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Chapter Text

Dawn came early in the mountains, especially in the summer. When Lan Wangji woke, the sky was already pale as the first rays of the sun, itself still below the horizon, lit the upper atmosphere and set it glowing. Twittering outside his window announced that the morning birds were already awake and going about their business.

Getting up, he made his way to the bathroom, shaking his head slightly in a less than successful attempt to clear the lingering blurriness from his mind. He’d stayed up late the night before, writing up notes, researching, and attempting to corral his most important correspondence to a point where he could afford to ignore it for a few weeks. Luckily, he’d already made a start on the last, since he’d anticipated that the Yiling Laozu project would claim a fair amount of his time and attention.

Given recent developments, however, he had a feeling that his previous estimate of how much time and attention was woefully inadequate.

Luckily, his morning routine was straightforward and simple. Brushing his teeth, pulling his hair back in a strict bun before going out to the garden for a workout. Generally strength or endurance exercises, followed by Tai Chi; he’d found that the added challenge of moving through the stances when his muscles were already tired enhanced the meditative aspect, demanding he turn his entire focus on his body in the moment. Then a shower, followed by a quiet, simple breakfast taking in the way the world seemed to simply breathe, patient and unshaken, around his peaceful sanctuary.

Dishes cleaned and stowed, he paused in the doorway and looked at his living room, laid out in the traditional style to match the rest of his small home, and tried to imagine waking up somewhere completely different, where even the color of the light was alien to him, where he couldn’t communicate with anyone and people came and went with no explanation or warning – without even so much as a by-your-leave. Knowing that something had happened, something had changed, but having no idea what or how.

He could barely wrap his mind around even that, and it was only a fraction of the reality Wei Wuxian was living.

At least they’d made some progress on the language problem. He’d intended to go slowly, concerned about overwhelming Wei Wuxian when the man already had so much to deal with. Learning a language, especially as an adult, was difficult. No matter how intelligent the learner, mastering a language took time. Work. Memorization and repetition and accepting that all the study in the world would not protect one from making mistakes.

That last was the aspect Lan Wangji had always struggled with the most. He was well aware of his own perfectionist tendencies.

Wei Wuxian had seemed to enjoy the process, though, even laughing in what seemed like genuine amusement at the reactions his own mistakes had drawn. In fact, by the time they’d had to leave to ensure that Wen Yuan could make it to the bus running down the mountain to Caiyi, Lan Wangji had a suspicion that more than a few of those mistakes had been entirely deliberate on Wei Wuxian’s part. Given the limited vocabulary at his disposal, there were limits to how absurd a mistake could be if it were truly accidental.

Language learning was difficult and arduous and he’d approached it as a game.

Which, admittedly, was far from the worst way to do things. People could muster a focus and energy for play that would outstrip even the most dedicated study.

Shaking his head, Lan Wangji went to the guest room, checking that everything was in order. After some discussion, they’d decided that Wen Yuan would stay at the Jingshi for the length of his internship; Lan Wangji had hosted him on occasion in the past, when Wen Qing and Wen Ning had not been available. It would be far easier for Wen Yuan to maintain the required quarantine together with Lan Wangji than if the boy was trying to live out of a dorm room left unoccupied over the summer, and it would allow him to fulfill his role as Lan Wangji’s assistant by helping with note-taking and research at the end of each day.

They would have to make the dorm solution work on a temporary basis while Wen Yuan waited out the necessary two week isolation period to ensure that he hadn’t caught anything on his run back into town. There was no way he could stay in Lan Wangji’s home during that period without making a mockery of the whole effort, not when Lan Wangji would be working with Wei Wuxian on a daily basis. Luckily, Lan Xichen had assured them that he would secure one of the larger rooms with an attached kitchen, and Wen Yuan was quite self-sufficient – and reliable – for his age. He’d already assured Lan Wangji that he would be available for any research assignments or other long-distance support he might require, and that he intended to spend the rest of his time getting a head start on as much of his schoolwork as possible.

He had not mentioned phone calls and online games with his friends, but Lan Wangji knew that that was a given. As it should be.

Satisfied that the room was properly aired out and that the guest bed had been made up with fresh linens – which he’d done after Wen Yuan’s last visit, but there was no harm in verifying – Lan Wangji closed the door and prepared to leave.

He was just pulling his hair back to put it in the usual bun when he hesitated. Perhaps he should leave it down? It hadn’t occurred to him the day before, preoccupied as he’d been with more immediate issues, but…

His long hair had been one of his first acts of rebellion; he’d started growing it out as soon as he’d been free of the strict dress codes of mandatory schooling. He’d kept it shoulder-length ever since, assuaging concerns about dignity and propriety by keeping it neatly contained and his own stern reputation. But from Wei Wuxian’s perspective, the nearly universal short hairstyles worn by men had to seem strange; only convicted criminals and exiles would have had hair so short, but it would never have been so neatly trimmed in that case.

Lan Wangji considered the question, then mentally shrugged and finished the bun. He’d worn his hair that way the day before, after all, so whatever impression it might convey had already been made. And it was familiar and comfortable, and therefore would not distract him.

After that, he pulled a light jacket over his turtleneck – summer it might be, but mornings in the mountains were chilly and the air conditioning in the lab was aggressive. With luck, Wen Qing would have found better arrangements by now, but given the lack of messages to that effect, he suspected she’d been unsuccessful. The outfit might become uncomfortable if they moved to a different part of the building or if the afternoon turned warm, but he’d packed a lighter change of clothing in his bag along with a collection of reference books and writing materials for that exact reason.

Going to pick up the bag, however, he hesitated.

In truth, he had hesitated over those reference books… rather more than he normally did over decisions in general, and ridiculously so given that bringing them should have been simple common sense. As Wen Yuan had wisely decided regarding time measurement, the last thing that they wanted to do at this point was to make an easily prevented mistake in translation that would only introduce additional confusion in an already confusing situation.

And yet. A properly educated scholar should know many of those references by heart – a laborious and demanding memorization process, yes, but deeply important in an age where texts were heavy and precious, and knowledge of the classics an important shared philosophical base. Wouldn’t it only raise questions if Lan Wangji felt he needed references for something so basic…?

He huffed at himself and firmly picked the bag up, arranging the strap so that the weight would be evenly distributed. He was not going to let himself hide behind “it might confuse him” when he knew perfectly well that what was really at stake was his pride as a scholar: Wei Wuxian was clearly well educated and Lan Wangji’s ego did not want to be found wanting.

His ego did not belong in the decision-making process.

Besides. Given that he’d been unsuccessful as yet in locating any reference to a Gusu Lan or Yunmeng Jiang family, the collections of popular poetry from the period would do a great deal to narrow down the specific time period Wei Wuxian came from. Not all poets were famed in their own time, of course, but works like those of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove had been well known. If Wei Wuxian recognized them, that would give them a reasonable terminus post quem for when he’d been lost to the ice.

And if not, then it was still good poetry in a witty style that he suspected Wei Wuxian would appreciate.

However, their main goal today was for Wen Qing to conduct a much more thorough medical exam to get a better sense of Wei Wuxian’s overall health, which meant that, at least for the morning, he needed to focus on explaining what she wanted – and possibly persuading, if Wei Wuxian was, understandably, hesitant about the process.

At least Wen Qing had already made clear that she had no intentions of subjecting the man to blood tests, X-rays, an MRI scan, or anything else that was invasive or required heavy equipment until they’d established enough of a base of language – and trust – for her to explain the purposes of those tests herself. Which was likely to become yet another source of conflict with the other project researchers.

He did not envy her in the slightest.

Closing the door behind him, Lan Wangji paused for a moment to draw in a slow, deep breath, letting the heavy quiet settle around him. His home was actually located deep in the oldest part of the Cloud Recesses complex, surrounded by pines and far away from the main area. According to the histories, it had been built as a refuge for monks who wanted to withdraw into secluded meditation – hence the name Jingshi – and had been part of Cloud Recesses for hundreds of years. Which was certainly consistent with the style, although Lan Wangji suspected that over the years, through fire and rot and the necessary upgrades to bring in modern necessities like plumbing and electricity… well, the building itself might be almost as old as Cloud Recesses, but each individual piece that comprised the structure was likely rather younger. He’d always found that rather poetic.

He passed by the footpath that eventually led to the natural cold springs with a bit of regret – he’d always found sitting by the springs an excellent space to think, when he had the time – and instead turned to the path leading out and into the main university complex.

Like the Jingshi, the heart of the university had maintained the layout and structures of the original Tang Dynasty monastery, although also like the Jingshi, many individual elements had been lost and replaced over the centuries. Some of them very recently indeed; the university had survived the purges of the Cultural Revolution largely by grace of being remote, a slow shift to secular status across the centuries, and a fortuitous reputation as a center of practical sciences at the time… but it had not survived unscathed, and a significant portion of the old complex still showed the slight color difference of new wood that had not quite weathered enough to match the other buildings yet.

Lan Qiren had seen some of the old buildings burn – something Lan Wangji tried to remind himself of when his uncle’s criticisms of his chosen field of study became particularly trying.

He wondered if Wei Wuxian would find any of the old complex familiar. The Cloud Recesses monastery was established during the early Tang, after Wei Wuxian’s time, but there may have been something smaller in the area originally. Granted, they were some distance from Hubei, and farther yet from Yiling. Travel would have been risky and dangerous at the time, usually a matter of necessity rather than choice – although not always, and Wei Wuxian was easily adventurous enough that Lan Wangji could picture him as a traveler.

But even if he had been to whatever place might have predated the Cloud Recesses monastery, it was unlikely that anything genuinely familiar remained after so much time. Especially once one moved out of the carefully preserved heart of the campus and into the area where the actual life of the university happened. The school had, after all, long outgrown its roots as an enclave of recluses distant from the taint of the ephemerality of daily life.

It wasn’t a jarring transition; even as the university had expanded, the developers had carefully stayed as close to the original aesthetic as possible. The interiors were state of the art, especially as one came to the area of the campus where the science and technology centers were housed, but the exteriors remained deeply traditional in design.

That didn’t change the fact that once one moved beyond the screen of trees marking the historic monastery from the rest of the campus, suddenly all the buildings were much bigger. Too big to be at all practical without internal climate control and advanced engineering and materials to support the weight of the structures.

Still. At least they were not the glass and concrete monstrosities Lan Wangji had encountered at other institutions over the years. Even the newest buildings, constructed in the past few years as the Yiling Laozu project drew new attention – and funding – to the university, maintained the signature look of Cloud Recesses. For all his disdain for anything that smacked of romanticism, Lan Qiren had strict standards regarding elegance and dignity.

