Chapter Text
In another world, several tragedies would happen. In another world, Lady Yu Ziyuan of Yunmeng Jiang would not receive a thick parcel of scrolls, that no one quite knows who had delivered. Still, there are so many messengers, and there's so much correspondence going in and out of Lotus Pier that it goes unremarked upon.
The first letter reads thus:
Dearest Mother,
I pray that this letter finds its way to your hands. You cannot imagine how desperate I am that it does, how important it is that you read it and that you trust in my words. I’m not lying or confused. This is not a prank that Wei Wuxian has conned me into participating in, this is your son, begging for your attention.
I could not write to my father because it would break his heart. I could not write to myself – I will be too young still, too short-tempered, I would not understand, and I would not be able to protect us all from the danger that is so close, ready to destroy Yunmeng Jiang and everything that we have ever held dear. Mother, I write to you from the future because only you can protect us now. I beg that you do. Your children need you.
It’s Jiang Cheng’s handwriting, familiar, though it seems to have evened out over long years of practice. It had always reminded her of her husband’s handwriting, how it would look if her husband were ever to lose his mildness, and put in some force when he wrote. (This was from her child, grown up in ways that it hurt to contemplate.)
I write from our future, or should I say mine? You have all died, you and father, when Wen Ruohan’s dogs descended on Lotus pier, my sister and her husband, in an accident at Koi Towers and Wei Wuxian, not even a year after them. You are the only one who can stop these things. The other scrolls are filled with instructions, messages to be sent and a record of events from the first timeline. I hope that they will be of use to you and that our future will not turn so dark. I am sure that my mother will succeed. I’ve sent this letter far enough ahead that you should have time. The Wens will not be ready to move yet, so you and father have time to make alliances, to strengthen yourselves for however you choose to face the problem.
I love you very much, and whatever else happens to the world and the cultivation sects and the Wens, I hope that you will be safe. You, and father, and A-Jie. Please keep yourselves safe. Life was so empty without you. You gave me Zidian far too soon in this life. I pray you keep her with you for years more this time, mother. Your son begs this of you.
There’s only one more thing that I must tell you. I know of your hatred of Wei Wuxian (does not everyone know?), the hatred my sister attempts to shelter him from, that my younger self tries to ignore, that our father resents and tries to make up to him, for he was the one who brought him here and into our care. Wei Wuxian himself has endured it without complaint, will continue to do so until the day you die. That’s how it starts, even. Wen Ruohan sends Wen Chao and his whore to Lotus Pier and demands that you punish him for his insolence in insulting the Wens. It was an imagined slight, but a serious one, mother, (see section 84 of the record scroll for details) but that was their excuse.
You whipped him with Zidian for his insolence, though not strongly enough to kill him. He just knelt there. When Wang Lingjiao demanded it insufficient, that you cut off his hand instead, he did not move from his place, as though expecting you to carry out that punishment also. You did not, mother, you turned Zidian and all her power against that disgusting woman, and it was that first attack against the Wens that they used as an excuse to tear Lotus Pier down (see section 81). I hated him for that, for years, until I learned something that broke my heart.
Wen Zhuliu melted my golden core. Lotus Pier was burned down, you and father were dead, and it was my own fault, I was reckless in my fury. Zidian was new on my finger, and I hated the Wen so so much, and I was lost. Wei Wuxian, the one you cannot tolerate, who you think will bring misfortune to our sect and lead to our downfall… he had a healer take out his own golden core, and give it to me. He lied to me, told me a cure for Wen Zhuliu’s technique had been found, and I believed him. He never told me what he had done.
Please mother, please accept Wei Wuxian. Please do not resent his place here. He would do anything for us, and in my grief and anger, I threw him away, I failed him so completely. We all did, except for A-Jie, but she has always been the best of us. You hate him and were too strict, and father disciplined him too little as compensation, and I resented him secretly for years. We all failed him; we did not even see him, behind his stupid ever-present smile. There is nothing that that boy, who I have called Brother but did not truly offer that place when it mattered, would not do for us. Nothing, no matter how desperate and lonely his road. My younger self will not know how deep his loyalty is. Will be too blind to see it. But neither one of them deserves that fate, mother. Wei Wuxian should not have to give up everything important in his life for me, and I, I would be spared having to live through each and every day aware of that guilt, of knowing that my life was granted to me only by his generous charity. Please. Please forgive him, for being born CangSe SanRen’s son. It is not his fault. And I do not think it matters to him.
I love you, forever and always.
Your son,
Jiang Cheng.
Yu Ziyuan reads the strange cover letter twice before the meaning sinks in, then she reads it twice more. There are more scrolls, each labelled and she can immediately see the largest that must be the record scroll mentioned in the letter. She reaches out for two of the smaller ones to see: On the matter of A-Li, Jin Zixuan’s first engagement, and To be Delivered to Young Master Lan, Lan Xichen, after <date>. The others are all on a similar vein.
If these scrolls are what they claim to be (and she believes the voice in the letter, believes that that was who her son would grow to be in a cruel world), then they are incredibly precious. She can’t afford to lose any of the information on them. (Or for anyone else to find them.) Once everything is sorted; privacy obtained, a suitable hiding spot decided upon, she begins to read.
Perhaps it’s her fault, for starting immediately at the section that Jiang Cheng had pointed out in his letter. But her curiosity had led her there, and after a few pages she rolls up the scrolls, packs them all away, and goes to her pavilion to meditate. It takes most of her self control just to keep Zidian from manifesting. The ring sparks angrily on her finger as she tries to relax, to push away the clinical way in which her son (and others? It had seemed well researched, and from multiple perspectives. How much time had her son spent compiling information about the worst day of his life?) had described the fall of her Sect. Her pride. Her home.
