This is a CQL-heavy multicanon post-canon mashup, where I have made a lot of assumptions and pushed some of the characters’ ages for increased clarity. Basic assumptions include the following:
I have named many unnamed characters. Some of those names I borrowed (with permission) from Sami’s And Time Is But a Paper Moon and sequels. Specifically, Lan Zhan’s mother is Tang Lijuan (and her backstory is assumed to be similar to Sami’s Coming Up With Love (But It's So Slashed And Torn .) Jin Zixuan’s mother, likewise, is Duan Ai.
Any differences are obvious within the text. You do not have to read those stories in order to understand this one, but you should read that whole series anyway, this is DEFINITELY influenced by the series, and I consider it an homage. (Seriously, I’ve read And Time Is But a Paper Moon four five many times. Our premises are different in many ways, but the spirit is similar, and I’d be lying if I said she didn’t influence me. I did talk with her before posting, she knows this exists and that I’m borrowing names and concepts. This is as close as I’m ever likely to get to writing a fanfic of a fanfic, I stg.)
Names I didn’t borrow but invented from name lists: Second Young Lady Mo is Mo Xiuying, her mother is a servant, Liu Yun, not Madam Mo’s mother, hence some of the family tension. Most of the characters who are close to Mo Xiuying call her Ying-jie, as distinct from Wei Ying, who starts out as A-Ying and then is called A-Xian by most of the big “sisters”.
Wen Qing and Wen Ning’s parents are Wen Jinjing (mother) and Wen Zemin (father). They are doctors, as are most of the cultivating Wens from that part of the family, including Wen Yuan’s parents.
Anywhere that doesn’t jibe with the book, the show, the donghua, or the manhua, just consider this an AU. I’ve closed some plotholes and skirted some inconsistencies, erring on the side of “what makes this story work better here” in all cases. (For example, the show claims that Wei Wuxian met LWJ 16 years before 2nd Dafan mountain, but also that the summoning spell was 16 years after Nightless City. I’m going with the timing that makes sense to me. The book says 13 years, but also takes more than the time difference to get from meeting to WWX’s death at the Burial Mounds. Also, I didn’t really like any of the explanations for the monster in Biling Lake, so I made my own.)
Most of the non-canon spells, devices, etc. are from my own head.
This is a time-travel, low-conflict (I’m playing limbo with the “how low can we go” conflict level) fixit. It is a denouement for after you’ve seen the show and maybe some of the other versions. It is not quite “everyone lives/no one dies” but it IS “everyone who should live, lives, and then some.” Lots of second chances happen for those who might have the capacity to benefit from them, given less shitty lives.
One of the side effects of time travel for these two is that while they cannot bring their golden cores with them, the mere act of pushing their spirits “up the hill” of time (downhill is the easy direction, i.e. moving forward. They move back up a steep metaphorical hill) means that when they drop into their bodies they are carrying a tremendous amount of spiritual energy along with their spiritual cognitions, and the body’s natural place to hold that is the nascent dantian.
Xue Yang, Meng Yao, and Yu Ziyuan get second chances, because my working hypothesis was that if the story changed at X point, it would fundamentally alter their worldviews. This does not mean I think they “deserved” second chances, or that I find any of their canon behavior remotely laudable, but simply that given who Wei Wuxian is and the decisions they make, he would 100% try to help them not become abusive, murderous, awful people. Because his capacity for forgiveness is damn near infinite.
This story started out as an extremely flippant and silly set of bullet points. If you really want to see them, ask, but there’s a lot of them. I have included them after the main story. The point is that while I have taken the writing seriously with a reasonable amount of due diligence and proofreading, the underlying plot is deliberately ridiculous.
Remember, kids, time travel is very difficult and linguistically awkward and no one should do it. (And yet somehow I have written four time travel stories.) I think my assumptions about time travel will become clear from the text, and make about as much sense as the magic system does. (IOW, it may be a lot of handwaving nonsense, but it’s canon-typical handwaving nonsense.)
Oh, and yes, this starts out with major character deaths, but it is canon-typical major character death, which means they get better.
For a full list of relationship terms and titles used in this fic, please see Reference for Modao Zushi Writers: Chinese terms .
I have mostly not added names for major canon characters whose birth names are not given, but some of the minor ones, for example, Cangse Sanren, NEEDED more given how much they show up here. Should be clear in-text.
As usual, blanket permission for fanart, translations, and podfics. Please do send me a link on tumblr or twitter if you make something for this story.
Because it’s come up on other fics, if you see a fic that reads with similar plot points to mine, please do not @ me to tell me someone is “copying my ideas.” This is fanfic. This one is fanfic of fanfic. We are all borrowing ideas, characters, etc. As long as people are not straight up copy/pasting my words, I’m fine. It’s kind to give credit if I inspire you. I try to do the same.
I do not pretend to historical or cultural accuracy here. This one is very much “for funzies”.
I started writing August 14, and finished everything as of August 28, 2020. Beta reading was a four day process. Total word count of the main story is about 50k.
It feels like some bizarre joke, as it happens.
They’re tired from a night hunt, and the donkey* is tired and there is a town not too far away, but the path there is a narrow one on the side of a hill, and the animal misses a step in the deepening autumn twilight.
*not L’il Apple, but a descendant they’ve dubbed Haitang because he is if anything, smaller and more sour than his noble ancestor.
It all just happens too fast.
Wei Wuxian is riding on the donkey, drifting, almost asleep, when the world drops out from under him. He doesn’t even have time to cry out. Lan Wangji, who is leading the donkey, is slowed by fatigue and the complete lack of warning before the lead slips out of his hand.
Once he realizes his husband and their donkey are tumbling down the steep, rocky scree of the hillside, Lan Wangji flies without thought, down, trying to catch them.
They all reach the bottom at the same time. In the moonlight, there is a sheen of darkness over his husband’s cheek when he gently turns Wei Ying over.
He calls light to his sword without thinking about it and flinches at the amount of blood. It is too much for anyone, and far too much for Wei Ying.
“Lan Zhan…” Wei Ying’s voice is so quiet. “Can’t move… how bad?”
Bones move under his hand, where it holds his husband off the loose rocks.
“Bad,” Lan Zhan says.
“Feels… I’m dying,” Wei Ying says.
“Not acceptable,” Lan Zhan replies.
“Talisman,” Wei Ying says, so quietly, each word a struggle. “Pouch. Blue ink. Circle paper.”
Normally sorting through talismans in a pouch would require either an act of will for the right one or flipping through many similar sheets of paper. There is only one round talisman. The ink shimmers oddly, though it might be tears distorting his vision.
“What is it?” Lan Zhan asks.
“I can go back,” Wei Ying says. “Fix it. Only works at the moment of death.”
It lands then, that his husband is dying, again.
Lan Wangji finds this completely unacceptable and begins pouring spiritual energy into the man in his arms.
“Won’t work,” Wei Ying says, softly. “Just let me go, the talisman will take me back, this won’t have happened.”
“Take me with you,” Lan Zhan says.
“You’re not dying. I don’t think it will work for someone who is alive. I have to activate it… with blood… last moment.” The words cost him, and he coughs.
“You have not moved your arms since you fell,” Lan Zhan says. “It would be better not to die.”
He pushes his energy into Wei Ying, pushes, and pushes, and as long as he does, his husband keeps breathing, his heart keeps beating.
He feels himself weakening. He was already tired before the fall, he might keep this up for a week with full reserves, but his reserves are at low ebb. One thought keeps circling in his mind. Not again. Never again.
They’ve talked about it, the fact that in the decade and a half they’ve been together, Wei Wuxian has aged and Lan Wangji has not. That he could, theoretically, reach his immortality in this lifetime, but that it holds no interest for him without his husband. That they do not know if Wei Wuxian’s soul will reincarnate after all that has been done to it.
This, perhaps, was his husband’s answer to it, an emergency option to allow him one more chance.
But it is an untestable supposition, and in a life that has been filled with self-denial, Lan Wangji is unwilling to deny himself Wei Ying. He has known for years that his husband’s death would be his own. He’s tried it the other way and didn’t like it*.
*This is an understatement. The world was intolerable without Wei Ying in it. He survived only because he did not die.
He pushes energy into Wei Ying with a purpose, and the purpose is simple. They will go together, or they will not go at all. With one exhausted arm, he picks up his husband’s hand, and wraps the bloody fingers around the talisman, and then wraps his own hand around both, and pushes everything he has left through all of them before he falls forward and collapses across his husband’s body.
Their last breaths come at the same moment. As the sun comes up, the talisman flares, and the world stops.
They both become aware of each other at the same time, hanging there in a static, blushing dawn. Their bodies are below, the donkey sprawled nearby, a strange array gleams around their earthly remains.
Lan Wangji becomes aware that the translucent form of his husband appears to be talking, but he can’t hear him.
Moving closer takes only a thought, and as their edges overlap and blur together, he can suddenly hear Wei Ying in full problem-solving mode.
“… successfully separated body and spiritual cognition, that’s good, but can’t communicate… that’s bad.”
“We can communicate,” Lan Zhan tells him, and it’s not quite speech, though his mouth moves, and it’s not quite not speech. But it is communication, and maybe, just maybe whatever they’ve done will be enough if they can still talk.
Wei Ying’s shade beams at him. Although, shade is too dark a word. They’re not ghosts. They’ve both seen ghosts, this isn’t that. This is the shimmering light of their fundamental selves.
“Did you think about when you wanted to go to when you activated it?” Wei Ying asks.
“Just activated. The method was unclear.”
Wei Ying frowns, and then sighs. “I was just going to go back and maybe not go up the hill.”
The world goes dusk dark, and they are at the foot of the trail, hanging over their past selves discussing the idea of going on or camping out.
“I want a bed,” the earlier Wei Wuxian whines from the back of the donkey.
Wei Ying winces. Above, Lan Zhan says, “I expected you would want to go back further.”
And they are hanging in the sky above Nightless City, watching Wei Wuxian clothed in darkness, searching for his sister on the field of battle while a flute plays from other shadows.
Wei Ying shakes his head and Lan Zhan hears him say, “No, no, no, never this, if I’m going farther back, I want something better.”
And with that, they hang over Lotus Pier, a Lotus Pier of long ago, covered in ripe pods and boats and it is unburnt, has never been burnt, and the children giggling as they run into the water are an impossibly young Jiang Wanyin, followed by Wei Wuxian and half a dozen shidis.
“Stop,” Lan Zhan says, but Wei Ying is staring, mouth open, and they aren’t moving anywhere. Lan Zhan tries again. “We must reflect. Is there a time limit?”
“What?” Wei Ying asks, looking at him. They are still touching, have not stopped touching.
“Is the opportunity for exploration finite?” Lan Zhan asks.
Wei Ying concentrates for a moment, and the scene before them freezes. One of the shidis is midair, hanging.
“I don’t think so. We’re not in time right now. Just, looking at it? I think we can rejoin it, if we choose, but only by joining our own bodies. Other than that, how would the time we spend this way be limited? There is no candle burning.”
“We should investigate,” says Lan Wangji. “It is a serious matter to alter fate. It would be rash to do so heedlessly.”
“Can we go forward from where we died?” Wei Ying asks him.
And the question is enough to put them at that frozen dawn. They try, but cannot move forward from that moment.
“That’s… awkward,” Wei Ying says finally, looking over their bodies. Lan Zhan is sprawled on top of him. It is undignified, but, in retrospect, probably not a position that would surprise anyone who knew them well.
“How far back can we go?” Lan Zhan asks, and he is hanging, alone, over his mother, and it is very messy and he is shocked at how slimy his newborn self looks and then he realizes his husband is not with him and panics and thinks “WEI YING” with his whole being and he is there, with his husband, in a hut, hanging over the inlaws he never knew as they wrap an infant Wei Ying in a red blanket.
They are overlapping, and Wei Ying says, “You disappeared and I couldn’t find you.”
“I was born before you.”
“I saw myself take my first breath,” Wei Ying says. “Who knew babies started out so messy?”
“Agreed,” Lan Zhan says. “I saw myself, too. You were not there. I… panicked.”
“How did you get here?” Wei Ying asks.
“I thought about you.” This is insufficient. Lan Zhan elaborates. “I focused myself on Wei Ying. Completely.”
“So if we get separated, we can find each other again,” Wei Ying says.
“Mn.”
Wei Ying’s hand comes up to touch Lan Zhan’s face, but they have no physicality, just this translucent idea of their own shapes, and he pouts. “We should figure this out. I can’t stand not being able to touch you.”
Lan Zhan looks at him and says, “We are overlapping.” But it is not touch. They are, for now, beyond touch.
“How far back do you want to go?” Wei Ying asks. “How much do you think we can change?”
“I want to understand how things happened,” Lan Zhan says. “We have all the time we need.”
“Which things?” Wei Ying asks.
“All of them,” Lan Zhan says. “Only want to do this once.”
“Before Jiang Cheng lost his core,” Wei Ying says, and they are hanging over a Meishan street, watching Wen soldiers walk toward Wei Wuxian.
“Before I lost my father,” Lan Zhan says, and they are over Cloud Recesses, watching Wen soldiers break through the wards.
“I wonder what started the Wen aggression?” Wei Ying says, and they are in a place neither of them has ever been, but they recognize the Wen architecture. They watch Wen Ruohan pull a book off a shelf, and hover close enough over him to read the words in it.
“When is this?” Wei Ying asks. “How old was I?” and they hang over the streets of Yiling, watching his five-year-old self steal a bun off a cart.
“How old was I?” Lan Zhan asks, and they are at Cloud Recesses, and he is asking Lan Huan when they can see Mother again, and Lan Huan gives a date and then tells him it is two weeks away, and he thinks about the cliff, and thinks about it being empty, and thinks about Wei Ying being with him, and they are there, between waterfalls, mist passing through them.
“I know how this works,” they both say.
They know part of how it works. They can think about a place and be there. They try separating, and they can do it, but it’s terrifyingly alone. There is a subjective sense of time, to a point, where if they separate, and they return, it feels to them like a similar amount of time has passed. They appear to be bound by the timelines of their own souls, but not by the location of their bodies.
“Will we be able to rejoin our bodies?” Lan Zhan asks. “When we are ready?”
Wei Ying shrugs. “I believe so. If I’m right, we should carry with us a large amount of spiritual energy. The weight of years unwound.”
“It will have to go somewhere,” Lan Zhan says, thoughtful.
Wei Ying taps his ethereal nose. “Energy naturally flows to the dantian.”
“The golden core…” Lan Zhan says. “Will you…”
“You haven’t brought yours with you,” Wei Ying says. “If you will, I probably will. We can only wait and see. If we are young enough, we can form new ones. I wish I could take notes.” He is startled when ghostly paper and ink and brushes manifest near him.
Lan Zhan wonders if he can affect the world, but when he tries to move a tiny pebble, he fails. He knows that spirit can manifest as energy in ways that can influence the world, but they clearly don’t have the trick of it yet. He tables the idea because there are other, more important things to concern themselves with.
After a discussion about whether the rule against eavesdropping applies, they study. Wei Ying makes lists of things that happened that could have gone better, things he is curious about, things which might be changed. Is it eavesdropping if they hope to change everything? To make those conversations never happen?
It becomes obvious very quickly that changing things at moments of stress would be very difficult. Preventing Jiang Cheng’s capture in Meishan would be very difficult given how very many Wen troops are in the city. Could they prevent Lotus Pier’s destruction? That would require going much, much farther back. And clearly, given a choice between “stopping an invading army” and “making it so the army never invades,” the latter option would be preferable.
Saving the Wen branch family is another problem with deep roots. They follow Wen Ruohan for a long time, and it comes down to “He found documents leading to the Stygian Iron. He stole the Stygian Iron from the Dancing Goddess.” That started the destruction of Wen Qing and Wen Ning’s family. Of A-Yuan’s parents. Lan Zhan was six, and about to lose his mother when Wen Ning lost part of his cognition. They can see it so clearly as it happens, hanging back out of her reach; though they’re not sure even the Dancing Goddess could reach them now, they don’t want to take a chance.
Wei Ying thinks of his family at Lotus Pier and they follow the Jiang family for a long time.
He always felt like his presence was the reason everything was difficult between Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan, was the reason Jiang Cheng struggled.
He wasn’t wrong, although watching, he also realizes that it wasn’t his fault.
He sees himself, the tiny child, too tiny for his age, and how warm they were. He sees Sect Leader Yao come and visit and start a gossip that poisons everything. It makes him curious. He knows the man was always a gossip, but was it deliberate?
Wei Ying is unable to go to the time in which he was dead, which raises interesting theological questions. Lan Zhan limits his forays in that time period. He was there. Most of it doesn’t matter.
They learn how their parents died, each of them. They do not watch every moment, because they can’t, but they discover that they can watch for each other, explain it at a remove.
They learn that Lan Zhan’s mother killed herself rather than to submit to his father, that his father was drunk at the time, a rare lapse.
They watch his father carve “Do Not Drink Alcohol” onto the stone wall and then go back into seclusion. They do not watch his end.
They learn that Cangse Sanren wanted above all to find a way to heal the Burial Mounds. That she herself was orphaned by it, then taken by Baoshan Sanren. That she thinks that if something happens to her, her son will go to her place of safety. That nothing her husband says will sway her from looking for the break. She won’t go in, she promises.
They learn that his parents had found the break, that they didn’t go in, that they died anyway. They see them attacked, and he can’t watch. They go back to his small self, not yet five years old, staying with a granny who died not long after. That no one really noticed the little boy who finally came out in search of food.
“No more,” Wei Ying says. “Why didn’t Baoshan Sanren find me?”
They find Baoshan Sanren, who senses them. She asks the air, “Did I save you?” and puts a paperman on the table.
Lan Zhan is confused but Wei Ying gets a very concentrated look on his face, takes a translucent paperman out, puts it down on the paperman on the table, and then both of the papermen stand up, merging. Slowly, ungracefully, it shakes its head.
“You are choosing when to change your past,” she says. It is not a question.
The paperman nods.
Lan Zhan is perplexed by Wei Ying’s ability to affect the paperman.
“You used these often, did you not, A-Ying?” she asks.
The paperman nods.
There is a guqin in the corner. Lan Zhan understands now. The guqin that shimmers in front of him is part of him, and he lets it overlay the real one. Then he plays. It sounds like the other half of Inquiry, the plucking faint but there.
“I’m sorry, Bright One, I don’t remember your language well enough, but I hear you. Others will hear you, too.”
Lan Zhan knows where he needs to go in order to be understood.
It could be months, it could be years of subjective time, that they follow the paths of their personal tragedies, looking for the root causes.
They look at the wider tragedies, too. They follow Wen Zhuliu back to Zhao Zhuliu, and watch Wen Ruohan secretly rip the man’s life apart just so that he could “rescue” the man and “earn” his obligation and loyalty.
They follow Jin Guangyao closely, all the way back to his early childhood. They watch a sweet boy hurt over and over and over again until he learns to hate.
They watch Xue Yang, which is worse.
It is easier than it might otherwise be to do this without their bodies, as their emotional responses are dulled.
They talk about how far back they should go. Too far, and they might not be able to hold the information they need to hold in tiny bodies. It would be worse than pointless to go back and lose the knowledge they’ve gained.
“Maybe I could save my mother,” Lan Zhan says, and Wei Ying decides, on the spot, that this must happen.
“I’m afraid to even try to save my own parents,” Wei Ying says, because to try and fail would break him, and it is too hard to imagine that he might be believed. Four-year-olds are so rarely believed. If his own father could not stop his mother from trying, why would he be able to?
This, in the end, crystallizes their plans.
They go back to before Wei Ying is left by his parents for the last time, but they go to Cloud Recesses and find the day before Lan Zhan is to visit his mother.
She has a guqin in the Gentian house, one that will one day be her son’s, and it is easier for him to play than Baoshan-shizun’s instrument.
She doesn't understand the language. This, above all, brings home to Lan Zhan that his mother was an outsider to Cloud Recesses.
She does understand that he’s trying to talk, and she tells them that if they wait a day, someone who understands might listen.
It will be awkward, doing this through his uncle, but if it doesn’t work, they can try earlier, and no one will remember.
Lan Zhan watches himself, small and excited, embrace his mother. She explains quietly to Lan Qiren that something has been trying to talk to her through her guqin, and asks that he come to listen.
She plays with his younger self while Lan Qiren sits down at the instrument and plucks out the beginnings of inquiry.
He floats over the instrument and plucks out, “Greetings, Uncle.”
Lan Qiren starts to pluck out another question, but Lan Zhan plays, “I can hear you, just ask.” It is rude to interrupt, but Lan Zhan has been very patient for a very long time and is ready to be done.
“Who are you, and why are you here?” Lan Qiren asks.
“I need help, I am older Lan Zhan.” It’s an awkward thing to try to explain.
“Older… Are you a spirit?”
He plucks, “Not important. I know the future and would like to change it. I can return to my younger self, but you must believe what I tell you when I rejoin my body.” The syntax is difficult because parsing “I’m travelling through time as a disembodied spiritual cognition and need allies” is not something those who designed this cultivation anticipated.
“Are you angry?” Lan Qiren asks.
Always, Lan Zhan thinks, but he plucks out, “Need to protect Gusu Lan. Need to protect A-Niang. Need to protect Cloud Recesses. Need to protect Wei Ying. Need to protect Four Sects. Need to help Brother.”
“Protect, from what?”
“Protect Mother from Father. Protect sects from Wen. Protect Wei Ying from everything. So many bad things come.”
“You would dare change history?” Lan Qiren asks, though he sounds more curious than angry.
“Must. Too many died. Mother will die. Father will die. Shidis will die. Wei Ying will die.”
“Who is Wei Ying?” Lan Qiren asks.
“Everything. Husband. Soulmate. Cangse Sanren’s son. Best soul I know. He is here with me.”
Lan Qiren’s face blanches icy white. “You are dead?”
“Not if you help,” Lan Zhan says. “Ask my mother what she would do if my father showed up here, drunk.”
Lan Qiren freezes, and then in quick succession casts wards on the little house, gently puts Lan Zhan’s past self to sleep, and then says, “We have much to discuss, Madam Lan.”
“I am still Tang Lijuan,” she says. “I will not take his name, nor will I answer to it. Who is this spirit who wanted so badly to talk to me?” She does not use any form of address at all. He does not push.
“I believe it is your son,” he says. “But not as we know the boy now.”
She frowns. “What…”
“I’m not sure,” he says. “I would not think it possible, but he speaks of knowledge of the future. Of a… spouse.” Lan Qiren takes a breath, and then says, “A husband. Of great danger to the sect.”
“What do I care for your sect?” Tang Lijuan says bitterly. “This place has only ever hurt me.”
“Not just this sect, but all the sects. He asks what you would do if your husband came to you again, drunk.”
She doesn’t hesitate. “I would rip his throat out. Failing that, I would rip out my own. The last time he came here, he was drunk. And I ended up with another child I’m not allowed to see but once a month. I might have forgiven the act, had I been allowed more time with my child.”
“You have two children,” Lan Qiren says.
“And I killed the father of the first one, and here I am.”
“He was the father?” Lan Qiren looks like death.
“Your venerable masters have very little respect for propriety,” she says, her voice sharp, almost hissing. “I will not be used so again.”
Wei Ying looks at Lan Zhan, whose translucent face is stone. “Tell them what will happen,” Wei Ying says.
Lan Zhan plays the notes.
“What did he say?” Tang Lijuan asks.
“He says that in a year and a half, you will kill yourself with your husband’s sword, when he comes here, drunk, rather than submit,” Lan Qiren says dully.
Lan Zhan continues.
“He asks me if I will help free you, if we will listen to him when he is in his body, so that he can help prevent the coming harms. He asks for your help, and your company, away from here.”
“Will you return my sword to me?” she asks.
“Will you refrain from attacking anyone here?”
She looks over at the little boy asleep on her bed and closes her eyes. “He wants to leave Cloud Recesses?”
Lan Zhan plays.
Lan Qiren translates without hesitation as the notes sound. “He says he has spent fifty years learning the ways of the Lan and of his father, and that he would like to learn what his mother has to teach. That there are a number of other places where he suspects his mother and he would be welcome.”
“Fifty years?” she whispers.
“He says that they are not sure how much they will be able to retain,” Lan Qiren says. “That first Lan Zhan will join us, and they will wait until they can see before his… Wei Ying returns to his own body. That rescuing Wei Ying will be the first task after freeing you. That you will never have to return here if you do not wish it. That this is the price of his help.”
“If I pledge not to attack anyone here, will you free me and return my sword?” He nods.
Lan Zhan plucks several strings.
“He asks if you will help him and take him with you.”
She nods. Something inside her shifts, and she smiles. “I would love to travel with my son.”
She is heartbreakingly beautiful when she smiles.
A few more notes play, and Lan Qiren looks startled, and then nods. He waves a hand at the small boy on the bed, and Lan Zhan reaches for his former self in a way that he has not, in all their travels, tried before.
He brushes against his former self, unsure, then feels a slight tug, and follows that pull inward. At first, he tries to spread throughout his body, but it is too much, and he curls into the nascent dantian, decades of spiritual potential curling inward, connecting to the child’s mind.
Self recognizes self, and he is breathing. Everything feels too small, too large, all at once.
Dropping into his child body is completely overwhelming, but he manages to get control of his vocal cords just enough to say, “Paperman, please,” while looking very scared.
Lan Qiren looks puzzled but pulls a red paperman out of his sleeve, and sets it on Lan Zhan’s hand. It remains red paper—because Wei Ying cannot put his soul directly in it—as it stands up, bows to Lan Zhan, and then curls around his small hand.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says, smiling, and then passes out, completely limp and unresponsive.
Wei Ying moves the paperman up to Lan Zhan’s forehead and tugs at the ribbon, but gets no response. He looks around the room, desperately, while Lan Qiren and Tang Lijuan try to rouse the boy. There is a writing desk, in the same place there always used to be, will be a writing desk, and Wei Wuxian flies the paperman over to the desk and tries to use it to pick up a brush. That doesn’t work.
He tries to manifest a brush to move it the way they’ve done with the strings and the paperman, but the brush is too heavy, the ink too dry.
There is a dusty residue from an old spill of ink, and he experimentally pushes at the ink itself. The dust moves. He painstakingly pushes it into the form of characters, then uses the paperman to get the adults’ attention.
He’s managed three characters. Empathy. Lan Zhan.
“The Lan Sect does not use Empathy,” Tang Lijuan says, her voice bitter and wry.
He rearranges the dust into one character, and then another. Jiang. Yu.
“The mistress of Yunmeng Jiang is Yu Ziyuan,” Lan Qiren says. “I can send for her if you think that would help, Wei-gongzi.”
Yes.
Lan Qiren writes a note, summons the fastest young master in the sect, a young man of seventeen who Wei Ying does not recognize, and sends the disciple via sword to Yunmeng Jiang. It is a long journey, one that would take many days by foot, but via sword, if she comes, she will be there the next day.
As soon as the paper is removed from the small stack, Wei Ying experiments with the wet ink. Ink he knows. Moving ink with his mind, he knows.
He fills the paper and then uses the paperman to tap at it impatiently.
Lan Qiren picks up the sheet of paper, and he fills the next sheet even faster.
He writes out a summary of the events that they know about. He writes out the precipitating causes as they’ve seen them.
He runs out of wet ink.
He taps the block with the paperman, and Lan Qiren first wets it, and then, several sheets of paper later, makes a small bowl of wet ink.
Later, he sends for more paper, and then invites Wei Wuxian to come to another building so that Tang Lijuan can sleep.
This is when they discover that Wei Wuxian cannot get far enough away from Lan Zhan to enter another building. The Gentian House is set too far back from the rest of Cloud Recesses.
Tang Lijuan curls around her son and sleeps, and Lan Qiren stays up past bedtime to keep shifting sheets of paper off of the stack.
Wei Wuxian sketches out talisman after talisman, and everything he can think of that might be necessary and useful in dealing with the issues to come.
He works until Lan Qiren falls asleep on the desk, and then tries to pull the paper off the stack to continue working, but fails.
Lan Zhan wakes briefly, feverish, just enough to say, “Thirsty,” sip water, and fall back asleep.
It is dawn when Lan Zhan wakes again. He mumbles, “Brain very full, want Wei Ying,” and neither his mother nor his uncle can understand, but Wei Ying persuades Lan Qiren to pull out a clean sheet of paper, and writes, “He said that his brain is very full and that he wants me. Please tell him that I am here. And please spread out more paper if you are going to sleep again.”
Then he flutters the paperman over to Lan Zhan, who presses it to his lips, smiles, and falls back asleep.
Wei Ying abandons his ink and paper and focuses his attention on Lan Zhan, overlapping him out of sheer habit, and suddenly realizes he can hear just how full the boy’s brain is, how his body struggles with the whirling energy of fifty years.
He sings into the boy’s mind, calming, wishing he had more substance, but it is enough to let Lan Zhan’s brain settle.
With his mind calmer, Lan Zhan opens his eyes and says in a slurred voice, “I hear Wei Ying in my mind. Please do not worry, Wei Ying …need more sleep.”
Madam Yu shows up a few hours later with the gate token of the disciple they sent to her and Lan Qiren’s letter in hand. She tells them that the boy they sent is resting at Lotus Pier.
Lan Qiren fills her in and says that it was suggested that Empathy might, perhaps, help them understand why Lan Zhan is still sleeping after so many hours.
“Empathy is a Jiang skill, and best used with the dead,” she says. “Yu sect has something more appropriate for an unconscious child.”
She lays a hand on Lan Zhan’s forehead and closes her eyes.
The memories are an assault. Even the indirect ones, learning what had happened to her family, to her sect, are brutally painful. When she gets past the surge of information, she is finally able to assess the child before her, how a soul too large for the body is struggling to make sense of its new home. She finds, unexpectedly, a vibrant golden core, swirling with more power and energy than even her own adult core. He is using the core to enlarge the structures that support spiritual energy within himself, but the brain is not mature, and she understands why they came back so far, but really, this is too much for a child’s mind to hold.
She shows him how to use the capacity of his golden core to take most of his adult spiritual cognition into a kind of storehouse. He will be able, she thinks, to remember what he needs to remember, but he needs to stop trying to force his brain into being the sole structural support for his adult cognition. His child self and his adult self are one self, regardless, but it will be better for everyone if he can continue to be a child, at least most of the time.
She surfaces long enough to tell Lan Qiren, “Play something soothing. Isn’t that what your sect is known for?”
He plays.
She goes over the memories again, slowly, carefully. She sees teenage Wei Wuxian, she sees her children. She sees a fierce corpse explain to her son that Wei Wuxian, who she knows is the son of her husband’s best friend, gave his golden core to her son because her son’s happiness was more important to him than his own. She wants to understand this more.
