Archive of Our Own

For what seems like an eternity, Nie Huaisang has been sitting alone and staring at the closed stone doors of the tomb that contains the bodies of nearly all of his family, or at least their sabers.

All except for his brother, who remains trapped in that heavens-damned coffin with his murderer.

The pile of aged papers in his lap rustle in the chilly breeze, but Nie Huaisang barely pays attention, even though the pages are the answer to one of the many questions that had been plaguing him since the first time the ritual to purify his brother’s soul had failed. 

Since the first time the time-jumping ritual he’d acquired at an exorbitant price from a foreign trader had also failed.

He can't remember anymore how many times he has cast it, spilling his own blood again and again to dive into the past, only to inevitably be flung back here no matter how deep he went or which events he changed.

But now he understands why it has never yielded the correct results. 

All of the monsters and ugly twists of fate that had targeted his family... they had only been symptoms of the disease. 

He is the cause. 

He, the ill-omened child who killed his own mother with his first breath, is the one who eventually brought calamity on all who ever knew him, death and misfortune dogging his steps before he could even walk.

This, all of this, is because of him.

But he can still fix it. 

Maybe none of the other attempts had worked, but that was because he hadn't known where to dig out the rot and pestilence threatening the garden. 

Now, he does. 

Closing his eyes and bracing himself, he draws the knife from his belt for what he desperately hopes will be the last time.

Nie Leiyun, once known as Meng Xiu and much more recently named Nie-er-furen, is six and a half months into her pregnancy –less than a month away from what would have been her death from hemorrhaging during an arduous childbirth– when she staggers and falls to her knees and has to catch herself on a table, suddenly overcome by a horrible throbbing pain in her guts. 

But it's when the pain stops, everything inside her going unnaturally still, that she actually starts to panic, folding herself up and clutching her belly, trying to call out and unable to get her voice to work. 

A maid rushing to help her back to her feet is the first to see the blood starting to stain her robes and the floor beneath her, and she’s the one who screams for the healers when Nie Leiyun can’t. 

Despite all their efforts, the healers are only able to save one life. 

Once, in a timeline that has just been erased, it had been the child. 

This time, it's the mother.

The grief that falls over the sect is as heavy as the snow that blankets it in winter. 

No one seems to be more crushed by it than Nie Mingjue. 

All of six years old, he had been adamant that he didn't want a sibling and had complained to anyone who would listen. Babies were stinky and dumb and boring and either cried all the time or made messes everywhere. Sometimes they did both at once! Gross.

And now that baby is dead, dead and gone, and no amount of hugs and kind words from his parents or the other members of the sect can convince their little master that he hadn't somehow wished his little brother away. 

Nie Haoran and Nie Linsong are as gentle with their wife and son's grief as they can possibly be -it had been Linsong's own struggles with having another child that had prompted their originally inviting Leiyun to the Unclean Realms, after all- and it's Linsong who makes a fateful suggestion one night as the two of them are sitting by the fire one evening, Linsong cleaning her falcon’s leathers and Leiyun mending some clothing. 

"The only reason you put your search on hold was because the pregnancy was becoming too harsh on your health, wasn't it? Why not pick it back up again now once you've recovered a little?" 

Three and a half months later, scandalous rumors reach Qinghe, a place that tends to be left out of the loop when it comes to the personal matters of the other sects. Apparently a high-ranking courtesan out in Yunping has been making some waves among the cultivation gentry with her claims of having borne a sect leader’s child. 

An already married sect leader’s child.

The story by itself is nothing new; Nie Leiyun has investigated over a dozen other women who ended up in the brothels like she originally had and have since risen to some level of fame, some even attracting the attention of sect leaders like she had. Some even ending up with unwanted children like she hadn’t. And once she hears which sect leader is involved, she’s even less surprised.

But none of the women she’d previously searched out had been outright carrying her abandoned surname of Meng. 

She does her best not to get her hopes up, but luck is on her side for a change, and three days after she first hears the whispers, Nie Leiyun -Meng Xiu- clutches her sister Meng Shi in a tearful embrace. 

She doesn't know how to feel about the tiny boy that her sister introduces her to. 

He is not yet two years old, so close to her Sang-er. They could have grown up cousins. 

Friends.  

But now- 

She wipes her eyes and puts aside her selfishness. Little Yao-er can still be a cousin and friend to Mingjue, and he and her sister both deserve far better than this place. 

She takes them home. 

Two years after she lost Huaisang, Nie Leiyun is pregnant again. This time, Nie Mingjue is so very careful not to complain, not even to his best friend Lan Xichen, nor to his cousins Zonghui and the fully-legitimized Xunyao. Everyone knows why, and all of the grownups do their best to be kind to their little master's concerns. 

He turns out to be worrying over nothing. 

Unlike her brother who never was, Nie Jinghe is as gentle a pregnancy as her mother could ever hope for and emerges into the world bright and healthy and strong. 

–No one is aware that due to the fact that Nie Linsong had canceled all of her prior plans because she was busy helping her wife deliver the baby girl, she did not die on the night hunt she would have been on otherwise.–

The years pass. 

Nie Mingjue and his cousins Nie Zonghui and Nie Xunyao are practically extensions of each other, working in near-perfect tandem as future sect leader and his right and left hands.

Meng Shi has been offered a proper courtship by one of Nie-zongzhu's distant cousins and, though unsure about accepting at first, is now happy with her first real love, her light heart and genuinely bright smile practically making her a new woman.

Nie Jinghe is a tiny hellion with the climbing speed of a monkey and an infectious laugh that cheers up everyone around her. 

Watching them all, Nie Leiyun is… content. 

Most of the time. 

When spring comes each year, she finds herself missing the child she never even properly got to hold because she'd been unconscious when his cold too-small body was taken away. She wonders what he would have looked like, what his laugh would have sounded like, what sort of things he would have enjoyed. 

But, every year, she eventually pushes those thoughts aside to focus on her husband and wife, on her sister, on the children under her care now.

Nothing good, she has learned, comes from wondering 'what if?' for too long. 

Nie Leiyun looks up from her embroidery when her husband sinks into his favorite chair with a look of consternation on his face. "Something wrong?" 

"I hope not. I can't make heads or tails of this letter from Ruohan. He says-" 

A knock on the doorframe makes them both look up to find Nie Linsong and one of the men who normally guards the tombs up on Xinglu Ridge. 

