Lan Wangji first hears the arguments from the shadows.
Jin Guangyao’s wife, Madam Qin, clutches a letter in her hands, thumps her fists against her husband’s chest in anger and frustration. Lan Wangji had only ever heard of their marital bliss, marred only once by the tragic death of their only son in his infancy.
The shadows envelop Madam Qin, cradling her in its arms. She is a familiar friend to death and despair. After all, she had unwittingly married a man who deals in it.
“A-Ying,” Jiang Yanli’s voice is half-breathless when she pulls him aside. “Have you seen Lianfang-zun anywhere?”
Wei Wuxian glances through the room, before spotting the man in question deep in conversation with Lan Xichen, even touching briefly at his shoulder. “Yeah, he’s with Sect Leader Lan,” he says.
Jiang Yanli hums. “Good,” she says, before pulling him out of the room once more.
“Shijie?” Wei Wuxian asks, as she pushes him into an alcove tucked behind a silk tapestry, looking warily about her. What could have possessed her to become so wary of her surroundings? “Is – is everything alright?”
“My husband,” says Jiang Yanli, wobbling her lips as she turns back to him, “has been missing for far too long, A-Ying. I suspect the worst may have befallen him.”
Wei Wuxian feels as if someone suddenly plunging a sword into his gut from the other side of the curtain would’ve been a kinder fate. The headless corpse of Jin Zixuan, sitting in a room in Lotus Pier, flickers guiltily though his mind. “What do you wish for me to do?” he asks.
“Find out what’s happened to him,” pleads Jiang Yanli. “Find him, shidi. For me, please.”
Wei Wuxian’s mouth works uselessly; all he can do is open his arms for a hug, and let her run into it, sobbing against his shoulders.
He doesn’t have the heart to tell her the truth yet.
In the shadows, a bronze mirror transforms into a doorway. Jin Guangyao strides through it with ease. Lan Wangji slips in after, the shadows easily concealing him within the chamber beyond.
Madam Qin is sitting mute upon a chaise in this room, her gaze trance-like with shock. Jin Guangyao slips the letter from her nerveless fingers, throwing it casually into one of the braziers burning bright against the wall. He goes through the various torture devices lying in the room, through the reams of antiques and powerful cultivation artefacts.
Bichen’s familiar white glare catches Lan Wangji’s eye. His hands twitch for it, but he catches himself at the last minute. He’s not supposed to be in here, after all. Not with Madam Qin around, and certainly not with Jin Guangyao still in the room.
“Think about what you wish to do, my love,” says Jin Guangyao, his words flung like daggers at his wife. She quivers with hatred and betrayal, turning her face from him as he sweeps from the room. Lan Wangi moves with the shadows, his interest is piqued by the elegantly-lacquered cabinet sitting in the corner.
He sends forth a tendril of shadow to creep through the cracks of the cabinet door, and is startled at what he finds within.
Sect Leader Nie takes Wei Wuxian aside almost as soon as he re-enters the banquet hall. “I saw you talking to Sect Leader Lan,” says Nie Mingjue, refusing to beat around the bush as always. “Did he seem different at all to you?”
Wei Wuxian purses his lips, looks over at where Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao are still conversing. “Define different,” he says.
“My last conversation with him was not…” Nie Mingjue sighs, rubbing at his temples. “We had a fight. He has not shown up to any meetings between us sworn brothers since.” He pauses. “It was his idea to add Lianfang-zun to our brotherhood; he thought that perhaps it would help better our relationship by having to work together, but –”
“You think I could do something about it?” asks Wei Wuxian, frowning.
“No,” says Nie Mingjue. “He has been avoiding me. And as his sworn brother I have a duty to worry for his health.”
“His health,” echoes Wei Wuxian.
Nie Mingjue nods. “I fear he may suffer qi deviation if he continues down this path. This… pursuit of his brother… is only harming him, as it should have never been in his nature to be so ruthless.”
“Again, I don’t know if I’m the one to ask about fixing this,” says Wei Wuxian, remembering the argument he’d had with Lan Xichen himself, and the anger and sadness in Lan Wangji’s eyes. “I tried, briefly, but… at this point nothing would satisfy him besides having his brother return to Gusu to face punishment. Which I suspect is going to be death.”
