Work Text:
Lan Sizhui shared a smile with Jin ling, both weighed down in their smiles by dead fathers and their legacies to the world. One, a future sect leader. The other, the last Wei in the world.
His memory started with a vague sense of having been happy briefly before he'd only known hunger and cold rain and someone carrying him and a fear of the colour gold (a fear he'd held until he'd slowly learnt that it wasn't the colour he feared but the men wearing it, but to a small child this was what his mind remembered, so he would scream at the mere sight of little Jin Ling in his small gold robe until someone calmed him down)
A-Yuan held memories if being happy, hungry and stomach growling more often than not but happy. Days where he wanted to be exactly like xian gege who was nice to him more times than he was mean and his melodies that he played for A-Yuan; the days xian-gege shouted either delighted or in sorrow over his flute being taken by the small child.
A-Yuan held memories of white robes, a colour that was nowhere found in the dark place he and the Wen remnants lived in. The white robes with the wide sleeves like the wings of a swan belonged to a man who bought A-Yuan the grass butterfly and who xian-gege was very happy to see, so A-Yuan had decided with all the seriousness a small child could muster inside their mind, this rich-gege couldn't be a bad man.
Rich-gege was nice to A-Yuan and in kind, A-Yuan was sad to see him leave. It made xian-gege sad too but then xian-gege would play with him again and A-Yuan didn't think of rich-gege again until he recognized him by his white robes and billowing sleeves (if he'd known snow, A-Yuan would have compared the color to snow matching the man's cold expression).
A-Yuan hadn't been allowed into the cave where uncle Ning had brought Xian-gege that day. He'd watched from the lap of granny Wen, when Qing-jiejie had gone into the cave. Nothing interesting for a child of his age had happened for some time and he'd played with his grass butterfly.
Xian gege didn't wake up for days. Qing jie told him that he was sick and needed sleep to get well soon. A-Yuan nodded. Although he hoped he'd get better faster so he'd play with A-Yuan.
Xian-gege woke up before the arrival of rich-gege, and still A-Yuan wasn't allowed to see Wei Wuxian who was very long in the demon subdue cave with the Gusu cultivator. Not that A-Yuan knew of the status either of them held.
A-Yuan was unable to comprehend what the adults talked about. Anxious after only being told his xian-gege was ill and not allowed inside the cave, he disobeyed by sneaking in. He remembered shouting. Qing jie was angry. Ning ge was worried, while rich gege was holding xian gege's wrist with his hand staring into his eyes. Rich gege had been the first to notice him standing there, frightened eyes wet with tears because of all the raised voices. He'd still taken A-Yuan into his arms, when A-Yuan had cried from all the shouting going on. (Seeing Lan Zhan holding the small child carefully, caring, had Wei Wuxian think of Jiang Yanli's compassion, and that even his brother couldn't be cruel enough to let a child die. And he'd resolutely written to his brother, before giving Lan Zhan his answer.)
—
"We'll take care of him, A-Xian" the woman in purple said. A-Yuan cried, shaking his head. He knew that xian-gege would not come back. A-Niang and A-Die had not come back. He didn't want xian gege to go.
"A-Yuan," xian gege said. "Don't cry, little radish."
He shook his head, helpless, watching the dark robed man turn around with steeled shoulders (so he wouldn't falter and listen to his heart cry out for the child, his child which he was entrusting to his shijie to raise) and A-Yuan watched as the man who he called Xian-gege go. A-Yuan wailed and cried in the arms of the woman who'd watched her brother march to his trial for killing her husband, until the boy sank into exhausted slumber. He dreamed of being buried in the dirt and of Xian-gege laughing and teasing him. He dreamed of many little sisters and brothers sprouting like radishes from the dirt. He woke up in an unfamiliar place alone.
