Work Text:
Jiang Cheng is six when he has to send Jasmine, Princess and Little Love away, and he is so very annoyed by it.
Who does this Wei Ying think he is anyway, Jiang Cheng grumbles, as he sees the dirty form of a strange boy huddled up beside his father, making their way across the courtyard. Jiang Cheng’s father had to make sure that all the dogs were removed from Lotus Pier, and that included Jiang Cheng’s beloved triplets that father has gifted him himself, and their absence grates at little Jiang Cheng’s being.
Wei Ying is older than Jiang Cheng even though he is skinnier and they are of the same height. He scarfs down his food like he is worried Jiang Cheng might steal it from him (which is ridiculous, Jiang Cheng would never) and looks at Lotus Pier with wonder in his very big eyes.
Sometimes, Jiang Cheng gets irritated at how easily Wei Ying startles when there is so much as the echo of a bark, but jiejie tells him it's expected for A-Ying to be like that. Just give him a while, jiejie had said, he’s your brother now so you should be kind to him, A-Cheng, and Jiang Cheng is so annoyed because just who is this Wei Ying who takes away his dogs and moves into his rooms and then gets his jiejie to defend him? There is nothing else but childish jealousy and slight possessiveness gripping his heart, but one disappointed look from jiejie makes Jiang Cheng keep his mouth closed. He can be nice, he can, even if Jiang Cheng feels like he might burst from the unfairness of it all.
And then Wei Ying goes missing because Jiang Cheng shouted at him, and Jiang Cheng is– he is not worried, it is only that Wei Ying is staying with him now, and it is getting so late, how would Wei Ying be able to find his way back in the dark? Jiang Cheng saw him run off into the forest near dusk, surely he can’t be there anymore?
He can, Jiang Cheng finds out. Jiejie holds a lantern as they take turns calling out for him, the shadows of the trees shifting in the wind. Jiang Cheng can barely see above the tall grass marring his vision even as he takes each step into the gloom. He can hear the distant howling of wild hounds, and though Jiang Cheng has never ever been afraid of dogs before in his entire life, it sends a shiver down his spine regardless. His brain chooses now of all times to replay each and every moment he can recall of Wei Ying flinching away from the barks.
Wei Ying? He hears his jiejie call, and Jiang Cheng shivers again. It is so cold and so dark. Is Wei Ying not answering them on purpose? Is he safe and laughing from afar, looking at Jiang Cheng and jieijie making a fool of themselves?
Or have the hounds truly gotten ahold of him, just as he has always feared?
Jiejie finds him eventually, stuck in a tree. Wei Ying’s leg is injured and jiejie has to carry him while Jiang Cheng holds out the lantern, sticking close. Later, they form their truce in the comfort of their room, with Wei Ying makes fun of Jiang Cheng’s grumpy face even though his smile is strained from the pain.
Even later, Wei Ying is more comfortable around Lotus Pier, and the two of them can be often seen playing around the docks, darting through the street vendors and the merchants selling their wares. Wei Ying is so quick and he moves like fluid water, so much so that it’s hard for Jiang Cheng to catch up. He makes to move around another boy passing by but bumps into him anyway, and Jiang Cheng falls from the impact. He would shout from the indignation, except–
“Oh, if it isn’t small Young Master Jiang,” the other boy scoffs, and Jiang Cheng’s mind goes suddenly blank.
Jiang Cheng, from experience, already knows that Wei Ying is quick and nimble and brilliant, but it is another thing to see it in practice against someone else other than himself. Jiang Cheng is shocked into silence once again as Wei Ying appears by his side with a shout, placing himself between Jiang Cheng and the other bullies who have appeared, as though he has never left Jiang Cheng’s side. He darts around their lumbering forms with bright laughter in the air and makes them stumble into each other, pulling at hair or shoving at ticklish spots. Jiang Cheng watches all this from where he has fallen on the ground with a strange sense of wonder.
Oh, so this is who you are, he thinks, as he sees Wei Ying’s form eclipsed by the sun, his smile shining.
A-Cheng, Wei Ying says when it is all over. It is the first time he uses the term of endearment with him. He hauls Jiang Cheng up on his feet and walks them home, arm in arm. Are you hurt? You should tell me if that ever happens again, and I’ll beat them up for you, he teases, and his eyes crinkle from the force of his grin. He brings them to jiejie to bandage his cuts and makes Jiang Cheng laugh so hard he can scarcely breathe, just to distract him from the sting.
And for the first time in the months that Wei Ying has come to Lotus Pier, Jiang Cheng remembers thinking that he would be willing to trade a dozen Little Loves for one brother. For one Wei Ying.
Wei Wuxian snickers under his breath even as they are both being yelled at by Jiang Cheng’s mother.
It’s not funny, Jiang Cheng thinks. They are fourteen now, and it’s not funny because Wei Wuxian can get away with slacking off because he is a prodigy, because he is talented, because he isn’t the sect leader’s son, while Jiang Cheng has to fight to meet the impossible standards of both his parents.
