Chapter Text
ACT 1
Born from fire, Left in Ash
There was a time when soulbonds were sacred.
More than political marriages or cultivation-enhancing dual practices, soulbonds were rare, divine things—threads of fate spun between an Alpha and an Omega with the potential to produce children whose spiritual cores burned like celestial fire.
Some called it a blessing. Others called it dangerous.
As the cultivation world grew colder, more organized, more fixated on lineage and status, the soulbond became inconvenient. Unpredictable. Too raw, too equal. Love was hard to weaponize. Bloodlines were easier.
So they buried it—this magic of the old world. They called it wild, selfish, unstable. They wrote it out of sect policy. Those who sought it were branded reckless romantics. Or worse: heretics.
But soulbonds still happened. Fate, after all, does not ask for permission.
Wei Changze and Cangse Sanren were one such bond.
He, a quiet and loyal disciple of the Jiang Sect. She, a brilliant Omega rogue cultivator whose laughter rang like a sword striking stone. Their bond had been unintentional. Their love, inevitable.
They met on a night hunt gone wrong. She saved his life by burning through a spirit fog with raw spiritual energy. He bandaged her hand without asking her name. Their bond sparked that same night, under a broken moon and a bloodied sky.
For a time, the sects whispered about them with curiosity, even awe.
But when Cangse Sanren came to Yunmeng with her husband, everything changed.
Omega cultivators were not permitted in the Jiang Sect. It was an old rule, older than Cangse, older than the Lan lectures, older even than the wariness of the Jin.
She was told—formally, respectfully—that she must seal her meridians. Surrender her sword. Live quietly within the inner quarters as a wife should.
She laughed. Loudly.
It echoed off the docks like a slap.
"You want my silence in exchange for his loyalty," she said, her voice scalding.
Jiang Fengmian did not respond. He didn’t have to.
Cangse turned to Wei Changze, hand outstretched. “Come with me.”
He hesitated.
He loved her. But loyalty—real, bone-deep, carved-into-your-core loyalty—was not something easily unlearned. The Jiang Sect had raised him, fed him, taught him how to stand upright in the world. His hands trembled, but he didn’t take hers.
Cangse Sanren looked at him, truly looked, and saw what she already knew: he would not leave.
She stepped back.
"If my child turns out to be an Omega like myself," she said coldly, eyes bright with something close to fury, "I will raise him to be the most powerful cultivator you could only ever dream of."
Then she turned her back on the Jiang Sect.
On her husband.
On tradition, law, structure, and fear.
She left with only her sword , a life in her womb and the soulbond flickering like lightning across her spine. It burned white-hot for a moment—then faded.
They say she disappeared into the mountains. That she carved her own path with a blade and a laugh and a child growing beneath her heart.
What no one knew—not Wei Changze, not Jiang Fengmian, not even the wind that watched her leave—was that she would only have six short years with that child.
A night hunt turned wrong. A demon beast. No remains found. No grave marked.
Only a boy left behind, and a world already waiting to devour him.
He didn’t know what was happening.
Only that his body had betrayed him in the worst possible place, at the worst possible time.
Wei Wuxian ran.
The winding paths of Cloud Recesses blurred under his feet, half-seen through sweat-stung eyes. He stumbled around corners, past pavilions, through moonlight sliced thin by lattice windows. The night air clung to his skin, heavy and too warm, but not warm enough to burn away the fire kindling beneath it.
His breath came in short, ragged gasps. He couldn’t stop moving. If he stopped, he’d fall—if he fell, they’d find him like this. And if they found him like this—
He would never recover.
He tasted iron at the back of his throat. And underneath that, worse—sweetness. Orange blossom and hints of spice. The kind of sweetness no one talked about openly. Cloying, thick, dangerous.
Omega.
He barely recognized himself.
The heat curled through his spine, down his abdomen, coiling in his belly like a talon. His golden core was reacting, trying to regulate what his meridians couldn’t understand. It only made things worse. He felt like he was tearing apart from the inside—his body rewriting itself while he was still awake inside it.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.
It wasn’t supposed to happen at all.
He was sixteen. Late for a first heat. Too late. He’d gone through the rites, the suppressant screenings, the standard tests all children of prominent sects were given. Everything had come back normal. He wasn’t supposed to be an Omega.
He wasn’t supposed to be this.
A tremor rocked him. His knees buckled. He caught himself on a wall and gagged, body trembling under the weight of sensation. The scent coming off his skin was unbearable now—sickly-sweet and raw, an open invitation, an alarm.
He needed to hide.
He needed—
“Wei Ying.”
The voice cut clean through his haze.
Not loud. Not sharp. Just steady.
Familiar.
Wei Wuxian turned, staggering a step, heart thudding painfully as his vision swam. He squinted through the blur, and for a moment he thought he was hallucinating.
Then reality struck.
“Lan Zhan,” he gasped.
Lan Wangji stood at the edge of the path, illuminated by moonlight. His robes glowed pale, untouched. His hair was tied precisely. His forehead ribbon didn’t shift. He looked like he’d stepped out of a painting of a divine general—perfect, upright, composed.
And he was looking directly at Wei Wuxian.
Their eyes met.
Wei Wuxian saw the moment it happened. That flicker of recognition in Lan Wangji’s gaze. Surprise, yes—but also something deeper. Conflict. A calculation he didn’t voice.
Wei Wuxian stumbled back a step, suddenly aware of how hot he was, how exposed, how obvious. He reeked of heat. His scent was already thick in the air, and if Lan Wangji was an Alpha—if—he would be able to smell it in excruciating detail.
“Don’t—” Wei Wuxian choked. “Don’t come closer.”
Lan Wangji didn’t move. He said nothing. But something in his expression shifted—barely visible, but real.
He understood.
Of course he did.
He was one of the best Lan disciples, trained in observation, in pattern. He would’ve studied presentations, scent codes, heat stages. He would know what this meant.
“Omega,” Lan Wangji said, softly.
Wei Wuxian flinched like he'd been struck.
His legs gave out and he collapsed to his knees on the stone path. His fingers curled against the ground, nails scraping uselessly over the surface. He couldn’t look up.