Lan Zhan speaks into her mind, and says, “Ask Wei Ying.”
She surfaces, and says, “He says to ask Wei Ying.”
Lan Qiren says, “He’s here, just ask. He’ll write the answer.”
Before they can start, there is a pounding on the doorframe.
Lan Qiren pulls the door open, and Qingheng-Jun enters, saying, “Why did a disciple just break my seclusion to tell me that my son has been here for a full day and night, against my direct orders? Why is this woman here?”
“This woman is the Jiang sect leader’s wife, Madam Yu, and she is here at my request because your son is in crisis,” Lan Qiren says with remarkable control.
“Madam Lan is in seclusion,” Qingheng-Jun says. “Surely this can be addressed elsewhere.”
“Tang Lijuan is no longer in seclusion,” Lan Qiren says, his voice taut with barely suppressed rage. “As acting sect leader, I am releasing her. Given your past behavior and the great wrong done to her, I must ask that you refrain from interfering.”
“She is my wife,” Qingheng-Jun says.
“I will never be your wife,” Tang Lijuan says. “All that you have had of me, you have taken against my will. You did not obtain my family’s permission to marry me. You did not defend me when another man violated me. You took my children from me so that I could not even have that comfort. You owe me my freedom. And my son wants to come with me.”
“He is a child,” Qingheng-Jun says, dismissing all of it. “I sent a bride price to your parents and they accepted it.”
“They accepted it because you told them the alternative for me was death,” she says. “I would rather die.”
At this, he recoils.
“Enough,” says Madam Yu. “I know you sent the betrothal gift after you made your bows. I know you brought her here against her will, without bothering to show her the respect that might have had her parents send her willingly. I know what your son already knows, that had you not brought her here, she would not have been vulnerable to the man who hurt her, would have had no reason to kill him. You do not deserve her sons. He thinks that his brother should stay here, to learn what he needs to know to be the sect leader of the Lan, but he will not stay, because he has already learned all he wants to from Cloud Recesses.”
“He is five years old,” Qingheng-Jun says. “He will do as he is told.”
“His spirit is at least fifty years old,” Lan Qiren says. “He has, overnight, developed a golden core stronger than mine, which Wei Wuxian believes is the result of his soul’s journey into his past. I do not think you can force him to stay. I do not think you should force him to stay. And I do not think you should send him out into the world alone.”
“Jiang Sect will welcome Tang Lijuan and her son,” Madam Yu says, her voice tight and cold, a tiny spark of purple moving up and down her hand. “I will provide them with whatever assistance is needed. You will not interfere. You will listen to your brother, who has spent his life cleaning up your messes and doing your job, both as father and as sect leader.”
Their voices have been rising. Wei Wuxian watches with interest. He has always known, intellectually, how strong Yu Ziyuan is. It’s refreshing to see her anger focused in a righteous direction, defending the man that he loves more than life.
And then a child’s voice cuts through the yelling, saying firmly, “No yelling in Cloud Recesses. My mother and I must fetch Wei Ying from Yiling, now.”
The room falls silent.
Wei Ying tells Lan Zhan that he still has more to write.
Lan Zhan answers him aloud, saying, “My mother and I must go to Yiling now. I do not want your child self to be alone. You do not need to rejoin your child self immediately, but we need to go, now.”
Qingheng-Jun starts to speak and then can’t. This is the best thing Wei Ying has ever seen, Lan Zhan’s own father silenced. Silenced and unable to break the silencing charm Lan Zhan cast.
Lan Qiren’s eyebrows have climbed up to his headband. He looks thoughtful, and says, “I would accompany you, gracious ladies. I will provide any assistance I can.” Then he turns to his brother and says, “Please go back into seclusion and think about your actions. We will discuss this further when I return.”
Qingheng-Jun stomps out of the Gentian House, and Lan Qiren leaves to pack for the journey.
Lan Zhan falls asleep again, and Wei Ying resumes generating page after page while Madam Yu sets up his paper and wets his ink, reading as she goes.
When Lan Qiren returns with cloaks, swords, and a pouch full of food and money, he offers to carry Lan Zhan. Tang Lijuan shakes her head, picks up her startled son, and takes her sword and mounts it.
Lan Zhan, abruptly woken, protests that he could stand on the sword. She ignores him. Wei Ying teases him, but Lan Zhan’s really very tired, and it’s frustrating to have this tiny body that needs so much sleep, and Wei Ying is about to be four years old, because Lan Zhan does not want to do this alone, so teasing is not sensible. Unfortunately, Lan Zhan starts to cry, because apparently his brain has not yet developed enough to preserve his dignity with emotional reserve. This is very frustrating.
Strangely, the adults find his tears reassuring. Tears have never been reassuring. Wei Ying stops teasing and sends soothing thoughts while continuing to throw ink into characters and diagrams even though Lan Zhan can now confirm that his memory is intact.
Lan Zhan falls asleep on his mother’s shoulder as they leave, too tired to continue being embarrassed about it.
Madam Yu helps Tang Lijuan wrap a handy piece of cloth around the two of them to spare Tang Lijuan’s arms. Five-year-olds are heavy, and the journey is long, even for someone fueled by rage and a well-developed golden core.
Yu Ziyuan does not seem the least bit tired. Lan Qiren is tired but not so tired that he can’t fly.
Wei Ying is forced to abandon the paper and ink when Lan Zhan’s physical distance drags him away from it. He suspects that if he tried to travel in time now, despite not being in his body, that he would not be able to, now that Lan Zhan’s spirit is now fixed here. Not that he wants to leave Lan Zhan, but he was supposed to check on his four-year-old self.
He always thought of them as the same age, but it is summer, and he will not be five until autumn, and Lan Zhan already turned five in the middle of winter. They are year-mates, barely, but at this age, the difference matters.
He trails them through the sky as they soar to Yiling.
Lan Zhan wakes again as they approach, no longer indignant about being carried. He’s awake enough to recognize the gift that is riding in his mother’s arms, well away from her prison.
He leads them to little Wei Ying, who is fine. His parents left the day before, the granny who is caring for him is feeding him. They tell her that they will return shortly, and maybe, just maybe… Lan Zhan hopes and tells his mother where he wants to go, and leads them cautiously toward the Burial Mounds. Wei Ying refuses to watch, dragging behind Lan Zhan as far back as he can. It’s not very far, just, far enough.
Wei Changze is nowhere to be seen.
Cangse Sanren is lying on the ground, bleeding and unconscious. Lan Qiren and Yu Ziyuan pick her up and carry her back to Yiling.
They take her to the inn while Tang Lijuan and Lan Zhan go back to the granny’s hut. Tang Lijuan explains that Cangse Sanren is hurt, but that they need to take Wei Ying to stay with her.
The granny picks the wide-eyed child up and says, “I will come with you.”
Lan Zhan nods at her from his mother’s arms, and they walk to the inn.
Wei Ying watches as they leave the granny’s little house, and starts paying attention again.
They arrive at the inn, where a man with an apron and a towel over one arm tells them that the cultivators are in the rooms upstairs. The granny confirms that Cangse Sanren is there, and sets her charge down, telling him to go with with the cultivators to his mother.
Wei Ying trails after his tiny child-self as the little boy carefully climbs the steps, always leading with one foot because they are very steep steps for someone so small.
Tang Lijuan sets Lan Zhan down, and Lan Zhan takes Wei Ying’s free hand and leads him up the stairs with his slightly longer legs.
The child watches Lan Zhan with large eyes, but does not argue.
The innkeeper points them to a large room at the end. When they slide the door open, they first see Yu Ziyuan putting down a basket of medical supplies, and Lan Qiren with his eyes closed, pushing glowing energy in a brilliant stream through his hand.
Tang Lijuan can see her, but she is taller than the children. Wei Wuxian is floating near the ceiling, and he sees his mother, sees her breathing, sees her alive and sees her eyelids flutter, and the shock is so great that he drops into his child body in a tumbling, spinning rush. He promptly falls over.
Yu Ziyuan looks over, sighs, and says, “Please put him on the bed next to his mother.” It’s been a day, and she’s tired, but she did this once before and she thinks she has enough to do one more.
The first contact almost kills her.
In the space between when she puts her hand on his head and when Lan Zhan pulls her hand away, she sees the entirety of the disaster that was the Wen invasion of Lotus Pier. She sees herself whipping, screaming at this boy who saved her son. She feels the bite of Zidian on her own back. She sees the aftermath. She sees everything up until the blackness of the Burial Mounds, and she reels from it.
She puts her hand on her mouth and struggles for control. She becomes aware that Lan Zhan is saying, “Please don’t look at everything, it will be so different and he doesn’t want you to worry. Please.”
“I have to help him the way I helped you,” she says, and her voice is rough, like she’s been screaming. Maybe she screamed. She probably did.
“If you can avoid looking at the memories, it will be better,” he says, like a tiny little adult, although she supposes that’s exactly what he is right now. Well, they have work to do. He will have a chance at childhood later.
She puts a hand back on Wei Ying, this time on his abdomen, and focuses on the brilliant golden core there. The golden core is the focus of spiritual energy. Core transplant or no core transplant, his spiritual cognition has just pushed itself up a monumental hill, and the stored energy is enormous. She helps him use it to pull the burden away from his developing brain. It will hopefully keep the trauma from re-scarring his brain, what she’s doing. It will make his history feel more like a story, and less like reality. Because if she has her way, this will never be a reality. She can feel the threads of old resentful energy fraying and crumbling as she works. She avoids looking at them too closely. They require a connection with the emotional centers to feed, and she thinks maybe he’s already done most of the work of separating them.
One memory stands out, and she can’t help but see it, a bruise on his soul. Dogs? She sees why, and this one thing, this one useless thing that will never happen and that he will never need… she lances like an old wound and drains the terror away. So much of the grief of his adulthood is too fundamental to why they are here, but this child will never be a beggar on the streets of Yiling. He will never fight dogs for food. She will not allow it.
Next to his mother, he sleeps.
They sleep through the night, and Madam Yu sleeps on a pallet on the floor next to them. There is another bed in the room for Tang Lijuan and Lan Zhan, and Lan Qiren has taken a different room. Madam Yu has another room but she does not leave the injured woman or her perplexing son.
She hears motion just after sunrise and sits on the edge of the bed to check on her patient.
The first thing Cangse Sanren says to Yu Ziyuan is, “I must speak with Jiang Fengmian.”
Her expression is urgent intensity, and Yu Ziyuan pushes down a surge of old insecurity to say, “And why do you need to speak to my husband?” As she says this, she is already checking Wei Ying’s mother for fever, lifting a bandage to check a wound.
Cangse Sanren’s core is incredibly strong. The superficial wounds are almost healed. The deeper ones will take longer.
In the bed across the room, she sees a small head pop up from beyond his mother as Cangse Sanren says, “He and my husband were so close, and my husband wanted his sworn brother to help name the baby.”
Lan Zhan looks shocked. Yu Ziyuan is not shocked, exactly, but she was unprepared for this. “You are pregnant?”
She sends out a thread of spiritual energy, and sees what she missed because it is very small, and she was not looking. “You are. Not far along, then?”
“No,” Cangse Sanren says. “My husband… he… the… I don’t know what it was. Something… the resentful energy was so dense. It came out of the break, it came at me. He got between us, but it pushed so hard. And then it took him and I don’t remember…”
“We didn’t see him,” Yu Ziyuan says as gently as she can. “We looked. You were dying when we found you.”
“I… he must be gone. I can’t feel him. I could always… since we met, I could always feel him.” She looks down at her son. “You found Wei Ying. How did you find us?”
“That… That is a long story,” Yu Ziyuan says, and it is an understatement. “The important thing is that we have found you. Rest now. Heal. We have work to do when you are recovered.”
“Who is that?” Cangse Sanren asks, looking over at the other bed.
“She is Tang Lijuan. The boy is her son and the reason we were able to find you both. But rest first. You will want to remember this.” Yu Ziyuan helps Cangse Sanren drink some cooled medicinal tea, herbs and poppy tincture, bitter as hell, but it will pull her back into healing sleep.
When Madam Yu next wakes, Lan Zhan is sitting quietly, meditating, next to Wei Ying, who is still asleep. His posture is almost perfect, except for the one hand that is laced between Wei Ying’s limp fingers.
She takes a moment to check the sleeping child; he seems fine.
Lan Zhan opens his eyes and says, “The only siblings Wei Ying had that I knew of were your two children. Perhaps we have already changed much.”
“He loved them,” she says quietly.
“He did,” Lan Zhan says. “His second death came moments after Yanli perished.”
“Second?” she asks.
“He rarely talked about being thrown into the Burial Mounds, but when he did, he called it dying. This last time would be his third death.”
“What did you do, exactly?” she asks.
He tells her, his words precise, adult, formal. She notices after a minute or two that Cangse Sanren’s eyes are open, that she is listening.
“I’m sorry we didn’t get here sooner,” Lan Zan tells Wei Ying’s mother. “He was afraid to even try to keep you from going. He didn’t think he’d be able to persuade you. I insisted that we at least prevent him from ever becoming a beggar.”
“A beggar? We left him with a caregiver. Did not Baoshan Sanren come for him?”
“He was on the street for years,” Lan Zhan says. There is no rancor in his voice, no accusation. “Jiang Fengmian found him, eventually, as soon as he heard what had happened. The news was slow.”
Cangse Sanren closes her eyes in pain. “My poor boy. I… he might have been right. My husband tried to get me to wait until the children were older, I told him I just wanted to see the edges, see why my parents died.”
“I… I understand the motivation,” Lan Zhan says. “We investigated the causes of our own parents’ deaths. Yours… The seal on the Burial Mounds was left deliberately slightly porous by the Wen clan to provide an easy source of prey for night hunting. If you can wait for us to mature, Wei Ying will be able to assist. He lived there for years.”
“He lived in the Mounds?” She stares at him; his gaze is impassive.
“He lived in the Mounds twice. First, alone. We suspect he survived because your spirit was present. The second time he used it as a haven for innocents being persecuted after a war. Our son was there.”
She falls back and stares at the ceiling. “He must have been amazing.”
“He didn’t have a golden core, then,” Lan Zhan says. “It was more than amazing. I didn’t understand.”
“He gave it to my son,” Yu Ziyuan says. “I saw that. I can’t imagine giving that up.”
Tang Lijuan comes into the room with a tray full of food as Lan Zhan says, “There’s a reason I sacrificed my life to follow him into the past.” He reaches out with his power, casually, without effort, and stops the tray from dropping as she stares at him. He continues. “I have watched him give up everything in order to protect the people he cares about.”
Tang Lijuan regains her grip on the tray and sets it down on the low table in the middle of the room. “What do you mean, sacrificed?”
“He was dying. I couldn’t fix or save him. He had a talisman, but not the strength to activate it. It would only work at the moment of death, and I… I couldn’t lose him again.” It is strange to him, how easy it is to talk when his mother is in the room. He had forgotten. He is surrounded by mothers right now, and he thinks he might get used to this. “I poured my energy into him, all of it, and used the last, plus his blood, to activate the talisman to separate our cognition from our bodies and allow us to travel through time together.”
“How on earth did he find such a thing?” Yu Ziyuan wants to know.
“He designed it. He is brilliant.”
Lan Qiren comes in then, holding a stack of paper. “If he designed all of these, he is more than brilliant.” He kneels next to the breakfast table and starts laying out the papers Wei Ying had filled with dense rows of characters and diagrams. “Does the spirit attraction flag work?”
Lan Zhan nods. “It can be used for ill, but paired with a spirit net, can simplify most hunts. He preferred to draw the spirits away from villages, to the ground of his choosing, so that he could train the juniors in a lower risk setting.”
“He is a good teacher, then?” Lan Qiren asks.
Lan Zhan breathes a chuckle. “Tell him that, he will faint. But he is an excellent teacher. The juniors adored him.”
“The methods are unorthodox, but sound. I note that many of his techniques do not rely on the core?”
“He had no core, then,” Lan Zhan says. “He maintained that relying overmuch on swords and cores was risky because there were too many times in his life when he simply didn’t have the option.”
Lan Qiren finds the sheet he was looking for. “He wrote this, while you were sleeping.”
Lan Zhan holds out a hand and takes the paper, looks it over, and nods. “These are the priorities, yes.”
“You were just learning to read a few days ago,” Lan Qiren says.
“I have been reading for forty-five years,” Lan Zhan says, as his uncle pulls him over to his lap to read with him. It has been a long time since Lan Zhan was small enough for his uncle to move him this way. He finds that he does not mind.
They each read the list as Wei Ying continues to sleep off his precipitous reentry.
As Lan Qiren hands the list to Madam Yu, he keeps an arm wrapped protectively around Lan Zhan's waist.
Madam Yu looks the list over once, then reads it again, meticulously. Then she pulls something small from the pouch at her waist and closes her eyes. A moment later, a butterfly flits out the window.
“Madam Jin?” Lan Zhan asks.
She is momentarily surprised, but then again, not so surprised. “Is our friendship so famous that you know of it, then?” Yu Ziyuan asks.
He nods. “She was very kind to your daughter. She deserves better than Jin Guangshan. She could be helpful.”
“Half the problems on this list are Wen,” she says. “Most of the rest are Jin. Some are Jin and Wen. When she comes, there will be three Sect Leaders’ wives here, and few will gainsay us.”
“I am not…” Tang Lijuan starts, but Madam Yu puts up a hand.
“You have suffered the indignities of your position for far too long, with none of the recompense. You are here with the acting Sect Leader for Gusu Lan. You do not lack authority at this moment, since he is choosing to help us.”
Lan Qiren bows slightly, letting go of Lan Zhan, who moves back to Wei Ying's bed to resume his vigil.
“Master Lan will prevent other sects from dismissing our actions simply by his presence,” Yu Ziyuan says. “I believe he understands what must be done.”
Lan Qiren is not entirely sure he understands, but if Madam Yu knows, he’s willing to back her. Instead of correcting her, he says to Tang Lijuan, “My brother will marry no other, so you are the only Sect Leader’s wife the Lan Sect is likely to have for many years. I am at your service.”
“I am in lofty company,” Cangse Sanren murmurs dryly. “Ah, my A-Ying, what have you gotten me into?”
“Life,” Lan Zhan says, looking over at her. “You would already be dead. He would have no smaller sibling. Wei Ying values his siblings more than he values himself.”
“Enough,” Madam Yu says. “We need to help her heal quickly so that I may return to my own family and set up lodgings for our new guests.”
Lan Zhan looks at his mother and says, “I will stay with Wei Ying.”
She looks at Cangse Sanren and says, “What will you do? I do not believe our boys will permit separation.”
“They are that close, then?”
“I will stay with Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says again. “I hope that you will both stay with us. I do not wish to spend another childhood at Cloud Recesses. I believe Wei Ying would be happiest at Lotus Pier, with Jiang Wanyin and Jiang Yanli. He has missed his shijie very much. I will be happiest where Wei Ying is happy.”
Cangse Sanren meets Yu Ziyuan’s eyes and hesitates. “Will it make it harder for you if I am there?” she finally asks. “I know the talk… You know there was no truth to it. I told him no. He listened.”
“You never had designs on my husband. I remember that you told him no,” Yu Ziyuan says. “He will control himself if he knows what’s good for him. And the gossips will find me well prepared.”
Wei Ying’s notes had not left anything out about Sect Leader Yao.
Cangse Sanren’s eyes sparkle as she grins at Madam Yu and says, “Ziyuan, I’ve missed your friendship so. I would be most grateful.”
Yu Ziyuan says, “Hush. Let us move your son, and I will help you eat. A-Zhan, you must let go of him and come eat.”
He nods at her and murmurs, “Yes, Yu-furen.”
“You may call me Shimu,” she says.
Lan Zhan was not prepared for that. He stares as she deftly lifts Wei Ying. The boy stirs, and wraps his arms around her neck without waking. Lan Zhan’s mouth falls open a little as the terrifying, legendary Madam Yu sighs, settles the boy against her shoulder, and offers Lan Zhan a hand to hop off the bed without putting Wei Ying down.
“Please help her move over,” Madam Yu says to Tang Lijuan. To Lan Qiren she says, “Could you please make a bowl for her?”
Lan Qiren blinks, and then reaches for a bowl and clumsily fills it with hands inexplicably shaky. Madam Yu sighs and says, “Here, take him for now. I’ll feed her.”
And Lan Zhan watches as Madam Yu hands the Yiling-laozu, Wei Wuxian, into the arms of Lan Qiren. He will enjoy telling Wei Ying about this later.
“Does he need healing?” Lan Qiren asks, looking down at the boy as if he were some strange beast seen for the first time.
She takes the bowl from in front of him and sits next to Cangse Sanren. “No, he just needs sleep so his body can catch up to his mind.”
“He should be in a bed?” Lan Qiren says, but without conviction.
“Just hold him until we’re done,” Madam Yu says, holding up a bite for her friend.
Wei Ying shifts in Lan Qiren’s lap and then snuggles against the man. Lan Zhan suddenly realizes that his uncle is young, younger than he was when Wei Wuxian returned. The beard is deceptive. He has always thought of Lan Qiren as an old man, but he was only old in spirit, not in body, and now, not even that.
He remembers A-Yuan. He might be close to eye to eye with the boy he first met. Maybe a head taller, at most. He will not see his son again for a long time, he realises. And if they succeed, he will not be their son. He draws a shuddering little breath, and then reaches for a bowl.
His mother takes it and fills it for him before he can fill it for himself. His mother. He smiles up at her. She smiles back, and he feels his heart wide open as he takes the bowl from her.
Wei Ying sleeps for the whole day, rousing just enough to drink something and then falling back asleep. In the afternoon, Lan Zhan offers to give him spiritual energy and Yu Ziyuan laughs. “He doesn’t need spiritual energy, child. If anything, he has too much for his size.”
And that’s when it hits him, that Wei Ying has his core back, that they are back on equal footing, that whatever else, they have that.
He cries, and his mother comforts him. And then he cries more, because his mother is able to comfort him, and crying into her chest is a gift he feels like he couldn’t possibly deserve.
He can’t explain it to them, mostly because he’s crying too hard to talk. No one shushes him, not even Lan Qiren*.
*He is crying too hard to see when Lan Qiren starts to open his mouth, but shuts it again quickly when Tang Lijuan shakes her head at him.
His mother holds him, and the next thing he knows, it’s dark and there are candles lit and he is curled around Wei Ying on the bed he shared with his mother the previous night. Madam Jin, Duan Ai, has come, and the adults are conferring in hushed tones.
Duan Ai looks angry, but it is a distant, cold sort of anger, and he strongly suspects it’s directed at her husband.
He sits up, climbs off the bed, and goes to the table. He starts to reach for his hair to tidy it, but his mother’s hands are already there, smoothing out knots and then plaiting his hair loosely for sleep. They have no shared history of bedtime, and when he finally looks up, he sees that she’s already done the same to her own hair.
Wei Ying had often combed Lan Zhan’s hair, but her hands are large compared to his five-year-old body, and it is a completely different feeling. He has been the taller, the stronger, the more responsible adult since he was twelve years old, the first time around, after his brother had taken on sect duties early and Lan Qiren had started using Lan Wangji as his exemplar. He cannot remember being five, because the last time he was five, he wasn’t allowed to be.
There is an argument simmering, he realizes. His mother and Cangse Sanren are adamant that their sons accompany them. Madam Jin is horrified at the idea. “They are young children,” she says. “Look at them. They need a childhood, not this.”
He speaks up without courtesy—because he’s past that—and says, “We did not, either of us, have a proper childhood before. I did not play once my mother died when I was six. Wei Ying was a few months from fending for himself on the street and fighting dogs for scraps. We were both overwhelmed by our sect duties and responsibilities as soon as we were old enough to understand the idea of responsibility, and by the time we were seventeen we were warriors. I did not smile between the ages of six and fifteen, and then, only because Wei Ying is impossible and good. There is work to be done. We will do it now, so that we may have a childhood after. We did not die to make the same mistakes.”
He is pleased that his mouth is obeying him fully enough now to say all of that clearly.
Madam Jin stops fighting.
Madam Yu looks grim. Tang Lijuan and Cangse Sanren’s eyes are bright with tears that do not fall.
A mumble comes from the bed, and Lan Zhan is there in an instant. Wei Ying tries to speak again, and Lan Zhan puts a hand on his hair and thinks, “It will take some time to learn to use your voice, but you can tell me like this if you want.”
Wei Ying’s eyes go wide in his round face and he stretches a little and thinks, “The world is very large and they are very loud. I don’t remember being this tired as a child.”
“It is not a simple thing for your adult mind to make a home in your four year old body. You will need sleep. I still need far too much sleep.”
Wei Ying screws up his face and thinks, “Hungry.”
“He is hungry,” Lan Zhan says.
“I’ll feed him,” Cangse Sanren says, coming over.
Wei Ying’s eyes are very wide as he looks at her. He says something, but it’s not understandable. Then he concentrates, and says, slowly, “How are you alive?”
She says, “Your friends gave me energy until I could heal myself. They found me before whatever… took your father… could come back to finish me. I think your Lan Zhan led them to me.”
He smiles then, and looks over. “My Lan Zhan. I will marry him again someday.”
She laughs. “You are young yet to be making such proclamations.”
“He married me when I was fifteen, and we married again several times after that. I’ve never wanted anyone else and I never will.” This is what Wei Ying wants to say, and Lan Zhan hears it, but the words come out slurred again with tiredness and a brain that won’t quite do what he wants it to, yet.
Lan Zhan presses his lips together, eyes twinkling. “It was not a marriage the first time, you didn’t know what it meant.”
“I gave you rabbits. You gave me chickens. We bowed before the altars. I figured it out.”
“What is he saying?” Cangse Sanren asks.
“He’s claiming that I married him at fifteen, which from my perspective was true enough.” Lan Zhan shakes his head. “He didn’t understand the implications. It was nothing official. He gave me rabbits. He died, and I raised his son and grieved like a widower. He came back to me, and I knew him instantly. Much later, I apparently gave him chickens while intoxicated. We bowed at the ancestor shrine in Lotus Pier, and then again at another temple, later. He is the only person who is not related to me by blood who has been allowed to touch my ribbon. I am the only person he has ever kissed. We were married for more than three decades of my life and almost two of his. I died rather than live without him again.”
Wei Ying frowns at this, and then says, “No more dying.”
And then his mother offers him a bite of food, and Wei Ying is too busy noticing how different things taste with a four-year-old’s palate to keep trying to talk. His eyes are fixed on his mother until he falls asleep again.
They both spend much of the next two days sleeping while Madam Yu and Madam Jin bend their substantial knowledge of the current state of affairs to deciding what the best approach is for tackling what is rapidly becoming known as The List.
The List is very long, but some things are more urgent than others. They have the better part of a year to prevent Wen Ruohan from starting his dangerous path with the Stygian Iron. Xue Yang and Meng Yao are more immediate concerns, because the earlier their paths are changed, the more likely those changes will allow them to walk happier paths.
They debate for some time the situation with Mo Xuanyu. The ethical question of whether it is right to prevent the birth of a child by preventing the abuse of a child ends up answering itself. Mo Xuanyu gave his life once, after long misery. Taking someone who will be used and then discarded out of Jin Guangshan’s path is the better choice.
The question of how to curb the Jin sect leader’s penchant for evil is a question The List does not answer, though there are notes on potential talismanic work that could, in theory, inhibit his ability to follow through on his baser impulses. It skirts the edge of ethical cultivation, but even Lan Qiren, when presented with the depth of the man’s depravity, allows that it would be the lesser of many evils.
Cangse Sanren and Tang Lijuan spend much of the time their boys are asleep grappling with their changed paths.
“It doesn’t seem real, that he’s gone,” Cangse Sanren says. “I cannot be upset that I was saved, but I knew he’d been taken and I was waiting to be taken, too.”
“I have spent most of a decade imprisoned,” Tang Lijuan says. “Suddenly, I am free of that place. And I find myself glad that there is this path before us, because I hadn’t dare hope for any future at all.”
“I don’t know if I can stay in one place,” Cangse Sanren says.
“We have a lot of traveling to do before that is a possibility.” Tang Lijuan’s eyes glitter with the idea of agency, of going back out into the world. Her face has a classic beauty to it, fine features and a small chin, but the anger that stirs in her sharpens it. “I would like a place that I can leave if I want to, but where I can be safe from those who think my face means I am up for grabs.”
Cangse Sanren actually laughs at that. “I feel that. The Lan men are the worst. Wei Changze was the first man who listened when I said, ‘No,’ without me having to draw my weapon and insist that I meant what I said the first time. By the time I was ready to say, ‘Yes,’ I had to really work to persuade him that I’d changed my mind.”
“I didn’t have my sword ready when they kidnapped me to bring me to Cloud Recesses,” Tang Lijuan says ruefully. “Things might have been very different if I had. They took it from me.”
“How…” Cangse Sanren falls quiet. How do you ask someone how they killed without a sword at the worst moment in their life?
“How did I kill A-Huan’s father?” Tang Lijuan suggests.
A nod.
“I had studied musical cultivation in the healing arts. It was why I was there at all. And he held my hands down, but he couldn’t also capture my voice. I sang his death, but not quickly enough to stop him from… Well, obviously, I got pregnant anyway. I don’t know whether they were angrier at me for killing him half naked, or that I used the forbidden music to do it.”
“They couldn’t possibly have spared some anger for him for what he did?”
Tang Lijuan shrugs. “Not many knew. I wasn’t given a chance to explain. My husband silenced my mouth and dragged me to the ancestral shrine to make our bows, and then locked me up.”
“You must have been there the year I was there,” Cangse Sanren muses. “I wish I’d known. It must be hard to look at your children and know…”
“A-Huan is why I’m not dead. A-Zhan is why I’m free,” Tang Lijuan says, and suddenly something in her releases, and she shakes as she lets out a quavering laugh. “I’m free.”
“If… If you need to be freer, I can take the boys,” Cangse Sanren says, hesitantly. “You should know you have a choice.”
“I would give you the same choice,” Tang Lijuan says. “You chose the path of the rogue cultivator, and it sounds like the Jiang sect might be… fraught for you.”
“Perhaps we just need to know that the possibility is there,” Cangse Sanren says. “There are worse places to land than Lotus Pier. No one there assumes that women are weak toys. Yu Ziyuan is a good ally to have. I do not think either of us would be safer or freer anywhere else. When my children are older, I can wander again.”
They end up going to Kuizhou first. Wei Ying leads them unerringly to Xue Yang and his grandmother, following the unmistakable taint of the Stygian Iron fragment she possesses.
