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He doesn’t remember stepping off the battlefield, not really.
Guilt churns messily somewhere deep inside him. Everyone he has ever loved is dead. He should remember how they died.
But he doesn’t. His mind wails like a hungry infant, angry and red.
He hadn’t bothered with his battlefield robes. No amount of washing would have made them clean again, and Jiang Cheng knows from experience that even old blood runs red again under water. He’d taken them off and handed them to a disciple to be burnt.
The same disciple had brought him fresh robes. Pale robes, white underclothes. Because he’s in mourning.
The ringing in his ears hasn’t stopped. He can’t remember when it started. Can barely remember a life without it. For all he knows, this is all he has ever heard.
His body feels too light and too heavy all at once. He wants to lie down somewhere and close his eyes. Maybe, if he’s very lucky, he won’t have to open them again.
There’s a lot of fanfare outside. People packing up, tending to the injured. Tending to the dead.
He felt like this once, empty - no, hollowed out, as if someone had taken a blunt knife to scrape the marrow from his bones. In an inn room they could not afford, seasons ago now, Jiang Cheng had laid unblinking on the mattress, feeling the vastness of the abyss in his body.
This time, it’s different - he has his core. Warm, pulsing, spiralling out to heal his injuries even without his instruction. He has a gash in his abdomen. By morning, it will be pale pink flesh, tender against the fabric of his underclothes. By evening, he will be untouched.
This time, it’s worse.
Somebody else is bathing his sister’s body. It wouldn’t be proper for him to do it, even in death. So somebody else is washing off the blood. Somebody else is applying the rogue to make her look like she is only sleeping.
But his sister’s lips had been pale even before she’d died. She had been weak, exhausted. A week of prolonged mourning and wailing for her dead husband, because the Jins believed that the louder you cried, the better you were heard in heaven.
Their mother would have spat blood out at the sight of it.
But his sister is no longer just his sister, and his mother is too dead to spit any more blood. So somebody else will dress her in Jin robes, and put gold pins in her hair, and somebody else will wail until their cries are heard in heaven.
The trip back to Jinlintai is quick. The funeral is quick. He is allowed to slide a single jade-carved lotus pin into her hair and then she is buried.
Jin Ling cries and cries and does not stop.
He is, after all, a Jin.
His cries must be heard in heaven.
Nobody comes to talk to him about it, because there is no one left who dares to. A nursemaid has been hired for Jin Ling. He will continue to live at Jinlintai, because where else would he go?
Surely not to Lotus Pier, where some of the wood is still stained with burnt blood. Where Jiang Cheng’s small handful of disciples train their sword forms from dusk until dawn.
There is little else to do. He is still looking for elders to run lectures. There is no archery, because in the beginning it had been too difficult for everyone to bear, too difficult to remember what shooting silly kites off the cliffs had led to. Later, Jiang Cheng had left the matter of archery to Wei Wuxian, because even his father had thought Wei Wuxian was the better archer.
Wei Wuxian had spent his short time in Lotus Pier completely intoxicated and refusing to even so much as look at a bow.
And Jiang Cheng had thought he understood. Grief, he’d thought. Guilt.
But they had to move on.
He’d brought him a new bow and some arrows, and warbled something about keeping his father’s teachings alive. And Wei Wuxian had raised one wobbly arm, six feet deep in a well of alcohol, and said, maybe tomorrow.
If Jin Ling is Jin Zixuan’s son, he will be a keen archer.
There is no archery in Yunmeng.
So Jiang Cheng leaves him there in Jinlintai.
He avoids the Gusu Lan sect as much as he can. Lan Xichen is the sole representative at discussions, and he has never been a particularly verbose man, so Jiang Cheng finds it easy to ignore his presence.
Jin Guangyao seems to take up most of Lan Xichen’s attention anyway, fluttering around him like a golden moth. All the sect leaders sit at Jin Guangshan’s feet in the main hall, going through the meeting agenda. These days, it’s nothing but requests for monetary aid from villages trying to build themselves back up again.
Jiang Cheng is no stranger to this. He is a recipient of Jin Guangshan’s generosity. The cracks in Lotus Pier are still smoothed over by Jin Guangshan’s treasury.
It’s why he’s here. Sitting calmly, waiting for his turn to report on Yunmeng’s progress. He sits in the front of the main hall, next to Nie Mingjue, next to Lan Xichen, as if he is any better than the smaller sects behind him.
