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Chapter Text

When the leaders, madams, heirs and their entourages, of the ten most powerful sects arrived at his door, supposedly at his invitation, Nie-Zongzhu, Nie Xinyi, DongTie Zun felt the headache starting.  His eldest son, recently turned sixteen, watched in confusion from his side, “We didn’t…” 

“I know.” He sighed in annoyance, knowing there was little he could do but welcome them, “Let us see what we can find out.” 

It took genuine effort not to rub his forehead while he restructured the next week in his mind.  Finding a’Sang would have to wait.  His youngest son had been avoiding everyone for three weeks and this… event had more or less guaranteed he wouldn’t see him for another one at least.

“A’Sang…” Mingjue began, as his thoughts also strayed to their self appointed mission for the day; find a’Sang and make him talk.

“Will have to wait.  Get the Lan’s invitation, would you?  I want to have a look at it.”

Lan Xichen was only too happy to show him the invitation because it was bloody well obvious the Unclean Realm wasn’t ready for a discussion conference, even an emergency one and all the sect leaders were now beginning to look varying degrees of amused, angry and offended. 

He checked it over.  It was his seal.  It was his assistant’s writing.  Nie Zhong, standing on his other side, swore he never saw the invitations before.

“Since everyone is here, we may as well see what there is to discuss.” He stated with as much grace as he could manage, nodding politely to the people standing in the courtyard

“You mean besides whoever dragged us here under false pretences?” Jin Guangshan scoffed. 

“Besides that.”

Rarely did Nie Xinyi thank the heavens for Wen Rouhan, but he did then as the chief cultivator simply nodded and motioned for him to lead on, thereby shutting the Jin Sect Leader up and letting him lead them inside.

While he’d been outside dealing with the confusion, he’s stunned to discover the Sabre Hall had been arranged for their meeting with wine, tea and water on the tables.  Snacks were arranged artfully around them.  There were even little name cards at each seat.  The entire setup had a’Sang’s name all over it, but he couldn’t think of any reason his usually lazy son would go to this much effort.

Jiang Fengmien chuckled as he looked around, always willing to go with the flow, that one.  His wife, Madam Yu, sneered at everything, but a quick check showed the infamous Zidian remained silent on her finger, so he decided not to worry about her just yet.  Beside them, Jiang Wanyin just looked overwhelmed.

The same could be said of the other sect heirs in attendance as well.  Jin Zixuan even going so far as to hide behind Madam Jin.  Although, catching the glare directed at him by Jiang Wanyin, it might be warranted.  Everyone knew Jin Zixuan wasn’t happy with his betrothal to Jiang Yanli and while rumour was quieter on her and her brothers’ opinions, that was probably more a testament to YungmengJiang’s isolationist tendencies and the boys’ own youth then any lack of opinion.

The sect leaders, along with their families and deputies slowly found their seats and helped themselves to drinks as they chatted easily, bringing each other up to date on their news and any events of interest.  Since he had no idea why they were here, DongTie Zun was in no rush to bring the meeting to order, and let the chatter continue. 

Eventually with conversations naturally turning from pleasure to business, he decided it was time to formally start proceedings and was about to rise from his seat when his errant son waltzed in the door holding a stack of notebooks almost higher then the eleven year old’s head, “Ah, good!  You’re all here.”

“A’Sang, this was you?”

“Of course.  Who else?”

“You used my seal to do it?” He slammed his first onto his table.

“Well they were hardly going to come at my invitation, Baba.” The boy said in a completely reasonable tone of voice.

“And Nie Zhong’s writing?”

His youngest son shrugged, “I know someone who knows someone who’s an excellent forger.”

“A’Sang!”

“Please, Baba, you know I wouldn’t have done something like this without a reason.”

Minghue snorted and muttered, “Too much work involved.”

A’Sang shot a strained grin at his brother as he replied, “Exactly, dage.” 

Nie Xinyi didn’t like that expression.  It was all kinds of wrong on a child’s face.

Still, his younger son walked through the tables, dropping one of the notebooks on front of each sect leader except the Wens.  Jin Guangshan, he skipped, and dropped it on front of his wife instead, “I figure you won’t need a copy of Wen Rouhan’s invasion plans, Jin-Zongzhu, since you’re financing it.”

“What?” Sect Leader Yao tried to jump to his feet.  Only to find he couldn’t rise from his seat.  He tried to yell again only to be silenced with what looked like the Lan Silencing spell.  DongTie Zun looked at the Lan group, but Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren were looking at the struggling sect leader in surprise and Lan Wang was looking around, clearly taking stock of everyone else’s ability to do it.  Lan Wangji wasn’t there… curious.  He thought the Second Jade was taking a more active role in the intersect politics.  Come to think of it, he eyed the Jiang delegation while various other sect leaders tried to rush to Yao- Zongzhu defence only to face the same fate, he would have expected Wei Wuxian to be here with the Jiang.  The boy was rumoured to be doing most of the work of head disciple already and was expected to be formally acknowledged on his thirteenth birthday.

A’Sang made a point of taking his seat before saying, “Yes. Wen Rouhan plans to invade the rest of the sects using the power of the Yin iron to create an invincible army.”

His attention was pulled back to the here and now, fast.

The Chief Cultivator looks at him calmly, “And you have proof of this?”

“Maybe, maybe not.  But your potential invasion plan is the least of our worries right now” A’Sang waved a hand, “I highly recommend dropping those plans and abandoning demonic cultivation, assuming of course, you still have enough… self awareness left to do it.  The Yin iron has been eating away at your spirit and mind for a while now.”

“You believe I can’t control it, boy?”

His eleven year old son laughed in Wen Rouhan’s face. 

His eleven year old son is going to die.

His heart quickened and his grip on his sabre, ZhanHu, tightened.

“I know you can’t Wen Rouhan.” A’Sang said cheerfully and tossed the last notebook onto the table before the chief cultivator, “Right now, the resentful energy is burning through your meridians as fast as your golden core can fix them.  In the not too distant future, your core won’t be enough and you’ll need an acupuncturist to keep diverting both the resentful energy from and the spiritual energy to the worst affected areas.  Wen Qing is an excellent doctor, I agree, but she’s wasted caring for you and she can only slow the effects. Eventually, you’ll be left in state of chronic pain, unable to move more then a finger without needing a needle stuck somewhere.

“Now where were we…”

Something about a’Sang was different.  There was a confidence to him now.  DongTie Zun would like to call it arrogance, but it wasn’t.  It was almost like Huaisang just didn’t care anymore.  Like even if anyone here hurt him… it wouldn’t be as bad as what he’d already experienced.  For all his son’s eleven year old body, he acted like a forty-year veteran of intersect politics… or worse.  He doesn’t know where that thought came from and he doesn’t like it one bit.  Everyone around the table can tell something is off about Huaisang, even those who never met him before.  He isn’t acting like an eleven-year-old.

“You’re throwing around an awful lot of accusations for a child.  How old are you again?”  Chang Ci'an, Sect Leader of the Yueyang Chang Clan sneered.

“That’s complicated, but eleven will do for now.” The boy smirked.  It wasn’t a nice smirk. Nie Xinyi strongly suspected Chang Ci’an had been silenced when the man said nothing else.

Huaisang  picked up where he had left off after waving servants over to replace the drinks and finger food, “All of you will find that if you try to rise from your seats, you’ll be unable to.  And since both tea and wine are diuretics… we have a time-limit to sort this mess out. Don’t you agree?”

Everyone traded uneasy looks.  Some tried to rise, but most of them seemed to accept Yao-Zongzhu and his allies’ failure at face values.  Anyone who tried to talk was immediate silenced.  It was an impressive piece of work for an adult.  For an eleven year old…

Eventually, with all other options removed, they turned to look at him.

“Don’t look at Baba, you’re here for me.” A’Sang purred, “The silencing spell will end in a moment.  Please keep yourselves civil or it won’t be for long.”

“You are the misbegotten child of a concubine and nothing more! How dare…” Madam Yu was cut of mid rant.  Clearly the woman hadn’t learnt from what already happened.  He glanced at the Lans, but none of them looked guilty, just very, very confused and not a little angry.  A’Sang?  How did he learn it?  That spell was a sect secret and more to the point, the only Lans he’d ever met were Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji, who he’s fairly sure is too young to know it.

“Let me make this clear, “A’Sang said, “We are here to avoid the destruction of the entire cultivation world, not just the piece Wen Rouhan’s petty little war would see destroyed.  I don’t care about your pride, Madam Yu or your ambition, Wen Rouhan, or where you put your dick, Jin Guangshan or what pitiable self-righteousness is left in the Cloud Recesses.  I care about not watching my best friend turn most sects and their seats, including Nightless City, Lotus Pier and Cloud Recesses into bloodbaths for revenge because their leaders are idiots.”

Stunned silence greeted he words.  Or possibly the Silencing spell did.  Nie- Zongzhu tried moving his lips.  Not silenced.  More then one of the others looked slightly abashed at being caught doing the same.  Yao- Zongzhu, Madam Yu and Cheng- Zongzhu seemed to the only three still silenced.

A’Sang pulled a fan from his sleeve and flicked it open, “Three weeks ago, for me, I was here, painting a new fan and doing my best to avoid the responsibilities of being Chief Cultivator when I got word the Yilling Laozu was destroying Lotus Pier.  Now, I personally couldn’t believe he’d do that so I got on my sabre and went to find out what was really happening.  I found a Waterborne Abyss in the remains of the compound.  It destroyed the entire place.  The town had been evacuated, because that’s the kind of person Yilling Laozu is, but the Abyss devoured every single Jiang disciple along with the Sect’s Seat.  He might have found some way to mark the disciples, but it’s just as likely he stood there and directed it himself.”

Jiang Fengmien threw a worried look at his wife, but the Violet Spider didn’t try to speak, her eyes narrowing in fury instead.  How powerful was this ‘Yilling Laozu’, to control an Abyss?  It was a terrifying idea.

“So, I immediately left and headed to Cloud Recesses. On the way, messengers caught up with me, informing me of the destruction of other sects…”

“What happened to Cloud Recesses?” Lan Qiren interrupted, shaking Lan Xichen’s hand off his arm.

A’Sang stopped talking long enough to refill his wine cup and giving Lan Qiren a reproving look. 

“What happened to Cloud Recesses, please?” Lan Qiren ground out again.  Beside him, his nephew winced as the discourtesy, but then Lan Qiren had always considered himself above the rules, hadn’t he?

“You don’t want to know.” 

DongTie Zun watched his son down his cup of wine, refill it and down it again, “He wanted you to hurt, Lan Qiren.  He wanted you to be faced with your hypocrisy and the failure of your precious rules.  He wanted to destroy you in particular and your sect with you.  And he knew exactly how to do it.  Exactly what to target to hurt you the most. 

“I got to him before he did something… permanent to your soul.”

Everyone was silent for a moment before Lan Xichen asked, “Were there any survivors?”

“I want to say ‘no’, but truth be told, I don’t know.  You were in seclusion, Lan Xichen” he tipped his cup to the other boy, “He might have left you there. The heaven’s know he always thought your seclusion was a coward’s way out, so…  And of course, the children and servants were driven down to the town.  Only the pledged disciples paid for the Lan’s crimes.”

“Why…” Jiang Wanyin swallowed, “Why Lotus Pier and Cloud Recesses and Nightless City.”

A’Sang looked between him and Lan Qiren, “Because thirty years from now, you and Lan Qiren, with the backing of your respective Clan Elders and a few dozen disciples from the other sects will murder his husband and son.”

“Why?”

“In the vain hope that despair would make him vulnerable to a mortal blade.

“Spoiler alert, it didn’t.”

No one knew what to say to that.  Silence descended on the table again as they tried to organise what they knew with what they had heard. 

“This ‘Yilling Louzu’ is an immortal?”

