Hear a song this deeply - so_shhy - 陈情令 (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

In the morning light, something small and bright flashed over the grass of East Caiyi Park.

Lan Zhan drew up short from his jog in the middle of the gravel path. He blinked once to make sure he hadn’t seen it wrong. No mistake. Flitting just off to his left was a tiny spirit, filmy and insubstantial, refracting rainbows around its edges. As he watched, it darted to the edge of the lake and out over the water. Another flicker caught his eye, further out, and a musical, birdlike trill floated into the stillness.

This early in the day, the park was deserted, the grass dewed with moisture, the houses at its borders silent. In a few hours, there would be people walking to work, students making their way towards campus, dogs greeting one another with friendly barks, children scampering ahead of their parents on their way to school.

Another sweet, haunting call came from the lake, and the water rippled as one of the little spirits dipped below the surface. Lan Zhan’s jaw tightened. It was unacceptable. Dangerous. He recognized this type of resentful spirit. All it would take was one distracted parent, one toddler following the bright, cooing shape to the waterside. One unnoticed splash.

He had brought nothing with him on his jog except his phone and keys. No matter. At the lakeside he found a stone with a sharp point and scraped three lopsided characters into a patch of bare earth. A quick blast of qi activated the binding spell. Then… well, sometimes you had to take the messy but effective route. He took off his running shoes, rolled up his sweatpants and waded into the knee-deep water, feeling with his toes for the shells he knew would be lurking in the mud. Within ten minutes he had a pile of freshwater clams on the bank, black and malevolent, oozing resentful energy. He crouched by the pile, feeding streams of qi into the shells with his left hand while methodically smashing them, one by one, with the stone.

The broken shells crumbled into nothing. The filmy spirits curled within them faded and winked out.

Lan Zhan wiped his grimy feet as well as he could against the legs of his sweatpants and put his socks and shoes back on, looking around for some explanation. Low level yao like the clam spirits occasionally cropped up in the city despite the Lan sect’s wards, but to have so many of them concentrated in one place was strange. He couldn’t feel a source for the oily resentment anywhere nearby. Perhaps there was something under the ground. It wasn’t unheard of for corpses to end up in sewers and subway tunnels, lying forgotten as they rotted, seeping their sorrow and anger out into the earth.

He texted his brother: Eliminated a colony of clam yao in East Caiyi Park. No obvious cause. Can you send someone to take a look?

According to Xichen’s strict routine, it was meditation hour. Nonetheless, the reply came quickly.

Xiongzhang: Unusual!!! 😮🐚👻

Xiongzhang: But CMCD jurisdiction 😓😬

Xiongzhang: Sorry! 🙁🙁🙁

Xiongzhang: Report it + lmk outcome 👍 👍 👍

Lan Zhan sighed. His relationship with the Caiyi Municipal Cultivation Department was strained. They had to put up with him and his research for the sake of the Lan name, but they didn’t have to like it. They would only have his word that the yao had existed, and when they asked why he hadn’t called in official CMCD operatives to deal with them… he couldn’t lie, but neither could he say, “Because it would take you a week of scheduling and a day of work to deal with something that’s a twenty-minute job for me.” Few of the CMCD cultivators knew how insignificant their skills were compared to his own, and the ones who did were not happy to be reminded of it.

Well. He would make a report and hope that it didn’t vanish into the morass of neglected paperwork that clogged the department.

He checked his watch. There was no time to finish his usual running route, so he turned for home, picking up the pace until he was sprinting at full stretch, breathing easily, buoyed along by his golden core.

***

In the corridor outside classroom 204, on the second floor of Caiyi University’s Cultivation Studies building, Lan Zhan’s test subjects were lined up waiting for him. At his approach they stood straighter and chorused, “Good morning, Lan-laoshi,” just like the eight-year-old disciples he’d taught to play guqin as a teenager. He wasn’t a teacher anymore, of them or of anyone, but it had never seemed worth objecting to the form of address. He gave them a nod before opening the door. They filed in past him, a little string of over- or under-caffeinated university students, straight from early classes. As they entered, he could feel the tension easing out of them. Their chatter as they shoved the desks to the edges of the room and stacked the chairs was upbeat.

It was a familiar routine by now. One by one they came up to him, handing in their weekly questionnaire and presenting their wrists to him so he could take a qi reading. Then they unrolled their yoga mats and took a spot on the floor. A couple sat in lotus pose. Most sprawled on their backs or curled up on their sides for maximum comfort. Their voices died away quickly. Once they were all quiet and settled, he took his position at the desk, setting his guqin ready in front of him, and began to play the same tune he’d been playing for these students the entire semester. According to his notes, it was Song of Clarity 2, reconstruction 17.2. In his mind, he called it Repose.

There was nothing particularly impressive about the song. It was a gentle melody, simple in form but complex in the techniques it demanded of a guqin player. He maintained focus, infusing the music with spiritual energy while the students drifted one by one into sleep. Within ten minutes, the room was filled with soft snores. The playing was repetitive. He kept having to pull his mind back from thoughts of his upcoming meeting with his uncle, or the little pile of ominous black shells.

Finally his phone screen flashed as the silent timer ran down to nothing. He drew the song to a close and ran his hand across the strings. The students stirred, stretched, and bounced up to their feet with satisfied hums, lining up for him to take the final reading. He got twenty-five beaming smiles and twenty-five versions of, “Thank you so much, Lan-laoshi, have a great week!” and then they were gone, leaving him holding his pile of questionnaires with fingers still tingling from the guqin strings.

According to historical sources, Repose had induced a restful sleep that calmed the mind, increased focus and stabilised mood. Lan Zhan had spent the past two years painstakingly reconstructing the piece from what manuscripts and other sources still remained, filling in the gaps with the musical cultivation theory he’d been able to recover. He was seeing positive effects in his experimental subjects. He was also seeing positive effects in the control group who dozed off to traditional guqin classics with no spiritual activity whatsoever. Only thanks to this months-long study could he prove that there was a significantly higher benefit from Repose.

He walked slowly back to the office where he had a small, temporary desk. It’s real owner, Luo Mian according to the name on the door but Mianmian to almost everyone, greeted him cheerfully.

“Morning, Lan Zhan. How were your sleeping beauties?”

“Same as usual,” he said, leafing through the questionnaires. The wellbeing scores were good, save for one girl who had violated experimental protocols by scrawling I broke up with my boyfriend, with a crying face, beside her mood rating. He would have to mention to her that it was inappropriate. Still, he would enter the data and not take the extra information into account in the analysis, so it didn’t matter. “By this point, I can draw a solid conclusion.”

Mianmian grinned. “You mean you’re bored and you wish you’d planned a shorter experiment.”

“The long-term study is valuable.”

“You’re getting some good data. Are you finally going to write a paper on this one?”

“Hm,” said Lan Zhan noncommittally. Publishing his results would mean publishing the score for Repose, and while the Lan elders might dismiss his project as a waste of time, they would certainly not be happy about his reconstructions being available to the public.

“It’s important work. It ought to be recognised.”

Lan Zhan turned away from her, opening his laptop to start on his data entry. He didn’t want congratulations or encouragement. The only successful reconstruction he had to show for his years of research was a minor technique to improve emotional balance and sleep quality, which wasn’t anywhere near as effective as contemporary accounts suggested it should be. It wasn’t a feat worthy of recognition.

She sighed. “Alright, you’re in a mood, but you’re not allowed to bury yourself in ancient manuscripts and sulk. Let’s go for tea, you’ll feel better once you’ve got it all off your chest.” She stood, still light on her feet despite the swell of her belly. “Come on, you know you want to.”

“Mm.”

On the way, she tucked her arm into his. He allowed it, had done so ever since her pregnancy had started to affect her balance. The simple touch was nice. He would be the first to acknowledge that he led a solitary life.

In the department cafe, she bullied him into getting one of the more expensive teas and a small sweet pastry. Then she sat him down and said, “You’ve got a family dinner coming up, huh?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“You live too near home, that’s your problem. At least my lot can’t expect a monthly pilgrimage to Lanling just so they can tell me what a disappointment I am.”

“I won’t have much to show my uncle this time.”

“He wouldn’t care even if you did.”

Lan Zhan hummed in agreement and took a sip of his tea. “It will be good to see the rabbits,” he said.

“The rabbits? That’s what you’re looking forward to? Your brother’s going to be heartbroken. Ah, Zewu-jun,” she sighed, eyes going distant and dreamy.

“He sent me eleven emojis in ten actual words of texting today,” said Lan Zhan. “Also, I should point out that you’re married. And pregnant.”

“I’ve been crushing on him for a decade, let me have this.” She rested a hand on her belly. “Ugh, did you have to remind me? Why am I pregnant, Lan Zhan? I don’t know anything about children.”

“Poor life choices.”

She smacked him on the arm. “You know I’m making you babysit this thing when it’s born, right?”

“I don’t know anything about children either.”

“Hey, at least you’ll be able to put the kid to sleep.”

“Unlikely,” said Lan Zhan. “It’ll be a long time before Repose is approved for use on humans outside of experimental settings.” He paused. “I’ll register your baby as a test subject if you sign an official release form.”

She snorted, grinning at him, and shoved a cookie into her mouth.

As they were finishing up their pots of tea, his phone buzzed. He checked the message and made a small noise of surprise.

“What?” said Mianmian.

“It’s from my contact at the CMCD. There’s a case today he thinks would suit my research.”

“You mean that asshole’s actually being helpful? Sounds fake.”

Lan Zhan hummed. “It’s a low-level yao infestation. He’s right, it would be a good test for Evocation.”

“It’s not one of your CMCD days. Don’t you have more students to use as lab rats?”

“No, not until tomorrow.” He set down his cup on his tray and balled up his napkin. “You did say I shouldn’t bury myself in scrolls. This will be a distraction.”

“Don’t get eaten by a yao,” she said.

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan, and went to collect his laptop before heading to the subway station.

***

The Caiyi Municipal Cultivation Department consisted of three rooms in the city’s Public Works building. There was the equipment room, the main office, and the department head’s lair from which orders were issued. Seven municipal cultivators worked in the department, but aside from first thing in the morning the office only ever held a couple of people completing paperwork between jobs.

When Lan Zhan arrived, there was just one person in the room; not anyone familiar, despite the blue CMCD polo shirt that marked him as an employee. He was about Lan Zhan’s age, with a sensitive, handsome face, and he sat perched on a desk, legs swinging free.

“Hi,” he said, giving Lan Zhan a friendly wave.

Their eyes met, and the man’s gaze lingered, dipping down and back up in a way that gave Lan Zhan a sudden, unaccustomed urge to duck his head and run a hand through his hair. He stifled it, shocked at himself, and gave a brief nod that communicated politeness without warmth.

“Hello. I’m looking for Qian Feng. Is he here?”

“He’s out on a job,” said the stranger. As Lan Zhan said a mental f*ck you to his current ever-irritating department liaison, the man continued, “Are you Lan Zhan?”

“I am.”

The man hopped off the desk. Standing up, he was tall and long-limbed, with several miles of black jeans above his practical work boots. His smile crinkled his eyes. “He told me to wait for you before going to take care of a little infestation,” he said. “I’m Wei Ying, I’m new.”

Typical, Lan Zhan thought grimly. Of course Qian Feng would pass the buck first chance he got. Hopefully it wouldn’t take too long to break in this new contact.

“So, I have no idea who you are,” said Wei Ying, “and nobody seemed to want to tell me, but whatever – it’s nice to meet you.” He moved around Lan Zhan, inspecting him from different angles with shameless curiosity. “You look like the highly competent type, Lan Zhan. You’ll hold my hand while I get up to speed with how things work around here, right?”

“I’m not here to help you with your work,” said Lan Zhan, injecting frost into his voice to deter any further attempts at charm. “I’ll be focusing on my research.”

Wei Ying co*cked his head. “Research?” he said.

“Mm. I’m a cultivation researcher, not a department employee. I’m reconstructing the ancient musical cultivation techniques of the Lan clan.”

“Oh, you’re a Lan Lan,” said Wei Ying. His smile brightened, or... sharpened was the word that came to Lan Zhan's mind. It was almost blinding to look at. “I figured the name had to be a coincidence, I never imagined the great sects would stoop to municipal cultivation.”

“As I said, I’m not a municipal cultivator. Nor am I an active member of the Lan sect.”

Wei Ying’s mobile eyebrows raised in surprise before he made some small attempt to be tactful. “Well hey, that’s fair. You don’t have to do the job just because you were born into the family. The musical stuff, though, really? I thought the parts that weren’t just myths in the first place were all lost for good when the library burned.”

Lan Zhan hid his own surprise. The ancient history of the Lan sect was not on the basic cultivation syllabus at most universities. “None of it was a myth,” he said. “The techniques were real. A few fragments still remain.”

“And you think you can bring it back? Well, you can count on me, I’m here to help! I’m going to enjoy working with you.”

This level of irrepressible enthusiasm seemed abnormal. Also, ill-informed. There was a reason all Lan Zhan’s previous liaisons had shuffled him off onto someone else as soon as they could. His methods were disruptive, and the department tended to use him as a money-saving device, fulfilling their requirement not to send anyone out alone without actually allocating a second employee to the job. Wei Ying would effectively be doing the work of two people on the days when Lan Zhan was with him. He would come to resent it quickly.

“May I see your action plan for dealing with the yao?” said Lan Zhan, instead of explaining.

“My what now?”

Lan Zhan blinked. Surely nobody had let this man loose on his first day without even teaching him the procedures. He glanced around the desks and extricated a green form from a nearby document tray. “Here. This is what you complete before the job, laying out your strategy, equipment and techniques. They’re called action plans in this department.”

“Uh,” said Wei Ying. He didn’t take the form.

“Hm?”

“It’s just… I’m not great with paperwork. I figured I’d just do the job and then write down what I did later.”

It seemed there could be someone more annoying than the actively obstructive Qian Feng after all.

“The paperwork is a requirement. In advance. I can’t plan my research without seeing your action plan.”

“For every job?” said Wei Ying, looking at the form like it was a stinking dead codfish.

“Every job.”

“Yeah, no, that’s not happening.”

“It’s a requirement. Do you want me to file a complaint with your superior on your first day?”

Wei Ying made a disconsolate noise, rocking back on his heels as he pondered. Finally, he sighed, and said, “Let’s see how much of a pain in the ass this thing actually is.”

Lan Zhan proffered the form again. Wei Ying shook his head.

“Nuh-uh. Grab a pen. I’ll drive, you can ask me the questions as we go.”

***

By the time they arrived at the warehouse district, the only parts of the form that Lan Zhan had managed to complete were the date, the location, and the name of the attending cultivator. Wei Ying’s entire plan seemed to boil down to I’ll figure it out when I get there. He gave a whole slew of potential strategies, and a lengthy discourse on yao management, and several anecdotes about the stranger creatures he’d encountered in the past. None of it was useful.

“No,” Lan Zhan snapped, once Wei Ying had pulled the blue CMCD van up to a dilapidated warehouse and made to get out. “We’re not starting until I have some idea of what you’re doing.”

Wei Ying ran his fingers through his hair and groaned. “Ugh, Lan Zhaaaan. Look, what do you want me to do? What would be the best thing for your research?”

Lan Zhan hesitated. Nobody had asked him that before. To the day-to-day workers he was an annoyance, foisted on them because the department didn’t want to offend the sect. They never went out of their way to be accommodating.

What would he want if he could have anything?

“If you did nothing, to begin with,” he said, “and let me attempt to use Evocation to draw the yao to us…”

“You mean you want to disturb the spirits without any kind of containment circle in place? The way all cultivation protocols say you should never do?” Wei Ying grinned. “Yeah, sure, give it a shot.”

“…Really?”

“Why not? This is literally the only thing on my schedule; they’ve assigned me the whole day for a bunch of minor yao. We’ve got time to do whatever. So how about I let you do exactly what you want and you get off my ass about the paperwork?”

It was a terrible attitude. Lan Zhan should not encourage it. On the other hand, the yao were just the kind of experimental subjects he needed. He would give a lot for the chance to test his Evocation variants without the department’s substandard night-hunting techniques skewing his results. He looked down at the half-completed form, considered just how much complaining he would have to endure if he made Wei Ying fill it out, and gave a small nod.

“Cool,” said Wei Ying. “Do your thing. Let me see what this musical cultivation is all about.”

Lan Zhan was used to working under the eyes of indifferent or derisive municipal cultivators. Wei Ying’s avid interest was new, but he didn’t let it unsettle him. He walked over to a clear space in the warehouse’s scrubby surroundings, drew his guqin out of its qiankun pouch and settled it on a cushion of air in front of him. His fingers flicked and pressed on the strings, and he breathed slowly in time with each phrase as he funnelled qi into the notes.

He made it about thirty seconds into the song. Then, with a deafening squeal, four yao rocketed up from the bushes and the windows of the warehouse. Chittering with distress, they sped off, wings flapping crazily, talons pressed over their ears.

Lan Zhan’s hands froze on the strings. Four yao. Four different directions. A rapidly widening circle. They’d be all over the city, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Behind him, Wei Ying was cackling.

“f*ck,” he gasped. “Oh my god, Lan Zhan, that was priceless. Your face!”

Lan Zhan was caught between the urge to apologise and a very real desire to point out that if Wei Ying had just completed his action plan like he was supposed to, they wouldn’t have ended up doing this with no backup containment in place. Wei Ying was still laughing, unconcerned that his simple job had suddenly become a citywide yao-hunt.

“So you’ve still got some kinks to work out, huh?”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan. He could feel his ears heating.

“Well, that’s what you’re here for. Let’s track down a couple of these beasties and you can try again.”

“Again?”

“Yeah. What, is it ‘one and done’ with you? You don’t have anything else to try?”

“I… do,” said Lan Zhan. “I have many variants.”

Wei Ying took something out of his pocket and tossed it over. Lan Zhan caught it automatically and found himself holding a spirit compass.

“Know how to use one of those?”

“Of course.”

“Great. I’m just gonna set something up.”

Wei Ying grabbed a can of cultivator paint from the back of the van and started to draw a rusty-red circle on the asphalt of the parking lot. Lan Zhan frowned at it, puzzled – why draw a containment circle when the yao were already miles away? What nonsense were they teaching on university cultivation courses these days? Wei Ying’s choice of paint was also a sign of terrible teaching; animal blood paints were powerful but cheap, nasty and unpredictable. Even the CMCD had the budget for nephrite or mother-of-pearl as the spiritually active ingredient.

Lan Zhan shook his head, turned away, and started trying to get a fix on one of the yao.

***

By mid-afternoon, he had tried out seven more variants of Evocation.

Four of them had the same effect as the first. Two did nothing at all. One brought the yao creeping closer, almost to within a sword’s length, until he hit a string of notes it didn’t like.

They’d been to all corners of the city, he had a dozen pages of useful notes, and they hadn’t caught a single yao.

“Okay, Lan Zhan,” said Wei Ying, as they watched the latest chittering horror soar up into the sky, “this has been a blast, but I do actually need to finish work on time.”

Lan Zhan winced. Wei Ying was slapdash, lazy and far too talkative, but his easy-going nature had led to a productive day at the expense of his own work. When the department director found out about the wasted time, the blame would fall squarely on Wei Ying’s head.

“Of course,” he said. The yao was out of sight now, vanished in the direction of the river, and the others were who-knew-where. Tracking them all down would be troublesome, but if he broke his own rule and lent a hand, then perhaps…

“So hey, why don’t you take the subway back to the office?” said Wei Ying. “There’s no point in you hanging around. I’ll finish things off the regular, music-free way.”

Lan Zhan stared at him. “It’ll take hours,” he said. “I can help.”

“No! No need, you’re a researcher. I won’t ask you to sully your pure Lan hands. Like you said, you’re not here to help me with my work.”

Lan Zhan paused, unpleasant suspicion settling in his chest. “Are you going to leave the job unfinished?”

“Ah, Lan Zhan!” said Wei Ying, clutching at his heart. “You say such hurtful things. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. What does it matter to you?”

“It matters,” said Lan Zhan. He thought of the clam yao by the lake, singing their cooing, coaxing songs. These yao weren’t the same danger to children, but they could cause property damage and the occasional injury. The people of Caiyi deserved better.

Wei Ying glanced at his phone and his expression tightened. “I don’t have time for this,” he said.

“You may leave the job undone if you wish,” said Lan Zhan. “I will report it to your supervisor. But I advise you to accept my help.”

Wei Ying laughed, and there was a sharp edge of mockery in it. “Believe me, I don’t need your help. Go home, I’ll handle it.”

Lan Zhan shook his head.

“Lans,” said Wei Ying. “They say you’re all born with a stick up your… ah, what did I expect? I said I’d handle it. Can’t you just take my word for it?”

Lan Zhan looked at him in silence.

“Fine,” said Wei Ying, with a long, dramatic sigh. “Fine, if you’re just going to stand there and stare, you might as well have something to look at. Enjoy the show, Lan Zhan.” He grabbed his can of cultivator paint, shook it briskly, and started tracing out a circle on the ground.

Lan Zhan watched, increasingly baffled. Wei Ying was walking bent over with practised ease. He kept his eyes on the midpoint of his array, maintaining an even distance to complete an almost perfect outer circle, then marked off the compass points and ordinals and scrawled in a character at each, too messy for Lan Zhan to easily make them out. He straightened up, tossed the can aside and drew his sword.

In action, his casual laziness evaporated. Darting and twirling back and forth across his array, he traced the pattern of influence he’d mapped out, steel flashing over the rust-coloured lines of chalk and blood. Spiritual energy whipped in the wake of the blade, drawing bright arcs in the air. Lan Zhan felt the thrum of pure power, growing and spiralling, then condensing to dazzling brightness as Wei Ying spun the blade through one final sweep to kiss the ground at the centre of the circle.

A beam of light shot into the sky, arching over the city to plunge downwards far away, off to the south in the direction of the warehouse where they’d first begun. Four other lines of light spread out from that point. Wei Ying moved again, drawing the blade back with an effort. The beam of light pulsed four times, and four shrieking creatures tumbled out of nowhere into the circle. The yao. Drawn to the spot, pulled from miles around, and now perfectly contained despite their flailing and clawing at the barrier of spray-paint on the ground. Wei Ying danced into motion again, sword a blur, and there was a blinding flash that sent Lan Zhan two paces backwards. The light faded. In the middle of the circle, four fat, rumpled pigeons gave Wei Ying offended looks and took off into the sky in a rustle of wings.

Lan Zhan realised he was standing with his mouth open. He snapped it closed just in time as Wei Ying sheathed his sword and turned, jerking his chin towards the van with a tiny smirk.

“All done,” he said. “Let’s head back.”

Lan Zhan wanted to stop, to demand, “What was that?” He thought back to the apparently pointless arrays, quick traced circles on the ground at every point they’d encountered a yao. Those nodes had been all Wei Ying needed to reach out along the pathways made by the yao’s flights and draw them back to himself.

It wasn’t a technique taught in universities. It wasn’t a technique Lan Zhan knew from any of the sects, either. It seemed to be entirely Wei Ying’s own. Who was this man, quick and powerful, and clever, and what on earth was he doing at Caiyi Municipal Cultivation, mopping up supernatural pests with a bunch of semi-trained night-hunters who could barely scrape together a golden core?

Wei Ying glanced back with a co*cky tilt of his head. “What? Never seen that trick before?”

“I have not,” said Lan Zhan quietly.

“Hah – well, okay, you wouldn’t have. It’s just a little something I threw together.”

“Mm.”

They packed up, Lan Zhan stashing his guqin in its pouch, Wei Ying tossing his paint can and sword haphazardly into the van. Wei Ying kept talking – about the day, and Lan Zhan’s research, about the best route back, the sh*tty old van, how hungry he was, about cultivation, and Caiyi, and whatever thought crossed his head. Lan Zhan said nothing until they were turning back into the familiar streets of the CMCD neighbourhood, and there was a momentary lull in Wei Ying’s chatter. Then his curiosity got the better of him.

“Where did you train?” he said. It was an innocuous question, compared to the ones he really wanted to ask. How did you do that? And why didn’t you want me to see you do it?

Wei Ying shot him a sideways smile. “Oh, here and there. Around.”

“With a sect?”

“Lan Zhan! Do I look like a sect cultivator?”

“Do I?” Lan Zhan shot back. The common people somehow thought that sect cultivators grew robes like a second skin and were physically incapable of wearing jeans.

“You do, actually,” said Wei Ying, grinning. “It’s an innate stuffiness. If I cut you in half, you’d have fuddy-duddy written on your core. Whereas me? I’m footloose and fancy free. A wandering cultivator, like in the olden days! Or I used to be. I was doing my own thing, but when this job came up I thought, why not? Caiyi’s nice, the work’s easy, and there are no night shifts! The pay could be better but I applied for the subsidised accommodation so it all works out fine.”

“You’re staying in the cultivator housing,” said Lan Zhan. His heart sank. The six little apartments were usually given to low-income students – Zhang Bao, from the focus group Lan Zhan used to help with his reconstructions, had one – or used short-term for visiting academics. Municipal cultivators were eligible, but very few wanted to live in a shoe box.

“Yeah. It’s a great neighbourhood. Do you know the area? I need to get some local knowledge.”

There was no point trying to hide something Wei Ying would undoubtedly find out sooner or later. “The Lan sect owns the building. I have an apartment on the top floor.”

“Ah,” said Wei Ying, eyebrows raising in surprise. There was a brief flash of uncertainty in his eyes, and for a moment it seemed he was as unhappy as Lan Zhan about the discovery. Then his grin snapped back into place. “Makes sense it’d be Lan funded. Give my thanks to your family! I’ll have to pick your brain about grocery stores and takeout places. Gotta say, though, I figured you’d be based out in the Cloud Recesses.”

Lan Zhan shook his head silently. It was the last thing he wanted to discuss with a stranger.

“You’re part of the main family, though? You look a lot like – uh, I guess he’s some kind of cousin of yours? The sect leader.”

He wasn’t the first to notice the resemblance. Another student in Lan Zhan’s musical focus group, Zhou Chuhua, was an avid reader of cultivation magazines, and it had taken her no time whatsoever to ferret out the relationship from whatever sources she could dig up online. Again, it would be pointless to delay the inevitable.

“Brother,” said Lan Zhan.

Wei Ying turned to gape at him. “You’re Zewu-Jun’s brother?”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan, as blankly as he could. “Please watch the road.”

Returning at least some of his attention to the traffic, Wei Ying gave an odd, awkward laugh. “Sorry. Just surprised. I didn’t even know he had one.”

“It’s not a secret,” said Lan Zhan testily. He was used to the looks people gave him when they found out his family connections, but it was still tiresome. They made assumptions as to why he was in Caiyi, with his old scrolls and odd experiments, when a brother of Lan Xichen would be expected to have an illustrious career within the Lan sect. None of the assumptions were flattering.

“My memory’s terrible,” said Wei Ying. “I probably forgot, if I ever knew. I hear he’s a great guy, so… that’s good. You guys get on? My brother and I used to fight like wet cats in a sack.”

“We get on.”

“I don’t suppose I’ll meet him.”

“Unlikely,” said Lan Zhan. Everyone wanted to meet the cultivation world’s darling, but Xichen had too many responsibilities for casual visits, and a municipal cultivator on Wei Ying’s level would rarely be caught up in a case that needed Lan involvement. Municipal cultivators were the city’s spiritual street cleaners. On the few occasions that more powerful resentful spirits caused trouble within the city wards, the sect made only the barest pretence at liaising with the CMCD.

Thankfully they were turning into the Public Works parking lot, and Wei Ying was occupied by finding a spot, and then by giving the contents of the van a quick check. He didn’t bother to take anything back to the equipment room. He didn’t seem like he was going to go back to the office at all. Lan Zhan fished out the form he’d half-completed earlier and held it out pointedly. Wei Ying gave it another look of distaste.

“I don’t have time right now. I’ll do it at home,” he said. Then his eyes sparkled with mischief. “Lan Zhan, I have options here. I could fill in this thing with what we actually did today and earn myself some difficult questions, or I could, if nobody was likely to disagree, write about a boring elimination process that would get no questions at all, and which would make me much more relaxed and happy and therefore more amenable to being relaxed about your research in future. Not that I would ask you to lie.” He grinned. “Just keep your mouth shut, huh?”

“Shameless,” Lan Zhan snapped.

“Yeah,” said Wei Ying cheerfully, “but you’re gonna.”

Lan Zhan’s ears burned. He turned away. “Excuse me,” he said, “I have paperwork to complete.”

He wasn’t lying. It would take him a while to craft a report on the clam yao that conveyed, ‘there is likely to be an underlying cause to this that you must look into,’ without also implying ‘I don’t trust you to do your jobs.’

“Oh… well, I’ll see you soon! When are you coming back?”

“Wednesday,” said Lan Zhan grimly.

“Catch you then, Lan Zhan. Have a good night.”

***

By the end of the week, Lan Zhan was in a bad temper that even a double morning meditation session had been unable to quell. He didn’t have the satisfaction of a valid reason: his two regular days at the CMCD that week had been as productive as his first session with Wei Ying. He had been making unusual progress with Evocation. Being annoyed about something that had helped him just because he didn’t like the person responsible for it was petty and childish and only made him more angry with himself. Wei Ying continued to be slapdash, lazy, and bafflingly brilliant, and Lan Zhan itched under his skin whenever they were together.

It didn’t help his mood that the last thing on his schedule before the weekend was his musical focus group; the most frustrating two hours of his week, mostly because the reconstruction of Cleansing they were working on still didn’t have any meaningful effect, and partly because of the participants.

This time, there was no quiet line waiting politely outside the classroom door. The students had let themselves in, and a burble of drumming and voices was seeping out into the corridor. As Lan Zhan opened the door, the noise resolved into a rap that seemed to be about… frogs? Possibly frogs. He didn’t get much chance to tell, because as soon as he walked in, Chen Mei broke off, grinned, and burst into the first verse of Lord of Music, an entirely nonsensical song of her own devising, while her backup singers’ beatboxing took on the unmistakeable twang of guqin strings.

Lan Zhan waited for ten seconds to give the group a chance to be sensible, then silenced Chen Mei with pulse of spiritual energy. The backup singers wilted. Zhang Bao, tenant of the Lan-subsidised apartment, trailed off his drumming against the table with a patter, smiled sheepishly, and said, “Sorry, Lan-laoshi.”

“Your composition has minimal musical value,” Lan Zhan informed Chen Mei, ignoring her pantomime of entreaty. He nodded to the couple of quieter students occupying corners of the room as far as possible from the racket. “Good morning, everyone. We have three new variations of Cleansing to test today. Any questions before we begin?”

From her corner, Tan Liling raised her hand instantly. She was a thickset girl with a purple streak in her hair, undeniably the most academic of the group. Lan Zhan gave her another tiny nod. She always had questions, and for her at least he had found a means to keep interruptions to a minimum. “I’ll email you a scan of the documents I used for my sources and a summary of my reasoning. Will that do?”

“Yes, Lan-Laoshi. Thank you.”

One other hand had gone up. Lan Zhan stifled a sigh. Zhou Chuhua, the cultivation magazine reader, whose trailing sleeves and silk sashes were always suspiciously reminiscent of sect robes, could come up with the most bizarre questions, both highly specific and apparently random, without any relation to the topic at hand. “If it’s about cultivation history you may have five minutes after the session,” he said.

She beamed. “Thank you, Lan-Laoshi.”

“Anyone else? Alright. Please begin your meditation.”

He released the silence spell as he said it, pretending not to hear Chen Mei’s sotto voce complaints as she settled into her chair and straightened her spine. Within a few moments, all eight students were seated in silence. He circled the room, laying a score for the first Cleansing variation and one of his documentation forms in front of each of them. As he did so, he hovered his hand by their temples, feeling the flow of their qi. It was all much the same as ever. Zhou Chuhua’s narrow, clogged meridians, a natural defect exacerbated by her childhood attempts to teach herself cultivation; Zhang Bao, bearing old anger deviation scars that seemed so out of place on the pleasant young man Lan Zhan knew; Tan Liling, all straight lines and corners where there should be organic curves. Chen Mei…

Lan Zhan paused, fingers an inch from the young woman’s head. Ebbing and rising qui flow, as uncontrolled as her personality, but lurking amongst the mess, wisps of resentful energy. Expanding his spiritual senses, Lan Zhan examined them. They were formless, nothing that would have a specific effect. Not a curse, then. Some kind of residue, perhaps; an effect of proximity.

“Have you been out of the city recently?” he asked.

Chen Mei blinked her eyes open, surprise on her face. “No,” she said, “not since the start of the semester. There’s too much going on, when would I find the time?”

“Not even a day trip? A drive out into the hills?”

“No. Why?”

Odd traces of resentment sometimes cropped up among cultivation students — such as in one memorable incident the previous year when a professor had broken a haunted mirror during the most ill-informed, unsafe cursebreaking demonstration imaginable. It was an unfortunate fact that, aside from Mianmian, none of the people teaching cultivation to these children had a tenth the knowledge and discipline that would be expected of an instructor at the Cloud Recesses. They had all learned in universities themselves and didn’t know any better.

“No matter,” said Lan Zhan. He moved on, making a mental note to keep an eye on Chen Mei, and to ask Mianmian if there had been any especially moronic practical classes lately.

That trace of resentment was the only thing of note. Everything else was as it should be, sadly. He had been playing versions of Cleansing to these students for months, and none of them had shown the slightest improvement in their qi balance or flow. Not that he had promised them anything of the sort. It had been made very clear, when he was recruiting participants, that this was a focus group, not a treatment session. They were there because they had measurable qi problems and enough musical understanding to give useful feedback on his variations. Overcoming their issues was their own business.

He sat himself down at his guqin and began to play through his first variation. All eight kids swayed with the swell and ebb of spiritual energy, but before he’d even come to the end of the variant, he could tell it was no more effective than any of his other attempts. The power was there, flowing from his golden core into the music, but the notes he’d worked so hard to pin down did nothing whatsoever.

By this point, each new permutation was more of a wild guess than the last. He was running out of things to try. He knew what his uncle would say about it the next day. He knew the look that would be on his brother’s face, too—not disappointment, exactly, just indefinable sadness.

He brought the piece to a close. “Done. Please complete your questionnaires,” he said, and stood up to take another set of readings.

The students filled in their forms in silence, pens circling numbers and scribbling notation. Even Chen Mei knew better than to talk; Lan Zhan didn’t hesitate to withhold her stipend if she skewed his data by influencing the others. He watched over their shoulders, feeling grimly resigned. This part had been much more satisfying when the young minds of the students had been able to help him craft the initial flow of qi through the piece, picking out the bars and notes that made things smoother or more jagged. Now, that flow was almost perfect. It just didn’t do anything. The students were beginning to be bored and discouraged with choosing “makes no significant difference” for each question—though not nearly as discouraged as he was.

After the other variants had been tested and he’d managed to keep them on track during the usual rowdy workshop session, he dismissed them. Zhou Chuhua hung back hopefully as he gathered up the questionnaires.

“How can I help you?” asked Lan Zhan wearily.

“I have another question about historical inter-sect relations before the cultivation wars.”

“Mm. Go ahead.”

“I was wondering, would young disciples of different sects have known each other? Not just met briefly at conferences and competitions, but really spent time together?”

Lan Zhan nodded. “A disciple might have spent as much as a year studying with another sect. Each major sect ran lecture series for the higher-ranked young disciples of the others. It was a way to exchange knowledge and practices as well as building diplomatic links.” He paused, uncomfortable at the way she seemed to be hanging avidly on his every word.

“So teenagers from different sects might meet at these lectures and get to know each other and be friends from then on?” she said.

“I believe ties between sects were often strengthened by friendships developed at indoctrination lectures. I can email you some titles if you want to research the topic further.”

“Would you? That’s great, Lan-Laoshi, thank you so much.” She gave him a beaming smile. “I really appreciate it! I’ll see you next week for more Cleansing.”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan, as she turned and zipped off to her next class. It was nice to see a university cultivation student showing interest in sect history, he supposed, but he couldn’t understand why she seemed so pleased by his reply. Not for the first time, he resigned himself to the fact that he would never understand his focus group.

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

Late on Saturday afternoon, a sleek silver sedan swept up to the sidewalk in front of Lan Zhan’s building. The driver who greeted him was a disciple he didn’t recognise. That wasn’t surprising – since he’d left for university nearly a decade earlier, the population of Cloud Recesses had swelled. There were almost two hundred Lan disciples, from the tiny children learning their first sword forms to the elderly men and women who’d been teachers when his uncle was a child. The explosion in numbers was Xichen’s influence. Lan Sect had gone from being a boring, strait-laced sect with no particular attraction to being a boring, strait-laced sect run by the rising star of the cultivation world.

On the forty-five-minute drive up the mountain, Lan Zhan watched the world outside the windows, catching glimpses of the city falling away into the distance as the road wound back and forth. About halfway up, his phone buzzed with a text.

Xiongzhang: Delaaaaaaaaayed 😭

How long? he wrote back.

Xiongzhang: An hour? Getting in the air now 🗡️💨💨

Take your time, Lan Zhan wrote. And don’t text and fly.

Xiongzhang: 😞❤️❤️❤️

When the car reached the high compound, Lan Zhan stepped out into a world that was at once familiar and alien. The buildings of Cloud Recesses were all graceful proportions, pale and pure with contrasting accents of glossy dark wood. The place swallowed sound. Voices were hushed, footsteps slow and careful, even the knock of practice swords against one another was muffled. Part of Lan Zhan’s soul eased with just being there, welcomed by rules and rituals he knew down to his bones. Another part stood in mute confusion, unable to comprehend that all of this existed in the same world as the university, the CMCD, and the bustling streets in Caiyi.

By rights, he should have gone to greet his uncle before anything else, but he hadn’t banked on doing it without Xichen’s diplomatic presence. He wavered, stomach sinking, then turned through the main compound and out towards the rabbit meadow. White-robed figures shot him curious glances as he passed. His slacks and shirt marked him instantly as an outsider, even as his ribbon – now unwrapped from its usual home around his wrist and tied in place on his forehead – proclaimed him a Lan. Some of the disciples recognised him. Others, the younger ones, whispered their speculations to each other once they’d passed his line of sight.

The rabbits only stared long enough to see him take a bag of greens from his qiankun pouch before they hopped eagerly towards him. He settled himself down in the grass and let the boldest of them climb up into his lap. They were so fluffy. Their ears felt like velvet under his fingers. He found himself making soft sounds, greeting each one that approached, coaxing them to enjoy the greens.

He could have lost track of time there on another evening. Instead, he kept a wary eye on his phone, hoping for another text to let him know Xichen had arrived back from whatever had been occupying him. It didn’t come. The shadows lengthened. The sun dipped below the trees. Lan Zhan sighed. He couldn’t wait any longer. This was the worst possible outcome – arriving late and alone.

Back in the central courtyard where he’d done drills and knelt in penance throughout his childhood, he paused at the door of his uncle’s office, checking himself over for any stray scraps of leaf or blades of grass and smoothing down his short hair. Then he slid the door open and stepped inside.

“Shufu,” he said, bowing formally.

Lan Qiren looked up from the papers on his desk, eyebrows already lowered. “Wangji,” he said. “I have been waiting.”

“My apologies.”

“I must assume that you went to pay your respects at the shrine on arrival.” He paused for just long enough to make it clear he knew Lan Zhan had done nothing of the sort. “Your brother is delayed. He is very busy, of course. He has duties he cannot shirk.”

Lan Zhan kept his eyes downcast. He had strategies for getting through these meetings, and one of them was to keep his mouth shut whenever he reasonably could.

“Well,” said Lan Qiren testily, “we’ll take tea before dinner.”

“Yes, Shufu.”

Lan Zhan prepared the tea himself and carried in the ancient lacquer tray with the priceless antique teapot and cups, setting it down on the low table. As he poured, he had to stop himself from tucking back trailing sleeves he wasn’t wearing. Lan Qiren took a sip with a critical pinch to his mouth, as though he expected it to taste scalded. His voice was brusque as he gave a run-down on recent sect business – the rash of resentful spirits flowing into the eastern night zones, a contract to purify land for a new factory, a disciple exchange with the Nie sect. Every word was pointed, a rebuke unspoken and unacknowledged. After a while, his patience for implied criticism ran out and he took a more direct method. “So. Tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself this past month.”

Lan Zhan folded his hands in his lap and checked his already perfect posture. “Recently I’ve been having some success with my score for Evocation,” he said. The one saving grace of these conversations was that his uncle was also a skilled guqin player and liked to discuss technique. “This past week I’ve tested several variants. There are some interesting melodic and tonal factors that affect its action. A floating note has different effects depending on the form of vibrato immediately preceding it. I’m developing a theory that—”

“And is your latest version of Evocation more or less effective than the arrays I’ve just been teaching the ten-year-olds?”

Wonderful. It was going to be one of those evenings.

“It’s a work in progress, Shufu.”

“So you have told me for the past five years,” snapped Lan Qiren. He made an impatient gesture. “Well, go on. I’m sure you have more to talk about.”

Lan Zhan could talk about his research with pleasure to Mianmian or his brother, but whenever he talked to his uncle, all the ideas and possibilities that stretched out in front of him narrowed down to speculation, nonsense and a waste of time. Mercifully, his stilted explanation was soon interrupted by Xichen, who glided in with stately grace and bowed to Lan Qiren. Lan Zhan stood and bowed himself, looking up over his extended arms to see Xichen’s soft smile.

“Wangji, it’s good to see you.”

“Xiongzhang,” said Lan Zhan, feeling a little of his tension drain away.

“I’m sorry to be so late,” said Xichen.

“You were attending to sect business,” said Lan Qiren.

Xichen’s eyes flicked to Lan Zhan’s, filled with wry sympathy and apology. I asked him to be nice, the look said.

Lan Zhan pressed his lips together minutely. Xichen would no doubt be able to read his face too, as easily as if he’d rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

A touch of gentle mischief lit Xichen’s eyes as he took his seat. “A-Yao has been asking after you, Wangji,” he said. “You two really have to meet one of these days. I’d love for you to know him.”

Lan Qiren stiffened, caught neatly between conflicting desires. He wanted to express his disapproval of Xichen’s taste in partners. He also wanted to pretend his elder nephew could do no wrong, the better to contrast Xichen’s perfection against Lan Zhan’s iniquity.

Lan Zhan turned away hastily. “I will prepare more tea,” he said.

***

The remainder of the time before dinner was less painful. Xichen had a way of listening that made the speaker feel as though every word out of their mouth was a precious pearl of wisdom. By rights, Lan Zhan should have developed an immunity to it, knowing that Xichen did it to everyone from six-year-old disciples to the most boring of sect leaders. He hadn’t. It was infinitely easier to talk under his brother’s soft, encouraging attention. With the progress he’d made on Evocation thanks to Wei Ying’s terrible work ethic, he could almost forget that Cleansing still had the spiritual power of an overcooked noodle.

When his words ran out, it was time to eat. The rule against talking during meals was a blessing. Usually, if he could just get through the pre-dinner conversation, the worst of the evening was over. After dinner, they would drink another pot of tea and Xichen would talk about sect matters in a general way that kept their uncle’s attention without sparking any arguments. Then it would be close to the hour that Lan sect called bedtime, and Lan Zhan would get a ride home.

Dinner went as smoothly as ever. It was ten minutes into the aftermath that everything went wrong.

“I was hoping to take a team out to Shen valley this week,” said Xichen, in the midst of a rundown on the sect schedule, “to find out once and for all if there’s a demon nesting there, but with this influx of spirits around the Yunmeng border it may have to wait until you get back from Qinghe.”

“You could deputise it to Lan Shunhua and her team,” suggested Lan Qiren.

Xichen shook his head. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable. If there’s an unsecured demon in our territory, I want you or myself on the ground when we address it. There’s nobody else I’d trust with this.”

Lan Qiren let out a bitter snort. “Indeed?” he said.

In that one word, the atmosphere in the room went frigid. Lan Zhan looked warily up from his tea. His uncle wasn’t looking his way, yet somehow focusing the full force of his disapproval at him anyway.

Across the table, Xichen’s smile was carefully light. “I can perhaps delegate one or two of my meetings to—”

“I have heard enough of what you can do,” snapped Lan Qiren. “Enough, Xichen.” He stood, turning sharply to Lan Zhan, face dark with sudden anger. “Wangji, there is no use in reminding you of your responsibility to your sect, your elders and our traditions. I learned that long ago. But I ask you this: how long must your brother pay for your selfishness?”

Lan Zhan clenched his hands in his lap. He returned his gaze to the table in front of him.

“Shufu—” Xichen began.

“It is always others who pay.” Lan Qiren strode around the table until the sky-blue embroidery of his robes filled one side of Lan Zhan’s vision. “Not just Xichen, but the common people. People living under threat of a demon for longer than they should. And others, over the years. People to whom help comes too late because we haven’t enough cultivators for the work. Every time an extra trained cultivator could have made a difference, I think of you, Wangji. After the Burial Mounds, where we lost five of our own, I thought of you.”

“Shufu, that is unfair,” said Xichen.

“Is it untrue?” snapped Lan Qiren. “Can you deny that his presence would have saved lives? You know what he’s capable of. You both have your mother’s strength. Thank god at least one of you has been spared her character flaws.”

Lan Zhan stiffened. “Xiongzhang,” he said quietly, “excuse me.”

He rose straight to his feet. He didn’t allow himself to flinch away from his uncle. He didn’t bow. He just walked out.

“Please,” he heard Xichen say behind him, “please, Shufu, let him go.”

There was another snort from Lan Qiren. “You do him no good by letting him bury himself in this childish obsession, Xichen. I have told you before…”

The familiar words faded as Lan Zhan walked. Out in the compound, disciples were at work on the last chores of the day or drifting towards their dormitories. He ignored them, heading for the quieter pathway to the house that had been his mother’s. He sank to the ground in front of the porch. The raked white pebbles were hard and knobbly with just the thin material of his slacks as a cushion. Multi-layered Lan robes were better for kneeling.

In silence, he stared at the closed door, as he had done when he was a little boy. Lan Qiren had called that childish too, openly regretted allowing it. A bad start. Lan Wangji, second son of the sect, should have been taught early on that emotions should not be indulged. Do not grieve in excess.

And yet. Those same unyielding Lan rules justified his work. Have a strong will and anything can be achieved; Do not forget the grace of the forefathers; Learning comes first.

Soft footsteps came across the pebbles. A hand fell on his shoulder.

“Wangji, you mustn’t take it to heart.”

Lan Zhan hung his head. “I’m sorry, Xiongzhang,” he said.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for. Shufu was exaggerating. That demon can wait until he or I have the time to spare, nobody’s going to get hurt.”

“People were hurt at the Burial Mounds.”

Xichen shook his head. “It all went wrong so fast. You would have come if you had known.”

If he had been a proper part of the Lan sect, he would have been at Xichen’s side from the moment the sects assembled. Lan Zhan kept his mouth shut. It had all been said before. There was no point in rehashing old arguments.

“Will you stay a while?” said Xichen, after the silence had stretched to awkwardness. “I had hoped we could spar.”

Lan Zhan got to his feet. “It’s late. And you’re very busy, I hear.”

“Why is it that the only times you listen to Shufu are when I don’t want you to?”

“I’m going home. Don’t offer to drive me; I’ll walk down to the toll road and take the bus.”

“There’s a disciple scheduled to take you.”

“No. I’ll take the bus.”

“Oh, that bus,” said Xichen, lip quirking. “In that case, there’s a talisman I’d like you to try out. Not that you got it from me.”

“Of course,” said Lan Zhan. He waited while Xichen dug in his qiankun pouch, and accepted the talisman – a modified invisibility spell. Then he said goodbye and slipped unobtrusively out of the Cloud Recesses to a place where he could mount his sword without setting off the wards. The cool night air would do him good.

***

The day after his ill-fated visit to the Cloud Recesses, he forced himself to relax. He ate brunch with Mianmian and gave himself leave to spend multiple hours running through his sword forms and playing music for pleasure. Coming back from an afternoon walk along the river, he was just entering his building when someone called out from behind him.

“Hey, can you hold the door?”

Wei Ying was coming up the path towards him, laden down with bags marked with the logo of the local budget grocery store. At his side trotted a small, tousle-headed child clutching an unidentifiable pink plush toy.

“Oh,” said Wei Ying, halting abruptly. “Lan Zhan. Uh.”

“Wei Ying,” said Lan Zhan. After a moment of glancing in bafflement between Wei Ying and the little boy, he stepped into the building so he could hold the door open. Wei Ying didn’t move, but the child scampered inside and across the lobby, calling, “I’ll press the button, Baba!”

“Are you coming in?” said Lan Zhan, as his mind stumbled over the fact that someone as juvenile and irresponsible as Wei Ying could possibly be a father. Then again, irresponsibility and fatherhood did often go hand in hand.

“Ah, yeah,” said Wei Ying. He hefted his bags and followed the little boy inside toward the elevators. “Going up? We’re only on the second floor but he likes the buttons.”

“Yes. Going up.”

The elevator doors slid open just as they arrived. The boy skipped eagerly inside to the panel with the controls, hit the number two, and then turned to Lan Zhan. “Which number, gege?” he asked.

Pleasantly surprised at the consideration, Lan Zhan said, “Eight, thank you.”

Wei Ying shuffled into the elevator too. “Can you find it?” he said to the boy. “…No, that’s the six. Next one up. The top floor.”

“Eight,” said the boy, reaching up to press the button with one tiny, deliberate finger. “Two, four, six, seven, eight – quack, quack, there’s so many ducks.” This part was sung, surprisingly tuneful for a child so young. “Do you live here?” he added, turning and fixing Lan Zhan with his big dark eyes as the elevator doors slid closed. “We moved and now we live here. School here has bikes but no fish.”

Lan Zhan wasn’t sure whether to respond to the question or the statements. Confused, he said nothing.

“This is Lan-gege, radish,” said Wei Ying. “He’s our upstairs neighbour. Say hi nicely, huh? Lan Zhan, this is A-Yuan.”

“Nice to meet you, Lan-gege,” said A-Yuan, enunciating each word with quaint formality, holding onto Wei Ying’s pant leg to keep his balance as the elevator started to move.

“Nice to meet you, A-Yuan,” said Lan Zhan. He shot Wei Ying a questioning glance. “I wasn’t aware you had a child.”

Wei Ying shrugged. “You never asked,” he said.

He’d never needed any encouragement at all to talk Lan Zhan’s ear off about anything and everything over their few of days working together. Lan Zhan somehow didn’t feel able to point that out with the boy watching.

The elevator eased to a stop. The doors opened onto a corridor of apartments. Wei Ying made to exit, but A-Yuan’s clutch on his pant leg held him back.

“Let’s go to eight, Baba.”

“Ah, Yuan-er. Some day I’ll take you on a roller-coaster and then you’ll stop thinking elevators are fun. We have to put the groceries away, come on.”

“Pleeease?”

Wei Ying rolled his eyes. “I’ve raised you wrong,” he lamented. “When I was a little boy I wasn’t nearly so troublesome. Alright, we can ride up with Lan Zhan but then we’re going straight back down.” As an afterthought, he added, “You don’t mind, do you, Lan Zhan?”

Lan Zhan did mind, but yet again he couldn’t voice the objection under A-Yuan’s hopeful gaze. “Mn,” he said.

A-Yuan beamed. “Thank you, gege,” he piped up. He certainly had nicer manners than Lan Zhan would have expected from Wei Ying’s son. “Up, up, up,” he sang to himself as the elevator rose, and then, “Ping!” as they arrived and the doors opened onto the eighth floor. “Ohhh! It’s light, look!”

He let go of Wei Ying’s leg and ran across the shiny wood floor of the corridor to press his nose against the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring out at the view across the low-rise university campus to the lake beyond. The plush toy, also now pressed flat against the window by one small hand, revealed itself to be a butterfly, with dusky pink wings and a pale, blobby body.

“Wow,” said Wei Ying. “Lan Zhan, I knew your family was rich but having your very own palace on the top floor of the building is a little ostentatious for the starched-up Lans, don’t you think? Huh, three doors? Are there seriously only three apartments on this floor?”

Lan Zhan gritted his teeth. “Two,” he said.

“And that third door goes…?”

“To the roof garden.”

“Roof garden, of course. Private, I take it? Who lives in the other apartment, the mayor? The chancellor of the university?”

“It’s used by cultivators consulting on cases in Caiyi.” In fact, since Lan cultivators were licensed for sword travel over built-up areas, most of them preferred to make the trip back to the Cloud Recesses. Xichen occasionally used the apartment when he was in town, mostly so he could have an excuse to take Lan Zhan out to breakfast.

“So you basically live up here all by yourself?”

“Mm.”

“Good for you,” said Wei Ying. “Me and my little radish will head back downstairs to our cupboard like the other ordinary mortals. Come on, A-Yuan! Time to go.”

A-Yuan pried himself away from the window, where he had been pointing out buildings and people, chattering to his butterfly all the while. He looked with interest at Lan Zhan’s front door. “What’s inside?” he asked. “Flutter wants to see.”

“Well, he can’t!” said Wei Ying. He wagged an admonitory finger at the toy. “That’s Lan-gege’s home, Flutter. You can’t just invite yourself into someone’s home, that’s very rude. Didn’t I teach you both better than that?”

“No, you didn’t!” said A-Yuan, giggling.

“Then I should’ve. Besides, we have to go put the groceries away. Otherwise all of the ice cream will melt.”

“Ice cream?”

“Yeah, these bags are all ice cream. Nothing but. We’ve got carrot flavour, shrimp flavour, noodle flavour—”

“Baba,” whined A-Yuan, “I want real ice cream.”

“—cabbage flavour, cereal flavour—“

“Baba!”

“Don’t tease him,” said Lan Zhan.

Wei Ying glanced at him, surprised, and then broke into a grin. “Ah, Lan Zhan, you’re so serious! It’s a joke. A-Yuan, come here and press the two, we have to go before Lan Zhan gets mad at your poor baba.”

“We want to see inside.”

“Well, you don’t always get what you want in this world, do you? Besides, it’s just a grownup’s apartment. There aren’t any toys in there.”

A-Yuan trotted back over. This time it was Lan Zhan’s trouser leg he tugged on. “Rich-gege, do you have a piano?” he asked.

“No, he doesn’t,” said Wei Ying, at the same time that Lan Zhan said, “Mm.”

“Baba, a piano! He said!”

“Argh,” said Wei Ying, apparently to himself.