The rumours say that Nie Mingjue is unwell, but Jiang Cheng finds that hard to believe. The man sits just as imposingly as he always has. Impeccable braids, impeccable moustache.
The rumours also say that Lan Wangji is unwell. This, Jiang Cheng could believe. He hasn’t seen Lan Wangji since Nightless City, and by the sound of it, neither has anyone else. The rumours are plentiful. Jiang Cheng doesn’t particularly care to find out.
Lan Wangji had held onto Wei Wuxian at the end of times.
Had told Jiang Cheng to stop.
Would’ve thrown himself in front of the blade, Jiang Cheng is sure, had his arm not been slowly ripping at the joint from holding Wei Wuxian up.
Years ago, after Jiang Cheng had his core repaired by Baoshan Sanren, he encountered Lan Wangji on his search for Wei Wuxian. They had exchanged fewer words than Jiang Cheng could count on one hand. Mostly they agreed on when to stop for the day, and when to start again.
Lan Wangji always played his guqin to end the night. In some way, Jiang Cheng had always known he was playing for Wei Wuxian, somewhere out there, as if he could’ve heard him.
Jiang Cheng imagines Lan Wangji as a one-armed cripple. He can’t play the guqin like this.
It doesn’t make him feel any better.
The seasons pass unfailingly, reminding Jiang Cheng that time moves on even if he does not. Jin Ling grows from a stubby-legged infant into a stubby-legged toddler. Jin Guangyao takes him by the hand and walks him painstakingly down the many steps of Jinlintai to meet Jiang Cheng at its foot.
Jin Ling is afraid of him, and Jiang Cheng doesn’t know how to make his face look any kinder.
“Go to your jiuijiu,” Jin Guangyao says, nudging Jin Ling towards him. The summer sun is beating down on their backs. Jin Ling already looks flushed and angry.
There is a tell-tale wobble of the lower lip, and then Jin Ling is burying his head in Jin Guangyao’s robes, shaking his shoulders in defiance.
“Your jiujiu travelled very far to come and see you,” Jin Guangyao says, a small tender hand on Jin Ling’s head. He looks up at Jiang Cheng, apologetic. “Sorry, he is going through a phase.”
Jiang Cheng wouldn’t know. Jin Ling is always like this when he comes to see him.
Jin Guangyao manages to extricate himself from Jin Ling’s grip, and then Jiang Cheng has an armful of sweaty, soggy toddler. His robes are dirtied by mucus and tears within minutes.
He takes him into town, and eventually Jin Ling cries so much even he is sick of it. He lets Jiang Cheng mop his face with a silk handkerchief. He eats the sweets Jiang Cheng buys for him obediently.
They sit down by the river and Jiang Cheng peels a clementine for him.
They don’t talk, because Jiang Cheng doesn’t know what to say.
Instead he picks the stringy white pith off with his blunt nails and squeezes the seeds out of each wedge before he hands them over.
A straggly brown dog approaches them, nose-first, curious. Jiang Cheng nearly chases it away in case Jin Ling cries again, but the boy looks fascinated, holding his orange wedge out in his chubby fist.
“Dogs don’t eat that,” Jiang Cheng says, but the mutt is hungry enough to eat anything, and Jin Ling giggles at the swipe of the dog’s tongue against his fingers.
“Dog,” Jin Ling says, pleased, and Jiang Cheng reminds himself to mention it to Jin Guangyao.
Lotus Pier is a lot more self-sufficient these days. Jiang Cheng has found a good master to teach his disciples, and one of the older disciples is finally good enough to lead the sword formations without him. The surrounding towns are doing well, and trade is prospering.
It’s good. It’s all good. But nobody is here to see it except Jiang Cheng.
He goes on night hunts when he can’t sleep. These days, that is most days. His paperwork is done, of course. His mother shouts at him from beyond the grave. His duty, his responsibility, his sect. Her voice doesn’t leave him.
On night hunts, he is alone. He slays beasts, angry ghosts, evil spirits. He gets black blood on his robes and they stick to his skin in the muggy heat. Zidian cracks through the night and illuminates the corpses in a wash of purple light.
There are rumours, of course, that the Yiling Patriarch has returned. Even in death, the Yiling Patriarch does not lack followers or mindless fanatics. The drawings in the market have only gotten uglier. Wei Wuxian would have hated them.
He punishes as many as he finds. A single whip with Zidian, and suddenly nobody has ever heard of the Yiling Patriarch, and the black robes and red ribbon are just a coincidence.
