Chapter Text
Lan Wangji sits in a field of bodies.
It is not an unfamiliar occurrence. Rather one made far too common by the endless years of war, of countless fields, bloody and profane. If there is an extra bitterness that the war is officially at an end and yet the bloodshed persists—that the bodies around him belong to unarmed men, women, and children fleeing from laughing gold-clad cultivators armed with bows–Lan Wangji does his best to set it aside.
It is not his place to say.
Death is death; the rage, confusion, pain, and despair thickening the air are the focus of Lan Wangji’s duty. To bring rest and peace to the land, to release souls to find a new life. A cultivator’s charge, after all, is to serve the already-lost. And to do that justly, he must not succumb to those malignant emotions himself. He must remain above attachments and the inevitable suffering they drag along in their wake.
After so many months spent bringing death, honed as a weapon to cut down both the living and the reanimated at his commander’s order, it is perhaps easy to forget. Here, in the dirt, a reminder that he will need to find a way back to what life was before the war, now that he has survived to live it.
To serve his sect. To honor justice and protect the weak.
It all seems very far away.
Lan Wangji allows no hesitation in the notes of Rest as it flows from his fingers, twining through the stillness of the plain. A firm edict to the dead to leave behind these painful last moments. To release themselves from the cares and suffering of this world, to not linger and plague the living.
And woven into the melody, an apology perhaps.
He pushes that away, tasting the indulgence in such a thought. To allow himself to dwell on his own feelings about these events is a weakness that opens him to resentment. A disservice to the souls surrounding him. An undermining of the control from which his power flows. He is his duty. Nothing more. Nothing less. As he is meant to be.
Separate. Apart. Detached. Steady.
To be anything less is to risk disaster.
Then, through the trees, a dizi joins in on the melody as if to mock his attempts at detachment. It is a soaring, beseeching melody; a listening ear. The perfect counterpoint to the thrum of the guqin.
We, the living, see your suffering, it seems to say, and wish to see you bound by it no more. Let go. Let go.
Coaxing and gentle, with nothing of the battlefield command and screech of death Lan Wangji has grown accustomed to. Here, instead, there is understanding. Empathy. I am sorry, I am sorry. It was not right.
Lan Wangji’s heart stutters under the clear call of Wei Ying’s flute, and yet his fingers do not falter, his own power rising to meet Wei Ying’s. Melding and twining together, falling upon the field like a gentle rain on parched earth or long-forgotten sunshine on a gloomy day.
Wei Ying, he thinks, the ache in his chest swelling and slipping free of his control. Wei Ying. Close, but as always, hopelessly far.
Lan Wangji releases a long, controlled breath as the music at last fades and settles into the earth. The task is done. He should return to Nightless City. Make his report. Fulfill his duties. The people here will still need to be buried and the proper rites observed, lest the land grow restless again. But there will be time for someone else to be sent after Lan Wangji makes his report. A report of facts and necessary duty.
Lan Zhan. What do you think of the people here? Who is good and who is evil?
Lan Wangji stows his qin and rises to his feet. Rather than returning to the city to make his report, he instead chases after the phantom echo of the dizi. Chasing after Wei Ying as assuredly as a young visiting disciple once sought out Lan Wangji.
It has been many years since those days. If only the memories could as easily be put to rest.
He finds Wei Ying standing among the trees nearby, flute lowered, shoulders bowed, face cast in shadows that make him seem thin, fragile. Ephemeral.
“Wei Ying,” he says.
Wei Ying sighs, looking away. “Can we not, right now?”
He looks exhausted. Worn. But as always, angry just underneath, like a trap constantly waiting to snap. Lan Wangji yearns to soothe that as well. It would be just another kind of duty, would it not? To care for the living as he cares for the dead?
Lan Wangji thinks of Wei Ying standing on the cliff’s edge just before they followed the screams to this field that is not a battlefield, his arm rigid and unyielding under Lan Wangji’s grip. Lan Zhan! Enough!
Wei Ying wants him to let it go. Let him go.
He cannot.
Did Wei Ying not hear what Jin Zixun said as they stood together in that field of bodies? Does he not understand? Anyone who has concerns with the yin iron should not be alive.
