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A young Wangji would have crushed it.

An older, wiser Wangji plucks the paperman from his hair and looks at it. Carefully, consideringly.  Scrutinising it from tip to toe.

For what, tears and splotches?

Wei Ying, wine-flask dangling loosely in his grip, wants to chuckle. He twiddles his fingers instead. The paperman wiggles fiercely.

Wangji lifts the little cut-out and kisses it.

Sweetly. Reverently.

Then gently sets it onto his shoulder and returns to the kitschy, happy-ever-after novella he’s been reading.

Wei Ying didn’t know that papermen can cry.

Hastily he glugs some wine. He can’t just dissolve like that!

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‘You’re nothing,’ he’s been told for as long as he can recall. ‘Raise your head, and it’ll roll! Trash! Kneel and learn your place!’ He doesn’t want to dwell on this, but it keeps ringing in his brain, in the stentorian voice of a woman, the bellowing of his former martial brother, the hissing whispers of others, shifting like smoke and sharp like fangs.

It’s good to move. He’ll work up a sweat until he’s too exhausted to flare. He can’t let loose what’s inside him: That black hollow, restless and pulsing as if ready to swallow the world. This world has Wangji in it, and Jin Ling, and Sizhui. It has Jin Ling’s wife and children and countless people who’ve never done anything worse than gossiped a little.

That ravenous darkness, he can’t ever let it loose again.

It would be easier if he did.

He focuses on the physical: The pull of muscles, the stretch of sinews, the weight of the long-staff in his hand. His hair flies; his robes billow around him like black clouds. It’s like cutting himself free from poison-vines: With each swipe his lungs expand, his stride lengthens, his meridians clear.

‘Filth! Messing with people above your station, how dare you! Vermin must be crushed.’

His lips twist into a tiger’s smile. Indeed.

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Wangji watches Wei Ying. He doesn’t often get to see him like this: Teeth bared.  Gripping his fighting staff like a long-sword, whilst moving through sword-forms like water. Fluid and swift. He’s light on his feet. Tall and slender, possessed of a wiry strength that reminds Wangji of young bamboo. To him, Wei Ying’s most beautiful like this: Fierce and confident. Irrepressible. A survivor.

The staff twirls lightningfast.

Perfect, thinks Wangji.

How could anyone confuse Wei Ying with an ordinary man?

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Wangji’s always loved Wei Ying, even when he wasn't able to show it other than through scolding and withering put-downs. Now, he knows what to say. He’s learned some of the words that don't come easy to him. Important words. Who can know how much time they have together, for Wangji to say them? So he says them every day, many times, chants them like a mantra of immortality:

Wei Ying.

I love you.

He'll never scold him again. He'd rather cut off his own tongue.

And when he's out of words, he'll show Wei Ying exactly what he feels.

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Sometimes, ghost-hunts went awry. Lan Sizhui, Jin Ling, Lan Jingyi and Ouyang Zizhen had been in Caiyi for a few days of merrymaking (and some gambling since Wei Wuxian and His Lordship were also in town) when the message from Cloud Recesses reached Sizhui.

Instead of a restless spirit, the disturbance was an ancient tree demon smothering a merchant’s mansion. Luckily Wuxian and His Lordship had decided to tag along. It took hours to drive the demon into dense forest outside Caiyi, where Wuxian re-rooted it. Afterwards they were all exhausted. With night falling, they made camp and lit a fire by a brook. Wuxian went to check the spells he’d used to bind the demon. His Lordship followed silently in his wake.

Sizhui keeled over after one gulp of Emperor’s Smile from Jin Ling’s flask. Zizhen snoozed off inking another ode exalting the Master’s heroic deeds into his special pocket-book. Jingyi fell asleep drooling on Zizhen’s shoulder. Jin Ling set a pot with millet into the embers and took the first watch.

Dawn was greying the sky when light footfall jolted him awake. From silvery morning mists emerged a scarecrow blurting, “Aiyah, you’re not going to skewer me again?” Swearing, Jin Ling sheathed his blade. Wuxian chuckled. His hair hung loose, his black long-robe open to his navel. Underneath, he seemed to wear nothing but His Lordship’s boots. The morning was cold and clammy. Wuxian shivered but looked fresh and energised. He winked, smiling merrily. “Don’t wait for us,” he said, scooping porridge into a bowl, “we’re, uh, making sure it’s rooted properly.”

Jin Ling flushed wildly. Shameless! And yet… He cleared his throat. “Go for it.”

Wuxian laughed, bright as bronze bells, as he vanished into the fog.

Jin Ling snorted and hid his smile behind a yawn.

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It’s a still, bright autumn morning. The light is cool and limpid. It feels like water on Wei Ying’s skin. He’s on his back on the small bench he’s built and set on the south-facing side of their hut on Yiling Mountain. There’s less work now, with the mountain waiting for winter. He could have slept in. But he’s been keen to soak up some sunshine before being cooped up inside during months of rain and snow. Under the deep overhang of the thatched roof, the sunlight seems to gather, warm like Wangji’s hand.

Wangji sits next to him, Wei Ying’s head resting in his lap. Wangji does nothing, only his fingers card gently through Wei Ying’s hair, still loose because he combed it for him, earlier, still in bed.

Beyond the outcrop with their ribbon fields – millet stubble from the last harvest of the year, winter greens like mustard and curly cabbage – stretches the wide valley between their mountain and the one where Wangji’s clan dwells. The air is seldom clear enough to see that far. On this quiet morning, there’s a sea of mist filling the valley. It rolls softly, undulating like a giant dragon, and wisps of it drift dreamlike in the melting light. Somewhere nearby, perhaps on the roof of their home, a bird sings, loud and persistent: Little golden curlicues embroidering the blue, endless hush.

Wei Ying gets sleepy again. He smiles, a self-forgotten curving of his pretty lips, as he gazes up through long lashes at Wangji. To meet his honeyed gaze, his slow blink as he gently strokes Wei Ying’s brow and temple. “...so much,” Wei Ying breathes.

Wangji traces Wei Ying’s cheekbone. “I know. Rest. If you want.”

Wei Ying closes his eyes and drifts, diaphanous like the clouds around their mountain.

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“Why do you stay with him?” Xichen asks. “On that mountain. Like an outcast.”

They keep returning to this. Wangji’s answer doesn’t change. A lifetime ago, Wangji might have found it hard to articulate. Not anymore. “Wei Ying is strong.”

Xichen blinks at him. “Strong? Wangji, didn’t you mean reckless? Someone without roots, it would be easy for him-” He breaks off and his cheeks colour, as if he’d just realised, as if he felt a pang of shame.

Wangji thinks that it would be to his credit and lets it slide. Instead he says, “Have we not studied our Rule?”

Xichen stares at him.

“How much of it is necessary,” Wangji continues quietly, “to lead an honourable life?”

Xichen’s gaze slips, slides around the room, as if seeing it only then, or as if seeing nothing at all.

“How much for noble conduct?” Wangji persists. “Why does it matter how many ornaments we wear? Our concern with keeping our robes unstained and our hair smooth, does it interfere with protecting those in our care? Why forbid laughing and running? What value does our righteousness have?”

Xichen’s fingers clench loosely on his thighs. “But Wangji…”

“Hm. How many of our precepts are about appearances? How many about the heart? Why is there no rule urging mercy?”

Xichen swallows as his eyes finally settle on the ornament Wangji wears on his belt: A small tiger, coarsely carved from bright-red cinnabar. “He’s enchanted you…”

The tiger is a gift from Wei Ying, who’d bought it from a travelling seal-cutter in Caiyi markets. It’s just plain stone, but Wangji wears it like a talisman. A spark of life among mourning whites.

“I love him,” Wangji says, “because he lives by the heart of our Rule.” He doesn’t elaborate. Either Xichen gets it or he won’t.

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Wei Ying looks up from where he’s plaiting a new bamboo basket – a travel box for Wangji’s pets – and meets Wangji’s gaze. Cherry-dark melts into honey-gold. Slow and sweet, like treacle. Wei Ying’s long lashes slide slowly like mothwings. Wangji stares, unmoving, as if dazed. A smile curves Wei Ying’s lips, soft and wide. “Lan Zhan,” he says, quiet and certain, “my dear Lan Zhan. My dearest, dearest love…” He draws a slow breath. “I’ve been so lucky, how could I be so lucky?”

It isn’t true, thinks Wangji. Wei Ying hasn’t been lucky. Fate dealt Wei Ying a hard hand, but it hasn’t ruined him. Nothing can ruin him – his clear soul and iron heart, with the courage to fight and the strength to move on. An immortal, sacrificed and reborn, like the Goddess of Mercy Herself, to save Wangji. No, Wei Ying hasn’t been lucky. He’s been strong. He shunned the bright, shining road and walked a lonely log-bridge instead, because Wei Ying’s conscience is an unyielding thing. He paid the ultimate price. He should have had so much more, than just Wangji.

And now he’s gazing back at Wangji who doesn’t dare to blink, lest this be a dream, and he’s letting go of the basket he’s weaving so he can enfold Wangji’s broad, warm paws into his cool, bony grip and squeeze a little. Wei Ying’s hands are work-worn, hard and rough. He still has calluses but they’ve migrated to where he grips the heavy fighting staff he carries instead of his sword, in this second life they have. Wei Ying leans against Wangji from elbow to shoulder and rests his head against Wangji’s cheek. “I love you,” he says, his breath gusting warm against Wangji’s throat. “I’ve always loved you.”

Wangji feels incredibly, soul-wrenchingly blessed.

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Wangji loves everything about Wei Ying. He’s not uncritical, it’s just that he cannot find any fault. He has tried, quite hard, especially after their first encounter, and these days he’s flushing with shame when he recalls – unwillingly – his criticisms because he thinks they amount to no more than petty nagging, born from irritation. Denial, perhaps, seguing into hypocrisy since it’s true that he’d felt attracted to Wei Ying at first sight. (Who wouldn’t? he thinks, almost affronted.) He knows his argument isn’t quite level-headed. Yet to him, Wei Ying is not flawless, but perfect precisely because of his imperfections.

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Liar (200)

The nanny who’s been looking after Jin Ling’s and Young MianMian’s children for years has concluded that Wei Wuxian is a fake. He can’t be the Master because he’s patently too nice. He’s simply a fraud. Sweet and charming, a delightful flirt, playful and endearing, but a liar (not even a good one) and a fraud nonetheless. And way too young if one counted back!

Wei Wuxian would have been at least a decade older than that pretender. Maybe he’s Mo Xuanyu after all? Though one best not mention it within His Lordship’s earshot - he might freeze one to death with a glare! So it’s wise not to look His Lordship in the eye unless one is that… person.

Who does as he pleases, looks where he wants, touches what he wants (!!!), which in turn seems to mollify His Stern Lordship.

As an aside (or main course, however one might view this), His Pristine Lordship should have gotten himself someone more appropriate and more mature to bed, not such a silly young squirt (yes, yes, Wuxian’s greying, but still… it’s his smile and the way his eyes laugh, and… That. They’re noisy in bed. Especially, shockingly, His Lordship.

Fool (200)

Nobody can be sure of who that man is, so the rumours are confused. Gone is all that nice, black-and-white clarity. If he’s a fraud, he’s certainly culpable – but only of dissolute morals and flippant ripostes. Perhaps, at a stretch, of stealing people’s hearts when he only truly has eyes for His Lordship.

It’s surely better than the alternative. It doesn’t bear thinking the Master himself might have returned from the Netherworld. Surely he’d lay everything to waste in revenge!

That Man though, His Lordship’s youthful squeeze, doesn’t show any signs of morphing into a terrifying avenger of anything. Even the idea is ridiculous. He just fools around all day, building this and fixing that, playing his flute, haunting the street markets and cheap drinking dens, gambling, babysitting, or sparring with the youngsters. When he’s done with that, he fools around all night in His Lordship’s bed (one can hear them clearly enough if one, purely accidentally, passes by their remote rooms after dusk), or he’s loafing and getting drunk.

He gets tired quickly. It seems His Lordship knows just how to wear him out and keep him occupied so he can’t wreak mischief.

One ought to count one’s blessings.

Drunkard (200)

Just then, the fraud lies sprawled on his back on the orchard meadow behind Jinlintai's guest quarters. The very special, sheltered suite of rooms exclusively for his and His Lordship’s use. He’s clutching a flask of wine and gazing up into the sky. There are three empty gourd bottles strewn around him and another full one safely cradled in the crook of his right elbow. It’s cooking wine, from the kitchens.

If it had been from Young Clan Leader Jin’s personal reserve, it would have been Emperor’s Smile, in nice white porcelain flasks with jade stoppers. His Young Excellency imports those especially for the fraud, whom he likes to title ‘Uncle Xian’, since Young Clan Leader is in cahoots with His Stonefaced Lordship in such matters: Only the best will do for the man they insist is Wei Wuxian.

The object of their intentions doesn’t really care though he displays an unsettling tendency to get dramatically weepy at their loving concern. It’s not that Wuxian can’t appreciate nice things, but they’re just things. Replaceable. Unimportant other than fulfilling practical needs – food, drink, clothing, shelter.

What makes him bawl is this: Being left in peace.

Being, clearly, undeniably, and unabashedly loved.

Rake (300)

It’s a balmy summer night, black as velvet. Though even in this backwater of the grand palace it can’t be quite as black as on the old mountain, where the fraud masquerading as the Master has shacked up with His Light-keeping Lordship. Everyone knows that on that haunted grave-hill Darkness rules. Only His Lordship’s powerful presence can keep it and the Master contained. If he is the one after all.

At Jinlintai, light spills from countless lanterns.

In the orchard lives a tribe of rabbits. Most of the bunnies are piebald or stippled black and white, but there’s one cloud-white and one ink-black. They’re boys and they are, very clearly, a couple to the point that the Master blushes wildly when he chances upon them doing certain things. It’s baffling, the nanny tells her eager gossip-friends in the kitchens, that the fraud – that relentless flirt and oblivious breaker of countless hearts – is so abashed by a couple of bunnies going at it.

His Indulgent Lordship, who excels at needlework, humours him by fashioning two pairs of tiny pants from soft hemp-cloth – one red, one blue – though they’re open where it matters. Rabbit droppings are good for plants, says the fraud, reddening as His Lordship presents the bunny-garments to him. His Lordship’s even stitched little frills on, tidily hemmed, and provided a red and a blue ribbon leash.

Wuxian laughs and laughs and laughs at that, and His Lordship rewards him with a tiny, soft smile that makes the Master (that fraud!) visibly melt. He promptly starts hiccuping – the precursor to him bursting into tears – and His Buttersoft Lordship dabs at his face with the hem of his own snowy robes until the Master composes himself. (It takes a while. The Master always gets all sappy when His Solemn Lordship smiles.)

Glutton (200)

The evening meal’s nearly over. Normally the rabbits would be asleep at this time, but the Master isn’t the quietest of people. He rolls around in the grass, slurps from his bottle and hums to himself; this and the treats he always has for them keep them awake. They crawl all over him, with twitching noses and trembling whiskers. He tends to have vegetable scraps from the kitchens in the folds of his black robes – tucked into his sleeves when loose, between his lapels, and in the pockets His Skilful Lordship’s invented and sewn into the side-seams for him. He lets the bunnies roam all over him to find those crumbs.

He isn’t alone, thanks to His Watchful Lordship and Young Clan Leader Jin conspiring to keep him safe. (Or maybe keeping everyone else safe.) There’s always a contingent of armed guards, carefully vetted eunuch servants, and other assorted trusted souls hovering nearby. Discreetly or overt. The nanny says that the Master has complained to the rabbits that he finds it a bit intrusive at times, but he's given up arguing against it since His Mulish Lordship won’t budge.

“He can be quite sensible,” the nanny notes, “for a fraud.”

Avenger (200)

His Jade Lordship lives up to his reputation, the nanny tells her gossip-friends over a bowl of lotus-root-and-pork-rib soup (a recipe she swears, on her mother’s life, His Lordship has personally and exactingly taught the kitchen staff, the dish being ordered whenever the fraud shows up at Jinlintai).

Once His Stubborn Lordship has made up his mind, nothing will dissuade him, for who can move a mountain? And as soft as he is for the Master, in certain things he won’t yield, even to him. Especially to him. Among them, the Master’s personal safety and wellbeing, His Fretful Lordship’s chief concerns.

“May the Heavens grant That Man a long life,” the nanny concludes dramatically, “since His Lordship will burn down heaven and earth if someone bends a hair on that fraud’s head. He’d set the ocean on fire for him!” She drops her spoon, quickly bows to the earth and the heavens, and they all join in a hastily whispered prayer for the Master’s health and happiness.

May it last forever! If only to protect them all from His Fierce Lordship’s wrath! Forgiveness, the clans have learned during his tenure as Chief Cultivator, is not one of Lan Wangji’s virtues.

