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The realization that had preceded their parting had been a quiet, suffocating thing. It grew not in a dramatic argument, but in the elegant stillness of the Jingshi, in the lengthening silences between them, in the scent of sandalwood that began to smell more of solitude than peace. Wei Wuxian saw it, the way the pristine white and blue robes of the Chief Cultivator were not a cage for Lan Zhan, but were building one around him. His own spirit, a wild and laughing thing, felt the walls of Gusu's reverence closing in, the weight of the world's expectations for Hanguang-jun pressing down on the space between them. He saw the duty in Lan Zhan’s golden eyes, a burden he would never shirk, and the love that would never ask Wei Wuxian to stay and suffocate. And Wei Wuxian knew, with a bone-deep certainty forged in the Burial Mounds, that he could not live in a cage again. Not even one made of Lan Zhan's love and gilded with his protection.
So, he did what he had always done when the pain was too great to face head-on: he crafted a brittle smile, made a joke that landed in a pool of heavy silence, and packed his meager belongings: Chenqing, a handful of talismans, and the ghost of a life he’d dared to believe could be forever. He walked away from the Cloud Recesses, from Lan Zhan, from the only anchor that had held him fast in the turbulent seas of his second life. He did not look back, feeling the profound silence of Gusu solidify behind him like a wall of ice, sealing him into a cold and solitary freedom.
Weeks bled into one another, a monochrome smear of dusty roads, anonymous towns, and the taste of cheap wine that could never quite blur the edges. He was a leaf on a stream he could not name, purposeless and drifting. Yet, his feet, it seemed, possessed a memory his heart had tried to bury. They carried him south with a will of their own, through landscapes that tugged at a deep, aching familiarity. The air grew heavier and warmer, carrying the scent of water and blooming lotuses that made his chest tighten with painful yearning. He passed vendors calling out, selling skewers of spicy meat and piles of fresh lotus pods, and the sounds and smells were a haunting melody from a life long gone.
And then, without conscious decision, he was there.
The very air was different, thick with humid warmth and the ghost of a million memories. Yunmeng. He stood frozen at the edge of the bustling city, a spectator to a play he’d once starred in. His eyes tracked the vibrant purple robes of Jiang disciples moving through the crowds with an easy belonging that sent a sharp pang through him. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic, trapped bird. What was he doing here? What did he possibly hope to find?
A visit to Lotus Pier? A meeting with Jiang Cheng?
The thought was a physical blow, knocking the air from his lungs. His mind conjured the image with cruel clarity: the furious, tear-streaked twist of Jiang Cheng’s face, the way his voice had broken in Guanyin Temple, raw and shattered. Jiang Cheng had been hurt by him, and Wei Wuxian knew that his continuous presence would only be a source of even more pain for his brother.
So he had gotten lost. So profoundly lost. And now some wretched, hopeful part of him had dragged him back to the shore of his past, a ghost drawn to the place of its life, terrified to discover if he would be seen as a remnant to be cherished or an intruder to be exorcised.
So, he did not take the path to the pier. He turned into the rebuilt heart of the city, his eyes skimming over new structures and unfamiliar market stalls. The war had scoured Yunmeng clean, and the subsequent years had erased his personal landmarks, leaving him a stranger in a once-familiar land. He found an inn, a clean, two-story building with a freshly painted sign that held no history for him. It was perfect in its anonymity.
He rented a room, a small, spare space that echoed with silence, and deposited his qiankun pouch on the lone table. Downstairs in the tavern, he ordered food he didn’t taste and wine he could not drink fast enough. The first jar was to wash down the road dust. The second was to drown out the silence of his empty room. The third was for the hollow, expanding void that had been growing inside his chest for weeks.
It was then that the loneliness descended in earnest, not as a quiet melancholy, but as a suffocating, physical presence. It pressed in on him from all sides, a weight so tangible he could barely draw breath. He had always been surrounded by people. In his first life, it was Jiang Cheng’s irritable loyalty and Shijie’s gentle smiles, the boisterous energy of the Jiang disciples, Nie Huaisang’s dramatic chatter. Even in the desolation of the Burial Mounds, there had been the Wen remnants: A-Yuan’s bright laughter, Wen Qing's gentle scolding and Wen Ning’s steadfast, silent presence.
And in this life… there had been Lan Zhan. Always Lan Zhan. A silent guardian, a constant, unwavering star by his side, his presence a bedrock. Until he wasn’t.
Now, there was only the hollow clink of his own jar against the wooden table and the boisterous conversations of strangers that served only to underscore his own utter isolation. Everyone was gone. Everyone was dead, or busy building lives that had no place for him, or… simply better off without his disruptive presence.
He drank more. The wine was cheap and sharp, but it did its job, blurring the sharp edges of his thoughts and fueling a reckless, tipsy nostalgia. The noise of the tavern became too loud, the laughter of others too pointedly joyful. He needed air.
Stumbling out into the balmy night, he let his feet carry him. They knew the way even if his mind was fogged with alcohol. He passed the street where he’d once outrun a furious merchant after swiping a handful of tanghulu, his own laughter echoing in the memory. He saw the narrow alley where a fifteen-year-old Jiang Cheng had found him, drenched and shivering after being punished and locked out, and had wordlessly, gruffly shoved a steamed bun into his hands, his own cheeks flushed with anger and unspoken concern.
Each memory was a tiny, precise cut. He ached with them, a physical pain behind his ribs.
Without conscious decision, his path turned toward the shimmering darkness on the edge of the city, the great lake, its surface a black mirror perfectly reflecting the scattered lights of houses and the slender sliver of the moon.
He stood at the end of a small wooden dock, the planks worn smooth and familiar under his boots. The water lapped gently against the posts with a soft, shushing sound. This was the place. Right here.