“Maybe” a’Sang shrugged, “If he’s not, he’s close enough for it not to matter.  But he’s a demonic cultivator and we never talked about what differences that made.  I do know he can take a blade through the heart and not even slow down.”

He stopped there to let the information settle.

Typically, Jin Guangshan fixated on the first thing he worked out, “Time travel?” he sniggered, “Really boy?  That’s your excuse for this?  Novel, I admit.”

A’Sang shrugged, “You’d already been fucked to death by prostitutes, and your corpse desecrated.  You don’t get a say in anything.  Fitting way for you to go, I’d say.”

Jin Guangshan spluttered but was silenced before he could say anything further.

The level of contempt in A’Sang’s voice was…  He shuddered to think was would make his easy going, lazy son hate someone as much as he clearly hated Jin Guangshan.

A few picked up the notebooks and flicked through them, clearly trying to buy time to organise their thoughts.  Nie Xinyi looked at his.  The first section covered what was clearly the Wen invasion.  The hasty read-through seemed to imply this Yilling Laozu won them the war, which might explain the destruction of Nightless City, but that didn’t sound right.  The second section was various letters and the third appeared to be a thesis on the effects of resentful energy on the body.

“What happened to Cloud Recesses?” Lan Qiren snarled, bringing everyone attention back.

Lan Xichen murmured something to him, but the elder ignored him.

“I told you, you don’t want to know.” 

The words were a warning that Lan Qiren was clearly determined to ignore.  DongTie Zun watched the acting Lan Sect Leader and knew this was another person his son, who was from the future, held in utter contempt.

And DongTie Zun found he agreed wholeheartedly with his son.  A Waterborne Abyss has been used in Lotus Pier.  He didn’t want to know what could be worse?

“WHAT HAPPENED TO CLOUD RECESSES, YOU IMBECILE!”

DongTie Zun looked at Lan Qiren, the man many considered the greatest teacher of their age, really looked at him.  He took in the pinched brow, the surly expression, the haughty demeanour.  He thought about the Lan’s much-vaunted righteousness and their three thousand rules.  He turned his gaze to Lan Xichen with his Tang-hued eyes and thought about what those rules could hide.  He didn’t like where his thoughts were going.

“The Lan don’t eat meat because killing is forbidden in Cloud Recesses.”  A’Sang’s soft voice brought him out of his thoughts.

“But you do kill.  Your Elders were quite happy to murder Madam Lan, rule or no rule.”

“What?” Lan Xichen gasped.

Lan Qiren tried to rise, but found himself still stuck to his seat, and silenced as well if the jerking was anything to go by.

“It’s true” A’Sang almost purred, “They feared that once you got your sword, your mother would try to escape with both of you.  The Tang family has a secret technique that allows them to call their swords into being in their hands.  Your mother was unarmed only at her own sufferance.  She couldn’t carry both of you on her sword, but once you could fly on yours, she’d only have to carry Lan Wangji.”

“Our father…”

“Every wonder why you only have one brother?  Even though your father raped her at least enough to get her with child twice?  Why did he stop?”

Lan Xichen glanced at his uncle who was trembling in rage.

“She cut his dick off the last time he tried.  She found out a couple of weeks after, she was pregnant with Lan Wangji.”

“I…”

“Do you remember how sick you were as a young child, Lan Xichen?  How it continued all through  your brother’s babyhood, while he was too young to be removed from his mother’s care?”

The First Jade’s eyes were wide.

“And the medicine they gave you?”  he tossed a bag of leaves onto the table.  Lan Xichen’s hands are shaking as he picked it up.  Lan Qiren tried to knock it out of his hand, but the boy avoided him and lifted it to his nose, smelling it.  He dropped the bag like it burned him, “No...  You’re lying!  You have to be lying!”

A’Sang shrugged, “I’d pity you if I didn’t know how much of an useless asshole you became-become in the future.  I mean, you made me look competent and I’d spent my entire life trying to look incompetent.”

Lan Xichen slumped down, his shoulders shaking, his face pale and eyes wide.  He didn’t look at his uncle, jerking his arm away when the old man tried to touch him.

“Anyway, Lan Qiren, it’s not just Madam Lan.  Every day, Lan disciples cut down trees, pick fruit, collect vegetables.  And… you use dead plants to make your robes.  And those ridiculous head ribbons.  It’s a pity you didn’t do soul calming on them first.”

Lan Qiren’s eyes widened.  The implication spread around the table drawing harsh gasps.

“If you must know, Yilling Louzu pushed enough resentful energy into your ribbons and clothing to cultivate them into yao.  The result was… messy.  May you have many nightmares about your ultimate fate.”  A’Sang saluted him with his glass, then did something that made a blue sting pull the wine jugs out of Lan Qiren’s reach when the man lunged forward.

“Nope, no alcohol for Lans.  I know exactly how useless that makes you.  Although,” he concedes thoughtfully, “It was fun to watch Lan Wangji turn into a jealous madam around the Ghost General after a cup of wine.  I mean, the man was one of the most powerful cultivators alive, closer to immortality then even Wen Roahan ever got, but the Ghost General was a Fierce Corpse and could easily crush him one handed and Lan Wangji was there stamping his foot and pushing him away from Wei Wuxian.  It was hilarious!”

A’Sang downed another cup before continuing, “Where was I?  Oh, yes.  When I caught up to the Yilling Laozu, I threw the idea of time travel at him.  It was all I could think of that might make him stop.  And if anyone could figure it out, it would be him.  I don’t know if Qinghe would have been next.  I can only assume that LanglingJin, and Koi Tower itself, were in ruins by that point.”

“How?” Jin Zixuan yelped, flushing, “I mean, how did you know it had been destroyed?”

A’Sang sighed, “Hanguang-Jun and Lan Sizhui weren’t the only ones killed.  The Jin Sect Leader, Jin Rulan, Sect Heir Ouyang Zizhen and Lan Jingyi also died.  Without Jin Rulan, the Ghost General had no reason not to seek revenge on the sect who imprisoned and tortured him for over a decade and the one person who could have stopped him… Well, I rather think finding the Yilling Laozu alone was all the evidence needed that he was happy to let him go to it.  Likewise I got reports of the destruction of the Ezhou, Wang, Yao and Moling clans while I was running around.  He recognised those sects from the bodies at their home, the ones they managed to kill before being overwhelmed.  Outside of those, I honestly don’t know who else was stupid enough to go.  He didn’t give me the list, just confirmed the ones I named, so there are probably more word didn’t reach me of.

“Gentlemen, Ladies, I was not a good chief cultivator.  Once Lan Wangji stepped down, I was simply the best of the bad options.  None of us thought anyone would be stupid enough to go after Hanguang-Jun and Lan Sizhui.  The Yilling Laozu wanted nothing to do with the cultivation world and despite Jiang Wanyin’s bitching and Lan Qiren’s raving… well, he was simply too powerful to go against.  This was the man to defeated Wen Rouhan’s unbeatable army.  This was the man who killed three thousand cultivators at the Massacre of Nightless City and the man who tamed the Burial Mounds.  He just wanted to be left alone.  Was that too much to ask?”

He looked around the table and Nie-Zongzhu saw the weight in his eyes, judging and finding the people there wanting.

“I don’t know why so many supposedly righteous sect leaders couldn’t acknowledge his only threat was intellectual”, a’Sang’s gaze swept over Lan Qiren, Yu Ziyuan, Yao- Zongzhu and the rest. “For some, maybe knowing someone that powerful wasn’t bending their knee to them was too much.”

He shrugged again, “I suppose knowing there was a young man capable of not just arguing with you, but proving you wrong was more then you could stomach, Lan Qiren.  That you couldn’t control him maybe, Jiang Wanyin?  That in the end, he was more righteous then either of you, Lan Xichen, dage.  Maybe in the end, Lan Qiren and Yu Ziyuan’s hatred of a dead woman poisoned everyone they touched.  I don’t know. I really don’t.  I don’t particularly care either.  As long as we leave the Yilling Laozu and his people alone, he will extend the same courtesy to us.  If we can’t do that, he’ll squish us like the bugs we are to him.  Personally, I’m in favour of leaving him alone.”

Everyone made agreeing noises.  A’Sang nodded and pulled a letter from his sleeve,  “On that note, the Dafan branch of the Wen Clan formally cuts ties with the Qishen Wen and claim independence.”

“They dare?” Wen Xu tried to stand only to be reminded he couldn’t.

“They dare.” A’Sang agreed, “With the backing of the Yilling Laozu.”

Wen Rouhan simply glanced at his son, who quieted and accepted the letter from a shaking servant, reading it quickly with a frown.

He pulled two more letter from his sleeve, directing the servant to take the first one to Lan Xichen, “Lan Wangji also formally secedes from GusuLan, and refuses further contact from his former sect.”

“No, Wangji…” Lan Xichen murmured in dismay.

The second was given to Jiang Fengmien, “Wei Wuxian is grateful for everything the Jiang have done for him, but he secedes from the sect and considers any debt repaid by the scars of Zidian he will carry to the end of his life.”

Everyone at the table froze.

“Correct me if I’m mistaken, but isn’t Zidian a first class spiritual weapon?” Qin-Zongzhu eventually said, looking slightly ill. 

At Jiang Fengmien’s nod, he continued, “And Wei Wuxian is twelve?”

A headshake, far more hesitantly, “Eleven.  He’s eleven”

“So your wife beat a child with a first class spiritual weapon hard enough to scar?”

Jiang Fengmien looked at him helplessly.  On the table between him and Yu Ziyuan, Zidian began to spark.

“And you let her?”

“Hatred of a dead woman.” Mingjue murmured as he looked between them.  “Wei Wuxian is Cangse Sanren’s son isn’t he?”

More sparks fly, but truthfully, even the feared Yu Ziyuan knew to keep her silence.  Saying nothing made her an overly harsh disciplinarian.  Defending her actions would make her a scorned and bitter wife or an abusive and bitter step-mother.

From Jiang Fengmien’s wince, he already knew he’d pay for his wife’s restraint later.

A’Sang looked surprisingly smug about that.

He slid a sheet of paper into the middle of his table.  From his angle, DongTie Zun could just make out the wording of a treaty.  It was simple enough.  The Yilling Louzu and his people agree to stay out of the politics of the Cultivation world and remain, with the exception of traders and formal invitations, within their own territory.  The treaty contained a small map marking the claimed area which unsurprisingly contained Yilling and the Burial Mounds, along with an area to the south of Qichen and west of Yungmeng.  A still incensed Wen Xu confirmed it was a heavily forested area made up of a series of deep valleys and mountains, most of which has never been properly explored, claimed or settled.  Jiang Dongue, YungmengJiang’s current head disciple agreed.  Wherever the Yilling Louzu and his people set up their homes, it would be practically unfindable.   

In return, the cultivation world would forget about them.  The Yilling Louzu and Hanguang-Jun had no reputation, good or bad, among the common folk and it would remain that way.

The treaty would be signed by the current sect leaders, their partners and anyone in the direct bloodline who could be a potential heir, along with anyone else who had the power to affect the treaty.  Breaking the treaty would result in their souls being claimed by the Burial Mounds.

DongTie Zun noted the signatures already on it; Nie (Huaisang) Zhenya, Wen (Wuying) Lei, Wen (Xuefeng) Zexi, Wen (Wenqing) Qing, Wen (Qionglin) Ning, Wei (Wuxian) Ying, Lan (Wangji) Zhan, Yilling Laozu and Hanguang-Jun.

Lan Xichen signed up immediately, despite his uncle’s silent objections. Mingjue followed.  Then Jiang Fengmien and Jin Zixuan. Yu Ziyuan did so only after being nudged by her husband, clearly unhappy but unable to do anything about it.  Slowly they all took the brush and treaty, Wen Rouhan and Jin Guangshan with obvious reluctance, but eventually they did sign.