It is worse, with an actual body and a golden core. The woman is so cloaked in dark energy that it becomes obvious that she has been sustaining herself on it, rather than on food. The child at her breast is covered with it. The woman doesn’t even notice their presence, she is so far gone.
Wei Ying tries to whistle and is overwhelmingly frustrated to discover that his cheeks are too fat for it. It is Tang Lijuan saying, “Why not just sing?” that provides an alternative.
Lan Qiren pulls out his guqin, and starts playing Clarity. Lan Zhan sings experimentally, and discovers that his child soprano has a flute-like quality to it. Wei Ying weaves a threnody through it, not taking in resentful energy, but pulling it apart so that it will dissipate faster.
Madam Yu is fascinated and horrified at the same time. The music is complex and beautiful and creepy as hell coming from these tiny bodies with such power. She keeps a hand on each of them, on their wrists, feeling their energy and ready to stop them if it starts hurting them.
“Sing ‘Rest’,” Tang Lijuan suggests, and then weaves her voice with theirs when all three shift.
They expect the energy to dissipate.
They are not prepared for Xue Yang’s grandmother to open her eyes in confusion, and then vanish completely.
The infant drops to the floor cushion, and cries in surprise as the black shadows withdraw into his skin. Lan Qiren steps forward, picks up the baby, and says, “I will find him a wet nurse and take him to the Cloud Recesses. He will need considerably more work on the resentful energy.”
“I need a qiankun pouch and three talisman blanks,” Wei Ying says, looking down.
Where the grandmother was, the Stygian Iron sits.
Madam Yu hands over a pouch. Madam Jin hands over the blanks, and is looking in another pouch for something to write a talisman with when Wei Ying bites his finger and draws three talismans in his own blood, and in one motion, brings the pouch down over the iron and seals it.
“Can you feel it?” he asks Lan Zhan.
Lan Zhan reaches out. “Only a little.”
As soon as the metal piece is hidden away, Xue Yang falls asleep in Lan Qiren’s arms. He is small, and thin, and looks less than six months old.
Cangse Sanren says, “If you let me help you tie him in your robes, you will have your hands free to fly back, and he will be protected.”
Lan Qiren looks like this is so far out of his experience range that he doesn’t know how to refuse.
With brisk hands and the contents of a qiankun pouch, Cangse Sanren tucks padding at belly level on the reluctant Master, then tucks the baby in, and wraps his outer two layers around the child, bringing out an extra strap to secure him in place over the belt.
“You need to wrap the piece in the Cold Pond the way I did this one,” Wei Ying says to him. “It isn’t safe the way it is now.”
“What will you do with this piece?” Lan Qiren asks.
“I will hide it, away from people,” Wei Ying says. “We need all the pieces separated and away from people until I can work with them. I don’t think I can until I am older. I don’t think anyone else can, safely, at all.”
Lan Qiren considers that, and finally nods, and then turns to go.
“Wait,” Wei Ying says. “The child… he will want sweets, and he will not do well with physical punishment.”
“Leave him to us,” Lan Qiren says, irritation slipping through at this tiny four-year-old child’s tone.
Wei Ying straightens, and his young voice grows sharp with irritation. “I remember the scars on my husband’s back from Lan discipline, from thirty-three blows with a discipline whip. If you hit this child, there will be consequences, and in our past, those consequences included the complete eradication of an entire sect. So consider your tempers and find another way to teach the lessons he needs to learn. Otherwise, you might as well just drown him now and stop pretending to righteousness.”
Tang Lijuan’s eyes narrow. “You hit my son thirty-three times?”
“I haven’t!” Lan Qiren protests. “I couldn’t…”
“You did,” Lan Zhan says. “I was twenty. I nearly died. Don’t believe yourself incapable.”
Lan Qiren sags. “I will consider your words.”
“I will not ever return to Gusu Lan,” Tang Lijuan says. “You understand that my son and I will not be returning.”
“I… He is… You…” Lan Qiren struggles for words.
“Any discussion of this can wait until we are done with the tasks at hand,” Madam Yu interjects. “When we are done, I will send you a message. Bring Lan Huan to Lotus Pier to see his mother. We will talk then.”
Lan Qiren gives her a sharp nod, and walks out of the hovel with his small passenger.
Duan Ai, Yu Ziyuan, Cangse Sanren, and Tang Lijuan leave Kuizhao with the boys riding on their mothers’ swords. They land in the village at Dafan Mountain and ask about Wen Qing and Wen Ning’s family. The village is clean and bright and the cultivators live down a wide lane in a beautiful compound. Wei Ying and Lan Zhan are both staggered by how many people there are, compared to their past visits.
“Can Lotus Pier absorb two hundred people?” Wei Ying asks Madam Yu.
Madam Jin hears, and says, “I can help.”
They are shown to a reception hall, where Wen Qing’s parents receive them.
It takes two hours for Madam Yu to explain to Wen Jinjing and Wen Zemin why they are there. She tells them of Wen Ruohan’s desire to learn demonic cultivation, of his lack of care, of the near extinction of their family line. She explains that the little boy playing with Wen Ning had, in a different life, given up everything trying to save their family, that the little boy watching had raised the one living survivor, a child who would not be born for another decade.
She holds nothing back. If they ignore her, these two people will be dead within the year.
She sees them waver, and calls out, “Wei Ying.”
He comes over.
“Please tell them why they are such a high priority to you.”
He nods. “Wen Ning is one of the best human beings I’ve ever known, alive or dead. His sister is the most talented doctor of her generation, and I… my whole family owed them everything. And I couldn’t save her, and what I saved of him… he deserved better. I know that family is important, but the value you place on it will never be honored by Wen Ruohan. We must do everything we can to stop him from gaining the power of the Stygian Iron, and we must do everything we can to save your branch of the family from what is to come. I think I can keep him from gaining the Stygian Iron, but I don’t think that will be enough to really stop him from hurting your family.”
He doesn’t sound like a four-year-old, and that is what persuades them, Yu Ziyuan thinks. His voice may be that of a child, but his words are that of the adult that he was.
“What,” asks Wen Jinjing, Wen Qing’s mother, looking at him seriously, “do you suggest?”
Wei Ying says, “To keep him from finding the Stygian Iron, we need to stop him from knowing where it is. There is an old storeroom in Nightless City. It has not been touched in decades. It contains not only the Stygian Iron records, but old medical texts as well. You can both reclaim the knowledge and prevent much of the coming harm by retrieving them. We should also consider if there is a way to remove the Stygian Iron from the Dancing Goddess without triggering the disaster that would destroy you. That place should be holy. It is corrupted. I think we might be able to fix it?”
He sounds unsure now. “I… We never tried talking to her, couldn’t, while she was so angry about the theft of the Iron heart. I would like to try.”
They both nod. Wen Zemin says, “Perhaps both approaches should be taken. If he finds another source of information, it would be best that the iron not be there at all. And I would like to see the medical texts.”
“Even so,” Lan Zhan says. “You should not stay here. If he does find the Iron gone, he might blame your people. He is not merciful.”
“This is our home,” Wen Jinjing says. “Where would we go? How would we possibly…”
“Come to Yunmeng. We will make a place for you at Lotus Pier,” Madam Yu says.
“I will help fund the building of a school for medical cultivators from all sects,” Madam Jin says.
“You should… You should go in secret,” Cangse Sanren tells them. “Change your names, go in small groups over the next few months.”
This gets a shocked stare.
Lan Zhan speaks. “It will be gossip, if Wens leave the border of Qishan to settle deep in Yunmeng. There will already be gossip about Wei Changze’s death and his son and his wife settling in Lotus Pier. No one has ever cared as much about your family as Wei Ying. No one has ever done more for you. Take the name Wei, and it will be no strange thing for Wei Changze’s family to join his widow and son at Wei Changze’s best friend’s home. Wei can become a sub-sect of the Yunmeng Jiang. If war comes, you will not be seen as partisans. Stand on your own merit.”
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says quietly. “That isn’t necessary. I never wanted…”
“I saw you rescue them from the Jin sect and defend them from every other clan,” Lan Zhan says. “I saw you pour your entire soul into reviving Wen Ning, into carving a small haven for them in an unforgiving world. I saw you fight the world in your grief when they died. They loved you enough to die for you. There is no better name for them to take than yours. There is no better reward for you than to see them whole and thriving with your name.”
“I don’t need recognition for something I will not have to do,” Wei Ying says, and then he sighs. “But if my name can save them in this lifetime, they are welcome to it.”
“You are not children,” Wen Jinjing says, her eyes meeting her husband’s.
“We will be,” Lan Zhan tells her. “But I lived fifty years, once. And in all that time, I have never been so humbled as I was by what Wei Ying did for your family. I was so humbled that I took the last remaining child and raised him as my own son. I would prefer to see your family thriving.”
“Let us go and retrieve the records,” Wen Zemin says. “When we return, we will consider the next step. We will have rooms prepared for all of you in the meantime.” When he stands, he bows to each of the boys with deep respect, and Wei Ying has to reach up to stop him.
“Please,” he says. “I cannot accept this, not from the father of two of the best friends I’ve ever had. I should be bowing thanks to you for raising such kind children. I hope to get to know your whole family better in Lotus Pier.”
The man chuckles, and his wife reaches out a hand to cup Wei Ying’s cheek. “You will be part of our family, child,” she says. “After all, we will share a name.”
He stares at her in open-mouthed astonishment, a tear starts to trickle down his cheek, and then he gives her a spontaneous hug, this woman who he never had a chance to know, but who raised two of his favorite people.
Wen Qing has been listening to this conversation. At eight years old, she has already started her medical studies and has met Wen Ruohan, who she did not like.
After her parents leave, she says to Wei Ying, “Tell me about Lotus Pier.”
Her voice is still a little girl’s voice, and unfamiliar, but her face is honestly not so different, and it is just as easy as it always was for Wei Ying to fall into comfortable familiarity with her.
He talks through dinner, and through Wen Ning falling asleep with his head on Wei Ying’s lap. He tells her of the lotuses, and the river, and the way it is encouraged to speak one’s mind. He tells her of Jiang Yanli, who must be seven now? How he thinks they will be good friends. He tells her of a lively market and quiet places to swim, and of learning to fly kites, and how Wen Ning will love learning to shoot them down.
“It will be Wei Ning,” she says to him, and he starts to cry again, even though the difference is mostly tone.
Lan Zhan is the one to explain that the tears are overwhelm, not sadness.
When Wei Ying gets back under control, he says, “Jiang Cheng is the sect heir and he is going to have a huge crush on you. But you won’t have to marry anyone you don’t want to, Jiang Fengmian won’t force such things. And I’ll beat him up if he isn’t kind.”
She laughs at that. “So you’re saying that I’m acquiring a little brother in this?”
“Jiang Cheng?” Wei Ying asks, confused.
“You, silly,” she says. “You said you lived with our family for years, but you don’t put yourself forward as anything but brotherly.”
He looks startled. “I’m marrying Lan Zhan. You… We were close, but we were close, yes, like siblings.” In retrospect, though they’d never called it that, she’d filled the hole left by his separation from his shijie. And then he’d lost them both.
“Ah. Two brothers, then. You just offered to beat up a sect leader’s son for me,” she says. “Even though I can take up such issues on my own.”
“I remember your needles,” Wei Ying says ruefully. “I have no doubt. And maybe we’ll be able to train Jiang Cheng better since I’m going to get to him earlier.”
Lan Zhan is blinking over being adopted so quickly into the “brother” category. He has seen this happen for Wei Ying in all his lifetimes, but his easy inclusion is new. “Qing-jie,” he tries out, softly, and Wei Ying grins. Wen Qing looks bemused.
“That means we get to be geges to A-Ning.” His smile is full of baby teeth, but is every bit him, baby cheeks and all.
Lan Zhan leans against him and smiles.
In the morning, they have returned with qiankun bags and sleeves full of books. Wei Ying tries to insist on leaving the Wens behind for their journey to the statue, but Wen Zemin insists on joining them, to bear witness.
The cave is less unpleasant than it would be later: this Dancing Goddess has never stolen souls, though the resentful energy is still strong.
Lan Zhan sings their story to her in a piping high soprano. Then Wei Ying sings the resentment into calm, and they sing together to her their own song, letting the idea of love and healing infuse their voices.
It is uncanny, but effective.
There are no chains on her, yet.
The stone of her softens, and the adults step back as she moves.
But she does not climb down. Instead, she reaches into her own heart and pulls until the Stygian Iron is in her hand. And she bends down to drop it into the waiting qiankun bag.
Then Wei Ying sings something wild and weird and something flows into her empty center, bright and crystalline and ringing with power.
She reaches down to him, and holds out her hand. He steps onto it, and Lan Zhan reaches towards him, then steps back as she lifts Wei Ying up to her chest. He draws a talisman directly on the crystal, in blood, and slaps his hand on it to activate it. The crystal heart glows brighter, and then fades into the surrounding stone until it looks like it did before the Iron was removed.
She sets Wei Ying down gently, and then smiles. From all around them, faint notes chime.
Lan Zhan startles. “She says thank you for her new heart. It is much calmer than the old one. What did you do?”
Wei Ying sways a little on his feet. “It’s a little trap. If someone comes and tries to manipulate her heart by force, they will get a surprise. She wanted it.”
Cangse Sanren scoops him up. “No more talismans,” she says. “Draw for us in ink the ones you need us to make. Your body does not have as much blood as you are used to, you brilliant, ridiculous boy.”
“We will come to Lotus Pier,” Wen Zemin says. “And we will accept with gratitude the gift of the Wei name when we arrive.” He bows to the boys. “This one thanks you for your assistance.”
They stay another night with the Wens, to give the boys time to rest.
It is not far from Dafan to Mo Village as the sword flies, but it’s infinitely less pleasant than the Wen branch compound. They arrive in the late morning, to inquire about the girl who, in another lifetime, would bear Mo Xuanyu. Mo Xiuying, Madam Mo’s sister, is eight years old, a kind girl whose mother bustles around them in servant’s clothing, serving tea while Madam Mo snaps at her.
When Madam Mo calls the girl’s mother, Liu Yun, “useless,” Madam Yu pounces.
“If she’s useless to you, I would take her and her daughter off your hands.”
“Madam, please,” Liu Yun says quickly. “I know we’re a burden to you.”
Madam Mo looks perplexed. “Why would you want such a useless one?”
“Why would you treat your sister’s mother so unkindly?” Madam Yu’s voice is rising in ire. “It is disrespectful to the cultivators who protect you to create such resentment in the living. How dare you be so cruel to your own family?”
Wei Ying does not like being here. He is impressed at Madam Yu’s argument, but also, she is scary and he was frightened of her in this mode even as a near-adult. And he remembers Mo Village all too well.
Lan Zhan feels the shaking in Wei Ying’s hand before the tears start.
Madam Yu notices, and says to Liu Yun, “Pack your things, both you and Xiuying. We will leave as soon as you have done so.”
They walk to the next village, which has a small inn, and rest while Madam Jin sends to Lanling for cultivators to assist them. It is one thing to travel with a pair of small children, each riding with a parent; it is another to have two strangers unfamiliar with sword riding clinging to one’s person. Liu Yun and her daughter will walk with Madam Jin’s people until horses can be obtained, and will probably arrive in Lotus Pier after them.
Duan Ai takes charge of the journey to Yunping City with all the authority her years as co-sect leader of Lanling Jin can give her. Four trained cultivators meet her there with a qiankun bag full of gold, and they follow Lan Zhan’s directions to the brothel where Meng Yao was born.
Madam Jin and Madam Yu take the cultivators inside with them, while the boys and their mothers wait at a nearby inn.
They never see Meng Yao, but Duan Ai has a savage smile as she tells them what happened.
“We called for Madam Meng, and explained we were there to buy her freedom, and that she and her son would be sponsored at a major cultivation sect for training. She knew who I was, and was terrified. I had to explain to her that no, my husband was unlikely to ever take responsibility and that it would be very bad for her son if he actually did, but that we had made arrangements for them to go to Gusu Lan, and that she could live safely at Cloud Recesses on the women’s side.”
“Is the women’s side safe?” Wei Ying asks.
“It’s safer than anywhere else,” Tang Lijuan says. “The problem for me was that I was never there. They have so many rules about the separation of men and women that prevent what happened to me, but he brought me in and kept me in guest quarters, not separated, and one of the elders, well… If I’d been on the women’s side, I never would have even seen the man. She will only see men if she actively seeks them out.”
“She will have ready access to healers there, and the library,” Madam Yu says. “A-Yao will be trained properly at the right age. I explained to her that telling him he needs to rise to the top is a journey to destruction, that he will be valued for his gifts in Cloud Recesses.”
“That is true,” Lan Zhan says.
“We also freed her friend,” Madam Jin says. “She will have kind company.”
“We sent them on their way already,” Madam Yu says. “And once they were gone, I bought the freedom of the other women there. I also explained that if they’d ever been kind to young A-Yao and his mother, they, too, might have been sponsored elsewhere. I think most of them will not leave that life, but they will, at least, get paid for their work. And they can walk away if they choose.”
“Thank you,” says Tang Lijuan. “They should have a choice.”
“Should Xue Yang and Meng Yao be in the same sect?” Wei Ying asks a few minutes later.
“Nie and Jin are out of the question, and I don’t want to live with them,” Lan Zhan says primly. “Gossip is not allowed at Cloud Recesses. Moderation is taught. We will make sure that they do not have access to the things that would lead them down the crooked path.”
“Are you inflicting them on Cloud Recesses or Cloud Recesses on them?” Wei Ying asks with a delighted smile.
“Mn,” Lan Zhan says, with a quirk of his mouth and a twitch of his eyebrows.
Wei Ying wraps his arm through Lan Zhan’s elbow. “See, this is why you’re my favorite.”
They stay the night in the inn in Yunping City, and the next day, they fly to Lotus Pier.
Both Lan Zhan and Wei Ying fall asleep on their mothers’ shoulders on the ride back, and are asleep as Yu Ziyuan takes Jiang Fengmian aside to explain the situation in hushed tones. He staggers with the knowledge that his friend has been lost, but the way he looks at Yu Ziyuan when she explains Cangse Sanren’s rescue and the narrowly avoided fate of Wei Ying is something new. As she quickly summarizes the rest of their activities, his awe only grows. He goes back out to the reception room to give Cangse Sanren his regrets and to support Yu Ziyuan’s invitation.
When Cangse Sanren tells him that Wei Changze had wanted him to name their coming child, Jiang Fengmian actually cries.
That’s when the children come in from the pier, loud and giggling, waking up Lan Zhan and Wei Ying.
Wei Ying goes from asleep to full shriek in half a second, wiggling to get down and running over to Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli, wrapping them both in as big a hug as a four-year-old can manage and saying, “Shijie, I missed you so much.”
Shijie is seven, and this boy is perplexing but charming in his enthusiasm.
Jiang Cheng is daunted by this slightly larger boy who is hugging him, but Wei Ying pulls back and says, “A-Cheng, we are going to have so much fun.”
“Who are you?” Jiang Cheng manages to say. He is four, but a young four (his birthday is only a few days after Wei Ying’s, but he’s always been younger, and now, especially so.)
“I’m Wei Ying, and that’s Lan Zhan. I’m going to marry him someday. But for now, we’re going to live nearby, and we will be friends and like brothers to you.”
Jiang Cheng thinks this over, looking at Wei Ying’s eager smile. “Okay, gege.”
Wei Ying beams at him, then looks at Jiang Yanli. “Shijie, do you know how to make lotus root soup with ribs yet?”
She shakes her head. “I will learn soup next year, cook says. I need to grow a little bit more before I can use the big pot.”
Wei Ying smiles and says, “It’s okay. I can wait.”
“Do you know how to swim?” Jiang Cheng asks.
“I do!” Wei Ying says. “Or, I think I do? I don’t know if that’s something that carries over. We can find out! Lan Zhan, let’s go find out!”
Lan Zhan blinks at him and considers, and then says, “Okay.”
It doesn’t surprise Lan Zhan that Wei Ying throws himself headfirst into the group of children playing on a nearby shore. What does surprise him is how quickly he is pulled into this giggling ball of wet children, and how very much he enjoys it.
They both get the hang of keeping their heads mostly above water very quickly, though the adjustment from long-armed adults to their top-heavy children’s bodies is not instantaneous.
Their mothers are nearby, watching from the shore, and Lan Zhan feels something deep in his soul unwind. His mother, watching him play. He lets that feeling take over.
Wei Ying surfaces with a lotus leaf on his head, and Lan Zhan actually giggles.
Wei Ying’s eyes go wide and his expression is so dumbfounded that Lan Zhan laughs outright.
“Lan Zhan, it’s too much!” Wei Ying says, wrapping him in a hug. “I can’t take it. Have I ever heard you giggle? My heart!” Then he pulls back, and says, “Do it again!”
Wei Ying still has a lotus leaf on his head. Giggling again is not even remotely difficult. Wei Ying responds by flopping back in the water in an overdramatic “faint.”
Lan Zhan flops after him.
On the shore, their mothers look at each other and smile at each other, relieved that their children still have some kernel of actual child left to play.
They pull Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli into a splashing game of chase, and Wei Ying is laughing so hard he’s crying, but there’s relief in his tears, and he keeps hugging people, and by the time the children are getting tired and climbing out of the water, Jiang Cheng is following Wei Ying like a duckling and Jiang Yanli, who has spent much of the afternoon looking around at the boys with a pleased expression, actually stops and thanks her mother.
“What are you thanking me for?” Yu Ziyuan asks, confused.
“You brought me two new didis,” A-Li says. “It is very nice that they both have mothers, so Jiang Cheng doesn’t have to share with them. They make him laugh.”
Yu Ziyuan blinks at her daughter and then nods.
The first night, they stay in the main residence, in the largest guest room. It has two beds, one on either side of the room, and they start out with each mother with her son.
Around midnight, Wei Ying sleepily makes his way across the room to climb in next to Lan Zhan, who makes room for him without waking up.
But Wei Ying usually sleeps on the other side, and ends up sprawled in a way that wakes Tang Lijuan, who has never made a practice of sleeping with anyone as an adult.
She gently picks him up and carries him across to his mother’s bed, and he goes back to sleep easily.
Lan Zhan does not.
When Tang Lijuan wakes in the morning, Lan Zhan is in the other bed, wrapped around Wei Ying’s legs, because Wei Ying is flopped across his mother’s chest.
His wide-awake mother.
Cangse Sanren has a slightly desperate look in her eyes. She mouths, “They’re very cute, but I’m nauseated and I really have to pee.”
Tang Lijuan stifles her mouth with her hand, and then carefully shifts the children out of Cangse Sanren’s way. They promptly entangle themselves without opening their eyes. Tang Lijuan reaches out and helps Cangse Sanren up.
Cangse Sanren runs into both Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan between dealing with the necessaries and trying to find the kitchen for some congee to settle her stomach. It’s awkward, and she remembers why she preferred it when it was just her tiny family, and that brings up her husband, and she’s having a hard time holding it together by the time she gets back to the guest room with enough congee for the four of them.
She manages to serve four bowls and then sits, queasy, staring at what seemed like a good idea but, because of some added herbs, now looks like a bowl of corpse-sludge.
Tang Lijuan steadies her with a hand on her shoulder, then says, “I might be able to help the nausea?”
“Please,” she says, and it comes out more desperate than she’d planned.
Then there are hands on her earlobes, and a soothing tingle of energy, and the queasiness just melts back from on-the-verge-of-vomiting to a mild lightheadedness.
The congee still looks like sludge, but it doesn’t actually make her gag, and that’s an improvement.
“Use the herbs in tea next time,” Tang Lijuan says.
“You’d think I’d be better at this,” Cangse Sanren says. “But Changze never let me cook anything last time, and I wasn’t nearly as sick with A-Ying. And of course I’ve been riding the sword so much, and there’s nothing quite like running into the Jiangs before breakfast.”
That day, at the midday meal with the Jiang family, Tang Lijuan says, “Thank you so much for your hospitality. I am afraid we might be disturbing your peace staying in the middle of your home. Is it possible for us to be somewhere nearby, but not intruding so much?”
Jiang Fengmian looks to his wife, and then says, “There is a building nearby which wouldn’t be difficult to refurbish into a home. We were going to demolish it to expand the docking area at the pier, but we could extend the pier outward to get a similar result.”
“A whole house?” Cangse Sanren asks. “That’s so much! We can’t possibly…”
Yu Ziyuan waves it off. “It’s large enough for the two of you and your boys, and the Mos as well. It’s between here and the area we’re setting aside for the main Wei compound. It’s a logical place for you.”
Cangse Sanren tears up at this, which is honestly infuriating and entirely due to being pregnant. “I don’t… I can’t…”
“I only regret we weren’t able to get there in time,” Madam Yu says.
“It was so fast,” Cangse Sanren murmurs. “The only way you could have been in time is if we hadn’t gone at all, and it’s my fault for insisting.”
“Wei Changze never did anything in his life that he didn’t believe was the right thing to do,” Jiang Fengmian says, his eyes fixed on Yu Ziyuan. “And I am grateful my wife was able to help his family at such a time.”
Lan Zhan leans against Wei Ying and thinks, So that’s where you get it.
Wei Ying stares at his plate, overwhelmed.
Yu Ziyuan looks over at Cangse Sanren and says, “Madam, I have seen your son’s memories. With what they enabled us to do, and what we will be better prepared to defend against, there is a debt between us which we will never be able to repay. Allowing a home for you and for the people your son cares about will bring talent and prestige to our sect, and raise our status in the five realms. It will strengthen our bonds with the other great sects, and enhance our ability to cultivate effectively without loss of life. My children will be protected by the strongest cultivators our world knows, and will be stronger for knowing them.” She turns to Wei Ying. “There is nothing in this world that could persuade me to go back to my cultivation training days, let alone my early girlhood. You had a choice and chose the option that would bring peace to our lands, despite it putting you in an infant’s body. And you asked for my help, even after all I’d done to you.”
He looks alarmed.
“Oh, don’t make that face, I didn’t see much of it. But enough to know I wasn’t kind.”
Wei Ying’s age suddenly shows through, as he looks down at the table and then says, “You were the victim of a slander campaign. Sect Leader Yao…”
“Is a fool,” she says. “Any idiot knows that your mother loved your father. If I listened to him, that was my fault.”
“I think it was harder to remember that when my mother was not there,” Wei Ying says.
“Hm,” she says. “You are too like your parents, so quick to forgive everyone.”
“Ah!” he looks up, indignant. “I don’t set up shrines to my grievances when they’re dead. You haven’t mistreated me once in your own lifetime. Just because I remember something else that cannot happen, why should that be your fault?”
She looks at Jiang Fengmian. “I am to take lessons in forgiveness from children now, apparently,” she says, voice fraught with frustration and an uncomfortable humility.
He looks amused, inclines a very slight bow, but says nothing.
Lan Zhan makes a tiny noise at his plate.
“What?” she asks sharply. “Is there a lesson I can learn from another tiny young master?”
He shook his head. “I… sympathize.”
“Oh?”
“I have been taking instruction in forgiveness from Wei Ying for decades. It is not always… enjoyable.” He looks up at her, the smallest smile tipping up one side of his mouth.
She pauses for a moment and then nods.
Wei Ying takes a breath. “You need to know that Jiang Cheng will be a strong sect leader one day, that he will take your lessons to heart.” He looks her in the eye. “That Jiang Yanli’s power lies in her kindness and ability to heal, and this is a rare and precious thing. That your husband is deeply fond of you, even if he’s kind of a turnip about showing it. That your strength is the backbone of this sect. That this place is precious, and I will do all I know to keep it safe. And that those things are not something I would ever want to change about any of you.” And with that he gives her a formal bow.
Yu Ziyuan looks at Cangse Sanren and Tang Lijuan and says, “You see? Obviously we must help you feel at home here. Could I turn away such a staunch defender? No more thanks are needed. This is clearly to my sect’s benefit. And it costs us nothing.”
The house is a surprise to Wei Ying. He doesn’t remember it at all and that is disconcerting. When he was here before, there was a deeper area where there is now another dock. The house is set back a little ways, and looms over what he realizes would later be their swimming hole. If they went the long way around, the roads would make it a long walk, but they can just take a flying leap from the main dock to the older dock, and then walk up to the building. There are people bustling about, repairing walls and cleaning, and someone up on the roof putting in new tiles where the old have failed.
The bustle is a staggering reminder of just how many people Lotus Pier had lost over the years, and the house is a reminder of just how much they are changing with their presence. There had not even been the remains of the building when he’d arrived at age nine. They step back from the doorway when several people climb the steps carrying wood for the bed platforms.
Tang Lijuan speaks to Madam Yu, who speaks to the man directing the construction, and instead of putting in three bed platforms, they put in one large one on the end of the house closest to the water, and then set up a wall and put a smaller platform at the other end.
“You’ll cause your mothers fewer headaches,” Madam Yu tells the boys, “if you sleep in the middle of the bed and let each of them have the outside. Your mother, A-Ying, will need to be able to get up easily.”
He is confused by this, but lets it slide.
She continues. “The other platform is for Madam Mo and her daughter.”
He nods.
“Now you are welcome to come to the siheyuan with us for meals,” she tells their mothers. “But there is also a kitchen in the back, so that you can take meals here if you need more calm.”
They bow their thanks, and she leads them outside to another building, smaller and in worse shape. “This will be a workshop,” she says. “A-Ying has already demonstrated a fondness for ink and paper, and I would encourage that. They will start fixing it once your house is done.”
She gestures beyond the shack, to a large open field Wei Ying remembers well. “We will send for builders to come soon and build the facilities for your friends. Madam Jin has graciously donated funds toward the cost of materials and labor.”
Wei Ying smiles brightly up at her. “You have thought of everything.”
“Go be a child, A-Ying,” she says. “There is no need for you to worry for now. Let us handle the big stuff until something new comes up.”
“Yes, Shimu,” he says with a saucy wink.
“Scamp!” But her smile is actually fond, and he grabs Lan Zhan’s hand and flees.
Lan Zhan’s white robes are folded neatly in a chest in the big bedroom, his white ribbon is tied around Wei Ying’s wrist (where it has become very grubby,) his hair is pulled up into a messy high ponytail, and he is wearing simple, undyed, coarse play clothes when his father arrives at Lotus Cove a month later.
Qingheng-Jun brings Lan Qiren and Lan Huan, and they land at the marketplace, where a shopkeeper points them to the siheyuan. They hear shrieks of laughter before they get anywhere near the pier, and follow the sound to find what initially appears to be a seething mass of small children jumping into the water and running around the shore. Several women sit on a nearby dock, one combing fibers, one spinning, and one weaving a panel, watching the children without being too involved in what they are doing.
