Chapter Text
For a miserable, endless flight from Gusu to Qishan, Lan Qiren believed his nephew was dead.
Grief couldn’t begin to explain what he felt as he flew as fast as he could; fear was too insignificant, heartbroken not nearly strong enough.
The notion that his dear, precious Wangji had perished… if it wasn’t for Xichen waiting for him there, needing him, Lan Qiren wasn’t sure he could have finished the flight. As it was, the whole way there, his lungs were tight and his chest hollow, nausea clenching in his gut.
The letter from Xichen had been short, hastily written. It told him that the war had ended; Wen Ruohan was dead. It told him that Wei Wuxian had been there but the killing blow had been dealt by Xichen himself.
Most importantly, it had said, in barely-legible characters, that Wangji was dead.
When he first read those words, Lan Qiren fainted. He had to be revived by an older cousin, all of the Clan’s elders watching him in concern as he laid on the floor in front of them.
“What is it?” His cousin asked, eyeing the letter with clear trepidation. There was a hush around the room, a held breath. “What has happened?”
Lan Qiren’s whole body was numb. His head was spinning. His cheeks were hot with tears he didn’t notice. He told them, and the whole room cried out at once.
It was Nie Huaisang who greeted him at Nightless City, ashen-faced and red-eyed. It was Nie Huaisang who guided him through hallways and staircases to the room where Wangji rested, guarded and mourned by Xichen.
As they hurried, Lan Qiren thought:
To die in battle is a noble end. Wangji is a good boy; he would not regret dying to protect his Sect. He has proven himself a worthy Lan once again.
He thought:
Wangji cannot be dead. This cannot be true. He’s too young, he’s just a boy, surely this must be a mistake. Perhaps it was some other Lan disciple, not Wangji—not A’Zhan—
He thought:
I will carry him home myself if I have to.
Lan Qiren had been to Nightless City before, but never inside Wen Ruohan’s home. He followed blindly, hastily, uncaring of rules which may as well have not existed in that moment. He ran, and so when the reached the hallway where his nephews were, they were not silent or poised. His boots slapped against the hard rock floor, his chest straining with heavy breaths.
Xichen jumped at their arrival, brandishing Shuoye with unseeing eyes. With robes splattered in blood, dust, mud, and vomit, he was practically unrecognizable from the perfectly made up boy Lan Qiren remembered.
“Xichen-ge,” Nie Huaisang whispered, walking right up to him with a soft, slow body. He seemed even more scared than normal, flushed from their pace and shaking as he approached, but he did it anyway. “It’s your Shufu. He came to help you.”
It took Xichen a moment to lower his sword, to take a breath and finally recognize Lan Qiren.
They stared at each other, both unable to speak, frozen in this moment where the world was ending but hadn’t quite yet imploded for good. They both knew it was only a matter of time.
Then—“Shufu,” Xichen exhaled, trembling from head to toe. Shuoye fell to the ground with a horrible clatter. “Shufu, he’s—he—“
Lan Qiren stepped closer, taking hold of his nephew’s shoulders. At the touch, Xichen collapsed, falling to his knees and weeping. Lan Qiren followed him, cursing his inability to comfort, his throat tight with his own grief.
Nie Huaisang slipped away without their noticing. They stayed there for a long time.
It was there on the floor that the truth of what happened came out, told slowly through sobs.
Wei Wuxian was playing her dizi, using resentful energy—using demonic cultivation—to fight back against the Wen forces. Wangji had been at her side, fending off any soldiers who slipped through, killing anyone who got too close.
Xichen couldn’t remember the full truth of what happened. It was too quick, like a flash of lightning.
This is what he knew: a Wen soldier had come up from behind Wei Wuxian. He was going to stab her, so Wangji intercepted. The Wen’s blade caught him in the chest, and the next moment, he had fallen to the ground, bleeding profusely.
Wei Wuxian started screaming. The evil energy she controlled began lashing out even stronger than before. Xichen saw red; he fought past every soldier and disciple in his way, barely conscious of killing them all, until he was in front of Wen Ruohan. Nie Mingjue and Meng Yao were there too, they helped him, but it was Xichen who stabbed him through the heart, who twisted his blade and tore it out of him and left him there, bleeding, finally dead after so many grueling years.
