Archive of Our Own

“He was terrifying.”

“Cruel.”

“A traitor.”

“A monster.”

All of these are things Lan Sizhui has heard before when people talk about Wei Wuxian. All of these are things he expects; the wider world knows only the legends, after all, and even in the cultivation world there are few who have interacted with the man directly. It makes sense for them to be misinformed, to lay too much blame at the man's feet even as they welcome him back as a hero after Jin Guangyao’s death.

But… for some reason hearing such comments hurts, now. Before he remembered where he came from, who he was, Lan Sizhui wasn’t so badly affected, but now… it's hard. It hurts, knowing that three tables over they’re talking about a man who's loved him since he was a toddler, who is literally the only reason he’s alive today.

It hurts, knowing that some of what they’re saying is true.

Around him, the Yiling Teahouse is different than the one he remembers. It might be new décor; it might be a completely different establishment. Either way, he can’t help the memory that comes to mind.

Hanguang-jun sitting next to him, brilliant in his white robes. A dark shadow with a smiling face to the other side, teasing with a playful tone.

Sweet porridge—a rare treat.

Happiness with a pair of wooden butterflies.

Glancing at the group of people—the ones gossiping so rudely—he finds himself gripping his white robes, their protective spells the only thing keeping them from tearing.

“Sizhui, they don’t know him like we do,” Lan Jingyi murmurs. “They don’t mean anything by it.”

“But they do,” Lan Sizhui says softly. He can’t express anything more but it's there, heavy in the air around them, in the tension drawn taut through his shoulders.

The disciples he's with all glance at each other. None of them particularly like hearing these things, not after all Wei Wuxian himself has done for them, but… they still seem so unaffected by it. As if the derision is normal, and they understand they’re the strange ones for thinking otherwise.

“They're talking about before he died, when he was the Yiling Patriarch and terrorized everyone for fun.” Lan Jingyi looks around before he keeps going. “Back then, he didn’t have a heart. He'd kill everyone, man or woman, elder or child, sick or healthy. Indiscriminate slaughter and grave desecration to make soldiers for his army of the dead. He was different back then.”

“You don’t know that,” Lan Sizhui bites.

“Everyone knows that. He’s nice now, but back then he was a monst—”

Slamming his sword on the table, Lan Sizhui stands up, glares at his food, and then his companions.

‘Unbecoming.’

He hears Hanguang-jun's voice in his head and straightens his posture. A glance around and he sees the entire teahouse looking his way, wondering what it is that would make a cultivation disciple act like this. Especially one from the Lan sect.

Taking a deep breath, he adjusts his robes and walks out, ignoring his companions’ concerned whispers.

Aimless, he wanders through the town's narrow streets, lamps flickering gently outside still-open establishments. There's a hint of something acrid in the air, a symptom of the Burial Mounds and their resentful energy, but it only plucks strings of warm memory and nostalgia. Many times they've passed through Yiling, and each was filled with his companions' complaints about the atmosphere and he's never understood their dislike.

Undoubtedly, he does now. For the others, this is an uncomfortable remnant of a war that's taken so much from their families. From them.

For him, it's the first home—the first safe place—that he actually remembers.

No wonder he's always felt just fine here.

The moon—still its lustrous grey-blue—watches him from its bedding of velvet starlight. Its light illuminates cobblestone streets that eventually turn into gravel roads that, after a while… turn into dirt.

He looks up into the mouth of the beast, as it were. The Burial Mounds, lair of the dastardly Yiling Patriarch himself, lay down this path.

And he needs to see it. Yearning deep in his chest propels him to pulling out his sword, mounting it and gliding into the air, flying above the treetops like the ravens that used to bring him rocks. He’s done this before, he knows. By himself, and held in Wei Wuxian’s arms.

Resentful energy swirls below, reaching out its tendrils to caress his ankles.

It's uncomfortable.

It's familiar.

Which… makes it more uncomfortable. Despite the humanity with which Hanguang-jun had talked about the Yiling Patriarch, Lan Sizhui was still raised in one of the top cultivation sects in the land, and one which ardently condemned anything but revulsion in response to such energy. Such discomfort had been vigorously trained into him at an early age.

“Look at the Yiling Patriarch,” they always said. “Look where that got him.”

Heat. Red, glowing energy outside his hole in the tree and a wretched scream—a too-familiar voice tearing itself apart.

Silence. Cheering.

Shuddering, he shakes the memories away. Whatever that was—and he has a sickening feeling that he knows, now—it's in the past.

Below him is a familiar wall, long overgrown with disuse.

Flying lower, he dismounts near the gateway, sheathing his sword with one smooth moment, and looks around.

Vines cover the cracked and crumbling stonework. Underneath he can see red lines of some sort. Paint?

Tearing away some of the growth, he exposes an old sigil, written in… in blood. It's like nothing he's seen before, but with well over a decade of cultivation experience, he can make out its purpose.

Protection.

A blood sigil for protection. He'd never known such a thing could exist.

Flames, a piece of paper on fire. Strong arms scooping him up and running into bright afternoon sunlight. Panic in a shout, a cadence more familiar than the voice wielding it.

Wei Wuxian was protecting them.

He knows this now. He's always known; Hanguang-jun taught him about the surviving members of the Wen sect (though not his relation) and the Yiling Patriarch's failed attempt to keep them alive, but it had never felt so personal. This glyph was made to protect him and what little blood family he'd had left.

Tightening, his throat restrains his tears, helps him keep the dignity required of a Lan disciple.

Taking a breath to center himself, he moves on, walking through the empty archway and into the woods beyond.

It's like walking through a memory. Every step he takes feels more and more familiar, and not because of his recent trek up here with the other juniors. It’s deeper than that—bone deep, almost, as if some core tenet of his very being was grown in this tainted earth, as if his proximity now is calling to something buried his soul. The feel and taste of polished bamboo in his mouth. Gentle chiding from the adults as he crawled out of the shrubbery in which he’d been hiding, holding that same tasseled stick.

The flute. Of course it’s Chenqing—Wei Wuxian had, with a fond smile, told him how he used to take it to chew on, wave it around to make the tassel dance in the wind.

Brushing gently past him, the breeze smells like the minerals of the earth here, unpleasant, but…

But familiar. All his life, he’d been told this place is cursed, haunted by the souls caught in its dark aura. No matter which clan he was visiting, which subject he was studying, the Yiling Burial Mounds were spoken of with grim solemnity, pursed lips. Too much resentful energy, they said. Too much pain. Nothing good lives there for long.

In the end, they were right, but it wasn’t the fault of the Burial Mounds. It wasn’t the energy or the miasma or the restless spirits or the barrenness that brought down what small happiness had been made in this place.

It was living, breathing people. Cultivators, who demanded the deaths of harmless innocents because of the blood into which they were born.

Despite its popularity as a story, the Siege of the Burial Mounds had never sat well with Lan Sizhui. Maybe it’s because he grew up with Hanguang-jun who, despite his reputation as someone strict and lawful, had always promoted a measured viewpoint of these sorts of events. Seniors in the clan taught him about the way the cultivation world came together to eradicate the scourge known as the Yiling Patriarch with a grand, heroic victory. Hanguang-jun had taught him about the people whose lives were lost—both the cultivators, and the innocents hiding from an unjust world—and what this pursuit of “justice” had cost.

Seniors taught Lan Sizhui that the Yiling Patriarch was evil, monstrous, heretical—motivated by bloodlust and control and sadism.