"Apologies for the interruption, Zongzhu," the guard says with a salute. "But a situation has come up at the tombs. A rather persistent ghost... of sorts." 

"Of sorts?" 

"Well... he's not acting like any ghost we’ve dealt with before. He hasn't made any moves to attack us or try to scare us off, but he hasn’t made any attempt to communicate either. Either way, he won't budge from in front of the doors, and we've tried the strongest capture and banishment techniques we know." 

Nie Haoran frowns, tapping the rolled up letter in his hand against the arm of the chair. "What happens if you try to open the doors?" 

"Nothing. Or, honestly, no one’s been able to reach them. Every time someone tries to get in close enough, it's like getting bogged down in mud and they have to be hauled back out by the rest of us." 

"Hm. Alright, show me this ghost." 

Nie Leiyun can't explain the shudder of cold nausea that goes through her as her husband gets up to accompany their wife and the guard. "Wait," she wheezes, pushing herself to her feet. "I'm coming with you." 

Her partners both regard her wavering stance with concern. "Yun-er, maybe you should-" 

She shakes her head and grabs her heaviest fur cloak. "I'm coming. I- I have to. I can't explain it. But I have to."  

Her husband and wife look at each other in a short silent conversation, then they both nod and offer an arm on either side for her to lean on. 

The walk up to Xinglu Ridge has never been easy for her, even when her health was at its best, but today her legs feel extra heavy and her stomach is tying itself into a tighter knot with each step.

"Yun-er, you really should sit and rest," Nie Linsong cautions. "You're turning grey as a fierce corpse." 

Nie Leiyun shakes her head for what must be the tenth time and plows on. 

When they reach the tombs, all of the guards are standing at a short distance -not by choice, clearly- from a figure kneeling in front of the stone doors. 

A figure that glows faintly in the dim light of dusk. 

A figure that they can all partially see through, more resembling a detailed ink wash drawing than a person. 

Her breath turns to needles in her chest and it has nothing to do with the chill in the air, but with the twisting mixture of hope and dread and love rising up in her. 

It's him.

She knows it's him even before the young man turns his head to look at her and she is presented with an almost perfect replica of the features that she and her sister share- 

-except for his eyes, all luminous pale green like his father's and brother’s and shaped the same.

Her legs buckle, and though her partners are quick, they aren't quick enough to keep her from landing hard on her knees. 

“Huaisang…”

With the assistance of Nie Jinghe's infamous puppy eyes, Nie Xunyao has just succeeded in dragging his two older cousins out of the sparring round for dinner when his uncle blows past, visibly stressed. 

All four of the kids trade looks, then follow, curiosity outweighing hunger. 

"Diedie?" Nie Jinghe asks as they poke their heads into the door of his office. 

"What happened? Has someone been attacked?" Nie Mingjue adds. 

Nie Haoran looks up from the knot of talisman papers he is hurriedly weaving together and smiles, but it is so painfully forced that Nie Xunyao can't help shuddering and even Nie Jinghe looks uneasy at it. 

"Nothing the lot of you need to worry about," he says, and if his expression is unconvincing, his effort at sounding cheerful is almost insulting in how blatantly fake it is. "Shouldn't you be at dinner already?" 

"Jue-ge and Hui-ge wanted to break their sparring draw first, yizhang," Nie Xunyao says. 

"Fair enough. But you should get going before the kitchen aunties form a search party for you." 

With some apprehension and a lot of questions left to ask, they hesitantly edge away from the door to do as told, but not before Nie Xunyao recognizes what his uncle is making. 

It's a long-distance emergency summons. 

The question of whom the summons was for is answered the next morning when Nie Zonghui spots the figure in pale blue robes decorated with white and silver approaching from the south. 

Lan Qiren flies right past the fortress, but it's easy to pinpoint where he descends. 

Xinglu Ridge. 

Nie Xunyao checks with his mother and learns that his aunts hadn't come back the night before, and Nie Mingjue can't find his father, which means they must already be up there themselves. 

"If they wanted us to be involved, they would have asked us to come," his mother points out gently, but he can see that she is worried as well. 

They decide to go.

They have traveled halfway up the path to the family tombs when Nie Zonghui quietly signals a stop, then points up into the trees. 

"Go home, He-mei!" Nie Mingjue calls without even having to look, and there's a rustling in the leaves before his little sister tumbles down from the branches with an indignant scowl. 

"I wanna know what's going on too!" 

"You're too little to go up to the ridge!" 

"Am not!"

Meng Shi loudly clears her throat to cut into the argument. "He-er, come here. Hold my hand, there's a good girl. Now, then, you will stay with me and be my guard while everyone's gone, hm?" 

Nie Xunyao has to look away to hide a smile at the way his little cousin's scowl doubles in ferocity at the realization she's been had. "I'll send down a note as soon as we know what's happening," he promises his mother, then he and Nie Mingjue and Nie Zonghui resume their hike towards the family tomb.

They can hear the music and sense the swirling waves of spiritual pressure before they reach the treeline. Nie Mingjue is acutely aware that he couldn't identify any of the Lan songs by ear even at sword-point, but it doesn't feel like a banishment song. 

Indeed, when they peek around one of the trees, the ghost struggling in the grip of Lan-xiansheng's music isn't fading or being dispersed. Hands wrapped around his own throat, he seems instead to be fighting a command to... 

A broken sob takes his attention away from the spectacle and he looks over to find that his mother and father are practically carrying er-niang, her hands over her mouth as all three- 

-wait. 

He looks more closely at er-niang's stricken expression, then back at the ghost trapped in Lan-xiansheng's spellsong. 

It can't be... 

It can’t be... 

The ghost is too old. 

A full-grown adult. 

But as he stares, transfixed by the tears streaming down the ghost's face and disappearing like steam as soon as they drip from his skin, he can see-

The ghost’s desperate attempts to break free fail, the musical command shattering the last of his defenses. Still clutching at his neck, he drops to his knees with an anguished howl that doesn't reach their ears, but seems to tear through Nie Mingjue’s soul.

He suddenly finds himself assaulted with a wave of dozens –hundreds– of emotions all at once and it's like taking a direct kick from a horse. 

And he knows- 

He knows-

"Didi..." he gasps just before he collapses in an unconscious heap.

When Nie Mingjue snaps awake, it's under a smothering blanket of panic. His breath wheezing in his chest, he tries to lunge to his feet and tumbles out of the bed he hadn't realized he was in. Strong familiar hands catch him by the shoulders before he can meet the floor with his face, but at the sight of his mother, the panic only doubles. 

