand is a cup and on the table is a jug of wine and peanuts. 

They seem to be in a jolly mood, the young man says something that makes the waiter hold his belly and laugh. 

As Lan Wangji walks closer, Wei Wuxian's attention seems to snap to him, he brightens up and chirps.

"Hanguang-jun ! It's a nice evening for a drink don't you think?" 

He motions a hand to the seat opposite of his, beckoning the second jade to accompany him. 

Lan Wangji only planned to speak to a server and leave, but it feels rude to decline the man. So he slowly makes his way to the foreigner.

The man seems to brighten further when he takes a seat. 

"Care for a cup or two?" He asks, jiggling with the cup of wine in his hand. "Their brew is fantastic! Almost tastes the same as the ones back home!" 

He looks at the jug for a few seconds before shaking his head. "Alcohol is prohibited."

Wei Wuxian tilts his head with a 'hm?' at the answer, "Oh, is alcohol not allowed during missions?" He asks curiously.

"Lan cultivators are not allowed to drink alcohol." He responds, then after a second, he adds "It is one of our rules."

The other man's mouth shapes into an 'o', letting out an 'ohh' sound to let the second jade know he understands.

"Ah! The rock wall with carvings of characters in it isn't it?" Wei Wuxian says, "Xiao-gongzi and his friends took me to see it during my short stay."

The second jade nods "Mn." 

"Say, truly, how many rules are carved into that wall?" The man scoots close to the table, placing his elbow on the surface and his other hand brought up to the side of his mouth, as if he's asking a private question.

"Xiao-gongzi told me that it was a bit over three-thousand! I honestly couldn't believe it!" 

Lan Wangji feels a bit amused with the small antics, though his face won't show it. "Mn. Jingyi speaks the truth."

Wei Wuxian releases a quiet splutter, "Three-thousand!?"

"Three-thousand and five-hundred." He confirms, when he turns to his side the server from before has his hands on a tea tray, the second jade didn't ask for anything yet, but the thought was appreciated.

The older man receives the tea and the pot and sets it down gently on his side of the table, calmly pouring himself a drink while the younger man gasped in surprise at the statement.

Lan Wangji's eyes slide onto the bag of peanuts scattered on the opposite side of the table, "Have you eaten?" He asks.

Wei Wuxian had already recovered from his exaggerated surprise, pouring himself another cup of wine to drink when he stopped and looked at the second jade. 

"No, I haven't." He says, smiling a bit sheepishly. 

"To tell you the truth, I brought a pouch of money with me, but I realise our currency does not match."

Likely to prove his point, the man produced a gold coin from his inner robe and flicked it into the air, catching it with his index finger and thumb and displaying a symbol carved into it. 

Aside from the sigil in the middle, it looked quite normal. 

"When I showed this to the server, he lost it! He told me it was too much for liquor and snacks." 

His face crumples in confusion before he continues, "Back home I would have to pay two hundred of these for a jug!"

To say that Lan Wangji is surprised is an understatement, he's awed, five gold coins here is enough to buy a moderate house. If a wine jug in Wei Wuxian's homeland is worth two hundred, the man can't imagine how advanced their economic society is.

"And it seems they don't want the mora, the innkeeper took a look at the symbol in the middle and thought it was suspicious, so I didn't insist any further."

It was a reasonable excuse he guesses, but that won't do. The second jade calls for a server once more, the younger man starts insisting that he isn't hungry and that the wine was enough, but is gracefully cut off by the sound of his grumbling stomach.

Wei Wuxian reddens from shame, "We will need the energy for the trip tomorrow." The older man decides to say, saving the other man some face. 

Despite all his insistence, when the server comes to take their order Wei Wuxian has no qualms on relaying to him the spiciest dish on the menu. 

Lan Wangji himself orders a simple vegetable dish and more tea, the server smiles and returns to the kitchen order in hand.

The younger man watches the server go before breaking the silence once more.

"Do we have any information about the situation in Qinghe? I was hoping to ask you this earlier but we hadn't had the time." 

That's right, they didn't have the time to talk the whole day, considering they were up in the air travelling.

The second jade dives a hand into his sleeve to retrieve a piece of paper folded neatly. " Xiongzhang gave me a copy of the letter Nie-zhongzhu sent to him." 

He hands the paper over to Wei Wuxian, who unfolds it and starts reading the content while he continues speaking. "But the letter was awfully vague, xiongzhang suspects that Nie-zhongzhu wrote it in a rush."

The other man hums, "The only thing to be noted is the description of the creatures: humanoid, fur covered faces with white masks, axes and other weapons. It matches up with the stories. They're hilichurls alright."

Lan Wangji pauses, "Stories?" 

He looks up from the table to the second jade a moment before he speaks, "Oh yeah! I was speaking to a bunch of people a while back, I figured that since we were close to Qinghe citizens would have had word about what happened."

That actually makes sense, some cultivators would often do the same when night hunting, most of the time commoners have more information than what is given to them systematically. Lan Wangji himself does not do this, but for a very social person like Wei Wuxian, he suspects that a lot of people let their tongues loose. 

He gives the man a nod, who takes it as a chance to continue speaking, "There was a travelling merchant dining here a few minutes ago, he said that Qinghe fortified their city, they closed off their gates letting no one in or out." He played with the rim of his cup, refilling it again and peeling off the rest of his peanuts.

"The server told me that he heard from a cousin who worked in the magistrate that Nie-zhongzhu completely evacuated his denizens into their sect base." The man crunched on the nuts and took a swig of his wine, the second jade thought to himself for a while.

"We will have a hard time entering the city." He says. 

"Did Lan-zhongzu say anything about where the monsters came from?" Wei Wuxian asks.

"Mn. The forest surrounding the city." Luckily he brought a map with him this time, he rolls it out onto the table for the other man to see, and points at the southwest forest near Qinghe. 

"What if we entered from the air?" The younger man suggests again, pointing his index finger up to express it. 

Lan Wangji shakes his head, "If what the server says is true, Nie-zhongzhu might have activated a barrier around the fortress." After the siege by the Wens, Nie Mingjue took it upon himself to enforce his barriers, he hired the most talented array masters with the right amount of gold, and by the end of the year the Unclean Realm and the town below were practically untouchable.

The barriers were designed to counter any external attacks and strike back with the same amount of force, any sign of spiritual energy in the air the barrier would absorb, so entering by sword is not the safest option to say the least. If Lan Wangji was being honest, the sect leader really out did himself for that one.

While the two were in deep thought, they shortly noticed the server coming back with the tray of their food. 

"Well, we'll figure something out tomorrow!" Wei Wuxian says, excitedly removing the map and peanut shells from the table to make space as the young server placed their food down. 

Of course due to habits, Lan Wangji is silent as he eats, but he lets the younger man chatter throughout, only giving nods in response. Wei Wuxian doesn't seem to mind, he must have deduced early on that it was one of his rules again, and happily chatted away without expecting a verbal response. 

The latter man practically gobbles down his food, which, the second jade grimaces internally, looks concerningly too bright red, he can feel his eyes tearing up just by looking at it. When the man looks up at him, the second jade swiftly covers his lower face with his sleeve, pretending to take a sip out of his tea cup to make it seem less rude.

If Wei Wuxian saw him stiffen at the sight of him grabbing for the chilli oil, the man didn't say anything.

After they finish eating they finalize their plans for tomorrow and the second jade resigns, the younger man seems to take interest in the night market, seeing that Lan Wangji decides to give him a spare jade token. 

When the second jade explained the use of it the man's reaction was to wave his hands repeatedly and exclaim that he wasn't planning to buy anything so he didn't need the token. But Lan Wangji insisted (calmly) and even made a side comment that he'll be needing it to claim his identity anyway. 

So defeatedly,(victoriously for Lan Wangji) Wei Wuxian took the jade token and went his way.

•><•

The next day, he awoke first. A simple knock on Wei Wuxian's door gives him absolute silence, there is no harm in assuming that the man is dead asleep. 

So he goes on his usual morning routine, he meditates, then eats his breakfast in his room silently.

Lan Wangji assumes that the younger man won't be up until an hour later, so he takes it upon himself to buy horses in advance, then peacefully starts walking back to the inn. There are a few stalls being set up, but not a lot of people out and about yet. It's Lan Wangji's type of calm.

It wasn't a long walk back, when he returns to the inn the halls are empty and quiet, save for the innkeeper and his workers preparing for the day. 

When Wei Wuxian trots down the stairs it is indeed, a full hour later, he's yawning heavily and his eyes aren't fully open, but he seems clean, his hair even looks combed. 

The younger man mumbles a good morning and slumps down onto the seat opposite of the second jade, but not long after his head starts to slide onto the table where he rests his cross arms.

Lan Wangji, who's on his third pot of tea, calmly pours the man one on a spare cup and slides it next to his head. A silent request for a full awakening.

He mumbles something along the lines of 'who wakes up at the ass crack of seven.' quietly, but not quiet enough. 

"If we are to reach Qinghe as soon as possible, we will need to depart early." The second jade tells him.

Wei Wuxian grumbles and groans, before lifting his head slowly from its nest and cradles the cup of tea in his palms. He takes a whiff and lifts one eye open.

"Lemon leaves and honey tea?" He asks, lifting it to his mouth and taking a sip.

"Comfortable way to wake up." Lan Wangji explains, drinking the last drop of tea in his cup before he fixed himself and stood.

"I will be preparing in my room." The older man receives a mutter of affirmation from the latter and he walks up to the second floor.

Once he closes the door behind him he starts tidying his belongings, extinguishing the incense and folding up the letters from his family, pushing them into his sleeves. 

When he starts fixing his guqin into its cover, he notices something moving in the corner of his eye. Right by the window, perched gracefully is a little blue finch, the sill that was previously closed was now opened without the second jade's notice.

Slowly, so as not to startle the finch, Lan Wangji sets his covered guqin down and approaches it. It doesn't seem to be afraid of the man, in fact, as he stops in front of it the little finch starts jumping up and down and flapping its wings. 

It must be accustomed to human beings, but the question is, why is it in Lan Wangji's room?

He's about to pass it on as an idle percher and continues down stairs when he notices that the bird has a blue ribbon tied around its left leg.

The second jade crouches slightly to be on the same level as the animal and it flaps closer to him. 

He lays his palm on its frontside and the bird immediately jumps onto it. Carefully observing the bird closer, he also finds a small cylinder case attached just behind the leg. 

It seems to be a messenger bird.

Though messenger birds are still used quite commonly, it's a method of transportation often used by commoners and non-cultivators.

Sects stopped using messenger birds for official letters after countless third party interventions. Later they started creating more safe aerial methods that changed depending on sects. 

Such as the Jin butterflies. The Lan have been thinking of a method themselves, but as of today they still send the letters with a disciple. 

The Lan sect does not use messenger birds, so this little finch most certainly does not bring news to him from his family. 

Should he try to risk opening the message? But it's possible that the bird was simply misdirected, and the letter is not something for his eyes. 

Instead of doing anything with it, Lan Wangji decides to bring the finch downstairs with him. With one hand, he picks up the qiankun pouches and stores it inside his robes,gently strapping the guqin onto his back, and he exits the once used room.

When he returns downstairs Wei Wuxian is a little more awake, his eyes are open at the very least and he isn't slumping on the table anymore. 

The man looks at him with a big smile and waves, "Good morning!" He says happily, though he'd said it twice now.

"The sun rose hours ago." He returns with a small huff. 

Wei Wuxian swats a hand in the air, "Pshh! Morning comes when you awake! Time is a social construct." 

He's interrupted by his own yawn, a big bellied one that leaves him with tears in his ducts. "Besides! Who wakes up at the god awful hour of seven?"

The second jade raises a brow, "What hour do you usually awake?"

"Eleven." He's somewhat not surprised.

If it wasn’t for the weight on his hand, he would have almost forgotten about the little finch, who might have also thought of the same thing and started chirping loudly, catching both men’s attention.

“A little bird?” Wei Wuxian tilts his head in curiosity.

“A messenger.” He says, as the other man stands from his seat and approaches the second jade, lowering his head a bit to look at the finch closer. “It appeared on my room’s window. Though it does not belong to me.”

As soon as Lan Wangji finishes his sentence the blue finch suddenly jumps forward, almost smacking its body into Wei Wuxian’s face if the man didn’t step back in surprise. It flaps its wings happily as the younger man holds on both his hands out for it to perch on. 

The man hums a bit, squinting at the bird before his eyes light up in recognition, “Mulan!” He exclaims. 

Mulan? The older man tilts his head in quiet query, watching as Wei Wuxian ruffles the finch’s feathers and it croons happily. When the man looks back at him, he answers, “Ah, I shall introduce you! This is Mulan, she’s one of my friend’s messenger birds.” 

He nods, apparently birds are smart enough to know that their receiver is currently not within their homeland, the trainer of this little finch must be skilled.

But then why did it land on his window? Perhaps it mistook his room for the other man’s since his is just beside the second jade’s? Or maybe there was another reason.

Whatever the reason is, it’s a question left unanswered. He watches the foreigner unclasp the tiny capsule and retrieve a small,rolled up paper from it that’s tied with a ribbon of the same colour as the one on the finch’s leg.

Wei Wuxian unrolls it and reads silently, then afterwards he crumples the paper and hides it within his sleeves. He looks at Lan Wangji with a bright smile and speaks, “We should get going shouldn’t we?” 

Indeed they should. 

So they leave the inn and walk to the stables where the horses Lan Wangji bought stay.

It doesn't take them long to set off.

According to Lan Wangji's photogenic memory (and the physical map he brought), Qinghe is just three to four hours ahead north, they'd be indicated that they are near once they cross a river, he tells as much to the other man when he asks.

So they set a medium pace, the horses are not running but they aren't walking as well, because as much as both of them want to reach Qinghe immediately, they still do not know how exactly to enter. And it would be ill-advised to run straight into unknown danger, what if they encountered those creatures? 

Of course, Wei Wuxian was strong enough to take them, and he was the one with more experience in dealing with these types of monsters. But the man himself had suggested steering away from sight, it was probably for the safety of others than the worry for himself.

The journey on the road was quickly filled with the younger man's chatter, some comments about the scenery, and a few times birds came to interact with him. It's honestly so interesting to look at bird after bird fly by him and decide that they like him. 

Lan Wangji long noticed the absence of the messenger finch, he saw the other man hastily write something on a small piece of paper, he fed Mulan and ruffled her feathers, before tying a red ribbon on her right leg and sending her off gently. 

"It's all good news." Wei Wuxian told him, not looking at the older man's way, only watching as Mulan flew off. "Just telling them that I'm fine." He says, and the second jade is not sure whether he's reassuring Lan Wangji, or the person who sent the bird. 

Lan Wangji himself is a little curious, about what exactly he doesn't know, the hidden homeland? The creatures? Or the man himself? Possibly all. 

He normally wasn't one to indulge in his own interests, though that is because he doesn't have many of them. So naturally, it was moderately difficult to muster up the courage to talk. 

After a few minutes of calm silence he asks the man, "You said your spiritual system was different than ours." Though now he hears himself, it sounded more like a statement than a question. 

Luckily for him though, Wei Wuxian didn't seem to mind, in fact, he looks quite happy that the second jade has voluntarily spoken out.

"Ah! Hanguang-jun has fallen into his curiosity I see!" The younger man teases with no ill-intent, followed up by a very enthusiastic yes to the question.

"Why do you ask?"

He thinks his words thoroughly first, and wow , it's kind of hard, is it too late to go back to monosyllabic answers? 

"Do your cultivators have…golden cores like…ours?" The older man says through difficulty, hoping it didn't sound too offending to the other man. 

Wei Wuxian tilts his head to the side, "Yes! Essentially, every cultivator is trained from birth to form a version of a golden core."

He continues "Those without one don't hail from an exorcist clan, so they weren't taught spiritual cultivation. Rogue cultivators with no golden cores often wield visions." 

The last word sounded a bit familiar, he tries to rack his brain a bit while the younger man chatters a bit. 

"You've said something about it to Jingyi." Lan Wangji says, again, with a mono tone.

"Hm? Oh, visions?" At the last part of his sentence, he lifts his left hand from the reins and gives the second jade a full display of the teal-colored jewel on his glove. 

The jewel, which stood out the most to him because of its subtle glow and strange mark, seems to radiate strong power that Lan Wangji feels from all the way where he is. He recognises it as the energy he always sensed on the younger man, somewhat closer to external than internal , he remembers.

The second jade nods, a silent request for Wei Wuxian to continue.

"You could say it's a…" Wei Wuxian pauses for a while, dragging out the 'aaaa' as he thinks. "It's quite similar to the function of a golden core." He says.

"A golden core takes energy from your surroundings and converts it into spiritual power that can be utilised in many ways." The young man continues, almost sounding like a teacher lecturing his students.

"A vision does the same! But instead of drawing energy from nature, a vision gives us the ability to imitate natural elements and manipulate it as we please." 

Lan Wangji has somewhat heard of something similar before, after the war a disciple of a mysterious immortal descended from their home to enter the cultivation world.

The man's name was Xiao Xingchen, though he wasn't truly a man, a bare age of seventeen years old, but he was skilled with the sword and had a strong will. 

The second jade has heard stories of how the rogue cultivator had the ability to create ice with the strike of his sword, while the technique was not uncommon within the jianghu , only few have actually managed to master it. Such as the former Jiang-furen and her son Sandu Shengshou and their heirloom Zidian , which possessed the ability to produce lightning and rid spirits.

Though, it is quite fascinating to hear the man say 'imitate', as though it isn't truly an element of nature and simply an artificial version of it.

Wei Wuxian proceeds to demonstrate to him the function of his vision, which, well, almost gave Lan Wangji a heart attack. 

One moment his horse was jumping over a fallen tree trunk, the next, the trunk simply stood, slightly shaking the ground as it got up from its position, bringing with it the overgrown roots that kept it stuck on the grass road.

It surprised both him and the horse, causing him to instinctively pull to a stop and turn to look at the now levitating-above-ground giant tree trunk.

The second jade gapes, letting his mouth fall as his eyes widen slightly at the sight. Then, it takes him a few seconds to realise that there is a bit of breeze coming from the trunk, and how it is surrounded by a familiar coat of teal energy.

Beside Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian has also come to a stop. The man, Lan Wangji notices, has his free hand out, motioning towards the levitating trunk calmly.

When he moves his fingers playfully the tree suddenly twirls, and it takes everything in the second jade not to back off in surprise at the sheer effortless way the younger man is playing around with a giant tree.

After a few seconds, Wei Wuxian gently lays the trunk down outside the road, and for some reason they're moving again. 

Lan Wangji's brain is still trying to process what happened, and the first thing that comes out of his mouth is, "You used that to manipulate your arrows." 

Definitely not the question he wanted to ask, but it's a start.

"Yup!" The younger man responds with a pop on his p, from his quiver he takes an arrow and lays in flat on his hand.

"As you can see, my vision allows me to create artificial wind." As he says that, the arrow floats off of his hand with the help of a swirl of wind that supports its bottom.

"It helps me aim better, even in far locations." The second jade suddenly remembers their second encounter in the outskirts of Caiyi, when they spotted the man, Wei Wuxian himself was surprised to run into them. Is it possible that he was aiming from a very far place, just as he said, and truly was not aware of him and his disciple’s presence?

"I can also do this!" He says excitedly, the man swirls a finger around as the whirl of wind covers the entire bow and starts to spin on its axis at a very fast pace. "It's easier to hit the hardened parts of creatures when the momentum is unstoppable." He explains. 

Fascinating, he's never heard or seen anyone manipulate wind at will; there have been texts of history claiming previous mortal wind masters and gods, but they were known for wielding a war fan. 

There is one wind master that Lan Wangji was familiar with, a certain second heir Nie who also wielded a war fan, he had seen with his own eyes how strong his winds were with a bat of his fan, but Nie Huaisang himself had said that even he couldn't bend or shape the wind, all he was doing was redirecting the course of it. 

But here Wei Wuxian was, playing around with it, the younger man had the arrow fly around,under and over forest tops, he started whistling a joyful tune and the arrow seemed to move along to the melody. It seems as though his whistling affected the way it moved, where the second jade assumes he whistled a shrill and rushed tune on their first encounter, the arrows he released were fast and quite deadly.

The show ends when the younger man reclaims his arrow and dissipates the wind, putting it back into the quiver and smiling at the man expectantly.

And the only thing Lan Wangji could breathe out was, "Incredible."

Wei Wuxian's smile grows impossibly brighter, he grins ear to ear that it feels almost audacious to look away.

"What of the others?" He asks again, he can probably guess what the rest of the elements were, but for some reason, hearing the latter man talk about his own homeland fascinates Lan Wangji to no end.

"Oh, there are seven types of visions. Wind being one of them, then there is fire, water, ice, lightning, earth, and botany." The man lists out one by one, holding up a finger everytime he named an element.

The last one receives a raised brow from the older man, "Botany?" 

The younger man nods with an amused smile, "The common term in our homeland is 'dendro'. But basically it's the ability to grow and manipulate plants. It's very similar to studying bio-life, where you change certain things about a living object to watch results– thus; Botany!" 

So the next few hours goes on like this, Wei Wuxian explaining little details about Liyue , and Lan Wangji asking small questions that trigger a whole other lecture.

During their conversations the second jade notices how the younger man handled his information well, sometimes he spoke about a certain topic a bit less before moving on to another one, that tells the older man that the information is something he cannot tell Lan Wangji and he absolutely respects that.

All in all, if Lan Wangji had to admit it, it was a very pleasing road trip.

•><•

They were far enough during their conversation that both men could hear water running nearby. 

This means Qinghe is only a few minutes away now. 

As they came to a stop at the exit of the forests, Lan Wangji is about to suggest flying on sword until they reach the gates,

When a loud scream alerts them both.

.

.

[End of chapter 5]

Chapter Text

Wei Wuxian whips his head towards the exit of the forest, just as he jumps off his horse, a loud inhuman roar echoes throughout the woods. 

The man's eyes widened, he turned to Lan Wangji, who also dismounted his horse, and brought a finger over his lips in a signal to make no noise. 

Letting the reins of his mount go, Wei Wuxian reached for his bow and an arrow. Following him the second jade unsheathed Bichen, they both slowly made their way into the open area, where the river ran its course. 

As they did a scream broke out again, this time it sounded shrill and younger than the first one. The first thing Lan Wangji registers is a young woman running out of the opposite side of the river, her face spells terror as she promptly trips and falls face first into the water. 

Luckily the water wasn't deep enough to drown, but it was dangerous enough that the woman started bleeding wounds. 

Wariness turns into alert, just as the second jade moves to help the woman another pair of silhouettes appear from the forest; an adult man and a young boy. 

"A-Ying!" They both scream, 'A-Ying' raises her head trembling and shivering. The two males run to her side, with the same terror in their expressions.

Another sound of a roar, but this time it's closer than ever. 

Beside him Wei Wuxian's pupils sharpen, the ground shakes violently with the sound of booming footsteps and the man suddenly shout;

"Get to those people, now!!" 

Lan Wangji wastes no time, no longer than the moment the younger man finished his sentence the second jade was already at the opposite side of the river.

When he reaches the three, he sways on his feet greatly but carefully balances himself once more.

