Chapter Text
Wei Wuxian had always known that the world he once cherished was destined to crumble, but he had never anticipated that, despite all the chaos, it would be so ... quiet.
The sharp, biting cold of the cliff had numbed him in ways he could never fully describe, his body no longer his own, his thoughts scattered like the wind that howled at the edge of the Nightless City. He expected nothing; no afterlife, no salvation, just the deep, embracing blackness. He wanted it, craved it even. It felt like peace, the only peace he could ever know after everything; after Jin Zixuan’s empty stare, Jiang Yanli’s lifeless body, and all the Wens hanging dead for the world to see.
But when he awoke, it wasn’t darkness that greeted him. It was silence.
His first breath was shallow, like waking from a dream into a world he could not place. The scent of wood and incense filled the air - strange, yet oddly familiar. The walls around him were of polished dark wood, the space meticulously neat, yet it felt unnervingly sterile, like a place untouched by time.
Wei Wuxian blinked slowly, fighting against the heaviness in his limbs, the dull ache in his chest. He sat up, feeling the weight of a thousand memories press upon him: Jiang Cheng’s anger, Lan Wangji’s distant gaze, the pain of the golden core lost forever.
But none of that seemed to matter now. He was here. Wherever "here" was.
His surroundings looked ancient, traditional - a house, one of great age and reverence. The faint sound of wind brushing through trees could be heard outside, but beyond that, there was nothing. No people. No chatter. No screams. Just the quiet hum of a place that seemed both comforting and suffocating.
Wei Wuxian’s fingers brushed the side of his head. The sensation of his golden core was gone, lost as it had been. The thought was too painful to dwell on, so he pushed it aside. Instead, he focused on the present, trying to make sense of where he was and what happened to him. What surprised him more than anything, though, was the absence of resentful energy beneath his skin.
Still, he knew he wasn’t dead.
He wasn’t anywhere familiar.
He was ... trapped?
The door slid open with a soft creak, breaking the heavy silence that had settled over the room. Wei Wuxian stiffened, his heart jumping in his chest, but the figure who entered was not one he recognized immediately. A man in simple, austere robes, his posture rigid and stern, entered the room. The faintest sliver of light caught the edges of his face, and Wei Wuxian’s breath caught.
Lan Qiren.
Wei Wuxian’s mind spun for a moment, and then the bitterness crept in. The very last person he would have ever expected to see. His eyes narrowed instinctively, already bracing for the coldness that would follow.
Lan Qiren’s gaze swept over him, his expression unreadable, but the tension in his shoulders betrayed the disdain that Wei Wuxian felt emanating from him, even before a word was spoken.
"You’re awake, I see." Lan Qiren's voice was cold, detached, but there was an undercurrent of something that could only be described as contempt, the kind reserved for someone too far gone to be saved. "Do you know where you are?"
Wei Wuxian didn’t answer right away. Instead, he stared at the man before him. His body felt like lead, and the silence pressed upon him like a suffocating weight. His lips parted to speak, but the words felt foreign and useless. His mind was still reeling from the disorienting reality of being alive.
Finally, he managed a dry chuckle. "Am I supposed to care?"
Lan Qiren's face tightened in response, his eyes narrowing with a barely contained fury. "You are in Cloud Recesses," he said, each word punctuated with distaste. "The place where you should never have set foot again. The place where your kind is not welcome."
Wei Wuxian’s heart skipped. Cloud Recesses? How—Why was he here? He couldn’t grasp it. This wasn’t a place of sanctuary for him. It wasn’t even a place he’d ever imagined himself returning to, not after everything he had done, and not after how the cultivators had turned their backs on him. Not even the Lan Clan, whose strictures had once seemed suffocating, would have welcomed him back with open arms.
"You’re lucky to be alive," Lan Qiren continued, his voice harsh, as though speaking to someone beneath him, "Your fate should have been far worse. But here, you will remain a prisoner. And you will stay silent. You will not bring your filth into this place."
Wei Wuxian’s brows furrowed in confusion. Prisoner? Filth? Was this some kind of cruel joke? He looked up at the man, the edges of his vision darkening with the beginning of panic. "Prisoner?" he repeated hoarsely, his voice a shadow of its usual playful tone. "What do you mean? I’m not—"
Lan Qiren cut him off, his voice as sharp as a blade. "You are a danger. A practitioner of the dark arts, a cultivator of resentful energy. The very presence of your power taints everything around you." Lan Qiren stepped forward, his gaze hardening as he stared down at Wei Wuxian with disgust. "You do not deserve mercy. You do not deserve forgiveness. And we will not speak of your so-called ‘redemption’ here."
The words hit Wei Wuxian like a slap. He wanted to retort, to fight back with the sharpness he had once wielded so effortlessly, but something held him back. The room felt even colder now, colder than the mountain peaks outside. He swallowed the lump in his throat, trying to quell the rising tide of helplessness.
But as he shifted in the bed, his eyes caught something, a faint glimmer of ink on his limbs, barely visible against the pale skin. He blinked, his gaze sharpening, and that's when he noticed them - seals. Sealing talismans. They were painted in intricate, delicate lines, wrapping around his wrists, his forearms, and disappearing beneath his sleeves. The symbols were vivid, glowing with a soft, unsettling light. Lan Qiren watched him closely, his eyes flickering to his limbs as if he knew exactly what Wei Wuxian had seen.