Had Wei Ying not just finally admitted to Lan Wangji that his new tool came from yin iron, even if somehow refined and changed? Different from Wen Ruohan?
Why, why would he play with something so dangerous? Did he not hear Lan Yi when she said how foolish it was to think the yin iron could ever be used without the user being the one used in turn? Destroyed by the yin iron. Twisted and consumed. And why, with this conflict at an end, would Wei Ying still cling so tenaciously to it? Why does he welcome this harm?
Lan Zhan. Are you afraid I will be like Wen Ruohan who was controlled by the yin iron? But the yin hu fu is not yin iron, and I am not Wen Ruohan.
The words are there on the tip of Lan Wangji’s tongue. There has never been an exception. Resentment can only be eradicated, not embraced. Not used. Not even influenced. The orthodox ways handed down to them from the ancients exist for a reason. Wen Ruohan no doubt believed himself to be strong enough as well, in the beginning.
Lan Wangji cannot watch Wei Ying fall to this. He will not.
Wei Ying must see something of his insistence, a long sigh escaping. “Lan Zhan, are you not tired of fighting?”
Yes. Yes. Lan Wangji is tired of fighting. Tired of death. Tired of endlessly reaching for Wei Ying only to once again be met with the solid wall of his indifference, if not the sharp slice of his disdain. Lan Wangji grows tired of thinking he might somehow finally find the right words when he never has been able to before.
“Can’t you just let me be?” Wei Ying says.
You promised, a petulant voice in Lan Wangji wants to plead. You promised to let me help you. Yet Lan Wangji, as always, has no words to say.
In the heavy silence, a distant wail echoes through the trees. The sound of a child inconsolable with fear.
Wei Ying’s chin lifts, turning to the sound, hand reaching for his flute.
A moment later, the sound abruptly cuts off. Alarmingly so.
They share a look and immediately set out after the origin of the phantom sound, the same way neither of them hesitated to follow the calls for help earlier, to stop that last arrow from meeting its mark. There is no need for conversation in this.
Moving swiftly through the trees, there is no sound under their feet as Lan Wangji extends his senses for any further cries. He shifts to the left, Wei Ying easily adjusting in his wake.
There. At the base of a tree, the form of a woman. The same woman, Lan Wangji realizes, that they saved from Jin Zixun. A Wen.
The young mother is shaking, eyes wide with overwhelming fear as she rocks back and forth. Her hand is pressed to her child’s face, fingers digging into the soft flesh, a desperate attempt to keep her quiet. Too tightly, in her fear, keeping air from the child. Suffocating her.
“Madam,” Wei Ying says, down on his knees beside her and prying her hand free.
The child remains limp and unmoving.
Leaning forward, Wei Ying blows into the face of the listless child. The child stirs, sucking in a deep breath, and there is a moment of shining silence before the child again begins to wail.
“No, no,” the woman says, frantic, reaching once more to silence the child. “You mustn’t! They will hear!”
Wei Ying scoops up the child, cradling her to his chest, whispering comforting nonsense to calm her wailing.
Lan Wangji once again sits down with his qin, playing a calming song often meant for settling nightmares. The woman and child are commoners, with no power of their own, but Lan Wangji can still wind the song around them, use his own energy to calm the spirit. To push down and eliminate despair.
Mother and daughter eventually calm, as much as they can.
They should be brought back to whatever camp Jin Zixun must have been escorting them to before they escaped. There would be greater safety there, where they are meant to be, overseen by the sects. He does not understand what this non-cultivator and her child might possibly have to do with the yin iron. Yet, if they did not, why would they be there?
Sect leader Nie and Sect leader Lan also agreed, Jin Zixun had said.
Lan Wangji’s jaw clenches. Likely they have a plan Lan Wangji does not completely understand, some other reason for it. It is not for him to question. When he makes his report, there will be time to—
“Madam,” Wei Ying says, squatting down next to the woman, her child still held tight to his chest. “You must leave this place behind. Go as far as you can manage.”
Lan Wangji looks at him sharply, but Wei Ying’s attention is all for the woman.
“Where can we go?” she asks, face streaked with tears and hopelessness. “Where is safe?”