“Wei Wuxian! What are you laughing for?! Don’t think just because you won the archery competition that you can get away with everything!” His mother’s angry voice draws him back to reality. “And you! Jiang Cheng, what were you doing on the field?! Where has all your disciple training gone to, huh? Are you always going to let Wei Wuxian one-up you at every turn?”
Jiang Cheng closes his eyes and shakes. It is a recent thing, his mother liking to compare him to his genius brother. He wonders if it would ever get any better.
Like this, Jiang Cheng misses the way Wei Wuxian quiets into stillness beside him.
Jiang Cheng wins the next archery competition with laughable ease. Wei Wuxian claps as Jiang Cheng is honoured beside his father, his brother’s eyes shining with quiet satisfaction.
He stands before the crowd of disciples, his father’s hand heavy on his shoulder. By the side, he catches the smug tone of his mother. “Wei Wuxian, I suppose that first time really was a fluke,” she says, and Wei Wuxian, who is at the top of their class, who practices advanced sword forms, who can recite spells in his sleep, doesn’t even put up a fight.
Victory does not taste as sweet as he has imagined it.
Jiang Cheng sits in the quiet of his own rooms, Wen Ning’s words ringing like warning bells in his head. Suibian lays on his bed beside him, sheathed.
Try it, he hears. Try it if you don’t believe me. It will only open for you.
He goes to hold Suibian by its hilt for the umpteenth time tonight, and the shock of being able to pull it free is a new thing no matter how many times he does it. He looks at the engraving on its body and feels the thrumming right below his sternum. He can almost imagine it, the core spinning away within his flimsy ribcage, like gold on thread.
Anger comes, a fresh torrential wave. What right does he have to be so deeply embedded within him, even after thirteen years have passed? What right does he have, to walk so freely? What right does he have, to steal this choice away from him once again?
What right does Wei Wuxian have, to throw himself away so easily each and every time?
“Jiang Cheng!” Wei Wuxian beams from where he sits cross-legged on the ground of their shared room, brush in hand.
“I know what you did,” Jiang Cheng starts.
Wei Wuxian blinks. The innocence is a practiced look, and it may work on his father and on jiejie, but it would never work on him. Jiang Cheng knows his brother too well to fall for it. “I don’t know what you are talking about,” Wei Wuxian says, and draws another character on the talisman paper.
Jiang Cheng clamours to his side and knocks the brush away from Wei Wuxian’s fingers. “Why did you throw the competition?” Because you pity me? He wants to ask, but Jiang Cheng doesn’t have that thick a skin. He opts to glare at Wei Wuxian instead, imploring him to answer.
“Jiang Cheng…” Wei Wuxian glances away, shifty. His brother is always like this. If he can’t talk his way out of a situation, he says nothing as all.
Jiang Cheng knocks into his shoulder. “Tell me!”
“Aiya, Jiang Cheng–”
“Wei Ying!”
The use of his birth name shocks Wei Wuxian into stillness. He blinks at him, owl-eyed and mouth agape. “I just didn’t want my didi to be sad,” he confesses quietly, the words tumbling like falling water.
Jiang Cheng can see the sincerity in his brother’s eyes when there is so often playfulness. There is no room for jokes in this. Jiang Cheng’s throat tightens and his eyes prickle on their own accord. His brother is such an idiot.
“Three months!” He exclaims hurriedly, pushing Wei Wuxian’s shoulder just so he wouldn’t have to see the naked sincerity on his face. “Give me three months and I’ll be able to beat you, I promise!”
Jiang Cheng is not a genius. But the one thing he has practice in is living up to the impossible, and he thinks that chasing after Wei Wuxian wouldn’t be too horrible a task.
The smile on Wei Wuxian’s face is a hesitant, flighty bird. He huffs, then laughs proper. “Okay,” he accepts, “Okay, Jiang Cheng. I’m looking forward to it.”
One year into being abandoned by all his remaining family, Jiang Cheng commissions a memorial tablet for Wei Ying. It is carved in dark wood the colour of Suibian’s hilt, engraved with lotus blossoms, with characters painted in dark red undertones.
Jiang Cheng takes the tablet to Baoshan Sanren’s mountain and sees the path that they had parted on. Sometimes it seemed as though that path was the very last time he had held the full weight of his brother’s presence with him, before Jiang Cheng lost him to the relentless darkness and the whispering undead. Baoshan Sanren, Jiang Cheng calls out wryly. Did you know? You restored the Golden Core of a complete stranger. What else could you have done to help him, if he had not squandered his chance on me?
He reaches the peak. Places the memorial tablet by the bark of a tree, lighting the incense. I do not owe you anything, he thinks, even as he kneels. I do not owe you anything more than this, he continues, as he bows thrice.
He leaves before anyone can catch his scent at the scene.
It is two more months from Guanyin temple before he sees Lan Wangji again.
The Chief Cultivator is by the wall of discipline at the entrance of the Cloud Recesses, greeting the oncoming sect leaders and cultivators attending for the Summer cultivation conference. His eyes narrow as he catches sight of Jiang Cheng, though his face doesn’t betray much beyond his usual stoicism.
“Sect Leader Jiang,” he greets, the perfect gentleman. Jiang Cheng scowls on instinct.
