Chapter Text
Once, Lan Wangji knew there was a place in the world where he belonged.
Once, he would cocoon himself in the warmth of Mother's lap, Brother's fingers twined with his as he felt himself embraced and safe.
Until one day, Mother stopped opening her door for him.
"A child does not understand grief as their elders do," Lan Wangji had heard one of the older healers say to Uncle, after he was caught kneeling in front of Mother's house, "He doesn't yet understand that his mother is not coming back, and that's why he waits."
And perhaps Lan Wangji didn't understand, not in the way that Brother and Father did - The only other two who grieved for Mother. But Lan Wangji had understood the loss of that place of safety and belonging, of his place in the world.
"This can not go on, Wangji," Uncle, who must have understood it in yet another way still, had said to him - Even when Lan Wangji had tried to explain the magnitude of his loss, words slippery on his young mouth.
"When you grow up, you are to be the heir and future of this Clan. Your world is bigger than your mother's house, than your sadness of her passing."
Embrace the entirety of the world, Lan Wangji writes over and over, the line becoming familiar to him every time he is caught kneeling in front of Mother's house. Until he stops coming altogether, and the line is chiseled into his heart.
And so Lan Wangji's world expands - To sword forms and scriptures and the quiet, steady rhythm of the Cloud Recesses. To the hum of strings beneath his fingers and the flow of things unseen by others. To righteousness and duty and responsibility towards his Clan and the people under its care. He knows he does not entirely belong, that many of his edges fit poorly here despite the awe and reverence his every step brings, but it suffices. He has a place in the world once again, a home.
And as he had not been able to do with the house with the Gentian flowers, with Mother, he would do anything to keep his home safe.
—ooo—
Lan Wangji would do anything to keep his home safe. And so after the last of the Wens finally departed, he crawls into the embrace of Lan Yi's caves - A terrible hollowness where his core used to be, wrenched away by Wen Zhuliu's blazing hands.
Father is gone, Uncle barely hangs on to life, and Brother is lost. The Cloud Recesses is a charred husk and Lan Wangji himself is an empty shell, not even fit for a trophy of the Wen's victory.
He knows that his world is a narrow, cruel one. That his birth had granted him much, but the blazing core that had been inside him had granted him so much more. To have it wrenched away means the world he knew and wanted to protect is closed off forever to him, means being carefully placed aside to watch and regret.
But have courage, the lines chiseled into his heart says. Have knowledge. Like this, with the carefully arranged parts of his world burned one by one, it is all he has. A war is coming, and somehow, he has to protect what is left of his home with what is left of himself.
He wonders what Wei Ying would say, were he to see Lan Wangji now. Wonders if it's his memory of Wei Ying who brought him here, where the Yin iron had dwelled for hundreds of years - an object of power so devastating that he could still feel its resonance in the stones beneath his feet.
But the Yin iron had not been the only thing sealed within the cave. Lan Yi, whose power was such that she felt she could master it, had also been here in her self-imposed exile, with only her guqin for company.
Now, the strings hum beneath Lan Wangji's fingers with grief and anguish, with a hollowness that echoes the one inside himself.
Resentful energy is still energy, Wei Ying had said, what feels like a lifetime ago. But here, in the depths of Lan Yi's loneliness, Lan Wangji finds that one could go deeper. There is no resentful energy in the carefully warded Cloud Recesses, but even after resentment burns away, there is grief and loss. There is pain.
Of which, both Lan Wangji and his home has plenty to spare.
—ooo—
Lan Wangji emerges from the caves with Lan Yi's grief wreathed around him, like an invisible mantle. He gathers the scattered Disciples and gives them the simple, comforting structure of chores and responsibilities. He takes care of Uncle, who reprimands him for not carrying Bichen after an attack that nearly cost them everything. He rebuilds what he can, until the ground beneath his feet stopped feeling like it would crumble at any moment. He stays silent on the hollowness inside him, lest he is deemed unable to fight, unable to protect.
