Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Every night, without fail, Hua Cheng would come to the rebuilt Puqi Shrine to have dinner with Xie Lian. It doesn’t matter what he has been up to during the day—if he was busy with managing the Ghost City, or overseeing his gambling dens, or even checking on He Xuan with the excuse of collecting on his debt—at the end of the day he would always stroll up on the dirt path, his visible eye creased in a smile just for Xie Lian.

Rarely, however, is he this distracted during dinner.

“San Lang, you’ve barely eaten anything. Is it really this bad this time?” Xie Lian asks worriedly, peering at the pot housing his second attempt at meatballs. He thinks he has done much better this time—some of them even actually look like balls!—but if even Hua Cheng can’t eat them…

“What?” asks Hua Cheng, distracted, before his eye widens. “Ah, no!” He shovels a spoon full of meatballs in his mouth. “Anything gege makes is so good. Gege has gotten really good at meatballs.”

“Ah, thank you,” Xie Lian says, embarrassed but pleased. “I wonder if I can make some for Mu Qing and Feng Xin the next time they come visit…”

“Forget about them, gege. They don’t deserve it,” Hua Cheng says. “Only worthy people should get to taste gege’s cooking.”

“Don’t say that,” Xie Lian scolds, but his mouth betrays him and twitches up in a smile. “You don’t think anyone is worthy.”

Hua Cheng hums in consideration as he chews on another meatball. “Then cook only for me, gege.”

“San Lang!” Xie Lian laughs. “You know I like cooking for other people.”

Hua Cheng sighs long sufferingly. “Then I guess I will just have to beat them up if they say something mean about your cooking.”

Xie Lian laughs again. They continue to eat quietly together, and once again Xie Lian marvels that he gets to have this: just existing in a moment that is quiet, and comfortable, and loving. He hasn’t had this since—

Anyway.

“San Lang, is everything alright?”

Hua Cheng blinks at him with one eye. “Yes? Why wouldn’t it be?”

“You’ve been a bit… restless since you got here,” Xie Lian explains. “If you need to get back to Ghost City to take care of things I understand, I don’t mind!”

Hua Cheng takes Xie Lian’s free hand in his. “Nah, those idiots can take care of themselves. I want to be here with you.”

Xie Lian frowns. “But really, San Lang—oh, I know!” He brightens. “I can come with! It’s been a while since we went to Ghost City together, right?”

“Gege, it’s really not that big of a deal—“ Hua Cheng tries to protest again, but Xie Lia’s mind is set. He squeezes Hua Cheng’s hand once before letting go and standing up, starting to gather the dishes and clean the table. “Ah, I see there is no changing gege’s mind. But at least let me clean up, since you cooked!”

It is a matter of minutes before they have everything stashed away, the dishes cleaned. It’s almost its own ritual, by now, the two of them moving around each other in the modest (Xie Lian insisted) kitchen area, silently knowing just where to step to get around each other, what dish goes where. It's an ease born not out of training or cultivation, the way Xie Lian’s ease with swords and fighting is, but out of familiarity. When they finish, Xie Lian stands expectantly by the door, beaming at Hua Cheng, trying to convey how much he likes this, how much he likes Hua Cheng, and how much he likes them, together in this way. The other sighs, but smiles back, and Xie Lian knows he understood. With a flick of his wrists the dice roll, and they’re gone.

“So what is it that you’re so preoccupied by?” Xie Lian inquires after they reappear in Paradise Manor. He recognizes the room as one of the side rooms right by Hua Cheng’s bedroom. “Has there been another difficult customer in one of your gambling dens?”

“Not since the last difficult customer,” Hua Cheng smiles at him. “But that ended pretty alright for me, so I didn’t mind.”

Xie Lian blushes at the reminder of the trouble him, Shi Qingxuan, and Lang Qianqiu have made during their last visit. “San Lang!”

Hua Cheng laughs easily. “It did! But as for your question—no, there is nothing wrong with the gambling dens. It’s not even a problem with Ghost City, really. I have started a… well, I guess you could call it a pet project.”

Xie Lian raises an eyebrow. “Oh?” Hua Cheng was very knowledgeable and skilled, so if it was something he was this excited about, it must be a really great project.

“You know how all souls pass through Ghost City, even if they decide they don’t want to stay. Well, a few days ago one of them got… stuck.”

“Stuck?” Xie Lian frowns. How could a soul get stuck? It either wants to stay, becoming a resident of Ghost City, or it moves on. There is very little that could hinder a ghost’s journey like that.

“Yes,” Hua Cheng nods. “I think the soul was in a really pathetic condition when it died, almost completely torn apart. So when it came here, it didn’t have enough strength to continue on, but also not enough strength to manifest itself into a full resident. So—stuck.”

“That’s… really sad,” Xie Lian says. “I wonder what happened to it?”

Hua Cheng shrugs. “Hard to know until I manage to piece more of it together.”

“You’re helping?” Xie Lian asks, surprised, before realising how badly that sounds. “Oh, not that I don’t think San Lang wouldn’t help —”

Hua Cheng laughs. “It’s okay gege,” he reassures. “You’re right, I usually wouldn’t. It’s just one pathetic soul, it would have probably have dissipated on its own sooner or later. But there’s something about it that’s really strange.” Hua Cheng looks more and more animated as he talks about it, about a mystery he wants to solve, and Xie Lian can’t help but smile at his enthusiasm. “First, its condition. You don’t really see souls in that bad of a state unless something really disastrous has happened, but I can’t even think of anything bad enough that would cause this bad of a deterioration. Second, it’s absolutely full of resentful energy.”

Xie Lian frowns. “It’s a cultivator?”

Hua Cheng nods. “I think so. However, even qi deviation shouldn’t have led to this kind of state. Whatever killed it—it’s something new.”

“Ah, something even San Lang doesn’t know!” Xie Lian can’t help but tease.

Hua Cheng pouts at him exaggeratingly. “Even I don’t know everything, dianxia. And if some human managed to get killed by a new form of resentful energy, I would like to know about it.”

Xie Lian nods slowly, considering. “That could certainly be dangerous, especially if whatever it is wasn’t stopped by anyone yet.”

“Oh,” Hua Cheng blinks at him.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing, it’s just—“ Hua Cheng laughs awkwardly. “I was thinking ‘ah, if it’s something new, I want to know everything about it’ but of course gege is already concerned it could be hurting more people. Gege is so nice.”

Xie Lian doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Either way, we should learn more. Where do you store it?”

Hua Cheng starts leading him out of the room and down the corridor, past his own room. “I keep it close to my bedroom, just in case its condition starts deteriorating suddenly,” he explains. “This way I can keep a closer eye on it.”

“San Lang is very kind,” Xie Lian says.

Hua Cheng almost stumbles in surprise before straightening himself. “Not at all. It’s just common sense.”

Xie Lian hums, but doesn’t say anything. Instead he grabs Hua Cheng’s hand and squeezes it. After a second, Hua Cheng squeezes back. He is on a life-long mission to help Hua Cheng see himself the way Xie Lian does, as the most shining star in his universe, the brightest lantern that leads him home, but he knows how resistant Hua Cheng is to the idea. He can let up, just for tonight, for whatever it is that Hua Cheng wants to show him.

The room they finally stop at isn’t large at all—half the size of his kitchen at Puqi Shrine, if Xie Lian had to guess. It is empty of furniture except for a large table in its centre, and upon it—

“A spirit capture bag?” Xie Lian asks, letting go of Hua Cheng’s hand and stepping closer. “That’s good for stabilizing it, but it would be difficult to mend it through the bag.”

“Yes,” Hua Cheng agrees, looking forlornly at Xie Lian’s hand. “It’s just a temporary measure—I was hoping it would help the soul get a bit more cohesive before I start messing around with it.”

Xie Lian nods his head, but doesn’t say anything. There is something… almost buzzing, around him. He has felt it the second Hua Cheng opened the door, but it’s worse the closer he gets to the table. It’s like the feeling one gets when you lose a word, and it’s just the tip of your tongue and you can think of any other word but the one you are looking for—irritating, and all-consuming. Dimly, he notices what Hua Cheng did, the resentment almost pouring out of the bag, barely contained by it, but it’s so secondary to this other feeling Xie Lian can almost dismiss it.

“Gege, what—“

“I think…” Xie Lian says slowly, not taking his eyes off the bag. “I think I knew this person. Who this soul used to be.”

He can hear Hua Cheng suck in a breath. “Gege, maybe it’s better if you don’t—“

But Xie Lian ignores him, and reaches out with one trembling hand to touch the bag. A second passes, and then another, and Xie Lian almost lets out a breath in relief, before he feels something in the bag reaching back.

“A-Ying?”

Three years before his ascension, Xie Lian stumbled across a boy.

It was nothing he wasn’t used to. Xie Lian has lived on the streets for a not inconsiderable part of the past 800 years, and has become very well acquainted with their various residents, including the poor boys and girls who found their place there. He had always tried to help them as much as he can, going days and weeks without food and sharing with them whatever meager money he made from busking and the occasional talisman he sold, but it never felt like enough.

This boy though—approximately six year old, disheveled and dirty, and an all-consuming terror in his eyes as he barreled into Xie Lian. Xie Lian almost stumbled backwards but he didn’t use to be a martial god for nothing, so he quickly regained his balance and looked to see what the child was running from, his body braced for danger.

At the mouth of the alleyway they were standing in stood a mangy and dirty dog. It wasn’t big, if anything it was too malnourished to be considered truly big, but for a little boy it must have looked terrifying.

Xie Lian’s hands instinctively came around the boy who was now clutching at his legs. “Are you scared of the dog?”

He felt more than saw the boy nod his head. “It’s trying to get my bun.” His voice is soft, and disused. It’s only then that Xie Lian noticed one of the boy’s hands clutching at a half-eaten meat bun.

“Don’t worry,” he told the boy softly, “I’ll send it away.” It’s the work of seconds to send a bit of spiritual energy at the dog, not enough to hurt but just enough to frighten. It whines and takes off, but Xie Lian didn’t miss the boy’s shudder at the noise.

“It’s all right now,” he reassured softly, prying the child from his legs just enough to kneel in front of him, uncaring of the dirty ground. “It’s gone now, see? You can eat your food.”

The boy’s eyes were wide. “Are you a cultivator?” he asked, his voice now excited instead of terrified. It’s a marvel, how quickly children bounce back from fear.

Still, it was curious that the boy could tell that. “How did you know?” Xie Lian asked, and reached with one sleeve to try and clean at least some of the grime from the boy’s face.

“Mom and dad are cultivators!” the boy declared with a smile, quietly submitting to Xie Lian’s care. “The best there are!”

There was—a sad story there, hiding between the boy’s pride of his parents to the state of his clothes, the evidence of life on the streets. “And where are they, ah—“

“Wei Ying,” the child finished for him, realizing the source for Xie Lian’s floundering. His smile faded away. “They—they went on a nighthunt, and they haven’t come back in a really long time. But that’s okay!” he quickly hurried to add, the smile coming back although dimmer this time. “People have been really nice! The old man in the market always gives me a bun at the end of the day if there are any left, and the aunties in the red house across the street sometimes let me in to use their bath, if I stay really really quiet. And now you, Daozhang! You saved me from that d-dog.” He shuddered at the last word, but the smile remained on his face.

Xie Lian could see it on his face: that he knows what he’s saying, is probably more than aware of what happened, but is hesitant to put it to words, to make it real. There is bravery in looking at a world that has taken everything you have away from you, and still seeing the kindness in it. A certain kind of strength that Xie Lian was more than familiar with. The weight of the bamboo hat was comfortable around his neck.

“I see,” he said softly, and kneeling there, in a dirty alleyway of a city he has never been to before, he made a decision. “Well, let’s see if we can’t do a bit better than some meat buns and the rare bath, shall we?”

“You never talked about him before,” Hua Cheng says softly, as Xie Lian finishes the story. Xie Lian ducks his head, feeling chastised even though there was no censure in Hua Cheng’s tone.

“It was difficult,” he says, looking down. Hua Cheng insisted they leave the room and the bag behind them, and Xie Lian didn’t put too much of a fight, still reeling from his realisation. They are now sitting in Hua Cheng’s bedroom, the calm, familiar presence of it helping sooth Xie Lian’s agitation. “When I ascended, I had to leave A-Ying behind. It would not have been safe for him, and I had managed to find a respectable cultivator clan who knew his parents and could take him in. It was… better than I could have given him, at the time.” He takes in a breath, and then another, and Hua Cheng says nothing, sitting there quietly and waiting for him to gather his thoughts, his hands warm and comforting around his own. Xie Lian is so, so grateful for him.

“I felt guilty,” he admits, still not looking at Hua Cheng. “A-Ying was—very mad at me, when I told him I had to leave. It was a cruel thing to do to a child who has already lost his parents once, and I couldn’t explain to him I was a god. He had thought me a rogue cultivator until then, and I never corrected him.” He closes his eyes in remembered grief. “It was.... easier, not to talk about him, to believe he forgot about me, and was living a happy, peaceful life,” he laughs bitterly. “Not quite so, as it turns out.”

It blazes inside him, this discovery: that whatever A-Ying’s life turned out to be brought him here, to a disused room in the house of a Ghost King, in such a condition that even Hua Cheng has never seen anything like that.

“You couldn’t have known,” Hua Cheng tells him, softly but firmly. “Gege, this isn’t your fault.”

“We don’t know that,” Xie Lian objects, opening his eyes to look at Hua Cheng. “We have no idea—“

“So we fix him,” Hua Cheng cuts him off, conviction in his voice. “We fix him, and we find out what happened.”

Xie Lian is speechless for a second in the face of this conviction, in the face of a man who just found out his lover had hidden an entire child away from him and would still forgive that. “San Lang, aren’t you mad?”

“Mad?” Hua Cheng looks taken aback. “Why on earth would I be mad?”

“Because I didn’t tell you,” Xie Lian says. “I never even mentioned it, and you—you gave me so much of yourself, you keep giving me and giving me and I didn’t even…”

Hua Cheng releases his hands but before Xie Lian could even miss their warmth they come up to cup his face as Hua Cheng moves closer, staring at him intently. “Gege, you don’t owe me anything. You know that, right?”

“It’s not about owing,” Xie Lian protests even as he leans into Hua Cheng’s touch. “Anyone would be upset to find out their—their… lover,” and he has to whisper this last word, his cheeks burning, “didn’t tell them about a child.”

Hua Cheng chuckles at that. “Well, this San Lang isn’t mad at his lover about this child,” he singsongs at him, before becoming serious again. “I know that in the past I was… entitled to more of your secrets than you have known, at the time.” He barrels on, ignoring Xie Lian’s noise of protest. “No, no, it’s fine, I know I should have come clean to you about our past earlier. But I was afraid, and guilty, and just happy to be alive and with you.”

“I don’t blame you for any of that,” Xie Lian insists. “I understand why you didn’t tell me.”

Hua Cheng smiles at him, and this close to him the effect is devastating. “And I too understand why you didn’t tell me.”

Xie Lian huffs, even as he closes the distance between them to place a quick kiss on Hua Cheng’s lips. “That’s cheating, you know.”

Hua Cheng nods seriously. “You should report me to the local authority, so they can punish me properly.”

“I’ve heard he’s very evil and mean,” Xie Lian tells him, trying and failing to contain his smile. “You may be punished quite severely, you know.”

“Gege will have to take care of me afterwards, then.”

“Gege will, gege will,” Xie Lian agrees, and leans in to kiss him again, before withdrawing completely. Hue Chang’s hands fall limply from his face. “I need—I need to find out what happened to him.”

Hua Cheng straightens up, all traces of mischief gone from his face. “We will,” he promises quietly but fiercely. He pauses for a second and then adds, a tad awkwardly. “I… would like to meet him.”

The blaze in him has been simmering throughout this conversation, but it is heating up again, as his entire body is drawn back to that disused room, and that small bag, and the lost soul that is inside of it. There is fear in him, of what they will find. That whatever happened to A-Ying was indeed Xie Lian’s fault, that by leaving him where and when he did he has doomed him to this terrible faith, that while he was getting his life back on track and finding happiness with his old friends and Hua Cheng, Wei Ying was suffering, alone and scared, like he was before Xie Lian had first found him.

Xie Lian is many things, but a coward isn’t one of them. As he stands up and begins heading back to that room, he promises himself—no matter what he finds out, he won’t be abandoning Wei Ying again.

Chapter Text

All that being said, for the next few days Xie Lian and Hua Cheng find nothing. Between Hua Cheng’s vast library and Xie Lian’s access to Ling Wen’s personal library (acquired after many, many years of begging), there should have been at least a hint as to how Wei Ying’s condition came to be, or how to fix it, but there was just nothing.

“Gege,” Hua Cheng finally says, after yet another fruitless day of searching. “Maybe we’re going about it wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Hua Cheng leans his chin in his hand, deep in thoughts. “It’s clear that whatever Wei Ying has gone through is something completely new. We might not be able to find anything in old records, even if we search for a thousand more years. But whatever it was must have been very powerful, to have left his soul in this state. This kind of power… it would have left evidence behind.”

And so—down to the mortal realm they go.

Lotus Pier is as beautiful as the last time he has been there, about a hundred years prior, but much bigger than Xie Lian remembers. They step out of the Distance Shortening Array into a bustling market, vendors calling out sales for anything, from combs and jewelry to exotics spices and herbs. Immediately, a man almost knocks Xie Lian over in his hurry, and apologizes over his back as he hurries away. Hua Cheng places a careful arm on his waist to stead him. “Gege, it seems to be very busy.”