He couldn’t breathe.
All of the pride he carried like armor cracked in that one word.
And maybe it hurt so much because he’d survived so much worse to keep that armor intact.
Madam Yu’s voice echoed somewhere in the hollow of his ribs —
“You were never meant to be part of this family. This clan."
“You think just because Jiang Fengmian took pity on you—”
She'd hated him since the moment he arrived. Hated his smile, his laugh, his defiance. She'd seen something in him that scared her, and instead of guiding it, she tried to beat it down.
And he endured.
Every snapped word, every insult, every cold stare, every overheard whisper in the night. He learned not to cry when she raised her voice. Learned to hide the bruises under laughter. To protect Jiang Cheng from having to choose between a brother and a mother.
He endured it all. Because Uncle Jiang said he would be safe in Lotus Pier. That his father is waiting for him–
But his father had never looked at him. Not properly. Not the way fathers looked at sons. Like he was invisible. Sometimes, a burden. Sometimes, a reason he lost something else. And uncle Jiang? He had smiled at him. He was kind. But he remained silent when it mattered the most.
And now, none of it mattered.
Because everything he’d endured to stay at Jiang Yanli’s side, to remain Jiang Cheng’s shadow, to be a sword, it was gone.
All of it undone by his own body, too late to be normal, too early to defend himself.
Lan Wangji took a single step forward.
“Stop,” Wei Wuxian whispered. “Please… Lan Zhan… I can’t—don’t let them see me like this.”
It wasn’t just fear. It was shame, sharp and unbearable.
He had built his entire life on defying expectation, on laughing through blood and fire, on standing taller than anyone expected he could. But this—
This was the kind of thing that changed your value.
Not as a person. But as a pawn.
“Take me somewhere,” he begged, not caring anymore that he was begging. “Please. Just until it passes. Just until I can suppress it.”
Lan Wangji looked at him for a long time.
Wei Wuxian saw the hesitation. Saw the war between rules and instinct play out in the stillness of his body.
Then—Lan Wangji reached into his sleeve.
“No—wait—” Wei Wuxian surged forward, but too late.
A flare ignited with a snap, silver light bursting into the sky like a drawn sword.
Emergency signal.
Wei Wuxian’s heart stopped.
“No—” His voice cracked. “Why did you do that?!”
Lan Wangji didn’t answer at first. His expression was unreadable, mask-perfect again. Whatever had flickered across his face earlier—pity, concern, confusion—it was gone now.
“You are entering heat,” he said quietly. “Unassisted, unmedicated, and with no bond stabilizers.”
Wei Wuxian wanted to scream. He knew.
Did he think he didn’t know that?
“You could’ve just helped me!” Wei Wuxian hissed. “You didn’t have to call the whole damn mountain!”
Lan Wangji’s gaze didn’t falter. “This is protocol. You are a guest. It would be inappropriate for me to act outside authority.”
Authority.
Of course.
Wei Wuxian laughed—hoarse, ugly. “Right. Wouldn’t want to be inappropriate with the Jiang Sect’s bastard Omega.”
He tasted bile.
“Lan Zhan,” he whispered again, but this time with no plea, no trust. Just disbelief.
Footsteps echoed in the distance.
They were coming.
Fast.
Wei Wuxian dragged himself upright using the wall, swaying, sweat-soaked, skin burning. He turned his head up to the sky, to that awful flare still hissing through the clouds.
He was already condemned.
Already seen.
He felt Jiang Cheng would come. And maybe he’d look horrified—not at Wei Wuxian, but at what it meant. For the sect. For their future.
He imagined Madam Yu smiling behind her fan.
“I always said he’d bring us ruin.”
The footsteps grew louder. Voices approached. He couldn’t make out what they were saying—he didn’t care.
He just stood there, face turned away, scent burning in the air like spilled wine.
Lan Wangji remained silent beside him.
When the disciples came, no one touched him at first. They just stared. Lan Qiren arrived with narrowed eyes and the faintest wrinkling of his nose.
Someone hissed an order. Someone else summoned a suppressant pack. Cold hands. Paper talismans. Binding qi.
Wei Wuxian didn’t fight it.
Not this time.
He didn’t scream.
Didn’t cry.
Didn’t explain that he’d had no warning, that this wasn’t supposed to happen, that maybe, just maybe, he’d inherited something from the mother they never talked about.
He let them seal him in silence.
Because whatever this was—it was already too late.
Everything blurred together after the flare.
He remembered hands — too many of them, none kind.
He remembered being taken somewhere through a door he didn’t recognize. Pale robes, silent faces, and talismans flickering in the dark like cold fireflies.
He remembered someone saying, “He’s in full spike.”
And another replying, “Bind him down.”
Then cold water hit him like a curse.
It shocked the air from his lungs, sent him gasping, twisting. They didn’t wait. Hands yanked his robes apart — not with violence, but with practiced indifference. Like he wasn’t a person. Just a hazard being contained.
His hair ribbon was pulled off. His boots, tossed aside. They stripped him bare under the pretense of protocol, his skin steaming in the icy bath.
“Keep him conscious,” someone said.
A bitter pill was pushed into his mouth before he could react. He gagged. Tried to spit it out.
A hand clamped over his jaw.
“Swallow.”
The suppressant burned down his throat like poison.
Then came the talismans. They slapped them over his scent glands, three at his neck, two on his wrists, one over his navel. Each one pulsed with cold sealing energy that made him tremble harder, not from heat, but from what the absence of heat meant.
When it was done, they said nothing to him.
No one looked him in the eyes.
They picked up his discarded robes and left in orderly silence.
The door closed.
A soft click followed.
And then—
Silence.
He was alone.
He lay curled on the cold floor of a small, windowless room. White walls. No adornment. A low pallet in the corner. No linens. No light except for the dull blue glow of suppression arrays humming along the floor like veins.
He couldn’t tell how much time had passed.
His body was still on fire — a heat wave trying to breach the suppressant seal. It rose and fell in irregular pulses, burning one moment and hollow the next. Like his instincts couldn’t decide whether to fight or give up.
He shifted, and bile rose in his throat.
The floor was too smooth. Too sterile.