Lan Zhan stared down at the little boy. With sudden, startling clarity, he remembered being that age. He had adored the music rooms at Cloud Recesses, even before he was allowed to touch the instruments. He used to watch Xichen’s guqin lessons, fascinated beyond words. Aside from his monthly visits to his mother in the Gentian House, there had been no greater treat than being allowed to sit beside his brother and attempt the techniques on his own tiny qin.

“Do you play piano?” he asked A-Yuan.

“I played. But, but, but, it broke and now I can’t.”

“He used to have a toy keyboard for toddlers,” said Wei Ying. “He’s never even seen a piano. We’re gonna get you a real instrument, Yuan-er. A recorder, or a luqin or something. Soon, I promise. You don’t need to see Lan-gege’s piano.”

“I don’t want a recorder,” said A-Yuan. The sad resignation in his voice caught at Lan Zhan’s heart the way a petulant complaint wouldn’t have.

“We’ve talked about this. Where are we going to put a piano, huh? And how am I supposed to buy one? I’d have to sell you to the zoo to get the money, and then you’d be stuck in a cage in the monkey house and you wouldn’t be able to play it anyway. Come on, we’re going home.”

“He can see,” said Lan Zhan. “I don’t mind.”

A-Yuan’s head shot up. He looked from Lan Zhan to his father, eyes bright with hope.

Wei Ying groaned. “Now you’ve done it, Lan Zhan. You realise I’m going to have to drag him away kicking and screaming, right? It’s the only way you’ll ever get rid of him.”

“Hm,” said Lan Zhan, not at all sure what he’d got himself into. He felt out of his depth, like he had as a teenager when he’d first stood in front of a row of expectant seven-year-old disciples. All Lan disciples learned an instrument, to maintain the sect’s reputation for intellectualism and refinement, and Lan Zhan had often been put in charge of those who showed interest in the guqin, as well as teaching basic cultivation. Back then, the trick had been to give clear expectations and the appearance of absolute confidence. Hopefully the same principles would hold true with a younger child. “A-Yuan, can you be quiet and well-mannered?” he asked. “No running, no shouting or loud noises.”

“Yes,” said A-Yuan, nodding fervently. “I’m quiet as a mouse.”

“This is my home. Inside it, you will not touch anything unless I say you may, and you will leave when you’re told, without complaining.”

“Yes, gege.” A-Yuan attempted a three fingered salute, then frowned, dropped his butterfly unceremoniously on the floor, and used his other hand to press his finger and thumb into place. “Promise.”

“If you obey the rules, you may come in and see the piano. If you disobey them, you will have to leave instantly and you will never be invited back. Do you understand?”

“Yes, gege.”

“No touching anything without permission,” Lan Zhan repeated. “Hands by your sides. No noise. And no complaining when it’s time to leave.”

A-Yuan nodded again, his face set in determination.

“Wow,” said Wei Ying, stooping to collect the discarded toy and shoving it into the top of one of the grocery bags. “You’d be the world’s scariest kindergarten teacher, you know? Your whole class would wet themselves whenever you frowned.”

“Don’t be vulgar,” said Lan Zhan.

He opened his apartment door. A-Yuan waited to be motioned inside before cautiously stepping into the hallway and taking off his shoes, looking up guiltily at the noise the velcro straps made. In his socks, he tiptoed carefully along the hallway in Lan Zhan’s wake, his lips pressed together tightly. Then they turned the corner into the lounge, and he gasped out an “Oh,” before clapping a hand over his mouth.

The room was as peaceful as Lan Zhan had been able to make it, simply decorated with a small selection of objects that he, personally, found beautiful. Most of those were instruments - pipa, erhu, xiao, dizi, violin, oboe—hanging on the wall as a backdrop to the dark, glossy piano. On the low table there was a glass vase of flowers and a small bonsai tree. Xichen always said the space was ascetic, even for a Lan, and Lan Zhan had got used to thinking of it as such. The awe on A-Yuan’s face was a shock to him. His mind presented him with faint recollections of the little subsidised apartments six floors down, sized to be barely comfortable for a single university student, let alone a man with a child. Abruptly, he could see why Wei Ying had used the word ‘palace’.

“A baby grand,” said Wei Ying behind him, with a wry huff of laughter. “Of course it is. What do you think, radish?”

“It’s big,” A-Yuan whispered. Then, “What’s that?”

Lan Zhan, who had fallen into his usual homecoming routine to cover his own discomfiture, set his most beloved instrument down in its spot beside the vase of flowers and tucked his qiankun pouch away again. “This is a guqin,” he said.

“Guqin,” breathed A-Yuan, seeming drawn towards it by a magnet. He reached out a hand, then snatched it hastily back. “I didn’t touch!”

“Mm. You did not.”

“I hope you’re going to play us something,” said Wei Ying, propping himself against the wall to watch, grocery bags dangling from his hands. “You can’t invite us in and then not give us a concert, come on.”

“Baba, you gotta be quiet here,” said A-Yuan, watching Lan Zhan for signs of disapproval.

“You have to be quiet. Did you hear me make any promises?”

“Baba. Shh.”

“Would you like me to play for you?” said Lan Zhan.

A-Yuan nodded. His eyes seemed to take up half his face.

“I will play you one song on the guqin. Then you may try the piano yourself.”

Lan Zhan seated himself at the guqin. Something simple, he thought, as he set his hands to the strings. He remembered A-Yuan’s little song in the elevator, a vaguely familiar nursery tune.

Under the bridge in front of the gate,
A group of ducks are swimming
Come on and count them
Two, four, six, seven, eight.
Quack, quack, there are so many ducks.
Too many ducks to count.
Too many ducks to count.

The joy of the guqin was its tone, its vibrato, its subtle harmonics. Under expert hands, the most basic melody could be turned into something meditatively beautiful and musically intriguing to a perceptive listener. Even his uncle would admit that Lan Zhan was the most expert pair of hands within a thousand miles. Nobody could have expected a tiny child to be perceptive listener, and yet A-Yuan seemed mesmerised. His body was utterly still, but the changes of his expression, the stutterings of his breathing at a particularly intense piece of vibrato or an unusual twanging note showed that he was paying complete attention.

Lan Zhan brought the music to a close slowly, letting the sound fade. After a moment of stillness, he asked, “What did you think?”

A-Yuan’s mouth worked as he tried to collect his thoughts. “What’s… this? The last thing.” He moved his fingers against his own knee, sliding back and forth.

“This?” said Lan Zhan, sliding his left forefinger up and down a string in the way he’d ended the piece.

A-Yuan nodded. In a plaintive little burst of confusion, he said, “It doesn’t make any sound.”

“It makes a quiet sound,” said Lan Zhan, “and afterwards, it makes imaginary sound.”

“Imaginary sound?”

“Mm. Listen. And watch.”

He set the string ringing and slid through three notes of the melody, over and over as the tone faded, keeping going even when the string no longer sounded. There was just the tiny shush of his finger moving against the wood and silk. “Can you still hear the notes in your head?” he asked.

A-Yuan nodded again, gaze fixed on Lan Zhan’s fingers. “Is it magic?” he whispered.

“No. It’s a different way of listening.”

“Listening with your eyes,” said A-Yuan wonderingly.

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan. He took his hands away from the strings.

“Baba!” A-Yuan turned, glowing with excitement, “I heard it with my eyes.”

“You sure did, radish,” said Wei Ying. He was watching them both with a strange expression on his face, as though trying to puzzle out a riddle. “But don’t get any ideas, we’re not getting you a guqin. They’re not for little boys. Besides, your poor baba can’t teach you that. Only elegant gentlemen like Lan Zhan play the guqin.”

A-Yuan looked momentarily crestfallen. “But I can play the piano, gege?” he asked Lan Zhan hopefully.

“Mm.”

A-Yuan jumped up and got perhaps two steps into a run before pulling up short. “Sorry!” he said, and took slow, careful steps the rest of the way to the piano stool. Wei Ying hoisted him up onto it and opened the lid of the instrument.

Lan Zhan had picked up the piano late—his childhood musical education had all been in traditional instruments, focused on guqin and xiao. Spending time with the little upright piano in the farthest music practice room at the Cloud Recesses had been an act of rebellion. He had arrived at university a semi-competent self-taught pianist, guilty of a hundred bad habits in his playing. With his newfound freedom and his brother’s money, he’d got himself a teacher and, later, a hideously expensive piano that his skill didn’t deserve.

“Remember what we learned?” said Wei Ying. “This is C.” He tapped middle C, a quiet staccato.

A-Yuan nodded. “I remember,” he said, then put his thumb on the note and, without hesitation, played a little tune using the five notes under his fingers.

“Ah, such a smart boy! How about the other ones I taught you?”

“You play first,” A-Yuan demanded, and Wei Ying did, a slightly more complex tune that A-Yuan repeated. They went back and forth like that, Wei Ying playing, A-Yuan copying. Lan Zhan watched, fascinated. He could tell that the little boy had a natural sense of rhythm, an ear for melody, and, most importantly, a love of music. As A-Yuan fumbled through the tunes, his frown of concentration kept melting into smiles and giggles of joy at what he was creating.

Lan Zhan caught Wei Ying’s eye, just as A-Yuan was asking for another nursery rhyme. Wei Ying shot back a questioning look, then ruffled A-Yuan’s hair.

“See if you can figure it out yourself, Yuan-er. Start here, okay?” He tapped a note, then sidled over to where Lan Zhan was standing. “Sorry. You must be getting sick of us. I’ll give him a two-minute warning.”

Lan Zhan shook his head. “You play?” he said.

“Some. I learned the piano when I was a kid, I could still knock out some Bach in a pinch, but dizi and flute are more my thing.”

“So he gets his interest in music from you.”

“Hahah, yeah,” said Wei Ying, with a strangely frozen smile. “Yep, he does. Chip off the old block, this one.”

“You could teach him the basics?”

“The basics of piano? Of course I could. I taught him on that dumb pink thrift store keyboard. But—”

“You may use mine for lessons, if you’d like.”

“What?” said Wei Ying.

“My piano. You can use it to teach him.”

Wei Ying stared blankly. He opened his mouth. He closed it again. Finally, he managed, “You’re saying you’d let me teach my four-year-old to play on your Blüthner baby grand? In your apartment, where you live?”

“Mm. If you’d like.”

“What? I—Of course I’d like, Lan Zhan, but, that’s not reasonable.”

“Why not?”

“Why would you? It’s your home. And he’s a kid. He was on his best behaviour today, but he can’t keep that up forever. He’s noisy and messy. I’m noisy and messy. You’re not going to want us here. You’ll change your mind, and that’s not allowed to happen. It’ll break his heart.”

“I won’t change my mind,” said Lan Zhan. “He should have the chance to learn. He loves music.”

“I’m giving him the chance to learn, I’m going to get him—”

“A cheap plastic recorder,” said Lan Zhan flatly. “No.”

“Hey, I can take care of my own kid. I’ll give him what he needs. We don’t want your charity.”

The inexpert playing had stopped. Lan Zhan looked towards the piano and found that A-Yuan was watching them worriedly. Wei Ying realised it too, and shot his son a reassuring smile. Silently, A-Yuan reached out for him.

“What is it, Yuan-er?” Wei Ying stepped closer, crouching down by the piano stool. “What? You want to tell me something?”

A-Yuan nodded. He put his mouth to Wei Ying’s ear and, in a too-loud whisper, said, “You have to be quiet or we can’t come back.”

Wei Ying met Lan Zhan’s eyes, with a wry look. “You want to come back again, huh?” he said. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Okay.” He pressed a kiss to A-Yuan’s cheek, and stood up. “I’ll be quiet and polite to Lan Zhan.”

“It’s not charity,” said Lan Zhan, as Wei Ying drifted back towards him. “It costs me nothing. It’s… neighbourliness.”

“It’s charity,” Wei Ying corrected, low enough that A-Yuan wouldn’t hear. “But screw it, I’m not going to let my pride keep him from something he really wants. Sundays, maybe?”

“Sundays?”

“For lessons. We could come by on Sundays.”

“He should play every day. Unless…” Lan Zhan hesitated to ask, but Wei Ying had never mentioned a wife and surely couldn’t fit a third person in one of those apartments, so… “Does he live with his mother during the week?”

“No, it’s just the two of us,” said Wei Ying distractedly. “Are you seriously suggesting we come up here and bother you every day?”

“It won’t be a bother. At his age, twenty minutes will be enough. Why would I mind that?”

Suddenly Wei Ying broke into a grin, shaking his head. “I don’t get you, Lan Zhan,” he said. “You barely know me, you’ve been Mr Ice Prince while we’ve been chasing spirits around the city, and now you’re offering me free access to your apartment to give my kid piano lessons. Are you just a gigantic soft touch underneath, or what?”

Lan Zhan didn’t have an answer for that. “He’s a good child,” he said.

“Yeah, he’s a really good kid. Listen, thank you. We’ll be as unobtrusive as we possibly can, I’m not going to give you a reason to kick us out. And if you change your mind for no reason and break his tiny little heart, I’m going to wring your neck, just so you know. But thank you, it’s incredibly nice of you.”

From Lan Zhan’s perspective, any minor inconvenience was preferable by far to the thought of A-Yuan stuck squeaking away on a recorder he didn’t want when a piano sat neglected six floors away. “Mm,” he said, a response that conveyed nothing in particular.

Wei Ying smiled at him in silence. Then he turned back to the piano. “A-Yuan, play it through one more time, and then we’ve got to go. Remember the rule, no complaining. But Lan Zhan thinks you behaved well, so we get to come back and play more tomorrow. How does that sound?”

“Good,” said A-Yuan firmly, and put his hands back on the keys.

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

The jolt of resentful energy came out of the blue, in the hallway that led to the student cafeteria. Lan Zhan stopped short, blinking, and looked over his shoulder to see who had just passed him.

“Chen Mei,” he said.

The student jerked her head around. “Lan-laoshi! I didn’t see you there.” She came back to Lan Zhan, bringing with her a background malevolent buzz. Lan Zhan flinched. At the previous week’s Cleansing session, he had been pleased to find that the resentment in her meridians had faded. Now it was back, not just in her but in her companion, a young woman in a pinstriped blazer over jeans.

“Who is this?” asked Lan Zhan.

“Wu Ming. She’s one of my roommates. Ming-jie, this is the famous Lan-laoshi!”

The girl gave a small wave, puzzled but polite.

“You live together?” said Lan Zhan.

“Yeah, we share a big apartment off campus with a couple of other friends.”

Lan Zhan turned to Wu Ming. “You are a cultivation student too?”

“No, laoshi. Econ.”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan. This was… worrying. No traces from a cultivation demonstration could have touched an economics student. “Has there been anything unusual near your apartment building lately?”

“Unusual how?” said Chen Mei.

Wu Ming nudged her. “The plants.”

“Oh, right. But that was a month back. There were some plants down the street that were fenced off for a while with cultivation tape. I think the municipal cultivators came by and dug them up.”

“I need the address,” said Lan Zhan.

“What?”

“Where is the building?”

“What?” said Chen Mei again. Lan Zhan’s jaw clenched. His impatience must have shown in his face. She gave him an uncharacteristically assessing look, then rattled off an address.

“Thank you,” said Lan Zhan, and turned on his heel.

***

On the bus, he used his phone to log into the CMCD case database. The notes he unearthed were sparse; a patch of asters turned monstrous, no specific cause identified. Area cleansed with talismans, plants uprooted and burned. Case closed. A fairly typical municipal cultivation job.

After a 20-minute ride, he arrived at a bus stop which was, according to his maps app, around 200 metres from where the monstrous plants had once been. The air around him already held the unmistakable scent of resentful energy. As he walked up the street, the background haze grew stronger until he was standing beside a now-bare patch of earth, looking towards the building behind it – not Chen Mei’s apartment building, but a small family house that fairly thrummed with resentment.

How, he wondered, could universities churn out cultivators who were so egregiously bad at their jobs? How had a crew of municipal cultivators stood in this spot and missed a serious haunting right under their noses?

No ghost should be able to coalesce in the city. Any resentment reaching dangerous levels, particularly the intense, personal resentment of a recently dead human, ought to be caught by the wards and channelled out into the nearest Lan sect night zone. This needed a proper investigation. He tapped his foot irritably, thinking of the report he had written on the clam yao, sitting in the database ignored. If he tried to bypass the CMCD and take this haunting straight to the sect, Xichen would just quote jurisdiction at him. But if he filed a report, nobody was going to pay attention.

After some consideration, he got out his phone. His message thread with Wei Ying was a mix of piano lesson arrangements and friendly offers of rides to work or messages asking his drink order for a run to the tea shop by the Public Works building. Lan Zhan had declined all offers, to avoid making Wei Ying feel like there was anything owing between them. For that reason, he hesitated several seconds before finally typing in the message: Can I ask for a favour?

***

Wei Ying came rattling up in the old CMCD van about fifteen minutes later, pulling up to the kerb and rolling down the window to call a greeting. Lan Zhan frowned when he realised there was nobody in the passenger seat.

“You’re alone?” he said.

“Yeah,” said Wei Ying, grinning in a way that Lan Zhan suspected was intentionally aggravating. “My partner and I have an arrangement. I do the actual work and clock off early to pick up Yuan-er, she does the paperwork.”

“That’s against department regulations,” said Lan Zhan tightly. “Those regulations are in place for your safety.”

“Oh, lighten up, Lan Zhan. What’s there going to be in the city that can…” he trailed off, head tilting. When he spoke again, his whole demeanour had changed. “Okay, you didn’t say it was this bad,” he said, getting out of the van with movements that were suddenly brisk and purposeful. “What can you tell me so far?

Lan Zhan jerked his head along the street. “Over there. The house on the corner. It seems to be empty.”

They walked together through the thickening resentment towards the little house. He could feel Wei Ying’s increasing tension beside him, the poised wariness, the hand hovering ready over a sword hilt. As they arrived at the short path that led to the door, Wei Ying raised his left hand to trace a talisman in the air, and winced as the fiery lines of it sputtered into smoke.

“There’s something really wrong here.”

“Mm.”

“I’m going to get a closer look.”

He started down the path, and then stopped halfway when he realised Lan Zhan was following.

“Listen, this is far enough. You should go wait by the van.”

“What?” said Lan Zhan.

Wei Ying gave him a wry smile. “This might be a bit more than low-level yao, and I don’t want to get you eaten by a ghost. Zewu-jun wouldn’t be happy.”

“There’s nothing here I can’t handle,” Lan Zhan bit out.

“We don’t know what’s here. You’re a researcher, you’re not—sh*t.”

The door had swung open. Inky blackness poured out into the daylight, with something white, bloated and stinking at the centre of it. Lan Zhan set his feet, reached out with his qi to analyse the ghost—it was always a mistake to draw your sword on a human spirit without an initial analysis—and hit an impenetrable barrier. Yellow talisman paper hung in the air in front of him, stuck there by Wei Ying’s retreating hand.

“It’s okay,” said Wei Ying over his shoulder. “You’ll be safe. I’ve got this.” He darted forward, blasting the spirit backwards into the house, and disappeared after it.

“Wei Ying!” Lan Zhan roared. He slammed his spiritual power against the barrier. A reverberating backlash hit him, rebounding back and forth between walls. It was a bubble. He was in a bubble of protection magic, and Wei Ying was in the house with a ghost that was clearly powerful enough to kill.

Lan Zhan took a desperate breath and looked at the talisman, trying to read Wei Ying’s scrawl backwards through the paper. Of course it wasn’t a familiar spell. Of course it wasn’t, because Wei Ying never did anything the usual way.

An animal shriek rose from the house, hoarse and horrible, rising with menace. “Wei Ying!” Lan Zhan shouted again, raising his hands to smack against the side of the shield, funnelling all his spiritual energy into the blow. The backlash almost blasted him off his feet. The barrier didn’t crack. “Wei Ying!”

At first, he thought it was just the ringing in his ears. Then, as the pressure in his little bubble eased, he realised that he was hearing music—the breathy, warbling sound of a dizi. He couldn’t place the direction of it, couldn’t tell if it was coming from the little house or echoing from one of the apartment buildings. Another shriek of fury drowned it out entirely. Lan Zhan tried to gather himself back from the edge of panic and concentrate, putting externalities out of his mind. He could do nothing from inside Wei Ying’s barrier, and he couldn’t break out with brute strength. He drew in another calming breath and focused, thinking through each mirrored character, mapping out the pathways of power through the spell. It was infuriatingly intricate and unconventional. He kept having to backtrack, set aside some mistaken assumption and start over, horribly aware of the seconds ticking by.

Suddenly, the house fell silent.

Lan Zhan felt cold to the bone as he abandoned logic and started tugging at the strands of spellwork, heart in his mouth. This couldn’t be happening. There was a child at daycare who was expecting his father to collect him at the end of the day, and if Wei Ying wasn’t there… if Wei Ying could never be there again…

He picked up the pace, skimming along the lines of the spell, fumbling futilely at the knots of energy. Just when he was ready to give brute force another try, the door of the house opened. A figure came staggering out and along the path, phone clapped to its ear with one hand.

“…yeah, we’re going to need a couple of teams over here for cleanup. No, nothing dangerous anymore, but we’re definitely going to have to recheck the wards. Okay. Great, see you in a few.” Swaying slightly on his feet, Wei Ying came to the edge of the barrier. “Hey, Lan Zhan. Sorry about that. Let’s get you out of there, huh?”

He reached out a shaky hand. The spell dissolved at a touch. Freed, Lan Zhan stood dumbly, entirely unable to speak, choked by panic and fury and desperate relief.

“Wow,” said Wei Ying, blinking at him. “You look epically pissed off. But you’re not dead, so I’d call that a win.” He gave a faint little laugh, and then his knees buckled and his eyes rolled back in his head. Lan Zhan caught him just in time.

***

For the fifteen minutes before the other teams arrived, Lan Zhan sat with Wei Ying’s head in his lap, focusing on the task of feeding spiritual energy into his core and cleansing the strange lingering resentment that had somehow attached itself to him. It was fiddly, requiring all his concentration, leaving him no time to stew over the fact that Wei Ying could have been killed, that A-Yuan could have been orphaned, with him just metres away from the action and totally helpless. Because Wei Ying had bought into the gossip that Lan Zhan had made no real effort to dispel.

Well. Perhaps he’d still had a little time to stew over it. But at least his anger had simmered down enough that he could answer questions with a tolerable level of self-control.

“A ghost,” he told the department head, as a group of CMCD cultivators fanned out, hunting with spirit compasses for the nearest node of the ward network. Lan Zhan could feel it strongly away to the east, humming with the familiar warmth of Xichen’s magical signature. He didn’t mention it. “Powerful. I didn’t get a good look, you’ll have to ask…” he glanced over to where Wei Ying was now under the questionable care of a city medic.

“How’s he doing?” the department head called.

“He’s fine,” said the medic, frowning slightly. “Nothing wrong with his qi that I can see.”

She gave Wei Ying a poke in the arm. He shifted, blinking his eyes open.

“Huh?” he said faintly, looking up at her, and then at his surroundings as he pushed himself up to sit. His eyes fell on Lan Zhan. “Oh, hey. The cavalry’s here. Sorry, Lan Zhan, did I collapse on you?” He grinned weakly. “Guess I wore myself out a bit more than I realised.”

“Reckless,” snapped Lan Zhan.

“Ah, still pissed at me? Come on, I didn’t have a choice. That thing came out of nowhere.” He got to his feet, shaking off the medic’s hand. “No, no, I’m fine. I feel good, really. Okay! Let’s talk hungry ghosts.”

The department head turned away from Lan Zhan, waving a couple of other cultivators into the discussion. Over his shoulder, he added, “You needn’t stay. Sounds like you didn’t see anything useful.”

Lan Zhan gritted his teeth, biting back his retort that he was more capable than anyone there of assessing the scene for traces and finding the underlying cause of the problem. If he were a member of the Lan sect, his expertise and authority would have been unquestioned. It had been his own choice to give that up. His own choice to withhold his skills from the people who might need them. All he could do was accept his dismissal with good grace.

On the bus back to the university, his phone buzzed with a text. He pulled it out, and only realised that he wanted it to be Wei Ying when he saw that it was from Xichen.

Xiongzhang: Got a report through from CMCD. 👻 in the city

Xiongzhang: Said you were involved. All ok? 😟

Fine, he texted back. His phone buzzed again almost instantly.

Xiongzhang: Phew 😌💖💖

Xiongzhang: Anything I should know?

Lan Zhan had to take a deep breath before he could manage to type, I don’t know anything more than they do.

Xiongzhang: 👍

Xiongzhang: We’ll keep an eye on it 🤔

Xiongzhang: If I need to come into town

Xiongzhang: We’re doing noodles 🍜

Xiongzhang: 💖💚💙💜💖

Lan Zhan sighed and pocketed the phone. Not for the first time, he wondered if he could find a student who could teach him enough about technology to disable Xichen’s emoji keyboard. Surely it was beneath the dignity of the Lan sect leader to punctuate his messages with sparkly hearts.

As he sat, morose and angry, his mind kept returning to the brief snatch of dizi music he’d heard interweaving with the screams of the creature. He couldn’t place the melody, any more than he could identify the source. It might, possibly, have been from an open window on the street, completely unrelated. It might be that the ghost had been a musician—it was common for musical skill to carry over into spiritual form—but usually ghosts were in some way tied to their memories of how the living world worked, and it would be highly unusual to encounter one that could play a wind instrument and scream at the same time. Or maybe…

“Dizi and flute are more my thing,” Wei Ying had said.

***

At twenty to seven that evening, Lan Zhan was sitting at his guqin, because it was the only way he could prevent himself from pacing around his apartment. He had made up his mind that he wouldn’t let his frustration affect A-Yuan. When it was time for the piano lesson he would let Wei Ying and the child into the apartment and go to the kitchen to cook, keeping out of the way. He would even let A-Yuan beg him for a song on the guqin to end the session. He would not snap at Wei Ying in front of his son. He had no business to do so anyway.

The lesson usually began at half past six. Why hadn’t Wei Ying come?

His eyes lingered on the dizi in its place on his wall of instruments. Briefly, he considered going to pluck it off the wall and play the few notes he could remember, but he didn’t think it would do any good. The dizi wasn’t his instrument. He wasn’t capable of the nuance it would take to replicate those sounds.

The doorbell took him by surprise, and he only just managed to suppress the jump that would have loosed an ugly twang from the strings. He got up and opened the door. Wei Ying was standing on the mat, smiling and awkward and alone.

“Where’s A-Yuan?” said Lan Zhan.

“What, no hello for your friend Wei Ying? Yuan-er’s downstairs, I told him there’s no lesson today. I wanted to talk. You’re mad at me, right? Don’t be mad at me, Lan Zhan.”

“I’m not.”

“Sure, sure, I can tell by the glare. Yeah, that one exactly. Come on, you know why I did it. I had to keep you safe.”

“You did not,” said Lan Zhan.

“I did. You’re my responsibility when we’re out on jobs. You signed up to tag along and watch me root out the occasional yao, not to face off against full-on ghosts. Do you know the death rate for bystanders that get caught up in a haunting of that scale?”

“I’m not a bystander. I’m a cultivator.”

“Yeah, but—” said Wei Ying, and stopped abruptly. It was clear what he was trying not to say; Yeah, but if you were any kind of decent cultivator, you’d be working for the Lan sect. “You don’t even carry a sword,” he finished.

Lan Zhan’s frayed temper snapped. He reached into the qiankun pouch at his waist and drew out Bichen, perfectly balanced and familiar in his hand. “Come up to the roof,” he said.

“Huh?” said Wei Ying, eyes fixed on the pure white scabbard with its spiralling silver embellishments.

“We’re duelling. Now. Come upstairs.”

Wei Ying blinked dumbly for another second. Then he co*cked his head, his bright, curious eyes still on Bichen. “Very pretty; but anyone can have a pretty sword.”

“I’m not anyone.”

“Alright, I’m intrigued, Lan Zhan the academic researcher who just happens to be the brother of Zewu-jun. Lets have ourselves a rooftop duel. Just give me a minute, I’ve got a kid waiting downstairs and I told A-Bao I wouldn’t be long.”

He started to tap out a text on his phone. Lan Zhan swallowed, the sudden rush of irritation melting at the sheer normality of Wei Ying’s action. It was ridiculous to propose a duel. They weren’t teenagers. They were grown men, and Wei Ying had a son waiting downstairs with a babysitter… a babysitter Lan Zhan probably knew. “You mean Zhang Bao?” he said.

“Yeah, you know him?”

“He’s in my focus group, working on Cleansing.”

Wei Ying smiled, as though this was a nice coincidence they’d stumbled across in conversation. As though Lan Zhan hadn’t just challenged him to fight. “A-Yuan likes him. He’s a good kid.”

“Mm.”

“…and he’s cool with me staying a while longer.” Wei Ying looked up from his phone and met Lan Zhan’s eyes, recognising the uncertainty there. He frowned. “Hey, we don’t have to do this. It’s okay if you don’t want to. I’m pretty good with a sword, I don’t want you to feel pressured to embarrass yourself—”

“We’re doing it,” snapped Lan Zhan.

***

It was a clear evening. The concrete of the roof retained the day’s warmth even as the shadows lengthened. Wei Ying looked around the sparse pots and few items of outdoor furniture with interest. “The Lan penthouse palace reveals the rest of its secrets,” he said. “This whole place is yours too?”

Lan Zhan’s ears heated. “Mm,” he said.

Wei Ying shot him a look that seemed to assess his strength and posture with the air of a personal trainer and come back with a result that was, at least, interesting. “I don’t know how long this fight’s going to take, but let’s move the pots back, just in case.”

They did, pushing everything that wasn’t fixed in place to one end of the roof in a jumble, leaving the flat stretch of concrete, the built-in garden beds and the solid joint structure of the stairway and ventilation shaft. There would be plenty of space to move.

Lan Zhan pulled out Bichen again and unsheathed the blade. Feeling tense with more nerves than he had expected, he watched Wei Ying slide the familiar dark scabbard of Suibian out of his own qiankun pouch. Wei Ying was an unknown quantity, with his odd botched-together style of swordsmanship. Lan Zhan had never seen him fight, only seen his sword-forms traced over arrays. That was enough to show that he was good, not to quantify quite how good. On top of which, Lan Zhan hadn’t sparred with anyone but Xichen in years, and Xichen could beat him four times out of five.

Still, he knew without a doubt that he was a better swordsman than Wei Ying was expecting him to be.

“Last chance to back out,” said Wei Ying, grinning as he took up his place and slipped into a perfect fighting stance. “Are you ready?”

“Ready,” said Lan Zhan.

It was a slow beginning. Neither of them dove into battle right away. Lan Zhan let Wei Ying test him with simple moves, holding back until Wei Ying pressed the attack. He matched what Wei Ying gave him. Wei Ying stepped up the pace little by little, eyes brightening with growing interest as each new attack was repulsed.

“Huh,” he said, after a particularly neat parry. “Alright, Lan Zhan. Not bad.”

“Thank you,” said Lan Zhan, tight lipped. For the first time, he attacked, and saw a flash of surprise on Wei Ying’s face.

“You’ve passed Lan sword fighting 101,” said Wei Ying, giving up ground to get back in control of the match. “Let’s see what else you’ve got.”

He quickened the pace again. The rhythm of it was familiar, echoing the way Xichen fought when he was throwing new styles at Lan Zhan to keep him on his toes. Wei Ying was unpredictable, poking and pestering, buzzing around like an annoying fly. It was all flashing steel and fancy footwork, feints and fakes and attempts to throw Lan Zhan off his game. He was using every technique under the sun, no rhyme or reason to it. Playful, teasing. Lan Zhan treated it in exactly the way he did his brother’s provocation, staying ruthlessly true to Lan technique, disciplined and implacable.

Wei Ying danced in with another test, and this time Lan Zhan wasn’t playing. He took the upper hand smoothly, pressing his attack. Wei Ying’s eyes widened, then narrowed. Ah, Lan Zhan thought. Finally ready to take it seriously.

Wei Ying gave him the slightest nod, an acknowledgement and a warning. Then his posture shifted. Every movement was suddenly faster, smoother, like quicksilver on glass. Lan Zhan found himself on the defensive, backing away from a swirl of movement like a lethal dance. Jiang technique, he recognised with a shock. It was the unmistakable swordwork of a Jiang disciple, and Wei Ying was fighting to win.

He was a stunningly good swordsman. Better than Lan Zhan, undeniably. Quicker and more creative. His golden core roared like a forest fire as they fought, fierce heat and crackling sparks. Lan Zhan countered with caution, relying on pure strength to fend off each sophisticated attack. His own core was a boundless warmth. If Wei Ying was fire, he was sunlight.

“You’re something else, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying called, backing up enough to take a breather. He was slightly winded. Lan Zhan wasn’t, was drawing energy from his core in a smooth stream that could keep him going for hours. He knew better than to think it gave him the advantage. Wei Ying was sizing him up, and each attack was harder to repel than the last. As Wei Ying dived back into action, the bout sped up still further. Lan Zhan found himself with no time to strategize or even to think. He could only react, again and again, using the instincts his training had given him. His world narrowed to Wei Ying’s flickering swordpoint and bright eyes blazing with exultation.

It was over before he knew it. He barely saw the final attack coming. His instinctive parry was a split second too slow. Bichen was knocked aside and he was off balance, exposed, with a blade at his throat.

“Gotcha,” said Wei Ying.

Lan Zhan stood frozen. The tip of Wei Ying’s sword hovered bare millimetres away from his Adam’s apple. He couldn’t bring himself to take the step back out of danger.

Wei Ying moved first, pulling his blade back and sheathing it. His eyes were sparkling. “Holy sh*t,” he said. “Holy f*cking sh*t, Lan Zhan.” Suddenly he was right in Lan Zhan’s space, slinging an arm around his shoulders. He laughed, close enough that Lan Zhan felt the puff of breath against his cheek. He was radiating warmth from the exertion, still breathing harder than usual. “The amount of spiritual power you can throw around… I don’t even know how to quantify it. You’re right up there with your brother, aren’t you? You have to be. That was incredible.” He shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t get it. Why are you hiding in a university when you’ve got the strongest core I’ve ever seen?”

Lan Zhan shrugged off the warm arm. “I’m not hiding,” he snapped. “I’m working.”

“Wait, I didn’t mean—”

“I’m working. What’s your excuse, Wei Ying?”

“I—what?”

Lan Zhan clenched his fist around his sword hilt, furious. Why are you hiding? echoed in his head. Why are you ignoring your responsibilities? Why are you letting people suffer for your obsession? How long must your brother pay for your selfishness?

“If anyone here is hiding,” he said tightly, “it’s the Jiang disciple doing basic pest control at the CMCD and barely earning enough to feed and house his child.”

Wei Ying’s face paled. “What?” he said.

“You heard.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Your swordwork speaks for itself.”

“Ah, Lan Zhan.” Wei Ying gave a weak, ghastly chuckle. “I pick up sword techniques here and there, I know all kinds of fighting styles. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“It’s pointless to lie.”

“Lan Zhan,” said Wei Ying again, and there was a desperate look in his eyes, like a cornered animal caught between fight and flight.

Lan Zhan was abruptly mortified at himself. He’d lashed out because Wei Ying had hit a nerve, and somehow ended up doing far more damage in return. Before that moment, he hadn’t known that Wei Ying could look so afraid. He took a step back, holding up a hand to stave off any more painfully inadequate excuses. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

Wei Ying was still deathly pale and tense. He looked ready to bolt. Ready to pack up his things, grab A-Yuan, and disappear.

Lan Zhan fumbled for words to hold him back. Reassure him. “I have no right to judge what job you take, or how you care for your son. Please forget I brought it up. Go downstairs to him, I can rearrange the plants.”

“No,” said Wei Ying, in a small voice, “I’ll help.”

That was all he said for a while. In silence, they heaved the pots back into place and set the garden furniture into Lan Zhan’s preferred arrangement, until there was no sign that anything unusual had taken place, save for the lingering wariness in Wei Ying’s eyes. Finally, when there was nothing to do but head back downstairs, Wei Ying spoke again.

“I’d rather not have people know I used to be with a sect.”

“Mm,” agreed Lan Zhan. “It is unimportant.”

Wei Ying swallowed thickly. “Might it be unimportant enough that you wouldn’t mention it to anyone?”

“Mm.”

“I know this must look bad.”

“It does not,” said Lan Zhan truthfully. It looked like Wei Ying was afraid to be found out. A value judgement wasn’t possible without more information, and he had no right to ask for that. It wasn’t any of his business.

Wei Ying’s shoulders slumped. He wrapped his arms around himself and took a gasping breath. “Thanks, Lan Zhan.”

“No need for thanks,” said Lan Zhan. He couldn’t help taking a second to stare, mentally transforming Wei Ying’s black jeans and CMCD polo shirt into the Jiang sect’s purple hanfu, growing out his haphazardly trimmed hair and pinning it up at the back, setting his sword at his side and a clarity bell at his waist. A different person looked back at him, a stranger, without even a name in common with the man he knew. No sect cultivator would go by Ying. His name must have been left behind in Yunmeng, the way Lan Zhan had left Wangji in the Cloud Recesses.

A blink, and the image was gone. It was just Wei Ying, giving a shadow of his usual smile. “You’ve been too good to us,” he said. “To A-Yuan, with the piano, and now to me, for no reason at all. I wish there was something I could do in return.”

There was, Lan Zhan abruptly realised. He needed an answer, and he needed Wei Ying not to lie to him. “The dizi music,” he said, “when you were fighting the ghost. What was it?”

There was a long pause. Then Wei Ying sighed and hung his head. “I really hoped you hadn’t heard that,” he said. “sh*t.”

***

Downstairs in the apartment, Wei Ying perched on a stool at the breakfast bar, fidgeting with the edge of the mat that protected the countertop from hot dishes. Lan Zhan poured water into the teapot, breathing in the bright scent of green tea that rose from the leaves. He busied himself by setting out cups and a dish of nuts as he asked the question that had been burning on his tongue for the past five minutes. “Did you play a dizi to subdue that ghost?”

Wei Ying’s hands tightened on the mat. “Kind of,” he said. “Yeah.”

Lan Zhan had been expecting it, but his stomach still swooped with confusion, excitement, hurt, too many emotions to name. “You use music in your cultivation,” he said, with careful calm. “I’ve never heard of anyone doing so successfully. I would very much like to know more.”

“Ah, now you’ve got your hopes up. It’s nothing like what you do. Lan Zhan, I swear. If I knew something that would be useful to your work, I would tell you. I would have said something sooner.”

“You can’t know what might be useful to me,” said Lan Zhan, sharper than he meant to. He glanced up. Wei Ying’s hand was frozen in the act of reaching for a nut. He looked uncertain, a little stricken, a little guilty. “My research is stalled, Wei Ying. No matter what progress I make, there’s something intrinsic I don’t understand. If you use music…”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“If you can even help me rule out an avenue of research, that would be something.”

Wei Ying was quiet for a few moments, save for the restless movement of his fingers. “It won’t help,” he said eventually, “but I do owe you an explanation. You have to swear that you won’t tell anyone. Nobody, you understand? If you swear it, I’ll believe you.”

“I swear,” said Lan Zhan, unconsidered and instantaneous.

Wei Ying turned away, rubbing the back of his neck. When he turned back, his mouth was twisted unhappily. “You’re probably going to think less of me for this, so let’s start by saying that I got into trouble for it and I learned my lesson. I don’t do it anymore, unless I really have no choice. Today… well, today I’d pretty much have been dead if I hadn’t… ignoring the whole thing where I had the strongest imaginable backup locked up in a protection array. Not my finest hour.”

“I won’t think less of you.”

“You say that now,” said Wei Ying. He took a breath. “So, yeah, there’s this technique I pieced together to, uh, control resentful energy?”

“Control resentful energy,” Lan Zhan repeated. He poured the tea just for something to do. It was too pale, under-brewed. “Demonic cultivation.”

“Look, there’s no way to make you believe this,” said Wei Ying, “but energy is energy. If it’s controlled, it’s no different from using your own spiritual power. The moment you mention demonic cultivation, everyone’s all bad for the spirit, dark path, yadda, yadda, but I swear, Lan Zhan, it can do things normal cultivation can’t. It’s a last resort, but if you do it right it’s just another useful tool. If you do it right.” He drank his cup of tea down and set it out for Lan Zhan to refill. “I had a problem I needed to solve, and normal cultivation methods weren’t working. It was important. I tried to use the resentment to do the job for me, and it worked, sort of, but I f*cked up, and I lost control. That’s why I don’t do it anymore. It’s dangerous.”

“You do it through music?” said Lan Zhan. He sipped at his own flavourless tea.

“It’s not like that. My dizi was just there to give me a focal point, a conduit. It isn’t music like in your work. The notes don’t matter, I could play Happy Birthday or Baby Shark and the effect would be the same.”

Lan Zhan didn’t doubt that Wei Ying believed what he was saying. That didn’t mean it was true. There had to be a connection, however tenuous, between his method and the Lan techniques. There had to be a clue in there somewhere. He took another sip of his tea. His mouth felt dry, nonetheless. “May I see you do it?” he asked.

Wei Ying blinked at him. “You want to see me do demonic cultivation? You’re actually encouraging this?”

“Mm.”

“Lan Zhan, it could get you in trouble.”

“A short demonstration. We need not speak of it to anyone.”

“Huh,” said Wei Ying. Then he sighed. “I’m sorry. If I thought it could help your work, I’d show you, but it’s not the same thing. It’s not worth getting you involved.”

“I would still like to see.”

“It’s… okay, look, it’s really creepy. You’re a righteous Lan, you’re going to disapprove.”

Lan Zhan let go of the last of his dignity. “Please, Wei Ying.”

“Argh,” said Wei Ying, turning his eyes to the ceiling. “You’re too much. What will you do if I say no?”

Lan Zhan shook his head. “Nothing. Your past is not my business.”

Wei Ying relaxed. “Alright, you’ve twisted my arm. Not here, though. I don’t want that stuff anywhere near A-Yuan.”

“I understand.”

“Tomorrow morning is going to be all hands on deck checking those wards, but I should be able to get back to the regular schedule in the afternoon. We can go for a drive out of the city between jobs.”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan, hope coiling in his gut. “Thank you.”

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

When Lan Zhan walked into the classroom he used for his Clarity focus group, his mind was so fixed on the upcoming trip that he barely noticed the lack of annoying a capella soundtrack. He was shocked out of his reverie when he saw all the students clustered around a single desk. At the sound of his footsteps, eight heads whipped around to look at him.

“Lan-laoshi!” said Chen Mei. “Is it true that there was a ghost in my neighbourhood?

“Were you there?” said Zhou Chuhua, wide-eyed. “Did you see? There were cultivators everywhere.”

Lan Zhan hesitated. Gossip, it seemed, travelled fast. “The CMCD releases appropriate information about their cases to the public,” he said.

There was a chorus of protesting noises.

“I think we should know if there are ghosts in the city,” said Zhang Bao, quiet but determined.

“The CMCD isn’t telling us anything,” Chen Mei exclaimed. “It doesn’t even matter that I live there, they just brushed me off! How did it get through the wards? Are there going to be more of them?”

“It was you who found it, right, Lan-laoshi?” said Tan Liling. “That’s why you wanted her address.”

“Did it… pollute me, or something?” said Chen Mei.

She looked so shaken up that Lan Zhan relented. “Minor traces of resentful energy,” he said. “Nothing that would do lasting damage.”

He realised his mistake when they all sat forward, avid for more.

“What type of spirit was it?” said Tan Liling, pencil poised to make notes.

“Where did it come from?” demanded Chen Mei. “Are the wards damaged? Could anything come wandering in from the night zones?”

Lan Zhan shook his head. “I don’t know what type it was. Most likely it formed in the city and for some reason wasn’t channelled out in the usual way. If spirits were escaping from the zones, the Lan sect would know.” He was downplaying it, perhaps – something had to be seriously wrong for the wards to fail in such a way – but he had no desire to stoke their anxieties. He gave them all a quelling look. “That is enough. There is nothing to concern yourselves with. It was an unusual occurrence but it is being taken care of.”

“Are the Lan sect going to get involved?” said Zhou Chuhua.

“Most likely," Lan Zhan admitted, “if the municipal cultivators can’t diagnose the cause of the problem quickly. Now, we have a lot to get through today, so—”

Tan Liling raised a wry eyebrow. “A-Mei, you should warn the cultivators. If they see any other weird spectres around, it’s probably Chuhua staking out the area to stalk Zewu-jun.”

Zhou Chuhua flushed pink. “You’re not funny.”

“Ignore her, Chuhua,” said Chen Mei. “She was drooling over a picture of him last week.”

“We are wasting time,” said Lan Zhan briskly. “Please begin your meditation.”

All three girls looked at him, looked at each other, and hid giggles behind their hands.

Lan Zhan sighed to himself. Wei Ying would probably find this hilarious.

***

“Well,” said Mianmian, coming back into the office as Lan Zhan was entering the questionnaire responses into his spreadsheet, “that was the usual trainwreck.”

“Faculty meeting?”

“Yeah. They want to strip back the syllabus still further. More talismans, more haunting analysis, less core development. It’s called cultivation for a reason, Lan Zhan, you have to f*cking work at it.”

“I’m aware.”

“I know, I know you’re not the one I need to convince. But it’s not fair to these kids, especially the ones with qi flow issues.”

Something in her tone made him look up sharply. The expression on her face said, bad news. “Were you doing student evaluations in the meeting?” he asked.

Her mouth twisted, sad and sympathetic. “Yeah. I’m sorry, Lan Zhan, it looks like you’re going to lose one of your lab rats.”

Lan Zhan bowed his head. This was the problem with his focus group. The students he needed to work with were the ones most likely to lose their place on the course. “Which one?” he said.

“Tan Liling. She’ll never pass her qualification exams with her practical scores. Better to shift tracks now.”

Lan Zhan nodded. He felt crushingly sad for her, but there was relief too. At least it wasn’t Zhang Bao, who owed his accommodation and tuition fees to the Lan sect hardship grant. He would lose both if he lost his place. At least she still had options.

“She has an impressive analytical mind,” he said. “She’ll excel in any field.”

“Yeah. She could even come at cultivation from an academic angle later on.”

“Mathematics,” said Lan Zhan. “There have been some interesting collaborations with logicians in the theory of talisman design. I’ll speak to her about it.” He swallowed. “When will she find out?”

“Today. She’ll have until the midpoint of the semester to try to improve her scores. If there’s anything you can do to help—”

Lan Zhan shook his head. “There are Lan techniques that might improve matters, but it would take months of intensive work. Even if they’d accept her at Cloud Recesses, I wouldn’t recommend it.”

She nodded, sharing a look of understanding. They were both sect-born. Their childhoods had involved gruelling sessions of sword training and meditation, multiple times a day, every day, for years. They had grown up in a world where cultivation was everything, and dedication and discipline was expected at all times. It didn’t come easily to outsiders, even ones who started young. Fourteen was the cut-off age for joining the Lan Sect as a regular disciple. The Jins would take older disciples, but only for a hefty fee. Ideally, children began training as soon as they could walk.

“I wish there was some happy medium,” she said, “something between sect life and—” she waved a hand around, vaguely indicating the university, “—this. Mediocrity.”

“Mm.”

“The way the universities advertise their courses, as though four years of Cultivation Studies can make you a cultivator, it’s criminally misleading. Some of these kids will be lucky to get a job in a talisman factory. I do my best for them, Lan Zhan, but…”

“…but you can’t squeeze five hundred hours of meditation classes into the semester timetable,” Lan Zhan finished for her.

Mianmian sighed. “Come on,” she said. “We both need some tea.”

***

The conversation with Mianmian weighed on his mind even as he took his seat beside Wei Ying in the CMCD van. He wondered what she would choose for the child growing inside her. A training regimen like the one that had turned his own natural talent for cultivation into the immense well of power he now possessed? Or a more balanced childhood that would deprive her daughter of the chance to become truly exceptional?

"Are you teaching A-Yuan cultivation?” he asked, cutting through Wei Ying’s cheerful chatter.

“Lan Zhan,” said Wei Ying, with a pout, “have you not been listening to a word I’ve been saying?”

Lan Zhan considered this. “No,” he admitted.

Wei Ying burst out laughing. “So cruel!” he declared. “I’m ignored and unloved.”

“You’re dramatic. My question?”

“Fine, you brute. We do meditation exercises,” said Wei Ying. His laughter turned to enthusiasm as he warmed to the new topic. “I don’t want to push it on him, but I want him to have options. I hated every second of meditation when I was a kid. Loved the sword work, couldn’t sit still for two minutes at a time. But he likes it. Sits there with a smile on his face, all chill.” He grinned fondly at the thought. “How about you? I bet you were a meditation fan when you were tiny.”

“I…” Lan Zhan couldn’t remember having any opinion on meditation. It was what had been expected of him, so it was what he had done. “I worked hard at it.”

“Diligent baby Lan Zhan,” said Wei Ying. “Anyway, as I was saying, before you so rudely interrupted me—are you listening?”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan. “I’m listening.”

It was a bright day, all soft autumn sunshine, seeming incongruous for what they were planning to do. About ten minutes beyond the city limits, Wei Ying eased up on the gas, looking around at the countryside—farmland off to one side, factories to the other, and out ahead the dark trees of Night Zone 6. “There’s not a lot of resentful energy to work with out here,” he said. “The Lans run a tight ship, huh? Everything’s channelled straight into the night zones.”

“Not everything. The sect doesn’t have the infrastructure in place. But near large population centres, yes. We would have to go some distance to find resentful spirits outside containment.” Lan Zhan hesitated. He was being shown a secret. It seemed churlish not to offer one of his own in return. “Take the next right.”

Wei Ying did as he was told, eyebrows lifting at the No Entry and Access Only signs that marked the turn. The road swung out towards the wall of trees, until they were driving alongside the sturdy, talisman-infused fence that marked the border of Lan night hunting territory.

“Huh,” said Wei Ying. “Here?”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan. The entrance was just up ahead.

Wei Ying pulled the van up to the grass verge and hopped out. Lan Zhan joined him by the solid bronze gate, reaching into his pocket for his entry token. It was the twin to his brother’s, a white jade circle with an intricate carving of the Lan sect emblem, dangling from a loop of blue silk. As he held it up, the bronze glowed with cool, soft light and the gate swung open, welcoming them inside.

Wei Ying was grinning broadly. “What, we’re just going to walk in? Lan Zhan, I’m damn sure you haven’t documented this visit. If we were in Yunmeng you’d be violating about six different protocols right now. And you’re not even an active member of the Lan sect.”

“Mm.”

“So, what? Did you steal that thing?”

Lan Zhan hummed again, not a confirmation or a denial. He had not stolen the token. He had been given it by the Lan sect leader. Perfectly acceptable, except that he was fairly sure Xichen had stolen it, or at least not mentioned to anyone that he had taken it. In the eyes of the sect elders, Lan Zhan had no more right to enter the night-hunting preserves than the average person on the streets of Caiyi.

“Well, no complaints from me,” said Wei Ying. “Let’s go break some workplace regulations.”

Side by side, they went softly along the pathway through the trees. Wei Ying had his hand on his sword hilt as he scanned their surroundings. His eyes were alight with a hint of the same excitement that had been on his face during the rooftop fight. “Perfect,” he said, inhaling as though he was scenting the air. “There’s plenty of resentment to work with here. Ah, it’s such a beautiful hunting ground! Please tell me we can come back another time. I haven’t had a real night hunt in longer than I’d like to think about.”

“Yesterday,” said Lan Zhan flatly.

“No! That wasn’t real, it wasn’t fun. You and me, night hunting together, doesn’t that sound fun? The whole zone to play with, ghosts and demons and yao hiding behind every tree…”

“I worry about the state of the Jiang night zones if that’s what you’re used to.”

“Rude! Rude, Lan Zhan. When I was… ah, when I was with the sect, we kept our zones in order. Full patrols every week. How about your lot? Are we going to run into a gaggle of Lans in here somewhere?”

“Not today.”

Wei Ying gave a crack of laughter. “Have you got the schedules memorised? How often exactly do you sneak out here and go night hunting?”

“Not often. Enough to keep in practice.”

Wei Ying’s eyes were still dancing, but there was more than a hint of seriousness in his voice when he said, “It’s dangerous to go solo. Even for someone with a core like yours.”

“I’m usually in my brother’s company. If not, I’m careful.”

“You and Zewu-jun go night-hunting together?”

“He calls it family bonding,” said Lan Zhan, and felt warm when Wei Ying gave another crack of laughter.

“You two must be quite the team.”

“Mm.”

“I was very wrong about you, huh?”

“I gave you no reason to think otherwise.”

Wei Ying came to a stop. They were a couple of hundred yards from the gate, deep enough into the night zone that the trees completely blocked any glimpse of the world beyond. The sun still streamed down through the leaves. In a photograph, the scene would be a charming slice of peaceful nature. In reality, the air had been growing chiller and more unpleasantly greasy with every step they took.

“Here will do,” he said. “There’s something big lurking up ahead and if we get much closer I’ll end up drawing in more power than I can handle.”

The dizi he drew out of his qiankun pouch was a simple thing, the kind of cheap basic instrument a beginner would buy. He caught Lan Zhan’s eye and gave him a rueful look. “I used to have a nice one,” he said. “The guy at the music shop threw in this when I sold it. Like I said, the music doesn’t matter at all. I could probably just use a piece of bamboo.”

“Why did you sell your dizi?”

“Aiyah, Lan Zhan! For money, why do you think?”

“Ah,” said Lan Zhan awkwardly.

Wei Ying shook his head, chuckling. “The prince in his palace,” he said. “Alright, here goes. When you get creeped out, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He set the flute to his lips and began to play. The music was strange and formless at first, like trilling bird calls, but with the coaxing tone of a person calling to a timid animal. And then it changed, suddenly powerful, demanding, and… melodically, yes, it was Baby Shark. Wei Ying gave an eyebrow-wiggle, but Lan Zhan was distracted by the oily black smoke that had begun oozing out of the ground at his feet. The feel of resentment in the air thickened, pulsing in time with the music, in time with the sway of Wei Ying’s body. With another strange trill of the flute, the cloud reached some kind of equilibrium, billowing as though fighting vainly against Wei Ying’s control.

Wei Ying caught Lan Zhan’s eye, questioning.

“Keep going,” said Lan Zhan. He breathed quietly, finding the rhythm, alert for every fluctuation in every note. “Hold it, if you can.”

Wei Ying nodded, a toss of his head that sent a shiver through the poised cloud of resentment. He played on. Lan Zhan closed his eyes, extended his spiritual awareness, and listened.