“Where is he?” he elects to ask instead, voice gruff. The surrounding Lan and Jiang disciples engage in terse silence as though they know the touchiness of the subject.
“Wei Ying goes where he wishes,” Lan Wangji answers, and ah. There it is. The mild annoyance below the cold façade.
Jiang Cheng tsks, the coolness grating. “So, what, you’re not worried for him anymore?”
Lan Wangji pauses at that, and Jiang Cheng gets the distinct impression that that was the wrong thing to say. Lan Wangji seems to turn even more jade-like in this moment, a white tiger poised to strike.
“Wei Ying does not need to doubt the extent of my worry,” Lan Wangji says, impossible and unmoving. “What about you, Sect Leader Jiang?”
“What are you doing, you idiot?” Jiang Cheng hisses, closing the room door with a bang. The bowl of lotus root and pork rib soup balanced in his hands wobbles precariously before it settles on the shared table.
“J’ng Ch’ng?” Wei Wuxian says from the bed, where he has been making a pathetic attempt to sit up. His hair is messier than usual, his skin flushed from a cold.
Wei Wuxian is fifteen and has entered into something his jiejie calls ‘that stage of life’. Jiang Cheng doesn’t know exactly what it means, only that his brother has taken more of his time to stare at the other senior sister disciples and sigh longingly as they practiced their sword forms. “Senior sister is so cool. So beautiful and graceful,” Wei Wuxian has said, sighing again, as they twirled through the Thirty-Two Forms. This time, Jiang Ziqi, a female senior disciple who was older than them by two years, had heard Wei Wuxian, and made to ruffle his hair, like one would with a younger cousin. “A-Xian is so funny,” she had laughed, indulging him in his praise. “Did you eat too much honey today?”
Jiang Cheng thinks that Wei Wuxian is spouting a whole load of bullshit. There is literally no difference in what the senior sisters have been doing as compared to the senior brothers in terms of sword forms, so why would Wei Wuxian take the time to praise them now?
“I’m not saying that. I think the senior brothers look really strong and handsome too,” Wei Wuxian had said when Jiang Cheng had voiced his opinion. “Aiya, you will understand when you grow older,” Wei Wuxian finally huffed when Jiang Cheng still continued to look confused.
Regardless, it is because of this new-found interest that Wei Wuxian finds himself in the sorry state he is in now.
“Why did you jump into the lake in the middle of winter, huh?” Jiang Cheng hurries to Wei Wuxian’s side, annoyance dripping from him. He pushes him back down, though he makes sure that the shove isn’t too harsh. “Just because a few of our senior brothers dared each other to?”
“Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian whines, burying his head back into the pillow. “Why are you so mean to me?”
“Serves you right,” Jiang Cheng mutters, throwing the blanket over his brother’s form. “Why are you so weird these days anyway?”
“I just wanted to impress them, I guess…”
“What for?!”
“Ai, Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian sniffs pitifully, waving a hand. “You’ll understand when you’re older–”
“If it makes me do stupid things like you, then I don’t want to!”
Wei Wuxian laughs, which then turns into a raspy cough so horrible it makes Jiang Cheng’s heart shudder with fear. “You idiot,” he hisses again, though he can’t quite make his voice sound as reprimanding as it needs to be. Jiang Cheng guides Wei Wuxian up into a seating position so that he can breathe better, and places a firm hand on his shoulder.
It is awhile before the coughing fit subsides. “A-Cheng,” Wei Wuxian sniffs, grasping at his arms when he is done. “-m tired,” he complains, which only causes Jiang Cheng to sigh.
“There’s still soup for you,” Jiang Cheng says lowly, though his resolve is already crumbling just by the look on Wei Wuxian’s face. It is too sad. It is way too sad.
“Later,” his brother whines, pulling Jiang Cheng down abruptly with him. He goes down with an oof. “Just stay with me here,” he continues, snuggling back under the covers.
“Wei Wuxian, we are not six anymore,” Jiang Cheng puts up a feeble fight, though doesn’t actually make to leave the bed.
“I don’t care,” Wei Wuxian says grumpily, blinking back at Jiang Cheng. “I’m sick, so you need to stay with me and keep me company.”
Wei Wuxian doesn’t really like talking about how he was during those few years before coming to Lotus Pier, where he was left as an orphan to beg on the streets. Jiang Cheng doesn’t particularly want to push either, so there are only close to three things he knows from the experience. One, that Wei Wuxian is deathly afraid of dogs and would rather bite off his own hand than get near one willingly. Two, that his brother can and will eat anything and everything in his sight. And three, that Wei Wuxian gets more and more clingy during the winter months, seeking out warmth wherever he goes.
Jiang Cheng can guess from these three things why exactly Wei Wuxian is the way that he is. It is for this reason that Jiang Cheng doesn’t pull away when Wei Wuxian is here now, sick and alone in his bed during a month of harsh snow.
“Only until you sleep,” Jiang Cheng concedes, and Wei Wuxian lets out a half-hearted cheer. His head is back on the pillow, eyes already slipping close.
“You’re the best, Jiang Ch’ng–” Wei Wuxian yawns, tugging his warmth closer.
