Chapter Text
"If I'm leaving my home
I don't know when I'll be back again
So don't you wait up on me, I'm leaving with the light
Don't wait up on me, I've got a restless mind"
Night was beginning to fall on Yiling, and the lanterns of the houses and inns were lit one after another, as if someone were punctuating the darkness with small acts of daily resistance. The warm light slid across the dirt streets, across the tables still occupied by noisy customers, and across the half-open windows from which came voices, laughter, and the lingering smell of simple food. There was nothing threatening in the night air, nothing reminiscent of the stories of Jin Guangshan or the inflated tales of terror that circulated among the sects. Yiling, at night, seemed just a living place, stubbornly alive, as if it had decided to ignore the legends and keep breathing.
Lan Xichen paused for a moment to observe the scene from the inn window, his hands clasped behind his back and a thoughtful expression that Nie Mingjue knew all too well. It was the same look he had when he was putting together pieces that didn't want to fit, when the world wasn't following the order it should have but he insisted on looking for one anyway. Nie Mingjue, sitting on the bed, looked at him without saying anything, letting the silence fill with unspoken thoughts and a tiredness that was not only physical.
That day had brought no answers, only more annoying questions than before. Wei Wuxian was not a demon gone mad, that was clear by now. But he was not willing to let himself be grabbed, either by force or by good intentions. He had built something in Yiling, something fragile and noisy, made of children running, of women working together, of elderly Wen people cultivating the land as if the world had not already condemned them. And above all, he had decided to stay there, ignoring the weight of other people's expectations with the same naturalness with which he ignored the rules of common sense.
Nie Mingjue snorted softly, running a hand over his face. He hated to admit it, but the more he thought about Wei Wuxian, the more he felt that Jin Guangshan was lying. Not a simple lie, but one that is carefully constructed, layer by layer, until it seems like a solid truth. And what irritated him most was that Lan Xichen was figuring it out, slowly but surely, and that meant they couldn't just go back and pretend they hadn't seen anything.
Lan Xichen finally turned around, as if he felt the weight of Nie Mingjue's gaze. He smiled faintly, a tired but sincere smile, the kind that asks not for reassurance but for companionship. "We'll talk to him again tomorrow," he said calmly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “We can’t force him, but we can’t turn our backs on him either.”
Nie Mingjue grunted something that vaguely sounded like agreement. He wasn't convinced, but he knew Lan Xichen had already made up his mind. And, against all logic, a part of him was relieved. Staying in Yiling meant more time away from the Golden Tower, more time to observe, more time… together.
So Lan Xichen blew out the candle and the room sank into that soft gloom that was not real darkness, but a respite granted to the day. The bed welcomed them both with a slight creak, and for a moment Nie Mingjue remained still, staring at the ceiling as if he could find a sensible answer to his thoughts there. He knew perfectly well that, if he wanted, he could crawl into Lan Xichen's bed once he was sound asleep: he knew Lan Xichen all too well; he slept like a blessed stone, the kind of person not even an earthquake or a storm could rouse from sleep. Nie Mingjue knew this, and for this very reason the idea came back to him like a foolish and dangerous temptation, one of those that present themselves only when the heart is tired and the night too silent.
But he thought better of it. He turned slightly on his side, trying to find a position that wouldn't betray him, and sighed softly. He loved him, this was now evident even to himself, he loved him with that awkwardness that he didn't know how to call love but that he felt in his bones and in his chest, in every held breath. And that's precisely why he didn't want to touch him, he didn't want to take advantage of an unconscious sleep, he didn't want to wake up the next morning making up a pathetic excuse like "sorry, I had a nightmare."
A lie that Lan Xichen might have even accepted, with his gentle way of always believing the best in people. But Nie Mingjue didn't. He didn't like lying, he couldn't stand liars, and he wouldn't start with the one person he respected enough not to want to hurt, even unintentionally.
So he remained where he was, rigid as if discipline could silence his heart, listening to Lan Xichen's breathing slowly become more regular, deeper. There was something reassuring and cruel in that sound at the same time, because it made him feel close and distant at the same time. In love, yes. But not a liar. And maybe that night, as uncomfortable as it was and full of unspoken desires, was the only way he knew to stay close to him without betraying himself.
As Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue slowly drifted off to sleep and the moonlight crept discreetly into the room, accompanying silent dreams and restrained thoughts, Wei Wuxian stood far away. The inn was now closed, the doors barred, the buzz of the day dissolved like steam. Wen Yuan was already asleep, curled up in the blankets with the other Wens, with that deep, confident sleep that only those who feel safe can afford. Wen Ning, like every night, made his rounds of guard on the Burial Mountains, moving with the same patient and silent attention as always, as if the world could still surprise them from behind.
