Chapter Text
Nie Huaisang likes things to be story-shaped.
Once, his Da-ge said that's what happens when someone consumes as many unrealistic novels and plays as Huaisang does. But his Da-ge had also been the one who unquestioningly bought him said novels and accompanied him to said plays whenever he asked, and also the one who had spent a whole afternoon scouring the Northern wall in search of an elusive nest so the baby finch Huaisang found could be reunited with its mother. And as with everything else in his life, if it was alright with Da-ge, then it was alright for Huaisang to like things that way.
It was probably what made his plot for Meng Yao's downfall span the almost-decade it did. Because what could have been more poetic, what could have made for a better finale than the act of pulling the ground from beneath the antagonist's feet, just as he thought that he had gotten away with everything? For him to know that the legacy he's built upon other people's blood would be one of ruin?
And lastly, the decade in which he schemed and plotted had given Wei-Xiong a second chance at life. Wei-Xiong, who had always seemed to Huaisang the hero of a story both incredibly rousing and tragic, who had set out to do the right thing again and again only for the world to turn against him once he ceased to be of convenient use. Who had died with everything he sought to protect burning around him and burning him, leaving behind a grieving soulmate who strived to do the right thing as he once did.
If there is any story that deserves a happy ending in the broken, cruel jumble that is the cultivation world - That still has the hope of a happy ending - Then surely it is the story of the Yiling Laozu and Hanguang-Jun.
☰☲ ⑄ ⑄ ⑄ ⑄ ☲☰
Most things in the world are not story-shaped.
Most things in the world are more akin to ink spilled on parchment - Messy and unpredictable and rather tragic - And Nie Huaisang knows this. Knows this all too well with how many adjustments and changes he's had to make over the years he plotted for Meng Yao's downfall. How many stray plots and stories he's had to wrangle into shape with each horrific reveal he had of the Jins' atrocities. But still, he doesn't understand how the most straightforward of his ploys could go this awry.
The choice to resurrect Wei-Xiong and involve Lan Wangji had been one of Huaisang's very first coherent plan after finding out just how deeply the Jins were involved with everything. It wasn't just that the two made for the only pair with the skills and ability to look past the boundaries set by the cultivation world, but Da-ge's death had been something of a wake-up call to Nie Huaisang on just how willfully ignorant he had been. How much he'd been content to dwell inside the safe cocoon of Da-ge's protection while the whole world and his own friends had burned. For all his love of stories with happy endings and justice served, Nie Huaisang had tucked himself away like a turtle when so many happy endings had been ground to dust around him.
And so Nie Huaisang had schemed and researched, and watched from the shadows as Wei-Xiong and Lan Wangji grew ever closer while they danced flawlessly through the pathways of his plan. And when it was all said and done, he had sent off the two to write the end of their own story - After sixteen years of mourning, after a lifetime of being cast aside and blamed, Lan Wangji and Wei-Xiong would get the happy ending the world had been so adamant to deny them.
Nie Huaisang had made sure the two would have ample time to sort everything out, made sure everyone else in the Guanyin Temple was sufficiently distracted for Wei-Xiong and Lan Wangji to spirit themselves away and probably kiss for two days as they profess their death-defying love to each other. He had even made sure that Wei-xiong did come with Lan Wangji, checking up on them at the Cloud Recesses after all the furor in the Guanyin temple had died down a bit. Had patted himself on the back for a job well-done and patiently waited for a wedding invitation, or perhaps reports that the Chief Cultivator had disappeared with the Yiling Laozu in tow.
Which is why it confuses him to no end that Wei-Xiong is here, in Qinghe, in a dingy inn room he won't have thought to look at twice if it weren't for his birds' report of a black-robed cultivator passing through the area. Wei-Xiong, who is travel-worn and too thin and already two bottles into Nie Huaisang's proferred wine, despite lamenting at the start of the night how Qinghe baiju doesn’t come close to his beloved Emperor’s Smile. Who is alone, because the great Hanguang-Jun had apparently left him on the side of the road to go and become the Chief Cultivator.
