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A-Yun is six years old when a friend says he will no longer play with him because A-Yun won all of their games together. A-Yun is upset by this, but he knows that one of the important family rules says that he isn’t allowed to be too upset, he goes to his mother.
“Are you well, Mother?”
“Yes, A-Yun.”
“I ask for advice.”
“What is it?”
“A-Jing will no longer play with me because I’m faster at running than him. He says that we are no longer friends.” A-Yun frowns deeply. “This is confusing. I don’t understand it. I wish to continue being his friend.”
His mother smooths out his brow with cold fingertips. The equilibrium in her immovable expression is comforting, and she pauses for a while before she informs A-Yun, “A-Jing does not think it is fair. It is not enjoyable for him to keep losing to you. There must be equality in friendships – and though A-Jing is being unreasonable, this is also a lesson you must learn.”
A-Yun doesn’t entirely understand this, but he is reassured, and when he comes to A-Jing the next day, he informs the boy that he will now lose at exactly half of their games together.
A-Jing ponders this, and slowly agrees to play with A-Yun again.
A-Yun finds he does not mind pretending to lose, if A-Jing continues to play with him. He is also overjoyed when his mother informs him that she is proud of him, when he tells her how he has reached a solution to his problem with his friend.
Love is pride, and cold fingers at his brow. Love is also enforced equality – sacrifice that feels negligible. Of course, he does not have a word for it, then. How perfect, and how simple.
--
“Xiong-zhang, what is this madness which has taken hold of you? Why do you insist on protecting her? Fiancée or no, she has murdered our teacher within the Cloud Recesses. The Rules clearly dictate that-”
“Qiren, I cannot allow harm to befall her. I love her, don’t you understand? I’ll do anything to protect her, even if the entire Sect stands against me. Even if you stand against me!”
Lan Qiren is twenty-five when the word ‘love’ both enters his vocabulary and takes on a horrific meaning. He sees his teacher fall dead before his eyes. He sees his brother give up everything that he stands for, for the sake of the woman that killed him. The woman who his brother had been intending to marry. He sees the hatred in the woman’s eyes mix with pity and sorrow. He sees his brother stand firm against the better judgement of the Elders, misplaced affection giving him strength where he had never been strong before. And he sees a deep weakness immediately replace that strength, a hopelessness and misery in seclusion.
Lan Qiren vows never to allow such a corruption to take root in his own heart. Adherence to the Rules will give him all that he needs – a balance and strength that he requires in order to fulfill his duty to the Gusu Lan Sect, to his family, and to the cultivation world as a whole.
He would never be able to say that he hates love, for that would require him to admit that he is in the throes of some overwhelming emotion (as is forbidden). However, he is clearly aware that ‘love’ is a dangerous and unpleasant thing, antithetic to that which he is devoted to.
Love, as a grand, abstract concept, tied in with the concept of duty, he can admire. It would be unreasonable to entirely deny the phenomenon of its existence, for the Gusu Lan Sect itself was built on the dream of Lan An and his most dearly beloved wife. However, he cannot reconcile this with the reality he sees before himself – love as a destructive, corrupting force.
“Jin Guangshan. Desist from flirtatious behavior towards the other disciples.”
“Master Lan, come on, I was just saying hello-”
“You will fulfil your punishment for the rest of this week.”
“Wha- Hey, I was just- Don’t just walk away, Master Lan!”
“Do not raise your voice. Your punishment is extended by another week.”
“My father will hear about this!”
“Your father has placed your education under my care. He, indeed, will hear of it.” Lan Qiren turns his cold gaze to where Wen Ruohan is bent over with helpless laughter at the spectacle. “You shall receive a day’s punishment,” he adds mercilessly.
The youth looks up with an unfailing grin. “Alright!”
Lan Qiren orders the female and the male disciples to be separated during lessons, as their quarters already are. He is a stricter teacher than ever before, reprimanding blatant emotionalism.
