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Lan Qiren would like to not be in this situation.

Lan Qiren would, quite frankly, rather be in virtually any other situation than the one he has currently found himself in.

It’s ludicrous. It’s preposterous. It’s disgraceful and undignified and quite probably violates a number of his clan’s principles, although he currently lacks the opportunity to consider which ones exactly, given that there are too many absurdities to contend with at the same time, and Lan Qiren is determined to blame every last one of them solely on Wei Wuxian.

Among aforementioned absurdities, in no particular order, are:

Two junior disciples wide awake several hours past their bedtime.

A loudly braying donkey.

A surprisingly even louder Lan Jingyi, lecturing said donkey while making a valiant yet futile effort to avoid swearwords – both of which Lan Qiren should reprimand him for, which he fully intends to do, as soon as his life returns to some semblance of sanity.

Lan Sizhui, his usually so reasonable grandnephew, looking like he doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry as he does his best to help his wayward best friend wrangle said donkey.

The entire fact that said donkey requires wrangling in the first place due to the ill-advised end-goal being to transport the animal via sword.

The fact that this means that Lan Qiren is left to wrangle the demonic-cultivating, donkey-owning, exonerated menace of the entire cultivation world in general and Lan Qiren’s existence in particular, Wei Wuxian.

Yes, this is all Wei Wuxian’s fault.

Wei Wuxian, for his part, is laughing awkwardly, raising his hand to nonchalantly scratch at his neck, as if his hand doesn’t tremble like he can barely muster the strength to raise his arm, as if every faked huff isn’t accompanied by droplets of blood Lan Qiren watches end up on his robes with a detached kind of disgust. Not that it makes much of a difference, since a good portion of his white and blue robes are already soaked with red from supporting Wei Wuxian’s weight for no more than the length of an incense stick.

“I’m fine!” Wei Wuxian lies in a disconcertingly cheery tone. “Aiya, Jingyi, stop tugging at my poor Lil’ Apple like that, she’s a sensitive soul!”

Lan Qiren considers imparting his sect’s teachings regarding the importance of truthfulness on him once again, but is forced to concede that there are other priorities right now when Wei Wuxian immediately doubles over again, coughing up blood until his knees give out.

“Wei-qianbei!”

Sizhui abandons Jingyi with the donkey to hurry to Wei Wuxian’s side – running may be permissible in such a case, Lan Qiren supposes, grateful when his grandnephew takes some of Wei Wuxian’s full weight where it’s tugging Lan Qiren down on one side.

“I’m fine,” the menace insists again, quiet and reassuring this time, but still smiling. “Really, stop making such a fuss, I’ve had much worse than this, and I’ve survived just fine until now!”

All those words accomplish is to make Sizhui’s lips tighten further in worry, and even Lan Qiren has to admit that this argument is more disturbing than reassuring, considering the amount of blood staining his robes, probably far less than has seeped into Wei Wuxian’s black ones and the bandages haphazardly wrapped on top of them, more red than white now. Considering that this time, it doesn’t sound like a lie at all. Considering that he, in fact, hadn’t exactly always survived until now.

“But Wei-qianbei…”

“Ah! See? This is by far a graver wound!” Wei Wuxian starts wailing dramatically, clutching his chest and pretending he didn’t just wince when the motion must have aggravated his wounds, slumping against Lan Qiren for further dramatic effect. Immediately Lan Qiren’s growing concern is once more outweighed by annoyance. “My sweet A-Yuan, whom I birthed with my own body, calling his poor Xian-gege so unfamiliarly!”

At least his dramatics succeed in pulling a smile out of Sizhui, relaxing the boy’s shoulders a fraction. Some of Lan Qiren’s own tension abates; surely, even Wei Wuxian wouldn’t put on such a ridiculous act if his injury is too severe?

“Please don’t worry, Xian-gege, we’ll take care of her.”

“But I told you I’m fine! Really, Lil’ Apple and I’ll just go back to the village, catch a good night’s sleep, and tomorrow it’ll –“

“Sizhui!” Jingyi, now sounding vaguely panicked, interrupts Wei Wuxian’s rambling, audience lost where Sizhui hurries back to his friend. Lan Qiren lets his gaze follow with great trepidation, justified when he finds that at some point, that cursed donkey seems to have developed an appetite for Jingyi’s robes and has by now devoured the majority of the boy’s sleeve, crooked donkey-teeth now dangerously close to his arm.

Lan Qiren takes a very, very deep breath, and lets it out in a very, very long sigh.

And to think the day had started so simple.

What happened is this:

There was sect business to attend to in Lanling, and with Wangji indisposed due to an inter-sect dispute needing the intervention of the Chief Cultivator to stave off further conflict and Xichen still in seclusion, it fell to Lan Qiren to handle.

