Chapter Text
The resounding thrum of the guqin penetrates all hearts. A single note rings and rings as a long, nailed finger plucks and plucks. Even the rabbits huddled near the player trade movement for paralysis. They listen intently with cocked heads. Sunshine illuminates their shiny dark eyes. A rush of wind ruffles their fur.
“Come,” the guqin says in an endless loop. “Come. Come. Come. Come. Come.” The call rings through the air with a reverberation that vibrates bone and reaches across reality. It shakes the air with the intensity of an incipient earthquake and imparts the same sense of danger—an awareness of nature at its most primal. There is something ineffable and sublime in the call of the guqin.
Spirits gather near the man who strums. Spheres of light in a dizzying array of colors bob with each note that quivers through the air. They are like dusk’s fireflies—fragile, easily captured, and illuminating the world. How desperately the player yearns for capture.
“Who are you?” Lan Zhan asks each and every soul. Are you Wei Ying?
“Go,” Lan Zhan says after they answer. He will deal with all of their unresolved issues at a later time in the week when he performs a mass Inquiry. For all that Wei Ying consumes him, Lan Zhan is not a man to ignore suffering, and it is suffering that these lingering souls experience. The dead should not linger for too long, lest they lose themselves entirely. Even the barest imprint of a soul that lingers is a soul aplenty.
In Lan Zhan’s twelve years of ongoing Inquiry, none of them have answered with the name he burns for. It is fiery love that fuels Lan Zhan as, day in and day out, he strums until even his calloused fingers bleed red. He plays for hours on end and desires only to play for more hours, had he no sect duties to attend to. To be the brother of a sect leader is no easy role indeed. His duties shackle him to the Cloud Recesses.
“Hanguang-jun!” a voice calls in the distance.
The chains around him tug forcefully. He is well accustomed to the sudden choke—the sudden pull of his chains. He has responsibilities and he does not scorn their fulfillment. Lan Zhan is a man of his honor but even he yearns for time free from the sect. Until Wei Ying, he had never truly noticed how stifling the clan could be. Already, the clan intrudes on his time alone.
Lan Zhan sends the souls scattering with a few strums of the guqin. It is akin to plunging a hand in a river, only to watch the fish dart away. The movement is instinctual for these spirits. Instinct guides them.
To the nearest rabbit, Lan Zhan spares a stern parting pat. The original pair of rabbits Wei Ying had gifted him had long succumbed to their mortality. Yet, the rabbits he now collects of his own volition soothe him. Besides their association with Wei Ying, their unconditional trust of him as he holds them in his hands is an experience to enjoy. They are so soft and vulnerable, yet they allow Lan Zhan close to even their more delicate young.
Smoothly, Lan Zhan rises up from the grassy earth with his guqin securely attached. He faces his visitor.
“A-Yuan,” Lan Zhan says, stricken by memory. He pauses. Laughter in the air. Butterflies. Sweet smiles. Tired eyes. Moments of contentment against the backdrop of violence.
“Ah, Hanguang-jun…” Lan Yuan says. He looks away from amber eyes with a discomfited expression.
“Lan Sizhui,” Lan Zhan amends. “Why did you call?”
“Sect Leader requests your presence in the library.”
“Mn.”
Lan Zhan departs. He cannot bear to look at Lan Yuan in a time like this when the specter of Wei Ying freezes his blood cold. Lan Yuan does not even remember Wei Ying beyond a few indistinct, shadowy remnants of memories long scorched away. The fever had burned away far too much. In truth, very few people remember Wei Ying—the young man who laughed and laughed in the face of rules. The world only remembers the Yiling Patriarch.
“Wangji,” Lan Huan greets pleasantly. He hovers over a set of scrolls and a written inventory with neat writing. One hand rests on one of those closed scrolls. The other hand lingers over a set of faded ink characters in the inventory. A finger strokes a line of characters.
Lan Zhan meets his brother’s eyes with an even gaze. “Sect Leader,” he says distantly.
Visibly, Lan Huan’s pleasant mien falters. The gentle smile tugging his lips upwards smooths to a painful neutrality. His eyelashes fan down for one lone moment as he recovers. He straightens himself as he faces Lan Zhan entirely.