He wanted to scream.
He wanted to laugh.
He wanted to disappear.
Instead, he closed his eyes.
But sleep wouldn’t come. Only fragments.
Whispers in the dark.
“He was always too pretty. Too undisciplined.”
“How could he be allowed to cultivate like this? It’s reckless.”
“You know who his mother was, don’t you?”
“I heard she seduced Wei Changze to escape her own clan’s disgrace.”
His mother.
His mother would’ve burned this place down for what they did.
She would’ve carved her name into their walls with a blade and left with her child laughing on her back. She would’ve broken seals and dared anyone to challenge her.
But she was long dead.
All he had was the shadow of her defiance. A defiance that cracked at the edges now that he had no sword, no dignity, no escape.
He curled tighter.
Somewhere in the haze, he remembered the last time he felt like this. Not the physical heat—but the helplessness.
It was in Lotus Pier, years ago, on a night when Madam Yu had locked him out of the inner courtyard. It had been raining. He’d knelt in the mud because if he tried to climb the wall, she’d have lashed him again.
He remembered his father standing just beyond the doors. Silent.
Not intervening.
Just watching the rain like it didn’t matter what it was falling on.
Wei Wuxian had learned to wait quietly that night.
He had smiled through bloodied lips and said,
“I’ll be fine. It’s just rain, Shijie. It’s not so bad.”
He wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince.
The habit had never left him.
But this… This wasn’t the kind of storm he could wait out.
He had no more smiles.
No more tricks.
Just the ugly truth pressing down on him like a weight.
He was an Omega.
In a sect that valued lineage and power and bloodlines more than choice. In a world where an unbonded Omega was either a threat or a bargaining chip. And he was Wei Wuxian — powerful, famous, unwanted.
His future had been rewritten the moment that scent hit the air.
There would be no more carefree hunts. No late-night wine under the stars. No freedom.
Only negotiations.
Offers.
Claims.
Wei Wuxian pressed his hands to his face and shook.
The heat hadn’t even broken fully yet, but already it felt like his soul was peeling away. As if the moment he surrendered to the chemicals in his blood, he’d never get himself back again.
He thought of Jiang Yanli. Her gentle hands. Her soft voice.
“A-Xian, don’t run around barefoot, you’ll catch a cold.” She’d looked at him like he mattered, every time.
What would she say now?
What would Jiang Cheng say?
He remembered Jiang Cheng’s voice when he was younger, defensive and proud:
“He’s not like the rest of you. He’s Jiang.”
Would that still be true?
Would it ever have been?
Another wave of nausea hit. He twisted onto his side, dry-heaving, body convulsing from the suppressant's violent suppression of instincts that had no outlet.
He was supposed to be in seclusion for a week, maybe longer. However long it took the heat to pass. But heat wasn't just hormonal. It was metaphysical. Spiritual. A resonance of the soul and the body. Without a bondmate, without stabilizers, without grounding—
It would chew him from the inside.
The room had no window.
He didn't know if it was night or day.
The floor beneath his cheek was pulsing. He realized it was the array trying to stabilize his qi.
He wanted to tear it up with his bare hands.
Let it burn, he thought. Let it burn through me. Better that than this.
His skin itched where the talismans sealed his scent. He pressed his fingers to one, and for one reckless second, considered ripping it off.
Just to feel again.
Just to be again.
But he didn’t.
He didn’t even move.
He lay there, skin damp, lips chapped, and wondered if anyone outside that door still saw him as a person.
Or if he was already just a problem to be solved.
It took a week.
Or maybe more.
Wei Wuxian didn’t know.
Time in the sealed room was a lie, a slow bleed of seconds that never passed. He existed in flashes — burning, shivering, unconscious, lucid. Sometimes he screamed. Sometimes he just lay there, face pressed to the cold stone, letting the talismans vibrate against his skin like the steady thrum of his failure.
When the heat finally broke, he felt it not as relief, but absence. A numbness so complete it didn’t even feel like his body anymore. Like the worst parts of him had been scraped away, leaving only a shell: quiet, hollow, waiting.
The door creaked open.
Wei Wuxian didn’t move.
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t even lift his head from the floor.
He expected — no, braced — for the cold judgment of Lan Qiren. Or the sterile pity of a disciple with orders to escort him out of the guest quarters. He thought maybe Jiang Cheng would be there too, silent and distant, flanked by sect guards. Maybe a whisper of: “He’s stable now. Let’s just get it over with.”
He expected shame.
He expected silence.
But what came was a storm.
Zidian screamed first — a flash of indigo light that burst into the room like a whip-crack of thunder, alive and snarling.
Wei Wuxian had only a second to turn his head before—
CRACK.
The lash tore through the air and hit him square across the chest, lifting him off his knees and hurling him into the wall opposite. His breath vanished. His shoulder hit stone. Pain bloomed sharp and instant.
He slid to the ground with a grunt, vision spinning.
“Stop it!”
The voice cracked through the air, distant and sharp.
A final whip snapped — and then nothing.
Wei Wuxian didn’t feel the pain.
Didn’t feel anything.
—
He was small again. No older than six. Clutching his mother’s hand as they walked through the dusty streets of Yiling, past loud market stalls and the scent of roasted chestnuts. Her hand was rough but warm, fingers wrapped tight around his.
They were laughing.
She always laughed in the city.
No rules, no collars, no sect insignias — just streets she walked like they belonged to her.
Sometimes people stared.
Sometimes they whispered.
He didn’t understand it then.
Didn’t understand why the innkeepers would glance at her sword and suddenly have “no rooms.” Why other cultivators would sneer when they saw her ribbonless hair and Omega scent.
She’d always smiled like she didn’t care.
“A-Xian,” she told him once, squatting down and brushing dust off his cheeks. “If you ever present as an Omega…”
Her voice turned serious.
He blinked up at her, young and uncomprehending.
“You don’t cower. Don’t let them shame you. You’re my son. You’ll burn too bright to break.”
He didn’t know what she meant then.
He did now.
Too late.
—
Pain woke him.
Real pain. Physical. Present.