She doesn’t realize how long she’s knelt there, staring out over the lotus-strewn waters of her home. She gives up on meditating first, and then she gives up on planning. The date mentioned is years forward still, and sometimes, sometimes one needed to take time off, when you needed to do something right. She can take this day to grieve for a future in which terrible things happened, in which they all seem to have been felled one after another, desperate and alone. Her mind wanders aimlessly through imagined-remembered carnage, and hatred for the Wens, before it comes to rest on a single person. On Wei Wuxian. I know of your hatred of Wei Wuxian. Does not everyone know?
That part of the letter; that she had so far ignored in favour of finding out the details of Lotus Pier’s fall… her son had been so intense there. But that boy. Wei Wuxian is the first disciple of Yunmeng Jiang even though A-Cheng is heir, and he is known to be precious to her husband. Does Yu Ziyuan, too, have to show the boy her favor? Has she not raised him alongside her own children, fed and clothed him, trained him by Jiang Cheng’s side? Must she love him, is all that she has already given him not enough? Wei Wuxian irritates her, that is true, but that is not only for his parentage; his unserious nature, the way her daughter and her husband dote on the boy like he is a child still, when he is nearly sixteen and ought to display more maturity - all of that irritates her. And Yu Ziyuan has ever been short-tempered and sharp of tongue.
You whipped him with Zidian for his insolence, though not strongly enough to kill him. She can almost see it, the boy kneeling, Zidian snapping out in punishment. From Jiang Cheng’s own letter, it does not sound like she had done it for pleasure, that she had merely been trying to appease the Wen dogs. She knows Wei Wuxian would have been older by then, but all she can imagine is the fifteen-year-old who she had last seen on a boat with her son, waving to A-Li when they left for the Cloud Recesses. Fifteen and still frail, though he was a genius cultivator, head bowed as Zidian bit into his flesh, jerking with every stroke, his robes streaking with blood even if she had chosen to be ‘gentle’.
He just knelt there. She can imagine. When Wen Lingjiao demanded it insufficient, that you cut off his hand instead, he did not move from his place, as though expecting you to carry out that punishment also. That had been hard to read, that any of her disciples, even her least favourite should think her capable of that… it stung. Yu Ziyuan protects her own. Always. She can imagine terrified grey eyes looking up at her, frozen in fear and. And then what? He just doesn’t move, ready to let her to chop off his arm at a Wen-whore’s command? What had she taught him that he would not raise a hand to defend himself when it mattered?
Yu Ziyuan was relieved, beyond relieved, that her future self had not taken his hand. She would not have been able to forgive herself. And, she realizes, had she done so, then Wei Wuxian might have died, or been incapable of…of offering his own golden core to her son. Might not have been with Jiang Cheng, not if he had been crippled. Worthless ungrateful brat, she has thought about Wei Wuxian all his life. Wasting his talents by showing up Jiang Cheng, not helping out Lotus Pier as he should, but all of that is now tempered by the knowledge of how far he would go to protect her son when it became necessary. Her heart aches as she thinks of it, for her son who had to find out the truth when Wei Wuxian was already dead.
She rubs at her chest. Yu Ziyuan does not cry, that’s for losers, but. It hurts so much. How could she have left her son alone like that? Alone to face a war, alone to take vengeance for all of the Yunmeng Jiang sect. She’s startled by the sound of rustling cloth behind her, and though she knew it was Jiang Fengmian – it could only be him, here in her pavilion unannounced – she turns to look at him. Lit by the gentle warmth of a lamp on her table, he looks just as mild and beautiful as always. Any other day she would react to his presence with irritation or anger, unable to stomach his offering of kindness in the place of love, that he had given all his love to a dead woman who didn’t even want him instead of her. But right now, with her son’s defeated, pleading words and the image of a broken, bleeding Wei Wuxian still filling her mind, even his kindness is welcome.
If only she knew how to ask for it. She only knew to turn him away.
Only, her husband’s brow furrows and he stands, stepping forward. “My Lady, is something the matter?” She turns her face away, faces the dark water -when had the sun set? - she had not meant him to know that something was wrong, so she says, “It is nothing. Pray do not concern yourself,” she forces her voice to be even. She thought it had sounded convincing, so she’s confused when she hears him come even closer.
“My Lady, please,” he’s right beside her, kneeling, and it’s improper for him to kneel here, but there’s worry in his voice, “tell me what is wrong, that I may fix it.” Even now, even now, it is Wei Wuxian who stands between her and her husband, but for the first time she sees not the shade of CangSe SanRen, but a boy that she helped raise, cowed and terrified at her feet. She’s tempted to tell her husband everything, to tell him that she was proven right, that that boy’s actions would one day lead to the deaths of every member of Yunmeng Jiang save A-li, A-Cheng, and himself. But even she was not so cruel, and lashing out would not fix the empty, twisted, aching thing inside her.
Nothing would. Only time, and perhaps seeing her son again, to see for herself that her Jiang Cheng, was alive and well and unharmed. She tries to put it out of mind – what excuse would she offer for wanting to visit Jiang Chen at Cloud Recesses – but her husband insists. “Please tell me what’s on your mind, my Lady. You worry me.”
She turns slightly so she can see him, and truly there is an honest desire to help visible in her husband’s expression. “Would you laugh if I expressed a desire to see Jiang Cheng?” she asks. “Would you let me go?”
He looks surprised. “Of course. Does my lady wish to leave first thing tomorrow, or wait a few days? If she can wait for me to go and return from the conference, I would escort her there myself.”
