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Chapter Text

The dawn over Gusu was cool and soy. Light seeped through the layers of clouds like a whisper, almost too soft to dispel the night. Yet the day had come - a day of punishment that the elders of the Lan clan had appointed without hesitation.

The Courtyard of Discipline knew no mercy. The white sand was too clean to accept blood, but today it was to turn red. The disciples stood in silence, in a row, in identical robes. Cleanliness, discipline, silence, values that took on weight in this place.

In the middle of the courtyard stood Lan Wangji, motionless as a mountain. Her robes were impeccably arranged, her hair tied high, though a few strands slipped down over her face, as if sensing her inner tension.

She did not lower her gaze, though all the elders stood before her.

"Thirty-three times," resounded the voice of the oldest of the councillors. "For every hand raised against an elder."

The words floated in the air like a sentence from the heavens.

Lan Qiren stood to the side with his hands clasped together, his gaze fixed on the ground. He was silent, though his hands trembled. Lan Xichen stood upright, not taking his eyes off his younger sister.

When the whip of discipline was brought in - black, laced with spiritual light, woven from the silver fibres of the silent forest - the air thickened. The tool did not just inflict pain on the body. Each strike vibrated through the core of the golden dana, through the spiritual meridians.

First time.

A quiet swish and a sudden crackle on the skin.

Lan Wangji did not flinch.

The second. The third. The tenth.

The skin on her back had long since cracked. The white robe was soaked with blood that oozed slowly, as if it did not want to betray the dignity of the one wearing it itself.

Twentieth time. Lan Wangji's eyes were cloudy but not closed.

Twenty-third time. A sigh passed through the gathering, as if Mount Gusu herself was sympathising.

At the thirtieth blow, her body trembled. Her knees bent slightly. At the thirty-third - she hit the ground with a deafening sound.

Lan Xichen sprang from his seat. He was at her side before anyone had time to stop him. He knelt down, put his arms around her shoulders. Her head drooped to the side. Her skin was as cold as morning ice.

"Wangji..." he whispered. "MeiMei."

Lan Qiren also moved towards her, his face tense, his jaw clenched so tightly that it crackled.

"Take her to the Medical Pavilion." he said sharply. "Immediately."

The students moved off in silence.

The late evening lights of the lanterns reflected in the lacquered floor of the meeting room. The air was heavy with incense and unasked questions.

The elders gathered in a circle again. Lan Xichen sat opposite them - with a face calm but with eyes like ice. Next to him Lan Qiren.

"She survived," said one of the elders coolly. "Her strength of spirit is impressive."

"Her strength of spirit is no reason to commute her sentence," said another. "If the punishment has not brought repentance, perhaps exile should be considered."

Lan Xichen looked at him.

"Exile? For daring to protect a friend?"

"For breaking the rules. The Lan rules are clear about disobeying the elders."

"The code does not demand blind loyalty to injustice." replied Lan Xichen. "She did what she thought was right."

"She did it for this ... witch. Wei Wuxian."

"It was not a decision motivated by love," entered Lan Qiren's words. "It was justice."

The elder sitting to his right grunted.

"Not only that. Lan Wangji was to become the wife of Leader Jiang. The engagement was supposed to bring peace between our sections. Now this union will be impossible."

"That's not true," spoke up Lan Xichen coolly. "Leader Jiang has known her for years. If anyone could understand her actions, it is him."

"And if he doesn't want to?" asked another. "If he finds her tainted, a disgrace? What then?"

The hall fell silent.

"Then," said Lan Qiren slowly, "She will have to leave."

--

In the Jade Pavilion, the night was dark and silent. Servants moved like ghosts, carefully changing bandages. The wounds were many -- some deep, others pulsing with spiritual energy that burned the inner pathways of qi.

Lan Wangji lay motionless, but her face was not calm. Something hot was smouldering in her eyes - even behind her closed eyelids.

If she had the strength to speak, she would have said one name.

Not Wei Wuxian.

Not Lan Xichen.

Not Lan Qiren.

But Jiang Wanyin.

Is he coming?

Does he still care?

Will he reject her?

And if so... will he manage to survive it?

---

He couldn't remember when exactly his heart began to harden.

Maybe it was when his sister died in his arms - not in battle, not in glory, but in fear, with a wound on her body and his name on her lips. Perhaps it was when he couldn't save her. When he first felt he was left alone.

Or maybe... earlier.

Maybe it was when he watched his sworn sister - Wei Wuxian - lose control of herself. When her spiritual light burst, and demonic energy poured out of her like blood from an open wound. He saw her. The one who promised to stand by his side, always, until the end. He saw her instead moving after the Wen people - with the strangers he should hate. With those through whom their home had fallen.

He didn't understand her. And then he stopped trying.

He had no time for tears. For here came Jin Guangshan, with a smile like a blade, ready to take from him the last thing left of Yanli - Jin Ling.

There, in a room full of smoke and lies, Jiang Wanyin had to learn the game he hated. He had to wipe despair from his lips and replace it with command. He argued, persuaded, threatened. Not for himself. For a boy who didn't even know the price he had paid for surviving.

But still... it wasn't Jin Guangshan who hurt the most.

It was her. Lan Wangji.

Always silent. Always present, but not to him.

He remembered how she stood beside Wei Wuxian, how she silently bowed her head, how she protected her with a gaze that Jiang Wanyin never lived to see for himself. He too had been her companion on the paths of travel, he too had fought with her. But it was not to him that she turned that one gaze. It was not for him that she held her breath.

Lan Wangji his fiancée, though she never let the word cling too closely to her.

Maybe it was his fault. Maybe he didn't know how to be more than an ally to her. But he didn't deserve indifference. Not then.

And now... now she was somewhere, maybe even together with Wei Wuxian. Maybe she was still protecting her. Maybe she had helped her escape. He didn’t know — and it was the not knowing that hurt the most

In his mind, he had the image of a white robe stained with blood. And his heart? It wasn't breaking. It was turning to stone. Because it all started with her.

From Wei Wuxian. From the one who was supposed to be on his side. From the one who had left him.

So yes - if she was to live on, she had to pay. For Yanli. To her parents. For Jin Ling. For everything.

Even if his own hands were to get dirty from it.

--

Exactly three months passed, the moment the pain in her back stopped being so sharp.

It didn't disappear. It simply lost its power. It no longer stole her breath with every movement, no longer obscured her thoughts. But it was there - deep, lingered in her memory, burned into her skin. Like the mark of a seal that no one wanted to put on it, but was done nonetheless.

Her fingers still trembled as she tried to lift the tea bowl. Her right hand, the one she used to hold the sword, reacted as if it did not belong to her. Sometimes she felt like the spiritual meridians were burning from the inside out - not like when the qi channels were open and clear. Now they resembled abandoned paths, overgrown with thorns.

But she was alive.

This is what she repeated to herself every day as the rays of the morning sun streamed in through the window of the Jade Pavilion and touched the floor with infinite gentleness.

Here, on the sidelines, time was different. Slowed down. Quiet. No one came without express permission, and no one asked permission. The elders had not spoken since the day of her punishment. Xichen visited infrequently - too infrequently, though she knew he tried to protect her in his own way. Lan Qiren had not come once.

She was not entirely alone, however.

There was Lan Min, a quiet student from the lower wing who had once merely bowed in passing. Now she brought meals, changed dressings, administered a light brew for sleep. She did not ask. She didn't judge. She simply was. And that was enough to prevent Lan Wangji from slipping into utter emptiness during those days of seclusion.

One morning Lan Min left dried plum blossoms by the scroll. Tiny, inconspicuous, not yet fully developed. Wangji just looked at them for a moment, then turned her head away.

For a brief moment, she was reminded of how Wei Wuxian once said that plum blossoms smell best in winter because they are stubborn. Because I don't know when to give up.

Wei Wuxian.

There wasn't a day that went by that she didn't think of her. Sometimes as a soulmate. Sometimes as a burden. Sometimes as a mistake. But most often as someone who had passed away. And left behind a void that even the silence of Gus could not fill.

She did not know where Wei Wuxian was now. Nor did she know how she felt. But she knew her. She knew that she would try to laugh through the pain. That she would fight. Even if everything said she should run away.

But it wasn't Wuxian who hurt the most.

It was Jiang Wanyin. He didn't know. He didn't come. He didn't ask.

And even though Lan Wangji told herself that it was good, that he didn't need pity, that it was none of his business deep down she felt how that silence cut deeper than the beatings. Because he had survived. This she knew. That's all she knew. But if he was alive, if he was breathing.... why hadn't he come?