At the time, Hanguang-jun had merely told him a few stories from the past, ones of an annoying, cock-sure cultivator far smarter than he seemed, who recklessly threw himself into fights he couldn’t win to prevent injustice and protect the people he loved without a thought for the consequences. Of a boy who reached for the stars and swallowed a supernova, so foolishly sure of himself that he disregarded the concerns of everyone around him until it wrought his death.

Though Hanguang-jun had never mentioned the affections he had for Wei Wuxian, Lan Sizhui’s always heard the fondness in his voice, and the sadness when he reminded Lan Sizhui to listen to others. To not bite off more than he could chew. Some part of him has always known that Hanguang-jun, on some level, cared about the man—though he’d thought it pity—and he’d understood the stories as cautionary tales.

In the end, they were reminders of Wei Wuxian’s humanity, a counterbalance to the curses spit from everyone’s lips when the man was mentioned.

All his life, Lan Sizhui’s heard stories and all his life—or, at least, for the vast majority of it—Hanguang-jun had been there to provide perspective, to remind him that stories, especially those spread through gossip, never give the full picture.

Never has he felt that more keenly than he does now that he knows where he came from, who took care of him early in life.

After all, if the Yiling Patriarch corrupted everything he touched, then how is it that Lan Sizhui turned out alright after spending his early years with the man? Surely, there’d be some evidence, some trace of the Patriarch’s awful influence, but instead… he’s a model student. One of the best guqin players in Gusu. Ward of Hanguang-jun himself and the de facto leader on a lot of the Night Hunts with his peers. Though he could never be accused of arrogance, Lan Sizhui is well aware of how highly-regarded he is, and he knows it isn’t without reason.

Yet those same people who tell him he's a perfect example of Gusu-Lan's finest disciples would claim irrevocable corruption if they knew.

He wants to laugh and he wants to cry.

The world is so quick to judge, to turn on people, that it's no wonder Hanguang-jun was so strict with him, kept him firmly ensconced in the inner workings of the Lan sect and had the highest of standards for his composure. Why he was so adamant that Lan Sizhui’s origins were unimportant, it was his presence and demeanor in the Cloud Recesses that truly mattered. If it ever gets out that he was born a Wen, that he spent his early years on the lap of the Yiling Patriarch himself, chewing on the flute that haunts their nightmares…

There's no telling what people would do, regardless of who he is now.

Sure, the Yiling Patriarch is, once again, a hero of the people but they haven’t forgotten what he’d once done. He’s still regarded with plenty of mistrust and suspicion and terror, it’s just missing the outright hostility with which he’d initially been met on his resurrection. Even if he’s firmly on everyone’s side, they know what he’s capable of when he sets his mind to it and are cautious of stepping over some invisible line and inciting his wrath.

It won’t happen, of course. Wei Wuxian has the benefit of hindsight, now, and has made it clear to those around him that he knows he was beyond the pale, had taken things way too far, even for wartime. Nowadays, he keeps his responses measured, his cultivation minimal, and his disposition friendly. Gentle and fun and downright silly, he seems grateful for this second chance with no desire to go back to the old days and it’s easy to forget that despite his resurrection… he's still him.

That in the end, it was all choices he made, things he did. His loss of control was tragic, but rare enough that it couldn’t account for more than a small percentage of the cruelties he’s performed, the horrors he’s inflicted.

Stories of entire clan branches literally scared to death, of people having clawed their own eyes out, torn themselves apart, of sadistic killings extended over weeks as Wei Wuxian haunted his prey. Bodies found with chunks of wood stuffed down their throats, fields of clanmates that had ripped each other to shreds at his whim.

A few years ago, Lan Sizhui’d asked Hanguang-jun if any of it was true. Surely a man couldn’t willingly do such things. If he was using the power for good, he’d done good with it, right?

For an excruciatingly long moment he’d watched the play of emotions in his father’s eyes. Pain, mostly. Disgust. Fear. Heartache.

Regret.

“Is it true?” Lan Sizhui had asked again, after an eternity.

“Much of it is,” Hanguang-jun had replied in a carefully-measured voice, “though there’s a lot of embellishment.”

“Was he being controlled?”

“His temperament was negatively affected by the resentful energy he used, but… he made his own decisions.” Closing his eyes, Hanguang-jun had taken a deep breath. “There was nothing forcing him to make the choices he made.”

“But the Talisman…”

“Amplified his negative emotions. Lowered his inhibitions when it came to violence and cruelty. But it did not control his actions.” He’d stood, then, walking to the open doors and looking across the moonlit flowers outside. “A-Yuan, it is possible to believe in someone’s humanity and acknowledge the bad they’ve done. To have faith in someone, while standing against them. To treat them with respect, while holding them accountable. To give them the benefit of the doubt without trusting them blindly. It is possible to try to help, without supporting their wrongs. You must act in alignment with your own moral compass, and you must act with compassion, and you must always put the benefit of others before… before your own selfish feelings.”

Before Lan Sizhui’d had time to keep prying, Hanguang-jun had told him to change for bed, as Hai-shi had already begun and it wouldn’t do to sleep late.

The conversation had ended there, and neither of them had broached the topic again.

Stepping over a large branch, Lan Sizhui takes a deep breath. He’s grown up with the nightmare of the Yiling Patriarch, stories of him told to horrify and anger the audience. He’s grown up with the way rooms grew silent with a mention of Wei Wuxian’s name, faces pinching into sour revulsion.

He’s grown up knowing that there was more to the man than public opinion let on, and even that had been hard to reconcile, especially after they’d met. Even though he hadn’t known anything at the time, he’d felt an instant connection with the man he thought was Mo Xuanyu. A sense of safety and surety, especially when he laughed. Trusting him had been easy, and when the truth had come to light he’d already known him as a good and kind person. Had character evidence to say that this new Wei Wuxian wasn’t the same man who’d done all those things, despite what the world was saying.

Now that he has his memories of Xian-gege… of how much he’d loved the man and been loved in return…

Coming to the end of the tree line, seeing the wreckage of his former home, he's assaulted with the pain of long-forgotten memory. Flashes—too many flashes—bright sunlight and cool, acrid dirt. Laughter and sorrow, a fire that brought more than just heat and illumination. Welcoming laps and loving embraces and soft, encouraging words and he sobs, brought to his knees by the weight of it.

Home was here. Family was here.

“Xian-gege!” he hears a child cry happily. “Xian-gege! I have radish!”

A voice laughs above him. A man in black robes kneels, a bamboo flute tucked into his belt. His face is strange—not one Lan Sizhui could place without the context of the memory.

“Look at that, it's bigger than you are!”

The voice is familiar but not, colored by the years between, but the tone, the cadence… it's definitely him. It's Wei Wuxian, in his original body.

Clutching his chest he sobs—loud and broken—because the kindness in this man's eyes, the affection in his voice…

How could the world look at this man and see someone so evil? How?!

And how could this gentle person be the same cruel man they fear?

“A-Yuan,” an old woman says, “come eat your dinner. Xian-gege got us some good meat, eat it and become stronger.”

Leathery hands pinch his cheeks until he hears his child-self giggle, opening his mouth wide for a juicy morsel.

Nearby, Wei Wuxian laughs at something a woman says, shaking his head.

He looks over and smiles—a stranger's face but so familiar—before picking up the best of the few vegetables on his own plate and reaching over with it.

“Open up, A-Yuan. If you don’t eat your vegetables, you'll never get bigger than a radish!”

His fists are in the dirt now, clutching for any sort of purchase as he rides out this assault and he has to breathe.

