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Lan Xichen was not the type of person who lost things.
Since childhood, he’d known the value of organization. His rooms had always been spotless, his desk tidy. He knew the location of every book on his shelf, and every trinket in his collection. If he took something out, it was carefully replaced later. If he left something out, he always knew where to find it.
It shouldn’t have been possible for something to go missing. And yet, the item on the desk – the item he had personally and definitely placed on that specific desk – was no longer there.
He searched the room.
He retraced his steps.
What was not there remained not there, and it made no sense to him.
It stressed him.
A cluttered room started with a cluttered mind, his uncle always said, and had repeated the words critically once Lan Xichen worked up the courage to ask him about it. Lan Xichen was truly starting to appreciate the meaning of those words. He couldn’t deny it – his mind had been preoccupied lately in ways unbefitting of a Lan clan member, let alone its leader. Where a leader was especially supposed to keep a cool clear head, his was packed with all sorts of troubles. There were the general ones: the clan’s rebuilding, his brother’s recovery.
And then there were also the troubles of the last few days, where he’d been run ragged by his sworn brother’s visit, and the troubles of an impromptu trip to Golden Carp Tower. His head still felt encased within the cloud of thick incense the Jin sect favored. Or perhaps that was due to the emotional arguments he played ear to.
Those two were trying to get along these days, he knew that. He only wished they would talk to each other instead of through him.
As much as he wanted to help, could he really have let himself become so affected that he would now misplace one of his clan’s treasures? Lan Xichen never thought himself so careless.
“Is it dangerous, Sect Leader?” Several disciples had been pulled in to help with the search, his uncle’s way of a peace offering after the lecture.
“Not particularly…” At least, not in any way that Lan Xichen could think of, going off the records. “Though in unprepared hands, it could be troublesome.”
Lan Xichen shook his head. He refused to entertain the notion that it had been stolen. He refused to let doubt creep into his heart and take up residence with all the other unpleasant emotions squatting within.
Uncertainty, anxiety, frustration – every one of those feelings cast a sheen of foreboding.
Just where had that incense burner gone?
Jin Guangyao was not the type of person who forgot things.
It was a bit of a fault of his, one could say. His mind was blessed and cursed with an ability to remember everything, a blessing in his education and administrative pursuits, and a curse in all other aspects. He remembered any words said, and the glowers that accompanied them. He remembered situations, actions. He remembered what he did for others and how they treated him in turn.
He remembered objects.
“I’ve seen that before,” he said of the colorful mo- shaped incense burner on Nie Mingjue’s desk. A steady stream of incense rose out of its long nose.
Nie Mingjue furrowed his brow, bleary eyes opening and gazing at the trinket. He gave a shrug and a grunt, and Jin Guangyao left it at that.
He remembered objects and where he’d seen them, but the truth of it was that there were a lot of things he’d seen that he wasn’t supposed to, and it was never a good idea to draw attention to that, especially with someone as suspicious as Nie Mingjue.
Fortunately, Nie Mingjue did not care to press, slipping back into his meditative trance, his left eyebrow faintly twitching with the telltale sign of displeasure.
Jin Guangyao eyed the stream of incense for a few moments, breathing in its calming scent, before taking his usual seat and preparing his guqin. The afternoon passed by as many before it, Jin Guangyao playing, and Nie Mingjue meditating. They exchanged no more words than absolutely necessary, as were the terms of their most recent arrangement. This way, they could tolerate the other’s presence without tempers flaring. This way, they could pretend their relationship still had some of its old affections.
(And if there was something that really needed to be said, Nie Huaisang was around somewhere.)
A calm afternoon turned into an uneventful evening, by which point the mo incense burner had found an unimportant space for itself within Jin Guangyao’s mind, and would have remained there, had he not suddenly woken up in Golden Carp Tower.
Not the real Golden Carp Tower, which was still in Lanling, far, far away from the Unclean Realm, but the one of his dreams, a twisted garish nightmare of a structure.
He knew right away he was in a dream, between his loose hair and plain nightclothes, the warped walls and ceilings, and the comfortable knowledge that he couldn’t have been transported to the real one so subtly and quickly.
