Concord

Lan Wangji is not consulted as to whether he wishes to marry. Wen Ruohan is accumulating power in a way that bodes ill for the other sects; alliances must be consolidated. Qinghe Nie has no potential spouse to offer—Nie Mingjue’s brother is his only heir, and his head disciple is already wed—so the choice is between Lanling Jin and Yunmeng Jiang: Jin Guangshan’s nephew, Jin Zixun, or Jiang Fengmian’s foster son and head disciple, Wei Wuxian.

The choice is left to Lan Wangji, as a courtesy; the options are presented to him in that order, with subtle emphasis on Jin Zixun as the superior choice, even though reliable reports name Wei Wuxian the stronger cultivator. He knows that it is because Jin Zixun is from a gentry family and Wei Wuxian is not, even though the Gusu Lan precepts are replete with exhortations to place no importance on birth or blood, but to judge others by their merits and virtues. The hypocrisy is distasteful. But that is not what makes up Lan Wangji’s mind.

Lan Wangji has met Jin Zixun. He knows firsthand that Jin Zixun is a crude, arrogant bully who thinks the whole world beneath him.

Thus, even though Lan Wangji has never met Wei Wuxian, his choice is immediate. Whatever else Wei Wuxian may be, he is not Jin Zixun. That is enough.

After the decision is made, Lan Wangji is not further consulted in plans for the wedding.

He wonders, of course, about what his future husband will be like. As head disciple of one of the five Great Sects, he will surely be hardworking, diligent, and serious. As a commoner among the gentry, Lan Wangji expects he must be a master of proper etiquette and self-restraint; any slip-up in that regard would doubtless subject him to dismissive comments on his birth. By reputation, his cultivation level and skill are very high, and Lan Wangji has hopes that perhaps he will be able to assist Lan Wangji with his own duties as head disciple – that they might even be able the share the role as partners, in fact if not in name.

He hopes, too, somewhat frivolously, that Wei Wuxian might find him an acceptable companion, despite his own admitted coldness and terseness. Neither he nor Wei Wuxian are able to bear children, so there will be no need to share a marital bed; that should make it easier for the two of them to reach a natural, comfortable equilibrium. Two strings played in harmony; guests in each other’s home; a chaste and amiable partnership, founded on shared values and duties. This is Lan Wangji’s quiet hope, as he directs the placing of partitions in the Jingshi to provide private spaces for each of them to bathe, dress, and sleep. Perhaps, he thinks, they might even become friends.

The Yunmeng Jiang delegation arrives ten days before the wedding, for feasting, exhibitions, and negotiations. Lan Wangji waits at the entrance with Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen to receive them.

Of the main Yunmeng Jiang party, Lan Wangji recognizes all of them—Jiang Fengmian, Yu Ziyuan, Jiang Wanyin, and Jiang Yanli—with the exception of a tall boy in black robes with a red ribbon in his hair, snapping in the wind like a flag.

It must be Wei Wuxian.

He is very beautiful.

Lan Wangji is immediately horrified with himself for such a shameless and senseless thought, but it is the truth. And when Wei Wuxian throws back his head to laugh, free and wild, at something Jiang Wanyin said to him, the desire that comes over Lan Wangji is not for a chaste and distant marriage.

His introduction to his future husband is unremarkable, except for the frankly speculative glances Wei Wuxian directs toward Lan Wangji’s person: highly inappropriate. Lan Wangji’s ears go hot.

He is instructed to keep Wei Wuxian company during the intervening ten days – answer his questions, provide directions, keep him entertained and so forth. Jiang Wanyin is assigned as their chaperone.

Once they are dismissed by the sect leaders, Lan Wangji escorts Wei Wuxian and Jiang Wanyin to the library – the pride of Gusu Lan, to which scholars from across the cultivation world come seeking enlightenment.

Wei Wuxian slumps in a heap on the floor, leaning outrageously on one of the desks, and asks Lan Wangji, grinning, “So what do people do for fun around here?”

Lan Wangji tears his eyes away from the easy spread of Wei Wuxian’s thighs under his robes. “Lan cultivators no doubt spend leisure time much as Jiang cultivators do.”

Jiang Wanyin snorts – a repugnant sound. “I doubt that,” he mutters.

Wei Wuxian punches his sect brother’s arm—punches him, in the library—and snipes, “How would you know? I didn’t ask you, anyway. I asked Lan Zhan.”

Lan Wangji has not, of course, given Wei Wuxian permission to use his personal name, and now he knows he never will: the sound of that name in Wei Wuxian’s mouth is… provoking. Like a hand shoved in his robes.

And then—and then—Wei Wuxian pulls a bottle of wine out of his sleeve, uncorks it, and pours it into his open mouth. It runs down his jaw, his neck, wets the collar of his robes, droplets tracing along his skin—

Lan Wangji’s right hand closes around Bichen’s hilt before he realizes what he is doing. He forces himself to let go, one finger at a time. Pulling a sword on someone for drinking—even drinking in the library—is not a proportionate response. He feels dizzy, and overheated, and not like himself.

“Want some?” Wei Wuxian asks, lifting the white bottle toward Lan Wangji with a bright smile. “The famous Emperor’s Smile of Gusu!”

“Alcohol is forbidden in Cloud Recesses,” Lan Wangji reminds Wei Wuxian, tightly.

Or perhaps he does not remind him.

Because Wei Wuxian gapes up at him and says, in a tone of total shock, “What?!”

In this way, Lan Wangji discovers that Wei Wuxian is not familiar with even a single one of the Gusu Lan Sect rules. That he did not even know that there were such rules.

“Three thousand?!”

Lan Wangji returns to the Jingshi that night exhausted – a single raw nerve, inflamed and tight-wound. Wei Wuxian persisted in calling him “Lan Zhan” for the entire day. Wei Wuxian complained about every meal he was served, as if he is not a guest, as if he has no sense of courtesy or decorum or respect. Which, apparently, he does not, as he also refused to give Lan Wangji the contraband alcohol to dispose of—meaning Lan Wangji had to draw Bichen after all. The bottle had ended up smashed on the floor, and now the library smells of liquor. Wei Wuxian refuses to sit properly, he laughs foolishly, smiles for stupid reasons—

He had not even had the good sense to be intimidated by Bichen – no, he had been curious. He had peppered Lan Wangji with questions about Bichen’s name, Bichen’s forging, what was the balance like, who gave Bichen to him and when. And of course, he had not had the modesty or decency to wait to be asked before monologuing about his own weapon, the appallingly named Suibian – a loathsome, flippant thing to call a spiritual sword, chosen with no thought or respect, and no concern given to what others would think of a cultivator who gave his sword such a stupid name.

And his presence has—Lan Wangji does not know what he has done, but Wei Wuxian has disturbed him, somehow. His beauty is a terrible distraction, and the way he sits, sprawling loose-limbed, is a provocation of a sort that Lan Wangji has never encountered before. It takes a half-shichen of meditation to calm himself enough to bathe and sleep. And in the night, he wakes sweating and stiff, as he never has before.

Appalling.

The entire thing is appalling.

Jin Zixun would be worse is the only thought that carries Lan Wangji through his morning routine; the only thought that squares his shoulders for another day of Wei Wuxian.

Then he realizes that he has contracted himself to spend every day with Wei Wuxian.

They cannot all be like this. They simply cannot.

The second day is no better than the first. He encounters Wei Wuxian outside the guest quarters with his arm around Jiang Wanyin’s neck and his knee in Jiang Wanyin’s back as Jiang Wanyin flails his arms and tries to bite Wei Wuxian’s hand.

Apparently, Wei Wuxian has not bothered to begin studying the rules; or he has, and merely ignored them.

“No fighting in Cloud Recesses,” Lan Wangji pronounces, glaring.

Wei Wuxian climbs off of Jiang Wanyin, which is something. Wide-eyed, he asks, “No fighting? Then how do the Lan disciples learn to night hunt?”

It is not a sincere question. Nevertheless, Lan Wangji feels compelled to answer.

“No fighting without permission,” he corrects, seething at having to backtrack.

Wei Wuxian smirks. “See? That is a very important loophole, Lan Zhan!”

It is not a loophole – the Gusu Lan Sect rules do not have loopholes. They have exceptions, for important circumstances, to allow the sect to carry out its mission.

Wei Wuxian slouches against one of the lantern-posts. “We—ell, Lan Zhan… who do we ask for permission to have a fight, then? Your uncle? The—”

“I am the assigned disciplinarian.” A position he is very much ruing at present.

Wei Wuxian’s eyebrows shoot upward. “Is that so? Oh, that is a great comfort to this one.” Another smirk—this one slow and beguiling—spreads across his face. “Lan Zhan,” he murmurs. “Husband.”

Lan Wangji bites off his words. “We are not married.”

Undeterred, Wei Wuxian amends, “Lan Zhan, future husband… do I have your permission to tackle my disrespectful shidi?”

“No.”

“No?!” Wei Wuxian looks genuinely surprised, for some unfathomable reason.

“No.”

Wei Wuxian huffs and turns to Jiang Wanyin, grinning again. “Just wait. Once I’m in the clan, we’ll be able to fight as much as you want.”

Until this moment, Lan Wangji has been angry with Wei Wuxian in a shallow sort of way. The scabbard of his anger, not the blade within. But this… this brings out the blade.

It is one thing to be ungoverned, rash, ungrateful, discourteous, dissipated—but to seek to take advantage of his position, to use it to exempt himself and his favored ones from the rules that others of lower status must obey…

It is the sort of thing he would expect Jin Zixun to say. It makes him fear he has made the wrong choice after all.

“Members of the inner clan hold themselves to higher standards of conduct. Not lower,” Lan Wangji says. He is shaking. “Morality is the priority.”

He was instructed to accompany Wei Wuxian today, but he cannot. Let Wei Wuxian fend for himself for a day. Let him enjoy his special privileges while they last. Lan Wangji has better things to do than squire around a spoiled and arrogant bully.

He had heard rumors—gossip is forbidden to members of his sect, but that does not stop members of other sects from whispering in his presence—that Yu Ziyuan often sent Wei Wuxian to kneel in the ancestral hall. It was framed as personal, not professional, gossip: tales of a troubled relationship within the inner Jiang family, not of a shimu disciplining a recidivist head disciple. It had given him no pause, in considering the marriage – if anything, it explained why Wei Wuxian would be so willing to marry out of the sect that had given him a home. Such troubled relationships often caused sects to lose promising disciples who attracted the ire or jealousy of higher-ranking members.

Now, he suspects the rumors had it wrong.

Now…

I see Yu Ziyuan’s point, Lan Wangji thinks, as he fails utterly to meditate, still simmering with rage.

The next day, Wei Wuxian seeks him out. He looks subdued. “Sorry, Lan Zhan,” he says quietly. He does not say for what he is apologizing, so in all likelihood, it is not sincere – someone in the Jiang party probably ordered him to make nice. But at least he is not smirking any longer. At least he has demonstrated he can curb his behavior when ordered to.

When Lan Wangji does not respond to his apology, Wei Wuxian pouts, and sidles closer. “Lan Zhan, aren’t you supposed to be showing me around?”

Lan Wangji restrains a sigh. “What does Wei Wuxian wish to see?”

“Would Lan Zhan show me his favorite places?” Wei Wuxian’s expression is hopeful.

Lan Zhan considers the request. “You have seen the library,” he points out. He is not taking Wei Wuxian back there. It is his hope that Wei Wuxian will never set foot in the library again.

“I have,” Wei Wuxian says, smiling broadly, as if Lan Wangji had told a joke. “But Lan Zhan must like other places. Right?”

Lan Wangji considers further. He enjoys the waterfalls very much, and the Cold Springs. But those are all on the back hill, which is restricted to sect members.

When he explains this to Wei Wuxian, the other boy’s mouth drops open. “But… Lan Zhan! I’m going to be a sect member in seven days!”

Another attempt at rule-bending; another demand for special treatment. Lan Wangji would not have acquiesced regardless, but it gives him special pleasure, now, to say, “But Wei Wuxian is not a member of Gusu Lan Sect yet. Entry is forbidden to outsiders.”

“But… will you take me there in seven days?”

“Mn.” It is a reasonable request; it would not reflect well on Lan Wangji to refuse it.

