Chapter Text
Lan Wangji found out about the siege after it had happened, when injured Lan disciples had come back to Cloud Recesses, when they had needed the healers’ attention for their injuries - drawing the healers away from Lan Wangji and his injuries.
He had been secluded inside the Jingshi, only Lan Xichen, Lan Qiren, and Lan healer assigned to him were permitted entry. Lan Chang had missed his daily round with Lan Wangji that morning - Lan Xichen arriving in his stead. As Heirs to the Lan Clan, both brothers had been carefully taught things that would be important for them, as well as Lan Qiren insisting that they both possess medical competency. They would never be healers in their own right, but when it came to treating wounds and preventing illness, they were more skilled than their peers.
Lan Xichen walked into the Jingshi, a basket with medical supplies in his arms.
Lan Wangji couldn’t ease the sense of dread, of wrongness , that had pooled in his gut the afternoon prior, and seeing his brother only exacerbated it.
His brother slowly approached him, his calloused fingertips lightly dragging across his arm before he kneeled on the floor at the head of the bed - where Lan Wangji’s head was positioned as he laid on his stomach.
“Wangji,” Lan Xichen paused, a hand reaching forward and tucking a stray strand of hair behind his younger brother’s ear, “The sects laid siege to the Burial Mounds yesterday.”
Lan Wangji felt his heart stop at his brother’s soft words, as if he was convinced that saying what had happened in a soft, kind tone would take away from what they had done. Lan Xichen was telling him that the sects, the cultivation world, had killed everyone inside the Burial Mounds.
Of course they were all dead, why else would Lan Xichen be telling him? Why else would his brother admit to killing innocents, non-cultivators, women and elderly and a child who only wanted to live without a target on their head for the name they bore.
A sob escaped him as his head fell to the bed, burying his face in the pillow below him.
The Wens weren’t the only ones dead, Lan Wangji knew. That was the dread he had felt.
The wrongness that he had felt was the shift within the world now that Wei Ying was no longer in it.
Anger, resentment, fury, so much fury raged within him as his tears fell onto the pillow below him, creating two large wet spots.
He felt Lan Xichen’s hand slowly raking through his hair, speaking soft sounds as if trying to console a small child.
It felt sickening, condescending.
Lan Wangji didn’t know how the sects could’ve done it, how they could have entered into the Burial Mounds and done what they did when they saw the inhabitants. When the only army they saw were the elderly and women, likely wielding gardening supplies as weapons.
It wasn’t even a fair fight.
Lan Wangji could only imagine what Wei Ying had been feeling, seeing all the people he had been living with, protecting, for the past two years be cut down, slaughtered in front of him. Had Wei Ying seen who had killed A-Yuan? Were their bodies just laying on the dirty ground? Had the sects desecrated their bodies? Was Wei Ying’s body being carried around as a trophy of their conquest?
No, Lan Wangji wouldn’t let the sects get away with disrespecting their bodies.
He pushed his arms up, lifting his chest up, wincing as the motion opened the barely healed whip scars covering his entire back. The physical pain he felt was no match for the pain in his heart, the pain at imagining A-Yuan’s small body in a heap in a radish patch, his face pushed into the dirt by someone who thought they were justified in killing a child who had been born at the end of the war, whose parents had likely been killed during the war by the very sects that had come to finish them off.
No one residing in the Burial Mounds was responsible for Wen Ruohan’s actions. They were not Wen Ruohan, they had not participated in the war, they had not been among the Wen who burned Cloud Recesses, massacred Lotus Pier, attacked the Unclean Realm.
Wei Ying had been right, now that the Wen Sect was no more, the Jin Sect was vying for their chance to fill in the power vacuum - to be the next Clan in power, to be the new Wen Sect.
Lan Wangji felt Lan Xichen’s hands on his shoulders, trying to softly push him back onto the bed.
He threw his arms off of him, pushing himself up to his feet and walking to the opposite side of the room - Bichen summoned to his hand, pointed at Lan-Zongzhu.
“Wangji-”
“How dare you…” Lan Wangji hissed out, feeling hot blood slowly ooze down his back, Bichen slightly shaking in his grasp.