“No,” she says. “We cannot both be away at the same time, someone has to stay.”
“I could still escort you there and return at once… They can manage without us for a day.” She has to bite her lip to keep from finding him irritating. She has said that she can go alone. Does he want to make her desire his support at her side?
“It is not necessary, but thank you. I will leave the day that you are to return.” For all that she wants to see Jiang Cheng right now, she can use the next few days to gather her thoughts, and read more of Jiang Cheng’s scrolls. She will be better prepared to meet her son if she doesn’t set off at once.
Her husband looks ready to argue, reaches out a hand then takes it back as though unsure what to do with it, and then he says softly, “My lady, I have not received any letter from Lan Qiren, or our son, but if you believe him in trouble I would come with you to face it. Is…has something happened to Jiang Cheng?”
“No,” she says, surprised. She hadn’t expected him to care one way or another, but he looks quite tense. “I would not hide something like that from you,” she says firmly. “Even I know that it is merely a whim. Only, it is one that, just this once, I would like to indulge.”
“Of course, my Lady,” he says after a long searching look into her eyes. Finally, he stands up and steps away. “I came to say farewell, for I leave quite early tomorrow. Taking your trip also into account, we shall not see each other for more than a week.”
“Yes. Have a safe trip,” she says.
“You too, my Lady,” he says. She hears him go, and it is a relief. (So why does she wish she was not too proud to ask him to stay?)
*
The boat they were travelling in from Yunmeng to Gusu is nearing Biling lake when she senses a strong pulse of resentful energy. It’s coming from further up-river, from where this river spills out of Biling Lake, and before she can voice her orders to the Jiang cultivators accompanying her, the resentful energy pulses again. It must be something incredibly large to have such a presence when they’re too far to see it, she realizes. She quickly assigns two cultivators to head to the shore with her maids and the boat, to see if the Lan sect were aware there was something fierce in their waters, and took the other three with her, mounting their swords to go see if there was anyone in danger that they could help.
(It wasn't polite, attacking a resentful creature in another sect’s lands, but letting people die was unconscionable and the Lan, at least, would prefer she intervene on innocent people’s behalf. If this was Wen-land, she couldn’t be seen doing this.)
On their swords they make excellent time; her sword, Zhizhu is faster than the other Jiang cultivators' so she pulls ahead. As the cliffs enclosing the river open out, she sees the cause of the powerful resentful energy: there is a Waterborne Abyss. What was GusuLan Sect doing, letting something like that form on their land? She’s about to turn around (a Waterborne Abyss required a large team of cultivators performing rituals to suppress, there was nothing she could do here with just three more cultivators), when she sees a familiar flash of yellow, and then a far more familiar flash of purple. Jiang Cheng? She was going to catch that boy and strangle him, did he have a death wish? Yu Ziyuan could help with that, once she’s dragged him away from the Waterborne Abyss.
She’s flying towards them as she fumes, and only then does she see what is keeping there. There are white-robed Lan Sect disciples in the angry churning water, and they’re trying to get them out. A single sweeping glance; broken boats, crazy resentful energy monster, and idiot young disciples without a single elder or master in sight, and everything becomes clear. They didn’t know it was here, and they’re trying to get out alive.
They’re not doing badly, the twin Jades and Jin Zixuan have picked up two of the sword-less disciples, and Wei Wuxian is carrying a third by the back of the collar. She gestures at her cultivators to help, and two break off to help the Lan and Jin, as she flies toward her son and her ward. She’s close enough to see it clearly, though too far away to help, not when she has to manoeuvre around the huge vortex-tendrils of the waterborne abyss, so she’s too far away. She sees the moment a tendril catches the Lan disciple, sees it unbalance Wei Wuxian, sees her son make a desperate lunge to save them but the Waterborne Abyss had yanked, and the two boys vanish into the seething, dark water.
She gets there in time to snag her son and keep him from following. “I will get him,” she says in his ear, before jerking her head at the Jiang cultivator, meaning, ‘Get my son away,’ and then she’s dipping low over the water, searching for a sign of Wei Wuxian. There. The knot of torn cloth and hair was intense there, as though holding someone. With a graceful leap off her sword, she's in the water, her sword in her hand again and propelling her toward the knot. With her other hand, she lets Zidian fly.
Underwater, Zidian does not spark with lightning, but its spirit is strong as ever, and it tears away at the Waterborne Abyss’s tendrils. As more of it shrinks away, she sees that it is the other boy, not her- not Wei Wuxian, and she snarls mentally as she lets her sword free him, and drag them both back to the surface. Young Master Lan is there when they surface, ready to take the boy from his clan onto his own flying sword, but Wei Wuxian is still missing. How long has it been since he fell into the water? She’s searching for another coiling mass like the one that had been holding the Lan disciple but the Waterborne Abyss must be angrier now because the water is frothing too fast for her to see.
Wei Wuxian, when I get my hands on you, she thinks, flying low over the surface of the water, weaving around the grasping water spouts. She is about to dive back in to start looking underwater – purple robes were irritatingly prone to vanishing in dark water and would make him practically invisible, but she has to try – but just as she’s about to, Young Master Lan returns to her side. “Madam Yu, Wangji has found Wei Wuxian!” That must be why the Waterborne Abyss was more furious now, its last meal had been snatched from it as well. She evades its grasping tendrils and waterspouts easily, following Lan Xichen as he leads them away. There’s a small flock of sword-bound cultivators, and sure enough, Second Young Master Lan is holding the limp form of Wei Wuxian by the collar. She gestures at them to go ahead, and turns around to face the Abyss.