Truth be told, while he by far prefers his life dedicated to scholarly pursuits and educating the younger generation in the peaceful silence of the Cloud Recesses, it has been a while since he last ventured anywhere and was therefore not opposed to the task. He’d been in a good enough mood to allow it when Sizhui asked for permission for him and Jingyi to accompany him; unsurprising given the two’s close friendship with the far-too-young Jin sect leader.

The trip itself goes smoothly, as does their travel back, right until they hear of what sounds to be a yaogui haunting the forest just outside the village they stopped in to rest for the night. Right until they run into Wei Wuxian, having heard the same rumours, setting out for the same night hunt.

Lan Qiren, at the time, has more than half a mind to remind the menace that they are within Gusu’s territory and therefore this night hunt is their responsibility alone (the key word here being alone), but by then the two junior disciples had already practically attached themselves to their Wei-qianbei with unbridled enthusiasm – Jingyi – and quiet but eager joy – Sizhui – to invite him along and. It is against the Lan doctrines to go back on one’s word.

And as much as Lan Qiren disapproves of Wei Wuxian and his statistically detrimental influence on impressionable young Lan minds, as much as he wants his precious grandnephew and Lan Jingyi nowhere near the demonic path or any of its practitioners, or any troublemaker of Wei Wuxian’s calibre in general… He sees the bright shine of happiness in the boys’ eyes and remembers Wangji’s perpetually grave and sombre ones, remembers Xichen’s filled with heavy awareness of the expectations resting on him, even when his nephews were far younger than these two, and can’t bring himself to deny them this.

Sizhui is a good boy, after all, responsible and dutiful, Wangji has raised him well. And Jingyi is… (Well, Jingyi is Jingyi, but there’s hopefully only so much of a bad influence Wei Wuxian can be on him. Sizhui will mitigate it. Probably.)

And so he reluctantly agrees to Wei Wuxian night hunting with them.

As much as he will come to regret the final outcome, it was overall a wise choice.

The yaogui turns out to be, in fact, three yaogui. It would have been difficult enough to handle for three experienced cultivators, much less with one senior and two juniors. Especially since none of them are as attuned to resentful energy as Wei Wuxian and therefore even Lan Qiren himself only noticed two of the creatures while the third stalked them from behind.

The dizi emits an aura of formless evil when Wei Wuxian raises it, like cold air and the icy currents beneath a frozen river’s surface, like creeping death, merciless and indifferent and entirely unstoppable. He plays a high trill, dissonant and piercing to the point of pain.

As distasteful as he finds it, as much as he considers it a grave violation of the natural order and everything cultivators are supposed to stand and strive for, Lan Qiren can’t deny that it’s effective. Lying is, after all, forbidden.

The third yaogui redirects its attack towards Wei Wuxian, surprising Lan Qiren and his two disciples when it bursts out of the treeline into the clearing they’re in, but Wei Wuxian evades it with ease, distracts the other two monsters so that Sizhui and Jingyi have a chance to catch their breath, Lan Qiren able to hold them off by himself for the moment, now that their aggression has found another target.

Still, it almost isn’t enough. The yaogui are more powerful than expected, fierce snarls exposing too sharp teeth and putrefactive breath, killing intent flowing from them in waves, and by the time they exterminate even the first, Sizhui and Jingyi’s attacks have slowed noticeably and Lan Qiren too can feel exhaustion and the drain on his spiritual reserves tugging at him. There is a red glow somewhere behind Wei Wuxian’s eyes, skin bleached to a deathly pallor in the moonlight, to something almost inhuman, and Lan Qiren’s attention is dangerously split between the remaining yaogui, and keeping a wary eye on the demonic cultivator beside him.

He is almost at the point of putting a stop to this, to order Jingyi and Sizhui to help him set arrays and barriers that, although not stop, will slow the yaogui enough for their escape, so they can call for reinforcements from home. A last-resort tactic, as the creatures may well follow them; may well accidentally be lead into the path of innocent civilians, but they cannot hold out like this forever, and as the highest-ranking cultivator present, it is his responsibility to see to the safety of those with him. He would never forgive himself if anything were to happen to the boys.

Then, the sharp trill of the dizi breaks off abruptly.

“Can you hold them back for a few minutes more?” Wei Wuxian asks them, uncharacteristically serious, eyeing Sizhui and Jingyi with concern echoing the one Lan Qiren feels. “I think I have an idea that’ll work.”

Lan Qiren doesn’t get the chance to reply, the juniors are already agreeing, voices bright and full of confidence in whatever he’s planning. They redouble their efforts and Lan Qiren is left frantically deflecting the attacks getting too close for comfort to the boys as the killing intent of the creatures rises further and Wei Wuxian withdraws from the immediate battle.

He only catches glimpses of whatever heretic insanity Wei Wuxian is concocting now. Crouching in the trampled grass, the rustling of talisman paper, the glint of red, human blood in the moonlight, incoherent muttering.

It rankles, to keep his back to him, to that much concentrated resentful energy, to such an unpredictable danger. It goes against instincts trained into him all his life, instincts that have kept him alive. It feels like insects down his spine.

