running around, chasing each other on the rooftops of China - Verity (PenelopeGrace)

Chapter 1: I.

Chapter Text

Part I.

Wei Wuxian, like every other person living in the dazzling era of technology and the modern age, knows that there's a hidden world tucked between society. It reeks of magic, wonder, horror, and everything in between, hidden in the shadows unless one dares to look. If one chooses not to see, they will never find a single hint that something different is amiss. As someone enamored with smartphones and laptops, Wei Wuxian never thought he would stumble upon the mystical.

Until one day, his landlord couldn't see him.

Okay, it is his fault he's behind on rent and got his things thrown out to the busy street below, but could he be truly blamed when almost no one at the coffee shop can see him? It's jarring for him to suddenly be walking straight through people! Like he's a ghost! Or a hologram.

He nearly broke down behind the counter at the fact that no one could perceive his existence when one girl with shiny pink sparkles in her glimmering wings took one look at him and asked, "One caramel delight to go?"

"You can see me?"

She didn't seem distraught at the rotund man sticking his entire arm through her stomach. "Of course," she confirmed, her glossy pale butterfly wings fluttering slightly. Glitter, Wei Wuxian swore, was landing on the floor, staining the tiles permanently. "You're close to metamorphosing," she noted with a keen eye. "It's why people no longer perceive you."

"How do I live like this?" He swallowed down gulps of panic, his mind buzzing. Metamorphosing? But he's never got a touch of the mythical, a touch of magic. He's ordinary. An orphan with dead parents he can't remember and one dwindling checking account at the bank. He's been gleefully lying flat for the first half of his twenties, not that he had a choice in between saving and spending.

"My drink," she insisted first, passing over the correct change.

He had to force himself to pull away to make the drink. For the first time all week, he felt hope. There were others out there like him, and if they could survive and live like this girl, then so could he. He held her drink out, not quite giving it to her. "Can you help me? Or know someone who could?"

She bit her lips and then tugged out her phone, ignoring the impatient foreigner shouting at the barista next to him. "There's an eccentric but rich Chinese vampire with the European variant of vampirism. He owns a hotel where many of us would sometimes go for sanctuary. His only rules are no excessive noise and you don't be a dick."

"Chinese vampire with European variant?" He echoed, bewildered.

"The sexy kind with blood drinking," she explained, tapping her foot and making even more glitter fall from her wings. "Not the gross kind where he's a rotting corpse and has to kill people for their qi. He lucked out."

"Am I going to turn into something like that?" His words came out strangled.

She eyed his mouth critically. "Doubtful. You don't have fangs coming out." She grabbed her receipt and a pen, scribbling something on the back. "This is the address. I wish I could talk more, but I have to attend a healer’s conference."

That was two days ago. Now is exactly twelve hours after Wei Wuxian has spent two hours digging up what he could carry from his meager belongings. The rest have all been abandoned by the road, where his landlord left them. His two suitcases clatter along the sidewalk in the rich area of Lanling, knowing that he has to trust the word of a stranger that there is a safe place for someone like him to stay.

He wishes, not for the first time, that he got her name and number before she left. At very least, he would know someone different like him out there.

When he finally reaches the address according to his smartphone, he has to scan the building, or rather, the majestic skyscraper, to double-check that it is indeed a hotel. The inscription in the front by the fountain is tastefully labeled in gold as Koi Tower Hotel, and there's a hanging sign near the entrance swinging the blackened words of NO VACANCY. It's not anything Wei Wuxian imagines to be the home of a vampire. He expected something more European, like a dark cliché castle on a cliff with stormy clouds overhead and not a single ray of sun to be found. Not something that could be passed off as a rich and idle man's tourist-catering hotel that can rival Four Seasons.

As he walks in and stares at the gold inlays in the stone walkway of the hotel's lobby, Wei Wuxian has never felt so damn aware of his ripped black jeans and the random t-shirt bedazzled with a random no-name band that was giving out free shirts at their one and only performance in a sh*tty bar in a hole. He feels like a dirty speck of dirt in a carefully curated golden paradise.

There's no one at the front desk. However, there is a wooden sign that tells him to ring the bell for assistance.

So he does with slight hesitation.

A man suddenly appears out of thin air, so beautiful and stoic that Wei Wuxian loses his entire train of thought. With a white headband tied around his forehead, he's dressed in white robes with cloud motifs, resembling a man living in the era of Ancient China when hanfu robes dominated fashion. He may be wearing white, as if attending a funeral, but the style only adds to his appeal. His eyes open, revealing golden orbs that seem to bespell Wei Wuxian. Without a doubt, this man is of the supernatural world. Maybe even a dusting of divinity, if gods are real. No one could be this perfect in real life with all the regal bearings of the finest jade. He doesn't think he's seen a movie with a man this handsome, so gorgeous that he could cry.

"Huh?" Wei Wuxian suddenly realizes the man has been speaking.

"Would you like a room?"

With you? Yes, please , is the first thought in his head. Then he realizes the receptionist meant an actual hotel room. This is what one does when at a hotel; they request a room. "Yes." His throat is dry.

The man enters something on the computer. “One bed?”

“Yes.”

“King or queen?”

“King.”

“Where have you heard about the Koi Tower Hotel?”

It sounds startling out of something his new dentist office would say. Oh, how have you heard of us? From a friend’s recommendation or an advertisem*nt? Baidu?

“This woman with wings.” As the answer slips through his mouth, he wonders if the receptionist will react and tell him he’s crazy, that Wei Wuxian has been imagining his torment for the last week and is currently undergoing a mental breakdown.

He doesn’t even blink. “Name?”

“I didn’t get it.”

“What was the color of her wings?”

“Pale. Slightly pink but also translucent.”

The receptionist answers his own question, “Wen Qing.” Then he settles back into silence, typing away at the computer.

Wei Wuxian desperately stares at the Ancient Chinese seismometer behind the man. Balls are kept in the mouths of bronze dragons evenly sticking out on the outside of a fine pot. Directly underneath the dragons are open-mouthed frogs waiting to catch the balls in the event of an earthquake, and to Wei Wuxian’s poor dirty-minded brain, the seismometer resembles too much of something else, so he quickly turns around and counts the armchairs and couches spread across the lobby.

“One room, two queens,” demands a stubborn-looking man in a sleek white suit, throwing his shiny car keys on the front counter. His hand passes right through Wei Wuxian, and doesn’t that startle him?

The receptionist doesn’t blink. “No vacancy.”

“Don’t you know who I am?” he spits out, his face turning an odd shade of purple-red. He goes on the rant. “I know how hotels work. I know you have rooms here. I demand to speak to your manager.”

“I am the manager. You’re not qualified to speak to me.”

“What?”

The receptionist flicks the car keys back, sending it sliding to the very edge of the expensive ivory countertop. It’s the precision and the exactness of the movement and force that gets to Wei Wuxian, the receptionist so perfect in his dismissal. The receptionist pointedly turns back to the computer and continues typing, pretending not to see the man.

He splutters in shock.

It’s probably the first time in his entire life he’s ever been denied, Wei Wuxian suspects. It’s made this already beautiful, heart-stopping man a hundred times more attractive. He’s never seen anyone handle something rude so callously. The man, after standing still for several moments, reaches for the keys, sending it to the floor, and is forced to awkwardly pick up his car keys from the ground and leave in a fit, driving out in his shiny white-purple convertible with a very loud exhaust.

The receptionist, or actually, the manager, plants a hotel key card in front of Wei Wuxian. “Your room key for room number 1102. I’ll show you where it is.”

Wei Wuxian picks up the card. “Wouldn’t it be on the eleventh floor?” Logically, the first part of the room number denotes the floor of the room while the last two digits would signify the room number on that floor.

“No.” He moves around the front counter and heads towards the elevators.

“Wait, what about payment?” Wei Wuxian would love to stay in a fancy hotel like that, but he suspects he’s been priced out. Considerably.

“No payment is necessary unless you break two rules.” The manager, his robes flowing gracefully as he walks, does not make a single sound in his footsteps. He casually gestures with his elbow to a wooden sign above the elevator buttons tucked between two silver elevator doors.

There are indeed only two rules. In bold, it declares, 1. No excessive noise. 2. Don’t be a dick. It’s exactly what Wen Qing, that lady with wings, said.

The elevator on the left opens with a ding. The manager pushes the button for the twenty-third floor. He stands still, perfectly still like a statue. Then he says, “There is one additional but unwritten rule. You must attend dinner in the Grand Golden Ballroom on the third floor at exactly seven o’clock.”

“That’s in thirty minutes.” Then Wei Wuxian taps his chin. “What if I’m late?” His voice takes on an unintentional teasing quality.

“Punishment.”

Wei Wuxian is so thrown off by that answer that he can’t even come up with a response. The elevator opens to the twenty-third floor with a ding, and they step out to a floor where the first thing both of them hear is the sound of enthusiastic licking. He throws a bewildered look at the manager, who remains dispassionate as if he's seen it all before. A golden door labeled as 1102 is at the end of the short hallway. There are double doors open on their right.

The scene inside looks straight out of a horror movie. A woman with black hair in a flowery elaborate two-bun updo is wearing flimsy purple silk lingerie that is see-through enough Wei Wuxian can see the shadow of her nipples and her pubic hair. He may be gay, but he can appreciate how pretty she is, if one ignores the massive amount of a suspicious red liquid coloring and dripping down her skin. She reminds him of the story of Countess Elizabeth Bathory, bathing in the blood of her victims except for the fact she’s lounging and ruining a sofa’s upholstery rather than a bathtub. He steals a quick look at the manager, who doesn't seem affected by this scene. He quickly glances back into the room to look somewhere safer, a kneeling man who is the source of the licking sound. The man, wearing a collared but bloodied yellow silk shirt and black slacks, doesn’t seem to notice them at all, so enthralled in the woman’s gaze even as he’s slurping the red liquid off the pointed heel of her purple stilettos.

He looks like an utter simp for this woman.

The manager pauses in his steps and quietly closes the both doors to the scene. They don't even stop. He then moves on and says, gesturing to the doorknob, “Tap with the key card.”

Wei Wuxian, still holding the key card in his hand, does. His mouth drops at the suite before him. He stares at the splendid decorations, the lavish gold linings in the curtains, the old Chinese style in wood furniture. He asks, "Am I in the wrong room?" He turns to find the manager.

He's not there anymore.

Wei Wuxian stares at the blank space for a long moment. He's certain that man didn't take the elevator or open the door to the stairs to escape.

As someone who remembers what it was like to be hungry on the streets before the orphanage took him in and fed him small meals and stories about Yiling’s mythological figures like the Yiling Patriarch to stave off the hunger, Wei Wuxian doesn't dare to be late for dinner, especially in the prospect of free food. However, he would quietly admit that "punishment" may indeed be worth finding out. He hasn't lost that curiosity, that urge to f*ck around and find out, especially if he might be found out by the hotel manager.

Besides, he also wants to avoid his neighbors. He would rather not look into their eyes out of sheer trauma while walking to the elevator. He might jump out of that hallway window if he has to pass by them again.

It’s impossible to miss the Grand Golden Ballroom on the third floor. After all, the elevators open up to the bronze-gold double doors leading to the ballroom. The ballroom seems to take up two stories, eating up the space usually delegated to a fourth floor. A long table is placed on the far side of the ballroom, leaving a massive amount of empty space that could be used for ball dancing. Wei Wuxian is not the first person there. There is a lady with feathered pink-yellow wings sitting at the right hand of the head of the table. The table could seat at least forty, though not all of the plates have been set in front of every seat.

He counts the plates. Fifteen. Perhaps there are only fifteen guests at the hotel? He notes that there are two plates set at the head of the table with a cushioned carved wooden bench, indeed wide and large enough to seat two people. There are no name tags at any of the plates, but Wei Wuxian knows better than to sit at the bench. He pulls out a chair a few seats down from the winged lady, who is talking to someone barely visible though they could be heard clearly.

A feminine voice emerges from the ghostly form sitting on the other side of the table. “Can’t find those herbs anywhere anymore. They’ve been cutting down the trees for months, and without the trees, those herbs can’t grow without protection from the fog, Mianmian. They’re stubborn herbs. They refuse to be grown in my greenhouse.”

“The rooftop greenhouse?” asks the winged lady, Mianmian.

“I don’t have any other greenhouses. I can illegally grow it in my neighbor’s yard, but that idiot’s dog keeps eating it.”

“What kind of herb, Mianmian?” Wei Wuxian can’t help but butt in.

The winged lady glares at him. “That is not my name.”

“Her name is—”

“No! Do not tell him my name.”

He taps his chin cheekily. “Then your name must be Mianmian,” he logically concludes, smiling widely at the outraged look on her face. Letting the silence build for a moment, he then tells her, “Your wings are stunning.”

The compliment does not soothe her outrage. She looks at him with suspicion. “You’re a new guest here?”

“I am,” he confirms, feeling both pairs of eyes turned towards him.

“Metamorphosing?”

“I…” He pauses, as if unsure, “Yes?”

“Did you get bitten by something? A dog?”

Wei Wuxian shudders. He hasn’t been near a dog in several years, and he’s more than happy with that record. “No.”

Before she can say anything else, the elevator’s bing dings. More guests shuffle into the ballroom. There are eight of them, and he tries not to stare at any particular one for too long. There’s one boy with a careful handcrafted fan covering most of his face. A strange golden-red bird about a toddler’s size hobbles in, its wings flapping as it moves. A scowling man in a purple collared shirt and black slacks shuffles forward to sit next to the ghost. A gentle-looking girl and a blindfolded man in white robes, who appears as if he could be a distant cousin of the hotel manager, walk arm-in-arm. The blindfolded man sits himself next to Wei Wuxian while another man in a dark blue leather jacket goes to the chair on Wei Wuxian’s left. A glowing speck of light, which reminds Wei Wuxian of a lightbulb just without the glass bulb, flies to the table. Last of all is a crocodile slowly hobbling along, climbing onto the table. Its nose kicks the silver plate off the table and to the floor with a clatter, and everyone else acts as if it's normal to have an animal that is at least twenty feet long on the table. Its little claws scrunches up the tablecloth.

It's like a zoo.

The elevator dings again, and Wei Wuxian quickly glances away and stares hard at his empty plate. It's that couple, except thankfully, the woman is not covered in blood anymore and the simp isn't sucking at her shoe with ardent devotion. She’s wearing a purple hanfu with lotus motifs while the simp is dressed like a modern businessman one can easily find in the financial districts of Shanghai.

Out of the corner of his eye, he notes that the two of them sit at the head of the table. He stares harder at his plate, wishing his hair is out of his ponytail. Maybe they can’t see him if he’s blinded by a curtain of his hair. He’s absolutely not questioning why he’s the one feeling embarrassed when they were the ones being scandalous.

From somewhere, a clock strikes seven.

“Good, we’re all here,” says the simp. He raises a wine glass filled with a suspiciously red liquid and announces, “We have a new guest, who arrived today.”

Wei Wuxian lifts his head up, looking at the other half of the table and avoiding the couple’s direction. He nods at their casual acknowledgement and participates in ganbei, drowning down the white wine glass that suddenly appeared at his right.

The simp, unfortunately, continues to talk at Wei Wuxian, putting him under the spotlight. “You are metamorphosing.”

“So it’s been said.” Wei Wuxian notices that two seats across from him are currently empty. Didn’t the simp say everyone was here?

“Were you bitten? By a dog, perhaps?”

“No,” he answers, wrinkling his nose at the mention of a dog.

“Are you certain?”

“Certain.”

“I can feel the magic emerging. It’s only budding, so you would have some time before you undergo metamorphosis. Maybe a year if you're not actively using your magic,” he tells him, and to Wei Wuxian, that is actually useful information. His fangs and teeth are stained red, blood visible as he speaks.

“What am I changing into?”

The simp looks speculatively at him, as if trying to pry what lies underneath Wei Wuxian’s skin with his own eyes and to discover what makes him tick. “If you weren’t bitten—”

“I wasn’t,” Wei Wuxian insists.

“Then you were born with your magic,” the lady next to the simp finishes. Placing her hand on the simp’s arm, she smiles kindly and inquires, “Did you know what your parents were?”

“No. I can’t remember. Can’t remember anything about them. Can’t remember their names. They died when I was young,” he answers, and then he has to forcibly shut his own mouth before he reveals anything more, because that is far more than what he would typically admit to anyone at all. He doesn’t even tell his coworkers any details about his life.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she says, and every word sounds so genuine that Wei Wuxian has to believe her sincerity. “It’s not easy to walk this world alone.” After a pause at the table, she introduces herself, “I am Jiang Yanli, and this is my husband, Jin Zixuan.” She briefly asks for Wei Wuxian’s name and nods with grace. "A wonderful name." She gestures to Mianmian and says, “That is Luo Qingyang. Next to her is Nie Huaisang. Across from her is Pei Fei. To your right is Xiao Xingchen and on your left is Song Lan.”

A-Qing is the girl sitting next to Xiao Xingchen. The scowly man is Jiang Yanli’s brother, Jiang Cheng. The bird is introduced as A-Yun, and the speck of light, which is resting on a plate, is Huang Li.

Wei Wuxian is not going to remember a single name. He does not have enough space in his head to remember them all.

Jiang Yanli pauses at the crocodile. “His old collar said his name is Bob.” She shrugs at that.

“It’s a crocodile,” he blurts out.

“He has a name. It’s Bob.” Her eyes flash dangerously purple, and Wei Wuxian has to stop before he digs himself into a hole and puts himself on her bad side by inserting foot into mouth. “Are you going to Florida by any chance?”

Wei Wuxian hasn’t left Yiling his entire life until the last twenty-four hours happened to him, much less visited a whole different country. “No.”

She hums in disappointment. “He’s been wanting to return home.”

It’s a long pause before the simp, Jin Zixuan, says, “Let’s eat.”

Then food suddenly appears in the center of the table. It’s a wide variety of everything. There’s the typical Chinese cuisine, but there’s also the stereotypical pile of hamburgers that the crocodile is swallowing by twos and threes.

"How rude that you don't uncover me while you all eat!" A voice thunders. It seems to be emerging from a covered silver platter across from Wei Wuxian. “I need to eat too!” The voice shrieks.

In a blink of an eye, the hotel manager suddenly appears behind the empty seat, like magic. He’s still dressed in the traditional robes with the white ribbon around his forehead.

“Lan-er-gonzi,” says Jiang Yanli. She requests, “Could you please move Wen Chao to a different seat? He’s startling our new guest.”

“Mn,” the hotel manager hums, lifting the covered platter to an empty area next to the crocodile. He carefully holds it with a single hand, a perfect waiter’s posture. He lifts the cover to reveal a decapitated but moving head, dark hair sweeping off the platter. It’s frankly disturbing, and Wei Wuxian can’t stop looking at it. The cut on Wen Chao’s neck is faintly pink like an old scar.

“That’s Wen Chao,” Jiang Yanli introduces, smiling gently.

“He…” Wei Wuxian pauses, not sure what to even say.

“He what?” Wen Chao shouts, his head reeling around like a spinning top to stare at Wei Wuxian. “Yeah, he what? Bodiless? So what? A particular, certain person tried to murder me! But alas, I was too strong to be killed by a mere bug, and you see now? I have yet to die!” He crackles, clearly off his rocker. “Do you know who I am? Have you heard of the stories they tell about me?”

“I haven’t,” he says. There’s something grating about Wen Chao’s voice and the maniac look in his eyes that makes Wei Wuxian wary of him, even if he is decapitated and without a body.

“But you know who I am?”

“Talk or eat,” the hotel manager says in warning.

“Fine, fine, fine.” Wen Chao grumbles, and shockingly, a long tongue emerges from his mouth and begins cupping up the communal miso soup. The tongue is red and forked, and it’s so disgustingly wrinkled and flexible like an elephant’s trunk that Wei Wuxian thinks he might throw up just from looking at it.

The hotel manager, or Lan-er-gonzi, proceeds to sit directly in front of Wei Wuxian, taking the seat next to the place Wen Chao’s head once occupied. His long sleeves fall back slightly, and he grabs all the vegetarian options, silently eating. His manners are flawless and graceful, making Wei Wuxian far too aware that he’s never been taught table etiquette in his whole life.

“You’ve already met our hotel manager,” Jiang Yanli notes, delicately setting down her chopsticks. “Lan Wangji. If you need any assistance with anything at all, you can ask him for help.”

With that, conversation begins to flow and Wei Wuxian listens carefully, eager to discover the dynamics of the hotel guests. Jin Zixuan is the simp and the vampire owner, idle and rich. His wife, Jiang Yanli, is an impeccable hostess with perfect manners and posture that could almost make one feel like the dirt on the ground yet her warm nature, instead, draws one in and comforts. Without her, the simp would be left floundering in his noticeable lack of social grace. Mianmian, who Wei Wuxian has already forgotten her real name, seems to be Jin Zixuan’s employee. A-Qing, Song Lan, and the crocodile don't talk at all and neither does the bird or the speck of light.

Xiao Xingchen, on the other hand, makes a long update about some sort of cultivation research he’s been pursuing involving a monster Wei Wuxian has never heard of, and then he proceeds to not talk anymore.

Jiang Cheng throws an interesting dynamic in the conversation. Despite his scowls, he seems to tolerate Jin Zixuan’s presence though this concession still doesn’t seem to bridge the mile-long rift between the two men. Jin Zixuan tries to make an effort to include him in the conversation, and to Wei Wuxian, it’s like seeing two people who can’t get along yet are still trying to win a three-legged race for the Jiang Yanli’s sake.

Nie Huaisang, who Wei Wuxian thought was an unassuming boy but is actually a young man once he stopped covering his face with his fan, actively claims to be ignorant of everything and is fully immersed in a life of the idle rich yet actually is more keen than one would suspect. He’s already roped Wei Wuxian into visiting his suite on the eighth floor while claiming Wei Wuxian would be interested in a game of Go.

Throughout the meal, Wei Wuxian keeps an eye on the enigmatic hotel manager, who hardly makes a single expression through his stoic demeanor. However, he did briefly side-eyes Nie Huaisang when the other man invited him to his room. Lan Wangji doesn’t speak nor does anyone speak to him.

And Wei Wuxian feels all too well like the fish out of water, too carefully to do anything drastic that may lead him to being kicked out of the only place he has to stay.

Nie Huaisang is actually the nastiest opponent he has ever faced in Go. He smiles slightly at Wei Wuxian while he’s tearing apart his strategy. That being said, Nie Huaisang, which Wei Wuxian is grateful to find out, has all the deets and can’t spill the tea about the hotel’s strange residents fast enough. It’s an even better introduction than what Jiang Yanli has given to him over at the dinner table.

“Jin Zixuan was turned by a British vampire back in the 80s,” Nie Huaisang reveals, staring at the board. “On orders of his father, he was studying business management, but what he actually wanted to study was viticulture in California. So after he was turned, he retreated to this hotel and took some time to recover from the revelation of what he’s become. Eventually, he shuts down the hotel from the public and meets Jiang Yanli on a rare trip to the outside world back in ‘85 and the rest of it is history. Today, he spends most of his time developing mixtures of blood and wine. You probably have heard of his father.”

“I have?”

“Jin Guangshan.”

Wei Wuxian can’t help the disgusted expression spreading across his face. Oh, yeah, he has unfortunately heard of Jin Guangshan. He’s this dirty old pervert, who is heavily photographed and discussed in appalling Chinese forums with posters regularly judging his current young barely-legal fling on a subjective hotness scale despite his still living wife being two years younger than him. Severe emphasis on old, like skin-clinging-to-a-skeleton old. When Wei Wuxian was born, he was already older than some of the grandpas out there. The women he dated at that time have to be in their forties by now. Some of them have birthed his children, though that has never stopped him from dating a fresh new victim. Nor has it stopped new girls from dating him.

He’s also infamous for owning a significant piece of Chinese and other Asian media corporations and using the corporations to push his own political agenda. A very rich billionaire.

“He’s always been one of the more spiritual humans out there,” Nie Huaisang says. “Tunely aware of the modern and supernatural world. He’s been seeking immortality or at least a way to extend his lifetime. He asked Jin Zixuan back in the 90s to turn him into a vampire, but Jin Zixuan refused.”

Never has Wei Wuxian felt grateful for Jin Zixuan’s decision, even if he has never met Jin Guangshan.

“Jin Guangshan was very upset, but ten years later, he claimed to Jin Zixuan that he’s grateful for his decision. He would live a very sad life if the average person can no longer perceive him.”

“How does that work? A human aware of both worlds?”

“I don’t know,” he replies. “I’m not a human.”

“Then what are you?”

“What are you?” he counters.

“I don’t know.”

“You didn’t get bitten? By a dog?” he asks.

What is up with everyone and dogs? Wei Wuxian couldn’t keep all of the irritation he’s feeling out of his voice. He stresses, “No, I was not bitten by anything and especially not a dog.”

Nie Huaisang raises his hands up in defense. “It’s a valid question. A lot of people who are changed and not born the way they are have been bitten by a creature that resembles a dog. When globalization took off, when the world got smaller because of airplanes and ships, lycanthropy spread everywhere. There’s no continent that does not have a werewolf present. Most individuals undergoing metamorphosis are suffering from the onslaught of lycanthropy.”

“Oh.”

“If you weren’t bitten by anything or didn’t swallow anything unusual, then it’s more likely you were born with magic. Earlier, at dinner, the vast majority of us there are born with it.”

“Lan Wangji?”

Nie Huaisang picks up his fan, his mouth covered as he speaks. “Yes, Lan Wangji was definitely born with it. He comes from a prominent family who all have the same abilities as him, though most are not as skilled as he is.”

“Is he a magician?”

He ignores that question, and instead, makes his move. “Lan Wangji’s family and mine used to be very close. My family, like his, are born with our abilities. His older brother, my older brother, and Jin Zixuan’s brother, Meng Yao, are involved.”

“In your abilities?”

“No. Dating.”

“Oh.”

“My older brother is a jiangshi.”

“So are you a jiangshi?” he asks, tapping his chin. Wei Wuxian has heard of these creatures. They’re considered as Chinese vampires, but they are actually reanimated corpses that must feast on qi or else they will perish.

“No. He was made that way.”

“Made?”

“Meng Yao killed him.”

“Yet they’re dating now?” He’s not sure if he can forgive anyone who has killed him and then proceed to date them. He might kill them back, just to prove a point.

“My brother’s story is a cautionary tale, a reminder that customs of the past do not necessarily carry well into the future and that filial piety can cause widespread harm, that pain and suffering will beget even more trauma that will not be stopped unless they put an end to it themselves. Lan Wangji’s older brother, Lan Xichen, was indirectly complicit in my brother’s murder. Now, he saves him.”

Wei Wuxian is baffled. How could a jiangshi be saved when it needs to kill people for their qi? “A jiangshi needs qi to survive.”

Nie Huaisang tilts his head forward. “Thankfully, Lan Xichen has plenty of it.”

“Is Meng Yao a vampire like his brother?”

“No. Though he is the son of Jin Guangshan, he has inherited his traits from his mother. He is a shapeshifter whose form takes on the appearance of a yellow tripedal crow. The only reason why his father was interested in him was because he could consume a certain type of grass that would grant him immortality. It’s to Jin Guangshan’s disappointment that the grass wouldn’t work for him.”

“Your family and Lan Wangji’s family,” Wei Wuxian concludes, shuddering at the thought of old creepy man Jin Guangshan achieving any form of immortality, “have the same abilities, and you will not tell me those abilities.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Nie Huaisang quickly blabbers, his fan flapping as he hides his face. “I don’t know anything. I’ve never been great at my abilities. My brother used to scold me for having such poor talent.”

That is not a no.

He decides to push on for a little more hint. “Can you tell me about Lan Wangji?”

“Lan Wangji is his courtesy name.”

Wei Wuxian is astounded by that. “His courtesy name?” Very few people in modern China use and have courtesy names. “Is it because his family is very traditional or is he very old?”

“The Lans are indeed incredibly traditional. His birth name is actually Lan Zhan,” Nie Huaisang tells him, his voice dropping to a whisper. His fan drops a little, and a sly but knowing grin appears on his lips. He leans in, as if dropping a revelation. “You should see his sword.”

He chokes on thin air. He’s not sure if Nie Huaisang means a literal sword or a figurative one, and no amount of pleading from his end will get Nie Huaisang to elaborate on anything regarding Lan Zhan’s sword.

He, however, does drop the deets on everyone else. Mianmian and Wen Qing are both fenghuangs, which are mythological birds capable of flight and bringing light in great darkness. Their wings are visible in their human forms, though Wen Qing, who has a stronger ability over illusions, has her wings wrapped in illusions to appear like a delicate fairy rather than a feathered bird’s. Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng come from a family of qilins.

“When I was a child, I rode Jiang Cheng in his qilin form. Nowadays, he’ll stab you with his antlers before he lets you ride him,” he says, and that sounds about right.

Nie Huaisang has no good explanations regarding the crocodile named Bob, but he does explain that A-Qing and Song Lan are cursed with mutism by an old enemy. Xiao Xingchen is a huli jing, an adopted son and disciple of Baoshan Sanren. Baoshan Sanren, the immortal, is the greatest and most well-known huli jing with nine tails. “She keeps herself to the mountain, which is the same place where she was born. She must do it for her own safety, because the tails of a huli jing could be harvested for unscrupulous means. It doesn’t help that the nature of a huli jing is mischievous and tricky and heinous in some huli jings, which makes many in the supernatural community want to kill them. Not only the Asian community but also the international community.”

