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Wei Wuxian comes back from the dead, but he doesn’t come back to Jiang Cheng. The rejection stings like it has no right to do after all this time.
As it is, there is a stranger standing in front of Jiang Cheng. A stranger’s body and stranger’s face and a stranger’s voice and the same shameless way of lying from so long ago. There is something painfully obvious about this person and Jiang Cheng knows without a shred of doubt in his mind and heart: this is Wei Wuxian.
And as Wei Wuxian stands there, wearing this new face and pretending to be someone he clearly is not, Jiang Cheng realizes what is right in front of him: Wei Wuxian is back from the dead, that much is certain, but Jiang Cheng doesn’t have him back at all. It isn’t shocking nor it is surprising at all: it’s just an unpleasant and painful realization. As such, each lie becomes more and more irritating as it adds insult to injury, and it is a miracle that keeps Jiang Cheng from wiping that stupid smile from Wei Wuxian’s new face.
Wei Wuxian had always been unable to realize the extend of the damage caused by his actions. There is no way Wei Wuxian doesn’t recognize him! There is no way Wei Wuxian’s memory is so bad that he can’t tell Jiang Cheng apart from a stranger! This is Wei Wuxian. Does he really expect Jiang Cheng to be such a fool? There is no way Jiang Cheng could accept this.
But it’s fine. So, Wei Wuxian is back from the dead? It’s fine like this. So, Wei Wuxian doesn’t want to go home? That’s fine, too.
It’s fine.
It’s fine!
Jiang Cheng will just have to make him listen because there is no way Jiang Cheng would accept losing him yet again. One more time. How many times has it been by now? No, there is no way Jiang Cheng could sit idly and let Wei Wuxian walk away again.
Wei Wuxian is not just anyone. Wei Wuxian is not a stranger to him. He cannot become a stranger to Jiang Cheng. Doesn’t he know that much? Does he despise Jiang Cheng? Is Jiang Cheng’s love for him such a burden that he has to pretend to be someone else?
This situation makes Jiang Cheng want to miserably laugh and cry and scream, but he can’t afford to lose face like that. So, he pushes past Lan Wangji, grabs Wei Wuxian’s wrist and drags Wei Wuxian with him.
There must have been something in his expression, because, this time, Wei Wuxian lets himself be dragged along without even a word spoken against it.
But they don’t go to Lotus Pier. Not yet. Not when Jin Ling is night hunting by himself, and Jiang Cheng needs to watch over his sister’s only son to make sure nothing stupid happens to him. He doesn’t explain it to Wei Wuxian in as many words, but Wei Wuxian doesn’t ask about it either. Jiang Cheng has a lifetime of knowledge, and he knows better than to assume Wei Wuxian understands his motivations, let alone his silence. Even so, Jiang Cheng allows the silence to linger on their way to the inn where he has been staying with a few of the clan’s disciples.
“Let the silence be his punishment for those bold-faced lies,” Jiang Cheng thinks to himself.
By the time they are alone and behind closed doors, Wei Wuxian has his eyes set down. There is guilt and shame written all over his new expressions and he doesn’t look at Jiang Cheng.
“Are we strangers to each other?” Jiang Cheng asks. “Wei Wuxian! Don’t you owe me some kind of explanation?”
His voice hits Wei Wuxian as one of his weapons could have done. Jiang Cheng immediately regrets the effect it caused, but there is no such thing as taking back what is said. There is a light knock, and someone comes in with liquor. This person can read the room well enough that they don’t hesitate to go away without making casual conversation.
Jiang Cheng sits down. Wei Wuxian doesn’t move to join him, and Jiang Cheng regrets his own words a little more.
“Has death changed you this much that you now run from me?” Jiang Cheng thinks but doesn’t say. He knows better.
As if able to listen to Jiang Cheng’s thoughts, Wei Wuxian finally moves. He sits across from Jiang Cheng and takes the jar. Jiang Cheng doesn’t mind it at all. There is too much he’s been missing for him to be offended by Wei Wuxian’s disregard of proper manners.
“Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian says and there is something in the way he says it that makes Jiang Cheng feel whole again. He takes a long sip, wipes his mouth and then grins at Jiang Cheng like the past isn’t sitting at the table with them. “I may think you missed me.”
Jiang doesn’t deny it which should be enough for Wei Wuxian to understand what should be obvious for anyone to see. Jiang Cheng watches him, holding his gaze and trying to reconcile this strange face with Wei Wuxian’s existence. Without looking away, he states:
“I’m taking you to Lotus Pier.”
Wei Wuxian sits up, frowning at the statement. It is not an invitation, but a decision already made, and Jiang Cheng can tell that the words make Wei Wuxian uneasy. Jiang Cheng knows that he wants to protest, that he will protest. Jiang reaches for his cup and touches it gently, looking at it to give Wei Wuxian a moment to compose himself, but he won’t accept anything but agreement on this matter.
“You have no choice,” he adds. Wei Wuxian opens his mouth to try to argue himself out of it, but Jiang Cheng cuts him off before he can start on it. His voice holds a calm that promises to be followed by a terrible storm. “Are you not Yunmeng Jiang in your heart? Maybe you are not as you have not looked for me as soon as you came back. No,” Jiang Cheng smirks and looks at Wei Wuxian with a dangerous expression in his eyes. “In fact, you have tried to avoid me, haven’t you? Wei Wuxian! Am I to accept that your words to me back then have been no more than empty shells?”
