Chapter Text
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“Well, the news out of Yiling is weird, as per, and we can’t expect anything less, can we? The Jin have settled the Burial Mounds, as much as that mess can ever be settled, but of course they don’t have the resources to completely fix everything that’s going on. And apparently someone is making trouble for them, which, gosh, who would? I don’t know, I really don’t know. Their fees are so reasonable, after all, and they did fight so bravely in the war, taking on so much after. The citizens of Yiling should be grateful that they can have medication and electricity, don’t you think? But what do I know? You shouldn’t ask me. Anyway. Here’s the new tune blowing up the club charts, by the Yi City Trio.”
The Nie Huaisang Variety Hour, April 21, 3023
"Oh, Qing-jie, did you hear about this supposed new vigilante? He’s here in Yiling, and they’re calling him the Fangguang Laozu—the Shadow Patriarch. Protecting the light from the shadows, or something. Do you think people have been saying bad things about me again and getting their facts mixed up?" Wei Wuxian says, looking through today’s dibao for any interesting news. He gets it through a pirated link, and whoever sends it on tends to attach a lot of the local gossip.
“What, like this is another one of your titles?” Wen Qing says. “Do you really need any more names to do with light? Niehong sanren, shandian-jun, pain-in-the-ass lightswitch-maker–-” She’s sorting medication into little sachets and prepping what they need for today’s work.
Wei Wuxian is not helping, really, he’s lounging in a chair and watching her in between reading her tidbits of the local news, but at least he’s keeping her company. He figures that’s helpful enough.
Wen Qing has a small secret doctor's office in their apartment, where she sees the people of Yiling when they need her. She and Wei Wuxian and A-Ning started it up when they escaped here after the war, and expected to see mostly refugees, but it turns out the official Jin clinics are too expensive for many of the ordinary citizens of Yiling as well.
Of course, Wen Qing should by all rights have a research hospital and all the funding she needs to do whatever she wants, but they make do. They’ve had to move shop once to avoid the Jin, and Wei Wuxian really hopes they don’t have to do that again. He’s officially dead, but there’s still a warrant out for his arrest, and the Wens really have to avoid notice.
“I’m very interesting,” he protests belatedly. The titles feel very silly, but he does sort of like niehong sanren, because it reminds him of his mother. “Don’t you think so, Qing-jie?”
“I’ve told you not to call me that,” she says, piling the sachets into a box. “But you say there’s a new vigilante?”
“Well, this is why I thought they were talking about me at first,” Wei Wuxian says. “Someone dressed in black, leaving Jin guards gibbering madly from resentful energy.” Besides running exorbitant medical services, the Jin sniff around Yiling on the regular, looking for people who are wanted after the war (such as Wei Wuxian and the Wens) or people doing things the Jin find unacceptable, like for example running unauthorized health clinics (such as Wei Wuxian and the Wens).
Wen Qing looks up from her preparations. “That is odd,” she says. “Anything else?”
“I think I might’ve met him,” Wei Wuxian says, blinking as the memory resurfaces.
“Wei Wuxian!” Wen Qing says, exasperated. She does get frustrated when he doesn’t tell her things, but sometimes his memory is just shit, and it’s hard to tell her things he doesn’t remember himself.
“I mean, I’m not sure. But remember that night I got really drunk?”
She just looks at him in a way that is frankly hurtful.
“Thursday last month,” he clarifies, even though she shouldn’t need it. Honestly. He doesn’t drink that much.
“When you were on the roof and refused to come down,” she says dryly, indicating that she does in fact remember this incident.
“That’s the one,” he says. “I never told you how I got home.”
“I assumed you crawled back like you usually do,” she says.
“I think someone carried me? Like, leapt off the roof with me in their arms. It was very sweet. It might’ve been a dream, I guess, but—” he trails off. He really does remember the sensation of being held.
“And you think it was this Patriarch?”
“I do,” Wei Wuxian says. He remembers this strong, searing presence of resentful energy, and the likelihood of there secretly being another cultivator of that caliber in Yiling is low. He also remembers feeling safe, which is unsettling to think about. Why would the Fangguang Laozu make him feel safe?
Swallowing, he looks away from her steady gaze. Mercifully, she lets it go.
Their conversation does inspire him to set up his little helpers to look for this new vigilante. They’re tiny bots that are extensions of the AI he’s built to monitor Yiling.
Well, monitor, and also provide a new electrical grid for. Wei Wuxian’s been steadily extending the weather-powered grid he set up for their apartment-slash-clinic, since it needs far more reliable power than the rickety apartment building could offer, even if he tapped into the Jin-provided (overpriced, shitty) electrical setup.
After a few very frustrating outages in the middle of very important procedures Wei Wuxian realized he had to make them something better. Which also gave him the perfect opportunity to set up a monitoring system to have some better eyes and ears around the place. It’s good to have hobbies.
And in fact his little bots are perfectly suited to keep an eye out for masked people secretly running around the place and menacing Jin patrols or saving people from falling off rooftops. Although…are they masked? He’s not sure. But definitely dressed in dark colours.
Accordingly, he turns up the ISO of the bot cameras and activates the “search” talisman he’s programmed into their working memories. This way they’ll keep an eye out for violent altercations involving darkly dressed cultivators.
But before the bots even have time to get him anything useful on the new vigilante, he has to reset their search algorithm for something much more important.
“I only looked away for a minute,” Wen Ning says tearfully. He can’t actually cry anymore after the experimental surgery, but he would if he could, Wei Wuxian has no doubt. “He likes to play tricks, so I thought I would find him quickly, and I looked everywhere, jiejie, I swear. And when I couldn’t find him I came straight back here.”
Wen Qing visibly bites back an angry lecture. “Where, exactly,” she asks.
Only half listening to them, Wei Wuxian is rapidly setting all his bots to look for the same little face, all over Yiling.
“Let’s go out,” he says. “I’ll get pings when they see something; we might as well go help.”
It takes them hours of frantic, fruitless searching, up and down alleys and talking to everyone they find, before they turn up A-Yuan clumsily trying to wipe dirt off the face of a filthy stranger who is passed out on the alley floor. Much like Qing-jie does for him, in fact, which is so sweet, and Wei Wuxian is going to cry about it as soon as this is all over, probably.