The yaogui are downright frantic now, frothing at the maw with frustration where they’re keeping them away from Wei Wuxian, and finally, the demonic cultivator calls “Done!”, tells them to stand aside on his signal.

Everything happens very fast then.

The three Lans vault out of the way, instantly forgotten by the infuriated yaogui now both tearing across the clearing towards Wei Wuxian, who slaps a talisman to his chest, a sinister red glow enveloping him and the monsters.

Wei Wuxian, who makes not even an attempt to dodge as they barrel into him, teeth bared and claws sharp.

Wei Wuxian, who doesn’t make a sound as those claws must sink into him, it is impossible for them to have missed.

Wei Wuxian whose face is focused and impassive, red glow behind his eyes, red blood trickling from his mouth.

“Xian-gege!”

“Wei-qianbei!”

Lan Qiren instinctively reaches out, grateful for his cultivation enhancing his reflexes, just about manages to catch the boys and pull them back, to keep them from running over to Wei Wuxian, to keep them safe.

The glow of the talisman doesn’t fade, no, the opposite happens. It glows brighter and brighter, the yaogui frozen in place as though in shock.

Energy grows outwards in red tendrils like the roots of a tree, slow but ultimately unhindered by any obstacle, hissing and twisting like lightning eating its way through wood. It fades quickly in the air, where it has nothing to cling to, but eats unstoppable though the creatures’ forms, carving out glowing paths. Light rises from the ground then – no, not from the ground, but from the grass, trampled but still green, still alive moments ago, it wilts by the second, life drained out of it by the talisman as pure yang energy, faint compared to the red where it seeps into the fault lines created by the talisman.

Silence, the world holds its breath.

Then, with nothing but a crackle and the stench of burnt, rotten flesh, the yaogui burn to nothing from the inside out, turning to dust first and then to even less than that. Leaving only Wei Wuxian in the centre of a circular patch of dead grass, swaying for a moment before he visibly pulls himself together and smiled brightly towards Sizhui and Jingyi.

The moment he releases the boys – sure that it is safe to do so now, he can’t sense any additional dangers and for all his distrust of the heretical path, Lan Qiren knows Wei Wuxian cares for them, wouldn’t let them to come to harm – they hurtle themselves to his side.

“Wei-qianbei! Are you okay?! What the ever-living fuck even was that? That was so cool!” Despite his language, Jingyi is the more dignified one for once; at least he remains standing and only clutches the demonic cultivator’s sleeve.

On the other hand, a worried Sizhui calls out “Xian-gege!” again while crouching down to cling to Wei Wuxian’s leg, as he’d sometimes done when he’d been very young and frightened.

(Lan Qiren decides not to remark upon this being inappropriate form of address for, and behaviour towards, a senior with whom Sizhui has no actual, official family relation. Just as he refuses to acknowledge his grandnephew’s closeness with a certain surprisingly timid fierce corpse. He has long had his suspicions regarding Sizhui’s true ancestry, but he is determined to ignore them and something as insignificant as confirmation will not stop him from doing so.)

“Aiya, look at the two of you, clinging like that! A-Yuan, isn’t there a Lan rule about not getting yaogui-dust all over you? Jingyi, stop pulling, I only have one other pair of robes and if you tear these I’ll make you buy me new ones! I’m fine, I’m fine!” he exclaims with a grin, petting Sizhui’s head with reassurance and fatherly affection until the boy stands up again, ears pink with embarrassment at his own display, even as he doesn’t stop clinging.

Clearly, he knows the way his conduct is lacking, so perhaps Lan Qiren will overlook it this once.

“Sizhui! Jingyi!” he sternly calls them to order nonetheless.

Finally, the juniors pull themselves away from their beloved senior. All thoughts of reprimands are temporarily forgotten though when Sizhui lets out a sharp gasp. Red stains the front of Sizhui’s pristine white robes and Lan Qiren is by his side in an instant, frantically searching his grandnephew for injuries, and it takes an embarrassingly long moment to realise that this isn’t Sizhui’s blood.

At least he catches a glimpse of the very same panic in Wei Wuxian’s eyes, and it takes him a moment longer to come to the same conclusion.

Three pairs of Lan eyes fix themselves on the demonic cultivator. Two worried, one pretending not to be.

Wei Wuxian laughs awkwardly, winces, laughs again to overplay the wince.

“It’s fine.”

“Wei-quianbei, you’re bleeding, we need to get you to a healer.” Sizhui sensibly points out.

“I thought you’d be gored when I saw them come at you like that!” Jingyi, forever the less tactful one, adds.

“Ah, haha, I guess that must’ve looked dramatic, huh? Don’t worry, they’re really shallow, I just needed to get close enough to touch the yaogui, and this was the easiest way. I’ve gotten worse from splinters when I made Chenqing.”

“Seriously though, what did you even do to them?”

