Chapter Text
The lotus ponds were still tonight.
No wind stirred the surface. No insects buzzed. Even the moonlight draped itself gently across the water like a shroud. Too gentle. Too pale. Too empty.
Wei Wuxian let out a sigh that seemed to stretch the length of the pier.
He was lying flat on his back beneath a willow tree, one boot kicked off, the other dangling precariously from his toes. His head rested against his discarded outer robe, half-bundled to serve as a pillow. He’d come out for a walk, or so he told Jiang Yanli earlier. He needed fresh air, a clear head, some time to reflect.
And now, two hours later, he had composed no less than seven unfinished poems, cursed five different Lan disciples in his mind, and declared the moon his sworn enemy.
“The heavens do not mourn, but they ache,” he muttered to no one, staring up at the wan light above. “They ache because you are gone, and I am left to rot in this empty courtyard, like fallen plum blossoms trampled underfoot.”
A toad croaked in the reeds nearby. He glared at it.
It was a poor audience, but it was all he had.
The branches above him swayed faintly, rustling like whispers. Wei Wuxian sniffled—not because he was crying, of course not—but because the night air had grown damp. Yes. Damp and heavy with loneliness and longing and… mildew.
He dragged one sleeve over his eyes and sat up, dragging the wine jar closer. It was the cheap kind, the kind Madam Yu used for cooking and scolding. He’d stolen it from the kitchen under the guise of practicing his sword forms behind the stables. No one had stopped him. Maybe they had finally given up.
Or maybe they pitied him. They all thought he was grieving his punishment, the lectures, the detention, the missed chance to be in Gusu with the rest.
Fools. Idiots. Blind, all of them.
It wasn’t the punishment that stung—it was the separation.
“Who leaves their shidi in a nest of foxes and wolves?” he whispered to the wine, cradling the jar like it might answer. “Lans—humourless, expressionless, cold as frost—sniffing around him like rabbits after fresh greens. Have they no shame?”
He imagined Jiang Cheng standing stiffly among them, arms crossed, expression pinched with barely-concealed irritation. How long before the Wens of Qishan tried to “befriend” him? How long before one of them offered to help adjust his sword grip or correct his stance in that insufferable gentle tone they all used?
“No!” Wei Wuxian slammed his palm against the grass, nearly sloshing his wine. “His stance is fine. His grip is perfect. I've seen it. I helped him refine it. I—” His voice broke slightly. “—I was the one who watched him practice in the rain, who caught him when he slipped on the stones, who stayed up all night with him burning talismans because he refused to go to sleep without finishing the batch.”
The koi pond glittered in the moonlight a few paces away. He stood, stumbling slightly, and staggered toward it.
The koi were fat and lazy this time of year. They drifted beneath the water like silent judges, tails flicking slowly, uncaring.
“You wouldn’t understand,” he told them solemnly, crouching down to poke at the surface. “You have no shidi. You have no heart. You float, you eat, you forget. But I—” He pressed a hand to his chest. “—I remember. Every scowl. Every complaint. Every time he called me ‘annoying’ and stomped off but left the door open behind him anyway.”
A single koi surfaced, blinked its dull eyes at him, and retreated. Wei Wuxian took this as an insult.
He sighed and stood up again, weaving slightly, the moon doubling in his vision.
“Even the fish mock me,” he muttered. “I’ve been abandoned. Forsaken. Left behind like last season’s joss paper.”
He wandered further into the garden, past the stone lanterns and carved railings, until he reached the flat boulder at the edge of the east wall. He climbed onto it and sprawled dramatically, arms out like he was waiting for thunder to strike him down. His collar had come loose in the front—sash undone, lapel askew, exposing a flash of his collarbone to the uncaring night.
He imagined Jiang Cheng alone at the Cloud Recesses only to be surrounded by admiring cultivators. He imagined Lan Wangji—arrogant, upright, intolerably beautiful—glancing once at Jiang Cheng and feeling a flicker of interest.
“As if,” he snarled, but the image had already rooted itself in his brain like a parasite.
He pictured Jiang Cheng laughing at something Lan Wangji said. He pictured them sparring side-by-side. Worse—he imagined them sharing tea.
Wei Wuxian groaned and dragged a sleeve over his eyes again. “No one’s tea is worth that.”