His body throbbed like it had been shattered and pieced back together wrong. The lash-marks seared across his back, sharp and swollen. His skin felt stretched. His mouth was dry. Breathing hurt.
The scent of lotus-seed balm and smoked mugwort thickened the air around him.
Healer’s Pavilion.
Lotus Pier.
Wei Wuxian shifted slightly and bit down on a moan. Every inch of him protested movement.
He lay face-down on a narrow cot, bandaged heavily. The sheets under him were bloodstained and sticky with salve.
He blinked into the half-light.
Then—
A hand, cool and careful, pressed to his cheek.
“Easy…”
The voice was familiar. Deep, with a physician’s gentleness.
“Daifu…” Wei Wuxian rasped, blinking up at the silhouette beside him.
Jiang Rong — the Jiang Sect’s senior daifu. Older than Jiang Fengmian, hair graying at the temples, always smelling faintly of dried ginseng and black ink. The only one who used to sneak Wei Wuxian sweets after bitter tonics when he was young.
“You’re awake,” Jiang Rong said softly, adjusting the blanket around him. “Good.”
Wei Wuxian winced. “How long…”
“Two days since you collapsed,” he said. “Your fever broke late last night. You've been unconscious.”
He turned to mix a small tonic in a porcelain bowl. The scent of blood-nourishing herbs filled the air. “You need strength. You’ve been bled, burned, and suppressed. No nourishment. No rest. You’re lucky your golden core’s intact.”
Wei Wuxian closed his eyes.
“Didn’t feel lucky,” he muttered.
Jiang Rong returned to his side, carefully tilting his head to help him drink. The liquid was warm, bitter, familiar. A tonic for spiritual fatigue.
The silence stretched.
Finally, she said quietly:
“…I wasn’t allowed to treat you after the presentation.”
Wei Wuxian didn’t open his eyes.
“I wanted to. But… your status changed. The elders said it was ‘a Lan matter.’ Protocol.”
A breath.
“I’m sorry.”
Wei Wuxian didn’t respond.
He didn’t know what to say.
He remembered the cold talismans slapped against his neck.
The ice bath.
The taste of suppression pills choking down his throat.
He remembered screaming, and no one coming.
Lan matter, they’d said. Protocol.
He’d been alone in that room. Alone through every convulsion and fever-dream. Alone while his skin burned from the inside out.
Now he wasn’t alone.
But it was too late.
“Why now?” he asked suddenly, voice hoarse. “Why did it happen now?”
Jiang Rong didn’t pretend not to understand.
“Delayed presentation isn’t rare. Especially in high-resonance cultivators. Your qi was erratic from the start — unusually powerful for someone unbonded. Soulbond inheritance, I’d guess.”
Wei Wuxian blinked slowly.
“Soulbond?”
The daifu nodded. “Your mother was one. The archives never recorded her name, but… I remember.”
Wei Wuxian tried to sit up, groaned, gave up.
“You knew her?”
“A little. Enough to know she was more dangerous than most Alphas I’ve met. She laughed like the sky couldn’t hold her.” Jiang Rong looked wistful for a moment. “They tried to tame her. Of course they did. But she left before they could finish.”
Wei Wuxian swallowed.
“She always said she’d raise me different.”
“She tried.” Jiang Rong’s voice was quiet. “But she ran out of time.”
Something caught in Wei Wuxian’s throat.
“…She wouldn’t want me like this.”
“No,” Jiang Rong agreed. “She’d want you stronger than this. Freer than this. And alive.”
Wei Wuxian didn’t respond.
He just lay there, cheek pressed to the pillow, eyes burning.
“…They’ll come soon,” Jiang Rong said gently. “The elders. They’re still deciding what to do.”
Wei Wuxian laughed, hoarse and bitter.
“I’m sure they are.”
He was made to kneel.
The great hall of Lotus Pier had never felt colder. The incense burned heavy. The summer heat didn’t reach this place — all stone and smoke and judgment.
Wei Wuxian knelt with difficulty, one side of his body still stiff with healing bruises. His hair had not been properly combed. The bandages under his robes chafed. His skin itched where wounds hadn’t closed properly. He didn’t raise his head.
He didn’t need to.
He knew who stood behind the screen.
Elder Mo of the Jiang. Elder Wu. Elder Han. Sect Leader Jiang. His father.
They had been deliberating all morning. His fate weighed like a sword over his back.
He only raised his eyes when he felt it — the brush of movement near the entrance, the presence of another. Jiang Rong.
Her steps were slow and measured. She moved to stand behind him, hands folded, mouth tight. She said nothing.
The silence broke with a cough.
Elder Mo stepped forward.
“This meeting is concluded.”
Wei Wuxian flinched slightly. His heart slowed.
Sect Leader Jiang’s voice did not come. Nor his father's.
Instead:
“You are no longer a disciple of the Jiang Sect,” Elder Wu intoned. “Your name will be removed from the disciple registry."
Wei Wuxian kept his face blank.
“Your sword will be surrendered,” Elder Han added. “Your position, your title—stripped. You will henceforth serve in the Lotus Pier compound under restricted duty. A mercy, as it was said. You should, by right, be exiled.”
Ah.
There it was.
The sound of everything ending.
The final cut, delivered as mercy.
Wei Wuxian’s fingers curled slightly against the floor.
“Until further arrangements are made, you will remain here in servitude. The Sect Leader has, in his sentimentality, refused your removal from the premises. This is… unfortunate.”
A flicker of movement — a servant approached, carrying a covered cloth bundle.
Wei Wuxian recognized it immediately.
Suibian.
The sword was placed at the dais.
Another voice — Elder Wu again.
“Further, your golden core will be sealed.”
Wei Wuxian blinked.
What?
For a moment, he thought he heard wrong.
Then Jiang Rong’s voice rang out like a whip crack.
“What?”
The elders barely turned.
“His core is unstable. An Omega’s spiritual vessel is not meant for unrestrained cultivation—”
“That is a lie and you know it,” Jiang Rong snapped. “Sealing his core now, when he’s still injured—How is he supposed to heal without his core’s aid?” she demanded.
“The servants and maids do not have cores,” Elder Han said blandly. “I don’t see them dropping dead from meagre wounds.”
