Archive of Our Own

The first year of his seclusion was the one Lan Xichen felt was the longest. During that time, he was restless, peering out the window into the forest to the north and the stream that ran along the eastern side of the hut as he aimlessly paced the room’s perimeter. There was far too much plaguing his mind for him to sit and meditate. The events that transpired on that night months ago still felt fresh in his mind. If he closed his eyes, he could see the image of his sworn brother etched onto the back of his eyelids, Lianfang-zun eternally pushing him away as the arm of Nie Mingjue’s fierce corpse dragged him into the coffin. The only person he was to ever love, sealed away to be forever scorned by the rest of the world for as long as his memory were to live. 

Standing alone in the room, Lan Xichen was reminded of his own father. The house he was secluding in had been rebuilt over the ashes of the very same house his father had spent his final days in, locked away from the rest of the world. He wondered how his father had spent his time in seclusion. Did the silence help ease his mind? Did he pace around the room as his son now did? Lan Xichen knew that speculating such things was probably a waste of time. After all, he never really knew his father well enough to be able to make any real guess as to what he would have done with his time in seclusion. 

Instead of his father, Lan Xichen thought of what his uncle, Lan Qiren, would have done if he were to have made the same mistakes that he had. His uncle was a practical man and Lan Xichen thought that if Lan Qiren was given all this time to sit and reflect by himself, then he would use it to cultivate himself, body and mind. So that was what Lan Xichen decided he would do. 

*************

It was raining when Lan Xichen heard someone approach the cottage. He opened his eyes just as he began to hear a soft knock at the door.

“Excuse me,” A soft, gentle voice broke through the sound of the rain, “I’m so sorry to be a bother, but is anyone there?”

Given that Lan Xichen hadn’t heard another person’s voice in quite some time, he decided now would be as good a time as any to answer. He had long since lost track of the date and he figured he had been in seclusion for at least a decade or so, maybe longer, and the voice outside had piqued his interest. With a silent exhale, he stood and approached the door. He could sense the presence of a lone figure on the other side, their breathing was slightly ragged, as though they had approached the cottage in a rush. Slowly, Lan Xichen slid the door open to reveal the visitor. 

When he got a proper look at the person standing before him, Lan Xichen felt his heart swell up into his throat before quickly sinking down into his stomach. Standing before him, drenched in the rain, was none other than Jin Guangyao, staring up at him with the same wide eyes that he wished he didn’t remember after all this time. Lan Xichen blinked several times, hoping that it was just his mind playing tricks on him. However, when he refocused his vision, the person standing before him remained the same. Perhaps this person just bore a resemblance and his desires were filling in the gaps.

“I’m so sorry to have disturbed you,” The stranger started, his voice taking Lan Xichen out of his thoughts “It’s just that I was hiking though these woods and I happened to lose my way, and well as you can see it started raining, and I…” the voice trailed off as his eyes trailed up and down Lan Xichen’s body, “Oh gosh I didn’t realize that this was a monastery, I’m so sorry for disturbing you Mr. Monk! If your temple doesn’t accept outsiders then I can leave.”

“But I’m not a-–“ Lan Xichen started, stopping himself as he gave the young man before him a proper look. He wasn’t wearing robes associated with any sect, as a matter of fact he wasn’t wearing any sort of recognizable clothing at all. Instead, he was wearing what seemed to be a strangely short tunic with thick blue under-trousers that were exposed. At the very least he seemed to be wearing a bright yellow outer jacket, preserving a modicum of modesty. Had the style really changed all that much while he was away? Just as he was about to pose a question about the ensemble, a rumble of thunder threatened to shake the earth the cottage was built upon. He stepped back and invited the man inside, “Please do come in.”

“Thank you, thank you,” The stranger gave a polite nod as he stepped past the threshold and into the cottage.

Lan Xichen shut the door and immediately began looking around the room for a cushion for his guest to sit on, “I apologize for the lack of hospitality, I have not had a visitor in quite some time.”

“It’s quite alright,” the visitor responded, looking around the cottage with curiosity, “I don’t know if getting lost and seeking shelter from a stranger makes me an ideal visitor.” He joked.

“Tell me,” Lan Xichen started, pulling out a second cushion from underneath a long abandoned pile of scrolls, “Would you happen to know who the current Chief Cultivator is? I suspect Sect Leader Jiang may have taken the role, that is if my brother did not show any interest for it.”

“I’m sorry,” the visitor bowed his head, “I don’t quite know what you’re talking about. Is it some sort of religious order?”

“Hmmm,” Lan Xichen mused for a moment, “Then, would you be able to tell me who the current emperor is?” He asked as he patted the dust off the cushion and gestured for his visitor to sit across from him.

The visitor chuckled at this question, his laugh was just as gentle as his voice, the familiarity of it made Lan Xichen’s heart ache. 

“What’s so funny about the current emperor?” 

“It’s not that!” The visitor calmed his laughter, but there was still a mirth to his voice as he continued to speak, “We haven’t had an emperor since 1911!” He answered as knelt to sit across from his host.

Lan Xichen balked, his jaw involuntarily dropping just the slightest bit “What is the year? If I may ask?”

“It’s 1998,” The visitor answered as he shrugged a bag off of his shoulders, “How long have you been out in these woods?”