Lan Zhan watches. The disconnect between the two leaves a hollowness in the pit of his chest. Why does it hurt?
“We are missing a scroll,” Lan Huan announces without any preamble. His fingers on the inventory scroll recede to form a fist.
“Mn,” Lan Zhan hums.
“One of the more…sensitive ones.”
“Mn.”
“Wangji, I hope that you are not considering doing anything rash.”
“Is this an accusation?”
“I hope not,” Lan Huan says mildly.
“Then please, excuse me, Sect Leader. I cannot help you,” Lan Zhan says. He says—there is no passion in his voice. His amber eyes shine dully and his mouth is a thin line. His gaze does not waver from his brother’s face.
Lan Huan sighs, the exhalation deflating him. He waves a dismissive hand before hunching back over the scrolls. Contemplation adds lines to his face. He looks tired but Lan Zhan cannot spare any worry for him. Not today—not when today is the day Wei Ying died.
The grief eclipses familial love, loathe as he is to admit it. He has worked so hard on living after Wei Ying—raising A-Yuan, assisting his brother, and granting help to those helpless in the midst of chaos. He had dedicated his life to Wei Ying, who had loved his family so fiercely that he had fallen into demonic cultivation. To honor him has always been his greatest wish.
(That’s the problem with Lan Zhan. He cannot help but constrain himself to a single purpose. He cannot help but narrow down his focus. In the same way he had visited his mother’s empty cottage every day as a child, he plays Inquiry for Wei Ying every day as an adult.)
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan murmurs into the emptiness of his quarters. A holy exhalation exalting in its production. Sound does not echo in this barren wasteland.
(There is no response. There will not be…for a while.)
He does not want to forget the way the name sounds on his tongue, not when the whole world would rather only the Yiling Patriarch exist. Nobody wants to be complicit in the death of Wei Ying, who had been so painfully human. But the Yiling Patriarch…this is a man worthy of death and slander, the world says. This is the man who was made to be the living nightmare that haunts. A specter made out of the stuffing of dreams—translucent and bitter on his tongue. When the enormity of his loss weighs down his shoulders, he washes his mouth out with Emperor’s Smile.
Lan Zhan is waiting to wake up (to find reality a better, more palatable place to exist in). As the days go by, he takes each day step by step in a concerted effort to live . He has to take care of A-Yuan and the sect. He has to help those who struggle because he had always hoped to be one to ultimately help Wei Ying. He had lost Wei Ying to the chaos.
There is chaos brewing inside of Lan Zhan. It is a substance that writhes inside of him, displacing all viscera for chaos made manifest. It is a stone dropped in the waters, displacing and disturbing in concentric ripples. The source of the disturbance is the scroll resting innocuously on his desk.
A black seal is neatly affixed to the outside for preservation. It is the inside that matters the most. Such knowledge should indeed be preserved but Lan Zhan is now acutely aware of power and the power his station affords him . Rarely does he misuse his power but often in service of Wei Ying. There is no difference here in his purloinment of this scroll.
Guilt churns Lan Zhan’s stomach. Hot and nauseating. His power as the sect leader’s brother has been abused for a selfish purpose. He disregards the rules of Gusu Lan for his love. There is precedent for the way love warps the Lan clan. Their passion is one of their greatest failings, according to the rules of the sect. Thousands of rules and yet all are thrown away for an emotion that the rules would restrict. Lan Zhan does not know control. He does not know moderation. His love is no meek creature, but a carnivorous creature that seeks to consume all that which hinders the course of its progress. It consumes him.
(Love, Lan Zhan, learns is nothing like the way it is depicted in books. Love is beautiful in books; love is horrifying in books. It is a love with only one descriptor—good or bad. Lan Zhan’s love is complex. He would sacrifice his heart upon the altar in worship of Wei Ying. He would live for Wei Ying and raise their child.
(There is more to Lan Zhan than his love for Wei Ying. He is a whole person of his own who has led a life independent from Wei Ying. Unlike his father, he does not seclude himself from the world. He forces himself to live, and that is, of course, the problem. He forces himself. How eagerly he awaits for the day when living comes easily.