“I wonder why?” Xie Lian asks, leaning into Hua Cheng’s touch as they survey their surroundings. “We haven’t forgotten any festivals, right?”

“No,” Hua Cheng answers. They start walking slowly down the street, taking in the sights. “There was a war, but as far as I know it has ended a few years ago already. They shouldn’t still be celebrating it.”

“A war?” Xie Lian frowns, before smiling at a vendor who offers him a sample of her wares, shaking his head gently at her. “I haven’t heard of any war.”

He can feel Hua Cheng momentarily still besides him. “Ah. You were busy with… rebuilding efforts.”

Ah.

“You mean, it was during the year you were gone,” Xie Lian says. He laughs, a bit embarrassed. “I guess I was a bit too preoccupied to notice a war then, yes.”

Hua Cheng takes his hand and squeezes it, but doesn’t say anything. Xie Lian loves him so much.

“Do you know anything about this war?” Xie Lian asks after a few more moments of companionable silence.

Hua Cheng hums. “It was started by a single sect, which ended up being overpowered by an alliance of the rest of the big sects and wiped out. I don’t know much else about it though—this San Lang apologises, gege.”

Xie Lian laughs as he nudges Hua Cheng, causing him to stumble. “San Lang, you shouldn’t apologize for not knowing something that happened while you were—unwell. But still: an entire sect wiped out… I should have heard more about it.” His eyes dart around. “Clearly it was not the Jiang sect. There are cultivators here wearing Yunmeng Jiang colours.”

“Ah—let’s go in there, gege.” Hua Cheng lightly tugs on Xie Lian’s hand, veering off the main path and towards a tea house. “Best place to conduct an investigation.”

“I think you just want to drink some,” Xie Lian teases, but allows himself to be led. The establishment they walk into is clean and airy, and fairly full considering the time of the day. Still, they manage to find an open table and sit down, Hua Cheng signaling the staff for some food and drink.

“Everyone seems to be celebrating something,” Xie Lian notes, taking in the happy cheer around them and abundance of food and drink.

“Daozhang, haven’t you heard?” a man from the table next to them leans over, his eyes wide and his cheeks bright, clearly at least a little bit intoxicated.

“Idiot,” his companion smacks him. “Clearly he’s a cultivator, of course he would know!”

“Ah, I’m afraid not,” Xie Lian laughs, scratching at his cheeks. “I have spent the last few years in seclusion, concentrating on my cultivation. I have to beg ignorance, Young Masters.”

The two men both gasped. “Oh, then we truly have happy news to share with Daozhang!” the first man who spoke says, shuffling even closer to their table. “Rejoice, my friend, for the Yilling Patriarch has been defeated!”

Xie Lian shares a confused look with Hua Cheng. “The Yilling Patriarch?”

The man’s companion, clearly less intoxicated than his friend, smacks him again. “Idiot! If they’ve been in seclusion for a few years they definitely wouldn’t know who the Yilling Patriarch is!” He turns back to Xie Lian and Hua Cheng. “I apologise for him, Daozhang, he doesn’t have a head on his shoulders. The Yilling Patriarch was a fearsome demonic cultivator, who reigned terror on the cultivation world for a few years now. He had a fierce army of corpses all controlled by his evil flute, and the Ghost General at his side.” The man shudders in remembered fear. “But a few days ago all the heads of the major sects laid siege to the Burial Mounds and finally got rid of this monster for good!”

Demonic cultivation was not something Xie Lian has heard from before, and with one look at Hua Cheng he could tell he hadn’t either. ‘Gege,’ he can suddenly hear in his communication array, ‘could Wei Ying be a victim of this Yilling Laozu and his so-called demonic cultivation?’

If he was… Xie Lian clenches his fist. If this Yilling Laozu was the reason Wei Ying was in his current state, he should thank whatever god he believes in that the sects got to him before Xie Lian could.

“Our own Jiang-zongzhu got the killing blow, is what I heard!” a voice from another table called, and soon enough everyone in the room was yelling speculations about what truly happened in the Burial Mounds, each one more outlandish than the last.

“I heard it took 500 cultivators to even breach his wards!”

“They say they found an entire army of corpses—some of them children!”

“Old Pei says he was there and saw a pond of blood.”

“Old Pei is full of shit! I heard it was a entire lake.”

As it continues, Hua Cheng snorts. Leaning in closer to Xie Lian he says, “Sounds like some of the rumors people tell about me.”

Xie Lian gives him a look. “You don’t think it’s true?” Just then, the server who was in the process of off-loading a few local dishes, gave a large snort before catching herself, her eyes wide. “Ah, I’m so sorry gongzi-”

“No no, don’t apologise,” Xie Lian quickly reassures her, smiling. “Some of those stories are very far-fetched.”

The woman rolls her eyes. “More like full of shit,” she says in a no nonsense voice. “They speak as though the Yilling Laozu has personally victimised them. As if he would ever attack Lotus Pier, or anywhere else in Yunmeng.”

“You sound as though you knew him personally,” Hua Cheng intervenes, his eye sharp and his smile even more so, although it wasn’t threatening. Still, the woman blanches.

“Ah, hardly, gongzi…” she demures, flustered. “I just—remember him from before.”

“Before?”

She glances around her furtively. “I shouldn’t…”

With a knowing smirk, Hua Cheng’s hands dips into his robes and he passes along the table a small purse of money. The server’s eyes widen, but with another furtive glance she accepts it, hiding it away in the folds of her robes. “Gongzi is generous… Still, you should be careful not to ask when Jiang-zongzhu is around. He would not be merciful.” With a breath, she settles next to them, making sure to lean in and away from the rest of the crowd. “The truth is the Yilling Laozu is actually from here.”

“Yunmeng?” Xie Lian asks.

“Lotus Pier,” she corrects. “He used to be a Jiang cultivator—was actually raised alongside Jiang-zongzhu and Lady —,” she stumbles, “the late Lady Jiang.”

Xie Lian was getting an awful feeling in the pit of his stomach, the kind he used to get in training, when he would make a move against the Head Priest that was clearly a mistake, but didn’t quite know how yet. “And you knew him then?”

“He would often come into town,” she nods, a faraway look in her eyes. “Always smiling and laughing, usually dragging Jiang-zongzhu behind him. It was hard to say no to him—he would turn his brilliant smile on you and the next thing you knew you have given him several buns for free and then even urged him to come back tomorrow. Jiang-zonghzu would never speak to us freely, always constrained by his station, and Lady Jiang was often held back from joining them, but Wei-gongzi would spend hours talking with us in the market, asking us about—“

She continues talking, but Xie Lian’s whole being freezes. “Wei-gongzi?” Next to him he could feel Hua Cheng tense as well.

His interruption shakes her from her reminiscing. “Ah, yes. Wei Wuxian, Jiang Fengmian’s ward. That’s who those morons have forgotten the Yilling Laozu used to be.”

It isn’t necessarily him. Wei wasn’t that rare of a family name, and for all Xie Lian knew, Jiang Fengmian made it a habit to wander around the world adopting orphaned boys. It doesn’t—it doesn’t mean anything. Even if Xie Lian could imagine so easily Wei Ying’s smile, so freely given, used to liberate extra buns and candies and toys from unsuspecting vendors, even though he could so easily imagine him growing up here, in this bustling beautiful town.

“Ah, my lady,” Hua Cheng takes over for him, drawing the woman’s attention from Xie Lian. “This might be a strange question but—do you perhaps know the Yilling Laozu’s personal name?”

He doesn’t provide a reason for his question, and although the woman looks curious, she doesn’t pry. She frowns her head in thought. “I think it must have been… Wei Ying?”

Xie Lian’s whole body jerks and he stands up. “Excuse me-” he hurries out of the building, not noticing or caring when he bumped into other patrons of the house. Outside, the market which just half an hour earlier seemed so inviting and exciting is now suffocating, and Xie Lian desperately needs to be somewhere that isn’t here, the place where he left a child to have a golden future that somehow turned into something twisted—

“Gege, I got you,” and with a hand around his waist Hua Cheng whisks them away. Xie Lian only dimly recognizes they are now in a forest instead of the market before he whirls away from Hua Cheng and starts to furiously pace around.

“How could that be—“ he mutters fiercely. “The things those people said—Wei Ying would never!”

“Gege,” Hua Cheng calls out to him from the outskirts of the clearing. “You need to calm down.”

“I am perfectly calm,” Xie Lian calls back, still stomping on the ground. “The nerve of some people— !”

“We don’t know if it’s really him,” Hua Cheng tries, but at Xie Lian’s unamused look he takes a different approach. “They were only rumors. Gege knows not even half of the things people say about me are the truth.”

“More like not even three-quarters,” Xie Lian mutters, feeling the indignation of the aspirations people cast upon his lover. Honestly, the things some people believe—!

Hua Cheng shakes his head fondly but acquiesce. “If gege says so. But still. I don’t believe those rumors are true either.”

Xie Lian pauses in his pacing and turns to face Hua Cheng. “You don’t? Why?”

“First of all, you heard the lady. She certainly didn’t trust them, and wouldn’t she know better than some useless nobodies who get drunk in the middle of the day?” Hua Cheng snorts out in disgust. “But most importantly—you had Wei Ying for three years, correct?”

“Um, yes, approximately.”

“A child taken care of by Dianxia for even one day would never turn to evil,” Hua Cheng says. “So, if the Yilling Laozu is Wei Wuxian is Wei Ying, there must be more truth to it than those rumors. That’s all.”

“San Lang…!” Xie Lian’s breath leaves him for a moment. It’s hard to understand sometimes, the depth of the feelings Hua Cheng has for Xie Lian. Hard to comprehend how one man, even a man who is a calamity and a ghost king and a would be god, could contain so much love and devotion in him, and for someone like Xie Lian at that. He doesn’t often like to think about it, because he knows that if Hua Cheng knew that's how he saw it it would make him very sad, but sometimes it snuck up on him, like it did now. When Hua Cheng would say all those wonderful things, completely convinced of his own truth and the truth of Xie Lian.

Hua Cheng simply smiles at him in return. “So please—recall your spiritual aura and we can continue our investigation, alright?”

His spiritual aura…? Suddenly, Xie Lian realises he has completely shed the mortal shell he was donning earlier, and that his spiritual power was positively flooding the clearing. “Oops,” he chuckles, embarrassed. “Sorry, San Lang.” Carefully, he draws it all back in.

“Gege doesn’t need to apologise,” Hua Cheng waves him off as he comes closer now that it’s safer. When he is close enough he places both his hands on Xie Lian’s face and peers down at him. “Are you alright?”

Xie Lian smiles up at him, and if it’s a bit more brittle than his usual smile, well—no one can fault him. “I will be. Let’s go back.”

The rest of their day in Lotus Pier passes in a blur. They decide against visiting the Jiang family compound, heading the warning of the lady in the tea house and understanding that even if not all the rumors about the Yilling Laozu had any truth in them, it was undeniable that the head of the Jiang Sect had something to do with his demise. Instead, they return to the tea house, and after a quick lie (or two, and another bribe) hear the rest of the story.

There isn’t much to it, after all, or at least not much that she could tell them. Wei Wuxian was a prodigy, the shining beacon of the Jiang Sect. Wei Wuxian was sent to train in the Cloud Recesses with his adoptive brother and sister, and was rumored to have defeated the legendary Xuanwu of Slaughter, bringing the wrath of the Wen Sect upon Yunmeng Jiang, leaving them decimated. Wei Wuxian disappeared for three months, and when he came back he brought terrible, overwhelming power with him, that brought the Wen Sect to its knees.

The lady at the tea house was very adamant about it. “All those fools,” and she gestured with a mocking hand at the rest of the patrons, “would sooner forget, but I wouldn’t. Wei Wuxian was the reason victory was had against the Wens.”

From here on her account becomes muddled. Seemingly overnight Wei Wuxian decided to throw in his lot with the remnants of the Wen Clan. He has animated himself a Ghost General with his new Demonic Cultivation and has taken over the Burial Mounds. Soon after, he has sent out his General to murder Lady Jiang’s husband, and when the Ghost General was taken in by Jin Sect to be executed, he has shown up in Nightless City to wage a war of a single man against the sects. Lady Jiang was a tragic casualty.

At this part of the story, she grows quiet. “I don’t understand it,” she confesses, her eyes lowered. “I know it’s true but... Wei Wuxian loved his sister more than anything in the world. Anyone who saw them growing up together could have seen that.”

She could not tell them how Wei Wuxian died. “As you’ve heard the sect leaders led a siege upon the Burial Mounds as revenge for the carnage at Nightless City and to eradicate the Wens once and for all, but no one but the people who were there really knows what happened. Jiang-zongzhu made a declaration that the Yilling Laozu was dead but… no one has seen him in the days since.” She bowed to them in apology, but Hua Cheng waved her off, thanking her for the information.

Throughout it all, Xie Lian sits ramrod straight, his hands clenched tightly on his thighs. Wordlessly, once she is gone, Hua Cheng draws him up and leads him out of the tea house once more. They back down an unused alleyway, and with a flick of Hua Cheng’s dice, they go back to Ghost City.

They don’t exchange a word. Hua Cheng knows him better than any other, living or dead, and so he knows when Xie Lian needs silence to think, when he needs to gather his composer like it is pieces of discarded trash, waiting for his hands to pick them up and put them to use again. That night, Hua Cheng washes his hair gently, his fingers slipping through strands of his hair. He is as dedicated to this as he is dedicated to anything to do with Xie Lian, and he is once again humbled by his devotion, his love.

The next day, they are once again sitting in the library trying to find anything useful, when there is a commotion from the corridor. “Hua Chengzou!” one of Hua Cheng’s many servants, although not Yin Yu, comes running in.

“What is it,” Hua Cheng snaps, not even a question. “I told you not to interrupt us.”

“But my lord!” the spirit protest, wringing its hands. “You’ve said before that if there was a new child—“

Hua Cheng brings up a hand to cut him off, and then he looks at Xie Lian, who understood even without him saying anything. “Go,” he smiles at him, as always overcome with the kindness of a man who would insist he is evil and cruel, and yet would run at the first hint of a child on the street. “I’ll be fine without you, San Lang.”

Hua Cheng pouts, his one visible eyes crinkling at the corner in a way that never fails to make Xie Lian want to kiss him. “But what if San Lang won’t be fine without gege?” Even as he says that, however, he gets up on his feet. “I’ll be sure to be as fast as possible,” he promises.

Xie Lian gently tugs at the red string connecting them. “If not, I’ll come find you,” he promises in return. Hua Cheng leans in for one last forehead kiss and then he is gone, red robes swirling around him as he follows the spirit out of the room.

As it always does nowadays, his thoughts instantly wander back to Wei Ying as soon as he is alone. It still feels like a bitter blow to accept what happened to a child that for a couple of years Xie Lian had thought of has is, and it’s impossible not to count it as a failure. One on the scale of few others in Xie Lian’s past, and the heavens know he has many. He had… not allowed himself to think of him often, the last decade or so, but when he did he would imagine him happy, and surrounded by dear people. To know that perhaps the opposite has been true, all this time, while Xie Lian has done nothing…

Wei Ying was a sweet and happy child, even as he carried with him an unimaginable tragedy. He was easy to love, and loved easily in return, all dimpled chubby cheeks and sticky grabby hands. Xie Lian has loved him like he has loved few before and few since, but he has always attempted a degree of separation between them, more than aware of Wei Ying’s probable mortality and his own misfortune. Perhaps he had thought it inevitable, that something bad is going to happen to any child that would be close to Xie Lian.

Perhaps something bad had.

The thought consumed him—that whatever it was that happened to Wei Ying was of Xie Lian’s own doing, or even just mere existence. That not only had he failed to protect him, he had in fact caused his downfall. At the back of his mind he dimly knows that this is not productive, nor likely true, but there is something seductive about such self-pity, and it has been decades since Xie Lian had self-indulge in it.

It is lucky, then, that it has also been decades since Xie Lian has been alone with his misfortune. Like he has done so many times before, Hua Cheng saves him from his own self-destruction as he walks into the room, a frown on his face.

“Gege? I think there’s someone you need to meet.”

A head pokes out behind him, about knee-high for Hua Cheng, although he would be closer to waist-high next to Xie Lian. He knows, because he knows that face, knows how it fit next to him. He abruptly stands up in shock, still trying to come to terms with what he is seeing, even as the child has no such qualms.

“Xie-gege!” The boy darts behind Hua Cheng, too fast for him to catch, and barrels into Xie Lian, skinny arms coming around his waist in a hug. “You’re here!”

Xie Lian’s arms raise up automatically, old instincts flaring to life. “A-Ying?”

He can feel the boy nodding against him. “The gege in red said you’re here, but he looks super suspicious,” Wei Ying whispers to him in a voice barely lower than his usual volume, “did he kidnap you? Is that why you’re in this weird place?”

Xie Lian can see Hua Cheng’s face twitch at that, and he doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry, disbelief mixed with grief mixed with hope. “A-Ying,” he scolds in a wavering voice, fighting hard against the tears welling up in his eyes, “don’t be rude. This gege brought you to me, didn’t he?”

Wei Ying seems to consider his argument, and then a brilliant smile spreads across his face. “Yeah, he did! Thanks gege!” He spins around and bows to Hua Cheng clumsily. Xie Lian doesn’t understand how he is even here.

“San Lang—” he trails off, unsure how to ask it with the child in the room. Luckily, as always, Hua Cheng knows exactly what he means.

