It stats two days after Sect Leader returns from a Discussion Conference in Qinghe.
Hm. No.
It started way before that—perhaps a year or two after Wei Wuxian fell from the cliff—but the trip to Qinghe made something snap. And now their young Sect Leader is pacing the room like a caged tiger, muttering to himself and letting out bitter barks of laughter every now and then.
Perhaps the strain has finally caught up with him and he’s lost his sanity?
Yu Qiaolian sighs. ”What happened?” she asks in a no-nonsense voice. ”You look and sound like a madman, even more than usual. You’re scaring the juniors.”
He spins around, eyes burning with an intense emotion. ”What?” he spits.
”Sit the fuck down and tell me what’s wrong,” Qiaolian says.
”Is that a way to talk to your Sect Leader?” he sneers.
”When he’s making a fool of himself, yes,” she deadpans, darts to his side, and with a couple of deft jabs on his acupoints, forces him to drop down like a sack of rice. ”Talk.”
”I hate when you do that,” he mutters.
”How will I ever recover,” she deadpans and raises a brow. ”Wanyin, what happened?”
The fight and rage goe out of him and suddenly he looks like the barely adult Sect Leader he is. ”I—” he starts, then pinches his lips together and activates a set of powerful privacy talismans, ignoring her raised brow.
”Did I ever tell you about the time when we met Song Zizhen and Xiao Xingchen? Or when we only met Song Zizhen, years later?” He doesn’t wait for her answer but continues in a low voice, ”Back then I was so caught up in my own misery that I had little to no care for others. But I remember the sadness he was carrying and the way he wanted us to tell something to Xiao Xingchen if we ever saw him.” He shakes his head. ”He never told us what it was, and after…well. A lot happened right after.”
Qiaolian lets out a noncommittal sound, wondering what this is all about.
”I saw him when I was returning from Qinghe,” he continues in a low voice. ”I asked him to share a drink with me and made the mistake of asking after his partner.” Something ugly ripples across his face. ”Turns out, the story of how he got back his eyes was one of betrayal. Baoshan Sanren, bah.”
”Wait, what?”
”It makes so much sense, now that I think about it. Stupid, poor Jiang Cheng, of course he needs to be saved! And who else is a better savior than the hero of the fucking hour, Wei Wuxian!”
”Respectfully, Sect Leader,” Qiaolian says feeling not respectful at all, ”what the fuck are you talking about?”
He slumps forward, resting his elbows on his knees, staring at his hands clasped together so tightly his fingertips turn purple. ”You know that I lost my core. You’ve seen me through way too many nightmares not to know. And you know the story of how I got it back. Except that I think I never did.” He snorts and the sound comes off like a sob. ”Song Zizhen told me he’s been looking for his cultivation partner for years, but to no avail.
”According to Song Zizhen, Xiao Xingchen told him that his Grandmaster could help him restore his eyes and that he’d take them to meet Baoshan Sanren. Except that the whole thing about Immortal Baoshan Sanren was complete bullshit and Xiao Xingchen gouged out his own eyes to give them to Song Zizhen!”
”What the fuck,” Qiaolian says.
Her sect leader lets out a bark of laughter with a slightly hysterical edge on it. ”So what are the odds that the same day when we meet Song Zizhen, Wei Wuxian suddenly remembers where his martial grandmother lives even though his memory is full of holes and he can barely remember the faces of his own parents? What are the odds that, when this supposed Immortal Baoshan Sanren restores my core, it’s way stronger than it was before Wen Zhuliu burned it away?” He jumps up and starts pacing again. ”And then Wei Wuxian goes missing and surfaces three months later, refuses to use his sword, refuses to cultivate the sword path, drinks all the time, and picks up fights with Lan fucking Wangji of all people?
”How very convenient, that all this happened while we were hiding out with the most brilliant doctor of our generation and later Wei Wuxian would tell me to strike him from the sect records because he has a debt to fulfill! What are the odds indeed?” He’s breathing heavily now, eyes round and wild and hair partially undone due to tugging at it in his agitation.
”What are you saying?” Qiaolian says in a low voice, a feeling of cold dread pooling in her stomach.
He turns slowly and says in a terrible, deliberate voice, ”I’m saying that the core I’m carrying within me is not mine.”
Qiaolian flinches, forcing back bile. ”If it’s not yours, then…?”
”Somehow, Wei Wuxian found a way to tear out his core and put it in me,” he whispers.
”Are you sure?”
He throws his hands in the air. ”Of course I’m not fucking sure! How could I be? Nothing like this has ever been recorded! There’s no way to test it!” Then he pauses, cocks his head, opens his mouth, and says, ”No, wait. There is.”
He turns to face her and narrows his eyes. ”We need to find his sword.”