When Wen Qing appears with his brother on the gates - pale and worn but otherwise unharmed - Lan Wangji finally feels his world settle. It's still a broken, barely mended thing, but his brother is here. His brother, who had held his hand as he waited for Mother's doors to open, who knew his words even before he has to say them.
"We are forever in your debt," Lan Wangji bows, uncaring if his voice trembles. Wen Qing had been a friend during her stay in the Cloud Recesses, a foreign concept for both of them then - Lan Wangji in his silence and the Wen maiden in her sharpness - Both of them full of mismatched edges that nevertheless settled into a quiet companionship.
"You would have done the same, if A-Ning had been the one missing," Wen Qing says, from underneath the unassuming shade of her hood "Your brother was lucky. But the coming days would require more than luck."
He knows of Wen Ruohan's puppets, fueled by resentment and the might of the Yin iron. Knows that it would take nothing for him to raise whole battlefields of such puppets, knows how easy it would be for the whole world to burn as Cloud Recesses did.
"I have never seen anything like it," Brother whispers, a hardness in his face that he barely ever sees. Lan Wangji wonders how he himself looks, hopes that Brother won't recognize the hollowness inside him in his eyes. "I'm afraid we truly have to fight, Wangji."
Lan Wangji would do anything for his home, but now his home expands wider still, as the red sun threatens to eclipse all of the world that he knows.
—ooo—
The first time Lan Wangji uses Lan Yi's guqin, he turns the tide of a losing battle on the Qinghe borders - A riverport city severely undermanned despite its key position on the water trade route. Grief already drenches the red-stained earth where he stands, and it's almost too easy to draw the fallen spirits to his bidding - Cold, silent wraiths that descends upon the army of puppets and Wen soldiers like mountain mist.
The Nie soldiers behind him had nearly turned tail before they realize that they themselves are in no danger, before they realize that the host of spirits wreaking silent havoc on the battle is his - theirs. Their victory is quiet and subdued, only the soft chords of his guqin echoing through the fields as countless spirits rises to the air like fireflies, painting the darkening skies with light that eventually dims one by one.
Thank you, he strums, to the souls whose grief and pain he had borrowed. And then.
Forgive me.
—ooo—
The battlefield of the Sunshot Campaign is wide and ever-changing, and Lan Wangji uses it to his advantage, flitting from one place to the next, avoiding questions and scrutiny as he moves to wherever the fighting is the thickest.
Wei Ying, however, has never been something he's ever been able to avoid.
It's barely his second month in the front before Wei Ying finds him, somewhere deep in Henan - A vital mining town that could mean less raw materials for Qishan. Even with the Wens' armor and robes, Lan Wangji notices the red flash of Wei Ying's ribbon amidst the chaos, notices Wei Ying's gaze lock on him as the other man tries to hold back the seemingly endless onslaught of Puppets.
When the first spirits answer his call, Lan Wangji can see Suibian falter, Wei Ying's eyes snapping to him briefly before the spirits join the battle. The next thing he knows, Wei Ying had mounted his blade, sweeping above the battlefield with a barrage of talismans to corral Wen Ruohan's puppets closer to where most of Lan Wangji's spirits converge.
Wei Ying stays with him as the battlefield burns down to a silent carnage, as Lan Wangji sends his borrowed souls to rest. He is silent beside Lan Wangji, eyes roving over their own men, one hand on Suibian's hilt - As if daring anyone to stop Lan Wangji, to question the macabre means of their victory.
No one had ever dared, even when it had been Lan Wangji alone.
Wei Ying stays close to him as they make sure the town gates are well-defended, that there are enough men posted on the mine entrances, before finally ushering him into one of the empty rooms provided for them. Lan Wangji supposes he can simply walk away, tell Wei Ying to get lost as he did in his now distant youth.
He doesn't.