A part of Lan Qiren wants to cut off this line of questioning before Wei Wuxian can even begin answering. After all, it is common knowledge that the injured party ought to conserve their strength. And he shouldn’t let his impressionable disciples’ heads be filled with Wei Wuxian’s… ideas .

Another part, however, wonders the exact same thing, and there is after all a rule regarding encouraging youths’ curiosity and desire to learn, and after all, Wei Wuxian appears to be healthy enough, filled with his usual, chaotic energy, a spring in his steps as he walks beside them…

“Ah, the basis of the talisman is just something very similar to my yin attraction flags. Yin energy may be different in nature, but it works much the same as yang energy and can be manipulated similarly, even if its effects can differ. I just needed to alter the design of a yin-luring talisman to extract pure yang energy from my surroundings within a spatial boundary incorporated into the talisman design. Now, you know what causes a qi-deviation?”

“An uncontrolled imbalance between yin and yang energies caused by inappropriate channelling of qi.” Sizhui answers dutifully.

“Very good. You see, a yao’s core naturally consists of yin energy and its meridians too are meant to channel yin, instead of yang energy. It’s like changing a spiritual cultivator’s meridians to, instead of channelling yang energy, to hold and manipulate yin instead, except, a yao has a lower level of cognisance and therefore can’t simply offset the imbalance once purified yang energy enters its core. I only needed to get it there by simultaneously using yin energy to trick them into sensing my meridians as an extension of their own, which is why I needed direct contact.”

Jingyi’s eyes go wide. “So you basically induced a controlled qi-deviation?”

“Yep! I’m sure it’d be possible to do that without the need for physical contact too, I’ll need to see how much potential that design has, but that might take a few weeks…”

Despite himself, Lan Qiren is impressed as Wei Wuxian begins to explain in more detail how exactly he turned a qi-deviation into a spontaneous self-combustion, listening attentively. The pursuit of knowledge is an honourable endeavour not only for the young alone, and to deny that Wei Wuxian’s newly-invented technique may once again become an essential staple on night hunts would be pure pettiness. (Tempting, but also forbidden.)

Thus distracted, the tension begins to fade from the juniors, and admittedly from Lan Qiren himself too – right until Wei Wuxian, the eternal menace, trips over some vegetation and catches himself against a tree trunk with an aborted groan, leaving behind a smear of red shining wetly on the bark when it takes him far too long to push himself to stand upright again.

“I’m fi–”

-is as far as he gets, before he doubles over. A concerning amount of blood hits the forest floor where Wei Wuxian throws it up.

That immediately reestablishes the tension and redirects the conversation towards the necessity of taking him to someone more skilled than a village healer. The moment Lan Qiren activates a light-talisman, he agrees with the juniors’ insistence to take him back to the Cloud Recesses to be treated by Gusu Lan’s own physicians.

The extent of the damage immediately visible is… troubling. The claw marks are far from really shallow , in fact, they’re not anything resembling shallow at all. The blood may be concealed by the black fabric of Wei Wuxian’s outer robe, but that doesn’t disguise the fact that a considerable area of them is sodden with it and now that it’s revealed not to be a trick of the cold moonlight, Wei Wuxian’s pallor, covered with a sheen of cold sweat, is equally worrying.

Lan Qiren doesn’t know if the glimpse of something bright he catches is merely a reflection of the talisman’s light on the fluid, or if the claw mark across his ribs has cut all the way to the bone. He isn’t sure he wants to know.

Wei Wuxian grimaces. That it’s clearly a grimace not of pain but rather one at being caught out on his lie would have Lan Qiren question the young man’s sanity if he didn’t have more important matters to worry about. Already he’s reaching for the mandatory parcel of basic medicinal supply stored in his sleeve, the two juniors doing the same.

“Ah haha, it’s… not as bad as it looks?” Wei Wuxian tries.

To transport the infernal donkey by sword had been, unsurprisingly, Jingyi’s idea, after having to listen at length to Wei Wuxian’s objections – he continues to be surprisingly vocal for one so gravely wounded, perhaps it really does look worse than it is – to being taken to the Cloud Recesses for his wounds to be treated, none of which were remotely valid, until he’d insisted that he couldn’t just leave the animal behind where they’d tied it to a tree at the edge of the forest.

And after all, the Lan sect values all life.

Lan Qiren isn’t sure if anything is being valued when he watches with dismay as his disciples finally succeed in getting that donkey to stand with two hooves each on one sword and actually lift into the air with a precarious wobble – and one very terrified donkey.

“Hey! Don’t just make off with my donkey! Lil’ Apple! Isn’t stealing forbidden?!” Wei Wuxian shouts after the boys, prompting a giggle from Jingyi and a polite admonishment from Sizhui when that makes them wobble again. “Bring her down! With that much extra weight, you’ll exhaust yourselves!”

Despite their questionable respect for their Wei-qianbei, they simply ignore him and soon turn into nothing but indistinct shapes – two white, one dark – against the night sky.

