Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jin Ling hovers outside the jingshi, pacing slightly and every once in a while, moving to open the door but deciding against it, returning to his place at the top of the stairs, where he once again turns around to face the door again in a cycle with seemingly no end. The couple inside had not attempted to welcome or even acknowledge him if they knew of his presence, content to wait for him to initiate the conversation first or abandon the endeavor entirely. It was a standoff now, waiting to see who would make the first move to relieve them of all of the building tension. Typically, he would have no issue talking to them (a lie, he knows, but at the very least, he is trying to rectify it), but today especially filled him with jittery anxiety that buzzed just under his skin and scattered his confidence.

His arrival in Gusu was relatively secretive in an attempt to escape the prying eyes of the entire cultivation world, only announcing it to a certain few and traveling alone. Hell, Jiang Cheng wasn't aware of his plans, not that he had made any before his abrupt departure from Lanling upon hearing that Wei Wuxian and his husband had temporarily returned to the Cloud Recesses. It was an impulsive move on his part, one that he regretted as he shies away from the door and quietly pads over to the top of the stairs again, avoiding confronting the reason for his visit.

One way or another, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji certainly knew who was frantically pacing on their doorstep, whether Sizhui had told them when he first showed up at the gates or Lan Qiren questioned them about why exactly their nephew had shown up without announcing himself. The thought did nothing to assist in his fears; he descends the steps, accepting that the conversation would not happen that day. When the door opens behind him, he freezes and waits for the person behind him to inevitably start talking.

“Jin Ling! When did you get here?” He whips around to face Wei Wuxian, trying to rein in his temper and tragically failing as his uncle tilts his head in a perfect imitation of innocence. As if he had been unaware of Jin Ling’s struggle to even knock on the door before his rude interruption the moment he tried to escape.

“You knew I was here, don’t act like this is such a surprise!” Wei Wuxian laughs as he snaps back, crossing his arms defensively and turning away from him to return to miserably trudging away in defeat. He hears footsteps following him and knows to resign himself to being dragged into the jingshi whether he agrees to it or not. Wei Wuxian was persistent and perceptive; he must have known something was wrong and that he could help fix it, even if he had no clue why. Jin Ling pulls his arm away when he feels Wei Wuxian grab onto his wrist.

“Come on, just sit down for a minute or two. You obviously have a reason for it if you’ve come here all the way from Lanling!”

“It wasn’t for you!” He hides his face, which he knows has a telling shade of pink dusting his cheeks as he clumsily tries to piece together the shards of his dignity. The entire trip was shaping up to be a horrible idea, a realization that should have come sooner, before he approached the Cloud Recesses, before departing with Fairy, before deciding to leave in the first place.

“It wasn’t?” He has the audacity to reply with a near-flawless imitation of pure bewilderment, not perfect because of the glint in his eye that he always gets when attempting to embarrass someone, a mischief that he never quite learned to cover.

“Why would it be?” Jin Ling rolls his eyes, returning to face away from Wei Wuxian in an attempt to cover up his rising frustration; the man always found humor in angering even the most threatening of people, most likely due to his confidence in his self-defense skills and a husband who would die protecting him. The retort is weak, but his unease is clouding his thoughts; he is slow to supply even a mediocre comeback, which Wei Wuxian must notice because he throws his arm over his shoulder and directs him back in through the doors, closing them as soon as Jin Ling is in all the way and successfully trapping him inside.

“I don’t know, you tell me! Sit down; let’s talk! Lan Zhan, will you heat some water for tea?” Jin Ling wants to tell him that Hanguang-Jun should not be making tea for anyone else and that asking is improper, especially when the one drinking it would be a junior disciple such as himself. Before he can voice the indignity of the request, he hears a quiet affirmative noise from the other side of the room and the sound of water hitting the bottom of a teapot. It seems that the legendary Hanguang-Jun would do anything so long as Wei Wuxian were the one asking.

“I didn’t say I’d sit with you!” He punctuates his aggrieved remark by sitting at the table opposite Wei Wuxian, who smiles brightly at him, clearly displaying how much he enjoys the situation. Knowing not to point out the contradiction between Jin Ling’s words and his actions, he silently waits for his husband to finish with the tea and perhaps offers Jin Ling the opportunity to control the conversation himself, an offer which he does not take, at least not yet. Instead, his gaze darts around the room as he suppresses the urge to fiddle with anything for a distraction, a hopeless attempt to appear assured and confident when he truly feels anything but.

“Aw, Lan Zhan! You didn’t have to make it all yourself; I would have helped if you asked!” Lan Wangji sets down the teapot in the center of the table, places the cups in their serving spots, and elegantly sits beside his husband. Wei Wuxian throws himself at him without hesitation, wrapping himself around him in a sickening display of affection, doing everything short of clamoring onto his lap, Lan Wangji’s hand firmly wrapped around his waist the entire time, encouraging him. Jin Ling had heard from Lan Sizhui how shameless the couple had been since their marriage, but he had not anticipated they would be so flagrant about it.

When they separate, Wei Wuxian turns back to their guest, grinning as if he had not just taken a break to be completely unbearable to watch while Jin Ling sat off to the side, uncomfortably wishing he had never even thought about coming to Gusu. Lan Wangji stands and silently walks over to a small table across the room where his instrument rests untouched and begins playing a quiet and soothing melody, delicately plucking the strings and listening closely for any mistakes. If the song had any significant meaning or intention, Jin Ling would not have noticed, though she suspects it is one for soothing the nerves and clearing the mind. One way or another, it is an offer for privacy to contain the conversation to just him and Wei Wuxian, one which Jin Ling gladly accepts.

“So what is this about, huh?” Wei Wuxian finally asks, turning all his attention to his nephew.

Jin Ling is frustrated, nervous, and entirely too flustered after being subjected to their frankly disgusting display of affection for each other. Before being embarrassed and agitated, he had planned exactly how he would introduce the conversation and how he would handle it if it went awry. Every part of it was controlled and careful, and most importantly, it was entirely on his terms. The initial teasing must have ruffled him more than he had anticipated and must be why, instead of cautiously asking for advice as planned, he abruptly begins with, “So you’re a cut-sleeve…”

The exclamation stuns the usually talkative and outgoing man into complete silence, confusion overtaking his features as the seconds tick by agonizingly slow. The music ceases with the lull, making the sudden hush drag even longer. The moment passes quickly, but the discomforted energy surrounding them is suffocating, drowning him in a thick blanket of self-consciousness. Wei Wuxian pulls himself together enough to chuckle good-naturedly and respond, “Yeah? Is that a question? You should know already. Of course, I am!”

In the absence of Jin Ling’s answer, while his mind is still reeling from his earlier fumble, Lan Wangji helpfully chimes in, “I am as well.” Wei Wuxian barks a laugh at his husband’s contribution, pointing at him and nodding in agreement. Jin Ling can feel his blush return as Wei Wuxian smiles at him as if the conversation were anything other than the most humiliating experience Jin Ling could recall to date, or maybe simply not caring that it was.

“We both are. Why, you have a few questions?”

“No! Well, kind of. It’s complicated.” He crosses his arms defensively, staring down at the teapot on the table to avoid accidentally making eye contact with either of them. The music restarts in the background in the sudden lapse in conversation; they wait for him to elaborate, but he finds himself speechless. He thinks, not for the first time, that asking them for assistance was an unwise decision.

"I think… you know how girls feel about- you know, when puberty happened, it- I don't- I don't know.” He aborts each sentence before he can even construct them, half-formed statements and questions tumbling out of his mouth before he can think to stop them. The mortification of it all seeps deep into his bones with an ache that paralyzes him with fear and anxiety as its tendrils take root in his heart so firmly that he cannot rip them out by himself. It tears away at his composure, leaving him exposed and vulnerable despite his intentional vagueness; if he wants to abandon his efforts now, he can, but then he would only leave them wondering and confused, perpetually unsure of what sent him over the edge and thus, unable to aid in relieving him of the pressure.

All of the uncertainty culminates in Jin Ling reaching one conclusion: he should never have asked them for advice or even gone to Gusu at all; he should have been able to grit his teeth and handle the discomfort without relying on someone else to guide him through it, no matter how crushing it was. How could he have been so foolish to think that he would find solace? He puts his hands beneath the table to hide their shaking as his breathing begins to pick up, slowly becoming more and more out of control until he can measure his inability to conceal his emotion by the way Wei Wuxian's eyes widen. He stares at the table instead, unable to bear the weight of his helplessness.

“Hey, look at me, will you?” Jin Ling glances up from the table again, daring Wei Wuxian to continue his mission to help him. Wei Wuxian is leaning over the table, hands planted firmly on the surface of it and leaning toward Jin Ling without looming over him; the imposing stance relaxes back when he sees Jin Ling respond positively to his instruction, slouching to rest his elbows on the table once more and offering Jin Ling the personal space he needs to recover while gently commanding him, "Deep breaths. Calm down; then we can keep talking.”

They patiently wait for him to regain his bearings before anyone speaks up again. Lan Wangji continues to play, the calming tune surrounding them while they wait for Jin Ling's breathing to stabilize, the shaking to stop, and his fears to release their grip on him and let him explain. A few minutes of silence finds him counting his breaths and working through the last waves of the attack, coming to terms with what to say and summoning the courage to say it with conviction. Wei Wuxian, unsurprisingly, is the one to break the silence in the end.

“Are you okay now?” He nods a small gesture that barely expresses the shallowness and fragility of his wellness but is a confirmation nonetheless. Wei Wuxian pauses for a moment, then speaks again. “I think I get it.” For a brief moment, Jin Ling wonders if he truly does understand his jumbled mess of words, hoping against all probability that he would be able to read his mind about his worries and would be able to respond accordingly; the illusion shatters when the signature mischief smirk appears on Wei Wuxian’s face, a horrible thing that Jin Ling senses he does not so much as attempt to hide. He does not want to know whatever ideas Wei Wuxian is kicking around in that meddlesome head of his, yet he continues.

“This is about Jingyi!”