"Lan Zhan," Wei Ying says, when he's closed the door behind them, a hastily-drawn ward settling over the room, "That was resentful energy. You used resentful energy."
"Yes," Lan Wangji answers, because he does not lie, even now. And not when it's Wei Ying, he realizes. Not Wei Ying, who had not stopped him in the midst of battle, even when he's more aware than anyone else of just what Lan Wangji is doing. Wei Ying, who is the other half of his soul in this world, to whom he would gladly give the world were it in his power.
"Wei Ying saw, what the Wens are capable of," he carries on, before he loses his words, "It's something I have to do."
Wei Ying's mind is the brightest he's ever encountered - Embracing possibilities the way he embraces everyone around him - And for a moment Lan Wangji can see that mind picking apart his words as they stay facing each other.
"Is there any adverse effect? This is what Teacher Lan has always been on about, right? Does it do you any active harm?"
Wei Ying's eyes are direct and earnest upon him, and Lan Wangji realizes that it has been weeks, months, since anyone had looked him in the eye. Vaguely, he thinks that perhaps any attempt to deflect, to simply push the other man away would have been doomed from the start when it's with Wei Ying.
"There is the risk of build-up in one's body, yes," it's not exactly the truth, but Wei Ying doesn't need to know that there is nothing else running through his decaying meridians but the clinging flow of grief and resentment. "But proper meditation disperses some of it."
"Some of it. What about your Clan's songs? Do those help?"
"I don't yet know. I haven't been…able to try it."
"That makes sense, you can't play to balance yourself because the excess yin energy is coming from you," Wei Ying nods, in that way he does when he is figuring something out, "And come to think of it, most of your songs are keyed in for abnormal Qi movements, not resentful energy - So we might have to tweak it around a bit, otherwise it would probably be useless."
Lan Wangji had expected a reprimand - Disappointment or perhaps disgust. But he should have known that this is Wei Ying, who comprehends the world as a set of questions instead of a set of rules.
"Teach me how to play for you," Wei Ying says, his mouth set into a firm, determined line, "I'm no good with a guqin, but if you teach me the basic foundations then I can transpose it to the dizi and we can go from there to find what works."
"Wei Ying -"
"Would you rather I stop you?" A hand shoots out to grip his arm, and Lan Wangji almost flinches, almost leans into the touch a moment later, the hollowness in him suddenly a vast, gnawing thing in the face of this simple contact, "Fuck, Lan Zhan, even I know it's dangerous. But if you're doing this, then I want you safe. We'll figure this out together, okay?"
Lan Wangji nods, even as Wei Ying rambles on and he listens, almost in a daze. We, Wei Ying had said. And amidst the cold grief that shrouds him, the word is a tiny, flickering thing of warmth.
—ooo—
Hanguang-Jun, they call him, as he sweeps through the war front with his host of spirits - Wei Ying's black-clad form like a shadow that flits around him. The Light-Bringer, for the white, flickering wraiths that rises up to the call of his guqin, that lights up the skies as he brings them to rest.
Hanguang-Jun, they thank him, even as his own men keep their distance, as the war council finally catches up with him and Brother looks at him with a weariness ill-suited to his usually serene face.
"It's not safe," Brother says yet again, as if merely reciting passages of their precepts, "Resentful energy harms the body and the mind. You know this, Wangji."
"It is necessary," Lan Wangji maintains, Wei Ying hovering warily beside him - A mirror to Nie Mingjue's steadfast presence on his brother's side, "Xiongzhang knows this, as well."
Hanguang-Jun, the men bow to him as Nie Mingjue finally folds and sends them to yet another battlefront, even as they eye him with an uncertain mixture of awe and fear.
The one who brings light also has the power to take it away. Lan Wangji does not fault them for being afraid.