A’Sang sighed with relief as Lan Qiren finally added his signature after a very weird and silent argument with Lan Wang.  Lan Xichen was still refusing to look at him.

He felt the spell on the seats release.

There was a moment of consideration, then over half the people there ran for the privies.  DongTie Zun collected his notebook and ordered his disciples to escort everyone to their rooms and not let them leave.  Then, he retired to read the notebook and contemplate what it meant to have his forty year old son in a eleven year old body, beside him.

Chapter Text

“So, this is goodbye then.” A’Sang’s voice was… something.

“This is goodbye” a second voice, as young as A’Sang answered, “You knew we weren’t going to stay.”

“I know.  I Know.  I just… I don’t want to do this alone.”

“It was your decision.  Did you really think I’d change my mind?  After everything?”

“No… not you, but I hoped…”

“Lan Zhan?”

“You weren’t sure who would come back.” A’Sang sounded defensive, “I hoped…  Well, it doesn’t matter now.”

“Ah…  I did wonder what you were doing.”

“Do you blame me?”

“No, but did you not realise how likely Nie Mingjue was to Qi-deviate on the spot if you succeeded?”

“What?” there was genuine horror in his voice.

“Ah, Nie Huaisang, some things never change do they?  Lan Zhan and Wen Qing both confirmed their last memories were their own deaths, so the last thing your brother would remember was Qi-deviating on the steps of Koi Tower.  Even if that didn’t push him to it, then he would suddenly have his memories of his actions since the Sunshot Campaign in a body not filled with resentment and hatred yet.  What do you think he’s think of himself?”

“No… he wouldn’t.”

“He’s not you, Nie Huaisang.”

“You were alright.”

“And I came back and immediately left for the Burial Mounds and believe me it was a really unpleasant trip.  I was exhausted, sick and close to Qi deviation myself when I made it past the wards.  I was also fully prepared to burn out my own golden core if I couldn’t balance the energies fast enough.  Would that idea even have occurred to Nie Mingjue?”

“No” a’Sang’s voice is grumpy, “No, it wouldn’t.”

Silence followed that admission.

“How is Wen Ning doing?”

“He’s fine.  Doesn’t remember anything thankfully.  Wen Qing on the other hand…”

A’Sang snorted, “I imagine she was less then impressed.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“How did you manage that anyway?”

“No idea” a clink as another drink is poured, “resentful energy doesn’t follow any rules.  It’s the stuff of emotions and emotions rarely make sense.  I was deliberately trying to exclude Wen Ning from the spell.  I didn’t want to even think what coming back would do to him, but I didn’t want to loose him or a’Yuan or any of the others.  Somehow that contradictory feeling brought Wen Qing back too.”

“Lan Wangji?”

“What about him?”

“According to Xichen, he’s been catatonic since we came back.”

“So?  He’s hardly my prisoner.  Though it wouldn’t be the first time he’d been held prisoner in Cloud Recesses.”

“He was catatonic.  Xichen and Lan Qiren didn’t even know he woke up, let alone left until I gave them the letter.”

“I know.  The spell was meant to keep him unconscious until I got to him.  I needed to make sure he didn’t burn Cloud Recesses to the ground a few years early.  The illusion I left in his place shouldn’t have lasted that long though.  I mean, it wasn’t solid, so whoever fed or washed him should have noticed.”

Both boys were silent as they thought through the implications of that.

“Xichen wants to speak to him.”

“I know.  The problem is; I can’t trust Lan Zhan not to stab him somewhere permanent.”

“Oh…”

“The last thing he remembers is Lan Qiren, his uncle, taking his head while he tried to defend his son.  Lan Xichen’s utter failure as a sect leader is at least partially responsible for that situation and Lan Zhan is spreading the blame fairly evenly across the entire Clan leadership and elders.  Lan Xichen will just have to wait until he’s ready.”

“I see.”

“How long before the sects breaks the treaty do you think?” the voice mused.  Another clink.

“Three years.  Four if you’re lucky.  Will that be long enough?”

“More then long enough” the voice purrs, “Jin Guangshan or Wen Rouhan?”

“Jin Guangshan most likely.  It will take the Wen a while to recover from this and… without Wen Qing, Wen Rouhan will be too busy being in pain to do much of anything.  And you have the rest of the Yin iron now, don’t you.”

“Mm.  Do you want to deal with him, then, or will I?”

“I will.  I have everything I need.”

“Meng Yao?”

“I’m hoping his father’s fall from grace will convince him to follow a different path.  I know you hate him.  I hate the man he became, but I also remember him as he is now.  He cared for me and dage.”

“Like he cared for Lan Xichen?”

“No.  Not like that.  I know you don’t believe me.  But there was good in him… once.”

“I don’t trust him.  And I don’t trust you to be impartial.  Don’t make me regret this, Nie-Gongzi.”

“I won’t.”

“Jiang Wanyin wants to speak to you.” A’Sang changed the subject.

“He can wait as well.”

“Do I want to know how he died?”

“Exactly as he lived, screaming obscenities, blame and hatred into the void.  Precisely as you’d expect from a the son of Yu Ziyuan.  She ruined him and Jiang Fengmien did nothing to stop it.”

“Neither did you.”

“I know.”

“The Nie Sabres?”

“I already said I’d deal with sabre tombs.  There’s nothing I can do for the living.”

“Wen Qing?”

There’s a pause before the second voice turned contemplative, “That was something I never understood.  Wen Qing was right there.  The world’s foremost expect on the effects of resentful energy on the body and the golden core, the woman who kept both Wen Rouhan and the Yilling Louzu walking.  And the sect leader of the sect with a huge resentful energy problem completely ignored her, both at the Burial Mounds and when she turned herself in to appease Jin Guangshan.  Your brother never even spoke to her.  Why?”

“She was a Wen.”

“Yes, the name that made slaughtering babes in their mother’s wombs righteous in his eyes.”

“I won’t defend his actions.  You know that.”

“And I won’t force Wen Qing to help him.  You know that.”

“You’ll just let him die?”

“He let her die.  Watched as she burned to death with a smile on his face.  Do you think he deserves her help?”

“Do I not deserve it?”

Silence.

“Some things never change, do they?  Goodbye Nie-Gongzi.  I hope you find a solution to the problem, but I doubt it will come from Wen Qing.” 

Nie Xinyi hadn’t meant to eavesdrop.  He wanted to speak to his son alone before he had to talk to the other sect leaders, so using the hidden passages in the walls seemed the best option.  More so when Nie Zhong reported both Jin Guangshan and Wen Rouhan were demanding to speak to him.  He drew back from the hidden panel and waited for the door to open and his son’s guest to leave.  Part of him wanted to see them.  See with his own eyes, this ‘Yilling Louzu’.  The other part was terrified of what has been revealed.  The door didn’t open, but a few moments later his son let out a heart-sore sigh and the clink of a bottle suggested he was pouring himself another drink.  Clearly, he was now alone.

Still, Nie Xinyi remained in his position waiting, but his son said nothing else.  He found he didn’t really want to break the contemplative silence that had fallen over the room.  He wasn’t sure he wanted answers.  Somehow everything the cultivation world was meant to stand for had turned to dust.  Somehow the heroes had become the villains and the villain, a demonic cultivator, was the hero.  This future world his son came from didn’t make sense and the what they had said about his eldest...  He couldn’t imagine a’Jue killing children, but a’Sang could, had maybe even seen him do it from his tone of voice.  The knowledge of his generation’s failure was a weight in his chest.  The knowledge that the next generation would be worse was un-contemplatable.  They had to change it now.  They had to because it sounded like the Yilling Louzu would do it for them otherwise.

“Ah, Wei Wuxian.  After everything,  all I can do is thank the heavens you haven’t treated us like we did you.”

A’Sang laughed.  It was a harsh, broken sound.  Not one an eleven year old should ever make.

“I thought time travel would erase the future.  I thought I’d be able to have everything I wanted, but you were right.  I can’t look at Dage without seeing him slaughter innocents because of their name.  I can’t look at Xichen without seeing the shadow of Jin Guangyao.  I can’t look at Meng Yao without seeing Dage’s corpse cut into pieces.  You were right.  You were so right and I hate you for it.”

Chapter Text

Nie Xinyi silently enters the Sabre Hall from one of the side entrances, catching his youngest, kind of youngest anyway, son watching a small paper figure write on a sheet of paper.  It isn’t the first time he’s seen a paperman and while his son has never admitted it, he’s fairly sure the Yilling Louzu is controlling it.

Right now, they seem to be arguing quietly about something if the tension in a’Sang’s shoulders is anything to go by.

The Sabre Hall is laid out ready for the Discussion Conference. 

Five Years. 

Five years since his son came back in time.

Five years since his son very politely told the leaders of their world to go fuck themselves.

Five years since his son threw the entire world into chaos.

Five years since the Burial Mounds spilled past its borders, spreading from the mountains of Qishen to the swamps of Yunmeng and cradled the town of Yilling in it’s arms.

Five years since the Yilling Louzu rose to power.

Five years since the entire Cultivation world was forced to take a long hard look at itself. 

A’Sang has made his feeling known about leaders of the Cultivation World, and to say he isn’t impressed is an understatement.  He’s indifferent to most of the sect leaders and their followers, simply ignoring their existence.  He’s made it clear that he considers them ineffectual at best and incompetent at worst.  It’s hard to argue when he points out that he was the best they could come up with for Chief Cultivator.

He loathes Jin Guangshan, Lan Qiren, Chang Ci'an and Yao Yun.  Despises them to the point where he will sooner leave a room then breath the same air as them.  It’s disconcerting to say the least, how completely and utterly he dismisses them.

He hates Wen Rouhan, Wen Xu, Jiang Wanyin and Yu Ziyuan with a fierceness and a passion completely at odds with his façade of lazy younger son and he never hides it.  Of course, he laid the Wens’ and Jiang Wanyin’s crimes out for them, but Yu Ziyuan… he never speaks of her or what she does in the future.  Wei Wuxian’s letter seceding from the Jiang Sect paints an ugly enough picture to guess the rest. 

It’s his attitude to Lan Xichen, Meng Yao and his brother that worries him the most.  A’Sang cycles between adoration and a hatred that puts his feelings for Wen Rouhan to shame.  By his own admission they are mostly competent, but he panics every time they do anything up to an including freaking out a few weeks ago when Lan Xichen mentioned he had a new favourite tea.  He lauds their abilities and then refuses their suggestions. 

Lan Xichen screwed up massively if his rant at the conference five years ago was anything to go by.  His other son had clearly made some spectacularly bad decisions and Meng Yao, the young man a’Jue had brought back to the sect last year had obviously betrayed them all somehow.  He doesn’t have enough information to make a plan and…

… And since the conference five year ago, a'Sang hasn’t share his knowledge of the future, never saying anything definite until events have changed.  Then he’s usually willing to tell anyone the fate they avoided.  He’s learned to trust his son.

Nie Xinyi’s never told anyone he overheard the last conversation between his son and the Yilling Louzu.  He’s never even hinted he knows Wei Wuxian carries that title.  Once he knew that, Hanguang-Jun was easy to identify as Lan Wangji.  They’re exact relationship with the Wens remains something of a mystery though.

The consternation caused by the Dafan Wen’s defection reached further then expected to too.  The Dafan Wen, it turns out, are a five hundred strong branch family to the main Wen Clan who specialize in medicine, farming and wine-making.  His healers swear the combination makes perfect sense to them. 

Once every few generations, a Dafan Wen child is born which such talent that they turn current medical practise on it’s head.  Wen Qing, courtesy name Wenqing, was identified early as the next in line for that distinction, two hundred years after Wen Nuan, who had famously banned the Wen family from attending the Lan lectures after clashing once too often with the Lan Elders.  Or that was what the Lan claimed anyway.