“They were innocents! Not a single one of them participated in the war! What right do you have to decide that their lives were yours to take? Who made you a god capable of determining life and death!” He shouted, hot tears running down his face as Lan Xichen stared at him in absolute shock.
“Wangji! They were stolen from a labor camp destined for war criminals !” Lan Xichen attempted to plead with him as he rose to his feet. “I do not know what Wei Wuxian told you about them, but they were certainly not-”
“I saw them Lan-Zongzhu! I met the very people you and your so-called righteous Sect Leaders slaughtered!” Lan Wangji shouted, his voice practically shaking the Jingshi’s walls, no doubt anyone near the house would be able to hear Lan Wangji’s desperate shouts.
“I saw their small village! Their growing crop fields! The areas designated for shared meals, the spaces where clothes were washed, food was cooked! Where their dead were buried, where their memorial tablets and offerings resided!” His voice broke as he continued.
“I saw the so-called war criminals you seem to think they were! I saw elderly men and women, women who had lost their husbands and sons in the war, grandparents who had to outlive their children, their grandchildren! A child who never got to know his parents because they were likely killed in the same war that deemed all those bearing the name Wen deserved death!” Lan Wangji took a deep breath. “Wei Ying was protecting innocent victims of the war! They should have never been placed in a situation where the only way Wei Ying could keep them alive was to break them out!”
His chest was huffing, his back burning, as he reached for the robes that were hanging over the privacy screen that surrounded the room, hastily pulling them on before lightly tying his robes securely around his waist. Bichen felt heavy in his hand, his spiritual energy focusing on his back, directing any available strength to the healing of the thirty three open discipline whip wounds that criss crossed Lan Wangji’s back.
He slowly walked backwards towards the door, his eyes never leaving Lan-Zongzhu, lest he try to subdue Lan Wangji the moment his back was turned. Lan Xichen stood rooted in his spot at the head of his bed, a hand reaching out towards him.
“Wangji…what…where are you going? You’re in no state to be freely moving.”
“And who put me in this state?” He spat back, watching Lan Xichen flinch. “Where I am going is of no concern to you, what I do from this moment on is of no concern to you. I want nothing to do with you or any members of the Lan Clan. I do not want to see you, speak with you, or be within the same room as you.” Lan Wangji’s hands were in fists as his heel hit the door.
“If I return, you will abide by my wishes, or you will never see me again.”
Lan Wangji reached back and pushed the Jingshi’s door open, closing it behind him as Lan Xichen stood in shock, barely able to move or run after him.
The flight was rough, he had to take multiple stops, stopping at rivers and attempting to wash the constantly weeping blood off of his back and his robes. Those he passed eyed his bloody robes with concern, multiple people had offered to treat him, told him that he needed to stop moving with an injury that severe. Likely, no one had recognized him without the Lan Clan forehead ribbon adorning his face - he had taken it off the moment he left the Jingshi, wrapping it around his wrist. The qiankun pouch with sedatives and pain medication felt heavy as it hung at his waist. Lan Wangji replenished his medication when the time called for - slightly upping the dose when he was due to fly.
He arrived at the Burial Mounds four days after the siege, three days after Lan-Zongzhu had notified him of the siege.
Lan Wangji slowly made his way up the mountains to the Wen’s settlement, the small village that they had created. Tears fell down his face as he saw buildings in ruin, charred remains of what he knew were houses, homes, as they rested in piles among the dry, dirt ground. The scent of blood was thick in the air as he drew closer towards the cave he knew Wei Ying had made his home - and the smell wasn’t growing because of the blood pool. A sob escaped him as he saw the bodies of the Wens he had barely gotten the chance to know, the people Wei Ying had been living with for the past two years, piled inside the blood pool. Their bodies were submerged within the pool, bashed in skulls and exposed bones peaking out of the red water.
His eyes darted around the room, at the spaces he knew Wei Ying had put his bed, his work bench, a table filled with talisman designs - no longer seeing any of them, nor their burned remains.