They had been thirteen, buzzing with excitement and false bravado. Their first unsupervised night-hunt, a simple water ghost troubling local fishermen. They’d spent more time splashing each other and arguing over technique than actually hunting. Jiang Cheng had been so fiercely serious, so intent on proving his capability, while Wei Wuxian had clowned and teased, effortlessly summoning the ghost with a modified talisman he’d invented that very afternoon.
He remembered the proud, reluctant smile that had finally broken through Jiang Cheng’s stern concentration when they’d subdued it. The way he’d shoved Wei Wuxian’s shoulder and called him an idiot, but his eyes had been blazing with shared triumph. They’d sat on this very dock, soaked to the bone and shivering, passing a stolen jar of wine between them as the sun painted the sky in hues of orange and pink, talking of becoming legendary heroes, the unbreakable Twin Prides of Yunmeng, a partnership that would last a lifetime.
The bond had been so simple then. Pure. Unbroken.
A raw sound escaped Wei Wuxian’s throat, a half-sob choked by wine and grief. He dropped his head into his hands, the empty wine jar clattering forgotten to the weathered wood. The loneliness wasn’t just an absence of people; it was the absence of that. Of belonging. Of having a home that was not a place, but a person. A person who was your brother.
He didn’t know how long he sat there, lost in the ghostly echoes of laughter. The night deepened around him, the moon climbing higher. Then, he heard a sharp, deliberate crack of a twig, the purposeful rustle of reeds from the shore.
Wei Wuxian froze, every sense snapping to razor-sharp alertness despite the alcohol clouding his mind. He slowly, painfully, lifted his head.
There, at the edge of the treeline, silhouetted against the distant, glowing lanterns of Lotus Pier, stood a figure. The posture was rigid, proud, and unmistakable, clad in the deep, rich purple of the Jiang sect, with shoulders set in a familiarly furious line.
Wei Wuxian’s breath caught in his chest, his heart stuttering to a stop. He didn’t need to see the sharp, handsome face, the storm brewing in dark eyes, or the subtle, dangerous twist of the ring on a finger, of Zidian, dormant but deadly.
Jiang Cheng had found him first.
The air, once thick only with the ghosts of memory, now crackled with a live, painful energy, charged with sixteen years of things unsaid. Jiang Cheng did not move closer, not at first. He stood as if rooted to the shore, a statue carved from equal parts anger and pride, his form a stark, purple slash against the shadowy backdrop of the trees. His eyes, dark and sharp enough to cut even in the low light, performed a slow, meticulous inventory of Wei Wuxian’s state. They took in the disgraceful slump of his shoulders, the empty wine jar rolling precariously near the dock's edge, the disheveled robes and the way his hair fell loose and unkempt from its tie. It was a comprehensive, brutal assessment.
He tsked, the sound a sharp, familiar punctuation that cut through the gentle lapping of the water. It was a sound from a thousand forgotten afternoons, a symphony of exasperated fondness and irritation that sent a jolt, equal parts pain and comfort, straight through Wei Wuxian’s heart.
“You’re wasted,” Jiang Cheng stated. His voice was flat, stripped of its usual searing heat. It was merely a clinical observation, a fact stated into the humid space between them, and that neutrality was somehow worse than any shout.
Are you surprised? Wei Wuxian thought, the words a bitter, echoing taunt in the hollow of his own mind. After everything, after all these weeks of drifting through a world that had no place for him, of course he was drunk. Inebriation was the only state that made the vast, howling emptiness inside him feel slightly padded, slightly manageable. But to voice that felt too raw, too much like kneeling and surrendering a defeat he wasn't ready to acknowledge. So, he didn’t answer. Instead, he offered up a weak, lopsided smile, a cheap imitation of his usual grin, that didn't even come close to touching his eyes, and turned his gaze back toward the dark, placid surface of the lake, as if he could divine their thirteen-year-old selves from its inky depths.
A long, tense silence stretched out, broken only by the relentless chorus of night insects and the heavy beat of his own heart. Jiang Cheng was the one to sever it, his question a blade carefully sheathed in a tone of forced, almost indifferent casualness.
“What are you doing here?”
Wei Wuxian kept his eyes stubbornly fixed on the water. He could feel the heat of Jiang Cheng’s gaze burning a hole into the side of his head. The real answer was a tangled, thorny mess of grief, of a loneliness so profound it had a physical weight, and a homesickness for a place and a time that had been utterly obliterated. He couldn’t give that to him. He wouldn't.
He heard a shift in the gravel, the faint, telling rustle of expensive silk fabric. Jiang Cheng was hesitating. It was a strange, almost foreign concept. The Jiang Cheng he remembered charged headfirst into everything, especially his anger. This uncertainty, this careful deliberation, was new, and it unnerved Wei Wuxian far more than any shouted accusation ever could.
Finally, Jiang Cheng spoke again, his voice tighter, thinner, as if the words were being physically dragged out of him against his will. “I’ve heard rumours. Of a familiar… figure… lurking around the city.” He paused, and Wei Wuxian could feel the weight of his expectant stare, heavy and impatient. He was waiting for an answer, for an explanation that made sense.
Wei Wuxian’s mind scrambled through the wine-sodden fog, but it found no purchase, no clever lie or half-truth. He came up utterly empty.
Then came the next question, the one he’d been desperately dreading. It was quieter, its edges softened with a confusion that sounded perilously close to hurt. “Why didn’t you come to Lotus Pier?”
The directness of it was a physical blow, stealing the air from Wei Wuxian’s lungs. The truth: ‘Because I didn’t know if I would be allowed to enter. Because the last time I visited, you told me to get lost with tears of pure hatred on your face, and I have never been sure if you meant it for all eternity’, was too pathetic, too vulnerable. It would be to lay his aching, still-bleeding heart bare on the weathered planks of the dock between them. He couldn’t do it. Deflection was his oldest, most reliable armor.
He swallowed around the painful lump in his throat and mustered a wider, more insolent grin, finally turning to face his brother. “Who said I wasn’t planning to? A man needs a drink or three to fortify his nerves before facing such a formidable sect leader, doesn’t he?”