It turns out the Dafan Wen had copies of her letters to both her Sect Leader and her sister from the lectures she attended herself.  In them she demands the Wen stop sending their disciples in protest at the Lan’ treatment of their children and juvenile disciples.  Wen Nuan was an expect on children’s care and she even wrote a paper on the effects of the Lan rules on development.  It was damning.  The Lan succeeded in banning the manuscript and her sister’s family kept the only remaining copy.

Jiang disciples sent by Yu Ziyuan had tried to get into the Yilling Louzu’s territory though the swamps south of the city, and Wen scouts through the mountains to the north.  None have returned.  Even worse, their families disappeared within days of the their crossing into what is generally called Yilling Territory now.  No Clan has been added to the title.  Nie Xinya expected ‘Wei’, but it never happened.

The town of Yilling itself is now a thriving trade centre sitting in the semi circle of the Burial Mound’s foothills.  It is surrounded by fertile farm land and completely free of ghost or monster attacks, although every now and then a trader swears they saw corpses working the fields. 

The Yilling Medical School, founded by the Wen brings people from the entire of the Cultivation world and the talisman and cultivation tool industries there are booming.  Lure Flags and the Compass of Ill Winds are considered standard kit for night-hunting and every town and farmstead from there to Koi Tower has Yilling Ward talismans as part of their defences.  The common people are no longer completely depend on Cultivators for their protection and it shows in their unwillingness to pay the sects.  The Jin have been hit particularly hard with this.

And the Yilling Louzu, as far as anyone is aware, has remined absent from sect politics.  Until now.

The paperman drops the brush and drifts flat onto the table.  He isn’t sure who won the argument, but he steps forward, purposely making his steps heavy as he walks towards the table and drawing a’Sang’s attention to him.

“Fuqin”

“a’Sang.  Do I need to know anything?”

“Maybe” a’Sang sighs, “Yilling will be here.”

“Good” this is the first time they’ve been invited after all, “Do you know who is coming?”

“Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji and three others.”

“A healer?  We did request one attended.”

“Yes, there will have a healer with them.”

“What’s wrong a’Sang?”

Would his son finally confide in him?

“I…” he shakes his head, “The Yilling Louzu was always quick to forgive and forget.  He never held grudges.  Oh, he’d get into a fight with someone, but once it was over, to him it was done and dusted.”

“Okay?”

“He wasn’t the type to seek revenge, Fuqin.  If he had been… the Cultivation World would have burned a long time before it did.  When I seen him in Cloud Recesses, I almost didn’t recognise him.  He scared me.”  He finishes in a small voice.

“Do you think he’ll cause a scene here?”

“No.  He won’t.  It’s… honestly, I’ve sent Meng Yao and dage away for the week.  Neither Yu Ziyuan nor Jin Zixun are attending.  He won’t start anything and I don’t think anyone else is dumb enough to start something…uh…maybe Lan Qiren?”

“But?”

“We Wuxian is the Yilling Louzu”, a’Sang stated, “and it isn’t something we planned to hide this long.  It just never seemed a good time to bring it up.”

“I think everyone has figured that out already, a’Sang.”

“Probably.  Like I said, it was never meant to be a secret.” 

A’Sang sighs, looks around the Sabre Hall and gets to the point.

“Wen Qing is coming.”

Nie Xinyi isn’t too proud to freeze in surprise.

Because Wen Qing has refused every request to speak to the Nie, but her apprentices have outright said they aren’t good enough to help.

“There’s a reason I sent dage, Meng Yao and the others away even if it does leave us short handed for security.”

“You think she might help?”

“I think it’s possible curiosity got the better of her.”  A’Sang rubbed his temples, “She and Wei Wuxian are very alike in that way and it’s got both of them into trouble in both timelines.  Our… problem might be the key to why she couldn’t stop Wen Rouhan’s degradation in the other timeline.  She wants to know.  Wei Wuxian won’t force her to help us, but he’s not above dangling the research opportunity on front of her.”

“What are you worried about, a’Sang?”

“Wei Wuxian.  I… I can’t get the memories out of my mind, Fuqin.  I know he’ll be here, but when I think if him, all I can see is the madness in his eyes.  The waterborne abyss in Lotus Pier and the… the bloodbath in Cloud Recesses.”

“I understand-”

“No you don’t!  Their ribbons ate them, Fruqin.  Their robes ate them!  Some of the disciples tried cutting their clothing off using their swords. They cut themselves apart trying to escape! I can’t unsee that.  I can’t forget.”

“You said it was only the disciples…”

“Were all the disciples guilty of the Elder’s actions?  Alright, I can see it in Lotus Pier.  Jiang Wanyin surrounded himself with two types of people – anti-demonic cultivation fanatics and sadists who wouldn’t complain about him torturing people.  There was a reason the Jiang had no junior disciples.  But the Lan…  It was revenge.  It was exactly what he objected to the sects doing to the Wen.  And he did it anyway!”

Nie Xinyi sighed and switched from kneeling to lotus position.

He took a moment to think through everything he knew about the other timeline.

“Revenge is seldom just and never righteous.”

“Don’t quote our tenets to me.”

He huffed, “I’m not.  I’m trying to put it into context.  Revenge is seldom just and never righteous.  It is, however, eminently understandable.  From everything you’ve said over the last five years, you have made the Yilling Louzu, Wei Wuxian out to be the embodiment of the Jiang Sect’s motto – ‘Attempt The Impossible’.”

“So?”

“You’ve gone on and on about how righteous he is, exceeding the Lan Sects motto, ‘Be Righteous’.”

“Ok?”

“And Qishen Wen, ‘Every kindness should be returned’.  He lived up to that, yes?

“The motto of the Jin sect is to ‘Illuminate the world with vermilion light.  From your telling, Wei Wuxian did everything he could to being light to the world.  Maybe not vermilion light, but light non the less.”

“I see where you’re going with this.”

“And then there is ours, ‘Bring Honour To Qinghe And The Unclean Realm’.  Except that might be the official motto, and the first tenet, but the one we always quote is ‘Always Seek to Rise Above’.

“And Wei Wuxian didn’t.  Yes, I get it.”

“Do you?”  He taps the table between them, “Do you know why our motto is so… rustic?”

“Mmm”  a’Sang crosses his arms, but there is enough curiosity in his eyes for his father to know this, along with so much else had been lost between his death and a’Sang’s rise as sect leader.

“You know our ancestors were butchers.  When they rose to become a great sect, a gentry sect, they did so too quickly for their education to keep up.  The other sect’s seniors liked to try to trip up the Nie, point out their background as commoners, as lesser. ‘Bring Honour To Qinghe And The Unclean Realm’ was all the nearly illiterate, uneducated, then sect leader’s father could come up with on the spot when the other sect leaders tried to humiliate him.  When Nie Wuhan wrote the tenets, he put ‘Always seek to rise above’, our second tenet and always pushed it as more important.  He didn’t seek to overturn and humiliate his father’s words because he knew it would break the old man.  Now, I don’t know what a’Jue thought you in that other timeline-”

“Not that” a’Sang mumbled.

“But it seems to me that you are holding Wei Wuxian to an impossible standard – the Jiang Sect’s motto not-withstanding.  Everyone has a breaking point, Nie Huaisang, and we must be mindful of that.”

“You think he was right?”

“No, I think he was human.  All those disciples you complain about him killing, are the same disciples that despised him for his cultivation path in the Sunshot campaign, the same ones who turned their backs on him for saving the innocent Wens, the same ones who called for his death at Nightless City, even though the Wen sibling’s bought his safety with their lives.  And then when he came back, they were the same disciple who still hated him.  They were the same disciples who allowed ‘Do not associate with Wei Wuxian’ to be carved into the Wall of Discipline.  They are the same disciples who followed that rule.”

“Are you saying they deserved it?” a’Sang sounds horrified.

“No, a’Sang.  I’m saying his reaction was human.  He was pushed past the point of no return.  He was forced into a corner where he could either die, or explode in a rain of bloody vengeance.  I will not hold choosing the latter against him.  By your own admission, he saved everyone he deemed worthy of saving?”

“Yeah…  except Xichen.  I think that was punishment.”

“What else can you ask of him, given his history?”

“That’s not the point!”

“No, the point is that everyone should have known better then to let it get to that point.  None of the sects should have allowed Jin Guangshan to dictate what was moral or righteous.  They definitely should have checked what exactly Wei Wuxian has in the Burial Mounds, but the boy shouldn’t have walked away from the Jiang.  Jiang Wanyin should have been able to speak for him.  From what you have told me, the Lan Sect should have spoken for him to.”

A’Sang is silent.

“Revenge is seldom just and never righteous, but it is human nature?”

“Yes” Nei Xinyi nodded, “And we must always strive to be better.  To choose the best of our human nature.  The people he killed are alive again, because of his choices.  Because he turned back time.  He has not simply initiated the same massacres again.  Nor has he struck out at the people who wronged him in this timeline.  All he has done is walk away.  It might not wipe clean his genocide, but we can admit he is striving to be better.  And the crime, as such, has never happened.”

“I suppose…  that won’t help with the nightmares though.”

Nie Xinyi is not a demonstrative parent, but he thinks himself a caring one.  A’Sang needs a hug.  A’Sang gets a hug.

“Dage… Wei Wuxian doesn't know, but Wen Qing appealed to Nie Mingjue  after she handed herself in.  She begged him to go to the Burial Mounds and see for himself who Wei Wuxian was protecting, that they were elders, farmers, craft-people and even a child.”

“And?”

“He told her every Wen deserved to die.”

Chapter Text

The first sect to arrive for the conference is the Restored Lan.  Not surprising, since they haven’t mentioned Nie Mingjue’s absence to anyone. Even after two years it’s still strange to see Lan Xichen and his followers with their ribbons in their hair and not around their foreheads.  Symbolic of their refusal to follow the Lan Disciplines without question anymore apparently.  The Lan did so love their symbolism, Nie Xinyi muses.  Last he heard Xichen’s crowd only acknowledge a few hundred rules, the ones written during Lan An’s own lifetime. 

The Orthodox Lan, led by Lan Qiren and Lan Lingxin, the infamous Qingheng-Jun, arrive shortly after, enough out of breath for a‘Sang to sidle up to him and murmur that the two groups are seated separately.  A schism in the sect was enough for the Elders to force Lan-Zongzhu out of seclusion,  not that it helped.  A’Sang’s recounting of the loss of Qingheng-Jun’s manhood colours opinion of the Lan Sect leader even now.  And neither his, nor his sect’s reputation has recovered from the truth of his ‘wife’s’ abuse and eventual death.  Xichen at least acknowledges they were wrong.  Lan Qiren and Qingheng-Jun… don’t.  Still though, Qingheng-Jun’s is a powerful cultivator and a canny negotiator and whether Lan Xichen likes it or not, his sect is too steeped in tradition and rules for a clean break to be possible.

The Chang Clan are next.  Chang Ci'an, who a’Sang so despises is looking worse for wear, paranoid and terrified.  As he should.  He has less than a year before his crimes came back to haunt him according to A’Sang, who outright told him he was doomed.  Chang Ci'an isn’t aware of it, but this conference will be his last.  His son, Chang Ping, with the backing of the Chang Elders plans to take leadership when they return home.  A’Sang seems happy with the outcome, but Nie Xinyi gets the distinct impression there is more to the situation that he is saying.