Before he can act any further, a gigantic hand breaks through the forest tops, covered in dark fur and clawed. Then, an animalistic masked head appears, with big ivory horns on the side of its face, yellow glows for eyes that sharpen as they take notice of the people on the river. 

Its roar makes the ground tremble and crack, as it stomps one foot down sharp rocks rise from the ground and rapidly make its way towards them.

The second jade sends Bichen flying, brandishing Wangji and sending out a wave of energy to go with his sword, both collide with the incoming attack strong enough to break it.

Just as quickly as Lan Wangji had finally reached the family, another wave of rocks came his way again. He pushes them behind him as he reclaims his flying sword and strikes upwards, creating a harsh line on the ground when the line of pointed rocks split in half. 

Unfortunately the attack spawned clouds of dust into the air, but it quickly dissipates due to the water they stand on.

The distressed family shrieks at the sight, attempting to move away from the second jade and into the safety of the opposite land.

"Stay behind me." Lan Wangji instructs, causing the family to squeeze into each other as he steps closer to them in a protective stance.

Once the dust has fully settled, the monster is nowhere to be seen. The second jade grips his sword handle tighter and lays a hand on his guqin's note, ready to attack at any sound.

He hears a loud, incoming roar. Not from his left nor right, nor from behind. 

From above. 

The older man whips his head up to see the gigantic monster descending upon them, his head screams imminent danger as he backsteps and attempts to push the family out of the way.

He couldn't make it any sooner. With his sword he plunges it deep into the river surface, sending spiritual energy into the ground as a barrier constructs itself around him and the family.

It was a weak attempt of defence, evident by the way it slightly falters when the monster drops its weight onto them. But Lan Wangji grips his sword hilt with both hands and stands strong, he's given the opportunity to expand the barrier as the creature raises his knuckles in the air. 

It stumbles backwards upon contact with the spiritual energy, the monster tries to balance itself once more when suddenly it's hit by a strong projectile right in the center of its mask. 

The arrow does not embed onto the mask, rather it veers off course after hitting the monster and plunges deep into a tree. 

The mask itself is cracked in the middle. A long angry line right in the center that drips with red.

The second jade hears rapid footsteps on water coming from behind him before spotting Wei Wuxian launching himself high off the ground, and right onto the shoulders of the monster.

The man plunges something sharp into the wound of the creature and it roars, starts moving around frantically with no direction and attempting to shake Wei Wuxian off. 

Lan Wangji takes this as an opening and disables the barrier, rushing the family of three onto the opposite side of the forest.

The man knows he could have helped right then and there, the monster was flailing around with no guard and could have attacked at any given moment. But it was too dangerous to do so with innocent civilians standing too close to the battlefield. Lan Wangji knows when to step out when the chance is given.

The ground shakes again, following the sound of an ear piercing shriek. The second jade looks back to find the river flowing out as sharp, deadly rocks rise from the ground. 

In the middle of it all he sees Wei Wuxian and the monster surrounded by controlled winds, twisting and turning as they grab and drag the monster down by his limbs. 

The man himself suddenly gets thrown off the creature, but he twists in the air and lands with his feet on the ground. He quickly jumps to dodge when rocks rise from his position. 

When he spots Lan Wangji from behind the monster he shouts;

"Aim for the chest!" 

Despite not making any sound, the monster's attention somehow follows the second jade, he wields both weapons as it turns fully to face him. 

He's not near enough for the monster to reach him in seconds, but it bends it's knees and launches itself into the air so high and rapidly descends again. 

With the flick of his wrist he strums Wangji that surrounds the monster with spiritual energy on all sides, it closes in on it, causing the creature to fall straight down. 

It shakes its head as if to remove the effects of the attack on it, and before the monster can make one more move something grabs its raised arm, pulling it backwards forcefully. 

Its other arm is given the same treatment– pulled forcefully by an invisible rope that makes the monster unable to move. When it motions to raise a foot that too gets grappled mid air, soon all its limbs are captive and it struggles against the invisible ties. 

Lan Wangji gives himself a second to glimpse at the man behind the creature– his figure is tense and his hands are fisted midair, as if he's holding onto something.

Wei Wuxian is giving him an opening– and he'll use it well. 

He closes the distance between him and the monster and strikes with all his spiritual energy right into the chest of it.

When he goes to retrieve the family, the second jade is relieved to find that they are unharmed by the attacks.

But the woman being huddled protectively between the two men earned some deep wounds from her fall, and the young boy seems to have sprained an ankle.

After some convincing, Lan Wangji manages to lead them back to the exit of the forest where their horses have somehow stayed, eating grass and drinking river water as if nothing ever happened.

He took it upon himself to help treat the family– letting the boy sit on a flat rock while the young woman leaned on a nearby tree– as he watched Wei Wuxian hover over the corpse of the monster in the corner of his eye.

A stonehide lawachurl, the man had called it. A variant creature similar to the ones Lan Wangji had come across in Langya, the younger man explained that it was a modified version of it, being exposed to certain elements made it evolve into something… quite terrifying.

He finished wrapping the substitute splint around the boy's ankle when Wei Wuxian deemed his examination over the corpse concluded and started heading his way. 

"Are you all okay? That must have been quite a fright." The man says in a very gentle voice, as if soothing a startled animal.

It seems to have worked however, since the genuine smile on his face coaxed the child out of his guard and shyly nodded. 

"Is the young guniang alright? She took quite the fall earlier."

The said woman graced them with a gentle smile, bowing her head as she spoke;

"I thank you for your help, Hanguang-jun, daozhang. It does not hurt anymore." She says, and smiles more at the man that kneels beside her and hovers like a worried hen.

Her father, perhaps. The man had been protecting them by shielding the young woman and boy with his own body, he had truly looked frightened. 

The man rises and bows as well, "Truly, Hanguang-jun, had it not been for you and this daozhang, we wouldn't know where we would end up! You have my deepest gratitude, it's likely a debt of life!"

Lan Wangji shakes his head, "No need, do not waste your second chance of life with a debt, spend it well for your family." 

The father looked close to tears, actually, he was already pouring on the cheeks. He bows deeply again and muffles a thank you through his sobs.

A few seconds later he rises and exclaims, "Ah! Where are my manners? This one is Wu Bai, I'm a passing merchant going through Qinghe to Baling. This is my daughter Wu Xiuying and my son, Wu Chi." Both children bow in front of them.

"Passing merchant? Wu-qianbei, I thought Qinghe was going through a city lock-down. It's quite dangerous to be out and about right now, what brought you out?" The younger man asks, placing his index finger and thumb under his chin in a thinking stance. 

Wu Bai hesitates, clearly pondering whether it would be a safe bet to reveal his intentions to them or not, but in the end he relents.

"You see daozhang." The merchant starts, "Our last trip brought us to Pingzhou, we left the city and went on the road before the news got out that Qinghe closed down– it was merely 3 weeks ago!" The man exclaims.

"We didn't get to reach the gates before we got ambushed by that monster! So we abandoned our cart and went straight off the path– I couldn't risk my childrens' life daozhang!"

Seeing the father's stress Wei Wuxian shook his head and smiled, waving a careless hand to shake off any negative assumptions.

"It was right and brave qianbei, you did what you thought was safe for your children." 

The man deflated in relief, possibly crying once more. The young man went up to comfort the father and family, all while Lan Wangji stood and watched it all. 

Lan Wangji was known as Hanguang-jun, the Light-bearer, he sparked hope in people left and right. Made it known that with his presence everything will be safe.

But the title did not give him the power to breathe life into people, he could not comfort them, nor can he pat the back of crying families and reassure them that it's alright.

Watching the family of three trust a man they merely met with their emotions made present the feeling of an empty space next to Lan Wangji's heart. 

Years of experience had not made a better human out of him, he grew to learn that rules were not everything, he became much wiser, much restrained. He became stronger than he ever was, gaining the power the man he was in war would have envied.

But emotions were something he never won a battle over. He grew up believing that feeling too much would be his weakness, he went to war with anger and grief on his shoulders. He built himself up at a young age, believing that he would stay this way for all eternity, and had no problem being so.

It only got him the struggle of tearing it all down.

A year after the war everything had settled more, Cloud Recesses was making its way to full recovery, Lan Xichen had more or less gotten used to holding the mantle with the help of their uncle and many elders. Everything was slowly growing back to how it was, and the second jade took the opportunity to travel for one year. 

His brother had been hesitant, so had his uncle, but his decision was with resolve and they could not move him. So off Lan Wangji went. 

He believed that he would learn how the world worked outside his home a little better this way, what it was like to live in a certain situation? What would it feel like to be this? Think in the position of that. For the first time the second jade let himself indulge in questions that scrolls and books of a library could not answer.

It was difficult in some cases, he would revert to old habits here and then when something wouldn't go his way, but he stubbornly went through with it.

It was like a process of constructing something around an already built statue, a statue with a frustratingly strong foundation.

Learning to accept certain emotions was difficult for Lan Wangji. It was as though he couldn't acknowledge the fact that he could feel like this. 

But locked away in the corner of his mind he knew he could, if he was willing to try hard enough, he would understand that his life was more than that of a framed canvas.

Lan Wangji was willing to learn how it was to feel like his mother had.

So standing there, watching this explosion of a man, so bright and colourful, spreading his happiness, freely showing his emotions with no consequences…

It makes the second jade ache for the same.

Even if he has to chip away that built statue with a rusty pickaxe. 

Lan Wangji doesn't realise how lost he is in his own thoughts, only bringing himself back when he hears his name being called.

"Lan Wangji?" A soft, yet bright voice asks. 

Wei Wuxian has somehow appeared right before him, hands folded behind his back and smiling with his eyes crinkled into crescents.

"Your attention has floated, Hanguang-jun! Maybe we should rest?" The man teases. 

Ah, the second jade feels his ears heat in embarrassment of being caught, how is this man continuously reading him? When he's sure only his brother ever could, with his borne ice block of a face as everyone calls it?

He clears his throat and ignores the younger man's knowing grin. Scratch everything he's ever thought of this man, Wei Wuxian is unbelievable.

"We should give the family the horses for their trip, it is not safe for them to be out for too long." Lan Wangji states, nodding his head to the father. 

His companion hums, "That's true… who knows what other dangers they might run into. I believe your map says Lanling is the nearest area from here?" The man asks, to which the second jade gives a mute nod to. 

Nodding to himself, Wei Wuxian moves to grab the reins of his and Lan Wangji's horse, beckoning the family over to instruct them on somethings. 

The older man remembers that they abandoned their belongings within their cart, so he sends them off with enough money to accommodate them for a few nights. 

"Best leave now." He states calmly, "While the sun is up and the paths are visible." Wu Bai nods resolutely at his advice, thanking them once more before taking off to the direction of Lanling with his children.

He watches as the younger man beside him waves his hand at their fading silhouettes, up until they disappear. 

Does he ever get tired of smiling?

Just as he thinks this, the man looks up at him with a grin.

Apparently not.

Instead of letting his mind stay on that topic, Lan Wangji turns around to face the river, his eyes landing on the lawachurl corpse.

Such dangerous power, fallen into the hands of a terrifying creature. It seems nature is never truly on your side.

The sharp rocks it made were still decorating the river like spikes after their fierce battle, but while the second jade had taken off to find the family it seems Wei Wuxian took it upon himself to clean up slightly.

The stumps of the rocks were still present, but the sharp edges were broken off into pieces. Judging by the way the man had kept on moving his left hand in a flat swiping motion, he assumes that it was taken care of by the wind.

When he stops in front of the creature he asks, "Will leaving it affect the area somehow?"

Wei Wuxian crouched down, poking his finger on the wound Bichen had inflicted upon its chest. "Yeah, it'll cause an awful miasma, we'll have to dispose of it." 

The second jade nods, already laying his hands on his guqin's strings when he notices something.

The lawachurl's mask is askew, completely slid off its original position, displaying a horribly debauched face with blue lines running over like veins underneath it. 

It seems its tongue is missing.

"It looks quite ugly doesn't it?" The younger man says to him. Seeing how the older man gaped at the brutal twisting of it.

"These creatures wear masks for a reason, though not what you expect it to be." And that's that.

Cleansing might have not worked on those rift wolves, but it seems to have an effect on these monsters, although only slightly. 

Wei Wuxian hums long and low beside him, lost in his deep thinking before diving into his qiankun pouch and pulling out an ivory object shaped like a dagger.

He takes the lawachurl's limp arm and starts carving onto it, characters it seems, something akin to a fire talisman but there aren't any elemental sigils. 

Then, he stands up and dusts off his hands, snaps his fingers and suddenly the monster's torso is disintegrating. 

"Incineration spell, the thing is too wet for us to burn. So I improvised." The man explains proudly, tucking away his dagger and huffing in satisfaction.

"It's similar to burning, overloading the body with enough yang energy that it starts to dissolve on its own. So we don't have to worry about the lawachurl's remains floating downstream." Wei Wuxian laughs, and once the monster's corpse completely fades away, they start moving out of the river to the opposite side of the forest.

"Shall we go?" He asks and quickly adds, "Ah but we don't have to fly on your sword, you must be exhausted." 

Lan Wangji shakes his head, already unsheathing his sword. "It is alright, Qinghe is not far, best to arrive faster." Ignoring the younger man's protests he drops his sword into a hover and jumps on, holding out a hand towards Wei Wuxian to help him up.

The man sighs and takes the offered hand, "Quite stubborn a man you are, Lan Wangji." 

The way he said the second jade's name made it seem like they knew each other for months now instead of just days. And the swift change of titles from daozhang to Hanguang-jun to now only Lan Wangji, he does not know how to react to it. 

Though it's not a change Lan Wangji dislikes.

As they soared through the sky the second jade is relieved when they finally spot the Unclean Realm's stone walls, indicating that they are near. The familiar, large deep green characters etched into the invisible space that was shaped like a dome shows that Qinghe has indeed activated their barriers. 

When Lan Wangji looks down at the cluster of trees beneath him he notices the line up of spiked barricades against the walls and the disciples of green robes surrounding the area.

The second thing he notices is the fight that's happening.

Coming out of the forest are axe-wielding hilichurls and mitachurls– from above it can be seen how easily they are overpowering the Nie disciples.  

A bit deeper into the woods the second jade spots something glowing, a small blue figure floating above the ground right next to it. 

If he squints he can make out the awfully familiar form of an elemental mage, it was a creature Lan Wangji had encountered several times during his rescue missions and had difficulty dealing with. Aside from the rift wolves, he could say that those were the most dangerous of them all.

Just as he was about to speak to Wei Wuxian, he feels the weight on his sword suddenly lighten with no warning, the body that was supposed to be glued to his back was replaced with air and–

"Wei-

There's an alarmed noise he makes at the back of his throat when he sees the said man falling steadfast down to the surface like the arrows he shoots.

He's falling– they are several meters off the ground.

No matter how well-versed Wei Wuxian is with the art of manipulating air to his heed it's impossible for him to survive that fall unharmed– and he's falling too fast with his head first-

"Wei Wuxian!"

Bichen twists in the air to dive down and chase after the falling man. Wei Wuxian seems to pay him no mind– his focus locked onto the ignorant floating mage.

The wind swipes across Lan Wangji's face as he reaches a hand out to grab any part of the man and steer him back to safety. 

The first problem arises– Lan Wangji has never dived down while riding his sword, it's dangerous and he has never had the need to-

So it really isn't his fault when his feet lose their balance and prevent him from grabbing Wei Wuxian's hand. 

They're only a few meters above ground– he can see the nearing terrain.

He quickly straightens his sword upright to rebalance himself but-

When the second jade looks out again Wei Wuxian is closing in on the surface rapidly. 

The next thing Lan Wangji knows, he blinks and the younger man has descended onto the mage.

He has no time to process it, but he quickly lands nearby and is presented with what is playing right in front of him.

The elemental mage is on its back, Wei Wuxian is on top of it with his hand grasping it tightly by the fur underneath its head. As it tries to struggle under his hold the man slams it harder onto the ground, causing a crater to appear beneath the now unconscious mage.

This man…

Falling off his sword from the sky, landing perfectly safe without a scratch– not to mention ambushing a mage all while doing so-

If Lan Wangji wasn't having a slight heart attack he would have quietly been in more awe.

The first thing that comes out of his mouth is; "Are you unharmed?" as the younger man stood from the ground and dusted his hands off.

Wei Wuxian smiles, wide and bright. "Yep! Don't worry about this lowly one Hanguang-jun, the abyss mage broke my fall." 

He highly doubts it. 

It frightens him to think that the man cannot possibly be human to achieve that.

But the man neither trembles nor falls, if not exaggerating, he's even skipping towards the big blue floating glow.

Speaking of the ominously glowing thing, it appears to the both of them like heavy mist, but at the same time; like a tear made by a giant knife. White dots decorate the space with orderly patterns that make it seem like stars… 

Like constellations in the night sky.

Lan Wangji snaps out of his thoughts when Wei Wuxian plunges a hand into the glowing mystery.

"...transportation?" He voices his suspicion as the younger man retracts his hand just as quickly.

The man looks at his left hand (the hand he plunged in) with furrowed eyebrows, shaking it violently like he's trying to remove an invisible object off of it before turning to walk back. 

"My my, you catch on very well Lan-er-gongzi! I guess Xiao-gongzi wasn't exaggerating when he said you were the best of the best!" Wei Wuxian responds cheekily before nodding.

The second jade huffs and looks away for a second, his flattery knows no bounds.

"It's a portal indeed. One I can conclude-" before he continued the man's vision glowed, wind gathered together and raised the abyss mage to eye level by the shape of a tightening rope to the neck. (Or what seems to be a neck underneath its fur.)

As it turns out the abyss mage was not really unconscious, simply pretended to be under the eyes of its enemies. It struggles against its shackle– grasping at air uselessly while its legs kick above the ground, making choked shrieking noises as the air around its neck closes in.

"Was used to bring our monsters into the jianghu, by these creatures." Wei Wuxian finished, and with a less friendly smile he spoke to the mage;

"Deactivate the warp." It garbled something nonsensically against the ties but the portal remains intact. 

The younger man's smile grew tighter, and again he repeated, "Deactivate the warp mage, or your prince loses one loyal servant." As he said that the air dug deeper and deeper into the creature's throat causing it to shriek again. 

It chokes something out illegible to Lan Wangji's ears but when he observes his companion's expression that slowly smoothens again, it must have agreed. 

To their right, the warp slowly shrinks into itself, bit by bit until it disappears and there is nothing but the forest again. 

But before either of them can breathe a shadow hovers over the second jade and he turns just in time to catch an axe head with his sword. 

A mitachurl– no two of them– Lan Wangji is made aware of the second one when it bursts out the cluster of trees and swings its own weapon down onto him. 

A strong gale interrupts its swing and throws the axe off its hands and onto the ground, the second jade takes the chance to swipe at his own opponent with a surge of spiritual energy to knock it back, releasing the weight of its axe on him and attacks. 

Swiftly Lan Wangji pulls out his guqin and slams on a note, sending a wave of energy towards the mitachurl preventing it from rebalancing itself– and a strike under the chin while its guard is down guarantees the second jade's advantage.

Lan Wangji has encountered these many times– has done this enough times that he memorises its weaknesses. Though that does not mean it was easy to defeat them. The fact that the Nies are struggling under its strength is enough evidence of how insanely strong they were.

It took an insane amount of unit work to take one down- much less three.

An effective strike under the chin causes it to fall into defensive mode, weary of its own neck; it leaves an opening on itself as it raises an arm to protect its upper body parts.

A slash on its underside will throw it off guard– leaving it with no ways to protect its head from the next attack. Lan Wangji shoots a blade of energy towards its defenseless head– not stopping at that; another strum of his guqin and a flying blade towards its mask— and it goes limp, down on its knees and head first onto the ground.

Wei Wuxian himself took no longer, a shot to the head with his signature crimson arrows immediately sends it to its knees.

He whips his head around to see the abyss mage on the ground– having released itself from its aerial chamber within seconds and Wei Wuxian draws an arrow back to aim.

But the ground breaks away to giant spikes of ice staggering their way to him– with no time to react the man shields both him and Lan Wangji with a dome of air, barely managing to avoid being impaled by a glacier.

The world just won't let them rest for even a minute won't it?

A lawachurl roars as it throws shards of giant ice at their shield. 

When Wei Wuxian turns to look at the ground where the mage is supposed to be lying– it's nowhere to be found. 

The man clicks his tongue, the second jade can vaguely see his eye twitch in irritation. He's certainly not happy and it shows.

"Chase down that abyss mage– I'll take care of this!" Wei Wuxian shouts as he opens the aerial dome behind them, giving him a clear path towards an escape.

Lan Wangji wastes no time– pushing off the ground to get a head start while the lawachurl is distracted by the other man.

The last thing he hears before he leaves the battlefield is…

("You're really getting on my nerves today, huh?")

The faraway crack of the ground.

Wind passes by Lan Wangji's feet towards the path he came from. It's getting a little chilly for some reason, the trees and bushes have been swaying south and leaves decorate the air.

The second jade is closing in on the walls of the Unclean Realm when he finally catches sight of the abyss mage. 

But he's too late– it's already escaped with another one of its portals. Leaving the older man with the company of one less abyss mage and more creatures to defend against.

It's the smaller creatures, luckily not strong enough for the second jade to struggle, with the flick of his wrist he wields his guqin string imbued with spiritual energy and charges.

After searching the grounds nearby and confirming that the abyss mage has truly escaped, Lan Wangji sets to return to Wei Wuxian. 

Only the rustles of the leaves nearby stop him, his senses are breached with resentful energy and without waiting for another breath; he has his fingers on his guqin.

Not wanting to be vulnerable to another monster attack– the second jade flicks his wrist of his strings and sends a rapid wave towards the presence by the bushes.

It's instantly evaded and blocked with the swing of a familiar silver saber.

At the sight of Baxia, Lan Wangji widens his eyes, lowers his guqin and rights his stance, immediately diving into a cultivator's salute for the man in front of him.

"Chifeng-zun." 

"Wangji." The man replies, grunting as he lowered his own saber from defense.

"What on earth are you doing? It's too dangerous to be outside."

The second jade straightens his back, keeping his head lowered as he explains, "My apologies, my companion and I were held up by a few situations."

A few is an understatement, they've been ambushed left and right, that his sword and guqin have known no rest this day.

Nie Mingjue raises an eyebrow, an expression of confusion as he quietly orders Lan Wangji to elaborate.

Lan Wangji himself makes a questioning expression, though not as visible to the naked eye. "I was under the impression that Nie-zhongzhu was informed by xiongzhang." He inquired, "Though forgive me if I'm mistaken."

The sect leader shakes his head and gruffs, "I have not received any letter from your brother these past few days. I'm afraid I do not know what you're talking about."

That doesn't sound right. Lan Wangji is confident in his brother's abilities to inform Nie Mingjue of their presence immediately. They wouldn't want to suddenly show up with a man who can solve all their problems without news.

After a few seconds of silence from the both of them Nie Mingjue sighs, "Companion, you say? Where are they Wangji?"

The man looks around, seemingly finding no one within his sights and frowns. 

"They-

He's interrupted by the sound of footsteps coming their way. While the sect leader quickly grasps his saber's hilt, Lan Wangji almost visibly deflates when the man in red comes out of the trees.