Madam Yu comes out to meet them, and sends some of the larger children off to play with kites.
It takes them a few minutes to spot Lan Zhan, who is still chasing a shrieking Jiang Cheng while shouting something. He is almost unrecognizable without his white robes and white ribbon, barefoot. He catches Jiang Cheng and they both tumble into the water.
Lan Qiren starts forward, Qingheng-Jun opens his mouth, and Madam Yu puts up a hand and says, “Ah! Let them be.”
Jiang Cheng comes up giggling, and then dunks Lan Zhan, who bounces up out of the water again a moment later. Wei Ying is sitting on the dock helping Jiang Yanli with lotus pods, and watching the other boys with a radiant smile.
“This is undignified,” Qingheng-Jun hisses at her.
One of the women on the other dock looks up, frowns, and raises an eyebrow at Madam Yu, who makes a shooing gesture. The woman levels a glare at the Lan men, who suddenly recognize her as Tang Lijuan, who had not smiled in their presence in years. She stands up and goes into the house.
Madam Yu looks at Lan Huan, who is staring at his brother in wide-eyed wonder, and says, “A-Huan, you can go play with your brother while I speak with your father and uncle.”
Lan Huan looks at her and then down at his clothes, and hesitates.
“Can you jump to the other dock?” she asks.
He nods.
“Go ask Wei Ying’s mother for a set of play clothes, and you can set your nice robes aside until you leave.”
Lan Qiren starts to open his mouth, and she says, “No. We have different rules here, and it is appropriate for him to learn to abide by the rules of the house he is in. If Lan Zhan goes to your home, he will obey your rules. Give us the same respect. Here, children are encouraged to be joyful when joy is appropriate, and our scholars learn to ignore the noise. It is a useful skill. Let the boy enjoy his brother. Running is permitted in Lotus Pier.”
Lan Huan looks up at his uncle, who gives a short nod, and he runs and jumps across to the dock without a second look back.
“Come inside,” Madam Yu says. “We have much to discuss.”
“Shouldn’t the boys’ mother be part of the negotiation?” Qingheng-Jun asks.
Madam Yu looks back at him and her eyes go cold. “I have been asked to conduct this discussion on her behalf, as she does not wish to have contact with either of you. And there will be no negotiation. I will explain what will happen, you will listen.” A flicker of purple runs along her hand.
They are both suddenly reminded that her title is Zi Zhizhu, and that they are in her web, and they follow her into the reception hall.
As they go through the door, they hear a shout behind them, and see Lan Zhan and Wei Ying lifting Lan Huan out of the water.
She shouts at them, “Teach him how to swim,” and then ushers the two men inside. The next voice she hears is Jiang Cheng, loudly explaining the process to his newest gege—in a nearly incomprehensible lisp. She smiles, shakes her head, and sits on the Sect Leader’s chair, leaving the men standing.
They are fuming. She lets them for a long moment and then says, “So, Lan Zhan is unwilling to return to Cloud Recesses as a disciple. He will stay with his mother, here. Until we can come up with an easier way to travel between the two sects, I would suggest that you allow Xichen to visit for a time each month, so that he may see his mother and brother.”
“I will not have my children flouting Lan precepts!” Qingheng-Jun insists, his voice dangerously close to flouting Lan precepts on shouting.
“Lan Zhan knows more precepts than you do,” she says. “He spent many years of his life learning every Lan rule, including many which have not yet been created. He was not only acting Sect Leader on several occasions, he was the Chief Cultivator of the realms. While he is currently in a five-year-old’s body, the fact remains that he knows more about being a Lan than either of you, and cannot further progress his studies in that area. If you gave him a sword of the right size, he could show you every Lan sword form. His guqin is the best I’ve ever heard, even though his hands are tiny. His talisman work is second only to young master Wei. He has the golden core of a powerful adult. He has a more strongly developed moral core than either of you.”
They startle at this and start to speak, but at the look in her eyes, they subside.
She continues. “The one thing he has made clear is that he wants to be here, with Wei Ying and with his mother. He wants to learn to be a child. He wants to learn other ways of being in the world. He has a second lifetime to live, a second chance at immortality, and he wants to do it here. As I understand it, you abdicated fatherhood before he was born, and Lan Qiren has not bothered to infuse his teaching with any sense of paternal affection. The two of you conspired to keep the boys from their mother. And you managed to raise two upright, good, but deeply unhappy young men. Lan Xichen could not grasp that the people who showed him affection might not have a shared perspective. Lan Zhan did not smile for years.”
“Xichen is the sect heir,” Lan Qiren says.
“And he will learn to be the sect heir for three fourths of every month,” she says calmly. “He will better understand Lan precepts by spending time with his brother, who has lived them longer and more sincerely than either of you. If your precepts are so weak that they cannot withstand exposure to other ideas, what good are they?”
That one leaves Qingheng-Jun spluttering, and Lan Qiren thoughtful.
“If you really want to see what I’m talking about, ask Wei Ying to recite the precepts. I hear he’s quite good at it,” she adds, just to see them twitch.
“What did you mean, an easier way to travel?” Lan Qiren asks.
From the door, Cangse Sanren says, “A-Ying has designed an array that should allow a doorway to function between here and Cloud Recesses. We haven’t built it yet, as it’s rather complicated.”
“A-Ying… isn’t he four?” Qingheng-Jun asks. “How does a child invent an entirely new array?”
“He’s also, forty, give or take,” Cangse Sanren says. “And he’s one of the most brilliant inventors I’ve ever heard of.”
Lan Qiren nods. “If his talismans are any indication, I must concur.”
“Did you not read the notes?” Madam Yu asks.
“I have been in seclusion,” Qingheng-Jun says, as if that justifies everything. As if it justifies anything.
“You really must decide whether you are going to leave everything to your brother or whether you are going to fully participate in the world,” Madam Yu says, dryly. “He, at least, understands what is happening, and has some familiarity with your children.”
“How will Lan Zhan’s education be handled here?” Qingheng-Jun asks.
“He has been a scholar for longer than you’ve been alive,” Cangse Sanren says. “Wei Ying has to drag him away from the sect library so he’ll take time to be a child. As it is, he’s studying one thing or another for four or five hours a day, usually while Wei Ying is writing textbooks for teaching his talismanic techniques. I expect they will be teaching classes in person as soon as they’re tall enough to be taken seriously. I’ve seen them with the other children here; they’re already helping the other children learn faster and better.”
Madam Yu gives a dry laugh. “If you don’t alienate them completely, they may well resume teaching at Gusu Lan when they’re old enough. They spent much of their adult lives teaching advanced cultivation to the older juniors there. At this point in time, even as tiny children, they are the foremost masters we have on practical battle techniques for large-scale war. There is simply no one else who has their depth or breadth of experience.”
Cangse Sanren picks up the thread. “The real problem is that they already have fully developed, over-developed, even, adult golden cores. And their bodies are not fully equipped to keep them stable. We’ve discovered that hard play helps. To grow healthy bodies, the superior method is to allow them to be children. And I have enough experience with Cloud Recesses to know that you are truly terrible at understanding the needs of children. That includes Xichen.”
“You entrusted two children to us,” Lan Qiren says.
Yu Ziyuan says, “Those two need the structured support your sect can provide, with a focus on self-control and moral behavior. We know a lot about what failed them in the past. Your sect is not the perfect place for them, it is just the only acceptable place for them. Wei Ying and Lan Zhan feel they would be too biased to give them a chance, so they cannot be here. The Wen sect ruined both of them, as did the Jin sect, and the Nie sect didn’t do Meng Yao any favors because his background was too well known. Meng Yao will be happy at Cloud Recesses with his mother taken care of. And it is Xue Yang’s only chance at cleansing the spiritual damage he already has. Whereas we know that Lan Xichen can only benefit from a more affectionate upbringing, one which will not prime him to latch onto the first person he feels sorry for.”
“He’s already attached to Meng Yao,” Lan Qiren says.
“Then he needs more attachments, for balance,” Cangse Sanren says. “Here, he can play with other children who share his burdens. Jiang Cheng and Jin Zixuan are both sect heirs. Wei Ying is already fond of him.”
“And if I don’t accept this?” Qingheng-Jun asks.
To everyone’s surprise (including Lan Qiren,) it is Lan Qiren who answers. “You will accept it, or you will answer to the elders for your neglect of your duties and your failure to embody righteousness.”
“I have been in seclusion,” Qingheng-Jun begins, and then stops.
“You have been running away,” Lan Qiren says. “I have stepped in at every turn, making excuses and performing your duties. I cannot tolerate having the responsibility without having the authority. Choose to take responsibility and you might earn the authority, eventually. But you made me the acting sect leader for a reason. If you come out of seclusion not understanding that, you are not ready to resume your duties. If you do not come out of seclusion, you cannot make this decision to begin with. You have no claim to Xichen if the truth becomes widely known. Madam Tang would be in her rights to take both children. That she allows him to stay with me is a gift we have not earned, but which I will not allow you to discard.”
“He is my son by right of marriage,” Qingheng-Jun says. “I will never disown him.”
Lan Qiren’s voice is shockingly cold. “Yet you have discarded him and denied him a filial relationship since his birth. You denied him a relationship with his mother for his first years. He has me, and he has his brother, and now he has a chance to have his mother. If you do not continue to deprive him of these things, you might be fit to take on a more fatherly role with him, but you will have to earn it.”
Qingheng-Jun recoils as if he has been slapped. Without a word, he stands, walks outside, and leaves. The sword glare makes it clear that he is headed back to Gusu Lan.
Lan Qiren closes his eyes for a long moment, and then says to Cangse Sanren, “Please tell Madam Tang that I respectfully beg a few moments of her time, so that we may create a schedule for Lan Huan’s visits. And if the children are willing, I would like to discuss some theoretical issues with Wei Ying and Lan Zhan.”
She cocks an eyebrow at him and gives him an ironic bow of respect before turning and leaving.
Lan Qiren looks at Madam Yu and says, “He is my brother, and I love him, but he has much to atone for, and I regret that I did not insist sooner.”
“Wei Ying says that this is our second chance,” Madam Yu says softly. “And that he cannot fault us for our failures in another life, that the only way forward is to let the mistakes stay in the past once we have learned from them. That it is his job to help draw us a map to avoid the obstacles that defeated us.”
“Lan Zhan looked happier than I’ve ever seen him,” Lan Qiren says, his voice hushed.
“The great griefs of his heart have been healed. He has known too much sadness not to recognize joy and grasp it with both hands.”
Lan Qiren strokes his beard and says, “I cannot imagine going back to my own childhood. I cannot imagine wanting to.”
Yu Ziyuan gives a sharp laugh at that. “I will be grateful forever that I do not have the option.”
The children come running in first, damp around the edges and laughing, but as soon as they see Lan Qiren, both Wei Ying and Lan Zhan straighten, and it is as if their childhood has fallen by the wayside. They bow precisely, in unison.
“Lan-zongzhu,” Lan Zhan says in the most formal possible tones.
Lan Qiren winces at the formality from his nephew, turns to Wei Ying and says, “I understand, Wei Ying, that you would like to build a doorway.”
Wei Ying nods, touches Lan Zhan’s hand, and Lan Zhan turns and walks back out the door. “He’s getting my notes,” Wei Ying says, and then shifts his attention to Madam Yu. “Can we bring a glassmaker, a metalsmith, and a jeweler to Lotus Pier?”
She blinks at him. “For…”
“I need to learn more about glass and metal, and fine detail work. We will need all three for the doorway, but also for long-term storage for the pieces of the Stygian Iron. We cannot continue to keep them here or in Cloud Recesses without more protection.”
“They are in layered pouches,” Lan Qiren says, curiosity piqued.
“I need to make sealed qiankun boxes for all of them,” Wei Ying says. “Bags are not sufficiently isolated. We will be needing to store the Iron for many years, and we cannot continue to let them contaminate the best places with their resentful energy.”
“Do you have a long-term plan?” Lan Qiren asks.
“I have an idea for a long-term plan,” Wei Ying says, “but I need to experiment first on something less dangerous. Hence, glass and metalworking. The last time I worked with the stuff, it nearly broke me because I had no idea what I was doing. I thought I could control it, that I could destroy it. I need to devise a way to make it control itself using its own nature.”
Lan Qiren is horrified and intrigued. “You will not return to demonic cultivation,” he says finally.
Wei Ying is shaking his head before the sentence is out. “No. I will not risk taking the resentment into my body again if I can avoid it. But I have an idea for a way to reshape the metal into something which will use the resentful energy it already contains to generate positive spiritual energy.”
It is easy, Lan Qiren decides, to forget that Wei Ying is four years old. It occurs to him to ask, “Where is Lan Huan?”
“Shijie is teaching him to swim with Ying-jie,” Lan Zhan says, returning with a sheaf of notes in his hands. “She is more patient than Jiang Cheng. Also she is taller than Huan-ge, which is very strange, as they are similar in age.”
“Anyway, a glassmaker?” Wei Ying asks.
“There is one in Yunping City,” Madam Yu says absently. “For metalwork, we should go to Meishan. Unless you mean to build a forge here, in which case we will still need to travel.”
“I am too little for forge work,” Wei Ying says ruefully. “I need to observe masters. I was hoping to do that here.”
The adults stare at him for a long moment, and Lan Zhan breaks the silence. “Wei Ying, could someone else make the boxes?”
He frowns. “I suppose. Yes.” He holds out his hand for the notes, which Lan Zhan gives him.
Flipping through, he finds several sheets of paper, and hands them to Lan Qiren. “We will need four large enough for the pieces we have. Eventually we will need one large enough for the sword. But I think the sword can stay where it is for now. It’s guarded.”
Making qiankun pouches and sleeves is complex and arcane and often the last project an advanced pupil will undertake before mastery. They are a major source of income for the largest sects, because they are so difficult and so popular. There are cultivators who do little else.
Wei Ying has adapted the technique to create a design for a secure box, which will not be able to leak energy the way the bags do. Shaping spiritual energy to make these little bubbles of storage that don’t quite exist in the world is hard, and is easiest with something that can be bent. This design… it does not appear to require nearly as much spiritual power to create, because it is designed to fold and seal around the object once. The seal can be broken, but it will be much harder to take apart than it will to be to put together. The size advantage of a qiankun bag is not the point. The point is to fully separate the pieces while allowing them to be stored safely in proximity to each other.
“I will build these,” Lan Qiren says. “I can commission the pieces and then do the final assembly myself.”
“I would like to examine them before we use them,” Wei Ying says. He shakes his head at the offended noise Lan Qiren makes. “No, not because I think you will fail, but because I want to make sure my design is correct before we use this on something so important.”
“Start your other experiments in wax,” Madam Yu says. “If you are not yet large enough to work a forge when you are ready to test it with something more permanent, we can send the wax as a mold.”
Wei Ying gives her a nod.
“How long have you been working on these?” Lan Qiren asks. He has done little else, himself, besides study Wei Ying’s mature designs, in the days since their lives were upended.
The boy blinks. “I… since I got here? The doorway is an obvious adaptation of a transportation talisman, but because both ends can be static, it won’t require so much energy to use. Well, once it’s open, it can stay open until someone closes it, so each trip requires no additional energy, but opening the door is a challenge, and once it’s open, it’s probably better to ward it than to close it again. The ward is built into the design.” He hands over another bundle of papers.
Lan Qiren skims them, and staggers a little, then sags down to sit on the floor and try to parse exactly what he’s reading. Obvious.
Lan Zhan tries to look over his shoulder, gets frustrated, and picks up his uncle’s arm to make room so he can see it, too. He looks up at Wei Ying, and grins. “Is this what you were doing?”
“You kept making me stop,” Wei Ying says. “It’s interesting.”
“The idea is similar to the box,” Lan Qiren mutters. “Why is it similar to the box?”
Now Madam Yu is intrigued, and she asks Wei Ying, “Is this your only copy?”
He shakes his head. “It’s just as easy to make two as one.”
“Would you bring me your copy?” she asks, her voice full of something he’s only now starting to recognize as deep respect.
Wei Ying scampers, all child again, with a merry grin.
When he comes back, he puts another stack of papers in her hands. Then he says, “You want to know why they’re similar?”
She looks at the drawings and then blinks. “Yes, A-Ying. Please tell me why you have used qiankun techniques this way?”
“Well, the folded energy we use to make the bags, it shifts the things somewhere else, so there’s room for them even in a tiny space, right?”
She nods, and Lan Qiren looks to be on familiar ground. This isn’t the area of cultivation Lan Zhan specialized in, and he looks caught off guard by the fact that he doesn’t know this. How he never quite thought about it, because his focus was on music and fighting, even though he’d used the things for years. His education had been waylaid by the war in a lot of ways. He’d picked his education back up, eventually, but on different roads. Lan bought most of their qiankun bags from Lanling Jin.
Wei Ying continues. “So, I use that other space to make a qiankun tube. The energy folding all happens as one piece, but the design allows for the doorway to be split in our world, while the someplace else remains intact. Once both pieces are mounted in a static location, and the arrays on them are activated, it opens the bag, so to speak. And then we should be able to just walk through.”
They stare at him.
“Look,” he says. “The transportation talisman just brute-force pushes you through to the anchor location. That’s useful in a pinch because it can be used anywhere, but it’s very draining. This is more elegant, if less geographically flexible. But it will allow Xichen to come visit more.”
“You idiot boy,” Madam Yu says fondly. “It will also allow one sect to reinforce another, or to escape invasion.”
“Or to invade,” Lan Qiren mutters.
“That’s why it’s warded,” Wei Ying says. “If someone tries to go through without a token, they’ll run into the ward. If they try to defeat the ward, it will trap them.”
“Fatally?” Madam Yu asks.
He shakes his head. “I don’t think so. It’s more like a fish trap. They drop in, and then they won’t have any sense of time passing until someone opens it. Also, it will be best to put these someplace private.”
“How do you know time won’t pass for them?” Lan Qiren can’t help asking.
“I put a candle in a qiankun bag once, and it was still burning and hadn’t melted when I took it out a week later.”
That is the moment that Lan Qiren realizes that he truly does not comprehend how this child’s mind works.
“How… old… were you…” he splutters.
“Eleven?” Wei Ying guesses.
“And why did you put the candle in the bag?” Lan Qiren asks, though he’s afraid of the answer.
“It was so that if I woke and it was too dark, I would be able to have a light quickly, before I learned talisman work. But I burned my hand getting it out of the bag.”
They stare at him until a moment later when Tang Lijuan pokes her head in and says, “I am willing to talk to Lan Qiren, but it would be best to do it out here so I can watch A-Huan, as A-Yun would like to go in.”
When Lan Huan arrives at Lotus Pier with his father and his uncle, after flying for the first time, and they land in this warm, loud place, everything seems to sparkle. He’s used to serene white robes and calm forests, but Lotus Pier is a different kind of beauty and it is bustling.
When they find A-Zhan, Lan Huan barely recognizes the running, yelling child as his quiet brother.
No one had bothered to explain to him exactly why his brother had gone away with his mother, but the sound of his brother’s laugh lifts something heavy off his heart and a fear he hadn’t figured out how to speak vanishes as if it had never been. His uncle had figured out his brother’s vulnerability very early, and used it to ensure good behavior, telling A-Zhan to be good if he wanted to see his mother, and A-Zhan had been very good indeed, but in a tight, worried compliance that never felt right. At seven, Lan Huan is just old enough to recognize that something is wrong, but he’s a child, and no one has ever told him that love does not have to be earned.
It would have been enough to just stand there and see his brother happy, but then he is not only allowed but encouraged to shed his pristine robes and play and his whole world changes.
The children in front of him are bouncing in and out of the water, and it looks like so much fun, so he puts on the play clothes, his arms and legs gangling in them a little, but it’s fine. And then he jumps in.
The water closes over his head for a moment, but then he’s rising, floating, and being set down on the dock as gently as a teacup, and he sees his tiny brother and another boy moving their hands in ways he hasn’t learned yet, and he realizes that even more has changed.
His brother and his brother’s friend leap over from the other dock, and then A-Zhan says, “I’m sorry, A-Huan, I forgot that I didn’t learn to swim until I was eight.”
“You’re five,” Lan Huan says.
“Not exactly,” the other boy says, and then smiles brightly, straightening, and then bowing. His speech sounds like home. “Greetings, Lan Xichen. I am Wei Ying, courtesy name Wuxian, but as I will be marrying A-Zhan, we will be brothers someday, so you may call me A-Ying or A-Xian, whichever you like. Though you used to call me Wuxian more often than not, I’m a bit small for it now.”
“Marrying?” Lan Huan asks faintly, and then looks at his brother, who is looking at this Wei Ying with the softest expression. “Wait, used to?”
Another little boy only a tiny bit smaller climbs out of the water the hard way and says, “I’m their shidi, Jiang Cheng. And that tall girl over there is my sister, Yanli. If they ever say shijie, that’s who they mean. There are other girls here, but only a-jie is shijie to A-Ying. But Ying-erge and Zhan-dage grew all the way up to old men and then came back to fix things, so they’re both gege. They know so much.”
Jiang Cheng is still figuring out language enough and the dialect at Lotus Pier is just different enough that it takes Lan Huan a minute to parse this. To make sure he’s heard correctly, he turns to Lan Zhan and says, “Didi, you grew up?”
And his brother nods.
“But you’re not grown up anymore? But you remember being grown up?”
His brother nods again. “Being grown up is overrated,” he says. “My husband was dying, and wanted to go back so he wouldn’t die, and I wouldn’t let him go alone, so I came back, too.”
“You left,” Lan Huan says.
“I had to save Mother, and Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says.
Lan Huan thinks. “Is that why A-Yao came when you left? Did you save him, too?”
Lan Zhan hesitates, and then nods.
Wei Ying takes a breath and then says, “In our other life, people were very mean to him for his whole life, except you. It… caused problems. We hope that saving him from people hurting him will make the problems go away.”
Lan Huan considers that and then says, “Did he do something bad?”
Lan Zhan nods.
“Don’t…” Wei Ying starts, then tries again. “We’ve changed his whole life now. The things that made him hate people, before, and to sneak, and to scheme… If I thought he would do those things at Cloud Recesses, I wouldn’t have tried to rescue him, I would’ve just stopped him later. You can’t judge people based on what they haven’t done, and I think that he’ll be much better off where he is now, with you.”
“I’m already his friend,” Lan Huan says. “I’d like to continue to be.”
“There is no person in this world who you can trust without thought,” Lan Zhan says. “Not even me, not Wei Ying, and not Meng Yao. But you do not have to always trust people will be perfect to care about them and allow them into your heart.”
Lan Huan nods and then looks over at the dock. The woman there has been joined by his mother. He waves, and after a moment, she smiles at him.
“A-Niang said we should teach him to swim,” Jiang Cheng informs them all. And then he turns and tries to explain swimming to Lan Huan. Fortunately, Yanli, who is Lan Huan’s age but taller, comes to the rescue, and has him splashing around happily quite quickly. Knowing that his little brother and A-Ying can fish him out quickly is a big confidence boost. Also, the water is shallow, and he learns quickly. At some point his brother leaves, but he’s too focused on learning how to move in the water to worry about it, and his mother is right there.
Lan Huan likes the water. It’s much warmer than he’s used to in Gusu, and once he gets the hang of floating, it’s very peaceful. Jiang Yanli is kind and patient and Jiang Cheng is absolutely certain that Lan Huan will have no trouble learning, and so by the time Lan Qiren comes out, he’s managed to paddle from one dock to the next and is radiant with pride at the accomplishment.
“Shufu, I swam!” he shouts, and then realizes he’s shouted, and blushes with shame.
But his uncle merely smiles at him and nods, and then turns back to speak to his mother.
Tang Lijuan is more than willing for Lan Huan to stay with them for a time each month, and even agrees that if Lan Zhan wants, he may spend some time at Gusu Lan. She knows that they can’t hold him if he chooses not to be held; it isn’t a hard concession to make.
The adults watch as Wei Ying deftly helps extract an overtired, overwhelmed Xichen from the shrieking horde of children, and offers to take the boy to see their library. Lan Huan is significantly taller, and his arms and legs are sticking bare out of too-short dripping play clothes when Wei Ying takes a drying cloth off the stack on the steps and holds it out to him, waiting while he dries and then holding up the towel as a screen so the boy can get dressed.
Wei Ying is not wet. Wei Ying has already learned the Lan trick of quick drying. They watch as he pulls a little butterfly out of the air and sends it to land on Lan Zhan’s nose. Lan Zhan goes momentarily crosseyed and then waves and goes right back into trying to dunk Jiang Cheng again.
“He is very kind,” Lan Qiren says.
“Lan Zhan did not fall in love with him for no reason,” Tang Lijuan says. “He’s a good influence on the other children.”
“Tell him that,” Madam Yu says. “He’ll be horrified.”
Next to her, Cangse Sanren snickers.
Lan Qiren had planned on coming, talking, and then leaving. Maybe staying one night to be fully rested for the trip back. He ends up staying for five days, taking Wei Ying up on the offer of a message butterfly on the first night when it becomes apparent that this will not be a quick trip.
“Aren’t these a Lanling Jin secret?” Lan Qiren asks, as it flies away. They are in the workshop that is theoretically for the residents of their house but which is in reality 90% Wei Wuxian’s and 10% Cangse Sanren’s. It is an airy, bright space. Cangse Sanren is sitting in a window, reading and ignoring them.
“My nephew taught me the talisman version a couple decades from now,” Wei Ying says absently, rifling through his stacks of paper. “Ah! Here!”
He hands Lan Qiren an actual stitched book. Inside is a concise theory of space and energy, followed by a rambling but engaging discussion of the ethical and logistical implications of the theory.
“There are implications for time as well, but I don’t want anyone else doing what we did,” Wei Ying says. “So I didn’t include it. We want as many people as possible to live and have happy lives. If Wen Ruohan ever learned of the possibilities, it would be disastrous. And don’t expect Meng Yao to stay out of the forbidden room of the library. Did I mention that?”
“Yes, we’ve already taken steps to improve security there.” Lan Qiren holds up the book. “Can I keep this?”
“Oh, let me make another one,” Wei Ying says, and Lan Qiren suddenly realizes that the bright white wall is actually a wall entirely covered by book-sized paper sheets.
He watches, open-mouthed, as the boy points at an open bowl of ink, and then makes a sweeping gesture that encompasses the whole wall. His four-year-old hands still have baby fat and dimples on the knuckles. And they quite precisely curl and twist and the next thing Lan Qiren knows is that there is another bound book on the table. A last gesture and another stack of paper spreads itself across the wall.
“All yours,” Wei Ying says, and smiles.
Lan Qiren is too busy processing this to say anything. He turns his attention to the notes he received earlier, and tries to grasp the implications of too many things at once.
When he looks up, it is almost dark, and Wei Ying is sitting on the table, with terrible posture, with papers spread around him, frowning as he throws ink onto the pages, slowly, in fits and starts, and Lan Qiren realizes the boy is coming up with something new as he watches. He hears a guqin and xiao on the breeze and assumes that his nephews are practicing together.
Apparently Wei Ying isn’t entirely happy with the results, because he picks the ink back up off the paper and then puts it back down again in a new arrangement.
“What,” Lan Qiren says aloud. “What did you do? How did you… Can you explain that to me? Can I do that?”
Wei Ying looks up. “You want to learn how to make an energy converter? I don’t know how to do that yet.”
“No, the thing you did with the ink, child. How are you doing that with the ink?” Somewhere, the music stops.
“You know how to draw an array without a brush,” Wei Ying says. “It’s mostly the same, just… ink, not blood, and there’s no spiritual energy in it, and it’s smaller.”
“Yes, but you just lifted the ink off the paper?”
“It’s the same as lifting the ink out of the bowl,” Wei Ying says. “Just, out of the paper. I feel for the essence of it, and I tell it to stick to itself, and then I lift.”
“Teach me,” Lan Qiren says.
The door opens before Wei Ying can say anything, and Lan Zhan walks in, trailed by Lan Huan. Lan Zhan walks over to the stack of paper, picks it up and directs ink from a large pail into a small bowl, brings them over and puts them down in front of his uncle. “It is something you already know. It takes practice. It is very good for cultivation and precision. But you will not get it right at first. Try anyway.”
Lan Qiren has used these words with children. He may never use these words with children again. It is patronizing as hell.
He focuses on the ink and the paper, and thinks about putting ink on the paper with his spiritual energy.
The ink splashes down, blackening nearly the entire page and part of his sleeve.
He’s about to ask for another sheet, when Lan Zhan calmly picks all of the spilled ink off the page and his sleeve, and puts it back in the bowl. It does not even slosh.
“You’re enjoying this,” Lan Qiren mutters.
“Mn,” Lan Zhan says. “Try again.”
The next splotch of ink is much smaller, and the splash doesn’t extend past the paper. Lan Qiren attempts to lift the ink up, and the paper shreds.
Wei Ying is still focused on his own paper, but says, without looking up, “Stop thinking about putting ink on the paper and start thinking about putting shapes on the paper. Just hold the image in your mind, like for an array, but you’re not putting blood or power into it. And when you want to take the ink up, remember what ink is. Remember what paper is. Tell the ink to let go and return.” He looks up and smiles impishly. “Start with something you know the precise shape of. Lan rules, maybe.”
Lan Zhan’s breath hitches, and Lan Qiren suspects strongly that if this were any other child, there would be pointing and laughter going on right now. His nephew’s ears are turning red.
Lan Huan’s mouth is open in astonishment to see his uncle having to work to learn something new.
And there’s the belly laugh, as Cangse Sanren says, “Qiren, your face…”
“Hush,” he says. “A-Ying, just how well do you know the Lan rules?”
Wei Ying quirks an eyebrow at him. That’s the only movement. But every bit of ink in both their bowls is now on the wall. “Go look.”
The rules are numbered. There are at least a thousand more than currently mark the stone at Cloud Recesses. Lan Qiren glances at the ones that follow the ones he knows.
Wei Ying’s smile is unsettling as he says, “Hey, Lan Zhan, did I miss any?”
Lan Zhan walks up next to his uncle, one arm tucked behind his back, and shakes his head.
Lan Qiren’s eyes land on the rule that says, “Stay away from Wei Wuxian.” He reads it aloud.
Wei Ying laughs. “That was my favorite. It was yours. Lan Zhan wanted to take it down but I made him leave it because it was hilarious when I was living in Cloud Recesses.”
Lan Qiren hears an edge in that statement, and wants to erase the hurt that must have created it. He cannot erase a history he doesn’t remember, but maybe… He reaches out with his spiritual energy and feels the paper, feels the ink, feels just the ink in that one rule, and lifts it cleanly off the page. A tiny little cloud of dry ink hovers in the air in front of him, and he releases it. It drifts down, sparkling darkly in the lamplight.