Surprisingly, the Yao Sect arrives immediately after, landing before the Chang are even through the doors. Yao-Zongzhu rubs his forehead with a silk handkerchief and nods, distracted.  The Yao Sect are not having a good time lately.  Nie Xinyi knows Yao cultivators to be lazy, arrogant, self-aggrandising and only barely competent.  Their civilians have made their opinions clear – more than half the villages have decided Yilling wards are a better investment than the Yao Sect’s tithe.  Madam Yao, a twenty something year old woman with better cultivation then the rest of the sect combined, agrees with them and refuses to take anything that could be claimed is an ‘easy’ nighthunt because the wards will handle it.  He’d say she’s cut from the same cloth as the Violet Spider, except Madam Yao does send disciples on night hunts in the areas that pay.  She does lead night-hunts for ‘worthy’ prey, defined as anything that can break the wards, in the areas currently not paying.  She does train the disciples and although she has made her opinion of her sect’s standards clear, she has not said a bad word about any one individual, only started hauling them up by their belts.  Nie Xinyi nods to her in respect as she gives the formal greeting and hustles her aggravated husband past them before he can stop to gossip.  Another point in her favour, she never lets him talk.  A’Sang had a quiet chat with her at her wedding.  She’s been a force to be reckoned with ever since.

The Jiang are next to arrive.  Jiang Zongzhu looks old, older than a cultivator of fifty something should.  Jiang Wanyin stands beside him, slightly hunched over with a tension in him that suggests either anger or terror and has his arms crossed, his hands hidden in his armpits.  It’s obvious really,  his mother has turned Zidian on him in the absence of her usual whipping boy.  Nie Xinyi feels for him and seeing the shattered youth before him, he understands a’Sang’s disdain for the current Jiang- Zongzhu.

The disaster that is Yu Ziyuan continues to plague Lotus Pier. 

Five years ago, the revelation that she had been whipping her eleven-year-old ward with zidian spread like wildfire through the land, destroying a good amount of the respect people held for the sect, and sending their recruitment numbers plummeting. 

‘Madame Yu’ lasted two years before being divorced.   In a fit a pique, rather then return to her natal clan, she bought a compound just outside Lotus Pier supposedly to remain close to her children and started working as a rogue cultivator.  At the same time, she made it clear she expected  Jiang Fengmien to support her household to the standard expected of Madam Jiang. The man capitulated easily and so, the spectre of the Violet Spider continues to haunt Lotus Pier.

The less said about a’Sang’s reaction, the better.  He seems to have neither patience nor compassion for her or her son.  Nie Xinyi knows a’Sang struggles with the ghosts of the future.  He’s seen it.  Heavens above, he had to ban peach blossom tea from the compound after a’Sang completely lost his mind when handed a cup.  He knows.

But he also draws the line at letting his son punish someone for something they haven’t done yet.  Yes, that person might make the same choices.  Yes, they might deserve to die in a few years, but they still deserve the chance to make better choices.  He’s lost track of the number of times he’s pointed out that given the nature of a’Sang’s ‘second chance’, he’ll be worse then a hypocrite to deny anyone else one.

A’Sang sulked for an entire week the first time he said it, and several times since then.  His son has the memories of a man grown, but he is still a teenaged boy, a child with all the temper and rebelliousness of youth.

Baling Ouyang are next.  A’Sang is polite, bit disinterested.  That is until Ren Heng of Jingling Ren is introduced as a member of their party.  His reaction to her name, and obvious pleasure means something Nie Xinyi can’t quite work out.  His interest doesn’t last after the Ouyang pass them  and Nie Xinyi is fairly sure his son couldn’t name the next three arrivals.  Then he turns his back on the Yan delegation as they arrive and Nie Xinyi is forced to reconsider how much attention his son is paying.  Yan Yao, the sect heir narrows his eyes but says nothing as he follows his father in.  He would dearly love to know what that’s about, but a’Sang clams up every time he mentions it.

In fact, it’s not until the Jin arrive that he pays attention again, welcoming Jin Zixuan warmly and his mother cordially.  Another one who clearly causes his time-traveller son problems.  He doesn’t like Madam Jin and wavers between respect for the woman she is here and now and outright disdain at the woman she comes-became in the future, he thinks.  Part of it might be down to her still close friendship with Yu Ziyuan, but that doesn’t feel like enough.  Still, she was the one who had Jin Guangshan removed as sect leader and forced into seclusion and she’s proving a capable regent to her son.  He respects her, even if his son is on the fence.

The Yu follow, Madam Yu gracing them with a formal bow before going inside.  More minor sects arrive before the last of the major sects makes their appearance.  Wen Rouhan… does not look well.  He is pale, almost skeletally thin with bloodshot eyes.  Sweat shimmers across his forehead as he steps down from his sword.  Nie Xinyi notes how still he is, how much he limits his movements and remembers a’Sang’s warning about resentful energy.  It appears Wen Rouhan has not stopped his experiments.  And it appears he is paying the price he was warned of.  Wen Xu walks beside him as if ready to catch him.

He and a’Sang welcome the former chief cultivator with bows.  He ignores them, striding into hall.  Wen Xu sends them an apologetic look and a quick bow before hurrying after his father.  Wen Rouhan hasn’t bowed to anyone since he was stripped of the Chief Cultivator title four years previously.  It’s a petty revenge, but a harmless one.  Nie Xinyi lets it go, noting his son’s complicated expression, caught somewhere between pity and a vicious satisfaction.  He wonders how much worse off Wen Rouhan is without Wen Qing’s medical genius.

A sharp crack of air announces the arrival of the last sect as a transportation talisman puts the Yilling representatives down in the centre of the courtyard and Nie Xinyi gets his first look at the man, no boy, his son uses to terrify the cultivation world.  Young is his first thought, but tall and strong.  There is a breath to his shoulder hinting at the beginning of a fighter’s physique, and an ease to his stance that suggests readiness to move.  He holds a sword, the infamously Suibian, Nie Xinyi guesses, although the purple detailing on the sheath has been replaced by black.  A bone white flute is tucked into his sash.  Wei Wuxian was once the forth ranked young master of his generation and his son is happy to confirm he should have been third except Jin Guangshan would not have his son rank below a commoner, cultivator or not.  He is handsome, Nie Xinyi acknowledges, even if his features lack the refinement only noble blood can bring  His lips are a little to wide, his forehead a little too low, the cheekbones a little too soft and his nose a little two rounded.  Whatever Cangse Sanren’s heritage, it was peasant stock. 

Nie Xinyi admits he is predisposed to dislike the boy, but he’d been expecting something… darker.  Something more obviously corrupted by the crooked path.  More disturbing though, knowing this boy is the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, is the easy smile on his lips and the laughter in the tilt of his head.  Wei Wuxian has no dark circles under his eyes, no pain in his movements nor sweat on his brow.  There is no signs of his use of resentful energy at all and having just been faced with Wen Rouhan, the difference sends shivers down his back.  Wei Wuxian is Master of Resentment and that scares him more then he wants to admit.  No, he doesn’t like this boy at all.

He turns his attention to the rest of the group.  The only one he recognises in Lan Wangji, Xichen’s younger brother who fell into a coma five years ago and was stolen from Cloud Recesses without anyone the wiser until a’Sang gave Lan Xichen his letter.  No explanation was forthcoming about how no one noticed the illusion in his place for over a week.  He’s of a height with Wei Wuxian standing a little too close to him with Bichen, the white sheath almost glowing against the black robes, in his hand.  Broader of shoulder, Nie Xinyi, muses, but still too much a gangly teenager to be sure.  The promise is there though.  He’s loosing the baby fat on his cheeks and looks more like Xichen then he expected, regal and refined.  Twin Jades indeed, as a’Sang sometimes calls them when speaking of the future.

All four are dressed in black and white, with red or blue or both accents.  Their robes have a pattern reminiscent of mountains on them but there Lan Wangji has something suggestive of Gusu Lan’s cloud motif in blue and Wei Wuxian has a pattern of red outlined crows flying over the peaks, the other three have what hints at a sun setting behind the mountains, shaded in both red and blue.  His mouth is suddenly dry.

The older woman, probably the generation before his if he had to guess, steps forward and bows, “I am Wen Zexi, courtesy Xuefeng.  I lead this delegation.  Thank you for inviting us, DongTie-Zun.”

“The pleasure is mine.” He bows, his eyes glancing towards the young woman to her left.

“My granddaughter, Wen Qing, and our disciple, Yang Ju.  I believe you are familiar with Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji already?”

“Wei-xiong.” A’Sang says from beside him, “Lan-gongzi”.

“Nie Huaisang” the Yilling Louzu gives them a bright smile and nods in reply, rocking back on his heels, “it’s been a while.”

Lan Wangji nods to them both but remains silent.

“Lan Xichen is here, so are your uncle and father,” he isn’t sure what reaction he expects, isn’t sure what reaction he wants, “I hope that will not cause problems?”

The two young men share a look, but Lan Wangji simply inclines his head again, not saying anything.

Wen Xuefeng places a gentle hand on his shoulder, “You do not have to be here.”

“I do not.” He agrees calmly.

“You and a’Ying can return home.  We agreed Yilling would attend, not who we would send.”

“I will attend.”

“And you?” she looks at Wen Qing as Wei Wuxian moves to press against Lan Wangji’s side.

Instead of answering immediately, she turns at his son, “Is Chifeng-Zun here?”

“No, neither is Lianfang-Zun.  Sandu Shengshou is.”

Oddly, he finds himself sharing a worried look with Wen Xuefeng.  A’Sang is clearly not the only one who uses no-longer-known titles to disassociate people from their future incarnations.

Wen Qing’s gaze is icy then she looks at him, “I know what you want from me.  I am not convinced you deserve my help.  The man your son becomes definitely does not deserve it and neither do the men and women who followed him.”

He nods, “No, the man you knew didn’t.  A’Jue isn’t Chifeng-Zun though.  I will do everything in my power to make sure he never becomes Chifeng-Zun.”  He sighs sadly, “Wen Qing, what my son did to you and yours is beyond reprehensible.  I understand that you cannot forgive him.  I would go so far as to say you shouldn’t.”

A’Sang gasps beside him.

He has to take the risk, he has to try because without Wen Qing the Nie are doomed so if he must force her to acknowledge his son is not the man she remembers, he will.  A’Jue is guilty of nothing more then being an arrogant and overly aggressive sparring partner.  He is not a monster, a child-killer, not yet.  He will never be.

“But the a’Jue alive here and now is not that man.  He is a child who has never raised a hand against you and while I cannot demand or force you to help, I have proved my righteousness.   I will not allow a’Sang to punish people for the crimes they commit in a future that long exists.  I will not hold Wei Wuxian accountable for what he did in that future.  Now I ask you to help me stop Chifeng-Zun become anything more then a bad memory.”

It’s the wrong thing to say, he realises too late.

They’re standing in bright sunlight, but suddenly Nie Xinyi is sure his breath is misting in the frigid air.  Wei Wuxian steps forward in a swish of dark robes, “Hold me accountable?”

He makes the mistake of meeting the Yilling Louzu’s burning red eyes and his pride, he will not admit to terror, is all that keeps him meeting them. He doesn’t know if it’s the resentful energy or the horrors this boy was subjected to in his previous life, but there is nothing but madness behind those blazing irises.

“Wei-xiong” a’Sang whimpers and his son’s terror at this… this being is suddenly so much more understandable.

He blinks first and he hates Wei Wuxian for it.

“I’d like to see you try, Dongtie-Zun” he purrs.

“I don’t think that will be necessary?”  It’s with some effort that he draws himself up to his full height and thank the Heavens he’s taller then the upstart before him.  His voice is steady.  His control complete.

Wei Wuxian throws his head back and laughs, “Some thing never change, do they, Nie Huaisang?”

“Is that… is that a good thing?”

“No” Lan Wangji sweeps past them into the Sabre Hall, pulling Wei Wuxian with him and Nie Xinyi can breath easy again.

Wen Qing and Yang Ju follow in their wake, but Wen Xuefeng watches him for a moment, before tapping a finger against her lips, “Be careful, Dongtie-Zun.”

“Because the Yilling Louzu can destroy me?” he snaps, still rattled.

“Because Chifeng-Zun got his pride, his arrogance and his cruelty from somewhere.”

