Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Lan Xichen has been in seclusion for six months the first time he notices the visitor.

He sits at his desk with his guqin and his sword laying atop the dark wood. Each is coated in a thin layer of dust. He is trying to bring himself to polish them, but each time he reaches for one, he is hit with memories he would rather keep trapped beneath the floorboards like Wangji’s stash of Emperor’s Smile.

Through the open window, he sees a smudge of black.

He’s feeling braver today. Hesitantly, he looks up, expecting to see his brother-in-law on his way from the Jingshi to the main grounds.

Instead of Wei Wuxian’s exuberant smile, he finds the stiff gait of a fierce corpse. In that split second, all he registers is that this corpse is not Wen Qionglin.

His hand twitches for Shuoyue, but it skitters off the carved hilt as A-Yao’s face flashes across his memory like lightning in a blue sky. Breath escapes him. For a moment, he’s spiraling. It’s been months, but he’s still on the floor of the temple staring at a pile of debris. Still horrified and betrayed and grieving.

He forces his gaze up, seeking the fierce corpse. If no one else is around, then he must tend to this himself. He blinks as the figure steps into the sunlight, locks eyes with him, and bows.

Song Zichen stands on a small, residential path in Cloud Recesses. He carries his horsetail whisk and wears black robes just as he did during Xue Yang’s trial in Lanling. Lan Xichen’s panic is replaced by surprise.

The sunlight glints off of the crossed swords he wears, and Lan Xichen’s heart pangs with sympathetic grief. When their eyes meet across the bursting pink garden, the man’s expressionless face still somehow conveys concern.

For a corpse, he looks quite well. Probably better kempt than Lan Xichen, at present. If not for the gray tinge to his skin and the hint of black veins at his neck, one might never know Song Zichen’s heart ceased beating almost a decade ago.

Lan Xichen’s own heart rate calms as he bows in reply.

For a moment, though they have never exchanged a word, Lan Xichen feels that their souls are two strings, plucked by a cruel hand, resonating in the still summer air.

“Song Lan,” a voice calls. Though it is distant, he would know Wei Wuxian’s voice anywhere.

Lan Xichen recoils from the window.

“Wait up a moment! I found the talisman I wanted you to test.”

These days, he does not think ill of Wangji’s husband, but he cannot presently bear to see Mo Xuanyu’s face, even lit with Wei Wuxian’s soul. Especially not when he smiles.

Song Zichen’s dark eyes watch him for a moment longer before he turns to Wei Wuxian’s approaching form.

Lan Xichen retreats to his tea set and pours with shaking hands. A curl of self-loathing crawls up his spine like a lover’s hand, wrapping around his throat.

How dare he hide from the world like this when Song Zichen, more dead than alive, can still put one foot in front of the other after years spent as a madman’s puppet. After his home was razed and his soulmate was ripped away, he still stands for justice. He still carries on.

Lan Xichen can’t even pick up his sword.

He drinks his over-steeped tea and stares at the far wall until his ghosts blur into the paper panes.

…

In seclusion, the days are meaningless.

He receives trays of food at his door thrice daily. He manages to keep food in his stomach for perhaps two of those three meals.

Inedia sustains him when he cannot bear to eat. When his stomach is tied in knots, he feeds his core instead, settling into a meditation so deep he almost cannot feel the hands clutching his sleeves. Cannot feel the weight of his guilt, drowning him like a waterborne abyss.

The days bleed, as always, into weeks and months. The blooming garden begins to wither as the summer cools into autumn.

When Song Zichen next visits, Wen Qionglin is walking at his side. Lan Xichen considers the pair.

Both men are dead. Both men shouldn’t exist. Their undead lives are an abomination to the tenets under which Lan Xichen and his sect live.

And yet, Lan Xichen is grateful that they were kept from true death. The world would not be made better by their cremation.

Through Wen Qionglin, Sizhui can finally learn the culture of his natal ancestors. Through him, Wei Wuxian has a friend who has seen him at his worst and stayed true. Through his actions, Jin Ling lives. Indeed, the world would be a much bleaker place had he been burned with his sister fourteen years ago.

Though Lan Xichen does not know Song Zichen, he knows the reputation the man once had. He knows that he is cut from the same cloth as Wangji and Wuxian. He will break before he bends, never straying from righteousness.

Though his companion does not notice the gaze tracking their steps, Song Zichen finds Lan Xichen’s eye unerringly.

Just for a moment, Lan Xichen, standing in the shadows of his own home, is not alone. He gasps, feeling like he has been caught.

Song Zichen nods respectfully to him and continues on the path toward the Jingshi.

Lan Xichen stays away from his window for the rest of the week, lest he be so seen once more.

…

The leaves begin to change color and fall in earnest, and Lan Xichen is finally able to sleep for more than a few hours at a time, even if his dreams leave him weeping when he wakes.

Long ago, Mingjue had held him tight when all he could see behind his eyelids was his home burning down around him. White robes splattered red. Mingjue had squeezed him tight until he could pull himself out of his memories and back into his body.

And he had repaid him by teaching A-Yao how to wield the weapon that murdered him.

Lan Xichen had gone to A-Yao’s bed in the throes of grief for a man he murdered. Blinded by trust and devotion and a grief he believed to be mutual.

Foolish, he thinks each night as he falls asleep long, long after curfew. Useless, he thinks when he wakes at dawn, exhausted and so full of emotions that he tips over into feeling empty.

One crisp autumn morning, Lan Xichen wakes when a knock sounds at his door. The rap is singular and restrained.

Wangji.

He rises from bed, but he does not bother to dress nor to draw up his uncombed hair.

He kneels before his door and wishes he felt worthy of opening it.

He had failed Wangji and Wuxian just like he had failed the rest of the world. He had helped slaughter innocents. He had been there to keep his brother and his soulmate apart.

He was there for the first Siege of the Burial Mounds. He had taken his men to erase this villain. This one mistake his brother made.

He had seen for himself, as Jin warriors set fire to straw huts and razed scraggly radish fields, that no Wen soldiers ever greeted them. He had bloodied his sword on long-dead corpses and watched so-called righteous men and women slaughter elderly farmers.

And he had closed his eyes to it.

He had carved punishment on his brother’s skin for the crime of protecting a man more righteous than the one Xichen had confided in.

“Xiongzhang,” his brother begins. There is a note of pleading that Wangji is trying to hide. Xichen feels tears burning his eyes, but he refuses to weep.

Lan Xichen places his palm against the screen and watches his brother’s silhouette mirror it.

For a moment, he is small. For a moment, he’s the one outside, and it is his mother whose palm he can almost feel through the paper.

A tear drips down his cheek, but he keeps his silence.

“I am sorry to disturb you,” Wangji finally says. “Wei Ying and I have just returned from Moling. We were aided on our nighthunt by one of the children from the orphanage.” Lan Xichen already knows in his bones that this young lady will be offered shelter in the Cloud Recesses. He can hear it in Wangji’s voice. “She does not have any family to return to, nor even a surname.” Wangji pauses uncharacteristically, and Lan Xichen’s fingers flex against the paper, reaffirming his presence. “Wei Ying and I have decided to adopt her.”

Lan Xichen cups a hand over his mouth.

Wangji draws a breath, but his words halt. “I hope she can come to know you as her uncle as Sizhui does.”

A niece. He has a niece.

Wangji’s hand withdraws, and he bows and stands. “Farewell.”

“Wait,” Lan Xichen croaks.

Wangji’s shadow stills.

His throat aches after months of silence and sobs, but he forces the words from his raw vocal cords. “Her name?”

“Lan Yujin,” Wangji says, his voice warm. He can almost picture the gentle, fond expression on his brother’s face.

Almost.

Lan Xichen dashes the tears from his cheeks as he stands and pulls the door open before he has a chance to question himself.

Wangji’s eyes are wide in the late morning light. He looks tired, but settled. No longer restless. No longer wandering constantly now that the chaos has come home to him.

The last time he hugged his brother had been during the war. Physical affection does not come naturally, but Wangji doesn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around Xichen when he stumbles into his younger brother’s embrace.

“Xiongzhang?”

“I missed you,” Lan Xichen confesses to his brother’s hair.

He feels hot tears against his neck, and he squeezes Wangji tighter.

“Missed you,” Wangji echoes.

They step apart, and Lan Xichen admires Wangji’s robes. They are more blue than white these days, and for a moment, he thinks they have traded places.

But that is unfair to them both.

Good, he thinks, instead. Wangji deserves to put his mourning clothes away. Lan Xichen hopes they are not needed again for many, many years.

“How old is Lan Yujin?” he asks.

Neither of them are yet ready to discuss this past year and how little it has tempered his tempestuous mind.

“Soon to be six,” Wangji says. “We are hosting a naming ceremony for her in a month’s time.” Wangji ends the statement and doesn’t let it become a question.

“I will be there,” Lan Xichen promises.

Wangji doesn’t quite manage to mask his relief. “Thank you, Xiongzhang.”

“Of course.”

…

A week before Lan Yujin is officially added to the clan registry, Lan Xichen spots Song Zichen from his window for the third time.

It has not been a season since he last visited, and this time, he is not alone.

Spirits do not belong in the Cloud Recesses. Most cannot enter the grounds at all, let alone stand visible in the afternoon sun.

Still, an adolescent girl traipses ahead of Song Zichen. Her hands move rapidly, and it takes Lan Xichen a moment to register the gestures as a language and not mere exuberance.

Since neither party possesses a tongue, Song Zichen’s hands move, too. Where the girl is hurried and sharp, his hands move with a steady deliberation.

Lan Xichen wonders how long it took to regain such fine motor control in rigid joints.

There is a ghost in the Cloud Recesses, and she bounces up to Wei Wuxian, who ruffles her hair in reply, like they are old friends.

This, thinks Lan Xichen, must be A-Qing.

For the ghost of a mutilated child, she looks well. Solid. Her spirit betrays only the barest glimpse of the shrubbery behind her.

She signs something that has Wei Wuxian cackling loud enough that Lan Xichen half expects Shufu to materialize to scold the man.

