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When Lan Zhan and his older brother were young and carried less years on their shoulders, his brother would tell him stories. Stories about anything and everything; his parents, folktales, the wonders far from Gusu, often in the form of poetry or song, if not both. And when Lan Zhan grew slowly older, year by year, as he collected the hard earned years that slowly piled on his back, he began to seek these stories independently.
From scrolls and books in the Library Pavilion to local fables passed on by mouth, Lan Zhan drank it all up. He learned how to take tales apart like arguments, how they were constructed, learned everything about storytelling that was under the sun and then ventured into the shadows to learn some more.
When he was six, his uncle had told him that his mother was gone. Lan Zhan did not know what gone meant, and so it did not phase him. He did not let it phase him. He continued to keep her company, and the snow that fell outside the house of gentians and magic continued to keep him cold.
By the time he was ten years of age, Lan Zhan finally realised that the stories he read seemed to, in some unbelievable way, already know the words he could never find for himself. He considered this revelation, in the awestruck and eager way that ten year olds do. Stories had become the centre of Lan Zhan’s life.
He began to quote things he read in regular conversation when unsure of how to speak his mind— a trait unsurprisingly praised and appreciated by his elders. Look at Wangji, his uncle would say. Learning so well. You all could stand to be more like him.
In private, other disciples would discuss these admonishments. Lan Zhan wondered if they knew he heard them, eventually deciding on giving them the benefit of the doubt. Everyone has their frustrations. Expressing them is only natural. It’s not our fault memorisation doesn’t come as easily to us, some of them would say. Wangji is exceptionally skilled, but why must we be held to the same standard?
They do not speak in malice against you, his brother had reassured him on occasion. We must have compassion for those held to expectations they do not consent to. He listened to these words with reverence, light dancing in his eyes in silent awe of someone who always seemed to have the words he needed. Xiongzhang told him not to take their words to heart, and so it did not phase Lan Zhan. He did not let it phase him.
He left his peers in the dark about how much thought went into every syllable he spoke, though some days it felt more like he was the one being left by them, if not in the dark then behind and if not behind, then in the emptiness of the hearty Library Pavilion. Eventually, Lan Zhan stopped quoting things in everyday conversation. The snow that had fallen as he sat outside his mother’s residence as a six year old fell over him again.
The arrival of the Jiangs in the Cloud Recesses was the first in a very long time that misconceptions about Lan Zhan’s character had phased him, in the devilish form of a certain sweating, smile-lipped, and worst of all drunk, Wei Ying. Wei Ying, with his tousled hair and shirt torn open, a song on his lips, who insulted Lan Zhan’s family and clan like respect meant nothing, all with a wine-flask in hand.
Wei Ying, whose eyes all but begged for trouble, and lips that complained loudly into the once silent Library Pavilion. The first time Wei Ying spoke Lan Zhan’s name, Lan Zhan fell through the ground. He forgot everything he knew about gravity. Wei Ying, who spoke his name with no care of the consequences, who told him he was frigid.
He seemed to leave as soon as he had come, and once Wei Ying was gone, Lan Zhan considered the word frigid. He knew what frigid meant; cold, wintry, bleak. That was standard. He had long gotten used to the disciples around him calling him cold and wintry and bleak. But one evening, as he stood in the Library Pavilion, reading a poem that he had read many times over, Lan Zhan thought that perhaps what Wei Ying had also meant by frigid was that he was unfeeling. Unloving.
Wei Ying had called him unloving.
Lan Zhan made his way across the room and lit a candle to let himself thaw. The rest of the night was spent busy on a zither, in a kind of desperate act of salvation for himself, notes of music that floated and scattered in the cold air, a melody so new and exhilarating that it could almost be compared to the feeling that this Wei Ying gave him. Almost.
The day the Library Pavilion burned down, Lan Zhan steeled himself against the ashes of his childhood home. He wondered if all stories would one day be lost. He wondered if they could be recovered. Brought back to life. Did they have a life force at all?
Some years later, Lan Zhan learned that storytelling was not as simple a thing as he had previously thought. Rumours spread, as rumours often do, while Wei Ying was missing in action, and Lan Zhan considered the last time he had seen him; eyes unresponsive and far gone, skin feverish and close, so close. He was sickly pale, a ghost of a boy in Lan Zhan’s arms, and Lan Zhan had never thought in his life that he would have felt so much like a coffin.
Sing to me, Lan Zhan, said the ghost, and how could Lan Zhan refuse? How could Lan Zhan refuse him? How could Lan Zhan say no, when the boy that was dying before him was the boy he loved? He took a breath, unnoticeable, and obliged. He took a breath, unnoticeable, and hummed a melody that he had brought into this world himself so many moons ago. He took a breath, unnoticeable, and brought the boy back to life.
Lan Zhan had thought that was the last time he would see Wei Ying as a ghost. He was wrong. The day of Wei Ying’s return, unfortunately, lacked the relief that Lan Zhan had dreamed of for over three months. It was, instead, the beginning of the end.