He swoops in to pick up his sweet little radish, and then he sees just who is lying there. Even dressed in a dark, matted robe over filthy, torn clothes, even with his face and hair covered in dirt, Wei Wuxian recognizes him.
Wei Wuxian would know him anywhere.
“Lan Zhan?” he whispers, then takes a deep breath and turns to Wen Ning. Panic isn’t useful. He’s mourned Lan Zhan for months; he can keep it together for a few minutes. Probably.
“You take A-Yuan,” he says to Wen Ning, trying to keep his voice steady. “Tell Qing-jie we have him and that we’ll be right there with another patient. Who isn’t A-Yuan. Or any of us. Let’s not worry her.”
Then he kneels down, and touches Lan Zhan’s wrist. There’s a pulse. He’s alive. Lan Zhan is alive. And here.
He’s supposed to be dead, but he’s in an alley in Yiling. Why?
And he’s so silent and still, worryingly so. Cultivators of Lan Zhan’s caliber are not often unconscious. There’s something else that feels—off, about him, too. Wei Wuxian isn’t sure what it is. It’s not a qi deviation, but it’s not not a qi deviation.
"Lan Zhan," he says, cursing when Lan Zhan doesn't respond, not even a little, not even when Wei Wuxian shakes him. Clearly they need Wen Qing. He tugs out a piece of talisman paper, biting his thumb to get the blood he needs to paint the character for strength.
Once, he could've carried Lan Zhan all the way back to the apartment. Once.
His core is only partially regrown, and physical strength has been the most difficult to regain. This is despite how much his cultivation has recovered otherwise, and despite all the meditation he’s forced himself to sit through. Wen Qing has a theory about his acupuncture points being jammed, and is working on a treatment for it, but nothing has worked. Yet.
Lifting Lan Zhan up with the talisman-enhanced strength is easy, though, and Wei Wuxian turns with his burden to find Wen Ning talking softly to A-Yuan, who he has safely wrapped up and held tight.
"See, Xian-gege has the sleeping man, and we're going to take him back, and Qing-jie will make him all better."
The easy charity of it makes Wei Wuxian swallow hard. Wen Ning, a former subject of human experimentation, is the kindest and most open-hearted of them all. None of them deserve him. He just. Does this, and makes it look so easy.
"Let's go," he says, instead of, “A-Ning, you giant panda, quit being so nice, it’s not good for you,” and they make their slow way back to their apartment. It’s a hot day and there are a lot of people about, so they take the back streets. It’s better if they stay out of sight; carrying around an unconscious man is likely to attract attention, even in Yiling.
And if they’re discovered, well, Wei Wuxian is still wanted by the Jin, despite his supposed death. As are the Wens. It doesn’t matter if you defect from the clan that was defeated in the war, people are still out for your blood, and if you break people out of a POW camp then there should be an example made of you. Apparently.
When they finally get in, after a cumbersome navigation of the old stairs in which Wei Wuxian only just avoids cracking Lan Zhan’s head open on the wall, Wen Qing is waiting, having returned from her own search when she got their message.
"Well," she says, after a long silence, face impassive. "I suppose we know who the Patriarch is, now. But what has he been doing to himself, besides the obvious?" Being thrown into the Burial Mounds by some Wen deserters at the end of the war, she means.
The Burial Mounds are on the outskirts of Yiling. It's why no one wants to live here—a great big dumping ground for weapons and experiments, full of ghosts and war crimes.
Famously, Lan Zhan was taking a group of young Lan disciples back to the main camp at the end of the war when some Wen stragglers attacked. Lan Zhan being Lan Zhan, he defended the kids so they could get away and the Wen got him, and threw him into the Burial Mounds.
So Wei Wuxian went in to look for Lan Zhan, over and over, until it became clear that he wouldn’t be found, and that Wei Wuxian’s core, newly healed from the two grafting procedures he went through, would not recover if he kept going in there. So Wei Wuxian focused his attention on his little family of Wens and the clinic he and Wen Qing were establishing, and mourned Lan Zhan in silence.
"I don't know," Wei Wuxian says. "But something's off, right? It's not just me." He’s still holding Lan Zhan in his arms; somehow it’s difficult to let go.
"He reeks of resentful energy," she says, wincing as she touches Lan Zhan. "Right, get him into the back room."
Wen Ning, having turned A-Yuan over to Popo, comes to help too. They lay Lan Zhan out on the exam table, and Wen Qing nods at them impatiently.
"Well? Get his clothes off," she orders. Wei Wuxian flushes hotly. Undress Lan Zhan? Him? Wen Qing sighs. "If you're going to be weird about this, A-Ning can help me."
"No, no," Wei Wuxian says. He knows Wen Qing will need him; now that he’s gotten more of a feel for the oddness going on with Lan Zhan. There's a very strong sense of resentment and the Burial Mounds, and he’s very unfortunately the closest thing they have to an expert on both of those things. So he just has to get over himself. Lan Zhan is back from the dead, Wei Wuxian doesn’t have time to get weird about seeing him naked.
Wen Qing carries out the four traditional examinations as best she can with an unconscious patient, taking close notes on his meridians. When she is done, she falls into a long, deep silence.
"What's the verdict, doc?" Wei Wuxian says, tone light even as he can't keep his hands from clenching in his lap.
"Well, he's— his core is completely saturated with resentful energy. I’ve only seen cores like this a couple of times.” Wei Wuxian is very familiar with those cases. One of them was his brother, and the impetus for their core grafting procedure. “But the core itself remains pure and strong, clearly allowing him to use both traditional cultivation and resentment at once." She pauses, and then grimaces. "Frankly, it reminds me of the shit my uncle used to do to people during the war. It never resulted in this, though. Those cultivators just died."
"Do you think someone experimented on Lan Zhan?" Wei Wuxian asks. It feels like he's speaking from a great distance. If the Wens tried to make Lan Zhan into some kind of weapon–
Wen Qing frowns at him, and the shadows in the corners that had begun to gather dissipate. Resentful energy is a useful tool, but it does tend to run away with you if you don’t pay attention.