—ooo—
Wei Ying's mind is the brightest Lan Wangji has ever encountered, because it never takes anything at face value. He prods and questions, circles everything for an opening, for something to solve, to fix. Lan Wangji thinks this is why Wei Ying reads him so well, notices the subtle shifts of his countenance while others merely see perfectly carved jade.
"Lan Zhan," Wei Ying whispers in the tent they've taken to sharing, cots pressed together so close that sometimes Lan Wangji would wake to Wei Ying's breath warm against his skin, "After all this is done, do you really have to go back to Gusu?"
Lan Wangji turns his gaze from the canvas ceiling to see Wei Ying, the other man's own gaze somber upon the white guqin laid beside him. His breath catches, almost falters with the knowing in those eyes.
Of course, he thinks. Of course Wei Ying would know. Wei Ying, who had been with him in the cold of the caves, who had also bowed to Lan Yi and received the last words of her sorrowful legacy.
Wei Ying, who has always read him so well. Too well.
"I cultivate a dangerous path," he says, after a measure of terrible silence between them, "But it is also a powerful one. And when the war is over, it would be unwise for this kind of power to be out in the open, the same way the Yin iron had been."
Lan Wangji trails his gaze back to the ceiling, afraid of what he'll find in Wei Ying's eyes, afraid of what he'll do, when he does find it, "This is why I have to go back to Gusu."
So the knowledge will die with him, sealed deep in the cold caves of the Cloud Recesses.
"Lan Zhan," there is anguish, foreign and strange in Wei Ying's voice - For him, he realizes. Lan Wangji squeezes his eyes shut, "Lan Zhan, you can't just-"
Wei Ying's hand finds his, warm and solid and almost too much, and Lan Wangji doesn't open his eyes.
"There has to be a way," he says, "We'll find a way, Lan Zhan."
"If Wei Ying thinks so," he finally replies, even as he knows it to be impossible. Even as his heart tightens in his chest - stutters at the word again, we, "We'll find a way."
He hopes that for now, Wei Ying believes him.
—ooo—
They trudge from one point of the war map to another, from battlefield to battlefield, leaving mountains of corpses in their wake and lighting up the sky with the souls of countless dead. And as the months grow, so does the whispers, the distance his own men draw from him.
Only Wei Ying stays ever close, shoulders almost touching as they walk, as he plays his dizi for him at night, hands warm as he bestows easy touches that Lan Wangji has come to crave.
He is cold, without his Core - The chill of Lan Yi's cave settling in the empty, gnawing hole where it used to be. He is cold in a way he never knew a person could be cold before, and with Wei Ying's every touch Lan Wangji is tempted, so tempted to simply fall into his warmth in his entirety, to simply let Wei Ying engulf him and never let go.
"Lan Zhan," Wei Ying says in the dark, blood still under the fingernails of their intertwined hands. So close now to the Nightless City, to the end, "Come back to Yunmeng with me. It's warm there, Lan-er-gege won't ever be cold anymore."
Without his Core, Lan Wangji thinks that he will never be warm ever again. But here, safe in the warmth of Wei Ying's closeness, Lan Wangji wants to believe him.
—ooo—
The war ends in the white fires wrought from his guqin, and Lan Wangji finds himself taking Wei Ying's hand - Letting the other man lead him from the wreckage of the Nightless City to the warm embrace of Yunmeng's sunlight.
Uncle is incensed, sending strongly worded letters that Wei Ying plucks from his hand and tosses aside into the dark waters that runs beneath Lotus Pier. It speaks of the same thing every time - That Lan Wangji is a disgrace to his Clan and ancestors to have used Lan Yi's own guqin in such a way, that the council of Elders are calling for penance, that Gusu Lan's name has to suffer the indignity of being associated with the crooked path. The words hurt even after everything, even after Lan Wangji's insides are hollowed out and stuffed full of grief in it place.