Wei Ying closes his eyes. “Madam. You must leave your name behind as well. If you wish to live. Your ancestors will surely understand.” Reaching into his sleeve, his hand pulls free with talisman paper pinched between his fingers, using his own blood to sketch out a spell Lan Wangji cannot recognize from this angle.
Turning to the child, Wei Ying wiggles his fingers into the girl’s stomach, soft and silly, the shocked, tear-stained child startled enough to let out a soft sound. Not quite a laugh, but something easier than a wail. “Your mama needs you to stay quiet to be safe, little one. But that can be hard when you’re scared, right? Sometimes we just need to make noise.”
Lan Wangji thinks of Wei Ying, young and bright in his lecture whites, voice raised and echoing. Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, won’t you look at me?
The little girl nods, sucking in a hiccupping breath.
“Since that might be hard, can I give you a special spell that will help you stay hidden?”
She looks uncertain.
“It won’t hurt,” Wei Ying says, a wide, warm smile on his face that Lan Wangji feels he hasn’t seen in years, like being thrown back in time to life before. It’s disorienting. Beautiful. “I promise.”
The girl nods, still not completely sure.
Wei Ying presses the talisman to the girl’s chest, infusing a small thread of power in order to activate it.
“Did that hurt?” Wei Ying asks.
The girl shakes her head, poking a finger at the paper.
Wei Ying turns back to the woman. “This should last a day. It will keep sound from traveling. Promise me you won’t try to stifle her again.”
She shakes her head. “No, no—I didn’t mean—I would never.” She is near tears again.
“I know,” Wei Ying says soothingly, creating a second talisman. “And this one you can use when the other stops working. Okay? Two days to get as far as you can.” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry I can’t…”
Do more , Lan Wangji knows he wants to say. For a terrifying moment, it feels like Wei Ying might offer to escort her away. To hide her. What he has done here is bad enough, to interfere with the Jin and their prisoners. If anyone ever found out…
“Wei Ying.”
His shoulders hunch in response, all of the previous softness gone. “Just walk away, Hanguang-Jun,” he says, not even turning to look at him. “This doesn’t need to involve you.”
That stings and yet has no right to. Lan Wangji’s duty is clear. What is right is clear. They are one and the same, are they not? They have to be. Will this woman and her child truly be better served by wandering Qishan unprotected than in a camp run by a Great Sect where there would be shelter and food and protection?
And what protection was Jin Zixun offering? asks a voice at the back of his mind that sounds far too much like Wei Ying.
The prisoners were running. Trying to escape. They must have been.
And does that excuse shooting them in the back? Slaughtering them?
They had been laughing, Jin Zixun and his companions. Laughing as the people died.
Wei Ying’s attention is back on the woman, attempting to open the chains encircling the woman’s neck and ankles. Wei Ying insisting on acting, as always, without forethought.
But if you don’t believe me, how can I help you?
Lan Wangji unsheathes Bichen, the woman letting out a whimper, shifting to hide behind Wei Ying.
Wei Ying swings around, flute up as if to block a blow. “Lan Wangji,” he snaps, fury and hurt swirling in his eyes.
Lan Wangji takes a careful breath, refusing to register how deeply Wei Ying’s reaction cuts. “The chains,” he says.
Wei Ying blinks. “What?”
Instead of repeating himself, Lan Wangji lowers down to one knee, reaching towards the manacle circling the woman’s wrist. Before touching, he looks up at her, waiting for permission.
Her eyes widen, and she darts a glance at Wei Ying and then back to him. She nods, looking no less terrified.
With a careful application of energy through the blade, Lan Wangji is able to break open the manacle, following quickly with freeing the other wrist. He then lifts the blade, needing to access the metal band around her throat. Her terrified eyes meet his.
“I will not harm you,” Lan Wangji states.
She nods, squeezing her eyes closed as his blade lifts.
Lan Wangji is precise with his application, tuning everything else out, and with a short spark, the chains fall away.
As soon as Lan Wangji sheathes Bichen, the woman scrambles to her feet, child clutched to her chest.
Wei Ying reaches into his sleeve, pulling free with his money pouch. “Go,” he says, pressing it into her hands. “Don’t look back.”
