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And my share of time has been nothing
but your name outrunning my ever saying it clearly.
Your face fleeing my ever
kissing it firmly once on the mouth.
—I Loved You Before I Was Born, by Lee Liyoung.
When Lan Zhan is nine years old and not yet Lan Wangji, his uncle sits him and his brother down and relays to them the truth about Qingheng-jun and his wife, Lan Zhan's father and mother. It is a sad, horrible truth. Lan Qiren is not in the habit of lying so he doesn't, and instead tells them every little detail that he remembers, down to the way their father had thrown his arm before his wife and begged for his sect members to have mercy on the new Lan-furen, the shaking of their mother's hands when the Lan elders had pulled her first son from her arms, just before one hundred days could pass.
"She refused to repent for her misdeed," Lan Qiren tells them, like that explains everything. "And your father could not bear the way he had protected someone that had killed one of his own."
Young Lan Xichen takes it about as well as he could have done at the time, quietly requesting to be excused from the room and spending a few hours on his own. Conversely, Lan Zhan ends up back in the gentian field, outside the door that will never open again.
He remembers when he didn't know that, and had sat in repentance and recited every proverb he knew, plucked every song on his small practice qin, and apologized sincerely for every mistake he could have possibly made, hoping that if he performed well enough, his mother would open the door and her laughter would come ringing out.
That's where his brother finds him many hours later, white robes streaked green as he kneels in complete silence. Lan Zhan hadn't been able to look at him immediately after everything he'd heard, but in that moment, he finds the courage to turn his head towards him.
"Zhan-didi, do you think mother liked these flowers outside?" Lan Xichen asks, his voice cracking.
He genuinely considers it for a moment. A-Zhan, my serious boy. Look outside! Won't you smile now, looking at these beautiful flowers? Aren't they beautiful? Come, pick some for your mother, okay? I'll show you how to make them into pressed bookmarks.
Will you come with me? He'd asked then. Then we can both pick the best flowers.
A-Zhan, not today. Would you pick them for me instead?
She wasn't even allowed to pick flowers with her son in the same field that surrounded her. Did she have a choice but to like them, when they were all she could see of the outside world?
"Do you think—" and here he takes a deep breath, as if composing himself before an invisible audience, "Didi, do you think she enjoyed anything about being imprisoned like that?"
Lan Zhan says resolutely, "She enjoyed seeing us. She liked playing the qin, and pressing flowers into bookmarks."
At this, Lan Xichen breaks into a small smile at last, even though his eyes are sad. "Yes, I'm sure she did."
When, after a while, Lan Xichen says, "We should go back from here, hm?", gesturing to the lonely house surrounded by a gentian field, whose door would never open again, Lan Zhan finally understands that love can be cruel. Locking up a flower so that it cannot be plucked by others, but then letting it wilt alone.
Over the years, the gentians bloom, and then wither away, and then bloom.
Unlike their steady pattern, the door to the house never opens, the love that had forced it shut against the world now sealing it forever.
Every Lan disciple, inner and outer, guest or permanent, learns about Lan An, the abbot.
As the story goes, he'd been a faithful devotee of his monastery and had followed every rule carefully. Eating vegetables and cool soup, transcribing important documents, helping the sick and poor, and wanting for nothing. When he'd taken to a worldly life, he was still mainly ascetic as he played his tunes and wandered through Gusu.
After some years, he'd met a woman and suddenly, he'd known longing. Love at first sight, and eventually they'd climbed a mountain, hoping to find a place for themselves among the tall skies, and founded the Lan Sect.
Then, the first ever Lan-furen died, and Lan An returned to his old monastery and stayed there in seclusion. He never saw the building of the Cloud Recesses or the growth of the Lan sect, and had not wanted to either. He left all worldly possessions and attachments behind when his lover died. He'd had children, disciples, and had turned away from them all.
It's how the giggling whispers spread about Lans, with their stuffy mourning robes and three thousand rules, somehow being so staunchly unromantic despite their sect founder.
At first, Lan Wangji had thought bitterly that those rumours were ridiculous. What love? It was selfish. Even though he respects Lan An, he can't fully reconcile with the fact that he'd turned his back on the world like that. He'd had children who, like Lan Wangji and his brother, had moved on without their father because of one man's desires.
That's one of the odd phenomena about family. The patterns that resurface in the following generations.
