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This deep into the winter season there are not many travelers. Most towns are snowed in, and no one enters and no one leaves. Yet still, at the base of a cliff, half a day’s walk away from the nearest village, Lan Wangji goes about his day as normal.
He places fresh sheets on the guest beds, fluffs pillows, and folds blankets until there are crisp clean lines.
He cannot remember how long he has owned this inn. His memories over hundreds of years of living have become fragments, easily blown away with every blizzard. Loneliness is a sickness that eats away, bite by bite by bite, until all there is left are brittle old bones, snatches of feelings and words that cannot be put together and cannot be assigned meaning.
He has made his peace with such a life, visited by smells and tastes and sounds that vanish before he can grasp them.
But he is waiting, he is always waiting. The waiting has become a part of him, developed its own space, its own organ right beside his ever beating heart. It is lodged in his chest, below ribs that have seen many decades, pulsing with every heartbeat, always steady and always there.
His memories are fleeting fickle things. They dance around him and disappear with a whisper. Sometimes he thinks he has or had a brother, but the memory is so faint. Did he have a mother, a father? Or has he always been like this, a being stuck out of time, as the years wash past and around him in waves, crashing, crashing, crashing.
Time flows around him, never through him, and he has no concept of it. Once, he asks one of the merchants in the village when he had first appeared there. The merchant told him that Lan Wangji has lived and operated the inn, has visited this village, has bought vegetables from this very stall, since before the merchant’s time, since the merchant’s own deceased father had been in charge and probably before.
It is unsettling, the way the merchant did not look concerned or surprised at such a strange question. Perhaps Lan Wangji has come to the village and asked this question several times before. But the merchant is kind, and he answers Lan Wangji with no reproach.
The entire village is kind to Lan Wangji, he does not remember ever paying for the goods he purchases from vendors. He does not think he can even pay. The mere currency he has does not match the coins and paper money used in the village. He does not charge travelers who stay at the inn. Still, many of them leave him with money, or trinkets, or books or strange things from their travels. All gifts that become old as the years go by, that lose their meaning with every year and decade as their story becomes forgotten. They become strange objects given to him by people whose faces he can no longer remember.
Despite this, the villagers are kind. They must think him some sort of deity, an omen of good luck, a protector of their humble village. Maybe they pass down stories of the strange man and the inn under the cliff from parents to child to child to child, through generations and generations.
His mind is like stone, weathered by wind and rain and snow and the repetitive crashing of water, smoothed down and changed shape with every storm and changing of the weather and the land.
He only has two constants, two things that are unchanging within a constantly changing world. His name, Lan Wangji, has been there with him always (sometimes, he hears memories of a voice saying Lan Zhan , but those memories are rare and stolen quickly by the air). His body, too, has been constant. He wakes up every morning and studies his reflection, counts the scars on his body like a prayer. Traces the strange sun motif on his chest as if if he touches it long and hard enough he can taste the memory of it on the tip of his tongue.
Sometimes he is caught in moments of anger, upset at his mind that cannot recollect. But these moments are rare, for he has mostly made peace with such a life. He is always carried forward by the waiting, and so he waits and lets the days and the weeks and the years twirl around him and past him.
And so he waits, as he always has.
🌑
It is late, past when his body normally goes to sleep, but still Lan Wangji does not go to bed. There is a blizzard brewing outside, perhaps the worst of the winter season. It makes whistling sounds against the cliff, and threatens to wipe the inn away in a blanket of snow. There have been no travelers for weeks and there will be none tonight, but something compels Lan Wangji to stay awake.
He lights a fire in the fireplace in the main entryway, and ensures that a small brazier is ready and filled with coal. He prepares hot tea and soup and keeps them warm with a heating talisman. He readies warm, soft knit blankets, and arranges them on the low table by the fireplace. He prepares clean, warm clothes and socks.
There will be no travelers visiting the inn tonight. Yet Lan Wangji still waits.
When the desperate knocks come, they startle Lan Wangji from his doze by the fireplace. The door is almost thrown off its hinges by the strength of the gust when he opens it, and the figure outside rushes in. Lan Wangji slams the door shut against the force of the wind, and watches as the snow that flew in melts against the floor.
He turns to face the figure he was not expecting tonight. It is not fit weather to travel, and despite the heavy layer the individual is wearing, they are shivering as the snow covering them begins to melt. The person reaches up with gloved hands and peels back the wet hood of their coat.
It is a man. His lips are blue and his eyelashes and eyebrows are decorated with twin crowns of ice. Despite his hood, his hair is wet, and sticks to his scalp, dark.
There is a red ribbon in his hair.
His face is strange, but Lan Wangji cannot pinpoint what is strange about it.
The man stares at him with wide eyes, blue lips parted and trembling as if he is about to cry. Lan Wangji thinks such eyes should not have tears. This is a face that was born to smile, he thinks. It is a nonsensical thought and it disappears as quick as it comes.
The man blinks and the melted ice on his eyelashes trails down his cheeks in the facsimile of tears.
The man is shivering.
“Warmth,” Lan Wangji murmurs with a voice he has not used in weeks.
Without a thought, he moves forward and peels off the man’s outer jacket and inner clothes until he is left in nothing but his underpants. The man does not protest, simply holds himself still and watches Lan Wangji with those still wide eyes.
Lan Wangji picks up the clothes that he prepared earlier and looks at them as if he is looking at them for the first time. They are a set of robes, like his, not like the clothes that the man was wearing and the people wear in the village. He thinks he sewed these robes himself many years ago, but the memory is hazy.
The man is still quiet, and he still does not move when Lan Wangji begins dressing him. His limbs are stiff with the cold, and Lan Wangji takes care as he rearranges them. He lifts each of the man’s legs into the red pants. He slips the man’s arms through the sleeves of the red under robe, and ties it around his waist. He dresses him in two more black robes and skirts on top. The outer robe is embroidered with red lotuses and white clouds, but Lan Wangji only has the faintest memory of embroidering such things. He does not understand why he would have embroidered such things. The embroidered clouds look like the ones on his forehead ribbon. The lotus flowers make him feel strange.
