Chapter Text
Their return to Cloud Recesses is mercifully uneventful.
It had taken all of Lan Qiren’s powers of persuasion to convince Lao Nie that no, they didn’t need a personal escort home, no he did not need Lao Nie to arrange for an extended visit to ensure their transition back to life in Gusu went smoothly, and no he absolutely would not agree to betroth Xichen to Mingjue as an excuse for them all to see each other more often!
Lao Nie had laughed his best booming laugh at that last and had reeled Lan Qiren in to press a smiling kiss to his cheek, which had mollified some small amount of his rather visceral distaste at using his nephew in such a way, but the point still stood. He’d also refrained from arguing that their own brotherhood oath was meant to serve just that function anyway, since he was fairly sure Lao Nie would turn it around on him and argue that it made the perfect reason to escort them home then after all. Eventually, Lao Nie had caved to his arguments with good humor and had just insisted on some extra time spent together just the two of them before their departure, which was a demand Lan Qiren was perfectly happy and willing to agree to.
So - unescorted, they’d returned to Cloud Recesses, and Lan Qiren carefully gauges the children’s emotions now as they climb the stairs that are the final length of the journey between them and home.
Xichen, ever the well-tempered child, simply looks happy to be home, smiling gently in the way he’d learned from his mother. He’d exchanged some trinket or other with Mingjue before their departure from the Unclean Realm, and though Lan Qiren hadn’t asked about it the boy keeps patting at the pocket where he’d stored Mingjue’s return gift (and he thinks maybe Lao Nie hadn’t been asking about a betrothal for purely selfish reasons - a thought for another day far in the future).
Wangji has returned to holding staunchly to Wei Ying’s hand whenever humanly possible, which has done wonders for helping the trip home run smoothly. Unlike their trip home from Lotus Pier so long ago, Wei Ying’s enthusiasm had been appropriately directed to the areas immediately around them rather than everywhere within a li’s radius, and his tendency to scamper around and dirty up his robes that had been given a new life in the indulgent atmosphere of the Unclean Realm has been easily tempered by Wangji’s refusal to budge in any direction he doesn’t personally find important. He’s still a stoic child, Lan Qiren suspects based on his own temperament that that won’t change no matter how much time he spends in Wei Ying’s company, but underneath that still exterior there’s a happiness that Lan Qiren hadn’t realized wasn’t there until it suddenly was - about halfway through their stay in the Unclean Realm, when it had apparently become crystal clear that Wei Ying will always choose him first even with new friends to play with.
Wei Ying is…subdued. Lan Qiren supposes he’s not surprised, considering how much self-control the boy had seemed to find after being gifted his ribbon, but he’d shed so much of that behavior in the Unclean Realm that to see it back on his face now is jarring. Lan Qiren wonders, not for the first time, if they can’t possibly find a middle ground between Wei Ying’s natural behavior and the strict admonition of the Lan Sect precepts. Wei Ying’s education in that area is still, much to his dismay, sorely lacking. There are simply so many other things that Wei Ying must be taught alongside them, and though he’s an extremely bright child there are genuinely only so many things a child can learn in a certain amount of time.
But the time for Lan Qiren to fret over it has passed - with the coming of autumn, his allotted time to educate the children himself is officially over. He comforts himself with the fact that he had truly done everything that was in his power to prepare them for beginning their classes with the rest of their peers, but he knows, with some small note of bitterness, that were his attention not pulled in so many other directions by also tending to the Sect with little help that he could have accomplished more with the children. It’ll have to be what it is, though. He can’t go back in time to change his actions, and he already knows that even if he could somehow do it all again he would choose precisely what he had.
His best will simply have to suffice.
He takes the first day after their return to get the children settled in - and he makes it clear to the first person to approach him with Sect business that he will absolutely not bend on this. Perhaps a summer spent with Lao Nie for company has negatively impacted his temperament (which was never stellar to begin with, he ruefully reflects), but for the first time in as long as he can remember he realizes he doesn’t care what the rest of the Sect will think of his decision. There’s important business to attend to, he knows that. But he also knows that the Sect hasn’t fallen into ruin yet, and he highly doubts that one more day under his cousin’s leadership will be the tipping point into destruction.
Settling Xichen back in is easy - he’s traveled out of the Sect multiple times before, of course, and while he happily accepts a hug and graciously allows Lan Qiren to adjust his ribbon for him (unnecessarily, he’s as impeccably put together as always), he’s becoming self-sufficient more quickly than Lan Qiren had anticipated.