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For years, Wangji’s been stitching charms into Wei Ying’s robes, not just his formal sets. Wei Ying owns two of those: Five-layered visiting and eight-layered highly ceremonial, both commissioned by Wangji a long time ago as wedding gifts of sorts, when he came to live with Wei Ying on the old mountain. But mainly, Wangji adorns Wei Ying’s workaday clothes: A couple of short-robes made of soft hemp, one thick, one thin for summer, two pairs of coarse pants, a sash of rust-red slub-silk, an overcoat into which Wangji’s quilted another layer for warmth, and a wadded vest as a top-layer in inclement weather. He’s currently lining another, knee-long vest with home-cured wild rabbit furs. Wei Ying gets cold easily. Charms don’t really help with that, but they can ward off ill intentions, draw the protection of the more benevolent of Wei Ying’s ghosts, and…

Yes, Wangji’s applied tracking talismans for which he’s repurposed Wei Ying’s old ‘comrade or naked’ spell¹. He’s designed them with utmost care – he doesn’t have Wei Ying’s creative genius, but he’s been an assiduous student. The charms on Wei Ying’s clothes are Wangji’s best, highly-competent work in both design and stitching: Black and red silk, skilfully hidden among gambolling rabbits, cats (mini-tigers², Wangji reasons), plum blossoms and magnolias (in rich crimson, for hasn’t Wei Ying coloured him deeply?). He’s proud of it. Now, whenever he feels the urge, he can check where Wei Ying is, and whether he’s safe (and if not, pull him out of whatever pickle he’s in).

They haven’t discussed this, but he’s sure Wei Ying knows. Wangji interprets it as silent acceptance. If Wei Ying tried to talk him out of it, they’d fight because Wangji would insist. He feels justified by past experience. He can’t grieve for his love again.

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Occasionally, Wanyin catches his former elder martial brother in downtown Caiyi, where Wuxian goes sometimes to haunt the street markets, drink and gamble in a cheap downtown inn. Wanyin might join him (as long as Wuxian’s white shadow wasn’t around to ruin things). Wuxian will neither invite nor repulse him. Across the small table, they’re strangers.

Wanyin hates that Wuxian might just suffer him, not worth getting upset over. He’s drunk enough to blurt, “I meant to save you!”

Wuxian doesn’t seem surprised. “Thank you,” he says and keeps drinking. He doesn’t spell out what they both know: That Wanyin had been rash, blinded by grief and his thirst for revenge. That he needed Wuxian to save their sister, just as Wanyin's parents had demanded. A mere servant’s son, wasn’t that his purpose, his debt, indelible and everlasting!

“Why?” Wanyin flares. “Why did you hide it from me?”

Wuxian’s gaze is sober. Briefly, compassion flickers in those dark eyes. Wanyin hates him for it. “And what,” Wuxian says, patiently, “would have changed?”

Wanyin stares, bile welling up his throat. He sees Wuxian looming over that field of slaughter at Nevernight, his flute shrieking like a thousand demons. He’d been terrifying. Beyond the immediate relief, Wanyin had been frightened, like everyone who witnessed Wuxian’s ghouls annihilate Wen Ruohan’s corpse army.

Wuxian opens a fresh flask. “Would it have stayed secret? Would you’ve stayed clan leader?”

Wanyin swallows. Wuxian had turned the tide when they were about to be drowned. He’d won the war for them. But Wuxian’s core, this precious, powerful thing, was tainted by his provenance. And it isn’t Wanyin’s. It never was.

The past is the past. This Wuxian reminds Wanyin too much of Wuxian on that battlefield. He leaves, abruptly, to drink elsewhere. Wuxian doesn’t hold him back.

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Wuxian’s always been tactile. Lan Wangji’s never willingly touched, or suffered another’s touch beyond the perfunctory. Except Wuxian’s. Lan Wangji lets him touch all he likes. In turn, he gropes him, propriety be damned. He all but beds him with a glance as he drags him along by his sash. In broad daylight, in the middle of Caiyi’s crowded, noisy street markets.

Pausing by a tea stall, Wanyin watches them disappear down a filthy back-alley. They have no business there but one thing. He nearly gags. Disgusting.

They don’t dally. When they return after just the right duration, they look sated. Full of each other. Lan Wangji’s pompous hair-ornament sits slightly skewed. His stony face seems mellower. Wuxian’s clothes are only barely presentable again, his features sharp and fresh, his cheeks flushed, his dark eyes sparkling. As if Lan Wangji’s seed had invigorated him, flesh and soul.

Wanyin’s skin crawls from a thousand ghostly touches. He hates Wuxian for debasing himself like that. For submitting to such an intrusion. For letting Lan Wangji breach and invade him, to ride him like a mare: He’s seen them once, through a half-broken trellis overgrown with beans, Wuxian on his knees and elbows, biting his knuckles as Lan Wangji impaled him, forcefully, groaning like an animal. He’d shoved his hands inside Wuxian’s red underrobe to maul him intimately. He’d bitten him on the neck! Wuxian’d been rocking into his grip, egging him on enthusiastically, until-

He’d sounded like a strangled beast.

It’s seared into Wanyin’s mind. His stomach roils. Most of all, he hates Wuxian for making him feel like this: Boiling and nauseous. Itching everywhere.

Wuxian smiles widely at his man.

Wanyin can’t bear it and turns to leave.

Wuxian doesn’t deserve to be like that, when Wanyin is feeling like this.

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Usually Wangji will accompany Wei Ying to the brothel. Wei Ying’s been going there for years, because the town physician refuses to see the women. So Wei Ying provides spells and medicines, elixirs, teas to expel, draughts to soothe. Sometimes just time, to listen. He never comforts. He learned from the best doctor ever; he honours her memory by using her craft. The madam is grateful. The women are healthier; that means business is better. They pay him well; he accepts because he doesn’t want to insult them.

It’s his day off, when he sleeps out after a night of merrymaking, and Wangji pays his usual, stiffly-polite visit to his uncle and elder brother. But a maid shows up saying there was an emergency, one of the women wouldn’t stop bleeding. Wei Ying throws on a green women’s robe, takes his back-crate and staff, and follows her to see whether anything can be done. He cakes his make-up on whilst they simmer water for cleaning and brewing tea. He always wears it when he shows up in this place. Men aren’t supposed to touch women patients.

The woman is semi-conscious on her cot, in the room where she lives and works. She’s burning with fever. A young boy, perhaps five, huddles against her back. He’s sucking on his thumb. The madam bustles in after Wuxian. “You can’t be here,” she says, reaching for the child.

Wei Ying puts the safflower paste aside. He remembers a dimpled smile. “Your son?” he asks the sick woman.

She nods, a wan smile flickering across her ashen face. “I didn’t want…” She falls silent, shivering from head to toe.

“It’s alright,” Wei Ying says. “Drink the medicine. It’ll clear the blood and cool your fever. It’ll all be gone in a few days.”

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There’s a gaudy entertainment house, at the bottom of the animal market, in downtown Caiyi.

Wuxian’s been in and out of that place for years. He always cakes his face with makeup so thick it makes him look like a hanged ghost: Stark white rice paste, blood-red lips, plum-red circles on his sharp cheekbones, his brows thickened with pine-soot. He’s still tall, though whipcord-thin, his rust-red silk sash cinching his narrow waist as if to choke him. A green women’s robe covers his usual black layers. He wears his hair in a man’s half-knot, bound with a plaited ribbon.

Wanyin would recognise him in any guise.

Wuxian’s new body doesn’t fit him. Mo Xuanyu had been soft and timid, wearing women’s robes, enjoying women’s things. Wuxian never was like that. He makes that fragile shell burst at the seams with how he moves and talks, his laughter, his arrogance. He reverberates like a temple gong: A deep, powerful sound drowning out everything else.

His skirts swirl as he crosses the high threshold of the brothel. He carries a wooden box on his back and a staff in his right hand. He tugs absentmindedly at his sash, his gaze sweeping the street. Where was Lan Wangji?

Jiang Wanyin has not been stalking his former elder brother. He just wants to buy another dog. Caiyi’s markets offer more choice than Yunmeng’s pier. He knows the exact moment Wuxian spots him because those dark eyes go blank.

Wanyin crosses the street. Before he can speak, Wuxian says, “Ah, Jiang Cheng. Would you like an introduction? The girls are clean and pleasant. Peach-splitting purges bad tempers.”

“You!” Wanyin bursts out.

Wuxian scoffs, without malice. “Not me. Lan Zhan exhausts me.”

“You’re a man! How could he change you so much? By making you his whore?”

Wuxian’s shrugs. “Yes. Just like that.” He gently claps Wanyin’s shoulder. “I’m good in the saddle and under it. He likes me bucking.”

Wanyin wants to tear into him. He wants him red-eyed and smoking. Wanyin’s whip sparks. Wuxian flows around him, vanishing in the crowd of people, donkeys, mules and goats, the street busy with market carts and the smells and colours of downtown life.

Wanyin’s eyes start burning as he tries to track him. But Wuxian’d always been like that: Gone, like smoke. A ghost.

If Wanyin could get away with it, he’d burn that gaudy house.

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Sometimes, Wei Ying dreams: Nightmares that steal his sleep, drive him to rise and roam restlessly in the middle of the night. These are bearable.

Sometimes they blur his mind until he's confused enough to believe what his ghosts screech into his brain, pained enough to feel himself disintegrate under the power of hatred thrown at him him, ten thousand piercing poison-arrows. He jolts awake howling; Wangji catches and cradles him, gentles him until Wei Ying's rabbit-pulse quietens, his ghosts lulled back into sullen silence.

He has other dreams too, the kind that paralyse him. Crushing him as under a massive boulder, his skin peeling off his flesh, his palms sticky with cold sweat. In Wei Ying's worst nightmares, Wangji is pale and silent like a moonbeam: His robes, his skin, his hair, bleached snowy-white, his eyes closed. He’s still like a lake in winter.

They don't last long, those moments of utter, blinding panic. They're fleeting like soot on a breeze. They subside, just like his chattering ghosts, when he remembers that it doesn't matter anymore.

For he’s just a spectre of himself, living in Wangji’s memory.

He'll go when Wangji goes. It won’t hurt.

He finds this comforting.

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Sometimes Wangji wants to be a dragon coiling around Wei Ying. Sometimes he imagines Wei Ying is a tiger, all his power wrapped in warm, plush silk.

He's trying to paint the image that's in his mind. He gets frustrated because it eludes him. Wei Ying takes the brush and finishes his sketch with a few flowing strokes. Then leans in to kiss Wangji's cheek. "My dragon," he says, smiling at Wangji with worship in his gaze.

Wangji's breath hitches and his soul flutters with happiness.

Wei Ying hugs him, and pins the painting on the wall above their bed.

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oOo

They’ve been to the Northern grasslands to settle a wild spirit which had possessed a clan-lord’s prized new stallion. For the journey back, he gifts them a pair of hardy, shaggy-coated ponies used to long treks in any weather.

Winter is closing in faster than they can travel on horseback. Rivers and lakes are thickly frozen; they use them wherever they can. For long stretches, the ice carries a sleigh Wei Ying’s built from a couple of poles and woven willow branches stretched between. The horses keep slipping. Wangji observes and asks, “Wei Ying, can we not glide?”

Wei Ying cuts a pair of footlong boards. He tries different arrangements before fitting each with a slender, smoothed round branch underneath. He ties them to Wangji’s boots. “Try?”

Wangji stands, wobbles, stabilises himself, and takes a careful step. Begins to slide, test the smoothness of the ice, the feel of floating instead of walking. Wei Ying watches, smiling as Wangji gains speed. Soon, he all but flies across the ice, as if weightless.

In the next town, Wei Ying reworks the coarsely-made gliding soles. He replaces the branches with bronze-rods, the straw-rope-bindings with sturdy leather straps. They try them on the nearest stream. Wangji looks serene gliding across the ice.

Wei Ying tries, too. Wangji hovers: Wei Ying promptly loses his balance; he slips and slithers, stumbles and laughs, breathless and ruddy-cheeked, panting puffs of steam into the freezing winter air, eyes glittering merrily. “Aiyah, Lan Zhan, please guide this poor, helpless wife of yours!”

Wangji catches him and holds him tight. It’s mostly an act, but he likes being Wei Ying’s knight. Wei Ying puts his feet atop Wangji’s, and Wangji glides on, the hiss-hiss of the gliding-soles soft and sharp as Wei Ying lets himself be moved like this.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Occasionally, Jin Ling and his friends and sworn brothers Sizhui, Jingyi, and Zizhen meet up. Squaring schedules is hard, especially given Jin Ling’s and Zizhen’s duties as leaders of their respective clans. But they find reasons – such as a recalcitrant haunting, or a particularly powerful ghost – which require their combined forces to subdue.

They might try to get away with travelling incognito, but gossip flies faster than a the fastest sword. It’s a matter of prestige to host two clan leaders, one heir apparent, and one clan leader’s man-wife¹, all in one place. If the Master and His Exacting Lordship show up, it’s a bonus (if somewhat terrifying). Serving such exalted guests boosts reputation and business.

Their elders approve, since such shared ghost-hunts might serve to affirm the bonds between their clans. They have instated appropriately pompous rituals. If such ceremonies have evolved into smaller hunts and less-formal festivals, clustered around the equinoxes and solstices, then so be it. Those smaller hunts involve both gentry and regular folk, keeping their nobles closer to the woes of ordinary people. And if everyone gets to show off their skill and daring, scout new talent, and broker potential marriages, even better!

One ought to be grateful if one’s fortune bites one on the backside, or wherever, the Master once sniffled, very drunk and inexplicably weepy after winning a pile of coppers at knucklebones.

So if there also are some rather colourful prayers for the Master of the Ghostly Path and his Jade Companion, nobody objects (at least not loudly, since everyone knows by now that His Young Excellency holds the Master in high esteem). What’s the harm? At worst, they go unheard. But with luck they might, just might, keep the Master sweet and happy, and his stern husband in a benevolent mood.

oOo

Chapter Text

oOo

The weather around Yiling Mountain is a reliable indicator, or so the lore goes, of how the Twin Terrors¹ of the mountain are disposed. A few kind words, some honeyed loquats, and a few flasks of wine can do wonders to disperse a brewing storm. Literally, and symbolically. This is how the Master also came to be the guardian of domestic bliss and – attendant to this – fertile unions. Plus, everyone knows that he and his husband are protectors of rabbits and children. And doesn’t His Jade Lordship make a (very pointy) point of marrying the Master over and over again, at least once every spring²?

His Young Excellency, Clan Leader Jin, who insists on calling the Master ‘Uncle Xian’, ensures the Jin treasury provides tax breaks, food, and wine. Jinlintai’s gates are thrown open to all; there’s entertainment with music, dancing, and street acrobats performing on the vast parade yard. Bamboo flutes and, oddly, toy rattles dominate the festive noise³. Allegedly those are dear to the Master: They drive out bad spirits and invite good luck.

Then His Lordship and the Master will appear at the top of the stairs, and His Solemn Lordship will bind the Master with a white ribbon around his bony wrist, to officially affirm their bond (Inofficially, everone knows it’s so Wuxian behaves.).

His Young Excellency decreed that those weddings too should be realm-wide celebrations: Showing off one’s wealth is a suitable way of displaying power and benevolence. Incidentally (or intentionally) it endears His Young Excellency to the people he governs, during this gilded age of prosperity, where the blood-washed past is but a distant echo.

Of course there are some who say that all this fuss is only to keep the Master subdued. But it’s just envy, and who wants to listen to that?

oOo

Chapter Text

oOo

His Young Excellency has outlawed the making and peddling of paintings depicting the Master in his wrathful state. In the markets, one can buy cheap little clay lamps instead, depicting a tiger entwined with a dragon¹, with warding spells incised in the bottom. Keeping one of those trinkets lit in a window, along with regular prayers to His Radiant Lordship the Master’s faithful husband, is said to guide errant souls home (perhaps drunk or straying spouses, too).

Incense-burning can help, especially sandalwood, along with libations of Emperor’s Smile², if one can afford it. If not, humming some happy tune will do, or a grass butterfly plaited from a few stalks of millet straw³.

If one is patient, honest, and constant, such efforts will be rewarded: His Lordship the Light-keeper will hear and intercede with his husband, and the Master will walk the Ghostly Path to enquire⁴ until he’s found such a lost-and-longed-for soul. Then he’ll either return it, sound and alive, to those who miss it, or he might bear kind witness before the Venerable Judge⁵ for its merciful passing.

It seems he and His Snowy Lordship are fond of kindness.

How strange the world is, in all its permutations.

oOo

Chapter Text

oOo

There’s a small house between Caiyi and the foot of Yiling Mountain, where the road forks: The main branch leading to town, and a much narrower path – overgrown and barely visible – up the jagged mountain-flank. The house has sturdy bamboo walls, a tamped-earth floor strewn with riversand, and a cooking hearth, tucked under a thickly-thatched roof overhang. In one large room with a long, heated sleeping platform¹ and a sitting space, it offers simple hospitality to weary travellers undaunted by their host’s appearance. It’s clear he’s neither dead nor quite alive – he moves clumsily, and black tendrils mar his pallid skin² – yet his eyes are kind, his manners mild, the food he serves cheap and plentiful: Bowls of turnip soup, steamed dumplings, fiery-hot mustard greens, fragrant millet porridge, broiled trout³, and sharp, distilled apple wine.

The place is a favourite with those wishing to climb Yiling Mountain to beg for the Master’s intervention. But its true attraction lies in the countless bundles of dried herbs, roots, bark, and berries, red-inked spells, rows of clay bottles with pills and elixirs, paper envelopes with ready-mixed teas, all lined up on shelves at the back of the room. Those who know swear the man has medicines for every ailment under the Heavens⁴.

The price is exacting: Not silver, but one good deed, no matter how small, for each remedy. A broken promise brings the Master’s curse upon the miscreant. Or so people say.

oOo

Behind the house lies an orchard. In the dappled shade of plum- and apple-trees⁵ grow all manner of herbs. The man knows all of them. He talks and sings to them, and they whisper their secrets to him.

