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Wei Wuxian stared into the mirror. He knew this face, intimately. It was the face of a woman that hated him to her core, and definitely not Wei Wuxian’s own face.
Nor was his husband’s face truly his husband’s.
“Lan Zhan, this is weird,” Wei Wuxian declared.
“Mn,” Lan Zhan agreed.
“I don't want to kiss my own uncle,” Wei Wuxian said further.
Now Lan Zhan pouted. On Jiang Fengmian’s face.
This was decidedly creepy.
“Ew,” Wei Wuxian grimaced. “Okay, no. No. That’s not going to happen. Lan Zhan, I am going to create a spell that makes me see your face, and you see my face, and that makes you saying Wei Ying translate to Ziyuan for the rest of the world and me saying Lan Zhan to Fengmian. I’m not gonna – no.” He opened the door, motioning for a disciple passing through to come closer. It was a Shishu of Wei Wuxian’s, with a face younger than Wei Wuxian ever remembered it being. “Bring me cinnabar and talisman paper, as well as two disks of high-quality jade,” he ordered the Shishu, channeling his best Head Disciple Voice.
“Yes, Yu-Furen,” the Shishu said immediately.
Wei Wuxian frowned at that. Yes, everyone had called Yu Ziyuan Yu-Furen, but that hadn’t actually been her title. It was a rather insolent title, given the fact that Yu Ziyuan had been the third daughter, not the first.
“Jiang-Furen,” he snapped. He had to be a bit rude to not get looked at like he was possessed. “I am the Lady of Lotus Pier, am I not?”
The Shishu stared at her for a moment, before bowing. “This disciple apologizes, Jiang-Furen,” he said, a slight wonder in his voice. “This disciple will bring what Jiang-Furen ordered.”
“Do that.” He closed the door again.
“Are you uncomfortable?” Lan Zhan asked, looking him up and down. “In this body? A female one?”
Wei Wuxian hadn’t thought about that. He clicked his tongue. “Not really,” he said. “I mean, the breasts are weird, and my center of gravity has shifted, and it is weird to not feel my dick, but it's alright. I don’t necessarily mind it.” It had felt weird to get Mo Xuanyu’s body too, and he had gotten used to that as well. The height had been his biggest opponent.
“They will call you female titles.”
“I have never cared about stuff like that, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian said gently. “Yunmeng is more open to varying gender expression than Gusu. There have been times where I wore female clothes, and had my hair up in female styles. If that happened, the merchants called me Wei-Guniang in an amused tone. I never – I never committed to it, fully, but I didn’t mind it back then, either.”
“I would not be able to do that,” Lan Zhan said, his voice curious. “I do not feel comfortable in female clothes.”
“Well, it’s good then that I got Yu-Furen’s body and not you,” Wei Wuxian said cheerfully. It did feel weird, he had to admit that. And he was very thankful that Yu-Furen, thanks to being a very active person since childhood, if he had understood Wen Qing right that one time, had not very big breasts. He had seen women with breasts big like melons, and he had worried about their backs even then.
But it didn’t not feel wrong. It felt … neutral. Funny, to a certain degree. Interesting. With time, he could sometimes change into male clothes, it wasn’t that hard line that Gusu and Lanling people made it out to be.
Someone knocked. “Your orders, Y – Jiang-Furen!” the Shishu said.
Wei Wuxian took it from him.
The Shishu – Wei Wuxian had to learn his name again – stayed hesitantly. “Jiang-Furen,” he said softly. “Will you watch over Jiang-Guniang and Jiang-Gongzi today?”
Wei Wuxian stilled.
Right.
His siblings were his children now.
“Where are they now?” he asked.
“The wetnurse is playing with them,” the Shishu said. “They are … enjoying it.”
Wei Wuxian exhaled. Gods. This would be weird. “Not today,” he said. “I have things to do today. Tomorrow.”
“Yes, Jiang-Furen.”