Breathe.

Breathe.

The cave echoes with muffled shouting.

“This is killing you!” It sounds like a woman, and Lan Sizhui draws closer to an area he knows he’s not supposed to be near.

A man’s voice, then. Hard to understand but wet and raw. And angry.

Footsteps as someone moves around and then, “I am a doctor. The best in my clan.” Wen Qing, then. Peeking around the edge of the wall, he sees Wen Qing and a shirtless man sitting on a large, flat rock, his lower torso wrapped in bandages. “Do not tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about! You—you have to stop this before it—”

“What, and abandon all of you, too?” A tearful laugh comes from the man and then he stands suddenly, throwing a wine jug to the floor and shattering it. “HAVE I NOT LOST ENOUGH?!”

He turns, looking at her, with long-healed scars in the low center of his chest, as if a hand had torn into him. Above it is a brand mark, the same shape and place as Hanguang-jun’s.

The way the man’s hair falls obscures most of his features but there are tears rolling down splotchy red skin and he’s… shaking. “You know I don’t have a choice, anymore. If I don’t kill them, they’ll kill all of you and all of this would have been—”

Strong hands grab Lan Sizhui from behind and he’s lifted into his uncle’s arms.

“A-Yuan! Grandma needs your help with dinner,” he says, carrying him out as the arguing continues.

“But…”

“Don’t worry about him, he’s just in a bad mood. But look! Up in the tree! It’s a raven!”

His child-self giggles, already distracted.

Wei-qianbei… It must have been him, because there’s no one else who dressed in black like that. No one else who carried the fate of the Wen survivors on their shoulders with the same fierce determination.

And after everything the Wen sect did to the Jiang sect.

How could he have—

“A-Yuan!”

He looks up from his patch of dirt—formed into a mountain with a stick at the top—to see a flute and a flurry of black silks as Wei Wuxian sits next to him.

“Xian-gege!”

Smiling, Wei Wuxian sets a wooden plate down.

“I got you a treat in town today,” he says, pulling out a vibrant red apple.

When Lan Sizhui reaches out, though, he snatches it away.

“Let Xian-gege cut it up for you, hm? Your hands are covered in nasty dirt.”

Quickly, Wei Wuxian takes a knife to the apple. “I picked the best one for you, you know. Had to pay a lot of money for it, so you better eat it all or I’ll never buy you another one, do you understand?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Listen to Gege—good fruit is like a jug of wine. Don’t waste the opportunity to enjoy some, and savor every last bit.”

He holds out a piece of apple, smiling despite the harsh dark circles under his eyes, the gauntness of his cheekbones.

“Look, it’s a rabbit!”

It is, with its piece of skin cut to look like pink ears and the white flesh as the rabbit’s soft fur. He holds it out, in a good position for Lan Sizhui to take a bite.

Blurred by the haze of memory, the apple’s taste is lost save its tartness, a sensation pulling at Lan Sizhui’s cheeks with such strength he couldn’t forget if he’d wanted to.

“Wei-gongzi,” someone says from above, “will you celebrate with us tonight?”

“Of course! It’s not every day A-Yuan turns three! What an occasion!”

He sounds happy. Elated, even. Relieved that Lan Sizhui had made it to his third birthday and that they had something—anything—to celebrate.

Beating his fists on the ground, Lan Sizhui lets out an anguished cry, forcing himself to look up through his tears at the moonlit devastation before him.

There should be houses here. Small huts they built from the woods nearby. There should be gardens, people milling about happily and working on turning this hostile, barren land into their new home. Healing from the world’s assault against them.

Instead, he sees only charred logs. Ashes. Furrowed ground growing lush with craggy grass and shrubbery.

A home destroyed.

“Lan Sizhui!”

Someone's yelling from behind him but it takes a hand yanking on his shoulder for him to look up.

The exasperation on Jin Ling's face fades into concern as he looks down.

“What… what happened to you?”

Only now does he bother to think about what he must look like, kneeling in the dirt of the cursed Burial Mounds without a care for his white robes, face a blotchy mess as he hiccups. Looking down, he can see streaks of dirt on his chest and arms, the way his sword still lies half-buried where it had fallen.

Reaching out, he picks it up.

“This place gives me the creeps,” Lan Jingyi says as he draws near.

“Shut up,” Lan Sizhui mutters.

“What was that?” Lan Jingyi has the nerve to look offended, and Lan Sizhui stands.

“I said, ‘shut up',” he replies as he brushes his robes off.

“It's where the Yiling Patriarch went… you know…” He makes a ‘crazy’ gesture at the side of his head and Lan Sizhui tosses his sword aside, grabbing his shidi's lapels.

“Shut up!”

Pushing him away, Lan Jingyi fixes his clothing.

“What's gotten into you?!” he asks.

Unable to answer, Lan Sizhui turns, white-sleeved fist holding his anger in his mouth. Ashes and rumors are all that remains of what he knew. Who he loved. Where he lived.

“Sizhui,” Jin Ling says in a more measured tone than he's likely ever managed in his life, “you’re not yourself.”

Lan Sizhui looks at him. Takes the sword the other boy is holding out.

All of the other disciples are looking at him with varying degrees of shock.

Understandable. Lan Sizhui's never been one for emotional outbursts like this—or cursing, if he’s being honest—and now he's done both multiple times in one night.

‘Unbecoming.’ Hanguang-jun’s voice echoes in his head, but… he would understand, right? He knows the burden of memory—Lan Sizhui has seen it throughout his life in his father's eyes often enough that he knows it’s true.

“Is it because he tortured people here?” Lan Jingyi says and Lan Sizhui glares. “I heard he did all sorts of—”

“Bullshit,” Lan Sizhui bites, eliciting gasps from his companions. “He never hurt people here. It wasn’t like that.”

Jin Ling adds, “I heard he kept a whole group of those Wen-dogs here to experiment on.”

“It wasn’t like that!” Lan Sizhui shouts as he tackles Jin Ling. “He was protecting them! He was keeping them safe!” Shaking his friend by the front of his shirt he can feel the tears flowing again. “They were innocent! They did nothing wrong! He was keeping us safe!”

Collapsing forward, he loses the strength to keep going, instead just clutching the shimmering gold fabric in his hands as he cries.

“He was keeping us alive. This—Here—It was old people. Simple people. Farmers. A grandmother. A-A child. We weren't a threat, we hadn't—we hadn’t done anything wrong and they were trying to kill us!”

Jin Ling is blinking at him, anger and indigence slowly shifting into something unreadable.

“We?”

Sniffling, Lan Sizhui nods.

“I knew him,” Lan Sizhui sobs. “I knew him—the Yiling Patriarch. That child was me. Wen Yuan. He—he saved us, and we made a home here and he fought for us, every day and—” He's choking now on the life he'd forgotten. “He was a good man.”

“He killed my parents,” Jin Ling spits, pushing Lan Sizhui off him. “Not only did he kill them, but thousands more! In one go! And you're saying he was good?!” His hand moves to his sword, gripping the hilt without exposing the blade.

“Even if Wei-qianbei is nice now that he's not so powerful,” Lan Jingyi says, “that doesn’t change what he did.”

A brightly-painted butterfly held tight in a tiny hand, shining in the light of the sun as Lan Sizhui toddles towards the cave. New paints. New colors. And he wants to show Xian-gege!

Shouts ring through the cavern as he toddles as fast as his little legs will carry him, but they echo so much that he can’t make out what’s being said.