Her eyes still full of tears, the woman gives him a determined nod. Bowing multiple times in quick succession, she says, “Thank you.”
“Go,” Wei Ying says, voice soft.
She disappears into the trees, the two of them staring after her as unnatural silence once again settles over the forest. Even the sound of her footfalls is muffled. It is an effective talisman.
Then Wei Ying lets out a pained breath, his hand clutching at his chest, and Lan Wangji can see resentment swirling off him like ribbons in an unfelt breeze.
Lan Wangji masters the impulse to reach out to him, to feel his wrist in his grip. Concentrate. It would be unwelcome. As would any offer to play as his fingers itch to do. He is unwelcome.
Another moment and Wei Ying masters himself. Lan Wangji watches him duck down and pick up the discarded chains before walking off in the opposite direction from the woman, the metal clanging loudly in the forest. Lan Wangji follows him without comment, until they come upon a river.
Wei Ying heaves the chains into the water, and they disappear from sight, sinking into the muck. It erases none of what they did here today. None of what they have done in this war and what has been done to them.
Lan Wangji still cannot believe this was the right choice. He is certain Wei Ying meant it as a kindness, and that settles somewhere deep inside him, this evidence of Wei Ying’s heart—that goodness somehow still there despite everything, despite his baffling choices and unorthodox magics. Freeing the woman and her child, sending them off. Lan Wangji is just not sure it will actually be a kindness, in the long run. For the woman or for Wei Ying.
Last evidence of the woman now gone, Wei Ying turns to walk back up the stream towards the city. Lan Wangji follows a few steps behind.
“Nothing to say?” Wei Ying asks, more challenge than inquiry.
Lan Wangji doesn’t respond, certain his words would be unwelcome anyway.
A rough huff leaves Wei Ying. “Of course not.”
They walk in silence until Wei Ying’s face abruptly lifts, his eyes staring out across the stream even as his hand tightens around his flute.
“Wei Ying?”
His brow furrows. “There’s…something. Do you feel it?”
Lan Wangji quiets his breathing, stretching out with his senses. Beyond an artificial silence, he finds nothing out of place.
Wei Ying lifts his flute to his lips, only to pause, glancing over at Lan Wangji. It takes him a moment to realize that Wei Ying is expecting him to protest, to argue, maybe. As if only an hour before they hadn’t put a field of spirits to rest together.
What I use is music.
Lan Wangji remains silent, body still as he waits for Wei Ying to decide.
Defiance still there in every line of this body, Wei Ying plays a long, searching note—something far different from musical cultivation as Lan Wangji knows it.
The fine hairs on the back of Lan Wangji’s neck rise in a wave. “What do you sense?”
Wei Ying doesn’t answer, the note instead shifting, surging higher, something like a query. Coaxing.
“Resentment,” Lan Wangji guesses, something changing in the air around them.
“Yeah,” Wei Ying says, lowering his flute. “Like knows like.”
It’s a joke, or perhaps a vicious jab. Either way, Lan Wangji lets it pass through him, not wanting to fight.
“Could be anything, really,” Wei Ying says.
Lan Wangji knows what he means. The land is rife with death, both from the battles and the neglect left behind by cultivators too busy with war to serve the common people. Lan Wangji did what he could between battles. It was a relief, something as simple and uncomplicated as clearing out yao and ghouls and returning order and peace. To take on the work he was raised to believe was his purpose, not this endless slog of death and losses.
“I will see to it,” Lan Wangji says. He simply needs Wei Ying to direct him towards the disturbance.
“Yeah, that’s not happening,” Wei Ying says, and then he is leaping across the water, wincing slightly when he lands more heavily than he should on the other side. Almost graceless.
Lan Wangji frowns, worrying that Wei Ying is still not completely recovered, or perhaps hiding an injury. With a quick leap, he follows, not allowing Wei Ying to slip out of sight.
The trees thicken as Lan Wangji follows behind, Wei Ying’s dark robes nearly lost to the shadows as he darts from tree to tree, the occasional note calling out from his flute. He eventually slows, eyes slightly narrowed with focus, body taut with expectation.