"Xiongzhang, I want to take someone back to the Cloud Recesses."
The words seem to skim the flowers in the clearing, heavy enough to rustle their petals and whistle in the wind.
"Take someone back to the Cloud Recesses?" Lan Xichen repeats, his voice surprised.
"Take him back," Lan Wangji almost has to push the words out, breathing with a heavier force, "and hide him somewhere."
"Hide him somewhere?"
Like a sinner confessing, he admits, "But he is not willing."
Lan Xichen doesn't say anything immediately. In the short space of a breath, that brief moment, they both think of the same thing: a field of gentian flowers, a door that will never open again, the unheard tune of the qin spilling out over a meadow. Equal parts guilt and resignation settle in Lan Wangji's veins, the weight of a history that yearns to repeat itself.
Before Lan Xichen can reply, they are interrupted. The conversation is never revisited.
Privately, Lan Wangji is glad that they never talk about it more. Just speaking it out loud had been enough to relieve some of the burden on his chest.
Besides, if Lan Xichen had become disappointed with him or resented these desperate desires, then Lan Wangji would surely have been worthy of condemnation.
The shiing of metal being pulled from its sheath seems to echo around them, as the elders all ready themselves to attack. Shiing—shiing—shiing.
Behind Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian’s rattling breaths only grow louder, as if he was disturbed by the murderous aura of the people surrounding him. Lan Wangji has set him up against a small dent in the rock wall of the mountain, barely a cave but certainly an alcove large enough to place a grown man. It is a strategic position, with no chance of an attack from behind and Lan Wangji in the front, but a precarious one still.
“Step aside,” one Lan elder says. “We are not here to harm you, Lan Wangji.”
He stays silent, does not move.
Another digs the tip of their blade into the ground, visibly agitated. “Have you forgotten where you have come from, Hanguang-jun? All the virtues we uphold, that man you seek to protect has violated them all! Demonic cultivation is a disgrace, and it is our duty—your duty to rectify this abomination!”
Still, Lan Wangji watches them with a firm set to his mouth.
Yet another, calmer than the others but still with her sword in hand, “Hanguang-jun, don’t be unreasonable. It is our duty to our clan to bring the Yiling Laozu to task, not a personal grudge. Wei Wuxian has strayed too far from the right path to be saved, even by you. Don’t let his deception cause you to make a mistake with your judgement, Lan Wangji.”
As if completely unperturbed, Lan Wangji’s face remains unmoved and his voice does not sound in defence of himself, or Wei Wuxian. He just braces himself with every muscle in his body tense, as though waiting for an inevitable attack.
Another shiing as someone releases their weapon from its cover, not bothering to hide their anger as they point it towards him. “Don’t do this, Lan Wangji. We will not continue to be merciful to you if you continue this way. We are only negotiating with you out of respect for your character and position as our clan member. You are too young to be disgraced like this!”
Behind him, Wei Wuxian slumps further, his face further scuffed against the hardh rock. In front of him, thirty three Lan elders have their blades in hand as they visibly begin to lose their patience, eyeing the injured man behind him with venomous eyes.
“Is this the virtue you stand for, aiding demonic cultivation? Is this the righteousness you uphold, protecting a villain like that?!”
Ah, Lan Wangji thinks. That generational curse rearing its head again, after laying dormant behind his ribs for all these years. I understand now.
The last shiing rings out; Qingheng-jun's son draws his sword.
“Thirty three of your clan members,” Lan Qiren sputters, pacing madly around the hall. “Thirty three of those you have sworn to fight alongside! Have you finally lost your mind, Wangji? You dared to turn your blade upon thirty three of your clan elders?!”
Each blow of the disciple whip draws hot blood that spills down his back. He’s sweating, pale, shaking. It feels like open fire is being blown over his raw nerves, leaving Lan Wangji in unbearable pain.
For once, his graceful posture is reduced to a haggard, bow-backed slump. At first, Lan Wangji had tried to stay with a straight back and set shoulders, but with each blow, he allowed himself some relief. Releasing the tension in his muscles, bending a little, and then finally, at least stay off the ground. It is only fair to give himself mercy when nobody else will.
Though, “Isn’t this enough?” Lan Xichen might be pleading distantly.
Afterall, it is the disciple whip of all things. The most disobedient, wayward disciple would be given one or two lashes, and in the Cloud Recesses with the righteous Lan cultivators, the disciple whip has not been used for decades. They had brought it out just for his thirty three lashes, dusted it off.