And, well, he’d had this dream before.
Many times.
He wasn’t normally so aware of it though, the dream usually playing out in fragments, but he recognized the shadows of disciples on the walls, the distant giggles, and the portraits with their moving eyes fixated on him.
Jin Guangyao shrank from their stares, his feet carrying him to a room that wasn’t so watchful, as his mind worked to make sense of things.
If he was in a dream and aware of it, shouldn’t he awaken? Try as he might, he couldn’t will himself back to his bed.
Was it a spell of some sort? A trap? He couldn’t think of anything different about this latest visit to the Unclean Realm.
Except, of course, the incense burner, that he’d once seen at the Cloud Recesses. He didn’t know how it found its way to the Unclean Realm, but between its shape and his predicament, wasn’t there some clear connection?
He should have pressed Nie Mingjue about it further. Played the angle of oblivious curiosity rather than surprised recognition.
But if he’d done that, he would have been the one to break their arrangement. Nie Mingjue would never let him hear the end of it.
Jin Guangyao sighed, the distant giggles like daggers to his ears. So he was to be trapped in his nightmare, was he? Inside the hostile Golden Carp Tower that wished to rip him apart. In his dreams, he was helpless to its teeth, but if he knew what to expect, could he not simply… leave?
His dreams usually allowed him that.
His contemplations were cut short by a loud animalistic roar.
Jin Guangyao froze.
That was new.
The roar silenced the voices and scattered the shadows, but rather than gratitude it brought only dread. The monstrous sound rooted itself into Jin Guangyao’s heart making him afraid to breathe. He strained his ears trying to pinpoint its source, but all that remained were echoes.
“I should leave,” Jin Guangyao told himself firmly. Whatever the noise was, it was inside the compound where Jin Guangyao himself least wanted to be.
Taking care not to look anywhere but the floor, Jin Guangyao made his way to the next room. The giggles that had been silenced slowly started up once more as they spotted him, scathing words in bubbly tones mixed in.
Jin Guangyao ignored them. As long as he didn’t engage with the shadows, didn’t try to look, they would gleefully ignore him in kind. That was the trick of it.
He rushed through the different rooms, focusing on nothing but his own pounding heart and mentally mapping up the layout. He knew the real one by heart, but his dream liked to add rooms, turning the main house’s interior into an impossible piece of architecture.
The roar from before resounded once again, prompting him to walk faster. As before it dispersed the shadows, but Jin Guangyao knew instinctively that to meet it would promise a worse fate.
He threw open the doors to the next room, and paused as he took in another shout. This one belonged to a familiar voice however – one of the shadows. More voices mixed with it, all of them screaming and cursing.
How unseemly , Jin Guangyao thought absently. Even through the dream’s distortions, he knew exactly to whom each one of those voices belonged to. And to think, they could show that side of themselves to someone who wasn’t him.
Although when their screams were accompanied by the sounds of a blade smacking against the wall over and over, it was a little hard to blame them. Jin Guangyao too mouthed a small curse.
There was only one door forward, leaving him no choice but to meet with the shadows’ assailant if he didn’t fancy an encounter with the monster instead. Steeling his nerves, he opened the door.
Sure enough, Baxia’s tip came into view immediately rushing at him and stopping only barely a hair’s breadth from his nose.
“Da-ge, it’s me,” Jin Guangyao breathed out, hoping in that moment that he didn’t sound as terrified as he felt.
Nie Mingjue was always intimidating, but dressed in his usual dark robes and silver regalia with his saber drawn, while Jin Guangyao only had his thin white nightclothes and no weapons, made him seem particularly so. He wore a deep frown as he stared down at Jin Guangyao, as though looking for signs of a trick. He did, however, lower Baxia and let him into the hacked-up room. He had done a real number of the intricately painted walls.
“What is this?” Nie Mingjue demanded.
“My dream, I think.” Jin Guangyao saw no reason to hide it. “We’ve, uh, somehow gotten trapped inside.”