Wei Wuxian closed the door and sat down in lotus position to concentrate. He needed his husband to have his real face, because there would be no chance in hell that he would kiss and fuck someone looking like Jiang Fengmian.
Two hours later he carved the spells into the jade he had the Shishu bring him. Then he gave Lan Zhan one of the jade disks. Immediately, Jiang Fengmian’s face morphed into Lan Zhan’s. Thank the gods.
Lan Zhan also let a relieved sigh out when Wei Wuxian put his own disk in one of his pockets. He would find ways to secure them later, but now … now they had to learn to become the Lord and Lady of Lotus Pier.
“I need to learn how to fight with Zidian,” Wei Wuxian mumbled, staring on the silver ring on his finger. It didn’t feel threatening or hateful towards him, like he had thought when Jin Ling wanted him to try once and he refused. It had been shortly after Jiang Cheng’s death, so he had blamed it on that, instead of muddying Jin Ling’s thoughts of his grandparents.
“And I need to acquaintance myself with Jiang Fengmian’s sword,” Lan Zhan agreed.
Right. Swords.
Yu Ziyuan did have a sword as well. She didn’t have it next to her body when they woke up, not like Jiang Fengmian’s had been next to Lan Zhan, so Wei Wuxian searched the room for it.
There, in the corner leaned a sword with a silver sheath. Wei Wuxian hadn’t actually seen her fight with it a lot, and he had forgotten both Yu Ziyuan’s and Jiang Fengmian’s sword’s names.
“Qiaoding,” Lan Zhan said, finger touching the part of the sheath where the sword’s name was engraved. “Quiet and stable.”
“Quiet he managed,” Wei Wuxian said, a little bit of bitterness in his words. “Stable not so much.”
“Mn.”
Wei Wuxian searched for the name of Yu Ziyuan’s sword. “This is Danzhuang,” he said when he found it. “Bold or courageous.”
“The Violet Spider had a reputation of being bold,” Lan Zhan said. “Maybe too bold. Of courage I have not heard.”
“She did die in protection of Lotus Pier, you know?” Wei Wuxian murmured.
“Yes. And she did not have to only save two people. There could have been more. I have read the records of it after Qi Zhao took over Lotus Pier. It was her pride that let only two people survive that day. She whipped you.”
“Your uncle whipped you.”
“And I have not forgiven him for that,” Lan Zhan said sharply. “I understand it, but I have not forgiven it.”
Wei Wuxian sighed. “Alright,” he said peacefully.
“It suits you, though,” Lan Zhan added. “Boldness and courage is very you, Wei Ying.”
Wei Wuxian smiled softly. “Qiaoding suits you as well, Lan Zhan. You’re quiet, and a stable figure for everyone who needs it.”
Lan Zhan looked very satisfied after he said that. Wei Wuxian snorted. Then he sobered. “We will have to raise Shijie and Jiang Cheng now,” he said.
Lan Zhan just nodded. “We will. Hopefully Jiang Wanyin will not become as bitter and hateful with our guidance.”
“You won’t antagonize him on purpose?” Wei Wuxian asked.
Lan Zhan shot him a scolding look. “Jiang Wanyin is a baby right now, Wei Ying. He is mendable. He is not careless and vicious against you, I have no reason to antagonize him.”
Wei Wuxian laughed. “Alright, alright,” he admitted. “You’re right. I apologize, Lan Zhan.”
“Mn.”
When they entered the outside world, Wei Wuxian had to swallow the melancholy that came up with the picture of the Lotus Pier of his youth. It felt … cathartic, to a degree. What poisoned Lotus Pier had been the marriage between Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan. Now that they somehow woke up in the bodies of those two people, they had a chance of creating a peaceful, powerful Yunmeng Jiang.
He had demanded a red ribbon from the Senior, who had given it to him with a confused expression.
But even with it being on the Violet Spider’s head, Wei Wuxian felt not as lost anymore with the red ribbon fluttering in the summer breeze.
“Do you call that a Blossom Stance?” Wei Wuxian yelled towards the disciples and left Lan Zhan to correct their honestly very meager stances.