From the stories, Lan Xichen recalls that she had been blinded before her death.

Something must have changed, because now, she’s clearly looking around the Cloud Recesses and responding to Song Zichen’s gestures with her own.

Yujin bends forward from her perch on Wei Wuxian’s shoulders, and A-Qing reaches for her.

Lan Xichen tenses, but then A-Qing tweaks the child’s nose, and Yujin squawks in outrage and retreats with a haughty air not dissimilar from the way Wangji was as a child.

The adults watch in amusement, and Sizhui carefully helps his scowling sister down from Wei Wuxian’s shoulders so she can hide behind Wangji’s legs.

Wei Wuxian slings an arm around the boy and says something that makes Sizhui look both bashful and proud.

Guilt lances through Lan Xichen.

He was one of the reasons why Lan Sizhui grew up never knowing the family that was taken from him. He had supported the siege that cut them down like a scythe culling grains.

From the moment his brother arrived begging for the life of a feverish child, Lan Xichen knew whose child he had been. After all, Sizhui’s sweet, crooked smile was learned from the boy who once threw loquats at Wangji.

Just as anyone who spends more than a few hours with them can tell Wei Wuxian and Jiang Wanyin were raised together, so too is it obvious the hand Wei Wuxian had in molding Sizhui into the righteous young man he is today.

After all the violence and cover-ups, Lan Sizhui still wears a forehead ribbon and lives as a paragon of the virtues most Lans fail to grasp.

But then, he is Wen. Resilient, tenacious, and healing. So, too, is he Wangji and Wuxian’s son. Unimpeachable, convicted, and compassionate.

In the distance, a bell heralds midday.

Lan Xichen swallows his nerves and the dregs of his tea as he makes his way to his front door.

He has been invited to join them for lunch, if he would like.

He has yet to meet his niece properly, and each day his fear of the world outside clashes with his need to not be like his father. He doesn’t want to be like their mother either, kept from Wangji and his family in punishment. Though this child is not his, he still wants to know her.

His hand shakes when he clings to the doorframe.

He was not expecting his brother to have company.

Discomfort claws at his skin as he tries to imagine crossing the threshold of his home. To be so exposed once more. To play the role of Sect Leader Lan once more.

His shoulders ache with the weight of the world he failed once already. He feels himself folding like Huaisang’s blood-splattered fan.

A pattering of little feet approach his door, and Lan Yujin calls quietly, “Bofu, are you coming? Diedie is making lotus ribs!” He cannot help smiling at her enthusiasm for the meal.

Wei Wuxian laughs as his footsteps follow. “Lotus root and pork rib soup, kiddo. And braised tofu with grilled vegetables for my Lans.”

He can see their silhouettes on the other side of the door, and he smiles a little as his niece turns to her father and stamps one tiny foot. “But I don’t like vegetables, Baba.”

Wuxian scoops her up and smacks audible kisses to her cheeks. “Then you’ll never grow big and strong like your Diedie or Da-Ge.”

“Does Bofu eat his vegetables?” she asks with the blatant incredulity of a child.

“Mhm! He’s big and strong just like Diedie.”

“Really?”

Lan Xichen smiles as he steadies his shaking hand long enough to open the door. “I suppose some might call me strong. Though only when I eat my vegetables,” he says, winking.

“Bofu!” She gasps in delight, her dark eyes going wide as she scrambles down from Wei Wuxian’s hip to bow clumsily, and far more deeply than he would ever demand of a child, especially family.

When she straightens, Lan Xichen is immediately taken by her smile and the smattering of freckles across her nose. She’s currently missing a front tooth, and the gap reminds him of when Sizhui lost his first.

“Hello, Lan Yujin,” he says, bowing to his niece.

“You really do look like Diedie! But… smiley,” she decides. “I thought Baba was teasing again,” Lan Yujin confides. She shifts on her feet in a way that would have gotten Lan Xichen scolded as a child, and yet he only finds it endearing. “Are you hungry? I’m hungry.”

He cannot help the puff of a laugh that escapes. “I could eat.”

She holds out her hand, and Lan Xichen takes it, letting himself be tugged away from his empty home.

Wangji and Wuxian share a smile that Lan Xichen pretends not to notice.

Song Zichen bows at his approach. Lan Xichen almost reaches to catch his elbows, but stops in time. Song Zichen is known to dislike the touch of others, not unlike Wangji, albeit for different reasons.

There is not another reason why Lan Xichen freezes in the familiar motion.

“Please,” he croaks instead. “No need for that.”

A-Qing is the only ghost currently in the Cloud Recesses, and Lan Xichen vows to keep it that way until he is once more behind his closed door.

Up close, he sees that the girl cannot have been more than fourteen or fifteen years old.

Young like Jin Ling had been when…

Well. Just young. Too young.

Lan Xichen bows to Song Zichen and then to A-Qing. “You are most welcome here.”

A-Qing and Song Zichen make identical motions with their hands.

“Thank you,” Wei Wuxian translates.

Lan Xichen takes Lan Yujin’s hand once more. It almost doesn’t shake.

…

Lunch is a quiet affair, which Lan Xichen knows is for his benefit.

While their guests can’t speak with chopsticks in their hands, Wei Wuxian would happily carry the conversation on his own. Today, he merely eats quietly while moving particularly good bits of food onto his children’s plates. Wangji places more spiced meat on Wei Wuxian’s plate whenever his attention is diverted.

It’s terribly domestic in a way that makes Lan Xichen miss his childhood with his mother and Shufu. Back then, he didn’t have to make decisions harder than which socks to put on and which brush to write with.

Yujin squirms a little whenever she catches herself slumping, but for a new addition to their clan, she is diligent. Beside her, A-Qing giggles, her keen eyes crinkling with amusement.

After Sizhui clears the dishes, A-Qing and Yujin settle themselves on the porch with a card game. Sizhui sits at the threshold with a book. Close enough to watch the girls and to hear the adults.

Wei Wuxian’s smile grows bittersweet as he turns from the children back to Song Zichen. “How are you faring?”

Song Zichen’s hands move for a long minute, and Wei Wuxian’s eyes narrow as he hums thoughtfully. Lan Xichen watches in fascination as his brother-in-law signs his reply as he says it. “As I suspected. The colder weather affects your joints like Wen Ning’s. Did the talismans help?”

Song Zichen nods and then adds more through sign.

“Ah. So they work better in dry climates. That makes sense. I’ll add a layer to account for the humidity.”

Wangji procures paper and fresh ink, which earns him a smile and a peck on the cheek that Lan Xichen and Song Zichen pretend not to see. Lan Sizhui smiles, though his eyes appear to be resting on his book.

Wei Wuxian scribbles down his thoughts and then turns his gaze to the qiankun bag on Song Zichen’s lap. “How is he?”

Song Zichen was not an expressive man in life, nor is he one in death. Still, he looks noticeably distraught.

“May I?”

Song Zichen gently places the bag in Wei Wuxian’s palms.

Lan Xichen is startled for a moment. Wei Wuxian is delicate with the dead, that is true, but he is taken aback by the sheer level of trust. He cannot imagine handing something so precious to anyone else.

But then Wei Wuxian is Xiao Xingchen’s martial family, distant though the relation may be.

Wei Wuxian’s eyes close, and when his expression softens, Lan Xichen looks away before he can recall waking to a similarly soft face sharing the pillow beside his.

He stands and makes his way to the girls. He feels two pairs of eyes watching him go, he pretends he cannot feel their weight.

His niece sits in a sprawl that mirrors A-Qing’s, and there’s a pile of discards between their skirts.

It is impressive how much control A-Qing has over her form. He gets the impression that this is a recent development.

“Qing-Jiejie is the second-best at cards!” Yujin declares when Lan Xichen sits beside them.

“Second-best?” Lan Xichen queries at the same time A-Qing makes an indignant noise.

His niece nods with grave seriousness. “Ling-Gege is the best. He taught me!”

“Oh? When did he teach you?”

“At the inn! Baba and Diedie were drawing pictures, so Ling-Gege stayed with me.”

“That was very nice of him.”

“Mhmm!”

A-Qing huffs, and gestures to herself.

Yujin tilts her head, and her red hair ribbons tilt with it.

The ghost then proceeds to teach Yujin a barely legal gambit that may fly on the streets, but is most certainly not allowed in the gentry games.

“Whoa! Qing-Jiejie is amazing!” Yujin declares, playing the same gambit in the next round.

Sizhui looks put-upon, Yujin looks delighted, and A-Qing looks smug enough that it breaks a rule about humility.

Nearly against his will, Lan Xichen laughs.

It’s a small sound, and it makes his chest ache, but it is a good ache. Like a muscle being warmed and stretched after disuse.

While A-Qing is clearly playing to lose, she’s clever enough not to let Yujin see that. She’s also teaching Yujin more advanced techniques.

Lan Xichen has played cards with Jin Ling. While he’s hardly untrained, his talents lay elsewhere.

A-Qing, on the other hand, is as quick as she is clever. She could probably best Shufu, though perhaps not if she was barred from using street moves.

After a few more minutes, where the sun sinks lower behind the mountains, Yujin wins.

“Da-Ge! Da-Ge, did you see? I won!” She crawls over to Sizhui and shakes his arm.

He laughs and pets her head. “Well-played, Meimei.”

As Yujin gloats, Lan Xichen returns his attention to their ghostly guest. A-Qing’s grinning as she shuffles the cards. Her eyes are noticeably pale, but he does not find them unsettling. People had often thought Wangji’s pale eyes were strange when he was young, but Lan Xichen is used to looking past such things.

“May I join you in the next round?”

“Mn!” Yujin declares, with a nod.

A-Qing makes a noise as she nods. Her hands go through a motion, and then she waits, looking at him.

He tries to replicate the gesture. “This means yes?”

She repeats it, slower this time, and he moves his fingers to match. When he gets it right, she smiles.

…

Perhaps it is cowardly, but when Shufu and Wangji tell him that they will keep running the sect until he is ready, Xichen feels nothing but relief.