"Maybe," she says. "He didn’t do this to himself. No one would, especially not a Lan cultivator. And the Burial Mounds alone shouldn’t have had this kind of effect. Usually the resentful energy just takes over. ”
He rubs his eyes, trying to think. "You think experiment. Can we reverse it?"
Wen Qing scrunches her nose. It's so much at odds with how serious she just looked that Wei Wuxian can't help but smile and reach out to poke it.
She slaps at his hand. "Wei Wuxian!"
"What? You're so cute!" he says, attempting to fend her off.
"We're being serious," she says, but then smiles at him. "And yes."
"Yes?" He's wrong-footed for a second, and then realizes what she means. Reverse the core damage. Hope sears through him like a wildfire.
"Well, maybe not reverse it, exactly," she says. "But we should—remember the work I did on cores, before the war?"
Of course Wei Wuxian does. They'd dug deeply into it while trying to help people who were afflicted with various core-related issues after the war. Trauma, or chemical exposure to certain kinds of qi-destabilizing weapons, or—well, his own issues.
He waves at her to continue.
"Remember my theory about how the energy could be redirected? I think if we constructed shunts to funnel the corrupted energy—" She trails off, and grabs a piece of paper. "Like this, see?" and draws it out.
Wei Wuxian looks for a while and then grabs a pen of his own, and says, "What about here? And I think if I—musical cultivation, maybe? To stabilize?"
Wen Ning looks at them patiently and then goes off, coming back with a plate full of food that he puts between them on the desk. He’s very used to them doing this over difficult cases, and this is going to be a tough one indeed.
The final sketch of their solution for Lan Zhan’s little resentment problem has blotches of chili oil and soy all over, but it will probably work. Probably.
—
When Lan Wangji wakes up, he’s disoriented enough that it takes him a moment to realize why: the pain is gone.
Ah. Wait.
There’s something, a shadow; he can feel it lurking behind what must be expertly set qi blockages. But the excruciating scraping pain of resentment ravaging his meridians is entirely gone.
The relief is astounding and terrifying. Who did this? Why?
And worst of all: what if it returns? What if the corruption keeps spreading? It's been get worse and worse for months. Lan Wangji assumed it would kill him.
He blinks at the ceiling and tries to think. He can hear voices outside the room he is in. It’s probably not a prison. Prison cells don’t generally have children’s drawings tacked to the wall or cheerful wall hangings. It looks like—an apartment.
He tries to access his cultivation and is hit with such a wave of vertigo that the room spins around him and he barely manages to lean over the edge of the bed in time to vomit onto the floor.
This prompts a flurry of noise as someone comes in—no, not just someone. “Wei Ying,” he breathes. And then his vision greys out and the room fades away.
When he wakes again Wei Ying is still there, arguing with a small child.
“No, A-Yuan,” Wei Ying is saying. “Pretty-gege is sick, and you can’t get on the bed with him.”
“Will I catch it? I don’t mind,” says A-Yuan, and Lan Zhan is so glad to see that he is safe. He was trying to get the child home earlier, he remembers that much, but then the pain and the resentment rose higher and everything grew blurry before he must’ve fallen unconscious. It happens sometimes, and has been happening more often.
This was why he didn’t approach Wei Ying or the Wens: he can’t predict how the resentful energy he carried will make him act. What if he harms Wei Ying or the people he loves?
Instead, he tried to keep them safe. He went after Jin patrols who came too close, he once prevented Wei Ying from falling off a roof, and he tried to content himself with knowing that at least Wei Ying was alive and had a family. If Lan Wangji did nothing else with what he expected to be a very short life, then he could dedicate it to this.
“No, it’s not that kind of sick, radish,” Wei Ying says. “He’s hurt himself, like you did last week. Well, sort of.”
“Does gege need a bandaid? I’ll get one!” Lan Wangji hears the child—A-Yuan—run off, and smiles.
“Wei Ying,” he manages again, and, because his throat hurts and his mouth tastes incredibly disgusting, “water.”
Wei Ying turns quickly, and nearly falls over in his rush to the bed. “Lan Zhan! You’re awake! Yes, water, of course—” He helps Lan Wangji lean up a little and puts a pillow behind his back, then goes to fill a glass of water from the pitcher on the bedside table. He fills the glass a little too high and spills some on the sheet, but he takes a few sips and then holds it to Lan Wangji’s lips.
The water feels incredible, little trickles of life seeping into him, and Lan Wangji sighs when Wei Ying pulls it away.
"A little at a time," Wei Ying says. "Wen Qing says you—you haven't been eating much."
Lan Wangji supposes he hasn’t. Food became strangely unimportant lately, and he’s been in too much pain to think much about that. He inclines his head.
"Still the same Lan Zhan, ah?" Wei Ying says, smiling. "No need to speak if you don't want to. You had us worried."
Lan Wangji licks dry lips, tries to marshal his words. "What did you—"
As he expected, Wei Ying takes that and is off running. The explanation that follows is not wholly coherent, but Lan Wangji gathers that he's been the subject of an experimental medical procedure intended to stabilize his core and heal what the Wens did to him, and that he needs to be careful while the new parts—new parts?—grafted to his core take root. "It's sort of like a transplant? In a way? We're not sure if your—but your core is so strong, still. Anyway. If you don't mind sticking around so we can make sure?" Wei Ying finishes, sounding uncertain.
"It's not safe," Lan Wangji says automatically. He's not safe. Now that he’s starting to wake up, he knows he has to work out a way to leave as soon as he can.
"Yes, that's why we want to monitor you. I mean, we're fairly sure it's stable, but you never do know." Wei Ying rubs his own midsection, and Lan Wangji feels an echoing tug in his lower dantian. He feels strange. Whatever Wen Qing has done to block the pain is making him lightheaded.
"No," he says, and licks his lips again. "I'm not safe." He tries to sit up further and fails utterly, the room swimming before his eyes.
"Lan Zhan," Wei Ying says, suddenly so very close, hand around his arm. "Lan Zhan, take it easy. You just had surgery!"