He’s just about to leave Xichen to his own devices for the remainder of the day to unpack and catch up with his acquaintances after such a long time away from home when the boy stops him with a hand tangled in his sleeve.
“Shufu..?” Xichen hesitates on his words and Lan Qiren turns fully to face him again, a frown tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“What is it, Xichen?”
Xichen looks indecisive for another moment but then his features resolve, and Lan Qiren wonders if he’ll ever tell the boy how much he looks like his father. He wraps his arms automatically around Xichen’s shoulders when he hugs him tightly, much more tightly than even a few moments ago, and he finds himself at something of a loss as he pats the back of his head and holds him just as tightly.
“Thank you, Shufu,” Xichen mumbles into the heavy silk of his outer robe, his face completely hidden in his chest - and doesn’t that hurt in its own way? Xichen is getting so tall, it’s clear he’ll be as tall as his father if not taller by the time he’s grown, and all of it is happening far too quickly in Lan Qiren’s opinion.
“What are you thanking me for, Xichen?”
“I know I was…meant to begin learning how to lead the Sect before we left,” he confesses, sounding guilty. Lan Qiren sighs but bites his tongue around the admonition against eavesdropping for the moment as it’s clear Xichen has more to say. “I was afraid before that I would fail. I’m grateful I was allowed to go to the Unclean Realm for the season instead, but now I’m…I’m ready to start leading-”
“No, you are not,” Lan Qiren interrupts to argue, startled into rudeness by his nephew’s grim assertion. “You are still a child, Xichen, and I will have the final say as to when you begin training to lead the Sect. I am here so that you do not have to lead before you are ready - your duty for now is to learn cultivation and politics from your teachers and to develop good relations with the others in your generation so you will have their support when you grow older. You should continue on now just as before.”
Xichen stays quiet for a few long moments, his arms still locked tightly around Lan Qiren’s waist, but eventually he gives him a final squeeze and steps back to look up at him with a slightly watery smile.
“Yes Shufu,” he finally agrees, and some of the anxious pressure in Lan Qiren’s chest eases. “I can do that.”
“Good.” Xichen glows under the praise, simple though it is, and Lan Qiren makes a mental note to find time soon in which to observe this season’s teachers and ensure they give praise as fairly as they give corrections. “Unpack your things and come home for dinner this evening.”
“Yes, Shufu.”
“Wangji, please,” Lan Qiren sighs, nearly at the end of his patience. Wangji is standing where he has been for the last shichen - very firmly planted in front of his stripped-down bed and making it very clear that he has no intention of moving unless by force (and Lan Qiren is absolutely sure that if anyone were to force him he wouldn’t hesitate to begin biting). “A-Ying and you will be in the same room in the dormitories, there will be little difference from living here, you’ll see.”
Wangji sets his little jaw mulishly and doesn’t raise his glare from the floor.
“Master Lan?” Wei Ying asks nervously from behind him, tugging gently at his robes to get his attention. Lan Qiren rests a hand on his head automatically, tucking the boy close to his side, and Wei Ying keeps hold of his robes as he looks up at him with wide eyes. “Can we eat dinner with you if we take our things to our new room right now?”
Lan Qiren raises an eyebrow at the bargaining, but a glance at Wangji proves that he’s at least quit his glaring at the floor and is instead watching Wei Ying like a hawk.
“You may,” he allows, “So long as all of your belongings are stored neatly and everything is in order before the dinner hour.”
Wei Ying hugs his leg tightly and turns his head to look at Wangji, who holds his own for a long, tense moment before bending stiffly to pick up his little pack of belongings at his feet. He cradles it in front of him with his fingers curled into fists in the fabric, and now that he isn’t glaring anymore Lan Qiren can clearly see what he’d already suspected - his nephew is terrified. It wouldn’t be obvious to perhaps anyone except himself, Xichen, and Wei Ying, but for those who know Wangji best it’s clear that he isn’t confident in this change.
Nor would Lan Qiren expect him to be.
It’s been obvious since very early in Wangji’s young life that he’s inherited some of the same behaviors and ways of looking at the world that Lan Qiren himself had, and it’s something that he only notices more and more frequently as Wangji grows and comes into his true personality, his perception of himself as a person existing in the wider world. Lan Qiren doesn’t remember his own time spent in the student’s dormitories with any sort of fondness, and he’d been thoroughly uninterested in the prospect as a boy before he’d had to enter them.