There are other letters. Worried pleas from Brother and honeyed ones from the newly-instated Jin Guangyao to consider Brother's difficult position. Anxious prodding from Sects big and small, all the questions of his cultivation methods the Cultivation world didn't have time nor courage to ask when they were mired in blood and desperation during the war, slowly flooding the ground beneath him like an autumnal deluge.
Wei Ying doesn't ask anything of him.
He never asks of Lan Yi's guqin, or if Lan Wangji plans to continue with the path he's cultivated during the war. Never asks why Bichen lies untouched in his quarters, why he only uses Wangji to play light melodies and lullabies for the youngest denizens of Lotus Pier. He knows that Wei Ying is waiting, knows that despite his quick whims and quicker mouth, Wei Ying is infinitely patient when it comes to the people he cares about. Lan Wangji tries not to think too deeply on how at the end of that wait, his answer would come as the last time they would see each other.
And so Lan Wangji spends his days with Wei Ying, traverses the sunny walkways of Lotus Pier and the vibrant crowd of its docks, sits in the quiet of its lakesides and lets both the lapping of the water and Wei Ying's endless chatter wash over him. One last indulgence, before he surrenders himself to whatever penance the Elders would have him pay, before he seals himself in the cold as Lan Yi once did for her own hubris. To the Cultivation World, Hanguang-Jun and his power over the dead would cease to be a threat and a coveted weapon. To his Clan, it would be yet another thing to be locked away, mistakes beaten down and hidden instead of questioned and held to light as the consequences of things.
It's enough, enough to have Wei Ying like this and not ask for more. Wei Ying is brilliant, the brightest mind he's ever encountered, but his heart is also the biggest he's ever seen - and Lan Wangji trusts that were he only to ask, Wei Ying would have fought the world itself so Lan Wangji could live. Yet there are layers to the problem that is Lan Wangji as he is, with what he does and the power he holds, and Lan Wangji would not drag anyone else into it if he could help it. Especially not Wei Ying.
Tomorrow, he thinks, as the days pass and he falls a little further, the ground soft and welcoming beneath him as it shifts, tilts into Wei Ying's embrace. Tomorrow he'll say his goodbyes, make Wei Ying understand why he has to go back to Gusu after all.
Tomorrow, he whispers to himself, as he takes Wei Ying's hand and follows him amidst the lotus blooms of his home.
—ooo—
Tomorrow comes as an invitation to the Grand Discussion Conference in Lanling - The first one to be held after the war. Jiang Wanyin grumbles about how it's barely any time at all after the war ended and what could possibly be so important to discuss while everyone is still recovering, even as the Jiang Sect Leader casts what he probably thinks is a furtive glance Lan Wangji's way.
Lan Wangji knows very well what's important for Jin Guangshan, now that he's sitting on the Chief Cultivator title that Wen Ruohan left vacant. Amidst the Cultivation world's struggle to rebuild, any form of advantage would be appealing to consolidate one's power, and he supposes there is nothing more appealing than the very thing that had won them the war. Lan Wangji also knows that staying longer with the Jiangs would only draw hungry eyes upon Lotus Pier, and he would not have that for Wei Ying and his home.
The day before they set out to Lanling, Lan Wangji quietly packs his meagre belongings, and spends one last night with Wei Ying.
The small pavilion is tucked away in the quieter part of Lotus Pier, and over his stay it has become something of a small ritual for Wei Ying and him to end their day there - Him with his guqin, Wei Ying on his dizi or simply chattering away, animated and bright despite the exhaustion he must feel with all he does in rebuilding Lotus Pier. Lan Wangji thinks he's going to leave Wangji here, a selfish whim so at least something of him would remain when they part in Jinlintai.
But right now, Wangji lies, quiet and familiar beneath his fingers as he plucks the first note of the song he's kept with him for months, years now. He's carried it with him through the last days of peace before the war, carried it through the battlefields of Qishan and an ocean of grief. And now, amidst an endless field of lotus blooms and a waning summer moon, Lan Wangji gives it to Wei Ying.