Jiang Rong’s qi flared. The air snapped cold around her.
“Meagre wounds? Meagre?” Her voice shook with fury. “An elder like you wouldn't survive five lashes from Zidian, let alone twenty. And you expect this boy—!”
She turned then — not to the elders, but to the figures who still hadn’t spoken.
Jiang Fengmian. Wei Changze.
The Sect Leader sat behind the veil, posture rigid, face unreadable. Behind him, Wei Changze stood like a shadow.
She stared at them.
"Act like a sect leader for once in your life Jiang Fengmian,” she said coldly. Then to Wei Changze, “You would let your son, the child Cangse Sanren give birth to be subjected to such inhumane things?”
Jiang Fengmian didn’t reply. But he flinched. Looked away. As for Wei Changze —
He just stared.
As if this doesn't involve him.
That landed.
Wei Wuxian closed his eyes.
It was over anyway.
He didn’t want to look at him.
Didn’t want to see if there was guilt in his eyes. Or pity. Or relief.
Let them take everything.
Let them burn him out from the inside.
—
He was escorted from the hall by silent disciples. He walked on bare feet, his hands bound loosely in front of him. His robes had no sect crest. His hair ribbon had been removed.
He passed through the outer walkways like a ghost.
No one met his eyes.
That night, they sealed his core.
No ritual. No warning.
Just a needle-thin talisman pressed against his spine.
His breath caught.
Pain bloomed through his meridians. His entire body spasmed.
And then—
Silence.
The hum of his cultivation — that golden warmth in his dantian — was gone.
Not dead.
But locked away.
He gasped, clutching at the floor.
It felt like someone had taken his fire and replaced it with frost.
Jiang Rong found him in the servants’ dormitory, curled up on the narrow pallet with his arms wrapped around himself. His forehead was slick with sweat. His qi was stagnant. His breathing shallow.
She sat beside him without asking.
Held out a small dish.
“Soup,” she said. “No medicines. Just food.”
He didn’t reach for it.
“…Does it come back?” he whispered.
She looked down at the bowl.
“I’ve seen some recover,” she said softly. “But it depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether they ever get the chance.”
Wei Wuxian let out a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh.
So that was it.
Chance.
That was all he’d ever had. All he’d ever been.
A lucky street orphan.
A mercy case.
An accident of sentiment.
No more.
He turned his face toward the wall.
Behind his closed eyelids, he saw his mother’s face again.
“If you ever present as an Omega…”
He choked back a sob.
Too late.
Too late.
Days bled together.
Wei Wuxian forgot the feel of a sword hilt. He no longer dreamed of flying on his sword, or spinning talismans into bright, laughing sparks of energy.
He swept floors. Washed sheets. Hauled laundry up to dry beneath the pale sun.
He learned to rise before the bell. Learned which storerooms to avoid. Learned how to recognize which elder’s wrath was simmering and which would bubble over. Learned how to walk like he was invisible.
He was good at it.
Wei Wuxian had always been good at pretending.
The bruises faded, though slowly. Some never quite left. He bore them like a brand. A reminder of what he had been. What had been taken.
Sometimes, he caught a flicker of pity from the other Omega servants. They passed him rice quietly in the mornings. One of the elder maids slipped him dried plums, whispering he was too thin. He bowed his head in thanks, even though it stuck like glass in his throat.
Only a few people spoke to him now. Only those who dared.
Jiang daifu— stern, cold, and ever kind — would press herbs into his hands when she found him limping. He never asked how she always knew. She never said much, but her silence was safe.
And then there was Shijie.
Jiang Yanli came at odd hours, usually after dark, when the outer corridors were empty. She never cried in front of him, not anymore. She would fix his hair gently, braiding it back like when they were younger. She never asked him to explain. She only held his hands when the nights were too cold, and left food when he wouldn’t eat.
He didn’t deserve her.
None of this was her fault. None of it was his.
But here they were, in the middle of a punishment neither of them chose.
—
Jiang Cheng returned a month later.
It was said he had stayed at Gusu longer than expected, staying on to complete an advanced round of lectures, impressing even Lan Qiren with his precision and focus.
It made sense. Jiang Cheng was now Head Disciple. He had responsibilities. A future.
Wei Wuxian stayed out of his way.
Not that he needed to try.
Jiang Cheng didn’t come looking.
He didn’t even glance toward the outer servant quarters.
The first time they crossed paths — if it could even be called that — Wei Wuxian was fetching clean linens from the south wing.
He had his head bowed. The bundles pressed tight against his chest.
He rounded the corner, nearly bumping into two junior disciples. He froze, bowed, murmured a quiet apology.
From down the hall, a louder voice carried.
Jiang Cheng.
He was walking with two Lan disciples — probably escorting them back from a formal visit. His voice was confident, measured. He had grown taller. Sharper.
He didn’t stop.
Didn’t glance over.
Not even when Wei Wuxian bowed, silent, as they passed.
It was for the best.
He told himself that.
He was trouble. He had always been trouble. It was better that Jiang Cheng rose without him.
Wei Wuxian had nothing to offer him now. Not talent. Not loyalty. Not protection.
He wasn’t a brother anymore.
Uncle Jiang — Sect Leader Jiang —
Wei Wuxian sometimes passed him during morning rounds. Jiang Fengmian would be deep in conversation with an elder, his robes pristine, a disciple bowing beside him.
And he would not see him.
Not once.
Just like his father had done.
Just like Wei Changze had done all his life.
Pretending not to see the things that didn’t fit neatly into their world.
Wei Wuxian supposed it was easier that way.
He was an Omega now. A servant. A disgrace. Not even worth a word.
He had no sword. Core sealed. No use.
And yet—
Sometimes, when he was alone in the linen rooms, or scrubbing the floors near the west bridge, he’d hear music.
A flute.
Faint. Barely audible. Almost like a memory.
And his hands would still.
Because that sound—
It was the only part of him left that hadn’t been taken.
But even that, he knew, could not last.
Nothing beautiful stayed in Lotus Pier.
Not music.
Not mothers.
Not names.