They took them. Lan Wangji thought, anger filling his chest as he thought of the so-called Great Sects laying siege to a village of elderly men and women, slaughtering them, and then daring to take the things Wei Ying had been working on as some type of trophy. They abhorred his ghostly cultivation, but the second it was available to them, they took it .
A cough caught his attention, Lan Wangji’s head snapping towards a back corner of the Demon Slaughtering Cave.
Slowly, he approached where the noise had come from, a hand on Bichen’s hilt.
Lan Wangji rounded a tall pillar, his eyes spotting a talisman on the side of the rock. A barrier seemed to ripple and collapse as he stepped into its warded area, the talisman burning up as the ward disappeared.
The Lan let out a gasp, dropping Bichen as he fell to his knees, his hands reaching out towards the small, shivering body in front of him, tears pricking his eyes.
A-Yuan’s gray eyes opened, widening as they met Lan Wangji’s golden ones.
“A-Yuan was good Rich-gege, I hid where Xian-gege said to, he said he knew you’d find me.” he softly spoke, resting his warm head on Lan Wangji’s shoulder as the Lan picked him up, settling the four year old in his arms.
On the ground next to A-Yuan was a presumably empty qiankun pouch, likely containing food for the child to eat as he hid. There were the few toys Lan Wangji had bought him that afternoon in Yiling, a small pile of talismans and notebooks all with signs of Wei Ying’s handwriting.
But the largest shock, the one thing that almost brought Lan Wangji to tears, was Chenqing.
He had heard, in his journey to the Burial Mounds, of how the Jin Sect was flaunting the inventions and talismans they had taken during the “conquest of the Burial Mounds,” of how Jin Guangshan had taken pride in his sect’s absorption of Wei Wuxian’s sword Suibian as Jiang Wanyin had taken Chenqing.
But Chenqing currently laid at his feet, black wisps of resentment swirling around his hand as he reached for her.
Lan Wangji suspected he had been the only one close enough to recognize Chenqing and all her details, the bite marks at the end from A-Yuan, a small tooth-shaped dent near the mouthpiece from when Wei Ying had gotten thrown back during the final battle of the Sunshot Campaign.
Tears fell down his face as he clutched the flute in his hands, thinking about how if Chenqing was here , if Chenqing was protecting A-Yuan, that meant Wei Ying had made a decoy to fight with during the siege, one that the sects had mistaken as the real dizi.
One Jiang Wanyin had taken as a trophy .
Lan Wangji could almost feel what felt like sadness emanating from the dizi as he knelt on the ground. Black wisps of smoke trailed up his arm, protectively coiling around himself and A-Yuan. He could feel it slightly prodding at his back, likely able to sense the blood that stained his robes and likely his very skin, before it shifted into from wisps to a blanket of resentment, coating the entirety of his back, forcing itself into his skin.
There was pain, but only for a moment.
When Lan Wangji opened his eyes, not realizing that he had closed them, he was lying on the stone floor, A-Yuan tucked into his neck.
The stiffness that had been coating his back, the sticky red blood feeling that he hadn’t quiet yet gotten used to, was gone.
Entirely gone.
Lan Wangji sat up with ease, carefully pulling A-Yuan away from his neck and laying the child across his lap.
He looked at Chenqing as she lay on the ground a few feet away from him before slowly leaning forward and picking her up, clutching her in both his hands.
There was a resonance, a sense of welcoming, of happiness that Lan Wangji had picked her up. For whatever reasons, Chenqing had helped him, had healed him, and she felt proud of her work. A tear fell down his face as the feeling that coursed through his veins felt so much like Wei Ying.
Lan Wangji laid Chenqing in his lap as he turned to A-Yuan, resting a hand against his forehead, noticing that the child’s slight fever had completely disappeared. Hanguang-jun sighed, sending a small stream of spiritual energy into A-Yuan, knowing that the boy likely had been inside the cave alone since the siege.
He had recognized Lan Wangji when he arrived, and he was taking that as the best possible sign that if A-Yuan had fallen ill, he had not fallen delirious, fallen into such a horrible sickness that his memories had left him.