—
A-Yuan was five when he wanted to be called Wei Yuan. It had been two years since he'd lived with a full stomach and the air was clear and fresher than he remembered it from the dark but friendly place where Xian gege had lived. The nice jiejie who'd taken him from Xian gege's arms was the one who cooked the soup he’d tated once. She was nice and he could call her auntie Yanli. She called Xian gege A-Xian, telling him of how he’d learned to swim in the lotus lakes or eaten lotus seeds too, or how much he’d loved her soup when A-Yuan told her he liked it.
The adults around him were calling Xian-gege Wei Wuxian. A-Yuan was old enough with five years to know his name wasn’t just A-Yuan, but Wen Yuan. He felt the way others were not saying their names, Qing-jijiie was jiejie, or A-Qing, and Ning gege was only ever called A-Ning. None of his aunts and uncles called each other Wen. Sishu was sishu and granny was granny. So A-Yuan had nearly forgotten he had a surname, until he got to know A-Ling who was Jin Ling, and still too small to play with. Jin Ling was only two. There were boys who played with A-Yuan. Mu Qing and Feng Xin.
They told him their parents were also named Mu, or Feng. And A-Yuan knew he’d had parents before, but his memories were of xian-gege singing to him, holding him, playing with him. Of xian-gege's flute. And xian-gege was Wei, so A-Yuan was Wei Yuan. He introduced himself as Wei Yuan when he met a boy named Ming Yi. Qingjie was very upset about this when she heard, since Ming Yi's father came very upset to sect leader Jiang about 'the spawn if Wei Wuxian allowed to corrupt the children in Lotus Pier'. A-Yuan had heard the man say these words because he'd walked to his afternoon class with Feng Xin who'd needed to tug at his robe sleeve to get him to continue walking.
Wei Yuan didn't understand the adults' behavior around him other than that he'd done something bad. In his mind, it made sense to him. Mu Qing had told him if his mother who sang lullabies to him when he was a baby and who loved him very much and who was there, the way Xian-gege had been for A-Yuan. Xian-gege who was Wei Wuxian, so he too was Wei Yuan, since nobody was wen and A-yuan couldn't be Wen. Qing-jie had told him herself that he wasn't Wen. Wasn't ever allowed to speak of the name to anyone with a seriousness that had scared A-Yuan but made him promise to her never to speak of the name Wen to anyone. He hadn't promised not to speak of being Wei.
A-Yuan was in tears after getting into an argument about this with Qing-jie and uncle Jiang Wanyin. It was auntie Yanli who was wiping his tears and telling him in her serious adult tone he could be Wei Yuan if he wanted, and that A-Xian would have been happy. She didn't tell him that this would have many adults angry at A-Yuan, or that Wei was a name the whole world abhorred. She didn't tell him the reason xian-gege had given him to her that day was because the Lan clan had executed him for the murder of her husband. She simply let him go back to playing with Feng Xin that day, watching the newly named Wei Yuan with a fondness in her eyes and sadness in her heart, wishing her A-Xian could have seen his boy grow up.
—
Wei Yuan was ten when he realised his family was very small. He’d realised before that he wasn’t growing up with a-die and a-niang like his playmates, but granny and sishu and Jin Ling’s jiujiu and aunt Yanli. He knew his parents were dead, and this meant they were someplace he couldn't follow. If asked about his a-die, he would imagine white robes, a serious face that had made him cry at first but who was very gentle with him, and who’d bought him the butterfly toy he still treasured most. As always it had been auntir Yanli who'd been able to give him a name for his rich-gege after Wei Yuan had described him from his few memories of that day to him. She'd looked sad the same way she was sad when thinking of Xian-gege. Wei Yuan knew rich-gege was gone then and didn't ask to visit him. (A ten year old shouldn't hold so much grief for dead loved ones, Yanli thought observing her nephew who'd grown into a kind if maybe silent boy over the years. She missed her brother who could have made A-Yuan smile in these situations.)
The adults around Wei Yuan were strange sometimes when he spoke about a-niang or a-die. Qing-jie had murmured, “Wei Wuxian, you’d probably encourage him to call you mother if you were here,” before she’d started crying, alarming A-Yuan who’d not known what to do.