“Actual kill? As in murder?”

He nods seriously. “Xiao Xingchen has cultivated four tails and a good enough reputation that most in the community would leave him alone. For those who aren’t satisfied with this, Koi Tower Hotel provides an immense amount of protection for Xiao Xingchen and has a powerful deterrent that prevents shady figures from trying anything. He, A-Qing, and Song Lan are the oldest residents here. He’s been working on lifting their curse for the last twenty years.”

Wei Wuxian notes, “That’s impressive. His devotion.”

A-Yun, the bird, is an artist who hasn’t been able to sell any of their paintings. Pei Fei has a condition where she can’t be fully seen by humans until night falls, and Huang Li, a normal human, has been under an elaborate love curse caused by her own family for over a century due to refusing to marry into an arranged marriage. The intended groom has been long dead, but theoretically, she could break the curse if she marries into that family. Nonetheless, she’s actually quite happy as she is.

“What about Wen Chao?”

Nie Huaisang grimaces. “He’s a longgui.” It’s a dragon turtle, believed to bring about good luck and prosperity. “He’s the reason why everyone must attend dinner at seven on the third floor.”

“How?”

“He ate four of our guests,” Nie Huaisang explains, shivering in disgust. “No one realized anything was wrong, because they tend to stick to themselves and rarely leave their rooms.”

Wei Wuxian shudders at that. He can’t quite imagine Wen Chao being physically capable of killing anything unless they somehow got strangled by his tongue. “A decapitated head managed to kill four people and he’s still a guest here?”

“First of all, he’s immortal, though he is alive only because of Jiang Yanli’s sense of mercy. Second of all, he killed four people before he got decapitated. The rest of his body has been burned to ashes.”

And that makes much more sense. It’s hard to imagine how a talking head with a very long tongue like an elephant’s trunk could kill four people. He tilts his head. “How did he come about?”

“Corrupted ever since he got a taste for human flesh a long time ago. His story, his myth predates the modern age. Unknown to us when he first arrived here four years ago, he killed thousands in the countryside before he decided to try some different meals.” At Wei Wuxian’s apprehensive look, Nie Huaisang assures, “He won’t try anything as long as you’re on Koi Tower Hotel’s grounds. If he tries anything, he will be snuffed out. Besides, you can easily outrun him.”

That horrifyingly implies Wen Chao, even if he is stuck as a decapitated head on a silver platter, can still move, can still give chase.

Nie Huaisang changes the subject. “You’re staying in room 1102 on the twenty-third floor?”

He’s not sure how the young man found that out. “Uh, yes?”

“Have you explored the room yet?”

Wei Wuxian honestly hadn’t. While Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan were still busy with each other, he quickly made his way back into the elevator to avoid seeing them on the way to dinner. “No, should I?”

“I have the best and most expensive suite in the entire hotel,” he informs in a matter-of-fact tone, tapping his chin. “It takes up three floors, and it’s got an art gallery on the tenth floor, which only I can visit. There’s also a gym, which I don’t use at all, on the ninth floor, and the other half of the floor has enough space for my pet songbirds.”

Nie Huaisang, he is beginning to discover, thinks, acts, and speaks like someone idle and rich, because he is indeed idle and rich. No average person would even think to have or need those things in their hotel suite. Wei Wuxian allows him to continue his train of thought.

“1102’s layout is exactly the same as Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan’s penthouse suite, number 1101, which was designed for honeymoon couples. Same layout, incredibly good sound insulation,” he says, his face almost taking on a dreamy quality. “It’s the best available room, well, formerly available room in the entire hotel. No one stayed in that penthouse before since the hotel closed. You should take the time to explore all of its floors and amenities.”

“Floors,” Wei Wuxian echoes incredulously. He then glances hopefully at the young man. “You said good sound insulation?”

“Very good.” His smile is practically impish.

“Not for me,” he quickly says in outrage.

Nie Huaisang laughs. “I know, I know, I was teasing you! Everyone knows about how loud Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan can get. It’s another reason why they have to stay in that penthouse. If they’re together and outside that layer of sound insulation, everyone can hear them. Everyone. Jiang Cheng doesn’t even stay in the tower. He’s been traumatized.”

“He doesn’t?”

“No. The property of this hotel extends a half of an acre away from the street,” he tells him, gesturing backwards, towards northwest. “It contains gardens but also well preserved siheyuans that used to house families centuries ago. Jiang Cheng stays in the furthest complex from the tower.”

“I’ll have to explore my room.”

“Definitely. You might never want to leave.” His eyes fall shut, his lips forming a smile. “I recommend for the sake of your metamorphosis that you approach Xiao Xingchen for basic breathing techniques and methods. He’s been trained by Baoshan Sanren and is the second best teacher here.”

“But I’m not a huli jing like him.”

“Well, we don’t know what you will turn into,” he agrees, deftly shutting his fan. “But Xiao Xingchen can still teach you something or two. Just don’t ask for help from me. I’ve no talent or memory for those things.”

By the time Wei Wuxian is done speaking with Nie Huaisang, it’s long past twelve o’clock and he’s dead tired despite having a decade-long habit of never sleeping before two in the morning. He takes the elevator up and hobbles back into his room, no, his penthouse. There’s so many switches for lights that Wei Wuxian has gotten too fed up with trying them all in effort to find the bedroom, which seems to be evading him. It turns out to be on the second floor of the penthouse, and the scene, which he can make out from his phone flashlight, is completely red with silk bedding and sheets and curtains. Glass vases of fresh red roses tastefully present a faint flowery scent. The display of pillows and throw pillows on the bed is so lovely that Wei Wuxian has to force himself to ruin it by sleeping in it.

The sheets are so soft against his skin that he strips off his shirt and lays in bed in only his boxers. He stares at the dark ceiling and shuts his eyes, his hand moving down to tease his skin. Wei Wuxian has never gotten a decent night of sleep without getting himself off. He remembers Nie Huaisang’s comment about good sound insulation and feels his muscles relax.

His neighbors have frequently complained to the landlord, who never does anything useful, that Wei Wuxian is loud.

And for once, he has a chance to be loud without anyone complaining.

He begins with the softest of moans, using the very cloth of his boxer shorts to tease his stiffening co*ck. He doesn’t dare touch himself yet. Denial and patience makes the night oh, so much more satisfying. A skim of his nail draws out a hiss, and then he sets his mind to wander, thinking about nothing in particular.

His finger trails to his hole, circling yet not pushing in. He remembers that silicone dild* he left in his backpack by the entrance. He loudly whimpers. He would like to get it, to get something to stuff his hole, but he’s desperate, pushing himself closer to the edge. In his mind’s eye, he thinks of white silk and large hands and pleasure courses through his veins.

Then he’s freely moaning, frantically stroking himself. What would it be like to suffer punishment under Lan Wangji? What would it be like to freely touch the other man, to see him unravel? He’s so stoic yet there’s something in his golden eyes that haunts Wei Wuxian—

Two knocks, somehow loud enough for Wei Wuxian to hear, strike the front door. His hand moves faster, desperate now.

Another two knocks, somehow sounding even more insistent than before.

He screams into his pillow out of pure frustration, pulling his hands away from his aching leaking co*ck. f*ck it. He’s not putting on any clothes. Whoever has decided to ruin his night deserves to see what they’ve done to him.

As soon as he opens the door, he instantly regrets not putting his clothes on. Lan Wangji’s eyes are too observant, and he feels as if he wears nothing, as if the peerless man before him can see the mess he's made in his boxers.

His ears are tinged red. "No excessive noise."

But since it would make the shame all too apparent if he suddenly turns away to put clothes on, Wei Wuxian straightens, as if he answers all his doors almost naked. "I wasn't. And there's good sound insulation. Nie Huaisang told me so."

"Is he here?"

Wei Wuxian is bewildered. "Uh, no. He's staying on the eighth floor," he tells him, as if a hotel manager with only fourteen guests is completely unaware of where they are all staying.

Lan Wangi merely says, "First warning." Then he turns around.

"Wait, Lan-er-gege," he shouts, watching the other man pause in his step. He asks, feigning innocence, "How many warnings do I get?" No answer. "If I break the rules, will I get a punishment? Delivered by you?"

"Mark your words."

"Huh?" He blinks, but the other man is already gone, fleeing through the window. Wei Wuxian chases him with a gasp and looks out the window, but he only sees a flutter of white robes out in the distance, quickly gliding through the air.

Xiao Xingchen stays on the fifth floor with Song Lan while A-Qing has her own suite on the same floor. After finding the blind man at breakfast and requesting lessons, Xiao Xingchen has happily invited Wei Wuxian to his room for introductory exercises.

While Song Lan putters around in the background with cleaning supplies, Xiao Xingchen takes Wei Wuxian’s wrist, as if measuring his heartbeat. With his four pure white tails wriggling between his robes, he frowns, "You have qi, a growing pool of it. Your meridians are beginning to open. Not many metamorphoses have qi." He lets go. "Nie Huaisang is correct in pointing you in my direction."

"Can you narrow down what I'll become?" Wei Wuxian doesn't feel any different. There's no secret bundle of nerves swimming in his stomach. No strange urges to eat people. He feels normal, a complete 0 out of 10 on the pain scale. There is no place a physician can push to make the area hurt even more.

"I can put forth a few guesses, but it's better I don't tell you or else you may mentally ruin yourself when you finish your metamorphosis. My worst fear is that if I tell you that for example, you'll become an armchair, that your mind would be thrown off when you actually turn into a television. Different existences." At the bewildered look on Wei Wuxian’s face, who is still trying to imagine becoming a piece of furniture, he adds, "It's why I don't even dare tell you an example of a living animal. I don't know what you think, but I don't dare give you ideas."

Song Lan shuffles over with a phone in hand. The phone says, "Start with breathing exercises. He can focus on building his qi."

"If I do this, will the process for metamorphosis speed up?"

"Certainly."

Now Wei Wuxian isn't sure about his incoming metamorphosis, but as he moves to the floor and copies Xiao Xingchen sitting in the lotus position, he figures it can't hurt.

For the first ten minutes, they quietly sit and breathe.

Then Wei Wuxian cuts through the silence. "Nie Huaisang said you're the second best teacher."

"I'm not certain if I am the best or second best. Each student has different needs, and not every teacher will fit their students like puzzle pieces."

"So who does he think is the best?"

"Without a doubt, Lan Wangji."

It's been three months since Wei Wuxian first came to the hotel, and there's something unsettled underneath his skin. He's been following a neat schedule, spending most of his time training with Xiao Xingchen and gossiping with Nie Huaisang. Training doesn't amount to much, but he thinks he does see a difference. Literally. His vision is better at night, and the sunlight streaming overhead during noon has never made him want to nap so hard before. The third floor of the penthouse is actually the rooftop with a large, well-cared greenhouse, and Wei Wuxian has spent many days napping on a blanket underneath a shady guava tree.

Time can be slowed down, and his reflexes are better than a professional criminal avoiding cops. Lan Wangji, as it turns out, isn't suddenly appearing out of thin air. He's actually moving so fast that Wei Wuxian used to think he was teleporting.

He also doesn't seem to be just the hotel manager. He's also the custodian, security, receptionist, and everything else the hotel needs to keep function. Everything except the cook, because Jiang Yanli and her husband, who serves as the sous chef, are machines at cooking. Wei Wuxian once caught Lan Wangji, still dressed in his traditional robes, restoring the rooftops of a siheyuan, and is there anything he can't do?

Well, perhaps teaching Wei Wuxian.

The first time he asked, Lan Wangji power-walked away so fast that he was lost in the other man's dust. It's not a no, but it's not a promising yes either.

And he can feel the want inside him building up. Xiao Xingchen is almost about to reach the end of what he could teach, because everything else he knows is specifically for a huli jing, and he can feel his qi building up inside him, like a bomb ticking away. He knows if Lan Wangji teach him or maybe even something else, that bomb would finally exploded, and maybe then, he could feel settled down.

So if Lan Wangji is avoiding him, then Wei Wuxian must deliberately lure him out. After all, Lan Wangji has made a promise to him before.

So instead of attending dinner like everyone else, Wei Wuxian proceeds to take a long jog around the hotel’s property at six-thirty, purposely still running in the gardens once the clock runs past seven. His presence will be missed, and he knows that a rule-stickler like Lan Wangji will definitely seek him out.

It doesn’t even take ten minutes for Lan Wangji to find him. The man stands on the rooftop of siheyuan, graceful as a cat and still as a gargoyle.

Wei Wuxian’s heart flies to his throat, and he quickly turns to avoid the other man, pretending he didn’t see him at all.

Of course, it doesn’t work.

Lan Wangji is too fast, catching Wei Wuxian at his elbow first and pulling him to a stop. “You must attend dinner.” His expression is completely blank.

Wei Wuxian thinks a man so handsome shouldn’t be so stoic. It’s a loss in his attractiveness. “Lan-er-gege,” Wei Wuxian protests, trying to break Lan Wangji’s hold. The man simply has a strong grip on his wrist, and it’s impossible to escape from it. He winks, peering through his eyelashes. “I will if you teach me. I’ll be very good for you. I'll do anything for you.”

“Shameless,” he grits out.

His heart races, and his mouth flies open without thinking. “Lan-er-gege, Lan-er-gege,” he says, simply loving the way the words taste on his tongue, “I can be so shameless. Shame? Don’t know her. Have never met her.” Wei Wuxian, who has a strong tolerance for alcohol, strangely feels drunk, uninhibited.

The only reply is Wei Wuxian’s loud footfalls.

“Lan-er-gege. Lan-er-gonzi,” he tries, helplessly following the other man as he’s tugged back into the hotel by the wrist. “Lan Wangji?”

No reaction.

“Lan Zhan!” he exclaims, and he’s rewarded with a slight stumble. He grins gleefully, knowing he’s poked right in the tiny chink in Lan Wangji’s armor. “Lan Zhan—” His mouth closes, unable to open and let sound escape. He’s dragged into the elevator and then into the ballroom, where conversation stops as if surprised by unexpected entertainment. He’s forced into his seat, and finally! Finally! His mouth can speak again. “Hey!” he shouts in outrage.

“Silencing spell?” Jiang Yanli looks at Lan Wangji with a raised brow.

“A silencing spell?” Wei Wuxian clicks his tongue, and now that he can speak, he will make sure he makes Lan Wangji regret casting it. “Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, how dare you treat someone as delicate as me like this? If you marry a wife one day and she becomes fed up with your stuffy nature, would you manhandle your delicate wife like this?” Out of the corner of his eye, as he stares at Lan Wangji, he catches Jiang Cheng’s expression sputtering with outrage, Nie Huaisang either choking to death or stifling his laughter behind his fan, Jin Zixuan face-palming, and Jiang Yanli looking interested in the proceedings.

“Mn,” Lan Wangji simply replies, his ears slightly red.

“What?” Wei Wuxian shrieks. His lips wobble in shock, and he can’t come up with any sort of witty comeback to that.

Even though Lan Wangji seems so boring, Wei Wuxian can’t help but ask Nie Huaisang for more deets and information about the other man. Lan Wangji, after all, is living rent-free in Wei Wuxian’s head, and Wei Wuxian thinks it’s because Lan Wangji is a mystery and he loves a good mystery to solve. Plus, it’s too much fun to stir him up.

Nie Huaisang seems uninterested in Wei Wuxian’s explanation. But he warns, his unfinished fan covering his entire face, a paintbrush in his other hand, “You should be careful around him. He’s the one who decapitated Wen Chao and burned the rest of his body.”

Wei Wuxian’s mouth drops open. “How come you didn’t tell me that the first day I arrived here? Or any other time I’ve spent with you?”

“Didn’t seem that important. You weren’t likely to draw his attention, and now, you might be getting on his nerves, so I want to warn you not to mess with him.”

Song Lan has a sword, Wei Wuxian knows. He should ask Song Lan for tips on how to dodge a sword and pulls out his phone, creating a reminder to ask that man before he forgets. It’s especially important now that he gets that training now that he knows for certainty Lan Wangji does indeed have a sword.

“He came a couple years after Xiao Xingchen arrived,” Nie Huaisang informs, lifting the paintbrush to his fan.

“Why did he come?”

“He had disagreements with the elders of his sect, Gusu Lan, a long, long, long, long time ago. He’s been drifting ever since, but Koi Tower Hotel is the longest he’s stayed anywhere, or so I’m told.”

“He doesn’t really talk, so how do you know this?”

“His brother talks to my brother, who talks to me.”

It’s disappointing how Nie Huaisang, who knows dirt on everyone else in the hotel, could say so little about Lan Wangji. Then Wei Wuxian perks up. “Hey, which room does he stay in?”

“Twenty-second floor. 1001. Why?”

Wei Wuxian keeps his head down. For the most part, anyway. The most mischievous thing he’s done in the months since Lan Wangji cast a silencing spell on him is laugh wickedly and teasingly in Lan Wangji’s presence and accidentally-but-on-purpose hit the elevator for the twenty-second floor to snoop around. The door labeled as 1001 is locked, but Wei Wuxian has noticed it’s directly below his penthouse. The layout has given him a bit to think about.

In the meantime, he has been getting good at dodging Song Lan’s sword and he’s noticed he’s gotten far stronger than a normal human ever could be. On a whim, he leaps in the garden and lands easily on the old rooftops a story or two high. This becomes yet another routine, where Wei Wuxian would practice running around the garden and then hop into the rooftop, jumping to where he pleases. He’s never felt so powerful, so fast, so strong that he can’t help but feel giddy in anticipation of the day when he will poke the bear that is Lan Wangji once again.

What seemed like a long time ago, his ankles would scream when he jumped off the dinner table to fix the ceiling lights. Nowadays, he can jump from the third floor of the skyscraper without feeling an impact in his bones. He hasn’t dared try any higher, but he has scaled the skyscraper with ease up to the eighth floor to which Nie Huaisang has spotted him and opened the window, chatting about the recent sale of a 17th century painting.

To celebrate Xiao Xingchen declaring there’s no more new techniques to teach Wei Wuxian and that it all depends on him to continue practicing the techniques to refine his qi, Wei Wuxian escapes the hotel property to stumble into a nearby liquor store. Wei Wuxian, with his excellent nocturnal vision, has spotted a delivery truck delivering cases of Gusu’s very best liquor, Emperor’s Smile. It’s probably morally incorrect to steal from someone he doesn't know, but he figures they probably won’t miss a bottle or two when there are so many cases in the store. If it’s as good as they say it is, he’ll beg Nie Huaisang for some money to pay them. If not, then that’ll teach the liquor store from investing in and selling subpar alcohol.

To be fair, he does feel guilty at the thought of not paying. Slightly. But hey, it’s not like he can pay and it’s definitely not like the cashier can even see Wei Wuxian.

Of course, it’s while Wei Wuxian is huffing and puffing while climbing the stone barrier separating the hotel’s land from the rest of society when he spots a pair of white leather boots standing at the very top of the wall. He’s got two wine containers that are quickly grabbed and disappeared into Lan Wanji’s sleeves. He shouts in warning at the sudden change in balance, but Lan Wangji manages to catch him by the collar. He dangles over nothing but air, his feet kicking.

“Broke second rule.”

“Huh?” Then Wei Wuxian remembers the second rule. “But what does that have to do with jars of Emperor's Smile?”

“Stealing is breaking the second rule.” Lan Wangji’s arm strength is amazing. He’s not even shaking with effort as he still holds Wei Wuxian at his mercy.

He nervously laughs. “How are you so certain I was stealing?”

Lan Wangji simply looks, as if peering right into Wei Wuxian’s very soul. Then he warns, “Do not do this again.” He lifts Wei Wuxian onto the wall and quickly turns around.

“Lan-er-gege,” Wei Wuxian calls, not even fixing his disheveled appearance. He grins broadly, his eyes nearly fall shut. “Will I be punished?”

Lan Wangji leaps onto the rooftop, not responding.

He laughs at Lan Wangji’s escaping back. Wei Wuxian thinks Lan Wangji is all bark, no bite. It means that Wei Wuxian is certainly going to cross the line. Very soon.

Which is why he’s opening his window on the twenty-third floor and carefully lowering down a rope made from his bedsheets. Not the silk one, but the one he’s brought from his old apartment. It’s precisely noon, and he’s spotted Lan Wanji doing repairs on rooftops again, so he feels it’s reasonably safe to try to sneak into Lan Wangji’s room to find those jars of Emperor’s Smile.

The first thing he smells is a very nice scent. Woodsy and enticing with a flowery accent. He's noticed his sense of smell has severely heightened in the last few months. The second thing he notices is the man's sense of interior design which is minimalistic and all in pale white and blue colors. A wooden bookshelf is actually filled with scrolls and neat stacks of books.

Wei Wuxian isn't sure why he is so surprised. He’s so distracted by the messy calligraphy in a book about puzzling cultivation techniques with a dried peony tucked between pages that when he finally puts it away and backs up, he bumps into a hard body and bounces away. Stunned, he whirls around and shouts, “Lan Zhan!”

The man is standing there with the most blank expression.

Wei Wuxian knows that he’s in deep trouble, the deepest sh*t ever known to mankind. He does the only logical thing he can do—he bolts out the front door for his life with Lan Wangji still standing there stunned.

He dives for the stairs, the door slamming shut behind him. He’s on the nineteenth floor’s stairwell when he hears the door upstairs opening, so he quickly slips out of the stairs with his heart pounding in his throat. He pushes open the window next to the stairwell, and without thinking about it any harder, he begins climbing up, putting his fingernails into the ridges and planting shoes on the slight ledges. He slowly moves three windows up and shuffles himself to the right until he’s close to reaching Lan Wanji’s window again.

The man probably thinks he escaped to his penthouse, but little did Lan Wangji know, Wei Wuxian has returned to the last place he would look for him.

And that’s when the world gets blurry and confusing. The scent of sandalwood intensifies so much that Wei Wuxian would like nothing better than to lie in that scent and drown in it. He practically flies onto Lan Wangji’s neatly made bed and makes a mess out of the sheets and silly throw pillows. The man’s scent is intense here, and he feels so much better, as if cocooned in a haven that’s been specifically made for him. He blinks, and he thinks he sees Lan Wangji’s face swarming inches away.

Lan Wangji’s mouth moves, but whatever he says is drowned out as if Wei Wuxian’s ears are underwater. He frowns.

“Lan-er-gege,” Wei Wuxian laughs, giggling. “Don’t frown like that. You’ll get wrinkles, and then you’ll ruin your perfect face.”

He seems to frown even harder.

Wei Wuxian pouts, his hands reaching out from the burrows of the blankets. He clutches the side of Lan Wangji’s face and seriously tells him, “No frowning.” A pause. “Lan Zhan, why aren’t you listening to me?” When the frown doesn’t disappear at all, Wei Wuxian tugs the other man down into a kiss and oh, Lan Zhan’s lips are so warm and soft and there’s something inside of Wei Wuxian that is twisting in relief, as if there’s been a bubble forming inside of his chest and finally, the bubble is starting to give.

Lan Zhan pulls away in a flash, his ears flushed red.

“Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian mumbles in disappointment. He can feel his eyes water, and he buries his head underneath the blanket out of crushing, broken hope. He does not know how long he’s been lying there in a ball, but he comes to when he hears the sound of Xiao Xingchen speaking in the living room.

“Are you certain?” he says.

“Mn.”

“I didn’t think he would be one. I tested him myself, and he reads more like a cultivator, which is why I’ve been telling him he should be taught by you.”

“Test him again.”

There’s a moment of silence. Then Wei Wuxian hears footsteps approaching the bed. Xiao Xingchen speaks softly, “Wei Wuxian, how are you feeling?”

“Like the world is ending.”

The bedside sinks with weight. “Can I get you anything?”

“No,” he chokes.

“Alright.” Then he asks, “Can you stick out your hand to me? Doesn’t matter which one.” Soft hands clasps Wei Wuxian’s hand, and Xiao Xingchen’s fingers press his wrists. “Alright. Wei Wuxian, go rest. Sleep. You’ll feel better.”

“Am I dying?”

“No. You’re metamorphing,” he explains. Then the bed rises, and Xiao Xingchen quietly slips out of the bedroom. In a low voice that Wei Wuxian can somehow still hear, he says from the living room, “You’re right. I’m not sure how I missed it, but I see it now.”

“How can I help him?”

“His behavior towards you makes complete sense now,” Xiao Xingchen murmurs. “As an emerging huli jing, he finds your presence quite comforting. As the object of his desire, his attraction, he feels the most safe around you. What I don’t quite understand is why he feels much older than he has been telling us.” A pause. “I must ask you to not reveal this to anyone else, even your brother. This has been a highly kept secret among the huli jings.”

“Mn.”

Chapter 2: II.

Notes:

Yeah, I thought this was going to be short? Guess not. What is happening to me?

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

II.

Wei Wuxian wakes up in the afternoon with two tails, both mostly black in fur except for the tip. One is in white while the other is in foxy orange-red. Xiao Xingchen is right by his side when he wakes up, but Lan Zhan is nowhere to be seen. Xiao Xingchen, as a huli jing who has been through it all before, explains, “You’ve finished your metamorphosis.”

“I’m stuck as a woman?”

“No, it’s only one of your three forms. It’ll take time for you to learn how to switch back and forth between a man, a woman, and a fox. It’ll take even more time for you to learn how to hide your features. Features like your tail and ears, so you can smoothly transform between forms.” Xiao Xingchen with his blindfold over his eyes patiently continues to explain, “One of the huli jing’s best defenses is that we can change forms, so when we are escaping an enemy or a group, no one would think of the pretty woman or the handsome man leisurely walking by.”

“You’ve escaped like that before.”

“Of course. The world is dangerous for huli jings.” A pause. “Also, because the abilities of huli jings are hereditary, I know who your parents were.”

“You do?”

“My shijie, Cangse Sanren, who was a huli jing. Her husband, Wei Changze, was a cultivator like Lan Wangji,” he explains. “Huaisang took the time to find records about your past and how you ended up in an orphanage. After your parents passed, the police discovered you in Yiling, wandering alone and being chased by dogs. Even after running a notice in the newspapers, no one came to collect you. You didn’t even remember your name, and the only hint to who you were was your father’s jacket, where he had written his name on a tag. However, he wrote it in pinyin. They had to guess which character to use, and they guessed wrong.”

Wei Wuxian has no memories of this, of his parents, of what they were like. His throat is terribly dry, but he asks, nonetheless, even daring to hope against the worst, “How do you know they’re dead?”

“They loved you. Nothing but death would have separated you from them.”

He shut his eyes, wetness dripping down his cheek.

“Your name, the one they gave you, was Wei Ying.”

Wei Wuxian, now that he knows how to properly write his family name, puts all of the thoughts and trauma of his past somewhere in the back of his head. Instead, he focuses hard on the present, on controlling his embarrassing two tails. He discovers that they betray his emotions and that they go crazy in Lan Zhan’s presence, always reaching towards Lan Zhan as if he’s the very source of gravity, his tails acting like they belong to a preteen discovering his first crush on a boy.

In many ways, it’s true. Doesn’t mean he has to like it.

There’s no way to avoid Lan Zhan until Wei Wuxian has control over his tails. The other man has finally taken up the task of teaching Wei Wuxian cultivation techniques, hell bent on making him rise at five o’clock and sleep at nine. Wei Wuxian certainly isn’t learning much. His tails, even while he sits in meditation with his mind as blank as possible, keeps sneaking their way over to Lan Zhan’s lap.

He still ends up complaining about this to his jiujiu, who patiently listens to the entire rant before explaining exactly why it’s better for him to be taught by Lan Zhan. On a side note, it’s weird to now have someone to call Jiujiu after being alone for so long.

After taking a sip of tea, Xiao Xingchen says, “Of all the cultivation techniques out there, Gusu Lan’s remains the best of the best. You will find no better teacher than Hanguang-Jun. Every year, Gusu Lan takes a selected number of students who have spent at least a decade on their cultivation. A long time ago, Lan Wangji was one of their best instructors. If Lan Wangji is amenable to teaching you, then you should be taught by him. I, on the other hand, will always be willing to teach you. Lan Wangji may not always be.”

Wei Wuxian’s attention is caught by a small detail. “Hanguang-Jun? Lan Zhan is the Hanguang-Jun? Hanguang-Jun from the myths?” There’s hardly a child who grew up in China or even Asia and didn’t know the tales of Hanguang-Jun, the cultivator who always went where the chaos was. His story is told alongside Shen Yi the archer, Chang'e the moon goddess, and Sun Wukong the monkey. His sword’s name is Bichen, and he carries a guqin named Wangji, and one of Wei Wuxian’s favorite stories of Hanguang-Jun involves a temple for a now-forgotten goddess residing by the flooding river, even though there are countless other stories about Hanguang-Jun fighting legendary monsters. Yiling has its own stories, involving Hanguang-Jun and the Yiling Patriarch who hailed from Yiling’s Burial Mounds, but Wei Wuxian has never been too interested in those tales.