--
When, seven months after their turbulent marriage had begun, his brother’s wife bears a son, Lan Qiren’s heart grows colder still.
--
To the utmost of his ability, Lan Qiren is a caring uncle. Though it is yet another duty that he must fulfil, A-Huan and A-Zhan are more than his responsibility – they are family, and Lan Qiren is filled with overwhelming affection for them.
That is why he must also be strict, to keep them from falling into the same mistakes their parents had made. A-Huan is easygoing and gentle – obeying as much and as often as he can, occasionally slipping up and making forgivable mistakes. A-Zhan is stubborn and questions everything, yet his adherence to the Rules is second to none.
Lan Qiren’s pride in his nephews overwhelms him. He both rejoices and mourns their growth – once they are too big for him to lift in his arms, yet still with so much strength and potential to become great men. He is painfully aware that he is not enough – he cannot replace their absent father, nor their dead mother – but he has always been devoted to his duties in the truest sense. He is their uncle, their guardian, and their teacher.
They are better equipped to deal with the turbulent world with the benefit of the Gusu Lan style upbringing, for certain. In the new generation that they will be at the head of, Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen will surely keep their equilibrium. Lan Qiren is glad to know that he has protected the two boys from such things. By the time they are old enough, they will be propelled by reason, rather than emotion.
“The Rules say that the forehead ribbon can’t be touched by anyone who isn’t family, or a ‘fated person’. Who is a ‘fated person’?” asks A-Zhan.
Lan Qiren pauses to think before he answers such a question, but A-Huan smiles and says, “Isn’t that just like Lan An’s wife? A fated person is going to be your future wife, I think.”
“Indeed,” Lan Qiren says. “The person with whom it will be reasonable to spend the rest of one’s life with. Rational compatibility is most important in this case.”
“What about love?”
“Mutual respect and understanding are most vital. Things like love will come later.”
“Oh.”
Lan Qiren sees the unhappy marriages of his contemporaries – Jiang Fengmian beloved of Yu Ziuyan, yet longing for Cangse-Sanren who had died with her own beloved; Jin Guangshan whose promiscuity is equal to none, and the fiercely indifferent Madam Jin; Wen Ruohan, such a warm, brilliant soul, yet so cold to the woman he had been matched with; Nie Zonghai, an admirable and strong man in all other respects, becoming gruffer and more withdrawn with the death of his first wife, despite having married again almost immediately. Lan Qiren sees this, and he is glad that he knows the dangers of such volatile attachment.
--
When Lan Qiren is next confronted with love, he is thirty-seven years old, and it has slyly inserted its way into his heart, and made its roots there in secret, so that by the time he realizes what, exactly, is wrong, he can do little about it. He has never been more deeply ashamed in his life.
Wen Ruohan is a frustrating student, then a diplomatic connection, little more than an associate. Then he is a pleasing acquaintance. Perhaps, a friend. And then Lan Qiren is struck by the realization that he loves this man who is like sunlight – and it is almost overwhelmingly cruel.
“Master Lan, I believe this game is yours,” Wen Ruohan says, tilting his head to the side as he surveys the xiangqi board, then looks up at Lan Qiren with warm amusement.
And Lan Qiren feels his heart fill, and sink under the weight of all that fills it. Love. How terribly ironic. He only raises an eyebrow. “Perhaps Sect Leader Wen would care to revise his strategy.”
“I don’t really have one,” Wen Ruohan admits with a laugh. “I just go with what feels right.”
Lan Qiren gives him a flat look. “That is completely ridiculous.”
“Well, now, I win about half of the time, so I’m obviously doing something right!”
Lan Qiren cannot allow this complicated feeling to give rise to anything more. Now that he is aware of it, he must suppress it, hide it away, destroy it if he can. He has his duties, and he cannot be dissuaded from them, not for the world, not even for the warm spark in Wen Ruohan’s eyes.