And she is gone, following the rest of her party inside.

“Well” he drawls, catching a’Sang’s eyes and then trails off, not sure what else to say.

A’Sang laughs, but it might be a sob, “I’d forgot how intense Wei Wuxian can be.  I thought you were dead for moment there” he ends in a whisper, he shoulders shaking under the heavy formal robes.

Of course, he was dead in the future a’Sang came from.  He died a few days before the discussion conference where his son turned their world on it’s head.  But because of his son, he missed the night hunt and knows better then to let Wen Rouhan anywhere near his sabre now.  He is only alive because of Wei Wuxian.  Does that mean he owes the boy a life debt?

Time travel makes life complicated. 

He throws an arm over a’Sang’s shoulders and pulls him close until the boy stops shaking.  Then leads him inside.

The Yilling delegation are seated when they enter.  Wei Wuxian has manoeuvred himself so he is lying back against Lan Wangji, who has turned slightly to accommodate him.  The other three are ignoring their rather scandalous behaviour.  Lan Xichen is gazing at them with hopeful eyes.  Lan Qiren and Qingheng-Jun are glaring at both parties equally.  He has no idea what to make of the yearning in Jiang Fengmien’s expression but he recognises the Violet Spider’s rage in her son’s face.  He's suddenly a lot less worried about Lan Qiren starting something then Jiang Wanyin.

“We should have banned Jiang Wanyin.” He grumbles

A’Sang shrugs helplessly, “I didn’t think… Jiang Cheng loved him once, baba.  I thought…”

“No matter.  We will do what we must.”

They take their places and Nie Xinyi brings the conference to order.  They have much to discuss before they get to the elephant in the room.

Madam Jin announces her son and Jiang Yanli’s wedding date.

Yao-Zongzhu announces his wife is pregnant.

Yan-Zongzhu announces his son’s engagement.

And then Wen Xuefeng stands up.  The room goes quite.

“There is no need to formally announce any in-sect business, but the creation of Yilling Sect was… unorthodox.”

The joke gets some nervous titters.

“So, although these are not normally necessary or wanted, permit me to make them this time.  The Yilling Sect would like to formally announce the engagement of Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji.  They will wed this summer.”

She retakes her seat as the cultivators starts talking.  Lan Qiren looks absolutely furious.   Qingheng-Jun is looking at his son like he’s never seen him before, which is actually very possible now Nie Xinyi thinks about it.  Jiang Fengmien looks resigned and his son’s face is almost a match for his robes.

He stands up and calls the conference back to order, letting Nie Zhong introduce each topic while he watches his ‘guests’.

With the exception of the Orthodox Lan and the Jiang, everyone else seemed wary, but mostly curious.  For many of them, Yilling is either the source of their night-hunting supplies or a bogeyman they ignore.  After all, outside of a’Sang’s tale, no one has seen Wei Wuxian use demonic cultivation.  No one but him and changing the colour of his eyes isn’t going to turn the sects against him when he representatives such a lucrative opportunity.  After all, cultivators lived for a long time, and even Yilling’s disciples, both their healers and their talisman-masters would get itchy feet eventually.  Not ever sect would welcome demonic cultivators, but… he glances around the room.  Some would, and those that will not, will be reliant on the Yilling Louzu to rein his former students in.

Lan Qiren and Qingheng-Jun hold their disparaging comments when giving their report, making only one relatively mild dig at Yilling.  Lan Xichen closes his eyes and sigh, but doesn’t argue with their report, giving his agreement with a nod.  And then it’s the Jiang’s turn.  Before Jiang-Zongzhu can rise, Jiang Wanyin snaps, “Traitor!”

Silence and some uncomfortable fidgeting greets his accusation.

“You filthy, servant’s spawn standing with your betters.  Fuqin should have left you in the gutter, you ungrateful pile of dog shit!”

Wei Wuxian blinked lazily at him, “I paid my debt, Jiang- gongzi, taking your whippings for you.”

“It’s not enough!”

Jiang Fengmien is leaning over and whispering frantically, trying to calm him down, but Jiang Wanin pushes him away and leaps to his feet striding out into the middle of the floor.  His father stares after him, the same look of helplessness on his face as he usually has for his wife.

Jiang Wanyin is holding his left arm at an odd angle, the sleeve dragging over his hand.

Nie Xinyi suddenly realises he hasn’t seen the boy’s left hand.

If a’Sang’s whimper is anything to go by, neither has he.

Zidian sparks as the electric whip lashes out towards the Yilling Sect.

He doesn’t see Wei Wuxian move, but suddenly the boy is standing on front of Wen Xuefeng and Zidian is wrapping around his sword’s sheath.

“I owe you nothing, ChengCheng.” The Yilling Louzu, snarls, “I owe your family nothing.  Be glad I don’t ask for what you and yours owe me.”

Lightening explodes down Zidian before the whip falls free of the sheath, sending Jiang Wanyin stumbling.  Wei Wuxian keeps his position, rocking a little under the force.  Jiang Wanyin climbs to his feet, Zidian once again sparking and raises his arm to strike again.  Jiang- Zongzhu catches his arm before he can strike, and hauls him back to his seat, stammering apologies to the Nie Sect.  Wei Wuxian faces him with a grim smile and a raised eyebrow, but he doesn’t call him out for the attack.  He bows instead and retakes his seat.

Nie Xinyi calls a break and the room clears with a speed driven by fear.

He follows a’Sang…

…And isn’t surprised to find him cornering Jiang Wanyin.

“Are you out of your mind?”

“You’re wrong, Nie Huaisang, that filthy, lying scum can’t…”

“He can.  He did.  Don’t you understand, Jiang Wanyin, he’s already destroyed you once.  He destroyed Lotus Pier.”

“With a Waterborne Abyss?  Do you really expect me to believe that?  I don’t know why you’re playing along Nie Huaisang, but he’ll bring you down with him!”  He turned and went to storm off.

“He cut the Jiang out of his life once already to protect you, Jiang Wanyin, so he could fulfil your life-debt.  He cut out his own golden core and gave it to you.  He died so you had the chance to rise as a sect leader and you spent the next sixteen years hunting down anyone who could be his reincarnation and torturing them to death.  And when he returned, you treated him as less then dirt.  You hated him for leaving you and hated him for returning.  And I think you hated him most for trying.  For moving on.  In the end, despite everything he did for you, you couldn’t bare for him to be happy, so you destroyed everything that meant anything to either of you, including your own nephew.”

“What?”  Jiang Wanyin turns back in a swirl of purple robes.

“Jin Rulan, Jin Zongzhu, the son of Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli, who both died to Lianfang-Zun’s manipulations.   The nephew you raised as your own son, even if he would never take the Lotus Throne.  The nephew who died begging you to stop as you slaughtered his family and sworn brothers.”

“I…”

“Jin Rulan, sworn brother to Ouyang Zizhen, Lan Jingyi and Lan Sizhui, the Ouyang heir, the Lan heir and Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji’s adopted son.  Ouyang Zizhen was also Jin Rulan’s brother-in-law and you killed his pregnant wife, Ouyang Zizhen’s sister.  They were going to name the child Jin Ye, after you.”

Jiang Wanyin stumbles backwards until the wall takes his weight.

“Your mother is a heartless bitch who is doing her best to ruin Lotus Pier and if you follow her path, you will die alone, hated and feared, with no one to mourn you again.  Get over yourself and take some responsibility for your own choices and action.  This is the one and only chance I’ll ever give you.”

Nie Xinyi simply… stands there.  A’Sang hadn’t mentioned that before.  It is, he realises dazedly, far easier to throw off the title ‘child-killer’ when you don’t have a name to go with it, when it wasn’t Jin Ye who died.  Chifeng-Zun, a’Jue is-was a child-killer too.  Nie Xinyi has heard it before but he’s never heard it.  He’s going to throw up.  He’s going to cry.  He’s going to find his idiot son and lock him up so he never, ever has the chance to take a child’s life.  He suddenly has a whole lot more sympathy for Wei Wuxian if that is what lead the Second Massacre of Lotus Pier.

A’Sang lets the Jiang boy flee and Nie Xinyi doesn’t stop him either.

“How bad… a’Sang, how bad did it truly get?”

His son sighs before turning to face him, “Think of the worst possible crime anyone could commit, baba.  I mean murdering you own son level of evil.  And know that in the next thirty years someone did it and probably ten things even worse that you can’t imagine.”

“Who -  No, I don’t want to know.  But a’Sang…’”

“What, baba?”

“If a’Jue slaughtered children, what…  What’s the worst you did?”

“I convinced an abused teen to destroy their soul for revenge.”

“What?”

“It was the only way to being Wei Wuxian back… and I needed him.  Then I found Mo… the boy and I knew with a little push, he’d do it.  He was too broken not too take the chance for revenge.  And I let him.”

A’Sang sighs again and walks over to the window, staring out, “Eventually, Wei Wuxian managed to do… something.  Pull together what was left of his soul and send it forward to reincarnation, but it was only a guess, a hope.  We had no way to know if it worked.  Is that what you wanted to know, baba?”

Nie Xinyi backs away.  He can’t process this.  He can’t… a’Sang can’t… his son is a child.  He can’t have…

He doesn’t run, but that broken laughter follows him and knows it’s close enough.

Chapter Text

He probably should have been more aware of his direction, but his mind was still trying to… to… a’Jue killed children.  Real, honest to the heavens, children.  He only now realised how much he didn’t deal with that knowledge.  And Jin Ye had been Jiang Wanyin’s victim, not a’Jue’s.  He desperately hoped a’Sang never told him the names of Chifeng-Zun’s victims.  It was the thought of a coward, he acknowledged but he couldn’t bear to know.

The Sunrise Courtyard, when he stumbled into it in his mad not-running-away dash, was occupied.  Lan Xichen stood with two disciples at his back.  He was facing off against Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian on one side and Lan Qiren and Qingheng-Jun on the other.  There were no drawn weapons in anyone’s hands which was something, but he could taste the resentment in the air.

Wei Wuxian acknowledged him with a nod.  No one else looked at him.

“You’re my brother!” Lan Xichen snapped, his voice sudden and pained in the heavy silence.

Lan Wangji nodded.

“How could you leave me like that?  What did I do to make you hate me so much, didi?”

Lan Wangji answered him with the most annoyingly Lan serenity Nie Xinyi had ever heard, “I believe Nie Huaisang told you.”

Then added, almost as an afterthought, “I do not hate you.”

“He told me nothing!  I failed as a sect leader?  How, why?  I went into a seclusion you disagreed with?  I had a friend you didn’t like?  What exactly did I do?”

Nie Xinyi had been about to interrupt.  Instead he closed his mouth and shuffled along the wall so he wasn’t blocking the doorway and lent against the cool stone.  Lan Qiren frowned at him before turning back to his nephews.  Qingheng-Jun seemed to be drinking in he sight of his younger son.  He suddenly remembered a‘Jue saying Lan Wangji looked more like the Jade’s mother then Lan Xichen.  Nie Xinyi only met her once, when she was still a rogue cultivator, but he couldn’t see it.  Lan Xichen has her eyes but there was only hint of the Tang blood in Lan Wangji’s face.

Lan Wangji glanced at Wei Wuxian, who shrugged, clearly indicating it was up to the Lan boy.  He turned back to his brother and said, “You met someone.  They saved your life and you decided they hung the moon and stars, that because they saved you, because they were kind to you, all else was forgivable.  You stood aside when that person hurt people.  You kept quiet when that person lied and bore false witness.  You defended them when others tried to call them to account.  You knew them to be a liar.  You knew they were a killer and you knew they could and had tortured people and you defended it all, until the Lan Sect’s righteousness made that person untouchable, unquestionable.  They kept just enough of a façade of respectability, just enough of their worst plans from you that you could not see, not know, maintain wilful ignorance.”