Or at least the appearance thereof.

Lan Wangji used his ID card to enter the building, nodding briefly to the security guard at the door, and walked into the building and straight into an argument.

“Miss Wen, you are being completely unreasonable!”

Lan Wangji paused at the entrance to the conference room, taking in Wen Qing’s expression as she met Yao Yingjie’s blustering with a cool, level stare that rendered her physically diminutive stature in comparison to the older man utterly meaningless.

Not that the man himself seemed aware of just how deeply his foot was embedded in his mouth. “It is beyond ridiculous to require those of us who are focusing our research on the Yiling Laozu peripheral artifacts to maintain quarantine!”

Wen Qing flicked an eyebrow ever so slightly upward. “You mean to study Wei Wuxian’s belongings without even attempting to talk to the man himself, then?” she asked, a subtle sharpness in her tone.

The scholar had already waved a hand dismissively, the warning edge in Wen Qing’s tone clearly flying clean over his head. Unsurprising. Over the course of the many project planning meetings Lan Wangji had been required to attend, he had noted that while Professor Yao did have a gift for reading a room, he tended to apply it… selectively. “Oh, eventually, I’m sure,” he huffed impatiently, so quickly that Lan Wangji strongly suspected he hadn’t actually heard the question before the words were in his mouth. “But the sword – the robes – the flute! These are priceless artifacts! It is imperative that we get them cataloged and safely placed in appropriate storage to protect them!”

Lan Wangji stiffened. Because until the previous afternoon, no one had known that Wei Wuxian had a flute. So what was Professor Yao doing bringing it up now?

Granted, anyone who had gone into the hallway could have heard Wei Wuxian playing, and it was not difficult to extrapolate from that. And Yao Yingjie was exactly the sort to simply assume that a ban on entry could not possibly apply to him and attempt to walk into the lab.

Still.

From the way Wen Qing’s eyes narrowed, she didn’t like the implications either. But rather than address it, she simply said, “I would think Wei Wuxian is rather more priceless. And you want to simply swoop in and take his belongings without so much as a word?”

Yao Yingjie spluttered. “Well, it’s certainly preferable to him running about with them!”

Wen Qing’s lips thinned, her eyes hardening. “My decision stands,” she said flatly.

Yao Yingjie drew himself up to his full height – not that that was particularly impressive in the face of Wen Qing’s steely stare. “This is not your decision to make, Miss Wen! I have offered a perfectly reasonable compromise, you have no reason to be obstinate! I will be speaking to the project manager about this, I assure you!”

“Do that.” Wen Qing’s expression did not change at all.

That, apparently, was not exactly the reaction Yao Yingjie had expected. The man spluttered, “Well – I will, then!” and turned to storm away. Although his dramatic exit was hampered somewhat when he saw Lan Wangji standing in the doorway.

Technically, courtesy would dictate that, as the younger, Lan Wangji should yield the right-of-way and let the man pass. But he was feeling just irked enough by the man’s behavior to take a petty bit of pleasure in stepping forward instead, forcing Yao Yingjie to hastily back up until Lan Wangji had cleared the door and the man could leave.

Lan Wangji had never once claimed to not be petty.

Once Yao Yingjie was gone and the door was closed again, Wen Qing leaned forward and let her forehead rest on the table with a soft thump. “Rrrrrgh,” she stated eloquently.

Nie Mingjue snickered from where he was leaning against the wall, surprisingly unobtrusive for a tall and powerfully built man. “One thing I’ve learned here – academic blowhards are a breed of their own. Although you do realize he’s not completely off base?”

Wen Qing turned her head just enough to glower at him with one eye.

Nie Mingjue raised his hands. “Professor Yao’s got his priorities stuck in his research publications, sure. But Wei Wuxian’s going to want a change of clothes at some point. Not to mention a bath.”

And Yao Yingjie had not been completely wrong about the importance of preserving Wei Wuxian’s belongings, Lan Wangji had to grant. Because they were priceless and irreplaceable. Not just for science – although, again, the researcher wasn’t wrong about their value in that light – but for Wei Wuxian himself. The robes, his sword… those were all that was left of whatever he had left behind fifteen hundred years ago. He didn’t know that, not yet, but once he did… surely he’d want to keep them safe.

Wen Qing sighed. “And it might be better for Wei Wuxian if he’s… not quite so conspicuously out of his time,” she admitted grimly, straightening her posture again. “You heard Professor Yao. He’s still thinking of Wei Wuxian as a research specimen, in the back of his head. And believe me, that’s not the only conversation like that I’ve had in the last twenty-four hours. Maybe they’ll be better about remembering that the man is a living person and not a historic relic if he looks more like an ordinary person.”

“Pretty sure ordinary people don’t have hair like that,” Nie Mingjue said wryly, and raised his hands again at her glare. “I understand your point, Doctor. But even if he looks the part, it may not help until he has the language down. Doesn’t matter how many good reasons there are for it, doesn’t matter that he’s probably a bona fide genius – as long as he can’t talk to people, a lot of them are going to act like he’s an idiot who can’t think for himself.”

“I’ll take acting like he’s an idiot over acting like he’s an it,” Wen Qing said flatly. “I know the history of my field. Ugly things happen when a person becomes an it.”

Lan Wangji was a historian. He knew something about that, as well. “Do you truly think that is a danger here?” he asked, troubled.

Wen Qing was silent for a long minute before sighing. “I hope not,” she said carefully. “Your uncle runs a tight ship, and his ethics are as rigid as his worldviews.” She shook her head. “But… I do not like this situation. When all is said and done, a person’s ‘rights’ only exist insofar as other people are willing to defend them. And right now, the only people who know that Wei Wuxian exists at all, are a bunch of researchers who planned to build their careers and reputations on his dead body. I don’t think anyone would be deliberately malicious… but thoughtless denial can do just as much damage.”

Nie Mingjue rubbed his face, then huffed. “I hate it, but you have a point. I’ll make sure my people know to watch out. I need to talk to them anyway.” He grimaced. “And make sure they know they’ve got the authority to tell people to get lost. Zonghui doesn’t have a problem with it, but… I’m still trying to figure out who we can bring in on this. I need more people than just me, Meng Yao, and Zonghui. But half my people wouldn’t believe it was real if they saw it with their own eyes.”

That was reasonable, in truth. Lan Wangji had not considered it in such terms, but Nie Mingjue faced a unique challenge. Most of the researchers had been present in the observation room when Wei Wuxian awakened; they might not have accepted the implications, but they’d seen the fact of it with their own eyes. Most of the security force had not been present, but any who would be involved from this point on would need to be informed.

He wondered how many would persist in believing the whole thing an elaborate prank. Given some stories he’d heard about past pranks… probably more than a few.

No, he did not envy Wen Qing or Nie Mingjue. At least with Wei Wuxian, misunderstandings were the result of genuine confusion and the lack of a proper shared language, rather than a refusal to understand.

“What of last night?” he asked. “Was there any trouble?”

Nie Mingjue pursed his lips. “Not that Zonghui mentioned this morning, but I have a feeling that’s not going to last much longer, given the way half the project team tried to ambush Doctor Wen with arguments about how their research should be exempt from the quarantine rules.”

“Most of which boiled down to, I had plans, how dare you tell me that reality is making me change them!” Wen Qing said dryly. “Which is actually a good sign. If they’re arguing with me, then they don’t think going over my head to argue with Director Lan will work. Lan Qiren isn’t happy about this, but he is backing us.” Her lips quirked. “If only because he doesn’t like challenges to his decisions.”

He definitely did not. At least for once that was working in their favor. “And Wei Wuxian?”

Wen Qing sighed, shoulders dropping. “No one disturbed him… but I don’t think he actually slept at all.” She grimaced. “I can’t blame him. Everything else aside,” a sharp wave of her hand indicated the entirety of the whole situation and how very alien and unsettling it must be to the man, “I completely forgot just how much equipment is in that room. Even with the main lights turned off, I don’t think I’d be able to sleep with all the blinky lights in there.”

Lan Wangji winced internally. Yes, that would… not be helpful. “Can we turn them off?”

Wen Qing huffed. “You don’t want to hear what people said when they heard you’d showed him how to turn the room lights off in the first place. Apparently some of the project team think sleep is optional, and privacy? What privacy?” She pinched her nose, then shook her head. “To be fair, that one at least had the grace to be embarrassed when he heard himself. As for Wei Wuxian… when I checked on him this morning, he was meditating. He seemed all right, but…”

“Have you found an alternative space?” Lan Wangji asked.

Wen Qing and Nie Mingjue both grimaced. “I was hoping to get him into a medical observation room,” she said. “But we don’t have that kind of capacity here, and I don’t want to take him over to the research hospital. There’s too high a chance of exposure to something nasty.”

“Not to mention that the place is swarming with people,” Nie Mingjue said dryly. “Plenty of whom would absolutely notice if a bunch of people from the university’s internationally famous and controversial research project start showing up on their turf. You put him in there, it’ll be a matter of days at most before word gets out that reports of Yiling Laozu’s demise were greatly exaggerated.”

Which might not necessarily be a bad thing, considering Wen Qing’s worries.

Except… there was no way that Wei Wuxian’s remaining at Cloud Recesses would go uncontested. There would be a media circus, and posturing arguments over custody, and Wei Wuxian deserved to at least have the option of speaking with his own voice when nations started bickering over him.

“So we’re left making do here.” Wen Qing looked at Lan Wangji. “You got my email?”

He nodded. “I do not know how much help I will be,” he warned her. He’d done his best to brainstorm ways to approach the topic, but there were limits. One could not exactly chain together the words for “blood” and “pressure” and expect to communicate any kind of meaningful information.

She nodded, unsurprised, as she stood up. “Hopefully we won’t need too much,” she said. “I don’t want to do anything fancy, but I do need to get a baseline on his overall health, so we have something to go on to check if anything is wrong. And that’s going to require using some actual equipment.” She smiled wryly. “Honestly, you’d probably be just as useful as a demonstration guinea pig.”

Lan Wangji considered that. And considered the concerns she’d expressed, and the overall situation. “That seems a wise approach,” he said, as Nie Mingjue grabbed the large cart in the back of the room that was carrying the equipment in question.

Holding the door open for the cart, Wen Qing blinked, apparently not having expected him to take her comment seriously. Then she looked thoughtful. “Good point. We want to establish at the start that no one should be asking him to put up with anything we wouldn’t.”