“Then what’s the difference?” Wei Wuxian pleads.

“In seven days,” says Lan Wangji—placidly, vindictively—“it will not be against the rules.”

Wei Wuxian stares at him. “Who are you?!” he demands – there’s a thread of desperation in his voice.

It is a rhetorical question; Lan Wangji feels no obligation to answer.

The following night, Lan Wangji gives serious consideration to refusing the marriage. He knows that he cannot—he knows his duty, and arrangements are already so far carried forward that there is no way to turn back—but he has just finished fighting with Wei Wuxian, in the middle of the night, on the rooftops, because Wei Wuxian compounded the evils of breaking curfew, breaking and entering, and smuggling alcohol into Cloud Recesses despite being told it was forbidden, by then attempting to bribe Lan Wangji with said liquor.

In the morning, as soon as he is dressed, he goes to Lan Xichen and reports Wei Wuxian for punishment.

His brother gives him an odd look. “Wangji. We cannot—it would be very politically unwise to punish your future husband six days before the wedding. He is a member of another sect and a guest here.”

He is, of course, right. Still. “Xiongzhang. This is far from the first incident.”

His brother’s mouth quirks up at the corners. “I heard about the library.”

Of course he had. The only question is why Lan Wangji has not yet been punished, for allowing the library to be desecrated on his watch. Regardless…

“There were others,” he says, flat.

His brother watches him for a few moments. Then, quietly, he says, “If you really cannot stand him, Wangji… we will find a way out.”

Lan Wangji does not trust his words. He confines himself to a shake of the head.

“Then… what are Principles 102 and 103, Wangji?” Lan Xichen asks.

They are a paired set. “Be hard on yourself. Be easy on others,” Lan Wangji recites. He is not a fool. He understands where his brother is leading him.

“Does Wei-gongzi know our sect’s rules?”

“No.” Another mark of arrogance, or laziness, or both. “He has not studied them at all.”

“Mn. Has anyone given him a copy?” Lan Xichen gently lifts an eyebrow.

The anyone is a polite fiction. He means, have you, Wangji?

Lan Wangji has not. “No,” he admits, aware of his brother’s implicit rebuke. Very much against his will, he adds, “He did not know that they existed until after he arrived.”

Lan Xichen smiles, with his usual unflappable patience. “Well, then. It sounds as if Wei-gongzi has not been given a real opportunity to conform his conduct to our ways.”

Wei Wuxian could have asked for a copy of the rules; could have taken the initiative. But—

It is hard for Lan Wangji to imagine a life without the rules flowing through his veins and filling his lungs. But if he tries to think the way his brother would—with a generosity of spirit—he can imagine that perhaps a tome of 3,000 rules would be intimidating to someone accustomed to a shorter list, or none at all. That perhaps such intimidation might dissuade that person from undertaking a study of those rules, especially without assistance.

“Wangji.”

Lan Wangji looks up to meet his brother’s warm gaze.

“Yunmeng Jiang prizes independence and a free spirit,” Lan Xichen reminds him. “It sounds as if Wei-gongzi has shaped himself into the consummate Yunmeng Jiang disciple. With the guidance of a devoted spouse, surely he can shape himself into the consummate Gusu Lan disciple, also.”

It is a point Lan Wangji would never have thought of – but it makes sense. He is thankful for his brother’s wisdom, as always.

“Thank you, Xiongzhang.” He bows.

As Lan Wangji turns toward the door, his brother says casually, “I hear that Wei-gongzi fought Wangji to a standstill.”

Lan Wangji’s ears burn.

“Such a strong swordsman would be an asset to any sect,” Lan Xichen comments. There is a smile in his voice.

The fact had not escaped Lan Wangji’s awareness. Indeed, Lan Wangji has spent an unseemly amount of time, since their fight concluded in a draw with the wine jars smashed, reflecting on Wei Wuxian’s skill as a fighter. At times, the images of Wei Wuxian’s lean, strong body bending as he evaded one of Lan Wangji’s strikes have been all he can think about.

“Xiongzhang,” he says again, shortly, and departs before his brother can say further obvious yet embarrassing things.

With the benefit of his brother’s insight, Lan Wangji can better tolerate the remaining six days before the wedding. He understands Wei Wuxian’s antics as the natural consequence of a Yunmeng Jiang education, not necessarily of any inherent arrogance or rudeness on the boy’s own part. More importantly, he understands them as temporary. For the next six days, Wei Wuxian is not a member of Gusu Lan Sect, as Lan Wangji himself emphasized when forbidding Wei Wuxian the back hill. Thus, although Lan Wangji still points out to Wei Wuxian those instances when his conduct violates the Gusu Lan principles, he strives—not always successfully—to avoid being provoked by such violations. There will be time enough for a thorough education in the rules—which Lan Wangji will assist with, patiently and devotedly, as a husband should—once Wei Wuxian has made the bows that irrevocably bind him to this sect.

The ceremony and the banquet are a blur. He can see faces, in flashes—his uncle solemn, his brother proud, Jiang Wanyin resentful, Yu Ziyuan triumphant—but his mind is dragged underwater every time he turns his head far enough to see Wei Wuxian.

His husband.

Throughout the last ten days, Wei Wuxian was beautiful in black and dark blue. But in red, he glows. Gold glimmers in his hair, at his throat, at his wrists—but his face outshines them all. The plane of his cheeks, the dark of his eyelashes, the suddenly shy curve of his mouth… they are ruinous.

And they are Lan Wangji’s to touch, if he wishes. He knows this, and the knowledge tortures him.

He had decided, when the match was first made, that there would be no need for the intimacies of the bed.

He was right, and he was wrong. There is no need that any other soul would recognize, no question of heirs, no demand for a bloody sheet.

But the desire that has pierced his skin this night, drawn its thread through him, organs and all – it must be a need. It feels like a need – no mere want could crush him like this.

And Wei Wuxian… he has winked at Lan Wangji, made… comments. He blushes now, at the bawdier toasts, but perhaps… perhaps he would welcome, perhaps even expect…

And then they are in the red-draped Jingshi, alone. The laughter of the guests receding.

Lan Wangji’s breath scalds his lungs. He turns to his husband, who is beautiful—

And trembling, he notices suddenly. Avoiding Lan Wangji’s eyes.

It’s a splash of ice water to the face.

Of course Wei Wuxian, who does not like him or even know him, would not want—

“Your space is to the left,” he says, abruptly. Wei Wuxian’s head jerks up; Lan Wangji keeps his gaze distant. “If it is lacking in any way, you may notify the servants tomorrow.”

He turns toward the right – toward his own side of the partition.

“Wait!”

When he turns back, Wei Wuxian looks taken aback. His hands grip each other, clasped in front of his stomach.

“Shouldn’t we—consummate…”

“There is no need to undertake to produce an heir,” Lan Wangji says. Neither is there any need to press his ungoverned and shameful desires on someone who does not share them. He turns his back on his husband and walks to his separate bed.

Behind him, there is a soft “Oh.”

As Lan Wangji changes into his sleep robes, he expects to hear the rustling of cloth from the other side of the partition.

But he hears nothing. Not even footsteps.

Only after he lies in bed and snuffs the candle does he hear, for the first time, the sound of red robes whispering in the night.

The following morning, Wei Wuxian steps around the partition long after mao shi. He looks at Lan Wangji, then down at himself, and winces.

“L-Lan Zhan, can I borrow some of your robes? I don’t—I don’t have any white ones.”

Wei Wuxian is dressed today, as he has been every day—except yesterday—primarily in black.

“Mn.” Lan Wangji provides a set of his own robes – white, since that is what Wei Wuxian requested.

Once Wei Wuxian has changed, Lan Wangji reminds him, “The Jiang delegation will depart soon.”

Wei Wuxian flinches. “Right. I should. Right.”

At the gates of Cloud Recesses, only Jiang Yanli speaks to Lan Wangji directly. “Please take good care of our A-Xian,” she says, with tears gathering in her eyes. “I know he causes trouble, but his heart is good.”

Lan Wangji bows, accepting her charge. Wei Wuxian is his spouse now – and thus, his responsibility. What Jiang Yanli asks of him is no more than his marital duties require.

She is not the only one weeping – several of the Jiang disciples are quietly crying as well. An unseemly display, but a testament, perhaps, to the respect and affection Wei Wuxian has earned as head disciple of their sect.

Wei Wuxian does not cry. Instead, he smiles widely and tells his foster sister, “I’ll miss you so much… but how can I be sad when I’m married to the most beautiful man in the world, ah?”

Lan Wangji presses his lips together. Shameless.

After the Jiang contingent leaves, Lan Xichen tells Lan Wangji, with a warm smile, “I’ve assigned your duties to others for the day, Wangji – you and your husband should enjoy a day off.”

Lan Wangji bows his thanks—even though, in truth, he would rather be working. He has had quite enough of Wei Wuxian’s company, these last ten days, and would welcome a respite.

At loose ends, Lan Wangji decides to practice guqin on the back porch of the Jingshi. When it is time for lunch, Lan Wangji stores Wangji in his sleeve and enters the house—and hears soft sounds of distress.

“Wei Wuxian?”

There are hurried rustling noises, and then Wei Wuxian peeks around the edge of the partition. He looks embarrassed. His face is dry, but his eyes and nose are red; he has clearly been crying for some time.

Lan Wangji draws himself up stiffly, and takes refuge in the unreadability of his own face. He knows Wei Wuxian does not care for him, but he had not thought the prospect of their marriage to be this upsetting—

But no. He is being foolish. Not everything in the world is a reflection on him.

He tries again to think as his brother would. With generosity. And he imagines it. He, too, has been married to a stranger—so in that, he and Wei Wuxian are the same. But Lan Wangji slept in his own bed, last night; walked familiar paths this morning; dressed in familiar robes. He saw his brother and uncle today, and may do so any day if he wishes—every day, if he wishes. The thought of not seeing Lan Xichen again – of no longer having his warm wisdom and unswerving love, except perhaps now and then on festival days…

Yes. That would be reason enough to weep.

A knock at the door reveals that Lan Xichen has sent their lunch to the Jingshi. As they eat, Lan Wangji studies Wei Wuxian’s red eyes, and the tired set of his mouth.

This man is Lan Wangji’s responsibility, now. His conduct, yes—but also his health, and safety, and happiness. Lan Wangji does not have much experience making other people happy. The last person for whom he tried passed beyond his reach many years ago, leaving him no keepsake but this home—now shared. No longer his alone.

After the dishes have been emptied—and after Wei Wuxian has completed his customary whining about the purported blandness of the food—Lan Wangji asks, “Does Wei Wuxian wish to see the back hill?”

A look of unguarded surprise comes over Wei Wuxian’s face, quickly followed by a teasing grin. “Oh, so now you’ll take me to the back hill?” he asks, stacking their dishes on the tray.

Lan Wangji nods. “Wei Wuxian is a member of Gusu Lan Sect now.”

Two bowls clack loudly against each other. Almost covering the sound of Wei Wuxian’s sharp inhale. “Yeah,” he says softly. His hands come to rest on the table, folded in front of him. The white sleeves of his borrowed robes drape gracefully over his strong, tanned wrists. “Yeah, I—I am, aren’t I.” He lifts his head. His eyes are clear – the redness is gone. He asks, “On the way back, can you show me where the quartermaster’s office is? For robes.”

“Mn.”

Lan Wangji half-expected Wei Wuxian to treat the natural glories of the back hill with the same casual disrespect with which he treats everything. But Wei Wuxian appears genuinely, and gratifyingly, impressed by everything Lan Wangji shows him: the Cold Springs under their blanket of hovering mist; the rock-studded stream where Lan Wangji likes to play his guqin, surrounded by the rush of water; the towering waterfalls that can only be reached by sword, slopes too treacherous to climb by foot.

At the top of Lan Wangji’s favorite waterfall, feet planted on a broad, flat stone, Wei Wuxian stands by his side and breathes, “It feels like you can see the whole world from up here, Lan Zhan.” His hair is dusted with pinprick diamonds – droplets cast up by the force of the waterfall’s torrent.

He turns to meet Lan Zhan’s gaze, and for once, there is nothing brash in him – nothing sharp-edged. “Thank you for showing me your favorite places, Lan Zhan.”