"Ah! There you are!" Wei Wuxian cheers, walking towards him, not noticing the sect leader at the opposite side of the area.

"I've been looking all over for you! And maybe got a little lost somewhere…" he continues sheepishly, scratching his cheek as he smiles. 

And as Lan Wangji processes the fact that the younger man is standing right in front of him, he also notices how the chill before is absent now, how strange.

The man continues to talk, "What happened to the abyss mage? Ah, it must have escaped hasn't it? So much for the chase huh? I'm sorry for ordering you like that it must've been so rude-"

The second jade pays his companion's talking no mind, for some reason his attention is caught by the big patch of blood on the man's cheek. 

It's quite the sore eye. But it doesn't justify Lan Wangji's actions when he suddenly finds his hand reaching out to wipe it off with the hems of sleeve.

Wei Wuxian paused his rambling as well, clearly surprised by this development that his eyes widened.

When the older man comes to himself, he suddenly realizes what this looks like– and swiftly retracts his hand.

The second jade looks at the ground as he says; "Blood. On your cheek." He raises his sleeve to show the younger man the crimson stain on the edge.

"Oh!" Wei Wuxian exclaims, rubbing his hands all over his face to get the remaining blood off. 

Maybe that was all it took for him to regain his own composure, he straightens his expression and looks straight once more.

Which is honestly worse, Wei Wuxian himself has regained his tease and is now grinning mischievously at him. "Aiya, if you wanted a reason to touch my beautiful face Lan-er-gongzi you could have just said so!" 

Scratch that. Scratch everything Lan Wangji has ever thought of Wei Wuxian ever. He's absolutely unbelievable.

"Ridiculous!" 

The younger man throws his head back and laughs, all joy and no filter as his voice echoes through the forests. 

Unbelievable. 

Yet something about it makes the second jade's head lighten.

They're both interrupted by a loud "ahem" from their side and–

Lan Wangji has not felt quite as embarrassed as he did now, he desperately hopes his red ears are hidden from the world.

Nie Mingjue looks between the two of them with a questioning glance, looking at the second jade who has decided that the tree beside him is more interesting than any worldly affair. 

The man hears Wei Wuxian beside him calm down from his laughter, not at all addressing in any way about the awkward situation they caught themselves in.

Instead, he saluted to the sect leader and spoke, "My deepest apologies to this master for not noticing your presence immediately. I hope you do not see it as rude as I did not intend for it." There is still a small amusement in his tone, but it does not make his introduction any less polite.

But the second jade silently notices the way his accent has been slightly different ever since he returned.

He clears his throat, pushing down the humiliation as he sees it best to introduce them both.

…or not. "This is Chifeng-zun. Sect Leader of the Nie Sect." He explains to the younger man and he nods his head in understanding.

Nie Mingjue himself crosses his arms, expecting Lan Wangji to introduce Wei Wuxian as well, but nothing comes out of his mouth.

He suddenly remembers at the last minute that his companion is meant to keep his identity hidden from other people of the jianghu, excluding the Lan Sect, and it would be unwise to give the sect leader his true name as of current.

The second jade subtly glances to the side, catching Wei Wuxian's eyes for a few seconds before the man smiles and winks back.

"And you?" Nie Mingjue says impatiently.

The younger man falls into a salute again before speaking, "Ah, you'll have you forgive this lowly one Sect Master Nie, for I have no family name to speak of. Only the birth name of Ren."

Ah.

His accent is slightly broken, making it seem like he was struggling to speak their language even though the man could breath a paragraph to Lan Wangji fluently. 

He sees what the plan is now.

The sect leader hums, eyes still narrowed in suspicion as he speaks, "That's not a common name here, and certainly not…" he pauses, looking at Wei Wuxian from head to toe as he eyes his suspicious garment.

"...that. Where are you from?"

The younger man smiles again, "Indeed it is not common. This one is from Dongying, Sect Master Nie."

Wei Wuxian purposely tied his tongue around a few words that it could fully convince anyone he wasn't from their nation. 

Though technically speaking, Wei Wuxian truly isn't from their homeland. 

"Do all you Dongying people dress up like this?" Nie Mingjue comments non-aggressively and his companion chuckles.

"Believe me, it's not as bad as it seems." He replies.

The younger man exclaims with an 'oh!' and continues, "The Lan Sect was kind enough to speak in my stead, I believe their master sent me off with this." He dug around his robes for quite a bit before showing Nie Mingjue the jade token that the second jade had given him yesterday.

The Sect Leader glances at the Lan, who subtly nods his way when he immediately reads the question in his eyes. 

It seems to be enough for Nie Mingjue to be convinced, or half convinced at least. 

The man gruffs and turns to start walking, "We're too exposed here, come. We'll discuss this once we're inside the Unclean Realm."

He does not wait for them to follow before he strides towards their fortress.

The sect leader is not far enough that they have to catch up, but not too near to overhear Wei Wuxian laugh lightly and speak to Lan Wangji.

"He's a man with suspicion. I almost feared he would catch my lie." He says sheepishly.

The second jade hums, following at a calm pace with his hands clasped at his back.

"Nie-zhongzhu is a protective man." 

"Well I can definitely see that." The younger man replies jokingly. 

"He's a little intimidating to be honest." Wei Wuxian confesses with an embarrassed smile. "I- he–" the man steps closer without a warning and the second jade nearly flinches.

"He's the size of a mitachurl, I almost mistook him for one!" His companion whispers, swiftly straightening his posture and smiling as Nie Mingjue turns to look back and see if they're following.

Huh.

So even the mightiest of a superior region can be frightened by the existence of Chifeng-zun.

Good to know.

•><•

"I will put faith in Xichen, as I know that the Lan Sect would never give out jade tokens to random strangers." Nie Mingjue claims. He sat on the dais at the end of the receiving hall, it was one Lan Wangji was familiar with for receiving private guests.

"But it doesn't make sense to me why anyone from Dongying would even be here." 

Wei Wuxian settles into his seat with a smile. "Ah, I can explain the situation to you right now, Sect Master." 

"And explain you will." The man says, beckoning over a servant to pour his guests tea. 

Lan Wangji thanks the servant with a nod, letting himself drink calmly as he backseats. He is entirely not needed until otherwise.

"If I am to believe, it concerns your current predicament." The younger man begins, and Nie Mingjue has already hunched in alarm.

The man leans back in feign casualty with his arms folded across his chest. "Which predicament?" He asks. Although he already knew the answer, it was more of a confirmation to his suspicion.

Instead of answering his question directly however, Wei Wuxian placed his teacup down and spoke; "Your warriors have been fighting bravely against unknown danger, Sect Master Nie." 

The younger man dipped his head low in a polite manner, "Allow me to apologise– for the trouble our nation has brought to your doorsteps."

Nie Mingjue's brow twitched, "Ren-gongzi, do you mean to tell me that your nation has something to do with the creatures that are running amok, terrorising our citizens?"

"Shamefully so." Wei Wuxian exhaled deeply, "We've failed our ancestors with our arrogance-" 

Lan Wangji must admit, his companion is quite skilled in the persuasive division.

"-and have relied on our barriers to keep the monsters at bay. We didn't realise they escaped until I personally witnessed one pass through with no complications."

Half the lie and half the truth. 

The sect leader's expression has now fallen into a thoughtful one, as he sips his tea, the man inquires again; "And you were sent here, I presume, to aid us."

"En. Sect Master."

A long silence droned over them all, Nie Mingjue seems to contemplate believing the story, on the one hand, the foreigner was accompanied by Lan Wangji and might actually have what they've needed to rid of the monsters.

On the other hand, it might just be a shady attempt and taking the opportunity at their vulnerable state.

Sensing how deep the silence has gone for, the second jade finally decides to speak.

"Ren-gongzi assisted us with the attack on Caiyi. I have personally witnessed his capabilities during the time we were travelling here." He says, and ponders whether he should have said more. 

His companion glances at him in the corner of his eyes, and sends him a small, thankful nod at the support (even if minimal.)

Even more silence, before Nie Mingjue sighs aloud. "I did say that I put faith in my sworn brother's words. And seeing Wangji speak for you, it dissipates any doubts I have." 

At those words Wei Wuxian breaks into a smile, "Lan-er-gongzi was kind enough to accompany me in my mission, I cannot thank him and the Lan Sect enough."

Just as he says that, a disciple enters the receiving hall, he bows to Lan Wangji and hurriedly whispers something to his sect leader. 

It must have been nothing good, since the man sighs heavily into his hand and immediately stands up. 

Both the second jade and his companion follow to stand, as Nie Mingjue gives his disciple an order and looks their way, he nods.

"As much as I'd like to discuss this further, I have other responsibilities to attend to." The man says.

"Well then-" Wei Wuxian starts, but gets cut off when Nie Mingjue speaks again.

"You and Wangji must be tired, Ren-gongzi. If what you said is true about being ambushed on your way here, both of you need to replenish your energy before going back into action." 

The younger man tries to speak again, but never gets the chance to, "I suggest you take the rest of the day to do just that. We will discuss our plans tomorrow." And with that, Nie Mingjue left.

"Ah…" Wei Wuxian dejects, being given no opportunity to speak to the sect leader before his back disappeared out of the hall. 

Seeing that, Lan Wangji righted himself, placing his sleeves behind him before telling the man; "We should follow Nie-zhongzhu's advice, W… Ren." Although the mistake was not heard by the servants within the corridor, Lan Wangji glimpsed from his side just to be sure.

"Ah but… I should be helping." His companion says regretfully, looking back at where Nie Mingjue had gone as he followed the second jade down the opposite direction.

A servant was sent with the order to lead them to their guestrooms, and had started off as soon as he had nodded.

"Exhausted."Lan Wangji states, not himself, of course. 

The younger man understood and shook his head, "No, no I'm not exhausted at all! I shouldn't be sitting here and doing nothing when I came all the way here to help! 

The older man paused in his steps, causing Wei Wuxian to do the same, who looked at him with a puzzled face.

He huffs, "Even if you aren't exhausted now, you will be later. It is better to be ready than to jump into a fight without knowing your limits."

As he motions to walk again, the younger man opens his mouth as if to retort, but nothing comes out, and he jogs to catch up with them.

"...right, of course." He responds after a short while. And the second jade cannot help but feel that his companion's facial expression is telling another story, as if he wasn't standing where he is right now but instead somewhere else. It looks… very out of place.

It also looks very weird not seeing him smile. Despite only being acquainted for less than four days. Lan Wangji finds that it's as if they've known each other for months instead. 

His thoughts are put to a stop when the servant shows them their rooms, they both dip their heads politely, and resign themselves, but not before Wei Wuxian gives him a gentle smile.

•><•

Lan Wangji finds him that evening, touring one of the stone gardens of the outer sect grounds. 

The younger man is admiring one of the bird cage gazebos, a beautiful structure filled with ivies and other eye-pleasing flowers, Nie Huaisang himself had been responsible for the architecture of it.

Though it seems he was not the only one admiring. There are birds flocking around Wei Wuxian, one perched on a finger he had raised, and others lining up together to get a closer look at the smiling stranger.

The second jade feels as though he's seen this scene play before.

One particular warbler, a pretty black and yellow, landed itself on Wei Wuxian's head, with a flower in tow that it dropped right onto the man's raven hair.

The younger man laughs, taking the offered flower as the birds flew around him as if playing. "Aiya, I don't have food for you, unfortunately!"

More birds approached, and if an outsider were to see this, it would have looked like some kind of ritual.

As Lan Wangji got closer to the end of the hall and onto the flagstone steps, Wei Wuxian whipped his head around, frightening all the birds perched on him into flight. 

The man beamed, waving a hand at the second jade as he approached. "Lan Wangji!"

The older man acknowledged him with a nod as the man spoke again.

"I really couldn't stay still unfortunately. But since it was orders from a superior, it would be rude to disobey them right? So I explored the place a bit."

Lan Wangji's mind helpfully supplies that Nie Mingjue technically isn't his superior, and he has no obligations to follow orders if he sees fit. 

A songbird chirps as it lands on Wei Wuxian's person again, laying down in satisfaction as it grooms its wings. 

"For a stone fortress, this sect has a lot of beautiful birds!" The man chuckles, taking the bird on top of his head into his hands and petting it. The songbird doesn't seem to mind at all.

For some reason that the second jade does not know of, birds seem to have a liking of his companion.

"Mn. The birds in Unclean Realm belong to the second young master." He tells the man. Suddenly remembering something, Lan Wangji pulls out a small hand wrapped cloth and offers it to the younger man.

Wei Wuxian hums and tilts his head, bird still in hand as he receives the wrap and opens it, to his surprise, it's filled with dried sunflower seeds. 

"It was given to me by the merchant's son before they left for Lanling." He continues. "For the…birds." 

His companion smiles brightly, making a  happy noise as he starts to feed his flock of birds. "Thank you!"

The second jade watches silently as the man feeds the excited birds in order, smiling, chuckling occasionally, and sometimes speaking softly to the birds.

Though he himself was not an artist. Lan Wangji felt the need to immortalize this scene.

"Are you fond of birds?" He asks, suddenly wanting to fill the silence. 

Wei Wuxian hummed, "You could say that." The man laughs lightly, "As a child where I went, birds were practically everywhere. So I spent a lot of time with them more than you can imagine." 

A little thrush pecks him on the cheek, as if a gesture of affection.

"It seems as though the affection is mutual." He mused and Wei Wuxian bursts with laughter again, the songbirds chirp in unison as if parroting the sounds he makes. 

They spend the next few minutes in the peaceful garden, filled with the sounds of his laughs and the delightful rhythm of the birds.

Given that most of the gardens do belong to the second young master of Nie, it is no surprise that he bounds up to them a few hours later, curious of the sounds of his birds singing along to a soothing rhythm.

"My my, Wangji-xiong! What a pleasant surprise!" Nie Huaisang chirps, skipping steps with his hands held out for a hug. 

Lan Wangji avoids the hug, politely nodding in greeting as the slighter man pouts. 

The other man pretends to wilt, "So cold Wangji-xiong! We've known each other for years now yet you still act like mere acquaintances!" He sniffed dramatically. 

"And you didn't even alert me of your visit to Qinghe! What a friend you are!"

Friend sounds like a strong word, they, or rather, the second young master Nie had only stuck close to the second jade (for some reason he cannot understand) because of how well acquainted their brothers were at a young age.

Many had assumed that since the eldest brothers had gotten along, maybe they would too. Nie Huaisang was in fact, not someone the older man had easily gotten along with. He was lazy, whiny, sly, and irresponsible. 

Though, even after the war he seemed to stuck by his side still. 

Instead, the second jade said, "Xiongzhang sent word."

A second later, "Or was supposed to."

But thankfully, all his doubts are resolved with the slighter man's next words.

"Ah, that must be… The letter in da-ge's study that has been left unopened, along with his other pile of papers he's left neglected– actually, it's been days since he's ever entered his study." Nie Huaisang remarks in one breath. 

Lan Wangji exhales in relief, so it seems. Lan Xichen had not neglected informing his sworn brother on his and Wei Wuxian's arrival, nor had it been intercepted. The sect leader was simply too busy to enter his office at all.

It is understandable of course, considering the amount of headaches those monsters must have been causing. 

Though the second jade raises a brow, "The study room?" More like, he wanted to ask why the second young master Nie was in the study room in the first place.

Nie Huaisang swats his fan on the older man's shoulder repeatedly as he whines, "It's awful Wangji-xiong! Because da-ge's so busy holding off our defences, I have to take care of his paperwork! But I can't just leave it alone because then, no one's going to get the sect running!"

He wiped a fake tear, "I haven't even had enough time to myself! But I don't want to complain to him because he's always so tired when he comes back! And I even went as far as respecting his privacy and not reading all those personal letters er-ge has been sending him these past few weeks!"

Lan Wangji is pretty sure the slighter man should always respect his brother's privacy, but he doesn't say that as the man continued to yap.

"But if I hadn't done that– I would have known that you would come and I could have prepared your welcome!" 

"Not necessary." The second jade finally interjects. 

Speaking of Wei Wuxian.

A loud chirp sounds behind the both of them, seemingly having forgotten about their third guest, who's pleasantly enjoying himself as he hums along to a singing bird cupped in his hands.

Nie Huaisang makes an intrigued noise behind his fan as his eyes find their way to his companion. 

"Aside from everything else, Wangji-xiong, you didn't even introduce me to your companion!" He exclaims, faking offense at the second jade as he catches Wei Wuxian's attention.

"Where are my manners! Young master, this one is Ren. Your sect has been nothing but welcoming to me, I must thank you for your hospitality." Wei Wuxian dips into a salute. 

"Psh" the slighter man waves his fan carelessly, beckoning the other to rise from his bow. "No need for gratitude. I'm Nie Huaisang! Wangji-xiong's friend. Pleasure to meet you Ren-xiong!" 

Lan Wangji sighs, “This is Nie-er-gongzi, Chifeng-zun’s younger brother.” He receives a nod of acknowledgment.

Huaisang holds a hand out for the other man to take, they both shake hands in greeting before the second young master Nie pulls his companion near so that they're eye to eye. 

Wei Wuxian startles slightly, but immediately recovers as the slighter man holds a hand next to his mouth, fake whispering as if delivering a secret. 

"So so, Wangji-xiong is a devastatingly unsociable man that no one can survive an hour in his silent prism." Rude.

"How did you do it?" Huaisang says, smirking. The other man laughs with his head tilted to the side.

"Nie-gongzi you misunderstand! Lan-er-gongzi here is simply assisting me for my mission here in the jianghu." 

"It says enough that he's offered willingly!" The second young master Nie grins ear to ear and releases his companion from his hold. 

No one told him that Lan Wangji had offered willingly, but it's the way the man's mind works. 

Huaisang looks back at the gazebo where his birds are, grooming their wings elegantly and back to the man in front of him. 

"So you're the culprit of this lovely bird orchestra? I must say, even I can't get them all to harmonise like that!" 

And so begins the second conversation this evening.

Apparently Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang get along pretty well, like a house on fire. They chattered about all kinds of topics as the three of them made their way to a small pavilion overlooking the koi pond near the receiving hall. 

It wasn't time for dinner yet, so they sated themselves with little snacks and drinks. Alcohol for both the younger men and tea for Lan Wangji.

Like a house on fire indeed. Fast enough that they've already shared a wine jug in the matter of seconds. 

Nie Huaisang had the reputation of looking more like a wealthy idler than that of a responsible heir. His interests lay more on artistry than politics. It doesn't come as a surprise to the second jade that he befriends many as easily.

The moment someone shares even the slightest interest as him, he immediately throws away all formalities. 

In a way, Wei Wuxian and the second young master Nie were almost similar. They spoke a lot, their movements were enthusiastic– though the latter had a bit more elegance to it– it makes Lan Wangji wonder why his reactions are different between two people who almost act the same. 

The second jade watched as Nie Huaisang stood and unfolded his metal fan, doing a little twirl with it as wind picked up and roamed above the pond. They were talking about the other's vision, when he had explained its use the slighter man dived into the mechanisms of elemental manipulation and made a little demonstration. 

Listening to this now. Lan Wangji greatly wonders why Nie Huaisang had failed the Cloud Recesses cultural exchange event not one, but twice. 

When clearly, he was a little more on the smart side.

The second jade is starting to suspect that the man purposely failed to avoid practising the saber. 

Lucky for him anyways, he did not have to avoid the saber any longer than he planned to, a few months into establishing the Sunshot Campaign his older brother had refused to leave Nie Huaisang alone for even a minute outside the protection of their sect. 

It had gotten to the point that Huaisang actually tried to hold his saber, so that the sect leader would just leave. It didn't last of course, such is the way of Nie Huaisang. 

But that didn't stop him from figuring out a way to be freed from Nie Mingjue's constant nagging. He commissioned the blacksmith of Meishan Yu to forge him a battle fan, and he actually learned how to wield it. The wind manipulation came later than many assumed. 

Xifeng, he had called it. It's an intricate metal fan that hangs on his belt like an accessory, but anyone who knew the second young master Nie would know how deadly it was. 

Lan Wangji refocuses on the conversation once more. Nie Huaisang is releasing awed 'oooh's' as he leans off the pavilion to watch the ponds.

Both heirs watched as Wei Wuxian created little bursts of wind that playfully glided into and out of the water, bringing with them fallen leaves and flowers and sometimes the fish.

"Amazing!" Huaisang exclaims, completely awed. "With the way it is, not even I can make the wind move so fluidly like that!" 

His companion laughs, directing a string of water-infused wind towards their pavilion for the young master to examine closely.

"You're telling me that jewel on your glove can do all this?" He asks, poking a finger at the controlled wind as the other man nods.

"This is– incredible Ren-xiong! Not even our jianghu's greatest array masters could ever invent anything like this! Your nation is something else!" 

They had debriefed the slighter man on their purpose and his mission. Huaisang put two and two together and made a correct assumption that the monsters were from Wei Wuxian's "homeland".

Wei Wuxian beamed proudly at the slighter man's praise, and they continued to talk for a few more hours before they were informed about dinner. 

Both men seemed interested in taking their conversation to the table, when Huaisang offered to Lan Wangji he politely declined, and ate silently in his room.

He wouldn't lie to himself when he admits that, it sounded nice to dine with their company.

Maybe.

Maybe some other time.

•><•

Morning comes and Lan Wangji finds Wei Wuxian's room empty. 

Slightly surprised, he makes his way to the sect gates. Since he's already eaten breakfast in his room, he wanted to wake the other man up to do the same. 

Turns out Wei Wuxian didn't necessarily need it. 

As he passed through, he observed his surroundings and the people around him.

Compared to the other sects, whose battles have taken place in small villages, outskirts, or non civilized areas, Qinghe was attacked right at the very heart. While the Cloud Recesses remained unharmed from imminent danger, Koi Tower has not at all been touched, the second jade heard news that Lotus Pier has resorted to activating sound barriers and outposts, the Unclean Realm itself looks like it was built to be a frontline barrack.

The entrance of the Nie sect was temporarily made into a campsite, surrounded with spiked barricades and wooden outposts. 

Several green-robed disciples were posted on all corners of the site, the older man also ran into others a while back, an average of four to six disciples in one location.

It threw the second jade back into the feeling of being in war.

He had spent most of his time back then, either in the Unclean Realm, or being sent to other Wen-invaded areas. But there was always a constant variable in each and every one of those locations. Being in medical scented beige tents, tired and wounded, restless, suffocating under the smell of balm and bandages.

It’s been… five years, but one does not simply forget how war changed them.

As he approached the biggest tent in the site– presumably the sect leader's– the guards posted at the entrance saluted him, greeting him by his title as they allowed him in.

Inside, Lan Wangji sees his companion hovering over a big map on the table, in the middle of the tent, but no Sect Leader.

"Wei Wuxian." He calls out, grabbing the male's attention. 

"Ah, Lan Wangji! Good morning." The male smiles, eyes crinkling into crescents in a way that beats the sun. 

Wei Wuxian beckons him over, making space at his side so that they stand close together by the table. "I was just looking at a bunch of reports here-" he points to a pile of papers in the corner of the table. 

"-about the monster activities happening in Qinghe, to give me a grasp of how dire our situation is." 