Lan Wangji sat with A-Yuan in his lap likely for hours, until the child shifted and opened his eyes, smiling at Lan Wangji as he sat up - before his smile fell, his hands reaching and tightly grasping the white robes in front of him.
“Rich-gege?” he whispered, tears already pooling in his eyes. “They’re all gone? Xian-gege said that if you found me, that it meant everyone was gone .”
Lan Wangji tightly closed his eyes, feeling the emphasis on the word ‘gone’ as A-Yuan fell into his chest, quietly sobbing into his robes. He wrapped his arms around the boy, declaring in his mind that nothing would ever dare to harm him from this moment on.
“Xian-gege,” his voice broke, “he was right to tell you I would find you, A-Yuan. Xian-gege wanted to make sure you stayed safe. Now that you are with me, I will always keep you safe.” he whispered into A-Yuan’s hair, a tear falling down his face as A-Yuan’s sobs continued.
Eventually, A-Yuan was able to calm down and show Lan Wangji the things that he had with him.
“Popo gave me this pouch, said it had everything I would need in it. There’s food and water and Xian-gege’s notes,” he giggled, “I’m not allowed to read them, but you are Rich-gege.”
Lan Wangji smiled, nodding as A-Yuan handed him the things that had fallen out of the qiankun pouch and were on the rock floor, placing them back into the bag.
“Xian-gege gave me Chenqing when he hid me here. He said she would keep me safe when the bad men came.” Lan Wangji had already placed Chenqing into his sleeve, wanting to keep the dizi safe in the event that someone tried to steal from them.
He hadn’t yet decided where they would go after leaving the Burial Mounds, but he knew they could not remain there for long. Likely, if they were not already on their way, Lan-Zongzhu and members of the Lan Sect were already headed towards the Burial Mounds.
Lan Wangji felt conflicted on where to go. All the major sects had participated in the siege, there was no place he wanted to be where someone had partook in the slaughtering of the Wens and Wei Ying. He had his sword, a qiankun pouch that had a decent amount of money in it as well as Wangji, his guqin. As he was leaving the Jingshi, he had unknowingly grabbed the robes that contained them within their sleeves.
Lan Wangji stood, A-Yuan perched on his hip, hiding his face in Lan Wangji’s robes as he was instructed to, as the pair made their war out of the Demon Slaughtering Cave. The sunlight was minimal within the Burial Mounds, but Lan Wangji’s eyes squinted as he stepped outside the cave.
He stood at the entrance to the cave, overlooking the settlement, before his eyes landed on a thin piece of red fabric to his right, lying within a small pool of blood.
Lan Wangji would recognize that ribbon anywhere.
He slowly walked towards the ribbon, tears welling in his eyes as he imagined that this spot had to have been where Wei Ying had died - he had heard from traveling merchants of what happened to Wei Ying, how his corpses seemed to have turned on him, leaving nothing behind. Bending down to pick up the ribbon, Lan Wangji failed to suppress the sob welling in his chest.
“It’s going to be okay, Rich-gege. Xian-gege said that when someone is gone that they’re in a happier place, that where they went is safe and full of good food.” A-Yuan softly spoke, his face tucked in Lan Wangji’s neck.
Lan Wangji wrapped Wei Ying’s ribbon around his wrist, the same one his ribbon was wrapped around, before taking a deep breath and finally walking down the Burial Mounds.
“A-Yuan, you may call me baba if you wish.” He paused, eyes scanning the pathway as the pair exited the base of the Burial Mounds, the town of Yiling barely within his sight. “I do not know where we will go now, but I will always be with you. You do not need to hide now, you may look around if you wish.”
A-Yuan’s head slowly peaked out from Lan Wangji’s chest, his eyes meeting his.
“You mean it?”
“Of course. Your Xian-gege would not have trusted me to find you if I were not being honest.” A-Yuan smiled.
“Okay Baba, wherever you want to go, let’s go!”
⋆｡°✩𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊✩°｡⋆
“Hanguang-jun! Hanguang-jun, wait!” A voice shouted at him as he and A-Yuan walked out of the forest surrounding the Burial Mounds - Lan Wangji’s free hand immediately unsheathing his sword and pointing in the direction of the voice.