Jiang Cheng’s expression didn’t change. His eyes narrowed just a fraction, his lips pressed into a bloodless, thinner line. He didn’t call him a liar. He didn’t need to. The look on his face said it all, a perfect, painful blend of utter disbelief, profound annoyance, and a deep, weary understanding that cut far deeper than any words could. He knew it was a lie. He saw right through the brittle bravado to the core of it: he knew Wei Wuxian had been sitting out here in the dark, drinking alone, because he truly believed he had nowhere else to go.
He knew, but his lips remained shut, sealed by a pride as formidable as Wei Wuxian’s own. The silence that followed was heavier than the humid night air, thick enough to drink. Jiang Cheng’s unblinking stare was a scalpel, dissecting Wei Wuxian’s feeble excuse layer by layer, stripping the cheap paint of bravado away until only the pathetic, raw wood of the truth was laid bare. The grin on Wei Wuxian’s face felt like a cracked mask, each second threatening to send another piece shattering to the dock at his feet under the relentless pressure of that gaze.
Just as he drew a breath to crack another joke, to deflect with a comment about Yunmeng’s wine being strong enough to knock out a fierce corpse, Jiang Cheng let out a sharp, frustrated breath. It wasn't quite a sigh; it was a contained explosion, the sound of a man forcibly clenching his teeth against a torrent of words he would later regret.
"Get up," Jiang Cheng commanded, his voice snapping back to its familiar, abrasive edge, the one that could slice through the din of a battlefield and spur entire battalions into immediate action.
Wei Wuxian blinked, his alcohol-slowed mind struggling to catch up, the words swimming through a fog of fermented grain. "Huh?"
"Are you deaf as well as drunk?" Jiang Cheng snapped, taking a single, aggressive step forward that made the old wood of the dock creak in protest. The distance between them shrank, charged with decades of history. "I said, get up. You can't stay here. You're causing a scene."
Wei Wuxian made a show of slowly looking around at the utterly deserted, dark lakeshore, the empty streets, the silent, shuttered houses. "A scene? Jiang Cheng, there's no one here but the frogs and the mosquitoes. I think my audience is captivated."
"That's not the point!" Jiang Cheng’s hand twitched at his side, the fingers curling in a habitual, unconscious movement towards where Zidian lay coiled and dormant on his finger, a testament to a threat that was always present. "You're sitting on a public dock, drunk off your ass, looking like... like a half-drowned, abandoned puppy. It's undignified. For you and for... for anyone who sees you." He nearly choked on the last part, as if including himself in that statement was physically painful.
The insult was classic Jiang Cheng, but it lacked its usual scorching venom. It was almost... perfunctory. A line from a well-worn script they were both expected to follow, a familiar dance step in their fraught relationship.
Wei Wuxian, however, felt a stubborn streak ignite in his chest, fueled by cheap wine and a deep, irrational hurt that had been festering for weeks. Why should he get up? Why should he follow another of Jiang Cheng’s barked orders? He had wandered the earth with no destination, a ghost without a haunt, and now that some unconscious part of him had dragged him back to this specific shore, he was just supposed to be shooed away like a stray dog?
He crossed his arms over his chest, a petulant, childish gesture that made him feel thirteen again, deliberately digging his heels in. "I like it here. The view is nice. Very nostalgic. The frogs are excellent conversationalists once you get past the croaking."
Jiang Cheng’s eye twitched, a tiny, furious spasm. "Wei Wuxian."
"Jiang Cheng."
They were at an impasse, locked in a silent, familiar battle of wills on the very dock where they had once sat side-by-side, their shoulders brushing, and dreamed of conquering the world together. The irony was so profoundly bitter Wei Wuxian could taste it on his tongue, a metallic tang worse than the wine.
Finally, Jiang Cheng looked away, his jaw working as if he were grinding his teeth to dust. He muttered something low and vicious under his breath that sounded unmistakably like, "Unbelievable. Still so fucking stubborn." When he looked back, his expression had shifted into one of sheer, exasperated practicality, as if Wei Wuxian were a particularly stubborn and messy logistical problem, a collapsed bridge or a flooded road, that had to be dealt with.
"Fine," he bit out, throwing his hands up in a gesture of surrender that was anything but. "Sit there and rot, see if I care."
But he didn't leave. Instead, he turned slightly, presenting his profile, not looking directly at Wei Wuxian but not granting him the mercy of leaving him entirely alone either. His gaze was fixed on the distant, glowing lanterns of Lotus Pier across the water, a silent, unwavering beacon in the night.
Another stretch of silence settled over them, but this one was somehow different, less hostile, less charged. It was just… full. Full of the past, full of things unsaid, full of a shared, stubborn existence.
After a long moment, Jiang Cheng spoke again, his voice lower, grudging, the words tossed out like a bone to a dog he was pretending not to care about. "The inn you're staying at. The Roosting Crane. It's known for bedbugs. The maids gossip about it in the market."
Wei Wuxian blinked, thrown completely off balance by the non-sequitur. "Oh?"
"And the wine you were drinking," Jiang Cheng added, his tone dripping with the disdain of a connoisseur presented with vinegar. "It's the cheap swill from Qishan they water down from the tap. It'll give you a headache tomorrow that could kill a lesser man. It's a miracle you're still conscious."
Wei Wuxian couldn't help the small, genuine huff of laughter that escaped him. It was such a quintessentially Jiang Cheng thing to do. An insult meticulously wrapped around a bundle of concerned observations. I noticed which inn you chose. I know exactly what poison you’ve been pouring down your throat. I care, you idiot, but I will never, ever say the words.
"Ah, well," Wei Wuxian said, his own voice softening slightly, the fight bleeding out of him. "I've survived worse poisons."
Jiang Cheng didn't answer. He just kept looking towards his home, his shoulders set in a tense line. He was waiting. He had asked his questions, issued his commands, and now he was just… there. A purple-clad sentinel in the night, a stubborn, infuriating monument to their shared history, refusing to leave a drunk idiot to his own self-pity on a lonely dock.