And his butterfly is so pretty…

Beaming, he runs down the passage and into the back room—the forbidden room—and—

Wen Ning is on the floor, a dusty footprint on his chest.

Wen Qing is standing in the corner, shaking as she wrings her hands.

Xian-gege has his fists clenched as he towers over Wen Ning, hair wild and clothes mussed and when Lan Sizhui takes a step back—makes a sound—the man whips around to look at him. Glaring furiously, his eyes are bloodshot and wild and cruel and…

Terrifying.

Lan Sizhui feels true, abject terror and he drops his butterfly, bursts into tears as his Si-Shu grabs him and hurries out.

“You could have killed anyone!” he hears Wei Wuxian shout as he’s taken away. “Why did you have to kill Jin Zixuan?!”

Once they’re outside, even the sunlight isn’t enough to assuage his tears, and the shouting coming from the cave makes him cry even harder. He hadn’t understood what was going on, why Xian-gege was so angry at him. He hadn’t understood why, all of a sudden, Xian-gege looked really, really mean.

“What am I supposed to do?!” he hears from the cave, the anguish in Wei Wuxian’s voice almost palpable.

“Xian-gege,” he sobs.

“Xian-gege isn’t mad at you, A-Yuan. He lost someone important,” Si-Shu murmurs, rocking him gently. “He’s very upset and can’t… can’t control himself very easily.” Walking further into the forest, Si-Shu sighs. “He’ll feel better soon. I promise.”

“Why are you crying?” Jin Ling asks incredulously.

“He didn’t mean to,” Lan Sizhui says. “He—he never meant to hurt them. After your esteemed father was…” Taking a deep breath, he steadies his voice. “Wei-qianbei was furious. With Wen Ning. With himself.” Shuddering, he tries to repress the memory of that murderous glare.

“Do you remember this?” Jin Ling’s glare deepens somehow, but Lan Sizhui nods nonetheless.

“Not much. I—He—Really, I just remember how…”

Utterly and completely terrifying—

“Broken he seemed afterwards,” Lan Sizhui finishes.

As jarring as the memory was, it’s only one of many and… and it’s…

Dissonant.

Everything else is happy, mostly. Wei Wuxian was kind. Played with Lan Sizhui every single day without fail. Took him on errands to let him see the world, to give him time away from the energy suffusing the Burial Mounds. He—he was kind but there were times he wasn’t and it’s—it’s—

“Maybe he shouldn’t have done it then!” Jin Ling grabs Lan Sizhui by the collar, slams him against a tree. “He was broken?! My entire family is broken and it’s his fault!!”

“I know,” Lan Sizhui replies. “I know, and there’s—there’s no escaping what happened, but it wasn’t intention—”

Jin Ling slams him into the tree again, fury and anguish warring in his eyes.

“He still CHOSE THIS!” Jin Ling shouts. “He chose the heretic’s path! He was one of the best cultivators of his generation and he threw it away for—for nothing!”

“He lost control,” Lan Sizhui whispers. “He would never have killed your parents intentionally. Never.”

“If he cared so much, why did he risk it?!”

Another slam against the tree and Lan Sizhui’s head hits a knot of wood and it hurts, but not as much as the distrust in his friend’s eyes.

“I…”

“Tell me!!” He shakes him again, presses fists into his chest as if he can reach inside to grab the truth and pull it out but Lan Sizhui merely gestures at the other disciples to stand down. Their involvement would only make it worse. Eyes on fire, Jin Ling shouts, “He could have renounced everything and come back! If he cared so much, he could have—if he’d just—if he’d stopped, he could have—They might still be—”

“I don’t know,” Lan Sizhui says softly. “I’m sorry. I just know he wanted to protect people, and that the Talisman… It affected him… twisted things. The way it sounded when Hanguang-jun talked about it, it sounded like he was… almost unrecognizable when he…”

Tore himself to shreds.

With a huff, Jin Ling looks away, whatever arguments he can come up with falling flat before they reach his tongue. Repeatedly, they’ve encountered Wei-qianbei out and about in their travels. Every single time he protected them. Cared for them. Threw himself into danger on their behalf, despite his heavily-weakened state. All of the disciples had a level of trust in him, but Jin Ling… must be feeling so conflicted.

Maybe if he saw the Yiling Patriarch the way Lan Sizhui had, he might understand.

“He used to tell me stories,” Lan Sizhui says softly, “about the first time he saw the Burial Mounds. Of course, he acted like everything was funny, but the more I remember…”

Pushing Jin Ling gently away, he walks further into the ruins of the camp.

“He knew what falling felt like, he said, but hadn’t realized how long it could take,” Lan Sizhui murmurs. “He was comforting me. I'd just skinned my knee after falling off… off… I think it was that wall over there,” he says, pointing, “and… I said it was a big fall. It felt like one; I was so little. He said he'd fallen from the sky the first time he came.”

Looking up, he sees the night sky, the stars half-obscured and the moon reddened from the miasma and it’s so familiar it aches.

“He told me stories about fighting his way out. Powerless, he said, with nothing but a flute he’d carved with a sharp stone.” Lan Sizhui sighs. “I remember… I remember him talking to one of my older cousins—Wen Qing, I think—and telling her that he'd go back if he had a choice, but she knew what he'd done. What he'd given up. What he had to fight for.”

He frowns. With the seasoned training of a Lan Sect Disciple and renewed clarity, he starts putting the pieces together.

“He was adamant that he had no choice. He… he sobbed once, saying he could never be the same.”

There isn’t much he remembers of these sorts of things. Clearly, there had been conflict. Pain. Anger. But he was a child, and most memories like that end with warm arms picking him up, Grandmother's voice talking of other, more pleasant things. Of course. They would have sheltered a child from such negativity, especially in a world hostile enough as it was.

“I think… something happened to his ability to cultivate,” Lan Sizhui says softly. “I never saw him with a sword.”

“The Core-Melting Hand?” Jin Ling asks.

Lan Sizhui shrugs. “I don’t know.”

Walking to the right, Lan Sizhui looks down at a patch of dirt.

“He buried me in the garden, once.”

“He what?!” Jin Ling shouts. “Alive?!”

“Not like that. Just up to my neck. Told me he would use me to grow more radishes. More kids, so I had someone to play with.” He laughs, wiping a tear away. “My cousin told him to stop talking nonsense, but he kept going, talking about how many radishes one A-Yuan could sprout.”

Walking towards the ruined buildings, he can hear the other disciples following him.

“We lived here,” he says. “Wei-qianbei had his own place in the cave, but the rest of us lived in here. I had a little mat near the hearth.”

Climbing over charred beams and scattered ash, he makes his way inside.

“I woke up under his cloak sometimes, if the night had been particularly cold.”

Soft black silk on his cheeks, enough fabric for him to get lost in. The soothing scent of woodsmoke mingled with something metallic and tart and fruity, surrounding him in an aura of safety. Peeking out to see Wei Wuxian kneeling near one of his uncles, holding out medicinal herbs. Turning, he’d smiled.

“A-Yuan! Good morning!”

The floor plan feels completely unfamiliar to him and it’s almost disorienting. There are few remnants of his former life here. Scraps of tattered paper… a half-burnt wooden bucket in the corner.

Pictures drawn at knee-height on one of the longer walls.

Kneeling, he moves the debris away, dusts it off with his sleeve before he bursts out in tearful laughter.

“I stole some ink once and tried to draw dancing radishes on the wall here,” he says. “Xian-gege… Wei-qianbei… he sometimes entertained me with them. The radishes. We had so many extra, we could spare a few and he’d carve little faces. Smiles. Whistled and made them dance to make me laugh.”

