Chapter Text
They’d had a plan.
Jiang Cheng thought it was, overall, a reasonably good plan.
The plan was: invite the dark, disgraced, Wei Wuxian to Carp Tower to meet his cute, innocent, little baby nephew, to hug his sister, to behave himself impeccably for once in his fucking life, to definitely not be rude to Jin Zixuan (who! Jiang Cheng hated to admit, had so far proven to be a loving, supportive, and faithful husband to Jiejie. Almost worthy of her!) and to let Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng talk everyone’s ears off for a week about how truly sorry Wei Wuxian was about the incident at Qiongqi Path, and how he’d never do it again.
Things were not going according to the plan.
The first clue they’d had about that was the moment the Jin servant had come into the room where Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli waited, daring to smile at each other, waiting to hear that Wei Wuxian had arrived—and for some reason, the Jin servant had been nervous.
(Many stupid people did get nervous around ‘The Yiling Patriarch’, which Jiang Cheng thought was absurd. They wouldn’t be nervous if they’d ever seen his idiot brother half-dead in the morning, dragging on no sleep because he hadn’t gone to bed until the sun rose, or gagging over tasteless Gusu cooking, or whimpering like a child at the sight of a harmless puppy’s nose poking from behind the corner of a market stall.)
Things definitely seemed to be going off-plan when that nervous Jin servant bowed at them, and just said, his voice quaking, “Jin-gongzi—Jin-gongzi—“ and Jiang Cheng saw the alarm in Jiejie’s face, the slow blossoming of terror, there, and Jiang Cheng thought, did—did something happen to the Peacock?
He thought of how Jiejie had fretted at him earlier, while he’d been distracted at how little A-Ling’s tiny, perfect finger curled around his own big one. A-Xuan rushed off in such a hurry, A-Cheng, she’d said, what if something has gone wrong?, and he hadn’t even registered it, except to make soothing noises at them both, since A-Ling had started to wake up and make his own little baby noises of discontent. What could go wrong? he thought he might have replied. A-Ling was perfect. Wei Wuxian was finally coming to meet him. They all were going to be together again, and it was all going to work out.
The plan was no longer a plan, had stopped being a plan, had become a catastrophe, when Jin Zixuan had followed the shaking servant into the room, his handsome face bleak, his beautiful golden robes streaked with blood, and had bowed to Jiang Cheng, pressing Wei Wuxian’s flute into his hands, and then turned to Jiang Yanli, and pressed a small box, into hers.
Jiang Yanli stared at the box in her hands, before she looked up at her husband, bewildered. “What...is this?”
“I found it,” Jin Zixuan said, and all his words seemed dragged out of him. “Your brother—I think this was meant to be his Hundred Days gift to Jin Ling.”
Jiang Cheng’s eyes tracked down from Jin Zixuan’s stiff, sad face, to stare at Chenqing, in his own hands, the ends of the tassel strangely clumped together, sticky with...was that blood? His fingers were curled so tightly over the bamboo that they were already white and numb. Jiejie, he thought, his mind slowing down until he could barely feel it working.
Jiejie? I think something has gone wrong.
“What do you mean, ‘was’?” Jiang Cheng said.
***
There was no running in Cloud Recesses, but no such rule existed in Carp Tower, so Lan Xichen did not reprimand, as Lan Wangji abruptly picked up the pace at the sound of the shouting, ahead of them, only matched his stride.
Technically, they’d arrived early; the first banquet wasn’t scheduled until the following evening, and the Nie contingent wouldn’t arrive until tomorrow morning. But Lan Wangji insisted that he be present, when Wei Wuxian arrived, since he himself had penned the letter inviting him to his nephew’s Hundred Days celebration. Lan Xichen saw no reason to argue, and so they’d flown a few hours ahead of the rest of the Lan.
They’d had no hint anything was amiss, until they had almost arrived at the room where they’d been told they would find the Jiang siblings.
“WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO MY BROTHER?” Jiang Wanyin roared, as angry as Lan Xichen had ever heard him. He was pointing something at Jin Zixuan—who, Lan Xichen noted, was wearing robes rather bloodied, although there was no hint of injury in his posture—but not Sandu, and not the Zidian.