Lan Xichen rested his forehead in his palm, feeling the weight of his head against his hand, he tried to think, “I don’t know,” he answered honestly, “I thought it was only a decade or so, but I guess it has to have been longer than that if what you say is the truth.”

A light scoff came from the visitor as he reached into the pack and pulled out some items and placed them on the floor in front of them, “If you don’t want to believe me, Mr. Monk, then that is your right, but please don’t doubt me after seeing the evidence.”

“Lan Xichen.”

“Huh?”

“My name, it’s Lan Xichen. Although if you wish to, you may call me Mr. Monk, but…” Lan Xichen paused as he reached out and grabbed the most familiar looking item, a small booklet and began to leaf through the pages, “I am not a monk, I am a cultivator.” 

Lan Xichen turned his attention to the pages, seeing that it looked like a journal of sorts. The characters looked familiar to the ones he was used to seeing, however, they were written horizontally, and the text flowed from left to right, as if written backwards. When he looked closer, he could also see that it looked as though it was written in shorthand, or perhaps very lazily, as some characters appeared to be lacking as many has half the required strokes. As unfamiliar as some of the characters were, the style of the writing was very similar, the weight of the lines and the flow from one character to the next reminded him of the letters he used to receive from his A-Yao. With a featherlight touch, he traced his finger along the text, attempting to decipher this writing that was both familiar to his memories and foreign to his eyes. On the top right of each page was a date that was thankfully printed on the pages in a traditional style. Using the dates, Lan Xichen was able to determine that the writing started in the first month of 1998 and seemed to continue until the seventh. If this booklet was indicative of the truth, then Lan Xichen would have to assume that it was in fact the seventh month of the year 1998. 

As much as he wanted to keep exploring the notebook, to decipher and learn about this man who reminded him so much of the past, there were other items before him that piqued his interest. He felt the intense gaze of the visitor watching as he reached out the grab a medium sized disk of sorts. It sat in neatly his palm and weighed less than he imagined it would. There were a couple buttons on the top with symbols printed above them. One of the symbols was a small square, and the one next to it was a small triangle pointed at two rectangles. He pushed the button with the triangle above it and he felt something inside whir to life in his hand. Startled by the sudden movement, Lan Xichen dropped the thing on the ground with a gasp and it opened with a clatter, revealing a small disk that was lodged inside. 

“It’s not a bomb or anything like that,” The stranger chided, reaching over to pick up the thing, “It’s just a portable CD player…” He half mumbled half explained as he looked it over making sure nothing was broken, “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen one before?”

“CD player?” The unfamiliar word stumbled out of Lan Xichen’s lips and into the uneasy air of the room, “I apologize, I have never heard such a word,” he looked at the disk, now closed and in the stranger’s hands, “Nor have I seen such a thing before.” He inched forward in order to get a closer look at the CD player, “Forgive me if my carelessness caused it to break.”

The stranger looked down at the machine in his hands before answering, “It’s alright, I’ve dropped it countless times. See here? This is from where I dropped it just the other day.” His slender finger pointed at a dent along the outside that Lan Xichen hadn’t noticed when he first held the thing, “I think this thing could probably survive falling from a cliff and be just fine.” 

“I see…” Lan Xichen stared at the thing in his visitor’s hands, his eyes focused on the way his slender fingers wrapped around it, “If I may ask, can my esteemed guest please explain what a CD player is?”

The strangers eyes blanked in confusion before widening with realization, “Meng Yao.”

“Pardon?”

“I just realized that I forgot to give you my name…” The stranger noted, “It’s Meng Yao, my name that is. As for a CD player, well they play CDs. I don’t fully know how it works, but I remember seeing something somewhere that said it has to do with lazers.”

“Oh…” Lan Xichen felt something deep inside him tremble. There was no way that this was a coincidence. 

“I’m sorry if my explanation was lacking.”

“What is a CD?”

“What?”

“A CD, what does it do? I am afraid there are a lot of things in the world that I am unfamiliar with, and it would appear as though CDs are one of those things.”

“Oh,” Meng Yao slid a button on the side of the CD player, causing it to open like a clam, he reached in an with a gently snap freed the smaller disk from inside the player, “This is a CD, people put music on it and when you put it in a CD player, you can listen to the music.” Meng Yao flipped the CD over, allowing Lan Xichen to see the reflective side, “You just have to be careful not to scratch them or the music will skip. You must have really been raised in isolation for a long time if you don’t know what a CD is…”

“It would appear so,” Lan Xichen sighed and looked out the window at the still raging storm, “Please tell me, Meng Yao, when you found this place, did you happen to wander past any other villages or houses?”

“Well…” Meng Yao started, his gaze moving to join Lan Xichen’s outside the window, “Not really, but part of the reason why I got lost in the first place was because I was looking for some ruins.”

“Ruins?”

“Yeah! Apparently there’s a legend that deep in these mountains, there was once a powerful sect of sorcerers who isolated themselves from the world to cultivate themselves into immortals. The legend says that even the ruins are protected by magic and only a chosen few can enter.” 

“Is that so?” Lan Xichen asked, his gaze moving from the storm and back to Meng Yao, who was now looking directly at him.