The second jade nods, picking one up in front of him to skin over the writing. But his attention is wholly caught by the man by his side.

He knows it's rude to stare, ashamed as he is right now. But the older man notices how his companion's eyes are wrinkled and heavy. A subtle black hanging off under his eyelids.

Lan Wangji puts the report back onto the pile, he wants to speak to the younger man, but somehow seeing him so focused on what is shown before him, looking back and forth from the map and reports as he mutters something under his breath, Lan Wangji finds he cannot bring himself to interrupt. 

But he has to, so– with no words whatsoever, and with an impulse that the second jade has no idea from where it came– he hovers his hand in front to block Wei Wuxian's sight like a child. 

As embarrassing as it is once he realizes what he's done, his companion startles from the interruption of his work, the younger man tries to move his head this way and that, but the hand follows, preventing him from seeing anything but a white sleeve. 

Curiously, Wei Wuxian turns to look at the hand's owner, whose expression shows nothing but internally feels everything.

"Lan Wangji?" His companion asks, a silent question of why exactly, was he interrupting his work. 

The second jade retracts his hand and clears his throat, feeling none of the childish embarrassment a few seconds ago. "Your room was void of usage, have you slept at all?" 

At the sudden interrogation, Wei Wuxian looks away from the second jade for a millisecond before laughing. "Aiya! Lan-er-gongzi, if you wanted my attention, you could have said so!" He throws teasingly. 

The second jade feels his ears burn up. But that's a no if he's ever heard one, subtly changing the topic with his teasing. Lan Wangji throws back an unamused look, staring at his companion until his laughter dies down awkwardly. 

Wei Wuxian realizes he's caught, no other method to throw him off so he scratches his nape and smiles sheepishly. "Ahhhh, alright alright."

"Turns out I really couldn't sit still yesterday, I had to do something to ease off the urge so I circled around the whole fortress." He confesses, then adds. "Not the outside, of course, I just walked through the entire city, is all." 

Hearing this, the second jade sighs, unquestionably he understands why he must have been restless, the younger man promised to help them get rid of a situation he believes is his homeland's fault. But in doing so he's done nothing but pace uselessly– wasting his own energy! 

Which brings him to the question; "How did you enter Nie-zhongzhu's tent?"

"Oh, he spotted me across the street, he must have known I was restless so he offered to show the reports while he was out in the field." He motions to the entire table. 

"And as you can imagine, I've been here for hours– oh, don't look at me like that!" By that he means, with utter disappointment. (Read: a deep sigh and an unamused look, followed by an incredulous long stare.)

Lan Wangji approaches the stack of papers, with one swoop he gathers them all into his hands, grabbing at others scattered across the table as he neatly lined them up. 

“Aye! What are you doing Lan Wangji?” Wei Wuxian cries, hands holding the phantom of a scroll which he also took, when he’s suddenly nudged farther from the table. 

“Sit.” The second jade demands no nonsense, not looking his companion’s way as he organizes the table. Glaring at the younger man whenever he tries to come close. When the man is given another grunt, he surrenders, and resigns himself onto the nearest wooden stool. 

“Have you eaten?” The older man asks, laying the stacks on the side of the table. And when he’s given a sound of nay, he sighs again and heads his way towards the exit.

Outside, the second jade requests one of the guards for tea to be brought in, as well as a light meal. 

When he returns inside the tent, Wei Wuxian is fidgeting on his chair, having the stool lean dangerously backwards on its two legs as his head hangs off and his feet are on their heels, swaying back and forth restlessly. 

At the sight, Lan Wangji tells him to stay still and conserve his energy. The man pouts childishly, but does as said. “A meal will be brought to the tent.” You are expected to eat it. Was not said but completely heard.

“In the meantime. Rest a bit.” The younger man moves to speak but he is faster— “Nie-zhongzhu will not arrive until an hour later. Rest now, or you will tire later.” 

A few seconds of silence, before he hears childish grumbles of accordance behind him. Satisfied with this situation, the second jade sits himself in front of the table and picks up where Wei Wuxian has left off.

A few minutes later the guard returns with a pot of jasmine tea, and a tray of warm breakfast. Lan Wangji makes sure the younger man finishes every rice grain and meat, much to the latter’s chagrin, and has him drink two cups of tea before letting him off. 

He’s still chuffing like a sulking child. But at least he’s compliant.

No longer than they’ve settled does Nie Mingjue finally enter the tent, he catches sight of both his guests, who’ve situated themselves across each other on the low table. “Good Morning.” He greets, and they both stand to salute. 

“I was slightly delayed, but it doesn't matter. Let’s start shall we?” The sect leader leans on the table with his arms supporting him, beckoning for Wei Wuxian to begin. 

“Yes, so.” Wei Wuxian began to navigate through the map as he spoke. “I noticed how the majority of these reports claim they've spotted the hilichurls down east to south."

"The report says the first tribe came from the northeast."

The man points at some certain locations, and as Lan Wangji observes, his eyes furrow.

"Laoling was attacked by fire specters by the southwest of their outposts, if there were hilichurls coming from the area, we would have spotted them." He comments.

"Lanling has not reported anything about it either." Nie Mingjue interjects. "So if they didn't pass through Laoling or Qilu, what? Did they just appear out of nowhere?"

Silence. 

The second jade and his companion share a look, it is possible. Considering the events that happened yesterday before they encountered the sect leader. But that's just the problem, if it is possible, then that means they can multiply with no pause.

Wei Wuxian exhales, possibly bargaining whether it was safe to reveal or not. But he does anyway, "I'm afraid that is a possibility. In fact, just before we met you– Sect Master Nie, Lan-er-gongzi and I happened upon a warper. I managed to prevent it from bringing anyone else in. But with its presence in the jianghu, it might be a handful."

"So wait- you're telling me that they can just come and go as they please? There's a chance that more of your monsters at home can come here? Then how will we wipe them out permanently?!" Nie Mingjue booms, pounding his fist against the table.

However, the younger man stays calm, simply shuffling around his robes to pull out a small, folded note. "You don't need to worry about the last part." He says.

"I was sent word by a senior of mine– the barriers have been fixed with some help back home, she assured me that monsters have tried and failed to escape this time, a mage is no exception." Oh– the fold of paper is now in Lan Wangji's hands, it's the one that Mulan had given Wei Wuxian. 

When the older man sees the latter silently permitting him to read it, he slowly unfolds the note and reads aloud for both men to hear:

We've sealed the gaps. I've monitored for four days and none have escaped. Come home soon. 

Short but informative, on the corner of the note the second jade sees the penned name; Ganyu, who he assumes must be the owner of the little messenger. 

(On the upper left, he spies small characters that spell out "Tiānkōng Wǔ Zhě")

"As for the abyss mages within the jianghu, I believe their access to locations to and fro are limited. There are certain requirements for their warps– they have to have been to a certain area to warp there. This nation is uncharted territory for them, and with our barriers rebuilt they will have no way to summon more or escape back home." Wei Wuxian concludes, the sect leader is silent the entire time. 

He is thinking, it shows in the way he stares at the map with resolve, before he looks at Wei Wuxian and speaks,

"So. What do you conclude?" The man gruffs, not in a rude way, but as he searches the younger man's face for something, he must have found it.

But nothing prepares both of them for what he says next.

Wei Wuxian breaks into a smirk, a fully confident one as he leans against the table.

"Are you aware of how much karmic energy you and your folks are carrying, Sect Master Nie?"

.

.

[End of chapter 6]

Chapter Text

It's been a few days since that discussion occurred.

Ever since, the monsters have been decreasing in a steady pace with the help of Wei Wuxian.

Nie Mingjue had been wary at first, his ancestors' method of cultivation was discovered by a mere foreigner, when half of the cultivation world hadn't even settled on the idea. 

Back then, the Lan Sect were the first to be disclosed on it, and it was no secret that Sect Leader Nie often visited their Zewu-jun for reasons outside business. What is the Lan Sect, if not known for their soothing cultivation technique?

It had been revealed– if not intentionally– a year after the war ended.

To say that Nie Mingjue is baffled regarding the lack of violent reaction, is maybe an overstatement. 

But nonetheless, it is because of it –and mainly Wei Wuxian– that about six days later Qinghe is nearly monster-free.

"Lure?" The sect leader raised a skeptical brow.

 

"En, Sect Master." His companion shuffled through the stack of reports, stopping at four scriptures and sliding them over to the bigger man.

 

"I noticed that there have been several sightings down south. Specifically in an abandoned stone castle near the village there." 

 

The sect leader shifts uncomfortably, only seen by Lan Wangji. 

 

"Xinglu Ridge, or man-eating castle was it?" The younger man inquires, tilts his head in a sort of childish curiosity.

 

Nie Mingjue sighs, unable to escape interrogation, evading would not help his predicament now and then nothing will get done.

 

"Man-eating castle is a thing our citizens made up. The stone castle is our sect's ancestral tomb." He answers.

 

"As to why these monsters are attracted to it, I have no idea why." 

 

Wei Wuxian hums, eyes glinting in calculation. "Well, hilichurls are often attracted to areas heavy miasma, back home it's common for them to be influenced by it." 

 

At the word heavy miasma, Nie Mingjue knew he was caught. 

 

Bracing himself, he explained everything to the foreigner. 

 

"It makes much more sense, then." The younger man comments, a hand on his chin.

 

"The place basically reeks of karma, that's why hilichurls are so attracted to it." 

 

Sect Leader Nie folds his arms, "Is that why you suggested the luring method?" 

 

Wei Wuxian nods. 

 

"Group every Nie disciple into ten or eleven, and assign each group to an outpost. The reason why the hilichurls are scattering into the west and north too fast is because they are following the strongest energy. Recall your disciples and have them assigned to the east and south." 

 

As he said this his hand swam across the map with a stick of charcoal, underlining and circling certain areas.

 

"We need them to stay in those locations specifically, that way it'll be faster to get rid of a quantity." 

 

Round them up and launch an all out attack, that's what it sounds like to the second jade.

 

"Have your strongest disciples stationed too if possible, the stronger the fighter the greater the resentful energy."

 

The reminder that his people were resentment-filled didn't seem to please Nie Mingjue, but Wei Wuxian made no snark comment.

 

"Assign all my disciples?" He asked instead, and receives a nod.

 

The sect leader huffs, "I'll be leaving my base unprotected." 

 

The younger man off-handedly answers, "If there are any left here the trap would not work."

 

He looks up from the map with a smile.

 

"Besides." 

Lan Wangji takes his stance with his guqin, hovering just above the Unclean Realm to view every area.

"Lan-er-gongzi and Nie-er-gongzi are here aren't they?"

The utter trust this man has, the second jade cannot fathom. 

Of course, Nie Huaisang had whined about being left to defend the whole base with his 'weak' and 'frail' person. But nonetheless, took the job. 

The older man was in charge of keeping guard above ground, since he had an advantage with his Wangji qin. While the young master Nie was given the responsibility of patrolling on ground. 

To his surprise, it seems Huaisang's birds knew more than being pretty and hungry. The slighter man sent out at least two flocks of birds to scout the entire base, he carelessly explained that they would alert them both if there were any dangers, flicking the dirt from his fingernails. 

"What? Stop looking at me like that!" The young master Nie said, exasperated.

Nie Mingjue seemed shocked to discover his brother wasn't that incompetent.

He looked over, seeing the quiet peace filling the Unclean Realm. It's fully devoid of any Nie disciple– save for the juniors who are incapable of fighting– only the none-cultivating residents and servants were left behind. 

The juniors were tasked with aiding the civilians with their needs and guarding the entrance of the guest grounds. 

So as Lan Wangji overlooked the Unclean Realm, occasionally getting visited by one of the birds to let him know of outside presence– oftentimes they appear to be rogue monsters straying too far from their group. 

Time passed by sooner than he expected, shortly after the sun began to set Sect Leader Nie and Wei Wuxian returned with the entourage of disciples–although bloody and bruised, well alive. 

When the second jade and Nie Huaisang greeted them all at the gates his companion smiled so brightly at their accomplishments that it was as if a second sun had risen. 

The trap had worked, nearly twenty tribes had shown up the first hour and they swept through the whole forest in a day. 

Of course there were still more roaming about, some scouts spotted a few monsters hiding away in different parts of the woods, but this was only the beginning.

Even Nie Mingjue himself was overjoyed because of this rapid change. Suddenly, the monsters no longer had an upper hand, they were the ones overpowering them now. 

Though of course it did not show on his face, but if the sect leader suddenly pulling a flustered Wei Wuxian into a fierce hug had to say anything about it, he was very grateful. 

Lan Wangji lets himself feel amused as his companion's face reddened and he repeatedly waved his hands in decline when the disciples tried to hug him as well. 

Wei Wuxian's eyes found his, then the younger man beamed at him, glowing impossibly brighter than he already was. 

Lan Wangji nods his way, hearing a cut off yelp as the younger man gets tackled to the ground with Nie cultivators.

He stays standing in the courtyard filled with victorious cries, unknowing of what the screaming in his own heart meant.

•><•

"The bodies?" 

Wei Wuxian nods, "I heard from Nie Zhonghui that the bodies of the previous hilichurls are kept somewhere in your base because they wouldn't dissipate. May I take a look at them?"

 Nie Mingjue raises a brow but does not comment, "Nie Xuli, lead Wei Wuxian and Wangji to the Zen Caves."

And then to the young man, "We tried burning one of them, but it appeared to have been a bad decision. The next day the area we burnt it in reeked of resentment." The sect leader explained. 

"It would be a great help if you figured out how to get rid of it."

The morning was bustling with busy disciples, who ran around preparing rations and weapons, orders were thrown around as servants and cultivators alike were fixing carriages and grouping up. 

Yesterday was a big success for all of them, and they weren't going to risk losing their momentum. This time they were placing the trap in the west. 

They pass through the private grounds of the Nie's base and enter a bamboo grove, birds fly around stalk to stalk while they sing the song of their kind.

Ahead of them, Lan Wangji can see a huge cave entrance, surrounding it are sealing talismans and spiritual cables hung to block the entrance. 

"What is it?" Wei Wuxian asks. 

"It is one of many isolation caves, normally used for secluded cultivation." Nie Xuli answered.

Much like the Cold Pond Caves back at home. Incidentally, the second jade has had the honor of seeing these from the inside. 

What's special about the Nie's Zen Caves is that, not only are there Qi rich caves, there are also ones that could absorb resentful energy.

"It was the only place we could store them, a few caves can keep resentment from escaping– such as this one." The woman explains again, repeating what the jade had thought in his mind.

The sound of awe echoed through the solid walls as they stood right next to the entrance. Nie Xuli unties one of the spiritual cables, allowing them both to enter with ease.

"I will return to the common area now, stay safe gongzi-men ." She says, bowing at their shrinking silhouettes.

"Woah, yeah it's definitely filled with resentful energy." Wei Wuxian remarks, whistling in amaze as he takes in the surroundings of the cave. 

Luckily the sun reached them from the outside, if they had entered at night the cave would have been completely dark.

There's a continuation of the line of talismans decorating the walls and roof that seem to lessen when they reach their destination.

There, at the end of the tunnel is a pond and a pile of hilichurl bodies grouped up in what looked to be a blood array and another round of spiritual cables. 

They really took precautions . Lan Wangji thinks.

His companion immediately gets to his work, igniting a flare talisman to get a better light on the room as he starts to examine the array. 

A few minutes later he hums to himself, kneeling on the ground and swiping his fingers at the blood array that causes it to fade away. Suddenly, a green glare lights up and promptly fades away again, indicating that whatever array was set up was now disengaged.

Wei Wuxian hops over the spiritual cables with ease and makes his way to the body pile. 

Everything happened as the second jade watched from the sidelines, skirting away from the reeking pond filled with karma every second. 

It was devastatingly nauseating in here, even if Lan Wangji's face didn't show it, he was so close to keeling and maybe heaving. It wasn't often that he was this overwhelmed by a large quantity of energy. 

The energy coming from the pile was heavy enough, but the ominous pond made it even worse. 

It seems as though the pond's water had contents in it that enabled it to absorb resentment. Hence why it was stronger than the body pile in the array. 

But it seems it absorbed too much and caused it to radiate in the energy. It's practically a spring for resentment.

The second jade moved to approach the blood array, having decided that he didn't want to be anywhere near the pond, and if Wei Wuxian isn't commenting on it, the younger man probably expected that outcome. 

So he watched as his companion sauntered around– he noticed how the bodies are no longer piled up, but now laid down in a neat row– checking on each and every hilichurl for something. 

"Here it is." Wei Wuxian murmurs after a long time, taking out his ivory dagger and kneeling before three hilichurls.

When Lan Wangji came closer he watched as the younger man dug his knife into the wrist of the first one, cutting through flesh and bones in a grotesque manner that would disturb a lot of people. 

As he removed the discolored hand he put to the side, hovering over the next one before he jammed the mouth open and ripped a fang out. 

At that part the older man had to look away from the scene, it was quite gruesome, and the face of the monster… 

Fortunately for the last of the three all Wei Wuxian did was remove its mask, then, as he collected the object from the ground he deposited them into his qiankun pouch. 

"Yup! That's all there is, we can burn them now." He says, and moves to do exactly that. 

Why did he do that ? Lan Wangji wonders. Why did he cut out and collect parts of their bodies? And why only three specifically? 

He took the opportunity to scan through the other bodies in the row while his companion went to work, nothing was strange or out of the ordinary from the looks of it. 

But thinking back on it, that qiankun pouch of his didn't feel right. 

Wei Wuxian looked back at him, wondering why the jade wasn't responding to his question when he saw the contemplation in the man's expression. Oh. 

"I'll explain it to you after we head back." He pipes up with a smile, pulling Lan Wangji out of his thoughts. 

"Now, are you gonna help me pile them up so we can make a great bonfire or are you just gonna stand there and look at me all day?" 

The second jade moves immediately, unsheathing his sword to pick up a few hilichurls, slightly flustered by what Wei Wuxian insinuated. 

But of course he caught that movement, the man starts laughing so loudly that the cave rumbles with the sound. 

•><•

After they both reported back to Nie Mingjue that the bodies were disposed of, they made their way to the eating hall. Having awoken too early that they neglected breakfast. 

As they walked the paths Lan Wangji had the courage to speak;

"We burned the bodies just fine with normal fire and nothing happened. Why was the reaction different?" 

Wei Wuxian turned to him, slowing his skipping steps to speak better,

"You mean the first time they burnt the bodies?" He nods.

The next day the place we burnt them in reeked with resentment. The sect leader had said.

His companion hums "That's because they probably burned an infected hilichurl."

"Infected?" He asks. 

Wei Wuxian waves a careless hand, "Aiya, it's a long explanation Lan Zhan! It's part of what I'll tell you later so be patient ok? Now I'll go ahead because I am terribly famished." 

And before he even finishes the sentence he's already gone. 

But. 

Lan…

Lan Zhan?

He has to be honest it didn't seem so… bad.

.

.

[End of chapter]

Chapter Text

Wei Wuxian wakes earlier than he usually does. 

Huh, strange. 

Within the years he has lived, many things have changed but never his god-awful body clock or sleeping schedule.

Could it be… 

Is his body making him wake in the Lan's time?!

When do they wake again? Maoshi? Wei Wuxian looks out the paper sill window to see the sun barely rising. 

Wow, that's like a revelation to him– is the world ending? 

But fatigue does not disappear overnight unfortunately, he worked extra hard yesterday to make sure they took out more than the first trap. Surely, he can convince his body to sleep a little more? 

Wei Wuxian plops back onto his bed star-fish posed, staring at the ceiling as he waits for sleep to capture him once more. 

But it doesn't come. 

He grumbles, tosses and turns and curls into the most comfortable sleeping positions– hell he counted sheep and still nothing worked. 

With that begrudging inevitability out of the way, Wei Wuxian sighs in defeat as he kicks his blanket off and gets up from the divan. 

Ping-lao lao would be so proud if she saw me up this early. He mused, pouring himself water in a basin that the helpers kindly delivered to him.

A bit of a stretch if you ask him, Wei Wuxian has become used to a life where no one particularly cared about his status that much, back home he didn't need servants or helpers and he certainly didn't need it now.

Wei Wuxian is just (heh) built differently with how much he always travels and practically lives in the wilderness like a caveman. He's not accustomed to proper house manners or etiquette so maybe he's the problem.

But the Nies seem determined to treat him with their hospitality, he'll entertain the idea for them.

He chuckled at that thought, wringing the wet cloth once he's finished washing himself and starts dressing in his usual attire. 

The Lans didn't seem to be much of a fan seeing him in his natural habitat. (improper wear of the pao, indecent amount of skin seen, as far as the Lans were concerned, he was like a drunkard who woke up and threw on whatever.)

But the Nies didn't seem to mind. However, for propriety's sake he decided to wear it the way it's supposed to, sleeves on and sash tied and all. 

Well if he thinks about it Wei Wuxian still looks indecent for the public, too under-dressed if he may, he swears he saw Lan- er-gongzi wear at least five layers and Nie- er-gongzi with three. 

As Wei Wuxian contemplates buying a dress robe for the hell of it, a bright chirp interrupts his self murmuring.

A ball of blue fuzz comes sweeping in from the window like a fast projectile, a little finch comes floating down like a feather onto the wooden desk where his belongings lie, happily chirping for his attention.

"Sweet little flower, what do you have for me this time?" He coos, ruffling Mulan's feathers as he unclasps the little message capsule.

But before he can read the message, another sound reaches his ears, this time a sharp series of kak kak kak before a magnificent, black falcon lands itself on his window, yellow eyes perceiving him as who he was designated to find. 

The stripes of faded yellow on each wing is the only thing Wei Wuxian needs to see on the falcon to know that something is happening on the other side. 

Afterall, Xiao quite rarely uses Heiyao for anything. 

He decided to prioritize Heiyao's message first, petting the falcon as he untied the little rolled up message from its neck. 

Rhodeia is frozen, her mimics are gone.

His Lord's shields are still active, I suspect they've escaped before they were raised.

-Zhēngfú zhě

What? Rhodeia is frozen? That alone can be unbelievable!  

He quickly unrolls Mulan's message:

‘ He ’ is missing from Watatsumi Island, the Sangonomiya Priestess reached out to us for help. She suspected something and believed we were in the same situation.

-Tián huā

…An elemental entity as huge as that cube can never go missing without anyone seeing it, much less two aquatic entities suffering incidents both at the same time?

It's suspicious, and highly dangerous. 

Wei Wuxian quickly grabs a brush and two paper slips, writing out the message for both birds to relay back to their masters. 

He waves Mulan and Heiyao goodbye as they fly side by side to who knows where.

After a few minutes of silence he sighs to himself, so much for the calm. 

"I guess it's time to visit Yunmeng."

•><•

"Yunmeng?" Lan Wangji repeats, laying his hands to rest on the strings of his guqin.

"I know right?" His companion chuffs, prolonging a whine whilst swinging his legs childishly from where he was sitting on the table.

"Just as I was getting all comfy in the Unclean Realm." Wei Wuxian pouts.

Ignoring the young man's antics, the second jade asks, "What about the situation here?" 

His companion sits straight, leaning against the wall as he answers, "So far, they've been doing well enough without me helping any further." Wei Wuxian smiles proudly.

