Red Lotus and Blue Gentian

by draechaeli

Summary:

There are some universal truths in the Jianghu: one, the sky is blue; two, the grass is green; three, bunnies are soft; four, Wei WuXian will always stand on the side of justice; and five, Lan WangJi will never lie. Since the Flower Banquet the last two had been forgotten.

Excitement about being able to invite Wei WuXian to Jin RuLan’s one month celebration, has Jin ZiXuan and Jiang YanLi eager to write the invite. A discussion on who should deliver the invitation reminds those present of what they had forgotten. For if four and five are true then ‘the Jins lied’ must also be true.

A series of conversations and events from realisation to resolution.

Notes:

• For toasterness.

Chapter 1: Jiang YanLi

Summary:

Jiang YanLi is excited that she is able to invite Wei WuXian to Jin RuLan’s one month celebration. She excitedly gets her husband to write the invite, when the discussion of who is going to deliver the message comes up and spirals out from there.

Notes:

This is my fic for Toasterness for the FWW Valentine's Exchange! Toast wanted brotherly reconciliation, WangXian getting together, and a happy ending. Also, some XiCheng but it could only fit in some pre-slash for them in this fic. I hope Toast and everyone else enjoys this Valentine’s Fic!

The lovely tabulaxrasa beta’d for me thanks bunches!

I re-read Jiang Cheng’s visit to the Burial Mounds and LWJ’s as well where I realised it said that there were about a dozen cultivators in the Burial Mounds. I was also looking up the bit where WWX makes the Stygian Tiger Seal but couldn’t find it. I lucked out since I had been re-reading Birthday Party by waffles_4_breakfast in chapter 12 the Author’s Note actually had a bunch of quotes from the book that I was looking for to help me write this. And then Waffles helped me find the relevant Stygian Tiger Seal bit that I couldn’t find. So, thanks to Waffles too!

Happy Reading!

There was a break in the annual Discussion Conference and Jiang Cheng was visiting with his sister and her husband. Jiang YanLi was glowing, and it had to do with more than the slight bump to her belly: Jin GuangShan had agreed that Wei WuXian could be invited to Jin RuLan’s one month celebration.

In her excitement at the prospect, she wanted to write the invitation immediately. During the previous Discussion Conference, Jiang Cheng had gone to the Burial Mounds, and while he reported that there appeared to be no Wen army or an army of the dead, the end result had been an ‘official’ split between Wei WuXian and YunmengJiang. Apparently, Lan WangJi had visited the Burial Mounds only about a week before Jiang YanLi and Jin ZiXuan’s wedding and had waited to inform the rest of the sects as he too had found nothing untoward, and he hadn’t wanted it to be brought up at a wedding. Judging by the looks on Lan QiRen and Lan XiChen’s faces they hadn’t wanted it brought up at all.

But Jiang YanLi was so glad that HanGuang-Jun had brought it up, since it was agreed that if Wei WuXian did nothing heretical between the conference and the birth then he could go to the one month celebration. She leaned over Jin ZiXuan’s shoulder and watched as his beautiful calligraphy formed on the page inviting Wei WuXian to Koi Tower to celebrate with them. 

‟ I can’t wait to bring it to him,” squealed Jiang YanLi.

‟ No!” both Jin ZiXuan and Jiang Cheng protested.

Jiang YanLi’s features hardened into a look that meant that she was not playing around, and everyone better listen.

Before she could speak, Jiang Cheng explained his position. ‟ A-Jie, you can’t; remember the fetid stench of Yiling? A miasma of resentment clings to the city like a putrid mist, and we hadn’t even gone into the Burial Mounds! That can’t be good for the baby.”

‟ You can’t go to Yiling.”agreed Jin ZiXuan. “The ambient resentment is just too high; it could hurt you, the baby, or both.”

After a moment’s consideration, Jiang YanLi nodded. ‟ You’ll go for me, won’t you A-Xuan?”

The ‘of course’ was right on Jin ZiXuan’s lip but then a phantom pain shot through his lip and, half-jokingly, he said, ‟ It can’t be me, Wei WuXian will punch me before I could even hand over the invitation. Jiang Cheng will have to go.”

‟ I can’t go, Yunmeng broke ties with Wei WuXian. Send it by courier, non-cultivators can’t taste the Burial Mounds a li away!” retorted Jiang Cheng.

‟ Non-cultivators won’t go up the Burial Mounds,” Jin ZiXuan reasoned.

‟ We could ask HanGuang-Jun,” suggested Jiang YanLi. ‟ He went once already; he might be willing to go again.

‟ We could ask,” agreed Jiang Cheng. His lip jutted out in a sulk, but he didn’t protest since he had no other ideas of who could go.

A servant was called and asked to send Lan WangJi to them and Jin ZiXuan went back to writing the invitation. His brush seemed to stutter to a halt. ‟ We don’t have a date yet,” laughed Jin ZiXuan.

‟ Too late the servant is already gone. I guess we can just ask HanGuang-Jun to take it when you have a date,” said Jiang Cheng as he looked out of the door of the room to see if he could catch the servant.  

Jiang YanLi frowned, her glow dimmed briefly, and then picked up with a smile. ‟ It’s all right, I want A-Xian to know he’s invited, we can send him another one when we send the invitations out to everyone else.”

There was a knock on the door and before they could invite the person in, the door opened and Nie HuaiSang slipped in. ‟ Jiang-Xiong, can I hide in here with you? It’s Yao-Zongzhu, you know his voice gets so grating.” Nie HuaiSang turned from the door and jumped. ‟ Oh Jin-Xiong, Jin-Shao-Furen, I didn’t mean to interrupt, you don’t mind, do you?”

Jiang Cheng sighed, long and suffering, while Jiang YanLi covered her laugh with one hand, and Jin ZiXuan waved a hand in assent.

Nie HuaiSang flopped artfully down into a chair and then flicked out his fan and asked, ‟ So, what are we talking about?”

‟ Who’s going to deliver the invite to Wei WuXian for the one month celebration,” said Jin ZiXuan.

‟ Well, you can’t, Wei-Xiong would punch you,” Nie HuaiSang returned.

A laugh exploded out of Jiang YanLi, a sharp bark before she covered her mouth. Jiang Cheng snorted. ‟ How about you Nie-Xiong? You could deliver it.”

‟ Oh, no I couldn’t, I really couldn’t,” Nie HuaiSang replied. 

There was a knock on the door, they all looked over at it and for a moment said nothing as the door remained stubbornly closed. Jin ZiXuan shook himself out of the silence first and called out, ‟ Come in.”

The door slid open and there stood Lan WangJi. He stepped into the room, closed the door and then went around the room formally greeting everyone. ‟ Jin-Shao-Zongzhu requested my presence?”

‟ Ah, yes, I wanted to ask you if you could deliver the one month celebration invitation to Wei WuXian,” replied Jin ZiXuan. 

Lan WangJi looked around the room again from one to the other, then he nodded. ‟ I am able.”

‟ Great! Thank you, I have it here, there is of course no date mentioned, as it is a bit early, but we thought of sending this one now and another at the regular time, when we know the date. What is your opinion on this matter? Would it be better to give Wei WuXian this early invitation or not?”

A light sparked in Lan WangJi’s golden eyes. He took quick steps to the table and looked practically eager. Jiang YanLi leaned forward putting the bulk of her weight on her husband’s solid shoulder. ‟ Tell me HanGuang-Jun, how was A-Xian when you visited?”

Those in the room would have expected such an anti-social person as HanGuang-Jun to step back from the onslaught. ‟ I met him in Yiling… he was Wei Ying but also… tired…?”

‟ And the people in the Burial Mounds?” asked Jin ZiXuan.

‟ As I said at the conference, they are either old or very young. Even if they were cultivators, they would not have been soldiers. I do not know what else I could tell you that Jiang-Zongzhu has not,” Lan WangJi replied.

The truth was that Jiang Cheng hadn’t really remembered the people; they were Wens and therefore lower than dirt. He had only spoken up for them in the sense that he had reported not seeing an army, in hopes that he could defuse the situation and not have to break with Wei WuXian. Jiang Cheng replied, a sneer in his tone every time he said ‘Wen’: ‟ I didn’t pay attention to the type of Wens there. I only noticed that Wen Ning, and he wasn’t really walking about then.”

‟ But HanGuang-Jun said there was a toddler there, did you see a toddler A-Cheng?” asked Jiang YanLi.

Jiang Cheng froze. He cast his mind’s eye back, and remembered berating Wei WuXian for taking the old, the weak, the women, and the children–he had used those words when he had described the situation to the Sects, but he could only just remember a dirty little child grabbing at his leg. ‟ Maybe, did the kid have a name?”

‟ They all called him A-Yuan. I did not hear a family name,” returned Lan WangJi.

‟ Well,” said Nie HuaiSang, ‟ the kid would have to be a Wen right? Wen Yuan, a lot of potential in a name like that.”

‟ Surely not,” retorted Jin ZiXuan and everyone turned to look at him. ‟ Jin Sect Cultivators would never put a toddler in a labour camp.”

Jiang YanLi patted her husband’s shoulder and then asked, ‟ Do you know who A-Yuan’s parents were?”

Lan WangJi shook his head and then paused, after a prolonged silence he said, ‟ Wei Ying said that A-Yuan was his son— ”

There were gasps and indrawn breaths. Nie HuaiSang waved his fan back and forth and muttered as he looked Lan WangJi up and down, ‟ Surely not.”

‟ —that he birthed himself.”

Nie HuaiSang’s fan snapped close, and he slapped it on his palm. Jiang Cheng’s face grew angrier while Jin ZiXuan’s grew more horrified. Jiang YanLi’s shocked expression melted into one of amusement and she brought up her hand to hide her mirth, ‟ I see what you mean. I’m glad Xian-Xian is still himself.”

With a flick of his wrist the fan snapped open and Nie HuaiSang lent forward in a tell-me-more position. ‟ Who is the other parent? Did Wei-Xiong say?”

‟ He did not…” Lan WangJi replied, he went to say more and stopped himself. His golden eyes looked around the room and saw that everyone else was also waiting for more information. Lan WangJi’s ears went red. ‟ A-Yuan called me ‘A-Die’.”

Jiang YanLi’s mirth doubled and Nie HuaiSang nodded. ‟ Did you arrange with Wei-Xiong beforehand to meet him in the city?” 

Lan WangJi shook his head with a short movement and hummed a negative. He hadn’t told that part to his uncle or brother since he feared their reaction. But these people—or at least Jiang YanLi and Nie HuaiSang—seemed to want to hear the good things about the people of the Burial Mounds.  

‟ Could we… could we use this as leverage? A non-Wen toddler in the Burial Mounds as a way to get them all out of the situation? Who would fault anyone for trying to protect a child? The Wen’s are protecting a Wei baby… or I suppose a Lan baby, and so A-Xian in turn helps the Wen…” Jiang YanLi suggested. It was clear the idea was forming as the words came out of her mouth, and she wasn’t really hearing what she was saying.

The reaction was instantaneous. Jiang Cheng exploded, ‟ We don’t know the honourable surname of that child! You can’t steal babies!”

Calm as a summer breeze, Nie HuaiSang said, ‟ Wouldn’t WangJi-Xiong and Wei-Xiong need to be married first?”

There was a pause where most of the heads turned to see Lan WangJi’s reaction, and then Jin ZiXuan said, ‟ Aren’t they already married?”

‟ What?! When?!” roared Jiang Cheng.

Jin ZiXuan looked startled. ‟ At that Wen Archery Competition, Wei WuXian took Lan-Er-Gongzi’s forehead ribbon. That is what it means, right?… After the competition, it was the hot topic around Koi Tower, how Jiang-Zongzhu’s bas— ‟ he cut himself off glanced around the room and then looked down at the table he coughed and then continued, ‟… how Wei WuXian and Lan-Er-Gongzi were married, but in more unflattering terms.”

Again, they all looked at Lan WangJi, with red ears he agreed, ‟ That is what Wei Ying declared.”

‟ Well, there is precedent then!” said Jiang YanLi.

Jiang Cheng shook his head, ‟ You can’t marry people either off, A-Jie.”

‟ I know but we need allies” insisted Jiang YanLi. “I do not believe that A-Xian would free war criminals. I can guess the unflattering terms that A-Xuan was referring to. The gossip in Koi Tower is even more vicious than the rumour about A-Xian when we were kids that made A-Niang so angry!”

‟ We don’t need to force a marriage, we already have GusuLan on our side. Everyone knows that what one of the Twin Jades supports, the other will support. And Nie HuaiSang is here, so that’s the Nies too!” reasoned Jiang Cheng.

Attention was brought back to Lan WangJi, who shook his head again. There was a slight frown marring his features and his tone was such that it was clear he was just then realising the truth of his statement. ‟ Xiongzhang believes that I am too close to Wei Ying and am exaggerating my report. He believes LianFang-Zun about the state of the Wens at Qiongqi Pass.”

There was a shocked silence that filled the room and then Nie HuaiSang said, ‟ I like San-ge too, but WangJi-Xiong doesn’t lie. I remember copying that rule.” Everyone looked at him and Nie HuaiSang shook his head and added, ‟ You don’t have the Nie either, Da-Ge hates the Wens so vehemently, like Jiang-Xiong. He won’t hear anything about them. While I too am angry at the Wens, I remember that Wei-Xiong would never stand for an injustice, even if it pitted him against the world.”

‟ Wei Ying said that Wen QiongLin saved Jiang-Zongzhu and retrieved the bodies of the previous Jiang-Zongzhu and Yu-Furen,” stated Lan WangJi. ‟ Why does Jiang-Zongzhu hate the Wens at the Burial Mounds so much, if they are Wen QiongLin’s people?”

‟When Wen Ning died, any debt went with him,” snapped Jiang Cheng. ‟ You could argue that it doesn’t, but then Wei WuXian raised Wen Ning as the Ghost General, and he killed those people at Qiongqi Pass and was the weapon Wei WuXian used against me in the fight that officially split Wei WuXian from YunmengJiang! There is no more debt.”

‟ I was there when Wen QiongLin regained his spiritual conscious. Wei Ying assured me that Wen QiongLin would not lose it again. Your fight was before his consciousness had yet been returned. In this situation, as Wen QiongLin has retained his sense of self, the debt stands.”

Jiang Cheng sparked a bit and glared at Lan WangJi. Jiang YanLi put a hand on his shoulder and said in a soft voice, ‟ The split between YunmengJiang and A-Xian has already occurred, but A-Cheng, you know A-Xian, he would never support someone who had hurt us and he would feel obligated to pay back that debt. You are going to have to let go of some of your hatred towards these specific Wens.”

There was no verbal reply from Jiang Cheng, but he did stop sparking around the edges. Nie HuaiSang asked, ‟ What are the rumours around Koi Tower? In the Unclean Realm, we just hear about Wei-Xiong desecrating graves and kidnapping children. Those send Da-Ge into a rage, but we can never find proof in our territory that it is happening, even though the rumours say ‘the Yiling-Laozu’ is working in our territory.”

‟ We have those rumours too,” stated Jin ZiXuan. “The newest one I heard just the other night. My cousin was saying Wei WuXian was cursing people he hates. Which, I mean, is just ridiculous– if Wei WuXian hates someone, he punches them.” 

‟ I wouldn’t say that A-Xian holds much hate, he generally forgets what is done to him so hate cannot grow,” explained Jiang YanLi.

‟ Wen Chao and Wen ZhuLiu,” Lan WangJi stated.

Jiang Cheng waved those names off. ‟ Exceptions to the rule, they were the ones that  decimated Lotus Pier. Wei WuXian punched Jin-Shao-Zongzhu because he said bad things about A-Jie or made her cry.”

‟ I apologised for those instances! Looking back, I deserved the punches I got,” added  Jin ZiXuan.

‟ And if we assume that rumour that Wen Chao threw Wei-Xiong into the Burial Mounds is true, and how Wen Chao’s preferred method of fighting was to send in the Core-Melting Hand, I could see that Wei-Xiong wouldn’t easily forget the slights against him and the Jiangs then,” Nie HuaiSang reasoned.

The words dropped like a hammer and rang as if they hit the head of the last nail in the coffin of a corpse they were certain would rise.

‟ Wen Chao… would… send in the Core-Melting Hand…” murmured Jin ZiXuan, the words tinkling as if one by one those coffin nails flew out and scattered to the floor, no longer a barrier to the beast within.

‟ I never saw him use his sword afterword,” agreed Jiang YanLi.

Lan WangJi concurred with a hum.

‟ This changes things, right?” asked Nie HuaiSang.

‟ It has to,” said Jiang Cheng, and as if the beast in the coffin had roared everyone seemed to shake off their shocked stupor as one. Suddenly, they were all business, deducing the best way to deal with what they had found. ‟ So, I arranged to meet with Wei WuXian in Yiling, but Wen Chao gets there first, Wen ZhuLiu melts his core, and then that bastard throws him in the Burial Mounds…”

‟ Where Wei Ying learns Demonic Cultivation to survive,” finished Lan WangJi.

There is another silence, the silence of the coffin home abandoned after the monster had been let free. 

Jin ZiXuan brought them back to the present, ‟ That’ll make Wei WuXian’s original motives seem reasonable, but resentful energy poisons the mind, body, and soul; others will still call for his blood on the merit of his corpse army and the graves he is desecrating.”

‟ Those are rumours,” pointed out Jiang YanLi.

‟ Anyone can go to Yiling and see that there is no army, and as we said earlier there are  actually no desecrated graves,” Jiang Cheng collaborated.

Nie HuaiSang shook his head. ‟ The absence of any proof of wrongdoing is not in fact proof of innocence. And you’re forgetting the Stygian Tiger Seal. The sects don’t like that such a powerful weapon is in the hands of the Yiling-Laozu.” 

With a nod, Jin ZiXuan added, ‟ Yes, my father seems particularly concerned about the power such a Seal can wield.”

‟ A-Xian tried to destroy it,” said Jiang YanLi.

‟ He did?” Lan WangJi asked as he seemed to straighten where he stood with an eager air around him.

Jiang Cheng corroborated  his sister’s statement. ‟ He blew up the forge.”

‟ It will still speak for Wei WuXian’s character, that he tried to destroy it,” Nie HuaiSang said. 

‟ Is there anything else we can consider in the situation, anything about having your core melted that would improve A-Xian’s standing in the eyes of the others?” asked Jiang YanLi.

‟ My brother might understand a bit more if he is made aware that Wei-Xiong doesn’t have his golden core,” admitted Nie HuaiSang.

‟ What was the curse in the rumour?” asked Lan WangJi. ‟ If someone is speaking of a curse that has been cast on them by another person then it is a curse that requires spiritual energy.”

‟ ZiXun didn’t say,” Jin ZiXuan said.

The Jiang sect leader scoffed. ‟ Wei WuXian hates curses. He thinks they are beneath any self-respecting cultivator; he is annoyingly righteous like that. I don’t even think Wei WuXian knows who Jin ZiXun is!”

‟ He was in charge of Qiongqi Pass though!” Jin ZiXuan exclaimed.

Jiang Cheng added, to further compound his point, “ And Jin ZiXun insulted Wei WuXian at the Phoenix Mountain Crowd Hunt.” 

‟ Didn’t A-Xian also push Jin ZiXun in the Lotus Pond when we were kids? After Jin ZiXun pulled my hair,” asked Jiang YanLi. When she got a nod from her brother and husband she added, ‟ Yeah he probably has no clue who Jin ZiXun is.”

‟ Really?” asked Nie HuaiSang.

‟ Su MinShan,” exclaimed Lan WangJi suddenly. They all looked at him and Lan WangJi explained, ‟ Wei Ying saved Su MinShan when he lost his sword to the Waterborne Abyss, and then later Su MinShan shot Wei Ying in the arm when we were fighting the Xuanwu. Are you saying that he does not remember?”

Jiang Cheng shrugged. ‟ Probably not.”

‟ But it is another life debt that could be called in,” Nie HuaiSang reasoned.  

The room fell silent as they all thought about the situation. “The problem is, it is like Nie-Gongzi said,” said Jiang YanLi. “We have nothing that the other sects would consider evidence unless they saw it with their own eyes, and maybe not even then, the rumours are just too much. And no one really wants to owe a life debt. I could see some people using A-Xian’s ‘wicked tricks’ as a reason that a life debt is null and void.”

“Could we counteract the rumours? Hire storytellers armed with the truth or something? It would be slow in changing the hearts and minds of the people, but if we rehabilitated Wei WuXian’s reputation maybe then the others would be willing to listen and pay their debts,” Jin ZiXuan proposed.

Nie HuaiSang nodded his head. “That could work.What else do we know about Wei WuXian’s character or debts owed to him?”

They descended into silence once more as they considered. Lan WangJi spoke, “At Cloud Recesses during the guest lectures Wei Ying swore ‘to eliminate evil and protect the weak; while always maintaining a good conscience’.”

Jiang Cheng dismissed the statement with a scoff. “That won’t help, everyone knows that Wei WuXian will always stand for what is right even if he has to fight the whole world.”

It was the fourth time similar words had been spoken, and they were true, and everyone knew it, which was probably why they had not drawn attention previously. Perhaps it had been Lan WangJi saying the words and then Jiang Cheng acknowledging them swiftly; or the fact that it was the second time that Jiang Cheng had said such words that let them ring in the room—not the ring of hammer on nail, but the ring of a clarity bell.

There was no sputtering or shock, they knew it was the truth. It was one of the fundamentals of the universe: the sky was blue, the grass was green, Wei WuXian would always be on the side of justice, and if you were on opposite sides then you were the one in the wrong.

The silence that ensued was due entirely to the realisation that since they knew that one was true (Wei WuXian being on the side of justice) then two (them being not on the side of justice) was also true.

“The Jin lied,” Jiang Cheng said into the silence.

Once again, Jin ZiXuan went to protest but the words wouldn’t come. Jiang YanLi patted his shoulder and tried to console her husband while reasoning out events. “Jin ZiXun was in charge of the Wen Towns and the Labour Camps. If he was told that he needed to get the work done at Qiongqi Pass… could you see him just grabbing people to replace workers? I mean it is called hard labour for a reason; people die or get injured.”

“No!” denied Jin ZiXuan the word practically exploding from him. He then tried to explain but it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself, “He wouldn’t send civilians like HanGuang-Jun described to a labour camp.”

“But,” soothed Jiang YanLi, “say, in the beginning, there were some uprisings in the Wen Towns and ZiXun quashed them by sending the people to the labour camp. I could see it becoming a habit. Or he punished the entire town for the actions of a few. And ZiXun is…”

“An idiot?” supplied Jiang Cheng.

At the same time Nie HuaiSang said, “A bully.”

Jiang YanLi politely didn’t acknowledge either truth and left it as said. Jin ZiXuan warred with himself for a moment and then said, ‟ Well… I could see ZiXun doing something like that.”

‟ Then of course Jin-Zongzhu would want to protect his nephew, and most people are still venomously against any Wen. Not many would care if the Wens in the labour camp were civilians or not,” Jiang YanLi finished.

‟ Then the Wens and Wei Ying are a threat to the authority that Jin-Zongzhu established,” stated Lan WangJi, his eyes narrowed with anger.

‟ I wouldn’t go that far… my father would want to protect ZiXun’s reputation though,” countered Jin ZiXuan.

‟ No, WangJi-Xiong is correct, Jin-Zongzhu wants to create the Xiandu position, he wants to be Xiandu, and everyone knows that if we create this position that only the Jin have the resources right now to be able to uphold what a Xiandu should do for the people. But a scandal, like proof that the Jins put a baby in a labour camp, could sway votes away from Jin-Zongzhu for Xiandu,” Nie HuaiSang reasoned.

Jiang Cheng sighed. ‟ We’re going to have to talk to the people in the Burial Mounds. They could have more information about all of this, and at the very least we’ll need them to be alive.”

‟ We will need sect leaders on our side, we cannot go against my father. I especially wouldn’t go against my father in public, but we are talking about the honour of the Jin. I wouldn’t be filial if I didn’t ensure that the Jin are on the right side of history,” said Jin ZiXuan.

‟ I do not know if I could convince Xiongzhang to visit the Burial Mounds to see the truth, without him discussing it with LianFang-Zun and ChiFeng-Zun first,” Lan WangJi admitted.

‟ Well, how are we going to talk to Wei-Xiong and the Wens?” asked Nie HuaiSang. ‟ I could probably come up with a way to trick my brother into going.”

‟ I’ll go when the Conference is over, I feel I should be the one to speak to my brother,” said Jiang Cheng.

Jiang YanLi beamed at her brother but then frowned, ‟ But we already called HanGuang-Jun to us. They will be expecting someone to deliver the invitation, and we already agreed that it couldn’t be you, A-Cheng.”

Jiang Cheng swore under his breath. ‟ Were there any rumours?”

Everyone turned to look at Jiang Cheng questioningly. After a moment Nie HuaiSang asked, ‟ About what?”

‟ That A-Jie and I visited Yiling or that HanGuang-Jun did? Any rumours about things like that?”

The Nie heir shook his head. Lan WangJi frowned. ‟ Why would there be rumours?”

‟ I’m trying to determine if anyone was spying on the Burial Mounds,” admitted Jiang Cheng.

‟ Oh no, there aren’t any spies in Yiling, no one can stand the feel of the Burial Mounds. My father wanted to get a spy in there and was angry with LianFang-Zun when he said that no amount of money would get anyone to stay for more than a day in the city and a rotation of guards wouldn’t work,” said Jin ZiXuan.

The room was silent for a beat as they all stared at Jin-Shao-Zongzhu. Jiang YanLi spoke first, ‟ A-Xuan, why didn’t you tell me that our family was trying to spy on my brother?”

Jin ZiXuan startled and then his cheeks pinked a bit when he realised that everyone else was looking at him with shock, like the sending out of spies wasn’t something that people had casual conversations about. It hadn’t been a casual conversation, but he could see how his tone had made it seem so—he had thought his foot-in-mouth tendencies had been cured with his wedding. He coughed. ‟ I’m sorry A-Li, I didn’t want you to worry… I… I tried to stop all those rumours from reaching you and knew I failed in that endeavour. So, I thought since I knew my father failed getting a spy into Yiling that there would be no reason to worry you with thinking it could happen.”  

“That’s good though,” said Jiang Cheng. His eyes looked far away for a long moment and then he shook himself from his thoughts. “Yunmeng is leaving as soon as the Conference is over. From here Yiling is upstream on the Great River. No one will know if I just go there instead of downstream back to Lotus Pier.”

“Jin-Zongzhu will still expect an official messenger to be sent with the invitation,” Nie HuaiSang commented with a lazy flutter of his fan. “And we should have some sort of plan for how we are going to get more Sect Leaders on our side, before you go and speak with Wei-Xiong.”

“Can you speak with ZeWu-Jun again HanGuang-Jun?” Jiang YanLi asked.

Lan WangJi’s lips pressed together and hummed. Nie HuaiSang spoke up again as if he could see the unspoken concern in Lan WangJi’s golden gaze, “As much as we can count on Er-Ge to be righteous, I do find it concerning that he has listened to San-Ge over WangJi-Xiong. I, too, would say I trust San-Ge, but in this situation, I think he is following Jin-Zongzhu’s lead instead of listening to the evidence that is being presented about the Wens in the Burial Mounds.”

“I will try to speak with Xiongzhang again, he will be staying for a short while after the Conference and Shufu will return to Cloud Recesses. I am meant to head out to patrol Gusu territory and night hunt. I can postpone my departure.”

“My father doesn’t seem to want to see reason, but I will talk with my mother. I’ll trust Jiang-Zongzhu and HanGuang-Jun’s assessment of the situation and add my voice with yours as the LanlingJin opinion,” Jin ZiXuan declared.

They all turned to look at their representative for QingheNie. Nie HuaiSang who had been lazily fanning himself. He started and covered his face with the fan, “I don’t know, I don’t know, Da-Ge’s temper is really bad.”

“HuaiSang!” snapped Jiang Cheng.

With a sigh Nie HuaiSang sat up and snapped his fan closed. “Da-Ge is also staying longer. Er-Ge is hoping he can facilitate an improvement in Da-Ge and San-Ge’s relationship, while they discuss the problems with the Damsel of the Annual Blossoms in Tanzhou. She has not been giving out flowers since the war and Ouyang-Zongzhu asked Jin-Zongzhu and the Venerated Triad to help solve the issue. I will be staying to do some shopping in the area. But I already said that the only way that we will be able to get Da-Ge on our side is to get him to go to the Burial Mounds himself and see everyone with his own eyes.”

“How could we get ChiFeng-Zun to the Burial Mounds without everyone else thinking that he is storming the place and planning to take heads?” asked Jiang Cheng.

The room fell into silence, they were all looking around at each other and thinking when suddenly there was a knock on the door and the voice of a servant came through, “Jin-Shao-Zongzhu, the meeting will restart soon.”

The knock had startled everyone in the room, and they all looked around in wide-eyed shock. Jiang YanLi called back, “Thank you, we’ll be there presently.”

Jiang Cheng looked around the room and after he was sure that the servant was gone, added “Everyone, think about it.”

Chapter 2: Jiang Cheng

Summary:

Jiang Cheng goes to the Burial Mounds. As most conversations with Wei WuXian go, they don’t go as expected. Finally the Yunmeng Bro talk.

Notes:

I hope this is all Toast wanted in a reconciliation chapter!

Baijiaxing or the Hundred Family Surnames is a list of 506 Chinese surnames compiled in the Song dynasty the wiki page lists the names you can do a search with the traditional characters not the pinyin. If needed in MS Word the review tab has a simplified <--> traditional converter. I looked it up, Wen, Jiang, Lan, Jin, Wei, Luo (Like MianMian), and even Ouyang are on the list.

Laobaixing or Old Hundred Names = commoners. It plays off of the Baijiaxing. I learned the term from and am using this within an English sentence like it was used in the Great Course the Fall and Rise of China by Richard Baum. I’m using it in this fic to make ‘commoner’ and in this case a specific group of commoners, the Wen Remnants.

Happy Reading!

Baling faced away from the Great River, on a crowded peninsula with many other towns, so Jiang Cheng was not worried that anyone would see when he headed upstream while the rest of the people he had brought with him to the Conference took the downstream branch.

The Great River had a couple tight serpentine turns right after leaving Baling and he helped the boatman paddle around the first bend until he was sure that they were out of sight. Then he slapped another talisman on the boat right next to the first one. The first one was a talisman that gave the boat a bit of push, enough to negate the current when going upstream, so the effort it took to paddle was the same as if going downstream. The second talisman turned a five-day trip into just less than two days. With the talisman, no paddling was needed; the boatman just needed to steer.

