Chapter Text
When the Wen Sect had attacked, no one had been surprised. Wen Ruohan’s spite for the other Sects had been as obvious as his greed. Though, however unsurprised the Sect Leaders were, they had still been woefully unprepared for the force and ferocity with which the Wens would attack. So many lives, both cultivators and not were lost, fields burned, livestock slaughtered, Sects consumed by Wen Ruohan’s own sons. Though the other great sects banded together like they hadn’t in centuries, they were still no match, and it seemed that the war would be lost.
No one, not even Wen Ruohan himself, had expected the Yiling Patriarch. He had ascended from his cursed mountain with no Sect, no army, no sword, armed with nothing but a dark flute that commanded the dead to do his bidding and the seal that leaked resentful energy into the air like it contained an ocean. How could anyone have hoped to defeat a man whose army grew with every casualty, whose troops couldn’t be fallen, who grew more powerful the more he frustrated his enemy?
Wen Ruohan had died on the steps of his own palace, cut down by the corpse of his own son.
The Yiling Patriarch had demanded nothing from the Sects in return for crushing the Wens in their lust for power. He’d swooped in like a god, like a demon, and wrenched the battle from all of their hands as easily as if he’d had it all along. He struck like lightning and then lingered even after Wen Ruohan lay dead at his feet.
What scared the other Sect leaders the most was that the Yiling Patriarch’s burning eyes might one day seek them out and demand payment. They plied him with riches, with gold, with land, with swords and silks and knowledge. Each one he denied.
The man, that great monster with eyes blazed red, had scoffed.
“How grand do you think you are that you think this was for you?” His voice was that of a man, but his hands twirled his dreadful flute between his fingers as a reminder of just what he could do. “I defeated Wen Ruohan for my own reasons. Never think that I would ever stoop to doing the bidding of your corrupt sects.”
He’d taken hold of all of Qishan as they returned to their own Sects. He didn’t threaten them, didn’t demand payment or service or fealty, but a dark cloud hovered in their minds whenever they looked toward Qishan.
It was Jin Guangshan who came up with the idea, of course, the great lech. They would offer one of their own in marriage to the Yiling Patriarch and in doing so, provide some sort of security, an alliance to put their minds to rest and their fears to bed.
Lan Wangji stared passively as they discussed who to abandon to the Patriarch. Though he had fought in the war, though he was of age to more than one Sect leader in the room, he knew better than to speak. He only hoped that his brother wouldn’t agree to the idea. Where was the righteousness in such a sacrifice?
Jin Guangshan, cheeks pinked with the liquor he indulged and then overindulged in, claimed he would offer up his own bastard as the prize. He’d laughed, giddy with the idea as his bastard son by his side turned a ghastly pale.
Lan Wangji watched from the corner of his eye as his own brother’s hands clenched into fists where they rested on his knees, out of sight of those around him. Lan Wangji wondered how many assenting voices it would take before his brother stood to the side and let them sell off Jin Guangyao, a man he held so dear.
But the other sect leaders balked at the idea. No doubt the Yiling Patriarch would find great offense at being offered a bastard in exchange for defeating Wen Ruohan. Jin Guangshan’s bastard son, nearly translucent from his father’s offer, flushed dark red at the slight, but he held his tongue. Lan Wangji wondered if his flush was from anger or embarrassment. It was a better shade of red than the blush on his father’s ruddy cheeks, at least.
Those in attendance suggested that if Jin Guangshan was so keen, why not offer his own son for the Yiling Patriarch’s prize. Jin Guangshan flushed deeper, his dark eyebrows drawing together in a childish show of outrage. He’d shouted and raged. Jin Zixuan was his only legitimate heir, how could his Sect survive if he was left with no one?
Lan Wangji let his eyes drift away from Jin Guangshan, tired of his red face, and instead looked to Jin Guangyao, who was wearing his placid smile, strained at the edges. He wondered how many insults it would take for him to break. What would happen when he finally let his smile fall? Lan Wangji was certain he didn’t want to know.