"You can't- you can't banish the ghost, you can’t- " 

"Breathe, Jue-er. No one's banishing him," his mother says soothingly as she lifts him up and pushes him back into bed. "We're not exactly sure yet what we will be doing with him, but banishment is definitely not going to be in the plan." 

Relief washes over him, dousing the fear so quickly that, for a moment, his very bones might as well have turned to jelly. His mother presses a cup of water into his hand and he gladly gulps it down while he gathers his nerve for the question that's going to hurt no matter what answer she gives. 

"Lan-xiansheng confirms that our ghost is Sang-er," she says softly before he can ask, having always been able to read him like a child's book. 

He nods shakily, grateful that she has spared him from having to force the words out. "Did... did he say why Sang-di is... like that?" he asks instead, unsure whether he's asking why his baby brother who never was is grown, or why he is dead, or both.  

The expression that flickers across his mother's face is a complicated mix of emotions and, for a moment, he thinks she might refuse to tell him. He's all set to argue that he's old enough to know when she sighs deeply and rubs her eyes. 

"It's... As I'm sure you're already aware, Sang-er didn't exactly reply to Inquiry in words, so making sense of it all has been difficult. As best as Master Lan can figure, something caused Sang-er's soul to have a prophetic vision." 

Nie Mingjue frowns. "He wasn't even born yet, how-?" 

"We don't know. We might not ever know, because he's trying to shut us out again." She reaches out and gently pets his hair, and her face softens in a sadness that has him bracing himself for the worst news possible. 

"A-niang... tell me." 

"Whatever Sang-er saw, it convinced him that his birth would bring a chain of disasters down on the sect. On our family. So he stopped it from happening." 

The bracing didn’t help. Nie Mingjue feels the bed seemingly drop out from under him. 

His brother... had killed himself?  

Intentionally? 

Before he'd even had a chance to live?  

These disasters he had apparently foreseen... had Nie Huaisang somehow known Nie Mingjue’s feelings about having a younger sibling… that he hadn’t wanted one? Would that have been part of it? Would they have grown up resenting each other… or worse? Would- 

The cloth of his mother’s sleeve carefully swiping his cheek brings him back to reality and makes him aware that there are tears dripping down his face. 

"A-Niang, I- I have to go talk to him. I have to."

“In time, Jue-er. I promise he won’t be going anywhere. For now, you have to rest. ”

With his cousins making sure his little sister doesn't get nosy and his parents and aunts occupied talking about some urgent thing or another that may or may not be related to their ghost, the only difficulty Nie Mingjue has sneaking out is getting past the guards. But he manages, and sets off for the family tombs just after moonrise. 

Their ghost –his brother– is right in the same spot as before, kneeling in front of the huge stone doors as if sent there as punishment. 

The moonlight washes so much color out of him that he looks even more like an ink drawing come to life than he had in the daylight.

Nie Mingjue has to take a few moments to run through a quick breathing exercise and pull himself together before he leaves the trees behind and approaches. 

Up close, the first thing that strikes him is how worn his brother looks, the pale green eyes that are the only color on him are made even more prominent by the dark circles under them, his mouth is a tense slash across his face, and the whole line of his body is bowed by grief and exhaustion. He has seen cultivators come home from night hunts that ended in horribly violent failure who still had more energy to them. 

It only adds to the questions buzzing in his brain, but... First thing first. 

"Didi?" 

Nie Huaisang jerks as if Nie Mingjue had backhanded him across the face, turning his head away as he hunches in on himself. The air between them twists and, seized by the sudden fear that his brother will simply vanish, Nie Mingjue lunges forward without thinking- 

-and his hand meets solid cloth where it should have simply whiffed through air. 

They both stare at where he is clutching his brother's robes. He can still see right through to the ground underneath, as if looking through steam or smoke, and yet- 

He takes a deep breath, then lets go and shifts to reach out instead towards-

His brother flinches away before he can touch his face. His hair hides his expression, but this time Nie Mingjue can decipher the emotions that churn in the space between them. 

Fear.
Grief.
Guilt.
Shame.

His chest tightens and he swallows past the lump forming in his throat, then he carefully lowers himself to sit across from his brother. 

"Tell me-" he starts, then has to stop for a moment. "Tell me," he says again once he has recovered. "What were we like?"

Nie Huaisang doesn't respond, head still turned away and bright eyes closed as if in pain. 

Nie Mingjue takes hold of his hands, then tightens his grip in an attempt at reassurance when his brother flinches. "Didi... please." 

Nie Huaisang still does not speak, but Nie Mingjue once again feels the bond between them open. Unlike the flood from before, the feelings flow between them now in what he recognizes is a passage of years. 

Affection. 
Annoyance. 
A dozen other emotions gently moving in currents and eddies that are perfectly normal for brothers growing up together. 

There are... he can only describe them as rocks -more like boulders, really- in the stream, sudden bursts of sadness or pain or fear or worry that he instinctively recognizes as things like losing people around them, close to them. But, for the most part, the flow remains steady even as it winds and curves around what must have been important, stressful, even daunting events. 

Until the stream suddenly becomes rapids.

Nie Mingjue inhales sharply at the confusing change. Where there had been occasional exasperation on his shore, there is now anger; where there had sometimes been frustration on his brother's, there is now resentment.  

What- what had- 

The seething roil reaches a waterfall of rage on his side and terror on his brother's, and when it crashes at the bottom in a mix of fearworryregretguiltlovepain - 

-only his brother is left. 

"I died?" Nie Mingjue asks in a soft wheeze, a little breathless from how much tighter the feeling in his chest has wound itself. "No... I was killed. And I hurt you as it happened."

He swallows hard, trying to fully process that. 

It was impossible for him to tell how old he would have been during specific moments in the flow, but... it had felt so short. He couldn't have been even as old as their father was now. What could have possibly happened to kill him so soon?

Still recovering from that revelation, he almost misses when the stream begins again, it’s such a tiny trickle of emotion.. 

Guilt. 
Longing. 
Anguish. 
A deep, gut-wrenching mix of Regret and Loneliness. 

And then Shock that gives way to Anger with threads of Fear and Determination.

It’s a sense of waiting for something. Something big.

Waiting for... for... 

Revenge.

Nie Mingjue involuntarily shudders at the sheer depth of the feeling but gamely hangs on to his brother’s hands, feeling like he owes it to him to reach the end of the river. 

There is a brief wave of Anticipation and then...