This was Nie Mingjue’s cue to reveal what he knew of the situation, perhaps also offer an explanation of the deeply suspicious incense burner. Instead, he simply lifted one judging eyebrow.
“A nightmare would be more apt,” he said, and let that serve as all he had to say on the matter.
He slid Baxia into her sheath and stepped closer. Jin Guangyao wondered how he’d managed to manifest her, alongside the rest of his attire for that matter, feeling more naked than ever. The saber’s presence also made him wonder: if he died in this kind of dream, would there be consequences?
He considered asking, but Nie Mingjue pushed past him into the previous room, locking eyes with a judgmental painting. He scowled at it, then turned back around, without another glance at Jin Guangyao.
Ah, right. Their arrangement. Their mutual agreement not to speak any more than necessary to each other. Nie Mingjue was a man of morals with an indomitable will, which was really just the polite way to say he was stubborn. How foolish of Jin Guangyao to think that he should bend on them now that they were in this situation.
Jin Guangyao considered leaving him to wander Golden Carp Tower on his own and resume his own exit. Let Nie Mingjue contend with its traps and mockeries himself. But as soon as he made that choice, he made the opposite one and followed after him.
This was his dream. He didn’t want Nie Mingjue to see just how ugly it was.
“Da-ge, let me lead,” Jin Guangyao broke the silence. “It’s best that we get out of here quickly.”
“Before I see anything I shouldn’t, you mean?”
“If that’s how you want to think of it, fine.” Jin Guangyao didn’t want to argue. “This is the Golden Carp Tower of my dreams, so I know it best. It’s dangerous.”
Nie Mingjue frowned, but before he could demand an explanation, the distant roar sounded again. Only – it didn’t sound as distant as last time. When Nie Mingjue heard it, his jaw clenched tight. He grabbed Jin Guangyao’s wrist, eyes fixated on the source of the roar like a hunter.
“Lead the way.”
Each room in Jin Guangyao’s Golden Carp Tower held a different torment. Usually, he would only see a room or two at a time, so even he didn’t know how the whole labyrinthian structure fit together. It defied reason. The walls couldn’t be destroyed. The stairs weren’t where they were supposed to be. He only knew they existed.
The shadows and their laughter was everywhere, though they seemed to have less to say to the two of them together, so long as Nie Mingjue didn’t antagonize them again.
“They’re gentlemen, so they’ll mind their conduct if they recognize you as an equal,” Jin Guangyao explained. He didn’t add that they’d ignore anyone they didn’t, so long as that person kept their head low and stayed out of their way.
Most of the time anyway.
It was enough for Jin Guangyao that they seemed to sense that Nie Mingjue was not someone they should gossip around.
He gave a similar warning about the paintings and their eyes.
“The eyes are everywhere. Anything you do will be known throughout the whole compound.”
The walls were finicky.
“Just don’t touch them,” Jin Guangyao insisted, and hoped Nie Mingjue had enough experience with his own family’s tombs to draw the needed conclusion.
The dreams with the walls were among the worst.
“Don’t enter any unnecessary rooms either,” he added when Nie Mingjue tried to split off from him. These were all necessary things to say, Jin Guangyao assured himself, so he wasn’t breaking their agreement. It was all in the interest of getting out of the dream in one piece. He still had no idea what kind of harm could befall their bodies if they suffered any injuries, and he wasn’t keen on finding out.
Nie Mingjue responded mainly in grunts and odd looks, but when he finally had enough and opened a door he shouldn’t, Jin Guangyao just barely pushed him out of the way of the jewelry box sent flying at his chest.
“What the hell was that!” Nie Mingjue shouted as Jin Guangyao felt very foolish. Nie Mingjue was a skilled warrior. He could have ducked himself. Jin Guangyao had no idea why he reacted so quickly and stared down at his hands.
Nie Mingjue stomped over to the fallen jewelry box, now smashed into pieces. He lifted a piece of the lid, tracing the fragment of the painted peacock.
It had been a gift once. Jin Guangyao remembered vainly trying to piece it back together.
“ Why was this thrown at you? ”
“That’s how this room works.”