“A spirit fragment,” he says, his one eye examining Wei Ying clumsily, who fidgets at the attention. “I found him in the market, I think he was trying to make his way here.”

Xie Lian knows what that means, knows that what Wei Ying is trying to find, what he’s trying to make his way back to, is held in a spirit capture bag in an unused room at the back of the mansion. What he should do is take him there, start mending the soul, but…

“A-Ying,” he says, kneeling down next to the boy so that they can be eye to eye. “Can I introduce you to my friend?”

“Is he nice?”

Xie Lian laughs, and he’s proud of the way it almost doesn’t shake at all. “Very nice,” he says, “and very dear to me. It would make me very happy if you would meet him.”

Wei Ying is looking at him, big eyes full of the same kind of unconditional love that Hua Cheng has, the kind Xie Lian always felt he was undeserving of. If Xie Lian’s memory doesn’t fail him, he should be about six or seven now, not too long after they had first met. What would it have been like, if they had had Hua Cheng then too? “If Xie-gege loves him, he can’t be mean.”

“Can too,” he hears Hua Cheng muttering, and stifles a laugh.

“He isn’t mean,” he agrees, “in fact, he’s the one who brought you back to me. That was very nice of him, right?” He smiles up at Hua Cheng who, delightfully, flushes at his words.

“You mean the gege in red?” Wei Ying asks, looking at Hua Cheng curiously. “You’re Xie-gege’s friend?”

“I am.” Hua Cheng is holding himself back, and it takes a moment for Xie Lian to understand that Hua Cheng is awkward about this. That he wants to make a good impression on the kid that Xie Lian chose, but unsure how to go about it. His heart flutters at the thought.

“His name is Hua Cheng,” he tells Wei Ying and then, mischievously, adds: “You should call him Hua-gege.”

“Gege—!” Hua Cheng protests, but the damage has already been done.

“Hue-gege, are you also a cultivator? Why is your eye covered? Is this your house? Are you strong like Xie-gege? No one is as strong as Xie-gege. How old are you? Do you—” Hua Cheng looks positively overwhelmed with this slew of questions, and Xie Lian has forgotten this, how inquisitive Wei Ying was, how eager he was to learn everything, anything new. Was that what led him down this path?

No, enough. Xie Lian isn’t going to let himself think about that. Not when he has to save his lover from an overenthusiastic six years old. “A-Ying, how is Hua-gege going to answer if you don’t let him?”

Wei Ying stops mid-sentence, his mouth open wide. “Oh.”

Xie Lian chuckles, one hand coming up to clear Wei Ying’s forehead of stray hairs, tucking them behind his ears. “How about this: we will go have lunch, and then Hua-gege can answer anything that he wants to answer, alright?”

“Oh, so I get a choice?” Hua Cheng asks sardonically, but when Xie Lian glances at him, he has a soft look on his face.

“San Lang always has a choice,” Xie Lian says, and he hopes Hua Cheng knows he means more than just in this moment.

“Why do you call him that? Isn’t he your gege too?” Wei Ying interrupts.

“He’s my gege,” Hua Cheng answers for him. Wei Ying frowns.

“I guess we can share…” he says reluctantly. “But I was here first!”

Hua Cheng looks like he could and would argue that, and Xie Lian has to intervene before he has to watch an 800 year old demon king start fighting a six year old boy. “Gege loves you both, and he would love it even more if you would join him for lunch.” Grinning, he gets up from his knees, one hand coming to hold Wei Ying and the other one reaching for Hua Cheng. “Coming?”

And of course, he is.

Lunch is a lively affair. Wei Ying doesn’t let go of his questions, and Hua Cheng answers one by one, even the ones Xie Lian insists he doesn’t have to (“A-Ying, it’s rude to ask about Hua-gege’s eyepatch!”—“It’s okay gege, I don’t mind.”). It’s good, it’s so good, to see them together, laughing and bantering, Wei Ying eating the kind of food that Xie Lian could have only dreamed of getting for him once upon a time. Warmth unfurls in his heart as he watches them, unable to wipe the silly grin off his face.

Towards the end, Wei Ying gets more and more fidgety. Xie Lian doesn’t have to look at Hua Cheng to know what that means.

“A-Ying,” he calls out softly to catch the child’s attention. “I want to show you something. Is that alright?”

“Yeah!” Wei Ying’s grin is as blinding as always. Xie Lian hopes it won’t be the last time he sees it. “Is it another friend like Hua-gege?”

“Not exactly.” Xie Lian stands up and extends a hand to the boy. “I’ll show you.”

Wei Ying has a lot to say about Paradise Mansion as they walk the halls, Hua Cheng following silently behind them. He wonders who’s the rich gege who leaves here, hopes they haven’t annoyed him too much, asks about all the butterflies carved into the walls. Xie Lian listens to him patiently and replies to any question, even as he remembers many afternoons spent this way, a decade and some ago. All too soon, they reach the room housing the spirit capture bag.

Xie Lian takes a deep breath. “Now, A-Ying, this might feel a little bit strange,” he cautions.

“I think it will be fine,” Wei Ying says. He looks distracted, staring intently at the door—or perhaps at what’s beyond it. “I think—I think this is where I wanted to go.”

The urge to cry is strong and swift, but Xie Lian has much experience in suppressing it. He isn’t sure what will happen, but he knows it's necessary for Wei Ying’s soul to heal. “Go on then,” he encourages. “I’ll be right here.”

Without hesitation, Wei Ying opens the door and steps into the room. He doesn’t hurry or hesitate as he walks inside, not even looking at the rest of the room, his gaze trained on the bag lying on the table in the middle. A low hum feels the room, and Xie Lian notices the bag vibrating slightly, perhaps also feeling this soul fragment reaching out to it. When Wei Ying finally reaches it and touches it, there is a flash of light, and when it dies down, Wei Ying is gone.

With quick strides Hua Cheng is at the table in seconds, touching a finger to the bag and concentrating. “I think they merged,” he says after considering it, “it feels slightly more whole.”

“But not entirely complete?”

Hua Cheng gives him a pained look. “Gege, this soul was… in very bad shape.”

Xie Lian knows he should feel dejected by it, but he feels invigorated instead. “Then there must be more fragments out there. I need to go find them.”

“Naturally, I’ll go with gege,” Hua Cheng says, sliding the spirit capture bag into the sleeve of his robe and neatly stepping back next to Xie Lian. “I need to make a good impression, after all.”

Xie Lian wants to tell him how wonderful he is, how important it is to Xie Lian that Hua Cheng cares so much, about him and the people that he cares for as well. Hua Cheng once told him “If your dream is to save the common people, then my dream is only you,” but it’s gratifying to see him trying so hard with someone he shouldn’t care about at all. With a lost, broken soul, that once maybe looked at Xie Lian and saw family.

Chapter Text

They go back to Lotus Pier. They still didn’t know precisely what happened, why Wei Ying left, but surely he has left enough behind in the place that was once his home. Maybe enough to call him home. They wander the stalls for a while, Xie Lian continuously evading Hua Cheng’s attempts to buy him any number of things. He knows that Hua Cheng is trying to distract him, to take his mind off of things, and he is grateful for it. It wouldn’t work on its own, but Xie Lian is willing to play along, to ease his lover’s heart in return, and so it does its job.

He sees the spirit as he’s trying to convince Hua Cheng that surely he doesn’t need yet another set of robes, when his closet in Paradise Manor could supply a small city. There is a tall young man at the next stall over, maybe about fourteen years old, with a boyish grin and twinkling eyes. Xie Lian didn’t consider before how he would recognize other versions of Wei Ying, but if he had, he shouldn’t have bothered—he recognizes him immediately.

“A-Ying!” he calls out to him, abandoning the stall and the negotiations taking place. He is only peripherally aware of Hua Cheng buying that robe for him anyway.

The spirit spins around, confusion on his face. No one else on the street seems to pay him any mind, but he doesn’t seem bothered by it. “Who…” he trails off, as he squints at Xie Lian. The next moment, comprehension dawns on his face. “Xie-gege?”

Xie Lian beams at him. “A-Ying,” he says again, closer to him now and better able to examine him. He seems to be in the midst of a growth spurt: his limbs are gangly and the way he holds himself is awkward, as if he is still getting used to his size. He isn’t wearing the Yunmeng Jiang colors, for some reason, instead preferring simple dark blue and red robes, his hair held up by a half ponytail—with a pang, Xie Lian recognises the hairdo as one he has done for him many times.

A grin spreads across the teen’s face. “Xie-gege, you’re here!” he crows, “in Lotus Pier! Are you here for a night-hunt? Maybe some shopping? Are you here to talk to Uncle Jiang?” He speaks without much thought given to his words or the circumstances, and it confirms Xie Lian’s hypothesis that the spirit fragments are not aware of their own condition, or their history. That instead of being a part of one continuous flowing story, one with a past, present and future, they have been torn out of it, willing to accept the world around them as their only reality. If this has really been Wei Ying at the age of thirteen, he would surely—

Well. He would have much else to say to Xie Lian.

“Just to visit you, A-Ying,” he smiles at him gently, banishing thoughts of past hurt from his mind. “We have never been to Lotus Pier—would you give us a tour?”

Wei Ying is more than happy to do so. Hua Cheng disappears somewhere, although Xie Lian can tell he hasn’t left, and is simply letting them have this. Xie Lian spends most of the time watching him rather than the scenery around them. The way he smiles, how he waves his hands as he explains one thing or another, the cadence of his voice—he can’t help but trace them back to the child he once took care of. But there are new things too: his smile is more mischievous than it used to be, less careless happiness and more calculated joy. The names he speaks of are new in his mouth. His face lights up as he speaks of them, especially his sister and brother, and Xie Lian can tell how much he loves them from that alone. His stories are full of them as he speaks of sun-bleached afternoons spent catching fish in lotus ponds, of clandestined sleeping parties and adventures away from the eyes of prying adults.

It is a sunny day, but there are shadows there too. Wei Ying doesn’t speak of the Master and Lady of Yunmeng Jiang except in passing, mentions the names as part of a story but never at its center. Xie Lian remembers Jiang Fengmian, remembers thinking him a kind man, who looked at Wei Ying as if he was the most precious of treasures. He desperately hopes he hasn’t made a mistake.

Perhaps it's that desperation that leads him to ask, even as a different kind of desperation wars with it, not wanting to mar the perfect afternoon air with ugliness. “Your shijie and shidi sound very kind,” he starts, unsure how to navigate those uncharted waters. Family is a concept he has very faded memories of.

Wei Ying lets out a guffaw. “Jiang Cheng would never let me call him shidi,” he says, although not in a mean way. “Shijie is the best though! The most beautiful, the kindest, the bravest. She laughs at all of my jokes, you know.”

“Wei Ying is very funny,” Xie Lian has to agree with Jiang Yanli’s assessments. “So Young Lady Jiang and Young Master Jiang treat you well—and their parents?”

If he wasn’t looking for it, he might have missed the way Wei Ying freezes for a second. It’s not condemning, but it is… concerning. “Ah, you know. Uncle Jiang and Madam Yu are very kind to me.”

Uncle Jiang but not Aunt Jiang. Shijie and shidi, but not jiejie and didi. Wei Ying doesn’t wear Yunmeng Jiang clothes, and he remembers the lady in the inn saying “Jiang Fegnmian’s ward.”

When Xie Lian ascended, his first thought had been of Wei Ying. He knew the moment it had happened that he would have to give him up, and had hoped that he could at least find him a good home, one where his stomach would always be full, his bed would be soft, and he would be loved. He had thought he found it, with Jiang Fengmian. Had he been wrong?

“But you know,” Wei Ying hurries to add, “there’s been talk about making me Head Disciple next year! And then we’ll be off to the lectures at the Cloud Recesses! I hear that Emperor Smile—” he catches himself, throwing a sheepish look at Xie Lian. “Um, never mind.”

Xie Lian can’t help but laugh. He forgot this, but even as a child Wei Ying has always been so good at banishing away his troubles. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” he allows graciously.

‘Gege,’ he hears in the communication array. ‘I don’t want to interrupt, but the spirit capture bag is growing… erratic. I fear it might start leaking in search of the fragment, soon.’

Xie Lian’s heart clenches. He knows that they wouldn’t have long, knows that this couldn’t last forever. Still, still—

“A-Ying,” he calls out, careful to not let any of his sadness show in his voice, “can I introduce you to a friend of mine?”

Wei Ying is hilariously intimidated by Hua Cheng. He’s tall for his age, true (and how glad Xie Lian is that none of the maluntritution he has suffered in his childhood has had far reaching effects), but Hua Cheng is taller, and Wei Ying has to crane his head upwards to look him in the eye. “H-hello,” he stutters, and—is that—

Wei Ying is blushing. Xie Lian stifles the urge to cackle in glee.

“Hello,” Hua Cheng answers, the twist to his mouth telling Xie Lian he has noticed the same thing.

“You’re tall,” Wei Ying tells him, and then immediately looks mortified.

“I know,” Hua Cheng answers dryly, and Xie Lian snorts. Wei Ying sends him a betrayed look.

“San Lang, can you…” he gestures at Hua Cheng’s sleeve. The three of them are standing in a secluded alley off the marketplace, but Xie Lian throws up a privacy array, just to be safe.

Wei Ying’s face changes when Hua Cheng withdraws the bag. “What…” he reaches out with a hand but then stops, hesitating. “Is this… dangerous?” he looks at Xie Lian anxiously. They are almost at the same height, he notices then, overcome with the thought. The boy who once barely reached his waist, would maybe tower over him the next time he sees another fragment.

“It won’t harm you, A-Ying,” Xie Lian reassures him.

“And anyone else?” Wei Ying persists, “Lotus Pier, the Jiangs?”

From his side, Hua Cheng snorts. “He definitely is your kid, gege,” he says, fondly. “No, brat. Won’t hurt anyone else either.”

Wei Ying watches them for a few moments. He is older and wiser than the boy they had seen yesterday but he still has the same eyes, and the same capacity for trust. “Alright.” A larger hand than the one that extended yesterday touches the bag, but the result is all the same: with a flash he is gone, and Xie Lian and Hua Cheng are standing alone in the alleyway.

“Was he what you expected?” Hua Cheng asks, curiously.

How to answer an impossible question? “Wei Ying is Wei Ying. He is never expected. He is simply there for me to love.”

The Wei Ying that shows up in Cloud Recesses is about sixteen years of age, and he shines so brightly that Xie Lian can’t look away. Just like in Lotus Pier, no one can see him, and Xie Lian and Hua Cheng cast themselves invisible as well. Any other god would be wary of walking into the stronghold of such a powerful clan like Gusu Lan even under invisibility, but it's not an issue for such powerful beings like themselves.

The day is cold, with the threat of snow on the air. It does not seem to bother Wei Ying, who is happily skipping along the path when they find him. Like the two previous fragments, he is overjoyed to see Xie Lian, and does not question his presence, nor that of the man clad in red next to him.

We’re the same height, Xie Lian thinks, and it isn’t as painful as it could have been. He is still worried, he is still grieving, but there is a healing quality to it, seeing all those versions of Wei Ying that he has never though he would get to see. Like playing catch-up with an on-going story.

“C’mon, Xie-gege, Xie-gege’s friend!” he laughs joyly, “I’ll sneak you in. Lan Zhan will freak out if he sees two strangers wandering around.”

“Lan Zhan?”

Wei Ying’s grin widens even further, and becomes more mischievous than before. “Lan Zhan! The second young master of Gusu Lan. People call him one of the Twin Jades of Lan. Very appropriate! He is definitely as pretty as a jade. Cold like one too,” he adds as an afterthought, pouting. “Xie-gege, he bullies me all the time. Won’t let me have alcohol, won’t let me pet the bunnies. And now he’s going to supervise me while I copy all three thousand rules in the library, and I’ll never get to have any fun.”

“Being punished, are you?” Hua Cheng asks, smirking.

Wei Ying blushes. Xie Lian is beyond delighted that his silly little crush on Hua Cheng is still present. “It’s stupid, they are so unreasonable,” he mutters, kicking petulant at some loose stone. “At least shijie is here to make me soup after.”

He then spends several minutes exalting his sister’s cooking. It doesn’t take long for the conversation to come around to this mysterious Lan Zhan, however.

“—and then, he tore apart the drawing I made for him! Just because of this little prank!” Wei Ying is complaining. By now they have stopped walking, Wei Ying too distracted by his stories to lead them anywhere in particular. From the corner of his eye, Xie Lian spots a few scurrying rabbits. Cute!

“A drawing?”

“I was bored,” Wei Ying shrugs. “And he was concentrating on the scrolls he was reading and he looked so severe and imposing and pretty, and before I knew it I started sketching him out. It was good too! I can’t believe he just ripped it, augh.”

That was the second time Wei Ying called this boy pretty. Xie Lian exchanges a delighted glance with Hua Cheng. “You must have flustered him quite a bit, A-Ying.”

“It was just one of Nie-xiong’s books,” Wei Ying says. “It wasn’t even one of the really racy ones!”

“That’s not what I meant—nevermind.” Xie Lian shakes his head, working very hard to contain his giggles.

“Brat, he means the drawing, not the books,” Hua Cheng snorts.

Wei Ying gives him a suspicious look. It is so similar to the one the seven year old him gave to Hua Cheng just a few days prior that Xie Lian almost bursts out laughing. “What about the drawing? I’m a pretty good artist, I’ll have you know!”

“It’s not about the quality of it,” Hua Cheng rolls his eyes, “it’s about what it means.”