Lan Wangji settles silently next to him. They are close now, close enough that Lan Wangji can feel the thickness of resentment in the air. He pulls Bichen from its sheath, pale blue light spilling across the forest floor.
Wei Ying glances at him, something searching in his gaze, before nodding. “Almost there,” he murmurs, and then leads him forward.
The trees slowly thin, leading to a cleared field, plants abandoned and dead, a small house a lonely sight in an otherwise empty space. No one living has been here in a while.
They cross the field, the dead plants crunching under Wei Ying’s feet. Across the open space, beneath a tree, there is a neat row of graves, paper blessings fluttering in the breeze. Rotten fruit and burnt incense rest against the markers.
These dead were once cared for.
A quick investigation reveals the graves to still be settled and content. The dead here are not festering.
He glances at Wei Ying to see the same assessment in his eyes. He nods, his attention shifting to the house. There is something else at work here.
Where is the one who cared for these graves so carefully?
Together, they move forward slowly. Here they are seamless, working together as they did on the battlefield. Lan Wangji does not like that this ease is only present when they are surrounded by death and resentment. By emergent violence.
The house has an air of abandonment: weeds sprung up against the steps, windows ragged and torn, the front door hanging slightly open.
“Definitely something here,” Wei Ying murmurs.
As if in response, all of the shutters on the house blow outwards as one, wood pieces shattering and flinging across the ground with an unnatural shriek. The air seems to thin—not with rage, not will malicious intent, but with ice-cold, sharp despair.
Lan Wangji feels a shard of wood sharp against his cheek, the warm trickle of blood. The house moans and rages.
Wei Ying is already writing a seal in the air, sending it towards the walls of the house, buying Lan Wangji enough time to summon his guqin, settling on the ground.
Whatever measure Wei Ying has used to contain the spirit in the house seems to be holding. An unnatural silence has settled over everything, even the breeze having stopped entirely, like a halted breath. Next to him, Wei Ying shifts, posture alert.
There is too much resentment here, too much wild emotion for the ghost to be sent on to rest with a simple song. And yet he is also not willing to resort to his sword. More information is needed.
Lan Wangji plucks out a series of notes and then waits for a response. Who are you?
He can feel Wei Ying watching with great interest. It is likely he will not have seen this before. Lan Wangji was still finishing his mastery of it when they were boys hunting for the yin iron. And their years in war have rarely been spent soothing the dead.
“Associating with spirits?” Wei Ying asks.
Lan Wangji hums in response, inexplicably warmed by this evidence of Wei Ying’s bright mind. That he perhaps paid more attention during his time in Gusu than he might have pretended.
“What did you ask?”
An answer comes before Lan Wangji can respond.
Fu Hao, plucks out the spirit.
“What?” Wei Ying asks, settling in the dirt, arms crossed over the knees he has tucked into his chest like a child, eyes wide and curious. “What are they saying?”
“Their name. Fu Hao.”
He glances back at the house. “Definitely someone here then.” As if the blatant attack had not been sign enough.
“How did you die?” Lan Wangji says as he plucks out the notes, so Wei Ying can follow along.
Alone.
The notes echo plaintively through the clearing.
Wei Ying tilts his head in question, eyes darting back and forth between the guqin and the house.
“They died alone.”
“Right,” Wei Ying says, voice soft as his eyes dart back toward the graves.
“What killed you?” Lan Wangji asks, fingers moving over the strings.
Alone, is the only response. Alone. Alone. Alone.
Lan Wangji tries once more, to no avail. It is not that the spirit is powerful enough to resist him, but rather that the resentment has corrupted her so much that she may not be able to remember.
Lan Wangji rests his hands on the strings. “We may need to suppress.”
Wei Ying grimaces. “I’d really rather not.”
While Lan Wangji can understand the preference for liberation, there is also no need to feel a particular way about needing to take the second option. Sometimes it is simply necessary, just like elimination.
Lan Wangji does not keep his emotions in check simply by inclination, after all, but because it is necessary. Letting one’s emotions rise in response to the plight of a spirit not only risks mental fatigue, but also contributes to the power of the resentment itself. Facing a night hunt with high emotions will only feed into the strength of resentment and make the task harder, if not impossible.