The key difference for his nephew - one which Lan Qiren hopes will allow him to have quite a different experience than himself - is that Wangji has Wei Ying for a companion. They’ve already proven time and time again that no force on earth will separate them, Lan Qiren isn’t worried that the close presence of their peers will coax one or both of them into suddenly losing the companionship they’ve found in each other. However, at the same time, he’s well aware that he can only see that through years of experience and from a perspective outside of their little twosome - it isn’t his heart that’s in danger of being broken should the gregarious and friendly Wei Ying decide that he’d rather spend his hours playing with others.
The only way to prove to Wangji that his fears are mostly unfounded, however, is to give him the nudge he needs to face what frightens him and come out on the other side of it (hopefully) unscathed.
Coaxing Wangji out of the bedroom and then out of the house entirely is much easier now that Wei Ying has made it clear that he is going and won’t be held back by Wangji’s stubbornness (Lan Qiren would have never thought he’d appreciate having not one but two painfully stubborn 7-year-olds in his house, but when they manage to sway each other one way or another he finds he can only be grateful that they’re so equally matched). The walk to the dormitories then is short enough that before Lan Qiren can remind his nephew that making the trip back to the house to visit him will be easy Wei Ying makes the point himself, exclaiming happily that they could go back for every mealtime if they wanted and still never be late to anything. It’s an exaggeration, and of course Lan Qiren knows that they won’t be permitted to come to him so often, but the sentiment is sweet and seems to soothe some more of Wangji’s fear besides.
He helps the children unpack again in their new room, and then, before the sun has even begun to dip towards the mountains for the afternoon, Lan Qiren’s life has been very efficiently and effectively uprooted.
His children will visit him, will be his children in his heart for all that the Sect will never truly allow him to acknowledge it, but they won’t ever live with him again. They’ll grow up raised not only by him but also by their teachers, their elders, their shixiongs who will guide them and watch over them.
Lan Qiren makes sure the boys are alright for the time being, promises them he’ll expect them for dinner along with Xichen, and then returns to his empty home, feeling just as hollow as the echoing space.
He lingers in the doorway for too long, his back against the wood and his eyes unseeing as he stares at the rooms that are once again solely his own.
When he’d brought Xichen here as a baby, a part of him had…lamented the change. He has never handled change very well, and though of course the shock of hearing his brother and his wife had managed to overcome their differences apparently long enough, at least, to produce a child (whether out of boredom, duty, or pleasure Lan Qiren had never once wanted to know) had worn off by then, no amount of anticipation could have prepared him for the way an infant could (and did) disrupt his life.
Xichen had been a wonderful baby, sweet tempered and curious. He’d slept well, and he’d reached all the proper milestones precisely on time. He’d been messy and giggled loudly at nearly everything, he’d pulled Lan Qiren’s beard far too hard at every opportunity, and Lan Qiren had loved him more than life itself. Still loves him more than life. He’d come to wonder after Xichen’s first birthday how he’d ever lived without the baby in his life, and though things had been far from perfect he’d made room in his life for his beloved nephew without regret.
And then, years later, little A-Zhan had come along, so unlike his brother in everything but looks. Fussy and perpetually ill-tempered, clingy, moody, Wangji had been a little terror of a child whom Lan Qiren had loved (loves) just as fiercely as he does Xichen. He’d made room in his life all over again even more easily this time, and he’d felt then that the three of them would have all the time in the world to learn how to be a family. A healthy one, one without favorites played or pains left to fester in cruel silence.
How wrong he’d been, then, when he’d first felt the weight of this responsibility weighing down his shoulders. His children have suffered, they’ve doubted him, they’ve been hurt by him and his actions, suffered in silence despite his best intentions - and now they can’t be only his anymore, and his window of opportunity to do what he’d hoped has closed.
Lan Qiren knows even as he thinks it that it’s not completely true - he’s still the boys’ guardian and he will be until they’re of age. They’ll always pay him their respects as required by their filial duties. He’s still their acting sect leader, he’s still the one who will hear the reports on their education, he’ll take tea and meals with them as often as his schedule will allow. They’re not gone, they haven’t disappeared into the wind.
The silence echoes around Lan Qiren as if insisting otherwise.