“What?”

“A-Ying,” Xie Lian intervens. Hua Cheng can be a bit blunt at a time, and Wei Ying often requires more of a… gentle nudge, and not a push. “When you were drawing Young Master Lan, what were you thinking about?”

“Hmm…” Wei Ying taps the side of his nose in contemplation. “I guess… how he was so mean… and rigid… the shape of his brows, and how his eyes kinda flash between gold and brown? His mouth was super hard to get right, so I had to keep staring at it. And about how it will be great if he loosens up a bit and stops being such a stick in the mud. He will never find a wife like this, you know.”

Next to him, Hua Cheng is covering his face with a hand in exasperation. Xie Lian is half-tempted to join him. He hides his snort in a cough behind his sleeve. “I see. Do you think he could tell, when he saw the drawing?”

“What? How could he tell? I didn’t write any of it down.”

“Writing isn’t the only way to convey emotions with a brush, A-Ying.” He looks away from Wei Ying to stare at Hua Cheng instead, who is already looking right back at him, his visible eye creased in a smile, his lips twisted in that crooked smile that Xie Lian loves so much. “Painting someone, etching their features in paint and leaving a record of their existence through your eyes… of course it has meaning. Of course it can transcend words.”

A flush of red sneaks its way into Hua Cheng’s face, and Xie Lian beams at him, overjoyed as he always is at making him blush.

“Oh…” Wei Ying mumbles next to him, oblivious to the way they are looking at each other. “Oh no, Xie-gege, do you think he thought that I thought he was annoying?” He looks panicked suddenly, his eyes darting around, as if the subject of their discussion will pop out from behind a tree at any moment and accuse Wei Ying of hateful behaviour.

“Would that be so bad? It’s true after all,” Hua Cheng teases. Xie Lian would scold him if he wasn’t having quite so much fun poking at Wei Ying himself.

Wei Ying gapes at him. “Lan Zhan isn’t annoying!” he vehemently denies. “He’s super smart, and he can even match me sword to sword. He is an amazing cultivator.”

Xie Lian can’t help it—he reaches forward to tossle Wei Ying’s hair. “If that’s not how you feel, then I’m sure he wouldn’t think so,” he says kindly.

Wei Ying flushes a little at the treatment, but he smiles shakily. “Good,” he nods in satisfaction. “He isn’t all that bad, you know.”

“Do we,” Hua Cheng mutters, but quiets down when Xie Lian shakes his head at him.

“Do you like it here, in Cloud Recesses?” Xie Lian asks instead, changing the subject.

“Would be better without all those rules,” Wei Ying whines, but then he brightens. “Yeah, it’s pretty cool. Their library is insane. And hanging out with Nie-xiong is fun, he has so much gossip about everyone. Oh! Wen Ning and Wen Qing are also cool.”

“Wen?” Hua Cheng asks, suddenly in a sharp tone. Wei Ying, who doesn’t notice, nods.

“Yeah! Nie-xiong tells me it’s the first time in ages Qishan Wen sent any disciples to the Gusu lectures. I’m glad it’s Wen Ning and Wen Qing. Wen Chao looks like a total asshole—eh, sorry Xie-gege,” he smiles sheepishly. “But he was really awful. Wen Ning is nice though! I’m helping him with his bow. Wen Qing is… mean,” he winces, “but I think she’s warming up to me.”

Xie Lian looks at Hua Cheng inquisitively, but Hua Cheng only shakes his head and mouths “later” at him.” “I’m glad you’re making friends.”

“Augh, if only that peacock wasn’t here,” he says, and then explains at length all the iniquities of one Jin Zixuan, future sect leader of Lanling Jin and betrothed of Jiang Yanli. If one believes Wei Ying, he is nothing short of absolute monstrosity.

Somewhen during the conversation, they have started moving down the path again. Eventually the forests around them open up to reveal a series of ponds, rivers and waterfalls, beautiful against the mountain background. Even with his powers dampened as they are to hide away their identities, Xie Lian can feel the spiritual energy in the water.

“That’s…” Wei Ying stills. His brows are furrowed, and he seems to be slightly shivering. All at once, the sound of water is impossibly loud. “Did this place always feel like that?”

“Gege, it’s possible that the water’s purifying energy would have a negative affect on a spirit fragment,” Hua Cheng whispers in Xie Lian’s ear. “It’s best to fuse him with the rest of it now.”

Xie Lian sighs, but nods. “A-Ying, I have something to show you.”

The teen is slow to look at him, blinking lazily in the dying light of sunset all around them. “Xie-gege… I’m not supposed to be here, am I?” He looks like he did when he was eight years old, the first time he was sick while in Xie Lian’s care. Xie Lian, who has never had much dealing with sick children, has been out of his mind in worry. He has sat by his bed the entire three days and two nights he had fever, only leaving to get food and medicine. On the second night, Wei Ying woke up briefly, and he looked at him like he does now, dazed and feverish.

Would he become more aware, the longer this goes on? The older he is, maybe? Or maybe it has to do with this place, the energy around them. Xie Lian doesn’t know. He doubts anyone would. “No, A-Ying. But I’m going to take you home, I promise.”

“Lotus Pier… that would be nice,” Wei Ying replies dreamily. He reaches out without a sound to the bag Xie Lian holds for him, and with a flash, he is gone. The only noise left is that of the rushing water.

“That’s good…” Xie Lian whispers, staring at the bag clutches in his hands.

“Gege?”

“I’m just… glad, San Lang. That he thought of Lotus Pier as home.” His vision is blurry, all of a sudden.

“Gege.” Two big, tender, dear hands cup his cheeks and tilt his head up to look at their owner, his face frowning in concern. “Gege, you’re crying.”

“Happy tears, happy tears, San Lang, I promise,” Xie Lian beams at him through his tears. “I thought—when we were at Lotus Pier, I thought ‘ah, maybe I had made a mistake.’ That maybe A-Ying was unhappy, that I had abandoned him for worse and not better. So—so I’m so happy that he had somewhere he called home, even after me.” It had been eating at him since that sun-washed afternoon at Lotus Pier, and it’s such a relief to know his fear was unfounded.

“San Lang,” he peers up at him, blinking to dislodge the few tears clinging to his eyelashes. “Those names—you recognised them?”

Hua Cheng rubs his thumbs underneath Xie Lian’s eyes to rub away a few stray tears. He hums contemplatively. “Not those specific ones but—Qishan Wen was the major clan that was completely annihilated at the Sunshot Campaign a few years ago.”

“Oh, A-Ying…” Xie Lian breathes. “I hope he wasn’t too close with them.”

Hua Cheng leans in to rest his forehead against his. They stay together like this, breathing in each other and the cold air around them, for a very long time.

Chapter Text

Maybe they have grown complacent. Xie Lian hadn’t forgotten, exactly, in what condition Wei Ying was, how awful his death must have been for him to reach this state. But it was hard to remember when he was walking besides a laughing and smiling teen in the Lotus Pier markets, or teasing an almost-adult under the canopy of trees in Cloud Recesses. He has allowed himself to think it was going to be… perhaps not easy, as nothing about this situation was, but simple. A riddle, almost—collect all the pieces and they would have their answer.

Xie Lian has lived for a very long time. He forgets sometimes, how complicated people can be.

They have not only just stepped out of the array and into Ghost City proper when they see the plumes of smoke rising from the gambling den. Immediately, Yin Yu materialises next to them, everything about him tense and worried. “Chengzou, we have a situation.”

“I can see that,” Hua Cheng snaps. “What the fuck is happening in my city?” He turns to Xie Lian: “Gege—”

“I’m coming with,” Xie Lian says, not letting Hua Cheng have the opportunity to ask him to stay back. “I should help teach whichever troublemaker this is not to cause problems in my husband’s city, right?” He starts walking in the direction of the commotion, and then immediately stumbles once he realises what he has said, only barely manages to catch himself.

Behind him, he hears a strangled noise from Hua Cheng which makes him blush violently. He refuses to look back, continuing to stride purposefully towards the gambling den. Maybe if he just ignores it it will go away—

“Congratulations,” he hears Yin Yu say, and barely resists the urge to bury his face in his hands.

“Gege—”

“Right!” Xie Lian says, probably way too loudly. “Yin Yu, what’s the situation?” As they’re getting nearer the noise gets louder, as well as the…

“Resentful energy?”

Hua Cheng appears at his side, his face suddenly grave. “It feels like the fragments.”

Xie Lian puts on a burst of speed, Ruoye stirring around his throat. Wei Ying couldn’t cause much trouble out there in the mortal realm, but in a place populated by ghosts? Even a soul fragment can have power in the Ghost City.

Luckily, when they reach the chaos’ epi-center, no one appears to be seriously hurt. The ghosts are huddled in a loose circle around a kneeling figure who is absolutely bathed in resentful energy, swirling around them like affectionate shadows. He knows who this is without needing to be told.

“A-Ying!”

The figure’s eyes snap to meet his, and they are red red red, with no hint of recognition in them. The man—although he was barely one, in the condition he was in—snarls, and a thread of energy hurls through the air towards Xie Lian, who easily dispels it.

“A-Ying, it’s me,” he calls out, hesitating on the edge just outside of the swirl of shadows around Wei Ying’s body. “Your Xie-gege, do you remember me?”

His words do not seem to penetrate the haze of fear and anger around Wei Ying. Now that he is closer, he can make out a few more details about his appearance. He’s only a few years older than the one he has seen just a few hours ago, but he feels like he’s twice that. He looks haggard, completely and utterly exhausted, his eyes so sunken in his face that it looks almost caved in. His body is skeletal, the tattered robes practically hanging off of him. He looks like a man about to die.

He is. He is a man about to die.

“A-Ying!” he calls out again, more desperate this time. He almost starts running forward again but Hua Cheng’s arms catch him around his waist, holding him close to his chest.

“Gege,” he says softly in his ear. “There is nothing you could do for him now.”

By the gods, Xie Lian knows this. He does. Wei Ying is dead, has died long before Xie Lian saw him again, his death the only reason Xie Lian had seen him again. And now he can see that he had died alone, angry and afraid, eaten from within by a power that should never have gotten a foothold in him, and Xie Lian still has no idea how or why, and he can do nothing.

What good are his powers, unbound again, if he can’t even help one lost child? What good is he?

He doesn’t even realise that he is babbling all of this until he hears Hua Cheng, frantic in his ear: “You are good, you are so good, gege we will help him, I promise. I promise we will, just not now, not yet. My god, my love, I promise.” He tugs him even closer to his body, and Xie Lian can feel him breathing, his chest expanding and deflating in a steady rhythm. He is doing it for his sake, he knows—Hua Cheng does not need to breath, and often prefers not to. It is only at night, when Xie Lian is lying with his head on his chest, that he does: deep, steady breaths, lulling Xie Lian to a nightmarless sleep.

It is this memory more than anything that calms him down, brings him back to himself. Yes, Wei Ying is dead. This is a fragment of history, a moment in time. Xie Lian can’t stop it, can’t change the past. It is a lesson he has learned a long time ago.

“San Lang,” he gasps out. “The bag, please—”

“Of course, of course,” Hua Cheng says and releases Xie Lian. He feels the loss of pressure like a sword between the ribs—something he is more than familiar with, and no less devastating for it. Hua Cheng fumbles with his sleeves uncharacteristically, perhaps also unnerved by the sight of the boy they had just seen laughing happily in the sunset sun, tearing himself apart. “Do you want me to—”

Xie Lian shakes his head. “I’ll do it,” he declares in a whisper. He takes one step, and then another, Ruoye swirling around him in defence, protecting him from the constant stream of resentful energy hurtling towards him. With every step he can see more of what Wei Ying has become, a writhing, howling mess of fear and anger and despair.

Unbidden, he starts humming an old, old song. He doesn’t remember the words for it anymore, the language of it all but forgotten, but the memory of it remains. His mother would sing it to him softly at night when he was too energetic to go to sleep. Even now, he can still bring to mind the warm touch of her hand on his forehead, the heaviness of the night around him. He had all but forgotten it until it came rushing back to him when he found Wei Ying, who too often had trouble falling asleep and even more trouble staying that way, with awful night terrors over the fate of his parents. The song had come to him then, like a well-loved blanket kept in old storage, waiting to be needed again. As it is now.

He doesn’t know if Wei Ying can hear him but he hopes he does. He hopes it brings him comfort.

At the centre of the resentful maelstrom, it’s strangely quiet. The howling of the resentful energy is dampened, and Wei Ying’s snarling has abated somewhat. It has waned into sobs: a quiet, heart wrenching thing, a continuous litany of “shijie, oh gods shijie, Wen Qing, Wen Ning, shijie, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry—” that threatened to rip into Xie Lian far more forcibly than any other force could. Still, he swallows and pushes onwards, reaching Wei Ying’s side.

“It will all be over soon,” he whispers to him, although he doubts he can hear him. “I promise, I promise, I’m going to fix it.”

The fragment is so distorted and damaged that Xie Lian doesn’t even need to hold it close to the bag. It almost disintegrates into it, a slow and drawn out process, nothing like the quick flashes of the other fragments. Then again, none of the other fragments had even been close to this condition. Xie Lian hopes beyond hope that none of the future ones will either.

Xie Lian doesn’t sleep that night. He lies as curled up as he can be on his and Hua Cheng’s bed, tucked closely against Hua Cheng’s chest, matching his breathing. He can tell Hua Cheng is awake as well. Every once in a while he feels Hua Cheng’s lips against his hair, his hand rubbing circles into his back. They are both naked, because Xie Lian wishes for as much contact as he could get, desperate to feel as far removed from his long, lonely years on his own, where he could go decades in-between feeling another person’s touch.

Hua Cheng holds him, and he unravales.

Shijie, Wen Qing, Wen Ning. The three names that Wei Ying kept repeating. They now run through Xie Lian’s head even as he is answering prayers in Qiandeng Temple, an activity that usually calms his mind. It was Hua Cheng who suggested it, promising Xie Lian that he would keep an eye out for any wandering fragments while he does so. He hasn’t said it was for Xie Lian’s sake in so many words but—in a way, anything and everything Hua Cheng has ever done had been for Xie Lian’s sake.

So here he is sitting in a meditative pose in a temple his lover has built for him, and all he can think about is those names. People Wei Ying has mentioned in happier times, now turned to ash in his mouth. Had it taken long for everything Wei Ying had to come tumbling down? Or was it a slow process, drawn out and painful, like Xie Lian’s own downfall was?

He clenches his eyes shut even harder, trying to banish away those thoughts, to no avail. They continue to come racing at him, like—ha, like swords that stab him over and over again, and doesn’t he always come back to this? This pain that never went away?

We’re fixing him, he tries to think, and when that doesn’t help he breathes it out into the still air around him. “San Lang and I, we’re fixing him. This won’t be forever.” And while that’s true, Xie Lian knows more than most that some wounds can never be fixed, only scabbed over, still raw when picked at.

Taizi Dianxia, a stray prayer passes him by, please come and slay the monsters under my bed. Mama says they aren’t real, but I know they are, and she is refusing to call for any cultivators. Please, please, it’s scary.

Here is the thing: when you’re a child, you think the world monstrous. It’s monstrous in its size, in its inscrutability. It’s an excitable, volatile thing, full of wild and wonderful things, dizzying a child with possibilities. And then the child grows up and knows the world is monstrous, and learns they can be monstrous in turn.

He had hoped he could shield Wei Ying from that. He was just as naive then as when he had told a scarred and scared boy to live only for him, he thinks bitterly, and then chastises himself for it, knowing Hua Cheng’s thoughts on the matter. He had seen a child who had already lost so much, and thought to himself ‘not that one’, and thought that this would be what he won’t fail at.

He failed, he fails, he will fail. The everlasting truth of Xie Lian’s life.

He borrows one of Hua Cheng’s butterflies and sends it to the sender of the prayer. He can’t save this child from the truth, won’t even try, but he can help light up the corners of their room. Keep some of the monstrosity at bay.

Prayer, after prayer, after prayer, that’s all he does. Balm on wounds. Some he sends to Ling Wen, knowing they require active intervention that he is unable to provide. Perhaps they will go to Feng Xin and Mu Qing, perhaps to a god he is unfamiliar with. Once upon a time he would have dropped everything to help, but he has responsibilities he cannot shrink, a duty he has taken upon himself twenty years ago and has ignored for too long.

“Gege.”

It’s ridiculous, utterly mortifying, how much that one word in that voice can settle him in his own body, can slow down his heartbeat and steady his breathing. How boneless he becomes, hearing it, as if his shoulders no longer need to carry their weight, now that he has someone else to share it with.

He opens his eyes, looks up. “San Lang.”

Hua Cheng is peering down at him, now in his youthful form, probably only just back from scouting. “You’ve been here for hours, gege. Your body must be sore.”

Xie Lian wouldn’t have noticed without Hua Cheng mentioning it, more than used to his body’s various aches and troubles, but now that he said it… “I suppose my back is a little bit tense. It’s nothing—”

Without a word, Hua Cheng settles behind him, his hands on Xie Lian’s shoulders. “Ah, gege, let me help.”

Xie Lian can’t help but blush, even after all this time and… everything they have done. “San Lang, you don’t have to—”

“There is nothing I want more,” Hua Cheng reassures him, leaning in to kiss the back of his neck where his hair has parted to reveal skin. Even in this form he is taller than Xie Lian, and has to bend down a little. Xie Lian would be lying if he said he doesn’t find it endearing. “No treasure or secret or story I would prefer over the joy of having this one’s hands on gege’s body, easing his aches and sores, bringing him pleasure—”

Xie Lian turns in Hua Cheng’s hold and slams his palm on his mouth, blushing furiously. “San Lang! I was in the middle of answering prayers!” He can feel Hua Cheng’s mouth carve into a smile under his hand, and suddenly the thought of not seeing that smile is unbearable, so he releases him and leans closer until they almost share their breaths.