“What?” He splutters, shock and dread in its purest form flooding his senses in an entirely foreign manner than before; at the very least, he thought he knew what to expect earlier, but now he was completely thrown off, floundering for a way to get back on topic and dispel whatever assumptions Wei Wuxian had made. Lan Wangji abruptly stands up, crossing the room and looking over the bookshelves, tracing the spines of the books with determination and purpose. Jin Ling pays him no mind, too busy focusing entirely on telling Wei Wuxian how inconceivably wrong he is. “No, why would it be about him?”

“Because you’re getting embarrassed asking us about being cut-sleeves and talking about how you feel. Don’t worry. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about; teenagers are allowed to explore their sexuality.” Jin Ling wants to vomit even thinking of asking either of them for advice about relationships and romance, let alone sex. Before he can correct him, Lan Wangji returns to his husband's side, places a book on the table, and calmly turns to Jin Ling as if this is precisely the conversation he was anticipating when Jin Ling first arrived.

“This book is very informative about matters pertaining to--”

“I don't need it!” Jin Ling pointedly avoids looking at the offending pages, refusing to even glance at the writing or, god forbid, accompanying artwork. Lan Wangji pauses, awaiting another remark from Jin Lin; when he hears none, concluding that he has nothing left to say, he finishes his statement in what Jin Ling thinks is the worst possible way outside of outright shoving the book into his hands.

"...intercourse between two men."

“This was a bad idea. I’m leaving.” He nearly trips over himself in an attempt to rise, determined to make a beeline for the door and escape whatever hell he accidentally stumbled into as soon as he could without allowing either of them the time to make things worse somehow. Wei Wuxian frantically waves his hands, gesturing for Jin Ling to return with one hand and sliding the book off the table into Lan Wangji’s lap with the other to get the cursed object out of his line of sight; it is a valiant effort that only draws attention to it. At the very least, he appears genuinely apologetic, which is more than Jin Ling had expected of him.

“Wait, no, don’t go! We won’t make any more jokes or anything. Just tell us what got you all worked up.” He delays his leave, hesitating near the doorway with his back turned to the couple while he ponders his next move; stuck between a rock and a hard place, he has no idea how to escape or proceed, given the substandard start and precarious finish. Truthfully, he did not anticipate anyone he knew having an inkling of how to solve his current predicament save for the two behind him; the likelihood of getting satisfactory answers from them was higher than anyone else, and whether Jin Ling liked it or not, he depended on their guidance for the time being. Without turning to face them, knowing that doing so would make matters infinitely worse, he takes a deep breath and, in a moment of bravery, throws all caution to the wind as he blurts out what has been on his mind, not giving a second thought to his phrasing.

“Do you ever feel like you’re not a man?”

The bravery drains out of him immediately, leaving him barren of all the confidence he had scraped together and empty of any assuredness he thought he had. The repercussions of such an admission could be dire in ways he had not previously considered; they could tell him he was being absurd asking such ridiculous questions, see him differently for the remainder of his life, or even say something to Jiang Cheng, and then what would be next? Finding the silence excruciating, he musters up all his leftover resolve and turns around to face them instead of retreating as his instincts insist.

“You know, whenever Jingyi says those things, he doesn’t mean anything by it,” Wei Wuxian says with full confidence, missing the mark entirely.

“I will talk to him.” Lan Wangji stands with the same grace that all the Lans, save the aforementioned Lan Jingyi, carry themselves with, an aura of righteousness surrounding him as he approaches the door beside Jin Ling. He blocks him, frantically tripping over himself to explain himself before another unfortunate soul, especially one of his friends, gets pulled into his mistake.

“It isn’t about him! What I've been trying to say is that I--” he does not have time to filter himself, patience running thin from the overwhelming panic of the day and endless unpredictability of the conversation, the unforgiving twists and turns throwing him off right as he finds his balance. “I wanted to ask if you’ve ever heard of someone who can change their gender!”

Dawning realization takes over Wei Wuxian’s face as if something he said triggered a distant memory that had only resurfaced that instant. He smiles at him when he recovers from the shock, pointing toward the seat in front of him, indicating that they would only continue talking if he was seated. Jin Ling glances at Lan Wangji, who wears his usual blank face. He apprehensively stalks to the table again, sitting down and avoiding eye contact; he was unaware of what this reaction could mean, so getting his hopes up was dangerous.

“Jin Ling, is this your way of telling us you’re a girl?” He startles upon hearing the very idea that troubled him, stated so clearly and said not with disgust or skepticism or hushed confidentiality but with a welcoming, affectionate encouragement. He resents it-- despises that Wei Wuxian can ask such a thing so flippantly, like he was inquiring about a haunting and not exposing a secret that plagued Jin Ling's mind with the persistence of a curse seeking vengeance.

“No, it doesn’t work like that!”

“Why not?” Wei Wuxian tilts his head in bafflement; the expression is nearly enough to be over the top, but Jin Ling can see the complete sincerity in his eyes, indicating that he genuinely wants him to answer. He considers the question briefly, paying it no mind as he brashly restates his denial.

“It just doesn’t!” Wei Wuxian shakes his head, feigning exasperation and assuming the teacher role he had come to accept since his return.

“I thought I taught you better than that! If things don’t work like that and you need them to, figure out a way to do it even if it’s never been done before.” He leans forward, reaching out and grabbing Jin Ling’s hands and cradling them in his own. “You’re a Jiang as much as you are a Jin. Does the family motto mean nothing to you? ‘Attempt the impossible!’ Well this isn’t impossible; if you say you’re a girl, you’re a girl, simple as that! Now I’m going to ask you this, answer me if you’re comfortable: are you my niece?”

Jin Ling studies his expression intensely, looking for hints of mockery, ridicule, amusement, or something to indicate that this is just an elaborate joke and that he finds it hilarious to raise his hopes as if he were reasonable in his desire. There is no such sign, nothing to betray the sincerity of his reassurance. Jin Ling swallows the lump in her throat, looks him in the eyes, and nods once with conviction. A wide smile breaks out on Wei Wuxian’s face as he lets go of her hands and latches onto Lan Wangji.

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan! Did you hear that? We have a niece!”

She turns to Lan Wangji, whose expression still had not changed throughout the entire time she had been in his presence, suspended in a perpetually bored look not unusual for him. The effect is a disconcerting combination of uncertainty and comfort in knowing that his perception of her had not changed egregiously. He examines her, making her still in her spot before succinctly replying, “It is nice to meet her.”

She blinks back tears, refusing to cry after such a revelation, insistent upon seeming strong and collected rather than frantic and desperate, accurate as the words might be to describe her. Wei Wuxian breaks away from his husband, moving to grab a cloth to hand to her to wipe the tears that spill over. “Ah, I made our niece cry! What a terrible uncle I am!”

“Not terrible.” He laughs at Lan Wangji’s response as Jin Ling shakes her head, snatching the handkerchief away from him and shoving his hand away when he tries to wipe her tears. She supposes it would not be unexpected for her to be irritable; she worried herself sick to her stomach and still finds herself overcome with emotion and disoriented despite the support, maybe even because of it.

“Stop calling me that,” she mutters miserably, choking back a sob.

“Why not? It’s true!”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji chides.

“Sorry, sorry! I’ll be nicer to our poor niece, she deserves a break after everything we’ve put her through.” She stifles another cry; hearing him refer to her as his niece was peculiar. It was a new title, bestowed to her not with sarcasm but with love and acceptance; she did not feel like she had earned it despite the sincerity he gifted her the epithet with, offering only love and a heartfelt welcome rather than the ridicule she had expected. However, she supposes she could get used to it once she has fully recovered from the day and had time to process the information.

“Jin Ling,” Lan Wangji calls, his low voice drowning out Wei Wuxian finding excuses to refer to her as his niece; she turns to him, unsure what to expect but praying he does not have another book to hand her. “Thank you for telling us. I am glad that we are safe for you. If there is another name you would prefer, please notify us immediately.”

She nods again, not trusting her voice. Though she had not yet considered the possibility of changing her name, so disoriented by her feelings that she had no time to ponder what might change, she decided she didn't have any desire to. There was more to this decision than she could have possibly predicted, but she finds that she is slightly less intimidated by it than before now that she has guidance.

“Is there anyone else that knows?”

She shakes her head, forcing herself to croak out, “No; I haven’t even told jiujiu yet.”

Wei Wuxian’s jaw drops in a comical display of surprise and confusion, one even more dramatic than when she had initially come out with her confession. He looks between Lan Wangji and her as if doing so would provide answers he lacked, but evidently found nothing as he chose instead to gawk at her, still puzzled beyond belief. “Why haven’t you told him?”

“Why would I have told him?”

“You know he’d support you.” His response is a statement, not a question; he leaves no room for questioning or denying it, so sure of himself that the validity of it is definitive and unwavering.

“No, I don’t. You know how he is; you grew up with him.” she shrugs vaguely, trying to articulate the fear and falling short of success. Jiang Cheng loves her, she knows, but to say his words had never quite matched his actions is an understatement. He would threaten her in one breath and risk his life protecting her in the next; she trusted him and to this point, believed in his support for her, but when dealing with such a topic, her trust in his ability to provide faltered slightly. Not enough to make her lose faith, but enough for her to question it, realizing that he was not her best choice for emotional support, among other things.

“Yeah, I did, which is why I know he’d-” As if struck by yet another realization, Wei Wuxian’s eyes widened, and he nodded to himself as if deciding something. He schools his expression into a comforting smile, his gaze offering gentle reassurance as he reconsiders his approach. “What do you think he’s going to do when you tell him?”

“Disown me? Call me crazy? I don’t know, best case scenario he takes my word that I’m a girl.” The statement sweetens the bitter words that follow. “And worst case scenario, I’ll be disowned. That isn’t even considering how everyone else will respond-”

“Woah, woah, hey! We’re not talking about everyone else right now; we’re talking about Jiang Cheng. Why would he disown you?” She rolls her eyes, leveling him with a deadpan stare. When his grin does not falter, she elaborates on her disbelief, deciding to be deliberately blunt and direct to most efficiently instill her fear into him.

