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It begins like so: a false accusation, all too convincing. Bows draw taught, their arrowheads glinting cruelly in the revealing light of day, a threat. While the potential for lethality is there, Wei Wuxian is not overly worried. Not yet. Wen Ning, sustained by resentment and talismans and music, protects him.
Soon, the arrows release, and the Ghost General springs into action. He uproots a stone with sheer strength and uses it as a makeshift shield.
It escalates like this: a precious gift, stolen. Fragile, protected by a box, now held in unworthy hands. A taunt: “what right have you to be here?”
It continues: Jin Zixuan, a gold-clad peace-maker, arrives at Qiongqi Path. He reprimands the unrepentant gift-thief, who says in protest, “he is nothing but trash, he will stain our family,”
How dare Jin Zixun say that? Wei Wuxian thinks, Anger rises all too easily. They use his family, his former family, against him while denying his right to associate with them.
It continues: the precious gift is crushed. Crumbled to a fine powder of wood chips. If it cannot protect itself, how will it protect his nephew? Useless.
Jin Zixuan is saying something, and Wei Wuxian barely hears it through the mounting outrage. “Come to Jinlintai, and you can argue your case. As long as you didn't cast the curse, you will be cleared.”
As if that will help. As if he will get the chance. As if anyone wants to listen to what he has to say. As if anyone will believe him. No matter what the peace-maker says, this is a trap.
The Ghost General fights, now containing cultivators to a cliff so that this drama can play out. Jin Zixuan offers reassurance: call him off and you will remain unharmed.
“Did you plan this?” he demands.
“Are you out of your mind?” Jin Zixuan demands.
Wei Wuxian doesn’t have time for these platitudes. Peace. What a joke. It is not Wei Wuxian who raises Chenqing to his lips, it is the Yilling Laozu. Enough is enough.
“Stay out of my way.” Out of respect to his shijie, the Yilling Laozu offers a warning.
It could have finished like this: dark strains of music directing intention, controlled chaos. A Ghost General that, somewhere between one beat and the next, mistakes maybe-friend for certain-foe. A fist that punches through the outer layer of skin. Through the fascia, the muscles, and the bones. Such is its force, it breaks bone and pushes either lung to the side. Arteries rupture. A perfect hole just missing the heart. The strained organ is unable to sustain the effort, the vital systems flag, the flow of qi in meridians halts. An expression of surprise crosses the face of the innocent.
“A-Li is still waiting for you to attend our baby’s one month old celebration.” These final words are whispered in between gobs of blood the fluid-filled lungs cough out. His gold-tasseled sword drops to the ground. It is too late for redemption now.
It also could have finished like this: dark strains of music directing intention, controlled chaos. The Ghost General jumps from the cliff, glides down and stands behind the right shoulder of the necromancer. Intimidation. Protection. Back-up.
“Why should I go to Jinlintai? To suffer more false accusations?” the Yilling Laozu demands, picking the conversation up. The possibility for violence balances on the tip of a sword. One move to upset that balance and more than just his gift will shatter irreparably. He lowers the dizi, but does not tuck it in his belt.
“You have my word. You will have a just hearing, and a chance to speak.”
Just? Justice? In the necromancer’s mind, he remembers the so-called righteous sects driving out and hunting down innocent bystanders. The branch of the Wens that want to heal, not kill. What justice was there for them?
He does not say this. He came here for a celebration. He came here on the tenuous hope that it was extended in good faith.
“I did not cast the curse.”
“You did,” Jin Zixun asserts.
“A-Li wants you there,” Jin Zixuan says, ignoring the venomous statement. He notes the necromancer’s hands which suddenly clench the dizi, tight enough that white bone shows under the thin skin of knuckles.
“I would not wreck Jin Ling’s one month celebration.”
His weakness is known.
It hurts the necromancer to back away. Away from the light of family and those he knew before. Yet, he does. The Ghost General and the necromancer flee.
It could have finished like this, but it didn’t.