“If gege kisses me now, I can’t promise to learn my lesson,” Hua Cheng advises him seriously, his eyes trained on Xie Lian’s mouth.

“I suppose I’ll have to teach you again then,” Xie Lian says, and kisses him, a light and fleeting touch, more outpouring of love than anything else. Hua Cheng, who would usually not pass the chance to spend hours kissing Xie Lian, separates them after only a few moments. “San Lang?”

Hua Cheng leans in to kiss his nose. “Gege is upset.”

Up to a few years ago, Xie Lian’s first instinct would have been to deny and deflect. It’s incredible what a change a few years with Hua Cheng can make. “It’s been an upsetting few days.”

Hua Cheng hums understandably. “Gege still blames himself.” Xie Lian closes his eyes, and Hua Cheng kisses one eyelid, then the other. “Gege takes too much on his shoulders. He is incredible and strong and beyond all else, but he is not responsible for all the world’s ills. The world does not deserve his guilt.”

Xie Lian smiles, his eyes still closed. “San Lang is biased,” he points out. “Ah, sometimes I think guilt is all that holds me together.”

Hua Cheng makes a pained sound, his hands cupping Xie Lian’s cheeks. “Then gege should let go of his guilt, and it will be San Lang that holds him together.” Xie Lian leans into his hands, turning slightly to press a soft kiss against his palm.

“That wouldn’t be fair to San Lang either.” He sighs. “He was in so much pain.”

“He isn’t now.”

“But he was and—”

“And it wasn’t gege’s fault,” Hua Cheng cuts him off sharply. Xie Lian opens his eyes at the uncharacteristic tone to see Hua Cheng looking at him intently with one eye, back in his original form now. “Gege, Wei Ying was—is, an adult. An adult who made his own choices. The type of energy he cultivated, whatever it was that was tearing him apart—I can tell that he invited it in. I don’t know why, but it’s not something that can grab such a foothold in a soul without intent.”

Xie Lian clenches his fist tight, his fingernails biting at his skin. “He did this to himself?”

“Most likely.”

Gods. Gods.

“Gege, I’m not saying this to hurt,” Hua Cheng is speaking faster now, drawing Xie Lian even closer. “I would never. But Dianxia is so good and kind and noble, and he would let blame crush him without any of it laying at his feet. Allow Wei Ying the dignity of his own choices.”

This is the man who spent 800 years choosing Xie Lian over and over again, through pain and hardship and unbearable loneliness. How many have told him his choices were foolish, his path impossible? And still he continued, one foot after the other, becoming someone that eclipses everything else in Xie Lian’s life.

Xie Lian collapses against him, winding his arms around Hua Cheng’s waist and hugging him tightly. Hua Cheng startles, his eye widening. “Gege?!”

“It might take me awhile to remember it,” Xie Lian says, his voice muffled in Hua Cheng’s robes. “So San Lang might have to remind me a lot.”

Slowly, Hua Cheng’s arms come around him, one hand burying itself in Xie Lian’s hair, the other splayed across his back. “San Lang would love nothing more.” The hand on his back starts moving in calming, circular motions. “Well, nothing more except giving Dianxia a back massage,” he amends.

Xie Lian laughs, and even if he sheds a few tears, no one but the two of them will ever know.

Chapter Text

These days, his relationship with his two former retainers is slightly better than it used to be. They show up sometimes in Ghost City or Puqi Shrine, completely unannounced, and mostly do their best to remain civil to each other and to Hua Cheng. Still, they only ever call him on the communication array when something is wrong.

Xie Lian only has to hear Feng Xin curse about a “damn spirit controlling corpses,” before somehow just knowing this has something to do with Wei Ying. Explaining the matter to Hua Cheng quickly, he opens a Distance Shortening Array for the two of them, and they step out of Paradise Manor and into and unremarkable stretch of land, presumably somewhere within Feng Xin’s territory. Feng Xin is already there, looking irritable.

“It’s spouting some nonsense about a war or a campaign or some other bullshit,” he tells them, not even bothering with pleasantries despite Hua Cheng’s glare. “There hasn’t been a war in my territory in decades, I think it’s lost.”

“He,” Xie Lian corrects him absentmindedly, wholly focused on the figure clad in black on the other side of the valley. Even from this distance he can tell who it is. “Yes, he is very lost.” He starts moving forward, ignoring Feng Xin’s confused: “You know him?”

“It’s gege’s son,” Hua Cheng says and promptly abandons him to his sputtering, stepping in line with Xie Lian, who gives him a look.

“Wei Ying isn’t my son.”

“Would he agree with that?” It’s asked innocently, but is anything but.

Xie Lian isn’t sure what expression he is making at the moment. “He made his feelings very clear when we parted.” Quickening his pace to avoid this conversation further, he now sees Wei Ying is indeed surrounded by half a dozen corpses, their movements stumbling and jerking. He is holding the same flute Xie Lian had seen him holding…. before, and is in fact using it to command them, the melody around them haunting and disconcerting.

“San Lang, if you would…?”

With a flick of his hand, Hua Cheng subdues the corpses, Wei Ying’s melody coming to an abrupt halt.

“What the— Who the hell are you? How did you do that?!”

Hua Cheng merely raises an eyebrow at him. “Watch your tongue, brat. You’re not the only one who can play around with resentful energy.”

Wei Ying’s pallor goes even whiter, if that was possible. “Are you working for Wen Rohan, then?!” he demands, his fingers tightening around his flute. “Oh, I must be powerful indeed, if he’s sending assassins after me!”

“Like I would be working for an insignificant little—”

“A-Ying,” Xie Lian cuts him off, placing a calming hand on his shoulder. “We aren’t the enemy.”

At the familiar address, Wei Ying’s face crumples in confusion and he scrutinizes Xie Lian, who bares it patiently. “You… Xie-gege?”

How many times will they bid hello and then goodbye? How many times will he have to be re-introduced to his— this boy? He smiles. “It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?”

Wei Ying’s entire body goes slack in relief, the flute he is holding going back to being tied around his waist. “Don’t do that!” he laughs. “I really thought you were the enemy, I could have hurt you! Don’t you know we’re in a war?”

Ignoring Hua Cheng’s disbelieving snort—no matter what tricks Wei Ying has cultivated, he would hardly be a threat to the two of them—Xie Lian shakes his head. “Ah, we’ve been away for quite some time, I’m afraid we’re not up to date with current events. A war, you say?” They hadn’t had the time to learn more about it, and it would be good to know Wei Ying’s perspective.

And so he tells them: Wen Rouhan, the head of Qishan Wen, hungry for power, began an annihilation war against several large sects. First was Gusu Lan—and Xie Lian has to wonder about the status of Wei Ying’s Lan Zhan, and hope he is alright—and then the indoctrination camp. Wei Ying skims on the details, but Xie Lian has no doubt there had been much horror there. He does, however, proudly tells them about how he and Lan Zhan—of course—defeated a Xuanwu, and not even Hua Cheng can hide his astonishment. Xie Lian, however, makes no such effort, and praises him enthusiastically.

It is a more tragic tale that follows. Wei Ying only allows one sentence for the destruction of Lotus Pier, but he can’t hide his grief, his anger.

The war, he tells them, is a combined effort of mostly Qinghe Nie and Lanling Jin, the only two major forces still relatively unscathed by the Wens.

“I’m a bit of a hot commodity, these days,” he boasts playfully. “They say they only need one of me to win most battlegrounds, you know!”

“One of you, and a whole lot of dead bodies,” Hua Cheng points out, seemingly unimpressed, causing Wei Ying to scowl.

“Yes, well, not really a lack of those right now. We need an army, so an army is what I’m giving them.” It seems practiced, rehearsed. Something he has said over and over again, presumably falling on ears that are unwilling to listen, judging by the defensive tone.

Xie Lian knows better than most what desperation in war can mean. What it can bring out in people. He would never judge Wei Ying for it, but still. He worries.

“Is it… dangerous?”

“Very!” Wei Ying laughs, his earlier ire forgotten in a second. There is something unsettling in those quick changes of temperament. “Xie-gege, I’m telling you, I’m almost winning this war all on my own!”

“He means dangerous to you, brat,” Hue Cheng says, still with an irritated look on his face.

“Oh,” Wei Ying blinks. “No, I’m fine. Augh, don’t tell me you’ve been listening to Lan Zhan. He has been going on and on about my wicked tricks and my temperament, I really can’t stand to hear it any longer.”

“Lan Zhan has been worried about you?”

“What? No. He hates my new cultivation, thinks it’s improper. An affront to nature, is what Lan Qiren says. They all think I can’t control it, but it’s fine, I’m fine. I’ve invented it, haven’t I? Of course I can control it.”

Xie Lian wants to press the point about Lan Zhan further, but Hua Cheng jumps in instead. “You invented it?”

Wei Ying smirks. He takes out the flute he was using earlier and starts twirling it around his fingers in nonchalance. “Yeah, I did. Pretty cool, no?”

Judging by the tick in Hua Cheng’s forehead, he doesn’t find it particularly cool. Xie Lian hurries to intervene. “It’s very impressive, a-Ying.”

Hua Cheng is undeterred. “Pretty ballsy of you, to intrude on the realms of the dying and dead. Pretty disrespectful.”

“I don’t think any god would particularly care.”

“I’m not talking about gods, little cultivator,” Hua Cheng smiles. It’s not a very nice one, all of his sharp teeth out on display, the edges of his lips curled in displeasure. “There are things out there that are angrier than gods.”

The flute twirling stops. “If you’re just going to give me another fucking lecture—”

“No lectures,” Xie Lian promises, putting one calming hand on Hua Cheng’s shoulder. It is tense, but relaxes a little under his touch. There are so many things he wants to say, worry and fear warring on his tongue. It’s not that he doesn't understand why Hua Cheng would be mad, why anyone would. What Wei Ying is doing is wrong in a way that goes against everything Xie Lian was ever taught to practice, first as a cultivator and then as a god. To Hua Cheng, who built an entire city for lost souls, it must be particularly galling, even if he would never admit to this being the reason.

But Xie Lian fought in a war and lost everything he had. He was no longer a cultivator, was barely a god. He couldn’t bear for any conversation he had with Wei Ying to end in anger.

“No lectures,” he says again, and reaches out for Wei Ying, cupping his cheek. As a child, he has always run warm, and more than once had Xie Lian thought he had a fever when he simply had been in the sun too long. Now he is cold to the touch, almost uncomfortably so, and Xie Lian doesn't know if it’s just normal for his adult self, or if it’s an after effect of his new cultivation method.

Xie Lian doesn’t know so many things.

Feng Xin tried to detain Xie Lian for questioning after they have finally collected the fragment of Wei Ying’s soul, but Hua Cheng had been quick to whisk him away. Xie Lian barely had the time to smile apologetically at his old friend over his shoulder before he found himself back in Paradise Manor. He already knew that it won’t be long before Mu Qing hears about all of this, and then he would really have a situation on his hands. He sighs inwardly. He loves his friends, and is constantly overjoyed at having them around again, but he was not looking forward to explaining any of it.

That’s a problem for future him, however. For now, they still have a mystery to solve.

Hua Cheng wastes no time, striding purposefully to the extensive library in the Manor, muttering furiously to himself. “A new cultivation method, relying on resentful energy? Who the fuck even thinks about that?”

“Wei Ying has always been bright,” Xie Lian says, fake cheerfulness in his voice.

“Gege, no offense, it’s not about being bright—it’s about being utterly insane.”

“Well, he was that too,” Xie Lian amends, thinking about more than one childhood misadventure. He eyes Hua Cheng carefully as the other starts taking books and scrolls off the shelf, not even looking at their titles, having long-since memorised his own collection. “You’re upset.”

“I’m not.”

Xie Lian hums noncommittally but doesn’t contradict him. Instead, he changes the subject: “The war must have been bigger than we thought, if it required Wei Ying’s… unique specialisation.”

“Sect politics,” he says, disgustingly. “Idiots, all of them.”

“Still, I wonder why we didn’t hear more about it? If it was as big as Wei Ying made it sound…”

“He seems prone to exaggeration.”

Xie Lian is torn between his need to defend Wei Ying and having, well, eyes and ears. “He does,” he finally admits, “but I don’t think he was exaggerating about that…”

“He wasn’t,” Hua Cheng allows. “And he was also not exaggerating about his methods. If he truly managed to control it and use it properly, he would be a one-man army. The war would have been over quick, no matter how big it was.”

It is disconcerting to think of the sun-bleached boy he remembers growing up to be a weapon. “That’s… useful, I suppose.”

Hua Cheng slams his palm on a scroll opened on a table. “It’s insane!” he insists again, frustration in his voice.

“San Lang is upset about this,” Xie Lian says, stepping closer to the other and trailing a hand through his hair, tucking it behind his ear. “Tell me?”

“I don’t—” Hua Cheng starts denying again, but deflates at Xie Lian’s unimpressed look. “I’m not upset, I’m angry. But I shouldn’t be angry about gege’s kid—”

“San Lang can be angry about whoever he wants,” Xie Lian cuts him off, punctuating his statement with a kiss to Hua Cheng’s nose. It always wrinkles in the cutest way when Hua Cheng is feeling passionate about something, and Xie Lian would be a fool to resist it. “Just because Wei Ying is—who he is to me,” he stumbles awkwardly, still not knowing how to put it into words, “doesn’t make him exempt from judgement. San Lang has the right to feel all kinds of things, even about people I love.”

Hua Cheng groans pathetically, slouching to more easily butt his head into Xie Lian’s hand. Like a cat, he thinks delightfully, but doesn’t say it. “Gege is too good.”

“Gege knows San Lang well,” he corrects, smiling up at him. “San Lang is mad that Wei Ying would use the bodies of those under San Lang’s protection.”

Hua Cheng squints at him in suspicion. “Gege is insinuating I care for useless trash.”

“No, no, never,” Xie Lian says, with the most serious face he can master. “But San Lang can be a bit… territorial.”

“I think you’re laughing at me.”

“No!” Xie Lian denies, but then ruins it by actually laughing, peering up at Hua Cheng. “San Lang is so cute, is all.”

“Cute?” Hua Cheng says, affronted. “I’m not cute.”

“You’re right, San Lang isn’t cute. He’s the cutest.”

“Gegeeeee,” Hua Cheng whines, and really, how can Xie Lian think him anything but cute when he does that? He almost leans in to kiss him, his body swaying into the motion, but he forces himself to stop. If he starts kissing Hua Cheng now he might never stop and there are still things they need to talk about.

“So San Lang is allowed to be mad and upset,” he says instead. “Because what Wei Ying was doing was wrong and was disrespectful to San Lang and the people under his protection.”

“I just don’t understand why,” Hua Cheng says. “Crueler men have tried to harness resentful energies, for their own power and gains, and none have succeeded. So why him? And why did he do it?”

“Do you think I had a choice?!”

He manifests in the room so suddenly out of nowhere. One second it’s only the two of them and the next a broken body is standing there as well, beaten and bloody. Between one breath and the next Hua Cheng unsheats E-ming, and even Ruoye uncoils from around Xie Lian’s forearms, ready to strike.

In the back of his mind, Xie Lian knows it’s a good sign that they encountered another fragment of Wei Ying so soon. It means the fragments are starting to gather faster, that his consciousness is stable enough to start actively calling them back. The rest of him is too horrified by Wei Ying’s condition to care.

“You, Jiang Cheng, Lan Zhan—you all have something to say! Some sharp words to me, lecturing me as if I’m a child!"

“A-Ying—”

“It’s powerful, and it’s useful! Someone has to stop the Wens, someone has to win this war, someone has to protect the people who are left, and that someone is me.” He isn’t even shouting. Just hissing in a low, furious voice, his eyes looking past them, as if he’s talking to someone else. Or maybe as if he’s not talking to anyone else at all. “Who are you to judge? Who are you to blame? What difference does it make, demonic cultivation or orthodox one? I’ll use everything I can to make Wen Chao pay.”

At the first hint of resentful energy coming off of him, Hua Cheng seals the door to the library, ensuring none of it escapes out to the rest of the Manor, or the city. “Calm down,” he hisses back at him, his hand coming down to clamp hard on his shoulder, only to recoil away from him, surprised. “What—”

Wei Ying doesn’t even notice, continuing his tirade. “Wen Chao will beg in front of me like a dog as I tear him apart, as I tear apart his lover, his bodyguard, everything around him, until I reach into his very being and tear out his heart, as—”

“What the fuck happened to your golden core?” Hua Cheng interrupts him, unconcerned with the increasingly bloody imagery. Xie Lian looks at him. “What?”

“His golden core, it’s gone.”

This, finally, somehow gets through to Wei Ying. His eyes snap back to Hua Cheng, away from whatever it was that he was staring at. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t even try, you brat. Your golden core has been cleaved from under your skin and bones.”

Wei Ying somehow goes even paler than before. “A-Ying?” Xie Lian asks, his voice so gentle it must be almost painful to hear. The boy—no, man now—looks at him, and Xie Lian can see recognition in his eyes. Recognition, and fear.

“Don’t ask me, Xie-gege.”

“Why not?”