The wine was gone. When had that happened? He stared at the empty jar and threw it—gently—into a patch of soft moss. Then he looked up at the sky again, eyes bleary and full of imaginary betrayal.
“Come home, Jiang Cheng,” he whispered, voice thick with wine and longing. “Or I shall wither like a lotus leaf in winter, brittle and lifeless, clinging to the memory of warmth.”
The wind rustled through the trees. The moon did not answer.
The sun rose far too bright for someone who had just been abandoned.
Wei Wuxian squinted up at the clear skies and made a face. Too cheerful. The clouds should have parted to mourn with him—or better yet, not parted at all. Where was the decorum? The rain? The wailing flocks of birds?
He dragged himself upright from his heap of bedclothes (and one suspiciously Jiang Cheng-shaped robe), muttering curses under his breath. Morning chores awaited.
Apparently, even heartbreak was no excuse for dereliction of duty.
“Go supervise the new recruits,” Madam Yu had snapped earlier. “And if I hear one word about you slacking off, I’ll assign you to latrine duty for the rest of the season.”
Wei Wuxian had bowed with a flourish and a grin too wide to be sincere. “Of course, Yu-furen. Your will is law. Your discipline is legend. Your wrath is as elegant as it is terrifying.”
She had narrowed her eyes. “Don’t mock me, boy.”
“Never, Yu-furen,” he said, already walking backwards toward the courtyard.
—
The recruits were gathered in the training field, swords polished, stances stiff. A few looked up as Wei Wuxian approached, hope briefly flickering in their eyes.
That hope did not last.
“Alright!” Wei Wuxian called, clapping his hands. “You’re all holding your swords like you’re about to propose marriage, not stab an enemy. Loosen up. No one wants to die to a man with romantic wrists.”
There was a general rustling of discomfort.
“Jiang Cheng—” he began automatically, then stopped short.
The recruits stared. Wei Wuxian blinked at the space beside him, as if he could will a familiar scowl into being. The silence stretched.
“...Never mind,” he finished weakly. “He’s not here.”
The next hour was a series of minor disasters. He meant well, truly—but he had no patience for fundamentals today, and even less attention span. He demonstrated a technique too quickly. A disciple tripped. Another nearly cut his sleeve open trying to copy his movements. One poor boy got so flustered under his scrutiny that he dropped his sword entirely.
“Ah—are you alright?” Wei Wuxian asked, crouching beside the fallen disciple and offering him a hand. The boy looked like he wanted to sink into the earth.
Wei Wuxian patted his shoulder. “You’re lucky Jiang Cheng isn’t here. He would have yelled until your ancestors felt it.”
The boy laughed nervously. Wei Wuxian didn’t.
He looked away, suddenly quiet.
—
After training, he wandered aimlessly toward the outer hall, trying to remember what Madam Yu had told him to do next. She had given him several tasks. He was sure of it. Something about inventory. Or the herb gardens? Or talisman-sorting?
He paused by the storerooms, blinked at the rows of sealed crates, and decided they looked perfectly fine as they were.
Next, he tried the alchemy wing. The old cultivator there gave him a blank look and pointed him toward the medical stores. Wei Wuxian nodded solemnly, took one step toward the door—and immediately forgot what he was supposed to fetch.
He ended up in the kitchens.
Not because he was hungry. But because the kitchen courtyard overlooked the rear garden, and the rear garden had the laundry line, and the laundry line…
...had his robe.
Jiang Cheng’s spare outer robe, dark purple and neatly folded, flapped in the breeze like a flag planted straight through Wei Wuxian’s chest.
He didn’t think. He just walked up, snatched it from the line, and carried it inside like a soldier bearing the body of a fallen comrade.
—
When Jiang Yanli found him, he was sitting at the low table in her quarters, surrounded by half-finished chores and untouched pastries. The robe was in his lap. His fingers were threaded into the fabric like roots through soil.
“A-Xian?” she asked gently.
He jolted. Then, slowly, with the weariness of a man who had fought many invisible battles, he looked up.
“Shijie,” he said gravely. “I was just—airing it out.”
Yanli blinked. “...Inside?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “The sun is too harsh. It would bleach the colour. This robe is delicate. It deserves only the gentlest wind.”