The man stammers, but it’s best not to bully him: Rumours say that he’s the Master’s shrine-keeper, under the patronage of the young heir-apparent of the monkish Lans⁶. Although it’s uncertain, one doesn’t trifle with such things, dead or alive.

From the stony earth at the verge by the crossroads burbles a well, with a bamboo ladle and a small, rock-built shrine to the guardian of this place. It’s mostly mendicant doctors, spell-pedlars, petitioners, and would-be students of the Ghostly Path who pray here for guidance before ascending the path to the Master’s haunted realm.

The man never takes payment when advising people on what might entice the Master to bother. Yet the modest shrine is always swept and covered in flowers.

oOo

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oOo

Depending on temperament, people who know the Master find all that superstitious chatter amusing (the man himself), punishable by death (his severe companion), concerning (their ward Sizhui), weird (the Master’s nephew, Jin Ling), storyspinning-material (the Master’s foremost worshipper, Zizhen), or plain stupid (Jingyi): The Master is many things, but he’s not an immortal, or a fertility god. He is… rowdy. During festivals, he’ll eat and drink to bursting. He’ll gamble as if his life depended on it (a phrase His Lordship loathes). He’ll tell boisterous anecdotes from his travels, to the cheer of the crowds he attracts when he’s like that (since nobody really believes he’s Wei Wuxian). He can be enticed, rather cheaply with a few flasks of wine, to dance on a table and play bawdy ditties on his flute.

Or he bounces a wicker ball in a dirty back-alley behind a shabby inn, with a gaggle of ragged children running after him. His robes are carelessly bunched around his waist, showing his red inner dress and a flash of his pale chest, gleaming with sweat, hair flying as he chases the ball. They’re all yelling as they’re trying to take it off him, without using their hands for that’s the challenge he’s set¹. Whoever bests him, earns an all-you-can-eat feast for all players. No cheating!

His Lordship watches from the sidelines. Occasionally, he kicks the ball back if it comes near him. It always lands somewhere by the kids’ feet, and the Master’s ignominously lost a few times already. He doesn’t seem to mind – his laughter rings loud and infectious, he’s dusty and dirt-smeared like all of the children, his eyes sparkle with mirth. “Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, so mean! I’m gonna lose again!”

He’ll pay for a lot of food.

Somehow, he seems happy with that.

oOo

Chapter Text

oOo

Even the biggest festival must end. His Lordship has concluded another habitual wedding to the man he worships. They’ve drunk a lot of wine (the Master) and tea (his husband). On Jinlintai’s torch-lit parade yard, people are still celebrating. They have ‘til dawn.

The Master and his husband had looked ravishing, if somewhat otherworldly in cloud-grey and rain-grey, accentuated with gentian-blue and plum-blossom red, respectively¹. The modest silk-merchant and tailor in Caiyi, where His Lordship commissioned their anniversary robes, has seen a stream of servants and gentry, coming to spy and ask nosy questions – Did His Lordship really use only his hands to measure the Master’s waist? Which shade of grey did they choose? The more daring, fashion-forward nobles at Jin Ling’s court eagerly emulated the illustrious couple, especially since their clan leader’s wife had also purchased robes in those colours. Suddenly, business was booming.

oOo

At the High Table, set atop the enormous stairs from the yard to the palace, sit His Young Excellency, Clan Leader Jin Ling, his sworn brothers, His Contented Lordship, and the Master. The younger men are talking and drinking. Zizhen belts out the newest folk-ballad he’s heard on his journey from his homelands, to visit for the celebrations². It’s about the Master granting abundant harvests, blissful marriages, and countless children.

“Lan Zhan,” yawns the Master, somewhat petulantly, “can we go home now? They’re overstating my powers, and I feel I need to replenish my-”

“Hm,” says His Lordship.

Nobody objects when he scoops Wuxian up and carries him to their secluded quarters. Their doors open to the walled back-orchard. It’s quiet, the air sweet with the scent of ripening plums³. There, he lays him on the soft grass and ensures Wei Ying is indeed fully replenished, thoroughly sated, and happy in Wangji’s loving embrace.

oOo

Chapter Text

oOo

Perspective matters. There are people who well-remember the Master’s former, bloodthirsty reputation. There are places, deep in the countryside, where every spring he’s burned in effigy, where people venerate the Wen firebird and his heirs, cruelly martyred by the Master.

They pray, fervently, for the firebird to be reborn, to kill that monster whose foul breath murdered their nobility on that nightless battlefield.

But such gatherings are few, and they’re poor substitutes for the lavish feasts glorifying the Master and His Icy Lordship. They’re also forbidden, their instigators ruthlessly persecuted.

Most people no longer care. They just want peace.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

It’s been a sweltering day, the sky bleached to a simmering white.

Wei Ying’s spent hours swimming in Caiyi lake which no longer contains a waterborne abyss. Wangji brought his needlework and sits, next to a picnic basket, under a large paper umbrella.  He's embroidering a hankie for his love. In spite of everything, he remains a Lan by blood and disposition: Too principled to simply loaf, and too serious to fool around. Functional hands aren’t supposed to be idle.

Wei Ying leaps from the lake with a splash and flops bare-chested and with wetly-clinging trousers onto the heat-baked planks. He rolls onto his back, dangles his feet in the water, and paddles noisily. Water pools around him, his hair clings to neck and shoulders. Wangji sets his work aside. Wei Ying blinks merrily up at him. The evening sun slants low across the lake, painting a shimmering strait. The light is gilded and mellow. Wei Ying’s pale hide glitters with a thousand droplets. He looks, quite literally, like a wet dream to Wangji.

Who holds up a soft, undyed hemp robe. “Wei Ying,” he says, slightly hoarse, “please. Get dressed.”

Wei Ying chuckles and lets Wangji dry him off.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

The Cloak (200)

Killing animals is forbidden in Cloud Recesses. Compassion is not in the rules. They don’t mention the killing of people. Outside of Cloud Recesses, those rules evaporate like snow in spring.

Wei Ying, visiting with Wangji because he needs to reference some books from the library, stands on the small clearing behind Wangji’s old home.  His flute and a flask of wine sit on the edge of the step to the house. He’s in his red underrobe, his hair loose because he’s prepared for the night, when Wangji will come back from drinking tea with his uncle and elder brother.

Dusk is falling. He’s looking at the sky. It’s clouded. It’s very dark and very silent, the only light a faint flicker from the single lamp in the window towards the front yard. He can see his breath in white whisps. Wei Ying blinks.

The air begins to glitter. Faintly at first, it drifts in veils that quickly grow denser. It’s freezing cold. He shivers and his teeth clatter a bit, but he barely feels it as he stretches out one hand. Tiny snowflakes land on his skin. They melt instantly.

He smiles when a cloak settles around his shoulders.

“Senior Brother,” he hears Sizhui’s voice, quiet and affectionate, “it’s warmer inside.”

A shudder runs through Wei Ying’s long, thin frame. He turns his hand, palm up, and flicks his fingers – a fountain of sparks bursts from them: Gold then blue before turning into a swarm of fireflies. They rise and billow before finally fading into the falling snow. He turns whilst Sizhui is still gazing up at that small miracle, a playful show no more, to amuse and entertain.

Wei Ying’s gaze is misty, his smile mellow. “Such a good son,” he mutters, “he’s raised such a good son.”

Dinner Together (200)

“Elder Brother said he might be late,” Sizhui says whilst setting the low table with small dishes: Plain root-mash, bland soup, salt pickles, winter greens. Last are a bowl with two boiled quail eggs, and another with pepper sauce nobody eats in this place except Wei Ying. Sizhui bows, despite Wei Ying’s state of undress. “Please, will you eat now?”

Wei Ying sits on one of the straw cushions and reaches for the eggs. He pauses mid-air and glances at Sizhui who’s still standing. “Have you eaten yet? I didn’t hear the dinner gong. Come, come, don’t be shy. Here,” he puts one of the eggs into another bowl, pushes the spicy sauce across, and nods. “You can’t just live on herb broth, right? Too bitter.”

“But-”

“No ‘but’. You eat, I eat. You refuse, I’ll starve.” Wei Ying tilts his head, eyeing Sizhui. “We can’t waste food now, can we?”

Sizhui stares at him. “You…”

“Hm?”

“You always…”

Wei Ying reaches across and tugs at Sizhui’s sleeve. “What? I always eat too much anyway.”

Sizhui finally sits and eats every morsel Wei Ying puts into his bowl. Nearly the entire meal. Wei Ying only eats a single quail egg.

The Moon (200)

He wakes to quiet voices, then a door slides and steps scrunch away on fresh snow. He keeps his eyes closed. He’s hunching, cross-legged, arms folded over his knees, his head resting on his right wrist. He’s feeling comfortable, drowsy from how much he’s drunk. The cloak on him smells of Wangji.

A large, warm hand glides over his hair, smooths a few strands behind his ear, traces his cheek, then leaves. Before he can start mourning the loss, a pair of arms wrap firmly around him, and he’s hefted up. Eyes still shut, he readily sags against a broad chest. He can hear its heartbeat. A few long, sure steps later, he’s laid down, undressed, and covered with a thick quilt. It’s been warmed too – his big toe stubs against a large clay bottle with hot water.

The straw-mattress dips by his side, and then a kiss lands on his bare shoulder. He can feel warm breath ghost over his skin; he shivers. He stays loose-limbed when long fingers stroke his arm, then turn him. “Wei Ying,” Wangji’s voice rumbles, downy-soft. “My Wei Ying…”

He finally opens his eyes to gaze at the moon, and knows he’s not dreaming.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

He’s so clever. He’s so dumb. He’s easy to manipulate. Right?

He goes along with it: He jumps into a new body and into action straightaway.

So typical. There’s no doubt it’s him the way he throws himself into harm’s way for other people’s sake. Or how he laughs and fools around when he must be crying inside. One can see it if one cares to look, closely, cautiously, so he doesn’t notice.

The end comes as a shock: “Of course my friend would never reach for the Chief Cultivator’s mantle, right?”

A threat. A real threat, no joke: His eyes are shaded, and his smile is sharp. A tiger’s smile. A thousand knives, ready to kill. He’s learned so much. It’s the old him, the one who loomed over a smoking battlefield and raked it with Darkness, summoned with a shriek of his flute.

He shoulderbumps, an echo of old familiarity, as fake as his chuckles. He’ll murder anyone who threatens Lan Wangji. He’s figured it out; perhaps he’s known all along. He’s always been smart. Perhaps he’s become the puppet master a long time ago.

He’s become wily. A tiger, pinning a snake.

Best not to cross him.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

The Beggar

He’s a chief disciple. His foster clan owns him – his smarts, his strength, his loyalty. His life. Literally: He’s bonded, a servant, a slave though a prominent one. An instrument.  Shield and weapon for the young clan heir. He has no true authority over others or himself.

He gets a small stipend from the clan treasury. He’s fed, like all clan members, at the communal table, once daily. If he’s hungry, he has to buy food (and wine). He has to buy his clothes; the formal set is loaned from the clan wardrobe. His bow and practice blade belong to the clan armoury. His sword is gifted to him when he becomes a man. The only thing he truly owns is an old, plain leather belt, shiny with use. He thinks it belonged to his father.

He’s been parentless, homeless, and starving before the Jiangs gave him a roof and a purpose. His provenance is tainted with rumours. His childhood is a series of beatings, and occasionally hot soup for comfort. He remains grindingly poor.

But he smiles, he shines, he rises like a star to the Heavens. Until they call in a blood debt, and he pays without flinching.

The Prince

Wangji’s a noble.  He’s wealthy in his own right.  He’s clan royalty, a prince, raised to be confident though dutiful, independent yet strictly filial, conscious of his privilege and what it entails.  He’s steeped in his clan’s monkish heritage, its rigid customs, its cultivation of music both spiritual and warlike.  He feels indebted to his elders for the careful education he’s enjoyed, for access to untold treasures of wisdom.  

He’s also used to severe discipline: Beatings, kneeling, endless copying.  He knows how it feels to be alone.  He’s learned meditation and fasting.  But he’s never starved, he never felt abandoned, he’s never needed to fight to belong.

Wangji shines, luminous and unparalleled in aptitude and learning, looks and skills.  Refined and well-mannered, he’s the most exalted young lord of his generation.  Spare to the line of succession, yet prestigious and important.  His clan elders weigh advantageous unions and discuss political and military alliances, with Wangji as the prize to be won, in marriage.  

Wangji dislikes to be touched, or touch others, beyond the purely functional.  He also uses his blade with brutal certainty, and never yields to frivolous pursuits. He’s a perfect jade, and as frigid as his mountain home.

The Heavens

Wangji falls in love with a beggar.

The Heavens are laughing, through Wei Ying’s eyes, his crude banter, his bright smile.

Gods and Immortals, it seems, enjoy messing with the threads of Fate, to amuse themselves perhaps, at the expense of lesser beings. It seems a very human trait, a smudge on their shining glory. But who would dare judge such things?

There is absolutely nothing anyone, not even Wangji, can do. He’s being made fun of, and he has to bear it. Wei Ying’s nonsense pranks and outrageous flirting (not with Wangji, which rouses an unbecoming fury in Wangji’s heart). His selfless soul and courageous heart, his challenge – defying the world in which they live, until it stomps on him. He dies.

Wangji loves, regardless. He cannot accept a false match; he must thwart his elders’ efforts. He’s tied his ribbon to that beggar’s wrist and raises the beggar’s child.

Wangji dies for sixteen years to pay for his sin.

When he revives, he realises he is, for the first time since he can remember, truly alive.

Because he still loves, and this time, the man who is half his soul, gives him his heart.

Wangji loves an immortal.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Wangji’s wanted to replace a broken zither string. So he’s been rummaging through their old cedarwood chest containing their good robes, some bric-a-brac, a box with keepsakes from his mother.

Now he sits there, clutching something in his fist, and cries inconsolably. (Quietly. He’s a Lan.)

Wei Ying kneels by his side and takes the broken lotus flower pendant from him. He squints at it, sighs, and tosses it into the hearthfire. “Ay Lan Zhan, my love. It’s just old stuff.” He hugs him. “Walk with me?”

Under a grey sky, Wangji leans on him.

Wei Ying holds his hand.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

o-1-o

The first time Wangji weds Wei Ying is in a frozen cave, with both of them in their student robes, soaked in icy water, and only jade rabbits and the spirit of the Lans’ Great Ancestress to witness their union. Wangji wraps his headband around Wei Ying’s wrist. Wangji will never break his vow. Wei Ying hasn’t got a clue. Wangji resents that, just a little. He wants him so badly, but how can he tell him that he just made Wei Ying his man-wife? He’d stare at Wangji, incredulous, and then laugh everything off as a joke. As always.

o-2-o

Their second wedding isn’t a happy occasion¹.  Wei Ying’s married bondage seals a covenant between the Lans and his foster clan, the River People.  Wangji’s the husband.  Wei Ying becomes chattel.  He yields in bed because it’s his duty.  He tries hard to fulfil expectations.  But imprisoned by endless rules, he fades.  His smile dulls.  The youth Wangji fell in love with becomes a ghost.  Then the Wen clan’s second heir burns Wei Ying’s old home, putting everyone there to the sword.  Wei Ying can’t smile anymore, nor can Wangji.  So Wangji breaks his own heart, and sets him free. 

o-3-o

The third time… Wangji is drunk and gifts Wei Ying a pair of stolen chickens.  He defaces someone’s fence with his name; Wei Ying adds his own.  Nobody will believe it was really them.  Wei Ying takes Wangji back to the inn where they share a room; Wangji drives away a thief, then sobs into the cup of water Wei Ying makes him drink.  He confesses to liking rabbits.  Wei Ying tucks him into bed.  Nothing was your fault, Lan Zhan.  He may or may not have kissed Wangji.  Wangji may or may not have pretended he didn’t remember anything.

o-4-o

The fourth time, they follow a crowd of clan leaders to Lotus Pier. Wei Ying’s saved their heirs and them. He’s exhausted. Wei Ying’s former, younger martial brother won’t allow him in, until finally Wei Ying is exonerated. He still blames him for… well, everything. Bitter and spiteful, he disparages him. When Wei Ying takes Wangji to the ancestral tablets of Wei Ying’s foster family, to bow before them three times, Wei Ying’s former brother rages. When he hears whose core powers him, he nearly murders Wei Ying again. Wangji swats him down without pity, and carries Wei Ying away.

o-5-o

The fifth time, Wangji walks out of his mountain clan’s fortress, and walks and walks, eschewing his sword, because it’s a pilgrimage. He wanders along icy roads and frozen rivers, he wades through thigh-high snowdrifts and crosses wintry forests. Spring is late that year. He’s not accustomed to this kind of journey. It takes him three weeks. He learns more about his and other people’s life during those weeks than from countless messenger reports. At the end, he climbs a ghost-ridden mountain, grave of a thousand restless souls, to meet Wei Ying, to stay with his love².  Wangji's come home.  Wei Ying kisses him.

o-6-o

The sixth time Wangji is in cahoots with the women of the local house of pleasure, where Wei Ying’s been acting physician for years. Wangji wants a wedding in red for his love. Scandalous and luxurious, a fig to modesty and propriety. For the madam it’s good business. For the women working in this place it’s a joyous distraction, a fairytale in which they too can be happy. Wangji carries Wei Ying, veiled in scarlet, to the large bed. He kisses him tenderly, longingly. It feels like their first time when Wei Ying receives him, and Wangji makes him melt³.

o-7-o

After that comes a small but stately affair at Jinlintai, where Wei Ying’s nephew Jin Ling rules⁴. It’s the anniversary of their marriage, when Wangji tied an unwitting Wei Ying to himself to save him from the ancient Lan killer strings, and swore a solemn oath: To win but not force, to keep silent to avoid obligation. He’d wanted, badly, Wei Ying’s affection, but not out of duty, and he’d been too proud, back then, to beg. He’s wiser now, a death-time later. He begs. Wei Ying smiles, radiant and happy. “Husband. I’ve always loved you.”  Wangji’s ecstatic with bliss.

o-8-o

And then? Wangji marries his love over and over again. Once a year, always on the same anniversary. Somehow, their weddings become custom at Jinlintai – the Jins always love a good party, and they know how to celebrate. There’s largesse and food for Jin Ling’s people, there’s babysitting Jin Ling’s children and lots of Emperor’s Smile for Wei Ying, a fond welcome for Wangji, comfortable secluded quarters and a large, soft bed where he can love Wei Ying once they’ve offered blessings to Earth and the Heavens. There’s melancholy, sometimes. There’s a future. But mainly, there’s Now, gilded with love.