Only until he sleeps, Jiang Cheng thinks to himself, eyes closing as well.
You will understand when you are older, he hears, as he catches sight of Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji approaching from the Library Pavilion. Lan Wangji, from what he knows of the Second Young Master Lan, is reticent as usual, his eyes hooded as he walks gracefully. Wei Wuxian, as per his usual, is being his loud, chaotic self, cajoling Lan Wangji and speaking in excited tones. It isn’t even a week into their study at the Cloud Recesses, and Wei Wuxian has already chosen the one person to annoy that wouldn’t ever indulge in his whims.
I am older now, he thinks petulantly, but I still don’t understand. He hears Wei Wuxian call out to Lan Wangji, “Lan Zhan! Do you think–” his brother babbles in a hurry, his hands making forms in the air. It isn’t a surprise to Jiang Cheng that Wei Wuxian would forgo all sense of propriety and call Lan Wangji immediately by his birth name, but Jiang Cheng is shocked when Lan Wangji responds, “Wei Ying, do not make such a loud noise.”
He calls you Wei Ying, Jiang Cheng thinks. There is a weird, bitter taste in his throat that he can’t quite place. One week, and the prestigious Jade of Lan calls you Wei Ying.
By the steps, Wei Wuxian is smiling so hard his eyes crinkle with the force of it. Lan Wangji’s face has broken from its icy veneer, expression like a still lake of calm. His mouth is slightly tilted up, though Jiang Cheng doubts that he even notices it.
I don’t even call you Wei Ying now, Jiang Cheng thinks, as his brother’s laughter filters bright through the air. He leaves before either of the two can catch sight of him.
“Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian whines, hanging off Jiang Cheng’s shoulder and pouting. “Jiang Cheng, please don’t be angry at me.”
“I’m not,” Jiang Cheng says, because Jiang Cheng is not angry. He is not. So what if Wei Wuxian is so popular that he has a winding line of disciples wanting to be his friend and goes on mysterious outings to the backwoods of the mountains and stays plastered to Second Young Master Lan’s side? So what if Jiang Cheng hasn’t seen his brother beyond the classes in the Cloud Recesses and that he misses him, even if he were loath to admit it? So what?
“I’m not,” he sighs again, shrugging Wei Wuxian off his shoulder. He sits on the guest bed and his brother flops by his side.
“Don’t you know that lying is forbidden in the Cloud Recesses?” Wei Wuxian’s voice has taken on a lower quality, imitating Lan Qiren, and he is so obviously stroking an invisible beard that Jiang Cheng can’t help the quiet snort that makes its way out of his lips.
“We’re not Lan disciples,” Jiang Cheng grumbles anyway, “So why should we follow their rules?” His mind flashes to Lan Wangji. “Unless you really want to marry into the Lan clan–”
“Aiya Jiang Cheng, this again?!” Wei Wuxian exclaims, kicking his feet. “I am not going to marry into this stuffy clan.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Jiang Cheng mutters. “Aren’t you such good friends with Second Young Master Lan?”
Wei Wuxian barks out a laugh, and then stills at the look on Jiang Cheng’s face. “Ai, Jiang Cheng, tell me what this really is about, hm?” Wei Wuxian continues knocking into his shoulder, and Jiang Cheng finally shoves back. “Are you jealous of Lan Zhan?”
One week, and his brother calls him Lan Zhan.
“No.” Yes.
“Okay then, that’s good,” Wei Wuxian rubs his nose. “Because if you were, which I know you are not, then I would tell you that you’re being stupid because I am from Yunmeng Jiang, remember? So what if Gusu has their Twin Jades? Yunmeng has us Twin Heroes! And I will always be by your side anyway, so why are you sulking, huh?” Wei Wuxian pulls at Jiang Cheng’s cheek, until Jiang Cheng has to slap his hand away. He pretends that what he feels is annoyance instead of relief.
“Stop that!” Jiang Cheng says.
Wei Wuxian still has the audacity to grin. “I will when you stop sulking!”
Jiang Cheng glares. “I’m not sulking anymore, am I?!”
“Ha,” Wei Wuxian claps his hands as though he had solved a mystery. “So you admit it! You were sulking!”
“Wei Wuxian!”
“Ah!” Wei Wuxian yells, jumping away from the bed. “Please have mercy on me, Jiang Cheng, Jiang Wanyin, Young Master Jiang–”
Jiang Cheng finds Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji in the Jiang ancestral hall, kneeling. His blood trickles with acrid poison.
“Wei Wuxian, you dare show your face here?” he barks, because how dare he. How dare he come back from the dead and then not even deign to come to Lotus Pier, and go to Lan Wangji instead. Always Lan Wangji, when Wei Wuxian had once promised that he would be by his side forever.
Wei Wuxian doesn’t even protest. He has that stupid look of pitifulness and guilt on his face, and Jiang Cheng doesn’t want to look at it. If Wei Wuxian had some semblance of anger then Jiang Cheng could be justified in his own, but all Wei Wuxian does is stand there and take it willingly. It stokes Jiang Cheng’s rage even more.