"Chifeng- zun is a man quick to adapt to his situation, I've no doubt that by the end of the week, Qinghe will be monster-free."

The older man nods silently.

"And besides." Wei Wuxian starts again, jumping off the table with a 'hup!' , "I've taught Nie- xiong how to incinerate the bodies and other various things he might need to deal with other situations, they'll do fine!"

Wei Wuxian flashes him a confident smile, making him feel all weird and suddenly very stuffy. Was it always so hot in this room? 

Without thinking, Lan Wangji's mouth curls up by itself, even by just a small amount. 

He catches himself quickly when he realises, looking away from the younger man with his hand covering his mouth. Why did he-?

Honestly…the effect this man has on the people that surround him.

It’s quite dangerous. 

Yet he cannot help but think that in amusement. 

Wei Wuxian, upon seeing that the second jade was no longer paying attention to his rambling, smiled teasingly. “Aiyoo, Hanguang- jun ! So early in the morning, yet you tire already!” The childish man pouts, “Do I bore you so?”

Lan Wangji clears his throat as he turns back to him, ears definitely not burning when he comes face to face with that mischievous, teasing grin. “Forgive me, I have a lot on my mind.”

His companion’s grin turns softer as he quietly exhales, “Quite the busy object, your brain is huh, Lan- er-gongzi ?” 

For some reason, he cannot help but feel a bit disappointed– the reason may be shameful or even childish, but only he knows what he thinks. 

And right now, as his companion continues to ramble about this or that, he has the urge to hear him say his name again. 

It’s so childish he might laugh at himself. 

He shoves those thoughts away for another day, “When do we leave?” 

“As soon as possible, I’m afraid.” Wei Wuxian says, looking so apologetic. “Though, we can delay a few more days if Lan -er-gongzi needs more rest. You’ve worked hard these past few weeks.

The second jade shakes his head, “It is no matter. I’ve rested long enough.” Sliding his hands across the wood of his guqin, he rests it on the low table before he stands. “We can leave as soon as we are ready. If that will suffice.” 

The younger man beams, eyes closed and all, he hops on his foot and reaches for the door. “It suffices! I’ll leave you to yourself, and I will inform Chifeng- zun of our decision.” 

He opens the door and moves to leave, but before the door slams shut, Wei Wuxian pops his head in again with a grin. “Ah, Lan Wangji.” 

“Thank you for putting up with me.” He says, with a cheeky grin and joy no less removed from his face. 

Lan Wanji huffs, the small corners of his lips lifting up as he faces the man, “Thank you for having me as company.”

The bright smile would be painted into the man’s mind for the next few days.

“So detached Wangji-xiong!” Nie Huaisang whines, fanning himself dramatically.

“You finally decided to hang-out with me in Qinghe, and now you’re leaving me!” He cries.

Seeing as how he didn’t visit Qinghe for Nie Huaisang in the first place, the second jade lets himself huff begrudgingly, narrowing his eyes at the Nie heir when he kicks and whines like a child.

“I have a mission.” He only answers. Swatting the fan away from his sight while he tries to pack his belongings 

The slighter man becomes suspiciously quiet after that, but Lan Wangji takes it. He continues to clean his guqin strings after he’s packed everything, while the Nie heir lays on the guest bed, snacking on peanuts.

He’s replacing his fifth string when Huaisang finally speaks. “He’s not really from Dongying , is he.” 

The way the Nie heir says it seems like it wasn’t posed as a question, but more of a fact.

The older man refrains from answering, continuing on by unfurling his sixth string. “Hm.” 

The young master huffs, offended that Wangji doesn’t care to give him an answer. “Strange, don’t you think? Everyone has accepted that fact, yet I can’t seem to believe it.”

He lazily fans himself, “Ren- gongzi claims he comes from Dongying, yet messages of his comrades are clearly written in hanzi – oh, don't look at me like that Wangji-xiong."

The second jade glares at him this time, the only strong reaction Huaisang had gotten from him so far.

“Breaching someone’s privacy is disrespectful.” He says.

“Oh please. I’ll breach anyone’s privacy as much as I want. If it means it keeps my sect safe from any harm.” Huaisang retorts sharply.

“I trust him.” Lan Wangji finally answers. “Why do I need to concern myself with his origins? He’s been nothing but helpful.” 

Nie Huaisang sits up, stares at him for a long time before speaking. “We remember what happened last time when something similar occurred.”

We remember what happened last time when something similar occurred.

He said the same thing to Lan Xichen a few weeks ago, when they had discussed dealing with Wei Wuxian.

The second jade flinches, it’s such a small movement that the other heir doesn’t seem to notice, but he catches himself quickly.

Clip the string, tie it on the bridge. Repeat the process

“Huaisang.” He starts. “I don’t know what you’re implying. But Wei Wuxian is nowhere near the same as Meng Yao.”

Once Lan Wangji realizes his mistake, it's already too late.

“So the name Ren is fake.” The slighter man snaps his fan shut. “And how can you be so sure, Wangji-xiong?” 

As he ties his last string, he slides his hand across his guqin one final time before setting to case it within the fabric. He sighs, “He’s in a vulnerable situation, I cannot reveal his information to you.”

“Xichen-ge said the same thing about him .” Nie Huaisang argued back. “What makes this man so special? For all we know Wei Wuxian could have the same intentions as the man from three years ago-“ 

“Because he doesn’t benefit from sabotaging me.” Lan Wangji finally says, a bit more forceful than he would like it. 

Interrupting others is prohibited. Act wise and be dignified.

“I am confident.” He starts, ignoring the voice in his head. “In my ability to judge the character of a person. Wei Wuxian has been nothing but kind to me and your people. I trust him.” And I don’t care if you don’t

He wanted to say it, but the second jade realises he might have gone too far. In the end, not everything he said was true. Lan Wangji hardly knew Wei Wuxian, he did not know whether the man did these things only to sabotage them, he may never know. 

All the second jade knew was he almost died, and a man came to save them. Lan Wangji never trusted him back then, but that was because he didn’t expect to see him again.

Of course, it was very suspicious that Wei Wuxian was so kind, so impossibly selfless that he’d volunteer to aid their nation with a problem he could have ignored. 

It all falls back into the scars of war, deception, betrayal, grief. 

Because a world so cruel could never make a man so bright and just.

Lan Wangji never planned to trust Wei Wuxian, but that alone was an impossible task.

“We are travelling to Yunmeng to aid Jiang Wanyin, he’s informing your brother as we speak.” He says instead.

Nie Huaisang scoffs, “I know that.” 

“He’s trusting you.” 

The slighter man pauses, “What?”

“He almost didn’t want to leave Qinghe, until he took care of it completely.” The second jade says, finally looking the Nie heir in the eyes as he spoke. “Wei Wuxian has a lot of hope you’d be able to take care of it from here, he trusts you.”

Silence swam through the room, but the older man continued to stare at Huaisang, waiting for the other to break the quiet.

The Nie heir looks right back at him, eyes wide and possibly exasperated, when he finally lowers his fan to his lap, sighing deep.

“That’s not a very solid argument, Wangji-xiong.” He scratches his head irritatedly.

“Hm.” Lan Wangji says, neither confirming nor denying, it wasn’t really an argument after all, just a distraction. 

Nie Huaisang seems to know that, “Honestly, y’know? You Lans are so easy to deceive. Like that one time I told you Old Man Lan called for you to his office so you wouldn’t catch me cheating on the exam.” The man sighs dramatically, knocking the fan on his forehead in a childish manner. 

“Whatever shall the world do with you?” 

The second jade narrows his eyes at the Nie heir. “So you did cheat.” 

“Eh?” The young master squeaks, “Ah! Wangji-xiong I didn’t!-“

He raises an eyebrow, “But you just told me yourself, that you lied about shufu calling me to his study.” 

“Oh come on!” Huaisang attempts to smack him with his fan, which Lan Wangji effortlessly evades, “That was years ago, Wangji-xiong! Surely you won’t drag me back to Cloud Recesses just to write rules?!” 

“Hm.” He feigns consideration. “Shufu has been interested in re-establishing cultural exchange events, I will tell him you’d be delighted to enrol again.”

Sputtering could be heard from the man in front of him, “But I’m the Nie heir! I have so many responsibilities here in Qinghe, and I’m too old for the cultural exchange!”

“Shufu accepts disciples of all ages.” The second jade amuses himself, “And what responsibilities?” He catches a charging pillow, hearing the slighter man groan in displeasure. 

Nie Huaisang looks frantic, knowing that Lan Qiren would actually let him re-take, and that his brother would definitely make him re-take.

“…like— like the task Wei-xiong has given to me! That- that’s right! The well-being and safety of my sect and our residents are important, you know? With da-ge on the battlefield almost everyday, wh-who’s going to take care of the clan?”

Lan Wangji stares at him, Huaisang looks determined. To not re-enrol or to actually take his responsibilities seriously, the second jade doesn’t know, it’s probably the former. But he lets himself smile a little. “Mn.”

It’s not a very genuine smile– though, it can’t really be called a smile with how unnoticeable it is– but it’s more smug than he realizes.

Realising that the Lan had basically tricked him into cooperating with Wei Wuxian’s plans, Nie Huaisang nearly shrieked his lungs out.

“I see, if you were by chance free, I could have submitted you to shufu as early as possible.”

“Cruel! Evil! Forsaken!” Those cries continued.

•><•

“You ready to go?” his companion asks as he approaches. Wei Wuxian tightens the buckle of the horse's saddle, not looking at Lan Wangji as he prepares his mount.

"En. Chifeng- zun sent me off with good regards." He responds, petting his own mount's mane as he buckles it up. 

The sect leader has been kind enough to lend them both horses for their journey. Although Qinghe and Yunmeng are neighbouring jurisdictions, the journey would surely be longer with all the rivers and lakes breaking off the paths.

They agreed to travel by horse on safe path. But it isn't guaranteed that they'll stay on said path if they want to reach Lotus Pier by nightfall.

"If only human beings could fly!" His companion joked as they mounted.

"It would surely make our lives easier." He replied slightly amused, and felt the light burden scatter off his shoulder when Wei Wuxian laughed brightly, hugging his sides as the horse took off.

The entire journey was filled with his companion’s usual chatter, Lan Wangji doesn’t know when he started getting used to the sound, but it didn’t really matter to him.

His thoughts more often than not, go back to what Nie Huaisang had said to him. Although he wasn’t entirely confident in what he had told that other heir. The chances of someone like Meng Yao existing near  the jianghu… it’s quite the frightening thought. 

“Wei Wuxian is nowhere near the same as Meng Yao.” 

It was entirely true. But it was one big factor that…

Lan Wangji doesn’t know a lot about him either. 

He understands his companion’s situation, and he won’t force the younger man to expose anything that could endanger him. Lan Wangji wanted to be respectful and sympathetic towards his situation. 

But 

There’s a certain… unknown feeling in his chest that makes him want to know more. 

The second jade looks at his companion beside him, enraptured in his own rambling that he doesn’t mind his surroundings. 

Wei Wuxian yelps when his body is suddenly thrown off the saddle, not so much that he falls off, but enough that the young man jolts and nearly falls backwards from his mount. An exasperated neigh comes from his black horse, as if telling the man it’s getting annoyed with all his chatter.

“What’s wrong Hēi-Měirén ? She got rowdy all of a sudden!!" He shouts, unprepared for when the horse suddenly trots away.

A few hours later when the sun descends to the tree lines, they find an inn just outside of Yingchuan and decide to take a break from there. 

The horses are exhausted and have been cared for, Lan Wangji will be replenishing his energy by mediating in order to make the whole way without stops. Since the path they'll be taking is unkind terrain– deep ridges and dangerous cliffs and unfriendly foes ahead, the horses will not be used furthermore. 

They've been sold to the innkeeper in exchange for travelling rations and a room to rest for the noon. Outside is Wei Wuxian, the second jade can see him through the second-storey window. 

His companion is sitting on a tree stump with one foot resting on top of one knee, in his hand is the ivory-colored dagger and what seems to be arrow-heads. Wangji can only assume that he's carving new arrows.

He'd been busy the moment they checked in the resthouse– a little while ago he went into the kitchens to ask if they had ice in the storehouse. Weirdly enough– for an inn that is desert from the city they did have ice in their storehouse, the keepers were experimenting for summer or so they said.

Wei Wuxian had even come to him asking if he had blank talismans to write on, and when the older man asked if he could offer help Wei Wuxian waved him off good-heartedly.

"You need to rest! We can't have you passing out mid-air because I overworked your spiritual energy!" The younger man had said jokingly, but nudged Lan Wangji back into the room and thanked him for the materials.

He only gets the chance to ask when they've both finished eating. Wei Wuxian slumps against the sitting mat as he groans tiredly. 

"I'm wasted!" He whined as he slouched deeper properly. "Lan Zhan, I'm afraid you'll have to carry this lazy sack of a person the whole sword ride, I'm scared I might fall off out of exhaustion!" 

The overly familiar tone used to say his birth name brings unreasonable satisfaction to the second jade, and for a second he wants to muse to his companion that, even if he fell from the sword, Wei Wuxian might have survived it anyway.

That incident is still fresh in his mind, even though it's been weeks already– it was one of the things that nearly brought the older man into a Qi Deviation, and he wasn't one to normally use that expression.

Lan Wangji sighs, carefully pouring tea out of the pot he had requested from the helpers a few minutes ago, and slides the cup towards the groaning slump over the table.

His companion peaks with one eye open and takes a whiff, 

"Lemon honey?" Wei Wuxian asks amused. "Is it just me or do you take liking to sweet things?" He takes the cup in one hand and delightfully drinks it all down.

"Nonsense." Lan Wangji huffs after a second, he takes this chance to glance at the pouch beside the younger man. "What have you been preparing?"

He assumes the pouch contains various talismans of sorts, but he also noticed the man crafting small pellets like things earlier, and is a tad bit curious.

"Hm? Oh." Wei Wuxian follows his line of sight and takes the liberty of bringing the pouch onto the table.

He goes through the items inside, talismans, seals, the radicals are unfamiliar to the second jade, and there are small pellets rolling about, they're small enough to fit inside wrist guards and are pure black.

"I figured I should arm myself if we're going to face hydro mimics." The younger man says, "See, when it comes to these creatures, I'm awfully handicapped!" He says with a sheepish smile.

Curiously, Lan Wangji picks up one of the pellets and examines it. It's rough in texture and feels quite brittle, if he merely pinched it he feels it would simply break away.

"Ah, those are pumice stones. I got it from one of Nie- xiong's ponds." Wei Wuxian helpfully supplies, "Lightweight stones, and very convenient in times like these." 

"How so?" The second jade asks, dropping the pellet into his companion's hands, only for the man to bring a finger to his mouth and wink playfully. "Just wait and see." 

He laughs when Lan Wangji gives him a flat look, "Aiya, be patient Lan Zhan!" 

Only then does he realize his slip-up, he covers his mouth with a hand and flusters, "Ahh-slip of the tongue! Sorry, it's a bad habit." 

"I don't mind." It comes out louder than he wants it to. The second jade winces internally, hoping it didn't sound so eager, he clears his throat.

"We needn't be so formal." He attempts. 

Wei Wuxian looks surprised at first, eyes wide and all, before he turns curious– then teasing. "Ohhh?" 

"You sure?" He asks with a cheeky grin. Lan Wangji doesn't dignify that with anything but a nod. 

Humming as if unconvinced, his companion rests his chin on a hand, "...Lan Zhan?" 

Lan Wangji nods, bringing the teacup to his mouth, "Mn."

That's all it takes apparently, to unleash the rest of the man's chaotic energy. His companion smiles so wide, "Well then! Since you're allowing me to call you by that, it's only fair you call me my birth name as well!" 

"Call me Wei Ying!" He says.

"Wei Ying." Lan Wangji feels the name around his mouth, and only results in the younger man's smile widening.

"Lan Zhan!"

Guanyin, What has he done?

•><•

The sun's already down by the time they've boarded a boat, Lan Wangji pushes off from the docks as Wei Ying takes control of the paddle. 

The peaceful night is adorned with the luminance of the moon upon the reflecting waters, the lotuses are in bloom and they sway to the side as the boat swerves through the lake. 

The second jade has travelled to Yunmeng more times than he can count for night hunts, but he's only ever been to Lotus Pier at least three times, and only because he had to accompany his brother as the immediate Sect Heir to conference meetings. 

He's never seen the Pier in the night, and now that he has, Lan Wangji can admit that it is a sight to be seen.

"How pretty." Wei Ying says in awe, voicing out the second jade's own opinion. 

"I didn't know it was lotus blooming season." He says.

"It isn't." The older man replies, hanging a hand out the boat to feel the cool of the water. 

"In Lotus Pier, lotuses are always blooming." He picks up a flower from the water "No one knows how, but it is said that this land was blessed by a god before humans settled here." 

The second jade can hear his companion take a breath, "It really is…" he hears Wei Ying mumble, but couldn't hear the rest of it.

"Did you say so–" suddenly the boat shakes, alerting both men. 

The water beneath them is disturbed, Lan Wangji unsheathes his sword as the shaking grows stronger. 

"They're here!" his companion yells, notching one of the arrows he carved onto his bow.

The shaking stops momentarily– before something bursts out in front of their boat and soars through the sky. 

Wei Ying aims high, following the projectile as it moves from one place to another– and fires. 

He manages to catch a glimpse of it before the mimic plunges back into the water– it was in the form of a crane.

All around them more creatures emerge. Water shapes into giant bores that ram into the boat, if it weren't for Lan Wangji's quick thinking –--he sent out a rebounding talisman the moment it charged– they would have flipped over.

The sky is infested with mimics, the second jade braces himself as they rain down upon them. 

"Heads up!" Wei Ying shouts behind him, he turns to the man in time to feel something fly past him –the pumice stones his companion had been holding on to– and an arrow that followed it.

A crack, and the small orb effortlessly shatters. Suddenly Lan Wangji feels a shiver crawling up his spine as the temperature drops from the heavens. It's as if winter came upon them even in the midst of spring, he watches as his breath fogged up and hugged his cheeks.

What on earth-

Not only that, the boat has stopped moving. The older man gasps in awe from what he sees, what used to be a lake surrounding him– has turned into a frozen wasteland.

None of the mimics are moving, all frozen in air waiting for their demise as arrows break them into pieces. 

That little stone…..did all this?

"Unbelievable." He mutters.

The calm doesn't last long enough, not too far Lan Wangji hears a resounding pound echoing from the icy platform, it gets louder and louder and closer until the ice cracks.

A strong pressure of water hurls itself into the surface, making the ice explode into shards that shoot towards the second jade.

Lan Wangji's sword flares with spiritual energy as he strikes the incoming projectiles strong enough to make them fly back to the whirlpool –it closes in, but passes through. 

It acts a lot like the water abyss back in Biling Lake. He couldn't help but think. Back then, the lake water was simply a medium for the resentful energy, not the body.

If this is the same situation as that time then maybe–

"Lan Zhan!" The second jade snaps out of his thoughts in time to dodge a squirrel's claw, an arrow flies by and he watches the mimic solidify into a frozen state, unmoving. 

He turns to see Wei Ying dealing with the rest of the creatures who were not subjected to the sudden change of elements. 

The man turns to him, "You see that corrupted core right in the middle of the mimic?" He yells.

A black mass that radiated danger, he caught a glimpse before it went down.

Without waiting for an answer Wei Ying shouts "Cleanse it!"

A frog jumps onto the deck causing the boat to lean rapidly to the back, he shoots his arrows at it and quickly moves to the next creature, the second jade shouldn't waste his time– he immediately takes the frozen mimics apart with Bichen . With how dark the color was in the midst of clear water, it didn't take long for him to locate all the cores. 

He was right, though it was small –--it was shaped like a gem fragment– it gave off a very ominous aura. 

Lan Wangji contemplates touching it with his bare hands, he's afraid physical contact may affect him in a negative way. But he's not short of ideas– though he is short on time, if it was anything like the water abyss, there was a possibility of the mimics reforming as long as water was nearby.

The older man releases Wangji from its fabric hold and wastes no time slamming his hand down on the strings, it sends out a distorted tone that catches everyone (everything? Are these things alive?) off guard. The frozen mimics on the icy surface shatter from contact, and leaves only a writhing black core to collect. 

A spirit-trapping pouch should do for now, a few of the cores were close enough that the tool could suck them right in. 

He silently apologizes to the poor farmer who owned this lotus harvest, one look around the lake and it's a disaster. One would think a god took their anger out on it. 

The melody of his guqin quickens and boldens every time a mimic falls, Bichen collects the farthest mimics that his spiritual tool cannot reach, all while Wei Ying battled out each and everyone of them. 

The other man had used another one of those pumice stones after a while when the platform started to falter. But it was not long till they would run out.

After a while, the ice had completely melted off, Wei Ying returned to the boat with a soft exhale. 

"Let's move again." Lan Wangji prompted, sensing that the man needed rest.

"Yeah, I don't think they'll show up for a while." His companion says, and as he moves to reach for the paddle the second jade barricades him with an arm.

"Uhm, Lan Zhan?" 

"Wei Ying should rest." He states, claiming the paddle before he can. "I will lead us the rest of the way. Do not worry." 

The man pauses for a while before he smiles gratefully, "Thanks." He says laughing lightly. 

Wei Ying plops down on the bench next to Lan Wangji as he begins to row, he watches as the man deflates like a balloon in relief.

The ride is as peaceful as it originally was before they were attacked, though, he really hopes the lotus farmer will forgive them for the damage.

He can see the street lights that Yunmeng stake at night, movement that means their night markets are alive. 

The wind sways past him in time for him not to hear the other man mumble under his breath.

"Hadn't had anyone do things for me in years." 

•><•

"Hangguang- jun ." The man in purple greets.

"Jiang- zhongzhu." Lan Wangji salutes back.

What followed after was the most painful and awkward silence known in all history.

"Erm…" Wei Ying says quietly, poking his head out from where he was hiding behind Lan Wangji's back. 

When Jiang Wanyin's attention slid up to him, Wei Ying straightened up and saluted, "Sect Leader Jiang."

"You must be the "Ren" foreigner Nie- zhongzhu and Lan- zhongzhu have been speaking of." The sect leader notes, looking his companion up and down with quiet judgement. 

"That indeed I am, Sect Leader. It's an honor to meet you." The man responds with a chirp. It must be the second jade's imagination, but ever since they entered the city his companion has been livelier than before. He's been distracted more than usual, and often wandered off or have been redirected by local folks. 

Wei Ying seems nervous, yet at the same time, he seems very delighted. 

A series of little chimes redirects Lan Wangji's thoughts to them, huh, must have been the clarity bells. 

"I've been briefed by your brother and Sect Leader Nie about your situation, but I'd like to question your companion a few things myself." The sect leader turned his back to them with a pause, then without looking back, he started walking. The two disciples that stood next to him followed, which signalled that they should too.

Lan Wangji walks forward with his eyes on the path, but he can't help glance at his companion, who cannot seem to contain his emotions on a tight lid. Though he was not actively running around, his head kept swaying left and right so much that he'd worried it'd fall off. 

He catches Jiang Wanyin watching the same scene as him, but the man in purple had an unreadable expression on his face.

The bells chime in unison as they walk towards the sect home, one, two, three… four bells sing in harmony.