“That’s not what I am asking,” Nie Mingjue snapped, fist curling around Baxia.“Why are you dreaming about flying jewelry boxes, and these mocking shadows, and what even was that thing a few rooms ago?”
Jin Guangyao bit back the more biting comment and shrugged. “I’m afraid I can’t control my dreams, Da-ge. You think too much of me.”
“You’re not answering the question.”
“Because I don’t know what answer would satisfy you,” Jin Guangyao snapped back, remembering with a frustrated sigh why it was they made their arrangement in the first place. He knelt down before the broken jewelry box and snatched back the piece Nie Mingjue had taken. “Why Golden Carp Tower looks like this has no bearing on us escaping it. All we have to do is reach the bottom floor, open the front gate, and leave .”
“You say that as though there is a bottom floor. How do you know this tower isn’t endless?”
“It’s my dream. I know.”
“How?”
“Because there always is,” Jin Guangyao stressed. “Do you really think everything I say is a lie? That I don’t want out of here just as much as you do? But if you don’t want to trust me, don’t. Wander here by yourself and wait for that thing to reach you.”
They’d heard it a few times during their wandering. It roared at regular enough intervals that Jin Guangyao learned to brace himself, but every time Nie Mingjue was startled, and would quicken his pace. Fear was not the word Jin Guangyao would use to describe Nie Mingjue’s reaction, but the mention of their monstrous adversary was enough to make Nie Mingjue drop the topic.
“Let’s go,” he said, taking the lead. You had better be right, his glare added.
Jin Guangyao crushed the jewelry box beneath his foot.
They crossed a few more rooms in their more preferred silence, Jin Guangyao using the time to cool his head and remind himself that he was completely unarmed and reliant on Nie Mingjue for any kind of protection. He could depend on that much at least. Nie Mingjue would never let them come to harm on his watch. It didn’t matter their background or his personal feelings towards them. Nie Mingjue was a protector. He never cared if his protection was wanted or needed – he was always ready to rush forward on another’s behalf.
There was a part of Jin Guangyao that missed being someone Nie Mingjue would fiercely defend. He gazed upon the broad back before him wistfully.
Nie Mingjue spent their silence in deep thought. That was the conclusion Jin Guangyao reached when he became the next one between them to break it.
“I was twelve when my father first brought me to Lanling,” he began, a topic so unexpected that Jin Guangyao didn’t know how he was expected to react. “I’d never seen a place so… shiny before. You’ve seen the Unclean Realm. It’s decorated, but nothing like this .”
The room they were in was something Jin Guangyao nicknamed the treasure room. It was the prettiest floor in his dream, walls and floors gilded with gold, and every surface showing off some rare treasure. There were paintings, vases, folding screens, instruments, statues, antique tableware, and countless other things. It was blindingly dazzling, so Jin Guangyao tried to keep his gaze to the floor.
“I was excited to be there,” Nie Mingjue continued, not doing the same, and squinting as a result. “At a previous competition, I’d sparred against a Jin disciple, and we struck up a rapport. He was my type. Strong. Diligent. Just.”
Those were the main qualities Nie Mingjue valued in people.
“But when I arrived, it wasn’t how I imagined it. We were constantly made to wait. Food was always taken away too quickly. People stared at me, and then giggled when I caught them. Conversations died when I tried to join. I was constantly reminded not to break anything. The disciple I’d wanted to meet with was too busy.”
Jin Guangyao said nothing. Nie Mingjue didn’t wait for him to.
“When I took over the sect, I had to travel more. I had a seat at the table of every gathering, but that was all. The older established leaders didn’t like a kid with a loud temper, and a refusal to bend to them. They never failed to invite me, but they took care to make sure I knew their invitations were only just that.
“My point is, I know very well what it’s like to feel unwelcome ,” Nie Mingjue spat out the word. “This place is exactly that. Watchful. Mocking. Hostile. Am I right?”
Jin Guangyao remained silent. What difference did it make if he was right or not? They were almost out anyway.
“This is what the place is to you. All these shadows, all their mockery – your memory is perfect. You’ve heard every one of these conversations.”