“He would kill his own brother?” murmurs Nie Mingjue, his expression stricken. Even he, who frequently professes a disliking for everything Nie Huaisang ever does, would never even dream of murdering him in cold blood like that.
“That, or imprison him.” Thoughts of Wen Qing, trapped in the Cloud Recesses, comes to mind. A tiger locked in a cage. A phoenix with clipped wings.
Nie Mingjue lowers his head. “If he kills his brother, he kills himself,” he says.
Wei Wuxian doesn’t know what to say to that.
Madam Qin’s eyes are closed, her breathing laboured with whatever pain she must be feeling. Lan Wangji bids her rest more peacefully, shadows enveloping her in a gentle blanket before he tiptoes to the cabinet and opens it.
Amid the books and scrolls – collections of his own writings, music scores from far-off places, the deed to a temple in Yunmeng – sits a box. Willing his hands to remain steady, Lan Wangji removes the box from the shelf, and opens it.
The head of Jin Zixuan peers balefully up at him. Lan Wangji places careful fingers against his temples, and closes his eyes.
“Master Xue’s work is crucial. I cannot have you execute him.” Jin Guangyao’s voice rings through the chamber where Jin Zixuan is working. Jin Zixuan looks up, frowning at his brother.
“Why is reconstructing the Stygian Blade crucial, brother?” he demands. “It is a demonic artefact. All it knows is death and destruction. We must not allow it to continue.”
“If we do not possess the ability to command this, who’s to say some other clan will have less scruples about it?” demands Jin Guangyao. “We have to unlock the blade’s secrets, before our enemies do.”
“What enemies?” Jin Zixuan’s eyes narrow. “Lanling is the strongest and richest of the clans. We are allied with Yunmeng through marriage. We have sworn brotherhoods with Qinghe and Gusu. No one can raise a hand to us. We do not need demonic weapons.”
“You saw yourself the carnage at the end of the war against the Wens,” says Jin Guangyao. “The ability of the Master of Shadows –”
“The Master of Shadows is not nearly as bloodthirsty as his brother makes him to be,” snaps Jin Zixuan. “As long as he lives, the darkness can be tamed. As long as Master Xue lives, the darkness remains unpredictable.”
“I will not allow you to kill him.”
Jin Zixuan rises to his feet, staring imperiously down at his brother. “With what authority can you give such command over the meting of such justice, brother?” he snaps. “It is I who convinced father to accept you. It is I who gave you your position, your titles, the respect people were not willing to pay you before. If it had not been for me, you would still be a backstabbing whoreson trying to lie and cheat your way to power!”
“How dare you,” hisses Jin Guangyao, his congenial expression vanishing in an instant. And then, before Jin Zixuan realises it, there’s the soft click of metal, the flash of a blade –
– and everything bursts into shadow and pain.
Lan Wangji reels back, eyes flying open just in time to feel the press of a familiar blade against his neck, just above his pulse point.
“Hanguang-jun, I suspected you would be here,” says Jin Guangyao’s voice, like poisoned honey flowing into his ear. “Drop the box.”
liloloveyou024replied to yourphoto:no, we all really don’t. I like how they try to...
No we dont…jfc We need that headcanon to die because the yandere trope is harmful and should not be normalized in the first place omfg (Yea nothing beats a person that stalk, manipulate and kill the people you love)
right?? and that they’re arguing it has any basis in canon and that we ‘all need it’.
What’s better than taking a healthy, canon, gay relationship and turning it into that, amirite?
“So you have to put an s if there’s more than one thing,” A-Yuan is saying as Wei Wuxian enters the kitchen. He and Lan Wangji are bent over a notebook, Lan Wangji determinedly holding his mechanical pencil like a calligraphy brush. “So you say one apple, and two apples. And one bear, and two bears.”
“One boy,” says Lan Wangji. “Two boys.”
“Yeah. Okay, I’m going to write some words and you make them more than one.” He starts to write, childish scribble going through the lines. Wei Wuxian can’t help but smile at how dedicated he seems to be to teaching Wangji-叔叔 English, despite his young age. A-Yuan had always been quite proficient at reading, often borrowing books from the library miles above his grade level.