It would be exaggeration to say that Wei Ying was practically drooling all over. But his mouth would always drop every time they passed by something that would catch his interest, as he has been doing for over thirty minutes.

To say that the reactions he had over the Unclean Realm and Cloud Recesses couldn't compare to his reaction to Lotus Pier would have been a lie. For some reason, Lan Wangji could not help but feel a bit bemused by it.

Maybe Wei Ying was more of a ground-bound person, he seems to love the lakes and gardens more than mountains and cliffs. Had it not been for the second jade, the man would surely have jumped straight into a pond to take a bath.

"These are the most beautiful lakes I've ever seen." He says for the fifth time, but he cannot blame him for that, it was truly a marvel to look at.

The second jade gently ushers his companion to the side of the bridge, successfully avoiding colliding into another person as they continue to stroll. 

Wei Ying barely notices though, but he laughs delightfully as the taller man responds with noncommittal "Mn's."

"Sorry about that, you must be tired of listening to me say that!" Oh, so he is aware. "But in all the places I've been to, I just haven't seen something so magnificent!" 

Something about that catches the Lan's interest. "You travel?" He asks. 

"Ah? Oh, yeah." His companion hums, "It's something I've been doing, when ruins weren't ruins yet." Wei Ying's voice softens on the last part, making him almost miss it.

(oh?)

"But mainly because I love going to different places!" The man sighs, in almost a longing way as he looks over the pond. "It's very difficult for me to accept the fact that everyone moved on already. But I'm trying." 

Silently, the second jade knew he wasn't supposed to hear that, it was something Wei Ying didn't want to escape from his lips. It felt wrong to intrude on it.

Oh

Wei Ying went through the same suffering.

Lan Wangji realizes belatedly. He doesn't know what the situation was, he doesn't even know what happened. But he's seen that expression before, he's felt those emotions before. 

His companion froze, realizing what he had said, but as he scrambles to fix his mistake, the second jade speaks.

"Where did you live?" He asked, purposely changing the subject. If the man didn't want to approach it, then he wouldn't. 

Wei Ying exhaled, his imagination probably, but he noticed his eyes shimmering. 

"I don't have a house!" He says chuckling, "I was always out and about, so I figured I didn't need one!" 

The second jade huffs, of course he wouldn't. Not that he figured, but the man seemed so accustomed to the woods during their travels, he honestly should be surprised that anyone could go on without a house, but he can't find himself being so.

And without control of his own words (heavens, why does he never have control around him?), he told the man, "If you decide to be "out and about" sometime in the Jianghu , you are always welcome in Gusu." 

Wei Ying burst out laughing, clinging to his belly like life depended on it as he keeled. "Oh my Archons! Lan Zhan!! Did you just make a joke?!" 

He hides his smile as he continues towards the end of the bridge. 

The Lotus Pier is lovely, Jiang Wanyin gave them permission to explore the place after he interrogated them. Kind enough to give them resting quarters as well. 

The second jade's thoughts drove him back to last night's event, and suddenly remembers that he's still holding on to the cores of the mimics. 

He stops in his tracks to scavenge for the spirit-trapping pouch in his sleeves, "Wei Ying." he calls out to the man, who's skipping up and down along the wooden path.

"Hmm?" Wei Ying hums in inquiry, slowing down to a stop. Lan Wangji turns to him with the pouch in hand, and drops it in his companion's awaiting hands. 

"The cores." Is all he said. The other man lights up in recognition with a small 'ohh' sound. "I forgot about that!" He gasps. 

The second had cleansed it last night, and before he went to sleep he played it a tune again. But when morning came, the energy that was supposedly erased had come back ten times stronger, it was strong enough that you could feel it pulse from outside the spirit-trapping pouch.

When he said this to Wei Ying, he could tell the man felt it as well, he winced when he held the pouch up to eye level and massaged his forehead.

"Oh, Archons. I'm really sorry, Lan Zhan. I should have taken this off of you the moment we finished." 

"You were protecting the both of us, it is not shameful to be exhausted by it." Lan Wangji reassures him, the man frowns at the thought but does not argue back. 

"But still…" he hears the man say weakly before he shakes his head and smiles sheepishly instead. "Yeah, I guess." 

Though

There was another thing he was curious about that scratched his mind. 

"How were you able to do that?" The second jade asks. When his companion turns to him with an inquiring gaze, he restates.

"The hydro mimics, the lake…when they froze." 

That ignited something within his companion, he immediately dived into the prospects of his magnificent inventions like an excited child showing off his artworks. 

Apparently, the arrows he had been carving back at the inn were infused with artificial elements that would trigger a solidifying reaction when it came in contact with its targets. He had been studying the properties that made ice (and the reason why he asked the keeps for ice.) – --and engraved the proper radicals onto the heads of the arrows. The only thing his array missed was water, hence, it did not activate even when given spiritual power; it only reacted once it hit the mimics.

The pumice stones were the same story, only the rocks were too brittle for Wei Ying to carve on, so he had to forcibly compress a pre-activated talisman (with the same design as the radicals on the arrows) and merged one another. 

Pumice, according to him, were great at containing gases of kinds, and the talisman within only activated because the stone broke and it touched the water surface.

That's…ridiculous.

"Now, usually I use this plant back home called 'mist flower corolla' that naturally produces cold mist, we often use it for storage or whatnot. But since I didn't have any on me when I came here, I had to improvise!" 

(Improvisation was when your plans didn't work, so you had to plan a weaker course of action.

This was more than just an improvisation. 

This was literally innovation!)

It's terrifying to think such plants exist in the first place. But somehow, it makes Lan Wangji more fascinated by it. Not only that, but the amount of brilliance this man in front of him had, it could have made scholars all across the seven seas desire his brain.

His talismanry was literally beyond this world.

It broke the limits that human nature set for itself. It would take years out of anyone just to attain the knowledge that he had. It was an honor to be freely graced by it.

Knowledge like this… the Lans would trade gold vaults for. 

The two of them had decided to walk back by the time they reached the last viewing pavilion, this time though, they watched the children play around as the second jade guided them along the wooden path while his companion continued to ramble.

"Isn't that Lan- er-gongzi? " A voice called out to him. 

Wei Ying stops in his steps to look at the person who spoke. When Lan Wangji saw who it was, he saluted in respect to the man in front of them. 

The man was visibly old in age, even without his guan to indicate his status, the lotus embroidery on his sleeves and the braids in his hair clearly showed his high status. Even if no one knew how to distinguish this, the singular functioning arm, paired with the phantom of a limb for the other sleeve could tell you who it was.

"Wangji greets Jiang Laozu ." He bids, spotting Wei Ying in the corner of his eye parroting his movement.

"It's been so long since you visited Lotus Pier. I trust you've been well?" Jiang Fengmian smiles softly, his old age showing from the wrinkles that form at the end of his mouth.

He responded to the man, saying he had been faring well and he thanked him for his concern. A weak wind passes by them, sending two bells chiming. 

The former sect leader's gaze to his companion, who smiles back and bows his head a little. "A friend of yours?" The man asks good heartedly, though his eyes seem to focus on the little accessory on the man's right hand. Oh that's right, Wei Ying had a little bell on his wrist. 

"W- ah,Ren is the name, Laozu." The second jade pretends not to notice the small slip-up. "I'm accompanying him on his journey. We've come here to help with the situation at hand." He explains instead, watching as the elder nods.

"I see. Well then, you seemed to be enjoying yourselves! I won't take your time." Jiang Fengmian chuckles to himself with mirth in his eyes. "It's not everyday you see Lan- er-gongzi with a friend."

Lan Wangji chooses to ignore the playful snickers that Wei Ying sent his way in favor of sidling up to the side to let the elder walk through, but as the former sect leader does so, he pauses. 

"Say, gongzi ." He addresses Wei Ying.

"May I ask for your surname?" Wei Ying's eyes widen before he smiles softly, almost painfully.

"I have no family name to speak of, dear elder." He lied. 

Jiang Fengmian hummed before he huffed, "I see. My apologies, you looked quite familiar for a second." The former sect leader laughs. 

"Must be old age, I'll be going now."

They watched as his back faded into the distance, and the rest of the walk was silent after that, the second jade being unable to break the melancholy tension. 

His companion was no longer smiling, but his eyes seemed sad, as if they were searching for answers no one would be willing to give. 

Something… something about this bed of lotuses made him react this way. But why?

A lovely chime echoes through the wind.

"Your golden cores." Wei Ying finally said, "They prevent you from physically aging, right?" Although the second jade did not recall telling him that, he wouldn't put it past him for learning from his land's cultivators.

And Lan Wangji knew exactly what he was asking about, so he spoke, not needing him to finish his question. 

"The former sect leader lost his core during a war, alongside other things" He explained, resisting the urge to silence himself, the memories were still fresh in his mind even after three years, it's hard not to revisit it.

"A war…" the other man murmured, voice slightly shaking with emotion. 

" En . Jiang Wanyin took the mantle at a very young age. Since Laozu could no longer wield his sword."  He wasn't there when Lotus Pier fell, but he witnessed the effects it had in those war camps.

The Jiang Matriarch's cold body on a bed, the former sect leader's equally dead eyes. The Jiang siblings were there, crying and begging anyone to help them. Jiang Wanyin's eyes had become harsher that day, and Jiang Yangli's heart closed off.

It was painful to watch a reflection of your own life replay in front of you.

They lost a lot in the Sunshot Campaign, they suffered the most. He tells this to Wei Ying.

"I'm so sorry." Wei Ying whispered sadly, Lan Wangji could only shake his head.

•><•

It's the third day of exterminating the mimics when something truly goes wrong.

Lan Wangji was finishing off the last creature in the river (every disciple, courtesy of Wei Ying, was given a stack of petrifying talisman to use against the mimics.) when he feels power surge from within the area. 

In the heart of the city, a floating mage of dark reds and oranges emerged from a rift, and right after it many variations of monsters. The second jade quickly shot off a distress flare twice and attempted to apprehend the mage. Unfortunately the only advantage he had over it were his solidifying talismans, and he was not a fool to waste them on a fight he might not win. 

The first thing that greeted him was purple lightning crackling to his right, the second, was a command— "Get down!"

Many years of experience has accustomed Wangji to this attack, and so he has no difficulty in timing his movement with the whip that shoots over his head and to the mage.

Zidian sparks in contact with its fire barrier, causing it to implode on itself– Jiang Wanyin swings again with a growl and sends the mage flying through the stalls with electricity burning its fur.

The second jade looks around the area for a certain braided-haired man— but only finds disciples fighting all around him. 

Jiang Wanyin took care of the abyss mage in no time at all, the deep scowl on the sect leader's face tells Lan Wangji that he's not having a good day (when has he ever?) and the little fire floating menace did nothing to make it better. 

The warp has closed thankfully, but a few of the monsters escaped onto the streets— he leaves the area to chase those down, worrying for the safety of their citizens.

•><•

One, two, three— five captive mages greet him as soon as he enters one of Lotus Pier courtyards. Not that they notice, they're busy shrieking in an ear-splitting pitch, more specifically— they're dangling around wildly in the air like rice sacks and every few minutes or so they swing around uncontrollably, screams growing in volume every cycle.

"Last waaaarning ~!" Wei Ying sing-songs jovially, swaying his hands with no rhythm. The man's back faces the entrance of the courtyard while he sits on the ground cross-legged with hyper movement. 

He seems to be enjoying himself, though the subject of entertainment  is quite crude in Lan Wangji's opinion. 

(He now understands why passing disciples on the way were skittering about nervously.) 

He calls out to the man by name, who turns to him and brightens at the sight of Lan Wangji.

"Ah! Lan Zhan!" He beams joyfully, and the second jade would have liked the attention if not for the continuous torture occuring in the background. (Is this animal abuse? Or monster abuse?)

When he stares for too long his companion helpfully supplies, "I found them loitering in the rivers, so I gathered 'em up." A purple mage screams particularly louder. 

Ignoring the brutality in front of him, the second jade instead reports to the man what happened within the city, a mage managed to warp in, but the Jiang disciples have it covered. 

"Jiang Wanyin eliminated the abyss mage, the warp closed then." 

Wei Ying hummed in thought, the collected gale in the courtyard suddenly dispersed as he deactivated his spell. The mages behind him drop to the ground rather harshly, on the verge of unconsciousness one of them shoots a flaming ball at him. 

It easily dissolves at a wave of his hand, "Well, I guess we'll have to be serious." He says to no one in particular, carefully approaching the beasts that writhe with invisible pain. 

The man grabs one by its clothing and speaks with a monotone voice. "What do you plan to do with the varunada lazulites?" His voice is harsh and frightening, much like the first time he had apprehended a mage.

["I…"] a voice says brokenly, Lan Wangji startles quietly at the sound if it, he didn't know these creatures could speak, but the words sounded muddled to his ears– past the sound of its voice which made it seem like many people were speaking unanimously, it all sounded like foreign language.

["I haven't got a clue what you speak of, you insolent child."] It laughs sardonically.

["Really now?"] The man downright growls . ["The lazulite fragments in this pouch seem to tell a different story."]

Never has the second jade seen him this angry, it only upset him a bit that he cannot understand them.

The mage wails, ["What? Are you going to threaten me? It's futile!] Wei Ying sighs.

"This is useless." He says, clicking his tongue. "They won't spit out their plan, we'll just dispose of them." The mage gets thrown to the ground roughly before all five are subjected to spiritual cables, Wei Ying goes as far as erecting chains of wind that grounds each of them to a corner of the yard. 

"Tell the men here not to enter this courtyard, I'll deal with them later." (He sighs again, clearly exhausted.)

"What are their intentions?" Lan Wangji mutters to himself as he follows the man back to the main path. His companion cradles his head with one hand, wincing though he tries to hide it.

"I'm not entirely sure. But I think I have an idea." 

He's not swaying, though he looks like he needs to sit down. Vaguely, the second jade can feel a heavy throbbing energy coming from the pouch the man carries. Just when he plans to tell the man to stop, Wei Ying continues to ramble.

"Two of our celestial entities back in Teyvat were put out of commission and their cores have been found missing. Hydro mimics never move without a direct command from Rhodeia and her fragments were found in them." The man pauses for a second before putting two fingers in his mouth to whistle,minutely looking in the sky for something.

"I have a bad feeling about this." He grimaces. " He 's gem hasn't been found yet. And with the extensive history the abyss order has with our waters…" He groans, frustrated, scratching the back of his neck. 

"Worst thing that'll happen, they'll try to recreate Osial in jianghu ." 

Osial? The name seems quite familiar, he recalls having discussed this back when he was a student. Studies on Divine Beings and the like. It was grouped up in the same category as the Divine Xuanwu for being a 'water-bound deity' . Though it was said that the great being suddenly vanished one day and never showed itself again.

From the sounds of it, recreating an Osial shouldn't be a good thing. 

"We should locate the gem, then." Lan Wangji says with determination. 

He looks up in the sky just in time to see something swoop down towards his companion. A loud croon echoes in the empty hallway as Wei Ying ruffles the bird's feathers. 

A raven . He thinks. It must belong to the man. He honestly didn't expect the man to own a raven—unlike the previous birds, the blue finch and the elegant hawk. The second jade thought his companion would have something like a magpie or an owl. 

Wei Ying ties a message to its neck with a red ribbon and sends it off, he looks like he's about to speak, but is interrupted when a Jiang disciple comes running towards them. 

The child salutes and greets the two of them before relaying that the sect leader had asked for their presence in the throne room. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Lan Wangji catches his companion's smile twitching, his hand subtly moving towards the bell on his wrist when the disciple mentions an elder. He seemed a bit antsy then.

"Are you okay?" He asks the man the moment the disciple leaves. Everything about him was exhausted, the second jade noticed that he started behaving strangely a day after he received the pouch of fragmented gems.

Wei Ying smile stiffens, eyes heavy with a different emotion when he replies,

"As fine as I'll ever be."

They stand in front of the Booming Hall when the first thing that Lan Wangji notices is the absence of the bell on Wei Ying's wrist. 

Though he no longer looks as tired as before, there is still tension in his body that the second jade cannot comprehend.

When someone signals them to enter, he moves as if he's impatient to get everything over with, but he walks behind the Lan's own person. It was the most incomposed he's ever seen the man be.

There's an elderly man that Jiang Wanyin is speaking with when they enter the room. But they stop speaking entirely when Lan Wangji and Wei Ying's presence become known.

"Hangguang- jun, Ren- gongzi ." The sect leader acknowledges them both, though he says the latter name with a sceptical tone. 

"There's someone who's been wanting to meet with you. A former scholar of ours, who specializes in beasts." Jiang Wanyin says with an inclined brow towards the elder beside him. "He's been asking about Ren- gongzi more than not."

Though something about this situation told Lan Wangji that they had another objective, with the way Jiang Wanyin has been saying the name 'Ren' with more disdain.

The elder looks at the figure behind him expectantly, waiting for the man to speak.

Wei Ying smiles, his movement is animated when he steps forward to bow and introduce himself— but he never gets the chance to.

The elder man takes a deep shuddered breath as his eyes dawn on the foreigner, there's a look on the man's widened eyes as if he had seen a ghost. 

"I knew it." He harshly muttered. Jiang Wanyin's scowl deepened at the sound of it.

"Changze."

.

.

[End of chapter]

Chapter Text

There once was a man in ancient times. A man who would later be told in fairy tales and history for children to learn.

Born from a middle-class family, he was earlier known as a woodcarver apprentice.

But his mind had known no limits, much as his genius knew no control. He was the first child in their family to have ever learned cultivation, what's more— he was self taught. 

The story went by like this; the boy had learned to cultivate by himself with only books and observation of passing by cultivators. Not only that, he had mastered the art of talismanry and array study at the mere age of seventeen.

His name was being sung by folksmen and birds wherever they went, about a brilliant boy who could do anything and fail at nothing. 

When it reached the cultivation world's ears, they all raced to get a glimpse of him. 

Hard working, self-earned and skillful— he could defeat a taotie without a proper sword, and played the dizi so heavenly.

He attempted the impossible. Much like the motto of the sect he later agreed to join. There, he was treated like family, the sect leader had no children and saw him like his own son. 

The boy grew into a man, and yet his brilliance never dimmed. He was kind, compassionate, he was fierce.

So much so, that he had gone down in history— as the first man who tamed beasts. 

But then he vanishes, never to be seen in the nation again.

As if he dispersed into thin air.

The Father of Myth, The Son of The Primordial One, The Immortal Piper. He was called many names, yet centuries later he would be known as the one and only:

Wei Changze .

•><•

"No, I'm sorry. I'm not this person you speak of." Wei Wuxian quietly refuted.

But there was a light tremble in his voice that he tried to suppress, it told a different story. 

The old man's eyes flicker, it might have been disappointment— he wouldn't know, since his head is lowered to hide his cowardly face.

He has lied many times, he has survived by lying, it's second nature to him. Yet as it is, he can't bear to show his face to the world, afraid of the expressions that would escape him.

"Boy." The elder calls out to him. Wei Wuxian laughs a bit, quietly considering that this person might as well be the same age as him. 

"I raised that man myself." 

What?  

He inhaled sharply, before he realizes his head had already raised to look at the elder with shock. 

His eyes were filled with broken hope and vulnerability. It was such an ugly sight for him. 

"I'm… you— " Suddenly words were hard to form again, he was a child who wouldn't leave the skirts of his mother. A naive little boy who thought his parents hung the stars. 

He couldn't lie his way out of this anymore, he didn't want to, facades had been thrown aside, it made way for fragility.

"My name is Jiang Ko." The elder continued on, "I would like to speak with you, privately." 

Wei Wuxian exhaled, though it was not with relief, he noticed sect leader Jiang scowling a bit in the corner of his eye. Probably upset about his whole existence, who knows. 

Have they got time? He has so much to do here, he can't waste it by having pep-talk over tea and snacks. 

"No…unfortunately I- "

Oh, for the first time since he's been outside Liyue, he wants to go home.

"Wei Ying." He startles lightly, looking back to the man who called him. 

Lan Zhan coolly nods, he probably doesn't even know what's happening right now, yet he can be so calm.

"I'll manage in your stead." He says, and oh how sweet this heavenly man is. 

His gratefulness oozed out in the teary smile he gave Lan Zhan. Chuckling a bit, he replies, "Mn. I can trust you."

" Wei Ying' is it." Sect leader Jiang grumbles. "Since we're here already, may we all have the pleasure of knowing you formally?"

He seems a bit bitter, Jiang Wanyin reminded him a lot like that certain Yuheng Qixing that his shijie has been fond of lately.

He smiles, putting his hands together into a salute as he speaks truthfully, almost a little happy. 

"A formal introduction is indeed needed. It's a pleasure to meet you, Jiang- zhongzhu , this one is Wei Wuxian."

The man in question huffs and nods at his greeting, mumbling something along the lines of 'better than that horrid accent'.

Jiang Ko huffs, muttering something under his breath as Wei Wuxian followed him through a corridor that connected behind the Booming Hall.

He looks back, watching as Lan Zhan's still silhouette shrinks as the man exits the other way. 

He promised to repay the Lan in the future.

•><•

The room that Wei Wuxian was led to was quite homely so to say. It was ambient and filled with light that seeped in from the paper windows. 

There were doors open on the other side of the room that made way for a beautiful view of a lotus pond. There were shelves on each wall that were filled to the brim with scrolls and study materials, there was even some artistry and literature framed next to the bed. 

Wei Wuxian was sitting in the middle of the room with a low table, in front of him was billowing steam from the tea that Jiang Ko was currently brewing for the both of them. 

A lovely scent, which he appreciated, it mixed in with the natural fragrance the lotuses in the pond gave off. ( Incense wasn’t really to his liking. Although, he is starting to get used to the smell of sandalwood incense, he wonders where it’s from though.)

Silence swam between the two men peacefully, only the small chimes of a clarity bell that hung near the open window. 

“You are without your bell.” The elder says—more like states— as he sipped from his teacup. 

Habitually, Wei Wuxian reaches a hand towards his empty wrist before he chuckles awkwardly, “Ah, well. I figured it might be disrespectful to wear it in front of you all, seeing as it is your…”. He gestures recklessly with a hand, deeming it unnecessary to finish that sentence.

Jiang Ko huffs, “True that. While every Jiang disciple has a bell, only the main family’s have purple engravings on them. This which-“ The old man pointed at him, “-I seem to have noticed with yours.” 

Wei Wuxian suppresses a flinch, holding his wrist down with a hard grip underneath the table. “The fact that you have a clarity bell, much less a family one, says many things.”

The elder stared at him, though it wasn’t a harsh one, it gleamed with a want for many answers. Wei Wuxian swallows hard, he only notices now that his hands have started fidgeting.

“I mean, I suppose that is the reason you invited me to this room. You must have many questions right?” His eyes start swimming around the room for a distraction. He was speaking against his mind’s will, it’s blaring in alert that makes instinct force him to shut up. He didn’t want to answer any questions— why can’t he have free answers for once?

But just as his instincts were strong-willed, his heart was too stubborn. It’s not like he’ll babble about his homeland. The old man didn’t seem very interested in knowing more about his blatant dishonesty, everytime Jiang Ko spoke he spoke of the past. Specifically a person of the past, a person who’s home Wei Wuxian is currently in. 