"I have to go," Lan Wangji says.
"Go where?" Wei Ying says, sounding worried and he's holding Lan Wangji down now. "Stay still, you're going to pull your stitches open. I'm going to get Wen Qing." Lan Wangji hasn’t heard Wei Ying sound this worried since they were stuck in a tunnel with a Wen war construct and Lan Wangji had a leg injury.
But she must've heard the noises, or possibly A-Yuan told her, because she appears by the bedside.
"Lan Wangji," Wen Qing admonishes. "Please stay still." A needle glints in her hand. "Are you in pain?"
Lan Wangji shakes his head. It's negligible.
"He is," Wei Ying says. "Or, at least, he can't sit up by himself."
"He did just have surgery," Wen Qing says, an echo of Wei Ying's earlier words. "Lan Wangji. You have a strong core, and now that we've partitioned the segments that were affected by the resentful energy, they should be able to coexist without causing further harm to the rest. But you need time to recover."
"Listen to Wen Qing," Wei Ying says.
But what if the Jin come for me? Lan Wangji doesn't say. He's all out of words. He'll have to sneak out when they're paying less attention. He can't have the Jin come down on them, he can't.
He knows the Jin have been tracking the Patriarch through various substandard talismans and technological surveillance attempts; he’s been able to thwart most of it because of the way resentment clouds technology and because, frankly, they’re not very skilled. But even inadequate cultivators will surely get lucky eventually.
And if they don’t just find him, but the supposedly dead Wens and Wei Ying–no. No.
And what if the procedure wasn't successful? He'll start feeling the effects of the resentful energy again, his actions would grow unpredictable again, and that would put them all in danger too.
He might harm them. The child. Wei Ying. Unacceptable.
Either way, he must leave them as soon as he can.
"Do you think I could give him something to eat?" Wei Ying asks.
Wen Qing nods. "I'd say some broth," she says. "Try that first, and if he can keep that down, then maybe some congee."
"Oh, I could make you congee, Lan Zhan," Wei Ying says, and Lan Wangji can't help himself; he laughs, lightly, because he remembers the way Wei Ying makes congee. Their entire troop unit–well, those who survived–probably remembers the way Wei Ying makes congee.
"I see you've had his cooking," Wen Qing says, amused.
"I'm a great cook," Wei Ying says, mock-offended, and Lan Wangji feels then exactly how much he has missed him; it's like a physical ache to be in the same room.
"Your relationship with spice is disturbing even for me," Wen Qing says. "But if you promise to leave the chili oil out of it, you can make Lan Wangji some congee. If he keeps the broth down."
Wei Ying salutes her. "I, Wei Ying, solemnly swear to not give Lan Zhan any spice he can't handle."
Lan Wangji smiles.
"There," Wei Ying says, elbowing Wen Qing. "He's smiling."
"Is he?" Wen Qing says, glancing down at Lan Wangji.
"Of course he is! Look!" Wei Ying says.
Lan Wangji shakes his head at him. "You haven't changed," he says, which oddly makes Wei Ying flinch, and Wen Qing frown. But neither of them say anything. Wen Qing leaves to get the broth and Wei Ying sits down next to Lan Wangji, lounging in the chair.
Lan Wangji’s uncle would tell him to sit up properly, but Lan Wangji likes seeing Wei Ying relax. He’s beautiful when he’s relaxing.
Wei Ying's hair is disheveled, his ribbon coming loose, and Lan Wangji aches to tie it back for him, but he can't even move his arms reliably at the moment. And he shouldn't touch.
Once, they were friends. The kind of friends who touched each other. Or rather, Wei Ying touched him. In the midst of fighting a war, Wei Ying would bump his shoulder, give Lan Wangji an osmanthus cake he traded a talisman for, and in a thousand other ways bring light into the darkest of days. They were friends.
Sometimes Lan Wangji thought they might eventually become more than friends. If they lived.
He doesn't know what they are now.
"How have you been, Lan Zhan? Stupid question, maybe. You've been protecting us, haven't you? The Fangguang Laozu.”
Lan Wangji doesn’t know what to say. It’s not surprising that Wei Ying would figure it out. But how to explain? He inclines his head slightly.
"If you ever want to tell me what happened," Wei Ying says carefully, "I'd love to listen."
Lan Wangji shakes his head minutely. No. No, that’s the last thing he wants to do.
"Fair enough," Wei Ying says softly. "Aha, here's A-Ning with the broth, and A-Yuan!"
"A-Yuan has drawn a picture and wanted to present it," Wen Ning says, giving Wei Ying the bowl.
"It's for you," A-Yuan says, holding it out to Lan Wangji.
"Thank you," Lan Wangji says gravely, and doesn't think about the students he used to teach, so solemn in their little headbands.
"Here," Wei Ying says. "Lift him up, Wen Ning, so he can show Lan Zhan the picture."
Wen Ning does, and now that they're closer, Lan Wangji can see the marks around Wen Ning's throat. He looks like one of the fierce corpses in Wen Ruohan's army, except that he's very clearly talking, and conscious, and—Lan Wangji shakes his head and focuses on the picture. There are a couple of indistinct blobs and a stick figure.
"Tell me and Lan Zhan about the picture, A-Yuan?" Wei Ying says, and his smile is so soft. Lan Wangji wishes he could touch his face, the corner of his mouth. Kiss the laugh wrinkles next to his eyes.
"It's pretty-gege and a bunny," A-Yuan says gravely. Pretty-gege. Lan Wangji looks at Wei Ying, who shrugs as if to say, “Where’s the lie?” Ridiculous.
"Does gege like bunnies?" Wei Ying says, grinning. A-Yuan’s gaze is fixed on Lan Wangji’s face like he, too, would like the answer to that question.
Lan Wangji can't lie to a child. "Mn," he says, inclining his head. He really does.
"This is the best thing that has ever happened to me," Wei Ying says to no one in particular. “I knew you were a secret softie, Lan Zhan, but now I have evidence.” Lan Wangji is quite sure he will never hear the end of this. Ever.
Except he will, because he's leaving. As soon as he can.