“Yu – Jiang-Furen!” the disciples said in shock. “Jiang-Furen, you have only just given birth. Are you sure-”
“I am not disabled,” Wei Wuxian said. He wasn’t sure what timeline just given birth was, but probably a few weeks ago. “I have recovered well. And your stance is horrible, do you call yourself Jiang Disciples? Try again!”
The tried again.
Wei Wuxian huffed and walked between them, correcting their stances by using his hands on them like he had always done. Only when he noticed the male disciples tense and shift, he exhaled. “I am married,” he said sharply. “And you are much too young for me, if I may say so. If a woman’s touch alone can make you incapacitated, you are not fit to be disciples.”
The male disciples flushed while the female disciples grinned.
“Now try again!”
This time, the Blossom Stance looked much better.
“Fluid transition in Bamboo Kick!”
Two disciples fell down.
Wei Wuxian despaired, his hands finding a home on his hips as he frowned at them. His own disciples had been much better than this, how could they be this bad?
Well. He turned around, trying to find out who the Head Disciple was.
Then he scowled. It was a man that Wei Wuxian knew from stories. Incapable, buying his place in the sect and forcing the disciples to give him their achievements. “Well?” Wei Wuxian snapped. “Won’t you correct their stances? Now!”
The man blanched. He did his best, which was admittedly not too bad – for a common disciple of a Minor Sect.
Not for the Head Disciple of a Great Sect.
Wei Wuxian took a deep breath. “Go,” he then said, voice shaking in rage. “This is pathetic. How dare you call yourself the most experienced disciple of Yunmeng Jiang? We will lose face on the next discussion conference if that is all you can do. Go! Go kneel on the main pier. If you can manage to kneel until the next morning, I will let you show me your skills and think about letting you stay Head Disciple. If not, you will be demoted to a common disciple immediately. Now!”
“You can’t do that!” the man yelled. “You’re just the Sect Leader’s wife, you don’t actually have power over the disciples!”
Wei Wuxian’s brows rose. If anyone had said that to Yu-Furen in his youth, they would have been whipped bloody. Now, he turned to Lan Zhan with a sweet smile. “Zhangfu, do I have control over the disciples?”
Lan Zhan took a long look at all the disciples. “Jiang-Furen is to answer to unless I contradict her,” he said finally. “You shall obey her like you obey me.”
“But – but-”
“Go,” Wei Wuxian told the Head Disciple. “Before I make you.”
He scrambled away.
Kneeling for a day and a night was not the easiest thing to do, Wei Wuxian had to admit. But a healthy, strong golden core would be able to hunt away any sign of fatigue and hunger. Wei Wuxian had been able to do it with fifteen, that man was likely twenty. If he didn’t manage it, he wasn’t good enough for the position.
“The main pier is very well visited, Jiang-Furen,” a disciple dared to say. “It may humiliate him …”
“I hope so, that was my intention,” Wei Wuxian answered. He himself had knelt there often enough. One learned to ignore the looks. “He is a disciple of Yunmeng Jiang. If he can’t manage people looking, how will he manage fighting yaoguai?”
A-Li was cute.
Wei Wuxian looked at her, but even when he tried, he couldn’t see his elder sister in this little girl that looked at him with so much hope.
She was his child, in the way A-Yuan had been.
So was A-Cheng.
The former Head Disciple packed his things and went back to his family before even the day was over.
Wei Wuxian was horrified a man like that ever represented the Jiang Sect.
Just the next morning, the man’s family arrived at Lotus Pier.
“This is unacceptable!” the mother hissed. “We have supported the Jiang Sect in various ways, you cannot treat our blood like that! Jiang-Zongzhu, control your wife!”
Lan Zhan stared at her.
Wei Wuxian sighed. The former Head Disciple’s family was a family of rich merchants. But they were not irreplaceable, and they clearly didn’t know.
“If you don’t put my son back in his position and apologize publicly, we will pack up and leave Yunmeng! This is not a place where our family can thrive!”