“Because if you ask me, I’ll tell you,” he says. “I’ll talk and talk and talk and never stop, until I throw up every last dark thing in me, and nothing will be left.”

“Even so,” Xie Lian says, still in that same gentle voice. “I would like to ask.”

Xie Lian was an only child. He doesn’t know what it’s like to have a sibling, doesn’t understand the complex bonds of obligation, guilt, and love that weaved themselves between Wei Ying and the Jiang sect heir. But he knows of sacrifice. Wen Qing’s needles pierced Wei Ying’s flesh as surely as a dozen swords have done to Xie Lian’s centuries ago. Less cruel circumstances, perhaps, but no less devastating.

Wei Ying doesn’t cry when he tells them of the surgery. He doesn’t cry when he tells them of the burial mounds. He recounts every terror in a monotone, dull voice, a far away look in his eyes. Xie Lian won’t do him the disservice of crying instead, but he knows it will be a long night for him yet.

Did he ever tell this to anyone while he was still alive? Somehow, he knew the answer.

“And that’s why,” he finishes. “You understand now, don’t you? I had nothing left. I had no choice. I have to protect them, and I’ll do anything for that. Everything, for that.”

Surprisingly, before Xie Lian can find his voice, Hua Cheng speaks up. “You know you won’t find absolution for this. Not from us. Not from anyone.”

Wei Ying looks at him as if he only now noticed he was in the room. “I don’t need it.”

“Good. There are things worth becoming a monster for, but they must never carry the price for it. You’ve made your choice. You’ll stand the consequences.” Eight hundred years of experience drip from those words.

Wei Ying lets out a humorless laugh. “I know this song and dance very well.” When had he learnt this lesson? When was it carved into his bones? Wei Ying then turns to him, a detached, curious look in his eyes.

“Are you disgusted, Xie-gege? I understand if you are. I won’t apologise, and I would do it again, but—”

“I can’t condone this,” Xie Lian says slowly, “I wish there was any other way. I’m sad you went through it. I’m angry you decided this was your only choice. I’m upset no one else tried to help you. I feel many, many things. But a-Ying, I will never, ever, be disgusted by you.”

Wei Ying looks at him like a drowning man looking at a piece of driftwood— disbelieving and hopeful, all at once. Someone who convinced themselves they were beyond saving, but continues to hope anyway. “Ha,” he lets out a wet laugh, and now he starts crying, silent and soft. “I should have known, Xie-gege. You always picked up the worst kind of trash, and you were never revolted.”

“Xie-gege, that’s disgusting,” he would crow out in delight, childhood fascination with anything dirty or gross, whenever Xie Lian dragged home his latest bounty of scraps. Then, despite his words, he would sit down amicably next to Xie Lian and help him sort it out, patiently listening to him explain the different things he could make from it, which pieces he could sell. Night would fall over them, and Wei Ying would fall asleep on him, sticky hands and a full belly, as Xie Lian worked into the night.

They are a lifetime away from those moments, but there are some things that etch themselves into one’s very soul.

“One man’s trash—”

“—is another man’s gain,” Wei Ying finishes for him, another well-worn lesson, one carved not by pain, but by love.

Chapter Text

There’s a name that keeps coming up in Wei Ying’s stories. From his teenage years in the Cloud Recesses to being a war hero in his adulthood, a name that is constant, one that doesn’t belong to any of his adopted family.

When Xie Lian and Hua Cheng step through to the Cloud Recesses yet again, the sky is dark. The afternoon they had spent here with the spectre of Wei Ying had been washed pink and orange by the setting sun, but the mountains in the darkness loom over them, blanketing them in a sea of black and dark blues.

They are invisible yet again, although Hua Cheng said it might not be necessary. “Curfew is nine,” he scoffed as they were preparing to leave their rooms. “A wonder that they get anything done with this sleeping cycle.”

“Not everyone is a fox like San Lang is,” Xie Lian had teased. Hua Cheng immediately pouted and threatened to never shapeshift into this form again—an effective threat against Xie Lian, who loved nothing more than to cuddle with a ball of warmth and fur during the cold winter months.

Looking around them, he now sees what Hua Cheng had meant. There is hardly a disciple in sight, although he is sure the case would be different near the gate. Here, however, the paths around them are silent. Convenient, but carries with it its own obstacle.

“Ah,” Xie Lian chuckles sheepishly, scratching at his cheek. “How are we going to find this Lan Zhan?”

“Do you have the spirit capture bag with you?”

“Of course.” He produces it from his sleeve and hands it to Hua Cheng, who handles it as if it’s the most delicate of treasures. Xie Lian bites back a fond smile.

“If this Lan Zhan—Lan Wangji, by the way, I asked around—was as important to Wei Ying as he seems, it might be that a fragment will manifest around him.” With his fingers and a bit of spiritual energy, Hua Cheng starts to sketch out some arrays in the air above the bag. “And so—ha!” A trail of energy sneaks out from the bag and down one of the paths leading away from the rest of the settlement. Hua Cheng offers Xie Lian his arm. “Shall we?”

As charmed as he always is by Hua Cheng, Xie Lian takes it. “Ah, thank you San Lang. I really don’t know what I would do without you.” He says it lightly, as though the heaviness of the truth behind it would not be enough to sink as many ships as He Xuan ever did.

They walk down the path, the only light offered to them is the one from the trail they’re following and the moon, sometimes escaping the cloud cover. When Xie Lian almost stumbles in the dark, Hua Cheng steadies him, and with a laugh releases a few dozen butterflies to light up their way. Eventually, they realise they’re walking up an ascent, the last building they’ve seen far behind them.

Of course it is Xie Lian, well versed in cultivation methods, who realises it. “He’s in seclusion,” he tells Hua Cheng, who hums in understanding. Seclusion often means one of two things: either a method to strengthen one’s cultivation, to reach even deeper levels of understanding of one’s own-self, or—punishment.

During the first century or so of his banishment, Xie Lian liked to… perhaps not pretend, but rationalise it as seclusion. His life had gone so far off the course by then, so unrecognizable of what it once was and what it was meant to be, that it was comforting to think of it in familiar terms and constructs. But obviously his banishment had never been as easy as that.

The path, eventually, leads to a smooth cliffside, although Hua Cheng is quick to point out the layer of energy over it. “Pretty clever,” he admits, and with a snap of his finger a cave opens up to them. “But I’m cleverer.” The entrance is too narrow for them to step in together, and reluctantly Xie Lian has to let go of his arm. He immediately feels colder.

No, wait, that’s not just him—the corridor leading away from the entrance is freezing.

“Does seclusion necessitate being in a torture room?” Hua Cheng hisses, immediately shedding the top layer of his robes to wrap around Xie Lian, despite his protests. “Gege, please, you know I can’t feel the cold. You would get sick.”

“But then I would have San Lang to nurse me back to health,” Xie Lian can’t help but tease, smothering a laugh in his sleeves at Hua Cheng’s flushed spluttering. “It’s just that San Lang looks much better in red then I do.”

“Gege looks beautiful in red,” Hua Cheng immediately says. “He looks—better than beautiful. Gorgeous. Magnificent. Stunning. I think about it—” he stops and doesn’t continue, red still high up on his sharp cheeks.

“San Lang thinks about it?” Xie Lian prompts him when the silence continues.

Hua Cheng averts his eyes. “Gege in wedding robes,” he says. “I think about it. Sometimes.”

All at once, Xie Lian remembers—gods, he proposed, didn’t he? Kind of. Not really, but—it meant something, to Hua Cheng. To Xie Lian, too. To call and be called “husband.”

This isn’t the time or the place but—soon, he promises himself. They would talk about it soon. And soon after that, he would call Hua Cheng husband, and kiss him sweetly, and there would be no “kind of” about it.

The corridor eventually opens up to a large cavern. It is beautiful, the frozen ice glittering in some unidentifiable source of light. In the back there is a large slab of stone, perhaps an altar of sorts. A beautifully intricate guqin is laid on top of it and in the front kneels a man. He is dressed in all-white, not nearly enough layers in the freezing cold of the cave, although he is barely shivering. The customary Lan headband is tied around his forehead. His position as he kneels is book-perfect, straight back and all the right angles. It looks painful, but it’s nothing compared to the look on his face.

When Xie Lian was ten years old, Qi Rong—Xiao Jing, back then—had accidentally pushed him into a frozen lake. They were just playing around, but the ice wasn’t as thick as they thought it was, and it broke under Xie Lian’s weight, plunging him into water colder than death. Every bone in his body felt like it shattered upon impact, his breath stolen away in fright. That moment felt like what this man’s face looked like.

“Tell me,” Xie Lian asks Hua Cheng, not taking his eyes off of this terrible sight.

“Lan Zhan, Lan Wangji, Hanguang-Jun. They say he goes where help is needed, regardless if the one needs it is a common man or a prince.” Hua Cheng doesn’t need Xie Lian to elaborate more. “One of the Twin Jade of Lan, second on the list of eligible bachelors, a distinguished hero of the sunshot campaign. They say…” he hesitates for a moment. “They say he was Wei Wuxian’s fiercest enemy.”

Xie Lian breaths in, then out. That doesn’t sound entirely right, from what Wei Ying has told them. “He doesn’t look like someone who’s enemy has just been defeated.”

“He’s grieving.”

“How do you know?”

Hua Cheng’s lips twist in a wry smile. “Does a man need to look at a mirror to know his own face?”

Xie Lian’s breath catches in his throat. But before his mind can take this sentence and spiral with it down, down, down, Hua Cheng continues. “I never grieved gege,” he says, and even while speaking of such morbid things Xie Lian feels love swell in him at how well Hua Cheng knows him, knows his mind. “I never grieved gege, because I knew above all else that gege was alive. That if gege was dead, I would be worse than dead, every aspect of me, mind body and soul, scattered around this rotten world like ash, bringing death and destruction with it.”

“San Lang—”

“So I knew gege was alive. But I grieved the years gege spent alone, unloved and uncared for,” Hua Cheng continues, an unknowable pain in the depth of his eye, “every second of every minute of every day, every year and decade and century that he walked his path on his own. Every time he went hungry, every time he didn’t have a soft bed to sleep on. I grieved every tattered robe. I grieved it all, and I still do.”

Hot tears swell in Xie Lian’s eyes. “Beloved,” he whispers, and cups Hua Cheng’s face.

“Lan Zhan!” the cry, so joyful and bright, feels completely alien to this moment and place. So much so that for a moment Xie Lian doesn’t even register it, too overwhelmed once more with the force of Hua Cheng’s devotion and love. It is Hua Cheng that twists around to look at the man kneeling on icey ground and the spectre that now joined him.

“He’s younger than we last saw him,” Hua Cheng notes. Xie Lian agrees. This was clearly a Wei Ying closer in age to the teenager they saw last in Cloud Recesses than the demonic cultivator they have met last.

“I really do think our plan will work, you know,” Wei Ying says, seemingly continuing a conversation neither of them heard the beginning of. “Pfft, swords, who needs our swords? Between your musical cultivation and my brilliant tactics the Xuanwu won’t stand a chance.” He leans forward against Lan Wangji’s body, no regard to any personal space. Xie Lian wonders—were Lan Wangji aware of this, would he have shoved him away? Or would he have clutched him closer?

Wei Ying pouts in response to the silence. “Ah, Lan Zhan, I know you would have rather been stuck here with Mianmian, but surely I’m not so terrible as a cavemate? No, you must like me at least a little bit! I know you got bit trying to save my life.”

Hua Cheng huffs, amused. “I knew it,” he murmurs, but doesn’t elaborate.

By now, Wei Ying’s form is completely draped over Lan Wangji. He is about to continue speaking, undeterred by what he must perceive as silent treatment, when Lan Wangji’s entire body shudders, as if he could feel Wei Ying’s presence all over him—a violent thing, so sudden and forceful that Wei Ying almost slides off of him.

“Wei Ying…” he whispers, his voice cracked, as if he hasn’t spoken in many hours. He reaches forward for his guqin and starts playing a melody that while unfamiliar to Xie Lian, is clearly full of spiritual energy.

“Some form of communication magic,” Hua Cheng murmurs in his ear. “Gusu Lan are famous for their musical cultivation.”

Wei Ying, however, does recognise the song. “Inquiry?” he asks, puzzled. “Lan Zhan, who are you trying to contact?”

With a jolt, Xie Lian realises what this is. “He’s trying to contact Wei Ying’s soul,” he breathes out. They watch as Lan Wangji plays the same melody over and over and over again, until the scabs on his fingers open up and he starts bleeding. This is what he has been doing in seclusion, Xie Lian slowly understands. Playing this song again and again, trying to talk to someone who will never be able to answer back, not as long as he is so scattered, his soul torn apart.

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, stop!” Wei Ying is frantic, ineffectually trying to grab Lan Wangji’s hands. “You said my name, didn’t you? I’m right here, of course I’m right here, where else would I be? You have to stop this, you’re bleeding—”

Of course, Lan Wangji does not hear him nor feel him. But still, somehow, the melody changes. The spiritual energy gets pulled back, and the song is just that—a song, not a weapon or a tool. It’s a beautiful melody, every note of it ringing clear in the cave. Even Xie Lian, whose talent for musical instruments have long since been bemoaned by every single tutor he has ever made, can tell it’s a love song.

“Pretty,” he murmurs, unconsciously leaning into Hua Cheng’s body. “Do you think he…”

“Is in love?” Hua Cheng finishes for him, one shoulder rising and falling in a shrug. “Probably.”

Wei Ying has fallen silent since the melody started, a strange look upon his face. Lan Wangji continues playing, unaware of his silent audience of three. Xie Lian can see that he is crying in silence, tear after tear trailing down on his face, even as the rest of him is stoic in his grief. When the song finishes his hands fall limply to his sides and he shudders again, silent this time.

“Lan Zhan… this song…” Wei Ying whispers, and with alarm Xie Lian notices that his form is… buzzing, somehow. The edges of it blurring, and there—one second he is fourteen, then twenty, then eight, then even younger, then close to death. Cycling through his years as he kneels on the cave’s floor next to a man who mourns all of them.

“Gege, you should go capture him,” Hua Cheng tells him with urgency in his voice. “I don’t know why, but he’s devolving. This fragment might get lost.”

Xie Lian nods and strides ahead, kneeling next to the two men and placing a gentle hand on Wei Ying’s fading shoulder. “It’s alright now, a-Ying,” he soothes, watching as the piece gets absorbed by the whole. “You’re safe, I promise.” He clutches the bag close to his chest, his eyes closing for a moment. When he opens them again, he looks at Lan Wangji.

“You don’t know me, Young Master Lan,” he says, perhaps a bit awkwardly, “and you can’t hear me, I’m sorry… If you could, I would—I would tell you that I’m doing everything I can to piece him back together. That maybe this way, soon, someone will answer your enquiry, and you could get whatever answers you’re looking for. I would tell you I enjoyed your song. I wish I could ask you if you loved him. I—I would like to know that there was one person who loved him still, even at his end.”

Only silence answers him, as Lan Wangji’s eyes close, his body back in the painful, perfect posture, his face a stone of ice once more. Xie Lian sighs and stands up, dusing ice from his robes. “San Lang, we should—”

He is interrupted by a man walking into the cave. His stride isn’t urgent, but the tightness of his face betrays some sort of turmoil. He looks remarkably like Lan Wangji, and is dressed in the traditional Gusu Lan style. It isn’t difficult to understand the two are related. “Wangji.”

Lan Wangji doesn’t even turn to look at the newcomer. “Brother.”

“His fever is up again,” the man says and then hesitates for a moment before continuing: “he’s asking for you.”

Without a word, Lan Wangji rises from his position, the motion as elegant as the rest of him. “I’ll go to him.”

Xie Lian looks at Hua Cheng, who shrugs. They end up following the two brothers out of the cave and back to the Cloud Recesses proper. When they get closer to the first cluster of buildings, the older brother breaks the silence. “The council is demanding to know his origins.”

“It does not pertain to them.”

“Wangji, you ran out of here like a man possessed, breaking seclusion while you were still recovering from the discipline whip, only to come back with a sick child and no explanation of where he came from. You demanded he be allowed to visit you throughout your seclusion, and that you would raise him as your own. Of course it pertains to them.”

Lan Wangji’s face does not change, and he doesn’t reply, but his brother’s face softens. “I understand why you feel the need to protect him,” he cajoles. “I don’t begrudge you that. But the council isn’t happy. Uncle isn’t happy either. You must give me something to tell them.”

“You can’t tell them he is a Wen,” Lan Wangji says immediately, something wild coming alive in his eyes. “They would give him away to the Jin.”

Xie Lian sucks in a breath. Lan Wangji got his hands on a Wen child? How? Why?

“Surely Lanling Jin would not murder a child—”

“Like they would not murder an entire settlement of farmers and doctors?” Lan Wangji snaps. He then stops in his tracks, takes in a breath, then another. “I apologise. That was—”

“No apology needed,” he says, stopping as well. “Wangji, I know what you have lost—”

“It isn’t about my loss,” Lan Wangji cuts him off again. “It’s about his. He has lost everything already, and he doesn’t even remember it. I would not have him lose more.” He considers, then adds: “Tell them he is my son.”

“Wangji!”

Lan Wangji ignores him and begins walking again, not needing his brother’s guidance. The older man sighs the sigh only an older sibling can make, and starts after him. “They would only ask more questions.”

“Let them ask. I would not budge on this.”