Lan Wangji nodded. The point might simply fly past the other researchers, who were accustomed to authority, but if Wei Wuxian understood that overbearing behavior was not acceptable, the man would hopefully be willing to draw his own lines despite the uncertain situation he’d found himself in.

Wen Qing closed the door behind them, flipping the flag to indicate that the conference room was now unoccupied and available for use. “We also need to figure out if I can act as his primary physician, or if we need to bring in a male doctor. The last thing we need is a sense of propriety interfering with treatment if he needs it.”

Nie Mingjue hummed as he pushed the cart into the elevator. “Oddly, Doctor? I don’t think that’ll be a problem. I’m pretty sure that of everyone he’s met so far, he respects you the most.”

Lan Wangji nodded. Wei Wuxian was playful, but there was no mistaking that he had immediately recognized Wen Qing as a figure with authority to be reckoned with.

Wen Qing smiled wryly as they entered the elevator and the doors closed behind them. “Isn’t that a kick. The man from the sixth century has more respect for me than twenty-first century professionals.”

Ironic indeed, Lan Wangji had to grant. Although also intriguing. Granted, Wei Wuxian came from a world before the stricter codes of the School of Principle had even been codified, let alone become the standard. And times of chaos were usually harshest on women, but simultaneously could offer unique opportunities.

“Is he from the sixth century?” Nie Mingjue asked curiously. “I was under the impression that we weren’t actually sure.”

“The evidence is unclear,” Lan Wangji agreed.

Wen Qing smiled wryly. “But going by the ice cores they took from the glacier, he’s definitely from before all the canal-building and deforestation that happened with the Sui dynasty. So if he’s not from the sixth century, then he’s from some point even earlier, which does not exactly reduce the irony…”

The elevator doors slid open, and Wen Qing’s words were abruptly interrupted.

“…do you think you are, telling me what to do? Do you know who my uncle is?!”

“Oh, hells,” Nie Mingjue muttered, abandoning the cart to step past them and into the hallway. Lan Wangji quickly grabbed the handles and followed, although the doors almost closed on the cart before Wen Qing quickly hit the Hold button.

Standing in front of the door to the lab, Meng Yao smiled pleasantly at the fuming young man in front of him. “Oh, I’m well aware,” he said.

The young man puffed his chest and tried to stride forward, only to come up short when Meng Yao didn’t so much as twitch as his space was invaded, just continued smiling without giving an inch.

The young man’s face was livid. “Well, if you know, then you should know better than to get in my way!” he fumed.

“Your uncle isn’t part of this project, kid.” Nie Mingjue stalked forward, his smile full of teeth. “And unless his name is Lan Qiren, he’s got no say in anything here.”

“And I’ve already spoken to your advisor, Jin Zixun,” Wen Qing said icily. “He did not send you, and would not have the authority to do so if he had tried. You are not authorized to enter the lab.”

Jin Zixun attempted to look down his nose at her. “You are attempting to cut everyone else out of the Yiling Laozu project by monopolizing access and I will not stand for it! I demand you open that door immediately!”

“Demand all you like. The answer remains no until you have followed all required procedures as laid out by Director Lan in yesterday’s announcement.”

Jin Zixun’s face was rapidly darkening to near purple. “When my uncle hears of this…!”

“You have signed a nondisclosure agreement,” Lan Wangji said. “Failure to honor the agreement will mean immediate removal from the project.”

That, at least, seemed to sink in. Jin Zixun attempted to splutter and puff another threat, but faced with a united front, finally turned on his heel and stormed away.

The effect was somewhat spoiled when his angry jab at the elevator button failed to immediately open the doors; apparently someone else was using it, forcing Jin Zixun to wait, seething awkwardly in the hallway, until finally the elevator arrived and he could storm in… and then wait awkwardly again for the doors to close.

Another reason Lan Wangji preferred the stairs. The heavy fire doors were too hefty to slam, but at least they had enough visceral weight to them to allow a bit of satisfaction. And no waiting.

Nie Mingjue waited until the numbers on the elevator started counting down before glancing at Lan Wangji and Wen Qing. “Okay, I have to ask. How did that guy make the cut onto the team? Director Lan has his faults, but pandering to the I’ll tell my rich and powerful relatives on you and you’ll be sorry! type typically isn’t one of them.”

Wen Qing sighed heavily. But to Lan Wangji’s surprise, it was Meng Yao who answered. “He’s Professor Yao’s graduate assistant. Professor Yao is one of the top scholars on ancient trade networks, but a lot of his research also informs the tourist industry. Which means a lot of his funding…”

“Comes through the Bureau of Tourism. Which means Jin Guangshan.” Wen Qing grimaced.

Meng Yao hesitated for a moment. “I think… we should consider his threat of contacting his uncle seriously,” he said delicately. “Jin Zixun has a history of… being rash.”

“You mean assuming his social connections will get him out of any consequences.” Nie Mingjue’s grimace was a match for Wen Qing’s. “Good point. And there’s nothing like being told no that inspires a grudge in the ones who think they have a right to anything they want. He’d absolutely go whining to his uncle. NDA? What NDA?”

“And Jin Guangshan would be all over it,” Wen Qing shook her head. “I can’t guess what tack he’d take, but he’d absolutely try to leverage this for political influence – and that means riling people up.”

What political influence could he possibly expect to gain, Lan Wangji wanted to ask… but hadn’t he just been thinking about the media circus that would erupt when word got out that the man in the ice who had captured so many imaginations was alive?

Media meant cameras. Public opinion. Visibility. The stuff of political power.

“What can be done?” he asked bluntly.

Because Nie Mingjue was right that word would get out eventually. It should get out, if only so Wei Wuxian would not have to live the rest of his life a secret. But the last thing they needed was Jin Guangshan wielding that information as a weapon in his quest for ever more influence.

And Nie Mingjue and Meng Yao were correct that no mere NDA would be enough to control Jin Zixun’s outraged sense of entitlement.

Meng Yao tilted his head with a wry smile, glancing at Nie Mingjue. “Well, in the short term, I think you made a good move in reminding him that running his mouth off has more than just legal consequences. He’s used to money and power keeping him out of trouble with the law, but trouble with Lan Qiren is another matter entirely.” He pursed his lips. “In the long term…”

“I’ll speak with Director Lan,” Nie Mingjue said. “We’ve been lucky this far. It helps that he selected for a type putting the team together; I’m not sure how many of them even have social media accounts that they actually use. Doesn’t hurt that it still benefits them to keep quiet.”

Lan Wangji found he did not like the idea of resisting speaking to the media out of personal benefit, although he did recognize the pragmatism of it. He liked even less the thought that they were lucky word had yet to get out, when Wei Wuxian had been free of the ice for less than a day.

Learning a language took time. It had not occurred to him to wonder how much time they could realistically hope for.

Wen Qing huffed. “Well. None of this is going to be solved with us standing here,” she said briskly. “If I may?”

Meng Yao stepped gracefully aside from where he’d been blocking the door. “Of course, Doctor,” he said with a smile.

Lan Wangji glanced at Nie Mingjue. “You will be joining us?” he asked.

“Just this morning.” Nie Mingjue made a face. “I have a job to do, and I can’t do it in quarantine. But…”

“But we want to make sure Wei Wuxian knows who we trust,” Wen Qing said bluntly. “Nie Mingjue was in there yesterday, and he hasn’t had much additional exposure since. It’s a risk I think we have to take.” Stepping forward, she knocked briskly.

A moment’s pause. “Who is it?”

It was interesting, Lan Wangji noted. When Wei Wuxian had been speaking his own language, or practicing during the lesson the previous afternoon… perhaps due to the myriad of things that Lan Wangji had been concentrating on, he’d never really registered the simple sound of the man’s voice: light and pleasant, midrange in comparison to Lan Wangji’s own baritone. And while he did have an accent – hardly surprising – it wasn’t an unpleasant one.

He was also relieved that Wei Wuxian apparently recalled the warning Lan Wangji had attempted to impart the previous evening about verifying the identity of a visitor before allowing anyone in. Hopefully it would not be needed, but better to have the understanding established.

“Lan Wangji, Wen Qing, and Nie Mingjue,” he answered.

“Ah!” A few moments later, the door opened and Wei Wuxian grinned at them. “Good morning!” he said brightly, before standing aside to wave them in.

Nie Mingjue chuckled as he reclaimed the cart and pushed it through the door. “Sounds like you’ve made good progress already,” he commented.

Lan Wangji gave him a flat look as he followed the man into the lab. Because yes, they had tried to cover certain basic set phrases like greetings. But those were the most basic parts of language, things that were mostly a matter of rote memorization. They didn’t even begin to get into the depths of what was needed to communicate.

If Wei Wuxian truly hadn’t slept the night before, he gave no sign of it in his demeanor. Glancing curiously at the cart and its array of medical equipment, he tilted his head, then moved over to the thawing bed turned table and began clearing away…

Suddenly intrigued, Lan Wangji stepped forward to look more closely at the papers scattered across the table. When Wen Yuan had left to catch the bus the previous day, he’d insisted on leaving all of his writing tools and blank papers with Wei Wuxian. “It’s not like it’ll be hard to get more,” he’d explained, “and this way at least he’ll have something to do.”

At the time, Lan Wangji had assumed Wei Wuxian would use the paper for sketching, given that he seemed to be something of an artist. Or possibly coming up with lists of additional words to learn, given that he hadn’t been at all shy about making suggestions. And there were indeed some drawings and what seemed to perhaps be scribbled notes here and there. But for the most part…

Lan Wangji almost reached out to pick one of the slips of paper up before remembering himself and looking at Wei Wuxian. “May I?” he asked.

Stacking a set of the strange drawings to put aside, Wei Wuxian smiled and nodded, waving a hand idly.

An impatient part of Lan Wangji itching for a closer look almost made him take that as good enough. He forced himself to wait.

Wei Wuxian blinked, then smiled sheepishly. “Go ahead,” he said.

Satisfied, Lan Wangji picked up the sheet of paper his hand had been hovering over. It might seem pedantic, but he wanted to thoroughly establish an expectation that Wei Wuxian should give verbal permission if he was genuinely okay with a request. Before he started getting less polite requests.

Wen Qing was perhaps not the only one uncomfortable with the inherent power imbalance of this situation.

But for the moment… carefully, Lan Wangji studied the slip of paper, tracing the complex pattern of characters and swirling lines with his eyes in astounded fascination.

“Huh. Is that a lingfu?” Nie Mingjue asked, looking over his shoulder.

“So it seems,” Lan Wangji agreed.

