Chapter Text
Chapter 1: The Return of Purple
Spring Conference.
Unlike the austere Discussion Conferences hosted by Gusu Lan, Spring Conference was a festival of courtship, alliance-building, and subtle—sometimes not-so-subtle—power displays.
Here, Alphas showed off in archery fields, sparring circles, or wide forest hunts. Omegas, in turn, displayed their refinement—singing, painting, calligraphy, or music, each stroke a flirtation, each note a declaration.
At the heart of it all was the Token Exchange: an Omega offering a token of affection—embroidered ribbon, scented pouch, a carved trinket—to an Alpha. If accepted, the Alpha was duty-bound to win the competition and thus, uphold the Omega’s honor.
This year, the host was Lanling Jin.
---
Golden banners lined the road leading into the conference grounds. Disciples flanked the welcome pavilion in crisp formation, led by none other than Jin Zixuan, the aloof heir himself.
The arrivals began with stately order: Qinghe Nie, sect austere and proud; then Qishan Wen, their presence too quiet, too deliberate, stirring murmurs among the watching cultivators. When the Lan contingent arrived, conversation stilled entirely.
The Gusu Lan delegation moved like drifting clouds—silent, immaculate.
All eyes turned as Sect Leader Lan Xichen dismounted and turned to the carriage behind. With a gentle hand, he helped his furen down.
A hush rippled through the crowd.
Jin Guangyao stepped gracefully onto the stone path, smiling with soft, radiant sweetness. An Omega of luminous beauty—doe eyes, a delicate dimple, clad in Lan white and blue robes edged in gold thread. A vermillion mark on his forehead declared him Jin by birth, Lan by marriage. The collars of his robes are high and tight around his throat like all omegas, hair elegantly twisted and tied up.
The Lan sect clustered around him protectively: Lan Xichen’s hand firm on his back, Lan Wangji just behind, watchful, unreadable. Lan Qiren supervised like a fretful heron. The crowd whispered:
“He rode in the carriage with Lan-xiansheng?”
“There must be happy news.”
“Perhaps...an heir.”
Then, a ripple of commotion—someone had noticed the Jiang purple.
Two carriages approached, silver bells chiming with each roll of the wheels. Bold Yunmeng purple marked their silk banners, and the sound of drums followed like distant thunder.
Madam Yu stepped out first, tall and proud, sword at her hip. Her husband, Jiang Fengmian, followed with their daughter, Jiang Yanli, demure and graceful.
But as Madam Yu’s gaze swept the arrivals, her eyes landed on Lan Wangji—and narrowed to thin blades of suspicion. She turned her face away with open disdain. The Jiang family offered polite greetings to others, but conspicuously ignored the Lans.
The onlookers shifted, sensing tension.
“Didn’t they bring any candidates this year?”
“Where is the heir—or that troublemaker Omega?”
“Still nursing his broken heart, I suppose.”
Snickers.
“Probably too embarrassed to show his face.”
Laughter fluttered among the crowd.
Then—
“Look!” someone shouted, pointing skyward.
Swords.
Twenty cultivators in formation streaked across the sky—purple and silver robes flaring in the wind; Alphas, Omegas, Betas, all together. At their head flew Jiang Wanyin, and beside him, a streak of red and black and purple: Wei Wuxian, the former scandal, now leading the charge with effortless grace.
A chorus of gasps.
“They let Omegas fly formation?”
“From Yunmeng, always.”
“And they came on sword, not carriage—how far did they travel like that?”
“The whole distance?”
“Impossible.”
But it wasn’t.
The formation broke into a spiraling descent. Like petals spinning in a storm, the twenty cultivators landed with flair and coordination, swords sheathing in near unison.
Madam Yu stepped forward immediately, Jiang Yanli with her, smiling. Jiang Fengmian remained by the carriage, watching with an unreadable softness in his eyes.
And then the crowd saw him.
Wei Wuxian.
Taller than most Omegas. Shoulder straight, confidence radiating from his every move. His hair was bound high with a red ribbon—and at his waist, two keepsakes: an old clarity bell and a jade carving etched with a lotus. The remnants of his dead parents. His smile—wide and unrepentant—lit up his face like lightning in a storm.
Gasps turned to stunned silence.
“That’s Wei Wuxian?”
“He’s changed.”
“Stronger. Sharper.”
“Not the lovesick fool from three years ago.”
Wei Wuxian unsheathed his sword, flicked the air once, then let it drop into place with a final click.
Then—his gaze found the Lan delegation.
Lan Xichen tensed. Jin Guangyao tilted his head, uncertain. Lan Wangji…stared.
Wei Wuxian grinned.
Not soft. Not warm.
Razor-sharp.
—
Qinghe Nie was the first of the Great Sects to arrive.
