Chapter Text
He almost walks away.
He wants to walk away, in truth. He wants to scream in his brother’s face and walk away, run away in fact, from this horrible place and the way his brother, Wei Wuxian, insists on making it his home. Insists on choosing the Wen remnants over the Jiang sect, the Jiang clan. Insists on sacrificing himself.
He knows Wei Wuxian, knows him perhaps better than he, Jiang Cheng, knows himself, because Wei Wuxian has been so open (though some parts of him are now, terrifyingly, closed). So while he in enraged, he is not surprised. He came to the Burial Mounds expecting this reaction, if he’s honest. Expecting Wei Wuxian to make this choice. Expecting it to hurt.
He pleads with Wei Wuxian. They were supposed to be the Twin Heroes of Yunmeng, the answer to the Twin Jades of Lan. The three of them, with their sister Jiang Yanli, were inseparable. No trio ever loved as they loved, and if Jiang Cheng doesn’t say it, that’s because he has Yanli to say it and Wei Wuxian to show it, and his job is to grumble at the other two and grudgingly acquiesce. That’s what being the younger brother means, goddamnit, he’s not supposed to have to show his emotions. He’s not good at it, and he relies on them to do it for him.
Wei Wuxian is not swayed, and that hurts him deep in his soul in ways he is absolutely not going to examine right now.
And then Wei Wuxian tells him to do it—to renounce him, expel him from the sect, expel him from the clan, distance the Jiangs from the actions of their renegade cultivator. He almost does it. He almost walks away.
But, honestly? Fuck that.
Fuck Wei Wuxian for thinking he gets to tell Jiang Cheng who gets to be a Jiang. That’s Jiang Cheng’s job now, not his. His parents (a part of him wants so badly to say “their parents,” but he will not dishonor the memories of Wei Wuxian’s birth parents even if they did leave him to be attacked by dogs in the streets when they went night-hunting and died, and besides his mother would come back from the grave and kill him for it) are dead. He is the Sect Leader of the Yunmeng Jiang. Wei Wuxian is the senior disciple of the Yunmeng Jiang, but he is not sect leader, and this is not his goddamn decision to make. Fuck him.
Double fuck Wei Wuxian for trying to get out of his promises, to him and especially to Yanli. The three of them are not to be separated; shijie has decreed so, and if Wei Wuxian wants to break that he can damn well pull his ass out of the Burial Mounds and tell her himself. If he fucking dares. And he and Wei Wuxian—they’re supposed to be together until the end of the line. Together, side by side, a pair. He promised. When Jiang Cheng is sect leader, he’ll be by his side. He doesn’t know how to do this without Wei Wuxian (not that he’s going to tell him that). He refuses to do this without Wei Wuxian (he’s more likely to tell him that but…still no). They are going to be the goddamn Twin Heroes of fucking Yunmeng if he has to tie Wei Wuxian to a post in Lotus Pier and force him to do his job as senior disciple. They had a deal, and fuck Wei Wuxian for trying to get out of it just by doing the righteous, just thing.
Speaking of which, triple fuck Wei Wuxian for not asking for his help. If anyone has a martyr complex, it’s his brother. Would it kill him to say, “Jiang Cheng, come with me?” “Jiang Cheng, I need you?” He’ll say “Jiang Cheng, this is right,” but he won’t ask him to walk the righteous path beside him. No, it’s like he’s already written Jiang Cheng off, and that hurts. It hurts deep down inside, where the golden core lies that Baoshen Sanren restored to him when Wei Wuxian gave up his birthright to help Jiang Cheng. Wei Wuxian, apparently, is allowed to sacrifice: to give up his birth family to help Jiang Cheng, to give up his adopted family to help the Wens, to give give give. But apparently asking for help, instead of giving it, is impossible. Apparently they’re all supposed to just take take take and never reciprocate. “That’s not how family works, Wei Wuxian,” he wants to shout. “If I’m your brother, you are mine. If you can give for me, I can give for you. Just fucking tell me what you need. Tell me how I can help. Or at least let me help, if you can’t ask. Don’t tell me to go away when you finally, finally need something out of me.”
