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The morning began the same way it always did.
He woke up as the first rays of sunlight peeked through the veil of the silvery mist. The air was cool, but a jade immortal was never one to be bothered by the cold. He brushed his hair, dressed, and gently nudged the rabbits that had chosen to visit his home during the night away from places they shouldn’t be.
When he opened the doors, he found that the view was the same as it had always been. The trees brushed their boughs through the mist and the clouds, as if they formed columns that held up the heavens and the long grass swayed and sighed with the gentle breeze. To the side of the front courtyard was a large willow tree, its “weeping” branches sweeping aside the leaves that tried to creep beneath it. Near it was a small pond, dotted with several jade-fine lotus flowers the same silver-white as moonlight.
He had planted them himself, knee-deep in the water with his robes hiked up to the middle of his thighs, in remembrance of the man that so dearly loved them. When they had grown, they had fully become a part of the Cloud Recesses—perfect and unchanging and the same pale shade as the moon.
Nothing lived in the pond aside from those lotus flowers, but sometimes its serene surface fluttered with visions of the human world. “Like dragonflies,” he’d been told. “Their wings beat so quickly they’re only a blur. That’s what those visions of yours look like.”
(He’d tried to argue that they weren’t his visions, that those things just happened. They were the mirrors of the moon that reflected the mortal world. What they showed was beyond the control of anyone that looked. The argument never worked because he always got distracted by that incandescent smile.)
On a whim, he walked along the ice-white stones to the pond and gently tugged free one of the lotuses. The water rippled, showing a world on fire before it dissolved; when it cleared, it showed a pleasant mountain vista, its peaks orange with the setting sun. Almost as soon as the last drop of water from the stolen lotus fell, another rose from the pond and bloomed in its place, just as perfect and moon-white as the last.
That was the beauty of the Cloud Recesses—everything was the same, everything was predictable. There was no sudden change and every day was nearly the same as the last. Every flower bloomed in the same place, in the same way; when the few seasons came to visit, it was just as predictable as the last as if each change in temperature, each time the leaves turned and fell, it was planned.
And, if a flower was picked, another grew in its place as if the Cloud Recesses itself feared change.
(“Aiyo!” he could almost hear a certain voice exclaim. “How do you bear it? The Cloud Recesses are beautiful, as stunning as a forest in snow that sparkles in the sun, or as beautiful as the sun on the sea, or as peerless as the lotuses on the lake. In fact, it’s perfect—but what is life without imperfections? Boring!” Sometimes it was a struggle to keep his smile locked firmly behind his teeth, but only for someone whose sleeves were adorned with tongues of fire.)
He resisted the urge to fiddle with the petals of the lotus in his hand as he emerged from the courtyard of his personal residence. The world was abuzz with change that did not come often to the Cloud Recesses. It grated on him.
There was much to celebrate, of course—Zewu-Jun, who had been trapped for so long in the mortal world, had returned to them. He’d returned, they said, to his rightful place in the Cloud Recesses.
“How strange it must be,” some said even though gossip was forbidden. “To have spent so long there and then to return to where he belongs!”
“It must be so strange,” another would inevitably agree. “So we must show him extra grace as he remembers the way the world should be.”
What was truly strange was that so few understood that Zewu-Jun no longer felt that he belonged in the heavens. That his heart had been left behind at the shores of a lotus lake, at the base of a willow tree split open by the sword of the mortal he loved.
When he’d been whisked away, he’d been inconsolable. Why did anyone believe that it was anything but heartbreak?
A disciple stood at the closed gates of the Hanshi, looking lost. She bowed deeply when she saw him coming. “Hanguang-Jun,” she whispered. Her voice had the breathy and playful tenor of a wind spirit, the kind that took particular joy in lifting and playing with childrens’ kites just to hear them laugh and shriek in glee. “This one came to deliver breakfast to Zewu-Jun, but…”
He nodded and shifted his hold on Bichen and the lotus. At his gesture, the disciple handed him the tray with a polite bow. “I will handle it,” he said. “Thank you,” he added.