A minute passed. Two. The most fascinating, frustrating, enlightening minutes of Lan Zhan’s life. The music seemed senseless, incomprehensible, until suddenly it didn’t. Suddenly, he found the right perspective, and he understood.

Wei Ying had said he could play any piece, and it wouldn’t make a difference. But that wasn’t true. Every few notes there was a match, a hum of resonance, his own qi and the music working together. Lan Zhan could pick them out by the way the air tingled against his skin, the way the whole world purred.

He opened his eyes. Wei Ying was watching him in return, paying no attention to all the swirling power at his command. His eyes crinkled in as much of a smile as he could manage while playing. Lan Zhan had no idea what he was smiling at, but their eyes locked, and the music pulsed, and nothing mattered besides listening. Wei Ying’s face didn’t change at all when he hit the key notes. He had no idea what he was doing, Lan Zhan realised. He had absolutely no clue what the mechanism was behind his playing, it was all pure instinct. Which made it incredibly dangerous, because if those unconscious instincts were tainted by another consciousness…

“Stop,” he said. “Wei Ying. Enough.”

Wei Ying stopped playing abruptly, as though the words had been a hand raised in threat. As the clouds of resentment dissipated into wisps, and then into nothing, he held up the flute between himself and Lan Zhan like a shield. “Don’t mention it to anyone. You promised.”

“I won’t.”

“I told you it’s creepy.” He laughed, and there was something tight and brittle about it. “I warned you, Lan Zhan. It’s your own fault.”

“Not creepy. Dangerous.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t do it anymore,” snapped Wei Ying. “I wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t—”

“I know,” Lan Zhan broke in. “Wei Ying, you did this as a favour to me. I’m truly grateful.”

The defiant look melted off Wei Ying’s face. A flush rose to his cheeks. He looked away. “Ah, Lan Zhan. Don’t look at me like that.”

“It may be dangerous, but the underlying principles of your technique are revolutionary. You should be proud.”

“Lan Zhan,” said Wei Ying, flinching as though Lan Zhan had reached out and touched him. “Stop that, you’ll give me a big head. Are you going to take responsibility when someone punches me for being so conceited? I already think I’m the smartest person in the room half the time.”

“Fair,” said Lan Zhan. “I’ve met your colleagues.”

Wei Ying burst out laughing. “No, no, oh my god. You’re not allowed to be bitchy, your ancestors are rolling in their graves.”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan. That was probably also a fair assessment. “Are you ready to leave?”

Wei Ying gave a sad glance around the forest. “Yeah. For now. But you’re bringing me back here soon. We’re going on a real hunt, we… huh.” His head snapped up, turning to look deeper into the woods. “Hey, that big thing up ahead…”

“Is coming this way,” finished Lan Zhan. He could feel the wave of its sour energy approaching. Seconds later, he could hear it coming too – a rustle and crackle as something moved fast across the broken branches and leaf litter of the forest floor.

He exchanged a glance with Wei Ying. “You’re good with barriers,” he said wryly.

“I could hold it back long enough for us to get out,” said Wei Ying. “But… Lan Zhan.” His whole face was alight with excitement. “Feel the strength of it. What would you say, a 6-to-8 yao? We can take it. Come on, you know we can.”

“Wei Ying.”

“Show me what you can do,” said Wei Ying.

Lan Zhan hesitated. All common sense was telling him to run. They weren’t even supposed to be in the night zone. And yet.

He gave a small, sharp nod, and pulled Bichen from its sheath.

***

Twenty minutes later they were back in the van, slightly smeared in ichor but otherwise unscathed. Wei Ying was vibrating with satisfaction and leftover adrenaline as he drove back towards the city. Lan Zhan, his own adrenaline fading, sat stiffly in the passenger seat, letting Wei Ying’s chatter flow over him and internally cringing with embarrassment.

He had no idea what had come over him. It had been stupid and dangerous. Nobody had known where they were. And even though they had been undeservedly lucky in the fight, there would be consequences. Killing something so powerful would affect the overall level of resentment in the zone. The Lan sect monitored the levels carefully. The drop had to be accounted for, or someone would start looking into why the numbers didn’t add up.

As soon as they were far enough from the Night Zone’s wards for a text to get through, he messaged his brother: You killed a level 7 snake yao in Zone 6 today. Don’t forget to update the records.

Two minutes later his phone started buzzing repeatedly in his pocket.

Xiongzhang: WANGJI
Xiongzhang: 😡
Xiongzhang: WHAT WERE YOU THINKING??
Xiongzhang: When you’re on your own, GET CLEAR AND GET OUT OF THE ZONE
Xiongzhang: 😡😡😡😡

Lan Zhan winced. Saying “I wasn’t on my own,” would invite all kinds of questions about his companion that Wei Ying would prefer him not to answer. Xichen was justifiably worried, but it couldn’t be helped. Since he couldn’t say anything reassuring, he said nothing at all.

After another minute the phone buzzed again.

Xiongzhang: I will add it to the records but I am NOT PLEASED
Xiongzhang: 🤔 Killing it today doesn’t work with my schedule
Xiongzhang: I killed it tomorrow
Xiongzhang: Stopped in on my way back from Moling 🐍💀
Xiongzhang: Unplanned and MOST IRRESPONSIBLE OF ME 😡

Lan Zhan typed back a simple Thank you. Then, because Xichen deserved some consideration, he added a heart.

He pocketed the phone. It kept on buzzing, with what was probably either more commentary on how irresponsible he’d been or seventeen different kinds of heart emoji. He would deal with it later.

***

Sitting in front of his qin that evening, he returned his mind to that resonance, the hum he’d felt when a particular note had intensified Wei Ying’s playing. It was something to do with the rhythm of Wei Ying’s qi, a pulse within the natural ebb and flow of energy along the channels of his meridians.

An inherent pulse. Lan Zhan closed his eyes and reached for his own qi. When he was looking for it, it was impossible to miss. A frequency, a waveform, entirely separate from the beat of his heart and the swell of his breath. Something in him that could resonate with a note played exactly right. It was an integral part of his cultivation, and until today he hadn’t known it existed.

The ancient Lans had known. They must have.

He needed to look at his books – the scorched remains of Lan texts, the historical documents from the libraries of other sects, everything he had from the period that could offer clues to the old techniques. He’d combed them over and over until he’d thought there was nothing more he could glean, but perhaps knowing what he was looking for, there would be something he could recontextualise. He pulled a volume from the shelf, opened his notebook at a new page and began to read, pen poised over the paper.

When the knock came on his door, he was surrounded by six books newly marked with post-its, and had documents open on multiple screens. He checked the time, blinked in surprise, and got up to let in his visitors.

“Lan-gege! Piano time!”

“Hello, A-Yuan.”

The little boy was in Wei Ying’s arms, clutching his ever-present butterfly, dressed in dinosaur PJs and fluffy socks, his hair slightly damp. Wei Ying had decreed that Lan Zhan only liked clean little boys in his apartment, as a weapon in some kind of ongoing bathtime-related battle of wills. Lan Zhan was grateful for it. He preferred not to have to wipe sticky fingerprints off his piano keys.

“Hi Lan Zhan,” said Wei Ying. He was also slightly damp, darker patches on the front of his t-shirt and at the shoulder where A-Yuan’s head was resting. “The bad penny turns up again, with his cute little penny-ling.”

“Falling off the donkey, getting very muddy,” A-Yuan sang nonsensically to himself, wriggling to get down from his father’s arms. “Lan-gege, will you listen to me play?”

“I must prepare my dinner first,” said Lan Zhan, ushering them inside. He glanced guiltily over at his pile of books. He had lost track of time completely and now he was late in preparing his meal. “You may give me a concert at the end of your lesson.”

“And then you can play guqin for me.”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan, and A-Yuan beamed at him before scampering down the corridor.

“Walk, A-Yuan. No running in my home.”

“Sorry, gege!”

Wei Ying grinned ruefully. “Some day,” he said, “you’ll teach me your secrets. If I tried that, he’d just laugh and run faster. Thanks for having us, as usual. We’ll keep it quick, you’ve probably had enough of me for today.”

“No need,” said Lan Zhan. He didn’t mind the noise. He didn’t mind their presence at all.

He went to the kitchen. From there, he could hear the pair of them, voices intermingling over the piano, duplicated phrases, played sure and steady by Wei Ying, slower and more hesitantly by A-Yuan. That day A-Yuan was learning Pulling the Radish, a simple little nursery rhyme tune all on the black notes. He picked it up quickly over the first few minutes and soon Wei Ying had him playing it at every different octave on the piano. Muffled noises suggested Wei Ying was lifting the stool to shift the boy over between each attempt, bemoaning how heavy his radish had grown. As Lan Zhan chopped he listened to “Hey-yo, hey-yo it won’t move!” all the way from the growly bass notes to the tinkling upper registers. The whole thing involved a great deal more giggling than Lan Zhan’s music lessons ever had.

Lan Zhan finished the preparation, and left his vegetables neatly laid out, ready to be stir-fried as soon as the rice finished cooking. He drifted back into the lounge, and drew up short.

The evening sunlight was falling across Wei Ying’s face, highlighting his features in a soft glow. Suddenly, he was astonishingly, painfully lovely; the slender neck and elegant jawline, the mouth that seemed small and neat and soft until it widened into a blinding grin. He was dazzling, laughing down at his little boy, shoulders flexing as he lifted the piano stool. Lan Zhan watched, dry mouthed, unable to move, unable to see anything but Wei Ying, unable to think anything but, I want to touch him.

The moment stretched for ten seconds, twenty, and then the spell broke, and he could breathe again.

“Five minutes more, baobei,” said Wei Ying. “Let’s see if you can play it with both hands, and then we have to wrap it up.”

Lan Zhan moved further into the room, shaken by that sudden shock of beauty. Oh no, he thought. Oh no, I’m attracted to him.

It was a complication he hadn’t planned for. Attraction was a rare thing for him, and sexual need was something to be dealt with through straightforward assignations. Being physically attracted to a person he actually knew, and had to deal with on a daily basis, was not something he knew how to handle.

“Lan-gege, listen!” called A-Yuan. “Listen to me play,” and Wei Ying looked up and saw him too, and smiled.

A-Yuan, Lan Zhan reminded himself, and dragged his eyes away. He said, “Mm,” and put on an expression of attention while A-Yuan played the song yet again, with both hands at once, an octave apart. He managed it perfectly, looking up when he was done with a glow of pride on his face.

Lan Zhan remembered seeing that look on Xichen’s face, long ago. He’d probably worn it himself, had probably said those same words. Mama, listen! Listen to me play.

“Good,” he told A-Yuan. “You worked very hard.”

“Yeah, good job,” said Wei Ying, dropping a kiss on the top of his head. “Now it’s bedtime.”

“Lan-gege didn’t play for me!”

“Hmm.” Wei Ying tilted his head. “I guess you can ask him if he will. But look at him, look at his sleepy eyes. I think he’s too tired.”

“No, he’s not.”

“He is. His eyes are almost closed. And look, he just yawned. A huge big yawn.”

“He didn’t!” said A-Yuan, unimpressed. “Baba, you’re being silly.”

“I’m not tired,” Lan Zhan cut in, before Wei Ying could spin the nonsense out any further. “I’ll play one song.”

This had become a routine too. They went over to the low table, and Wei Ying settled himself with A-Yuan in his lap, propping Flutter up against a cushion as an extra audience member. A-Yuan’s eyes were fixed on the guqin under its cover. As the silk was drawn back, he leaned forwards with a little inhale. He didn’t reach out the way he had the first time he’d seen it, just looked at it with longing. Lan Zhan played a traditional piece for him, something lighter than he’d usually play for his uncle, less abstract, more melodic, but still musically complex. A-Yuan’s fascination was fascinating to watch. He was utterly rapt for the few minutes Lan Zhan played, drawn into the sound, both his small hands clutched around one of his father’s. When Lan Zhan finally brought the piece to a close, A-Yuan sighed and blinked like he was waking up from a trance. He remained quiet as Lan Zhan covered the guqin again, until Wei Ying gave him a squeeze.

“Say thank you, baobei.”

“Thank you,” whispered A-Yuan.

“Ah, look at you. All discombobulated. Lan Zhan, what have you done to my little radish? No casting spells on him with that thing. A-Yuan, have you got Flutter? Good, then it’s bedtime.” Smiling softly, he settled the boy on his hip and pressed a kiss to his hair.

Lan Zhan had to look away again. With a wash of embarrassment, he suddenly realised exactly why he had been so stupid and reckless earlier in the day.

“Sleep well, A-Yuan,” he said, hoping the pink tinge to his overheating ears wasn’t too obvious. “Goodnight, Wei Ying.”

When the door clicked shut behind them, he finished making his dinner and then took himself firmly back to his desk to keep making notes. He had a lot to think about. Perhaps, if he worked hard enough, he could put this new problem out of his mind.

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

Two days into his re-combing of his literature, Lan Zhan found it.

The ancient scroll of meditation exercises was only in his collection because a long-forgotten librarian’s shelving notation looked like a shorthand character for musical cultivation. He had never been able to work out its purpose before. Looking at it with fresh eyes, something clicked in his mind.

Hands unsteady with excitement, he spread the scroll on his low table and settled into a cross-legged meditation pose in front of it. He closed his eyes, and began the first exercise, keeping one strand of his awareness on the waveform pulse within his qi. At first, nothing. Then, on his second run through, something flickered. There was a swell, a quickening to the rhythm, before it faded back into its usual pattern.

He tried the second exercise. This time, the pulse slowed down.

He tried again, alternating between the two, speeding up and slowing down the rhythm. Then, when he was perfectly sure of the timing, he reached out and plucked a single note. It resonated deeply, perfectly.

Lan Zhan blinked his eyes open, heart pounding. The ancient Lans hadn’t just known about the pulses within their qi flow. This unassuming little scroll was an instruction booklet for how to control them. If he had full control, he would be able to do what Wei Ying did; not unconsciously, not just making a few notes resonate here and there in Baby Shark. He could do it with every note of Cleansing.

He was going to have to get really, really good at this.

Well. The sooner he started, the sooner he would succeed. He had a full scroll of exercises, a highly developed control over his qi, and an exceptionally strong golden core. In the long-lost past of his sect, novices had been able to master these techniques, so he certainly could.

***

“Everything okay, Lan Zhan?” asked Wei Ying one evening a few days later, while A-Yuan was busy playing two-handed scales and singing la-la-la along with the notes.

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan, jolted out of his concentration. He looked up at Wei Ying, automatically suppressing his mind’s echoing vibrations of, beautiful. Want him. “Do you need something?”

“Just checking in! You haven’t moved a muscle since you sat down fifteen minutes ago, it’s very distracting.”

“Ah,” said Lan Zhan. “I’m distracting you. I see.”

“Come on! You’re usually… pottering around, doing your thing, making your dinner or tidying up or practising calligraphy or whatever. It’s calming. I miss it! What are you doing?”

“Meditating.”

“Lan Zhaaaaan.”

“I’m working to develop the concepts I learned from you in the night zone.”

Wei Ying’s mouth twisted. “Ah… don’t waste your time on that. I told you, it’s a completely different thing.”

“It’s not a waste. I’m making progress.”

“…by meditating?”

“By meditating,” said Lan Zhan pointedly. “Please focus on your son so I may continue.”

Wei Ying hesitated. There was an odd look in his eyes, wistfulness, perhaps even hope. “Was it really useful, watching me play?”

It was a breakthrough, Lan Zhan thought. It was everything I’ve been looking for. He didn’t dare say it. If he admitted the success out loud, it would slip through his fingers and turn into yet another dead end. And he didn’t say, you’re extraordinary. I’m so lucky I met you, either.

“Mm,” he said instead.

***

Lan Zhan had always taken care to balance his work and the rest of his life, making time for the general core maintenance a high level cultivator needed—the meditation, the physical exercise—and for cooking his meals, playing music for pleasure and maintaining his other quiet hobbies. He kept in regular contact with his brother, arranged social interactions with Mianmian outside of work, and, whenever a buildup of sexual frustration began affecting his wellbeing, opened up a dating app and made an assignation with a stranger. He was not a workaholic.

All that went out of the window.

He cancelled his Repose experimental sessions and all of his allotted time at the CMCD. He focused on the exercises, and on practising Cleansing, working on the level of control he had over the resonances. The only appointments he maintained were his Friday focus group, the twenty seconds at the door to his apartment when he welcomed Wei Ying and A-Yuan into his home, and the three minutes at the end of each music lesson when he played a piece for A-Yuan on his guqin.

There was an added benefit in being busy—no time to talk to Wei Ying, no time to watch him standing by the piano, sunlight falling across his laughing face. No distraction, no complications.

It didn’t stop him dreaming of a smile, and deft fingers on a dizi.

After ten days of sustained effort, he could just about play his way through Cleansing with enough qi control to achieve resonance on what he believed were the key notes. He could feel the power in the piece as he played, the shape it formed, the smooth flow of energy. He could predict, faintly, what it would do. It was ready to test. Or rather, it was ready for the initial safety analysis that would allow him to try the new technique on living test subjects.

Many researchers Lan Zhan had spoken to complained about the amount of paperwork required before human trials were approved. Lan Zhan found such an attitude inexcusable. All cultivation techniques could be dangerous if misapplied. In his case specifically, ancient sources spoke of musical cultivation that could cause psychosis or deadly qi deviation. The thought of harming one of his test subjects horrified him. He wouldn’t allow himself to miss a single step in the safety protocols. He would, however, cash in every favour he possessed and several of Mianmian’s to get the analysis run in record time.

Just as he was finishing the last of the necessary applications, his phone rang. It was Xichen, sounding a trifle apologetic.

“I’m sorry to do this, Wangji, but Shufu has asked if we can reschedule Saturday’s family dinner for next weekend. What with this mystery of the Caiyi wards and all the extra resentment we’re seeing at the moment, we’ve had to shuffle some things around. He’ll be out east, taking a team to support a couple of the minor sects.”

“I’ll check my diary,” said Lan Zhan, ticking the final box marked Additional documentation attached, and choosing the PDF of his latest Cleansing score. His finger hovered over the submit button as he ran through his mental checklist. Every section completed, every piece of necessary information included. Yes, he’d completed it in a hurry, but he’d been careful. No mistakes.

He wasn’t used to feeling this impatient.

He clicked. There, it was sent.

“Wangji?”

Lan Zhan opened his diary, his mind shifting tracks. Family dinner… always a delight. He was glad to postpone it a week and would be gladder to cancel it altogether. Unfortunately, he had nothing scheduled for the following Saturday. “Hm…” he said.

“You have plans that weekend,” said Xichen.

“I—”

“What a shame.” There was a tiny undercurrent of laughter in his voice. “Since there isn’t a convenient day that works for everyone, I was thinking—I have to be in town tomorrow to sign off on the investigation into that ghost. We could meet in the evening and catch up, and then do family dinner on schedule next month.”

“That works well for me,” said Lan Zhan, deadpan. It would conflict with A-Yuan’s lesson, but surely even a four-year-old would understand that cancellations were inevitable. He paused. With Xichen on the phone and A-Yuan in his mind, a sudden impulse came to him. Perhaps it was a stupid idea, perhaps he wouldn't go through with it, but he might as well ask. “Xiongzhang,” he said, “could you try to find something for me?”

***

Xichen’s polite tap on the apartment door was just as distinctive as A-Yuan’s enthusiastic thumping or Wei Ying’s jaunty rat-a-tat. Lan Zhan opened his eyes, settling his qi from his latest run-though of the exercises, and got up to open it.

“Xiongzhang,” he said, and bowed over his clasped hands.

“Wangji, don’t,” said Xichen, smiling. “There’s nobody to see. Give me a hug.”

“Must I?” said Lan Zhan, lip quirking as he stepped back to let his brother in.

“Yes. I’ve had a long day.”

Lan Zhan opened his arms willingly. Xichen stepped into the embrace, the weight of him leaning heavy against Lan Zhan’s chest.

They parted. “You’re tired,” said Lan Zhan, surprised.

“No. Well. A little, perhaps,” said Xichen, smiling ruefully. “We’ve been so busy lately. It’ll be nice to have a night off and talk. But before I forget; here, as requested.” He reached into his qiankun bag and pulled out a tooled leather case a couple of feet in length. “It was still stashed in a cupboard in the Jingshi. Please satisfy my curiosity, what do you want with a child-sized guqin?”

Lan Zhan took the case and ran his thumb over the leather. The object was at once entirely familiar and a distant memory. He’d transitioned to a full-sized instrument when he was seven years old. This one had probably not been touched for twenty years. “My neighbour has a son,” he said. “He would appreciate it.”

Xichen tilted his head, slightly bemused. “That guqin was custom-ordered from a master maker to celebrate your birth. It’s a different class to those we use for children’s lessons.”

“The ones used for children’s lessons aren’t mine to loan.”

“I can’t argue with that.” Xichen tucked his qiankun pouch away inside his robes and checked the time on his phone. “Are you hungry? I’d appreciate an early dinner before I fly home.”

Lan Zhan looked him up and down and sighed. “I’ll lend you something to wear,” he said.

Most of Lan Zhan’s wardrobe was formal and mature, to give him some gravitas despite the youthful look caused by his high cultivation level. For Xichen, he picked out his most casual things. Wearing sect leader robes and a graceful silver headpiece, Xichen was imposing, otherworldly and ageless. Coming out of the spare bedroom in jeans and a sweater, with his hair tucked up under a hat, he was almost entirely unrecognisable. He could have passed for an undergraduate at the university. Through the door behind him, Lan Zhan could see the opulent dusky blue silk laid out on the bed, shimmering slightly where the evening light caught it. Those robes belonged to Zewu-jun. This boyish stranger might have been called Lan Huan, if things had been different.

Of course, if things had been different, Xichen wouldn’t have spent the short walk through the neighbourhood tugging surreptitiously at the stiff denim waistband of the jeans.

At his favourite local noodle place, Lan Zhan found a table in a quiet corner and got his usual order of vegetarian noodle soup and tea. Xichen ordered fried tofu and, guiltily, a beer.

“I’ll burn it off with my core before I fly,” he said, as he took his first swallow direct from the bottle. “Don’t be disapproving, Wangji, I’ve had enough to deal with already.”

“The investigation wasn’t straightforward?”

“In a way, it was. There’s no mystery as to how the ghost managed to manifest in the city. It was an unlucky combination of circ*mstances. The woman’s death was particularly violent and unpleasant, and the wards needed reinforcing in that area anyway. But the real problem was that Zone 2 was already experiencing a strong influx of resentment at the moment when the ghost should have been drawn into it. It clogged the channels.” He made a rueful face. “Entirely our fault. We let the levels build up too high. I can only thank you for stepping in before anyone got hurt.”

Lan Zhan frowned. As Wei Ying had said, the Lan sect usually ran a tight ship. “How did it get to that level?” he asked.

“I told you that we’ve been seeing unusual patterns of resentment. It’s high everywhere right now.” Xichen took another swallow of his beer and sighed as though the alcohol was a relief. “We’re struggling to get it in check. I’m still very unhappy that you killed that snake yao without me, but I can’t deny that it was helpful. Anything that makes a dent is good.”

“Any underlying cause?”

“Not one we’ve been able to pin down. Yunmeng has been seeing some oddities too, I have a meeting to discuss it with Jiang Fengmian next week. But even if we find a cause, we have to do something about the current levels soon, and I don’t have the manpower for operations to clear out the high-level monsters.” He fidgeted with his beer bottle, not quite meeting Lan Zhan’s eyes.

“Xiongzhang, you don’t have to ask,” said Lan Zhan. He would have offered, even if Xichen hadn’t clearly been angling for his help. He hadn’t seen his brother look drained to this extent since the months after the Burial Mounds.

“It would just be for a day. I can clear my schedule on Sunday and we could focus on a few big kills.”

The best way to tackle a high level demon was with a large team and several layers of strategies and contingency plans to keep everyone safe. The fastest way, by far, was with two high-level cultivators, complete flexibility, and no weak links to worry about. They could get a lot done in a day. It wouldn’t do Lan Zhan any harm to take a brief break from his research.

“Of course,” he said.

Xichen smiled his sweet, warm smile. “Thank you,” he said. “I appreciate it. Now tell me what’s been going on with you. I want to hear more about your neighbour’s son. What’s his name?”

“Wei Yuan. He’s a naturally musical child. He’s shown interest in my guqin.”

“How does he know anything about your guqin? Have you been giving concerts in the lobby lately?”

“I’ve played for him on occasion.”

Xichen was looking increasingly baffled and increasingly delighted. “Explain this to me from the beginning,” he said.

“It’s not an interesting story.”

“Wangji. You’re not getting away with this.”

Lan Zhan sighed. It couldn’t be helped. Over the next few minutes Xichen wheedled and coaxed the story of the piano lessons out of him. Lan Zhan was selective with the facts. He saw no need to mention that Wei Ying worked with him at the CMCD, or indeed that Wei Ying was a cultivator at all. Much better to omit the truth than to be forced to lie to his brother when Xichen inevitably asked where Wei Ying had trained. In fact, he thought he had managed to barely mention Wei Ying at all, until Xichen asked, “This father…. is he a single father?”

To Lan Zhan’s horror, he felt his ears heat. “That’s not relevant,” he said.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“No, you will not.”

“So he isn’t single?” said Xichen. When Lan Zhan didn’t answer, his smile widened. He looked altogether too pleased with himself. “What’s his name?”

“We’re not talking about this.”

“I’m glad you’ve made a friend. You seem very taken with him.”

“I’m letting his son use my piano. That’s all.”

Xichen relented, sitting back in his chair. “Alright, I’ll stop asking for now,” he said, “but I hope I’ll get to meet him one day.” He was interrupted by his phone ringing. He fished for it guiltily in his jeans pocket. “Sorry, I’ll just… oh!”

“Hmm?” said Lan Zhan.

“It’s A-Yao. Would you like to say hello, just quickly, while I have you both here?”

Lan Zhan stifled a sigh. He had no desire for a stilted video call introduction, even if it bothered him a little that he had never met the man who held a large part of his brother’s heart. But Xichen’s face was full of hopeful enthusiasm.

“Of course,” he said, and steeled himself for inevitable awkwardness.

Exchanging pointless pleasantries over the babble of restaurant noise, Lan Zhan inspected the pretty, dimpled young man on the screen. Aside from Xichen’s gushing praise, he knew only three things about Jin Guangyao: he was an illegitimate son of Sect Leader Jin; he was currently running the Burial Mounds reclamation project; and Mianmian didn’t like him. Manipulative, she’d called him, though she admitted she hadn’t known him well. He was certainly adroit, turning the conversation to Lan Zhan’s work, all wide-eyed admiration. Lan Zhan found himself contrasting that sugar-sweetness with Wei Ying’s lazy smile. He didn’t understand his brother’s taste at all.

Fortunately, it wasn’t long before Jin Guangyao called a halt, protesting that he didn’t want to keep them from their dinner. Xichen ended the call, beaming as though the introduction had been wildly successful. Then he looked at Lan Zhan’s face and burst out laughing.

“Was it really that painful?”

“It was fine. He seems… pleasant.”

“Thank you for talking to him. It’s ridiculous that you two haven’t met by now, but it’s hard for him to visit with how busy he is.”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan. He was sure Jin Guangyao would visit more often if he could. A trip to Gusu must make a nice change from digging up ancient corpses in Yiling.

“Now,” said Xichen, picking up his beer again, “is there any other news in your life? I feel like we haven’t spoken in a while.”

Lan Zhan hesitated. “Yes,” he said. “I’ve found a new approach to channelling qi into my music. It’s a subtly different application of spiritual energy.”

“That’s wonderful. How did you come up with it?”

“There’s a set of qi control exercises in a scroll dating back about fifty years before the cultivation wars. I finally figured out what they were for.”

It wasn’t a lie. An intentionally misleading omission, but not actually a lie.

“It sounds like you’re making real progress,” said Xichen.

“It’s too early to say. My reconstruction of Cleansing is being re-assessed for safety before I can try the approach with my focus group. It could be ready to test in a couple of days.”

“I look forward to hearing about the results.”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan, his stomach squirming with nervous anticipation. “I look forward to telling you.”

***

In an unexpected miracle of academic bureaucracy, the approvals came through on Friday morning, just two hours before his focus group was scheduled. Additional monitoring required, the official email said, and Lan Zhan scanned through the rest of it hurriedly. After a few seconds, he forwarded it to Mianmian, along with a single word: Please?

“You know we’re sitting in the same room, right?” she said, as she clicked on the notification. “You can just talk to me.” The office was quiet for a minute while she read. She sighed. “You want to do this today?”

“I would prefer it,” said Lan Zhan. He could cope with a week of waiting if she said no. A week of not knowing if his life’s work was coming to fruition. A week of playing Cleansing over and over again until the melody played on a constant loop in his dreams.

“You already owe me big-time, you know.”

“I’ll pay you in future babysitting,” Lan Zhan offered, hoping it would communicate, Yes, I really am that desperate.

“No promises,” she said. “I’ll have to get hold of the equipment and some qualified technicians, and you’ll have to run the setup past the safety officer. You might want to tell your lab rats to be prepared for a delay.”

“Thank you,” said Lan Zhan, and started frenziedly filling in yet another form.

***

By the time all the paperwork was done, Lan Zhan was running late. The focus group members had all agreed to postpone by half an hour, but it was well beyond that when Lan Zhan finally arrived at the classroom, dreading that he might find an empty room, all of them already gone. Hearing voices through the door was such a relief that he was halfway inside before he realised that one of the loudest voices didn’t belong.

“—yeah, okay, that’s one way of doing it, but if you think of the talisman as a—oh, hi Lan Zhan!”

“Wei Ying,” said Lan Zhan, stopping in his tracks in the doorway.

“Surprise!” said Wei Ying, giving him a wave. He was sprawled in one of the chairs, long legs spread out, casually beautiful. The students had ringed their own chairs around him like an audience of children listening to a storyteller.

“What are you doing here?” said Lan Zhan blankly.

“Checking up on your project. I’m invested, Lan Zhan. I never get to catch up with you back home, and A-Bao said you were running a test today so I figured I’d tag along and see how it’s been going.” He grinned, jerking a thumb at Zhang Bao. “You know he and A-Yuan talk about you? They’re you’re biggest fans.”

“Wei-ge,” Zhang Bao protested, flushing.

“It’s so cute,” said Wei Ying unrepentantly. “Anyway, these lovely people have been catching me up while we waited for you and now I’m dying to see you in action.”

Lan Zhan felt blindsided, faced with Wei Ying’s smile and Wei Ying’s intoxicating presence in a place where Wei Ying should not be, in public, in front of all these people that Wei Ying had clearly charmed. He was too flustered for diplomacy, so he just blurted out the truth. “That isn’t possible.”

“Aw, Lan Zhan, come on.”

“Yeah, Lan-laoshi, you’ve clearly been neglecting the poor guy,” said Chen Mei. She was smirking.

Lan Zhan shook his head. “Today we’re testing a new approach. There are safety approvals. I need additional consent forms. It’s—"

Wei Ying’s co*cky cheer evaporated. Tension bloomed on his face as he hopped to his feet. “Can I talk to you outside?” he said.

Lan Zhan glanced at the clock. He was already far behind schedule. “Mm,” he said. “Briefly.”

Out in the corridor, Wei Ying was a whirl of restless movement, pacing, fingers tapping against his thigh as Lan Zhan followed him. “Lan Zhan,” he said, “what you’re doing here… you’re sure it’s safe for those kids?”

Lan Zhan stopped short, blinking. “Are you here because you think I would put them at risk?”

“No, I… no…” said Wei Ying, unconvincingly.

Lan Zhan stared at him, mind whirring its way to a conclusion that was at once highly implausible and the only thing Wei Ying could possibly mean. “You’re worried I will be using resentful energy,” he said. “On human subjects. In an experiment approved by the university ethics and safety committee.”

Wei Ying put his hand over his face. “When you put it like that it sounds ridiculous.”

“It is ridiculous,” said Lan Zhan tightly. He glanced at his watch. Mianmian ought to be there by now with technicians. He prayed she hadn’t run into a snag. “I should be deeply offended. Or concerned for your rationality.”

“Okay, you don’t have to rub it in,” complained Wei Ying, peeking over the top of his fingers. His cheeks were pink. “But, look, you talked me into showing you something I absolutely shouldn’t have showed you, and you’ve been obsessed with it ever since, and you won’t tell me anything. You shut me down whenever I ask about it.”

“Untrue.”

“I’ve barely seen you in two weeks.”

“I’ve been busy with preparations,” said Lan Zhan. He had also been avoiding Wei Ying for his own peace of mind. Probably if he had been more forthcoming, this wouldn’t have happened. On reflection, it was at least partially his own fault. “Wei Ying, I’m about to run a first test of my new technique. It’s very important to me. If I swear to you that everything I’m doing is safe, assessed and approved, can we talk about this later?”

“You really want me out of your hair, huh?” said Wei Ying.

Lan Zhan’s ears heated. “Mm,” he admitted.

Wei Ying gave a low, quiet laugh. “I can take a hint when you hit me in the face with it,” he said. “Alright, Lan Zhan, I believe you. Good luck. I hope it all works out the way you want it to.”

“Thank you,” said Lan Zhan. “For everything.”

“And if any resentful energy shows up, it’s not my fault and you never even met me!”

He gave Lan Zhan a salute and headed off along the corridor.

Back into the classroom, Lan Zhan was greeted by stares and snigg*rs.

“Nice going, Lan-laoshi,” said Chen Mei. “He’s cute.”

Lan Zhan frowned at her. “That is inappropriate.”

Zhang Bao nudged her. “He’s just our neighbour.”

“So? Banging your neighbour is traditio—mmmmph!“

Lan Zhan readied another silence spell and moved his cold gaze from face to face. All of the students wisely chose discretion. “Thank you,” he said to the room at large. “I will be trying a new technique today. It has been fully assessed for risk, but we will have some observers on hand as an extra safety protocol, and I have some new consent forms for you to sign. And yes—” he said, forestalling Tan Liling’s raised hand, “I will explain my reasoning now and send you my sources after the session.”

By another miracle, Mianmian turned up just as the last consent form was signed, with two technicians in tow carrying qi frequency monitors. She gave him a nod. “We’ve got everything we need. Are you all set here?”

Lan Zhan nodded.

“Yeah,” said Chen Mei, “we’re all ready to get our meridians fried in the pursuit of science.”

“Don’t worry,” said Mianmian cheerfully, “I’ll call a halt before they get too crispy.” She grinned at Lan Zhan and started plugging things in and laying out her papers. “Hey, a weird thing happened just now. When I was out in the quad I thought I saw someone I used to know from ages back—”

“Mianmian,” said Lan Zhan, pained, “is this relevant to the experiment?”

She laughed at his expression. “Alright, alright, you couldn’t care less. Let’s get this show on the road.”

Lan Zhan took a deep breath and turned to the focus group. “Please begin your meditation,” he said.

With Mianmian shadowing, he ran through his usual qi analyses. Finally, he sat down at his guqin, willing himself to be calm. Achieving resonance was still challenging. Accordingly, he gave himself a solid two minutes to gather his concentration while the focus group shifted impatiently in their seats.

The first notes of Cleansing rang out under his fingers, plucked from strings that dragged with heaviness, lending extra depth to the sound. The technicians sat with their qi monitors and heavy-duty noise cancelling headphones, while Mianmian moved between the members of the focus group, taking readings and occasionally shooting him a thumbs up. A few minutes in, he found himself starting to relax. The resonances in the piece were melding into a beautiful low background murmur that filled the room from wall to wall and tingled up and down his spine. All of the students were perfectly still, their faces soft and relaxed. Mianmian, when he glanced over to her, looked intensely focused, intrigued, and increasingly pleased.

After long, exhausting minutes, he drew the piece to a close. The students opened their eyes. They were silent, blinking dazedly at him, at the room in general, at each other.

Tan Liling was the first to speak. “We’ve had that one before,” she said. “You didn’t change the notes at all, but it was a completely different piece.”

“It feels strange,” said Zhou Chuhua. “I can…” she trailed off, took a deep breath, and sighed it out. “I feel looser, somehow.” She paused. They were all staring at him. “Did it work?” she said finally, tentative and disbelieving.

“I’ll do my usual analysis of your meridians,” said Lan Zhan, feeling almost sick with anticipation. At the back of the classroom, Mianmian was standing against the wall beaming over the heads of the focus group. She nodded, clearly delighted for him.

Getting to his feet was an effort. He moved slowly through the room, starting with Zhou Chuhua. Looser, she had said, and no wonder. Her narrow meridians had perceptibly widened, upping her qi flow from barely above the population average to something that was… well, still inadequate for a cultivation student, but at least strong enough to be usable. Not just a measurable improvement, but one that would have a direct impact on her abilities.

With each of the others, he discovered improvements. Not always to the same degree - they each had different problems. Perhaps, with fine-tuning, he could modify the piece to address them specifically.

He was getting ahead of himself.

They were all watching him, as he completed his circuit. Eight nervous, eager, expectant faces. They were shifting, wriggling their fingers, taking deep breaths, exploring their own qi with little restless movements.

“Well?” said Chen Mei, finally giving in to impatience. “Lan-laoshi, did it work or not?”

“It’s too soon to say exactly what the effect is. We’ll need multiple experimental sessions and further refinements.”

“But did it work?”

“Yes,” said Lan Zhan. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry. “It did.”

There was a babble of cheers and applause. Chen Mei and her backup singers launched into their dreadful Lord of Music song. Lan Zhan silenced them all without compunction. “Please complete your questionnaires as usual,” he said. The results would be experimentally questionable, he’d influenced his subjects inappropriately by what he’d just said, but at least the return to routine might win him some peace and quiet.

The group still whispered to an unacceptable level while they ticked boxes and scribbled notes. Lan Zhan tuned them out, going over to where Mianmian was talking to the grad students. She turned to him, smiling wide.

“No problems with the energy readings,” she said. “Everything within allowable levels, nothing on any harmful frequency. I’ve told these two to export the data for us.”

Lan Zhan nodded to the technicians. “Thank you for your assistance,” he told them, and they murmured pleasantries before departing, as though it had just been another hour out of their day.

“Eh,” said Mianmian, as the two departed, “they should be grateful to you. They get to say they were here at the revival of musical cultivation. Lan Zhan, that was incredible. I know I shouldn’t be surprised, but when I see you sitting at a desk day after day typing numbers into a spreadsheet, I kinda forget that you’re a walking nuclear reactor. I could barely shield myself against that, and you weren’t anywhere near full strength. And it was so precise. So nuanced. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“It went better than I expected.”

She shook her head, laughing disbelievingly. “For heaven’s sake, stop being modest. You’re probably not even planning to celebrate tonight, are you?”

“I’ve got a lot of work to do to develop the technique for next time.”

“Lan Zhan, I say this with love, but you really need to lighten up. Let me take you out for dinner.”

He shook his head. “I have plans.”

“You do?” Her face turned suspicious. “Wait, is this the thing with your CMCD contact’s kid’s piano lessons?”

“Mm.”

“Doesn’t count.”

“He had to miss a session earlier in the week. It would upset him to miss another.”

She rolled her eyes. “Alright, you weirdo,” she said, turning to the door. “Congratulations again. I’ll catch up with you when I’ve written my report for the safety committee.”

Lan Zhan waited a few more minutes while the focus group completed their questionnaires. He skipped the usual verbal discussion session, just thanked them and ushered them out. Most of them went willingly, probably keen to gossip about what had just happened without him to overhear. Tan Liling hung back.

“Lan-laoshi,” she said, when the room was empty save for the two of them, “do you know I’m being kicked off the cultivation course if I can’t improve my qi flow?”

Lan Zhan hesitated, suddenly chilly with guilt. He had told himself that he was being as careful as he could be, with this rushed experiment, but while he had taken every precaution for his subjects’ safety, he had not considered their emotional wellbeing. He should have made sure to emphasise yet again that the focus group was just an investigation into a technique, not a treatment. “Mm,” he said. “I know.”

She flushed, as though embarrassed that he was aware of her failures. “But this has improved it,” she said.

“A little.”

“I’ve got until next month. By then, could this technique make enough of a difference?”

Lan Zhan didn’t give himself a chance to hesitate. He shook his head. “The remaining sessions are insufficient.”

“If I asked the administration for more time…?” she said desperately.

“I only have approval for a set number of sessions. I won’t have any justification for a focus group once this project comes to a close.”

“Outside the project, then. I—I could pay you.”

“The technique isn’t approved for general use. It won’t be for some time.” If his sect accepted it and took on the validation process, perhaps it would have approval in a matter of months. If he had to take it to the Cultivation Institute or a private company, it could be years.

“Lan-laoshi…” she said, tears starting in her eyes.

He could only repeat what he’d said to Mianmian. “You’ll excel in any field you apply yourself to. Mathematics—”

“This is the field I want.”

“I’m sorry to have raised your hopes,” said Lan Zhan. There was nothing more he could offer.

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

In the hours following the Cleansing test, Lan Zhan carefully went through the process of recording his results and reporting his safety outcomes. Then he filled in applications for a test of Repose using the same technique. Then, having run out of admin tasks to act as distractions, he found himself staring at the wall of Mianmian’s office, contemplating the future.

Since his teen years, his sect elders had seen him as a stubborn obsessive, a failure of discipline, an egoist who neglected the duties expected of him. He wondered what they would say if he truly restored to the sect the spiritual power his ancestors had once wielded. Would it be enough for forgiveness? Did he care if it wasn’t? He would put the technique into Xichen’s hands, and Xichen would teach it to the disciples, and… perhaps in ten years the Lan sect would once again be synonymous with musical cultivation. That was what he wanted, more than anything else, and for the first time it was within his grasp. He might be able to restore his sect’s legacy. He might have done something of immense value with his life.

The swell of want, hope, pride, was too overwhelming. Ashamed, he gave himself a shake. He had been named Wangji, and though he had left the name behind, he still held to its value. Free of worldly concerns. Yet here he was, focused on success and reputation and his own desires.

It was time to get his emotions under control.

Pausing only to say goodbye and thank you to Mianmian, he took himself off home. In the centre of his music room he knelt, arms extended, palms up and Bichen laid across them, and focused his mind on the rules of his sect.

Be of one mind. Learning comes first. Have courage and knowledge. Do not desire to excel over others. Do not harbour doubts and jealousy…

By the time Wei Ying’s familiar knock came at his door, he had recited and meditated on sixty-one separate rules that pertained to ambition, scholarship, or both. He rose to his feet and replaced Bichen into his qiankun pouch, pleased to find that he had achieved some sort of equilibrium once again. He felt calm as he strode to the door and opened it, revealing Wei Ying, with A-Yuan in his arms, both of them wearing matching cheerful grins.

“Hi, gege!”

“Hi, Lan Zhan!”

The equilibrium wobbled in the face of Wei Ying’s smile, but Lan Zhan got ahold of himself fast. “Come in,” he said, stepping back from the door. “It is good to see you both.”

Wei Ying followed him in, kicking off his shoes without even taking the time to put A-Yuan down, nudging them into a semblance of neatness with his toe. “So?” he said. “Ah, how am I supposed to guess what happened when I’m looking at that lovely, serene face? Don’t keep your friend in suspense! How did it go?”

“It went well,” said Lan Zhan. Do not exult in excess, he reminded himself.

“What does 'well’ mean?” said Wei Ying, bouncing with impatience and consequently bouncing A-Yuan, who giggled. “‘Well’ as in you didn’t blast those poor kids with resentful energy, or ‘well’ as in improvements in their qi flow?”

“Improvements.”

“You’re killing me, Lan Zhan.”

“Significant improvements.”

Wei Ying whooped aloud. “You mean you did it?”

“Mm,” Lan Zhan admitted. “With your help.”

“Ah, nonsense, nonsense! I didn’t even want to show you, you can’t give me any credit. Are you trying to embarrass me?”

“What did he do? Baba, what are you talking about?” said A-Yuan, who was getting impatient, wriggling to get down.

Wei Ying set him on his little socked feet on the shiny entranceway floor. “Lan Zhan had a good day today,” he said. “He’s been trying really hard at something and he finally got it to work.”

“Oh,” said A-Yuan. He considered a moment, then reached up to pat one of Lan Zhan’s hands. “Good job, gege,” he said.

“Thank you, A-Yuan.”

“Did you get a sticker?” said A-Yuan, his earnest little face clearly showing that, to him, this was the ultimate proof of a successful outcome.

Lan Zhan felt his lip twitch. “No,” he said, “no sticker.”

Wei Ying laughed, gently teasing. “Poor Lan Zhan! You probably never got a sticker in your life, did you? I can’t see the Lans handing out gold stars and dinosaurs for good work.”

“They did not.”

“You never got a sticker?” said A-Yuan, wide-eyed.

“It’s a tragedy, isn’t it, radish? Hey, you’ve still got some stickers downstairs, don’t you? You think maybe you would give one to Lan-gege as his first ever sticker? He really, really deserves one.”

A-Yuan nodded definitely.

“We’ll pick one out for him when we get home, and you can give it to him tomorrow. Okay? Now let’s go play some piano.” He shooed A-Yuan towards the piano stool, saying over his shoulder, “I want to hear all about it, but we won’t get much chance to talk with this little one around asking questions every ten seconds, so… uh.” He hesitated, looking slightly uncertain. “Are you free tomorrow at all? If you’ve got a spare hour we could take him to the park and have a grownup conversation while he’s running his little legs off.”

Lan Zhan found himself all at once very far from the state of equilibrium he’d worked so hard to achieve. “Mm,” he said. “I have no plans beyond continuing my work.”

Wei Ying beamed. “Then we have to get you out of the apartment. You owe me answers, Lan Zhan. You promised me we could talk about this.”

“I did. We will go to the park,” said Lan Zhan.

“Great,” said Wei Ying. “That’s really great. Hear that, Yuan-er? Lan-gege will come to the playground with us tomorrow. Won’t that be nice?”

“Yes,” said A-Yuan. “Baba, I’m ready to play.”

Wei Ying scooped A-Yuan off the piano stool and sat down on it himself, settling the boy into his lap. “Alright, keep your pants on. Now, you remember what we were learning yesterday? You play the right hand and I’ll play the left, and then we can switch, okay? Show me the right hand part first.”

A-Yuan played through the little tune and was rewarded with kisses, and then played it through again, more confidently, with Wei Ying adding the simple harmony. Almost without thinking, Lan Zhan reached into his pocket for his phone and snapped a picture. It captured them perfectly – the way Wei Ying’s arms bracketed the little boy, the soft fondness on his face and the enthusiasm on A-Yuan’s. A happy moment. Perhaps he should have asked before taking the photograph, but he would send it to Wei Ying and delete it from his own phone.

It was important to have pictures. He only had one candid picture of himself and his mother. There were the stiff, posed family portraits that had been taken every year, sour memories of clinging to Xichen's hand, wary of the barely-familiar figure who was their father. He didn't like to look at those. His mother’s smile in them was haunted, and each was a reminder of the years of pictures that came later, when she was no longer there. No, the real picture was a slanted, off-centre snapshot, blurred pink in one corner where Xichen's clumsy fingers had encroached on the camera lens. It showed Lan Zhan perhaps a year older than A-Yuan was now, sitting in his mother’s lap as she tied his forehead-ribbon. Both of their faces were bright with laughter. That was the picture that sat on his bookshelf, where he could see it every day.

He looked over to the shelf, focused on his mother’s smile, so like Xichen’s. She would have liked Wei Ying, he thought. He didn’t know enough about her to know what kind of people she had chosen for her friends when she still had the freedom to choose, but he hoped she would have liked anyone who took such joy in teaching and caring for their child.

He would go with them to the park tomorrow. He would tell Wei Ying about the experiment, the success of the technique he had been instrumental in developing. They would talk and watch A-Yuan play. It would be a good day.

***

He found himself honestly nervous as he waited for Wei Ying and A-Yuan to meet him. He tried to tell himself that it wasn’t anything particularly meaningful. It was a chance to talk like grownups, because Wei Ying wanted to know about his work. It still felt meaningful, being part of their Saturday plans.

He hadn’t called Xichen the previous night. Perhaps it deserved another rebuke for pride, but he wanted to deliver the news face to face. Their night hunt, scheduled for Sunday, was another thing to look forward to, now he was no longer focusing every fibre of his being on refining his ability to create resonance in his music. They would do important work for the sect, and he would deliver the good news. The prospect made him feel a little less like an outcast.

It was ten minutes past the appointed time when Wei Ying and A-Yuan emerged from the building.

“Lan-gege!” said A-Yuan, running forwards, a sheet of stickers in his hand. “Stickers! Which one do you want?”

“He tried really hard to choose one for you,” said Wei Ying, strolling in his wake, hefting a backpack, “but since I didn’t want to keep you waiting a solid hour while he considered, we decided it’d be best if you picked your favourite.”

“Which one, gege?” said A-Yuan. “You pick whatever you want, it’s okay.”

Lan Zhan crouched on his heels to look. It was a half-used sheet of big-eyed cartoon animals, obviously designed specifically to appeal to small children. What they lacked in artistic merit they made up for in holographic glitter. There was a selection of household pets and assorted other creatures, including a white rabbit with a manic grin, clutching a carrot like it was about to club somebody to death with it.

“May I have the bunny?” he asked.

A-Yuan nodded. “Is a bunny your favourite animal?”

“Mm. There are bunnies where I grew up, I like them very much.”

“You had pet bunnies?”

“Not pets. They live in the meadow at Cloud Recesses. But they’re friendly and tame.”

“My favourite animal is a dragon,” A-Yuan informed him, “but there isn’t a dragon sticker, so I like the butterfly of these. He’s the wrong colours for Flutter, but I still like him. Baba stuck him on my lamp.”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan again, unsure of the correct response, while A-Yuan picked at the edge of the bunny sticker with clumsy fingers.

“You want me to get that for you, radish?” said Wei Ying.

“I’ll do it,” insisted A-Yuan, fumbling determinedly but ineffectually at the sticker sheet.

Lan Zhan winced. It seemed likely there would be a torn sticker and disappointed tears in their immediate future. “May I peel it myself?” he asked. “I’ve never peeled a sticker and I’d like to try, if you’ll show me how.”

“Never?” said A-Yuan.

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan, flagrantly breaking a sect rule.

“Okay,” A-Yuan allowed. “I’ll show you. You have to bend it first.”

Lan Zhan took the sticker sheet, bent it as instructed, and made a play of attempting to peel. “It’s difficult,” he said.

“Use your fingernail.”

“Like this?”

“Yes!” said A-Yuan, delighted, as Lan Zhan managed to separate the bunny from the backing. He took the peeled sticker from Lan Zhan’s fingers. “I’ll stick it on for you. Where do you want it?”

“Here, please,” said Lan Zhan, tapping his chest, and A-Yuan pressed the sticker lopsidedly onto his shirt. “How does it look?”

“Good.”

“Thank you for my first sticker, A-Yuan. I love it.” He glanced up at Wei Ying to check that he’d managed the encounter acceptably, and found Wei Ying staring down at him, mouth slightly open. “Wei Ying?” he said.

Wei Ying blinked. The expression was covered with a grin. He turned to his son. “A-Yuan! Such a good boy, giving your nice gege a bunny. My radish is so cute I’m going to gobble him up, leaves and all.” He darted in to swing A-Yuan up into his arms, taking big bites out of the air above his head and making loud mmmmm noises. Lan Zhan, left crouching on the sidewalk with a handful of stickers, stood hastily, embarrassed.

“Baba, I am not delicious!” said A-Yuan. “I taste of… boogers and worms.” He collapsed into a peal of giggles in Wei Ying’s arms, while Wei Ying made exaggeratedly disgusted sounds.

It was the kind of game Lan Zhan would never know how to take part in. He didn’t mind. He liked hearing them laugh. On the short walk through the neighbourhood to the park he enjoyed listening to them chatter back and forth, letting the nonsense gently flow over him, occasionally stepping in as the voice of reason. He liked the noise and life of the pair of them, and being a part of it, however small.

When they arrived at the playground A-Yuan sped off towards the slide, where a few children were waiting their turn. Lan Zhan watched, fascinated at how the interactions played out. Somehow, in the time between climbing the ladder and taking his turn, A-Yuan had struck up a conversation with one of the other boys. They reconvened at the bottom of the slide, clearly discussing which piece of play equipment to go to next, as though it were a given that they would go together.

“He makes friends easily,” he commented, as he and Wei Ying settled onto one of the benches that surrounded the playground.

“He’s a friendly kid,” said Wei Ying. “He’s got a big heart. He’s kind to everyone he meets, even though the world hasn’t always been kind to him.”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan, not quite a question but definitely an encouragement. He was curious, of course. A-Yuan must have had a mother once, and must have lost her in one way or another. It was strange not to know the history of a child who was becoming so important to him.

“We’ve moved around a lot this past year,” said Wei Ying, frustratingly vague, “but he’s settled in here really well, he takes everything in his stride.”

“He has you to rely on. That sense of stability is worth a lot.”

“Hah,” said Wei Ying. “Yeah. Right.”

“You’re a good father, Wei Ying.”

Wei Ying snorted. “Ah, Lan Zhan, that’s sweet of you to say.” He looked out over the playground, watching A-Yuan, face unreadable, before turning to Lan Zhan. “We’re not here to talk about my parenting skills. Come on, spill. Tell me about your amazing success.”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan. “The technique that you showed me…” He paused for a moment, collecting his thoughts, figuring out how best to explain it. “The power in your music occurs when there’s a resonance between the notes you play and certain frequencies and harmonics within your qi.”

“Huh,” said Wei Ying. “Really?”

“Mm. You match your playing to your natural rhythms, and it amplifies the spiritual power of the notes. It allows you to control resentment, but it has many other applications beyond that.”

“Huh,” said Wei Ying again. “So you’ve started doing it too? Found your rhythm?”

“Not exactly. Your technique works because you’re not restricted to playing any particular notes. You change the music to fit. Lan pieces are too structured for that. But I reassessed my literature and found a set of exercises that I’d been unable to classify before. It’s clear now that the ancient Lans used them to gain control over the rhythms in their qi, so they could produce the resonance they needed.”

“So I can change the music to fit these mysterious frequencies in my qi, but you figured out how to change your qi to fit the music?”

“I rediscovered the technique,” Lan Zhan corrected. He wasn’t an innovator. He certainly hadn’t invented his own never-before-seen method of musical cultivation, the way Wei Ying had. “This was how my ancestors did it, Wei Ying. This was what has been missing. I spent years reconstructing the melodies, but without resonance, they were useless.”

“That’s really f*cking cool. And you got results the first time you tried it? Tell me everything about yesterday, I want the whole story.”