Lan Yujin’s naming ceremony had been his first public appearance since Qin Su’s death, and he felt all eyes on him, like individual chains shackling him to the bottom of a river.

He deserved it.

He knew that much.

The sworn brother of Jin Guangyao. The kidnapped sect leader. The fool.

How pathetic he had felt, to be standing there, with shaking hands.

Jin Ling, who was at the naming ceremony, is barely fifteen. He’s younger than even Jiang Wanyin was when Lotus Pier fell, and he’s been left to run a sect loyal to one of the men who raised him only to hold a weapon at his throat to protect himself.

How could Lan Xichen stand there, daring to feel sorry for himself when his trust in the wrong man had left a grieving child to run a sect?

The world knew that Jiang Wanyin and Wei Wuxian would raze the jianghu to the ground should anything happen to their nephew, but there was only so much support they could lend in the day-to-day.

Even with Luo Qingyang returning to the Jin Sect, these past few seasons have been a long battle toward securing Jin Ling’s power and securing the loyalty of the many Jin relatives who would rather see themselves on the golden throne.

And yet Jin Ling had come to dinner with the family, teased Yujin, yelled affectionately at Wei Wuxian, and hugged his uncle and cousins goodbye when he left at Jiang Wanyin’s side for the night.

So yes, maybe Lan Xichen is a coward to step only one foot outside of seclusion. To let others keep carrying a burden that was never meant to be theirs. To keep hiding.

“Xichen,” his uncle calls, and he blinks, refocusing. “It is not a burden for us to help you as you heal. Take what time you need, and take on tasks only when you feel able to do them to the best of your abilities.”

What if he is never well, again? He can’t help wondering about it. What if he can never wield his sword again, not because he is unable, but because he is afraid?

The questions claw at his ribs, but he does not let his face wear them, nor does he let his tongue form them.

He will get better. He is Sect Leader Lan, and he is not going to become his father. He has to get better.

Across the table, Wangji’s brow creases.

…

Fall dulls into winter grays and blues, and then the snow arrives, blanketing the world in soft, downy white

With the change in weather comes a change in routine.

Song Zichen and A-Qing come to stay in the Cloud Recesses for the winter. The weather causes his joints to stiffen, making travel inadvisable.

While Wei Wuxian tinkers with arrays to regulate the man’s joints, A-Qing and Yujin run through the snow, pelting poor Lan Jingyi and Wen Qionglin with snowballs.

These days, Lan Xichen takes dinner with his brother and his family more often than not.

Somehow, as the solstice comes and then goes, he falls into a new routine of sitting on his porch with thick robes and warm tea that he shares with Song Zichen as they watch the girls play.

Like Wen Qionglin, Song Lan no longer requires food nor drink, but he seems to enjoy the strong tieguanyin brew anyway.

…

Today, the gentlest of flurries drift from the heavens, and Lan Xichen sits in his front room, which has been painstakingly cleaned to prepare for his young guests.

Wangji and Wuxian are away at a conference in Yunmeng for the week, so Yujin is staying with Sizhui in the evenings while Xichen leads her lessons during the day.

It has been a long time since he last taught the children. Teaching his niece makes him miss teaching the youngest disciples at times and infinitely grateful at others.

Lan Yujin’s writing is getting better, though she has a heavy hand that makes some strokes nearly illegible.

Though Yujin will go to classes with her age mates in the spring, Wangji and Wuxian have been teaching her the basics of cultivation, mathematics, and writing ever since she followed them home. This method has the advantage of allowing them to teach A-Qing simultaneously.

Though Song Zichen has been teaching her to write some words, his control over writing implements is greatly reduced by his stiff fingers.

Lan Xichen spends half the morning teaching the girls how to write their names.

“Jin-er, you are getting better, though you need to draw this stroke here before that one there.”

She pouts. “But Bofu…”

“Ah-ah,” he chastises gently. “You wanted to show your baba when he gets back, right?”

Her pout doesn’t abate, but she does pick up her brush again, grumbling as she carefully holds her ink-stained sleeve and moves to copy the character for ‘jin’ once more.

Late in the morning, she and A-Qing have each copied their given names one hundred times.

Yujin’s hands and sleeves are stained black. A-Qing isn’t stained, but only because the ink does not stick to her form.

“Is it lunch time now?” Yujin asks hopefully. Both of her new front teeth have grown in, and she’s eager to put them to work.

“Not quite yet,” he says, passing her a small bowl of peanuts. Sizhui had given him a bag of snacks and told him that Yujin was going through a growth spurt.

She sighs dramatically, and A-Qing steals a handful of peanuts before Yujin shoves a fistful in her own mouth.

“That is not how we eat,” he reminds them both.

Yujin snaps upright with a sheepish look. A-Qing merely chews more deliberately while making eye contact.

“Now that you can write your given name, you must learn how to write your family name,” Lan Xichen tells Yujin as he demonstrates the smooth, stately strokes forming the Lan clan name.

He then writes out her full name for her to see.

Yujin is halfway through butchering the third stroke when she realizes A-Qing’s brush is resting on its side. “Qing-Jiejie, aren’t you gonna write, too?”

A-Qing shakes her head and takes more peanuts from the bowl.

“Why not?”

She shrugs and then sighs, appearing very much like a normal teenage girl, for all that he can see the sunlight through her lithe form.

When Yujin’s frown doesn’t lessen, A-Qing’s fingers form signs.

‘No,’ he and Yujin translate the first sign. The second, she presses her fingertips together, forming a mountain with her hands.

“Home?” Yujin guesses.

A-Qing considers and then shakes her head.

“Family,” Lan Xichen realizes.

A-Qing nods and repeats the signs. ‘No family.’

Lan Xichen feels the words between his ribs like a blade. Realistically, he knows that there are many children without kin in this world. He had personally seen to the relocation of many orphaned children in his own sect after the war. His niece was one until Wangji and Wuxian brought her home.

It does not prepare him for seeing the casual, matter-of-fact way A-Qing conveys it.

Yujin’s brows furrow in thought. “I didn’t have a family name until Baba and Diedie adopted me. If they adopt you, too, maybe you can share my name!” She turns hopeful eyes on Lan Xichen.

He pats her head. “That is very sweet of you to offer—“

A-Qing smiles, but she still shakes her head. ‘No, thank you.’

“Why not?” Yujin wonders, tilting her head exactly like Wuxian does when he’s working through a problem. Lan Xichen cannot help wondering what traits she will pick up from others, himself included.

‘I already have a name I want,’ A-Qing informs them.

Lan Xichen swallows hard. He can guess whose surname she would prefer. He wonders if she will let him teach her the character.

…

After they recess for lunch, Lan Xichen sits on his porch, draped in a thick wool cloak and holding a steaming cup of tea to warm his palms. The strength of his golden core makes the cold negligible, but he appreciates the warmth regardless.

Song Zichen sits beside him as Yujin and A-Qing run around the snowy yard, pausing every now and again to add more pine needles to the goatee on their snow sculpture of Shufu.

The winter sun cuts a sharp glare on the hill, and Lan Xichen closes his eyes for a moment to simply breathe in the bracing air. It burns pleasantly after so long spent surrounded by incense and his own misery.

He watches Yujin sign a question to A-Qing, and he turns to Song Zichen and works up the nerve.

He practiced this with Wuxian many times before he left for Yunmeng. He can do it now.

While he steels himself, Yujin breezes past claiming she needs something from inside. Likely her tiger hat, which she left on the table with her calligraphy.

“Song Daozhang?”

His guest turns and tilts his head just enough to encourage him to continue.

‘I am glad of your company,’ he signs. ‘You are always welcome here.’

Song Zichen’s eyes soften, and his lips move in a small smile. He bows, signing, ‘Thank you.’

Song Zichen’s hands rise with his bowed head, and he begins to say something more when a sudden clatter interrupts.

Lan Xichen is on his feet in a flash. Old instincts from the war have his pulse hammering in his neck even as he dashes toward the sound.

“Yujin?”

He comes to a stop before he trips over her.

She’s in a heap on the floor, both palms bloody; big tears fill her eyes. Shuoyue sits in front of her, its blade partially unsheathed.

There’s a moment of stunned silence, and then she starts wailing.

Lan Xichen can’t breathe.

There is blood on his sword.

Yujin’s blood is on his sword.

Yujin got hurt on his watch. He was supposed to be taking care of her, and he failed. He failed his family again.

Something cold and sharp passes through his frozen form, feeling like a full-body slap.

A-Qing pushes through him, goes to her knees, and pulls Yujin into her arms, rocking her back and forth.

Lan Xichen shakes himself and goes to his knees, too, pushing the sword away with a sleeve-covered hand.

“Yujin, let me see your hands,” he says, willing his voice not to shake.

She bawls harder and tries to hide her bloody hands behind her back. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry,” she says around snotty, hiccuping gasps. “I didn’t mean to! I’ll be good, I promise!”

“Oh, Jin’er, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay. But you’re hurt. I need to see your hands, please.”

She whimpers, but slowly, with coaxing from A-Qing, she shows him the cuts on her palms.

He doesn’t gasp, but it is a near thing. “Can you move your fingers for me?”

She does, and he breathes a sigh of relief. Deep, but not too deep.

“I’m going to bring you to the medical pavilion now, okay?”

She hasn’t stopped crying, and he cannot blame her. She gives a shaky nod, and he scoops her up. She buries her face in his shoulder, and he could not care less about the snot and tears soaking his robes. In a way, it’s quite nostalgic. He used to comfort Sizhui like this in the years when Wangji was healing.

He dashes through his yard and makes haste down the path toward the healers.

Song Zichen and a doctor greet him partway there, and the woman takes one look at Yujin’s palms before giving a brisk nod. “This way.”

A-Qing appears a few minutes later with Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi in tow.

“Meimei!”

“Jin-mei!”

“No raised voices,” the doctor reminds them, scowling. She shoos the teenagers out of her way, but, to her credit, she does not make them leave, nor does she seem to mind the presence of their two non-living guests.