(The contradiction would destroy a two-dimensional character but Lan Zhan is acutely aware that he is altogether too real. He must live with his life, or change it himself. There is no great writer to change the course of his fate. He must seize fate itself and unweave the tangled threads of the tapestry.
(Life would be easier if love followed the bounds of fiction.)
Yet...even guilt will not stop Lan Zhan. He unravels the scroll with careful hands. Lines and curves bisecting and twisting in stark black ink meet him—a diagram. He trails a finger across the arrangement. The characters supplementing the diagram were written with a neat hand, he observes. The mind that memorizes thousands of rules memorizes the intricate diagram. He reads the explanation written near the diagram. The requirements for this ritual are indeed ones he can meet and gladly he will do so.
The sun sets and the moon comes into prominence as Lan Zhan readies himself for the ritual. He lifts up sections of his floor to unearth supplies he had carefully collected over the days. Since his brother is aware of the missing scroll,the timeline of his plans shortens. There can be no time for hesitance.
With great care and precision, Lan Zhan duplicates the ritualistic diagram on his floor. He kneels on the floor with a graceless thunk of his knees. Tonight is the night for his plans to come to fruition and nobody will disturb him. Even the youngest of the disciples know not to bother Lan Zhan on this...anniversary.
Lan Zhan surveys all that he has wrought (incense sticks long burned out)—the ritual circle sketched on the floor, the knife resting within, and the scroll left askew on the table. He stands up and moves to another section of his floor. He lifts up a loose section to uncover the jugs of Emperor’s Smile that he had smuggled in besides other artifacts of Wei Ying. He opens one of the jugs to get a few sips—a taste of Wei Ying. It is not enough to get drunk but it is enough to burn sweetly in the same way his memories of Wei Ying torment him.
The jug returns to its compartment as Lan Zhan firms his resolve. He must not hesitate, he reminds himself. There is no point in lingering on the remnants of Wei Ying when his ritual will bring Wei Ying to existence. There is no point in lingering on the past when he will be in the past, should his ritual work without flaw. The past...shall no longer be a source of torment once it becomes his present.
Lan Zhan walks over to the area of the ritual and kneels down in the middle. His robes fan out in the same way a bird mantles its wingspan over prey. As he kneels, his posture is perfect—his back, a rigid line and his legs, neatly folded. From where he sits, lines and curves branch out with a complexity he had struggled to replicate from the scroll’s illustration. Yet, the end result is worth it, he knows for certain. All the trouble he has undergone will serve a greater purpose.
The knife in the ritual circle relocates into Lan Zhan’s hands. It is strangely light. His face relaxes and removes all traces of emotion. Serenity overcomes him. He inhales and exhales for one last time before slicing vertically at a wrist. For the first time in a long time, his hand fumbles with a knife. His cut hand limply maneuvers the knife to slice at his other hand. The cut is not as deep as the initial but it is enough for the ritual.
Blood pours out cinnabar-red before an unseen force forces the streams to follow unnatural lines and curves. Lan Zhan’s blood adds color to the ritual circle as it diffuses into the etching. As the world darkens and Lan Zhan begins to slump, the sight of blood flowing outwards in this deliberate path is the last sight Lan Zhan sees in the present. How vibrant—as vibrant as a certain red ribbon.
There is something almost peaceful in the way that Lan Zhan succumbs to his death (because it is death that he seeks).
In all things a sacrifice. Lan Zhan sacrifices his life for Wei Ying. It is no surprise. He had never made allusions otherwise with the way he fought his elders only to be so severely disciplined and the other ways he sought to save Wei Ying despite danger.
For all that Lan Zhan had tried, so desperately, he has never been content with his life after Wei Ying. A-Yuan had provided the rare moments of joy in this life after Wei Ying but as cruel it is to say, it is not enough to survive off of. Despite all efforts otherwise, Lan Zhan follows in his father’s footsteps. He may not have secluded himself but he did start to live life in a rote, disconnected manner. He had always been acutely aware of something missing, like the phantom pain of a lost limb.
Soon, Lan Zhan will regain what he has lost.