Try to kill my sons, will you? she thinks, before she unleashes a handful of lightning talismans at the Waterborne Abyss, sending it back into the lake, cowering in fear. She stares at the choppy water and it stills, the Waterborne Abyss finally deciding that they were too much trouble. Smiling, she turns back to join the others. Jiang Cheng is holding Suibian in his hands, and when he sees her, he shoots a questioning look. Why are you here? But what she actually needs to do first is to see to her wayward ward, so she catches up to the younger Lan, from whose grip Wei Wuxian still hangs.
“Second Young Master Lan, thank you for rescuing Wei Wuxian,” she says. “I can take him now.” She doesn’t give him a chance to answer, dipping lower to get his arm over her shoulder, and he’s awake, which is a relief though he still looks a little out of it. She takes him from Lan Wangji, adjusting her grip so that Wei Wuxian’s feet rest on her sword too, though she has to hold up most of his weight.
“Madam Yu?” he asks, and he looks quite bewildered to see her. Well, if he hadn’t fallen off his sword he wouldn’t be surprised, would he? She is going to make him perform so many balance drills when he gets back to Lotus Pier, see if he dares fall off his sword again. A-Cheng comes up on Wei Wuxian’s left, and she watches him scan him for injuries. Then Wei Wuxian convulses, tipping forward as he coughs, hard and long, and she adjusts for their balance as A-Cheng also reaches out to steady him. He doesn’t stop coughing, loud hacking coughs that bring up the water he must have inhaled.
By then they’ve reached the shore, and she helps lower him to the ground. He keeps coughing, and A-Cheng turns up to her, worried. “Is he..?” and then it comes out, a few dark strands from his lips, and he winces as he brushes it away. No. She looks up at Jinzhu, who had made her way there with the other cultivators from Yunmeng. “Fetch some saltwater,” she tells her and turns back to where A-Cheng is rubbing Wei Wuxian’s back.
It takes a long few minutes filled with ragged breathing and dry retching before Jinzhu returns with saltwater, trailed by the young master from Qinghe Nie, and she shakes Wei Wuxian to get his attention. “Drink this.”
He takes it from her and she sees him try. Two swallows in he stops, and she snaps, “all of it,” and is relieved to see him obey. Jinzhu, bless her, has brought clean towels and fresh drinking water as well. Wei Wuxian makes a groaning noise, and she steps back. A-Cheng helps him through it, holds his hair back as he throws up, and Yu Ziyuan hands the fresh water and towels over when he finally finishes retching. More of the black strings have come up along with the expelled saltwater. “Do you think that’s all of it?” asks A-Cheng, and she nods.
Only then does she look around to see what everyone else is doing. Lan Wangji and three other disciples are soaking wet, and the Nie and Jin disciples hover a bit separately from the disciples in white. All of them are watching her warily, except the Second Young Master Lan, who's watching Wei Wuxian. Her own Yunmeng Jiang cultivators are waiting for orders, and she turns to Lan Xichen, as the one most likely to be in charge here, and nods politely. “My apologies for the ill-manners, Young Master Lan. It’s nice to meet you.”
He bows in return. “No, there was no time. We thank you for your assistance, Madam Yu, and those of Yunmeng Jiang. We came here to investigate reports about feral corpses in the water, and we didn’t expect things to go wrong so quickly. We are grateful for your help, and welcome you to Gusu.” He pauses there, probably unsure why she’s present.
“We were on our way to the Cloud Recesses to meet my son and Wei Wuxian when we noticed the heavy resentful energy," she explains. "You can all proceed, we will wait for our boat,” she says, and he nods.
“Would Young Master Jiang and Young Master Wei prefer to accompany Madam Yu?” he asks, and her son looks at her.
It would give her time to see Jiang Cheng in private, to not worry about keeping up appearances. But Wei Wuxian, who's at least standing beside him on his own power now, seems exhausted. “I would actually prefer that you accompany Wei Wuxian back to the Cloud Recesses tonight,” she says. “It would be best for a healer to check him, and make sure he hasn’t ingested more of the Abyss’ resentful energy.”
“But Madam Yu, we would be honoured to take care of Young Master Wei. Young Master Jiang can still travel with you,” says Lan Xichen. He has that perfect Lan equanimity down, but she can see that he’s worried, too. As he should be! Letting disciples sent for training attempt to battle a Waterborne Abyss? Letting a disciple from Yunmeng Jiang sect be taken by the creature? They were lucky that it was Lan Wangji that rescued her ward, or she would be far angrier with them now. She accepts the offer though, willing to give him a chance to make up for his mistakes.
“I thank you, Young Master Lan. We will reach the Cloud Recesses in the morning, after spending the night at an inn in Gusu.” Formal bows and nods are exchanged all around, (and was Jin Zixuan displeased by something? His bow was unseemingly shallow) and she watches them leave. The Qinghe Nie disciple takes the spot right at Wei Wuxian’s side, but Lan Wangji… hovers. She wonders what on earth that is about.
Once they’re out of earshot, A-Cheng turns to her, “Is everyone at home fine, mother? Did something happen?”
“No, child, I would not be here in person if there was something threatening our home,” she says and sees him blush faintly. “It was you I wished to meet. I have been disturbed these last few days, worried for your safety. I tried to dismiss it as a whim, but I could do so no longer. And what should I find but my son within reach of a Waterborne Abyss!”
“We didn’t know,” he says, repeating Young Master Lan’s excuse. “There were supposed to be water ghouls, but the bodies did not belong to the locals. That was strange, so they’d put up nets to catch them and see what was causing them.” He looks her in the eye, confident, as he says, “There was no reason for a Waterborne Abyss to be here. Few local drownings, no storms. And the people here know the correct wards for capsizes.”