And in that stubborn, uncomfortable, infuriating presence, Wei Wuxian felt the terrible, crushing loneliness that had been his only companion for weeks recede, just a fraction. The void inside him didn't feel quite so empty. He was not alone. Not right now. The person who had known him longest, who had loved and hated him most fiercely in the world, was standing a few feet away, silently ensuring he didn't drunkenly tumble into the lake and drown in the waters of his own melancholy.
It wasn't forgiveness. It wasn't a welcome home. It was nowhere near okay. But it was something. A thread, thin and frayed, but still connecting them. And for now, in his wine-soaked, heart-sore state, Wei Wuxian decided it was enough.
The hour of silence had been a strange, fragile truce, woven from threads of shared history and unspoken regret. It wasn't comfortable, nothing between them ever truly was anymore, but it was a presence. It was a shared space in the darkness that didn't demand explanations or apologies, a temporary ceasefire in their long-standing war. The alcohol haze in Wei Wuxian’s head had softened from a roaring torrent to a dull, manageable throb, and the sharp, jagged edges of his loneliness had been subtly sanded down by the mere fact of Jiang Cheng’s gruff, silent company. The man radiated a familiar, angry energy, a constant simmering heat that, for once, felt more like a campfire in the dark than a threat of immolation. Lulled by the gentle lap of water against the pilings and that oddly comforting aura of irritation, Wei Wuxian had almost begun to doze, his head lolling heavily on his shoulders.
Then Jiang Cheng spoke. His voice cut through the comfortable quiet like a knife, low and almost thrown away, as if he were entrusting the words to the night and hoping it would swallow them whole.
"Your room is still there."
Wei Wuxian’s head, which had been sinking toward his chest, snapped up. He stared, his wine-addled brain struggling to process the simple sentence, to find the trap hidden within it. It felt like a physical blow to the chest, but one that left no bruise, only a ringing shock. "...What?"
Jiang Cheng didn't look at him. His profile was sharp and severe against the silvery moonlight, his brows furrowed in a familiar scowl, as if the words themselves had left a bad taste in his mouth.
"Are you dumb?" he asked, the insult automatic, a well-worn shield against vulnerability. "Do I need to spell it for you? Your room. In Lotus Pier. It's still there."
Wei Wuxian’s gaze dropped to his own hands, clutching the rough wood of the dock, then out to the dark, reflective surface of the lake, as if the placid water might hold an explanation for this impossibility. His mind became a whirlwind, throwing up violent, technicolor images in stark contrast to the calm night. Jiang Cheng’s face, contorted with pure, unadulterated contempt when he’d dared to put his feet on the sacred steps of a home he’d once abandoned. The blistering, soul-scorching rage in the ancestral hall, a fury so deep and personal it felt like it could ignite the very air. The first time Jiang Cheng had seen him as Mo Xuanyu, the raw, murderous intent in his eyes, the blinding, searing crackle of Zidian as it sought to tear his resurrected soul apart once and for all.
That Jiang Cheng, the one who had every reason to burn every remnant of him from the earth, had kept his room untouched? That Jiang Cheng was… what? Offering something? Inviting him back?
It was so profoundly unbelievable that it short-circuited his usual deflections. He could only voice the simplest, most hesitant interpretation, his eyes finding Jiang Cheng’s again, wide with a vulnerability he hadn't meant to show and now couldn't hide. "Are you… are you trying to say that I could visit? That I'd be... allowed?"
Jiang Cheng scoffed, a harsh, derisive sound that should have felt like a rejection, a door slammed in his face. But Wei Wuxian was too stunned, too emotionally flayed open, to even feel the sting of offense. The sheer, world-altering impossibility of the offer overshadowed everything else.
"You can be so dense sometimes," Jiang Cheng almost spat out, the words laced with a familiar venom that now seemed to cover something else entirely. He surged to his feet in a sudden, violent burst of motion, as if he could physically escape the weight of his own words. The moment of quiet companionship shattered into a thousand pieces, replaced by the familiar, safe storm of his irritation. It radiated from him in waves, a tangible heat in the cool night air.
He turned on his heel without another word, without answering the question that hung between them, and began striding away from the dock, his footsteps sharp and angry on the wooden planks, back towards the path that led to the sleeping city.
Panic, sharp and sudden and utterly sobering, lanced through Wei Wuxian’s drunken stupor. The offer, however cryptic, however angrily delivered, was being withdrawn. The door, cracked open for a single, breathtaking second, was slamming shut. He couldn’t let it. He couldn't be left alone again with that fleeting glimpse of something he thought lost forever.
He scrambled to his feet, his legs trembling and unsteady. "Jiang Cheng! Wait!"
He stumbled forward, his foot catching, and he barely caught himself on a nearby wooden post, splinters digging into his palm. "Jiang Cheng! What does that mean?!"
Jiang Cheng didn’t slow down, his purple robes a dark, furious smear against the dim landscape of the night. But crucially, he didn’t tell him to get lost. He didn't unleash Zidian. He didn't even look back. He just kept walking, a furious, proud figure, his posture rigid with tension, somehow still expecting, demanding, to be followed.
And Wei Wuxian, his heart hammering a frantic, hopeful rhythm against his ribs, did just that. He hurried after him, leaving the empty wine jar and the wistful ghosts of their childhood selves on the dock behind. He followed the man who was still, against all odds and every scar of their history, his brother.
Jiang Cheng did not slow his relentless pace. He walked with the furious, ground-eating stride of a man who wanted to appear as if he wasn't waiting, as if the presence or absence of his follower was a matter of complete indifference. But he didn't vanish into the night. He remained a constant, irate presence just ahead, a fixed point of purple in the shifting shadows, a lighthouse in the storm of Wei Wuxian's own whirling confusion and hope.