Lan Wangji leads the man to kneel in front of the low table by the fireplace. He places one of the blankets over his shoulders and the man grips it around him tightly. Still, he stares at Lan Wangji.
Lan Wangji brings back the hot soup and tea from the kitchen and places a warm mug of tea in the man’s hands. The man clutches it between his palms and takes a sip, his eyes unwavering from Lan Wangji’s face.
Lan Wangji seats himself across from the man, and pours himself tea.
“Thank you,” the man finally says. “I thought I was going to freeze out there.”
His voice sends a cacophony of feeling and memory across Lan Wangji’s mind, a mess that cannot be unwound and understood. Tangled and incomprehensible.
“I did not expect any travelers,” Lan Wangji says. His own voice is quiet, stranger to him than the other man’s voice.
“I got lost,” the man shrugs. He smiles. “I’m supposed to meet someone here, I’m glad I found you. My name is Wei Ying, courtesy name Wuxian.”
Lan Wangji does not know if people still use courtesy names, if it is strange that this man introduces himself in such a way. His memory is too weak to remember such things. But the name, the name, the name, the name . It rings through his head, caressing his earlobes and entering his ears and dancing its way around his head.
Wei Ying.
It is familiar, and it makes the waiting beside his heart beat faster.
Lan Wangji stares at the man’s smile. He studies the upturn of his lips, the slight dimples on his cheeks, the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. A face made to smile. It is a smile more familiar to him than his own smile as a man who has not smiled in hundreds of years.
Lan Wangji bows to Wei Ying with his hands, taking care not to let his large sleeves trail against his tea. “Lan Wangji,” he tells him, and somehow Wei Ying’s smile becomes larger.
A smile warmer than the flames in the fireplace.
“Lan Wangji,” Wei Ying says. He says it as if Lan Wangji’s name is as familiar to him as his own. Not as if he is trying it out, but as if he is greeting an old friend, reacquainting himself with the sounds.
Lan Wangji cannot help but feel that this man should call him a different name. Perhaps Lan Wangji had another name at some point, but he cannot remember it now. He must have had a birth name, like Wei Ying, but no matter how hard he thinks, it stays out of his grasp.
Holding back his sleeve, he pushes the bowl of soup farther towards Wei Ying. “You must be hungry. Please, eat. I will prepare one of the rooms for you.”
Wei Ying simply replies, “Thank you.” He doesn’t comment on how Lan Wangji already had tea and soup and clothes prepared as if he was expecting a traveler.
Lan Wangji leaves him to the soup and leaves for the closest room. He has already prepared this room, of course, somehow expecting a guest when the rational part of his brain said no one would be travelling in such a storm. Lan Wangji does not lie, and he does not understand why he lied to Wei Ying and pretended to prepare this room. He feels strange, shaky in a way he cannot understand.
His brain feels more awake than it ever has been, but foggy still in the ways it cannot understand what is happening. Why had he sewed such robes that fit Wei Ying as if he is not meant to wear anything else? Why does the name Wei Ying incite such an overwhelming feeling inside him? He feels as if there is something right there waiting, on the tip of his tongue and beyond the grasp of his fingertips. Something forgotten, something important.
But Lan Wangji is not a man of many memories. His mind is an ever changing tide, becoming anew with every crash of waves that clears the sand and sweeps away memories. He doubts by morning he will remember any of these strange feelings. Perhaps his mind is even playing tricks on him, and by light the next day even Wei Ying will be gone, only a figment of Lan Wangji’s imagination and memories.
When he returns to the main area of the inn, Wei Ying is fully asleep, hunched over the low table. Lan Wangji approaches him silently and stares. He looks at every part of his face as if he is carving it into his own heart, attempting to make sense of that which his eyes see and his heart deems familiar.
Who are you? Lan Wangji thinks desperately, as if Wei Ying’s sleeping face will give him answers.
Gently, Lan Wangji lifts him up into his arms and carries him into the guest room. The weight of him in his arms is familiar, and for a second the world seems to tilt on its axis and he is carrying Wei Ying in a different place, Wei Ying’s face smiling up at him. But the room rights itself once again, and the image disappears from his head.
He lays Wei Ying on the bed softly, and covers him with the blanket, tucking it around his shoulders. Of their own accord, Lan Wangji’s fingers trace the curve of Wei Ying’s jaw. How can skin incite such a deep sense of familiarity? It is like the memories and cells in Lan Wangji’s fingertips are greeting those on Wei Ying’s face.
Lan Wangji has the urge to stay and watch Wei Ying so he does not vanish. There is a deep seated fear that is coiling inside him; Lan Wangji cannot remember the last time he felt fear. He does not want to leave this room and wake up tomorrow to find Wei Ying gone.
Maintain your discipline . It would be inappropriate to sit in a guest’s room and watch them while they sleep. Lan Wangji must take care to maintain respect, and so he leaves with a final look at Wei Ying’s face, and prays that his memories do not take him away.
The next day, he wakes up at hai shi as he always does. He washes his face, and dresses in the white robes he thinks he has always worn. He ties the forehead ribbon and for a second he sees the ribbon wrapped around two wrists but between one blink and the next the memory is gone and the significance of the ribbon is lost to him.
Wei Ying is not yet awake when Lan Wangji peeks into his room, and Lan Wangji goes to prepare a sufficient breakfast. Lan Wangji survives on a simple diet of plain food, mostly vegetables and grains, depending on the season. His breakfasts are always a bowl of plain congee, but this doesn’t seem like appropriate sustenance for Wei Ying.
When he checks his cold storage in the ground, he finds eggs and meat that he has no recollection of buying. Such losses in memory no longer surprise him or make him uncomfortable. Perhaps it was something that was unsettling to him when it first began happening, but now he does not dwell on it, simply appreciates the fact that he can prepare a more substantial breakfast for Wei Ying.
He prepares the food, cooking the eggs and meat in methods that his hands seem to remember but his mind does not. He boils tea. He makes the congee, but when he plates it into two bowls, the sight looks strange. Two bowls of plain congee seem wrong. There is something missing, one of the bowls should be less white and more red. The thought is confusing, and Lan Wangji cannot think on it further when he hears the sound of a door being opened and closed.