Jiang Cheng frowned–he felt he should have been more insulted than he had been when he left Baling. Ouyang-Zongzhu had asked Jin-Zongzhu and the Venerated Triad for help in Tanzhou, which amounted to three of the four great sects, pushing Jiang Cheng and YunmengJiang out. He wasn’t really sure what he could have done to help in the situation, though, as it sounded like (as Ouyang-Zongzhu had already tried before to cleanse the area) that it would need a sheer manpower or specialised cultivation like the Lan’s musical cultivation. If it was manpower that they needed, BalingOuyang might still asked YunmengJiang for help. If it needed a specialised touch, Jiang Cheng had nothing to offer. A part of his brain whispered that he had Wei WuXian, but he had to push that away because at the moment he didn’t have Wei WuXian. Not that he wanted to use his brother’s mad, reckless genius for monetary gain—

His brain stopped. He didn’t want to use his brother for monetary gain or to wield his frightening power to put YunmengJiang at the top of the cultivation world. The truth was that YunmengJiang had sold and was still selling the Spirit Attraction Flags and a few other of Wei WuXian’s inventions. Before the defection both Jiang Cheng and Wei WuXian had just been proud that the Jiang Sect had been able to brush aside Jin-Zongzhu, unlike BalingOuyang.

Because that was why Jin GuangShan had stayed to discuss the Tanzhou affair–in case Baling needed another loan. It had been decided after the war to pick up the pattern of hosting sects for the annual Discussion Conference as if there hadn’t been a war. YueyangChang and MeishanYu would have hosted during the war, which meant that YunmengJiang was the first to host after the war was finished. Jin GuangShan had offered to loan the Jiang money like he had to everyone, but the interest rates were exorbitant and Jiang Cheng had done his best to rebuild without a loan. He had been seriously considering taking the loan so he could be ready to host the Discussion Conference on the first day of summer when Jiang YanLi’s betrothal agreement went through, after the Crowd Hunt on Phoenix Mountain and before the debacle at the Flower Banquet a few months later. 

Now, Jiang Cheng could see that Jin GuangShan had been trying to get YunmengJiang under his thumb for more than just interest accrued on a loan—he wanted Wei WuXian’s horrible power, too. Maybe splitting from Wei WuXian had been helpful in the short term.

Those thoughts were a distraction and it disturbed Jiang Cheng’s sleep. When they docked in Yiling, Jiang Cheng was shaken from his thoughts. He had spent so much time going over all his actions since Lotus Pier fell, wondering if he had accidentally left himself open to Jin GuangShan’s machinations, that he hadn’t even thought of what he was going to say to Wei WuXian when he saw him.

He stepped onto the dock in Yiling with a creak of the knee, not only audible, but he swore he could feel the arthritis settling into his joints with each stiff movement from boat to dock and then dock to land. The bone dust taste to the air stuck in the back of his throat and left his tongue feeling tacky. Jiang Cheng decided that going through the town first would give him time to get used to the atmosphere and to think of what to say before he stepped foot on the Burial Mounds.

His mind went suddenly blank—what did he need to say to his brother? What was it he had to keep an eye out for in the town?—he had no clue what he was doing there, only that he needed to see Wei WuXian. He walked through the city in a daze instead of skirting around it to get to the Burial Mounds. There had been a reason for that too, but he didn’t remember until he was facing the corpse barrier—he was supposed to be on the lookout for possible spies and keep an ear out for fresh rumours. He cursed, but it was too late, he was at the barrier. Jiang Cheng hesitated and then stepped forward; the corpses didn’t react. He took another step and another, and when he was close to the nearest corpse, it stepped to the side and let him pass.

Jiang Cheng let out a breath. That was good, wasn’t it? Wei WuXian wasn’t really angry with him or anything, right? Before he could think further on the subject he was hit with a wall of resentment. He wrinkled his nose with disgust at the putrid stench of the Burial Mounds and took a step forward, planning to walk with a purpose to Wei WuXian’s settlement at the top of the mountain and get his business done as quickly as possible.

His knee wobbled feebly from the strain of walking the incline up the mountain. His joints creaked, the noise echoed in Jiang Cheng’s ears, as each step seemed to weigh him down with another hundred years. The trees rattled, like his knees, in a wind he could not feel. He looked ahead and saw the tree limbs, just bare bones, claw desperately at the sky. In protest with Jiang Cheng’s knees, the trees seemed to scream for release from the grey soil and obsessive atmosphere, but the mounds themself seemed to purr and whispered on the non-existent wind: stay and linger, linger and stay, what is out there? Nothing, nothing; stay, linger, and die .

He shook his head to dislodge the thoughts, but they had already seeped into his bones and ate away at his strength. Jiang Cheng stumbled, and his Clarity bell rang, vitality and relief flooding his limbs for a moment, before starting to siphon away. He could actually feel the resentment pressing on the barrier that had been temporarily made by the bell before it fell away.

How did Wei WuXian stand it?—Jiang Cheng paused—how had he not seen that Wei WuXian had lost his core sooner? 

Jiang Cheng knew he had made it to the settlement when he could see a radish field—Wei WuXian had lost that argument to Wen Qing then—but he could see no people. He kept going and it was in the next field that the Jiang Sect Leader saw another person.

Wei WuXian appeared to be covering a toddler’s legs with dirt while the kid threw handfuls of the dry dirt into the air and giggled. Jiang Cheng froze for a minute and just stared at the scene. It was utterly ridiculous, which meant that it made perfect sense that Wei WuXian was part of it. And the toddler was definitely old enough to have been alive when the Wen Remnants had been at Qiongqi Pass. Suddenly, the bitter anger that gnawed at Jiang Cheng’s soul at the mere whisper of the name Wen dissipated. That child didn’t deserve to be in a labour camp and Jiang Cheng prayed to all the gods that he hadn’t been.  

He moved forward again towards the pair. He hadn’t called out, but he wasn’t hiding his presence either. He stepped on a dry twig and it snapped loudly. Wei WuXian whirled around, Chenqing held before him defensively. Anger rose in Jiang Cheng swiftly, because of course Wei WuXian defended himself with his flute, not his sword like a—the train of thought cut off abruptly and the blood drained from his face just as quickly—how had he not seen?

‟ Jiang Cheng?” said Wei WuXian questioningly, then he repeated, ‟ Jiang Cheng.” He took a couple steps forward and seemed to see how pale Jiang Cheng had gotten. ‟ Is everything all right? It’s not Shijie is it? That Jin GuangShan didn’t do anything to her, did he?”

The panic in Wei WuXian’s tone, along with the words, brought Jiang Cheng from his own head. ‟ What? No of course not, if he had he wouldn’t be alive! A-Jie knows the way to a man’s heart, you know that!”

Wei WuXian rubbed at his ribs and winced at the phantom pain there. It made Jiang Cheng rub the same spot on his own ribs. It had been a training session that Yu-Furen had insisted upon for every woman in Lotus Pier, cultivator or not. And all the male disciples took turns being the dummies so that the women could learn how to escape holds and throw someone bigger and stronger than them. The most memorable move that Yu-Furen taught was the way to a man’s heart . The women used a weighted wooden blade that was really only the hilt and just a sliver of the blade. It wasn’t sharp in any way, but the wielder could see when they got the angle correct that if it had been a real knife, the blade would have sunk into their assailant's flesh, between the ribs, and straight into the heart. Even though the blade wasn’t sharp, and even if it had caused a bruise that would soon be healed, the sheer number of women that had stabbed them in their youths aiming for their hearts meant that not a single person in Lotus Pier would think to act like Jin GuangShan without the phantom pain flaring to life.

Wei WuXian chuckled weakly as he shook off the past. “So, Jin GuangShan is still alive? We don’t get much news here in Yiling, cultivators don’t like coming here.”

“I know, Jin-Zongzhu tried to get spies to come here but they refused,” explained Jiang Cheng with a spark. 

With a snort, Wei WuXian shook his head. “As much as I’m glad Jin GuangShan hasn’t gone near Shijie… is it bad that I kind of wish he’d try? I mean Shijie’s Peacock has got to be a better sect leader, right?”

Before Jiang could answer, A-Yuan asked, ‟ What’s a peacock? Is it like a radish?”

Jiang Cheng’s words choked into a laugh. Wei WuXian whirled around and scooped the toddler from the dirt and balanced him on his hip. ‟ A peacock is a bird that has a very pretty blue-green tail and likes to walk around and show everyone that he is the most beautiful.”

‟ Doesn’t sound like a nice bird… who is Shijie? And why does she have one?” asked the toddler.

Wei WuXian and Jiang Cheng choked on a laugh. Wei WuXian replied, ‟ Shijie made you that soup .”

‟ Oh! That soup ! It had the most delicious radishes I’ve ever had!” replied A-Yuan.

‟ Those were lotus roots, not radishes, ‟ Wei WuXian corrected with a chuckle.

A-Yuan’s brow furrowed in confusion but then it smoothed, and he excitedly added, ‟ And the brown bits!”

‟ That was pork ribs,” Wei WuXian said solemnly but then he tickled A-Yuan’s ribs and the toddler giggled.

Jiang Cheng stood horrified for a moment—A-Jie was right, how had he ever questioned it?—He needed to let go of his hate for these Wens. A child had a right to know the difference between a lotus root and a radish.

‟ They were good, can we have them again?” asked A-Yuan.

‟ …We’ll see, pork ribs are expensive, they are only for special occasions.”

‟ Popo didn’t get any last time,” A-Yuan hedged. 

Wei WuXian laughed and ruffled A-Yuan’s hair. ‟ We’ll have to tell Qing-jie that the next time there is a special occasion we would like pork ribs.” Wei WuXian looks back at Jiang Cheng who was glaring at his brother for how he called Wen Qing. Wei WuXian hesitated and then said to A-Yuan, holding his hand out to the toddler, ‟ Let’s go tell her now and then I need to talk to my brother.”

Wen Qing glared at Jiang Cheng but took A-Yuan without a word and appeared to be listening and considering the toddler’s reasoning for why they should buy pork soon. Wei WuXian led Jiang Cheng into his cave and over to a table that had been formed in rock and was covered in papers. It so strongly reminded Jiang Cheng of Wei WuXian’s room when they were kids that a new wave of anger at the Wens swept through him. 

His brother didn’t seem to see the sparks coming off of him and instead took piles of paper off of one of the chairs and placed them on the floor, then shoved some of the papers on the table to the side. It cleared space but also made the other piles on the table bigger and more haphazard than before.

One of the piles that had grown from Wei WuXian’s efforts teetered precariously on the edge of the table and then slid off, creating a waterfall of paper. Jiang Cheng watched it with fascination as each new piece of paper slid down the ones that had gone before them. Wei WuXian brought Jiang Cheng out of his stupor, “So, why are you here? If Shijie is all right?”

He waved at the stone chair and Jiang Cheng sat, a moment later Wei WuXian took his own seat. Jiang Cheng looked at his brother for a moment and shifted uncomfortably. The first word exploded from him, “Look!” it seemed to echo throughout the cave. Jiang Cheng took a breath and then continued, “Look… it’s a bit weird and I need you to not get excited, or sad, and don’t you dare close yourself off like this is something I don’t need to know, you need to listen to everything I need to say, got it?”

Wei WuXian studied Jiang Cheng for a moment and then nodded, “Sure, Jiang Cheng.”

“So, there was a Discussion Conference—”

“Really? It’s summer already?” asked Wei WuXian.

“That is not the point, you said you were going to listen, stop interrupting,” Jiang Cheng growled.

His older brother put up his hands in lieu of an apology.

“HanGuang-Jun announced to everyone that he visited the Burial Mounds and that you are not creating some army of the dead or mad Wen remnants hell-bent on world domination.”

A snort of amusement caught Wei WuXian by surprise, when Jiang Cheng looked at him with narrowed eyes Wei WuXian didn’t say anything.

“Jin ZiXuan used it as an opportunity to invite you to his future child’s one month celebration.” Jiang Cheng paused there.

As expected, Wei WuXian’s body looked like it was struck by lightning as he bolted up and then scrambled to stay in his seat before he leaned forward across the table. He stared Jiang Cheng down in excitement. “Shijie’s pregnant?”

“Yes, yes she is, and she’s glowing.”

“How long?”

“Four months I think, or about that.” 

The light in Wei WuXian’s eyes died a bit and his smile turned sad, ‟ I’m glad Shijie is happy.”

‟ She is and she wants you to be a part of it. During a break in the meeting A-Jie dragged Jin ZiXuan away to write the invitation. I went with them since I wanted to spend time with her.”

‟ Why? I mean couldn’t you just wait for the conference to be over?”

Jiang Cheng shrugged. ‟ The conference was in Baling this year. That’s not the point. We were talking about who would deliver it and ended up calling HanGuang-Jun.”

‟ Lan Zhan?” Wei WuXian perked up.

‟ Yeah, and somehow Nie HuaiSang ended up there too, and we realised a couple things…” Jiang Cheng trailed off, not really sure how to broach the subject, but he had stalled long enough.

‟ You realised what?” Wei WuXian asked.

‟ You don’t have your golden core!” Jiang Cheng blurted, but before he could say anything about the Jins lying, there was a crash and hot liquid splashed onto the sect leader. Jiang Cheng jumped up with a startled shout and looked over to see Wen Ning and Wen Qing and the remains of a tea set on the ground.

There was a beat and then another and then Wei WuXian scrambled up from the table and started dabbing Jiang Cheng’s robes with his own sleeve, ‟ No worries, no worries, we don’t have tea here, especially not that nice Yunmeng Heicha that will stain anything.”

He laughed sort of nervously. At the same moment Wen Ning dropped to the floor. Instead of picking up the pieces of the broken pot he bowed low, knocking his head to the floor in a kowtow. ‟ Wen Ning what are you doing, get up,” hissed Wei WuXian.

Jiang Cheng looked between the three of them. He took in the panicked look in Wei WuXian’s eyes, the wide eyes of Wen Qing, and the top of Wen Ning’s head and he whirled on his brother. ‟ What did you do?” He started to spark purple lightning. 

‟ He didn’t do anything! I— ‟ began Wen Qing.

‟ Wen Qing!” Wei WuXian hissed.

‟ Wei. Wu. Xian!” Jiang Cheng ground out through sparks and clenched teeth.

‟ You won’t survive a strike from Zidian, Wei WuXian, not without your core, not that you ever seem to remember that and constantly try to get yourself killed!” pointed out Wen Qing.

The sparks stopped immediately, and Jiang Cheng looked at the Wen siblings with a combination of shock and horror  and then he looked at Wei WuXian, feeling like he was going to cry.

Said older brother sighed. ‟ He didn’t know anything for certain until you two said something.”

Wen Qing deflated a bit, and she breathed a soft ‘oh’ but then she narrowed her eyes and stood up straighter. ‟ You have to tell him, Wei WuXian.”

Jiang Cheng looked from Wen Qing to his brother and saw Wei WuXian’s expression close off.

‟ He knows this much. He needs to know the whole truth, it can’t hurt anyone now,” Wen Qing insisted.

Wei WuXian dropped his eyes and studied the floor of his cave for a long moment like it held the answer. He then said in a weak voice that was trying to laugh, ‟ Except the teapot… and it was our only teapot.”

Wen Ning seemed to remember the pot and scrambled up from his kowtow and started to pick up the shards.

With another sigh Wei WuXian asked, “Do you think we could get a jar of Si-Shu’s wine for this?”

The doctor glared again and then looked between the two brothers and sighed to herself, ‟ All right, but you better tell him the whole truth.” 

They sat back down, Jiang Cheng half glaring at his brother, but mostly because Wei WuXian was deliberately focusing on the stone of his table. Sometime later, mouse-meek, Wen Ning approached the table and placed down a jar of alcohol and two bowls before he scurried away. Impatient, Jiang Cheng unwound the string that held the cloth down and then poured two bowls of the liquor. He held up the bowl as he waited for Wei WuXian to repeat the gesture, when his brother did they both tapped the table with their bowls and drank.

Though neither had said ‘ganbei’, Wei WuXian drained the cup and after the initial sip, Jiang Cheng realised that his brother had the right idea, and he drained his own cup. He paused for a moment considering the alcohol as he put his bowl back on the table. Wei WuXian refilled their bowls and drained his second one quickly while Jiang Cheng sniffed delicately at the wine and then took a sip, savouring the drink.

‟ This is really good, where did you get it?” asked Jiang Cheng.

Wei WuXian perked up and seized the opportunity to delay the inevitable with both hands. ‟ Si-Shu makes it. There are some peach trees at the base of the mountain just inside the old barrier, so no one else claims them.”

‟ This is made with Burial Mound peaches? And it isn’t going to kill us?” Jiang Cheng said as he eyed the jar and his bowl. Before Wei WuXian could answer he drank some more of it, deciding that if it was going to kill him it was a decent way to go.

‟ Wen Qing checked the peaches and they are fine. We eat them when we can.”

‟ So why make the wine? I’m not complaining–it is good, but I would think food would be more important.”

With a hum and a nod, Wei WuXian explained, ‟ Sometimes the peaches harvested aren’t good for eating but are good for wine. Honestly, the first batch of wine was ready around the time you and Shijie came to visit, so a lot of wine isn’t being made.”

Jiang Cheng took a sip and considered the drink. ‟ I really want to compare this fruit wine to another one that was made with different peaches. I want to know if I’m just remembering the taste of peach wine wrong or not.”

‟ If we don’t drink the entire jar, you can take it with you,” replied Wei WuXian, he refilled his bowl, held it up to Jiang Cheng. The younger also toasted, tapped it on the table, and then they both took moderate sips of the wine.

‟ Now, tell me what you did… or I suppose what Wen Qing did.”

Wei WuXian had been lowering the bowl to the table when Jiang Cheng had spoken. He quickly brought it back to his lips and knocked the liquid back. With his bowl empty again, Wei WuXian murmured, ‟ I don’t know where BaoShan-SanRen is.”

‟ What? What are you talking about now?”

‟ I don’t know where BaoShan-SanRen is.”

‟ Stop repeating yourself, speak plainly!”

With a sigh Wei WuXian asked, ‟ How did you figure out that I didn’t have a core?”

‟ We were talking about the rumours about you— ‟

‟ Why?”

‟ That’s the stipulation for the invite to the one-month celebration, you can’t be off desecrating graves and the like.” 

His brother winced at those words. ‟ I’m not.”

‟ We know that, but then Jin ZiXuan mentioned his cousin was talking about you cursing people.”

‟ Jin ZiXuan has a cousin?…well, I mean that really isn’t surprising, you have cousins after all. I mean have we ever met this cousin?”

‟ His name is Jin ZiXun, and you have met him,” Jiang Cheng clarified with a sigh.

‟ Huh, I don’t remember him.”

‟ Yeah, that was kind of our point. A-Jie and I were saying that you wouldn’t remember people and HanGuang-Jun pointed out that you got vengeance on Wen Chao and Wen ZhuLiu. Then Nie HuaiSang said that it would make sense if you remembered those two since it was a rumour that Wen Chao threw you into the Burial Mounds and Wen Chao’s preferred fighting method was to send in Wen ZhuLiu. And we sort of realised that that might actually be true.”

Jiang Cheng watched his brother’s face and when it had all come out he watched those silver eyes close, and he knew it was true. They were silent for a moment and then Wei WuXian said, ‟ It is as you say but Wen ZhuLiu didn’t crush my core.”

‟ But if it is as I say, then how could you not have a— ‟ Jiang Cheng protested but choked off the last word, unable to say it as his mind flooded with the possible horror that could have caused his brother to lose his golden core.

‟ I don’t know where BaoShan-SanRen is,” said Wei WuXian again, he looked hard at Jiang Cheng and then looked down at the table. He picked up his bowl to toss back alcohol only to realise that the bowl was empty. He reached for the jar and paused in mid-air, fingers spasming as if he was holding himself back from grabbing the jar.

It took a moment, and then Jiang Cheng realised that Wei WuXian was holding himself back because he offered to let Jiang Cheng take the remainder of the jar. It gave him pause, and let his brain remember fundamentals about his brother that he had forgotten. For as much as Wei WuXian would cause Jiang Cheng a headache, he would do anything for his family, and Jiang Cheng was Wei WuXian’s brother—not that he had been acting like it recently. So, he mulled the words over in his head again from his old perspective of his brother, who didn’t know where BaoShan-SanRen was—

Jiang Cheng exploded up from his seat, wreathed in purple lightning. ‟ Wei WuXian! What did you do?!”

Wei WuXian opened his mouth to reply but before he could say anything Jiang Cheng added, ‟ No, Wen Qing did it–why, Wei WuXian? I didn’t ask for this!”

With that scream Jiang Cheng fisted the fabric of his robes over his stomach.

The voice was meek but seemed to carry and grow in strength with the words, ‟ You wanted to die Jiang Cheng! I couldn’t let you die! I could live without my golden core, you couldn’t!”

‟ I. Never. Asked. You. For. This!”

‟ I know, that is why I kept it a secret!”

As if a string which had been holding Jiang Cheng up had been cut, he sat heavily back at the table. His hands shook as he reached for the jar and poured them both a bowl. They knocked them back and Jiang Cheng slammed the bowl back on the table so hard that it cracked and then he started laughing. It felt like the laughter that came before horrible wrenching sobs, but the tears wouldn’t come. The laughter kept going, uncontrollable and tinted with sadness.

‟ Why are you laughing?”

Jiang Cheng took in a couple of deep breaths trying to quell the laughter. He expected the tears to come then but they were still stubborn. ‟ I didn’t go back for my parents.”

‟ What?”

‟ Back then, I didn’t go back for my parents.”

Wei WuXian’s brow furrowed in concentration and then he all but whispered, ‟ Then how did you get caught?”

‟ I saw you buying food... I think,” Jiang Cheng began and furrowed his own brow trying to recall a useless detail. He realised that he was trying to delay the inevitable and continued on. ‟ There were Wens heading in your direction, and, well, I had Zidian and you had nothing, and you were my brother… so I…so I knocked over some baskets and ran. They caught me.”

‟ Oh Jiang Cheng,” whispered Wei WuXian. ‟ Why would you— ‟

‟ Of course, my sacrifice was for nothing because you had to go and give me your golden core!” his tone had started soft and sad but by the end he was angry again.

‟ You’re my brother, I couldn’t leave you like that!”

‟ But you still left!”

‟ Jiang Cheng— ‟

‟ You left, you left when you promised me you would always be by my side, you left me to rebuild the sect myse— ‟ The anger had drained from Jiang Cheng again and his words sounded like they were tumbling towards tears but then suddenly Jiang Cheng was laughing again, unable to finish his tirade. 

‟ Jiang Cheng,” Wei WuXian spoke over the laughter. ‟ I didn’t want to leave, but I wasn’t helpful, I couldn’t train our disciples without a golden core, and the rumours were so bad I didn’t want to drag YunmengJiang down with me.”

The laughter petered off. ‟ Is there even a YunmengJiang?”

‟ Of course there is!”

‟ All of my accomplishments in the war are yours,” Jiang Cheng insisted.

‟ What? No, they’re not!” Wei WuXian protested.

‟ Yeah they are, they were done with your golden core!”

‟ No!” Wei WuXian snapped back. It was clear his mind was working fast to come up with an explanation that Jiang Cheng would accept. ‟ Wait, just wait… I know that isn’t true,” Wei WuXian said into the silence to buy more time. ‟ During the war you wielded Zidian! I remember this one time you lashed out and threw the whole front line of Wens back!”

‟ You could have wielded Zidian, if you hadn’t given me your core I would have given Zidian to you!”

Wei WuXian smiled a smile reminiscent of their youth. ‟ No, I couldn’t! Remember when we were kids, and we tried out those training whips?”

A ghost of a smile appeared on Jiang Cheng’s face, and he nodded. ‟ You hit yourself in the face multiple times, A-Niang made you stop before you lost an eye.”

‟ Right?! See, see, it has nothing to do with your golden core, it has to do with your innate Jiang Cheng skill… Oh! And remember when you were angry about me not training the juniors after the war and you told me to do the books for you to be helpful?”

Jiang Cheng sighed and shook his head, ‟ You put the receivables in the expenditures column, I thought we were going bankrupt, and I would have to take that loan from Jin-Zongzhu.”

‟ See? I could never be a sect leader, especially not one as amazing as Jiang-Zongzhu! Your accomplishments are yours Jiang Cheng, don’t belittle them,” said Wei WuXian with a cheery yet hopeful face.

‟ Fine!” snapped Jiang Cheng, ‟ Where does that leave us now?”

They fell into silence and then Wei WuXian said, ‟ I’m sorry Jiang Cheng, for doing all this without telling you and for lying to you about my core.”

‟ Yeah, well, sorry for snapping at you about your sword and letting those stupid rumours get between us. Now, drop it, you’re giving me hives.”

Wei WuXian laughed. ‟ So, where is my invite to the one month celebration?”

Jiang Cheng shook his head. ‟ The world still thinks that I have declared you an enemy. I couldn’t deliver the invitation, but I wanted to talk to you. HanGuang-Jun should be arriving in a couple days with the invitation.”

At the mention of Lan WangJi, Wei WuXian perked up. At his brother’s glare his shoulders slumped a bit and he absently started to trace patterns on the table and then nonchalantly asked, ‟ So, you came all this way just to ask if your guess about my core was true?”

‟ No, not just that, after we realised about your core we realised that you probably created demonic cultivation in order to survive being thrown in the Burial Mounds— ‟

‟ Eh, it’s really more Ghost Cultivation— ‟ Wei WuXian began but at Jiang Cheng’s glare he said, ‟ —but you are right, I did develop it to survive.”

‟ So, we were trying to think of ways to redeem your character in the eyes of the Cultivation world and well… we realised—more like remembered, that you always fight on the side of justice and therefore you were right about these Wens and the Jin are lying.”

Wei WuXian started to laugh, it seemed just as uncontrollable as Jiang Cheng’s had been and also like he would start choking on sobs any moment.

‟ What? What did I say?”

‟ I’m not always right, or on the side of justice.”

‟ Yes you are, it’s who you are as a person,” Jiang Cheng protested with a confused furrow in his brow.

‟ I desecrated graves–not now of course, but during the war.”

‟ War is always different. If you ran someone through with your sword now that’s murder and you would be executed. You run someone through with your sword on a battlefield and it is just part of war.”

‟ I could hear them, you know? I dug up long dead Wen ancestors and forced them to kill their own people. They screamed in my head begging for mercy.”

‟ But…” Jiang Cheng began and then trailed off, not sure what to say to that. ‟ I still think that as it was a war situation, that it is forgivable, I mean we needed your demonic cultivation to win.”

‟ Did you really? By the time I got Wen Chao and Wen ZhuLiu, ChiFeng-Zun had already taken Wen Xu’s head. I could have controlled my hundred or so corpses, I didn’t need to be so forceful with the dead, so cruel.”

‟ I think in war, you can’t really see the whole picture. Fighting makes the whole thing seem endless. That you are focused only on the need to defeat the enemy faster. It’s all over with now, your corpses were laid to rest.”

Wei WuXian shook his head and laughed deprecatingly. ‟ Why do you think I drank all the time?”

‟ What do you mean?”

‟ If I raised a spirit that had been at rest they had to obey me because I had more power than they did, but the entire time they were crying in my head. I could hear them, and I didn’t care. And then after the war I could still hear them in my dreams, but if I drank myself stupid, then I didn’t dream.”

Jiang Cheng looked at his brother in shock for a moment. He was right, that was a bit much, not something Jiang Cheng would have thought Wei WuXian would ever do, but the guilt afterwards made sense. ‟ What changed? Were you not having the dreams during the war?”

‟ Oh no, I had them,” admitted Wei WuXian as he reached for his bowl and then realised it was still empty. Jiang Cheng poured in a small measure. Wei WuXian took a sip instead of downing the drink and looked at Jiang Cheng like he was about to tell him about a monster that needed to be put down. ‟ It was the vengeance, that is why resentful energy is so potent. The need for vengeance claws its way into you and it doesn’t let go. Wang LingJiao, Wen Chao, and Wen ZhuLiu took everything from us. I needed to survive this place so I could stop them from taking more, to get my revenge on them for all that they had destroyed. And I did, I tortured them, but that need for vengeance, that resentment against them, festered in my soul and sprouted a strangling vine. I needed more vengeance, and the rest of the Wens were perfect for it. When I heard those long-dead Wen beg, I laughed, and their pleas watered the vine in my soul. When the war ended, it was like throwing a lit fire pot in the lake–there was nothing. The vine withered and died and there I was without a core unable to help when there was no need for vengeance and the sobs of the long dead in my ears and dreams.”

The younger brother stared transfixed at his brother for a long moment. Wei WuXian looked back at him.

‟ Vengeance hasn’t let you go yet, has it?” Wei WuXian asked.

‟ What? What do you mean? We got our vengeance.”

‟ Yes, but like me, we got our vengeance but then we needed more and kept going. I think… I think since your default emotion is anger— ‟ Wei WuXian cut himself off when he saw that Jiang Cheng was going to speak. He held up a hand to forestall his brother’s words and continued, ‟ That’s not a bad thing, it’s who you are, and you are a great person Cheng-Cheng.”

‟ Don’t call me Cheng-Cheng,” snapped the sect leader. There was a pause and then both men smiled.

‟ My point is that when vengeance takes root in you it manifests in anger, so if you are already an angry person I think you don’t realise that the strangler vine of vengeance still has you in its grasp. And you’re not the only one. People have forgotten, I had forgotten that Wen is one of the baijiaxing, and there are many of the laobaixing that have the name Wen… that, that is what is fuelling the continued need for vengeance in you and in the others, the name, but the people themselves had little to do with Wen RuoHan and his bid for power or the atrocities that Wen Chao or Wen ZhuLiu committed.”

Jiang Cheng looked at his brother and saw the tired lines marring his face, the weary set to his shoulders. He could see that it was a topic that kept Wei WuXian up at night, maybe more than the nightmares of the pleas of the long dead. He looked down and saw that there was still alcohol in Wei WuXian’s bowl and nudged it towards him.

While Wei WuXian drank, Jiang Cheng formulated his reply. ‟ I understand what you are saying, and I understand your position, but I still believe that fundamentally you are a just and righteous person. No one is perfect and wars are difficult, and you lost your way but that doesn’t mean you aren’t in the right about these people now, that the Jin sect didn’t lie to everyone–or are you retracting your claim about the people here? Should I just be dragging them all back to the labour camps?”