Wei Wuxian stumbled after him, his steps uncoordinated from the dregs of wine and the sheer, vertiginous disorientation of the last few minutes. The path from the lake was uneven and root-strewn, and he nearly tripped, his arms windmilling comically for balance. Ahead of him, Jiang Cheng’s shoulders tensed almost imperceptibly, a slight tightening of the fabric across his back, but he didn't turn around, didn't offer a hand, didn't break his furious stride.
They moved through the quieting streets of Yunmeng, the silence between them now filled with the stark contrast of their footsteps, Jiang Cheng’s purposeful, sharp strikes against the cobblestones, a sound of unquestioned authority, and Wei Wuxian’s own shuffling, uncertain steps, the gait of a man who no longer knew where he belonged.
The invitation, if that brittle, angry sentence could even be called that, hung in the air between them, unacknowledged but undeniable, a live wire sparking with unasked questions. Wei Wuxian’s mind raced, trying to force this new, impossible reality into the fractured framework of their painful history. A locked room. Untouched for years. Why? A monument to his betrayal, a tomb for the brother he’d killed? A shrine to a dead boy, a relic to be preserved but never revisited? A place to keep his own volatile anger towards that memory under literal lock and key?
He didn't dare ask. He just followed, his gaze desperately fixed on the Jiang clarity bell that swung from Jiang Cheng’s waist, its gentle chime a tiny, rhythmic anchor, catching the faint, fleeting light from the occasional still-lit lantern like a promise.
They reached the main gates of Lotus Pier. The two junior disciples on guard duty snapped to immediate, ramrod-straight attention, their eyes comically wide as they took in the sight of their formidable Sect Leader returning with… him. Their gazes flickered to Wei Wuxian with a mixture of awe, curiosity, and palpable fear. They said nothing, bowing so deeply and so quickly it was a wonder they didn't topple over as Jiang Cheng swept past them without a single word of acknowledgment.
Wei Wuxian hesitated for a fraction of a second at the threshold, his breath catching. This was it. The last time he had willingly crossed this line, it had ended with Zidian's searing kiss and a legacy of anguish. He looked at Jiang Cheng’s retreating back, already several paces inside the main courtyard, not slowing, not turning. It was a test. A silent, challenging command: This is your choice. Are you coming or not?
Swallowing hard around a heart that seemed to be trying to escape his throat, Wei Wuxian stepped over the sacred threshold and into Lotus Pier.
The compound was quiet and still, bathed in the soft, silvery glow of the moon. The rebuilt halls were both achingly familiar and profoundly alien, a perfect, beautiful replica of the past that could never truly be the same, the new wood and fresh paint unable to erase the ghost of the ashes from which it had risen. Jiang Cheng led him through a series of winding walkways, away from the main family quarters and the haunting memory of Madam Yu’s scrutiny, towards the older section where the senior disciples' rooms were nestled.
Finally, he stopped before a familiar door, its wood worn smooth by time and countless comings and goings. It looked exactly as it had decades ago, untouched by the war’s fire. Jiang Cheng produced a key from his sleeve - a simple, old-fashioned iron key, its edges worn smooth, and unlocked it with a soft, definitive click. He pushed the door open but did not cross the threshold himself. He simply stepped aside, his face averted, looking with intense interest at a blank spot on the opposite wall, anywhere but at Wei Wuxian or the room's revealed interior.
"Don't make a mess," he grumbled, his voice rough, as if the words were being dragged over gravel. "And don't expect anyone to wait on you. You're not a guest."
Wei Wuxian stood frozen in the hallway, peering into the darkness of the room. The air that drifted out was cool and carried a faint, ancient scent: cedarwood from the chest, the tang of old ink, and the sweet, dry smell of undisturbed dust.
Jiang Cheng let out another impatient tsk, a sound of pure exasperation. "Well? Are you going to stand there gawking all night? I'm not your servant. Get in."
Slowly, heart pounding as if approaching a sacred and deeply dangerous relic, Wei Wuxian crossed the doorway.
The room was pristine. Not just clean, but preserved, frozen in time. The bed was neatly made, the sheets crisp. A spare set of Jiang disciple robes, in the old style he’d worn a lifetime ago, was folded with military precision on a chest at the foot of the bed. On a small desk by the window, a few sheets of talisman paper, seemingly waiting for a new idea, a half-finished jar of ink with a dried brush beside it, and a single, dried-out lotus pod left as a careless decoration he himself must have placed there a lifetime ago. It was a snapshot of a life interrupted. A ghost’s room, kept ready for a spirit that might never return.
He turned to look at Jiang Cheng, who was still resolutely staring down the empty, moonlit hallway, his jaw clenched so tight a muscle jumped in his cheek. A thousand questions bubbled up in Wei Wuxian’s throat. Why? How? When? but all that could escape was a whisper, raw with an emotion too vast to name.
"Jiang Cheng…"
"Go to sleep," Jiang Cheng cut him off, his tone leaving no room for argument. He began to pull the door shut, a slow, deliberate movement. "And for the love of all that is holy, take a bath. You smell like a distillery's floor."
The door closed with a soft but definitive thud, plunging the room into near darkness. A moment later, Wei Wuxian heard the retreating steps.
And for the first time in weeks, standing in a room that was a meticulously maintained museum of his own severed past, Wei Wuxian did not feel like a wanderer. He stood in the center of the silent, untouched space, and for the first time since he had walked away from Lan Zhan and the Cloud Recesses, he did not feel entirely alone. The walls held memories. The dust held stories. And the man who had just left, was, in his own fierce, incomprehensible way, keeping him safe.
The first light of dawn was a pale, watery grey seeping through the paper screen of the window when Wei Wuxian awoke. For a long, disorienting moment, he didn’t know where he was. The smell was wrong, not the crisp, cold scent of sandalwood that permeated the Jingshi, nor the musty anonymity of a dozen different roadside inns. This was the scent of cedarwood from the old storage chest, the faint, dry aroma of old paper and ink, and the lingering, sweet ghost of lotuses carried on the breeze from the lake. Memory returned not with a gentle trickle, but with a painful, wonderful rush of clarity that made his chest tighten.