They sat side by side, watching A-Yuan while Lan Zhan talked through the testing session. It was a thrill to tell Wei Ying about it, to see his interest and curiosity, to answer his slew of questions and get caught up in debate over the ones that were as yet unanswered, while A-Yuan and his little friend moved from the climbing frame to the see-saw to some mysterious game that involved leaping out at one another from behind a large wooden dinosaur.

Lan Zhan couldn’t deny it any longer. He wasn’t just attracted to Wei Ying. He liked him deeply, despite his slapdash ways and absurdity. Liked his brilliance and bravery, and his liveliness, and how loving he was with A-Yuan, who was a little wonder all on his own.

“I’m going to need a demonstration,” said Wei Ying. “There’s this whole concept of resonance that you say I’ve been using, and I don’t even know what it means in practice. I had no idea I was doing it.”

“Mm. You do it unconsciously. I could hear it, listening to you. It’s powerful, but uncontrolled. It makes you vulnerable.”

“It…?”

“You can control resentment with your technique, but you would also be particularly susceptible to control by powerful resentful spirits.”

“Oh,” said Wei Ying. For once he seemed wordless.

“Wei Ying?”

“Ah, nothing, nothing, Lan Zhan!” He grinned, waving away Lan Zhan’s concern. “So, have you tried it with any of the other pieces? I guess you need safety approvals for Repose, but Evocation? You have to come back out with me next week, I’ll see if I can get assigned a good case for you to try it on.”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan, allowing himself to be distracted. “Thank you.” Now he was getting the hang of Cleansing, he was ready to see what Evocation could do with this new resonance behind it.

“So long as you’re sure I didn’t get you involved in using resentful energy by accident, without you noticing.”

Lan Zhan said nothing. He let a raised eyebrow speak for itself.

“You’re laughing at me. So rude! And after you heartlessly kicked me out of your experiment too. You’re gonna have to let me watch the next time, Lan Zhan.”

“Mm,” Lan Zhan allowed.

Wei Ying beamed. “Good! That means I get to hang out with your little musical ducklings again. That Chen Mei takes me back to my own rebellious youth. I always wanted to be in a rock band, you know? We should try to catch her set at the end-of-semester showcase. She writes her own songs, and there’s this one I really want to hear performed—”

“Lord of Music,” said Lan Zhan, eyeing Wei Ying’s gleeful smile with a rising sense of dread.

“Yeah, that one. You’ve been an inspiration to her young mind, Lan Zhan.” His grin widened. “And it’s so sweet that you’ve been helping Chuhua with her project.”

“Project?”

“The book,” said Wei Ying. At Lan Zhan’s blank look, he started to laugh. “Lan Zhan! Did you not know you’ve been helping her write a romance novel?” He spread his hands dramatically. “Two cultivators who fell madly in love at the indoctrination lectures, torn apart by war and sect politics until they band together to defeat an ancient evil! Action, adventure and devotion in a world gone mad! That’s how she made it sound, anyway. Judging by how much she blushed I guess there’s a whole lot more f*cking than she let on.”

Lan Zhan was hastily reassessing every interaction he’d ever had with Zhou Chuhua. “All those questions…?”

“She’s very dedicated to making it authentic,” said Wei Ying. “You’ve been a goldmine for historical sect details. I’m pretty sure there’s a character based on you too, though of course she’s using your brother for her protagonist.”

“She is writing,” said Lan Zhan weakly, “about my brother. In a… romantic context.”

“Not by name, obviously,” said Wei Ying, “and it’s not like she admitted it. I’m making an educated inference. Lan Zhan, your ears have gone red. Ayah, I wish I could be here next time she asks you a question. Don’t let on that you know, OK? Promise me.”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan. He was absolutely never going to acknowledge this situation to Zhou Chuhua. He wished he could go back to living in ignorance.

Mercifully, A-Yuan came trotting up to them just then. His new friend was leaving, and he wanted Wei Ying to push him on the swings. Lan Zhan followed them onto the playground, taking his turn to push. Then, when A-Yuan tired of playing, he bought them all lunch. The simple act of sitting down to eat in a restaurant was clearly an unheard-of treat for A-Yuan, who spooned up his soup in silence, wide eyes fixed on Lan Zhan in-between bites.

Finally, it was time to head home. On the street outside the restaurant, Wei Ying held out his hand firmly to A-Yuan. “Hold tight, Yuan-er. No running off.”

A-Yuan took the hand obediently, and then held his other hand out to Lan Zhan. After a moment of surprise, Lan Zhan took it. They walked down the street in a row, A-Yuan tugging slightly, and occasionally dangling, lifting his feet off the floor.

“Are you a boy or a monkey?” complained Wei Ying. “You should be up swinging in the trees, not down here on the sidewalk.” He grinned over at Lan Zhan. “One, two, three…”

Just in time, Lan Zhan realised what he was being asked to do. They swung the little boy between them, squealing and giggling, and then set him back on the ground.

“Again, Baba!”

“No, you’re too heavy. What have you been eating? Rocks? Your poor baba is weak, he can’t do it.”

“Baba,” said A-Yuan wearily. He tugged at Lan Zhan’s hand. “Again, please, Lan-gege.”

“One,” said Lan Zhan, “two, three…”

“Wheeee,” A-Yuan yelled.

On the walk home, Lan Zhan thought back to all the other families in the park—the little children with their parents or grandparents, aunts and uncles. He thought about what other people would see, looking at him and Wei Ying and A-Yuan; two men walking along with a child swinging from their hands. They could be a family.

He had never considered himself as someone who would want a family of his own. Strange, now he thought about it. Strange that he could have spent most of his life desperately missing his mother, and not realise that he wanted to have something like that again. To have people he belonged to completely.

Suddenly, metres from the apartment building, he felt electrified with the possibilities. He could try to make something of his desire for Wei Ying, instead of stuffing it down below the floorboards of his brain. They didn’t have to walk through the door and part ways. He could invite Wei Ying and A-Yuan up for tea. He could… he could perhaps attempt to flirt, not that he knew how, and see if Wei Ying would smile at him, and try to find some meaning in that smile. They could…

“Wei Wuxian!” called a voice, sharp and angry from just along the street.

Wei Ying’s head shot up. He gaped, disbelief plain on a face quickly draining of colour. “sh*t,” he whispered, and then he was bending to scoop A-Yuan off the sidewalk, thrusting him unceremoniously into Lan Zhan’s arms. “Take him,” he said. “Please?”

Caught off guard, looking urgently in the direction of the voice, Lan Zhan settled A-Yuan as best he could, feeling small fingers twisting in the collar of his shirt. The man striding along the street towards them was tall with sharp cheekbones and dark eyebrows drawing down into a scowl. He was dressed casually, but the bell at his hip, combined with his long hair, marked him as a Jiang cultivator.

“An extra music lesson or something,” Wei Ying babbled, “I just have to— Jiang Cheng! Fancy seeing you here, huh? This is my neighbour Lan Zhan, he’s just leaving.” He gave Lan Zhan a shove.

“Where did that kid come from?” said the newcomer.

Lan Zhan stepped hastily back towards the apartment building. Whatever this was about, it was clear A-Yuan shouldn’t be present for it.

“Where are your manners, A-Cheng? How about, nice to see you, gege, how’ve you been?”

“Oh, we’ll get to the f*cking small talk. I have plenty of questions about where the f*ck you’ve been and what you’re doing in the ass-end of Gusu, but right now I want to know where did that kid come from?”

At the door, Lan Zhan juggled A-Yuan into one arm so he could punch in the code. A-Yuan was wriggly, craning back to see what was going on. His flailing arm jolted Lan Zhan’s hand. The lock panel beeped, flashing red. Lan Zhan hissed low and started over.

“I birthed him from my body, obviously,” said Wei Ying with an artificial chuckle. “What’s the big deal? Why are you fixated on my neighbour’s kid?”

“Don’t feed me any of your bullsh*t,” snapped the stranger. “That’s the little Wen boy, and he’s supposed to be dead.”

Too late, Lan Zhan got the door open and got them both through. He shut it behind him and stood frozen, arms wrapped tight around A-Yuan.

“Gege, who was that?” said A-Yuan, in a tiny, confused voice.

“I don’t know.”

“What did he mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“I want Baba,” whimpered A-Yuan, and began wriggling again, reaching for the door handle.

“Your baba’s busy. We’re going upstairs. You can play the piano.”

“No, I want Baba.”

“He’s busy,” Lan Zhan repeated helplessly. He wanted to go back out there too, to step between Wei Ying and whatever piece of the past had caught up with him, but Wei Ying had given him A-Yuan to keep safe. That had to be the first priority.

A-Yuan started to cry. Lan Zhan carried him into the elevator, despite the sobs and the occasional struggles against his hold. “It’s okay,” he said, again and again. “It’s okay, A-Yuan, he’ll be back soon. He just has to talk to that man.”

At the door of the apartment, A-Yuan kicked and flailed. “No, no, no!”

“It’s just for a little while,” said Lan Zhan desperately. How did you calm a child? Maybe a bribe? He didn’t keep junk food in his apartment. Carrot sticks probably wouldn’t do the job.

“No! I can’t, I didn’t have my ba-a-a-ath,” A-Yuan wailed.

“You don’t need a bath today. It’s a special day. We’re going to have a special lesson.” Oh, thank god, he thought. He did have a bribe to offer. “I have a present for you inside. Do you want to see?”

A-Yuan’s tears didn’t stop, but the sobs eased. “Present?” he said, on a watery hiccup.

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan. He’d meant to offer the little guqin to Wei Ying as a loan. Had he just accidentally given away the gift presented to him at his one month celebration? Oh well. It wasn’t like he’d been using it for anything.

“I want my baba. I want Flutter,” said A-Yuan. “I left him in Baba’s bag.”

“Baba will come soon. And Flutter. You can show them the present. They’re going to like it a lot.”

“Is it a real present?” sniffled A-Yuan, wiping at his eyes and looking up at Lan Zhan with the suspiciousness of a child who was used to Wei Ying’s shrimp-flavoured-ice-cream style of teasing.

“A real present,” Lan Zhan promised, opening the door to carry A-Yuan inside. “We have to dry your face and blow your nose and wash your hands first. It’s a very special thing and you have to have clean hands.”

A-Yuan nodded. “Clean and quiet,” he mumbled, hiding his face in Lan Zhan’s shoulder. Lan Zhan held him, rocking him slightly, trying to soothe away A-Yuan’s fears and quiet his own pounding heart, before going to the bathroom to figure out how to wash a four-year-old’s hands and face. That accomplished, he settled the little boy on a cushion in front of the low table and opened the tooled leather guqin case.

The tiny guqin was glossy polished dark wood. There was something particularly pleasing about the smooth curve of the neck that made one want to touch. Its forehead section was engraved with expertly-wrought charms. It had been in storage for twenty years, and yet when he’d tested it he’d found the silk strings still in perfect condition, barely out of tune.

A-Yuan was staring at it open-mouthed. “I can touch it?” he whispered.

“Mm. This one is for you to play. If you’d like, I can teach you how.”

A-Yuan nodded so forcefully that his hair flopped up and down. Despite the permission, he didn’t touch the little guqin. He looked like he scarcely dared breathe on it.

Lan Zhan guided A-Yuan’s hand to the strings. He had no faith in his own abilities to make lessons fun and giggly, the way Wei Ying did with the piano, but he had some experience of teaching. He showed A-Yuan how to pluck, then let him explore for a minute while thinking through a lesson plan. A-Yuan would need to learn the same concepts and techniques as the seven- and eight-year-old novices who’d been Lan Zhan’s students when he was a teenager in the Cloud Recesses. The challenge of translating the lessons into something suitable for a younger child was a distraction from all the questions buzzing in his head.

As he repeated “Tiao, gou, tiao, gou,” along with the simple plucking exercise he’d set A-Yuan, he let himself stare. The little Wen boy. Not Wei Ying’s son? It was hard to tell a child’s bone structure under those chubby cheeks, but now he looked at the eyes, the nose, the serious, focused expression on A-Yuan’s face – no, there was no particular resemblance there.

Fatherhood wasn’t genetics. A-Yuan belonged to Wei Ying in a way Lan Zhan and Xichen had never belonged to their own absent father. Wei Ying cared. A-Yuan was happy, secure, loved.

“Gege?” said A-Yuan, tugging on his sleeve.

“Mm?” said Lan Zhan, and realised he’d fallen silent in his musing. “Ah. That was very good.”

A-Yuan beamed.

“Now try it without looking at your right hand. That’s the rule when playing the qin. Always look left.”

“Always look left,” A-Yuan repeated. He looked down at his hands, wiggling his fingers in a mime of piano playing, and then shook his head. “Gege, which is left? I forgot.”

Lan Zhan took one of his hands in each of his own. “This is right,” he said, giving it a squeeze and a shake. “This one plucks the strings. The left one–” he squeezed it “–presses and taps and slides. That’s the one you look at, so you can see what you’re doing. But you’ll learn that later.”

The two little hands were hot in his soft grasp. He’s supposed to be dead, his mind echoed, and he had to fight back a flinch.

“Are you ready to try it now?”

“Yes, gege,” said A-Yuan, and started plucking again.“Look left,” he chanted quietly in time with the paired notes, “look left, every-body look left.”

“Good,” Lan Zhan murmured.

His phone buzzed. A-Yuan’s hand’s jerked away from the instrument. “Is that my baba?” he asked.

Lan Zhan checked the phone. “Mm.”

Wei Ying: Sorry. Can you keep him for a while longer?

I can, Lan Zhan wrote back, Is everything alright?

Wei Ying’s response was a gif of the ‘This Is Fine’ dog, complete with flickering flames and billowing smoke.

Lan Zhan blinked briefly at the phone, swallowed, and turned to his silent observer. “He says you can stay here with me for now,” he told A-Yuan. “He’ll come up when he’s finished what he has to do.”

“I want to show him my present.”

“Mm. When he comes.”

“Will he come soon?” said A-Yuan pitifully.

“When he’s finished,” said Lan Zhan.

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

The time dragged painfully. Despite the child-friendly charms on the guqin, after less than an hour A-Yuan’s fingers were sore from the strings. He’d asked when his baba would come back about twenty times. Lan Zhan played for him, sang songs with him, fed him congee, and eventually had to figure out where to find cartoons online because otherwise A-Yuan was going to burst into tears again. Possibly Lan Zhan would too.

He couldn’t stop thinking about it. What if A-Yuan wasn’t Wei Ying’s to keep? He imagined A-Yuan taken away by strangers, asking, “When will my baba come?” every day until the pain got too much and he withdrew into silence.

Finally, there was a knock on the door. A-Yuan leapt up. “Baba!” he said, running into the hallway. He was too small to reach the lock on the door himself. He danced with impatience while Lan Zhan opened it, and then skipped under his arm as the door opened, throwing himself forwards.

“A-Yuan,” said Wei Ying, crouching and catching him in a hug. “Hi. Hi, radish. I’m here.”

A-Yuan burrowed against him, clinging tight. “I missed you,” he sniffled reproachfully.

“I’m sorry, baobei. I missed you too.”

“You were gone forever.”

“I know. I didn’t mean to. Shh, it’s okay.” He stood up, holding A-Yuan. “Thank you,” he said. “Lan Zhan, you’re amazing. Thank you so much.”

“No need for thanks.”

“There is. You’re—ah, I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.” He kissed A-Yuan on the top of the head. “Yuan-er, did you have fun with Lan-gege while I was gone?”

A-Yuan made an uncertain noise. Then he lifted his head from Wei Ying’s shoulder, smiling. “Baba, I got a present.”

“You did?”

“Come see,” said A-Yuan. He wriggled to get down, and immediately grabbed Wei Ying’s hand with both of his own, clinging on tight. He pulled Wei Ying into the apartment, barely letting him stop to take off his shoes.

“Alright, I’m coming,” said Wei Ying, letting himself be drawn into the lounge.

“Look! I can play too now. Lan-gege taught me.” A-Yuan scampered over to sit by the little guqin and conscientiously inspected his fingers. “Gotta have clean hands,” he explained, and then plucked the strings one by one, the way Lan Zhan had shown him. “See, Baba? I can play tunes too.”

“That’s really great,” said Wei Ying. “Lan Zhan has a baby guqin, huh?”

“It’s mine,” said A-Yuan proudly.

“Ahaha, no, it’s not yours, radish. Lan-gege was just letting you play with it.”

“It’s my present,” A-Yuan insisted. His lip trembled dangerously. “He said.”

“Mm,” agreed Lan Zhan.

Wei Ying turned to stare at him. “That’s a concert-quality miniature instrument with master charm work all over it,” he said. “You can’t just give it to him.”

“I have no use for it.”

“That’s not the point. It’s precious. It’s got to be worth a fortune.”

“If he wishes, he can give it back when he’s old enough for a full sized one.”

“No way, Lan Zhan—” began Wei Ying, and then sighed and shook his head. “You know what? We’re going to have this argument some other day. I don’t have the energy right now, and it’s not a great look to start a fight with you when you’ve just watched my kid for two hours.”

“It’s mine,” said A-Yuan, a pleading tone in his voice.

“Mm. A present.”

A-Yuan smiled and patted the guqin. Then he looked up abruptly at Wei Ying and asked, “Who was that man outside?”

Wei Ying crouched beside him. “His name is Jiang Cheng,” he said. Then he made a wry face up at Lan Zhan and added, like a guilty admission, “Jiang Wanyin.”

“Jiang Wanyin? The second heir of Lotus Pier?”

“The first, now, since Shijie married into Jin sect,” said Wei Ying absently. To A-Yuan he continued, “He’s an old friend of mine. He’s waiting in our apartment, we’re going to go talk to him now.”

A-Yuan drew back, shaking his head. “He yelled,” he said. “I don’t want to.”

“He only yelled because he was feeling grouchy. He isn’t grouchy anymore. You’ve gotta come make friends with him, okay? I’m relying on you to be your cutest. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes,” said A-Yuan uncertainly.

“He and I are going to play some games with you. The ones that tickle in your brain.”

“We’ll all play?”

“Yeah, baobei.”

“Can Lan-gege play?”

“Not today. Maybe he’ll want to later.”

A-Yuan appeared to be considering his options. After a few moments of indecision, he said, “Can we take my guqin?”

“You may,” said Lan Zhan, before Wei Ying could object. “I will show you how to put it in its case.”

Wei Ying hovered, looking like he was trying hard to hold his tongue while A-Yuan put the guqin away, struggling with the clasps that closed the case in the exact way Lan Zhan remembered struggling at that age, tugging at the stiff metal fixings with both his little hands. Eventually he got them in place, and sat back in satisfaction. “It’s safe in bed now,” he said. “Goodnight, guqin.”

“Well done,” said Lan Zhan. “Your baba can carry it for you.”

“Yeah, I got this,” said Wei Ying, picking it up. “Go put your shoes on, Yuan-er. Don’t forget to put your slippers away.”

A-Yuan trotted out of the room. The silence he left in his wake was charged, painful, heavy.

“Wei Ying…” began Lan Zhan.

“You have questions.”

“Mm. Many.”

“Yeah,” said Wei Ying, raking a hand through his hair, “of course you do. And I’ll answer them, I promise, but not now. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I have to handle Jiang Cheng first.”

Lan Zhan glanced towards the doorway. “Are you in any danger?” he said, almost under his breath.

Wei Ying’s face softened. “Lan Zhan, I grew up with Jiang Cheng. His dad basically adopted me. Things have been complicated for a while, but he’s still my brother in everything but name. You don’t have to worry. I wouldn’t be taking A-Yuan down there if it wasn’t safe.”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan unhappily. He was going to worry. There was nothing else he could do.

“Tomorrow. I’ll explain everything first thing tomorrow.”

“I’m spending tomorrow night-hunting with Xiongzhang.” He couldn’t cancel. Xichen wouldn’t be able to free up a different day. They would be starting early, before Wei Ying and A-Yuan were awake. With a sinking feeling, he remembered Wei Ying’s face after their duel on the rooftop, the way he’d looked ready to run, to disappear completely. “You will be here when I get back?”

“Yeah, you can come by after. And if you could maybe not mention to Zewu-jun…”

“I will be discreet.”

“Thanks, Lan Zhan,” said Wei Ying quietly. “You’re the best.” He hefted the little guqin and turned to go into the hall. “And thank you for this. And for everything else. A-Yuan, are you ready to—why are your socks on the floor?”

“They don’t fit anymore,” said A-Yuan.

“They don’t fit,” Wei Ying echoed. “So you took them off and put your shoes on your bare feet.” He sighed, picked up the tiny green socks, and shoved them into his jeans pocket. “Whatever. Say thank you nicely to Lan-gege.”

A-Yuan came over and leaned against Lan Zhan’s leg. “Thank you, gege,” he said.

“That leg thing means he wants a hug,” said Wei Ying.

Lan Zhan crouched down. “Goodbye A-Yuan,” he said, taking the boy into his arms. “I enjoyed our afternoon.”

“Can we play more guqin next time?”

“Mm. We can.” He let A-Yuan go, standing up and guiding him towards his… father. Wei Ying was his father, even if not by blood. “I’ll see you both tomorrow.”

He hoped he would. He didn’t know what he would do if he got back from his night hunt the next day to find them gone.

***

It was still grey dawn when Lan Zhan stepped off his sword beside the gate to Night Zone 1, a mile beyond the city’s northern edge. For once, he had flown directly from his apartment. It might be unofficial, but he would claim the sect exemption from the rules just for today.

Xichen arrived just a couple of minutes later, dressed in the darker blue, hard-wearing robes he wore for field work. They exchanged quiet greetings, and Xichen passed over a single bespelled outer layer of robes for Lan Zhan to shrug on over his own clothes. To an outside observer, Lan Zhan would have been a strange parody of his brother—no headpiece, short hair, ribbon invisible beneath his sleeve, sneakers peeking out from under the skirts of the robe. Still, in the moment they were equals. Xichen was not a sect leader, Lan Zhan was not a researcher. They were two cultivators on a night hunt.

The news of the successful Cleansing test stuck behind Lan Zhan’s teeth. He couldn’t bring himself to share it. He already had too much on his mind. There would be no pleasure in it.

“What are we looking for here?” he asked.

“At least one intact human spirit,” said Xichen. “And there’s something large and static near the centre of the zone. I’d guess it’s a monstrous tree, but I didn’t want to let any patrols close enough to get a good look. We can find out as we go. The spirit first? If it’s the person I think it is, we should be able to liberate her.” He slid an envelope out of his sleeve. It was decorated with stickers and addressed, in awkwardly-proportioned childish characters, to Mama. “She had two small children. They’re in Qinghe now, with her sister. It’s likely she just needs reassurance they’re being well cared for. If it turns out not to be her, it’s probably a particularly unpleasant elderly businessman angry about inheritance, in which case we can try for suppression.”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan. “You’re well-prepared.”

Xichen smiled a little guiltily. “I want to hit five zones today. I know it’s a lot, but I’m going to make use of you while I’ve got you.”

“Good.” He was glad to be of use. Gladder for the busy day. There would be less time to think.

The night zone gates welcomed them with a gentle glow. Inside, the mass of dark trees was ringed by a sunny meadow. The two of them walked forward cautiously, talismans at the ready, wary of burrows and creatures hidden in the long grass. A dart of movement towards his ankles made Lan Zhan step sharply back, sword lashing out as Xichen’s blade flashed in tandem. A dark snake, scales glittering with resentment, flopped out of its strike and fell to the ground, sliced neatly into three.

Lan Zhan shot his brother a look. Xichen grinned, unrepentant.

“Older brother’s prerogative.”

“Guard your own flank.”

Without further incident, they reached the edge of the trees and took their first steps into the gloom. Lan Zhan jerked his head towards the left-hand fork in the main path, and they made their way forwards carefully towards a clearing, where Xichen held up a hand to halt them.

“We’re in the right area,” he said. “The energy is too diffuse to be more exact. I’ll set the lure, you take the array?”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan. He selected a can of cultivator paint—mother-of-pearl—and drew out his circle, using a steady stream of qi to move the paint through the leaf litter and infuse it into the ground beneath. The sect had a recommended spell for this situation. Lan Zhan adapted it with a few additional characters based on what Xichen had told him of their target. By the time he was done, Xichen had infused the spirit lure flag with energy, hung it from a branch above the array, and spaced several talismans around the clearing to prevent the lure from attracting every minor yao in the zone.

“Place the letter,” said Lan Zhan. Better that he didn’t touch it himself.

Xichen laid the little envelope down at the centre of the circle before taking up position on the opposite side of the array. “Shouldn’t be long,” he said. “Can you feel her?”

“Mm.”

There was a heaviness like static building in the air. Something was approaching, drawn to the lure. The branches began to rattle. The red-daubed flag flapped back and forth as the breeze picked up.

Lan Zhan locked eyes with his brother across the array. The timing had to be perfect, so that she was fully present but not manifested with enough solidity to harm them. Once engaged, the barrier had to be raised subtly while she was distracted by the letter. She was already furious. The last thing they wanted was for her to feel trapped.

A scream rent the air, short and guttural, carried on a hot wind that smelled of burning plastic. The roar of the wind rose, blowing acrid fumes into the clearing. Lan Zhan sketched a charm across his face and saw Xichen doing the same. She would choke them if she could. She would tear them away from everything that they loved.

Another scream, and the beginnings of a haze of dark resentment. Mostly formless, which was a relief. It meant that it wasn’t the means of her death that caused her rage, just the fact of it. The simple unfairness that her life was over. Her pain swirled around the clearing, until tendrils of darkness touched on the letter, amassed around it, grasped at it. An awful, tearing howl shook the trees, and the smoke filling the clearing funnelled down and inwards into a ghostly shape, a woman on her knees, head bent over the envelope her hands couldn’t lift, sobbing out her grief.

My babies, my babies, MY BABIES.

It wasn’t words, exactly. Just emotion. The desperate longing of a parent for a child they would never see again.

Lan Zhan tilted his head just fractionally, enough of a motion for Xichen to pick up. He began to feed qi into the array, feeling Xichen’s presence alongside him, following his lead. They eased the spell into being as softly as they could, subtle but fast. Once it was active and in balance, they juggled the power between them for an awkward few seconds while Lan Zhan upped his input, flooding the spell with qi until he was fuelling it entirely on his own, freeing Xichen to step forwards, one, two, three steps into the circle. The wind whipped harder. Lan Zhan responded, spreading stillness and calm into a protected space for Xichen to kneel, mirroring the woman. Carefully, reverently, Xichen opened the envelope and laid out the pages so she could read them. Four pages of childish handwriting and bright crayon drawings.

The spirit hunched over them, touching the drawings with her insubstantial fingers, dropping her head to kiss the lines of writing. She wailed, the air pulsing with relief, grief, sorrow, and then rising through it all a desperate emotion that drowned out the others. She reached out her hand to Xichen, beseeching.

Please. You.

That was Xichen’s truest power. Not his martial skill or his verdant core, but the trust he engendered. Lan Zhan had seen the wraiths of furious murder victims go to their knees to Xichen, asking him for justice, and had felt the weight of Xichen’s promises to them settle on the sect.

Xichen accepted this burden as willingly as all of the others. “Yes,” he said. “They are cared for. They are loved. The Lan sect undertakes to ensure it remains so.”

The wind whipped up, wilder than even Lan Zhan could suppress, buffeting the trees, sending leaf litter flying. In the very centre of the array, the air was still. No hint of breeze disturbed the pages spread out on the ground, or even stirred the fall of Xichen’s hair. It was her last cry of rage at the unfairness of the world, the last of her sorrow at leaving her children behind.

The wind dropped. A sense of peace spread out from the fading figure of the woman crouched over her children’s letter.

My love for them. Always.

Then she was gone.

A little unsteadily, Xichen got to his feet. “Well done, Wangji,” he said. “Thank you.”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan dismissively. His role had needed strength and control, both of which he possessed. He’d been a functional cog in a well-executed plan. “How will you keep your promise?”

“It’s agreed already. The team who approached the family to get the letter let them know that this was a likely outcome. They were more than willing to accept a yearly check-in visit. Da-ge will take responsibility for those as a favour to me, though I’ll send a Lan disciple by on occasion.”

Lan Zhan’s shoulders relaxed. “You’ll go yourself,” he said, “when you’re next in Qinghe.”

Xichen gave a rueful smile. “Perhaps I will.”

He would, Lan Zhan knew. He would be there to explain to the children how much they had been loved. How much their mother had wanted to stay.

For a moment, they just looked at each other. Then Xichen reached out, and Lan Zhan met him halfway. They stood there together, side by side, hands clasped, as they had when they were small. They didn’t need to say anything.

Finally, Xichen sighed, gave Lan Zhan’s hand a squeeze, and let go. “Let’s move on,” he said. “We need to tackle that tree.” What he meant was, I would like the simplicity of hitting something evil very hard with my sword right now.

Xichen had clearly planned to get the most emotionally taxing case out of the way first. From then on, the morning was more straightforward; hard but satisfying work. They destroyed the monstrous tree with an efficiency that bordered on brutal, and moved on to the neighbouring night zone where they hunted down a giant boar yao. The ghost of the businessman surfaced in Zone 3, so vile and suffused with greed that they tacitly agreed to skip suppression and move straight to elimination. After that, they left the zone, found a shady spot under a willow tree and got out their lunch, unpacking containers of rice, tofu and vegetables from their warming and freshness talismans and sharing out the contents.

It was the first period of silence and inaction they’d had since the early morning. As Lan Zhan chewed, he found his mind inexorably drawn to the questions that had plagued him yesterday, that had forced him to meditate for an hour before bed so he could prevent them from chasing around in circles in his head all night, robbing him of the sleep he would need before a full day of night hunting. They were back with a vengeance now. What was Wei Ying running from? Who was A-Yuan?

The little Wen boy.

His hand stilled, a bite of food halfway to his mouth. Wen. Of course. He’d been stupid, caught up with trying to care for a distraught child and distracted by his own confusion. He hadn’t thought. Wen had been a sect name long ago, the aggressors of the ancient wars. It was still considered an old cultivator name, with descendants scattered here and there in Qishan and Yiling.

He turned to Xichen, the rules for mealtimes forgotten. “Xiongzhang, the villagers at the Burial Mounds. The extended family. Remind me, what was their family name?”

Xichen paused in his chewing, then swallowed his mouthful, looking as though it was suddenly harder to do so than it had been a few seconds earlier. “Wen,” he said. “Why?”

Lan Zhan forced himself not to react. Xichen could read him like nobody else. “I have been thinking about them,” he said. Not an informative answer, but his brother wouldn’t expect one from him. “What were they like?”

Xichen sighed, looking away from him and into the trees. “They had lived in the area for a very long time,” he said. His voice was taut with restrained emotion. “Old people, mostly, who had spent their whole lives beside the night zone.”

“Were there children?” said Lan Zhan.

Xichen’s face went pinched. “Wangji, why are you asking this?” he said.

“Were there children living by the Burial Mounds?”

“Yes,” said Xichen. In the dappled light, his warm eyes were shadowed. “There were a few young families living there.”

“Were they caught up in the disaster?”

“One family. A couple with a girl and a little boy. He was only three.”

Lan Zhan knew Xichen didn’t like to talk about that day. He knew Xichen hadn’t been back to the Burial Mounds since, even after Jin Guangyao was transferred there. He had thought he understood why, until now. Nobody had ever said there had been children. The reports he’d read had listed numbers, not ages. Not names. His hands clenched on his forgotten chopsticks. “And they died?” he said. “You burned them along with the rest?”

“We had no choice,” said Xichen. “You know we didn’t. They were irreversibly corrupted by the resentful energy. They weren’t human anymore. It was a horrible decision to make, but everyone could see that we had to act fast to prevent the corruption from spreading. Where are these questions coming from?”

Lan Zhan didn’t answer. If there had been names in those reports, would one of them have been Wen Yuan? A child who was supposed to be dead, supposed to have been burned, because he was no longer human, too corrupted by the evil that had risen up from old bones in an overtaxed night zone. A-Yuan, who loved the piano, and the view from the eighth floor, and ice cream, and his plush butterfly, whose little hands had plucked the strings of Lan Zhan’s old guqin with careful reverence.

“Everyone could see you had to act,” he echoed. “The decision was unanimous?”

“Yes,” said Xichen. “Of course it was—” He broke off, looking at Lan Zhan with sudden caution.

Lie, Lan Zhan thought. Xichen was as bad at lying as he was himself. “Who disagreed?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

Xichen looked taken aback. “It was a Jiang disciple,” he said. “Their first disciple.”

The first disciple of the Jiang sect at the time would be a matter of record. Lan Zhan knew what name he would find in the sect listings, although he’d only heard it once, snapped in an angry voice over the noise of traffic on the street outside his building. Wei Wuxian.

“This disciple thought the people could be saved?”

“He did,” said Xichen, and moved to pack up his lunch, although he hadn’t finished his portion. “He was wrong.”

Lan Zhan blinked at his brother. He knew he was being stonewalled. He recognised the technique, he used it himself all the time. Answer the question, in as few words as possible, offer no additional information and try to discourage follow up. It was a technique that Xichen never employed. He was naturally open, he gave information freely.

“What did the disciple suggest?” he said.

“Wangji, I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Why?” said Lan Zhan, and held Xichen’s gaze until his eyes dropped.

“Alright, if you must know,” said Xichen, frowning down at his qiankun pouch. “He said there was a technique he believed could purify the people of the resentment, and he wanted the chance to try. He wasn’t given permission. It was a ridiculous suggestion, and time was of the essence. He left, and the meeting continued, and then there was a disturbance outside and we realised he’d taken matters into his own hands. He’d tried his method, and he’d lost control.”

“Lost control?”

“He was trying to control the resentful energy. It began controlling him. We found him wrapped up in resentment. The Jiang sect heir had to take him down.”

None of it made sense. If Wei Ying had tried to save the villagers and failed, if the two children had died with the others, how was A-Yuan alive?

“You never spoke of this to me,” said Lan Zhan. That didn’t make sense either. Why wouldn’t Xichen, or their uncle, have mentioned what had happened? Surely someone attempting to control resentment and being in turn controlled by the spirit of the Burial Mounds was worthy of comment. And then suddenly, sickeningly, Lan Zhan knew exactly why they hadn’t told him. He had to force the question out between numb lips. “What was the technique he tried to use?”

“I told you. He tried to control the resentment.”

“How?”

The telltale guilt on Xichen’s face, the pause before he answered, the unwillingness in his voice - it all confirmed the reason behind the lie. “He played a dizi,” Xichen admitted.

Lan Zhan tried to take a deep breath. It didn’t calm him at all. There was too much whirling in his head. Wei Ying, A-Yuan, and now this, a shock of betrayal like the sensation of an elevator dropping beneath his feet. “You learned of a musical cultivation technique,” he said, “more than a year ago.”

“Wangji, it didn’t work.”

“Irrelevant. Any knowledge of music in cultivation might contribute to my work.”

“It’s exploitation of resentful energy,” said Xichen. “It’s forbidden by our rules. It would get you completely cast off by the sect.”

“You can’t think that I would perform demonic cultivation. Knowledge of the technique and a chance to study it would be enough.” It had been enough. Watching Wei Ying play for three minutes had given him a breakthrough. “You knew what it would mean to me, Xiongzhang, and you didn’t tell me.”

“You didn’t see what he was doing,” Xichen protested, “how dangerous it was. You say you wouldn’t use it, but you’re not always rational when it comes to your work. I couldn’t predict how far you’d go.”

“Not rational?” said Lan Zhan.

Xichen avoided his eyes again. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I made a choice to keep you safe. I’m responsible for all of this. I was the one who gave you Mama’s notebooks, it’s my fault in the first place—”

“You regret giving them to me,” said Lan Zhan. His stomach lurched. It was a suspicion he’d had on occasion before, one he’d always dismissed as unworthy. He’d told himself that Xichen was his staunchest supporter, cared as much as he did about restoring their sect’s legacy. “You fought for me. You gave me the chance to study music, you gave me every support you could wring from the sect. Do you regret all of that too?”

“Wangji—” Xichen began.

“You wish she had stayed forgotten,” said Lan Zhan bitterly.

Xichen sagged. “Not that,” he said. “Never that. But how can I help regretting it? I barely looked through those books beforehand, I had no idea I was handing you a lifelong crusade. Wangji, I miss you.”

“I thought that you believed in my work. You’ve always been the only one to speak for me.”

“I want you to have your freedom. I won’t keep you in the Cloud Recesses against your will—”

“But you’d prefer it if I failed and came back to the sect.”

Xichen didn’t deny it. “Please,” he said, “don’t go looking into this. The Jiang sect won’t help you. I believe they expelled the disciple, he was too unpredictable. And I promise you, it was nothing like the techniques you’ve been researching.”

Lan Zhan stared at his brother, not knowing what he was seeing. He didn’t recognise this person. Lan Xichen, a man so trustworthy that resentful spirits would leave their last wishes in his hands, had been humouring him all these years and waiting for him to fail. Had lied to him. His own brother had been at a meeting to decide whether people lived or died and denied Wei Ying the chance to try to save them. His brother had burned A-Yuan’s family.

He stood, brushed off his pants and resettled Bichen at his side. “We have more to do today,” he said. “Let’s get it done so I can get back to work.”

“Wangji, please. Tell me you won’t go looking.”

“No,” said Lan Zhan, and turned away from the pain on Xichen’s face.

For the rest of the day, they worked together the way they always had, but without speaking. They made three more kills in almost perfect silence, moving together as naturally as ever. Down to his very bones, Lan Zhan knew the way his brother fought, the way his spiritual energy flowed. It was easy, and comfortable, and wrong.

As the sun crept below the horizon, they parted at the edge of Zone 5, both tired and disheveled. It had been an effective day’s work. They would have significantly lowered the resentment levels in the worst-pressed of the night zones, taking the pressure off the sect.

“Thank you for all of your help,” said Xichen, as Lan Zhan unsheathed Bichen for the journey.

“Mm.”

“Get home safe.”

“You too.”

“Wangji—”

“Goodbye, Xiongzhang.”

Lan Zhan stepped onto his sword and sped back towards the city. He needed to see Wei Ying.

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

On the second floor of the apartment building, the elevators opened onto a windowless corridor. Lan Zhan scanned the row of identical white-painted doors, distinguished only by their brass numbers, before tapping sharply on number 205. “Wei Ying,” he called. His heart was in his mouth. There was nothing to show anyone lived here at all. Nothing to prove that the apartment wasn’t empty.

Noises and movement behind the door made him let out his breath in relief. After a moment, it swung open. Wei Ying peeked out, looking pale and tense and utterly beautiful.

“Hey, Lan Zhan,” he said, with a ghost of a smile. “Come in. We’ve gotta keep it down, I just got Yuan-er off to sleep.”

Lan Zhan followed him in, glancing quickly around the cramped room. There was very little to see. A kitchen in one corner, a couch barely big enough for two, a tiny table, a square of floor. A bookshelf crammed to bursting with plastic storage boxes labelled with tape. Yuan T-shirts. Cleaning. Toys. Paperwork. On top of it, the tooled leather guqin case. It wasn’t tidy. Objects were strewn on the surfaces and others piled anywhere they would go.

“Have a seat,” said Wei Ying, moving his own discarded jacket from the couch and setting it on the table on top of a half-completed jigsaw puzzle. “Do you want a drink? I’m having a beer, but we have tea somewhere too. I’ll put the kettle on. Sit down, Lan Zhan, don’t stand there making me feel like a bad host. Tell me about your night hunt. What did you and Zewu-jun run into?”

Lan Zhan hesitated. He didn’t want to be rude. He absolutely didn’t want to talk about his day with his brother as though nothing was wrong. “That’s not what I came here to speak to you about.”

Wei Ying flinched. “I know. Fine, fine. Tea, though?” He filled the kettle and flicked it on. “Ah, sorry, I know it tastes better heated with spiritual energy, but I always mess it up. Would you prefer to do your own?”

“Wei Ying. I don’t need tea.”

“Sit down,” said Wei Ying. He turned away, leaning both hands on the kitchen counter. His voice was very small. “Please.”

Lan Zhan sat. Anything else would have seemed like cruelty. He felt chilled, miserable at the knowledge of Wei Ying’s fear. Everything was infinitely more complicated now. His rose-tinted imaginings of a carefree family from—was it really just yesterday?—seemed impossibly distant.

He waited while Wei Ying, chattering frenetically over the noise of the kettle, got out a beer for himself and a mug and tea bag, opening and closing the three cabinets in the process as though he’d forgotten where things belonged in his own home. He sloshed water into the mug, swearing as it splashed onto the counter top, and then looked sharply towards a talisman above one of the doors. “I’ve got a sound muffler up and it’ll glow if he wakes up, but we do have to keep it quiet. I only just got him down.”

“Yes. You said.”

“Did I?” said Wei Ying. He huffed a laugh with no amusem*nt to it. “I don’t know what the f*ck I’m doing right now, Lan Zhan. Here’s your tea.”

He passed over the mug and folded himself onto the other side of the tiny couch. They were pressed together, thighs and knees touching. The heat of him, and the restlessness, seemed to seep into Lan Zhan’s skin.

“Thank you,” said Lan Zhan, inhaling the scent of jasmine.

“You must have so many questions,” said Wei Ying abruptly. “I didn’t kidnap him, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“It’s not,” said Lan Zhan. He glanced at the talisman above the door, just to make sure, before saying, “He’s a Dafan Wen from Yiling.”

Wei Ying stiffened. “Way ahead of me, huh? Lan Zhan is so smart.” He gave another of those humourless laughs. “I guess that saves me deciding whether to lie to you.”

Lan Zhan hid his flinch. “I asked my brother about the Burial Mounds today,” he said. “Questions I hadn’t thought to ask before. He told me there had been two children among the victims. A girl and a boy.”

“Yeah,” said Wei Ying softly, “Yuan-er had a big sister. Her name was Wen Hui. She was six years old.”

“He said you tried to use your music to save the villagers, but your attempt failed.”

Wei Ying gave a small, pained smile. “My second attempt failed.” He nodded towards the closed bedroom door. “The first one went pretty well. Too well. I got co*cky, thought I could do it on a large scale, and I couldn’t.”

“Xiongzhang said the villagers were all irreversibly corrupted.”

“Yeah. One in the win column for demonic cultivation, huh?”

Lan Zhan shook his head, from confusion, not disagreement. “Why does everyone think A-Yuan died? Why do they think your technique was a failure? Did you not tell the sects it had worked?”

Wei Ying set the beer bottle on the floor at his feet. His hand was shaking. “I didn’t dare tell them. I couldn’t risk it.”

“Why not?” said Lan Zhan. He was floundering. There were too many pieces of the puzzle missing.

Wei Ying sucked in a breath and let it out again. “I… Lan Zhan…”

Lan Zhan forced himself into a state of patience. “Take your time.”

Wei Ying nodded. He took another slow breath, and then a swig of beer. Another breath, another drink. “I guess I need to start at the beginning,” he said. He looked past Lan Zhan, his eyes focused somewhere beyond the four walls of the apartment. “I was there right at the beginning, when it all started. Wen Qing, the head of the Dafan Wen, she’s a friend. When she first noticed people in the village behaving strangely, I was the person she called. I knew the Wens, they were practically family. I was A-Yuan’s Xian-gege, I… look.”

He fiddled with his phone and held it out. The picture on the screen showed, not Wei Ying, but Wei Wuxian, a young but clearly high-ranking sect cultivator. Lan Zhan had got the colours wrong in his imaginings. Wei Wuxian wore robes of inky black, a flash of red where his long hair was caught up with a ribbon at the top of his head. His wide, carefree grin made the smile Lan Zhan was used to look weary by comparison. In his arms was A-Yuan, just a toddler, drooling around his own fingers shoved in his mouth.

Lan Zhan flicked his eyes from the picture to the real Wei Ying. It had been a year and more since the Burial Mounds, maybe two or three since the picture had been taken. Long enough to completely change two lives.

“When Wen Qing called, I was glad to go,” said Wei Ying. “I figured I’d get to see my favourite little guy and have some fun investigating a mystery with a friend. And that’s how it was, to begin with. We had no clue that we were dealing with anything serious. If I’d realised sooner, if I’d sent for help, maybe things would have been different.”

If only. That was the theme of the Burial Mounds for so many. If only I’d been there. If only I’d realised sooner. If only there had been another way. It was a source of regret for everyone involved.

“We just didn’t know,” said Wei Ying. “A major demonic possession, and we missed it. But I swear, Lan Zhan, there was barely any sign of it at first. Then one night Wen Qing woke me up yelling that everyone was gone, that they were out in the fields. Half the village, striding out there in the dark, all going the same way. That’s when we realised how much trouble we were in. We called for help from the Jin sect, because it’s in their territory even though they’ve neglected Yiling for hundreds of years, and from everybody else because the Jin sect are f*cking useless.”

“Mm,” agreed Lan Zhan quietly. It was quite true. Deaths involving resentful energy were higher in the Jin sect’s western annexes, Yiling and Qishan, than anywhere else in the country. The Jins claimed that the lingering resentment from the cultivation wars was to blame, and in some areas perhaps it was, but present-day soil and water measurements suggested Yiling had no higher background resentment levels than neighbouring Yunmeng. In Lan Zhan’s opinion—and in the opinion of most cultivation sects not directly trying to curry Jin favour—the territory should have been turned over to the Jiang sect centuries ago, not exploited for levies and tax breaks by a sect based a thousand miles away.

“After we raised the alarm,” Wei Ying went on, “we did our best to stop the villagers from tearing down the night zone barriers, and you know how well that went. The sects arrived just as the barriers went down, and suddenly everything was a mess. It was such a f*cking mess. Fierce corpses flooding out of the night zone, and infected people and cultivators, and this awful presence reaching out from the mounds. Everyone was panicking, trying to get the villagers contained, trying to beat back the corpses, and nobody had time to be careful. Not after the first few cultivators had got themselves infected too. The best anyone could manage was to establish some kind of perimeter and herd the villagers and corpses towards the mounds. They weren’t gentle. People died. And in the middle of that, I saw A-Yuan.”

Lan Zhan could imagine it all too clearly. The darkness, the confusion, the shouts, and among the mess of humanity, a tiny child, black-eyed and strange, moving with a strength and speed no child should possess. He shuddered.

“My mind just went blank,” said Wei Ying. “I don’t know what I did. The next thing I knew, I was back in the village with him in my arms, wrapped in about six layers of containment talismans. I took him home to his bedroom, with his little bunny night light and his crayons and… I laid him down on his bed and I got out my flute. I’ve always wanted to try using resentful energy as a tool, but I didn’t have a f*cking clue what I was doing. It was a shot in the dark, I didn’t think it would work, but I had to try. It was the only thing I could think of.”

“And it worked,” said Lan Zhan.

“It worked,” said Wei Ying. “He—he woke up. But afterwards, I knew that nobody would believe me. Nobody would think some experimental form of demonic cultivation could really purify him. You don’t know what it was like that day, Lan Zhan. I was so scared that someone would find him and… and force him back in with the others.”

Lan Zhan swallowed nausea. It was awful to hear the story spoken plainly. Before, he’d only had the words from the reports and the horrors he could imagine from his uncle’s rigid silence and his brother’s haunted eyes. I should have been there, he thought for the thousandth time.

“I had to prove it first,” said Wei Ying. “I thought if I could save all the rest of the villagers, maybe that would be enough to derail what the sects were planning. But when I tried the technique again, right there at the foot of the Burial Mounds, that thing reached out and took hold of me. I understand why, now. It’s like you told me; the way I play makes me vulnerable. If only I’d known, Lan Zhan, but I didn’t, I started playing in the most dangerous place I could have picked. Suddenly I couldn’t even try to save the Wens, I was fighting for my soul and I was losing.” He shook his head. “I was losing myself. I never thought I’d be grateful to A-Cheng for whipping me into unconsciousness. Everything went black. And then I woke up, and it was already over. The Burial Mounds were burned to ash, the infected Wens were all dead, and the only thing I managed to prove was that my demonic cultivation was just as dangerous and useless as everyone said.”

He looked small and defeated, ashamed, as though he were expecting Lan Zhan to blame him. As though Lan Zhan might be feeling anything other than wholehearted respect for what he’d done.

“You saved A-Yuan.” Wei Ying had saved a child from certain death, and had, it seemed, looked after that child ever since. A-Yuan was alive and laughing and learning the piano because of Wei Ying. That was not failure.

“He’s listed as dead,” said Wei Ying. “Nobody got out of that perimeter, they torched the whole place to be sure they didn’t let a scrap of that spirit escape. The mounds, the fields, a couple of outlying houses. He’s on the list of people who were burned, and nobody was ever supposed to find out different.”

“But surely… you can just explain what happened. That he’s alive and unharmed. You would be forgiven for your actions, given the circ*mstances, and you can’t think he’d be in any danger from the sects. There’s no corruption in him.”

“Isn’t there?” said Wei Ying. There was something chilling in his quiet voice. “How sure are you really?”

Lan Zhan looked towards the door again. His mind raced through all his textbooks, every piece of knowledge about the insidiousness of spirits, how well they could hide themselves. Something as old and angry and powerful as the thing that had risen in the Burial Mounds would have tricks that even skilled cultivators might not know.

“How sure are you?” he asked in return.

“Completely.”

“Mm. Good enough.”

Wei Ying looked momentarily blindsided. Then he smiled. “Ah, you trust too easily. Jin sect don’t. Maybe I’m being paranoid, maybe even Jin Guangshan wouldn’t choose to harm a child—” a twist of his mouth showed how little he believed his own words “—but best case scenario he gets taken away for tests, and then f*ck only knows what would happen. It’s all politics and what’s most expedient. For one thing, just imagine the PR nightmare if the public thought that the others could have been saved, that the sects killed fifty innocent people for no reason. He’s a complication. If someone decided that it was safer for him to have an accident… Lan Zhan, if something happened to him I couldn’t bear it. I know I’m not his dad, I’m not even a relation, I’m a… a stand-in until we can make things safe and he can go back to his cousins, but…”

“You’re his baba.”

Wei Ying shook his head. “He calls me that because I drilled it into him, you have to call me Baba, always, even at home, we have to pretend. It’s not real.”

“How long has he been in your care?”

“Since a couple of weeks after it all went down. He couldn’t stay in Yiling, someone would have recognised him, and besides, he was too sensitive to the resentment, it was making him really sick. All his close family were gone. The only people who knew he was alive were Wen Qing and her brother. She couldn’t leave the rest of her people to take him out of Yiling, and Wen Ning has his own health problems. I was the only other option. I’d f*cked everything up with my sect anyway, they didn’t want me after what I did, so I figured I could do one good thing, give him a chance for a decent life. But I couldn’t even do that. I didn’t realise how hard it was going to be, just me and him. I’ve got no f*cking qualifications outside cultivation. I was scrounging for odd jobs, watching my savings disappear, waiting for the day I’d have to put him to bed hungry. So I took a stupid risk and came here as a municipal cultivator. I figured I’d never even meet anyone from a sect, but nope, I met Zewu-jun’s baby brother on my first day on the job, and I fought a duel and outed myself as a Jiang disciple, and then when I somehow got away with that I had to go and waltz into the university cultivation department like a f*cking idiot.” He put his face in his hands, stifling a sob.

I thought I saw someone I used to know from ages back.

“Mianmian,” said Lan Zhan, with horrified realisation. She had told him straight to his face that she had recognised Wei Ying, and he’d been too preoccupied to listen.

“Oh, you know her?” said Wei Ying, with an aggrieved snuffle. “I wish you gossiped, Lan Zhan. If you’d just happened to mention there was a sect cultivator teaching at the university, I’d have looked up the faculty online and then I wouldn’t have been wandering around the workplace of someone I’ve known since we were kids.”

“She’s my office-mate,” Lan Zhan admitted.

Wei Ying slumped sideways against the arm of the sofa. “Of-f*cking-course she is,” he said. It seemed like he was laughing more than he was crying. “She’s also my brother-in-law’s best friend, so… that’s great. Small world. She told him she’d seen me, and he told my Shijie, and that’s all it took to have A-Cheng turn up on my doorstep. Busted. A-Yuan has the worst luck in fake fathers.”

“You’re not fake,” said Lan Zhan. Tentatively, he rested his hand against Wei Ying’s back. The muscles flinched under his touch, and then relaxed.

“I feel like his dad,” said Wei Ying. He didn’t meet Lan Zhan’s eyes. He was looking down at his knees. “But I’m not. He had a dad, and a mother, and a sister, and I couldn’t save them.”

“If not for you, he’d have died with them.”

Wei Ying was silent. Lan Zhan kept a hand on his back, feeling the rise and fall of his breath, the heat of him. For a sudden, dizzying instant, he wanted to lean in and press his lips to the juncture of Wei Ying’s neck and shoulder, where the sagging neckline of his t-shirt left the skin exposed. Inappropriate, he shouldn’t be thinking of such things, but his mind had never managed to get the concept of a time and a place. He was perfectly capable of being tangled in the revelation of an awful tragedy, and still wanting to sink his teeth in and bite.

Forcing his unruly thoughts to behave, he asked, “What will you do now Jiang Wanyin is aware of his existence?”

“I don’t know,” said Wei Ying shakily. “It didn’t go as badly as I was afraid it would. A-Cheng’s got a gigantic soft spot for kids. When we were both done yelling yesterday I dumped A-Yuan in his lap for an hour to soften him up. I think he’ll keep his mouth shut. Great big brother I am, dragging him into my lies. Or, hey, he might tell the whole thing to his mom and then I’m beyond f*cked. If I had any sense I’d have already packed our bags and run, but… it’s hard. A-Yuan’s been happy here. Piano lessons. His Lan-gege playing for him. And I was going crazy, Lan Zhan. You know how much childcare costs? With most jobs, it’s hardly even worth going to work. Cultivation is the only way I can earn enough, and I’m not going to find another municipal job in a place I won’t be recognised.”

“You should stay,” said Lan Zhan. He infused his voice with all the certainty he could manage. “Leaving will not erase A-Yuan’s existence. If the secret gets out, you can be found wherever you go. Here, you have a secure home, and you have a friend who will fight for him if it should ever be needed.”

Wei Ying stared at him. “You’d do that?” he said hoarsely.

“Mm.”

“Lan Zhan,” said Wei Ying. He put his face in his hands again. His shoulders shook. “Sorry. Sorry. It’s been a stressful couple of days.”

***

Over the following days, Lan Zhan kept checking his phone obsessively, watching for the messages and the read receipts on his replies that meant Wei Ying hadn’t disappeared off the face of the planet. The only times he felt like he could relax were when he was with Wei Ying, on jobs for the CMCD, or at music lessons with A-Yuan.