Wei Wuxian reached out and grabbed Lan Wangji’s hand as his voice broke on the last word.

“And when that person was made to admit the truth, you still tried to defend them.  With the names of their victims still ringing in the air, you still tried to find some excuse to justify their actions.  And you did it again and again by letting them attack what was most precious to me, letting them destroy what was most precious to me and then you had the gall to tell me it was for my own good.  Even at the end, with them dead and you walking the path into seclusion you still couldn’t admit they, and you, were wrong.  You still didn’t apologise.”

“Lan Zhan” Wei Wuxian breathed out.

He shook his head, “I know you are not that person yet, Lan Xichen.  I know you can still become him and knowing that I can never ever trust you.”

Lan Wangji turned and swept out of the courtyard.

“And were was I when this was happening?” Lan Qiren snapped.

“Quoting your precious rules.  Telling Lan Zhan he was wrong.  Telling Lan Xichen he was right.  Hiding from anything that could possibly call into question your beliefs.” Wei Wuxian looked at them, shrugged and then continued, “He summed it up pretty well.  A list of rules carved into a wall does not make righteous men, Lan Qiren.  It just makes people who are good at twisting hem to suit their own purpose.”

“Lan Wangji?”

Wei Wuxian laughed at that, “No, but Lan Zhan hasn’t believe in your rules for a long time.  He followed them obsessively once, trying to make it work, but it never did and eventually he gave up.  The only righteousness left in Cloud Recesses is the self-serving kind.”

Then he turned and followed Lan Wangji out.

Lan Qiren let out a sound half way to a howl of rage and stormed off, “Qingheng-Jun!”

For a moment, Qingheng-Jun seemed to consider ignoring the call in favour of comforting his eldest son. Then he turned and followed his brother.  Lan Xichen slumped onto a bench and dropped his face into his hands.  The disciples petted him awkwardly on the back and looked like they wanted to run.

Nie Xinyi heaved himself away from the wall and strode over.  Damned, emotionally constipated Lans.  He gently shoved one of the disciples out of the way and dropped down beside Lan Xichen.

“Nie…”

“None of that” he crushed the younger man into his chest.  Man! Hah, he thinks, Lan Xichen is barely nineteen, still a child, “Break, I have you.”

And break, his does.

After sending a somewhat balanced Lan Xichen on his way, he stands in the courtyard trying to decide what to do and where to go.  He usually mediates in the Sunrise Garden when he’s this out of sorts, but it’s also the most likely place a’Sang would have gone.  He isn’t ready to face his son.  DongTie Zun is not a coward, but he watched his father succumb to rage and the resentful energy of his sabre and his uncles follow one after the other.  He knew the value of taking a few moments to himself before throwing himself back into the fray.  It was a lesson he never got to teach his sons in a’Sang’s first life.

If the Sunrise Garden was out, and the southern garden was mostly likely hosting the Jin contingent, then either the library or the Ancestral Hall were his best bets, and conveniently, in the same direction.

He didn’t make it to either of them.

Jiang Fengmien wasn’t waiting for him.  He was loitering in the main hallway though with the look of the guilty child about him.  No, he was clearly hoping to catch Wei Wuxian.

“Jiang Zongzhu” he was helpless to stop his tone giving away his disgust.

“DongTie Zun” Jiang Fengmien flinched in response to his tone, “I was looking for a’Xian.”

Half the sects were probably looking for the Yilling Patriarch.

“I rather think he would prefer not to speak to you.”

“He is still a Jiang…”

“No, he isn’t.  He left five years ago and for a very good reason.”

The other man flinched again, “I know.  I… I wish to apologise.”

Nie Xinyi gapped at him, “Apologise… for what exactly?  You have made so many mistakes with your wife, your children… you let that bitch whip him with Zidian!”

“I know…” he sighed, his shoulders slumping, “At least, I knew she threatened him with it.  I didn’t think she’d actually do it.”

“You let the entire cultivation world think he was your son and you didn’t think she’d be angry?” he couldn’t believe this.

“I didn’t think there was any point in denying the rumour, Nie Zongzhu, people would believe what they wanted.  I thought… I believed if I remained silent, it would blow over.”

“And when it didn’t?  You didn’t think actually supporting your wife might be a good idea?”

“I didn’t… I thought… My lady…”  he suddenly stopped talking, his face taken on an expression Nie Xinyi had never seen.

“You knew my wife, DongTie Zun.  By that point, do you think it would have made any difference?”

“I think it was your duty to try!  If not for her, then for your children and Wei Wuxian!  You always claimed his father was your best friend and then you tried to steal his son!”

“How dare…”

“How dare I?” he laughed in the man’s face.  It might have been slightly hysterical.

“I have a forty something year old war veteran masquerading as my sixteen year old son because your wife was too much of a bitch to raise her son properly and you were too much of a coward to stop her!  Don’t you get it?  Jiang Wanyin and Lan Qiren destroyed everything!  That’s what a’Sang has been trying to get us to understand.  We can’t stop the Yilling Patriarch, but as long as we leave him and his alone, he’ll give us the same respect and your bloody son couldn’t.”

He's breathing heavily, “So yes, I dare, Jiang Fengmien, because me and mine are paying for your failures!”

He pushed the man away and stormed past, his sheathed sabre sang a song of war in his hand and made him itch to draw it.  It would be so easy to deal with the worthless sack of skin right now…  The Sunrise Garden it is.  And he’d damn well kick a’Sang out if he was in there.

A’Sang, it turned out, wasn’t there and instead he found Wen Xuefeng mediating quietly.  She motioned him to join her without opening her eyes.  He took the offer almost desperately, because Wen Xuefeng knew.

“It’s hard.  Hard to believe, had to understand.  Hard to rationalize.  And so very, very easy to ignore.”

Her words make him jump.

“Yes.”

“Wei Wuxian told me his story and Lan Wangji told me his.  They were not the same.”

“What?”

She opened her eyes and looked at him with a sigh, “I forget sometimes how youth views the world.  Everything must be one way or the other, always looking for absolute truth.  Lan Wangji’s life was a litany of abuses until he came to us.  Wei Wuxian’s life was worse.  Does that negate Lan Wangji’s suffering?”

“No.” his response is immediate.

“Yet, Lan Wangji himself, would say it did.”  She huffed in annoyance, “All four of them come from a generation conditioned to see their lot as ‘not that bad’ because they can find someone worse. Wen Qing, I can understand.  Any sign of weakness in Wen Rouhan’s court was a death sentence, but the others…  Damn the Lan.”

“The Orthodox Lan.” He felt the need to qualify it.

“I have yet to see the so called Reformed Lan actually do anything reformed.  Its all well and good to get rid of two and half thousand rules, but if everyone still subconsciously follows them, what was the point?”

“That they’re trying?” he wasn’t sure what answer she wanted.  The Nie had few Elders, and those they did have were weak.  It’s one of the reasons he has so few limits on his power and why Chifeng-Zun could get away with slaughtering children, but he still has the ingrained respect for Elders that society instilled.

“Trying” she hummed, considering, “Yes, ‘trying’ is a good way to put it.”

“You’re not nobleborn.” He managed to moderate his tone this time.

“The Dafan Wen are not of the mainline, no.  We diverged, oh… fifteen or so generations ago.  After the Nie joined the great sects, anyway.” 

He winced at the reminder, remembering his conversation with a’Sang before their guests arrival vividly.

“No one from our little village is anywhere close enough to being a potential heir, but the family curse, or blessing, breeds true and that has kept us closer to the Wen clan then a divergent branch would normally be.”

“Have they told you what happened?”

“Probably more then your son told you.  After all, it’s us against the Cultivation World.  Nothing we say or do can change anything.  Nie Huaisang on the other hand, is tasked with stopping this war.”

“It was that bad?”

“It was worse then you can imagine, DongTie Zun, because I do not truly believe you can imagine sects behaving as they did on that future.”

“I don’t know how to help.” His voice didn’t break.

“Support him.  Believe him.  Nie Huaisang is trying to atone for his own sins too.”

“I know.”

“I don’t think you do.”

He looks up at her, surprised and Wen Xuefeng’s face is full of compassion and understanding.

“I don’t know which of his decisions has you here now, Nie Xinyi.  From everything a’Ying and a’Zhan have told me, anyone with any power was making immoral and truly evil deals just to survive and keep their people alive.  The Great Sects allowed first Wen Rouhan and then Jin Guangshan and his son to corrupt our world.”

“Not Wei Wuxian?”

She shrugs at that, “Would we be better off if Wei Wuxian never discovered the secret to controlling resentful energy?  Maybe.  What if? Yes?”

She raised an eyebrow, “We can play that game.  A’Ying would have died in the Burial Mounds.  How long would Lan Wangji and Jiang Wanyin have ignored the war to search for him?  It took them three months to find him in that time.  He would never have hunted down Wen Chao and Wen Zhuliu.  Let us say, Lan Wangji and Jiang Wanyin catch up to that pair as they did in that future.  Wen Chao tells them what he did to Wei Wuxian.  One of the two kills him for it.  They try and fail to kill Wen Zhuliu because, like every other cultivator, they don’t want to get too close to HuadanShou, the Core-Melting Hand.  One or both might loose their core to him.  HuadanShou  is assigned to protect Wen Xu.  The Sunshot Campaign lasts much longer and there are many more dead.  They enter Nightless City with much less chance of success since they remain outnumbered and unable to counter the puppets and resentful energy.  Nie Mingjue still sneaks into the palace.  He’s still caught.  This time the fight takes long enough that Meng Yao can’t delay the execution, or maybe doesn’t see any point in trying when there is no one to challenge Wen Rouhan.”

“Stop.  I see your point.”

“Do you?”

“Yes” it’s a hiss.  Nie Xinyi did not enjoy being brought to heel by a Wen Elder.

“Then consider this, my grand-daughter was considering sacrificing herself to stop Wen Rouhan.  She was attempting to contact Jiang Wanyin to offer Wen Rouhan’s death in exchange for protection for the Dafan Wen when Wei Wuxian first lead a corpse army onto the field of battle.”

That’s shuts him up.

“There are many threads, DongTie Zun.  If you insist on only seeing those that align with your own story then you will miss half the tapestry.”

Nie Xinyi suddenly realises Wen Xuefeng doesn’t like him.  It’s strangely freeing, to talk to someone who doesn’t care about his success or failures and has no ulterior motive or interest in him.  To her, he is nothing more then an challenge she must endure, no matter what he does.

They settle back into silence and meditation. Wen Xuefeng does understand, but she’s seeing everything from a different angle.  He needs to consider that and the wisdom she gave him.  Maybe, somewhere in it, there will be a way to reconcile who his sons are and who they were.

He doesn’t know how long it is before Nie Zhong charged into the garden gasping for breath, “Zongzhu!”

“What?”

“Wen… Wen Ro…Rouhan and the Yilling Patriarch are facing off!”

Chapter Text

Nie Xinyi ran.

Wen Xuefeng ran faster.

The grand doors to the Sabre Hall loomed ahead of them, but the resentment pouring from inside was enough to slow them both. Nie Zhong caught up, but didn’t look happy about it.

Wen Xu held his father’s arm, supporting him and Wen Rouhan stood in the middle of them room, his sword extended on front of him.  The blade trembled.

Wei Wuxian stood a sword’s length away from the tip of DianranHuo, the white flute held loosely in his hand.  The flute was noticeably still.  They may both have been users of resentful energy, but it was obvious who the master was.

Lan Wangji, Wen Qing, a’Sang and the other Yilling disciple stood slightly behind Wei Wuxian and to his left.  Nie Xinyi’s fast look around caught the colours of most of the other sects, Jiang, Jin, Lan, Yao, Chang and others, but most of his attention was taken by the men in the  centre of the room.