“I wasn’t even that interested in the story to begin with, but me and some friends came to the town at the base of the mountain for a trip and I was overcome with a strange feeling, almost like I had been there before. Except, I’ve lived my whole life in the southeast, I’ve never even been this far north before. Have you ever felt something like that before?”

“What does Meng Yao mean by that?”

“Well, I don’t believe in a whole lot of religious or spiritual stuff, and neither did my parents, so I don’t know a whole lot about it, so I can’t say for sure, but I know that some cultures believe in past lives and stuff like that, right?”

“Reincarnation?” Lan Xichen probed, considering the possibility what could have happened to his A-Yao’s soul after their last parting.

“Exactly!” Meng Yao started, “I guess it really was just a whim in the end, but I decided to go up the mountain here and see if there was anything here that could explain why I felt so strange  at the foot of the mountain.” 

“The town Meng Yao and his friends travelled to, was it Caiyi?”

“If it was then it’s not called that anymore.”

“What was it called?”

“Tianzi men.”

“I see,” Lan Xichen searched his memory to see if the name was familiar, but nothing about that name was familiar to him.

“I’ve never heard of a place called Caiyi,” Meng Yao mused to himself, “but it sounds like it would be a nice place.”

“It was,” Lan Xichen smiled, the motion had long become unfamiliar to him, “I used to have a really close companion. We would ride through the canals and eat loquats together. If the weather was good, I’d even play some music, and if the weather was exceptionally good, we’d indulge in some Emperor’s Smile and compose poems together.”

“Emperor’s Smile? Like the wine?”

“You know Emperor’s smile?”

“Who doesn’t? ‘Over 1000 years of tradition, sweetness from the heavens’ that Emperor’s Smile?”

“1000 years?” Lan Xichen looked down at the remaining items on the floor in front of him. 

“I mean, that’s what they say, but I don’t know how true it is. These days, anyone can say just about anything, and if they say it right, they can convince just about anybody.”

“Is that so?”

Meng Yao shrugged, “So this close companion of yours, what happened to him?”

“He-“ Lan Xichen started, looking into Meng Yao’s eyes and seeing a familiar glint of curiosity that had captured his heart so long ago, “He passed on.”

“Oh…” Meng Yao lowered his head, “My condolences.”

“It’s alright,” Lan Xichen smiled softly, tentatively reaching his hand out in a familiar motion, but he stopped himself from going through with it. As much as he wanted to believe, this couldn’t have been the Meng Yao he desperately wanted it to be. After all, why would his A-Yao come back to him, he had done nothing to deserve such a blessing. He put his hand back on his lap and sighed, “It was a very long time ago now.”

After that, there was a brief silence that stretched on for what felt like an eternity. Lan Xichen couldn’t think of anything to say, so he just stared at the Meng Yao sitting before him. His hair was still damp from the rain, the dampness and humidity of the summer storm causing it to curl against its will. He was reminded of the way A-Yao’s hair used to become unruly in the humid summer air. This Meng Yao’s hair was much shorter, just barely coming to his jaw when wet. Another thing that was different was stature. This Meng Yao was about half a head taller than the Meng Yao of his memories. His jawline was also slightly more rounded, but Lan Xichen imagined that he was probably the only person on earth, living or deceased, who would notice a difference as small as that. 

As he was mentally taking a note of all the features that could differentiate this Meng Yao from the Meng Yao of the past, Lan Xichen noticed something that he had overlooked before. It was obvious that his visitor was trying to hide it, but upon closer inspection it was easy to see that Meng Yao was holding back from shivering.

“I do apologize for not being a better host,” Lan Xichen commented as he shrugged off his outermost robe, “Please, put this on, it will protect you from the cold.”

Meng Yao gave the outstretched piece of silk a quizzical look, “But this is-“

“It’s no trouble to me,” Lan Xichen smiled, “I haven’t felt the cold in a while, go on, I insist.”

“Are you sure?” Meng Yao tentatively reached over and took the robe in his hand

Lan Xichen nodded, “It’ll work better if you remove your outer clothes first, they’re still so damp.” He shifted where he sat to face the wall, “I promise I won’t peek!”

With a laugh, Meng Yao started to shrug off his raincoat and pull his shirt over his head, “I mean we’re both guys here so it’s not like there any sort of faux pas with you watching me change.”

Lan Xichen felt his face flush at the comment, but he kept his eyes trained on the wall, focusing in on a gap between two of the slats, “It has been a long time since I have shared a space with another person, so I am not quite sure what the etiquette is.”

“I’m beginning to sense that there’s a lot more to you than you’re letting on Lan-Ge. Just what is it that you- oh this is much warmer than I thought it would be!”

“I can assure Meng Yao that I-“ Lan Xichen cut himself off as he turned to get a glimpse of the Meng Yao sitting in front of him. There, right in front of him, like a ghost from days long gone, was Meng Yao, his A-Yao, wrapped up in his outer robe. The garment still draped off his frame in the same way, his hand clutched the collar in the same way, even his shoulders still sloped the same way that they had all those years ago. He felt a familiar heat flush through his body. In that moment, Lan Xichen wondered if he had perhaps died long ago and this this was merely his soul reliving a fond memory before his being dispersed from this life and into the next.