So he had aunts and uncles and little Jin Ling, and two sets of dead parents. Wei Yuan learned writing his name, reading, and how to form a golden core. He could swim like every child around Lotus Pier. Back when he'd been not that long here and asked for Xian-gege still, he'd felt a stranger here. Until he'd met his baby nephew. Jin Ling's first words had been gege, which had made A-Yuan feel less cold inside. Uncle Jiang had grumbled but he’d looked at A-yuan and told him to be a good older brother for Jin Ling before vanishing for the day. Aunt Yanli had confided conspiratorially to A-Yuan that her brother was embarrassed to feel jealous over Jin Ling's first words not being jiujiu.
Lotus Pier was where Wei Yuan felt at ease, among the whispering Lotus lakes and busy markets right outside the entry gates. He'd turned twelve this year. It was then he was confronted with the burden everyone had tried very hard to shelter him from. The legacy if the name Wei. And the weight of A-Yuan's decision fueled by the innocence of a child, to carry on as Wei Wuxian's son.
It was coincidence which had him cross sect leader Yao's path. A simple question where he could find sect leader Jiang, noticing the Jiang clarity bell at Wei Yuan's belt in a rare instance of sect leader Yao being attentive for once, a raised brow and asking him his name. Wei Yuan had answered as one was meant to when an elder asked after one's name.
Yao-zongzhu’s words were many and none of them were nice. A-Yuan wasn’t a child anymore, as a junior disciple with his twelve years. He’d stared ahead unseeingly, shocked too much to respond or react, as he was told by a visiting sect leader, that his existence was very much unwanted. He wondered if sect leader Yao had enough air in his lungs to say it all in one breath. Jin Ling had heard everything. Wei Yuan wasn't sure if this was better or worse had he been alone. Jin Ling, unlike A-Yuan, was very much not hesitant to attack a sect leader and he'd been holding Suihua in his hands, sheathed but still a very heavy object which he used as a blunt weapon againat sect leader Yao.
This was the scene Jiang Wanyin arrived to, of his nephew hitting sect leader Yao with his sword, his other nephew standing to the side unresponding with empty eyes he'd not known he never wanted to see on either boy ever again. He’d first stopped Jin Ling, then he’d listened to him as he retold what was said. With every word from Jin Ling's mouth, A-Yuan could see the line of sect leader Jiang's mouth get smaller and smaller and Zidian sparked as Jiang Wanyin told sect leader Yao to go Gusu with his problem in a calm voice that had the other man run out of Lotis Pier like he feared the bite of purple lightning if he didn't.
A-Yuan was glad that sect leader Yao didn't show up at the lotus pier again after that day. Yanli-jie took him aside later and told him not to listen to any adult telling him he was unwanted or cursed or a demon child. A-Yuan was precious to her, and if others couldn't see what an intelligent and good young man he grew up into, it was their fault for staying blind. (She'd very nearly gone after Yao-zongzhu herself after hearing the story from Jiang Wanyin. Nobody would hurt her boys, she swore. She'd not been able to save her A-Xian. She had to swallow her bitter tears thinking of A-Xian, the wound still raw after all these years. Her A-Xuan would have been angry seeing how people treated an innocent boy. Like hell would she let anyone hurt A-Ling or A-Yuan.)
—
Wei Sizhui grew up struggling. His name often brought him anxious if not hateful looks. Not everyone was like this, just cultivators who knew whose name he carried, whose son he proclaimed to be. They saw him as the son of Wei Wuxian and thought he was using the same dark cultivation. They never asked whose son he was, because he’d have answered being the son of Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian. So the world only knew him as Wei Sizhui, of Wei Wuxian. And A-Yuan didn’t correct them, since no one asked him . And who was he to correct these righteous cultivators?