It’s not hard to figure out where Wei Wuxian’s sword is. All Yiling Patriarch’s possessions had been divided between power-hungry sects, everyone greedily hogging what little morsels of his genius they could get their hands on. Lanling Jin, being the least affected and therefore the richest of the remaining great sects, hasn’t bothered with subtlety when it comes to expanding their collection. (The fact that Chenqing is right here on Lotus Pier is a carefully kept sect secret.)
Confronting the Jin is easy.
Getting Suibian home is a completely different thing.
Head Disciple duties cover a lot, including but not limited to herding the disciples, organizing night hunts, testing new spiritual weapons, revising the training curriculum, and generally making sure the sect is running as it’s supposed to.
Sometimes, it also includes telling your Sect Leader he’s a moron.
Good thing Qiaolian is a Yu which means she has neither time nor patience for niceties, and she doesn’t feel even a bit bad about it.
”If you think that’ll work, you’re a bigger moron than I thought,” she says bluntly after Wanyin contemplates barging in and demanding the sword back.
”What do you suggest then, asking nicely?” he snaps back.
She snorts. ”Neither of us is capable of niceties. No, I’m suggesting asking for help.”
”From whom?!” Wanyin says, and then, ”Oh, no, wait. Fuck.”
She doesn’t ask where he goes when he leaves for yet another trip, heading steadily Northeast. She doesn’t ask when he comes back three days later looking like a storm cloud but covering something brittle and broken within him.
She also doesn’t ask when Wanyin returns home from a small Cultivation Conference in Lanling, carrying Jin Ling securely in his arms even though the boy isn’t supposed to be back in Yunmeng for several months yet.
”Something happened,” he says curtly as he marches toward the dining hall, dodging Jin Ling’s hand reaching for his headpiece with a practiced ease. ”Guangyao thought it would be better for A-Ling to be here until they figured out the mess.”
Said mess, Qiaolian would later find out, was the weird combination of Sect Leader Jin’s death, a food poisoning incident in Koi Tower’s main kitchen, and—apparently—a robbery.
She carefully doesn’t ask anything, especially several weeks later when a solitary figure in black robes quietly approaches the gates and asks to see Sect Leader Jiang for a personal matter.
”I was right!” Wanyin snarls as he slams into Qiaolian’s small office, throwing a privacy talisman up as he closes the door.
She writes down the rest of the sentence of the report and sets down her brush. ”On what?” she asks.
His jaw works as he whirls to stare at her with narrowed eyes.
”You should know by now that scowling doesn’t really work on me,” she reminds him calmly. ”Talk.”
He closes his eyes for a moment as if praying for strength (or staving off something painful), then he draws a humble-looking sword from a qiankun sleeve. ”Draw it,” he says quietly.
She raises a brow and complies. The blade doesn’t budge for an inch which is hardly surprising. Spiritual blades can be (and usually are) finicky and choose very carefully whom they yield to. ”This doesn’t prove anything yet, and you know it,” she points out. ”I never knew him. I never sparred with him. There’s no reason for his sword to recognize me.”
Wanyin bares his teeth. ”It’s—”
”It’s circumstantial at best,” she interrupts. ”You and Wei Wuxian lived in each other’s pockets for the whole time he was here. You shared spiritual energy, bled blood and sweat and tears on each other. Even if—” she swallows, ”—even if he didn’t give his core to you, Suibian might still agree to unseal for you.”
He’s shaking his head even before she’s finished talking. ”No. Back in Qishan when we regained our swords…they handed her to Lan Wangji first, and she refused to obey. I have no fucking clue what was going on between those two but if she was just acting up—shocked by him being tossed into the Burial Mounds or whatever—I would’ve thought she’d unseal for Lan Wangji. She didn’t.”
Qiaolian purses her lips. ”Only one way to find out.”
”Fuck no!” Wanyin snaps. ”I’m not inviting him here.”
”You don’t have to,” she counters. ”I’ll write the letter for you.”
Her Sect Leader lets out a growled string of expletives and marches out of the room—after very carefully storing the sword back in her hiding place.
Hanguang-jun isn’t someone Qiaolian has had much contact with. After the war—and especially after Wei Wuxian died—the Jiang Sect retreated to concentrate on rebuilding and mourning, and most of her time was spent on endless construction work and disciple recruitment.
Not that Hanguang-jun was much seen outside the Cloud Recesses. Rumor said he entered secluded meditation for several years and had only recently emerged. But now that Qiaolian watches the expressionless man step very carefully from his sword and walk forward with his back painfully straight, she wonders the real reason for his seclusion.
From what she’s gathered from Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji’s interactions, she isn’t convinced that whatever had been between those two was hate.