He whips them the way he wishes he could have whipped Wei Wuxian, until his skin split at the seams and he bled and bled and bled. A stroke for each person he killed. A stroke for each speck of ash Wen Qing’s body had been reduced to.
Even at the end, it had been Lan Wangji’s blood dripping into the stone.
Wei Wuxian had just fallen, pristine.
He still swims, when the nights go on so long that he cannot breathe.
He holds his breath under the water.
Only at night, when the lake is inky and dark, and he can pretend it will swallow him whole.
He swims.
He finds himself in Gusu. The first batch of new disciples have received their invitation to attend lectures, and Jiang Cheng knows it is a momentous occasion, so he goes with them.
By water, they reach Caiyi. He remembers it all too well. This time, the inn they never got to stay in has a room for him.
It will be years before Jin Ling attends his first lecture here. Jiang Cheng will come with him then too, if only to stop Jin Guangyao from reserving all the inns in Caiyi.
This time, there is no drama with lost invitations. The Lan disciple steps aside to let them in. The wall of rules has been rebuilt. There are several more. Do not associate with evil is carved deeper than the others.
As if that will make a difference.
There is no sign of Lan Wangji on the Cloud Recesses grounds. A Lan disciple offers to take him around, but Jiang Cheng has seen enough of this place to last him a lifetime.
The pavilion still holds the ghosts of the last day they spent here, chasing each other around as his father looked on. The back hills, where he’d watched Wen Qing stand in silent contemplation. The pond where he’d stood and shouted for Wei Wuxian to stop trying to catch catfish.
All these people are dead now, so it doesn’t matter.
It’s dark when he makes his way back down the mountain, alone. He has a room in the inn, and tomorrow he will be on his way back to Yunmeng.
He can’t sleep, of course he can’t. The mattress is warm from his tossing and turning. The town is quiet and asleep when he makes his way out of the inn. The water is dark and inviting. Years ago, they’d hunted the water ghouls in this lake, and chased it down to the waterborne abyss.
He shucks off his robes and sinks into the water before he can think too much of it.
This time, there won’t be a waterborne abyss sucking him in. He’s never quite so lucky.
In all stories, there is someone who lives forever. Through the joys, through the sorrows. To hold the shape of history in their longing.
Jiang Cheng is beginning to think this is him.
He can hold his breath for a very long time.
Someone pulls him out of the water.
It takes him a second to remember where he is. Out of the water, the night air is bitterly cold. He reaches for Zidian, ready to strike, but a large, warm palm presses itself into his shoulder.
“Jiang-zongzhu.”
He coughs to hide his embarrassment. “Lan-zongzhu.”
The moonlight is watery. He prays Lan Xichen cannot see his face.
“Are you alright?”
“Fine,” he grits.
“Apologies,” Lan Xichen says, and the palm falls from his shoulder. “I saw your robes, I was worried.”
Jiang Cheng gathers his robes with whatever face he has left. He bows stiffly.
“It’s been a while since we have seen each other,” Lan Xichen says. “Perhaps a drink, if you have the time?”
All Jiang Cheng has these days is time.
“I thought your bedtime was nine,” he says.
Lan Xichen’s eyes twinkle under the moonlight. “There are always exceptions,” he says.
Jiang Cheng walks away from him, robes clutched to his chest. If he follows, fine. If he stands there, fine. Jiang Cheng doesn’t care.
They drink tea, because Jiang Cheng can’t stomach the smell of Emperor’s Smile anymore.
“The disciples are excited to begin lessons,” he says stiffly. “Thank you for the invitation.”
Lan Xichen smiles. He really looks nothing like his brother. It makes it easier for Jiang Cheng to meet his eye.
“We are honoured to have them attend,” Lan Xichen says. “I know shufu has been looking forward to teaching again.”
Jiang Cheng grips his teacup too tightly. It’s too small in his palm. His hair hangs wetly on his shoulders, dripping onto the wooden floor. His robes are wet and soggy, but he hasn’t had time to change.
“Jiang-zongzhu,” Lan Xichen says. “Are you well?”
Jiang Cheng crushes the teacup in his palm. It stings.
“Fuck knows. Are you?”
He stays another night. They don’t really need him in Lotus Pier all the time. He’s allowed to have a life beyond being a sect leader. The voice of his mother disagrees vehemently, but she’s dead, and she’s not the only voice he has learned how to ignore.