Jiang Fengmian would have folded.
Lan Zhan, having been the Chief Cultivator, however reluctantly, knew better. He inclined his head. “If you think this is the best way for your family, I will not stop you.”
The woman gaped at him, jaw slack.
Wei Wuxian clicked his tongue. “The Jiang Sect has the motto Attempt the impossible. Your son is not even trying to do that. This sect has no place for him.”
“What do you even know! You are just a woman that married here! I grew up here!”
Yu Ziyuan would have lost her temper at the woman for that. Wei Wuxian arched his brows. “How little do you care about the place you call your home if you do not even know what a woman marrying in a few years ago knows already?”
“You – You!”
“Me, me,” Wei Wuxian mocked her. “Yunmeng will not fall if you leave.”
They left. Nobody mourned. Things got better.
A-Yuan, Jin-Furen wrote, do you have a place for us for a week? My husband has been horrible recently, and A-Ruo is still so young.
Wei Wuxian hadn’t known Jin Zixuan’s birth name. He guessed this was it.
He inked his brush and wrote multiple letters.
A-Dan, he used a sweetened version of Madam Jin’s name, naturally. Come whenever you need to. Lotus Pier will welcome you.
His hand shook as he wrote the second letter.
Cangse Sanren, he wrote, hoping he hadn’t messed up timelines and that his parents were still alive. They should be, at least for a few years. I had a dream a few days ago. I dreamt of you and Wei Changze dying in Yiling, leaving your son alone. He had to survive on the streets for years before my husband found him. I dreamt that life went bitter. Cangse Sanren, I know we don’t always see eye to eye, but please reside at Lotus Pier until your son turns six. I cannot bear see my husband mourn you and your husband instead of being himself.
His mother wrote back first.
Yu Ziyuan.
How can I trust you do mean what you wrote? You have never believed in prophetic dreams before.
Wei Wuxian crumbled the letter in his hands. It was his mother’s own handwriting, but it was so mistrusting, and addressing him.
Lan Zhan, combing his hair, worried.
Then Li Hongdan’s letter arrived. Thank you, it only wrote.
Wei Wuxian licked his lips. He wrote another letter. Please, he put in ink on paper, if not for me, then for your son and husband. Live in Lian-Cheng, just don’t go to Yiling.
You are acting weird. Are you possessed?
I am still myself. I just learned some life lessons.
Alright. We will leave the moment you will be hostile to us.
Wei Wuxian swallowed, and smiled hesitantly.
Madam Jin, Li Hongdan, arrived first. Ten servants accompanied her, a wetnurse holding Jin Zixuan and her attendant. Her attendant hadn’t been there anymore when Wei Wuxian had arrived at Lotus Pier the first time.
“A-Yuan,” Li Hongdan said in obvious relief. “I am so glad you are well. I have heard rumors of your husband being more loving towards you, but I couldn’t know for sure.”
Wei Wuxian smiled at her, no matter what memories of an older, more bitter Madam Jin were in his head. “Lan Zhan is attentive,” he said, letting the jade translate the name into the name Madam Jin expected. “We have put aside misunderstandings. Come inside.”
In Lotus Pier, Wei Wuxian called for A-Li. The young girl, mild in temper and bright in personality, ran towards her. “A-Niang!” she said happily. Then she noticed Madam Jin. “Madam Jin,” A-Li said with a clumsy bow. “Welcome in Lotus Pier.”
Li Hongdan immediately fell in love with her, making her laugh and smile, and gifting her a hairpin of her own hair. “Your mother and I are sisters in oath,” she said. “You are my niece in heart, I will always be there for you.”
A-Li smiled at her, showing teeth and squishing her eyes, truly happy. Even Wei Wuxian had rarely seen his older sister smile like that in his first life. He smiled as well, putting the pin in A-Li’s hair. “Do you want to see A-Ruo?” he asked.
“He is my betrothed, right, A-Niang?” A-Li asked.