Lan Yujin’s sobs have quieted to devastating little hitching breaths and whimpers.

Lan Xichen rubs her shoulder when the doctor cleans the cuts with alcohol. “Shh,” he murmurs when she yelps. “You’re being so brave, Jin’er. It’ll be okay.”

“It hurts,” she says, sounding so small and so young.

“I know. But it will heal soon.”

Shufu arrives shortly thereafter, hovering at the edge of the circle until Yujin calls shakily for her shugong.

The doctor numbs her hands and repairs the cut with small, neat stitches while Lan Jingyi tells stories about the rabbits in the meadow. It is the better way to keep her attention after Shufu’s recitation of the rules fails to do anything but make her start crying again.

It is a harrowing shichen, after which, Lan Yujin falls asleep on Lan Sizhui’s shoulder.

“I’ll take her home to the Jingshi,” he says, swaying gently with the sleeping little girl on his hip.

“Let me know if I can be of any assistance,” Lan Xichen hears himself say. He’s been holding himself together with fingernails clawing at frayed fabric. He’s about to slip, and he’s sure they all see it.

Sizhui gives a tired smile as the three of them walk back toward the inner family residences. Shufu had left to settle a dispute between the elders, their guests went to feed the rabbits in Sizhui’s place, and Jingyi went back to class. “Thank you, Zewu-Jun. I will let you know.”

With just his niece and nephew here, Lan Xichen feels his exhaustion catching up. But he cannot falter here. He must be strong for them.

“I will contact Wangji and Wei Wuxian,” he says.

“Thank you.” Sizhui shifts Yujin’s weight, and she snuffles, burying her face deeper into her brother’s shoulder. “I am grateful it was not worse.”

“And I.”

The moment his nephew and niece disappear into the Jingshi, Lan Xichen falls to his knees and empties his stomach into a snow-dusted shrub.

He feels pathetic and useless as his stomach heaves and his hands scramble against the fence and the snow.

Though he knew it was a mask and a lie, he had almost convinced himself that he was healing. That he could handle the world again.

But one glimpse of blood— his family’s blood— on that pale silver blade…

He has never used profanity, but he is almost tempted to now.

“Xichen.”

He turns his head, meeting Shufu’s eye. He expects disappointment, but all he sees is sympathy.

Shufu holds out a hand. “Come now,” he says, his usual gruffness softened like tumbled stone. “Let us get you home.”

His uncle walks beside him on the path back to the Hanshi. Lan Xichen feels like a child. He almost wants to cling to his uncle’s sleeve or ask if everything will be okay.

Shufu brews a fresh pot of tea and pushes Lan Xichen behind his dressing screen with fresh robes. “I will bring the children dinner tonight and see how Jin’er is faring,” Shufu says when Lan Xichen pours tea with a fine tremor in his hand. “You should rest, Xichen. It has been a stressful afternoon.”

“I must write to Wangji and Wuxian.”

“Very well, but be sure to rest afterward.”

“I will, Shufu. Thank you.”

It takes him several drafts before he finally pens a letter that he’s willing to send to Wangji. He thinks back on the many years of passing butterfly messages back and forth; his stomach flips. He deliberately seals the letter with Lan talismans and shoves the thought away.

When he opens the door, he startles, his eyes falling on Song Zichen, who is climbing down his steps.

The other man looks equally startled.

Lan Xichen glances down at the dinner tray, still steaming, which has been placed outside his door.

Song Zichen goes to continue down the path.

“Wait!”

He stills, glancing back at Lan Xichen, who swallows hard.

He sends the letter off with a burst of qi, and then, before he loses the nerve, softens his voice to say, “Please. Won’t you join me?”

Song Zichen waits on the step a moment longer, but then he nods and climbs back onto the porch.

Lan Xichen picks up the tray.

“Was this from you? Thank you.”

Song Zichen’s hands, still slow and precise, even in the cold and the dark, say, ‘Think nothing of it.’

As the moon rises, Lan Xichen’s stomach and nerves begin to settle.

Song Zichen sits across from him, and slowly, as they talk and write, Lan Xichen’s shaking hands steady enough to continue learning the other man’s language.

…

“Zewu-Jun!” A frantic knocking joins the shout, and Lan Xichen jumps out of bed, his hand closing around Liebing as he races toward the door.

“What is it?” he demands, coming face to face with a panicked Sizhui, who’s wearing a winter cloak haphazardly over his sleepwear.

“Sizhui,” he tries to yank the boy inside, but he won’t budge. “What are you doing outside in this weather?” The gentle evening snowfall has given way to a proper storm.

“Have you seen Yujin?”

His blood runs as cold as the winter wind. “What? She’s not at home?”

Sizhui shakes his head, looking more frantic. His hair is in a windswept braid. It is far past curfew, and the cold is as bitter as burnt tea. “I woke up feeling something was amiss, and when I went to check, her bed was empty, and her toy monkey was gone, too.”

Adrenaline howls through his blood like the snowstorm currently brewing on their mountaintop. “No,” he whispers to himself, already yanking on his cloak and boots.

“I don’t know where to look,” Sizhui says, wringing his hands. “I didn’t see any tracks, either, but her boots and cloak are gone.”

“She cannot have gone far.”

It’s past curfew, but not yet midnight.

But Lan Yujin is small. She has no golden core to warm her. The mountain is massive.

“We’ll find her,” he tells Sizhui, injecting his voice with a certainty he won’t allow them to question. They will find her. There is no other option he can live with. “Alert the patrols, get them on the search. Then wake Shufu. I’ll start searching by the meadow.

Sizhui takes a steadying breath, and then nods. He’s always been so strong, that at times it is easy to forget how young his nephew is. He pats Sizhui’s shoulder and then walks into the snowstorm.

There is something he can do now.

He lifts the cold jade of his flute to his lips and plays the melody he has to be strong enough to play. It’s never been tested on such a wide range, but Lan Xichen’s golden core is stronger now than before. There is no time to test his theory – only to prove it.

He works his fingers over the tone holes, weaving the melody into a spell strong enough to cast over the mountain.

It has been a long time since he asked so much of his golden core, but he keeps pushing, feeling the qi flow through his meridians, through Liebing, through the sky.

The storm howls and shrieks as the iridescent blue waves of music spread wider and wider, like a fishing net.

Finally, a dome forms over the mountain, and the storm goes silent.

Lan Xichen sways on his feet, but only for a moment.

He wipes the blood from the corner of his mouth, tucks Liebing into his belt, and sprints toward the meadows.

Without the raging storm, Lan Xichen can now hear the calls going up across the mountain, can hear the alarm bells being rung, and can see the red paper lanterns bobbing along paths as every disciple searches for their young mistress.

“Yujin!” he calls, throat stinging as he stumbles through the snow.

The rabbits are all snug in their hutches and burrows. No signs of a little girl among them.

He tries to think back to every favored hiding place she’s mentioned. Every nook and cranny where she could have gone.

He searches the hot springs, the cold springs, and the plum blossom grove. He searches the gardens of the Hanshi and Jingshi. He searches Wei Wuxian’s workshop. He even forces himself to search the long-empty Gentian House, which holds nothing more than cobwebs and bittersweet memories.

“Yujin!” He calls again and again as he runs through the Cloud Recesses. Over and over, he passes by disciples, none of them with any news.

The night grows deeper, and though the storm is held at bay, his spell won’t last forever.

He slides on an icy step and skins his palms when he lands on his knees. “No running in the Cloud Recesses,” he laughs bitterly to himself.

His eyes are burning, but he cannot cry or give up. His niece is still missing. His niece needs him.

When he opens his burning eyes, he spots shimmering flecks of golden qi floating in the air.

He blinks, but the lights only grow stronger. He’s never seen a soul do this before.

“You know where Yujin is?” he asks the spirit.

The golden light dances and drifts toward the fork in the path that leads east to the stables. Lan Xichen drags himself back to his feet and chases after the dimming golden light, taking the steps down two at a time.

The golden light fades, but Lan Xichen doesn’t stop.

“Lan Yu—“ His breath catches in his chest, and his heart gives a painful lurch.

Song Zichen is coming up the path with a bundle of white in his arms. His gait is slow and stiff. The freezing snow works against his joints, but he keeps trudging up the path with single-minded determination.

The bundle isn’t moving, and for a moment, Lan Xichen fears the worst. But then, Song Zichen spots him, and he must do something because a moment later, Yujin pokes her head out of her cloak.

“Bofu?”

He runs to meet them, tears streaming down his face. Yujin turns in Song Zichen’s arms, and Lan Xichen catches her in his own before she can fall.

“Jin’er. Oh, thank Guanyin!” He crushes her to his chest and then collapses to his knees when relief overwhelms him.

She sobs into his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to touch the sword. Don’t be mad. Please don’t make me leave.”

He makes a wounded noise and presses kisses to her frozen hair. “No one will ever make you leave,” he swears. “Never.”

“But I made you angry. I broke the rules,” she says around her tears. “I didn’t mean to. I don’t wanna go,” she confesses.

“I was never angry,” he promises. “I was scared because you were hurt. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“So I can stay?”she asks, voice heartbreakingly small. For a moment, Lan Xichen is angry. Angry at the world that made a child feel so unwanted. Feel so conditional.

“You can always stay, Jin’er. You are family. This will always be your home, for as long as you want it to be.”

“Promise?”

He pulls back enough to stare into her round, watery eyes. “I promise.”

She throws her arms around him, and Lan Xichen clings to her just as tightly. He quickly sends a talisman to Shufu and another to Sizhui.

Lan Yujin has been found.

When he goes to stand, he almost falls, but Song Zichen catches his arms.

Their eyes meet, and Lan Xichen sees the soft worry in the other man’s eyes. “Thank you,” he breathes.

They step apart.

“Will you come with me?”

Song Zichen nods.

They make it halfway up the path before Lan Xichen stumbles again, and Song Zichen’s stiff joints seem to be causing him pain.