He was in his old room. His room.
He half-expected the entire night to have been a wine-dream, a fantastical illusion conjured by loneliness and cheap alcohol. But the room was solid and real around him. The worn wooden floorboards under his feet, the specific pattern of cracks on the ceiling he used to stare at in his past life ... it was all there. He rose, his head throbbing dully in protest of the previous night’s indulgence. On the chest at the foot of the bed, he found a basin of fresh, cool water and a simple, well-made set of robes, not Jiang disciple purple, a color he had forfeited long ago, but a neutral, serviceable dark blue. The message was clear and unmistakable: you can stay, but don't presume.
Cleaned and changed, the dark blue fabric feeling both foreign and like a second skin, he ventured out into the waking heart of Lotus Pier. The compound was already a hive of disciplined activity. Disciples in vibrant purple robes jogged in formation to their posts, their footsteps a synchronized rhythm on the stone. Servants hurried through the courtyards with baskets of laundry and trays of food, beginning their daily chores. And every single one of them stopped, if only for a fraction of a second, to stare at him. Whispers trailed in his wake like ripples in a pond, a hushed chorus of "Yiling Laozu..." and "Is that really...?" He ignored them, his senses focused on a single point, his eyes scanning the bustling courtyards until he found him.
Jiang Cheng was in the main training yard, a whirlwind of stern authority already conducting his morning inspection. He stood with his arms crossed tightly over his chest, his posture rigid and unforgiving as he watched a group of senior disciples demonstrate complex sword forms. Sandu was strapped to his waist, and he was every inch the formidable Sandu Shengshou, a ruler surveying his domain.
Wei Wuxian hovered at the edge of the packed-earth yard, a ghost at the feast, unsure of his welcome in the harsh, revealing light of day. The fragile, silent truce of the night before, built on darkness and shared memory, felt like it could evaporate in the morning sun, leaving nothing but the bitter residue of their history.
Jiang Cheng’s head turned slightly, a minute movement. His sharp, dark eyes flicked over to where Wei Wuxian stood, performing a quick, efficient assessment: the cleaned-up appearance, the hesitant posture, the dark blue robes that were a concession and a boundary all at once. He didn't smile. He didn't frown. He didn't tell him to get lost. He just held Wei Wuxian’s gaze for a brief, electric second, then shifted his weight almost imperceptibly, creating a small, deliberate space on his right side, the space where a head disciple, or a brother, would stand.
The invitation was as silent and gruff as everything else between them. Heart lifting in a way he hadn't felt in years, a fragile hope taking root, Wei Wuxian moved to fill the space. He fell into step beside Jiang Cheng, and together they continued the inspection, a wordless, familiar rhythm settling between them, as if more than sixteen years of bitterness had been a bad dream.
They moved to watch the junior disciples begin their practice. The forms were basic, the very same foundational stances and thrusts he and Jiang Cheng had drilled a thousand times on these very grounds, their own shouts and laughter echoing in the past. Wei Wuxian’s eyes, sharp and analytically precise even through a lingering hangover, instinctively tracked the young boys' movements, critiquing and assessing out of an old, deeply ingrained habit.
One young disciple, his face pinched with intense concentration, kept making the same error. His wrist would dip awkwardly at the crucial moment of the thrust, ruining the flow of his movement and leaving his side dangerously exposed. Over and over, he did it, his frustration growing into a palpable cloud around him with each failed attempt.
Wei Wuxian didn't think. He didn't hesitate. The instinct of a former head disciple, of a natural teacher, took over completely.
"Wait, stop," he said, his voice cutting easily through the morning air with a natural authority that surprised even him. He stepped forward into the training area, his movements fluid as he gently repositioned the boy's tense grip on the practice sword.
"Your form is good, your intent is strong, but your wrist is too stiff here. See? It needs to be flexible, like the stem of a lotus bending in the wind, not a rigid branch. It's not about brute force; it's about guiding the energy from your core, through your arm, and into the tip."
He adjusted the boy’s stance with a light, confident touch, then demonstrated the correct, fluid movement with an empty hand. The disciple watched, eyes wide with a mixture of shock and awe, and then mimicked the motion. The next thrust was cleaner, sharper, imbued with a new confidence. A brilliant, relieved smile broke out on the boy's face.
It was only then that Wei Wuxian froze, the reality of his actions crashing down. He had just openly corrected a Jiang disciple, in the middle of their training yard, in front of their Sect Leader. He slowly turned to look at Jiang Cheng, his stomach clenching, expecting to see cold fury, to see that familiar storm of pride and anger at the blatant intrusion.
Jiang Cheng was watching him, his expression unreadable, his arms still crossed. For a long, heart-stopping moment, he said nothing, the silence stretching taut. Then, he gave a single, short, sharp nod. "Do you see now?" he barked at the young disciple, who jumped and nodded vigorously, his smile vanishing into terrified respect. "Don't make me have to correct you again. Or him."
The permission, the tacit approval, was staggering. Wei Wuxian let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding and returned to Jiang Cheng's side, his own heart beating a frantic rhythm. The inspection continued as if nothing had happened.
After a few moments of silence filled only by the clatter of practice swords, Jiang Cheng spoke, his voice low, not looking at him.
"Their foundation is weak. They spend too much time memorizing theory and listening to stories."
"The basics are everything," Wei Wuxian agreed immediately, the old passion for teaching stirring in his chest like a waking creature. "If the foundation is rotten, the whole structure will collapse. You can't build a strong golden core on shaky forms and borrowed ambition."
"Tch. Tell that to the expensive tutors their parents hire. They all want their precious sons to learn the flashy, advanced techniques before they can even hold a sword properly, let alone tell the sharp end from the hilt," Jiang Cheng grumbled, the complaint so familiar it was almost comforting.
"We should make them all do handstands while reciting the core principles during punishment," Wei Wuxian said, a genuine grin tugging at his lips as the old idea resurfaced. "It builds character and core strength. And it's very entertaining to watch."