“True,” Wei Wuxian said. “He will grow up to cherish you like you will cherish him, and you shall be honest with him like you are with your brother and the disciples.” Don’t take rudeness like you deserve it.
“A happier marriage than my own,” Li Hongdan murmured. “I shall raise A-Ruo to become as attentive as Fengmian is to you now. No son of mine will turn his back to a daughter of yours.”
“I hope he will be a man with honor and honesty when he grows up,” Wei Wuxian nodded. “And A-Li’s light shall not be dimmed by society, but shine bright to bring happiness wherever she goes.”
A-Li didn’t hear them, playing with the baby Jin Zixuan.
“She likes him.”
Wei Wuxian hummed, watching the children. After some time, he turned to Li Hongdan. “If they do not like each other as adults, let’s break the engagement,” he said. “You and I have learned our lessons with marriages that are unkind to the couple.”
“You have salvaged your marriage,” Li Hongdan protested.
“My husband loved me since the moment he saw me, being awkward and bad with words as a result, and letting me believe he hated me,” Wei Wuxian said, and it was not a lie. “We managed to find it out, and we managed to find love, but you haven’t. Madam Lan has not, she is even encaged in the Cloud Recesses. I wish happiness for our children.”
Li Hongdan was silent for a while. “I wish that too,” she then whispered. “I wish that too.”
Wei Wuxian smiled.
Then Li Hongdan opened her mouth again. “Madam Lan is encaged?”
Oh. Wasn’t that common knowledge? Wei Wuxian had thought that the generation of their parents had known that.
He nodded, answering Li Hongdan’s question.
Li Hongdan balled her hands to fists. “Pretentious Lan,” she hissed. “And I thought they would be better to their women! A-Yuan, how about we have a little outing over the next days? Like old times? Maybe we come back with a woman that we found on the outskirts of Lian-Cheng?” Her smile showed teeth, reminding Wei Wuxian of a panther.
And, okay, he could read between the lines.
“She had two children,” he said. “I would not want to be parted from A-Li or A-Cheng.”
Li Hongdan huffed. “Understandable. So let’s embarrass them politically.” She smiled viciously. “I missed us making men uncomfortable.”
A surprised laugh forced its way through Wei Wuxian’s throat. Okay, maybe he liked Madam Jin. “Let’s do that.”
Cangse Sanren arrived a few days after that. She walked onto Lotus Pier alone, little A-Ying and Wei Changze safe somewhere in the city.
Wei Wuxian was informed of her arrival by a skittish disciple, who wouldn’t look him in the eyes as he informed him that that Sanren woman walked towards them.
Wei Wuxian’s stomach churned. He really hoped to create a friendship with his mother. Would Yu Ziyuan’s horrible personality even beyond the grave stop him from that?
“Cangse Sanren,” he said, bowing lightly.
Cangse Sanren – he needed to stop thinking of her like his mother, she wasn’t, not in this body – was beautiful. Wei Wuxian could see why Sect Heirs would fall in love with her. Her long, black hair was shiny and healthy, put up in a ponytail close to what Wei Wuxian had preferred, before he needed to use hairstyles fit for Madam Jiang. Her dark brown eyes were full of energy as she charged towards him, mirrored in her posture. She was rather small, and a bit chubby, but it only made her look more youthful. Even without her smiling, Wei Wuxian could see little laughing wrinkles carved into her skin – that must have been her choice. She was too powerful to let it happen without her permission.
“Yu-Furen,” Cangse Sanren said, reluctantly bowing.
Wei Wuxian winced. “Jiang-Furen, please. I have grown out of youthful rebellion.” And he would rather not hear his mother address him with the title he had used for the woman that was somewhat of a parent to him, no matter how much she hated it.
Cangse Sanren’s brows arched in disbelief. “… Sure. Jiang-Furen.”
“Let’s take a walk, shall we?” Wei Wuxian waved to the disciples. “I trust you won’t stop practicing?”