–
Having Lan Zhan around is devastating for Wei Wuxian’s everything. He’s so present and alive and beautiful, even though he’s even paler than usual and gaunt, still, and what is Wei Wuxian supposed to do, pray tell, when Lan Zhan smiles at him and thanks him for making congee without chili oil, huh? Devastating.
So he conscripts A-Yuan into making Lan Zhan smile more, is what he does, because Wei Wuxian has an addictive personality and he’s very aware of this fact (though not very good at avoiding his addictions, especially when they’re being beautiful and vulnerable in his back room). How is he supposed to resist wanting to make Lan Zhan happy? How?
Anyway. Watching Lan Zhan patiently listen to A-Yuan tell him a long story about what he and Popo got up to at the park today is not good for Wei Wuxian’s composure but it is very good for Lan Zhan, who needs to be distracted from obvious and imminent plans to leave as soon as he can walk more than a few steps without falling over. (Steadying Lan Zhan and helping him back to bed? Also devastating. The way he feels in Wei Wuxian’s arms, the way he’s actually letting Wei Wuxian support him, the way he stumbles a little sometimes when going to lie down so that Wei Wuxian has to lean over him to help him. Devastating.)
He gives Lan Zhan a t-shirt with bunnies on it to soothe his feelings, only that backfires spectacularly because Lan Zhan wears it. It’s terrible.
He tells Wen Qing this in the kitchen at night, and she laughs at him, pats him on the head, and says, “At least he hasn’t run away yet. Keep it up, maybe he’ll stay long enough to recover.”
“Why is he so set on leaving?” Wei Wuxian hasn’t been able to figure it out.
She gives him a look.
“What?”
“You don’t recognize self-sacrificing behavior when you see it? I assume he’s either worried about the resentment returning or possibly revealing our location, and deciding to remove himself as a precaution for either.”
Her tone says “I don’t care,” but Wei Wuxian knows better. First, Wen Qing is an enormous softie and always wants what’s best for her patients, and second, she does at least care because it’s dangerous for her family if the Jin come for them. They’re still wanted. All the Wen are. Wei Wuxian hasn’t worked out how to fix that yet.
Wait. “You think he’s being self-sacrificing? And what do you mean, I ought to recognize that?”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m not your therapist,” she says, setting down a plate in front of him. “Eat some mango and shut up.”
“Where’d you even get that?” Mango is definitely not an everyday thing. “I’ll give it to A-Yuan.”
“Got a bag in return for a round of vaccinations down at the third quarter. A-Yuan’s had four, we’ve frozen a couple, this one is yours.”
“Okay,” he says, because she’s looking at him with that glare that says she’ll take no lip from anyone, least of all him. And he only occasionally argues with her when she has that look on her face.
The mango is the best thing he’s eaten in at least three months. It’s almost as good as Lan Zhan’s little smile when he looks at A-Yuan or the way his face relaxes when he’s sleeping.
After he finishes it he does what he’s been doing every night for the last week, which is ensure Lan Zhan is asleep in his bed.
He’s not totally convinced Wen Qing isn’t actively doing something to prevent Lan Zhan from leaving at night—maybe dose him with a sedative? A strategically placed needle or two?—because so far Wei Wuxian has only ever found him in bed, fast asleep.
Then again, Lan Zhan used to sleep just like this. They were quartered together in the early days of the war, two of the most effective cultivators there were. Lan Zhan used to conk out at the same time every night. Wei Wuxian never knew why, but it was uncanny.
Then everything went to hell, and there was no more sleep. The Wen started relying on fierce corpses, and they had to figure out countermeasures and stay on the move constantly. So everyone mostly stopped sleeping about halfway through the war, which fucks up even strong cultivators after a while.
Wei Wuxian’s point is that even if Lan Zhan isn’t recovered, it feels good to see him reverting to old habits. Regardless of whether it’s Wen Qing-induced or just that he feels safer.
Tonight, however, Wei Wuxian finds Lan Zhan trying to strap on his sword.
“Lan Zhan!”
Lan Zhan looks up. “I must go,” he says. He’s listing slightly to the side, the surgical site obviously still paining him.
“No,” Wei Wuxian says. “You’re still not healed.”
“I’m as healed as I can expect to become,” Lan Zhan says. He moves stiffly to put on the black cloak he was wearing when they found him, over all-black clothes.
“You stop that,” Wei Wuxian says. “We’ll keep you safe until you’re fully recovered.”
“I must keep you safe,” Lan Zhan says softly.
“If you think I’m not capable of putting you back in that bed—“ Wei Wuxian says, but he’s all too aware that he can’t wield a sword, not yet, not with his fucked-up meridians and slowly regrowing core. If Lan Zhan truly has his strength back, this will be a short fight.
The tops of Lan Zhan’s ears go pink, which, what? Oh. Oh. Wei Wuxian flushes. That’s not what he meant!
Despite the embarrassment, Lan Zhan keeps moving, and Wei Wuxian just has to stop him. But how?
Wait.
He bites his finger and quickly paints the character for lightning on the wall. There’s a sparkle and a hum, and the grid springs to life.
“What is this?” Lan Zhan says.
“It should keep you busy for a while, if you insist on trying to leave,” Wei Wuxian says. “These wards are harder to break than the ones on the Wen compound.” Wei Wuxian is the wards expert between the two of them, and it took him three days to crack those, with Lan Zhan feeding him spiritual energy to fuel his experimentation the whole time.
Lan Zhan is staring. “Wei Ying,” he says, sounding more like himself, like when he used to argue with Wei Wuxian over every mission plan, making him iron them out until they were as close to foolproof as possible. Nothing’s foolproof in war, of course, but neither of them are fools. They were very good together.
Something is making Wei Wuxian’s eyes sting, so he swipes at them quickly. "What?"
"These are incredible. Electricity?"
"Yes, and talismans, like this—" If explaining his technique will make Lan Zhan forget about leaving for the moment, Wei Wuxian will take that and run with it. And he had worked a solid thirty days—often going days without sleeping—until he could combine talismans and electricity into a new kind of ward, so there’s a lot to talk about.
Lan Zhan studies him for a moment. “Is this why they call you the Lightbringer?”