Instead, it went like this: dark strains of music directing intention, controlled chaos. A Ghost General who, somewhere between one beat and the next, locks his two-pupil eyes on the one who stole the precious gift. The thief who begins to charge the necromancer. A hand shoots out and wraps around a vulnerable neck.
Snap.
It is so easy. The would-be peace-maker looks at the Yiling Laozu, aghast.
“Wei Wuxian!”
In the end, Wei Wuxian walks with the Jin cultivators, who carry Jin Zixun’s body as well as the others Wen Ning killed, to Jinlintai. Jin Zixuan brings up the rear, and Wei Wuxian can feel his wary eyes burning a hole in his back. The others keep their distance while marching around him. Guarding. As if that would stop him. As if that would stop Wen Ning who is probably following him at distance for all he told him to go home. They have no reason to worry, the fight has left Wei Wuxian. He feels hollow, frayed. It’s as if all the possibilities of what could have happened wrapped themselves in dark tendrils around his bones and are only now sloughing off.
He doesn't know why he didn’t just flee, back to the Burial Mounds where the inevitable fallout will only touch them peripherally. Qiongqi Path is not that far from their destination, but the weight of bodies slows them down, and Wei Wuxian is sure that the runner, who peeled off from the group as soon as he called Wen Ning to his side to tell the cultivators at Jinlintai what happened, has misconstrued the situation.
At least it is Jin Zixun who died and not Jin Zixuan.
He is escorted into the main hall and almost everyone he has ever cared about is there. Lan Wangji, the impassive face with hints of concern in his eyes. Jiang Cheng, angry, desperate, holding Jiang Yanli, who has passed out, in his arms. To the side stands Jin Guangyao, holding Jin Ling.
“Wei Wuxian, you murderer,” Jiang Cheng says, “how do you have the face to turn up after what you have done?”
“You know me, I’ve always been shameless,” Wei Wuxian retorts. He gathers his joking aura around himself like a shield. The concern in Lan Wangji’s eyes has morphed into incredulity.
“Is shijie alright? Why has she fainted?” he asks, moving to approach her. The cultivators who are not carrying corpses unsheathe their swords and point them at him.
“Don’t you dare touch her,” Jiang Cheng says. Wei Wuxian lowers the hand he instinctively lifted.
“What is going on here?” Jin Zixuan demands, entering the hall.
Jiang Cheng looks as if he has seen a ghost. “You’re alive?”
“Yes.”
“But we were told—”
Lan Wangji turns to the runner who delivered news. “Why did you lie?” Few can withstand the gaze of Hanguang-Jun, and the runner quails.
“I- I didn’t! The Yilling Laozu’s Ghost General attacked us and then attacked the sect-heir!”
“You must have mistaken Jin Zixun for me from a distance,” Jin Zixuan says, weariness evident in his voice. He takes Jiang Yanli out of Jiang Cheng’s arms and cradles her limp form just as gently.
“A-Li, wake up. I’m here. I’m not dead. Would I leave you?” A long moment passes before she opens her eyes, smile blooming across her face.
“Am I dreaming?”
“No. I promise you, this is real.”
“I knew he wouldn’t kill you.” She turns to Wei Wuxian. “A-Xian, you came.” Wei Wuxian can only nod, choked up as the gravity of what they thought happened hits him. Jin Ling begins to cry and all eyes turn to the baby. Jin Guangyao bounces him up and down, but Jin Ling only cries harder.
“Guangyao! This is exactly why I told you not to hold my grandson!” Jin Guangshan’s pompous voice interrupts the reunion as he enters the room. He stops mid-step as he recognizes Wei Wuxian, ringed in by cultivator guards. “You actually caught the Yilling Laozu?”
Wei Wuxian turns to Jin Zixuan. “You said you didn’t plan this.”
“I didn’t!” Wei Wuxian knows that Jin Guangshan is manipulative, and he remembers how genuine Jin Zixuan seemed on Qiongqi Path. He almost believes him. “Wei Wuxian came willingly, in peace,” Jin Zixuan continues.