"You’re sealed," Lan Qiren stated flatly, as if that was all there was to say.
Wei Wuxian’s throat constricted, a chill spreading through him that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. He reached up instinctively, feeling the edges of the seals. The talismans weren’t just a barrier against external energy. They were a prison, an intricate web designed to cut him off from everything. No resentful energy would leave him, and none could enter. The golden core that had once been the center of his cultivation, his life’s essence, was gone, and now, so too was even the dark energy he had wielded to survive.
Without the golden core, he was nothing.
Without the resentful energy, he was less than nothing.
A hollow shell.
"What have you done to me?" Wei Wuxian's voice trembled, a rawness seeping into his words, the weight of his loss sinking in. His mind screamed in frustration, but his body refused to obey. The silence around him pressed harder, squeezing the air from his lungs.
"Why?" Lan Qiren didn’t flinch. "You are lucky that we did not destroy you," he said coldly. "This is the only mercy you will receive. The Lan Clan does not harbor criminals, especially not those who have betrayed our ways." His eyes flickered with disdain. "You are a stain on the cultivation world. And here, you will remain until your life ends, isolated, alone, and forgotten."
Wei Wuxian felt the truth of those words settle in like a heavy stone in his chest. He was no longer a person. He was nothing more than a shadow, a mistake too dangerous to let free. His body felt numb, not just from the physical seals, but from the hollow emptiness that had claimed him. A part of him wanted to scream, to rage against the injustice of it all. But his voice had failed him.
"You may not speak," Lan Qiren continued, his words like cold steel. "But I will tell you this: You are not welcome here. And if you ever think of trying to escape, remember that the Lan Clan's barriers are far stronger than your current body and mind."
Wei Wuxian looked up at him, his vision blurring. He had no strength left to fight. No way to fight back.
The silence in the room seemed to tighten around Wei Wuxian like iron shackles, suffocating him further. He could feel the weight of the seals on his limbs, the emptiness inside him, the ache of losing his golden core, and the absence of the resentful energy he could no longer control. It was all too much to bear.
His hands balled into fists. His breath quickened. He couldn't take it anymore.
With a sudden burst of force, Wei Wuxian’s voice broke the stillness, raw and biting. "Escape?" he spat, his voice trembling with barely contained rage. "I fell from the cliff. I should have been dead. There shouldn't have been an escape. You shouldn’t have saved me just to lock me up here!"
His words rang through the room, and for the first time since he’d woken, there was life - anger, frustration, desperation - filling the hollow shell he had become. He stood up, his limbs stiff with weakness, but it didn’t matter. The anger surged in him, blinding him to the ache in his body.
"Why?!" he demanded, his voice cracking. "Why did you bring me here? To what end? To trap me in this cage, to let me wither away in silence? You couldn’t even let me die in peace, could you?" His eyes burned with unshed tears as he glared at Lan Qiren.
The silence that followed felt even heavier than before, suffocating him with the weight of unanswered questions.
Moments passed before Lan Qiren - as unyielding as ever, his eyes cold and devoid of empathy - gave an answer. His voice, when it came, was even colder than the air around them. "Do not mistake your survival for mercy," Lan Qiren said flatly, his words as sharp and final as a decree. "The Lan Clan does not save those who deserve death for the sake of compassion. You are here because the cultivation world is too unstable without some form of order. You are a dangerous element, and we have kept you alive to ensure you do not cause further harm."
Wei Wuxian felt his chest tighten as the words settled into him, like poison being poured into an open wound. His hands trembled, but his gaze never wavered from Lan Qiren.
"You’re a prisoner," Lan Qiren continued, his gaze hard as stone. "Nothing more. You will remain here because it is what’s best for everyone. For you, for us, for the world. The moment you step beyond this threshold, you will bring chaos and ruin. Your existence is a threat to everything."
Wei Wuxian opened his mouth to protest, but no words came. The anger and frustration that had once burned so fiercely now felt hollow, like a flame that had burned itself out, leaving nothing but ashes behind.
"Why," Wei Wuxian whispered, the question barely audible, but carrying the weight of everything he had lost. "Why don’t you just let me die? Why keep me in this prison?"
Lan Qiren’s eyes flickered with something, an emotion that might have been pity or disdain, but it was gone too quickly for Wei Wuxian to grasp. He bowed his head slightly, but his expression remained unchanged.
“Because," he answered coldly, "The world may think you're dead, but that doesn't mean you couldn't return in some other dangerous form. Your punishment is to live with the knowledge that your existence has been erased, and when your life comes to an end, no one will remember you, nor will anyone attempt to bring you back. In any shape or form.”
The finality in Lan Qiren’s voice made Wei Wuxian’s knees buckle. The floor beneath him seemed to shift, like the very foundation of his world had given way.
"That," Lan Qiren finished, "is your fate. And there is no escape."
He turned and left the room without giving Wei Wuxian an opportunity to reply. The door clicked shut and Wei Wuxian was left alone in the suffocating silence. He sank to his knees, the weight of the seals on his limbs and the absence of his golden core crushing him from all sides. The room had become a prison not just of stone and wood, but of memories, of choices made, of people lost, and of a life that could never be reclaimed.