Meng Yao hadn’t seemed to notice that Lan Xichen had meant to say something further, “I mean I didn’t realize that just a single piece of silk could be so warm like this! I bet this thing must have cost a fortune! You have to tell me where you got this, not that I have the money to-”

“A-Yao?” Lan Xichen’s voice trembled as he spoke. He could feel the rims of his eyes growing hot, the familiar tingling sensation along his nose that came with crying. Lan Xichen knew that he knew better than to let his emotions get the better of him. He knew that he had spent all this time cultivating in order to suppress the feelings that had caused him to lose everything, but as much as he tried, he couldn’t stop the wave of grief that suddenly washed over him. Without a thought, Lan Xichen felt his body begin to grovel on the floor in front of the Meng Yao before him, words pouring from his lips against his will, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry for what I did! I don’t know why you’ve come back to me now, after all this time, but I’m so sorry! I know that there’s no forgiving what I did, and there’s no part of me that even hopes you will. What I did was unforgivable and I will spend every incarnation of my soul filled with regret for what I have done!” He braced himself to look up at A-Yao, who met his gaze with a mixture of confusion and fear, “I don’t know why you’ve come back to me, and I wouldn’t dare ask you to spare me from the resentment you must have for me, but please! A-Yao Please tell my why, after all this time! After all this time why have you come back to me when I have wronged you the way I did!” Lan Xichen pressed his head against the floor, tears dripping onto the wooden slats in small plaps.

“I-I’m sorry!” Meng Yao’s voice shuddered, “I don’t know who A-Yao is or what you did to him that was so bad that you’d end up like this. Is there someone you need me to call? I don’t know if there’s any reception out here, but I can try.” With a shaky hand, Meng Yao reached at an object on the floor near Lan Xichen’s head, a small rectangular box of sorts that was covered in buttons. He pressed on one and a small screen lit up, barely noticeable even in the dim lighting of the room.

Lan Xichen lifted his head at the sound of Meng Yao cursing under his breath, even that was familiar to him, “Meng Yao…” his breath shook as the name left his lips.

“Hm?” Meng Yao looked away from the block in his hand and down at Lan Xichen. There was still a nervousness in his eyes, but the fear had seemed to dissipate, “Are you alright?”

“I do not know,” Lan Xichen answered truthfully as he sat up, wiping the remaining tears from his eyes “To be honest I am not quite sure what came over me. I apologize for causing you any discomfort. It’s just that…” he concentrated his focus on the items that were still on the floor: the CD player, the notebook, another small block that had buttons, some paper money, and some coins that had scattered a bit due to his outburst, “Meng Yao resembles another person I who I thought I had known very well, but my ignorance hurt him in the end.”

“Your close companion?” Meng Yao guessed, clutching the thing in his hand against his chest.

“Yes,” Lan Xichen nodded, “Funnily enough, there was a point in his life where he was also called Meng Yao.”

“Is that so?” Meng Yao asked, his eyebrows raised, “What happened to him?”

Lan Xichen shook his head, “It was a long time ago, very long it would seem, far longer than I had even imagined.” He reached out and grabbed a piece of the paper money from the floor, “The money we burned for offerings was much less elaborate then.”

“That’s not sacrificial money,” Meng Yao responded with a small smile, “This is regular money.”

“Regular money?” 

“Yeah, I don’t even know if it’s legal to burn it.”

“I see…” Lan Xichen let his voice trail off as he felt the texture of the bill between his fingers. It slid between them easily, its texture far smoother than he was anticipating, “Hey Meng Yao.”

“Hm?”

“Earlier you had mentioned a legend about a sect of sorcerers who used to live on this mountain?”

“I did.”

“How would Meng Yao react if I were to tell him that the legend was true?”

“I mean,” Meng Yao looked around the room they were in. It was obviously an old building, lit by candles and lacking any of the modern amenities that he was used to. However, despite its age, there were no signs of wear and tear, almost as if the wood itself was immortal. He then turned his gaze to focus on Lan Xichen.

His clothing was like something Meng Yao had only seen in martial arts films. However, instead of the gaudy, cheap looking fabrics he was used to seeing on screen, the white silks that draped off the man’s shoulders looked as though they could have been the real deal. They weren’t as humble as something a daoist hermit or monk would wear, but they were not so over the top as to resemble a costume. Instead, they sat somewhere in between, a minimal elegance that exuded both wealth and power. While Lan Xichen had no costly hairpieces adorning his head, his long hair freely falling past his shoulders and down his back, there was a white silk ribbon that sat neatly in the middle of his forehead. A closer look revealed that the ribbon was embroidered with a pattern. It reminded Meng Yao of rolling waves, or perhaps they were clouds, slowly drifting across the white band as if it were an expansive sky. As he focused on the band of silk, Meng Yao could feel a familiar feeling wash over his body, the same strange sense he had felt at the bottom of the mountain: that he had seen this before.