Wei Wuxian flushes. The nickname is a bit embarrassing. Like anyone wouldn’t do what he had, given half a chance. “Aiya, you’ve heard about that? Well, yes. Or, partly. I think the nickname is mostly because of the electrical grid I set up for the city? Most people don’t know about the wards.”
“Wei Ying. That’s extraordinary,” Lan Zhan says, and Wei Wuxian can’t possibly be expected to cope with Lan Zhan complimenting him, so he launches into an explanation of how it works.
He’s probably babbling, and Lan Zhan will surely get bored or fed up, but Wei Wuxian can’t seem to stop. This is the first time Lan Zhan has talked to him about cultivation since they found him in the alley.
Which, Wei Wuxian can respect not wanting to discuss things that are harder than they used to be. His own damaged core feels like a sore, throbbing wound on the worst days, and he really should meditate even more because it could help, but who has the energy, honestly?
Anyway.
It’s beautiful to see Lan Zhan’s eyes lit up, following the glimmering traces of electricity across the wall. This is the Lan Zhan Wei Wuxian remembers, so far from the listless, worried convalescent of the past few days.
"Are they effective even when you can't see them?" Lan Zhan asks.
"Sure they are," Wei Wuxian says. "I can set them to signal, warn, wound or, uh. Kill."
"Is that how you've been figuring out when the Jin are coming?"
"Most of the time it works flawlessly," Wei Wuxian says. He has a fantastic no-notice talisman for the clinic that makes any of the lesser Jins bounce off it and wander off elsewhere if he activates it in time, which the wards mostly let him do. Sometimes they have the hiccups, sort of, because the energy fluctuates or–well, he hasn’t worked out all the kinks yet. "The other times, I guess you took care of it, huh?"
Lan Zhan inclines his head in that way which either means, "They were hardly worth mentioning," or "Sure, but I don't want to talk about it." Or both.
"Thank you," Wei Wuxian says. "I know Yiling's been grateful that you've been helping. We can't be everywhere, and Jin Corp is very much trying to move in and make sure everyone’s paying them for things, at the same time as the Burial Mounds are, you know, a thing."
That's putting it mildly. The Wen experiments and war weapons dumped there are dangerous in themselves, discarded biological weapons and rotting corpses alike, and the restless ghosts periodically get loose.That’s when Wei Wuxian has to enlist Wen Qing’s help to do their best bastardised version of the army-learned liberation ritual.
But Lan Zhan flinched when he said the Burial Mounds and Wei Wuxian has been trying to leave it alone, but he has to ask—"Lan Zhan. Tell me about the Burial Mounds."
"The Wen," Lan Zhan says, slowly and precisely, "threw me in there, after they caught me. They told me it was a better way of getting rid of me than dumping my corpse outside my brother's camp."
"Why?" Wei Wuxian says faintly. It's the only thing he can get out.
"I don't know," Lan Zhan says. "I don't think they had a reason for anything they did at that point." He turns over a wrist. "I don't have many scars," he says. "My cultivation is strong enough to heal most minor wounds. But,” he pauses, swallows. “They also injected me with something before they threw me in. It affected me strongly, almost like one of your spirit lure flags but working inside the body, making me a beacon for restless ghosts. But the after-effects seemed to make me stronger, even as it devastated my meridians.”
“They injected—did you tell Wen Qing?”
Lan Zhan shakes his head. “It is most likely not in my system anymore.”
Probably true, with how strong his core remains. But still. “She’s treating you. It’s important that she knows.” And then Wei Wuxian has an idea. “She treats other people who were victims of the Wens. What if working with you would help her help them?”
Lan Zhan blinks.
“Lan Zhan. We could save so many more people.” Stay.
“Wei Ying.” That’s not a no. That’s Lan Zhan trying not to do something he desperately wants to do. You can’t see it on his face, but it’s obvious in his voice.
“You can still patrol, when you’re well again. I could come out with you!” Maybe if he helps Lan Zhan to go out at night and keep Yiling safer he’ll agree to stick around.
Lan Zhan looks tempted. But then he shakes his head. “I would put you in danger. Unacceptable.”
“Lan Zhan. Do you or do you not see these wards? Wait til I show you how I generate this grid spontaneously.” Well, with the help of a set of talismans and some kind of power source, but the point is, it’s a very quick process compared to traditional ward-making, which is painstaking and fiddly. “It’s very effective. We could borrow the abandoned warehouse down in the second quarter and I’ll show you.”
Lan Zhan visibly hesitates.
Seeing his advantage, Wei Wuxian moves in for the kill: “Do you think I can still beat you?”
Lan Zhan’s eyes flare. “You’ve never beaten me.”
“No?” Wei Wuxian says. “You can prove that tomorrow if you want. Do not work after nine.” Quoting the Lan rules always riles Lan Zhan up, Wei Wuxian used to do it all the time when they served together.
Lan Zhan looks at him like he knows exactly what Wei Wuxian is doing.
“Bed, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says, nudging him only to have Lan Zhan sidestep him at the last second, making Wei Wuxian stumble. “Aiya, Lan Zhan, are you starting early? No fair.”
“Nothing’s fair in combat,” Lan Zhan quotes dryly, echoing their old commander.
Which reminds Wei Wuxian. “Speaking of helping people with Wen-induced core dysfunctions, I’ve been working on something for the Nie. Just for fun.”
Nie Huaisang is one of the very few people who knows where Wei Wuxian and the Wens are, because their intelligence network is second to none, and they’d come to them in secret a month ago with a difficult ask.
“For Nie Mingjue?” Lan Zhan looks intent.
Wei Wuxian remembers dimly that the Lan and the Nie were old friends before the war, and there was something—oof, his memory is terrible.
“Were your brother and he—?” He gestures, trying to convey the rumored goings-on between the elegant Lan Xichen and the talented—if temperamental—commander Nie.
Lan Zhan shakes his head. “There could have been,” he says. “On ge’s part.”
Wei Wuxian nods. “I think Nie Mingjue probably feels the same. But he also had that—oh, maybe you don’t know.” Lan Zhan has been missing for months. “Nie Mingjue had some kind of thing with his former lieutenant Meng Yao, but he turned out to be a Jin, and now works for Jin Corp.”