Lan Xichen shifts Yujin to his left hip. “May I?” he asks, extending an arm.

Song Zichen hesitates for a moment, but then he nods, letting Lan Xichen’s arm fall to his shoulder. A moment later, he brings his arm up to Lan Xichen’s waist.

Somehow, together, they make it back to the Jingshi just in time to catch A-Qing, Shufu, Sizhui, and Jingyi running toward them from the main paths.

After many tears and hugs, they all settle around the fire in the main room, warming Yujin with soup and tea.

Even Shufu seems to realize now is not the time to chide the child. He simply holds her in his lap and rocks her to sleep the way he used to when he and Wangji were young. He has not seen his uncle do so since Sizhui was equally small.

Sizhui falls asleep soon after, using Jingyi as an unintended pillow.

Lan Xichen wants to share in the relief, but every time he thinks of Yujin’s sobs, his heart aches all over again. Yujin has been living here for almost half a year now.

Has she always thought that her welcome was conditional? That the moment she slipped up that she would be cast out?

It makes him sick to think so.

When the children are all sleeping, Shufu tucks them into bed and then returns to the table. In a hushed tone, he asks, “What happened?”

Lan Xichen’s voice trembles as he relays what she told him through sticky tears.

“She’s been hoarding food, too,” he whispers. “I imagine it was scarce in her past.”

The furrow between Shufu’s brows deepens. “We must tell Wangji and Wuxian as soon as they arrive. Perhaps Wuxian will know ways of helping that we do not.” He then turns and bows to Song Zichen. “Thank you, Daozhang, for returning my great niece to us safely.”

Song Zichen tries to deflect the gratitude, but it is far from misplaced.

“Where did you find her?”

Song Zichen pulls a piece of paper and the ink stone closer. He quickly grinds a small amount of ink and writes, “Lan Yujin was in the stables with the donkey. She said she broke a big rule this time. That her fathers and her brother would not want someone like that. Mentioned an aunt who called her ‘more trouble than she was worth.’”

Lan Xichen’s sorrow grows as he reads each word. When he hands the note to his uncle, he sees the same devastation there.

It would almost be funny if it weren’t so sad. Wei Wuxian has never been called anything but trouble. Has broken every rule that does not serve his moral compass. And Wangji, who once adhered so strictly to their scriptures, injured 33 members of their own clan and was not expelled from it.

Even Lan Sizhui, who will no doubt become their next Head Disciple, disregards the letter of the law for their spirit.

Lan Xichen dashes away his tears.

It seems Lan Yujin is even more like Wei Wuxian than he thought. She, like her father, like A-Yao, hides her pain behind a smile until it shatters.

Lan Xichen stares at the fire in the brazier as the howling winds outside begin to roar once more.

…

While the morning sky is still gray when Lan Xichen hears something and snaps awake.

Song Zichen stands at the Jingshi’s door, one hand resting on his sword’s hilt, but then he relaxes.

A split second later, Wei Wuxian’s voice rings out.

He rises quickly, uncaring of his disheveled appearance as he meets them in the front garden of their home.

“Xichen-Ge?” Wei Wuxian’s eyes go past him to his home. “Where is Yujin? Is she alright?”

Wangji stands at his husband’s side, a delicate worry in his shoulders and between his brows.

“Yesterday, she cut her palms on Shuoyue’s blade. The cuts required stitches from the doctors, but there will be no lasting damage.”

Wei Wuxian's shoulders sink in relief, but Lan Xichen forces himself to continue.

“She mistook my anxiousness for anger. Last night, she tried to run away.”

Wei Wuxian makes a wounded noise, and Wangji’s face goes pale and stricken. Lan Xichen explains the horrible, panicked hours last night, keeping his sentences short and concise, the way they teach junior disciples to report their night hunts.

Voice shaking, Lan Xichen adds, “She thought that since she broke a ‘big rule’ we would no longer want her to stay here. She was going to leave on Little Apple’s back.

There are tears in Wei Wuxian’s eyes as he swallows hard. Lan Xichen recalls that once, while wine-drunk and mellow, the man confessed to running away from Lotus Pier his first night there.

Lan Xichen bows low, in shame.

“Xichen-Ge!”

“I am sorry. You placed your trust in me, and I have failed you.”

Wangji grabs his forearms and forces him to stand. “Xiongzhang, accidents happen. You are not all-knowing.”

Wuxian gives a small smile as he pats Xichen’s shoulder. “You took her to the doctor when she was hurt. You found her.”

“I did not really do anything,” he insists. A-Qing was the one who spurred him into motion the first time. Song Zichen the one who found her. “It was our guests.”

“But you left your house. You were there in the medical pavilion, right?”

He nods to Wei Wuxian’s question.

“And you searched for her in the snow. You stopped a fucking snowstorm to search for our little girl. I’d hardly call that a failure.”

“But—“

Wangji squeezes his arm. “Thank you. I am glad that she has you.”

Lan Xichen’s heart squeezes in his throat, and then subsides. His niece is alive and whole. There is much to be grateful for, and much to learn from the harrowing night. With effort, he sets aside as much guilt as he can.

Wuxian gives him a wan smile. “Thank you for showing up.”

Lan Xichen lifts his head to meet their eyes in turn. “Thank you for allowing me to be part of her life.”

The Jingshi’s door slides open, and Lan Yujin gives a little squeal. “Baba! Diedie!”

“Jinjin!” Wei Wuxian dashes up the steps before she tries to run down them.

She throws herself into his arms the moment he drops to one knee.

“Oof! Did you get bigger while Diedie and I were away?”

“No!”

“Really? I would swear you’re taller than you were a few days ago,” he teases, holding a hand over her head and measuring against his own head. “Look at this! Almost as tall as your old baba!”

She giggles and shakes her head. “Baba, you’re kneeling!”

Wei Wuxian stands, hefting her on his hip. “How about now? I’m standing and you’re even taller now!”

Yujin laughs, wrapping her arms around his neck and locking her legs around his stomach. “Silly.”

Wangji climbs the steps to stand beside them and press a kiss to Yujin’s head. “We missed you.”

Yujin blinks once, eyes shiny, before burying her face in her father’s neck. “Missed you, too,” she croaks.

Her fathers hold her, rocking her gently and singing a lullaby as she works her way through her upset. Every little touch, every action, it all comes back to how much love Wangji and Wuxian have to give. How well-matched they are.

Lan Xichen had thought, once, that he had found such love. And, perhaps in Mingjue he had. Perhaps, despite the horrible secrets, he had found it in A-Yao, too. He does not think himself lucky enough to find love a third time.

That morning, Yujin hardly leaves her fathers’ laps, though when she does, it is to cling to Lan Xichen.

He tucks away his lingering loss.

Today, he is here. Today, his family is home and safe, and for that, he is grateful.

Song Zichen finds his gaze, and Lan Xichen smiles.

…

The snow begins to recede when the new year arrives.

Lan Xichen is growing more fluent in Song Zichen’s language. They can have whole conversations now, and he never has to strain his voice.

Though there is still an ache deep in his ribs, and though his sword and guqin still gather dust, he feels lighter.

Song Zichen does not like to speak of his burdens, but one-by-one, he begins to entrust them to Lan Xichen.

He tells Lan Xichen of Baixue temple. Of the monks who raised him to be righteous and diligent. Of the weight of their loss.

‘I was grieving. Furious. Devastated,’ he says, always slow and precise to ensure Xichen can follow. ‘We knew at once that it was Xue Yang.’ Here, he pauses. Lan Xichen understands now, by the minute twitch of his face, that this is how fierce corpses cry.

Lan Xichen hesitates, but then offers his hand. Song Zichen takes the hand, gives an affirming squeeze, and tucks it into the crook of his elbow, leaving his hands free to speak.

‘I should never have blamed Xingchen. I knew it, even then.’ Song Zichen stares at the pale silk pouch sitting on the table before them. ‘I wish I had never said such things.’

Those warm brown eyes return to Lan Xichen’s face. He wonders what color eyes Song Zichen had before. He wonders what these eyes looked like in Xiao Xingchen’s face.

What a miraculous gift. What a horrible burden.

He thinks of Wuxian, who had given his core to his brother. He thinks of Wen Ning, resurrected by the grief of his sister and friend.

Stories such as these are not destined to have happy endings.

“We often say things we do not mean when our emotions get the best of us.”

He feels the weight of his last words to A-Yao, like poison on his tongue. Perhaps they had been earned. Even so, they gave Xichen no closure.

Song Zichen squeezes Xichen’s hand against his body like it will ground them both. ‘One day I will apologize to him.’

“I do not know if my ghosts are willing to hear my apologies,” Lan Xichen replies, sadly. His lovers now lie in a coffin together, locked in perpetual strife.

‘You are a cultivator,’ Song Zichen reminds. ‘And someone precious.’ Lan Xichen blushes, even knowing that Song Zichen means he was precious to A-Yao and Mingjue. ‘Perhaps you can bring them peace.’

Lan Xichen catches a glimpse of his sallow reflection in the still teacup. “Perhaps.”

Song Zichen turns, facing him more fully. ‘You may ask for help. Many here would wish to help you.’

He blinks, and then laughs. What a fool he feels. “You’re right. Wangji and Wuxian would help.”

Song Zichen nods and then indicates himself.

“You would help? After everything?”

Song Zichen nods again without hesitation. ‘Every soul deserves a chance to rest. A chance to be reborn.’

“I agree.”

They hold their cups in a toast and drink.

…

The world outside still feels too great a weight for his weakened shoulders, but he knows now that one day, he will be ready to bear it again.

He knows that if he falters again, there are people who will catch him, regardless of whether or not he thinks he deserves to fall.

Though the world of politics remains fraught, and though public opinion is still as slippery as iced stone, the next generation will be better.

He can see it in Sizhui and Jingyi in the kindness they extend to every citizen, regardless of social standing. He sees it in Jin Ling, when the boy discusses with Wei Wuxian theory and talisman classes that would once be called heresy. He sees it in the way Ouyang Zizhen advocates for the women in his clan to be ranked equally with their martial uncles and brothers.