Lan Wangji nods.

“It’s…” Wei Wuxian’s eyes look slightly wet; but that, too, could be from the waterfall’s spray. “Of course, nothing compares to Yunmeng,” he says, with a catch in his voice on the name of his former home. “But Cloud Recesses is really beautiful, too.”

I am pleased you think so, Lan Wangji almost says. But it seems… unnecessary. Lan Wangji’s opinion has no bearing on anything.

On their walk back to the main compound, Wei Wuxian catches Lan Wangji’s arm to hold him still, and hisses, “Lan Zhan, look! A little bunny!”

Lan Wangji looks in the direction Wei Wuxian points. There is indeed a small rabbit, paying them no mind as it nibbles on a tender leaf between two gnarled tree roots. It is a juvenile, Lan Wangji thinks – too young to have learned to fear humans, here in the back hill where most disciples are not permitted. It looks very…

“You’re smiling!” Wei Wuxian whispers with glee.

Immediately, Lan Wangji’s mouth pulls down in a scowl, but the damage is done.

“You were! You like rabbits!” Wei Wuxian exclaims.

The little one, demonstrating a sensible aversion to loud noises, perks up its ears at that and scampers away.

Crestfallen, Wei Wuxian mumbles, “Ah, sorry, Lan Zhan. But this is so exciting!” he continues, grinning. “Finally, something Lan Zhan likes that’s not stuffy old rules.”

Lan Wangji’s hand clenches around Bichen. He is… grateful for the reminder, he tells himself. When they return to the Jingshi after a stop to pick up some uniform robes in Wei Wuxian’s size from the quartermaster, Lan Wangji deposits a complete copy of the sect rules on Wei Wuxian’s desk.

“Lan Zhan, what’s this?” Wei Wuxian asks, bright-eyed.

“Wei Wuxian is no longer a guest; he is a member of Gusu Lan Sect. He is thus expected to know all of the sect rules and conform his conduct to them.”

“Oh.” The light in Wei Wuxian’s face dims slightly. He looks down at the book and frowns. “So these are—these are Lan Zhan’s three thousand rules.”

“Mn.”

“And what do you want me to do with them?”

Lan Wangji reminds himself of the many rules that counsel patience. “Obey them.”

Wei Wuxian cocks his head to the side. “What about when they conflict with each other?” he asks.

A preposterous question.

“They do not.”

Wei Wuxian swipes a finger across his nose, eyes narrowed. “Three thousand rules, there have to be some conflicts.”

“No.” In response to a mulish look from Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji concedes, “If Wei Wuxian perceives a conflict, he may ask me to clarify.”

His husband does not appear convinced, but he forbears to argue any further. Instead, he stands, and, grinning, says, “Lan Zhan, do you want to spar? There’s space behind the house, right?”

Lan Wangji looks pointedly at the book on the desk. “Wei Wuxian should study the rules.”

“Ah, Lan Zhan, come on – Zewu-jun gave us the day off, remember? I can study tomorrow!”

Lan Wangji hesitates. The proper thing to do would be to refuse to participate in Wei Wuxian’s malingering.

“Lan Zhan, I didn’t want to have to say this,” Wei Wuxian says, leaning into Lan Wangji’s space, eyes artfully wide, “but the last time we fought, I beat you without even drawing my sword! I expected better from the famous Second Jade of—”

“We will spar,” Lan Wangji says, making a mental note to assign himself punishment for breaking the rule against interrupting. By the time dinner is brought to the Jingshi, he has also been forced to silently assign himself punishment for shouting, sneering, and—when Wei Wuxian had him pinned to the ground, body warm and chest heaving—lascivious thoughts.

When Lan Xichen sends him a note asking if he’d like to have tomorrow off as well, Lan Wangji almost tears the paper in his haste to respond in the negative. More time alone with Wei Wuxian is the last thing he needs.

The following morning, Lan Wangji brings Wei Wuxian with him to the training yard for his session teaching the sword forms to the disciples too young to have their spiritual swords. On the walk to the yard, Wei Wuxian—dressed in the standard white uniform robes—is physically bouncing with excitement.

“This will be so fun!” he crows.

Lan Wangji reviews his mental list of things Wei Wuxian has considered “fun” in the past: drinking, fighting, disrespecting authority—

“It will not be fun,” he corrects, tone icy.

Wei Wuxian blinks at him, puzzled. “Are—are the students lazy?”

Outraged, Lan Wangji bites out, “The disciples are not lazy. Gusu Lan does not tolerate—”

“Then why wouldn’t it be fun?” Wei Wuxian asks, in apparently honest confusion.

They arrive at the training grounds before Lan Wangji is forced to respond to that nonsensical question.

With that unpromising prelude, Lan Wangji expects little. But Wei Wuxian proves himself to be a skilled instructor, worthy of the title of Jiang head disciple. His corrections are apt, his explanations are clear, and his patience with the students is seemingly limitless.

When one student accidentally hits another in the mouth with her wooden practice sword, splitting his lip, Lan Wangji therefore has no qualms about delegating Wei Wuxian to deal with the ensuing tears and recriminations.

In truth, it is a luxury, having a co-instructor who can handle such distractions, so that Lan Wangji may continue leading the larger group uninterrupted. In the past, the whole class would have ground to a halt while Lan Wangji—incompetently, he admits—played mediator between two sobbing children. But Wei Wuxian handles the whole thing very smoothly, turning it into a small lesson for the two students: “And what have we learned about controlling our weapon, Mengqi? And what about you, Ding’er: do we yell at people when they didn’t do it on purpose?”

At the end of the lesson, Lan Wangji finds himself looking at his husband with new respect. An excellent swordsman is not always an excellent teacher, but Wei Wuxian is clearly both. Moreover, he excels in precisely the type of situations for which Lan Wangji himself is most ill-suited—crying children—and he was able to contribute to the lesson despite his lack of familiarity with the Lan sword forms.

When he raises this last issue with Wei Wuxian, the other boy laughs. “Jiang or Lan, it doesn’t matter: bad posture is bad posture. Ah, but what about the older disciples, Lan Zhan? They’ll need more than just posture work. When do we work with them?”

“Ages nine to twelve and thirteen to fifteen have a different instructor,” Lan Wangji says, as they walk toward the dining hall for lunch. “I teach the juniors, ages sixteen to nineteen, at shen shi, in the late afternoon, when my other duties permit.”

His hand tightens around Bichen’s sheath as he waits for Wei Wuxian’s reaction. As Lan Wangji is himself only eighteen, he is accustomed to dismissive or hostile comments from outsiders who find it odd that he is, in effect, teaching his peers. But Wei Wuxian just nods as if this is what he expected. Perhaps, he, too, is accustomed to teaching his age-mates. Another unexpected benefit of his presence.

“And the early afternoon?” Wei Wuxian asks.

“Classroom instruction.”

“As the teacher? Or the student?”

Lan Wangji explains, “Lecture is optional for disciples who have led a successful night hunt on their own, but I attend as a student when I am available. Occasionally, I am asked to teach other classes, or provide individual instruction on guqin.”

Wei Wuxian looks at him out of the corner of his eye. “Lan Zhan keeps himself very busy.”

“Diligence is the root,” Lan Wangji recites.

“That sounds like one of your rules.”

“Mn.” So he still has not studied them. Lan Wangji’s lips press together.

At the dining hall, they receive their food and join Lan Wangji’s brother and uncle at their accustomed table.

As they begin to eat, Wei Wuxian grins at Lan Qiren and exclaims, “Lan-xiansheng! Lan Zhan says we’ll have class with you—or maybe it’s someone else today, but… anyway. This humble Wei is excited to learn from you!”

Wei Wuxian is not, in actuality, speaking in an unusually loud voice. But because his is the only voice, it carries. Lan Wangji’s ears burn—and burn hotter when his uncle gives him a look that clearly says Discipline your husband, Wangji.

Wei Wuxian’s smile falters at Lan Qiren’s non-response, but undeterred, he says, “All the sects know of Lan-xiansheng’s great achievements in scholarship. I was really looking forward to the lectures next year – but now I get them a year early! It’s…”

He breaks off and looks around. Then he leans toward Lan Wangji and asks, puzzled, “Lan Zhan… why isn’t anybody else talking?”

“Talking during meals is forbidden.” Lan Wangji’s stomach clenches with embarrassment. He looks fixedly at his bowl.

“It—always? But…” Wei Wuxian pauses, and looks around the dining hall. “Oh,” he says, in a small voice.

“As is excessive flattery,” comments Lan Qiren. He is speaking in what qualifies as a mild tone for him—but Wei Wuxian reacts as if he’s been slapped.

“Oh,” he says again, softly. The tops of his cheeks are red.

The remainder of the meal is consumed in appropriate silence.

After lunch is concluded, all rise from their seats, and a light buzz of conversation begins.

The sound seems to restore some of Wei Wuxian’s good cheer. He gives Lan Wangji a cheeky grin and stage-whispers, “Lan Zhan. I think I know why the Lan ancestors banned talking during meals.”

Lan Wangji ignores him.

Undeterred, Wei Wuxian continues, “To stop people from complaining about how bland the food is! But it won’t work – I’ll just save up all my complaints for after.”

Before Lan Wangji can decide how best to respond to such a staggering display of rudeness toward one’s hosts, his uncle announces, “Wangji. I will speak with you.”

When Wei Wuxian realizes Lan Qiren means “alone,” his smile falters, then returns, brighter than before. “Ah, I see Ding’er!” he exclaims, to no one in particular. “I should go check on that split lip.” He trots away.

Lan Wangji places his fist against the small of his back and awaits his uncle’s judgment.

It is not slow in coming.

“He has not studied the rules.”

Although Lan Wangji is, himself, annoyed by that fact, some sense of spousal loyalty compels him to point out, “He is new to the sect.”

His uncle is unmoved. “He has been here for twelve days.”

Lan Xichen interjects smoothly, “Shufu – Wei-gongzi was occupied with the wedding events. And yesterday, I relieved Wangji and Wei-gongzi of their duties so that they might… adjust to married life.”

This last is said in a tone of faultless delicacy.

That makes it so much worse.

Lan Wangji’s ears flame. He wishes devoutly for end of this conversation, or for death. Either would be an improvement.

His brother continues, with his signature diplomatic smile, “I am sure Wei-gongzi will be diligent in study, now that he has joined Gusu Lan.”

“Hm.” Lan Qiren strokes his beard, unconvinced.

Fortunately, Lan Wangji has years of practice picking up his brother’s cues.

He bows. “Shufu. Wangji will supervise Wei Wuxian in study this afternoon.” And not attend lecture, which is unfortunate. But his uncle is right that the situation cannot go on like this.

That prompts Lan Qiren to frown. “He cannot supervise himself?”

Lan Wangji’s ears burn again. Lying is forbidden. He knows Wei Wuxian will not study the rules unless Lan Wangji stands over him.

His uncle’s frown deepens.

There is nothing to be gained from continuing the conversation. With one more bow, Lan Wangji departs.

He finds Wei Wuxian enmeshed in conversation with—why?—a gaggle of younger juniors who are not even his students, all of whom look scandalized. Lan Wangji does not want to know what his husband has been telling them.

“Come,” he orders as he exits the dining hall.

Fortunately for both of them, Wei Wuxian obeys, jogging a little to catch up with him. “Where are we going?” he asks.

“The Jingshi.”

“But… what about the lecture?”

“Wei Wuxian must commence his study of the rules.”

As Lan Wangji should have expected, Wei Wuxian begins to whine – loudly, and indeed, loudly enough that other disciples along the paths are starting to stare.

“Lan Zhan, that’s boring! I want to go to lecture, instead. Come on, Lan Zhan, it—mm. Mmn mn!”

For an entire xun, Lan Wangji has exercised the self-restraint that his forehead ribbon demands, and refrained from casting the Lan silence spell on Wei Wuxian. It brings him no little satisfaction to do it now.

But Lan Wangji’s sense of triumph is short-lived.

Once ensconced in the Jingshi, Wei Wuxian makes infuriatingly little progress studying the rules that afternoon. Every moment brings a new distraction or excuse. He’s thirsty; he’s hungry; he needs to relieve himself. He’s tense and needs to stretch; it’s stuffy and he needs air; he can’t focus when Lan Wangji is staring at him.