Lan Wangji stands by, the hilt of his sword gleaming and at the ready to deflect if needed. Of course. Bitterness floods his throat and words spill, because who is Lan Wangji to come into Lotus Pier and threaten him in his own home–
“Jiang Wanyin,” Wei Wuxian roars, eyes ablaze, and Jiang Cheng feels it like a tight slap across his face. He has never used his courtesy name like this before. Like a brand. Like a weapon. Like a sharp dagger, to stab into flesh and mercilessly dig.
Only for Lan Wangji, Jiang Cheng thinks, furious and hurt and heartbroken. It’s a miracle; he didn’t think there was anything left to break. It is always for Lan Wangji, and never for me.
It takes a while before Jiang Cheng stops calling Wei Wuxian’s name around Lotus Pier. It’s even longer before Jiang Cheng stops calling Jiang Yanli’s.
Your older siblings are the most invincible when you are young. They are protected by the sheer glimmer of childhood nostalgia marking them as untouchable. They are older than you, and so, by childish logic, they must be better. Greater. Wiser. There is nothing that they cannot do.
Wei Wuxian had certainly proved it right, again and again, throughout their childhood. Wei Wuxian was untouchable. A prodigy. A child immortal in the making. Jiang Yanli, in her own way, was untouchable too. Nothing that people said would get to her. She would carry out her duties with the airiness of a fairy, and the dedication of a saint.
Jiang Cheng has spent so long assuming that his siblings would always be by his side. That Jiang Yanli would always be there to hold Jiang Cheng up and bandage his cuts with patience, that Wei Wuxian would have an arm slung over his shoulder and make him laugh so hard he wouldn’t be able to breathe.
Jiang Cheng finds that this vision in his mind is so deeply rooted that when it had been ripped away, a core part of himself had shaken loose along with it.
It is fresh winter when he finds himself going back to that cliffside in Nightless City. It doesn’t snow often in Qishan but the biting wind stings his cheeks as he flies over the ravine. He lands, soft-footed, in a valley of bones and ashes.
It is too late for anything to have survived, almost three months have passed since the Bloodbath. But then again, he had thought so too when Wei Wuxian went missing for those three months during the war, and he turned up with a ghost flute in his hand and an army of the undead by his side either way.
Achieve the impossible, and the voice in his head is hopelessly bitter. How Wei Wuxian of him.
He doesn’t exactly know what he is searching for. Proof that Wei Wuxian has died? Hope that he hasn’t? A remnant to take back and bury under a memorial tablet, tucked away in the far depths of the Jiang ancestral hall? Wei Wuxian isn’t even a Jiang by blood, why would his ashes lay rest there? Further, everyone else is already hell-bent on him hating his brother; how else would they react if a memorial tablet turns up with Wei Ying’s name on it?
He continues on.
The corpses, or what remains of them, are frozen stiff, the hands and bodies and torsos holding a frosty sheen to them. There are shattered shards of metal jutting out from the hard ground, rips of fabric muddied brown and black by the elements. Banners, broken. What is he trying to find? The remnants of his brother’s body, battered and bruised by the wind and the rot and the dark? If Jiang Cheng finds it, would he be able to recognise it as his own flesh and bone, press his fingers palm to palm and draw identity from touch alone? What remains of his brother now, even before he had fallen off that cliff?
Jiang Cheng had seen him, even over the red sheen of anger. Seen the desperation as he had fallen– had escaped– had chosen to leave, again– and the flood of fury and bitterness and grief had overtaken Jiang Cheng’s senses, made him rise, Sandu in hand.
(Jiang Cheng would apologise, if fratricide were a forgivable crime. If there was someone left to say sorry to. It isn’t, there isn’t, and so Jiang Cheng does not apologise.)
Jiang Cheng has never really liked archery more than the sword. Archery was more Wei Wuxian’s area of expertise, anyway. Wei Wuxian loved to do trick shots, loved impressing all the junior disciples with how he can shoot blindfolded, shoot five arrows at one go, and once, even, shoot with his legs. Jiang Cheng couldn’t even hold a candle to the number of tricks Wei Wuxian can do with his bow and arrow. And yet, here Jiang Cheng is.
Three months, he thinks to himself as he stands on the outcropping, targets set up in both the trees and the sky. He nocks his first arrow. Three months to catch up to Wei Wuxian, and then to get past his level.
Jiang Cheng had been so angry when he found out. He already had his suspicions of course, but when he had heard what Wei Wuxian had done during the competition he was livid. The disciples in Wei Wuxian’s party had told him how Senior Wei had been even more flippant than usual, joking with his peers and junior disciples and complaining of a headache, deliberately letting target animals run away. Wei Wuxian had laughed when the juniors had pointed it out, with Wei Wuxian saying how his eyesight must be getting worse now that he is “so old.”
Jiang Cheng lets loose an arrow and it flies through the target branch of a tree.
Jiang Cheng had taken a look at the animals that were brought back, examined the meagre prey that were marked with red feather tipped arrows. All of them brought down with a clever incision through the eye, a quick and merciful kill. The number of target animals brought back was too little to even have a shot at the title, despite the points given to proficiency.
Worsening eyesight? What a load of bullshit.
Another arrow flies.