Jiang Cheng could not forgive that much. He had always been willing to overlook plenty of things when it came down to Wei Wuxian. Even so, he isn’t so forgiving as to accept empty promises and lies to be offered to him as if they were made of gold.
“I won’t allow it.”
Jiang Cheng stands up and looks down at Wei Wuxian again. His words seem to have stolen Wei Wuxian’s tongue. If this is the only way, there is nothing to be done.
“You will come back to Lotus Pier. You will stay within my sight by choice or by guilt or by force. Pick whichever is more to your liking,” Jiang Cheng says and leaves the room.
He doesn’t want to know which option Wei Wuxian will pick. He doesn’t need to know.
“Have you heard? Jiang-zongzhu lost it.”
“I heard he spared a demonic cultivator out of guilt about his shixiong. Not only that: it is said he doesn’t go anywhere without that person.”
“Wasn’t his shixiong the Yilling Laozu himself?”
“Turns out his own actions were weighting on him this whole time.”
“Ha! And to think he would turn out to be this unreliable.”
Jiang Cheng doesn’t care for rumors, but he knows from experience that those whispered words will mercilessly follow a person around. No one dares to say that much to his face. No one dares to provoke him like that. That is not the case for Wei Wuxian and, as such, those words are whispered so Wei Wuxian will be aware of them.
There is no way Wei Wuxian would sit still when Jiang Cheng’s reputation is being dragged around like that. It gets under his skin. It gets on his nerves. And so, it only takes a week and three days before every disciple at Lotus Pier is aware that that demonic cultivator Jiang-zongzhu has been keeping within arm’s length may actually be Wei Wuxian himself.
Jiang Cheng does not allow Wei Wuxian to wander. He is watched all the time. He is guarded all the time.
“Say, Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian asks one day, sitting close by while Jiang Cheng works through some reports and correspondence. “Am I free to go anywhere as long as I take a disciple with me?”
“No,” Jiang Cheng answers without even looking up. Then he pauses for a moment, frowning at the scroll he should still be reading. He looks at Wei Wuxian. “If you want to travel with someone, my company is all you will get,” Jiang Cheng says and goes back to reading.
Wei Wuxian picks up a brush, playing with it as he sometimes does with Chengqing. It is a little distracting. Wei Wuxian is a little distracting. Jiang Cheng sighs in annoyance and sets the scroll down.
“Why? Where do you want to go?”
Wei Wuxian shrugs. They watch each other for a moment.
“Will you go anywhere with me?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“What if it is somewhere you dislike?”
Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes.
“I’m not letting you out of my sight. If I’m at Lotus Pier, you are at Lotus Pier. If I am somewhere else, you are somewhere else.”
Wei Wuxian doesn’t point out that he is very clearly Jiang Cheng’s prisoner, and, for that, Jiang Cheng is thankful.
“A second shadow,” he says playfully. Then he pauses and looks at Jiang Cheng with mischief in his eyes. “What if you meet someone and want to be intimate with them?”
“It won’t happen,” Jiang Cheng says and picks up the scroll again.
“What if I meet someone and want to be intimate with them?”
Jiang Cheng turns to him with a horrified expression in his eyes.
“Who?” he demands to know and tries to think about any possibilities so far. Most of the options are Yunmeng Jiang’s disciples and the idea of Wei Wuxian running away with one of his subordinates makes him wonder if Jiang Cheng’s bloodline is actually cursed somehow in matters of love. “You have been spending time with that one disciple. I recall you helping him with archery training. Is it that – “
“Jiang Cheng!” Wei Wuxian cuts him off and Jiang Cheng blinks at him.
“Then who?”
Wei Wuxian sets the brush down and shakes his head. He laughs.
“No one,” he says and shrugs again. “I was just wondering.”
Jiang Cheng can feel his face getting warm as he blushes. Wei Wuxian watches him with curiosity. He laughs again.
“Are you jealous?” he says and there is laughter at the end of his sentence.
He is teasing, Jiang Cheng knows so, but knowing so does nothing for Jiang Cheng who looks away, ashamed. The smile dies on Wei Wuxian’s lips and Jiang Cheng can’t bring himself to look at him. Jiang Cheng stands up.
“Jiang Cheng! Answer me!”
Jiang Cheng does not want to answer him, but Wei Wuxian has never learned when to drop a point out of politeness. Wei Wuxian is stubborn like that, so Jiang Cheng tries to compose himself again, bracing for what is still to come.
“What if I meet someone and want to be intimate with them?” he repeats.
Jiang Cheng looks at Wei Wuxian, who is now on his knees and looking at him with an expression that Jiang Cheng can only explain to himself as something that belongs to this new body of his.
“I won’t allow it,” Jiang Cheng says honestly and storms out of the room before Wei Wuxian can say anything else.
“Have you heard? Jiang-zongzhu truly lost it.”
“I heard he not only took in a demonic cultivator, but he has decided to marry him. Maybe a Demonic Cultivation can wrap even a living person’s mind to do their bidding after all.”
“Poor Jiang-zongzhu. Wasn’t that person the one involved in a scandal with Lanling Jin?”
“Not only that, but he is a lunatic from the Mo Clan that is said to have been whipped out after his return.”
“Ha! How dangerous.”