Wei Ying, once lively and flushed with every movement he made, now calculated his each step. In his eyes was a cruelty that Lan Zhan knew had not yet run its course, and he could not bear the thought of it doing so— running that course.
Wei Ying was now perpetually pale, an eerie expression creeping upon his face, like fear itself. In a time that had barely passed, he would have spoken light-heartedly, consequences be damned. But now it almost seemed like consequence was all he was. Him, now, as he stood; the product of consequence.
Lan Zhan watched him speak, a dry smile clouding over his face. His words, once lightsome, fell now with a heavy weight that pressed down upon Lan Zhan’s chest, a weight that didn’t let him breathe, a weight that took away any words he had safekept in his throat.
He almost let his tongue slip. Almost said Are you okay? Almost said I’m worried. Almost said I love you.
But he was well-versed in the art of grace. Grace, he had told himself, requires you to never slip. Grace requires you to walk ahead, to not look behind you, to keep your back straight. Later, Lan Zhan would learn that, in order to truly master the art of grace, one must say what they mean in all its overwrought glory. But lessons as such were only learned once it was far too late.
Wei Wuxian!
…Lan Wangji.
These were not the same lips that had called to him over and over in a once-quiet library. Cold, Lan Zhan thought. Wei Ying was freezing over. Lan Zhan knew this bitter, lonesome calmness well. It had been a childhood companion of his. He finally understood what Wei Ying had meant all those years ago when he had called him frigid.
❅
In the aftermath of a day that Lan Zhan would soon see vividly every night for years, snow fell outside as he held a small, shivering boy in his arms. It was the most painful of familiarities. The boy was wrapped in thick white cloth that looked far too clean against his dishevelled image, but Lan Zhan could feel the bone-deep chill he harboured even through it.
Lan Zhan was the one who broke the silence, a rare occurrence from a man taught not to speak unless spoken to. “Tomorrow,” he said, “you will be taken in by others.”
The boy looked up at him, eyes blank. Lan Zhan recognized something in them, something that the grief did not allow him to name.
“I will be away for a while.”
At this, the boy’s grip on Lan Zhan’s wrist tightened, though his eyes remained blank.
“The people here are strict, and you must be good, but you will be looked after well.” His voice was nearly a whisper.
The boy finally spoke. “Do you know any stories?” he mumbled, as if he had not heard Lan Zhan at all.
Lan Zhan considered. He knew many stories. “What kind of story do you want to hear?”
The boy lowered his eyes, and he said nothing for so long that Lan Zhan almost worried that he was unresponsive again. It had taken hours for him to come out of that state. “One about a hero.” Lan Zhan’s gaze flickered.
That night, after Wen Yuan fell asleep, Lan Zhan let himself weep thinking about stories of a hero. Not a conventional one— and possibly not a hero at all. Nonetheless, he cried silently until his throat stung as much as the bleeding lines on his back that warned insolence.
Roughly thirteen years later (it wasn’t like he had been keeping count or anything), Lan Zhan stood on Dafan Mountain, facing Sect Leader Jiang, thoughts elsewhere. He wasn’t sure exactly… where they were, but they were definitely not on the matter at hand.
The affair at Mo Village still lingered in his mind, and Mo Xuanyu’s presence at Dafan Mountain had shaken him much more than he liked. Lan Zhan did not like having to reel his hopes back in. It was a painful, disheartening ordeal. And he had already spent far too many years containing them. He took a breath, unnoticeable, and brought himself back to the present. In the corner of his eye, Mo Xuanyu watched the scene with wide eyes, less hidden away than Lan Zhan imagined he must have thought he was.
Sect Leader Jiang spoke, “Hanguang-Jun.” Lan Zhan did not like the way it sounded when Jiang Wanyin said it. “I see that you’re living up to your reputation of being where the chaos is.” Lan Zhan did not like the way his morals sounded when Jiang Wanyin talked of them, but he melted the ice that threatened to freeze him over. “You had time to come here of all places?”
“You’re here, too, though,” Lan Jingyi pointed out.
Sect Leader Jiang turned to Lan Zhan. “Does your clan teach its disciples to interrupt their seniors’ conversations? Aren’t you supposed to be known for respectful conduct?”
Not even sparing him a glance, Lan Zhan instead looked to the disciple beside him, who nodded knowingly. Lan Sizhui’s expression was calm, almost earnest, and Lan Zhan could feel the light dancing in Sizhui’s eyes as the boy looked at him. He knew that light. It was his, too, once upon a time. Lan Zhan felt pride spread through him like warmth.
The warmth turned to something more. The sight of Mo Xuanyu’s eyes as he had looked up at Lan Zhan from the ground crossed his mind. As Sizhui spoke, Lan Zhan once again found the place he had coveted for over a dozen years. Yet he had never been able to find the right key to unlock the door, and now, as Lan Zhan stood thinking of— of him— of Wei Ying, his Wei Ying— for whom his pride never ceased— he tightened his grip on the newfound key, and turned it in the lock.
Lan Zhan’s feet fell through the ground, and he heard his own name spoken through lips that had once complained loudly into the silent library that was Lan Zhan, and echoed into much further space than Lan Zhan had even known he contained in him. Wei Ying had opened him up like a flower in full bloom.