She smiled softly and sat beside him. Her gaze drifted to the robe in his lap, then to the faraway look in his eyes.
“I miss him too, you know,” she said.
Wei Wuxian scowled. “You’re not worried like I am. You’re not panicking.”
“I’m not panicking because I trust him,” she replied. “And because I know he’ll come back.”
Wei Wuxian groaned, flopping back dramatically onto the floor. “You’re all too calm! Everyone’s too calm! Don’t you understand what could be happening right now?”
Yanli hummed patiently.
“There are boys there, Shijie.”
“Yes, that’s how the Cloud Recesses work.”
“There are Lan boys there.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You’ve never minded them before.”
“That was before they started sniffing around my shidi,” he snapped, clutching the robe tighter. “Jiang Cheng doesn’t know how to—how to deflect that kind of attention! He’ll get swept up in it! One minute it’s etiquette lessons and shared study scrolls, and the next thing you know—Lan Xichen is braiding his hair!”
Yanli made a quiet sound that might have been a laugh, carefully disguised as a cough.
He sat up again, eyes blazing. “There are two Lan Jades, you know. One is already too much. But two? What if they both like him? What if they fight over him like he’s some kind of… of... spirit beast in heat?”
Yanli stared at him, entirely expressionless. “I think they are both known for their composure.”
“That’s worse!” he cried. “They’re subtle. They’ll play the long game. Courting rituals. Offers of incense and tea. Lan Xichen playing the guqin under the window like some kind of romantic ghost—Jiang Cheng will never stand a chance!”
Yanli reached out and gently plucked the robe from his lap, folding it neatly. “He’ll be back soon, A-Xian.”
Wei Wuxian paused. Then frowned. “Soon isn’t soon enough. Do you know how many Lan boys are there?”
“...Two?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Two Lan Jades. Who knows how many minor ones lurk behind the curtain? They multiply like rabbits in white robes.”
She patted his head. “Perhaps you should take a nap.”
He lay back down, arms spread like a man crucified by longing. “Perhaps I should ascend and haunt him instead.”
Wei Wuxian had prepared everything with the solemnity of a scholar composing his final will.
His desk was cleared, wiped of ink stains for once. A fresh stack of parchment had been smoothed flat and weighed down by his best jade paperweight. He had opened the lacquered box of writing brushes and selected the finest one—wolf hair, trimmed to a perfect taper. The ink he’d chosen was cinnamon-scented. Sincere. Appropriately sentimental for a letter to a beloved shidi. Especially as it was the scent of his soap and oils.
And yet, he had been sitting at the desk for nearly half an hour, and the parchment was still untouched.
He scowled at it. It scowled back.
“Well, I suppose I could start with something simple,” he muttered, dipping the brush into the ink. “Something friendly. Neutral. Not unhinged.”
He pressed the brush to the parchment and began to write.
Jiang Cheng,
How is Gusu? Are the Lan still as weird as they were?
He stared at the line.
Too direct. Too casual. Too likely to make Jiang Cheng roll his eyes.
He crossed it out.
New scroll. New approach.
Jiang Cheng,
I hope they’re not making you wear white. You’ll look like a grumpy snow spirit.
He paused. Considered. Nodded.
Then froze.
“What if he is wearing white?” he whispered, horror dawning. “What if he looks good in it?”
He gripped the brush tighter. “What if—what if someone compliments him?”
He crumpled the scroll and hurled it behind him with more force than necessary. It hit the wall and fell to the floor, joining two others already discarded.
Third scroll.
He stared at the blank page for a long moment, then wrote:
I miss your face.
Then, underneath it:
Your stupid scowly face. Your stupid hair. Your stupid everything.
He stared at it. Then struck a dramatic line through the entire thing, ink scoring so deeply it nearly tore the paper.
Next scroll.
This time, he tried a poem.
He didn’t mean to. It just… happened.
He’d been trying for something elegant. Something emotional. Something worthy of the ache in his chest. Instead, he ended up with this:
The lotus wilts under moonlight cold,
Like my soul, abandoned, left to mold.
Your absence bites like wind through cloth,
My heart is bruised, my tea gone froth.
He stopped. Stared at it. Read it again.
Then, slowly, deliberately, he tore the scroll in half, then in half again, then again, until the pieces were confetti and the confetti was dust and the dust was shame.