‟ No! No, you can’t! These are all good people!” exclaimed Wei WuXian, a bit of his usual energy shining through as he sat up in his chair and leaned forward across the table into Jiang Cheng’s space.

‟ All right,” he nodded. ‟ So, talk to me, what are you doing here? With these people?”

With a sigh, Wei WuXian fell back, the melancholy air returning. ‟ I’m not doing anything Jiang Cheng. We’re just trying to survive.”

‟ Really? You have no plans?”

‟ I’m useless Jiang Cheng really. I’m a cultivator who can’t cultivate, I know nothing of farming. I’m just living beyond my due.”

They both drank then, and Jiang Cheng nodded. ‟ I feel like that too sometimes. I think about when the Wens had put a ban on all night hunting and A-Niang wanted you to stay in Lotus Pier, but we went and shot kites where some of us would have to leave to collect the kites and we never thought about it. I think of my parents trying to defend our home and dying with our disciples. I should have— ‟

‟ We should have died with them,” finished Wei WuXian with a nod.

‟ It feels unfilial,” Jiang Cheng agreed.

‟ But you also have a duty to your ancestors to carry on YunmengJiang, and you are doing a wonderful job. It is me that has been the most unfilial. I’ve been living past my due since before Jiang-Shushu found me in Yiling.”  

Jiang Cheng stared at Wei WuXian for a long moment and with a dawning horror realised that his brother believed those words. He snapped, his anger striking fast like lightning. ‟ You can’t believe that! What, you think you should have died with your parents? Your parents wouldn’t have wanted you to die with them! If they had they would have brought you on that night hunt with them! What are you going to tell me that you only had your golden core because A-Die took you in and therefore you owed your core to me when I lost mine?” 

Wei WuXian shifted. He looked up briefly and Jiang Cheng caught a horrifying look of guilt in his eyes before he looked away again. The anger fizzled between them, charging the air, but the bite in it died down as sadness slowly crept in. ‟ You do, don’t you? Well, that’s bullshit, you were a kid, and you survived. Your parents must be so relieved that you did. And we were still just kids, shooting at kites, when my parents died. A-Niang even sent us away to keep us alive. As much as it feels like we’re living on borrowed time, we aren’t.”

‟ Yu-Furen said— ‟ began Wei WuXian.

‟ I know what she said,” barked Jiang Cheng. He took a breath and then continued more calmly, ‟ I know what she said and I know A-Die said the same thing, and I know I was despairing about having lost my core, but you fulfilled your task. Even if you hadn’t given me your core I would be alive, and A-Jie’s alive. And… and… now you listen to me, Wei WuXian.”

It was silent. After a moment Wei WuXian looked up from the table. Jiang Cheng asked, ‟ Are you listening?” Silence descended on them once more as Wei WuXian studied Jiang Cheng’s features. He repeated, ‟ Wei WuXian, are you listening?”

‟ I’m listening.”

‟ I distracted the Wens because I had Zidian and you had no weapon, yes, but also because you’re my family and I couldn’t lose you too, not then and not now, so don’t go off sacrificing yourself again.”

Wei WuXian chuckled. It was a half sob, but he managed a smile. ‟ You too… you can’t go off sacrificing yourself either.”

‟ Of course not, we’re going to be uncles,” Jiang Cheng said jovially, and he looked down in his bowl to see he still had a sip left and so did Wei WuXian. He raised the bowl to his brother.

With his own bowl in hand and raised, Wei WuXian said, ‟ We’re going to be uncles.”

They taped the bowls on the table and drank. Wei WuXian then added, ‟ Well, you’ll be a Jiujiu, I’ll be a Shishu, but still.”

Jiang Cheng smirked, a light of mischief sparked in his eye, ‟ Oh I don’t know, wouldn’t you be a Shiyi?”

‟ What? No, why would I be!”

‟ I heard you gave birth to HanGuang-Jun’s son. Wouldn’t that then make you an A-Yi instead of a Jiujiu?”

There was a half a beat of fish-mouthed silence that Jiang Cheng relished and then Wei WuXian looked down as his belly and then back up at Jiang Cheng with a hint of sadness in his eyes, and Jiang Cheng realised that maybe that marriage Jiang YanLi had suggested wouldn’t be unwelcome on Wei WuXian’s end. Then the sadness disappeared and Wei WuXian’s eyes narrowed in anger as he demanded, ‟ Where did you hear that? Who is trying to sully Lan Zhan’s peerless beauty?”

‟ Calm down, I heard it from your Lan Zhan. He told us about how you told him you birthed A-Yuan, and the kid called HanGuang-Jun ‘A-Die’.” 

The anger drained from Wei WuXian and there was a moment of confusion and then he brightened up and said, ‟ Oh yeah! That did happen, you should have seen Lan Zhan’s face, it was priceless. But then, well, after calling Lan Zhan ‘A-Die’, I said that Lan Zhan was the same age as me and A-Yuan couldn’t address Lan Zhan a whole generation older than he does me. A-Yuan said he didn’t want to call me ‘A-Niang’ because that would be weird, so I can’t be a Shiyi, I’ll have to stick to Shishu.”

‟ You cut ties with the sect though, I think you’ll have to just be Dajiu,” said Jiang Cheng with a smile.

Wei WuXian smiled back, his eyes misting slightly. ‟ Dajiu sounds great and when you have kids I’ll be a Bobo too!”

‟ I think you’re forgetting that I’ve been banned from all the matchmakers,” Jiang Cheng snorted.

‟ But it’s part of your filial duty to carry on YunmengJiang.”

The notion was waved off by Jiang Cheng. ‟ You’re forgetting that A-Jie and I share blood, I’ll adopt one of my nephews or nieces as my heir. And if A-Jie only has the one I’m sure you’ll get pregnant more than once, I’ll just adopt one of yours.”

‟ Jiang Cheng!” Wei WuXian exclaimed in mock scandal. ‟ You need to be serious!”

‟ I am, and A-Jie’s still only a few months pregnant. We have time to think of heirs, what we seriously need to do now is talk to the people here. I need to learn the whole story, where they were and what they were doing during the war, where they were before they were at Qiongqi Pass, and how they ended up there.”

‟ All right, come on, I’ll introduce you,” said Wei WuXian and he got up from the table and led the way out of the cave. ‟ But I don’t think it will help— ‟

He sounded so sad that Jiang Cheng stopped him with a hand to his shoulder, ‟ Hey, if I need to let go of the need for vengeance, you need to let go of some of this guilt. You said you aren’t getting a lot of alcohol here– not that drinking a lot of alcohol all the time is healthy, but do you still get those dreams?”

‟ Sometimes, but the Burial Mounds is filled with spirits, so their cries block out the ones from my memories.”

‟ What are they crying about? Are they angry you’re trying to grow radishes here?”

Wei WuXian tilted his head like he was listening and then said in a calm voice that sounded weird paired with the actual words, ‟ I want to kill the bastard, it takes two to make a baby and he didn’t want us. He said it was my fault as he slid the knife in.” 

‟ And that’s better?” asked Jiang Cheng incredulously.

‟ Eh, the guy she wants vengeance on died a hundred years ago at least, nothing can be done about it now. The dead here are all like that. They scream for vengeance, and they keep this place saturated in resentful energy, but they are all talk. I mean with a little effort I could get them to help me get vengeance if I wanted it on someone, but they aren’t pushing me to do anything or blaming me. The whispers from the Stygian Tiger Seal, those want active vengeance. It’s like the Burial Mounds, a constant chorus of the resentful screams of a thousand dead that have been stewing for centuries. But the seal wants to kill the descendants of its enemies down to the last dog and whispers lies to try to get me to kill anyone who has slighted me in any way.”

Jiang Cheng’s eyes were wide with horror. ‟ We need to destroy that thing.”

Silver eyes flicked back into the cave like he was making sure the Seal hadn’t heard them talking about it. ‟ Not now, I can’t do anything about it with so many people on the mountain. If everyone is off the mountain so it couldn’t hurt them in retaliation… maybe I could do something.”

‟ Fine.” They started walking again.

‟ What I was going to say before you interrupted,” said Wei WuXian, ‟ was that the sects are not interested in the truth.”

They reached the mouth of the cave and Jiang Cheng could see a cluster of Wens. The anger rose in him sudden and hot, and he glared at the group. Only one or two of them were still wearing the Wen white robes with the flame edging, though the fabric had gone grey from time spent in the Burial Mounds. Still, the sight made Jiang Cheng so angry, how dare the people who had destroyed their home be walking around, chatting, and laughing?

A toddler broke from the group of adults and barrelled towards them, screaming at the top of his lungs ‟ Xian-Gege!” and slammed hard into Wei WuXian’s leg. 

The adults all turned to look, and there were smiles on their faces as they looked at Wei WuXian and A-Yuan, but then they saw Jiang Cheng and fear clouded their countenances. And Jiang Cheng saw them, he saw them for what they were, people, some of the laobaixing as Wei WuXian said. He realised that he didn’t want to be some demon to people, any people. Wei WuXian had been right, he had been so strangled and blinded by his need for vengeance that he hadn’t even seen that Wen Chao, Wang LingJiao, Wen ZhuLiu, and Wen RuoHan were gone. He had gotten his vengeance, and he had no need for any more.

He looked at his brother and saw that Wei WuXian’s smile was a real one. It made Jiang Cheng think of sunshine and lotus blooms, and it was directed at the child he had settled on his hip and was talking to animatedly. It made Jiang Cheng smile, a devious youngest brother smile. ‟ You might be right, and they won’t listen to the truth, but let’s start there and if they won’t listen to the truth… A-Jie suggested we just tell everyone that you are married to HanGuang-Jun and are the mother of his children.”

That statement earned him another fish mouthed stare of shock that made A-Yuan laugh and poked Wei WuXian’s face. Jiang Cheng addressed the toddler, ‟ Hello A-Yuan, I’m your Jiujiu, Jiang-Zongzhu of the YunmengJiang Sect, Jiang Cheng, courtesy WanYin.”

‟ Jiang Cheng!” exclaimed Wei WuXian, and Jiang Cheng laughed. They’d be all right, even if he had to get along with Wens or watch Wei WuXian marry Lan WangJi, they wouldn’t be living past their due any longer—none of them would be.

Notes:

Discussion Conference Order: When Wei WuXian and crew were in CR the Discussion Conference was in the Unclean Realm and then the year after it was in Nightless City. We also know that Discussion Conferences can be hosted by smaller sects the book mentions one hosted by LaolingQin. So, I took all the sect mentioned in the book and then moved around the map in a circle (Nie, Wen, YYC, MSY, Jiang, BLOY, TSH, Lan, Jin, LLQ).

I say that the Discussion Conference is the beginning of summer which is in the beginning of May (ex. 5 May 2025) and that the Sunshot Campaign ended about May and the Phoenix Mountain Hunt was that September and Wei WuXian saves the Wens that November. The next Discussion Conference (the first since the war) is in Yunmeng which would have been decided at the end of the war (before Wei WuXian saved the Wens) to show that the Jiangs couldn’t be beaten and also Jin GuangShan was hoping that the Jiang would flounder and need help and become indebted to him. Which means that the discussion conference was in Baling for this year.

The Chinese equivalent for ‘cheers’is 干杯 (ganbei) it literally means dry cup. My first job in China 2012-2017 we had staff dinners, and this was very literal if someone said ganbei you had to drink your whole glass (generally the size of a double shot, no mater the actual size of your cup if the restaurant had bigger cups or if you were drinking wine or beer). Another rule was that you weren’t supposed to drink your alcohol unless you toasted someone. But it didn’t need to be a ganbei you could just raise your glass to someone and when they returned the gesture you’d tap the glass on the table and drink a sip. My next job had less staff meals and more group meals including students and thus no drinking, so I don’t know when it happened but somewhere in there ganbei stopped meaning dry cup and people would say ganbei and just take a sip. There is a chance that this is just a Shandong thing or was because I haven’t seen a proper dry cup there either in years, but I’m going with this tradition as it linguistically makes sense.

Heicha 黑茶 means black tea; however, in Chinese what is called black tea in English is called hongcha 红茶 or red tea. Hubei has some Heichas that could also be called qingcha 青茶. I did serious Hubei tea research for my fic A Date in Lotus Pier here is the tumblr post on the teas if you want to see how dark the tea is. I was thinking of the Chuanzi Zhaoliqiao tea (third in the list, but fourth in the picture at the top of the post.)

Life beyond my due  this is a reference to the Yusheng lu (Record of life beyond my due) by Zhang Maozi here is the Jstor article talking about how PTSD played out in Yusheng lu (you can read it for free as one of your 100 free articles a month, just click alternative access button)

Chapter 3: Nie MingJue

Summary:

Nie MingJue is led on a merry chase to find his brother and is tricked into participating in an episode of Shark Tank/Dragons Den Yiling edition

Notes:

Happy Reading!

‟ Are you leaving, Da-ge? Where’s HuaiSang? You can’t leave without him,” said Jin GuangYao.

‟ He wanted to do some shopping in Tanzhou, we’re going to pick him up first,” Nie MingJue had replied.

The words echoed in his mind. Nie MingJue had even agreed to it when his younger brother had asked to go shopping in Tanzhou, but then they had arrived in Tanzhou only to get a butterfly from Jin ZiXuan stating that Nie HuaiSang had gotten a ride from Lan WangJi who had been headed to Yiling to deliver the invitation for the one month celebration. 

The anger in the sect leader came to a boil as he stood in the still dewy grass in front of the corpse barrier around the Burial Mounds. The conversation he had had with Jin GuangYao not really all that long ago seemed almost mocking. Why had he agreed to let his brother go off shopping alone in a different city to begin with? He had been zipping around half the Jianghu after his brother because Nie HuaiSang decided to go to the Burial Mounds of all places without his sabre! The second bell of the morning rang– it seemed like a good enough signal.

He unsheathed Baxia and behind him Nie ZongHui and the few others that had stayed back in Baling to discuss the Tanzhou situation unsheathed their own sabres. Nie MingJue stalked forward, pulling Baxia back, ready to take off the heads of the corpses that formed the barrier–only to watch as the corpses placidly parted for him.

There was half a moment where he thought he would go after the blasted corpses anyway; but remembering that his little brother was somewhere on the blasted mountain had Nie MingJue ignoring the corpses and marching up the faded path of grey dirt and bent grey grass that led up the mountain.

They had expected a lot when they stepped foot into the Burial Mounds. The skeletal trees looked like grasping hands, and they were surprised when the trees didn’t reach for them. There was a stillness to the Burial Mounds, a lack of insect or bird; they had expected to be hounded by spirits and corpses alike, something that had frightened the normal wildlife. But there was nothing.

The grey ground and grass turned to grey farm fields, but still they saw no one and nothing. Soon they came across a couple dilapidated huts, Nie ZongHui peered into them but found them empty of people though filled with the evidence that someone lived there.

‟ Yes, that looks very good, you’re doing a great job,” said a voice ahead of the small group of Nies. It was Nie HuaiSang. Nie MingJue growled and rushed forward, coming out in a clearing surrounded by more huts and in front of a cave. At a table sat Nie HuaiSang and a toddler, and they were painting fans.

‟ HuaiSang!” Nie MingJue bit out through gritted teeth.

Nie HuaiSang jumped and looked up, startled. ‟ Da-Ge! You’re here! I’m glad you got Jin-Xiong’s message.”

‟ What are you doing here? And without your sabre!” bellowed Nie MingJue. 

The toddler whimpered a bit. Nie HuaiSang gave the child a half hug and then patted his head. ‟ Don’t worry A-Yuan, Da-Ge is just so big, even when he speaks in a whisper he is too loud. Why don’t you go get your parents.” The boy slid off the bench he had been sitting on and took off running towards the cave, screaming for his father. Nie HuaiSang watched the boy for a moment and then turned to his brother, ‟ Da-Ge really! Did you have to yell? He’s just a baby after all.”

‟ What are you doing here HuaiSang?” Nie MingJue asked, not even trying to hide his annoyance. He relaxed his stance on Baxia and held her at ease in front of him, the tip piercing the sandy topsoil. 

‟ Well… we were talking, and we realised that the Jin were lying, and I knew that you wouldn’t listen about anything that had to do with the Wens… so I had to trick you into coming here and seeing the truth yourself.” 

Behind Nie MingJue a huff of amusement escaped Nie ZongHui. The sect leader was not amused. He glared at his brother and asked, ‟ We who?”

‟ Us,” said Jiang-Zongzhu as he walked out of the cave with Lan WangJi and Wei WuXian, who was carrying the toddler. The child’s face was buried in Wei WuXian’s neck and his little fist gripped the demonic cultivator’s robe and flute like it wasn’t some weapon of evil. Nie MingJue startled a bit not expecting to see Jiang Cheng and Lan WangJi in the Burial Mounds, but then he remembered that his brother had gone with Lan WangJi. If Nie HuaiSang was involved then perhaps Jiang Cheng’s presence shouldn’t have been all that surprising.

‟ Not me,” said Wei WuXian with a jovial smile. ‟ I’ve been here tending radish fields, but the pea— Jin-Shao-Zongzhu and my Shijie were part of the conversation.”

There was a scoff and Nie MingJue looked past Wei WuXian to see Wen Qing. ‟ Like you tended the radishes,” she grumbled.

The sight of a Wen just standing there brought a red haze over Nie MingJue’s vision and his grip on Baxia tightened. Wei WuXian’s head tilted, and as he stared at Baxia a furrow formed on his brow like he was trying to solve some puzzle. After a moment he said, ‟ Oh, I see, you shouldn’t stay here long Nie-Zongzhu. The Burial Mounds is not a good place for you and Baxia.”

‟ What do you mean?” growled out Nie MingJue.

‟ The resentful energy here, it’ll feed into Baxia and Baxia will transfer it to you, and it could…” Wei WuXian trailed off and looked back at Wen Qing. Nie MingJue could not see Wen Qing well enough, but whatever she did Wei WuXian nodded and looked back at Nie MingJue and finished, ‟ It could cause a qi deviation.”

Nie HuaiSang gasped and was up from the table. He looked between Wei WuXian and his brother and then looked wide-eyed at Wei WuXian. ‟ Wei-Xiong you can help, can’t you? You’ll save my Da-ge, right?”

‟ If he doesn’t stay here long his qi won’t deviate,” said Wei WuXian.

With a look back at Nie MingJue, Nie HuaiSang took in his older brother and the tension there and then he narrowed his eyes and looked back at Wei WuXian. ‟ But he could still suffer from qi deviation.”

‟ Anyone could suffer from qi deviation,” said Wen Qing.

‟ But Wei-Xiong, if you can see this about Baxia and Da-ge, then is there anything you can do to help?” Nie HuaiSang insisted.

Wei WuXian cocked his head again and studied first Nie HuaiSang, then Nie MingJue, and then the disciples behind the sect leader. ‟ I can’t make any promises. I would need a lot more information, it’s like… the sabre can speak to me like the spirits of the Burial Mounds, but they are speaking some obscure dialect, I can’t understand them fully.”

The Nies all shifted. Nie MingJue looked at Wei WuXian with a strange mix of anger, fear, and awe. Who was Wei WuXian anyway? In a few words it felt like he had uncovered all their secrets and held them in the palm of his hand, ready to crush or set them free. In that moment more than any before, Nie MingJue realised how dangerous Wei WuXian truly was–and he was holding a toddler!

‟ Yeah, Wei WuXian does that. You think a conversation with him will go one way and it goes in a completely new direction,” said Jiang Cheng, reacting to Nie MingJue’s horrified face.

Nie HuaiSang nodded and then said, ‟ Da-ge won’t suffer a qi deviation soon, as long as he doesn’t stay here long, so we should discuss the Wens first and we can circle back around to the problem of the sabres at a later date.”

‟ There is no problem with the Nie sabres,” snapped Nie MingJue, but he realised that none of them believed it. The people before him might not know the extent of what made the Nie sabres special, but they all trusted that Wei WuXian knew what he was talking about and believed him.

With a wave of his fan, Nie HuaiSang brushed the outburst aside since he had already declared that it was a matter for later. He moved over to his brother and then dropped his voice low. ‟ That child that Wei-Xiong is holding, he’s three years old and Wei-Xiong picked him up at Qiongqi Pass along with his grandmother.”

Nie HuaiSang paused and looked at his brother. Nie MingJue had been ready to snap again at the brazenness of his little brother, but the words he spoke gave the big sect leader pause. He looked at his brother and then his eyes flicked up to the toddler that was still hiding his face in Wei WuXian’s neck… the toddler that he had frightened. 

He looked back at his brother and asked, ‟ What do you want?”

‟ I just want you to listen, Da-Ge. Come sit at the table, have a drink, and talk to the people here. Try to see them as people. If you don’t like what you see or hear, you can go back to seeing them as Wen-dogs,” explained Nie HuaiSang.

‟ And what about Wei WuXian, he— ‟

‟ He is also not what he seems, but we can start with him first if you want. You just need to listen. This is all bigger than Wei WuXian or the Wens.”

Nie MingJue narrowed his eyes and said, ‟ You said you realised the Jin were lying.”

Nie HuaiSang nodded in a slow thoughtful motion as he decided on the best way to word what he wanted to say. ‟ Remember that rumour that Wen Chao threw Wei-Xiong into the Burial Mounds after the Wens took Lotus Pier?”

The Nies all nodded. Nie HuaiSang replied with his own nod and then added, ‟ Well, the whole conversation started when I said if that rumour was true, and we all know how Wen Chao liked to fight— ‟

Nie ZongHui scoffed. ‟ Wen Chao didn’t fight, he would send in the Core-Melting Hand— ‟

He cut himself off and the whole group came to the same realisation, and they all looked back to Wei WuXian who was talking quietly with A-Yuan.

With another nod, Nie HuaiSang asked, ‟ So, will you sit down and listen?”

‟ Fine!” said Nie MingJue, his voice so loud that it made the others who had been waiting jump. ‟ We’ll listen, but I want that drink.”

Baxia was finally sheathed and Nie MingJue walked over to the table and sat down hard on the bench. The others sat across from the Nies. Lan WangJi helped Wei WuXian sit down while still holding A-Yuan, who looked like he had tired himself out a bit and had fallen asleep.

Wei WuXian smiled and said, ‟ What do you want to know first?”

‟ Tell me what happened that made you turn to demonic cultivation.”

‟ It’s ghost cultivation really,” began Wei WuXian, and then he told his tale. He talked about Wen Chao and Wen ZhuLiu catching him in Yiling and dumping him coreless in the Burial Mounds, he talked of the need to survive and the need for vengeance, and how necessity was of course the mother of invention.

The wine came, a jar placed on the table by a scraggly old uncle in dusty robes and the bowls passed around. There was a pause in the narrative so there could be an initial toast. Jiang WanYin leaned forward in his seat keenly watching Nie MingJue drink his wine. The sip was already in his mouth when he thought that the eagerness in the Jiang sect leader may have been due to an assassination attempt, but then the flavour of the liquor burst on his tongue.

‟ This is good, where did you get it? I didn’t know Yiling was known for their wines,” asked Nie MingJue. The other Nie disciples nodded and hummed with their bowls still close to their mouths.

‟ Uh…” said the scraggly uncle, he then seemed to flush when everyone turned to him. ‟ I brewed the wine. There are some peach trees growing near the base of the mountain, and I got the fruit from them.”

There was a grin on Jiang Cheng’s face and he pulled out a new bottle of alcohol. ‟ This is the Fruit Wine from Yiling, made with Yunmeng’s famous Yangdian Peaches, would you care to compare with me?”

Nie MingJue smiled back. ‟ Sure.”

New bowls were passed around and an aunt of some sort came over with a pot of tea and some cups. Jiang Cheng started pouring the tea and then explained, ‟ I had tried Si-Shu’s Fruit Wine when I first got here, and I had wanted to compare it with other fruit wines. I also had a hand in breaking a teapot, so I went into Yiling to replace the teapot and saw the Yangdian Peach Wine. So, I also got some Zhouxiang Qing tea, also a Yunmeng speciality. It is a great palate cleanser. I figured it would make the comparison easier.”

The tea was drunk, and the wines compared, and for a short while the conversation was over lighter topics. Finally, Nie MingJue slammed down his bowl on the table and said, ‟ Si-Shu was it? What is your secret? This is an excellent wine!”

‟ Thank you Nie-Zongzhu. I don’t think there is any secret to wine making, except maybe that the peaches are from the Burial Mounds,” explained Si-Shu.

Jiang Cheng leaned forward across the table to talk more directly with the other sect leader, ‟ This is my proposal ChiFeng-Zun: if you agree that these Wens should not be persecuted then we get Si-Shu some regular Yangdian peaches, grown nowhere near the Burial Mounds, and we see if it is just Si-Shu’s skill alone in brewing or if it is also the peaches from the Burial Mounds. We pick an ideal location and then we invest in a wine shop for Si-Shu 50/50. What do you say?”

‟ I say we drink to that, ganbei!” returned Nie MingJue, both sect leaders toasted and then drained their bowls. When the bowl was slammed back down on the table, Nie MingJue picked up his teacup and drained it twice before he looked back at Si-Shu. ‟ Now, Si-Shu, as much as I want to just have you making wine, I need to know–tell me who you are and what you did during the war.”

‟ My name is Wen Xu. It was a good name until Wen-Zongzhu’s son sullied it, it’s why everyone calls me Si-Shu. Wen-Gongzi wasn’t named after me or anything, the Wen sect was vast. They liked to marry in talent, even if it was non-cultivating talent. So there were a lot of us that weren’t cultivators that still belonged to the sect. ‘Xu’ was just a Wen name with the sun motif and everything. My parents were farmers, and I was a farmer. I tried learning cultivation when I was young, but I’m just one of the people that could never form a core.”

Si-Shu talked and the others listened. Nie MingJue listened and when Si-Shu had finished, the sect leader asked to speak to any cultivators who were there. There were about a dozen cultivators out of the fifty or so that Wei WuXian had taken from Qiongqi Pass, and most of those actual cultivators had been too old to fight in the war; the rest had been medics. Nie MingJue talked to Granny and had a glaring match with Wen Qing and then he spoke with Wen Ning. 

When all the talking was done, Nie MingJue eyed the meek-looking fierce corpse that had just served small bowls of rice and a couple of radish dishes. Then he looked back at Wei WuXian. ‟ Our previous conversation got interrupted when the wine came.” He paused there to hold up his bowl in a toast, then he tapped the table and took a sip before he continued. ‟ I understand your sacrifice during the war, and your reasons for your ghost cultivation, but many of the sect leaders worry about the danger of your Stygian Tiger Seal. Tell me about that.”

‟ No talking while eating,” said A-Yuan and he looked up to Lan WangJi for confirmation.

‟ That is correct,” said Lan WangJi.

There was a smattering of laughter around the table and Nie MingJue looked startled at first but then nodded at the child. ‟ All right.”

The meal was eaten mostly in silence. There were still some conversations going on, but they were subdued, and on lighter topics. 

When the meal was finished, Wei WuXian said, ‟ I’m not going to turn over the Stygian Tiger Seal, not to you, not to Jiang Cheng, nor GusuLan, and definitely not to LanlingJin.”

Nie MingJue frowned. ‟ I am agreeing with you that most of these people are innocent and should not have been in a labour camp, and any that you can argue should have been in such a camp have clearly already paid back their debts. But you are going to have to compromise on your seal. It is a dangerous tool and should not be in the hands of one man. When you used it in the war, the corpses you rose attacked friend and foe alike, and people aren’t going to forget that. That’s why it would be better if you gave the seal over to a sect. With the guarantee that you cannot use the seal, I could see pardoning the Wen would go more smoothly.”

Wei WuXian studied Nie MingJue for a long moment and then he asked, ‟ Nie-Xiong says you are angry at LianFang-Zun, that you swore sworn brotherhood with him to keep an eye on him. Why?”

‟ What does this have to do with the seal?”

‟ I won’t give the seal to the Nie because I’m pretty sure if you and Baxia got any closer to the Stygian Tiger Seal then you would go mad and die of qi deviation along with the rest of the sabre-wielding Nie Sect disciples. I won’t give the seal to the Jiang, because they are still recovering, and I don’t want to paint a target on their back. There are larger, greedier sects out there. Lan Zhan says that he told ZeWu-Jun about the people here months ago but he thinks ZeWu-Jun believed LianFang-Zun over Lan Zhan, do you know if that is true? Were you there for that conversation? Do you know what was said?”

‟ Jin GuangYao believes that WangJi is blinded by his feelings for you, Wei WuXian, and that his affection for you is blinding him to the realities of the Wens at the Burial Mounds, which now I can attest is not the case.”

The seriousness of the situation suddenly disappeared as Wei WuXian turned to look at Lan WangJi. ‟ You have affection for me? And here I thought you said we weren’t friends.”

Lan WangJi’s ears turned red, but before he could say anything Wei WuXian added, ‟Why don’t you go take A-Yuan to play?”

Golden eyes studied silver for a moment and then looked across the table at Nie MingJue and the other Nies. Lan WangJi looked back at Wei WuXian and said, ‟ I’ll stay.”

‟ Are you sure? We’re going to be talking about your brother.”

‟ Mn,” confirmed Lan WangJi.

Silver eyes studied golden for a moment and then Wei WuXian turned to look back at Nie MingJue. ‟ ZeWu-Jun has obvious affection for LianFang-Zun, isn’t that correct? Despite your distrust of LianFang-Zun and your longer relationship with ZeWu-Jun.”

‟ It is true,” conceded ChiFeng-Zun.

‟ Xiongzhang said that when he ran from Cloud Recesses, LianFang-Zun helped to hide him and then was his spy in Nightless City,” said Lan WangJi.

Nie HuaiSang added, ‟ Er-Ge helped to get San-Ge a place in the Unclean Realm at first and then Da-Ge let him go to join the Jins–I’m assuming it was before San-Ge went to Nightless City.”

Wei WuXian nodded. ‟ Would this affection that ZeWu-Jun holds for LianFang-Zun give the latter any sort of liberties at Cloud Recesses that he wouldn’t have otherwise had?”

‟ No,” said Lan WangJi with certainty.

Nie MingJue closed his eyes and sighed, drawing the attention of Lan WangJi and Wei WuXian. ‟ ChiFeng-Zun?”