“Yes, it’s unlikely that a Waterborne Abyss would form here, in Lan cultivation lands,” she says, approving of her son’s defence. “It must have been chased here from somewhere else.” She watches as his eyes narrow, then look away, towards one of the two large inlet rivers into Biling Lake. The one that led towards Qishan Wen’s lands. Very good, thinks Yu Ziyuan. You have been learning.
Wei Wuxian seems strangely subdued as they make their way back to the Cloud Recesses. As they cross Caiyi town, Wei Wuxian is offered a basket of loquats from one of the young women he’d saved in the morning. He flirts back, calling them beautiful and sweeter than their gift to him, before teasing by asking if the girls found Wangji more beautiful than him. That got an enthusiastic agreement from most of the women there, and a lot of laughter. Wangji, for all that he tries to keep a straight face, blushes lightly at that and he shoots enough glances at Wei Wuxian’s basket that Lan Xichen cannot help but rib lightly in return, asking if Wangji needed him to buy him a basket of loquats.
Once they drop away, however, Wei Wuxian seems to shrink in on himself a little. “Wei-xiong, are you feeling cold? You do not look well,” says Nie Huaisang.
“I'm fine,” he says softly. “Just worried. We were not informed of a visit from Madam Yu, do you think something has happened at home? Shijie’s last letter was sent four days ago, but something could have happened since then.”
“If someone was ill, surely they would have sent a messenger to take you and Jiang-xiong back? Madam Yu would not have come in person.”
Wei Wuxian nods. “It's strange for her to be here. Maybe she came to scold me for being a bother at the Cloud Recesses!” he says, forcing some cheer into his voice so that he sounds more like himself. It’s obvious that the strict Madam Yu was someone that Wei Wuxian was afraid to anger. However, going by Madam Yu’s efforts to find him when he had fallen into the water, she cared more for her ward than Wei Wuxian seemed to think. (Gossiping and repeating rumours were banned at the Cloud Recesses, but you could not really ban hearing it if it was spoken in your presence. Lan Xichen has heard many many times, that Madam Yu despised the son of CangSe SanRen, the first love of Sect Leader Jiang Fengmian. It hadn’t looked like hatred to Lan Xichen, today, in person.)
“Your family is more of a mess than I thought,” Jin Zixuan mutters angrily. It’s loud enough to carry, but unlike in the morning, Wei Wuxian doesn’t respond, just curls in further into himself. Lan Xichen wishes that he’d packed extra clothing, with the sun sinking fast and still in wet clothes, Wei Wuxian was probably just cold.
“Would you like a fire talisman, Wei Wuxian?” he asks. He’s not sure if all of Wei Wuxian’s talismans are still soaked through. “Nie-xiong is right, you do appear cold.”
“Why is everyone fussing over him? I was there too,” mutters Su She quietly behind him, but not so quietly that Lan Xichen couldn’t hear him. He passes the fire talisman over to Nie Huaisang, then turns around to Su She, holding out another one. “I’m sorry that I did not offer you one earlier, Young Master Su,” he says. “I merely assumed you would have your own.” Lan Xichen doesn’t know how other sects packed their talismans, but the Lan definitely pack them to be watertight. His uncle would definitely be hearing about Su She’s performance here, today.
When they finally reach the Cloud Recesses, after sunset but before curfew, Wei Wuxian tries to get out from the medical check-up by insisting that there was nothing wrong with him that a warm bath and a good night’s rest couldn’t resolve. Lan Wangji is the one who finally convinces him in Jiang Wanyin’s absence, by repeating Madam Yu’s instructions and finally herding the young cultivator toward the healers’ buildings himself.
Lan Xichen would follow (if only to so he can continue to watch how his brother reacts to Wei Wuxian when he has what Lan Xichen is now almost sure is a crush on the other boy). Still, Uncle Qiren would have returned, and it is Lan Xichen’s duty to inform him about the day’s events. As well as to warn him about the Lady Jiang’s impending arrival.
The Yunmeng Jiang party reaches the Cloud Recesses in the morning, white-robed Lan Sect disciples meeting them at the entrance to welcome them inside. The Lan Sect Leader never entertains guests, so they lead them to Lan Qiren. The old man stares at Jiang Cheng for a moment when he bows, so Jiang Cheng adds “I was not sure if I should stay with my mother or attend class as I was late, Teacher Lan,” he says.
The old man huffs. “Morning classes have been cancelled for today, for the disciples who were at Caiyi yesterday. Wei Wuxian is at the healing cold-springs, should you like to see him. Unless Lady Jiang would prefer you to stay for this meeting?”
“No, you may go, Jiang Cheng,” Mother says, and he bows and slips out of Lan Qiren’s room, heading straight for the cold springs. Jiang Cheng has never needed to use it before, but from Wei Wuxian’s loud complaints from the last time he needed to, Jiang Cheng doesn’t imagine his brother is having a particularly pleasant morning.
Jiang cheng finds him soaking in the spring, eyes clouded and far away as though he’s deep in thought. He stares because it’s such a strange sight, before finally asking, “You alright?” Jiang Cheng is a little worried that he’s not.
Instantly, it’s like Wei Wuxian wakes up; his face fills with that an overblown pout, though his eyes still twinkle with an echo of his signature smile, as he looks up to meet his eyes. “Ai, A-Cheng, how could you ask that of me? This water is freezing, and I was the only one sent here, not the others who were hurt. I think Lan Qiren just wants to punish me for waking up late!” he whines, and before smiling warmly. “Is everything okay back home? Uncle Jiang and Shijie are okay?”