In the rare instances in which Wei Wuxian runs out of such excuses, and actually reads a few rules, he immediately begins interrogating them. Asking, “What’s wrong with laughing?” or “Do not criticize other people—how are you supposed to teach, then?” or “No alterations of clothing without permission—who do you ask for permission for that? Is that you, too, Lan Zhan? Does the disciplinarian examine everyone’s underwear?”

The grin on his face is unbearable. Lan Wangji’s ears burn fever-hot.

“These are the rules. You do not need to know the reasoning behind them.” His jaw hurts from clenching.

Wei Wuxian responds as if Lan Wangji has said something utterly ridiculous. “Lan Zhan,” he says reproachfully, “how am I supposed to know how to apply the rules if I don’t know what they’re trying to do? How else am I supposed to know what criticism is allowed and what’s not, unless I know why criticism is forbidden?”

Lan Wangji draws breath to respond, then—realizes he cannot. He has no counter. He cannot refute Wei Ying’s point. There is real justice in it.

“I’ve got you there!” Wei Wuxian crows. He is sprawled against his desk, sleeve irreparably stained with ink, grinning widely and demonstrating an inciting disregard for the fact that he is at this very moment breaking at least three Gusu Lan Sect rules. More, if the rules against smugness and gloating are included. Which they should be.

Lan Wangji’s gut simmers with the frustration of having lost to Wei Wuxian again.

With great deliberation, he sets his brush on its rest and looks up from the night hunt reports he had been attempting, unsuccessfully, to review. He takes a fortifying breath. “Laughing is an expression of excessive emotion. And it is loud. The purpose of the rule forbidding criticism is to prompt us to reflect on our own failings rather than drawing attention to the failures of oth—”

Wei Wuxian’s head pops up, and he leaps to his feet, leaving the principles discarded on his desk. “Ah, it’s shen shi! Lan Zhan, didn’t you say we have sword practice with the older juniors now? We don’t want to be late!”

It is not, in fact, shen shi yet. Lan Wangji endeavors not to grind his teeth as Wei Wuxian takes off through the door of the Jingshi and begins running in the direction of the practice yard.

Unfortunately for Wei Wuxian, he has not learned the pathways of Cloud Recesses yet. Lan Wangji embarks on another route that will allow him to cut Wei Wuxian off before he can disturb whoever is currently using the practice grounds.

As he arrives at the intersection of their two paths, he finds Wei Wuxian and Lan Guiling, who is several years Lan Wangji’s senior. She is—as is proper—remonstrating with Lan Wangji’s errant husband on the ground that running is forbidden.

Wei Wuxian winks at her, cheerily announces, “You’ve got to catch me first!”

And then backs directly into Lan Wangji.

For a moment, all Lan Wangji can think is he is very close – Wei Wuxian’s hair is in his face and his body is pressed against Lan Wangji, and he smells like loquats—

Wei Wuxian laughs uneasily, and shuffles away, casting a guilty look at Lan Wangji. “Oh, Lan Zhan! You, ah. You heard that?”

“Mn.”

As soon as Lan Wangji is confident that he can grab Wei Wuxian if he tries to take off running again, he steps to the side and bows to Lan Guiling, “Lan Wangji apologizes for Wei Wuxian’s behavior.”

There’s a swift intake of breath from Wei Wuxian.

Lan Wangji does not wait to hear what he will say. This is an important moment. Gossip is forbidden, of course, but there are watching eyes. The news of how Gusu Lan’s assigned disciplinarian punishes the infractions of his own husband will spread throughout the sect by hai shi. He knows this.

“Wei Wuxian will copy the Gusu Lan rules six hundred times,” he announces.

“Six hundred?!”

It is a harsher sentence than Lan Wangji would give any other disciple for the same infraction. But he must demonstrate—to Wei Wuxian and to the rest of the sect—that there will be no special treatment afforded merely because Wei Wuxian is his husband, or a member of the inner clan.

(In addition, Lan Wangji acknowledges with satisfaction, Wei Wuxian has handed him the excuse he needed to make Wei Wuxian learn the rules. Much should be simpler, now.)

“One hundred for running,” Lan Wangji explains. “Two hundred for seeking to evade discipline. Three hundred for speaking disrespectfully to your senior.”

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian moans – but, interestingly, he makes no attempt to argue his way out of the punishment. Neither does he take off running.

Instead, to Lan Wangji’s surprise and approval, Wei Wuxian bows to Lan Guiling and says, with evident sincerity, “Wei Ying apologizes to Lan-qianbei, and humbly accepts his punishment.” His ink-stained sleeve is very visible.

Lan Guiling inclines her head. “Lan Guiling is satisfied,” she says, and continues on her way.

With that delay, it is now close enough to shen shi that it is reasonable to continue on to the practice yard.

The walk takes place—again to Lan Wangji’s surprise and approval—in silence.

He prefers to believe that it is a chastened silence, although he is well aware that Wei Wuxian is likely only planning his next mischief.

Regardless, the quiet is a gift. Do not be ungrateful for good fortune.

When they reach the training grounds, the older juniors are beginning to assemble. They greet Lan Wangji with polite bows.

Wei Wuxian receives a similarly polite welcome—

Until he joins Lan Wangji at the head of the class, rather than lining up with the rest of the students.

Then, the juniors’ eyes narrow. Some lean in to whisper to their age-mates.

Wei Wuxian merely smiles brightly and pretends not to notice. Lan Wangji finds himself less tolerant.

“Gossip is forbidden,” he reminds them, and the juniors fall silent. Some have the decency to look shamefaced. Others scowl.

It is best to be direct.

“Wei Wuxian is the former head disciple of Yunmeng Jiang,” he begins. “He is a skilled swordsman and talented instructor.”

Beside him, Wei Wuxian starts slightly. Lan Wangji ignores this.

“We will serve as co-instructors.”

Lan Wangji then selects the most belligerent-looking disciple, and says, “Wang Dongbo. You object.”

Wang Dongbo bows slightly. “This disciple does not object, Lan-er-gongzi. He merely wonders what a person who knows nothing of Gusu Lan sword forms could possibly teach to students who have been studying those forms for a decade or more.”

Wang Dongbo believes himself very clever; an unfortunate trait in a person devoid of real cleverness. Lan Wangji feels no compunction about using him as an object lesson.

He says, “Wei Wuxian is best qualified to answer Wang-shidi’s question.” Then he gestures for Wei Wuxian to enter the sparring ring.

Wei Wuxian grins at Lan Wangji as he passes. He walks entirely too close – so close that his shoulder brushes Lan Wangji’s chest. Once in the ring, he bows to Wang Dongbo.

When Wang Dongbo joins him there, it is with the shadow of a smirk hovering at the corner of his mouth. Not for the first time, Lan Wangji wishes it were possible for him to enforce the rule against smugness.

No matter. He strongly suspects Wei Wuxian is about to do it for him.

He is correct.

The bout is over almost before it begins. Wang Dongbo is too slow, too methodical, and his footwork is sloppy. He looks like a beleaguered birch tree whipped in the wind of Wei Wuxian’s graceful Jiang onslaught. The crowning touch and final move is a disarm based on Gusu Lan forms—specifically, the forms that Lan Wangji taught to the children this morning. Forms that are familiar to every Lan disciple watching, but that Wei Wuxian has never himself practiced, and that he only saw demonstrated a mere three shichen ago.

Lan Wangji’s mouth is very dry. And his trousers feel too tight. It is mortifying. But he has no one to blame but himself.

Summoning restraint honed over many years, he ignores his body and turns to address the juniors.

“Wei Wuxian has much to offer as an instructor.”

Lan Wangji would be content to leave it there, but Wei Wuxian steps up beside him and asks, “Who can tell us why?”

Lan Peiwen’s hand shoots up. He does not wait to be called on before blurting, “Because Wei-gongzi is unpredictable. We won’t know his moves.”

Wei Wuxian nods. “And why is that a good thing?”

Lan Peiwen’s hand leaps into the air again. The corner of Wei Wuxian’s mouth quirks up. “Someone other than—” He flicks a look at Lan Wangji.

“Lan Peiwen,” Lan Wangji supplies.

“Someone other than Lan Peiwen?” Wei Wuxian finishes smoothly.

Lan Wangji is surprised when Yan Fang raises her hand. She was late to enter the sect—already eight years old when she was adopted—and often seems self-conscious at her slow progress compared to her peers.

“Because that’s what a real opponent will be like,” she says quietly. There is something slate-hard in her eyes. “You won’t know in advance how they fight. You’ll have to figure it out as you go.”

“Very good,” Wei Wuxian says, with unusual seriousness. Then he smiles. “Plus, like I told Lan Zhan this morning, bad posture is bad posture in any sect!”

“We will practice the Heron forms,” Lan Wangji announces; nothing exposes poor postural fundamentals like a balancing form.

In addition, Wang Dongbo does poorly at these forms. It will build character.

That first day of married life sets the pattern for the xun that follows.

Wei Wuxian continues to engage in petty rule-breaking, to Lan Wangji’s great frustration and Lan Qiren’s increasing and unconcealed disgust. He continues to complain about the food, about the practice of silence at meals, about sleeping at hai shi, about the lack of meat and alcohol, and about Lan Wangji’s refusal to spend his scant free hours engaged in forbidden and immoral pursuits such as fishing and gambling.

The excuse can no longer be that Wei Wuxian does not know the rules: his never-ending copying has made him so familiar with the principles that he can quote them with ease. He simply appears to view them as suggestions rather than laws. It is maddening.

And yet.

In his way, Lan Wangji is forced to admit, Wei Wuxian is trying. He wears the humble uniform robes of the rank-and-file sect members every day, even though his station entitles him to finer dress. When the two of them are sent on a short night hunt in the forest outside Caiyi, Wei Wuxian is focused and skillful—a reliable partner, despite his incessant joking and teasing. He continues to be an exemplary teacher of both the children and the juniors. He is diligent in maintaining his cultivation and learning the Lan forms, joining Lan Wangji for meditation or sword practice when their schedules permit.

He does not attend lectures, but then, neither does Lan Wangji: Wei Wuxian’s petty violations result in an endless stream of copying, which keeps them both out of lectures while Wei Wuxian churns out rushed copies of the sect rules and Lan Wangji supervises to ensure that he actually does it.

Lan Wangji sometimes wonders if Wei Wuxian’s punishments would be more effective if Lan Wangji did not supervise them, as his husband spends much of his time pestering Lan Wangji for his attention instead of making the assigned copies. But the thought of Wei Wuxian pestering some other sect member—pouting at them, batting his eyelashes, begging them for a glance, grinding ink for them…

No. That would not be… appropriate. It would be unfair, he concludes, to subject another sect member to such bothersome treatment.

On the eleventh day of his marriage, Lan Wangji wakes at mao shi, dresses, and enters the common area of the Jingshi. There is no sign of Wei Wuxian; that is not unusual. As he is accustomed to doing, Lan Wangji leaves for the kitchens to pick up a light breakfast for himself and his husband.

As he approaches the central courtyard, he sees a figure kneeling in the gravel. At this distance, it is impossible to know who it is.

Nevertheless. Lan Wangji represses a sigh.

It is indeed Wei Wuxian, who waves cheerfully when Lan Wangji arrives in his field of vision. “Good morning, Lan Zhan!”

What trouble could Wei Wuxian have gotten into while he was asleep? But then, Lan Wangji knows that Wei Wuxian frequently disobeys the rule requiring sleep at hai shi.

He is thus unsurprised when Wei Wuxian admits, “I was out after curfew. Not doing anything bad! I was just going for a stroll. They wanted to wake you because you’re head of discipline, but I said they should let you sleep, Lan Zhan. So here I am.” He spreads his arms and offers Lan Wangji a bright smile.

Of course it would be too much to ask for him to display even a pretense of contrition.

Lan Wangji represses another sigh. “How long?”

“Until shen shi. Apparently so everybody who comes to lunch can get a good look.” Wei Wuxian embellishes this announcement of their mutual public humiliation with a carefree laugh. “But don’t worry about me, Lan Zhan! This is easy for me. I’ve spent lots of time on my knees.”