When he was sixteen, he met Lan Jingyi who was kind and would laugh loudly, and state his opinion which was all the time, without thinking first. But his words were honest and never meant to hurt and he was the first person asking Sizhui about his mother after hearing his name was Wei. Sizhui was helpless in the face of so much easily given honesty and eyes full with curiosity that wasn't tempered by prejudice. Before he knew what he was doing he shook his head, admitting to an innocent child's thoughts of family. He was bashful admitting to his younger self’s reasoning, but he would defend this even as a sixteen year old if he had to. Why shouldn't he be able to say who his mother was to him, because others decided it had to be some woman he had no memories of? Why couldn't he claim the man he'd felt the same safe warmth around like he'd felt with xian-gege, the man he'd later been told by Jiang Yanli had probably loved his mother, as his father?
Lan Jingyi didn’t try to tell him differently, simply shrugging, asking him about his fatyer since he didn't know much about the famous hanguang-jun other than from history lessons about the sunshot campaign.
A-Yuan thought of his a-die, and told Jingyi of Lan Wangji, who he’d not really known but who in his heart was a-die to him. Growing up, he’d heard stories of him in his formal lessons like Jingyi. Jiang Yanli had told him different, personal stories. How a-die had been completely unprepared for the whirlwind that was Wei Wuxian. That she believed her A-Xian being in love with Lan Wangji, and how confused he'd been since he'd not recognized what he felt. Lan Wangji, she'd said, had been someone who'd believed in Wei Wuxian when the rest of the world was against him, but he'd not seen when the world had turned against him too.
A-Yuan hadn't understood why looking at Jingyi made his breath catch and his stomach flutter with this warm feeling. Lan Jingyi listened to him and had a laugh as bright as the sun shining on the lotus lake. Wei Yuan was happy to be Jingyi's friend, although their friendship felt different to what Wei Yuan felt for Jin Ling or Mu Qing or his other friends.
—
Jin Ling had grown up being loved at Lotus Pier and struggling making friends in Jinlintai, because he had no father. His father was murdered by Wei Wuxian, the other boys and the world said. His father had died in an unlucky follow up of events his mother told him, and then she would tell him of how Jin Zixuan had been unable to say what he wanted as a teenage boy. How he hurt her unintentionally, until finally able to admit he loved her. She told him of her brother Wei Wuxian, meanwhile he learned the tale of the yiling patriarch from boys who tried bullying him in jinlintai. Jiang Yanli taught him how kind Wei Wuxian had been. The world told him how vile, how cruel Wei Wuxian was for taking Jin Zuxuan's life and tainting hanguang-jun. (His mother told him the story of two boys who met one summer only to be ripped apart by tragedy later in life until misunderstandings led to them never confessing their love to each other. Jin Ling grew up to bed time stories of a young Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, and he'd ask Yanli to tell them to A-Yuan too once he knew the boy considered them his parents.)
Jin Ling didn't meet Wei Sizhui. He grew up with him. There was an understanding there in growing up without their fathers. Jim Ling would beat up anyone who made Sizhui cry even when he was scolded for starting fights by his jiujiu. It was worth seeing the other smile through his tears, even when he told him it wasn't necessary to get into fights for him. Jin Ling would scoff at him and shove him into the lake, assured that Sizhui could swim just as well as him.
Sizhui wasn't someone who started beating up the bullies for Jin Ling. He would have hated Sizhui for doing so. Jin Ling knew he could come to Sizhui and the other would listen. Because some things only Sizhui understood.
Sizhui was still A-Yuan when Jin Ling was A-Ling and slowly learning that while he had his mother and uncles, he was missing a father. Sizhui was the only other boy who was not that much older than A-Ling and who was actually nice to him. He was as calm as a Lan, but jiujiu would curse and shout at the mischief Wei Wuxian's son would get into. So Jin Ling was maybe curious growing up and understanding that while Jiang Yanli was his mother, Sizhui had always been there without anyone he would return to other than the strict doctor Wen Qing or the old granny, or jiujiu. Jin Ling didn't ask at first. It wasn't important, like if his gege had time to play with him that day, or if gege would carry him and they could play horse. (Wei Yuan indulged him until Jin Ling got too heavy for the older boy.)