“Yeah,” he says, taking a seat beside the cold spring. “Mother wasn’t clear about why she’s here; it sounded like she had a bad dream or a vision and then had to come here to make sure we were okay. How much longer do you have to be in here, anyway?”
The breeze is a little chill, but the sunlight is heavenly when Wei Wuxian has served enough time in the cold-spring and comes out, complaining about cruel punishments and how he was fine. Jiang Cheng is not sure how much of the shivering is merely put-upon, and how much is actual cold, so he parks Wei Wuxian in a convenient patch of sunlight before going inside their rooms to fetch his combs and hairbrush. The events of the past two days have turned his brother’s hair into a frightening, snarled mess, and Jiang Cheng is going to fix that for him.
When he comes back, Wei Wuxian is seated on the grass, leaning back, eyes closed, face tilted up into the sun. He looks more peaceful than earlier, a small smile on his face, and Jiang Cheng relaxes as he kneels behind his brother to start working through his hair.
It’s a familiar task. Long hair is difficult to style, and he has been Wei Wuxian’s roommate for years; he’s probably brushed Wei Wuxian’s hair as often as his own. He’d only really stopped two years ago, claiming to be too old to need help and doing his own hair, and refusing to do Wei Wuxian’s. His brother doesn’t speak, just shifts to give him better access. If Jiang Cheng had to guess, he would say that Wei Wuxian was doing his best to fall back asleep. Jiang Cheng works in silence, too, carefully pulling apart wet tangles, letting the fine hair run through his fingers as he evens it out.
The silent companionship gives him time to think about what his mother had said last night when she had asked how Wei Wuxian was doing and, buoyed by what seemed to be genuine concern, he had told her exactly what had been stressing him out recently.
“He doesn’t listen, mother. He keeps asking questions about things that should not be spoken of, like making compasses to point to demonic energy, and joking about harnessing resentful energy as just one more type of spiritual energy.” He’s half nervous telling her this, she’s unkind to Wei Wuxian already, but this matter worries him terribly, and there’s no one else that he would trust with this information. His knows that his mother wouldn’t hurt Wei Wuxian, at least not the way he fears Lan Qiren might if his brother continues to push.
Mother is strangely silent for a long moment, before she says, “Although you are being taught here, do not forget that you are not a rule-following, self-righteous Lan, A-Cheng. You are of Yunmeng Jiang, as is Wei Wuxian.”
“You think that he should try to do what he is talking about? I should just let him do whatever he wants, like always?” he asks, horrified. Of everyone who might suggest such a thing, his mother had surely never come to mind.
“No,” she says. “No, you must not let him just do whatever. But impossible, improper, and immoral are different lines, A-Cheng, and only one of those must never be crossed. The Lan despise impropriety. They've seen too many begin on that path and progress to commit greater horrors. But as one of Yunmeng Jiang, you have a responsibility to keep him only from doing harm.” Somehow, the weighted way in which she said this made it feel like she was sharing something important, conferring a secret duty on him, that he must care for.
“A-Xian would not do something immoral,” he says, defending the boy he had just been complaining about. His brother was an idiot with too much brains and too little sense, but Jiang Cheng cannot imagine him doing anything harmful or cruel.
Mother doesn’t disagree, just nods slowly. “I would not accuse him of doing so intentionally. But he is reckless and thoughtless, and that is perhaps the greater danger to himself and everyone around him. I trust you to watch him, for his own sake if not anyone else’s.”
And that last, that last was what Jiang Cheng finds the most irritating, for what were Wei Wuxian’s clever ideas if not each a newer and greater danger to himself? His adopted brother was a headache.
“You seem quite lost in thought,” says said headache, when the strands have all been combed out neatly, and Jiang Cheng is only continuing so that the dampness can be aired out.
“I was simply appreciating the silence,” Jiang Cheng answers crossly. “As it is so rarely found in your presence, I was cherishing it.” He doesn’t sound very cross, and it just makes Wei Wuxian laugh. Jiang Cheng runs his fingers through the fine hair, judges it sufficiently dry, and then gathers it all up neatly into his usual high ponytail. “Ribbon?”
“Here,” says Wei Wuxian, passing it back. “Oh, Lan Zhan, hello! I did not see you there,” he says then, and Jiang Cheng glances up to see Lan Wangji standing in the middle of the path, staring at them. While his expression remains blank, the tips of his ears are red. Jiang Cheng flushes in turn, as he finishes tying up Wei Wuxian’s hair with the red ribbon. Why is he so embarrassed? It's just a normal ribbon! But Jiang Cheng knows how it must appear to Lan Wangji because it takes him a few more moments before he stops staring and continues on his way, refusing to even react to Wei Wuxian’s greeting.
“Hey, Lan Zhan, your ribbon’s crooked!” Wei Wuxian calls at his retreating back, and the residual embarrassment has Jiang Cheng slapping his brother on the back of the head as he stands up.
“Do not tease Lan Wangji about that! Their ribbons are very important to the Lan-Sect; only immediate family or cultivation partners are even allowed to touch them!” Wei Wuxian looks strangely gobsmacked by that, and Jiang Cheng doesn’t want to know what his brother is thinking, really. Has he already tried to pull Lan Wangji’s ribbon? But Wei Wuxian’s fingers are twisting lightly in his own hair, at the ends of the red ribbon that Jiang Cheng has just fixed there. “Don’t pull it out, I just put it there!” Jiang Cheng snaps.
“Thank you, A-Cheng,” says Wei Wuxian. It sounds warm and a little wondering.