“Look at how he treats you,” she says. Wei Wuxian waves his hand as if dissipating the statement, dismissive and flippant about her apprehension and carelessly deciding that the idea is moot.

“That’s different. He’s pretty much looking for reasons to hate me at this point; we can’t be compared.”

“Can’t you at least try to understand why I’m a little worried?” Her voice cracks, but she is determined not to cry again, already tiring herself out with her emotions and finding that she has hit her limit on tears for the day. Lan Wangji offers a bowl of water to her, which she politely accepts.

“I do understand! I’m also telling you that you’re worrying yourself sick over nothing. I’ll bet that the only thing he’ll be upset about is that you didn’t tell him first.”

“Then come with me to Lotus Pier when I tell him and prove it.” She hides her request for support as a challenge, already embarrassed from breaking down repeatedly to beg the two of them to be there for backup when she inevitably gets into a fight with her uncle about her sudden announcement. If she had to face him alone, she would have no idea how to handle it; she would likely chicken out of the conversation before even implying it, let alone telling him directly. Having someone else guide her through it who would protect her if (when) the conversation went downhill provided a safety net even if her worst fears manifested right before her eyes.

Surprisingly, Wei Wuxian seemed less than thrilled about the idea, apprehensively looking at his husband in concern before he responded, tentative and unsure. “Why not in Jinlintai?”

She glares, crossing her arms and turning her nose up at him. “Fine then. Leave me to do it alone! Shows how much you care!”

He jumps up, shaking his head with frantic panic and laughing nervously, hands held up in defense. Lan Wangji settles a hand on his shoulder to calm and gently shove him into his seat before his sudden movement knocks anything off the table. Once Wei Wuxian settled down, he quickly corrected himself. “We’ll go! I just don’t think we’re exactly welcome there!”

“It’s where you grew up. Why wouldn’t you be welcome?” She knows it is more complicated than that, that history has changed his reputation in Lotus Pier and that Jiang Cheng can and would gladly abuse his power to remove them from the area, but admittedly, she is bitter about Wei Wuxian downplaying her concerns, so she spits it right back out at him. He shrugs, leaning against Lan Wangji in another disgustingly blatant show of affection she could have done without.

“When will you go?” Lan Wangji chimes in, eyes fixed on his husband but directing his question to Jin Ling.

“I figured I would after I leave Gusu tomorrow,” she says, deliberately avoiding exposing that she had only visited the Cloud Recesses on a detour from her path to Yunmeng to speak with them. Fortunately, they allowed her to save at least some face, so neither pestered her, demanding an explanation for why she would only stay one night after making such a fuss of arriving with no further notice, no invitation, and no travel party with her.

Wei Wuxian nods, sitting up again as Lan Wangji stands to begin preparations for their departure, the couple a well-oiled machine that barely needs any verbal communication to understand each other and their intentions. “We’ll leave tomorrow then! Anything else you need from us?”

She thinks for a moment, considering what to do next while she prepares for the following days, the anxiety settling from a roaring fire to a flickering flame, present and warm but not burning, a contained fire of a candle. The questions are fleeting, panicked thoughts, disappearing when she grasps them and leaving her unable to articulate her musings, left with only abstract feelings and half-formed ideas. When she finally collects her thoughts enough to form a question, she inhales deeply, forcing herself to stay calm and collected before she asks. A knock on the door silences her before she can; the quiet sound fills the room instead. Jin Ling pouts bitterly as Lan Wangji approaches the door, opening it to reveal Lan Sizhui.

Jin Ling turns away, suddenly very aware that her eyes are still red from crying and wiping her eyes in an attempt to hide it, while Lan Sizhui politely greets Lan Wangji and begins asking a question of his own. “I heard Sect Leader Jin arrived earlier today, but I haven’t been able to find him. Would you happen to know where he is?”

“I told you already, you don’t need to keep calling me that!” Jin Ling calls, satisfied with her dried cheeks and hoping the irritated skin of her eyes is not as flushed as it had been previously. Lan Sizhui glances past Lan Wangji, who had since stepped to the side to allow him entrance and smiles upon seeing Jin Ling, pleased to have found his friend after fruitlessly searching the Cloud Recesses.

“Jingyi had been looking for you, as had Zizhen. We’ve finished our classes for the day, and we were wondering if you would accompany us for a bit of afternoon practice? If, of course, you are not busy with other matters.” Always so polite, Lan Sizhui approaches but stays an appropriate distance away, allowing her room to stand. Jin Ling glances at Wei Wuxian for assistance, but he seems content to let the two juniors speak privately, having begun to help Lan Wangji with preparing for travel.

“Zizhen is here?” She asks, dodging the question to allow herself time to decide whether to agree or to take some space to ponder her recent realizations. The question is clumsy and obvious in intent, but Sizhui kindly ignores her discomfort and grants her a few moments to consider.

“He was sent here to study with the Lan sect earlier this year and will be with us for another few months,” Lan Sizhui says. “I know you’re likely busy with sect duties,” he laughs when Jin Ling rolls her eyes dismissively. “But you’re welcome to visit us anytime.”

“Ideally with notice and prior intent,” Lan Wangji adds without looking up from his task as Wei Wuxian barks a laugh at his deadpan delivery and cold words; Jin Ling blushes at the indirect scolding, once again made aware of her impulsivity. Grabbing onto Lan Sizhui’s sleeve, she pulls him away from the table and toward the door, refusing to dignify his remark with a response.

“You’re practicing now, right? Let’s go, I’m done talking with these two anyway!” Lan Sizhui laughs lightly, waving goodbye to the two as he is dragged out of the door by Jin Ling; before they get down the stairs, Wei Wuxian bursts out of the jingshi again in pursuit. When Jin Ling whirls around to confront him, he pulls her into a tight hug, leaning over so his lips are right next to her ear. She splutters through a question demanding to know his intention when he whispers into her ear with conviction.

“I’m proud of you.” She suppresses the instinct to shove him off, instead choosing to savor the embrace, though she refuses to return it. Glancing over at Lan Sizhui, bewildered but not entirely surprised by the sudden gesture, she sighs and waits for Wei Wuxian to back off, listening closely for any additional words. “I think you should tell your friends.”

With no elaboration, he pulls away, holding Jin Ling at arm’s length for a moment before squeezing her shoulder and letting go to prance up the stairs of the jingshi to return to his husband. She stood frozen in place for a moment before blurting out a response, the question that had been interrupted by Lan Sizhui’s appearance, the one she could not answer for herself no matter how many times she revisited it. “What do I say?”

Wei Wuxian smiles at her, already halfway inside the jingshi. Flippantly shrugging his shoulders, he replies, “Whatever you need to. It’s your secret!”

Standing outside the jingshi with Lan Sizhui, Jin Ling once again confronts her options, stuck between the burning need to tell everyone she can about herself and the paralyzing fear of facing disrespect, mockery, or becoming a laughingstock of her sect, a tragic possibility with disastrous consequences for a sect leader.

Troubled by her turmoil, she turns back around and follows Lan Sizhui’s lead as he brings her down the path to the practice area. Their pace is slow, almost meandering as they go as if purposefully wasting their time on their way. Jin Ling resolves to ask why they were avoiding going to the practice field if that was Lan Sizhui’s reason for searching for her when he clears his throat, pausing on the trail and turning to her, preparing to ask a question.

“Are you doing alright?” He asks, hesitant and cautious with his tone while he looks anywhere but her face. She scoffs, trying to dissolve the tension and the implication behind the question as quickly as possible, suddenly realizing she was unprepared for this conversation.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well your visit is rather unprecedented. Not to mention you look like you’ve been crying,” Lan Sizhui says, finally meeting her gaze. “I know I’m not able to help with everything, but I want to help where I can. Please tell me if there’s anything I can do to help you, or at the very least let me be there for you if I can’t.”

She swallows around the lump in her throat, maintaining eye contact as she gathers the words to express herself. It would be easy to play it off as sect business she needed assistance with, but it would be a flimsy lie she would have no idea how to play off and would crumble under the implication of scrutiny. Coming this far without anyone closely observing her intentions had been a miracle enough; to pretend she had any outside of her personal issues would be its own disaster. So, she braces herself and tries to summarize the conversation she had as succinctly as possible.

“It’s nothing you could have helped with, but I’m doing better now,” she begins, floundering for a direction to go in. “I just… had a few questions that only they could answer. They helped me figure some things out.”

Lan Sizhui nods with understanding, as if he had pieced together her struggles and understood them entirely. Still, he tilted his head as if prompting her to continue, so she did. “I needed their guidance because I didn’t know how to tell you, or anyone else really. It’s not that I don’t trust you, I just needed to accept it myself. It’s kind of… you know how Jingyi calls me ‘young mistress’?”

“You don’t have to continue. I understand.” Lan Sizhui says, interrupting her stuttering and mumbling as she struggles to articulate her predicament. It comes as a relief, to have him understand without her having to explain it, without putting herself through the ordeal of exposing her innermost feelings and thoughts. “I can’t believe Jingyi didn’t tell me first.”

Jin Ling pauses after hearing that, the initial relief clouding over into bafflement while she parses why exactly Lan Jingyi would know about something she had never thought to speak aloud until her visit, where she then avoided him, along with the rest of her friends, at all costs until she could soothe her worries. “What are you talking about? He doesn’t know.”

“Jingyi doesn’t know you’re dating?” It was Lan Sizhui’s turn to be confused, a disoriented and utterly baffled expression taking over his face as he rethinks his initial assumption and still comes up with no other explanation for what other confession would follow her words. Jin Ling prepares to correct the catastrophic misconception when she hears another voice from farther up the trail interrupt.

“We’re dating?” Lan Jingyi emerges from around the corner of the path, Ouyang Zizhen trailing behind him, with a fierce blush dusting his cheeks as he rushes toward them, stopping only a few feet away as he glances between them. Before Jin Ling can correct him, he follows up with another question, equally dumbfounded as the first. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because we’re not!” She shouts, crossing her arms and turning back to Lan Sizhui, indignant about the apparent smear campaign everyone is collectively running against her to imply that her romantic preferences would incline her toward Lan Jingyi of all people. “Don’t go telling people that, you’ll ruin my reputation!”