He scowled at the scroll in his hands, still half-damp with ink. His grip tightened.
Because what if—what if—Jiang Cheng did get the letter? What if he read it with that half-sneer he always wore when Wei Wuxian got too sentimental, too honest? What if he laughed at it?
No. Worse.
Wei Wuxian’s breath hitched.
What if he showed it to Lan Wangji?
He could see it now—Jiang Cheng, irritated but amused, saying, “Look what nonsense he sent me,” as if he weren’t the very centre of Wei Wuxian’s collapsing universe. Lan Wangji reading it in stoic silence, face blank as ever, before folding it into quarters and tucking it away somewhere to be used later as evidence of Wei Wuxian’s mental instability.
Or—no, even worse—Lan Wangji understanding it. Interpreting his metaphors. Respecting the emotion behind the lines. Pitying him.
He shuddered. “No,” he muttered. “He must never see this. He must never know.”
And with that, he crumpled the scroll so viciously the ink splattered up his wrist, as though the words themselves had betrayed him.
“Why is writing so hard?” he demanded, slumping over the desk. “I’ve faced ghost brides and water ghouls with a sword in one hand and a dizi in the other, but this? This is impossible.”
The ink brush dropped from his fingers, rolled off the desk, and splattered ink across his sleeve. He didn’t move.
Instead, he twisted in his seat and let his upper body slide dramatically off the edge of the chair until he was sprawled on the floor, half-wrapped in his own robes, surrounded by crumpled letters like a man who had fallen in battle.
He lay there a while. The moonlight filtered in through the window. The candles guttered. Somewhere outside, a disciple was coughing. He didn’t care.
He sighed, long and slow and full of despair. “If he really cared,” he murmured to the ceiling, “he’d write to me first.”
Silence.
A beat passed.
“Unless he already did,” Wei Wuxian whispered, eyes going wide. “What if he sent a letter and it got lost on the way? Or worse—intercepted? What if Yu-furen got it first? What if she burned it?!”
He bolted upright, eyes wild.
“Or what if he wanted to write, but couldn’t? What if he’s injured? What if he’s trapped in a Lan ritual and they’ve brainwashed him into silence?! What if he’s DYING?”
He stood. Pacing now. Hair loose from its ribbon, robes askew, ink on his face and sleeves like battle paint.
“I knew I should’ve given him the emergency talisman before he left,” he muttered. “I knew it. He’s probably trying to summon me right now and no one even knows—he’s alone in a cave with a Lan boy singing poems at him while he bleeds out from a paper cut.”
A knock on the door jolted him. He froze, halfway through retying his ribbon, which had somehow looped around his neck like a noose.
“Who is it?” he barked, voice cracking.
“It’s just me,” Jiang Yanli called gently from the other side. “I brought you soup.”
He stared at the door, then down at himself. Ink-stained. Hair a mess. Surrounded by torn letters. A deranged shrine to someone who hadn’t even been gone a week.
“No, thank you!” he called, too quickly. “I’m in the middle of... a spiritual practice!”
A pause.
“…A-Xian, are you lying on the floor again?”
“I’m centering my qi!”
Another pause. Then a fond sigh. “I’ll leave the tray here. Don’t forget to eat.”
Her footsteps faded.
Wei Wuxian waited. Then slowly, cautiously, tiptoed to the door, cracked it open, and dragged the soup inside like a burglar stealing treasure.
He sat down in the middle of the wreckage, hair unbrushed, ink on his nose, a bowl of soup in his lap and scrolls surrounding him like petals.
He sighed again.
“I’m never going to survive three months of this.”
The dream begins gently.
Wei Wuxian stands in the gardens of the Cloud Recesses, barefoot, robes soft with mist. The air smells like plum blossom and ink, like freshly pressed scrolls and secrets written in calligraphy no one else will read.
Somewhere, a guqin plays. Distant. Elegant.
He frowns.
He knows this isn’t real. The air is too clear, the trees too still. The moon doesn’t have a shadow. But the dream doesn’t care that he knows. It continues without him.
He finds himself walking.
Each step is weightless. He glides along the stone paths until the distant murmur of voices tugs at his spine like a thread. He follows it. He rounds a corner.
And there he is.
Jiang Cheng.