“Why are you acting like this is news to you?” Jin Guangyao quipped. “You know I have troubles there.”
“I didn’t know about these troubles,” Nie Mingjue snapped. “All this mockery right to your face. You are the legitimate son and heir. Who would dare?”
Who would dare? Jin Guangyao felt his last nerve snap, stopping him in place.
“Who would dare?” he repeated in disbelief. Every ugly emotion he ever felt burned within him. “The better question is who wouldn’t dare? Everyone from the most distant cousins to the lowest servants can say what they please about me.”
“That’s unacceptable. There is a hierarchy.”
“And? What good is that hierarchy when the one at the top sets the example? Why should anyone show me any respect when Father himself doesn’t care for me? To at least give him face? He’ll sooner reward whoever makes things difficult for me.”
They’d already passed the room for it. Jin Guangyao had simply refused to say anything about it.
His shoulders shook. His breath hitched. He was laughing.
“You wanted to know how I know there’s an exit? Because leaving through it is the whole point . This place wants me to disappear – by choice – so that it can untwist itself back into the beautiful pristine shape it once held. And then the shadows inside can tut their disappointment about the ungrateful, unfilial villain.”
Jin Guangyao really did feel unfilial sometimes because he really did want to do just that. Stop fighting for affections he would never gain and make better use of his talents in a far-off land where the stain of his birth couldn’t follow.
His mother would be so disappointed.
Nie Mingjue stayed silent through his rant. His expression was grim, and he chewed on his lower lip in a way that made it clear he really wanted to argue. Jin Guangyao welcomed it. He was tired of their ridiculous silent treatment and was ready to just hash everything out. He knew Nie Mingjue’s weaknesses just as much as Nie Mingjue knew his own. If he had to have all his bad memories on display, he would make sure Nie Mingjue did too.
And yet the argument never came. What did come was Nie Mingjue setting down Baxia, and then unfastening his outer robe to drape over Jin Guangyao’s still trembling shoulders.
“For a child to be filial, the parent should be kind,” he said in an even tone. Then he picked up his saber once more and gestured for Jin Guangyao to follow.
Jin Guangyao didn’t. He fell to his knees and pulled the dark green robe tighter around him. His body burned and he could feel the shadows gathering around to laugh at him.
He needed to get out of Golden Carp Tower so much. Leave the tower and escape to his favorite place. That was the only good ending the dream could have.
Nie Mingjue waited for him by the next door. He wasn’t the comforting type, and he knew when it was better to keep his distance. Jin Guangyao just wished it wasn’t that big a distance.
After what felt like an eternity, he picked himself up. They didn’t have time for him to sit there wallowing, nor did he feel like giving his tormentors a longer show.
He caught up to Nie Mingjue with a placid expression, the outer robe still on his shoulders.
“Does Jin Guangshan appear in your dream?” Nie Mingjue asked, with the tone of someone with a score to settle.
“No,” Jin Guangyao lied. He felt he’d been subjected to enough humiliation for one night and didn’t need Nie Mingjue to see the sort of grotesque shape his father took. It was enough just to hear his concern. “Can we just go, please? Outside the tower is… a better place.”
Either a dream version of it or the real one. Either would do at this point.
Nie Mingjue nodded. He let Jin Guangyao take the lead this time and the rest of their wandering was filled with him picking fights with the shadows. It brought something of a smirk back to Jin Guangyao’s face, though he made sure to keep it hidden from him.
Finally, they found the stairs. The bottom floor was laid out much more sensibly, further cementing just how impossible the upstairs was. Jin Guangyao always considered himself an orderly person. Why was his dream like this?
They reached the front hall at last, finding it completely devoid of sound and shadows, as though they’d all scattered to make Jin Guangyao’s exit as unseen as possible.
He didn’t care.
He threw open the doors and let the freeing moonlight of the outside world flood in, before rushing out towards the stairs.
They were as towering as always, but for once Jin Guangyao was willing to throw himself down them if it meant reaching the structure waiting for him below.