“In peace? Wei Wuxian murdered Jin Zixun among many others!” someone asserts. “His Ghost General nearly killed the sect-heir!
“We were ambushed! That Jin Zixun destroyed—”
“Enough,” Jin Guangshan interrupts.
“Father, I promised Wei Wuxian a fair hearing. Let him speak.”
“Do not question me, Zixuan. There will be ample time for discussion as soon as this— upstart is confined where he can hurt no one else. I don’t need to hear anything from him.”
“Wei Ying will not hurt anyone,” Lan Wangji promises. Jin Guangshan raises an eyebrow.
“How can you assure that?
“He wouldn’t disrupt Jin Ling’s one-month celebration. He wouldn’t do that to his shijie.”
“And yet, upwards of twenty Jin cultivators have been slaughtered today by an undead abomination created by his hands, and his resentful energy. Take him away.” Hands close around Wei Wuxian’s arms, and they are cold. So cold. They remind him of the personified energy in the Burial Mounds, grasping, clawing their way into the empty hollow of his lower dantian.
He lashes out, one arm smacking someone in the face. He sees Jiang Cheng move to stop the guards, he hears Jiang Yanli yelling “A-Xian!”. Lan Wangji takes a step back and stares at him, unmoving, face for once betraying nothing. Wei Wuxian cannot see the hand that desperately clenches Bichen’s scabbard.
There are too many of them, and someone has snatched Chenqing. He fights, and only stops when someone hits him on the head with their sword.
Jin Ling stops crying as soon as Jin Guangshan leaves the room, restrained necromancer in tow.
Time passes oddly. He gets regular meals but whether they come in the mornings or the evenings he no longer knows. There are no windows in his cell. The only light comes from between the bars of the iron-grid door, grey and faint from a window down the hall. He can walk from either end lengthwise in twelve regular steps and it takes six to cross from the back to the front. They took Chenqing. They took his back-up talismans.
A part of him can sense the resentful energy in the prison, a smoky build-up from years of malcontented and wronged prisoners. It gathers around him, playing over hands and legs. It is too weak, at least for now, to do anything with. He curses his stupidity. He knew this was a trap, and yet he walked right in. He attempted to trust, and once again he has been shown that there is no place for that. His single-log bridge is rotten, those who forced him onto it stand on one side, and on the other side stands those too scared to let the bridge take their weight as well.
He wishes he knew what was happening.
It’s funny, he thinks. Everyone associates him with the ghosts and monsters that move under cover of darkness. They see the physical manifestation of resentful energy as black, serpentine clouds. And yet for all that, he doesn't like the dark.
More time passes.
One day, Lan Wangji unlocks and then enters his cell. His white robes stand out in the half-light, and he sits up from where he was sleeping fitfully on the hard pallet.
“Lan Zhan,” he says, voice sore from disuse.
“Wei Ying.” Lan Wangji stares at him gravely. He looks tired, as if he is burdened by some great sorrow. “Come with me.” He scrambles to his feet and shakily follows his erstwhile savior.
“How long have I been down here?”
“Eight days.”
“What happened?” Lan Wangji is silent. They climb up five steps and Lan Wangji grabs him when he stumbles. He looks down and sees two unconscious Jin cultivators, the first of which he tripped over.
“Lan Zhan! A prison break? How unlike you.”
“Mn.” Lan Wangji still hasn’t let go of his waist. Through the winding halls they walk, and while they occasionally see a servant scutter out of the way, no cultivators cross their path.
“Where is everyone?”
“Meeting.”
“What for?”
Lan Wangji glances at him. “It doesn’t matter. Leave while everyone is gone.”
“You’re hiding something from me. What are you hiding? You can tell me Lan Zhan. I’m not made of spun glass.”
“We’re here.” Here is a servants’ door that opens onto a much smaller and narrower version of the grand steps. “I will escort you out.” He still feels like something is not right, like he is missing something. But, the fresh air and the almost too-bright sunlight beckons to him.
“You know I will find out one way or the other. I suppose my reputation has been besmirched even further?”
“Mn.”