Lan Xichen doesn’t say very much, but he shows Jiang Cheng a smaller, quieter lake. It’s away from the town, so he can be truly alone.
Jiang Cheng kicks at the stones by the water’s edge. He feels sullen and young. It’s late enough in the day that the sun has set, the vestiges of its light slowly fading.
“How is your brother?” he asks. It’s the polite thing to do.
Lan Xichen pauses. “Wangji is better.”
Lans don’t lie, after all.
Is he like me, Jiang Cheng thinks he wants to ask, but doesn’t. Does he know that he is like me? Destined to sit through the highs and the lows, to watch the world turn without us?
Jiang Cheng is not the hero. Lan Wangji is not the hero.
The hero gets to fall from the precipice with someone else’s blood on his clothes. The hero gets to become the villain.
Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji just make up the shape of his absence.
“I hear he is in mourning.”
“War has left no one untouched by grief.” Lan Xichen speaks carefully, like he knows better than to say Wei Wuxian’s name in front of Jiang Cheng. "And perhaps, my brother, least of all."
But when has anyone ever cared what Jiang Cheng wanted?
Not his father, not his mother. Not Wei Wuxian.
“I’m glad he’s dead,” Jiang Cheng says, before he sinks into the water. His voice sounds petulant, even to him. “I would kill him again a thousand times.”
Lan Xichen doesn’t reply.
When Jiang Cheng resurfaces, he’s alone, but his robes are folded and warm.
Lan Wangji goes where the chaos is.
So does Jiang Cheng, really.
They’re both looking for the same person, but neither of them will admit it.
Lan Wangji, Jiang Cheng is disappointed to see, still has both arms.
They pass each other wordlessly.
Jiang Cheng knows Lan Wangji doesn’t approve of the way he punishes the Yiling Patriarch impersonators. But he has never wanted, never needed Lan Wangji’s approval.
He spits blood on the ground after every whipping, grinds it into the dirt with his shoe. Wishes he could be like Wei Wuxian, nothing but dust and a memory of someone else’s longing.
Jin Ling is old enough now to spend the summer away from Jinlintai. He arrives in Yunmeng with a team of servants and even a cook in case Yunmeng cuisine does not suit him.
He is a fussy, prim child, so much like his father, and Jiang Cheng finds the younger disciples reluctant to play with him.
He finds Jin Ling crouched by the lake, throwing stones into the water. Little Fairy sits by his side, ever the loyal companion.
“Nobody wants me here,” Jin Ling says, not looking up. “Nobody wants me at home, either.”
The Jin family are mourning the death of Jin Guangyao’s only son. Jin Ling had been sent away to give the grieving parents some space.
“It’s not good for a kid to be around so much sadness,” Jiang Cheng says.
“You’re the saddest of them all!” Jin Ling says. “Xiaoshu always said so. He always said I had to be careful not to upset you more.”
Jin Ling looks up at him then. He really looks so much like his father. Round-cheeked, white-faced. His single crimson dot on his forehead marking him a Jin. There’s very little to see of Jiang Cheng’s sister here.
“Anyway, I’m not sad,” Jin Ling says, hotly. “I’m angry.”
Jiang Cheng could laugh. Now that, he understands.
He uncurls Zidian from his finger and whacks it against the water.
Jin Ling scrambles back, startled. Little Fairy barks, indignant.
“I’ll show you how to really get angry,” Jiang Cheng says, and hands him the whip.
There’s a tree behind the courtyard that bears the lashing of Jiang Cheng’s sadness. His anger. A thousand cuts in the bark, a thousand times he wished he could feel it on his own skin.
He plants Jin Ling’s feet in a wide stance, shoulders apart, and hands him the whip.
The tree bark cracks under the light.
He is on a night hunt in Meishan. The reports are of a haunted lake, perhaps another waterborne abyss. Somebody brought news of it to him amongst the latest updates on the fall harvest and he had immediately gone.
He has two disciples with him, both young but unafraid. He sends them to guard the villagers, because the rebuilt Yunmeng Jiang sect is in its infancy and he cannot bear to lose any more disciples.
The lake is quiet, unassuming. The murky water belies nothing.
Then it clears, and a trembling mirage forms. His sister, looking fondly at him. Wei Wuxian, stealing lotus seeds off his plate. His mother, his father, smiling as he demonstrates his sword forms. Wen Qing, taking the comb from him, giving it back, and finally, finally, taking it back again.