Who does Wei Wuxian think he is, that he could choose for him? Jiang Cheng nocks his bow again, and the arrow flies through the target painted on the kite in the air. Who was he to give Jiang Cheng this much when he has never asked for it?
Jiang Cheng has never asked for Wei Wuxian to give up his standing in the competition for him. Who would even believe that Wei Wuxian could have lost to Jiang Cheng, anyway? Jiang Cheng would never have asked so much from his brother, but Wei Wuxian had done it without even telling him, done it without giving Jiang Cheng so much as a choice.
I just didn’t want my didi to be sad, he hears in that impossible voice, and Jiang Cheng burns with so much.
Stupid Wei Wuxian. The next arrow flies through two kites at once. Stupid older brother.
“Didi,” Wei Wuxian says softly. His thumb on Jiang Cheng’s cheek is calloused and warm and burns of affection. Jiang Cheng barely stops himself from leaning in. “Didi, don’t cry because of me.”
I have thirteen years of mourning to catch up to, Jiang Cheng thinks, but doesn’t say. As always, the chasm between them is an incredible divide, and Wei Wuxian is the only one leaning his hand out into the darkness.
The temple is quiet around them. There is an angry line of red around Wei Wuxian’s neck, marking him as fragile, vulnerable, human. His brother is not as untouchable as he was, and Jiang Cheng still has not quite learnt how to whittle the protective instinct away from his body.
But then again, Jiang Cheng thinks, he has already spent thirteen years trying to hate his brother. Maybe it is high time to relearn how to love him.
It is the middle of the night when Jiang Cheng finds Wei Wuxian sitting by the pier, legs slung over the ledge. He has with him a bottle of lotus wine even as he looks out into the lake, quiet contemplation on his face.
Jiang Cheng could shout at him. Maybe that is what other people might expect him to do, especially given how he has been these past thirteen years. But Jiang Cheng has the cover of darkness around him, the anchor of a Golden Core freely given, and thirteen years’ worth of penance to pay. Wei Wuxian, the once-Yiling-Patriarch turned roaming cultivator, sits on his pier as an invited guest. And the lotus lake stretching out across from them is so very still.
Jiang Cheng sits right beside Wei Wuxian.
Wei Wuxian doesn’t startle when Jiang Cheng grabs the bottle of lotus wine and brings it to his lips. He looks at him instead, amusement very apparent on his brow. “Sect Leader Jiang stealing from a poor, lowly cultivator such as myself? How cruel,” he says, and the tone Wei Wuxian uses brings Jiang Cheng thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years back. He shoves the jar back into Wei Wuxian’s hand. The handwritten invitation itself was enough for his brother to get smart with him.
“Did I not say that I would pay for all your expenses here in Lotus Pier?” Jiang Cheng challenges, though there is no real heat behind it.
“You did,” Wei Wuxian says demurely, lowering his eyes in deference. “This one is truly grateful for Sect Leader Jiang’s generosity.”
Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes. “You’re still so full of shit even after returning from the dead.” The words are out of his mouth before he can even consider them, and Jiang Cheng freezes, shoulders taut–
Wei Wuxian shudders a laugh, the sound disrupting the quiet of lotus lake. His brother is gasping, clutching his stomach like it hurts. “Jiang Cheng, you are horrible, you are so horrible– oh heavens–” and Jiang Cheng can’t help the curling of his lips as Wei Wuxian laughs himself silly.
Wei Wuxian’s chuckling tapers off as he catches his breath, a smile still on his face. He drinks a mouth from the jug and passes it back to Jiang Cheng, lapsing back into companionable silence. They spend a while like this, trading the bottle back and forth, until the darkness lies heavy and the wine burns warm under their skin. There is something bubbling near Jiang Cheng’s throat, words that are burning to make their way out, his tongue loosened by the wine. They threaten to spill each time Jiang Cheng swallows a gulp and catches a glimpse of the stillness on Wei Wuxian’s face, an almost reflection of the lake.
Wei Wuxian sits only an arm’s length away from him, and yet the distance is still too large to broach.
“Why did you do it?” he finds himself saying, the quiet and the dark and the sweet wine making him honest. “Why did you do it for me?”
Wei Wuxian looks at him now, fingers stilling on the bottle. His gaze is an insurmountable thing. He shifts, like he doesn’t want to answer, but then subtly steels himself, as though he knows this is something Jiang Cheng needs. His brother has always been the more selfless of the two of them.
“Because,” Wei Wuxian says, soft and slow, as though speaking to a flighty bird. “I did not want my didi to be sad.”
Jiang Cheng stands by the shade of the entrance to the courtyard, looking at the disciples as they practice their sword forms.
His disciples, he thinks with some amount of pride.
“You’ve trained them well, Jiang Cheng,” he hears from beside him. Wei Wuxian’s hand is on his hip as he surveys the scene in front of them, a soft smile on his face. Jiang Cheng’s heart hurts from the amount of longing written there. An echo of what could have been.
Autumns in Yunmeng are always slow and shifting, arriving before you really expect it. The leaves are in yellows and oranges and reds, sweeping the yard in its colour. Before them, the disciples are practising the Thirty-Two Forms, the call and response of blades high in the air. The scene is tinged gold, the watery light reaching forth and painting them in its hue.