“Is that… the Unclean Realm?” Nie Mingjue squinted. “What is that doing there?”
“It’s always there,” Jin Guangyao muttered, then sharply cleared his throat. “It’s the exit out of here. I can feel it.”
“Good,” Nie Mingjue said, his mood visibly brighter at the sight of his beloved home. “Let’s go.” He gave Jin Guangyao a friendly clap on the back.
But neither one of them could take their first step before the familiar guttural roar resounded once again.
It was right behind him.
Jin Guangyao felt a terror unlike any he’d ever known. It was as though everything seen and heard inside was suddenly nothing in the face of the horrid mass of resentment behind them. He hadn’t forgotten about it. Only the last time he’d heard it he was too distraught to register it properly and restart his counting. Then he remembered the silence in the hall.
How could he have dropped his guard like that?
“Da-ge?” Jin Guangyao fought past the paralysis to inch closer to Nie Mingjue who had gone completely rigid. “We should run.”
That option was rejected immediately by the monster. It lunged at them and only Nie Mingjue’s swift reflexes yanked them both out of the way. The monster tore into the landing atop the stairs. A horrible metallic screeching scraped against the pavement. It then rose up to its full towering height – standing as tall as at least two Nie Mingjues. Though humanoid in appearance, it looked more beast than person. Its expression was twisted, what little of it could be seen past the thick smog of resentment rolling off it.
It held a saber.
Jin Guangyao forgot how to breathe. Still in Nie Mingjue’s protective grip, he could feel his identical reaction, the recognition reaching them both.
“Da-ge, you must believe me,” Jin Guangyao forced out. “I didn’t dream this .”
“I know,” Nie Mingjue’s reply was just as strained. “I did.”
Nie Mingjue was not the type of person who shared things.
Oh sure, he said things as he felt them, and he made sure never to leave his stance up to interpretation, but there was saying things, and then there was saying things.
He wasn’t too different from his younger brother in that way. Huaisang could say a thousand words and nothing of value, and Nie Mingjue could say exactly what needed to be said and nothing more.
He didn’t have many people he was close to. He had even fewer he could burden with his problems.
Problems of a personal sort.
Such as the recurring nightmare he had of turning into his father.
What was left of his father in the end.
Nie Mingjue bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste blood. Beside him Jin Guangyao trembled in disbelief. He wasn’t supposed to see this.
Nie Mingjue never wanted Jin Guangyao to fear him.
He held up Baxia, forcing a steady hand. “I’m going to draw its attention,” Nie Mingjue whispered. “You get out of here.”
“ By myself? ”
“Wake up, and then go wake me up.” The spell on the incense burner was powerful, not allowing Nie Mingjue to break free himself, but any properly made cultivator’s tool that worked on the spirit had a failsafe on the outside. Nie Mingjue trusted himself to hold out that long.
“Can’t we both run?”
“No.”
Nie Mingjue had had this dream before. He had never outrun himself. Either he died or – he was just going to have to not die right now.
“Go,” Nie Mingjue said once more and shoved Jin Guangyao away from him just as his monstrous self-moved again. The two Baxias met. Their qi infused shockwaves tore across the front garden, instantly turning it into an uprooted decaying mess.
From the corner of his eye, Nie Mingjue saw Jin Guangyao shakily rise to his feet and start to move towards the stairs. Nie Mingjue parried several blows and called upon every technique he’d ever learned, anything to keep the beast trained on him.
He saw Jin Guangyao’s head disappear past the steps.
Good.
Jin Guangyao was smart. Nie Mingjue trusted him to do the right thing.
His muscles burned from the strain of fighting himself, every one of its blows carrying the force of ten of him. His arms shook.
How could this version of himself be so powerful? The rational part of Nie Mingjue knew it was just a dream, but wasn’t this what awaited him too? Monstrous strength. Loss of all reason. Inability to tell friend from foe.
He remembered his father. He’d been too strong in the end. He’d hurt –
Jin Guangyao suddenly ran across the courtyard.
That split second of distraction was all that was needed for the beast’s resentment to overpower Nie Mingjue’s aura and send him flying.