Well, knowing Lan Wangji he'd probably seen Wei-Xiong off with supplies and a full money pouch as they parted, but still. It's the principle of it.
"So he just…let you go?" Nie Huaisang asks again, as if the answer to his question would magically change if he asked enough times.
Wei-Xiong had started off wary and skittish, something Huaisang honestly expected after the last time they crossed paths at the Cloud Recesses. But halfway through their first bottle, something had seemingly deflated in his old friend, his shoulders sloping down and the bright yet resigned smile Huaisang didn't know he missed so much replacing his wariness.
"I mean, yeah? What else was he supposed to do?" Wei-Xiong shrugs, "Lan Zhan has all these duties, these responsibilities. He’s the Chief Cultivator, Nie-Xiong, he couldn't just go wander off to wherever because I asked him to."
"Did he say that?" Nie Huaisang feels himself bristle. Did he misjudge Lan Wangji after all? Had everything on his part, even standing with Wei-Xiong at Jinlintai and the Burial Mounds, been merely a testament of him standing with justice? No, that's impossible, not if the inside information regarding the aftermath of Nightless City had been right. Not if Er-ge's worries over the years of his didi's heartbreak had been well-founded.
"Oh, oh it's not like that! Lan Zhan's much too nice to actually say it, I’m sure. But you know, I get it. It's really best that we go our separate ways, won't do to have the Yiling Laozu corrupting our new Xiandu, right?"
There's a building sense of wrongness in the back of Nie Huaisang's mind, through the light haze of the three cups of baiju he's allowed himself. Because it's not supposed to be like this. He refills Wei-Xiong's cup, rearranging the pieces of his play scattered all around him.
"So, where have your travels taken you so far, Wei-Xiong?"
"Well, here and there," Wei-Xiong blinks slowly at the change of subject, accepting his newly-filled cup without question, "There's a lot of things to take care of once you're far enough from where the Sects give a fuck. Do you know there's a stretch of old Qishan Wen land that just goes unclaimed and the people without any Sect help at all? Right there, smack-dead between Lanling and Yunmeng. How many years has it been? It's crazy, really."
And then it hits him. Why Wei-Xiong is here, in this dingy inn at the very borders of Qinghe Nie territory. Why it took his birds so long to catch any wind that the Yiling Laozu is wandering the land. Wei-Xiong, who wouldn't have felt welcome to go to Yunmeng after what his birds reported happened in the Yunmeng Jiang ancestral halls, who had been stabbed in the guts the last time he was in his nephew's Sect, and who had been the most hated figure in the Cultivation world when he died and when he was revived again.
Nie Huaisang realizes, with the kind of swooshing emptiness he feels at particularly heartrending poetry, that Wei-Xiong is a man displaced in time with nowhere to go. That Lan Wangji had probably been the only safe place for him, up until Lan Wangji let him go to walk a world that most probably still wants him dead.
He knows that the world is rarely kind towards people like Wei-Xiong, who only knew how to give and never receive. But Nie Huaisang had woven a decade's worth of of threads to bring him back to life and prove the world wrong, so Heavens help him if he's simply going to sit idly by like fucking Hanguang-Jun and let Wei-Xiong wander the Jianghu sad and alone. Huaisang has had his fair share of sitting on the sidelines, and it had cost him his friends and his clan members, had cost him his da-ge.
Never again.
"Say, Wei-Xiong," he quips as he refills his friend's cup yet again, seemingly an afterthought, "Now that you're here, I do happen to need your opinion on something."
Wei-Xiong waves his cup with a noncommital hum, which Huaisang takes as an invitation to go on.