Forever and ever

“Lan Zhan?” Yawning, Wei Ying squints. He’s found Wangji, wearing a sleeping robe, in the private orchard behind their chambers at Jinlintai. He’d been writing a letter. “Is that what you want? Marry me every year? With plum blossoms and robes and all that?”

Wangji colours a lovely porcelain-pink, but doesn’t flinch. “Hm. Every year.”

Wei Ying chuckles. His hair is loose, his thin underrobe (Wangji’s) untied. Wangji lays his brush aside. “Are you sore?”

Wei Ying kisses him. He’s no longer sleepy. He lies back in the snow-tufted grass, and Wangji warms him as they bless the new year.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

A scream, crashing, a bone-cracking thump, another yell, then quieter wails.

A heartbeat later, Jin Ling’s eldest bursts into Wangji’s and Wei Ying’s quarters. “Your Lordship-”

Wangji’s already on his feet, the last zither-notes still in the air, and strides sharply after the boy who’s rushing ahead.

Under a plum tree in the private gardens, a gaggle of children clusters around-

“Wei Ying!”

They part for Wangji who kneels and reaches for Wei Ying.

Who lies, oddly twisted, between the tree’s gnarled roots. “Aiyah, Lan Zhan,” he groans, eyes wet and narrow. His smile is thin, his lips pale, hands clenched. Ripe plums are scattered around him. “I think my leg's broken…” He blinks at the children. “Hey, don’t waste food! Eat already!”

They titter. A young Jin noble, perhaps fourteen winters and too skinny, solemnly kneels and presents some of the soft, fragrant fruit in his cupped hands. “Master, you hurt yourself on our behalf. Please eat first.” The other children follow, even though they eye the plums longingly.

Wei Ying glances up at Wangji.

Wangji, chalk-white, stares back. Stroking Wei Ying’s silvered hair, his hand trembles.

Wei Ying bites his lip. He turns to the children again. “His Lordship first. Since he must carry this foolish Master to get his leg splinted. You lot, share the rest.”

They all obey.

oOo

Wangji tucks him into bed. The physician comes and goes.

“It hurts,” Wei Ying grits out, between sips of bitter tea. “Lan Zhan, I used to climb trees all the time.” In another life. Now he’s greying, his core a mere flicker.

Wangji settles with him. “Will you call me, next time?”

Wei Ying swallows, suddenly mute.

Wangji kisses him. “So I can catch you.”

Wei Ying laughs, then sobs.

Wangji feeds him a plum.

Sweet like sunshine.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Wangji loves loving Wei Ying. He tries to remember why his younger self was so angry at the man he loves, and fails to understand himself. A death-time later, he thinks he’s been a fool: ignorant, naive, judgmental. He feels the need to compensate. He’s better at showing than telling.

Wei Ying breathes small, damp puffs against Wangji's neck. Wangji hugs him. Wei Ying’s draped on top of him, hands curled loosely in Wangji's unbound hair by his temples. Wangji wants to believe that he can feel Wei Ying's thudding heart like this, chest to chest, just skin between them.

Sometimes, he receives Wei Ying, and Wei Ying makes him melt. It’s what makes Wangji certain he isn't dreaming: The raw, unfettered physicality of Wei Ying’s presence. If Wangji could absorb him into his own body, he would. Because this isn’t possible, he’ll love him as often as he can.

He loves feeling him. He gently runs his right hand down Wei Ying's spine as far as he can reach, dips into his valley to feel traces of himself there, lingering after they’re done. He cups the rounded muscles of his backside, resting briefly, before moving up again. Endless circles.

Wei Ying’s hair is incredibly long for a man. Downy-soft, it fans over his narrow back and Wangji's broad shoulders. He lodges his left leg between Wangji's thighs. Wangji draws his right knee up to accommodate him, setting his foot between Wei Ying's calves. Their bodies, flush: A perfect fit.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Five murderous fools. One Wei Ying. An icy mountain brook. They shouldn’t have waylaid him.

They have swords; he uses his combat staff; the flute stays stuck in his sash. He’s holding back, trying to spare them. They drive him into the water until he’s waist-deep, shivering, his reactions slowing down.

Wangji arrives when one of the idiots nocks an arrow and takes aim. Wangji’s blade flashes; heads roll. He wipes it on his blood-spattered robes.

Wei Ying stumbles out of the water. Wangji offers his middle robe; Wei Ying refuses. Wangji drapes it around him anyway. It stinks of gore. They walk home without a word between them.

“You didn’t have to,” Wei Ying snaps, when he’s scrubbed himself until his skin is raw. He fetches a flask of wine; Wangji reaches for him; Wei Ying twists away and takes a step back. “They didn’t need to die.”

The distance hurts. The deed does not. Wangji’s lips set in a thin line. “How about you?”

Wei Ying glares; a shimmer of red tinting his eyes. “I can take care of myself.”

“Would you have let them kill you?” Wangji persists.

“No!”

“Would they have let you go?”

Wei Ying’s brows furrow.

“Then, what’s the use of letting them live?” Wangji reaches for him again, and this time Wei Ying allows it.

“It’s alright,” he says later, after the third flask. “I’m just an old monster. Who cares if there’s a few more souls blaming me.”

Wangji stokes the embers of their hearth. “One fool at a time,” he says, haltingly.

“Lan Zhan, the world is full of fools! I’m one of them. You can’t kill people for being fools.”

Wangji’s silence says otherwise.

Wei Ying goes outside to play ‘Rest’ on his flute.

Wangji joins him with his zither.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Immortal memory

“What do you mean, mellow?” Jingyi hisses at Zizhen who’s stared too deeply into his wine cup. “His Lordship?! My ass! He never granted an audience to your old man, after, you know-” Yes, after Old Man Ouyang had gossiped about Wei Ying, again, post-resurrection. Unforgivable, incised in the blackest register of Wangji’s perfect memory. And there it stays. Clan Leader Yao suffered the same ignominy, during Wangji’s tenure as Chief Cultivator. Along with a few others. They all were glad when Wangji handed his duties to his amicable (some say gullible) elder brother. Zizhen sighs. “With the Master though…”

The fly’s fate

“Yeah, yeah. His Lordship approves of whatever Senior Wei does. Or he keeps quiet. Right. He’ll silently murder you for sneezing on his man; Senior Wei is noisy but won’t hurt a fly unless…” Jingyi frowns, “well, unless that fly deserves to die. Then he’ll kill it.” He chews his lip. “After slowly dissecting-”

“What?” Jin Ling’s snappish arrival startles them.

Jingyi reddens; Zizhen pushes the wine-flask across the table. “How’s home?”

Jin Ling plops down and pours himself a cup. “We’ll have another bun.”

“Number eight,” mutters Jingyi, awed and terrified.

“A thousand blessings,” smiles Zizhen, raising his cup.

Blessings and immortals

Jingyi hastily follows suit.

Jin Ling smiles proudly. “Thank you.” Several cups later, he shakes the empty bottle, then glares at Jingyi. “Now, what about my Uncle Xian?”

Zizhen orders more wine, then leans on his elbows on the table. “He’s an immortal,” he gushes, “a fierce-”

“Shut up,” Jingyi grumbles.

“-lightning-bolt, Heavenly Wrath visited upon evildoers, defender of the people-”

Jin Ling stares at him, then at Jingyi. “How many bottles?”

“Wanna guess?” Jingyi shrugs. “It’s not our fault. Your Uncle and His Lordship are still upstairs. We’re just killing time. Senior Wei promised hotpot. He said he’d pay.”

Earthly delights

They’re in that grimy drinking den His Lordship and Wuxian favour, in downtown Caiyi (‘Close to the pulse,’ Wuxian had laughed when they wrinkled their noses at the stink of hemp and cheap booze, charcoal-smoke, garlic, and mutton fat.)

The afternoon fades to dusk; the place begins to fill. It’s getting noisy.

Sizhui joins them; he orders tea, Jingyi tips a cup of wine in. Sizhui drinks it anyway, drooping immediately.

They’re getting hungry.

“What are they doing?” hisses Jingyi.

Sizhui pretends not to hear.

Zizhen’s eyes are misty. “Embracing one another’s earthly presence.”

Jin Ling flushes fiercely. “Shut up!”

Love

Jin Ling is mostly sober when Wuxian and Lan Wangji finally descend the wooden staircase. They look energised, Wuxian talking animatedly, His Lordship wearing a tiny smile. Yet Jin Ling remembers them on the palace steps at Jinlintai, back-to-back, blades drawn, Wuxian’s teeth bared, eyes flashing; Lan Wangji coldly determined as he stares their enemies down. His sword ran red that night, and Wuxian used his cursed flute like a combat staff. Why did he let Jin Ling skewer him? Jin Ling understands now: He’s alive because Wuxian held back. At heart, Wuxian’s a peaceful man, unlike His Lordship.

Fire in the belly

The next morning they hear fresh talk in the markets – five bodies floating in a river, the corpses nearly defleshed. The work of wrathful spirits, people mutter before praying to the Heavens. Wuxian is in an unusually black mood, oozing curls of smoke. His Lordship seems frosty and forbidding. “Don’t follow me,” Wuxian snarls when he breaks away from them.

Stiff-backed, His Lordship trails him anyway.

The younger men trade glances.

“Are they having a spat?” Jingyi stage-whispers.

Sizhui blinks. “There’s a noodle shop. I’m hungry.”

The noodles are fiery hot, but they all eat, silent amid the market noise.

Balance

They return to the inn, Jin Ling and Sizhui ahead, Jingyi and Zizhen following. Later, Wuxian will hold his usual surgery in the dirty backyard, for people who can’t afford the town physician. He knows enough, and his heart isn’t made of silver. He understands poverty and misery.

“You think it’s true?” Jingyi, uncharacteristically restrained, nudges Zizhen. “Would Senior Wei...”

Zizhen sighs, rather soberly. “More likely His Lordship.”

“Figures,” mutters Jingyi.

Jin Ling briefly squeezes Sizhui’s hand, then turns his head. “So what?” he grits out. “Those bastards got what they deserved.”

And surprising them all, Sizhui says, quietly, “Yes.”

Helpless

Wuxian spends the day on the back porch of the inn. It stinks of horse dung, of dirty bodies, of stale cabbage from the kitchen. A queue of people, eager to see him, snakes across the yard through the gate. Wangji watches from the door. Wuxian compounds medicines, writes charms, promises visits, and accepts whatever people pay, sometimes just blessings. The waiting crowd is quieter than usual. He talks, kind and smiling, his eyes keen and clinical when assessing his patients, to capture malaises of body and mind. Inside, the younger men drink tea; their swords and skills useless here.

Unfair

When he’s done for the day, Wuxian packs his things into a carrying crate to start his visits – all night he’ll be in and out of miserable hovels in the destitute streets of downtown Caiyi. Wangji rises too, clutching his sword. Wuxian nods at it, then meets Wangji’s gaze unsmilingly. “What if nobody comes anymore? Who’ll they see? Some charlatan?”

“And if you get hurt?” Wangji enfolds Wuxian’s hand in his own. “You, in my place. What would you do?”

Wuxian swallows. “Unfair,” he whispers. He pulls away, turning towards the gate.

Wangji follows, a pale shadow, his blade glinting.

Friends

Standing with folded arms near the backdoor, Jin Ling watches them leave. Sizhui joins him. Silently they observe lanterns being lit along the street as the night markets begin to get busy.

“His Lordship’s right,” Jin Ling says, with quiet bitterness, into the gathering dusk. “Better be feared than being liked. If there’s no choice. But I like him. He’s my mad uncle.” Looking at Sizhui, he meets a small smile. “What?”

“Thank you,” says Sizhui, who’s Jin Ling’s friend, sworn brother, and sort-of-cousin.

Turning, Jin Ling huffs. “You wanted to visit the markets?”

He buys Sizhui a grass butterfly.

Affection

[ArchiveWriter's note: Zizhen/Jingyi.  I like the idea of them as a couple.  What would be the ‘shorthand’ for them – ZhenJing? ZiJi?  They seem to complement one another, Jingyi loud, brash and matter-of-fact, Zizhen romantic, diplomatic yet decisive.  In my storyverse they marry, Zizhen becomes Ouyang clan leader, and Jingyi follows him to co-rule Ouyang clan as Zizhen's man-wife :-)]

oOo

“He’s scary, sometimes.” Jingyi shuffles up the shared bed, reaching across Zizhen for the wine flask on the bedside-table.

Zizhen, propped against the headboard so he can ink another anecdote about the Master into his precious pocket-book, glances at him. “Senior Wei?”

“Don’t stare at me like, like-”

“Hm?”

“-some lovesick fool!” Jingyi’s neck flushes as he glugs straight from the flask, then clarifies, “I meant His Lordship.”

“Ah.” A small pause, a few more brush-strokes, then Zizhen says sweetly, “I am.”

“What?”

Zizhen smiles. “A lovesick fool.”

Jingyi sputters, but he shifts closer to huddle against Zizhen’s taller form.

We’re good

Wuxian’s exhausted when he and His Lordship return to the inn. Dawn’s tinting the sky; the street lanterns have burned out. His clothes are grubby. The hems of His Lordship’s robes are mud-spattered. A light rain is starting when they climb upstairs to their room; Jin Ling runs into them on his way to the backyard-latrines. He bows hastily. Wuxian claps his bony hand on Jin Ling’s shoulder. A smile ghosts over his features. “We’re not gonna get up early.”

Jin Ling snorts. Wuxian chuckles.

Somehow, Jin Ling feels relieved to see them kiss, briefly, as their door slides shut.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Wei Ying loves Wangji. He loves kissing him.

He always tries to keep his eyes open when he does it, because he wants to see this: Wangji’s gaze turning a little hazy, slightly cross-eyed, a faint blush tinting his cheeks and ears rosy, and a faint sheen of sweat appearing on his brow.

He’s so cute like that, thinks Wei Ying as he hugs him around the waist and tastes him. It’s a soft kiss. Chaste, no tongue. Just a gentle touching of lips to lips.

It’s lovely, to have him like that. Without the relentless thrum of desire whipping them into action and drowning out more tender things. To have him when he’s all quiet and relaxed in Wei Ying’s arms, where he’s at home.

Wei Ying’s given Wangji a home.

Wei Ying still can’t grasp this. But he knows that it’ll never disappear as long as they’re alive.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

He’d dared. Wuxian – only Wuxian – had dared to meet him on equal terms. How brazen.

How fascinating. Wangji’d always been a keen observer but it took him a while to figure this out: Wei Ying was faking it. Not his cheer, his sunny smiles, his silly jokes and bright laughter.

But his non-concern was fake. Wanji’d seen him look at people – curious, probing, oddly cool beneath his jovial mask. He’d looked at Wangji like this, too.

And then he threw himself at Wangji whilst hiding behind clownery and nonsense.

This, beyond a play-fight under the moon, was the true challenge: It irked Wangji. Wei Wuxian – Wei Ying – had no right to withhold himself from Wangji. To shutter his gaze and veil his thoughts with incessant chatter. A servant, daring a noble!

It was… impressive. Frustrating yet deserving of respect. Hadn’t he earned it, with his skills, his wits, his learning? Wuxian was a river current, always coursing, glittering in a myriad of waves. He’d surprised Wangji, unbalanced him and his (the Lans’) ideas of the order of their world.

One needed to listen beyond the reed-trumpets to hear the gong. The beautiful, clear thrum of a soaring soul and a valiant heart. Wangji heard, and fell in love.

It was, perhaps, a heavenly joke, to bestow such talents on someone of such lowly station. It was an oddity, something to be dealt with according to custom: Liberate, suppress, eliminate. The first was inconceivable to the elders. The second… failed, spectacularly. Yet the third… well. Wangji did his best to thwart it.

What was Death but another kind of Darkness?

And wasn’t Wei Ying its master?

Beneath grief, Wangji found trust: Wei Ying could not have gone without a trace.

Wei Ying heard him.

Wei Ying returned, to Wangji.

To Love.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

Heaven

There’s an old mountain, a grave of ash and bones.

It’s hoary with brambles, its spine a dragon’s ridged back.

The road to its peak is barely a path, its verges thick with grass.