He’s awake earlier than usual . A strange thought for Lan Wangji to think, as he only met Wei Ying the night before.
Wei Ying is seated at the low table by the fireplace when Lan Wangji leaves the kitchen and enters the inn’s main area. He is staring at the embroidered sleeves of his robes with a gaze that Lan Wangji can only describe as melancholic and distant, for it is a gaze his own face is familiar with.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says quietly, “I hope you slept well.”
Wei Ying startles and looks up at Lan Wangji with wide eyes. “Lan Z—Wangji,” he fumbles with his words, but gives a bright smile that lights up the inn when the storm blocked sun outside cannot. “Good morning, I slept well. Thank you for taking care of me last night.”
“Mn, I have prepared breakfast, give me a moment,” Lan Wangji says and returns to the kitchen before the light of Wei Ying’s smile blinds him.
His hands shake as he lifts the plates he prepared. It is as if for a second, Wei Ying was about to call him a different name. Wei Ying’s fumble leaves him unsettled, but by the time he returns with the food, the feeling is gone.
“Oh you didn’t have to prepare so much food, I don’t want to be trouble,” Wei Ying says as Lan Wangji sets the tray of plates and tea down on the table.
Lan Wangji folds his sleeve back with one hand and pours tea with the other. “It is no trouble, you are a guest.”
Wei Ying gives him another smile, but this time it does not reach his eyes. Lan Wangji eats his own bowl of congee and watches Wei Ying. He eats as if he has not eaten in days. Lan Wangji will make sure to prepare a hearty lunch and dinner.
Wei Ying eats the eggs and the meat and then he stares at his bowl as if it holds hidden secrets. “I haven’t eaten so well in so long,” he says, voice hoarse.
“No speaking during meals,” Lan Wangji says automatically, the foreign words pulled out of a deep memory.
He is as startled as Wei Ying at the words, but Wei Ying laughs delightedly, like the words have brought a joy to him that cannot be contained. The sound eases Lan Wangji, though the confusion lingers. Where did these words come from? Lan Wangji feels like he has said them before multiple times, in situations so similar to this one.
Wei Ying puts his hands together and apologizes, but he doesn’t sound like he means it. “This one will take care to be silent during meals,” he says, not sounding chastised in the slightest.
When they are done eating, and drinking the remains of their tea, it is Lan Wangji who breaks the silence. “You are meant to meet someone here?”
“Ah,” Wei Ying says. He stares down at his cup of tea and Lan Wangji notices that he is tracing the lotus and cloud embroidery on the cuff of his sleeves. “Yes, I promised someone I would meet them here,” he continues. His voice is wistful, bordering on sad.
Lan Wangji doesn’t like the sadness in his voice.
Wei Ying looks thoughtful when he meets Lan Wangji’s eyes. “They might not arrive with the weather the way it is, I might have to wait until spring.”
Lan Wangji does not remember ever having a guest at the inn for longer than a week, but he does not hesitate when he says, “Then you may stay until spring, as long as you need.”
Wei Ying smiles and something begins gently unfurling in Lan Wangji’s chest.
🌒
Wei Ying’s constant presence at the inn becomes a natural thing. A couple of times within the first week, Lan Wangji forgets him as he forgets most faces, but Wei Ying gently reminds him of who he is and the memory of meeting him that night returns to Lan Wangji easily.
Lan Wangji always forgets faces and people. He cannot remember past guests at the inn, and even the merchants he sees every week outside the winter season are unfamiliar to him every time he visits. But Wei Ying remains a constant. Perhaps it is because he sees him everyday, but perhaps there is a more profound reason.
Wei Ying fits into his life as if he has always been there, and it only takes a few weeks before Lan Wangji forgets he has ever lived alone.
They develop a routine that they fall into naturally. The early riser, Lan Wangji wakes up first. He bathes and dresses himself, does his morning meditation and then sews new clothing for Wei Ying with black and red fabric he cannot remember buying. If he is meant to stay until spring, Wei Ying will need clothing. Next, Lan Wangji will prepare breakfast and wait for Wei Ying to awaken.
When there is no storm out and the sky is clear, Wei Ying awakens when the sun is on its way to its peak. Every morning he smiles brightly at Lan Wangji with a sleep rumpled face and pillow creases on his cheek. He seats himself across from Lan Wangji and they eat breakfast, and Wei Ying breaks the no speaking during meals rule and Lan Wangji lets him.
After, Wei Ying will bathe and Lan Wangji will read. Sometimes, he reads aloud for Wei Ying, passages of poetry and prose that an intrinsic part of him thinks Wei Ying will find interesting. The rest of the day is spent in a similar manner. Lan Wangji prepares lunch while Wei Ying naps and they eat and spend the rest of the afternoon reading. They eat dinner and the rest of the evening is spent in conversation before sleep takes them once again.
With every passing day Lan Wangji learns more about Wei Ying. Some of the information he forgets between one day and the next, but some of it he retains, and what he forgets he enjoys relearning again.
Wei Ying also helps with the upkeep of the inn, and he works so seamlessly with Lan Wangji that it almost feels familiar.
On days after a storm passes, they always clear the snow surrounding the inn. On one such day, Lan Wangji is standing under the archway of the inn entrance, watching as Wei Ying rolls up a giant ball of snow. Lan Wangji doesn’t understand the purpose of the activity, but he doesn’t comment since it seems to bring Wei Ying joy.
Wei Ying is dressed in a heavy white coat atop his robes, one of Lan Wangji’s own because Lan Wangji did not have the fabric to make him his own coat. Lan Wangji watches as he stacks three balls of packed snow on top of one another.
Wei Ying glances at Lan Wangji and waves his hands excitedly. “Do you like it?” he yells.
But Lan Wangji is too distracted to answer. There is a cold wind, and it makes the red ribbon in Wei Ying’s hair float in the air, stark against the white of the snow. The sight of it is striking and Lan Wangji stares as if bewitched. He cannot tear his eyes away from the sight of the ribbon, the sight of it puts a pressure in his head that he cannot abate.
He’s so distracted that he does not notice the icicles that fall from the archway and make their way down towards his head. All he hears is Wei Ying’s yelled “Lan Zhan!” and the sight of a talisman that flies towards him and melts the icicles away, dousing him with a rush of cold water that shakes him out of his reverie.