He didn't know she was being punished. He couldn't have known. If he had known... Would he have come? Would he have had a shadow of compassion in him?

Would he have been furious? Did he still think of her at all?

Or maybe he had long since considered her a traitor - one who was too close to Wei Wuxian, too loyal to the wrong place. Maybe he never stopped thinking of her as a stranger.

Engaged. The word had become empty. So many times she had wanted to talk to him, so many times she had remained silent. She didn't even know if she had ever really known him. Jiang Wanyin was like a storm: silly, impenetrable, angry. But then, when she was alone with him.... he was also quiet. Vulnerable. And strangely present.

She didn't want to admit that she missed him.She also didn't want to think that maybe he hated her.

But she thought about him every night.

This is what three months had been like. Not a healed soul, but a prolonged trembling of the hands. Not silence, but a weight that could not fall from her heart.

And only one question kept coming back: When will he know if he is finally coming? Will he stay in his anger until she is truly gone.

--

The pavilion was still quiet, as if Gusu itself was holding its breath. Outside the windows, plum leaves twitched in the breeze, casting shadows on the tatami. Lan Wangji sat in the lotus position, though her back still screamed with pain. Her breathing was slow.

Lan Min sat on the other side of the table, meticulously peeling the skin off a pear.

"You didn't eat breakfast again," she said quietly.

"I wasn't hungry," Lan Wangji replied just as quietly.

Lan Min said no more. She knew that the older student's stubbornness knew no bounds. But she moved the plate towards her nonetheless.

"Cold fruit relieves pain. You have tried this technique."

Lan Wangji raised her eyebrow slightly. "Have you always been so stubborn?"

"Only with you, shijie."

Lan Min smiled, while Lan Wangji smiled back. But for a moment her hands hurt less.

The door slid open suddenly, almost silently. Lan Xichen stepped inside. He looked tired. His steps were too slow and his eyes were too full. Lan Wangji immediately felt it in the air. Something had happened.

"Xiongzhang," was all she said.

Lan Xichen nodded to Lan Min, who, after a short bow, quietly left the pavilion.

There was silence. A long one. So long that it could become a tomb of words.

Finally, he spoke.

"The siege of the Burial Mounds ended at dawn today."

Everything in her froze. But she did not show it on her face.

"The Four Great Sects," he continued. "Under the leadership of Jiang Wanyin. They kept their oath. They surrounded the whole area. Among them were the masters from Lanling Jin, Qinghe Nie, Gusu Lan .... and Yunmeng Jiang."

Each word sounded like the sound of a flute - sharp, singular, painful.

"Wei Wuxian?" she asked quietly, though she didn't know why she still used that name so calmly.

Lan Xichen did not answer immediately. Only after a moment did he lower his head.

"Her own power rebelled against her. The spirits she summoned could not be tamed. She collapsed along with the mound. No body was found."

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

And then... a crack.

Not in a sound. Not in a gesture. In something deeper. As if something inside her - something very small, very quiet - had broken into thousands of tiny parts.

She did not ask for details. She didn't ask whether Jiang Wanyin was present, whether he saw, whether he allowed. Because she already knew all the answers.

She tried to stand — pain sliced through her like a blade — but she moved anyway, stronger than her body allowed.

"Wangji!" Lan Xichen came up immediately, his hands reaching for her shoulders. "You can't. Not in this state."

"I must," she said. Her voice was colourless. Empty. Like an echo of someone she was three months ago.

"It's not... she's already..."

"I won't believe it," she interrupted. "Not without proof. Not without...seeing."

Lan Xichen took half a step back.

"I won't be able to stop you, will I?"

She didn't answer.

She leaned against the wall, every movement like a blade cutting. But her eyes were alive. And that was enough.

--

The Burial Mounds no longer resembled the place Lan Wangji remembered.

Once full of spiritual buzz, wild energy, restless life, they now looked like scorched earth after the wrath of the heavens. Fog floated over the paths like a broken veil, and the air was heavy, as if the earth had not yet stopped screaming.

There was no one. There was nothing but silence and ash.

She walked slowly, each step a test for her wounds, but she went on, with her lips clamped into a thin line.

Underfoot she felt dried blood, spiritual dust, the remains of talismans. Several broken swords protruded from the ground like scorched roots. There were traces of a battle - brutal, chaotic, last.

But there was no body. There was no Wei Wuxian.

Just the moonlight that lay across the empty fields like death without farewell.

She stopped at the entrance to one of the valleys where makeshift houses once stood - low, battered wood, impermanent but teeming with warmth. The place where Wen Qing cooked herbs. Where Uncle Four dug the soil, where he later planted potatoes. Where ordinary people, those without spiritual worship, smiled at her without even knowing who she was.

She remembered their faces.

The man who talked about working in the fields, and how he had miraculously survived because Wei Wuxian had turned up on time. Wen Popo, who declared Lan Wangji to be the most beautiful woman on earth and augured her many rivals for her hand, and then served her overly bitter tea.

And Wei Wuxian.

With perpetually tousled hair, with a smile that defied fatigue. With wounds she never healed, and a heart she gave away to everyone, even if the world didn't want it.

"If I had another choice, if someone had given me another solution...But there is no other choice. You yourself know that."

She squatted down on a flat stone as the pain in her back erupted again - as if the ground itself reminded her that she shouldn't be here. But she was.

Because she couldn't believe that someone so loud, so full of life, could just disappear.

She bent slightly, resting her elbows on her knees. She bowed her head low and her hair fell over her face like a mourning veil.

She did not cry. Lan Wangji did not cry. But something trembled in her chest, something rippled, quietly, inconspicuously, like silk cracking under her fingers.

"I promised to protect you," she went on, almost silently. "And again... I was too late."

There was no answer. There was nothing. Just silence. Only the wind. Just a principality that no longer had anyone to listen.

Chapter Text

The rain had stopped, but the roofs of Yunmeng were still wet.

Jiang Wanyin stood in the stone courtyard and looked up at the sky as if he wanted to curse it. The clouds rolled slowly, sluggishly, as if they couldn't decide if they were ready to shed tears. He did not have this problem. He hadn't had tears for a long time. They dried up in his eyes then, when his sister's body could no longer be held in his arms.

Little Jin Ling cried that night until morning. Now he was asleep, safely wrapped up in soft yadwabs, In a bedroom that had not even been properly prepared yet. 

It was the only thing he had left.

Evil. The blood. The scream.

And this child, born of a gentleness that was no longer in this world.

Jiang Wanyin had not slept for two days. Instead, he walked around the walls, inspected his disciples' training, threw talismans out of the window and shouted. He shouted more than he spoke.

"Are you all blind! That blow would have been fatal if it wasn't a wooden replica sword!"

Two of the disciples bent in prostration, and the third turned so pale that he looked as if he was about to faint.

"What am I teaching you! If your opponent contemplates the step of his feet, it means he is already dead! Technique is nothing without spirit! And you have neither!"

He wanted to hit someone - maybe the wall, maybe himself. But he knew that then he would hear the baby crying again, and he couldn't take it anymore.

He sent the disciples away with an angry movement of his hand. They went, bent in half, as if his anger had physical weight. And it had.

He returned to the main pavilion, where Jin Ling slept, murmuring occasionally in his sleep. Jiang Wanyin looked at him for a long time. Children shouldn't be so calm after something like this.

Not after seeing their mother die.

Not after they had seen Wei Wuxian being torn alive by her own creatures.

He could still hear the sound. It was not a human scream. It was the scream of things that should never exist. He closed his eyes.

And that's when he heard the door open. He didn't turn around. But he knew who it was.

"You have come, Lan Xichen," he said coolly.

"”Jiang-zongzu."

The silence between them was thick. They were not close allies. But their seniority, their duties, their history - all of these compelled them to respect each other, even if not to sympathise.

„Then what are you here for, Lan-zongzhu? Surely not just to exchange pleasantries.”

"I didn’t come to speak of rumours.”

"Then what for?" the voice of Jiang Wanyin was sharp.

"Lan Wangji."

Jiang Wanyin froze.

Name hung in the air like an unexpected sword, a blade without a scabbard.

"What about her?"

Lan Xichen was silent for a moment.

"She was injured."

He said nothing more. He didn't say about the whips. About the blood. About the fact that she didn't get up from her bed for three months. And well. Jiang Wanyin didn't need excuses and justifications. At least not from his mouth.

"Is she alive?"

"Yes."

Silence.

"Well?" burbled Jiang Wanyin at last. "Do you want me to send her a list? Pray for her health?"