‟ XiChen showed LianFang-Zun and I the forbidden library. He didn’t show us how to get in specifically but also wasn’t really hiding the method. I wouldn’t be able to recall how to get in. But he was proud that they had saved so much of the library, and as WangJi said, it was partially due to the help of San-Di; so, he gave us the full tour. San-Di expressed interest in actually exploring the Forbidden Section and XiChen didn’t sound opposed to the idea.”

Lan WangJi looked absolutely terrified; Wei WuXian patted his arm gently. ‟ I don’t know what stories your brother has told you about our time at Cloud Recesses. But Lan Zhan caught me sneaking in alcohol–of course he wanted me punished, and you might even say that whatever affection Lan Zhan holds for me now that would turn a blind eye to harbouring criminals had not yet manifested in our youth. What you need to know is I knocked Lan Zhan off the wall purposefully so that he would also break the rule. I had assumed that if he broke the rules too he would not have punished me because he wouldn’t punish himself,” Wei WuXian paused there for a moment and chuckled as he shook his head. ‟ I was wrong, he punished himself as well. So, you see, it doesn’t matter about affection or not between us. If I was doing something that was really heretical then Lan Zhan wouldn’t take no for an answer and drag me back to Gusu to be locked away forever like he wants to.”

“No,” said Lan WangJi, “I do not want to bring you to Gusu to imprison you… I want to protect you.”

“Really?” said Wei WuXian. His head whipped around to look at Lan WangJi. He studied his face for a long moment and then said, mostly to himself, “Of course, Lan Zhan never says what he doesn’t mean.” Then to Lan WangJi he added, “I don’t need protecting, the Wens do.”

“The rumours…” Lan WangJi began, but then trailed off as if he wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted to say.

“Oh, I see, you thought that if I was in Gusu then people would stop the rumours about me desecrating graves and the like,” Wei WuXian finished Lan WangJi’s idea for him.

“Mn… I asked last time because I wanted to know Wei Ying’s conviction in continuing to help the people here… If you had considered your duty to the innocent complete or not. I understand better now and want to help,” explained Lan WangJi.

Wei WuXian grinned like the sun but then his facial features slackened back into the neutral serious face that he had adopted while he had explained his position to Nie MingJue. “But tell me: Lan Zhan, if you came here and found me not shopping for vegetables with the cutest radish you ever saw, but instead with an army of mad Wens and corpses hellbent on world domination, wouldn’t you drag me back to Gusu and imprison me?”

“Not imprison, but I would stop you and try to return you to your right mind,” Lan WangJi insisted.

“Ok, not imprisonment, punishment then.”

“It would not be up to Gusu alone to punish you, but if I could not stop you before you committed a crime, then I would have to bring you to the  sect nearest to where you committed the crime.”

Wei WuXian threw his hands up. “Lan Zhan! You’re messing up my narrative! Fine! But you heard him! He would stop me if I was doing some crime, he wouldn’t just sweep my crimes into some dark corner. “

“But Wei-Xiong, some people would say that what you did at Qiongqi Pass was a crime,” said Nie HuaiSang.

“The Wens here are clearly innocent,” stated Lan WangJi. “Wei Ying is just trying to protect them. They are doing nothing except trying to live. It was clear when I visited them last time that the Jins had lied about the people and conditions at Qiongqi Pass. Further investigation is needed before it is known whether Wei Ying committed a crime and the extent of those crimes.”

“Still throwing off my narrative. But thank you for your pragmatism and faith.”

Jiang Cheng scoffed. “We can all agree that the thought of HanGuang-Jun of all people  lying for anyone is ridiculous, and that the general consensus of everyone that heard your fights during the war was that Lan-Er-Gongzi wanted to imprison and punish Wei WuXian for his use of demonic cultivation. Even if it was not true, it is more believable than HanGuang-Jun lying to protect a demonic cultivator and his army of war criminals.”

“Thank you, Jiang Cheng,” said Wei WuXian. Lan WangJi looked like he deflated in on himself. Wei WuXian patted Lan WangJi’s arm again and then turned back to Nie MingJue. “Sorry I got side tracked, ChiFeng-Zun. My point was that as soon as I saw the people at Qiongqi Pass I knew that the Jins were not honourable enough to be trusted with as a volatile an artifact as the Stygian Tiger Seal. I would have considered the Lan Sect until you told us of ZeWu-Jun’s conduct. I do not know LianFang-Zun and therefore do not know if he is trustworthy. I can only judge him by his sect, and it is a sect that I absolutely do not trust. That is why I asked you for more information about LianFang-Zun.”

Nie MingJue nodded as he considered the words. He could see the affection that Jin GuangYao spoke of in Lan WangJi, and he could see the affection returned in Wei WuXian, but he didn’t think that the demon…ghost cultivator could see it. But beyond that, he could see the reasoning behind what Wei WuXian said. “What do you plan to do then?”

Wei WuXian looked over his shoulder toward the mouth of the cave and looked like he was gauging whether or not someone was trying to listen in. He turned back to those at the table and dropped his voice. “Ideally, I would see it destroyed. However, to do so would require a lot of time and more research. If it needed to be done sooner rather than later it could be done, but it would be volatile and destructive. I cannot have these innocent people here.”

The large sect leader looked sceptical, and Jiang Cheng leaned forward and added, “Wei WuXian blew up the Lotus Pier forge trying to destroy it after the war.”

“So, what do you suggest? Set up Si-Shu with a wine shop and have all these people help out then Wei WuXian will destroy the—” Nie MingJue cut himself off at the look on Wei WuXian’s face and continued as if he said the word, “—here and then share the news with the rest of the world?”

“We,” Jiang Cheng said as he gestured between himself, Lan WangJi, and Nie HuaiSang, “were discussing the situation with Jin-Shao-Zongzhu and my A-Jie. Jin-Shao-Zongzhu’s theory is that the Jins at Qiongqi Pass had overstepped and now Jin-Zongzhu is lying to save face. Jin-Shao-Zongzhu wants to investigate the matter thoroughly so he can preserve LanlingJin’s face. So, we might not even be moving anyone at the moment. We will be requesting support in the issue of the Wens if it comes up, and any information you can give that would help us sort out this mess.”

“Da-Ge why don’t you like San-Ge anymore?” asked Nie HuaiSang.

Nie MingJue didn’t say anything for a long moment. He looked around the table at the assembled faces and then at his younger brother. “Meng Yao wanted to go to the Jin sect, I wrote him a recommendation letter and we parted on good terms. Not long after, the Jin requested aid at Langya, and I went over. Jin GuangShan hadn’t received Meng Yao or my letter. I asked around but no one could tell me anything. I can’t remember why I went walking in the woods, but I did. And I came across some dead Jins and Wens and heard a noise. I came upon a scene of Meng Yao killing another Jin soldier. I confronted him and he told me some lie about the captain stealing credit for his work and therefore he had no choice. I could tell that he was lying, and I wanted him to tell me the truth. But it wasn’t my place to punish him, I told him that he needed to turn himself in. He agreed and I turned to go back to camp, and he said he couldn’t. When I turned back to him, he said he was ‘unworthy of my kindness’ and then stabbed himself!” He had mockingly mimicked Meng Yao’s tone like the words had been seared in his brain. But he had spat out the word ‘my’ instead of saying ‘Nie-Zongzhu’ and then he ended with a yell.

Nie HuaiSang gasped. Nie MingJue shook his head and continued with a growl in his tone, “That wasn’t the end of it. I went to him of course, gave him some spiritual energy, and he hit all of my pressure points and froze me. He… he pulled out the sword and then bowed and walked away.”

Nie MingJue grabbed his bowl and slammed back the liquid in it, he didn’t even pause to give a toast. When he slammed the bowl back down on the table his nostrils flared. They sat there and watched Nie MingJue. Wei WuXian studied the sect leader for a moment and then said, “Lan Zhan, Cleansing.”

Lan WangJi pulled out his guqin and started to play. They waited as he played through the song, while Nie HuaiSang looked worriedly at his brother. 

Wen Qing spoke in the silence after the song. “I think Nie-Zongzhu has outstayed his welcome in the Burial Mounds.”

“What does that mean?” asked Nie HuaiSang.

“It means the resentment here is too high for him. He lasted longer than I had assumed he would with how he arrived this morning,” explained Wei WuXian and Wen Qing nodded in agreement. “Don’t worry Nie-Xiong, he won’t suffer a qi deviation if he leaves the Burial Mounds soon. I just had one question–could killing the Jin be something he did to gain Wen RuoHan’s trust?”

The big man took a couple deep breaths and then nodded to Lan WangJi. “Thank you WangJi.” He turned to look at Wei WuXian and said, “I suppose it is possible, but he used a Wen sword and Wen techniques. I can’t see how the method of killing the Jins would have ingratiated him to Wen RuoHan over any other method.”

“It was war though, so no one was really looking at an individual death, they’d just assume he died in the skirmish that you had walked by,” pointed out Jiang Cheng. “Maybe he got caught trying to sneak away to the Wen side and killed the Jins in that way to not raise suspicion.”

The group was silent for a moment as they contemplated Jiang Cheng’s suggestion. Except for Nie HuaiSang, who waved his fan nervously and kept looking at his brother. “We should go, shouldn’t we? Wei-Xiong, Wen-Daifu, can we stay at an inn in Yiling, or do we need to leave the city? I can come back and share any new information or take back any of your questions.”

“For a night, Yiling would be fine but not more than a night, with the Nie cultivators all agitated like that,” said Wei WuXian.

“I agree,” said Wen Qing.

They went through the usual pleasantries and made pledges of support and money for Si-Shu’s wine shop, but Nie HuaiSang had also left behind the money that had been his shopping in Tanzhou funds. When Nie MingJue glared at his brother, Nie HuaiSang just said, “It’ll be so much better to shop in Tanzhou after the Damsel of the Annual Blossoms is cleansed.” Then the Nies as one left the Burial Mounds.

Notes:

Yangdian Peaches learned about these from a Xiaogan (present-day Yunmeng) speciality site

Zhouxiang Qing tea is from my experience a palate cleanser. You can read about it on the same tumblr post from the previous chapter

Wēn Xù温旭 – 温 wēn – lukewarm; 旭 xù – dawn; rising sun. Chinese people don’t usually name people after each other. But Xu seemed like a Wen name so I’m saying it popped up here and there and since the family was so big no one realised there were others until WRH named his son Wen Xu.

 

Chapter 4: Lan WangJi

Summary:

Lan WangJi is worried that the Jianghu is becoming concerned more wit money and less with doing what is right. He knows that Wei WuXian will agree with him. Lan WangJi is also glad for any excuse to spend time with Wei WuXian especially if they get to night hunt together.

Notes:

Here is Toast’s WangXian get together chapter, I hope you enjoy it!

Happy Reading!

Lan WangJi had hope, when he landed outside Yiling and went through the city, that he would again run into Wei WuXian and A-Yuan and be able to treat them to a meal. He thought it would be less likely to happen, though, now that the people on the Burial Mounds had more money. Jiang Cheng and Lan WangJi had stayed at the Burial Mounds after the Nies had left, but when they had eventually left as well, they had also left behind money and Jiang WanYin had promised a shipment of Yangdian peaches grown near Lotus Pier and thus far from any sources of resentful energy.

While there was still hope of finding someone in the town who was doing the shopping he felt with the influx of funds that the people of the Burial Mounds wouldn’t need to linger in town. But he walked through the city anyway because he wanted to hear the rumours.

His fourteen-year-old self would be horrified. Before the guest lectures where he had met Wei WuXian, he had known the rules against gossip and rumours, and they seemed to be practical guidelines. Up until the guest lectures had finished, Lan WangJi’s life had been centred around Cloud Recesses, and he hadn’t spent any prolonged time outside the walls of his home. He now knew you needed to listen to gossip and rumours, and then while you yourself didn’t heed them, you needed to gauge how someone else would react to the same information. So, he had tea in a teahouse that had a storyteller, and miraculously he was not spinning tales of vitriol about Wei WuXian. 

He drank the pot of tea that he bought slowly and tried to listen to what the others were saying, not just the storyteller, and he tried to centre his mind. He had a lot of thoughts swirling around his head, and perhaps trying to multi-task was not the best thing to do at the moment, but he was there in Yiling to solve a problem– because Wei WuXian would understand.

It wasn’t that he didn’t understand how a sect made their money: taxes, selling of tools and talismans, and night hunting. People would still pay their taxes, but with the war only a couple years gone, was it really right to charge for night hunting? At least in the situation that Lan WanJi had found himself in, he was sure that Wei WuXian would understand, and he’d help because help was needed, not say that they needed to wait for payment. Lan WangJi would have thought his brother was the same. But before the war–and even during the war–he would have thought that his brother trusted him. People changed, he supposed, and the war had brought many stark realities to the forefront, and they all had lived through horrors that had changed them. He had been gratified that Lan XiChen had appeared to come out the other side seemingly unchanged. And maybe he had, maybe he was always willing to trust a friend over his brother, without consideration that he could at least discern the truth for himself with minimal effort. It was just that before, when they had spent the majority of their time in Cloud Recesses, no one had tried to convince Lan XiChen of something that Lan WangJi would disagree with.

With a sigh, Lan WangJi finished his tea, paid, and left the teahouse. He had heard no gossip nor rumours, and he had been unable to calm his mind. He made his way to the Burial Mounds. 

The corpse barrier parted for him as he approached, and a little flame of hope sprung up in his chest that Wei WuXian was coming to greet him, or that he would find Wei WuXian burying A-Yuan in the radishes when he crested the hill. Neither of those things happened, but not long after there was a yell of “A-Die!”  The yell gave Lan WangJi just enough warning to brace himself when a moment later A-Yuan slammed into his leg.

“How are you today, A-Yuan?”

“A-Die you came back, teach me guchen?”

“Guqin,” Lan WangJi stressed the second word. “Not today, today I need to borrow your… Baba. I need his help to save a damsel. When we return, I can teach you how to play.”

He scooped the toddler up into his arms and continued on into the settlement. “Woah, can I help save the damsel too?”

At that moment, a lightly panting Granny appeared. She took a moment to hunch over a bit to take in heaving breaths, then bobbed a bit more in a bow. “Greetings HanGuang-Jun, thank you for catching A-Yuan. Did he know you were coming?”

“I had not sent a message ahead,” Lan WangJi admitted.

“We’re going to save a damsel!” exclaimed A-Yuan.

Granny blinked at that proclamation and Lan WangJi spoke gently to the toddler. “You cannot come with us this time, A-Yuan. You need to form a golden core and then get a sword before you can go night hunting and save damsels.”

A-Yuan’s eyes got all watery and his lip trembled a bit. Lan WangJi added, “Your Baba and I need to travel far; however, when we come back, I will show you how to meditate so you can form a golden core. In that way, you will be able to save damsels sooner.”

“All right,” sniffed A-Yuan, though no tears fell. “I’ll work hard.”

“I am sure you will, I have faith in you,” said Lan WangJi.

Granny said, “Wei-Gongzi is in the cave making some sort of curse tracker, let me take A-Yuan.”

The toddler’s lip quivered for a moment then he sniffed in a deep breath and hugged Lan WangJi tighter. There was a moment where Lan WangJi thought that he would have to fight the toddler on the point, but then the boy looked up at him and said, “Promise? Promise you’ll come back and teach me guqin and medi’ate?”

“I promise, after the damsel is saved, I will bring your Baba back and I will teach you how to play guqin and how to meditate.”

Wide, lychee-shaped, silver eyes studied Lan WangJi for a moment and then the toddler nodded. “Mn, don’t forget to say bye to A-Yuan.”

“I will not forget,” promised Lan WangJi. With those words, A-Yuan turned in Lan WangJi’s arms and reached out for Granny. The old lady took the toddler. Lan WangJi bowed to them both. “Wen-Popo, A-Yuan, I will be leaving first.” Granny bowed the both of them back and then Lan WangJi turned and walked into the cave.

He found Wei WuXian as he expected when he had been told that his zhiji was creating a talisman. Wei WuXian was sprawled over the rock that was his desk, his face was close to the surface, tongue peeking out from the corner of his mouth. The table was covered with papers, a space barely made for the paper that Wei WuXian was concentrating on. The papers spilled over the edge of the table and carpeted the floor. As he watched, Wei WuXian ripped the paper that he had been writing on away and tossed into the air and vaguely behind him, the sheet drifted lazily down like a leaf in the fall. The brush that Wei WuXian had been using was tucked behind one ear. His tongue stuck out more in thought as he methodically tapped at the back of his neck with his closed hand as if he was trying to pound out a crick that he had there. Wei WuXian’s grey eyes brightened into a molten silver, and he sat up straighter in his excitement. He grabbed a paper from the middle of the stack. When he saw that it had writing on it, he flipped it over to see more writing and tossed it aside before he went fishing again. He cheered when his hand came back with a paper with only one side written on and grabbed the brush, which was still dripping ink, from behind the opposite ear he had put his previous brush behind, and then Wei WuXian was once more hunched over his work.

Lan WangJi could watch Wei WuXian invent all day, even as his fingers twitched in the need to pick up and organise the papers. “Wei Ying.”

Wei WuXian started up from his crouch, his arms flung out creating a rain of ink droplets and papers. “Lan Zhan! You’re here!” 

The brush was discarded unceremoniously onto the table as Wei WuXian stood. A smile quirked the corner of Lan WangJi’s mouth. “I am here.”

“Did you need something? Is something wrong? Not Shijie and the baby?!”

“Jin-Shao-Furen and the baby are doing well. There is nothing inherently wrong, but I did come to request your help on a night hunt.”

The man before him deflated a bit. “You know I don’t have a golden core.”

“I know…” Lan WangJi shifted. Even though he knew Wei WuXian would understand, he didn’t know how to begin.

His hesitation was enough for Wei WuXian to look around the cavern and then push a stack of papers from one of the rock seats. “Here Lan Zhan sit, even if I can’t help with the night hunt, I can help you talk it out.”

Lan WangJi gratefully took the seat, and his hands automatically moved to right the brush on the table and put the papers on the desk into neat piles. He didn’t read them but instead separated them into papers completely covered in notes on both sides and those that still had space to write more.

“A-Yuan called me A-Die again, and he didn’t protest when I called you Baba,” Lan WangJi said as he tried to gather his more pressing thoughts into some semblance of order. 

“You don’t mind, do you?”

“I do not mind. A-Yuan is a good child, anyone would be proud to be his parent. I was just concerned as he still has living family, and I have not adopted him.”

Wei WuXian nodded and hummed. “He’s enamoured with Shijie’s baby and decided that if my sister is having a baby then we are too old to be Geges and thus must be parents.” Wei WuXian chuckled and shook his head. “Lan Zhan, we’re old, when did that happen?”

“When the Wens attacked our homes,” Lan WangJi solemnly replied.

“Ugh, you’re probably right. That feels so long ago.”

“Mn,” Lan WangJi hummed in reply. “You remember how the last Discussion Conference was in Baling?”

“Mn,” replied Wei WuXian with a grin as his eyes sparkled with mirth.

“Ouyang-Zongzhu asked for help from the venerated triad and Jin-Zongzhu in assessing the war damage to the Damsel of the Annual Blossom in Tanzhou.”

“Oh, I hope they were able to help. She hates me, I pestered her until I could see her face, you see, but just the idea of what she offers is so magical, poets deserve her praise, and she doesn’t deserve the pain of whatever the war had wrought.”

“The area is steeped in resentful energy.”

“Not good at all, she could become resentful and wreak havoc on the town. She has to technically be considered a yao, even though that sounds weird since yao are generally resentful.”

“It was decided that it would require a large cleansing with at least a dozen Lan musicians.”

Wei WuXian perked up. “Oh! That’s good! Are you just coming from saving the Damsel? Did she gift you a flower for your help and your peerless beauty?”

Lan WangJi shook his head, his ears going slightly pink. “Ouyang-Zongzhu could not afford the cost at this time.”

The cave fell silent.

After a long moment, Wei WuXian asked in a quiet, worried voice, “Is GusuLan still struggling so much from the war?”

“I had not considered us to be.” Lan WangJi looked at Wei WuXian, took a deep breath, and said, “I am concerned that Xiongzhang stated a price as a way to benefit the Jins, instead of considering the people.”

“Oh, Lan Zhan,” consoled Wei WuXian as he reached out and put a hand on Lan WangJi’s arm. “I see where your struggles come from. ZeWu-Jun is honourable. How would charging a high price benefit the Jins?”

“Ouyang-Zongzhu took a loan from LanlingJin in order to rebuild. Lanling is charging a high interest on all their loans. The Damsel of the Annual Blossoms brings people from all over the Jianghu to Tanzhou and they stimulate the economy of the city, which increases the BalingOuyang coffers.”

“So, the Jin can continue to charge interest while BalingOuyang try to gather the funds for the cleansing from GusuLan.”

“Mn. Wei Ying, come with me, help me assess the situation, help cleanse the area if we two can do it.”

Wei WuXian hesitated a moment, but as he looked into the golden-eyed gaze of the man he had considered his Zhiji he didn’t want to hesitate. He took a deep breath and hardened his resolve. “Lan Zhan, I want to help but I can’t leave, the Wens need me to protect them here.” 

“I understand. However, I wanted you to consider that we know that there are no spies in Yiling; therefore, no one will know you are not here. I had tea in a teahouse in Yiling before I came up here and no one was saying anything about Wei Ying. I believe that as no one is actively thinking about Wei Ying negatively at the moment they will not think that it is you they see in Tanzhou when you are supposed to be here. A cultivation-assisted boat would have us arrive in Tanzhou in slightly less than a day, or I could fly us there in three and a quarter shichen. You could set up a similar alert talisman that you used to tell you about Wen QiongLin.”

Wei WuXian laughed and then said, “Well reasoned and thought out. There are just two things you have not considered. One, we would stand out due to how richly you are dressed and how poorly I am dressed. And two, the GusuLan sect is well known, and everyone will know you are in Tanzhou, helping. Wouldn’t that be seen as going against your sect leader?”

“We could buy clothes first. I can get you a set of finer robes,” stated Lan WangJi. When Wei WuXian opened his mouth to protest, Lan WangJi hastened to reason, “You will need a set of nicer robes when you attend the one month celebration.”

There was a moment where Wei WuXian studied Lan WangJi and then he said, “All right, as long as they are not too expensive. And you can’t wear white, you’ll stand out.”

“Mn,” agreed Lan WangJi.

“Fine, let me talk to Qing-jie, then I’ll need to set up the protections, and then we’ll need to go shopping and book passage on a boat heading downstream.”

Despite what he said, Wei WuXian didn’t get up from the table and instead started looking through the stacks of paper. He would pull out the yellow talisman papers, look at them and then discard them before searching for another. He started mumbling to himself, “I’m going to have to augment the range. Tanzhou is all the way down in Baling territory…”

Lan WangJi hesitated a moment but then took out his own talisman making tools and started making cinnabar ink for Wei WuXian. 

With a shout of triumph, Wei WuXian pulled out the talisman that he needed and studied it. Still murmuring to himself, “Yes, I’ll need to modify the range… if I… no… this radical here…” Wei WuXian’s free hand started to twitch and inch toward the pile again. Lan WangJi made a guess and slid one of the pieces of paper from the pile of papers that could still be written on into Wei WuXian’s grasp. The inventor didn’t seem to notice the help and then reached for his ear and the brush that was no longer tucked behind it. Lan WangJi held out the brush that he had put away earlier.

The action was greeted with a sunny smile. “Thanks, Lan Zhan!” then Wei WuXian was absorbed in his work again. When he started searching for blank talisman paper, Lan WangJi pushed into his line of view the cinnabar ink, brush, and his own blank talisman papers. “You’re the best, Lan Zhan!”

In no time at all, Wei WuXian had two talismans created. As they waited for the talismans to dry, they cleaned up the talisman making things and Lan WangJi packed them carefully away. With the talismans dry and the things packed away, Wei WuXian snatched up the talisman papers and held them up for Lan WangJi to see. “Hey! What do you think, Lan Zhan? Good, right?”

Lan WangJi scrutinised the two talismans carefully and saw the genius in them. “Mn, Wei Ying is clever.”

Wei WuXian beamed at Lan WangJi and then sighed. “All right, let’s go talk to Qing-jie, you might need to remind her of my cleverness.”

Together they walked out of the cave to look for Wen Qing. Wei WuXian was right in that she required some convincing–  not out of apathy towards the people of Tanzhou, but out of fear for the people of the Burial Mounds. But the more Lan WangJi discussed his points, and Wei WuXian explained his talisman, the more relaxed she became.

Wen Qing on board, Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi went to find Wen Ning to give him the alerting talisman. They found him moving lumber from one area to another to build another hut. A-Yuan was happily perched on the beam of lumber laughing and cheering on ‘Coal-Gege’.

“Wei-Gongzi, HanGuang-Jun,” Wen Ning greeted when he saw them.

“Baba! A-Die! Coal-Gege is telling me how to get a golden core!” A-Yuan told them.

“That’s great my radish, here go into your A-Die’s arms. I need to talk to A-Ning, and he’ll need his hands,” said Wei WuXian.

A-Yuan held out his hands and practically leapt into Lan WangJi’s arms. Wen Ning put down the wood and turned to Wei WuXian. “A-Yuan tells me you’re going to save a damsel.”

“Lan Zhan wants my opinion on the destruction done to the Damsel of the Annual Blossom by the war. I have a new signal talisman–if you destroy it then we will know there was trouble here even all the way in Tanzhou.”

Wen Ning nodded. “Does A-Jie know?”

“Yes, and we’re going to go shopping so we are less conspicuous. No one should know that we’re gone, so there should be no trouble.”

“Baba, Baba, can I go with you to save the damsel?” asked A-Yuan from Lan WangJi’s arms.

Wei WuXian hesitated; it looked like he might say yes to the boy. Lan WangJi spoke first. “I already told you that you needed to have a golden core and a sword before you could go night hunting. You cannot ignore what I say and hope that your Baba will say yes instead. It is not respectful to us as your… parents.” Lan WangJi internally sighed in relief when Wen Ning nodded at the parent comment. 

The toddler who had turned more into Lan WangJi to listen to him as he spoke, hugged the adult closer and said, “I’m sorry, A-Die.”

“I know you were just excited. I promised that I would help you build a golden core when your Baba and I return, can you be patient for us?”

“Mn,” replied A-Yuan, his little face serious. Wei WuXian behind A-Yuan was biting his lip and still smiling so wide that Lan WangJi was sure he was trying to bite back some sort of reaction that he thought would upset Lan WangJi or A-Yuan.

“Wei Ying?”

The miscreant mentioned coughed into his hand and then said, “Your A-Die is right, Radish, you need some training first before you can rescue damsels. But I think you can come shopping with us before we go on our night hunt. What do you think, Lan Zhan?”  

“Yes, A-Yuan can help me pick out new robes for Wei Ying,” returned Lan WangJi.

The boy in his arms cheered. They made quick work going around to inform Granny and Wen Qing of their plans as Wen Ning returned to the building efforts. The three made their way down the path of the Burial Mounds, A-Yuan holding a hand of each of his fathers, and occasionally lifting his feet up and swinging between them with great peals of laughter.

At the bottom of the hill, Wei WuXian held up the group for a moment. “Lan Zhan your ribbon, it is distinctive, if we are trying to avoid rumours, maybe…” Wei WuXian trailed off not really knowing what he was suggesting but figuring something ought to be said.

It was clear that a similar battle was being waged in Lan WangJi’s head as he took in the truth of the words and then debated with himself on what the best course of action was. A-Yuan looked up and between his two fathers and then asked, “A-Die, Baba why did we stop?”

Those words seemed to make a decision for Lan WangJi as he let go of the little hand and whipped off his forehead ribbon before he could change his mind and wrapped it around Wei WuXian’s wrist before tying it.

Wei WuXian stared at the ribbon suddenly tied to his wrist. “Lan Zhan, what? Isn’t your ribbon important to you?”

“It is.”

“Then why are you giving it to me?”

“Wei Ying will keep it safe,” replied Lan WangJi. He meant more than the physical ribbon–but also his heart. Something of his meaning must have shown to Wei WuXian for his face pinked with the words.

“I will keep it safe,” Wei WuXian swore. 

“Mn,” Lan WangJi acknowledged and then he picked up A-Yuan’s little hand and continued on towards Yiling proper. Silenced by the solemnity of the weight of the ribbon on his wrist, Wei WuXian followed after.

It took them a bit to find a shop that had robes ready to wear. While a few shops had robes made, they were intended to have adjustments made to better fit the customer before they were sent home. So, Lan WangJi and Wei WuXian searched through second hand shops for robes of decent quality that would fit Wei WuXian.

He held up a set of robes that were in a dark blue, the closest he could find to black. “What do you think?”

“It is too dark, it doesn’t match A-Die,” said A-Yuan at the same time that Lan WangJi had hummed his approval.

Wei WuXian laughed and ruffled A-Yuan’s hair. “But I always wear dark colours and your A-Die light colours, we’re like yin and yang.”

“Baba would be more beautiful if he matched A-Die.” 

"Well,” Wei WuXian said as he folded the dark blue robe over his arm. ‟ If we find a robe that matches A-Die’s then we can get that one.”

A-Yuan smiled brightly and then started looking around the room with stacks and stacks of various robes. Wei WuXian smiled and shook his head before he began looking for an under robe, preferably in red. They all looked around for a little bit, before Lan WangJi called out, ‟ Wei Ying.”

He turned to look at Lan WangJi and saw that he held up a red under robe. Wei WuXian walked over to him and handed over the dark blue robe in favour of the red. He held it up to him and looked down. ‟ A little longer than I usually like, but otherwise it looks very good. Thanks Lan Zhan!” Wei WuXian turned around to find A-Yuan only to see the boy yanking a light blue robe from the bottom of a stack of robes. ‟ A-Yuan, no!” Wei WuXian threw the red robe at Lan WangJi and bolted across the store. He made it just in time to stop the stack of robes from spilling to the ground. He scooped A-Yuan up and brought the boy still clutching the robe over to Lan WangJi, as he walked he lightly chastised the boy. ‟ A-Yuan you can’t just go grabbing things like that, you almost made the whole stake of robes fall on you!”

‟ But it is the same colour as A-Die’s robe,” A-Yuan protested.

‟ I know, but it was at the bottom of the stack, you should have asked for help. Or did you want to be squished by falling robes?”

‟ I wouldn’t be squished, robes are soft!”

‟ A-Yuan, I was worried you would be hurt.”