“Chenqing,” Lan Wangji said sharply. He was correct; Lan Xichen could see it now. Jiang Wanyin was holding Wei Wuxian’s flute, his spiritual weapon, and pointing it at Jin Zixuan, just as he would hold Sandu. (Lan Xichen had actually seen Wei Wuxian wield Chenqing just so in battle, an improbable and bizarrely effective substitute for Suibian. Why one so tremendously gifted in the art had forsaken the sword remained a mystery to Lan Xichen). Jin Zixuan was leaning away from it, apprehensively. Lan Xichen couldn’t blame him.
Jiang Yanli was sitting on a low couch not far from them, glancing up between her brother and her husband, her face shattered and streaked with tears, but making no effort to pacify her brother. Her hands were clenched tightly around something he could not see.
“I’m sorry,” Jin Zixuan said. “I am so sorry, A-Li, Wanyin—I was too late. By the time I got there, it was already too late.”
“…Wei Ying?” Lan Wangji said, helplessly, and Lan Xichen could hear the crack in his brother’s heart, and could only watch, as the terrible understanding rushed through him. He’d never seen his brother’s face like this before. Not even after their mother. Not like this.
Jin Zixuan took a deep breath, looking over, and realizing the Lans were there. “I have grave news,” he said. “There was…a slaughter at Qiongqi Path, a few hours ago. Wei Wuxian has died.”
***
Jin Zixuan kept having to repeat himself, as more and more people came into the room, attracted by the sound of shouting. Every time, it seemed as though both Jiang siblings grew paler and more distraught; Jiang Yanli burying her head in her hands, openly sobbing, while Jiang Wanyin grew angrier, and louder, and shouted even more.
Lan Wangji stayed the same: frozen in horror, his face so nakedly devastated that surely anyone looking at him could not help but perceive the depths of his feelings for Wei Wuxian. But no one was, between Jin Zixuan’s repeated attempts to explain the situation, as best as he understood it, and Jiang Wanyin’s loud demands for answers Jin Zixuan could not provide, chiefly the why and whose fucking idea was this? Jin Zixuan was further distracted by a clear desire to comfort his weeping wife.
As best as Lan Xichen could piece together, after several minutes, Jin Zixuan had been alerted a few hours ago by a servant that his cousin, Jin Zixun, had taken a contingent of cultivators to confront Wei Wuxian, on his way to Lanling. Knowing of their mutual enmity, and rightly fearing the worst, Jin Zixuan had followed, hoping to defuse the situation. He’d arrived too late, with both Wei Wuxian and Jin Zixun already slain—the former, Jin Zixuan reported grimly, by a hail of arrows from bowmen stationed on either side of Qiongqi Path; the latter (he said, grimacing) by a rather large hole through his chest. Not a sword blow, in all likelihood, since the Ghost General had been running wild and proceeding to kill all the other members of the ambush party the same way he’d presumably killed Jin Zixun.
Jin Zixuan had (sensibly, in Lan Xichen’s opinion) kept his distance from the unstoppable, wild fierce corpse, but managed to get close enough to Wei Wuxian to verify that he was indeed dead, and brought back Chenqing as a token of proof.
“And this,” Jiang Yanli interjected, unexpectedly, her face still streaked with tears. She stood, and thrust out a tiny beaded bracelet, small enough for a child’s wrist. “A protection charm! For my baby! It’s spelled to ward off evil spirits!” Lan Xichen reached out to brush the bracelet, which was exactly as she said. Powerful enough to ward against just about any low-level ghost, imp, or monster, from the feel of it, and finely crafted. It must have taken Wei Wuxian weeks to make. An appropriate and valuable gift for his martial nephew, on the occasion of his Hundred Days Ceremony.
“Oh…I almost forgot,” Jin Zixuan said, exhausted, and pulled something flat out of the sleeve of his robe. “He was carrying this as well.”