It’s not like he’s revealing some dirty secret to a man of the outside world. His heart argues though his brain mentally scoffs at him. Bah!

But before he could throw his mental entity down into a brawl, the elder placed his cup down with a light thud, and tucked in his sleeves.

“I assume you have as many questions as I do.” Jiang Ko stood, he walked to the bed and opened a chest next to it that had delicate silver linings. When he looked back at Wei Wuxian, he was holding a beautiful black-laquered flute.

“So. Let’s start with this one.” It scratched the back of his head. Not that the flute was familiar, but something about its presence triggered a sense of nostalgia in him. The red tassel pierced his attention and grabbed onto it.

“Can you play?”

"It's come to my attention that the Lan sect hasn't been quite honest lately." 

Lan Wangji sighs internally, he had hoped the man would forget about his entire existence if he excused himself earlier. Turns out, it only made him follow the second jade.

Jiang Wanyin crosses his arms impatiently behind him, "Well?" 

"It was not intended." He answers. "And we have not been lying." 

True to his word, his brother had indeed not been lying in his letters. The details regarding 'a man who comes from outside' was vague, and had not actually stated his being from Dongying.

Wei Ying respected the fact that they did not adhere to deception. They let all the lying be done by him.

"Yet we weren't trusted enough to be informed of this either?" Jiang Wanyin scowls, he can practically see where his throat is locked up and ready to shout. 

Instead, the second jade turns to him, he cups his hands together and bows his head low— to show respect that a sect leader earns. 

"On behalf of my sect, I do apologize for obscuring information from the sects." Though he wasn't as sorry as his brother was. "However, it was not due to distrust. But with Wei Ying's vulnerable situation, it was advisable that not many would be involved."

Regarding the information about the said foreigner, the sect leader would have to ask Wei Ying himself about that. Lan Wangji wouldn't open his mouth about it, he says exactly this to the man.

Jiang Wanyin stares blankly at the ground, a pondering look on his face that brought an abnormal calm to his person. 

It's been a while since he's seen the man be this calm, these days it's as if his face had been glued together to form a face of displeasure for eternity. 

They had been… acquaintances, once upon a time. They weren't that close however, occasionally finding themselves sat together by Nie Huaisang and ended up conversing. 

Lan Wangji and Jiang Wanyin were often compared to each other in the cultivation world. Though the second jade must concede, because in all things between them, the latter man has had a better family than him before the war.

"The elder seemed to know him." The sect leader says after a while, but it seems like he has no desire to actually continue that discussion, and so they walk side by side in silence. 

Too silent maybe, even Lan Wangji can feel the awkwardness. 

"Strange." He muses, "There's a certain familiarity of him in my memories, for some reason." 

The second jade pauses and turns to the sect leader in curiosity. The said man is spacing off, lost in his thoughts in the middle of the corridor; the neutrality painted across his face made him seem more younger all of a sudden. 

He pondered on those short words…. Could it be? 

Jiang Wanyin huffed a little, an action Lan Wangji would have missed entirely for its subtleness. "It's as if I'd known him my entire life, or maybe another life?" 

A curiosity indeed. Wei Ying certainly carried a familiar act with strangers, it made anyone question how long they'd known him. But the way Jiang Wanyin worded it seemed like he could have met him a long time ago. 

Lan Wangji shakes his head and lets it be, he isn't well-versed in the likes of samsara. 

The sect leader seems to have moved past the subject as well. 

Jiang Wanyin sighs, "I've things to do." He says, and doesn't wait for an answer before walking away. 

The second jade salutes to him and lets the man leave, quite certain that he wouldn't come back anyway.

Lan Wangji is rounding up the last batch of monsters when Wei Ying finally emerges from the building. 

The man looks at him with shining eyes, his face looks full of clarity now. 

"Ah, Lan Zhan." He says with a smile. When he focuses on the monsters before him, Wei Ying tilts his head humorously when he notices it neatly lined in a row. 

The man looks at him curiously, waiting for an answer. But instead of giving the man an answer, Lan Wangji playfully tilts his head back. 

The somber tension is broken, his companion laughs joyfully at his weird response and playfully smacks his arm. "What is this?! Just a few weeks with me and you've been infected by my ridiculousness!" 

The second jade lets himself smile, there's a fluttering feeling inside of him watching his companion become relaxed by something he's done. (His laughs itch his ears, and the fact that he smiled because of Wangji.)

It felt truly alien to the Lan, he felt his heart flip and it was alien . He wanted to make the man smile just once— but now he realizes that he's been making the man smile more than just once. 

Even if it was something as bizarre as lining up a bunch of monsters and presenting them like a gift of rocks to him. (Which sounds childish now as he realizes this.)

"The disciples were about to dispose of them, but I figured you would need to…" He says, cutting off his sentence in favor of making a slicing gesture with his hand, which his companion immediately understood.

Wei Ying brightens up, "Ah! I've been slacking off so much that the great Hangguang- jun has to clean up after me." The man teases, "Truly, what will I do without you?" 

The man marches forward to do exactly as he's done before, unaware of the mess he's seamlessly made the Lan into. 

Said Lan, who is trying to suppress the dilemma that he's currently going through. Are his ears red? They're burning up so much that he could feel steam come out of them.  

("What will I do without you?"

He didn't know how to feel about the implications of that!)

Lan Wangji knew it was a joke, but his mind knew neither boundaries nor limits. It's a wild animal that he cannot leash.

He watches Wei Ying remove certain parts from the bodies with utter care, careful as to not damage it further than he has to. 

There's a certain gentleness in his movement that the second jade hadn't noticed until now. It was the same for every cultivator who had to deal with a spirit, respect the body as you respect its soul. 

But the difference between it was that— cultivators respect originates from fear, fear of being cursed or waking the rage of the soul. This one— this respect is founded, it had a deeper story, one he would hope to understand one day.

If he had the chance to glance at Wei Ying's expression, he would have seen the soft melancholy of it.

(Because even if they were called monsters, one would know that they did not create themselves.)

These creatures must have come from the humblest of origins, if even a man would respect their corpse. 

"I'm sure you are curious." Wei Ying says to break the silence, he's finished gathering up what he needs and has started placing incineration runes on the ground beneath the bodies.

"I will not implore if it is not welcome." Lan Wangji replies, only a second late. The man snaps his fingers and the incineration begins.

Now his attention is fully on the second jade. He smiles cheekily as he responds, "That's not a no isn't it?" 

This time he does not answer, only dips his head in slight shame. "I'll answer them."

Lan Wangji looks up in surprise, his eyes widened only a little as his companion smiles at him reassuringly. 

Wei Ying hums, his hands tucked inside his vibrant sleeves as he starts walking away from the incinerated area, the second jade follows right after. 

They were positioned near the docks outside the city, which made it easier to witness the sun set slowly in the distance

The sky was painted in pinks and reds and other colors that vary, it dripped into the waters and reflected back onto the surface.

Wei Ying shined, like a deity that married a mortal body. It was a beautiful image. 

He suppresses that thought immediately, having no idea what had gotten into him. 

"What do you think?" Wei Ying asks him, looking at the scenery before him.

"..." the second jade doesn't answer immediately, he lets himself process the information in his head— remembering every moment he ever paid attention to the other man.

He had some suspicion, of course, that Wei Ying was not as human as he would expect him to be. But he didn't think that far.

Honestly, it bemuses him that it's been going over his head— despite the fact that he's witnessed the man do inhumane things, like fall from the sky and not die.

"You're an immortal." He says finally, and barely misses his companion deflate in relief at the statement. 

He chuckles a bit, "Right answer!" Though his tone didn't help fake his enthusiasm. Lan Wangji tried to cheer him up earlier before— and it did work, but it shows that Wei Ying was still affected by his conversations with the elder. 

"I haven't been quite honest with Gusu Lan, for that I apologize." He's about to bow in apology when the second jade grabs his hand to stop him.

"No." Lan Wangji states flatly, and scurries to add when he sees the man's eyes widen "—You do not need to apologize."

Wei Ying deflates in silent relief, "We are not obligated to know everything. Every man has his secrets." He feels relieved to see his companion trust those words, nodding slightly in acknowledgment.

"Thank you, for understanding." The man says, the corner of his lips curl up to form a small, soft smile. 

Lan Wangji finds himself smiling back, molten eyes softening into warmth— it fits well with the sun set, though he wouldn't know that. (Wei Wuxian thinks they're ethereal.)

"Do not thank me for the minimum."

Only then does the second jade realize he's still holding onto the other man's wrist. Wei Ying seems to notice as well, but is too late to speak when he rapidly lets go of it. Hiding his hand behind his back and coughing awkwardly to change the attention.

Wei Ying smiles, a little amused at the sight. (But the hand that Lan Zhan grabbed twitched slightly, searching for the warmth that engulfed it.)

"May I ask?" Lan Wangji says, watching as the sun finally disappeared behind the rivers. 

His companion hums, leaning forward against the dock fence, fiddling with his fingerless-gloves. "Anything."

"..." He thinks of it carefully, there are so many things he's curious about, how can he fit everything into one question? 

Anything . He said.

"Who is Wei Changze to you?" 

Silence, one that has Lan Wangji wondering whether he had asked the wrong question. 

Wei Ying moves, weaving through his right sleeve in search of an object, and what he holds out releases a lovely chime. 

A bell— a clarity bell, now the second jade realizes. It didn't really occur to him that it would be a Jiang bell, though now he knows why it felt familiar. 

His companion fiddles with the bell, making it ring minutely every time he swings it. 

"He gave this to me." He starts

"Wei Changze is…. was my father" The sadness in the man's tone was unbearable, but it made much more sense now. Why Wei Ying was so quiet these days, why he seemed to look so far away into the past and never present. 

Wei Changze lived here, he grew up here. And among other things that Wei Ying might have kept from him, this was a sanctuary that immortalized the presence of his father. 

The pain in his eyes… just how long did he have to carry it all?

Lan Wangji couldn't bear to ask him another question, fearing that it would be insensitive to do so. 

The heavy feeling of the guqin strapped to his back made itself known, bringing forth an idea. The second jade unstrapped Wangji , carefully laying it over his hand as he slid over the strings.

"Would you like me to perform a departure?" He asks quietly, watching as the man's ears shimmer. 

He'd be lying if he said he wasn't surprised by the offer.

Wei Wuxian laughs a bit wetly, "Ahh, but 

It's been years already. The spirit's probably moved on by now." Besides, he already performed their funeral rites, right after the war. Archons know how many decades he stayed there— sat still as stone in front of their graves and let worldly affairs pass by him.

He left people for time to get them while he froze. Time was never a problem for him— he probably had too much of it.

 "You may never know." The Lan says "Perhaps the spirit might miss his homeland." 

Home . 

Ah, that's right. This was his home, his father was born and raised in the jianghu. He studied, fought, and travelled in the jianghu. Because in the first place, this was where he always belonged. 

And he has every right to rest in peace in his home. 

Wei Wuxian nods, because he cannot trust himself to answer properly. The guqin starts playing, a beautiful song washes over him— a lovely yet sad and painful melody. Befitting of the emotions he felt on the spot.

The clarity bell glows in the moonlight, its chimes harmonizing with the notes as if singing its own grief. 

Briefly, Wei Wuxian wonders. If he stayed within the jianghu, would he have lived to be a millennium? Would he have survived to see his children grow families?

Would his happiness be eternal? What then?

Silent tears fall from his cheeks, his eyes are blurry to a fault but he cannot bring himself to wipe them.

Soon the music fades out, and there is nothing but silence. 

"Thank you." He whispers, unable to suppress the sobs that escape his throat. Suddenly his stomach churns, his legs have liquified and he can't stand properly. 

Wei Wuxian slowly fell to his knees, clarity bell clutched tightly with both hands to his face, too ashamed to show himself to the gods as he let tears fall like rain.

All the while Lan Wangji is silent, he doesn't dare to make any noise.

"Thank you."

•><•

"A-Ying." A sweet comforting voice says.

The child himself has curled up into his father's arms, sobbing loudly over the rumblings of the older man.

A hand strokes his head gently, meant to comfort the child's woes, it followed up with a melody— one his father often hummed to him when he sleeps.

"It's not fair." The child hiccups, "It's just not fair!" 

For the world is always unfortunate in the eyes of young ones. Children do not understand the concept of death and life. 

It's unfair that everything has to be taken away from him. That the friends he loved to play with always left earlier than he would. No matter how many times his father and mother reassured him that—they would come back, surely. They love you as well, they wouldn’t leave you.

That’s why it made him so happy! When Yanlin came back after three weeks of being missing. They were all so worried when she hadn’t come home, the village people even asked for his parents to help them look for her.

He was so happy.

But the people around him were sad, they weren't happy that Yanlin finally returned and it confused him. 

Yanlin wasn't moving. 

"It's not fair!" He continued to cry to his father.

"That's just how it is, A-Ying." His father had said sadly, he wiped the child's tears away. 

"No banquet in this world will last forever." 

"As such— no life can last an eternity"

But Yanlin was so young— as young as A-Ying was. How come she had to leave sooner?

"In time. Even gods erode, my son." 

It seemed like a cruel thing to say to a child. It definitely was. 

But that was the truth untold for every living being. Especially if you were born blessed by time. 

Even the highest of the highest…

Even immortals die eventually.

In the cruelest of ways. 

Wei Wuxian opens his eyes. 

Tears streamed down his face and onto the bed. 

It's been years . He thinks. Since I've dreamt of something so sad.

It’s a wonder he’s been able to dream at all.

It was many years ago, freshly orphaned— dishonourably discharged from a dishonourable war. 

He barely slept at nights, barely slept at all. His guilts and regrets devoured him from the inside, a deadly parasite that couldn't be removed. 

War broke him— drove him insane to the brink of corruption. 

But the nights where he could sleep… it was much worse. 

He’d hurt himself with words, with the actions he brought down onto the people who were once his comrades. 

If I had been stronger—

If I had been faster—

If I hadn’t—

It took him years to heal from it. Not move on— never . But he’s shed his skin over and over and over for decades to count, grieving for the lives of people he had no right to claim. Now, he starts anew, now— he walks towards it.

Wei Wuxian sits with his grief.

He caresses it, speaks to it like a friend. He's come to accept it as something that's part of him, an inevitable fragment of himself that will leave a deep mark on his burdened back.

And in doing so Wei Wuxian learns to breathe another day, to see the skies clearly and feel the wind against his hair. 

Today is the same as any of those days. He pats his grief on the shoulder like an old friend and moves forward, leaving it behind. When he looks back it’s with tired eyes filled with calm— or rather, acceptance of his fate.

You’ve served me well, protected the memories of those lost. 

Although it hurt him more, haunted him with the ghosts of his mistakes. It protected him as well.

Pretty messed up way of protecting him, though.

Wei Wuxian slides his fingers across the bamboo flute, beautifully black lacquered, there's an inscription on the bottom of the flute that's gilded with gold. 

'to express emotions'

Chenqing

He smiles, his father always had a beautiful way of naming things— unlike his mother, who tended to name everything like a joke. 

His first bird was named Suibian.  

Oh, but he loved it so dearly.

Wei Wuxian tucked the newly owned flute into the sleeves of his over-robe, a new addition to his outfit as well— one that the elder, Jiang Ko, pushed into his arms and refused to take back. 

Well, Wei Wuxian himself would refuse to acknowledge the tears that fell down his cheeks at the exchange. The over-robe was similar to the one that the elder wore, a doubled-dyed purple which fell into a dark faded inked pattern. There was a modified cut on his left sleeve that let his arm slide free of it, a very convenient feature for an archer. 

He’d treasure it, treasure it so well. So well that even hoarders would be impressed. After all, it might be the only thing that he’ll keep from this place, this foreign but familiar land where he could have been born into, in a different world. 

He’ll treasure it. 

•><•

Not long after Wei Wuxian wakes, the pouch stirs again. The qiankun pouch, which contained several infected body parts along with the lazulite, started exuding a heavier amount of karma.

He grimaces, head in his hands as he shoots a barrier talisman towards the doors of his room. That amount of karma will surely alert anyone within the vicinity, its influence is deadly, and the last thing Wei Wuxian wants is more living casualties to deal with.

Whispers overtake his senses, getting louder and louder every passing minute. The adeptus moves around and occupies himself with mental sutras whilst cleansing the room of any negatively influenced energy before preparing the floor for a ritual. 

There’s something in the familiarity of the action that makes him bitter with nostalgia, a bad trip to memory lane that he never bought a ticket to. 

Wei Wuxian loathes the force that brings him back to the abyss. An overwhelming path that fate paved for him and his comrades, making him choose between the dirt road that would devour him by a step or the single-logged bridge down to oblivion.

Fate mocks him by giving him options to the same outcome. In the end, his fate will always find a way to braid itself into the matters of Teyvat’s deepest and darkest secrets. 

With a sigh he puts those thoughts aside and puts his hands together to create hand gestures, activating the ritual with a slight shake, the arrays he prepared glow to life and tint the whole room in red. 

~ 🎵~🎵~

Chenqing’s melody drowns the room, adding a heavier presence into the deep crimson of every corner. 

Swirls of energy emerge from the ground, shifting and shaping into characters as it dances around the qiankun pouch laying in the middle of the array.

Karmic energy hisses from within the pouch, lashing out as if defending itself from encagement. Wei Wuxian persists, prolonging a sharp note with his flute as the dancing characters surge forward— attaching itself onto the cloth of the spiritual device.

It burns, engraving itself onto the sides of the qiankun pouch with a forceful bout of power. This was a powerful ritual that consumed a plentiful amount of energy depending on how strong the object of capture is.

It has been used on gods, halflings, celestial entities. Morax, the Archon of Liyue himself, had created this heavenly constrictor all in order to imprison a great beast.

It worked as a heavenly constrictor on the powers of others, call it a shackle as you may. The weaker the entity cast upon it, the greater the restrictions are. With those functions, it may easily be used as a seal on lesser monsters.

Wei Wuxian went about collecting body parts from big and small creatures, the karmic energy from each of them hasn’t stopped piling up onto one another— if it goes on any longer, he might as well have been carrying a large seed of resentment. 

Thus, the repeated casting of the ritual.

He finally pulls the flute away from his mouth, and gradually, the room starts to return to its calm morning air.

Wei Wuxian huffs in relief at the presence of calm. He immediately places the pouch back on the desk when he’s suddenly hit with the feeling of deep nausea. 

The adeptus rushes to the window sill and forces it open with the sheer force of his will. Head out abruptly, he feels the wave of fresh breeze hit his face and immediately sags against the railing of his window. It didn’t completely heal him of his predicament, but it delayed it further. 

…He’s not weak , not fragile enough to be severely affected by one dizzy spell. But when the same head-pounding feeling stacks up on one another…

Let’s just say… he hasn’t felt clear-headed ever since his meeting with Xiao- shixiong.

Wei Wuxian grunts.

It hasn’t been like this since forever . 

The nausea was a regular customer to his everyday routine, but it only stayed for a day or two. It’s a side effect of being exposed to abyssal energy, the remedy to it was simply a cleansing ritual or a good night’s sleep.

(Both if you’re Wei Wuxian and your doctor has a heavy hand on your health. 

Sometimes, Wen Qing feels more like an overreacting mother than a professional physician.

Ugh.)

He must admit, though, that the Lans have been awfully helpful in keeping his nerves partially clear— not that they know of this particular situation. 

Especially last night when Lan Zhan performed for his father’s soul.

Wei Wuxian sighs as he stares faraway into the skies’ calm blues. Last night had calmed him exceptionally well; though it was a ritual to bid his father goodbye it— 

You could say it helped him let go easier. 

What strange reasoning, even for himself. Wei Wuxian laughs at his own counterproductive thoughts and shakes off the feeling of sombreness, remembering to collect himself before whistling lightly a melody only he and his fellows can hear. 

Not long after, he hears it before he sees the creature. A series of ‘caw! caws!’ before a small black dot grows larger and larger as the distance from the clouds and her owner becomes shorter. 

Suibian swoops effortlessly into the room, crooning as she glides smoothly down onto the messy nest of blankets Wei Wuxian calls a bed. Red-beaded eyes shine brightly, staring at its owner as if waiting for a sound. 

Wei Wuxian smiles proudly, holding the qiankun pouch in one hand as crouches down to his crow’s level. He ruffled her feathers and the bird croons in satisfaction under the affection. 

“Suibian”

He calls and clicks his tongue before making a sound at the back of his throat. The crow tilts her head, showing her responsiveness to his commands. Wei Wuxian does it again, this time he imitates a croon and pops his lips twice, and Suibian stands on her feet with wings spanned wide. 

“Good girl!” 

He praises, Suibian squawks in reply, standing proudly with her feathers tucked in neat. The adeptus continues his work, with a red silk ribbon he wraps the ties around Suibian’s torso and attaches the pouch at the end of it, careful not to constrict the bird’s wings of any movement. 

Once he’s done, he pets Suibian under the chin before feeding her leatherjackets; something he brings with him often, a gift of goodwill towards birds, if you will. 

He clicks his tongue twice and gathers the crow’s attention.

“Suibian, get this to Ying safely, you know the way.”

He pets her again and she croons, pushing her head into his hand one last time before setting to depart. Wei Wuxian watches, Suibian flaps her wings and takes off swiftly, quietly enough that surely no one took notice. 

Wei Wuxian whistles a high note, and just as he expects, Suibian replies from faraway. 

He’s left her with an important mission. There’s a certain traveller that’s quite well-known in his homeland, a very capable and powerful one. If anyone can figure out the remedy to their problem, surely— surely, it would be her . It felt low to ask for her help, but he had no other options. In the matters of the abyss, Ying was well-informed and oddly, very interested.

Their fates would be decided with that single answer.

•><•

Something’s wrong. Something’s wrong.

He should have noticed it, he should have known.

The calm early morning abruptly ended the moment Jiang Wanyin burst through the doors and shouted his name. A heavy influx of energy intruded through his senses, and he knew what was coming before he had seen it. 

“Get up! Your little rats escaped the courtyard— they’re causing shit down there!”

This isn’t something four abyss mages can cause— no.  

There isn’t even a sight of any of them, all there is, is fire, fire, fire. The evacuation was a mess close to disaster, no one could leave because of the thorns circling the base like a garden dome. There was poison in the air and bodies on the ground. Yet Wei Wuxian stood still. 

“-Ying—“

He searched around frantically, looking for the source of this destruction. Abyss mages can’t attack from too far less they do less damage, for it to go this far is monstrous— 

“Wei— “

Abyss mages don’t even have enough energy to create such a calamity! Shoot their little fireballs or snowflakes all they might, they can’t come up to this capacity. Could it be that they’ve found an energy pit? It’s impossible to find such a corrupted hospice in Lotus Pier with all the godly blessings cast onto it—

“ Wei Ying!” 

Wei Wuxian gasped and broke out his reverie, the first thing that comes into his mind is the feeling of someone’s hand on his wrist. His hand is marred with open wounds and black with scorch marks, but he can’t feel them. Subtle pain is brushing at the back of his head and it's blocking his senses to a great extent. 

A call of his name is made again, this time louder and next to his ear, and it brings him back immediately. 

“Wei Ying!” 