“That’s fine, I’m used to keeping a low profile.” Once outside, in the gentle afternoon sunlight, they turn and look at one another. Lan Wangji smiles sadly.
“Wei Ying.”
“Yes?”
“Sorry.”
Wei Wuxian wakes up with a splitting headache and the lingering smell of herbal medicine. He groans as his limbs prickle, waking up.
“Ugh. Lan Zhan,” he mutters, “what did you do?” Wei Wuxian sees that he is in a clean room, nothing to write home about, but for more comfortable than his cave in the Burial Mounds. right beside his bed, on a small table, there is a basin of water. He drags himself over to it and washes his face. The lukewarm water restores a measure of critical thought, and he remembers Lan Wangji standing across from him, handing him Chenqing. He remembers Lan Wangji reaching out to him, and how he leaned toward the outstretched hand. Slowly, Wei Wuxian gets out of the bed. Padding across the room, he pulls back the curtain and winces as early morning sun hits his eyes. “Did you actually drug me?” he asks as he remembers an aromatic cloth, then blissful darkness. I really need to know what’s going on now , he thinks.
Once Wei Wuxian is certain he can stay on his feet, he cautiously leaves his room. Wei Wuxian is fairly confident that no one will notice him, after all, he has rarely spent time in Jin-adjacent lands, and the Yilling Laozu is said to be ugly, but it's better to be safe than to be sorry. Downstairs, there is a counter serving food and drinks. One thing he learnt during his forced sojourn in the Burial Mounds is that inns and tea-houses are prime sources for information gathering. He orders a jar of wine, nowhere near the quality of Emperor’s Smile, but it is alcohol, and after the lackluster meals and water he had for the last week, it is a welcome change. The table across from him is occupied by two well-to-do ladies, drinking. If the empty jars of wine on the table and untouched food are anything to go by, they have already finished three between them.
“I swear it will take weeks to get the smell of smoke out of my clothes.”
“That’s what you get for wearing your best outfit to an execution.”
“Burning humans alive, so crass.”
“They deserved it. My lover was captured by some Wen dogs during the Sunshot campaign, you know. Who knows what they did to her.”
“But that’s the main branch. These ones lived peacefully until they turned themselves in for someone else. Surely that merits a clean execution.”
“Maybe, but didn’t you hear what the Ghost General did?”
“Of course! The notices were all over town. He went mad just as Hanguang-Jun spoke up for him.”
“Shame. Well anyways I heard they burned Wen Qing and Wen Ning because the Yilling Laozu might revive her as a fierce corpse if her body is intact, and the only way to stop the Ghost General is to immolate him completely.”
“Oh.”
One of the ladies went to pour more wine into her cup and frowned when only a drop fell out. Wei Wuxian feels his vision cloud, black spots of anger dancing around the edges. He clenches his cup so hard it cracks. The clay shards bite into the palm of his hand, and the pain feels good. Did the Wens turn themselves in? What would possess them to do that? Taking a deep breath in an attempt to hold on to his composure, he stands up and sits at their table.
“Allow me to buy another jar of wine for you ladies.” He is sure his smile is tremulous and that they can see how fake it is. The woman who complained about how her clothes smelled wrinkles her nose. Wei Wuxian remembers he hasn’t washed in a week.
“Wine is wine,” her companion says, and waves the waiter over.
“Did I miss the executions?” Wei Wuxian asks. Saying those words so cavalierly feels like chewing glass, prompting him to bury his bleeding hand in his skirts.
“Just a day ago, in the morning. The other Wens were beheaded as the day went on, but Wen Qing and the Ghost General were burned alive,” the one whose lover died in the Sunshot Campaign says with the particular schadenfreude that comes with watching someone whom one has a grudge against getting their just desserts. “Well, we didn’t get to see the burnings, but you could smell them.”
“It was a very quick trial,” her friend says diplomatically. “Recently, the leader of the Jin sect announced that the Yilling Laozu was captured, and that he would walk free and conflicts would be put to rest if the remaining Wens turned themselves over. You know how he cast curses upon a bunch of cultivators and then killed them all? The cultivation world is no longer content to let him hide out in cursed land.”