“Hey, you’d be lucky to bag a good, respectable Lan like me!” He teases, winking at her; the act does not make her stomach flip, and it certainly does not deepen the light blush across her cheeks into a bright pink bordering red. Whatever it does to her, she does not have the mental fortitude to confront yet, still reeling from her earlier conversation and the subsequent uncomfortable situations it got her into.

“Being a Lan does not automatically make you respectable,” Lan Sizhui timidly says; it might be the most cruel thing Jin Ling had ever heard him say.

“Yeah, says the Wen,” Ouyang Zizhen fires back. Lan Sizhui decides not to address it, instead turning to Jin Ling with a questioning stare and seemingly returning to their initial discussion as if the course of the conversation had not gone tragically usurped, only returning to the previous topic by force of will.

“If that wasn’t what you wanted to tell me, what was it?” Jin Ling glances at the other two, suddenly cornered by the only three friends she had ever made and terrified of ruining a good thing. The part of her still emboldened by the support from Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji tells her that if ruining her friendship is what it took to be herself, then so be it; the part of her that clings to people that show her an ounce of love and respect would rather stay quiet if it meant maintaining the peace within the group for a moment longer.

Lan Sizhui sees her struggle, a compassionate smile gracing his features as he reaches out to her, setting his hand daintily on her shoulder. “You don’t have to say it if you aren’t comfortable doing so. We can wait as long as you need, and if you decide that you won’t tell us at all, we’ll respect that.” He sends a pointed glance at the other two, prompting them to join him in reassuring her, which they hastily listen to, clamoring over themselves to offer support.

“Yeah, just know we’re here for you whenever you want to tell us… whatever it is,” Ouyang Zizhen says, deliberately vague to adjust his words to suit whatever she might spring on them.

“Whatever keeps young mistress Jin from crying again.” Lan Jingyi laughs at the glare Jin Ling gives him as if she were not attempting to kill him telepathically, a light and bubbly sound that she can admit is rather contagious in any other circumstance when he is not laughing at her expense. “For real though, tell us if you want but don’t do it if you’re really going to be upset about it. Just know that we’ll have your back, no matter what.”

She stares down at the rocks that mark the path, white stones perfectly clean despite their place among the trees, which provide a shield from the sun, the weather warm but not uncomfortably so, as she contemplates her next move. The three of them have no idea what they are agreeing to when they offer her support, unaware of the secret that burns in her throat that she catches just behind her teeth; she cannot trust them to understand her even with the claims that they will, cannot assume that they will live up to their promises once the words escape her lips.

Simultaneously, she craves their validation, desperate for her friends to see the parts of her she found so hard to accept for so long and to welcome her with open arms, a possibility that she will never experience if she swallows everything down. Perhaps it will be a cushion for when she tells Jiang Cheng, a consolation prize for what she is sure will be a disastrous conversation with him, to at least be able to cower away and lick her wounds in the company of her companions rather than entirely isolated.
So, she takes a breath and tries to articulate her feelings again, determined to overpower the yawning pit of fear in her stomach. “I… want to live as a girl from now on,” she says, crossing her arms and turning away so she wouldn’t have to watch her friends’ immediate reactions, allowing herself a moment of cowardice before she steels herself to face them again. Glancing at them from the corner of her eye, she sees Lan Sizhui’s smile, warm and comforting, alongside Lan Jingyi and Ouyang Zizhen, who both seem to be barely restraining the urge to hug her. Ouyang Zizhen loses control first, lunging at her and pulling her into a tight embrace.

She stumbles back, regaining her balance as she faces her friends head-on. Lan Jingyi rushes up to join the slowly forming group hug as Lan Sizhui ponders his next words, careful and deliberate as every Lan ought to be.

“Thank you for telling us. It means a lot that you trust us.” Lan Sizhui is promptly yanked into the hug by Ouyang Zizhen, and Jin Ling is smothered by the affection, surrounded by her friends, who want nothing more than to overwhelm her with love.

“Words later. Comforting Young Mistress Jin now,” Lan Jingyi says, resting his chin over her shoulder; though the angle is awkward given his hunched posture, he remains silent about his discomfort, instead pulling her closer. Jin Ling relaxes into the embrace, reaching out to return the gesture, unable to encompass all of them but able to at least express her appreciation. Lan Jingyi is the first to back up, allowing her a moment to breathe before they begin asking questions.

“What Sizhui said,” he says, clumsily but with whole-hearted support; Ouyang Zizhen nods aggressively in agreement. “Thanks.”

“Whatever,” she says, defensive against the onslaught of warmth and acceptance. “You’re not that scary; Jiujiu will be worse.”

“Does anyone outside Wei-qianbei and Hanguang-Jun know?” Lan Sizhui asks. Jin Ling shakes her head, shifting her weight to get out some of her nerves, still jittery from the earlier anxiety and still not recovered from her initial fear, despite how well the conversation was going. “That’s okay. We won’t tell anyone who doesn’t know yet.” The other two nod beside him.

“You’re not gonna ask me how I can just decide this?” She snaps, an impending feeling of dread taking control as if she were being cornered. Their kindness, their willingness to accept the words she had said at face value, has to be fake; the other shoe had to drop eventually, and she would prefer it happen sooner rather than later. “Aren’t you going to tell me it doesn’t work like that?”

“With all due respect,” Ouyang Zizhen starts in a sign of nothing but good things to come, surely. “Yiling Laozu came back from the dead after thirteen years into your uncle’s body and now he’s just Wei-qianbei. The Ghost General turned out to be one of Sizhui’s relatives. Lianfang-zun married his sister. You could tell us literally anything and I’d probably believe it at this point.”

“I think what he means to say,” Lan Sizhui sighs, “Is that people get misjudged all the time. Previous perceptions end up being incorrect, and it’s in our best interests to tell the truth; if the truth is that you’d rather be a girl, then who are we to tell you that can’t happen?”

Jin Ling shrugs helplessly. “It’s never been done before.”

“How do you know?” Lan Jingyi protests, quick to combat her spiral into insecurity. “Maybe someone already has but we wouldn’t know.”

Ouyang Zizhen’s eyes lit up as if he were struck with a realization that had not occurred to him before as he excitedly waves his hand at her to get her attention; his enthusiasm would have her believe that whatever it was would be important, but instead, he blurts out, “Are you gonna get boobs now?”

She recoils, startled by the sudden invasive question, but more importantly, utterly unsure how to respond, bewildered by the idea of her body changing but finding the idea not unpleasant. Before Lan Sizhui can go into overdrive on damage control, Lan Jingyi interrupts with the same gusto, “I was wondering the same thing!”

“Ugh. Boys,” she says under her breath, deriving the slightest pleasure from separating herself from the scorned group. “I don’t think so. Why’s it matter?”

“You won’t?” Lan Jingyi asks, expression deflating into disappointment on her behalf. It is almost comical how openly he wears his emotions, a stark contrast to many of the older Lans she knows who have mastered the art of flat affect.

“Again, why’s it matter?”

“Well, do you want boobs?” Ouyang Zizhen asks, entirely sincere and with a tone that implies that he would have a solution if she were to say yes.

“Let’s stop talking about my boobs, huh?” She shouts, crossing her arms over her chest, or lack thereof, and turning away from them with her chin held high, a classic sign that she is finished with this discussion and is looking down on them for their behavior. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Lan Sizhui nudge Lan Jingyi with his elbow, gesturing at Jin Ling.

“Sorry, Young Mistress Jin. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” Lan Jingyi’s tone is playful and lighthearted, but his words are genuine, an apologetic look in his eyes mirrored in Ouyang Zizhen’s that doesn’t last for long before his mischief sparks, his eyes once again bright with joyous anticipation for whatever taunts he’s about to spew next. “Hey, I guess I was right all along! You really are a young mistress!”

“I never should’ve told you,” she mutters, turning to walk back up the path towards the Cloud Recesses; the other three follow behind her, Lan Jingyi laughing as Lan Sizhui rushes to catch up. He smiles from his place beside her, a comforting and welcoming grin that he must have learned to replicate from Zewu-Jun. She only glances at him for a moment before glaring at the scenery ahead of her again, which he takes as permission to speak.

“Are you happy that you told us?” He asks, hesitant but not expecting a harsh reaction. She ponders his inquiry silently for a moment, considering the previous conversation and coming to the conclusion that she is better off knowing that her friends at the very least understand her feelings, even if they don’t quite understand what they mean; hell, Jin Ling doesn’t even know, and she’s the one who wants it. She nods, still avoiding looking at her friend, unused to this vulnerability that leaves her feeling gutted but safe. He smiles wider at her. “I’m glad.”

“So are we practicing now or what?” Lan Jingyi asks, dragging Ouyang Zizhen up to walk beside the other two, the four of them now taking up the entire width of the trail. “I still have a bone to pick with you, Sizhui. I demand a rematch!”

“Of course,” Lan Sizhui says, in a tone that indicates that he has full confidence in himself to wipe the floor with Lan Jingyi, even if he can give him a run for his money. Jin Ling barks out a laugh at him, harsh but overwhelmingly teasing.

“Why bother? You know you’ll lose.”

“Saying the quiet part loud,” Ouyang Zizhen says as Lan Jingyi whips around to face her, indignant and prickly.

“Hey! You’re lucky I’m not going after you,” he snaps back, a grin taking over his features as he prepares his next verbal attack. “But I’m not about to risk beating a girl.”

“Keep talking like that, and this girl’s gonna beat you!” She shouts, hand gripping Suihua’s hilt already. Lan Sizhui holds out his arm, blocking them from directly attacking each other.