It had been after an argument with his uncle – if you could call it an argument, when Lan Qiren had flatly stated the course of study that Lan Wangji would follow as if alternative options did not even exist. He’d returned to his classes and, in a fit of pique, for his very next paper in his (“acceptable, if pointless”) class on the classical philosophies, he’d opted to research how the philosophical teachings of Laozi had transformed from a school of philosophy to a religion.

And had promptly been entranced.

Not so much by the religion itself, but by the way ancient people had made sense of and tried to create stability within the chaotic and dangerous centuries after the fall of the Han, as warlords and nobles battled for supremacy and everyone else simply fought to survive.

Only the acute awareness that the others were watching him – including Wei Wuxian, who had made it, likely for a reason – kept him from actually following the fluid lines with a finger. He’d written more than a few papers on the religio-magical practice of fulu and the development of lingfu, intrigued by the intersection of folk magic, the decidedly elite art of writing, and the esotericism of the various schools and sects with their individual and secretive styles.

He didn’t recognize the style of this one, and he desperately wanted to know more about it. There was a clean, efficient elegance to it, despite the fact that it had been drawn with a cheap ballpoint pen on gridded essay paper.

In fact… from the look of the other papers Wei Wuxian had gathered up, he’d been experimenting with different combinations of writing implements and paper types. Which… well. Given the strange circumstances the man had found himself in, it made sense that he would want the reassurance of something to ward away danger. But the apparently systematic experimentation made Lan Wangji desperately wish they could talk, because clearly Wei Wuxian had some sort of criteria he was testing for.

…not that he would necessarily get an answer even if they didn’t have the language barrier. The making of lingfu was, after all, an esoteric secret.

Secret enough that the earliest attestation of lingfu wasn’t until the eighth century, even though fulu itself dated to the fourth. He was holding in his hand proof that lingfu had been a complex and codified system long before they entered the historic records.

“So now we have magic talismans on top of the whole froze-to-death-without-dying thing?” Nie Mingjue chuckled. “Maybe he’s one of those immortal cultivators after all. Wouldn’t that be a kick for the historians?”

Wen Qing smacked his shoulder, hard enough that the big man actually winced. “Do not say that where Lan Qiren can hear you,” she said, tone hard enough to send ice down Lan Wangji’s spine. “It’s hard enough to get him to acknowledge that this is a real and serious situation we’re dealing with. The minute the xianxia jokes start going around, he will go into complete denial out of sheer spite, and that is not something we can afford right now!”

Oddly, Nie Mingjue raised his eyebrow slightly at that, an amused look flickering across his face at Wen Qing’s quelling tone. Then he shrugged nonchalantly.

Suddenly realizing that he’d been standing there holding the lingfu the whole time, Lan Wangji made himself hand it back to Wei Wuxian. “Thank you.”

Wei Wuxian accepted the lingfu back with a smile and a tilt of his head that seemed oddly… thoughtful, and Lan Wangji abruptly realized that giving it to him must have been a test of some kind.

But a test of what, he couldn’t tell. And after a moment, Wei Wuxian shrugged and tossed the paper onto the stack he’d made of the others. Then he looked at Lan Wangji again. “Wen Yuan is where?” he asked.

Slightly awkward phrasing, but the curiosity was clear – and expected. “He traveled home,” Lan Wangji said. “He will return in a few days.”

He reached for the notebook that Wei Wuxian had left on the table – obviously having anticipated that it would be needed – but to his surprise, Wei Wuxian stopped him with a raised hand, frowning in concentration as he spun a pencil in his other hand, which Lan Wangji knew now was something of a habit when the man was thinking.

Then, to Lan Wangji’s surprise again, Wei Wuxian picked up the notebook himself and flipped to the back pages that they had been using as workspace before adding things to the lists in the front, jotting down several characters before passing the notebook to Lan Wangji.

Lan Wangji blinked. Days and home made sense; they’d covered those the previous evening. But journey…?

Had he guessed that from context? Wen Yuan’s absence combined with the term home would be enough to extrapolate travel of some kind, particularly with the added element of time implied by days. But to have picked that out from a series of unfamiliar words, however careful Lan Wangji had been to keep his phrasing simple…

Well. It was not as if he weren’t aware that the man was both observant and intelligent. Dryly amused by his own surprise, Lan Wangji nodded agreement at Wei Wuxian’s limited interpretation, and then began breaking down what he had actually said.

Wei Wuxian’s face fell slightly at the confirmation that Wen Yuan would not return for some time – unsurprising, given how the two had apparently bonded, and Lan Wangji could not help feeling at least a little pride that the teenager had made such a good impression that the time-lost man clearly thought well of him. But Wei Wuxian nodded his understanding, and then cast an openly curious look in the direction of the cart with its medical equipment that Wen Qing was setting up. Then he turned those bright, expectant eyes to Lan Wangji again.

Lan Wangji drew in a deep breath, and began his explanation.

These are very odd people!

Propping his elbows on the peculiar not-table, Wei Wuxian watched attentively as Lan Wangji started writing again, while also following Wen Qing and Nie Mingjue’s bustling about with those strange devices out of the corner of his eye.

Seriously. What was with these people and little blinking lights, anyway?

If not for that, he might have thought… well, more accurately, back when he’d first woken up he had thought for a few confused moments that he’d somehow ended up in the midst of a group of very lost Lans, what with the snow-white robes and Lan Wangji. It wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility, after all; after Cloud Recesses burned, many of Lan Yi’s people had scattered, afraid that Wen Xu wouldn’t be content with merely destroying their home. She’d done her best to rally them back together, but it wasn’t hard to imagine that some had run so far and so fast, or gone so deeply to ground, that they still had no idea that the war was over.

But beyond the fact that nary a forehead ribbon was in sight, there wasn’t a Lan born who would wear such undignified short robes over nothing but underclothes, no matter how fine the material seemed to be!

Which wasn’t the only oddity. Take the paper they’d so casually left for him! It was of excellent quality, smooth and even, without the least hint of feathering (once he’d managed to actually find a proper brush and ink, rather than the fascinating metal-tipped “brushes” that seemed to draw their ink from a well contained inside the handle, which was a brilliant idea even though the ink itself was of distinctly poor quality in most cases – to say nothing of the odd, slender sticks of something like charcoal that could simply be rubbed away when necessary, very handy!). It was also rather flimsy – excellent for showcasing the fineness of the paper, terrible for practical use!

And, notably, not a single sheet of mulberry paper or stick of cinnabar in sight.

Not that that would necessarily slow him down. After that first stint in the Burial Mounds and then dealing with Wen Chao with no weapons to hand outside of what he could find or whistle up… well. He’d been rather motivated in finding ways to use nonstandard materials.

But after seeing the way Lan Wangji had reacted to the experimental talisman – it wasn’t even a functional design, because he was not stupid enough to make an active talisman using materials with unknown properties, especially when he was using a writing implement that unpredictably spat out a sticky tacky gooey blob of is-that-ink!… Well. The man seemed familiar with the idea of talismans, but he acted like he’d never actually seen one.

So. Probably not a cultivation sect at all. Which was a relief, in a way, because if the bizarre flickering, buzzing bars of light embedded in the ceiling overhead were the result of a talisman, then as a talisman master Wei Wuxian would have been professionally obligated to be ashamed on the art’s behalf. And he did not do shame, thank you.

Still. Lan Wangji, Wen Yuan, Wen Qing and Nie Mingjue had been quite hospitable, especially given that they had apparently been as surprised by his abrupt awakening as he had. He was perfectly happy to return their courtesy as much as possible. At least until he had a better idea of where he was!

Nowhere he’d heard of, which meant he was very far away, indeed, given that Yunmeng tended to hear a lot simply by virtue of the docks bringing in the river trade. He’d have at least encountered rumors of these people, if they were anywhere near the sect lands.

Not to mention that none of them had reacted to his name – which suggested that not only did they not know the war was over, they may not have known much about it in the first place. He had acquired something of a reputation.

And yet, the way they wrote, as if someone had simply decided to abbreviate the strokes in a way that felt systematic, even if he hadn’t seen enough yet to figure out how, especially when sometimes the meaning of a particular character seemed to have pivoted somehow into a different word that was close but not the same. The strange ghosting sense of familiarity dancing around the edges of their words, as if he should understand what they were saying if he just listened hard enough… It was almost as if they had origins in the central lands, but were not of them.

Honestly, it brought to mind folktales about hidden enclaves of immortals tucked away in eternal groves. Except, again: no talismans. And annoying blinky lights. Not to mention the very rude guards attacking a junior for mouthing off to them!

Granted, immortals were not known for being nice or kind. Still. It didn’t fit.

Of course, it didn’t help that he had no memory of what had happened to get him here. When he tried to think back on what he remembered before waking up half-locked in ice, seriously, how?!…

He remembered the Burial Mounds. Weeks and months and years of effort, the slow gradual thinning of the tainted energy. He remembered deciding it was time to leave seclusion and rejoin cultivation society. But when he got to the part about actually setting off down the mountain…

His memory got fuzzy at that point, in a way he did not like in the least.

But! That was something to worry about later. For now…

He turned his head to study the characters as Lan Wangji was writing. Wen Qing’s name, and physician – hm. Interesting that he’d chosen the term for an herb-and-knife medic, rather than a healer. But perhaps that explained why she hadn’t checked his qi yesterday.

First a Lan, now a Wen, and neither of them cultivators. He did not know what to make of that.

Still. Cultivator or not, Wen Qing did have the calm, clear confidence of a woman who knew what she was capable of, and while he’d never heard of someone using such strange devices to take the three pulses… Well, he’d never seen quite a few of the things that this odd bunch took for granted. And he did appreciate the fact that she wanted to get a sense of his health before anything unfortunate happened.

Although he couldn’t deny that the precaution sent a cold breath of unease across the back of his neck. Because it suggested that they expected him to be here long enough that something unfortunate might happen.

Granted, someone had tried to kill him already, so maybe they had a point in being cautious. Maybe.

He still felt like he should be at least a little offended! He didn’t usually have people trying to kill him on their very first meeting! He hadn’t even been trying to aggravate that guard yesterday, he could not be held responsible for sensibilities that were that easily offended, really.

Huffing, he nodded his understanding. And then looked pointedly at the strange devices and raised his eyebrows.

Watch, was Lan Wangji’s response, and at that point the man had well and truly earned the eyeroll Wei Wuxian responded with, because really. What else was he supposed to do?