Wei Ying is suddenly in front of him, cupping his cheeks with gloved hands as if checking for injuries. “Are you alright?” he asks, the worry making his voice waver.
Lan Wangji blinks at him. “You are a cultivator?” he asks finally. The word cultivator is only something he has remembered at this moment.
Wei Ying pulls his hands down to his side awkwardly, and looks away. “I don’t know how to answer that,” he says after a period of silence.
“Then don’t,” Lan Wangji says kindly because he doesn't like to see Wei Ying sad. “Will you show me what you built with the snow?”
That does the job of making Wei Ying smile, but he is not the same for the rest of the day. Lan Wangji catches him staring into space multiple times, as if lost in his thoughts or another world. Lan Wangji thinks of the talisman Wei Ying had sent his way. It is a form of cultivation that does not require strong spiritual energy. Cultivation is not practiced anymore, Lan Wangji doesn’t think, but it does not seem odd to him that Wei Ying knows it.
It isn’t until later that evening, when they have separated to their respective rooms for sleep, that Lan Wangji remembers that Wei Ying had called him a different name earlier. But no matter how hard he searches his brain, he cannot remember what name Wei Ying had used.
Another memory lost to a brain that takes and takes and takes.
The days move forward as if nothing happened, until one day in late winter, Wei Ying asks him if he has any books on breaking curses.
“Are you cursed?” Lan Wangji asks, suddenly worried.
Wei Ying waves his hands in a rush. “No, no, I’m just curious.” It sounds like a lie.
Lan Wangji frowns. The library room in the inn is vast. Lan Wangji is sure he has read all the books there, but with the passing of the years he cannot remember all the books in the library. “You may check the library as you please,” he tells Wei Ying. “There are many books there, but I am unsure of what is available.”
It’s another thing time has taken from him. He’s unsure whether these books came with the inn or whether he bought them himself. But his collection apparently has what Wei Ying is searching for, because from that point on he becomes engrossed in studying the many texts he finds in the library on curses.
Lan Wangji offers him his help once, but Wei Ying kindly declines. He wants to ask what Wei Ying is looking for, but decides against it. What does it matter if Lan Wangji is likely to forget anyways?
“Have you always lived here?” Wei Ying asks one day.
They are seated, as they usually are, at the table by the fireplace. Lan Zhan is reading a book of poems he thinks he may have read before, and Wei Ying is drawing, hunched over the table in an unhealthy posture. Lan Wangji is constantly distracted from his book by the dip of Wei Ying’s red inner robe and the line of his collarbones.
How does Lan Wangji answer Wei Ying’s question? How does he explain the decades worth of fog and confusion in his brain? That his memory is a thing of betrayal, always leaving him with nothing. How does he explain that he now doesn’t even remember meeting Wei Ying, let alone how long he has lived at this inn.
So the only answer he gives is a nod. It may not be the truth—sometimes Lan Wangji dreams of a place within the clouds, of waterfalls—but it is the only truth he can offer, because he can only ever remember living at this inn.
“Isn’t it lonely?” Wei Ying asks. He is staring at Lan Wangji with eyes entirely too sad, voice laden with a heartache Lan Wangji can’t understand.
“It is not,” Lan Wangji answers, a small smile on his lips, “because you are here.”
Lan Wangji feels pleased when Wei Ying immediately blushes. “Aiya, you can’t just say nice things like that to me!” Wei Ying exclaims, covering his face in embarrassment.
Lan Wangji does not tease him further, though he enjoys pulling such reactions out of Wei Ying. Wei Ying embarrasses easily at some things and flushes prettily. Teasing him comes second hand to Lan Wangji. With every day that he spends with Wei Ying, Lan Wangji unravels a new part of himself.
They return to their reading and drawing, and later when Lan Wangji moves to prepare dinner, Wei Ying stops him with a soft, “Lan Wangji.”
“Yes, Wei Ying?”
Wei Ying slides a piece of paper towards him. “For you,” he says.
Lan Wangji can feel Wei Ying watching him carefully as he picks up the paper. It is a drawing, done in the traditional black ink Lan Wangji owns that Wei Ying somehow automatically knows how to use, despite the fact that no one uses inkstones and brushes anymore.
There are moments in time that bear a significance and an echo of a memory so much more powerful than even the feeling of deja vu. This is one such moment, as Lan Wangji stares down at a drawing of his own face. Wei Ying has drawn him with a book in his hands and a flower in his hair.
Lan Wangji’s fingers tense and crinkle the edges of the paper. He has been here before, in this very same moment, staring at the very same drawing. The world flickers in and out around him. He is in a library across from a laughing boy in white. He is in the inn across from Wei Ying. He is staring at a drawing of himself. He is staring at a drawing of himself.
He comes back to the sound of Wei Ying gently calling his name. He blinks and he is back in the inn, across from Wei Ying who is dressed in black and red robes Lan Wangji sewed himself. There is no laughing boy in white.
“Mn, I am alright.” He does not look at the drawing again. “Thank you, Wei Ying.”
When he looks at Wei Ying he finds frustration on his face. Lan Wangji wants to reach out and smooth the furrow between his eyebrows, trace his lips and lift up the corners so he is smiling.
He wants to ask who are you?
But he does none of these things. He goes to his room and puts the drawing away, and by the time he leaves and is preparing dinner in the kitchen, the drawing is long forgotten.
🌓
A few days later, during another storm that has plunged temperatures down, they are seated in the library. It is a small room, and centrally located away from any windows, so it is warmer than any other part of the inn. Lan Wangji is meditating, soothed by the calming smell of incense. Wei Ying is in his usual posture at the table, reading over one of the texts he has pulled from the shelves.
Every once in a while, Lan Wangji will open his eyes to look at the look of pure concentration on Wei Ying’s face and smile to himself, before closing his eyes and returning to his meditation.
“Do you play?” Wei Ying asks.
Lan Wangji opens his eyes to see Wei Ying pointing at the qin that sits on one of the shelves in the room. The qin is something that Lan Wangji forgets and discovers time and time again, and it is something he remembers now.