Xie Lian and Hua Cheng follow them to the medical building, although they don’t step inside, Xie Lian unwilling to intrude further than he already has, Hua Cheng… possibly not caring enough to do so, either. “A child…”

“And the mystery of Lan Zhan continues,” Hua Cheng says, leaning against the building. “This brother seems to me like the Sect Leader. Between that, the seclusion, and the disciple whip… It does paint a picture, doesn’t it?”

“Lan Wangji does not look like a man who is celebrating the death of an enemy. He is grieving,” Xie Lian says slowly, repeating first his own words, and then Hua Cheng’s. “He’s grieving… possibly Wei Ying, and is being punished for something serious enough to require both spiritual and corporal punishment. He has adopted a child of a sect that we have heard has both been Wei Ying’s enemy and his ally, without the permission or knowledge of his sect’s council.” How does it all come together? How does it fit?

“Curiouser and curiouser. Do you wish to investigate more?”

Xie Lian does, the mystery of it pulling at him, but the exhaustion pulls right back at his every muscle, every strand of hair. “I should…”

“Gege is tired,” Hua Chang says, his keen eye never missing anything to do with Xie Lian. “He should rest.”

“But Wei Ying—”

“Would still be there tomorrow,” Hua Cheng says. He pushes off from the building and comes to stand next to Xie Lian. He smiles down at him. “Would it help if San Lang said he was tired?”

Xie Lian laughs. “San Lang is playing dirty.”

“Could be playing dirtier if we were in our bed—”

“Alright!” Xie Lian exclaims loudly, turning away from Hua Cheng’s smirking face. “Alright, we can go to bed. To sleep! The mystery can keep.”

Hua Cheng does play dirty, if only because upon waking up, Xie Lian can absolutely tell he hasn’t slept for even a second. He thinks of pouting at him through bleary eyes as Hua Cheng deposits a tray full of breakfast food directly into his lap, but before he can do so he starts speaking.

“Gege, I’ve done some digging—”

“But I thought San Lang was tired?” Xie Lian asks as innocently as he can, beginning to eat. He can immediately tell that it was Hua Cheng who cooked his food and not one of the many cooks in his employ.

Hua Cheng smiles sheepishly. “Nothing escapes gege.” Xie Lian fondly shakes his head but gestures at him to continue on, his mouth full of food. So Hua Cheng does: “The Burial Mounds were not simply Wei Ying’s last stand. He has apparently lived there for a few years beforehand.”

“Lived there?” The Burial Mounds were a place of tragedy, death, and never ending resentment. It was not a place where people lived.

“He had apparently sought refuge there after liberating a war camp full of Wen prisoners of war.”

Ah. Xie Lian makes the connection. “Wen Qing and Wen Ning. They helped him after the fall of Lotus Pier.”

Hua Cheng nods. “My thoughts exactly gege. So I was thinking—”

“We must go there immediately,” Xie Lian declares, and stands up from the bed, accidentally upending the entire tray of food, most of it uneaten. “Ah. Oops.” Hua Cheng snorts and nudges him away from the bed, waving away his efforts to start cleaning. “Not to worry gege, there are about fifty people I employ for specifically this purpose. Gege is not to concern himself with it. Are you still hungry?”

“For answers, yes,” Xie Lian says and ducks behind a changing screen, pretending not to see Hua Cheng’s disappointed face.

Xie Lian might not be hungry—has forgotten what hunger is over the centuries, with it written so deeply into his body it no longer feels separate—but the Burial Mounds certainly are. He can sense it almost immediately as they step into them, and the only reason he doesn’t flinch is that Hua Cheng does it for him as he doubles over, clutching at his head.

“San Lang??”

“Ah, I’m fine,” Hua Cheng straightens, the only hint of his discomfort the pinched look of his face. Xie Lian’s arms hover uselessly between them. “This place is drowning in resentment. For a second it almost felt like Mount Tonglu was opening around us.”

Xie Lian reaches to touch, to offer comfort. “Maybe you should go back? I can stay on my own…”

“Nonsense,” Hua Cheng immediately shakes his head. “It was just a surprise, that’s all. Dianxia shouldn’t worry.”

Xie Lian frowns. He has been working on Hua Cheng’s self-regard the last few years, trying to show him that Xie Lian cares as much for his well-being and he does Xie Lian’s. For the most part it has been working, but 800 years of self-loathing is hard to shake off. Xie Lian knows that better than most. “Of course I worry,” he chides gently, tucking stray hairs behind Hua Cheng’s ear. Delighted, he sees it turning red—Hua Cheng really gets flustered for the silliest of reasons. “San Lang’s comfort is important to me. The last time San Lang felt this rush…” he trails off, his tongue suddenly tangled in his mouth as he remembers what happened when Mount Tonglu opened the last time. What happened between them, in the temple.

Never one to let go, Hua Cheng jumps on the opportunity. “Oh? Will gege finally tell me what happened that evening?” he smirks, a fang peeking through his lips. Xie Lian gulps.

“Ah, we should really get going!” he declares, turning away from Hua Cheng and starting to march deeper into the Burial Mounds. “The sooner we finish the sooner San Lang can get away from here.” Behind him he hears Hua Cheng laugh.

The deeper they go into the mountain, the higher the resentful energy around them gets. Now even Xie Lian can feel it, and he starts casting worried looks at Hua Cheng, who catches each one with a reassuring look. Still, Xie Lian knows Hua Cheng would almost never admit to his own discomfort, and makes sure to quicken his pace, eager to be done with this place.

He doesn’t forget that this was the place Wei Ying died at. Could never, ever forget that.

Eventually, the path they walk on—and it is barely a path, only just the barest hint of human travel—leads them into a… settlement would be too generous of a word to apply here, but Xie Lian doesn’t have an alternative. A number of dilapidated shacks dot the clearing, barely still standing. A murky pond stands in the middle of them all, and abandoned farming equipment lies scattered around, as if the people here left in a hurry, abandoning it where it stands. Carved into the cliffside is a large cave, with the banner above it proclaiming it the Demon Slaughtering Cave, a name which makes Hua Cheng scoff out a laugh.

“They really did live here…” Xie Lian murmurs. It’s miniscule, but the air around them does feel lighter than the rest of this cursed place.

“Gege, that’s a lotus pond,” Hua Cheng points out, and Xie Lian has to close his eyes against the rush of emotions he feels at the idea of Wei Ying, outcast and alone, trying to create a home in this hopeless place. Against his chest, the spirit capture bag pulses, and all of a sudden they are surrounded by spectres of people dead long ago.

“What…?”

“Fascinating,” Hua Cheng says, looking around them. “I would say the fragments of Wei Ying are interacting with the memory of this place, somehow. This is a moment in time forever preserved in the Burial Mounds’ resentment.”

“You speak of it almost as if it’s alive,” Xie Lian notes, and then feels foolish. Of course it’s alive. What else can a place steeped in hatred and grief for centuries be?

“Alive is perhaps giving it too much credit, but it’s certainly aware,” Hua Cheng shrugs, unbothered. They watch together in silence as those men and women work the land, laugh, groan, chat, unaware of their eventual fate. No, not unaware—Xie Lian recognises the look in their eyes, the twist of their mouths. They know. They just wish to live for as long as they can, on their own terms. A woman drops her load of laundry and another picks it up for her, laughing, their hands shaking as they brush against each other. An old woman stirs something in a pot, and everyone pretends they can’t see her weep, turned away from the food so as to not salt it further. A young man is raking the ground again and again, either unaware or uncaring that he has been working on the same patch of land for quite some time, not moving from his spot.

It is only when a young boy comes running into their midst, shrieking with laughter, that their grief lifts for a moment. They call out to him joyfully, their mouths shaping around syllables Xie Lian and Hua Cheng can’t hear. They do hear Wei Ying call out to him as he comes running after him: “a-Yuan!”

“The child that Lan Wangji adopted,” Xie Lian says, trying to commit his face to memory. Hua Cheng nods but doesn’t say anything, his keen eye still watching as Wei Ying scoops the laughing child into his arms, swirling him around. They then proceed to play the most confusing game Xie Lian has ever seen, something to do with clapping and singing and hopping in place. It seems like Wei Ying makes up half the rules as they go along and a-Yuan makes up the other half, but they look like they’re having fun. Xie Lian doesn’t miss the cinched look of Wei Ying’s waist, his sunken cheekbones, but he almost sheds all of it off as he plays with the child. The other adults around them look at them indulgently, the sight familiar to them.

“Gege is a grandfather,” Hua Cheng teases, and Xie Lian flushes, covering his face.

“Nooo, San Laaaang—”

“Gege is wise beyond his years, so it fits him well.”

Xie Lian peeks at him between his fingers. “Is San Lang calling me old?”

“Never! Simply that gege would excel as a grandfather as he does everything else.”

Xie Lian laughs, rubbing his face. “I don’t know about that, San Lang…” he looks at Wei Ying again. “I let him down.”

“Gege couldn’t have known—”

“No, not later. I know… You helped me understand that whatever he did was Wei Ying’s choice, although it might take a while to fully sink in. I will always feel a little bit sad, I think, that I couldn’t have helped him to make those impossible choices, but I understand them. No, I mean, before… when he was still in my care. I didn’t do a good job of leaving.” He hasn’t told Hua Cheng about the day he ascended yet, couldn’t bear to speak of it as long as Wei Ying’s soul was the shape it was.

“Gege did the best he could, I’m sure of it.” Xie Lian smiles and shakes his head, remaining silent. No, not yet. He thinks… soon, if his suspicions are correct. Very soon.

A man and a woman join Wei Ying, siblings by the look of them. The man has a distinctly unique pallor to him, and Xie Lian hisses when he realises he’s a fierce corpse, somehow still in control of his humanity. “The Wen siblings?”

“Probably. The boy would be the Ghost General, according to the tales.” There is nothing of the ferocity they have heard of him in him now, only a sheepish smile as Wei Ying tries to explain their game to him, his sister rolling her eyes next to them even as she bites away a smile. They would make for a beautiful and peaceful picture under any other circumstances. A family, of sorts.

“Wei Ying wanted to protect them. That’s why he turned away from the cultivation world, why he continued to use resentful energy even after the war was over. Perhaps it started with a sense of duty to the two who helped him after Lotus Pier, and with the core surgery—” and by gods, he still shudders at the very idea—”but look at him. He loves those people.”

“I said so, didn’t I? A child taken care of by Dianxia for even one day would never turn to evil,” Hua Cheng says, then adds: “He could have done without the demonic cultivation, however. That is not gege’s influence.”

Xie Lian laughs, his heart full. He’s glad Wei Ying had those people, that those people had Wei Ying, even for too brief a time. He watches as one by one they fade away, still looking at Wei Ying fondly, indulgently, until only Wei Ying remains. And then he, too, is gone, throwing Xie Lian one last smile with tired eyes and a satisfied face.

“Gege, can I see it?” Xie Lian hands him the bag, and after considering it for a moment, Hua Cheng nods. “I suspect we’re almost done. Perhaps one last fragment to find, although I’m not sure…”

“I know where,” Xie Lian says. Perhaps he has known all along and his mind has simply avoided it, the way one avoids picking at a scab. But he owes it to Wei Ying, to Hua Cheng, and to himself. Wei Ying did not run away from the consequences of his actions, even as he faced his own death. Xie Lian is done running from his, as well.

Chapter Text

“You know, I wasn’t even planning on staying here for long,” Xie Lian says, “but it ended up being the place I stayed longest at for over 300 years.” The late autumn breeze ruffles through his hair. It will be winter soon, he knows. Before San Lang, he would spend those last days of autumn preparing for the colder months: basking as much as he could during the day, and gathering firewood and scraps throughout the night. It was hard work, with very little pay besides continued survival. Those days he had felt at his loneliest, when he had no one to come home to after all his labour. And then, Wei Ying. And now, Hua Cheng.

“It’s a nice place.”

“It’s a dump San Lang, and you know it,” Xie Lian laughs. The village that stretches in front of them—and it could barely even be called one—is made of a few dozen small shacks and hovels. There is no rhyme or reason to how they’re placed, no central road winding between them. If it were any closer to Yiling it would have just been absorbed already by the larger town, but they are separated by a river, and no one has cared enough about this little nowhere of a place to have built a bridge. And so, the village stays as it is.

“It’s a place gege remembers fondly, so it must be a nice place,” Hua Cheng insists, stubbornly. Xie Lian wants to pinch his cheeks. Instead, he takes his hand in his.

“Come, I want to show it to you.”

They walk, and Xie Lian talks. He tells Hua Cheng about the old woman who used to live at the edge of town, who insisted she was a doctor despite all of her various poultices and medicine amounting to boiled, flavoured water. “It had been more about the theatricality of it all than any actual real medicine,” Xie Lian admits, and tells Hua Cheng about how well she did, how everyone in the village trusted her. He doesn’t have to say that she’s long dead—that’s a foregone conclusion for most of the people in his stories, after all.

He tells Hua Cheng about the garden he tried to plant with Wei Ying. How neither of them knew much about planting anything, and how they tried it together anyway. “I’m sure it can be some kind of metaphor,” Xie Lian manages to laugh about it now, even though back then the disappointment of barren ground and sterile corps had been shattering. Wei Ying hadn’t let it get him down for long though—raring to try again the next year, and the year after that. The image of charred fields of radishes flashes through Xie Lian’s head, and he has to stop for a moment, catch his breath. Inanely, he wishes he could have tasted the crops Wei Ying had managed to grow in a place much worse than this forgotten village.

“It has no name,” he answers when Hua Cheng asks. The villagers called it nothing except “home,” and it was so small and out of the way that no one ever visited. He tries to remember if either him or Wei Ying ever called it home, but he can’t conjure the memory, if it exists. He’s unsure if he wants it to.

Finally, they reach a diapalted cottage at the other edge of town. It had not been in a great condition when Xie Lian had last seen it, but it’s outright demolished now: the roof caved in, the front door missing, most of the wood rotting. It has been almost twenty years, after all. No one has moved in since, and he’s weirdly grateful for it. It would have been off-putting to see it house a new family.

“It’s very—”

“It’s an even worse dump than the rest of the village, don’t even try,” Xie Lian laughs. They come to a stop outside the fence surrounding the meager garden and house, and Xie Lian leans into Hua Cheng, whose arms come around him in a loose hug.

“Well, then it’s a very nice dump.”

“I suppose,” Xie Lian murmurs. In his mind, a different image of a different time overlays itself on this one. “It used to be a little bit nicer, at least.”

“You’re back.” A child steps out of the house. At first glance, he looks identical to that first fragment they have seen, Wei Ying at six years old. He’s a little bit taller now though, his cheeks lost some of their baby fat, his face set into a frown instead of his younger self’s eternal smile. Ah, seems like Xie Lian’s guess had been correct.

“A-Ying.”

“I thought you were leaving,” he says. “You said—You had something important to do.” His face doesn’t change, but there’s hope in his eyes, with a familiar glint to it: the hope of someone who is used to disappointment, but can’t help themself anyway.

“I did—I do,” Xie Lian corrects himself. He straightens up from where he’s slouched against Hua Cheng, immediately missing the line of warmth and support against his side. But as always, Hua Cheng knows instinctively what he needs, and a hand comes to rest on his lower back.

As if it is involuntarily, Wei Ying’s arms come around himself, like a sad and lonely mimicry of a hug. “So, you should go get to it. Since it’s important.” He gives Hua Cheng a distrustful look. “Are you going to help him with it?”

“I am,” Hua Cheng says, unperturbed by the hostile tone. “I help gege with anything he needs.”

“Yeah?” Wei Ying snorts. “So where were you when we almost starved to death last winter?”

“A-Ying,” Xie Lian says in warning. He wants to recoil in surprise at the venom coming from a child he remembers nothing but sunshine of, but he has seen too much of Wei Ying in the last few weeks to truly be shocked anymore. And besides, he remembers how sullen he had become, when Xie Lian told him of their imminent departure. Remembers— “You may be cruel towards me as much as you would like, but San Lang has done nothing to deserve your ire.”

“He will not be cruel towards gege either,” Hua Cheng says. It is said drily, without any particular tone behind it, but Wei Ying still bristles.

“It doesn’t matter what I say does it?! Since I don’t get any say in the matter!” He stomps his feet, his voice breaking on the last words. Wei Ying has never been an angry child. Although he had spent only a few weeks on the streets, that time left a deep mark on him. Xie Lian knew those lessons as well: a smile is more likely to get you money and food than a frown or a cry. Never complain, never curse. Smile, smile smile. So back then, hearing him shout this way, had been so startling. It had felt like yet another failure.

Xie Lian finds himself falling back on old words, old platitudes. “You will be joining one of the five big sects. You will learn to be a cultivator properly, get your own sword, a courtesy name. The Jiang sect’s fighting techniques are very well-renowned. All of those are things I can’t give you.”

Angry tears bead in Wei Ying’s eyes. Xie Lian remembers that too. “I don’t care! I want to stay with you.” Xie Lian’s fingers clench in his robes. If he had known back then what Wei Ying’s fate would be, could he have made a different choice? Could he have changed things?

“Why?” Hua Cheng asks.

“Huh?”

“Why do you want to stay with gege? Surely things would be better for you if you joined a big, wealthy family. Like you said—last winter you almost starved.” It’s such a cruel thing to say to a child that Xie Lian is almost taken aback. But as always, he will trust Hua Cheng. “Gege is just a man who picked you off the streets. And you seemed very eager to send him off just moments ago.”

Wei Ying’s arms fall from around his body to clench into fists at his side. “None of your business, weirdo,” he says. “I don’t even know who you are.”

Hua Cheng shrugs. “Just a curious stranger,” he says.