He continued letting his gaze drift around the room as Jin Guangshan continued talking. If Lan Wangji had let his gaze drift like this when he had been a student, his Uncle would have rapped him on the backs of his knuckles or punished him with kneeling. But his uncle wasn’t here and Xichen was too busy staring at Jin Guangyao to pay him any mind.
He noted with little surprise that the room wasn’t as full as it had been in the years previous. War had taken from them all, even the Jin Sect, though their casualties were much less than anyone else’s. There were places empty and Sects who couldn’t even afford to spare the cultivators to fill their allotted places.
Lan Wangji wondered which one would have to sacrifice yet another to the war, to a fate worse than war, perhaps, depending on the heart of the Yiling Patriarch.
They fought through the night. Lan Wangji grew tired, but he forced himself to stay awake, to support his brother if nothing else.
Most of the smaller Sects were lacking in numbers, lacking in heirs, lacking in resources and trust from the greater Sects. No one said it aloud, but there was fear that, should a lesser sect be allied with the Yiling Patriarch, they might change their allegiance, and they would all be back where they were now. That left the four remaining Great Sects.
Jin Guangshan, having only one heir besides the many bastards who were deemed ineligible, was saved from his own suggestion. Eyes turned next to the Jiang Sect. The young Sect leader, having only recently shed the last remnants of childish gangle, untested out of war, heavy with grief and anger and his mother’s spiritual tool sparking on his finger, had snarled and stepped in front of his sister who was sitting so still and straight-backed that she rivaled Lan Wangji’s own reputation as being made of jade. The only thing giving her away was the way her smile trembled. Madame Jin came to her rescue in the form of logic. She didn’t appeal to the fact that Jiang Yanli was too delicate to survive under harsh care from the Patriarch nor the fact that her own son had been promised her by Jiang Yanli’s own deceased parents. She made the simple claim that, in offering up a woman, the Yiling Patriarch was guaranteed an heir that had stake in one of their Sects, giving him even more power, even more reach. Jiang Yanli’s breath of relief was rivaled only by Jin Zixuan’s.
No one even hinted at offering Nie Huaisang for the job. He was the proper age, the correct status, the right position, but no one dared even looked his way, not only for the way Nie Mingjue glowered at anyone who glanced their way, not for the low cultivation he wielded or the cowardly nature he had shown during the war, refusing to fight, but because he was almost sure to become his Sect’s Leader before too many years had passed. Nie Mingjue wasn’t guaranteed a full life, doomed to follow the same path as his father and his father before him and before him and before and before. Qi deviation wasn’t uncommon, but in the Leaders of the Nie Sect, it was an inevitability. Nie Mingjue had remained unmarried, had sired no children, had no other living relatives to provide other heirs than his younger brother.
Lan Wangji realized the only solution while the rest of them were still bickering. He didn't resent Jiang Wanyin’s relieved sigh that the other sect leaders denied his sister nor Nie Mingjue’s daring stare, warning anyone away from even thinking Nie Huaisang’s name. He didn’t resent any of them, keeping his stone face. The only thing that softened his heart was the way Xichen stiffened and then jerked his head in his direction with a look of mounting horror on his face as he realized, just as Lan Wangji had, what the only solution was.
Their Sect had two heirs. Xichen was young, the perfect age to soon have an heir, and he was in no danger of imminent demise. Lan Wangji was a spare.
Xichen shook his head in disbelief or horror or heartbreak, but Lan Wangji silenced him with a glance.
“No,” his brother whispered. “I won’t allow it.”
But who else was there?
“What about your Second Jade, Sect Leader Lan?” Bellowed Jin Guangshan, jovial once again now that his own Sect was in no danger.
That had been enough. No one had been able to reason a way out despite Xichen’s horror. Lan Wangji just sat there, blank, straight-backed, trembling where his fingers were hidden under his sleeves as they decided his future.
