Chapter Text
“Rejoice! Wei Wuxian is dead!” Wei Wuxian hears through murky waters.
“Great news indeed! He has met his deserving end!”
Wei Wuxian doesn’t recognise these voices. But they ring on and on, like a buzzing mosquito in his ear.
“He died at the hands of the ghost generals that he created. I heard he was chewed to death! They chewed and chewed until he turned into fine powder!”
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“He was truly a lunatic!”
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“Wasn’t he one of the most promising cultivators of his generation? I heard he drew against Hanguang-jun in a sword fight?”
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“How does that matter? As soon as he had a taste of glory, he became such a show-off. Look at what has become of him now!”
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“HA-HA-HA, he died without a corpse!”
The shrilling sound of their mocking laughs pierces through his heart, stabbing at it harder and harder with each sneer.
The next thing he knows, the scene shifts. Wei Wuxian finds himself standing outside Burial Mounds. Staring at the dead and damaged bodies he had vowed to protect. People who had trusted their lives to him. People who had been like family to him for a brief period in time. People who had sacrificed themselves to keep him safe.
A tear rolls down Wei Wuxian’s cheek just as he is transported to a familiar courtyard, watching helplessly from the side as the cracking sounds of the whip landing against human flesh echoes on and on.
He reaches his hands out to stop the ruthless men, clad in white, from hurting the man kneeling on the ground. But they can not see nor hear him. He couldn’t stop them; he couldn’t protect him.
“LAN ZHAAAAAAAN!” he screams.
Wei Wuxian startles out of bed as the ghosts of his past lives return to haunt him. It’s been fourteen years since the First Siege of Burial Mounds, eighteen months since he was brought back to life in Mo Xuanyu’s body, and more than a year since the events at the Guanyin Temple.
The sunlight peeks in from the window of the Jingshi. Lan Wangji leaves it open every morning before he leaves the room at mao-shi. Despite living in Cloud Recesses for nearly a year, and being recognised now as the unofficial partner of the Second Jade of Lan, Wei Wuxian still struggles to adhere to their rigid and strict daily routine.
As indulging as ever, Lan Wangji never once demanded for Wei Wuxian to follow their regime; even arranging for the classes that he teaches to only begin after lunch, giving Wei Wuxian enough time to sleep in and engage in whatever he likes.
In his brazen youth, Wei Wuxian had imagined life in Cloud Recesses to be boring and mundane. After the truth came to light at Guanyin Temple, the dust had settled, and conclusions had been drawn, he was still initially apprehensive about being stuck here.
How could he not be?
Across both lifetimes, Wei Wuxian had experienced the restraints of being bound to a major clan. He had also experienced the freedom of living and roaming the earth, building a community of his own. He had experienced warm smiles of those he had helped; of the lives he had touched and helped shape. He had experienced the hypocrisy and atrocities of the so-called gentries. He had experienced life and loss, joy and pain; he had lost some of the most important people in his lives, but also found his dearest beloved in the process.
For months after Guanyin Temple, Wei Wuxian took some time to roam around to smaller towns and villages, helping commoners with simple exorcisms and night hunts. He had the time of his life, but he felt empty. And so he ran back to Gusu, to where his heart waited patiently for his return. He ran back to Lan Wangji.
The Lans and the rest of the cultivation world took some time to warm to his presence, but now tolerates him at Cloud Recesses and cultivation conferences. Their hatred and contempt for Wei Wuxian, for the Yiling Laozu had been strong, but their love and respect for Hanguang-jun, for Lan Wangji, was greater. Much greater. Great enough for them to accept that the mighty Hanguang-jun and the despicable Yiling Laozu comes as a package. Inseparable.
Here and now, Wei Wuxian finds himself oddly growing to enjoy the orderliness and predictability that living at Cloud Recesses brings. Waking up at chen-shi everyday, late morning lunches with the main Lan family, midday talisman classes with the Lan disciples, dinners just before sunset, nightly lovemaking with Lan Wangji, tinkering and coming up with new inventions in his free time, going on night hunts together with Lan Wangji and the Lan disciples, weekly tea sessions with Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi; everything has fallen into a comfortable routine. In here, he knows he is safe, he is happy.
Yet Wei Wuxian has seen the worst of it all. And the recurrent nightmares serve as a painful reminder of how he can easily lose everything he has. That haunting fear sits somewhere in the back of his mind, gnawing its way into consciousness. A constant, heavy worry that presses on his shoulders and turns to sickness in his stomach.
Heaving a deep sigh, Wei Wuxian takes a look around the room to ground himself. Chenqing sits firmly on a wooden stand on a table across the room, right where Wangji sits. The outer layers of his robes are sprawled across the floor, and there is tender ache in his lower body that serves as a reminder of their coital bliss from the night before.
All is well. All is safe now.
Wei Wuxian leaps out of bed, determined to ditch the shadows looming over him. He quickly washes up before making his way to Lan Wangji’s office, just like he does every morning.
When he arrives, he spots Lan Wangji deep in a conversation with Lan Qiren. “Mn. Shufu, I have informed the other Lan elders. They will be available at wei-shi.”
“And how will you manage Wei Wuxian?” Lan Qiren asks plainly.
Hearing his name, Wei Wuxian takes it as his cue to join in the conversation. “Lan-qianbei, what is this thing you were saying about managing me?”
“You are here,” Lan Qiren huffs as he turns to look in Wei Wuxian’s direction, “Nothing that concerns you.” He then turns to Lan Wangji and gives a slight nod, “I will take my leave.”
Wei Wuxian clenches his fist tightly as he watches Lan Qiren’s figure fade into the distance. He would never admit it openly. But there’s a part of him that does actually care about how Lan Qiren sees him. He is Lan Wangji’s uncle after all. And the last thing he wants is to cause a rift between Lan Wangji and his family, even though Wei Wuxian knows very well that he would drop everything for them to be together — if that’s what it takes.
“Lan Zhan, what was that about?” Wei Wuxian pokes. He can't help himself — he is curious. And, more than anything, he does not like being kept in the dark.
“Nothing much. The Lan elders would like to meet to discuss something,” Lan Wangji replies, calm as ever.
“Can I join?” Wei Wuxian asks, as he always would.
A tiny twitch on Lan Wangji’s cheek, and the slight inflection in his voice is all that Wei Wuxian needs to confirm his fears. For a long, terrible moment, he feels like he is drowning. Waiting for a response he hopes will be his lifeline.
“No, Wei Ying. Not for this one.”
Not for this one, Wei Wuxian replays the line in his head. Those cold, indifferent words feel like the fatal moment where all the air leaves his lungs, only to be replaced by writhing shadows. Perhaps, despite how he has made Cloud Recesses his home, he is still an outsider here.
Lan Wangji reaches his hand out for Wei Wuxian. “But I’ll—”
“Fine.” Wei Wuxian huffs with such finality as he storms out. He doesn’t wait to hear what else Lan Wangji had to say. He doesn’t give his usual goodbye kiss. He doesn’t try to give Lan Wangji a taste of what he would get at night. He doesn’t even turn to look back.
He feels this darkness he thought he had tamed — the anger has tried so hard to suppress — blink its sleepy eyes and lift its weary head. It is ready to strike. Wei Wuxian thought he was doing better. But perhaps he cannot shake away that side of himself — the darker side. The part that strikes fear in others. In himself.
Perhaps, just like always, it was better for him to be by himself. Where he can’t hurt anyone else.
That morning, Wei Wuxian eats his lunch alone in the Jingshi.