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一. the first time he manifested, lan huan was a broken mess on his bed, delirious and half-alive from the pain of thirty-three lashes on his back -- but the most grievous of all was the pain of losing jiang wanyin. his wanyin-shaped wound was still too fresh in his mind, in his heart, in his body. the young man came to him with a faint smile, rare and teasing: the wanyin from before.
that was how lan huan knew he was dreaming and wanyin was a dream, fractured mind creating his vivid image. because jiang wanyin hadn’t smiled at him like that for a very long time, even years before his demise. still, lan huan welcomed him, relished him. because his pain was absolute and he’d take whatever scrap wanyin could give him, even one conjured by his own mind.
he thought, i still remember his smile, and that was a relief far greater than any salve wangji could’ve given him. so lan huan ghost-smiled back at wanyin, eyes like sparkling topaz under the sun, before drifting back to a dreamless sleep.
二. wanyin appeared for the second time during a discussion conference held in lanling jin, the first conference lan huan attended after leaving seclusion.
the gathered sect leaders were discussing some inconsequential things that completely escaped him; he didn’t care about any of it, not when jiang wanyin was some mere steps away from him -- lounging beside his former shixiong, twirling chenqing in his hand while he trained his razor-sharp eyes on whoever was currently talking. lan huan imagined jiang wanyin whispering in hushed tone to wei wuxian, now wei-zongzhu of yunmeng jiang sect, and making sarcastic comments about everything and everyone.
the thought almost brought a smile to his lips until he heard about what was currently discussed; the words “cursed” and “yiling laozu” and “ungrateful shidi” were thrown about so carelessly, and now liquid fire seemed to flow in his veins.
four years had barely passed and the wound in his heart had only barely stopped bleeding. three years of seclusion, spent in solitude to mourn and grieve and regret, only seemed to reinforce everything lan huan had ever felt for jiang wanyin; the passion and every intensity he had ever, and continued to hold, for the younger man.
for jiang wanyin -- arguably the most hated man second only to wen ruohan, who walked on a crooked path no one before him ever did -- for him, lan huan had unflinchingly gone against thirty-three elders he had respected all his life. these people in front of him, they meant nothing to lan huan. it would be easy for him to draw shuoyue against them. because for jiang wanyin, lan huan would turn the whole world into his enemy if that was what it took to stand beside him -- something he regrettably failed to do when it mattered the most.
after another word suspiciously sounded like “kin killer” and one spiteful “good riddance”, lan huan readied himself to stand, hand gripping his sword’s hilt so tight his knuckles turned white. but then, wanyin tilted his head and glanced at him from the corner of his eyes, and just like that, as inevitable as the sun chasing the moon, lan huan’s attention was arrested, mind zeroed in on nothing else but those magnetic eyes. wanyin was looking at him, finally, and there was not a single entity in this world that could make lan huan look away from him -- even as specter from his own mind.
from his place beside his furious yet tight-lipped shixiong, wanyin was smirking and his eyes, as calm as the eye of a storm, held a cynical amusement as if to say to lan huan, “what did i tell you, lan huan -- aren’t they all fools?”
lan huan let out an amused breath as his fingers released shuoyue. when wanyin blinked out of existence, the volcano in his veins had receded into embers.
ah wanyin, he thought as painful wave of longing crashed upon his shore, just how many more years could his decaying heart endure missing its better half?
三. the third time happened only much later, after too many years had passed, much to his displeasure. lan huan had been serving as gusu lan sect leader for quite some time now, more than ten years in the running. it was a job that required most of his time sitting behind his desk, equipped not with shuoyue nor liebing, but a brush and inkstone. another side consequence of said job was that he wasn’t free to take on night hunts any time he pleased.
it’d been a long time since his last solo night hunt, so perhaps he could blame his dulled instinct for his body’s delayed reaction time in the face of danger. though, lan huan knew himself better than that; that it wasn’t a simple matter of being out of shape after months buried under a mountain of paperwork, always endless, or his body forgetting how to dodge an incoming attack of a fierce corpse aiming to break his neck. it was just --
lan huan never thought of himself as suicidal. he didn’t have the urge to end his life with his own hands or even consider that this life, as wretched as it was, wasn’t worth living. it was just he didn’t have many things tying him to the living either. there was his sect and his duty as its leader, and there were shufu and wangji and a-yuan waiting at home. and that was all. years passed, and he had stopped paying attention to personal desires; because all his desires were rooted in one single existence that was not of this world anymore.
lan huan wasn’t suicidal, no. he wouldn’t run chasing after danger, seeking escape from this pathetic life. but if danger somehow managed to catch him, he didn’t think he would run away from it either. in the face of danger, as he found himself at this moment, lan huan’s first instinct wouldn’t be to twist his body away and out of danger’s path. no one knew, not even wangji who understood his grief best. it was a sick gambling he one-sidedly played with fate.