The disciples looked concerned as they watched the two of them. “We won’t, Jiang-Furen,” they still chorused.
“You don’t have a Head Disciple?” Cangse Sanren commented as they started walking.
Wei Wuxian exhaled loudly, like always when he thought of that man. “The man that had been Head Disciple was a disgrace to the Jiang-Sect. Bad at cultivation, a lazy teacher, no resilience in that body. He likely bought his way towards the top before I came here.” He chose the way towards the lesser used piers. In his youth, he had often come here to think. They were old, and creaky, but they held, and they had a feeling of comfort.
“I see,” Cangse Sanren said. “You kicked him out, I presume?”
“I told him to kneel on the main pier for a day and a night, and if he managed that, I would consider him staying as Head Disciple. He broke my order in first few hours, running back to his parents, complaining about me.”
“… you told me he was a man.”
“He was.” Wei Wuxian was equally confused as to how that man hadn’t grown up. “In his late twenties, I think. A few years older than me.” Yu Ziyuan’s age right now was somewhere in her mid-twenties.
“I can see why you aren’t sad he isn’t here anymore,” Cangse Sanren commented, her face in comical disbelief.
Wei Wuxian snorted. “Yeah.”
“Do you have anyone in mind for replacement?”
Wei Wuxian shrugged. “Not yet. I want to familiarize myself with the disciples before I pick the best teacher.”
“Not the most powerful disciple?”
“I don’t care how powerful they are, they need to be able to teach and lead. That’s what is needed of a Head Disciple.” That was what had been expected of Wei Wuxian, even at the age of fourteen.
Cangse Sanren hummed.
When they arrived, Wei Wuxian sat down on the pier, taking off his shoes and putting his feet into the water, enjoying the gentle coolness. Cangse Sanren mirrored him.
“You seem more centered, now,” Cangse Sanren told him. “Not as much of a temper.” Her body was tense as she told him this.
Wei Wuxian smiled, thinking back on his arrogant youth. He had used the arrogance and the self-assuredness as a way to protect himself, since he had no family to back him. Not really. He did have a temper, but a slow one. Nothing like Jiang Cheng or Yu Ziyuan. More like Jiang Yanli. He leaned back on his hands, playing a bit with his feet and the water. “I am,” he said. “More centered.” Age did that to you.
Cangse Sanren side-eyed him. “I did not expect you to care for my little family. You said a lot of things when you kicked us out.”
Yu Ziyuan had kicked them out?
Wei Wuxian exhaled. “A-Cheng changed me,” he said. He intended to use that a lot. A son changing a mother was accepted enough that it should work. “Knowing for sure Lan Zhan loves me changed me.” He could not use Jiang Fengmian’s name. That was just disgusting. And he had the jade spell already, why not use it?
“A lot, it seems.”
Wei Wuxian tilted his head to the side. “I have new priorities. And listening to a prophetic dream is … advisable.”
Cangse Sanren could not stop the little snort at his dry tone.
Wei Wuxian smiled. “I thought about your position in the world. Wei Changze is an exiled disciple. You are an immortal’s disciple, yes, but you have no clan to lean on, not even your master’s. Little A-Ying won’t have anyone to rely on if you die. People would use your names to curse at him. You're not high enough in ranking in this world. I do not wish a child to be punished by his parent’s names.”
Cangse Sanren looked at him. “You thought about that a lot.”
“I know what people say about me behind my back,” Wei Wuxian said flatly. “If I were dead,” if Yu Ziyuan had ever died in a peaceful time, “people would use my reputation to disparage my children. I do not allow for that.”
“You matured,” Cangse Sanren said quietly. “Your venom stopped dripping out, Violet Spider.”
“My venom got refined,” Wei Wuxian said slowly, just as quiet. “I know who to bite with it.”
“You mean it? Who do you want to bite?” There was curiousness in her voice.
Wei Wuxian chuckled. “I wish that Jin Guangshan and Qingheng-Jun come close enough to me that I can do it. Both abuse and use their wives, they deserve it. Maybe Lan Qiren.”