In every way, from the slight chill of the swift approaching evening as the sun begins approaching the horizon to the banter he exchanges with her friends, everything is the same, but in the same vein, from the way her clothes fit around her to the way she ponders her plans for the next day, everything has changed. Before entering the main area of the Cloud Recesses, she pauses behind the cover of the trees, choking on her final question. The other three wait for her to cough it up, staying out of sight of the other disciples for privacy until she gathers the confidence.

“This doesn’t change anything, does it?” She asks, voice meek and unsure. “Because if you’re going to start treating me differently, I’d rather you just forget about it.”

“Of course not! I’ll fight you whether you’re a girl or not!” Lan Jingyi says, mindful for once to keep his voice lowered to avoid spilling her secret early. “For real though, you’re still our friend. Nothing will change, I promise.”

Lan Sizhui smiles in approval of the heartfelt message, not finding anything needing correcting in Lan Jingyi’s words; Ouyang Zizhen echoes the sentiment with a fervent nod. Unsure of how to accept the onslaught of welcoming acceptance and affection, a remarkably common issue for her these days, she pushes past them to continue down the path to the Cloud Recesses, walking in companionable silence to the training area.

After an evening of Lan Jingyi challenging them all to a duel with varying degrees of success, interrupted only by dinner, Jin Ling makes to part with the other three so they may abide by the Lan curfew, saying their final goodnights as the sun disappears over the horizon.

“Oh, girls’ dorms are over that way,” Lan Jingyi points vaguely in the direction opposite where Jin Ling was going, a playful smile on his lips as she turns and crosses her arms.

“I’m staying where visiting sect leaders are housed.” He shrugs.

“Goodnight, Young Mistress Jin,” he says, waving. “And good luck with your uncle. He can be a real-”

“You have our support if anything goes wrong,” Lan Sizhui interrupts.

“Of course! You’ll let us know how it goes, right?” Ouyang Zizhen tilts his head in worried insistence. Jin Ling nods dismissively, turning to go back to her room and settle in for the night.

After such an emotional day, filled with anxiety, turmoil, and discoveries that she still doesn’t quite comprehend, being alone is a welcome treat, the peace washing out the residue of stress and allowing her the space to sit with her thoughts. She wanted to live as a girl. Wei Wuxian and Hanguang-Jun welcomed her without a second thought, as did her friends. She would tell her uncle once she arrived in Lotus Pier.

Strangely enough, it is not such a scary thought to do the same process again; she has support somewhere when she needs it, even if it would hurt if Jiang Cheng outright refused to accept her. Though she is afraid, almost paralyzingly, she can envision the conversation much easier now that she has done it before. Disrobing to her inner robes and settling into bed, she slips into a deep sleep, allowing herself to rest before her travels the next day.

Chapter Text

“Is this really necessary?” Jin Ling turns around to glance at Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian about fifty feet behind her, stopped due to her own break in her travels with Wei Wuxian comfortably behind his husband; it was bad enough that he had insisted she keep Fairy on a leash for the walk to Lotus Pier, she can hardly believe he would go so far as to embarrass himself by demanding such a distance kept between them. Especially since him and Fairy happened to be the reason they couldn’t travel by sword in the first place, with Wei Wuxian’s lack of a strong golden core and Fairy’s distaste for being held being a liability for flight. Thus, Jin Ling taking the lead while Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian trail behind her.

“Mn,” Lan Wangji responds in a tone that confirms that it was, in fact, very necessary. The silence stretches between them until Jin Ling huffs and turns around to continue walking. They would be in Lotus Pier in a few days by foot, which had given her time to ponder how she would break the news to her uncle, but now they were only one day out from their arrival. It likely wouldn’t go in her favor, and Wei Wuxian being at Lotus Pier would not do her any favors, so she would need to offer a swift explanation complete with defense for herself, not that she didn’t trust Wei Wuxian to step in if worse comes to worst. Still, the idea of starting a fight that could destroy her relationship with Jiang Cheng was frightening at best and downright terrifying at worst.

She scripts her explanation in her head, debating between explaining her feelings and simply putting her foot down and refusing to offer him anything if he lashed out, carefully considering the benefits of building up to it or stating it plainly the first opportunity she got, and pondering whether her delivery should be cold and detached or if she should be vulnerable and open. Soon enough, the day was through and the sun was disappearing over the horizon, leaving the world in a shadowy dusk as they enter a nearby town to find an inn for the night. The close proximity with Wei Wuxian and Fairy due to their narrowed path is clearly upsetting him with the way he clings onto Lan Wangji’s arm and refuses to look anywhere near Jin Ling. She rolls her eyes every time he jumps when Fairy barks.

Soon enough, they are settled into their rooms for the night with Fairy tied up outside, leaving Jin Ling alone with her thoughts as she prepares for the night. The next day they would enter Lotus Pier by late afternoon or early evening and she would have to tell Jiang Cheng her revelation; she couldn’t back out of it since she dragged Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji into it, and she was determined not to waste their time over nothing. Besides, she really did think having backup would bring either comfort or protection in the worst case scenario.

As she moves to disrobe for the night, she hears a knock at the door, loud and brash and entirely unapologetic in its bothersome noise; Wei Wuxian, surely. She opens the door tentatively, peering through the crack to see both Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji waiting outside.

“What?” she asks.

“We just wanted to chat with you about tomorrow,” Wei Wuxian explains. “Wanna let us in?”

She rolls her eyes, but steps aside all the same, opening the door wider to allow them entrance. The room is small and humble, far from what she is used to in Jinlintai, but homely all the same; it is enough for them to comfortably sit at the table in the center without touching knees, but Wei Wuxian ends up half in Lan Wangji’s lap anyway.

“Well?”

“So impatient!” Wei Wuxian laughs as he leans against Lan Wangji, who doesn’t so much as blink at the outburst. “I just wanted to let you know that everything will be fine. You don’t have anything to be worried about.”

“Who said I was worrying?”

“You!” He leans over and flicks her forehead, just between her eyebrows. “You’ve been quiet this whole trip, not whining or anything! Something’s wrong, obviously.” Laughing at her enraged face, no doubt flushed at her cheeks with her brows furrowed worse than they had been before, he continues before she can interrupt. “And this is one of those things that’s scary to tell people. It’s okay to be nervous! But just know that your uncle loves you a lot; you know that, right?”

“Obviously,” she snaps, patience running thin. She didn’t want to exhaust herself on more discussion about what was or not reasonable to fear right before she had to confront the source of the fears.

“Right. So logically,” Wei Wuxian begins, only to be interrupted by Jin Ling again.

“Logically, he’s been weird about you in the past and he has no reason to believe me now,” she finishes. “Honestly, it’s better to just let me prepare myself for disappointment than to get my hopes up. Quit it!”

“What I was going to say was that he’ll do whatever he needs to make you happy,” he says instead of acknowledging her reprimand. “Maybe he’s bad at voicing it and yells more often than not and doesn’t know how to comfort someone and-”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji cuts in, calm and collected with his gentle chide.

“Right,” Wei Wuxian shakes his head, dramatically resetting himself and bringing himself back on track. “My point is: you know how he is. Do you seriously think he would do anything to deliberately upset you because of this?”

“Yes.”

“Lan Zhan, back me up,” Wei Wuxian says, quickly realizing he cannot win this argument as Jin Ling narrows her eyes at him; beside him, Lan Wangji ponders his words carefully, staring at her with the intensity he usually meets gazes with, which is to say the extremity of a man choosing his final words. Eventually, he picks out his words of comfort, his posture straightening ever so slightly as his gaze sharpens.

“Jiang Wanyin will,” he begins, fist tightening around Bichen’s hilt, “not harm you.”

“Alright that’s enough of us for tonight,” Wei Wuxian says, standing and gently guiding his husband to follow him with an awkward laugh as he breezes over the obvious threat. “We can’t change your mind, obviously. Just don’t keep catastrophizing, alright?”

She rolls her eyes, rising from her seat to properly see them out, bracing herself for another hug that fortunately never comes as they part for their final night before arriving in Lotus Pier. Rehearsing how she plans to tell Jiang Cheng while salvaging their relationship and asserting herself with no room for argument, she settles into a dreamless and fitful sleep, hugging a pillow to her chest as she tries to drown out the suspicious noises of heavy breathing and creaking sounding from the room beside hers.

The morning is uneventful as she gathers Fairy and waits outside for a cue from Lan Wangji to get going ahead of him and Wei Wuxian with them trailing behind her from a distance. Tending to her dog is calming, almost meditative, as she tries to clear her head of the anxiety bubbling in the back of her mind; worrying would do nothing but make her clumsy and unsure, and she would need to be confident today if she wanted to be respected. Lan Wangji approaches her to tell her to begin walking, and she gets to the end of the street before she glances behind her, watching as Wei Wuxian halts behind Lan Wangji the moment she freezes.

From there, they don’t pause until the sun is on its way toward the western horizon, off-center but still close to mid-day as they approach Lotus Pier by land, an uncommon way of arrival but the one they would need to use. As if predicting her approach, Jiang Cheng is standing by the gates already, glaring her down as she walks, her pace slowing as she gets closer and eventually comes to stand right in front of him, triggering a standoff as they both wait for the other to speak. She defiantly decides she will not lose this battle, if not to avoid saying something wrong then to force him to concede first.

“Where the hell have you been?” Jiang Cheng snaps after a moment of quiet. “I got a letter from Jinlintai a week ago- a week!- saying that you left for Lotus Pier, but clearly not if it took you so long! It should only take a few days, not to mention you were alone- what is wrong with you?”

“I took a detour,” she rolls her eyes, leaning over to unclip Fairy’s leash to allow her to roam free within the walls of Lotus Pier and give Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji the option to come closer without concerns for Wei Wuxian’s phobia.

“Where?” She can see the moment he glances up to find Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji behind her, his eyes narrowing and his brows furrowing with distaste; behind her, she hears Wei Wuxian try to laugh off the scorn, the sound uncomfortable and strained. Jiang Cheng turns back to her. “Gusu is in the opposite direction of Yunmeng!”

With Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji hovering her shoulder, Jin Ling is emboldened enough that her stress cancels out so the banter feels natural and normal, like she isn’t harboring a secret that could split them apart forever. She could almost forget why she needed backup in the first place and pretend that this was before everything began to fall apart.