“I went back to find Wangji,” Xichen told him, voice rough with tears. “Wei-guniang, she was still with him. He has laying in her lap and I thought, perhaps, he—but. No. He was already. He was already dead.”
The last word came out with a sob, but no tears fell.
Lan Qiren clenched his fists. He did not approve of Wei Wuxian, for a great many reasons. But he was not so stubborn to not feel grateful Wangji had not been alone in his last moments. And knowing how he felt about that girl….
Xichen appeared as if he had been scraped raw. His hands remained clenched in Lan Qiren’s sleeves, seemingly unable to let go of his uncle. “Mingjue-xiong came. He helped us get Wangji into the building. Huaisang found us this room, and…”
When he trailed off, Lan Qiren asked the question he could not wait any longer to get the answer to. “Where is he now? Where is Wangji?”
“Through there,” Xichen said, eyes trailing over to the wall behind Lan Qiren. There were paper doors there, firmly shut, that Lan Qiren hadn’t noticed before in his need to help Xichen.
They weren’t particularly see through, but Lan Qiren could imagine—a garish red and black room, a Wen’s room, with his nephew laid stiff and cold on the bed, utterly still and silent with no one there to watch over him.
He could not help the sting of anger in his voice. “Xichen, you left him alone?”
Xichen slumped further, shoulders curling. Yet still, he shook his head. “No, Shufu. Wei-guniang is with him.”
There had once been a time that Wei Wuxian’s name hadn’t filled Lan Qiren with anger. For many years, in fact, she had been nothing more than Cangse Sanren’s daughter, terrorizing Lotus Pier and never truly crossing paths with Lan Qiren.
She tagged along to discussion conferences, but they never closely interacted except to greet each other. Beyond that, he’d seen her once or twice at meetings between the Sects, but in all his visits to Lotus Pier, she had been asked to dine with the other disciples rather than at the table with the Jiang family.
In those moments, Lan Qiren had even felt, perhaps, a certain sense of concern—but it was not his place to tell Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan how to raise their ward.
As such, when the guest disciples came to learn at Cloud Recesses, only Jiang Wanyin and some of Yunmeng Jiang’s other disciples arrived. Though Wei Wuxian was known to be an accomplished sword fighter, girls were only admitted to the lectures under certain circ*mstances. They had to be personally suggested by their sect leader, and personally invited by whoever was to lead the lectures.
Jiang Fengmian had written Lan Qiren, saying she was more than deserving to study with the Lan Sect. He had added a note about allowing her to see the world, to learn what life was like with more structure.
Lan Qiren, recalling every discussion conference she had ever attended—and made a mockery of with her behavior—as well as all of the trouble Cangse Sanren had once gotten into, declined to invite her.
He did not need, nor want, his nephews to be exposed to such a person. He knew from experience that a troublemaker could corrupt even the most well-behaved disciple.
Thusly, he did not regret not permitting her to attend. His resolve only strengthened when—though she was not physically present—she managed to cause problems anyway.
She sent letters to Nie Huaisang with a near-inappropriate frequency. Nie Huaisang claimed they were only comparing their summer activities and sharing cultivation tips, but in truth, Wei Wuxian was requesting he send spring books and offering to send her own. They only knew this because Wangji continuously caught him reading these letters in class and confiscated them.
Despite how egregiously inappropriate this was, the boy softened Xichen’s heart enough that Nie Mingjue was not informed. Jiang Wanyin, when he heard, had to be held off of Nie Huaisang by several other disciples. Finally, when Lan Qiren contacted Jiang Fengmian about this, the other man simply promised to keep a better watch over Wei Wuxian’s correspondence.
When he got that letter, Lan Qiren resisted overreacting, only permitting himself a deep sigh. Then he made his way to the healers for some headache relief.
But that was far from the end of it—she wrote to Jiang Wanyin too. Lan Qiren had only seen one of these letters, so he could not say they were all the same; however, the one he did see was full of her encouraging her martial brother to cause mischief so he would not be “deathly bored” anymore.
‘Please don’t beat up Nie-xiong either,’ she’d added, ‘A’Cheng, I don’t even know why you’re so mad! What’s wrong with us sharing a book club?’