He knows what Wei Wuxian would say to that. It’s been hiding behind his eyes this whole afternoon, lurking in the corner of his smile and dampening it with darkness. “You can’t do anything, Jiang Cheng. This is an impossible situation. The rest of the cultivation world wants them dead. There’s nothing you can do.”
Well, quadruple mega-fuck Wei Wuxian if he thinks he is the only one who can live up to the Jiang Sect motto. Jiang Cheng already had to listen to his own father (and yes, he thinks of him as Wei Wuxian’s father, but still, their own father) tell him Wei Wuxian knew the true spirit of the words better than him, lived the true spirit of them in a deeper way. He can never prove himself to Jiang Fengmian, not now that he’s dead, but he can prove himself to himself, and Wei Wuxian can stick it where the sun doesn’t shine (well, that’s the whole Burial Mounds, but you know what I mean Wei Wuxian) if he thinks Jiang Cheng can’t or won’t “attempt the impossible.”
His inner Wei Wuxian (and that’s a phrase he’ll never use to the real, living one, because he’d tease him to death, but he does have an inner Wei Wuxian) can suck it.
The Yungmeng Jiangs are here, and they aren’t leaving their senior disciple to attempt the impossible on his own.
“No.” He cuts Wei Wuxian off as he’s babbling something about a fake fight and selling his repudiation. “Fuck you,” he adds, because he’s told his inner Wei Wuxian this but it isn’t really complete until he’s told it to the real one too.
“That’s right, Jiang Cheng, that’s right!” Wei Wuxian still hasn’t figured out what he means. “But you need to say that in front of the disciples, or it won’t count. Wait until I escort you to the boundaries of the wards, then say that again.”
“No, fuck you.” He jabs a finger in his brother’s face. “And fuck your awful planning. The Burial Mounds? Really? What the hell can you grow here? Can you grow lotus? Can you grow rice? Can you even grow a goddamn turnip?”
“I’m sure we can. Eventually.” His brother tries to toss off one of his signature smiles that says everything will be all right, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Jiang Cheng thinks maybe he actually hurt Wei Wuxian, but he’s definitely not going to apologize, not after Wei Wuxian just tried to rip his heart out and tell him to walk it off. He does, however, move on to his next point, instead of letting his brother’s words linger in the air.
“Exactly. Eventually. But these people don’t have eventually, do they? Are there any cultivators besides you and Wen Qing?” Wen Qing, who he remembers nursing them back to health at the risk of her own life after the massacre of Lotus Pier. Wen Qing, whom he’d seriously considered wooing, even given her a comb and asked her to leave her sect under his protection—an offer she’d rejected, but still. Wen Qing is not just someone Wei Wuxian owes. She is someone Jiang Cheng owes too. So quintuple fuck Wei Wuxian for telling him to abandon one of the only people who didn’t abandon them when Lotus Pier fell.
“There’s Wen Ning…”
“Ah yes. The Ghost General. Pardon me if I don’t think two and a half cultivators is exactly enough to conquer the Burial Mounds and hold off the cultivating world, even if one of them is the mighty Wei Wuxian.” These may not be the right words to convince Wei Wuxian, but he has to try. He has to make him see that this is not the answer, so that when Jiang Cheng tells him what the answer is he’ll finally accept that maybe Jiang Cheng can have some answers too. It’s not that he’s competitive with his brother—OK, it is, but not just that—it’s that he knows Wei Wuxian won’t give up on his own idea for Jiang Cheng’s unless he’s fully aware of the weakness in his own idea, unless he’s accepted that it wasn’t as inevitable or even as good as he thought.
“What would you have me do, Jiang Cheng?” Apparently Wei Wuxian has reached that point, which is good, because Jiang Cheng is absolutely sick of this argument and he hasn’t even had it with the real Wei Wuxian yet, just with his inner one.
“Bring. Them. To. Yunmeng.” He jabs his finger in his brother’s chest again for emphasis. “You’re the senior disciple. We’re still trying to rebuild. We need you.” I need you. “If the price of having you is having them, we’ll have them.”
“Jiang Cheng, you can’t….”
“Don’t tell me what I can do!” So his inner Wei Wuxian is more like the real one than he thought. “You told me it’s the right thing to do.” You’re right. “Why do you think you’re the only one who can do the right thing?”