"No," replied Xichen calmly. "I would like to know ... if you still intend to marry her."

He asked the question as if he were talking about tea. But Jiang Wanyin froze. He turned around slowly, as if every word was weighing down his throat.

"It's none of your business."

"I am her brother." Lan Xichen replied, undeterred by the tone of the other man's voice. "I consider it my business."

Jiang Wanyin snorted. He sat up taller, straightening his back, leaning heavily against the carved wood of the throne.

"Lan-zongzhu, I know that times are uncertain now. But in spite of that, I think talk of alliances, possible marriage plans. They are not appropriate at this time."

"I can't agree with you, Jiang-zongzu." Lan Xichen did not lose his firm stance. "It is with great pain that I wish to remind you that...you have been left alone."

Jiang Wanyin's hands clenched tightly on the base of the throne. 

"What follows." Lan Xichen continued. "Your sect, may be weakened. I hear you're taking care of your nephew, it's hard balancing leadership with caring for your child and raising the next generation."

"And you're telling me this because?" 

"Yunmeng needs a woman's hand," Lan Xichen said slowly. "A strong one. With discipline. With a name that means something. Lan Wangji can help you. Not as an ornament. As a partner in reconstruction."

Jiang Wanyin croaked.

"You sound like an old man from the council. Besides, I get the impression that you are more interested in Gusu than Yunmeng."

"I make no secret of the fact that my sect's interests are also at heart. But more so, I am interested in my sister's welfare. Recent events have taken a significant toll on her health and well-being."

Silence. Long. Tense.

"Does she know?" Jiang Wanyin asked with a clenched throat. " Wei Wuxian..."

„Not right away." Lan Xichen lowered his gaze slightly. "But yes. Now he knows."

Jiang Wanyin tilted his head. He sighed deeply.

There was something about the silence that said more than shouting.

But Lan Xichen wasn't finished yet.

"There is something else."

Jiang Wanyin looked at him reluctantly.

"Lan Wangji... She adopted a child. A boy. She calls him her son."

Jiang Wanyin said nothing. For a moment, his face was unreadable. Then he howled through his teeth:

"Who spawned him?"

"I don't know," Xichen replied. "But I do know that he will not give it up to anyone. And if you decide to accept it.... you also accept him."

Silence again.

Silence hung over them like a sword suspended by a silken thread.

Jiang Wanyin did not speak. He did not move. He just stared - as if the words he had heard would dare to ring out once more in that hall.

"A child?" he finally said, slowly, dragging his voice. "She adopted a child."

"Yes," confirmed Lan Xichen with a slight nod. "A boy. A little one. No name and no home to take him in. She gave him both."

"It's not like her," muttered Jiang Wanyin more to himself than to Xichen.

"Or maybe just very much like her." Lan Xichen's voice was calm, as it always was. But something flashed in his eyes that Jiang Wanyin could recognise as a shadow of pride.

"And now what?" warned Jiang Wanyin. "I'm supposed to take her under my roof, along with a child I don't know, just because.... what? That she looks good in the family book?"

"No." Xichen took a step forward, but did not shorten the distance between them completely. "You are to accept it if you think your sect deserves it. And if you're willing ... to have someone by your side who won't disappear at the first storm."

Jiang Wanyin laughed humourlessly. Briefly. Coldly.

"Interesting words."

Lan Xichen did not reply. And it was this silence that was sharper than the retort.

Jiang Wanyin furrowed his brow. Then he changed the subject, as if embarrassed by his own remark.

"You say she was injured."

"Yes."

"How badly?"

Lan Xichen was silent for a moment too long to be accidental. When he spoke again, his voice was even quieter.

"Enough that she won't be able to walk on her own for three months."

Jiang Wanyin raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.

"She doesn't talk much about it herself," Lan Xichen continued. "I don't like to be asked. But her meridians were severely affected. To date, she has difficulty keeping her qi steady."

"Who injured her?" asked Jiang Wanyin before he could stop himself.

His voice no longer sounded so confident. Instead of a harsh tone, there was a shadow of something else in it. Not concern. No. But... A need to know. Questions he could not stifle within himself.

Lan Xichen looked him in the eye. And this time, to Jiang Wanyin's surprise, he did not answer.

"It's irrelevant," he said too calmly.

"Irrelevant!" Jiang Wanyin jumped up from his seat. "If someone tried to kill her, if she was assaulted and you're telling me it's irrelevant!"

Xichen remained unmoved.

"She is safe. And she's alive. And that's all we need to know at this point."

"So you're hiding something. Is it Wei Wuxian? Did it happen during that night?", muttered Jiang Wanyin. But then... he sat down. 

And he was no longer looking at Lan Xichen. He was looking somewhere further beyond the columns of the hall, beyond the curtains. In a place where no one was there anymore.

"I don't know why I care," he said quietly. "I don't know why I ask."

Lan Xichen remained silent, letting him speak.

"It's always been more... hers than mine." Jiang Wanyin's voice was now dull. "She always stood by Wei Wuxian. Not by me. And now you want me to accept her as if nothing had happened."

Lan Xichen smiled slightly, sadly.

 "She is not easy to love, Jiang-zongzhu. But she never asked to be loved. Just... not to leave her."

Jiang Wanyin fell silent. He did not move once again. And Lan Xichen, seeing that he would get nothing more today, bowed low.

"If you decide to see her.... you know where to find her."

And he walked away.

Leaving the Yunmeng Jiang leader alone with the questions he didn't want to ask and the image of the woman he thought he knew.

Chapter Text

The hall of the Orchid Pavilion glowed with the raw radiance of the morning. The mountain air was cool, and golden light reflected on the marble floor  as if the sky itself had intruded upon a conversation that should never have happened.

Her posture was like that of a sculpture: rigid, straight, immaculate. But the tension in her fingers, and the way her lips were clenched, betrayed a storm brewing within. Lan Qiren paced back and forth, his footsteps echoing between the pavilion’s columns. His face was pale with anger, and his hands, hidden in his sleeves, trembled, as if even he couldn’t control them.

“You brought him here,” he said finally. His voice was quiet the kind of silence that comes just before lightning strikes. “Knowing who he is. Knowing where he comes from. Knowing what judgment awaits you!”

Lan Wangji did not reply.

“A-Yuan,” he spat out the name like poison. “Of the Wen family. A child of the outcasts who lived in the Burial Mounds. Impure origin. Corrupted qi. And you, Lan Wangji… you healed him, fed him, gave him a name. Did you really… adopt him?”

“Yes,” she said calmly. But there was more strength in that single word than in all of Lan Qiren’s fury.

“You disgraced our sect!”

“Enough. I’ve heard it all before, Shufu.”

That single word hung in the air like a blade. She didn’t scream. She didn’t need to.

She pushed herself upright, pain searing through her back. Every movement challenged her body — but her heart… her heart was burning.

“I brought no disgrace to Gusu. I brought a child the world had abandoned. A child whose family was brutally slaughtered — by you.”

A child of the Wen family!” Lan Qiren snapped bitterly. “One of those who burned our libraries to ash! They killed your masters — your father! He could be the son of one of them!”

Lan Wangji closed her eyes for a split second, as if the words had struck her like a blow.

“That may be true,” she replied. “But he bears no guilt for what they did.”

“There is no place in the Lan sect for such a child!”

“It is not the sect that decides,” she said quietly. “I do. He is my son.”

Lan Qiren stared at her, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“I am his mother. I healed him when he was dying of fever. I held him when he cried out for his mother and no one answered. I taught him how to meditate. To speak. To be silent.”

She paused for a moment. Then added, her voice steady:

“I will not let anyone take him away.”

Her voice was soft — but it carried a strength that knew no limits.

Lan Qiren became immobile. He had never seen her like this before. Not in Gusu. Not in the midst of rules and prohibitions.

She was like a stone that had ceased to be passive. Like a lake that, after years of silence, had decided to tear down its own mirror.

"Lan Qiren froze. He had never seen her like this — not in Gusu, not among all the rules and restrictions.

She was like a stone that had stopped being still. Like a lake that, after years of silence, had chosen to shatter its own reflection.

“This child,” he said slowly, “you only took him in because he reminds you of Wei Wuxian.”

“Yes,” she answered simply. “Because she saved him and then she left him. So I finished what she could not. But you, Shufu, have known me long enough to know: I would have done the same for any child.”

"It's dangerous."

"No," she said. "He's just a boy. If you don't give him a place here, he'll have to run for his life like she did."

"Don't you understand anything? You are in danger of exile! You barely escaped punishment, and you..."

Lan Qiren wanted to say something else. But he couldn't find the words.