“So, they’re … dead?”
“That is the typical result of an execution.”
“And what of the Yilling Laozu?” he asks.
“Probably still locked up, good riddance I say. I personally don’t think they’ll honor that particular promise.”
Her companion snorts and they both turn to him.
“Cultivators … they speak of honor and helping others, and then they go and break promises. Just because they can,” Wei Wuxian says, piercing timelines together and realizing what he ‘slept’ through.
“Well said! Drink, drink!”
“Thanks for the information,” he says when they have all drunk. “Enjoy your wine ladies.”
“Leaving so quickly?”
“I’ve got somewhere to go.”
“Sure, whatever.”
Wei Wuxian wanders aimlessly around town: The Wens, his friends, dead? Because of him? Because he couldn’t control Wen Ning? Shock morphs ever so slowly into anger. He stumbles, and no one is there to catch him. A notice catches his eye. “Pledge Conference.” He laughs. He laughs as he learns the cultivation world is gathering in the very place they killed Wen Ruohan to release the ashes of the last Wens to the careless wind. It’s all so futile. So useless. Why couldn’t Lan Wangji have released him sooner to prevent this tragedy? Why did he ensure he slept through such an event? He’s behind, so out of the loop. All he wanted was to visit Shijie and Jiang Cheng and Jin Ling and even that stupid Jin Zixuan. And now? And now? Madness grips his mind and he tears the notice from the board. Blood covers the characters and he rips the page into a thousand pieces. It’s not enough.
He pulls out Chenqing and plays a brief tune, just a simple calling, a mere message to let the ever-present resentful energy know he’s here. He’s here. He’s mad. And no one is going to stop him.
It begins like so: a figure tucked away on the roof, hidden, observing long rows of cultivators standing at attention.
“Whoever they are, whichever name they bear, this cup of liquor represents my respect to our past heroes.”
Cups raised and spilled on the ground. Shattering. He sees a box of ashes offered and subsequently held in the air by qi.
“I’ll scatter their remains.” Insubstantial flakes drift away. The broken man can just make out faces subtly shaking heads. What good does regret do for them? Did any of them try to stop what happened?
“Tomorrow, we go to find the Yilling Laozu. He will die.”
It escalates like this: Bitter laughter, ringing out through the crowd. All eyes turn to him: a single man against the world. A mere smudge against the dark sky.
“You killed so many cultivators. How do you have the face to stand here now?”
“I saved you the trouble of finding me.”
He reminds them of his contributions to the current peace. How they were all so eager to use his abilities against the common enemy, five-thousand, three-thousand, dead, and how now that there is no use for him, they cast him aside.
“I was ambushed,” he says. “You can do whatever you want to me, but when I defend myself, I must be careful how I go about it? You say I didn’t have to kill those cultivators at Qiongqi Path, but you didn’t have to kill the innocent Wen.”
It comes to a turning point here: an arrow, shot out of turn. Straight, well-crafted, it still barely pierces his robes. He feels himself breaking, all that makes him whole and keeps him together shattering. Even his name drops away, swallowed by the darkness. This broken, nameless man sways there, arrow in hand. He thinks: so be it. He remembers the Wens, how they made a home out of an abandoned land. He thinks of little A-Yuan, most certainly dead, and how he once planted him in the ground like a turnip. Wen Qing: so fierce, so brilliant. Without her they never would have made it through the first months, and now she has led her sect to their deaths. For him. He is not worthy. His very being thrums with resentment, and the broken man sends the arrow back into the crowd.
So be it.
Chenqing directs the ghosts that no one bothered to put to rest. Nightless City has seen so much blood, and it will see more before the night is over. The ghosts take the form of wisps, spiraling forth from him, running through cultivators like an insubstantial, but no less deadly sword. Their master gets lost in the music, a minor song, new but powerful. A trill tells the ghosts to leave the Jiang Sect alone. They may have betrayed him, betrayed the Wens with their silence, but he will not kill family.