“Is she serious, is she f*cking serious…,” Jiang Wanyin muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut.
“Jiang-gongzi,” Lan Qiren reprimanded, sighing as he looked over the contents of the letter. “No cursing.”
“S-sorry, Lan-laoshi!”
Even beyond these letters, many of the visiting disciples discussed her antics, in turns praising and jealous of the night hunts she was going on. The tales sounded fabricated to Lan Qiren, but they still caused his students to complain about having to sit and learn.
As one Jin boy put it, why should they have to waste their time with books when someone like Wei Wuxian was out and about, killing monsters?
Lan Qiren began taking headache-relieving tea with nearly every meal.
These discussions between the students also lead to a fight between Jiang Wanyin and Jin Zixuan. Wangji reported that the Jin heir had spoken disparagingly of both Jiang-guniang and Wei-guniang. Neither boy would relent enough to apologize, and so both were punished. Lan Qiren had to write to Jin Guangshan and Jiang Fengmian about the whole affair, being told by both to punish the boys as he saw fit.
By Wangji’s recommendation, both boys were to copy every rule pertaining to judgment, politeness, and acceptable behavior in disagreements fifty times.
The situation—the gossip, the fight, his students refusing to behave—infuriated Lan Qiren. He scolded Wangji to not listen to any of this nonsense, to not let it distract him from his duties.
“You are of the Lan Clan and must present an example to all other Sects,” Lan Qiren lectured, his voice slightly raised in his anger.
“Yes, Shufu,” Wangji said, bowing perfectly.
True to his word, he did not listen to the gossip, or get caught up in tall tales, or read the letters he confiscated. He remained the diligent, perfect boy he had always been.
He oversaw the punishments of Jin Zixuan and Jiang Wanyin. In class, he listened attentively and answered every question no one else would even attempt. When the three of them had tea together, Wangji reported that his grades were as perfect as ever, the misbehavior of his peers having no effect.
Lan Qiren had let himself break the ‘No excessive pride’ rule thinking about his nephew, needing something to keep his mood up in these difficult times. Yet he despaired when he realized Xichen found it all quite a bit amusing.
On at least one occasion, he found Xichen and Wangji talking of Wei-guniang’s newest way to distract the students—and Xichen, that foolish boy, had been all too pleased to regale his brother with her—her nonsense.
Truly, did anyone believe that she was running around villages, testing out inventions of her own making? A compass that sought out dark energy—pah!
“It seems quite useful, doesn’t it?” Xichen asked, smiling genially. “I believe she is also creating spirit traps—“
“Xiongzhang, we must not gossip,” Wangji replied.
At least one of his nephews could not be corrupted, he had thought, irritated with the thought that Cangse Sanren would find this whole mess hilarious.
(Then she would interrogate him about not letting Wei Wuxian attend, and possibly attack him with her sword. But first she would laugh at his expense and tell him he was only getting what he deserved for being a crotchety old man.)
(Why oh why must she and Wei Changze have had a child? It was like she’d done it on purpose—he would never be free of her!)
He had hoped that would be the end of it.
Of course, it was not.
After classes ended and the guest disciples went home, Wangji was permitted to go on night hunts with other Lan disciples his age. He accepted, happy to have an assignment.
Before he left, he promised to search for answers on what they could do about the problems that had popped up over the year, most notably the dark creature in the lake.
At first, Wangji primarily wrote his reports to Xichen, though with how busy the boy was becoming, Lan Qiren ended up reading many of them in his stead.
It was on one of these night hunts that Wangji sent a report that Lan Qiren could not forget.
Shufu, it had said. The group of fierce ghosts haunting the village of Hongcun has been taken care of. We received help from Wei-guniang of Yunmeng Jiang. She joined our encampment before departing this morning. We will be arriving back at Cloud Recesses by you shi.
—Lan Wangji
“Inappropriate,” Lan Qiren had muttered, mind clouded with memories of Cangse Sanren bouncing around campsites and climbing into Wei Changze’s tent without a care for propriety.
He had faith that Wangji would not allow Wei Wuxian to do the same. When he spoke of it with Xichen, his nephew smiled and agreed, hiding his bright eyes as he sipped his tea.
“Shufu, do not fret,” he added. “It was only one meeting. Perhaps it will be their only?”