but this time jiang wanyin was there -- materializing in the span of a blink and standing just behind the crazed fierce corpse. his face was set in righteous fury, lips thinned and so achingly familiar that lan huan stumbled on flat surface.
and lan huan couldn’t bear it, could never bear the thought of wanyin angry at him. without a moment hesitation, he spun on his heels, rotating his body and neck away from the fierce corpse’s path. sharp nails grazed his left shoulder instead, and if it weren’t for the protective incantations stitched on his outer robes, he would’ve lost quite a portion of his shoulder. with efficient moves, no more toying and delaying, he quickly disposed of the fierce corpse while keeping half an eye on the figure in purple and black staying right at the edge of his sight.
when he was done and the resentment put to rest, lan huan looked up to find himself alone in the forest once more.
that same night, in the solitary confinement of his hanshi, lan huan sat behind his guqin and fingers poised above the strings. are you satisfied now, wanyin? he asked through inquiry to the soul who never answered.
四. it had been a long time, years since he saw wanyin last -- only a mirage but he’d be glad to see him nonetheless. because lan huan had started to forget many things about him, smallest details from the constellation that was jiang wanyin; little by little, corroded by time oh so unforgiving -- the tilt of his smile, the exact color of thunderstorm in his eyes, the curve of his frown -- and for the first time since losing him, lan huan was terrified.
thirteen years, he thought, was a long time to be in love. longer still, when lan huan spent ten years of it missing him.
ten years was a long enough time to raise yunmeng jiang sect back to glory. it was also enough to temper the infernal disputes between dage and him on matters of morality and demonic path, enough that now they both could agree to disagree. even his shufu had come to a begrudging understanding that lan huan could only live half a life, would expect nothing except lan huan fulfilling his duty as sect leader. ten years was also a long time for mere mortals to turn history to common story: the yiling laozu reduced to mere bedtime story parents used to scare children into obedience.
ten years was an exceptionally long time to wallow in yearning, unrivaled, still with the same intensity of eternal sunshine. ten years -- and time had done everything to lan huan except dulling the jagged edges of his heart.
a glimpse of wanyin would do, lan huan thought, a blurry shape in the periphery of his eyes, anything at all -- it would be enough. lan huan was confident he could endure another decade and more if only he could see him now.
so he willed it with all his might as he unearthed every last vestige of jiang wanyin still left in his memory, as pitiful as they were -- until finally there he was, robbing lan huan of his breath: standing under the shade of a plum tree, magnificent in its rosy hue. jiang wanyin was leaning against the trunk and plum petals rained on him, creating a vision more beautiful than anything lan huan had ever seen. his inky black hair billowed in the wind, unbound except for the thin braids at each side of his head. he opened his mouth to say something lan huan couldn’t hear because it had been a long time since he could remember his voice, but he imagined wanyin was calling him, “lan huan,” like he used to.
it was the most beautiful dream lan huan had ever had of him. it was also the last.
五. thirteen years later and lan huan could no longer picture wanyin’s rare smile or recall the timbre of his rarer laugh, the way he moved like flowing river, idly spinning chenqing around deft fingers. soon he would lose everything about jiang wanyin, and lan huan thought he’d truly die once that happened.
六. lan huan had learned to never believe himself when jiang wanyin was concerned. his mind and his eyes and his ears had been playing tricks on him for years. a flash of purple would make him think of wanyin, a brewing storm would drag out the remnants of his memory about wanyin, a dizi player would remind him of wanyin, everything in the world had become wanyin. but it was alright, lan huan thought. so long as he didn’t forget.
and now, years later, a woman stood in front of him across the burning forest, wearing a nondistinctive hanfu of a commoner, her pale lilac sword the only thing marking her as a cultivator. he didn’t understand at first, why her figure overlapped so much with wanyin’s in his mind’s eye.
she must be another trick of his own mind, he decided, one that was born out of his faulty memory of jiang wanyin. except that their junior cultivators were all surrounding her, chattering in excitement about some subjugation strategies they could adopt from watching her assisting the fight against the enraged heavenly maiden.
she was not his delusion, then.
yet it didn’t explain why lan huan couldn’t stop thinking about jiang wanyin and how he looked like, even more so than usual. because lan huan thought he had forgotten it all, that time had stolen everything from him -- every single, minuscule detail about jiang wanyin until nothing but a hazy image in his mind remained. but then that woman smiled, among the absolute wreckage of a stone goddess under her feet, the sheer white silk of her weimao blown away for a split second -- but it was enough. it was enough for lan huan to catch that same thunderstorm in her eyes, glinting in the exact same way under the moonlight, the sharp angle of a feral grin, too sharp to fit in a respectable young lady’s face, the same tone and syllables drawled when she spoke. all with a wrong face and a wrong voice.
but lan huan’s heart trembled just the same, like shaking leaves inside his ribcage, a fluttering of a hummingbird’s wings ready to take flight and soar to far, far away home.
ah, he thought as tears gathered in his eyes, unbidden, there you are. [ ]