He is not my duty. Not some penance to repay a debt to Wei Wuxian. He is my choice. My child. My home in a world made of ash and silence.

Lan Qiren wanted to say more. A thousand rules trembled on the edge of his tongue, a thousand fears clenched his chest like iron bands. But none of them were strong enough to break the resolve in her eyes.

“This child,” he said again, slowly, “will leave a mark on you.”

“Then let him,” she said. “If kindness and protection are enough to stain a name then I want mine drenched in it.”

It was then that Lan Qiren understood.

Not that she was lost.

But that she had already stepped beyond the reach of anything he could hold.

Lan Wangji folded her hands in a bow.

"I am not asking for permission. I came to inform you."

She turned and walked away with her head raised, her step heavy but sure. Like a mother who doesn't need anyone's blessing to protect her child.

---

That evening, when she returned to Jing Shi, Lan Wangji sat by the window for a long time, despite having no strength left in her. A-Yuan was already asleep, curled up in a blanket, clutching a tiny wooden hare in his hand.

The hare was old — its paint faded, one ear chipped — but he clung to it like it was the most precious thing in the world.

Lan Wangji gently adjusted the blanket. Then she sat beside him, careful not to disturb his sleep. And then — it came back to her.

Yiling.

A summer day — sweltering and heavy, like a ghostly mist clinging to her skin.

She had come with a mission: to bring Wei Wuxian news of Jiang Yanli’s upcoming wedding — because she believed her younger sister deserved to know.

At the time, she hadn’t even known where to begin searching for Wei Wuxian. After their parting on the rainy Qiongqi Path, she had heard rumors that Wei Wuxian fled to the Burial Mounds — but entering them unprepared risked spiritual backlash from the energy of resentment.

She was still forming a plan as she wandered through the market in Yiling — when Wen Yuan found her.

A little boy, perhaps three or four years old,  with messy hair and a dust-smeared face. He ran between stalls, babbling something unintelligible, until he stopped dead at the sight of her.

He stared. Then, eyes wide with wonder, he ran toward her and threw himself at her feet.

“A-niang!”

Lan Wangji froze. She stood stiffly, with terrified eyes, as the child snuggled into her side, completely trusting.

Passers-by looked on. Smiles. Silent comments.

"Ah, a young mother."

"Cute baby."

"Likeable."

Her face didn't change expression, but something moved inside.

A-Yuan looked up, and then... he cringed.

At the sight of her stern face, as plain as a monastery wall, the child began to sob. Quietly at first, then loudly. Fat tears rolled down his cheeks.

Just then, Wei Wuxian came out from behind a stand of grilled chestnuts, holding two paper fans and a plate of pancakes in her hands.

"What are you doing, A-Yuan!"

"A-niang is angry..." cringed the boy.

Wei Wuxian blinked. She looked at Lan Wangji. Then at A-Yuan. And... she burst out laughing.

"A-niang? Lan Zhan, when did you manage to become a mother?"

She didn't answer. She couldn't. She felt like something inside her had suddenly... softened.

Wei Wuxian shook her head with amusement.

 "Oho, well. Looks like we have someone here who fell in love with you at first sight."

"He's crying." Lan Wangji said, not understanding.

Lan Wangji felt all the tension leave her body as soon as she heard Wei Wuxian's laughter. The sound brought a strange, warm relief, as if everything that had seemed vague and difficult a moment ago had suddenly lost its meaning. She allowed herself a gentle, barely perceptible smile, feeling her heart grow lighter.

"It's good that you're laughing," she said quietly, almost in a whisper, as if it was a thought spoken aloud by accident.

"From crying, A-Yuan is here, right?" Wei Wuxian laughed, pointing to the toy stall. "Do you want one? Your Ayi Wei will buy you something nice."

A-Yuan nodded vigorously, but Wei Wuxian only laughed louder at the gesture.

"Aren't you going to buy it?" Lan Wangji again did not understand. 

Wei Wuxian looked at Lan Wangji with amusement in her eyes, as if she was enjoying every moment of this misunderstanding.

"Buy right away? Lan Zhan, just look at him." Wei Wuxian lightly poked Lan Wangji with her shoulder. "The greatest joy is the anticipation itself! Once he gets the toy, he'll enjoy a while. But right now? Oh, now he's happy all the time because he waits for it all the time."

Lan Wangji mused for a moment, then nodded with seriousness.

"Wise," she finally said, though the corners of her mouth gently lifted upwards again.

Wei Wuxian burst out laughing again, feeling warmth spread through her chest at the sight of Lan Wangji's barely perceptible smile.

"But brutal." She added after a moment, when she noticed that the boy was putting on a face as if he was about to cry again. 

And then, unbeknownst to Lan Wangji, she reached into her waistband, unfastened a small bag of coins and... walked over to the nearest toy stall.

Wooden figurines, paper windmills, fabric snakes. Nothing special.

But A-Yuan looked at them with such awe as if they were treasures of heaven.

She bought him everything he touched. Two windmills. Three hares. One rattle. A wooden flute, even though she knew he couldn't play.

Wei Wuxian almost choked from laughing.

"What have you done! You spoil him worse than me!"

A-Yuan laughed. He hugged Lan Wangji again, this time without tears. With a face full of delight.

"A-niang!"

Lan Wangji did not deny it then.

She did not say that she was not his mother. That she didn't know what she was doing. That she didn't understand why she had just bought a whole set of toys for a boy she was seeing for the first time.

Because he looked at her as if he had known her for a long time.

Now, in JingShi, Lan Wangji ran her fingers through his hair. Quietly. Carefully. Just like his real A-Niang used to do.

Maybe not like his biological mother, maybe not like Wei Wuxian. Just like hers.

He was not her duty. He was not her obligatory act of contrition towards Wei Wuxian.

He was her choice. Her child. Her home when the whole world was no longer safe.

--

Gusu greeted Jiang Wanyin with a cool morning. The fog had not yet cleared from the marble alleys, and the plum trees had not had time to open their blossoms. As he entered the confines of the Lan sect, he felt a familiar tension - a spiritual pressure that reminded him that rules, not emotions, ruled here.

The masters were polite, silent, as always. They led him through the gardens - not to the audience room, not to the guest pavilion. To a place he did not know.

There, for the first time, he heard a child's laughter. Unusually familiar. He froze. He stopped in mid-step.

In the shade of the low trees a boy no older than five was playing. Bright Lan-style clothes, but the face....

His face was the same. Wide eyes. Oval cheeks. And that look, as if he could see more than he should.

It wasn't possible. But yet it was.

The child from the Burial Mounds. The little boy he had seen by Wei Wuxian's side. The same smile. The same way of speaking to the spirits as if they were friends.

"A-Yuan..." he pronounced the name before he could stop it.

The boy looked in his direction, but said nothing. He disappeared behind the door of the Pavilion. That was when he saw her.

Lan Wangji.She was standing under the column, leaning slightly against the doorframe. Dressed as plain as ever, in white. But something was different. In the eyes. In the posture.

Jiang Wanyin... felt something strange. Relief.

He wouldn't admit it. But seeing her whole - standing, alive - something in his chest loosened its grip.

"Lan Wangji, am I seeing right?" Jiang Wanyin growled, he walked towards her with a quick step. "That child Wei Wuxian was holding with the corpses!"

Lan Wangji raised an eyebrow. "She didn't keep him with corpses. She gave him shelter."

"It's Wen!" he chuckled. "From the Mounds! How can you...!"

"Do you want answers, or have you come to shout?"

A brief, dangerous silence fell.

"It's called Lan now. We can give him a cultivated name together." she said calmly but forcefully.

Jiang Wanyin looked at her as if he had overheard.

"If you think I'm going to give this child..."

"Then why did you come here?" she interrupted him. "For the wedding I agree, but I will only enter the Jiang sect with A-Yuan by my side."

"You think I came to propose to you?" he hissed.

"Judging by the fact that my brother visited you equally a month ago with a proposal to renew the engagement. I'm simply stating a fact."

A blade of words. The air tensed as if before a storm.

"She will not be Jiang," he declared coldly.

"Wei Wuxian wasn't one either," she replied just as calmly. "So I'm not asking for that. The name Lan suits him better. Plus you owe it to him, have you forgotten who slaughtered his family?"

Guilt rose in his throat. 

"I see this wound has unblocked your tongue."

"To you, no wound has nudged your tongue."

They fell silent.

Outside, the boy laughed again the same childish laugh they had once heard in a very different place, among the ghosts and ruins.