Emptiness. 

If the moment of Satisfaction had come, it had passed by so quickly that he hadn't caught it. Instead, he finds himself metaphorically looking at an open, flat, lifeless sea. Small waves of Determination, a desire to fix something in particular swell up, but are quickly smoothed back into Nothing by Failure and Despair.

Until that's all there is. 

Nothing. 

When Nie Mingjue opens his eyes again, there are silent tears trickling down his brother's face, and his own eyes are wet as well. 

Nie Huaisang starts to pull his hands away, but Nie Mingjue refuses to let go. Unable to spit out the words that bubble up in the back of his throat, he instead jerks the surprised ghost of his brother into his arms and holds on tight, heedless of the fact that it still shouldn't be possible to do so. 

–As his sons meet for the first time in this timeline, Nie Haoran drafts a letter to send to Qishan. He still hasn't figured out what to make of Wen Ruohan's strange demand for a visit, but he apologizes that he won't be able to make the trip. 

Seeing no reason to lie to his old friend, he writes that by some circumstance that they don't yet have an explanation for, their second son has been returned to them as a spirit… possibly a spirit of protection, given what they do know so far, and that this revelation takes priority.

He has no idea that this letter will save his life.–

After another day of discussion, it is decided that the safest option for everyone would be to move their ghost within the fortress walls. By then, all of the residents within the Unclean Realms have learned just who is haunting the tombs up on the ridge, and everyone with any potentially useful knowledge is eager to help bring their lost young master home. 

It takes the rest of the week and two more days of the next to solidify a plan for how to capture him without harming him and prepare a place for him to reside. 

At Nie Leiyun's insistence, her favorite garden is modified to contain a small table shrine with a sturdy wood and stone roof to protect it from rain and snow. Settled against one of the stone walls so that it will be shielded from wind as well, it sits directly behind the pear tree that is the focus of the garden, providing a safe, private place for a wayward ghost to rest.

When Nie Huaisang, having tumbled out of the spirit pouch that carried him there, looks up in a daze to see the tree, Nie Leiyun's heart aches at the expression that blooms on her son's face, and she immediately rushes to hold him as he hunches into himself like a wounded animal and begins to cry silently. 

"It's okay, Sang-er," she whispers as she rocks him and strokes hair that slips through her fingers like smoke. "It's okay. You're home... Everything's fine now, you're home."

Nie Jinghe observes all the chaos of the preparation with the sort of detached confusion that only a six-year-old can muster. 

Her mother has told her that they have brought her older brother home. 

Her older brother who never made it into the world like she did. 

She wonders for a while if she should be scared of him… then decides that’s dumb. Even if he is something weird now, even if he is something the picture books say is scary, he is still her brother, isn't he? Besides, all three of her parents and her other brother all agree that the right thing to do is to bring him home, and they wouldn’t let him in the walls if he was really scary.

Her mother comes to her a little while after all the noise and bustle dies down, and Nie Jinghe can tell that she has been crying. But she seems.. brighter now. Happier, despite the dried tears. 

If her brother being brought inside the walls can make her mother happier, then Nie Jinghe will be happy to see him too, she resolves. "Is he here?" 

Her mother nods and offers a hand. "Would you like to meet your er-ge?" 

She fidgets with her stuffed cloth bird, debating on whether or not to bring it with her. Normally, when meeting new people, she’s supposed to leave it behind. 

But this isn’t really a new person, is he? He’s her brother.

And maybe he’ll like birds. 

Maybe he’ll like Huahua.

Clutching the toy tightly, she rushes to take hold of her mother's hand. 

"He-er," her mother says softly as they walk through the halls. "Be gentle, alright? Sang-er is..." 

"Is he sick? Like when he went away?" 

Her mother smiles, but it's a little unsure. "Something like that. He's probably not ready for the kind of hugs you like to give."

Nie Jinghe frowns at the floor as she considers that. "Can... can I hug him like I hug Mingming?" she asks, referring to her favorite among the cats that roam the fortress as resident mousers. 

Her mother's smile gains strength. "I think that would be fine. And... don't be too alarmed when you see him, alright? We aren’t sure yet why he looks so much older than he should be, but he's still Sang-er." 

She doesn't understand what that means until they step outside into her mother's favorite garden and she spots the ghost kneeling silently among the roots of the pear tree. 

Oh.

Meeting a grownup instead of another child makes her hesitate, clinging to her mother's skirts with the arm her bird is tucked into, until he registers their approach and opens his eyes, turning his head to look at them. 

Oh.

"Sang-er, this is Jinghe," her mother says, putting a hand on her head. "Your meimei.”

The tears are back in her mother's voice. "He-er, this is Huaisang. Your er-ge." 

Nie Jinghe doesn't wait for him to react, quickly shuffling forward to thrust her toy bird at him. "And this is Huahua! She's my best friend. My best bird friend, anyway. I have best cat friends and best people friends too. Do you like birds?" 

She knows she's chattering but she doesn't care. That's just the way she's always been; nervously spitting out the things she needs to say as fast as possible once she can get them out at all. 

Nie Huaisang blinks at her, and she tries not to fidget at the emotions that blink across his face with the speed of shadows in a fire. 

Then he gives her a soft, sad smile and reaches out to pat Huahua on the head. Something... something... something flutters through her mind… the beating of dozens of pairs of wings in different stages of healing, tended by careful hands. 

He likes birds. 

Remembering her mother's earlier warning, she is careful not to hug too hard when she flings herself into her er-ge’s lap with a squeal of glee.

Nie Xunyao quietly watches his youngest cousin play with the cousin he has not yet gathered up enough nerve to meet. 

Being placed in a proper resting place with a proper tablet seems to have given Nie Huaisang a little more... weight, for lack of a better word. Though he is translucent as ever and still cannot speak, he can now draw pictures in the earth under the tree for his little sister that she eagerly tries to copy in ink and paper. 

If her steadily improving skills are any indication, his cousin would have become quite the artist… if he had lived.

Nie Xunyao lets out a shaky breath and leans against the door frame. 

'If he had lived' is a phrase that holds so much weight. 

It's the reason he has yet to introduce himself. Even if they are family, how can he simply go up and greet someone he has already unknowingly owed a debt to for almost his entire life? 

Though Nie Huaisang had never confessed it in words, even though the adults will not say it in front of them, it's obvious what the first calamity would have been. Nie Jinghe may have been gentle on her, but Yun-ma had never truly recovered from the nightmare that was her first pregnancy.