To his utter astonishment, a sound that was almost a laugh, a short, sharp, unwilling exhale, escaped Jiang Cheng. "Shut up," he said, but the words lacked any real heat, almost sounding fond.
They continued to bicker lightly about training methods, about the laziness of the newest generation, about the merits of endurance drills versus technical precision. The sun climbed higher, warming the stones of the training ground and casting their shadows side-by-side. The disciples practiced, the rhythmic clatter of wooden swords providing a familiar, comforting soundtrack.
It was almost, Wei Wuxian thought with a pang that was both sweet and acutely aching, like the old days. It wasn't forgiveness. It wasn't a reconciliation. The chasm between them was still there, deep and wide and filled with the ghosts of the dead. But for this one morning, under the rising sun of Yunmeng, they had found a narrow, precarious bridge across it, built not on words, but on the familiar, solid ground of shared duty and a common, enduring home.
The comfortable silence that had settled over their lunch, a companionable quiet built on a morning of shared purpose and unspoken understanding, was shattered by the question. It came out of nowhere, blunt and direct and utterly without preamble, like a pebble striking glass.
"So you and Lan Wangji? What happened?"
Wei Wuxian choked on his tea, sputtering as the hot liquid went down the wrong way. He coughed, pounding his chest as his eyes watered, using the fit to buy precious seconds. "W-What about us?" he managed to gasp out, his voice hoarse.
Jiang Cheng didn’t look amused. He set his own cup down on the wooden table with a precise, sharp click. His gaze was unwavering.
"Why aren't you together? You were practically glued to each other just a few months ago. A nauseating sight." His tone was its usual abrasive self, a familiar shield of irritation, but there was an unmistakable thread of genuine, perplexed curiosity running beneath the insult.
Wei Wuxian’s laughter died before it could even leave his throat. He looked down at the simple ceramic cup in his hands, twisting it slowly on the grainy surface of the table. The cheerful, cacophonous noise of the dining hall, the clatter of bowls, the chatter of disciples, seemed to fade into a distant hum.
How could he possibly explain it? How could he put into words the quiet, growing distance that had nothing to do with a lack of love and everything to do with the shape of their souls? The way Lan Zhan’s immense responsibilities as Chief Cultivator pulled him into a world of endless scrolls, diplomatic meetings, and silent, weighty judgments? The way the oppressive, sacred silence of the Cloud Recesses, once a comforting counterpoint to his own delightful chaos, had begun to feel like a beautifully crafted cage, its rules and restraints pressing in on him from all sides?
"Lan Zhan is... busy," he said finally, the words feeling hopelessly inadequate, a child's sketch of a masterpiece. "The Cloud Recesses may be serene, but it's not a place I can live in permanently." He forced a lightness into his voice he didn't feel, a brittle imitation of his old carefree self. "We're still good, though." The afterthought sounded weak and hollow even to his own ears, a pathetic attempt to seal a crack in a dam that was already straining.
Jiang Cheng watched him, his dark, intense eyes missing nothing, not the hesitation, not the forced tone, not the way Wei Wuxian’s fingers tightened around the cup. He didn't press. He didn't scoff. He just gave a slow, single nod, a sharp, downward jerk of his chin, as if filing the information away in a mental ledger. The silence that returned to their table was heavier now, saturated with all the things left unsaid, with the ghost of a love that was real but not enough to bridge two fundamentally different worlds.
After a few minutes of this loaded quiet, Jiang Cheng’s hand disappeared into the deep sleeve of his robes. He moved with a strange hesitance, a lack of his usual decisive certainty. When his hand reappeared, he was holding something that made Wei Wuxian’s breath catch in his throat and his heart stutter to a halt.
It was a Jiang clarity bell. The silver was polished to a soft, liquid shine, the deep purple tassel perfectly neat and pristine. It was a flawless twin to the one hanging from Jiang Cheng’s own waist, a symbol of identity and belonging he had once shared and thought lost forever.
Jiang Cheng placed it on the table between them, the metal making a soft sound against the wood. He pushed it slightly towards Wei Wuxian with two fingers, a gesture that was both offering and dismissal. He didn't look at him, his gaze fixed on a point somewhere on the far wall, as if studying the grain of the wood with intense interest.
"If you want," he began, his voice gruff, almost awkward, the words clearly unfamiliar and uncomfortable on his tongue, "you can stay here." He grimaced immediately, as if the act of offering itself pained him, and instantly backtracked, defensiveness slamming back into place. "Or not. It doesn't matter to me. But... you can return. When you need a place to sleep. That's all."
Wei Wuxian stared at the bell. It was so much more than a place to sleep. It was a symbol. A token of belonging to a sect, to a family. A claim staked anew. His vision blurred, and he blinked rapidly, trying to clear the sudden, hot sting of tears that threatened to fall.
He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. What could he possibly say? Thank you felt too small, too insignificant for the magnitude of this gesture. I'm sorry felt too big, too vast to encompass a lifetime of regrets, and it was a door he feared to open.
Seeing his struggle, Jiang Cheng looked away entirely, his jaw so tight it looked like it might crack. The tips of his ears were tinged with red. He muttered the last words, so quiet they were almost swallowed by the room's noise, but Wei Wuxian heard them with the piercing clarity of a temple bell resonating in his very soul.
"Lotus Pier has always been your home."
The words landed in the center of Wei Wuxian’s chest, a balm and a brand all at once, healing a wound he had believed was permanent and irrevocable. He reached out, his fingers trembling slightly, and closed them around the cool, smooth metal of the bell. The weight of it in his palm was an anchor, a tether to a shore he thought he’d been cast adrift from forever.
He finally found his voice, thick with an emotion that threatened to choke him. "Jiang Cheng..."