The boy nodded into Wei WuXian’s shoulder and then looked up and said, ‟ I’m sorry Baba, I’ll ask for help next time.”

‟ Thank you A-Yuan, that is all I wanted to hear.” Wei WuXian put the boy down by Lan WangJi. ‟ Well, let’s see this robe you found.”

Little hands pressed the robe to Lan WangJi’s belly. ‟ See! It is the same colour blue!”

He was correct. The blue of the robe he found was the same shade of blue as one of the layers that Lan WangJi was wearing. Lan WangJi commented, ‟ Mn, A-Yuan has a good eye for colour.”

‟ Let me see if it’ll fit,” said Wei WuXian as he held out his hand towards the beaming toddler. A-Yuan handed the robe over and Wei WuXian shook it out. The quality of the silk was quite good, and the robe showed no wear. The robe had embroidery done down the edge that folded across the chest. It looked to be ginkgo leaves, but whoever had done the stitching had messed up and put some of the ginkgo leaves behind others so they sort of looked like lotus leaves instead. Wei WuXian held the robe up to himself and saw that the robe would indeed fit. Wei WuXian hesitated–he wanted to make A-Yuan happy, and it was a nice robe, but he didn’t want to go night hunting in a light-coloured robe. He wasn’t Lan WangJi, he would make a mess, and he needed the nice robes to stay nice for the one month celebration. 

‟ I will buy Wei Ying both the blue robes and the red inner robe,” said Lan WangJi, which ended the debate in Wei WuXian’s head.

Lan WangJi took the robe from Wei WuXian’s hand and Wei WuXian scooped up A-Yuan again. ‟ Are you sure, Lan Zhan?”

‟ Mn,” Lan WangJi agreed and then he turned to go up to the seller to make his purchase. Before he could go more than a step, A-Yuan said ‟ Wait!” Lan WangJi stopped and looked at the boy. ‟ A-Die needs a red robe too, to match Baba.”

Wei WuXian was about to chastise A-Yuan again and point out that there were no more red robes when he realised that A-Yuan was pointing to a second red robe in the pile that Wei WuXian had taken his red robe from. Lan WangJi put down the other robes and held up the new red robe to himself. It looked to be the same size as the one that Wei WuXian had picked out. Without a word Lan WangJi added the second red robe to their pile.

‟ What about A-Yuan?” asked the toddler.

‟ What about A-Yuan?” asked Wei WuXian back.

‟ I want to match A-Die and Baba too.”

‟ They only sell adult robes here, we will try another store,” Lan WangJi said.

The robes were purchased and they looked for a store that sold second hand children’s robes. That store seemed to do a much brisker business, as children grew fast it made sense that someone wouldn’t want to buy brand new robes for a child who would outgrow them before the tailors would be finished making them. It took a bit of time, but they were able to find robes in the right blue and the right red for A-Yuan, though they were a bit big.

‟ Now, remember A-Yuan, these robes are for special occasions, they are not for playing,” Wei WuXian reminded him.

‟ Mn,” said A-Yuan with a little serious face.

Wei WuXian laughed and ruffled the boy’s hair, ‟ You look like your A-Die when you say that.”

The toddler grinned wide at the comparison and Lan WangJi added, ‟ You look like your Baba when you smile like that.”

The child’s grin grew even wider. The robes were purchased, and the small family left the shop and Lan WangJi proposed, ‟ Let us get lunch.”

A-Yuan cheered, and they went in search of a restaurant. When Wei WuXian and A-Yuan were settled at a table, Lan WangJi said,  ‟ I will go and book passage on a boat. Order what you want, just make sure that a couple dishes are not spicy for me and A-Yuan.”

‟ Of course, Lan Zhan,” agreed Wei WuXian and then he looked down at the toddler. ‟ What do you want to eat, my little Radish?”

Certain that the two of them would be fine, Lan WangJi made his way quickly to the docks. He asked around for people who were going downstream and were either going to Tanzhou or were willing to make a detour. He even offered to supply the talismans so the boat would go at greater speeds. He did his best to haggle as he had seen Wei WuXian do and then secure passage for two to Tanzhou.

When Lan WangJi got back to the restaurant, the dishes that Wei WuXian had ordered had already arrived and it looked like Lan WangJi’s family had waited for his return before eating. When A-Yuan saw Lan WangJi he waved him over like Lan WangJi didn’t know where their table was. ‟ A-Die! You’re back! We can eat!”

Lan WangJi hummed in agreement as he sat at the table. Wei WuXian placed some of the food from various dishes on a plate for the boy. Wei WuXian then asked Lan WangJi, ‟ Were you able to get passage?”

‟ Mn, we’ll leave this evening,” Lan WangJi answered.

‟ No talking while eating,” said A-Yuan.

Wei WuXian laughed, ‟ Yes, yes you are right my Radish, though Lan Zhan and I haven’t started eating yet! We’ll be quiet now.”

They ate in companionable silence. Nothing interrupted the meal and since they were not leaving until the evening they were not in a huge hurry. After the meal they went around the marketplace. Lan WangJi purchased supplies for the settlement and rations of food to bring on the night hunt. With their arms full of purchases, they made their way back to the Burial Mounds.

Before they could go up the mountain, Wei WuXian held out his arm to Lan WangJi. There was a basket hooked over it, but also Lan WangJi’s ribbon. ‟ Did you want to put your ribbon back on?”

Lan WangJi hesitated for a moment. He had to quash the feeling that the question was a rejection, as he knew it was not the time for his ribbon to be permanently on Wei WuXian’s wrist. The plans that were in the works required that no one look on any of those involved with suspicion. Lan WangJi could not return to Cloud Recesses without his forehead ribbon; if he did, Lan QiRen would demand to see his intended, and Lan XiChen would know that his intended was Wei WuXian and then he would probably tell Jin GuangYao–and that thought hurt more than a possible rejection.

Lan WangJi settled on ‟ Our hands are full, and I will just have to take it off again soon. Please continue to keep it safe,” as the best solution for the moment.

‟ Of course I will,” Wei WuXian said with a solemn smile.

They continued on their way up to the Burial Mounds. When they got to the top, A-Yuan called for Granny and subsequently got the attention of most people in the settlement. ‟ Popo! Popo! I got new robes, so I look like A-Die and Baba! Come on, come on, we need to put our new robes on!”

‟ Remember Radish they are not robes for playing,” Wei WuXian admonished.

‟ I remember, I just want to see!”

‟ We can try on the robes to see how they look, but first we need to bring the food to the kitchen,” reasoned Lan WangJi.

A-Yuan accepted that and then started walking towards the kitchen. With the food dropped off, Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi went into the Demon Slaughtering Cave to change while Granny helped A-Yuan into his new robes. The red robes seemed to fit Lan WangJi perfectly, though a bit shorter than his usual robes. Wei WuXian’s were a bit big in the shoulders and longer than his usual robes, but could be made to sit smoothly under the light blue robes that A-Yuan had found. Lan WangJi left off his white outer layers and stayed in only his light blue robe with the white cloud pattern where the blue gingko leaves were on Wei WuXian’s robe. 

Dressed, they met each other in the front room of the caves, Wei WuXian looked Lan WangJi up and down. ‟ The blue and red do not look bad with each other, though I do not have any guans I could wear.”

‟ Wei Ying looks good too, even without a guan,” returned Lan WangJi and he was pleased to see that Wei WuXian blushed at the compliment.

‟ Let’s go see how A-Yuan looks.”

‟ Mn.”

They walked out of the cave together to find that A-Yuan had already been dressed and was showing off his new robes to the others. ‟ You look very handsome, A-Yuan,” said Wei WuXian.

The toddler whipped around a giant grin on his face, ‟ Baba! A-Die! We look the same!”

‟ We do, we do,” laughed Wei WuXian as he scooped up the toddler before he could attach himself to Wei WuXian’s leg.

Lan WangJi stepped closer and hummed in agreement, ‟ We are all handsome.”

They all stayed around and chatted with the Wens. When it was about time for Lan WangJi and Wei WuXian to leave Wei WuXian went back to the cave to change into the dark blue robes and Granny took A-Yuan to change back into his regular robes. Lan WangJi sat at the table and waited for their return with some of the others.

Wen Qing coughed, when Lan WangJi looked over at her she looked pointedly at his forehead. ‟ I saw where you put your ribbon, HanGuang-Jun.”

He froze for a moment and then said, ‟ Wei Ying pointed out that the GusuLan Sect is known for their forehead ribbons.”

‟ I know what it means when a Lan ties their ribbon around someone else,” hedged Wen Qing.

Golden eyes glanced around at the others that all seemed to be concentrating on conversations with those sitting next to them. Lan WangJi looked back at Wen Qing, but no words would come.

‟ Don’t worry about us, we approve of you in general, and the match. Your intentions towards Wei WuXian appear to be noble.”

‟ I would never do anything to harm Wei Ying,” said Lan WangJi in a horrified rush at the mere thought that his intentions might not be noble.

‟ I am glad to hear you say it, but I wanted you to know that Wei WuXian will probably try to return your ribbon after this night hunt. He doesn’t know the significance of the Lan Sect forehead ribbon.”

‟ Wei Ying has copied the Lan precepts many times,” countered Lan WangJi.

‟ Look, a dead fish could see how much Wei WuXian likes you and how much you like him. I am just telling you that he doesn’t know himself because he is an idiot sometimes. I’m just saying that when he tries to return the ribbon, don’t think of it as a rejection so much as ignorance of what you have given him. I suggest you say what is in your heart in plain words before it gets to that point,” Wen Qing explained with a put upon face, one that said her patient was not doing their best to follow her regimen to improve their health.

He opened his mouth to respond, though he didn’t know what to say when Wei WuXian called, ‟ Lan Zhan are you ready?” 

Lan WangJi looked first at Wei WuXian who was waving his flute at him from the mouth of the cave and then he looked at Wen Qing’s hard stare and nodded to her, then he stood from the table and said, ‟ I am ready.”

‟ Wait!” called A-Yuan. They all looked over to see Granny carrying A-Yuan back to the group in his regular robes. ‟ You can’t leave without saying good-bye to A-Yuan.”

‟ Of course, we would never forget to say good-bye to A-Yuan,” said Wei WuXian. He tucked his flute into his belt and held out his arms so he could take the toddler from Granny. Once A-Yuan was in his arms he started peppering the boy’s face with kisses and he repeated his good-byes between each kiss.

‟ Baba, stop!” giggled A-Yuan and after a few more kisses Wei WuXian did stop. Then A-Yuan hugged him tight and said, ‟ I’ll miss you, Baba.”

‟ I’ll miss you too, Radish.”

A-Yuan turned in Wei WuXian’s arms and held his arms out for Lan WangJi. When A-Yuan was safely in his other father’s arms he said, ‟ I’ll miss you A-Die.”

‟ I will miss A-Yuan as well,” replied Lan WangJi.

With one last hug and a kiss to Lan WangJi’s cheek, A-Yuan held his hand out to Granny. She handed A-Yuan one of his grass butterflies and A-Yuan held it out for Wei WuXian to take. Wei WuXian took it and looked curiously at the butterfly and then the toddler. The boy fidgeted a bit and then took a deep breath of resolve before looking at both of his parents and then focusing on Wei WuXian when he explained, ‟ When you save the damsel, give her this butterfly to protect her in the future.”

Wei WuXian smiled with watery eyes as he took the two steps needed to take the butterfly from the boy and hug A-Yuan to him while he was still in Lan WangJi’s arms. ‟ How were we blessed with such a sweet and unselfish Radish? Of course we will give the damsel the butterfly.”

‟ Mn,” agreed Lan WangJi. ‟ It is very thoughtful of you to think of the damsel’s future safety, and it is commendable that you are offering her one of your own possessions to help her. We will be sure to give her your generous and thoughtful gift.”

There were a few more hugs and kisses and more good-byes for the other Wens and then Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi were off. At the bottom of the Burial Mounds, Wei WuXian once more stopped Lan WangJi. ‟ Your sword, maybe you should hide it if we don’t want people thinking we are there for a night hunt.”

Lan WangJi looked down at Bichen and then at Wei WuXian and nodded. He then pulled out a qiankun pouch and put Bichen inside and then slipped it into his qiankun sleeve. Wei WuXian nodded back and started walking toward town.

‟ Chenqing,” said Lan WangJi.

Wei WuXian stopped and looked back at Lan WangJi. ‟ What about Chenqing?”

‟ Wei Ying looks like Wei Ying. Even if the robes are dark blue they could be mistaken for black, Chenqing might make people think that you are the Yiling-Laozu.”

‟ I do not have a qiankun sleeve, these robes were commoner robes. The sleeve pocket is not long enough for a dizi to fit inside.”

‟ I can keep Chenqing for you,” Lan WangJi offered.

Wei WuXian froze for a moment and studied Lan WangJi. After a long moment he took Chenqing from his belt and held it out to Lan WangJi. When the other grabbed it Wei WuXian did not relinquish his hold. He met Lan WangJi’s gaze over the length of the flute; silver bored into gold. ‟ You promise to return the flute to me?”

‟ Of course, I would not keep your instrument from you.”

With a nod, Wei WuXian let go of his dizi and watched as Chenqing disappeared into Lan WangJi’s sleeve like Bichen did. With that taken care of, the two headed into Yiling and towards the docks.

It was still early evening when they boarded the boat and headed out downstream. Once they had cleared the dock and the close press of other vessels, Lan WangJi slapped the talisman on the boat and it gained speed. If they made no stops then Tanzhou was only eleven and a half shichen away. 

They did have to make a couple stops; Lan WangJi had booked passage with a merchant who was happy to take the offer of talisman assistance for the trip down to Tanzhou. It shaved about a day and a half off of the trip. The man had even agreed to delay his return trip by a day to see if Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi were finished with the night hunt so he could have the talisman assistance going upstream as well. When they did stop, despite looking like rich merchants and not the hired help of a rich merchant, Lan WangJi and Wei WuXian helped to unload goods and load those that were being brought further downstream.

Summer was well under way and the sun set later in the evening, often after the official sunset when the city gates closed and the bells that tolled the shichen switched to drums for the night. When they docked in Tanzhou the sky was still light, and the streets crowded with shoppers and hawkers alike. Their help was waved off as the boatman wanted them to assess their night hunt sooner rather than later so they could make a decision about the return trip.

The first thing they did was get a room at an inn for the night and then told the proprietor that they would be out late and might return in the early hours of the morning. Since they were there to sneakily night hunt and didn’t want to appear suspicious by eating in the inn when they stated they were meeting friends so near dinner time, they went out and found a restaurant in the vicinity of the Damsel of the Annual Blossom’s courtyard. They ate some food at an outdoor table with their ears strained to catch any sort of gossip. From their seats they could see the rope barrier that was strung across the main entrance to the courtyard. Resentful-energy-suppressing talismans hung from the rope in a clear sign for the people to not enter and in an effort to keep the resentment from spreading beyond the courtyard.

The sun was getting low when they entered the courtyard from a back entrance. The shadows were deep and encompassing in the low light and made the whole courtyard seem more ominous. Wei WuXian looked around and asked, ‟ Have you ever been here?”

‟ No.”

‟ Well, poets usually come in the front, and they present their poems to the screen that should be there and if the poem is good enough a flower appears and practically falls on your head. The screen seems to be there to shade the damsel from view but if you try and look behind it you will see no one. It is all very magical, but now this place has a low thrum of resentment, can you feel it?”

‟ Mn,” agreed Lan WangJi, ‟ however, it is very faint. I do not see how it would take a dozen musicians to cleanse.”

‟ Well, she is the Damsel of the Annual Blossoms. The screen is set before a small garden; it could be due to the large area of the entire courtyard or it could be that the resentment has soaked deep into the ground.”

They walked over to the garden portion of the courtyard. The screen that Wei WuXian had mentioned was laying on the ground and looked whole in the low light. Shafts of rising moonlight slanted into the courtyard, giving the area an eerie midnight blue glow. A lot of the plants in the garden had clearly been trampled on or kicked up and ruined. There were a few tufts of perennial flowers that managed to blossom, but on the whole the garden was ruined. Still, Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi stepped carefully around the garden so as to not cause more damage. 

Wei WuXian ran a hand down the stones of one of the garden walls and rubbed his hand back and forth over one spot. ‟ I can’t tell if this is shadow or blood stains.”

‟ Were the stones a uniform colour?”

‟ I remember them being so, but you’re right it could be the natural colour of the stone as well. Do you know the specific damage that happened here to cause the resentment?”

Lan WangJi hummed to himself and then said, ‟ People died here, it happened early in the war or before the war really started, but no one came to look at it until after the war. I believe the Wens had killed some townsfolk that had run in here to hide. The townspeople removed the bodies and gave them a proper burial; however, it happened again and again, as armies moved through the area.”

‟ The blood of the unjustly slain must have soaked into the ground then, that would account for the amount of resentment here. If the townspeople hadn’t given proper rights to the dead then it would have been much worse. Would the resentment soaked deep into the ground account for why ZeWu-Jun said it would be costly and need twelve musicians to cleanse?”

‟ Mn, the deeper the resentment goes, or the larger the area, would require more musicians to properly cleanse.”

Wei WuXian brushed his finger against his nose in thought. ‟ It is the distance, right? That requires more musicians. Either in area or how far down the resentment goes.”

‟ Yes, also the amount of resentment can affect the number of cultivators needed. But from what I can feel of the resentment here it is most likely a matter of distance as you said.”

‟ What if the resentment was pulled from the ground, could you cleanse it then?”

Lan WangJi thought about that for a moment and then nodded. ‟ I should be able to. The ground might be blocking our perception of the amount of resentful energy that is really here; therefore, it could be too much for one player.”

‟ But from what you can sense now, you could cleanse it alone as long as it wasn’t still in the ground?” asked Wei WuXian and he turned from his scrutiny of the walls and looked over at Lan WangJi. The other gave Wei WuXian a single decisive nod. Wei WuXian nodded to himself and then said, ‟ I have an array that I use in the Burial Mounds to cleanse an area for planting. It will pull the resentment out of the ground and temporarily from the air of the area in question as well. It doesn’t cleanse the resentful energy, since the Burial Mounds just has too much resentment. It just cleanses the area, and the resentment just sort of joins the rest of the resentful energy of the Burial Mounds. I could use the array to pull up the resentful energy from the ground and then you could cleanse it. Do you think that would work?”

‟ I believe it would,” replied Lan WangJi. He looked at the wall that Wei WuXian was still standing near and his eyes narrowed in the gloom as if to gauge whether the dark spots were blood or shadows. ‟ If that is blood it would need to be cleaned away or it could cause disruptions in the natural energy flow.”

‟ We can come back tomorrow in the daylight and see what needs to be cleaned, it would be easier to paint the array on the ground in the light.”

With a frown, Lan WangJi shook his head. ‟ If we work in the daylight it might draw attention to our work here.”

‟ The BalingOuyang Sect put up a barrier to keep people out. I have a sound muffling talisman, I could never get it to make complete silence, but it worked decently well when we were trying to hide from Yu-Furen. We can come back in the morning, assess the damage, and then we can use the talismans to muffle the noise as we work.”  

Golden eyes scanned the courtyard as if trying to see the damage through the gloom, and alit on the trampled flowers. ‟ The flowers will need to be replanted.”

Wei WuXian groaned. ‟ This is sounding more like days of work…” he trailed off and then saw the narrowing of Lan WangJi’s eyes. He hastened to add, ‟ I’m not complaining about the workload, I’m just saying that the longer we stay the more likely we will be caught. We could do the cleansing and then leave a sign up on the door instructing the townspeople to clean any blood from the walls and replant the garden.”

‟ Do not leave a job partially finished. Do not undertake a task you do not intend to see through to the end.”

With a chuckle and a shake of the head Wei WuXian agreed, ‟ You know this is why Cloud Recesses has three thousand rules! Those two are practically the same thing! I will bow to the wisdom of my elder. If Lan-Er-Gege and I get caught, we are not doing anything bad–we are helping, after all.”

‟ Mn,” agreed Lan WangJi and then he added, ‟ Let us return to the inn for the night.”

With a glance at the scant moonlight coming into the garden Wei WuXian nodded, ‟ Yes it is almost time for all good little Lans to be in bed.”

They headed back to the inn. The shortness of their time away as compared to their earlier assumption of a late night was explained away by needing to stay a few more days in Tanzhou, which Lan WangJi paid for.

In the morning, Lan WangJi went to get them breakfast and Wei WuXian returned to the docks to tell the boatman that their business in the town would take a couple days. Due to their early arrival, the boatman said that it would take a couple days for all the goods headed back upstream to be ready to go. Wei WuXian promised when they were finished they would look for the boatman first on the off chance that their paths aligned. 

With that taken care of, Wei WuXian snuck into the courtyard of the Damsel of the Annual Blossoms.  Lan WangJi was already there; he had a deep-fried dough stick and a couple baozi for Wei WuXian to eat for breakfast. They ate their breakfast as they surveyed the damage. It had indeed been blood on the walls; the flowers had been mostly destroyed, and the frame of the screen was intact, but the rice paper covering was ripped. Some of the flowers were in bloom and others looked like they were just trampled and with a bit of care they would be able to bloom again, while others looked to have been torn up by the roots and would need to be replaced. 

They were dressed too nicely to get a bucket and cloths to clean the walls without drawing attention. Wei WuXian had one of his old farmer robes as a change of clothes since he had no others. He dressed in that and went out to the market with a few copper coins (of Lan WangJi’s money) to buy similar poor-looking robes for Lan WangJi to wear. He found a set in greys and dark blues and brought that back. Dressed as poor farmers, buying buckets, brushes, and scraps of cloth was not remarked on, and then they went to the river to fill the buckets and sneak them inside the courtyard.

There was no blood higher than waist level on the walls. So, Wei WuXian handed the talismans to muffle sound to Lan WangJi to charge. Then he handed them back to Wei WuXian to paste them at eye level around the courtyard. 

Once the talismans were up, Lan WangJi and Wei WuXian removed the remaining debris in the courtyard. There was evidence of fighting in the form of broken arrow shafts and charred cloth and wood. It was all thrown out the back and then they grabbed their buckets and brushes and started to scrub the courtyard clean. As they worked, Wei WuXian told Lan WangJi about when he had worked so hard to see the damsel’s face in excruciating and hilarious detail. That tale carried them through the scrubbing down of the walls and floors as Wei WuXian would get distracted and go off on a side tangent or two. With the stone all clean, they split their attention. Wei WuXian went over to the screen to see about repairing it and Lan WangJi went to the garden and catalogued the flowers that needed to be replaced.

They dressed in their finer robes and Lan WangJi gave Wei WuXian sufficient funds for paint, brushes, and rice paper to fix the screen. Wei WuXian returned first, changed back into the shabby clothes, and set to work measuring out the rice paper and then painted on it a scene similar to the one originally on the screen. He hummed as he worked, his tongue sticking out in concentration. Sometimes he would babble to the air, apologising to the damsel and hoping that his work on restoring her sanctuary would work as an apology for ignoring her never-to-return mandate.

Lan WangJi didn’t return until evening as finding replacement flowers and seeds had taken most of the day. He had been able to get a few plants that were already in bloom and ready to be planted and others that were seeds. Wei WuXian had gotten distracted during the day and had not eaten lunch, so Lan WangJi dragged the both of them back to the inn for dinner.

The next day, Wei WuXian went back to painting and Lan WangJi started preparing the soil to take the plants. Before he put the first flowers in their place he turned to Wei WuXian. ‟ Would the resentment in the ground hurt the flowers?”

‟ It could,” said Wei WuXian with a thoughtful look. ‟ Some of the flowers are still growing though and when we have everything ready we’ll cleanse the ground. They would only be exposed to the resentful energy for a few days.”

‟ I will plant them now,” said Lan WangJi and then he bent over his work. Wei WuXian continued on with his painting. They had gotten extra baozi in the morning and stopped to eat a cold lunch before they went back to work. All the while the two of them chatted. Lan WangJi asked about Wei WuXian’s inventions, and Wei WuXian asked about Cloud Recesses and night hunts Lan WangJi had been on.

The flowers were planted first and Lan WangJi moved over to the screen and worked on separating the two sides of the wooden frame and removing the old rice paper. That proved to be the hardest task and took the most time outside of the painting, which was just time intensive and not overtly labour intensive. They went to bed that night with a clear end in sight. 

On the third morning, Wei WuXian finished the painting for the screen and left it to dry and then tried to help Lan WangJi. They quickly realised that four hands were not better than two in working with the large screen. Wei WuXian took the time to mix up the cinnabar mixture he would need for the array. He set that aside since he didn’t want to paint it on too early and then decided to paint the back wall. ‟ Hey, Lan Zhan, what do you think: The Damsel of the Annual Blossoms Welcomes All Poets to Recite Their Heart’s Poem?”

‟ Sounds good.”

‟ My calligraphy is horrible, how about you take a bit of charcoal and write it on the wall and then I’ll paint some flowers, and you can paint the words afterwards?”

Lan WangJi turned to look at Wei WuXian and gave him a hard look. 

‟ I’ll work on the frame while you write.”

‟ Be careful not to damage it.”

‟ Of course, but if it takes much longer we might need to take it to a professional.”

With a hum of agreement, Lan WangJi got up and went out to the back to get a piece of charred wood to use to write on the stone wall. Wei WuXian went over to the screen and looked it over, trying to see how the two halves were attached. 

Apparently it was a matter of a fresh pair of eyes, for Wei WuXian saw the little dowels that had been sanded flush against the rest of the frame and the lacquered over to appear invisible. They had rented a chisel, mallet, and nail removing tool though they had yet to find any nails in the frame, and Lan WangJi had been carefully trying to get the chisel between the front and back of the frame and pry them apart.

‟ I think I know what we need to do.”

Lan WangJi hummed in question from where he was writing on the wall. 

‟ There appears to be wood nails holding it together. If we get a pump drill we can drill them out and separate the frame and replace the paper. Then we’ll need to get a wooden dowel to re-nail the frame together.”

Finished with the writing, Lan WangJi moved over and looked over Wei WuXian’s shoulder and looked at the small round spot barely visible behind the lacquer. ‟ We should eat lunch and then pick up the tools we need.”

They didn’t change out of their shabby clothes as they had rented the chisel and mallet from a carpenter in such clothes. But despite not changing this time, Wei WuXian marvelled that he had changed his clothes more frequently in Tanzhou than he had ever had in his life before. They ate at a street stall that only just had a couple tables nearby to sit at and then they made it to the carpenter.

The trip to the carpenter had Wei WuXian running back with a foot ruler to get the proper diameter of the dowels in question while Lan WangJi got a quick lesson in carpentry. They still looked young enough that their story of wanting to fix their grandmother’s old screen on their own had been taken kindly. Since they had not specified that they had borrowed the chisel to get between the two halves of the screen and pry it apart, the carpenter now sent them off with dowels, some old wood that they could use to raise the frame and make it easier to drill through, an old axe, a pump drill, a spokeshave, a plane, a molding plane, a centipede plane, and a pot of lacquer. As they left, he laughingly told them that when they messed up he could fix the screen for them.

Wei WuXian worked on painting the flowers on the wall while Lan WangJi drilled out all of the dowels. For the flowers, Wei WuXian painted the four gentlemen: plum blossoms, orchids, bamboo, and chrysanthemums. Underneath the words seemed bare so he added some lotus blooms. He then looked at the painting and frowned. There were a couple of bamboo stalks that stood tall on the left side, while the other three gentlemen were on the top and the right side. 

‟ Hey, Lan Zhan, what flower should I add over here on the left with the bamboo?”

Lan WangJi looked up from his work and studied Wei WuXian’s painting. Wei WuXian had really only inked the various flowers and then added watery splashes of colour, not an overly detailed painting. ‟ Gentians,” Lan WangJi replied as he thought of the bamboo on the way to the Gentian House where his mother had lived.

‟ Yeah, blue would be a nice colour to add!” commented Wei WuXian and he went back to work.

With the pump drill, separating the frame had been much easier and seemed to go so much faster than all the wasted time Lan WangJi had spent in the morning trying to pry the frame apart. Once the frame was separated, Lan WangJi moved it off the blocks so he could cut the dowel into smaller pieces with the axe. The old rice paper part of the screen was held in place with little pegs that came out of one half of the frame and corresponded to holes in the other half. Lan WangJi swept away the sawdust before he carefully centred Wei WuXian’s painting over the frame and pierced the corners on the pegs to hold it in place. He fitted the frame back in place and then used the flat of the axe to hammer the dowels into the holes.

The sun was getting low when Lan WangJi realised that he wouldn’t be able to finish planing the dowels down so they were flush with the frame that night. But they would be finished in the morning. He looked up from his work to see that Wei WuXian was filling in more of the flowers he had painted on the wall as he chatted about his Compass of Evil. 

They had worked companionably the entire day on their own projects. They had offered advice and help when needed and talked of inconsequential things. Well, Lan WangJi would admit that some of Wei WuXian’s invention ideas were not inconsequential: the Compass of Evil would be helpful on night hunts and so would the curse tracker that Wei WuXian had earlier seemed to create while bouncing ideas off of Lan WangJi. However, there was no rush to create such things at the moment. Lan WangJi had thought he would find chatter the entire day exhausting despite loving Wei WuXian and knowing that Wei WuXian was practically incapable of being silent for long. He just found all prolonged conversation exhausting, even if it was a matter of life and death. Better to walk back towards the monster with a vague hope that a wet maple leaf meant an alternative escape route then listen to people chatter even if they were trying to come up with solutions.

Maybe, maybe it was because it was one person, or that Wei WuXian didn’t expect him to comment all the time. Even when Wei WuXian asked Lan WangJi what he thought he would often accept a hum of approval or disapproval as enough, whereas in the past Lan WangJi knew that that sort of answer would not satisfy most people. They worked well together. They could live together peacefully and wouldn’t need to constantly be doing things together but could be content with doing their own thing while sharing space. Wen Qing’s words came back to Lan WangJi, and he thought on how to best broach the subject with Wei WuXian.

‟ I cannot do more work on the screen tonight, we will have to finish in the morning,” Lan WangJi called out.

Wei WuXian turned with a bright smile on his face and said, ‟ That’ll be perfect, you can paint the words tomorrow morning first thing as the flowers will be dry.”

Lan WangJi hummed in agreement and picked up the broom to sweep once more while Wei WuXian put away the paints. They dressed in their finer robes and headed back to the inn for dinner.