Standing in the centre of a ring of disciples, his posture proud, his expression politely neutral. His hair is down—down, and unbound—and Wei Wuxian nearly falls over at the sight.
The Lan disciples are laughing. One touches Jiang Cheng’s sleeve. Another leans in to whisper something.
Jiang Cheng chuckles. Chuckles.
It echoes too loud in Wei Wuxian’s ears, like a sword scraping across stone.
“No,” he says aloud.
But the dream continues.
Lan Wangji steps forward from the crowd. He tilts his head, ever-so-slightly, and lifts one pale eyebrow. He’s not even smiling, but somehow, it feels like he is. Jiang Cheng meets his eyes—and blushes.
“NO.”
Wei Wuxian whips around, searching for something, anything to stop this. He’s behind a tree now. When did that happen? He grips the bark and peers around it, breath caught in his throat like a curse.
Lan Xichen appears next, serene as moonlight. He hands Jiang Cheng a bundle of incense. Jiang Cheng accepts it. A girl from the Jin sect walks up—no, three girls—and then Jin Guangyao, ever-smiling, steps forward with a gilded scroll.
“Since we’ve called off the engagement with your sister,” Jin Guangyao says smoothly, “our elders have suggested you instead.”
“Jiang Cheng,” one of the girls says, fluttering her fan. “We hear you are... refined. Unattached. Powerful.”
Jiang Cheng looks flustered. Wei Wuxian can see it. His hands clench. But he doesn’t say no.
Wei Wuxian shakes the tree.
It does nothing.
A voice cuts in—Nie Huaisang’s. “My brother would like to meet you, by the way. He enjoys... discipline.”
Then—then—the Wens arrive.
Wei Wuxian doesn’t even know how they appear, but suddenly they’re there, lounging in the branches like wolves. Wen Chao licks his lips. Looking him up and down like he’s dissecting him.
“Not bad,” Wen Chao mutters.
“I’d burn Gusu to the ground for a night,” another Wen disciple says.
Wei Wuxian screams.
“HE’S MINE!”
No one hears him.
He’s clawing at the tree now, scraping bark under his nails. He tries to step forward, but his feet are rooted. The grass wraps around his ankles, holds him in place. He shouts again. Still, nothing.
Jiang Cheng turns.
His face is calm. Blank. He’s wearing white now. And a Lan forehead ribbon.
“I waited,” Dream!Jiang Cheng says.
Wei Wuxian freezes.
Jiang Cheng’s eyes are dark and deep and tired.
“You left me.”
“No,” Wei Wuxian whispers. “No, I didn’t, I—”
“You didn’t write. You didn’t come. You let them have me.”
The mist thickens. The disciples disappear. The guqin stops. The dream is collapsing in on itself.
Jiang Cheng stands at the centre of the garden, robes pale as bone, hands empty.
“I waited,” he says again. Then, quieter: “But it’s too late now.”
“No—it’s not—I can still—”
But the ground beneath Wei Wuxian’s feet is crumbling, the tree splitting behind him, the moon cracking overhead like a dropped porcelain bowl. Everything is too loud. His blood is a roar in his ears.
He screams.
—
Wei Wuxian jolts awake.
His body is tangled in his blankets. His forehead is slick with sweat. His breathing is ragged, wild. His heart is pounding.
The room is dark. Still.
Outside, the lotus ponds murmur softly. The window is cracked open, letting in a thin breeze. A paper lantern flickers, casting a trembling shadow across the floor.
He stares up at the ceiling, too stunned to move.
Then he lifts a hand to wipe his forehead and realizes his nails are caked with dried ink and slivers of wood.
He must’ve clawed something in his sleep. Or maybe—
He shudders.
He sits up slowly, the blanket falling off his shoulders. His robes are rumpled. His hair is a disaster. There’s a streak of drool down one cheek. He looks—and feels—like a man who has spent the night fighting phantoms and losing.
The silence presses down.
He stares at the door.
Then, softly, like a vow:
“I’ll come get you.”
The Lotus Pier was asleep.
The lanterns had been dimmed. The disciples tucked into their quarters. Even the frogs had stopped croaking.
But in the kitchens, Wei Wuxian stood barefoot on the cold stone floor, hunched over the wine jars like a raccoon in silk robes.