His only hope left was that the Yiling Patriarch would deny this like he’d rejected every other offer.
His brother had wept when the Yiling Patriarch accepted, while Lan Wangji remained stoic, concealing every anxiety, every bitterness over his tongue, every fear and resentment.
The Yiling Patriarch came to formally accept the proposal in person, busting into the grand hall of Koi Tower in a swirl of dark robes and darker energy collecting around his ankles.
“So whose daughter was dispensable enough to be given to me?” He asked as he sauntered into the room in a swagger that would have been mesmerizing if Lan Wangji hadn’t been trying his hardest to keep his eyes trained firmly on the ground in front of him.
The Patriarch actually laughed when he was told that Lan Wangji was being offered.
“Ah!” He exclaimed in that deceptively melodic voice of his. “So you lot can surprise me.”
He accepted the proposal with his teeth bared in a laugh.
The wedding itself was rushed, with just enough fanfare to be called respectful.
As Lan Wangji donned his wedding robes, an ensemble that was simpler than anything he had ever imagined wearing on his wedding day, he shook, though he tried to hide it. The fabric was red, naturally, embroidered on the lapels, neatly, but elaborately with simple swirls of clouds. They hadn’t had time to commission proper robes, so Xichen had borrowed these from a cousin who'd been married the previous year. The only personalization found in all the swarm of suffocating crimson was a rabbit, pricked on the inside of his sleeve in sloppy embroidery, hidden but for Xichen showing him it was there.
“I wanted there to be something there for you,” he’d said with tears in his eyes as he helped him dress. “Do you remember how the rabbits would gather in Mother’s garden when we sat and played?”
Lan Wangji didn’t remember, but he treasured the knowledge anyway, tucking that little rabbit against the meat of his palm.
“Wangji, of course you know what the other Sect Leaders expect of you?” Xichen asked.
They wanted him to report back on the Yiling Patriarch’s weaknesses and how he might be defeated. They wanted Lan Wangji to deceive his husband into his own downfall by whatever means necessary. It made Lan Wangji sick, and it made his stomach turn even more that Xichen agreed with their plots to use him.
“One must not betray one’s spouse,” he replied around his clenched jaw, though it was unnecessary since Xichen knew the rules as well as he did.
Lan Wangji wondered if it was a fault or a benefit to the leader of the Lan sect to be able to pick and choose which rules should be enforced. That’s why Lan Wangji would have made a terrible Sect Leader. He didn’t have it in him to think diplomatically, politically.
Lan Wangji wasn’t able to look his brother in the eye the entire ceremony. It wasn’t because of resentment or bitterness that he had towards him, but because if he met Xichen’s eyes, he knew that all he would find there would be guilt. This wasn’t Xichen’s fault. If anything it was Jin Guangshan’s fault for suggesting it. Or the Yiling Patriarch for accepting. Perhaps some of the blame lay with Xichen, but not as much as his brother bore. Lan Wangji lived to do his duty. He’d never expected that duty to go so far, but what else was he?
He could feel Xichen’s eyes on him, but he stared straight ahead. The Patriarch had joked about putting him in a veil, but Lan Wangji refused outright, the only piece of autonomy he’d demanded for the whole thing. Bening covered like that, trapped would have made him panic. He might have let tears drip down his cheeks if he hadn’t had to worry about anyone seeing his face.
As he bowed, he thought of his mother, and he almost wept anyway.
Would she be disappointed in him, or would she mourn their shared fate?
He ran his fingers over that little reminder he had of hers and finished his bows, willing his heart to stop pounding so hard.
The Patriarch flashed a smile at himwhen they finished bowing to each other, full-faced and toothy, and it made a shiver stiffen Lan Wangji’s posture.
Lan Wangji refused to look at Xichen still, even as he was led away towards the Yiling Patriarch's chambers.