It's a confession, a promise, everything his meagre grasp of words would never be able to encompass and convey.
"It's beautiful," Wei Ying whispers, after the final strains of his last note had settled down into the darkness around them - voice hushed, almost reverent, "I've never heard this one before. Is it yours, Lan Zhan?"
It's yours, he wants to say, ours. But he knows it's an empty promise, and Lan Wangji merely hums in answer, noncommital and quiet. And Wei Ying, who has always read him so well, smiles placatingly at his hesitance, raises his dizi to his lips instead.
"Again?"
Lan Wangji nods, fingers settling back down on the strings easily even as his throat constricts with longing, as the edges of his eyes prickle with heat. When the first note from Wei Ying's dizi joins his guqin, it takes everything in him not to break, not to simply throw himself before Wei Ying, let himself be embraced fully by the warmth that he's orbitted for years.
It's enough, he thinks, as their notes entwine in the air, that he has this. That they have this.
—ooo—
Unease creeps along Lan Wangji's spine upon his first step on Jinlintai's grand staircase, quiet and foreboding in a way he has not felt since the very start of the war. In contrast, the golden halls around him are peaceful and blithe, seemingly untouched by the horrors they all have had to witness barely two moons ago, unmarked by pain and destruction in the way everything around him had seemed to be and Lan Wangji wonders - Wonders if there's a need at all for the Jins to covet even more power, when they already have so much of it.
He wonders of this as the conference proceeds, and Jin Guangshan's oily voice slithers his way, the question on the tip of every cultivator's tongue finally laid out in the open. Would it not be a dangerous thing for this strange power of his to go unsupervised? Wouldn't it be only appropriate, if His Excellency would be allowed to examine and manage such a thing for the good of the Cultivation World?
Lan Wangji could see Wei Ying's eyes sharpen, the lines of his shoulders tightening across him where the Jiang contingent is sitting, gives him the barest shake of his head as the talks goes on, barely held at bay by Xichen's placating and promises that Gusu Lan would do their best to quell and handle one of their own. Lan Wangji wonders what would have happened were he to come from a smaller Sect, one whom the Jins won't bother respecting, and takes no pleasure from the privilege he's apparently granted.
Soon, he thinks. Soon, his Clan would take him home and no one would be able to stop him from sealing this coveted power forever. And then he too would be forgotten, as the people around him seem to have started forgetting the unchecked bid of absolute power from one who already has so much of it.
Unease turns to dread as the proceedings break to make way for the Grand Archery competition, as rows upon rows of bedraggled Wens are paraded in front of them, the red of their robes barely discernible anymore with mud and grime and blood.
He sees Jiang Wanyin's hand fly to grip Wei Ying's arm, sees Wei Ying's anguished eyes even as Lan Wangji runs his own gaze in despair along each of the Sect Leaders and cultivators around him, each of the faces he's known through his youth, through lessons of righteousness and justice and through countless battlefields.
No one speaks a word as arrows fly, and bodies fall.
"Xiongzhang," Lan Wangji steps in front of his brother as the crowd around them finally disperses, the air heavy with unspoken, barbed things, "What just happened couldn't stand."
"Wangji," Brother's voice wavers, and a brief look passes between him and Jin Guangyao - replesedent now in his golden robes, two steps behind his Lord Father from his place in the Jin pavilion. Lan Wangji's heart sinks.
"This is…a delicate matter. The Jins are within their rights to take recompense from the war, and we are within no position to interfere with Jin Sect business."
"Recompense," Lan Wangji echoes, disbelieving. The Jins weren't even there until the very end of the war, he wants to say. Didn't even lift a finger when Gusu and Qinghe burned and Yunmeng was razed to the ground. What manner of war recompense would they need, when Jinlintai yet stands so grandly?
"Wangji, they are war criminals," Brother's tone softens, almost familiar were it not for the glance he exchanges yet again with Jin Guangyao, "We'll discuss this later, in private."