“It’s a bad rule,” he says. “Lan Zhan was right to want to remove it.”
Wei Ying is staring at him in unchildlike awe.
“I will carve a new one,” Lan Qiren says. “When I go back to the mountain.”
“What will it say?” asks Lan Huan.
“Cherish those who challenge you to learn new things,” says Lan Qiren. “When you choose to return, A-Zhan, bring Wei-qianbei with you. He will always be welcome.”
Lan Zhan is shocked. Lan Qiren finds himself absurdly pleased that he has shocked his nephew.
“Ah, don’t qianbei me,” Wei Ying says. “I can’t accept it. I’ll come if you promise never to call me that again. If you won’t call me by my birth name, you may call me Wuxian. I’d rather you use my birth name, though. I’m four. I’m an actual baby.”
At that, Lan Qiren actually laughs. “Alright, A-Ying. But when we are in private, you may call me Qiren. I suspect you have years on me, no matter how short you are.”
They spend the next several months working on the door. The end result is expensive and beautiful and it works perfectly. The first traveller is a rabbit.
The human travelers follow, stepping through from warm, humid Lotus Pier with a warm gust into the crisp air of Gusu Lan.
Their first visit to Cloud Recesses is strange. It has been decades, for them, since it looked like this; they weren’t there long enough to look around when they arrived in this life. No matter how hard the sect had tried to make it exact when it was rebuilt, the trees that had burnt could not be replaced exactly.
Qingheng-Jun has come out of seclusion but has not resumed his duties as sect leader. They spend an awkward half hour with him, and then go to see Xichen.
Meng Yao is exactly as they remember him, only tiny and without the undercurrent of resentment. He thanks them for the change in his station, and says that he will do his best to be worthy of it.
Xue Yang is a fat baby and no longer draped in the shadow of his grandmother’s resentment. His smile holds no sinister edge. They don’t stay long.
Wei Ying leaves first, but promises to return to drag Lan Zhan back if he’s not back by nightfall.
“You can stay,” Lan Huan says.
Wei Ying waves this off and says, “I have work to do back home, and I’ve stolen your brother enough lately. Brothers are important, you should spend some time with him.”
Lan Huan wants to say, “You gave me a brother who smiles. It is worth it.” But he just bows and says, “I look forward to seeing you at Lotus Pier.”
Wei Ying walks back from the little building that houses the doorway, but is stopped in his tracks by the sound of his mother’s sobs before he can go into their house.
He’s about to rush in, when he hears Tang Lijuan say, “A-Shuang, it’s okay, I’m here. You can cry, but I’m here.”
He frowns. A-Shuang? A memory floats up, something he heard but hadn’t registered, his father talking to his mother, calling her A-Shuang in a very different accent. He wonders which character it is, but suspects he knows. There is one that means bright and straightforward, but can also imply blunders, and it’s actually perfect for his mother, whose birth name, he suddenly realizes, he has never known. He wonders if this is it, or if it is a nickname his father gave her.
Then he hears his mother say, “A-Juan, what am I going to do? A-Ze was so good with A-Ying, and I don’t even know, I was happy to share another child with him, but to do it alone?”
“You’re not alone,” Lan Zhan’s mother says. “I’m happy to help you. And the boys are so self-sufficient. It will be lovely to have an actual baby around.”
Wei Wuxian’s mind skitters to a halt and stutters around this revelation. Baby. She was pregnant. She must have died pregnant last time. And I never knew. Never even knew I’d lost a sibling.
He thinks about how losing his shijie had destroyed him so completely, and he shakes to think about what was lost and is now found.
Then he hears Tang Lijuan say, “I knew about the baby from the beginning. It will be fine. We’ll shift the boys over and put the baby between us. Then I can help you without waking them.”
His eyes are still streaming tears when he looks through the open door and sees his mother, sitting, crying, while her friend stands over her, holding her tight.
Tang Lijuan sees him, and he gives her a small smile, and she nods, her face utterly familiar and he knows now where so many of Lan Zhan’s expressions come from.
“A baby?” he says, softly.
“You didn’t know?” his mother says.
“He was out cold when you talked about it. Or asleep. Or playing,” Tang Lijuan says.
He looks at his mother’s waist. His forehead is at the height of her bellybutton, he’s shocked he hasn’t noticed anything. But it’s only a little bit thicker than it was when he first returned.
Cangse Sanren gives a teary little chuckle and says, “I guess it’s nice to know I can still surprise you.”
“A-Niang, you will always surprise me,” Wei Ying says, and this is true. “Is Shuang your birth name or a nickname?”
And this too is something that he hadn’t known he’d lost before he found it again.
“Baoshan Sanren found me when I was very young, and I didn’t know my birth name, I told her I was baobao and she thought it was funny, so she called me Cangse Sanren, as a sort of title, and then called me baobao until I left.”
“Is that why my birth name is Ying?” he asks, incredulous and laughing.
She shrugs, with a twinkling grin. “Anyway, your father wasn’t just going to call me Sanren, so he called me Shuang when we were alone. I missed it. I might take Wei Shuang as my name, to honor him, but I’ve had other things on my mind. A-Juan wanted something less formal to call me.”
The part of his mind that is not a child’s wonders at their familiarity, but they’ve been essentially coparenting since this whole adventure started, and he discovers a hard limit to his curiosity where his mother’s potential romantic endeavors are concerned. He doesn’t even know if women do that, but he supposes it defies logic that some wouldn’t. He doesn’t need to know.
He gives her a small bow and says, “It would be an honor to share a name with you, but it is also an honor to be the son of Cangse Sanren.”
And then he gives a slightly slyer bow to Tang Lijuan and says, “Thank you for taking good care of my mother.”
If she picks up on the extremely small amount of innuendo, she doesn’t let on.
When Lan Zhan comes back, Wei Ying says, “Were you going to tell me that I’m going to be a big brother?”
Lan Zhan blinks. “You didn’t know?”
Wei Ying’s jaw drops. “You actually did? I thought I was going to surprise you.”
“I forgot that you didn’t. She said it when she woke up. You were asleep.”
“Laaan Zhaaaaan, I can’t cope with this. A baby. How can my heart take having a baby sibling?”
Lan Zhan smiles. “You will do well.”
Wei Ying sighs, but it’s a happy sound. Then Lan Zhan is hugging him and he realizes that he’s crying because here is another entire life that would not have existed had they not done this.
He cries for a long time.
One of the side effects of all of this is that when Duan Ai visits, which she does often, she brings her son.
Every time Wei Wuxian saw Jin Zixuan in his last life, the man was surrounded by courtiers. A quiet word early on to Madam Jin means that when Jin Zixuan comes, he brings Mianmian because Wei Ying has always liked Mianmian, but he brings no one else. Mianmian rapidly becomes very close with Yanli and Mo Xiuying, and when Wen Qing (who will ever after go by Wei Qing) arrives, all of the girls end up bonding.
Wei Ying and Lan Zhan call them Shijie, Ying-jie and Qing-jie. Mianmian is always Mianmian, but she’s there less often.
Wei Ying and Lan Zhan get their mothers to teach the girls fighting techniques. When Madam Yu finds out, she gives the girls knives, and has her maids teach the girls how to fight dirty.
Madam Jin knows, of course, who Mo Xiuying is. She observes the girls learning to fight, and her eyes narrow, and then she smiles and asks if she can learn, too.
Wei Ying teaches them talisman work, with a focus on immobilization techniques. They all think he’s adorable, and don’t take it seriously at first, right up until he manages to completely immobilize Madam Yu with a talisman, at which point it is both fortunate that he is cute and five years old, and that she is too interested in the technique to be mad about it.
They are diligent students.
Madam Jin is fond, at home, of telling the story of how when she found out that an unnamed woman had managed to kill a man who had raped her, she had sponsored the woman’s place in a major sect. She mentions it casually, and often. It is known that she has sponsored several people, but not widely known who.
Jin Guangshan is much more careful than he used to be, for a while.
Jin Zixuan is tremendously intimidated by the group of girls. They’re all older than he is, and they talk a lot about how good Yanli is, but his mother says nothing, though he’s known of the betrothal since he attended his first wedding as a toddler.
Wei Ying is kind to Zixuan, who is too scared of the giggle of girls to ever dream of making Yanli cry. He’s had her soup and seen her calm Jiang Cheng and he’s seen her and Mianmian in fighting practice and he is very, very polite.
Zixuan’s visits often overlap Xichen’s, and the two of them bond over shitty fathers and overwhelming expectations. Meng Yao sometimes visits, too. Zixuan knows who he is and tells him that he’s lucky to be well out of it because the idea of being sect leader is terrifying and the way his mother talks, it’s going to be sooner than later and it’s too much responsibility.
Meng Yao smiles, and says he likes Cloud Recesses, because if he follows the rules and does well, it is seen and held up as an example, but not the only example. The idea of diving back into a world that will call him bastard does not appeal, not when he can get a smile from Xichen for being kind and diligent. Not when his mother is a respected member of the sect, honored for her beautiful writing and musical talent.
Zixuan knows that someday his father will go too far and that someone will kill the man for it. And that he will not exact revenge.
He arrives at these conclusions through long conversations with Xichen, mostly. What he doesn’t know is how often Xichen gets advice from his little brother and Wei Ying. Zixuan is not really in the loop about who they are, not yet, not in the fine details, so he sees them as precocious, odd five-year-olds because no one has bothered to explain just yet just how odd they really are. But they are the pivot on which his new circle of actual friends turns.
Xichen finds Wei Ying infinitely useful as a sounding board and reality check. The boy may look five, but a few minutes of serious talking will dismiss that perception easily, and Wei Wuxian is a gifted teacher with decades of experience.
Wei Wuxian tells Xichen that memorizing rules is pointless if you don’t understand why they’re there. That sometimes you have to break them to do the right thing, but that it’s impossible to know unless you understand their intent. He explains that it’s okay to be angry with people and still love them. And just by existing, he teaches that sometimes grownups are wrong, and that while respect may be a default, respect is not the only criteria by which one must decide who to listen to.
As illogical as it is that these two children exist in their bodies, they mean that Xichen’s world is both less ordered and more logical. He can be angry with his father and miss his mother and be frustrated with his uncle and acknowledge those feelings and still decide to be a good person in spite of it all.
“You’ve always been a good person,” Wei Ying says with a little laugh. “I think it’s your natural state of being.”
“But did I understand these things?”
And that answer is probably “no.” It was cognitive dissonance that broke Xichen last time. Wei Ying wants him to have a stronger structure to withstand that, this time.
The majority of the Wens trickle in over the course of several months, leaving their home village and then never again giving their names as “Wen.”
Wen Ruohan has been rumored to be looking in the oldest settlements for old documents.
Lan Qiren makes a quick trip to the garden of the Damsel of Annual Blossoms, and comes away with the fourth Stygian Iron segment, tucked neatly into a locked qiankun box.
Wei Ying is happy with the boxes, and the segments are all locked deep in the Cold Pond Cave. The improved barrier around them means that the rigidity of Cloud Recesses has softened. There are a few new rules, but they will never actually reach 3000 rules, now, and several are already different than they’d been the first time around.
Madam Yu and the doctors Wei work with both Lan Zhan and Wei Ying every few days to ensure that their cores remain stable, and to help them cope with the mismatch between mind, body, and core.
At Wei Ying’s request, Wei Qing sits in on these sessions. She’s going to be the best doctor for generations, and he wants her to understand.
When he realizes how talented her parents are, and then realizes that she stopped having anyone in her immediate family to further her education after the age of twelve, and that she was so incredible anyways, he has to sit down and cry for a bit. He’d always maintained that the Wen branch family’s loss was a devastating waste, but now he really understands how much was lost, how early.
He thinks about Lan Sizhui, and how blazingly talented the boy was, and thinks about his little family of a couple dozen of Wen Qing and Wen Ning’s relatives, and sees the new compound expand to 200 people and sometimes he can’t breathe, he’s so overwhelmed by it.
Wei Qing and Wei Ning have so many cousins that he has no idea which ones of them will give birth to A-Yuan, and the idea that maybe things have changed too much for the boy to be born is too upsetting to even think about.
In the months before his baby sister’s birth, the doctors and Madam Yu work extensively on their meridians and on deep core work to remove blockages caused by old trauma.
Lan Zhan finds it strange that this work seems to soften Madam Yu’s hard edges. She helps him unravel and distance the unnecessary bad memories. He lets go the pattern that was created when his uncle told him being good was how he could earn time with his mother. Eventually he will forget the time spent waiting in the snow for a mother who would never open the door.
She helps Wei Ying close the hole left by his time in the streets in another lifetime, and closing that wound helps close others that left him knowing in his bones that no one could possibly be on his side and mean it.
Some of the bad memories they find are too foundational to eliminate, but they are shifted to the background, to the status of “story” and not “bone memory.” The now-impossible horrors lose most of their potency, their immediacy, and become simply memories to be called upon at need, only. There are whole categories of recurring nightmares that just stop. It becomes easier and easier for them to play and be children.
Knowledge is kept.
Wei Ying notices how close Xichen and Zixuan are getting and asks them to include Jiang Cheng at least some of the time in their “future sect leaders” club. The first time Jiang Cheng expresses frustration with how he’ll never catch up with “The Geges,” the other two boys laugh with him and say, “None of us are going to catch up with them, but they’re not the heirs to their sects, and they won’t have the responsibilities we’re going to have. You don’t have to be a sect leader now.”
A month before Wei Ying’s sister’s birth, two things happen.
The first is that Madam Yu tells the children that she’s expecting a baby, too. (It turns out, it’s a lot easier to like your husband when he looks at you that way, and when he’s being infinitely kind and patient with this enormous herd of kids running around. She no longer feels like a consolation prize.)
The second is that Wen Ruohan finds another manuscript and goes to the Dancing Goddess to try to take the Stygian Iron he thinks is there. On the way, he discovers that his relatives are gone. He doesn’t remember to investigate this, because the Dancing Goddess, who took her conversation with the boys to heart, very carefully and surgically removes the part of his spiritual cognition which drove him toward demonic cultivation and conquest in the first place.
Wei Ying did not ask her to do this. He just pulled the driving resentment out of her heart and gave her a new one and a warning, and she’s returning the favor.
He’s fine, he’s not even really that diminished in his capacity. He just loses his ambition to push on.
The immediate upside is that he’s nicer to people, and isn’t trying to conquer anyone or control the living dead.
The downside is that he’s spent years driving the aggressive impulses of his clan and actively ruining his sons. They’re still quite young, but their hangers-on are not.
The consequences are not immediate.
About eight months after they come from the future, Wei Ying’s little sister, Wei Lian (莲) is born, just as the lotus blossoms start to bud.
It is deeply frustrating to Wei Ying that he and Lan Zhan are shuffled out of the little house to stay with Jiang Cheng while his mother labors and births.
He forgets his frustration completely when they are allowed to return and his mother gently sets this tiny little infant into his arms. Jiang Cheng says she looks like a radish. Wei Ying laughs until he cries and touches her downy cheeks and says she’s the best radish he’s ever seen. (She might be tiny and still not entirely in the world, but when she opens her swollen eyes and looks into his soul, Wei Ying is gone. He would die for her. He already has, in a roundabout way.) He thanks his mother for this baby, who is his now. She laughs, and tells him they will share.
When she is handed off to someone else, Wei Ying sobs into Lan Zhan’s arms because the fact of her existence brings home the question of his other radish, and he lets himself wonder whether he will ever see A-Yuan again. Lan Zhan does not ask why he’s crying. Lan Zhan knows.
Madam Yu saw A-Yuan in Lan Zhan’s memories, and she actually puts them both on her lap and tells them she understands, but that they can only wait and see.
Wei Ying is intensely frustrated that his body is too small to safely carry his sister around. This is unfair on many levels.
He doesn’t entirely have the knack of soothing her, though he’s very good at making her laugh, and claims her first smile at a month old.
Lan Zhan doesn’t try to carry her, he just asks for her when he’s sitting and reading or playing the guqin, and is an absolute natural with her. He doesn’t care if she grabs the strings or moves the paper. He gently extracts books from her grasp and replaces them with toys.
He is the official toy-buyer. Wei Ying isn’t even sure where Lan Zhan is getting money for this (his uncle) but there are hanging toys and music toys and Lan Qiren raises an eyebrow when he sees, while Lan Zhan raises one right back, and then Lan Qiren brings toys, too, like an apology.
Shijie actually complains that she doesn’t get to hold the baby enough, and Wei Ying looks over his baby sister’s head and says, “Get your own. This is my meimei.”
“We’re working on it,” Jiang Cheng says, very seriously, and then gets mad when everyone laughs.
Wei Ying has never in his life had as many people around him with his name as he does now. His mother is still Cangse Sanren, but introduces herself as Wei Shuang as often as not.
Lotus Pier businesses are delighted to have such talented physicians in town, and so many new customers.
When traveling merchants ask, the locals just say, “Oh, Sect Leader Jiang’s best friend died and to honor him they are building a medical school. Such talented doctors, those Weis.”
When civil war breaks out in Qishan a few months later, the new Weis begin to leave small gifts at Wei Ying’s house. Other branches of the family are not faring nearly so well. Wen Ruohan had spent too many years conquering the small sects to the north and west; the perception of weakness was enough to spark war.
The fighting stays within Qishan. But it will continue for years.
Madam Jin has been working to increase her power, and is the driving force between a four-sect compact.
Jin Guangshan is terrified of her.
Yu Ziyuan gives birth to a little boy eight months after Wei Ying’s sister is born. Jiang Cheng takes the big brother business extremely seriously, and is rather put out that the new baby doesn’t do anything yet. A-Lian is starting to crawl when the new baby arrives, so Wei Ying spends a while most days chasing her and keeping her from falling into the river.
Lan Zhan is just as calm and ready to hold Jiang Shun as he was A-Lian when she was new.
There is something in Jiang Cheng that relaxes, when A-Shun is born. Knowing that all of the family's hopes need not be pinned on him makes it easier to calm down and that makes it easier to progress. Here is a tiny person who is worse at everything than he is. After being surrounded by much older boys and the weird geges who are terrifyingly competent, it is frankly refreshing to have a sibling who is surprised, often, by the fact that he has hands.
Sect Leader Nie brings his sons to Yunmeng Jiang the year Wei Ying turns seven, on the recommendation of Madam Jin.
Wei Ying wants to see if he can fix the problem with Nie cultivation. Nie Huaisang always fought against the pressure to cultivate with the saber. Nie Mingjue is a child of eleven and just starting his saber training.
Wei Ying asks Sect Leader Nie very politely to demonstrate the core techniques. The Sect Leader has heard rumors of the strange wunderkinds of Yunmeng Jiang and tolerates the request.
The Nie sect cultivation technique clearly uses resentful energy. Wei Ying had suspected, but the confirmation is frustrating. How has this gone unchecked?
“So, Young Master Wei,” Nie-zongzhu says, obviously amused at the deep scrutiny, “what do you think?”
Wei looks up at him and says, “It will kill you if you keep it up. But I might be able to help. With those swords you have buried, too.”
Nie-zongzhu remembers how his father died, and knows about the saber crypt. No one else should. Mingjue is far too young to have been told.
“How did you learn of our sect’s secret cultivation?” he starts to say, feeling a flash of anger rising from his core, and is shocked when the boy reaches out a hand and pulls and the anger fades.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says, hand still extended, cupped, and they open their mouths and sing together, and the anger vanishes as if it had never been.
“What did… how…”
“You cultivate with resentful energy,” Wei Ying says. “I spent several decades learning to work with it. Your method is damaging. You can build power, you can be staggeringly effective on a battlefield, but you will never be able to capitalize on the life-prolonging effects of a strong core. We can counteract some of it, but it will keep happening unless you change the method. I may also be able to create a passive device to cleanse your energy daily, but I’m still working on making that portable enough to be incorporated in something to be worn.”
“You expect me to put our clan’s cultivation in the hands of a seven-year-old child?” Nie-zongzhu says, sounding more amused than angry.
Lan Zhan says, simply, “Yes.”
“It’s not like I’m going to steal your method,” Wei Ying says. “You might not even have to change it much, if I succeed at the project I’m working on. But I would suggest that until I do, you allow Mingjue to cultivate in a different way. He can learn your family’s technique after his foundation is solid.”
“And what will A-Sang do in the meantime?”
Wei Ying smiles. “He will learn to love learning.”
A-Lian is two and Wei Ying remembers A-Yuan at two years old, and his meimei is both a tremendous joy and a constant reminder. He finally begs Madam Yu to help him set the memories a little farther back so that he can enjoy being a big brother. It gets easier then.
He realizes, that year, that something in his mind has woken up, that a kind of fog has lifted. It was impossible to be too introspective in a four-year-old brain; he could access his memories easily but neither he nor Lan Zhan spent too much time actually pondering their internal selves in the first two and a half years of their new life. Any time they started to try they usually ended up in tears. Now, however…
With his newly recovered ability to introspect comes the inescapable dread of getting it wrong.
Fortunately, news keeps coming in that proves that he has… that they have continued to change things.
A-Shen learns to walk, and to run, and Jiang Cheng forms his golden core earlier than most children will.
The autumn Wei Ying turns eight years old brings rumors that Wen Ruohan has been killed by Zhao Zhuliu. He asks Madam Yu about it, and she smiles, and tells him that she sent the Core Crusher a letter outlining what Wen Ruohan had done to him and where to look for proof. She still has everything Wei Ying wrote before he returned to his body, and she has been diligent about pulling the right strings at the right time.
Her instinct for maximum impact is terrifying.
There is no word about Wen Ruohan’s sons. There is a general, maybe, who is trying to reunite the Wen clan, but many of the sects that had been swallowed up before the Wen Sect Leader had turned to research into demonic cultivation have now been regurgitated into independent small sects. The fighting within Qishan is intense.
It will still not hurt as many people as Wen Ruohan and the Sunshot campaign did.
Madam Jin has been consolidating power in the Jin sect as well. Jin Guangshan is a shadow of his former self. Jin Zixuan tells Xichen that his father keeps getting injured by the ladies of the court, who have been studying the art of the dagger. He suspects that his mother rewards them for every mark.
When Wei Ying learns of this, he says, “She’s biding her time until either she knows that the sect will follow her as regent for her son, or he comes of age.”
“You think she’ll actually kill him?” Xichen asks.
They’re sitting on the dock, peeling lotus seeds for a snack while some of the other kids are picking pods.
“I think she’ll stop telling them not to,” Wei Ying says. “Remember this lesson, gege. Jiang Fengmian is kind to his wife, and praises her for her actions while celebrating her strength, and has the love of his family and the respect of his sect. Jin Guangshan sees women as disposable, and is neither loved nor respected. Qingheng-Jun considered only his own feelings, and trapped and hurt his wife, and now cannot even get the respect of his own brother.”
“They’re going to want me to marry and produce heirs,” Xichen says, sighing.
“If you can’t marry for love, marry someone you like,” Wei Ying says. “And be nice to them. If you really want to love a boy, you can always take the old way. Marry a girl and keep a lover and make sure they like each other.”
“Is that what you will do?” Xichen asks.
“I’m marrying Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says. “We will rescue orphans and raise rabbits and play music together. You can ask him. But we are not responsible for sect leadership. For which I praise my humble ancestors.”
“Isn’t it strange knowing what’s going to happen?” Xichen asks.
“The only thing I know for sure is that I’m going to marry him,” Wei Ying says, tossing the remains of his pod into the water. “Everything is so different now that it would be foolish for me to even guess what will happen. Last time I was this age, I was alone on the streets stealing food to survive.”
That winter, he and Lan Zhan figure out how to keep their mental connection active even when they’re not actually touching, a permanent version of the trick Lan Zhan first used on Wei Ying in the Xuanwu cave. Wei Ying expects that he will use it to tug at Lan Zhan whenever they’re apart, but discovers quickly that the tugs are just as often in the other direction.
He’ll be studying with the glassmaker and feel a faint twitch on their connection, and smile, sending a twitch back. They don’t talk constantly that way, but it’s a lot, and he doesn’t mind, and because the connection doesn’t allow prevarication, he knows, knows that Lan Zhan doesn’t mind either, even when he uses it to describe the thing he’s working on in depth.
They almost never talk about this journey they’re on. They had those conversations before they chose their re-entry points. They spent the first month of their new lives taking care of old business, handed a lot of it over, and now there are only a few long term projects calling, leaving plenty of time for childhood.
They are often side by side, usually in some physical contact, always in mental contact, and despite both of them having the intellectual memories of their past relationship, despite the knowledge that their marriage is inevitable, there is an unspoken but absolute agreement between them that their childhood is worth keeping.
Madam Yu brings it up once and only once during a session of core work, saying, “You will give your mothers the joy of planning your wedding, and you will respect propriety,” before doing something that makes their more intimate memories nearly inaccessible. It is one of many things that makes it easier for them to drop more completely into this childhood.
But they are easy with their hugs and often holding hands, and no one tries to separate them.
The people they remember as being tightly controlled and overly concerned with public perception are more relaxed this time around. Xichen develops an ability to move between Gusu Lan’s propriety and Yunmeng Jiang’s freedom. At Lotus Pier, his smiles are wider, and he laughs out loud. He flings his arms around his mother, and she loves him back.
Yu Ziyuan’s anger and spite have been redirected to enemies more deserving, and her husband’s obvious admiration and respect is a balm to the part of her that, in their last lives, never trusted that it might be possible for him to like her at all. He never gives Cangse Sanren more than a passing glance.
Jiang Cheng is possibly the most changed at Lotus Pier. His father has no guilt over Wei Wuxian’s years on the street, because they didn’t happen, and thus is better able to enjoy his own son. He is a big brother, and he is learning quickly.
Yanli’s softness no longer feels like a rebuke to her mother, who watches as her daughter spends more and more time at the Wei school and bends her knack for soothing little brothers into a true talent for healing.
It takes a long time for one valuable piece of information to make its way out of the chaos of Qishan Wen… that Sect Leader Yao had gone there before the end, to make a request of the man who was still then Chief Cultivator, and been caught in the coup that took down Wen Ruohan.
“He’s dead?” Wei Ying asks Jiang Fengmian, when the sect leader informs them at a shared meal on the docks the following spring.
“Apparently so.”
Wei Ying looks over at Yu Ziyuan. “Did you…”
“I know nothing,” she says, and flicks open a fan.
His jaw drops, and he meets Lan Zhan’s eyes. Lan Zhan’s expression is calm, but he raises one eyebrow.
Wei Ying listens for more rumors. They’d known from their past lives that Yao had moved with the winds of public opinion faster than a kite, and discovered from their research between lives that the man had often been the fan blowing those winds to his own ends. And they’d discovered that he’d been part of Wen Ruohan’s plans until he’d annoyed the Wen sect leader too much.
It is months later, when one of Wei Qing’s relatives limps into Lotus Pier, that they get the full story.
“Before you moved,” Wen Yong says to Wei Qing and her parents as they work on him, “Wen Ruohan made promises to Sect Leader Yao. He was working on something, and Yao gave him old correspondence in exchange for a promise of ongoing help.”
They are in one of the clinic rooms, and Wei Ying sits, cross-legged, on a table, listening. Wen Yong is a low-level cultivator but an adept political courtier in his forties who chose to stay in Qishan specifically in order to collect information for the branch family.
Wei Ying sighs. “Let me guess. Then Wen Ruohan used that information to fall into the trap of the Dancing Goddess? And promptly forgot his obligation?”
Wen Yong, soon to be Wei Yong, nods. “He had set many things in motion. He had to be reminded of them, but even then his actions were halfhearted. For example, he’d caused Zhao Zhuliu’s financial downfall already, and had sent his first sweetener to lure the man, when he abruptly forgot his plans. Somehow, Zhao Zhuliu found out…”
“But not before Sect Leader Yao came to air his grievances?” Wei Ying supplies.
“You’ve met the man, then?” Wen Yong asks.
Wei Ying nods, and says, “Mn,” with a completely impassive face, and Wei Qing nearly chokes trying not to laugh.
“So, regrettably, Sect Leader Yao was cut down in the chaos when Zhao Zhuliu attacked.”
“Regrettably. It is a terrible shame,” Wei Ying says. “Do we know who accidentally killed him?”
Wen Yong sighs. “I must report that my blade slipped. I am deeply embarrassed.”
“It happens to us all,” Wei Ying says, and no one in the room is the least bit surprised to hear that come out of the mouth of an eight-year-old. “Please inform Madam Yu of this. I’m sure she will have something to help ease your shame.”
Wei Yong gives the boy as deep a formal bow as he can while three cultivators work on him. “We are ever in your debt, Wei-zongzhu.”
Wei Ying blushes furiously. “Don’t do that. I’m an innocent child.”
This time Wei Qing snorts aloud.
Wei Yong raises his eyebrows. “Shifu, then. The information you provided to my family and the haven we have been given here has already saved at least a hundred of my kin. I have no reason to doubt that all of us will eventually owe our continued existence to your words and actions. If anything, my time in Nightless City has proven to me that my family is best well out of it. I saw the difference in Wen Ruohan before and after the Dancing Goddess. I saw what his people were doing in the minor sects north of Qishan. I could not have escaped but for the darkness cloak talisman Madam Yu said was your invention. And the shield belt. Zhao Zhuliu crushed the cores of everyone else who was in that room when he arrived.”
“It worked, then?” Wei Ying asks.
Wei Yong blinks. “You hadn’t tried it?”
“It was theoretical. Most of my theories are correct, but I couldn’t exactly go up to Wen Zhu… I mean Zhao Zhuliu and ask him to try to crush my core to see if it would be effective.”
“I think… I think that I am glad I did not know that ahead of time,” Wei Yong says, with a slight shudder. “But yes, it worked. He thought he’d done it, I fell down, I used the cloak of shadow, and then crept out.” He pauses for a moment. “I take it that you remember him being Wen Ruohan’s ally?”
“He was indirectly responsible for me losing my own core,” Wei Ying says. “And he did crush the cores of several people I care about. He may end up being a problem I have to deal with, but in the meantime, we now know the shield belt works, and that will drastically reduce his ability to cause harm.”
“Let the grownups handle him,” Wei Qing’s father says. “You are still a child.”
“If he becomes a problem in the next seven or so years, I promise I will let someone stronger than me deal with it,” Wei Ying says.
Wei Qing rolls her eyes. “As if there is anyone stronger than you.”
“Madam Yu,” Wei Ying says.