He doesn’t even care when the water swallows him whole.
One ke.
That’s how long Jiang Cheng can hold his breath underwater.
Eyes shut, arms wrapped around himself. Lungs burning. Behind his eyelids, a city of red and gold lights.
Somebody pulls him out of the water. Again.
He’s severely injured this time, he can tell. There’s a gaping wet wound in his chest that’s half blood, half air. His arm is broken, the same one Wei Wuxian broke all those years ago at the Burial Mounds.
His throat feels like somebody has kicked it in.
It smells like cedarwood. A warm hand wraps around his shoulder, over the broken joint.
It feels calm. He hopes this is death.
He doesn’t die. Of course he doesn’t. Only heroes and villains die in this story, and Jiang Cheng is neither.
He is lying on a mattress. Somebody has stitched the wound on his chest. There’s the sound of water sloshing, then footsteps.
A weight sits beside him on the bed.
“Jiang-zongzhu.”
Jiang Cheng cracks his eyes open. Of course it’s him, why wouldn’t it be him?
“Lan-zongzhu.”
“You were injured at the lake,” Lan Xichen says, needlessly.
“The lake -”
“It was a resentful spirit. It has been eliminated.”
“Of course,” Jiang Cheng chokes out. “What else could be expected from the mighty Gusu Lan sect.”
Lan Xichen doesn’t look fazed, which is annoying. “Well, there were ten of us, and one of you.”
Jiang Cheng shuts his eyes. It’s blissfully silent for a minute, and then Lan Xichen clears his throat.
“I wondered if you might allow me to clean your wounds.”
“They will heal,” Jiang Cheng says, unmoving. His spiritual energy is shockingly low - the resentful spirit must have been strong -, but his wounds will heal with time.
“The lake was really dirty,” Lan Xichen says. His voice is soft, like he’s cajoling a young child. Jiang Cheng hates it.
Silence, again.
“Fine,” Jiang Cheng says, eventually. “Do whatever you want.”
His robes have already been unfastened anyway. He wonders if Lan Xichen sewed him up himself. There certainly doesn’t seem to be anyone else here.
A warm washcloth runs across his shoulders. It gets rinsed off in the basin, and then returns to trek its path down his body. Lan Xichen washes him with clinical precision, not a single touch out of place.
It’s strange, but it’s soothing.
So strange.
He can’t remember the last time someone has touched him like this. He doesn’t even know if he has ever been touched like this. Perhaps his sister had bathed him after he had lost his core, when he had been so catatonic he couldn’t even blink.
He thinks she must have. He doesn’t remember now.
The water is warm and smells of cedarwood. He tenses involuntarily as Lan Xichen approaches his chest wound, but there’s nothing but a soft press of fingers against the broken skin, like a ghost of a touch, and then it’s gone again.
Lan Xichen dips the cloth into the divot of his navel and then out again. A touch traces down the long scar on his lower abdomen. He’d woken up with it after Baoshan Sanren had finished repairing his core. He could have removed it with spiritual energy when it was fresh enough, but somehow he’d held back. It had been a reminder of how lucky he had been.
When Lan Xichen steps away to change out the water, Jiang Cheng exhales. He hadn’t realised he was holding his breath, but now his lungs feel too full and too empty all at once. Lan Xichen is only away for less than a minute, and then he’s back with a fresh cloth, fresh water.
Jiang Cheng’s torso must be as clean as it can be now.
“Lift this up,” Lan Xichen murmurs, gently pushing at Jiang Cheng’s unbroken arm.
Jiang Cheng, for once in his life, obeys.
The warm cloth curls around his arm. It’s a little too wet, Lan Xichen didn’t wring it out hard enough. The water drips onto the mattress.
Jiang Cheng tries to relearn how to breathe.
Lan Xichen avoids his groin, which Jiang Cheng is grateful for. There’s only so much embarrassment he can take in a day.
There’s a tight feeling in his chest which he tries to attribute to the chest wound. It chokes him. There’s a separate, dangerous feeling in the depths of his abdomen which he can attribute to nothing.
Nothing, except the feeling of Lan Xichen’s hands, still gently washing grime and pondweed off Jiang Cheng’s calves.
“I’m not injured there,” Jiang Cheng says. Draws up all of his courage, all of his breath.
Lan Xichen drops his leg immediately, as if he’s been scalded. As if he’s the one who’s feeling out of sorts.