For the worst thing is, now that he has spent a lifetime learning to suppress his feelings, to gain equilibrium in the face of a chaotic world, he has always known that it is true, what he has been told. Those of the Gusu Lan Sect feel with a depth unsurpassed. He has felt soul-crushing guilt and resentment in the wake of his brother’s fall, euphoric pride and affection for his nephews, and now this feeling for Wen Ruohan blooms with an unparalleled fury inside his chest.
That is exactly why it must be supressed.
--
It is well that he does.
--
Lan Wangji is his father’s son, but he is also mother’s son. All that Lan Qiren remembers of that night is hoping against hope that he is wrong.
There are two figures huddled in the cave, one in tattered black, one in bloodstained white, pale faces illuminated by the glow of spiritual energy. Amber eyes full of pain and hope, flaming red eyes blankly staring. A shaking hand, refusing to let go of a limp, bloody hand.
“Wei Ying, I’m here…”
“Get out.”
“Wei Ying, come back to Gusu with me, alright?”
“Get out.”
“Wei Ying…”
“Get out.”
Lan Qiren remembers the resigned look on his nephew’s face as he stands in the cave mouth, shielding Wei Wuxian with his own body. The way he rises to meet them.
And he remembers the despair of being right.
“Wangji, stop this madness!” he snaps, full of rage, but not at his nephew. Rage at his foolish, weak older brother and his accursed sister-in-law. At his own foolish self. At the miserable Wei Wuxian.
When A-Zhan strums his guqin and his sword-glare splits the night, Lan Qiren does not shield against it. Around him, his companions fall unconscious. Hanguang-Jun is truly one of the greatest cultivators of his age.
He remembers fighting a losing battle – thirty-three against one. He sees Lan Xichen immediately knock himself out rather than fight his younger brother. He sees the other adepts all fall under Lan Wangji’s single-minded fury.
Lan Qiren is the last one left standing, and as blood wells up in the back of his throat, he shakes his nephew by the shoulder.
“You can’t save him!” he growls, wild-eyed. “Do you not understand? He cannot be saved! Not by you, not by anyone!” He is not sure who he is telling this, and who he is speaking of. “Distinguish good from evil as you do black from white!”
Lan Wangji’s voice is hollow, and it shakes, as if in pain. “…May I ask Shu-fu – who is good and who is evil… What is black and what is white?”
Lan Qiren falls back, coughing.
As his vision darkens, Lan Qiren is caught by Lan Wangji before he hits the ground, and laid down softly.
--
That is love. It is going against all that is righteous. It is a miserable compromise. Endless sacrifice. It is a gilded legend hiding agonizing pain. It is bitterness and hopelessness – a cottage surrounded by gentians and a bamboo house deep in the mountains. It is afternoon sunlight and games of xiangqi turning to acrid ash in his mouth. It is thirty-three lashes across his nephew’s bowed back.
--
--
When he is very old, and those of his own generation have all died but him, his nephews’ generation have made their own mistakes. It is the time for the generation after to make their own. The one he takes as his grandson, Lan Sizhui, comes to him to ask for his blessing in an engagement, and Lan Qiren is in true equilibrium.
“If you truly believe that this person will bring you happiness and will not negatively affect your path in life, and your necessary duties, I have no objections.”
Lan Sizhui nibbles on his bottom lip, as if hiding amusement as well as anxiety. “That’s quite a lot to ask of one person, isn’t it?”
“I do not believe so.”
“Master…”
Lan Qiren sighs. “Allow me to rephrase. Do not marry a murderer. Do not marry any other sort of criminal. Do not marry someone who will make you unhappy.” He raises an eyebrow. “With every new development in the romantic entanglements of the family, my standards have fallen quite low over the years, Sizhui,” he says. “I have no doubt that you will either make me proud as you always have, or disappoint me so spectacularly that I will have no choice but to still be somewhat impressed.”
Lan Sizhui can’t help a soft laugh this time, and Lan Qiren’s expression relaxes, just barely.