“But the sect…” Wei Wuxian’s eyes are wide, and Jiang Cheng can tell he’s surprised his senior disciple. Good. It would do Wei Wuxian some good to be less on top of things, less sure of himself. Not unsure of himself, of course, then he would cease to be Wei Wuxian and possibly disappear in a puff of smoke, but less sure of himself. Just enough to let Jiang Cheng maybe get a word in edgewise. Like he’s going to do now.
“The sect is rebuilding. It needs people. These are people.” He gestures towards where Wen Qing is walking among her family, checking in on the ones breaking new ground, passing out salves and bandaging blisters. “Good people. Maybe not all cultivators, but good people. We could use some more of those.” Before he lets himself get emotional, because nothing good ever comes of that, he turns the subject and slaps his brother’s arm. “Besides, I can’t be the Twin Heroes of Yunmeng on my own, can I? And what kind of twin hero would I be if I let you do all the heroic things yourself?”
“Lan Zhan tells me you did plenty of heroic things yourself, looking for me.” Wei Wuxian is surprisingly contained, maybe even serious. Jiang Cheng does not like this. This is wrong. This is not Wei Wuxian.
“Yes, I know, you’ll have to catch up to me. You’ll have plenty of chances back at Lotus Pier.” He waves Wen Qing over. She gives him a sharp look that at first he thinks means rejection, but then she alters her movements among the farmers so that she’s clearly making her way over even as she continues handing out supplies.
“I can’t ask you to stand with us against the Jins. Against the whole of the cultivation world.” Wei Wuxian’s energy is back, but apparently has brought with it a whole helping of stupid and an extra topping of annoying—so, about par for the course. He loves his brother (though he would rather die than say so) but he’s not exactly unaware of his faults.
“Who asked? I didn’t hear you ask. No one heard you ask.” He waits semi-patiently for Wen Qing to finish wending towards them. “I fucking offered, asshole.”
Wei Wuxian is still shaping a reply when Wen Qing finally joins them, making her bow.
“Sect Leader Jiang.”
“Madam Wen.” He knows he can’t address her the way he does Wei Wuxian, and that makes his tongue feel clumsy in his mouth, but he has to do this, has to show Wei Wuxian he means it in a way that can’t be taken back. “You gave me my comb back.” Goddamnit, that isn’t what he meant to say.
“I did.” She looks steadily at him, and he sighs—internally of course, he’s not about to give Wei Wuxian the fucking satisfaction of watching him do it externally.
“You told me then you couldn’t leave your people.” She opens her mouth and he hurries on. “I understand that. Are these all your people?” She nods. He takes a deep breath, and catches Wei Wuxian looking at him with deep concern on his usually smiling face—less smiling since whatever happened to him during the Sunshot Campaign, he reflects, but he still thinks of it as smiling—so he pushes out the offer before he can get too tongue-tied to express it. Listen to this, asshole, he thinks towards his brother.
“What if they all came?” Her eyes widen and he thinks he knows what she’s thinking and hurries to disabuse her of the notion, stumbling over the words. “I don’t mean…that is to say, I’m not asking you to come to me. Not like…” He shakes his head. He needs to make this clear or Wei Wuxian is going to fucking roast him. “Madam Wen, I formally offer you and your family both land and protection on behalf of the Yunmeng Jiang sect.” He grimaces and glances around. “Less haunted land, too.”
She glances briefly at Wei Wuxian, and he knows that from Wen Qing this is the equivalent of a dropped jaw and a series of shocked curses. He takes in her hard stare, seemingly assessing his honesty, and he forces himself to meet her eyes and not turn to look at the expression on Wei Wuxian’s face. He can see it just out of the corner of his eye, and it takes a lot of out of him not to stare and revel at it. He’s not sure he’s ever seen his brother this speechless. Then his face softens and Jiang Cheng is suddenly really glad he has a skeptical Wen cultivator to keep his attention, because there is no way he can handle meeting the sheer pride and affection that is suddenly shining out of his older brother’s eyes.
Fucking Wei Wuxian. Doesn’t he know they don’t do sincere emotion? Well, except shijie, and even she is more likely to show it through food than actually say anything. They’re Jiangs. They always attempt the impossible, but even they don’t talk about their feelings.