A sharp shock, like the crack of a whip, travels up Lan Wangji’s spine; he almost sways on his feet. His own breathing sounds unnaturally loud. He is too afraid to look around and see who might have heard.

“Shameless,” he hisses.

Wei Wuxian is unperturbed. “Enjoy your breakfast, Lan Zhan. And come get me when it’s time for the kids’ lesson, okay?”

This is why Lan Wangji must supervise Wei Wuxian’s copying: he will shirk his punishments without remorse if he is given even half a chance.

“I will not,” Lan Wangji bites out. “You must complete your punishment until shen shi. You admitted as much.”

Wei Wuxian blinks up at him. “Wait, but—even though I have class to teach?”

He must read the answer on Lan Wangji’s face.

“Oh.”

For a moment, Wei Wuxian looks lost – as if he had turned a corner and found a blank wall. Then his gaze drops to the white gravel. Lan Wangji cannot see his face. “That wasn’t how it worked at Lotus Pier,” he says quietly. “If you had responsibilities, you still—people needed you. You’d just go back to kneeling after.”

A wind chime calls from the corner of the Lanshi. White-robed figures move in silence at the edges of Lan Wangji’s vision.

Wei Wuxian looks up again, eyes wide. This time, he looks truly contrite.

“I’m really sorry, Lan Zhan. Will you tell the shidimeis I’m sorry, too? I’ll miss them a lot!”

“I will tell them,” Lan Wangji allows, and departs.

When the appointed hour arrives, the young disciples are plainly crestfallen that Wei Wuxian will be absent. He is relieved that they are too well-mannered to ask where their missing teacher is. They will surely see him when they go to lunch, but Lan Wangji is not eager to personally explain his husband’s failings to a group of children. Or to anyone.

At shen shi, Wei Wuxian shows up for the juniors’ lesson, bringing with him a thick face and sore knees. His punishment does not appear to have slowed him down at all.

“Lan Zhan ah,” he laughs, when Lan Wangji points it out afterward, “if I couldn’t teach swords with bruised knees, I wouldn’t have made it two days as head disciple in Lotus Pier.”

Still, when they are alone after dinner, he seems subdued.

“The Cold Springs are beneficial for soreness,” Lan Wangji offers.

Wei Wuxian nods. “Maybe I’ll go tomorrow.” He cracks a smile that lacks his usual brightness. “Will Lan Zhan come with me?”

“Shameless,” Lan Wangji mutters, although he has bathed in the presence of other disciples before and not found it untoward. It is the thought of Wei Wuxian’s body bared, or half-revealed by the cling of soaked robes—

It does not matter. Wei Wuxian knows where the springs are. He hardly needs Lan Wangji to accompany him.

At hai shi, Lan Wangji rises from his desk. Before he can retire to his own side of the Jingshi, Wei Wuxian looks up at him and says, with soft urgency, “Lan Zhan, can I ask you about the rules? About… the rule about sleeping at hai shi?”

Tomorrow, Lan Wangji should say. For the sake of his own obedience to that rule. But—

This is what he has been waiting for, hoping for, and what Wei Wuxian has needed, since even before they were wed. Now, finally, Wei Wuxian has turned to him for instruction in the principles. This is where Lan Wangji can prove his worth as a husband.

He sits back down at his desk, and nods. His heart is racing.

Earnestly, Wei Wuxian says, “Lan Zhan, I don’t want to get in trouble again. I really don’t! But I… I can’t sleep at hai shi. That’s so early! I’ve tried. I have. And all I do is lie there in bed and fidget. It drives me crazy, I hate—I hate feeling those hours go to waste. And then if I wake up at mao shi, I’m exhausted.”

Lan Wangji is accustomed to hearing his husband complain about the rules. He would not have disobeyed the rule against sleeping at hai shi merely for more complaints. “What is your question?” he asks.

After a deep breath, Wei Wuxian meets Lan Wangji’s eyes and asks, “Is there anything I can do? Anything after hai shi. I know a lot of the rules have exceptions: it’s okay to fight if it’s sparring, it’s okay to criticize if you’re teaching. Is there any… room, in this rule? For people like this humble Wei?”

Lan Wangji’s first impulse is to lecture Wei Wuxian about the importance of self-discipline. If Wei Wuxian goes to bed at hai shi each night, he will train his body to sleep at that time—and if it takes months, so be it. Compliance with the principles is not meant to be easy. It is supposed to require self-restraint and sacrifice.

But his husband is asking him for help. Help of a kind Lan Wangji is especially suited to provide: help harmonizing his conduct with the principles of the sect. Help that is Lan Wangji’s responsibility, as a husband, to provide.

Lan Wangji draws breath to speak—then pauses.

For a moment, he is seized with doubt. Is this not exactly what he feared before they were wed: Wei Wuxian seeking special treatment? Seeking loopholes and exceptions not offered to others?

It is not, Lan Wangji decides. Diligence is the root. It therefore would be against the principles to force Wei Wuxian to lie in bed every night merely to stare at the ceiling in the dark. He is right: it is a waste of time that could be spent in useful pursuits. Moreover, Wei Wuxian’s circumstances are unusual, worthy of special consideration. Unlike the disciples who grew up here, he has not been trained in Lan sleeping patterns since childhood. The burden of strict application of the rule is thus greater on him than on others.

Lan Wangji is quite proud of himself for that last argument. It is the sort of thing his brother would think of.

Thus assured, he begins his answer. “Those who have a good reason to be active after hai shi, such as those who keep the night watch, or those who care for infants, are permitted to do so, as an exception to the rule.”

“So I should keep the night watch every night?” Wei Wuxian looks intrigued. With a grin, he adds, “See, Lan Zhan – it can be useful to have a reprobate night owl in the sect!”

It is, in truth, a sensible idea. “I will speak to the disciple responsible for the sentry shifts,” Lan Wangji agrees.

That part is easy: a known, officially recognized and sanctioned exception. But Wei Wuxian cannot serve the night watch every night. And he has no infants to care for; no delicate chemical experiments to monitor; no gravely ill patients to observe. What Wei Wuxian is asking for goes beyond the specific exceptions with which Lan Wangji is familiar. It requires application of the animating spirit of the rule – and that is a journey to a place that Lan Wangji rarely visits. He rarely needs to. The plain text of the rule has always been enough, before.

“On other nights, after hai shi,” he says slowly, fighting a twist of discomfort under his sternum, “if Wei Wuxian is engaged in useful pursuits and remains on the grounds of the Jingshi, it should be permitted.”

He is not totally at ease with his own answer – much is left undefined, still. And exceptions—especially broad ones such as this—introduce nuance and ambiguity, vitiating the very clarity that the rules are meant to establish. But in the main, he thinks his proposal a reasonable compromise. He hopes Wei Wuxian will see it the same way.

But Wei Wuxian asks a question he does not expect. Eyes slightly narrowed, he says, “Why only on the grounds of the Jingshi?”

So that my uncle does not find out about it, Lan Wangji thinks, reflexive.

He has the strangest feeling that Wei Wuxian can tell, somehow, even though Lan Wangji has always been told that his face is unreadable.

But Wei Wuxian just nods, as if he expected nothing else.

Then he stands. Automatically, Lan Wangji rises to match him. Wei Wuxian steps closer; Lan Wangji mirrors him. Only a hand’s breadth separates them now. The Jingshi is dim. One of the candles has already guttered out.

“Lan Zhan.” Wei Wuxian’s voice is a rough murmur. “This humble Wei has one more question about the rule.”

Lan Wangji’s throat is dry. “Mn.”

“I bet there’s something else people do after hai shi.” He smiles. “Married people, at least.” And then he—places his hand on Lan Wangji’s chest, brand-hot—

“What do the rules say about that?” he half-whispers. He is so close. All of him. His curved lips. His strong body, made for movement but now stilled. The palm of his brazen hand, which can surely feel the wild beating of Lan Wangji’s traitor heart—

Lan Wangji steps back, nearly stumbling in his haste. Hoping Wei Wuxian felt nothing, saw nothing.

“The rules make no provision for such activities,” he says stiffly, looking over his husband’s shoulder. “Wei Wuxian need not do so, either.”

He hears a soft, sharp indrawn breath as he turns away.

After that night, Wei Wuxian always takes his leave when Lan Wangji begins his preparations for sleep just before hai shi. Sometimes he leaves out the front door, departing for his night sentry shifts, which he attends faithfully and about which he never complains. The other nights, he leaves through the back door – sometimes with a stack of talisman paper, sometimes with only his sword.

It is none of Lan Wangji’s business what Wei Wuxian does in the Jingshi’s back courtyard after hai shi, so long as it remains unobserved by others. But one night, curiosity overtakes him, and he cracks the window, to peek at his husband.

Wei Wuxian is practicing sword forms by moonlight – Lan forms, which he is taking at half-tempo, as smooth and natural as the swirl of water through a river delta.

He is very beautiful, Lan Wangji thinks – it strikes him with no less force now than the first time he thought so. The first moment he saw this boy who would be his husband.

He finds it difficult to fall asleep, after that.

Wei Wuxian drops something on Lan Wangji’s desk, with an air of great triumph.

“Guess what that is?”

Lan Wangji picks up the bundle of papers and examines it. It is yet another hurried, sloppy version of the Gusu Lan Sect principles.

“It’s my ticket into the lectures, Lan Zhan!”

“The last copy,” Lan Wangji realizes.

Wei Wuxian bounces on his toes, grinning. “It is! I’ve kept my nose clean for the last few days, and I was furiously copying at night, and now I’m done.”

There is a part of Lan Wangji that wants to say Wei Wuxian has done well, but he dismisses it. There is no accomplishment in atoning for misdeeds.

Thus, after the midday meal, Wei Wuxian follows Lan Wangji into the lecture hall. The disciple at the door assigns him a seat—Lan Wangji has the same seat he has had since he was a child—and Wei Wuxian goes readily enough, although he pouts at Lan Wangji as he goes.

If Lan Wangji had expected that Wei Wuxian’s long-thwarted desire to attend one of Lan Qiren’s lectures would translate into proper attentive behavior therein, he would have been very much mistaken. During the first half of the lecture, devoted to Lan Sect history, Wei Wuxian plagues Lan Wangji with a parade of papermen. No matter how many Lan Wangji crumples in his fist, there is always another a moment later, climbing up his back, tugging on his hair, trying to crawl up his sleeve.

Lan Wangji attempts to keep Wei Wuxian’s antics from disturbing the other attendees, but he is unsure of his success. And he himself learns absolutely nothing.

Admittedly, the information would not be new to him regardless, as he is well acquainted with the details of his sect’s illustrious history. But it is the principle of the thing.

After half the shichen has passed, Lan Qiren announces a change in topic, from history to musical cultivation. Out of the corner of his eye, Lan Wangji sees Wei Wuxian sit straighter, hands poised to take notes.

Then Lan Qiren looks out across the assembled disciples and says, curtly, “Wei Wuxian is dismissed.”

Lan disciples have too much self-restraint to gasp in surprise. But the mood of the room is one of astonishment. And no one looks more astonished than Wei Wuxian.

Standing to address Lan Qiren, he asks, “Why am I dismissed, Lan-xiansheng?”

“Have you trained in musical cultivation?”

“No,” Wei Wuxian admits.

“Hmph.”

Lan Qiren flicks his gaze away, as if to say that no more need be said of the matter.

“But I can learn!” protests Wei Wuxian. “Isn’t that—”

“Do you play the qin?” Lan Qiren demands.

Interrupting is forbidden, Lan Wangji thinks automatically.

“No—”

“The xiao?”

“No.”

“Hmph.” Lan Qiren deliberately turns away.

Lan Wangji’s hands are clenched in his lap – not out of anger, but confusion. He does not understand what is happening – he has seen students dismissed from lecture for misbehavior, and indeed, he expected that was the nature of the dismissal here. But he has never seen a student dismissed for lack of prerequisite training. Surely, even those with little grounding in a technique can benefit from instruction and demonstration?

Wei Wuxian, meanwhile, is not giving up. He announces, “I can play the dizi!”

But Lan Qiren merely scowls. “The question,” he says, “is whether Wei Wuxian plays a gentleman’s instrument.”

Wei Wuxian’s mouth closes. As Lan Wangji watches, the set of his face changes. For a moment, it is stone – for a moment, he truly looks like a Lan.