He recalls his favorite myth, where Hanguang-Jun must make a cruel decision between a decadent temple about to be ruined by the rushing river and the old couple trapped by the winds and the rain and the rising floods. Every story, every recitation of the myth and the poems based on it, always recall that the cultivator spoke elegantly with few but careful words to the begging goddess, who pleads, ignoring the resigned elderly couple who are prepared to drown and die, for her temple to be saved. With the water coursing towards them, the very impact a minute away, Hanguang-Jun asks of the couple’s fate, the pair standing a little bit away. The goddess dismisses them, declaring herself to be far more important than two mortals. They’ve lived long enough. Hanguang-Jun’s face turns stormy, and he turns away from her. With a speed faster than a spine-tailed swift, Hanguang-Jun wields Bichen and cleaves a deep wide trench through farmlands, forests, canyons, and mountains alike, redrawing the lines of the Yellow River. When he returns to the temple, he tells the goddess that every life, no matter how fully lived, is precious, and for as long he draws breath, he will always protect the weak, unlike the goddess, whose worshippers will now see the selfish heart inside her. Then he destroys the temple’s name plate so that no one will ever remember her.

“Not a myth. He’s a very skilled cultivator. The very best of all the cultivators.”

“And he’s willing to teach me?” Something flips in the pool of Wei Wuxian’s stomach. He thinks of Lan Zhan in his mind’s eye, remembering the way he looks, remembering how graceful he moves, remembering how deceptively strong he is. Wei Wuxian’s tails thump quickly against the sofa seat next to him.

“Yes. You will do well to learn from him.”

But learning, in general, is boring. Wei Wuxian has always been an excellent student when it comes to learning and not behaving. Concepts and their applications flow easily and barely challenge him at all. He’s been consistently great at gym classes, always capable of running away from where teachers want him and hiding in corners to escape the gym teachers when he was younger. Of course, Wei Wuxian is helpless when it comes to memorizing math formulas, but he’s been great at executing and solving the problem once he gets the ball rolling. It’s why he’s always done better, almost perfect in fact, with take-home exams and open-note exams than closed exams that rely heavily on memorization.

The very presence of Lan Zhan throws a curveball. Suddenly, the world narrows down, and Wei Wuxian can’t help but stare at everything Lan Zhan does. His tails are out of control while he meditates in lotus position, and no matter where he goes in the hotel, he swears that he can smell Lan Zhan’s unique scent everywhere. His own cultivation, his own attempts at controlling his powers, has been an utter failure. He’s been stuck in his female form since forever, and Xiao Xingchen’s advice to help Wei Wuxian turn back to his original form has been unhelpful so far.

And Wei Wuxian wants to jump off the building at the highest point and die when he finds out that his fox ears are also very expressive in Lan Zhan’s presence. He’s been desperately sitting on his tails or shoving them underneath Lan Zhan’s sofa when all along, his very black fox ears have been betraying him.

He reaches for his ears, but in a flash, Lan Zhan quickly captures both of his wrists with a single hand. “Lan Zhan,” he shouts in surprise, gasping.

“Don’t,” he says.

“But,” he protests, unable to form sentences to his thoughts. With his cheeks aflame, he hates the idea of Lan Zhan seeing him so vulnerable, and he hates how everyone can read him like a book, from Nie Huaisang’s knowing looks behind his painted bamboo fan to Wen Chao’s lecherous gaze to Jiang Cheng’s constant constipated expression of exasperation.

“Wei Ying, your ears and tails are a part of yourself. To deny your nature is to squash your growth,” Lan Zhan tells him, with great patience. “You must accept it, and in time, you will learn control.”

He sounds so assured that Wei Wuxian has no choice but to believe him. Wei Wuxian, spellbound, nods, and he holds his breath as Lan Zhan reaches behind him to shove the sofa a few feet back, freeing his tails. When his tails move to playfully bat underneath Lan Zhan’s chin, Wei Wuxian finally snaps out of it, his cheeks quickly flushing even darker. “But, but, but…” He’s uncertain of what to say. How does he explain that it’s mortifying to him that Lan Zhan can fully see how much he likes Lan Zhan? That he can’t control himself like a hormonal teenager? That his tails can’t resist touching Lan Zhan? Doesn’t Lan Zhan find his tails annoying? Especially for someone who is straight-laced, so self-controlled of himself and everything around him?

“I know,” he simply reassures, letting go of Wei Wuxian’s wrists. He doesn’t seem to mind the tail sneaking along Lan Zhan’s back to entangle itself with the other man’s long hair. “Let it be. I don’t mind.”

So slowly, under Lan Zhan’s guidance, Wei Wuxian learns how to control the qi flowing through his body and eventually take control of his tails. It’s a long work in progress, and he only seems to be able to control the prehensile tails when he is actively thinking about it. It’s nothing like Xiao Xingchen, who can easily manipulate his tails to help him clean his rooms, but he is starting to understand that he can’t compare himself to Xiao Xingchen or Lan Zhan or any of the guests, who have many decades of study under their belt. He can only go at his own pace.

So maybe Wei Wuxian can be forgiven for forgetting the anniversary date of his arrival at Koi Tower Hotel. He sits lazily on the ridge of the roof, splitting petals from a rose he’s stolen from the hotel lobby. Theoretically, he should be meditating, but instead, he’s watching the day pass by as bamboo trees sway gently in the wind, his fox tails thumping the roof tiles.

Lan Zhan doesn’t make a sound when he lands on the roof, but Wei Wuxian can sense him all the same. He stands on Wei Wuxian’s right, looking down in his fine white robes. Wei Wuxian has long asked him where his weapon and guqin is, and Lan Zhan, after a long moment of silence, told him that the vast majority of the hotel guests feel uncomfortable in the sword’s presence, especially after Lan Zhan beheaded Wen Chao, so he chooses to go without his sword, leaving it behind in his room. However, Wei Wuxian has looked high and low in Lan Zhan’s room, unable to find that legendary blade.

Delighted, Wei Wuxian turns towards him, his tails thumping happily even harder and carelessly dislodging the roof tiles. “Lan Zhan!”

The cultivator, looking out in the distance in the same direction as Wei Wuxian was staring, turns to face the huli jing. His face is soft, and his white headband and his hair blows in the wind. “Mn,” he acknowledges, and that’s all the encouragement Wei Wuxian needs to speak.

“What are you doing up here?” Even if Lan Zhan hasn’t even spoken a word, he smiles broadly, his heart rushing a thousand miles per minute.

Lan Zhan reaches into his sleeve and pulls out a familiar jar, offering it to Wei Wuxian. “One year since you’ve arrived.”

Wei Wuxian takes it, delighted. “Lan Zhan, is the same one I stole?” The words slip out of his mouth faster than his brain can comprehend. Immediately realizing his accidental confession, he reddens, hiding his face behind the jar of Emperor’s Smile.

“Mn,” he confirms. “I paid for it. Don’t worry about it again.”

Wei Wuxian believes him. There’s no way Lan Zhan would lie. He opens the jar and inhales the sweet fine aroma as if he’s a professional wine taster. He isn’t, so after sniffing it like a pretentious snob or maybe like an alcoholic who hasn’t been drinking in years, he’s taking his first gulp, and oh, it goes down his throat like a dream. His eyes flutter shut, and he’s probably making lots of inappropriate sounds, but that taste of Emperor’s Smile is all that they say it is and more. Cheerful, he reopens his eyes and offers the jar to Lan Zhan. “You should try some! It’s good!”

“You drink.” The very corner of his lip turns upwards.

Wei Wuxian doesn’t know how a man who is as boring as Lan Zhan, who spends so much of his time meditating and cultivating and doing odd jobs around the hotel property, can make him so happy. It’s a problem. But! Wei Wuxian is excellent at ignoring problems, so he shoves all these thoughts about Lan Zhan inside a mental box and the box to the back of his mind, where it will remain there for the rest of his life until the day he dies.

It’ll be a while. Huli jings live a long time, much longer than normal humans anyway.

In the meanwhile of the very long process of dying, Nie Huaisang has a book delivered from his family’s library. It’s about huli jings from the perspective of cultivators, and Nie Huaisang thought it would provide Wei Wuxian with more information about his nature and his place in the supernatural world.

“It took a while to find the book? How big is your family’s library?”

“Not that big. It’s more like the books were all displaced after a natural disaster fifteen years ago, and only one disciple has been working on sorting out all the mess,” he says, hand waving away Wei Wuxian’s astonishment. “We’re not big on reading. The Lans have a library that is at least a hundred times as large. Their home was destroyed by a fire four decades ago, but all the books survived. Their library was the first thing to be rebuilt and organized. Finished in less than two days.”

“Can’t be that big of a library.” He huffs in dismissal. Wei Wuxian thinks of the public in Yiling, where the sad pile of books greatly compose of the children’s section which probably hasn’t changed in the past thirty years. A long time ago, when he was still in school, he mainly used the library’s printer to print his homework.

“You can’t possibly imagine how big it is. They’ve been curating their collection for over a thousand years. They have one of the most comprehensive genealogical records in the world. Their library has been around since the times of the Library of Alexandria. No other library can compare. One day, you may decide yourself to choose to study in Gusu.”

“Hmph.” But Wei Wuxian makes no further comment. He accepts the book and plays a game of Go, where he gets stomped so hard he knows Nie Huaisang has him wrapped up within ten moves yet keeps on miserably playing out of sheer gratefulness for Nie Huaisang’s help.

When he returns to Lan Zhan’s room, he buries himself underneath the covers and slowly opens the book with a held breath, wondering what the cultivators think of huli jings. The first few pages are made up of images of both male and female huli jings with fox ears and tails exposed. There’s one picture of a wonderfully beautiful woman wearing white robes with nearly identical white ears and nine beautiful pale ivory tails. She carries a serene smile, and a small inscription names her as Baoshan Sanren. Wei Wuxian has to pause at the name for several moments, knowing that one day, he will certainly seek her out to find more information about his mother. Xiao Xingchen knows much, but Baoshan Sanren has spent centuries with his mother. Only she would know what she was like when she was young.

Then he goes onto the descriptions of huli jings. The book warns that anyone extremely beautiful is most likely a huli jing. Wei Wuxian snorts at this, thumbing his nose from the age of photoshop and excellent makeup and to-die-for skincare routines. Then it goes on to mention the allure and presence a huli jing has, capable of drawing attention from every person in a room. The book cautions the young cultivator to always keep their wits about, and if they ever need assistance, they must always seek the guidance of a senior cultivator. Huli jings are not to be dealt with by beginners. Many young cultivators have been lured by huli jings to their painful deaths.

After the fifth mention of painful death within the very first ten pages, Wei Wuxian is beginning to think the author has the agenda of warning young cultivators far away from any huli jings. Xiao Xingchen has repeatedly warned Wei Wuxian the primary way a huli jing kills a victim and it’s through the absorption of qi, greedily sucked up in the process of sexual exhaustion. Victims always die happy on a high note, their hearts giving out.

And whoever had the book before Wei Wuxian has figured out the same thing, because on page twenty-eight, scribbled in the margins is a line of extremely lazy calligraphy, whispering they say to die by a huli jing’s side is the greatest pleasure imaginable.

Sounds more in line with what Xiao Xingchen said. Wei Wuxian nods at the characters in approval. Whoever they were is clever.

The next two or so sections are about symptoms of victims, starting with the ones who are traumatized but alive. Extremely fast heart rate that can’t be slowed down even with rest, and thin, sunken, dehydrated skin. Victims can be of any demographic, though the book does note that the huli jing has to possess at least two tails in order to kill a blind human. It takes more than a few sections for Wei Wuxian to realize that by blind, the book doesn’t mean literally blind, as in lack of sight but rather the lack of ability to perceive the supernatural.

The book explains that not every creature has the ability to manipulate the blind, but those of great power, usually absorbed from great amounts of resentful energy, can eventually claw their way into being forcibly perceived. From there, they are, at first, incredibly easy to be caught. Unusual disappearances or the sudden appearance of starved, malnourished bodies hint towards something amiss. However, their gluttony tends to only increase, and they only ever get stronger from then on until they’re executed by an experienced cultivator. Those who are killed by huli jings have evidence of malnourishment and a look of hollowness in their appearances as well as an unnatural tendency to not decay quickly as a body deceased by natural causes would. Such evidence, the book warns, may not always prove to be the work of a huli jing. Other creatures can cause similar symptoms. There are other techniques such as Inquiry, a speciality of Lan cultivators, that can determine the actual cause of death.

The next fifty or so pages, front and back, are all hand-drawn anatomical pictures of various victims killed by huli jings. Every single victim looks freakishly like a skeleton, all their muscles and fat gone with sagging skin clinging to a too-defined form of a human being. Wei Wuxian shudders, not daring to look too closely.

The next section is regarding the various forms of a huli jing. The book believes the huli jing can switch between three forms. One is of a fox, but a huli jing’s fox form is distinctive with their several tails. One is of a hybrid form, human with fox characteristics such as ears and tails. The third is completely human. Most huli jings are female, but there are some males.

One of the greatest secrets for huli jings, Wei Wuxian determines, is that most cultivators don’t realize huli jings can switch between a male and a female appearance. A long time ago, back when Wei Wuxian didn’t understand the predicament he’s in, Xiao Xingchen had already sworn the occupants of the hotel to secrecy, to hide Wei Wuxian’s presence and very existence. Even Wen Chao, although Wei Wuxian isn’t certain how he did it.

Then there’s the final section of the book, regarding the life cycle of a huli jing. Not much is known about their early years, although some have been reportedly raised by their fathers. Young huli jings do not exhibit any characteristics such as ears or tails. Female huli jings sometimes are seen carrying young children, all in their fox forms, but not much else is known about a huli jing’s childhood. Never has a huli jing been seen carrying a child in their human forms.

It makes Wei Wuxian if some of the young huli jings raised by their fathers, who are actually huli jings. Maybe a huli jing would pretend to be the father in order to quietly raise their child in a village rather than wherever or however a fox would raise their young.

One of the most embarrassing lectures, which was unfortunately attended by Lan Zhan, was about sexual reproduction of a huli jing. Xiao Xingchen breezily informs Wei Wuxian that while STDs do not transmit to huli jings, they can, however, get pregnant in their female forms. A quick and easy way to get rid of an unwanted pregnancy is to switch to their male form, which is apparently much more reliable than the best contraceptive pills today. Most huli jings like to carry their young in their fox forms. It’s much more comfortable to be pregnant as a fox than a human. According to his jiujiu, Wei Wuxian’s mother spent most of the time yowling at her husband in her red-brown fox form and was incredibly demanding for rare, expensive meat.

Wei Wuxian wishes he could slap the red cheeks off his face. He knows he wouldn’t be so embarrassed if it wasn’t for Lan Zhan’s presence. He would like to pretend he doesn’t know why he’s so embarrassed by the whole memory, except he sometimes catches himself fantasizing about sleeping with Lan Zhan and then carrying a little Lan baby with all of Lan Zhan’s best features. And he’s still stuck in his female form, so it’s not like he can prevent a pregnancy from happening.

Wei Wuxian does not want to remember how excited his tails were during that lesson.

Pity Lan Zhan doesn’t feel the same way. He’s too calm, professional, and stoic to give Wei Wuxian a reaction, reciprocation, or maybe even a look of intent. A truly untouchable, immovable piece of jade. Wei Wuxian can only admire him from a distance.

Though Wei Wuxian has known the book to be lacking several critical details, he wasn’t aware that it’s extremely lacking until Xiao Xingchen starts making commentary as Wei Wuxian reads it aloud to the blind huli jing. One critical missing detail is the fact that huli jings can choose to cultivate natural energy or resentful energy. Going down one path doesn’t mean a huli jing can’t revert to another path. It’s a choice, one made over and over and over again for as long as a huli jing lives. Just like how a person can choose to be either good or bad.

“But a huli jing can accidentally kill a human while dual cultivating,” Xiao Xingchen says. “It’s why when you choose a partner, especially a human partner, you must be doubly aware of their vitals. Other partners such as creatures or cultivators of a certain skill level tend to be able to manage themselves, especially if they are older. Comes with experience.”

Wei Wuxian has read enough webnovels to know dual cultivation involves sex. He’s uninterested in the possibility of sleeping with the average person in the world. Then he thinks of his own parents, his father the cultivator and his mother the huli jing. Oh-so-casually, he mentions, “So my parents were partners in that area?”

“Many would say expert practitioners.”

That response fries every nerve in Wei Wuxian’s brain for a solid minute. “Wait,” he splutters, twisting around to look away from his jiujiu, who is blind and can’t actually see the expressions on Wei Wuxian’s face. “That’s not what I wanted to know!” Then he palms his face and tries not to groan in disgust, for he’s far from subtle in front of a blind man.

He smiles knowingly and rather wickedly, and now Wei Wuxian wishes he doesn’t have any eyes to know that Xiao Xingchen knows exactly what’s on Wei Wuxian’s mind.

“Forget what I asked!” Wei Wuxain desperately begs, his hands waving wildly in the air and his face melting. The hairs on his tails stand straight up. He picks himself up from the floor and makes his escape, waddling away before Xiao Xingchen can tell him any more sordid details about his parents’ sex life. The door slams behind him, he folds his arms and hits the button to the elevator. After a ding and the grand opening of the doors, he finds Lan Zhan fixing a crooked section of the golden handrail inside the elevator and yelps aloud in surprise.

Lan Zhan, his hand holding the loose handrail quite steady, turns his head slightly. Concerned, he says questioningly, “Wei Ying?”

“Nothing, nothing, it’s nothing!” Wei Wuxian laughs nervously, waving the cultivator’s concerns away. “I just wanted to go down to the kitchen and find something to eat.”

“Your tail is blocking the door.”

“What? Oh!” His tails slip completely inside the elevator, and the doors finally shut. Lan Zhan’s scent of sandalwood intensifies in the enclosed space. Wei Wuxian watches Lan Zhan carefully twist his wrist as he screws and secures the handrail. The tools slip into his sleeves, still perfectly white as if he hasn’t done any work at all. His hands are quite pale with an impeccable smoothness and perfection that makes Wei Wuxian all too aware of the random scars and that one crooked pinky on his left hand where it never returned to its former straightness after being stuck in a car door.

Wei Wuxian’s fault, of course. He’s the idiot who slammed the door on his own finger.

“I’ll go with you.” The very tone in his voice leaves no room for protest or objection. Lan Zhan wipes down the invisible dust and then straightens to his full height, hitting the button for the third floor.

He’s helpless and could only follow Lan Zhan to the kitchen, which is surprisingly empty of Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan. However, he does see evidence of their kitchen preparations scattered all over the counter in a strangely organized mess. He finally finds his voice and says, “Lan Zhan, I can find something to eat. Jiang Yanli keeps the kitchen very organized.”

“Not everything.”

“Huh?”

Lan Zhan doesn’t respond, merely walking past the closed industry-sized freezers and the refrigerators. He turns the corner, strolling past locked and undescriptive doors. Then he opens one of them to reveal stairs. Without checking to see if Wei Wuxian is following, he flicks on the fluorescent lights and slowly makes his way down. The air is quite stale here.

Wei Wuxian tries not to breathe too much. “Lan Zhan, what is down here?” They must be on the second floor, but Wei Wuxian wouldn’t know. There’s not a single window present, and the walls are all white and the brown metal stairs look the same whether he looks up or down. Still, it bothers Wei Wuxian a bit. A serial killer movie could involve these flights of stairs. Hell, Wen Chao can star as the serial killer. Bodiless.

The cultivator doesn’t respond, pushing open the door to reveal the typical extravagance of the hotel. He doesn’t pause in his steps, crossing the hallway to place his palm on a dark wooden door. The door’s edges glow, and Wei Wuxian’s curiosity is piqued. The door swings open, and it’s completely dark, shadows swallowing every bit of the light inside. Lan Zhan steps in, and darkness swallows him whole.

Wei Wuxian doesn’t hesitate to follow. Inside the room is different. Light returns, and he’s aware that the temperatures are startlingly chilly. It’s not as cold as a refrigerator, but Wei Wuxian would like to have a coat. His fox tails presses themselves against his back, conserving heat. He curses the fact he’s only wearing a t-shirt with a hole in the right armpit, exposing his unshaved pit, and ripped black jeans like a trash gremlin instead of anything Jiang Yanli has gifted him. “Lan Zhan?”

The cultivator is staring at the row of shelves filled with what must be hundreds upon hundreds of neatly placed wine bottles. His eyes flicker around, his lips slightly frowning.

“Lan Zhan? Isn’t this Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan’s collection?” Wei Wuxian may or may not be tempted to steal more jars of Emperor’s Smile from the uncle owning the shop near the hotel’s property, but he’s not brave enough to actually steal from Jiang Yanli. Jin Zixuan, definitely, maybe even while he’s watching Wei Wuxian like a hawk. But Jiang Yanli, absolutely not.

“Hotel’s collection.”

“But doesn’t the hotel belong to Jin Zixuan?” Wei Wuxian is confused. Wouldn’t the hotel and Jin Zixuan be one and the same?

“His father built the collection. Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan do not bother maintaining it.” Lan Zhan strolls down a few shelves, his hand reaching out to pick up a jar from the second to lowest row. “It used to be a popular hotel until Jin Zixuan shut it down.” His golden eyes seem to glow in the dim lighting. “Sometimes, guests who have stayed in this hotel in the past would return here, thinking it’s still operating.”

“Like that man when I first arrived here,” Wei Wuxian realizes.

Taking another jar from the shelf, Lan Zhan nods in agreement. “Happens less frequently nowadays, but some still remember this hotel and their pleasant stay when they were younger. We can’t have humans staying in this hotel anymore.”

Especially with Wen Chao living here, Wei Wuxian figures.

“Cultivators walk between worlds.” At the slight tilt of Lan Zhan’s head, Wei Wuxian clarifies, following him out the door, “Like cultivators walk between the supernatural world and the modern world.”

“So do huli jings.” Lan Zhan leads him back upstairs and to the kitchen, still empty of Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan. Still holding the two jars of wine in one arm, he grabs a large wicker basket with a single handle, transfers it to his left hand, and begins shoving ingredients from the industry-sized refrigerators.

Wei Wuxian follows him closely, curious by his actions. The basket is placed by the stove. One jar of wine is poured out in a tiny china cup on a counter island, and Wei Wuxian can literally smell the fragment of the wine. It doesn’t smell as good as a whiff of Emperor’s Smile, but he’s never been one to turn down a drink.

“Drink,” he insists.

“But what about you?” Wei Wuxian’s feet move without thinking. He’s breathing in the heady aroma of the wine, and he looks towards the cupboard where Lan Zhan retrieved one small tray to place the two jars and the cup upon.

He shakes his head, his golden eyes so warm that it makes Wei Wuxian hold his breath for a long second. “You drink. It’s all for you.”

He doesn’t need a cup to drink wine, but he figures he’ll pour it and then drink it to be polite. But after the fifth or eighth time of doing that, he realizes he’s looking more and more like a drunkard and by pouring more often into the tiny cup, it looks like he’s drinking far more than he actually is. But when he turns to look if Lan Zhan caught him drinking two fifths of the jar already, he sees the cultivator rinsing vegetables in the sink. His speed is incredible, and he’s capable of multitasking, already frying up a whole fish in a pan. Soup is steaming from another pot, and Wei Wuxian’s mouth drops as he leans heavily against the counter.

Part of the reason why Lan Zhan is so incredibly quick, Wei Wuxian suspects, is because Jiang Yanli keeps the kitchen extremely orderly. Preparations have been long made ahead of time. The rice has already been cooked, kept hot in the pressure cooker. Shrimp are kept refrigerated while thawing, and meat has been all neatly sliced beforehand. The vegetables aren’t that dirty, only needing a brief wash before chopping. Before he knows it, he’s working on the second jar of wine and Lan Zhan has already prepared a table in the kitchen corner. He claps in delight after Lan Zhan has set the table and pulled out the chair for Wei Wuxian. His throat is incredibly tight, but he manages out a few words. “You didn’t have to. For me. I could have whipped up some noodles and been done with the meal.” Wei Wuxian is an expert at making ramen noodles from packages.

Lan Zhan sits on the other side of the square table. “It’s no difficult task.”

Every taste is perfect, salted enough for Wei Wuxian’s tongue. Lan Zhan didn't put any spices in the communal dishes, but there is a well-stocked bottle of chili oil right beside Wei Wuxian’s jar of wine, and Wei Wuxian’s heart beats quickly for all the wrong reasons. He’s down to do whatever Lan Zhan wants him to do, and he’s only ever falling even harder than he ever thought with every bite. Sure, he has to put in the chili oil and add some pepper, but it’s the thought, the action that counts and Wei Wuxian is melting along with the potatoes in his mouth, moaning around his food while his tails happily thump against the table leg. Wei Wuxian talks to the silent cultivator, far too used to the silence. Lan Zhan never talks at dinner either, and he knows from Nie Huaisang that it’s one of his sect’s rules.

It’s okay. He can ramble on forever to fill in conversations, his fox tails sneaking over to rest and tap on Lan Zhan’s shoes. He still doesn’t have full control over his tails.

Months go by before Wei Wuxian finds a siheyuan with a large courtyard filled with a large number of rabbits. He believes he hasn’t ever seen them before, because they always flee into their burrows whenever they sense him approaching. The only reason he manages to spot them is because he’s leaped across two whole siheyuans for his post-lunch run. By the time he’s landed in the courtyard, all the rabbits have scattered and disappeared.

Wei Wuxian isn’t so quick to be moved to disappointment. He suspects they can smell the fox on him, and because foxes are their natural predators, those clever rabbits know very well to run and hide. He intends to play with them, maybe even pet them, if he’s lucky enough. Several bags of rabbit food are neatly piled in a shed, so he retrieves a metal bowl and fills it with pellets, shaking the bowl as he sits underneath a blossoming winter sakura. He’s five feet away from an exposed burrow.

Surely, they’ll come out for food?

But they don’t.

Wei Wuxian’s ears are good enough to hear them hissing and growling underground. He whispers softly and sweetly, “Little rabbits, I have a snack.” He shakes the bowl again and then plants it by the burrow. Then he returns to lean his back against the tree, his eyes watching the bowl like a hawk.

They don’t come out.

Wei Wuxian lets out a sigh. Even rabbits don’t like him anymore. Back when he still thought of himself as human, he used to visit wet markets to pet rabbits. He knows that they’re being sold for food rather than as pets, but even if he longs to bring them home with him, he doesn’t have enough money for their care, living paycheck to paycheck in a job leading to nowhere. He folds his arms behind his head, deciding to rest for a moment.

Under Lan Zhan and Xiao Xingchen’s guidance, Wei Wuxian’s control has improved. He can now manipulate his qi to play small tricks on Wen Chao on the second floor communal balcony the head spends most of his time at, but he still hasn’t mastered or changed to his old form. He’s been in the form of a lovely woman for so long that Jiang Yanli has regularly gone shopping for expensive designer clothes in the shopping district every month to dress Wei Wuxian up. His unused penthouse, for he’s still staying in Lan Zhan’s suite, is filled with countless wheeling clothes racks. He’s terrified. He thinks there's an upward of ten million yuan in there.

Wei Wuxian probably sits there for what seems to be hours. He can hear the rabbits underground, and if food won’t lure them out, he’s not sure what can. Someone must have been caring for these rabbits, he realizes. Maybe they only need time to acclimate to his presence.

So he waits some more. The rabbits have stopped hissing and growling in frequency, but they still don’t emerge from their burrows.

To amuse himself, he begins to hum random notes under his breath and watches the cloudy sky above. The rabbits seem to have quieted, listening, and encouraged, Wei Wuxian hums a bit louder.

In his childhood at the orphanage, when Wei Wuxian felt the most alone, hungry, and empty, he would hum this song in his lonely small room. Maybe it’s something his parents taught him when he was too young, but he’s not sure. Without his memories, he doesn’t know. All he knows is that when he hears the song, when he hums the song, he knows deep inside his soul that he was once loved. This knowledge, maybe foolish and false, soothed him and brought him great comfort.

His thumping tails brush against something soft.

When Wei Wuxian looks down, he nearly misses a note. A sea of rabbits, white, black, brown, and spotted, have all emerged from their burrows. There must be at least four dozen rabbits quietly listening to Wei Wuxian’s voice. He feels humbled by their presence, by their unblinking eyes, and their flickering long ears. He hums louder in appreciation, calming yet not daring to reach out to pet the rabbits until they allow him to. Even if they are less than a tail’s reach away.

When he looks up, he sees Lan Zhan standing on the roof ridge, a strange expression locked upon the cultivator’s face. His breath is caught in his own throat, and the song stops. Everything slows, and it seems like time has quieted and is only stretching out like dough pulled into a thinning string. He swears even the breeze has stopped blowing, and though he’s surrounded by an army of rabbits, he can feel as if there exists just the two of them in the entire universe, the two of them sharing a mile-long stare.

Lan Zhan jumps off the roof, a man on a single-minded mission. The rabbits move out of his way, not running like they were earlier from Wei Wuxian. He walks and leans down until his eyes are mere inches away from Wei Wuxian’s.

Then his lips forcibly capture Wei Wuxian’s, and he simply melts under the older man’s rougher touch. A breathless, ragged sound of Wei Ying escapes from Lan Zhan’s throat, so desperate as if he’ll never see him ever again. He traps him against the tree, his warmth enveloping and his scent so strong that all Wei Wuxian can murmur is Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan’s name is escaping from Wei Wuxian’s tongue so poorly that one can hardly make it out between the soft sighs of delight, but he’s so enthralled and enchanted by the cultivator that he can hardly think of anything else but finally and yes, yes, he does like me. He reaches out to touch Lan Zhan’s firm chest, and Lan Zhan—

Lan Zhan removes the white overcoat, laying it on the grass. Then his headband comes off and is expertly tied around Wei Wuxian’s wrist, and then Wei Wuxian is pulled down to lie on the overcoat.