“I apologise,” Lan Xichen says. Maybe Jiang Cheng imagines the crack in his voice because he wants to. It doesn’t matter.
“It’s fine,” Jiang Cheng says. “You’ve already given me three quarters of a bath.”
Lan Xichen smiles, pink-cheeked. Embarrassed.
At least Jiang Cheng’s not the only one.
“I got carried away,” Lan Xichen says. He clears his throat. “I- ah. When Wangji was unwell. I would often try to help. He did not always let me.”
How unwell was Lan Wangji that he couldn’t even wash himself? He certainly bore no trace of it when Jiang Cheng had last seen him.
Oh, but who is he to judge? Jiang Cheng’s not that unwell that he can’t wash himself, but here he is, letting another sect leader bathe him.
His mother must be turning over in her grave.
He forces himself to relax against the bed. The water will go cold soon.
Lan Xichen picks the cloth up again.
He should draw the line at Lan Xichen washing his hair.
He should, but he doesn’t.
Instead he shifts on the bed so that he can drop his head into the bucket of steaming water. Lan Xichen stalls, almost as if he hadn’t expected Jiang Cheng to let them get this far.
It’s only for a few seconds, though, and then he’s picking apart Jiang Cheng’s guan and setting the pins aside. A single strong hand holds his head up, and another cups warm water to run over Jiang Cheng’s scalp, washing away pond scum and detritus.
The way Lan Xichen’s fingers dig into his scalp should be uncomfortable, but Jiang Cheng finds himself relaxing into it despite himself. The cautious fingers get bolder, and soon they’re digging into the meat of his neck, working away the knots of muscle that have been tensed for years.
A low sound escapes his throat, and the fingers still.
He can hear Lan Xichen’s breath.
He screws his eyes shut tighter.
Please, he thinks. Please.
The massage continues.
The mattress really is too wet to be slept on by the time Lan Xichen finishes. It doesn’t matter, the sun is already beginning to rise. It had been after midnight when Jiang Cheng had first approached the lake, and now the day is breaking on this strange night.
He doesn’t have enough spiritual energy to heal his arm, so it sits docile in its sling. It must have bruised a nerve. His wrist hangs limply, unresponsive.
“I need you to help me,” he says. Lan Xichen hasn’t looked at him since he finished washing his hair.
“Hmm?”
“I need Zidian on the other hand,” Jiang Cheng says. As much as he doesn’t want to, as much as he loathes to admit defeat. But Lan Xichen has already washed him and his hair. What is one more weakness? “The broken one. That way I can pull it off with my good arm if I need it.”
Lan Xichen returns to his bed. Jiang Cheng thrusts his hand out.
The hands that touch him are warm, dry, and so gentle. It makes his throat dry. It makes his chest hurt.
Lan Xichen peels Zidian away from his fingers.
“Which finger?”
“Fourth,” Jiang Cheng says.
Lan Xichen obeys. Zidian slides home onto Jiang Cheng’s broken hand.
They both clear their throats. Lan Xichen steps away.
“I can put your hair up after breakfast,” he says. “If you would like me to.”
Jiang Cheng doesn’t know what he wants.
“Okay,” he says instead.
Jin Ling arrives for his second summer in Yunmeng. He has a new calligraphy master, whose mood is allegedly fouler than Jiang Cheng’s. The man is so hated that he occupies all of Jin Ling's thoughts, even so far away.
This time the Yunmeng disciples are more used to his presence, and time and distance has blurred any bad memories enough that none linger. They take Jin Ling to the market, to run drills with them up and down the small hills. They teach him how to pluck lotus pods.
He returns in the evening, pale face now bright red with sunburn. Little Fairy noses at his ankle.
“When are we going to the tree?” he asks.
“I thought you had a good time,” Jiang Cheng says. He still has a lot of paperwork to do.
“I’m still angry sometimes,” Jin Ling says. He crosses his arms over his chest. “Like when the kids here think I’m spoiled and stupid. Like I don’t get punished just the same when my calligraphy is ugly.”
Jiang Cheng sets his brush down.
“Do you know how to use a bow and arrow?”
Jin Ling hangs his head. “Xiaoshu keeps asking me to learn, but I - What if I’m bad at it? A-die was an archery champion. The best in the world. It would be so stupid if I was bad at it.”
“I can show you,” Jiang Cheng says. And then, because he is practising kindness, “even your a-die was bad at it once.”