“A gentleman’s instrument,” he repeats, smooth and even. “That’s funny, I could swear I read a principle or two about not looking down on people because of their birth—”

“Birth has nothing to do with it,” Lan Qiren retorts.

Wei Wuxian smiles. In a dangerously pleasant tone, he replies, “That’s what I’m saying.”

“Not just any instrument is capable of mastering the Gusu Lan techniques.”

“And a dizi—”

“The dizi is a brash and unrefined instrument inherently unsuited for cultivation,” Lan Qiren snaps, brutal and final. “Wei Wuxian is dismissed.”

There is a silent moment when no one moves. Lan Wangji is not certain that anyone breathes.

Then Wei Wuxian bows – deeply, with perfect form. Lan Wangji cannot shake the feeling that there is something mocking about it. “Lan-xiansheng,” he says. He turns on his heel and walks out.

Lan Wangji follows. He could not say why. He just knows that he could not stay.

He continues to follow Wei Wuxian, not knowing where he is going, as they wend their way through the intersecting paths of Cloud Recesses.

As he walks, he replays his uncle’s words in his head, attempting to make sense of them. No one has ever said, in Lan Wangji’s hearing, that some instruments are unsuited for cultivation. Gusu Lan trains all its disciples in guqin, and those who are interested train in xiao, as it is a traditional complement to the qin, but no one has ever said that there is something wrong with other instruments.

Thus far, Wei Wuxian has been uncharacteristically silent. As they turn away from the main cluster of buildings, though, he remarks, “I didn’t realize how desperate Gusu Lan was for this alliance with Yunmeng Jiang.” Before Lan Wangji can challenge the insult, Wei Wuxian continues, tightly: “They must have been desperate, to sacrifice their precious highborn Jade in marriage to the son of a servant.” Then he laughs – bitter, no amusement in it. “No wonder you don’t want—”

They have arrived at the training yard.

Wei Wuxian turns, with a slash of a smile, and bows. “A bout, Lan-er-gongzi? Unless you think it’s beneath you.” He jerks Suibian out of its sheath without waiting for an answer.

Lan Wangji does not hesitate to return the bow, or to draw Bichen. His chest feels too tight—crammed full of anger at Wei Wuxian’s words, confusion at his uncle’s actions, and a creeping, undefined sense of wrongness—and the music of blade against blade is the surest way he knows to draw that tightness out.

Wei Wuxian comes at him like a wildfire burning through a valley. Shocked, at first Lan Wangji can only defend, as he tries to adjust to the alteration in Wei Wuxian’s style. Yunmeng Jiang swordsmanship is water: ebbing and flowing, fluid and swirling, seeking any opening and choosing the path of least resistance. Wei Wuxian is still using Jiang forms, but he has turned them to the work of fire. His movements flicker; his attacks ignite; the flash of the blade, not the flow of its edge, signals his advance. He snarls on the downswing. Smirks when Lan Wangji must scramble to recover after falling for a false opening.

It is unsettling, but exhilarating. Sparring with Wei Wuxian is always exhilarating. Only Lan Xichen can truly push Lan Wangji—can best Lan Wangji—the way Wei Wuxian can. And even he cannot match Wei Wuxian’s boundless unpredictability.

Lan Wangji seeks to rise to the occasion. It requires every bit of skill that he possesses. And, as always happens when his body and his conscious mind are so completely engaged, his subconscious begins to pick apart the knots of the day.

Something similar must be happening for Wei Wuxian. As the bout continues, the raw anger gradually fades from his face, and his steps begin to melt back into the fluid dance of pure Jiang artistry. In time, he even resumes his habit of complimenting Lan Wangji’s moves, when merited: “Ah, you’re too quick for me, Lan Zhan!” when Lan Wangji glides out of the way; “Ooh, almost had me,” in appreciation of a good feint.

In the end, Wei Wuxian steps back and bows before a winner can be determined – ending their sparring match the way most of their bouts eventually end.

When their swords are sheathed, Wei Wuxian meets Lan Wangji’s eyes for a moment, then bows deeply in apology.

“I’m sorry, Lan Zhan,” he says quietly. “I shouldn’t have said that stuff, before. It was unfair, and mean. And whatever your uncle said, or meant… it’s not your fault. I know that.”

Lan Wangji places his hands beneath Wei Wuxian’s arms and lifts him from his bow. “No need,” he says. He is no longer angry. The bout has burned it out of him. And he finds he cannot blame Wei Wuxian for reacting poorly to his uncle’s conduct when Lan Wangji himself is still not sure what to make of it. He has never seen his uncle react that way before.

He does not think that Wei Wuxian is correct—that Lan Qiren looks down on those not born to the gentry. He has always treated the sect’s servants with respect, and takes pains to ensure that their children are educated and receive good dowries. He has never hesitated to accept foundlings into the sect, and he was conspicuously silent when other elders were subtly urging Lan Wangji toward Jin Zixun despite Wei Wuxian’s superior reputation and character.

But he knows… that he does not want Wei Wuxian to be correct, and he knows that that fact may be coloring his view of the situation. Given the words his uncle had used, he cannot say that Wei Wuxian’s interpretation was unreasonable.

It is troubling.

As they set off toward the Jingshi, Lan Wangji realizes he is equally troubled by Wei Wuxian’s words. They no longer make him angry. But he cannot let them lie unchallenged. They are not true.

To decide to speak is one matter; to decide what to say is another. They are almost at the door of the Jingshi by the time Lan Wangji says, “There were other candidates.”

Wei Wuxian pauses just inside the gate. “Other—” It does not take him long to catch up. “You mean, to—to marry,” he says. His face is guarded.

Lan Wangji nods. “I chose Wei Wuxian.”

“Y—wait. You chose?”  

“Mn.”

The summer sun is still high in the sky. Wei Wuxian studies Lan Wangji, arms crossed. Suibian is tucked in the corner of his elbow.

“Why?” he asks, blunt. “Why choose me? You didn’t know anything about me.”

Lan Wangji frowns. That is not true. “I knew of your skill.”

“Oh.” Wei Wuxian’s cheeks flush pink.

“I knew you would be—” How had Lan Xichen put it? “—an asset to Gusu Lan Sect.”

“Oh,” Wei Wuxian says again. The blush on his cheeks has deepened – perhaps it is the heat.

Then, to Lan Wangji’s surprise, he bows; not a formal bow, with arms extended, but a soft, spontaneous gesture of gratitude. “Th-thank you, Lan Zhan.” He meets Lan Wangji’s gaze, for once solemn and steady. “Wei Ying will make his best effort.”

Lan Wangji nods, and continues toward the Jingshi. Wei Wuxian follows.

As they cross the threshold, Wei Wuxian says tentatively, “Lan Zhan?”

“Mn.” Lan Wangji sets Bichen by the door, and comes to a seat at his desk, pulling Wangji out of his sleeve. If he cannot have the benefit of a lesson on musical cultivation, he can at least have the benefit of practice.

Wei Wuxian inches up to the corner of the table and peers down at the instrument. “Do you think you could… teach this humble Wei to play the qin?”

It speaks well of Wei Wuxian that he wishes to learn, but there is little point. As Lan Wangji tests the tuning of Wangji’s strings, he says, “It is too late for Wei Wuxian to learn to play the qin at a sufficiently high level to use the instrument for musical cultivation. Lan disciples begin to learn at the age of five years, or before.”

He sets his fingers on the strings and deliberates over a warm-up exercise—or perhaps he will begin directly with Restoration, which he has not used in almost a year, and which he fears he is in danger of losing.

Absorbed in his music, Lan Wangji distantly notes Wei Wuxian letting out another quiet “Oh.”

As Lan Wangji begins the first line of Restoration, withholding spiritual power for now, Wei Wuxian turns and slowly walks away. He pauses by the door.

“I—I’ll meet you at the training yard at shen shi for the juniors’ lesson,” he says, and slips out without a backward glance.

It is not until that night—as he is lying in bed, waiting for sleep—that Lan Wangji realizes that he had not thought to ask why Wei Wuxian had agreed to the marriage.

If, indeed, he had any choice in the matter at all.

After the result of his first attempt, Lan Wangji would not have been surprised if Wei Wuxian had declined to attend lecture again. It is, after all, optional.

But at first, Wei Wuxian continues to attend. He does not pester Lan Wangji overmuch, although he does not take any great pains to hide his boredom, either, when the subject matter does not appeal to him. He chats with the juniors about any new insights he has gleaned, and is able in answering when called on.

When Lan Qiren leads lecture, though, he continues to dismiss Wei Wuxian halfway through, before any discussion of musical cultivation. There is no more debate; Wei Wuxian simply presses his lips together in a sardonic smile and delivers a too-formal bow on his way out the door.

After that first time, Lan Wangji does not follow him. A part of him wishes to, but—he has not himself been dismissed. Without that express dismissal, to leave lecture halfway through would be highly discourteous. Do not give up on learning. Respect teachers. He would leave if Wei Wuxian asked him to. But Wei Wuxian says nothing about it. About any of it.

So Lan Wangji’s husband walks to the door alone, the eyes of all the disciples resting upon him, again and again. And Lan Wangji sits quietly, and grips his brush tightly, and fights the uneasy feeling that he has missed something.

As the days pass, Wei Wuxian attends lecture less and less frequently.

Do not give up on learning, Lan Wangji thinks again.

But he understands.

“Lan Zhan!”

The voice is coming from outside – from the grounds behind the Jingshi.

“Lan Zhan, come out! I want to show you something!”

Lan Wangji sighs, looking down at the teaching records he must review before the next meeting of the teaching council. He had thought, when Wei Wuxian mysteriously disappeared after dinner, that he might be able to finish these before hai shi.

“Lan Zhan!”

If Wei Wuxian continues to shout at this volume, it will disturb those in nearby homes. Lan Wangji sets down his papers and rises.

When he opens the door to the back garden, he finds Wei Wuxian beside the camellia tree, beaming, his skirts muddied, twigs in his hair. In his arms are—

“They’re a present for you, Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian says, hefting the two small rabbits against his chest. “I know you like them, and I couldn’t find out when your birthday was, so I decided not to wait. Quick, what do you want to name them?”

Lan Wangji’s immediate impulse is to collect the poor rabbits from Wei Wuxian and provide them with calm and quiet; to feed them, and stroke their soft-looking fur.

But he is not ruled by impulse. He is ruled by the principles.

“Pets are forbidden in Cloud Recesses,” he reminds Wei Wuxian.

Perhaps Wei Wuxian truly had forgotten, because he blinks and looks taken aback. “I—they’re—they’re just rabbits, Lan Zhan,” he says plaintively. Then, rallying: “And anyway, they’d be outside rabbits, Lan Zhan! They can’t be pets if they’re outside!”

“Pets are forbidden in Cloud Recesses,” Lan Wangji says again, in precisely the same tone as before. His hands itch to reach out – they look so very soft, he thinks. He clenches his hands into fists instead.

Wei Wuxian’s shoulders drop. He looks down at the animals nestled in his arms, and then up at Lan Wangji again.

Sounding lost, he says, “So you—you don’t want them.”

It does not matter what Lan Wangji wants. “They are forbidden.”

A stiff wind blows past—fierce enough to make the Jingshi creak.

Wei Wuxian plasters on a smile that even Lan Wangji can see is false. “Of course,” he says, glancing away. “Lan-er-gongzi is made of cold, hard jade – he wouldn’t have any use for such warm, soft little things, ah?”

Once, Lan Wangji might have been hurt to hear his husband describe him in that way—as cold and unfeeling. Inhuman. But Wei Wuxian is no stranger to him. Not anymore. He knows the other boy is only trying to cover his disappointment.

As his husband turns away, still babbling nonsense to the rabbits, Lan Wangji says, “Thank you.”

Wei Wuxian pauses.

“For what?” he asks. In his voice, there is a thread of bitterness.

Lan Wangji draws in a breath.

It does not matter what Lan Wangji wants. But apparently it matters to Wei Wuxian.

“I like them,” he says. Saying it makes him feel very exposed.

Wei Wuxian’s eyes widen slightly. “Oh.”

“Wei Wuxian meant well.”