“Is that what those're supposed to be?” Jin Ling asks.

Lan Sizhui nods.

Walking out, he sighs and looks around. There really isn’t much left here besides knee-high walls and the remnants of an attempt at a pond.

But there’s the cave…

Lan Sizhui mostly remembers it from the last time they were here, when he'd seen the corpses of his family rise up to protect him once more. The first area he enters is the most familiar. He knows that once, it was full of cobbled-together tables and steaming rice and people eating together.

Strong arms around him as his small body shakes.

“A-Yuan, A-Yuan, you’re okay,” Wei Wuxian murmurs.

Still sniffling, Lan Sizhui nestles closer, curls up a bit more, the heat from a nearby fire comforting.

“It was a bad dream. Just a dream.” The torso wraps around him as the man leans down. “I have those too,” he whispers. “I know they can be scary, but they aren’t real. They can’t hurt you.”

Looking up, Lan Sizhui sees a gaunt face, shadowed eyes, and a reassuring smile.

“Anyways, you have Xian-gege here to protect you. I’ll fight off anyone who tries to hurt you, no matter who it is!” He squeezes Lan Sizhui in his arms. “I promise, the only way they’ll get past me is if I’m dead, and even then, they’ll have trouble.”

“Wei-gongzi!” Grandmother hisses.

“It’s true.” The shift in Wei Wuxian’s tone—lighthearted reassurance to a cold determination—is subtle, but there. “Whoever comes after you, whoever has the audacity to try to hurt you… I’ll kill every. Last. One of them.”

A moment of awkward silence before Lan Sizhui is moved to one leg, sat up a bit more.

“Come, now,” Wei Wuxian says in a decidedly more cheerful tone. “A-Yuan, look at our breakfast today!” He grabs his chopsticks, picks up a piece of egg glistening with a bit of chili oil, and holds it close. “Open up!”

Warmth. Love. Lan Sizhui remembers all of that and he glances over to the hearth nearby, cold and dusty. Nearby is the path to the next area and he follows it.

It still has the remnants of a bed in a small offshoot.

“Wei-qianbei lived in here when he wasn’t in the room with the blood pool,” he says softly. “He used to sleep a lot, but sometimes I'd come in to get him for one reason or another. No matter how tired he was, he always smiled at me.”

“Wine jugs everywhere,” Jin Ling mutters, poking an extremely dusty one with his sword.

Wine. Lan Sizhui has very few memories of anything wine-related beyond everyone celebrating an uncle's special brew, but… he has a lot of memories of these jugs held carelessly in Wei Wuxian's fingers, lifted to his lips and pouring down his cheeks.

How much did he drink? How often?

Why?

A coping mechanism? Just a love for the taste?

No, from what he's seen on his travels with Wei Wuxian, the man's always drunk the most when he had something on his mind. Drunk the most, laughed the hardest… It’s like the more the world beats him down, the more he defies it.

How much pain was he in, during his time here? He'd lost everything, been ostracized from the cultivation world, hardly anyone willing to have a friendly interaction with him, much less ally themselves publicly with this heretic. This much, Lan Sizhui knows from his fellow cultivators.

From his adopted father.

And still, despite everything he was feeling, he made the time to play with Lan Sizhui. To look happy. To shield him from everything.

Black robes and shaking shoulders, long black hair falling carelessly forward. Lan Sizhui toddles closer to the man on the bed, uncertain feet struggling with the rough terrain.

“Xian-gege…”

A sniffle. Was he crying?

“Xian-gege, up!”

Putting a hand on the large leg next to him, Lan Sizhui looks up and sees tears and red eyes when Wei Wuxian looks at him.

A moment of hesitation, a shaking lip, but then he smiles.

“A-Yuan!” he says cheerfully, pulling Lan Sizhui onto his lap. “A-Yuan! What are you doing all the way in here?!”

Reaching up with his small, stubby little fingers, Lan Sizhui touches the tears.

“Oh, no…” he hears his child-self say.

Laughing—convincingly enough to set a child at ease—Wei Wuxian wiggles him around.

“Today is an auspicious day! For you, at least,” he says, grinning. “Do you know why?”

Lan Sizhui shakes his head.

“Xian-gege found a strange pepper in the market today, and I ate it! And it was so spicy it made me cry! That’s right, you’ve—You’ve seen the Yiling Patriarch brought to tears by a lowly pepper! I’m so ashamed, A-Yuan! Ashamed! The smallest of peppers! Barely bigger than your big toe!”

Tickling Lan Sizhui’s belly, he has him thrashing around in no time, laughing and squirming and thoroughly distracted from the worries of the world.

As if a single pepper was spicy enough to make Wei Wuxian cry like that. Lan Sizhui’s seen the man’s tastes now. Seen how fast he goes through chili oil at the Cloud Recesses. And yet… the excuse worked and his tears—and the worry they caused—were forgotten.

With a tearful smile of his own, Lan Sizhui continues through, ducking his head as he pushes through his compatriots towards the end of the cave.

Shivering—with the cold, with foreboding—he walks down the narrow passage into the large chamber with the blood pool. In the corner is a mess of straw and blankets. On the floors and walls are remnants of arrays and spells and all sorts of paper talismans.

Papers litter the ground around them and Lan Sizhui walks from scrap to scrap, looking for anything but there’s nothing of import. Hardly anything with writing on it at all. Kneeling, Lan Sizhui takes in the space and its energy.

“What was this room?” Jin Ling asks. “Besides the obvious,” he says with a gesture at the blood pool.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what he did in here. I… don’t really remember this from my childhood, much. At all. I probably wasn’t allowed in.” He takes a deep breath, feeling out the energy around him. “A workspace, maybe. He used to experiment. I know he did; he used to be dragged out with—”

Blood. Soot.

Burned robes and choking gasps.

“With?” Lan Jingyi prompts unhelpfully.

“Stuff all over him,” Lan Sizhui says. “Just… stuff.”

A cut on his arm deep enough that Lan Sizhui remembers a flash of white bone.

“I really don’t know. I was three.”

He turns to his friends.

“I know Wei-qianbei did… really awful things. But the man I knew saved my life. He was kind. He… he protected me with everything he had until there was nothing more he could give.” Blinking back tears, he looks back at the tattered talismans all over the walls. The bloodstains on the floor.

“Xian-gege was gentle. He told me stories and played with me every day without fail. Gave me piggy-back rides and took me into town to get me away from this place. He taught me so much. He was like… like my dad, back then.” And he hadn’t realized it before, but… he'd always missed him—this man who used to get in trouble just as often as a toddler, who used to laugh at everything and flit around from place to place to place.

The Cloud Recesses have always felt like home, yes, but it had always felt like there was something missing. That spark of life that Wei Wuxian had in infectious spades. That carefree celebration of freedom.

“To the world, he was a villain but… to me…”

He chokes on a feeling he can’t name, tears running freely down his cheeks.

“The world didn’t know the man who helped raise me for however long I was here. But I did. For me, he… he meant safety. Home. Hearing Xian-gege laugh made everything feel like it was going to be okay.” Sniffling again, he scrubs at his face with his dirty sleeve. “He made me toys and told me stories and ran around with me and he'd hold me when I was scared, cuddled up on his lap near the fire and he always promised he’d fight off whatever frightened me, no matter what it was, and I knew it was true.”

Taking a deep, shaky breath, Lan Sizhui stares at the blood pool, remembers how his family came together to protect him and Wen Ning and Wei-qianbei.