And if she had died in childbirth, there would have been no one searching for his mother. 

Especially not his father. 

He remembers vividly the day his mother had walked out of a conference being held in the great hall with tears in her eyes and had taken him aside to fold him in a tight hug and apologize for having ever believed his father would do right by them. 

He also remembers vividly the first time he saw one of his -apparently numerous- half-siblings thrown out of Golden Scale Tower like a piece of refuse. 

His cousin has saved them from all that foolish wishing and hoping and the bitter fate that might have come with it, and instead arranged for them to have a proper place in the world with a family that loved and wanted them. 

'If he had lived.' 

How does he even begin to pay that back? 

Better... better to wait, he decides. Until he has an idea.

Though it turns out not to be his decision to make. 

When his little cousin spots him watching, he doesn't react fast enough to keep her from running over to grab him by the arm and drag him off the porch with all her weight. 

Ugh, she just had to take after her brother and father in both strength and stubbornness. 

"Sang-ge~! You haven't met Yao-ge yet!"

Nie Huaisang looks up and Nie Xunyao feels a little chill creep down his spine. Though his cousin's gaze is as smooth as the polished pale jade it takes its color from, the air between them ripples with emotion; Love and Hate and Betrayal and Regret all twisted up and tangled together like kites in a windstorm.

Well. 

That answers the question of whether or not they'd somehow crossed paths despite the loss of a tether between them in the form of Yun-ma. 

Steeling his nerve, he kneels in front of the ghost, then looks at the drawing materials scattered around them. "He-mei, go get more paper." 

"Aw-!" 

"Unless you want me to have to write on your drawings...?" 

"No! Don't you dare!" she huffs, running back towards the porch. "I'll make Huahua bite you if they're messed up when I get back!" 

It's not much of a threat, given that the bird in question is a toy, and he can't help the way his mouth twitches in amusement before he gets himself back under control. 

As soon as the door bangs shut, he forces himself to look his remaining cousin in the eye again. "What fate did you save my mother and me from? Was it whatever created all that hate between us?" 

Nie Huaisang tilts his head, but otherwise gives no indication that he heard the question. 

"Did we ever know we were related?" Nie Xunyao presses. 

That earns a flinch. A little twist of Regret. So... not before Something Important had gone very, very Wrong. 

Nie Xunyao involuntarily bites the inside of his lip to fight back the dread threatening to close his throat. 

Breathe in. 
Breathe out. 
Until he's in control again. 

He leans forward, gaze intent. "What do I owe you, biao di?" 

The silence stretches between them. But, just as he thinks Nie Huaisang is going to simply block him out entirely, the ghost closes his eyes and sighs inaudibly, all of the tension in his body bleeding out, then bows his head and stretches out a hand towards the ground.  

Nie Xunyao looks down and watches as the words emerge under the scratch of his cousin’s nails -right side up for him, rather impressively- in the earth. 

'Be content with this family.'

Nie Xunyao frowns, wondering what exactly that's supposed to mean. Of course he knows he's doing much better here than he could have been, why would he need to be reminded to...? 

Oh. 

Wait. 

"Did the life you saw me living involve me trying to join my father?" 

A nod. 

Nie Xunyao's breath leaves him in a sharp wheeze, as if the ghost had outright punched him in the stomach. "Ha. Ah… You won't have to worry about that. My mother and I know better now." He reaches out and takes hold of his cousin's free hand. "But that... that can’t be all you want from me, can it? After all of this? Everything you gave up?" 

Another head tilt, this time of consideration. 

Then a second nod. 

And he understands. Whatever else had gone so horribly sour between them, it must have been born out of that desire to be with his father. 

Before he can ask anything more, the door bangs open again and Nie Jinghe comes running out with several blank scrolls and sheets of paper. "You better not have done anything cool without me!" 

Nie Xunyao smiles at his little cousin. "Just boring grown up talk." 

"You're not a grown up! You’re ten and a half!"  

"I’m still more grown up than He-mei is," he retorts just to tease, all the little nervous knots in his stomach vanishing as he catches his other cousin hiding a smile behind his sleeve.

Though there are still questions that have gone unanswered -mostly because they are the ones that Nie Huaisang doesn't seem to have answers for, like how he has come to be here like he is- things gradually settle into a new form of normal. 

Nie Leiyun is glad when her son slowly shifts from spending so much time kneeling and staring into nothingness to curling up among the pear tree's roots. Even if the former was some form of rest for him, as she thinks it must have been, it is much less unnerving to see him “sleeping” more naturally. 

She looks up from her flowers to find that the sun is not yet high enough for lunch, and as has become custom, she goes to sit down on one of the ward-shielded cushions tucked into the roots that provide her son a bed. 

While their other family members might bother them before lunch for something important, mornings, for the most part, are theirs alone by unanimous decision. 

He doesn't stir when she pets his hair. Sometimes he doesn't wake for two or three days on end, and while her daughter finds that frustrating when she wants to play with him or show him something new, Nie Leiyun doesn't mind. 

He is still here, and that is enough for her. 

The new ghost inclusive routine lasts for almost two and a half years, until it is Qinghe Nie's turn to host the biennial discussion conference.

With nearly all of the next generation having reached a good traveling age, even among the minor sects, and the conference taking place in the middle of one of Qinghe's hunt festivals, Nie Haoran cheerfully invites his fellows to bring their families. 

Surprisingly, most of them actually accept the offer. Even Wen Ruohan, who's been oddly withdrawn these days, brings his younger son and his niece and nephew. 

Once the opening ceremonies and mid-day banquet are complete, the children are ushered off to the courtyard and training fields for games while the adults get down to business. 

They have just started the necessary but tedious debate over the tax rules for the next two years when an unholy racket erupts from outside.

"What in all the-?" one of the minor sect leaders starts to say before the doors to the hall crash open and several screaming teenagers and children tumble into the room, with an even more loudly screaming Nie Jinghe hot on their heels, a heavy wooden training saber raised over her head in both hands like a cudgel. 

Behind her are her panicked brother, one of her cousins, and several adults, who'd clearly been trying in vain to catch her before the spectacle could explode in front of everyone. 

"Nie Jinghe!" a mortified Nie Leiyun barks as she snags her enraged daughter under one arm before the girl can swing at the heads of Lan Qiren's nephews. "What in the world has gotten into you?!" 