“Mn.” Lan Wangji nods and stands up. He retrieves the qin from the shelf, wiping away the layer of dust on it, before he seats himself across from Wei Ying. He places the qin on the low table.
He places his fingers on the strings, and the music comes to him as if it never left, fingers moving with a deftness that speaks of long practiced skill. He does not know the names of the songs that he plays, but the sounds make that golden part inside of him hum.
Wei Ying is watching him carefully, and Lan Wangji does not know if the expression on his face is longing or sadness or confusion or anger. He interrupts Lan Wangji by sliding a scroll towards him.
“Can you play this?” He asks.
He looks serious, and Lan Wangji feels that there is a purpose behind asking him to play this piece. He looks at the scroll. It is a piece called Cleansing . The name rings familiar in his mind. He begins playing it, and immediately finds that he does not need to read the notes on the scroll, it is a piece he already knows.
At first, it sounds like any normal piece of music, but suddenly part way through, the sounds of the notes send a thrum of energy through Lan Wangji. His head pulses with pain. A pressure builds up inside him as if he is drowning inside out. There is a sound of current in his ears, the rushing of his blood, a swish swish that becomes louder than the qin.
Suddenly he is playing Cleansing in another room, in another time. There is a boy in red under robes. There is a man walking away, and Lan Wangji’s own voice sounding so far away, saying let me help you.
There is the sound of a flute.
It all comes to a stop when Wei Ying lunges across the table and shoves Lan Wangji away from the qin. They land backwards with Lan Wangji on his back, and Wei Ying atop him, calling his name with concern lacing his tone.
Lan Wangji stares at him dazedly, unsure of when or where he is. He tries to hold on to the images he saw, but they fade away like footprints cleared away by fresh snowfall.
Wei Ying is frowning down at him with an expression that Lan Wangji somehow knows to be frustration. This time, he does not stop himself from reaching up and smoothing the furrow between Wei Ying’s brows. The movement catches Wei Ying off guard and he flinches slightly before grabbing Lan Wangji’s wrist tightly.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says softly. “Whatever it is, you will figure it out. There is not a puzzle or mystery you cannot solve.”
Wei Ying exhales and his lips tremble before he leans forward and shoves his face into Lan Wangji’s neck. Lan Wangji’s arms automatically wrap around him in an intimate gesture that is reflexive and natural.
Wei Ying makes a noise like a sob. “Oh Hanguang-jun, what am I supposed to do?” he whispers, so low that Lan Wangji only catches the tail end of his sentence.
“I am here, Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji murmurs, because there is nothing else he can do.
He does not know the problem Wei Ying is trying to solve, and if he knew, the memory of it would be gone in a few hours, so he does not ask. He is afraid to ask. So he holds Wei Ying close to him and dries his tears and cooks him dinner.
By the time they go to sleep, cleansing is only a word, and the qin is back on its shelf to be forgotten, and Lan Wangji has no memory of a boy in a red robe, no memory of a flute. He only has the strange beginning of a feeling that something is missing.
The waiting beside his heart continues beating.
🌔
Wei Ying’s frustration mounts as winter begins to end and the weather becomes warmer. It is that in-between season where snow begins to melt and becomes slushy and mixed with the mud. The dreary weather starts to match Wei Ying’s mood. He is irritable and slower to smile and it is wrong.
This is not how Wei Ying should be, angry and stuck inside four walls.
The snow has cleared up, and so Lan Wangji asks Wei Ying if he would like to make a trip to the village nearby. With the end of the winter season, they are running low on supplies, and it is a good excuse to leave the inn. But Lan Wangji’s motive is to get Wei Ying outside. He has been stuck in the inn for months. To Lan Wangji, it is normal, he does not mind spending so much time in one space, but Wei Ying should not be contained.
It takes them a few hours to reach the village by foot, but the exercise and fresh air does good for Wei Ying’s mood and he spends the journey chattering.
When they arrive at the village market at mid-afternoon, the sellers greet them warmly. They inquire about Lan Wangji’s health and the state of the inn. Lan Wangji cannot remember any of them; the months gap between the last time he visited too long for him to retain any names or faces, but he answers them kindly and thanks them. They are curious about Wei Ying, and Wei Ying loves the attention and somehow has all of the sellers wrapped around his finger in minutes.
At one point, Lan Wangji leaves him to chat with a woman selling intricate jewelry to get the rest of the shopping done.
“That’s a fine young man you have,” the egg seller tells Lan Wangji. “I’m glad you have company, it must get awfully lonely down at that inn.”
Lan Wangji almost cannot remember a time when Wei Ying did not live at the inn, but he has faint remnants of memories of being alone, of a time before Wei Ying, and he pushes those memories away. He is always trying to latch on to memories, but a life without Wei Ying is not a life at all, and Lan Wangji is happy to let it disappear.
As he is completing the last of the shopping, he sees a stall selling various sauces. He’s not sure what compels him to purchase the bottle of chili oil. But It is the colour missing from Wei Ying’s bowl of congee. Though Wei Ying has never made a comment about the taste of the food Lan Wangji makes, a deep part of him is sure that Wei Ying enjoys spicy food.
When he is done, he finds Wei Ying playing with the village children and they all make disappointed groans when Wei Ying tells them he has to leave.
“Xian-gege will come back another time!” Wei Ying assures them, patting their heads and giving the little ones hugs.
Lan Wangji gets a flash of a child clutching to Wei Ying’s leg but it disappears.
Wei Ying stubbornly refuses to let Lan Wangji see the purchases he made, and Lan Wangji pretends to grab them just to see the way Wei Ying laughs.
Later, back home at the inn, as Lan Wangji sets their bowls of noodles on the table by the fireplace, he presents Wei Ying with the bottle of chili oil.
“For you,” he says.
Wei Ying’s eyes widen when he sees the bottle, and he looks at Lan Wangji with wonder, before he smiles blindingly. He clutches the bottle to his chest and Lan Wangji’s eyes trace the line of his throat as he swallows. “Thank you,” Wei Ying says, emotional before he begins dumping the bottle’s contents into his bowl of noodles.