Granted, the suggestion made a bit more sense when Wen Qing crooked a finger, whatever odd setup she’d been doing apparently complete, and Lan Wangji got up to walk over to her. Explaining by example, not by words. Which made sense, given the circumstances. If they tried to work every step out with their current awkward system, it would take forever. Mentally shrugging, Wei Wuxian slid off the seat he’d been perched on and moved over to watch over Wen Qing‘s shoulder—

And then did a double take, and he would cheerfully own that, because rather than bamboo slips or one of those handy paper bundles, Wen Qing was holding a glowing tablet of some kind.

Wen Qing didn’t seem at all surprised by his reaction. In fact, going by the amused huff and the way she tilted it so that he could see better, she’d probably anticipated something of the sort.

Which, glowing tablet and no formation or wards to be seen. That deserved showing off.

So when she offered it for him to handle, he happily accepted, because as mentioned earlier: Shame? What was that?

Carefully, however, because there was pointless reticence for the sake of face and then there was being foolish. If it glowed, then some source of power was involved. And while he doubted that any physician would casually hand over something with the power to carelessly harm, you didn’t devote power to something that wasn’t meant to be used. He had no intention of triggering anything.

He’d trained more than enough young disciples to know that “oops” was probably the most dangerous word in the world.

It was surprisingly heavy in his hands; metal, rather than paper or bamboo, although not heavy enough to be steel. And there was qi embedded in the device, a central source sending spiderwebs of power throughout the device, and especially to the smooth, flawless sheet of glass emitting that pale glow. Not human qi, either, for all that it bore a resemblance to the way a cultivator might charge a ward or talisman with power so that it would remain active without ongoing effort. The energy reminded him more of the bifurcated power that lingered when silk brushed amber, similar to the energies of a compass. He’d certainly poked at enough of those to know the flavor of it!

The back side of the device was smooth metal – likely meant more to serve as a grip and protect the holder from the snapping energy within than a functional surface. The glowing face…

He studied the blue field with its neatly arranged series of sigils filling the surface in a grid-like pattern. Each one was marked by more of the odd abbreviated characters; he recognized a few here and there, and others he thought he could guess, based on the pattern of the way the characters had changed that he’d seen so far. But not enough to be confident he could puzzle out a meaning, at least not without sitting down and working at it.

Pursing his lips, he handed the tablet back to Wen Qing, who immediately tapped one of the sigils. The glowing surface shifted, suddenly stark white with the sigil she’d touched filling the surface with black lines. Then it shifted again – more white, and still the sigil, but smaller now and at the upper part of the surface, the greater part filled with grey rectangles labeled with text. Wen Qing tapped one, and the image shifted again. Another tap, and now the surface showed the same mixture of lines and text he had seen on the paper Lan Wangji had repurposed to communicate right after Wei Wuxian had first awakened. And for that matter, all the characters on the tablet had the same oddly impersonal uniformity of stroke and width he’d noticed in those lines of not-ink.

Was that what this was – some way of writing without resorting to brush and ink? It seemed a great deal of effort and energy to put into such a simple task, though, especially when they’d already solved the problems of carrying ink around with those metal-tipped brushes.

He had so many questions and couldn’t ask any of them. This was almost worse than the Lans’ stupid silencing spell!

At least the purpose of the device in this context was clear enough. Wen Qing had Lan Wangji slide a tube of fabric up to encircle his upper arm, then used some kind of hand pump to force not water but air into it, going by the sound, until the entire thing had tightened to the point that it had to be cutting off blood flow like a tourniquet, even if Lan Wangji’s face showed no reaction. Then she let go of the pump, and the air began escaping with a slow hiss. Then, suddenly, the stand that cuff and pump were attached to began beeping, as a display of – of course – glowing numbers lit up.

Really, these people were far too fond of blinking glowing things. And beeping.

After a moment, however, the beeping stopped, and the cuff released the remaining air all at once. Wen Qing nodded, tapped her glowing panel, and a grid of numbers and those strange symbols that seemed to represent sounds similar to the sacred temple scripts appeared. She tapped the same numbers as the ones on the stand, and they appeared on a line next to characters indicating… something to do with blood, and another with the heart?

That made sense; Lan Wangji had indicated that this was something like taking the three pulses, after all. He did wonder about the purpose of using the glowing device, though. Was it simply a convenient record-taking system, or could it be used in specific ways, analogous to how wards and talismans could be fine-tuned to specific circumstances or individuals?

Seriously. So. Many. Questions! He was going to explode from sheer frustrated curiosity at this rate!

And that would be rude. Clearly, it was simply a matter of common decency to ask all the questions as soon as he feasibly could.

…Which probably wouldn’t be for some time. Argh. What had he done in a past life to warrant such cruel and unusual punishment?

Well, since asking questions was not an option at the moment, all he could do was observe. Most of the tests made sense, even if he had to puzzle over a few to figure out what sense they were supposed to be making. For one thing, these people clearly liked to turn things into numbers, although he wasn’t clear if high or low numbers were considered good. Going by when and how Nie Mingjue would smirk and tease the unflappably stone-faced Lan Wangji, he suspected the answer was “it depends on the number.”

But as he’d observed earlier, the tests seemed to be almost entirely physical in nature. Certainly nothing qi-based, and even when he couldn’t puzzle out a sense of what was being measured – really, why had she stuck that thing under his tongue? Oh, and of course it beeped, it was getting to the point where he’d be more surprised if it didn’t beep or flash or glow – it was clear that they relied on tools and devices where a cultivator would rely on qi.

Then Lan Wangji took his shirt off, and alright, that warranted some raised eyebrows. Because, yes, healers and physicians did generally need a few less layers in the way if they were going to do their job properly. Although he had to admit that he was surprised that someone who seemed so very Lan would do so in mixed company, scandalous lack of overall layers or no.

He was even more surprised that the man would do so when he had to know that they were being watched.

How, Wei Wuxian hadn’t yet managed to figure out. Although he presumed it had something to do with the flow of patterned qi that pulsed through the walls and floors and ceiling and more than a few of the odd devices in this room. None of them were any sort of ward or spell that he could recognize, but you didn’t gather and shape qi without intending to do something with it. And he wasn’t going to touch any of it, since it was very obviously activated. Good way to get into the kind of trouble you might not get out of.

But after the war… well, he’d made a point of including an active spy-ward in the assortment of test-talismans he’d been making, using his own paper he’d slipped out of his sleeve. Which was potentially risky, given that he didn’t have much left to begin with, but after everything, he’d learned to take precautions. There were too many prying power-mongers eager to get their hands on secrets that they had no business messing with.

Of course, he did have another reason for the raised eyebrows. Someone had clearly not been neglecting his training!

Although…

Reaching over, he poked the muscles of Lan Wangji’s shoulders thoughtfully. Because what with one thing and another, he’d dealt with more than enough bodies to identify a sword style based on musculature alone. And while Lan Wangji was quite impressively fit, it looked like he’d never trained with a sword at all. Not just the way he moved and the lack of calluses. He simply didn’t have the shoulder mass of someone who was accustomed to swinging around what was, after all, a fairly heavy piece of sharp steel, no matter how spiritually charged.

Although the lack of calluses was odd for other reasons. Lan Wangji was a scholar, and carried himself as a man of refinement – surely he’d had at least basic training in the bow and the horse?

Then again, it was clear that the man had led a very sheltered life, given that not a single scar dared to mar that porcelain skin. Even with a fully developed and quite powerful core, Wei Wuxian had collected his share of marks.

Although ever since he’d awakened in this strange place, his core had felt… off. Not drained, exactly, but almost… bruised? Or maybe strained was a better term for it; almost like the muscle aches that came after a battle had lasted so long that you’d overrun what your body could endure and then kept going because the only alternative was death. As if he’d been constantly pushing the very edge of draining himself, for a long time.

Which didn’t make sense. He’d run the edge of core depletion during the war, of course – everyone had, at least a few times, even non-combatant cultivators like Jiang Yanli, and he’d been in the thick of things more than most. But he’d been careful to pace himself in the Burial Mounds, resting and restoring his reserves completely before starting a new phase. He was fairly certain that he’d been the strongest he’d ever been when he prepared to leave.

And now here he was, waking out of ice, in a place like nothing he’d ever heard of, with a sore core. He hadn’t even known that was a thing!

At least he hadn’t seen any more of the strange projectile weapons from that first day. He’d managed to catch that one purely because he’d seen the attack coming, even if he hadn’t guessed its precise nature. But if he didn’t see one… Well. Even a powerful cultivator could be killed by an arrow they didn’t see coming. And that thing had the potential to do far more damage than an arrow. Silk wouldn’t catch that.

Although properly warded silk might? Something to explore, at least. He did not want to have to go back to the hypervigilance of the war years.

Still, it was hard to square a weapon like that against Lan Wangji’s nice, smooth, flawless skin. Granted, protected noble heirs safely sheltered behind trained guards were nothing new… but that didn’t fit with one of said guards turning a weapon on said noble heir’s student.

Then again. Guards who believed carrying weapons gave them the authority to use said weapons as they pleased? Also not new. Likewise factional struggles for power within a sect or clan… and while he might not understand the words, the tone of the arguments he’d heard through the door of this odd cell were enough to tell him that one was brewing out there. And it had something to do with him.

Hopefully not the way certain other arguments had. He’d hate to unleash angry ghosts on these people, but if he had to fight his way out, he wasn’t going to hold back, either.

If he had to, of course. It hadn’t slipped his notice that the door didn’t appear to lock against anyone inside the room. And thus far, everyone he’d actually met except for the rude guard had treated him with a kind of artless courtesy. He had nothing against being polite in return!

Speaking of, Nie Mingjue was going to crack a rib trying to suppress his laughter like that, and even stern Wen Qing’s eyes were dancing over the recording tablet she’d raised like a fan to hide her lips, so he’d probably delayed them with shamelessness enough for one sitting! Grinning, he patted Lan Wangji’s bared shoulder one last time as thanks and apology for the man’s forbearance, then retreated back to watching over Wen Qing’s shoulder.

Hm. Those were painfully red ears, for all that the man’s face never so much as twitched. He’d have to come up with a proper apology gift.

And now he had a better sense of what these people did and didn’t consider acceptable. Remarkably relaxed about clothing, but touching was considered bold – although, given the lack of shock in the suppressed laughter, not scandalously so. Good to know.

Shaking her head, Wen Qing picked up yet another odd device – some sort of flexible cord with a metal disc at one end and attached to a rod of metal that separated into two equal branches that curved inwards at the end, the tips covered with some kind of dull black material. Which must have been cushioning of some kind, because she settled those curved ends in her own ears, and then placed the metal disc against Lan Wangji’s chest, frowning as she appeared to listen for a few moments, moved the disc, and listened again, periodically giving Lan Wangji instructions that seemed to do with changing the pattern of his breathing. After repeating the sequence once or twice, she shifted the disc to Lan Wangji’s back, and they did it all over again before she nodded and pulled the earpieces out, letting the tool dangle from her neck as she went back to tap-writing on the metal tablet again.