Their presence was unmistakable—saber-wielding Alphas flying low across the sky, cloaks of forest green and ash-grey snapping behind them. They landed in perfect synchronicity on the outer steps of the Jin hosting grounds, the earth seeming to groan beneath the weight of them.
There was no beauty in their flight—only force, precision, dominance. The smaller sects faltered, some of their Omegas shrinking back behind Beta cousins or guards.
Then they saw him.
Nie Mingjue.
Taller than any of the others. Shoulders like stone, jaw set in permanent disapproval. His robes bore the golden crest of Qinghe, but no embellishments softened the cut. At his back, the infamous saber Baxia pulsed with quiet fury, its bloodthirsty aura thick in the air.
The crowd parted without needing to be asked.
Some Omegas turned their faces. Others outright fled. Their fear was instinctive, and it rolled off them like scent in the wind.
Nie Mingjue noticed.
He did not care.
His boots hit the flagstone with the rhythm of war—sharp, loud, unflinching. His frown was carved deep into his face, and he moved like someone halfway through a campaign, not a festival.
His deputy, Nie Zonghui, caught up easily, posture loose beside him.
“You’re going to scare off those poor flowers at this rate, Zongzhu,” he said, half amused, half warning. “They’re one wrong look from wilting.”
Nie Mingjue grunted. “Do I look like I give a fuck?”
Zonghui barked a laugh. “Not in the slightest. But the Elders? They’re sharpening their fan sticks already. And if that doesn’t faze you…” He gestured toward the second Nie carriage, just now rolling to a halt. “Huaisang will have your hide if you embarrass him.”
Nie Mingjue turned his head just as a Nie Beta stepped forward to open the carriage door.
Nie Huaisang emerged, stepping down with the cautious grace of someone perfectly aware of the eyes on him. His robes were softer in hue—misty grey tinged with spring green—and embroidered with delicate cranes. His fan was already in hand, half-shielding his face.
Nie Mingjue exhaled slowly.
His brother smiled sweetly at a passing Jin servant, then flicked a glance toward him, all innocent curiosity. Behave, it said, without a single word spoken.
Mingjue ignored him and resumed walking.
Every breath he took felt slightly heavier. Baxia hummed low behind him—uneasy, like a wolf sniffing blood. Its temper had worsened during his recent Seclusion. The healers said his energy was fraying. The sword echoed that instability, restless with resentment.
He did not have time for petty flirtations, parades of tokens, or teacup Omegas batting their lashes. He was here because the Elders insisted: Forge alliances. Find a match. Sire an heir. Die less quickly.
None of them had dared say that last part aloud. They didn’t need to.
He could feel it in the way they looked at him.
In the way Baxia trembled.
In the hollowness of his limbs some days.
His steps slowed when the air shifted—subtly at first, then sharply, like thunderclouds rolling in ahead of a storm.
The crowd was murmuring. Pointing skyward again.
Nie Mingjue looked up.
Purple swords. Silver robes. Twenty cultivators streaked across the sky, formation tight and unyielding. Disciples of Yunmeng Jiang.
It was…impressive.
He could admit that.
Even the Omegas flew—an impossible feat for most sects, but not for Yunmeng. Their training had always been a touch more liberal. A little louder. A little wilder.
They landed in a coordinated descent that drew gasps from the crowd. Perfectly timed sword sheaths, perfect footwork, cloaks flaring like banners.
At the head was the Jiang heir—Jiang Wanyin—grim and scowling, much like his mother. But it was the figure beside him that caught the crowd’s collective breath.
Nie Mingjue tilted his head slightly.
An Omega. No mistaking that. Taller than most. Confident—no, more than confident. Commanding. A red ribbon tied his hair, his uniform fitted like armor, a clarity bell and lotus jade dangling from his waist.
Nie Mingjue hadn’t seen him before.
But he had heard.
From Huaisang, in snickering whispers.
From Lan Xichen, with regret.
From Lan Wangji, with silence so sharp it could cut.
The story had circulated like a scandal-song across the cultivation world:
The Yunmeng Omega who humiliated himself at a Spring Conference, confessing to the cold second Lan.
The rejection. The disappearance.
The quiet withdrawal of the Jiang sect from all future conferences.
"Love-sick fool," Huaisang had called him once, fanning himself dramatically. "He actually believed Lan Wangji would catch a token like that. As if the Lans know how to be human, let alone romantic. Except Xichen ge of course!"
Nie Mingjue had dismissed the tale as gossip. A young Omega being foolish. Easily done.
But this…?
This was not a fool.
The Omega moved like a blade unsheathed. Every inch of him was honed. His eyes swept the crowd like a predator tracking movement. When he grinned, it wasn’t shy or flirtatious.
It was sharp.
Dangerous.
Mingjue’s brows furrowed.