Jiang Wanyin stared at a point somewhere over Lan Wangji's shoulder. Whatever he wanted to say got stuck in his throat.

"I cured him," she said quietly. "He had a spiritual infection that was being ignored. If I had come later... there would have been nothing to save."

"And now what?" he asked. "Will you become a mother? Will you give up the sword? Will you hold his hand and teach him talismans?"

"Yes," she replied without hesitation. "And I will not give it up, Jiang Wanyin. Neither today nor tomorrow. So if you have something to say, speak now."

He looked at her for a long time. Not as if she were a warrior. Not as a cultivator. Not even as a former fiancée.

As someone who didn't give in, despite everything.

"I don't know what I'm doing here," he muttered at last. "Maybe I really came to propose to you. Maybe I didn't. But... I want to know what's next."

This time, it was she who fell silent.

Because for the first time, he wasn't the one who had run away from the answer. 

--

The evening in Gusu was quiet, as usual. The moon hung high above the rooftops, illuminating the white walls and dark shingles of the pavilions. Everything smelled of paper, incense and the cool air that flowed down from the mountains.

Lan Wangji sat at a low table. The fire from the lantern illuminated her profile, sculpting a shadow on her cheek that looked almost too soft for someone who can fight with such precision.

Jiang Wanyin stood leaning against a pillar. In his hand he held something small wrapped in a dark cloth. He had been silent. For several minutes now.

She was waiting. She was not rushing. But his silence was different from what she was used to from the Lanes. It had a darkness about it. A heaviness. A history.

Finally, he moved.

Slowly he walked over to the table and placed the bundle in front of her.

"Do you remember this?" he asked, as if he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.

Lan Wangji unrolled the cloth. Inside lay a pin.

Silver, plain. Shaped like a plum branch - with a single tiny flower of white jade. Unobtrusive. Modest. But beautiful.

She took it in her hand, carefully, as if it weighed more than it should.

"I remember," she said quietly.

"I sent it to you... before we met in Gusu," Jiang Wanyin added, sitting down opposite her. "We already knew we were engaged. I never told you this, but... at the time I thought it would all be simpler."

Lan Wangji ran her finger over the edge of the pins.

"It was beautiful," she said. "I only wear simple things. But then I wore it."

"And then you gave it away," he said without a hint of anger.

"I didn't break the engagement," she replied, calmly, too calmly.

"But you wanted to."

She looked into his eyes. For a long time. She did not deny it.

"I thought it was because of Wei Wuxian," he said, tightening his hand on his knee. "That she was more important to you."

"She was my friend. And you...you let her go. You even banished her in public." She replied slowly. "You don't understand that, do you?"

"I understand all too well," he hissed. "That's why it hurts."

Silence again. But different from before. Now it was soft, like the darkness after a battle.

"I don't know how I feel about you," she said suddenly.

She didn't look at him, just stared at the hairpin.

"I can't really name it. Except... irritation. And your perpetual burping. That I know all too well."

"Mutually," he snorted quietly, almost amused. "You're like a wall. I've been bouncing off you since we've known each other."

"And you keep coming."

"Because I can't stop."

He said this one sentence quietly, almost breathlessly. And only then did their gazes meet again.Lan Wangji took the pin, folded it carefully and handed it back to him.

But he didn't take it.

"Keep it. If... you don't want to wear it, you don't have to. But it's yours. It always has been."

She didn't reply. But she didn't withdraw her hand. She left the pin on the table. Not as an admission. Not as a refusal.Just not yet.

--

The night in JingShi was mild. The moon stretched a milky streak across the sky, as if the sky wanted to wipe away all the contours of this world. The shadows of the trees danced silently on the floor, and a lantern hung by the entrance cast a soft light on the mats and cushions.

A-Yuan sat on his knees, arranged comfortably among the cushions, with his blanket half slipped off his shoulders. His hair was still damp from his bath, and his cheeks were flushed with warmth.

He held a jade rabbit figurine in his hands. Old, battered. But it was his. He had received it from Lan Wangji. And he did not part with it even when he slept.

Lan Wangji was sitting right next to him, combing his hair with a long dark wood comb. Her fingers moved slowly, with a precision that concealed softness.

A-Yuan did not speak for a while. He simply listened. In Gusu, even children were taught to listen to silence.

Finally, he spoke up in a whisper:

"I can't remember my name."

Her hand froze for a moment in mid-motion. She looked into his eyes through the reflection in the mirror.

"It's not important," she replied quietly.

"Does that mean I never have?" he asked.

"No. It means you have others now."

A-Yuan nodded seriously. Then he looked at the figure.

"But... does that mean I wasn't Lan before?"

Lan Wangji did not answer immediately. She slowly placed the comb on the tray and turned to face him. Her hand rested on his head.

"You don't have to remember to be."

"But you do remember," he said suddenly. "You remember everything. I know. Sometimes you look at me... as if you've seen something."

Her heart trembled. Gently. But clearly.

"I'm your A-Niang, of course I remember everything."

A-Yuan laughed quietly. "Really?"

The boy squatted next to her, leaning lightly against her side.

"But I'm not scared. It's just... sometimes I feel like I've lost something."

"A-Yuan seems to have lost something."

That one sentence - simple, innocent - sank into her like a drop into silence.

"What you don't remember," she said softly, "doesn't have to be lost. Sometimes... some things the heart remembers better than the mind."

A-Yuan was silent for a moment.

"The evil lord knew me too?" he asked.

Lan Wangji looked at him in surprise.

 "Why do you ask?"

"Because he looked at me the way you sometimes look at me."

Her fingers tightened slightly on his arm. So much pain, so much history trailing a shadow behind their backs - and the child could sense it all.

"Yes," she said finally. "He knew you. But at the time you were too young to remember it."

A-Yuan nodded. As if that was enough for him.

"I like him. But he's sad."

"Yes," she replied quietly. "He was."

And then the child snuggled into her shoulder, closing his eyes. The toy slipped from his hand. A-Yuan fell asleep, quietly, peacefully, in a world that had finally stopped rejecting him.

Lan Wangji remained like that, sitting beside him, with her hand in his hair. And for a long time... she did not move even a hair.

Chapter Text

He did not intend to follow the voice.

But he did. Maybe because he had been silent for too long. Maybe because he couldn't sleep. Maybe because this child had her eyes, even though she had nothing to do with her.

Jiang Wanyin walked quietly through the Gusu gardens, like a shadow, dodging disciples and patrolling masters. His steps were soft, his coat loosely buttoned, his hair loose, as if he was here unofficially. And he was. Because nothing was official here.

He stopped under the low window of JingShi. Through the paper-thin wall he could hear everything clearly. Lan Wangji's voice was quiet, soft, like a lullaby. A child's voice - light, a little nasal, tired from sleep.

"I don't remember what my name was," he said.

"It's not important."

"Does that mean I never had one?"

"No. It means you have a different one now."

Jiang Wanyin froze.

He felt his hand tighten on the material of his belt as his heart sped up.

It was the voice of a child who should have been an enemy. And the voice of a woman who should not have been a mother. But he couldn't tear himself away from that image - a voice that spoke calmly of the absence of the past.

And then... it all came back.

--

Screams.

The darkness.

The smell of burning scrolls. Blood. Wet earth.

A river full of corpses. The bodies of his men. His father's. His mother's. Which were shown to him. Desecrated, bloodied and spat on repeatedly. This is not how they should die, not them, not his parents. Later, a pile of bodies of people and disciples from Yunmeng, whom he was supposed to protect. He was the future leader of the sect. And he was the first to be rescued, the first to have the opportunity to return, but this time he could do absolutely nothing...he was helpless. Beaten almost into unconsciousness, but not killed, that would have been too much grace. 

He didn't know if it was day or night. In the stuffy, stinking cell, time was suspended. His own blood was sticky on the stone floor. His ribs ached with every breath. His lips were cracked, his face swollen from the blows. And yet... he was alive. Still.

When the door creaked open, he didn't raise his head. He knew who was entering. He knew the heavy, arrogant walk.

" And our little king from Yunmeng is still breathing" hissed Wang Lingjiao, leaning over him. "What perseverance."

Wen Chao laughed, sitting down comfortably on one of the hay bags.

" We are not done yet. Wen Zhuliu, move on. Let our guest know what it means to lose everything."

Jiang Wanyin tried to get up, but his body refused to obey. When Wen Zhuliu approached, the chill beating from his presence was almost physical.

And then... that hand. The hand that bore a name in legends: the core-melting hand.

It touched him just below his sternum. Not violently. Not with anger. As if it were a ritual. As if it were an operation and not torture.