"Don't," Jiang Cheng cut him off, standing up abruptly, his chair legs scraping harshly against the floor. He couldn't bear the emotion, the vulnerability hanging in the air. His ears were flushed. "Finish your lunch. The disciples need another drilling session this afternoon, and you're not slacking off. That bell doesn't mean you get to be lazy."
With that, he turned on his heel and strode away, his purple robes swirling around him, leaving Wei Wuxian alone at the table, clutching the cool metal bell that felt like a second chance, a promise, and a heart so full it ached with a hope he had long since abandoned.
He stayed one more day. Then, because the world didn't end and Jiang Cheng didn't rescind the offer, he stayed another. The days bled into a week, and the week stretched into a whole month. The month settled into a rhythm, a new and fragile normal that felt both miraculous and precarious. Wei Wuxian’s presence, once a shocking anomaly that caused whispers to die and disciples to freeze, had become a familiar part of Lotus Pier’s daily tapestry. The junior disciples no longer flinched when he offered advice over their shoulder during sword practice; instead, they began to seek him out in the library or the courtyards, eager for his unorthodox talisman techniques and his wild, embellished stories of night-hunts that made Jiang Cheng roll his eyes so hard it was a wonder they stayed in his head. He ate his meals across from his brother at the high table, their conversations a comfortable, familiar mix of sect business, light bickering over strategy, and stretches of a silence that was no longer hostile or charged, but contemplative and almost peaceful.
It was good. It was a healing Wei Wuxian had never dared to hope for, a balm on a wound he thought would fester forever. But it was also undeniably strange, like wearing a robe that had been tailored for a boy he no longer was. It was like trying to glue back the pieces of a priceless, shattered vase. The shape was the same, it could hold water and perform its function, but the cracks would always be there, a delicate, visible web of fine lines mapping every break, every shard that had been painstakingly fitted back into place. They were not the boys they had been. They were men shaped by grief, war, and betrayal, and their bond, while mending, was a quieter, more careful thing, handled with a caution that had never existed before.
So, when a young disciple, his face flushed from running, rushed into the training yard and bowed hastily to announce the arrival of Hanguang-jun at the main gate, Wei Wuxian wasn’t even surprised. A strange sense of calm settled over him. It felt inevitable, like the changing of the tides or the setting of the sun. Of course Lan Zhan would come. Their separation was a pause, not an end.
He watched from a distance, leaning against a wooden post, as Lan Wangji stood at the main gate. He was a figure of pristine white and ethereal blue amidst the vibrant, living purple of Lotus Pier, a snow-capped mountain in a field of lotus flowers. He was immaculate, serene, and his piercing gaze found Wei Wuxian’s immediately across the crowded courtyard, a silent, intense question in his golden eyes.
Wei Wuxian felt a pull so strong it was almost physical, a magnetic force drawing him across the space. A month of carefully building a new home, of re-laying old foundations, and the mere sight of Lan Zhan made him feel the deep, aching hollow of an old one, a space that only that specific presence could fill.
He knew, without a single doubt, what he had to do.
He went to his room, his room, with its familiar cracks in the ceiling and the scent of cedar, and packed his few belongings with practiced efficiency. The neutral blue robes Jiang Cheng had given him were folded neatly and left on the chest, as a silent message of return. He slipped the Jiang clarity bell carefully onto his waist, its weight a comforting, solid promise against his hip, a key to this home. He took a moment to say his goodbyes to the disciples he’d trained with, ruffling the hair of the young one whose sword form he’d corrected on his first morning, earning a bright, if confused, smile.
"Don't let your wrist get stiff again," he warned lightly, and the boy nodded with fierce determination.
Finally, he went to find Jiang Cheng. He was in his office, scowling down at a scroll of trade agreements as if the parchment had personally offended his entire bloodline. He didn't look up when Wei Wuxian entered, but the line of his shoulders tightened almost imperceptibly.
“I’m leaving,” Wei Wuxian said, his voice quiet, lacking any of his usual theatrical flair.
Jiang Cheng’s brush stilled for a fraction of a second, a tiny hitch in its methodical journey across the page, then it continued, as if nothing had happened. He didn’t act surprised. He didn’t get angry. He didn't ask why or where or for how long. He simply gave a short, sharp nod. “Mn.”
There were no tears, no dramatic declarations, no slammed doors or shattered objects. It was just a quiet understanding, an acceptance of a truth they had both known from the beginning. This was temporary. A respite, not a resolution. A healing of one wound that had, in the process, reminded him of another.
“I’ll be back in a few months,” Wei Wuxian promised, leaning against the doorframe, injecting a note of lightness into his tone. “The lotus seeds should be perfect for harvesting then. I’ll steal the best ones for us, just like old times.”
Jiang Cheng finally looked up, his expression its usual mask of irritation, but his eyes were clear and knowing, seeing right through the bravado to the gratitude beneath.
“Don’t cause trouble for Hanguang-jun on the road,” he grumbled, the words a gruff order that meant be safe.
It was as close to a blessing as he would ever give, and Wei Wuxian accepted it for the gift it was.
Wei Wuxian smiled, a real, genuine smile that reached his eyes. “I make no promises.”
He pushed himself off the doorframe. There was nothing else to say that hadn't already been communicated in a dozen silent ways over the last month. Lotus Pier was his home. It was the home of his youth, of his heart, the only place he ever truly ached to return to. The cracked vase was still precious, still held water, and was now, finally, displayed openly instead of being hidden away.
But Lan Zhan was also home. A home built not on the accident of birth and upbringing, but on conscious choice. Built on unwavering faith, on a quiet, steadfast love that had weathered death and rebirth and the weight of the world. And he had missed him.
Jiang Cheng understood. He always had, even in his anger. He simply dipped his brush back in the ink and returned to his work, dismissing him without another word and granting him the freedom to leave without a burden of guilt.
Wei Wuxian turned and walked out of Lotus Pier, his steps light and sure, toward the waiting figure in white. He was leaving one home, for now, to return to another. And for the first time, standing in the space between them, he felt he had the freedom, and the right to journey between both.