The dread that has been brewing inside him settles, deep and heavy on the hollow of his center. And Lan Wangji knows, even then, that there would probably be no more discussions to be had.
—ooo—
When Lan Wangji had knelt in the cold of Lan Yi's cave and opened himself to her age-old grief, he had known exactly what he was doing it for, had deemed it an acceptable price. Lan Wangji had raised countless dead, mired himself in an ocean of grief and pain for his home to be safe.
Not for this.
The Wens held in the secluded Jin camp are not war criminals - They are barely Cultivators. Lan Wangji sees weathered, elderly faces, soft hands and limbs without muscles built for swords nor battles. He sees mothers and uncles and a wide-eyed youth. There is a child.
Behind him, Wen Qionglin lets out a terrible, choked sound of anguish, and Lan Wangji turns to see him holding his sister on his arms - Skin bone-white where it isn't mottled with bruises, blood running down a fallen arm from an unseen wound. An elderly woman is bowed over them both, as if trying to shield them from pain with her own frail, battered body.
Be righteous.
A hand tugs at his robes, and it takes Lan Wangji a long time before he registers the child in front of him, eyes wide and lost. He picks him up with numb fingers, feels the weight of him settle in his arms.
Shoulder the weight of morality.
There is a clamor of blades and boots in the distance, and Lan Wangji feels the Wens start to huddle behind him, converging around Wen Qionglin's grief-stricken form. There is so much grief all around them, heavy and thick, clawing at his robes to be heard, to be acknowledged.
When the first of the Jin guards reaches them with swords drawn, Lan Wangji draws himself to his feet and whistles.
—ooo—
Halfway down Qiongqi Dao, Wei Ying catches up with him.
Lan Wangji is barely surprised to see him, soaked down to the bone as he himself is, eyes roving over the huddle of Wens riding behind him, over the child on Lan Wangji's arms.
"Lan Zhan," Wei Ying calls out, and Lan Wangji closes his eyes - Steels himself for the words to come. Wei Ying had stood by him through the battlefields of Qishan, had stood by him even as he had walked a crooked path. But they both know this is something else, a crossroad where one's path truly breaks off from the world that have sheltered them thus far.
He had not meant for their parting to be like this.
"Lan Zhan, let me help. There's so many, and you're alone, you can't-"
Oh. His heart soars, even as it breaks and crumbles in its ascent. He knew that he would turn away from Wei Ying, in the end. But not like this, not while Wei Ying thinks he could still follow.
"No," Lan Wangji says quietly, the words heavy in his throat. The slight, fragile weight of the lone Wen child heavier still in the cradle of his arms.
"Lan Zhan, I - we promised," Wei Ying is crying, and it's years of being so close, years of entrusting their life in each other's hand that made him recognize Wei Ying's tears amongst the rainfall, even as the deluge falls and falls around them, washing away what's left of the ground Lan Wangji stands on.
"Wei Ying is needed elsewhere," he continues, "Could do more good as he is now, as we had promised."
Lan Wangji knows that the Jiangs were left in worse ruin than even them, their home nothing but water painted in mud and blood before Jiang Yanli rebuilt it as her brothers fought in the war. As they are right now, Yunmeng Jiang couldn't afford to be estranged from the world around them, not when every crack on one's half-built walls could mean that one's house would never be rebuilt at all. And this is the world that had raised and sheltered both of them, that had afforded them their convictions and their promise, had entwined their fates together.
Wei Ying knows this too, as he closes his eyes, as his grip on Suibian loosens.
"Where would you go?"
"The world is wide," Lan Wangji says, "There must be a place for us."
He kicks his horse into a gallop, not daring to chance another look at Wei Ying - Lest his heart caves in, lest he lets everything go and simply falls into Wei Ying's embrace and never let go.
As wide as the world is, Lan Wangji knows that there is no place for them to be together.
—ooo—