Yet Wei Ying has always shown his every emotion without care, and now in an even more volatile fashion. It makes him vulnerable.
“Will you let me try something?” Wei Ying asks, the stubborn set of his shoulders indicating it isn’t so much a request as an inquiry into whether he will end up having to fight Lan Wangji as well.
Lan Wangji bites back the blunt corrections he would give any cultivator under his supervision, and instead nods. He is, after all, tired of fighting.
Wei Ying gives him a half-smile and then lifts his flute. Wind sweeps up from the ground, dirt rising in a whirlwind as Wei Ying starts to play. Pressure builds like the too-tight skin of a drum.
The spirit is drawn forward, almost as if in response to Wei Ying’s will. It coalesces as a writhing mass, the shadows cast by the house pulling together into a vaguely human form. It thrashes, but Wei Ying keeps it in thrall, somehow held by the music he plays.
The hair trailing down over Lan Wangji’s shoulders lifts and dances in the wind, dust making his eyes water.
The dizi’s notes start shrill and bright, trickling lower and lower like a stone weighing down on the spirit—demanding submission. At a particularly powerful note, the dust around them settles hard, like the pull of the earth has increased and will no longer be denied.
Only then does Wei Ying’s playing shift, smoothing out into something softer. A gentle entreaty, an invitation to confide. A light flourish like an inviting laugh or a flirtatious smile. A pull towards Wei Ying.
The ghost dances closer and closer.
“Yes,” Wei Ying says, not looking away. “I’m so sorry.”
For what? Wei Ying appears to be speaking with the ghost, but there is no way for that to be possible.
Wei Ying looks at Lan Wangji, his eyes darting towards his guqin. He lifts his mouth away long enough to say, “Try Rest.”
If the ghost is too mired in resentment to even answer simple inquiries, it is doubtful that Rest could reach it either.
“Wei Ying,” he says in warning. It is one thing to seek to liberate, as one should always begin; it is another to allow oneself to be waylaid by the demands of a resentful spirit. “We should suppress.”
“What, so she can just stay here and fester? Lan Zhan, we have to at least try.”
Try to do what? Rest will not have the effect he hopes for.
“Come on, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying wheedles.
Lan Wangji starts to play. Somehow, the spirit responds, gentling its hold on whatever attachment is keeping it anchored in this place. What exactly has Wei Ying done to it?
Wei Ying lowers his dizi. “There we go,” he says. He looks down at Lan Wangji and smiles. “I think she’s ready. Maybe she just wanted someone to know.”
To know what? Why is Wei Ying speaking as if he now somehow knows this spirit?
It does indeed seem to be weakening its hold on the resentment though. Did whatever Wei Ying has done lessen the spirit’s resentment somehow? It should not have been possible. It’s nothing they have been trained to do.
He feels fear spike in his chest at this additional evidence of how far Wei Ying has strayed from the path. Emotion swells in his chest, a thick mix of fear and worry, this certainty that Wei Ying is slipping out of reach. That there will be no way to pull him back.
It happens quickly—perhaps in Lan Wangji’s moment of distraction, or simply as is the way of spirits who are not quite ready to leave.
The ghost lets out a shriek that shakes the trees and flies directly towards them, rushing across the clearing, an almost solid wall of resentment. It slams into Lan Wangji’s chest, knocking him to the ground. He’s aware of Wei Ying crumpling next to him.
He braces himself for a further attack, for the next wave, but nothing comes, not even as he rolls back to his knees, pulling Bichen in front of him.
Silence settles over the clearing.
“You alright?” Wei Ying asks, as they both get back up to their feet.
Lan Wangji takes a moment to breathe and assess. “Yes,” he decides, feeling nothing amiss besides slight aches from hitting the ground, quickly fading under his cycling energy. “And you?”
Wei Ying nods, brushing off his robes. “Maybe she wasn’t quite so ready to go,” he says of the ghost. “Or at least not without one last bit of mischief.” He huffs, almost looking fond. “Not that I can blame her. One last little temper tantrum before she goes. Got to admire it.”
Lan Wangji chooses not to comment on that, instead stretching his senses out over the area. A soft calm has settled over the homestead now, leaving it feeling quiet and empty. Abandoned just like its last inhabitant.