The best of their healers believe he may succumb to his injuries before the last lash falls upon his back. The most optimistic of them forsee a life on permanent, agonizing bed rest.
They later tell Lan Wangji that if it wasn't for his golden core, he would have died before they'd reached his limp form. Truthfully, he does not remember much of the ordeal itself besides the pain.
“You are far too old to be acting so immature,” Lan Qiren seethes—not angry at him, Lan Wangji knows, but seething nonetheless. “Did I raise you to become so irrational? What is the matter with you? Your injuries are too severe—you shouldn’t even be walking, let alone leaving.”
Lan Wangji closes his eyes, sunlight warming his eyelids and nose. The pain of his back feels debilitating beyond comprehension, to the point where the healers that had tended to him were surprised he could even stand without aid. I loved him.
“Wangji, you will respond when I talk!”
I loved him. Had this been in the past, Lan Wangji would have given his uncle his full attention. Presently, he can’t even hum to pretend he cares about what he has to stay. He doesn’t care. I loved him.
“Wangji!”
Lan Wangji, for the first time in weeks, firmly turns his back on his uncle and the gateway, and leaves the Cloud Recesses. The disciples scatter, trying avoid being caught—at least three rules would be broken if they were seen eavesdropping—but he walks away from them and his outraged uncle.
None of them matter anymore. Nothing does. The world could be ablaze, and Lan Wangji wouldn’t find it in him to care about the flames licking his robes.
All he feels these days is his heartbeat, and the deep chasm from where the organ was ripped out of him; but that’s the curious thing, he doesn’t feel like he’s grieving a loss. Lan Wangji is not bereaved, or sad, or angry. Only, he is just achingly present, but simultaneously misplaced. Gait too slow, missing the hilt of Bichen every time he tries to reach for it, glances two degrees inaccurate of where he wants to look—everything just slightly out of place.
The raw sting of his back is of no consequence. Really, it’s the only thing tethering him. Rendering him bedbound, yes; but even the pain of those still open wounds can’t keep him from rising up to see the Burial Mounds.
The world hasn’t been destroyed, but it’s morphed into something that Lan Zhan has no part in. He never really did, but it feels as if the ground itself rejects him with every step, like the rainwater is repelled from him, like fire arches away from his touch, like the wind peels away from him when it blows. Lan Wangji doesn’t belong anywhere, anymore.
Wei Wuxian, dead? Ridiculous. What an inane thought, as if Wei Wuxian could ever die. He is nothing but a survivor and inventor, one who cultivates crops in barren lands and deviates from the well-worn, sun-beaten path in favour of a string bridge that teeters precariously. Wei Wuxian cannot die when he’s the epitome of being alive. Lan Wangji, he—
I loved him.
Maybe this is the penance of loving someone so ardently; you never move on because their presence lingers in the creases of your knuckles, the roots of your hair, the sores on your feet.
Wei Ying, he thinks, almost overcome with the backlog of feelings he’d suppressed the whole time.
Instantly, Lan Wangji nearly buckles under the onslaught, more and less alive than he’s ever felt before, torn from the womb of security and thrust abruptly into grief. Wei Ying.
Unregistering, Lan Wangji takes himself to the Burial Mounds. He’s been here before it fell into such ruins, but it’s hard to remember those times when the darkness that looms over scorched tree bark and screaming resentment is tangible.
Wei Wuxian is not here anymore, he knows reasonably, but he walks up that familiar pathway just like he had done when he was visiting all that time ago—had it really only been a few months? It was a lifetime ago—Wei Wuxian’s lifetime.
If Lan Wangji was a coward, he would say: No. No, he could be here. Really, he could be here. Jang Wanyin and his fickle nature could have been too hasty in pronouncing the great Yiling Laozu dead.
Lan Wangji is ruined with sorrow, but no coward. Would a coward be able to undergo such a treacherous journey whilst so severely injured? Would a coward walk upright with his sacrifice on his back, and move onwards? He is not in the habit of lying, so he will not. The truth is as apparent as the soot that coats the charred soil.
Hypervigilant with his futile search, Lan Wangji notices the small grey cloth snagged on a tree almost immediately.
A sliver of the Wen sect’s clothing, skirting dull red against the darkness of ruined terrain. Then comes a flash of milky white, the skin of a small child, which immediately lowers Lan Wangji’s guard.