The sight of it startled Jiang Wanyin enough that he stopped yelling. “A red envelope?” he said, incredulously. “Where the hell did he get the money for that? The Dafan Wen are broke.” He slid it open, and pulled out not money, but a slip of paper bearing Wei Wuxian’s elegant calligraphy. As he read it, his face darkened again, but there was something…more complex in his expression, then.
“‘A promise, from a most doting uncle to his fine little nephew,’” Jiang Wanyin read aloud. “‘This one tragically cannot rustle up the cash for a proper red envelope at this time. However, perhaps once this year’s radish crop has been harvested, your Wei-jiujiu will be able to set aside some of the money from the sale for you. Here’s hoping!’”
Jiang Wanyin closed his eyes. “I’ll be damned,” he said, in a strangely flat tone. “They managed it after all. Even in a graveyard—I should have known if anyone could do that, he could.” He slid the note back into the envelope, and handed it back to Jin Zixuan.
Then he turned and punched the stone wall behind him so violently that Lan Xichen could clearly hear the bones of his fingers snap. Lan Xichen and Jin Zixuan simultaneously lunged forward to seize Jiang Wanyin’s arms, as he started to swing back to punch the wall a second time. He’d do himself damage he couldn’t heal quickly, if he did that again. “Damn him!” Jiang Wanyin said, his voice raw and broken. “Damn him! I told him this would get him killed, I warned him! He wouldn’t listen to me, why wouldn’t he ever fucking listen? Jiejie, why wouldn’t he listen, why wouldn’t he just come home? Jiejie, Jiejie, he’ll never come home now…”
Jiang Yanli yanked their hands off of Jiang Wanyin and wrapped herself around him, defensively. After barely a second, he had buried his head against her shoulder, and took in one deep breath before he broke, falling onto his knees, dragging Jiang Yanli down with him, as he sobbed violently. Jiang Yanli was by no means calm, and was in fact, still openly weeping, but she glared all around the room, with one hand cradling Jiang Wanyin’s head, and the other, holding his broken, bleeding hand, until people began trickling out of the room, uncomfortable under her fierce gaze.
“A-Li,” Jin Zixuan said to her softly, and touched her arm. “I’ll be back.” And then he ushered everyone out of the room, and left them to their grief.
***
“We must speak with your father,” Lan Xichen said, in the hallway. “I am sure gossip spreads quickly here.” There had been no shortage of people in the room, witnessing that.
“Before we do,” Jin Zixuan said, placing a quelling hand on Lan Xichen’s arm. “I didn’t want to say this in front of anyone else. I still don’t know what to make of this. But Lan-zongzhu—I believe I saw the bodies of Lan cultivators, among the slain, at Qiongqi Path.”
“What?”
“I have to ask. Did you…send Lan cultivators with my cousin to ambush Wei Wuxian?” Jin Zixuan looked very young, asking it, but he was looking carefully at him.
“I assure you, I did not,” Lan Xichen said sharply. “This was no order of mine. I do not know why there were Lan cultivators there. I would like to know.” What a nightmare this was becoming. He touched his forehead. “Do you know how many?”
“Several dozen,” Jin Zixuan said, bleakly.
Lan Xichen started to turn to Wangji, who no doubt would leap at the opportunity to go Qiongqi Path himself, to investigate, only to realize his brother was already gone.
***
Wei Ying was not here. Lan Wangji had searched, frantically, amongst the corpses scattered all around the pass, looking for black robes, amongst all these blood-spattered gold—and white, he noted grimly—robes, but there was no trace of Wei Ying, alive or dead. Jin Zixuan had said that the Ghost General had been here. Wen Qionglin was not here now. Wen Qionglin is unbound, he thought, worried. He remembered how violent he had been, upon awakening, until Wei Ying had, with his own aid, soothed Wen Qionglin’s raging spirit, and brought him back to himself.
Wen Qionglin might have reverted, upon the death of his necromantic master. It was the most likely outcome. Wei Ying had sworn he could, that he would always control him—but Wei Ying was dead. And so, it seemed, all who’d come to kill him. But—was this the wild rampage of an uncontrolled beast, or a conscious revenge, for the murder of a friend?