Lan Zhan doesn’t wrinkle his nose but he really wants to, Wei Wuxian can tell.
“Yeah, I know,” Wei Wuxian agrees. “Anyway. I could totally use your help on the Nie problem. Wen Qing and I are a bit stymied.”
Lan Zhan nods again. Agreement! At last!
And he even agrees to go back to bed, which, wow. Wei Wuxian’s stomach stops doing a nervous dance and his various contingency plans (would one of his binding talismans, working off of magnetism and cultivation together, be sufficient to keep Lan Zhan here? How would Wei Wuxian find him if he did escape?) finally stop spinning up.
--
It's not that Lan Wangji doesn’t know he’s being manipulated. Wei Ying isn't subtle.
But he is so tired, and when he’s offered the chance to not run, to rest, to be (maybe, maybe, Lan Wangji is still very concerned about this) safe for a little while, it’s hard not to take it.
He tells himself he'll have to leave at the first sign of Jin Corp coming for him. They really want the mysterious vigilante who is protecting Yiling. He's being blamed for some of Wei Ying's actions, too, but he doesn't mind. It feels good to be able to protect Wei Ying.
The warehouse outing doesn’t happen until later that week—Wei Ying is needed in the clinic, so Lan Wangji spends a little time observing him and Wen Qing to see if there are obvious places where he could help. He also keeps working on his rehab, because Wen Qing seems to have decided that as long as Lan Wangji is staying, they will do this correctly.
It feels like relearning how to cultivate. Meditation and sword forms, and numerous tests of his core and meridian stability. It is arduous and tiring.
Fortunately, Lan Wangji's training prepared him well for hours of meditation. But something in him is chafing at the rigorous discipline. He's itching to move, to experiment. Play around, even. He used to be the most perfect student, obedient and exact to a fault. Now he doesn’t just want to obey. He wants to soar.
So much so that once they're at the warehouse, drawing his sword for something other than a structured core-building exercise feels like freedom.
Wei Ying is grinning at him. "Let's see what you've got, Lan Zhan." He flicks a talisman into the air, and it lights up in sparkling lines. Clearly he wasn't lying about generating those wards spontaneously.
Lan Wangji is fascinated. If he didn't want to spar so badly, he'd call it off just to study this.
As it is, though, he says, "Boring," and hums. He is the most gifted musical cultivator of his generation. Naturally, when he was faced with a second source of energy infiltrating his core, resentful energy flooding his meridians and the drug turning him into a spiritual beacon for angry ghosts, he reached for music to control it.
But he didn't have Wangji. He couldn't play, so he sang. By now it's second nature, weaving with the sword and his voice in harmony, resentment and traditional cultivation working together as it was never meant to.
Since the procedure Wen Qing did, it's also easier; no longer excruciatingly painful as it was when the acid of resentful energy ate away at his core. She and Wei Ying only meant the construct to stabilize him, but it’s rapidly proving to do much more than that. It is extraordinarily simple for Lan Wangji to combine the two arts into a wave and the new cultivation feels like a sea that is beginning to rise, swelling larger and larger.
Wei Ying whoops. "I can feel that," he says, and his lines of protection shift to meet Lan Wangji's wave.
Lan Wangji inhales and feels it expand and expand, the energy crackling in the air, all the hair on his arms standing on end—
"Wei Ying!" he says urgently, and instead of attacking, envelops Wei Ying in a protective cocoon of energy. At the last moment, he draws himself inside as well, just as the lightning strikes.
When he comes to, there's a ringing in his ears, and Wei Ying is clasped tightly in his arms. Around them, there's a charred ring of black and the air smells of ozone, but his protections appear to have held: neither of them have a mark on their body.
“That is fascinating,” Wei Ying says happily, but makes no move to leave Lan Wangji’s embrace. Perhaps he is feeling unsteady still. Lan Wangji can feel Wei Ying’s chest rise and fall rapidly, and knows he ought to let go, but he isn’t able to. “What do you think caused that reaction?”
“I was thinking of a wave,” Lan Wangji says, itching to stroke Wei Ying’s sweaty bangs out of his eyes and press a kiss to his forehead.
Wei Ying being who he is, catches the implication of what Lan Wangji is saying right away. “You think it worked like water and electricity together? Like a conduit?”
“Or amplification,” Lan Wangji says, thinking of the electromagnetic pulse weapons of the war. “I was an indifferent student of physics, but it does seem to suggest that kind of reaction.”
“Pfft, you weren’t an indifferent student of anything,” Wei Ying says, and does slither out of Lan Wangji’s grip now. Lan Wangji doesn’t feel colder as a result, but his arms feel empty. He doesn’t tug Wei Ying close again. Cannot allow himself to.
“You think this was what Wen Ruohan was after?” Wei Ying calls, prowling around the charred circle on the floor.
“Perhaps, yes,” Lan Wangji says. They’d found a lot of research on electricity in the various Wen offices that they’d looted during the war. Electricity and cultivation, and resentful energy. Wei Ying has been using it as the basis for creating Yiling’s new electrical grid.
How typical of Wei Ying to have taken that research and made it uniquely his own—and a thousandfold more effective. And now this. What did it all mean?
Is this why the Jin Corp is coming after Wei Ying, because they suspect something related to electricity and the research Wen Ruohan did? It might not just be that they could lose their livelihood if people could run electricity cheaply and efficiently, if they got their hands on this… From what Lan Wangji knows about Jin Corp, even the faintest suspicion that something like this exists ought to have them sniffing around like bloodhounds.
“Do you think Jin Corp could know about the possibility of electricity and cultivation combining for a greater force?”
Wei Ying hums.
“They snapped up plenty of people who worked for the Wens after the war,” he says thoughtfully, sketching out a talisman on the floor. Lan Wangji only just manages to power it before he can use his own blood again.
“Lan Zhan! Save your strength.”
“I have plenty,” Lan Wangji says. He does. Something about what just happened did the opposite of draining him; he feels brim-full of energy.