“Hanguang-jun used to tell me about Wei-qianbei. Not a lot, but… He lost control, he overestimated his power and abilities, but… he didn’t want bloodshed for the sake of bloodshed. He wanted peace. And he'd do anything for those he loved no matter what it cost him in the end.”

He knows, because he's seen the man in action now. Seen the way he throws himself into danger to protect others. In his heart, he knows how good and kind and just Wei Wuxian is and was, and he just wants someone else to understand. To listen. To know.

“He tried until it broke him, and then he tried some more.”

Looking at Jin Ling, he tries for a sympathetic look. “I've seen him when he looks at you. I've seen the pain and regret and love in his eyes. He never meant to hurt your parents, I'm sure of it. He never really talked about his family, but I remember him telling me once his shijie made the best lotus rib soup in the entire universe and I could tell even that young that he loved her. He wouldn’t have done it on purpose.”

Jin Ling turns away now, tears in his eyes.

“He did bad things,” Lan Sizhui says, looking at the blood pool, “but he was never a bad person.”

“You really remember him?” Lan Jingyi asks.

Smiling, Lan Sizhui nods and heads outside.

“Of course I do,” he says softly, looking at the comforting orange of the moon. “He raised me.”

Talking about the relief he feels knowing he has Xian-gege back would be insensitive, he thinks with a glance at Jin Ling. After all, it’s almost impossible for the dead to come back and Jin Ling… he’d likely give anything to know his mother’s arms. His father’s smile. Yet the universe offers him no such reprieve.

Meanwhile, despite being orphaned young, Lan Sizhui had been adopted as well, first by Wei-qianbei, and then by Hanguang-jun after the former’s death. He’d mourned, yes, but his memories of his life before Gusu had faded with illness after he was taken into Hanguang-jun’s care. He’d had a new father, one who was strict but loving, who’d dote on him and give him the world if he was selfish enough to ask. He had a new life and a new name, safe from harm and hunger and uncertainty, cared for and claimed by the Lan sect’s second disciple.

And he’d been able to forget his loss in a way Jin Ling never could. Never can.

What a cruel twist of fate, for the universe to bring back Wei Wuxian. In forcing Jin Ling to confront the man responsible—indirectly or otherwise—for his parents’ death it also gave Lan Sizhui his parent back, and before he’d ever even known what he was missing.

He’s grateful.

He’s sorry.

Part of him wants to reach out. To take his friend’s hand and promise to be there for him, to apologize for his own good fortune, but Jin Ling is… not the type to be so accepting of such displays. They’re unseemly, as well, and so he contents himself with holding his sword properly, walking over to Jin Ling.

“You’re annoying,” Jin Ling says before he gets within arm’s reach and Lan Sizhui smiles.

“My apologies, Jin-zongzhu.”

“Stop calling me that,” he mutters.

“A-Ling? Xiao-Ling? Jin Rulan?”

Eyes wide, Jin Ling looks at him.

“Oh. Oh, it makes so much sense.” He slams his fist into his open palm. “You having been raised by Wei-qianbei makes everything make sense!”

“Such as?”

“You’re so annoying, sometimes,” he says, “and you always whistle just like he does when you think no one can hear you.”

“I don’t!” Lan Sizhui stammers, cheeks growing hot. Idle whistling is frowned upon in the Cloud Recesses, and he…

“You do,” Lan Jingyi says, “I hear you all the time.”

“I… You… You can’t tell Lan Qiren, he might actually murder me.”

Jin Ling snorts. “I'll just tell Hanguang-jun, then.”

At this, Lan Jingyi rolls his eyes.

“Hanguang-jun won’t punish him for something that small; he has a soft spot for Yuan-shixiong.”

“He does not,” Lan Sizhui says. “He gets after me just like everyone else. Worse, even, because he pulls me aside and starts lecturing me about maintaining decorum and following our tenets and everything, even more than he does you lot.”

“Hey,” Jin Ling says softly, “I've always wondered; why are you so close to Hanguang-jun?”

“He raised him,” Lan Jingyi declares before Lan Sizhui can get the words through the sticky feeling in his chest. “Didn’t you used to live with him?”

Lan Sizhui nods.

“He took me in when I was about three and had me added to the family registry as his son.” Lan Sizhui knows, though, that they were asking something else, too. “After Wei-qianbei died, he came here and found me hidden away and he took me home with him. I… was the only survivor of the Siege.”

“Wasn’t that right after Hanguang-jun’s…” Lan Jingyi trails off but Lan Sizhui knows what he's talking about.

The story of Hanguang-jun’s whipping was one of those things everyone in the Lan sect knows about, but no one discusses.

Lan Sizhui most of all.

Some of his earliest memories from his time at Gusu are tainted crimson—stolen glimpses through the door when the doctor came to visit, piles of bloody bandages and red blooming across Hanguang-jun's back if he moved wrong. Fierce scarlet lines crisscrossing pale skin. It had frightened him, but Hanguang-jun had been quick to ease those fears.

He'd passed it off as just an injury that was taking its time to heal. It was only later that Lan Sizhui had learned about the brutal wounds left by the discipline whip and the long, arduous healing process, assuming the person survived.

It was well after that he'd heard of Hanguang-jun's whipping and connected the dots.

And yet, like Xian-gege, he'd never been without kindness and gentle words for Lan Sizhui. No matter how much pain he was in, no matter how recently the doctor had come to smear pungent medicine over the wounds, he'd never shown more than the barest hints that something was wrong.

“Hanguang-jun’s what?” Jin Ling asks.

Lan Jingyi glances around and moves close to whisper, “He hurt some of our cultivators once, trying to defend Wei-qianbei. They whipped him for it.”

It's the extreme short version of the story, but still carries enough weight that Jin Ling doesn’t press. Not that line of conversation.

“So even back then, he was a cut-sleeve?”

The look on Lan Sizhui's face must be truly frightening given the way Jin Ling backs off immediately.

“I mean, like, we know how he… is… with Wei-qianbei but… do you think back then, too?”

They're both looking at Lan Sizhui now and… well, the answer is yes. It must be, because Hanguang-jun's never talked about Wei-qianbei with anything but mournful respect and some deeply-hidden measure of affection. Because when the topic of the Yiling Patriarch comes up at cultivation events, Zewu-jun always glances at Hanguang-jun, watching his response and moving to distract him if he seems upset. Because ever since he’s come back, Hanguang-jun has indulged Wei Wuxian more than he’s ever done anyone besides Lan Sizhui, even when he’s getting annoyed beyond measure, and always with love and gratitude in his eyes.

But not everyone can understand the Twin Jades quite like Lan Sizhui can, having been raised by them. Not everyone can look at Hanguang-jun and discern his emotional state from the set of his eyebrows and mouth and shoulders and hands, to understand what he's saying when he doesn’t use words. Likely something at least partially intentional on his part.

“I can't say,” Lan Sizhui says softly. “You'd have to ask Hanguang-jun.”

“Even Lan Sizhui himself doesn’t know,” Lan Jingyi says. “I wonder if Zewu-jun would tell us.”

“Or you could stop being a coward and ask him yourself,” Lan Sizhui says. “If it feels too invasive to do so, it probably is. Conduct yourself with discretion and dignity, and don’t seek idle gossip, especially that which doesn’t concern you.”

“Right, right, none of our business,” Lan Jingyi says, crossing his arms. “You sound just like him, sometimes, you know?”

