Chapter Text
Ultimately, what happened to the remains of the Jiang Clan was unsurprising, and quiet.
Meishan Yu demanded Jiang Yanli be sent immediately to them following the deaths in the dungeons of Nightless City, stating that she was going to be remaining with her mother’s clan, that if she were wise , she would never leave the safety of Meishan.
The Jiang disciples remaining in Lotus Pier, the ones who remained anyway, ultimately put into place a daughter of one of the Jiang Elders. Deciding that the Jiang Clan clearly needed to be taken in another direction, large changes were made with the intention of repairing the damage not only to reputation but, as they unfortunately found, to the waterways that surrounded Lotus Pier and were within Yunmeng territory.
It had been discovered that there was a severe lack of environmental care - hauntings within the waters that were never properly cleaned up, lingering resentment that manifested and tanked the local ecosystems, bodies dumped in the water rather than properly disposed of. Thus, there was a massive clean up - taking the Jiang Clan out of the public spotlight for well over a decade.
But, for those in Cloud Recesses, they had a much more important event finally occurring.
With aid from Baoshan Sanren, Wen Ruohan, and the entire Lan Clan, Cloud Recesses had been transformed from the typical beauty it held, to a prospering red coated mountain - at least for the week of the wedding.
There wasn’t a surface uncovered by a red coloring, a disciple who wasn’t excited about the upcoming wedding.
The moment Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian were both of age, they were to be wed.
Plans had been set in place from the moment the Cloud Recesses knew that they were together, that marriage was the only logical step for them to take. As the years passed, it was only obvious that the pair had eyes for each other - never straying, solid in their conviction.
Following the deaths of the former Jiang family and Jin Guangshan, when the pair were just 17 and 18, Baoshan Sanren refused to leave Cloud Recesses without a set date, set plans, meal plans, arrangements for decorations, for robes, for lodging for herself - when the wedding came.
For the week prior to the wedding, Wei Ying had stayed with Baoshan Sanren in the guest house she had declared as her own - much to Lan Qiren’s growing collection of headaches. The couple had complained, stating that they had already lived together for so many years, it would be no use to separate them.
Baoshan Sanren and Lan Qiren had fired back with tradition, that technically speaking, if either one of them were a woman, they would not have had the massive list of privileges that had been given to them since they established their relationship. If they could not survive a week without sleeping in the same bed, then how would they tolerate the rest of their lives?
They conceded - what was one week compared to a lifetime, after all?
When the day finally came, when they were dressed in red and more jewelry than they had seen in their lives, when they did their bows in front of tablets of their parents, poured tea for Lan Qiren and Baoshan Sanren, when they finally walked hand in hand to the Jingshi as husbands - yes, they found that waiting was worth every second.
And if everyone thought they were obnoxious when they were betrothed, they were not prepared for how they would act once they were finally wed.
Baoshan Sanren remained in Cloud Recesses for a month following the wedding, claiming that she had been cooped up on her mountain long enough, that it could survive without her being there, that there were dozens of others there who were far more capable of maintaining the mountain without her presence.
It also helped that she found the Lan library as an appealing spot, using it to update herself on what the cultivation world had been up to in her decades of seclusion.
Lan Zhan and Wei Ying saw her off in Caiyi on the morning she left, the pair themselves deciding to roam around for a few months, find people to help - or problems to get into, if one were to listen to Lan Qiren’s opinion. It was simple, nothing that would be taxing or would be too strenuous on them - just the wide open world, a pair of newlyweds, and a donkey.
Wei Ying was insistent on the donkey - promptly named Little Apple, after she tried to eat the apple Wei Ying had been holding. She only listened to Lan Zhan, they found, and Wei Ying pouted about it at least once a day.
It was two months into their journey, they had just passed through Qinghe and stopped to spend a few days in the Unclean Realm at the behest of Nie Mingjue and Nie Huaisang, when they finally stumbled across something that made their hearts stop.
There was a lone house on fire.
A small garden sat in a plot at the front of the house, a small lake a ways away behind it. A small enclosure held chickens, goats.
But the house was on fire.
The pair sprang into action, Wei Ying threw a prototype tracking talisman he had been working on at Little Apple, not wanting to tie her down in case the fire spread, they would be able to find her if she wandered, but not if she was dead.
Wei Ying threw out a warding talisman he had been working on, one that was capable of repelling fire, and watched as it surrounded the burning home, keeping the area around it - hopefully - safe from fire damage, preventing the whole forest around it from catching fire.
He caught sight of Lan Zhan, a burnt man hanging off of his back as he rushed out of the burning house, the archway of the front door collapsing after they passed through.
“Please-” The man huffed out, half of his face covered in char, in bright red skin, the clothes on his body half singed off.