In an effort to keep himself from lingering on his heartache, Lan Qiren takes the few hours of free time he finds on his hands to unpack his own belongings from the trip as well as to see to some of his personal correspondence that had been delivered to his home while he’d just been traveling between Qinghe and Gusu at the pace the boys had set. There’s a letter from Lao Nie already waiting for him, some foolish thing expressing that everyone misses them already…and promising another ill-advised visit should Lan Qiren grow too lax in his correspondence (or, likely what Lao Nie truly means, should he keep himself too busy running himself ragged again to prioritize his own life). His more official Sect mail is likely still being delivered to those who have been running things in his stead, and so Lan Qiren takes care of his personal matters at his own pace, in no rush at all.
It is, of course, a temporary reprieve. All three children come to him for dinner, and when it’s over Lan Qiren walks them back to their dormitories for curfew. When he goes to sleep that night it’s with the knowledge that his life is going to become immensely more difficult again when he wakes, but he goes to sleep anyway, his body too used to his lifelong routines for him to lay awake worrying for too long.
“Tell me everything that you know of what happened between my brother and the elders,” Lan Qiren asks of Lan Hao, who seems grateful to finally be sitting on the petitioner side of his desk again. “Not Lao Nie’s visit, I don’t need to know what he said to my brother, only what happened between Qingheng-Jun and the elders after Lao Nie returned to Qinghe.”
He waits with outward patience for Lan Hao to gather her thoughts, his desire for her to just get on with it betrayed only by a single tap of his fingertip against the desk as he waits.
“A handful of elders had gone to investigate Lao Nie’s presence at your brother’s cottage, and when they arrived to see he’d broken down the door -” Lan Qiren closes his eyes against a wave of irritation for his Sworn Brother’s temper - “They saw Qingheng-Jun standing with him and talking just inside. No one but the disciples who tend to him has seen him in so long - I gathered the elders who saw him were…rather shocked by his appearance.”
‘He is a pathetic shadow of the man he once was!!’ Lao Nie’s frustrated assertion rings through Lan Qiren’s mind suddenly. He’d had more pressing concerns on his mind during that argument to bother worrying about what that had meant, but now he finds he’s…morbidly curious about what could have changed so much about his brother to have created such a strong reaction in everyone who had the chance to see him.
In their youth, Qingheng-Jun had been Lan Qihua, the eldest son of the Lan, their precious pearl, their magnificent beginning. Even before he’d excelled so much in his cultivation as to earn a personal title outside of wartime, he’d been a prodigy. Physically strong, firm in his convictions, deeply principled - if also arrogant and cruel in some moments (mostly to Lan Qiren, though he isn’t narcissistic enough to assume that he received particularly special treatment from his brother, surely there had been others to see such an ugly side of him). But even despite his cruel streak, to Lan Qiren’s view his brother had been a shining example of everything a Lan cultivator ought to be, and there had been very few, if any, who had disagreed with him.
Lan Qihua had grown out of the willow-green of his teenage years and into the first strong flush of adulthood while Lan Qiren had watched from the sidelines, gangly and awkward and thoroughly aware of his shortcomings. He had become Qingheng-Jun, and when their father had passed away a mere two years later he’d taken up the reins of the Sect just as easily as everyone had hoped. He’d been born to do it, after all. They’d trained him his entire life for that very moment.
No matter how hard Lan Qiren tries, this is still the image of Qingheng-Jun that sits at the front of his mind. Not even his brother slightly older and crazed with a dangerous love, as he’d been when he’d disappeared into his seclusion and left Lan Qiren to pick up the pieces. No; when he thinks of his brother at all, Lan Qiren still sees him as the young man he’d been when he’d first stepped up to lead. It’s a bit startling as he realizes, suddenly, that he’s older now than his brother had been then, and the image in his mind is nothing more than a ghost born of his own insecurities as a teenager.
“He’s diminished significantly, Qiren. I saw him myself.”
Lan Qiren breathes slowly in and then back out through an emotion that he reluctantly acknowledges is jealousy. Even now, after all these years, he can’t help but want even a scrap of his brother’s approval. His acknowledgement. And it seems as though everyone but him is still snatching it out of his grasp.
“Do you know what he said to them in their audiences?”
“No. Only that whatever was said resulted in your brother’s staunchest supporters announcing they would be retreating to reflect upon their behavior.”
Lan Qiren closes his eyes and forces himself to think about what he’d forcefully put out of his mind while in Qinghe.