Memory is a fickle thing. If Jiang Cheng closes his eyes, he could conjure an illusion of Wei Wuxian laughing by his side for the thirteen years lost, voice bright as he teaches the new disciples and weaves between sword forms. He could imagine his right-hand man in the colours of autumn, golden-toned, instead of the reality of what had happened instead, with Jiang Cheng soaked in blood, cradling a tiny Jin Ling to his chest while he shouldered a burden too heavy to bear on his own.
It all came down to this, didn’t it? If Jiang Cheng had known–
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, the question he had not dared to ask on the pier the night before.
Wei Wuxian startles from his reverie. He glances at Jiang Cheng from the corner of his eye, quirking a small smile. “Aiya, Jiang Cheng, I thought we agreed to put it in the past?”
“You were the one who agreed to put it in the past,” Jiang Cheng grumbles mulishly. He takes a deep breath. “If I had known why–”
“And why would it have mattered?”
“Of course it would have mattered!” Jiang Cheng snaps. “You took that decision out of my hands! I wouldn’t have let you go so easily otherwise, would I? I–” Jiang Cheng’s voice hitches, mouth dry, before his jaw clicks shut. Wei Wuxian glances at him fully now, and though his expression is careful and placid, his eyes are sharp.
Jiang Cheng looks away.
Jiang Cheng wouldn’t have let him go, would he? He was so sure when he had said it out loud, but then his brain had caught up with his mouth and then Jiang Cheng wasn’t. Jiang Cheng wants to believe that he would have stuck with his brother through it all, found a better way to deal with the whole mess, but Jiang Cheng wasn’t all that sure, even with the weight of a Golden Core hanging in the balance. Would Jiang Cheng have kept a rogue, demonic cultivator by his side and risked the other cultivation sects breathing down his neck, or would Jiang Cheng have found another reason to let Wei Wuxian go eventually?
Jiang Cheng was so very young when he inherited Yunmeng Jiang as his own. His fears had seemed so daunting, his inexperience chafing at his skin. It is only with thirteen years of hindsight that Jiang Cheng finally got a glimpse of what had truly mattered in the end.
A-Cheng, he hears in his jiejie’s voice. You, me and A-Xian are the closest in the world now. Nothing must keep us apart.
“I shouldn’t have let you go, either way,” Jiang Cheng says in wake of the silence. Watching his brother walk down the broken path of the Burial Mounds, dressed as the Yiling Patriarch, his eyes rimmed red, had been heart-wrenching. Throwing down that cloak between them had been even more so. In the demon slaughtering cave, Wei Wuxian had said, “Then you should just abandon me,” and an ugly part of Jiang Cheng’s mind had been so relieved that his brother had voiced it out so that he wouldn’t have to. How wrong he was to have followed through. “I shouldn’t have allowed you to make that choice for me again.”
Wei Wuxian purses his lips, sorrow written in the shifting line of his throat. “Jiang Cheng–”
“I wanted you by my side in Yunmeng.”
A silence. The ringing of metal upon metal is drowned out by the bubble they are in.
“Do you want me to stay now? Would that make you happy?” Wei Wuxian finally speaks, his hand clenching at air. His voice is small and still.
Jiang Cheng has had the past thirteen years to come to grips with everything that had transpired. Wei Wuxian has only had the last four months of wandering to even start putting everything into perspective. Jiang Cheng knows that Wei Wuxian will always be his older brother, but it is only with this that Jiang Cheng realises with dawning clarity that he has begun to outpace Wei Wuxian in other matters as well. He looks at Wei Wuxian now, looks at the hunched line of his back and the tilt of his shoulders, as though he were guilty and his suggestion was yet another way to offer recompense.
“It doesn’t matter if it would make me happy,” Jiang Cheng finds himself saying, catching Wei Wuxian’s eye. They shine like gossamer in the midday sun. He breathes in deep to get his next words out. “What would make you happy, Wei Ying?”
Wei Wuxian is shocked into silence before he breaks, huffing in laughter. “Oh, Jiang Cheng,” his brother moves closer and bumps his shoulder slowly, carefully, as though he was learning to do it all over again. He sighs. “Oh. You really have grown up.”
Sect Leader Jiang receives an official letter of invitation during the first winter month from none other than the esteemed Chief Cultivator.
“What have you called me for?” Jiang Cheng asks, brusque, because even if Jiang Cheng has to be cordial to Lan Wangji for the Jiang sect it does not mean he has to be nice. Lan Wangji remains unfazed as ever. “I have asked for you to seek your blessing,” and the words are no sooner out of Lan Wangji’s mouth before Jiang Cheng already knows what this is about.
I am not going to marry into this stuffy clan, Jiang Cheng hears in his mind, and it is only thirteen years of being a sect leader that keeps him from bursting out in laughter.
Jiang Cheng takes a sip of his tea instead. Straightens. “It has been a long time since Wei Wuxian has been a disciple of Yunmeng Jiang,” he says, voice purposefully neutral. “He has always been yours in everything that matters, either way.”