Lips swollen, he briefly spots the rabbits hopping away to give them some distance before Lan Zhan pounces on him again. “Lan Zhan,” he says, delighted, his fingers running through the older man’s silky soft hair. He moves his arms to help Lan Zhan remove his ratty hoodie and his long-sleeved shirt and then gasps when the other man, in an unusual fit of impatience, rips the brand new black camisole to shreds. “Lan Zhan!”

Lan Zhan’s golden eyes never leave Wei Wuxian. Unrestrained, he hurriedly strips off his layers and hovers over Wei Wuxian before kissing him again on the lips, then the nose, then along the jaw, as if trying to mark and burn and brand Wei Wuxian so permanently that he won’t be able to forget Lan Zhan.

It’s ridiculous. Who could ever forget a kiss from Lan Zhan?

The moans escaping Wei Wuxian’s mouth are probably loud enough for everyone at the hotel to hear, but neither of them could hardly care. Then Lan Zhan nibbles at Wei Wuxian’s throat, biting down his collar until he finds his nipple. One hand curves around a breast and then squeezes and plays with the sensitive nub, sending Wei Wuxian thrashing desperately. At the overwhelming waves of pleasure, he doesn’t know whether to pull Lan Zhan closer or to push him away at his hard, unyielding torso.

“Lan Zhan,” he whines, his legs falling open in eagerness. “Stop teasing me,” he gasps, his face flushed red. “You need to take full responsibility. You can’t leave me like this.”

“Then I will take responsibility. Won’t leave Wei Ying like this,” Lan Zhan promises. Then he’s tugging off Wei Wuxian’s jeans and underwear in a rush, kissing Wei Wuxian again and swallowing his moans.

Wei Wuxian’s heart stops at the very naked sight of Lan Zhan’s peerless form. How is a man so beautiful and fitted, he wonders, but he does not think of it for too long. Lan Zhan’s big calloused hand, splayed over Wei Wuxian’s stomach and then clutched at his ass, leaves behind a heated trail on Wei Wuxian’s bare skin. Under every touch from Lan Zhan, whether from his fingertips, hands, teeth, or lips, Wei Wuxian melts and unravels at the core. “Lan Zhan,” he begs, “please.” He doesn’t even know what he’s asking for, only knowing that he wants more.

But Lan Zhan knows. His fingers find Wei Wuxian’s folds sopping wet, and he sharply inhales. At Wei Wuxian’s relentless squirming, Lan Zhan, with a single hand, reaches to capture both of Wei Wuxian’s wrists and pin them above his head. A finger easily glides into his puss*, and Wei Wuxian thinks he sees a whole different universe. It’s one thing to masturbat* in a female form, but it’s another thing entirely to have Lan Zhan fingering his hole, sending sparks down the huli jing’s spine.

Then Wei Wuxian sees Lan Zhan’s erected co*ck between his legs, the leaking head brushing and teasing Wei Wuxian’s folds. His cheeks flush. “Lan Zhan. It’s so big, I don’t think it can fit!” he protests, even as his hips eagerly rock against the head for more friction.

“It will,” Lan Zhan says in a low voice, a heavy vow weighing his words. “Wei Ying says to take full responsibility, I will take full responsibility.” Then he slowly pushes in, and Wei Wuxian is so wet that his puss* practically welcomes Lan Zhan’s co*ck, swallowing inch by inch by inch as Wei Wuxian’s eyes roll back in ecstasy.

“Lan Zhan,” he gasps, so overwhelmed by the size and the heat and the arousal and the sheer closeness of the older man. “Lan Zhan.” Wei Wuxian is so wet and slick, easing the way for Lan Zhan to carve out a space for himself.

Then Lan Zhan pulls at the huli jing’s tail, and Wei Wuxian is gone.

He can’t think, only feel. His hands are freed from Lan Zhan’s grip, and he takes the opportunity to place his arms around Lan Zhan’s neck, to pull, to tug Lan Zhan closer, enveloping himself in the older man’s warmth and heat. His eyes roll back, and his mouth falls open as Lan Zhan slowly thrusts, tentatively, almost carefully at first, and then faster, encouraged by the moans and wordless begs dripping out of Wei Wuxian’s lips.

When he comes, Lan Zhan pulls out, seed seeping from Wei Wuxian’s puss*. His legs are still spread open, inviting. There is a smug, satisfied look on the cultivator’s face, and he rolls off of Wei Wuxian, laying side by side with the huli jing. Two fingers lewdly push the seed back into Wei Wuxian’s gaping hole.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian whines, when he finally catches his breath, “you broke me. You ruined me for everyone else.”

He hums, looking quite pleased.

Wei Wuxian’s eyes droop, and he throws his arm around Lan Zhan again, intent on keeping him close. His fingertips brush against a line of raised, scarred skin on Lan Zhan’s back. So fatigued, he doesn’t think much of it and falls asleep in the comfort of Lan Zhan’s arms.

When Wei Wuxian returns to Lan Zhan’s suite, limping and sore because he swears he still feels Lan Zhan’s big dick still inside him, he is tugging stray strands of grass out of his long hair. Then he pauses at the large wicker basket overflowing with flowery purple boxes with words all written in English, and with the sh*tty education system in Yiling, no foreign languages were taught to Wei Wuxian when he was in school. He’s forced to pull out his phone and do a quick translation via WeChat.

His cheeks burn when the translation comes through.

Plan B.

It’s enough for a spike of pure shock and anxiety through Wei Wuxian when he realizes that evidently, someone has heard or seen what Lan Zhan has done to Wei Wuxian. His entire vision seems to shrink, and he would like nothing better than to curl into a ball and possibly never leave Lan Zhan’s suite for the rest of his life out of pure embarrassment. He lets out a cry, but the cry emerging from his throat doesn’t sound human at all.

It’s high-pitched, like a cry from a dying animal.

When he drops down to the floor on his hands, he realizes his hands aren’t hands at all. They are black paws of an animal. He looks down at the shiny, reflective tile floor and sees a muddled reflection of a black fox.

Of course, he’s unable to change back yet again. He has to screech and cry, and within two minutes, Lan Zhan finds him, rushing forward in a whirl of somehow still pristine white robes and with a guqin in his hands. With the stairwell’s door slamming shut behind the cultivator, Lan Zhan takes in the situation, his eyes landing on the yowling fox.

“Wei Ying,” he breathes in relief, the entire guqin somehow disappearing into his sleeve. Then he lets the fox into his suite and with not even a single blush, he picks up the basket of Plan Bs and shoves it into the coat closet without another word.

Living as a fox is not as bad as Wei Wuxian originally thought. He gets to be brushed and combed by Lan Zhan every morning and every night before he goes to sleep. Lan Zhan never minds whenever Wei Wuxian gets stray hairs on his robes and accidentally claws through the silk as if it was the flimsiest of paper. He simply pulls out new robes out of the pocket dimension that is his sleeves. Wei Wuxian wouldn’t apologize for the sheer amount of shedding he now does, even if it gives Lan Zhan more work to do, because Lan Zhan’s new robes, especially the overcoat, have actual color in them with pale blue cloud motifs decorating the silk fabric. The edges of his inner robes are wonderfully sky blue. At the very least, Lan Zhan doesn’t look like he’s attending a funeral anymore, or not as much as before.

Whenever Wen Chao makes a crack at his small tail or his pointy ears, he would simply scream at him. It’s much more satisfying than having to think of a witty retort or even using words in general, although he was quite pleased with himself when he told Wen Chao that he wished to have a third tail, if only to have another way of flipping the head off. To his surprise, Lan Zhan has installed motion sensors around the hotel that are keyed to an electronic chip embedded in the red ribbon around Wei Wuxian’s neck, capable of opening doors and summoning elevators.

He’s almost glad to not be capable of speech. He’s not sure how to thank Lan Zhan for all of his effort. And he’s most certainly grateful to be unable to talk, so they can discuss what they did on the grass while surrounded by an army of rabbits. He’s still recovering from the intense berating in regards to noise levels Jiang Cheng gave him one night post-dinner. Any humans who saw them would think Jiang Cheng is crazy for yelling at a fox for sleeping with Hanguang-Jun.

Whenever he's in the presence of his jiujiu, Xiao Xingchen changes into his fox form and roams around the hotel property to teach him how to move, run, and hide in this form. In this form, the stretch of the hotel property seems even grander and larger than before. There are so many nooks and crannies to abscond into, although Lan Zhan seems to always be able to find Wei Wuxian, even in this tiny form. Nonetheless, it’s become a little game of sorts, where Wei Wuxian, when found, always ends up getting blissful pets on his stomach and back.

He spends two weeks as a fox, wandering the grounds and attending dinner in a child’s high chair. He’s constantly astounded by the single fact that everyone, with the exception of Wen Chao but he’s a dick so it doesn’t matter, seems even softer, kinder around him. They’re ready to pet him, feed him the best slices of meat, and praise his silky black fur and two pretty tails. Even Jiang Cheng, after that horrific lecture, looks at Wei Wuxian with less of a scowl on his face. Jin Zixuan starts buying expensive steak imported from some small rich European country Wei Wuxian has never heard of, leading Xiao Xingchen to muse about spending more time in his fox form.

It’s a good life, even if Wei Wuxian has to live out the rest of his life as a fox and never give Lan Zhan a nicer, less wet kiss on the lips. Instead of conversations and lessons like what they used to have, Lan Zhan has taken on playing the guqin, wowing Wei Wuxian with an impressive private concert. His favorite out of all the songs Lan Zhan has played on the guqin is the melody Wei Wuxian has hummed to the rabbits and to himself in his childhood. He could listen to that song over and over again as he loafs on the sofa in a sleepy haze.

But one day, while Lan Zhan is busy meditating, Wei Wuxian sneaks out of the suite and finds himself having a one-sided conversation with Nie Huaisang about Australian pearls in the second floor’s lounge. Wen Chao shouts comments, all socially inappropriate, at the two of them from the balcony, but they both ignore him.

Eventually, Nie Huaisang has enough of the background noise and the cheery piano music playing from the speakers and invites Wei Wuxian up to the eighth floor to read a new book he had delivered from the Nie Sect’s sole librarian. He whips out the book hidden in a box of fans and reveals the title to Wei Wuxian’s face.

Hanguang-Jun.

“A collection of myths, stories, and legends,” Nie Huaisang explains, looking pleased by Wei Wuxian’s excitement. “Some of it might be untrue, because it’s told from the word of second sources or it's the warped stories that have been told over and over again in a small village. Hanguang-Jun never kisses and tells what he’s done for the people. He only ever says he does what needs to be done."

Wei Wuxian hops onto the sofa and settles in to listen to Nie Huaisang read the book aloud. Many of the stories are familiar, the ones he's heard before like Hanguang-Jun and the goddess. Although this version has her as a nameless priestess of a forgotten goddess. Some are simple, of Hanguang-Jun buying toys and tangren for children, which softens something in Wei Wuxian’s heart. Then there's the endless tales of Hanguang-Jun fighting against evil cultivators stirring up small villages. He never kills as the first option, always preferring to seek truth and justice. The most touching of the stories are the rhythmic poems and songs about Hanguang-Jun using Inquiry to put spirits to rest, to let go of their resentfulness or to fulfill their wishes if possible.

Wei Wuxian has wondered why he ever thought Lan Zhan was untouchable and seemingly unfeeling.

"Known as Hanguang-Jun to the civilians, the cultivator is named Lan Wangji of the Gusu Lan Sect. At the time of writing, his older brother, Lan Xichen, is the current sect leader. What is known about his early life is not much. The Gusu Lan Sect, with their rules currently numbering three thousand and nine hundred sixty-eight, are notable for their secrecy and their strict rule against gossip. His father was the previous sect leader, who, for most of his tenure, spent a great amount of time in seclusion like his wife. Lan Qiren served as sect leader in all but name until Lan Xichen was of age.

"Lan Wangji served faithfully as the sect heir until a splinter between him and the sect led to him becoming a rogue cultivator in all but name. Officially, he is still of the Gusu Lan Sect and Lan Xichen’s heir. What led to the rift between…" Nie Huaisang pauses, frowning. He flips a page back and forth.

Wei Wuxian raises his head, unable to resist wanting to know more. He opens his mouth, and words emerge from his throat. "What led to the rift?"

"You changed back!" The book shakes in Nie Huaisang’s hands. "Look at you! You're back in your original form!"

"Yeah," Wei Wuxian realizes, his voice sounding familiar in his ears, but he could hardly care. "But you have to tell me about the rift," he demands, far more interested in this cliffhanger.

"Well, I don't know." Nie Huaisang repeatedly flips the book pages back and forth and runs a finger down the middle to where pages have been torn from the book. He frowns, tapping his chin. "There's a lot of pages missing from the book."

Wei Wuxian nods in agreement. "Yeah, all the pages about Hanguang-Jun fighting against the Yiling Patriarch of the Burial Mounds." He can hardly forget those stories, so profound and common in Yiling that every young child knows about Hanguang-Jun and his one-time opponent, the Yiling Patriarch.

"Yiling Patriarch? Who is that?"

"You never heard of him?" Wei Wuxian can recall the old grandma who came by every month to entertain the orphanage. She would play her dizi and smile, remarking that although she is better than average, she could never compare to the Yiling Patriarch, who could wake the dead with his songs and whistles. She would tell one tale of an attempted theft from hundreds of corrupted creatures who wanted to use an evil object hidden in the Burial Mounds for their own purpose. The Yiling Patriarch rises up to the invasion in defiance, standing alone. But he is not alone for the Burial Mounds are filled with corpses, loved and forgotten and feared and hated and resentful alike. He calls upon them to defend the land and the people of Yiling. For thirty days and thirty nights, the corpses grew in number, adding killed creatures and their corpses to their ranks, never faltering in their mission.

So eventually the creatures fled.

Then the old grandma would smile at the story and coax every child to play the dizi, teaching them how to blow and where to place their fingers, her patience plentiful. Wei Wuxian was the best out of them all, easily mastering the instrument to the point the grandma had once praised that perhaps, one day, his music could wake the dead or soothe the spirits.

It’s funny to look back and realize that Wei Wuxian knows something who could soothe the spirits. Little did he ever realize he would meet Hanguang-Jun.

“No, I have never heard of the Yiling Patriarch.”

Wei Wuxian straightens and recounts the myths floating around Yiling. It’s hard to recall, at first, but the more he tells, the more he remembers. About how the city would always remember him fondly, about how the young demonic cultivator used to be a street rat on Yiling, about how he taught himself the dizi just from watching idle musicians, about how he stole little things from the local farmers but they never were too mad by the theft, too charmed by his smile and laughter. His parents gave him no place to live, but he called the Burial Mounds home. He controlled the corpses wandering the Burial Mounds, setting those who grew weary and tired to rest. For those too filled with vengeance or purpose, the Yiling Patriarch gave them closure by granting, if it was within reason, their final wishes.

Of course, the great cultivation sects of that time weren’t able to leave a demonic cultivator alone once his story grew louder and louder amongst the common folk. They’d never heard of a cultivator being able to manipulate and control corpses. Fear rose amongst them, and the unanimous conclusion was that the Yiling Patriarch must be suppressed. After all, no man can resist the call to amass more and more power, they reasoned. In fact, they expected the Yiling Patriarch to eventually call upon a corpse army to conquer the world.

When Wei Wuxian was little, he already heard of many other stories about the Yiling Patriarch before listening to the old grandma narrate the war between the Yiling Patriarch and the great sects, which eventually led to the battle between the Yiling Patriarch and Hanguang-Jun. There were so many versions of the story where the Yiling Patriarch would fiercely bargain for ridiculous discounts and cheap prices for various goods from farmers such as lotus roots, tangerines, and potatoes. The same Yiling Patriarch would never fail to appear when the same farmers call upon him for help from corpses or angry spirits or for talismans to keep the seeping resentful energy of the Burial Mounds out of their homes. It sounded hilarious to Wei Wuxian’s ears when the great sects thought he would come for their riches, power, and standing.

But of course, they themselves were like that, so they presumed that the Yiling Patriarch was too.

They claimed the Yiling Patriarch killed an heir to one of the great cultivation sects. Then they planned a siege upon the Burial Mounds, displacing thousands of Yiling families, razing farmlands, and leaving destruction in their path. The Yiling Patriarch called upon the sleeping corpses of the Burial Mounds to protect their resting place. Endless waves of cultivators pressed up the mountains, undaunted by the corpses. It was said that three thousand cultivators died those five days and five nights, but the grandma, who was clearly a fan of the Yiling Patriarch, believed the tales exaggerated the number. It would be lucky for a sect to have three thousand cultivators, who were far and few in those days and even in the modern ages.

“They increased the number, so everyone would band together to kill him out of fear,” she said, rolling an aged wooden dizi between her hands.

Which is why Hanguang-Jun comes to the Burial Mounds, to subdue the Yiling Patriarch and bring him to justice.

However, the Yiling Patriarch was weakened by the continuous onslaught of cultivators. Relying heavily on the resentful energy of the Burial Mounds and never having one single moment to rest, the Yiling Patriarch was forced to use a terrifying weapon to increase the power of his corpse army on the fourth day. In this moment of fatigue and weakness, the Yin Tiger Tally took over the mind and body of the Yiling Patriarch.

The fourth and fifth days were the bloodiest. Nevertheless, the Yin Tiger Tally took the invaders’ lives as sacrifices to its power, fulfilling the Yiling Patriarch’s wish to protect the Burial Mounds.

The fifth day was when Hanguang-Jun arrived, fresh from his seclusion at the Cloud Recesses. His intentions were not to kill but to subdue. His arrival brought great relief to the invaders, of which most of them took the opportunity to flee from the Burial Mounds. With his faithful guqin in his hands, he played and contained the resentful energy within the boundaries of the Burial Mounds.

This, of course, drew the attention of the Yin Tiger Tally, which never wanted to be locked away forever in the Burial Mounds. It had spent eons, whispering into the ears of men, calling upon them to use it, but never has one been so worthy of wielding it as the Yiling Patriarch.

It was a day where Hanguang-Jun bled. Some had said that the cuts left behind by the resentful energy made Hanguang-Jun’s blood, the color of amber, drip to the ground, slowly purifying the very soil of the Burial Mounds. He bled from his face, his hands, his wrists, his back, but yet, he persisted, his golden core so powerful and righteous that the Yin Tiger Tally was barely able to beat him back.

But there were two things. First, Hanguang-Jun was not willing to kill the Yiling Patriarch. Second of all, the Yin Tiger Tally was, if only to unleash even greater resentful energy to destroy and consume Hanguang-Jun.

However, the Yiling Patriarch was not so gone yet. With every bit of might and will, he forced the Yin Tiger Tally to turn its power inwards and destroy itself, killing himself in the backlash.

Wei Wuxian remembered the orphanage of young children, ages between three to seven, crying, himself included, when the grandma recited this part of the story. They, after all, felt like they were friends with the Yiling Patriarch, following along on his mischief and his adventures around Yiling. Of course, it eventually became just another story that briefly took hold of Wei Wuxian’s heart and mind, and in time, he forgot about it.

This death led Hanguang-Jun, who couldn’t help but feel moved by the sacrifice, to spend decades cleaning and soothing the Burial Mounds. For a time, farmers and residents could rely on Hanguang-Jun for talismans and his assistance, even if they all felt the loss of the Yiling Patriarch. The people of Yiling, mostly for tourist reasons but also sometimes in whispers out of awe, would say that Hanguang-Jun still protects Yiling today. Proof of it exists in a permanent array keeping the corpses trapped in the Burial Mounds.

Of course, Wei Wuxian knows the truth now. Hanguang-Jun, or rather, Lan Zhan, is here, working in a hotel, doing odd handyman jobs, playing the guqin, and diligently brushing the matting out of Wei Wuxian’s fur.

“A war of that magnitude would have been mentioned in the history class,” Nie Huaisang says, frowning at the book. “Lan Qiren would never be so remiss in not having a day spent on an incident like this. Great sects joining forces to kill this Yiling Patriarch?”

“You never heard of this?”

“Hanguang-Jun left the Cloud Recesses long before I attended as a guest disciple,” he explains, shaking his head. He frowns, thumbing the torn edges inside the book. “I only met him when I came to this hotel, and Xichen-ge introduced me to him.”

Wei Wuxian has to think about all this, about the cultivation world never mentioning the siege of Yiling, the Burial Mounds, and the Yiling Patriarch, so he thinks of having four paws and two tails and shifts back into a fox once again, a red ribbon around his neck. It’s a novelty to have control over changing into and out of his fox form, and it has the added benefit of being close to Lan Zhan without ever needing Wei Wuxian to speak and ask about the Burial Mounds.

So Wei Wuxian luxuriates as Lan Zhan gently brushes through his fur, as if it still needs to be dematted. Wei Wuxian should probably be sorry about making Lan Zhan do more work on him, but he’s splayed out on Lan Zhan’s spacious lap and is generally being lazier than a Turkish cat.

But questions aren’t meant to stay inside of his head forever.

Two days after Nie Huaisang showed Wei Wuxian the book and the missing pages about Hanguang-Jun, Lan Xichen arrives by sword to visit the Koi Tower Hotel.

Notes:

Someone tell me why spell check keeps wanting me to fix "Xichen-ge" into "Chicken-ge"?

Chapter 3: III.

Notes:

Anyone who might have read this during the time when I had the chapter count out of 4 for this fic... Uhhhhhhhhhh, yeah, I don't know what happened.

Chapter Text

III.

If Wei Wuxian didn’t know any better, he would assume Lan Xichen is Lan Zhan’s more presentable, approachable, and friendlier twin. They look astoundingly alike, same height, same type of regal demeanor, similar body type. Even similar style of robes, though Lan Xichen's fancier robes are befitting a sect leader. But there is a key difference between the two, or at least, this is the first significant detail that differs between the two brothers. And that is this: Lan Xichen is capable of making small talk without letting silence linger into awkwardness for the other conversationalist.

Lan Zhan wouldn’t mind serenely looking at the other person when the conversation inevitably dies. Though Wei Wuxian is quite gifted at talking and never allowing his conversation with Lan Zhan to end, he has seen the hilarious results when Jin Zixuan or even Jiang Cheng attempts to make a short polite conversation at dinner.

Nie Huaisang is the first one who welcomes Lan Xichen into the hotel, apparently having received Lan Xichen’s message that he was about to arrive. Lan Zhan was in the middle of brushing Wei Wuxian’s dark silky fur with a polished ivory comb set and brought the fox down to the lobby, where the four of them are now all gathered around an expensive but also tacky gold-plated wooden coffee table that probably hasn’t seen any usage since the eighties. They discuss the health of various individuals Wei Wuxian has never heard of, and by “they,” Wei Wuxian only means Nie Huaisang and Lan Xichen, because Lan Zhan hasn’t spoken beyond a few words and Wei Wuxian is lounging on Lan Zhan’s lap like a spoiled sugar baby but as a fox, his two tails swinging happily over Lan Zhan’s knees and batting the man’s shins.

When Lan Xichen asks Lan Zhan the directions to an available room, Lan Zhan merely nods and picks up Wei Wuxian, leading the other cultivator to a room right next to Lan Zhan’s suite. It’s furnished exactly the same way. Same wooden furniture with silk cushions, similar color themes except Lan Xichen’s suite seems to have a much more lively color of blue.

"Wangji," Lan Xichen says, curiously eyeing Wei Wuxian buried in Lan Zhan’s arms and watching them move to the sofa, "you are holding a huli jing."

“Mn.” Lan Zhan does not elaborate any further.

Lan Xichen takes this into account and stresses, “Anything I am about to speak to you will be heard by the huli jing.”

“Mn.”

Eyebrows briefly raised, he takes Lan Zhan’s response in stride. Moving swiftly to the kitchen, he fills the electric kettle with filtered water and then searches for a tea bag through the cabinets. He has obviously stayed in this suite before, because he finds it easily along with a teacup set. Moving serenely through the silence, he powers up the electric kettle on the coffee table in the little parlor. Wei Wuxian looks on in amazement how his long sleeves don’t even knock over anything while he strains the tea.

Lan Xichen blows and drinks a steaming cup before beginning to speak. “You once told me that the reason why you were leaving the Cloud Recesses was because you knew you forgot something terribly important and you were convinced that you would never find out what you’ve forgotten if you remained in Gusu.”

Wei Wuxian lifts his head in interest, his ears tickling against Lan Zhan’s fingers. His two tails skips a thump against Lan Zhan’s shins.

“Mn.”

“Two weeks ago, there was a minor earthquake affecting Gusu. Cloud Recesses was at the epicenter.” Lan Xichen holds his palm up at his younger brother. “No one was injured, and all the buildings remained intact. But two days ago, the back hills unearthed itself.” A pause. “Land slid down the back hills and revealed an array carved into a flat, circular piece of stone. No one could remember who has done this, but yesterday, we consulted the Room of Forbidden Books and discovered it’s an array with a purpose of making the entire world forget about something.” From his sleeve, he pulls out polaroids of a flat pale red array on smooth grey stone, planting them on the coffee table. They’re all taken from different angles.

“It’s likely that array has the power to make everyone forget about its existence,” Lan Zhan concludes, critically examining the photographs in his hand. “We would have noticed someone carving an array this extensive.”

“None of the elders claim that they were the ones who made this array.” The sect leader adds with a faint smile, “Uncle is upset and has emerged from seclusion. He thinks this type of array that makes people forget about the past would only curse people to make the same mistakes they want to forget. He had me send off sections of the stone for radioactive dating.” A pause as his smile stumbles. “But I fear it might have been me who has done it. Or maybe us. I simply can’t recall. And if it wasn’t us and that array is older than a couple hundred years, then anyone who has cast the array has been long dead.”

“The array is breaking,” Lan Zhan notes, his finger underlining the thin crack splitting the circular array in half. The widening crack pierces through most of the array, nearly reaching the other end. “It won’t be long until we start remembering.”

“Yes. I was able to extract an item inside the stone. It's the anchor to what it's forcing everyone to forget,” he replies, pulling out a white-blue Qiankun bag. With careful fingers, he reaches in and pulls out a single pale red ribbon. It’s dusty, and the red has been almost dyed to a similar dull granite coloring of the stone it has been trapped inside. But it’s still clearly red and now that Wei Wuxian is thinking about it, it sharply resembles the bright red ribbon wrapped around his neck, which is a funny coincidence. Same length and width and all of that.

Lan Zhan touches the ribbon with his fingernail and then pulls his hand back. “Xiongzhang,” he pauses. “I have suspicions of what the array may be hiding.”

He sets the ribbon on the coffee table. “What is it?”

“The Sunshot Campaign. The Great War between sects. And the aftermath.”

Lan Xichen expresses confusion. “I don’t recall a great war. Between which sects?”

“Wen, Nie, Jin, Lan, and Jiang.”

“That isn’t what I remembered,” Lan Xichen says, frowning deeply. “The Wens faded away in obscurity. The Nies are still here, though they have declined in power ever since the qi deviation and death of the last strong Nie sect leader. Jins still remain as one of the great sects. Last of all, the Jiangs are no longer called the Jiangs since four and a half centuries ago.”

“The Wens didn’t fade away. They were killed in the war. Killed by Nie, Jin, Lan, and Jiang.” Lan Zhan looks directly into his older brother’s eyes. “We fought in that war.”

“Wangji,” he pauses, worried and solemn, his dark eyes unflinchingly open and honest, “I don’t recall any of this.”

Lan Xichen has announced that he plans to stay for a few days at the hotel. Making good use of his promise, he has been playing Go with Nie Huaisang and attending dinner like all the other guests at the hotel. He is an excellent conversationalist, and he and Jiang Yanli get along like a house on fire. He fits in perfectly like a puzzle piece.

It’s on the third day of his stay when he corners Wei Wuxian in the elevator. He towers over the fox but presents a pleasant smile to him. “Wei-gonzi,” he says, right before the door opens to their floor. “Do you have a moment?”

Wei Wuxian, out of sheer curiosity, yips at him in agreement. He follows Lan Xichen out of the elevator and then sits on his haunches, tilting his head in curiosity.

Lan Xichen studies him for a long moment. Then he says, “I heard you recently emerged as a huli jing.”

He nods his head, his ear twitching.

“Wei-gonzi, I ask you to be cautious as you walk in our world,” he adds after a couple pauses. “And you be equally careful with Wangji.” He gives a final nod at the fox and turns away towards his suite, clearly not expecting a response from the fox.

That is, Wei Wuxian has concluded, the weirdest one-sided conversation he’s ever had.

Wei Wuxian should pat himself on the back for resisting speaking to Lan Zhan for so long. He’s been in his fox form for weeks after Lan Xichen has left to return to Gusu. He’s been living with his thoughts about Lan Xichen’s strange words. Why does Wei Wuxian need to be careful with Lan Zhan? Lan Zhan should be careful with him! Lan Zhan is so strong and capable that he can easily bully Wei Wuxian. Lan Zhan has shamelessly stolen away Wei Wuxian’s virginity in front of countless innocent rabbits. Lan Zhan is Hanguang-Jun, a myth, a legend, a figure that has almost and in some places, reached divine status.