“Please, my son, he’s in the upstairs nursery.” He coughed, “I used the last of my strength to cover him, to prevent the fire from getting upstairs.”
Lan Zhan and Wei Ying shared a look, nodding, before Wei Ying unsheathed Guangzhe and flew up to the only window he could see on the second floor - his eyes widening as he saw the fire climbing up the central beam in the room.
He jumped through the window, leaving Guangzhe hovering outside, prepared for his escape.
In the far corner of the room, a bassinet with a clear mesh covering was Wei Ying’s target.
There was an array activated on the floor surrounding it, if Wei Ying had more time, he would decode what the man had intended the array to do - or what the inventor’s intentions were, if the man himself wasn’t a cultivator.
An infant, no older than a year old, slept under the thin cover, unaware of the danger that had befallen his home.
Wei Ying carefully gathered the child and the blankets he was wrapped in, making sure to briefly cover the infant’s face until they were outside, away from the smoke and the fire, and back towards clean, fresh air.
A beam crashed down behind him, startling him. The fire had started eating through the floor, the beam causing a large hole on the other side of the room.
Wei Ying ran out of the room, jumping out the window where Guangzhe was faithfully waiting for him.
He ran to Lan Zhan and the man, the infant still sleeping in his arms.
“No.” Wei Ying whispered, eyes wide as they landed on the man Lan Zhan had pulled from the house, the white outer robe that Lan Zhan wore, now covering the man’s body.
“The fire started in the hearth,” Lan Zhan started, walking over and using a damp cloth to wipe Wei Ying’s face, “He was preparing the night’s meal, warming goat’s milk for the child.” Lan Zhan took in a shuttered breath, his gaze turning back to the house, watching as the flames consumed the entire structure.
“He looked away for a second, took his attention off the fire for a single moment, and it caught a pile of wood and hay on fire, spread to the furniture, to the books, to the walls.” A tear fell down his face. “Wu Jiahao ran up to where his son was sleeping, placed him in his crib, covered him, then activated an array that his wife had left him.”
“What happened to…”
“Childbirth.” Lan Zhan looked down at the sleeping child as he wrapped an arm around Wei Ying. “She was a cultivator, knew how to design protection arrays that didn’t need spiritual energy to be activated. He said she spent the last months of her pregnancy leaving them all over the house, because they both knew she would not survive the birth, and it was too late to terminate.”
Lan Zhan looked at him, a hesitancy in his gaze.
“Wei Ying, there is no remaining family who would be able to take him in. His father’s last wish was for us to take him, to raise him.”
“What,” Wei Ying started, coughing to clear his voice, “what’s his name?” He spoke, his voice quiet.
“His mother gave him the name Yuan.”
A small smile crossed Wei Ying’s face as he turned to look down at the child sleeping in his arms.
“Then, we can only accept.” He met Lan Zhan’s gaze. “We will bury Wu Jiahao, give him the proper rites he deserves, and he and his wife will both have tablets in Cloud Recesses as A-Yuan’s parents. If…if that’s okay?” Lan Zhan reached over, wiping the tears that had fallen down his husband’s face.
“A-Yuan will grow up knowing that his father died protecting him, that his mother loved him and it was her inventions that saved him too.”
Wei Ying let out a soft laugh, A-Yuan’s eyes finally opening and looking up at them with wonder.
“Can’t wait to see the look on Jiufu’s face when we bring a child home.” Wei Ying spoke, his eyes wandering over towards the remaining embers of the fire, the entire structure of the house now fallen into one large heap of ash and burnt wood.
“If there is anything to salvage, we will bring it with us.”
“If not, we have the money. He will never know the feeling of a day without food, a cold night without warmth, a moment without someone who loves him.” A tear slides down his face. “He will never be kept from the truth, be punished for no reason. He will never find out that the people who were supposed to care for him were actually the reason he had suffered.”
Lan Zhan cupped his cheek, turning his face back towards him.
“He will never be kept from seeing those he loves, never be forced to only see them once a month. He will be raised with honesty, with the truth, with integrity and perseverance. He will never question the love of those around him, for he will simply need to look at his existence in this world as proof.” Lan Zhan whispered, pressing their foreheads together, sighing as he closed his eyes.
A-Yuan chose that moment of silence to finally make a noise, garbling as he reached his hands out towards the tails of white ribbon that fell over Lan Zhan and Wei Ying’s shoulders, his pudgy hands grabbing the length of both ribbons.
Wei Ying smiled as Lan Zhan reached over and gently pulled both of their ribbons out of their son’s hands. He reached out, grabbing Lan Zhan’s hand, a wide smile on his face.
“C’mon, we’ve got a busy future ahead of us.”