Wei Wuxian had assumed that she would move on to another set of tests after that, and Lan Wangji started to move as if he expected the same, but instead Wen Qing waved the man back, and then pulled the listening cord off her neck and held it out to Wei Wuxian, one eyebrow raised pointedly.

Which, well! Far be it for him to turn down an open invitation!

Settling the earpieces into place was… ugh, that was not a comfortable sensation, although from the quirk of her lips, at least he wasn’t the only one to think so. Then she set the disc against Lan Wangji’s chest again, and… Oh. Now he understood; it was a device to allow a physician to clearly hear the sound of a patient’s heart… and lungs, apparently, as he discovered when she shifted the location of the disc. That was…

Well. He was a disciple of Yunmeng Jiang. (Or he had been; given Jiang Cheng’s temper the last time they’d spoken, who knew what his official status was at this point.) He’d done plenty of river rescues, both in response to water ghouls and after more natural hazards like floods. He’d seen what water in the lungs could do – even to cultivators, if they lacked Yunmeng Jiang’s specialized breath training. And sometimes the drowned didn’t have access to a healer who could monitor their lungs.

Interesting. There was a pattern emerging here – reliance on tools to assess things that a cultivator would use qi for. Tools that didn’t seem to require the user to manipulate qi at all, although it was obvious that they were dependent on some kind of ward work to activate them…

Although, come to think of it, no blinky lights or beeping from the listening device!

He wondered if they were hard to make. Granted, the harder part would be convincing the traditionalists to actually use something that was not only new, but wouldn’t showcase their cultivation skills… but in his experience, healers were usually the least traditional and the most pragmatic cultivators. The good ones, anyway.

In the meantime… a few more tests and devices, and then Wen Qing nodded to Lan Wangji before turning her attention fully to her recording device, obviously finished.

Lan Wangji had left his odd short underrobe and white overrobe folded neatly on the table. Since he was standing next to them anyway, Wei Wuxian picked up the underrobe, meaning to pass it over.

And stopped short, because oh.

Soft!

Not silk – although there was a sheen to it that was startlingly similar. And… not a woven fabric at all. When he looked closer, the fabric seemed to be made of some kind of silk-fine thread in an intricately interconnected web of knots. A web that flexed in every direction when he tugged on it experimentally, which explained how it could be worn without any folds or ties or fastenings. The fabric itself would fit to the wearer’s body. Which didn’t even get into the dye: a rich, soft evening blue and perfectly even across the whole of the garment.

All right, he had to find out more about this; if Yunmeng Jiang could funnel trade in this through their port, they’d be able to recover their losses from the war and rebuilding in a matter of just a year or two. Yes, Jiang Cheng would huff and grumble – he’d picked up Madam Yu’s disdain for Yunmeng’s close ties to trade. But he wasn’t a fool, either; he knew how important those ties were.

Assuming trade was even feasible. Given how utterly disconnected these people seemed to be from everything, the fact that he’d never even heard of fabric like this when fabric was a prime trade item across the world…

Either they were very, very far from the sect lands – which raised disturbing questions about how he had gotten here – or… Well. That crazy thought about hidden enclaves of immortals secluded from the world seemed more and more plausible.

In the meantime – Lan Wangji hid it well, but those were definitely goosebumps rising on his arms. Which, fair. It was definitely a bit cold in here to be without a robe, especially if you were just standing there. Although the man didn’t seem impatient? It was hard to tell with that stone face, but Wei Wuxian thought he seemed… Amused? Satisfied? Entertained? …as he watched Wei Wuxian poke at his clothes.

Well, fair. He knew how entertaining he found it when people gaped at Lotus Pier’s dyes.

Grinning, Wei Wuxian passed the underrobe over, watching with interest as Lan Wangji pulled it over his head, the flexible fabric stretching at the neck and shoulders until the man pulled it down into position again – although it almost snagged on the neat knot of the man’s hair.

A bun, but no guan – and tied at the nape of the neck, not properly atop his head. Not to mention that Lan Wangji was the only one with hair anywhere close to a proper length; even Wen Qing’s hair was cut at a sharp, even line just below the height of her chin.

Which didn’t exactly disprove the possibility that he’d stumbled on refugees who’d chosen to cut ties to sect and clan and get as far from the war as they could. That, and Lan Wangji’s obvious unwillingness to say where he came from. Which… well. Others might look down on them for that, but he wouldn’t. Not after what had happened when the war was supposed to be done and over.

How is Yiling doing, I wonder.

Well, nothing he could do about that at the moment, even if he could get an answer! Picking up the white robe – hemp or cotton, he thought, and very close-woven, not to mention a snowy white that was as far from mourning white as the clear water from a mountain stream was from a muddy irrigation canal, although oddly scratchy and stiff, especially compared to the underrobe; maybe the contrast was intentional for aesthetic purposes? – he passed it over to Lan Wangji as well.

And it was rather obvious what the next step was going to be. So while Lan Wangji shrugged the white robe on, Wei Wuxian pulled his own outer robe off and passed it to the man in turn.

Lan Wangji accepted it with… probably more respect than it really deserved; Jiang Cheng had grumbled about Wei Wuxian running about in a faded old robe for a reason, after all. Not that Wei Wuxian had particularly cared about the look of it, when the robe was soft and comfy and most importantly warm and easy to curl up in when he could snag a few moments for a cat-nap during the campaign. Sure, the original black dye had faded to a stormy grey – true black was finicky to dye and tended not to hold, especially in direct light when you were running around all day. So? He saved the silk and vivid colors for the layers under the loose overrobe, where they’d be visible but protected.

Granted, after several years in the Burial Mounds, even those were looking fairly worn. He’d kept them clean and mended, but, well, time took a toll on anything. He’d even missed a hole right on the chest…

Wait.

Wei Wuxian paused, his underrobe half-unwrapped as he looked at the hole that had apparently managed to punch through both layers of his underrobes. Despite being a relatively small hole.

He knew that pattern of damage. From the choked noise Wen Qing made as she stared at his chest, she knew it as well.

Except… granted, he generally didn’t bother remembering every little bruise and blow – who had the time for silly grudges like that, anyway? But you’d think he’d remember almost being shot through the heart…

Impact more than pain. The smoothed wood of the arrow shaft in his hand. And being very, very annoyed.

Something else was much angrier. And stirring. Because cleansing didn’t mean erasing, and the Burial Mounds would always remember what they’d been. And that meant they had Opinions.

Wei Wuxian blinked at the sudden wave of… well, not so much memory as remembered sensation, devoid of context. Still. It was enough to answer one question, at least.

Someone ambushed me as I was leaving the Burial Mounds. While I was still in the Burial Mounds.

Someone had probably regretted that. Briefly.

Now the question was… who? And what had happened after?

Nie Mingjue whistled, low and impressed. “Damn,” he said with feeling. “Is that what I think it is, Doc?”

Wen Qing pressed her lips together in a thin line, studying the small starburst scar on Wei Wuxian’s chest. “If you think that’s an arrow that missed his heart by millimeters? Then yes,” she said tightly.

Not that she had much experience with arrow wounds. But she’d originally been a trauma surgeon, before losing one too many patients that she knew she should have been able to save had drawn her into the medical research field. She knew puncture wounds. And there were only so many ways a puncture in a location like that could have happened.

It wasn’t the only scar. Which, in hindsight, shouldn’t have surprised her; she knew that the tumultuous sixth century had been one of more or less perpetual wars. Wei Wuxian carried a sword, he would have been trained in how to use that sword, and going by his response to hostile situations he was perfectly familiar with other people attempting to use weapons on him in turn.

Although not all the scars appeared to be weapon-related trauma. It even looked like someone had tried to brand him at one point, although the burn scar itself was uneven in a way that suggested it had been either unintentional or interrupted.

But the arrow scar was what worried her the most, and not just because it was so close to his heart. The other scars were older, faded. The arrow scar was still pink, raised against the surrounding skin despite its small size. If Wei Wuxian had simply walked through the door of her clinic, she would have said that it had only just healed over.

More worrying was the small frown on Wei Wuxian’s face as he lightly pressed on the scar with his fingertips. As if he didn’t remember getting it in the first place.

Granted, it wasn’t uncommon for people who’d experienced a traumatic injury or awakened from a coma to experience short-term amnesia blocking the circumstances of the injury or the events leading up to the coma. Given that being frozen in ice for fifteen hundred years definitely had to qualify as both, it probably wasn’t surprising that his memory of whatever events had led to the ice would be at least temporarily confused.

Except that would mean he’d gotten the injury immediately before falling into the ice. For that matter, it was possible that he’d healed in the ice, although how that would work in light of the apparent state of stasis he’d been in… Her head hurt.

…Blast. In the chaos surrounding his waking up, no one had retrieved the last layers of ice that had still been attached to him; there was no way to check if there had been blood frozen in it as well. Which meant she had to assume that it had been a fresh injury, and that meant it hadn’t been treated at all, not even to the standards of sixth century medicine.

Well. The good news was, it clearly had healed, and she didn’t see any signs of infection or complications. But she would have to watch that scar carefully.

Nie Mingjue was studying Wei Wuxian’s scars as well. “Well. The good news is that when you’re used to problems that are actively trying to kill you… I doubt even Jin Zixun would rate as more than a blip of annoyance to him.”

Wen Qing personally thought that was underestimating Jin Zixun’s powers of annoyance, but then again… “And the bad news?” she asked dryly, suspecting she already knew the answer.

Nie Mingjue smirked crookedly. “It’s really frustrating dealing with annoyances when you’re used to the sort of problems you’re allowed to stab back,” he said—

And then stopped short, staring, as his slow walk brought him around behind Wei Wuxian. “…Or not,” he said slowly. “What the hells.”

Blinking, Wei Wuxian twisted slightly to look over his shoulder at the man, obviously puzzled by his reaction. His brow furrowed when he took in the man’s stunned expression – then suddenly cleared, replaced by a rueful smile.

Oh, his expression seemed to say. That.

Bracing herself, Wen Qing waved for him to turn around, trying to use her expression to make it an invitation rather than a demand. With a careless shrug, he did.

Oh. No wonder Nie Mingjue was shocked. That was rather extensive scarring.