“Not that it matters to you what I do, sect leader Jiang,” she says, annoyed but overwhelmingly relieved by the familiarity of the acidic comments exchanged between them; she would miss this most when she loses it. Jiang Cheng scoffs in response, bowing in false respect and glaring at her.

“Well, sect leader Jin,” he spits out the title like a curse, “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t invite people here without a notice.”

Surprisingly, it is Lan Wangji who chimes in first, beating Jin Ling to the punch. “We sent notice from the Cloud Recesses.”

“By what way? Carrier pigeon?”

Lan Wangji reaches into his sleeve and pulls out a letter, handing it politely but not without a touch of defiance to Jiang Cheng, who proceeds to read it, throw it into the lake, and turn around to enter Lotus Pier without so much as acknowledging the contents of it. Jin Ling waits a moment before jogging to catch up with him, Wei Wuxian following at a distance behind her with Lan Wangji in tow.

“So what did Wei Wuxian do this time?” Jiang Cheng asks as he leads them to a private area, the door firmly closed with any other people ordered out of the room while the two talk.

“Hey, I’ll have you know this has nothing to do with me!” Wei Wuxin proudly proclaims, crossing his arms and smiling with pride at his lack of involvement with the current issue while Lan Wangji stands firmly beside him, glaring subtly at Jiang Cheng.

“Surprisingly, he hasn’t done anything yet,” Jin Ling says, looking over her shoulder long enough to see Wei Wuxian gesture at her, grateful for the validation. “This is about… something else.”

“What would be so desperate for you to go to Gusu?” Jiang Cheng demands, staring down his nose at Jin Ling while she braces herself for the conversation; this was it, the moment of truth she could not come back from no matter how much she wanted to after everything. She takes a deep breath to calm her nerves, clenching her fists and forcing herself to meet Jiang Cheng’s gaze.

“I just… had something to ask them about that only they would know about.”

Jiang Cheng sighs, putting his hand to his face to hide the exasperation, his other hand coming to rest on his hip. “So this is about Jingyi, huh?”

It was her turn to be frustrated. “No it’s not! Why does everyone assume that, it’s not about- if anyone else even mentions him, I’ll-”

“Oh big talk over here from sect leader Jin, huh?”

“You know what, this was a bad idea. I’m leaving.” She turns around, making a beeline for the door before Wei Wuxian steps in to grab her by the shoulders and redirect her back into the room to face her uncle, spinning her around with a shove.

“Nope! You can do this, A-Ling.” Jin Ling glares at him at the same time Jiang Cheng whips around to do the same; Wei Wuxian relinquishes his hold on her shoulders, hands held up in surrender as he backs away. He smiles in her direction, nodding encouragingly and stepping back into the background alongside Lan Wangji. Flanked by the couple, Jin Ling is given a physical representation of their support, but its effect is dwindling when Jiang Cheng is bewildered but preemptively put-off by the circumstances of her arrival. Wei Wuxian keeps silent as she considers her words while Jiang Cheng grows ever more impatient.

“Spit it out already. I don’t have all day.”

“Give him some time, Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian chides.

“Don’t tell me what to do! If it’s so important that you have to be involved, it isn’t anything he can’t tell me.”

“Jiujiu,” she begins. “I didn’t know how to tell you yet.”

“So he can speak!” Jiang Cheng mocks, crossing his arms. “What’s so important that you needed to go to him about it?”

“I just wanted to tell you that I think that I’m… a girl?” She phrases it like a statement but finishes it like a question, the announcement abrupt and uncertain with her confidence diminishing as she forces herself to articulate her feelings. Her hands tremble beside her, clenched tight into fists that clutch at her robes, wrinkling the fabric. Any other time, Jiang Cheng would chastise her about looking put together and tell her to quit grabbing at her clothes like a toddler being forced to dress up in formal wear for the first time; today, he stares at her blankly, his eyebrow twitching in mild annoyance.

“Is that it?” He questions, glancing back and forth between Wei Wuxian and Jin Ling as if trying to sense a joke.

She nods. “Jiujiu, I know it sounds weird but I’ve always felt-”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. We can sort this out later. Is that all you had to say?”

Frustration begins to boil her blood as she grows more and more desperate for any indication that he had heard her, the flippant attitude the opposite of what she had expected in the worst way possible. Why was he being so careless about something so huge? Didn’t he know what this meant?

“Didn’t you hear me?” She snaps as Wei Wuxian shifts behind her; she doesn’t see the expression he wears but she can imagine how surprised she is that she had been right and he had been wrong. Why had she ever let him get her hopes up? “I’m a girl. Don’t you care?”

“Obviously not,” Jiang Cheng scoffs. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Jiang Cheng-”

“Stay out of this, Wei Wuxian!” Zidian crackles at his side as Jiang Cheng whips around to face Wei Wuxian, electricity zapping around his hand and making the atmosphere even more charged than it already is. A moment passes in this standoff with Jiang Cheng staring just behind Jin Ling before his eyes widen in enraged realization and he glances back and forth between her and Wei Wuxian. Eventually, his gaze settles on her, his furious glare displaying everything, including blatant insecurity as he demands, “You went to him before you came to me?”

Despite everything, she laughs. She laughs at how self-conscious her uncle can be even in this scenario; she laughs at how utterly vulnerable he is prone to being when it comes to Wei Wuxian; she laughs at how much it hurts to be let down. The ache in her chest only grows bigger as her laughter chokes up into a sob and to her horror, tears slip down her cheeks before she can stop them.

“Never mind,” she says, scrubbing at her eyes and turning toward the door, “Forget I said anything. It doesn’t matter, apparently.”

With that, she barrels toward the door, narrowly missing running into Lan Wangji on her way out, and shoves her way to freedom, where she finds Fairy and escapes to the farthest corner of Lotus Pier she can think of, not thinking twice of the people she left behind. Lan Wangji silently follows, shooting one final disdainful scowl at Jiang Cheng before he does, watching her run and chasing after her with long, confident strides, not running even when there were no rules against it. He would find her in time.

Back with Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, the two are locked in a silent standoff, the atmosphere tense as they stare each other down. Jiang Cheng goes to break the silence first, seemingly content to keep yelling and berating Wei Wuxian, but he is interrupted before he can articulate anything by a cold, livid voice.

“Seriously?” Wei Wuxian demands, hands balled up into fists beside him. “I thought you of all people would accept her.”

“Keep your voice down!” Jiang Cheng snaps, eyes widening in panic as Zidian sparks.

“What? Did I say something wrong?” Wei Wuxian tilts his head in a mockery of confusion, allowing his high ponytail to swish with the movement. “Everyone knows how much you dote on her.”

“You know what you said,” he mutters, his fierce tone lowered to be heard by only them and nobody else, risking nothing. Wei Wuxian takes note of the genuine fear he must have struck to get him to monitor his volume as guilt bubbles in his throat, prompting an apology that he swallows without hesitation. This wasn’t the time to consider tact, especially when Jiang Cheng himself seemed to care little for it. He does, however, lower his voice to match; if he had to be respectful of anything at all when it came to Jiang Cheng, it was this.

“It doesn’t matter,” Wei Wuxian says, forcing them to stay on track, “Your niece just told you something important and you still found a way to make it about me.”

“It was already about you,” Jiang Cheng snaps. “If she hadn’t gone to you first-”

“She might not have said anything at all.”

“Bullshit!”

“She came to me because she was scared of this exact situation,” Wei Wuxian explains, trying to keep himself calm when all he wanted to do was snap and lash out in defense. He didn’t care how much Jiang Cheng despised him and wanted to blame him for everything; the moment it bled into other issues and started affecting their niece was the moment he stopped tolerating such unfairness. “But that’s not what this is about. This is about Jin Ling. And now she’s crying somewhere because you didn't care enough to say what she needed to hear.”

Jiang Cheng opens his mouth to argue, but finds nothing to say, instead gaping at Wei Wuxian with an unreadable expression on his face, something between his usual anger and stunned regret. It was a familiar look, and Wei Wuxian turned away before he could ponder it any further; how unfortunate that so many of their meetings resulted in this, an old heartbreak that lingered or perhaps was aggravated again in the heat of the moment and left both of them with gashes they would tend to alone, when the other was safely absent for their grief.

“I’m going to go find your niece and my husband,” Wei Wuxian says, promptly turning around without another word and stalking out of the room; he truthfully had no idea where either of them had gone, but he needed to bow out of the conversation before saying anything that would get Jin Ling in trouble. Though he trusted Jiang Cheng enough not to hold it against her, he’d rather not plant that seed and later regret it when it sprouted.

Meanwhile, somewhere on the other side of Lotus Pier, Jin Ling paces while Lan Wangji watches, his eyes tracing her steps as she halts, walks in a circle or two, and pauses again. She had retrieved Fairy, who was nervously following at her heel while she tried to dry her tears and shake off the crushing feeling of rejection. A sob chokes her as she tries to imagine facing her uncle again now that she had told him; she can’t imagine him suddenly caring more about her feelings after having a screaming match with Wei Wuxian, which she was positive was the only outcome to putting them both in a room after such a tense confrontation.

“What am I supposed to do?” She wails, scrubbing at her eyes and turning on her heel. “He didn’t care at all. What does that even mean? Does he believe me? What if he thinks I’m just making it up or that it’ll go away? How am I supposed to face him after this?”
She spares Lan Wangji a quick glance, gauging if his expression had changed form his typical blankness, and upon seeing that it hadn’t, continues to rant.

“How could he say that? Doesn’t he know how much this meant to me? I never should have told him. I can’t believe I was tricked into thinking it might go well. He doesn’t understand these things; I doubt he ever will. What if he thinks of me differently? What if he disowns me?”

Lan Wangji cuts in, “He will not.”

“How do you know?” She snaps.

“He cares.”

“He literally said he didn’t.”

“About you.”