"You are aware by now, of course, that the Nie has a bit of a…resentment problem. Yes, we've been dealing with it for generations now, but as it is, many of my cohort are already feeling the effects of our Cultivation. And after our, ah, little adventure in the Tombs back then, it just got me thinking if it's actually something that could be handled another way with you set of skills."
Something flickers in Wei-Xiong's previously hazy gaze, and Huaisang hides his smile behind the rim of his cup. Good. He could definitely work with this. Wei-Xiong could never resist a puzzle, but Wei-Xiong especially couldn't stand by when he could prevent people from getting hurt. And he has the wellbeing of a whole literal Sect to dangle in front of Wei-Xiong's nose.
"Tell me more," his friend, his foolishly kind, infuriatingly giving friend says. Huaisang smiles in earnest, his pieces arranged back in place and Wei-Xiong's eyes already glinting with the old fire he hasn't seen for so long.
☰☲ ⑄ ⑄ ⑄ ⑄ ☲☰
It’s easier than he thought it would be to get Wei-Xiong settled, once they hash out the problem of the Nie sabre spirits between them - Fully sober. Wei-Xiong, apparently, only has one battered qiankun pouch and a temperamental donkey to his name, a fact which Huaisang quietly vows to amend as he shows Wei-Xiong his quarters in the Unclean Realm.
It's easy to get the basics past Wei-Xiong, already engrossed as he is in the old Qinghe Nie texts Huaisang's librarian hauled from their archives. A set of extra robes and shoes, a new set of brushes and ink stones and talisman papers. A small workshop conveniently placed next to his chambers. Actual, complete meals delivered to his doors with insistent disciples who make sure Wei-Xiong has his fill.
"Aiyoo, Nie-Xiong, your disciples don't have to go through all this trouble. I really don't want to be a bother," Wei-Xiong finally catches up after his second week in Qinghe, after little Nie Huiliang had sat on his papers until her Wei-Qianbei eats the lunch she brought. Nie Huaisang is really quite proud of her.
"It would be a bother for me if you die of malnourishment in my house," Nie Huaisang waves his fan lazily, perusing through the mess of parchments on Wei-Xiong's work table, "Say, while we're on the subject of food, would you happen to have a reliable preservation talisman? And by reliable, I mean something that doesn't only ward off rot, but maybe also pests and, well, things like fire or water leaks?"
"Oh? You get pest problems this far up North too?" Wei-Xiong perks up, the half-finished bowl of rice almost forgotten in his hand before Huiliang tugs at his wrist sternly, bless her soul, "I could technically modify the radical for stasis to also encompass outside factors, but then won't it make more sense to also inscribe the granary itself with protection arrays?"
And just like that, Wei-Xiong's worries are forgotten in the face of another puzzle. It's easy to offer up a selection of existing problems to throw into Wei-Xiong's ever-churning mind. The difficulty of soil fertility in Qinghe's arid lands, the yearly landslide in the West where the soil is brittle, the lack of reliable ways to get water during the drier months that Huaisang has had to deal with for years now.
It's easy to get Wei-xiong to forget questioning all the things he's given, even if it's a lesson in patience of another kind to get Wei-Xiong to deliberately accept things - Be it material things or simple attention and kindness. Again, there's that sense of wrongness in Huaisang's gut at the whole thing. That someone as kind and giving as Wei-Xiong would be so unfamiliar, to the point of aversion, towards being given things and kindness in turn.
Huaisang had been young yet when they first met, unused to telling the subtler changes and cues in another without the need to keep abreast with Jin Guangyao's moves or keep his Clan standing. Perhaps Wei-Xiong had always been like this, even during the idyllic days of their youth, and it had been him and everyone else who had not noticed. Perhaps, for all Wei-Xiong's fear of being a bother, no one at all had ever bothered to extend him the same kindness and consideration he gave away so freely.