Lan Qiren stroked his beard. “You have grown wiser with age,” he finally replied, soothed for the moment.
“Thank you, Shufu.”
Unfortunately, that faith did not last long. Soon enough, every time Wangji went on night hunts—which he did with increasing frequency—he would run into Wei Wuxian. It took effort to not entertain the idea that possibly… they were meeting up on purpose.
It was exceedingly difficult. He found it hard to believe that the two young cultivators could repeatedly find themselves responding to the same calls for help all over the country, all by mere coincidence. Even worse, there were multiple instances that Lan Qiren knew of where the two were even night hunting alone, killing beasts with increasing familiarity of each other’s styles, before returning to inns where Lan Qiren had to believe they slept in different rooms for his own sanity.
No matter how much like her mother Wei Wuxian might be, Wangji would never shame himself or his clan by flouting such an important rule.
Xichen grew more delighted as time went on, reading Wangji’s letters while they had tea together. Each time, he would smile the whole way through, finally proclaiming he was sure they were being appropriate and that it was perfectly normal for friends to travel and work together this way.
“I am not a fool,” Lan Qiren groused, ignoring Xichen’s laughing eyes.
He grabbed the letter again, finding the part that had left him feeling a bit faint.
Wei Ying suggested we camp outside. We would be able to capture the yao quicker this way. She relayed to me that this tactic has worked on multiple occasions for her on solo hunts. I declined; we stayed at an inn.
It was not like Wangji to give unnecessary details in his reports. It was also not like Wangji to not clarify his sleeping arrangements.
‘We stayed at an inn.’ Lan Qiren hoped for separate rooms. He prayed that if not that, then a suite. He would even accept Wangji—the second heir to the great Gusu Lan clan—sleeping on the floor, so long as it meant some propriety was being maintained.
(He could not forget Cangse Sanren’s carefree smile as Jin Guangshan and his followers insinuated all sorts of nasty things about herself and Wei Changze. “So what?” She’d laughed in their faces. “Do you think I’m ashamed of my love? You can call me whatever you like, Guangshan. Your opinions mean nothing to me.”
…He could also not forget his own brother. Qingheng-jun, who was so similar to Wangji in their shared stubbornness, arguing with their father. “I love her; she is my wife. Isn’t that enough? Can’t you accept that?”
For a moment, his qi wavered in his chest. Fervently, he hoped that these foolish children would not follow in the footsteps of their foolish parents.)
Lan Qiren let out a controlled exhale. Sternly, he told Xichen, “I am going to write to Wangji. When he returns, we will discuss this properly.”
Xichen smiled into his tea. “Yes, Shufu.”
It soon became clear that Lan Qiren’s fears were well-founded.
The idea of having Cangse’s daughter as a niece-in-law was enough to frazzle Lan Qiren’s nerves. But he could see the change in Wangji through his letters and through the moments they shared when Wangji was home—it was hard to miss that he was interested in this girl.
He was spending more time learning to cook, dishes that were far spicier than anything Gusu Lan enjoyed. Xichen reported that he’d witnessed Wangji adjusting things about the Jingshi, as if he was making room for something. Often, Wangji would receive letters that—in front of Lan Qiren’s very own eyes—made him smile.
As if that wasn’t enough, Wangji had begun to review the marriage principles.
He tried to look at the positives. It was undeniable that Wei Wuxian was intelligent and skilled enough to keep up with Wangji on night hunts. She would also provide a well-needed alliance with Yunmeng Jiang.
The fact that she was annoying, unable to behave, utterly shameless, corrupting his nephew, and antithetical to everything the Lan Clan stood for—well. These things would have to be addressed, but until he could talk with Wangji, they were not to be worried over lest he qi deviate in the meantime.
The conversation never happened. Wangji returned home to find the Cloud Recesses burning, Wens running about killing and desecrating anything they saw in front of them.
In a single day, the Lan Sect lost so much—many disciples and elders, its Sect Leader, countless priceless objects, untold amounts of knowledge passed down for generations, and its two heirs.
Xichen was simply gone, guilty and unsure, lost to the burning forest with no way for them to know if he had survived or not.
Wangji was dragged away, limping and furious, taken to Qishan where he could very easily be killed if the Wens wanted to.