Ouyang Zizhen speaks up. “Wouldn’t that be romantic, though? Lovers, separated by ideals and war but drawn to each other… Love lingering beyond the grave…”

Face suddenly growing warm, Lan Sizhui turns away.

“It’s improper to talk about someone’s parents that way,” he says. “Especially when that person is present.”

“Ah, I apologize,” he says with a bow.

“Your parents?” Jin Ling says.

“They raised me,” Lan Sizhui replies softly. “I’ve never known any others. I hope it doesn’t offend you that I think of Wei-qianbei that way.”

Jin Ling sighs and looks to the side, his hands on cocked hips.

“No, no. It’s just bad enough having him as my uncle—on both sides, technically! I’d be sick if I had to watch him hanging off Hanguang-jun every day. It’s already bad enough seeing them as often as I do.”

Merely smiling in response, Lan Sizhui sighs.

This isn’t the first time someone’s asked how he feels with Wei Wuxian being a second father (unusual enough in and of itself), but it always feels like they think something’s wrong or he’s lying if he says he’s perfectly fine with it.

But really, he’s happy, and more importantly… so is Hanguang-jun. All his life, Lan Sizhui’s watched his father move through the world with a constant shroud of sadness, a set to his shoulders that belied the burdens he pretended not to carry. He’s watched his father’s eyes—always sad, always searching, always distant—and the set of his mouth and known that almost every happiness he’d had was tainted somehow, but ever since Wei-gongzi came back, it’s been different.

He's been happier than Lan Sizhui’s ever seen him, and that… makes Lan Sizhui happy, too.

Taking a deep breath, Lan Sizhui turns to his companions, raises his sword in front of his chest, and bows.

“I… apologize for my outburst earlier,” he says softly. “I caused you all a lot of trouble, and was unfairly taking out my emotions on you.” He turns now to Jin Ling and bows again. “Jin-zongzhu, I also want to apologize if my defense of Wei-qianbei caused any offense. Or hurt. I understand that I—”

Jin Ling’s hand is under his arms, lifting him out of the bow.

Straightening up, Lan Sizhui looks at him.

“Zongzhu?”

Blushing, looking to the side, Jin Ling focuses on a bush. He seems to be struggling to put whatever it is he’s thinking into words, but… Lan Sizhui is nothing if not patient. He can wait, and so he does.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jin Ling says softly, a long moment later. “Accidents happen. And… I know him now, too. Better. Thank you.”

Beaming, Lan Sizhui nods. It’s forgiveness he’s hearing—of any missteps he made, yes, but more importantly… of Wei Wuxian. Even before they’d found out he wasn’t Mo Xuanyu, Jin Ling had already been softening up to him. Trusting him more and listening to his advice. Even looking up to him, just before his identity was revealed. It must have been a huge blow finding out that the disgraced uncle he was growing begrudgingly fond of was, in actuality, Wei Wuxian himself. Furthermore, Wei Wuxian hadn’t confirmed it when asked directly, and that must have felt like a lie, which…

Well, it’s obvious why Jin Ling’s been struggling with this. But he seems hopeful now, and… so is Lan Sizhui.

“You know,” Lan Jingyi says cheerfully, “this kind of makes you and Yuan-shixiong cousins…”

“Wei Wuxian is not Mo Xuanyu,” Jin Ling retorts, clearly embarrassed.

“He’s in Mo Xuanyu’s body,” Lan Jingyi says, listing things on his fingers, “he’s your uncle’s Shixiong, and isn’t Zewu-jun your late uncle’s sworn brother? That, and you yourself said he was your uncle on both sides of your family. Right?”

“Nonsense,” Jin Ling says, marching back into the woods. “Let’s go back; I’m tired.”

Marching at his side, Lan Sizhui navigates them back down the mountain.

“You literally said it!” Lan Jingyi says as he chases behind him. “Sizhui, back me up!”

“Give it a rest, Jingyi,” Lan Sizhui says in a measured tone. “If Jin Rulan doesn’t want to be associated with me in that way, he—”

“I never said that!” Jin Ling barks.

Turning, Lan Sizhui—with a gentle smile and a mischievous gaze—meets his little cousin’s eyes.

“Oh?”

“I hate you! You’re so annoying, fuck!” Pulling out his sword, he mounts it and soars into the air as everyone follows suit, flying directly towards the soft cluster of lights in the distance.

They’re high enough in the air and far enough ahead of everyone else not to be heard, though, when Jin Ling looks at him.

“Hm?” Lan Sizhui says when he notices the stare.

“This doesn’t get you any special privileges, you know,” Jin Ling says.

Laughing softly, Lan Sizhui nods. “I didn’t expect it to,” he replies. “Rest assured.”

“You’re… okay with it, though? I know my other cousins are…” He looks ahead as he trails off, seemingly unsure of how to continue.

Not used to heartfelt communication, it makes sense. Jin Ling has had to fight for a lot of the respect he has, even despite his position, and Lan Sizhui is not unaware of how cruel many of the Jin cousins can be. How few friends Jin Ling actually has.

“I’m honored to be your friend, Jin Rulan,” Lan Sizhui says, “and grateful to be considered your cousin. Don’t ever think I would be ashamed to acknowledge our relation.” For some reason it’s important to him that Jin Ling knows this, and it seems his words aren’t misguided when his little cousin nods again, cheeks pink in the pale moonlight.

“You’re still annoying,” he mutters. “Just like your dad.”

Laughing, Lan Sizhui descends on his sword as the town draws close. Normally, being called annoying would grate on him, but… right here, right now…

Well, he delights in being just like his dad.

The Cloud Recesses are quiet when they get back with minutes to spare before curfew.

Scraps of moonlight and the whisper of trees conceal the soft footsteps of the Lan Sect Disciples as they make their way up the path, to the gently-illuminated buildings ahead. Unlike some, Lan Sizhui can’t imagine how it felt to see this for the first time. Can’t remember. Whatever illness he’d had when he’d been found had raged for weeks, his small body wracked with fever and angry coughs if Zewu-jun is to be believed.

By the time it had passed and his head had cleared, he’d already been here almost a month and in that time, he’d seen enough glimpses that there was no surprise when Zewu-jun took him for his first daily visit to Hanguang-jun. Seclusion aside, he’d apparently insisted on seeing Lan Sizhui as often as he could, even before he was physically capable of caring for him and the moment that changed, Lan Sizhui had moved from Zewu-jun’s quarters, to Hanguang-jun’s.

It’s there he goes now. Wishing his compatriots goodnight, he wanders up the hill further, through his home, glimmering serene and white in the renewed shine of the moon.

“Sizhui,” he hears near the library pavilion.

Turning, he sees Lan Xichen himself, almost ethereal in his stillness.

“Zewu-jun,” Lan Sizhui says, bowing. “We’ve returned; the other disciples have gone to their lodgings.”

With a gentle smile, his uncle comes forward.

“A success?”

In more ways than one. Lan Sizhui nods.

“Yes. We put the spirits to rest without issue.”

“Your robes…”

Looking down, Lan Sizhui sighs. It’s almost shameful coming back here like still covered in dirt, but his other clothes were already stained with ichor and sweat and he was in too much of a rush to get home to wait for them to be laundered.

“My apologies for the state of my appearance,” he says quietly, with another bow.

After a moment of careful observation, Lan Xichen’s face softens.

“Something else happened,” he says. “Are you okay? You were… near Yiling, yes?”

“We were, and… I am.” He smiles.

“Good to hear. Where are you off to now?”

“I wanted to see Hanguang-jun, if he’s awake,” he says.