The nods around the room allow the point. While her cultivation level may not be quite as high as his, she remains one of the people he will always bend to, and she is the majority of his direct political connections, and her power is broader and more complex than his the moment you look away from a direct comparison of cores. He prefers her as an ally, and she has proven herself to be remarkably effective.
The day that Wei Ying would have arrived at Lotus Pier at age nine, he takes stock.
Weirdly, he is taller than Jiang Cheng. He remembers them being the same height. He remembers his shijie being taller than this. He has never missed a meal.
He does not run from dogs when he sees them. Though he remembers being afraid, the clutching terror is simply not there. He can’t quite remember why he used to be afraid, but he can guess.
He tells Madam Yu this, and she says that a friend’s dog has had puppies, and they look just like short-eared baby rabbits.
He thinks about it, and wants to see them, so that if he is truly over the fear, they might give one to Jiang Cheng together.
Lan Zhan goes with him, because Lan Zhan can remember his fear all too well.
Madam Yu lets Lan Zhan set the puppy on Wei Ying’s lap. It wiggles more than a rabbit, and licks his cheek when he picks it up, and then falls asleep and looks exactly like a rabbit when you can’t see its face.
Wei Ying’s face goes soft when he looks at the baby creature in his lap.
Lan Zhan remembers that once upon a time this man loved a fierce corpse like a brother, and lets go of his own worries about Wei Ying and dogs.
They take one home for Jiang Cheng. Three would be too much, but one is fine.
Jiang Cheng falls in love immediately.
So does Wei Ying's four-year-old sister, and little A-Shun.
Qishan Wen has calmed considerably by the time they are ten, under the leadership of someone they’re calling Taiyang Yunmie (太陽殒灭), Sun’s Doom. Wen Ruohan’s sons are still young teenagers, and no one has heard from them. The public rumors about Wen Ruohan’s death are many and varied. But the sect is smaller and has no power outside its borders by the time the next discussion conference is called at Qinghe Nie.
Jin Guangshan, in some last gasp of hunger for power, pushes to be the next chief cultivator. The other sect leaders dismiss this out of hand, and form a council.
Later the same evening, Jin Guangshan tries to feel up one of Nie Mingjue’s shijies at the banquet, and she slits his throat so deeply that there is no cultivation in the world that could stop his rapid bleedout.
The girl, covered with blood and still holding the dagger, bows down to Madam Jin, who was sitting with Madam Yu at another table and says, “Sect Leader Jin, I regret to inform you that I have killed your husband for his discourteous touch on my person.”
Madam Yu says to Jinzhu and Yinzhu, “Help her go get cleaned up, and then bring her back here.”
Madam Jin says to two of the Jin cultivators, “Please take the former sect leader’s body back to Lanling for preparation.” Then, she turns to Jiang Fengmian, Nie-zongzhu, and Lan Qiren and says, “I approve of the idea of a council. Shall I join you?”
Madam Yu looks at her husband and at Lan Qiren and says, “What an excellent idea.”
Jiang Fengmian gives an odd smile and says, “Of course, Sect Leader Jin.”
When the girl returns, Madam Jin says, “This sect leader greatly regrets the imposition upon your person caused by Guangshan.” And she offers the girl a purse, and the promise of a place in her court if these actions in any way impair her ability to stay within her own sect.
Sect Leader Nie assures the girl that she is not in trouble, and that she is welcome to stay. Nie Mingjue, just old enough to be there, can’t stop watching her.
There are a number of courtiers in the room who are left gape-mouthed at the entire spectacle, but the reaction of the sect leaders makes the point clear.
The children, who were not in the room for this, find out in the morning. Not one of them is surprised by any of this.
Wei Ying smiles a relieved, bitter smile, and feels an ambivalent twinge of regret for Mo Xuanyu, who he already knew would never be born, but whose fate is now permanently sealed.
Duan Ai observes most of the funeral customs for her husband, but does not wear a mourning sash or robe. Neither does her son, nor the rest of the sect. She makes one public proclamation that she is regent for her son until he is ready to take on sect leadership himself. No one dares to take her on.
Privately, Jin Zixuan questions whether he will ever be ready to take over from his mother, but he’s with Xichen and Wanyin on this: the idea of taking over any time soon does not appeal.
The next time they are in Gusu Lan, they tell Meng Yao how his father died, and why.
“I know how he treated my mother, and others,” Meng Yao says, “so I can’t find it in my heart to be sad that he’s gone. I hope that I can be a better person than he was.”
“You already are, A-Yao,” Xichen says. He is thirteen, and Meng Yao is twelve, and they have been friends for years.
“Are people kind to you here?” Wei Ying asks.
Meng Yao nods. “Always. A-Huan does not permit gossip, and my cultivation is very strong, so the ones who might test me do not dare.”
Wei Ying smiles, full and wide and real. “I’m glad.”
Meng Yao is very smart, and has figured out that the boys in front of him are largely responsible for his position. But this wide smile surprises him. “Will you ever tell me why it is that my mother and I were removed from the brothel, so many years ago?”
Lan Zhan and Wei Ying look at each other, and then it is Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian looking at each other with their weird, silent communication, and Wei Wuxian nods.
“In another lifetime, we didn’t know until much later what cruelty happened there. Many people hurt you. The avenues by which they hurt you then… have been closed, and they cannot. We wanted to see who you would be without the cruelty done to you.”
“Do you know what they are talking about?” Meng Yao asks Lan Xichen.
“That much,” Xichen says. “I have never had cause to doubt you, and never have.”
Meng Yao bows to the two boys and says, “This one will endeavor to be worthy of these gifts.”
Wei Ying returns the bow. “We only ask that you endeavor to use your talents for the good of all, and resist envy.”
Lan Zhan nods, next to him.
“I have no reason for envy,” Meng Yao says. “I am safe, my mother is healthy and respected, and I have friends who respect and care about me. I would only hope that you would allow me to count you among them.”
Wei Ying remembers secrets and whispers and blood and death, and then closes his eyes, and nods, letting it all go. “I would be honored.”
“As long as you work for the good, we will stand by you,” Lan Zhan says.
“Will you ever tell me what I was like?” Meng Yao asks.
Wei Ying and Lan Zhan look at each other, and Wei Ying says, “I know what I did in my other life. I wish I could forget my mistakes, but I cannot. Please trust that it is sometimes a gift, not to know.”
Lan Zhan says to Meng Yao, “The path before you has been cleared. It is best if you do not look back.”
“How long did you live?” Meng Yao asks.
“Long enough,” Wei Ying says. “But we have no future knowledge, at this point. It is all different.”
“You actually figured out how to travel in time?” Meng Yao muses.
Wei Ying laughs. “I figured out how to send our spiritual cognition back into our younger selves at the moment of our deaths. I will never explain how to do this to anyone else, nor will I be using the technique again.”
“Do you regret it?” Meng Yao asks.
“No,” Lan Zhan says almost before Meng Yao finishes speaking.
“No,” Wei Ying echoes. “But it’s too much power to entrust to anyone less noble than Lan Zhan.”
“But it was your design?” Xichen can’t help asking.
“I couldn’t have used it without his help,” Wei Ying says. “And it would have been so much harder if I’d gone back alone.” He shudders. “Lan Zhan, why did I want to go back alone?”
“Because you knew that it could only be done by dying, and you did not want me to die,” Lan Zhan says mildly.
“Right. The dying bit wasn’t fun. Having a second childhood, that’s been fun, though.”
Lan Zhan actually smiles at that. “Only with Wei Ying.”
Wei Ying sighs a strangely melancholy but contented sigh. “Only with Lan Zhan.”
“I see why Jiang Cheng whines about them,” Meng Yao says sotto voce to Lan Xichen, who laughs outright.
“This is why we usually don’t ask them about this stuff,” Xichen says. “They’ll answer.”
Xue Yang at five is an actual ball of sunshine, they discover. He has a mischievous streak that could fill the entire sect with chaos (and occasionally does), but there is not a single trace of resentful energy in him and he has been officially adopted by Lan Qiren, now wearing the name Lan Yang. His smile is wide but not sinister, and they find themselves actually growing fond of the boy.
Su She appears to be thriving. Xichen thinks that is because Lan Qiren plays no favorites, and because Su She has never developed an unhealthy obsession with Lan Zhan, who is there so infrequently and almost always with Wei Ying. Xichen knows what to look for, and so does Lan Qiren.
There is a new focus in lessons on the intent of the rules, the purposes behind them, the value of ethical behavior. Lan Qiren is humbled to discover that in teaching children why the rules exist, he has removed the need for physical punishment to enforce them. He finds it strange that the children seem to trust him more than he ever trusted his elders, but takes the lesson to heart.
Qingheng-Jun is softening, slowly, but has not resumed his duties as Sect Leader. He does, however, spend time with Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji. He has become accustomed to his younger son’s complete lack of deference, and to his older son’s air of patient tolerance. He does not speak of the boys’ mother.
Xichen is thriving. The council of great sects (which still deliberately leaves out the Wen sect, still much diminished) have determined that their sons’ friendships are to be encouraged, and the sect heirs begin moving as a group through each of the sects for their education. Jiang Cheng is included, and his pride at being with the older boys is intense.
With Xichen often traveling, Meng Yao and Nie Huaisang come frequently to Lotus Pier. What most people don’t know is that they are studying with Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian. Wei Ning often joins them, though his own studies are centered on the medical school. Lan Wangji has turned eleven already, and Wei Wuxian will soon. Meng Yao is almost thirteen and both Wei Ning and Nie Huaisang are ten, but they are all their own kinds of geniuses.
They spend part of each day on musical cultivation, and part of each day on talismans and arrays, and together they learn as much as they can about the creation of spiritual tools and artifacts and strengthening the golden core. Wei Ning works on applying healing to everything and everything to healing, except where archery is concerned.
Wei Ning is so different from Wei Ying’s memories. Gone is the shyness and struggle, and though the boy still stutters sometimes, it’s a stutter caused by his brain moving faster than his mouth, not fear or insecurity. He never stood in front of the raging Dancing Goddess, and he sparkles with joy. His fundamental self is still generous and loyal to a fault, but he bubbles with ideas in a way that Wei Ying never knew was possible.
When the heirs show up for a stint at Lotus Pier (at that dreary point of winter when Lotus Pier is warming up and green and the rest of the sects are still cold, damp, or cold and damp at the same time) the focus shifts to more martial efforts.
Meng Yao’s knack for talismanic work and musical cultivation makes him a useful sounding board for Wei Ying, and they start experimenting with bamboo windchimes to calm resentful energy.
With Nie Mingjue’s entrée into his sect’s cultivation method, it is becoming more urgent to find a way to heal the damage the method does. If they succeed, Nie Huaisang will never have to be sect leader. If they fail, Nie Huaisang will change the cultivation method of the sect.
Huaisang is very dedicated to the cause of fixing the damage, but has also designed a war fan that allows him to cultivate with a weapon he loves. He finishes it when he is twelve years old. His golden core grows rapidly.
When she sees him using it, Madam Yu commissions the boy to make one for her. Within a few months, he has a waiting list. His father is both shocked and pleased when he learns that his son is creating weapons and cultivating his core. He’s also traveling to many of the sects, both large and small, to teach many of the young women how to use it. They declare him very cute and it is perplexing to the adults how the smallest and most awkward of the generation is far and away the most popular with the girls.
Puberty hits with a burst of creativity and emotional lability that Wei Ying had completely forgotten about. His moods have always been less drastic than Jiang Cheng’s at the same age, but he didn’t know Lan Zhan then, and both of them are caught off guard by how rapidly Lan Zhan’s temper shifts. It is more frustrating because they know it’s irrational and it keeps happening anyway. The hormones don’t help, either. Just because their bodies are developing the capacity for arousal doesn’t mean they can look at each other as young as they are and not see how young they are. They look younger than Lan Sizhui did when Wei Ying rejoined Lan Zhan after his second death, and they love each other, but no.
They learn to sleep apart. They throw themselves into learning new types of cultivation, and into their inventions and compositions. Childhood is fading, and while they are still enjoying much of it, there’s more work to be done and time is becoming a factor again.
Lan Zhan spends a full year learning with the Wei doctors. He is fourteen, turning fifteen and he often sleeps at the clinic, though their mental connection is still strong.
Wei Ying spends that year putting together all he has learned of metals and glass and stone with all he knows of spiritual geometry, talismans and arrays. He spends part of the year working intensively with a master swordsmith. When he returns to his workshop, he is able to sculpt molten metal and glass together in the air without tools. Before he turns fifteen, he has created a complex sculpture which draws in low-level resentful energy through silvery metal, and then, as it rotates, passes the energy through a red, gold-doped glass, and then up through a more and more purified structure, into a crystal at the top. The base is a lotus design, red glass at the center, metal on the outer leaves, but the center rises in a shell-like spiral and then flares out at the top, where the crystal sits in a wire cage shaped like clouds.
It resonates to certain musical notes. It will rotate when certain notes are played. But it takes in resentment and pours out peace.
The adults are floored by it.
Wei Ying dismisses it as “too large for the Nie sect, but a nice proof of concept for later” and says that he will give it to the Lan clan as a gift when they go the next summer.
At Wei Ning’s suggestion, the smaller version involves components which can separate for wearing. The central mandala is the beast-head logo of the Nie clan, gold-red glass on the outside, metal on the inside, to be worn against the skin. At night, it is to be removed, and placed with the sword in a red jade stand. The stone is laced with metal threads, which join into the glass shell-and-crystal design. The crystal attaches to the mandala with the wearing chain, so that resentful energy can be pulled away, and the converted energy can be restored to the body.
It does not require music. The energy conversion is powered by the absorbed resentful energy.
Nie Huaisang cries when he sees it.
His father uses it for a month, and then sends a startling amount of money to Yunmeng Jiang for a number of copies, including one for his eldest son.
Nie Mingjue smiles more.
Wei Ying is satisfied with the design, but keeps working. He has something bigger in mind.
Lan Wangji is sixteen and Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng, Wei Ning and Nie Huaisang are fifteen when they go to spend a year at Gusu Lan. Jiang Yanli, Meng Yao, and Jin Zixuan are seventeen, Lan Xichen is eighteen, Wei Qing is nineteen, and Nie Mingjue and Mo Xiuying are twenty when they gather with disciples of all the major and many of the minor sects.
Nothing is the same as it was. Every one of them already knows many of the more important Lan rules when they arrive, because many of them have been here before, and they’ve been circulating through other sects’ ethics discussions. The purpose of this year is fundamentally different from the traditional program.
And Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian are not dressed in white as disciples. They are in blue robes with lotus shoulders, as teachers.
On the first day, the sects present their gifts. Jiang Cheng steps forward with Wei Ying behind him to present the Lotus Purifier, last of all. Lan Qiren looks at it for a long time before sending Xichen to the Cold Pond Cave with it.
“The rules are different,” Wei Ying says, their first evening after dinner. They are sitting with Jiang Cheng, Wei Ning, and Nie Huaisang in the guest disciple room three of them are sharing. “I knew they would be but I was not prepared for ‘Do not consume alcohol if you cannot control your actions,’ ‘Do not force another person,’ and ‘Do not damage children.’”
“You didn’t read the book,” Lan Zhan says.
“I read it, I just didn’t read all of it.”
“You wrote part of it,” Lan Zhan says, and leans his head on Wei Ying’s shoulder.
“Eh, no lovey dovey here,” Jiang Cheng snaps.
Lan Zhan makes a rude gesture and kicks him, and then wraps his arms around Wei Ying’s middle. In classrooms and walking outside, his expression is every bit the jade he used to be but never became in this life. In private, with people he’s comfortable with, he smiles and laughs and fights and plays.
Wei Ying thinks playful Lan Zhan is glorious. He laughs and says, “I think I love this version of time,” and leans against Lan Zhan.
“Ugh,” Jiang Cheng says. “You two are the worst.”
“Look, we’ve barely seen each other for a year,” Wei Ying says, just as Huaisang chimes in.
“They’re objectively the best.”
Wei Ning adds, “They’re so good no one can even measure them on the same scale.”
“Because they cheated,” Jiang Cheng retorts.
“That is correct,” Lan Zhan says, shifting so he can stick his nose against Wei Ying’s neck. “And I would do it again.”
Wei Ying closes his eyes and sighs. “I have no regrets.”
Huaisang pulls out a qiankun bag and says, “I’ve got new stuff.”
“Are you going to flip out this time?” Wei Ying asks Lan Zhan.
Lan Zhan snorts. “I’ve done worse.”
“I’ve been not-remembering that,” Wei Ying says.
“It helps me cope,” Lan Zhan says.
Hesitantly, Huaisang hands over a booklet. Wei Ying flips through it and blushes. Lan Zhan looks, shrugs, and says, “That is not practical. That one, on the other hand, I will have to remember.”
Wei Ying’s face is scarlet. He shoves the booklet back at Huaisang. “No more, I can’t take it.”
Wei Ning glances, flushes, and looks away.
Jiang Cheng looks, and grimaces. “Why. Why do people do this.”
“It feels good,” Lan Zhan says. “It helps cultivation. But mostly, it feels good.”
“You’re going to have to deal with it at some point, Wanyin,” Nie Huaisang says. “The main point for people who aren’t those two is babies.”
“I get babies from radish patches,” Wei Ying says. “Very efficient.”
Wei Ning gives a startled laugh.
“How do you even function?” Jiang Cheng asks.
“He functions very well,” Lan Zhan says. “I can confirm radish babies are the best.”
“I’m not… I don’t think I want to know,” Nie Huaisang says. “Also I am very confused.”
“Does it feel odd to be getting ready to teach?” Jiang Cheng asks.
“We’ve both done it before,” Wei Ying says.
“Wei Ying is a good teacher,” Lan Zhan says. “The juniors adored him.”
“They worshipped Hanguang-Jun,” Wei Ying says, idly playing with Lan Zhan’s hair ribbon, which Lan Zhan is wearing only because his brother asked him to.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to touch those,” Nie Huaisang says.
Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes. “They’re practically married already. Xian-erge has been wearing one on his wrist as long as I’ve known him.”
Wei Ying holds up his arm and pulls his sleeve back just enough to show a grubby ribbon with a metal cloud wrapped around his wrist. Lan Zhan reaches out and touches it, and it is bright white again.
“Wear it where people can see it,” Lan Zhan says against Wei Ying’s ear.
Wei Ying shivers. “But then I’ll have to take it off with my clothes.”
“Oh, look, is it curfew?” Jiang Cheng says, too loud.
“There is nearly another hour,” Lan Zhan says.
“In two hours, it will be the first time we met,” Wei Ying murmurs.
“Was it love at first sight?” Nie Huaisang asks.
“Yes,” Lan Zhan says as Wei Ying says, “He actually drew his sword and fought me.”
Then he sighs. “But, yes. Once I got over the loss of my Emperor’s Smile.”
“You never got over that,” Lan Zhan says. “You still aren’t over that.”
“I did. When you served it to me, later. All debts were forgiven.”
“You fell in love and then drew your sword?” Huaisang asks. “Is that a metaphor?”
“Falling in love made me very angry,” Lan Zhan says. “He was impertinent. I could not determine why I would fall in love with someone so shameless.”
“Isn’t that, like, his fundamental nature?” Jiang Cheng asks. “Has he ever not been impertinent?”
“Mn,” Lan Zhan agrees, and then more considering, “Actually, when he is fighting for what he believes in, he is not impertinent.”
“Really?”
“No, that’s when I get downright blasphemous,” Wei Ying says. “It’s not pretty.”
“It is beautiful,” Lan Zhan says.
“I’m going to throw up,” Jiang Cheng says to Nie Huaisang. “Help.”
Huaisang sighs. “It’s romantic. Would that we were all so lucky, to marry for love.”
“They’re not married, yet,” Jiang Cheng mutters.
“No, we are not,” Lan Zhan says, unwrapping himself from Wei Ying.
Wei Ying pouts, but then sighs. “You still look so young,” he says, reaching out to pinch Lan Zhan’s cheek. “But closer.”
“I forget, how old were you when you married last time?” Huaisang asks.
“I was in my thirties,” Lan Zhan says. “I don’t know how to quantify Wei Ying’s age at that point. We will not wait that long.”
“My body was… eh… twenty-five? Ish? My mind was younger, but more scarred. But you stopped changing pretty young.” Wei Ying studies Lan Zhan’s face. “You’re not far from it. It wouldn’t be weird to kiss you.”
“Oh, look, curfew’s coming up,” Jiang Cheng says again. “Best go back to your room, Lan Zhan.”
“I’ll walk you,” Wei Ying says.
“Is that wise?” Jiang Cheng asks.
“I’m not going to strip him naked between here and there, and he’s staying with his brother, who would object if I did it there.”
“I’m not worried about you,” Jiang Cheng says to Wei Ying, and then narrows his eyes at Lan Zhan, who actually smirks in response.
Wei Ying jumps to his feet. “Come on, Lan Zhan.”
“Better be back by curfew or I’m going to come find you,” Jiang Cheng says.
“Yes, Father,” Wei Ying shoots back, and then drags Lan Zhan out the door. It doesn’t take much to pull him.
The moon is larger, but that’s just because it’s earlier, and Wei Ying drags Lan Zhan to the rooftop to look at it.
Lan Zhan does not look at the moon.
“You don’t look the same,” he says.
“No?” Wei Ying asks.
“You are taller, and stronger. And you know you are loved, and it shows.”
Wei Ying turns to look at Lan Zhan, eyes wide, lips parted. “I have been loved longer than I’ve been in this body.”
Lan Zhan kisses him then, on the rooftop, in the moonlight. It should feel more familiar than it does, but it is tender, and gentle, a savoring certainty, and Wei Ying only kissed once in this body and it was a completely different thing.
A few minutes later, two doors open at the same time, and Lan Zhan sighs. “Tomorrow, Wei Ying.”
“Tomorrow,” Wei Ying echoes. “That was my first real kiss with you in this lifetime.”
Lan Zhan stands, says, “Mn,” and then glides down to meet his brother, who is waiting with a patient, amused expression.
Wei Ying stands slowly, and then descends to go back to his room.
The council had decided, when this year was planned, to do as much cross-pollinating of sect doctrine as possible, so the Lan musical cultivation session is the first thing after the morning meditation.
Lan Wangji demonstrates the guqin’s flexibility and power, and then Wei Wuxian demonstrates the dizi’s nuance and makes one on the spot. Then they play together, and explain that the power can be magnified by two skilled players working together. Lan Xichen demonstrates the xiao and Wei Qing the zun, which she likes because it is compact and easy. After Wei Ning demonstrates a xiqin, because he likes bows even if they don’t have arrows, Wei Wuxian whistles up an illusion of butterflies, to make the point that not all of their instruments are inherently spiritual objects, that intent and skill are more important. The students are tasked to make an instrument if they do not already have one.
In the early afternoon, Wei Wuxian teaches skills that do not require spiritual power. There is some initial resistance to this, until Wei Wuxian locks down his core and then flies to a rooftop, sets a ward, lights a candle, and explains some of the things that would require a field trip to demonstrate. He also explains all of the things that can cause a cultivator to lose spiritual power, and the students are very quiet going into Lan Qiren’s session on ethics, which ends up being more of a panel than anything, because while Wei Ying and Lan Zhan are not students, they are there at Lan Qiren’s request. Lan Xichen has been taught the rules by Lan Qiren, and has been present for many discussions about the purposes of them, but the lively discussion that flies between Wei Wuxian and Lan Qiren, punctuated by Lan Wangji’s concise points, is like nothing he’s ever seen in the Lan Sect.
The examples are upsetting. “If a sect tries to take over all other sects, and in the process slays innocents, is it just to slay the innocents of that sect in retaliation?”
“If a cultivator uses crooked methods to do righteous things, should there be a penalty?”
“If a sect has rules, do those rules apply everywhere, or only within the sect?”
It is because Xichen has known Wuxian for a decade that he realizes quickly that these are drawn from a life that was, but will never be.
Wuxian seems to start getting upset at one of the topics, but Wangji puts a hand on his arm and then makes the argument in clear, concise terms. “The consequence of resentful energy is damage to the cultivator. One must always determine whether self-harm is justified, whether that means resentful energy or the letting of blood. The duty of other cultivators to make judgment is only relevant if the resentful energy is used for malicious purposes. If existing resentful energy is used to liberate, suppress, or eliminate, their only concern is healing the damage to the cultivator.”
It is Lan Qiren who labels a fourth path. He calls it “Adapt.”
Wei Wuxian is not entirely happy with that, as it does not flow naturally from the other three, but it opens a door for discussion of complex situations.
Lan Qiren has never had a more attentive audience.
The next day, there are adults lining the back of the room, including Qingheng-Jun. In the course of the discussion, Lan Zhan slaps a silencing spell on three of them. The teenagers are actually better behaved, especially when they realize that the adults cannot break it.
The teens are not silenced when they have questions. Questions are not inappropriate. The adults were interrupting.
There are days when Wei Ying just can’t do the ethics discussions, but Lan Zhan was there, and has had these words brewing inside him for decades. And where he doesn’t already, he thinks about what Wei Ying would say, and says those things.
There is no waterborne abyss in Biling Lake.
Lan Zhan and Wei Ying spend days searching upstream. The Wen civil war has caused a lot of deaths, but not by Wen Ruohan drowning a whole village simply to see if he could create a waterborne abyss to control. This time, it simply doesn’t exist. The Stygian Iron has been quiescent, and remains so.
They teach their students how to detect and see resentful energy. It is a learned skill. Some of them figure it out. Some of them learn to use talismans, flags, and compasses to work around any deficit.
They are almost always together during the day, but rarely alone. It isn’t an accident. This is the age they were when they first fell into each other’s lives, and the potentiality of their lives is simmering.
They hear threads of gossip, usually relayed (and possibly started) by Nie Huaisang or Meng Yao. That they are immortals on their last incarnation (possible); that they reincarnated without losing the memories of their past life (sort of); and that they are soulmates (obviously). That all this is why they are not ranked with the other young masters of their generation, why they do not compete, why they teach, rather than study. Those who know don’t argue, those who don’t are allowed to speculate.
They don’t stop speaking mind to mind, but it decreases, because the want they both feel is bubbling to the surface and they promised.
It’s hard to remember, some days, why they promised.
Wei Wuxian finds it easier this time to be at the Cloud Recesses. Lan Wangji makes it easier with food he likes and a lack of resistance. Lan Qiren doesn’t just tolerate him, he genuinely seems to like and respect him. Teaching is a joy with eager, capable students, and even seniors come and sit in on his classes. His body may be that of a restless teenager, but his mind calms easily. He doesn’t even bother drinking, because the things he used to numb away aren’t there this time around. He lived nearly twenty years in his first lives, and another couple decades-ish in his second body, and it’s been eleven years since they came back to this life. Perspective helps.
The students (and adults) are learning how to help in ways that will be very helpful. He will not be undergoing the next trials alone.
Lan Wangji finds that sixty-one years of existence make it a lot easier to understand people, and knowing love, grief, and redemption makes it much easier to relate to people he never could comprehend when he was sixteen and finding sanctuary in rules.
And when they return home, home to Lotus Pier, it is lotus-picking season, and A-Lian and A-Shun are just about to be teenagers, along with so many people who were lost before.
The defenses are better at Lotus Pier, even though there’s no hint of the fractured Wen territories doing anything but licking their wounds. Communication between the main sects can be as fast as a whisper through a doorway, and there are more doorways now, four for every major sect.
Wei Ying dives heartily into work that takes up most of his days, for months, as he prepares for the final stages of three projects. Wei Ning and Nie Huaisang are right there with him and Lan Zhan, helping and learning, and his baby sister is learning, too. (A-Shun follows Jiang Cheng around like a worshipful puppy; Wei Ying takes some time every day for sparring and blade cultivation but is otherwise in his workshop, which is boring. Jiang Cheng is smug as hell about being the favorite gege.)
Cangse Sanren and Tang Lijuan take the opportunity presented by everyone being home to go night hunting.
Wei Ying fusses over his mother the first time, packing and repacking a qiankun bag with talismans, extra food, and a specially designed transportation amulet that is strong enough to send two people back to Lotus Pier even if their spiritual energy is exhausted.
“You have to swear not to go near the Burial Mounds,” he tells her. “I’ll be taking care of those soon, and my way is safer.”
She actually pats his cheek. Him, the Yiling Laozu! (Except he isn’t, this time around, not yet. He and Lan Zhan have not been given titles yet, probably because no one has presumed.) And then she tells him that they’re going in the opposite direction.
Lan Zhan, who shed his Lan finery for simpler grey robes the moment he got back to Lotus Pier, just smiles at his mother, gives her signal flares, and says, “Come visit, someday?”
She rolls her eyes and says, “I live here, silly. We’re just going to see a little bit of the world. Take care of your sister.”
And A-Lian is his sister, in that she grew up with A-Niang (Cangse Sanren) and Mama (Tang Lijuan,) and has called him Da-gege since she was old enough to talk.
(She’s twelve. This is an age he knows how to handle.)
Lan Zhan divides his time between teaching, musical cultivation, helping Wei Ying, and just being present with the children. He’s discovered he likes it.
Wei Ying is working on understanding crystals. He and Nie Huaisang spend hours staring at different gemstones and minerals, and then Huaisang-xiong draws what they’re seeing, and then Wei Ying draws what he wants to create, and even Wei Ning has lost track of the finer points of it and goes off to work on creating new bowed musical instruments with Lan Zhan.
What they’re trying to build needs to collect and disperse energy. And it needs to be strong.
Nie Huaisang’s mind is just convoluted enough to get them to the final answer, and they spend several months growing crystals from scratch through sheer force of will, from smaller, rougher stones. Then they layer them, with complex crystal structures pressed and heated with their minds, interlacing.
Lan Qiren comes sometimes, just to watch.
When they’re home, Wei Ying’s mothers (A-Lian has worn him down on this; he started calling Tang Lijuan “mama” years ago, echoing her) join them, mostly watching, sometimes trying the techniques.
He knows that while this project is necessary, it’s also a huge distraction from what happened last time around. It’s not happening, it’s really not. It can’t, they fixed it, but it’s still… the older he gets, the more room he has for the memories, and sometimes he just has to curl up with Lan Zhan and cry.
They return to Cloud Recesses for several months in the spring, at Lan Qiren’s request, to teach, and to prepare. Some of the techniques they will need are best refined with the masters there.
When the summer comes, Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian, Cangse Sanren, Yu Ziyuan, Lan Qiren, Lan Xichen, Jin Zixuan, Wei Qing, Nie Mingjue, and Jiang Cheng spend a week together to train for the trip to Muxi Mountain.
