Chapter Text
There was blood on the stones.
Lan Qiren avoided his gaze, his mind recalling the first principle of his clan, 'you shall not kill inside Cloud Recesses' . He could smell the iron stench of it from here, of what lay before him – who lay before him – he didn’t wish to see.
Instead, his gaze wandered to his other nephew. Lan Xichen’s bearing of being righteous had crumbled but a moment ago, along with Wangji’s last breath. Do not lie. Do not break faith. But also, uphold the value of justice. In the end, the disciplines in itself could lead to conflict, on which you were supposed to follow first. When a lie seemed necessary, what was right, what was wrong. Wondering about the spirit of the rules, he’d inadvertently repeated Wangji’s words, spit out to him in grief over his close friend. No, it had been more.
Sometimes, he wondered over the habit of their bloodline to fall in love with one person in life, and to love so deeply it became equally a curse as it was a blessing to find their fated one. His brother had been the best example of how twisted such deep reaching love could be.
He would grieve to have lost one of his nephews to this curse.
Eyes looked up, to see Xichen cradle a lifeless Wangji in his arms. His white robes with the intricate cloud stitchings had already soaked up enough blood to be forever ruined. Lan Qiren saw in Xichen’s confused, glassy eyed look, he wouldn’t care. A set of robes, no matter how expensive, could always be replaced.
No slandering.
The whole of jianghu had taken an opinion, no matter how informed the individual was of things, about the terrifying Yiling Patriarch. Lan Qiren forced himself to really look at his former pupil’s corpse. The execution of criminals through chord assassination technique had been archaic when he’d been a junior disciple himself, but it hadn’t ever been abolished. Wei Wuxian had been too brilliant for his own good, his arrogance leading him and others to their doom. Following the crooked path he’d condemned not only himself, but also Wangji. Wangji who’d not let go of Wei Wuxian’s hand until the very end. Who’D fought his own family for the boy who held his heart in his claws, gaze judging on them. They had broken their promised protection, hadn’t they?
Do not fail to carry out your promise.
Fact had been, Wei Wuxian had murdered Jin Zixuan, a clan heir. He’d practised demonic cultivation and harbored Wen cultivators, going too far against the natural order. His sentence had been just, and by giving no resistance and handing himself in, he’d maybe appeased enough people for Jiang Wanyin to take in the small group of Wens. Jin Guangshan could have asked for all their heads, but Jin Guangyao, his son, had probably helped in the demand only including the Yiling Patriarch himself. As a great clan with a spotless reputation for being fair and just in their judgement, they had taken the task of holding Wei Wuxian’s trial. His tired eyes had looked over at La Qiren only briefly, but they’d still held the deep respect of someone to their former teacher and elder. It had been humbling, to see this young man who’d arrogantly thought himself above them all, brought this low in his end. They’d all made him out to be some fearsome demon, something other, but Lan Qiren could also see how young everyone who’d fought in the Sunshot Campaign had been. How young even Xichen still was. Too young to be burdened as sect leader, too young to lose his brother.
He closed his eyes to the wounded cries his remaining nephew tried to stifle, as if he was still conscious of not making excess noise in his grief. It hurt to think he’d been too harsh on them, for Wangji so easily discarding their disciplines in the face of the choices his heart made, and Xichen staying true to them even when they hurt him and bound him now.
The blood would never be washed off their hands. It seeped further into the stones as he watched others put their hands into prayer, some still in disbelief over the reality of one of their own truly having died from a punishment that was meant to cripple, to hurt, but not a death sentence per se. How foolish, Lan Qiren thought bitterly, not to expect Wangji to follow his soulmate into death. He was also disappointed, having believed Wangji to be stronger than this, to not follow the same notions as his father. Inside he also knew, the disappointment he felt was just another way for him to hide behind, so he wouldn’t feel his own grief more profoundly.
Do not grief in excess.
Reject the crooked path.
Steer away from evil.