From behind a tree, a woman and man emerged - the man attempting to hide his presence behind the woman. The pair wore robes not belonging to any clan Lan Wangji knew, and only the woman had a sheathed sword hanging off her waist.
Lan Wangji felt A-Yuan’s hands tightening in his robes as the pair approached, stopping a few paces away. Bichen was sheathed as recognition crossed Lan Wangji’s face.
“Luo Qingyang.” he spoke, his eyes wide as she approached, bowing before him.
“I apologize for startling you. Myself and my husband have been waiting for you to reappear - I saw you arrive and enter into the Burial Mounds.” She looked back at her husband. “I intended on doing what you had, but when I saw you arrive I stood back, intending on speaking with you once you returned.” Luo Qingyang’s eyes met A-Yuan’s, and she couldn’t hold back the gasp she let out.
“Do you have somewhere we could settle for the night?” Lan Wangji spoke, watching as Luo Qingyang’s eyes never left A-Yuan, her hands fisted at her sides. Her husband stepped forward in her stupor.
“This one is He Zhi, Hanguang-jun,” he rose from his bow, “While I myself am not a cultivator, I do join my wife on nighthunts when possible. We have been traveling around the cultivation world for a few months, making our way here the moment we found out about the siege. We have a room in an inn not too far from here, in Yiling, if you both would like to join us.”
A shichen later, A-Yuan was in new robes, had a stomach full of food, and was asleep on the bed behind a privacy screen.
Lan Wangji sat at the table with Luo Qingyang and her husband. The three sat in silence, eating the remnants of their meals.
Luo Qingyang sat her tea cup down - with a noticeable amount of force.
“Hanguang-jun, please tell me you just stumbled across A-Yuan roaming the Burial Mounds.” A tear fell down her face as she looked across the table at him. “Please don’t tell me he was among the Wen Wei Wuxian took from the camp.”
Lan Wangji downed the rest of his tea.
“A-Yuan is a cousin of Wen Qing and Wen Qionglin, belonging to the Dafan branch of the Wen Clan. It was his family that Wei Ying rescued from Qiongqi Pass and sheltered within the Burial Mounds.” He paused, a hand fisted in his lap. “The only cultivators within the Burial Mounds were Wei Ying, Wen Qing, and Wen Qionglin, that I am certain of. The rest were elderly and women and not a single person among them participated in the war at any capacity.” Lan Wangji’s eyes looked towards the privacy screen as he took a deep breath.
“I was only notified of the siege four days ago. I left as soon as Lan-Zongzhu told me, despite my injuries at the time.” Luo Qingyang and He Zhi looked at him with wide eyes at the mention of any injuries, he could see both their eyes darting around his person, looking for wounds that they had somehow missed.
“Will you both swear to not share any information I speak of?”
“Hanguang-jun, I’ve long left those among the clans, I would have no one to tell even if I wished to.” Luo Qingyang smiled at him. “You and Wei Wuxian are the only among this world who I would ever implicitly trust no matter what, I would never wish to betray your confidence.” She glanced towards her husband, watching as he nodded.
“I should be offended that you trust two other men more than me, but I know both yours and Wei Wuxian’s character, Hanguang-jun. If my wife says you are righteous men, then I will believe her.” He Zhi spoke, a shy smile on his face.
Lan Wangji then began to carefully explain how he had taken Wei Wuxian away from the clans after the Pledge Conference, how his clan had found him and Wei Ying sheltered in a cave, how he had fought every single elder who brandished a weapon in their direction. Luo Qingyang grew more and more angered as Lan Wangji then explained how his clan had taken him back to Cloud Recesses and whipped him once for every elder injured, how his injuries had left him practically immobile, how Lan Xichen had told him about the siege.
He Zhi had an arm wrapped around his wife, a hand tightly clutched in hers as Lan Wangji explained the condition he found the Burial Mounds in - what they had looked like before the sects invaded and destroyed the small community within.
He described finding A-Yuan hidden, how Chenqing had been with him - pulling the black dizi out of his sleeve and placing it onto his lap.