But Nie Huaisang has always been a patient man, despite what Da-ge and most of the Cultivation world would believe. He could crouch for hours to lure a bird into his waiting hands, he's waited years for a chance to avenge his Da-Ge's death, thus waiting is a small matter to him as he slowly chips away at the already so-brittle wall around his friend. His Sect, ever-aware of his oft-obscure pursuits, catches on quickly and rallies around Wei-Xiong, before getting caught up themselves in the warm orbit that is Wei-Xiong's laughs and easy kindness.
Nie Huaisang waits and watches as days, weeks pass - Until Wei-Xiong doesn't shuffle with discomfort at Nie Zhongren's care, doesn't balk at the kitchen aunties' aggressive feeding or the junior disciples who follow him around as much as they nag him to sleep properly. Until the slopes of his shoulders relax and he is a regular fixture amongst Qinghe Nie's youngest disciples, swinging wooden sabers and laughing good-naturedly as they give rowdy pointers on strengthening the fledgling golden core he's been cultivating in his second life.
"I'm glad Wei-Gongzi is here with us," Nie Zhongren says as he drops the latest batch of missives on Huaisang's table, a wealth of unspoken things in his second-in-command's voice. I'm glad you're having other activities other than plotting murder and ruin, possibly. I'm glad you have friends at all, most probably. Huaisang tries not to snort, and waves Zhongren away with his fan, hearing Wei-Xiong's familiar laughter through the open windows of his office.
Despite his botched plans for the greatest love story of his age, despite everything, Huaisang supposes he is glad that Wei-Xiong is here as well.
☰☲ ⑄ ⑄ ⑄ ⑄ ☲☰
Winter is descending slowly across Qinghe, and that means slippery roads and inhospitable camping conditions and all manner of reasons for someone to not be travelling. Which probably means Nie Huaisang doesn't have to try as hard to keep Wei-Xiong occupied as for him not to contemplate wandering off alone anymore, even if Huaisang did get his friend engrossed in the idea of built-in arrays to prevent roads from freezing over during the deepest part of winter.
At this point, Wei-Xiong must know that Huaisang is purposefully keeping him busy. That despite the matter of Qinghe Nie's sabre spirits having been resolved weeks ago, Wei-Xiong has let Huaisang keep him rooted to the halls of the Unclean Realm.
He thinks that it's partly because Wei-Xiong's mind just likes having something to do, and he understands that. Over the long years of building his scheme into fruition, Nie Huaisang had tried to keep busy with other things aside from the day-to-day managing of his Sect and the long waits for Meng Yao's move, to keep his mind from simply turning against itself. Things deemed below the lofty and enlightened of the cultivation world - Silk trades and crafts and banks and literary publishing - Many of which ended up helping make his Sect thrive without having to roll in the muck of Cultivation Sect politics. The Cultivation World might scoff and snigger behind their sleeves on how far Qinghe Nie had fallen from their glory days of being led by the fearsome Chifeng-Zun, but Qinghe Nie's revenues and treasury probably outstrips even Lanling Jin's by a satisfying margin. Not that anyone needs to know.
Huaisang understands the satisfaction of doing things, to see with one's own eyes the marks and changes one had wrought. To make a difference and help, in Wei-Xiong's case of a bleeding, overly kind heart. Because Huaisang knows that outside of his protection, there would be a lot of people who'd condemn and vilify Wei-Xiong for merely trying to help, who'd bar him from trying to help at all, seeing only the rumours of the Yiling Patriarch instead of what Wei-Xiong could do.
And honestly, it's their loss. Because over the three short months Wei-Xiong had been here, his Sect has practically been freed from the curse of their Cultivation path - even if the actual application of harmonizing with their sabres regularly, a heavily simplified form of Empathy, is still a work in progress of being made more accessible. The people of Qinghe have been blessed with numerous inventions to make the harsh winter easier, and farmers all over his territory are looking forward to planting season without the trepidation they usually have, courtesy of Wei-Xiong's many agricultural talismans.