Jiang Wanyin must have kept his mouth shut. No sects turned up on the doorstep demanding A-Yuan be handed over. By the weekend, the tightness in Wei Ying’s smile had begun to ease.

On Saturday morning, Lan Zhan tagged along with the two of them on a trip to the mall, on the pretext of needing to buy a new shirt. He had plenty of shirts, but it made a convenient excuse for another hour in which he didn’t have to worry that Wei Ying might skip town without saying goodbye.

Wei Ying’s purpose in going to the mall was entertainment, not shopping. A-Yuan liked to look at the big fountain in the plaza and ride up and down on the escalators. “It makes a change from the park,” Wei Ying sighed, after the sixth ride, then looked down as A-Yuan tugged on his hand. “Where do you want to go, radish?”

“Toy store!”

“Okay, we can go look, but we’re not buying anything, it isn’t your birthday. Lan Zhan, do you want to come with us?” He grinned. “You’re getting an education here, huh? A hundred and one things to do for free with a kid in Caiyi.”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan.

Wei Ying’s gaze turned suspicious. “We’re not buying him anything,” he reiterated, “mister concert-quality-miniature-guqin. He doesn’t need new toys. If you let him know you’re a soft touch, you’ll never get a moment’s peace again.”

Lan Zhan nodded uncertainly. He had no idea whether he would be able to hold out if A-Yuan turned those big pleading eyes on him.

“You really are a soft touch,” said Wei Ying. “Who’d have thought? When I met you, obviously I thought you were a gorgeous, unparalleled, elegant gentleman… but I also thought you were an inflexible, unreasonable fuddy-duddy. Then I get to know you and discover you’re a big marshmallow who likes bunny rabbits and spoils little kids rotten.”

It was just a joke, Lan Zhan knew. Gorgeous, unparalleled, elegant – they were adjectives that applied to Xichen, not to him. He could believe that Wei Ying liked him for his kindness to A-Yuan, but it might be less welcome that Lan Zhan was also interested in Wei Ying himself, in ways including but not limited to pressing him down onto a bed and crawling between his spread thighs.

Lan Zhan hastily blinked away the image. To hide his flush, he turned away, saying, “Where is the toy store?” and starting to walk in a random direction without waiting for an answer.

“Hey, not that way,” Wei Ying, said, hurrying after him, dragging A-Yuan by the hand, but Lan Zhan was already drawing up short.

“Wei Ying. Do you feel that?”

It wasn’t much, just a background hum of resentment, barely noticeable above the bustle of a mall on a Saturday. But this was a public space. It was warded strongly. There should be no resentment at all.

“I feel it,” said Wei Ying, suddenly all business. “It’s probably not serious, but just in case—” He picked A-Yuan up and passed him over, “—take him back to the fountain for five minutes while I do an analysis.”

The last time he’d put A-Yuan into Lan Zhan’s arms, it had been in a moment of tension and fear. This time, it seemed automatic, as though he just assumed Lan Zhan was a safe pair of hands into which to place this precious burden. The ache in Lan Zhan’s heart was magnified by A-Yuan’s easy acceptance of this situation, the way his arms slipped familiarly around Lan Zhan’s neck.

“I can take him to the toy store, if you like.”

Wei Ying burst out laughing. “No way, Lan Zhan. I’ll get there and find you’ve bought out the whole place. I’ll see you by the fountain when I’m done.”

A-Yuan was wriggly as Lan Zhan carried him back towards the plaza, impatient to go to the toy store and unconvinced by assurances that the delay wouldn’t be long. When they arrived at the fountain, his complaints stopped as he was once more mesmerised by the patterns of falling water. Lan Zhan let him stand on a bench to get a better view, and they watched for a while. A-Yuan chattered away mostly incomprehensibly about whatever was on his mind, and then, unprompted, began to sing a little song. It was a tune Lan Zhan knew. The words, though, were not the ones he’d learned as a child.

“We sing different words for that song in Gusu,” he told A-Yuan. “It’s about butterflies.”

A-Yuan looked up with interest. “Butterflies? It’s a butterfly song?”

“Mm. Would you like to learn how it goes?”

A-Yuan nodded. “Sing it for me.”

Lan Zhan settled them both on the bench. Over the hubbub of the mall, he sang the song once through, and explained the words of the old Gusu dialect. A-Yuan listened, giggling over the unfamiliar sounds. Then they sang it together, A-Yuan’s high piping voice bright over the top of his own.

At the end of the second run-through he looked up to find Wei Ying just a few feet away, staring at them with an expression so stunned that Lan Zhan instinctively glanced past him, looking for a ghost that had cast some kind of stupefying curse on him.

“Wei Ying? Is everything alright?”

“It’s fine,” said Wei Ying, blinking back to normality. He wiped a hand over his face. “Everything back there is fine, anyway. But now I come here and I’m physically assaulted by this adorableness. Yuan-er, what are you and Lan-gege doing to your poor Baba? Are you trying to make his heart explode? How is this okay?”

“We’re just singing, Baba,” A-Yuan explained. He gave Wei Ying a disapproving look, and decided, “You’re being silly.”

“Aiyah, when you grow up and meet someone like Lan Zhan, you’ll understand,” said Wei Ying, almost under his breath.

Lan Zhan felt he had even less of a grasp on the situation than A-Yuan did. “What did your analysis show?” he asked.

“There’s no spirit,” said Wei Ying. He held out a hand to A-Yuan. “Toy store, radish?”

“Yes!” said A-Yuan, hopping down from the bench and trotting over.

“It’s just a non-specific blip in resentful energy,” Wei Ying continued, as Lan Zhan got up to join them. “We’re seeing them all over.”

“If it’s left to stagnate there, it will generate a spirit eventually.”

“I know,” said Wei Ying wearily. “It’ll go on the list. They’re appearing faster than we can clear them out. The department’s dragging its feet, as usual, but we really need to get the sect involved if we’re going to have a hope of getting on top of these resentment levels.” He rolled his shoulders and stretched, making fascinating things happen to the line of his neck. “On the plus side, more resentment lying around means more yao popping up in the city. You said you wanted to try out Evocation with your new technique. I’ve got a good case for it, if you’re free to tag along on Monday.”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan, trying to focus on something other than the soft skin under Wei Ying’s jaw. “Where?”

“East Caiyi Park. The end down by the lake, you know?”

Lan Zhan paused mid-step. “Yes,” he said. “I know it.”

***

When the CMCD van pulled to a stop in the parking lot nearest the lake, Lan Zhan had a suspicion of what they were going to find. Wei Ying started down the path towards the water’s edge, fishing a spirit compass out of his pocket as he went.

“Let’s see what we’ve got,” he said. “I’ll feel bad if we don’t find any yao after all.” He hooked down at the compass, humming gently to himself. “Ah, we’re in luck. Shall we?” He gestured across the sunlit grass, and then crooked his arm as though he was offering to escort a lady to a dance.

Lan Zhan’s ears heated. “Ridiculous,” he said, ignoring the arm and striding ahead.

Wei Ying followed, laughing, jogging to catch up. Then he stopped, one hand catching Lan Zhan’s wrist and the other pointing out across the water. “There,” he said, “do you see that?”

It was a filmy, opalescent ripple in the air, skimming just above the dark surface of the lake.

“Clam yao,” said Lan Zhan.

“I hate those little f*ckers,” said Wei Ying. “We got a lot of them back in the Yunmeng lakes. They’re singing already, there must be quite a few in there.”

“Mm.”

“How about it? Want to see if you can summon them out?”

Lan Zhan nodded. He settled his guqin onto the air in front of him and drew a breath, then struck the first few notes of Evocation, modulating his qi rhythms. He hadn’t practised this piece the way he had obsessively practised Cleansing, and yet the knowledge and techniques carried over. By now it was familiar, the way the strings felt heavier, the way the guqin hummed and the air around it thickened. He could feel the shape of the magic, the pull of it, and a hint of command that Cleansing didn’t possess.

Out over the water, light flickered off the little spirits. Two of them. Quickly, another emerged, then more, looping and circling on iridescent wings, until there was a whole swarm of them. Their singing, sugar-sweet, interweaved with his music. Lan Zhan played on, finding it quite natural to respond to them, to tweak the tune into a language they would understand. They were simple creatures. With a ghost, this would be harder. With a demon, harder still. One day, he would be able to do it.

The swarm came closer, hovering at the water’s edge. Lan Zhan played a sharp run of notes and they all swooped towards him across the grass, caught within a sphere. He lingered on a snatch of melody, playing it over and over with subtle variations, crafting a barrier, keeping them enclosed.

Beside him, Wei Ying let out a huff of breath. “Well,” he said, “that makes a change from last time I saw you try this.”

“Mm.”

“Now what?”

Lan Zhan hummed, fingers still moving softly, keeping the little slivers of resentment held fast. “If I had a finished score, I would play Vanquish.”

“Vanquish?”

“The Lan battle melody to exorcise evil. My reconstruction of it is far from complete.”

Wei Ying made a considering noise. Then he grinned and shrugged, pulling out his sword. “Let’s do it the easy way.” The sword whipped out, swept up and back once, twice through the cluster of yao. They dissipated into the air with little puffs of black smoke. “Good riddance,” said Wei Ying. He sheathed his sword and clapped Lan Zhan on the shoulder. “To think, Lan Zhan! In just a few weeks, you’ve gone from a menace that disrupted my very nicely organised yao-hunt to being actually useful! I guess we can call that a successful test?”

“Organised,” said Lan Zhan, trying for wry. His heart wasn’t really in it.

Wei Ying gave him a searching look. “Hey, what’s up?”

“I filed a report on an infestation of clam yao here weeks ago. I eliminated them completely then.”

Wei Ying co*cked his head thoughtfully. “Weird coincidence to have them crop up right in the same place,” he said. “You think the wards here have backed up twice?”

“At least.”

“Huh,” said Wei Ying. His mouth pressed into a worried line. “The night zones must be full to the brim. The sect needs to know about this. Can you get in touch with your brother?”

Lan Zhan felt himself stiffen. “I would prefer if it went through official channels,” he said.

“Official channels take f*cking forever. You could text him in three seconds.”

“It will be more efficient if the sect reads the reports.”

“Then text him the report codes so he can request them from the department,” said Wei Ying. He frowned. “Lan Zhan, I know you’re a stickler for the rules but that’s not the same as being a stickler for bureaucracy. This is ridiculous.”

Lan Zhan sighed inwardly. “I am not currently speaking to my brother,” he admitted.

“I thought you two got along.”

“We did.”

“What happened?” said Wei Ying. His brow furrowed. “Hey this isn’t… this isn’t about me and A-Yuan, is it? Because if it’s anything to do with how things went down at the Burial Mounds, he only did what he had to do in the circ*mstances, you can’t—”

“It’s nothing like that.” Lan Zhan shook his head, fighting a sour feeling of misery rising through him. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Please speak to your manager. You’ll find my previous report in the system.”

Wei Ying paused, then gave a theatrical shrug. “The things I do for you, Lan Zhan. Paperwork. Actually talking to my useless superiors, just because you’re in the middle of family drama. I hope you’re grateful.” He fell into step as they walked back towards the van and swayed briefly into Lan Zhan’s space, bumping their shoulders together. “Look, I get that you don’t want to talk about it. But whatever’s happening, I’m sorry. That sucks.”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan.

The rule said, do not argue with your family, for it does not matter who wins. Perhaps it was true, but it wasn’t helpful. Win or lose made no difference. He simply couldn’t find it within himself to forgive what Xichen had done.

Chapter 9

Chapter Text

Lan Zhan’s phone rang at a quarter to six. Wei Ying sounded flustered as he cancelled that evening’s piano lesson.

“A-Yuan’s—he’s not sick, he’s fine, he just…” He sighed deeply. “I forgot to put the damn candy away after the grocery run, and I turned my back for five f*cking minutes. How the hell did he manage to eat it all in five minutes?”

“Ah.”

“So yeah, he’s not really up for piano right now. But hey, every cloud has a silver lining…”

“How so?”

“His daycare has this policy, they won’t take a kid if they’ve thrown up in the last 24 hours, even if it’s nothing contagious, which would be a pain in the ass, but I got a little banged up on a case today so I have permission to take tomorrow off if I want to.”

“You were hurt?” said Lan Zhan. “What happened?”

“Ah, just a spirit that was a bit feistier than usual. The bruises have already healed, but my boss doesn’t need to know that.” He chuckled. “Is Lan-gege worried about me? You’re so sweet, Lan Zhan.”

Lan Zhan was glad they were speaking on the phone so Wei Ying couldn’t see his embarrassment. He did worry. How could he help it?

“Anyway, I’m gonna stay home with A-Yuan, and since both of us are totally fine, I figured if you were free we could bring you lunch at the university. A picnic, perhaps.”

Lan Zhan felt his brain freeze up. The idea that Wei Ying would come to his workplace on a free day, to bring him food and spend time with him, was more than he could handle coming out of the blue as it had.

“Not if you don’t want to,” said Wei Ying, once the silence had stretched a beat too long. “If we’d be in the way—"

“I want to. Wei Ying, that would be.” He swallowed. “Very nice.”

***

Lan Zhan rounded the corner of the cultivation department building and came out onto a quiet, sunny patch of grass scattered with groups of students. He spotted Wei Ying on a bright blue rug spread out on the grass, and paused, checking for any sign of bruises or discomfort in his posture. There was none, which was a relief, but didn’t dispel his worries.

Municipal cultivation should be nothing more than pest control. It shouldn’t be dangerous. But he thought back to the malevolent presence of the ghost in the little house, the unexpected pocket of resentment in the mall, the clam yao that kept coming back. The city wasn’t safe anymore. Wei Ying and the other municipal cultivators were suddenly having to deal with the spirits that slipped through the Lan sect’s net.

The night zones were not okay, and if he wanted to find out what was happening he would have to pick up his phone and call Xichen. Just the thought of it made his fists clench.

“…like a school for really big kids,” Wei Ying was saying as Lan Zhan approached. “That’s who all these people are. They’re the kids who go to school here. But it’s also a place where people do research.”

“They’re not kids, they’re grown-ups,” said A-Yuan. He was sitting opposite Wei Ying, crossed-legged, Flutter at his side. “What’s research?”

“Research is… it’s learning new things about the world. That’s what Lan-gege does when he’s not with me looking for trouble in the city. Ah, hi Lan Zhan!”

“Lan-gege!” said A-Yuan, looking around eagerly. He hopped to his feet and ran over to where Lan Zhan had stopped to watch them, Flutter dangling from his hand by one misshapen wing. “We brought lunch!”

Lan Zhan crouched automatically to accept a hug. “Mm. Thank you, A-Yuan. It’s very kind of you.”

“I can’t go to daycare today,” said A-Yuan, sounding rather smug as he tugged Lan Zhan back towards Wei Ying.

“I am aware,” said Lan Zhan. “And what did you learn about candy yesterday?”

“Too much makes you sick.”

“It does, so from now on you will not eat more than your baba says you may.”

A-Yuan tilted his head, shrugged, and refrained from committing himself. “Look,” he said instead, pointing to the little stack of tupperware containers set out on the rug which turned out, on closer inspection, to be a bath towel. “I helped make it.”

“To thank you for buying us lunch the other weekend,” said Wei Ying. “Propriety suggests reciprocity, right?”

Lan Zhan blinked. “You’ve read the Lan rules?”

“I need some insight into what goes on in that head of yours.”

“What’s propriety?” said A-Yuan. He frowned. “What’s re-si…?”

“Reciprocity. It means if someone does something nice for you, you should try to do something nice for them too,” said Wei Ying. “Lan-gege has done a whole lot of nice things for us. We owe him.”

“No need.”

“We couldn’t pay you back if we tried for a year,” said Wei Ying. “But lunch, we can do. It’s nothing fancy.”

“I can give Lan-gege more stickers?” suggested A-Yuan.

“No need,” Lan Zhan repeated. He took his place on the towel-rug, allowing A-Yuan to settle into his lap. “Perhaps you would draw a picture for me.”

“What kind of picture? A bunny?”

“Mm. Or a picture of you and your baba. I would like that very much.”

“I’ll draw Baba and me and Lan-gege and a bunny. All together.”

“It’s lunch time,” Wei Ying declared, a little too loudly. “Let’s eat.”

Lan Zhan glanced up, wondering if he’d somehow overstepped. Wei Ying looked pink-cheeked, but not angry or disapproving. He seemed mostly intent on selecting the best of the food and pressing it on A-Yuan and Lan Zhan in turn, chattering all the while.

The food was spicier than Lan Zhan would have preferred, but it was good, and even better with A-Yuan giving him garbled explanations of each dish, pointing out the different ingredients with the air of an art historian explaining the symbolism in a painting. “The orange is carrot and the white is radish like me! Baba chopped and I put them in the bowl. It’s red because Baba likes chili. We made rice in the rice cooker, you have to put in rice and water and press the button.” Lan Zhan listened, expressing interest or surprise or admiration as seemed appropriate, and gently correcting A-Yuan’s table manners, while Wei Ying added clarification and anecdotes and smiled his beautiful smile.

A shadow fell across the rug. “Well,” said a voice behind Lan Zhan, “this is cute as he—eck. This is very cute.”

Wei Ying hopped to his feet, grinning. “Mianmian!” he declared. “My betrayer and my saviour. You’re looking as lovely as ever!”

She laughed. “You haven’t changed much. Sorry about… no, you know what, I’m not sorry about telling Zixuan I saw you. I’m just sorry I promised your sister I wouldn’t ask questions about what you’re doing here. The things that woman can talk me into, you wouldn’t believe.”

“It’s the privilege of us poor mortals to do Shijie’s bidding,” said Wei Ying. His smile dimmed. “She’s well? I spoke to her, but...”

“She’s well. She’s a couple of months further along than I am, and handling it with more grace than I ever could. And speaking of parenthood, how about you introduce me to the one thing I’m absolutely not allowed to ask questions about?”

“You’re a saint,” said Wei Ying feelingly. “A-Yuan, say hello to Mianmian-jiejie.”

“Hi, jiejie,” said A-Yuan from his spot in Lan Zhan’s lap. “We made lunch.”

“I see that. It looks great, you did a good job.”

“Join us?” offered Lan Zhan.

“No thanks, if I sat down there I’d never get back up. I just wanted to stop by and see if you’d heard the good news about Tan Liling.”

“What news?”

“She passed her retention testing today. She kept her place on the cultivation course.”

Lan Zhan frowned. “Have they altered the requirements?”

“No, she’s just improved that much. Cleansing is really something.”

“Impossible,” said Lan Zhan. He glanced sideways at Wei Ying, who had accompanied him to the last couple of Cleansing sessions. “From her scores last week, she should still be far off the necessary level.”

“Huh,” said Mianmian. “I guess something’s changed since then.”

Lan Zhan’s stomach swooped unpleasantly. It was a bad sign that the technique was causing changes outside of sessions, at times where it couldn’t be monitored, in ways that he couldn’t predict. None of his safety protocols allowed for that. He could be putting the students in danger. “I need to see them,” he said.

***

An hour later, Lan Zhan was putting the last touches to a hurriedly-drafted testing protocol, while Wei Ying spoke seriously to A-Yuan.

“Mianmian-jiejie has a baby growing in her tummy,” he said, “so she gets tired a lot and sometimes she needs help with carrying things. You can stay here and help her, can’t you, radish? You’re really good at helping.”

“I want to come with you and Lan-gege.”

“I know, but you’ll be doing a really good thing, staying here keeping Mianmian company. And it’s going to be lots more fun here anyway. Where Lan-gege and I are going, you wouldn’t be allowed to talk at all. And there are no animals allowed in the classroom either, so Flutter couldn’t come.”

A-Yuan didn’t seem convinced. Wei Ying spent another minute or two coaxing, and after Mianmian revealed that she had cookies and pencils and paper for drawing, A-Yuan agreed to stay with her. Even so, he watched with wide, tragic eyes as Lan Zhan collected his notes, and said goodbye so dismally that Lan Zhan found it honestly difficult to walk through the door and close it behind them.

Wei Ying let out his breath. “Phew. I wasn’t sure that was going to work. He’s been clingy lately. That whole thing with Jiang Cheng shook him up a bit.”

Lan Zhan ought to say that Wei Ying had no need to leave his child and accompany him to the meeting. He couldn’t bring himself to do so. “Understandable,” he said instead, clutching the notepad with his testing protocol tight in his hand.

“He’ll be fine,” said Wei Ying. He bumped his shoulder gently against Lan Zhan’s as they walked. “And your kids will be fine too. Don’t worry so much, okay? If it’s a change, it’s a positive one.”

“For now. For her,” said Lan Zhan. He could see the tension in Wei Ying’s smile, behind the pretence of unconcern. “It should not be happening.”

“You’ll figure it out.”

The walk to classroom 204 seemed to take longer than usual, and the wait, when they got there, was interminable, even though it was only a couple of minutes before the students arrived, all in a group, as though they had been together when Lan Zhan had summoned them.

“Hi, kids,” said Wei Ying. “Thanks for coming by at short notice. Hey, Liling, congrats on passing your test. Come on in, don’t let all of this worry you, Lan-laoshi’s just being an old fidget.”

They didn’t look reassured. They were subdued, except for Chen Mei whose chatter seemed more acerbic than usual, almost confrontational in the way that she exchanged teasing comments with Wei Ying.

Once Lan Zhan had them sitting down, he explained as clearly and calmly as he could what was happening, that he had no evidence to suggest there was anything wrong, that this was a precaution for their safety. They looked more uncomfortable by the minute, and he couldn’t blame them. They had to know that he wouldn’t have pulled them away from their day’s activities on short notice if there wasn’t some possibility they had come to harm. They kept shooting worried glances at one another, and they all watched in silence as he approached Tan Liling to test her qi flow. He hovered his fingers by her temple, getting a reading. There were definite improvements, a softening of her meridians, a realignment of the hard angles that had always been her problem. The flow was far less impeded than it had been the last time he saw her. It didn’t seem inherently bad or dangerous. The only way he could describe it was to say that her newly reworked meridians were messy. It was like seeing a woodwork project where someone had carefully cut the pieces to size, made the joints and slotted it all into place, but hadn’t taken the time to sand anything smooth.

“Wei Ying,” he said, and inclined his head at Tan Liling in a silent request, before moving on to the next student.

Wei Ying came to take his place. “Hey, don’t look so glum,” he told Tan Liling. “Nothing’s wrong.”

Lan Zhan took stock of Zhou Chuhua. She stared at the floor while he felt his way along her narrowed meridians - much wider now, but again, with that messy, unfinished feeling. Like they had been forced open. It made no sense, it was unlike anything he had observed after the two testing sessions he’d performed so far using the new technique. He shot another glance at Wei Ying, and then moved on again to Chen Mei. The same. Just as inexplicable.

Wei Ying beckoned him over to one side. “Lan Zhan, are you okay?”

“This is… Wei Ying, I don’t understand it.”

“Lan-laoshi—”

The speaker was Zhou Chuhua. Someone else cut her off with a sharp, “Shh!”

Wei Ying turned abruptly, all attention and interest. “Hmm,” he said, pacing back into the centre of the room to stand in front of the students. “Someone knows something.”

There was a sudden stillness. Wei Ying put one hand on his hip and wagged a finger at the students. “You guys wouldn’t lie to me. Chuhua, you wouldn’t lie to me, would you? You wouldn’t lie to Lan Zhan.”

Zhou Chuhua hung her head. Her cheeks were bright pink.

A slow smile spread across Wei Ying’s face. “Tan Liling,” he said, “you’re the smart one. The one who always wants to know how everything works. The one who asks Lan Zhan for his sources and follows along with his research. That’s why he thought you’d have been okay if you’d had to leave the course, by the way. You’d have done great in any branch of academia.”

Tan Liling stared straight ahead. She didn’t meet his eyes.

“I’m impressed,” said Wei Ying. “I want you to know that, when Lan Zhan’s reading you the riot act. Seriously, that’s f*cking impressive work.”

“Wei Ying?” Lan Zhan cut in impatiently.

“The changes to her qi flow weren’t from anything you did, Lan Zhan. She’s got all your notes.”

Lan Zhan blinked at him, baffled.

“The latest score for Cleansing, and the scroll of qi control exercises,” Wei Ying clarified. “She’s got them both.” He fixed Tan Liling with a sharp look. “You didn’t do it by yourself, though. Which of them helped you?”

“Wei Ying. What are you suggesting?”

“Come on, Lan Zhan. Are you surprised? You told her this technique could fix her issues in time to save her spot on the course.”

“I told her it couldn’t.”

“You told her you couldn’t,” corrected Wei Ying. “You didn’t have the approvals or the time, so she had to find another way.” He looked from one face to another, along the row. “All of you, huh?”

Lan Zhan looked at the students, seeing guilt or defiance stamped on each of their faces. His stomach clenched. They were amateur musicians with university-grade cultivation and impaired qi flow. If what Wei Ying believed was true, they had spent a week dabbling with a scroll of qi control exercises far beyond their ability level and then dived right into an experimental technique with the potential to completely rewire their meridians. It was a miracle they hadn’t killed each other.

It had to be true. He could tell by their expressions.

“This was ill-conceived, reckless and stupid,” he said.

“Yeah,” said Wei Ying. “Also, like I said, really f*cking impressive. Come on, let’s hear about how you did it.”

“Wei Ying.”

“Such a fuddy-duddy, Lan Zhan. Aren’t you interested in how other people handle the technique? I’d have given it a shot myself, I just didn’t have anything motivating me enough that it was worth how pissed off you’d be.”

“We were really careful, Lan-laoshi,” said Zhang Bao. “It didn’t do her any harm.”

“Really,” said Zhou Chuhua, “we took it slowly, we followed your notes and we monitored her the whole time.”

“And the rest of you?” said Lan Zhan tightly. “Did you monitor yourselves? You were all affected. None of you warded your own meridians correctly. It’s basic cultivation practice, and you didn’t do it because you have not been properly taught. You are entirely incapable of protecting yourselves during a working of this nature. You don’t know how little you understand.”

There was a long silence. Then Chen Mei spoke up, fierce and belligerent. “We had to do something for Liling, since you wouldn’t. If you want to report us, go ahead. We could only do it because you gave us the information.”

“Oh no,” said Wei Ying, wagging a finger at her. “Don’t you go passing the blame, kid. You know you’re in the wrong. And if that was a veiled threat, you’re going to be extremely sorry. Lan Zhan followed protocol every step of the way. Are you seriously going to tell the administration he told you to use unapproved cultivation techniques on each other?”

“No,” said Zhou Chuhua. She was near tears. “We wouldn’t.”

“I will be reporting this,” said Lan Zhan. “Any punishment, either for you or myself, will be meted out by the administration.”

Zhang Bao’s eyes widened. “We didn’t mean to get you in trouble, Lan-laoshi,” he said.

Lan Zhan set his jaw. “I must finish my readings,” he said. “Then I will apply to the safety committee for permission to fix the damage you did.”

Over the next few minutes, he went around the room in silence, taking readings, making comparisons. At first, he shot out sharp questions and got stilted, awkward answers. Then, somehow, Wei Ying started asking the questions, chatting to the students as Lan Zhan walked back and forth between them, coaxing out the tale of how they’d managed their misguided feat.

“We couldn’t get much of the resonance,” said Zhang Bao, “not like Lan-laoshi can. But when we’re all playing together, usually at least one of us manages resonance on each of the key notes. There’s enough overlap to make it work.”

“And we figured, if we can’t do quality, we can do quantity,” said Chen Mei. “We’ve been doing hour-long sessions, morning and evening, every day since Saturday, and we played for two solid hours before her test.”

They became enthusiastic, talking to Wei Ying about what they’d done, his smiles reflected on their faces. Occasionally they would shoot guilty sidelong looks at Lan Zhan, but they were always drawn back to Wei Ying, to his brightness and his encouraging words, and his honest admiration.

Lan Zhan had never considered the concept of playing as a group, the idea that multiple failures could be compensated for simply by having enough people. Perhaps that had been what Long-ago Lan disciples had done. Perhaps, in extremis, attacked, young disciples with shaking fingers had played Vanquish together, and had survived despite their wobbly harmonics and missed notes because of the support of those around them.

He looked at the members of his focus group, stomach swooping as he imagined another group, long ago, in white robes and ribbons. Lans.

He didn’t know what to feel.

***

As they made their way back to Mianmian’s office, Wei Ying poked Lan Zhan in the shoulder, whining as though he were no older than A-Yuan and considerably worse mannered. “Come ooooonnn. Don’t get them in trouble for this. They’re such good kids. They’re so cute, Lan Zhan, and they worked so hard.”

Lan Zhan ignored him. He was going to have to speak to the officious head of the safety committee. He wasn’t feeling in a forgiving mood.

Wei Ying poked him again. “Yeah, they were dumb, but they’re not going to do it again. And they were doing it for a good reason. Tan Liling because she loves cultivation and didn’t want to lose it, and the others because they’re her friends. Don’t be mean to them, Lan Zhan. Be nice.”

“Their punishment isn’t up to me,” said Lan Zhan, irritated into responding. “I’ll make an accurate report.”

Wei Ying beamed. “Oh, he speaks! Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, you know there’s no such thing as an accurate report. You can’t write anything truly impartial, it’s always spun one way or the other. You can phrase it to f*ck them over, or you can phrase it to get them a slap on the wrist. They should get points for creativity and determination, at the very least. They took a brand new technique that’s way too advanced for them and they made it work. They’re musical cultivators now!”

Lan Zhan’s jaw clenched. “It was dangerous,” he snapped. “And they are not.”

“Lan Zhan?”

“I have a lot to do. I must get on.”

He had sped up his pace. Wei Ying was striding fast to keep up. “Hey,” he said. “You’re really upset. Lan Zhan, they’re fine. No harm done.”

Lan Zhan pushed open the door without knocking. A-Yuan looked up from floor-level, face brightening. “Lan-gege! Baba! I did a drawing.”

“You did?” said Wei Ying, stepping past Lan Zhan and crouching down. “Show me!”

Lan Zhan left them to talk while he gave Mianmian a quick run-down on what they had discovered. She, like Wei Ying, was inclined to be both amused and impressed. Lan Zhan’s chest tightened with every word, until A-Yuan trotted over to tug at his trouser leg.

“See my picture, gege.”

“A-Yuan!” said Wei Ying. “What did I say about interrupting when grownups are talking?”

“But I made it for him.”

“Aiyah, your manners. At least say excuse me.”

“Scuse me,” said A-Yuan obediently. He tugged at Lan Zhan’s leg again. “Look at my picture.”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan, taking it from him. It was… well, it was a four-year-old’s drawing, people with giant circle heads and tiny bodies and stick arms and legs. Two people, with a smaller one between them.

“It’s beautiful,” he said.

“That’s you, and me, and Baba. We’re at the park. And that’s Flutter, and that’s our bunny!”

The bunny was a scribble in the lower corner. Lan Zhan could barely make out what he thought were supposed to be ears. “I like the bunny,” he said. “May I keep the picture?”

A-Yuan nodded. “It’s a present!”

“Thank you. I will put it up in my apartment.”

He tucked it into his notebook, unable to look at it any longer. It showed a dream that wasn’t real. He wasn’t a part of their little family, any more than he was a part of his sect.

“Lan Zhan?” said Wei Ying.

“I must get on with my paperwork.”

Wei Ying was frowning, curious and concerned, but he didn’t push. “Yuan-er, let’s go to the playground, huh? Say goodbye to Lan-gege and Mianmian-jie.”

“Playground!” said A-Yuan, bouncing. He leaned briefly against Lan Zhan’s leg. “Bye, gege,” he said, and then trotted over to Mianmian, reaching up to pat her belly with unselfconscious affection. “Bye, jiejie. Bye, baby.”

“Goodbye, A-Yuan. Thank you for all your help today,” said Mianmian. She waited until Wei Ying and A-Yuan were out of the room. Then she turned to Lan Zhan. “Well,” she said.

“I’m working from home for the rest of the day,” said Lan Zhan. He grabbed his things, without any pretence at dignity, and was out of the door in under thirty seconds, leaving Mianmian staring after him with her mouth open.

Chapter 10

Chapter Text

Lan Zhan spent the evening writing up his report and his application to the safety committee. Even at piano time, while Wei Ying and A-Yuan were in the apartment, he kept his focus, staying at his desk to work. He let the noise fade into the background, only vaguely aware that the topic that day was rhythm and the lesson involved more clapping and chanting and laughter than actual playing. He wrote paragraphs, reread them, and heard Wei Ying’s voice in his head. You can phrase it to f*ck them over, or you can phrase it to get them a slap on the wrist. He knew he was doing the former, being unnecessarily condemnatory, fuelled by an anger he didn’t understand. He deleted everything and started over.

By the time the lesson ended, Lan Zhan was heartily sick of the attempt. It was a relief to take a break and spend five minutes in front of his guqin, playing for A-Yuan. When he came to the end of the piece and sat back, he found Wei Ying watching him, a half-smile on his lips.

“Thanks,” he said. “Beautiful, as ever. Now, come downstairs with us.”

Lan Zhan blinked. “Downstairs?” he said.

“Yeah. Help me put him to bed.” He gave A-Yuan a squeeze and a kiss. “How does that sound, radish? You want Lan-gege to read your bedtime book tonight?”

“Two books,” said A-Yuan, nodding approval.

“Hah, we’ll see. Come on, Lan Zhan. We picked out a bunch of new library books this afternoon, you can help us break them in.”

There was no sensible reason to say yes, yet, somehow, Lan Zhan found himself trailing them down to the little apartment on the second floor, leaving his damning report half-finished on his laptop. A few minutes later he was sitting in a tiny bedroom, perched on the edge of a child-sized bed that had been crammed in alongside a student’s twin leaving barely room to move, waiting while A-Yuan sorted through a pile of colourful picture books. Wei Ying was propped on his elbow on the larger bed, his gaze making the back of Lan Zhan’s neck prickle.

“This one,” said A-Yuan, holding out a battered hardcover with a library sticker half peeled off its spine. The cover picture showed a group of tiny disciples in sect robes, huddled together in the middle of a dark forest.

“The Little Cultivators,” Lan Zhan read. The cartoony figures with their chubby cheeks and hanfu caused a sudden swirl of emotion that he couldn’t name. He swallowed it down. “Alright, A-Yuan. Get into bed and I’ll begin.” He waited while A-Yuan squirmed his way under the blankets and lay back against the pillow, then flipped the book open, held it so A-Yuan could see the pictures, and began to read. “The sect was going on a night hunt… all except for Xiao-Li, Xiao-Su and Xiao-Ping. ‘You’re too little to come with us!’ said fifth disciple…”

He read on, entertained despite the improbability that a sect would send all its members off night hunting and leave three small children entirely unsupervised. A-Yuan was enthralled as the children tried to prove themselves on their own night hunt, and laughed until his whole body shook at the predicaments they got into in the process. Given the types of ghost they encountered, Lan Zhan found himself wondering why the little cultivators hadn’t died several times over. He was pleased to discover, in the final reveal, that it had all been the work of a friendly fox spirit who had been watching over them and playing tricks on them, and eventually delivered them, dripping wet and repentant, safely back to their sect.

“The fox was in the tree!” said A-Yuan, tugging at his arm. “Go back!”

Lan Zhan flipped back through the pages. Sure enough, in one of the pictures, there was a fox sitting on a tree branch above the little cultivators. He turned another page and scanned the picture. “Do you see her here?” he asked.

A-Yuan wriggled out from under the covers to kneel on the bed, getting a better look. “There! In the water!”

“Mm. She’s following them.”

“Read it again, gege,” A-Yuan pleaded.

Lan Zhan shot a glance at Wei Ying, who he now realised had been uncharacteristically silent, sitting on the larger bed. Wei Ying’s eyes were soft and liquid in the half-dark room, and the tender smile that hovered around his mouth was almost painful to look at. Lan Zhan had to clear his throat before he could manage, “May I read it to him again?”

“If you’re okay with it,” said Wei Ying. “Don’t feel obliged, I can do it.”

A-Yuan shook his head. “Lan-gege is reading.”

“I’ll read,” said Lan Zhan, greedy for the ten extra minutes he was winning himself. He flipped back to the start of the book. “The sect was going on a night hunt—”

“The fox is looking in the window,” A-Yuan crowed delightedly.

They made their way through the book again, more slowly, stopping to look at every illustration, picking out the fox and several other hidden oddities. By the end of it, A-Yuan was drooping and sleepy, and his request for a second story was halfhearted at best.

“You’ve had one story twice,” said Wei Ying. “That’s enough. Goodnight kisses and close your eyes, radish.”

“Goodnight, Lan-gege,” said A-Yuan. “Goodnight, Baba.”

Lan Zhan leaned down and, awkwardly, pressed a kiss against his soft hair. “Goodnight, A-Yuan. Sleep well.”

“Goodnight, radish. I love you.”

They left A-Yuan drowsing and went out into the main room. Lan Zhan was just mustering the will to take his leave when Wei Ying gestured to the couch.

“Sit down, huh? I’ll make some tea.”

Helplessly, Lan Zhan sat. Wei Ying fussed with mugs and the kettle, his chatter quieter than usual but no less animated.

“A-Yuan always loves books with cultivators in them,” he said, “especially if they’re in sect clothes. He still remembers when I used to dress like that. He would hide under my robes and try to jump out at people. The view of sect life you get in storybooks sounds pretty cool too, all magic and spirits and adventures. No meditating. No sword training until your blisters bleed.”

Lan Zhan nodded. He was finding it harder than usual to form words.

“When I think about the blisters, I don’t miss it,” said Wei Ying. “But then, I wasn’t born into a sect. My parents really were wandering cultivators like in the old days. They died when I was a little kid, and I got… well, kind of adopted. My parents had been good friends with Jiang Fengmian, so once he figured out what had happened he took me in. I’ve been a Jiang disciple since I was seven, but it’s not the same.”

“Mm,” Lan Zhan managed.

“I’m amazed Mianmian left the Jin sect, you know? They’re the worst, but still… she could have gone to one of the others. She didn’t have to leave. If you’re sect-born it takes a hell of a lot of guts to leave that life behind.”

Lan Zhan knew that all too well. He could remember how it had felt just before he left for university, when Xichen had taken him shopping for everyday clothes in a classic case of the blind leading the blind. They’d fumbled their way through a department store together, Xichen smiling politely at everyone while Lan Zhan tried to ignore the stares, dismally aware that this was the world he would live in from that moment on. It had been awful. And yet, his break with his sect hadn’t been anything like Mianmian’s. Even after he’d stepped away, against the approval of his elders, his focus had been on the history, the ancient techniques.

“Lan Zhan,” said Wei Ying. He pushed a mug of tea into Lan Zhan’s hands and settled down beside him on the sofa. “Talk to me. What’s bothering you so much?”

Lan Zhan swallowed, fingers clenching around the mug. Suddenly, he knew what the unfocused emotion in his chest meant. He was a Lan. He was a sect cultivator, as much as he pretended otherwise. He had finally recovered the ancient music of his sect, and the first people to play it, aside from himself, had been eight half-taught children from Caiyi University.

It should have been Xichen. Xichen standing with his xiao in front of the elders, glowing with power as he played. Xichen, proving what the sect had been and would be again. This was Xichen’s heritage, as it was his own. This was their mother’s passion.

The words that had been choking him for weeks abruptly burst out. “My brother lied to me,” he said. “He knew about your musical cultivation and he hid it from me on purpose.”

“Oh,” said Wei Ying softly. “That’s what you’ve been fighting about.”

“I thought we were doing this together.” Lan Zhan set his tea down on the floor, afraid he would spill it. He folded his shaking hands in his lap. “I thought he wanted me to restore our sect’s legacy. He’s always supported me. Whenever my uncle or our sect elders tried to stand in my way, he took my side, he fought for me. Without him, I wouldn’t have been allowed to study music, I wouldn’t have had funding for my research or permission to use the Lan name. I would have been cut off from everything. He gave me all of that. But when he had information that would have given me a breakthrough, he tried to ensure I never found out.”

“Explain it to me. Tell me exactly what happened.”

Lan Zhan did. In clipped, furious sentences he told Wei Ying about what had happened on their night hunt, Xichen’s crumbling lies about the Burial Mounds, his lame excuses, and what had come after.

“He told me that he wishes I’d never begun this research. He regrets setting me on this path, but he let me continue to humour me.”

Wei Ying had been listening with silent attention and slowly raising eyebrows. As Lan Zhan finished, the eyebrows dipped into a frown. Then, suddenly, he smiled. It was a strange smile, amused and slightly teasing, but full of sympathy all the same. “Lan Zhan,” he said, “ah, Lan Zhan. Look at you, all tied up in knots, just because your brother did what all big brothers do and decided he knew what was best for you.”

Lan Zhan blinked at him, confused and offended. “He doesn’t believe in my work,” he insisted. “He lied to me. He wants me to fail.”

“That’s… an interpretation,” said Wei Ying. His lips quirked. “I’m trying to be diplomatic here, instead of… well, Zewu-jun makes one mistake and he’s suddenly a conniving schemer who hasn’t been honest with you a day in his life? That’s a little overdramatic, don’t you think?”

“That’s not what I said,” objected Lan Zhan. Still, it wasn’t far from what he felt.

“Let’s look at this from his perspective,” said Wei Ying. “He’d just been through the most traumatic night hunt of our generation and watched me damn near kill myself in the process, and then he looked at the mess I’d made and the fallout that was about to hit me in the face, and he thought about how you were absolutely definitely going to dive headfirst into my mess the second you heard about it. Can you blame him for panicking? I got tossed out of my sect for playing around with resentful energy. You think he’d allow that to happen to you? He’s been working his ass off all these years to keep you from leaving, think what a waste of effort that would be.”

“Working to keep me from leaving?”

“Come on, Lan Zhan. What would have happened when you were first starting out, if he hadn’t given you the chance to run off and focus on your music? If he hadn’t fought for you with your elders, if you hadn’t had some level of sect support for your work, would you have said, oh, okay then, I guess I’d better be a normal Lan cultivator instead? No. I know you better than that. You’d have f*cked off and done it anyway, all on your own, and you’d probably never have come home again. And that kind of thing sucks for your family. Believe me, I’ve heard about it at length these past few weeks.”

“I—” Lan Zhan began. Wei Ying was rubbing between his shoulder blades, his hand a gentle, tingling pressure. When had that happened?

“You thought he was supporting your work for the same reasons you were doing it. For the sect, the legacy. Well, maybe he cares about that, and maybe he doesn’t. But it’s pretty clear that the thing he cares most about is you. So when he saw my gigantic f*ck-up with demonic cultivation, he thought about his little brother who he loves with his whole heart and soul, and he decided, I’m going to do anything it takes to keep him out of that.”

Lan Zhan hunched his shoulders. He could see his brother’s face in the dappled light under the trees, the desperation on it when he’d said, “Wangji, I miss you.”

“I have the right to make my own decisions,” he said. “I’m not a child to be coddled.”

“Neither am I. But my Shijie is always going to look at me and remember holding me when I had nightmares and telling me the big scary dogs couldn’t get me. Did Zewu-jun comfort you when you had nightmares, Lan Zhan?”

Lan Zhan swallowed. He remembered waking small and scared in the dark, lying frozen under the covers until he could muster the courage to navigate the treacherous shadows between his own bed and Xichen’s. He remembered the comfort of burrowing silently against a warm a body and hearing a sleepy voice mumble, “A-Zhan? A-Zhan, it’s okay. You’re safe here with me.”

“That doesn’t excuse his actions,” he said.

“It explains them,” said Wei Ying. “It was a sh*tty thing to do, yes, but people do sh*tty, selfish things when they’re scared. And as for wanting you to fail… he wants you to come home. Maybe in an ideal world you come home as the person who rediscovered musical cultivation, but if he doesn’t think that’s possible, his best bet is for you to give up.”

“He should have more faith in me.”

“Lan Zhan, are you mad at him for not believing a technique that’s been lost for millennia can be revived from a few mostly-burned scraps of parchment? I learned about those techniques in my sect history studies, and there wasn’t a single suggestion that they could be reconstructed. Sounds like nobody in your sect believed it either.”

“Our mother did.”

He hadn’t intended to say it. The words were pushed out by the swell of anger inside him before he could stop them.

Wei Ying stilled. “Your mom?”

“Mm. It’s her research. It was hers.”

“Okay,” said Wei Ying. His lips pressed together in an expression that looked almost like pain. “This is starting to make more sense.” He went quiet, eyes downcast. After a few more seconds, he said, “Tell me about her?”

“She…” Lan Zhan began, and stopped. His mother… she had smelled of ink and warmth and sandalwood hair oil. When she’d laughed, a bright, snorting giggle, she had pressed her face against the top of his head to muffle the sound so the laughter was a bubble for just the two of them. She had always sung louder when Xichen complained that she was off-key. The words snagged behind his tongue, and he let them settle back down inside himself. Those memories weren’t to be shared. “She was one of the strongest cultivators of her generation,” he said instead, and paused again, swallowing. Very few people outside his sect knew anything about his mother. He felt a mixture of guilty and defiant, speaking about it. “But there was… a death, shortly after she married into the sect. They said she was unstable. She was always kept confined to her house. Since before Xichen was born, I think. We saw her once a month. The rest of the time, she studied. She read what remained of the ancient Lan texts, and she taught herself to play qin.”

Wei Ying was listening intently. Lan Zhan found himself filling the silence. He couldn’t remember when he had last wanted to talk like this.

“On our visits she would tell us stories about what the sect used to be. Xichen says that she never talked about the sect in the present. Only the past, and only good things. I wasn’t yet seven when she died, he was nine, he remembers more. He thinks she didn’t want to let us know how cruel they were to her. How unhappy she was. But she found something to love in the idea of music that used to bring peace and clarity, so she told us about that. And when we weren’t with her, she researched how to make it real.”

“Aiyah, Lan Zhan,” said Wei Ying. His voice was soft.

Lan Zhan vividly remembered the moment it had all started; Xichen walking up to him with an armful of research notebooks and the translucent smile he’d developed in the weeks after their father’s death. “Look what we found in his study,” he’d said. “I thought you’d want to have them.” Lan Zhan had been adrift at the time, fifteen years old and orphaned, guiltily aware that he felt no particular emotion over the loss of a parent he had barely known. It had been a relief to replace that emptiness with a burning, furious anger. For years, a piece of his mother had existed, ignored. Her writing, her thoughts, her passion, gathering dust in the study of a man who had shut himself away from the world and taken all that was left of her with him.

“The Lans were once the spiritual healers of the cultivation world,” he said. “We soothed the living and communicated with the dead. All of that was lost when Cloud Recesses burned. Back then, the sect was music. But somehow, what was rebuilt from the ashes was just… the rules, and nothing else. Our mother was attempting to reconstruct the lost melodies, but she didn’t have the knowledge of music history, or the skill on the qin, or the academic methodology she needed. Cultivation ability alone wasn’t enough. She needed a solid foundation, theory, teachers, but she had to do it all alone. I have everything she didn’t. Training in history and musicology, a thesis advisor who supported me in the early stages of the project, access to all the academic and sect libraries, and a childhood study of cultivation that drew on every scrap of ancient Lan technique that still exists.”

It hadn’t been enough. He’d had every possible advantage, and until a few weeks ago the missing piece had been entirely outside his grasp. He tried to imagine being the older brother, the one responsible for the sect, the one who didn’t have time to read the notebooks and could only pass them on. He tried to imagine watching Xichen struggle the way he had, getting nowhere. It made something inside him ache.

“I should talk to Xiongzhang,” he said abruptly. “Show him my progress.”

“Yeah,” said Wei Ying, “I think you should.”

“Perhaps you’re right. I expected more of him than he could reasonably give.”

“Go easy on him,” said Wei Ying. “People aren’t perfect, Lan Zhan. Sometimes you’ve just gotta believe they’re doing the best they can.” He reached over and gave Lan Zhan’s hand a squeeze. “Thanks for telling me about your mom. For what it’s worth, I think she’d be proud of you.”

***

Lan Zhan had expected at least a modicum of discretion from his brother. He was not prepared, when walking across the grass towards their arranged meeting point out front of the Cultivation Studies building, to hear his name called from above, or to look up and see Xichen soaring down into the centre of the quadrangle, his sword flashing beneath his feet. He landed smoothly a few metres away, and the sword was in his hand and back in its scabbard almost before the uptilted toe of his boot touched the ground. He was in his most formal robes, layer upon layer of rippling blue silk and embroidery, with the particularly elaborate branching headpiece that added an extra eight inches to his height. He looked like a god.

“Wangji,” he said, sweeping forwards, robes flaring out and floating back into place.

Lan Zhan bowed, briefly and abruptly, straightening up to give the robes a meaningful look. “Xiongzhang. Really?”

Xichen paused, puzzled, then seemed to realise that every single student within view had either stopped dead to stare or was edging closer along the paths, craning for a better view. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” he said. “I had an early meeting with the Su sect. I came straight here, I didn’t think to change.”

“If you were busy, we could have done this another day.”

Xichen gave him a look, rueful and a little embarrassed, and shook his head. “I was glad to hear from you. I wasn’t sure when I would.”

“I—“ Lan Zhan began guiltily, and then was cut off by the approach of half-a-dozen onlookers in a sidling cluster.

“Excuse me, Zewu-jun,” said the one at the front of the group, “I’m sorry to bother you, but we were wondering, would it be okay to take a picture?”

Lan Zhan sighed, wondering just how late they were about to be for his Cleansing session. Then Xichen stepped forwards towards the group. “Of course it’s okay,” he said, all ease and not a hint of impatience, “and usually I’d be happy to do so right away, but I’m just about to go into a meeting, so I’m going to have to ask you to wait a while. You’re all very welcome to take pictures and ask any questions you might have in…what will it be, Wangji, an hour or two? I’ll come back from my meeting this way, and you can meet me here.” He treated the group to a dazzling smile. “I’m so looking forward to speaking to all of you. Goodbye for now!”

He touched Lan Zhan’s elbow, and the two of them moved off in step towards the building, leaving the gathering crowd staring after them with near-terminal cases of heart eyes.

“Don’t you have better things to do than pose for photos and answer misguided cultivation questions?” asked Lan Zhan.

“It’ll take ten minutes, if that. I know how to make a graceful exit. Come on, or we’ll get cornered by another group. I’m very keen to see whatever it is you have to show me.”

Lan Zhan ushered him into the building, looking with misgiving at the turning heads in the lobby. “I should have brought an invisibility talisman to stick on you,” he muttered.

Despite the way his skin crawled at the attention they got, they made it up to his testing classroom without further incident. It was still a few minutes before his students were due. Xichen, awkward in a way that he hadn’t been for a single moment with the students outside, asked a polite question about what technique he would be demonstrating. Lan Zhan ignored it. His heart was beating faster than it should.

“Xiongzhang,” he said, cutting Xichen off mid-word.

“Wangji?”

“I’m sorry.” He didn’t let himself hang his head, but he wanted to. “I behaved badly when we last met. I overreacted. I shouldn’t have spoken to you as I did.”

Xichen let out his breath in a rush. “Oh, thank goodness,” he said squeezing his eyes shut for a second. When he opened them, they were suspiciously damp. “I couldn’t tell if you were still furious with me.”

“No. Someone pointed out to me that I was being unfair to you, that I should try to understand your point of view and appreciate that you care for me. He was right. I will never condone your actions, but your reasons were understandable. You have always done your best for me, in difficult circ*mstances. I was ungrateful and judgemental, and I apologise.”

Xichen looked, if anything, even closer to tears. His eyes were huge and shining. “I love you, Wangji,” he said. “And—I’m sorry I—”

“It’s alright.”

They were interrupted by a tap on the door. Zhou Chuhua poked her head in, still with the guilty, hangdog look she’d worn earlier in the week. “Excuse me, Lan-laoshi, are you ready for us to—oh.” She stopped short, her face draining of colour as she stared at Xichen.

“You may come in,” said Lan Zhan.

“Zewu-jun.”

“Hello,” said Xichen. “Please don’t mind me, I’m just here to observe.”

“Hey, don’t just stop in the doorway,” said Zhang Bao from outside. Then, “Holy sh*t.”

“Come in,” said Lan Zhan firmly, as more gaping faces appeared behind Zhou Chuhua. “Sit down, all of you.”

Xichen nodded his head to them one by one as they came in, politely ignoring the stunned silence he got in response. Even Chen Mei didn’t say a word. Lan Zhan shot a very small glare sideways at the opulent silk robes, though to be fair the result probably would have been the same even if he had thought to bring jeans and a sweater to stuff his brother into. There wasn’t a cultivation student in the world who didn’t know Xichen’s face.

“This is Lan Xichen, head of the Lan sect,” he said. “He will be sitting in on today’s session to observe the progress of the project. Anyone who is uncomfortable with the observation is welcome to skip this session.” He paused, giving an enquiring look, and received eight tiny headshakes. “He may perform some qi flow measurements, of the same kind I normally do. Otherwise, he will simply watch. Please do your best to ignore him.”

“Thank you all so much for letting me join you,” said Xichen.

“You’re welcome, Zewu-jun,” Zhou Chuhua blurted, and then turned bright red. She looked like she would rather die than open her mouth again. Lan Zhan, knowing what he knew about the content of her novel, wanted to die a little himself.

He ran through the rest of the introduction to the session, wondering how the general air of shell-shock among his participants would skew his data. Then he met his brother’s gaze and began to play. The resonances built under his hands, filling the room. Xichen’s face went slack with shock. Then he broke into the most wondering, joyful expression Lan Zhan had ever seen. “Wangji,” he breathed.

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan, fingers moving smoothly even as his ears burned. “Would you like to take some readings?”

Xichen nodded. He moved softly between the meditating students, taking qi measurements and shooting small, disbelieving smiles in Lan Zhan’s direction. Lan Zhan did his best to ignore him, playing through the piece, keeping his attention on modulating the resonances to best effect. It was becoming instinctual now, as though there was some part of him that had always known how to do this and had just needed reminding. There was a pleasure in it that felt like rediscovery. When he brought the piece to a close, he knew it had worked well. It was working better every time.

He lifted his hands from the strings, and then stood hastily when he saw Xichen standing stock still and silent in the middle of the room. “Xiongzhang?” he said.

Xichen took three quick strides across the room, wrapped his arms around Lan Zhan and squeezed the breath out of him. Lan Zhan made an embarrassing wheezing noise. The Lan sect was known for its arm strength, and Xichen’s were like iron bands. “Xiongzhang,” he croaked, “there are students here.” Most likely the students were still in their meditation poses, eyes closed, drifting on the aftereffects of Cleansing, but he couldn’t check when he was being thoroughly squished against Xichen’s shoulder.