The other advice is solid, though. See Wen Chao for further proof and evidence.

But one morning, at five in the morning after Wei Wuxian has long attuned himself to Lan Zhan’s sleep schedule, he feels wonderfully warm and relaxed, a comb being carefully brushed through his long hair. A fox’s squee emerges from his throat, but it doesn’t sound right to his ears. It’s lower in pitch, and when he opens his eyes, he sees Lan Zhan’s golden eyes locked upon him.

“Wei Ying,” he simply says, cupping the jaw of Wei Wuixan in his lap. He sets the comb aside on the pillow.

“Ah, hahaha, Lan Zhan!” he replies, his cheeks red. He sits up and spreads his arms out. “Look, I’ve changed back into my original looks!” He pats his shirt-covered flat chest and his stomach for emphasis, noting how his muscles are firmer and less soft.

“Mn,” Lan Zhan agrees, his eyes warmly sweeping down Wei Wuxian’s face. A soft smile tilts the corner of his lips. “I get breakfast for Wei Ying.”

“Lan Zhan!” He’s delighted that this part of their routine hasn’t changed. He’s been so utterly spoiled as a fox, where Lan Zhan would simply feed him breakfast and lunch by hand. Sometimes, he would hold out a skewer of meat at dinner for Wei Wuxian. And it’s surprising the first time Lan Zhan did it for Wei Wuxian. He has noticed Lan Xichen and Lan Zhan’s eating habits, where they both avoid eating meat.

Lan Zhan goes to the kitchen, heats up the leftovers from dinner, and then returns minutes later with a wooden breakfast tray, the assortment of food perfectly pleasing to the eyes.

Wei Wuxian always feels bad about wrecking Lan Zhan’s presentation. The eggs, the Taiwanese sausages, the cabbage, and the rice are all placed evenly in the bowl that if Wei Wuxian didn’t know any better, he wouldn’t think it’s leftovers. It’s picturesque, perfect for a WeChat post.

These are the little things that make Wei Wuxian want, long, and wish to stay by Lan Zhan’s side forever.

But Hanguang-Jun is a legend and an immortal who has lived far longer than Wei Wuxian ever has. He knows that one day, Hanguang-Jun may go somewhere else, once he tires of Wei Wuxian’s presence. Maybe even to solve that mystery Lan Xichen worries over back in Gusu. After all, as the stories say, Hanguang-Jun always goes where the chaos is.

But until then, Wei Wuxian will live in the moment, savoring every second Lan Zhan can give him. He takes a hold of the chopsticks and captures a few grains of rice, perfectly seasoned with vinegar and the gleaming light flecks of chili oil. He has to admire the bowl for a moment, even when his stomach is pointedly growling. He glances up to find Lan Zhan seated on the side of the bed with a soft look upon his face. He asks, “What about you? Have you eaten yet?”

“I have,” he assures.

He takes one delicate bite and moans indecently, almost about to swallow the bowl entirely whole. As a fox, he eats far less than he would as a human being and he misses being able to eat spicy food. In his fox form, his preferences to food swings positively towards meat and berries. His absolute favorite is peanut butter, and he could eat that by the jarful if Lan Zhan would let him. Certain foods just taste better as a fox and spicy food certainly taste better as a human.

Before he knows it, the bowl is completely empty. Every grain of rice has been cleared, and Wei Wuxian gasps in surprise when Lan Zhan takes the bowl away and places it back on the tray. He offers a tall glass of warm water for Wei Wuxian to drink.

“Lan Zhan,” he exclaims, staring at the back of the cultivator. “You didn’t have to do any of this for me!”

Lan Zhan stops and turns his head slightly. Half of his face is visible, and he simply replies, “Wanted to. For Wei Ying.” He returns to the kitchen with the tray in hand.

With a single shaking hand, Wei Wuxian touches his beating, racing chest and lets out a slow breath. It’s so terribly easy to fall in love with Lan Zhan.

Wei Wuxian follows Lan Zhan’s daily routine. With his fox tails lazing over Lan Zhan’s lap, Wei Wuxian struggles to achieve the clarity Lan Zhan easily obtains while meditating. How can he? Lan Zhan looks so handsome, so gorgeous as he sits in the lotus pose and meditates in complete silence with absolute stillness in his posture. So he gives up on meditation and unabashedly stares at Lan Zhan’s jade-like face. His cheeks flush lightly when Lan Zhan finally opens his eyes and catches Wei Wuxian looking at him.

His fox tails pull away from Lan Zhan, and he tucks them behind himself, away from view. “Lan Zhan!” He has nothing else to say, so easily caught by Lan Zhan’s gaze.

“Mn.”

He flexes his tails this way and that, slightly preening. “Do you think I’m prettier as a girl?” He taps his lips in thought, eager to have Lan Zhan’s full attention. “I’m wondering why Lan Zhan was so quick to capture me that day, but is so unwilling to touch me now.” It’s only when he says it does he realize that Lan Zhan may not be a cutsleeve and is only interested in women. He opens his mouth again, attempting to take it back, but his lips are easily sealed with Lan Zhan’s. Wei Wuxian’s eyes are wide in shock.

He could swear he didn’t even see Lan Zhan move.

When Lan Zhan finally releases him, he tells him, “Would love Wei Ying, whatever the preferences.” A pause. “Wanted to go slow. At Wei Ying’s pace.” His eyes briefly flick downwards, as if shy.

Wei Wuxian’s brain freezes.

Love.

Wei Wuxian doesn’t know what to say, and he’s quite certain that if he doesn’t shut up now, he’ll say something completely stupid that could be misunderstood by Lan Zhan, because Wei Wuxian, though he used to like to brag to his coffee shop coworkers about kissing lots of people and flirting with pretty customers to wrangle a smile out of them, has never experienced something like this before. He has never been so close and intimate to anyone at all. So he leans towards Lan Zhan and returns the kiss, silencing every word he could say and quieting every thought in his head.

Lan Zhan pulls him into his lap, clutching him tight as if he would never want to let Wei Wuxian go. He doesn’t mind the fox tails sneaking up his side and batting playfully at his shoulder, easily finding the tied knot of Lan Zhan’s forehead ribbon to dislocate it. He gently rolls Wei Wuxian onto the floor, pinning him to the carpet. “Wei Ying,” he says, his voice nearly a growl and his forehead ribbon askew. “Do not start anything you can’t finish.”

His tails tapping against the floor, Wei Wuxian stares at Lan Zhan, breathless. His arms are above his head, and his legs are splayed. Spellbound, he reaches behind Lan Zhan’s head and pulls the white ribbon loose. Pressed against his thigh is Lan Zhan’s dick, completely hard, and his brain spins, but he follows his instincts, pushing back and rocking teasingly against Lan Zhan. It sounds like a promise, an invitation for Wei Wuxian to push at Lan Zhan and see what springs up. “Lan Zhan,” he moans. “Lan-er-gege, how can you leave me unfinished?”

“Mark your words.”

Wei Wuxian barely manages a surprised huh before he’s thoroughly victimized and ravished by Lan Zhan’s massive hands and teeth. His t-shirt is pulled over his eyes and thrown somewhere in the parlor. Then he knocks his head against the carpet once Lan Zhan has slid his hand down Wei Wuxian’s sweatpants to grasp his co*ck.

Lan Zhan’s thumb runs over, presses against the leaky slit. “Wet.”

He inhales sharply. “Lan Zhan!” he shrieks, covering his reddening face with a hand. “You can’t say something like that!” He shakes, not from a cool breeze or a chill, but rather from the sheer aura of heat and desire from Hanguang-Jun. Wei Wuxian may claim to be fragile as a china teacup, but Lan Zhan certainly does not treat him like one.

In fact, Lan Zhan seems to be a thin line, a hair's width worth of a breath away from swallowing Wei Wuxian whole.

The cultivator strokes Wei Wuxian’s co*ck, smearing precome over the shaft. His golden eyes never glance away from the huli jing. In a faux confused tone, he wonders, “Why can’t I say something like that when it’s the truth?”

Heart pounding, he shudders under Lan Zhan’s firm touch. “Lan Zhan! You can’t say something like that. I’m a virgin and my heart is too delicate to take these words.”

That stops Lan Zhan’s stroking hand, dragging out a whine of protest from Wei Wuxian’s throat. He pauses, still as a statue. “Yet Wei Ying wants it.”

Wei Wuxian wails, certain he’s giving Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan a run for their money with how loud he is. He knocks his head back against the carpet as Lan Zhan’s mouth wraps around his nipple and Lan Zhan’s other hand slips his sweatpants down his legs. It’s not even all the way down, but his tails are eager to help the cultivator, slipping out of the sweatpants’ tail hole and firmly wrapping around Lan Zhan’s hip, tugging the older man closer. He’s absolutely helpless under Lan Zhan’s every move, melting and folding where he wants Wei Wuxian to be.

He’s practically folded in half, sweatpants still locked around his ankles, when Lan Zhan finds his leaking slicked hole.

“Wei Ying is very wet,” Lan Zhan declares, his finger slowly but easily gliding in and stretching Wei Wuxian’s hole.

“Lan Zhan, you can’t say something like that!” Wei Wuxian cries, his face so terribly red that the severe blush may never leave his cheeks. He knocks his head back a few more times against the carpet, completely overwhelmed and unraveled by Lan Zhan’s fingers deftly and expertly finding a spot of nerves that send sharp nerves of delight and pleasure up his spine. “Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan,” he pants, his hands wrapped desperately around his own legs waving around in midair. “I need,” he says, unable to finish.

“I know what you need, Wei Ying,” he rasps, withdrawing his fingers. Something hard pushes against Wei Wuxian’s rim.

It’s big. It’s bigger than Lan Zhan’s fingers, and Wei Wuxian is gasping in shock as that warm, hard, demanding thing stretches his hole to a size it’s never been before. He spurts out, “Lan Zhan, why is your dick so big? It’s not going to fit.”

Lan Zhan pauses. “It has fit before.”

“Lan Zhan,” he wails, panting as Lan Zhan breaches him open and carves a space deep inside of him. “I can’t take it!”

“Wei Ying can take it. He will take it.” The cultivator slowly pulls out and then hurriedly pounds back into Wei Wuxian’s leaking wet hole. “Because this is what he needs.”

Wei Wuxian’s throat warbles, and he moans, forced to take every single one of Lan Zhan’s precise thrusts. Even when he’s screaming Lan Zhan’s name and nothing else because he can form no other thoughts, his hips eagerly rock back, matching Lan Zhan’s every move. From every drag, every brush against his prostate to the firm grip Lan Zhan has at his hip and legs to pin Wei Wuxian in place, Wei Wuxian reaches to closer, greater heights he’s never felt before. He tries desperately to hold it back, but Lan Zhan has no sense of mercy, bullying Wei Wuxian over the edge.

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, too much,” he mewls, gripping his own legs tighter. His mouth moves before he can even think. “Are you trying to put a child in me?”

At those words, Lan Zhan’s grip intensifies, and Wei Wuxian has to take everything Lan Zhan gives him, his heartbeat racing, and it’s almost as if Lan Zhan wants to put a child inside Wei Wuxian from the way Lan Zhan clutches Wei Wuxian and somehow sinks even deeper inside the huli jing. Lan Zhan doesn’t stop, chasing his own release and then spilling his seed deep inside of Wei Wuxian’s hole.

That’s when he stops. Lan Zhan’s co*ck beats like a second heart, so hot like a molten furnace. When he pulls out, seed dripping out, Wei Wuxian feels bereft.

With not a single hair out of place and his breaths even and measured, Lan Zhan carefully unfolds Wei Wuxian’s legs, and Wei Wuxian blinks, his eyes hooded. “Lan-er-gege,” he says, slightly out of breath, “so were you trying to put a child in me? I’m in the wrong form for that.”

“Mark your words,” he tells him, reaching back down to Wei Wuxian’s hole to push his seed back in and then massaging the huli jing’s thighs.

Tempted to sleep, Wei Wuxian relaxes under Lan Zhan’s gentle touches as the blood flows smoothly back to his feet. Lan Zhan’s reply has sent him into a small shiver of delight.

Wei Wuxian isn’t going to question how he’s landed himself in the Hanguang-Jun's bed again. Of course, he doesn’t necessarily get railed by Lan Zhan in his bed. Sometimes, Lan Zhan would take him in the shower or the spacious bathtub. Or the balcony. Or shamelessly among the innocent rabbits, once again. But the more he sleeps with Lan Zhan, easily tumbling together to the ground or the floor, the more he notices that Lan Zhan is holding himself back.

Chapter 4: IV.

Notes:

Thank f*cking goodness that I actually see the light at the end of the tunnel. I was worried I might have to add another chapter to the chapter count on ao3.

Chapter Text

IV.

It takes more than a year for Lan Zhan to prepare for their venture down into the caves. Wei Wuxian, though he sometimes wakes up shaking at night from the lack of solid answers, can appreciate the thoughtfulness and effort the cultivator has put into their preparation. Lan Zhan has explained that he has written a recommendation for Lan Sect to place an outpost of sentries near the entrance of the cave to guard it and that they have done so. Wei Wuxian almost thinks the preparation might be overkill, but then he searches the internet and reads all the stories of how “normal people” have easily gotten lost and died one way or another in caves. All bits of precaution are necessary.

It's after he gains his fifth tail and Xiao Xingchen has informed Lan Zhan that short of Wei Wuxian gaining an additional century's worth of training and experience, he's as good as he's going to get. Lan Zhan had looked pensive for a moment, but then he nodded and thanked Xiao Xingchen for spending so much of his time training the huli jing.

That was three days ago.

That very same afternoon, Lan Zhan borrowed one of Jin Zixuan’s shiny all-wheel drive cars to head to the forest. He packed all the climbing equipment and gear along with tied stacks upon stacks of both drawn and blank talismans. Wei Wuxian waved goodbye to the hotel occupants, and it surprised him for a hot second when Jiang Cheng told him not to die. What a guy. He's got his priorities straight, Wei Wuxian will give him that much.

Today, they arrived just in time for lunch in Muxi Park, which is named after the tallest mountain in this area. Lan Zhan gets the vehicle off the paved road and into a messy trail that has evidently been recently driven upon by other vehicles. He follows the path down to where a bunch of Lan cultivators, made obvious by their classic white mourning hanfu, have set up eight camouflage camping tents around a still smoking campfire. Lan Zhan parks next to a minivan and climbs out of the car.

From the navigator seat, the huli jing spots a shirtless bulky man dressed in just gym shorts and black running shoes with white socks on. He’s got long dark hair and a nice bronze tan with muscles that are practically stacked on muscles. He’s a fine piece of specimen, if one can ignore the gym bro aura he’s got going on, Wei Wuxian acknowledges. He, after all, has eyes.

“Hanguang-Jun,” the gym bro says, grinning so wide that he shows off every single one of his teeth.

“Hanguang-Jun,” the seven Lan cultivators quietly and quickly salute, awe in every single one of their faces.

It strikes Wei Wuxian just then that Lan Zhan must have not returned to Gusu in so many years that none of the young cultivators may have actually met him. He slips out of the car, too. Lan Zhan has already told him to hide his ears and tails to avoid giving away the fact that he’s a huli jing. He greets them all with a smile. “Hello, I’m Wei Wuxian,” he says.

The gym bro shoo away the curious Lan cultivators. “Come on. You all have to work. Those nosy tourists aren’t going to be cautious themselves. You’ll meet them properly later.”

Most people would whine and moan about this unfairness of not being able to meet their favorite celebrity, but the Lan cultivators are quite demure and well-behaved. They bow their heads to the gym bro, who must be in charge of the whole operation, and continue to carry out their duties.

“I’m Nie Mingjue.”

“You’re Nie Huaisang’s older brother!” Wei Wuxian grins as he connects the dots. He’s dating Lan Xichen, and he’s apparently a jiangshi, having once been a cultivator before being changed. “He said you spend most of your time in Qinghe and Gusu. What are you doing here?”

“Huaisang has mentioned you before.” Nie Mingjue leans in, towering over the huli jing. “So you know about my condition?”

Wei Wuxian nods, glancing around to see if there’s anyone else listening in other than Lan Zhan.

“Psh! Don’t worry. Everyone here knows. It would be dangerous for them to not know,” the jiangshi reasons. “I get bored easily, so when I heard about this cave potentially housing a dangerous monster, well, I had to get involved. It’s been quiet though, and other than a yao coming through once in a while, there’s not much going on.”

“But don’t you need qi?”

“I do,” he says, moving around to open the trunk of the minivan and revealing an impressive kitchen setup. It’s small, but it’s got the essentials. It has a sink, electricity, a water kettle, and a propane stove. He starts the water kettle and pulls out a shiny golden packet of loose tea leaves. “I’m sure Huaisang told you the uncomplicated version of it, that I am a jiangshi.”

“You’re not?”

He pulls out a tea set and then strains the tea. "No. In fact, they are not sure what I am. The cultivation world knows that the Nie method of cultivating tends to lead to qi deviations, which leads to early deaths. Vast improvements in medicine and Gusu Lan musical techniques have significantly reduced these risks. What also helped is the reduction of monsters, ghosts, and such. Still, the doctors were all baffled when I fell into a qi deviation at only twenty-five. My core had collapsed inwards on itself like a black hole, and my body started absorbing spiritual energy at a frightening rate. Absorbed everything it could. Trees, plants, my own spiritual sword, Baxia." He offers a steaming cup of tea to Lan Zhan first and then to the huli jing.

Wei Wuxian knows very much how important a sword is to a cultivator. He says, "I'm sorry to hear that." He accepts the tea.

"Thank you." He holds his own cup of tea, the porcelain cups looking comically small in both Lan Zhan and Nie Mingjue's hands. "A-Huan rushed over immediately. We found he and Wangji are the only ones who can provide me enough spiritual energy to not be detrimental to their own cores. One of the Lan physicians describes my core as one of those hypothetical quasi-stars, where the star remains stable as long as the balance between its black hole core is balanced perfectly against the star materials surrounding the core. Or something like that.”

“So in essence, there needs to be enough qi pushing into the core so it doesn’t fully collapse on itself and probably kill everyone in the vicinity?” Wei Wuxian thinks, his mind tickling. It feels like there’s something else he remembers, something that bothers him about this whole thing, but he can’t quite remember what it is. So he presses further, perhaps rudely but in curiosity, “How did your condition come about?”

Thankfully, Nie Mingjue doesn’t seem too bothered by it. “A jiangshi is nothing like me, if you go past the superficial similarities. They have no idea what could have triggered this condition. Not a single Nie cultivator had seen or heard of this before. Our own records came up with nothing. At that time prior to my qi deviation, I had not gone nighthunting for at least a month. I trained regularly with Baxia, but there were no incidents that I could recall. One of the theories a Nie physician came up with was that the life I’ve lived before this one was so severely traumatizing and cursed to the point that reincarnation couldn’t erase everything.”

The huli jing stares at him. “But what about Meng Yao?”

“Meng Yao?” The bulky man finishes his cup. He raises a brow at the huli jing. “At that time, I hadn't met Meng Yao. A-Huan and I met him about,” he pauses, “seven years after I became like this. Anyway, if you have eaten lunch already, we can open the cave entrance for you.”

“Mn,” Lan Zhan agrees. “Go change, Wei Ying.”

So it’s decided. They’re going down the cave system today.

It’s while watching the stationed Lan cultivator unlock the grate entrance that Wei Wuxian realizes the thing that has been bothering him. Nie Huaisang, when the huli jing first arrived at the hotel, told him that Meng Yao and, to a lesser extent, Lan Xichen was responsible for his brother’s death. What Nie Mingjue told him just moments ago completely contradicted what Nie Huaisang told him. Which doesn’t make any sense. Nie Huaisang, of all people, should know exactly how his brother’s qi deviation caused his core to collapse on himself and become like a jiangshi.

Wei Wuxian does believe that Nie Mingjue is telling the truth. He’s just not sure if Nie Huaisang is. But he can’t ponder all of this out at the moment. After double-checking all of his equipment and climbing gear and his shoelaces, he follows Lan Zhan, who runs the safety line, into the darkness along with Nie Mingjue and three other Lan cultivators, who are not dressed in their hanfu but rather white wetsuits and hiking boots. The entrance behind them closes.

“You and Wangji will be leading. I’ve been told you’ve been here before,” Nie Mingjue says to the huli jing, now finally dressed in proper equipment and a green-black wetsuit. He has a helmet secured to his head, and he’s the first of them all to switch the helmet light on.

“Ok,” Wei Wuxian agrees, his pulse quickening. He reaches to his own helmet to turn on the light. The brown rock formation is the first thing to greet them, and to be honest, he’s not sure how good his mother’s memories will serve them today. Every single inch of space looks the same to his untrained eye. “There will be a sharp slope down coming up with a little bit of dripping water.”

“Should be fine,” one of the Lan cultivators calls out. It’s from the only female cultivator joining them today. Wei Wuxian remembers that her face is round and that she offered one of the other cultivators fresh strawberries before entering the cave. “It hasn’t rained since February, so it should be drier. We shouldn’t see a lot of water.”

“Your name?” Wei Wuxian replies.

“Lan Lian,” she says, her voice quiet but still audible. “Before I joined the Lan Sect, I was very fond of caving and was even cave diving certified. My cultivation isn’t as good as the others, but Nie Mingjue said my experience with caving would be invaluable.”

“Cave diving. As in underwater?”

“Yes,” she confirms.

After watching countless videos on cave diving incidents, Wei Wuxian would like to say that people who would go cave diving, where they explore caves underwater, should be certified insane. Instead of voicing this thought, he says, “That’s impressive.”

Then they come upon the slope, two hours into the cave. As expected, there’s barely any water dripping down the edge. Lan Lian securely attaches the climbing rope to a rock, and then Lan Zhan is the first to descend down. Wei Wuxian, feeling his muscles stretched, follows him down, his feet bracing and scraping against the slope and his light pointing downwards as he approaches the flattening bottom.

Lan Lian, who is at the group’s rear to take measurements using her specialized equipment, informs, “That slope was fifty-feet down. Most narrow point in the passage was about two and a half feet. At certain points in the descent, it’s nearly a straight drop.”

“How accurate will your maps be?”

“Better than the one the locals provided,” she says. “But not as good as what a survey team would do.”

Wei Wuxian turns around and looks at the cavern. The headlamp shines bright enough that the huli jing can see large rocks in places that weren’t there before. He looks further out and spots it. The split in the passageway, where it goes left and right. Over twenty-four years ago, his parents took him through the left passageway.

“Check oxygen levels,” Nie Mingjue orders.

“Adequate,” the male Lan cultivator says, checking a small device in his pocket. “If we stay here for a break, we should use an oxygen tank or it’ll become too dangerous for us.”

Lan Lian adds, “We have far more people here, and the six of us will use up oxygen very quickly.”

“Alright,” Nie Mingjue agrees. “This is probably the most comfortable cavern we’ll find before we descend any further. We should rest for fifteen minutes.”

So Wei Wuxian sits down and leans against Lan Zhan’s shoulder. His face is pressed against Lan Zhan’s blue-white wetsuit, and he nibbles half-heartedly at his handful of nuts and chugs water while watching Lan Lian, who has set up a high-powered LED light that lights up the cavern so bright that everyone turned off their headlamp. Lan Lian has taken a two minute break before surveying the cavern and measuring its heights, lengths, and widths using her laser rangefinder. She frequently refers back to her compass and notebook even though she has also brought along a 3D mapping device that looks like the world’s fanciest and most expensive camera.

After trying to get her to break a bit longer, Nie Mingjue sighs and shrugs. “Before she joined the Lan Sect, they had none of those fancy laser scanners and a lot of unexplored cave systems around Gusu. Today, they have at least ten of the most expensive cave surveying equipment as well as hundreds of cave maps and twenty-eight cave entrances within walking vicinity of the Cloud Recesses. There are rumors that a long time ago, the Gusu Lan Sect had stored a lot of their spiritual weapons in those caves in case of an invasion. She’s been trying to find them for years, but only found a couple of well-preserved books here and there. The disciple holding the compass for her is Lan Liqin. He’s been down in those caves with her, every step of the way.” It’s the same cultivator who holds the oxygen and air quality meter.

“What about him?” Wei Wuxian whispers to the third cultivator, who hasn’t spoken much unless necessary.

“Lan Huizhong,” Nie Mingjue tells him. “He’s currently the Head Disciple and the strongest, most promising cultivator of the next generation.”

“Oh.” Then Wei Wuxian listens as Nie Mingjue barks at everyone to pack up and leave behind a little bit of supplies such as the spare first aid kit and sleeping bag in case of an emergency. He turns to face Lan Zhan, and though there are so many things he wants to say, he tells him, “I’m glad you are here.”

“Mn.”

Then they are on the move again.

It’s quieter now, and only Lan Lian speaks, but even she talks quieter than before. There are a couple of passages that seem to go off in various directions here and there, but Wei Wuxian discovers that they must double back, for it abruptly ends. He knows there’s a point where they must go through a tight squeeze, but there are so many false passages and sections that it could take decades for them to fully explore all of it. They have a safety line, yes, but who knows if Wei Wuxian will be able to find the passageway to the monster waiting for them. Cave systems can take over decades to fully explore. And every rock formation looks just like the ones in his mother’s memories.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says, pausing and grabbing the huli jing’s elbow. “Breathe, Wei Ying.”

He inhales and exhales, remembering one of the worst things a cave explorer can do is to panic. It’s how so many explorers die in places like these. He catches Lan Zhan’s familiar scent of sandalwood, but there’s something else in the air. Something that smells like Xiao Xingchen, something that smells like the seductive, warm essence of a huli jing.

Wei Wuxian perks his head up. He has spent so long as a human and lived so long thinking that he’s only a human that he’s quite forgotten that he is actually a huli jing.

So why wouldn’t he pick up the very faint spiritual energy of a huli jing, which can only be his mother. Everyone leaves traces behind when they walk their path.

Maybe he’s crazy and he’s falling into a trap, but all the walls look the same, and they haven’t been able to find that tight squeeze that lies just a little bit before the monster’s den. So he finds the faint trail that leads them further into the earth. “I think it’s down that way.”

A half hour of following his mother’s trail leads him to that familiar tight squeeze.

“Lan Lian,” Nie Mingjue says, wincing at that tight space. “What’s the dimensions of this?”

Lan Lian pushes past them in the small passageway, nearly scraping dirt off the wall. She measures with her laser scanner first and then with another device. “It’s big enough that we all can go through, but it’s best if we put our backpacks and other bulky equipment in a Qiankun bag.”

“Do you know how long that squeeze goes?”

“Let me see,” Lan Lian says, getting out her 3D laser scanner. She utilizes the touchscreen and says, “At least four feet and then it twists a hard right.”

“Qiankun bag it is.” Nie Mingjue pulls out a grey bag, and everyone else begins shoving in their backpacks and equipment into the bags. “We’ll have to sort it out when we get through.”

There are only three bags between the six of them. Lan Lian and Lan Liqin share a bag while Wei Wuxian quickly puts his items into Lan Zhan’s. Once everything has been stowed away, Lan Lian, as the most experienced caver and the smallest of them all, goes through the squeeze, bringing along the safety line. She describes the passageway as a corkscrew, where it twists and turns down and then up. The tightest point is barely less than around a foot and a half across and that goes on for at least five feet of crawling on one’s stomach.

At least Wei Wuxian has the safety of turning into a fox if he can’t make it through the squeeze. He honestly can’t say if Nie Mingjue or Lan Zhan will be able to make it through. So while Lan Lian waits on the other side, Lan Zhan follows the safety line and disappears around the corner. It’s a whole fifteen minutes before he informs the group that he has made it through.

Nie Mingjue goes through next with Wei Wuxian following closely behind. Lan Huizhong is right behind him, and last of all is Lan Liqin. Once everyone has made it through into a small cavern that's hardly bigger than the rundown bedroom of Wei Wuxian’s old apartment, they sort out their backpacks and equipment.

Then Wei Wuxian and Lan Zhan take the lead and the group quietly descend deeper into the earth. Wei Wuxian follows his mother’s trail of spiritual energy and slowly comes to realize that his parents never ran a physical safety line of a long, long rope through the cave system. The trail of spiritual energy is, in fact, their safety line. It's why Wei Wuxian can follow the path he's taken over two decades ago.

Then they run into a huge pile of rocks blocking their path. It’s clearly not part of the old rock formations, where rocks and ground have been pressed on so tightly by gravity that they form a layer. No, these are loose bits of rock of all different sizes with the largest bunch being bigger than a tire wheel. It’s the other side of the exit his parents couldn’t take nor had the time to clear.

“We’re here,” Wei Wuxian says quietly.

“Qiankun bag,” Nie Mingjue says, an answer of its own. He retrieves his own bag and begins removing items from the bag, which includes spare sleeping bags and extra packets of food and water. “We’ll work in shifts. Lan Huizhong and I will begin clearing for twenty minutes. Then Wangji and Wei Wuxian should take over. We need to get the oxygen tanks out.”

With that matter settled, Lan Huizhong and Nie Mingjue get to work while Lan Zhan dutifully holds the Qiankun bag open for them. Wei Wuxian watches them work, and it’s almost comical to see the larger rocks pop into the tiny bag as if they’re an illusion. Twenty minutes of shifting and removing rock seems to hardly make a dent in cave-in.