Three months, and the Yiling Laozu's name is spoken with gratitude and wonder in the streets. It might not have been something Huaisang had designed for him at the beginning of his ploy - For Wei-Xiong to be this patron hero of farmers and the common folk - But he thinks it makes for a good chapter in the already so colourful story of the Yiling Laozu.
"While you're at it, is there any way to have lighting in the trade roads that doesn't actually need maintaining? It kind of helps with warding off some type of spirit too, doesn't it? Having light around? I could never remember, Wei-Xiong, Old Man Lan's lecture was so long ago, and so dry too!" Huaisang drapes himself over the scattered papers of Wei-Xiong's table, pushing the yet-untouched cup of water at his friend while he's at it.
Wei-Xiong blinks up from his work, regarding the cup with something akin to befuddlement before he downs it in one long gulp. When he finally looks at Huaisang, there is something amused and fond in it, a warmth quieter than his friend's usual sunshine smiles.
"It's wisps, Nie-Xiong, aiyah, that's one of the most basic things we learned! But yeah, that sounds nice paired up with the snow-melting array, doesn't it? 'll look into it," Wei-Xiong says, and Nie Huaisang thinks of how he says it so easily, how his friend had just been letting him ask all these things of him, to make him stay. That perhaps, there is a part of Wei-Xiong too that wants to stay. He thinks of how none of them who had met in the paths of Cloud Recesses so long ago had been any good in saying anything they mean.
"You're the best, Wei-xiong," Nie Huaisang says, and hopes that his friend understands everything he doesn't say in those simple words.
☰☲ ⑄ ⑄ ⑄ ⑄ ☲☰
Winter also means Qinghe's well-known harsh temperature and biting winds, and Huaisang spends a few days seeing Wei-Xiong putter around his workshop with chattering teeth yet nary an inkling to throw on some extra layers before he sighs and takes matters in his own hands.
He brings it up after their usual shared dinner, foisting a thick outer layer of bronze-bordered black upon his shoulders before Wei-Xiong could react. His friend blinks a few times before he tightens the robes around himself unconsciously, an expression of wonder on his face that would have been hilarious were it not for the fact that Huaisang's seen him freezing for days now.
"Try it on for size first so we can make adjustments if needed," Huaisang points out, gesturing at Wei-Xiong to tuck the hems into the bracers he's so fond of, "Nuying already prepared the traditional winter robes for you, but I reckon that won't be warm enough so this might work better."
"Aiyo Nie-Xiong, I'd be just fine with what I've been wearing or some old winter robes you could spare, you know. No need to go through all this trouble of making any for me."
"Hmm?" Huaisang hums noncommitally behind his fan, "I commission new robes for myself every winter anyway, Wei-Xiong, my usual seamstress was all too glad to throw in a few extras."
"Still," Wei-Xiong mumbles as he shuffles with his bracers, voice suddenly smaller, "Nie-Xiong, ah, this fabric feels awfully fancy, isn't it a bit too much?"
Come to think of it, Huaisang’s only ever seen Wei-Xiong in the simple black and reds he's always sported since their youth. And now he wonders, with the rumors of how much Yu Ziyuan detested her husband's ward, if that had been something built into him by his former home. Wonders if Wei-Xiong's preference for black robes are mainly for how cheaply one could get black fabric and how sturdy it is against stains and signs of wear. Wonders if the rich purple and jade of Yunmeng Jiang's lotus silks were deemed too precious for him, even with his position as the Head Disciple.
Even after the Sunshot Campaign, after Yunmeng Jiang’s practically rolling in Qishan gold the Yiling Laozu won them in the war, he’s only ever seen Wei-Xiong wear the hemp-woven black and red he's always sported. And that's not right, isn’t it? Da-Ge might not know lotus silk from water silk, or Chang'an brocade from the finer ones made in Gusu, but Zonghui and everyone else in the sect had grown up with the same kind of robes, the best that Qinghe Nie's trade could afford them regardless of where they came from or how much Nie blood they have in their veins. All of a sudden, Huaisang is gripped with the urge to pile a series of fine robes on Wei-Xiong's unsuspecting self - One for each year he had been denied, or felt like he should deny such privileges.