As if his body were acting in a fit muscle memory, Meng Yao reached his hand out and gently brushed his thumb along the ribbon. He could feel Lan Xichen flinch slightly under his touch, even that sensation felt like something he had felt before. As his thumb explored the texture of the ribbon, Meng Yao looked into the pair of eyes that cautiously explored his own expression. Lan Xichen’s eyes, still damp from his sudden outburst, were a warm shade of deep deep amber that bordered on brown. Contained within those eyes was an unreadable expression that Meng Yao wished he knew how to decipher. He thought that maybe if he could read it, he would know why he began to feel strange the moment he stepped into the town at the bottom of the mountain. Meng Yao could only look into Lan Xichen’s eyes for so long before he started to feel that feeling of strangeness begin to seep through every pore of his body. There was a word, a name, at the tip of his tongue that threatened to spill out, but Meng Yao had no way of recalling what it was meant to feel like leaving his lips. He closed his eyes and moved his hand back onto his lap, “Is it true?”

“I do not know for sure,” Lan Xichen answered, “I am scared to think about what it would mean if it were to be so.”

“What do you mean?”

“If it is true that there was once a sect of sorcerers who lived on this mountain who are no more, gone long enough for their memory to fade into legend…” Lan Xichen paused, the conclusion choking in his throat, “then it would mean that everyone I have ever known in this world is long gone.” 

“Has Lan Xichen been here a long time?” Meng Yao looked out the window at the still falling rain, the storm only growing worse as time went on.

“A very long time,” Lan Xichen’s voice was barely above a whisper as he continued, “I entered this room long ago, to reflect and cultivate in seclusion after I had done something terrible. While here, I devoted every moment to cultivating, mind and body, so that my judgement would become clear and I would never again make the same mistake.” 

“Mistake?”

“I hurt many people, very badly, with my inaction. I let the only person I ever loved push me away instead of choosing to die with him. I do not know what mistake I was trying to prevent. Many likely thought that my mistake was choosing to love someone who did bad things, but can it really be a mistake to love someone as strongly as I did?” Lan Xichen paused, looking over at the Meng Yao sat across from him. By now, the two had slowly moved closer until there were only inches between them.

“I’m simply a stranger,” Meng Yao started, “And there is probably a lot you’re not telling me about what happened, but I don’t think it was wrong of you to let him push you away. If his own death was inevitable, and the choice was to die alone or die with you, and he chose to go alone, then I think you should honor that. He had a choice and he made it, and he likely made it because he loved you.”

“What do you mean?” 

“If I loved someone so much that I couldn’t bear to part from them, I would want to take them with me. But if I loved someone so much that they mattered more to me than I did to myself, then I would want to spare them, even if it meant parting forever. Not because I selfishly want someone to mourn me, but because if I loved someone more than I loved myself, then I would forever regret taking such a person away from the world.” Meng Yao looked down at his hands and smiled, “A person like that would be too good for me to have all to myself…”

“I think I might understand,” Lan Xichen responded, a ghost of a smile in his tone, “Meng Yao is indeed very good with words.”

“You speak too highly of me,” Meng Yao chuckled, “My words are simply my own thoughts about things, you are free to do with them what you will.”

“Hm,” Lan Xichen hummed aloud, “I think that at after all this time, only Heaven knows the answer to what he was thinking, but if Meng Yao will forgive my impropriety when I say this, I think that I would like to seek comfort in your explanation of things.”

“I would be glad to know that my words were able to give you such comfort.” Meng Yao’s smile was evident as he spoke, “I know we’ve only just met, but I feel like you could have been someone I’ve known as a friend for a long time.”

“Really?” Lan Xichen felt his eyes widen a bit, “I know that Meng Yao has simply come here to seek shelter from the rain, but I hope it isn’t too forward of me to invite him to stay for as long as he likes.”

“The more I listen to you talk the more I start to believe that the legend about the sorcerers may be true,” Meng Yao laughed.

“What does Meng Yao mean by that? I am talking as I normally do.”

“You talk like you’re a character in a martial arts flick!”

“Martial arts flick? Is this a new style of martial arts?”

Meng Yao couldn’t stop himself from balking, “‘flick’! It’s a slang, for ‘movie’ Those have been around for at least a hundred years, so you can’t tell me you don’t know what one of those is!”

Lan Xichen was about to ask what a “movie” was before closing his mouth and maintaining his silence, blush spreading from his ears down to his cheeks.

“You can’t be serious!”

“Meng Yao told me to not tell him if I didn’t know, so I will not tell,” Lan Xichen answered, not even bothering to hide the fact that he was smiling.

“Okay…” Meng Yao started, looking up at the ceiling in contemplation, “If you really are an immortal sorcerer, then prove it.”

Lan Xichen briefly considered wether or not he should correct Meng Yao’s misnomer. He decided against it, what difference would it make to a man who was seemingly raised with no knowledge of either. He considered what he should do to prove his point when his eyes noticed the old pile of scrolls that he had pulled the extra cushion out from. If Meng Yao had used the items in his possession to prove that the year was 1998, then why couldn’t he use the items in his possession to prove his own age? He reached over and grabbed a couple of scrolls and placed them on the floor in front of Meng Yao.

Meng Yao reached out tentatively and grabbed the one closest to him. Without a word he unfurled it and began to look at its contents, “Whoever wrote this had some good handwriting!” He commented, “I thought that mine was pretty decent but this makes my penmanship look like a child’s!”

“I think Meng Yao has very lovely handwriting.”

“Now you’re just flattering me,” Meng Yao half chided half mumbled as he continued to examine the scroll, “Some of these characters I recognize, but some of them I’ve never seen before.” 