“Upstart brat!” Wen Rouhan wheezed, “Who are you to stand higher then the sun?”

“I am the void between the stars.  I am the life that begins and the death that ends and I am everything before and after”,  Wei Wuxian smirked as he spoke.  His voice had the weight of eons to it, like he spoke with a million voices at once.  What did that even mean, though?  Nie Xinyi was standing right beside Wen Xuefeng when she muttered, “Over-dramatic idiot!” under her breath.

The Yilling Louzu might have been an ‘over-dramatic idiot’, but she didn’t move to interrupt either.

“You are nothing to me!  Less then nothing!”

“If I was nothing, you wouldn’t be standing before me.”

“How!  How can you…” Wen Rouhan trailed off, fighting to keep his sword in the air, but the trembling turned to shaking and he dropped the blade with a howl of rage.  The temperature in the room fell as he pulled resentful energy into him.  He pushed Wen Xu away from him hard enough to stagger him.  The Yilling Louzu sighed.  Nie Xinyi readied himself to do something- anything, but Wen Xuefeng grabbed his arm and held him in place.

Wen Rouhan straightened as if the pain and weakness that had marked him had been wiped away.  DianranHuo slammed back into his hand and swept back up into position, steady now in his hand.   He yanked out a piece of metal from his sash, holding it high.

“The Yin Iron from the Dancing Goddess statue?  And you figured out how to hold yourself together as well.” Wei Wuxian mused, as he tapped his lips with Chenqing.

Everything stood still for a moment before:

“You want the secret of controlling resentment?” The Yilling Louzu smiled as he twirled the flute in his hand, spinning it easily.  There was nothing nice in is voice.

The question caught everyone’s attention, including Wen Rouhan’s, who focused on the boy even more, his fist tightened on the Yin Iron, turning white before his slipped it back into his sash.

“Resentment is only interested in one thing, life.  Either preserving the life it has, or avenging the life lost.  If you want to command resentment, Wen Rouhan, you have to give it life.”

“Murderer!” Lan Qiren snarled into the silence.

Wei Wuxian ignored him.  Lan Wangji glared at him.

Nie Xinyi took a steading breath, he couldn’t, wouldn’t believe a’Sang would associate with anyone with that amount of blood on their hands.  He wouldn’t be their friend.  He wouldn’t!

“Live, laugh, love.  Hug your sons, kiss your wife.  Laugh at a joke or enjoy a good meal.  The secret to controlling the resentment of the dead, Wen Rouhan, is the same as controlling the resentment of the living.”

Silence greeted that statement.  Nie Xinyi head ached at the sudden turn from blood sacrifices to a good meal.  Across from him, Lan Qiren was shaking in rage.  For a moment, he worried the man would Qi deviate on the spot.  Then he decided he didn’t care.

And they weren’t the only ones having trouble with the idea.  With a roar of rage, Wen Rouhan leapt forward, “LIER!”

Wei Wuxian twisted to the side, letting the former chief cultivator sail past him and swung the flute towards his back.

Turning, quick as lightening, DianranHuo, slid between the red on white robes and flute, before flicking it away and following with a hard strike. 

It was Wei Wuxian’s sword that clanged against the famous blade.  Chenqing, he tossed easily to Lan Wangji, who caught it as Wei Wuxian parried another strike.

Wen Rouhan had been the fifth-ranked young master of his generation. 

Wei Wuxian was the forth, but should have been the third.

Wen Rouhan was fifty years his senior, insignificant to a cultivator except that Wei Wuxian’s was an adolescent and not an adult.

Wei Wuxian was the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation and Wen Rouhan wasn’t.

Wei Wuxan slipped to the side and swung, his blade easily bypassed Wen Rouhan’s defence and cut his cheek.  Wen Rouhan tried to counter, but wasn’t quick enough, the sword returning to a guard position in time to check his strike.

He blocked the counterstrike and shoved, the older man’s extra weight enough to send Wei Wuxian stumbling.  The crowd moaned as Wei Wuxian threw himself out of the way of the follow up strike and clambered back to his feet.

Wen Rouhan lunged forward again, and Wei Wuxian was forced back, batting DianranHuo away and the swords clashed once, twice, three times, before he spun to the side and out of reach.  Resentment swelled again and with a flash of red eyes and a shrill whistle, dissipated as if it never existed. 

Wen Rouhan backed away, breathing hard and pulled out the Yin Iron again.  Resentment raced through the room and he laughed, “You can’t defeat me!  Not when I have this!”

Nie Xinyi isn’t sure how he got it, but Wei Wuxian suddenly raised Chenqing to his lips and began to play, his eyes now glowing bright red.  The resentment swirled between the Yin Iron and the flute.  Wen Rouhan shrieked, staggering back as the Yin Iron began to glow, matching Wei Wuxian’s eyes.  Brighter and brighter as he tried to… let it go?  Throw it?  Hold it tighter?  Nie Xinyi didn’t know, but his heart was racing and his breath was coming quicker and quicker and the resentment was flooding his lungs and…

The song cut off with a sharp thrill

The Yin Iron exploded

Everyone hit the floor

He scrambled to his feet, shaking his head to clear the ringing.  Wei Wuxian was swaying as he fought to regain control of the resentment overpowering the room.

Wen Rouhan howled, no trace of sanity left in his face as he staggered to his feet, his sword spinning back into his hand from where is had fallen.  He charged the Yilling Louzu.

DianranHuo swept forward-

Time stood still

Wei Wuxian turned burning red eyes to Wen Rouhan

Wen Rouhan fell towards him, his sword pointed at his throat

The red glow left eyes that showed only satisfaction, no fear

The blade stopped

And Wen Rouhan screamed

Blood exploded from him, spilling from his eyes and mouth, his ears and nose as he collapsed onto the floor.

“FUQIN!” Wen Xu cried, racing to his side.

Wei Wuxian reached up and grasped DianranHuo where is still hung in mid air.  At his touch, the sword went quiet, falling unresponsive in his hand.

It was Wen Qing who pushed her cousin out of the way, driving silver needles into Wen Rouhan’s body to try to save him.  Nie Xinyi watched, unable to turn away as she directed Lan Wangji to pass spiritual energy and Wei Wuxian to drain the resentment.  He didn’t move while they worked.  No one did.  And no one moved to help.

They couldn’t save him.

But they tried.

They were the only ones who tried.

And finally, finally, Nie Xinyi understood.  He looked at a’Sang, his face pale and hands shaking and back at the Yilling Louzu, the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation as he tried to save the man who just attacked him.  Wen Xuefeng let go of his arm, nodded once and said, “Now you see the whole.”

The last, and only, action of the Cultivation Conference was to acknowledge Wen Xu as Wen Zongzhu.

Nie Xinyi watched his guests leave, confused and dazed, and not entirely sure what had happened between Wen Rouhan and Wei Wuxian.  They left with vague promises to meet again soon to finish the meeting, but right then everyone just want to go home.

Two months later, Chang Ping announced his father’s death.  The murderer was captured and executed shortly afterwards by a combination of Chang and Nie cultivators a’Sang sent to help.

Four months later, he visited Yilling for the first time for the wedding of Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji.  He was the only sect leader besides Wen Xuefeng and Lan Xichen there. 

A year after that, Wen Xu married Jin Xia and less then a year later she gave him a son and heir.  Wen Chao was captured by bandits and held for ransom.  Wen Xu, already tired of his brother’s sadism and trying to repair the Wen reputation and standing, refused to pay and his half brother’s head was sent to Nightless City in a box.  A’Sang was unsurprisingly fine with that.

The same year, here was a brief controversy when a man called Zhao Zhuliu tried to enter the Baixue Temple.  Wei Wuxian appeared out of nowhere to speak on his behalf and the priests accepted him.  The Yilling Louzu’s arrival caused more interest then anything else and Zhao Zhuliu, with a bit of help from a’Sang, was quickly forgotten. It took genuine effort on Nie Xinyi’s part to discover Zhao Zhuliu was the infamous HuadanShou, the Core-Melting Hand.  

Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli married in the spring.  Yilling, in the form of Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, actually show up to the ceremony, where they were positioned as far from the Jiangs as possible.  Yu Yixuan confront Wei Wuxian at the stop of the steps as he left, Zidian sparking on her hand.  Before anyone could interfere, Wei Wuxian’s eyes burned red and the woman fell to her knees screaming and clawing at her face.  He left her there, mounting his sword and departing without a backwards glance.  Madam Jin rushed to her friend’s side, but was flung down the steps by a blast of spiritual power from the panicking woman.  By the time Jin healers subdued her, Zi Zhizhu, the demon of Lotus Pier had torn her own eyes out and ripped off one of her ears.  Madam Jin broke her leg and back in the fall.  She walked with a cane for the rest of her life.  A’Sang, standing with him, a’Jue and Meng Yao smiled in satisfaction and glanced over at his brother’s assistant.  Meng Yao nodded once to him.

Two years later Jin Zixun was caught trying to start a war between Yilling and the rest of the Cultivation world.  He immediately offered the former Lan disciple and now sect leader of Moling Su, Su Minchen, and the Meng Yao as co-conspirators, trying to claim his actions were part of  a multi-sect agreement against the evil of the Yilling Patriarch.  Jin Zixuan immediately disavowed his cousin.  Su Minchun’s son and heir, Su Shuren, confirmed he knew nothing and was not willing to fight Yilling.

Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen were both quick to defend Meng Yao until Lan Wangji arrived at the Unclean Realm.  He didn’t say anything, but Lan Xichen withdrew his support for Meng Yao immediately.  Nie Mingjue refused but that wasn’t enough to stop the guilty verdict.  All three were executed. 

Nie Xinyi wasn’t privy to it, but he believed there was an actual conversation between the Twin Jades afterwards.  Either way, is was common knowledge within a few months that Lan Xichen gave his brother the piece of Yin Iron hidden in Cloud Recesses.  Lan Qiren’s yelling could be heard all the way to Koi Tower.

The rift between a’Jue and Lan Xichen took years to heal, but Nie Xinyi, using his younger son as a barometer, was content to wait.  It did eventually heal, with both young men more aware of their own and other’s weaknesses.

Nie Mingjue married Qin Su in the summer of his twenty-firth year. 

Nie Huaisang married Xun Tai four years later.

The Jiang and Jin continued to decline and even their sect leader taking the Chief Cultivator position didn’t stop the financial bleedout of the Jin sect.  With several of their former affiliated sects now dominating the northern and western territories, the Jin were forced to give full control back to their main clans.  Jin Zixuan didn’t look unhappy about it, if anything, he shared Wen Xu’s relief at withdrawing from the smaller sects’ business.  He had grown close to Wen Zongzhu, initially by virtue of giving each other someone to complain about Jin Zixun and Wen Chao to and latterly having someone who understood the problems of rebuilding from the disasters their fathers made of their sects and the Cultivation world in general.

After Yu Ziyuan took her own life following the debacle at the wedding, Jiang Fengmien stepped down as sect leader and entered seclusion.   The Jiang turned more and more inwards becoming ever more reclusive and isolationist under Jiang Wanyin.  With the rise of so many smaller sects to the same power as the Great Sects, the Jiang became little more then a footnote.

Nie Xinyi living happily for another five years following a’Sang’s marriage, attempting to balance out the increasing resentment from his sabre and live life to the fullest.  Just when he was sure he would Qi deviate inside of a month, Wen Qing showed up with box of resentment dispelling charms with cute tassels for the sabres and a regime of regular acupuncture, meditation and herbal infusions in hand for their wielders.  She insisted on using a’Jue as her primary test subject.   This lead to in Qin Su hating her for the pain she caused his husband, but in the end, it did work.

Nie Xinyi passed on peacefully, in his sleep, with his children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, great-great grandchildren and a thriving sect around him.

His greatest regret was never getting to the bottom of a’Sang’s problem with Yan Yao.