Jin Ling was old enough to know it would be insensitive to ask, but he sometimes wondered about who Sizhui's mother was, if she was at Lotus Pier. Jin Ling's mother had told him of Wei Wuxian's love for huanguang-jun, so how had Wei Sizhui happened? He knew he was prone to speaking before thinking and he was glad that Sizhui didn't mind, but this was a topic he knew not to dive into when he saw Sizhui's melancholy look over the lotus lakes, saying it was qixi next week. It was a wistfulness Jin Ling felt when he thought of his mother alone without his fuqin there to celebrate the holiday. And it was like a shock of cold water to him thinking if he didn't have his aniang either, like Sizhui who was truly an orphan but never let that weigh him down, always kind and bright, the head disciple of lotus pier who was caring of the younger disciples and who never let it show when he was sad.
Jin Ling would have never asked Sizhui to tell him, so it was that Sizhui who could read his expressions like an open book to Jin Ling's embarrassment, one day sat down with him on their usual spot at the water's edge and calmly started talking of his fathers. Of being born with the name Wen to a couple he couldn't remember, he'd been too little when he'd lost them. And of how Wei Wuxian had all but adopted him by saving him, and of hanguang jun who had also cared for him for a little time but A-yuan would never forget that day he'd felt like he had a family and so he considered himself their son. Jin Ling listened to Sizhui speak of his dead fathers, all the while thinking of the small family they now shared and how he maybe wished that they both had their fathers, but a part of him glad he had Sizhui as his brother.
—
Lan Jingyi was a headache. And Jin Ling for the first time in his life felt jealous of someone for stealing Wei Sizhui's attention. Ouyang Zizhen, their other friend, had thought it all very romantic when it had started. Jin Ling had just watched miserably as his brother had left to go and spent time with the Lan and silently grumbled how unfair it was.
Sizhui was obvious at first. Jiang Yanli had hidden a soft laugh behind her sleeve, hearing her son's retelling of the way Sizhui would not notice how much he talked of Jingyi, reminded of another boy who'd been just as obvious.
Jin Ling had acted out of his own jealousy and insecurities that were stupid had he really stopped to think instead of being mean to Sizhui. He should have drowned himself in the lake for making Sizhui, of all people, cry. He had never felt more guilty in his life. It was burning with shame that he apologized and Sizhui assured he was forgiven, but Jin Ling couldn't forgive himself and in response the following weeks encouraged Sizhui to meet Lan Jingyi whenever Sizhui would srnt a look to his friend unsure if he would hurt Jin Ling's feelings by spending time with his other friend. It took them time until Sizhui stopped being careful around him, and for Jin Lung to accept that his brother wouldn't just belong to him alone and that thinking this way was selfish. But they did learn to trust each other and not to be selfish.
—
The discussion conference had ended not that long ago and Jin Ling doesn't care about those inside still shouting at each other, accusations flying around and blame put on another evil man after today. He doesnt care about hearing how his father has been tragically killed by his dajiu. He doesn't care listening to the men who'd all his life hated and blamed Wei Wuxian now blame Jin Guangyao for crimes committed in their past, a past that doesn't belong to them but people like Sizhui who grew up fatherless like Jin Ling and who'd paled the moment everything had been laid open for the world and who'd retreaded from that madness vanishing as silent as a ghost. For a moment Jin Ling had imagined Sizhui in pale white Gusu Lan robes, wondering if hanguang jun had not died as well, would they have been brothers in that life, or strangers.
He found Sizhui hiding at the part of the pier he'd long ago dubbed their spot. Now he sat down beside him wordlessly. Today had impacted him too, although not as much as he thought it had hit Sizhui. Looking at the other, he knew they'd be alright though. He'd need to invite Jingyi for Sizhui, because the wet sheen of his eyes didn't do, not at all, and Jin Ling couldn't cope with a Sizhui threatening to break down and cry. Jin Ling was already bad enough dealing with his own emotions. It was terrifying to think of his normally grounding, reliable older brother being the emotional one of the two.
The past had held its twin jades and twin prides. The future held Jin Ling and Wei Sizhui. They didn't need to be anything else. And that was alright too.