Its flanks are jagged rocks.

The path is harsh, the earth is stony.

Water rushes down deep-gauged gulleys.

Halfway-up, there’s a small, stone-built shrine to the mountain’s sorrowing ghosts.

Just under the clouds a tall rock looms, like a monster’s fearsome fang.

It guards a narrow track. The track leads to a bamboo house, strong yet flimsy on a soaring cliff:

Walls painted with coloured clay, a roof thatched thickly with millet straw.

Ribbons of stony earth wend along the edge of the outcrop.

Their contours resemble a tiger’s arched backbone.

In the ribbon-fields sways millet, as if bowing to the Heavens.

Water sheets from a crack in the mountain, near the sentinel stone.

It gathers in a dip, moss-padded and fringed with fern.

A pear tree arches its gnarled branches over it.

The pond reflects the dappled sky.

In summer, there are damselflies and whirring crickets; by night fireflies glint like a thousand stars. In autumn, there are howling rainstorms, in winter only snowy silence.

oOo

Lightkeeper

In the house is a man in white robes. Sitting by a hearth with a pot of simmering millet porridge and a clay flask of wine heating in the nest of embers, he weaves.

From dawn to dusk, his shuttle clacks back and forth on his frame-loom.

He hums and weaves: Silk and hemp, nettles and grass. He weaves rabbit fur and crow’s feathers.

At night, he embroiders the cloth with moonlight and spiderthreads.

He stitches red plum-blossoms and pale magnolias, glittering morning dew and whisps of evening mist. Under his hands rise birds and rabbits, to the sound of a zither.

By his side lounges a man in black, his robes edged with crimson, his waist girded with a rust-red sash. He watches, smiles, and drinks warm wine. He combs the weaver’s hair, a flood of ink-black silk, and whispers countless blessings.

By day he roams the mountain to hunt.

He plays his flute, he lures his prey, he shoots arrows with his bow, never failing.

He is swift and kind.

He wears his robes crossed the wrong way, like a corpse.

He wears his robes like a shroud.

In the timeless eternity of the old mountain, they kiss.

Sometimes they embrace. Solace and warmth, the fire of a hearth in the depth of winter.

Spring brings plum-blossoms to the mountain.

Under the low eaves of the hut, just outside the door, hangs a hemp-lantern.

The man in white places grease-lights inside; he keeps it lit so that its gilded glow might comfort the shadows of the mountain.

So that it may guide the huntsman home.

It’s just a tale old people tell. Silly teahouse-gossip, useless superstition.

Only desperate souls climb that haunted mountain.

But it’s good to keep a light, and pour wine when passing that half-forgotten shrine.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Wangji contemplates the moon. He stands on the edge of the cliff with their hut and their fields; the valley beneath filled with softly rolling clouds. His hands linked behind him, head tilted back, he gazes unblinkingly at the full, round brightness in the deep autumn sky. The pale light bleaches his sleeping robe of undyed hemp. His hair, held back by two loosely twisted strands, falls down his back like heavy silk.

Wei Ying watches from their hut, a smile mellowing his features. Suddenly Wangji turns his head, meeting Wei Ying’s gaze. Wei Ying holds his breath.

Wangji blinks slowly. His lips curve in a tiny smile: a calm pond reflecting the moon.

Wei Ying joins him. He takes Wangji’s hand and squeezes it gently. “Aiyah,” he sighs, “my love. My dearest.” He kisses Wangji’s cheek; Wangji inclines his handsome head inviting more; Wei Ying obliges, then chuckles and pulls him into an embrace.

Wangji lets him, lets himself be hugged and kissed and admired, and rewards Wei Ying with the softest smile and sweetest glances ever.

“My bunny,” Wei Ying nuzzles into Wangji’s hair, “my dragon, my lovely bull, my amazing, peerless, great, strong husband…”

A quiet huff, billowing a strand of Wei Ying’s loose hair. “Wei Ying.”

“Hmmm…”

“Hyperbole.”

“Truth!”

Wangji sighs, turning in Wei Ying’s arms. Wei Ying’s hug tightens. “Stay here,” he begs, emphasising his plea with a childish sulk. It’s ridiculous: He’s in his sixth decade (give or take ten years, on account of his new body). Wangji raises his right hand and gently combs it through Wei Ying’s tangled tresses. They’re warm and soft like smoke against Wangji’s skin. “Am I all this, to you?”

Wei Ying nods, eyes damp.

Wangji leans against him. “I will,” he promises, “always be here, with you.”

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

“Give me your hand,” Wei Ying demands, eyes twinkling.

Wangji holds it out without asking.

Wei Ying clucks. He raises Wangji’s hand to his lips and kisses his palm, then folds his fingers around it. “A keepsake,” he whispers.

Wangji leans in and nuzzles Wei Ying’s cheek. “Hm. Mine.”

Wei Ying sways, the force of all he feels crashing through him like a primal wave.

Wangji slides the kissed hand into his own lapels. “Will keep it.”

“Ay, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying breathes, “my love…”

Sizhui, about to hail them from the parting stone, waits and watches, enjoying the moment.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Wei Ying never needs to try: Wangji is attracted to him.

It’s as inevitable as the tides.

He can’t even say what, in particular, fires this feeling: a persistent, low-key burn in his belly, flaring at the slightest touch, smile, breath – even a look from those dark eyes is enough.

No, wrong, Wangji corrects his mind, even knowing Wei Ying is closeby will suffice.

Wangji loves him madly.

He’s crazy for him.

He wants him badly, all the time, in any form or shape, whatever position: Whatever Wei Ying wants, Wangji will do it. It’s an insatiable craving. A bottomless hunger. He’ll love, rail, coddle him (he’ll not spare Wei Ying – not in words or deeds; between the pair of them it’s Wangji who uses earthy slang and Wei Ying who blushes). He’ll receive him. He’ll do him. He’ll be tender or bruising, as the mood takes Wei Ying (who, Wangji’s learned, does thrive on a bit of judiciously applied pain, as much as he blossoms under tender touches).

Wei Ying says that Wangji makes him feel alive (he sounds so awfully grateful).

Wangji knows it’s the other way round: Wangji’d be a dead soul without Wei Ying’s warming flame.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Wei Ying is tough. He’s endured heartbreak that would kill most people. He died in body and soul and clawed his way back to the living, because Wangji called to him. He can live on Wangji’s breath as if it’s the only sustenance he’d ever need, on the mere sound of Wangji saying ‘Wei Ying’ as if it was the most powerful incantation. He’ll thrive on such things.

Like a ghost.

He’s so handsome. Even now, in his new form that’s so achingly similar to how he’d been before disaster struck. An impression of his old self from whom Wangji had managed to steal a single kiss.

Regret. It wrenches in Wangji’s heart sometimes, in spite of everything.

It isn’t quite true that Wei Ying’s form doesn’t matter to Wangji, and sometimes he lets himself grieve for what’s irretrievably lost to both of them, for never loving Wei Ying in his old body. But he’s learned from Wei Ying that nothing will undo the past, and it’s good to live. Now he has all of Wei Ying, and he’s happy. Drunk with happiness, all the time, intoxicated, unapologetic because he loves having this. He loves him and he knows Wei Ying loves him back in equal measure (If not more, if not more – he’d sacrifice himself without second thought should he believe it would save Wangji from whatever. Wangji makes sure to keep himself safe and healthy so Wei Ying never feels compelled to commit such foolery).

Because Wei Ying, Wangji is determined, must suffer no more heartbreak in this life, or any others Fate might grant them. Wei Ying should bathe in sunshine and happiness for all the eternities, and Wangji’ll do anything to make it so.

Ghost or real – Wangji loves Wei Ying.

He is Wangji’s eternal light.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Wangji’s uncle theorises that Wei Ying had just been there when Wangji’s maturing body woke to its animal desires, and Wangji imprinted on him like a chick on whatever it sees first upon hatching. Wangji considered and dismissed this: He’s too controlled. He’d already been aware of his carnal urges, and resolutely suppressed them as base and unseemly.

Only that, facing Wei Ying, all of Wangji’s proven methods failed, spectacularly. Nothing worked: Neither meditating until he dropped, nor training swordforms to utter exhaustion, nor trying to study until he got a brain-splitting migraine. Nothing could overcome the images of a laughing, boldly-teasing, carefree Wei Ying in Wangji’s mind. Nothing could dismiss that curious gaze, those clever wits, hide that courageous heart and compassionate soul (or his startling innocence!).

Nobody else was like Wei Ying – so extraordinary, so luminous, he’d set a sun ablaze in Wangji’s heart.

But Wangji, despite his capacity for passion, didn’t blindly drop: He reasoned hard, with himself. It took him sixteen years to make a cool, deliberate decision. Until finally he let himself be swept up in this almighty current named Wei Ying. For he’d learned, at last, that it would carry him where he belongs.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Wei Ying can’t quite comprehend it. Perhaps because words abandon Wangji completely when trying to describe this. So Wei Ying, thinking he has to do something to get and retain Wangji’s interest, keeps clowning and flirting and teasing him. He makes an effort. He hovers in Wangji’s orbit like a moth around a light. He flits around him as if to taste and recoil, uncertain how he’s earned this, how Wangji – whom he venerates (if he’s truthful) as one might worship a flawless immortal – could possibly stoop to loving him.

Wangji thinks it’s cute that Wei Ying’s trying so hard, when he just needs to breathe in Wangji’s presence. It’s also sad that he seems unable to shed this worry, no matter what Wangji does (who’s determined to rid him of it, but hasn’t found the key to that particular lock yet). Deep down, hidden where not even Wei Ying himself can see it, something nasty whispers at him that Wangji might discard him, might tire of him and turn his back, for the sake of a better life. An easier life, perhaps, than grubbing stony earth to wrest a few measly crops every year from a hostile grave-mountain.

He might not even try to cling to Wangji because, buried yet festering in his soul, Wei Ying carries an old doubt, an old guilt: Deep in his soul, he is convinced Wangji deserves a better life. He believes he can’t ever be worthy of Wangji. He reckons himself ruined, impure, beyond redemption.

It’s old demons, nightmares beaten into him from childhood on, screeching at him when he isn’t careful. They have faces. Wangji resents them. For what, he thinks angrily, would Wei Ying need redeeming? And what life could possibly be better than one where Wangji can love Wei Ying?

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

If only, she thinks, angrily, achingly If only he’d let go of his iron discipline. He glosses over it but he’s wearing it like an armour, like a turtle shell, impenetrable and cold. Encasing him so he can keep standing, walking, functioning the way he thinks he must.

If only he’d allow himself to… do what? she wonders, stumbling over the gap. A missing word. He mustn’t relax. He mustn’t become vulnerable. This is neither the time, nor the place for such things: Yiling Mountain suffocates anything tender.

She’s grateful; she feels guilty. She feels boundless affection for this man, this youth who’s thrown his lot in with her and what’s left of her people. Perhaps it’s how a mother feels for her child for it’s different from what she feels for her younger brother. It’s how a comrade might think of another, with unquestioning trust. They’re comrades in arms now, together in shared misery. There’s a little hope too, a pale, foolish shoot, unable to thrive – she’s too much of a realist.

This is where they diverge, she and Wei Wuxian. He’s still hoping – he might not be sure for what, but he’s clinging to hope, with dogged, stubborn resolve. She admires him for it, with an odd kind of detachment, and with fierce, burning affection that wants to shield, protect, wants to love him-

And what? she thinks again, merciless, whilst peeling another radish for dinner. He loves someone else: A man, as cold and flawless as white jade. But here, on this grave-hill where they’ve found refuge – she and her family, shielded by this fiery, courageous soul – she’s closer. It’s her who’s soothing his aches and treating his injuries.

He lets her hug him, sometimes.

She’d give him more, if only he’d allow himself to be loved.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

o-1-o

Every time Wangji lays his hands on Wei Ying he thinks how privileged he is: To be allowed. To be invited. To be wanted like this. For his touch to be welcomed, time and again. Nobody else has ever touched Wei Ying like this: Wrapped their hands around his trim waist, ran their fingers along his body, combed his long tresses. Wei Ying’s always been tactile, but – like so many things – it’s a mask. He’s tactile, yet won’t permit more.

“Unfilial,” scolds Wangji’s uncle, with the bitterness of regret, “a man, lying with another man – such unions cannot bear children!”

o-2-o

Wangji, who’s never desired to touch anyone else, can’t get enough of touching Wei Ying. Can’t quite comprehend why he is Wei Ying’s chosen. The one where Wei Ying is bare and defenseless, unthinkingly, as if it couldn’t be any different. He trusts Wangji, absolutely. He might have questioned Wangji’s trust in him, sometimes, but he’d never questioned his own. Was this right? Wangji wonders. Was he himself worthy of such a treasure? Such a pearl, unblemished, splendid before the Heavens?

“It’s your fault. You ruined him,” accuses Clan Leader Jiang, Wei Ying’s former younger martial brother, “you’re a hypocrite!”

o-3-o

Is he not right? Had Wangji not hesitated, many times? Wangji feels cold yet examines, with clinical detachment, for he’s also conscientious and judges himself as he judges others. He knows that Wei Ying thinks of him so highly as to worship him: A flawless jade, an immortal descended. When Wangji feels anything but. Wei Ying, he thinks, has always been too forgiving, even when he hasn’t been able to forget. He’s good at suppressing pain so he can live.

Wangji gazes at Wei Ying’s sword, hanging against the wall over their bed. Wei Ying will never use it again.

o-4-o

He’s so strong, thinks Wangji, overwhelmed – as always when he really lets himself sink into such musings – by the clarity, the sheer, unyielding power of Wei Ying’s heart. How could he be anything but an immortal reborn? Yes, that had to be it. A sacrifice. And when he had nothing left, he gave himself to Wangji, into Wangji’s hands, his pleasure, his care. He let Wangji enjoy him in earthly bliss (when Wei Ying had already, irreversibly, touched Wangi’s soul).

“What else could I give you?” smiles Wei Ying, eyes shining, “And what would I want, but you my love?”

o-5-o

No light shines without darkness, thinks Wangji. True peace won’t come from meditation. True love can’t be obtained with hope or prayers. Wei Ying is on his stomach, his face bedded in his folded arms, his hair splayed about him like an inky cloak, silvered by moonlight. Wangji, resting beside him, runs his palm down Wei Ying’s back, traces his contours, marvels that he’s here, alive, and happy. A gift. Nobody else will ever touch Wei Ying as he does.

“You kept a light, all those years,” Wei Ying chuckles sleepily. “You played music. So I came back for more.”

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Wangji twitches in his sleep.

Wei Ying lies awake, watching wide-eyed, his hand splayed on Wangji’s chest.

Wangji wakes with a choked, shuddering whimper.

Wei Ying props himself up on one elbow and leans down to kiss Wangji’s brow. “You were dreaming.”

Eyes blank, Wangji stares up at him.

“I didn’t want to wake you. Sometimes… it’s easier to forget if the dream is finished.”

“Hm,” Wangji rasps, voice unsteady. Wei Ying knows such things better than Wangji does.

He slides down and crouches, in reverent supplication, to hug Wangji’s ankles.

Wangji pushes himself up onto his elbows. “Wei Ying…”

Wei Ying kisses Wangji’s feet. “My love,” he murmurs. “My bunny. My dearest…”

Wangji gazes at him, haunted and groggy. “Wei Ying,” he whispers miserably.

Wei Ying uncoils and glides over Wangji until he’s covering him. “My love…”

Wangji shifts to lie on his back and parts his legs. “I… I want…”

“Anything. I’ll do anything, my love.” Wei Ying kisses him, softly. He settles in the cradle of Wangji’s thighs. Wangji clasps Wei Ying’s biceps; Wei Ying cups Wangji’s cheeks. “Good bunny,” he says, barely above his breath.

“Yes,” replies Wangji, docile and obedient as he rarely is. His voice is small. He looks hazy. Wei Ying slides one arm under Wangji’s neck and hugs him. “So good. So lovely,” he murmurs, a breeze through rustling leaves. “So warm, so soft for me.” He kisses Wangji’s eyelids. “Let go, my love. It’s only dreams…”

Wangji’s grip tightens, fingers digging bruises into Wei Ying’s flesh.

Wei Ying rocks him gently. “I’m here. I’m here.”

“Always,” Wangji breathes.

“Always,” Wei Ying promises.

He feels Wangji relax back to sleep in a few heartbeats. Wei Ying stays awake, to watch over Wangji’s dreams. He can rest later, once Wangji starts his day.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Wei Ying loves being loved by Wangji. But it’s just as good to slide into him. Wei Ying likes it a lot. Usually they do it the other way round because Wei Ying tends to be tired more often but doesn’t want to miss out. He theorises that Wangji might have a stronger drive. Or that Wei Ying has a secret, sweetly perverted penchant to be caught and held so he cannot wiggle away. He still gets embarrassed (his reckless talk says otherwise, but Wangji, Lan Zhan, his dearest husband, his one and only love, has seen right through him, and Wei Ying feels terribly ‘known’ – there’s no leaf to cover his bareness!).

But once in a while he's in a mood, and then he might corner Wangji, ruin whatever he’s doing – cooking, laundry, tidying their bed – and rail him to his (and Wangji’s) heart’s content. He loves seeing him melt beneath Wei Ying’s hands and mouth. He loves pressing him down with his full weight and spread him out and fill him up. He’s beautiful, thinks Wei Ying with tears pricking at his eyes, no matter how wrecked.  Even Wei Ying’s silver tongue is no match for Wangji’s radiance.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

She stopped crying when she climbed into her wedding sedan. Men have pride, women have dignity, she hears her mother. Don’t dishonour us. Let your husband do the fighting.