“This… it’s amazing,” said Xichen, sounding choked.

“You’re pleased,” said Lan Zhan. He abandoned his dignity and wriggled to get out of Xichen’s grip. He needed to see his brother’s face.

“Of course I’m pleased,” said Xichen, wiping at his eyes unashamedly. “Look at what you’ve achieved! This is on a completely different level to everything you’ve shown me so far.”

Lan Zhan swallowed, realising all over again how unfair he had been. How could he have thought Xichen wanted him to fail? “It’s a beginning,” he said. “There’s much more to do.” The students were beginning to stir. He nodded towards the back of the room, a silent order to Xichen to get out of the way and get ahold of yourself, and moved on to taking his final readings.

Everything was as it should be; a range of solid improvements for all the students. As he moved among them, they rolled their shoulders and breathed into their meridians, and then, inexorably, all of them turned to look at Xichen, who was perched on a desk, smiling like his dreams had come true.

Obviously, not a lot of work was going to get done with Xichen in the room. Lan Zhan distributed questionnaires, giving the focus group a strict reminder to complete the forms in silence, and hustled his brother out into the corridor. “No hugging,” he said, glancing around in case of onlookers.

“Can you blame me?” said Xichen, laughing, embarrassed and watery.

Lan Zhan’s lip twitched. He felt a rush of fondness, and reached out to touch Xichen’s arm. “I’d like to teach you the technique. It should be easy enough to translate to the xiao.”

“I’d love that. But I can start with the guqin, I’m not an entirely incompetent player.”

“The xiao,” said Lan Zhan firmly. “There are some meditation exercises you need to practise. I’ll email you the source documents and my notes.”

“I’ll get to work on them tonight.”

“Give me a moment to talk to my focus group. Then I’ll walk you out.”

He went back into the classroom, where the group members were clustered together, very definitely not working as they should be. Zhou Chuhua had her face buried in Zhang Bao’s shoulder and was making tiny wailing noises. A couple of the others were patting her comfortingly on the back. They all jumped when he cleared his throat.

“I will leave you for ten minutes,” he told them, “and then we will begin the discussion portion of the session. Please have your questionnaires finished by then.”

Seven faces – all but Zhou Chuhua’s – turned to glare at him accusingly.

“Lan-laoshi,” said Chen Mei, “with all due respect, what the actual f*ck was that? You didn’t warn us. Look what you did to Chuhua.”

Lan Zhan couldn’t help but feel slightly aggrieved by the reaction. “You were aware that he’s my brother,” he said.

The students gave a range of uncertain nods, and mumbles of, “Yeah, but…”

“Intellectually, we knew,” said Tan Liling.

“We’d heard the gossip,” agreed Zhang Bao, “but we weren’t expecting to just walk in here and come face to face with him. It was… a lot.”

“I apologise for foisting his unwelcome presence on you,” said Lan Zhan flatly. “I hope you can forgive me, given time.”

Zhou Chuhua let out another little wail. “Noo, he’s so niiiiiiice!”

“Excuse me,” said Lan Zhan wearily to the room in general, and let himself out.

Xichen, who had very good hearing, was waiting for him outside, looking highly amused. “Shall we?” he said, gesturing along the corridor as though he wasn’t smirking all over his face.

Lan Zhan gave him a look designed to convey, ‘you are a trial to me but I love you anyway’. “After you,” he said.

They walked. It felt good, having Xichen at his side again, feeling that they understood one another. Better that he could finally ask the questions he should have asked long ago.

“Xiongzhang, the resentment is backing up in the city to dangerous levels. There have been injuries among the CMCD cultivators.”

Xichen’s cheerful expression dimmed. “Yes, I saw the reports.”

“Are the levels in the night zones still high?”

“High and climbing. The smaller sects are struggling. We’re mustering extra manpower to help them out.” He caught Lan Zhan’s eye and gave him a reassuring smile. “We’re managing. I promise, if I needed you, I’d tell you.”

Lan Zhan winced. Xichen did need him, if things were this bad. Needed him and hadn’t admitted it because Lan Zhan had been throwing a temper tantrum over a year-old lie. “You still haven’t uncovered an underlying cause?” he asked.

“Not yet. Nobody knows where it’s coming from. It may be that it’s just an extreme natural variation and it’ll settle down on its own. And if not, we’ve got the best minds in the sect working on the problem.” He sighed, shaky, and Lan Zhan saw again just how stressed and tired he was. “We’ll figure it out eventually. I shouldn’t let it unsettle me. It’s just that… I keep thinking this resentment is like what we saw at the Burial Mounds. There’s a… a flavour to it.”

Lan Zhan had to work hard to keep his steps from faltering and to keep his voice level. “You think there’s something related to the Burial Mounds,” he said, “still active.”

Xichen hesitated. Then he shook his head, as though trying to shake off the unwanted emotion. “I know it’s silly. A-Yao has told me it’s silly, I’m just imagining things. There’s nothing wrong at the mounds. If it was anything to do with them, A-Yao would have seen signs of trouble there. We’ve covered all the bases, Wangji. The spirit was purified, we burned everything, and they’re digging out the mounds so it can never happen again. It can’t be related. It’s nothing more than a feeling.”

“Most likely. Still, I can see why that would worry you,” said Lan Zhan. He felt like he had a block of ice in his stomach. They hadn’t covered all of the bases, because nobody knew one victim of the spirit was still alive. Could everything that was happening in Gusu and Yunmeng and beyond be down to A-Yuan? Some regenerating fragment of the Burial Mounds spirit that Wei Ying hadn’t been able to purge from him?

“It’s been a trying time. At least today I’ll be able to give Shufu some good news when I see him. Unless you’d like to tell him yourself?”

“No,” said Lan Zhan. He needed this conversation to be over. He needed to see Wei Ying. He needed to see A-Yuan, to hold his tiny wrists and feel his meridians and assure himself - no. No, it couldn’t be. It couldn’t be. A-Yuan was fine. Wei Ying had been sure of it.

“I assume you don’t want to come with me to pose for photos?” said Xichen, as they exited the building. “No? Alright, wish me luck and go back to your focus group. And, Wangji—I’m so proud of you.”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan, and took himself and his whirling thoughts back inside.

***

It was an hour before he could get home from the university. By that time, Wei Ying had ditched work and pulled A-Yuan unceremoniously out of daycare, citing a family emergency.

“Don’t scare him,” said Wei Ying softly, as they hunched together in his tiny kitchen, watching A-Yuan playing dress-up with a paper doll, laying cut-out cultivator robes over the top of it. “We’ve done this before, he thinks it’s a game, so just act like you’re playing. Follow my lead.” He was pale, but he plastered on a smile as he approached his son. “Okay, radish, Lan-gege is ready to play! You think you’re gonna win this time?”

A-Yuan set down the paper cut-out, which had been drawn by an expert hand and then coloured with bright crayon by a four-year-old one. He grinned his chubby-cheeked grin. “I always win!”

“You do! You’re so good at this. Okay, close your eyes. Lan Zhan’s going to touch your wrist, and then you say when you feel him with your qi. Concentrate real hard or you’ll miss it!”

Lan Zhan knelt beside Wei Ying, who’d pulled the little boy protectively into his lap. He reached out and took the delicate wrist in one hand, hovering his other beside A-Yuan’s temple. “Are you ready?” he said.

“Ready!” said A-Yuan, eyes squeezed closed.

Lan Zhan let his awareness expand, travelling inch by inch along the boy’s meridians. He breathed deeply and quietly, vigilant for any trace of resentment.

A-Yuan shifted. “I don’t feel it,” he said plaintively.

Natural deftness combined with the opportunity for practice from his experiments had given Lan Zhan an unusually light touch with qi analysis. On purpose, he pushed more clumsily.

“There!” chirped A-Yuan.

“Yeah,” said Wei Ying, eyes fixed anxiously on Lan Zhan. “Clever boy. What does it feel like?”

“Like a tickle,” said A-Yuan, giggling. “It’s gone now.”

Lan Zhan continued methodically along each meridian, lingering to test the dantians. Every few seconds he allowed his presence to make itself felt, so A-Yuan could call out triumphantly and be showered with praise by Wei Ying. I feel it, Baba! In my foot! In my shoulder! In my nose!

“There’s a scar,” said Lan Zhan abruptly.

“Always has been,” said Wei Ying, still in that same bubbly voice. “Eyes shut, Yuan-er, no peeking.”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan hastily. “Eyes shut. We’ll go again.”

“Did I win?” said A-Yuan.

“You sure did,” said Wei Ying, “but now it’s time for round two. It’s gonna be harder this time. Think you can do it?”

“Yes,” said A-Yuan firmly.

Lan Zhan dived back into his meridians, circling the scar. It was an imprint of trauma, burned into A-Yuan’s soul, violent but long-healed. He prodded at it, seeking for signs that there might be some remnant of infection sealed within.

A-Yuan flinched. “Ow,” he said. “That feels bad.”

“Ah, sorry, radish,” said Wei Ying. “Lan-gege is new to this game, he made a mistake.”

“I’m sorry,” said Lan Zhan. “May I try again?”

“Yes,” said A-Yuan, “but you gotta be gentle. Soft touches,” he said, with the air of one echoing a familiar phrase. It was familiar to Lan Zhan too, linked to the memory of Xichen’s guiding hand on his own tiny one in the bunny field. Soft touches.

He kept that in mind as he continued to explore, gentle on the scar, while pressing with more force elsewhere to keep up the charade of the game. Finally, he sat back, releasing A-Yuan’s wrist and letting out his breath in a sigh of relief. “Nothing.”

Wei Ying clutched A-Yuan tight to his chest. “There, radish,” he said, voice cheerful despite the flash of tears on his lashes. “Lan-gege says you did great at the game. You must have been working hard at your meditation, huh? My bright boy. Good job.”

“Yeah,” said A-Yuan, “I’m the best at that game!” He leaned away, trying to get enough space to see Wei Ying’s face. “Baba, are you sad?”

“No, I’m happy.” Wei Ying gave a watery, shaky laugh, dabbing at his eyes. “What do you want to do now, huh? Anything you want. Ice cream?”

“Guqin lesson!”

“Ah, I don’t know if—”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan. “Bring his qin.” He got to his feet and held out his hand. A-Yuan wriggled out of Wei Ying’s lap and took it, tugging slightly in his eagerness. They all went together up to the eighth floor.

***

“You gave me a f*cking heart attack,” said Wei Ying under his breath, while A-Yuan was occupied experimentally plucking at guqin strings and pressing his fingers down on them as the note sounded. “Don’t do that to me, Lan Zhan, I can’t handle it.”

Lan Zhan had taken the opportunity of a break in the lesson to make tea, while Wei Ying stood in the doorway to the kitchen, one eye on his son.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Wei Ying continued, “I can see why you did it. Your brother’s no slouch when it comes to resentful energy, I’m betting his instincts are right on the money. If he thinks there’s something about the resentment that’s related to the Burial Mounds, he’s right. And I don’t blame you for worrying about A-Yuan. Hell, I’m glad you took a look. There’s nobody I’d trust more to check him over.”

Lan Zhan passed over a cup of tea, hoping his overheating ears weren’t too obvious. He sat on one of the bar stools at the kitchen island where he too could see across the corridor into the music room. Wei Ying was close enough to touch, warm and restless, drumming his fingers against the door frame.

“If this Burial Mounds resentment isn’t related to A-Yuan, we have to figure out what it is. I’ll check in with Wen Qing, she’s leading the reconstruction and purification efforts in the village, she’ll be able to tell us if there’s anything strange going on. If our only clue is that it has to do with the mounds, that’s where we need to start looking.”

“The Jin sect would’ve noticed anything amiss with the mounds.”

“They’re useless, Lan Zhan.”

“Jin Guangyao is leading the project. His cultivation isn’t high but he’s intelligent and efficient.”

“You know him?”

“He’s close to Xiongzhang.”

Wei Ying made a face. “I still want to talk to Wen Qing. I don’t trust anyone named Jin, except for Shijie’s baby, which isn’t even born yet. I’ll text her, see when she’ll be free.”

Lan Zhan nodded. Xichen had been so sure there was no trouble at the mounds, but he never visited Yiling in person. He didn’t have proof. Perhaps it was unfair to be suspicious, but… Mianmian didn’t like Jin Guangyao.

Maybe something was happening there that hadn’t been reported. And if so, maybe it wasn’t just the Jin sect being incompetent. Maybe someone needed to take a closer look at what was going on in the Burial Mounds.

“Gege,” yelled A-Yuan from the music room, “I wanna play more!”

“Say please!” called Wei Ying, at the same volume.

“Pleeeeeeeeeeease!”

“No shouting,” said Lan Zhan, “either of you.” He got to his feet and went back to continue the lesson.

***

That evening, after Wei Ying and A-Yuan had departed, Lan Zhan’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen, expecting it to be Xichen, and then swallowed when he saw his uncle’s name. He paused to brace himself, then picked up the call with a polite, “Good evening, Shufu.”

“Wangji,” said Lan Qiren. His tone destroyed any faint hope Lan Zhan might have harboured that this was a congratulatory call. “I suppose you know your brother has cancelled an important meeting and spent the entire afternoon practising meditation exercises you gave him. And has booked out half of his weekend to do the same.”

“No. I didn’t know.”

“But you did give him the exercises.”

“Yes, Shufu.”

“You know we’re in the midst of a crisis. Do you think the Lan sect leader can take time off when there’s unexplained resentment oozing out of the woodwork everywhere?”

I didn’t tell him to do that, Lan Zhan wanted to say, but it wouldn’t have mattered. “Did Xiongzhang show you my results?” he asked.

“He did. Do you expect congratulations? Praise?”

“It’s a breakthrough. With this new understanding, I can begin reconstructing Lan musical cultivation as it once was.”

Lan Qiren snorted. “Talk to me about Lan musical cultivation when you have the Sound of Vanquish. Cleansing, Evocation, Repose - they’re parlour tricks. Cultivation has moved on, we have no need for antiquated and outdated techniques.”

Lan Zhan took a breath, trying to find equilibrium. “Cleansing has applications that go beyond what modern techniques can do. It is already making a difference to my test subjects’ qi control.”

“Providing a crutch for poorly-taught students is nothing to be proud of. You’ve been wasting your time all these years. This so-called breakthrough is only encouraging you to waste Xichen’s too.”

“Shufu, I respectfully disagree.”

“You haven’t done anything respectfully in a long time,” snapped Lan Qiren. “If you refuse to be a help to your sect, you could at least avoid being an active hindrance. Xichen has enough to worry about without you dragging him into your fairy tales.”

“Shufu—”

“That’s all I have to say,” said Lan Qiren, and hung up.

Lan Zhan stood staring at the phone screen, berating himself. If he hadn’t been so cold towards his brother, Xichen would not be overcompensating now. He tapped out a text: You don’t need to spend half the weekend on it.

Xiongzhang: Shufu called you?

Xiongzhang: Ignore him.

The next text was a horrendous jumble of emoji, hearts and musical notes and confetti. Lan Zhan looked at it for ten seconds and then shoved his phone wearily back into his pocket.

He hated that his uncle had a point. Nothing he’d attempted so far came close to the Sound of Vanquish. The legendary battle melody could subdue a fully-manifested Waterborne Abyss if played with sufficient power. It was the song that the ancient Lan sect had played when they marched into war. While Rest had been used to pacify resentful spirits, Vanquish destroyed them. It had been the last resort of a sect that believed in liberation before all else.

He had tried. He had searched the literature. He had made a start, years ago. But the clues had been even sparser than those he’d found for the Songs of Clarity, and those, at least, had been interrelated. Cleansing and Repose shared many musical characteristics, he had been able to use their similarities to make inferences from one to the other. He had focused on them, and on Evocation, because they had been easier. Now he was paying the price. Even if Xichen learned to manipulate musical resonances, even if they would soon be able to stand together and play in front of their uncle using the true ancient techniques of the Lan, Lan Qiren would stroke his beard and shake his head and say, this is nothing special.

Lan Zhan set his jaw. Diligence is the root, he told himself. Maintain your own discipline. Believe sincerely. Do not fail to carry out your promise.

Or, as Xichen had once wearily put it, dig your hooves into the ground like a mule and do exactly as you like.

And yet, this time, he couldn’t take comfort from the rules. He was suddenly tired of it all. Tired of his self-imposed isolation, tired of inaction. Tired of letting his brother pay for his selfishness. Tired of being a researcher and not a Lan. Tired of trying his hardest and still getting nothing in return.

Tired of watching resentment build in his city and doing nothing about it.

He glanced over at the shelf above his desk where, in a neatly labelled folder, his long-ignored notes on the Sound of Vanquish sat waiting. He couldn’t bring himself to touch them.

***

“So,” Wei Ying told him, as they sat on the park bench, watching A-Yuan play a game that seemed to involve half a dozen children chasing one another around with no rules whatsoever, “Wen Qing says the resentment levels in the village have been higher than they should lately, but that’s true everywhere at the moment. It’s not nearly as bad as we’ve seen in Caiyi. And from all the paperwork she could access on the project, there’s nothing unusual in the mounds themselves either. She hasn’t had a look inside in a while because the Jin sect are being squirrelly about access and she’s got enough on her plate already, so she can’t be sure, but basically, it all looks good around there. Except for one thing.”

“Mm?”

“A-Ning’s always been particularly sensitive to resentment, and he says he gets what your brother means. There’s a… flavour. What do you think, can you feel it at all with that giant core of yours?”

“I’ve never been to the Burial Mounds,” said Lan Zhan. “I wouldn’t recognise it.” I wasn’t there, his brain echoed yet again. I wasn’t there when they needed me.

“Ah. Yeah, of course.”

“I would like to,” said Lan Zhan. The desire had been simmering under his skin since the day before, fuelled by all the pent-up frustration from his uncle’s phone call. If there was something wrong… well, he would prefer not to get into the politics of reporting Jin sect incompetence, and he didn’t want to think about how upset Xichen would be if Jin Guangyao turned out to be involved, but he did want to know the truth. “Wei Ying… I’ll go. To see what this flavour is. Tomorrow. I have no other plans.”

“You want to go all the way to Yiling for a flavour? It’s a four-hour flight.”

“Three.”

“Maybe, if you want to kill yourself.”

Lan Zhan raised an eyebrow. “You should meditate more.”

“You can do it in three?” said Wei Ying, giving him an assessing look. “And the same speed back? In a day?”

“Mm.”

“f*ck you.”

Lan Zhan blinked at him, helplessly amused, and Wei Ying laughed back, a quiet chuckle that turned into a sigh. “Aiyah, Lan Zhan. I wish I could go with you. I used to be the one that went out looking for trouble, before…” he nodded towards the playground, “so, take pity on your Wei Ying and don’t find anything too interesting. No solving the mystery without me.”

Saying your Wei Ying like that was entirely unfair, especially with the flutter of eyelashes that accompanied it. Lan Zhan’s hands clenched. “No promises,” he said.

Chapter 11

Chapter Text

Far below his sword, the land was a patchwork of colour. Lan Zhan soared over Lan territory with a brisk wind on his face and the morning sun warming his back. Faint lines of his sect’s power flowed through the earth, imbued with Xichen’s magic, and his uncle’s, as though the two of them had traced their signatures in giant brushwork across the hills. Lan Zhan could feel the night zones too, dark concentrations of resentment clustered around cities and towns. From so high up, he could feel the intensity of them, the excess energy building up like stagnant water.

He had flown plenty in the years he’d been a researcher, going from one sect library to another, travelling to the furthest corners of the country in search of documents, learning from guqin masters who knew the instrument far better than the Lans of the present day. None of those flights had held the same sense of purpose he felt today. This might be a simple exploratory trip, but it was still, in its way, a night hunt.

After Lan territory came a jumble of small towns managed by three minor sects, pocked with night zones no larger than a soccer pitch. Then Jiang territory spread out in front of him, glittering silver with lakes and small waterways. The Yunmeng resentment channels followed the paths of the water, but Lan Zhan was too high up and too unfamiliar with Jiang methods to get a sense of them. After a while he stopped trying and just enjoyed the view, the lotus-covered lakes and the lush green of the fields bursting with life. Less than two years ago, this place had been Wei Ying’s home.

He spotted the Burial Mounds when he was still a long way distant. After a year, there was still a blackened scar on the landscape, stretching far beyond the fenced-off borders. Scorched earth. The dark mounds were eerie, unsettling, even if you didn’t know that they were an ancient mass grave. They had already been steeped in resentment thousands of years before the advent of night zones. Lan Zhan began the long sweep over Yunmeng’s southern lakes, wondering whether fencing the place off and pumping the excess resentment from the surrounding areas into it had been a recipe for disaster from the beginning.

He landed in the centre of a small village perhaps a mile from the night zone walls. There were people out and about, but wherever he looked he saw signs of emptiness; boarded-up windows, posters gone pale with age, gardens long overgrown. An elderly man, pushing a cartload of unidentifiable cardboard boxes, stopped when Lan Zhan politely asked for Dr Wen Qing.

“A-Qing will be out in the fields,” he said. “Take the path towards the mounds until you find the sunflowers. You can’t miss it.”

The sunflowers were indeed impossible to miss. Ten minutes’ walk out of town, Lan Zhan crested a rise and saw where the fields of radishes and potatoes suddenly turned into blackened earth. A little further on, in the midst of the blackness, was a patch of green and sunny yellow, an oasis of life and purpose among the devastation. Half a dozen people were working to the left and right of the thriving plants, tilling the earth or marking out areas with bamboo stakes and string. As Lan Zhan came closer, he could see that each stake was topped with a fluttering yellow paper talisman.

One figure stood up from her digging and came to meet him. She was a small woman with delicate features and wide doe eyes that combined strangely with her brisk, businesslike air. After giving him the barest glance up and down, taking his measure, she said, “You’re Wei Wuxian’s friend.”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan. He bowed briefly. It seemed nonsensical to be formal when neither of them were dressed as cultivators. “Lan Zhan. It’s my honour to meet you.”

She shrugged off the courtesy. “I’m Wen Qing. A-Xian said you were coming. Didn’t exactly say what you wanted, except to get a feeling for the place. What can I help you with?”

Lan Zhan nodded at the blackened fields, the sunflowers and the workers. “What is all this?”

“This?” she gave a bitter half-smile. “This is the aftermath of burning the Burial Mounds. We lost half of our farmland that day. Now we’re taking it back, little by little. Talismans rebalance the qi in the soil enough for sunflowers to grow—don’t ask me why they’ll grow where nothing else will—and that seems to do the job. We’ve reworked the first sunflower patch, and the cabbages are just starting to sprout.”

Lan Zhan looked around at the workers. They were a mixed bunch, a couple of younger men and women, a few more elderly, plus one youngster of twelve or thirteen activating talismans with flashes of qi that spoke of a half-developed golden core. Village folk, unsuited to the work. “Surely it’s the responsibility of the Jin sect to make this right,” he said.

“The Jin sect is working on purifying the mounds. That’s their priority. They have no manpower to repair the spiritual damage that was done to the surrounding land.”

“They have ample manpower.”

She snorted. “Of course they do. In Lanling.”

“This is unacceptable.”

“Unacceptable?” she snapped. “A quarter of the village died. That’s unacceptable.”

Lan Zhan hesitated, chastened. He hadn’t kept track of the politics, the apportioning of blame and the questions of reparations following the disaster. He had no idea what she’d been fighting against all this time. “I’m sorry,” he said.

She shrugged. “We’ll rebuild. This community has deep roots. We’re as old a family as yours. Those who want to stay will not be forced from their homes by the mismanagement of a night zone.”

He nodded, bowing his head in an overt gesture of respect. “The night zone,” he said, turning the topic. “The purification project. What can you tell me about it?”

“There’s a lot of public documentation, if you want to see it. Jin Guangyao is all about an open dialogue.” She gave another of those bitter smiles. “He listens to everything we say and does nothing about it, and he keeps us informed at every stage, but who knows how much of what he tells us is true? The Burial Mounds are Jin-access only.”

“I’d like to take a look at the mounds from the outside. Then I’ll look at what information you have, if I may.”

“You know where to find me when you’re ready.”

Lan Zhan nodded a goodbye. He turned back to the path that cut through the fields, and walked until he reached the road that ran alongside the night zone. The barrier here was a jumble, centuries-old stone and wrought iron broken up by stretches of modern wire fencing infused with talismans, marking the places where the possessed villagers had broken down the walls. Where there was wire, sheets of rough plastic and canvas blocked the interior from view. Lan Zhan found a spot where the canvas had come slightly loose and peered through the small hole at bare earth and charred tree trunks. Then he stepped back onto the road and began to walk, letting his feet fall into a meditative rhythm, opening his senses to the flow of qi around him.

The warding around the zone was thorough, multi-layered. He could get little sense of the state of the resentment within. What he could get was the tang of it, the flavour. He focused and inhaled. Much like how the scent of gentians took him back to his mother’s house in the Cloud Recesses, the tang of this resentment took him straight to Caiyi Night Zone 1, standing over a poisonous snake yao sliced neatly into three. He’d felt wisps of this same resentful energy, hundreds of miles away in Gusu.

Xichen had been right. There had to be a connection.

“Hey, you! What are you doing here?”

The rough voice cut through his abstraction. He turned and found himself facing a group of six men and women, all dressed in cream and yellow-gold. Lan Zhan eyed them assessingly. Their robes marked them as low-ranking Jin sect cultivators. That was no surprise; Yiling was a place where careers went to die. He could sense the swirl of their golden cores, weak and sloppily shielded. These were the dregs of the sect.

“Don’t you know you’re standing right next to a night zone?” said the leader, a tall, gangly man with a wispy moustache. “Clear off! This is Jin sect property.”

“It’s a public road,” said Lan Zhan.

The leader only hesitated for a second. “Yeah, well, you don’t have any business being on this public road. What brought you here? Are you going to tell me you’re out for a stroll?”

Lan Zhan stared him down coldly. The man flushed with anger.

“Who the hell do you think you are? Show me some ID.”

“You have no authority here.”

“You think so? Move along now or we’ll make you move.”

Another of the cultivators stepped forwards, hands raised placatingly. “It’s dangerous to hang around here,” she said. “This place is packed with resentment, you could get hurt just being near it.”

“Are the wards so inadequate?”

The leader started forwards, getting into Lan Zhan’s space in the manner of someone used to bullying and blustering and getting their own way. He was clearly an unskilled fighter, with no concept of defence. It would have taken no effort whatsoever to jab a hand into his gut and send him to the ground, sobbing in pain by the side of the road.

Lan Zhan took a step back. “I will leave,” he said.

“You’d better,” said the leader. “f*cking idiot. If I see you poking around here again you’re not getting off so easy.”

***

The documentation Wen Qing had promised him was as complete as he could have hoped for. Some of it, he had seen before; the plan for digging out the Burial Mounds, with his brother’s approval seal on the front page along with those of the other sect leaders; the official report on the disaster; a few printouts of news articles from the time. The more recent documents were new to him; progress reports on the purification plan, minutes from public consultations with the villagers, responses to letters of complaint, signed by or on behalf of Jin Guangyao.

He had the progress reports spread out in front of him when Wen Qing came into the room carrying two cups of tea. She set one down at his elbow. “Find anything useful?” she asked.

Lan Zhan shook his head. “It’s a well-ordered and well-documented project. I know there was debate over the decision to keep the Burial Mounds actively accepting resentment during the purification work. From these levels, it seems that the Jin sect has been managing it well with consistent night hunts.”

“Debate,” said Wen Qing flatly. “That’s one way of putting it. Every single sect wanted a temporary night zone established, except the one that would be paying for it.”

“You’ve been monitoring the resentment levels in the surrounding area?”

“Yes. No sign of problems. Except, lately, my brother’s been worried.”

“A flavour,” said Lan Zhan.

“Yes. Cropping up here and there.” She sighed. “The published levels are still acceptable, so there’s no way to make an official complaint. Nobody’s going to listen to him.”

“Are the resentment levels in the zone independently verified?”

“Of course not. None of the sects pressed for that. It would be as good as accusing the Jin sect of misconduct.”

He had suspected as much. “The flavour,” he said, “I sensed it too.”

She tilted her head at him. “Well, that’s good to hear. But is anyone likely to listen to you?”

Lan Zhan considered the matter. He had no solid evidence that anything was amiss. A bad feeling, some rudeness from a famously rude sect, and a tang to the resentment, recognisable only to the unusually sensitive. Perhaps, if he went to Xichen and begged, Xichen would pay the Burial Mounds a visit and ask Jin Guangyao for a tour. But then, what reason could Lan Zhan give for his sudden, intense interest, without mentioning A-Yuan or Wei Ying? He was well known to be uncommunicative, but flying several hundred miles, when Xichen knew him to be at a key point in his research, was not something that could be waved away. Beside which, if he was wrong, he would have forced his brother to revisit a place where Lan cultivators had died and innocent people had burned.

“I’ll keep looking at the reports,” he said.

She made a face, as though she was disappointed but not surprised, and took her own cup of tea elsewhere.

Lan Zhan worked for another hour, before tidying up the papers, putting the files away, and calling Wei Ying to report his findings—or lack thereof.

“It’s worrying,” he said, once he had given the basic facts. “If the Jin sect is scrimping on the work of rehabilitating the surrounding area, they may be scrimping elsewhere too.”

“And why were those cultivators so set on chasing you off?” said Wei Ying. “You couldn’t have done any harm by standing there—I know you’re a badass, Lan Zhan, but even you couldn’t get into that zone without a Jin token—and as for it being dangerous, that’s bullsh*t unless the wards are compromised. The only reason I can think of is that there’s something in there they really don’t want you to see.”

“There is nothing of interest to be seen from outside,” said Lan Zhan.

“So what you’re saying is,” Wei Ying prompted, with a hint of laughter in his voice, “you need a look inside.”

“I do,” Lan Zhan allowed. “But what reason could I give Jin Guangyao?”

There was none. He had no authority, no status to fall back on. Lan Zhan thought back to Jin Guangyao’s dimpled smile and his adroit handling of their one brief video call interaction. That was a man who could talk himself out of any situation he didn’t want to be in.

“If you could get in without the Jin sect knowing,” said Wei Ying, “would you?”

Lan Zhan considered it briefly. He had no right to be poking his nose in. And yet… “Mm,” he said. “I would.”

There was a thoughtful pause on the other end of the line. Then Wei Ying said, “I’ll call you back.”

While he waited, Lan Zhan found the single cafe in the village and got himself a simple meal and a pot of tea. He watched the people going by. Old people, mostly, his brother had said, but there were plenty of younger faces. Perhaps, after the tragedy, the younger generation had come home from the big cities to help rebuild.

Just as he finished his meal, his phone rang again. Wei Ying greeted him with a laughing hint of mischief in his voice. “Lan Zhan! Okay, so my boy Wen Ning might just be able to help us out.”

“Mm?”

“He can be sneaky when he wants to be. Meet him after dark at the sunflowers and he’ll have something for you. You don’t ask him where he got it, and you don’t mention it to anyone, particularly Wen Qing, because she’d give me the lecture to end all lectures for leading her little brother astray. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Great. You get in, have a quick poke around, and slip out again, with nobody the wiser. You only want a vibe of the place, right? You shouldn’t need to go ten paces beyond the gate.”

“Most likely,” said Lan Zhan.

“Then it’s fine. It’s fine, right, Lan Zhan? I’m not leading you astray?”

“You are not,” said Lan Zhan. According to the Lan sect elders, he’d gone astray long ago. This couldn’t make it any worse.

“I’ll tell Wen Ning we’re a go,” said Wei Ying. “Be careful in there, Lan Zhan. Promise me.”

***

Wen Ning was already waiting, barely visible in the darkness, hunched in the shelter of the sunflowers. He unfolded as Lan Zhan approached, as hulking and awkward as his sister was tiny and poised, and held out a cloth-wrapped object.

“Thank you,” murmured Lan Zhan, stowing it in his sleeve.

“Oh, no, thank you,” said Wen Ning in a quiet, shy voice. “Wei-ge says you’ve been k-kind to A-Yuan. I’m so glad. He always loved music.”

“My pleasure,” said Lan Zhan, caught off guard.

The young man gave a hint of a smile and a bow, then melted into the night as though he’d never existed.

By moonlight, Lan Zhan took the now-familiar path through the blackened fields towards the night zone. Once on the road, he walked in the shadow of the barrier until he found the gate, and unwrapped the object he’d been given. It was cool metal in the shape of a peony, a silk tassel dangling in place of the stem. He hesitated. It wasn’t the type of full-access token he had for the Lan-managed night zones. It probably belonged to an underling with little status in the sect. It would open the gate. Whether it could do so undetected was another question, but even if someone was alerted to his presence, he would be long gone before he could be caught.

He held up the token. With a warm golden glow, the gate slid softly open.

The resentment hit him in the face instantly, thick and stinking with that familiar flavour. Lan Zhan stepped back, horrified. The level was high and still climbing, far too fast. At this rate it would be within the danger zone in minutes. He grabbed frantically for his jade token, his first instinct to send an emergency summons to his brother, to say that the Burial Mounds night zone was about to go critical. Then all at once, the resentment level sank. Like a wave retreating, it dropped almost to nothing.

As he stood there in confusion, the levels began to climb once more, swelling from low, to normal, to worrying. Then they dropped back. Again, the levels rose, then sank.

So much for ten paces in, Lan Zhan thought grimly. He needed to know where all this resentment was coming from. He needed to find a spot where one of the inflow channels entered the zone, check the spellwork, and figure out what was going on.

He stepped inside, closing the gate behind him. It was a desolate place, blackened rocks and the scrubby remains of trees, and further in, where the mounds began to climb, the evidence of earthworks. People had been digging here. He supposed the activity would match the plans in Wen Qing’s files, the geological surveys that had located the largest areas of ancient mass graves. It was ugly work. No wonder this was where the dregs of the sect ended up. The smooth, dug-over earth was evidence of the horror that had gone before, and the half-dug patches… Lan Zhan blinked, and with a sickening perception shift, a cluster of pale fungi growing in a hollow became fingers, bizarrely undecayed, halfway uncurled from a dirt-covered palm.

He stayed alert as he picked his way along the perimeter of the night zone. A blast of cold wind and a shriek heralded the arrival of a spirit, but he barely got a look at it before it swirled away again, retreating from his drawn sword. Further off, he could feel some of the zone’s larger and more dangerous inhabitants. The talismans he’d brought with him meant they were paying him no mind, as yet.

Some fifty meters along, he came across the first inflow channel, a circle array engraved low down on the wall, each line and character inlaid with jade fragments. He hovered his hand over it, getting a read, and then sat back on his heels in frustration. There was nothing unusual; just a small trickle of resentment entering the zone. Nothing that could explain the vast swells and sudden drops that were constantly washing over him.

He got to his feet again and looked further into the dark. He ought to turn back. He was alone at night in an unfamiliar night zone where the resentment wasn’t behaving as it should. He had promised Wei Ying he would stay safe. He had promised himself he would be gone long before the Jin sect could become aware of his presence. And yet, if he left now, he would have achieved nothing. He would have no answers, no proof that Wen Qing could use to demand an investigation, no argument to put before his brother. Something was wrong here, potentially dangerous, and he wasn’t willing to leave it alone.

He checked the time. He still had plenty of leeway to get out and get far enough from the zone for a phone call to go through before he was scheduled to check in with Wei Ying.

Thirty paces further on he came to an abrupt halt. He could feel a flow of energy under his feet. It faded, then restarted, in perfect time with the changing levels of resentment in the air. Deep beneath the earth, a slow, regular surge, like the heartbeat of some huge creature. He turned one way, then the other, feeling for the track that the energy made. As far as he could tell, it ran perfectly perpendicular to the wall, out into the wider world in one direction, and in the other towards the dead centre of the zone.

Throwing caution to the winds, he followed it inwards, clambering over rocks, cutting straight through the patches of skeleton trees, ignoring the paths. It took him directly up the central mound, to an area of boulders and natural caves. Rounding one of these boulders, he came to a flat space and halted, astonished. Twenty feet ahead, the blackened earth was marked with a thick line of cultivator paint, forming the edge of a huge array. It was inactive now, but centred on… something. Something dark and indistinct, a lump in the middle of the clearing. He couldn’t tell what it was, couldn’t make any sense of the shape. A bulge, a hulking curve, blurred tendrils. Whatever it was, it merged into the earth, as though the larger part of it was underground.

Nobody had seen the thing that had risen in the Burial Mounds a year ago. It had been burned to ash from the outside, along with everything else, the strongest cultivators of all the sects funnelling untold power to flood the barely-held perimeter. Was this it? Had it reestablished itself, despite the plans to dig out the corpses that made up the mounds?

Thinking back to those earthworks by the gate, he had a sudden realisation. Further into the zone, there had been none. No digging. No purification.

Cautiously, glancing around for danger, he moved closer to the dark thing. At the edge of the paint line, he hesitated. The characters spaced along it told him it was a containment array, but there was nothing to suggest it would activate when he crossed it. He stepped forwards, relaxing fractionally when the array remained inert. Not much further on he came to the edge of another, smaller array, harder to make out in the dark. The lines of it weren’t the same golden paint of the outer circle. He created a tiny light talisman in his cupped hands and held it out. In the stronger light, the lines showed up as engraved into the rock and inlaid with stone fragments, rare red jade, dark as blood. This array was active, pulsing slowly. Lan Zhan paced the edges of it, analysing it the way any of the students at Caiyi University would analyse an array. At first glance, it was the same familiar inflow array that every night zone had dozens of. Except. Three key characters had been reversed.

Lan Zhan stopped stock still as the realisation hit. The changes reversed the entire array. Energy was flowing in the wrong direction. Resentment wasn’t being delivered into the Burial Mounds, it was flowing out, like pus draining from a wound. This horror show of a night zone was generating resentful energy, enough to flood the zone beyond its capacity, and the only thing keeping it from reaching critical concentrations was the release valve formed by a backwards-plumbed collection array.

This had to be why the strange flavour of resentment was cropping up from Yiling to Gusu. The energy was being spread across the country, trickling into every other night zone, being desperately battled back by sects who had no idea it was all coming from here.

Suddenly, there was a crackle of power. The containment array Lan Zhan had just crossed pulsed with light for a moment, the lines glowing gold as it activated. Lan Zhan whirled around. Trapped. But why? And then he saw them; a cluster of cultivators, their cream and gold robes washed to pale grey in the dark.

“It’s him,” said a familiar lanky, moustached cultivator. “The one who was snooping around out on the road.”

“Well, well,” said another man whose face was shadowed under an old-fashioned hat. “A tenacious guest.” He stepped close to the edge of the array, head tilting as he peered at Lan Zhan. Then he froze, and abruptly waved the others back out of earshot.

“Lan Wangji,” he said.

Lan Zhan felt his stomach sink. Any possibility that his brother’s lover might be unaware of what was happening here disappeared.

Jin Guangyao’s eyes held no hint of sweetness now. He was a small man, in person. He would look tiny standing beside Xichen, Lan Zhan thought, which was a strange thing to fixate on in this moment.

“Why are you here?” Jin Guangyao demanded. “Damn you, why did you have to make my life so difficult? All you had to do was keep your nose out of what doesn’t concern you.”

“This concerns everyone,” said Lan Zhan. “You’re concealing a critical buildup of resentment.”

“It’s under control.”

Lan Zhan let silence communicate his incredulity.

“The reclamation project is progressing just as it should,” snapped Jin Guangyao.

“I spent today reading the proposed schedule. It is not.”

Anger flashed over Jin Guangyao’s face. “The plans for this place were always a fiction. Did anyone honestly think the Jin sect would waste that kind of money on Yiling? I was sent here to get the job done within a reasonable budget, on a reasonable timescale. If the other sects had cared about Yiling, they would have contributed the funding themselves and this—” he gestured to the half-submerged monstrosity, “—would never have resurfaced. But since they didn’t, they’re just going to have to share the work of subduing the excess resentment their miserliness has caused.”

“The Jin sect is responsible for this. Their neglect caused the disaster. They should pay to set it right.”

“Oh, get real, Lan Wangji,” said Jin Guangyao disgustedly. “That’s not how the world works.” He snorted. “I’m wasting my breath, I don’t owe you any explanation.” Abruptly, he turned away, raising his voice to call to the clustered Jin cultivators. “One of you, bring me a lure flag.”

Lan Zhan tensed. A chill that had nothing to do with the night air ran over his skin.

“This is your own fault,” said Jin Guangyao. “You see that, don’t you? I haven’t got a choice. I can’t let you leave, you’ll go straight to Xichen-ge. Did he send you? No.” He shook his head. “No, he wouldn’t. He doesn’t know you’re here, does he? He doesn’t know you stole an entry token and came in here in the middle of the night, playing the secret agent. The black sheep sect heir, a loose canon yet again. Nothing but trouble.” He gave a high, sharp laugh. “I couldn’t have planned it better if I’d tried. You came into a night zone alone. This is a dangerous place. Nobody could blame me for what’s going to happen to you.”

A woman approached, the long black pennant of a lure flag clutched in her hands. Jin Guangyao nodded. “String it up,” he said, indicating the charred branches of a nearby tree. “Don’t activate it yet. We’ll do it from a distance.”

From the moment the containment circle had activated, Lan Zhan had suspected that his life was on the line. A shock of rage shot through him to have it confirmed. The ghosts and yao of the zone were a simmering threat in the distance. As soon as the lure flag was activated they would start moving closer. Trapped here at the mercy of the zone, he would be dead long before help could arrive.

“My brother will investigate,” Lan Zhan warned. If he died here, Xichen would have to demand a look inside the Burial Mounds.

Jin Guangyao’s answer was a slight, dimpled smile. Manipulative, Lan Zhan thought. He imagined those pretty, calculating eyes full of tears and regret, and Xichen devastated, not thinking clearly. Jin Guangyao’s quiet confidence made him feel sick.

He’d been unconscionably stupid to put himself in this position. Wei Ying was going to be upset with him.

Wei Ying. Wei Ying, who never did anything the usual way. Lan Zhan clung to that, as he searched desperately for a way out. He was trapped, caught behind the barrier and unable to extend his spiritual energy beyond it. He couldn’t do anything but protect himself as best he could from whatever came.

He watched in silent fury as the lure flag was hoisted into the tree. The breeze caught it at once. Lan Zhan almost flinched at a flash of movement against his spiritual senses, and hid it just in time. The fluttering tip of the flag was crossing back and forth over the edge of the containment circle. It was within his reach. It was, perhaps, an opportunity.

He could wait until the cultivators left and destroy the flag, far reducing the danger he would face but still leaving himself trapped and a prey to whatever might wander his way. Or…

A wave of nausea washed over him at the thought, and beneath it, a flicker of amusem*nt. Let’s see how you like it.

He breathed in, gathering his spiritual power. When he had hold of it, winding a steady stream of energy around and through his core, he reached out and flung every drop he could muster directly into the lure flag. The painted characters on the black cloth blazed with light. The fabric smoked, then lost its physical form entirely, overwhelmed by the throughput of energy. Nearby, something shrieked, and the sound was echoed again and again, further off, as every creature of resentment in the zone answered the call.

Jin Guangyao looked wildly from the burning flag to Lan Zhan. “You’re insane,” he yelled.

Lan Zhan held his gaze. With the level of power running through the flag, it would be only seconds before the first spirits arrived. None of these people had the skills to handle what was coming. It might be that he’d just killed them all, including himself.

There was a frozen moment of tension. Then Jin Guangyao screamed, “Damn you, help us!” and the containment circle deactivated with a whoosh, barely audible over the growing chaos.

The second Lan Zhan’s feet were outside the circle, he snatched back his energy from the lure. Far too late—there was no way to turn back the monsters that were already on their way. He had his sword drawn, shouting for the baffled, terrified cultivators to get close as he cast the strongest defensive ward he could.

The cultivators began to converge on him just as the first swooping shapes of yao descended. A semi-disintegrated fierce corpse shambled out of the trees at the same time. Only half of the cultivators had the wherewithal to draw their swords. One woman sent out a flame talisman at the fierce corpse, making it stagger backwards with the smell of burned meat. Lan Zhan mentally pegged her as the most competent of the bunch, and grabbed her as soon as she was in range, barking orders to her and Jin Guangyao, trying to make them understand what he needed of them.

He was going to follow the rule that his brother had drummed into his head over and over. When in trouble, get clear and get out of the zone. There were Lan manoeuvres designed specifically for providing just enough protection to run. If only these useless Jins were Lans, they would already know what to do. Jin Guangyao’s expression made it clear he’d gladly slit Lan Zhan’s throat if it weren’t for self-interest, but he was quick to follow instructions. Lan Zhan glanced over his shoulder, getting the lay of the land, trying to calculate a pathway that would lead as directly as possible to the gate.

Then someone screamed.

Something huge had emerged from the trees. It was a deer, or had once been a deer, its neck now horribly elongated and doubled back on itself in an s-curve. It loomed out of the dark, cutting off the path of the last cultivator trying to dodge through the mayhem to the safety of Lan Zhan’s ward. It was the moustached leader, all bravado dissolved, naked terror on his face as he scrambled back to the sparse shelter of a tree and huddled there, sword drawn but seemingly frozen in place.

Lan Zhan bit back a curse. “I need two of you who can make a solid shield spell to go and get him,” he said to the cluster of panicked faces.

“Leave him,” hissed Jin Guangyao. “There’s no time.”

Lan Zhan cast him a disgusted look. “We will not leave him.”

“A fine moral high ground to take when you’re the one who did this,” snarled Jin Guangyao. “Come back for him if you like, but first—” Then his eyes flicked back towards the cultivator. Even in the moonlight, Lan Zhan could see his face pale. “No, you idiot, stop!” he yelled.

Lan Zhan whipped his head around in time to see the trapped cultivator throw his sword at the yao.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. With an agility more cat-like than anything, the creature darted out of the path of the throw and snapped its snaking neck around to sink its fangs into the man’s torso. The sword spun through the air, and then plummeted with horrifying inevitability to bury its spiritual blade into a key character of the backwards inflow array.

It was an implosion, an epic shock wave. Lan Zhan felt a vast surge under the earth as the array disintegrated, the conduits pumping resentment out collapsed, and the evil that had been travelling along them was sucked back, all at once, into the night zone and the dark, hulking thing at its heart.

The thing moved. Jointless limbs quaked and flailed, ripping themselves free from the earth. It raised its head and roared.

Without a word, Jin Guangyao turned and fled, legs pumping, naked sword clutched in his hand and lashing out wildly at whatever spirits came his way. The other Jin cultivators were hot on his heels. Lan Zhan saw one woman borne to the ground by a shrieking ghost, saw the awful twist as her neck snapped. She went limp and then, sickeningly, jerked back into a semblance of life as the vile resentment flooding the zone took hold of her.

Lan Zhan looked frantically around. He had to reactivate the containment ward. He had to put as many barriers as possible between that thing and the outside world. He channelled energy into the array, but one black limb had already snaked across the perimeter. The ward wouldn’t rise. He dove for the limb, hacking at it with Bichen until it recoiled. Others snaked out. He slashed another in two and heaved at the ward with all the spiritual power he possessed. Still, it wouldn’t rise. The limbs were coming faster than he could hope to beat them back.

He couldn’t do this. There was no way.

Lan Zhan ran.

The horrible weight of resentment pressed him down with every step. He fought his way through an endless sea of ghosts and yao, barely registering them, too fixated with the movement of the thing behind him and the swell of energy that was no longer being siphoned off, just building and building. Twice in his scrambling progress back down the rocky side of the mound, he passed crumpled figures on the ground, robes pallid and colourless in the moonlight. They were stirring, but he knew they were no longer alive. He’d killed them all. They were dead, and the thing at the centre of the mounds was loose, and he didn’t have time to process it at all because he was too busy wading through the rising resentment, using every ounce of his strength to keep it from claiming him too.

Corpses were clawing their way out of the ground all around him by the time he saw the outer wall looming out of the darkness. Miraculously, he wasn’t too far from the gate. Get clear and get out of the zone, that was the priority. Once he was out, he could regroup, call for help, and hope it came while the wards still held.

Something hit him from one side. He sprawled, hacking at his stinking, skeletal assailant as he landed, then ripping his sword free. Sobbing for breath, he dragged himself upright on a tree trunk, blackening his hands with charred wood, and then ducked back to avoid having his head taken off when one of the branches lashed out with violent intent. The dead trees all around him were beginning to move. Frantically, he dashed for one of the dug-over patches where the Jin had cleared out the worst of the corpses from under the ground. It was a brief reprieve, a slight lowering of the ambient resentment, just enough for him to catch his breath. Then he gathered the dying light of his core and made one last run for the gate. He slammed against it, fumbling for the peony token, and tumbled through, slamming it behind him and sealing it with a ward he hadn’t known he had the strength for. He sank to his knees, shaking, horrified, trying to collect himself enough to think.

Call for help. No hope of getting cell reception this close to a night zone, so he ignored his phone and instead pulled his jade token out of his qiankun pouch. He focused, crafting little flecks of wind-blown clouds out of his own breath and sending them on their way, to Xichen, to the great sects, to whatever nearby small ones he could call to mind. To Wei Ying. The messages were panting and garbled, but the token would stamp them with the full authority of the Lan sect. He could only hope that it would be enough.

When he was done, he dragged himself back to his feet and staggered towards the village. His lungs burned. He was swaying on his feet, stumbling with every step. The darkness around him blurred, the stars swung crazily overhead. Completely spent, he tripped and collapsed into a patch of bushes by the roadside.

Chapter 12

Chapter Text

When he woke, he was on his back on the cold ground, staring up at a blue-grey sky in the hour before dawn. He could feel his core thrumming with energy again, regenerating fast now he was outside the night zone wards. He rolled over, looking back at the shadowy walls. Still intact, for now. As his senses cleared, he could feel the resentment building up behind them, straining for release. But the wards were different, stronger than they had been, layered with extra protection. Lan Zhan breathed out a sigh as he realised what it meant. Someone had reinforced them. Was, in fact, in the process of reinforcing them further. He could feel a large spiritual working in progress off to his left, along the road.

He dragged himself to his feet, drawing warmth from his replenished core to feed into his chilled limbs. The events of the night seemed strangely distant. Experimentally, he cast his mind back to the moment he’d set the lure flag ablaze, sealing the fate of the hapless Jin cultivators, setting this disaster in motion. He felt… nothing very much. Numb.

He walked towards the spiritual working. After a few minutes, a group of purple-robed figures came into view, standing in formation, channelling energy at the Burial Mounds walls as they struggled to raise another layer of wards. Heads jerked around as Lan Zhan approached. The leader was Wei Ying’s not-quite-brother, the Jiang sect heir, Jiang Wanyin.

“Stay back,” Jiang Wanyin snapped at him, jaw tense with effort. “Go home, it’s dangerous to be out here.”

“I’m a cultivator,” said Lan Zhan. He raised his hand, offering a generous stream of spiritual energy.

Jiang Wanyin’s eyebrows went up. He snatched at the energy, pushing it into the working alongside the rest, and gave a little head jerk to order Lan Zhan into position among the purple figures. After another minute of fierce effort, the ward settled into place. “Hold,” ordered Jiang Wanyin, keeping the stream of energy steady. He was feeding in an extra buffer, redundancy in case of issues down the line. Good cultivation practice, Lan Zhan noted with approval. “Hold… and, in three… two… one… release.”

There was a collective gasp as the cultivators relaxed, and then a few small, weary cheers and fist-bumps.

Jiang Wanyin turned to Lan Zhan. “Thanks,” he said gruffly. “Who the hell are you?” He looked Lan Zhan up and down and his eyes narrowed. “I know you, don’t I? Are you that guy who was with Wei Wuxian? Lan, uh—”

“Lan Wangji,” Lan Zhan cut in.

Jiang Wanyin blinked. “You’re Lan Wangji? Zewu-Jun’s brother?”

Lan Zhan nodded. He was surprised Jiang Wanyin recognised the name, though when he thought about it he probably shouldn’t be. He was, nominally, still the Lan sect heir. His counterpart in the Jiang sect should know his name.

“Then it was you that raised the alarm.”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan. Raised the alarm. Caused the disaster. One or the other.

“You look like hell. Do you know what’s happening in there? We’re bolstering the wards for now, but we’ve got no f*cking clue what we’re dealing with.”

“Is my brother here?”

Jiang Wanyin shrugged. “He hadn’t arrived when we left the village but he should be there by now.”

“I’ll make my report to him.”

Jiang Wanyin scowled. “I’ll take you to my father,” he said.

Lan Zhan nodded acceptance, taking the diplomatic way out. The two sect leaders would most likely be in the same place. He could allow Jiang Wanyin to act as though the Jiang sect was in charge.

***

Even at the crack of dawn, it seemed that most of the village’s inhabitants were awake and outside, clustered together in muttering, uneasy groups. There were cultivators everywhere too, some scurrying back and forth on errands, others standing around expectantly waiting for whatever was needed of them. The majority were in Jiang purple, but there were also yellow robes here and there. As Jiang Wanyin’s squad made its way into the main square, a small flock of grey-clad Nie disciples descended from the sky and were met by another group in Lan white.

Jiang Wanyin led the way to a low building with a noticeboard out front and nodded briskly to the disciple at the door. Inside, a community centre hall had been hastily converted to an operational headquarters. From tatty stackable chairs or perches on the edges of tables, a couple of dozen high-ranking cultivators were watching the argument raging in the middle of the room. Wen Qing was toe-to-toe with a woman in magnificent teal and purple whose scowl was a mirror to the one Jiang Wanyin wore. Yu Ziyuan, Lan Zhan guessed, the Violet Spider, married to Sect Leader Jiang.

“My people are in danger again,” said Wen Qing fiercely, “for no good reason I can see, and all you can suggest is to take the scorched earth approach that clearly didn’t work last time and will set back all the work we’ve done to rebuild.”

“Don’t dare direct your anger at the Jiang sect,” sneered Yu Ziyuan. “We’re here to clean up a mess not of our making. You should be on your knees thanking everyone here.”

“Now is not the time for apportioning blame,” said Xichen, trying to insinuate himself between them. “Wen Qing, I appreciate your concerns.”

“I do not,” snapped Yu Ziyuan. “She should be removed from the—”

“Father,” said Jiang Wanyin, walking straight into the middle of the mess and addressing a man on the sidelines, “this is the Lan who raised the alarm.”