—
One evening, as the sky dimmed and the air turned thick with summer rain, he sat on the edge of the servant’s quarters, watching the storm roll in.
The scent of petrichor lingered. The wind shifted.
For a moment, he imagined what it would be like to run.
Just run.
Into the rain. Into the forests. Into somewhere that didn’t see him as ruined.
He wondered, sometimes, what his mother would say if she could see him now. Would she cry?
A bitter laugh slipped through his lips.
He never got the chance.
Outside Lotus Pier, the world was changing.
Not with the slow grace of seasons or the steady passage of time. But fast, brutal, and unrelenting — like an avalanche building in the mountains, unstoppable once it begins to fall.
Whispers carried across the rivers and border markets. Rogue cultivators vanishing without trace. Border towns absorbed into Qishan Wen’s expanding reach. Those who resisted, silenced. Whole sects — forgotten names with histories centuries deep — razed overnight. No survivors. No warnings.
It was no longer small skirmishes or political shadow games.
Qishan Wen had stopped pretending.
Wei Wuxian only heard fragments.
Maids repeating rumors in the laundry halls. Disciples whispering beneath their breaths when they thought no one else could hear. He pretended not to listen.
He knew how dangerous knowledge could be, now that he was no longer Wei-gongzi, no longer Head Disciple.
He was a servant. A shadow in the Lotus Pier.
And yet…
The day he heard about the water-borne abyss in Caiyi, he dropped the bucket he was carrying.
The water splashed over his feet. No one commented.
He remembered that name — Caiyi Town — because he’d dreamed once of going there again with Lan Zhan. But the last time he had set foot in Gusu, everything had changed. The disgrace had followed like smoke.
They said the abyss had appeared unexpectedly during the lectures, just after his heat— just after he was dragged through Cloud Recesses, humiliated and hidden.
He remembered hearing, in pieces, that the Twin Jades had responded. That Jiang Cheng had gone with them. Yunmeng was one of the few sects known for spiritual water suppression; Jiang disciples were well-trained in it.
Wei Wuxian had once led those trainings.
But it wasn’t a water ghoul in Caiyi. Not this time.
It was something older. Something darker.
A water-borne abyss had no business appearing in a calm town where no boat wrecks had occurred. Where only one child — a Lan student — had drowned ten years ago in a meditation accident.
Abysses were drawn to death. To suffering.
And yet, there it was, in a town with no storm history and no lingering resentful energy. No warning.
Jiang Cheng came back.
So did the Twin Jades.
No one else did.
Ten disciples lost — seven Lan, three Jiang.
Wei Wuxian had stared at the folded linens in his arms, wondering what it meant. He hadn’t asked.
He had no right to ask.
It was weeks later, maybe months — time had started losing shape — that another letter arrived.
An invitation.
From Qishan Wen.
A Discussion Conference.
Ordinary on paper. Sect leaders gathered every few years to trade cultivation strategies, update alliance statuses, and quietly compete. A cycle of power masked with ceremony.
But this one felt different.
The envelope was blood-red. It carried no seals from the cultivators' council, only the blazing sun crest of Qishan. Its edges were marked with a strange ash-smell, like something burned just before the ink dried.
By then, the world had seen what Qishan could do.
Everyone knew.
Even the old cultivation families, long arrogant in their isolation, knew now what it meant when Wen Ruohan sent an invitation. It wasn’t a summons. It was a warning.
And refusing it would be taken as defiance.
Wei Wuxian didn’t ask about the letter.
He didn’t need to.
He was scrubbing the floor outside the main hall when the drums began.
A slow, thunderous rhythm that echoed through the pier like war.
Jiang Cheng emerged in full robes — the black and purple of Yunmeng rich and sharp on his shoulders. He had grown more into them now. He stood tall, chin lifted. A perfect image of the next Sect Leader.
Wei Wuxian’s hands didn’t pause.
Jiang Fengmian, just beside his son. Calm. Imposing. Disconnected, as always.
And behind them — the disciples. Twelve of them, selected to accompany the delegation. Each carried their sword. Each wore armor under their robes.
They walked past him.
No one looked his way.
Not even Jiang Cheng.
Especially not Jiang Cheng.
Wei Wuxian kept scrubbing.
The stone beneath his hands was rough, stained with years of use.
His fingers trembled.
He scrubbed harder.
The drums grew fainter.
The pier quieted.
He prayed no one else saw how the floor beneath him shimmered — not from the wash water, but from the tears falling quietly from his chin.
He was happy.
He really was.
They were going to Qishan — to the city where the sun never sets.
They were fulfilling the destiny carved into them since they were boys.
And he…
He was no longer a cultivator.
Not the prodigy archer. Not the golden boy of Yunmeng. Not Jiang Fengmian’s pride. Not Jiang Cheng’s brother. Not Jiang Yanli’s shadow.
Just a ghost in the pier where he was raised.
He was happy.
Truly.
So why did it feel like something inside him was cracking?
Why did the silence after the drums feel like the end of the world?
The wounds had closed. The pain hadn’t.
Wei Wuxian no longer winced when he walked. No longer bled when he reached too high for the laundry line or knelt too long scrubbing the tiled floors. The bruises faded, but the scars lingered — angry, raised, and cruelly deliberate.
He had no mirror. Servants weren’t permitted them. Vanity was for the privileged. And those who lost their title had no need for beauty.
Still, some of the older Omega servants helped him in the early mornings or late nights, when the overseers weren’t watching.
They were kind.
Soft hands and softer voices, murmuring as they smoothed daifu's balm into his back. Fingers trailing over the raw, dark lash-marks that cut across his shoulders and ribs.
"It’ll fade, don’t worry."
“You’re still young, your skin will mend beautifully.”
“You’ll see. No Alpha would know if you don’t let them.”
They thought they were being kind.
But Wei Wuxian didn’t care if they faded.
If the scars remained forever — if they marked him so plainly that no Alpha would ever want to bond with him, he would consider that a mercy.
Let them be disgusted.
Let them turn away.
Let them look and see what the world had made of him — an Omega without honor, a cultivator without a core.
Let them leave him alone.
—
The delegation returned to Lotus Pier after two weeks.