Lan Wangji remembered a quiet lunch, a year ago. A peaceful lunch, with a sweet, cheerful child wandering back and forth between them, while they bent over too-spicy chicken and bean curd; a lunch where Lan Wangji did not speak, and Wei Ying, of course, did nothing else. Wei Ying’s mercurial mood, slipping from joy to sadness and back, in between bites of rice and spoonfuls of soup; the way he smiled at Lan Wangji; the way he kept looking at Lan Wangji.
There was a treasure chest inside Lan Wangji’s heart, and it held the moments of his life he loved so much that if asked, he would choose to die, and never be reborn, rather than risk forgetting them in this lifetime. This was one of them.
That lunch had ended when one of Wei Ying’s talisman wards had activated, burning to ashes in his hand, and they’d gone racing back together to the Burial Mounds, to subdue and soothe the newly-awakened Wen Qionglin. Wei Ying had ushered Lan Wangji through a stunningly powerful set of wards without even blinking. They must have taken hours to build, although Lan Wangji hadn’t thought about that until much later.
He remembered Wen Qionglin, newly awakened, cherished in the arms of his family, his sister; he remember Wen Qionglin’s gratitude; he remembered Wen Qionglin saying I want to cry.
If Wen Qionglin had a mind that persisted after the death of his—his resurrectionist, Wen Qionglin would have taken Wei Ying back to the Burial Mounds. Lan Wangji had no doubt about it.
Lan Wangji remembered Wei Ying’s face, his face, oh his face, when they’d parted at the end of the path, at the bottom of the mountain. Lan Wangji could not stay; Wei Ying would not leave these people undefended. Therefore, they had parted.
Lan Wangji’s lips parted, as he realized Oh. These people….now they are undefended.
He cast one look back at the massacre of Qiongqi Path, at the gold robes and the white robes, then unsheathed Bichen, and flew in the only direction he could.
***
Wen Qing stared at Lan Wangji, as he ascended the mountain path he had only seen once before. “Oh god, you’re here,” she said, and stopped pacing. “That means he’s really...and you made it up here; that means the wards are broken.” She crumpled a smoky, burnt talisman against her side. Lan Wangji didn’t think she could lose more color from her thin, pallid face, but she did. She sucked in a breath. “We’re...helpless, then. Do they know?” The last part was definitively addressed to him, but he was confused by it.
“Do...they know...what?”
“Do they know that Wei Wuxian is dead!”
“Yes,” he whispered. Surely everyone knew—oh. The Jin, he thought; she meant the Jin. Or anyone who would harm her family. “...Yes.”
Wen Qing put one hand over her eyes, and the other over her heart, rocking back and forth, silently.
“Can I help you?” Lan Wangji asked.
“I don’t know! Can you repair the wards on the Burial Mounds?” Wen Qing said. “Can you stand between my family and everyone who wants to kill them, as Wei Wuxian did?”
Lan Wangji held out Bichen, wordlessly.
Wen Qing rolled her eyes. “What is that supposed to mean?! Why are you here?”
“To do what Wei Ying cannot do, any longer,” Lan Wangji said, feeling the truth of it as he spoke. “To protect the innocent. To do what is right, without regret.”
***
That was how, and why, Lan Wangji was the one who stood at the foot of the mountain, when Wen Qionglin finally returned, cradling Wei Ying’s cold body in his arms, his own robes so caked in dried blood they were stiff with it.
“L-lan-er-gongzi,” Wen Qionglin said, softly. “Please d-don’t....f-f-fight me.”
Whatever Wen Qionglin was, when Wei Ying was dead, it was not…unbound, nor was it wild.
(I can’t cry, the fierce corpse said, sadly, in his memory, surrounded by his family, restored from his spiritual oblivion, looking up at Wei Ying, Wei Ying, who’d brought him back. I want…to cry.)
Lan Wangji shook his head. “I am not your enemy. The wards are broken. Wen-guinang asked me to guard this mountain.”
Wen Qionglin’s corpse-pale face almost—almost—broke into a smile. “Oh well, then. Thank you, Lan-er-gongzi.” He started to pass by him, still carrying Wei Ying in his arms.