He felt something inside him start to pull out. His spiritual energy, his qi began to surge, to jerk, and then... to burst.

"Don't... don't... I beg...!" he yelled out, as if his own vocal cords were ripping along with his meridians.

"Please! I'm begging you! Not this... everything, just not this...!" he wailed, and his voice broke down into a sob. It was not a human sound. It was more like the roar of a slaughtered animal. 

He felt his core melting, as if boiling water was spilling along his spine. A burning pain flooded his skull, his heart, his lungs, as if his body was trying to expel itself from itself.

Wen Chao giggled. Wang Lingjiao laughed to tears.

" Look at this pathetic trash. Future leader... and now he can't even stop shaking like a puppy!

" What? Did you think we were going to kill you?" she added in disgust. "That would have been too easy."

And then... it happened.

Something inside him went out. Not just qi. Something deeper. As if the sound of the inner sword had been suppressed forever. As if the core that once vibrated with pure power had disintegrated into silence.

And it remained. On the floor. Trembling. Silent. With a void where the future once was.

--

Jiang Wanyin awoke from a waking nightmare, breathing heavily. Almost immediately, his hand went to his abdomen, where he could feel the steady pulsing of his core. All he had to do was feel it, and all fears and anxieties began to subside.

His core was, whole and ready to be used. Thanks to Wei Wuxian…

As soon as this thought flashed through his head, he immediately felt anger. No, it was no thanks to her. He wasn’t supposed to be grateful to her for anything. She was the one who had left him, it was because of her that Wen Chao had insisted on the Jiang Sect, if only she had kept quiet….

"Jiang Wanyin?" He was snapped out of his thoughts by the soft voice of Lan Wangji, who had earlier spread open the door of his rooms. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," he replied sharply, quickly moving his hand away from his stomach, as if he had been caught in something embarrassing. "You shouldn't care."

Lan Wangji looked at him calmly, without the slightest trace of resentment, as composed as ever. There was, however, a shadow of concern in her eyes.

"You should rest. You look tired."

"Don't tell me what to do." - He burbled, but immediately added more gently: "Wen Yuan... He's asleep?"

"Yes. He's safe."

Jiang Wanyin clenched his teeth, repeating the child's name in his mind. Wen Yuan. He was not guilty of anything. He did not choose the family he was born into. He was not the one responsible for the sins of his clan. But he carried the name. It still reminded him of what he had lost.

"Wangji." - he spoke up more cautiously. "Are you sure you want to tie your life to this child?"

Lan Wangji looked him straight in the eyes, as if trying to read something from the depths of his soul.

"I can't imagine otherwise. He is already mine."

Jiang Wanyin clenched his fists, feeling grief and anger mix with something else. Something he didn't want to acknowledge.

"And the wedding?" - he asked suddenly, avoiding her gaze. "Do you really want that? After all, you know... that I don't love you. Just like you love me."

There was silence for a moment. Finally Lan Wangji replied, calmly but firmly:

"I know, you've never hidden it. But marriage would help both our sects. It would be beneficial."

"Is that really enough?" he muttered, feeling his heart beating faster. "Only benefits? Just... politics?"

Lan Wangji approached slowly, stopping just a step away from him.

"Not just politics," she admitted quietly. "But I know it may be different for you. And I accept that."

Jiang Wanyin looked away, suddenly unable to look at her. He knew that she deserved more than a cool understanding, that she deserved true love. Something he couldn't give her.

"I'm not worth what you're offering me." - he said quietly, almost in a whisper.

Lan Wangji slowly shook her head.

"It's not for you to decide, Jiang Wanyin. I have already decided."

Before he had time to reply, she turned and quietly walked back to her rooms, leaving him alone, standing in the dark with his own thoughts.

--

Jiang Wanyin rose early in the morning, feeling the weight of the decision he had made overnight. He walked quickly, resolutely, his face betraying no emotion as he stopped in front of Lan Xichen's office door. He took a deep breath, calming his trembling hands, and entered without hesitation.

Lan Xichen looked at him with a polite, if slightly surprised smile.

"Jiang-zongzhu. Is something the matter?" he asked calmly, putting down the scroll he had just studied.

"I came to make a request, Zewu-Jun," replied Jiang Wanyin firmly, though his voice was slightly strained.

"I'm listening." Lan Xichen indicated a seat for him, but Jiang Wanyin remained standing.

"I want to marry Lan Wangji."

Lan Xichen blinked slightly, clearly surprised by the directness and suddenness of these words. There was silence for a moment, and Jiang Wanyin forced himself not to look away.

"Does Lan Wangji know about this decision?" finally asked Lan Xichen, choosing his words delicately.

"We have spoken. She knows about my intentions. She is... ready to agree." Jiang Wanyin hesitated slightly, as if he himself was still trying to settle the thought.

Lan Xichen smiled softly, as if he could sense the tension behind the young leader Yunmeng Jiang's apparent certainty.

'Your proposal would benefit both our sects. However..." he suspended his voice, looking carefully at Jiang Wanyin. "Are you sure you want this? Marriage is not only a duty. It is also a responsibility towards the other person. Towards her feelings. Towards her future."

Jiang Wanyin clenched his fists behind his back, but nodded.

"I am aware of that. I would not do anything that would hurt Lan Wangji. I intend to protect and respect her. Even if our feelings... are different."

Lan Xichen looked at him for a long moment before finally nodding slowly.

"If you both agree to this, I have no reason to oppose your decision. I will discuss it with the Council of Elders. I am sure they will agree to your marriage."

Jiang Wanyin felt the tension slowly leave his body, although he wasn't sure if he was relieved or even more uncertain about his own decision.

"Thank you, Zewu-Jun." He nodded slightly, ready to leave.

"Jiang Wanyin." Lan Xichen's voice stopped him still in the doorway. "Take care of her. Lan Wangji doesn't show it, but she can be more fragile than you think."

Jiang Wanyin looked over, his gaze serious, full of determination.

"I will remember."

As the door closed behind him, Lan Xichen stared for a moment longer at the spot where the young sect leader Jiang had just stood. Then he sighed quietly and turned back to the scroll, although his thoughts were already quite elsewhere.

Chapter Text

It had only been three weeks since Jiang Wanyin had also declared before the elders of the Lan sect that he intended to marry Lan Wangji. What he didn't realise was that there was a huge relief in the hearts of all these people. The problem had resolved itself and now belonged to Jiang Wanyin. They were not going to wait for the sect leader Jiang to blurt out, so as soon as the young leader returned to the sect, preparations began for Lan Wangji's release.

Letters appeared. Invitations.

Disciples began whispering among themselves about the ceremony that was to shake up the entire cultivation world. Yunmeng Jiang and Gusu Lan - united not just by tradition, but by something that was hard to name and even harder to ignore.

The wedding was to take place in a month's time. Lan Wangji did not feel joy. Nor did she feel regret.

She was... empty. Focused. She tried to ignore any feelings as soon as their shadow appeared in her heart. She was the best at it, having learned it from an early age.

Lan Xichen asked her to the Silence Pavilion.

"I wanted to show you something," he said, standing at a low table. Behind him waited scrolls, caskets, and chests of intricately carved wood.

A-Yuan sat on a cushion next to him, playing with a fan he had folded from paper. When he saw Lan Wangji, he beamed.

"A-Niang!" he called out, running towards her with the enthusiasm that only a four-year-old child can contain.

"Watch the steps," she replied softly, grabbing him before he could stumble.

Lan Xichen smiled quietly. "He's fast. And he's become very attached to you."

"He's used to it," Lan Wangji said. But there was a note in her voice that not even she recognised.

Her brother nodded towards the crates.

"This is your dowry."

She looked at him in surprise. "I don't need..."

"I know you don't need it," he interrupted softly. "But according to the will of our A-Niang... your dowry is to be as big as our two pavilions."

Lan Wangji fell silent.

A-Yuan walked over to one of the chests and opened it with difficulty, fingers still clumsy. Inside shone fabrics - white, blue, silver. Silk from the south, embroidered by apprentices from the inner circle. Next to it, jade jewellery, thin as spider thread, carved by master craftsmen from Qinghe.

"Green!" exclaimed A-Yuan, pulling out a bracelet. "It's glowing! Like... like a frog!"

Lan Wangji took it from his hand gently. "It's not a toy."

"Frogaaaa..." he muttered and took up the fan again.

Lan Xichen sat down opposite her.

"A-Niang wanted you to receive more than duty. She knew the world would be cold to you. That's why she wanted us to give you what she didn't get."

These words hit her like cold air.