“And I am his,” Lan Wangji says, tilting his head. “But I believe Wei Ying would be grateful for your blessing in this.”
“How are you so sure?”
“It is his Golden Core that sits within you, is it not?” Hanguang Jun says, his voice leaving no room for argument, tone slightly mean. “You must be someone very dear to Wei Ying for him to have done that.”
Jiang Cheng wants to lash out at the sensitivity of the topic, and he would have if it were six months ago, when the truth still sat new and heavy at the back of Jiang Cheng’s mind. I did not ask for it, he would have raged, but somewhere between Guanyin temple and Wei Wuxian’s first official visit back to Lotus Pier, the anger thrumming like a constant through Jiang Cheng’s veins has bled itself out steadily.
“I do not hold you in high regard, Sect Leader Jiang,” Lan Wangji continues to say, and Jiang Cheng snorts. “But Wei Ying does. He still considers you his brother, and it would seem you still consider him yours. As such, I will seek your blessing, for his sake.”
(Three months ago, Sect Leader Jiang had put forth an official announcement from Lotus Pier– the Jiang sect will no longer actively pursue demonic cultivators. Sect Leader Jiang withdraws his criticism on the exiled Wei Wuxian and publicly acknowledges Wei Wuxian as a member of the main family branch of Yunmeng Jiang once again.
There had been an outcry from the surrounding minor sects– the Jiangs had once been the largest prosecutors of the Yiling Patriarch after all, and the sect leaders were calling into question Jiang Cheng’s sincerity, especially in light of Jin Guangyao’s betrayal. But Jiang Cheng had not done it for them, hadn’t done it for the politics of it either. This move was entirely for Wei Wuxian, a declaration that he had a place in Lotus Pier. A hand stretched out into the darkness, should he ever want to take it again.
Thirteen years too late, perhaps, but it still warranted saying.
One month after that, Wei Wuxian came to visit Jiang Cheng in Yunmeng.)
Jiang Cheng sits back and considers this. Lan Wangji’s expression gives nothing away, his eyes a pale shimmer. His hands, ever proper, are folded neatly– oh.
His hands, a slight grip in the fabric.
Jiang Cheng could be a huge dick about it. He could put up a fuss, ask what Lan Wangji would do if he didn’t grant his favour. As Wei Wuxian’s only living relative of equal status (and even that is tenuous), Jiang Cheng could pitch his opinion in the other direction and sour relations even further. Jiang Cheng isn’t dumb enough to think it would stop Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji for long, but the option is there.
But if he so much as feeds the thought, he is brought back to an autumn afternoon where Jiang Cheng had stood beside Wei Wuxian, the first in a long time. What would make you happy, he had asked, and Wei Wuxian had given him that smile, as though his happiness was inconsequential either way.
“You have it.” He waves a casual hand across the table, and Lan Wangji’s eyes widen fractionally, as though he can’t believe the words coming out of Jiang Cheng’s mouth. Jiang Cheng can hardly believe himself either. “You have my blessing, for what it is worth.”
Jiang Cheng isn’t particularly worried– he had meant it when he said that Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji have always belonged to each other in all ways that mattered. And Jiang Cheng has already spent so long hating Wei Wuxian. If he can grant this small amount of reassurance to his brother, reassurance that Lan Wangji says Wei Wuxian would be happy for, then he would.
Lan Wangji doesn’t make a sound, but Jiang Cheng can see that the stiff lines of his shoulders do not look all that rigid any longer. Lan Wangji doesn’t smile at him; it is too early in their tentative truce for it, but his mouth does tilt infinitesimally, and Jiang Cheng thinks that it might be a start, at least.
Right after escaping from Guanyin temple, his nephew had taken one look at Jiang Cheng’s face and asked, didn’t you have something you wanted to say to Wei Wuxian?
Jiang Cheng does, he really does, and he scowls at Jin Ling for being someone who can see through him so clearly. Jin Ling really does have his mother’s intuition and his father’s tact (or lack thereof). He brushes his nephew off easily, but it isn’t so simple to shut down the musings of his own heart.
Wei Wuxian is impossible. He comes back from the dead and kickstarts the process that shakes the cultivation world down to its roots and then leaves like a hurricane unaware of its path. He comes into Jiang Cheng’s life and topples his hard-set beliefs one by one, grants him the knowledge of a Golden Core, calls him didi, and then expects Jiang Cheng to leave the past behind them.
Perhaps, given all that has transpired, it would be much kinder and easier for Jiang Cheng to put the ruined tatters of their relationship down and let it go. The hatred has already gorged itself for thirteen years, and the fractures in their past seem all too large and difficult to fix.
But Jiang Cheng has always been selfish, and Wei Wuxian has, once again, achieved the impossible. Maybe this is an impossibility that can be mended as well, with time.
And until that time comes, Jiang Cheng has letters to write. Family books to reorder. Guest rooms to prepare, wine vendors to pester, a sword to clean. A memorial tablet to find and burn.
Give me three months, Jiang Cheng thinks as he watches the retreating forms of Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji making their way through the gates, his brother’s laughter high in the air.
Give me three months, and I’ll be ready for you again.