Lan Qiren burned with protective rage. But there was nothing he could do, their Sect decimated and scattered, the duties of being a Sect Leader falling heavily on his shoulders.
He could only hope and pray that his nephews would survive.
It was only after they were both returned to him that Lan Qiren learned the horrors Xichen and Wangji had lived through, the people who helped them. Xichen would not say the name of his benefactor, having recruited them to spy for him, but Wangji was not to be made quiet about what happened to him. He was not shy about the fact that Wei Wuxian had saved his life more than once.
He wanted to see her. He wanted to help her. He never said it, but it was clear: he wanted to marry her.
Lan Qiren did not allow him. He was needed there, helping his family fight for their home. A marriage may boost morale, but with the Sects in disarray, all of Gusu Lan’s money going towards rebuilding or the war effort, it was simply not possible.
Obediently, Wangji stayed. But it was clear he was distracted, his mind far away when they weren’t strategizing or in battle. He said nothing about it, refusing every opening Lan Qiren tried to give him to discuss it. Perhaps he could tell that Lan Qiren was not very willing to hear out something like this when much more important things were at stake.
The next year was grueling.
Yunmeng Jiang was attacked and sustained even greater losses than the Gusu Lan. For three interminable months, Wei Wuxian was missing. For three, interminable months, Wangji was beside himself, running off with Jiang Wanyin to search the world for her. As time went on, the boy began to act as though he had been widowed, speaking even less and retreating into his mind more, getting angry when anyone suggested he stop looking. All of his scant free time was spent begging spirits for any morsel of information about what had happened to her.
Lan Qiren should have been grateful when she finally returned, alive after all. And perhaps, under different circ*mstances, he would have been.
But the truth was, he was not.
Bodies littered her way, killing not through conventional methods but through undeniably evil ones. When he saw her, she never carried her sword, only a pitch black dizi that curled with smoke when she got angry and rose the dead at her command.
Demonic cultivation was terrifying enough on it’s own, but when paired with a strong cultivator like herself, it was far worse. He felt sick to his stomach even thinking about the corpses that tore living people apart just because she played a note on her dizi. The stench of death and rot became an unfortunate familiarity; Lan Qiren was grateful, shamefully, that he was not often needed on the front lines.
Wangji was a good boy. While others simply accepted this behavior for how she began to turn the tides of the war—even Xichen and Nie Mingjue—Wangji did not.
Lan Qiren didn’t see much of this himself, but Xichen and other disciples reported it to him—whenever Wei Wuxian would get too angry, Wangji would fearlessly reach for her to calm her down. When everyone else commended her for her evil deeds, Wangji would scold her. He would fight alongside her but play Cleansing for her as often as she would allow him.
If they had not been at war, Lan Qiren would never allow his nephew to treat a woman this way. Qingheng-jun had been like that too, demanding instead of asking. But his desire to keep his nephews from being like their father could not compare to the disgust of demonic energy, of upholding justice and righteous cultivation. And so, he said nothing.
The war dragged on and on and on.
Lan Qiren did not let himself consider that they might fail; there was no room for such thoughts when any misstep could doom them all. He focused on taking care of his Sect, regarding every letter sent from his nephews like priceless artifacts. It was clear to him that the war was taking a toll on them both, but they were strong-willed and strong-souled. He had every confidence in them.
He also believed that Wangji had realized the error of his feelings, shamefully relieved that he would not have to welcome Wei Wuxian as his niece-in-law. Every report he heard of them was the same—Wei Wuxian continued to use her evil cultivation. Wangji continued to attempt to dissuade her. Xichen said that at one point, Wangji had even brandished Bichen at her.
At that news, Lan Qiren felt quite conflicted. War time was difficult and rules were bound to be broken. Wei Wuxian was a demonic cultivator, and thusly it could not be said Wangji was wrong to attack someone perverting the laws of nature in such a way. And yet, he knew this was not like Wangji, who had held an iron grip on his emotions since he was a child.
Lan Qiren sighed heavily.
He had never known what exactly was between them, only gleaning the barest hints. Though he didn’t like her, not one bit, he could not say he was not disappointed. In Wei Wuxian, in Wangji, in the situation they had entangled themselves and Wangji’s Lan heart in.