"Make them leave er-ge alone!” Nie Jinghe screeches angrily as she tries to wriggle free, becoming even more incensed when her brother wrenches the saber out of her hands. “No banishing!" 

The gossipy murmuring that had started to fill the room suddenly goes quiet.

As the muttering and whispering resumes, topic decidedly shifted, Wen Ruohan turns his head to see that Nie Haoran has turned ash white, and Nie Linsong is already on her feet and approaching her wife and the children. 

"We didn't banish anything!" Jiang Fengmian's recently-acquired ward protests loudly from behind his legs. "We didn't even get the chance! Lan Zhan just said it should be banished and she went nuts on us!" 

"Ghosts should not be permitted within a sect," Lan Qiren's younger nephew insists stubbornly, even as this time it takes both mothers and her brother to keep the youngest Nie from lunging at him. 

Lan Qiren pinches the bridge of his nose, then goes over and puts a hand on his nephew's head. "Wangji, we have discussed that there are different types of ghosts, have we not?" he asks, gentle and stern all at once. "And that not all of them are to be dealt with through banishment?" 

The boy hesitates, then nods, though his jaw is still set firm. 

"So then this ghost is a Nie family member? You know that for certain?" one of the minor sect leaders speaks up. 

"His identity has been confirmed," Nie Haoran cuts in sharply, causing all eyes to turn to him. "He is our son Huaisang, whom you all know we lost a decade ago, and whom the heavens have seen fit to return to us." 

Wen Ruohan pays little mind to the actual conversation after that. He thinks back instead to the letter Nie Haoran had sent him almost three years previously to inform him of this very fact. 

The timing of this reappearance has always bothered him. 

At first, still in the throes of anger and jealousy, he had derisively dismissed it as simply being a too-convenient -even false- excuse, and had seriously considered sending another demand -no, an order- that Nie Haoran come to Qishan. But as the days had ticked by and the fog of roiling negativity had lifted, he had come to realize just how irrational his reaction had been, especially to such a minor slight. 

How... there might have actually been something wrong with him, a concern later proven to be fact after intensive qi testing by a trusted physician assisted by his niece.

If he hadn't had that necessary time... if Nie Haoran hadn't been provided with a reason to stay home... 

Perhaps, he decides as the children are herded back out and the discussions resume, he should meet this son that has brought them all such a drastic change of fortune.

Normally, as one of Nie Haoran's oldest friends and closest confidants, The Undying Sun goes where he pleases within the walls of the Unclean Realms. The fact that the guards stop him at all when he approaches the door to Nie Leiyun's favorite garden is a testament to just how badly the family has been rattled by the commotion in the main hall earlier.

But the trust given him is still strong enough that they are easily placated with a promise of mere curiosity, and he walks outside with no further hindrance. 

His gaze is immediately drawn to a soft glow under the branches of the pear tree, like a small moon situated amongst its roots, but as he approaches, it rouses itself and rises up to reform into an elegantly pretty man giving him a glare that only a Nie would be capable of, the air between them humming with animosity. 

He can't help but find it amusing, endearing even, this metaphorical raising of hackles or puffing of feathers, and a smile touches his mouth as he continues walking closer. 

The ghost seems taken aback by his reaction, the threat display faltering from outright hostility to confused wariness. 

"You know, don’t you?" Wen Ruohan says, reaching out to lift the surprised ghost's chin. "You know  what you prevented with your miraculous return, Sang-er." 

Nie Huaisang bristles, baring teeth that sharpen with his expression, and the air between them churns with a seething mix of hate, rage, and fear that he can sense is only partially the ghost's own feelings. A shadow crosses the young man's white throat, looking uncannily like bruises left by much larger hands, and Wen Ruohan gets the impression of crackling fire, of shouting voices, screaming horses, and clashing weapons. 

Oh, yes, Nie Huaisang knows exactly what Wen Ruohan would have done to his father had Nie Haoran not been diverted from traveling to Qishan, and also the many terrible things that would have come about as a result of that trip. 

Wen Ruohan resolutely does not shiver at the heavy weight of emotions that the ghost forcefully pushes into his mind. Instead, fascinated by what he is sensing, he leans even closer into Nie Huaisang's space, tilting his head up even further to keep eye contact. "Self-destruction and self-summoning. Tell me, Sang-er, what other miracles are you capable of performing for this family?" 

Again, the ghost does not answer in words, but Wen Ruohan can understand his response perfectly.

Nie Huaisang does not know what all he can do yet , but if Wen Ruohan chooses to be a threat to his family again, they will both find out. 

Satisfied with the response, Wen Ruohan chuckles softly and kisses Nie Huaisang on the forehead, earning a fresh ripple of confusion, then pulls away and returns to his room for the night. 

The rest of the conference passes with no further disturbances, the other sects wisely keeping to their guest quarters and the public areas instead of attempting to satisfy any curiosity of their own.

It has been a little over four years since their son's odd state of continued existence was revealed to the jianghu. 

With Xunyao at the summer lectures, Mingjue and Zonghui off handling a pack of troublesome boar yao, and Jinghe traveling with her mothers and aunt, Nie Haoran is taking advantage of the weather and empty family halls to spend time with Huaisang while getting some records updated. 

It is well after lunchtime and he has been bogged down in dates and names long enough he would normally start getting a headache when he finally notices that the familiar hum of his saber has... changed. 

Over the years, the blade's spirit had grown more agitated, more ravenous, pressing against the back of his skull like a tiger that knows there's meat to be had just outside its cage and is testing to see if it can be reached one way or another. 

And now it's… calm. He can practically picture the tiger sated and purring as it naps sprawled out by a hearth fire. 

He blinks, then looks down to find that Huaisang has dozed off curled up at his side, the saber resting on the grass between them, with translucent fingertips just barely touching the hilt. 

Nothing about him seems to have changed, but... 

Curiosity piqued, he checks to see if his son will continue sleeping for a while yet, then gathers up his work and goes to find his second and the sect's head healer. 

After an initial examination and a few careful tests, Liu Feng cautiously agrees with the hypothesis that Nie Haoran has formed. 

Whatever form of spirit Nie Huaisang has become, contact with him seems to, at least temporarily, soothe the previously endless and unstoppable hunger of the saber spirits. 

His mind spins with this information. 

He has been feeling older than his actual age more and more as of late, dealing with twinges and pulls and headaches that leave him tired and irritable, that he knows are the first signs of the inexorable decline that awaited them all. Their family's curse has been weighing more and more heavily on his back as he watched the boys start going on more and more difficult solo night hunts and his daughter's bonding ceremony drew closer. 

