Chapter Text
The heavens rain lightning down with prejudice, divine judgment against those that inhabit the burial mounds.
A sword gleam as white and cold as frost meets each countering strike, and the low notes of a guqin rattle the earth. Each strum glitters with electric light, pale and narrow fingers plucking expert chords, a resounding song punctuated with the spattering of blood. Twisted silk rends through flesh, droplets clinging to the dark stain of Wangji’s qingtong grain. The sky splits, the heavens churn, and the clouds are illuminated by clashing sparks.
The static in the air does not lift a strand of the lone defender’s hair out of place, fine ink-colored locks swept back and tucked neatly beneath a cloud-embroidered ribbon. The white fabric curls, thrashing against the winds like a snake rearing back to strike, and eyes the color of glass pierce those who dare come too close. Ash and crimson do not stain the fine edges of his robes, but rather cling as though in support of a savior, as though each flash of his sword will be sharpened by their malice. His expression is cut of jade, neither resentful nor burdened by sorrow; only determination remains there, the glowing resolve of a man unwilling to yield and unable to advance.
The most beloved disciple of Gusu Lan stands against thirty-three of his own elders, and wets his blade with their blood.
“Lan Wangji!” A familiar voice calls. “Stop this madness! Is it worth losing your life?!”
Even if they say so, the answer on the man’s face is clear. Despite the thick sanguine that drips from the edge of his guqin, and despite the paleness that has begun to creep into his skin from exhaustion, he will not move. His spread palm slides over seven strings, and thrusts those close enough to feel its vibrations far from his person, sprawling into the dirt. Sword clashes with sword, and a bolt of blue rips through the air, slicing the atmosphere and falling toward that single cultivator.
Get lost, that once-mirthful voice had croaked, quiet and torn from wailing. Get fucking lost.
Over and over again, dripping with venom, Hanguang-jun had been told to leave this place. Those bloodshot eyes, when he had first seen them, had once glittered with mischief scrunched against a wide, toothy smile. Those lifeless eyes, which had gathered dark shadows over the past years as the world turned away from them, once looked at him with a warmth that bled through his core, dispersing heat from his toes to his ears. Those heartbroken eyes, which had just hours ago witnessed the death of a loved one so dear in his hands, had once glanced up at him through thick, dark lashes as a sing-song voice teased, “I can teach you, Lan Zhan.” Eyes that had once been so full of delight when he’d picked up a piece of fresh greens and offered it to little wet-nosed rabbits as they played in the ink on his desk.
There was nothing left in those dark eyes, hollow and clouded by grief and suffering.
“I,”
Lan Wangji breathes as he lifts his wet palm, cut to ribbons.
“Will not,”
He barks firmly, his voice catching thick in his dry throat.
“Leave him!”
He brings down his fingers, and the zhang of his guqin tears apart light and sound as it falls squarely around him, a dragon devouring prey. Split from the inside out, no mortal can remain standing.
Thirty-three elders fall to their knees, and Wangji’s song pierces the heavens themselves.
Tendrils of light crackle along the ground, and crimson drips heavy onto stone and ash. For a long moment, Hanguang-jun heaves for breath, looking down upon the Gusu Lan elders with the eyes of a beast. The cloud cover broken, a full and magnificent moon illuminates dark liquid which paints heavy rivers along the corners of his chin and drips onto his robes. His silhouette falls like the shadow of a towering beast, and as he coughs the edge of the guqin falls to catch his weight. He leans heavily into it, refusing to bend his trembling knees, and Bichen falls into the dust with a discordant clang.
The Yiling Laozu is forgotten.
That night, Lan Wangji is taken back to the Cloud Recesses, and whipped thirty-three times.
He does not cry out, nor does he fight back.
Even as his blood paints the floor, he keeps his spine straight, and stares forward with those dragon’s eyes, thinking only of a single thing:
Wei Ying is safe.
On the thirty-third stroke, with his back torn to ribbons and his hands still dripping, with his breaths catching in his throat and iron on his lips and cheeks, he can still only repeat to himself that solitary phrase.
On the thirty-third stroke, thunder rolls despite a clear sky. A bell tolls as though possessed. His chin tips upward, and his stoic gaze trains on the ceiling.
On the thirty-third stroke, a disciple of Gusu Lan ascends to heaven.