It seemed to him that whatever they might have once had, it would never come to pass now.
For several long minutes, Lan Qiren sat in silence, staring out the window. His brother’s home had burned to the ground and not been rebuilt, but the Jingshi had survived the Wen’s attack.
Would Wangji follow his parents’ footsteps, in spite of everything Lan Qiren had done to try to spare him of their fate?
Finally, he made himself stop thinking of these things. There was no use. What would come, would come, and he would do whatever was needed to shield Wangji from the fallout.
But then Wangji died.
Lan Qiren did nothing to announce his presence before opening the door—fear and rage are blooming in his body too fast to care for propriety.
Xichen was clearly deeply affected by the battle if he thought it was alright to leave his brother’s corpse with the girl who practically made a sport of desecrating the dead.
The wood slapped together as he pulled it open, but the room’s occupants didn’t look up at the noise, both of them perfectly still.
Wangji was laying on his back, his hair messily spread across a red pillow. His position was unnaturally inelegant, his hands by his sides and his legs sprawled carelessly. His robes, once pristinely white, were splattered with blood and gore.
And sitting beside him on the bed, the entire length of her bent leg pressed against his side, was Wei Wuxian.
He had never truly spoken to her. A few glimpses here and there over the years had never intrigued him to get to know her. But here she was, her hair down and her robes mussed. She was a thin girl, her face paler than he had ever known Cangse Sanren or Wei Changze to be, dirtied from the battle.
With closed eyes, her hands hovered in the air over Wangji’s body. It was like a scene out of a cautionary tale—an evil witch preparing to use the body of a great warrior for her own purposes.
“Wei Wuxian!” He bellowed, brandishing his sword in seconds. “Get away from him this instant!”
Slowly, she opened her eyes. They were gleaming red, and when they turned on him, he was struck still. A horrible, heavy cloud of feeling began to weigh the room down around him, her gaze like a searing brand.
What had Wangji ever seen in such a person? He truly could not understand.
“Now!” He demanded, pushing forward. “I swear, Wei Wuxian, I will not hesitate to use force.”
Her lips cracked into a brittle smile. She huffed a laugh. Then she looked behind him.
“Zewu-jun,” she said, her voice rough like gravel. “Call off your uncle.”
Xichen took shaky steps until he stood in between Lan Qiren and Wei Wuxian. “Yiling Laozu,” he said, “what are you doing with my brother?”
She laughed again, and it sounded like a sob. But when she spoke, there was no hint of emotion in her words. “I’m gathering his soul back into his body.”
Lan Qiren and Xichen both gasped.
Disgust filled him so completely he could hardly breathe. How could she so freely admitting to using her immoral tricks on Wangji? How dare she be so brazen with her disregard? He lifted his sword higher, fully intending to lunge forward and simply behead her when—
Xichen collapsed to his knees before the bed. Weeping again, he begged, “Wei-guniang, do you mean it? Can you really do this? Can you bring him back to life?”
Lan Qiren was horrified. Xichen should know better. Wangji’s death was a painful and cruel death, but it had happened—they could not revert the laws of nature—it was not their place, not their right—
Wei Wuxian’s shoulders slumped, though her hands didn’t fall. For a second, there was a flicker of light between her palms, a bright blue haze.
“I—I have no f*cking idea,” she whispered, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I’ve never done this before. But I have to try. Don’t I? He—he doesn’t deserve to die this way. Not for me. Aiyah, what’s wrong with him, I told him….” She let out a heavy breath. When she looked upon them again, her eyes were hard with determination. “Zewu-jun. I’m going to do it. Don’t try to stop me.”
“You—“
Lan Qiren suddenly found his mouth spelled shut. Betrayed, he glowered at Xichen’s back.
Xichen bowed his head deeply, clutching one of Wangji’s hands. “Thank you, Wei-guniang. Thank you.”
Then he gracefully stood, and forced Lan Qiren out of the room.
Lan Qiren wasted no time taking off the Silencing Spell and glaring at his nephew. “Lan Huan,” he thundered, “how dare you—“
“Shufu,” Xichen said calmly. He looked at Lan Qiren with new life in his eyes. “If she can do this, then I will not stop her. I will not allow you to either.”