Wei Ying bumps his shoulder against Lan Wangji’s. “Just like old times,” he says, giving Lan Wangji a soft, almost shy smile.
Lan Wangji feels it like another blunt impact to his chest.
Old times. Those days together on the yin iron quest feel so distant, but in this moment so close. Wei Ying chasing after him, his wretched binding talisman trapping Lan Wangji’s wrist, sitting together in tea houses, the dancing fairy, Wei Ying sleeping on his roof, soft and drunk and smiling.
Wei Ying. I must go.
There is a dull thud in his chest, followed by a sharper sensation on his wrist. He rubs absently at it, slight pressure around the bones, like a phantom rope. He must have fallen on it. He cycles energy through it, and in a moment, the sensation is gone entirely. Slipping through his fingers again.
“Let’s bury her, yeah?” Wei Ying says, voice still soft, close.
Lan Wangji nods.
Wei Ying moves towards a small lean-to, coming out with a shovel and moving to the line of graves. Normally this is something the local village would be left to do, but there is no one here to care. Qishan is in tatters, its people dead or scattered. Defeated.
Lan Wangji considers offering to dig for Wei Ying, but doesn’t want to see the defensive hunch of Wei Ying’s shoulders in response to a perceived slight. The way everything Lan Wangji offers him is an insult. He will hold onto this momentary calm between them as long as he can.
“I will see to the body,” Lan Wangji says and steps into the house.
Enough time has passed that the stench has mostly dissipated, the body dried and desiccated. It lies alone on a thin pallet. There is a hearth and a table with four chairs. The table is set with only one bowl, one rough cup. A home that had once been full, and then left with only one. And now none.
He looks again at the woman, feeling a strange pang in his heart. He pushes it aside, not out of callousness, but knowledge that he cannot be of use if he personalizes each night hunt, every tragic soul he comes to soothe. No one life is more valuable or important than any other. Each must be equally respected.
Lan Wangji still uncharacteristically finds himself biting back the impulse to say, I’m sorry. I’m sorry this happened to you.
She was so lonely.
Taking a breath, he considers what needs to be done. A quick survey of the available resources has him reaching for his travel pouch. Part of him knows it isn’t proper, but that feels very far away in the moment. She deserves something at least.
Folding her hands across her chest, he carefully wraps her in the white silk of one his spare robes, the best shroud he can muster. She barely weighs anything in his arms. He pulls the trailing edge of the cloth up and over her face.
“It’s ready,” Wei Ying says from behind him.
Lan Wangji doesn’t startle, but he wonders how long Wei Ying has been there. He tries not to feel caught out. Nodding, he gets to his feet, following Wei Ying back out into the yard, bringing Fu Hao’s body to its final rest.
They complete the rituals, side by side. Putting this land to rest as best they can. It feels so right, the togetherness. So correct.
Lan Wangji can only hope that, put to rest side by side with the rest of her family, Fu Hao might rest. That she might no longer feel so alone.
He takes another moment to let the peacefulness of the clearing settle over him and the closeness of Wei Ying soothe him. He tries not to think about how when they finish here, Lan Wangji and Wei Ying will return to the city, each going their own way. Lan Wangji will write his report, including what Jin Zixun did to the Wen prisoners, and Lan Wangji’s own actions in response.
He will watch Wei Ying walk away and out of reach.
But for now, he simply breathes.
Lan Wangji has never enjoyed banquets. The initial arrival and speeches are ritualized enough to be tolerable, his responsibilities and actions clear and prescribed. Once the formalities are over, however, things become less structured and therefore more treacherous. And tedious. Fortunately, few people approach him, though tonight that solitude feels particularly sharp, leaving him feeling strangely exposed.
Wei Ying, he can see out of the corner of his eye, is drinking copiously on the other side of the hall, his body looser and less controlled as the evening continues. Clearly he is drunk. This is nothing new. Wei Ying has always enjoyed wine, enjoyed being inebriated. Even before. Before he became like this. Yet it now feels like something more than simple misbehavior, different than cheerful disregard for propriety. It feels more like…armor. Or something between a slip in control and a way to hold onto it. Lan Wangji doesn’t know which. Like so many things about Wei Ying these days, it frightens him.