”Welcome to Lotus Pier, Hanguang-jun,” she says and bows deep. ”Sect Leader Jiang is unfortunately occupied at the moment, would you step inside for some refreshments?”
She’s pretty sure Hanguang-jun would rather do anything else but step further in but he’s way too polite to just tell her to fuck off. He follows her in, sits down where she points, and inclines his head when Qiaolian pours him tea.
He doesn’t touch the cup.
After what feels like a whole day, Wanyin finally stomps into the room. ”He’s fucking finally asleep,” he announces to her. ”Remind me to tell the kitchen staff to not give him that much sugar.” Then he pauses, only now realizing who else is in the room.
”Hanguang-jun,” he says through gritted teeth. ”I wasn’t aware of your arrival.”
Hanguang-jun rises smoothly up and bows. ”Sect Leader Jiang,” he says. ”Please excuse my presence. I was invited.”
Wanyin glances at Qiaolian from the corner of his eye. ”Yeah. I gathered.” He rubs a hand over his face and sighs. ”Whatever. Best just get it over with.”
Hanguang-jun tenses up when Wanyin activates the privacy talismans and then seems to freeze altogether when he draws Suibian out. His eyes widen ever so slightly and his lips part, and that’s way more emotion than Qiaolian has probably ever seen on his face.
”Draw it,” Wanyin says, handing the sword to him.
Hanguang-jun looks from the sheathed sword to Wanyin and back. ”Why,” he asks after a long moment of silence.
”Humor me,” Wanyin snaps.
Hanguang-jun lets out an irritable huff and takes the sword, tries to draw it. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t budge. He hands it back to Wanyin with what Qiaolian can only describe as a look of contempt.
”Yeah, see—” Wanyin says and draws the blade.
It sings in the late afternoon light, bright and smooth and sharp, almost purring. To Qiaolian it’s obvious Wanyin has been taking good care of her and it only enhances its dangerous aura. Suibian is unadorned and thin, very humble-looking, and all the more deadly because of her understated appearance.
”How—?” Hanguang-jun breathes. He takes an involuntary step back and sways, and Qiaolian jumps up just in case he’ll collapse. It wouldn’t do to have the Second Jade of Lan crumple in an office at Lotus Pier.
Wanyin’s jaw clenches so hard that Qiaolian fears he’ll break a tooth. Then he grits out, ”What was he to you?”
Hanguang-jun shakes his head minutely, looking slightly dazed. ”What?”
”Wei Wuxian. What was he. To you.”
”He—” Hanguang-jun swallows. ”To me, he was my zhiji,” he says in an almost whisper. ”I don’t know what I—”
Something ugly spasms over Wanyin’s face and Zidian sparkles in his hand. ”And yet, you let go,” he hisses.
”What—No!” Hanguang-jun’s hand jerks almost like he’s ready to draw his sword. Qiaolian wishes he didn’t—it would be an absolute nightmare to renovate the place again.
”I tried to pull him up!” Hanguang-jun says in a low, intense voice. ”You are the one who killed him!”
Wanyin snorts and rolls his eyes. ”I hit the rock, you idiot, not him. You let him fall.”
”He—” And now Hanguang-jun does stumble. He sways and collapses into an inelegant heap on the floor as his voice hitches. ”Wei Ying,” he whispers.
Qiaolian averts her eyes at the blatant heartbreak on his face.
The door creaks and Jin Ling peeks in. ”Jiujiu,” he says in the plaintive, whiny voice of toddlers. ”A-Ling cannot sleep.”
Wanyin clears his throat, vanishes Suibian, and turns to face the boy. ”Really? You were asleep when I left you in the bed.”
”Nooo,” A-Ling says, scrunching his face in a pout. ”Up!”
Wanyin sighs and picks him up, then looks at Hanguang-jun as if to challenge him to comment. But he doesn’t even seem to realize what’s happened—instead, he sits in silence, staring at his hands on his lap while tears stream down his cheeks. Wanyin raises a brow at her and she nods; sure, yeah, whatever, she’ll take care of the grief-stricken Second Jade while her Sect Leader deals with a toddler. Seems like a fair deal.
”I don’t understand,” Hanguang-jun whispers some while after Wanyin and A-Ling left. ”Why would he—if Jiang Wanyin didn’t—I tried to—why?”
”I don’t know,” Qiaolian says softly. ”I didn’t really know him—I only arrived at Lotus Pier after the war.”
Hanguang-jun doesn’t seem to hear her. ”He was my—” his voice hitches as his hand spasms as if he’s reaching out for something (or someone) he can no longer touch.
She lets out a noncommittal sound and hesitantly grips his shoulder for a fleeting moment. The touch seems to shake him out of wherever his grief had taken him and he raises his head, looking at her with narrowed eyes.