She clenches her jaw as she watches her husband push the boy towards her children. “Wei Ying,” he says, affectionately, “this is Cheng, this is Yanli.”

Later, the shrieks and commotion, the new boy darting across the yard into the night; her silly daughter running after him like a lowly servant, her son – the clan leader’s heir! - howling when his father tells him his new puppies must go because this stranger is terrified of dogs.

She’s borne the loss of face for years. Her husband isn’t cruel. He treats her well, he constrains her less than custom allows, lets her continue cultivating like a warrior (unlike her pitifully docile daughter, who seems happy with women’s learning about health and fertility, cooking, and caring for others).

He hasn’t even taken secondary wives, and he’s content with the two children she birthed him. He considers this respectful. He endures her outbursts – womens’ moods, just rest a little. He never argues: Kind and concerned, he showers her with gifts. What else would you want? her mother, her clan might ask.

They’d think her preposterous for saying: My pride. (My husband’s love, she won’t admit.) She wants him to take her hand and grip it firmly when she yells at him. She wants him to stiffen his spine and tell her enough now, for she wants him to see in her his equal. She could find comfort in this.

She scoffs. He’ll never do such things. Her words disperse like smoke. Instead, he drags his bastard into their home (his, his home, for has it ever truly been hers?).

Powerless, she grips her whip.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Wei Ying dances.

He’s not used his sword in decades.

But he dances with it even though he’s gripping a staff.

Wangji watches.

Wei Ying’s as much of a perfectionist as Wangji’s ever been: The slightest drift, unnoticeable to untrained eyes, and he’ll finish the form, then begin again. Again and again… he’ll repeat the same sequence, the same movement, the smallest, most miniscule gesture, until it is flawless. There isn’t even the hint of frustration or boredom, he doesn’t seem to slow down at all, his expression remains utterly focused.

It looks exhausting.

His face is glistening with sweat, his clothes soaked between his shoulderblades, under his arms, across his chest. But he seems energised.

Wangji watches, critical and mesmerised, as if he hadn’t seen Wei Ying like this ten thousand times, as if he hadn’t seen him like this under a full moon or in his most vivid, most yearning dreams:

Wei Ying’s style is sharp and fast, flexible and lethally efficient. He might make it look easy, even playful, but Wangji’s an expert himself and knows there isn’t a single superfluous move.

It’s a killing style.

It’s merciful because it’s swift and precise.

Wangji takes a matching staff from where it leans against the side of the door. He weighs it in his hands to gauge its heft and balance. He takes a slow breath and lets it go, to centre himself. Then he steps outside. Wei Ying swings around in a lightning-fast twirl.

Wangji blocks, only just.

Wei Ying no longer cultivates, but Wangji finds – to his deep satisfaction – that he’s still Wangji’s match, a master of the blade.

Wei Ying, thinks Wangji as they move in perfect harmony, doesn’t need a sword, or cultivation, to be who he is: Wangji’s immortal. Half of his soul.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

Filth (300)

Her voice is strident: Don’t bother scrubbing, filth is filth.  Don’t waste time polishing painted mud¹.

Each word a strike. Each strike a weal. Each weal a scar.

On his knees in the yard, where everyone can see and hear.

The whip licks bleeding flames across his skin.

Pulling up snot, he repeats, clearly enunciating every word. It’ll hurt more if he makes her angrier.

(When she’s done and he’s left kneeling for hours, he’ll fidget and hum, shrugging off the humiliation. He’s lived through worse. Much, much worse. The jagged scars on his legs remind him, pulling against skin and bone. What use is shame? He’ll compensate by competing to be the best at everything. Nobody can deny it. He has hard fists, he’s clever and tough beneath his sunny smile. He’s good at fighting. He’s also good at comforting the youngest children, just entering the River People’s school, and generously shares his learning. It’s natural he should slide into the role of mentor.)

In the farthest corner of the yard cowers little Wanyin, crouching behind a large rainwater-urn. He’s hugging his knees, eyes wide and wet as he watches, mute with terror, his mother whipping Wei Ying. Wei Ying’s knees bleed, from the shards of the clay pot in which she’s made him kneel. He won’t tell her that Wanyin broke the pot. She’d still beat him, but she’d beat Wanyin too. They’d only been playing hide and seek, and Wanyin had barrelled into the woman servant carrying soup for Lady Yu.

It had been as flimsy an excuse as any: A missing cup, a startled cat, a bad dream. Singing too loudly, running too fast, inducing the servants to laugh at his merry antics.

But he gets fed, he has siblings, he has a place.

He’ll live.

Eating, everyday (200)

He’s a bit tired. He gets up at dawn to help stocking firewood in the kitchens, fetch pails of water for washing for his little foster brother and himself, gets their books and boxes with the four treasures ready for lessons later (he’s allowed to sit in; he’ll do anything to be allowed to sit in, even let himself beat until he almost passes out).

He’ll lay out Wanyin’s clothes and boots, and make their beds once Wanyin’s dressed. He’ll serve him breakfast and soothe him when he throws a tantrum for not getting a larger bowl of rice porridge. He’ll give him the boiled egg a maid had gifted him (pity or kindness, he’s grateful) and which he’d meant to eat for lunch.

He’s used to starving, Wanyin isn’t. He’s used to working – both his parents had always been doing things, he’s grown up like this – and to fending for himself. He misses them. He has bad dreams. It’s a bit strange staying in one place instead of walking the roads all day, but he likes it. He likes swimming in the lotus lakes and catching fish. He likes eating every day, and going to sleep in a bed.

Dogs (200)

Little Wanyin is still hurting from having to give up his dogs because… well, that’s one thing Wei Ying just cannot get over. He’s tried so hard but he can’t. When he was all alone, dogs nearly ate him. He half-pities them – they’re hungry too – but they mustn’t eat him! Dogs give him nightmares.

He feels terribly guilty about this. He broke his leg falling from the tree he’d climbed because Wanyin’s puppies scared him so much. It’s long healed but he feels sorry for his little foster brother (or whatever he is, Wei Ying only learned those words much later). So he takes care of him – out of guilt, and gratitude, and later… Wanyin’s mother often scolds and sometimes slaps him.

Wei Ying’s parents never hit him; other people did: The woman where they left him, with enough money to pay for his upkeep until he was older, but she told him after three months it had run out, and threw him out. Market traders who didn’t want hungry children hanging around their food stalls. Beggars who fought him over vegetable scraps. The magistrate’s officials policing the streets.

Wei Ying can cope.

He tries his best to console Wanyin.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

Stories (200)

Clan Leader Jiang – Uncle Jiang – allows him to sit in Wanyin’s lessons. Wei Ying is delighted. His mother had taught him to read simple characters, and his father showed him how to fight with a stick and use brush and ink. The kitchen maids let him peel vegetables (he likes helping in the kitchen – there’s always something to eat). The fishermen by the pier show him how to mend nets and carve bamboo whistles. But being able to listen to the old teacher drone on about this classic or that poet is something else. It doesn’t matter that the old man is ill-tempered and likes smacking Wanyin and Wei Ying across the palms if they forget a stroke or splotch ink whilst drawing characters.

Wanyin tends to doze off in the quiet study at the back of the family residence, where the sun slants dusty beams through the paper windows (closed, to aid concentration, the old man claims). Wei Ying fidgets yet listens, rapt and attentive, to every word the teacher utters.

If the old man knows Wei Ying’s helping Wanyin with his homework, he never tells.

He sneaks Wei Ying more books: Stories. Songs. Reminding him of his mother.

Worthy (300)

He’s twelve when he overhears the old teacher, turning to Uncle Jiang: “With appropriate instruction, your ward will excel. Learning, archery, sword-skills. He would be a useful companion for your son.”

It’s after Uncle Jiang’s listened in during one of their lessons (quietly, by the door) that he formally declares Wei Ying Wanyin’s study companion.

Lady Yu beats him nearly unconscious that evening, on the empty yard. He cries and grits his teeth. His elder martial sister collects him and takes him indoors. She brings him hot soup and tries to comfort him. She mends his clothes. He can barely move. It takes three days for the worst bruising to fade, for whip-marks to scab over. He stays in his and Wanyin’s shared room to avoid nosy questions. He reads voraciously; it distracts him from the pain. Then he lurches back to exercising: Swimming makes him feel weightless and free.

Relieved of household chores, he trains sword-forms, archery, wrestling, rowing. He wants to prove himself worthy, and his sunny nature can’t conceal he’s fiercely competitive, and prodigiously capable. He begins to be taught cultivation. It wakes a strange, stirring glow inside him. It energises him like nothing before. He tries to remember – hadn’t his parents talked about a cultivation master, Baoshan Sanren¹? Had they not been cultivators? He’ll honour their memory.

Wanyin’s frustrated – he works hard but Wei Ying bests him in everything. “You have it easy, you just suck it all in!”

It’s only half true: Wei Ying’s up early and to bed late, he spends more hours than anyone on the training yard and exploring old texts, in between serving Wanyin, studying, and keeping himself tidy in his loaned clothes. But he’s curious. He’s hungry. Books are treasures. He learns and learns and learns, ravenous, insatiable for more.

The Best (200)

The Jiang children become Wei Ying’s martial siblings, because Uncle Jiang for once defies his wife. Lady Yu alternates between beating Wei Ying, and burdening him with so much work most people would buckle (not he – he just becomes tougher, stronger, undeterred, because for all her clamour she doesn’t drive him out, back into the streets where he’d be rootless and without purpose). He hears rumours because he’s neither deaf nor stupid, and not everyone is kind. But nobody, not even Lady Yu, can deny that he’s becoming the best at everything he touches.

His childhood and youth taste of dust and hot soup, of the muddy lotus river and the sun-baked, leaking bottom of boats stinking of fish, of the fiery-spiced noodles and steaming hotpot served at the communal table, and honeyed, sticky-rice-stuffed lotus roots.

He begins to see reasons for Lady Yu’s bitterness, her disdain, her perennial anger at her husband. He thinks, guiltily, that perhaps he should leave so they could reconcile. But Wanyin and Jiangli both cling to him, in different ways: He’s their shield. He cannot leave for he feels indebted, and grateful, and filial. He just keeps working and smiling, determined to never disappoint.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

Always (200)

He can’t believe he’s allowed to go to study at Cloud Recesses, alongside Wanyin and Jiangli. To celebrate, he strolls through the waterfront markets, stuffing himself with gifted food (the uncles and aunties like him for his charm and easy cheer, and because he’s been helping here and there; they’ve seen him by the fishing boats, and they know Uncle Jiang picked him up like a pile of trash and let him stay, so perhaps they also pity him a bit).

Wanyin trails him; they flit here and there and end up with two flasks of lotus wine in a reed-choked lakeside-cove. They go swimming first (Wei Ying wins a splashing contest and subsequent race back to shore), then they get stone-drunk. They lie on their backs and watch the sky pale into pastel hues, before it erupts in a final blaze of copper and gold as the sun sinks into the glittering waves.

“I hate you,” Wanyin blurts, nearly sobbing, as he curls up against Wei Ying. “You’re so good. I really hate you.”

Wei Ying pats his shoulder. “It’s alright,” he slurs, “I’m here, I’m here. I’ll always be here when you need me.”

Wanyin clings to him.

Suddenly (300)

They arrive and are refused: No invitation, no entry. Cloud Recesses are hallowed ground. Things are done by the rules.

Wei Ying looks at His Young Lordship, Lan Wangji, who avoids his gaze, but Wei Ying sees that judgmental twitch, the slanted glare from beneath long lashes. His combative streak wins. “You’re really making your guests wait outside?” Before Wangji can answer, a man is carried past them on a stretcher. Wei Ying is distracted by curiosity. “He’s desouled, not dead,” he opines. “Hopefully you won’t bury him alive.”

He earns another glare; this time appraising, but then Wangji turns and continues towards the gate.

“Hey,” Wei Ying calls out, “what about us?”

“Come back tomorrow, if you find your invitation.”

It’s silly, but Wei Ying’s not deterred by petty arrogance. He dashes off to fetch the lost invitation. He brings back two flasks of the famous Gusu wine, breaks through the warded gate, and Wangji challenges him to a fight.

Lan Wangji is weird. He’s lightning-fast with his sword. He’s a bit ruthless – drawing blank against Wei Ying’s sheathed blade – and very pretty under the bright moon.

Who’d believe the peerless Second Jade would stoop to cheating? But he cuts the strings to Wei Ying’s wine-jugs, and it’s annoying, outrageous, and so funny, Wei Ying goads him some more.

He ’s irritated but not really cross when Wangji – dignified if ungracious – haul s him to the S tone of R ules and solemnly lectures him a bit (Wei Ying’s never heard so much nonsense in his life), then to meet his brother and uncle to be disciplined.

Wangji’s elder brother reveals that Wangji allowed the Jiang party in at nightfall. Relieved, Wei Ying stops clowning around. Wangji refuses to meet anyone’s gaze, and sidesteps Wei Ying’s friendly shoulder-bump.

Wei Ying suddenly likes him.

Coda (100)

(Something’s niggling at him. It refuses to go away. It takes him years to figure it out. It takes Wangji a moment. A glance. A single, thumping heartbeat.)

(It takes a war, a death, a long, long night. It takes sixteen years of dying and ten thousand stars in an endless autumn sky. Most of all, a smile more brilliant than the sun and the moon, a laugh resounding like bronze bells and copper chimes.)

Wangji can’t look away. Wangji won’t turn away.

“Lan Zhan. My dearest. I love you.”

Wangji holds on, and this time, he doesn’t let go.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

Morning Light

(100 words)

He was precious. He was wilful. He sparkled like dew in the sharp light of an autumn morning. He was clever, curious, learned. He was more beautiful than anyone Wangji’d ever known, and he used words and sword with devastating ease. His laughter rang like bronze bells. He blew into Wangji’s tranquil life like a clearing storm, ripping away every whisp of fog, every cobweb, every doubt that this was who Wangji wanted.

Wangji couldn’t stop looking, catching glimpses of those dark, glittering eyes. He hoarded heartbeats of desire. He coveted Wei Ying as a dragon covets a gleaming pearl.

Reflection

(200 words)

It was a shock: Exhilarating and terrifying.  It roused, with a violent yank, Wangji’s competitive, possessive streak.  It shook the unbecoming pride he suddenly discovered in his heart, because it robbed him of his calm, his hard-won control.  It cracked, effortlessly, irreversibly, Wangji’s jade mask and rocked him to his foundations.  His proven salves – meditation, sword-training, studying and music – failed spectacularly, completely, all at once.

Wangji woke from a long, false slumber to see himself clearly, as in a polished mirror.  

He resented it.  He furiously resented Wei Ying for this: The catastrophic realisation that Wangji, beneath his icy veneer, beneath his princely titles and cultivation accolades, his immaculate manners and rich learning, was a man, not immune to the weaknesses attributed to common people.

Since he could not change himself, he resolved to change Wei Ying.

It was a deathtime later that Wangji realised the fallacy of wanting him if only he were less… Wei Ying.  It was after that sunny smile had been extinguished, that courageous heart silenced.  After that irreverent mouth could no longer chuckle with mirth but only snarl in cynical, agonised disdain at the avarice of the righteous and the savage bloodlust of the clans.  

Immortal

(100 words)

Who would polish a perfect pearl?

Who’d be churlish enough to insult the Heavens, offend the immortals in this manner?

Should one not humbly pray for mercy and good fortune, and be grateful for such a priceless gift?

Wei Ying was stronger than a mountain. Wangji was not ashamed to be weak for him.

Wei Ying was his flaming pearl, his immortal reborn. Wangji would be his sword and shield, his dragon to guard him, so Wei Ying would never need to be anything but himself.

This precious pearl, so lovely, so incomparable: Wangji would hold him in his palm.

ArchiveWriter’s notes on this story

(500 words)

I’ve drawn inspiration from ancient Chinese poetry, in this case Fu Xuan¹.

寤寐念之，谁知我情。

昔君视我，如掌中珠。

何意一朝，弃我沟渠。

昔君与我，如影如形。

何意一去，心如流星。

(傅玄)

Wu4 mei4 nian4 zhi1, shei2 zhi1 wo3 qing2.

Xi1 jun1 shi4 wo3, ru2 zhang3zhong1 zhu1.

He2 yi4 yi1 zhao1, qi4 wo3 gou1qu2.

Xi1 jun1 yu3 wo3, ru2 ying3 ru2 xing2.

He2 yi4 yi1 qu4, xin1 ru2 liu2xing1.

(by Fu4 Xuan2)

Scarcely sleeping² I miss him who knows my sentiment.

In the past you looked at me like a pearl in the palm of your hand³.

Why the intention one morning⁴ to abandon me in a ditch?

Former lord and I are like shadow and shape⁵.

Whichever⁶ intention, once gone, my heart is like a shooting star⁷.

(My own translation of this excerpt from Fu Xuan’s poem; as always I’ve tried to stick to the actual words as much as possible though the characters reveal additional layers.)

oOo

Chinese shooting stars seem mostly portents of calamity such as natural disasters or the demise of a ruler. It felt pertinent to WangXian: Wei Ying never bore resentment towards Wangji for leaving him (several times) when things got difficult, but his heart was aching at the loss, and he spent much strength on restraining the unparalleled power he commands, amid whispers of tempation – ‘Wei Wuxian, do you want revenge?’. He might have felt his heart turn into a shooting star as the clans kept hounding him and the Wen refugees.