The next morning, Lan WangJi did indeed start with the painting while Wei WuXian started to plane down the dowels. When Lan WangJi was done, he took over the task of the screen while Wei WuXian wrote a letter as the paint used in the words dried. When the letter was finished, Wei WuXian went back to adding details to the flowers.

As the planing on the screen came to an end, Wei WuXian checked his mixture for the array. When the planing was done, Lan WangJi moved the screen to one side and swept the floor. That done, he brought the screen back out and placed it on the blocks to paint on the lacquer. With the first coat drying, Lan WangJi gathered all the tools. He and Wei WuXian brought them back to the carpenter minus the lacquer, since the frame would need another coat. 

They ate at another little stall, as they had the previous day, but it was more of a late lunch/early dinner. When they returned to the courtyard, Lan WangJi added the second coat of lacquer and Wei WuXian started painting the lines of the array. With the lacquer applied, Lan WangJi carefully stood the screen up and off to the side so as not to be in the way of the array. He then went out to return the lacquer and the blocks of wood the screen had been laying on. He gave the carpenter a couple extra coins on top of what they had initially paid for the use of the tools as a thank you, and went back to Wei WuXian.

Wei WuXian had to concentrate as he drew the array, so Lan WangJi stayed out of the way and tilted his head this way and that so he could read the genius and purpose in the array. He didn’t think that he would ever stop being amazed by Wei WuXian’s clever mind.

With the array finished, they dressed back in their fine robes and enjoyed an evening in Tanzhou. Wei WuXian would alternate between hanging off Lan WangJi’s arm and flitting between stalls with excited gasps at the various wares available. Lan WangJi stopped at a toy seller and bought a toy sword. Wei WuXian tilted his head at Lan WangJi in question.

‟ For A-Yuan; so, he can practice saving damsels.”

Wei WuXian grinned wide. ‟ He is such a good boy; we probably could have brought him.”

Lan WangJi hummed. ‟ We did not know the extent of the situation before we arrived.”

‟ I suppose you’re right,” said Wei WuXian and then he headed off to another stall and bought a small pot of glue. It was Lan WangJi’s turn to tilt his head in question. ‟ I figured we could glue A-Yuan’s butterfly to the wall with the flowers.”

When it was time for all good Lans to be in bed they headed back to the courtyard, for it was prime night hunting time. Lan WangJi pulled out his qiankun pouch and handed over Chenqing as he settled in a corner with his guqin, Wangji. Wei WuXian stood in the centre of the array and began to play. 

The lines of the array lit up with power. A phantom wind accompanied it and whipped Wei WuXian’s hair and robes around him. Lan WangJi could sense more resentment as it came to the surface. It was more than it had been, but still not too much for one Lan cultivator to cleanse. Black wisps of resentful energy rose from the ground like it had been a smothered fire. As the wisps started to form a bank of resentful fog, Wei WuXian nodded at Lan WangJi. The clear tones of Cleansing rang out in the courtyard and slowly cleared the fog. At first it didn’t look like anything was happening as more resentful energy was being added to the fog as fast as Lan WangJi was cleansing the fog. They played and played and played, and slowly the red glow of the array appeared to grow brighter through the fog, as if the thick fog of black mist that had previously muted and obscured Wei WuXian and the array had started to thin. 

The glow lessened as Wei WuXian finished his song. There was a moment where Lan WangJi played alone, and Wei WuXian simply took in breaths before he raised Chenqing to his lips again and began playing Cleansing. Wei WuXian didn’t have a golden core, he couldn’t in that way help to cleanse the area, but Lan WangJi had to marvel at his ear for music. As they played the resentful energy seemed to dissipate faster then when Lan WangJi had been playing alone.

Finally, the courtyard was clear of resentful energy. First Lan WangJi stopped playing and then Wei WuXian. They looked at each other and smiled. Lan WangJi stood and put Wangji-qin away and then Wei WuXian was smiling and running the few steps to Lan WangJi and throwing himself in his arms.

They hugged for a long moment and then pulled apart. Wei WuXian handed Chenqing back to Lan WangJi and then in silent agreement they moved around the room. Wei WuXian removed the noise dampening talismans and Lan WangJi moved the screen into place. With that done, Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi bowed towards the screen.

The wind seemed to blow in with the shimmer of moonlight and the faint sound of ‟ Thank you” tickled their ears.

‟ Damsel of the Annual Blossoms, is there anything else we can do to help you?” Wei WuXian asked.

‟ A poem from the depths of a heart full of love,” came the faint reply.

Wei WuXian opened his mouth to begin reciting; what, he did not know.

‟ Not you,” snapped the wind.

Wei WuXian frowned and then looked at Lan WangJi. Lan WangJi took a step closer to the screen and said, ‟ I am not one for words, would you accept a song that I composed to say all that I could not express in words?”

‟ Music is its own poetry,” replied the damsel, her voice wispy and barely there.

Lan WangJi stepped back from the screen and summoned Wangji-qin. He took a deep breath, then he sought out Wei WuXian’s eyes in the gloom and he began to play. Wei WuXian was enraptured by the song. There was a light of recognition in his eyes and he danced in place with the want to state as much, but held back in favour of listening to the entire song.

When the song ended, Wei WuXian practically burst with his comments and questions. ‟ That was amazing Lan Zhan, so beautiful! And you wrote it yourself? It is the song you hummed for me in the Xuanwu cave wasn’t it? I remember asking for the name, but I don’t remember hearing the name, what is such a masterpiece called?”

All Lan WangJi could do was hum his ascent to the majority of the questions but the name in the song got caught in his throat. They were in the middle of a night hunt, and they didn’t have a high probability of dying, surely it wasn’t the time.

The wind blew and the end of the forehead ribbon tied around Wei WuXian’s wrist fluttered.

‟ I named the song WangXian.”

‟ Forget envy?” asked Wei WuXian with a confused tilt to his head.

Lan WangJi stood up and stepped around his guqin. When he was within reaching distance of Wei WuXian, he put his hand on his chest and said ‟ Wang,” then he put his hand on Wei WuXian’s chest and said, ‟ Xian.”

They stood there in silence for a moment, Wei WuXian’s silvery eyes boring into Lan WangJi’s own. ‟ Lan Zhan, do you mean…?”

‟ I love Wei Ying.”

Wei WuXian threw himself in Lan WangJi’s arms again. ‟ I love Lan Zhan too!”

‟ Marry me, Wei Ying.”

‟ Yes, yes, of course, I want to marry you, and wake up with you in the same bed, ooh and share a bath with you, and go night hunting with you, and— ‟

Wei WuXian was cut off by Lan WangJi sealing their lips together. Lan WangJi devoured Wei WuXian’s mouth until the other’s legs went weak and he was being held up by only Lan WangJi’s strong arms wrapped around him.

When they pulled back for air, Wei WuXian looked dazed and he murmured, ‟ and that, more of that.”

‟ And more,” added Lan WangJi.

‟ And more,” repeated Wei WuXian. He suddenly shook himself out of the stupor he was in and swatted Lan WangJi’s shoulder, ‟ Hey! It was you who stole my first kiss at the Phoenix Mountain Crowd Hunt!”

‟ First kiss? You said— ‟

‟ What did I say? I don’t remember. I know that was my first kiss, there is no way I would have forgotten that!”

‟ Mn,” Lan WangJi hummed contently.

‟ Hey, hey, Lan Zhan we should get going, maybe do more kissing, I like kissing you.”

Lan WangJi hummed in agreement again but then said, ‟ I like kissing you too, but we have a night hunt to finish.”

‟ Oh!” Wei WuXian looked around the courtyard and then said, ‟ What is left? We cleansed the area; you played our song… Oh!”

Wei WuXian reached into his robe and pulled out A-Yuan’s butterfly and held it up to the screen. ‟ Damsel of the Annual Blossoms, this is a gift for you from our son. He… uh… knew that we were going to save a damsel, and he wanted to come too, but he is just little, and we were unsure what we would find here. He wanted you to have it to protect you. I thought… well, I bought some glue, and I thought I could glue it to the wall with the flowers.”

‟ Thank you,” whispered the Damsel of the Annual Blossoms, the words while still faint seemed clearer.

When the butterfly was glued so it sat on one of the orchids, Wei WuXian joined Lan WangJi by the screen once more and they bowed again.

‟ I do not yet have the power to make blossoms, how may I thank you?”

‟ Oh! No thanks are needed, but we could make you some ‘I owe yous’, because more poems would make you stronger right? So, you can give out the IOUs instead of flowers and then the poets can come back when you are stronger for their flowers!”

‟ Again, I thank you, is there anything I could do for you?”

Wei WuXian shook his head no but then Lan WangJi said, ‟ Tell everyone that it was Wei WuXian that cleansed your courtyard.”

‟ And Lan Zhan too!”

Lan WangJi turned to Wei WuXian and shook his head. ‟ No, not me too, remember I went against my sect leader to help, it would be better if my involvement was never known.”

‟ I will do as you request.”

They turned back to the screen and both men bowed. ‟ Thank you.”

‟ Thank you.” With those last words that drifted on the wind, Lan WangJi turned to pack up his guqin and Wei WuXian snuck out to take down the barrier that blocked the main door to the courtyard.

As they walked back to their inn for one last night in Tanzhou, Wei WuXian thought he could stay up to make some IOUs but when they got to their room Lan WangJi had other, better ideas.

In the morning, early, they snuck back into the courtyard with a stack of IOUs for the Damsel of the Annual Blossoms to hand out and then they made their way down to the docks to see about passage upstream. Passage secured, they sat at a restaurant and ate their breakfast as they waited for their departure time. The restaurant had a view of the main door of the Damsel of the Annual Blossoms’ courtyard. So, they were there to see when it was noticed that the barrier was gone. The shout went up and then once the area in front of the courtyard was filled with curious people, one brave soul peaked in.

‟ The courtyard is restored!”

The cry carried through the crowd. One shrewd woman's voice added, ‟ I told you; I heard music from the courtyard!” 

‟ Ow! Wife! Music is music not poetry, I still don’t see how it is special,” replied a man.

‟ Well,” said the woman, ‟ It must have done something, if the courtyard is restored.”

‟ But what about the Damsel of the Annual Blossoms? Has she returned too?” said a new voice from the crowd.

‟ A poet! A poet! We need a poet!” another voice in the crowd called and the call was picked up.

Wei WuXian turned away from the sceptical crowd and looked at Lan WangJi. He pulled out the letter he had written the other day and handed it over. ‟ Hey, Lan Zhan, can you give this to your uncle when you go back to Cloud Recesses? You can read it if you want, but just maybe don’t mention it while in the Burial Mounds.”

Lan WangJi hummed his assent and tucked the letter into his sleeve. He turned back to the courtyard, where one nervous lad was practically shoved inside. A hush fell over the crowd as they waited. The man came out with wide-eyed confusion and a piece of paper in his hand.

‟ What does it say?” said a man in the crowd.

The poet brought the paper up, squinted, brought it closer to his face and slowly read, ‟ I owe you a blossom. I…” he trailed off as he squinted at the paper.

‟ Let me see that!” said a woman and she snatched the paper away, ‟ The Damsel of the Annual Blossoms has such horrible calligraphy!”

The paper was passed around until someone in the crowd triumphantly read, ‟ I owe you a blossom. I am currently weak and unable to create blossoms but the more poetry I hear the stronger I will become. Return when you hear that I have given out a blossom and you will get your own.”

‟ Did you learn how this miracle happened?” asked another voice in the crowd.

The poet called out, ‟ She spoke to me in but a whisper. She thanked me and said it was Wei WuXian that cleansed her home.”

‟ Spread the word!” came a cry from the crowd and it was picked up by the others.

Lan WangJi looked back at Wei WuXian. The man’s silver eyes sparkled with mirth and there was laughter on his lips. Lan WangJi wanted to taste it, but he held himself back. It was not appropriate for the middle of the street. ‟ Come, the boat will be leaving soon.”

‟ We need to tell everyone of our success, A-Yuan will be so happy.”

‟ Mn,” agreed Lan WangJi. ‟ I will teach him how to do handstands.”

‟ What? Why?”

‟ It is how we meditate in Gusu for core development. So, he can help us save the next damsel.”

Wei WuXian laughed as Lan WangJi left money on the table and they headed back down to the docks.

Notes:

I, for the life of me, could not find how Chinese screens were put together so I made my best guess based on the information gleaned from various sources:

Chinese Architecture: “Structural connections: Timber frames are typically constructed with joinery and dowelling, seldom with glue or nails.”

I learned about ancient Chinese carpentry tools from this PDF article which includes pictures. Pump Drill pg 27, Hammer tools pg12 broad site of the axe used for impact of tight-fitting pieces. Metal nails not as common as in the west. spokeshave, plane, molding plane, scraper/centipede plane pg 14-19

Animal glue: in China it was manly used in paints. So, it is probably a bit of a stretch to think to use it for the grass butterfly, but there you have it.

Chapter 5: Jin ZiXuan

Summary:

Since getting married Jin ZiXuan would like to think he has become a better person. He still puts his foot in his mouth, but not as bad as before. He is also better at making conversation and no longer acts like being a Jin of LanlingJin puts him above the rest. He realised that Jin GuangShan thinks he is above everyone else and is prepared to quietly confront his father with his evidence after the one month celebration—if they can get through the one month celebration.

Notes:

Biaodi 表弟 younger male cousin via the female line (includes son of one’s father’s sister)

Happy Reading!

‟ GuangYao, have you seen ZiXun?” asked Jin ZiXuan. It was only a few days until Jin Ling’s one month celebration and Jin ZiXuan hadn’t seen his cousin for a while. Jiang YanLi had been in her sitting-in for a month of course, her skin and that of Jin Ling too delicate to be exposed to much of anything. So, they had set  the one month celebration about a week after Jiang YanLi’s sitting-in had finished. Jin ZiXuan had had a few blissful days with just his wife and son before guests for the celebrations started trickling in. Jin ZiXun could be annoying at times, but they had grown up together, like brothers rather than cousins, and Jin ZiXuan really had assumed that Jin ZiXun would have wanted to be there to see Jin Ling as soon as possible and to help with the early guests.

Jin ZiXun had been busy lately, and doing things that Jin ZiXuan would have said his cousin would have considered beneath him. Not long after the date was announced for Jin Ling’s one month celebration, Jin ZiXun (according to Jin GuangYao) had gone out on a night hunt that required cleansing an area of corpses. That part was fine but when Jin ZiXun returned he said it was about physically moving the corpses from the area, and that was something that in the past Jin ZiXun avoided. 

‟ He went to escort the Yiling-Laozu to the festivities,” replied Jin GuangYao.

‟ What? Why? ZiXun and Wei WuXian never get along,” questioned Jin ZiXuan.

A wide-eyed worried look appeared on Jin GuangYao’s face, and he licked his lips nervously before he added, ‟ I don’t know about that, I know he took about three hundred cultivators with him.”

‟ What!” What was his cousin thinking? Jin ZiXuan shook his head. ‟ Do you know where he was planning to meet Wei WuXian? Is he going to the Burial Mounds? Is that why he brought the cultivators?” 

‟ I think he planned to meet the Yiling-Laozu at Qiongqi Pass, as it is about halfway between Yiling and Lanling.”

Jin ZiXuan knew from when Wei WuXian had first received the invitation and had informed their group of friends that he would have to walk, since he was without a core, and that (according to Wen Qing’s memory) Lanling to Qiongqi was a thirteen day and almost six shichen walk. It would take only a little over five shichen to fly and even with spending the night in an inn after four shichen as was recommended, if Jin ZiXun was already in Qiongqi Pass then he had plenty of time to return before the official celebrations started. Qiongqi Pass to Yiling, on the other hand, was about a ten day walk (again, according to Wen Qing) and a little less than a day’s flight. It really wasn’t halfway, and it really wasn’t a comfortable place to wait for someone, and—didn’t Jin ZiXun originally return after his night hunt only a few days after Wei WuXian would have arrived at Qiongqi Pass if he had walked from Yiling?

Jin GuangYao was giving him a curious and suspicious look. Jin ZiXuan realised that his deductions must have shown on his face. He didn’t want to tip Jin GuangYao off. He had worked so hard to gather evidence of the wrongdoings that he had been sorry to realise were indeed being orchestrated by his father, and he didn’t want to accidentally have the dirty laundry get aired too early. He wanted to confront his father privately, fulfil his filial duty by stopping his father from losing face, and keep LanlingJin’s reputation intact. 

He shook it off and waved his hand as if to brush away his own musings. ‟ Sorry, I’m still just trying to figure out why. ZiXun and Wei WuXian really do fight whenever they are in a room together.”

The features of Jin GuangYao’s face smoothed out to be a more understanding and concerned countenance. ‟ I believe he wanted to discuss an issue with the Yiling-Laozu, but did not want to ruin the festivities by discussing such topics here.”

The Hundred-Holes Curse. Jin ZiXuan silently cursed to himself. His cousin could be an idiot. ‟ I gave ZiXun a Curse-Tracking Talisman.”

‟ It did not work; I believe that is why he went to confront the Yiling-Laozu.”

‟ I told him!” Jin ZiXuan exploded. He took a breath and then started again, ‟ I told him that the Curse-Tracking Talisman was short range and it would be best to use it when we had all the guests for the celebrations in one room.”

‟ I know,” placated Jin GuangYao. ‟ I told ZiXun that as well, but he didn’t want to mar the happiness of the celebration with this unpleasantness. He will just go and request that the Yiling-Laozu remove the curse.”

‟ With three hundred cultivators at his back? I wrote that invitation for Wei WuXian! In writing that invitation, I promised that as our guest he was safe within our home. To attack a guest on the road would lose LanlingJin face!” exclaimed Jin ZiXuan. He realised how loudly he had spoken and turned his back on Jin GuangYao and headed for the door. He looked up as he passed a giant gilt mirror on the wall in the hall, and managed to catch the slight smirk on Jin GuangYao’s lips and the pleasure in his eyes. He wanted to stop but forced his feet to move as his mind raced. If he hadn’t known that Wei WuXian was helping the Nies with a Man-Eating Castle in Qinghe and thus would not be arriving to the celebration by foot from Yiling, what would he have done?

When he reached the door, instead of heading left toward the nursery and his wife and son like he had planned, Jin ZiXuan headed straight out of Koi Tower and mounted his sword as soon as it was polite to do so. He headed in the direction of Qiongqi Pass, but about half a shichen later he landed outside a city and walked into one of his favourite teahouses.

It was a favourite because they knew who he was but never drew attention to the fact that he was Jin-Shao-Zongzhu, so his time in the teahouse was peaceful and pleasant. It was one of six or so teahouses in Lanling that Jin ZiXuan considered his favourites for that reason. This one was just in the direction he had been heading. 

He walked up to the front counter, as even though they knew who he was and didn’t treat him special for it, he always wanted to make sure they knew he was there. Also, after he had brought Jiang YanLi to the teahouse, he realised that he should talk more with the people of Lanling. There was someone in front of him at the counter and Jin ZiXuan looked around. On the counter was a vase and in the vase was a blue gentian and a red lotus. Not a lotus that was just a particularly dark shade of pink but red, a red that could probably be considered mercury vermilion in shade. Curious, Jin ZiXuan stepped closer and studied the flowers. The stems of the two seemed to be twisted around each other.

Jin ZiXuan was startled from his study. ‟ Jin-Gongzi! It is so nice to see you. How is your wife and the baby?”

He turned from the flowers, to look at Hong-Furen, the proprietress of the Tea House. ‟ It is nice to see you too A-Yi, A-Li is out of her sitting in and healthy, and so is Jin Ling, we are going to have the one month celebration in a couple days.”

‟ Oh, that is wonderful! I’m so glad your family is doing well, but what are you doing all the way out here? Lao-Hong would always be attached to mine and the baby’s side when my sitting in was done.”

‟ I wish,” sighed Jin ZiXuan. ‟ My cousin did something stupid and I realised that I needed to get out of the tower for a bit, because I wouldn’t be pleasant company. I was hoping you had a table for me.”

‟ I’m sorry about your cousin, I’m sure some quiet contemplation and a good pot of tea will put everything in perspective. I have a nice table with a view of some blooming wintersweet and winter jasmine, and a nice winter jasmine pu’er tea. What do you say?” said Hong-Furen with a bright smile.

‟ Sounds lovely.”

Hong-Furen waved over a waiter and told them to lead Jin ZiXuan to his table. He turned to follow, and his eye caught the flowers in the vase again and he quickly turned back to the proprietress and asked, ‟ A-Yi, the flowers in the vase, where did they come from, are they silk? I’ve never seen a lotus so red before.”

‟ Oh!” she exclaimed and looked over to the vase and a soft smile formed on her face. ‟ You remember the last time you were here with your wife, how my husband and our eldest Jie-Er had that fight?”

‟ Yes, your son wanted to be a poet, and your husband wanted him to work here.”

She nodded. ‟ Jie-Er went to Tanzhou, walked there apparently so he wouldn’t spend all his money. We didn’t know either and had thought something happened to him!”

‟ I…” Jin ZiXuan choked off, thinking about having a fight with his son and then finding him missing. ‟ That must have been terrifying.”

‟ It was, it was! He went to prove that his poetry was good, and didn’t mean to frighten us. Of course, we were so happy he was back that we probably would have told him to be a poet without his proof.”

Jin ZiXuan nodded in understanding. ‟ And the flowers are proof?”

She reached over and pulled the flowers out of the vase to show they the gentian and the lotus were growing from the same stem.

‟ What?”

‟ Jie-Er went to the Damsel of the Annual Blossoms to recite his poetry. Her courtyard had been destroyed in the war. Apparently, a Wei WuXian cleansed the place and now she gives out the blue gentian and red lotus flower, as a thank you to the one that cleansed her courtyard, to the poets that impress her.”

‟ I can see the red lotus being associated with Wei WuXian; I don’t know why the gentian though.”

‟ You know who Wei WuXian is?”

‟ You probably do too,” said Jin ZiXuan and then realised it was a bit too late to take back the words and continued, ‟ He is also called the Yiling Laozu.”

Hong-Furen gasped. ‟ The Yiling Laozu?!”

‟ He isn’t a bad person, honestly the nickname and the rumours about him are some sort of malicious smear campaign.”

‟ He doesn’t desecrate graves?”

Jin ZiXuan shook his head. ‟ No.”

‟ Has a corpse army?”

Another shake of the head.

‟ Kidnap children?”

‟ No.”

She thought for a moment trying to remember other rumours about the Yiling Laozu and then said, ‟ Didn’t he free Wen war criminals?”

He had already poised to say ‘no’ and froze with his mouth partially open. Jin ZiXuan realised again he might have put his foot in it, that he should have just said ‘no’ but since he clearly hesitated over the answer he would have to answer. ‟ He freed people that had been falsely imprisoned, some of the laobaixing that happened to have the Wen surname. I think those responsible started that rumour to save their own face.”

‟ I see.”

Jin ZiXuan nodded. ‟ Wei WuXian doesn’t really care about his reputation, just helping people, and he will take the night hunts that others deem too hard. Tanzhou for example, the Venerated Triad looked into it but decided that it would need more cultivators and resources to cleanse. But Wei WuXian apparently figured it out. And I know he is currently in Qinghe helping the Nie Sect with a Man-Eating Castle.”

‟ That sounds terrifying,” gasped Hong-Furen. Jin ZiXuan noticed that the waiter meant to bring him to his table was still hovering nearby and his eyes were wide, showing that he too was listening. Hong-Furen asked Jin ZiXuan, ‟ Why a red lotus though? You said it made sense.”

‟ Oh! Uh… Wei WuXian is the martial brother of A-Li, and Yunmeng is known for their lotuses and Wei WuXian always wore a red ribbon in his hair.”

Hong-Furen considered this and looked at the flowers in the vase. ‟ Maybe the blue gentian is because blue and red make purple, that is the colour of the YunmengJiang Sect, correct?”

‟ Yeah, yeah it is,” replied Jin ZiXuan with a smile.

‟ I’ve been detaining you too long, why don’t you go sit down, and I’ll have that tea for you in a moment.”

‟ Thank you, A-Yi.” Jin ZiXuan turned and followed the waiter who brought to a table before a window. The cold air from outside came in but there was a brazier by the table to help counteract the chill, and Jin ZiXuan was still dressed warmly from his flight. The landscape outside was mainly yellowed, dead grass field before a bare-branched forest. He could see the rows of garden beds interrupting the grass. They were probably a sight to see in spring blooming with flowers, but at the moment were just a variation on the yellow to brown palette of the rest of the scenery. Near the flower beds was the winter jasmine, a bushy sort of plant that was covered in yellow flowers. The wintersweet was more tree-like with lighter yellow flowers than the winter jasmine. From the table he couldn’t see the entire tree, but a couple branches grew across the window, the branches covered in delicate blossoms with a reddish centre. 

Even though the flowers were yellow like the grass and didn’t really add any colour to the scenery, they were a nice reminder that there was life in the winter too. A good omen for his son, a winter baby, Jin ZiXuan thought. 

While he waited for the tea to arrive he crafted a butterfly to his wife, explaining where he was and what had led him to the teahouse. He sent a second butterfly to Nie HuaiSang, as the person who wasn’t investigating the Man-Eating Castle or who he knew wouldn’t be flying if they had already left for Lanling. Then after some consideration he sent another to Jiang Cheng. He didn’t really want Jin GuangYao to see either Jiang sibling receiving a butterfly, but Jiang Cheng could walk around Koi Tower more than Jiang YanLi could at the moment and should be warned. 

The pot of tea came with a plate of small cakes and Jin ZiXuan did his best to relax and enjoy it for the time being. He thought back to the flower in the vase and had to smile a bit. He had heard his father complain that he could no longer collect interest from Ouyang-Zongzhu, but he hadn’t heard any details on how Baling had been able to procure the funds to pay back their loan—now, he knew. He knew his father was also annoyed by the wealth of YunmengJiang and QingheNie. Yiling Ghost Wine contributed greatly to their increase in wealth. 

The price for a single bottle was astronomical. It was the talk of the Jianghu, the newest luxury good. Jin GuangShan had wanted to buy out the entire year's stock from the seller but was denied. The shop wouldn’t sell to Jins. Of course, they didn’t say it outright but if you took the time to read the shop story that they had posted, you would understand.

A poor wine maker, one of the laobaixing, had lost everything to the Cultivator War. He had asked Wei WuXian for permission to harvest the peaches that grew on the Burial Mounds so that he could brew and sell his wine and hopefully make some money. He had gifted a bottle to Wei WuXian as thanks and Wei WuXian shared the bottle with his brother, Jiang-Zongzhu, and ChiFeng-Zun, who had happened to have been visiting at the same time. There was something special about the fruits grown in the Burial Mounds that when combined with the skill of the poor wine maker made an excellent fruit wine. So enamoured with the wine were the two sect leaders that they purchased the shop for the poor wine maker. Wei WuXian swore that all the peaches of the Burial Mounds were his to use, and Wei WuXian would do his best to protect all the wine maker’s workers that went to pick peaches from the Burial Mounds. The finite number of trees growing in the Burial Mounds and the inherent danger in going there to harvest the fruit gave the wine an indescribable underlying spice to the sweet and refreshing flavour profile, that is both light and non-greasy. Yiling Ghost Wine is sure to intrigue and delight anyone.

Jin ZiXuan smiled at the thought of the Ghost Wine he had procured for the one month celebration. He hadn’t gotten a huge discount, only ten percent, and he had only been able to get enough that the guests would each have a sip of the wine for the toast that Jin GuangShan planned to have.

Being able to get the wine at all had raised Jin ZiXuan in his father’s eye. Something that made Jin ZiXuan realise that his position as his father’s legitimate son and heir did not actually mean that his father liked him.

He had gone to Yiling to pick up the wine personally; after all the Wens left the Burial Mounds but before Lan QiRen had come up with something that had allowed Wei WuXian to successfully destroy the Stygian Tiger Seal. The old Yiling Supervisory Office had been turned into a clinic and pharmacy, where Wen Qing and the other medically-minded members of the family saw patients and prepared medicines. Jin ZiXuan heard that the money from his wine purchase would go towards getting some farmland for the farmers in the family, and they were planning on growing things that could be made into medicines or wine.

A butterfly came back, and Jin ZiXuan tilted his head to listen to the message. Jiang YanLi suggested that if Jin GuangYao thought he had gone to Qiongqi Pass that it would be best to stay away, just to see his reaction. 

He had trusted the others, he had. He believed them when they had said the Wen Remnants were not dangerous, that they were doctors, farmers, and wine makers. It had just been the mystique and the prestige of the Yiling Ghost Wine that had Jin ZiXuan visiting the Burial Mounds with a container of soup from his wife for Wei WuXian. Jiang YanLi had been annoyed at him when he had admitted that he had met their little nephew Lan Yuan—called that despite living with Wei WuXian in Wen Qing’s home—before Jiang YanLi could.

The butterfly and the thoughts of the Wens had Jin ZiXuan frown and go through all the evidence that he had collected against his father. It saddened him to see to what lengths his father had gone to for a power he had publicly railed against. But once the celebrations were over and more people could see Wei WuXian as a non-threatening thing (and if he was lucky, Jin ZiXun would use the talisman and find the real culprit of the Hundred Holes curse), then Jin ZiXuan could quietly talk to his father and end his search for and funding of Lanling demonic cultivators. 

He sighed into his teacup and nibbled on a cake that was shaped like a plum blossom. Up until he had seen Jin GuangYao in that mirror they had all assumed that Jin GuangYao had only been doing what Jin GuangShan had wanted. Jin ZiXuan knew about what had happened during the Sunshot Campaign with Nie MingJue, but the group had talked about it and had decided that Jin GuangYao’s involvement had been purely for Jin GuangShan’s approval. Jin ZiXuan, even after realising that he wasn’t as high in his father’s opinion as he had thought he was, knew that Jin GuangShan would never make a bastard heir. So, if—Jin ZiXuan didn’t know what, but that smile, that smile seemed like Jin GuangYao was happy he had manipulated Jin ZiXuan into doing something for his purposes and not Jin GuangShan’s purposes.

Jin ZiXuan wished he had come more prepared. Jiang YanLi was right–if Jin GuangYao thought he had gone to Qiongqi Pass to confront his cousin, then Jin ZiXuan should stay away for a couple days. As it was a five shichen flight, it would be assumed that he would fly halfway and get a room for the night and arrive the next morning. He was now only a half-shichen flight from Koi Tower; he could stay until the morning of the one month celebration if need be and get back to Koi Tower without anyone thinking anything was wrong.