“You just looked like a porcupine, it was embarrassing,” he mutters. “Come on. We have only an hour before we have to eat lunch and then attend afternoon classes. I don’t want to waste all of it lazing around!”
*
“So,” says Yu Ziyuan, when all the formalities have been observed as required. “Why did you not want Jiang Cheng present at this meeting? Has he been behaving inappropriately during classes?” she asks.
“No, it has nothing to do with Jiang Wanyin, he is a dedicated student, who tries very hard to keep Wei Wuxian in line. He will do very well as Sect Leader with all the practice that he is getting." Her lips twitch into a faint smile at that round-about insult of Wei Wuxian. “But it’s about Wei Wuxian that I must speak. When I met him this morning, he pretended to be fully recovered, but his qi when we tested him yesterday seemed…unsteady. Like it had faced a heavy blow.”
“How dangerous is it?” she asks. An unsteady qi…it could be anything from needing a day’s rest to being potentially fatal. And Yu Ziyuan had never wanted the boy dead, even before her son had made such an impassioned plea in his defence.
“We do not know yet. Wei Wuxian himself insists that it is nothing, he tried to make light of it, but I would prefer if we could take him out of the usual lessons for a while, to meditate until his Qi settles. When I asked, Lan Wangji said that Wei Wuxian was within the Waterborne Abyss, and fought his own way out before Lan Wangji rescued him. That amount of resentful energy must have been quite an assault on his meridians.”
She frowns, trying to decide what she should do about this. Would removing Wei Wuxian from Cloud Recesses now be too much of a change, should she return home and wait for the next event from Jiang Cheng’s letters come to pass? Or should she make use of this opportunity?
“Do you advise that I take Wei Wuxian home with me to rest?” she asks, willing to have a second opinion.
“No, that’s not what I’m suggesting. I should be grateful to have him gone - the boy is as troublesome a brat as his mother - but some discipline and obedience learned here might do him good. And I do not think he is hurt enough for such a drastic step; he is young and strong. As he insists, with time it may have been resolved on its own. However, the Lan sect has several musical cultivation techniques that may be used to help hasten the healing. Lan Xichen is particularly skilled with the practice, I'll have him deal with the matter.”
She nods, “Then I thank you on behalf of the Jiang sect for your help,” she says, and there’s a long moment of silence as they regard each other.
“May I ask what truly brings you here, Lady Jiang?” he asks, and this time it’s not merely a formality.
It takes her a long while to decide what to say. “Do you believe in prophecies or premonitions, Lan Qiren? That it is possible to know of tragedy before it comes to pass?”
“You dreamed that Jiang Wanyin died,” he says, instead of answering her question. There is something like pity in his eyes.
She crushes the urge to turn away from him. “No. Jiang Cheng was alive. The only one alive from Yunmeng Jiang sect,” she says. “Everyone else from Lotus Pier was dead.” She is not weak, so she says it matter-of-factly. Meets his eyes as though challenging him to laugh at her or pity her.
“Was it... Was it something in particular?” he asks, and she just makes a short gesture, in the direction of the mid-morning sun visible through the eastern window. Who else would it be?
*
After a terribly, infuriatingly bland lunch, they head toward the classroom for classes. “Ah, Wei Wuxian,” says Lan Qiren when he sees them. “Lan Xichen and Lady Jiang are waiting for you in the smallest pavilion to the east. You are excused from classes for today; they will explain your alternate assignment.” He doesn’t even sound angry, and Wei Wuxian shares a confused look with Jiang Cheng before bowing and leaving the classroom.
It’s not that he isn’t happy to have an excuse to miss class, but having to see Madam Yu without Jiang Cheng there? That’s a little scary. They both tend to be more polite when Jiang Cheng or Shijie are present, though perhaps Young Master Lan would just have to take that place for this conversation.
They seem to be talking quite seriously about something, so he hovers at the threshold. There’s no door to knock on, so he stands there until Madam Yu glances at him and nods. Lan Xichen, at least, smiles at him in greeting. There’s a small low table, and Madam Yu and Lan Xichen sit across from each other. Wei Wuxian takes the third side.
“How are you feeling, Wei Wuxian?” she asks.
“I am fine, Madam Yu. I was given bruise paste and healing tea last night, and spent two hours in the healing springs this morning. I do not even feel any injuries any longer.”
“Yes, Lan Qiren told me about that,” she says. She’s observing him with quiet focus, and Wei Wuxian feels quite uncomfortable pinned beneath her stare like he is moments away from being caught for some sort of mischief.
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” Wei Wuxian says, breaking his gaze away. It makes Lan Xichen smile as though entertained, and glancing back at Madam Yu, he thinks she looks entertained as well.
“You mean aside from smuggling wine into the cloud recesses after curfew, and picking a fight on your first night here?” Madam Yu asks.
“I have already been punished for that,” he mumbles.
“I am not here to scold you for misbehaviour. Frankly, I am enjoying the reprieve from having to do so; until you return to Lotus Pier, disciplining you is Lan Qiren’s responsibility. (Is Lan Xichen hiding his amusement behind his sleeves as he sips his tea? And Wei Wuxian is not here for a lecture about appropriate behaviour, and upholding the Jiang clan’s dignity in front of the other sects?) Madam Yu makes a gesture, “Here, give me your hand,” she says, and he does, palm up and fingers out, and she takes his wrist, feeling his pulse. “Move your qi to your fingertips, like you’re powering a talisman, and hold it there,” she says.