For suddenly she was a little girl again, standing at the door of her mother's room.

She watched her father visit her once a week. With silence. With obligation. With something that resembled compassion - but never love.

He had married her mother to save her.

And now...

Now Lan Wangji was looking at the boxes full of presents. And one statement was rumbling in her head.

Jiang Wanyin is also marrying her for every other reason. 

Because it's the right thing to do.

Because Yunmeng needs a lasting ally in the form of GusuLan.

Not because he desires her.

Not because he knows her.

Lan Wangji folded her hands in her lap. She didn't understand why her heart squeezed at that thought. Wasn't she doing the same thing? Like her mother, doesn't she marry a man just to save a life? To save her child?

"Thank you for your efforts, Xichen-ge." Her voice was calm, but inside... she felt like porcelain whose crack cannot be seen until boiling water is poured into it.

Lan Xichen inclined his head.

"Do with it what you will. But don't let your heart be silent again out of duty."

A-Yuan pulled himself up on his knees beside her, grabbing her hand.

"A-Niang... take this. Frogaaa..."

She smiled slightly. Not because of the bracelet.

Because of the fact that one little being in this world still spoke to her with a simplicity that all the adults had long since abandoned.

Lan Wangji was left alone.

Lan Xichen had already left, and A-Yuan had been taken by Min to the evening herbal baths. The pavilion was quiet, and the dowry chests remained open, as if the house itself wanted her to look at them again. Deeper. More carefully.

She knelt before them. Slowly.

She slid open the lid of one of the larger caskets - the one with the fabrics. The fine silk moved under her fingers like water. Blues, greys, milky whites. Embroideries in the shape of cranes, plums, the moon.

Her hands did not shake. But something squeezed in her chest.

She looked at a necklace of blue jade.

At the lotus-patterned bracelet.

At the diadem she would probably never wear. She hated such trinkets, though she couldn't help looking at them. There was no place for them in GusuLan. Modesty is a must.

Everything was beautiful. Sophisticated. Worthy of a sect leader's bride.

Wei Wuxian would have laughed.

Lan Wangji bowed her head and closed her eyes for a moment.

Sisters-in-law. That's what she would say."Oh no," she heard that voice in her own memory. Warm, lively, full of a cheeky smile. "I'll call you A-Jie!"

She saw it. Clearly.

Her hair in disarray, her smile wider than etiquette allowed, her knees pulled up to her chin - like when they sat together in the cave, surrounded by the Xuanwu of Slaughter.

"You know, it's funny," Wei Wuxian said the other day, "because they say your sect doesn't know emotions. And I... feel calm around you."

"It's not emotions that are forbidden," Lan Wangji replied to her then. "It's the lack of restraint."

"Well, that's good," she added. Wuxian sighed. "Because I always exaggerate anyway."

They were silent for a while.

Then Wei Wuxian added, almost in a whisper:

"If you ever really marry Jiang Wanyin, I think... I'll be happy. Yes. It would be a strange world, but... maybe a good one."

"Why?"

"Because you're both too proud to admit that you're single. Maybe together... you won't be anymore."

"I'm not lonely," Lan Wangji replied quickly. Too quickly which made Wei Wuxian start to giggle.

Lan Wangji opened her eyes. Back in the Jade Pavilion.

She pressed her fingers against the silk, the colour of which reminded her of the morning sky in Yunmeng.

Wei Wuxian will not see the ornaments.

He will not mock the red of her robes. He will not call her A-Jie. They will never sit together in silence again.

"Would you be happy?" she asked in a whisper. Not expecting an answer.

"Would you really enjoy... seeing me at his side?"

Silence answered her.

But in it - there was also a warm note. One that only she knew.

And maybe... maybe that was enough.

---

The late afternoon in Yunmeng Jiang was the colour of heated mud. Damp heat poured from the sky, heavy with memories, and the bamboos growing by the main hall moved lazily, without conviction. Even the wind had no courage today.

Jiang Wanyin sat alone in his father's former room.

Not out of sentiment. Just because the room was quiet. No one came there unnecessarily.

On the table in front of him were papers related to the wedding preparations. Guest lists. Seals. Sketches of robes. Proposals for coats of arms for the combined sections. All neatly arranged, tied up with ribbons. Flawless.

Next to these things - chenqing.

A black flute. Bent slightly at the mouthpiece, with a scratch at the end. Its wood still smelled of smoke and mist, and Jiang Wanyin's fingers knew every scratch.

It was the only thing he had left of it.

He touched it slowly, running his finger over the cool varnished wood. He hadn't played it. Ever. But sometimes he held it in his hand as if that was enough to feel her again - the one he knew... and the one he had lost.

Wei Wuxian.

Smiling like a child when the world was dying.

Flustered. And brilliant. Treacherous. And loyal.

She left him. Choosing everything else but him.

And now... now he was to marry Lan Wangji.

Fate could be perverse.

He took a deep breath and raised his flute. Not to his lips - but as if he wanted to try it on his shoulder. As he had once seen her play.

He closed his eyes.

The memory came all too easily. The sound of the flute. The ghosts following the melody. His own annoyance when she did something wrong again - but with such charm that he couldn't stay angry for long.

And then the image of the Mounds. Her scream.

Her face when she knew it was over.

And the ghosts that tore her apart.

He opened his eyes. He stared into the flute.

He wasn't crying. He was no longer a boy. Crying was a luxury he had left behind in a river full of bodies.

But this flute...He took it in his hands and squeezed it.

He couldn't throw it away. He couldn't give it back. He couldn't forget.

And now he was to stand before everyone as the husband of Lan Wangji - a woman he did not love, but whose silence he respected.

And who looked at A-Yuan the way he had once looked at Wei Wuxian.

Maybe that's why he agreed. Maybe that's why he continued to sit here instead of running away.

Not out of love. Not out of obligation.

Out of memory. The flute trembled in his hand.

"If you were here..." he said in a half-hearted voice. "You would have laughed at it all. You'd call she A-Jie, you'd run with A-Yuan and you'd forget that you were once mortal."

He clasped his hand.

"And I would still hate you for the fact that she loves you."

He put the flute back down. Carefully. Like a relic.

He stood up. He dressed himself. Not with pride. With readiness.

Because even if his heart wasn't sure, his legs carried him on.

And that had to be enough.

Jiang Wanyin sat in silence with his hand resting on his chin, his gaze fixed on the empty courtyard where the shadows of the trees drew uneven lines on the stones. The wind brought the scent of wet leaves and incense - the same scent that once carried Wei Wuxian's laughter.

He thought it was over. So many times already. That she was really gone. That this time, finally, there would be silence.

But she was never easy to banish from his heart, even when it hurt. Even when his hatred was louder than his memories.

Wei Wuxian was like a flood - she might disappear for a while, but she always left mud underfoot. She always came back. In conversations. In Jin Ling's eyes. In the twitch of his fingers when he touched her flute.

No. She had not disappeared.

And perhaps that was what drove him mad most of all.Just before midnight, one of the students burst into the main hall with a face as pale as ash and hands shaking from terror.

"Zongzhu," he wheezed out, "According to your order, one has fallen into our hands. he doesn’t look like her, but…, but it practices the same..."

Jiang Wanyin needed no more words.

He was brought to a cell under the training room - a place that had once been used to store weapons. Now it was cool, damp, with a single lantern that cast a yellow glow on the walls.

The demonic cultivator was young. Maybe twenty-something years old. Body lean, fingers long. Eyes - red from spiritual poisoning.

He had a black flute hanging from his belt, covered with engraved symbols that looked like a clumsy imitation of a chenqing.

Jiang Wanyin stood in front of him. In silence.

For a moment he said nothing. He just stared.

And then, slowly, he slipped the zidian off his finger.

For the first time, purple lightning passed through the air like a heartbeat.

Zidian hissed. It wrapped itself around Jiang Wanyin's wrist, as if it could sense what he carried inside him: anger. Fear. Grief.

The whip struck.

Once.

The cultivator's body jerked in its bonds, a scream reverberated off the walls.

A second time.

A third.

The fourth.

"You're not her," growled Jiang Wanyin. "But... you look like one. Like you want to be."

The cultivator spat blood. He tried to speak, but the zidian tensed again and cut the air.

"Who are you trying to be?" shouted Jiang Wanyin. "Yiling Laozu? A spirit of vengeance? Kicking someone you don't understand!"

The boy's eyes were blank. But Jiang Wanyin wasn't looking at them. He was seeing something else.

He saw ghosts.

He heard laughter.

He smelled ash.

Wei Wuxian.