The world is not a kind place, perhaps, but there is kindness in it.

There will always be injustice, but so too are there those who will stand against it.

The world needs more people like Wei Wuxian. People like Song Zichen. People like Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing.

…

During the Spring Festival, Lan Xichen finds himself alone one morning with the spirit-keeping pouch. Song Zichen and Wen Qionglin are testing new talismans for Wei Wuxian. Outside, Yujin recites children’s poems to A-Qing. He hears many giggles on the breeze.

He smiles, setting down his paintbrush. A delicate moon watches over the frosted ink forest on his page.

“That night,” he begins, “it was you who lead me to Song Zichen and Jin’er.” He pauses, trying to gather his words. Ultimately, he gives up and merely bows deeply. “Thank you.”

Xiao Xingchen does not answer. His shattered soul never has before.

But Lan Xichen had felt the bright moon and the gentle breeze that night.

“I will watch over Song Zichen and A-Qing. You have my word.”

Though it may just be wishful thinking, he thinks he feels the wind caress his face.

…

When the winter thaws, heralding spring, Song Zichen and A-Qing embark on their travels once more.

It is harder than Lan Xichen expected, watching them leave.

Though very little can hurt A-Qing now, he still worries after her the way he worries for Yujin.

He worries for Song Zichen, too, though the man’s mobility has increased now that Wuxian’s talismans are inked into his joints.

Lan Xichen had been privy to a spar between Wangji and Song Zichen one afternoon when the snow began melting. It made something in his soul itch for relief. For release.

That night, he had unsheathed Shuoyue halfway before the panic clawed up from his throat and spilled into tears.

Perhaps by this time next year, he will be ready to pick up his sword and meet Song Zichen in the ring.

“Jiejie, do you really have to go?” Yujin clings to A-Qing’s waist. Her sniffles forecast tears to come.

A-Qing tuts, pulling back to pinch Yujin’s chubby cheeks. ‘Yes, but I will come back soon, little bunny.’

Yujin only pouts harder. “I don’t want you to go.”

‘We have to help Xiao Xingchen.”

Yujin wipes her cheeks with her gloved hand and steps back to take Wangji’s hand. “Is Xiao-Shushu going to be with you next time?”

A-Qing gives an elaborate shrug. ‘Hard to say.’

Yujin considers this, but doesn’t look satisfied. She directs her gaze at the little pouch at Song Zichen’s hip. “Xiao-Shushu, I hope you feel better soon! Qing-Jiejie and Song-Shushu miss you lots. If you are feeling better next time, you can pet the bunnies,” she says solemnly.

Lan Xichen hides his amusement behind his sleeve. Wei Wuxian laughs softly as he strokes his daughter’s hair. “That’s very sweet of you, Jinjin. I’m sure Xiao-Shushu would love to meet the bunnies.”

“I’ll introduce you to them all,” she vows, still talking to the soul. “Mr. Butterfly and Lady Whiskers will have babies soon. You should name one.”

A-Qing’s smile goes wide, and her eyes glimmer even if she can’t shed tears. She gives Yujin another big hug and then steps back, bowing to the assembled adults and teens.

Thanks to Wuxian, both girls will be sending letters back and forth while their friends travel. It is an excellent way of both assuaging Yujin’s tremendous pouting and also ensuring both girls continue to practice their writing and reading.

Lan Xichen’s heart thuds quickly in his ribs as the sun rises overhead and the departure looms. He commands his nerves and passes the letter into Song Zichen’s hands. Though the man’s skin is cold, Lan Xichen thrills at the slight brush of their fingertips.

“I hope I am not being presumptuous,” he says, signing the closest equivalents as he speaks. “I have grown to enjoy our conversations immensely, and I would quite miss them in your absence.”

Song Zichen’s face does something that could almost be a smile, and his dark brown eyes go soft.

He bows, and Lan Xichen bows back just as deeply.

“I look forward to your safe return.”

Song Zichen tucks the letter into his lapel and says, ‘I look forward to your continued company.’

Lan Xichen feels his ears warm in the morning sun as he smiles.

A-Qing tugs on his sleeve, and Lan Xichen pats her head. “I will miss you, too, A-Qing.” His eyes fall first to the jade tokens at their waists and then to the spirit-trapping pouch at Song Zichen’s hip. “I hope he is able to find peace.”

A-Qing strokes the ivory fabric with a conflicted smile. ‘One day.’

…

Across the Cloud Recesses, flowers begin to bud, and the last snow melts away.

Though Lan Xichen still feels the weight of his failings, he no longer wants to hide from them.

One morning, he rises, bathes, and dresses in his full robes. He spends a long while combing his hair, working oil into the parched strands, and then pulling it up into the elaborate silver guan that has been passed from one sect leader to the next since Lan An’s days.

It had almost been lost to the war. Lost when his father died here in this very home. But Wangji had reclaimed it from the Wen vaults with Jiang Wanyin at his side.

Lan Xichen will strive to be worthy of its weight once more.

He slides back his door, blinking for a moment against the bright, golden sunlight, and then walks down the path through his now-blooming garden. Bending down, he breathes in the vibrant pink and purple blossoms and lets himself simply enjoy it.

When he straightens, he takes a steadying inhale and makes his way down the residential path, mindful of his increasing pulse as he crosses through the grounds. He repeats the rules softly under his breath until his heart rate settles once more.

This is his home. He deserves to live in it.

Several disciples spot him, each one bowing low and nearly breaking the rule about running as they scurry off to surely break the rule about gossiping.

Lan Xichen lets himself have a laugh at that. Oh, how he has missed his people.

With his spine straight and his head held high, he opens the door to the dining hall and crosses to the raised dias waiting for him.

The gentle murmur of conversation from those yet to be served goes hushed.

He can feel all eyes watching him. It feels nauseating, but he breathes through it, focusing instead on Wangji and Wuxian who sit together to one side of his table.

Between them, Yujin smiles around her porridge-filled cheeks.

The tension in Lan Xichen’s spine relaxes as he smiles back and crosses the last few steps to sit beside his family.

Yujin swallows her congee and whisper-shouts, “Bofu! You’re here for breakfast!”

Wangji sighs and Wuxian looks amused.

A servant quickly places a tray before him, and, after thanking the man, he turns back to his niece. “I am. I was hoping you would be here, too.”

She clambers over Wangji’s lap and tumbles into his. “Are you going to come to breakfast every morning? I really like the breakfast here! The youtiao and scallion congee are the best!”

“Sit properly,” Wangji reminds, and Yujin quickly snaps into a proper posture, giving her father a sheepish look before turning back to Lan Xichen with eager eyes.

He chuckles, wiping a grain of rice from her cheek. “I don’t know if I’ll be here everyday, but I will be here more often now.”

Yujin nods decisively, no doubt mimicking Shufu. “Some mornings we even have fruit. You should definitely come on fruit days.”

Lan Xichen picks up his chopsticks. “I will endeavor to do so.”

Yujin picks up her bowl and spoon, still sitting at Xichen’s table, though she dutifully maintains her silence as she eats.

She neither spills her congee on his lap, nor does he spill his on her head. Lan Xichen counts that as a victory.

…

Song Zichen’s letters tend to come once each fortnight, and Xichen looks forward to them with what is probably an unhealthy level of eagerness.

They are a welcome break in the monotonous duties he has taken on once more.

While Wangji and Shufu continue to represent the sect at speaking engagements, Lan Xichen has resumed drafting trade proposals and letters of protection. The spring and summer rains will be bringing a new batch of water ghouls with them, and the towns of Gusu need to know that they are protected.

In fact, Wuxian’s latest inventions may help reduce flooding and drowning by as much as half if his estimates are correct. Lan Xichen knows that despite claims of his arrogance, Wuxian often downplays his ingenuity. Based on the explanation of the wards he gave to the elders, Lan Xichen is sure that the death statistics will be quartered.

But it’s not as if he can simply tell random town leaders that the Yiling Laozu will be coming to carve runes on their gates and to please be nice to him.

He truly dislikes politics more often than he would like people to think. He does not lay his head on the desk and groan when another incredulous, outraged letter greets him, but it is more because such behavior is unbecoming rather than a lack of wanting.

His assistant, Lan Xiuying, laughs a little at him. Sometimes, it is very clear that she and Lan Jingyi are first cousins.

“Are you well, Sect Leader?” she asks, masking her amusement as she places the next pot of tea before him. When she stands, her daughter wiggles in the sling across her chest, making a soft mewling sound that makes both adults smile.

“Quite,” he replies, pouring himself a cup and drinking it as quickly as decorum permits. Perfectly brewed, as always. “Thank you.”

“Song-Daozhang’s letter has arrived,” she adds, not hiding the smile in the corner of her mouth as she rocks the waking child in her arms.

Lan Xichen likewise does not bother trying to stifle his delight.

Song Zichen’s neat, steady words tell him of the village he and A-Qing aided after a flood disturbed the local cemetery. Though it is not easy for a fierce corpse to gain trust as a wandering cultivator, Song Zichen does not ask to be understood.

After laying the spirits to rest, he went to the local temple and prayed. Despite being small and rural, apparently the temple boasted an impressive mural of the nearby mountains. Song Zichen enclosed A-Qing’s rendition, sketched in one incense stick’s time with a charcoal stick.

Lan Xichen smiles, his fingers not quite tracing the peak of the distant mountain. Skillful lines and an eye toward defining characteristics are apparent in her work. A-Qing’s clearly unpracticed, but she could learn.

He could teach her.

He shakes his head and keeps reading. A-Qing is not his ward. He can worry over her all he likes, it does not change anything. She is wandering with her daozhangs while he remains here.

Reading the letter with the same appreciation Shufu gives his favorite teas, Lan Xichen doesn’t even notice the morning sun as it treks across the sky. The midday bell echoes long before he resumes his work with a lighter heart.

…

In late spring, Lan Xichen goes to the family shrine with his brother and the other members of his clan.

They carefully tend to the funerary plaques, wiping away any dust before laying fresh offerings of fruits and rice and flowers.