“May I please,” Lan Wangji whispered, reaching out to touch Wei Ying’s body, eyes wide, silently terrified of no, “look at him?”
Wen Qionglin didn’t say anything, but he stopped climbing towards the settlement, and angled himself towards Lan Wangji, letting him see the body in his arms.
Wei Ying’s body, rudely studded with arrows; three in his chest, one in his back, another in his thigh. Someone—probably Wen Qionglin—had broken off the shafts, perhaps to make him less awkward to carry. Wei Ying’s still, silent face was streaked with blood. There seemed to be more blood on his face and neck than there was around his actual wounds. Mercifully, his eyes were closed.
“Did he suffer?” The words came out very soft and tender.
Wen Qionglin shook his head. “No. It was fast. I didn’t save him.” Wen Qionglin’s voice was flat, but unnerving; Lan Wangji actually flinched, minutely.
“I didn’t save him,” Wen Qionglin said again. His eyes were dark as obsidian. He turned away, then, and continued to carry Wei Ying’s body back towards the settlement up the mountain.
Lan Wangji closed his own eyes, for a moment, and took up his guard stance, as he’d promised. It would be a long, cold duty, he thought. It would be a good preparation for the long, cold rest of his life.
***
Alone in the Demon-Subduing Cave with her brother and the cold corpse of her closest friend, Wen Qing made no effort to hide her tears. Soon enough, she’d have to make a plan; they’d have to think of a new place to flee, somewhere the Jin would never think to look for them. Soon enough, she’d have to go out there and confirm what her family already must have understood, when A-Ning walked past them, carrying the dead body of their protector—that without the fearsome reputation of the Yiling Patriarch, their fragile, hard-won safety was at an end. She’d have to tell A-Yuan, little A-Yuan, who’d already lost his mother and his father and his sister...
But for a few minutes, Wen Qing could just let herself grieve.
Wen Qing was a doctor. She’d lived through war and multiple prison camps, from the wrong side of a whip. She’d seen countless bodies before, including the bodies of people she’d loved dearly; she should have been used to it, by now. She still hated, with every bit of her, to see Wei Wuxian’s bright, lively face so slack and still. She scrubbed away at the dried blood around his nose and mouth with a wet rag, absently wondering if they would have time to bury him before they fled. They couldn’t bury him here, though, could they? It wouldn’t be fair to him to abandon him here again.
(None of this is fair, a part of her mind reminded her, logical and pedantic and unwelcome. Not one of the ones we left in the Qiongqi camp received proper burial; why are you worrying about this now?).
No, though. Not here, not in the Burial Mounds, with all its resentful energy and restless corpses. If they just left him behind, could his siblings be counted on to bury him properly? But—the Jin would surely get here first, and they had despised and feared Wei Wuxian enough to murder him, to lure him into a deadly ambush by promising him a moment with the family he missed more than he missed food or clean water. Most likely they’d burn him.
Wen Qing hated them.
I will not let them burn him, she thought, very clearly. Wei Wuxian, I will do anything but let them burn you.
She wiped away the last of the blood from his face, and looked at the wounds on his body.
Five arrows. A-Ning had said that the first one had killed Wei Wuxian, but that that hadn’t stopped the rain of arrows from the cliffs above them. The killers had planned their ambush well, with archers positioned on cliffs on both sides of the path, a flat spot with no cover. A-Ning said he’d tried to shield Wei Wuxian with his own body, and caught arrows by the dozen, from the air, with his bare hands—but after the first one, it was already too late.
This is the one that killed you, Wen Qing thought, fingering the arrow sunk in the flesh high up in Wei Wuxian’s chest, her practiced physician’s eye identifying the cause of death without even thinking about it. He likely could have survived the others, if not for that lucky first shot; if A-Ning had managed to bring him back with just those other wounds, she probably could have saved him.
Even that one, she thought, grief and rage simmering in her mind like water in an iron kettle left swinging too long over the fire—even that one. If she’d just been able to get to him before his spiritual consciousness was gone—even from that wound, she might have saved him. Wen Qing was the greatest medical cultivator of her generation, and she knew it. She was sure she could have saved him.