“You realize, I trust, that this will reflect poorly on the myself and the Sect. It will be that I am either a scorned younger brother inciting a coup against my brother’s leadership with the help of a powerful martial Sect Leader…Or else I am such a poor leader that rather than continue to support me the elders who favor my brother have withdrawn in order to continue to show solidarity with him against my inferior leadership.”
“Qiren-”
“Their positions have been filled by those I instructed you to request take up their duties, have they not?”
Lan Hao looks sour when he opens his eyes again, but she nods anyway despite the fact that he’s sure she sees where this is going.
“Then is it such a leap to imagine that in the eyes of the cultivation world I have uprooted my living brother’s rightful control of this Sect in favor of my own, despite the temporary nature of my position?”
“May I speak frankly, Qiren? As both your cousin and your advisor?”
Lan Qiren sighs and rubs his thumb against his forehead just over his ribbon - he pointedly doesn’t think about how it’s one of Lao Nie’s favorite spots to press a quick kiss when he doesn’t feel like leaning down to get at his cheek.
“Of course.”
“While it could seem like that to anyone wishing to engage with you in bad faith, I think you do not have a clear view of the strength of your reputation both within and beyond the bounds of the Sect. I’m not so sure that there are any individuals with any sort of political sway who would think you would do such a thing when you have previously shown nothing but dedication to your brother and the elders who supported him no matter what they said or did against you. Everyone has watched you lead us well under circumstances that none of us could have foreseen - and raise the heirs to lead after you without complaint. For what little it may be worth, I’m glad that you’re my Sect Leader and I know for a fact that there are plenty of others in Cloud Recesses who agree with me wholeheartedly.”
For a few long moments, Lan Qiren finds all he can do is stare at Lan Hao sitting calmly across from him, apparently utterly unperturbed by making such a declaration. When he gathers himself again he clears his throat and refreshes her tea - and ignores the distinctly smug air she’s suddenly sporting. “…The changes need not be made known to the cultivation world at all, I imagine. My brother’s withdrawal into seclusion was only newsworthy as he is Sect Leader and my stepping in as Acting Sect Leader bore an inevitable impact on the rest of the Sects. As this is strictly a Sect matter and gossip is forbidden, outsiders will be unlikely to know things have changed to the degree they have.”
“Just so,” Lan Hao agrees, still smug. “And as Nie-Zongzhu is your sworn brother he isn’t quite an outsider despite his political stance as the leader of the Nie. So long as he doesn’t allow it to become public knowledge, it does no harm for him to know the results of his visit.”
“His ‘visit’,” Lan Qiren parrots, tone acerbic. “What a tame word for what I can only imagine was behavior that verged on storming Cloud Recesses in what could have been taken for a declaration of war were we a more martial-minded sect.”
“He did threaten to cut through the wards if I didn’t grant him entry, yes,” Lan Hao agrees blithely. “And ran through both the main areas and the inner family residences disturbing everyone to shout for your brother to come out and face him.”
Lan Qiren sets his cup down to cover his eyes, unable to resist lamenting his choice in companion.
“I will bear punishment for my sworn brother’s behavior-”
“Oh Qiren, please,” Lan Hao waves off both his offer and his offense at being dismissed so easily in the same gesture. “You were not his sworn brother at the time, nor did you have any more control over his actions than you would the wind. In the end the only damages were a shichen or so of quiet in the wake of his blustering and your brother’s front door - both of which are light enough offenses as to have already been repaid in full by the positive result he gained for us. I can also rest reasonably assured that Nie-Zongzhu is well aware of your disapproval of his actions and has been dressed down accordingly?”
Lan Qiren narrows his eyes at his cousin then, irked at being seen through so clearly and obviously teased - of course he’d yelled at Lao Nie, who in his position wouldn’t have? Still, Lan Hao only laughs and drinks the final sip of her tea.
With a burning neck he says, stiffly, “If there is nothing further to discuss about my brother or the elders then we should move on to discussing more pressing Sect matters.”
Lan Hao gracefully allows him to change the subject and settles in for a long day of going back and forth with him between meetings that have already been postponed for as long as they could be and catching him up on all the daily workings he’s missed out on. It’s a relief, he realizes towards the end of the day, to have another mind working at the same problems he’s so used to solving on his own, and he thinks that he doesn’t care how much compensation he’ll have to offer his cousin to encourage her to stay in the position - he’s going to keep her on as his head advisor at any cost and finally begin sharing the workload he should have never had to bear alone.