“A-Yuan,” he rasps, stunned at the sight of the child nestled in the alcove of the tree trunk, small, haggard, almost-dead. He limps over and leans heavily against the bark as he looks inside, and finds him writhing in pain, skin burning with feverish heat and tears still falling as he squints up at Lan Wangji.
He must have been hidden here for protection—how is this tiny thing still alive? Lan Wangji thought that the entirety of the Burial Mounds had been pillaged and destroyed, and it has been weeks since anyone had dared to check up on its ‘cursed’ ruins. Coupled with the destitute conditions before the attack, A-Yuan should have died long ago, either from the numerous injuries, starvation, dehydration, or just plain neglect.
But he hasn’t. The spark in those eyes rings true in Lan Wangji’s chest, weak and dull, but a spark nonetheless. Wei Wuxian might be gone, but his influence clearly is not.
“Come to Gusu,” he offers the child, whose breath crackles dangerously with every movement he makes.
In response, Wen Yuan is too weak to cry or grasp onto Lan Wangji’s robes. His acquiesce is merely in the way his small frame crumples into Lan Wangji’s open arms, giving up the strain of solitary, prolonged survival.
Suddenly, he is reminded of a dinner with Wei Wuxian, this child cradled on his lap as the other man teased Lan Wangji. Those with milk are mother, those with gold are father, right? Lan Zhan, so stern, so silent, such a typical father.
Suddenly, Wen Yuan is… everything. He is everything to Lan Wangji, his fondness for the child intensified by the knowledge that this is all he has left of the man he loves.
Lan Zhan will not let anything happen to A-Yuan, will take care of what Wei Wuxian no longer can.
“I don’t wanna eat this,” Lan Yuan protests one day, loudly in the dining hall. “It's bad! Worse than radish.”
The other Lan sect members are silent, so the words ring around the hall and draw attention. Each startled look quickly turns away when they’re reminded of rules against eavesdropping, and Lan Xichen’s apologetic stare to everyone who keeps their eyes on the child for longer than a glance.
They’re all still waiting for Lan Xichen to reprimand the child. Afterall, he is the Sect Leader. Even if he’d agreed to take the child as one of the Lans, he would probably still show the unwavering dedication to following the rules as he had done every other time.
To their surprise, all Lan Xichen does is say, “Eat what you do like,” quietly, breaking the rule of talking himself, but still acknowledging the child’s words. Then he nudges Lan Yuan towards other dishes further down the table, trying to show him other options.
“I don’t wanna," Lan Yuan repeats, tears welling up in his eyes at his words being seemingly ignored.
Mild-mannered as ever, Lan Xichen does not lose his temper. He levels Lan Yuan with an uncompromising yet kind gaze until the child pouts and sulks in his chair. Silently, he fishes out a bite of squash from his soup.
The others around them quietly peek at the sight of Lan Xichen reaching over the table to give Lan Yuan a gentle pat on his hand, as if thanking him for behaving. Lan Yuan settles in his seat more properly, a proud smile flourishing on his small, round face.
Everyone discusses among themselves as they spread rumours, since even Gusu Lan teenagers can’t resist gossiping, though they immediately submit themselves for punishment afterwards: Have you seen Zewu-jun’s nephew?
“I want to see you fight,” Lan Yuan pouts as Lan Wangji pets his hair. “Do you think I could fight one day, too? Play the qin like you?
“It is impossible right now.”
Almost the second he says it, he is reminded of Wei Ying looking at him over his shoulder, reciting dutifully, do what you know is impossible, the chiming of his silver bell.w Lan Wangji almost crumples again in a surge of grief, held back only by muscle memory and situational awareness.
“I’m sorry,” Lan Wangji settles upon, hoarse even after drinking every tonic pushed his way. “Lan Yuan, there is nothing to be done about this matter. Give it time, and we will see.”
Finally, A-Yuan seems to collect himself with a deep inhale, and then once more attempts to clamber onto Lan Wangji’s lap. After his punishment, the entirety of Lan Wangji’s skin had cried out with oversensitivity at even the brush of his clothes. He only wears his trousers and bandages, unable to bear even the light cloth of Gusu Lan inner robes. The weight of Lan Yuan hurts with a fierce vengeance, especially when his writhing forces Lan Wangji’s back further into his bed.