Wei Wuxian realizes his parents truly had no chance of completely removing the rocks in time and escaping. When he and Lan Zhan are up and huffing and slowly removing the rocks and debris while Lan Lian holds the Qiankun bag open for them, he adamantly watches the top of the rocks to see if he can spot the large cavern it opens to. Some of the rocks shift and clamber down, and he cringes, wondering if it’s too loud.

But they have to keep removing the rocks.

The timer vibrates at twenty minutes. Then Lan Lian and Lan Liqin are working together to clear the debris. Even though they aren’t as strong as the previous pairings before them, they’re far more efficient and better at removing the rocks without creating significant noise. It’s like they’re playing an ugly game of Jenga that they have played before.

Once the twenty minutes are up, the rotation restarts again. Refreshed from their long break, Lan Huizhong and Nie Mingjue are up again to the task. Then the huli jing and Lan Zhan are back to removing the rocks and delivering them into the Qiankun bag, which impressively have not changed its shape, size, or weight. It’s while Lan Lian and Lan Liqin are removing the rocks that they notice a small gap has finally opened large enough for Lan Liqin to stick a thermal camera and point it into the cavern.

“There’s nothing giving off significant heat,” Lan Liqin concludes, frowning. He takes the 3D mapper from Lan Lian and moves it around. He pulls it away from the gap, and he and Lan Lian use the touchscreen to look through the 3D imaging over the cavern ahead.

The farthest point is a little less than eight hundred feet while the height of the room is over a hundred and twenty feet. The exact shape and figure of the cavern is impossible to tell for sure until they go in and the two Lan cultivators get on their swords to map out the space with the laser scanner.

But there are several points of interest. First, there is a body of moving water about thirty-seven feet away. And there's a strange mound like an upside-down turtle's shell about a hundred feet in.

"I don't sense any resentful energy coming from there," Nie Mingjue announces with a frown.

Lan Zhan moves one of the larger rocks blocking their view to get the hole big enough for a desktop monitor to go through, and from his Qiankun bag comes a beautiful glowing silver sword. Wei Wuxian, who has only seen Song Lan’s sword, can tell that it's a remarkable and heavier blade. It seemingly emits its own light, and it looks icy and rigid.

All the Lan cultivators stare in awe at that sword. Lan Liqin lets out a gasp. The huli jing can't help but watch as Lan Zhan unflinchingly sends the sword straight into the abyss, its light casting away the shadows. It goes straight towards where the tortoise is supposed to be, and when Bichen cuts through the hard shell with a flash of blue light, sounds of a hard screech, like metal upon metal, burst through the silence. There's just enough light given off by Bichen to see the shell part slightly.

No answering roar is declared. There are no sounds that remind Wei Wuxian of his haunted dreams.

Bichen comes flying back and returns to Lan Zhan’s hand without faltering.

"It's dead," Lan Zhan announces.

Wei Wuxian’s heart stills. He doesn’t know what to feel when hearing that the Xuanwu is dead. He leans against the wall in shock as Lan Zhan comes over to him with his sword and quietly stands next to him, holding a secure arm around the huli jing’s shoulder. Because if the monster is dead, then why haven’t his parents…

Other than Wei Wuxian and Lan Zhan, the group begins to speak a bit louder, no longer worried about the monster in the den. Lan Huizhong keeps moving the rocks into the Qiankun bag while Nie Mingjue has pushed some of the smaller rocks out into the cavern. Then the passageway is clear enough for Lan Lian and Lan Liqin to take out several LED construction lamps to send the entire cavern aglow. Then they get on their swords to start 3D mapping the entire cavern.

Wei Wuxian doesn’t look at first. But then he peeks around Lan Zhan’s massive shoulders to find the Xuanwu lying upside down, long mummified with the shell at its belly evenly split open by Bichen. “Help me in,” he requests, his voice cracking in the midst of his sentence.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan simply says. But at the look on Wei Wuxian’s face, the cultivator gives in. Lan Zhan walks besides the huli jing, and the first thing on their right is a familiar sword drilled halfway into the ground.

Wei Changze’s sword, still glowing and emitting spiritual energy and chasing dust away. Behind it is a rectangular pile of rocks. Like a grave.

The huli jing tightens his grip on Lan Zhan’s wetsuit, practically clawing into the synthetic material. His feet move mindlessly, and the world enters into a vague fuzzy sight. All he can see is the sword marking the grave of his father, and he shuts his eyes, unable to stop the first, the second, the third tears from spilling out. He nearly falls to the ground, but Lan Zhan holds him up, his hold steady.

What Xiao Xingchen said many years ago was true and is found to be the truth today. Nothing but death would have separated Wei Wuxian from them.

Lan Zhan, from seemingly nowhere, offers a white-blue handkerchief.

He cries for a long time, his chest heaving as he breathes in the stale cave air. None of the Lan cultivators nor Nie Mingjue go too close to them, and for that, the huli jing is thankful. All he needs is the steady presence of Lan Zhan at his side. “If Baba is here,” he says, his exhale shaky, “then where is Mama?” His voice is quiet, small, childish, as if he’s still the same age as the horrible day he escaped from this cavern.

Nie Mingjue, who has been observing the dried-out husk of the tortoise shell, moves closer. Having heard the question from a small distance away, he pauses, spotting the cultivator’s sword piercing the ground, “There are endless amounts of unmarked graves as you go deeper in. Dozens of mass graves. Someone has laid them all to rest.” In the distance, the three Lan cultivators are still mapping the terrain.

Wei Wuxian knows in his memories that the bodies weren’t originally in graves. No, they were underwater and broken and scattered all around the cavern, lingering in resentment until his mother called upon them. With a light stomach, he glances around and looks for any signs of his mother.

But she is nowhere to be found.

“Where is she?” he whispers. He sees the dusty red backpack Shi Qi was last seen with in the distance, and with the help of Lan Zhan, he slowly approaches the backpack, which rests before a rectangular pile of rocks. Shi Qi’s grave. The boy has also been put to rest, and there’s no question as to who it could be under that pile of broken rocks. His mother has left no doubt.

Lan Zhan, with a single hand, slips his sword back into the Qiankun bag hanging from his belt. He holds out a hand to the open Qiankun bag, and Wangji, a beautiful polished wooden guqin that sings to Wei Wuxian every night, emerges from the bag. He adjusts Wei Wuxian, so Lan Zhan’s front is to the huli jing’s back and Lan Zhan’s body completely envelops the fox. He plays a few notes and then pauses, his hand withdrawing.

A few strings play in response.

Wei Wuxian glances up at Lan Zhan’s contemplating face. “Who is it? What do they say?”

Lan Zhan continues playing, plucking the strings. And again, a response comes, ringing in the air for a long moment. “She says that Wei Ying should touch his father’s sword. That’s all that remains of her. She wants to talk to you one more time before she goes. She always thought that Wei Ying, when he became strong enough, would return to find the truth.”

“Goes?”

“Return to the reincarnation cycle,” Lan Zhan clarifies.

The two of them turn around to face the still-glowing sword. “Lan Zhan, will you go with me?”

“I’ll go with you.”

There are a hundred different decisions his parents could have made that fateful day so many years ago. Yes, they are unaware of the fray they were about to undertake, but they could have done so many different things so that Wei Wuxian could have grown up with his parents. Instead of without. But Wei Wuxian isn’t one to let resentment settle its seeds inside him. When he was a teenager, he has long forgiven his parents from seemingly abandoning him to the street, and while gaining his mother’s memories has cut open all the old scars and created new wounds, he still finds it in himself to hold nothing against his mother and father.

One second, Lan Zhan and Wei Wuxian are holding the hilt of the sword. The next second, they are overlooking a small cliff while standing at safety’s edge. Snowy peaks of mountains can be seen across the landscape, and an endless line of green trees dot the mountain’s feet.

“Near the boundaries of my master’s mountain,” a woman says from behind. “I last saw this view when I was already over three centuries old. Two years before I met your baba. Old and powerful yet inexperienced and naive. My home for the first three centuries of my life was not a place of hardship. It was no place to sharpen a sword that needed sharpening. Trees in a vacuum do not grow strong without the wind and cold carving out their strength.”

The huli jing turns around. Somehow his mother’s face looks familiar yet unfamiliar. Yes, those are his lips he inherited from her. And those are the same shape of his eyes, though the pupils are clearly given to him by his father. She’s dressed in a white hanfu, the wind gently blowing her hair. Her four tails, all pure snow white, fan out behind her. She’s barely shorter than Wei Wuxian.

“Baobei,” she whispers, smiling. Her little white fox ears flicks upwards. Her four tails wave in excitement. “You’ve grown so strong.” A pause. “I’m sorry.”

Wei Wuxian rushes to her, clutching hands. “There’s no need for sorry, Mama. You don’t need to do anything. You’ve waited here long enough for me. I’m sorry for being so slow. I’m sorry for making you wait.”

“What a filial son!” She laughs, her cackling wonderfully obnoxious and so familiar that it tugs at the huli jing’s heartstrings. He has heard it before, he knows this truth in his heart. “A-Ying, how dare you turn around and try to apologize to me!” She laughs for a long time, the only sound ringing between them. Then she turns her bright eyes to Lan Zhan and raises an eyebrow. “So this is your young man.”

In his familiar white hanfu with cloud motifs, Lan Zhan steps forward and to the huli jing’s astonishment, bends his knees down, almost as if he’s going to kowtow to Wei Wuxian’s mother. Like one of those kowtows Wei Wuxian frequently sees in those popular Ancient China and cultivation television dramas. But his mother, her eyes wide, is quicker and grabs Lan Zhan’s wrists while throwing herself to the dirt ground.

“There’s no need for such traditions!” she shouts in surprise.

Wei Wuxian freezes in shock, unsure of what to do. Though Lan Zhan has always dressed traditionally and has acted like an upright gentleman from the ancient times, he has never seen Lan Zhan actually carrying out the old traditions and old salutes.

Still looking downwards in respect, the cultivator says, “This one’s name is Lan Zhan, courtesy Lan Wangji.”

“Aiya! Don’t be like this, Wangji,” she panics. “All I need from you is your promise that you’ll always be there for A-Ying.”

“Mn.”

“Even if they don’t cultivate to a ninth tail, huli jings live long lives, so it will be for a long, long time, Wangji,” Cangse Sanren warns.

“Always will be there,” he promises.

And all the air escapes from Wei Wuxian’s chest, as if he’s been punched by a giant fist right in the heart. “Lan Zhan,” he wheezes, but there’s nothing else he can say. The declaration, the promise made by Lan Zhan is crazy. He eats all of Lan Zhan’s cooking, and he is spoiled rotten in his fox form by the cultivator. He talks nonstop to Lan Zhan every day, saying nothing but nonsense while the other man always listens, and then gets railed to sleep by Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan, Lan Wangji, Hanguang-Jun, all names for the man he loves. He doesn’t deserve him, and he doesn’t know why Lan Zhan thinks Wei Wuxian is the one for him.

The huli jing seems satisfied with his words. With a smile, she tells him to get up and then turns back around to fully face Wei Wuxian. Her arms wrap around Wei Wuxian’s shoulder into a tight hug, and she smells faintly of sugar and aloeswood. In his ear, she whispers, “May we meet again in another life, A-Ying.”

Then she begins to fade away into nothing.

When Wei Wuxian blinks again, he’s back in the cavern, still holding the hilt with Lan Zhan. Except this time, the sword has stopped glowing. It now looks lifeless, inert.

So Wei Wuxian finds the answer he’s been looking for years.

At least he knows now that his parents are at peace.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian pauses, shutting his eyes completely. “Get me out of here.”

So Lan Zhan tells Nie Mingjue in short, quick words that he will be returning to the surface with the huli jing. His tone leaves no room for questions. Nie Mingjue nods in agreement, waving them off. So it’s been decided. Lan Zhan leads Wei Wuxian back to the surface as they follow the safety line.

Out of sight from the group, Wei Wuxian shifts into a fox and he feels himself be scooped up by Lan Zhan instantly. He gives a little yip of confusion.

“Your paws are going to get dirty,” he states with disapproval, but Wei Wuxian doesn’t make any complaints or protest about being carried. So Lan Zhan brings the curled-up huli jing in one arm and quietly, continuously walks for hours and easily makes it through the squeezes despite using only one arm and two legs to crawl through. It seems like no time at all when he knocks thrice on the closed metal entrance.

“One moment,” a voice calls out from the other side.

Wei Wuxian paws at Lan Zhan’s chest and is promptly let down to the ground. He transforms back into a human just in time for the locked door to be opened.

“Hanguang-Jun! Wei-qianbei,” the Lan cultivators greet, saluting. Behind them, the sky is dark and the sun has long gone down. They both appear as if they want to say something more, as if they want to ask questions, but they evidently decide against it.

Lan Zhan and the huli jing make their way back to the camp. Lan Zhan, having not locked Jin Zixuan’s car, guides Wei Wuxian to sit and rest in the navigator’s seat. The clock in the radio panel reads 3:38am, which makes Wei Wuxian realize that they’ve been down there for hours.

Craning his head, he asks, “Will they be okay down there?”

Lan Zhan doesn’t pause his search through the backseat. “They are prepared to spend a night down in the caves.” Lan Zhan shuts the icebox and hands the huli jing a chilled cucumber sandwich alongside a metal water bottle. Then he closes the car door and climbs into the driver’s seat, starting up the car. He reaches over to buckle the huli jing in, his golden eyes soft as he gently squeezes Wei Wuxian’s hand. “Eat and then rest, Wei Ying.”

The huli jing manages to down half the bottle, but he only gobbles down half of the sandwich before poofing into a fox and snoring underneath the seat belt.

Wei Wuxian wakes up in a hotel bed with heavy curtains pulled over every window. He’s comfortable and warm, and Lan Zhan must have gotten him out of the wetsuit sometime at night. He can hear soft voices speaking from the living room, so being too lazy to change out of his pajamas, he shifts into a fox and then hops down from the bed. Then he tiptoes to the door and gets down onto his stomach to peek through the gap underneath the closed door.

He sees a smiling copy of Lan Zhan drinking tea with the actual Lan Zhan sitting directly opposite of the coffee table, occasionally humming in agreement or acknowledgement. He quickly pushes himself up and trots over to the unzipped but closed suitcase placed on the luggage rack. Changing back into a human, he finds a casual black t-shirt and a pair of jeans and changes out of his pajamas. He pulls out a red ribbon and ties his hair up into a ponytail.

At the sound of the door opening, both men turn towards Wei Wuxian. Lan Xichen rises in greeting. “Wei-gonzi,” he says. “I hope you slept well.”

The huli jing confirms he did.

“Good. There are some things we need to discuss.” Lan Xichen’s smile fades.

“Xiongzhang,” Lan Zhan protests.

Lan Xichen shakes his head and continues on, “Unfortunately, there are decisions that must be made quickly.”

“What is it?”

“Nie Mingjue, when he came out of the cave system, elected to inform Shi Qi’s family of what happened to the boy this morning. Unfortunately, one of Shi Qi’s distant family members was present at the time and had a tell-all interview with the press at eleven this morning. It has hit national news, and reporters as well as members of the public have arrived. We have increased our numbers to patrol the area as well as assigning teams for crowd control, but I’m afraid it’s going to get worse. An hour ago, the patrol caught a group of five cave explorers trying to enter the cave system.”

The huli jing swallows. “So what decision should be made?”

“The bodies of your parents. Your father’s sword. Do you want to exhume them?” Lan Xichen asks. “Once the archeology teams that are currently down there sequence DNA from the remains, we will set explosives and demolish the entire cave system.”

Wei Wuxian is silent. He hasn’t thought about that. Logically, he knows that their souls are long gone. His mother said her goodbyes yesterday, and his mother put his father and thousands of souls to rest decades ago. “Let me make a phone call,” he says instead.

So he calls his jiujiu, who thankfully picks up right away. “Jiujiu, I need your help,” he says.

“What is it?”

So he explains the whole situation. His uncle already knows part of the story, but he hasn’t heard about his mother’s pyrrhic victory against the Xuanwu. He tells of his mother’s last message, and after relaying Lan Xichen’s question, he asks, “What do I do now? What’s the proper burial rites for a huli jing?”

“Bodies of huli jings, if they did not die violently or were murdered, would simply fade,” Xiao Xingchen explains. “What your mother did was mostly fade, but a part of her conscience, her energy, remained in your father’s sword until you released her. She was an echo. There’s nothing of her left now.” He pauses. “If a huli jing didn’t fade, the traditional answer would be to burn whatever is left.”

Wei Wuxian immediately understands. Tails of dead huli jings should be burned. “What about the burial rites for a cultivator?”

“Burial,” he answers. “Underground alongside their sword. Nowadays, it doesn’t really happen, because thieves like to loot graves and steal valuable objects such as a cultivator’s sword to sell on the black market. These days, most cultivators are cremated.”

The huli jing listens in silence. Though Wei Wuxian has a place to live at the hotel, it’s not truly a home. And though he would like to bury his parents at Baoshan Sanren’s mountain, there’s nothing left of his mother to bury. His father most likely have never been there either, and it would be impractical for him to carry his father’s remains until he finds her mountain and ask if he could bury his father there. So he thanks his jiujiu for taking the call and reenters the living room, where Lan Xichen and Lan Zhan sit.

“My mother has put my father to rest alongside the thousands of souls who were swimming in resentment before she died,” he slowly reasons, at first, as if unsure. Then faster, the words come out. “That place is the last battlefield they’ve ever fought in, and it is also the resting place of all the people they’ve helped. My parents made a vow to always eliminate evil and protect the weak. That place, now free of the monster and resentment, is their victory, their monument. There is no better place for their bodies to be laid to rest.”

Lan Xichen nods. Then he turns to Lan Zhan and says, “We can use your help on the circ*mstances of the array. I didn’t mention it before, but Lan Lian found an entire library of well-preserved books in the cave near the Cold Spring.”

“Mn,” Lan Zhan murmurs.

The Lan Sect Leader stands up from the couch. Then he pauses at Wei Wuxian. “Do you want to return to the cave system?”

“No,” Wei Wuxian answers, more confidently this time. “They’re not there anymore.” He glances out towards the balcony, remembering his mother’s final words to him.

May we meet again in another life.

May fate and karma be kind so they will all meet again in better circ*mstances.

Though Wei Wuxian would like to meditate and maybe go out and walk around to clear his thoughts, he can’t avoid the insane number of reporters who seem to have gathered around the area to get the scoop regarding the cave. Coming back sweaty from a quick jog on the streets, he catches the massive televisions in the hotel lobby broadcasting Shi Qi’s uncle blabbing all about the visit by the Lan cultivators to Shi Qi’s parents.

Wei Wuxian stops and stares. The television is on mute, but the subtitles are more than enough. The uncle talks about the Lan cultivators going down a cave system near Mountain Muxi to reexamine Shi Qi’s cold case and the disappearance of two cultivators, who defeated the monster in the cavern at the great cost of their own lives. The uncle adds, upon further questioning from the reporter, that one of the cultivators were still alive, but couldn’t escape the cave-in of rocks blocking the exit. Instead, the cultivator put all the dead at peace to allow them to reenter the reincarnation cycle. The Lan cultivators presented Shi Qi’s red backpack, finally found after all these years.

The huli jing turns away when the television switches to the anchorwoman, who reads an announcement that the cave system will be entirely demolished in a week. In smaller text, the channel reports Shi Qi’s family have decided to leave their son to rest, electing not to exhume the boy.

Lan Zhan finds him drinking tea in the hotel cafe. The cultivator holds a bento box in his hand and places it in front of Wei Wuxian. “Lunch,” he simply says.

It’s still warm, and the huli jing drools at the sight of peppery sausage chopped over rice. “Lan Zhan!” he cheers gleefully. “For me?”

“Mn.” Lan Zhan sits on the other side of the round table. “Wei Ying needs to eat.”

“Have you eaten?”

“Wei Ying, eat,” he insists.

The huli jing takes that as a no. Although Lan Zhan is a skilled cultivator who can practice inedia for an insurmountable amount of time, he puts his chopstick to the white rice not touched by chili oil. Then he grabs some rice and puts it in front of Lan Zhan’s mouth. He’s only satisfied when Lan Zhan accepts it. “Aiya, Lan Zhan! You put spices on nearly everything!” There’s hardly anything in the bento box he can give to Lan Zhan.

“We’ll eat dinner soon,” he soothes.

Between bites, he stares at Lan Zhan, remembering exactly what happened down in the caves, remembering exactly what happened when Lan Zhan met the huli jing’s mother for the first and last time, remembering exactly what he had promised to Cangse Sanren.

“All I need from you is your promise that you’ll always be there for A-Ying,” she had said to Lan Zhan.

And his promise: “Always will be there.”

The crazy part about all of this is that Wei Wuxian is starting to believe it.

Wei Wuxian doesn’t return to the caves, but they do leave when Lan disciples have finished running a line of demolition charges all throughout the cave system and set it off, sending a great big cloud of brown dust flying over the region for several minutes before it settled once again. Archeology teams, who have hurriedly taken DNA samples from the cave, have been spending most of their time above ground closing decades-old cold cases of missing hikers, tourists, and locals.

As Lan Zhan drives back to Lanling, Wei Wuxian suddenly remembers that array that has left Lan Xichen in discomposure. “Hey, your brother.”

“Mn.”

“Are they still studying the array?”

“Mn,” he confirms.

“What was forgotten?”

“The rise and true demise of the Wen Sect, the Sunshot Campaign, and the Yiling Patriarch,” Lan Zhan answers neutrally, his eyes hard-pressed to traffic.

“All of it has to be really bad if someone or some people tried to hide it. You know, Huaisang found a book about you from the Nie Sect’s library. Well, not actually about you, but about Hanguang-Jun. Because you and the myth of Hanguang-Jun are not the same person, and…” Wei Wuxian’s mouth tries to blabber on, but then he stops, flustered. “Anyway! The pages that were ripped out were all about the final battle between Hanguang-Jun and the Yiling Patriarch. They only ever fought that one time.”

“It was not a battle.”

Wei Wuxian snaps his head back to Lan Zhan. He has somehow completely forgotten that Lan Zhan was there, and of course, there is no better source than a primary source. “Oh, but these were the stories taught to all the children in Yiling. They remember the stories well because of how close the Burial Mounds are. In his time, the Yiling Patriarch sometimes comes down from the Burial Mounds to play with children on the streets and teach them games.”

“Mn.”

The huli jing dives into the myths they use to tell at the orphanage. About the Yiling Patriarch’s childhood on the streets, about his founding of demonic cultivation, about how peaceful the Burial Mounds were when he was the master of the old cursed battlefield, about the Yin Tiger Tally he had protected and hidden until a siege made by the sects forced his hand and made him use the weapon, about the fight between the Yiling Patriarch and Hanguang-Jun, about the Yiling Patriarch’s sacrifice to destroy the weapon before it can harm anyone else, about Hanguang-Jun, who was so moved by the sacrifice that he stayed and protected and cleansed the Burial Mounds for many years after. “Some of those grandmas in Yiling would say that Hanguang-Jun still protects the Burial Mounds today.”

Lan Zhan listens closely, patiently.

“You know, a lot of Yiling kids know how to play the dizi because of the Yiling Patriarch.” A pause as Wei Wuxian tilts his head. “So. Is it accurate?”

Lan Zhan says, “The Yiling Patriarch did grow up on the streets for the early years of his life. But he was found in Yiling by the Jiang Sect Leader and raised alongside the Jiang Sect Leader’s children. He was trained as a cultivator.”

“Not a demonic cultivator?”

“As an orthodox cultivator.” Lan Zhan pauses and then adds, “The terminology and use of the word demonic is incorrect. It is actually a ghostly path. Not traditional, but that did not stop the cultivation sects after the Yiling Patriarch’s defeat from using the Yiling Patriarch’s tools and inventions.”

“So why did someone try their hardest to erase history and the truth about the Yiling Patriarch?” Wei Wuxian asks in confusion. “They definitely ransacked the Nie Sect library to remove any traces of him. Is he that much reviled and hated by the cultivation world? Wait. If he was an orthodox cultivator, then why did he turn towards the ghostly path?”

Lan Zhan’s knuckles turn white on the steering wheel. “I don’t know.”

When they return to the hotel and after Wei Wuxian settles back into Lan Zhan’s suite, Lan Zhan presents him with two polished wooden tablets with his parents’ name etched upon it. He wants to cry at the tablets, at Lan Zhan’s thoughtfulness, but he holds his tears back, hugs Lan Zhan out of sheer gratefulness, and then places them on a small wooden table Lan Zhan has specifically brought up. He holds an incense stick and places them in the holder in front of the two tablets, feeling the nerves in his heart settle down.

Wei Wuxian spends a lot of time thinking about what Nie Huaisang said versus what Nie Mingjue said. The discrepancy doesn’t make any sense, and it’s clear to him that one of them is lying. So Wei Wuxian, having no other way of discovering the truth, decides to visit Nie Huaisang’s suite to confront him face-on.

“Let’s play a game,” Nie Huaisang offers, gesturing to the sofa.

“No games, Huaisang,” the huli jing tells him. But he sits down onto the sofa and waits until Nie Huaisang sits on the armchair. “I met your brother, Nie Mingjue, in Muxi Park.”

“I haven’t seen him in a while,” he admits, his fan of a bird covering his mouth. “But I do hope he will come by and visit. How was he?”

“Looking good.” A pause and Wei Wuxian decides to rip the entire bandaid off. “Huaisang, how did he really become the way he is today?”

“I don’t…” He stops. It almost sounds as if he wants to cry out, I don’t know! But he thinks better of it. Nie Huaisang stands up and turns away, facing the open windows. His hands drop down as his fingers twist around the closed fan’s guards and rivet. “What I tell you now, my brother doesn’t even know.”

“Huaisang…” The huli jing doesn’t know what to say.

“But what I said was true. Meng Yao was my brother’s murderer, and Lan Xichen played a heavy hand in my brother’s death. Before they had their fallout, they were close. They were friends,” he softly says.

“Your brother said that he didn’t meet Meng Yao until several years after his qi deviation,” Wei Wuxian recalls aloud. “So how could Meng Yao be responsible for what happened to him?” He adds, with a little more confidence, “Plus it didn’t sound like your brother died when he qi deviated. His core collapsed.”

“Not in this life,” Nie Huaisang murmurs. “Not in this life. A previous life.” And just like, it seems like Nie Huaisang is different, less frivolous and a thousand times more angry and sad, too. “Back when the Nie Sect was still strong, little did we know it then, but my brother would have been the last strong Nie Sect Leader.”

“Isn’t your brother the current Nie Sect Leader today?”

“He was before he had his qi deviation,” the other man explains. “One of our distant cousins is running it now. The only strong cultivation sect left now are the Lans, but it doesn’t matter.” He waves his hand away at Wei Wuxian. “He was murdered by Meng Yao, who was known as Jin Guangyao in that life. Lan Xichen turned a blind eye towards the fallout between Jin Guangyao and my brother. In fact, he inadvertently helped Jin Guangyao poison my brother into a qi deviation. Afterwards, my brother’s body was stolen and then split up into pieces, scattered all over China. It took the rest of my life to find every piece and bury him whole. But he did not rest. I died knowing that all the arrays, the resources, the research I put in to lay my brother to rest was for naught.”

“So when he reentered the reincarnation cycle,” the huli jing reasons, “his soul was too traumatized by that life to the point it could not fully cleanse what happened to him. His core collapsed when his soul’s scars began to leak into his physical body.” Wei Wuxian isn’t even certain of what he is saying, but as soon as he mutters his words, his reasoning, he knows it’s completely right.

“So now you know.”

“But what doesn’t make sense is why you remember your past life,” Wei Wuxian points out, narrowing his eyes at the cultivator. “You should have remembered nothing of your past life. Reincarnation is supposed to give you a clean slate.”

Nie Huaisang offers a half-smile. “What can I say? I’m quite spiteful. I didn’t treat Meng Yao very well for years until he came up with a way to help my brother’s condition stabilize even further.” At the curious expression on the huli jing’s face, he elaborates, “Birds can partially digest their food and regurgitate their food to feed their mates and their young. Meng Yao is a yellow tripedal crow, who can eat a type of grass named Chunsheng to remain immortal. He can give the same properties when he regurgitates the grass to feed my brother.” At the disgusted look on Wei Wuxian’s face, he laughs, “You wondered.”

“But that still doesn’t explain why you remembered.”

“Like I said, I think it’s spite.” But then he turns more serious. “Two years after my brother died, the cultivation sect had to put down several wannabe demonic cultivators who were inspired by the Yiling Patriarch, who has been dead for several years already. Most of them fancied themselves as the upcoming greatest demonic cultivator who has ever lived. The vast majority were nuisances and used petty tricks for money. A competent dozen of them went around here and there, murdering people and taking people as they pleased. There were two young boys who stood out as demonic cultivators. One was Mo Xuanyu, who was fifteen years old and used his powers to slaughter his entire family. He killed many disciples from the Jin Sect before they finally took him down. The other one was Xue Yang, who was known for killing entire cultivation clans without mercy. A lot of blood was spilled before he was killed.”

And there’s something about this all that sounds familiar, making Wei Wuxian remember what Lan Xichen had said about the array they found in Gusu. A sinking feeling spreads through his stomach.