It took Wangji a long time to find the strength and maturity to leave his clan, its rules, and his old life to spend the rest of his days with his love. Perhaps it’s understandable – and Wei Ying certainly did understand, and love, and forgive – because Wangji owes his privileged position to his birth, his wealth and education to his clan, and his reputation is very much founded on his unyielding following of the rules prescribing proper conduct.

I think Wangji’s world crumbles when he comes to realise that it’s all paper theatre, and that the price for comfort and status is acquiescence and corruption. By contrast, Wei Ying offers terrifying honesty and cutting clarity. He’s ruled not by power but by his own merciless conscience, and his duty isn’t to lords and clans but to those who have nobody else to defend them. Not even filial obligations (true and imagined) can override it. He’ll break but he cannot bend.

It’s through Wei Ying that Wangji learns to separate silly nonsense from the shining, demanding principles enshrined in the core of The Rule (buried beneath petty chaff), and that it isn’t his clan but Wei Ying who actually embodies those principles (and pays for this with his life). It would have been hard for Wangji to accept this.

oOo

End

Chapter Text

oOo

The Master doesn’t roam so much anymore, now that he’s living among ghosts and nightmares on Yiling Mountain. What evil he might wish to wreak is curbed by His Luminous Lordship Lan Wangji, Retired Chief Cultivator and former Second Jade of Lan. His job is to keep the Master of the Ghostly Path quiet and docile, placate him with wine and food and whatever means he might wish to deploy.

It seems to work, mostly. But rumours are conflicting: Some people insist he isn’t anything like the monster in the bloodsoaked old stories. Nobody will punish such talk anymore. Those voices got louder, overlaying the horrors of yore: Doesn’t Wuxian show himself when asked politely? Doesn’t he help, whether it means driving out a nasty haunting or thrashing the local gangsters? Or he deals in medicines for the body, spells for the soul, and blessings that grant children to childless couples. All that, they insist, is true – there are witnesses!

The form he’s said to assume is that of a youthful if slightly greying man, a slip of a man. Some people claim he’s just a pretender. Their evidence? He’s too young to be Wei Wuxian.  And he's too nice.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

Escape

(200 words)

There’s always some celebration going on at Jinlintai. Wuxian’s nephew Jin Ling, this good child, this shrewd and deft ruler of the nest of snakes that’s Jin clan, always finds an excuse for inviting him and Lan Wangji. Wuxian obliges – the clans still fear him and his powers. Reminding themof his presence might curb any desire for violent plotting. But now and then he has enough, so he’s snuck away from the current diplomatic banquet, from the noise, the nettling, the need for decorum. Wangji’s still there, for presentational reasons (he’s such a Lan, in spite of everything – Wuxian loves him so much).

He’s escaped to the private gardens, behind his and Wangji’s quarters. Of course he has a perennial escort of trusted servants discreetly tailing him, to keep him safe (Jin Ling’s orders), but he got used to it. Lying on his back in the dew-damp grass, he gazes into the night sky. The scent of lotus blooms drifts on a mild breeze. He’s looking forward to babysitting Jin Ling’s growing clutch of little Jins along with a bunch of palace children. Tomorrow. Now he has a flask of fragrant Emperor’s Smile and crickets singing all around him.

Starry Night

(300 words)

The footfall on the grass is too light for a grown person, too defined for a ghost, too quick for a walking corpse. Plus, it comes with the smell of garlic-fried rice: Not typical for undead matter. Wuxian squints. The flute lies on his chest. The steps skip, then something plops into the grass next to him. He turns his head. Meets a pair of curious eyes in a girl’s small, round face. “Hey,” he says, “Your Highness. Won’t Her Ladyship your mother worry where you are?”

Another rush of steps, and a few more, plop-plop-plop they drop all around him. “Master,” another child says, “what are you looking at?”

Wuxian sighs. He plucks a stalk of grass, folds his arms under his head and blinks up into the sky whilst nibbling on the grass. “Stars,” he says, a bit muffled.

“They look like porridge,” says a boisterous little boy with all the entitlement of a Jin noble. He’s always hungry (because he’s growing, his nanny says; because he needs food instead of cultivation-fasting thinks Wuxian, and gives him treats whenever there’s an opportunity). “Crystals,” a little kitchen maid says, sounding awed.

“Master,” says the small princess, “you promised to make collars for His Lordship’s rabbits, so we can take them on walks.”

“Uh, His Lordship made them harnesses. I’m nearly finished plaiting leashes. You should help me with the rest. Tomorrow I’ll show you how to make tassels.” He’s plaited blue and red silk into soft ropes, all that’s missing is attaching the bamboo pendants he’s carved: a magnolia for the white bunny, a plum blossom for the black one.

Huddling closer, the children titter. “A story, Master? Please?”

Looking into the deep, starry summer night, Wuxian smiles.

It is good to be alive. 

It’s good to feel loved.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

He loved him.

It had hit Wangji with the force of a tidal wave – but it hadn’t been the attraction to the form, at first. Wei Ying was beautiful, in a strong, willowy way, but Wangji was cool-headed enough to see beauty elsewhere, too. Not quite like Wei Ying, never like Wei Ying, nobody was like him, nobody could ever compare – but close enough to be acceptable, if one measured by such standards.

Wangji did not. He’d observed and soon enough realised there was more to Wei Ying than his joker’s mask. A mask, half-true, half-disguise, and behind it Wangji discovered a treasure of wit and wisdom, courage and compassion. He found a tough and skilled fighter, an erudite mind, keen and curious, and a capacity for loving he’d never thought possible. A companion, he thought. An equal, unafraid and strong.

Wangji fell and fell and fell… it took a lifetime of falling, it took dying and being reborn, before he landed in Wei Ying’s arms.

To discover, astonished, incredulous, happy beyond words, that Wei Ying would catch him and hold him, warm and secure. That Wei Ying loved him back.

Wangji’s been drunk on Wei Ying’s love ever since.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Wei Ying stands on the edge of the precipice with their hut and fields, and gazes into the clouded sky, heavy with snow. His breath drifts from his lips in a white plume.

Winter always arrives early on Yiling Mountain. It comes silently, from one day to the next, after weeks of howling rainstorms and ripping autumn gales. The first frost of the season has whitened the fallow earth; ice glazes a few puddles amid millet stubble and cabbage stalks.

Wei Ying’s hands dangle loosely curled by his sides. He’s without his flute. He stands unblinking, rigid, like the sentinel stone guarding the fork between the old mountain road and the ghostly path to their home.

Wangji wraps his arms around him from behind.

A tremor runs through Wei Ying. “How would it be, to fall asleep here?” he mutters. “Not too bad, right? Peaceful.”

Wangji’s embrace tightens. A familiar terror chills his bones. “Wei Ying,” he whispers against his love’s clammy skin, “hold on to me. I’m here. I won’t let go.”

Wei Ying exhales. He feels distant. Cold, like a corpse. “Ah, my love. My dear, dutiful Lan Zhan. Why cling to an old ghost?” His voice is drifting, as if he’s talking to himself or to whatever whispers in his mind.

Wangji gathers Wei Ying’s hands to warm them. “Whithout him, this one will freeze to death.”

Another beat of silence, then a small puff of white breath comes from Wei Ying’s nostrils. Wangji squeezes him, none-too gently. “Come to bed with me,” he says into Wei Ying’s hair. It smells homely, of smoke and bitter herbs.

Wei Ying turns in his arms. He blinks, as if waking from a dream. “Alright. I love you.”

And the spook melts away, like the first snowflakes on his skin.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Sometimes, Wei Ying makes himself shrink until he fits into his own fist. Not for himself, but for Wangji’s sake. Wangji is so noble, so dignified, with a natural gravitas that appears utterly unshakeable (and oddly brittle to Wei Ying who truly knows him).

Wei Ying no longer takes pride in having rattled him so badly that once he drove him to swearing. It’s a long, long time ago, but when he remembers now, he feels a pang of shame and regret. If he could, he’d take it all back. What merit is there in ruining a work of art?

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

All that blood.

There’d been so much blood.

Wei Ying… Wei Ying had been covered in blood. There’d been nothing beautiful about him. He’d been maddened, terrifying, blood flying in arching sprays from his torn robes, his hands as he spun around, using his flute like a battle-staff. He’d looked like a monster – the flesh clinging tight to his bones, his skin ashen, his eyes crimson. He wore rags of darkness, billowing around his shape. He’d been howling like a demon, crazed with grief, torment shining from his eyes, shrieking from his flute when he put it to his lips.

Red-hot. Ice-cold.

They were done for.

They all were done for.

Wangji hears a voice shrilling in his brain. It sounds alien.

Wei Ying.

Wei Ying!

His poor, kind Wei Ying – what had turned him into this?

…come back with me…

Wangji will never know whether it was his scream, or Wei Ying’s heart that made him pause, made him turn and meet Wangji’s gaze. Astonished. Knowing. Filled with endless sorrow.

He looked ghostly.

And then he smiled and fell.

Wangji will always regret breaking Wei Ying’s rage.

It shouldn’t have been Wei Ying who died on that bloody battlefield.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Wei Ying’s fast asleep, his head in Wangji’s lap. His features are lax, mouth gaping. He’s drooled a wet patch on Wangji’s thigh, soaking his loosely gathered sleeping robe. Wangji’s dozing.

Wei Ying sniffles, draws a deeper, shuddering breath, and settles again. Wangji strokes him gently, unthinkingly: His back, the knuckles of his spine, prominent like prayer beads. Wangji’s lips move, soundlessly.

On the floor, near Wei Ying’s slack hand, lies an empty wine flask, rolled from his grasp. A small rivulet of liquid tracks its path. He’s stone-drunk. He reeks. He’ll sleep dreamlessly.

Wangji’s content to be his pillow.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

There’s nothing like this: Waking up and watching Wei Ying going through his morning routine. His upper body bare, his hair bundled loosely atop his head, he’s washing with tepid water from the pot in the overnight-embers. The door is open. Outside, frost glitters blindingly in the low-slanting sunrise. The sky is wide and cloudless. The mountain lies crisp and silvered, wearing wintry splendour.

Bathed in rosy gold and ice-blue shadows, Wei Ying looks otherworldly in his stark beauty.

Wangji rises and joins him. He wraps his arms around Wei Ying’s waist and rests his brow against his nape. Wei Ying’s skin is cool and damp. He shifts, and Wangji catches the gleam of one dark eye. Curved. Smiling. Wei Ying’s silky lips touch his cheek.

“Wei Ying,” Wangji murmurs, “Wei Ying,” more quietly, and then, barely audible, “Wei Ying…”

Wei Ying stills completely. His breath floats from his mouth in pale wisps. “Lan Zhan.” His voice is mellow like the night, a little sleep-hoarse, and warm, so warm Wangji feels it wrapping around his heart like a winter cloak. “Lan Zhan, my love. My dear, my dearest Lan Zhan.”

It’s all Wangji needs to hear.

It’s a beautiful morning.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Jin Ling stares for a few long heartbeats. He’s never seen them like this, in the cool winter sun, frost glittering like ten thousand diamonds, the sky an icy blue.

Wei Ying’s leaning on Wangji’s arm. Wangi’s dressed in indigo and blinding white. Wei Ying in midnight black and crimson. His posture is loose, his movements languid as he strolls beside Wangji across the parade yard at Jinlingtai. It’s not his simple visiting set he’s wearing, but a five-layered ensemble made of fine water silk, the pattern subtle, rippling with every sway of his wide skirts. The hems sweep the floor and kick up with every step he takes, flickers of red licking around his ankles like flames. His lapels cross high at his snowy throat, but there’s a wide, borderline-indecent strip of blood-red visible: the collar of his innermost robe. His hair flows about him like a cloak, his red ribbon holding only some of it in a high half-knot.

Wangji is showing him off. Anyone can see that. It isn’t subtle. Wei Ying plays the role of doted-on wife well. It suits him, thinks Jin Ling. He’s seen him drunk; he’s seen him bleeding. He’s witnessed him bawling, like the worst of aunties. Or combative, cold and quiet, letting darkness make him ugly. (He’s been spared seeing him become the Yiling Monster, that bloodthirsty glutton of ancient lore and eternal rumours.)

But on this morning, Wei Wuxian’s an elegant, spoiled man, kept and loved, and graciously accepting his husband’s homage to him as his due.

Wangi’s face is perfectly still, his posture rigid, one hand curled around the hilt of his sword. He’s wearing Wei Ying on his other arm like a jewel.

Wei Ying smiles, knowingly, his sharp beauty perfect for such a cold, clear winter day.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Wangji demands distance. He considers it his due. He’s been born to name and privilege, and he wears his entitlement unabashed, because he’s also earned it. Very few people can claim to have been closer to him than sword-length, and of those not many are alive (his uncle and brother being notable exceptions).

Only Wei Ying has been allowed to truly know Wangji – in heart and mind, spirit, soul and – finally – in the flesh. They’ve become one in every aspect. Perhaps, thinks Wangji, they’ve never been apart.

Wei Ying seems much less forbidding. His everyday demeanour invites closeness, his smile is bright and sunny, his eyes sparkle with mirth when he’s in a good place. But his skin is thinner than Wangji’s. He’s been through things Wangji cannot even imagine. He’s cracked and fixed himself countless times, as best he could.

Most people see a mirage. They get no closer than arm’s-length (plus flute). Only a few have been allowed to touch him beyond handholding or fighting, one of them a doctor to heal, another a child in need of comfort, and the third is Wangji. Only Wangji got close enough to achieve negative distance, rooting himself in Wei Ying in every possible way, like the ravenous, jealous dragon he is.

Sometimes he wonders, briefly, how Wei Ying can love him so much. How he can forgive him for not being by Wei Ying’s side when Wei Ying needed him most. Wei Ying looks bewildered when Wangji mentions it, though he might placate him: “Lan Zhan my love, those were my decisions, but if it helps, I forgive you. Now will you kiss me? Please?”

Wangji no longer questions it. The past is gone. Now, here, he’s happy. Wei Ying belongs to him. He belongs to Wei Ying. It’s simple.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Before the world, Wei Ying is bare – he has neither title nor standing, family nor wealth. His power is also his weakness: There will always be those who resent him for all he is, who envy his brilliance and courage, who hate his uncompromising clarity that sees them exactly for what they are. In a world where everything has a price, he cannot be bought. There will always be those who wish to silence him, his laughter and his flute, because he scares them.

Wangji has everything Wei Ying has not. He’s been careful with his worldly possessions: They are useful to him, because he can place them, unreservedly, at Wei Ying’s disposal.

He wraps around Wei Ying like a cloak. He’s made himself his sword and armour. He’ll love him enough to wash away anger and sadness, leaving but melancholy sometimes, a bitter residue. For that, Wei Ying has wine. For his wounded soul, he has Wangji’s love, warm and constant like the embers in their hearth. Wangji helps him to forget and remember, shares his suffering and his pleasures. Wangji holds Wei Ying’s heart in his hands, calm and steady, where it nestles safely like a new-hatched chick.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Wei Ying’s nephew Jin Ling has invited him and Wangji to Jinlingtai. “It’s winter. The climate here is easier on your lungs,” was his message to Wei Ying, “also, the children miss you.” Apart from Jin Ling’s growing brood of royal little Jins, there’s always a gaggle of palace children clustering around Wei Ying. He enjoys entertaining them, whether princeling or servant, soldier’s son or kitchen maid. They like his kindness, the games and toys he invents, his stories, the ditties his flute sings for them.

They’re in Wei Ying’s favourite place, in the private gardens behind their luxurious quarters reserved for Jin Ling and his family only, but Wei Ying insists the children should come and go at will. He’s been fooling around, playing hide and seek with the littlest ones, stick-fighting (surprisingly close to sword-practice) with the older ones. There’s a flask within reach. He’s tousled and happy.

Jinlingtai is a nest of vipers.

There are eunuchs and armed guards nearby.

Wei Ying is incredibly strong. He’s heartbreakingly fragile.

Wangji’s always been wearing his wealth and status like armour.

Wei Ying’s been standing naked against monsters.

Wangji won’t take the slightest chance.

“The world hasn’t earned your compassion,” he says, “nor your mercy.”

Wei Ying’s smile is soft and bright and everything under the sun. “But Lan Zhan my love, those can’t be earned. They just are.”

Wei Ying, thinks Wangji, with all the cracks in his heart bleeding again, Wei Ying has always been wiser than him.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBtzy7ADBZM

oOo

Wei Ying…

My Wei Ying…

if I could make this world beautiful for you

if I could undo the past

if I could make your tears un-cried, your heart un-hurt

if I could, if only

I would take it all, I would carry it

if you’d unfetter me

I’d remake this world

for you

let me drink poison

let me spew fire

let me lay waste to hurt and sorrow

let me be your demon

let me, let me, let me loose

let me remake

this world

this life

this universe

for you

Wei Ying

hold me

hold me

please

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

They’re on their mountain, in their sooty, clammy hut. The door gapes open to let smoke from their hearth escape, and daylight in. Grey clouds seem to have settled on the mountain, a fine, steady rain saturates the earth. There’s not much to do yet, at this time of the year when winter’s about to give way to spring. They’re lingering in bed, Wangji reading, Wei Ying drinking and humming an easy tune. Something he might have heard in the markets, or on his travels. He’s naked, sated after having been loved thoroughly by Wangji. Wangji, in an untied sleeping robe, turns a page in the stitched book, but rests it in his lap as his gaze meets Wei Ying’s. Wei Ying smiles. Wangji’s heart grows as wide as the heavens.