“Meng Yao! Run!” was all he could think to shout through coursing indignation. His words had been so clear! How could Jin Guangyao return!
The beast turned to him, but Nie Mingjue tossed out Baxia, letting Jin Guangyao duck back into Golden Carp Tower. Baxia traded several blows with her counterpart.
But Nie Mingjue’s vision was already blurring, and his control was sluggish.
Just a little more. Don’t lose control. This version of Baxia existed as a saber spirit. A volatile, unpredictable force. In several of his dreams, she would side against him. She wanted a master who would slaughter evil without rest. A Nie Mingjue who would stop was evil.
Nie Mingjue felt his strength start to fade. He hoped whatever backlash came from dying in a dreamworld didn’t damage his real body too much.
Then another thought occurred to him. If he ended the dream, shouldn't that monster disappear too? Then Jin Guangyao would be safe.
He could live with that.
Baxia , he mentally called the saber to his side. She floated into his hand, still charged with thoughts of battle. Nie Mingjue sat up and held her in front of him, pointed at the beast steadily approaching.
He knew what he had to do to end this nightmare.
He raised Baxia.
And music started to play.
The beast stopped moving. Nie Mingjue lifted his head. He had a terrible ear for melodies, but this one was as familiar to him as his own heart.
The notes of the guqin hung in the air, enveloping Nie Mingjue in warmth. Jin Guangyao plucked each string with a practiced precision, not a moment’s hesitation from his seat before Golden Carp Tower’s front gate.
He played slowly and grandly.
The beast turned to him. The thick fog of resentment started to fade, and with it the beast itself. In Nie Mingjue’s hand, Baxia started to relax and he leaned onto her like a crutch as he stood.
Jin Guangyao finished one round of Cleansing and immediately started the song again, playing over and over until Nie Mingjue finally crossed the ruins of the front courtyard and all but fell down beside him.
“Da-ge!”
“I’m fine. Just tired.” And likely going to have a hell of a sore body in the morning if not an outright qi deviation. He was going to smash that incense burner the moment he laid eyes on it. “How did you know?”
“I didn’t…” Jin Guangyao confessed. “But I saw the instrument when we passed through the treasure room before…”
He’d always had an amazing memory. In spite of himself, Nie Mingjue laughed.
“You’ve always been the one person I could never understand,” he said.
“Da-ge?”
“I’ve had this dream before. You playing Cleansing .”
Jin Guangyao frowned. “Me? Not Er-ge?”
“Sometimes with Xichen, but usually just you.” It was rare, but it happened. Usually when they were in the middle of one of their truces. When Nie Mingjue felt there was still hope for him.
For the two of them.
“You… really trust me that much?” Jin Guangyao whispered.
Nie Mingjue gave him a look. “I’ve always trusted you.”
He didn’t always agree with Jin Guangyao. But that wasn’t the same thing.
Jin Guangyao grew silent. His fingers absently plucked one of the guqin’s strings, sending a thin sound into the air.
“What… what happens now?” he finally asked. His smile showed dimples for the first time in a long time.
Nie Mingjue didn’t remember his answer. He didn’t remember what happened next either. He vaguely remembered reaching for A-Yao only to be violently jolted awake in his bed, his arm still outstretched.
It was still dark outside. Nie Mingjue’s sheets were drenched in sweat, his body indeed sore from the runaround in his mind. And yet, he didn’t care as he threw off the sheets, threw on his boots and rushed outside.
He was halfway to Jin Guangyao’s room when he ran into Jin Guangyao himself.
“Da-ge!” his former deputy called out in an excited whisper. “You made it back!”
“You too.”
“Are you injured?”
“No.” He was lucky in that sense. “What happened there? At the end?”
“I don’t remember. I just suddenly woke up.” It was a startling confession from a man who never forgot things. Yet Jin Guangyao kept his gaze even.
“Why did you come back? I told you to wake up and then wake me up.”
“I didn’t know if that would work. The guqin felt like a better idea.”
“You’re the one who said the Unclean Realm was the exit.” It made perfect sense to Nie Mingjue. Escape Golden Carp Tower, return to the place the two of them were sleeping inside.