There is some small disturbance over the question of Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan’s engagement that is embarrassing to see exposed so callously in public. It would seem to reflect poorly on Jin Guangshan, but of course all everyone is speaking of is Wei Ying’s alleged disrespect of Jiang-zongzhu. From what Lan Wangji knows of the siblings, and Jiang Wanyin from those weeks together searching for Wei Ying, it was not disrespect so much as the careless, blundering nature of their relationship. Excusable perhaps for blood siblings. But Wei Ying’s position remains as unclear as ever: not a true sibling, but something almost like it. Or perhaps tolerance for Wei Ying has thinned all around.
It settles hard and sour in Lan Wangji’s stomach, his fists tightening against his thighs. He is unsettled and has struggled to find equilibrium all day. He is perhaps tired. Has neglected his meditation too much as of late.
All the more reason, when Wei Ying saunters out of the hall, ignoring all niceties and swiping an additional bottle of wine on his way out, for Lan Wangji to stay where he is.
He stands, noticing Xichen nearby talking to Jin Guangyao, their heads lowered together. No one stops Lan Wangji as he follows after Wei Ying, feeling somehow tugged along in his wake.
Wei Ying hasn’t gone far, sprawled on the stairs off to one side, looking up at the stars. They are hard to see beyond the glare of torches and the perpetual haze that seems to hang in the air here. He is currently pouring wine into his open mouth, liquid trailing down over his throat with casual abandon. Lan Wangji watches, helplessly ensnared.
Once he feels better in control of himself, he steps just close enough to be in Wei Ying’s peripheral vision.
It doesn’t take long for him to react, shoulders tightening before he lets out a long breath. “Lan Zhan, are you here to scold me again?”
There is little to say that he hasn’t said before. At least of the things he is allowed, the things he knows how to say. The truth, after all— please, just let me be near you —can never, ever be said. It swirls and tightens in his chest.
Wei Ying scoffs, rolling his eyes before he takes another swig of wine, his general disdain for Lan Wangji clear, making him painfully aware of his every deficiency as he stands here, not knowing what to do. Too weak not to follow, too stiff to actually do anything.
Wei Ying will be leaving tomorrow, along with most of the sects. Slipping out of reach at last.
Lan Wangji grasps his own wrist, the pressure of his fingers tight around the bones, seeking stability, perhaps a calm center, and finding neither. Just an empty ache like a bruise.
He knows better than to ask again, knows it will only destroy what little tolerance Wei Ying is willing to allow him. Fracture the last illusions that Wei Ying is fine.
Lan Wangji knows this, and yet the words rise up and escape as if beyond his control.
“Come to Gusu,” he says.
Wei Ying lets out a humorless laugh, shaking his head. “Fuck off, Lan Zhan,” he says, only the slightest sharpness beneath the lilting, cheerful tone. He pushes to his feet, swaying slightly. “I’m going home. Back to Lotus Pier with my siblings.” He pushes the wine bottle into Lan Wangji’s chest, tapping it there twice, an answering twinge squeezing his heart. “Whether anyone thinks I deserve to or not.”
Wei Ying pushes off Lan Wangji’s shoulder then, hand firm and fingers pressing in as he seeks the momentum to stride away, to leave , and Lan Wangji is left with nothing but the phantom heat of his hand, the hard knock-knock of a bottle against his chest like an invitation to enter that will never come.
At the bottom of the stairs, Wei Ying pauses, head turned slightly back over his shoulder. “Take care of yourself, Lan Zhan.”
He walks away.
Lan Wangji’s hand tightens, fingers digging into the flesh of his wrist, a fierce flare of something like pain streaking up his arm and through his chest. He masters the weakness, taking a careful breath.
“Goodbye, Wei Ying,” he says to the empty air, feeling like something, somewhere, is ripping hopelessly in half.
It is no matter. He will return home as well, seek out whatever answers may live in the knowledge there. Some other way to help Wei Ying. Some solution. Some wisdom still just out of his reach.
Lan Wangji returns to his solitary room, settles into a meditative pose, and tries to put everything back in perfect order.