They go prepared, full rested, fully fed, with spiritual energy intact and swords in hand. There is a group of doctors and weaker cultivators at the entrance of the cave, and they all bear ropes, gloves, and torches.
There is no outside resistance. The Wen territory around the mountain seems empty.
They cloak themselves in shadow and fly down on their swords, spiritual tools at the ready.
The Xuanwu is asleep when they get there, and stays asleep while Lan Zhan’s masterwork, the thing he’s been refining for the past three years, is put into place.
The string array is an intricate, large honeycomb of spiritually active, razor-sharp wire. Nine of the strongest cultivators in the land each take a handle and fly to separate parts of the cave, stretching the net just over the crest of the shell. When they get to the cave walls, they use their power to anchor the web to the wall, deep into the rock. They let go, activate the net, and then activate shielding talismans that Wei Wuxian has spent a decade designing and refining.
Nie Mingjue lands on the shore closest to the shell, and the others stretch in an arc behind him.
No one speaks: they have talked this out dozens of times.
As Wei Wuxian begins to play his flute, Zidian crackles, Baxia glows, and each of the others readies their weapons, many of them purpose-built for this.
Jiang Cheng has his own weapon, gauntlets that crackle with a familiar purple energy, hissing out in punching knots. Jin Zixuan and Cangse Sanren both carry bows. Hers shoots flaming arrows. His arrows are tipped with sticky pitch. Xichen and Lan Qiren stand ready with their instruments, ready to direct power as needed.
Wei Qing has a peculiar crossbow which fires needles. Many needles.
Nothing happens at first, but those who can see resentful energy notice after a few minutes that there are tendrils of power curling around the shell.
Wei Wuxian smiles, and pushes, rising up into the air over the net, over the shell, as high as the ceiling will allow .
An enraged head rushes out of the shell, and toward the sound of the flute. Wei Wuxian pulls one hand away from the flute just long enough to slap a talisman on the roof of the cave, and then darts away, still playing.
The sound stays with the talisman until the monster sprays the talisman, snapping at it.
When the sound shifts to the shore, they are ready.
They push more power through the net, which prevents the beast from reaching them, tangled in the web of wire. Jiang Wanyin, his mother, and Lan Wangji lash out with knots, whip, and string, restricting the head as Wei Qing’s needles spike along the creature's neck.
Jin Zixuan targets the beast’s eyes and mouth with arrows that cling, and Cangse Sanren sends her own arrows after to light the sticky pitch.
The wire net creates a weakness that Nie Mingjue uses, slicing Baxia through to decapitate the Xuanwu as soon as it is immobilized and on fire.
Wei Wuxian continues to play as the rest put their devices down. The music is uncanny, upsetting, but they’ve discussed this, and Lan Qiren is already laying out the last qiankun box when something inside the shell comes shooting out.
Wei Wuxian puts his flute back into his belt, and reaches for the sword, his whole body shaking and his face twisted with struggle, when Lan Zhan steps in front of him and says, “Box, Wei Ying.” He puts out a hand, cups Wei Ying’s chin, and says, “You don’t have to pick it up.”
Wei Ying’s eyes clear, and the sword drops neatly onto the box, which folds around it and seals with a snap.
Wei Ying collapses into Lan Zhan’s arms. Wei Qing is there in an instant, tending him.
“You two did that alone last time?” Zixuan asks.
“They were both badly injured at the time,” Yu Ziyuan tells him. “They hadn’t eaten for three days, A-Zhan had a broken leg, A-Xian had been branded, and it took them six hours to defeat the thing with that sword we just saw and a bunch of arrow strings. I told them that under no circumstances would they tackle this alone.”
“Who gets credit for the kill?” Jiang Cheng asks.
“All,” Nie Mingjue says. “Today the sects united to defeat a legendary beast.”
“Can Wei Ying be moved?” Yu Ziyuan asks Wei Qing.
“I’d like to see him wake, first.” Wei Qing says. “You don’t all have to stay, though.”
“This is the first time he’s done this since you returned,” Ziyuan says to Wangji. “He is so strong, what hurt him?”
Lan Wangji closes his eyes, and opens the connection between him and Wei Wuxian wider than it has been since they started puberty.
Then he reaches up, takes Yu Ziyuan’s hand, and pulls it to Wei Ying’s head.
Her eyes close for a moment, and then snap open. “Qiren, give the box to Xichen and have him take it to the Cold Pond Cave. Jiang Cheng, fly to Lotus Pier and bring back his newest purifier.”
“Would my sword purifier help?” Nie Mingjue asks, holding out the pendant.
“You need that,” she says without looking. “Put it back on. Qiren will play for him.”
“Wangji can also play,” Lan Zhan says.
“Hold him,” she says. “That is all.” Then she looks at the flute at Wei Ying’s waist. “Is that new?”
Lan Zhan looks, and jerks. It is not Chenqing, but he thinks he understands now how Chenqing was made. The carefully crafted bamboo dizi is stained darker than it was when they started, and he reaches down and tugs it out of the belt, throwing it away from them at the same time. His fingers sting with it.
“Xichen, put that in a qiankun bag and store it with the sword,” she says. “Don’t open the box, they need some separation.”
“There is another box at the sect,” Lan Qiren says to Lan Xichen. “Use a bag for now, and put it in the box when you get to the Cold Pond Cave. They are there. Don’t touch it.”
Yu Ziyuan mutters, “You stupid boy, we were trying to avoid this.”
“Don’t…” Lan Zhan starts, and then says, “The sword was powerful enough for him to make it into an amulet that could control thousands of corpses at a time. You can’t underestimate how strong it is. He didn’t touch it this time. Last time he couldn’t be separated from it for days.”
Wei Qing says, “Everyone who isn’t actively helping with Wei Ying needs to go up and send the doctors down. The rest of you can go back.”
Xichen is already gone. Nie Mingjue says, “I can carry him up, if it would be easier to treat him up there. I don’t like anyone staying down here with that thing rotting.”
Wei Qing looks at Lan Zhan. “Would you be able to tell if he was injured?”
He nods. “The hurt is dark energy, not physical. Not his back or head. I did not allow him to fall.”
Wei Qing looks around the dreary cave, and sighs. “Fine. Carry him up carefully.”
Lan Zhan stands, lifting Wei Ying, and steps towards the entrance.
“You don’t have to do this alone, you idiot,” Nie Mingjue says. “Let me help.”
“He is no burden,” Lan Zhan says, and steps onto his sword, which rises easily. “Please get Suibian.”
“I already have it,” Yu Ziyuan says.
Lan Zhan has already risen to the cave entrance when Nie Mingjue leans over to say to her, “You need to get those two married off already.”
She just laughs.
A camp is set up next to the river, and several cultivators, Wei Jinjing, Yu Ziyuan, Cangse Sanren, and Lan Zhan stay with Wei Ying, waiting for Jiang Cheng. Wei Ying is stable enough, physically, just stuck with the voices in his head. Yu Ziyuan makes the decision to allow them all sleep, because she knows what needs to be done, but does not have the stamina to do it without a meal and some rest. The doctor knocks Lan Zhan and Wei Ying out with needles for the night, because Lan Zhan won’t sleep and unconsciousness is better than what is going through Wei Ying’s brain.
Jiang Cheng arrives at dawn with the purifier. His mother takes it from him and immediately rests it next to Wei Ying, putting his hand on the metal.
His breathing eases within moments.
She tells Jiang Cheng to rest, and goes back to sleep for another two hours.
When she wakes, she has the doctor pull the needles.
Lan Zhan prickles at her about it, but calms when he sees that Wei Ying is relaxed and just asleep.
She says quietly, “Now I will work on him. Play Clarity, please, while I do.”
He lets go of Wei Ying reluctantly, and pulls out his guqin as she works.
It is mostly a matter of mending the walls that were already there. She stops when she feels his hand on her arm, and sees him looking at her.
“Thank you, shimu,” he says. “I feel better now.” He looks at the purifier. “It worked.”
She nods. “It worked well. It’s still working. You should stay for a few days, and come back when it stops putting out so much energy. The rest of us are headed back to Lotus Pier.”
“You’re going to leave them alone?” Jiang Cheng asks.
“No, I’m going to leave you with them.”
He thinks she’s kidding, but then whines when he realizes she means it. “They’re going to be all lovey-dovey and I can’t take it.”
“Which makes you a perfect chaperone,” she says.
“They won’t listen to me!” he says desperately.
“I made a promise,” Lan Zhan says, laying against Wei Ying’s side. “I’m keeping it.”
“They’re shameless,” Jiang Cheng complains. “I mean, look.”
“If it bothers you, don’t look,” Wei Ying says. “I was injured. I’m cold. He’s keeping me warm.”
“Be nice, A-Ying,” she warns. “I’m leaving Doctor Wei and your mother as well.”
“Actually,” Cangse Sanren says, “I need to get back to A-Lian now that I know he’s going to be all right. She’s been worried.”
“I’ll stay,” Wei Jinjing says. “As long as Wei-qianbei is lying that still, I would like to remain to keep an eye on him. It’s no trouble.”
Before she goes, Yu Ziyuan says to Lan Zhan, “Come to Lotus Pier as soon as he is ready to move. Promise me.”
Lan Zhan cocks his head at her, and then nods. “We'll fly and use the door at Cloud Recesses.”
“Good boy,” she says with a satisfied smile. “Don’t keep your shimu waiting too long.”
They both drowse through that day, eating food from a bag that Jiang Yanli sent with her brother. That night, Jiang Cheng catches a filthy, shoeless, ragged man trying to sneak into the tent, waking both of them.
“Please, just wanted food,” the man gasps. “So hungry.”
Lan Zhan snaps awake and has his sword at Wen Chao’s neck a moment later. Wei Ying struggles up to one elbow and says, “A-Zhan, wait.”
“Where’s Zhuliu?” Lan Zhan snaps.
Wen Chao looks around wildly, “I don’t know, I’m running from him, he…”
Jiang Cheng says, “He has no core.”
Lan Zhan lowers the sword point.
“He killed my father and my brother,” Wen Chao says. “He crushed my core, and let me go, but I don’t know if he’s going to change his mind. I’ve been running for so long. Please don’t kill me.”
“He’s not the same as the one who hurt us,” Wei Ying says, softly. Wei Ying closes his eyes and extends his senses. “There’s no trace of resentful spiritual energy on him, just fear.”
“The capacity…” Lan Zhan starts.
“We don’t judge people based on what they’ve done in other lifetimes,” Wei Ying says. Then he smiles with no warmth at all. “I have an idea.”
They give Wen Chao food, and write a note, and send him to Mo Village with a new name. Mo Ping will be an underling, and they will be checking to ensure that Madam Mo is treating him appropriately.
Wei Ying is uncertain who they’re punishing here, but he’s pretty sure it’s going to be a punishment for someone. He’s okay with that.
Lan Zhan is vibrating with remembered anger for an hour after Wen Chao leaves, until Wei Ying puts his hand on the purifier and makes him sit down and meditate.
They sleep with the sculpture between them, mostly to stop Jiang Cheng from grousing at them.
In the morning, Jiang Cheng pushes them to pack up camp and leave as soon as the doctor declares that Wei Ying appears fit to travel.
“What’s the rush?” Wei Ying asks, although he had actually woken up with Lan Zhan at five am for the first time in ages.
Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes. “You heard my mother. You can travel, so we need to go back to Lotus Pier.”
They look at each other, and shrug. They go.
Wei Ying flies strongly, and Lan Zhan engages him in a game of aerial tag that actually gets them back sooner than normal flying speed. They tumble each other off the swords at the gates to Cloud Recesses, walk into the compound, and discover a line of people walking through the door to Lotus Pier, blindfolded but merry.
On the other side of the door, Jiang Cheng and Jiang Fengmian grab Wei Ying while Lan Xichen and Tang Lijuan grab Lan Zhan, and drag them off in opposite directions.
“Wait, what?” Wei Ying starts. “But I want Lan Zhan!”
“We know,” Jiang Cheng says, pushing him through the door into one of the guest bedrooms. Jiang Yanli, Cangse Sanren, and Wei Lian are there, fussing over a long red robe.
“Is Shijie getting married to Zixuan?” Wei Ying says stupidly, even though he knows the robes are not cut for Yanli.
“We’re tired of your pining,” Cangse Sanren says. “As your mother, I officially give you permission to marry.”
He blinks.
“As your sect leader,” Jiang Fengmian says, “I give you permission to marry Lan Wangji. As one who considers you family, I am begging you to put us out of your misery.”
“Have I been miserable?” Wei Ying asks.
“Don’t argue, A-Xian,” Jiang Yanli says, her voice teasing. “Just agree.”
“I mean, of course I agree,” Wei Ying says. “I just thought it would be more complicated.”
“Do you like your robes?” Yu Ziyuan asks.
“Your taste is impeccable, of course I do, Shimu,” Wei Ying says.
“Do you like my cooking?” Jiang Yanli asks.
He rolls his eyes. “Shijie’s cooking is the best anywhere ever.”
Jiang Fengmian asks, “Are you willing to marry in our sect and bow at our altar and feast with our allies in our hall?”
Wei Ying nods, and his eyes are welling up.
“Then go bathe, and put on the underrobe, and we’ll do your hair,” Cangse Sanren says. “We’ve been planning this for months. You were busy.”
He closes his eyes and reaches for Lan Zhan. Did they tell you? Are you ready?
The answer is instant. Yes. Yes. A thousand times, yes.
It is a blur, as such things often are, but a happy blur.
One of the training fields has been turned into a huge temporary pavilion, because no place in Lotus Pier was large enough to host all the people who are there.
There are representatives from the four major sects, several minor sects, the entire Wei clan, all the cultivators from Cloud Recesses and Lotus Pier, and half of Lanling Jin and Qinghe Nie. It is larger than a discussion conference, and happier, too.
The number of children is staggering. A-Lian has had a growth spurt, and is twelve. A-Shun is eleven and there are other shidis and shimeis everywhere . Lan Yang is there, smiling brightly, and he is thirteen.
Jin Zixuan says to Wei Ying, “Please don’t make us have this many people when I marry your sister. I love her but it’s a bit much.”
Wei Ying grins at him. “I wouldn’t have invited this many people for me. Do what makes her happy.”
“Mother just invited everyone whose lives you’ve improved,” Jiang Yanli says, moving a single hair back into position.
That’s when Wei Ying’s tears start, and by the time he sees Lan Zhan, looking equally dazed, he’s crying for real.
It isn’t an entirely traditional wedding, but it works. They bow together and vow together and someone has given a lot of thought to the structure of the event, because it is familiar enough to feel real, but casts neither of them as bride, and it keeps them on equal footing.
They feed each other at the feast, and it wouldn’t matter if they weren’t tied at the wrist, they’d still be as close.
A raucous parade leads them to a house they haven’t seen before, built next to the workshop, which is just for them, built while they were in Cloud Recesses. There is teasing laughter as the door is opened, they are pushed in, and it is closed behind them.
The clattering crowd’s noise fades quickly.
Wei Ying reaches up to touch Lan Zhan’s cheek. “Can you believe?”
“Mn,” Lan Zhan says.
“You’re so pretty, Lan Zhan, I want to paint a picture of how you look right now.” Wei Ying can’t stop looking.
“Remember,” Lan Zhan says. “Paint later.”
“You’ve never had me in this body,” Wei Ying says. “Not ever.”
“Nor has this body had me,” Lan Zhan says, and the look in his eyes is wicked.
Wei Ying shivers. “There are so many layers.”
Lan Zhan calls up a trickle of power, and every tie unties at once.
Wei Ying grins. “I knew I married you for a reason. So wise, Lan Zhan.”
Lan Zhan is right there, nose to nose with him, and Wei Ying watches and waits as Lan Zhan’s hands come up near his face, and then carefully pull out each pin, each thread from his hair.
Wei Ying reaches out and does the same, lifting out the ornaments, letting all of them collect in the air, and then carefully setting them on a nearby table.
Their little house is draped in red silk.
It is draped in more red silk when they start pulling off layer after layer.
When they are finally nude, they stand, wrapped in each other’s arms, fingers tracing the places the scars aren't, and Wei Ying realizes that he is sobbing, and that Lan Zhan is shaking, too. The house is warm, it’s just a lot. They got it right. All the places that it had gone wrong, and this time, they have the tools and people they need and they got it right.
They have been together for so long, so in tune, that it is neither of them who moves first. They move in unison, a smooth falling rush to the bed, where they tangle in each other in a first, hurried grind to completion, and then the discovery that their bodies, their strong, young, unbroken bodies, with their vibrant cores, don’t really need to wait to try again.
It’s better with a golden core.
Wei Ying remembers complaining about soreness, before, but they’re better at this, and his body is better at this, and everything about this is better than his first time in his second body.
His control over his own body is greater, and he knows when to yield and when to wait.
Lan Zhan’s hands are everywhere, reassuring himself that Wei Ying is here, whole, perfect.
This is how it was supposed to be whispers in their minds between them.
He takes Lan Zhan for their third round, and the exhilaration that he has always felt when they sparred is right there in their equal strength, the give and take of it.
It is good to know that Lan Zhan will always catch him, but it’s even better to know that he can return the favor.
The little house is filled with food and drink that they snack on at odd times between bouts and neither of them is sure how much time has passed (at least a day? Probably less than three?) when there is a knock on their door.
Wei Ying has just wrapped enough robes around himself to be decent when Lan Zhan opens the door.
Wei Qing is there.
“I didn’t want to interrupt,” she says, “But I knew you’d want to know.”
Wei Ying blinks at her, nerves suddenly running raw. “What?”
“My cousin’s wife just gave birth,” she says. “A little boy. They named him Wei Yuan. They asked if you would like to give him a courtesy name.”
Wei Ying’s knees give out, and he sags to the floor. Lan Zhan sags with him.
“Did they know, before?” Lan Zhan asks, looking up at her. “About our A-Yuan?”
She shakes her head. “I knew you didn’t want… I think the timing is right, though. They couldn’t decide on a courtesy name. Sometimes our branch waits. I asked if you could give it when they told me his name.”
Wei Ying is sobbing without restraint into Lan Zhan’s shoulder.
Lan Zhan looks up. “Sizhui. His courtesy name is Sizhui.”
Wei Ying asks against Lan Zhan’s neck, “Can we see him?”
“Bathe first,” Wei Qing says, wrinkling her nose.
They take gifts, more than is strictly proper, but this is A-Yuan and he is healthy, whole, impossibly small, and they find not a trace of sadness that he will not be theirs alone. His parents are alive, and now they know that his parents are two of the stronger medical cultivators in the Wei clan.
Wei Ying holds the tiny armful, and smiles, and tells his parents that this little boy was one of the only survivors of the cataclysm that broke the family in the other timeline. That he grew up a strong cultivator, protected by both of them, and that if permitted, they would like to help with his training and care in the coming years, but that the thing he always wanted most was for the boy to have family.
He does. An older sister plays in the kitchen. His parents and cousins and grandparents and uncles one through six, plus eight aunties, and that’s just his parents’ immediate connections.
Lan Zhan takes the baby, and looks up at Wei Ying and says, “A-Yuan.”
“The thing I was most afraid of,” Wei Ying says to the boy’s parents, “was that something would prevent him from being born. It was the biggest risk. The A-Yuan we knew was the best human being I’ve ever known, short of my husband, and that’s probably just because I’m biased.”
“Not biased,” Lan Zhan says. “Lan Sizhui was objectively best.”
“He’ll be Wei Sizhui now,” Wei Ying says.
“Even better.”
That winter, Wei Ying finalizes his design, and goes with Lan Zhan to the most remote mountain top they can find with the five pieces of Stygian Iron in their boxes, and a qiankun bag filled with other raw materials.
They bring the Lotus Purifier with them, as well as several wearable purifiers and the most recent prototype, worked in precious stones, glass, and metals.
Wei Wuxian’s job is to work with the materials.
Lan Wangji’s job is to work with Wei Wuxian.
There are a hundred cultivators waiting for them, stationed in a massive circle about half a day’s walk away (but a quick flight) holding the boundaries of one of the largest warding circles anyone has ever seen.
Wei Ying opens one of the smaller boxes without touching it, with two purifiers between him and the Stygian Iron segment.
Lan Zhan uses a bowed qin that Nie Huaisang and Wei Ning created to generate a continuous, low, pulsing drone that starts the purifiers spinning. The purifiers both work passively on most resentful energy, but they are designed to be staggeringly more efficient with the application of sound infused with spiritual energy.
Wei Ying has spent much of the past decade studying the making of things, and the unmaking of things. He spends the entire first morning analyzing the first piece. He uses the Cloud Recesses segment, which has been the most heavily suppressed.
As the sun hits the zenith, a piece of metal flakes off of the main segment, and he puts the rest into another box.
Then, he brings out the fine sand, and begins to work.
The snow is deep here, but their cores are sufficient to keep them warm. Wei Ying is able to heat the sand in the air, and pull the Stygian metal into the melt, much the way he has done with gold in the past. When it hangs, a liquid blob, and he can feel how well it is blended, he allows the temperature to drop, until what is left is a solid sphere, inky black.
Did it work? Is it what you expected?
Yes.
He opens the new box, and removes the metal there. He knows what makes it work the way it does. He has felt it down to the smallest portion, felt how it pulls at the fabric of existence around it. He knows how to transform it, and he knows how to shape it.
The first piece is the lotus mandala. It would be impossible to create this without the use of spiritual energy. It is too complex, moving from pure metal to metal-doped glass to pure glass to glass doped with gold.
Because working with all five pieces at once would probably kill him, he instead builds the new device in parts. He will rest after each.
He has a sense of the substances he’s working on. He knows that creating heat is easiest done by simply vibrating the tiny pieces quickly. He holds the design in his head, and then pulls everything together. By far the hardest part of this, besides everything, is holding it with his mind, still, while it cools the right way. Too fast and it will craze, and that would be disastrous. Too slow and it will crystalize, which is its own problem.
It cools, and the first part is done.
It is night. Lan Zhan has been maintaining the musical drone for many hours. Wei Ying stretches and arches his back, then moves the newest purifier on top of the new piece.
Lan Zhan stands, and they create a tight, warded dome over the site, and then set off the stage one all-clear. Half an hour later, Xichen and Cangse Sanren show up to help them to the nearest inn, where Wei Ning and Wei Qing start treatments to restore their spiritual energy.
It isn’t as depleted as they expected.
“We had the purifiers pushing energy at us,” Wei Ying explains. “The more resentful energy, to a point, the more energy the purifiers push out.”
“Was it weird, working with the stuff?” Wei Ning asks.
Wei Ying laughs. “Less weird than it was the first time.”
“You never explained the first time to me,” Lan Zhan says. They watched many things together, but not this.
“Oh. Right. I don’t remember all of it,” Wei Ying says. “My core was gone, and the darkness just filled up the emptiness, and I knew I could do it. There was probably a dead blacksmith in the Burial Mounds. I wasn’t all me for a long time. I remember… making it was agonizing, but everything hurt then, so it was just one more thing.”
Lan Zhan wraps himself around Wei Ying, as if he could somehow overlap and fill the hurt places.
“Just keep your clothes on while we’re here,” Wei Qing says to Lan Zhan.
“I’m fine now,” Wei Ying says. “It wasn’t so bad this time. I wasn’t alone, I had my golden core, and Lan Zhan was doing most of the hard work.”
Lan Zhan stares at him as if he has lost his mind.
Wei Qing cackles. “I think your husband feels differently.”
“He was bowing for, ugh, ten hours? All I was doing was…”
“All you were doing was manipulating the fundamental nature of a hostile resentful artifact,” Lan Zhan says. “I just had to make noise.”
“I could play for you, if it would help,” Wei Ning says.
“I don’t want to risk you,” Wei Ying says. “I don’t want to risk anyone, but Lan Zhan won’t let me do it alone.”
“The difficulty will increase,” Lan Zhan says. “Ning-xiong and Huaisang-xiong could help. We could show them how tomorrow and then return the next day.”
“We have a hundred cultivators waiting for us to finish,” Wei Ying says.
“As one of those cultivators,” Wei Qing says, “I can say without hesitation that we would rather you take a few days extra to do this without harm to yourselves.”
Wei Ying bows to her in acquiescence. “Please let everyone know we will not be working on this tomorrow but will resume the next day.”
The four of them have worked together often enough that it only takes a small part of the following morning to explain the upcoming process, and they practice in the afternoon.
Nie Huaisang’s task will be anchoring whatever Wei Ying is working on, holding it if he needs to shift focus. Wei Ning’s will be to make sure that the music is sustained no matter what, freeing Lan Zhan to help Wei Ying when needed.
The next day, they go to the work site together, bringing new raw materials and more supplies.
The work is intense. The Stygian Iron is not prone to cooperation, so it takes a ferocious act of will every time.
Wei Ying is, in many ways, inherently a ferocious act of will.
Each piece of metal will become part of the larger whole. The second part of the device is created by adding to the first, building upward from the initial flower, then twisting it upwards into a spiral which twirls the dark, clear, and red glass with threads of metal. It is imposing and gorgeous and impossible, and the resentful energy seethes off of it, the shape not yet right.
Periodically Wei Ying directs Nie Huaisang to hold everything in place at the current temperature, and he brings out a new flute to direct the resentful energy directly into the smaller purifiers. He has a stack of flutes, and Wei Ning swaps them out as they darken.
They take turns with the slow cooling.
The second piece runs into the afternoon. They step out of the inner ward circle, eat, and go back in to create an anchor that will allow them to tie in the first two parts of the device with the existing prototype. The base had nearly cleared of resentful energy overnight; they’re hoping that setting up the purifier with the two bottom pieces will allow for two fully cleared sections.
The metals in the original purifier have a fraction of the drawing power of the purified Stygian Iron. But the most functional part of the design is not in the metal, but in the twisted qiankun loop that powers the energy conversion in the newer prototype. Stygian Iron will always tend to draw resentful energy, but this draws it in and transforms it. Stygian Iron is able to draw spiritual energy as well, or it would not work to create puppets in the first place. So it forms the core of the device, moving all of the energies through efficiently.
They sleep again.
Lan Zhan and Wei Ying have their own room, in part because no one would share with them, but also because Wei Ying is vibrating with the amount of energy that has been moving around and sometimes through him.
Lan Zhan spends the time after the evening meal deliberately provoking Wei Ying until his husband pins him down and has his way. He learned from the best. When the actual sparks stop flicking off his skin, Wei Ying collapses next to Lan Zhan and says, “You did that on purpose.”
“It is a valid technique,” Lan Zhan says smugly. “Very effective. Learned from a master.”
“Did I hurt you?” Wei Ying asks.
Lan Zhan rolls his eyes at that. “Wei Ying cannot hurt me that way. My core is too strong.”
“I don’t want to hurt you again,” Wei Ying says.
“Easy,” Lan Zhan says. “Don’t die.”
“You never used to want me to…” Wei Ying starts, and finishes his sentence with a vague gesture.
Lan Zhan is quiet for a few minutes, and then says, “Wei Ying is stronger, now. Your body is stronger. And I am not angry or afraid.”
“You were afraid that whole time?” Wei Ying asks.
“I was obviously correct. You died. Again. Now, I think, you will not.”
“We will reach immortality together, or not at all,” Wei Ying agrees.
“We will reach it.”
The next piece is harder, because it requires Wei Wuxian to create a twist in reality with glass and metal that are fighting him the entire time.
He’s removed the purifier from the base for this stage, and it sits next to them, still working, but less effective for not being in direct contact.
The work is slow, and there is a long stretch where Nie Huaisang can do nothing but watch, as Wei Ning plays and Lan Zhan pours spiritual energy into Wei Ying, as he brute-force shoves open a gap in reality and lines it with gold-glass and threads of purified Stygian metal.
Then Lan Zhan slaps one hand on each of the other two young men's foreheads to establish a short term link with a brief burst of blue energy, and Wei Ning shifts the pitch of the instrument up. Four hands work in unison to keep everything in place while Wei Wuxian plays his flute as the thing cools.
The end result is a tube, flared on both ends, large enough to slide down over the existing spiral. He heats the bottom edge so that it can meld into the base, and then they let it cool again, slowly. Wei Wuxian’s eyes reflect the red of the glass and Lan Wangji tries to forget the last time he saw them so very red. And the time before that.
The original purifier is mounted on top. Wei Wuxian does not know what would happen if two of the qiankun tubes were mounted together and now is not the time to find out.
But when Wei Ying finally lifts his eyes to meet Lan Zhan’s gaze, they are calm, with no trace of red, just weariness.
Lan Zhan picks him up without a word, waits for Nie Huaisang and Wei Ning to clear the work area, throws up the ward without looking, and flies back to town.
It is a mark of how tired he is that Wei Ying does not even pretend that he has enough energy left to fly on his own sword.
They take a day off to recover, during which time all four are given spiritual energy by dozens of cultivators. Wei Ying marvels at the number of people who come to offer strength.
He asks his mother, “Do they even know what we’re doing here?”
She laughs. “They know it’s big, and that it is the two of you, and they want to be part of it. I’m not even sure I know what the endgame is, except that you’re neutralizing one of the great evils of the world.”
“It’s more anger than evil,” he says absently. “I’m teaching it how to calm itself. When it is finished, it will be able to draw large amounts of resentful energy and modulate it into raw spiritual energy, without the resentment.”
“Where does the resentment go?” she asks.
“Do you ask where the tree has gone when the house is built?” he responds. “Where the flour is when the bread is cooked? Resentful energy is energy, it’s just not very compatible with human health. Spiritual energy is. So I change it.”
“Let us come with you, when you go back,” Cangse Sanren says. “It sounds like it gets more difficult at each stage. We can at least give you energy.”
“The next step should be fine,” he says. “It’s the last piece I’m worried about.”
“The sword?” she asks.
“It contains more resentful energy than the other four put together. And what I want to do with it is more complex.”
“Can you purify it first?”
He thinks about the device they’re building, and the sword, and then nods. “But handling it is hard for me. Even if I don’t touch it.”
“One of us cou…”
“No. It’s bad for me, but I know it. And I know I can control it for as long as I’ll need to. To have another cultivator try… It killed me the first time and then brought me back wrong. It didn’t succeed this time. I’m still the best one to handle it.”
She wraps her arms around his shoulders and puts her cheek against his hair. “My poor boy.”
From across the inn bedroom, where his mother is infusing her spiritual energy into him, Lan Zhan says, “I also have experience helping him with this. But it would be appropriate to have people there who love him, to help keep him here.”
The next piece is easier, because most of it involves simply working a setting out of the existing metal for the complex crystal already formed.
When the setting is complete, and the crystal set in place, all four of them are staggered by the wash of spiritual energy that flows immediately from the gem. Complex light slides off the stone in tendrils of gold, green, blue, and a deep rose pink.