Understanding fills his uncle’s face and he nods.

“Of course. Change your clothing first; it wouldn’t do to track dirt in.”

“Yes, sir,” Lan Sizhui says, bowing again.

It doesn’t take him long to fetch new, casual robes from his room and change. He leaves his sword and guqin behind; there’s no need for them when visiting his father, and he makes his way back up the hill.

Behind the thin doors, a small light glows and he waits outside for a moment, listening to see if he’d be… interrupting anything. Before he can knock, though, the door opens to reveal Hanguang-jun standing there, also dressed down, with his hair bare of ornamentation.

“Sizhui,” he says, relief at his safe return evident in his voice.

Lan Sizhui bows.

“Hanguang-jun.”

“Come in.”

As always, he can tell what Lan Sizhui wants and as always, Lan Sizhui is grateful. Stepping over the threshold, he looks around.

“Is Xian-gege here?”

An eyebrow raises at the casual address, but Hanguang-jun says nothing about it.

“Not at the moment. He took a walk down the mountain.”

Meaning he’s gone to Caiyi Town to replenish his stash of Emperor’s Smile.

“Did you want to see him?”

Kind of, but more importantly…

“I came to see you,” he says softly.

Nodding, Hanguang-jun walks back over to the table where his guqin sits, kneeling with ever-perfect posture and a gesture at the seat across from him.

Lan Sizhui doesn’t want to sit across from him, and even his minute hesitation is enough to soften his father’s gaze and get a gesture to sit at his side.

Doing so, he lasts only a second before—throwing away all sense of decorum—he lays down like he’s done since childhood, his head on his father’s lap. After a moment there’s no scolding, but long, gentle fingers carding through his hair.

“Something troubles you.”

“We were in Yiling.”

“Mn.”

“I… remembered a lot of stuff.”

The fingers pause for a moment, before resuming their careful rhythm. Reassurance. A promise that Hanguang-jun is here and listening. A reminder that he’s loved.

“Xian-gege was… even back then, he...”

It’s hard to find his words, what he wants to say, how to describe the myriad of emotions coursing through him but Hanguang-jun is nothing if not patient. He’ll give Lan Sizhui time to figure himself out, and he’ll listen, no matter what it is.

“It’s just so incongruous—the man the world knew and the one I did. But from what I remember, it was… he… I remember him being angry some, but mostly…” Sniffling, Lan Sizhui tries to contain himself, to shove down everything within him because it’s unbecoming to sob like a child at his age, to mourn what he could have had—what he did have—and the untainted memories that could have been.

Now, the Yiling Patriarch can never be only a villain.

Now, Xian-gege can never be purely good.

Not in memory.

“Reconciling two opposing versions of the same person can be difficult indeed,” Hanguang-jun murmurs, “especially when they’re so at odds with each other.”

Nodding, Lan Sizhui buries his face in his father’s thigh, breathes in comforting sandalwood incense and the fresh smell of laundry soap and lets the fabric soak up what few tears had threatened to spill. Hanguang-jun speaks from experience, of course. Unlike Lan Sizhui, he remembers the Yiling Patriarch at the height of his power, in all his terrible glory, the sound of his flute and the army of corpses and the bloodshed that came with, every time. How must it have felt for him? How must he have felt on the battlefield, seeing the man he loved so twisted and angry as to rain blood from the skies, take the lives of thousands without an ounce of remorse?

Does he remember when he looks at Lan Sizhui? Did it hurt to look down at him and think of everything that had happened?

Of the man he lost—first in mind, and then in body?

“Did you ever regret saving me?” he asks, surprising even himself.

The fingers stop, and when he looks up Hanguang-jun is looking down at him with love in his eyes.

“Never.”

“I must have reminded you of him.”

“Not a bad thing, and no fault of yours.”

“You loved him.”

“Mn.” Hanguang-jun lets Lan Sizhui roll over to face him before resuming the soft stroking of his hair.

“Is that why you took me in?”

Sadness floods Hanguang-jun’s face and he gazes down at Lan Sizhui with pursed lips, considering his next words.

“Never the only reason. A reminder of him—of the happy memories with you both—was welcomed, but I would never have left a child to die. You didn’t deserve to pay for the crimes of your sect.” A momentary pause, and then he cups Lan Sizhui’s cheek. “After our first meeting, I cared deeply for you, too. I would have been happy to raise you with Wei Ying, had it been possible.”

Like he is now, in a way.

Hot tears are gathering in the corners of Lan Sizhui’s eyes as he looks up at his dad.

“A-Yuan, you needn’t fear our bond being different or less than you grew up knowing it to be,” Lan Wangji says softly. “Had your presence in my life been anything but a joy, it would have been a simple matter to have you raised by another, to ensure your survival without unnecessary direct contact.”

He’s right. There are plenty in the Cloud Recesses who’d have taken in a child, especially if asked to by Hanguang-jun himself. Even were that not true, the youngest disciples have caretakers, and they would have been more than capable of adding a toddler to their responsibilities. Hanguang-jun needn’t have sullied his own hands had he not wanted to, and he’d still been healing when he’d taken full responsibility for Lan Sizhui.

Hanguang-jun had wanted him.

“Independent of your connection to Wei Ying,” he continues, “you are my son.”

There’s a possessiveness in there, the truth of the statement echoing in Lan Sizhui’s chest.

Weeping softly now, he buries his face in the folds of Hanguang-jun’s robes, his shoulders shaking as his hair is stroked with tender affection. This is reassurance he hadn’t known he’d needed, nor how desperately.

Gentle humming comes from above, a flowing, calming melody that Hanguang-jun has been singing to him since childhood—after nightmares, after crying, after fear… Always, he’d sing this as he held Lan Sizhui, rocked him in his arms until he could no longer comfortably hold him.

Everyone says the Second Jade of Lan is cold and distant. Isn’t affectionate, wouldn’t be capable of such tenderness but Lan Sizhui knows better. Hanguang-jun is capable and loving, just… highly selective about with whom he shares this side. It had taken ages for Lan Sizhui to realize why everyone else was so scared, so standoffish. Ages to realize that he… he was unique. Ever since, he’d cherished this more; the safety found in Hanguang-jun’s arms, the love in his voice, the concern, the lectures because Hanguang-jun really only wanted the best for him.

“Lao-ba,” Dad, Lan Sizhui sobs quietly and Hanguang-jun stops humming.

“Here,” he says softly, and when Lan Sizhui looks up, his father’s arms are open.

Crawling onto his lap—awkward given how big he’s grown—he lets himself be wrapped in Hanguang-jun’s embrace, rocking slowly as his father continues to sing softly. Burying his face in Hanguang-jun’s shoulder, he cries quietly, overwhelmed with everything that’s happened lately. The Burial Mounds and everything he’d experienced there. The trip back—quiet, and full of reflection.

Hanguang-jun’s patience and willingness to listen, and his gentle reassurances when he’d realized they were needed.

“Take your time,” Hanguang-jun murmurs. “Let it sit with you. Reconciliation will come.”

Continuing to hum, he rubs Lan Sizhui’s back in gentle circles, holds him against his strong chest. Reminds him that he’s loved. He’s okay. He’s safe.

He’s home.

Soft, comforting laughter filters through a sleepy haze, silk rustling as someone sits nearby.

A cork pops, someone drinks.

“He alright?” Wei Wuxian whispers softly.

“Mn.” Hanguang-jun replies, still holding Lan Sizhui close as he drifts back off to sleep. “He will be.”

He will. His dads will make sure of it.