They teach Yujin how to light incense and give her bows to the ancestors.

Afterward, Wuxian stands beside Lan Xichen. “I am bringing Yujin to Yunmeng in the morning,” he says. No doubt to pay their respects to his other family. “It’s no trouble to add another stop.”

Lan Xichen wants to play a fool, but he is tired of it.

Wuxian places a gentle, but firm hand on his shoulder. “I will go with you, if you want to see them.”

He closes his eyes and draws a deep breath, trying to calm his frantic heartbeat. To calm the panic in his veins. “May I tell you in the morning?”

Wuxian’s eyes are always keen, no matter which face they peer out of. Sometimes, it makes Lan Xichen feel bare and small. His expression softens, and Lan Xichen draws a full breath. “Of course. And it doesn’t have to be now, Xichen-Ge. Whenever you are ready.”

“Thank you,” he says, and means it.

…

The next morning, he joins Wei Wuxian and Lan Yujin on a small riverboat.

Though he has been on boats before, it was often to investigate river ghouls and lake spirits. He has never traveled by boat until today. Sword, carriage, and horseback are all much more familiar.

Though Wuxian is able to unsheathe his sword again, he cannot fly for long, and he cannot fly with passengers. Shuoyue is packed in his qiankun bag, but Lan Xichen has no intention of removing it from there.

After they wave goodbye to Wangji and Sizhui on the docks, Lan Xichen turns to his brother-in-law. “How may I be of assistance?”

Wuxian gives him an assessing look. “Have you ever sailed before?”

He has not. Wuxian laughs and plops Yujin in his lap. “Hold onto this little rascal and stay seated. I’ll get us going.”

“I’m not a rascal,” Yujin protests.

Lan Xichen laughs, unable to resist pinching one of her puffed up cheeks.

She gives him a look of the utmost betrayal before crossing her arms and scowling at the now-distant shore. Wuxian ruffles her hair as he passes, making sure to brush her forehead ribbon.

Lan Xichen knows that, of the Great Sects, the Jiang have the most knowledge of waterways, just as people know the Lan for musical cultivation and the Nie for their sabers. It is one thing to know this. It is another to see the former Jiang Head Disciple in action.

Wuxian weaves across the deck like a dancer, pulling and loosening ropes, adjusting the sail and the tiller.

Lan Xichen watches, hanging on every answer Wuxian gives to Yujin’s never-ending questions. He learns how to knot the rope, how to steer their vessel, and how to navigate the dangers lurking beneath a river’s churning surface.

They only hit a rock once, and it is while Yujin is steering.

Shortly before sunset the next day, they enter Lotus Cove.

Wuxian’s energy grows a little frenetic, the way it often does when his brother is close. Lan Xichen knows that the pair are close again, but he knows that things have yet to fully settle.

Sect Leader Jiang is waiting on the dock when Wuxian steers them against the wooden pier and hops off to tie their boat in place.

“Jiang Cheng!”

“Took you long enough. Dinner will be ready soon,” he snips, even as Wuxian wraps him in a hug. His face has always had a sour twist to it, but this time, Lan Xichen can see through the performance as the Jiang Sect Leader squeezes his brother back.

“Shushu!” Lan Yujin calls, gathering up her bag and clambering onto the edge of the boat.

Jiang Wanyin has her in his arms before she can slip into the water, and he clucks like an affronted hen as he settles her on his hip. “Did your idiot father not teach you to be careful on the water? What if you fell in?”

“I can swim!” Yujin declares, looking very proud of herself.

“She knows how not to drown,” Wuxian says when Jiang Wanyin raises a brow, “though she could definitely use more practice before I’d call it swimming.”

Yujin huffs, and turns her nose up at this affront.

Wuxian offers a hand to Lan Xichen, and he takes it, allowing himself to be pulled up from the boat.

“Welcome to Lotus Pier.”

He trails after his brother-in-law, niece, and the Jiang sect leader, trying very hard not to show the way the pit of anxiety in his stomach grows larger with every step.

It has been a long time since he left the Cloud Recesses.

Every step and every moment now brings him closer to a reunion he does not know if he is strong enough to handle.

He runs a finger across the charm at his belt. A-Qing sent with Song Zichen’s most recent letter. Its small petals are roughly carved, but sculpted with care. He wonders after her and her guardians. He hopes they are well. He hopes to see them again soon.

Taking a deep breath, he crosses the threshold into Lotus Pier.

Wuxian is waiting just inside, his gaze empathetic. He does not ask if Lan Xichen has changed his mind, and for that he is grateful.

…

The next morning, after a breakfast punctuated by the brothers bickering and sneaking food onto each other’s plates, Jiang Wanyin takes his niece and loudly declares that they’re going to have some real swim lessons.

“Is it not still too cold?” Lan Xichen asks.

Wuxian shrugs. “Not at this time of year. Maybe a little cool, but nothing dangerous.” He stretches like a cat, and then turns those too sharp eyes on Lan Xichen again. “Jiang Cheng would cut off his arm before harming her.”

Lan Xichen can’t help flinching, thinking of the garrote around Jin Ling’s neck, and Wuxian’s expression turns to contrition.

“Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

When all is said and done, the ruins of the temple are not far. Sometimes, Lan Xichen wonders what it was like for A-Yao to have been raised in the brothel that once stood here. Now, only two living people have seen the childhood his once-lover fought so hard to surpass. Wuxian has never deigned to share what he saw in Empathy, and he could not bring himself to ask Sisi.

Each step through the bustling crowds of Yunping feels like an eternity and an instant.

Long before the midday sun, they stand at the temple’s golden walls. The whole complex has been suppressed by a mix of Wuxian’s arrays, Nie seals, and Lan talismans.

Lan Xichen stares at the walls behind the shimmering barrier and tries not to let his breathing grow shallow.

He wants to flee. Hide. Cover his eyes. But then, that mindset is what brought him here, to the scene of his unraveling.

No more hiding.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. When he opens them, Wuxian is not alone.

“Song Zichen,” he says around a startled exhale.

His friend bows, and Lan Xichen catches his arms, this time without freezing.

“I don’t understand,” he continues. “How did you know to find me here?”

Song Zichen’s lips twitch at the corners, and his eyes slide to Wuxian, who is twirling Chenqing and examining the sealing arrays around the ruins.

A swell of emotions tumbles across Lan Xichen like a wave.

He smiles around the burning in his eyes. He bows to Song Zichen. “Thank you,” he whispers, hoping the river breeze will carry the emotions he does not know how to put to words.

“I can get us past the array,” Wuxian announces, pulling a dagger from his sleeve. “Are we all ready?”

Xichen nods, and then whips back to Song Zichen. “A-Qing?”

‘At Lotus Pier with Xingchen,’ Song Zichen says.

Wei Wuxian’s grin returns. “I’m sure she’s bossing the disciples around with Yujin already.”

Lan Xichen laughs at the image, feeling something in his stomach soften a fraction. He turns to face the ruins where his lost loves lay together. He owes it to himself to face them. He owes it to them to soothe their souls.

It has been more than a year.

He hopes they will forgive his delay.

Upon entering the courtyard, his first thought is that, despite the wreckage, it is a beautiful place. The trees have grown taller, uninhibited by human maintenance. Weeds and flowers split the cracks in the courtyard, painting fresh life in a place of death.

Wuxian leads the way, and Lan Xichen is relieved that he does.

With a shrill whistle, Wuxian summons the ghosts of the Jin men and monks who died here. Their spirits seethe, but with a quick tune on Chenqing, they obediently lift the collapsed lumber.

Wuxian watches them with narrowed eyes, prepared for any trouble.

Lan Xichen watches for a few minutes before it strikes him how accustomed he has grown to his brother-in-law’s unusual cultivation methods. His younger self would be shocked to stand beside Wei Wuxian like this.

Nearly a full shichen passes before the entryway is fit to walk through. Beyond it is a shimmering barrier woven of Wuxian’s arrays and the sealing spells of the Lan and Nie. Combined, the spells seem to have kept the coffin sealed.

When the spirits’ work is done, Wuxian plays Rest, and they dissipate like mist burnt by the morning sun.

Lan Xichen steps forward. First one step, then another, until he is standing before the foot of the great stone coffin. He sinks to his knees and kowtows. How funny, he thinks without humor, that the goddess of mercy is being used to seal A-Yao and Mingjue inside their hell.

He feels Wuxian’s eyes on him along with Song Zichen’s, but this moment is not for them. It is for him. It is for the men entombed here.

“I am here,” he tells them. “I hope you will allow me to help you now as I failed to when you were both alive.”

Though he regrets many things in his life, he does not wish this one to continue any longer. Rising from the floor, he opens his senses to the spirits haunting his memory and haunting this temple.

He settles himself before the coffin and summons his guqin. It smells sweet with the oil he worked into the parched wood last night. The freshly-tuned silk strings shimmer with a power he has not called upon in so long. Though he has neglected his instrument for many months, it still sang beautifully when he worked through the scales last night.

This morning, he had shown Lan Yujin where to place her fingers on the strings. He lets the memory of her small hands under his wash away the hesitation.

He does not feel ready.

He plays Inquiry anyway.

Nie Mingjue’s spirit comes to him first, strong as a mountain, and just as unswayed. “Mingjue,” he greets. Nie Mingjue’s soul feels like standing in front of a blazing forest fire as it strums the strings of the qin with aggressive, clear chords. It grieves him to feel so little left of his once-lover’s mind. Little more than hatred remains .Lan Xichen could easily be consumed by the burning anger.

Had he come any sooner, he would have gladly let himself be incinerated, but now he has people to return to. Wangji, Shufu, and Sizhui wait for him at home. A-Qing and Yujin wait for him at Lotus Pier. They will worry if he is not there to join them for dinner.

Wuxian and Zichen wait at his back.

Though he will always regret his ignorance and where it led, he cannot atone by joining his sworn brothers here in this coffin.

He allows the thrashing soul to wash over him like a wave, but he does not allow himself to be swept away in its rage.