“I could say the same about the writing in the notebook Meng Yao showed me.” 

“Say who wrote this?”

“One of the clan elders from my father’s father’s generation, its a commentary on different xiao techniques.”

“Clan elders?”

“Yes,” Lan Xichen smiled as he remembered the members of his clan who’s souls by now must have gone through several reincarnations, “As my name suggests, I hail from the Lan clan of Gusu, once prided for their musical cultivation techniques, though I suppose their time has come and gone.”

“So you’re saying that you practiced this stuff? Music cultivation?”

Lan Xichen nodded, “Would Meng Yao care for a demonstration?”

“You’d like to play me a song?”

“If Meng Yao would allow me the indulgence.”

“Alright,” Meng Yao looked up from the scroll and watched Lan Xichen as he stood and walked to a corner of the room unlit by candlelight and return holding a xiao made of jade, “I would be happy to listen.”

Lan Xichen smiled as he knelt on the floor across from Meng Yao, his bottom lip partially obscured by the instrument, “Does Meng Yao have any preferences?”

“Hmm,” Meng Yao mused aloud, “Perhaps something to go along with the weather we’re having.”

“Very well…” Lan Xichen allowed a brief pause of silence to follow his answer before he started to play. While it had been a while since he last picked up the instrument, he was practiced enough that his fingers remembered the right positions, his back remembered the proper posture, and his lungs had remembered how much air was needed to make the instrument’s voice come to life. He chose to play a song he remembered well, a composition that he had made to commemorate a particularly rainy autumn evening. He had been on a night hunt with A-Yao when the sky had suddenly burst forth with a deluge of rain. They had found shelter in an abandoned house out in the woods, and in order to stay warm, they spent the night with their bodies tangled together, two breaths mingled as one. When dawn came, Lan Xichen had been taken by a sudden fit of inspiration. His clothes had rustled silently as he stood, immediately reaching for his xiao and playing the tune that he was now playing for the Meng Yao sat before him.

Meng Yao tried to focus his attention on the steadily falling rain outside, the near silent pitter patter of the drops as they landed on the tile roof. It was too dark to really see much of anything, but Meng Yao knew that just outside the window, the trees were rustling in the wind, their leaves waving back and forth with each gust. However, the longer Lan Xichen played, the more he began to feel the music affect him. He had never heard this sing before, but the tune felt familiar, like a long lost lullaby he had known as a child. He could feel his body grow warmer despite the lingering dampness he felt on his skin. The melody of the xiao enveloped him like a warm blanket, and never before in Meng Yao’s life had he felt such a sense of satisfaction, like the song was made to specifically please him, like the one who had written it was only thinking of him. A part of him wanted to be overwhelmed by at all, but the other part only wanted to bask in the feeling of being cherished by the melody. Without realizing it, he had started to hum along, his participation barely audible beneath the notes of the instrument. 

The more the song went on, the more Meng Yao felt something deep inside him ache. There was something that he wanted to say, something he needed to say, but he was at a total loss for what it was. He watched the way Lan Xichen’s fingers maneuvered between the different notes, the way his lashes threatened to brush against his cheeks as he kept his gaze lowered on the instrument. As he watched Lan Xichen play, he was overwhelmed by a sense of beauty. He felt like he had stumbled across a master from the Peach Blossom Village, trapped away in this house, sealed off from the passage of time. He wondered how, out of all the people in the world, had be been the one chosen to find this place, to be the one sitting across from this man as he played a song for his rapt audience of one. He was so mesmerized by the scene before him that Meng Yao had failed to realize that the song had ended and that Lan Xichen had turned his attention from the xiao to his dazed expression.

“Meng Yao?” Lan Xichen adjusted the xiao so that it sat horizontally on his lap, “Are you alright?”

Blinking away tears that he didn’t realize were beginning to form, Meng Yao answered, “So it’s really true?”

Lan Xichen nodded, “I think it must be so.” He looked down at the instrument on his lap, “In my time, I have only heard of one other who had been able to achieve such a fate. Looking at my own circumstances, I can only begin to wonder what it was that she went through to reach that point.”

“How did you do it?” Meng Yao asked, his eyes looking down at the xiao on Lan Xichen’s lap, “Stay here for so long, alone?”

“I do not know,” Lan Xichen shook his head solemnly, “I think it may have been that, even through all this time, the one person I desperately wanted to talk to the most was out of my reach.”

“Do you think that it’s a coincidence?” Meng Yao shifted his body closer to Lan Xichen’s, “That I found this place?”

Lan Xichen lifted his head to meet Meng Yao’s gaze, his warm brown eyes staring into his with an expression he remembered all too well. He wanted to know for sure, to know definitively that these eyes were the same ones he had spent countless nights gazing into all those years ago, but there was nothing in the vast accounts of his clan’s knowledge that could account for such a thing. He blinked and looked back down at the xiao, “I am afraid that I do not know. Nature can only make so many faces and man can only make so many names, so I suppose it is likely a coincidence, but I cannot know for sure.”

Meng Yao shifted slightly further, bringing their bodies so close that he could feel their knees beginning to touch. He leaned his face in, close enough that he could feel Lan Xichen’s breath against his, but not so close that their faces touched, “What do you want it to be?”
 