But they did not come back the same way they had left.
Gone were the confident shoulders and polished pride of a major sect on neutral standing. Gone were the faint smirks of disciples excited for duels and debates and political theatre. In their place were tight jaws, downcast eyes, and Jiang Cheng walking at the head of the group with a gaze too dark for his age.
They were silent.
No victory. No triumph.
Just the shadow of something terrible clinging to them.
Wei Wuxian didn’t ask what happened.
He was no longer permitted to ask.
But servants had ears. And voices carried when one was silent long enough.
He heard fragments.
The archery competition.
Jiang Cheng had placed fifth. No other Yunmeng disciple made it into the top ten.
The Twin Jades of Lan had come first and second — as expected.
But the Wens… none of them placed.
Not even Wen Chao.
That alone might have been enough to spark Wen Ruohan’s fury — the Lord of Nightless City was not a man accustomed to losing face. Not even in games of courtesy. Especially not in front of every major cultivation sect.
And Wen Chao’s arrogance… It reeked, even in retellings. Boasts about Qishan's superiority. Cruel jabs toward smaller sects. Dismissive words about discipline, history, legacy — all things the Wen claimed were outdated.
Wei Wuxian had an inkling then.
A gnawing pit of dread that whispered what comes next.
But he shoved it down.
He told himself it would pass. That the Lans were powerful. That Gusu was a place of rules and quiet resilience.
He had prayed — silently, fiercely — that Cloud Recesses would remain untouched.
But the heavens weren’t listening.
The news came weeks later.
Late, but clear.
Cloud Recesses had burned.
The sacred Library Pavilion — centuries of cultivation history, teachings, forbidden texts, and ancient codes — reduced to ash. The sky had turned black over Gusu.
Sect Leader Lan had walked out of his decades-long seclusion to defend his people, only to fall grievously wounded by a high-level spiritual weapon. They said he bled across the white stone courtyard before collapsing.
Lan Xichen — gone. Disappeared with several scrolls and injured disciples. Rumors swirled that he’d taken the last remaining ancient defensive techniques with him.
Lan Wangji...
Wei Wuxian found out in the kitchens.
Overheard, when a disciple’s sister arrived with news.
“Lan-er-gongzi,” she whispered, “His leg. Wen Xu himself crushed it. Just—stepped on it. They said he didn’t even blink.”
Everything froze.
Wei Wuxian stood still, hands damp from washing rice. His fingers clenched the wooden bowl until it cracked.
Lan Zhan.
He said nothing.
Just turned back to his task.
Bit down on the scream clawing its way out of his chest.
What came next, came fast.
The destruction of Cloud Recesses was not a warning. It was a declaration.
Qishan Wen was no longer playing at diplomacy.
Within days, Wen disciples swaggered openly into other sect territories. Night hunts were restricted. Curfews imposed. Those who defied them were made examples of — public displays, often violent.
Letters arrived next.
Not invitations.
Not requests.
Demands.
A Wen Indoctrination.
Sects, big or small — were to send twenty disciples to Nightless City for “re-education.” Correction. Realignment with the “new cultivation order.”
The heirs must be included.
They didn’t even bother pretending anymore.
It was a threat.
Submit.
Or be destroyed.
—
Wei Wuxian scrubbed the floor of the back courtyard as the sun set over Yunmeng, red and heavy like blood in the sky.
He had once laughed under this sun.
Had sparred with Jiang Cheng. Stolen sweetcakes from Shijie’s tray. Stood proud and tall with his sword on his back and fire in his veins.
Now, he had no sword. No name.
Only the sting of old lashes when he bent too low.
He didn’t belong in the world that was coming.
He had no place in Nightless City.
No place on a battlefield.
No place beside the Twin Jades.
No place beside Lan Zhan.
He would not be sent to be "indoctrinated."
Because he no longer counted.
Not as a cultivator. Not as a disciple. Not even as a person. And yet — somehow, the ache in his chest said otherwise.
Somehow, he still dreamed of Lan Zhan.
Even with a broken leg.
Even with blood in the snow.
Even with the world set aflame.
In Lotus Pier, Madam Yu's fury could not be contained. She stormed through the ancestral hall with Zidian alive and crackling behind her, snapping like a spirit starved. The sealed letter trembled in her hand — no, not from fear. From rage.
“Send our disciples? To them? They dare—!”
The letter bore the seal of Nightless City. Wax red. Thick as blood. No need for dramatic threats or velvet veiled offers. It was a command.
Jiang Fengmian did not argue. He never did. His silence was a blade sharper than any retort, and it pierced Madam Yu through the pride she had built around herself like armor.
Wei Wuxian overheard the arguments through the cracked servant hall doors. The boys would be watched. Indoctrinated. They would be taught to “respect the rising sun.”
Wei Wuxian scrubbed the floor until his fingers bled.
—
The day the Jiang disciples departed, the pier was silent. No drums. No banners. Just twenty young cultivators. They boarded the boat with one elder and the weight of their Sect’s dignity.
Jiang Cheng was at the head.
His robes were stiff and immaculate. He didn’t glance at the servant sweeping the steps. Didn’t stop. But Wei Wuxian’s chest ached as he watched his brother disappear behind the curtain of the barge.
He was supposed to be beside him. By his side, as always.
What followed was worse than waiting.
The servants whispered when they thought he wasn’t listening — about how Wen Chao made disciples of other sects perform, took away their swords, made them kneel and sing for his mistress’s amusement. About the night Wen Zhuliu demonstrated his Core Melting Hand, dissolving the golden core of a disciple from some minor sect, just to prove it was real.
Wei Wuxian lay awake that night, staring at the ceiling in the servant’s quarters, bile burning the back of his throat.
He knew Jiang Cheng's temper. Knew how quick his anger rose when slighted, how prideful he was of his position, his name, his sword.
And now he was surrounded by people who despised all three.
Wei Wuxian squeezed his eyes shut. Don’t imagine it. Don’t. But the thoughts kept creeping in like mold beneath the walls. Would they provoke him? Try to break him?
He remembered the way his shidi used to laugh. The way they used to nudge him during lectures. Would they bow now? Would they kneel?