Lan Zhan’s eyes find his, sharp in alarm and concern. That’s when the adeptus realizes— he was dissociating, he came in close contact with the fog and it triggered the dizzy spell. 

Everything hits him in the head, he remembers where he is and what he’s doing. Abyss mages, fog, fire. And comes to a late realization when he looks back at the Lan who is completely unprotected.

“Don’t breathe the fog in!” He shouts, startling Lan Zhan into compliance. The man took the hand he held his wrist with and covered his bottom face with his sleeve. 

“The mages, four have escaped and the last one died in the courtyard. I couldn’t enter, it was filled with bad energy.” 

Wei Wuxian winces, dry coughing at the heavy mist that protruded his lungs. He put a hand to stop Lan Zhan from coming forward, he couldn’t take risks, right now he was a sponge filled with unwanted maladies. 

“The courtyard is outside the base isn’t it?“ He starts with a hard cough, “Show me the way, we need to dismantle it from the outside.” No questions asked, they immediately sprint towards a path. 

They get intercepted here and there, elements obstructing their way and ultimately testing his patience. The next time vines shoot towards them he forces a whip of flame to cut through, burning through the roots continuously until it ceases to grow. They move forward with minimal pauses. Despite the amount of destruction in their way, they never encounter monsters. This bloomed a seed of suspicion within Wei Wuxian, not a mage in sight, not even a shaman or a whopperflower, whose attacks he’d noticed be thrown at them just not too long ago. 

Something’s not right. 

Nothing can cast spells from such a far distance, even if there were, it wouldn’t be as precise in its targeting. It would have been wildly rampaging at best and completely uncontrollable at worst.

Unless—

A wall of ivy materializes in front of them, sharp thorns shooting out to impale them when Wei Wuxian has some sort of realization.

“Lan Zhan, strike it!” 

The man hadn’t retrieved his sword from where it was flying around, blocking elemental attacks from above. But he slides his guqin on and strums a strong chord towards the wall. 

The wall does not change, impending thorns fly close to their faces and they both fall to the ground to evade the attack. The ivies were not affected by the cleansing note; did not change in behavior at all. 

Wei Wuxian re-ignites the flaming whip with his wind and strikes the roots, sending the wall of ivy crumbling down under their feet. They continue running. 

But just as he thought— the elements— the calamity right now—

It’s not superficial! 

Which is way worse than he thought it would be. If it wasn’t caused by a third party— this is nature itself rebelling. Wei Wuxian fears that he knows the source of it.

“The exit!“

Lan Zhan shouts uncharacteristically, as they skid to a stop. All around them bio-life forms at a drastic pace, filling the air with toxic fumes and the ground with thorns and biting venoms. 

With a flick of his wrist Wei Wuxian annihilates the plants closing in, but with one head cut off several take its place. It’s a never ending cycle of growth, one that eventually— tires both his hands. They’re stuck, the exit behind them long gone with the presence of one large rafflesia— threatening to capture them both in its petals. 

Lan Zhan parries a strong thorn thrown in his direction, but he too starts to struggle, feeling like a rat cornered by a pack of cats. 

The ground below their feet feels unstable, no longer giving them solid standing. 

“This is never-ending!” He groans, feeling the phantom of a headache returning. He can’t think properly, Wei Wuxian’s sight starts to invite black circles into them and— 

His body goes numb.

“Wei Ying!” 

The world tilts. Wei Wuxian’s whole body meets the spongy ground, registering the pain of something sharp going through his body, and now he can’t move, something—

The rafflesia behind him crackles, almost expanding in size as its extended thorns reach for its next meal like razor sharp teeths and— oh, it’s growing because it ate through him. 

Eating his energy, his strength, his restraint .

It’s at times like these that control is the most important skill to uphold, to keep a steady mind and fight off being eaten alive like a feast. Control is not granted easily, it is something you develop, train, polish. 

Sometimes it is used to chain yourself up by the neck. With his energy drained from him, even before the rafflesia, even before the chase— it’s almost tiresome to hold it all up together.

The very same chain Wei Wuxian uses to keep him welded to the ground– to maintain a calm— slips away from him. 

And his mind goes blank.

He sees, hears, thinks of nothing.

Only feels.

Feels the skin beneath his fingertips tear away to make place for something more solid—ragged. Feels everything, everywhere all at once— the abnormal rhythm of his heart beat, the pulsing of the ground, the tightening of the atmosphere. 

Feels the growl that rips out of his throat. 

With trembling arms he pushes himself off the ground, resisting the iron-like force the thorns enforce onto him. Blood flows down his mouth, overwhelmed with venom that could kill even an immortal. Wei Wuxian scrambles like a wild animal— clawing through thick stumps with his hands relentlessly— ebbing it deep into the roots until wood meets flesh, and flesh introduces blood. 

He bares his fangs heavy and bites down on the flailing thorn, ripping through flesh and stem. Pleasure rides through his veins at the feel of destruction, making him cackle— the blood in his mouth makes him choke, but nevertheless. 

For the first time in years through a numb-filled haze and heavy karmic burden…

Wei Wuxian smiles, teeth red.

Terrified. 

Gut-wrenched, perturbed, horror-struck— whatever you may call it—

Lan Wangji feels it all.

He can do nothing but, as he watches behind his spiritual barricade at the onslaught in front of him.

Somehow, he can still hear himself breathe over all the noises. 

Wailing

Ripping 

Squelching of flesh and blood–

Laughter  

All coming from Wei Ying. 

And it terrifies him. The way Wei Ying ran, fought, roared like a wild animal hunting a prey. 

How he smiles, all teeth, even as a sturdy root captures his leg in a strong grip— crushing his limb into smithereens—

The very same leg he uses— to dig into the ground and keep him steady, as he harshly pulls the root off its main body.

It terrifies him to think what might happen to him if he stood in the man's way.

So Lan Wangji stood back from it, fighting his own share of disasters all while listening to that.  

He watches Wei Ying rip a sharp limb off a tree root with his teeth, eyes blurred and hazy— as he stalks forward and stabs hard at the rafflesia, pushing the object further in listening to its shriek with a wild glee. 

The rotting flower flails as Wei Ying twists the limb, pulling it off and striking it again and again and again, shrieks growing louder and louder— so much so that it stings Lan Wangji’s ears. 

He watches, as the man rams the limb straight through with a final blow and takes a mouthful between his teeth—

RIIIIIP!

And devours it whole from its core. 

He has to look away at that, cannot fathom to understand why or how— 

But as he does so he notices the dome of thorns slowly disintegrates, flying away with the wind like ash. The plants he fought against stilled and dropped— like puppets on string. Then, all around him, the disasters fade away. 

Jiang men drop their swords as calamities retreat, shouting in relief, some distress, some wary.

And when he turns back— no sound of tearing, laughing—

No sight of Wei Ying.

Wei Wuxian runs.

Not from, but to. 

He runs on his claws through panicked civilians rushing about, running away from the disasters and hardly noticing him. 

He hardly notices them himself. 

An animalistic urge within him invades his brain— filling his thoughts with only the words hunt– docks— abyss

Hunt abyss hunt abyss huntabyshunstabysshunatabysshunatabysshunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunthunt—

And when he registers the smell of the ocean, he knows he’s close.

When he feels resentment enter his veins— he knows what he’s found. 

When his claws hit hard flesh, when he hears a shriek, when he feels it jump into the oblivion of water. 

He knows he must chase.

…🎵

Silence. 

Wei Wuxian feels something leave him, water fills his lungs as he slowly descends into the depths of the lake. He opens his eyes in wake, feeling nothing but pain. 

Resentment curls around him as his hand is held forward, reaching out to something he can’t comprehend.

~ 🎵~

The single note pushes him, forcing his body to swim up, grasping the object tightly as the resentment attacks his body and mind.

It hurts? Use it. Use it.

Whispers intrude, growing louder and louder until his ears are filled with nothing but.

Wei Wuxian chokes.

Listen .

The wisps pause, curious.

Listen to me.

They tremble in excitement, surrounding his person.

LI S TEN TO M E.

And listen they do.

Lan Wangji starts when he sees a figure emerge from the waters. Immediately, he shoots Bichen out of its hold and hovers above the drowning person. 

Wei Wuxian grasps onto its hilt with one hand in his wake and suddenly finds his knees on solid ground.

He breathes heavily, feeling his muscles spasm from head to toe as he throws his head forward in pain.

“Shit!” the adeptus curses. Feeling more than seeing new problems arise.

When he tries to breathe again, more slowly this time— he heaves instead, wrenching his head to the side as he throws up his insides. 

It offers more than he can understand— what’s more, he tastes more than he can understand, rotting, pungent— 

Oh god what did he—

“Wei Ying! Are-” 

Wei Wuxian gasps, feeling a hand push his shoulder around, and seeing the pale face of a certain Lan.

His eyes track that hand unconsciously, predicting what it would do and—

The adeptus pushes himself out of Lan Zhan’s grasp, narrowly avoiding the hand aiming at his meridians. Instead, he looks at his own hands— ripped and bloodied from the palm up, finger tips dyed in devastating black, white dots tracing each other. Wei Wuxian touches around his mouth and feels blood, his teeth aching from over-usage and realizes—

Oh

Oh no

A hand tries to reach out again and he flinches.

“ DON’T!!”

Lan Zhan freezes, eyes wide in surprise at his outburst. The hand he held out hesitates, before pulling itself back to its owner. That’s when Wei Wuxian notices something, he looks at the Lan properly this time— his posture is stiff, eyes uncertain and, although subtle—

His hands tremble.

“It- it’s not–” Not what? What is he trying to say? It’s not what you think it is? Whatever happened wasn’t me? I don’t remember any of it so it’s not—

What about the blood on his hands? How did it get there? How did it get under his nail bed? Did he wound someone? Rip them apart? Is that why they’re jagged? 

Were they struggling? Is that how he got the slash marks on his torso? The flaring-red nick on his neck? Were the numerous stabs to his chest retaliations from the person he sank his teeth into? Devoured like a beast—

Is that what he threw up? 

Is that what Lan Zhan saw? What caused him to tremble at the sight of him? Did he watch him make a feast out of a living human being, enjoying the thrill like a vicious beast?

Is that what he did? So many questions yet no answers, all he can do is imagine—

Imagine what monstrosity he’s done to–

Abundant what-ifs swarm his thoughts as he struggles to find words to say, the horrifying feeling of being unaware— of being a suspect to a sin he cannot recall committing scratches his throat bloody raw. 

Nothing.

He can’t remember anything. Not a glimpse, no memory— absolutely blank .

Did they scream? Scream at the monster in front of them— a monster who didn’t listen— a monster who doesn’t remember a single fucking thing about what they—

What did he do !?

He keeps asking himself what, who where why why whywhywhywhywhywhy— but no one’s giving him an answer!

He’s frustrated— he’s– he’s

In the irony of the situation— he’s the one scared.

In the midst of the ringing in his ears, he can hear almost nothing. 

So distracted in his panic Wei Wuxian doesn’t hear the way someone calls his name with concern. How they close the distance with little steps, hesitating to reach out at his earlier warnings. 

Wei Wuxian doesn’t notice anything around him until something touches him.

The action is gentle, not at all hostile— but he startles so violently, pushing himself away with a scream to not touch him ready at the tip of his tongue. 

~ 🎵 ~

The sudden sound of a string plucking makes Wei Wuxian still.

“....Ying, breathe.” He hears someone say, but cannot determine where it comes from. 

~ 🎵 ~

Inaudible, he can’t hear the sound properly— it still feels distant but—

“Wei Ying, breathe. Slowly, in and out.” A soft ‘twang’ of an instrument lulls him into a state of tranquil, slowly, slowly, feeling the heavy noise leaving his head.

Unconsciously, he follows the rhythm, breathing in and out to the soft pluck of the strings and the gentle voice instructing him. He focuses on nothing but that, fighting against the weight on his body. Though his eyes are open, Wei Wuxian sees nothing but blotched out colors, giving him no sense of reality. 

Each passing second his eyes grow heavier and heavier, and with it— his whole body goes limp, inevitably causing him to fall forward.

The world goes dark.

•><•

“Foolish pest!”   

Wei Wuxian chokes, mind muddled with resentment to make sense of anything but the raging, abysmal enemy in front of him.

He growls, but the act results in water entering his lungs— 

The adeptus strikes at the enemy but is evaded, for the creature has more control of its mind and body than Wei Wuxian. 

It laughs, the sound vibrating through the ground of the lake. 

“It’s futile. Do you think you’ve outpowered us? You are one man!” 

Everything after that passes in an ugly blur— a screech muffled by waters— one he’s certain does not belong to him and then—

He wakes up.

Wei Wuxian startles awake, stabbed in the head with a massive migraine from the sudden action he took. He groans, caressing his head in his hands.

A few seconds pass and the adeptus opens his eyes, slowly but surely, letting light seep into his vision. He winces a bit, moving to cover his right eye with a hand when he discovers one of the many sources of his pain. 

A wound on his eyelid with a deep gash. 

“Oh Archons…” He hisses in much distress. Even his throat is sore. 

Wei Wuxian looked up in front of him, taking in his surroundings when he finally registers the litter of purple-robed disciples around the area.

Running around, giving and taking orders, never seeming to pause and take a break. 

Next he registers the rubble, broken roads and foreign objects sticking up from the ground, as well as the people clearing them off. 

With one last slide of his eyes, he finds Jiang Wanyin and Lan Wangji, not far off from where he’s propped up against a tree. Both cultivators are talking in muted tones, seeming serious in their discussion. 

Whatever it is, Wei Wuxian thought, I shouldn’t be slacking. 

With a deep inhale he pushed himself up with his hands, only to drop himself at the immense pain he felt going through his body. The adeptus grimaced, letting out a loud, pained cry as he fell back.

“What- what the…” He cursed silently, trying to reel in his senses. 

The two men closest to him paused and looked back at him with surprises, one more wide-eyed than the other. 

“Wei Ying!” Lan Zhan all but shouts, rushing to him by the second. 

Huh, that’s weird, has he ever heard the man shout before? 

It surprised Wei Wuxian so much that it got a laugh out of him, although it sounded more hoarse and tired if anything. 

Worry flooded the cultivator’s expression, the Lan knelt by his side and the adeptus vaguely felt a hand around his wrist. 

He sat up, as straight as he could, and propped a hand over Lan Zhan’s. With his best ‘I’m as fine as a dead bird’ smile he gently removes Lan Zhan’s hand from his wrist and finds courage to reassure him. “I’m… I’m all good!” 

“…”

“…”

“Bull fucking shit.” Jiang Wanyin states, oh so elegantly with his arms crossed against his chest. Wei Wuxian can see it in his no-nonsense face that he was not willing to play along to an obvious game.

The adeptus looked back at Lan Zhan and almost wanted to laugh himself to death. Because by the way the Lan cultivator is staring at him unamused, he probably shares the same sentiment with the sect leader.

Wei Wuxian sighs, “No I’m really fine, it’s probably just fatigue and all. See?” As he says this, he shows them his torso, legs, and arms, which had no wounds at all— but only now does he notice how wrecked he looked, his arm gloves are absolutely shredded, the left side of his top is now gone and his boots… have looked better.

Well, it was better than nothing considering the— wait. 

His arm gloves are shredded, the only thing that stayed on him were the prayer beads… 

Wei Wuxian jumped into a rise, startling both the cultivators by his side. “Uhm right so..”

‘His vision!!’

He laughed awkwardly, ignoring the way he swayed with each hurried step. The adeptus jogs his memory, trying to retrace his steps and figure out where he might have possibly dropped his vision but…

‘Foolish pest !’

      ‘U se it. U se i t .’

              ‘W ei Ying?’

                      ‘ Hunth unthunthunthunt –’

‘ W e i Y in g !’

…Something tells Wei Wuxian that they won’t be pleasant at all.

Just as he was about to walk forward, a hand shoots out to grab him, causing him to stop in his tracks. He looks back to see Lan Zhan, still kneeling on the ground with a face that asks ‘where are you going?’ 

“Oh uhm— I kinda…” He starts, “I misplaced… my vision. I can’t— I can’t be without it.” He tries to leave by then, but the cultivator’s grip is insistent on him, tugging him back once more. 

“You’re still recovering. Don’t stand.” 

At this point, Wei Wuxian is ready to book it towards the closest ocean and lay under there to sleep for an eternity. Yes, he is tired. Yes, he’s so exhausted that he might need to take a century-off vacation after this. But he’s more tired of having to explain that he’s fine enough to stroll around without fainting like a damsel in distress. 

He’s not fragile.

But he knows that Lan Zhan means well. Hangguang- jun is a man filled with compassion, generosity, and justice, as he’s heard many people say. He wouldn’t turn his head away from someone who would need help. 

He’s like Ying, in a sense. She who, accepted any request to the point where even the Adepti of Liyue showed concern. But in many ways, their goals are not similar. 

Wei Wuxian finds himself with no words to produce, being too lost in his thoughts. Luckily, Sect Leader Jiang, who still had his mind grounded to earth and a functional mouth, broke their momental silence. 

“A vision?” he asked

Grateful towards Jiang Wanyin for resuming the conversation, he turned towards him. “Well, simply put. It’s a jewel I keep on my person. A vision is my reserve for my spiritual energy.” As he says this, he raises his left hand and points to the back of his palm. 

“You might have noticed it for being on my glove.” 

“Oh.” The sect leader says casually, before sticking his hand inside his sleeve. “You mean this?”

Jiang Wanyin pulled out a geometrical-shaped jewel, glowing like aquamarine. Sure enough, what the cultivator held in his hand was Wei Wuxian’s vision.

“I came across it while I was getting here, I didn’t know what it was. Thankfully Lan Wangji here said to keep it for now.” The sect leader continued with his explanation, eyeing Lan Zhan with slight irritation. 

“Although you could have told me how important it was, if you were just going to say ‘don’t throw it away’. ”

“It… was not in my place to say what it was.” The Lan cultivator finally said, after minutes of not speaking.

All while Wei Wuxian, who was seconds away from descending into another realm, let out a deep exhale of relief, slowly falling to his knees tiredly as he caught his vision from Jiang Wanyin’s gentle toss. “You should have said something earlier, Lan Zhan!

Now he feels bad, almost technically bad mouthing the man in his thoughts!

Lan Zhan upon hearing that, actually looked guilty. While the adeptus was busy catching his breath, the Lan cultivator brought something into his sight. 

“I should return this to you, then.” The man said, as he held out Wei Wuxian’s purple over-robe— which was somehow lost during their situation— and his dizi, Chenqing.

“Thank you…” He exhales softly. The adeptus holds his hands out to receive his belongings, making sure to handle them with care when… 

He glanced at his fingertips, for the first time he’s woken up and feels dread curl in his stomach.

It was black, white dots connecting to each other like cosmos. 

‘Lau gh ing’

     ‘Sc re ech ing ’

           ‘ H is fa ng s fel t h eav y-’

                   ‘De vour ing–’

… Oh.

He was right. It wasn’t pleasant at all. 

•><•

After a few minutes, Wei Ying had seemed to collect himself fully. Lan Wangji had suggested he recovered first— but the man was as stubborn as a metal wall, and insisted on involving himself in the plans going forward regarding the aftermath of the incident. 

Wei Ying smiled throughout that whole debacle. 

Somehow, it felt flat. Like someone drew it over his face.

When the cultivator tried to approach him about it, Wei Ying chuckled and said,

“I’m really fine, Lan Zhan. Thank you.”

And that was that.

Currently they, along with Sect Leader Jiang, were discussing evacuation plans to work on for the citizens of the city while they strengthened Lotus Pier’s barriers. 

When it came to the topic of the monsters however, the foreigner seemed to pay most of his attention to it. Making sure to keep track of what had happened while he was incapacitated. 

“How long was I out? What happened to the abyss mages?” Wei Ying asked suddenly. 

“Those rats?” Jiang Wanyin huffed, “We discovered their remains not too long ago. The courtyard they were caged in was filled to the brim with resentful energy. My people almost suffocated.” He clicked his tongue in irritation. “In the end, we couldn’t find any clue to the cause of those disasters. We sent a letter to the Lans requesting for a large cleansing ritual.” 

“Remains?” 

This time, Lan Wangji was the one to answer him. “The bodies of the mages… dissolved into a strange substance. We were wary and didn't dare go near it, but as a result; we failed to gather any evidence that it was their doing.” 

He continues to explain how he had performed a cleansing on it to test the waters, but still couldn’t enter without being affected by the bad miasma. 

Wei Ying nodded along, taking all the information in. His sharp eyes stared aimlessly into the distance as if lost in his own thoughts. The Lan waited patiently in silence, knowing that speaking to him now may be pointless.

“They were definitely the cause of it, I can tell you this confidently.” The man said. “Did you say melted?” 

Lan Wangji nodded.

Then to Jiang Wanyin, “May I go see the courtyard? I have a feeling I may be able to discern a suspicion of mine.” 

The sect leader waved his hand with an ‘it’s all yours’ nonchalant. Looking at his face now, wrinkled with furrowed eyebrows— and probably years of accumulated stress— it’s probably safe to say that Jiang Wanyin was even happy to drop this case onto Wei Ying’s lap. Nevermind fighting eldritch-like monsters— his disciples are stretched thin, and he can barely worry about the safety of his public these days. 

Lan Wangji wouldn’t blame the man if he were thinking that. In the end, that’s what he and Wei Ying were here for.

Speaking of the foreigner, he noticed the man staring intently right past him. When the Lan glanced back, he could only see the clear view of the lake.

He stood frozen for a minute, before he spoke again. “One more thing. It might be insolent of me to request this…” he paused, seemingly looking for a confirmation to continue. 

“Go ahead.” Jiang Wanyin answered. 

“At the bed of the lake, there seems to be something down there.” Wei Ying says with a tense tone. “Can I ask your people to bring it up? I fear it may be connected to… all this.”

The sect leader left right after, only telling them to ‘get along with it quickly’ as they separated to do different tasks.

The courtyard and its surroundings were worse than he expected them to be, the heavy miasma made his stomach curl unpleasantly.

Wei Ying seemed to have felt the same, subtly wincing at the growing problem in front of him. 

“A mere abyss mage can’t do something like this .” He said in between gasps. 

But still, the man moved forward. Lan Wangji jumps in alarm as he watches Wei Ying enter the courtyard, holding out a hand in surprise before stepping away from the hotspot of energy. 

It gave him an unpleasant feeling up close. If yang energy was similar to a fire burning, this type of energy made him drop to the ground. It intruded his senses like a parasite, eating its way into his system and organs. He hated it, it pushed forward a desire to wretch, nausea creeping up into his eyes and mind. 

He couldn’t imagine how Wei Ying could survive through this.

A few minutes later, the said man exited the courtyard. A grimace washed all over his face as he quickly distanced himself from the range of the energy. 

“Ugh..” He groaned, both out of pain and frustration. “They’re bodies didn’t just melt. They merged together in that form. They must have still been conscious during the process, they reek the same as those things that attacked us earlier morning.” 

That explanation, as short as it was, did not answer any of Lan Wangji’s questions. It irked him to not fully understand. Made him feel wary, not completely knowing what kind of dangers he would face.

“But you said they weren’t capable of such complex spells.” He says slowly, not accusing nor denying, but rather asking for confirmation.