Everyone but Wei Wuxian moves to the other side of the device, and he opens the box with the sword.
Oily black smoke trickles slowly upward, and then rushes into the new purifier.
“Back!” Wei Wuxian shouts, and they all step back, including him, and he resets the wards.
Everything inside is glowing.
“Is that…” Nie Huaisang asks. “Is it supposed to do that?”
“It’s working,” Wei Wuxian says. “If we come back tomorrow and it’s settled down, we’ll be able to start the next stage. Or it might be melted by then.”
“The design was sound,” Lan Zhan says.
“Mn,” Wei Ying answers absently.
“What if it’s melted?” Wei Ning asks.
“Then we dealt with the Stygian Iron and I have to use something else to purify the Burial Mounds,” Wei Ying says.
They’re all a little giddy from the backwash. Lan Zhan reaches out to Wei Ying and finds that he’s vibrating.
He checks to make sure Wei Ying still has Suibian at his waist, drops Bichen, and then picks his husband up and steps on his sword.
Wei Ying squeaks, and then waves sheepishly to the other two as they head quickly back toward the inn.
Nie Huaisang shakes his head, drops his war fan, open, and steps into the air on the reinforced ribs. Wei Ning follows on his own sword.
“You can put me down,” Wei Ying says, as they land. They’ve picked up a train of support people and mothers, following on swords after seeing the flare and three glares. They’re just within earshot.
“I’m fine,” Wei Ying calls out to them, as Lan Zhan does not put him down, but carries him up to the room they’ve been sharing. Laughter follows them, as their friends catch everyone up on the progress that was made.
They find creative ways to expend some of the surplus energy.
The next day, they travel back up to the work site, and find the ward burnt away. The sword is no longer pouring off resentful energy, but the entire area is now bare of snow and lush with out-of-season greenery.
“Why is the ward gone?” Nie Huaisang asks.
“The energy that was pouring off when we left must have been too much,” Wei Wuxian says.
His mother walks around the purifier with a hand extended, not to touch, but to feel the energy coming off of it.
“It’s still putting out energy,” she says quietly. “Are you sure it’s done? We could give it another day.”
Wei Wuxian feels a rush of annoyance. “The other pieces, I worked them without purging them first. Have I recovered well, Lan Zhan?”
“You have, Wei Ying,” his husband answers.
“What are we doing with this?” Tang Lijuan asks.
“The purifier is done,” Wei Ying says. “The next step is to create a web to extend the range.”
Nie Huaisang is opening a qiankun pouch and pulling out ingots of gold and copper, and a small pouch of powder.
Wei Ying opens another qiankun pouch, and uses his spiritual energy to lift out the small, dark sphere he made days ago.
“Testing time,” he says, nodding to Wei Ning, who readies his bow, adjusts a peg, and then starts to play, low and slow.
Lan Zhan stands behind Wei Ying, waiting, one arm reaching around and two fingers lightly resting over his husband’s heart. Wei Ying glances down, smiles softly, and then focuses on the glass sphere, heating it with barely a thought, and then separating the metal from the glass with a few gestures.
A flake of gold and a smaller flake of copper separate themselves from the ingots, and then merge with the ball of metal as the glass cools. Nie Huaisang guides the glass over to a purifier and holds it in the air, cooling, while Wei Wuxian starts to blend the metals before him.
They move for a long time in the air, twisting, elongating, vibrating, and then twisting back.
“Water,” Wei Wuxian says, and Cangse Sanren brings forward a bucket of melted snow.
The twist drops into the water, sizzling, and after a few moments, Wei Wuxian reaches in with his bare hand and pulls it out.
Nie Huaisang raises a finger, opens his mouth, and then closes it again. Lan Zhan doesn’t look perturbed, and he’s got fingers on Wei Ying’s meridians.
Wei Wuxian holds the twist up in front of his face, and bends the thin wire rope. It breaks. He sighs.
“What are you trying to do?” asks Tang Lijuan.
“I need rope, something flexible, but it needs to be some combination of metal. Copper is optional, the gold would be helpful, but the Stygian Iron is mandatory.”
She considers. “How fine a thread can you give me, of the metal?”
He looks up. “You can’t touch it.”
“You don’t touch them when you’re working on them,” she says. “How fine a thread?”
He remembers hours pulling wire through successively smaller pull plates in the jeweller’s shop. After a while, it gets too thin, but maybe…
He melts the metal midair, lets it cool a little, then makes a die out of sheer power, and pulls the metal through, making a rod. Then another die, smaller, and he pulls it through again, and then he repeats it until the resulting wire snaps. That’s when he makes a thin blade of power and just shaves the thing, peeling thinner thread off the thin wire.
He’s working with a small amount, and it tends to break, so he ends up with a heap of thin wires of different lengths.
She nods. “Card it.”
Aligning all the lengths so they don’t tangle is the work of a thought.
But he hasn’t done enough fiber work to do the next step without equipment. He looks at her, and then says to Lan Zhan, “Can you link us?”
Lan Zhan calmly straightens, touches a glowing finger to his mother’s forehead, and then touches his husband’s forehead.
Her knees give way for a split second, and Cangse Sanren is there, catching her.
“Right,” she says, her voice a little shaky. “Here’s what you need to do.”
Spinning the metal into a thin yarn isn’t hard once she shows him the method and lends her hands to the project. But this is a tiny amount.
They test the thread’s strength and flexibility. It is enough for their purposes.
Wei Wuxian says aloud, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop once we start with the main sword. If you feel the resentful energy, stop what you’re doing and put your hands on one of the older two purifiers. Try to avoid touching the metal directly.”
“A-Ying,” Tang Lijuan says, “Remember to ask for help if you need it.”
“Tell us now what we might do,” Cangse Sanren says.
“I’m not sure yet,” Wei Wuxian says. “I…”
“We should hold the structures that you pull the metal through,” Nie Huaisang says. “If we make a circle, we can do a lot at once. You can pause once it is shredded, and we will regroup then.”
Wei Wuxian nods. “They’re pull plates,” he says.
Wei Qionglin speaks up, hesitantly at first. “The sword, it… it… You will have difficulty with the energy when you start.” Then the words tumble out quickly. “I will play the purifiers intensely, so they will pull the resentful energy off quickly. That should make it easier. You should stand very close to the newest one, and use the energy it gives off to support the work you are doing, not your own energy. The sword… it is the worst, so it should give you strong bursts of energy. They might hurt if you don’t use them up, so you should use them up as much as you can. I think you know how to channel large amounts of energy, but you have to keep your own separate, so the resentful energy that’s left goes where it needs to go. This sword knows you.”
Wei Wuxian turns, and looks Wei Qionglin in the eye, searching. “Wei Ning?”
Wei Ning drops his gaze. “I… I dream, sometimes, of a black flute. And an amulet made of this stuff. And a dark place. And so much power.”
Lan Zhan and Wei Ying stare. Lan Zhan says, low and quiet, “How long, A-Ning.”
“Ah… As long as… My whole life. Since I knew you. A bit before you came. I dreamed, and then there was a little boy saying that… saying the things that were in my dreams… I knew you were there to protect me, A-Xian. I knew you loved me already, gege.”
“Lan Zhan, how…” Wei Ying whispers. “We never said anything about…”
“I just… there are flashes,” Wei Ning says. “Lotuses in a graveyard. Radishes? I thought I was imagining things for a long time, but then A-Yuan. I remember… Sizhui, grown up… A dead donkey, and you, but older. Dead, in an array. The clearest dream I have, it started after he was born. I helped Sizhui arrange you both, but the array was pulling at us, so we had to stop. And I don’t remember any more after that. I was pulling away.”
Lan Zhan lets go of Wei Ying and moves over to Wei Ning. “May I check your meridians?” he asks, with an apologetic nod.
Wei Ning nods.
Lan Zhan is quiet for a long moment, fingers on Wei Ning’s forehead and chest. Then he looks at Wei Ying and says, “I think it’s just a scrap, a shred, something pulled into the array after us, but only… it’s not like us, with our whole cognition. Just a fragment. Maybe enough for some emotions, some memories, not everything.”
“We have to check A-Yuan,” Wei Ying says. “I thought everything stopped…”
“We couldn’t go past our deaths,” Lan Zhan says. “Maybe that world continued without us.”
“Poor A-Yuan,” Cangse Sanren says.
“I remember him seeing the array,” Wei Ning says. “It was… he knew what it was. He cried, but he was happy? He said… he said that he hoped it worked, that he hoped it meant you were still together, that you would have another chance at happiness, like the happiness you gave him.”
Wei Ying’s cheeks are wet and he’s not sure when that happens. A sob catches in his throat. “It was only supposed to work at the moment of death.”
“Didn’t I die, once?” Wei Ning asks.
“Eh?” Wei Ying says, making a prevaricating gesture. “Sort of? Not exactly? Yes? Your spiritual cognition was in shreds, though. I had to put it back together.”
“A-Yuan probably won’t have memories,” Lan Zhan says. “He didn’t have the same spiritual damage.”
“I hope he doesn’t,” Wei Ying says, sniffling. “I want him to grow up knowing peace.”
“I don’t mind the memories,” Wei Ning says. “They were scary but they helped… they helped me stay focused. They helped persuade my parents. They knew the dreams I’d had, the battle dreams. I think you coming was a relief. They thought I was seeing the future. Then they found out I was just seeing a future, that we could change.”
Three people breathe in sharply at the same time.
“I wondered why they were so ready to accept,” Cangse Sanren says. “Wei Ying was so little.”
“I was little, too, but I kept crying that jiejie was dead and everyone had died, and they were trying to figure out what to make of it.”
“You never said,” Wei Ying whispers.
Wei Ning smiles, a smile so familiar it hurts. “You had so many more memories. Once I knew I wasn’t crazy, and that they weren’t going to happen that way, it wasn’t… I didn’t mind. They weren’t so scary anymore. I looked at you and your eyes… felt safe. You came back to save us all.”
Wei Ying steps forward and wraps his arms around his friend.
Tang Lijuan is sobbing quietly. When Cangse Sanren says, “A-Juan?” she wipes her eyes.
“There’s an open connection. A-Ying loves the people he loves so fiercely, I can’t help feel it.”
“Oh, sorry,” Wei Ying stammers. “I didn’t…”
“It’s good to know how much you care about my son,” she says. “I don’t mind.”
Nie Huaisang fans his face and says, “You should all eat food before we continue. I don’t think this is the right state of mind to handle the worst piece.”
Wei Ying does not argue. As they get out food, he says to Wei Ning, “You know, convincing your family was essential to fixing things. You saved us as much as I did, again.”
Wei Ning blushes into the food basket, pulling out bread.
Lan Zhan says, “Sizhui understood?”
Wei Ning nods. “He had you both for a long time. He was sad, but it would have been worse if it was one of you. Wei-gongzi was so…”
“Broken,” Wei Ying says. “And gongzi?”
“That’s what I called you, then? I call the memory that; it helps separate it from what is real. I like this life better.”
Wei Ying reaches over and chucks Wei Ning’s cheek. “Me, too.”
They resume after a snack, with renewed focus. Wei Ning’s last words before they started were, “I know you’ve used this piece before, and I trust you.”
Wei Wuxian nods, and starts.
The sword doesn’t start fighting until he starts tearing it apart.
It writhes, and resists, and the core of resentment that the purifier couldn’t touch reaches for him, pulls at him, until Tang Lijuan starts playing Clarity and Lan Zhan is holding him up, flooding their link with deep affection and trust, cheek to cheek.
He whistles the resentful energy in the direction of the purifier, too busy to get out the dizi and not prepared to hand a fighting mass to Nie Huaisang.
And then it catches the purifier, lashes and writhes once… And the purifier pulls it in.
The burst of energy coming back would be overwhelming if he wasn’t prepared, but he is, and he immediately dumps it into heating the Iron, breaking down the structure of it. A feedback loop forms, and as the connection becomes self-sustaining, he calls out, and as he creates each pull plate out of raw energy, he hands the control of it to the next person down the line.
Tang Lijuan stops playing Clarity, as it is no longer needed, and takes the last position.
It goes faster than he thought possible with all of them working, and soon there is a pile of shredded, greenish metal pouring black energy into the purifier.
“Step back, now,” Wei Wuxian says as the last of the metal goes through.
In unison they step back, letting the energy tools fall away into nothing, and he re-sets the wards.
“Let it sit overnight?” Cangse Sanren asks.
Wei Ying nods.
“Can you walk?” Lan Zhan asks.
Wei Ying takes a step, and then slumps dramatically into his husband’s arms, with a saucy smile.
Lan Zhan sighs fondly. “Wei Ying should stand if he wants more out of his husband later.”
Wei Ying tosses Suibian down and steps on it. “I’m fine.”
Nie Huaisang snaps his fan and rolls his eyes.
The next day, the shredded Iron is almost completely free of resentful energy when they spin it into cord, then weave it into a net. There is a hole in the middle, surrounded by loops for the purifier. The process takes most of the day, but it’s just work, not difficult work.
Wei Wuxian remembers flashes of his other life, forcing the shape change, marinating in resentful energy for months, sustaining his body with it. And now the Stygian iron is completely reworked. It can never be what it was. Before they leave, he takes the last tiny bit of iron and crafts it into a talisman, which he presses into the glass on one side.
No one else will be able to manipulate this. Tempting as it might be to allow his closest people to have access to it, he can’t risk someone deciding they want to take it back to what it was.
The hardest part is yet to come.
The next day, he hand-carries the purifier and net, while leaving the rest for the others, and they fly to Yiling. The rest of the cultivators are waiting there, ready to put up an extra barrier around the place.
He and Lan Zhan fly overhead, their link wide open, because he can’t go back, not the way it is now, seething and full of rage, without feeling Lan Zhan in his mind continuously. His mother is nearby, but the other three have stayed back.
As they land in front of the cave together, the air roils with blackness, with whispers, everywhere, tendrils reaching toward them. Wei Ying works quickly, setting down the purifier, hooking the net on the metal tips of the mandala with his power, then spreading it out over the ground.
It grinds at them, the screaming, looking for entry.
A kick of his own power through the net merges the net to the base, and spreads it in tendrils which move through the broken, tainted earth.
Wei Wuxian is shaking as he puts a flute to his lips, and Lan Zhan reaches for him, wrapping one arm around his waist as he takes Suibian in his other hand and lifts.
As they rise, Wei Wuxian starts to play, pushing the tendrils of blackness at the ropes of purified Stygian metal.
Lan Zhan pulls him sharply upward as a burst of light settles into a brilliant star of radiating power.
“Up,” his mother shouts over the wind, and they head up and toward Yiling, as Wei Wuxian continues to play.
As Lan Zhan brings them in for a landing in front of the inn, he plucks the flute from Wei Ying’s fingers. It burns like poison, and he drops it. Wei Ning rushes forward and tucks a qiankun bag around it.
Wei Ying shakes in Lan Zhan’s arms, and Wei Qing moves forward to check his meridians.
“Rest,” she says. “As long as you can make him.”
Lan Zhan nods, and helps Wei Ying up to the room that is waiting for them as Cangse Sanren checks that the wards have been correctly updated. Nie Huaisang reports that they are perfect.
As he helps Wei Ying to the bed, Lan Zhan hears his husband murmur, “Is it over?”
“Mn,” Lan Zhan says.
“There was so much of it, I’d forgotten what it was first like.” Wei Ying sags down onto the bed, staring into nothing.
“You will forget again.” Lan Zhan sits next to his husband.
“Lan Zhan, it was so bad.” Wei Ying curls up and puts his head on Lan Zhan’s lap.
“I know,” Lan Zhan says. “Worse for you. I could hear it, through you.”
“Was it… did I imagine that it was working at the end?” Wei Ying says, glancing upward.
“You did not imagine,” Lan Zhan says, and he runs his fingers through Wei Ying’s hair, stroking absently.
“I… I remember so much now,” Wei Ying says. “Being there again. I thought I deserved it, after enough of it, but I didn’t ever.”
“Wei Ying has always been good,” Lan Zhan says. “Better over time.”
“I want to go home,” Wei Ying says, sounding lost. “Did we finish?”
“Mn,” Lan Zhan says. “Sleep tonight, then home. The Burial Mounds will purify slowly. We do not have to stay.”
Wei Ying nods against Lan Zhan’s leg. “Can I have my farm now?”
Lan Zhan smiles. “Wei Ying may have anything.”
“Farm, rabbits, people we care about,” Wei Ying says sleepily.
“Near A-Yuan,” Lan Zhan says softly.
“He will grow so fast at Lotus Pier,” Wei Ying says. “He will never be hungry.”
“Never,” Lan Zhan agrees.
Wei Ying hums against Lan Zhan’s damp leg. “Thank you, husband.”
“No need,” Lan Zhan says.
“You know me: I only say things I want to say,” Wei Ying says. “And if I want to say thank you for having the vision and patience to stick with me so long, to take me back so far, I will.”
“If Wei Ning remembers being Wen Ning, then things went on in the old version of our memories,” Lan Zhan says. “Which means if I hadn’t, I would have been alone, and you would have had to wait, and too many people would have died. Or you wouldn’t have gone back far enough, and you would still die. Now, can you feel it? Your core?”
Wei Ying reaches inward, expecting depletion, and finds… none. When he taps into his core, energy floods through him, chasing away the fatigue.
“What…”
“We have been working very hard, and channeling intense amounts of spiritual energy,” Lan Zhan says. “I do not think we will age unless we will it.”
“Both of us?” Wei Ying asks.
“Mn. So I need no thanks for taking us back this far. Your immortality is more than enough.”
“I feel better,” Wei Ying says. “Not tired anymore. What should I do with my extra energy?”
Lan Zhan smiles a slow, languorous, lecherous grin.
Wei Ying pretends to swoon.
By the time they’re ready to leave the next afternoon, a runner comes with a message that one of the watchers is seeing reductions in the resentful energy in the Burial Mounds already.
They head back to Lotus Pier soon after, to A-Lian and A-Yuan and Wei Qing and all the people they’ve saved over the years.
Wei Ying is actually there for the months of wedding planning for Shijie, which he throws himself into with almost as much fervor as he’d tackled the Stygian Iron.
Jin Zixuan is better this time around. Wei Wuxian had a chance to influence him in childhood, and instead of arrogant social climbers, he’s surrounded himself with people of equal rank and people who don’t care about his rank, and it’s been good for him.
They start spending more time at Jinlintai during the planning, working with Madam Jin and Madam Yu.
On the fourth visit after the Burial Mounds, Lan Zhan asks Duan Ai about Jin Zixun.
Wei Ying says, “Who?” and Lan Zhan looks at him as if he’s lost his mind completely, and then explains without talking aloud because he can’t even bring himself to say it out loud.
“Oh, yeah yeah yeah, I know, I mean, how could I forget. Yeah, what happened to him?”
Madam Jin says, “He’s in a watchtower.”
The watchtowers were one of Jin Guangyao’s ideas that had been well worth pursuing, which had been developed years early.
“How long has he been there?” Wei Ying asks.
“It’s as far as you can get from Jinlintai and still be in Lanling,” she said. “It’s no punishment, it just keeps him… out of trouble. It is a great responsibility, to be the one on guard when the sect has events.”
The memories come back in full, and Wei Wuxian realizes, finally, that the endless sabotage of his life is really, actually, over. And he lets it go.
It’s strange how, this time around, he and Shijie aren’t actually as heart-to-heart close as they were, though they spend more time together in his late teens. She considers him a brother, but not someone she has to protect or take care of. Lan Zhan has been the person he leans on for longer than she’s been alive. He loves her, but he doesn’t need to protect her, and he is one brother of many.
Zixuan has been sweet on her since childhood, and has seen enough of her smiles to know how beautiful she is. He knows how her soup tastes, and she’s best friends with Mianmian, who deftly pushed the other courtiers into line before they hit puberty.
The wedding is gloriously over the top and every bit as tacky (except for Shijie, who is incapable of being tacky) as one would expect from Lanling Jin.
Wei Ying has spent more time with Wei Ning and Wei Qing in this lifetime, and it’s easier to see, now, how much like family both of them are to him.
Wei Qing and Jiang Cheng are not an item. They respect each other, but in the absence of war, and the absence of fear, she’s too focused on her work. Something about them meeting when Jiang Cheng was four has altered that dynamic. Wei Qing rolls her eyes when anyone suggests a pretty girl her age should be thinking about marriage. She needs no protector.
Lan Zhan quietly finds the man that Mianmian married in her last life, and introduces them about six months after they set the purifiers in the Burial Mounds. Jin Zixuan starts to object to one of his best cultivators marrying a commoner, but then considers who introduced them and thinks better of it.
A-Yuan starts toddling around in the late spring, and attaches himself to the Geges as soon as he’s able to pick his own direction. True to his word, Wei Ying spends a part of his time everyday in his garden. When asked, he says, “I’m old. I’m retiring.” A-Yuan still sleeps with his parents and is cradled by the web of his family, but it feels like all the best parts of home together, without the horrors, to play with the boy for hours around Lotus Pier.
Lan Zhan spends a huge amount of time just watching them, looking pleased, right up until A-Yuan insists on helping feed the bunnies, and then Lan Zhan melts.
Cangse Sanren and Tang Lijuan are still night hunting together on the regular. Sometimes the elders in the Wei compound will comment on what good friends they are. Cangse Sanren smiles and agrees, while Tang Lijuan actively wraps her arms around her friend’s waist and raises her eyebrows at anyone who looks.
Mo Xiuying goes to the Lan sect to work with the healers there that year. Her mother follows her the next year. Wei Ying is not surprised in the least and Lan Zhan is shocked to his core to discover on a visit that Xiuying has quietly joined the Lan sect, married Xichen with absolutely no fanfare at all, and is living with both Xichen and Meng Yao. She is pregnant with Xichen’s heir.
The children they remember show up in sect gossip… a baby boy born at Cloud Recesses, another at Ouyang sect, and then Jin Ling is born.
Jin Ling is a girl, born a full two months earlier than Wei Ying expected*. The character for her name is 玲 like a tinkling bell. The Jin Ling he remembers was 凌, rising above.
*His memory of that time is foggy at best, his knowledge of pregnancy details is even sketchier. Lan Zhan is the one who points out the time mismatch, when he realizes it.
Wei Ying wrestles with his feelings on the subject. But her naming day comes and goes, and the world doesn’t end, and Yanli is healthier now than she was the last time, and there’s no war, and the cultivation world has been sculpted into something safer for Wei Ying by the most powerful people in it.
Wei Ying thinks it’s amazing how much more leadership there is when the brave, ethical ones don’t die to leave the craven cowards in charge.
They go back to Yiling periodically to check the progress of purification.
It is easy to walk in now once you get past the wards. Easier than it was even at the end. They move the purifier every few months to the places that still have dense energy coiling out of the ground, but the net allows them to keep their distance from the worst of it.
They start playing Inquiry. Most of the spirits here have moved on with the shift of the resentful energy, but some still have unfinished business. Liberating is easier when they aren’t fighting the tortured anger.
The soil is richer, and plants are thriving. The bones are no longer visible.
It is a year and a half after they first placed the purifiers that they meet the spirit of Wei Changze, sitting near the cave.
It is Cangse Sanren, Tang Lijuan, Wei Lian, Lan Zhan, and Wei Ying this trip, come to check the purifier placement. Lian is sixteen, with her mother’s and brother’s wide grin and lively mind. But she has her father’s eyes, which Wei Ying never knew.
Cangse Sanren sees him first. He isn’t translucent, but he’s also definitely not firmly anchored. He glows a little around the edges, looking more like the ideal of himself than a breathing person.
“A-Ze,” she breathes, as A-Lian and A-Ying tease each other down the path.
“A-Shuang,” he says.
Wei Ying stumbles to a halt across the clearing. “Is that…”
His mother turns and gestures to him. “Look, A-Ze. A-Ying grew up!”
“Is that my father?” Lian asks. “Is he coming back?”
“A-Ze, this is Wei Lian. We’ve been living at Lotus Pier.”
Wei Changze turns to his daughter, and holds out a hand. She walks forward but doesn’t take it. She crosses her arms over her chest and considers him, eyes narrowed, clearly looking with her cultivator’s senses.
“Why are you so strong, after so many years?” she asks, as he waits.
He points in the direction of the purifier. “I was able to pull spiritual energy from the device. Very clever thing.”
“A-Ying made it. He has your knack for understanding things,” Cangse Sanren says.
Lan Zhan comes to stand next to Wei Ying. “Your father?” he asks.
Wei Ying nods, eyes glued to the spirit before him.
The spirit turns to Wei Ying. “I don’t remember much. We left you and you were small, and I remember dying and darkness. And then the darkness lifted, and there was a light, and I reached for it, and it filled me. You have grown so big. Has it been so many years?”
“So many,” Wei Ying echoes. He grabs Lan Zhan’s hand and pulls him forward and says, “This is my husband, my soulmate, my cultivation partner, Lan Zhan, courtesy name Wangji.”
Wei Changze smiles. “You married a Lan. Do you not take after your mother, then?”
“I choose not to live in Gusu Lan,” Lan Zhan says with a polite bow. “Wei Ying is happy at Lotus Pier.”
“Are you staying?” A-Lian asks.
Her father turns to her, eyes sad. “I don’t know that I can. There are rules, and my one true desire, my last wish, was to see my family safe.”
He turns to Cangse Sanren. “A-Shuang, who is your friend? She looks familiar.”
“This is Tang Lijuan. A-Juan is my cultivation partner,” she says. “We raised our children together. She’s Lan Zhan’s mother.”
He turns to Tang Lijuan and gives a deep bow. “Madam, I must thank you for taking care of A-Shuang and my children when I could not. It gives me great peace to know that she is not alone.”
She returns the bow and says, “It has been no difficulty, and is my honor, and my joy. A-Shuang lights the world wherever she steps.”
“She does.” He is more translucent around the edges. “I can show you where my grave is, before I go,” he says.
“You have a grave?” A-Lian asks.
“There was a burst of energy where I had enough strength to move my bones.” His voice is softer now, losing resonance.
They aren’t far, a mound of earth on the other side of the clearing, not far from where the radish patch used to be, in new turned earth.
“I will build a temple here,” Wei Wuxian says. “I’m sorry I didn’t save you.”
“You were four years old, A-Ying. It was not your place to save your father. That your mother is alive is more than enough.” His father’s hand brushes his face, and he can almost feel it, though it is more that his spirit can feel the brush of another spirit.
“The world is as safe as we can make it,” Cangse Sanren says. “I miss you, but we’re doing well.” The fading spirit moves to press an intangible kiss to her forehead, smiles, and then disappears.
They cling together, all five of them, for a long time.
The next year, Yanli has a son. Jin Xiang*, courtesy name Rulan, looks to Lan Zhan’s unpracticed eye exactly like the infant boy he’d seen in her arms before. He’s just a couple years late, and with a different name. Lan Zhan wonders if having a big sister and a mother and a father will mellow the boy. It’s certainly mellowed him.
* 翔 , soaring
When he holds his nephew for the first time, it is easy to let so many last hanging shreds of pain go. Yanli’s son is one month old, and Wei Ying is loved and safe. Their families, chosen and born, surround them.
Lan Sizhui and Wen Ning start looking for Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian as soon as they realize that they haven’t made it to the inn.
It takes them until the sun is well up to find the broken narrow path, the trail of disruption leading down, and finally, the donkey and the glowing array.
It rises up around the bodies of his fathers, and he knows what it is almost instantly. Wei Wuxian had talked about it with him, a little, and the symbols are like nothing else.
Their position is ungainly within the array, but they both have peaceful expressions. The ever-stoic Hanguang-Jun has died with a smile on his face.
Sizhui sighs. “At least they’re together. Maybe they’ll have a better chance, wherever they’ve gone.” He closes his eyes. There is nothing, no residual spiritual energy, no spirits at all except the donkey’s sullen ghost trying to crop grass a little ways away. “The array is supposed to separate his spiritual cognition so that he can move in time. I didn’t… I don’t think it was supposed to be both of them. But Father would have been devastated if he’d been left alone again.”
“Can we move them, A-Yuan?” Wen Ning asks.
“Maybe?” Lan Sizhui says.
They move quickly to turn Hanguang-Jun so that he is lying beside his husband, but they’ve been in for only moments when they have to pull back. Hanguang-Jun looks marginally less sprawled, more in his husband’s arms than flopped over him, but whatever the array was doing, it is still strong enough to burn.
“That stung,” Lan Sizhui says. “Are you okay?”
“I felt… I can’t describe… it hurt, like losing something, but I had a sense… I can’t remember.” Wen Ning ducks his head and shakes it.
Lan Sizhui puts a hand on Wen Ning’s chest, and says, “It feels like there’s a small hole in your spirit. I don’t know how to describe it.”
“I can’t remember what happened at Qiongqi Way,” Wen Ning says. “I can’t remember how A-Qing died. I remember you, and I remember remembering those things, but the actual memories…”
“You’ve told me those stories before,” Lan Sizhui says. “You told me all about them. I’ll tell you.”
“I know, but… Do you think, maybe part of my spirit went with them?”
Lan Sizhui pokes at his own memories, at the important ones, the ones that hurt. He’s always had gaps, but there don’t seem to be any more gaps at a quick glance. “Why you and not me?” he finally asks.
“How is that thing supposed to work?” Wen Ning asks, nodding at the array and his two friends. “Wouldn’t our history change if they went back in time?”
“Who knows?” Lan Sizhui says. “Maybe… Maybe we’re a branch of a tree, and they went back to the trunk and made a new branch? I’d like to think they’re alive, somewhen, somewhere, and together.”
“If they go back, will they have us?” Wen Ning asks.
“I can’t imagine A-Die without you around.” Lan Sizhui says, wiping away a tear. “I wonder if you could still go with them?”
“I wouldn’t,” Wen Ning says. “If I’ve already sent anything back, it will have to be enough. Your fathers would not want me to leave you.”
Lan Sizhui gives Wen Ning a grateful bow. “Where would I be without my Uncle Ghost?”
Wen Ning smiles and puts an affectionate arm around Sizhui’s shoulders. “What are you going to do now?”
Lan Sizhui breathes a long sigh. “What they would want. I’m going to live. I’m going to tell their story. I’m going to do what’s right.”
“No, I meant, should we go to the inn? Or back to Cloud Recesses?”
Lan Sizhui laughs sadly. He’s over thirty, and still feels adrift at the idea of a world without his larger-than-life adoptive fathers.
“First I’m going to build a cairn so that no one stumbles into the array,” he says. “And then? I’ll keep walking the path.”
And that’s about the point I realized I was going to have to write this fucker out long form.