Lan Qiren said nothing.
“Wangji… it’s not his time. This wasn’t supposed to happen. To be honest, Shufu, I… I am not ready to let him go.”
Did he think that Lan Qiren was? That he could ever possibly be ready to let go of a boy he had raised from childhood?
“And I trust Wei-guniang,” Xichen continued, eyes on the ceiling to stave off more tears. “She will not do anything to harm him.”
“How can you say this?” Lan Qiren demanded. “You know what she has done and yet you still trust her with Wangji’s body?”
Xichen sniffled. He reached out and took Lan Qiren’s sleeves in his hands again like a child needing comfort. In truth, it was the other way around.
“Shufu. She loved him. That is how. That is all I need.”
For days, Lan Qiren swallowed his hatred and disgust and grief. Xichen could not be moved once his decision was made, and would not hear any of Lan Qiren’s pleas for this madness to end.
Wei Wuxian never left the room with Wangji’s body, not even to eat or sleep. Her Jiang siblings and Nie Huaisang tried everything they could to convince her, but she was stubborn like his nephews and refused every time.
She would not leave Wangji’s side.
When Lan Qiren visited, though he tried to ignore her entirely, it was difficult to maintain. She was holding Wangji’s soul in her hands, and it was visible more and more often as the days dragged on.
There was some part of him that looked upon that blue shimmer and wept in relief. Wangji was not entirely gone from them; he was here, in the room, refusing to move on just yet. But Lan Qiren tried to smother this as much as he could, so ashamed he was to be—to be grateful for demonic cultivation.
At night, he laid in his borrowed bed and could not sleep. He was tortured with thoughts of what they were doing. Wangji deserved a funeral, not to be stuck in a Wen’s bed like this. What were they doing? And what would the elders and his cousins say when they returned home with Wangji’s body well after he should’ve been brought home?
Lan Qiren tried to sleep. He tried not to hope that Wei Wuxian would succeed. He tried not to hate himself for wishing his nephew would stay dead.
After five days, Wei Wuxian said she was ready to put Wangji’s soul back into his body. Reluctantly, she allowed Xichen and Lan Qiren to join her in the room while she did it.
When they entered, he saw that she looked gaunt and on the edge of exhaustion, her hair pulled up messily behind her head. And yet she was determined, kneeling on the bed and seemingly ready to do whatever it took.
“Stay still,” she commanded of them, her voice so firm that even Lan Qiren would not needlessly disobey.
Then she began.
Despite his expectation, it was not a long, arduous process. Wei Wuxian whistled strange notes into the air, her hands cradling Wangji’s soul with obvious gentility. The blue haze moved in the air, reacting to the song.
It was one that Lan Qiren had heard before, he realized. Wangji would play it often when he was home from night hunts. When Wei Wuxian had gone missing, he played it every night.
Frozen, Lan Qiren stood beside Xichen and they watched with bated breath as Wei Wuxian slowly, carefully, guided Wangji’s soul into his motionless chest.
The blue shimmer disappeared into white fabric.
Wei Wuxian did not move for several long moments, hovering over Wangji. Finally, she sat back on the bed, and Xichen asked, “Wei-guniang?”
“We have to wait for him to wake up,” she told them. “He has to do it on his own. It’ll probably take a few days, getting your soul back is really rough for a body, you know?”
Xichen stepped forward gingerly, but Lan Qiren could not move. His eyes were glued to Wangji’s face, looking for any sign that this had actually worked.
Xichen said, “Wei-guniang, I cannot thank you enough for—“
“I don’t want thanks, Zewu-jun. I—“
“But still I must give them, you have done me—no, the Gusu Lan Sect—a great favor. I fear we will never be able to pay it back.”
“Then don’t,” Wei Wuxian replied. “I told you, I didn’t do this for you.”
Wangji’s eyes opened.
Lan Qiren felt his heart drop.
“Then on Wangji’s behalf, please allow me to—“
Wangji turned his head, so very slowly. The minute sound of his hair on the silk pillow immediately drew the attention of both Xichen and Wei Wuxian, who jerked their heads to look at him.
Wangji blinked, just once. His eyes were stuck on Wei Wuxian, ignoring his family members.
Then—“Wei Ying?”