“For some reason, the entire world somehow forgot about the Sunshot Campaign, the fall of the Wen Clan, the Yiling Patriarch, and the lives and deaths of demonic cultivators like Xue Yang and Mo Xuanyu. I didn’t dare announce to anyone that I remember anything of what was supposed to be forgotten. Your guess is as good as mine as to why the world forgot. Because I don’t know, I really don’t know.”

If Wei Wuxian has too much curiosity, he would pick through every part of Nie Huaisang’s mind and his old memories to unravel the mystery of the array. But then again, Lan Xichen and the sect are studying the array, so it’s not really his problem anyway. He knows enough to be satisfied with his life, and he doesn’t need to look around places like Gusu or the Burial Mounds for any further complications in his life.

After dinner, Wei Wuxian scurries up on the rooftop of the siheyuan that houses the rabbits. He has an open jar of Emperor’s Smile perfectly balanced on a roof tile, and he has cracked through several peanuts, nearly finishing up the netted one-pound bag as he lazily lounges against the slope. The rabbits have been conditioned to his presence, and many of them are outside their burrows, occasionally playing and wrestling with one another. When he turns his head to the right, he sees Lan Zhan standing nearby, his white-blue robes, long hair, and white forehead ribbon flowing in the gentle evening breeze.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian greets cheerfully. “Peanuts?”

The older man shakes his head. “All for you,” he says with a slight smile on his lips. He moves closer, his footfalls quiet, until he stands right besides the huli jing.

“Lan Zhan,” he asks, shaking the jar of Emperor’s Smile at the cultivator with a sunny smile, “do you personally not drink alcohol or is it because of the rules?” He places the jar into his lap and plants his elbow on the roof tile and his face into his palm as he stares upwards at Lan Zhan. His tails lazily fan out behind him, enjoying the cool breeze.

The cultivator bends forward and steals the jar of Emperor’s Smile from the huli jing’s lap. Bringing the jar to his lips, he polishes off the last few gulps. Then he hands the jar back to the huli jing, who takes the jar back with shaking hands as he gapes at Lan Zhan in astonishment. Lan Zhan straightens up, standing in perfect posture.

“Lan Zhan, very good! You can hold your liquor,” Wei Wuxian praises.

Of course, just as soon as Wei Wuxian finishes his words, Lan Zhan’s head tilts forward and his eyes fall shut. There’s a faint snore emerging from the peerless cultivator.

“Lan Zhan,” the huli jing mutters in shock, quite in disbelief. He has to verbally announce his thoughts, because he can’t quite believe it. “You are, you are… Sleeping while standing up? After a few gulps of Emperor’s Smile? Aiya, no wonder why you don’t drink if you get like this.” He’s actually impressed that Lan Zhan can retain his balance while standing on the roof, passed out and drunk.

Wei Wuxian can probably help Lan Zhan back to his suite, but he immediately nixes the idea for how far away the hotel is. Plus, he might run into someone like Jiang Cheng and or worse, Nie Huaisang with his knowing smiles and delighted eyes, and he would rather not let them see Lan Zhan in this impaired condition. Lan Zhan will never live it down. Instead, he places the jar on the roof and wraps one of Lan Zhan’s heavy arms over his shoulder. He steps forward, and thankfully, Lan Zhan’s limbs seem movable, malleable, so he’s not a complete deadweight. Together, they hop down to the courtyard, where most of the rabbits have left and disappeared into their burrows. Guiding Lan Zhan to the cherry blossom tree growing on top of a small grassy hill, he manages to get Lan Zhan to sit down with his back supported by the trunk.

Lan Zhan continues to sleep, and Wei Wuxian’s heart skips a beat. He has no idea how long it takes for Lan Zhan to fully process the alcohol, so he scoots a little downhill a little and rests his head in Lan Zhan’s lap to wait it out. He clutches Lan Zhan’s warm large hand like a child clinging to a favorite plushie, the older man’s arm splaying over the huli jing’s torso.

Lan Zhan, a man of few but carefully selected words, has tried to give his fullest respects to Wei Wuxian’s mother and has promised to always be by Wei Wuxian’s side for practically forever. Wei Wuxian will do the same. It wouldn’t be hard at all.

A little time later, he opens his eyes again to find the sky a bit orange. The sun has clearly gone down a while ago, and when he turns his head to check on Lan Zhan, he finds the older man with his eyes open and staring at the huli jing’s face. “Lan Zhan,” he murmurs. “You’re awake now.” He then catches the sight of Lan Zhan’s forehead ribbon askew and laughs. “Hey, Lan Zhan. Your forehead ribbon is crooked. Maybe take it off?”

So Lan Zhan tugs it off with his other hand, freeing the long ribbon from his hair. He stares at the ribbon in contemplation for a long time, so long that Wei Wuxian’s wrists are already feeling a little chafed.

“Lan Zhan,” he stammers, a laugh nervously escaping his throat. “What are you doing?”

Chapter 5: V.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Lan Zhan is clearly still drunk. He looks back and forth, back and forth between the ribbon and the huli jing, and the man’s thoughts seem quite too transparent to Wei Wuxian, especially when the cultivator shifts just so lightly to send the huli jing bolting away and leaping onto the rooftop with tinkling laughter echoing in the space between them. Lan Zhan follows closely, a breath away from capturing the huli jing, his impeccable movements hardly impaired by the alcohol in his bloodstream.

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian laughs gleefully, hopping to the next rooftop before Lan Zhan can make a grab for him again. “If you want to tie me up again, you have to catch me first!”

They carefully stay on hotel property, but within the boundaries are so many houses and rooftops that the two of them keep playing even when the sky overhead is no longer orange but dark with stars and the moon glowing up above. Their game of chase evolves into a game of tag, where the huli jing finds himself chasing Lan Zhan, who still carries his forehead ribbon in his hand rather than wearing it. Wei Wuxian laughs as he gets tagged once again, and then he’s hopping and sprinting across rooftops to catch up to Lan Zhan.

He huffs as he makes a jump and manages to perfectly throw his arms around Lan Zhan’s shoulders. “Got you!” His legs easily wrap themselves around Lan Zhan’s waist. Lan Zhan doesn’t even flinch at the sudden weight of the huli jing pressing his body down.

But in a twist, Lan Zhan grabs Wei Wuxian’s wrists and begins to tie his white forehead ribbon around and around.

“Lan Zhan!” he wails, thoroughly captured by Lan Zhan. “Lan-er-gege, you have to tie me up again?”

“Caught Wei Ying,” he murmurs, finishing the knot. Satisfied and smug, he holds the loose ends of the forehead ribbon and spins the huli jing around.

Wei Wuxian twists before Lan Zhan, his arms tied together and wrapped around Lan Zhan’s neck and his waist gently held by one of Lan Zhan’s large hands. “You caught me,” he agrees, breathless as Lan Zhan’s face is mere inches away. He can feel Lan Zhan’s warmth and breath heating up the huli jing’s face. “What are you going to do now, Lan-er-gege?”

Lan Zhan shifts him into a princess carry, which isn’t quite what the huli jing expected. With the huli jing’s arms still securely tied around Lan Zhan and the cultivator holding the ends of the ribbon, Lan Zhan begins to move and leap towards the hotel.

“Lan Zhan, where are we going?”

Lan Zhan does not say a word.

“Uh, Lan Zhan. You don’t want the others to see us like this! You’ll never live this down!”

Not responding or deviating from his path, the cultivator hops to the communal balcony on the second floor where Wen Chao typically hangs out during the day. At night, however, many of the hotel residents are drinking tea and eating colorful sugary little rice snacks shaped like cute animals while gossiping about nothing and everything in general. Nie Huaisang almost always attends, and of course, to Wei Wuxian’s bad luck, practically everyone except for his jiujiu and Song Lan. Lan Zhan sets him down standing and unwraps Wei Wuxian’s arms from his neck. Lan Zhan, with the sturdy white ribbon pulling the huli jing like a leash, leads them past several flower plants in large porcelain jars.

Nursing a half-full glass of red wine, Jiang Yanli sits at one of the many round tables dotting the balcony. She notices them first and smiles at them. “Lan-er-gonzi, will you and Wei Wuxian join us?”

“Huh?” Jin Zixuan, never too far away from her, is the first to spot the lack of any forehead ribbon covering Lan Zhan’s head. Then his eyes zoom in on the ribbon circling the huli jing’s wrists and he quickly turns his reddening face downwards, straight into his lap, as if his yellow silk dress pants with lotus motifs are the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen in his entire life.

Wei Wuxian speaks, his nerves prickling at the number of eyes watching him. Including Bob’s. He tries for a laugh, but it ends up sounding higher pitched than he intended. “No, we just went out for some air and we’re just going to head back to our suite.”

Jiang Cheng, rather pointedly and too drastically, in the huli jing’s humble opinion, stands up, his chair loudly squeaking back. His face is flushed red and angry, and he walks straight into a concrete wall, causing a loud bang, almost as if he’s determined to crash himself into a hard surface to force himself into unconsciousness. He does it again when it doesn’t work the first time.

“Uh, huh,” Nie Huaisang says, the little f*cking sh*t. With one hand, he pours Jiang Yanli more wine and then sets the entire bottle in front where Jiang Cheng was sitting. “So where is Lan-er-gonzi’s forehead ribbon? I’ve never seen him without it.” He lifts up his fan higher until it completely covers his nose. His eyes are filled with delight and glimmering at the lure of new, fresh gossip.

“Ah, Lan Zhan wanted to show me something. A demonstration of a cultivator’s technique!” He blatantly lies. As soon as those words come out, he immediately wishes to jump off the hotel’s rooftop. Nie Huaisang, even if he is not the ideal powerful and skilled cultivator from all those dramas and the stories, is still a cultivator and would absolutely know that there’s no technique involving a Lan cultivator’s forehead ribbon.

“Involving a Lan forehead ribbon? Tell us more,” Nie Huaisang knowingly prompts, resting an elbow on the table and palming the side of his face in eagerness. “You have to tell us more, Wei-xiong!” His hand slips slightly, revealing his flushed cheeks.

“Ahahaha,” Wei Wuxian chuckles nervously. Lan Zhan is, of course, no help. Instead, the huli jing feels his arms rise up as the cultivator openly demonstrates his technique to the entire crowd.

Someone drops a teacup. It shatters on the ground.

A-Qing stares at them with wide eyes, and she, who has never given off the implication that she isn’t blind in all the years the huli jing has known her, has revealed that indeed, she can see with those hauntingly discolored eyes.

“You can’t do something like that with a Lan forehead ribbon! It’s sacred!” Mianmian shouts, pointing her finger at them. “The Lan forehead ribbon is famous for being—” She dodges a baguette flying at her head. “Nie Huaisang! What are you doing? Why did you throw that at me?”

“I didn’t! I didn’t do it!” Nie Huaisang cries, even though the huli jing has clearly seen a baguette tossed from his hands. “It was someone else! I have no idea who!” They delve into a squabble of Mianmian accusing Nie Huaisang of actually throwing the baguette at her and attempting to kill her while Nie Huaisang comes up with more and more ridiculous theories on how a baguette began to fly, perfectly aimed at Mianmian. Including blaming it on Bob, who looks vaguely unimpressed for a crocodile.

In the chaos and all of the noise, Lan Zhan tugs Wei Wuxian along and towards the elevators. No one seems to watch them escape.

Relieved, Wei Wuxian turns his attention to Lan Zhan’s back. “In the morning,” he pauses, “you’re going to be so embarrassed when you sober up and realize what you’ve done.” He shakes his head as they disappear into the elevator. He lifts his wrists up to examine the tie and realizes Lan Zhan has done it perfectly. It wouldn’t be easy for the huli jing to escape. He watches Lan Zhan hit the button to their floor and asks, “Was today the first time you drank alcohol?”

“Yes.”

The huli jing can tell. Lan Zhan probably wouldn’t have drank the rest of the Emperor’s Smile if he knew what he was capable of while drunk. “Do you like rabbits?”

“Yes.”

Delighted by Lan Zhan’s answers, Wei Wuxian continues, “So is there a meaning to the forehead ribbon?”

Lan Zhan is quiet for a moment. Then he says softly, “Mine.”

“Lan Zhan,” the huli jing drawls out, elongating the cultivator’s name. His tails bat against the wooden wall. “You like seeing your marks on me so much, Lan Zhan? So possessive, Lan Zhan!” The elevator opens to their floor, and the huli jing follows Lan Zhan out of the elevator and into their suite.

Then the door closes behind them.

“So Lan Zhan. You have me at your mercy. What are you going to do now?”

Lan Zhan drags the huli jing to the bed and climbs on top of the mattress with his knees. Forcing Wei Wuxian’s arms over his head, he flips the huli jing onto his back and then pins him down. Lan Zhan, pausing, stares at Wei Wuxian’s face for a moment and then two. Then Lan Zhan releases one hand to begin tugging off the huli jing’s clothes until there’s nothing left on him and all the clothes are tossed all over the bedroom as if a tornado has blown through. His golden eyes gaze at the faint lovemarks around the huli jing’s neck and shoulders. He then eyes the five bushy tails thumping off to the side, as if entranced by the movement.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian breathes. “Lan-er-gege, do you like seeing your ribbon on me? The bite marks you’ve left on me? The tails you f*cked into me? All the marks that show I’m yours?”

“Mine,” he says again, although this time in a daze. Then his golden eyes seemingly sharpen and suddenly, he lets go of the ends of his forehead ribbon and slaps himself hard on his forehead, falling unconscious on top of the huli jing.

“Huh?” Wei Wuxian frowns and turns the cultivator over to the side, finding Lan Zhan soundly asleep. His fluffy tails droop in disappointment, and he murmurs, “Aiya, Lan Zhan. Okay. Let’s just sleep together well. It’s been a long day.” He decides against removing the forehead ribbon and huffs and puffs to awkwardly get the comforter over the older man. It’s not completely over Lan Zhan, but he makes do and crawls in the little space they have left, so he’s nicely wrapped up in Lan Zhan’s warmth. Half of his tails are popping out and dangling over the edge, but that’s alright. Facing Lan Zhan’s peaceful and sleeping face, he tells him, “You’re lucky you’re so cute when you leave me aching like this, Lan Zhan.” Then he softly kisses the older man’s cheek, strokes his face a few times, and cuddles him tight, cheek planted straight into his hanfu.

Warm and comfy, he wakes in the morning, very much aware of sunlight streaming through the window and Lan Zhan’s golden eyes staring at him. “Ah, Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian cheerily greets him, blinking the sleep away from his eyes. “You treated me so awful last night. No one would have expected Lan-er-gege to treat me so rough,” he pouts dramatically.

Lan Zhan holds his breath. “Wei Ying,” he intones seriously, “what did I do?”

“Well,” the huli jing sits up and glances down at Lan Zhan, playfully stroking the end of his own chin. “You left me so empty and wanting last night, Lan-er-gege. You should fix that.” Then still naked, he flips the comforter away and plops down onto his stomach, his tails pointedly batting away at Lan Zhan in faux anger. “You winded me up so hard that when you fell asleep on me, I had to go to sleep horny all night, Lan-er-gege.”

Lan Zhan’s hand easily captures one of Wei Wuxian’s tails before it can whack him again in the chin. “Then let me rectify my error, Wei Ying.”

The huli jing has made it easy for Lan Zhan to pin him to the mattress. With his neck arching backwards and his legs forcibly spread wide by Lan Zhan’s powerful knees, Wei Ying whines as Lan Zhan’s teeth marks his left shoulder, his calloused hands pushing away the tails and his long fingers skillfully prodding at the huli jing’s wet, dripping hole.

“Lan Zhan,” the huli jing begs, in between pants, “stop teasing me. You’ve been teasing me last night and letting me wait. Put it in.”

Lan Zhan obliges, his silk clothes rustling as he simply moves the offensive layers out of the way. He doesn't bother taking any of his clothes off.

“Lan Zhan! Take it all off, I want to feel you,” the huli jing demands.

The cultivator obliges.

Wei Ying whistles, because holy f*ck, Lan Zhan is hot. He’s so damn toned, all muscles and perfect skin despite the scars from past battles, that it leaves Wei Ying drooling. Lan Zhan doesn’t tease nor seductively pull off his clothes. No, it’s all business, straight to the point, and f*ck, Wei Ying is dripping while Lan Zhan is pressing and sinking his co*ck into the huli jing’s eager hole.

It’s exactly what Wei Ying needs. To be pounded and taken and pinned down and stuffed so full that the huli jing thinks he can get pregnant from this alone. He meets Lan Zhan thrust for thrust, and his eyes are locked upon Lan Zhan’s golden ones, which are enraptured and watching Wei Ying’s every breath, every expression, every movement.

Wei Ying’s fingers tug at Lan Zhan’s silky hair. The other hand is easily captured by the cultivator’s larger hands, and their fingers entwine against the pillow.

“You need to do this every day,” Wei Ying breathes.

“Every day.”

“Every day,” the huli jing moans.

“Mark.” Lan Zhan nibbles at the younger man’s neck. “Your. Words.”

When Wei Ying comes, he swears he can feel their hearts beat as one.

“I think this would look good on you,” Jiang Yanli says, offering a little black dress with red highlights that peek-a-boo every time the outer layer of fabric swishes. It’s indeed beautiful and pretty and so absolutely sexy that Wei Wuxian nods in agreement. Lan Zhan wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off the huli jing, and that’s the way Wei Wuxian likes it. She places the dress back on the rack in Wei Wuxian’s hotel suite, which he never stays in because he sleeps and lives in Lan Zhan’s rooms. They are in the process of sorting out Jiang Yanli’s clothes purchases for the huli jing, because Wei Wuxian hasn’t worn most of the outfits. The ones he nixes and doesn’t like will be donated. It’s eye-boggling at how much money is going out the window and Jiang Yanli doesn’t even flinch.

“Thank you. For spoiling me.”

“A-Xian deserves to be spoiled,” she replies instantly. Then she reddens. “Sorry. That is quite too informal.”

The way she says it sounds so natural, and Wei Wuxian feels something settle inside his heart. He smiles at her. “No, it’s alright. You can call me that. I don’t think I haven’t heard anyone call me that way in a long time.”

She smiles at him, beaming as bright as the sun on a warm, perfect day. Then she turns and resumes sorting through the rack. She uses her personal veto to override some of Wei Wuxian’s objections, when he says they are too revealing or not necessarily. He’s never going to the beach, and he’s certain that he will never be using every piece of lingerie. She tosses every lingerie in the “want” pile, stating that Wei Wuxian may change his mind one day.

“What’s that box?” Behind this rack of clothes is a cardboard box large enough to fit a small stool. Wei Wuxian steps forward, bending down to peel open the loose tape. Inside are dozens upon dozens of baby clothes. One-pieces, bibs, jackets, socks. The huli jing reddens, and honestly, it feels like Jiang Yanli is teasing him for how loud Lan Zhan and he can get despite the talismans Lan Zhan sets up, but when he looks up at her face, all of his words in his throat die out.

Her expression is soft and wanting.

“You and Jin Zixuan trying?” he wonders.

She shakes her head and pulls a wooden bar stool to Wei Wuxian. Then she sits on the stool and shakes her head some more. “I want to, but A-Xuan requests if we can have a child after his father dies.”

“I—” Wei Wuxian blinks at that, his butt falling onto the floor. Her words are a lot to take in. “Wow.”

“I’ve never met his father,” she admits. “But from what I’ve heard about him, he’s not the best man to meet.” Which is a massive understatement in Wei Wuxian’s opinion. “I think he’s afraid of his father, because there are many lawsuits filed by lots of women accusing him of…” Her voice drifts off. “A-Xuan reasoned that when a child is born, his mother will insist on propriety and will want their grandchild to be presented to them. He is estranged from his father but not his mother, and his mother will stand by his father no matter what. He will not be able to deny her request.”

“Sounds like rich people's problems. No offense,” Wei Wuxian tells her truthfully.

She laughs. “None taken.” In a lighter tone, although she sounds as if she’s trying to convince herself, she says, “My mother tells me that raising a qilin isn’t easy. Our babies are always born in the form of a qilin until they gain the ability to transform when they are around five or six years old. I’m told that we can be troublesome when we are toddlers, and we get worse when we become teenagers.”

“So like humans,” he concludes. “You thought of a name?”

“The Jins have generation names and still use courtesy names. For his courtesy name, I’ve never been able to keep Rulan out of my mind. A-Xuan once told me that if it was a boy, he would like him to be called Jin Ling,” she tells him. “How about you? Have you ever thought of a name?”

“Well.” A pause. “I always thought Yuan sounds nice.”

“A-Cheng would be a good uncle. He’s good with babies and toddlers,” she says, smiling at that thought. “Not good with teenagers, though. One of them, one of our cousins, called him an angry grape when we were still living at our family home, and I think that has taught him to give insults as good as they give him.”

Wei Wuxian laughs at that. Well, Jiang Cheng does always wear purple. When the huli jing has a good opportunity, he’ll call Jiang Cheng an angry grape, too.

“But A-Cheng… Many years ago,” she pauses, “when I told him that I wanted to have a child with A-Xuan, he got so angry. I’ve never seen him like that before.”

“Why would he?” Wei Wuxian asks, baffled.

“I don’t know. Then he punched a hole in the wall when I told him to imagine a child, a girl or maybe a boy called Rulan or A-Ling, that he’ll be an uncle to and he can teach everything he knows to him, and he just… He dived out of the window,” she says. “He was unhurt when he did that. He can fly. He went back to the family home, and it didn’t take until a year later that he came back and apologized for what he said. He told me that it felt like A-Xuan and I were moving on without him to the next milestone in our lives and it was disorienting for him. He also told me he’ll support whatever decisions we make.” She wipes her eyes. “Sorry. That was probably too much information.”

“You know, there was something weird that happened a few years ago,” Wei Wuxian says, after a long moment. “One time, after Lan Zhan and I were out and were probably being too loud, someone planted a whole box of birth contraceptives at our front door. Do you know who would do that?”

“I would say Wen Chao, but he doesn’t have a body. Besides, he’s not that creative. He would rather put a baking rack in front of your door to remind you that he can still eat people.”

“Does he actually do that?” Wei Wuxian wonders, slightly concerned by the possibility of the bodiless head moving around the hotel on its own and doing pranks and trying to eat people in their sleep.

“No.” She sighs, massaging her forehead as if developing a migraine. “The other possibility is A-Cheng.”

The huli jing blinks. “Why would he do that?” In all these years, he’s never really talked to Jiang Cheng.

“I don’t know.” Then she sighs again. “Our parents think A-Cheng has clairvoyance, because when he was younger, he would know the names of strangers on the street and can name all of their family members. He was paranoid as a child and even up to today. He always checks the wards around the property, and he slept with something sharp when he was three years old. Our father saw him sleeping with his pillow hiding a butcher knife he stole from the kitchen.”

Wei Wuxian is beginning to think Jiang Cheng has all the makings of a serial killer. None of that is normal in a child that young. “But other than Jiang Cheng recognizing faces and people, why do your parents think he has clairvoyance?”

“Because when we were teenagers, we were attacked by a rival qilin clan,” she explains. “They would have burned us down if we didn’t set up new wards that A-Cheng made us put on. That’s why they think he has clairvoyance.”

“But you don’t believe that.”

“I think, I think…” She shakes her head. “I don’t think it’s clairvoyance, but I don't know what other answers there can be. Maybe he always had a sense of unease? That critical instinct? I don’t have any good explanations.”

Wei Wuxian has a suspicion, but he goes to Nie Huaisang first. He turns down Nie Huaisang’s invitation to a game of the huli jing’s choice. Standing at the open doorway, he doesn’t even bother coming in. “Huaisang,” he pauses. “In your memories, do you remember Jiang Cheng?”

“Hard to forget.”

The huli jing briefly shuts his eyes, feeling his heart drop. “How about Jiang Yanli?”

“Yep.”

He narrows his eyes. “Jin Zixuan?”

“Him too.”

“Mianmian?”

Nie Huaisang nods.

“A-Qing, Song Lan, Xiao Xingchen?” he rattles out.

“All of the above.”

Then Wei Wuxian enters Nie Huaisang’s suite and shuts the door behind him. Moving to the couch, he sits down and waits for Nie Huaisang to catch up and join him. “Tell me what happened to Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli back then.”

Nie Huaisang picks up his fan, twisting his fingers around the fan guards and rivets. He looks directly into the huli jing’s eyes and questions, “Are you sure? It’s not a pleasant story, and it has no happy endings.”

“Just give me the short version.”

The cultivator glances up at the ceiling, as if recalling or reading a short version of the couple’s past lives in the lights above. “They were betrothed when they were young. Young Jin Zixuan insults her, and their fathers mutually agree to break off the engagement. But they ended up falling in love anyway and got married. Their son was born. Cute little thing. Jin Zixuan died when his son was almost one month old. Then Jiang Yanli was murdered, leaving their son an orphan.”

The huli jing absorbs this. If Jiang Cheng remembers his past life, then of course, he would be afraid for his sister’s life. Then he asks, “What was the name of the boy?”

“Jin Ling. His courtesy name was Jin Rulan.”

A damning silence spreads through the room.

It’s just as Wei Wuxian suspects. Jiang Cheng flipped out completely when Jiang Yanli told him of her imaginary son and told him to picture that little boy being his nephew. He flipped out, because he didn’t have to picture it. He remembers it. He remembers raising that boy and knowing that the boy's parents died. He remembers his previous life, and it’s clear that Jiang Cheng never wanted to lose his sister again, but at the same time, when he came back to reconcile with her, he also remembered that boy he raised. He made a difference in this life. Maybe he thinks he can make a difference in Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan’s lives and prevent the same thing from happening again.

“Huaisang, what about Lan Zhan?”

“Him, his brother, and his uncle,” he confirms. “Although they never died, unlike us peasants. The Lans truly made a name for themselves in the history books, you know, by having several immortals in their sect even if no one has reached their heights ever since.”

Then a realization strikes Wei Wuxian, and he wonders why he didn’t ask sooner. He wets his lips and then looks right into Nie Huaisang’s eyes. “What about me?”

“Wei-xiong, isn’t it obvious? Of course, I knew you.”

Wei Wuxian had to immediately escape Nie Huaisang’s suite as soon as he confirmed that Wei Wuxian’s previous life was the same as the others. He takes the elevator downstairs and palms his own face at all the things he’s learned today so far. He feels a bit bad about leaving Jiang Yanli upstairs to still sort out the clothes in his suite, and he wants to kick himself for not asking Nie Huaisang more questions about his previous life, but his feet are making a beeline to Jiang Cheng’s residence.

Jiang Cheng doesn’t stay in the skyscraper. As all the hotel residents know, he notably refuses to be in the vicinity of Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli out of fear of seeing or hearing something more than he should be seeing or hearing. Wei Wuxian walks up the steps to the siheyuan and bangs nonstop on Jiang Cheng’s wooden door. By the tenth bang, the door opens and the huli jing narrowly misses knocking Jiang Cheng’s chin.

“What?” he grunts.

“What do you remember from our past life?”

Jiang Cheng instantly shuts the door.

The huli jing continues banging at the door. He is probably at it for two minutes before Jiang Cheng unhappily opens the door once more.

“You’re so annoying in this life, too,” Jiang Cheng tells him immediately, letting the huli jing in. Then he slams the door shut behind them. He gestures the huli jing towards the patio table by the loquat trees. He takes a seat at the round table and in a disgruntled manner, he folds his arms over his chest. “What do you want to know?”

“Why does Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan and all of the others not remember what happened but you do?” Wei Wuxian asks.

“That.” Jiang Cheng stares at the glass surface of the patio surface as if it’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen.

“Well?”

He throws his hands up. “Do you really want me to tell them about exactly what happened in their last life? It was tragic, it was sad, it’s traumatizing, and we’re better off not knowing our past. Everyone died around us, and I lost almost my entire family. If they don’t remember any of it, then it is a blessing that they don’t remember anything. They don’t have to be weighed down by old memories like me.”

Wei Wuxian notices his answer doesn’t actually answer the question. “Sure, that’s your reason why you didn’t tell them about our previous life. But how do you still have the memories?”

Jiang Cheng’s face twists through a few dozen expressions. Resigned, he leans back in his white patio chair and twists around a purplish ring around his finger. “We were facing an unprecedented number of demonic cultivators. To kill the seeds of future demonic cultivators, Jin Guangyao proposed that we erase the memories of the Sunshot Campaign and the Yiling Patriarch.” Jiang Cheng’s eyes peer at Wei Wuxian’s polite but blank face as he answers the huli jing’s question.

It’s almost nothing he hasn’t already heard from Nie Huaisang. Except for the part about Jin Guangyao erasing people’s memories. Now that is new.

Jiang Cheng continues, “But we needed resources and help to create this array. Lan Xichen wanted no part of it, but the Lan elders were interested. They went behind their sect leader’s back and collaborated with the Jin Sect to erase history.”

“Why?” It sounds baffling.

“Lan Xichen was in permanent seclusion after the Lan Sect suffered a public fallout with his brother, Lan Wangji. He was heartbroken. Lan Wangji refused to leave the Burial Mounds despite the long line of people begging him to return. The Lan Sect was facing an uncertainty about their future, and if certain memories were erased, they were certain that everything could be returned back to the way it was.”

“You helped Jin Guangyao erase everyone’s memories.”

