Chapter Text
Jiang Cheng broke, “don’t you understand? If you don’t abandon this path then I can’t protect you!”
Wei Wuxian was silent for a moment, “then abandon me.”
“What?”
“If you can’t help me anymore … get rid of me.”
Jiang Cheng was speechless. He had been trying so hard to protect what little family remained to him, it had been like walking a tightrope. Jin Guangshan with his posse of minor sects on one side, pushing and pushing and Wei Wuxian on the other, not willing to give an inch. It had been impossible …
And there was that word again.
He hated it. If all his failures could be summed up in a single word then ‘impossible’ was it.
He was being torn in two directions, A’Jie and her budding romance with Jin Zixuan (why couldn’t she have chosen someone, anyone else?) and Wei Wuxian in his stubborn defence of these Wens.
His brother claimed that he owed a debt to the siblings but when Jiang Cheng had pushed him on it he had refused to elaborate.
His sister wanted to enter a snake pit and his brother was diving head first into the tiger’s den … and it was impossible for him to protect both of them.
It was impossible. And yet, for the first time, when faced with the impossible, his instinct wasn’t to bend, to make some distance and find a different way to come at the situation. Instead he wanted to drive himself head first into the stone wall ahead and smash through it.
Perhaps, it was his turn to attempt the impossible.
“Jiang Cheng?” Wei Wuxian asked.
He levelled his most vicious glare at his brother, the other man deserved it, “fuck that!”
“But Jiang Cheng, if you can’t, then-”
“And I said fuck that. You’re my brother. If I wasn’t going to let the Wen clan cart you off to kill you what makes you think I’m going to let the Jins hunt you down?”
Wei Wuxian turned serious, “well then what do you suggest?”
They sat down next to each other, silent for a long while before Jiang Cheng suggested, “we could change tracks, politically.”
Wei Wuxian turned to look at him, asking his question silently, so Jiang Cheng elaborated, “well, everything got turned upside down by the Sunshot Campaign and when we came out of it everyone thought you were the scary one and I was the friendly one.”
“Idiots, the lot of them,” Wei Wuxian grinned.
“I know. I’ve been trying to channel father, but even I know I’m failing, and you are horrifically bad at being terrifying, you care too much.”
“There are plenty of people outside the burial mounds who would disagree with you,” Wei Wuxian pointed out.
“But only because there is a very successful smear campaign being run against you,” Jiang Cheng retorted.
“True,” Wei Wuxian admitted.
There was another long silence before Wei Wuxian gasped, “Jiang Cheng do you think maybe we’ve been looking at this the wrong way?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we’re assuming that they’re sure they can take us.”
Jiang Cheng understood what Wei Wuxian wasn’t saying, “you think I should channel my mother instead.”
“No, I think you should be yourself.”
Jiang Cheng raised an eyebrow and Wei Wuxian continued, “Madame Yu was terrifying but she already had a reputation. When she was angry a few sparks would pop off Zidian, everyone would take cover and she would storm off.”
“I know. I grew up in Lotus Pier too,” he said trying to usher Wei Wuxian to the point he was trying to make.
“When something pisses you off you hunt it down and beat it up until it apologises and then you make it apologise again for wasting your time. Jin Guangshan hasn’t had any serious opposition since the Wens were defeated.”
“You think maybe we should give them some?”
“I think that until we prove otherwise they’ll push us around just because they can. And I think that you’re the youngest and newest clan leader of the Great Sects, they won’t respect you until you make them.”
Jiang Cheng sighed, “I’m worried about A’Jie’s position.”
Wei Wuxian’s expression was unusually serious, “have they done anything?”
“No, but you know how Jin Guangshan is. He never says anything outright, just hints at things. And the next thing you know an accident has happened and you just know he had a hand in it. But you’re right, if all they do is sneer at overtures of friendship,” he said quoting his mother, “then we have to ensure that they know it’s in their best interest not to make an enemy of us.”
Wei Wuxian nodded, “we have to draw the line and make it very clear what the consequences are if they cross it.”
Jiang Cheng snorted, “what we? I’m going to be the one doing all the negotiations, I just know it.”
He saw Wei Wuxian’s grin and he couldn’t help but roll his eyes, “if we’re really doing this … bring them back to Lotus Pier.”
“What?” his brother asked, dumbfounded.
“The Wens, bring them back to Lotus Pier.”
“… Jiang Cheng … that’s, it’s a lovely thought but it won’t work-”
“But they have to change their names. I don’t care what they call themselves, but I don’t want any Wens in Lotus Pier.”
Wei Wuxian’s morbid curiousity couldn’t be contained, “even if it’s Jiang?”
Jiang Cheng suppressed the initial flinch but the more he thought about it the more he liked the idea, “the Wens stole everything from us, so we took everything they had. Why shouldn’t we appropriate the last of their bloodline too?”
Wei Wuxian shook his head but nudged him with his shoulder, "I'm glad you're with me Jiang Cheng."
Jiang Cheng scoffed, "where else would I be?"
He was gripped with the sudden thought that this plan would fail miserably, but even so A'Jie had Jin Zixuan now, and he would have to be blind not to see how that would turn out. But they were the Twin Prides of Yunmeng. If there were going to go down then at the very least, they should go down together.