“What I want it to be does not matter as much as what Meng Yao wants it to be.”

“I want to believe that I knew you before,” Meng Yao reached up and cupped Lan Xichen’s cheek in his hand, “That even though I don’t know who you are, something inside me remembers, maybe it’s my soul, maybe it’s something else.” He paused for a moment, feeling the texture of Lan Xichen’s smooth skin under his thumb, “I think we’re not supposed to know. That we’re free to believe what makes us feel the mo-“

The words Meng Yao wanted to say were stopped by the sudden feeling of arms wrapping around his body. Lan Xichen’s voice trembled as he spoke, “Oh A-Yao! Oh Jin Guangyao! You’ve come back! You’ve come back to me!”

Meng Yao let his arms wrap around Lan Xichen’s body. Rubbing his back, the glossy silk of his robes scratched at something inside his memory. Something inside him felt sated, holding the man like this, as if his body had yearned for this. The urge to smile overtook him, “I’m back, I’m sorry it took so long. I’ve finally returned, Lan Huan!”

Lan Xichen suddenly began to laugh in Meng Yao’s embrace, “You even remembered my name! My A-Yao is truly clever!”

“What?” Meng Yao paused, “You told me your name when we first met, Lan Xichen?”

“My birth name!” Lan Xichen pulled himself free from Meng Yao’s arms and cupped his face with his hands, “You called me Lan Huan!”

“Oh, I…” Meng Yao felt his face flush, “I wa-“

“Forgive me,” Lan Xichen begged as he pulled back, the feeling of Meng Yao’s lips still fresh against his own, “That was very improper of me. I was just so overwhelmed I couldn’t help myself.”

“You-“ Whatever words Meng Yao was planning to say died in his throat as he saw the way Lan Xichen smiled at him. This was definitely his first time meeting this man, but he knew this smile. He had seen it before. It reminded him of short summer nights spent under the light of a moonlit pavilion, the fragrance of fine liquor and the feeling of chaste kisses pressed against his lips. He felt his fingers ghost over his lower lip. He knew that he should be feeling anxious in this situation, confronted by all of these new yet familiar feelings. Perhaps he should be more wary of the man in front of him. After all, Lan Xichen had admitted to harming the one he loved.

Nothing about the scenario he was in was normal, and for Meng Yao that would normally be cause enough for concern. However, he had come up the mountain with the intention of investigating a feeling of abnormality that had plagued him since the moment he stepped into the village. If this was where his wandering had led him, then perhaps there was a purpose behind it all. Perhaps he should take a moment to allow himself the bittersweet bliss of reunion that Lan Xichen had wholeheartedly started to indulge in.

“A-Yao?” Lan Xichen’s soft tone brought Meng Yao back into the moment, “I apologize for making you uncomfortable.”

Meng Yao shook his head, “It’s alright,” his hand reached out to wipe away a tear that had begun to trickle down Lan Xichen’s cheek, “I just… It’s a lot to process. I thought that we aren’t supposed to remember past lives…” he paused, trying to gather his thoughts into words as he looked into Lan Xichen’s eyes, “I mean I don’t really remember much at all to be honest. I just get these strange sensations. Like a certain sound or touch reminds me of something I heard or felt before but definitely don’t remember actually hearing or touching.”

“Does Meng Yao want to?” Lan Xichen asked, “Remember?”

“I don’t know.” Meng Yao answered, “I feel like if I have this new life, then what is the point of remembering? What good will it do?”

Lan Xichen blinked, “I think for some, remembering allows them hold their past mistakes in their hearts, so that they can right old wrongs and make amends.”  

“How can I make amends to those whose souls have long since moved into the next cycle, forgetting not only my existence, but their own as well?”

“What does Meng Yao mean by this?” Lan Xichen let his hand fall over Meng Yao’s and brought them both to sit on his lap, “Not everyone has moved on, not everyone has forgotten.” He smiled weakly, “I am still here. I still remember everyone and everything that happened between us.”

“And I do not know why.” Meng Yao smiled, “I thank you for remembering me, for caring for me, for mourning for me all these years.” He felt Lan Xichen’s hand squeeze his, as if he was a baby holding onto his mother’s finger. Something about it made his heart ache, “If you told me everything of the past, would it make you feel better?”

Lan Xichen shook his head, “I do not know.” He lowered his head and looked down at the hand he held on his lap. This Meng Yao’s hands were the same exact size as hands of the A-Yao he held in the past, “I was not the only one who committed wrongs back then.”

“And if you tell me of the wrongs I committed, the evils I did, what would it do other than burden me with the weight of sins uncommitted in this life. Even if I killed my own father then, what would knowing that do for me know? In this life I have a father, and he loves me dearly. I would never even think of harming him.” Meng Yao sighed, “In this world, you are the only one who remembers what happened in the past. What you choose to do with that knowledge is your choice and yours alone.”

Lan Xichen paused, looking out the window into the darkness of the ongoing storm, “If I do not tell you, then how would you be able to move forward? How would I be able to move forward?”

“Oh Lan Xichen,” Meng Yao reached forward and pulled the man into his arms, “Sometimes time is what moves us forward. What you did, what I did, it’s all in the past now. I don’t know exactly what it is you did, but we seemed to have hurt each other, is that right?”