The other boy laughs, thin. “That doesn’t seem to count for a lot, here.” After a moment of stillness, he tucks his chin down. “Come on, little bunnies. Time to go back home. Lan-er-gongzi said he likes you – that’s all the thrill a little bunny’s heart can take! Any more excitement, and I don’t know if you’d survive!”

He walks away, head ducked. As he becomes a white shape in the woods, his voice fades away.

Pets are forbidden. There was no way for Lan Wangji to accept Wei Wuxian’s gift.

Nevertheless, it was a thoughtful gesture, in its way. It deserves a thoughtful response.

In Caiyi, Lan Wangji places the order, laying out his specific requirements. A few days later, the robes are ready. He presents them to Wei Wuxian immediately after their morning meal.

It is a full set of robes in blue – but in the dark and vivid colors that Lan Wangji observed him favoring during the days before he joined Gusu Lan Sect. Midnight blue, gentian blue, eye-catching and dramatic—with embroidered lotuses to acknowledge his Jiang heritage.

When Wei Wuxian lifts the lid of the box, he freezes. The excitement he had worn when told Lan Wangji had brought him a gift drains away. And when he lays the robes across the table, and he sees the lotus embroidery, his mouth twists.

He does not like them.

Lan Wangji does not speak without thinking. It is forbidden, and moreover, simply not in his nature. But on this occasion, something makes him blurt out, “It speaks well of Wei Wuxian that he wears the uniform robes, but I thought he might—enjoy something finer. For occasions where that is…” He trails off, feeling an absolute fool.

Wei Wuxian merely nods, and folds the robes back into the box.

Some useless urge to justify himself makes Lan Wangji speak again. “I noticed that—Wei Wuxian did not prefer pale colors. Before we were married. So I thought. Something… bright.”

Wei Wuxian nods again, and bows.

Quietly, he says, “Thank you for the gift, Lan Wangji, they’re—clearly very good quality. Expensive. And—distinctive.” His mouth twists. “There’s no question who they belong to.”

He closes the box and looks up at Lan Wangji. Whatever he sees makes his face soften.

“It was kind of Lan Wangji to think of what would suit me,” he says, gentle.

Then he rises, box in his arms, and disappears behind the partition.

Wei Wuxian meant well, Lan Wangji had said. He had not realized how such words can feel like a slap in the face.

When Wei Wuxian enters the lecture hall behind Lan Wangji and sees Lan Qiren at the head of the room, he pauses.

Lan Wangji has wondered if Wei Wuxian might, someday, decide to simply walk out of lecture when he sees that Lan Qiren is teaching, rather than wait to be dismissed halfway through. He wonders, as Wei Wuxian stands in the aisle, unmoving, whether today is that day.

But the moment ends. Wei Wuxian takes his seat, and Lan Wangji does the same.

Today, lecture begins without any particular signs of trouble. The topic is history—never Wei Wuxian’s favorite, but he limits his disruption to sending occasional papermen to bother Lan Wangji. An irritating habit, and one that Lan Wangji had thought Wei Wuxian to have grown out of, but mild in comparison to Wei Wuxian’s true capacity for mischief.

But on Wei Wuxian’s third attempt, he is not quick enough. Lan Qiren sees the little paperman, and his gaze immediately snaps to Wei Wuxian.

“Wei Wuxian!”

Lan Wangji expects Wei Wuxian to be expelled from lecture—for straightforward reasons this time—and assigned more copying. But instead, Lan Qiren begins to interrogate Wei Wuxian about his knowledge of cultivation. Wei Wuxian answers with ease, but Lan Qiren is not impressed.

“Any cultivator should be able to answer those questions,” he says, eyes narrowing. Then he poses a hypothetical about an executioner’s restless ghost.

The solution is obvious, but Wei Wuxian hesitates.

“Wangji!” Lan Qiren calls.

Lan Wangji rises to his feet with dread. The answer to the hypothetical is so plain that Lan Qiren could have called on many students to recite. It is unnecessary for him to make Lan Wangji the instrument of his husband’s humiliation.

Looking straight ahead, he lists the approaches in order: liberation, suppression, destruction. His answer is book-perfect. He takes no pride in it.

“Oh, I know,” Wei Wuxian says, to Lan Wangji’s surprise. “I was just thinking of a fourth way, that’s all.”

Lan Wangji’s eyes flick to the side, curious, as Lan Qiren scoffs. “There is no fourth way—”

And then, with eerie cheer, Wei Wuxian speaks into being a plan so vile that Lan Wangji’s skin crawls and his gorge rises.

A plan to use the dead—people, people with souls, with families—as tools, mere objects for achieving his goals.

To drag them unwilling from the earth as slaves, before the horrified eyes of their loved ones—to pervert the sacred work of a cultivator by using pain as power rather than healing it, trapping souls rather than freeing them, disrupting the cycle of reincarnation and denying them their chance to begin new lives.

A plan to treat human rage, pain, sorrow, terror, bitterness, regret, and grief as fuel for a devouring fire that would leave nothing in its path but ashes.

Challenged, Wei Wuxian does not back down. Instead, he debates. He talks about Yu the Great redirecting the flood; he acts as if his proposal can be justified by logic, when it strikes at the very order of the universe. Blazing with arrogance, he insists that he, Wei Wuxian, could control this obscene power—that he, Wei Wuxian, could remain free of its taint.

When Lan Qiren throws Wei Wuxian out of lecture, assigning him to kneel and Lan Wangji to supervise his punishment, it is a relief. Even the stares of the other disciples, humiliating as they are, make little impression.

As Wei Wuxian kneels in the gravel of the main courtyard, looking anything but contrite, there is only one thought in Lan Wangji’s head as he stares at his husband, who he thought he knew.

It is an echo of the same question Wei Wuxian asked him once, before they were wed.

Who are you?

A disciple comes to inform Lan Wangji that a substitute will take the juniors’ sword class at shen shi. Lan Wangji is deeply grateful. Most of the juniors were at lecture—he does not know what he could possibly say to them.

He stands in the courtyard, watching Wei Wuxian kneel with the rods in his palms, as the sun sinks toward the horizon; as the dining hall fills for dinner, then empties; as what feels like the entire population of Cloud Recesses walks by, and whispers; as night falls, and the stars begin to glimmer in the dark sky.

At hai shi, he says, “Come.” He ignores Wei Wuxian’s attempts at conversation on the path to the Jingshi.

Who are you? Who are you?

He is no closer to an answer.

That night, he dreams of his mother.

Of his mother’s corpse, scratching its way out of her grave with clawed, bare fingers. Dirt everywhere, falling in her blank and staring eyes, in her open mouth. When she reaches the air, he is there.

Wei Wuxian.

Standing over her, with one of his sharp little smiles. He snaps his fingers and Lan Wangji’s mother follows him—stumbling, dressed in worm-eaten rags, when in life she was always so elegantly dressed. So graceful.

As her body lurches, her soul struggles, twists in Wei Wuxian’s grip, chasing freedom—but Wei Wuxian tightens his hold, feeding on her sadness like a tick feeds on blood. Keeping her a prisoner even in death. Never to be free, never…

In the way of dreams, suddenly Lan Wangji is there, and she is reaching out to him with rotting hands, reeking of decay—it is wrong, wrong—his mother, she—

Hush now, A-Zhan—

“Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan!”

When Lan Wangji wakes, tangled in the blanket, the first thing he sees is Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian, in the dark, reaching for him, as his mother had reached…

He recoils. “Get away from me,” he rasps.

Wei Wuxian flinches. He is sitting on the edge of Lan Wangji’s bed, dressed in sleeping robes. No lamp lights his face. His hair is rumpled. “You were—you were screaming,” he whispers.

“Get off of my bed.” Lan Wangji’s eyes are burning. His chest hurts. Wei Wuxian doesn’t move. “Get off!”

Wei Wuxian scrambles to his feet. He looks shaken; his eyes are wide with hurt. Lan Wangji is not in any mood to soothe him.

“Go,” he says, and Wei Wuxian goes.

Lan Wangji sleeps poorly the rest of the night. Afraid to sleep deeply, for fear of dreaming.

The next morning, when he wakes at mao shi, the Jingshi is empty. There is a drawing on the table of two rabbits sleeping peacefully, side by side. To help you sleep, it says in the corner, in Wei Wuxian’s rushed calligraphy.

He reaches out a hand to brush it over the curve of the rabbits’ ears.

There is a knock at the door. “Lan-er-gongzi?”

The disciple informs him that Lan Xichen wishes to speak with him.

Lan Wangji dresses quickly, and goes.

His meeting with his brother is short, and to the point.

“Wei-gongzi is very high-spirited. But some things are…” Lan Xichen closes his eyes for a long moment, then opens them, meeting Lan Wangji’s gaze soberly. “The elders do not find it appropriate that Wei-gongzi continue to instruct the disciples. Teachers must be beyond reproach,” he recites.

Lan Wangji bows. “Understood.”

He does not disagree with the decision.

He has enjoyed teaching alongside Wei Wuxian, and he believes Wei Wuxian’s instruction has benefited the disciples greatly. Time, and sleep—disturbed and shallow though it was—have dulled the fresh horror of Wei Wuxian’s speech. Have allowed him to remember that Wei Wuxian is more than this one transgression, appalling though it may be.

Nevertheless, Lan Wangji is deeply shaken by yesterday’s incident. And he is especially troubled to think of its potential effect on the other disciples who were there to hear it. Wei Wuxian is a smooth and persuasive speaker, and his students like and respect him. Lan Wangji fears that younger disciples less secure in the principles, less deeply rooted in the habits and values of orthodoxy, would be greatly disturbed to hear such statements. But, even worse, in their ignorance, he fears they might be attracted to the superficial logic of Wei Wuxian’s theory.

The Gusu Lan Sect cannot be responsible for leading its own disciples into such grave error.

“I can speak with him, Wangji,” Lan Xichen offers. “If that would be easier.”

Lan Wangji shakes his head. He is Wei Wuxian’s husband. Wei Wuxian is his responsibility.

He bows again, and departs.

When he returns to the Jingshi, Wei Wuxian is waiting inside the door, in his sleeping robes. He rubs his finger over his nose and says quietly, “Should I go get food? You—you didn’t eat dinner last night.”

At this hour, Lan Wangji would normally be returning from the kitchens with their breakfast.

Lan Wangji shakes his head. “We will eat in the dining hall. Then Wei Wuxian will resume his punishment.”

He is aware that his uncle likely intended Wei Wuxian’s punishment to stretch through the night, not to be broken across two days. He will doubtless hear about it from Lan Qiren later.

Wei Wuxian nods without complaint. “I’ll… skip breakfast, then,” he says. “You don’t have to stay with me, Lan Zhan. I don’t want the shidimeis to miss you, too.”

“Xiongzhang made arrangements for—” our classes, he almost says. “—the classes, for today.”

As Wei Wuxian dresses, Lan Wangji sits at the table and attempts to compose himself for the conversation they must have. He notices, suddenly, that the drawing of the rabbits is gone – the one that said, to help you sleep.

When Wei Wuxian emerges from behind the partition, Lan Wangji asks where it is.

Wei Wuxian looks surprised. “Oh – you didn’t like it, so…”

“I liked it,” Lan Wangji corrects. “I merely left in haste.”

“Oh.” Wei Wuxian ducks his head. For a heartbeat, he is silent. “Then I—I’ll make you a new one. A better one! If you really…” The glance he gives Lan Wangji is itself rabbit-like; quick and unsure.

Lan Wangji prefers not to repeat himself.

“I liked it,” he says anyway. Wei Wuxian smiles – a small, fragile thing. Lan Wangji opens his mouth to tell Wei Wuxian about his conversation with Lan Xichen, and finds he cannot.

That night, Wei Wuxian presents him with another drawing of two rabbits in slumber. There is no note on this one. Nothing to identify it as his.

“I hope it helps,” he says shyly. This boy who would rip corpses from the earth.

Lan Wangji could have—should have—spoken to Wei Wuxian about his removal from teaching immediately after his conversation with Lan Xichen. Failing that, he should have spoken that evening. But Lan Wangji retires at hai shi without saying a word about it. He wakes the next morning, procures breakfast, eats it, joins Wei Wuxian for meditation, and still the words do not leave his mouth.