”If Wei Ying is dead, how is Jiang Wanyin able to draw his sword?”
Later that night, when Qiaolian is doing her final rounds around Lotus Pier, she hears Wanyin say, ”We need wine,” to which Hanguang-jun a moment later replies in an icy tone, ”I do not drink.”
She stops, wondering whether or not to interfere—and then she shrugs and decides Wanyin is more than able to handle himself.
”I don’t give a fuck whether you drink or not,” she hears Wanyin say. ”I can’t do this sober.”
There’s a sound of rummaging, then bottles clinking together, then steps heading out to the pavilion over the water—the one she knows was Jiang Yanli’s favorite.
The next morning, Hanguang-jun is gone and Wanyin is nursing a massive hangover. ”Don’t ask,” he growls and shuts himself in his office for the day.
Wanyin never tells her what they talked about and Qiaolian is a very good Head Disciple and doesn’t ask. Something changed, though, as several months later, Hanguang-jun arrives with a small boy. A-Yuan and A-Ling become fast friends, and everyone at Lotus Pier is very careful never to consider just where Hanguang-jun’s ward came from.
As years go by, Hanguang-jun turns into Lan Wangji and A-Yuan learns the Jiang style as well as the Lan, and even though no one can even pretend Lan Wangji and Sect Leader Jiang are friends, they are more civilized than they’ve so far been.
Qiaolian once called them co-parents and then cackled the rest of the week at their identical looks of affronted horror.
(By unspoken agreement, Lan Wangji and Lan Yuan’s visits to Lotus Pier stay secret. Especially from the Jin sect.)
Sixteen years after Wei Wuxian fell to his death, Yu Qiaolian witnesses her Sect Leader dragging back a screaming and kicking young man clad in black robes and a mask. Behind him walks Lan Wangji and behind him, a group of very confused Jiang and Lan juniors.
”What the hell do you think you’re doing, Wanyin?” she asks, sending the juniors apart from A-Ling and A-Yuan off with an impatient jerk of her head.
Wanyin lets out a hiss like a boiling kettle and proceeds into his study.
”What a brute!” the young man wails. ”Let go of me this instant! I am a delicate thing and bruise like a peach—and besides you are not my type!”
”Shut up, you idiot,” Wanyin growls and shoves the man in. He makes an impatient move with his chin, herding Lan Wangji, the boys, and Qiaolian in, then locks the door and activates the most powerful privacy talisman Qiaolian has so far seen.
”Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says.
The man’s wail cuts off and his gaze snaps to Lan Wangji. ”Ah. Hehe, I’m sorry, I don’t know who that is—”
”So were you ever going to tell me you cut out your core and shoved it into me?”
In the following silence, Qiaolian closes her eyes and sighs.
”Jiujiu—”
”A-Ling, this is your other uncle, somehow back from the dead—”
”To be clear, this body was given to me—”
”Oh, so now you admit it’s you—”
”Wei Ying—”
”I swear I’m not doing anything nefarious—”
”Fuck you’re so annoying—”
”Jiujiu—”
”Xian-gege?”
”I’ll be out of your hair in no time—”
”Wei Ying—”
Qiaolian puts her fingers into her mouth and lets out a piercing whistle. ”Before I get some tea, let’s make something absolutely clear,” she says in the following silence.
”First, welcome back, Wei Wuxian. This one is Yu Qiaolian, the Jiang Head Disciple. I’m honored to finally meet you. Yes, we know about the golden core thing and no, you’re not allowed to run.
”Second, Wanyin, don’t be a dick to your brother. That’s not polite. What would your sister think, huh?
”Third, Lan Wangji, use your words. This is your lost love come back from the dead, you should tell him you’re happy. With words. Said with your mouth.
”Fourth, A-Ling, your da-jiu will have a bit more time for you later. Why don’t you take A-Yuan and the loud-mouthed Lan disciple who is trying and very much failing to eavesdrop and organize food and lodgings for the rest of the juniors.
”Fifth…do I have a fifth point? Fuck, you people are so dramatic.” She shakes her head.
She’s going to need so much alcohol to deal with all of this.
Both Wanyin and Wei Wuxian are sore-throated and red-eyed in the morning. They both claim it was the cold winds that swept over Lotus Pier at night.
Everyone pretends to believe them.
Later, way later than she wants to think about, after a demonic arm turned into a whole fucking chopped-apart body, after murder and mayhem and dramatic revelations, after Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji tried to sneak off to elope and Wanyin screamed himself hoarse to tell them exactly what he thinks about that, Qiaolian leans back against the pavilion wall, raises a bottle to the twinkling stars, and drinks.
Head Disciple duties are a lot but she thinks she’s done a pretty damn good job.
She’s earned her drink several times over.