Wei Wuxian leaned his back against the tree trunk where he sat almost every night, the same spot, the same rough support he now knew by heart. “What a day,” he thought, letting the weight of those hours fall on him all at once. The nightmares hadn't gone away, they never really did: sometimes they were ghosts looking for him to leave, other times asking for justice, other times it was simply the Yin metal, pressing silently, waiting, like a patient hunger. But that night he remained distant, confined to a corner of the cave, as if he too had decided to grant him a truce.
He certainly didn't expect ZeWu-Jun and ChiFeng-Zun to burst into his tavern, right there, in the place he had managed to keep hidden even from Jiang Cheng. Thinking back, he almost laughed at the cruel timing. He was sure that Jin Guangshan had sent them, he would have bet even Uncle Four's last barrel of wine on that without hesitation. What really bothered him, however, was not the general why, but the most specific and most uncomfortable detail: ZeWu-Jun. Not just a sect leader, not just a respected and kind man, but Lan Wangji's brother.
Lan Wangji. A name he tried not to think about anymore, as one avoids a wound that one knows is still open. He had probably already forgotten about him, and it was better that way. Much better. Wei Wuxian let his head slide against the tree bark, watching the moon filter through the branches, and felt a different, deeper tiredness. What could he have offered to a man like Lan Wangji? Certainly not an orderly life, not a clean reputation, not a house without shadows. Not a roast chicken, not a hot soup, and certainly not love, not what the world considered right, stable, worthy of being shown to the light of day.
He closed his eyes, breathing slowly, letting the Yiling night envelop him as it always did. Here he had found a place, a fragile normality, something that resembled a home. And whatever ZeWu-Jun and ChiFeng-Zun wanted, whatever mission had brought them here, Wei Wuxian knew one thing with painful clarity: he would not let it be taken away from him.
It wasn't just that he had found a home. It was that he had finally found a purpose that wasn't just about resistance and anger. At first it had been simple, almost brutal: prevent the Jin from getting their hands on innocents, act as a shield, even at the cost of becoming the monster of their stories. Now, however, the purpose had taken a different form, more concrete and surprisingly everyday. Running an inn. Waking up in the morning knowing what to do, who to feed, what problems to solve. And, against all odds, he liked that life. He liked honest tiredness, the sound of dishes, the smell of food, useless complaints and sudden laughter. He liked to be needed in a way that didn't involve blood or sacrifice.
He was a fugitive, yes. A man who deserted a sect without thinking twice, because he knew that if he hesitated a third time he would be left standing there crying. The Jiang sect had been a home, a real home, even if fragile, even if built on precarious balances and silences never faced. Her initial goal had never been to become inseparable from Jiang Cheng, but to protect him, to stay by his side as long as needed. And he would never spit on that past. But he also knew that the choice he had made years earlier, to take a different path in cultivation, made a separation inevitable.
Sooner or later he would have had to leave anyway. Maybe he would have become a wandering farmer, maybe a radish salesman, maybe just a guy with a flute who people would call crazy to feel safer. He also knew that his cultivation would be used as an excuse. A convenient excuse to look down on Jiang Cheng, to say that he had lost control, that he couldn't keep his adoptive brother in check, that the Jiang sect was weak. And that was something Wei Wuxian could never stand. Now, however, he had another purpose. To protect again, yes, but in a different way. Protect without being a blade to the throat of those around him. To protect without becoming the reason to strike Jiang Cheng.
Leaning against the tree, under the Yiling moon, Wei Wuxian realized he was no longer just running away. He was staying. And that difference, subtle but enormous, was something he would never let go of.
He liked that tranquility, and he wouldn't go back. He couldn't, even before he didn't want to. There was no longer a straight path to resume, there was no sword to wield with a golden core that no longer existed, there was no honor to cleanse with well-packaged apologies and comfortable silences. And explaining why he didn't want to come back was pointless, because the truth was too complicated to be told without hurting someone.
Wei Wuxian had just found his balance, fragile but real, in that tavern nestled between the mountains, among people who did not lower their gaze when they saw him arriving. The locals were not afraid of him, nor of the few remaining Wen. They dined together on the mountain, sharing food, wine, and work. The children ran between the tables and fields, climbed everywhere, laughed without knowing who Yiling Laozu really was. Some helped with the harvest, others carried water, and the elders sat sewing with that rough-tempered woman who kept everyone in line without ever raising her voice. It was a simple, messy, imperfect life. And it was true.