Leaving Lan Qiren alone with Wei Wuxian, and the creeping realisation that it has taken two children less time to wrangle a donkey into a sword flight that it has taken him to do the same with a single demonic cultivator.

“Wei Wuxian.”

“Ah? Oh, heh, sorry.”

Instead of doing anything reasonable, Wei Wuxian steps away from where he’d finally allowed himself to be helped after stumbling half the way here on his own, takes another step, legs trembling and barely holding him up, until he stands at a respectable distance from Lan Qiren.

“Thank you for your help, Lan-xiansheng, but I can make it back to the village on my own. You should go with them, make sure they don’t drain themselves too much. Maybe tell them to give my donkey back sometime?”

Lan Qiren stares, staggered by the absolute idiocy that menace is spewing.

Said menace gives a sheepish laugh. “And, sorry about… that.” He gestures to where Lan Qiren’s robes are soaked with his blood. “I can pay to replace them. Well. I can’t pay for that right now, but. Soon? Maybe not all that once though…”

Whatever hopes Lan Qiren had for Wei Wuxian’s condition being less serious than it appears vanish. His voice is more serious now that the juniors have gone, as is his perpetual smile, and even the latter is tighter. He looks drawn around the eyes, pain finally forcing its way onto his expression and Lan Qiren is abruptly reminded once again that this man lacks a golden core – is, despite all the ways in which he isn’t, mundane.

Blood drips from the hem of his robes into the soil. Lesser wounds have been known to have far stronger men in tears, screaming, unconscious. Not standing under their own strength and smiling.

“Wei Wuxian, get on the sword. I’m taking you to the healers in the Cloud Recesses.”

Somehow, the smile widens, yet turns dimmer at the same time. “Ah, I’m fine, really, I’ve had far worse when I was in the Burial Mounds the first time. I know your sect rules obligate you to not leave anyone injured behind, but… Consider yourself freed from the obligation, or whatever. I know you wouldn’t want me in the Cloud Recesses, and I don’t… I’d rather not be where I’m not welcome. You can just let me go, now that the two worrywarts are gone.”

It would probably spare him a lot of headache to not have Wei Wuxian in the Cloud Recesses, that much is true. The Cloud Recesses are quiet and peaceful and Lan Qiren deeply appreciates those qualities, and Wei Wuxian is neither.

Wei Wuxian is, in spite of his cultivation path, a decent person.

He often tries not to think about the Wens Wei Wuxian has protected, this one action that led to so much chaos and death, something for which his own sect cannot be absolved of responsibility entirely. The rules dictate that one should acknowledge and seek to rectify one’s mistakes, but they also teach to learn from them and not wallow in the past.

What is black, what is white?

What is peace and quiet compared to a decent man’s life?

“And what is it you’re planning? To go to the village healer, if this village even has one? Your wounds are severe, if they become infected, do you think they would be able to treat you?”

Wei Wuxian grimaces. “I…”

“Foolish boy. If not for yourself or for me to fulfil my obligation to you, at least let me fulfil my obligation to Wangji. Heavens know why, but he cares for you. He should not have to lose you a second time due to your own stubbornness.” And he would never forgive me. And perhaps he shouldn’t. “Do you truly think he wouldn’t welcome you, regardless of my approval?”

That, at least, seems to get a genuine reaction from Wei Wuxian, who brightens immediately. “How is Lan Zhan?”

There is a look Lan Qiren sees far more frequently than he’d like. Daily, in fact. Every morning, when one of the disciples brings correspondence addressed to anyone in the sect from the post office in Caiyi Town back to the Cloud Recesses, Wangji gets a particular look on his face. One of desperately eager, pained longing for any word of his beloved, while he waits with thinly veiled anticipation to see whether there is a letter for him from Wei Wuxian. Every morning without fail, Lan Qiren has to see this look on his nephew’s face, despite the well-established routine of there only being one letter roughly once a week. Admittedly, one of the appeals of a few days away from the Cloud Recesses had been the thought of not having to see that look.

This is unmistakably the precise look Wei Wuxian, the eternal menace, wears right now when asking about Wangji.

Do not bear grudges.

Do not harbour irrational anger or annoyance.

Do not give into irritation.

Be strict to yourself but lenient towards others.

Be forgiving.

“Gossip is forbidden.” Lan Qiren says.

Wei Wuxian’s face falls.

Lan Qiren concedes that it might be time he himself copy the rules while doing handstands; he hasn’t needed to in a very long time, but it comes to no surprise that Wei Wuxian would drive him to this point. “Just come with me. Once our healers have stitched you back together, you can ask him yourself.”

For a moment, Wei Wuxian’s eyes turn distant and glassy and he wavers where he stands, blood trailing down his skin yet again even though he barely coughs – maybe he hasn’t the strength. He catches himself again before he falls, before Lan Qiren can decide to step closer to support his weight again if needed, but it costs him, if the half-swallowed groan of pain is any indication.