“Clearly not enough,” she huffs; she’s being unreasonable and petty, she knows, but she can’t help it. There’s a cooldown period after every outburst she has where she allows herself to be a worse version of herself, a spoiled brat who voices even the most irrational of trivial grievances that eventually recedes when she manages to purge the bitterness from her system; once it’s all out, she can return to business as usual, but she has to put it somewhere.

Her life really must be going to shit if she’s venting it all to Hanguang-Jun of all people.

“I just… I dunno… I wanted this to go better,” she sniffs. “Is that too much to ask?”

He hums in response, a vague noise that could be taken to mean anything. She sighs and plops down on the floor with her back to the wall, hugging her knees to her chest as Fairy curls up beside her. She had been around for so many breakdowns and tantrums throughout her master’s life, and this time was no different; her duties were to protect her master when in danger and stand beside her when there wasn’t, and she intended to do just that.

“Was it this hard for you?” she asks. “With your uncle. About Wei-qianbei, I mean.”

A moment of contemplative silence passes between them and for a moment, she worries that she’s said something wrong, or perhaps he intended to ignore her question outright instead of declining to answer or dodging it as Wei Wuxian might. She shifts in her spot, adjusting her robes and running her fingers through Fairy’s thick fur before he moves to reply, taking a deep breath before her says, “I never had to do what you just did.”

She blinks at him, processing his words as she continues to fuss over Fairy, fiddling with the dog’s tail and scratching behind her ears as they sink in. “But you’re a cutsleeve. That isn’t…” she trails off, trying to phrase it as casually and respectfully as possible. “...how people usually are. You’d have to have told them at some point.”

“‘Gossip is forbidden’, ‘do not speak ill of others’, ‘embrace the entirety of the world’,” he recites, turning to her and making meaningful eye contact. “One cannot embrace the world if differences are ostracized; if there is any judgment, it would not be spoken or dwelled upon. The risk you took outweighed the one I did. For facing it, you are very brave.”

He looks away once he has finished talking, staring at the far all again with his perfect posture contrasting her slumped form. She sniffs, “Doesn’t feel very brave to run away immediately after doing it.”

He doesn’t reply, having said all he felt he needed to. Another puzzled minute passes before she speaks up again, hesitant but curious and loosening up around him despite everything. “But I thought your sect hated that you married Wei-qianbei?”

“Not because he is a man,” Lan Wangji explains, “but because he is Wei Ying.”

It makes sense, she figures. Any sect would be pissed about their heir marrying the infamous Yiling Laozu; the Lans weren’t special in that regard. Still, she had never pondered that there existed a place where cut sleeves wouldn’t be shunned and rejected, likely because of her own prejudices that she had recently overcome as well as influence from her two family sects. It simply didn’t seem possible; now, it seemed rather absurd that it wasn’t the norm.

Disheartened, she hugs her knees to her chest, resting her chin between them and sighing as Fairy cuddles up to her side. Now she would have to wait until either she saw Jiang Cheng by chance or one of them broke the standoff and approached the other first; seeing as she had run away, she would probably need to instigate their next meeting no matter how much she dreaded it. For now, though, she was content to sulk and mope and pout until she had her fill of self-pity and swallowed her pride to seek out her uncle.

Evidently, the confrontation would happen earlier than she thought it would, as a knock sounds from the door before Jiang Cheng’s voice filters in, “A-Ling? Are you in there?”

She freezes, glancing at Lan Wangji, who shoots a stern look at the door before glancing at her. His face betrays nothing of his internal process, allowing her to take charge and decide if she is ready to take on the upcoming conversation. With little else to lose, she calls back, in a shaky voice hoarse from crying, “Yeah, jiujiu. I am.”

Standing and wiping her eyes, Jin Ling takes a deep breath as she prepares herself to open the door; behind her, Lan Wangji stands as well, not even needing to smooth out his pristine robes for them to be perfectly unwrinkled, and waits for her to open the door herself. She takes a calming breath to steel herself before cracking the door open to see Jiang Cheng standing behind it, his arms crossed with a conflicted expression that only grows more upset when he sees her puffy eyes and damp cheeks.

She opens the door further, stepping aside to let him in while Lan Wangji watches from the sidelines.

“Jin Ling,” Jiang Cheng says, staring her down. She crosses her arms and raises her chin, staring right back. Jiang Cheng sighs, hanging his head as he mutters, “I owe you an explanation.”

“What else?”

“Watch your tone, young lady,” he snaps. Zidian sparks on his finger and Lan Wangji steps in in an instant, gripping his sword and glaring Jiang Cheng down like he’s been waiting for the provocation to justify an attack.

“Fine,” Jiang Cheng acquiesces. “And an apology.”

Jin Ling looks him up and down. His posture isn’t as proud as he usually is; he keeps shifting his weight from one foot to another, doesn’t make eye contact, and keeps his arms crossed defensively. Their stances are mirrored, she realizes. Maybe he carries the same apprehension she does.

“I only said all that because-” Jiang Cheng glances at Lan Wangji, whohas not backed down. “I assumed that you might- What the hell, does he have to be right here for this?”

Lan Wangji, who had only shifted closer, looks over to Jin Ling for any indication one way or another. If she wants him to leave, he will. If she wants him to stay, he will. It all depends on what she’s comfortable with. At the end of the day, as angry as she is with him, he’s still her jiujiu. She trusts him with anything, even in moments like this. Nodding, she watches Lan Wangji back away and exit the room in silence, barely sparing Jiang Cheng a second glance. Jiang Cheng mutters something under his breath.

"Better?" she asks.

“Much.”

Neither of them is eager to continue this discussion, so the conversation dies for a moment, an uncomfortable hush swallowing them. She refuses to give into the pressure though, so she waits for him to gather his thoughts. A few moments pass before he sighs, “Jin Ling. I said a lot of stuff back there that you clearly didn’t like.”

“You told me you didn’t care!” she snaps.

“Because I don’t. It makes no difference to me whether you’re my nephew or my niece and I’ll stand by that.” He hangs his head, raising a hand to rub his temples in frustration. “We’re getting off topic.”

“I think we’re perfectly on topic,” Jin Ling says petulantly. “You made me upset and you’re not even taking it back.”

“What else am I supposed to say?”

“Anything else? Maybe give me comfort, or reassurance, anything? I thought if Wei-qianbei could figure it out, then you might be able to. Guess I was wrong.”

It’s a petty move comparing him to Wei Wuxian, but it’s something she knows will connect without fail and hurt with all the impact of an electric whip. Jiang Cheng visibly freezes, his expression growing more enraged before he restrains himself with a frustrated sigh. The sight of his barely restrained rage is a familiar one, but the visual of him winning against his temper is a rare one, which is exactly what she is treated to in that moment. It startles her out of her rage, watching him swallow down his pride before he speaks again.

“The only reason I said all that was because it’s what I wished my parents would have said to me when I told them.”

A moment passes as she processes his words, though she can’t seem to figure out what he’s implying with it, confused by the statement and how heavily it seemed to weigh on Jiang Cheng’s mind.

“Oh great,” she says, feeling like she missed something entirely, “now my grandparents are disappointed in me, too? What, were you in the ancestral hall or something?” Jiang Cheng squints at her in confusion, baffled by her response before he sighs with a harsh eye roll that she suspects might have given him a headache as he puts his head in his hands before leveling her with another incredulous stare.

“When I told them about me,” he corrects.

“What about you?”

“For fuck’s sake,” Jiang Cheng sighs again, making a show of his frustration, as usual, before he elaborates even further, “Jin Ling. I’m like you.”

The silence that settles over them is full of tension, Jiang Cheng visibly nervous to disclose such information while Jin Ling picks out how to respond. What can she possibly say to relieve all this anxiety?

“Oh.”

“Oh?” Jiang Cheng laughs. “See? It’s hard isn’t it?”

Her cheeks heat up at the teasing and she stutters out, “It- it’s different with you! You’re- well- you’re…” She trails off, watching his expression harden a little in the face of her confusion as if disappointed in her fumble.

“I’m what?”

“My jiujiu,” she settles. He nods sternly, uncrossing his arms. At least that’s out of the way.

“Damn right.”

Another hush falls over them, shrouding them in ambiguous stillness that bursts with energy all the same, a nervous openness to further questioning that Jin Ling doesn’t know what to do with. She has so many things to ask she’s practically bursting with it but the walls Jiang Cheng puts up are usually so high that to see them come down is startling.

“So that’s why Wei-qianbei told me you’d support me,” she mutters instead of leading with a question, trying to keep a respectful distance while inching closer to him. It dawns on her that Wei Wuxian had known this about Jiang Cheng this whole time and had directed her to talk to him not out of misguided faith but because he was the person who would understand her the most. The fact that he had let Jiang Cheng tell his own secret is not lost on her, nor is his claim about his parents. “Did… did they really respond so terribly?”

“They,” he sighs, collecting himself and finding the words to explain, “they didn’t get it. They let it happen but they weren’t happy about it.”

“And… What about my mom?” Jin Ling asks, scared to have the answer but desperate to know all the same. Jiang Cheng’s gaze softens as he turns to look at her.

“She acknowledged it and offered me soup since I seemed so upset,” he says before reaching out to her to rest a heavy hand on her shoulder. The weight is comforting, a grounding presence especially in the face of such an emotional discussion. “And I know that if she were here for you to tell her too, she would tell you that she is so proud to have you as her daughter.”

Jin Ling didn’t think she would be able to cry anymore, though her body seems insistent on proving her wrong as tears spill over for what felt like the millionth time since she had stepped into the Cloud Recesses a few days prior. Jiang Cheng wipes one away but allows the others to fall when she reaches up to wipe her cheeks herself, obscuring her face with her hands but making no move to quell the choked sounds of her cries that fill the empty room. Fairy curls up by her feet, nudging her shoe with her snout in worry.

“What about my dad?” She asks, her voice hoarse from all the arguing and crying she’d done already. This time, Jiang Cheng’s silence is less open and more stiff, a cautious silence born from the desire to not say anything upsetting. “Jiujiu, what about my dad?”