Yet Jin Guangyao looked uncomfortable. “It’s my exit,” he coughed into his fist. “That Unclean Realm… it’s always there in my dream waiting for me. It’s the place I feel…” He trailed off. “It’s been a long night. We should try to salvage what’s left of it.”
“What were you going to say?” Nie Mingjue pressed.
“Da-ge, remember our agreement.”
“Forget that bullshit agreement already.” The whole thing had been ridiculous from the start. “What’s the Unclean Realm to you?”
“It’s…” Jin Guangyao hesitated. Then he sighed. “A safe place.”
“Even though I’m here?”
“ Because you’re here.” Jin Guangyao sighed. They had only moonlight to illuminate them, but Nie Mingjue was sure he was blushing. “That beast you dreamed of. That isn’t you.”
“Yet.”
“It will never be you,” Jin Guangyao amended. “I’ll make sure of it.”
Nie Mingjue was certain he himself was blushing now.
“What happens now?” Jin Guangyao asked.
“Now we go back to bed, and ward off the rest of the nightmares together.” Nie Mingjue grabbed Jin Guangyao’s wrist. “ My bed. It’s bigger.”
Jin Guangyao slid out his wrist, stopping when his fingers caught Nie Mingjue’s. He smiled a real smile.
“Would you believe me if I’d said I had this dream before?”
Nie Mingjue would.
Nie Huaisang was not the type of person who thought through things.
“I didn’t know! I didn’t know! I really didn’t know!”
He bowed his head over and over, eventually replacing the “I didn’t know” with a repeated “I’m sorry” and then an “I’ll never ever do it again” with a repeated “ever.”
“I’m not mad,” Lan Xichen said. He was disappointed. It was worse. “I just want to know what you were thinking.”
Nie Huaisang wasn’t thinking. He was impulsing.
“I just could take it anymore!” He wailed, still on the ground. “Those two and their silent treatment that was silent only to them – Er-ge, whatever you think you’ve gone through with them, I’ve had it so much worse! I live here! ”
He still had nightmares of his brother barging in at all hours of the day to tell him exactly what he thought about Jin Guangyao.
And then Jin Guangyao barging in moments later to politely tell him what he should tell Nie Mingjue.
Lan Xichen’s sigh was sympathetic. Nie Huaisang continued.
“And then when we were at the Cloud Recesses and you showed us the incense burner, I thought – that’s it! Trap them in a dream for a night and let them work things out without bothering anyone else. I thought it was going to be the best night of my life!”
And it was, or at least it was ranked somewhere high on his personal list of best nights. It had been dampened slightly by the alarming discovery that the incense burner’s effects lasted for more than one night.
Possibly even more than a week.
“I see,” Lan Xichen said as he stroked his recovered treasure. “And you didn’t think to just ask to borrow it?”
“Oh you know, ask for forgiveness, not permission…” Nie Huaisang had spent a whole day preparing for the forgiveness part. “I thought you wouldn’t agree.”
“I wouldn’t have.”
“Exactly!”
“Huaisang…” Lan Xichen sighed again. “The incense burner is not a toy.”
“I know that! Oh, believe me , I know that now.”
Lan Xichen did not look like he believed. He leaned forward. “And? Did it work?”
“A little too well,” Nie Huaisang confessed. He finally picked himself off the ground, dusted off his robes, and slid back into the seat opposite Lan Xichen. “Not only are those two talking again, now they’re together.”
The disappointment promptly slid off Lan Xichen’s face. It was replaced by bewilderment. “Together, as in…”
“ Together together.” Nie Huaisang nodded solemnly.
Lan Xichen set down the incense burner and folded his hands on his lap in the polite sect leader code for tell me everything .
Nie Huaisang obliged. “Ever since that night, they’ve been sleeping in Da-ge’s bed, curled up in a tight embrace. And when they’re awake, they keep making these weird plans.”
“Weird plans?”
Nie Huaisang looked him in the eye. “For some reason, they really want to renovate Golden Carp Tower.”