"Nonsense," Huaisang says instead, keeping his smile in place as he adjusts the lapels of Wei-Xiong's robes, "It's the appropriate thickness for a Qinghe winter! Which I'm telling you, is nothing like the weak slushy rains you have down in Yunmeng. Your core is even sadder than mine, Wei-Xiong, if you insist on wearing summer clothes in the middle of winter then one day little Huiliang will find you frozen stiff in your chambers and she'll be inconsolable."
Wei-Xiong groan in further protest as Huaisang studies the drape of the As Sam-made velvet over his broad shoulders. Truthfully, he’s always thought Wei-Xiong's beauty and build are wasted with the simple black robes he's been preferring. For all that Lan Wangji is a block of ice, the man knows how to dress and which fabric to use, and Huaisang had been quietly hoping that once they got together Lan Wangji would inflict some of his sartorial senses towards Wei-Xiong. But alas.
"If you want something done well, or at all, you have to do it yourself, I suppose," Nie Huaisang grumbles under his breath.
"What's that, Nie-Xiong?"
"Eh, nothing," Nie Huaisang says airily, even as he stealthily measures the width of Wei-Xiong's back, to make whatever robes he'd commission next fit more snugly across that fine expanse of shoulders, "Nothing at all."
By midwinter, Wei-Xiong’s wardrobe is three sets of robes fuller, with another three spring robes on the way - All in shades of his friend's preferred black and red, but with shots of Qinghe Nie's own bronze and green woven throughout. Nie Huaisang watches Wei-Xiong frolic around the Unclean Realms in his new robes, belt haphazardly tied and ink and soot on the hems and thinks of Da-Ge, buying Huaisang all the silks and robes he wanted. He thinks he understands the sentiment now.
☰☲ ⑄ ⑄ ⑄ ⑄ ☲☰
The deepest part of winter makes Nie Huaisang maudlin, without his all-consuming plot against Meng Yao and the grounding aim of avenging Da-Ge. For all that Huaisang's always scoffed at Zhongren for lamenting his preoccupation with revenge, he supposes his second-in-command has a point. Not that Zhongren needs to know that.
Three days before the winter solstice, Nie Huaisang locks himself up in his study for the whole day, only emerging after dinner to trek his way to Wei-Xiong's rooms, two jars of wine in his hands.
"Hey, Nie-Xiong," Wei-Xiong turns on his work bench as he opens the door, already familiar with his tread on the stone floors, "I haven't actually seen you all day, is everything-"
"Today is Mo Xuanyu's birthday," Nie Huaisang finds himself saying, and whatever Wei-Xiong sees on his face did away with whatever his friend was about to say. Instead, Wei-Xiong rises from his work table and leads him deeper into his chambers, into the relatively uncluttered tea table in the middle of his sitting room. Wei-Xiong is silent as Huaisang sits himself and he comes back with two cups, more silent than he's probably ever seen him. Huaisang doesn't do well with silence, perhaps for wholly different reasons than Wei-Xiong, and so he simply pours wine for them both, if only to break the now harrowing silence. It's a Lanling brew, too floral and fruity for his own taste, but perhaps something Mo Xuanyu had drunk when he was still in Jinlintai. For all that he knows about a great number of things, Huaisang knows next to nothing about Mo Xuanyu in this regard, so much so that he had been lost when he set out to burn some offerings for the boy's soul - Before he remembers that there is no soul at all to be offered anything, nothing left of that too-thin boy with grey eyes Huaisang met beneath a maple tree in Mo Village.