He’d intended to sneak just one bottle. Maybe two. Something sharp and bitter to cut through the lingering fog of that dream—the one he refused to think about, even now, hours later, even though it clung to the corners of his mind like smoke.
But as he turned to leave, the glint of something on the middle shelf caught his eye.
He paused.
There it was.
Wrapped in wax paper, slightly squished at the edges, hidden behind a basket of pickled radish—the mooncake.
Jiang Cheng’s mooncake.
He had left it there months ago before they departed for Gusu, torn neatly in half, the red bean paste still visible in the bite. Wei Wuxian had refused to eat it then. A point of pride. Jiang Cheng had said it was too sweet. Wei Wuxian had said he was too bitter. There’d been a bicker. The mooncake had been exiled.
Now, in the silence of the kitchen, it gleamed like a relic. Sacred. Untouched.
Wei Wuxian reached for it with reverent fingers. Sat on the edge of the counter. Unwrapped it slowly.
He bit into it.
And halfway through the chew, he started crying.
Not loudly. Not even dramatically. Just a slow, ugly trickle of tears down his cheeks as the taste filled his mouth. It was stale. Jiang Cheng didn’t even like red bean. He’d only taken a bite because Wei Wuxian had insisted. And then he'd left it here, unfinished. Abandoned.
Like someone else.
He sniffled around a mouthful of mooncake. “He always does this,” he mumbled. “Leaves without saying goodbye properly. Just... just goes.”
He stared at the empty counter across from him, eyes glassy. “Maybe he hates red bean. Maybe he only ever ate it because I like it. What else has he been pretending to tolerate all this time?” He swallowed. “Me?”
The silence pressed against him.
He reached for the wine. Took a long swig. Wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
Then froze.
Something flickered in his eyes.
A shift. A spark.
The kind of look he only got when plotting the most ill-advised, high-stakes, morally grey nonsense imaginable.
Slowly, Wei Wuxian sat up straighter. His tears dried mid-streak. The wine jar lowered to the counter with a soft thunk.
“What,” he said aloud, “is a man... if not someone who can lie well enough to convince his guardians he’s changed?”
The moonlight hit him just right—casting a halo on his disheveled hair, highlighting the half-eaten mooncake in one hand and the stolen wine in the other.
It was the look of a man with no intention of staying in Yunmeng a second longer than necessary.
He stood abruptly. Nearly slipped on the hem of his robe. Regained balance with the grace of a tipsy cat. Then turned on his heel and marched out of the kitchen like a man reborn.
—
An hour later, his desk was once again covered in scrolls.
But this time, there were no poems. No crossed-out confessions. No soggy ink-blotted heartbreak.
This time, he was crafting a narrative.
A redemption arc.
“Dearest, most honourable Lan-Laoshi,” he wrote, “I hope this letter finds you amidst the tranquility and discipline befitting the esteemed Cloud Recesses in serene Gusu…”
He paused. Nodded. Good. Formal. Boring. Not suspicious.
“I write to you today not as the unruly troublemaker I have been in the past, but as a young cultivator on the path of reflection and repentance…”
He chewed the end of the brush thoughtfully.
Too wordy?
No. Let them see his struggle. Let them feel how deeply and profoundly he had changed.
“Yu-furen, may her wisdom be ever sharp, has assigned me a rigorous study of the ‘Thirty-Six Principles of Proper Conduct.’ I have not only memorised them, but copied them thrice, and intend to burn incense for each…”
He stopped. Grinned.
“Incense,” he muttered. “That’s what those Lan scholars love.”
Another pause. Then, very delicately, he added:
“I believe I am finally beginning to grasp the meaning of ‘restraint.’”
He burst out laughing.
It echoed in the room.
He slammed the brush down, leaned back in his chair, and sighed, pleased beyond measure with himself.
All he had to do now was mail it. Perhaps stage a few scenes of good behaviour first—help Yu-furen with diplomacy, bow to a few elders, use fewer flutes and more fists when disciplining junior disciples. Enough to get the buzz going.
And then… escape.
He could be in Gusu within the week.
He leaned over the desk, staring into the flickering flame of the candle, eyes gleaming like a man possessed.
“Just wait for me, shidi,” he whispered.
His smile was not kind.
“I’m coming back for you.”