“You never liked him.”
“He’s a hypocrite.”
“He can be cute.”
Now Wei Wuxian side-eyed her. She put up her hands as if to defend herself. “He is. He’s young, a bit of spite is good in that sect. He needs to understand who to spite, but there is hope.”
“… Right,” Wei Wuxian said, remembering the Do not come near Wei Wuxian rule. “To come back to who deserves to be injected by my venom … Wen Ruohan.”
Cangse Sanren flinched. “You cannot say that!” she whispered. “What if he hears?”
Even his own mother? Wei Wuxian stared at her, then shook his head, looking on the water of the lake. “He is a power-hungry man with the manpower to wage a war. He needs to either calm down or deal with the consequences of his actions.”
“I take it back,” Cangse Sanren said, wide-eyed. “Your temper is still there. Are you insane? Do you want to make Yunmeng a target?”
“I want to make Yunmeng a formidable rival,” Wei Wuxian said, and meant it. He would do that. “I want to better Yunmeng’s trading. I want to make the disciples become more powerful, more refined in their power. I want to have more female disciples. I want to make Yunmeng rich, and skillful.”
Cangse Sanren stared at him. “And … how will you do that?”
Wei Wuxian smirked. “Well,” he said, “I have a question for you.”
“Yes?” Cangse Sanren said slowly.
“Are you willing to teach the Jiang disciples in whatever you yourself excel?”
“So, arrays?” Cangse Sanren said. “Or do you mean flying? I fly well.”
“You are powerful, Cangse Sanren,” Wei Wuxian said. “That doesn’t come from nowhere. If you are willing, I will pay you as a teacher of the sect.”
“And Changze? A-Ying?”
“A-Ying can become a member of the sect, if he wants to. A-Cheng’s shixiong, A-Li’s shidi.” Not a brother, not in this lifetime. “Wei Changze … I heard he has a clever head for politics. My husband can … need that.” Wei Wuxian grimaced. “He is very blunt, especially as of late.”
“You won’t put him back as a disciple of the sect.”
“Cangse Sanren, he was exiled. If he comes back, he will be looked at with disgust. Like an abused horse, allowing its master to use it again and again until it dies.” He had often thought about what it would be like to come back to the Jiang Sect, but … he knew better. “A position like an advisor, it has enough power to make people understand that why he came back was because we recognize his value.”
Cangse Sanren looked like she understood. Then she inclined her head. “I admit, I am curious how this plays out. Count us in, Jiang-Furen.”
Wei Wuxian was a bit weirded out seeing his own face grow up, but at the same time, Wei Ying did have just enough difference to him that it was okay.
Wei Ying loved A-Li, and enjoyed being grumpy A-Cheng’s Shixiong. A-Cheng being grumpy did not change, no matter how gentle they brought him up. But he did value himself more, and was much less insecure. Wei Wuxian was very proud of that.
Little Wei Ying also grew up to become a scholar.
That was … painful, to a degree.
Wei Wuxian’s smile took a melancholic edge whenever he saw Wei Ying buried in books and scrolls. If there had been no war, no Yu-Furen and Jiang-Shushu, that would have been him. Interested in cultivation, yes, but much more interested in the theories of it. He would have debated it endlessly, like Wei Ying did now, but his own destiny didn’t allow for it.
Wei Ying wasn’t as powerful as Wei Wuxian had been at his age, even though he started earlier. Wei Wuxian was happy with that. There was no need for power now. They had fixed the parent generation.
Oh, yes, they did.
Wei Wuxian’s smile went vicious. Jin Guangshan had died by his blade, Wen Ruohan by Lan Zhan’s. Wei Wuxian and Li Hongdan had worked perfectly together, calling the Lan out at every opportunity, until they allowed for a fair trial for Madam Lan, whose name was Guo Zhenjing. This trial showed that Guo Zhenjing was perfectly in her right of protecting herself when she killed that teacher.