"I was too late," Nie Huaisang blurts out, halfway through their second bottle, the world already swimming pleasantly around him, dulled and softer at the edges, "With Xuanyu. I didn't start off wanting him to be the one to do the ritual when I found out he took your notes from Jinlintai. I had waited, had wanted to find someone more appropriate, more deserving of having their soul destroyed into nothing."
Silence follows his words, only the soft clink of Wei-Xiong's cup and the distant, howling wind accompanying them as Huaisang takes a deep breath.
"The worst thing is," he chokes out, "The worst thing is, I felt like at that point I met him, with all the things he's lived with, it had been-" Nie Huaisang trails off, downing the rest of his cup, filling his mouth with the too-sweet, cloying wine.
"A mercy," Wei-xiong finishes for him softly, dark eyes unreadable. And he supposes, if anyone would know anything about it, it would be Wei-Xiong. Wei-Xiong, who's had the whole world take everything away from him until the only path left was to take himself out of the world entirely. Had Wei-Xiong considered it a kindness to himself as well, the moment he stepped off that cliff in Nightless City?
"I think part of me always suspected that as well, and that's terrible, isn't it? For me to just let that happen, because it was convenient?" He chuckles darkly, placing the cup on the table with a dissonant clatter, "And that's what happened with Meng Yao as well, wasn't it? I probably knew that he had been unhappy here, that some men were treating him differently for his birth, but I also thought at that point what could I have done? And so I did nothing and Da-Ge died for it."
"Nie-Xiong, I don't think that's-"
"But you're here, Wei-Xiong," he trudges on, and reaches out almost blindly, patting his friend - perhaps his only friend - on his broad, reliable shoulders, "You're here and I'm so glad because you deserve it so much. If there's one thing I did right, that I did kindly, then it's you."
Nie Huaisang doesn't really remember much after that, only the warm arms of his friend circling around him, the way Da-Ge's once did, hiding him from the world and from himself. He wakes up on the floor, cheek pressed against the cold, sticky tiles and Wei-xiong's soft snores rumbling beneath his chest. Huaisang hefts himself up and props Wei-Xiong as best as he could into a more comfortable position, then flags a passing disciple for breakfast.
Wei-Xiong is kind enough not to mention whatever it is he said last night, eating his breakfast quietly as both their measly golden cores worked to slowly purge away the persistent remnants of last night's drinking.
"I was thinking of a school," Huaisang finally says, when their breakfast's been cleared away and it's just a pot of strong black tea between them, "Or you know, some sort of academy. Not a Sect, mind you. But just somewhere for kids who might not have the means or opportunity to learn many things. Somewhere accepting, safe."
Wei-Xiong's eyes are expectant and kind across him, and Nie Huaisang swallows.
"So whatever their backgrounds might be, whatever their station or situation, we would be able to vouch for them, and perhaps then no one else should-"
Should have to go through what Mo Xuanyu had. Should have to become what Meng Yao or Xue Yang had become. Should have to stand alone against the world as Wei-Xiong did.
"It's a great idea, Nie-Xiong," Wei-Xiong's hands are as gentle as his voice as they envelop his, and Huaisang thinks that for once he might just cry for real in front of another person.
"You're going to have to take care of the archery and foundation sword forms syllabus, Wei-Xiong," Nie Huaisang says instead, glad that Wei-Xiong is too kind to remark on how watery his voice has become, "Because we're not going to get them to learn the sabre and I really don't know anything about all that. And their uniform robes has to be perfect, of course! That way no snobby young master could demean them for it!"
"Of course," Wei-Xiong grins, as bright as the morning sunlight cutting through the cold outside.
☰☲ ⑄ ⑄ ⑄ ⑄ ☲☰
"Is Wei-Qianbei in love with the Chief Cultivator?"
Huaisang doesn't tell this to anyone, but his Head Disciple and heir Nie Nuying is his favourite. A niece from Huaisang's father's side of the family, she is definitely the picture of a Nie through and through with her broad shoulders and prodigious height - Standing two heads taller than Huaisang himself and taller still with the hilt of her saber standing proudly on her back at all times.