“Well, fuck off.”

“A-Ying, language.” The refrain is so automatic it takes a moment for his brain to catch up with his mouth, but by then the damage is done. Wei Ying’s face closes off as if it was a house warding itself before a storm.

“You decided to leave, so just go already. You don’t care, you never cared! You—You just—” he’s heaving in quick breaths now, the tears falling freely, and Xie Lian aches to go to him, to fix whatever it is that needs fixing, but this is a broken thing from a lifetime ago. It will not be fixed so easily. “Sometimes,” Wei Ying whispers, as if it was a secret, “I wish I went with my parents, when they did. At least if I died with them I would have known they wanted me.”

He had said it the exact same way back then too, Xie Lian remembers through the rush of sound in his ears. Broken, and helpless, and angry. Even then he hadn’t shouted when he said it. He had shouted all the way leading up to it, which is what made that tiny whisper all the more devastating. But at the time, Xie Lian had known he couldn’t stay. His newly ascended status was looming over him, and with it all the expectations and obligations of the heavens. All the danger that came with it. He couldn’t have subjected a child to it, no matter how much that child had begged. No matter how much Xie Lian had wanted to.

So, back then, he took those words and locked them somewhere deep deep inside him, so deep their poison couldn’t seep out and touch him, couldn’t haunt his every waking hour. And he had said goodbye, and turned his back, and didn’t let himself look back, not even once.

Now, though—there is no force on earth strong enough to keep him from offering comfort now, from rushing in and wiping tears and hugging tight, trying to erase the words hanging in the air between them. So that’s what he does, ignoring Wei Ying’s startled noise, his awkwardly hanging arms.

“Don’t say that,” he whispers fiercely into his hair, curled around him. “I’ve always wanted you with me. I know I never let myself say it, and I’ll always regret that. I owe your parents an enormous debt for saving your life, and bringing me the brightest thing I had in mine for a very long time.” He can’t tell Wei Ying his own long and arduous life story, and so Wei Ying can’t possibly understand how much he means it. How Wei Ying’s presence in Xie Lian’s life was the first time in almost eight hundred years he had re-learned what it meant to share his life with another person.

Wei Ying’s small, still somewhat chubby fingers come to clutch at Xie Lian’s robes as he borrows his head into his chest. “Then why do you need to leave. I thought—” he cuts himself off. Xie Lian has no idea what he is thinking, he has never known that. For all those years they had spent together he had simply tried to do his best to guess and provide, so often feeling like he was fumbling around in the dark looking for another pair of hands to grasp his own.

“Wei Ying.” Xie Lian turns his head slightly to his side, and sees Hua Cheng has come to stand next to them. “You still didn’t answer. Why do you want to stay with some random man from the streets, instead of a powerful, wealthy cultivation sect?”

This time, Wei Ying has no trouble answering. “I thought we were family,” he cries out into Xie Lian robes. “I thought—I thought—I thought you would stay.”

If possible, Xie Lian curls even tighter around Wei Ying. Haven’t he thought so too, once upon a time? That Mu Qing would stay, that Feng Xin would stay. His parents, too. And when they have left, every single one, he accepted the blame and responsibility and redrew the picture of his world—this was his new reality. That no matter what, no matter who, everyone would leave him one day. So he made sure from then onwards to always be the one who left first, to save himself the heartache. Even with Wei Ying, even if he had no choice—maybe that was still what he was doing.

Hua Cheng was the first person who stayed. And the first one to re-teach Xie Lian what it means to want to stay in return.

Wei Ying has changed in countless ways since they have parted ways. Xie Lian could see it in every fragment he saw: from the smiling, happy child Xie Lian remembered to the bitter and broken man he was when he died. But even between those two moments in time there were valleys and canyons of differences, highs and lows. Thinking of everything Xie Lian hasn’t even seen feels dizzying, an embarrassment of riches of Wei Ying’s life that he would never have access to.

Xie Lian had changed too. Gods tend to change at a glacial pace compared to humans, but Xie Lian had always been an unusual god. Hua Cheng had changed him like the seasons changing from winter to spring, sprouting new leaves and colors in places he had thought long dead. He could stay, this time.

“I’m not going to leave again,” he promises, pressing his lips against Wei Ying’s forehead. “You’re bigger now, and taller and stronger, and I don’t know if you would still want me in your life. But if you do, I promise I won’t leave you again.” He is talking to this version of Wei Ying as much as he’s talking to the teenager, the war hero, the pariah. As much as he’s talking to a man too far gone to see reason, who has lost everything in his life he thought he had.

Wei Ying sniffles into his robes. “But—you have something important to do,” he says.

“Mhm… Wei Ying is important as well.”

“I’m not,” he shakes his head. He sounds… unhappy. Xie Lian exchanges a confused glance with Hua Cheng. He had thought Wei Ying would be relieved that Xie Lian was telling him he would stay, so why...

“Brat, gege always tells the truth. You better believe him.” Xie Lian muffles a laugh into his sleeve. His San Lang, rude as always, even with actual children.

Wei Ying does nothing but shrug. Concerned, Xie Lian untangles him from his robes, placing his fingers under his chin to raise his head so he can look at him in the eyes. They are still red and puffy from earlier tears, but are thankfully dry now, even if Wei Ying still looks miserable. “A-Ying, what is this about?”

The child waffles about for another second before he slumps. “Xie-gege might be able to stay but… I think I need to leave?” It’s stated like a question, as though Wei Ying wasn’t sure of it either. “I feel like there’s somewhere else I need to be. Like someone is waiting for me.” He peers up at Xie Lian, anxious, as though he’s expecting him to be angry at him for it.

“You know what? I think you’re right,” Xie Lian says. “There is someone waiting for you. And it is something important for you to do, too. But I want you to know something, alright?” With his sleeves’ fabric he wipes down the tear tracks on Wei Ying’s face, and remembers nostalgically the way he has done so on their first meeting as well. “It might take you awhile to come back, and you might be different when you do, but I’ll still be here waiting for you.”

“Even if it takes me a long time?”

“Even if it takes you a long time. You know, there is someone who waited for me for a very, very long time. He never complained, and he never wavered, and even though sometimes I don’t feel like I deserved it, he never once stopped. So I think he can teach me a thing or two.”

Before Hua Cheng can say anything, Wei Ying does. “Of course Xie-gege deserves it!” he declares vehemently. “If he needed me to, I would wait—how long did he wait for you?”

“Eight hundred years.” He receives a sceptical look at the outrageous number, but Wei Ying is not dettered.

“Then I would have waited even a thousand years if you needed me to!”

“Oi,” Hua Cheng objects, and Xie Lian laughs.

“San Lang, you can’t pick a fight with a kid.”

“Watch me.”

Wei Ying ignores them, his eyes still locked on Xie Lian’s face. “Do you promise? To wait?”

“I promise, a-Ying.” In a spur of the moment, Xie Lian unties his bamboo hat from his neck. “You know, I once received this hat from a kind old man. I was… very sad, and this hat taught me that there were still things I could be happy about in the world.”

“A hat taught you that?”

Xie Lian laughs. “Well, more so the act of giving it to me.” He leans forward and ties the hat around Wei Ying’s neck instead. It looks almost comically large against his small back, and Xie Lian is sure that if he were to put it on it would swallow his entire head whole. “The relevant thing here is that this hat is important to me. So how about this—I’ll stay, and wait, and one day you will have to bring it back to me, alright?”

Wei Ying’s fingers trace the string around his neck reverently. “Alright. It’s a promise.” Without asking he holds his hands out, asking for something without asking for it, which Xie Lian hands him with trembling hands. The moments the spirit capture bag touches his skin he’s gone, like smoke in the wind. The hat is nowhere to be seen.

“I wish I would have said it to him back then.”

Dusk finds Xie Lian and Hua Cheng sitting on a small hill overlooking the nameless village. From up here the place looks picturesque in a way it could have never aspired to from the ground. Hua Cheng is leaning against a small tree, barely wide enough to hold his weight, not to mention that of Xie Lian’s leaning against his chest as well. The cool wind is blowing through the leaves, as if serving as a constant reminder that it’s almost winter, but against Hua Cheng’s spiritually generated body warmth it doesn’t stand a chance.

“Hmm? Said what?”

“That I would stay. Or that I would wait. Both, either. I wish he knew he was loved.”

Hua Cheng hums for a moment. “Gege, did you shout a lot as a child?” he asks, a complete non sequitur. Xie Lian looks at him quizzically.

“I suppose… I was quite the spoilt child, you know.”

“Gege should be spoiled at all times,” Hua Cheng nods, and laughing as evades Xie Lian’s swat to his shoulder. “Ah, gege must have been so cute, small and stomping while throwing a temper tantrum.”

“San Lang!” Xie Lian laughs, embarrassed. “I was an absolute nightmare. I refused to sleep anywhere but my mother’s bed until I was six years of age.” He says it wistfully, but it no longer hurts as it once would have had.

“I wish I could have seen gege as he was then,” Hua Cheng continues, completely ignoring Xie Lian’s objections. “I would have one look and simply died on the spot. Again.” Xie Lian hides his flushed face in his hands, but Hua Cheng is having none of it, taking his hands and moving them from his face as he kisses him on his cheeks, his nose, and finally his lips. It makes Xie Lian giggle sweetly into it, something bright and bubbly expanding in his chest. He loves him, he loves him, he loves him.

But eventually, Xie Lian pushes him away gently to ask: “Why did San Lang ask me that?”

“Ah.” Hua Cheng leans back against the tree again, pulling Xie Lian with him to cuddle some more. He’s fidgeting with Xie Lian’s hair, smoothing and rolling the ends of it between his fingers. “When I was still living with my family…” he speaks haltingly, as if every word is a struggle. “I don’t remember much about it. But I don’t remember ever raising my voice beyond a whisper.“

Xie Lian makes sure to keep his body relaxed. Hua Cheng almost never speaks of his family except in passing mention. Xie Lian knows his mother passed away when he was very young, that his father was the worst kind of monster. He had two older brothers. But Hua Cheng never speaks of it like this: as if he’s recalling old and painful memories, more subjective than objective.

“It seems to me,” Hua Cheng continues, “that a child is more likely to yell and shout and scream in a place they feel they belong to, with people they feel comfortable with. Gege’s family was loving. Mine was… not.” His lips twist sardonically. “If a child acts out, they need to know that at the end of the day, they would still be able to stay.” He lets out a yelp of surprise when Xie Lian throws himself at him, attempting to smother him in a hug. “Gege!”

“Even if San Lang yells at me for three days and three nights, he would still have a place besides me,” Xie Lian says. He cups Hua Cheng’s face with both hands, his thumbs brushing gently along his cheekbones. “You know that, right?”

“San Lang would never,” Hua Cheng declares vehemently, even as a flush climbs up his skin under Xie Lian’s fingers.

“He would never,” Xie Lian agrees. “But it’s important to me that he knows it anyway.”

“I do, gege.” He smiles up at Xie Lian. His hair is spread around him on the grass like a halo, and the dying day’s light is washing over him, almost making him glow. He’s the most beautiful man Xie Lian has ever seen. Then he adds, almost pointedly: “And I think Wei Ying knew it too.”

That afternoon in Lotus Pier when Wei Ying dragged Xie Lian from stall to stall, chattering excitedly about everything under the sun, he only quieted once. Xie Lian had wondered about the shift he had gone through when he brought up the leaders of his adoptive clan. His voice had still been full of love and admiration, but muted, less excerbutent. Less like the Wei Ying he has known before and knows even better now. Would that Wei Ying have been able to shout at his new family? He somehow doubts that.

Oh. Oh.

“Ha,” Xie Lian lets out a weak chuckle. One tear, and then another. “Back then, hearing him shout at me had felt like my biggest failure.”

Hua Cheng raises his hand to wipe away at the paper-thin skin under Xie Lian’s eye, gathering and wiping away the moisture. “He loved you even then.”

“Would he remember? When he comes back?” Xie Lian wonders, leaning into Hua Cheng’s touch. They must look ridiculous, lying on top of one another on some random hill in the middle of nowhere, holding each other’s faces like they would fall off if they didn’t. It feels wonderful. “Because even if you’re right, and he still knew even back then, I would still like him to remember it now…”

“Hmm… Can I see?” It’s the work of moments for Xie Lian to get off of Hua Cheng and straighten up, returning to their earlier position leaning against the tree. He hands him the bag. It’s probably just Xie Lian’s imagination, but it feels somewhat heavier now than it had before.

“Well, I have good news and bad news,” Hua Cheng finally says after he conducts a full examination of it. Even though he doesn’t look concerned, Xie Lian can feel his heartbeat pick up in worry.

“Oh?”

“That was indeed the last piece missing. Wei Ying’s consciousness is all gathered together again.”

“Oh!”

“But,” Hua Cheng continues, an apologetic tone to his voice, “it will take him decades to patch himself together again. Humans are so fragile, and even a scrape takes a few days to heal. You can imagine how long it would take for an entire soul ripped apart.”

“Oh.”

“Not to worry, gege. I can help along the process. It might still take a decade or so, but it should go much faster.”

A decade, to a god, means practically nothing. Still, Xie Lian thinks of Lan Wangji and his son, the grief of a man in love and a child of his father. Then again, even when Wei Ying does come back… it’s not like they would get to see him again. “And then he would be a spirit?”

“Or he could choose to dissipate back to the reincarnation stream, yes.”

Xie Lian sighs. A decade… that wasn’t too bad, in the grand scheme of things. “Good. That’s… good. Thank you so much, San Lang.”

“It’s not going to be much work for me, there is no need for thanks.”

“No, no, not just for that. Everything in the last few weeks… I know I’ve been difficult.” It’s such an understatement. Xie Lian had been so out of sorts, so emotional and angry and worried. He himself had been so sick of it, so for anyone else to tolerate him like that...

“You haven’t,” Hua Cheng objects, but at Xie Lian’s sceptical look he amends: “Or if you have, I’ve been more than happy to help. Gege is my most important person, my precious someone. I want to help with anything gege needs. It’s all I ever wanted to do.”

“San Lang too is my most important person,” Xie Lian says earnestly. “My love, my precious person. My…” he trails off. Again and again it comes up, but never on purpose. Why was it so easy for him to bring it up without a thought back then, but now it’s so difficult? Hua Cheng is staring at him now, his one eye open wide. He looks so cautiously hopeful. How could Xie Lian deny him anything?

“I would like to call San Lang husband,” he manages to say. “My love, my love, my husband.” Hua Cheng takes in a sharp breath, and then just stops, as if he had forgotten he prefers to breathe even if he doesn’t have to. Xie Lian continues: “And I would like to wear red, and bow three times, and witness the most ridiculous and ostentatious banquet San Lang is sure to arrange, even if I would be perfectly happy with a small, modest one. I want Feng Xin and Mu Qing and Shi Qingxuan to be there, to be happy with, even if I’m sure by the end of it Feng Xin and Mu Qing would have destroyed half the hall in some stupid fight and Shi Qingxuan would be helplessly drunk. Ling Wen and the Lady Rainmaster would quietly share a table sipping tea, and I would have the next few months free from the heavens’ needs by Ling Wen’s decree.” He can envision it so clearly in his mind. It would be such a mess, but it would be the perfect mess for them, and he wants it so badly.

But—

“I want Wei Ying to be there too,” he whispers, averting his gaze from Hua Cheng in shame. “And I know—I know that’s not fair. I know you’ve waited for so long, longer than anyone would have ever expected you to, and now I’m asking you to wait even longer—”

“Yes,” Hua Cheng says, reclining his head just slightly to catch Xie Lian’s eyes. “I will wait another decade, another two, another century. I will wait a millenia and a half, and then too. And even after all that waiting, if gege asked, I would wait some more. I would like to call gege husband too. I wish to see him in red, and take three bows, and organize the most perfect and luxurious banquet, the best that he deserves. But none of it means as much to me as your happiness. So if gege wants to wait, we will wait.”

“You deserve to be happy as well,” and because he can see Hua Cheng about to deflect, he adds: “Wasn’t it San Lang who told a-Ying that gege always tells the truth and that he better believe me?”

Hua Cheng pouts at him. “Gege is playing dirty again.” Xie Lian laughs, and leans in to kiss him. “I’ll wait,” Hua Cheng says against his lips. “But that means gege has to stay.” He tries to go for a joking tone, but Xie Lian doesn’t buy it. He knows better than most how much Hua Cheng means it.

“I promised, didn’t I?” Xie Lian has an idea, and his lips skim against Hua Cheng’s, moving towards his ear to whisper: “My would be husband, won’t you take me home, so that I can show you just how much I want to stay?”

He can’t help but laugh when Hua Cheng lets out an honest and shocked moan. He’s so often to be the one flustered by the other’s shamelessness, it’s rewarding to turn the tables on him every once in a while. However, the laugh turns into a yelp of surprise as he then stumbles to his legs, pulling Xie Lian up with him, and throws a pair of dice into the air, whisking them away.

Behind them, the nameless village continues its life in peace, unaware that it was once home to a disgraced god and the future nightmare of the cultivation world. A place where they had played at family and somehow, actually, inadvertently became one. But Xie Lian doesn’t look back. His future is with Hua Cheng, and one day, Wei Ying as well. He would not waste anymore time on regrets.

“Gege, come quick.”

“San Lang, what’s wrong?”

“Wei Ying’s consciousness—someone is pulling at it.”

“What?! What does that mean???”

“The living are not done with Wei Wuxian yet. He better remembers to bring back gege’s hat with him.”