Two days later, the quiet letters stopped arriving.
No reports. No gossip. No paper cranes fluttering from the edge of Qishan to Yunmeng.
A week passed. Then two.
Wei Wuxian went from worry to panic. Something had happened. Something terrible.
He didn’t sleep. Couldn’t eat. He stopped going to the mess hall. Even the other servants noticed how thin his face had gotten, how dark the circles beneath his eyes were. A kind maid tried to coax him with warm congee. He smiled at her, but his hands trembled as he held the bowl.
Something was wrong. He knew it in his bones.
That night, he knelt in front of the Sect Leader’s hall.
No one noticed at first — he made sure of it. Slipped through the night in borrowed clothes, not even his own robes. He bowed low. Pressed his forehead to the ground three times until his knees ached and his arms shook.
“Please,” he whispered. “Please send someone. Just a scout. Just a small party. Anything. Something's happened to them.”
No answer came.
He waited an hour. Then two. The paper lanterns flickered in the hall. A disciple passed by once but didn’t look down. Just ignored him, like all the rest.
Then finally, footsteps.
Not Madam Yu’s sharp heels. Not Jiang Daifu’s hurried stride. A slow, familiar gait — worn boots.
Wei Changze stood in the doorway.
Wei Wuxian looked up, hope flickering like a dying flame. “Father–”
“You shouldn’t be here.” His voice was even. Emotionless. He didn’t look at him — only past him, like Wei Wuxian was a shadow cast by the candlelight.
Wei Wuxian's lips trembled. “They’re my family, too.”
“That’s not your place to say.”
The words sliced deeper than any spiritual blade. Wei Wuxian opened his mouth, but nothing came. Not anger. Not tears. Just hollow disbelief.
Then came the next words.
“You are no longer a cultivator. Not a disciple. You have no position in this sect.” Wei Changze finally looked at him, and the chill in his eyes was worse than indifference. It was shame.
“You want to be involved? Then earn your place back. Until then, don’t meddle in the affairs of your betters.”
Wei Wuxian stared.
Something shattered quietly inside him.
Wei Changze turned and left. The doors closed. And this time, they didn’t open again.
The day everything truly fell apart began like any other: gray skies over Lotus Pier, humidity clinging to the wooden beams, the lake unusually still.
But Wei Wuxian knew.
He knew the moment Sect Leader Jiang and Wei Changze returned, dragging behind them only half the disciples that had set out for Qishan. No banners. No proud horns. Just the shuffle of broken bodies, bloodstained robes, vacant eyes. The same boat returned to the pier, but the people on it were no longer the same.
And at the center of them—
Jiang Cheng.
Ashen. Silent. Carried between two disciples like a shattered weapon. Wei Wuxian didn’t recognize the boy he grew up beside. This Jiang Cheng looked... empty. Burned out from the inside.
They took him straight to the Healer’s Pavilion. Wei Wuxian tried to follow.
Madam Yu caught him at the threshold.
Zidian lashed once—not on skin this time, but on stone. It cracked the ground beside him.
“Dare step one foot closer, and I’ll end you here.”
Wei Wuxian flinched, then bowed, his hands trembling.
Behind her, Jiang Cheng was swallowed whole by the darkened doors of the pavilion.
He heard the truth in fragments. The whispers came too late, too broken.
A hunt gone wrong. A cave full of slaughter. A mythical beast that should have never reawakened.
Xuanwu of Slaughter.
Wen Chao had ordered the disciples into that cave to die. Wang Lingjiao laughed at their screams. Jiang Cheng had fought—had dared to wound Wen Chao. For that, Wen Zhuliu came. And with a single touch, Jiang Cheng’s golden core was melted. Dissolved.
Wei Wuxian didn’t cry in front of the servants. He didn’t ask questions. Didn’t speak at all.
That night, he wept into the laundry pool until his voice cracked.
They wouldn't let him see Jiang Cheng. He was kept under constant watch. Jiang Daifu told him softly that Jiang Cheng wouldn’t eat. That he wouldn't sleep. That he had tried—tried to slit his own throat with a broken shard of jade comb.
It took four disciples to stop him.
And now, there was nothing left.
No news from Gusu either. No word of Lan Wangji. Of what happened to Xuanwu. The silence that followed was deeper than death.
Wei Wuxian barely moved through the days. Cleaning. Scrubbing. Ignoring the pitying glances from the maids.
But something changed.
He heard it through a door left open by mistake, as he passed the Healer’s Pavilion.
“It’s not just dangerous—it's suicidal!” Jiang Rong’s voice, sharp and panicked. “Even if the body survives, the mind— do you understand what giving your core away means?! Do you know how precise the transfer must be?! He could die. Both of them could die.”
A pause.
Then a voice Wei Wuxian couldn’t hear clearly. Steady. Resolute.
"We have no other choice."
He thought nothing of it at first.
Until two days later.
—
Yinzhu and Jinzhu came when he was laying out his bedding in the corner of the servant quarters. No words, no explanation. Their hands were like steel, dragging him down the darkened halls, silent as ghosts.
He didn’t fight. He already knew.
They brought him before Madam Yu, seated like a judge in her private hall. The doors were locked behind him.
She stood slowly. Every movement deliberate, sharp as Zidian.
“Look at you,” she said. Her voice coiled like poison. “Eight years. Eight long years of breathing my son’s air. Drinking his water. Walking beside him like his equal.”
She stepped forward. He did not back away.
Then she grabbed his hair and yanked him down to his knees.
Wei Wuxian barely gasped.
She forced his face up, cruelly. “I should’ve sent you back to whatever gutter your mother crawled from. But no—my husband kept you here even when your own father didn’t want you. Let you fester here.”
Her fingers tightened. “But it turns out that leeching off us has done something after all. You’ve got a golden core stronger than even Jiang Cheng’s.”
His stomach dropped. No. No. No.
Her eyes gleamed with venom. “So now, it’s only right you give it back.”
Wei Wuxian’s voice was hollow. “What–”
Madam Yu smiled, the kind that had no warmth. “I’m saying, Wei Wuxian... You’re going to fix what’s broken.”
End of Act I