It escalates like this: A light-bearing lord, flying through the air, pristine and upright. His storied sword pointing at the broken man, a shield of smoke holding it at bay. A plea: “Wei Ying, listen to me.”
He does not want to listen. He no longer wants to listen to these people who have closed their ears to the injustices of the world. “You don’t know everything.”
“I know enough,” he hisses. He knows Lan Wangji all but betrayed him and the Wens.
It continues: a martial sister, worried, relieved, rushing out into a battle ground. This is what arrests his attention. She should not be here. A figure in gold flows from one sword form to the next, guarding her.
“Shijie,” he whispers. Aided by power not his own, he glides down from the roof and into the thick of the battle.
In reality just a step to the right from this one, it could have finished like this. The thick of battle: disorienting. The people: confused, fighting against an enemy that cannot be killed. The martial sister: innocent, but full of purpose. The broken man sees this, and his song fades away.
“A-Xian! A-Cheng!”
He advances towards her, but each step feels like pushing against an immovable wall. He is not alone in this action: worried-face and untouched by the chaos, the Jiang Sect’s leader moves as well. They are too slow. Too slow. A cultivator, addled by the animal instincts of self-preservation and the bloodlust of battle, slices his sword and cuts down the martial sister.
Estranged brothers, brought together out of necessity to aid one they both could never hate. A cultivator who sees the black-and-red robes of the one who unleashed the ghostly menace screams, and then lunges.
The last act of a martial sister. The instinct to protect.
“A-jie!”
“Shijie!”
A cough. And then: silence.
Red blood.
It should have been him.
It could have finished like this. The thick of battle: disorienting. The people: confused, fighting against an enemy that cannot be killed. The martial sister: determined. “A-Xian! Listen to me!” her voice cuts through the battle, through the haze of anger in his mind. He lowers his dizi. The gold-clad guard makes a path for her and she approaches the broken man without fear. Delicate arms embrace him. He shakes. She should not be here. She should not be hugging him.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Shijie, I have no other choice.”
“Oh, A-Xian.” He wants to stop, but he can’t. He wants to listen, but he can’t let them get away with what they did to the Wens. They will never stop hunting him. The battle doesn’t stop either, the ghosts he unleashed continue to weave their deadly paths.
“Go,” he hardens his resolve, and he pushes her away.
“A-Xian—”
“There is no return.” Soaking up the sight of her, he breaks the hug, and pushes her away.
The battle rages on, and too late, he realizes that he has moved her straight into the path or a cold steel blade.
It could have finished like this, but it didn’t.
Instead, it went like this: delicate arms embrace him. He shakes. She should not be here. She should not be hugging him.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Shijie, I have no other choice.”
“Oh A-Xian.” She smiles. Before he can begin to think, she continues, “We couldn’t tell you in time, but know this: Wen Qing isn’t dead.”
“What?”
“A-jie! Wei Wuxian! Hurry up, this is a battlefield!”
“We couldn’t save the other Wens, but we managed to get her.” He doesn't know what to think. He’s— happy? Of course he is. Wen Qing is his friend. But what does this change? He is still shattered, and the cultivation world will never stop hating him. A-Yuan, Granny Wen. They are still dead. What about Wen Ning?
At least —
At least—
His martial sister has brought a sort of clarity to his mind. He knows what he has to do.
“Zixuan! Jiang Cheng! Take shijie away.” The two cultivators turn to them and the gold-clad guard intercepts the blade of an outer Jin disciple.
As they talk, the plane of the conflict shifts. A second song, unnoticed in the general cacophony of battle, tilts things just so. The ghosts no longer enter and pass through: deadly and swift. They enter:
and they stay.
Accounts defer about what happens next. Everyone agrees that the Yilling Laozu, Wei Wuxian, grew vicious. He began transforming cultivators into fierce courses. Friends fought friends, and grudges were carried out.
Everyone agrees that Wei Wuxian jumped to a stone archway and threw the coveted Stygian Tiger Seal into the crowd.