“Who are you?” he plays, just to hear it one last time.

Mingjue’s soul clamors for attention, plucking angrily at his strings. “Nie Mingjue.”

“How did you die?”

“Beheading.”

Lan Xichen’s slams his fingers down on the chords, regretting the question. His death had been cruel and violent, and now his afterlife is shared with the culprit. He looks down at the dark lacquered wood, startling when he feels a cold hand on his shoulder.

Song Zichen gives him a small, sympathetic twitch of his lips. Lan Xichen cannot help the sad smile he offers in reply. Cautiously, he reaches up and squeezes Song Zichen’s hand. Zichen returns the gesture, and Lan Xichen finally feels his lungs draw a full breath. “Thank you.”

“Do you know who I am?”

There is a pause, and then the chords pluck back an affirmative.

Lan Xichen ignores his tears. “What is your saber’s name?”

“Baxia.”

“Where did you grow up?”

“The Unclean Realms.”

“What is your brother’s name?”

“Nie Huaisang.”

With each question and response, the cacophonous rage of the spirit is tamed, piece by, piece, back into a coherent soul.

“What is my name?”

“Lan Xichen.”

“When did we first meet?”

“When Gusu held a cultivation conference in winter.”

“When was our first kiss?”

He hears Song Zichen make a small, surprised sound, and he almost slices his finger on the string. His ears burn. He had nearly forgotten the two men behind him. And he had definitely forgotten that Song Zichen, as a member of the dead, could understand the chords of Inquiry.

Mingjue’s soul has no such embarrassment. “It was the spring after your courtesy name was bestowed. You visited Qinghe, and I kissed you beneath the willow tree.”

Lan Xichen’s cheeks darken to match his blushing ears.

With the last question, he feels something shift in Mingjue’s spirit.

Though it still burns, as if he had placed his hands too near a flame, he can tell now that his first love is more than shattered fragments of hatred.

He plays the next question carefully. “How can I help you move on?”

He listens to Mingjue’s reply, and sighs. That, he can do. “It will be done.”

When he plays the opening chords once more, the strings pluck themselves with a quiet grace.

A-Yao’s spirit is weaker; fleeting like the clouds encircling the mountaintop. His spirit does not greet him with vengeance, but with a cautious interest.

Lan Xichen has had many years to mourn Mingjue, but it has not been nearly as long since he lost A-Yao. For a selfish moment, he holds the spirit close, lets it caress his cheek as a tear falls.

But A-Yao has beguiled him before. And Lan Xichen is done being tricked.

As Sect Leader Lan, he is here to repay a debt. As a cultivator, he is here to put souls to rest. As a lover, he is here for closure.

Spirits cannot lie in Inquiry, so he asks the same questions, though he does not ask how A-Yao died.

He cannot help asking, “Did you love me?”

“Yes,” the spirit promises.

“Did you move?” he asks, needing to know and fearing it in equal measure.

“Not against you.”

He’s not sure how the answer makes him feel.

“What would give you peace?”

“Erect a memorial tablet for my mother.”

”You have my word as Sect Leader Lan that it will be done.”

When the chords grow still, he dashes the tears from his cheeks and nods to Wuxian. “They are ready.”

Chenqing’s lacquered wood glimmers in the darkness as Wuxian brings it to his lips.

Lan Xichen banishes his guqin, draws Liebing from his sleeve, and begins to play.

This composition, written by Wangji and Wuxian, feels gentle, like a cool cloth against a fevered brow. Like the patter of rain at night. As the two flutes weave the song together, the resentment soaked into these bloody grounds begins to purge itself.

They liberate the spirits of the men who died in this temple.

They liberate the women who were burned alive in the brothel that once stood on these grounds.

And then there is only the coffin remaining.

Lan Xichen lowers his flute.

Wuxian comes to stand beside him, one hand cocked on his hip.

Song Zichen stands at his other side with Fuxue at the ready.

Though he is tired, Lan Xichen is not ready to stop.

Not yet.

“Wuxian, are the barriers set?”

His brother-in-law flicks a talisman toward the temple’s entrance. The yellow paper flies toward the blue sky and then freezes, bouncing off a red barrier that had been invisible until that moment. Lan Xichen can feel the strength of it, and he shivers.

He is grateful that Wuxian is a moral man. He appreciates now how easily the cultivation world could have fallen had he truly declared himself against them.

He nods once to Zichen and once to Wuxian before playing a trill on Lliebing. Chenqing joins in, and the containment array around the coffin breaks like porcelain.

For a moment, Lan Xichen braces for the worst.

It does not come.

Song Zichen relaxes a fraction, and Lan Xichen breathes out a soft sigh.

He calls the two spirits to him, and with a gentle suggestion woven through the notes, the apparitions of Jin Guangyao and Nie Mingjue stand before him.

“Da-Ge. A-Yao.” He bows to each in turn.

Mingjue’s apparition is stitched together like his body. Lan Xichen’s eyes trace the careful black stitches and wonder, not for the first time, whether it had been Huaisang’s hands that had threaded the needle and taken up such a painful task.

He had thought such revenge, if it were truly premeditated, to be cruel. He still finds it so. So many innocents could have been lost along the way were it not for Wangji and Wuxian.

And yet, on the days when he’d dared shift some of his blame to Nie Huaisang, he had always thought, would he not turn just as vicious had someone he trusted done such things to Wangji?

Turning from the victim to the culprit, Lan Xichen forces himself to look at A-Yao. His spirit is missing the arm Wangji had cleaved. The sparks-amidst-snow on his chest is nearly indecipherable for all the blood. Lan Xichen had as good as killed him with the blow. It was Shuoyue’s blade that inflicted the fatal wound, even if Nie Mingjue killed him before he could bleed out.

The apparitions bow to him, and Lan Xichen feels more tears slip down his cheeks.

“In this life, I failed each of you,” he admits. “In the next life, should our paths cross, I will not repeat those same mistakes.”

A-Yao steps forward first. He smiles, but it is not one of the pretty, gleaming things. This one speaks to exhaustion. A year trapped with a resentful ghost of his own making will do that.

“Er-Ge, it is time to let go.” A-Yao’s look is equal parts fond and worn. “Do not grieve in excess,” he reminds Xichen.

“It is hardly excessive,” Mingjue grumbles, but he, too, is looking at Xichen softly. “Take care of him. Take care of yourself.”

“I will.”

Wuxian steps beside Lan Xichen in the ensuing lull. “It’s time,” he murmurs.

Together, they play Rest. Lan Xichen keeps his eyes open this time, watching as the men he loved fade away until only the physical remains.

The resentful energy disperses like shadows chased away by the light that cast them.

When the echo of the last note fades, Lan Xichen tucks Liebing back into his sleeve and sits down, not bothering to staunch the flow of his tears.

Wuxian steps past him, lifts A-Yao’s corpse from the coffin, and lowers it carefully to the temple floor. He struggles under Mingjue’s weight at first, but he manages to carefully arrange his body, too.

Soon, Lan Xichen will get to his feet. And soon they will find proper coffins for the bodies, and plots of land to bury each of them in peace.

But for now, just this one moment, he lets himself grieve.

They are both gone now. Off to be reincarnated. To become new people, whose lives will have little or nothing to do with his own.

He feels like a small child, watching the petals of his favorite flower scatter on the breeze. That flower will never be the same again. Even if he were to catch every last petal, they would never be what they once were.

Song Zichen sits at his side in solemn sympathy.

He feels a hand on his shoulder, and he looks up into Zichen’s dark eyes.

They do not exchange words, but words are unnecessary.

Song Zichen offers a handkerchief, and Lan Xichen accepts it with a small laugh. “Thank you.” His voice is hoarse and thick, but his friend does not mind.

He dries his eyes and tucks the cloth away. They get to their feet.

Song Zichen pulls on a pair of gloves when it comes time to move the bodies, but he assists.

When Wuxian lowers the barriers around the temple, the gates creak open. Lan Xichen is not quite surprised to see Nie Huaisang waiting with a cart and a dozen disciples.

“Da-Ge?” he asks. Though there is not the same innocence in his eyes that Lan Xichen once saw, there is a great sadness still.

“He has been laid to rest. His soul will be reincarnated soon.”

Huaisang does not bother hiding the tears in his eyes, but he also does not throw himself forward and wail as he once did. “Thank you, Xichen-Ge,” he says, bowing around his folded fan.

The Nie disciples step forward to take Mingjue’s body.

Lan Xichen has already said his goodbyes. There is nothing left to part with, but that does not make it any easier to let go.

“May I visit?” he asks Nie Huaisang.

The younger sect leader looks startled for a moment. “Visit? As Sect Leader Lan?”

He shakes his head. “As Lan Xichen. To pay my respects. And to give you my apologies,” he concludes, bowing.

Huaisang’s eyes widen. “Why are you bowing so deeply! Wei-Xiong, what is he doing? I don’t know!”

“I cannot control my sect leader,” Wuxian says with a shrug.

Nie Huaisang flicks his fan out and flutters it with apparent distress. “Of course Qinghe is always happy to welcome you, Xichen-Ge.” He pauses for a moment, wearing the grief they have shared for more than a decade now. “You are the only brother I have left, after all.”

Lan Xichen supposes he is. The thought makes him ache.

“Likewise, Gusu Lan welcomes you, whether as Chief Cultivator, or simply as my brother.”

Nie Huaisang catches his hands before he can bow again. “Visit soon,” he says. “And you, too, Wei-Xiong” he adds, glancing at Wuxian.

“Yes, yes, of course,” Wuxian replies. “I’ve been meaning to try the wine in your region once more.”

Huaisang narrows his eyes at his friend, and for a moment, he sees the shrewdness the younger man often hides. “Qinghe Nie recently uncovered a fascinating tome relating to the saber spirits. If only we had someone willing to decode seal script on this ancient curse.”

Wuxian laughs, slinging an arm around Huaisang. “Twist my arm, why don’t you?”

Huaisang demures, “I have no idea what you mean.”