Somehow the sight of the noodles becoming a fiery red does not shock Lan Wangji. Instead it satisfies him; this is how things should be, he should be able to taste the heat when he kisses Wei Ying— Lan Wangji blinks. He has not thought of kissing Wei Ying before this moment, but suddenly he can think of nothing else.
He realizes now that the village people probably thought they were married. Lan Wangji watches Wei Ying slurp his tongue burning noodles, watches the way he laughs and smiles and teases Lan Wangji and in this moment, nothing feels more right than being Wei Ying’s husband.
His hands move to untie his forehead without thought. The action makes Wei Ying pause mid rabble. He looks baffled. “What are you doing?”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji murmurs and reaches over to take Wei Ying’s wrist gently. He ties his forehead ribbon around their wrists in a move that feels practiced. The meaning of the gesture is lost to him, but the significance is not. The ribbon tied around their wrists is important.
Wei Ying makes a choked sort of noise, before he laughs and bows his head to rest his forehead against their joined hands. His laugh trails off and Lan Wangji sees his shoulders shake, feels the drip of tears against his hand.
“Wei Ying,” he says. He cards his free hand through Wei Ying’s hair and murmurs soft words and endearments until the hitches in Wei Ying’s breathing abate and he lifts his head to look at Lan Wangji with teary eyes.
“Lan Zhan,” he breathes.
The name flutters in and around Lan Wangji. In Wei Ying’s voice, it caresses his skin and the vibrations of the sound in Lan Wangji’s ears are pleasant beyond comprehension. Lan Wangji does not think of the whys or the hows. That is his name, and it has always sounded best on Wei Ying’s lips.
He lifts their joined hands and kisses the palm of Wei Ying’s hand, reverent and worshipful.
“Lan Zhan, what’s the relationship between us?” Wei Ying asks, voice raw with hope.
It sounds like they are having an exchange that has already occurred.
“Who do you regard me as?” Lan Wangji asks, the words pulled out of a deep hidden part of him.
Wei Ying closes his eyes, as if pained. “My lifelong zhiji.”
“I am, Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says desperately. “And you are mine.”
He does not know why he feels like he has loved Wei Ying for a thousand years, why Wei Ying calls him Lan Zhan and it feels right, why he has tied their wrists together—but none of it is relevant, not when his heart is galloping in his chest and Wei Ying is launching himself across the table and into his lap.
Lan Wangji wraps his free arm around him, their bound wrists between them. Wei Ying kisses him and the feel of his lips against Lan Wangji’s, the feel of his solid warm body lights up Lan Wangji from within.
They kiss and Lan Wangji feels as if he is kissing him across dozens of time periods, holding different bodies in his arms but all of them still Wei Ying. He has been here before, has loved Wei Ying and held him and kissed him and he has him now again.
Wei Ying pulls his face back and stares into Lan Wangji’s eyes searchingly. Lan Wangji does not know what he is looking for or if he will find it. Lan Wangji is not a man whom time respects, he flows in and out of existence with nothing to anchor him, no memories to hold him present. Already, he is filled with the bone deep fear that he will forget this moment.
Lan Wangji cups Wei Ying’s face. “You must not let me forget,” he whispers. “Do not let me forget you.”
Wei Ying’s face crumples. His eyes are creased with pain. “I won’t,” he promises, shaky. He leans his forehead against Lan Wangji’s. “I’ll remind you every day and kiss you every morning. I found you and I’m not letting you let me go. I’m not letting you go, Lan Zhan, I’m not letting you go!”
I will never look away, Lan Wangji thinks.
—
Later, Wei Ying shows him the items he bought from their trip to the village. They are seated on the bed in Wei Ying’s room. The first item Wei Ying hands him is a tassel with a jade rabbit. Lan Wangji takes it with gentle fingers. He traces the smooth jade and the ears of the rabbit and feels his lips twitch with a faint smile. Nothing feels more true than Wei Ying giving him a rabbit. He doesn’t think he’s ever thought of rabbits before, but now he feels he has always loved them, especially when they are gifted by Wei Ying.
Wei Ying pokes his cheek. “Ah, Lan Zhan you’re smiling. Did you know you have the most wondrous smile?”
Lan Zhan shakes his head. “How could I? When Wei Ying has a smile to rival the brightness of the sun?”
Wei Ying smiles as if summoned and he touches the corner of Lan Wangji’s lips with his thumb. “If my smile is like the sun’s,” he says quietly, “then yours is like the moon, gentle and quiet, a guiding light during darkness.”
Lan Wangji’s hands shake around the rabbit tassel. “The moon does not like to be parted from the sun. It is always alone for many years until it can be reunited with its beloved.”
“I’m here,” Wei Ying murmurs, and it’s a promise, a vow.
Lan Wangji turns his head and kisses Wei Ying’s hand on his face. “Thank you,” he says, and hangs the jade rabbit tassel from his belt, where it belongs.
“I also got you this.” Wei Ying pulls out a small vial. “It’s medicinal oil for your back, I noticed it gets stiff sometimes.”
Lan Wangji makes a small oh sound. The stiffness and the pain that pops up sometimes has become a normal part of his life, another one of those easily forgotten things until it appears. But Wei Ying had noticed and gone as far as to obtain something to help with the pain.
“Will you apply it for me?” Lan Wangji asks. The thought of Wei Ying’s hands on his naked back makes him shiver.
Wei Ying makes a low whistle and laughs. “You’ve become shameless in your old age, Lan Zhan. Here, turn around, I’ll do it right now.”
Lan Wangji turns so his back is to Wei Ying and loosens his belt enough so that he can slip his robes off his shoulders and pool them around his waist. Wei Ying makes a sharp inhale and places the palm of his hand on the centre of Lan Wangji’s back. The skin on skin makes Lan Wangji shudder.
“Oh Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying murmurs. “It’s always the same old pains, we can never escape them.”
His fingers gently trace the scars on Lan Wangji’s back—scars he himself has only remembered he has now.
Lan Wangji hears the uncapping of the vial oil and then Wei Ying’s hands are on his skin again. He is gentle but firm as he massages the oil on and around the scars, and the feeling is heavenly. The oil smells faintly sweet and Lan Wangji finds himself gradually slumping forward, boneless.