The voice seemed so close, as if the last time he had heard it was yesterday, and he fought off the urge to turn around. Because Wei Ying wouldn’t be there. Hope is an indispensable weapon to have, as Lan Zhan had learned, but it is destructive when used to fight the wrong battles.
He took in the feeling of Wei Ying, in all that he was and could have been, and perhaps in some world far from theirs, one day would be— and put the key away. Lan Zhan would visit this place again another time, he promised himself. But this remembrance could wait.
It could always wait.
After the unpleasant encounter with Sect Leader Jiang concluded, Lan Sizhui politely called to Mo Xuanyu, “Mo-gongzi, we meet again.” Lan Zhan saw Mo Xuanyu smile back. It was sweet, and unnervingly familiar. Lan Zhan forced away the shiver that ran down his back.
He simply said to the juniors, “Complete your tasks,” and after thinking for a moment, continued, partly in his own little act of inconspicuous contempt towards Sect Leader Jiang, but fully in sincerity, “Do what you can. Don’t force anything.” With that, the juniors dispersed.
He took one last glance at Mo Xuanyu, who still watched him with those same eyes that Lan Zhan had caught earlier, bronze in the daylight, and utterly startled. Lan Zhan could not bear it any longer. He gave Mo Xuanyu a nod— barely— a slight shift of the head, and headed off. The ghost of a key was safely tucked away somewhere in his robes. Lan Zhan hoped it would not fade before he could get a chance to hold it again.
In the coming hours, Lan Zhan was busy assessing a slew of spirit nets he found, when the sounds of an unknown thundering interrupted him. There was a distant painful whistling that rasped and resounded. It scraped against the air like it had a vendetta against nature itself, and it sounded more like wheezing than music. The far off screams and shouts that followed confirm Lan Zhan’s belief that his assistance was needed. Immediately, he left his task, and began to traverse to the source of the distressed sounds.
Lan Zhan wondered why Sizhui had not set off the flare immediately. He worried, and he worried, and he worried, briefly taking a short intermission to note that he trusted Sizhui, believed in his abilities completely, and then he worried some more. The worry did not erase his faith, of course. It was simply a pure kind of dutiful worry, the kind that never ceased to occur to him no matter how assured he truly felt. It was a fatherly kind of worry. Another habit picked up from having known Sizhui at his most vulnerable, and also from his uncle, who worried for Lan Zhan like no other, to that very day.
It was then that, as he contemplated the nature of his worry, Lan Zhan heard it.
He heard… it. There was really no other way to describe the sound. It was unmistakable, seared into his head and heart with a burning iron in the shape of a clan that no longer existed. It was burnt into the tips of his fingers, which had been raw night after night, muscle memory and heartache pouring music into the air. It was a song still on the tip of his tongue, still new and exhilarating like young love, intimate and warm like old love, and whatever lay in between. It was everything Lan Zhan had ever felt, and so much more.
The melody was broken up, in the same ugly whistle carrying itself through the mountain earlier, and still so sweet. So kind to him. Full of the gentle pains of youth. Lan Zhan found himself shining a bright white gold at the sound of it, shining the way he thought he would never be able to again.
It was a song that had been brought into the world in a desperate act of salvation. It proved to be nothing less than that, now, as well. There was no doubt in his mind. Doubt would have been blasphemy. He could not fathom how or why— but it was Wei Ying. It could not have been anyone else in this world, or any other world, for that matter. Later, he would remember that he was crying, but now, Lan Zhan barely noticed the blur of the world as he made his way to the chaos and the unrest and found his way home.
Stories were the centre of Lan Zhan’s life. Stories were the fabric of the universe, he believed. They held together the ground and the sky, met in the middle. They held together people, and places. Without stories, the world had nothing. Without stories, there was no connection. Without stories, there was no permanence.
Lan Zhan had written a melody when he was fifteen. Lan Zhan had written a feeling, he had written a person, he had written a story. He had not written an ending for it. Lan Zhan did not like endings. Nothing truly ever came to an end— it just paused, and perhaps it would not start again soon, but someday, the universe would tie up its loose ends. He believed wholeheartedly in this. And, in the off chance that the universe did not tie up its loose ends, he had learnt how to sew. Just as a precaution.
For thirteen years, Lan Zhan had carried around the inexplicable feeling that he had already reached his ending. This was it. The rest of his life was nothing more than an epilogue to a tragedy that would be told one day, passed down like a letter from another time, still sealed away in its old envelope.
And yet… the universe, indeed, had its way of tying up loose ends. It was not an ending if he did not want it to be. An ending could not phase him. He would not let it phase him. And as Lan Zhan saw Wei Ying standing on the mountain, unrecognisable save for the tune that left his dizi and the black that shrouded his figure, as he grabbed Wei Ying’s arm and felt himself fall through the earth, Lan Zhan knew one thing. Those thirteen years had not been an epilogue. This moment, now, this, this was merely the end of the beginning. The epilogue was nowhere in sight. But Wei Ying was.