Next to her, Lan Wangji went utterly still. For her part… Wen Qing breathed through her nose and carefully kept her dark thoughts off her face. Getting angry would be pointless, after all – whoever the proper target of that anger would have been, they’d been dead for over a thousand years. But she did not like the implications of those layered laceration scars.

For now, however… She made a note on her tablet. “I’d like to have him do a mobility test, if we can,” she noted. “Scarring that extensive can lead to long-term damage.”

Lan Wangji started to step forward; Nie Mingjue waved him back. “I’ll do it; I’ve had to do rehab after injuries enough to know the drill. You worry about words.”

It took a few tries to get the idea across; understandable, given that Wei Wuxian had already puzzled out the medical exam paradigm and now they were changing it on him. But he caught on quickly, and as Wen Qing watched and took notes – and, yes, enjoyed the eye candy, she was a doctor, not dead – Nie Mingjue guided him through a very thorough set of stretches and flexibility tests.

Excessively thorough, actually, because about halfway through it shifted from do-as-I-do to a silly game of one-upsmanship. Which ended when Wei Wuxian huffed, did a full backbend, kicked himself up into a handstand, and then pushed off with his hands, flipped in midair, and landed neatly on his feet. Smirking.

Nie Mingjue made a face, then stuck his tongue out at the man. Who just laughed and stuck his tongue out in response.

“Boys,” Wen Qing said sternly, refusing to smile. Really, how old were they supposed to be, anyway?

…Actually, how old was Wei Wuxian? In personal years, not his long centuries in the ice. Going by appearance alone, she would have said not very – twenty or so at the most. But the easy self-confidence he carried himself with was something a person generally had to grow into.

Then again, that sort of growth likely started much earlier in Wei Wuxian’s time. Being settled in your status as a Real Adult was probably less of a concern when you shouldered adult responsibilities as a teenager.

Nie Mingjue at least had the grace to look chastened. Wei Wuxian blinked at her, all wide-eyed innocence. Wen Qing huffed and eyed him pointedly, and just got a sunny smile for her troubles because someone was obviously a born troublemaker.

Which was probably a good thing. Troublemakers tended to be more flexible than people who relied on the rules to dictate what to do.

“Well, it doesn’t look like the scars impair his movement at all,” she noted. Which was good; it meant they didn’t run deep enough to have seriously damaged the muscles and tendons underneath.

“And how,” Nie Mingjue said wryly. “Seriously, we’ve got to get this guy into the gym at some point.”

They did, actually – if only because if she wanted to accurately assess his cardiovascular health, she should have him to a proper fitness test, not just a general health assessment. For now… settling the stethoscope earpieces back into place, she started the exam.

Heart and lungs each sounded strong and clear – good. And he’d twitched a bit when she set the cold metal resonator against his scarred back, so that area at least didn’t seem to have suffered extensive nerve damage. No lesions in the throat – he even had good teeth, the man must have won a genetic lottery given historic dental care! Blood pressure… definitely on the low side, she’d have to watch that. Although it might be a side effect of his overall BMI. He technically wasn’t underweight, but given how much of his mass was obviously lean muscle, she’d prefer it if he added a kilo or so.

Which made her tentatively adjust her sense of his age down slightly. She was used to baby fat disappearing with maturity, but she suspected that some of his lean look came from privation instead.

“Well, Doc?” Nie Mingjue asked as she stepped back and let the man pull his robes back on – and it was striking, seeing him fastening ties and settling folds with the same nonchalant ease that Wen Ning would have with buttons. “Is he going to live?”

She heroically did not roll her eyes. She’d been wondering when someone would resurrect that old joke. “Overall, he’s in good health,” she answered – although she was feeling just annoyed enough to direct her response at Lan Wangji, who was watching everything with his usual quiet attentiveness. “I’d prefer he put on some weight, but that’s easy enough to fix.” She pursed her lips slightly as silk wrapped over that arrow scar. “Anything to do with an MRI is absolutely verboten until we can get X-rays taken, however. This is not negotiable.”

Lan Wangji tilted his head slightly. “The reason?”

“I have no idea if he got all of that arrow out again,” she said bluntly. “Hopefully so, but I know that sometimes arrowheads were designed to break off. Given the location? If the arrowhead is still in there, all it might take is a tiny little shift.”

Nie Mingjue sucked a breath through his teeth. “I’ve seen that, with shrapnel,” he admitted. “Doesn’t matter how small it is, if it puts a hole in something vital and you can’t see it…”

Lan Wangji was unreadable as ever, but Wen Qing did not think she was imagining the sudden intensity of his stare. “Is that likely?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she told him honestly. “I hope not. But I don’t want to assume it isn’t and be proven wrong.”

Nie Mingjue huffed. “Well. Good news is, you’ll have plenty of support for getting those X-rays if you want them,” he said.

Wen Qing grimaced. Oh, she knew. She’d woken up that morning to a barrage of emails and voicemails, all of them boiling down to some variation on either “how dare you presume to dictate the terms of my research” and “we must do this and that and this other test immediately there is no time to waste!” Some managed to be both. Simultaneously, even.

In a strange way, she preferred the former. The ones who puffed and bristled? She’d dealt with touchy Old Guard types plenty. She knew how stiff they could be when reality defied their predictions. The ones who were enthusiastic…

They’ve at least accepted that he’s alive. But they haven’t wrapped their minds around what that means. In their guts, he’s still a research specimen.

Guts were a lot harder to argue with than heads. Heads listened to logic. Guts went “but I don’t wanna” and that was that.

Some of the problem was doubtless still shock. She had to remind herself that it had been less than twenty-four hours since Wei Wuxian had turned everything upside down, even if she felt like a week had passed just in the space of this morning alone. Lan Qiren had deliberately selected scholars he considered properly resistant to romanticism, and that unfortunately went hand in hand with a tendency to lack imagination. And with it, adaptability. It would take time for everything to sink in.

Which meant she needed to thread a delicate balance between giving them that time and ensuring that their inclination to keep their heads in the sand didn’t run rampant over a very lost and confused young man who had not exactly volunteered for the extremely precarious position he’d ended up in.

Speaking of. “Lan Wangji, can you ask Wei Wuxian how old he is?”

“…Mn. I will ask.”

Wen Qing listened to the conversation with half an ear as she finished typing up her notes on the tablet. It seemed like a horribly inefficient system to her – Wei Wuxian was more than sharp enough to extrapolate from a few general terms and gesture, why bother going over every single word?

Then again, Lan Wangji’s goal was not just communication, but helping Wei Wuxian actually learn the language. Seen from that perspective, his approach made sense, she supposed. After all, she’d brought the tablet for note-taking, rather than relying on a printed form, for much the same reason. Much as she would like to ease Wei Wuxian into the twenty-first century, they might not have that much time. He needed to learn to navigate the world as it was now.

Finally, Lan Wangji turned back to them. “He is twenty-two by the old reckoning…”

“Meaning twenty or twenty-one by the modern count,” Wen Qing finished, adding the note to her file. Interesting; older than she might have thought by appearance, younger than she would have thought by his bearing.

“Might be why the scars don’t run so deep,” Nie Mingjue said thoughtfully. “Teenagers and twenty-year-olds tend to heal pretty fast, unlike we older and wiser types.”

“The wisdom is debatable,” Lan Wangji said, so expressionlessly that a long moment passed before Nie Mingjue’s startled bark of a laugh marked the barb striking its target.

Wen Qing snorted, then sighed. “Hopefully that’s the case,” she agreed. “Still, it’s another reason I want X-rays. He looks like he’s… Well. Like he’s been through a war.” Which made her worry about scars that couldn’t be seen. A broken bone that hadn’t set quite right might not actively impede movement, but it could still hurt. She was a doctor; there was no reason for a patient to be in pain if they didn’t have to.

Nie Mingjue’s cheeks puffed with a huff of air. “Someone definitely didn’t like him, certainly. Wonder what he did.”

“Possibly nothing,” Lan Wangji noted.

“Case of wrong place, wrong time, wrong affiliation?” Nie Mingjue nodded ruefully. “I read up a bit on the era. I can see that happening.”

“Exile might explain his presence in Yiling, as well.”

Wen Qing pursed her lips, but didn’t say anything. She had her own theory that she was not inclined to share without speaking to the man himself. Because those whip scars were layered. It had been an ongoing thing, likely over the course of years. Add in Wei Wuxian’s nonchalance about the scars – not shame, not embarrassment, not guilt or grief, he genuinely seemed to consider the scars unimportant…

That wasn’t punishment, political or otherwise. That was malice looking for an excuse.

However. “Enough of that,” she said briskly, tapping Lan Wangji lightly on the head with her tablet. “Focus. Your job is not to puzzle out Wei Wuxian’s story, Professor Lan. Your job is to help him learn what he needs in order to tell his story himself.”

Wei Wuxian burst out laughing at the gesture as Lan Wangji simply looked at her, stone-faced as ever.

Nie Mingjue snorted. “So how long until your baby cousin finishes the quarantine and is back with us again?”

She let the corner of her mouth quirk upward in a dry smile. “Two weeks,” she said. “We’ll just have to manage until then.”

Lan Wangji’s flat stare somehow managed to become even more flintily expressionless.

Wen Qing looked at him. “Lan Wangji. I do not doubt your scholarship, your skill or your dedication. But teaching someone a language requires talking.”

That seemed to give him pause. “I talk.”

“You need to talk more,” Nie Mingjue said dryly.

“More to the point, you need to change your register sometimes,” Wen Qing said wryly. “You’re very erudite, Lan Wangji, but that’s not exactly the best mode for someone who’s only learning.” She distinctly remembered the dictionary her little cousin had kept by his desk specifically to look up the latest obscure chengyu that his newfound mentor had decided to answer a question with.

Somehow, the half-second of pause before Lan Wangji tilted his head ever so slightly came off as distinctly grumpy. “I will endeavor to improve,” he said stiffly, as Nie Mingjue chortled again.

Clearly reading the room, Wei Wuxian reached over and patted Lan Wangji’s shoulder encouragingly, eyes dancing.

OMAKE:

LWJ: I should be a responsible scholar and bring necessary references just in case.
LWJ’s Ego: But, but, how am I supposed to flex my intellectual muscles in front of the very intelligent cute guy?

LWJ: “Fascinating, a close look at folk religion from a chaotic age!”
WWX: “Well, the people I’ve met seem okay, but given what I’ve heard through the door… best to be prepared to invoke my own chaos. Just in case.”

WWX: “Huh, someone tried to kill me.” Beat. “Sucked to be them.”