When Wei Ying’s hands trail down his spine and touch his tailbone, Lan Wangji feels suddenly awake. He turns around and pushes Wei Ying on his back, bracketing him with his arms. Wei Ying looks delighted at the powerplay and he tilts his head up for a kiss. Lan Wangji kisses him and kisses him, languid and slow and hot and wet.
Wei Ying’s arms wrap around his neck to pull him down farther until the space between them becomes nonexistent. Their kisses become soft, and Lan Wangji lays his head on Wei Ying’s chest. They fall asleep like that, Wei Ying’s fingers mid-card in Lan Wangji’s hair.
Sometime later, Lan Wangji wakes up. It is dark out. Wei Ying is asleep, peaceful in his slumber, emitting soft snores. He has always been a mouth breather. Lan Wangji gets up and covers him with a blanket. He kisses Wei Ying’s forehead, and quietly leaves the room. He slips his arms into his robes and tightens his belt, before he slips silently outside the inn.
He jumps and lands on the roof with a soft barely heard sound, and seats himself cross legged. It is a full moon tonight, and he stares at it as if compelled. The beautiful white light casts a strange glow on the inn and the adjacent wall of the cliff. Lan Wangji stares up at the moon, but he does not look behind him and stare up at the edge of the cliff.
He meditates in an attempt to maintain control over today’s memories. He does not want to forget Wei Ying’s mouth on his, the happiness and love he felt today. He looks at the moon and prays please let me remember, do not take this away from too.
“Lan Zhan, you're out late, are you here to watch the moon?”
Lan Wangji looks away from the moon just as Wei Ying jumps on the roof and comes to sprawl beside him.
“Wei Ying.” Lan Wangji kisses him softly, and pulls back to return to his moon gazing.
“Do you know the story of the goddess Chang’e?” Wei Ying asks.
Lan Wangji shakes his head.
Wei Ying crosses his hands behind his head, and Lan Wangji can feel his gaze. “There used to be ten suns in the sky,” Wei Ying begins. “It was hot and there was never any night—terrible way to live. And so a very skilled archer, Houyi, shot down nine of the ten suns.
“He was gifted an elixir of immortality as his reward. But Houyi had a mortal beloved, Chang'e, and so he didn’t drink the elixir because he didn’t want to be immortal without Chang’e by his side. There are a couple of different stories of what happens next—in some Chang’e steals and drinks the elixir on purpose, in others Chang’s drinks the elixir to stop someone from stealing it. But all the versions end with Chang’e becoming immortal. She ascends to the heavens and makes the moon her home.”
“What happens to Houyi?” Lan Wangji asks.
Wei Ying sighs. “He stares up at the moon and thinks of how lonely Chang’e must be all by herself on the moon. So he began leaving her fruits and her favourite desserts, and he kept doing this until the day he died. People do that too now, during the Mid-Autumn festival.”
Lan Wangji’s hands clench from their position atop his knees. “It is not a happy story.”
“Do you see the rabbit?” Wei Ying asks and points at the moon. “That’s the moon rabbit, he helps make Chang’e more immortality elixir. He keeps Chang’e company.”
“I do not wish the rabbit for company,” Lan Wangji says tightly. “You are the one I want by my side.”
“And I’m here, Lan Zhan. If you go to the moon, I’ll follow you, I’ll always be here now.”
Lan Wangji looks at the moon and thinks of how sad it must have been for Houyi to be separated from his love. How sad it must have been for Chang’s to watch her beloved age and die.
“I do not want you to leave,” he says to Wei Ying.
Wei Ying takes one of Lan Wangji’s hands and laces their fingers together. “I promise I won’t. I’m here to stay this time.”
Lan Wangji does not ponder what this time means, how it insinuates that there was a last time . Instead, he gives Wei Ying’s hand a gentle squeeze. He does not need to know the hows and whys, he has everything he needs beside him.
—
A week later, Lan Wangji’s memories still flick in and out, but he has not forgotten Wei Ying or the new change in their relationship. They sleep in the same bed, and their days are filled with touches and kisses. They are wondrous days.
Wei Ying still studies the books in the library and Lan Wangji still does not know what he is searching for. He still does not ask.
“Lan Zhan, can you play this for me?” Wei Ying asks one day. He is holding a scroll that Lan Wangji saw him writing earlier. He looks nervous, and his bottom lip is chewed raw.
“This is not from the library’s music collection?”
Wei Ying shakes his head. Lan Wangji retrieves the forgotten qin from the shelf and places it on the table between them. He takes the proffered scroll from Wei Ying’s hands and looks down on it.
The music piece is titled wangxian. The name sends a strange wave of feeling through Lan Wangji. He places his hands on the strings of the qin and attempts to play the first notes. He hears the song through a hundred different times, sometimes on a qin, sometimes on a dizi .
He blinks and stares at Wei Ying’s worried face. “Wei Ying? Did you want me to play something?” He asks.
Wei Ying’s expression becomes bewildered. He points at the scroll in front of Lan Wangji.
Lan Wangji looks at it. The music piece is titled wangxian. The name is familiar. He places his hands on the qin and attempts to play the first notes. He hears the song though his fingers are not moving. His head is pounding. He feels as if he is being pulled apart in a hundred directions.
He blinks. His breathing is heavy. He cannot remember when they came to the library and when he retrieved the qin from the shelf. He looks at Wei Ying, confused. “Wei Ying, did you want me to play something?”
Wei Ying’s voice is shaky when he says, “No, Lan Zhan.” He grabs the scroll on the table and rolls it up before Lan Wangji can see what is on it.
By the time they eat dinner that day, Lan Wangji has forgotten this interaction in the library happened at all.
The next day, Lan Wangji hears Wei Ying muttering about a flute.
“Is there someone who sells instruments at the village?” Wei Ying asks. He looks frazzled, a nervous energy running through his body.
“I am unsure,” Lan Wangji answers. “What instrument are you looking for?”
“A dizi, or anything I can play, your qin is too hard,” Wei Ying mutters. “Maybe I can make one, just need to find some wood…” he trails off, mumbling into his bowl of red hot congee.