She always came back. In whispers. In dreams. In the spiritual energy that pricked his temples.

"Where are you?" he said more quietly. "In which of these bodies? Which one of these monsters have you hidden in, eh!"

Zidian sparks danced in the air.

He didn't want forgiveness.

He didn't want solace.

He wanted - if only for a moment - to believe that he had a chance to see her again... and this time to kill her with his own hands.

Not as punishment. Not as revenge.

As justice.

As a sacrifice he will make himself. For Jiang Yanli. For Jin Zixuan. For himself.

Zidian fluttered around his shoulder like a living ghost.

The body in front of him was bloodied, the soul torn apart, but he was still speaking:

"Your path. Your power. It burned everything. Everything you touched."

"And they... they continue to follow you." His voice trembled. "As if you were a legend. As if they can't see it was just poison. For everyone."

He held up his hand.

The cultivator's flute fell to the ground with a deafening clatter.

Jiang Wanyin did not pick it up. He just watched.

As if he was waiting for the spirit to come out of his body. Until he heard her voice again. He heard nothing.

Because this body - like every other body - was not hers.

But someday she would return. He was sure of it.

---

The corridors of Yunmeng Jiang were drowning in silence at this time of day, broken only by the distant echo of a trickle of water seeping from the bamboo gutters and the single caw of a raven flying over the rooftops. Jiang Wanyin crossed the threshold of the Sword Testing Hall with a heaviness in his movements that was not brought on by the fatigue of his body, but something much deeper - something that had grown into his shoulders like a steel thorn, difficult to remove, even when the war was long gone.

His hands, still stained with the dried blood of a demonic cultivator, did not tremble. Justice required no hesitation. Justice had the face of a sister who would never return, and Wei Wuxian's eyes that looked back at him from too many memories.

The disciple appeared almost silently, bowing with caution.

"Jiang-zongzhu," he began in a lowered voice. " Jin GuangYao from Lanling has sent a message. He requests to meet at the guest pavilion. Urgent."

Jiang Wanyin raised an eyebrow. The chill that oozed down his neck did not come from the wind.

Jin GuangYao sat in the pavilion with the grace of someone who knew every inch of the carpet beneath his feet. The tea, as always, was perfectly brewed - too perfect for a place where there should be no hospitality.

"Jiang-zongzhu," he said with a smile so thin it was almost transparent. "I know how valuable your time is, so I'll get straight to the point."

Jiang Wanyin did not take a seat. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, as if he was marking the boundary with his shadow alone.

"Chenqing." Jin GuangYao reached for a cup, but did not take a drink. "Wei Wuxian left it with you. With all due respect, I think this is not the right place for such a... problematic artefact."

"Chenqing is secured," replied Jiang Wanyin briefly. "There is no danger."

Jin GuangYao raised his gaze, this time no longer playing a smile. "It's not about security. It's about what it represents. Chenqing Wei Wuxian is a symbol of demonic cultivation, a symbol of betrayal... and a symbol of a past not worth revisiting."

"Lan Wangji was also her past," replied Jiang Wanyin coolly. "Yet she will remain Madam Jiang."

A shadow appeared on Jin GuangYao's face. "All the more so. If Lan Wangji becomes your wife, she should have a home free of what you had in common with Wei Wuxian. A house of purity. The future should not be obscured by the shadow of... unhealthy closeness."

This one sentence, spoken with exaggerated gentleness, hit harder than a shout.

Jiang Wanyin did not move. But something in his eyes cracked - not like glass, but like a frozen river finally bursting from within.

"I won't give it back," he said calmly, almost in a whisper.

"Forgive me, but I don't understand. Why do you need something that belonged to her?"

"Because she will come back."

Jin GuangYao froze.

"She's not coming back for the sword," Jiang Wanyin continued, "Not for the clothes. Not for the amulets. She will come back for the one thing she couldn't live without."

"Chenqing."

"Yes."

Jin GuangYao leaned back slightly, as if to encompass the entirety of this decision with his gaze. "And then what?" he asked quietly. "Will you give it to her?"

Jiang Wanyin slowly raised his gaze. His voice was so calm that it was painful.

"Then I will kill her."

For a moment, nothing existed in the pavilion but a pulsing silence.

“With my own hands,” he said. “And this time, I won’t hesitate.”

Jin GuangYao did not reply. Because for the first time in this conversation - he really had nothing to say.

Chapter Text

The main chamber of Jinlintai, though lit by rows of golden lanterns, seemed more like a battlefield than a place of rest today. Each of Jin Guangshan's footsteps echoed off the marble walls, and the heavy scent of incense couldn't mask the anger that followed him like smoke from smoldering rage.

“So much has been said about the power of that cursed witch!” he shouted before Jin GuangYao could say anything. ”She tore the seal to shreds, dragged half the world into the grave, and us? What do we get? You can't even get a fucking flute!”

Jin GuangYao stood calmly, his hands clasped behind his back, his head bowed slightly—not out of humility, but out of a calculated sense of timing. He knew his father needed to vent. To burn like a torch. Only then would it be possible to pick up the ashes and make new plans.

“I was close,” he said quietly but clearly. ”Jiang Wanyin keeps him out of sight. He acts as if he were a sacred relic, as if he expects her to come back for him.”

Jin Guangshan stopped in his tracks and turned abruptly, as if those words had angered him more than any lie.

“Come back?” he snarled. ”If she comes back, there won't even be a shadow left to bury! I thought that if she disappeared, at least something would remain. The flute. The seal. Anything! And you can't even get that out of the boy we should have in our pocket!”

Jin GuangYao raised his gaze, in which lurked a shadow too subtle to be called rebellion, but too distinct to be overlooked.

“Jiang Wanyin is no longer so easy to manipulate, father. He... thinks. Too much.”

“Not only are you a bastard, you can't even do one simple thing! If you had even a drop of Jin Zixuan's blood, everything would already be in our hands!” Jin Guangshan growled, pacing the room like a tiger unable to find an outlet for his rage.

Jin Guangyao raised his head, and a polite, almost pitiful smile appeared on his lips — the same one he had learned to use when the world gave him no other means of survival.

It's funny, he thought. Zixuan is dead, and I'm still breathing. But he was the “real” son. The one who was mourned. The one who could be loved without shame.

“It wasn't enough for you to disgrace the name of our sect,” Jin Guangshan hissed, stopping right in front of him. ”Now you're handing Lan Wangji over to Jiang Wanyin! The future Lady Jiang?! She should be ours. The Lans were our target. Our allies!”

“She was never anyone's, Father,” Jin Guangyao replied quietly, calmly—with the same courtesy that some took for submissiveness and others for a mask they couldn't pierce.

Jin Guangshan froze for a split second, as if unable to believe that his illegitimate son had dared to raise his voice.

Then he struck.

Not with fury, not with brutality — with cold contempt. With an open hand. Quietly, without warning, without force. But hard enough to make Jin Guangyao's mouth fill with blood.

He didn't flinch. He didn't move away. He swallowed the blood as he had swallowed every humiliation since the day he was born.

“You've always been weak,” Jin Guangshan said, stepping back with a theatrical sigh. ”And now you're just pathetic. The Jin sect is losing influence because you, my own son, are preoccupied with trinkets and sentimental junk instead of pulling what you can out of the fire.”

Jin Guangyao slowly raised his eyes. His face remained calm, like the surface of water, but something in his eyes broke—a tiny, barely visible tension, like a microscopic crack in porcelain that nevertheless heralds an impending break.

“In that case...” Jin Guangshan turned toward the window, where the rising sun cast a golden glow over the roofs of Jinlintai. ‘It's time to try other solutions. Send for him.”

“Who?’ asked Jin Guangyao, though he already knew the answer.

“Mo Xuanyu.”

The silence in the chamber suddenly thickened. Not because of surprise—Jin Guangyao was not a man who could be surprised. But because suddenly everything took on a whole new meaning.

“You want him to return to the residence?” he asked politely.

“I want him to be useful,” Jin Guangshan said, as if he were talking about an old horse that was no longer worth breeding but could still be harnessed to a cart for one last ride. ”You always said you had a plan. Show me that your plans are worth anything.”

Jin Guangyao smiled. A smile full of sweetness. Too sweet.

“Of course. I'll give the order right away.”

Jin Guangshan nodded superiorly and left the chamber without another word.

Jin Guangyao was left alone.

And when the door closed, his smile slowly faded.

I may be a bastard, father. I may have been born in the mud. But it's not the mud that's suffocating you — it's your own noose, which you happily tie around your own neck.

You just don't know yet that I'm holding the end of it.