It is likely already too late to completely save his own generation, but if this could stop, or even just slow down the sickness brought on by the sabers' needs, then perhaps the next one…

But he doesn't yet know what the possibilities he is envisioning would cost Huaisang in return. 

Would his son have to be bound to the garden permanently, as the masterless sabers had been bound to the tombs since the birth of the sect? Or, worse, would the sabers overwhelm him, draining his soul until there was nothing left to move on? 

Both of those potential futures make his stomach twist in a mix of horror and guilt, especially since he has no doubt Huaisang would agree to any plan suggested to him, personal cost be damned. 

After all, his son has already cast his own life aside for them once already.

He decides to have the healers work on refining the tests and continue testing. He will consult every useful opinion, from the elders to his oldest friends to his wives when they return home.

Only once he has a much clearer picture of the situation and several potential plans to choose from will he bring this up with Huaisang.

The research is not easy, nor is it quick. Years pass marked in searched shelves and discarded ideas, and almost too quickly, a decade has come and gone. 

Nie Haoran knows his health will not hold out much longer. Even though Nie Huaisang has caught on to what he is trying to do and clearly wants to assist- 

-He has not failed to notice that his son now very purposefully sleeps with one hand resting on the saber’s blade whenever they share a few shichen in the garden - 

-he will not risk his child. 

He and his wives are reading over the latest set of scrolls Lan Qiren has unearthed for the project when the air around them suddenly vibrates with such a strong burst of spiritual energy that even Nie Leiyun, with her lack of cultivation, gasps and clutches her chest. 

"What-" 

"The garden!" 

Bolting from the library, they find Meng Shi and Nie Zonghui attempting to help Nie Xunyao to his feet in the hallway, the young man pale and trembling from where he's been violently heaving all over the floor. 

"What happe-"  

Another unseen explosion ripples through the building, and now there are dozens more pairs of footsteps running through the halls as the other disciples and servants react to the confusing invisible assault on the Realms. 

"Zongzhu, where-" 

"Fuqin! A-niang!" Nie Mingjue calls as he rounds the corner, Nie Jinghe and two disciples right behind him. "It's Sang-di, he-" 

"Were you with him when this started?" Nie Linsong asks and her son shakes his head. 

"No, but I… I think I know what's going o-" 

The next pulse rattles the floor under their feet and the thinner walls, and as it finishes passing over, Nie Haoran feels his nose start to bleed. Looking around, his children and nephews and disciples are in similarly bad shape; Nie Jinghe clutching her head and starting to cry from the pain and Nie Xunyao having vomited on the floor again.

"Take those two to the infirmary," he says to the disciples who look the least affected. "Jue-er, let's go." 

Meng Shi immediately follows the disciples carrying her son, but Nie Leiyun looks torn between the misery of the child with her now and the child suffering in the garden. 

"Go with Jinghe," Nie Linsong says, squeezing her hands. "We won't lose him." 

Fighting back tears, their wife nods and follows the disciples helping her daughter. 

"Tell us what's wrong with him," Nie Haoran orders as he, Linsong, Mingjue, and Zonghui make their way across the courtyard, trying to calm panicked sect members and servants in their path. 

"I think today is the day I was supposed to die."

His mother stops short so fast that his father nearly bowls her over accidentally. “What?” they both ask almost in unison.

The next shockwave reminds them all they're short on time and gets them moving again.

Mingjue gives them the short and blunt version of his sneaking out that night to meet the ghost of his brother and the things he had learned during the encounter. How he suspected that the 'rocks' in the emotional river were their family being whittled down one by one until it was just the two of them, and then his own violent death.

It's rather fortunate, he thinks at the end of his explanation, that he is in the lead, because that means he doesn't have to see their reactions.

Another shockwave hits right as they reach the entrance to the garden and it hurts deep in his skull and chest and gut. He's distantly aware that his nose has just gushed blood and his eyes are wet, probably with more of the same.

But all of his attention is focused solely on Huaisang.

His little brother is on his knees, face almost touching the ground as he grips his head, fingers wound tightly in his hair, and screams in that unholy manner that they can't hear, but must be the source of the shockwaves.

Nie Mingjue crosses the distance between them in almost a single leap and grabs Nie Huaisang by the shoulders. "Didi!"

For a brief moment, everything stills so suddenly that the lack of air pressure makes his ears pop as Huaisang -grounded by the sound of his voice- raises his head.

Then his irises and pupils shrink to the smallest needle pricks and Nie Mingjue belatedly curses himself as he realizes he should have wiped the blood from his face.

He opens his mouth to try and reassure his brother, but before he can get even one word out, the ground rumbles underneath them again and a chill so deep it burns spears through his stomach. 

He looks down to see ghostly hands disappearing into his body, and he can briefly feel his core vibrating in their grip before the world washes away into a flood of pain.

It hurts to breathe.
It hurts not to breathe.
Everything hurts and he can dimly hear his parents yelling and he has no idea what’s happening because Huaisang has never been able to do this before and-

And then it all stops again.

Lying on his back in the dirt, he blinks dully at the branches above him, then he sucks in a sharp gasp and realizes-

"I'm fine," he coughs as his parents crowd over him.

He... is fine.

In fact, he feels better than fine.

The qi in his meridians, in his core, had started to feel... a little sludgy whenever he practiced circulation, as if something like oil was accumulating in it. Baxia helped, of course, but there was only so much she could do, and-

-now it's all gone. Scorched out of him by whatever Huaisang had done, leaving his qi feeling the clearest and freshest it's been since he first attained his core.

"I'm fine," he says again, voice stronger the second time, as he tries to squirm away from his mother's tight embrace and gets swatted on the arm for it.

His father laughs, relief evident on his face, and Mingjue turns his head to thank his brother-

-just in time to see Huaisang... flicker.

Nie Huaisang is exhausted.

It's almost funny, in a bitter sort of way. An entire second... not-quite-lifetime of only the barest of physical sensations being able to reach him through the many veils that separate him from his living family, and the first thing he's capable of truly feeling again is being tired.

Careful, gentle hands roll him onto his back so he can see the worried face of his mother -and he has never stopped being amazed that this is his mother- and the crowd of disciples and servants that has flooded the garden on his father's -his father's- bellowed orders.

Wait.

Da-ge ... is he... did he...?

His eyes nervously scan over the crowd, searching, and relief floods him when he sees his brother, the core inside him glowing bright and strong.