Decision made, Jin ZiXuan sent a butterfly to Luo QingYang so she could be on the lookout for the return of his cousin and all the disciples he had taken with him. He tried to enjoy the tea and cakes and then he went out to find an inn. Since he had the time and was missing his wife and son, he went around the market looking for gifts. He wondered if he could find something that was shiny that Jin Ling would like as much as his son liked Suihua.

It was the day before the one month celebration and was getting on in the evening when the butterfly came. Jin ZiXuan had already been away for most of a day, a night, and most of the next day. He had been debating whether to go home or spend one more night away when Luo QingYang said that the disciples were returning. He wasn’t sure where she had positioned herself, whether the warning would get Jin ZiXuan back to Koi Tower before or after his cousin. He settled all his bills, made sure his presents were packed away safely in his sleeves, and headed back to Koi Tower.

His arrival drew no attention for the Heavens had decided that he would arrive after both groups–his cousin and the disciples as well as the Nie contingent that included Wei WuXian, Lan WangJi, and Lan Yuan. The halls were practically empty as Jin ZiXuan moved through them towards the noise. He came upon the scene from an adjoining hallway and found the last of the Nie disciples in a doorway. He could hear everything but the people in the hallway could not see him.

‟ Wei WuXian attacked us at Qiongqi Pass!” said one disciple.

‟ He used the Ghost General and many of us died! Jin-Er-Gongzi was injured, we were barely able to retreat!” said another disciple.

Jin ZiXuan peaked into the room and tried to see to the front and to who was speaking; he didn’t recognise the voices. But all he could see were people dressed in Nie colours and two dressed in light blue with red under robes. He could pick out Nie HuaiSang only because he assumed Nie HuaiSang would be the only person that would elbow Nie MingJue. And Nie MingJue was recognisable as he towered over the crowd.

ChiFeng-Zun coughed, looked down at his brother, sighed, and then asked, ‟ Did you see Wei WuXian?”

‟ Of course! The Ghost General— ‟

‟ No,” snapped Nie MingJue. ‟ Did you actually see Wei WuXian with your own eyes?”

In the following silence, Jin ZiXuan could assume the awkward shifting the disciples were doing under Nie MingJue’s intense stare. Finally, one of the disciples spoke, ‟ Well, no, not physically.”

‟ But we heard his Ghost Flute, and the Ghost General attacked,” the other disciple added.

‟ That’s right! Only the Yiling Laozu uses such wicked tricks!” contributed the first disciple.

‟ What about Jin-Shao-Zongzhu?” asked Jin GuangYao.

‟ What about my son?” asked Jin GuangShan.

Jin GuangYao simpered, Jin ZiXuan could see his overly shocked and dismayed face in his mind’s eye. ‟ Jin-Shao-Zongzhu asked where Jin-Er-Gongzi was, and I told him that he had gone to Qiongqi Pass to escort the Yiling Laozu to Koi Tower. Jin-Shao-Zongzhu then left for Qiongqi Pass, did he not return with you?”

There was silence again and Jin ZiXuan stepped forward to enter the room. Then one of the earlier disciples said, ‟ I… I didn’t see Jin-Shao-Zongzhu.”

‟ Me neither,” added the other.

Jin GuangShan growled, ‟ Yiling Laozu what did you do to my son?”

Jin ZiXuan really pushed his way into the room then. The second the Nie disciples saw who he was they parted from his path. ‟ He did nothing to me, Fuqin, I am right here.”

He got to the front of the crowd. He saw that the people in light blue were Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi. The robe that Lan WangJi was wearing had a trim of white cloud embroidery. He was also wearing a guan with a gentian pattern. Wei WuXian was similarly dressed, though his trim was embroidered in blue-green thread and looked to be ginkgo leaves or lotus leaves. His guan was of a lotus flower, so the trim was probably meant to be lotus leaves. Wei WuXian was also holding a toddler, dressed in blue and red robes and whose head was pressed into Wei WuXian’s neck. But what Jin ZiXuan could see of the child had a hair ornament as well, it was both gentians and a lotus flower—the flower in the vase made so much more sense then, Jin ZiXuan wasn’t sure why a gentian, but he could now see that it was clearly representative of Lan WangJi. They had gone to cleanse the Damsel of the Annual Blossoms’ courtyard together.

‟ ZiXuan! Did this fiend hurt you?” asked Jin GuangShan. Both Jiang YanLi and Jin ZiXuan’s mother were also at the front of the crowd by Jin GuangShan. Neither moved to check him over to see if he was all right. And he knew it was because they knew that whatever was going on was a farce. 

‟ Of course not, I was never at Qiongqi Pass, I had gone out to… buy gifts for A-Li and A-Ling. Now, stop yelling, you’re scaring Lan Yuan, greet our guests properly and let’s get out of this doorway,” Jin ZiXuan said.

Jin GuangShan flicked open his fan and waved it in front of his face for a moment as his eyes took in Jin ZiXuan and then flicked to Wei WuXian. ‟ I am glad that you have not come to harm, but we cannot disregard the deaths of our disciples at Qiongqi Pass and the injury to ZiXun.”

‟ I am not saying to disregard these matters, I’m just saying that they were not done by Wei WuXian, nor HanGuang-Jun, nor their son, nor ChiFeng-Zun, nor the Nie disciples that have accompanied them. We would be in a better position to solve the issue if we first invited our guests in.”

A voice from behind the Nies floated forward, ‟ You just said that you were not at Qiongqi Pass–how do you know that it wasn’t Wei WuXian that harmed Jin ZiXun?” Once more the disciples parted to let the newcomer through, and Jin ZiXuan saw that it was the new sect leader of the MolingSu Sect.

‟ Because I know that Wei WuXian and HanGuang-Jun were helping ChiFeng-Zun with a Man-Eating Castle problem,” Jin ZiXuan stated.

Someone in the crowd scoffed and in response Nie MingJue’s voice boomed over those assembled, ‟ It is true, it is an issue that we have been working on for almost a month. Wei WuXian and WangJi have been with me in Qinghe for that time.”

‟ ChiFeng-Zun’s strength is well known, why would you ask for help from the Yiling Laozu?” asked Yao-Zongzhu.

The comment drew Nie MingJue’s eyes to that area of the crowd and he saw Yao-Zongzhu standing next to Ouyang-Zongzhu. ‟ The Man-Eating Castle was causing issues with the Nie sabres in a way that meant that we alone could only mitigate the problem and never get to the root of the problem.” He paused and then inclined his head to Ouyang-Zongzhu and continued, ‟ We had heard that Wei WuXian was responsible for cleansing the courtyard of the Damsel of Annual Blossoms in Tanzhou. ZeWu-Jun, LianFang-Zun, and I had previously gone to Tanzhou to assess the situation with the Damsel of Annual Blossoms. We had determined that to be able to cleanse the courtyard at least a dozen Lan musicians would have been needed. Wei WuXian somehow cleansed it without that amount of manpower. Why would I not then ask him for help with a problem I did not have enough manpower to resolve?”

‟ The Yiling Laozu’s animosity towards Jin-Shao-Zongzhu and Jin-Er-Gongzi is well known, he could have sent the Ghost General to Qiongqi Pass in hopes of doing them harm while maintaining an impeccable alibi in Da-Ge,” Jin GuangYao suggested. 

Yao-Zongzhu nodded along with that statement and murmured words of agreement as did a few of the others present. Ouyang-Zongzhu nodded too but only half-heartedly. The look on his face showed that he was distracted by piecing together a puzzle that he had had for many months but had never considered assembling before—for of course he too had heard that Wei WuXian had been the one that had cleansed the Damsel of Annual Blossoms’ courtyard.

‟ Who?” said Wei WuXian and he looked up to Lan WangJi. ‟ I mean I know the pea—I mean Jin-Shao-Zongzhu, but he is the beloved husband of my beloved Shijie… Hi! Shijie!” As Wei WuXian waved at Jiang YanLi it was clear that if there hadn’t been a toddler in his arms he would have been jumping around, but as he was carrying a toddler his wave was mostly from the wrist so he wouldn’t let go of his kid. Jiang YanLi waved back but only with a couple figures for she was holding Jin Ling in her arms. Wei WuXian continued, ‟ But I didn’t know he had a brother… besides LianFang-Zun… I mean, wouldn’t he be Jin-Er-Gongzi? But he spoke so he couldn’t be.”

‟ It does not matter,” stated Nie MingJue. His voice dripped with sarcasm when he said, ‘Ghost General’, ‟ Wen QiongLin is in Qinghe. The Ghost General couldn’t have attacked the Jin at Qiongqi Pass.” 

‟ Why is the Ghost General in Qinghe?” asked Yao-Zongzhu.

‟ When we finished with the curse that was on the Man-Eating Castle it left behind all of these fierce corpses. We were dealing with those when my brother reminded us that we needed to leave if we wanted to attend the one month celebration,” Nie MingJue explained. He then gestured to the disciples behind him. The six Nie disciples were clearly half the amount of people most of the other sects had brought with them. ‟ Our head disciple Nie ZongHui and most of our disciples stayed behind, and Wen QiongLin also stayed to help with the fierce corpses.”

One of the Jin disciples in the crowd spoke up. ‟ You may have left the Ghost General in Qinghe, but he could have left for Qiongqi Pass after you were out of sight.”

Nie MingJue considered that statement and nodded. ‟ It is possible, when did you last see Wen QiongLin?”

‟ We flew straight here in a little over five shichen,” boasted the Jin disciple.

Jin ZiXuan noticed Jin GuangYao wince. Nie MingJue hummed. ‟ We left Wen QiongLin in Qinghe three and a half shichen ago.” Jin ZiXuan knew that Qiongqi was a set up, but he filed the wince he saw Jin GuangYao perform away, as Jin GuangYao hadn’t known any of this beforehand.

He tried again, this time he moved to stand next to his wife and son first and then said, ‟ Come, let us greet our guests and then, if you insist, we can speak of this more out of the doorway.”

There looked to be some protest, but ChiFeng-Zun stepped forward to give the greeting and well wishes and Nie HuaiSang waved some disciples forward to present the Nie gift to the new parents. With the Nie greeting done, the small family of three stepped forward. Wei WuXian flapped one arm like a chicken wing and Lan WangJi reached into that sleeve and pulled out a small box. Lan WangJi handed it over to Jin ZiXuan, who opened it to reveal a tiny bracelet.

‟ It’s for Jin RuLan, when he wears it no resentful creature can get near him,” Wei WuXian explained.

‟ Thank you A-Xian. It is a thoughtful gift, and who do you have there?” replied Jiang YanLi.

Instead of replying to Jiang YanLi Wei WuXian spoke to the toddler. ‟ Hey little Radish did you want to greet your YanLi-Yi?”

Lan Yuan shook his head against Wei WuXian’s neck and said in a muffled tone, ‟ Bad men.”

‟ Well, if there are bad men then your A-Die and I will fight them and so will your Jiang-Jiujiu, and your Jin-Yifu, besides you’re Lan Yuan! You are training to save damsels, surely bad men are not scary to the mighty Lan Yuan.”

‟ I’m not scared,” said Lan Yuan, his face still hidden in Wei WuXian’s neck. 

Wei WuXian stage whispered, ‟ He’s just being shy. He’s never had to meet so many new people and the yelling earlier scared him.”

‟ I’m not scared,” repeated Lan Yuan.

‟ Well, if you are not scared then you should greet your YanLi-Yi, Jin-Yifu, and your Biaodi,” Wei WuXian reasoned.

Lan Yuan sat up straight in Wei WuXian’s arms and looked around the room. His eyes settled on Jin ZiXuan, who he had already met, and Jiang YanLi and Jin Ling who were next to him. Now that his face wasn’t pressed into Wei WuXian’s neck his connection to Lan WangJi and Wei WuXian was clearer: his robe was trimmed with an embroidered pattern of clouds that matched Lan WangJi’s robes and lotus leaves that were better done and less ginkgo-like but still clearly meant to match Wei WuXian’s robes. To his chest he clutched a single grass butterfly. 

The silver eyes, different in shape yet so like Wei WuXian’s in colour, roamed around the room once more. In profile it was obvious that Lan Yuan got his nose from Lan WangJi. His eyes settled once more on Jin Ling, and he thrust out the butterfly towards the baby. ‟ For Biaodi, the butterfly will protect him from the bad men.”

Jin ZiXuan looked at both Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi first to make sure it was all right to take one of Lan Yuan’s toys, and then he took the butterfly from the toddler and waved it over Jin Ling so he could see the gift. Jin Ling reached a little hand up to try and grab it with a laugh, the pure,sweet laugh of a child.

‟ Thank you, A-Yuan, A-Ling already loves the butterfly,” replied Jin ZiXuan.

Lan Yuan smiled, a big, bright, Wei WuXian smile and said, ‟ Baba, down please.” Wei WuXian put Lan Yuan on his feet and then A-Yuan held out a hand and looked up at Lan WangJi. ‟ A-Die presents please.”

Lan WangJi hummed and pulled out some rolled up paper from his sleeve. He unrolled it and took out one sheet and handed it over to his son. The toddler studied it for a moment and then handed it to Jin ZiXuan. ‟ Yifu, I painted this for you.”

Jin ZiXuan took the painting and looked at it. It appeared to be black ink branches covered in scribbled yellow flowers with orange-red centres. Sort of like the wintersweet at the teahouse—a good omen indeed. ‟ Thank you again, A-Yuan. I will hang this on my wall.”

The toddler nodded and took the next picture from Lan WangJi. Lan Yuan studied it and then said, ‟ This one is for A-Yi.”

‟ Here, A-Li, let me have A-Ling,” said Jin ZiXuan as he rolled up the painting and stuck it in his sleeve before he took his son from his wife. 

Jiang YanLi smiled brightly and took the painting and then held it out for Jin ZiXuan to see too. Her painting was mostly blue that had been scribbled across the whole page. The bottom half had pink splotches on top of green splotches.

‟ Thank you A-Yuan, is this a lotus lake?”

‟ Yes, I’d never sawed one before, but Nie-Xiaoshu told me. Baba says it looks like your old home before you married.”

‟ It does, thank you again and I’m so happy to meet you, the beloved son of my brother,” Jiang YanLi replied.

The last painting was handed over and Lan Yuan handed it to Jiang YanLi as well. ‟ This one is for Biaodi. It is the two of us playing with the bunnies in Cloud Recesses!” Lan Yuan exclaimed.

Jiang YanLi gushed about the painting and then showed it to her husband and son—Jin ZiXuan was happy Lan Yuan described it since it looked like a bunch of blobs. Wei WuXian stage whispered again, ‟ A-Yuan spent the last month painting with Nie-Xiong, he is going to outdo us all for presents. He still hasn’t given the paintings to Lan-Xiansheng or ZeWu-Jun yet.”

At the mention of the Lan’s, Jin ZiXuan looked around at the people in the room. ZeWu-Jun was standing next to Jin GuangYao looking shocked. Lan QiRen was also nearby, but he looked less shocked. Before he had written that first invitation to Wei WuXian, Jin ZiXuan would have assumed that in the introduction of Lan Yuan it would have been Lan QiRen that would have looked like he was about to qi deviate, not Lan XiChen. 

‟ Come,” said Jiang YanLi and she held her hand out to Lan Yuan, ‟ you have all travelled far, let’s go into the hall, snacks are laid out.”

They went into the hall as a large crowd. Wei WuXian, Lan WangJi, and Lan Yuan went over to sit with the Lan contingent. But before Jiang YanLi could step away, Jin GuangShan, who had followed them insisted, ‟ Yiling Laozu, I feel that the matter of my nephew cannot wait, you must remove the curse you put on him.”

It was clear from the look of confusion and the mouthed words, ‟ You have a nephew?” that Wei WuXian had no clue what was going on. Lan WangJi glared. ‟ It has already been established that Wen QiongLin, Wei Ying, and I were not at Qiongqi Pass. There is no matter pertaining to Jin ZiXun that we can help with.”

‟ The Yiling Laozu cursed ZiXun with the Hundred Holes Curse,” insisted Jin GuangShan. Jin ZiXuan wished there was a way to save face and remove his father from the room.

Lan WangJi would not be moved. ‟ Wei Ying did not cast the curse.”

‟ I beg your pardon, HanGuang-Jun, how would you know?”

‟ It is not in Wei Ying’s character to cast a curse. Even if he had, I would have seen the rebound scars, unless Jin ZiXun didn’t cast the counter course. Wei Ying has no scars.”

Yao-Zongzhu, always one for a bit of drama, added, ‟ Surely, Wei WuXian’s wicked tricks could negate the backlash.”

Jin ZiXuan looked at Lan WangJi and Wei WuXian, asking silent permission. They had already discussed what they had been comfortable with becoming public. When he received a slight nod he spoke up. ‟ Wei WuXian does not have his golden core; he lost it before the war. I told ZiXun that and gave him a Curse Tracking Talisman. It is not Wei WuXian’s fault that ZiXun would not see sense.”

That announcement had the room explode into whispers, and finally everyone was allowed to sit and eat the snacks that had been provided. Just when Jin ZiXuan thought it would be over, his father spoke again on the evils and power of the Stygian Tiger Seal. He ended his speech with, ‟ In light that the Yiling Laozu is without his golden core, I believe that this body would feel better if the Stygian Tiger Seal was held in the safety of a cultivation sect.”

Wei WuXian glared at Jin GuangShan for a moment and then he passed Lan Yuan, who had been in his lap, over to Lan WangJi, and took the qiankun pouch that Lan WangJi handed him. He stood up and bowed to the assembled people and Jin GuangShan. ‟ The Stygian Tiger Seal is a cultivation tool of my own devising. I made it, after I lost my golden core. So, I respectfully disagree with Jin-Zongzhu–I do not go around asking your sect for its cultivation treasures after all. However, as I came here to celebrate Jin RuLan’s one month celebration, I will show this assembled body what I have done with the Stygian Tiger Seal so they may be reassured and stop asking about it.”

He opened the qiankun pouch and looked inside. Jin ZiXuan looked over at his father– from the angle he sat at, he could see the eager glint in his eyes that would only just be blocked from the view of others by his fan. Jin ZiXuan looked back at Wei WuXian in time to see him upend the qiankun pouch and a pile of dust and small metal chunks clattered to the floor.

The room was silent. Jin ZiXuan looked back at his father and saw the gleam die in his eyes. Wei WuXian said, ‟ The Stygian Tiger Seal was a weapon of war. It was not needed in peace times, it just proved to be a difficult tool to destroy. With Lan-Xiansheng’s help a way to destroy it was discovered. I destroyed the Stygian Tiger Seal with witnesses from the four great sects: Jiang-Zongzhu, Nie-Shao-Zongzhu, Luo QingYang as the representative for Jin-Shao-Zongzhu, HanGuang-Jun, and Lan-Xiansheng.”

Jin ZiXuan was still watching his father. The light in his eyes that had died with the evidence of the destruction of the Stygian Tiger Seal hardened. Jin ZiXuan sighed, he had worked so hard to save his father’s face, but it looked like his father didn’t care for his own face or that of LanlingJin. If his father didn’t back down, all of his dirty laundry would soon be aired for the Jianghu to know. All Jin ZiXuan could do was do his best to preserve LanlingJin’s face. On the bright side, maybe they could get all the unpleasantness done before Jin Ling’s one month celebration the next day.   

Notes:

Winter Jasmine and Wintersweet I looked up winter flowering plants in Shandong and this is what I got.

Winter Jasmine Pu’er Tea I had a Jasmine Pu’er Tea in Dunhuang, Gansu that I really enjoyed. I’m extrapolating on that tea since I gave the tea house Winter Jasmine plants.

Red Lotuses the species of lotus in China are pink, they can be selectively bred to create a red-looking lotus. I could not find a date for when such a lotus was first cultivated. So, for wow factor I’m saying there are no red lotuses at this time.

According to this video about the reds WWX wears in CQL: WWXs ribbon is Mercury vermillion 银朱 yinzhu, which according to Traditional Chinese Color Aesthetics (中国传统色) by Guo Hao, Li Jianming, and Huang Xiaoming (郭浩李健明著黄晓明) is R209 G41 B32.

Yiling Ghost Wine description: obviously the MDZS-y bits I added, but I’ve never had Chinese peach wine so I used this description it is a Singaporean site but all the others I could find were just adding peaches or peach juice to Baijiu which is not what I wanted.

Winter in China begins around the beginning of November (ex. 07 November 2024)  

Chapter 6: Lan XiChen

Summary:

Shocked by the revelation at Koi Tower, Lan XiChen enters seclusion. Though it doesn’t strictly adhere to his seclusion Lan XiChen will often go to the rabbit field for some peace and bunny cuddles. While looking for Wei WuXian, Jiang Cheng finds Lan XiChen and they start a conversation.

Notes:

Here is the end, a pre-XiCheng-y end, featuring bunnies, and six new Cloud Recesses rules. I hope Toast enjoyed this gift fic. It was a fun prompt and I enjoyed writing it. And thanks again for beta’ing tabulaxrasa.

Happy Valentine’s Day and Happy Reading!

The wind blew gently; the spring green grass swayed to its song. A pair of white, grey, brown, or black ears would occasionally peek over the grass blades before disappearing. As Lan XiChen approached, a hundred pairs of ears stood up straight and turned in his direction. The rabbits moved then in a rustle of grass that could only be seen as lines of grass moving counter to the gentle breeze. It took only moments for Lan XiChen to be surrounded by rabbits. He had not brought treats for them, but after a few minutes of begging they didn’t seem to mind. He had come for the peace and solitude that only the back mountain could give.

The back mountain of Cloud Recesses had their own kind of quiet. It wasn’t that Cloud Recesses wasn’t quiet, it was. It was just that the quiet of the back mountain felt different. Perhaps it was the lack of humans and the overabundance of rabbits? Lan XiChen sat down in the grass and a few of the rabbits came to him silently requesting that Lan XiChen scritch their heads. He obliged them happily, it was a therapeutic gesture and part of the reason why Lan XiChen had come there. He was just happy that his brother and his family weren't there feeding the rabbits, since Lan XiChen was in seclusion and shouldn’t be around others, but really needed the peace the back mountain and the rabbits could offer.

Perhaps that was it? Perhaps the quality of peace and tranquillity found on the back mountain was different because usually when there were humans there they acted outside the Lan precepts. Like the back mountain was not part of Cloud Recesses so the rules did not apply. He had come another day only to find his brother with his husband, Lan Yuan, and Lan Bo, the son of Lan XiChen and Lan WangJi’s second cousin, Lan ZhaoFeng. He had been third in line for the sect leadership after Lan XiChen and Lan WangJi, but now that Lan Yuan was in the official family registry, Lan ZhaoFeng’s branch of the family was out of the line of succession. Not only that, but Lan Yuan was Lan XiChen’s heir unless he had children of his own. Lan WangJi and Wei WuXian were tight-lipped about Lan Yuan’s origins, but Lan XiChen had a strong suspicion that he had facilitated the torture and starvation of his heir at a labour camp controlled by the Jin all because he had believed A-Yao—Jin GuangYao—no, he had lost the right to the Jin name—Meng Yao.

He shook the morose thoughts from his head and focused on the memory of the sweet moment he had witnessed in the rabbit field. He had watched as Wei WuXian and the boys had played a game of chase, sometimes chasing each other and other times the rabbits. The children had flopped down in the grass and Lan WangJi had started to calmly pick up rabbits and deposit them on the two boys. Wei WuXian had started to help but then had flopped down in the grass as well and Lan WangJi had buried his husband too, until there were three piles of giggling fluff.

Joining his brother and his family would have violated his seclusion, so Lan XiChen had left without joining in. But the back mountain still held something, and so Lan XiChen had returned and was happy to be able to enjoy its calming atmosphere.

The ears on all the rabbits perked up and some of them scattered. Lan XiChen also looked up and around and saw Jiang WanYin walking towards him. He should get up and leave, he was supposed to be in seclusion. But it seemed an impossible thing to stand up and walk away, like the gravity of his sins weighed him down.

‟ZeWu-Jun,” greeted Jiang Cheng with a bow. Lan XiChen returned a seated bow that also gestured to the pair of sleeping bunnies in his lap. As if to say, ‘I would get up, but it is against the Lan precepts to wake bunnies.’ Someone had snuck alcohol into Cloud Recesses for Lan WangJi and Wei WuXian’s wedding and Lan WangJi had somehow drunk some. In his drunken state, Lan WangJi had added that rule to the Wall of Discipline, so in that way it was a rule to be followed.

After a moment Jiang Cheng sat down in a rabbit-free spot next to Lan XiChen. They sat quietly for long moments. The Jiang sect leader picked a couple blades of grass and waved it at some of the nearby rabbits until he too had a pair of rabbits settle on his lap.

‟I thought you were in seclusion,” Jiang Cheng stated.

Lan XiChen considered for a moment. As he was in seclusion he should not be speaking to anyone, but he had already left his home where his seclusion was to take place and came to the rabbit field, and hadn’t he already decided that the back mountain was a place where the letter of the rules didn’t really seem to matter? 

‟I am. There was no one here before you arrived, were you looking for me?”

‟My brother. Cloud Recesses was so quiet that when I couldn’t find him in the usual spots someone suggested I check the rabbit field. If you want me to leave I can, I didn’t mean to disrupt your seclusion,” Jiang Cheng replied. Before Lan XiChen could reply, the other added, ‟Though I don’t know how this counts as seclusion, there are so many rabbits here.”

The statement startled a huff of a laugh out of Lan XiChen. ‟I feel that the back mountain has become a place where the precepts of GusuLan are relaxed.”

‟They must be, there are so many rabbits—and aren’t pets forbidden?”

With another gesture to the rabbits in his own lap and to the ones in Jiang Cheng’s, Lan XiChen added with a small smile, ‟And so is waking sleeping rabbits.”

‟Ugh! Don’t remind me. That was a mess, and Wei WuXian was so annoyed! Not that I blame him, drunk HanGuang-Jun was a menace. I am so glad that Wei WuXian drank for him at the Flower Banquet. Seriously, everyone at Koi Tower was defaming Wei WuXian. In hindsight we should have been praising him for preventing HanGuang-Jun from drinking alcohol.”

Lan XiChen started his seclusion the morning after the wedding, so he did not know of the fallout of Lan WangJi’s drunken adventure. ‟Was Wei WuXian’s punishment bad?”

‟Wei WuXian wasn’t punished, why would he be punished?”

‟For giving WangJi alcohol, you said he was annoyed.”

Jiang WanYin wrinkled his nose in a sort of disgusted horror. ‟He was annoyed because he was worried that a drunk Lan WangJi wouldn’t be able to perform his ‘husbandly duties’! I’ll spare you the details of Wei WuXian’s expectations for his wedding night, as I wish he had spared me.”

‟Was WangJi punished then?”

‟No one has been punished yet. No one has admitted that they had put the alcohol in the teapot, so it was obvious that HanGuang-Jun didn’t mean to drink the alcohol, and as Wei WuXian demanded the culprit be found, no one thinks he did it, but with the six new rules that HanGuang-Jun carved into the wall… well, no one is fessing up.”

Do not forget that your fellow GusuLan Sect members are beholden to the same rules. Do not heed rumours or gossip but listen so you can understand all perspectives. Determine the truth of evil with your own eyes. Consider all sides in a given situation. Expressions of individuality do not deserve punishment. Do not wake sleeping bunnies. Those had been the rules carved into the wall before Wei WuXian and Jiang WanYin had been able to pull Lan WangJi away. Lan XiChen had frowned—at least three of those rules had seemed aimed at him.

‟I have hurt WangJi.”

‟You did,” Jiang Cheng said, a simple statement of fact that made Lan XiChen wince. Jiang Cheng continued, ‟If it makes you feel better, the fact that you didn’t believe your brother about the Wens but did believe Meng Yao was one of the clues that made us realise that the Jin Sect had been lying.”

It didn’t make Lan XiChen feel better, but he mulled the words over for a long time, trying to find comfort in them, but he couldn’t. ‟How long did you know?”

‟The Discussion Conference in Baling. Wei WuXian of course knew for much longer.”

‟But didn’t you visit the Burial Mounds the year before, when the Discussion Conference was in Lotus Pier? Did you not see the people then?”

Jiang Cheng sighed and flopped back to lay in the grass. A rabbit that had been lounging behind him startled and kicked the sect leader in the face in its flight from being used as a pillow. The rabbits in his lap shifted with him though one almost slid off and pawed at Jiang Cheng’s side to keep balance. Jiang Cheng rubbed at the spot on his cheek and then left his arm over his eyes to block out the spring sunshine.

‟I did, and I reported on the state of the people there: the old and the young, not soldiers. But I didn’t let myself really see them. Wei WuXian says that vengeance is a strangler vine; if you let the seed grow in you it won’t let you go. I still had that resentment from the strangler vine in me and couldn’t see the Wen as the laobaixing that they were.”

‟Laobaixing? I’ve heard that term recently.”

The other sect leader lifted his arm and peered at Lan XiChen in confusion for a moment. ‟Of course you have, I know a lot of Cultivation Sects like to ignore the common people, but we are all subjects of the emperor and Lan, Jiang, Nie, Jin, Wen, and even Wei and Luo are all on the old list of Hundred Surnames.”

‟No, something specific…” Lan XiChen said and trailed off as he wracked his brain. ‟In the Unclean Realm! I was visiting Da-Ge when that bottle of wine arrived.”

‟The Yiling Ghost Wine.”

Lan XiChen remembered as Nie HuaiSang had excitedly read the description, and realised something, two somethings he hadn’t before. ‟The wine maker was a Wen.”

‟He is,” Jiang Cheng agreed with a lazy hum in his voice.

‟Da-Ge knew. Da-Ge knew, and he didn’t tell me.”

There was a pause and then Jiang Cheng said, ‟It was Nie HuaiSang’s idea. He tricked his brother into visiting the Burial Mounds and really seeing the people there. Si-Shu, that’s the wine maker, really helped with that. We plied ChiFeng-Zun with wine, and he wanted to meet the maker, and it just went from there.”

‟But he didn’t tell me!”

‟Well, you didn’t believe HanGuang-Jun who never lies, and you didn’t listen to ChiFeng-Zun when he said that Meng Yao wasn’t trustworthy, we didn’t want to risk you telling the Jins anything.”

‟I wouldn’t!”