Wei Wuxian smiled, leaning against the night. That was the taste of life he had sought without knowing it. Life smelled of fruity wine, of laughter that broke out for no reason, of soups that simmered too long. He had the sound of footsteps on the wooden floor and of voices calling him not out of fear, but out of habit.
Maybe that was also why he had stopped loving Lan Wangji, slowly, without a precise moment in which everything had broken. Lan Wangji could have confessed a thousand times, in a thousand different ways, and after all, he had. But behind every word, behind every meaningful silence, there was always the same hope: that Wei Wuxian would return to being his old self. The rebellious and brilliant boy, with the golden core firmly in his belly, with life shining in his eyes like an impossible fire to put out.
Wei Wuxian hadn't changed noticeably, not to a casual glance. He was still laughing, with that laugh that always seemed on the verge of getting out of hand, he joked as if the world were a light thing, he found the absurd even where others saw only ruin. On the surface, he was the same as always, like a house that on the outside retains the same windows and the same door, while inside the rooms have been emptied one by one.
But below, where the golden core once dwelt, there was a profound silence, like a field after the harvest, when the earth is bare and the wind passes without resistance. His eyes remained alive, yes, lit by an intelligence that had never died, but sometimes that light flickered, fragile like a flame exposed too long to the air, and one thought too many was enough to make it falter. He didn't want to go back, not even if it meant letting go of his love for Lan Wangji.
That love wasn't dead, but it had changed shape, like water that stops flowing and gets trapped in a basin: it no longer quenches thirst, but retains the heat of the sun. It had become a memory that warmed without burning, the bittersweet regret of having been, for a brief and unrepeatable time, in his arms, protected from the world as something precious. And maybe that was the point: Wei Wuxian hadn't stopped loving, he had just stopped belonging to a future he could no longer sustain.
Every now and then Wei Wuxian joked about it with Wen Qing, like you joke about a wound that still hurts but that you've learned to cover with a joke, as if it were an old story, worn by use, smoothed by time until it has lost its sharpest edges. Wen Qing, punctual as a call that always returns to the same point in the sky, told him that he could go back, that somewhere there was still a life ready to wait for him, intact, like a house that has remained closed for too long but with the windows still in their place.
And then he would smile, a seemingly light smile, he would pick up a jar of wine as one might grasp an anchor, he would take a sip and let the warmth sink into his stomach, occupying for an instant the empty space where once there had been something more solid, and he would always answer the same way, with that simple question that was actually a wall. "What life?”.
He didn't say it with anger or defiance, but with the calm of someone who has already seen that road to the end and knows every curve, every illusion. At that point Wen Qing sighed and gave up, because she understood that Wei Wuxian wasn't giving up anything out of fear or tiredness. He had simply chosen to stay where he was, in an imperfect and alive place, where the world did not ask him to be a hero, a monster or a symbol, but simply to exist as he was, with his hands stained with wine, laughter all over him and his heart patched up just enough to keep beating.
Wei Wuxian knew that Wen Qing wasn't telling him those things only because, technically, there was still time. In time to show up in front of the cultivation sects with the confused look of someone scratching the back of his neck and laughing evilly, to say that yes, perhaps he had lost his mind for a moment, that freeing innocent people from the clutches of the Jin had been a misjudgment, an oversight, a passing folly.
There was still time, on paper, to chase after Lan Wangji, to marry him as one would expect from a well-written story, to give Lan Qiren a heart attack and to see Lan Xichen applaud with that kind smile, already ready to welcome him as if he had always been destined to sit at that table, as if the Lan family had only been waiting for Wei Wuxian to stop going around. Because Lan Xichen, years ago, in an inn in Yunmeng, had truly believed it. He had looked at Wei Wuxian and seen that love branded on him like a seal, large and bright, more evident than any reason, stronger than any logic, a love for Lan Wangji so clear it seemed written on his forehead, impossible to ignore even while Wei Wuxian laughed, drank, and played the flute as if nothing could touch him.
Lan Xichen had hoped so. And Wei Wuxian had hoped with him, until the moment he saved the Wens and understood that that gesture was not an accident, but a line drawn decisively on the earth, a line that did not allow him to turn back without trampling someone. He was quite sure that Lan Xichen would have welcomed him anyway, that he would have wanted him safe, married to the respectable Lan Wangji, protected as one protects a precious thing by locking it in an elegant box.
But that security came at a price, and Wei Wuxian saw it all too well: it meant turning around and watching the people he had saved being judged, crushed, eliminated with words like “necessary” and “order.” It meant accepting that even the people of Yiling, the ones who often argued with the Jin, the ones who the month before had seen a horned beast appear, hungry and left there as a clumsy punishment, were just collateral damage.