“Lan Zhan,” says Wei Ying, “did I have to earn your love?”

“Yes.” It had been instant attraction, but he’d denied himself and Wei Ying until… yes. He’d had to earn it, harder than anyone ever had to earn anything from Wangji. Wangji’s ashamed of it, now. Because Wei Ying, he knows, loved him from the moment they collided. For being Wangji. Though Wei Ying himself might not have realised until much later.

“Ah. I’m glad.”

“You are?”

“That it was enough. That I’m enough.”

Wangji gathers him close and kisses him. “You’re everything. It should have been me, working to deserve you.”

“What are you talking about? Lan Zhan, don’t be silly.” Wei Ying’s smile is soft, his eyes dark and clear. “You’re perfect, what’s there to improve? I’m lucky.”

And this, thinks Wangji as he holds him heart to heart, breath to breath, is Wei Ying’s blindness. Wangji will be his guide, until one day Wei Ying can see himself for the radiant immortal he truly is.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

The world contained in a number¹.

oOo

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Wei Ying doesn't know why sometimes his smile isn't enough to cover himself.

Why his knees suddenly buckle so he must sit down.

Why he starts crying then, unable to stop, or do anything at all.

Afterwards, he’s ashamed: Doesn’t he have Wangji?

He’s been blessed. He ought to thank the Heavens for his luck!

Wangji never asks. He thinks he understands the source of Wei Ying's sadness.

He’ll let Wei Ying lean against him and press his wet face into Wangji's robes.

He’ll let him hide from himself and from whatever torments him.

He wishes, fervently, to be enough.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Lan Zhan, he whispers, cool and desperate, Lan Zhan please…

He unfurls his hand. Blood drips from his palm, clings to the little ball of thorns he’s made from wild brambles. He turns his back, dropping his robes.

Wangji aches. He aches so badly he feels faint. His heart clenches.

oOo

But Wangji cannot fracture like that, now.

The thorns scrape over Wei Ying’s scarred skin. Cutting deeply.

Blood starts beading like strings of corals.

Plum petals on snow.

Brushstrokes in cinnabar ink. A charm.

Wei Ying sighs, sagging with relief.

Sometimes, this pain displaces another, for which no cure exists.

oOo

Wangji gives him, reluctantly, what he wants.

It makes Wei Ying light and translucent. A welcome bitterness.

It sinks into him, sweet and heavy, and brings him back to himself.

He’ll kiss him, later. He’ll hug him and hold him. He’ll love him.

Later, he’ll give him what he needs.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

1. They’re through. Wei Ying’s lanky form – gloriously naked – is folded into Wangi, face tucked into the crook of Wangji’s neck. Wangji’s embrace envelopes him like wings. As if to hide him from a hostile world. He’s boneless, exhausted – Wangji has consumed him; there will be no more action until dawn.

2. Wangji tenderly pets Wei Ying’s arm, his hip, his thigh, whilst blowing sweet Everythings into his brain (what remains of it, post loving). Wangji’s still feeling amorous. Wei Ying chuckles sleepily. He likes being rhapsodied by Wangji. Curious and insatiable, he soaks up every honeyed little obscenity like a sponge.

3. He can feel Wangji’s breathing in small gusts against his ear, in the rise and fall of his chest. He’s floating like wolfberries in gingersoup (chortling mushily at the weird thought). Lazily, he clenches his flower gate, Wangji’s warm, thick jade still a phantom where he’d pierced Wei Ying earlier.

4. Wangji’s hand slips, into Wei Ying’s lap. He fondles him a bit. Perhaps Wei Ying’s little animal hasn’t truly gone to sleep yet… Wei Ying snorts against Wangji’s shoulder and bends his knee to give him access. Wangji’s breath hitches. “Bad dragon,” whispers Wei Ying, laughter clicking in his voice.

5. Wangji feels himself redden. But he doesn’t pull back. He just stills, his lips against the shell of Wei Ying’s ear, his nose in Wei Ying’s loose, tangled hair. He knows Wei Ying’s fallen asleep when he starts snoring quietly. “Bad dragon,” Wangji agrees, barely above his breath. “Very bad.”

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

1. Wangji loves Wei Ying. It’s, in his view, a very rational thing to do: He thinks that people who know and don’t love Wei Ying are ignorant, cruel, or plain wretched, undeserving of Wangji’s attention beyond the perfunctory if unavoidable, or defensive if warranted. But apart from Wei Ying’s lovely soul, amazing mind, and generous heart, Wangji loves his body.

    

2. He’s always wanted Wei Ying. Forcefully, helplessly, without regrets. He desires him, with undiminished force, even after nearly two decades. They’re no longer dewy-fresh: Though Wangji takes care of his health and physical condition, he’s acquired some gently-saggy bits on his well-toned frame (including the tiniest, tweeniest dad-paunch which irks him but which, according to his dear beloved, is ‘cute’).

    

3. In contrast, Wei Ying seems to have shrivelled over time so he looks almost gaunt, with not a pinch of spare flesh let alone fat under his skin. But when Wangji looks at him, there’s a constant stream of obscene images running in his brain, like a particularly vivid movie, and they all feature very prominently Wei Ying’s handsome person.

    

4. If Wangji allows himself to run with this, his mouth starts salivating, and he wants. He wants to grab and tear at Wei Ying, throw him over the nearest surface, bend him into all sorts of shapes to expose him intimately and grope all his tender parts, lick and bite and nail him until Wei Ying wails with mindless pleasure.

    

5. Wangji knows it’s base and animalistic, but he can’t (and doesn’t particularly want to) help it. Mostly he does, with effort, restrain himself. But catching Wei Ying naked when he’s emerging from a soak in their bathtub, before he gets a chance to dry off and dress, and dragging him to bed is a treat Wangji sometimes allows himself.

    

6. Wei Ying might bat at him, push his bony fists against Wangji's broader chest and complain loudly; he might cite work and whatever he might have planned, but he’ll kiss back, and always lets Wangji have his wicked ways with him (he likes it, and Wangji feels like a dragon hauling some coveted prey into its lair, to devour it).

    

7. Wei Ying sometimes likes getting overwhelmed like this. He lets Wangji splay him open and push his face into Wei Ying’s most intimate parts. Wangji will hold him by the knees and slobber all over him whilst soaking up his warm, bitter-herb aroma, as if he could inhale him to the last hair. Wei Ying’s chuckles soon become belly-deep groans.

    

8. When Wangji's brain clears, a bit quicker than Wei Ying’s after a thorough railing, he still wants him. He always will. He accepts that neither his elder brother, nor his uncle, nor the world at large sees Wei Ying as he does. They don’t know Wei Ying as he does. He concedes, rationally, that this isn’t always a bad thing.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Wei Ying's dark eyes shine at Wangji. "My pearly dragon…"

A whisp of smoke in the night.

Wangji's heart stutters. "My flaming pearl…"¹

Wei Ying smiles softly, and Wangji ascends.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Uncle slants a glare at Wangji’s new belt pendant: A small roaring dragon crudely carved of muddy-green stone, not quite passing for imitation jade. A gift he holds dear. He wears it on a cord braided from red and blue wool, ending in a long tassel that looks a little unkempt. (“I made the cord,” Wei Ying had told him proudly as he fastened the little thing to Wangji’s sash. “And the dragon?” Wangji wanted to know. “Ah, that. A poor scholar, on his way home, after failing the exams in Jinlingtai. He was carving seals for a living.” Wangji had kissed him, and Wei Ying had hugged him. Wangji feels happy every time he looks at the pendant.)

“Eschew opulence,” Uncle quotes, tone heavy with disapproval.

Wangji lifts the teacup before him. He contemplates the paperthin, translucent celadon¹ porcelain, then – with eyes sliding half-shut – inhales the scent of the fine magnolia tea they’re drinking. He takes a small sip, and lets his gaze wander: Over the walls hung with artful calligraphy procured from renowned masters, beautiful inkwash paintings especially commissioned to reflect the tranquil exclusivity of Cloud Recesses, wall-hangings fashioned from indigo-dyed silk gauze embroidered with silver clouds. He lets it trail over the beams and rafters made of aromatic cedarwood, the ornate Huizhou inkstick and antique Duan inkstone² on uncle’s desk, the dark floorboards preserved with tung-oil³. Finally he returns the cup to its dainty, leaf-shaped, wrought-silver saucer. He rests his hands on his knees. He lets his gaze linger on Uncle’s robes, a three-layered house-set sewn from thick, deep-blue pattern-silk, held together by a sash of exquisitely understated silver brocade. “A trinket,” he says placidly, raising his eyes to meet Uncle’s. A quiet challenge, a show of recalcitrance. “Is this opulence?”

No, Wangji’s no longer a child.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Sizhui had wanted to offer well-wishes and ask for blessings from his elder brothers, who’d come to visit for the spring festival. He pauses when, across the courtyard before Lan Wangji’s old home, he sees them. Wuxian, holding a hand out to catch snowflakes. He has a flask in his other hand and he’s drinking in long pulls. His white throat bobs (he still has that silvery-pink scar where the zither string had almost killed him). Wine spills from the corners of his mouth, drips from his chin. There’s a darker patch on the front of his dark robes.

He gazes up into the dark sky. Soft light seeps from inside, illuminating him in a way that casts stark shadows. He looks ghostly. His shoulders are ever so slightly rounded, as if pressed down by the weight of his memories. He watches the drifting snow, and as he turns a little (as if to listen over his shoulder), Sizhui sees his face, glistening wet. He’s smiling; it reminds Sizhui of a broken mask.

Lan Wangji rises from the zither table, just beyond the sliding door, and steps outside. Wuxian turns to him, arms dropping. They gaze at one another, before Lan Wangji closes the small space between them and draws Wuxian into an embrace. Wuxian pushes his face into Lan Wangjij’s hair. Lan Wangi rocks him gently. It reminds Sizhui of his childhood nightmares.

He quietly closes the gate as he leaves. He’ll return in the morning for his blessings.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Wei Ying rises and takes the crate; he swings it on his skinny back and pulls the straps tight, then holds his hand out to Wangji. “Come down the mountain with me? We can drink a cup of tea before parting.”

“Winter comes, the traveller leaves

embers turn to ash

roads and rivers, clouds and mountains,

friends will meet again.

A cup of tea, a flask of wine

an easy road to walk

a starlit sky, a fragrant flower

what need is there to grieve?”

Wei Ying, thinks Wangji, can be cruel in his kindness.

Somehow, he finds this reassuring.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Wei Ying loves Wangji without constraint.

Wangji’s absolutely certain of it. But Wangji is not the master of Wei Ying’s heart. He knows that, too, beyond doubt. He’s long accepted it, without bitterness.

He’s still jealous, sometimes. He still feels the need to prove himself, to Wei Ying.

There’s only one thing in the three realms¹ Wangji will never compete with.

He knows he’d lose if he tried, and jealousy is pointless.

Because Wangji’s only rival is Wei Ying’s conscience.

Wangji doesn’t want Wei Ying to change. He’s proud of his love.

He’s proud that Wei Ying finds him worthy.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Sometimes Wei Ying catches Wangji’s gaze and goes still.

He’ll stare, frozen and mesmerised, into Wangji’s eyes.

His lips will part, his throat will bob, as if he was trying to speak.

He won’t. His eyes will become wet. They might well over, salty droplets clinging to his long lashes, until they grow too heavy and fall, rolling down his cheeks in silvery trails.

Only Wangji can make him speechless like this (He no longer needs a silencing charm.).

Wei Ying might blink and sniffle, wipe snot off his nose with his sleeve, and try for a smile. “Lan Zhan,” he might whisper, hoarse and broken.

He doesn’t need to say more. He doesn’t need to say anything: Wangji understands anyway. He’ll catch Wei Ying’s hands and fold them into his grip. And he’ll reply with all that fills his heart: “Wei Ying.”

It’s enough. It’ll always, always be enough.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

When Wei Ying receives him, Wangji sinks into him like light sinks into the deepest night.

Cool and silent, it swallows him (even if Wei Ying howls under him in mindless pleasure; even if Wei Ying’s body pulses warm and snug around him – it still feels like this).

A lesser man might be afraid of losing himself. Wangji isn’t. He gives himself into Wei Ying’s keeping and feels well-kept.

They rarely swap, though sometimes it is Wei Ying driving their union. He’s always hungry for Wangji. Wangji might spear him more roughly now and then, when they both want it, but it’s never an act of war. It’s never a struggle for mastery. It’s simply the need to feel, when feeling might become elusive.

When Wei Ying receives him, it’s never an act of submission. He does it because he’d swallow Wangji whole, if only he could, to keep him in that darkness inside, where once his body held the brightest star. He neither yields nor demands, he simply flows – a tide, an ocean, a sea of clouds. A night so deep it has no sound. Wangji finds peace inside Wei Ying’s body, and Wei Ying…

Wei Ying feels light.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

1 x 100

Wei Ying is all man. There’s nothing womanish about him – his angular frame, wiry muscles, sharp-cut features. He can wear women’s clothes, even make-up, and deceive nobody: He just looks like a handsome guy dressed up. He spreads about the place as if he owned it, he’s loud and a touch bullish sometimes, he’s incredibly assertive (at least outwardly), he drinks and teases and laughs, carefree and unembarrassed, and quite often a bit tone-deaf (something Wangji used to find scandalous, shameless, and intriguing). He dances on tables and hollers rowdy ditties to entertain the tipsy crowds in cheap roadside inns.

2 x 100

He also winds people up if they irritate him. He quarrels – he doesn’t pick fights but he’s up for confrontation when nothing else works (and sometimes when he’s struck by a particularly cranky mood).  He beats up bullies (and occasionally gets beaten up in turn). He kills. He used to be the best swordsman known, even better – by a scant sliver – than Wangji. These days, he wields his spells, his tall, heavy fighting staff and cursed flute with the same ruthless mastery he used to have with the blade. He’s still an excellent archer and horseman, and he’s incredibly fast.

3 x 100

He’s strong, in form and spirit. Occasionally, he rescues Wangji, both literally and figuratively (though more often the signs are reversed). He does, and gets done by, the man he loves. Sometimes he carries Wangji on his back. He habitually gets into trouble, usually on behalf of some needy ingrate or other. He falls ill and disregards it until he can’t, and he drinks – frequently, copiously, and way too much. He’s incredibly tough. Power fears him; hasn’t he even overcome death itself, for a while? Even in this second life of his, with that yawning void inside him, he’s formidable.

4 x 100

Wangji takes stock and his heart swells with everything he feels. Because despite all this, there’s a sweetness about Wei Ying, something elusive yet undeniably present. A fragility both real and deceptive. Something mellow that makes him easy to hurt, even if most people would never guess. Something that means he readily picks up other people’s burdens and eats other people’s sins, that makes him blank and sharp like steel and soft like rabbit-fur. It’s what drives him to collect every scrap he can unearth of Wen Qing’s legacy, to build a living memorial to her by using her craft.

5 x 100

It’s what urges him to use his enormous learning and never ask for more than people can pay (often just a tearful prayer, sometimes a spiteful curse). It’s why he intercedes on behalf of those who cannot invoke earthly retribution. It’s also why Wangji patronises a home and a school for rootless children.

Children don’t reason like adults. They gather around Wei Ying to listen to his songs and stories – happy or sad, as might be. He gifts them toys and food, spells and medicines, and goes to see their ailing relatives if he’s asked to help. He never hesitates.

Plus 100

Wangji doesn’t rely on his senses. Senses, he thinks, are too easily deceived.

His senses had cleaved to Wei Ying the heartbeat he laid eyes on him.  But Wangji had been raised to mistrust impulsiveness. Instead, he reasoned: With the shining principle at the core of his clan’s Rule, with himself as a man, and with Wei Ying, love of his life. His foundation, his soul.

Wangji is done reasoning. He’s done doubting and questioning.  Now he knows: His senses had been right.

He knows and feels his love expand until it fills earth and the heavens and eternity itself.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

Wangji closes his eyes to meditate: Brilliant. Genial. Gregarious. Constant like the stars and the heavens. Clever. Kind.

Wei Ying.

Handsome and wilful, too, bursting with confidence, and a habitual liar.

It takes courage to love Wei Ying.

Wangji loves him, instantly and irrevocably.

He understands much later, this and his own resistance, for it requires submission – not to Wei Ying, but to urges and desires Wangji used to consider unbecoming of a true gentleman.

Wangji discovers he is human.

Wei Ying has known him all along – to him he’s just Lan Zhan whom Wei Ying loves back, without constraint.

oOo

END

Chapter Text

oOo

“Ah, haha, Lan Zhan, you’re staring! Say, are you hungry? You look like you want to eat me!” a youthful Wei Ying once laughed at Wangji. He didn’t mean it. He was just ribbing, cheerfully ignorant of what he was dicing with.

“Ah, Lan Zhan my love,” says grown-up Wei Ying, with smiling lips and shimmering gaze, “are you hungry, hmmm? You look like you want to eat me.” He means it. He knows exactly what he’s doing, offering himself so Wangji can devour him, hide and hair, to sate – for a little while – his eternal craving for Wei Ying.

oOo

END