“Sure,” Wei Ying says. “But a man has to power his own talismans, you know?”
All my strength is yours to have, Lan Wangji doesn’t say, but something of that maybe appears on his face, because Wei Ying flushes.
“Anyway,” he says hastily, “look at these readings.”
Lan Wangji bends down to take a look at the spreading characters on the floor.
“What is this?” he asks, though he’s beginning to follow it already—the character for lightning, the lines denoting amplification, the math that—
“This could level a city,” he says.
Wei Ying nods, looking both excited and unhappy. “Or power it,” he says. “But we’d have to work out a way to make it safe, the stability is—“ He points at the parts of the reading where Lan Wangji can see just how fragile this balance is.
“We have to keep it secret for now,” he says. “Until we fully know how it works.”
“I almost want to make sure everyone knows about it instead,” Wei Ying says, and Lan Wangji knows what he means. Knowledge is safer when shared.
“You could tell Xiongshang,” he says. The Lans are traditionally the holders of knowledge in the cultivation world.
“Hm,” Wei Ying says, which is not a yes.
“He wouldn’t want it for a weapon,” Lan Wangji elucidates. He doesn’t actually know much about how his brother is faring now. Before Wei Ying found him, Lan Wangji knew he was dying, so he didn’t try to find out how Lan Xichen was doing. It would have been too painful.
“No,” Wei Ying says. “Lan Zhan—aiya. I didn’t tell you. Your brother is very close with the Jin now. I don’t think maliciously. He was always, ah….“
Too kind for his own good, Lan Wangji supplies silently.
“But, yes. He’s very close with them. They helped rebuild your school after the war.”
Lan Wangji frowns. He doesn’t remember Jin Guangshan being the charitable sort.
“In return for what?” he asks.
“I believe the Jin are now part of the research group? There’s a wing? Named something relevant?” Wei Ying waves a hand.
Lan Wangji already knew he lost a lot to the Wens and the Burial Mounds, but this… He wonders how his uncle, who never liked Jin Guangshan, is feeling about this.
He should talk to his brother. He could talk to his brother. He doesn’t have to leave it to Wei Ying. Somehow it hasn’t occurred to him before, that if Wei Ying and Wen Qing’s surgery truly has worked, he could see his family again.
He must make sure Wei Ying is safe, first. But he thinks about sending his brother a letter, and feels his eyes prickle a little with the thought.
“Well, I think you won this one,” Wei Ying announces, interrupting his reverie.
“Hm?” Lan Wangji says.
“This would’ve flattened me if you hadn’t pulled me in like you did,” Wei Ying says. “Literally flattened. I’m talking pancake.”
Lan Wangji feels as though he has been plunged into a vat of ice. He could’ve killed Wei Ying. He really is dangerous. He thinks of the weapons they concocted during the war, or the ones they stole from the Wen, the ones that couldn’t be disarmed and had to be contained inside the strongest of fortresses. He only thought he was becoming corrupted by resentful energy. What if there’s something in him that’ll inevitably explode?
“We need to figure this out,” Wei Ying is saying. “How does it work, what exactly was it that caused the amplification factor, how do we control it? Lan Zhan, I wouldn’t have to run the Yiling electrical grids in separate quadrants off of Raspberry Pis that break every couple of months.” His face is shining. His own potential death clearly doesn’t figure into his feelings at all.
“What if it can’t be controlled?” Lan Wangji says. What if I will kill you? Unacceptable.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says sternly. “Attempt the impossible.”
“That was never my motto,” Lan Wangji says. It comes from the Jiang Clan, and was adopted by their regiment because Wei Ying was, to put it delicately, inspirational to the others, but it never provided Lan Wangji with the right motivation. Do the right thing, impossible or not. And the right thing now is to leave.
“I can see you planning to leave again, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says, breaking into Lan Wangji’s reverie. “I won’t let you. First of all, Wen Qing would kill me, second of all, how long do you think it’ll be until someone else figures this out and does it worse and less safely? We need to understand as much as possible about it and then, yeah, maybe your brother—or mine—but the knowledge should be everyone’s.”
How Wei Ying goes from looking at a disaster to a full-fledged action plan in minutes has always been a marvel to Lan Wangji. Right now, though, his mind is in too much turmoil to follow him.
“What if I am the danger, Wei Ying?” he demands.
Wei Ying shrugs. “Possibly, but isn’t the best place to be here? With the world’s foremost core expert and her plucky sidekick? We might not have all the lab equipment we would want, but I think you’ll agree that we did a better job with your core than just about anyone else would.”
Lan Wangji can’t disagree. But that doesn’t mean he can stay, no matter how much he wants to. Not if he’s a danger to Wei Ying.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says, softer. Closer, sneaking his hand into Lan Wangji’s. “Let’s go have some food. Everything feels better after food.”
That last bit he learned from Jiang Yanli. Lan Wangji is out of resistance. For now.
“Mn,” he says, and follows Wei Ying. If he could, he would always follow Wei Ying.
--
Language/Translation Notes
Look at all of Wei Wuxian's titles! He's the Yiling Lightbringer in English, and this is not a literal translation. Níhóng sànrén [霓虹散人], per dragongirlG and cryptive, has all the, like, vibes. Nihong means neon (as in neon lights) and sanren is wanderer, like WWX’s mom Cangse Sanren. And the vibes! Per cryptive, the vibes are steampunky, low key creator of something cool. Shǎndiàn-jūn [闪电君], which makes him the Lightning Lord. Or, if you believe google translate, Mr. Lightning.
Shadow Patriarch is only a loose translation of Fangguang Laozu [防光老祖]. 防 [fáng] literally translates to defend/protect/guard against; 光 [guāng] is the same “light” in Lan Wangji’s canonical title, 含光君[Hanguang-jun]. The 老祖 [laozu], of course is the same as the one used in Wei Wuxian’s canonical title, 夷陵老祖 [Yiling Laozu] and as we all know, translates literally to patriarch or grandmaster/founder. (Thank you dragongirlG and joythea!)
Dǐbào [邸報] means something like news bulletin, and is not in contemporary usage but was something used in, like, a couple of ancient times dynasties.