The disciple smiled, cheerful as a breeze playing with a hanging tassel, and left. Unlike the disciple, the doors opened for Lan Wangji and he slipped into the courtyard, unsurprised to find it barren and dry.
It should have been the mirror of his in the Jingshi but the soft green grass was withered and yellow, rattling like bones. The pond in the corner, a mirror of the moon, was dry and the ground beneath it cracked and desiccated.
There was no willow in the courtyard of the Hanshi but there was a conifer that should have filled the courtyard with the gentle smell of pine. Instead it was slumped over, as shattered as if it had been made of glass.
Few were allowed in the Hanshi, and many that entered seemed to have forced their way in despite their lack of welcome. Lan Wangji could hear his uncle’s voice and as he had with his smile, he hid his frustration well behind his teeth.
“I don’t understand,” shufu was saying as Lan Wangji approached the doors. “What is there to mourn? Why are you so upset with returning to your proper place?”
Lan Wangji knew. He said nothing, standing in the withered remains of his brother’s courtyard. Even if he didn’t know his brother’s heart, the evidence was there for all to see.
But he had always known that there were many in the Cloud Recesses that only saw what they wanted to see—why else would every day be the same, every flower in its place, every leaf and bud so perfectly formed as to be without flaw?
“Aren’t you glad to be back?” shufu asked, nearly demanding. “Aren’t you happy to see your family? Your brother? Why aren’t you ready to do your duty, to do what is proper once more?”
There was silence from his brother, but even Lan Wangji had rarely heard him speak since he’d returned. He knocked on the door of the Hanshi as if he wasn’t aware of the conversation inside.
Lan Qiren opened the door a little too quickly, his head held high as if ready to scold whoever was on the other side. Seeing that it was only Lan Wangji, his nostrils flared indignantly. “Wangji,” he said shortly, folding his hands into a bow proper to Lan Wangji’s station, despite the absurdity that was the idea of Lan Qiren having to bow to his nephew.
Lan Wangji bowed in return. “Uncle,” he replied. “I’ve come to bring xiongzhang his breakfast.”
“Such a devoted and filial brother,” Lan Qiren said in the Lan standard of oblique politeness.
“Mn,” Lan Wangji said.
Fortunately, it seemed that with Lan Wangji’s interruption, Lan Qiren had decided that his lecture—as unnecessary as it had been in the first place—was done. He walked out on the porch and stopped. “Wangji?” he asked.
“I wish to speak to xiongzhang ,” Lan Wangji said evenly.
Lan Qiren looked pleased. “Such a devoted and filial brother,” he repeated. Then he left, closing the door to the Hanshi behind him. Lan Wangji waited a moment to listen to his quiet, receding footsteps—and to the sound of the courtyard gate opening and closing—before turning to his brother’s rooms.
He was unsurprised to find Lan Xichen kneeling in the middle of the room, dressed down to his inner robes. His hair was unbound and fell in a tangled mess around his face and shoulders, making him look like a particularly wretched ghost.
The ground around him was littered with lotus petals, each one just as perfect as the last, as if carved from moonlight or finest jade.
Lan Xichen didn’t look up from the lotus cradled in his palms, nor did he show any sign that he was aware that anyone else was in the room with him. Since he had so suddenly returned to his place among the clouds, he’d been like that—despondent, his face a mask of tragedy.
Carefully, Lan Wangji set down the tray on the table and began setting out the food that he knew his brother wouldn’t eat without prompting. The Hanshi was filled with the sound of moving plates and the gentle click of the lotus petals that xiongzhang pulled from the flower in his hand and let it fall to the floor.
“ Shufu is worried about you,” Lan Wangji said.
“ Shufu is worried that I won’t be what he wants me to be,” xiongzhang said with surprising bitterness in his voice.