Since then, Guo Zhenjing lived in a cottage in the outskirts of Caiyi, visited regularly by her sons. She did not get sick this time, which made Wei Wuxian guess poison for the last time. Or it could have been that she just wasted away. Guo Zhenjing was a lively spirit, not made to be forced to stay inside.
They fixed even the Nie! With Wei Wuxian’s experience with malevolent spirits, he pulled out the malice from the Nie sabers every time they visited. It wasn’t a long-term solution, but they hadn’t noticed yet, so Wei Wuxian took his time working out an actual solution.
It changed things for the younger generation. Wei Ying became way more scholarly, A-Cheng more settled in himself. Jin Zixuan was less of an ass – although he was still awkward. A-Li being more outgoing and laughing gently when Jin Zixuan put his foot in his mouth helped their relationship enormously. Baby A-Zhan and A-Huan were more settled too, not as cut off from social norms, since they got taught by their mother how to be a human in the real world regularly.
The Wen changed the most. Wen Ruohan’s closest cousin turned out to be Wen Qing’s and Wen Ning’s father. So, this time, they grew up as the Sect Leader’s children. It helped them to develop an ease around people that they didn’t have before.
Wen Chao was still a brat, and Wen Xu was still a bit wrong in the head, but growing up under Wen Kuofeng’s parenting helped to take the worst from them. Being not as powerful surely helped as well.
The dynamic and personality of the Nie siblings did not change. Wei Wuxian hadn’t expected them to.
And amidst all of that, Yunmeng thrived. Their wealth rivaled Lanling’s, even though they were much less gaudy with it. Their connections through trade gave them political power Yunmeng did not have before.
Wei Wuxian had been raised as the Sect Leader’s right hand, and Lan Zhan had been the Chief Cultivator. They had experience.
They also were the couple everyone wanted to become themselves, which was weird, given the faces they sported.
Wei Wuxian’s though process was interrupted by the sudden need to vomit.
“Wei Ying!” Lan Zhan said, turning to him with worry. They were in the midst of a discussion conference.
Wei Wuxian stared into the vomit. What … he wasn’t sick. He hadn’t been sick in decades, his golden core burning everything away.
He wasn’t sick!
“Congratulations, Jiang-Zongzhu, Jiang-Furen,” Wen Kuofeng said, Wen Ning’s gentle smile on his face. “I did not know Jiang-Furen was pregnant.”
Silence thundered in Wei Wuxian’s head. Then – “WHAT?!”
“Oh, you didn’t know?” Now, Wen Kuofeng looked sheepish. “My apologies. I thought you knew.”
“What – how-” Right. A woman’s body could do that.
Wei Wuxian hadn’t thought about that.
He was pregnant.
What in the heavens …
He put a hand on his stomach, not feeling anything.
Wei Wuxian cursed brightly. “I drank yesterday! Fuck! Lan Zhan, I drank! I can’t drink when I’m pregnant, right? Oh, this fuckery is so – fuck!”
“Are you … displeased by your pregnancy?” Wen Kuofeng asked, confused.
“Am I – I didn’t plan for this! I am – I am confused! What! A-Cheng is fourteen, that’s quite the age difference!”
“It is,” Wen Kuofeng agreed. “But A-Xu and A-Ning go along just fine, and they have a ten-year difference. It will be alright, Jiang-Furen, I promise. You’re not the first mother of children with that much of an age difference.”
He was pregnant.
There was a child in his belly.
Li Hongdan, who grew to be close friend of Wei Wuxian’s, ordered a servant to clean up that vomit. Wonderful woman.
Wei Wuxian swallowed. “I’m having a baby,” he whispered. Then he turned to the conference. “If you excuse me, I need to scream.” He walked out of the room, fully intending to scream his head off until a disciple asked him what was wrong.
Li Hongdan looked torn between laughter and concern.
Cangse Sanren just looked amused.
He needed better friends.
Wei Wuxian smiled, despite it all.
He had created a much better future for all the children, including this.
He was happy.