Lan Wangji frowns. A dizi. The thought of the instrument makes the back of his neck prickle with an unknown emotion. Fear, perhaps, or unease—that mixture of turmoil that encompass you when you are about to discover a secret.
When Wei Ying goes to bathe, Lan Wangji finds himself in his—their room. He goes to his knees beside the bed and pulls out a lacquered wooden box from underneath. His limbs move beyond his control.
He has no recollection of this box under the bed, but his fingers flip the series of latches like he has done this many times. He opens the lid of the box. The first thing he sees is his own face staring back at him. It is a drawing of him with a book in his hand and a flower in his hair. Lan Wangji pulls it out of the box carefully.
His face stares back at him in the box again. It is another drawing of him with a book in his hand and a flower in his hair. This one is much older, the paper fragile and the ink fading away. Lan Wangji holds each drawing in one hand and stares at them with a disconnect that makes him feel vertically split in half, as if he holds a different life in each palm.
He feels like he is staring at the two drawing through a tunnel as the room around him fizzles away and blurs. He is drifting.
“Lan Zhan,” a voice says but it seems so far away, echoing.
There are hands on his face. They cup his cheeks and force his gaze away from the drawings. It is Wei Ying. His skin is flushed warm and his hair is wet, his inner robe sticking to his skin. He gently pries the drawings away from Lan Wangji’s hands.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji murmurs. He looks down at the box.
There is a black dizi with a red tassel. Chenqing, his mind provides. He picks it up with shaking hands and presents it to Wei Ying. “You needed a flute.”
Wei Ying makes a pained noise. He takes the dizi and runs his fingers across it like he’s greeting an old friend. It looks right in his hands. Lan Wangji expects the twirl of the dizi in Wei Ying’s fingers before he even does it.
Wei Ying leans forward and gives him a chaste kiss. “I’m going to fix this, Lan Zhan. Do you want to hear me play?”
Lan Wangji nods numbly.
Wei Ying brings the dizi to his mouth. He watches Lan Wangji carefully as he begins to play. The first notes ring loudly through Lan Wangji’s ears. It sounds familiar. He thinks he tried to play this song on his qin some time ago but the memory is unclear.
Suddenly the world tilts. He is unsure if the room is spinning or if he is falling but he is no longer in the inn with Wei Ying.
He is in a cave and he is humming a song to a boy with a fever.
It is snowing and the boy is drinking Emperor's Smile and Lan Wangji is playing a song on his qin.
There is a boy falling and Lan Wangji catches him by the wrist and he is falling, falling, falling, f—
There is the sound of a song on a wooden flute and Lan Wangji is gripping the wrist of the man in the mask and it is—
There is a boy in white robes handing him a drawing. There is a boy in black and red robes handing him a drawing. The boys converge and it is—
There is something on the tip of his tongue, close enough for him to taste, to bite.
There is a boy, a man, a traveler and it is—
It is Wei Ying.
It has always been Wei Ying.
Lan Wangji opens his eyes with a low gasp, like the breath has been knocked out of him and back into him and he has been born anew. Wei Ying’s hands are on his face and he is looking into Lan Wangji’s eyes desperately, searching for something.
Lan Wangji grips his wrists and feels his eyes become wet. “Wei Ying .” He is being attacked by a deluge of images and feelings and sounds, of lives and moments that were lost to him before this moment.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying cries. He pushes their foreheads together. “Do you remember?”
“Wei Ying.” Lan Wangji’s voice breaks. “I have missed you.”
Wei Ying blinks and tears drip down his cheeks. Lan Wangji feels his heart breaking. How did he forget Wei Ying? Why has Lan Wangji been alone with a memory that fades for hundreds of years?
“What happened?” he asks, fraying apart at the edges. Their very existence seems surreal.
“You don’t remember?”
Lan Wangji shakes his head. “It is blurry—I can’t remember everything.”
Wei Ying bites his bottom lip, as if this memory is tearing at his heart. “My golden core was failing, I was dying—a second time.” He sighs, and closes his eyes before opening them again. “I didn’t want to leave you, and I had a plan—”
“I have a plan,” Wei Ying had said. “But I don’t know how long it will take. I don’t want you to be sad without me.”
Lan Wangji was angry. “How can I not be sad without you? Our memories will haunt me until I see you again.”
“You shouldn’t have to watch me die,” Wei Ying said sadly. “You shouldn’t have to grieve a second time.”
And he placed a curse on him before Lan Wangji could react.
“Wait for me,” Wei Ying said, and he was crying uncontrollably. “I’ll meet you again, whether it’s in a week or a year or a thousand years, wait for me, I’ll come back for you.” And his voice was but a wisp in the wind, carried away in the breeze. Almost as if he had never spoken.
“I don’t know how the curse changed. It was only meant to hold your memories back, not stop you from making new ones. I’m sorry, Lan Zhan, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
But Lan Wangji does not care about the curse or apologies. He cups Wei Ying’s cheeks and wipes his tears with his thumbs. “You’re here,” he says, staring at him with wonder.
Wei Ying laughs with fresh tears in his eyes. “I’m here,” he says. “I came back. I’m staying this time, forever.”
And that is all Lan Wangji has ever wanted when he didn’t even know who Wei Ying was, when he didn’t even have memories. The waiting was always beating beside his chest and now it rests, with his beloved back in his arms.
🌕
That fall, on a night beneath the full moon, they lay out offerings of fruits and desserts and mooncakes in the shapes of rabbits, and they send their prayers and thanks to Chang’e and hope she is not alone.
“Even when I did not know you,” Lan Wangji says, “I loved you.”
Wei Ying smiles, and it is sweet and bright beneath the soft glow of the moon. “Then I have hundreds of years worth of love to catch up on,” he says and Lan Wangji kisses him.
This deep into the winter season there are not many travelers. Most towns are snowed in, and no one enters and no one leaves. Yet still, at the base of a cliff, in an inn half a day’s walk away from the nearest village, Lan Wangji goes about his day as normal. He is not expecting guests tonight, and he goes to bed with his beloved and falls asleep holding and being held.
Above them, the white moon glows, and a rabbit works away with its mortar and pestle as it keeps its goddess company.
🐇