Lan Wangji carefully explained, to the best of his capability, of resentment surrounding him and coating his back, of waking up on the floor of the Demon Subdue Cave without a single ounce of pain in his back, how the resentment - Chenqing in particular - had somehow healed his injuries. He was unsure if scars remained or if his back was once more bare.
“Hanguang-jun…” He Zhi started, “will the Lan Clan be searching for you? Will there be issue with you returning to Cloud Recesses with a child that some will no doubt know is a Wen?” Luo Qingyang harshly turned towards her husband, about to tell him off for asking such a thing.
“I have explicitly told Lan-Zongzhu that I wish to have no association with anyone among the Lan Clan, that my actions do not concern them, that I do not wish to see or speak to anyone in the Lan Clan. Under no specific conditions did I tell Lan-Zongzhu that I would be returning to Cloud Recesses.”
Luo Qingyang moved to slam her hand against the table, her hand hovering just above making impact as a soft snore came from the other side of the room, forcing her to pause and collect herself.
“You are more than welcome to join us, Hanguang-jun, no matter where we go. We have found a location where we wish to build a home just on the border of Qinghe and former Qishan territory.” She took a deep breath. “It is unacceptable for the Lan Clan to have punished you to the extent they had, but I am glad to know that Chenqing has managed to heal your injuries. It does not surprise me that a spiritual weapon belonging to Wei Wuxian would reach out to you in such a way.” A small laugh escaped her as she looked across the table at Lan Wangji, smiling as he nodded.
“Chenqing’s energy feels very much like Wei Ying. I doubt anyone other than myself would have been able to handle her.” A hand slowly ran over the dizi in his lap. “I would imagine that Jiang Wanyin was never close enough to know the fine details of Chenqing, as he is said to have taken her as a trophy.”
Luo Qingyang leaned her head on He Zhi’s shoulder, a soft smile on her face as she watched Lan Wangji stare down at the dizi in his lap.
“No one was as close to Wei Wuxian as you, Hanguang-jun. Do not feel guilt for what happened to him. I am certain that he knew you would not have let the siege take place if you were in any condition to stop it.” Lan Wangji’s eyes closed, hands tightening around Chenqing. “You both possess such a strong will, a desire for absolute justice no matter of social or political ramifications. It is something that the great clans lack and are suffering from. No one would jump in front of a brand for someone they don’t know, would withstand thirty three lashes from a discipline whip, would fight their own clan for what they believed was right .”
Luo Qingyang walked around the table and knelt down next to Lan Wangji, softly resting a hand on his shoulder as a tear fell down his face.
“Wei Wuxian’s drive, his need to protect those worth protecting, no matter what it cost him, his capability to help anyone he could, to take on the pain of others just so they wouldn’t be the one suffering, his righteousness, his sense of justice, are all things that live on within you Lan Wangji. They are qualities the both of you share to such an extent that it wouldn’t surprise me if you both have always existed in tandem in every lifetime. Wei Wuxian lives within you , Hanguang-jun, his legacy is intertwined with yours, has always been tied to you.” She slowly reached up and wiped away the tears that were now flowing down Lan Wangji’s face.
“A-Yuan will be raised knowing Wei Wuxian’s heart, his soul, everything that Wei Wuxian and the Wens would have wanted. Wei Wuxian told A-Yuan that you would come for him, that you would find him. He knew that, despite the siege, you would not be among those coming to kill, that the moment you found out, you would make your way back to the Burial Mounds, that you would find A-Yuan and take him in as your own.” Lan Wangji finally let out a sob.
“He knew that you would come, that A-Yuan would be cared for in his absence. Wei Wuxian faced the clans besieging him with confidence that you were not among them, that your righteousness would have never allowed for such an event to take place. Why else would he have hidden A-Yuan? Told him that you specifically would come for him?”
A hand covered Lan Wangji’s mouth as sobs spilled out of him, his body hunching forward as it shook. Luo Qingyang wrapped her arms around him, letting him cry his heart out, not telling him that he was letting his emotions control him, that he was grieving in excess, that he needed to stop crying because it wasn’t worth the tears. She simply ran a hand over his hair and held him as he cried.