Lan Xichen nodded, the gauze of the outer robe draped over Meng Yao’s shoulders felt soft against his cheek, “We did. Probably more terribly than words could ever mend, but I…”

“But you?”

“But even though I felt hurt, even though I felt betrayed, the way I felt about you still remained unchanged?”

Meng Yao pressed his cheek to the top of Lan Xichen’s forehead, “And how did you feel?”

“Meng Yao, you’re the only person in this world I’ve ever loved the way I did. There is not a thing in this world that I would not do if it would please you.”

“Lan Xichen,” Meng Yao smiled, blinking away the tears that were beginning to stain the rims of his eyes, “Can you do something for me now?”

Lan Xichen shifted so he could look into Meng Yao’s eyes. He wanted to blink in disbelief when he noticed that Meng Yao was crying too, “What would A-Yao have me do?”

“I want you to forgive yourself.”

“But I-“

“Is Lan Xichen going to deny Meng Yao of this one request?” Meng Yao teased, his lips curling into a smile, “Did you now say that there wasn’t a thing you wouldn’t do for me?”

Lan Xichen nodded.

“So please,” Meng Yao started, “Since I have no memory of what happened, you’d be unable to accept forgiveness from my lips, but you know what happened, and I think that enough time has passed for you to move on. Please, even if it's just to humor me, I want you to forgive yourself.” 

Lan Xichen nodded again, “Alright,” he tried to smile as he sat up and removed himself from Meng Yao’s arms, “I will try.”

“Thank you,” Meng Yao smiled and cupped Lan Xichen’s face again, “You’ve suffered enough.”

“Have I?”

“Yes,” Meng Yao nodded, “No one deserves to be locked up for a thousand years like this.” He looked around the room as he spoke, “Even I got to come out from whatever hole I was buried in before then!” He joked, his laughter soft and genuine.

“I suppose that is true,” Lan Xichen smiled along, “Would Meng Yao be willing to indulge me in showing how the world has changed after all these years?”

“Of course,” Meng Yao smiled back. He reached down and picked up the CD player from where it had been sitting on the floor, “Would Lan Huan like to hear how the music sounds these days?”

*************

When Meng Yao opened his eyes, he was greeted by beams of light filtering in through the window. As he sat up from where he was laying, he noticed that, in the morning light, the space looked much older, much more worn down than it had the night before. Perhaps the darkness of the storm and the dim light of the candles masked how old the small cottage truly was. Looking around the room made him realize that he was alone; Lan Xichen was nowhere to be found. The only indication that he had spent the night with the man being the silk outer robe that was still draped over his shoulders.

Without a word, Meng Yao stood and walked around the room, his fingers tracing over the old and withered scrolls that Lan Xichen had shown him the night before. Last night, he had been able to hold the scrolls, roll them out in his hands and explore their contents. Now however, Meng Yao could feel the old paper start to crumble from a single touch. Feeling the state of the paper, Meng Yao instinctively recoiled his hand, afraid to further damage the ancient texts contained within. 

It only took him a moment to pace the entire inner circumference of the room, his fingers grazing the old wood of the walls as he walked. As he did, he thought about Lan Xichen and whether or not anything he experienced last night was real, or if his exhaustion from wandering around the mountain had gotten to him as he sook shelter in an old abandoned hut. His eyes were telling him that he must have imagined the whole thing. How could a room go from perfectly serviceable to absolutely decrepit and on the verge of collapse in only a few hours? How could a single man allow his grief to sustain himself for a thousand years? How could he be the reincarnation of a man who was so loved that his soul seemingly had no choice but to guide him back to the one who missed him so? But if none of it was real, then where had the silk come from? 

Running his fingers along the embroidery, Meng Yao could feel that it was old, but unlike the scrolls of paper, it was in tact and far from the verge of falling apart. He stood in the middle of the room, relishing in the feeling of the fabric against his skin and the morning sun against his face. He was overcome by such a great feeling of elation that he couldn’t help but smile. Whether or not the events of the previous night had actually happened did not matter to him. While he was curious about the man called Lan Xichen, there was little he could do to verify his identity, let alone his story. What he did know was that the strange feeling that had taken over his body the moment he entered the village at the bottom of the mountain was gone. He felt like himself again, and that was reason enough for celebration. 

He looked down at the watch on his wrist and noticing that it was nearing noon, Meng Yao decided that it would be best to gather his things and head down the mountain, lest he get lost in the dark for a second time. Part of him was hesitant to remove the silk from his shoulders and replace it with his t-shirt and jacket, so he decided that it wouldn’t hurt to fold the garment up and pack it in with the rest of his things. Maybe he could see about having an expert look at it, to see how old it was.

The light of the sun hit him like a wall as he stepped out the door of the old hut. The sound of the summer cicadas making his ears ring as he hopped down from the raised porch and onto the muddy path below. While he had never been here before, Meng Yao knew that there was an old path that would lead him down to the town below the mountain. As he began to leave, he turned to look back at the hut one last time, “Farewell Er-ge,” he smiled. I’m sure we’ll meet again, Meng Yao thought to himself as he began to make his way down the mountain, humming a long forgotten tune.