This is Wei Wuxian?
There was nothing lovesick about him.
Certainly nothing soft.
He didn’t spare the Jin pavilion a glance. Didn’t bow to the host like others had. Instead, his eyes landed on the Lan delegation—and held.
Lan Wangji straightened subtly, hands curling tight at his sides. Lan Xichen’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. Jin Guangyao, standing between them, smiled brightly and murmured something to diffuse the tension.
Wei Wuxian’s grin only widened.
Nie Mingjue crossed his arms over his chest, watching intently.
Huaisang, he thought, you’re going to explain this properly tonight.
---
The storm howled through the Burial Mounds.
Resentful energy split the air like a lash, coiling around corpses still warm. Blood seeped into stone. The last of the Wen remnants lay still—dead. Silent. Gone.
And the cultivators came.
Golden, white, pale yellow—robes crisp, righteous, bloodless.
Not a shred of purple.
Not a single echo of red.
Yunmeng Jiang: erased.
Qishan Wen: crushed.
Qinghe Nie: gutted and bound, a once-great sect now a puppet of Jin.
Wei Wuxian stood on scorched stone, Silver-forged Chenqing in hand, eyes rimmed red, his robes whipping around him like a specter.
Across from him, dozens pointed their swords, eyes gleaming with purpose, justice, fear.
And then one voice cut through.
“Wei Wuxian!”
Jin Guangshan. Still alive then. Rage coloring every line of his powdered face.
“Traitor! Hand over the Seal or die like the rest of your rabid dogs!”
Wei Wuxian tilted his head and laughed.
It was not a kind sound.
From the crowd, a Lan stepped forward—robed in untouched white, untouched even by grief.
Lan Wangji.
Wei Wuxian smiled, wide and vicious. “Husband.”
A ripple of discomfort passed through the gathered cultivators.
Not one person called it a lie.
Of course not.
A marriage of duty. A contract scribbled in blood and silence.
A husband who never touched him but once, and even then, with apologies.
A cold bed. A colder gaze.
And yet—still he had gone back.
Still, he had carried that child.
Alone.
Unwanted.
“Stop this,” Lan Wangji said, his voice taut with something like restraint.
Behind him, Lan Xichen stepped up, face drawn in false serenity, his tone already judgmental. “This isn’t you, Wei-gongzi. Come quietly—”
Wei Wuxian purred. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t dream of ruining your peace.”
He lifted his chin.
The seals on his glands cracked open, a shudder rippling through him as the scent flooded out: wet earth and crackling storm, the sharp bite of raw ozone and damp soil.
Not sweet. Not floral.
But then—something changed.
A note beneath the storm, deep and rich—
milk and cradle-softness.
A mother's scent.
Lan Wangji recoiled as if struck.
Wei Wuxian laughed—sharp, wild, ragged. His eyes stung, and when he blinked, blood welled at the corners.
The child. His baby.
Black hair and lotus-smooth cheeks.
Just learning to say “a-niang.”
Just learning how to laugh.
Burned. Lost. Alone.
“Why do you look surprised?” he spat, voice cracking. “Didn’t Jin Guangyao tell you?”
He raised his voice.
“That I was carrying a child when he shoved me into the Burial Mounds?”
The crowd erupted.
“Lies!”
“Impossible!”
“More demonic nonsense!”
Lan Xichen’s voice rose, cold and furious. “Do not speak of my mate like that.”
Wei Wuxian howled.
“Ah, yes! The virtuous A-Yao! He can do no wrong, isn’t that right?”
He turned to Lan Wangji, who stood frozen, not speaking.
Not denying.
“I bet you didn’t know,” Wei Wuxian whispered, stepping forward, “that your brother refused to touch me because he was in love with your A-Yao.”
Another step.
“That when he finally took me during his Rut, he apologized—over and over—for breaking his heart.”
Another step.
“And then when I got pregnant—he let them leave me to rot.”
His voice shattered like ice.
“I hate you.”
“I fucking hate you all.”
“You killed my family.”
“You killed my child.”
His scream ripped the sky open, Chenqing rising to his lips like an answer to prayer.
The wind screamed with him.
---
Present day.
Wei Wuxian blinked, the scent of peonies sharp in the Spring air.
The echoes of that memory faded, slow and sticky, like blood drying on skin.
He stood beside Jiang Cheng, their swords just re-sheathed from landing. The crowd stared at them in awe and uncertainty. The gossip had already begun.
He turned his head—eyes cool and knowing—and let his gaze linger on the Lan delegation, just long enough to watch Lan Wangji flinch.
Wei Wuxian smiled.
Not kind. Not feral.
Just dangerous.
Let them wonder.
Let them worry.
Let them think he’s here for petty things like heartbreak.
He had no intention of giving them answers.
Only consequences.
---