Of course, any hypothetical comment is waved away with another, even less convincing “I’m fine, I’m fine.”

Lan Qiren hopes he won’t have to physically wrangle him onto his sword, the way Sizhui and Jingyi did his accursed donkey. That would do neither Wei Wuxian’s wounds nor Lan Qiren’s dignity any good.

It is discouraged to show excessive emotion, but there simply is no keeping his irritation out of his sigh at this point, and in any case, it doesn’t feel like an excessive reaction anyway but rather like a very, very justified one. “Must you be so stubborn, boy? Just get on the sword, before you bleed out where you stand. Let me take you to the Cloud Recesses. For Wangji’s sake.”

“Thanking Lan-xiansheng for his concern,” Wei Wuxian says with uncharacteristic formality, offset by the annoying whine in his tone, “but if you’d be willing to take me that far, can’t you just drop me off at Caiyi Town? There are decent doctors there, I’ll be fine. Just… don’t take me to Cloud Recesses.”

He trails off into another cough, eyes clenched with pain as he doubles over. This time he definitely would’ve fallen if Lan Qiren hadn’t had the foresight to grip him by his upper arms once more, and still, by the time he straightens again, though his eyes are still glassy, the smile is back on his face even as he weakly tries to pull away.

This is ridiculous.

“For heavens’ sake, why? Did something happen? Did you and Wangji have an argument?”

The smile turns sly. “Isn’t gossip forbidden?”

Lan Qiren glares silently. One shouldn’t be excessive with words after all.

“I’m doing this for Lan Zhan.” Wei Wuxian sighs, and although he’d never admit as much out loud, Lan Qiren would be more comfortable confronted with that mischievous smile than such a hollow one.

“Lan Zhan is… He’s so good. I know he wouldn’t send me away, I think he really has come to care about me in some way, beyond doing the right thing I mean, and that means more to me than…” He clears his throat. Swallows, probably to force yet more blood back down. “Anyway. I think we’re friends. I hope. Even though he’s so much better than I deserve, and I’ve brought him nothing but trouble, I know that.”

He begins to falter, voice sluggish and eyes threatening to fall closed, he sways on his feet and doesn’t even seem to notice this time.

“I know I’ve put a rift between him and the sect before. And he’s come so far, I mean, Chief Cultivator, I’m so… proud, I think? And there’s no one who’d be better at this, Lan Zhan is just… so good . And I’d only drag him down with my reputation. And I worry he’d let me, because Lan Zhan is just that good… I’m probably already annoying him with all the letters, but he’s too kind to tell me off when he writes back… I don’t know why he puts up with me… He shouldn’t…”

That is.

There is a lot to process here, but Lan Qiren doesn’t get to process any of it before the absolute menace goes ahead and finally passes out on him.

It’s the sight of the bandages he and Jingyi tied on while Sizhui tried to get Wei Wuxian to keep still long enough that spurs him into action, the fabric, as white as their robes, now almost thoroughly red enough that they could’ve been part of Wei Wuxian’s usual attire and Lan Qiren is sorely tempted to start cursing himself for wasting so much time arguing with the idiot when it’s obvious he won’t see reason.

Time, it’s dawning rapidly on Lan Qiren now, Wei Wuxian may not have.

Propriety dictates that he ought to sling him over his back, but practicality supersedes propriety, as it would aggravate the wounds littering his torso, so with a sigh that’s admittedly more worried than annoyed, Lan Qiren carefully lowers the unconscious menace to the ground, until he can slip one arm beneath his knees and the other around his back, and lifts. That this prompts a small groan and grimace of pain from Wei Wuxian is an encouraging sign that he hasn’t slipped too deeply into unconsciousness. Lan Qiren still feels a surprising twinge of guilt as he steps onto his hovering sword and rises into the air.

He’s light, much lighter than expected. It’s so easy to see him as something larger than life, after all, he’d single-handedly turned the tide of the Sunshot Campaign, made the entire cultivation world his enemy, spent even the 16 years of his death as a looming spectre, a cautionary tale of corruption through power and the crooked path.

The man – barely more than a boy, really – in his hold seems too small for all that. The knobs of his spine dig prominently into Lan Qiren’s arm, and he can feel each rib shift with every breath even through the bandages layered on top of the robes. Remembers, suddenly, not the demonic cultivator wrapped in power and resentful energy, but the person he saw just earlier in the day, when they’d made their rounds through the village to gather information on the yaogui. Wei Wuxian, as he dug a nearly empty purse from his sleeve and paid too much for an elderly woman’s scallion pancakes, only for the food, along with the remaining sparse contents of his purse, to switch hands after only a few bites, once he’d spotted a homeless child shyly darting through the crowd.

A glance downward at his burden reveals more sweat covering Wei Wuxian’s skin, chest rising and falling with too-fast, too-shallow breaths. There is little use in transferring spiritual energy to him, Sizhui had attempted as much, only for Wei Wuxian to wave him off, comparing it to pouring water into a leaking bucket; it requires a constant stream larger than what flows out.