“One bat,” says Lan Wangji. “Two bats. One s – one s –”
“Sword,” offers A-Yuan.
“Sword,” repeats Lan Wangji. “Bichen?”
“Mmhmm! So two of Bichen is?”
“Two swor-d-s.”
“Swords,” corrects A-Yuan.
“Swords,” agrees Lan Wangji. “How… how if many? Three swords?”
“Yeah. Everything that’s more than one has an s on the end. Except words like fish.”
“No fish-s?”
“Fishes. You add e and then an s.”
“Just fish?”
“If it has the sh sound usually it’s e and s,” says A-Yuan, frowning. “Yeah, English is weird.”
“Englishes?”
A-Yuan bursts into laughter. “I guess?”
“That would depend on if you were talking about English as a language, or the English people,” Wei Wuxian cuts in, taking a seat at the table as well. Lan Wangji’s eyes light up at seeing him, making his heart skip a beat. “Though even then it’s a bit weird to say Englishes when you could say English dialects.”
“Dialects,” says A-Yuan seriously. “Like… the Southern accent?”
Wei Wuxian shrugs. “I wouldn’t know,” he admits. “Ningning-叔叔 was the English major, not me.” He pauses. “I guess he’d say it’s probably more like… Mandarin versus, say, 苏州话.” He looks at Lan Wangji, who seems to be intent on practicing his letters. They are as precise and boxy as his Chinese characters.
“He writes like Uncle Frank,” says A-Yuan. “And Auntie Rachel.”
“Because they came from the Mainland,” replies Wei Wuxian.
“You came from the Mainland, too,” points out A-Yuan, “and you write like a chicken.”
“Chicken scratch, but I get your point.” Wei Wuxian ruffles A-Yuan’s hair, checks his phone. “I came over just early enough to forget how to write Chinese. Anyway, it’s past your bedtime, you should be going.”
“Tomorrow’s no school,” whines A-Yuan.
“You still need to sleep,” retorts Wei Wuxian. “Trust me when you grow up all you’ll ever want to do is sleep.”
“Sounds fake,” says A-Yuan, but he closes his workbooks and stuffs his folders and pencil bag into his backpack anyway. “I’ll make up my piano tomorrow.”
“Hang on, you didn’t practice piano today?”
A-Yuan shakes his head. “I had to help Wangji-叔叔 with dinner. He says to tell you we need to go get more vegetables.”
“Which ones?”
“Uhhh. 胡萝卜, 菠菜, 大白菜.” A-Yuan’s face screws up. “Also he likes the 养乐多 you put in my lunch, so we have to get more.”
“Okay, well, that’s two hours of practice tomorrow, then,” says Wei Wuxian. “And I’ll tell Wangji-叔叔 to time you.”
A-Yuan pouts, but he acquiesces nonetheless, briefly hugging both of them before heading upstairs to bed. Wei Wuxian turns to Lan Wangji then, raising an eyebrow.
“He seems to be teaching you well,” he says slowly. Lan Wangji nods.
“Good,” he agrees. “Learning much.”
“Okay.” Wei Wuxian’s not sure who’s been sucking the air out of the room, but the longer he watches Lan Wangji’s face in the dimmed kitchen light, the more breathless he feels. Just the hint of light glancing off of Lan Wangji’s lips makes him wants to lean forward and kiss it. “Well,” he says, feigning a yawn as he stretches and rises from the chair, “it’s getting late. We should sleep.”
“Bed,” agrees Lan Wangji.
Briefly, their fingers brush. Wei Wuxian’s heart nearly stops.
“Good night?” he offers.
“Good night,” echoes Lan Wangji, already heading towards the downstairs guest room.
Wei Wuxian stares at the door long after it closes, longing coiled tight in his chest.
苏州话 - Suzhou dialect. Gusu is the old name for Suzhou, so ;)
胡萝卜 , 菠菜, 大白菜 - carrots, spinach, napa cabbage
养乐多 - probiotic drink, usually the Yakult brand. addicting as fuck. please try it frozen. you’ll thank me later.
Frank and Rachel - Jiang Fengmian and Madam Yu, respectively. Rachel is actually a nickname for Arachne sjfkfjdjs