Or, perhaps it wasn’t so surprising. Lan Wangji had often been questioned for the subject of his own love—he knew how frustrating it was that people couldn’t seem to understand that one’s definition of happiness was not universal.
“I am worried about you,” Lan Wangji said.
Lan Xichen flinched. “ Didi …”
“You were always there for me when I needed you,” Lan Wangji said without looking at his brother. “Allow me to return the favor? Sit and eat with me, and tell me about why you are maiming those lotuses.” He poured them both tea and remembered the lotus that he had picked up in the courtyard of the Jingshi.
His brother didn’t move from his spot. “You already know,” he said. “What is there to say?”
If Lan Wangji was one to smile, he would have. “It is true that I have looked in on you,” he agreed. “I was worried about you.”
Lan Xichen looked away. He tugged at another petal of the lotus in his hand and it fell to the floor of the Hanshi with a quiet click, like the sound of a jade pendant. To an extent, Lan Wangji was glad that such a sacred object hadn’t been given away.
“But while I may have looked in on you, that does not mean that I know anything of your thoughts or feelings,” Lan Wangji continued. He lifted the lotus he had picked from the Jingshi and held it out to Lan Xichen. Its perfect ivory petals darkened, softened, until its stone-like rigidity faded.
He placed the flower on the table beside Lan Xichen’s bowl.
As if pulled to it, Lan Xichen approached the table. “Where did you get this?” he whispered.
Lan Wangji watched as he gently picked up the flower, stem and all, and cupped it in his palms like he held something precious. To him, it was—just like the willow-and-fire embroidery at the edges of Lan Wangji’s robes were precious to him. He looked at the edges of Lan Xichen’s sleeves and was unsurprised that they were once more blank.
“From the Jingshi,” Lan Wangji replied. “And from Lotus Pier.”
Once more, Lan Xichen froze. Then his fingers moved as if unable to help it. They pinched the petals, felt it move like silk beneath his fingers. A tug and the first pulled free and fell to the ground with a soft sigh, rather than the harsh click of jade.
He tugged absentmindedly at them, pulling them apart one by one as if they would speak the secrets of the universe—as if they would tell him how to return to the mortal world, to the man he had learned to love.
“ Xiongzhang ,” Lan Wangji said softly and was somewhat surprised that Lan Xichen looked up at him. His eyes held a sadness that was so out of place on Lan Xichen’s face that Lan Wangji found himself deeply uncomfortable by it—more than just upset by it because he hated to see his older brother so broken by his grief. “Please tell me.”
Lan Xichen swallowed hard and tugged another petal free. He cupped it in one palm and stared down at it as if it held all of the answers. “What is there to say?” he asked.
For a long moment, Lan Wangji didn’t say anything, almost content to wait his brother out. He sipped his tea until Lan Xichen looked up. “There is a lot to say,” Lan Wangji said patiently and gently pushed the simple bowl of congee toward Lan Xichen.
Closing his eyes, Lan Xichen looked away. “What do you want to know?” he asked softly, obviously resigned to answering questions with Lan Wangji that he’d likely already answered with Lan Qiren.
But Lan Wangji was not their uncle.
“ Xiongzhang ,” he said softly. “Won’t you tell me about the one you fell in love with?”
Lan Xichen looked up, opened his mouth, and paused. As he looked down and away, his eyes landed on the willow-and-fire patterns on the edges of Lan Wangji’s wide sleeves. He looked back up at Lan Wangji, his eyes wide. “Wangji?”
Ears delicately pink, Lan Wangji sipped his tea. “I understand,” he told Lan Xichen. “Tell me , xiongzhang . Please.”
With one last look down at the telling embroideries on the edges of Lan Wangji’s sleeves, Lan Xichen picked up his bowl. “No speaking during meals,” he said, but his joke fell a little flat.
Nevertheless, Lan Wangji smiled, just a little. “Mn,” he agreed, setting aside his teacup in favor of the bowl in front of him. “Breakfast first,” he said. “And then…we can talk.”