Still, he finds himself attempting it. Worry sits thick in his throat now. Worry for Wangji, who Lan Qiren isn’t sure would survive losing Wei Wuxian a second time. For Sizhui, who in his young life has already lost so much family.

Worry for Wei Wuxian, who already suffered one undeserved death and doesn’t deserve another.

There truly is little use, and he has little qi to spare right now, exhausted as he is from the battle and having to carry the additional weight on his sword, and he feels it ebb away the moment it enters Wei Wuxian’s spiritual veins, but at least his breathing evens out somewhat, and his eyelids begin to twitch.

They blink open a moment later, dull and disoriented, fixed somewhere in the vicinity of Lan Qiren’s arm.

“Lan Zhan?” The question is barely audible.

“Not yet.”

“I miss Lan Zhan.” comes after a pause, voice somehow even smaller than before, like the admission isn’t meant to be heard.

Lan Qiren is caught between rolling his eyes, and an old urge to offer comfort, one he’d developed back in the days of Xichen’s skinned knees and Wangji being pushed around by the older children in the first year of his lessons. Even then he hadn’t given into the urge often; perhaps not often enough. Besides, gossip is forbidden.

And yet.

“Be truthful. Be clear in your words and meanings.” he recites with a sigh. He has lost count of how often he has sighed today; it has bought him little patience so far. “Wei Wuxian. I would ask of you that you tell Wangji as much, because I know he too has… felt your absence.”

Wei Wuxian seems to finally notice that they’re aloft, because he tenses when he spots the ground so far below them and, instead of acting like a rational person, instinctively squirms until Lan Qiren has to swerve wildly to keep his balance.

(If he does mutter a curse at that, only the night sky and Wei Wuxian are his witnesses, and the latter may well not be conscious enough to realise. He has already assigned himself a copy of the rules, he may as well add two further ones of the section on proper conduct.)

It forces him to cut off his energy transfer, though that’s just as well, he will need it to get them all the way back without pause. The juniors, saddled with a donkey of all things as they are, will need to take a break to rest, but by now it’s clear that Wei Wuxian cannot afford one, and a part of Lan Qiren wonders distantly how he learned to hide pain to this extent. Yet another question he isn’t sure he wants to know the answer to.

“Where…?”

“I’m taking you to the Cloud Recesses to be treated.”

Lying is forbidden, but for the first time in Lan Qiren’s existence he wishes it weren’t, just so he could’ve answered Caiyi Town or maybe somewhere I can dump you in the ocean instead because of course Wei Wuxian squirms again.

“Keep still, idiot boy!”

“I’m fine… I don’t… I can’t … What if Lan Zhan lets me stay even though I make things difficult for him? With the elders? With everyone? What if he lets me stay even though I annoy him? What if he wouldn’t tell me to leave even when he wants me to? I couldn’t…”

“Wei Wuxian. Do not lie. Is that really what you believe? That Wangji is annoyed by you?” Heavens know my life would be easier if he were. But perhaps his would be emptier.

Wei Wuxian pouts dazedly at the insinuation, but by now Lan Qiren is starting to suspect that there won’t be any reasonable or helpful thoughts behind the sentiment. It has never been more frustrating to be proven right.

“Well, he doesn’t hate me. No matter what Jiang Cheng says, he doesn’t.” Then again, smaller, softer, vulnerable as though it’s himself he’s trying to convince. “He doesn’t. ”

How is it that this idiot, despite his more morally objectionable choices and inventions, is considered the greatest cultivation genius of his generation?

He knows his nephew, has raised him after all, has been more of a father to him than his actual father and loves him like a son, so he knows Wangji isn’t the most open in his expression and perhaps, that is in part his own fault too, for the way he raised him to be the epitome of a Lan disciple, for being thrust so suddenly into the dual roles of acting sect leader and father to his nephews… But surely, Wangji’s feelings are no secret to anyone at all. Least of all to the boy he has them for, the boy who apparently wears the same desperately eager, longing look when talking of Wangji as Wangji does whenever reminded of him, who sounds like he actually believes that Wangji might reject him, and like the possibility terrifies him.

Who Lan Qiren previously thought only returned Wangji’s regard in the form of friendship, a clearly erroneous assumption. Who apparently wants to protect Wangji’s reputation and keep the peace between him and the rest of the Lan sect badly enough to refuse the best option for treatment for a severe, life-threatening wound, and yet in the same breath believes that Wangji at best cares for him in some way that slightly outweighs his annoyance.

Lan Qiren would really like to not deal with this.

Lan Qiren would, quite frankly, rather deal with virtually anything else.

Lan Qiren does not feel equipped to deal with this, especially not while his sleeves are starting to feel suspiciously damp and the Cloud Recesses are still a worrying distance away and Wei Wuxian looks like he might pass out again at any moment. This, he decides, is terrible timing for an unmissable opportunity to try and arrange for his nephew’s well-deserved happiness, and it’s all Wei Wuxian’s fault.