NOTES

If you’ve read my AtLA/Stargate fic The Dragon-King’s Temple, then you’ve probably noticed I’m handling the language barrier very differently here. Part of that is that I know very little about Chinese and even less about Middle Chinese (the language Wei Wuxian would speak) or Classical Chinese (the written language Lan Wangji is leaning on for communication). And unlike Temple, I can’t just substitute a language I do know and handwave it as “they’re not speaking any existing language anyway.” But the other difference is the one Wen Qing notes here: this isn’t just getting by until someone can go home. There is no going back for Wei Wuxian, he’s going to have to live the rest of his life in this new language, so Lan Wangji is prioritizing actually teaching him the language for real. (And let’s be honest. Lan Wangji is a perfectionist and very ill-suited to pantomime.)

…plus, lack of pressure to work together for Dramatic Escapes, killer cold spirits, all that.

Quick note: as I understand it, when counting age by the traditional method, one is considered a year old at birth, and then two years old at the next New Year… meaning it’s possible for someone to be considered two years old by the traditional count, and one month old by the Western count. And the translations don’t actually indicate which system is being used, on the rare occasions we actually get a solid age for someone.

Chengyu: the four-character idioms frequently used in Chinese. Lan Wangji uses them a lot – which, interestingly, makes him extremely eloquent by Chinese cultural standards, because it means you’ve mastered the language and literature enough to pick the exact cultural allusion to convey what you want. But yes, also shades of “why use two simple words when one polysyllabic one will do?” Plus: eloquent he may be, but do remember that Lan Wangji is petty and rude as a teenager… and, honestly, not much different as an adult, he’s just much more elegant about it.

Gridded essay paper: where Western countries use lined paper, Japan and China generally use a grid layout, especially for essay writing in school. And in case you’re wondering, I’m using “lingfu” for the historical/real-world version, and talisman for the xianxia version, since unlike ofuda the term lingfu doesn’t seem to have entered fandom vocabulary yet. (Darn it. I like it when culturally specific concepts aren’t localized!)

And no, Wei Wuxian is not impressed by cheap ballpoint pens.

“The School of Principle” is the Chinese name for what Western scholars call Neo-Confucianism, which took Confucius’s ideas and revamped them into a coherent whole that became the dominant philosophy of Chinese government from pretty much 1000 CE on. And introduced a lot of the strictest ideas about the social role of women, although obviously those ideas weren’t new, either.

And given his history of getting hit by double-standard rules, and his canonical skill at gauging just how wild he can be before he actually crosses a hard line – and whether crossing those hard lines is worth it – of course Wei Wuxian is going to want to suss out what the rules are while he can still get away with “whoops, didn’t realize!” (And poke at the pretty muscles. Which is purely aesthetic appreciation, he assures you.)

It’s canon that Wei Wuxian is oriented towards speed and agility in his style (it comes up in the waterborne abyss fight). Which takes a lot of body awareness and control… but people who are used to thinking in game terms of strength versus agility tend to forget that stunts like that also take raw strength. Look at gymnasts!

I had so many arguments with my plot bunnies about whether or not I could have Jin Zixun as part of the project. It was a fight between “I need a troublemaker and Jin Zixun is an excellent canon character for that” and “I cannot imagine a universe where Jin Zixun could ever be accomplished enough as a scientist to be accepted onto Lan Qiren’s crack team of researchers, nope.” Then I found a way to get him in anyway… and my plot bunnies decided this meant I could get away with a Sect Leader Yao expy. Sigh! (And the name I gave him means “Heroic,” and yes, that is absolutely a shout-out to nirejseki’s “Chief Cultivator Yao” fic.)

Regarding fabrics: according to some very brief research, silk-blended textiles only go back about six hundred years – long after Wei Wuxian’s era as I’ve set it for this fic! Likewise, the oldest knitted items found seem to be from Egypt after the turn of the first millennium. And yes – combined with light armor, at least, a silk shirt does, in fact, significantly reduce the lethality of arrows! Don’t try it at home, though…

Technically, there should probably be Lichtenberg-patterned burns on the whip scars. But given that Wei Wuxian gets hit multiple times across the torso and doesn’t suffer any sort of heart attack? For the purposes of this fic, I’m leaning towards either the electrical aspect of Zidian being purely cosmetic, or Madam Yu suppressed that aspect. So no lightning burns. (Although there’s an interesting plot bunny to explore there about Zidian’s never-actually-demonstrated exorcism effect being a side effect of electrocution…)

If you pay attention, Wei Wuxian will absolutely push himself right to the edge of his limits, bust through said limits, and keep going… when he has to. But when the situation isn’t urgent, he’s happy to relax and take his time; he goofs off, he plays with A’Yuan, he tries new foods and teases Lan Wangji. He can summon intense focus when needed, and when not needed he doesn’t bother. (One of multiple reasons why I can’t buy the popular “ADHD!WWX” fanon. In the novel, at least, he shows no sign of hyperfocus or being easily distracted. The one place he does appear to display a short attention span, he's either, A, dealing with a teacher whose only lecture method is The Drone and is actively hostile, or B, copying a ridiculous number of lines a ridiculous number of times (Nie Huaisang comments on it!) under enforced-by-magic absolute silence. …And note that he remembers the information from the lectures quite well. And the books he read while Not Copying.)

In fact, one of the funny things about Wei Wuxian’s “bad memory” is that despite the claims of everyone in the novel, Wei Wuxian included, my impression is that he doesn’t actually have a bad memory at all. In fact, considering that he was able to ID the Thousand Holes curse and recall its details simply because he’d stumbled across a reference to it while idly browsing the Cloud Recesses library as a bored fifteen year old, I’d say the evidence suggests that his regular memory is actually quite good. Not to mention that apparently he can play Lan Wangji’s song perfectly from memory despite having no conscious recollection of hearing it – Lan Wangji confirms that he doesn’t misremember music.

The thing is, when he forgets people and events, there’s generally a good reason. Often, what he’s forgetting just wasn’t memorable in the first place, especially in the context of other things happening at the same time. For example: not recognizing Wen Ning after the fall of Lotus Pier? They met briefly, in passing, at a major sect event. It was Just Another Tuesday for Wei Wuxian. And he’s under intense stress when they meet again. Mianmian? I suspect the whole Xuanwu of Slaughter thing kind of wiped out the details of what came before… not to mention that she likely looks rather different after sixteen years. Same with not remembering that he carried Lan Wangji piggyback. Given that at the time he was trying to get them away from a monster out of legends, I think it says more that Lan Wangji does remember that detail than that Wei Wuxian doesn’t…

As for Jin Zixun? The novel explicitly points out that he doesn’t recognize the guy on Phoenix Mountain because they’d never met. (Something CQL changes, if I understand correctly.) Not remembering him at Qionqi Pass? Again, see bigger things to worry about. And the novel does establish that he does, in fact, remember Jin Zixun after that point.

In some cases, his loss of memory seems to be the result of trauma, physical or emotional. The aftermath of the Xuanwu fight and the events after Nightless City? High fever and catatonia are altered states of consciousness that impair memory formation. Of course he doesn’t remember those! Then you have him forgetting, until they are heading into the Second Siege, that A’Yuan existed. Which is the interesting part. Because if he didn’t remember a child he helped raise and cared about a great deal for at least a year, and possibly several years? That’s not a bad memory, that’s either active repression or damage. Either of which makes sense. Active repression because his adopted kid is dead, or damage from being dead himself. None of which is a bad memory.

In fact, he flat-out says it: forgetting is a deliberate choice on his part, because he chooses not to focus on things he does for others, or bad things done to him. It’s not a bad memory, it’s a decision he’s made about how he wants to live.

Finally… When I was rereading the novel, I ran into something that made me do a mental double-take:

Cloud Recesses was not attacked by the Wen. Or at least, that’s not what we’re told about what happened.

Here’s what we know:

One of the disciples beside them whispered, “Of course his face isn’t so great. Last month, the Cloud Recesses was burnt down. You didn’t know yet, did you?”

Hearing this, Wei Wuxian jolted, “Burnt down?!”

In the past few days, Jiang Cheng had heard too many of these stories, so he wasn’t as surprised as Wei Wuxian was, “By the Wen Sect’s people?”

The disciple, “You can say that. You can also say… that the Lan Sect itself burnt everything down. The eldest son of the Wen Sect, Wen Xu, went to Gusu. He accused the Lan Sect’s leader of something and forced the Lan Sect’s people to burn down their own residence! It was given pretty names like cleaning up the place so that it’s reborn from the firelight. Most of the Cloud Recesses and its surrounding forest has been burnt down. Just like that, the hundreds of years old paradise had been destroyed. The leader of the Lan Sect was heavily injured. We don’t even know if he’s still alive. Well, well…”

Wei Wuxian, “Is Lan Zhan’s leg related to this?”

The disciple, “Of course. The first place that Wen Xu ordered them to burn down was the Library Pavilion. He declared that he’ll teach anyone who wasn’t willing to do it a lesson. Lan Wangji refused. He was attacked by Wen Xu’s people and they broke one of his legs. It hadn’t even been healed yet, and he was dragged out here again. Who knows what they’re trying to do?!” (Chapter 52, ExR translation)

From the sound of it, what the Wens did at Cloud Recesses is similar to the start of what happened at Lotus Pier. My read is that, as Wang Liangjiao did at Lotus Pier, Wen Xu simply walked in the front doors, accused the Lan of wronging them, and demanded that the Lan burn Cloud Recesses themselves… and they did so. With only Lan Wangji speaking out in protest at the burning of the library, and getting his leg broken as a result. How exactly his father’s injuries came about is never explained. (Part of me wonders if what happened is that Lan Wangji’s father refused to come out of seclusion on Wen Xu’s demand… and therefore didn’t know what was going on until his house started burning and he couldn’t get out in time.)

But “the Wen burned the Cloud Recesses and then walked away” makes sense of Lan Wangji’s own situation in the indoctrination – he arrives with a group of Lan disciples, same as everyone else; he’s not being dragged up out of the dungeons or anything else one might expect from the captured heir of a defeated clan. Which helps explain why the sects were still desperately pretending that war wasn’t on the horizon.

It also helps explain why Lan Wangji has so much trouble grasping how the destruction of Lotus Pier affected Wei Wuxian. There was no massacre at Cloud Recesses, while Wei Wuxian stared at the bodies of the people he grew up with thrown on a pile, trying to figure out if the body on top was the youngest shidi he’d been playing shoot-the-kite with that morning. The Lan’s home burned, but they weren’t driven out; nearly everyone Wei Wuxian knew was killed.