Really, he’s not cut out to be an archery teacher. But he has a new bow and arrows that have never been touched, and Wei Wuxian is too dead to come back and start using them.
Jin Ling’s not bad at it. He shoots the arrows into the bark of the tree, between the carved out bark Jiang Cheng has whipped from its trunk.
This time, Jiang Cheng doesn’t wish it was him.
The next time he is in Caiyi, it is to satisfy a curiosity.
He makes his way to the lake Lan Xichen showed him before.
If pressed, he will have an excuse. Something about setting up a trading post for Yunmeng wares. Something, something.
It’s too early in the day, the water is too clear. He sits by the side of the lake to meditate, to wait it out.
He doesn't wait very long.
“Jiang-zongzhu. The wards were tripped. I thought it would be you.” Lan Xichen sounds pleased. Warm.
“Lan-zongzhu.” He doesn’t bow. The man has washed his hair. What use are formalities?
“Not going into the water?”
“It’s too clear.”
“I see.”
Does he? Old blood runs red under water. Jiang Cheng always looks at clear water and sees blood.
They sit in silence. It’s been a few seasons since they last met. At least two summers. Jiang Cheng’s arm is healed. His wrist works again.
And yet. And yet - he still wears Zidian on the same fucking finger.
“One ke,” Jiang Cheng says, daring him to wait. “That’s how long I can hold my breath under water.”
Lan Xichen’s smile really is something.
“I’ll wait,” he says.
Jiang Cheng nods, stiff. He disrobes and sinks into the brackish water.
He lasts a little over one ke, but Lan Xichen is still there.
The walk back to the Cloud Recesses is silent.
The Hanshi is dark, its furniture merely shadows. He is standing beside the bed. His calves brush against soft fabric.
Lan Xichen undresses him with deft fingers. There's not much fabric to pull away. The outer robe is already on the floor.
Jiang Cheng's mouth is cotton. His heart is ice. Warm fingers find his pulse in his throat. They settle on his ribs, where his gaping chest wound used to be.
They do not talk about this. They don't have to talk about this.
Except, Lan Xichen wants to talk about this.
"What do you want?"
A pause. A lump in his throat that won't budge.
"Please."
Please. Don't ask.
"Jiang-" Lan Xichen falters.
Jiang Cheng nearly laughs. To be called Jiang-zongzhu, even now. Especially now.
He presses forward. Lan Xichen is tall. He presses up on his toes. A warm mouth falls open against his own.
He is cruel, he is sour and acrid. When he looks at his reflection, it sneers back at him. If he could scrape the anger out of his bones he would. Boil his bones open, suck out the angry red marrow.
But the mouth against his is soft, hungry. A strong hand in the small of his back, another in his hair.
He feels weightless. Like he's curled up in the middle of the lake, floating, limbless.
When they were boys, Wei Wuxian used to bet he could float longer on his back. Tangled amongst the lotus flowers in the lake, eyes open and unseeing into the deep blue sky.
He was right, of course. Jiang Cheng had never been able to lie there for long enough. There was always something better to do.
Now, he floats.
Lan Xichen presses him backwards. His legs buckle at the knees when they hit the bed, and then they're both on the mattress. It's so dark. If Jiang Cheng opens his eyes, he would still see nothing.
It is the tenderness that chokes him.
The way Lan Xichen kisses his way down his belly makes him sad. He doesn't know how to be sad, so he is angry.
He digs his nails into the meat of Lan Xichen's shoulder. He bites at his lip until he tastes blood. He kicks. He swears.
Lan Xichen takes him apart with his mouth, his fingers, unflinching.
Jiang Cheng sobs, and sobs, and sobs.
He hopes they hear him in heaven. He hopes they don't begrudge him this feeling.
Lan Xichen puts his hair up for him before he leaves. It's on the edge of too tight, but it is good. A pressure on his scalp that grounds him.
"Lan-zongzhu," Jiang Cheng says. In lieu of a goodbye. In lieu of a thank you.
"Jiang-zongzhu."
He straightens his robes. Zidian sits on his finger, Sandu by his hip.
In the daylight, the Hanshi lives up to its name. Pale blue curtains, so pale they are almost white. Snowy paintings on the walls. Lan Xichen, in his white underclothes, pristine and unmoving on the edge of his bed.
The only evidence of Jiang Cheng's visit is the swell of Lan Xichen's bottom lip.
Good.
He strides out the door, and his anger, unchanged, comes with him.
fin