okay okay hear me out
yiling patriarch lan wangji
yes it’s my new favorite tag on ao3
there is something so delightfully wrong about the man who would be light bearer being corrupted into a demonic cultivator
wei wuxian became the yiling patriarch because he had no other choice
lan wangji becomes the yiling patriarch because he chose to be
the thing about lan wangji is that at his core, he has this quiet, ruthless devotion. the lan sect rules are a restraint; they keep this visceral animal thing in his chest shackled and sedated, the way you tranquilize a predator for your safety. even when he fights against his own clan in canon, this creature never really wakes up.
but what if we did wake it up?
what if instead of returning to gusu after being rescued from the xuanwu cave, he goes with jiang cheng and wei wuxian to lotus pier to heal
it doesn’t change much, lotus pier still burns and the jiang parents are slaughtered.
but instead of jiang cheng losing his core, wei wuxian loses it instead?
the shackles on the animal devotion inside of lan wangji’s chest start to break. he’s lost his home, maybe his brother, and now he is going to lose his soulmate?
wen qing transplants lan wangji’s core into wei wuxian. as far as jiang cheng and wei wuxian know, lan wangji and wen qing altered an ancient, mysterious lan procedure into giving wei wuxian a new core. lan wangji leaves while wei wuxian is still unconscious, because ostensibly he has delayed too long in finding his brother.
lan wangji leaves because the hole inside his chest feels like it’s going to consume him. he does not regret what he has done. the creature devotion slinks down to fill the void inside him.
in leaving, he is caught by the wens. they throw him into the burial mounds. the resentful energy burns away the remaining restraints on the visceral animal devotion inside them.
he could curl up and die, let the resentful energy burn through him, let it burn out the creature devotion in his chest, let it turn him into a husk, a corpse.
the animal devotion won’t let him. it bends the energy beneath its will, a pulse of “wei ying wei ying wei ying” that beats the resentment into submission. the energy and the animal curl together like lovers in the hollow left by his core.
lan wangji chooses demonic cultivation because he will return to wei ying.
lan wangji is the sum of his parents, their mistakes and strengths. he has his father’s willingness to defy proprietary for the person he loves, but unlike his father it’s tempered by his mother’s suffering in confinement. he will not let anyone hurt wei ying, but he will not bind him against his will.
wei wuxian is terrified beyond belief and gutted when the lan sect joins the war without lan wangji among them. lan xichen is drawn with grief and rage. it’s been months and neither wei wuxian or the lan sect have heard from his brother. it’s kindest to assume he’s dead.
wei wuxian refuses to believe it. he goes looking for lan wangji. jiang cheng joins him, a sick guilt in his stomach driving him to look for the man who saved his brother.
when they find lan wangji, jiang cheng wishes they hadn’t. he doesn’t recognize the man in from of him, and he can see his brother’s heart breaking when lan wangji sidesteps wei wuxian’s hug.
it hurts lan wangji to not let wei wuxian touch him. it hurts to see his soulmate’s face fall, to see the tears glisten before he wipes them away. it hurts to hear the broken laughter as wei ying tries to hide how hurt he is by his refusal.
but lan wangji can’t let wei ying hug him, touch him, comfort him. he doesn’t know if it’ll calm the creature devotion within him, sedate it to where the resentful energy rebels and strikes out against his control. he doesn’t know if the animal devotion will snatch wei ying up, take him away and lock him up like his father did to his mother. lan wangji has to make it to the end of the war, for wei ying.
he can’t let wei ying see the emptiness within him, where the resentment and animal can’t fill.
when the war ends, lan wangji returns quietly to the cloud recesses. he bears his punishment (strikes from the discipline whip and seclusion) quietly. by virtue of his publicity as a war hero, he is allowed to attend the discussion conference that follows.
lan wangji frees the wens. wei ying begs him to help them. lan wangji will not let wen qing, who saved wei ying, suffer and die in the camps. he takes them to the burial mounds, where he and wei ying work to restore wen ning’s consciousness.
lan wangji becomes the yiling patriarch.
the wens will still die. lan wangji will die. but at least wei ying is safe and free.
lan wangji does not expect to wake up 13 years later.