Heads turned. Xichen’s face went from its tense, diplomatic smile to naked relief. “Wangji,” he said. He was across the hall in a moment, holding Lan Zhan at arm’s length, looking him up and down, touching his face, his chest. “Thank god. Are you alright? Are you hurt at all?”

“I’m well,” said Lan Zhan. “I’m sorry for worrying you.”

Lan Qiren appeared on his other side, huffing out a breath that sounded angry, though he also reached out to touch Lan Zhan’s shoulder as though assuring himself it was solid. “Wangji. Report,” he ordered.

Lan Zhan glanced swiftly around the room. “Xiongzhang, may I speak with you privately?” he said. The air was humming with curiosity, and people were converging from all sides.

Sect Leader Nie loomed over Xichen’s shoulder, as huge and imposing as he’d seemed when Lan Zhan had been an eight-year-old trailing Xichen and Nie Mingjue around the Unclean Realm. “Lan Wangji,” he said, “we’re all glad to see you safe. What can you tell us about what’s happening here?”

Lan Zhan met Xichen’s eyes, pleading.

“I will speak to my brother in private,” said Xichen. He ushered Lan Zhan towards a door at the back of the room, politely implacable in the face of everyone demanding to know what was happening. Their uncle followed, frowning. Lan Zhan felt a swoop of dread at what was coming, before numbness settled mercifully back into place.

“Alright,” said Xichen, sketching a quick talisman as he shut them in with the teacups and stained countertops of a tiny kitchen area, “we won’t be overheard. What is it you need to tell me?”

“Xiongzhang. Shufu. I broke into the Burial Mounds last night.” They both stared at him, Xichen in astonishment and Lan Qiren in mounting fury as Lan Zhan hurried on. “I discovered that the Jin sect was not properly maintaining the night zone. The spirit of the mounds had arisen there again. They were preventing it coming to full strength by draining the resentment it generated and spreading it across the country. My actions caused that process to stop. The resentment is building within the mounds, and the entity there is gaining power.”

He came to a halt. It didn’t seem like it could possibly have been him, trapped in an array, ransoming his own life by bringing every ghost in the zone swarming towards the Jin cultivators.

“What actions, Wangji?” burst out Lan Qiren. “What on earth have you done? How did you come to be here?”

“Tell us what happened,” said Xichen, glancing tensely back towards the door to the main room. “Quickly.”

Lan Zhan marshalled his thoughts, trying to set this out as he would a night-hunting report: background, goals, encounters, conclusions. He kept his eyes focused on the wall between his brother and uncle as he talked. He didn’t let himself look at their faces or gauge their reactions. There would have been too much temptation to make excuses, to justify himself, when he had to say the words, ‘I used a stolen Jin entry token,’ and, ‘I activated the lure flag at full strength,’ and, ‘The monster had already breached the containment circle.’ He would make his report and they would make their own judgements. He kept it as brief as he could. Then he bowed his head and waited.

“Of all the stupid, irresponsible, arrogant—” said Lan Qiren, bitten off, with a frustrated huff. “This is unbelievable. That the Jin sect would do such a thing, and that you, Wangji, would—”

“A-Yao wouldn’t,” interrupted Xichen. The anguish in his voice made Lan Zhan look up, into his brother’s stark white face. Xichen shook his head in a tiny, convulsive jerk. “No. Wangji, there must be some mistake. You misunderstood.”

“There can be no mistake.”

“That much is clear,” snapped Lan Qiren. “You are deeply misguided, Wangji, but I’ve never questioned your integrity or your understanding. I don’t doubt your report. This is a diplomatic nightmare, and if it’s true the scandal could destroy the credibility of sect-based cultivation, but all that is secondary to containing the disaster. Xichen, pull yourself together. We have too much to do.”

“Is he dead?” said Xichen in a small, cracked voice.

Lan Zhan swallowed, reaching out to grasp Xichen’s wrist. “I couldn’t identify the bodies I saw. I’m sorry.” The wrist was trembling under his hand. This was his doing, the position Xichen was in, both politically and emotionally. “I apologise for the many mistakes I made,” he said, bowing his head again. “I will take responsibility for my actions.”

“You will not,” snapped Lan Qiren.

Lan Zhan looked up abruptly.

“Be careful with your words, Wangji. You are a disciple of the Lan sect, and it is for the sect to decide responsibility, not you.”

I’m not, Lan Zhan wanted to say, but he faltered in the face of his uncle’s implacable certainty.

“Xichen,” said Lan Qiren, “your brother will not take responsibility for this.”

“No,” said Xichen shakily. He drew in a breath, pulling his hand back from Lan Zhan’s and wiping at his eyes with his trailing sleeve. “No, of course. Wangji, you can’t let anyone know that you acted without the sect’s support. I don’t think we’ve said anything that contradicts it. You’ll make this same report to the others out there, standing at my side, wearing your ribbon on your forehead. Otherwise you’ll have no credibility whatsoever.”

Lan Zhan shook his head. “The deaths of the Jin cultivators are on my conscience. They should not tarnish the reputation of the sect.”

Lan Qiren huffed impatiently. “I’m not disputing what’s on your conscience,” he said. “As for tarnishing our reputation, that will be irrelevant providing we can prove your story. With the level of wrongdoing involved and the attempt on your life, I consider you to have been acting in self-defence. You are thoroughly to blame for infiltrating the night zone without Xichen’s or my knowledge, but you are not to blame for what came after.”

“The only proof is the array in the night zone,” said Lan Zhan.

“We’re going to burn it all,” said Xichen. He pressed his hand to his mouth. “Oh god. What if he’s still alive in there?”

“Nobody could be alive in there,” said Lan Qiren. “The issue is that burning the mounds now will destroy all evidence of wrongdoing, and the Jin sect will blame Wangji for what happened here tonight.”

“Wangji, why did you do it? What brought you here like this, why wouldn’t you tell me?”

Lan Zhan swallowed. He couldn’t lie, and yet he couldn’t tell the truth. “You noticed the familiar flavour in the resentment,” he hedged. “I came to investigate. I suspected wrongdoing, so I went into the mounds without the Jin sect’s knowledge.”

“But why—” Xichen began.

“It will satisfy the other sects. Please don’t ask more now.”

Xichen might have let him get away with it. Their uncle certainly wouldn’t have. Perhaps it was lucky, then, that they were interrupted by a commotion from outside. Raised voices were audible through the closed door, several of them. Most Lan Zhan couldn’t identify, but one, even muffled as it was, had him reaching instinctively for the door handle, pulling it open.

“I’m not here to make trouble,” Wei Ying was saying, a note of desperation in his voice, “I just need to—”

“You’re a disgrace,” snapped Yu Ziyuan. “You shamed us here once, I will not let you do so again. For you to show up here now—I should have guessed you were at the bottom of all of this.”

Both Jiang Wanyin and Wen Qing raised their voices in protest. Wei Ying hunched his shoulders as though protecting himself from a blow. “Please,” he said, “please, can someone tell me if Lan Zhan is here?”

“Wei Ying,” said Lan Zhan.

Wei Ying’s head snapped around.

For a moment, Lan Zhan couldn’t hear the bustle around him. The world fell away. There was only Wei Ying, scruffy and windblown, looking back at him, a shaky smile spreading across his face, oblivious to the accusations from Yu Ziyuan, the mutterings from the Jiang cultivators, the suspicious looks from the Nie and the Lan. Lan Zhan started forwards, but was brought up short by Xichen’s hand on his shoulder.

“Wangji?”

“He’s my friend.”

Xichen’s hand tightened, then released. “Alright,” he murmured. Then, in a clear, carrying voice that cut through the babble, he said, “Wei Wuxian is here on behalf of the Lan sect. Please allow him to enter.”

Lan Zhan looked sharply over his shoulder. Xichen gave him a tiny, wan smile, stepping around him to take control of the room. “Wei Wuxian,” he said again. “Welcome.”

Wei Ying covered his surprise with a bow. “Lan-zongzhu,” he said, and then straightened up almost too fast to be properly respectful and forged his way through to them, stepping around Yu Ziyuan who showed no sign of moving aside for him. As Xichen and Lan Qiren went back to take up their places in the midst of things, Wei Ying fell into step beside Lan Zhan, latching onto his arm with a grip like a vice. “Thank f*ck,” he whispered. “Aiyah, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, don’t scare me like that.”

“I will try not to again,” said Lan Zhan, trying to focus on anything other than the warmth of Wei Ying against him.

“What happened? I got your message, and then nothing. I thought I’d got you killed.”

“I’m about to give my report.” He unwound his ribbon from his wrist as he spoke, smoothing out the creases where the knot had been. “Where’s A-Yuan?”

“I left him with Mianmian,” said Wei Ying. “I’d have been here sooner, but it was the middle of the night and she wasn’t exactly ready to have him dumped on her.”

“Wei Wuxian,” hissed another voice. Jiang Wanyin, on the side of the Jiang contingent closest to them, snagged Wei Ying’s arm as he went past. “Why am I not surprised you’re tangled up in this? If this has something to do with…” he lowered his voice even further, “…that kid of yours—”

“It doesn’t,” said Wei Ying, letting go of Lan Zhan. “It’s nothing to do with him, I swear.”

“If you sparked off a major disaster because you wouldn’t bring your kid in for some tests—”

“You tested him yourself, you know he’s fine. Don’t bring him into this now, not while everyone’s panicking. He won’t have a chance.”

Jiang Wanyin scowled, but he let Wei Ying go and stepped back.

Lan Zhan hastily tied his ribbon into place. “Is it straight?” he asked Wei Ying. He most likely looked like he’d just crawled out of a ditch, but he wasn’t about to stand up in front of the whole cultivation world with a crooked ribbon.

Wei Ying hummed, wrinkling up his nose. “Not quite,” he said, and reached up to tweak it into position.

Lan Zhan froze, but he didn’t pull away. He let Wei Ying’s gentle fingers adjust the angle of the ribbon and smooth it into place.

“There. Now you look perfect.”

“Mm. Thank you.” Trying to calm his suddenly thumping heart, Lan Zhan turned his attention back to the discussion, where Xichen was attempting to field questions about Wei Ying that he had no way to answer, just in time to catch Lan Qiren’s interjection.

“All of this will be explained,” said Lan Qiren. His eyes flicked to Lan Zhan, promising the lecture to end all lectures once he had the facts and the time. “First, you will listen to my nephew.”

The authority in his voice quieted the babble into a hum of muttering voices. Everyone looked at Xichen again. The hum intensified, tinged with confusion, when Lan Zhan stepped forward instead.

“I am Lan Wangji, brother to Zewu-jun and heir to the Lan sect,” he said crisply. “I was in the Burial Mounds some few hours ago and I have information you need to hear.”

Some of the faces staring at him he remembered from his childhood, from bowing to sect leaders and head disciples on official visits and at competitions. Most were unfamiliar. If he had ever known them, they had slipped from his mind after a decade in the everyday world. Nobody here had reason to respect him, but surprise kept them silent long enough for him to sketch out the bare bones of the story. Then they began to pelt him with questions. Many were sceptical, but as he answered them all he began to see faces turning grim, and the mutterings took on an angry edge that wasn’t directed at him.

“It explains why nobody of any rank in the Jin sect can be found,” said Nie Mingjue. “The ones that didn’t die will have gone to ground as soon as they realised that the mounds had gone critical.” The door opened as he was saying it. He glanced towards it and continued, pointedly, “Goddamned snakes.”

The yellow-robed delegation from Lanling paused in the doorway. All heads turned to stare at them, with expressions varying from Wen Qing’s near-rabid fury to Jiang Fengmian’s placatory politeness.

“Jin Guangshan,” said Sect Leader Nie, in a voice as bitter as his son’s, “we have much to speak about.”

Lan Zhan wished he could have tuned out the next twenty minutes. As his uncle had said, it was a diplomatic nightmare. Unfortunately, he had to pay attention, to provide corroboration for the story that was now being retold with angry accusation by Sect Leader Nie and with calm dignity by Xichen. He had to grit his teeth through the bluster from Jin Guangshan. We will not listen to these lies… Lan Xichen, is this how your so-called heir behaves?… Criminality and disrespect from the Lan sect… distracting from the lifesaving work we came here to do… It was nauseating. Through all the recriminations, Xichen spoke diplomatically but didn’t give up ground. If Lan Zhan hadn’t known his brother was on the verge of dissolving in tears, even he might have been convinced by the serene expression on his face.

Wei Ying stood at Lan Zhan’s side, close enough that their hands brushed. Lan Zhan focused on the vibrating energy of him, the derisive snorts he made at a particularly moronic outburst, the occasional smiles he shot Lan Zhan’s way. The one quiet murmur, almost hidden under the sounds of the argument: “f*ck, Lan Zhan, I’m so glad you’re okay.”

It was impossible to keep track of all the factions. There were too many issues being argued over: the truth of Lan Zhan’s claims, the immediacy of the danger from the mounds, whether another cleansing burn was the right approach, who would be responsible for the cleanup if it was… and added to that, there were the distractions of representatives from the smaller sects arriving, and Jiang cultivators coming in every two minutes to report on the state of the wards. The place was a zoo.

Finally, when the back and forth had wound down somewhat, Sect Leader Nie thumped his hand on the table. “Then it is agreed,” he said, making it so by pure force of will. “We need to know the truth of this, one way or another. The situation is contained for now. We will prepare the array to burn the mounds, and in the meantime, a team will enter both to set up internal nodes for the array and to investigate Lan Wangji’s claim.”

There were nods and murmurs of agreement from most areas of the room, the Jin sect excepted. Jin Zixun suddenly blurted, “If you find anything, it’s all the fault of Jin Guangyao. None of the rest of us knew anything about it.”

He blanched immediately afterwards, not too stupid to realise how clumsy and incriminating his outburst must seem.

“What my nephew means, of course,” said Jin Guangshan, “is that Jin Guangyao had full autonomy here and there was nothing in his reports to suggest any wrongdoing. I gave that boy a chance to prove himself with this project. He would have to be a snake indeed to betray his sect and the common people in such a way. I could never believe such a thing of him.”

It was only a little less clumsy, though the greasy confidence on his face suggested that any evidence to refute his words would be hard to come by. Lan Zhan couldn’t help noticing that Jin Zixuan was looking increasingly unsettled as he listened. Perhaps not every higher-up in the Jin sect had been complicit in this.

Yu Ziyuan huffed. “That’s what comes of taking in strays,” she said. “You never know when they’ll bite you.”

***

It was a team of eight that mustered in the village square. When Lan Zhan arrived, the representatives from the three other sects were already present; Jiang Wanyin with a slight, dangerous-looking woman at his shoulder, Nie Mingjue and an even larger, more muscular Nie disciple, and Jin Zixuan, accompanied by a woman who reminded Lan Zhan slightly of Mianmian. Lan Zhan glanced around for the last member of the team, and found his breath catching. Wei Ying and Wen Qing were approaching the group, in step and deep in conversation. Wei Ying was dressed in Jiang purple robes that swirled around him as he walked. He looked imposing, slender but strong, his shoulders broadened and his waist nipped in. Lan Zhan’s ears heated, and he berated himself. Now was emphatically not the time.

Wei Ying spotted him stood came up short, staring. Then he waved and bounded over. “Lan Zhan!” he exclaimed. “Look at you! Ah, if it wasn’t for the hair I’d think you were your brother.” His eyes crinkled as he looked Lan Zhan’s own borrowed robes over from top to bottom. “You look good. So commanding.” He reached out toward Lan Zhan’s forehead, as though he was going to touch the few strands of bangs that fell forward over the ribbon, but drew his fingers back a moment before they made contact. Lan Zhan’s ears flamed hotter.

Coming up behind Wei Ying, Wen Qing cleared her throat pointedly. “Would you two stop staring at each other?” she said. “A-Xian, I’m trying to talk to you. I need to know you understand the priorities going in there. You’re not to put yourself in danger for no good reason.”

Wei Ying turned away, mercifully, giving Lan Zhan’s lungs a chance to work again. “You’re the one who wanted internal nodes set up, Qing-jie,” he said. “I’m doing your bidding, saving the village from another dose of resentment.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be you risking your life to get it done,” she snapped.

“A life is a life. If not mine, whose?”

“Jin Guangshan’s, for preference.”

Wei Ying made a face, conceding the point. “It’s not just your farmland,” he said, more serious. “We don’t just want to burn the surface this time. We have to purify deeper into the earth. It’ll be hard on the people fuelling the array.”

He glanced at Lan Zhan as he said it, as though he could read Lan Zhan’s worry. Xichen would be channelling a vast amount of power during the working. He would need all the help they could give them.

She sighed. “Who here has an actual sensible head on their shoulders? Not you, Lan Wangji, you’re as impetuous and irresponsible as he is.” She glanced around, eyes settling on Jiang Wanyin, who had drifted over and was unsubtly listening in. “Can I trust you to pull this idiot out of trouble if things go sideways, and not let him die for the sake of our farmland?”

“I’ll break his legs and drag him out by his hair,” said Jiang Wanyin, settling one of the famous whip bracelets of the Meishan Yu sect into place on his wrist and finger.

Nie Mingjue was next to join the conversation, striding over and instantly becoming the centre of attention with his sheer presence. “Wei Wuxian,” he said, giving Wei Ying a look that seemed to assess him down to his bones and find him wanting. “I’m not happy with this. I won’t deny your skill, but I want people I can rely on. Nobody has forgotten what you did here last time.”

“He’s not as much of a liability as he seems,” said Jiang Wanyin grudgingly, “and he’s good with barriers and protections. We’ll want him if things go south.”

Wei Ying grinned and made a kissy face. Jiang Wanyin smacked at him.

“Two unknown quantities,” said Nie Mingjue, eyes turning from Wei Ying to Lan Zhan. “If Xichen wasn’t vouching for you…”

“He is,” said Lan Zhan flatly.

Nie Mingjue grunted. “Well, you’ll have to do. You all know the plan, so let’s get suited up and then we can move.”

Chapter 13

Chapter Text

The walk to the Burial Mounds was dreamlike, this time, wrapped in a thick layer of talismans that muffled the outside world. Lan Zhan could barely feel the breeze on his face. A hundred unfamiliar magics crackled over his skin, drowning out the threads of Xichen’s and his uncle’s power woven through his robes.

Wei Ying’s nudge to his side was a relief, grounding him back in reality. “So, Wangji, huh?” he said.

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan. Strange to think that Wei Ying had not known his courtesy name until today.

“It suits you. But, ah… Lan Wangji, Lan Wangji, where do I know that name from?”

On Wei Ying’s other side, Jiang Wanyin said, “Qinghe junior showcase, when we were fourteen.”

“What?”

“Do you honestly not remember? He did that fancy sword technique demonstration with Zewu-jun.” He reached over in an attempt to rap his knuckles against Wei Ying’s skull, thwarted when Wei Ying dodged. “Is this ringing any bells, dumbass? You wouldn’t stop talking about him for a month. I had to hear about his perfect form until I wanted to tear my own ears off.”

“A-Cheng, are you serious?”

“Don’t call me that in public. Of course I’m serious. You cornered him after the demonstration and started yapping at him about your oh-so-amazing victory over Jin Zixuan in the archery competition, and he told you to f*ck off.”

From behind them, Jin Zixuan gave an annoyed huff.

Wei Ying rounded on Lan Zhan. “Do you remember this?”

Lan Zhan shook his head, feeling a tiny shiver like someone had stepped on his grave. Had he met a young Wei Ying once, long ago? His throat tightened with unexpected emotion. They could have known one another for years, would have mingled at showcases and competitions throughout their teens, if his life hadn’t been derailed by his father’s death and his mother’s notebooks. “I don’t believe I would have told you to f*ck off,” he said.

Jiang Wanyin rolled his eyes. “I was paraphrasing,” he said. “Excuse me for not remembering your every word verbatim. You said something about him being a sh*tty winner. Which he absolutely was, by the way.”

That did ring a very slight bell. “If others lose to you, do not look down on them,” Lan Zhan guessed.

“Yeah, that. And then you gave him the coldest stare I’ve ever seen and walked away. It would have been hilarious, except it just made him more obsessed with you.”

Lan Zhan exchanged a glance with Wei Ying, cheeks flushing. That did sound a lot like something he would have done.

“Huh,” said Wei Ying, bumping their shoulders lightly together. “I guess I had good taste, even back then. So, should I call you Lan Wangji from now on?”

Lan Zhan shook his head sharply. “Do not.” He couldn’t have said why it mattered. He only knew that it did. With a sinking heart, he asked, “Should I call you Wei Wuxian?”

Wei Ying gave a surprised huff of laughter, as though he hadn’t even considered it. “You know, I missed my sect name like hell when I left, you’d think I’d be glad, but… no, I want you to call me Wei Ying.”

Lan Zhan let the warmth of that laugh carry him the rest of the way along the path.

Before they reached the road, Nie Mingjue signalled a halt, looking cautiously up at the walls of the night zone still some thirty metres away. “Wangji, you’re certain you can handle this?” he said.

Lan Zhan closed his eyes briefly, testing. “Mm,” he said. “I’ll need to keep my distance, but it’s not a problem.”

The others, aside from Wei Ying, were staring at him. Fair, he supposed. He was a stranger, barely a member of the sect cultivation world, claiming that he could do something all of them would struggle with: fly in the level of resentment that was leaching from the zone. He was asking them to trust his ability, and the information he gathered.

Under their sceptical gazes he mounted his sword and rose vertically until he was high above the level of the wall, looking down at an angle into the mounds. The resentment buffeted at him, making it hard to maintain the careful balance of qi he needed to stay on his sword. He breathed deeply, centring himself, steadying the small wobble that had begun to build, and scanned what he could see of the inside. It was… ugly. There was movement where movement shouldn’t be, the charred trees rippling like grass in the wind, the earth heaving. The corpses looked like insects digging themselves out from a long hibernation, black and leggy and buzzing.

Finally, swooping higher, he spotted what he’d been looking for; a huge dark mass, half creature, half pure resentment, hunkered down on the far side of the mounds. He made a mental note of distance and position, and descended in a stomach-lurching drop, slowing to step neatly off his sword beside the group.

“The physical manifestation of the spirit has moved to the northern gate,” he said. “We will have time.”

Nie Mingjue gave him a grudging nod. “Nicely done. Alright, everyone; this is going to be fast, so get your speed talismans ready. We’re heading straight to the centre. The three of us—” he indicated himself, Jiang Wanyin and Jin Zixuan, “only need to look at the array Wangji saw for long enough to form an opinion. Make notes if you must, but if it is what he says it is, I’m going to know right away. Then we split up in pairs along the cardinal directions. North, east, south, west.” He pointed to each pair of cultivators in turn. “Three node arrays to draw on your compass line. Get it done and get back to the gate.”

Jin Zixuan held up his golden peony. The wave of resentment from the opening gate was choking, but there wasn’t time even to exchange glances of apprehension. They had to move. Lan Zhan could feel the concentration of resentment far off where the physical form of the spirit prowled, feel its interest piqued by an invasion it was unable to track. The ground was a blur under his feet as he led the group up the slope at supernatural speed, through the monstrous trees and around the shambling fierce corpses. Mostly, the cultivators’ presence went unnoticed, shrouded as they were in all the protections the sects could offer, but here and there a decaying corpse lurched their way, empty eye sockets lit red, far too slow to catch them. A crowd of corpses were gathering in their wake, and the way back would be harder.

With enhanced speed, it took a bare few minutes to reach the flat space at the top of the mounds. Lan Zhan’s heart sank as he looked around. The creature had rent the earth apart as it emerged. The array of red jadeite was ruined, a whole side destroyed and many other characters unreadable. It would not be a matter of instant recognition.

“Spread out,” snapped Nie Mingjue, casually slashing the head off a fierce corpse shambling their way. “Establish a talisman perimeter and cut down anything that breaches it. Wanyin, Zixuan, you’re with me.”

Lan Zhan glanced over at Wei Ying, saw the familiar fierce, focused eyes, the dangerous smile. They exchanged a nod of acknowledgement before they broke away to take up their positions. Lan Zhan’s world narrowed to efficient, swift violence. He whipped Bichen through corpse after corpse, tossing out talismans to drive off the maddened ghosts and yao of the zone, only tangentially aware of Wei Ying and the three disciples of the other sects spaced out around the broken array.

“Regroup,” came Nie Mingjue’s firm voice. It had been perhaps three minutes. Not long, but longer than they had intended. Lan Zhan darted back to the centre of the space, taking up his place as the eight of them came together in a defensive formation. Nie Mingjue was looking particularly grim, while Jin Zixuan was pale.

“No injuries?” Nie Mingjue asked. “Good. Pair off and take your compass point.”

“Did you—?” began Wei Ying.

“Your Lan friend was right,” said Jiang Wanyin brusquely. “Get moving.”

Lan Zhan had no time to feel relieved. He was already running, sword at the ready, Wei Ying hot on his heels. They headed west, approximating distance and angles as best they could; Xichen and the others would have to make do with a roughly-proportioned array. When they reached their first location Lan Zhan flung out protection talismans while Wei Ying grabbed his can of cultivator paint. The hiss of the paint coincided with the first corpse to find them. Lan Zhan dispatched the thing quickly, eyes alert for the next as Wei Ying worked, head down, focused, trusting.

The fourth corpse to approach wore yellow robes. Lan Zhan’s stomach dropped. If it was… how could he tell Xichen? But the dead face that turned to him was that of a woman, older and scarred. He recognised her. He had seen her die. He steeled himself, and plunged Bichen into her corpse. She was not a resentful spirit, just a husk under the control of something much bigger. He had no need to feel guilty for not liberating her. He would still feel guilty for leaving her corpse in the dirt to be burned.

“Done,” called Wei Ying, from the side of his completed array. Lan Zhan glanced over the circle and hurriedly scrawled characters, checking that everything was in place. He nodded, and caught Wei Ying’s eye as he did so. Wei Ying’s face was tense, none of the fierce joy or excitement of night hunting remaining in it. He looked almost like he was in pain.

“Are you alright?”

“Fine,” said Wei Ying tightly, and then he was running again.

They skidded to a stop at the next location. Wei Ying was breathing hard, raggedly, as though he’d been sprinting flat out. Perhaps he had, perhaps his speed talisman was malfunctioning. Lan Zhan wanted to grab him, take his wrist and check him over, but he had no time. He had to slip into his defensive stance yet again.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded. “Tell me.”

“Nothing,” said Wei Ying. “The noise is getting to me, that’s all.”

“Noise?” said Lan Zhan, glancing over his shoulder before turning in a circle, scanning their surroundings. Aside from the renewed hiss of the spray can, it was comparatively quiet. Fierce corpses were not loud, and the shrieks and moans of the zone’s other spirits were distant. There was nothing else but the wind in the trees. “You mean the resentment? The vibrations?”

Wei Ying faltered in his work, looking up at Lan Zhan from his bent-over position. “You can’t hear voices?” he asked.

Lan Zhan shook his head.

“sh*t.”

“What do you hear?”

Wei Ying ducked back down, giving a light, false chuckle as he went back to scribbling characters in paint. “Oh, about two thousand corpses speaking at once. Calling my name and throwing all my insecurities in my face. That kind of fun stuff. You really don’t…?”

Lan Zhan opened his senses, listening hard, in case the layers of talismans were muffling something he should be able to hear. “Nothing,” he said.

“sh*t.”

“We need to leave,” said Lan Zhan, sidestepping to take the head off another corpse.

“No, we’re nearly done. Aiyah, if that peaco*ck gets his node in place and we don’t get ours I’ll never live it down.”

“It recognises you,” said Lan Zhan. “It knows you specifically. It had a hold on you once, Wei Ying. That’s a way in.”

“You said yourself, it’s my playing that makes me vulnerable. All I have to do is not use my flute, and I’m not planning to.”

“This is not worth your life,” said Lan Zhan, spinning into another strike.

“You think it’s going to infect me though all of these layers of talismans? I’m not that weak. One more circle, we can do this.” Wei Ying scribbled the last character. “Done. Come on.” He darted off, out of sight among the charred trees before Lan Zhan could move. Lan Zhan caught up with him at the last location. The circle was already half drawn. Wei Ying was working frantically, and the smile he shot Lan Zhan was a rictus. “Hey, I have a feeling that thing is on the move.”

“It’s located you. We have to go.” Lan Zhan suddenly had a great deal of sympathy for Jiang Wanyin. Dragging Wei Ying out by his hair seemed like the next necessary step to take. He could hear the thing now, the crashing movements of something huge enough to smash trees and rocks with every step of its jointless limbs. Corpses rushed out of the trees, a wave of them, coordinated under its control. He whirled, leaping into the air, scything an arc through them with his blade, and landed only in time to do it again. They wouldn’t stop coming. He cut down another batch, just as the first vast dark limb loomed into view above the rocks.

“Done,” Wei Ying gasped. “Done, Lan Zhan.”

He was on his knees, supporting himself on his palms, spray can lying discarded in the middle of the array. Under Lan Zhan’s horrified eyes, he coughed and spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground. Corpses were advancing from all sides. Lan Zhan ran to him, scooped him up and flung Bichen down. He stepped on and got into the air with a wrench that seemed to tug his golden core half out of his body. Wei Ying was slumped against him, clutching at his shoulders, feet scrabbling for a grip on the sword. Resentment howled around them both.

They swerved madly through the air, surging up and then dropping dizzyingly as Lan Zhan struggled to maintain control. The monstrous form was following them, corpses flowing before it. With what glimpses he could get amid the chaos of the flight, Lan Zhan searched for pathways, for the wall, for the gate. The resentment buffeted him off course, sending him in arcs in the wrong direction, driving him down. He tried to gain height, to get some space to move, and the effort of it shattered his control. They fell. All he could do was steer away from the rocks as the earth came rushing up to meet them. Even through the layers of talismans, the impact was stunning. Lan Zhan lost his breath, lost track of Wei Ying, could only sprawl on the ground scrabbling for his sword as the corpses descended.

There was a flash of purple light, a crack, and a nauseating smell of charred meat. Three corpses were blasted apart. The others scattered away from a second lash of the whip.

“The f*ck are you two doing?” Jiang Wanyin yelled. “Wei Wuxian!”

“Help him,” gasped Lan Zhan. “It’s trying to take him over.” He wobbled to his knees. The small, lethal Jiang disciple took over the fight, sword in one hand and knife in the other, while Jiang Wanyin rushed forward and grabbed Wei Ying.

“f*ck. f*cking idiot. I’ve got him. Can you run?”

“Yes,” said Lan Zhan, though his head was still spinning. The Jiang woman got her shoulders under his arm and hauled him along for a few steps until he could make his legs work properly again and get his hand firm around Bichen’s hilt. Wei Ying was in a fireman’s carry over Jiang Wanyin’s shoulder. They all rushed for safety, propelled by talismans and desperation.

“This way,” howled Nie Mingjue from ahead of them. His sabre rocketed out of the trees, scything through corpses, and flew back to his hand as he ran forwards to join the fight. “Get to the gate, we’ll hold them off.”

There was no holding off the monster that was coming for them. Lan Zhan didn’t have the breath to say so, or to help as the Nie and Jin pairs joined the attack. He could only run, until finally, desperately, he saw the gate up ahead. Jin Zixuan darted ahead of him to get it open, and they were tumbling through all at once in a tangle of humanity. Jiang Wanyin dragged Wei Ying out into the road, and Lan Zhan collapsed beside him, reaching for him frantically. A bare few seconds later the whole world shook as something massive collided with the walls.

Miraculously, the wards held.

“That was too close,” said Nie Mingjue with feeling. “What the hell just happened?”

Jiang Wanyin brushed Lan Zhan’s reaching hands away from Wei Ying. “Get off. Let me check him over.”

“I’m good,” said Wei Ying, pushing himself up on one elbow and wiping blood from his mouth. “I’m fine.”

“Somebody, give me a goddamn report,” growled Nie Mingjue.

Lan Zhan forced himself back to calmness. He gave as clear an explanation as he could of what had happened, still shaky with the effort it had taken to fly within the mounds.

“Is he free of resentment?” said Nie Mingjue, looking down at Wei Ying with furrowed brows.

“As far as I can tell,” said Jiang Wanyin.

Nie Mingjue looked grim. “We’re not taking any chances,” he said. “Talismans or not, you’re all quarantined until a healer looks you over. We’ll get a mobile unit set up out in the fields. Everyone who can walk, get moving.”

***

“What did I tell you about taking stupid risks?” snapped Wen Qing.

“Qing-jie,” whined Wei Ying, pouting and making a pretend attempt to tug his wrist out of her grip, “you’re hurting me.”

“Good.”

“I’m fine, I told you. Don’t look at me like that. It was the right call, getting the array finished. Lan Zhan, aren’t you glad we made life easier for your brother?”

Lan Zhan, hovering on the sidelines with Jiang Wanyin in the hastily-erected tent, made a noncommittal noise. Now Wei Ying was safe, he was glad that Xichen would have the internal array to help anchor the working. He was definitely not glad about the danger Wei Ying had put himself in in the process.

“You’re lucky,” she said. “Your meridians are bruised but there’s no sign that any infection got past those heavy-duty protection talismans. Without them, it might have been a different story.”

“I should never have let you come,” said Jiang Wanyin angrily. “I can’t believe I told Nie Mingjue you’re not a liability.”

“You didn’t let me come,” said Wei Ying, with a flash of real annoyance, “Zewu-jun did.”

“Well he’s a f*cking idiot. And so are you.”

Lan Zhan turned sharply to face Jiang Wanyin, hand going to the hilt of his sword.

“Oh, for god’s sake,” said Wen Qing, “this isn’t happening in here. Jiang Wanyin, you’re free to go. Take your disciple and get out of here. Lan Wangji, you can go too.” She jerked her head at Wei Ying. “You, I want under observation for another hour.”

She ignored Wei Ying’s theatrical complaints. The glare she gave to Lan Zhan said plainly that you can go was not optional. If Wei Ying was alright, he should go and check in with Nie Mingjue anyway and discover what was going on. He nodded his polite thanks to Wen Qing and left, striding back across the fields towards the village, leaving Jiang Wanyin and the Jiang disciple trailing in his wake.

He’d barely gone twenty paces when it happened. Power crackled across the ground and through the air as the whole world roared with a working that blanketed his senses. He could barely think, but he turned, gasping with shock, to look towards the mounds. A glow was rising around them, a dirty reddish orange, growing brighter in places to fierce yellow, to white. Smoke billowed in a seething, living cloud. The noise was like thunder. It was destruction on a vast scale, uncontrolled, scorched earth. Lan Zhan couldn’t look away, even when Jiang Wanyin’s voice next to him broke him from his state of horrified fascination.

“You weren’t here last time. It was worse then.”

Lan Zhan said nothing. Within the maelstrom, he could feel the occasional disjointed flash of his brother’s familiar energy, the warm, generous power now mutated into the fiercest flame in that great burning whole.

Be careful, he’d told Xichen, when they’d said goodbye earlier. In the face of this, it didn’t feel like nearly enough.

As though reading at least some of his thought, Jiang Wanyin said, “Sorry I called your brother an idiot.”

“Mm.”

“He’s… you should be proud of him.”

The smoke was spreading out into a haze above the countryside to the west. Despite the wind carrying it away, the acrid scent of it caught in the back of Lan Zhan’s throat.

“We’ll take Yiling,” said Jiang Wanyin quietly. “It should have been our territory all along. We’ll do it right. This will never have to happen again.” Abruptly, he asked, “Can we rely on your support?”

Lan Zhan had not the slightest authority to speak for the Lan sect. Still, he nodded. “You can.”

Jiang Wanyin let out a little huff, as though embarrassed for having asked so undiplomatically, outside of an official negotiation. “Thanks,” he said gruffly. “It’s appreciated.” He stood for another moment, then sighed and sank down to sit on the bare earth. “There’s no point in going back just yet. They won’t want interruptions.”

Lan Zhan hesitated. No matter how much he wanted to be near Xichen and their uncle, to offer his support in the work they were doing, there was nothing he could do. It would be a vast, carefully balanced working, hundreds of disciples lending their spiritual energy to the efforts. He didn’t know the procedures. He would be in the way.

After a moment, he copied Jiang Wanyin, sitting unceremoniously by the path through the field, not far from where the bright sunflowers rustled their leaves in the breeze. Side by side, in silence, they watched the Burial Mounds burn.

***

He couldn’t find Xichen anywhere.

The community centre hall was once again full of people arguing, this time the Jin sect ranged against the rest. Lan Qiren was among the participants. Xichen was not. Neither was he with Nie Mingjue managing the cleanup after the vast working, or with the group of people answering questions from the villagers. At a loss, Lan Zhan snagged a nearby Lan disciple going about her business.

“Where is my brother?” he said.

The disciple blinked at him without recognition. “I don’t know,” she said, confused but kind. “Have you lost him? What’s his name?”

“Lan Xichen.”

“Oh!” she bowed hastily, a flush rising to her cheeks. “My apologies, I didn’t realise. He’s recovering after the working, I’m not sure where.”

Lan Zhan was quickly running out of patience. “Find me someone who does know,” he said.

The people she found were two high-level disciples who Lan Zhan knew vaguely by sight and reputation. They knew him too, and seemed to have no good opinion of him. They informed him stiffly that Zewu-jun had taken on the brunt of the working and was meditating to restore himself, making it clear that they disapproved of Lan Zhan even suggesting that he might intrude on their sect leader’s privacy. Lan Zhan made it clear that he was going to see his brother, no matter what anyone said about it, and if they didn’t let him pull what little rank he had he was perfectly willing to use force. Faced with either starting a fight with the sect heir or interrupting the negotiations to confer with Lan Qiren, they chose to capitulate. Lan Zhan was led to a tent that had been set up on a patch of open space behind the community centre. For lack of a door, he knocked on one of the poles. Then, receiving no answer, he went in.

To an outsider’s eyes, Xichen might have seemed to be meditating. No member of the Lan sect would have been fooled. Xichen’s usually perfect posture was hunched over, as though he were trying to protect something. His hands, folded in his lap, were clenched tight around one another. There was no sense of inner calm to be found.

“Xiongzhang,” said Lan Zhan quietly, stepping inside.

Xichen’s eyes flew open. “Wangji,” he said. He scrambled shakily to his feet, meeting Lan Zhan halfway. “They let you out of quarantine?”

“Mm. No contamination.”

“I’m so glad,” said Xichen, with a poor imitation of his usual smile. “Mingjue said you would be fine, but I worried.” He reached out, restless hands brushing at a streak of dirt on Lan Zhan’s white robes and smoothing down the loose ends of the sash, settling them into place as though he was still the one responsible for making sure his baby brother was presentable. Lan Zhan caught his hands, stilling them, and Xichen rocked forward into his arms. They stood holding one another, Xichen’s breath’s coming unsteady, his face pressed into Lan Zhan’s neck.

“I hate that array,” he breathed. “Wangji, I wasn’t made for fire.”

“I’m sorry you had to take the lead.”

“I was the best person for the job.” He gave a pained gasp of laughter. “Do not desire to excel over others. I don’t desire it. I wish I didn’t.”

Lan Zhan’s own breath hitched, He cradled the back of Xichen’s head, stroked his hair, careful of the headpiece he wore.

“In the mounds…?” Xichen began, and then stopped, choked up.

Lan Zhan knew what he was asking. “I didn’t see his remains. Nobody did.”

“He might have got out.”

Lan Zhan tightened his hold. “Xiongzhang,” he said helplessly. He wished he had seen Jin Guangyao’s corpse. He wished there was some kind of closure.

Xichen muffled a sob. “I’m sorry,” he said wetly, “to act like this over him when I know he would have hurt you.”

“It’s alright.” Killed, Lan Zhan thought, but didn’t say. If Xichen needed to soften the blow for now, he understood.

“I still can’t believe it. A-Yao. My A-Yao.”

For a few more minutes they stayed quiet and still, Lan Zhan offering what comfort he could just by being physically present. Then Xichen let go and stepped back, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “Thank you, Wangji,” he said. “I’m fine now.”

Lan Zhan gave a gentle hum that wasn’t agreement.

“I have to go and talk to the other sect leaders. There’s a lot to be decided.”

Lan Zhan followed him out of the tent and into the sunshine. There was no point in arguing, in asking him to take more time to rest and process. With luck, their uncle would have handled the immediate issues already. The only one that really mattered was the question of what happened to the Burial Mounds next. Before the waiting Lan disciples could descend, Lan Zhan murmured, “The Jiangs want Yiling.”

Xichen nodded. “That would be for the best, providing they have the resources to take it on.” He gave Lan Zhan’s arm a pat, smiled tiredly, and turned to his head disciples. They clustered around, asking after his health and catching him up on the aftermath of the working. Lan Zhan could see him pressing the events of the past hours down deep, turning his mind to calculating how much money and manpower the Lan sect could spare to support the Jiang sect through the transition.

As he watched Xichen walk away, he heard his uncle’s measured footsteps behind him. He turned and bowed. “Shufu.”

“Wangji,” said Lan Qiren, in a tone that made Lan Zhan painfully aware of the streak of dirt Xichen hadn’t been able to rub away. “It seems your obvious wrongdoing is to go unnoticed beside that of Jin Guangyao. You may count yourself fortunate.”

Suppressing a sudden spike of fury, Lan Zhan said, “Jin Guanyao was not acting without the knowledge of his sect.”

“That is not a suspicion you will voice to others without proof.”

Lan Zhan gritted his teeth. “Yes, Shufu.”

“Bad enough that Xichen’s close association with him was public knowledge. I told him that young man was not a respectable person. I warned him no good would come of it. He didn’t listen. Perhaps this will finally teach him the importance of keeping virtuous company.”

“Shufu,” said Lan Zhan, too sharply. Disrespecting one’s elders was forbidden, but he couldn’t bear for Xichen to hear those words. He moderated his tone. “He’s not well. Please give him time.”

Lan Qiren huffed. “If you’re truly so worried about him, you should shoulder some of his burdens.”

“Yes,” said Lan Zhan abruptly, “I will.”

Things had to change. He had left the responsibilities of the Lan sect on his brother’s shoulders for a decade, but he couldn’t leave him alone with this pain.

Lan Qiren stared at him, blankly astonished. “You mean to come back to the sect?” he said.

“Mm.”

“And you expect to be welcomed with open arms, I suppose?”

“My presence will be welcome to Xiongzhang. That’s all that matters.”

Lan Qiren recovered quickly from his surprise. “You’ll be no use to him or anyone if you spend all your time on your musical nonsense.”

“I will rearrange my priorities,” agreed Lan Zhan. His stomach sank as he thought through what this decision would mean. He could still make progress with his work, but there would be no sessions at the university, no expeditions with the CMCD, no Caiyi apartment with Wei Ying six floors down. It was alright. He wanted Wei Ying, he loved A-Yuan, but they didn’t need him. There, he was just a greedy, grasping thing, wishing for a family that didn’t belong to him. He though back to how Xichen had looked, hunched and silent, and he knew for a fact: everything he would lose would be worth it. “Take him home, Shufu,” he said. “The negotiations here can wait.”

“And you?”

“I’ll need a few days to make arrangements.”

***

“Lan Zhan! I’m free!”

Lan Zhan turned. Wei Ying was waving from across the village square, hurrying over. He had shed his borrowed robes and was back in the jeans that made his legs look miles long. Seeing him was a flush of warmth, like sunlight on skin. Lan Zhan swallowed. His time as Wei Ying’s neighbour was nearly over, and he was just going to have to get used to the idea.

“I thought Qing-jie was never going to let me out. How’s everything here? I found A-Cheng, but he had to do negotiations and he said he’d break my legs if I interrupted.”

“Things are… fine,” said Lan Zhan.

“All’s well that ends well, huh? This could have gone badly wrong, but it looks like we managed to avert disaster. And we could have done without the drama, but hey, this means no more ghosts in Caiyi, no more overflowing night zones. Mystery solved, job done. There’s still a ton of clean-up to do here, but I’m skipping out on it, I’ve got to get back to Yuan-er. And I think you should skip it too. I don’t know how you’re still upright after all that.”

“Self-discipline,” said Lan Zhan, not altogether facetiously. He had rarely faltered in his meditation regimen over the years, and his core was replenishing his strength quickly.

Wei Ying laughed, wry and fond. “Ah, Lan Zhan is too perfect. Won’t you escort this exhausted one safely home?”

Lan Zhan considered the amount of work left to do. Then he considered the number of disciples flocking around, and the Jiang sect’s desire to take control of Yiling, and he decided that it was somebody else’s problem for now. “Mm,” he said.

They said their goodbyes and mounted their swords. Despite all the events of the day, it was still only mid afternoon. The sun was warm, and being in the air was a welcome sense of relaxation. They skimmed along at a pace Wei Ying could easily maintain, even tired as he was. He chattered on and off as they flew, punchy with fatigue but upbeat. Lan Zhan enjoyed listening to him. The periods of quiet were less pleasant. His mind kept jumping to the future.

Finally, when they passed the western border of Lan territory, he broke his reserve.

“Wei Ying, today will have repercussions for me. Xiongzhang is taking it hard. His feelings for Jin Guangyao were deeper than I knew.”

Wei Ying’s face fell. “Ah,” he said. “Yeah. You said they were… more than friends?”

“Mm.”

“He seemed so calm about it all.”

“He doesn’t show his feelings easily.”

“It’s a family trait, huh?”

“Wei Ying…” Lan Zhan began. He had to stop and steel himself before he could continue. “I have to go back to the Cloud Recesses.”

Wei Ying’s sword wobbled under his feet. “You mean…? Uh, for a visit?”

“No.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know. Until Xiongzhang no longer needs me.” He didn’t have any idea how long that might be. Perhaps Xichen had always needed him. “I’ll leave the piano,” he said, “I’ll make sure you and A-Yuan still have access to it whenever you want.”

“Right,” said Wei Ying. “The piano, of course.”

Come with me, Lan Zhan wanted to say. He couldn’t. Wei Ying’s first priority was A-Yuan, and bringing him into a sect was out of the question. It would mean almost certain discovery and all the tests and questions and dangers that Wei Ying was adamant his son shouldn’t face.

“We’ll miss you,” said Wei Ying, barely audible over the rush of air.

“And I you. I’ll visit. For guqin lessons.”

“Ah, yeah,” said Wei Ying. “Thanks, Lan Zhan. A-Yuan will love that. You’re so kind to him.”

They both lapsed into silence. Lan Zhan couldn’t find the words. He couldn’t say, It’s not kindness. I want you both to be mine. He had been greedy enough. He’d made choices based on what he wanted, not on what he owed to others, and all these years Xichen had suffered for his selfishness. No. He had to focus on what was best for Wei Ying and A-Yuan, for his brother, for his sect, for the future of Yiling.

They flew on. The sun was getting lower in the sky, the air taking on a chill, the hills and crags of Gusu spread out before them taking on a rosy glow. Lan Zhan breathed, centred himself, and tried to make peace with what was coming.

A cheery blare of pop-music cut through the silence.

Wei Ying fumbled his phone out of his jacket. “It’s Mianmian,” he said, picking up the call. “Hi! How’s my favourite babysitter? We’re not far off now, we—” He broke off. For a few seconds he just listened, face paling. Then, with an awful note of contained panic, he said, “You’ve got a containment circle up?”

Lan Zhan steered his sword closer. “Wei Ying?” he said urgently.

“There’s something wrong with A-Yuan.”

Lan Zhan knew instantly that something wrong was not a stomach bug, a crying fit, a fall in the playground. Something wrong was the worst thing it could be.

“That’s good,” Wei Ying said into the phone. “Now double it. Throw everything you can into it and get out of there.” He paused, hand clenched tight around the phone. There were tears on his cheeks. “You have to leave him, Mianmian. …No. No, listen to me. Keep your husband and the baby safe. We’ll be there in… Lan Zhan, how fast can you go?”

“Fast,” said Lan Zhan grimly. “Twenty minutes.”

Wei Ying relayed the time, then gave Lan Zhan a nod jerky with tension. “Go now,” he said. “I’ll be as close behind you as I can.”

Chapter 14

Chapter Text

Mianmian was waiting on the sidewalk outside her small suburban house. She waved, watching Lan Zhan descend, and hurried over to him as he landed. Her hand was clutched around her own sword.

“Where is he?” he said.

“Inside. In the lounge.”

“What can you tell me?”

She followed at his heels as he strode up the path to the door, shaking her head. “Not much. He seemed alright until just before I called Wei Wuxian. He’d been quiet all day, I couldn’t get him to laugh or play much, but I thought… I thought it was just the shock, being left with someone he hardly knew. I should have realised it was more.”

“Don’t come any further.”

She made an unwilling face, but nodded, hovering a few paces back. “I think he’d been hearing a voice. He started crying and I asked him what was wrong, and he said he wasn’t allowed to tell. And then he… he changed.”

“Possession,” said Lan Zhan.

“It’s got all the signs. I’m so sorry, I should’ve—”

“Not your fault,” said Lan Zhan. If it was anyone’s fault, it was his own. It was his interference that had destroyed the array keeping the Burial Mounds spirit subdued. Without that, the scar it had left on A-Yuan would have remained dormant, as harmless as it had been for the year Wei Ying had cared for him.

When had the spirit got free? Was it when Lan Zhan had been running from the disaster he’d caused, when he’d tumbled through the gate of the night zone, frantically reaching for his jade token? Had some fragment come through with him then? Or had it hitched a ride, unnoticed, with Wei Ying? Or perhaps it had escaped when the Burial Mounds burned, the spirit’s last desperate attempt to save itself from destruction. It shouldn’t matter. He just needed to know for how long a monster had been whispering poison into A-Yuan’s ear.

He waved Mianmian off. “Wait outside for Wei Ying,” he told her. “He’ll be coming soon.” He reached for the door handle, letting himself into her home. He knew the layout. He’d been here for tea, for dinner. Automatically, he slipped off his shoes.

Her magical signature hummed from the lounge, mixed with a horribly familiar tang of resentment. Inside, the first thing he saw was a pink butterfly toy, lying on the hardwood floor. A foot or so further on was the edge of an array, drawn in Sharpie first, by the looks of it, and rewritten in the overpriced citrine-mix cultivator paint the Jin sect used. It was comprehensive, neat, an efficient use of characters, strongly infused with power.

He forced himself to look at the figure in the middle of the circle. So small. Kneeling, one hand pressed to the wall of his prison.

“A-Yuan?”

The eyes that turned to him were inky black from corner to corner. “Lan-gege,” A-Yuan said, in a soft, lisping voice, “I’m scared. Let me out.”

His face was swollen on one side. Mianmian must have hit him, or pushed him away, made him fall. Anything to stop him from getting hold of her. She’d acted fast. Made the right choice. Lan Zhan swallowed bile.

“I want my baba. Please.”

He wanted to reach through the barrier and tear this thing out of A-Yuan’s body with his bare hands. Instead, he reached out with his qi, getting the best read he could of what was going on. The voice was wrong. He clung to that. If had been A-Yuan’s voice begging him for help, he didn’t know if he could have borne it.

Resentment flowed thickly though A-Yuan’s meridians, eating away at him like acid. It was possession, no question, just as it had been for the dozens who died in the mounds. Lan Zhan mentally ran through every cure he knew. He’d read the reports. All the obvious ones had already been tried. The only thing that had ever worked was Wei Ying’s demonic cultivation, and this spirit knew Wei Ying. It already had a way into his mind, and his music would only make him more vulnerable. If he played for A-Yuan, neither of them would survive.

Wei Ying wouldn’t care about the risk. He wouldn’t listen to reason. If he walked into this room now, nothing would stop him from reaching for his flute and trying to save his child.

“Lan-gege,” sobbed A-Yuan. He banged his tiny fists against the barrier surrounding him. “I want my baba. Where is he?”

Did the monster know? Was it waiting for Wei Ying, to use his desperation as its chance for freedom?

Lan Zhan pulled out his own can of paint from his qiankun bag. He couldn’t let Wei Ying see A-Yuan like this. He had to buy time. Willing his hands not to shake, he added the characters for a sleep talisman to Mianmian’s circle and infused power into them. They glowed, full force, brimming over with enough excess strength to knock out anyone in the building.

A-Yuan tilted his head. “Lan-gege, please,” he said again, and the words held a tiny hint of smugness.

Lan Zhan felt a bubble of panic rise in his chest. Time was running out. He cast his mind back to Wei Ying’s story, how he had taken A-Yuan back to his home in the village, wrapped in talismans. A-Yuan must have been unconscious then. Wei Ying must have found a talisman that worked, but what had it been? Wei Ying never did anything the usual way.

Lan Zhan sat abruptly, pulled out his guqin and set it on a cushion of air. He didn’t have to do things the usual way either.

He’d played Repose dozens of times for a roomful of dozing students, long before he’d known how to infuse it with resonance. The notes came easily under his fingers. He strove for the calm to perform the piece as it should be played, ignoring A-Yuan’s furious screams as the hum of power in the room began to grow.

The screams faded. The little body in the circle flopped over, its unbruised cheek pressed against the wood floor.

Lan Zhan let out his breath, fingers still moving. Tears stung his eyes, and he blinked them fiercely away.

Now what? More music, clearly. It was the only thing he had that was new. What would the ancient Lans have used? Rest, to subdue a resentful spirit; he hadn’t even begun the reconstruction of the piece. Sound of Vanquish, the most powerful music in their repertoire, to exorcise evil; he had begun sketching out variant melodies to test, and then set them aside in favour of easier options.

Instead of those, he had Evocation, entirely useless in this situation; he had Repose, which could do no more than it already had; and he had Cleansing.

He let the melody of Repose fade, the last low notes ringing in the background, pulsing sleep, sleep, sleep through the room as he wove in the first notes of Cleansing, tweaking them on the fly for what he wanted to achieve; to keep A-Yuan’s meridians active, to keep his qi flowing, to prevent the resentment from congealing and clogging his system. To keep him alive.

The front door opened and slammed. Quick footsteps in the hall, and then Wei Ying burst into the room.

“Lan Zhan,” he gasped. Then, starting towards the circle, “Yuan-er!”

“Stay back,” warned Lan Zhan.

“Tell me what’s happening.”

“He’s possessed. Infected. I tried a sleep talisman to render him unconscious. It didn’t work, but Repose did,” said Lan Zhan, cycling through a handful of bars, maintaining resonance by instinct. “Now I’m using Cleansing to stabilise his meridians. It’s working. We have time.”

“Good. Thank you,” said Wei Ying, and suddenly his cheap, ugly little dizi was in his hand. “I’ve got it from here.”

“No,” snapped Lan Zhan. “Wei Ying, put it down. If you play, the spirit will take you.”

“It can try,” said Wei Ying, and brought the flute to his lips.