“He’d- he wouldn’t do anything to oppose your mother,” Jiang Cheng says in that clumsy way of his that means he has nothing polite to say about Jin Zixuan. “If you told him, he might be confused, but at the end of the day, you’re a piece of Yanli too; he’d still love you with all his heart, son or daughter.”

She nods, looking down in barely suppressed disappointment. It was no secret that Jiang Cheng and Jin Zixuan hadn’t necessarily gotten along when they were younger; this kind of vagueness wasn’t anything she wasn’t used to, though she can’t help the way it stings to not know if her father might secretly have been disappointed in her if he’d made it this long. That mystery was a pervasive one, a creeping suspicion that she had never quite managed to overcome even after all this time of knowing that she will never have an answer she will be satisfied with.

“What did Wei-qianbei say?” she asks, more out of curiosity than anything else.

“I believe his exact words were, ‘I’ve always wanted a brother.’” Jiang Cheng looks away with that wistful look he always got when discussing that particular aspect of his past. “Let me guess: he called you his niece and made fun of you when you cried about it?”

“Who said I cried?” She huffs, wiping down her damp cheeks with a haughty sigh. Across from her, Jiang Cheng watches her with fondness in his eyes, though he doesn’t quite smile.

“I’m proud of you. You know that?”

“Shut up!” she shouts, preemptively covering her face just in case her eyes begin leaking again.

“Watch your tone, young lady; don’t tell me to shut up!”

She laughs at the familiarity of it, perhaps relieved that they can go back to their usual banter, adjusted for the news, of course, with no fracture in their relationship, at least she hopes so. When she uncovers her eyes, she sees Jiang Cheng standing in front of her with tension in his posture, clearly still worried about something, though he seems wary about bringing it up first.

“I’m not mad anymore,” she clarifies. “I’m just a little tired.”

“Well stop that,” Jiang Cheng says, confusing Jin Ling momentarily before he continues, “We’re getting you some new robes and you’re going to talk to your mother. We’ll avoid encountering anyone on our way to the ancestral hall but I won’t have you walking around in those Jin robes any longer.”

She smiles, but feels hesitant about indulging in such frivolous desires so soon. She isn’t sure how she’ll look in girl robes, first of all, or if it’ll feel right; she isn’t sure she’s ready for anyone outside of who she’s already told to know, either. When she voices her concerns, Jiang Cheng huffs, “Cut the crap. You’ll never know until you do it so stop being afraid of it. We’ve still got your mother’s clothes stored in her old room.”

Jin Ling’s eyes widen. “You’re not seriously giving me her robes for this.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Jin Ling stutters over her words trying to articulate her worries before settling on, “they’re hers.”

Jiang Cheng meets her eyes and within his, she can see the same ache; it must pain him to give them away to Jin Ling, too; she isn’t sure why he’s so insistent upon dressing her in Jiang Yanli’s clothes if it really pains them both to do so. “Because they aren’t serving any other purpose. And besides,” he takes a breath, steadying his voice, “you’re her daughter. She should have a part in dressing you up, too.”

So Jin Ling allows herself to be pulled along into her mother’s old room to root through old boxes and find an outfit that might fit her, changing behind a screen and emerging with excitement to race to the mirror. Jiang Cheng stops her before she can see her reflection, however, and she whips around to demand an explanation when he holds up a comb, gesturing her to turn around so he can brush through her hair. Impatiently, she glares at the corner of the mirror still in her line of sight while his hands card through her long locks, and she feels his fingers tying together a braid. She remembers every portrait of her mother seeing braids in her hair.

When he’s done, she stands and walks over to the mirror, slowing as she approaches it before closing her eyes and stepping in front of the glass, only opening them when she is certain she will see her reflection front and center when she does.

Opening her eyes, she is greeted to the sight of Jiang Yanli, only with a crimson dot on her forehead and slightly different features; her jaw is sharper and her brow is set firmer, but unmistakably, she is there in the eyes. Jin Ling gasps and watches Jiang Yanli do the same, only to watch as her mother disappears and her reflection is recontextualized into being only Jin Ling. Jin Ling with Jiang Cheng behind her, his eyes misty as he watches her turn side to side in her robes, adjusting the bodice that’s a little loose and the sash that sits on her waist.

The light purples and lavenders she is draped with are light and flowy, perfect for the heat of Lotus Pier, but also feminine and gentle in appearance. Jin Ling watches the Jin Ling in the mirror smile before she feels it on her own face, suddenly shy of how bright her grin is. Jin Ling is happier than she’s ever been watching herself embody the presence of a young lady.

“Happy?” Jiang Cheng asks. She looks up at him in the mirror, watching him watch her with wet eyes.

She says nothing, only nodding, moving to look herself in the eye again. In her reflection, she grins so wide it hurts; in her reflection, she is new but ultimately familiar. With her uncle behind her and dressed in her mother’s clothes, she doesn’t think she’s felt this at home in so long, if ever before. After a few more moments of staring, Jiang Cheng speaks up again.

“You should go talk to your mother.”

“Okay,” she whispers. Though the prospect of having to talk to Jiang Yanli with no way of receiving an answer is scary, she is hopeful. If she accepted Jiang Cheng so swiftly, she would surely love Jin Ling as much as she always might have. It hurts knowing she never got to know Jin Ling at all, not really, but there’s comfort in knowing that she at least wouldn’t waver in her love even now. Her father… well, she’d just have to accept the unknown. At least she has this.

She almost wonders what Jin Guangyao would have said before pushing any thoughts of him out of her mind. It would hurt too much to ponder.

She follows Jiang Cheng through the empty paths of Lotus Pier, deliberately avoiding any people they might encounter to get to the ancestral hall. Stepping inside alone, she listens to Jiang Cheng back off to allow her space to speak just the two of them, daughter to mother. She goes through the motions of properly honoring the dead before speaking. She murmurs quiet confessions to ears that listen beyond the grave, hoping that Jiang Yanli will be happy to hear from her.

Outside, Jiang Cheng watches Jin Ling kneel. From behind, it looks an awful lot like the days when Jiang Yanli would speak to their parents, devastated by their loss but never allowing it to show to her little brother despite all the growing up he’d done. He wipes his eyes as footsteps approach. Two sets, one he recognizes from years of familiarity and one he doesn’t but knows would never separate from the other.

“Shijie,” Wei Wuxian whispers as his steps falter.

“It’s Jin Ling. I sent her to speak with her mother,” Jiang Cheng sniffs. “I didn’t realize she looks so much like her when she smiles.”

“And the dress?”

“She looked like a Jin boy. I figured she’d be more comfortable like this. Jie probably would’ve wanted to dress her up herself, so this is the least I could do to make up for her absence.” The words come out more acidic than he intends, not that he moves to correct it. He’s bitter, and neither of them are going to apologize for anything earlier, not to each other. Wei Wuxian falls silent for a moment but does not retreat. Jin Ling has fallen silent where she sits, he can tell from her stillness. She rises and turns back to him.

Across the path, Jiang Yanli smiles at him, a little sad but otherwise genuine. Across the path, Jin Ling finishes up in the ancestral hall and makes her way back to Jiang Cheng. She isn’t used to the fit of the robes yet; she keeps adjusting the draping and the bodice and all the parts of it she would have no experience wearing. She isn’t graceful. But she’s happy, and that means so much more.

When she gets closer, Wei Wuxian steps forward, a small smile on his face. Jin Ling seems awkward, unsure of how to proceed with the two of them in front of her in an apparent ceasefire. Bowing her head, she mumbles something under her breath, which Wei Wuxian loudly comments on by asking to know what she had said. Her face turns a bright shade of pink and she looks away as she mutters, “Thank you.”

“Come on, Jin Ling, no need for that,” Wei Wuxian says with a smile. Jiang Cheng isn’t quite sure how to respond to that, so he doesn’t. Instead he changes the topic entirely.

“Who else knows?”

Jin Ling sighs, tired and worn out by the events of the day as she says, “Wei Wuxian, Hanguang-jun, Jingyi, Sizhui, and Zizhen.”

“Brat,” Jiang Cheng scoffs. “Telling your friends before me.”

“For good reason.”

“Watch your mouth.”

Beside them, Wei Wuxian laughs, trying to ease the tension between them all. After his bark of mirth, he throws his arm around her shoulder and leans in conspiratorially to whisper to Jin Ling, “See? I told you he’d support you.”

Jiang Cheng doesn’t respond to that either. After so much distance, so much scorn, so many tragedies, Wei Wuxian having even the slightest amount of faith in him threatens the delicate balance they’ve found. It almost hurts to see their brotherly knowledge of one another play into their dynamic once more, but he shoves it down. His niece needs him to not lash out again. Jin Ling must see his discomfort too; she crosses her arms defensively and glares at Wei Wuxian, though she does not try to shrug him off.

“So? I didn’t need you to tell me that.”

Instead of replying, he pulls Jin Ling closer into a side hug, which she does not reciprocate. Meanwhile, Jiang Cheng moves to say something to Wei Wuxian, probably telling him to back off, when he is pulled into the hug by Wei Wuxian as well. He stiffens, sighs, and puts a hand on Jin Ling’s back, neither resisting nor fully giving in. Can’t let Wei Wuxian get everything he wants, after all.

Despite the slight discomfort, despite the awkward proximity, it’s nice. The other two might have their issues, and maybe that’ll never go away, but Jin Ling knows if there’s anything that can inspire peace and agreement, it is her happiness. Something in her chest blossoms at the realization that, in every way, she is surrounded by love for her true self in whatever form it may take.

There’s still a long way to go. If she ever wants the respect of the jianghu, she would have to fight for it tooth and nail, but she wouldn’t have to do it alone. She has friends and family there to stand beside her throughout the battle, however hard it may be. Whatever the future brings, she is ready to face it despite all the unknowns lurking in the shadows.

For right now though, she is allowed to rest. For right now, all that matters is this hug, her friends in Gusu, and her mother’s dress draping her in fine lavender fabric. It’s a little uncomfortable. She’ll need to grow into it. But most importantly, it feels like home.