Ah... He'd really panicked over nothing, hadn't he?

And now...

He looks down at his hands, watching them -watching all of him- gutter like a lantern flame struggling in the wind. When he raises his head again, he blinks owlishly at the bright flash of emergency summons being sent off by his father.  There are more of them than he would have thought necessary, but-

"Sang-er," his mother murmurs as she helps him to sit up and cuddles him into her side in the shelter of the tree roots. She seems to falter as to what to say next, but he doesn't mind.

He rests his head on her shoulder, and he watches.

Had they been able to go with any of the original plans that had not yet fully come together -had he not stupidly lost his composure when he realized what day it was- he would have been much more involved in the process.

But now he can only watch, somewhat removed from it all.

Dozens of shovels and rakes rush to dig away the grass in a wider circle around the pear tree than there already was. Buckets soak the earth as it is bared so it can be tamped down and dried with talismans, ready for a large main array and any of its smaller component arrays to be scratched in. 

Everyone is working so hard, and nearly all of them keep glancing at him with worry at one point or another, his siblings and cousins more frequently than anyone else.

His mother shakes him carefully, and he opens his eyes to find night has already fallen.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep… or even closing his eyes to begin with. He looks up at the stars through the tree branches, then flashes of white and blue and red catch his attention.

Wen Ruohan and Lan Qiren have joined the chaos in the garden, along with a handful of their own disciples. He catches glimpses of Wen Qing and Wen Ning and Lan Xichen moving among the other bodies, carrying out the orders of their uncles and his father.

He can only imagine how fast they must have flown to already be here, but before he can imagine much more, Wen Ruohan approaches him and his mother. 

Years ago, he would have automatically reacted to shield her from his family’s oldest enemy, but here and now, she takes hold of his hand to help him reach out to his family’s oldest friend.

He can barely see the outline of his fingers compared to theirs, and it takes effort for him to stand.

He is suddenly aware that this is likely the last thing he’ll ever do in this not-life.

The last thing he’ll ever be able to try to fix.

If it works…

No… No, not if. It has to work.

His mother lets go, making room for Da-ge to take his other arm, and he and Wen Ruohan begin to guide Huaisang around the innermost of the three rings of the array to the sound of qin and xiao.

The ground under his feet sparks with each step as qi flows from them, through him, and into the lines their path follows. His vision has grown too blurry to read any of the characters he steps on, but it feels similar to what he had been doing to the sabers brought to him before, so he hopes …

Halfway around the ring, Da-ge has to stop, and Hui-ge takes his place.

Then his father.

Then his sister.

One by one, each of his family steps up, with Wen Ruohan remaining the constant as the oldest and strongest cultivator of everyone present.

Nie Xunyao is the last, and Nie Huaisang can’t help a tiny inward chuckle at the irony that the two who had committed the worst betrayals of his family in the timeline that no longer is are now the two carrying him across the finish line to save them. 

When the full array is active, they carefully lay him in the empty north circle, and the pear tree, despite being past its fruiting season and beginning to lose its reddened leaves like the rest of the autumn trees, erupts into a glowing white that he -no longer able to see anything more defined than color and vague shapes- assumes must be blooms.

“-idi? Didi! ”

Shadows block the light, and though he instinctively knows that each one is a member of his family, he can only tell them apart by size, and only Da-ge’s voice is clear enough through the dull roar that he can understand what’s being said.

“You have to come back,” his brother pleads past an audible lump in his throat. “We have to be able to go together this time. Understand? We have to be brothers again.”

He thinks he manages a nod and a smile, or at least he hopes he does.

There are still so many things he’d planned to do. He had been dropping seeds to guide Xunyao to Mo Xuanyu, and now he’ll never know whether or not they’ll bear fruit. He doesn’t know if the rest of his friends ever managed to sort their own messes out. He hasn’t gotten to see Da-ge be made sect leader.

But his family is alive. All of them.

His father, his mothers, his brother and sister, his aunt and cousins…

This is enough… this is enough.

With no more regrets to keep him tethered, he closes his eyes and lets go.

Eight months after the blessing of the pear tree -after the disappearance of the sect’s second son- Nie Mingjue turns thirty in the middle of the gentlest winter Qinghe has ever weathered.

Five months after that, amidst the vibrant blooms of spring and the even more vibrant blooms of the pear tree, Nie Haoran announces he is stepping down as sect leader. 

He is the first leader in the history of the sect to live long enough to enjoy a peaceful and well-earned retirement with his wives and kin.

At a light knock on his office door, Nie Mingjue looks away from the bronze mirror he’s been using to finish his braids and finds Nie Xunyao at the door.

“The performance troupe you invited for the festival has arrived in the courtyard,” his cousin says, and though his smile is placid, Nie Mingjue notices a particular sharpness, a barely-withheld excitement in his eyes.

He presses his mouth into a thin, thoughtful line, then nods. “I’ll be out to meet them shortly.”

When he steps out into the courtyard, he finds his sister crouched in front of the man he’d conducted the hiring of the troupe with, both his cousins present and leaning over as well. It’s not him that’s got them so fascinated, Nie Mingjue realizes, but the small child at his side, decorated with colorful birds perched on his head, shoulders and arms.

“Xiao-Jun’s already graduated to be the primary handler for all our trained birds,” the man is saying proudly as Nie Mingjue approaches. “Practically magical, the way this boy has with them.”

As if to demonstrate, ‘Xiao-Jun’ reaches up, the birds on his arms automatically shifting to let him do so, and coaxes a bright yellow and orange bird into his hand, which he offers to Nie Jinghe with a little whistling noise. 

His sister accepts the bird with a beaming smile, and at that point man and boy both notice his approach. 

“Ah, Nie-zongzhu!” the man greets with a smile and then a bow. “Thank you again for your generous invitation.”

“Thank you,” the boy parrots, bowing a little more awkwardly with all his feathery hangers-on. 

And when he raises his head, Nie Mingjue suddenly understands why his sister and cousins are all grinning at him expectantly.

The boy’s face is different -a little sharper here, a little more rounded there, a sprinkle of freckles that may or may not have been on the face that came before it- and his eyes are the bright shining silver of some of the minor sects rather than the green of the Nie bloodline.

And yet the qi he can sense leaking from such a small body has a signature he could never mistake for anyone else.

With a fond smile, he offers them both -but especially his brother- a greeting salute. 

“It’s a pleasure to have you here.”