“No. There’s another way,” said Lan Zhan. His mind raced, grasping at straws, constructing and discarding ideas. “I can do this. Trust me.”

Wei Ying hesitated. “What’s your plan?”

“The Sound of Vanquish,” said Lan Zhan, infusing his voice with certainty. “The piece isn’t complete, but I have variants to test. I’ll be able to refine them as I go. I’ll make it work.” Do not tell lies, his mind screamed at him. But he wasn’t lying, he wouldn’t let himself be. He could do this, because he had to. “I need someone to maintain Cleansing in the meantime.”

“Alright—”

“Not you.”

“I’m not going to use demonic cultivation. I’ve seen you play, I know how this works.”

“This spirit took you once, Wei Ying. One slip and it’ll have hold of you again.”

“I won’t make a slip.”

“You will.” He held Wei Ying’s gaze. “My phone is in my jacket. Call my brother and hold the phone for me.” Xichen, at least, had spent a few hours on the meditation exercises. He’d always been the first person Lan Zhan had turned to when he needed help.

Wei Ying drew back, shaking his head. “No. No way, Lan Zhan. He could decide to kill A-Yuan and we might not be able to stop him.”

“A-Yuan is dying already,” said Lan Zhan. He couldn’t play effectively and argue at the same time, and the situation was too urgent for him to manage any sort of diplomacy. “I trust my brother. Call him.”

Wei Ying swore, but he grabbed the phone, found the contact, and held it to Lan Zhan’s ear.

“Wangji?”

“Xiongzhang,” said Lan Zhan, and his voice wobbled on the word. “I’m sorry. I need your help. Don’t tell Shufu.”

“What’s going on? Is that… are you playing Cleansing?”

“Where are you now?”

“Flying home,” said Xichen. “We’ve just passed Qin territory. What do you need, Wangji?”

“Do you have your xiao with you?”

“No,” said Xichen, baffled. “Why would I?”

“Go to my apartment. Get mine from the wall, then come to me, I’ll text you the address. I’ll explain the rest when you get here. As quick as you can, Xiongzhang.”

There was a moment of silence. Then Xichen’s voice came again, purposeful and confident. “Alright. I’ll see you soon.”

“Thank you,” said Lan Zhan, and gave Wei Ying a nod.

Wei Ying hung up the phone, and tapped out the text without being told. He gave a pained huff of laughter. “You’ve really got him wrapped around your finger.”

“He’ll be at least an hour,” said Lan Zhan, trying to keep the despair from his voice. He felt a snarl of frustration building up behind his teeth. Maybe he should let Wei Ying play, risk letting the spirit take its freedom in the body of a powerful cultivator, because the other option was to let A-Yuan die, and they couldn’t— “Wei Ying, I don’t know if I can hold it that long.”

“f*ck,” said Wei Ying. Again, he reached for his dizi, but his hand paused halfway. “Tan Liling,” he said suddenly. “The kids, could they do it?”

“Yes,” said Lan Zhan, dizzy with relief. “Get them.”

Wei Ying nodded, already scrolling for the contacts.

Lan Zhan returned his focus to his music. They had a plan. He let his fingers work while he called to mind every scrap of information he knew about the Sound of Vanquish. He wished he could sketch out a testing protocol so he wasn’t just flailing and hoping for the best. It would all have to be done in his head.

He could do this, because he had to.

“Lan Zhan,” said Wei Ying from the doorway, “they’re on their way. Chen Mei lives closest, she’ll be here in a few minutes. Mianmian and I are going to collect the ones who can’t get here fast enough.”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan. He read the desperation in Wei Ying’s eyes, the way he gripped the doorframe as though trying to hold himself in place. “Go. I’ll keep him safe."

Wei Ying lifted a hand, as though he could reach across the room, through the circle, to touch his son’s hair. “I’ll be back, A-Yuan. It’s alright. Lan-gege is with you.”

As he turned unwillingly away, Lan Zhan’s brain suddenly found the time to be horrified at what they would be asking of his half-trained university cultivators. “Wei Ying,” he said, “did you explain the risks?”

Wei Ying’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. “Mianmian did. Don’t worry, Lan Zhan, you’ve got your informed consent. They want to help.” He gave a salute as he went out.

Lan Zhan swallowed. Of course they wanted to help. They were kind people, all of them. But even if they knew what they were getting into, should he ask it of them?

He would do it, because he had to.

Alone with the circle and A-Yuan’s silent body, he forced himself to relax, falling into the habit of meditation honed over decades of intensive practice. He breathed, and he played, and he felt the vibrations in the air, the waves of energy spreading out from where his fingers touched the strings. He could see the power, with a sense that wasn’t vision He could see the effect when he hit a note with perfect resonance, he could see inside A-Yuan’s meridians, see the swirl of darkness there burning them away, see how his playing replenished them, keeping them open and strong.

If he stopped, A-Yuan could be injured beyond recovery. He kept playing, and waited.

Behind him, the door opened. “Lan-laoshi?” said Chen Mei tentatively.

“Come in,” said Lan Zhan. He pulled his attention away from A-Yuan and turned to her, surprised that the instrument she was carrying wasn’t the guitar he’d seen her with around campus. He recognised the dimensions and slight taper to the rectangular case instantly.

“What should I do?”

“Set it up on the coffee table. Play along with me.”

She knelt on the floor, looking very small, stripped of the bright personality and attitude she usually puffed herself up with. She opened the case, lifting the guqin out and placing it carefully on the table in front of her. “I’m not very good,” she said.

“Just do your best.”

She began to play, hands moving purposefully over the instrument. Her face was utterly focused as she matched him note for note. She was competent, though nothing more. Her playing lacked not just nuance but also the resonance it needed to have a spiritual effect. She could maintain the technique he’d developed for only a few notes at a time. Frantically, he reminded himself that there would be other people playing. He had to rely on them as a group.

The door opened again, and there was a murmur recognisable as Mianmian’s voice. Lan Zhan glanced around to tell her to leave, and saw Zhang Bao setting up a music stand, spreading out the loose pages of score. Mianmian was already gone. Lan Zhan turned his attention back to A-Yuan and didn’t startle when the new instrument joined in. Violin—no, viola. It sounded bizarre, playing the familiar notes. Was this really how the students had managed to improve Tan Liling’s meridians? He felt a morbid curiosity as to what instrument would join in next.

“In here,” said Wei Ying from the doorway. This time Lan Zhan didn’t look round, even when the next sound was the bright twang of a ukulele, played fingerpicking style. A chair scraped against the floor and a cello added its earthy notes to the strange ensemble. A few minutes later another set of footsteps, and that was a violin, and too loud for balance, a clarinet. Another violin joined, and finally an erhu. The guqins and the little ukulele were now barely audible. It didn’t matter. The resonance was there, patchy but overlapping into something that was mostly whole.

Lan Zhan took a deep breath and lifted his hands from the strings. The students played on, more than the sum of their parts. Cleansing held together. A-Yuan’s meridians showed no deterioration.

“Wei Ying,” said Lan Zhan.

Wei Ying had been moving around the room, passing qi to the students, helping them maintain the protections they’d signally failed at when they’d attempted Cleansing on their own. At Lan Zhan’s voice, he slipped across the room to crouch by the hovering guqin. His eyes kept flickering to the slumped figure in the circle. “What can I do?” he said.

“Keep supporting the students. I’m going to start Vanquish. If something unexpected happens, handle it with talismans or arrays. Not your flute.”

“I know,” bit out Wei Ying.

Promise me, Lan Zhan wanted to say. Promise me you won’t sacrifice yourself. I know you’d do it gladly, but it won’t work, and I can’t lose you both. Instead, he reached out for just long enough to touch the back of Wei Ying’s hand, one single point of contact on warm skin. “I can do this,” he said. He put his hands back on the strings, centring himself, trying to find calm. This was completely insane; reconstructing a melody by trial-and-error experimentation in real-time, using a dying child as a test subject. For this, he had pressured Wei Ying to put A-Yuan’s life in his hands.

“I believe you,” said Wei Ying.

Lan Zhan couldn’t spare the time to wonder how on earth he could sound so sure. He just let the relief flood over him, hardening his resolve. I will do this, because I have to.

He started what he remembered of a potential variant for Vanquish, matching the pace of the music around him, ignoring the horrible discordance of the overlapping melodies. It wasn’t anything close to right, he knew almost immediately. The power didn’t build as it did with Cleansing, the resonances random and incoherent, not contributing to an overall scheme. That, in itself, was a revelation—before now, before Wei Ying, it would have taken him a week of testing to come to the same conclusion. He discarded the variant and moved on. The next one was no better. The third made the whole room shudder, sent flashes of light across his vision, and he flattened his hands hastily across the strings, silencing them. The instruments around him faltered, then picked back up.

The fourth variation… there was something, tentatively growing, striving to find a shape. He played the few phrases that made up the theme over and over, tweaking a note here, a rhythm there, until the melody developed a sense of determined purpose and the soft sliding notes of the guqin, impossibly, made him think of battle drums.

The darkness in A-Yuan’s meridians rippled, squirmed. Flinched.

Lan Zhan played on, his mind moving faster than he had known it could. He had to achieve resonance on a note, assess the effect and plan how to refine it, all while playing the next. With every repeat, Vanquish took shape. It felt like a storm approaching, darkness and threat at first, then the rush of wind, and then there was lightning and thunder under his hands. He was the storm. He was pure power, blasting the spirit, making it thrash and flail in the prison of A-Yuan’s unconscious body.

He could feel the moment it realised it couldn’t survive the onslaught. It boiled in fury in A-Yuan’s meridians, corrosive and deadly, giving up on freedom. All it wanted now was to cause pain. It would kill A-Yuan if it could. Without his body to shelter in, far from the buried corpses that had generated it, it would be as helpless and vulnerable as any minor ghost, but it would have ended another innocent life and gutted Wei Ying, destroyed him as thoroughly as if it had snapped his neck.

Me too, Lan Zhan thought. It would destroy all of them in one blow.

A-Yuan’s body jerked, uncontrolled. His meridians were burning. There was no way the half-trained students could stave off this assault. Lan Zhan swore aloud, cut off Vanquish mid-bar and joined them in Cleansing. Slowly, the seizure faded. A-Yuan lay still and quiet while Lan Zhan frantically tried to keep up with the level of damage the spirit was doing.

Stalemate. Wei Ying’s face reflected his own flash of panic. He knew as well as Lan Zhan did what was happening. Lan Zhan tried weaving a few notes of Vanquish behind the melody. The spirit shrugged it off and redoubled its assault. Lan Zhan looked back to Wei Ying, desperately, to see if he was once again reaching for his dizi… and Wei Ying was looking up, past him, something like relief touching his taut features.

Cutting through their motley, unbalanced ensemble came the velvety-smooth notes of a xiao.

Xichen strode around the circle to take up position on the far side. The xiao that usually decorated Lan Zhan’s wall looked as though pure light had been poured into it. The glow poured out of Xichen too, unearthly, and the energy in the air made his robes ripple around him. He looked so different from when he had a sword in his hand. Just as powerful, but kinder.

That’s what it means to be a Lan, Lan Zhan thought, and whipped his hand across the strings as viciously as if he were striking for an enemy’s throat.

Vanquish rose again, louder than any guqin should be able to play. The room filled with a dazzling light. Lan Zhan could feel it—the sunlight of his core blazing out through his skin. He played implacable destruction, excision of evil from the world. He would not let the spirit continue to exist.

Black smoke boiled up out of A-Yuan’s body. It pinballed crazily against the barrier, back and forth, and then smashed through and was gone, the smoke vanishing through the wall of the house.

Wei Ying was on his feet in that moment. His eyes were alive, mouth twisted into a snarl that was almost a grin. He drew his sword. “Take care of Yuan-er,” he said to Lan Zhan, and was out of the room like a cannonball.

“Xiongzhang,” Lan Zhan gasped urgently, “help him.”

He heard the xiao stop. He didn’t look up to see Xichen leave. His focus was on the music again, taking the vast amount of power he’d built for Vanquish and redirecting it into Cleansing, working to fix the damage that had been done to A-Yuan’s meridians. The sudden shift to a more nuanced technique left him nauseated, blinking spots from his vision as he played. He sent the music into A-Yuan, smoothing, soothing, until qi began to flow naturally along his meridians. Then he relaxed, hands still shaping Cleansing, but letting the flood of spiritual energy subside.

“Lan-laoshi,” said Zhou Chuhua, taut with effort, “can we stop?”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan.

“Oh, thank god.”

The ensemble cut off mid-bar, replaced by quiet groans and the sounds of instruments and bodies dropping to the floor, a semi-hysterical laugh, several sobs, and a murmur of, what the f*ck, what the f*ck did we just do? Lan Zhan played on, quiet and steady. After another minute, the tiny, crumpled form in the middle of the broken circle stirred. A-Yuan pushed himself to sitting, looking frantically around the room. “Baba?” he said. The voice, choked and terrified, was his own again, the eyes filling with tears were ordinary brown.

“It’s okay, A-Yuan. I’m here. Baba will be back soon.”

“Lan-gege,” said A-Yuan pitifully, “I had a bad dream.”

“I know. Come sit with me. You can listen to me play while we wait for him.”

A-Yuan crawled over to him and wriggled under his left arm to climb into his lap. Lan Zhan shifted, angling his body to give A-Yuan a comfortable place to nestle. A-Yuan curled into him, sniffling wetly, trembling as small, irregular sobs wracked him. He was warm and miserable and human. Lan Zhan wanted to hold him, but he didn’t dare to stop playing yet. Not until he had confirmation that the spirit was gone for good.

He didn’t have long to wait. Wei Ying burst back in moments later, tossing his sword aside, dropping to his knees by Lan Zhan’s side.

“A-Yuan?”

“Baba!” wailed A-Yuan. In a flash, he was out of Lan Zhan’s lap, throwing himself into his father’s arms, the sniffles turning to full-on, hysterical sobs. Wei Ying clutched him tight, rocking him. “I’ve got you,” he said, over and over. “It’s okay. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

Lan Zhan could only see the tops of their heads bent tight together, Wei Ying’s hair dirty and windswept, A-Yuan’s silky-soft. Again, he wanted to touch. They were both so precious to him. Again, he kept playing. Some things shouldn’t be interrupted. He looked up instead, as Xichen stepped into the room, sword sheathed.

“Xiongzhang,” he murmured, “is it destroyed?”

“Very much so,” said Xichen. “You can stop playing, Wangji. It’s over.”

Lan Zhan let his hands fall. He wanted to bow and press his forehead to the ground as the only way he could show a fraction of the gratitude he felt, but he saw the droop to Xichen’s shoulders and knew it wasn’t the time. He got to his feet and took Xichen gently by the arm. “Come and sit down.”

“Thank you,” said Xichen. He managed a wan smile. “It’s been a very long day, hasn’t it?”

They sat together on the sofa. In front of them, the little tableau of the aftermath was laid out; a litter of musical instruments surrounding a spray paint circle on Mianmian’s wood floor; the students slumped against one another, staring blankly at nothing; Wei Ying holding A-Yuan as though he would never let go again.

“That was the Sound of Vanquish?” said Xichen.

“Something like it.”

Xichen gave a tiny huff of laughter. “We’ll see how Shufu enjoys eating his words.” For a few seconds he was silent, just breathing. Then, quietly, he said, “Wangji, I’m so tired.”

“I know,” said Lan Zhan. He had known full well everything Xichen was going through, and had placed demands on him anyway. He couldn’t bring himself to regret it. “Thank you for coming.”

“Of course. Whenever you need me. You did something amazing here tonight.” Xichen straightened in his seat. Even that tiny movement looked like it took effort. “We have to get the child to the infirmary at Cloud Recesses. Your students too, I want them checked over. We’ll need cars, and I should call Shufu—”

“I’ll handle it.”

Xichen blinked at him. In that moment, he looked devastatingly young. “Would you?” he said.

“Mm. Rest.”

Xichen flopped back against the cushions, all semblance of good posture abandoned. His eyes were damp. “Thank you,” he said.

Chapter 15

Chapter Text

Lan Zhan hovered outside the door to the infirmary. It had been more than an hour since they’d arrived at Cloud Recesses. In that time, he felt like he’d talked more than he had in the rest of his life; about Wei Wuxian, the Jiang disciple who’d saved and hidden a burial mounds child, and about the Caiyi University students who had taught themselves musical cultivation, and the spirit he had blasted out of A-Yuan’s body with the Sound of Vanquish. Facing his uncle and the elders without Xichen at his side had been an unpleasant experience. It was one he supposed he would have to get used to.

An hour earlier, he had left Wei Ying at the entrance to this building with promises that A-Yuan would be safe. He’d promised it to himself, too. For the whole of the surreal, quiet drive up the winding mountain road, he’d sat trying not to stare too hard as Wei Ying cradled A-Yuan in the neighbouring seat, forcing himself not to reach out and drag them both against his chest right then and there. Instead, he’d focused on his goals: to prove that A-Yuan was no longer at risk of possession; to provide justification for Wei Ying’s actions in keeping him concealed; to receive assurance from the sect that A-Yuan would not be taken from Wei Ying, would not be put through traumatic tests, would not be put at risk. He’d rehearsed every argument, surrounded by the quiet noises of very tired people, watching the curve of Wei Ying’s neck as he bent his head over his son, the sway of it as the minibus took a bend.

He had used all of those arguments and more in the emergency meeting that followed. It hadn’t been as successful as he’d hoped.

Steeling himself to deliver the news, he entered and was directed by one of the healers to a private room at the back. Voices were coming through the closed door, Wei Ying talking low and A-Yuan piping up fretfully in answer. Lan Zhan knocked and pushed the door open. Inside was a room like any in a mundane hospital, a bed made up with white sheets and visitor chairs beside it. The chairs were empty. Wei Ying was on the bed, with A-Yuan cradled against him. They both looked up as Lan Zhan walked in. Wei Ying’s face lit up in a smile. A-Yuan’s crumpled and he burst into tears.

“Lan-gege,” he said, reaching out to Lan Zhan with the hand that wasn’t clutching Flutter.

“See, radish?” said Wei Ying gently. “I told you he’d come.”

Lan Zhan went hastily over to the bed and picked up A-Yuan out of the blankets, hugging him tight. He shot a bewildered look at Wei Ying, who was now kneeling up on the bed, rubbing A-Yuan’s back in the space below Lan Zhan’s encircling arm. Wei Ying made a rueful face, but didn’t answer. Lan Zhan instead turned his attention to deciphering the barely-comprehensible fragments of speech that interspersed A-Yuan’s tears. He didn’t manage more than a word here or there, but he got the gist.

“I won’t let anything hurt you,” he said, rocking A-Yuan. “Everything is alright now. The bad thing is gone. Your baba destroyed it. It can’t come back.”

It took a while, but A-Yuan eventually quieted, going limp in Lan Zhan’s arms. Wei Ying took him back and settled him onto the bed.

“You think you can sleep now, radish?” he asked. “Lan-gege will keep you safe.”

“He won’t leave?” A-Yuan mumbled.

Wei Ying looked up at Lan Zhan, questioning.

“I won’t leave,” Lan Zhan promised. He took a seat in one of the chairs by the bed, making a show of settling himself in. A-Yuan gave him a long, uncertain look, then cuddled up against Wei Ying’s side and closed his eyes. Wei Ying hummed to him, without any actual tune, just a gentle drone, and rubbed his back. Soon A-Yuan’s hand fell away from its clutch on Wei Ying’s sleeve and his breathing evened out into sleep.

Wei Ying looked at Lan Zhan with a rueful half-smile. “He doesn’t really understand what happened,” he said, voice low. “I’ll have to figure out how to explain it when he’s less exhausted. But he knows you’re the one who made the spirit go away. He was scared to go to sleep without you here.”

“I’m sorry. I should have come sooner.”

“Yeah, because I’m sure you didn’t have anything else important to handle,” said Wei Ying wryly. “He’s doing okay otherwise. Much less damage than they’d have expected, considering what happened, and no trace of resentful energy.”

“Mm. I know. The healer brought an initial report to my uncle and the elders. I came… to tell you what they decided.”

Wei Ying’s eyes shuttered for a moment. He looked like he was steeling himself. Then he nodded at Lan Zhan to go on.

“From the healer’s report, they accept in principle that the corruption is gone from him, or at least suppressed enough not to cause immediate concern. There will be further tests needed, but they’ll be done in our infirmary under your direct supervision. I have assurances that the Jin sect will have no right to touch him. Their involvement won’t be allowed while the investigation into Jin Guangyao’s crimes is ongoing.”

“I’ll be allowed to stay with him?”

“Mm. You are his caretaker. However…” this was the hard part, “there are questions surrounding your actions in concealing him. The elders are arguing for an official investigation, with the other sects involved. I believe it will be unnecessary—you were clearly acting in his best interests—but I don’t have the influence to directly overrule it. Maybe Xiongzhang can when he’s feeling better. Until that’s decided, the elders would prefer that you don’t leave Cloud Recesses. They have no legal right to keep you, but it would hurt your case if you did.”

Wei Ying let out his breath. “Is that all? Lan Zhan, why are you telling me this like it’s bad news?”

“You’ll be unable to leave. Perhaps for weeks.”

Wei Ying grinned, lopsided and tired. “Can’t wait to be rid of us, huh?”

“You should not have to be trapped here,” said Lan Zhan, too sharply. He shot a guilty glance at A-Yuan, thankfully still sleeping undisturbed.

“Ah,” said Wei Ying. “That hit a nerve, huh? Lan Zhan, I knew something like this would happen from the moment you asked me to call your brother. This… it’s the best possible outcome. A-Yuan’s alive, he’s safe, and soon enough he’ll have a certificate from the Lan healers saying he’s possession-free. He won’t have to hide anymore. You think I care about what happens to me? It’ll be better for him to stay here. This is where you’ll be. I know you’ll be busy, but you’ll stop by, right? To see him?”

“Of course.”

“Then it’s fine,” said Wei Ying. The door to the corridor opened then, and he turned his head and smiled at the healer who slipped into the room. “Do you need to check him again? He’s sleeping.”

“I won’t wake him,” she promised. She came to the bed and took A-Yuan’s wrist. The check she performed was deft and thorough, as well as quick. When she was done, she gave Wei Ying a nod. “Everything still looks good. I’m happy to let him out of observation, if you’d like to take him somewhere you can get a better night’s sleep.”

“Thank you,” said Wei Ying, “that’d be amazing. Aiyah, Lan Zhan, how long have I been awake?”

Lan Zhan thought about it. “Since Saturday morning, I imagine. It’s now late Sunday night.” He, at least, had spent the early hours of Sunday morning passed out in a ditch. He supposed he should count himself lucky.

“Is there another guest room? I know the kids have taken a few of them.”

The healer nodded. “I’ll find someone to escort you.”

“Unnecessary,” said Lan Zhan, perhaps more firmly than the situation warranted. To Wei Ying, he said, “You can stay in my quarters. There will be room enough for all of us.”

“You’re sure?”

“Mm.”

“That’s great, Lan Zhan. He’d really like to have you close by.”

Wei Ying said friendly goodbyes to the infirmary staff, then scooped A-Yuan up, still dead to the world, and huddled him against his shoulder, wrapped in a blanket. Lan Zhan took the small overnight bag that had held A-Yuan’s things at Mianmian’s, and they made their way out of the infirmary and through the Cloud Recesses.

The Jingshi was ready and waiting, as it had been on the bare handful of occasions he’d stayed overnight in Cloud Recesses since he left for college; just as he’d left it, his scant possessions dust-free, bed sheets kept fresh with an airing charm. While Wei Ying laid A-Yuan down, Lan Zhan raided the linen closet to make up a pallet on the floor for himself. He looked up from his task to find Wei Ying watching him, an odd, tight expression on his face. Lan Zhan stood, and made an inquiring noise.

“Lan Zhan,” said Wei Ying, stepping forward abruptly. His voice was trembling. “Have I even said thank you?”

“No need for thanks.”

“You saved him.” Wei Ying made a pained noise, choked, as though someone was holding him by the throat. It tugged Lan Zhan helplessly towards him. They met, catching at one another. Wei Ying clung, burying his face in Lan Zhan’s shoulder. Lan Zhan’s mind went blank, empty of everything but the weight of Wei Ying, the smell of him, ash and grime and fear-sweat and the warm scent of his skin. He finally had Wei Ying wrapped up tight in his arms, and it felt like it would take at least a crowbar, possibly a small missile to force him to let go.

“You were so sure,” said Wei Ying. “I don’t think anyone else could have stopped me from trying to save him myself. But you told me to trust you and I believed you.”

“I wasn’t sure,” said Lan Zhan. It felt like someone had hit him in the chest, punching the words out. He was glad he didn’t have to look Wei Ying in the eye. He kept them pressed tight together, arms wound around Wei Ying’s back. “I didn’t know if I could save him. I only knew that if you tried to play I would lose you both. I couldn’t bear it.”

He waited, clinging to the last moment of contact, expecting Wei Ying to freeze in his arms, to pull back, betrayed and angry. But Wei Ying didn’t. If anything, he hung on tighter. “Lan Zhan,” he choked.

“I can’t lose you, Wei Ying,” said Lan Zhan helplessly.

Wei Ying made a small, desperate noise. His hand moved up the back of Lan Zhan’s neck, fingers digging in enough to cause a tingle on the edge of pain. He shifted, turning his head, and then his mouth was on Lan Zhan’s, hot and urgent.

Lan Zhan was the one to freeze, though only for a moment. He met the kiss. Wei Ying’s lips were soft, his chin tilting up sweetly, like he was asking to be ravished, like he wanted Lan Zhan to press inside, to take…

Lan Zhan dragged their mouths apart, gasping. “Wei Ying,” he groaned, “Wei Ying.”

“Lan Zhan,” said Wei Ying again. He gave a breathless gasp of laughter, shaky and uncertain. “Please tell me I was reading that right. Because if you meant I couldn’t lose you as a neighbour-slash-friend-slash-dad-of-the-kid-I-love I’m going to be really upset.”

Lan Zhan made an attempt to gather his thoughts and formulate a reply, but the feeling of Wei Ying against him filled his mind with static sparks. He kissed Wei Ying again, hungrily. “Want you,” he said. “Not as a neighbour.”

“Thank god,” said Wei Ying, and buried his face back into Lan Zhan’s shoulder.

For a while, they just held on, as though the embrace was the only thing keeping them from disintegrating into fragments. After a while, though, the desperation of it eased. Wei Ying sighed, his fingers scritching fascinatingly through the hair at Lan Zhan’s nape. “Aiyah, Lan Zhan, I’ve been wanting to kiss you since…”

“Since?” said Lan Zhan.

“I don’t know. Since the rooftop.” He chuckled, a warm, damp huff against Lan Zhan’s skin. “Or since that first day when those Yao flew away. The look on your face! So flustered and annoyed. I think I wanted to kiss you then. Before everything you did for us. Before I knew how wonderful you really are. I don’t deserve you.”

“Wei Ying is wonderful,” said Lan Zhan emphatically. It could only be Wei Ying, fiercely alive, with his dangerous smile and his knife-sharp mind, his music that had changed everything, and the kindness he showed everyone around him. “Brave. Brilliant. Beautiful.”

It seemed unreal, that he could be holding Wei Ying, saying these things, that he might get to have this, that Wei Ying might want it too. The emotions were overwhelming, happiness crushing his lungs, confusion and disbelief and the leftover fear and adrenaline of the day. It was just so much.

Wei Ying shivered. “Lan Zhan,” he protested, “you can’t say that. What are you trying to do to me?”

Marry you, Lan Zhan thought. Several other things too, but he wasn’t going to let himself consider those when there was a child asleep a few feet away. He satisfied himself with taking Wei Ying’s chin in his hand and coaxing his face up for another kiss. He couldn’t get enough of exploring Wei Ying, the press of his lips, the slight rasp of stubble on his jaw, the little shudders of his breath.

A quiet mumble from the bed jolted both of them out of their daze.

“sh*t,” said Wei Ying. His laugh puffed over Lan Zhan’s skin. “Okay. Okay, we’ve got to stop this. I’m dead on my feet, and we have to—ah, there are things we need to talk about if we’re going to do this. Do you really want to do this, Lan Zhan?”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan. He didn’t want to draw back. He felt, viscerally, that Wei Ying belonged in his arms. But Wei Ying was right. There was a lot that had to be discussed. Lan Zhan’s heart might be saying, you are mine now and we will be together forever, but the more rational parts of him were thinking about the future, what Xichen would need from him, what his place in the sect would be, about A-Yuan’s cousins in Yiling, and Wei Ying saying I’m just a stand-in until we can make things safe. It was a swirl of uncertainties coming at the end of one of the most draining days of his life. “We’ll talk in the morning,” he said, “with clear heads. Go take a shower. I’ll find something for you to wear to sleep.”

There would be some old under-robes of his in the cupboards. The thought of wrapping Wei Ying up in pale blue silk made it just about bearable to let him go.

***

Lan Zhan opened his eyes to a streak of bright sunlight hitting the pillow. He rolled over, blinking, and sat up, letting his brain settle back into the reality of his situation. The bed next to his makeshift pallet was rumpled, Wei Ying sprawled on his back, long limbs loose, with A-Yuan tucked against his side in a nest of tangled blankets. The shaft of sun hadn’t woken either of them, just dusted them with soft highlights. Lan Zhan gave himself a moment to look. They were here, and alive, and today was a new day.

From the position of the light and the distant sounds of wooden practice swords clacking together, it was at least seven o’clock, perhaps closer to eight. Lan Zhan peeled himself out of bed and threw on a set of too-tight training robes abandoned by his teenage self over what he’d worn for the night. A little embarrassed at how dishevelled he must look, he ventured out into the Cloud Recesses. His first stop was the stores. The thought of Wei Ying spending the entire day in his old robes was appealing, but it seemed presumptuous to ask him to wear them. Instead, Lan Zhan picked up fresh junior disciple whites in both their sizes, and the tiniest of the child-sized version for A-Yuan, bundling them into his qiankun pouch. Next on the list was breakfast, and he made his way towards the kitchens, only to stop short as a group of figures came out of the dining hall and into his path.

The students were huddled together, looking small and overwhelmed, following in the wake of Lan Qiren at his most upright and stately.

“Shufu,” said Lan Zhan, bowing formally.

“Wangji,” said Lan Qiren, giving him a familiar critical look. It made Lan Zhan feel almost fond.

The pinched young faces brightened with varying expressions of relief. “Lan-laoshi,” they chorused. A few of them made awkward attempts at bowing the way he had to his uncle, arms extended. Only Zhou Chuhua got it right.

“Good morning. Are you well?”

They exchanged glances and seemed somehow to silently decide on Zhang Bao as a spokesperson. He nodded earnestly. “Yes, Lan-laoshi. We saw the healers again just now and they said we’re all fine. Lan-xiansheng kindly took us to breakfast and has arranged to have us sent back to Caiyi.” He shot a nervous look at Lan Qiren as he said it. Lan Zhan could only imagine the stonily censorious silence of that breakfast.

Lan Zhan gave them all a polite nod, and found, to his own surprise, that he was smiling. “I am very glad to know last night did you no harm. I can’t thank you enough for your actions. You’ve amply proven your ability as musical cultivators. I will be continuing to develop the technique, and if any of you would like to learn it more fully, I’d be very glad to work with you.”

“Really, Lan-laoshi?” said Zhou Chuhua breathlessly.

“Mm. I hope to begin teaching it to Lan disciples soon. You would be welcome to join the classes.”

“You mean… here?”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan. He could feel his uncle’s eyes burning into the side of his head. “And once Cleansing has official approval I will continue to treat your qi control issues. I will begin the process of sect approval immediately.”

“Hmph,” said Lan Qiren, and waved a hand, summoning a disciple to take custody of the students. Once the goodbyes were said and the students departed to be loaded into cars, he turned to Lan Zhan, looking down his nose as best he could, considering they were the same height. “You are taking your status and position very much for granted, Wangji. I suggest you meditate on the precepts concerning humility.”

“Yes, Shufu.”

“It would do you no harm to copy the rules in full. Twice.”

“Yes, Shufu,” Lan Zhan said again, eyes downcast. He could definitely use a little humility right now. He felt… smug was the best word for it. Sound of Vanquish, his uncle’s own stated benchmark of success, was waiting to be written down, and Wei Ying was waiting in his bed. He firmly turned his thoughts away from both. “Have you spoken to Xiongzhang this morning?”

“I have. He will be taking today to rest in seclusion.”

Lan Zhan nodded, unsettled. Seclusion meant a visit or even a text would not be welcome. He could only hope that Xichen was isolating himself for the right reasons. “Thank you, Shufu. If I may, I will meet with you later. For now, please excuse me. I must attend to our other guests.”

“Wei Wuxian.”

“Mm.”

Lan Qiren sighed. “I knew his mother,” he said, with a weariness that was less scathing than Lan Zhan might have expected. Then he turned on his heel and walked off.

***

Back in the Jingshi, Lan Zhan laid out a selection of dishes on the low table, along with tea, soy milk and juice, leaving charms on the warm foods to keep them fresh. That done, he let his eyes rest once again on the bed. Wei Ying was still in an inelegant sprawl, though he seemed to have shifted with the sun, limbs seeking the warmth. A-Yuan was still nestled in a bundle of blankets, and Lan Zhan saw with a start that his eyes were open, watching. He was sucking his thumb, something Lan Zhan had never seen him do before.

“Good morning, A-Yuan,” said Lan Zhan, softly so as not to disturb Wei Ying.

A-Yuan removed his thumb from his mouth. “I need to go pee,” he said.

“Do you need help?”

“You have to come with me.”

A-Yuan wriggled out of the blankets, kicking Wei Ying a couple of times in the process, which suggested Lan Zhan had no need to keep his voice down - Wei Ying didn’t stir. When Lan Zhan went over to the bed and held out a hand, A-Yuan took it and held it in a death grip for the few steps to the en-suite. He then insisted Lan Zhan stay while he used the toilet, and grabbed his hand again directly afterwards, which meant both of them had to wash their hands together.

“Would you like some breakfast?” Lan Zhan asked, once the ordeal had been accomplished.

A-Yuan shrugged, pressing tight up against his side, grabbing his hand again with both of his own. Probably the clinginess was a normal response to a traumatic event. It was still unsettling, to have A-Yuan so quiet. Lan Zhan led him to the table and served him some congee, and then sought for something to fill the silence.

“This place is called the Jingshi,” he said. “It was my bedroom when I lived in the Cloud Recesses, once I was old enough to have a room of my own.”

A-Yuan ate a single spoonful and regarded him mournfully.

“I’ll show you the rest of my home when your baba is awake. There are many other buildings. Music rooms with all kinds of instruments, and a library, and a dining hall, and the classrooms where I did my lessons when I was small. There are other children here too, as well as grownup cultivators.”

“This is where you grew up?”

“Mm,” Lan Zhan confirmed. “This is the Cloud Recesses. We all came here last night so you could see the healer, do you remember?”

“I remember.” A-Yuan poked at his congee with his spoon, seeming lost in thought. Then, looking up with a sudden flash of interest, he said, “Is this where the bunnies are?”

“Yes. The bunnies live in a meadow beyond the buildings.”

“Can I see them?”

“Mm, if you’d like.”

A-Yuan dropped his spoon back in his bowl with a plop. Before Lan Zhan could explain that he hadn’t meant right this instant, he hopped to his feet and scampered back to the bed. “Baba, come see bunnies,” he said, tugging on Wei Ying’s lax hand. Wei Ying made an unintelligible, protesting sound and mashed his face into the pillows.

“Noo. Yuan-er, it’s too early.”

“Wei Ying,” said Lan Zhan gently.

Wei Ying sat up, flailing out an arm that nearly knocked A-Yuan over. His hair was mussed, his sleeping robe open tantalisingly at the neck, everything about him rumpled and soft. “Lan Zhan?” Realisation dawned as he took in his surroundings. “Ah! Hah, I forgot where I was.” He pulled A-Yuan in for a hug and kissed the top of his head. “Hi, radish, how did you sleep?”

“Fine,” said A-Yuan distractedly. “Baba, there’s bunnies here. Lan-gege says.”

“He does, huh?” Wei Ying turned to Lan Zhan, a soft, fond smile lighting his eyes. “Good morning, Lan-gege. Are we going bunny-hunting? Is that the plan for the day?”

“Breakfast first.”

“There’s breakfast?” said Wei Ying, perking up. “Lead me to it! Then maybe I won’t have to eat bunnies for my breakfast. Or radishes!” He hefted A-Yuan up into his arms and faked a bite that turned into more kisses.

A-Yuan wriggled and giggled. “Baba,” he complained, sounding much more like his usual self. He put his arms around Wei Ying’s neck and allowed himself to be carried back over to the breakfast table.

As Wei Ying stepped around Lan Zhan, he shifted A-Yuan to one arm. He brought his free hand to his mouth, kissing his own fingertips before brushing them against Lan Zhan’s sleeve. Lan Zhan’s ears went warm. He had to give himself a shake before he could follow Wei Ying to the table and serve the food.

Throughout the brief meal, Lan Zhan felt drunk on Wei Ying’s playful glances, the private smiles they shared. Once Wei Ying had coaxed A-Yuan to eat the congee and shovelled down his own meal as though he hadn’t eaten in days, Lan Zhan unpacked the robes from his qiankun pouch. Wei Ying grinned at him, dazzling.

“Here, Yuan-er, look what Lan-gege got for us. We can all be cultivators today.”

They dressed in matching white. A-Yuan was delighted at first, swirling his tiny robes. Then he looked up at Wei Ying, eyes wide and serious. “I need a sword, Baba,” he said.

“Yeah, you do. I bet we can find you a good stick when we go out.”

“No, a real sword. For if the monster comes back.”

Wei Ying’s smile faltered. “You’ve got my sword for that,” he said, “and Lan-gege’s, and his guqin. We won’t let any monsters come. We’re not leaving you again, radish.”

“You have the sword of every cultivator in the Cloud Recesses,” Lan Zhan promised.

From the look on A-Yuan’s face, this wasn’t enough.

The bunny meadow was a little way beyond the far end of the compound. After stopping by the kitchens to pick up some greens, they climbed the rocky path, helping A-Yuan over the scrambles that were too steep for his little legs. Before they got out into the open space where the bunnies gathered, Lan Zhan crouched to explain how to approach the animals without frightening them, how to feed them and how to tell if they wanted to be touched. A-Yuan listened with focused attention, then looked sternly up at Wei Ying.

“You have to be quiet,” he reiterated. “Quiet, Baba. Or they’ll run away.”

“Are you calling me loud? Such disrespect for your poor Baba, how will he ever—”

Lan Zhan stood from his crouch, looped an arm around Wei Ying’s waist and laid a hand over his mouth. “Hush,” he said. “Be good.”

A-Yuan burst out giggling. Wei Ying went still in Lan Zhan’s hold, breath hitching, and then his lips moved under Lan Zhan’s palm, pursing and pressing with a soft sound. A kiss. Lan Zhan shivered. He wanted to put his mouth on Wei Ying’s neck. He settled, instead, for tracing a finger down the line of it, hooking momentarily in his collar.

“Unfair, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying breathed, eyes dancing. “I’ll make you pay for that.”

“Mm,” Lan Zhan hummed, then set Wei Ying away from him before any more temptations could arise. He held out his hand to A-Yuan instead. “Let’s go and meet the bunnies.”

They emerged from a copse of trees into the meadow, moving slowly and quietly. The rabbits, snowy white against the lush grass, raised their heads to inspect the intrusion, judging—danger or source of food? After a few moments, one large fluffy bunny hopped closer. A-Yuan’s little hand squeezed Lan Zhan’s, trembling with excitement.

“Sit,” Lan Zhan murmured. “Let them come to you.”

The three of them settled down on a sunny patch of grass. Lan Zhan offered the greens to the rabbits, letting A-Yuan copy him, and soon they had bunnies all around, sniffing at their robes, putting their little paws up onto A-Yuan’s lap for better access to carrot tops and fronds of sweet-smelling basil. A-Yuan looked up at Lan Zhan, eyes bright and questioning. Lan Zhan nodded. “Soft touches,” he reminded, and A-Yuan carefully stroked the fur of a rabbit’s nose.

Sprawled in the grass, Wei Ying was watching, smiling. He caught Lan Zhan’s eye, and the smile widened, brimming over with joy. “We’re so lucky,” he said, barely more than a whisper, “to have you.”

Only a few months ago, when Wei Ying had walked into his life, Lan Zhan had been stuck in every single way, frustrated by his work, displaced from the world. Now, everything was different. Despite all the struggles ahead of them, he would have the chance to build a place for himself, his dreams for the sect, and his family.

“I’m the lucky one,” he said.

Wei Ying put his face in his hands and squealed into them. “Lan Zhaaaaan, you can’t say that.”

The rabbits, startled by the sudden noise, retreated several hops en masse. “Baba!” hissed A-Yuan, aggrieved.

“Try some more greens,” Lan Zhan advised. “I will make sure your baba behaves himself in the meantime.”

He held out his hand. Wei Ying scooted obediently closer, his weight settling comfortably against Lan Zhan’s side. Together, they watched as the bunnies crept tentatively back, watched as A-Yuan fed them leaf after leaf. Finally, the bag of greens was empty. A-Yuan crawled over and settled himself into Wei Ying’s lap.

“I like it here, Baba,” he said.

“Glad to hear it, Yuan-er, because we’re going to stay a while.”

“How long? A long time?”

“We’ll see,” said Wei Ying. “But… yeah. I hope so.”

Chapter 16: Epilogue

Chapter Text

Wei Ying had been flying at a leisurely pace all the way from Yiling, but as he first spotted the cluster of buildings high on the mountain he gathered speed, laughing aloud at the sudden exhilaration. He was home. He’d been gone for a week, and he was more than ready to see his family.

Back when they first came here, Lan Zhan had been so upset at the thought of him being forced to stay in Cloud Recesses. He understood why. It would be stifling, if he couldn’t kick the dust of the place off his heels and take to the road when the rules got to be too much. That in itself was amazing. After the grind of single parenthood, it was magical to be able to travel again. He could go out on a two-day night hunt with Jiang Cheng or spend a week at the Burial Mounds testing his inventions and come home to Cloud Recesses to a kid who had missed him but hadn’t wanted for love in the meantime.

As he swooped down towards the compound, the bright dots moving among the buildings resolved themselves into white-robed figures. The buildings themselves looked exactly as they had when he had first arrived here, more than a year ago. The only difference was outside the gates—the little seats and canopy of the Cloud Recesses bus stop. So far, only a few services ran all the way up the mountain each day. Lan Zhan wanted more. He was even thinking about building a cable car, though he hadn’t broached the matter to his uncle yet.

Wei Ying landed in the middle of the main path, hopped off his sword, and sheathed it with a flourish, calling out hellos to the serenely gliding disciples. Then he saw another figure striding towards the gates and the bus stop, head down, radiating irritation. No white robes on this one. She was wearing a t-shirt and jeans and bright purple boots. A guqin case hung across her back.

“Chen Mei,” he called, waving cheerfully.

Her head jerked around. “Wei-qianbei!” she said, and stomped towards him. “Great, you’re back. You can talk to him for me, I’m done.”

Wei Ying hid a snicker. Lan Zhan might claim he was above petty revenge, but as Chen Mei’s thesis advisor he was certainly getting payback for that Lord of Music song.

“Is he being difficult?” he asked. “What’s he saying to you this time?”

She rolled her eyes. “More ethics. He says family consent isn’t enough, I have to get informed consent from my actual test subjects.”

Wei Ying co*cked his head, considering. “Seems fair.”

“No, it doesn’t! How am I supposed to get informed consent from ghosts when the whole point of this project is that we don’t know the qin language to talk to ghosts?”

“Did you ask him that?”

“Yeah, and he just said, ‘Think about it for yourself.’” She kicked at the ground with one boot. “Not helpful.”

“Yeah, that sounds like him.” Lan Zhan had already explained how he thought the project should be approached, and had met Wei Ying’s response of, “Are you f*cking serious?” with a blank nod. “I’ll talk to him,” he promised, “but you’re not going to get any wiggle room on the consent issue.”

“I hate ethics,” she said. “It’s not like ghosts have anything better to do. If I was a ghost, I wouldn’t care if someone press-ganged me into a focus group.”

“Write that down somewhere,” said Wei Ying, grinning, “just in case you drop dead.”

She paused thoughtfully. “Huh…”

Oops. He’d given her a hint. Better make a quick exit before he did any more damage. “Good luck figuring it out!” he said, and strode off towards the classrooms.

In the sunny room where the youngest of the novices studied, twelve little boys and girls knelt by twelve little desks, brushes in hand, shaping characters with varying levels of skill – or in the case of the littlest girl, chewing on the end of her brush while finger-painting smears of ink across her paper. At Wei Ying’s low whistle, all the kids looked round, but only one, in the middle row, scrambled to his feet, bursting with eagerness. A-Yuan took half a step, then turned back to the front of the room, hand shooting up into the air.

“Yes, Wen Yuan?” said the teacher.

“Laoshi, please may I be excused to say hello to my baba?”

“You may.”

A-Yuan spun round, beaming, and trotted across the classroom at a pace that could not technically be called a run but was definitely not a walk. Wei Ying crouched to catch him into a hug in the doorway.

“Baba, you’re home!”

“Hi, radish!” Wei Ying squeezed him tight, then hefted him off the ground, despite his protesting squeal; at nearly six, A-Yuan considered himself too big to be carried around. “Ah, I’ve missed you!” He stepped away from the classroom so they wouldn’t disturb the class further. “Look at you, you’ve grown! You’re inches taller.”

“I am not,” said A-Yuan. “I’m just the same.”

“So much bigger,” said Wei Ying, staggering sideways as though A-Yuan suddenly weighed an extra fifty pounds. “It must have been years since I’ve been home. So long I can barely remember my husband’s face. I can’t even remember how to find his office, you’ll have to take me there.”

A-Yuan giggled, wriggling enough that he legitimately almost set Wei Ying off balance. “Put me down and I will.”

Wei Ying smacked a kiss to his cheek and set him on his feet. “Were you good for your a-die while I was gone?”

“Mm,” said A-Yuan decidedly. He’d picked up the habit from Lan Zhan, but he said it with an enthusiasm entirely at odds with Lan Zhan’s seriousness. It was so cute, Wei Ying kind of wanted to squeeze them both to death. As A-Yuan launched into the week’s happenings, which he had already recounted on their nightly video chats, Wei Ying tuned out the details, looking down at his son, the little hand clasped in his own, the tiny white robes and the ribbon on his forehead. Such a little Lan. And he liked it, that was the mystery. Lan rules would have been unendurable for Wei Ying – and he privately thought they had suited Lan Zhan almost as badly — but they were perfect for A-Yuan. Already, he seemed to have figured out the difference between the truly worthwhile rules, the ones that were arbitrary but made life easier, and the ones that should, in most circ*mstances, be ignored. For now, at least, he was loving the life of a Lan junior. Things would be more difficult in another year. When he turned seven, the training regimen set out in the Lan syllabus would be intense.

“Just decide how much training you think is best for him,” Lan Xichen had told Wei Ying a few weeks ago, his distant, haunted smile becoming more real as he watched his brother and A-Yuan siting side by side at their guqins. “It doesn’t matter what the rules say. Wangji will do exactly as he pleases.”

That was probably true. Things were changing at the Cloud Recesses.

Having lived outside the cultivation world for years, Lan Zhan had ideas unfamiliar to the staid and traditional elders of the Lan sect, and he had the power to enforce them. If the elders complained to the sect leader, Lan Xichen merely said, “It shall be as Wangji wishes,” more from apathy than agreement. Soon enough, the elders tried to remonstrate with Lan Zhan instead, and it got them nowhere. He had taken on the responsibility of leadership without enthusiasm but with a tenacious obstinacy to do what he considered to be right. He was making his mark. People had started to call the brothers the Twin Jades, as though they had forgotten Xichen was the elder.

Under Lan Zhan’s hands, the sect was building stronger ties with the city and university. It was not merely graduates like Chen Mei and Tan Liling working on projects in musical cultivation. Lan Zhan’s major goal was to see how regular sessions of Cleansing could enhance the effectiveness of a university education. Perhaps one day, a degree in cultivation studies need no longer signify mediocrity. Perhaps, as a result, the childhood of a sect cultivator would change too.

In the meantime, they were managing to live with the rules. A-Yuan was blossoming here, his love of music growing constantly under Lan Zhan’s tutelage, developing into a skill and intuition Wei Ying hadn’t known a child his age could possess. He seemed to be learning the trick of creating resonances in his music simply by watching Lan Zhan do it. With such a foundation, Wei Ying could well believe A-Yuan would grow up to be the first true master of musical cultivation in the modern age. But that was a side note. What really mattered was that he was happy.

Lan Zhan and A-Yuan were so similar, it hurt a little, sometimes. Watching them together, Wei Ying found himself thinking, could I ever have been enough?

He would never see the results of that other life, the one where he’d chosen to run the moment Lan Zhan pegged him as a Jiang disciple. In that life, he’d gone to a new city, hunkered down scrounging for odd jobs, and bought A-Yuan a cheap plastic recorder. He’d thought, at the time, that it was the safer option. He’d come close to stealing all of this from his child.

“…and Jingyi says you can eliminate a ghost with a bad smell, if it’s reeeeally gross. Is that true, Baba?”

Wei Ying jerked his mind back to reality. “A bad smell, huh? I don’t know, Yuan-er, I’ve never tried. Where would I even find a bad enough smell to try it with?”

“Uh… you could use dirty diapers! Stinky socks!”

The rest of the short walk was occupied with A-Yuan listing smells that fit his definition of really gross, and plans of how Wei Ying might bring them along on a night hunt. Wei Ying was finding it far too tempting, but he suspected that if he invented a stink-bomb talisman, claiming, ‘I did it to teach our son about the scientific method’ was not going to hold water with Lan Zhan.

At the door to Lan Zhan’s office, A-Yuan knocked and waited conscientiously for the call of, “Enter.” Then he burst inside, calling out, “A-Die! Baba’s here!”

Wei Ying followed him into the room just as Lan Zhan rose to his feet. As always, his husband was the loveliest man ever to walk the earth. He was dressed in robes, a graceful fall of silk that emphasised his height and his perfect posture. Wei Ying still preferred casual clothes most of the time, but the instant Lan Zhan had settled back into the Cloud Recesses he’d returned to the multi-layered robes he’d grown up with and never looked back. His hair was down to his shoulders now, long enough for Wei Ying to brush out to glossy perfection and then tangle again five minutes later, grabbing onto it for dear life while Lan Zhan took him to pieces.

Their eyes met. Wei Ying forgot how to breathe.

“Wei Ying, welcome home,” said Lan Zhan, and smiled that small, soft smile only his family ever got to see. He held Wei Ying’s gaze for long seconds, before turning to A-Yuan. “Yuan-er, have you said hello and given your baba a hug?”

A-Yuan nodded.

“Then it’s time to go back to your lessons.”

A-Yuan tilted his head. “One more hug?”

“One more.”

A-Yuan trotted back over and smushed himself against Wei Ying. “Baba, I’m glad you’re back.”

“I’m glad too, radish. Have fun in your lessons.”

“Mm. Bye A-Die!”

Wei Ying opened the door for him and waved as he not-ran back towards the classroom building. He turned back to Lan Zhan expectantly, only to find him bent over his laptop.

“Lan Zhan. Pay attention to me.”

“I am cancelling a meeting,” said Lan Zhan. He closed the laptop and, with a flick of a finger, activated the privacy talismans around the room. “Done,” he said, his voice dipping into its velvety lower registers. “Come here.”

Lan Zhan had always had an edge to him. A drive. When they first met it hadn’t been a good thing, fuelled by pain, righteous indignation and a vast inferiority complex. Now, he was different; peaceful, deeply and abidingly proud of himself, taking intense satisfaction in being respected by his sect. But all that drive had to go somewhere, and where it had gone was directly into Lan Zhan’s libido. Not that Wei Ying was complaining.

“What? in your office?” said Wei Ying, trying to wipe the delighted grin off his face and project appropriately outraged virtue. “You brute! You can’t even wait to take me to bed?”

“Waited long enough,” said Lan Zhan. He took two quick steps around the desk and swept Wei Ying into his arms.

“But I’m tiiiiiired,” Wei Ying whined, making a pretence of struggling. “Have you no consideration for your poor husband’s needs? You should give me tea and make polite conversation while I drink. Ah, shameless! You’re acting like I’m just a warm body for you to use for your pleasure.”

“Mm,” Lan Zhan said against his neck, one big hand groping his ass. “I love all of Wei Ying, mind and body. I will appreciate his body first.”

“Polite conversation,” Wei Ying insisted weakly, hot all over and rapidly losing the ability for coherent thought. “How was your meeting with Chen Mei? How’s your brother doing today?”

“Hmm,” said Lan Zhan, and removed his hand.

Wei Ying made an affronted noise and grabbed for it, but Lan Zhan was already reaching into his sleeve for his phone. Wei Ying pouted, deeply offended. “Is there a problem?” he demanded. Lan Zhan did not stop in the middle of things. He was single-minded once he had access to any part of Wei Ying’s body.

“You asked about my brother,” said Lan Zhan, holding out the phone. The screen showed his message thread with Xiongzhang. Wei Ying regretted his life choices but resigned himself to the interruption. He peered at the messages, scanning over what seemed to be a totally mundane discussion of musical cultivation class schedules.

“What am I looking at here?”

Lan Zhan pointed to the final message in the conversation. Lan Xichen had signed off with three sparkly hearts.

“Oh!” said Wei Ying, laughter bubbling up from deep inside him. “He’s rediscovered his emoji keyboard, huh?” He kissed Lan Zhan on his perfect, smooth cheek. “That’s a very good sign.”

Lan Zhan hummed with satisfaction.

“Look at you,” said Wei Ying, cupping his face. “You’re happy now, but I guarantee he’ll be driving you nuts again soon.”

“I won’t mind.”

“Even when it’s five messages in a row that are nothing but emoji?”

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan, with much less certainty.

“We’ll see,” said Wei Ying. He laughed again, tilting his head, exposing his neck in the way he knew drove Lan Zhan wild. “I have some emoji for you too, Lan-gege.”

“Mm?” said Lan Zhan, eyes darkening.

“Eggplant,” Wei Ying enunciated. “Water droplets. Peach. Get with the programme, will you?”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan rumbled, the note of disapproval belied by the way he instantly latched his mouth back onto Wei Ying’s neck. Wei Ying melted into his arms with a moan and got back to the business of being thoroughly ravished.

God, it was good to be home.