Her heart, though, belongs to the fine and literary arts as much as Huaisang's does - Although she distinctly lacks her Sect Leader's penchant for manipulation and revenge, which Nie Huaisang has tentatively decided to be a good thing.
"Oh dear," Nie Huaisang drawls, lifting his gaze over the stacks of reports Zhongren would probably end up reading towards his Head Disciple, "However would I know about something like that, Nuying?"
Nuying snorts, before plopping down her considerable heft on the stool across Huaisang to narrow her eyes at him. Ah, such distrust, from his own people no less!
"Zongzhu knows what I'm talking about!" Nuying hisses, "And in case you haven't noticed, every time Wei-Qianbei receives a letter from Gusu he gets spectacularly drunk before he climbs a roof to play the same unbelievably sad song on repeat. You know how it took four of our disciples to get him down the last time it happened. A letter from your good friend you don't feel anything fraught about is not supposed to do that to you."
"There you go," Huaisang shrugs, trying not to outright laugh at how red-faced his disciple had become on the end of her breathless tirade.
"That's not what I'm asking about!" Nuying flings her hands above her head, and Huaisang could just see the jumble of questions on her face, all the why hanging in the air around Wei-Xiong ever since he found him in that inn room at the borders of Qinghe. Why are they not together, after everything they have gone through? Why is her Wei-Qianbei here, instead of hanging off the Chief Cultivator's arms in Gusu? Why has the Chief Cultivator not deigned to visit his good friend, for all the letters that kept faithfully coming to Qinghe?
Honestly, those are questions that Nie Huaisang has as well. He sighs instead, and folds his fan to regard Nuying fully.
"Even if he does love Hanguang-Jun," he says softly, in the voice Nuying knows means he's not teasing nor playing at being the Headshaker, "Do you think someone who's known as the scourge of the Cultivation World would feel comfortable courting the Chief Cultivator?"
"But that's-" Nuying begins, before her face goes through a series of complicated expressions, "The truth has already come to light, Wei-Qianbei's name have been cleared."
There's an edge of wavering uncertainty in Nuying's voice, and Huaisang realizes that for all that they spend their days wielding deadly sabers and going toe-to-toe with resentful spirits, Nuying and her cohort have never went through the horrors of going against one's fellow Cultivators as Huaisang's generation once did. That they have yet to comprehend what one's own friends and comrades could do for the sake of power and influence beneath the thin veneer of righteousness the Sects held.
"And do you think that is something the Cultivation World would care to understand?"
Nuying frowns, hands twitching on her lap as the pieces seem to fall into place like a Blacksmith's puzzle in her head. There is a reason she's his favorite, after all.
"Does that mean," she finally says after some time, her voice more subdued, "That the Chief Cultivator doesn't love Wei-Qianbei the same way?"
And it must have looked that way, doesn't it? Even to someone outside of everything like her. Nuying might not fully understand the dark underbelly of the Cultivation World, but she understands enough how much a powerful person's protection is worth. For Lan Wangji to simply let Wei-Xiong roam a hostile world without any claim nor protection, clanless and alone. Well.
"Love takes on many forms," Nie Huaisang answers quietly, "Hanguang-Jun might think he would love Wei-Xiong better by being apart, or that his love is secondary to the lives they both have to live. In all honesty, this is something I truly don't know."
His Head Disciple falls back into silence before she raises her head to look straight at him, something defiant in her eyes.
"Well then," she states, "We'll just have to make sure Wei-Qianbei is happy here either way, won't we?"
"There you go," Huaisang smiles, a terrible fondness aching somewhere in his chest. For all that the world is rarely story-shaped, he supposes being happy could take on many shapes instead. If Wei-Xiong's happiness could take on the shape of his Clan and all the people who do love him the way he needs it, then would it be such a bad thing?
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