“I did. I didn’t want to remember anymore.” He laughs, a broken and haunted thing. “Funny how it turns out that I’m the one who remembers everything.” He pauses and then continues, “The array was cast in the Cloud Recesses. We had to use particular objects to ensure the array would work. A hair ornament from the Yiling Patriarch. A shattered piece of Wen Ruohan’s sword. Jin Guangyao offered the broken remnants of the Yin Tiger Tally. The array did have a downfall. It wouldn’t work on those with powerful cores unless you specifically write their names into the array. Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen were two of the several names on there. I wrote my own name to make sure it erases my memories. Jin Guangyao refused, stating that it would be best for someone to remember what happened in case something went wrong. Along with Jin Guangyao, a few of the Lan elders wrote themselves in as exceptions to the array.”

“But when it went off, it didn’t erase yours.”

“Yes. It was unfortunately faulty,” Jiang Cheng says, gritting his teeth.

“What happened after the array was cast?”

“Lan Wangji returned to Gusu for a few months and then left again to roam the world as a rogue cultivator in all but name. Rarely does he return to the Cloud Recesses, preferring to take his duties as then-head disciple and heir to the Lan Sect away from Gusu. Lan Xichen emerged from seclusion, and though he was concerned about his wandering brother, he took control of the sect once again. Demonic cultivators stopped appearing.” Jiang Cheng glances upwards and then stiffens.

The huli jing turns his head around to see Lan Zhan, still as a gargoyle, standing on the rooftop. He wants to scream, because he’s not ready to talk to Lan Zhan. He’s still absorbing everything Jiang Cheng said to him, and he’s still trying to make sense of everything. He’s starting to believe it, he might actually believe it’s true, that all of this is true.

“Why don’t Hanguang-Jun explain to you what happened in that past life?” Jiang Cheng coolly states, loud enough for Lan Zhan to hear him. “Wei Wuxian remembers nothing of what happened before.”

The huli jing stands up, the chair squeaking behind him. He takes a running start and leaps onto the rooftop and stares at Lan Zhan, who looks thrown and startled. The huli jing holds out his hand to Lan Zhan and softly requests, uncertain but determined nevertheless, “Lan Zhan, tell me our story.”

For Lan Zhan, the story starts a long, long time ago in Gusu, in the Cloud Recesses, where the cultivator was fresh off from seclusion and decided to patrol that night. Staring at the huli jing absentmindedly petting a fat white rabbit, Lan Zhan pauses and asks, “How much of the details do you want to know, Wei Ying?”

“Details?” The huli jing honestly hasn’t thought that far. Curiosity sparks within his chest. “Well, Lan Zhan, no matter how hard I try, it’s not as if I’m going to recall exactly what happened in my previous life.” He taps his head. “The memories just aren’t here.”

“We fought in a war. We saw the worst of humanity. I’m speaking of those things.”

Wei Wuxian thinks about it for a minute and then two. He remembers Jiang Cheng telling him that it’s a mercy, a blessing, for Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan and all of the others to not remember their previous life. “Is it terrible? Like Saving Private Ryan terrible?” They had a movie night a few weeks ago, and Bob ended up winning the draw, so they ended up watching that movie.

Lan Zhan nods slightly. Then he frowns. “I don’t know what Saving Private Ryan is.”

“It’s a movie. The movie is famous for picturing the beach landing at the Battle of Normandy in World War II?”

“By hard numbers, it’s not comparable. By horrors, it’s comparable. The difference is for every cultivator slain in the Sunshot Campaign, one has to personally deal the lethal blow in close distances. It’s perhaps better off not remembering this, Wei Ying,” he says gravely. “Especially when you’ve reincarnated and been cleansed of your previous life.”

The huli jing remains quiet as he takes in Lan Zhan’s words. Maybe it’s better to not know the fine details of the picture. He has his mother’s memories before she sent him away from the caves, and sometimes, he still dreams of a different outcome, but more often than not, when he dreams of his parents, he dreams of them and Lan Zhan standing around at Baoshan Sanren’s mountain. Maybe it’s not worth stacking trauma upon trauma. So he nods in agreement. “Then tell me what happened when you patrolled that night.”

So Lan Zhan tells him the story of the first time they met in Wei Wuxian’s previous life. He wasn’t a huli jing but a cultivator. Wei Wuxian was sneaking into the Cloud Recesses with jars of Emperor’s Smile. Wei Wuxian tried to bribe Lan Zhan into forgetting he ever saw him that night with a jar of Emperor’s Smile.

“Bribing someone is against the rules, isn’t it?” He can sort of guess where this is going. After all, he has done the same in this life, too. Lan Zhan confiscated his stolen jar of Emperor’s Smile and walked off.

It turns out bribing, drinking, and fighting are all prohibited in the Cloud Recesses. Maybe the huli jing should be grateful Lan Zhan has gone easy on him the second time around. Wei Wuxian whines when he hears that Lan Zhan broke all of his jars, completely wasting them.

“What a shame,” he muses. To waste a single drop of Emperor’s Smile should be one of the gravest sins a person can do. There’s no liquor that can compare to it. Of course, he would instantly forgive Lan Zhan for making the jars break.

“The past version of you thought the same thing.”

Wei Wuxian laughs at that. It seems that their lives are destined to fall into a spiral, repeating old, familiar patterns once more. Lan Zhan oversaw punishment in the library with Wei Wuxian when he broke Gusu Lan’s rules yet again. They lit up a lantern together, both vowing to always eliminate evil and protect the weak. Then Jin Zixuan accidentally insulted Jiang Yanli and Wei Wuxian punched him, getting Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli’s fathers to mutually agree to break the betrothal. Wei Wuxian was kicked out of the Cloud Recesses for punching the heir of Lanling Jin Sect.

“Jin Zixuan? Insulting her? Insulting Jiang Yanli? Insulting his wife? That man is a hardcore simp for her. I can’t see it.” The huli jing has seen the couple be together for so long that it’s hard to imagine them apart. Jin Zixuan dotes on her. He tries to get along with her prickly brother. He is her sous chef to her head chef. He listens to every word she says, and he would be so helpless without her, so socially inept. Zero emotional IQ, would insult everyone on the block accidentally without actually meaning it because he’s just that clueless and dense sometimes. “Okay, I think I can see it now.”

They meet again at a Discussion Conference, where at the competition, Wei Wuxian has tugged at Lan Zhan’s forehead ribbon and sent him quitting in the middle of the archery competition. A small pink peony gets tossed at Lan Zhan’s shoulder.

Wei Wuxian’s tails thump against the grass. Holding the rabbit in his lap, he interrupts, “So what’s the significance of your forehead ribbon? You like to tie me up with it every day when you can.”

“Self-restraint,” Lan Zhan intones. At the huli jing’s confused expression, he adds, “The meaning behind the forehead ribbon is to regulate oneself, and no one else can touch it. Only when you meet and fall in love with your fated person will this restriction be unnecessary.”

It takes Wei Wuxian a long moment to get it. Then he hears the words fated person echo around and around in his head. “Lan Zhan!” he whines. “You’ve been letting me touch your forehead ribbon for years now! Without telling me a thing!”

“Wei Ying is my zhiji,” he says, softly smiling.

He wails, though his heart thumps with pleasure. “Lan Zhan, you can’t say something like that!” Flushed red, he points at the dozen or so rabbits chewing and frolicking in the distance. None of them are able to understand their conversation. “Especially in front of all our children!” He palms his own face, and though he is so shocked and slightly embarrassed by Lan Zhan’s truth, he is beyond pleased by what he has heard. Wei Ying is Lan Zhan’s zhiji. And Lan Zhan is Wei Ying’s zhiji. “Lan Zhan is so shameless,” he murmurs, his words muffled by his palms. “Lan Zhan has been making a claim on me every day in more ways than one.”

“Wei You, are you…” Lan Zhan moves to kneel on the grass next to the huli jing, mindful of the fox’s many tails.

“Happy,” Wei Ying says, smiling when he lifts his face up. “For so long, I’ve imagined that Lan Zhan has many lovers after all these years. I’ve wondered if Lan Zhan cares as much about me as I do about him. I don’t have to speculate these things anymore. Ever since you talked to my mother.”

Lan Zhan is quiet for a moment, his face startlingly blank. Then he gently takes one of Wei Ying’s hands and holds it close to his chest. Underneath Wei Ying’s palm, Lan Zhan’s heart beats quick but steady like the tides. “If the face says nothing, listen to the heartbeat.”

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying whispers.

Then Lan Zhan continues on with their story. The Wen Sect burned down the Cloud Recesses. Lan Zhan, with a broken leg, was forced to attend their Indoctrination. Jiang Cheng and the other sect heirs and disciples were able to flee eventually, leaving Lan Zhan and Wei Wuxian in a cave, trapped with a monster. They killed the monster together, but both of them became very weak and ill. Chances of a rescue were dimming. So Wei Wuxian asked Lan Zhan to keep him awake by playing a song.

“Oh, which song?”

So when Lan Zhan pulls his guqin out of his sleeve and begins to play, Wei Ying instantly knows which song it is. Lan Zhan plays, and the rabbits all come out to listen, enchanted by the melody. When the last note fades, Lan Zhan says, “When you sang this song to the rabbits that day, I remembered. I remembered everything.”

“You broke through the array.” The breaking and discovery of the array coincides with the time Wei Ying slept with Lan Zhan for the first time. Wei Ying smiles and clutches Lan Zhan’s hand as he absentmindedly pets a sleeping rabbit in his other hand. “You know, Lan Zhan, that’s the one thing I could remember when I was a child. That song. I knew it was important, but I didn’t know why. I kept singing it to myself.” A pause. “Now I know why. You played it for me so long ago that I remembered it. Despite everything.”

“I wrote the song for you.”

“Does it have a name?”

“Wangxian.” The glow of the slight smile on Lan Zhan’s face can power an entire city.

“A good name.”

After a moment, Lan Zhan begins to speak again. The Lotus Pier was destroyed, and its residents were mercilessly killed. The only survivors were Jiang Yanli, Jiang Cheng, and Wei Wuxian. This is where Lan Zhan began to lose track of Wei Wuxian’s whereabouts, when the cultivation world toppled into a war and where Lan Zhan spent some of his time rebuilding what remained of the Gusu Lan Sect. When Wei Wuxian went missing, Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng worked together to find him. They found Wei Wuxian murdering Wen Chao and Wen Zhuliu, the Core-Melting Hand, using resentful energy, having turned away from the orthodox path of cultivation.

“Wen Chao? The same Wen Chao in the hotel?”

Lan Zhan shakes his head. “Not the same. The longgui did not originally take Wen Chao’s face until after we caught him eating his fourth hotel resident. The longgui does have some mind-reading capability. The longgui assumed he was going to die, so he took on Wen Chao’s face to terrorize those of us who still remembered Wen Chao. I did not know at the time as to why Jiang Wanyin went into a very bad rage and why Nie Huaisang, who has never before taken an interest in cultivation or justice, insisted on the longgui’s instant execution. The name he went by before he took on Wen Chao’s face was Mao Li.”

Wei Ying can’t imagine calling the longgui Mao Li. He’s been Wen Chao for far too long. “Why was he kept alive? As a head?”

“Jiang Yanli insisted that we do not kill him for he will re-enter the reincarnation cycle. She pledged to keep him alive in a limited state as a long term punishment for what he has done to the residents under her and Jiang Cheng’s protection. She was determined for him to suffer a fate of eternal torment, where he will never be able to walk or eat again without assistance. I executed her will.”

It’s clear that no one should cross Jiang Yanli. While Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng wanted to instantly kill him, Jiang Yanli would use her naturally long lifetime to forevermore watch over the longgui’s imprisonment. Wei Ying remembers what Nie Huaisang told him a long time ago, that the hotel has a powerful deterrent to prevent anyone from attacking Xiao Xingchen, a huli jing with four tails many would like to get their grubby hands on. “So the reason why the hotel is considered good protection for its residents is…”

“Because of the qilins.”

“Oh.”

Eventually the Sunshot Campaign ends and everyone knows that Wei Wuxian wielded the Yin Tiger Tally to manipulate corpses of the battlefields to great success. For a moment, the cultivation world was thankful for Wei Wuxian’s unconventional help. Then Lan Zhan begins talking about the nighthunt at Phoenix Mountain, where Wei Wuxian showed off his ability to shoot targets blindfolded and was accused of taking most of the prey using resentful energy. Lan Zhan’s ears are so red that the huli jing has to question what else happened at Phoenix Mountain. Lan Zhan looks down at his own lap and then softly admits, his ears red, “While you were blindfolded and sitting in a tree, I kissed you. You didn’t know who it was, and I was angry for losing control at the very sight of you.”

“Ahahaha, Lan Zhan! Everyone thought you were a model disciple when secretly, you were stealing bites of cabbage without anyone knowing!” Wei Ying gleefully falls backwards into the grass, startling the white rabbit in his lap awake. He’s tickled greatly, pleased by the fact that even Lan Zhan, who was in charge of discipline back in those career days as a model disciple, wasn’t above it all after all.

But then everything went to sh*t afterwards. Wei Wuxian killed a bunch of Jin cultivators and absconded with the remnants of the Wen Sect to the Burial Mounds. It was a huge uproar in the cultivation world. There was immense pressure from the Jin Sect for the weakened Jiang Sect to turn Wei Wuxian over for explanations and to face justice. So Wei Wuxian defected from the Jiang Sect after fighting with the Jiang Sect Leader. Wei Wuxian and the Wens had to scrape together something from the nothing that is known as the Burial Mounds. Then Lan Zhan came to visit the Burial Mounds, under the guise of a nearby nighthunt. There was a nighthunt, but it was nowhere near Yiling.

“Wait, so in my previous life,” Wei Ying interrupts, gesturing helplessly between Lan Zhan and his own chest, “did we ever get that far?”

Lan Zhan shakes his head.

He gasps. “Unbelievable. Lan Zhan, if the past version of me thought and felt a percent of what I feel for you right now, I would still be down to f*ck. All that time wasted. What a pity. What a shame.” He clicks his tongue.

After spending a day with Wei Wuxian and a Wen orphan, Lan Zhan watched Wei Wuxian bring back a person named Wen Ning to life in the form of a fierce corpse. Lan Zhan argued with Wei Wuxian, telling him that the path he was taking was wrong. He asked for Wei Wuxian to go with him to Gusu. Wei Wuxian refused and stayed behind in the Burial Mounds. Lan Zhan left, believing Wei Wuxian wanted nothing to do with him. Eventually, Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli married. Then they had a son named Jin Ling. And Wei Ying knows exactly where this story is going to go from here, because it does not end well.

At the pained look on the huli jing’s face, Lan Zhan talks in lesser details of what happens next, succinctly summarizing the events to come.

On the way to celebrate one-month-old baby’s birth, Wei Wuxian lost control of Wen Ning, who wound up killing Jin Zixuan. Wen Ning and Wen Qing surrendered themselves to the sects, but Wen Ning lost control and suddenly began to attack cultivators. The sects made the decision to exterminate the rest of the Wens and to put down Wei Wuxian. During what was known as the Bloodbath of Nightless City, Jiang Yanli died in the crossfires. Wei Wuxian was driven mad upon seeing her death and unleashed waves of resentful energy. Despite his injuries, Lan Zhan managed to steal Wei Wuxian, unconscious and unaware of the world, away from the Nightless City. The Lan Sect caught up with them, and after a brief scuffle with the Lan Elders, Lan Zhan was forcibly taken back to Gusu, leaving Wei Wuxian behind in the safety of the cave.

Three months later, the sects led a siege upon the Burial Mounds. In the process of destroying the Yin Tiger Tally, Wei Wuxian died.

“You weren’t there for the siege?” Wei Ying wonders. It’s completely contrary to the stories he’s heard and grew up around in Yiling. All the stories and legends make it sound as if Hanguang-Jun and the Yiling Patriarch had one final fight at the Burial Mounds. It turns out the one final fight was actually at the Nightless City, and it was mostly one-sided with Lan Zhan trying his best to protect Wei Wuxian from the mob.

“No.”

“Were you in seclusion?”

“Yes and no,” Lan Zhan answers. A dark look crosses his face. “For raising my sword against the sect and thirty-three elders, I was punished and remained confined in Gusu until I heard of the siege of the Burial Mounds. I couldn’t believe what Xiongzhang told me. I had to see it for myself, so I hurried to the Burial Mounds and found the Wen settlement completely destroyed. There was no trace of anyone left except for one small boy, who was hidden well in the hollow of a tree. Due to his fever, he was immediately brought back to Gusu.”

A suspicion crawls up the huli jing’s spine. “Lan Zhan, was the boy’s name Yuan?”

“Yes.”

He smiles, knowing that his life is a spiral, a dusty mirror of what happened in the past. His mouth opens and closes, like a fish stumbling out of the water’s safety. Then he helplessly says, the beginning of tears forming at the corner of his eyes, “I’ve always thought Yuan would be a good name for a child.”

Lan Zhan shuts his eyes.

Then the huli jing remembers something important, his mind making a connection that Lan Zhan himself wouldn’t put forward explicitly. “Thirty-three.” A pause as he stares off into Lan Zhan’s shoulders. “Thirty-three lashes for thirty-three elders, wasn’t it?”

Lan Zhan manages a slight nod.

Wei Ying breathes in shock. The rabbit jolts away from the huli jing’s lap, but Wei Ying hardly pays attention to it. “Lan Zhan, you…” If he ever had any doubt about what and how Lan Zhan feels about Wei Ying, all of it has been washed away. Wei Ying can’t always read the expression on Lan Zhan’s face, though he is learning as he goes along, but Lan Zhan’s actions have always proved his love and devotion and there is no better place to affirm what the older man feels for Wei Ying.

With all this perfect hindsight, Wei Ying wonders how he could have ever misunderstood Lan Zhan for being a fleeting, temporary partner? For life is forever. For Lan Zhan, there is no other but Wei Ying.

“Lan Zhan…” Wei Ying repeats, dazed. Then his thoughts sharpen into focus and there is a heavy need within Wei Ying to reciprocate. “Lan Zhan!” he exclaims, excited as he throws himself into Lan Zhan’s arms and lap. With his head against the man’s hard chest, he curls in and glances up at Lan Zhan, at beautiful, devoted, steadfast Lan Zhan, who would never leave Wei Ying willingly ever again. “Lan Zhan, Lan-er-gege, I really want to sleep with you and be with you everyday. Today, tomorrow, the day after that, and every day after that!”

“Mark with your words.”

“Ah, Lan Zhan,” the huli jing smiles, his five tails thumping against the soft ground and stirring up stray blades of grass. He has a small inkling in the back of his head that he will regret saying everyday, but he’s so happy right now that he can’t stop or resist smiling like a fool.

In the end, Lan Zhan kept returning back to the Burial Mounds to look for any signs of Wei Wuxian. The other sects tried looking for Wei Wuxian’s soul, unable to find a trace. Lan Zhan had a fallout with the Lan Sect when they fought over A-Yuan’s fate in the sect and when they prevented him from seeing A-Yuan more often than once a month while Lan Zhan was in “seclusion.” Lan Zhan refused to stay in seclusion despite his significant injuries. It was two years of Lan Zhan traveling back and forth between Gusu and the Burial Mounds when he suddenly forgot everything about Wei Wuxian, the Sunshot Campaign, and the fact that A-Yuan was more than just a Lan disciple. When Lan Zhan forgot all of this, he knew something was wrong and that he had to leave the Cloud Recesses to find the truth.

“My fault,” he whispers. “For leaving A-Yuan behind and alone. For thinking he’s one of the many disciples we have. For forgetting my promise to care for him.”

“Lan Zhan,” he says. “It’s not your fault.” A pause. “What happened to A-Yuan?”

A-Yuan lived a long life. In his youth, he was one of the most promising Lan disciples in his generation. He was made head disciple. He, along with his friend Lan Jingyi, was a credit to the Lan Sect, always speaking kind words and eliminating evil. He eventually became good friends with Jin Ling, and upon hearing that, the huli jing grins.

“Good friends?”

“The best of friends. Jin Ling, A-Yuan, Lan Jingyi, and Ouyang Zizhen.”

“I would have loved to see all of them together. What were they like?”

A-Yuan was quiet and polite and skilled and actually resembled Lan Xichen in temperament to the point that some would presume the disciple to be the sect leader’s son. He was persistent in his studies and cultivation and had a strong sense of justice. Lan Jingyi was loud and brash for a Lan disciple. He was a distant cousin of Lan Zhan, and he didn’t grow up in the Cloud Recesses until it was time for him to cultivate and develop his core. Lan Jingyi was borderline disrespectful, though he always knew where to not cross the boundaries. Lan Jingyi could tolerate Jin Ling’s bad temperament and give as good as he got, daring enough to call Jin Ling “Young Little Mistress” and later “Madame Jin” to his face. He had absolutely no respect for Jiang Cheng during his tenure as the Jiang Sect Leader. Ouyang Zizhen was a polite, romantic sort of gentleman cultivator. Lan Zhan regrettably didn’t see him often enough to know more than that.

And Jin Ling, oh, Jin Ling took after his uncle, Jiang Cheng. Jin Guangyao and Jiang Cheng raised the boy, but Jin Ling inherited Jiang Cheng’s temper and was incredibly spoiled but lonely while growing up. But beneath the thorns laid a kind heart.

Lan Zhan did not speak of their fates.

With his head resting against Lan Zhan’s steady heart, Wei Ying wonders aloud, “It doesn’t make sense. Why did the past version of me turn away from orthodox cultivation and to the ghostly path?”

“I can answer that,” a harsh voice answers, from above. There, Jiang Cheng stands on the rooftop with a sword in one hand and a black dizi with a flowing red tassel in another.

Upon hearing his voice, the rabbits have all scattered and hid inside their burrows. Jiang Cheng lands gently on the grass, careful not to disturb Lan Zhan’s careful landscaping. He hands the dizi and the sword to the huli jing. “These belong to you.”

The black bamboo dizi fits perfectly in Wei Ying’s hand. He suspects he can easily send spiritual energy through it, and it will respond obediently and gracefully, like how Wangji and Bichen instantly obey their master’s orders. He can see faint baby teeth marks at the wrong end of the dizi, and he can almost see A-Yuan chewing at the end of the dizi while they were huddled in the Burial Mounds. It’s kept in mint condition, and while Chenqing is a spiritual weapon, he doubts it could have looked so great without some additional help and care from Jiang Cheng.

“I remembered everything despite the array,” Jiang Cheng tells them, looking down and then glancing away to view the massively interesting pile of gardening tools Lan Zhan has organized on the outdoor shelf. “I always thought the array was flawed. It was what Jin Guangyao assumed as well. But no one else remembered a single thing about the Sunshot Campaign, about you, so we presumed that it was only a tiny flaw. No matter how much I wanted to march up to the Cloud Recesses and break the array to cast it once more, I let it go. I was forced to move on.”

“There was something more to it. It wasn’t a flaw,” Wei Ying guesses.

“When Jin Guangyao died, Jin Ling turned over what remained of the Yiling Patriarch to me. There were some notes, books, and a sword that sealed itself.” At the confused look on the huli jing’s face, Jiang Cheng impatiently explains, “Very rare does a sword seal itself. Only when its wielder is of a high cultivation does a sword seal itself upon the wielder’s death. Give the sword to Lan Wangji. He can’t pull it open no matter how hard he tries.”

Lan Zhan accepts the offered sword from the huli jing. In demonstration, he tugs at the end, but it doesn’t budge at all. Even when Lan Zhan begins straining his muscles, the sword refuses to bend to Lan Zhan’s will.

“You know what happened when I tried to remove Suibian from its scabbard?”

“It unsealed itself,” Wei Ying answers, his stomach flipping in excitement at the logical conclusion of this puzzle. “You were able to pull it out.”

“Which leads us to the question of why so many cultivators were unable to pull out Suibian yet I was able to. Why was I able to remember when it was clearly written on the array that I was to forget?” Jiang Cheng turns to face the huli jing, towering over the fox. “I spent months thinking about the puzzle when the answer was staring at me in the face. The reason why I was able to pull Suibian, the reason why I was able to remember everything was because the core that was inside of me wasn’t mine. It was yours.”

Baffled, the huli jing asks, “How is that possible?”

Jiang Cheng’s face seems to go through all the stages of grief, anger, and depression in a moment. Then with a weary sign, he tells him, “The Jiang Sect’s motto was to attempt the impossible. You were the only one I knew who succeeded more than once.” He then turns away, jumping onto the rooftop in a single leap.

“Jiang Cheng!” Wei Ying shouts, leaning towards the qilin and pulling away from Lan Zhan. He waves frantically, but he can’t escape Lan Zhan’s grasp. Lan Zhan’s hands suddenly are tight and possessive around the huli jing’s hips.

“What?” he gruffly says.

“Thank you. For telling me what happened.” He pauses and faces Lan Zhan. “Both of you.”

Jiang Cheng manages a small nod. Then he glances at Lan Zhan and says, his face indecipherable, “Treat him well, Lan Wangji.”

“Mn.”

Then Jiang Cheng jumps down from the rooftop, disappearing from sight.

“You don’t really like him,” the huli jing comments. And as soon as he says it, all the little things, all the side glances, all the annoyed looks towards Jiang Cheng from Lan Zhan makes sense. He wonders why he hasn’t noticed them all before.

“In her past life, Jiang Yanli went into the fray to protect you. In his past life, Jiang Wanyin raised his arms and led the siege on the Burial Mounds,” Lan Zhan explains, disapproval ringing through every word. Then a fallen expression spreads across his face. “But I’ve failed you, too, in the past. If I supported you more, if I stayed with you in the Burial Mounds, there were so many ifs. There were so many better choices than to do nothing. For that, I will always be sorry.”

The huli jing stares at Lan Zhan for a heartbeat and then two. A seemingly long time ago, when he tried to thank Lan Zhan for going down into the caves with him to find out what happened to his parents, Lan Zhan told him, “Between you and me, there is no need for ‘thank you’ and ‘sorry’.” It’s the exact same thing he tells Lan Zhan today. “No need for thank yous, no need for sorries between you and me.” He smiles at this and turns, leaning against Lan Zhan and letting his weight fall on the man. He places the sword on the ground and lifts Chenqing up to his lips. It’s been a long time since he played the dizi, but maybe he still remembers something.

Lan Zhan listens, his breaths light in the huli jing’s fox ear, as Wei Ying plays a rough, unpracticed version of Wangxian.

They don’t stay forever at the hotel. Wei Ying and Lan Zhan made a vow together to eliminate evil and protect the weak. While the fierce corpses of the past are no longer a massive supernatural issue these modern days, there are still other problems that a cultivator and a huli jing can solve. There is still great evil out there that lurks in the shadows, and there are people who need help. So Lan Zhan borrows one of Jin Zixuan’s many cars and packs their necessary belongings into the trunk.

It’s a sedan, a little old but sturdy. It’s one of those Japanese cars that will last forever.

They are heading to a case with five disappearances of impoverished women near the China–Mongolia border. They’ve gone missing over the last three years with two of them having gone missing in recent months, and local law enforcement seems to be utterly disinterested in the disappearances due to their scandalous occupation. In the navigator’s seat, Wei Ying has looked over the case from several angles, trying to figure out what Lan Zhan and he can do to help find them.

Lan Zhan drives. Occasionally, the huli jing will look up from his phone and the frustratingly limited amount of news and information he can find on the internet. There is, however, rampant but also useless speculation sprouted by the internet’s denizens. He glances at Lan Zhan and then he turns towards the backseat, which is filled with an ice cooler and bottles of water. There is one seat empty, the seatbelt unbuckled.

In the good memories he’s been slowly remembering, he can recollect his father driving a car just like this one. He can see his mother sitting in the same seat he sits today. And he can remember himself, laughing and happy in the back. He stares at that seat, his eyes soft. He murmurs, “All we need is a little one.”

Notes:

Some things that didn't make it into the fic:
1. "Sometimes, I wish I was more like fuqin," Lan Zhan says. "I wish I kept you safe and secluded in Gusu. But I am not like fuqin. I would not dare imprison Wei Ying. Would never consider it as an option."
Wei Ying's throat tightens, and he feels his eyes water. "Lan Zhan," he whispers."
"But always will be there for Wei Ying if he wishes to be caught."
2. Nie Mingjue and Wei Ying (and Xiao Xingchen) didn't reincarnate until this life. Their souls were so badly shattered that it took a long time for them to recover and finally reincarnate. Meanwhile, Meng Yao, Jiang Cheng, and Nie Huaisang has been living several lives over and over again, remembering exactly what happened in their "original/first" life.
3. Meng Yao remembers dying in an "accident/murder" several times in his lives of various reasons. It was because Nie Huaisang has been murdering him throughout their lives. Hopefully, Meng Yao doesn't figure it out. If they do, it will be an epic bitchfest where Nie Mingjue (the horror) has to mediate.
4. It's pretty obvious that Wei Ying will get his ninth tail at some point. Wangxian is just that f*cking horny all the time. Everyday means everyday.
Back to writing shuangshui for TGCF, because of course, I went down into the rabbit hole for rarepairs.

running around, chasing each other on the rooftops of China - Verity (PenelopeGrace) - 魔道祖师 (2024)

Chapter 1: I.

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Chapter 2: II.

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Chapter 3: III.

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Chapter 4: IV.

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Chapter 5: V.

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