Wei Wuxian still remembered that scene with almost comical clarity: a woman who, instead of running away, had taken off her shoe and started chasing a group of Jin disciples, furious as a sudden storm, so much so that they had retreated, more frightened of her than of the beast itself. It was then that Wei Wuxian understood that the world didn't work as they told it in the cult halls, and that going back didn't mean putting things right, but pretending he'd never seen them.
Only Wei Wuxian had stopped looking for signs of destiny as one searches for coins dropped on the street, with his head down and the stubborn hope that something would shine among the dust. He had stopped, yes, but not completely hoping: he had simply started doing so again for things that did not bear Lan Wangji's name. Because the last time he had seen him, in Yiling, Wei Wuxian had been all too clear, painfully clear, like a wound that burns precisely because it's clean.
Lan Wangji had arrived under the pretext of a night hunt, one of those excuses that only hold up as long as no one looks too closely, and had spent twenty minutes—maybe thirty, maybe an eternity—begging him to return to Gusu with him. He had promised battles against his uncle, impossible compromises, even Lan Xichen who would write his name in the Lan family register as his husband, black on white, eternal and irreversible.
Lan Wangji had told him there, in the middle of the street, under the curious gaze of the common people, with his voice trembling like a rope pulled too hard, his eyes shining like someone about to give in, like someone who loves without any defenses left. Wei Wuxian, at that moment, didn't feel his heart opening, but tightening like a hand around his throat. He smiled, as he always did, while inside he was seriously considering whether it would be more dignified to throw himself under the first passing cart or pretend not to hear anything.
Not because that love wasn't real, but because it was too real, too big to fit into the life he was building with crooked planks, fruity wine, and people who needed him not as a hero, but as a presence. Lan Wangji was offering him a house of jade and silence; Wei Wuxian, on the other hand, had learned to love the imperfect sound of things that endure. And in that contrast, so stark it hurt the eyes, he understood that continuing to hope for Lan Wangji meant asking them both to become something they couldn't be.
So Wei Wuxian, instead of telling him straight out—because telling him would have meant breaking things forever—asked him just one question, small and terrible as a crack in the ice: “You’d accept me… but not them, right?” And within that "them" was an entire world that was struggling to breathe. There were the Wens curled up like wounded animals, the nights broken by nightmares screaming from the chests of the youngest, the elderly sitting waiting for justice that never came, with their hands clasped as if in prayer even when they no longer believed.
Lan Wangji looked at him, and for Wei Wuxian that look was louder than a thousand words spoken aloud: he would accept the Wei Wuxian of before, the one with the solid golden core, the arrogant smile and the life straight ahead. Not the one now. Not Wen Yuan who clung to him like a branch in the middle of the current. Not Wen Qing with his hands always dirty with blood and medicine. Not Wen Ning, still suspended between breath and silence. Not Uncle Four with wine instead of blood. Not him, with a flute instead of a sword and a belly as broken as a ransacked house, although Lan Wangji did not know this.
So Wei Wuxian held Wen Yuan in his arms, the child absentmindedly chewing on the hem of his robe as if it were the safest thing in the world, and said simply, “Let’s stay friends.” A light, almost stupid sentence, which however fell to the ground like a porcelain vase.
He didn't even turn around when Lan Wangji called out his name, because he knew if he did, he would break completely. He cried that night, he cried as one cried when there was nothing left to save: in Wen Qing's arms, his sobs calling out names—Lan Wangji, Jiang Cheng, Jiang Yanli—all at once, in no particular order, as if his heart could no longer distinguish them. He cried until the sky cleared.
In the morning, life resumed with the practical cruelty of simple things: Wen Qing handed him the deed to an inn bought at an auction, shrugged as if it were just a detail, and went back to doing what she always did. Wei Wuxian, with swollen eyes and an empty chest, understood that this was his new destiny: not a triumphant return, not a sung redemption, but a tavern, wine that tasted of fruit and mistakes, and Uncle Four who was already drinking at dawn. And, strangely enough, for the first time in a long time, that seemed enough.
Wei Wuxian watched Wen Ning move through the tall grass, his hands brushing the tips as if he were touching distant memories, and he thought that he would not allow anyone to replace him in that small world.
Not while life had planted in his hands a small green stem, fragile and trembling, to be watered with his own calloused hands, even when his body rocked like a boat in a storm and the nights shortened like torn silk threads, while silent sobs settled in the hidden corners of his soul like golden dust that no one could sweep away. He had chosen that path as one chooses a stream that flows between rocks: winding, noisy, but right there flowed the life he wanted.