Deep breath.

For Wangji. For Sizhui. For Xichen, who forever worries for his little brother’s happiness even as he battles his own heart demons.

And maybe, for Wei Wuxian too.

“You care about Wangji, don’t you?”

The rules dictate that one be aware of one’s own faults, and Lan Qiren knows that reading people is not one of his strengths. But if gambling were permitted and something he’d ever consider doing, he’d be willing to bet that Wei Wuxian would be blushing right now if he had enough blood left to do so.

“Who wouldn’t? Lan Zhan is amazing!” Wei Wuxian protests, insistent despite his breathy, slurred voice, as if even in his barely conscious state, the idea that he wouldn’t causes great offence. “He’s kind and honourable and righteous and handsome and funny and… and… He’s Lan Zhan! ”

He has to admit to feeling some amusement at Wei Wuxian’s indignation.

(And maybe, a beginning tendril of familial fondness, small but stubborn as it worms its way into his heart.)

“Wangji wants you to come stay at the Cloud Recesses. And, while I may not understand it, I know for a fact that he isn’t annoyed, neither by you nor your letters. If you truly don’t want to even come see him, don’t you think it’s time to tell him so he can stop waiting for you? And if you do want to stay as he wants you to, isn’t it time that you do so?”

For a moment, there is only the sound of the wind rushing past. Wei Wuxian seems to try and curl in on himself, heedless of the wince, of the renewed bloodflow where some of the shallower wounds had finally started to scab, face for once devoid of a smile. He looks young like this, barely older than Sizhui, only his eyes older than the rest of him and telling the story of one who has lived through a war and worse. He doesn’t look like he believes Lan Qiren’s words though even he must know that the Lans don’t lie, but at least he doesn’t look like he’ll argue. For once. (He looks a little like he’s afraid it would hurt, if he did.)

“I want to, but… I don’t… The elders… The cultivation world… They would use that against him, that he’s willing to call me his friend. So… It doesn’t matter. That I want to.”

Well, it’s not like Lan Qiren ever expected for him to make it easy, menace that he is.

“If your want doesn’t matter, what about what Wangji wants?” Lan Qiren counters.

Pride and self-congratulation are rightly prohibited as they are a steep pathway towards arrogance and its pitfalls. Nonetheless it’s… very satisfying when Wei Wuxian seems to have no response to that, breath still too shallow and blinking heavily, avoiding Lan Qiren’s challenging gaze but not refuting his point either.

He’d enjoy his satisfaction more if he didn’t have to worry about Wei Wuxian losing consciousness again.

Wei Wuxian shivers as they fly in momentary silence; it’s cold at this height. Lan Qiren too feels the cold, and he is uninjured and has a strong golden core to keep him warm, as opposed to being core-less and suffering heavy blood loss, plus, he is properly dressed, whereas if one doesn’t count the blood-soaked bandages, Wei Wuxian is only dressed in two layers, one red one black.

It’s improper and it vexed Lan Qiren when he and his disciples first ran into him at that village. Inappropriate for the season’s weather, arrogant to presume that one doesn’t need to bow to nature’s conditions.

Now, he thinks of the Wei Wuxian who would rather suffer than inconvenience Wangji. Whose hard-earned core rests within the Jiang sect leader, who plays at being fine while bleeding out so he won’t worry the junior disciples he’s so fond of, who presses food and money he cannot spare into the trembling hands of a street child.

Now, he strongly suspects that any warmer clothes, any additional layers, have probably long found a similar purpose.

“You know,” he finds himself saying, pausing to wait for Wei Wuxian’s disoriented gaze to find him, “you may take after your mother in appearance and spirit, but you have your father’s heart.”

Some measure of acuity returns to Wei Wuxian’s eyes for a moment, turns them eager and child-like, a moment in which Lan Qiren feels almost transported to one from another lifetime, with a more innocent Wei Wuxian, desperate for any story of his parents and too used to being denied. Blood-crusted lips part, but in the end, no question escapes them and the light fades again behind a haze of pain and exhaustion.

(He quietly resolves to answer those silent questions as best as he can, some not too distant day when Wei Wuxian has healed and Lan Qiren has found some way to make him and Wangji talk to each other until Wei Wuxian does the sensible thing for once in his life and stays. )

Wei Wuxian shivers. Lan Qiren should’ve thought to cover him with one of his own spare outer robes before they took flight, but it’s too late now. He huffs instead, irritated, and holds him a little closer.

“I suppose Wangji could’ve chosen worse.” It should feel like digging his own peace of mind’s grave to say, but it doesn’t. “Stay in the Cloud Recesses. You’ll always be welcome there.” Maybe because he’s starting to think that maybe, despite his mistakes, despite his demonic cultivation, Wei Wuxian hasn’t left the righteous path at all; not in any way that truly matters. “Let me worry about the elders.”