Wei Wuxian's fingers twitch in her grasp, and then he obeys, bringing a faint amount of qi to the surface of his skin. After several long moments testing his pulse, she tugs his hand closer and traces one finger over his hand, and up his wrist and forearm along his qi pathways, and then uses her own qi to gently press against his. He vaguely remembers the Jiang healer giving him a similar but more thorough test right after he formed his golden core. Do they think something is wrong with his meridians?
“What’s wrong?” he asks and feels his control stutter along with the question.
“Enough,” says Madam Yu, releasing his hand. “Lan Qiren believes your meridians and spiritual energy to be disturbed by yesterday’s events. That much resentful energy could have even destroyed your golden core for good. Fortunately, your energy is merely unsettled, as he believed, and your pathways, though tender, are not permanently damaged.”
“I said that I was alright,” Wei Wuxian says. “I can feel that for myself.” He tells himself that he is not a little flattered that they're worrying on his behalf, really.
“Even so, Wei Wuxian is not yet fully healed. To ensure that you do so, you will be meditating here with Young Master Lan for a week at least. You may attend any theory lessons, but until the healer determines that you're well, you are not to spar, draw suibian, or otherwise expend spiritual energy unless explicitly asked to do so. Is that understood?"
"I."
"Was I unclear?" she asks, looking like she's about to rescind the earlier promise to defer her disciplining powers.
"No, Madam Yu, I understand." Wei Wuxian shoots a quick glance at Lan Xichen, and back. “Young Master Lan will be staying to… supervise?” He’s not sure how else one could help with meditation.
Lan Xichen laughs lightly (would it be like that if Lan Zhan laughs, Wei Wuxian wonders) and reaches beside him to a flute case, from which he takes out a xiao. “No, I will be helping more actively. There are many musical cultivation methods known to my clan, and my uncle believes that one of those that I have recently perfected, called Cleansing, would work well to settle your Qi and remove the disturbance of other energies.”
That… required far more effort than a Sect Leader’s Heir was expected to expend for a disciple of a different clan. “I...Thank you, I am grateful for your help,” Wei Wuxian says, confused about why he would go so far.
“It is no trouble. I am glad to help you recover. It was my fault that Younh Master Wei was hurt in the first place,” says Lan Xichen, as if understanding Wei Wuxian's confusion.
“Yunmeng Jiang is still grateful to you for your assistance in this matter,” says Madam Yu. “If you are ready to begin, I shall take my leave. There are some things I must still do before we depart.”
They watch her go, and then Lan Xichen looks at him again with a smile. “Shall we begin then, Young Master Wei?” he asks.
And Wei Wuxian should say yes, he is already troubling Lan Xichen unnecessarily, but Madam Yu is acting weird, and Jiang Cheng had been so oddly gentle with him earlier. Wei Wuxian feels a sickening, foreboding feeling as he thinks about it further.
Jiang Cheng always gets irritated when people act soft. He only acts softly himself when he is worried about something.
“Young Master Lan, may I be excused just for a few minutes? There is something that I must ask Madam Yu,” Wei Wuxian says, and when he agrees, he runs out after her.
“Madam Yu!”
She stops and turns, “Yes?”
“Madam Yu, forgive my impertinence but. Why did you come? Jiang Cheng told me that nothing was the matter at home, and nothing has happened here to require your presence. Is it…” He pauses, looking up into severe eyes before he finishes, “Jiang Cheng is in danger, is he not?” She stiffens enough that he knows he’s right, though the confirmation is shocking. “Here, inside Cloud Recesses? Then you must take him back home with you!”
“Hush,” she commands. He can’t believe her! Before he can argue, she continues, “It is not a danger specific to Jiang Cheng, nor even an immediate one. And yet, you were both nearly careless victims to it even yesterday.”
Did she mean the Waterborne abyss? It takes him a moment to understand what she means. What had Lan Xichen said yesterday? The only place where a Waterborne abyss was recently formed was Qishan Wen Sect.
Oh. Oh no.
“I have passed off my presence here as a mother who merely missed her son, but I have spoken to Jiang Cheng and Lan Qiren of my fears. There is nothing more that we can do, yet. I urge you to be cautious, however, Wei Wuxian. It is no longer the time for reckless fun.”
She sounds just as she usually does, but Wei Wuxian gets the strange sense that Madam Yu is frightened. Even though her expression is almost as severe as usual. It is that feeling that is, in a way, more frightening than anything her words had conveyed. It must be terrible if Madam Yu herself is scared, he thinks.
“Shouldn’t we come back to Lotus Pier, then?” Wei Wuxian asks. “We can all protect each other better if we’re together!”
Madam Yu shakes her head. “No, you will complete your lessons here. We will not do anything now to bring Wen Ruohan’s attention to Lotus Pier or the Cloud Recesses. Prepare yourselves,” she says. “When the war comes… it will tear everything apart.”
The sense of wrongness only grows, it feels like she’s speaking to him as an adult instead of a misbehaving child, and when has she ever treated him like that? There's something grave in her aspect too, like she somehow knows exactly what terrible things are to come. Wei Wuxian is a little rattled. So he offers her the only comfort that he can, puts his hands together formally and bows. “Madam Yu does not need to worry about Jiang Cheng. I will protect him with my life.” He means every word. Wei Wuxian may act frivolous, and flirtatious sometimes, and enjoy teasing, but this is a solemn vow that he means with every fibre of his being.
Even so, he was not expecting Madam Yu’s expression to soften the way that it does at his declaration.
“Thank you,” Madam Yu says simply, laying a hand on his shoulder in wordless command to straighten. “Take care of yourself, first. Heal. Now go, Young Master Lan must be waiting for you.” Wei Wuxian bows again, less formal this time, and runs back the way he came.