It did not matter if the great cultivators, like ancient trees with roots too deep to bend in the wind, did not want to walk alongside him; their gazes were only shadows on the path, unable to stop his steps. It didn't matter if they had smelled the secrets hidden behind the creaking wood of the tavern, if they had raised eyebrows like taut bows ready to shoot invisible arrows: the truth was a sun inside him, and no cloud could extinguish it.
Every excuse they would come up with, every “I heard that…” or every suspicious glance was just the wind in the branches: it shook the leaves but could not break the roots that had clung to the earth. His world was a garden hidden among the mountains, made of tall grass, soft laughter, and the aromas of soup and wine, and no one, no matter how powerful or respected, could enter without his permission.
He didn't really care that ChiFeng-Zun and ZeWu-Jun were there, fixed like bronze statues illuminated by a sun that didn't warm them, ready to drag him back down a path that no longer felt like his. No one could force him to walk down paths that had lost the voice of his heart, and he knew it as clearly as when he had given his golden core to Jiang Cheng without words, without explanation, letting fate take care of the rest.
He had understood it the moment his fingers had gripped the flute, while his resentful energy had surged beneath his skin like a raging river ready to burst its banks, and he had felt it even more clearly when the war had swept away the world he knew, turning him into a dangerous shadow even for those who should have called him brother. Every night, the ghosts of battle clutched him to their chest with invisible hands, and every morning he smiled, like a jester hiding his scars under a veil of wine, only to extinguish the memory of the fallen bodies, the screams, and the burning iron.
He knew it when he deserted the Jiang sect, when he took on the burden of the Wen, hiding them in the mountains like precious seeds to be protected, while the world told stories about him, building legends that reeked of fear and malice. But he didn't care about those stories: there were no right smiles, no right words, no right loves, no right reasons that could bend him. No one, not even Lan Xichen kneeling before him with tear-filled eyes, not even Nie Mingjue screaming with the force of storm winds, could force him to follow a path he had not chosen.
Wei Wuxian would take his time, let the others waste their energy and breath trying to break him, and in the meantime he would enjoy watching the game, like a cat in the shadows, ready to pounce on the fingers that tried to grab him. But turning back? Never. He would never look back, he would never bend his neck to once again travel roads that led nowhere. His life was an inconstant flame, at times violent, at times flickering, and only there, among the mountains, among the land that smelled of rice and wine, among the children and old people who did not judge him, that flame finally found a place to burn without chains.
And as the moon continued to shine, casting a silvery veil over the hills of Yiling, and the stars seemed to dance like little lanterns suspended in the sky, Wei Wuxian realized that nothing in the world could be more precious than what he had built with his own hands and his stubbornness. Every choice, every renunciation, every farewell had carved out a small refuge around him, and into that refuge the wind carried the smell of cooked rice, freshly poured wine, and damp earth after the rain. He had given up Lan Wangji, Jiang Cheng, Jiang Yanli, everything that had once given him a sense of home, and yet, paradoxically, it was there that he felt the true warmth, not in Lan Wangji's letters, not in the glances that had once bound them, but in the murmur of children running between the rows of radishes, in the song of the cicadas, and the rattling of the tavern door.
He had always given up something for the sake of something else, as if his life were a mosaic of sacrifices, small and shiny pieces, but painful to fit together. And he could have done the same thing a thousand times over, if fate had called him back. But that night, as the moon caressed the thatched roofs and the windows flickered with light, Wei Wuxian only hoped that Lan Wangji was not waiting, not as the river waits for the sea, not as those who love spring wait after a mild winter, because he had no intention of being carried away by already traced currents.
He had loved him long enough to know that, even if circumstances had been different, maybe they would have married, maybe they would have built a world together. But that wasn't his present. Now he wished him to find peace, to walk in the sun and the shadows without looking for Wei Wuxian as if he were the invisible thread that held her world together. Because life, however capricious at times, was an imperfect dance, and even if Lan Wangji and he had been two discordant notes in the same symphony, they had remained beautiful and alive in the memory of time.
And if fate had decided that they were out of tune, so be it. Perhaps, one spring day, each would find their other half, the missing piece, and that encounter would have the sweet taste of a laugh that lasts until sunset. Wei Wuxian hadn't stopped believing in love, he hadn't thrown in the towel, and he continued to believe in it with the same conviction with which one reads a horoscope that promises distant but possible magic.
But the night was young, and he had other things to think about, more pressing and fun: how to give Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue a hard time, how to laugh at them as they tried to bring him back, how to continue to be free and light among the mountains and the flickering lights of Yiling, without asking anyone's permission.
And in that air filled with the scent of earth and wine, Wei Wuxian truly felt at home, because he had finally found a place that accepted him whole, with all his mistakes, his memories, and his laughter.