Some say that he laughed maniacally, some say that he cried. Some say that he did both.
When the Yilling Laozu makes his way to the edge of the cliff, unnoticed by eyes set upon a greater prize, the stories truly change.
Some say he jumped of his own volition.
Some say Hanguang-Jun pushed him over.
Others insist it is his former martial brother who should get the credit for killing the cultivation world’s number one menace.
Initially, it is suggested that the late, great, Hanguang-Jun jumped after him. These variations are met with laughter. Why would such an upright cultivator follow an unorthodox one to death? So, they agree, the Yilling Laozu pulled him along.
A hooked hand around an ankle: the last crime this monster would commit.
Yes, that is what happened.
For the second time in as many weeks, Wei Wuxian wakes up to a headache. Lan Wangji is petting his hair and his head rests on Lan Wangji’s lap. He is reminded of another cave, long ago when they were naïve children. As the hovering face comes into focus, Wei Wuxian notices a single tear on an otherwise unblemished cheek.
“Lan Zhan, why are you crying?” he rasps.
“Wei Ying.” He reaches up to wipe the tear away.
Wei Wuxian takes a moment to gather his senses, and his memories. He remembers letting go, staring up at Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng’s devastated, stricken faces. He remembers the sense of peace, the readiness for the lava below to immolate him, to burn him alive, like the Wens who shouldn’t have been. Now? Now he just feels empty.
“Why am I alive?”
“I caught you.”
“Why?”
“You’re Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says simply.
“Well, I wish you hadn’t,” he mutters. Hands tighten around him. “My death is the only thing that will stop the madness.”
Lan Wangji’s breath hitches, and his silence soon becomes uncomfortable as Wei Wuxian waits for a response. “So stay dead,” he finally whispers.
“Huh?” And yet, as soon as he says this, Wei Wuxian realizes what Lan Wangji means. It’s … not a wholly unappealing concept. “Then what about you?”
“I will accompany Wei Ying.”
“Lan Zhan! You can’t just say that! You still have a life.” Lan Wangji does not roll his eyes, but Wei Wuxian can feel it on a cosmic level. “Fine then.” He needs a distraction. “Will you explain what exactly happened at Jinlintai?”
And Lan Wangji does. It’s halting, nowhere near as smooth as the aunties who while away their time gossiping, weaving cloth and stories alike. Unused to prolonged speech, he explains Jiang Yanli’s belief that the death of the Wens would do nothing. He explains Jin Zixuan’s immediate support for anything his wife proposes, and the somber assertion that it is impossible to save them all. He tells of Jiang Cheng, sullenly proposing a way to build the pyre with smoky wood so that it is impossible to see the writhing figure on the pole, so that it is impossible to see the hollow underneath. Lan Wangi tells of his own role: spiriting Wen Qing away, then returning to break Wei Wuxian out.
“And what of Wen Ning?”
“He was supposed to burn too. They only tied Wen Qing to the stake.”
“So he could still be locked up?”
“Mn.”
There is one more thing he needs to know. It has been a day of impossibilities, so perhaps there will be one more. “Did they kill little A-Yan as well?” Wei Wuxian asks. It hurts to hope.
Lan Wangji almost smiles. “He was left behind at the Burial Mounds. He is safe. With Wen Qing,” he tells him. Wei Wuxian can’t help it, he throws his arms around Lan Wangji and hugs him. Stiffly, as if he does not know what to do now that someone else has initiated contact, Lan Wangji wraps his arms around Wei Wuxian, and returns the hug. Distantly, Wei Wuxian notes that he is now crying. He doesn’t care. Lan Wangji has already seen him at his worst.
“I’m still mad at you for drugging me,” he mumbles into Lan Wangji’s shoulder.
“Mn.”
In another time, in another story, the Yilling Laozu will die. He will truly die and he will be mourned. He will be mourned in secret by those who have no business thinking with regret about this heretic, this vicious murderer, this cultivator full of resentment.
In a different reality, some who should have lived will die.
It is not this one.