Jiang Cheng chose not to respond to that comment but instead give another example. ‟Jin ZiXuan didn’t believe that the Jins had lied at first. He was willing to admit that if Jin ZiXun had overstepped, that his father would try to save Jin face by pushing the blame on Wei WuXian. As he gathered all the evidence that pointed to his father’s crimes, he realised the truth of the matter. Really he hadn’t wanted it to be a public spectacle.”

‟Of course he wouldn’t.”

‟And we thought that Meng Yao had been filial by following Jin GuangShan’s orders, and not making his own plots, right up until the end. So, no one thinks you were wrong for trusting him.”

‟Except WangJi.”

‟Lans don’t lie,” Jiang Cheng said with a shrug, it looked odd since he was still lying down. ‟Like I said before, it was one of the clues that tipped us off.”

‟What were the others?”

‟Wei WuXian will always, always stand on the side of justice. As that is true, then we who were standing against Wei WuXian and the Wen Remnants were in the wrong.”

‟But during the war he desecrated graves and commanded the dead!”

‟He made that argument too; it was war. Looking back on it now, we could say that we might have won without Wei WuXian’s corpses, but during the war it felt like we needed them, and his actions didn’t seem so extreme.”

‟We did not need his corpses.”

Jiang Cheng shrugged again and sat back up. He looked at Lan XiChen and said, ‟Maybe not where you were fighting, but YunmengJiang had suffered too many losses. We did our best of course, but when Wei WuXian came back it felt less like we were going to fail, and that there would be a YunmengJiang at the end of the war.”   

‟Consider all sides in a given situation,” Lan XiChen quoted one of Lan WangJi’s new rules.

‟Yes, that. But that conversation with Wei WuXian is where he explained that whole strangler vine metaphor. And the point still stands, Wei WuXian was on the side of justice. It’s one of the fundamentals of the Jianghu: the sky is blue…” Jiang Cheng paused to turn his face up to the sky, and the light shone down on him and made him glow and Lan XiChen was captivated. He continued, ‟…The grass is green…” he swept his hand around so that the grass tickled his palm, one hand hit a bunny. ‟…bunnies are soft…” that seemed to derail his thoughts, and Jiang Cheng turned to look at Lan XiChen and asked, ‟Seriously, where did all these rabbits come from?”

A laugh burst from Lan XiChen, and he grinned and admitted, ‟It was my fault.”

‟Your fault?” Jiang Cheng asked in a tone that said he didn’t believe Lan XiChen one bit.

‟Well, and your brother’s.”

Jiang Cheng nodded. ‟That is believable, what did Wei WuXian do?”

‟He gifted my brother two rabbits,” said Lan XiChen, as he looked around at the field and all the rabbits. He then pointed to one big white rabbit that had just stepped through the grass to their area and watched them with a judgmental look. ‟That one there is one of them.”

The Jiang Sect Leader looked at the white rabbit. It was big, a bit bigger than another white rabbit that was flopped on its side, nearby in the grass, but it wasn’t the biggest rabbit Jiang Cheng had ever seen. ‟How do you know that was the first one? It looks like every other white rabbit.”

Just then a smaller black rabbit burst from the grass and ran circles around the white rabbit. The black rabbit darted off to check on the other rabbits in the area. After it checked on a rabbit it appeared to run back and report to the white rabbit. The black bunny even did a circuit around Lan XiChen and Jiang Cheng before going back to the white rabbit and tugging on one of its ears before settling to cuddle into the bigger bunny’s side.

‟That,” smiled Lan XiChen, ‟is the other rabbit Wei-Gongzi gifted my brother.”

‟Huh,” said Jiang Cheng as he tilted his head to watch the rabbits watch them. ‟My brother is stupider than I thought.”

‟What do you mean?”

‟Apparently, he hadn’t realised that he loved your brother until the Damsel of the Annual Blossom, even though it was clear that he liked your brother for a while. I swear it was always Lan Zhan this and Lan Zhan that! And now you tell me that Wei WuXian gifted Lan WangJi rabbit versions of themselves. Let me guess, the rest of these rabbits are the first two’s kids!”

‟Those two rabbits are both male.”

‟So are our brothers,” said Jiang Cheng in a deadpanned tone but there was mirth shining in his eyes and the two of them started to laugh. When they had calmed down Jiang Cheng asked, ‟So, this whole thing screams Wei WuXian’s fault. How was it yours too?”

Lan XiChen snorted a laugh and then took another moment to compose himself. ‟WangJi handed me an essay that outlined that rabbits were friends, not pets, especially if they had their own home and did not share an enclosed space with a human. He also cited the rules that pertained to receiving gifts and how keeping the rabbits were the only way to properly adhere to the Lan precepts. I convinced Shufu.”

They laughed again. Jiang Cheng wiped away tears and flopped back on the grass, Lan XiChen followed suit. Their laughter had caused the rabbits in their laps to shift around and slip to the ground; the black bunny came over to investigate. He hopped up on Lan XiChen and walked up his stomach which caused more laughter. He sniffed Lan XiChen’s face and hopped over onto Jiang WanYin. Jiang Cheng sputtered a laugh as he tried to blow bunny fur out of his mouth. ‟Wei WuXian! Get your bunny butt out of my face!”

Surprisingly the bunny listened and hopped off of Jiang Cheng and ran back over to the white bunny, who glared fiercely at Jiang Cheng and set the two humans to laughing again.

‟We got distracted,” said Lan XiChen rolling on his side to look at Jiang Cheng when he had stopped laughing. ‟What are the other universal truths?” 

Jiang Cheng also rolled on his side to face Lan XiChen, and he flashed a crooked grin that seemed almost like an apology. ‟Wei WuXian will always stand on the side of justice and Lan WangJi does not lie.”

The frown was instant, and Lan XiChen looked down, away from Jiang Cheng but didn’t roll away. ‟I forgot that one.”

‟Don’t be hard on yourself, we all did. I did. I was so angry at Wei WuXian for siding with the Wens, who had burned down our home and killed my parents, I couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t let it go even after I saw the truth because I didn’t see . I agreed to break with my brother—I spent a year estranged from my brother—a year where I let horrible rumours spread about the character of my brother that I knew were false, and I did nothing. I did nothing until your stupid brother came with his tale of innocents at the Burial Mounds.”

‟I was so angry when WangJi spoke in Baling, Shufu too. You at least saw before me.”

‟I still might not have… before we remembered that Wei WuXian always stands on the side of justice, we remembered that rumour from the war that Wen Chao had thrown Wei WuXian into the Burial Mounds.”

‟That was just a rumour, how does that matter now?”

‟It wasn’t a rumour. But that isn’t the point. Nie HuaiSang reminded us that Wen Chao fought by having Wen ZhuLiu go in and melt a person’s core. A lot of my brother’s actions in the war and afterwards made much more sense if he had lost his core before the war. I went to the Burial Mounds to find out if Wei WuXian had really lost his core.”

‟He had been thrown in the Burial Mounds before the war?” asked Lan XiChen with a horrified gasp.

‟Yeah, those three months he was missing was him trying to escape the Burial Mounds.”

‟So, is that why he developed demonic cultivation? To survive the Burial Mounds the first time?”

Jiang Cheng hummed in agreement. ‟He prefers ghost cultivation, but yeah.”

‟What’s the difference?”

‟No clue, he tried to explain, but I didn’t get it. HanGuang-Jun understood, those two are really a pair, the red lotus and the blue gentian.”

‟You know at Koi Tower when it came out that Wei-Gongzi didn’t have a golden core, I felt like an idiot. Everyone else seemed to already know. I thought you had known since the beginning.”

‟That was Nie HuaiSang’s idea, he said that it would lead to less questions that could derail the conversation against the crimes of Jin GuangShan.”

‟I thought the plan was to have Jin ZiXuan confront his father privately—wait! What did you call our brothers?”

‟That was the plan, but Nie HuaiSang said we should have a backup plan if things became too public. Wei WuXian was always going to announce the destruction of the Stygian Tiger Seal, after all. And I called them the red lotus and the blue gentian, like their guans, and the—‟

‟The flower that the Damsel of the Annual Blossoms gives to poets,” Lan XiChen finished for Jiang Cheng. He brought his hand up and rubbed his face, suddenly all the lightness that the laughter and bunnies brought, seemed to drain away and the heaviness of Lan XiChen’s failings returned.

With a groan, Lan XiChen asked, ‟WangJi helped Wei-Gongzi cleanse the Damsel of the Annual Blossoms’ courtyard, didn’t he?”

‟Well, yeah, I thought it was a bit obvious. I’m pretty sure that it was Lan WangJi that asked Wei WuXian for help.”

‟You’re not serious!”

‟I’m not saying that Wei WuXian wouldn’t have done it without help, I’m just saying he was terrified of going further than Yiling proper in case someone tried to attack the Wens. Only your brother could have convinced him to go all the way to Tanzhou.”

‟I told WangJi that it would take a dozen musicians to cleanse. He was expecting me to call on him to be one of the musicians and when I didn’t, he asked when we were going. I told him that BalingOuyang couldn’t afford us at the moment. It was barely a week later when we heard that Wei-Gongzi had cleansed the courtyard.”

‟Admittedly, restoring Wei WuXian’s reputation was part of our plan. And it worked. Ouyang-Zongzhu had barely a word to say in Jin GuangShan’s defence at Koi Tower.”

‟But WangJi went against me, his brother and sect leader . I hadn’t realised I had fallen so far in his eyes.”

Jiang Cheng sat up, but all Lan XiChen did was roll on his back and cover his eyes with his arm, as the other had done earlier. ‟You don’t have to tell me, I am a sect leader of another sect, but we are close, our brothers are married… are the Lan coffers really so low? The bride price you gave YunmengJiang, and the Wens for Wei WuXian was generous.”

‟That’s just it! They aren’t, even after the bride price as you said. I don’t really know, A-Yao—Meng Yao, had had some argument about why it would be better if BalingOuyang paid before we helped them.”

‟I couldn’t really tell you, since you stayed longer after the Discussion Conference and I didn’t, but honestly that sounds like a Jin GuangShan concern, keeping BalingOuyang in debt and all. I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself; my brother too goes off and does the right thing even when I as his sect leader tell him no.”

Lan XiChen snorted. ‟What has Wei-Gongzi done against your judgement?”

‟You mean besides most things in his life? The most common would probably be not drawing attention to himself, he is particularly bad at that.”

‟It’s not the same.”

‟I told him to abandon the Wens, to not revive Wen Ning. And he told me I should stop protecting him, that I should tell everyone that he defected.”

The Lan sect leader looked horrified. ‟I don’t want WangJi to defect!”

‟Lan WangJi is not going to defect! Wei WuXian has just always been flashy. If Lan WangJi had freed Wens from a labour camp I bet no one would know, the guards would just wake up in the morning to find their prisoners gone. Lan WangJi is always quiet, no one would think it is odd that he wasn’t commenting on the situation. Lan WangJi would never bring you trouble. I’m sure they didn’t ask the Damsel of the Annual Blossoms to give everyone a red lotus and a blue gentian as a mind-bending single plant, and if it hadn’t been for that you would have never known of his involvement.”

‟But he was never so sneaky before, he never disobeyed!”

‟Did you tell him not to try and cleanse the courtyard?”

‟No… but when he was younger he still wouldn't have done it!”

Jiang Cheng watched the other sect leader for a moment and then offered, ‟Look this sort of rebellion or whatever you think Lan WangJi is starting, I’ve been dealing with my entire life, so let me give you some advice, and then I let you in on some little brother secrets, sound good?”

There was still a frown on Lan XiChen’s face, but he nodded.

‟If someone comes to you with a crazy story about something Lan WangJi has done, you have two options… well, really only one option but there are two possible scenarios. One, Lan WangJi just did something crazy but good, like saved an orphanage from a rampaging yao. In that situation you own it, it is not the first time you’ve heard of it; no, GusuLan is dedicated to helping everyone. Two, Lan WangJi just did something crazy, and it turned out bad, or the results are questionable, or he confronted another person who was like Jin GuangShan and that Jin GuangShan-like person is complaining, or even if it is a good thing but in someone else’s territory. In that situation, you have not yet received the report from your disciple, beg the complainer for a few moments so you can read the report and then get back to them. Obviously, you don’t have to read the report, I usually just hunt Wei WuXian down to have him explain out of the view of others.”

The frown had levelled out to a neutral expression and Lan XiChen nodded. ‟Sound advice, and the little brother advice?”

‟Cloud Recesses is what, twenty li from Caiyi Town?”

‟Mn.”

‟Lan WangJi is not just rebelling now, he’s been doing it his whole life, you just never noticed. Cloud Recesses is just too contained being on a mountain, there is only just so far that he could go. Lotus Pier on the other hand is right on the water and the town is right outside our land gate. So, I feel that it was more obvious when I was rebelling. All the disciples were in town, but I stayed home, etc. Younger Siblings are in a precarious situation. They by nature have never been alone. You know I hated Jin ZiXuan long before I ever met him, long before he insulted A-Jie the first time, because I had heard my A-Niang talking to Jie about how when she grew up she would marry Jin ZiXuan and live in Koi Tower. I hated him because I didn’t want him to take my A-Jie away.

‟Younger siblings also want to play with their older siblings. But a lot of times older siblings don’t want to play with ‘babies’—that one I heard from my sect siblings. It wasn’t my problem, mostly because Wei WuXian is only five days older than me and A-Jie a year younger than you, I think, but she’s a girl and was weak in her cultivation. But the sect siblings that had a similar age gap but were both in sword training bickered more, the younger wanting to join in training with the older, the older pushing the younger away and calling them a ‘baby’, that sort of thing.

‟Parents… or elders I suppose, will also compare younger siblings to their older siblings. ‘Your sister was much nicer when she was your age,’ that sort of thing. It was worse with Wei WuXian because he was an orphan, but also my older brother. So, I got compared to him, but it had the edge of you’re sect heir and he’s an orphan. ‘How could you let a street rat beat you? You’re the future sect leader. Go again until you can disarm Wei WuXian!’ that sort of thing. It was after something like that where I wouldn’t want to go into town with everyone else but instead I would go hide in my room just to be alone for a moment, just to not have to hear the words for a moment. Was there ever a time when you realised that Lan WangJi wasn’t with you and the other disciples, and you found him in his room practising guqin or something?”

‟Yeah,” Lan XiChen replied, somewhat surprised by the answer himself though it was no less true. ‟Not always in his room, sometimes in the back mountain or by the Cold Spring. But mostly he was playing guqin.”

Jiang Cheng nodded. ‟When did you choose the xiao? Before Lan WangJi started learning guqin?”

‟Well, yes, I did guqin the first two years.That is standard in the sect. Guqin the first year, at the beginning of the second year you get to choose a secondary instrument, and then in your third year of learning you choose which of the two instruments you want to be your main one. I chose the xiao as my main instrument that year, the year that Lan WangJi started to learn the guqin,” Lan XiChen explained. He had a look on his face that was questioning how Jiang Cheng had known.

‟I’m betting that Lan WangJi is the best guqin player that you have because he genuinely enjoys playing, but he practised so much as a child because he wanted to be better than you.”

‟No, that can’t be right… besides, I’m much better at the xiao, and I can’t even remember WangJi’s second instrument, I think he stuck to strings, but he never plays it.”

With a hum, Jiang Cheng nodded again as if it was just as he had expected. ‟But the GusuLan Sect holds the guqin above all other instruments. It is why you teach it first, why everyone has to learn it.”

Lan XiChen nodded hesitantly, not quite getting the point.

‟When I wanted to be alone, when I was angry at failing to be better than my brother, I practised using a whip.”

‟A whip!?”

‟Well, a knotted bit of string, but still. Wei WuXian showed no interest in wielding a whip, especially when he hurt himself once when we had practiced with real whips, and A-Niang had said, before Wei WuXian came, that I would inherit Zidian. I thought if I was already proficient by the time I officially started whip training that I would get praise that had nothing to do with my siblings.”

‟Oh, did it work?”

‟No, my parents died before I could start training. It was supposed to be a birthday thing for the year after I passed the GusuLan Guest Lectures, but we were doing Indoctrination instead,” Jiang Cheng said.

Lan XiChen winced. “That time had derailed so many plans, and destroyed so many lives.” 

The Jiang sect leader shrugged in response and added, ‟But I think my practice as a kid helped me figure out how to use Zidian when I had to immediately use it in a war situation, especially since the Wens had our swords. I just wish I had thought about having Sandu back, because then maybe I would have practised with Zidian in my off hand.”

That earned a snort of laughter, and the smile returned to Lan XiChen’s face.

‟Look, about Lan WangJi, he still cares about you and considers your opinion and advice important. You just need to talk to him. When I went to talk to Wei WuXian about his golden core we ended up talking a lot. He was angry at me for not supporting the Wens, since it was Wen Ning that helped get me out of Lotus Pier and got my parents so we could give them a proper burial, and it was Wen Qing that doctored us. But he also understood my anger and didn’t force the issue because he cared about me. And likewise, why do you think you had to pay the bride price to YunmengJiang and not just the Wen? I never took Wei WuXian officially off of our registry. I was angry at his decisions, and I wanted him to come home, but he was still my brother. Lan WangJi is still your brother, and there is nothing that will stop that. You just need to talk to him.”

Lan XiChen stared at Jiang Cheng like he had given him all the answers to the universe’s greatest questions. ‟We shouldn’t have excluded YunmengJiang from the sworn brotherhood. Maybe if you had been there with us in Baling you would have made me see sense about helping sooner rather than later.”

Jiang Cheng waved it off. ‟Music is one of the gentlemanly arts we had to learn as kids. Wei WuXian loved the dizi, but I found it difficult. I quit as soon as I could and then bullied Wei WuXian into quitting, too. If I had been called in to consult I would have sent Wei WuXian or our array master, but he’s really old so there was no way he would be able to go to Tanzhou, and at the time of the conference I could not call in Wei WuXian. I wouldn’t know enough about musical cultivation and would mostly have acquiesced to your superior knowledge on the subject.”

‟Mn,” Lan XiChen hummed in thought. ‟There was talk of Wei WuXian swearing brotherhood with us at Nightless City for his contribution. There had also been talk of you too, as you had come so far after losing so much. Originally, the sworn brotherhood was supposed to tie the remaining four Great Sects. I don’t know what happened.”

They mulled over the words for a long moment and then Jiang Cheng said, ‟I do, it was Jin GuangShan.”

‟What? How?”

‟This didn’t come out at Koi Tower as it was a YunmengJiang issue. We were prepared to talk about it, but it just didn’t come up. The other evidence was enough. You remember when Jin GuangShan tried to reinstate the engagement between A-Jie and Jin ZiXuan, and we turned it down?”

‟Yes.”

‟Apparently, Jin GuangShan thought that YunmengJiang was weak. He wanted to create the tie between the two sects and then use that to take control of YunmengJiang territory and get himself a pet demonic cultivator in Wei WuXian.”

Lan XiChen snorted.

‟Yeah, and remember you let Wei WuXian marry in, though Wei WuXian likes you better than Jin GuangShan, so I’m sure he’ll go easy on you.”

‟What’s easy?”

He gestured to the rabbit field again. ‟He only gave Lan WangJi two rabbits. A-Jie was having a hard time catching frogs when we were kids, so Wei WuXian created a frog luring talisman…it worked too well. Lotus Pier was overrun with frogs for a couple days.”

The laugh burst from Lan XiChen, sudden and loud. It had most of the rabbits’ ears twitching. Jiang Cheng stared at him, and thought that he looked good laughing, unlike Wei WuXian, who when he laughed made Jiang Cheng worried. 

The black bunny came back to investigate and tapped Lan XiChen with his front paw a couple times. When Lan XiChen didn’t stop laughing, the bunny decided that he was a lost cause and looked to Jiang Cheng for an answer. He choked on the words mostly because no matter how good Lan XiChen looked laughing, it was obvious by the unreasonableness of the mirth that it was happening because if it wasn’t, Lan XiChen would be crying. Jiang Cheng knew it had nothing to do with Jin GuangShan’s machinations against YunmengJiang or the Jianghu, or even Wei WuXian’s frog talisman. Jiang Cheng was betting that Lan XiChen had yet to cry about the hurts done to him by his friend, nor had he mourned the Meng Yao he had known before he had become the ruthless Jin GuangYao.

Lan XiChen got himself under control and then asked, ‟Sorry, that image was just so funny, but how did you not accepting an engagement lead to not becoming my sworn brother?”

Jiang Cheng shrugged. ‟I’m not sure how it was accomplished. But Jin GuangShan didn’t want YunmengJiang to have strong ties to any of the sects, he wanted us to have to rely on him for support, for the same end goals.”

‟How did you stop him after the engagement was announced?” 

‟Oh, his plans had changed by then. As you said YunmengJiang had been strong during the war even after we had lost so much, and Wei WuXian hadn’t fallen so far into drink by then. We had overwhelming interest in people wanting to become new disciples. War also hurts a lot of things, but lotuses just look like flowers on the surface, no one thinks about them as food really. I mean you eat parts of the plant, roots or seeds generally, leaves in a tea or wine, but you don’t think of that when you see the flowers. So, our lotus crop was unharmed. We sold some of Wei WuXian’s inventions, the spirit attraction flag for example, and YunmengJiang was strong. If you remember, the rumour about Wei WuXian didn’t start right away. When Jin GuangShan realised that YunmengJiang wasn’t weak, he started targeting Wei WuXian, hoping to separate him from YunmengJiang. That plan worked in the short term, I’m ashamed to admit.”

‟I would probably have done the same if I had been faced with the same situation.”

They thought about that for a moment and then Jiang Cheng snorted. Lan XiChen gave him a questioning look. ‟I just thought of demonic cultivator Lan WangJi, he’d be returning to Cloud Recesses constantly for punishment.”

Lan XiChen laughed. ‟He would! No, wait! Expressions of individuality do not deserve punishment!”

With the mention of Lan WangJi’s new rule they both started laughing. 

In the distance the bell for dinner rang and it killed the mirth in Lan XiChen. He stood and bowed to Jiang Cheng. ‟I should get back to my seclusion before the disciple comes to deliver my dinner. Thank you for your wisdom, Jiang-Zongzhu, I will leave first.”

Jiang WanYin put a hand on Lan XiChen’s arm to stop him for a moment and then said, ‟I had a nice time talking to you too. If you would allow me to give you just a bit more wisdom.”

The Lan sect leader inclined his head in agreement.

‟I’m not trying to tell you how to run your sect or comport yourself, but you are sect leader, and you can’t do your duty from seclusion.” Lan XiChen opened his mouth to protest, but Jiang Cheng held up a hand to stall him and continued, ‟It is my understanding that after Koi Tower you didn’t talk to anyone, you just threw yourself into preparing Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi’s wedding and your Spring Festival celebrations, and when the wedding was done you went into seclusion. You need to talk to your brother, and ChiFeng-Zun—he’s your oldest friend, right? You could talk to Nie HuaiSang, he liked Meng Yao and feels betrayed by Jin GuangYao’s actions too. Talk to Jin ZiXuan too, he was also betrayed. And you can always talk to me too, we’re in-laws now after all. Also, our brothers are married, you might want to stop calling Wei WuXian, ‘Wei-Gongzi’—I bet Lan WangJi will like that, too. I mean, I know you organised the wedding and the bride price, but it still makes it sound like you don’t approve of your brother’s spouse.”

Lan XiChen looked at Jiang Cheng for a long moment. The man was still seated on the ground a brown bunny sleeping in his lap. He remembered Lan QiRen’s worries when Lan WangJi was frequently missing between the time that Lan XiChen had told his brother that they weren’t helping Baling, right up until Lan QiRen had left Cloud Recesses to see to the destruction of the Stygian Tiger Seal (not that Lan XiChen had known that at the time). Lan QiRen had been worried that Lan WangJi was going to turn out like QingHeng-Jun, in love with a murderer and in seclusion the rest of his life. But it was Lan XiChen who was in seclusion now, not Lan WangJi. It was Lan XiChen that was like QingHeng-Jun, foisting his sect leader duties on his younger brother, while he sat in seclusion. Lan XiChen wasn’t even atoning for loving a murderer, or was Meng Yao a would-be murderer? His more murderous crimes could always be attributed to following orders, or war. Even the disciples that Nie MingJue saw Meng Yao kill did not have a clear motive behind them. He wasn’t in love with Meng Yao, he couldn’t be, Lans only loved once. If Lan XiChen had loved Meng Yao he wouldn’t have been able to laugh with Jiang WanYin in the rabbit field, he would have been like Lan WangJi when Wei WuXian was missing and presumed most likely dead for those three months during the war. No, he had been in seclusion trying to figure out how he could have been tricked, how he could have lost the faith of his brother.

But, if Jiang Cheng was to be believed, he hadn’t really lost the faith of his brother. Perhaps in the situation of the Wens and with Baling, but not as irrevocably as he had assumed, as he had feared.

He held out his hand to help Jiang Cheng to his feet. ‟Maybe you are right, maybe I have been too hasty about seclusion. I should talk to the others, as you suggest.”

Jiang Cheng did not take his hand but instead waved to the rabbit in his lap, a cheeky sort of amused smile quirking the corner of his lips. ‟I cannot wake a sleeping bunny; I believe that is one of your 3000 rules.”

Lan XiChen smiled back, his joy at the joke seemed to vibrate out of him. ‟3006 rules actually, but they are a bit lax here on the back mountain. Besides, you wouldn’t want to be late for dinner.”

The other man laughed and gently pushed the rabbit from his lap. Jiang Cheng then took the hand and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. ‟I don’t know, the food here is a bit medicinal.”

‟My wedding present was jars of chili oil that I arranged to keep in stock for Wei WuXian’s use, for as long as he lives here. I’m sure that he can spare some.”

The smile that bloomed on Jiang Cheng’s face was worth it somehow. Lan XiChen dropped the other sect leader’s hand and turned in the direction of the main dining hall and not the quarters he had been serving seclusion in.

‟One more piece of advice.”

‟Of course, I welcome your counsel,” said Lan XiChen, as he turned to look back at the younger man.

‟It’s also a warning, but I don’t know if it is needed in this case. It’s just… remember how I came looking for Wei WuXian?”

‟Yes… oh! Will he be mad that I delayed you?”

‟No, nothing like that, he didn’t know I was coming to begin with, and you are a much better conversationalist. It’s just that I couldn’t find Wei WuXian in the usual spots and Cloud Recesses was quiet, so it was suggested that he was here, since noise in the back mountain wouldn’t carry to Cloud Recesses proper.”

Lan XiChen nodded.

‟But Wei WuXian wasn’t here. The advice is that it is never a good sign when Wei WuXian is silent. I mean I could see Wei WuXian convincing Lan WangJi to sneak over the wall instead of going through the gate to go down to Caiyi Town, and maybe that is why I couldn’t find him, but still you should know that if Wei WuXian is quiet, he is either causing mischief, has already caused the mischief and is trying to not get caught, or he is silent because he got caught up in a new experimental talisman and you should be preparing for an explosion.”

‟Oh!” Lan XiChen exclaimed then he looked towards Cloud Recesses proper and then back at Jiang Cheng. ‟I’ve been in seclusion for a while, I’m kind of excited to see which one is the cause for the silence.”

Jiang Cheng snorted. ‟Well, if you stay out of seclusion and take back the duties of sect leader, Lan WangJi will probably have more time to stave off my brother’s worst impulses. But I would understand if it was too much, and you wanted to stay in seclusion. Alternatively, if it gets too bad, Lotus Pier is open to you, if you need to get away.”

Lan XiChen smiled again, his golden eyes dancing with amusement in the light of the setting sun. He bowed and said, ‟I will heed Jiang WanYin’s council.”

‟Jiang Cheng, please.”

‟XiChen is fine for me, Jiang Cheng. Now, I believe we should go see if there is a lot of damage.”

‟If we’re lucky, Wei WuXian just burned off his eyebrows again.”

‟That sounds like a good story.”

‟Which time? I’m surprised his eyebrows still grow back.”

They walked to Cloud Recesses proper as Jiang Cheng spoke of talisman explosions and Lan XiChen laughed. They were met by Lan QiRen. There was something odd about him, but Lan XiChen couldn’t put his finger on it. He looked angry and Lan XiChen knew that his uncle would have wanted to be the first to know if Lan XiChen had left seclusion. Technically, he was, but since Lan XiChen was in the company of Jiang Cheng, it wouldn’t look that way.

Before Lan XiChen could say as much, Lan QiRen asked, ‟Where is Wei WuXian?!”

‟I do not know Shufu,” Lan XiChen replied.

‟I could not find him earlier. He is perhaps not in Cloud Recesses at the moment if you haven’t seen him either, Lan-Xiansheng, as the dinner bell just rang,” added Jiang Cheng.

It appeared that Jiang Cheng’s earlier supposition about Wei WuXian sneaking out for no reason but that he could was the correct one. However, Lan QiRen shook his head vehemently. ‟No, no! He must be here! Or how else would you explain this ?!” on the last word, which sounded like it had been yelled to Lan XiChen’s ear, Lan QiRen gestured to his own face. It was then that Lan XiChen realised that his uncle’s beard was gone. 

He stood there in shock for a moment and before he could formulate a response, Lan QiRen stomped away as he muttered, ‟It has to be Wei WuXian, just like his mother…”

When Lan QiRen was out of sight, Jiang Cheng said, ‟Well, it wasn’t Wei WuXian’s hair that was lost.”

The laughter spilled out of Lan XiChen. He wasn’t laughing at his uncle so much as Jiang Cheng’s comment. He was able to reign it in quickly, but he looked around and realised he was no longer on the back mountain. ‟Oh, that was a bit loud, I’ll assign myself lines.”

Jiang Cheng shook his head. ‟Expressions of individuality do not deserve punishment.”

Lan XiChen laughed again. It was a good sound, not one that should be stifled by rules against loud noises. It was a laugh of freedom and potential. A laugh that spoke of the good things to come. In the past they may have forgotten the fundamentals of the Jianghu. They may have lacked trust in the ones that they had known for the longest. But that was in the past, and as the sunset on the day, it was not setting on their future. Their future was bright like Lan XiChen’s laughter.

Notes:

Lan Bo 蓝波 means Blue Wave this is baby LJY

Lan Yong 蓝勇 Yǒng means brave/valent courtesy ZhaoFeng 兆峰 zhào means omen fēng means peak / summit.

I’m the eldest in my family and have two younger brothers. I did my best to write the younger sibling perspective.

So, every donghua or CQL picture that shows Jiang Cheng holding Zidian, it is on his right hand which is also his sword hand in the donghua and CQL so I’m playing off of that.