Work Text:
Where does Sandu Shengshou end and where does Jiang Cheng begin?
The question gnaws at him, when he is still busy working his way through the piles of paperwork in his study when most of his sect is already fast asleep. It itches at him through training drills, inter-sect negotiations, and intense interrogations of lucky spies that infiltrated his sect. When he pats little A-Ling’s tiny bottom and hums a butchered rendition of A-jie’s favorite song to soothe away his tantrums and put him to sleep. When he stares at the ceiling every night for the few hours he had allotted himself for sleep.
Once, the answer had been clear. Sandu Shengshou was the title bestowed upon him by the cultivation world - a symbol of his strength, of the Jiang clan’s indomitable will, of their insurmountable ability to rise back from the ashes.
It was a name soaked in blood and vengeance, a mantle he wore to hide the broken pieces of himself. The Jiang sect needed a leader, needed a hardened warrior, and Sandu Shengshou was born in the fire of that need. Jiang Cheng had vanished beneath the weight of such heavy expectations, buried under the ashes of Lotus Pier.
He wonders sometimes if anyone still sees Jiang Cheng at all.
The world reveres Sandu Shengshou, the stoic, cold master of Yunmeng, the one who rose from tragedy and rebuilt what was lost. But Jiang Cheng…Jiang Cheng is the boy who wept in the shadows, who lost his family, his home, his sister, and yes, when his will had weakened enough, even his brother.
Jiang Cheng is the man who walks through the ruins of his heart, searching for something that is no longer there.
In the quiet moments, when the sect halls are empty and the night wraps around him like a shroud, he feels the divide searing through his soul. Sandu Shengshou is a mask, a construct of duty and necessity. He bears the weight of the Jiang name, holds the remnants of his clan together with lightning bolts and iron fists.
He leads, he commands, he punishes.
But Jiang Cheng? He mourns. He regrets. He feels.
His whole world fell away, blow after blow, mortal injury after injury when Lotus Pier burned, when A-jie died in his arms, when Wei Wuxian slipped through his fingers to his death.
Sandu Shengshou cannot allow such weakness. But Jiang Cheng cannot forget it. He cannot forget the helplessness, the anger, the hollow ache of loss. So, he locks it away. He hides it beneath his titles, beneath the sword and the name that holds weight in the cultivation world.
But where does one end and the other begin?
They are intertwined, inseparable now. Sandu Shengshou is Jiang Cheng’s armor, but it is also his prison. The harder he clings to that identity, the more distant Jiang Cheng becomes, disappearing into the cracks of his own heart.
He must be strong and ruthless.
He must be the leader this newly rebuilt war-torn Yunmeng Jiang sorely needs.
Yet, behind the cold eyes of Sandu Shengshou, there is still a man grieving his sister, and even his brother, longing for the family he can never have again.
Jiang Cheng wishes for peace, for a moment to grieve, to let go of the anger that fuels Sandu Shengshou like an infection burning through his veins. But the world will not let him rest. His duties never end. His enemies, his responsibilities, his regrets — they circle him like vultures waiting to strike.
So, Sandu Shengshou endures.
And Jiang Cheng?
Jiang Cheng… fades.