He breathes shakily through the searing pain, and then uses one hand to push A-Yuan away from the bed again, despite his frowning.
Before he can launch into another series of questions, this time about why Lan Wangji never hugs him, Lan Xichen enters. With a pleasant smile as always, but his eyes downcast, as they have come to be around Lan Wangji.
It’s odd, Lan Wangji finds. He can’t decide if he’s resentful of his brother for letting all this happen, casting aside his asks for help for those at the Burial Mounds, and then standing by for the punishment when he had the ability to call it off, no matter how unfair that would have been, and then for his initial reluctance to keep Wen Yuan as a Lan.
Yet at the same time, he understands why his brother had done those things. As a Sect Leader, the political implications of helping the remnants of a clan that had killed thousands and set the land ablaze would have been detrimental to the entire Gusu Lan clan. Not to mention, Lan Xichen himself had suffered so much at the hands of the Qishan Wen, so the idea of helping those who had any connection to them had discomforted him. He was also keen upon upholding the values of righteous cultivation, so aiding the demonic cultivator Wei Wuxian was against his own principles.
If Lan Wangji is Qingheng-jun's son, then Lan Xichen is definitely Lan Qiren's nephew.
In response to his brother’s hushed, hesitant greeting, Lan Wangji looks away silently.
One day, it hits Lan Wangji. He's laying on his side as he usually is these days and realizes. Lan Wangji is in seclusion. Lan Wangji has left behind the disciples under his care and the boy he'd brought into the sect. Lan Wangji's beloved has died.
A true Gusu Lan cultivator, following in the exact footsteps of his sect's founder. If Lan Wangji was a less composed man, he might have laughed.
In the end, he finds he still agrees with his previous thoughts. Lan An had been selfish in his love, and so too has Lan Wangji. He does find that he no longer disapproves of him any longer, commiserates instead.
It’s not that he hadn’t tried to change fate. How many times had Lan Wangji offered his home as a sanctuary? Come to Gusu, he’d begged, because there was nobody he trusted to keep Wei Wuxian safe except for himself. Lan Wangji could have been the fortress to guard the one he loved, the ribs to guard that beating heart.
No, Wei Wuxian had said, breaking free of the bone cage, slipping through a crack in the wall. He was never one to be contained, like the sun beaming through the thick haze of clouds. Wei Wuxian could not be locked down, did not settle, did not need to be coddled and protected. Instead, Wei Wuxian stood on his own in front of the remnants of the Wen sect and against the world and Lan Wangji. I’m sorry, but I won’t go. I will never be a prisoner for your ‘righteousness’, Hanguang-jun.
Looking back now, Lan Wangji should have begged Wei Wuxian to come with him. He should have dragged Wei Wuxian kicking and screaming and clawing and biting back to the Jingshi, locked him up in there with the Wen people he wanted to take care of so badly, and stood outside the doors to fend off anyone who came. He should have stood outside of the Burial Mounds and razed the cultivation world to dust, should have thrown Jiang Cheng into an abyss before he could gather an army that came for Wei Wuxian—Lan Wangji should have begged.
But that's the thing. Qingheng-jun and his generational curses had struck, but Wei Wuxian was not that lonely Lan-furen. Whilst Lan Wangji might have tripped over his father's sword and suffered the impulse to lock away a flower, Wei Wuxian had refused to wilt in a cage. He'd stepped out, the way Lan Wangji's mother never could have done, and kept stepping until he died far away from where Lan Wangji could water and nourish the soil.
They declare it in the streets like nothing is amiss about the statement. As if it’s not a person they’re talking about, a personality and a history, but instead some kind of beast that has been bothering local farmers and causing famine.
Lan Wangji has had time to come to terms with the reality of everything, especially after having personally scoured the remains of the Burial Mounds. Jiang Wanyin has confirmed it. Dozens of others have confirmed it. Lan Wangji himself has confirmed it with his own eyes, and then aloud to a gathering of anticipatory Gusu Lan cultivators.
Wei Ying is… He—
Wei Wuxian is—
Wei Ying is—
“The Fearsome Yiling Laozu is dead!”
But what he hadn’t expected was that when everyone feared him and flattered him, Lan Wangji scolded him right in his face; when everyone spurned him and loathed him, Lan Wangji stood by his side.
—Wei Wuxian, of Lan Wangji—Guile.