Finally, the moment comes when he must speak: when he stands at the door of the Jingshi, about to depart for the children’s morning lesson, and Wei Wuxian bounds up beside him, urging, “Let’s go, Lan Zhan, the kids are waiting for us!”

Lan Wangji draws in a slow breath and speaks, looking straight ahead. “The elders have decided it is not suitable for Wei Wuxian to instruct the disciples.”

Dead silence falls. Lan Wangji cannot help glancing to the side, and then regrets it. Wei Wuxian looks as shocked as if Lan Wangji had backhanded him across the face.

“I—what?”

Wei Wuxian heard and understood. He is merely reacting. There is no need for Lan Wangji to repeat himself. He presses his lips together.

“Not… not at all?” Wei Wuxian’s voice cracks.

“Mn.”

It does not take Wei Wuxian long to understand. “Because of what I said about resentful energy, at lecture.”

It was not a question – indeed, it did not even seem to be directed at Lan Wangji. Still, Lan Wangji nods. It is important for Wei Wuxian to understand.

“You can’t be serious,” Wei Wuxian says, flat. “They can’t be serious. What, they—they think I’m going to teach the shidimeis demonic cultivation?!” He spits the words as if they are ridiculous.

Before Lan Wangji can respond, Wei Wuxian is in motion, pacing the length of the Jingshi in short strides, Suibian clenched tight in his fist.

“I wouldn’t even know how,” he says, incredulous, almost laughing. “How would I—and I wasn’t making a real proposal, anyway. It was… it was just a thought experiment! I’m not actually saying people should raise fierce corpses!”

Lan Wangji is, frankly, relieved to hear it. But it is not enough. “Some thoughts,” he says quietly, “are too dangerous to experiment with.”

Wei Wuxian steps back. He studies Lan Wangji.

After a long silence, he says, “That’s how deep it goes, ah?”

Lan Wangji does not understand.

“Not just things you can’t do,” Wei Wuxian says, with a Lan-like stillness to his face that Lan Wangji has only seen him wear once before. “Not just words you can’t say, or places you can’t go. But thoughts you can’t think. In a sect of scholars.”

Lan Wangji still does not grasp his point. But he senses that Gusu Lan is being mocked. His grip on Bichen tightens, and he turns toward the door.

“Then what am I supposed to do all morning, Lan Wangji?” Wei Wuxian calls to him. Out of the corner of his eye, Lan Wangji can see that Wei Wuxian’s fists, too, are clenched, and the line of his body is tense, ready to strike. “Diligence is the root, I read somewhere. Pursue work that will lighten others’ loads. Abjure idleness—”

“You are supposed to reflect,” Lan Wangji says shortly, and departs. He is already late for the children’s lesson.

He knew, of course, that the shidimeis preferred Wei Wuxian’s tutelage to his own. But it stings, still, to see the looks of disappointment on their faces when Lan Wangji arrives alone, and stings worse when some of the little ones cry upon hearing that Wei Wuxian will no longer be their teacher.

“Is he dead?” Mengqi asks Lan Wangji, after class – her small face perfectly solemn. “When they said Muqin went away, so I couldn’t see her anymore, it meant she was dead.”

Night hunting is a dangerous profession. Mengqi is not the only child in the class to have lost a parent to those dangers.

Lan Wangji shakes his head. “Wei Wuxian is not dead,” he assures her. “He has…” He tries to think of what to say that a child her age would understand—deeply aware of the irony that he is thinking of how Wei Wuxian would say it. “He has made a mistake,” Lan Wangji says finally. “And he must take time to think about it, and be sorry.”

This answer satisfies Mengqi, apparently. She nods, and Lan Wangji, with relief, departs the training yard.

At lunch, after the dishes are cleared from their family’s table, Lan Xichen asks, “How did he take it?” His eyes are soft with concern.

Lan Wangji cannot imagine the collection of words that would unpick the tangle of Wei Wuxian’s reactions, laying the threads straight for examination. And even if he could, something in him rebels at the thought of arranging those threads before Lan Qiren for his perusal.

He shakes his head and leaves it at that.

Lunch, then lecture—thankfully uneventful—and then the juniors’ lesson. When informed of Wei Wuxian’s withdrawal from their lessons, they merely nod, looking drawn. They do not need to ask why.

Lan Wangji spends the next shichen in the back hill, wandering in the green, pausing to play Wangji when he feels inspired to do so. He tells himself he is not avoiding the Jingshi.

Dinner passes without any happenings of note. And then it is time to retire.

Lan Wangji swallows and controls his breathing as he approaches the Jingshi. He slides open the door to find—

Stacks upon stacks of finished talismans and blank talisman paper, and Wei Wuxian planted in the midst of them, a wet brush in one hand and a book held open in the other. The glance he gives Lan Wangji is guarded, but not angry – if anything, he looks slightly distracted.

“You did not come to dinner, or lunch,” Lan Wangji observes, closing the door behind him.

“Oh, yeah, I—I got caught up in—well, you can see,” Wei Wuxian says, gesticulating at the piles of paper. Ink goes flying from the brush in his right hand. “Shit.”

Lan Wangji gives him an inquiring look, and Wei Wuxian leans forward to explain, “I went to the quartermaster to ask if I could help with anything, and she said they always need more heating and cooling talismans, so…” He waves at desk again with a flourish – this time, with the hand not holding the brush.

Not for the first time in his married life, Lan Wangji finds himself of two minds. On the one hand, Wei Wuxian should have spent this time reflecting on his error. That is what he was instructed to do, and there is no doubt that he would benefit from it. But on the other hand, it speaks well of him that he wished to make himself useful. He was not wrong that the principles prize diligence, particularly in unglamorous and tedious labor—and creating these everyday talismans is usually the work of the sect’s least skilled, least promising members. The fact that Wei Wuxian does not consider himself above this humble work also speaks well of him.

Before Lan Wangji can respond, Wei Wuxian is speaking again, gaining speed and volume as he goes, like a cart rolling down a hill. “And while I was working on these, I got an idea, for a—a sort of cooling cupboard – it would be self-sustaining,” he says, eyes alight as he fishes through the papers on the desk to pull out a sketch, “and if I can work it out, I don’t see any reason it couldn’t be applied to something even bigger: a whole… I don’t know, a whole cooling storehouse, maybe, although how you would power that…”

Wei Wuxian is frowning down at the sketch now, tapping the end of his brush against his lips – tapping as one would place a finger on a map to say, here, here—

“I will bring you something to eat,” Lan Wangji says quietly. He is not certain that Wei Wuxian even hears him.

Wei Wuxian seems content with his talisman work. He devotes himself to it every day—as far as Lan Wangji can tell—from the moment Lan Wangji departs for the children’s lesson until lunch, and from the end of lunch until dinner, and often into the evening.

He does not attend lecture. Lan Wangji does not mention it.

It is not as if Wei Wuxian is lacking intellectual stimulation. When Lan Wangji asks about his talisman work, taking an interest as a husband should, Wei Wuxian’s meandering, enthusiastic monologues make clear—as his teaching once did—that he is brilliant. The work of inventing talismans clearly provides both an outlet and a challenge for that brilliance.

Lan Wangji is very much relieved. In response, he offers observations about the students, and the progress of the classes, or—he attempts to do so. He begins to do so.

“Mengqi is progr—”

“Ah, Lan Wangji,” Wei Wuxian interrupts, with a wide smile, “the funniest thing happened when I was dropping off the latest talismans with the quartermaster.”

Interrupting is forbidden, but Wei Wuxian still takes a casual approach to rule-breaking. Lan Wangji thinks little of it. Until the following day:

“I have been asked to recommend three of the juniors for a night-hunting compet—”

Brightly, Wei Wuxian exclaims, “Night-hunting! That reminds me of another talisman idea I had, or—well, really, it was Jiang Cheng, but I don’t think he was thinking of it as a talisman…”

It happens again, and then again. Lan Wangji sees the pattern. But he does not understand it. Wei Wuxian cared deeply about their students. He missed them when he was away even for a day – being away from them for five days, he must surely wish to know that they are well, to hear what is happening in class.

That evening, after dinner, Ding’er is waiting for Wei Wuxian at the door of the dining hall.

“Wei-gongzi,” he says, flush with excitement, “Wei-gongzi, Lan-er-gongzi says I’m good enough to move up to the next group early!”

Wei Wuxian beams at him, radiating pride. “Ah, Ding’er, good for you! It’s because you’ve worked hard for Lan-er-gongzi, so don’t slow down now. Keep practicing – are you using that trick I showed you with th—”

“Ding’er!” a woman’s voice calls, sharp.

The boy looks guilty and gives them both a hasty bow before his mother collects him at the door. As they walk away, her voice carries on the wind: “—times have I told you not to talk to him…”

For a moment, it is quiet. Then another group of disciples walks out the door behind them, and Wei Wuxian stumbles into motion. “We should go,” he says. His face is turned away from Lan Wangji.

He chatters with empty, mechanical cheer all the way to the Jingshi.

When they are each seated at their desks, Lan Wangji says, into a brief silence, “Ding’er—”

But Wei Wuxian flinches. Lan Wangji’s voice dies.

With a smile that looks as if a breeze could blow it away, Wei Wuxian says, “The—the quartermaster got a new shipment of white silk yesterday, or—or it was supposed to be white, but. Ah. There was a problem with some dye that leaked—”

There is something horribly brave about the way he says it—about the way he makes himself speak word after word of rosy nothing, as he drags air heavily into his lungs.

It is hard for Lan Wangji to understand. What he loses, he clings to, even when it is long gone.

But Lan Xichen never knelt at their mother’s door. His love took a different shape. It was no less real.

Lan Wangji does not try to talk to Wei Wuxian about his teaching or his students again. It leaves him with little to contribute to their conversations. They spend more time in silence.

He had wished for that, when first they were wed.

The teaching council meets once a month; after routine business is concluded, instructors are free to raise any difficulties they have encountered.

Lan Jia is responsible for teaching swords to the disciples in the age groups between Lan Wangji’s two groups of students. “One of my students is having difficulty advancing,” she says to the group. “Lan Ran. I am unsure how to proceed.”

“Lan Ran?” Lan Xichen frowns. “I thought she was one of the most promising students in her group.”

Lan Jia’s mouth twists in a minute grimace. “She was. But since receiving her spiritual sword, she has fallen behind.” She inclines her head to the group. “I welcome any suggestions.”

Lan Wangji rarely offers an idea without considering it thoroughly. But with this idea—he knows he must speak before others can do so.

“Would the girl benefit from individual tutoring?” he asks.

Lan Jia nods. “She would. If Lan-er-gongzi knows of someone who would be qualified, and willing and able to spare the time…?” It is clear that she hopes Lan Wangji is volunteering.

Lan Wangji’s ensuing proposal is not popular. But he points out that, whatever Wei Wuxian’s opinions on cultivation, no one has ever had cause to criticize his physical training. And it helps that Lan Ran is the daughter of Lan Xuyan, the clan’s most skilled xiao player and principal xiao instructor, who is present at the meeting and argues strongly in favor of Lan Wangji’s plan.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Lan Wangji returns to the Jingshi to find his husband, as is often the case, seated amid a veritable nest of scraps of talisman paper.

“Wei Wuxian.”

His husband looks up; his face is guarded and still. “Lan Wangji.”

Lan Wangji does not know when Wei Wuxian began calling him by his courtesy name. But, of course, it is appropriate.

That, too, is what he wished for when they were first wed.

“There is a student,” he says. “Lan Ran.”

Wei Wuxian waits, lips pressed together.

“She is struggling with her sword work. Would Wei Wuxian tutor her?”

A flash of longing travels over Wei Wuxian’s face, there and gone. “I thought I wasn’t allowed to teach.”

“The elders would make an exception.”

“What makes you think that?” Wei Wuxian’s smile is bitter-edged. “They don’t really seem to be in the business of exceptions.”

“I asked.”

Wei Wuxian’s face goes soft with surprise. “Oh.” As he looks down, at his fingers curled toward each other on the desk, the surprise fades from his features, but the softness remains. “Thank you.”

Then he glances back up and asks, in his usual voice, “So what’s causing the problem?”

Lan Wangji repeats what Lan Jia told him—a very advanced student with practice swords, struggling since receiving her spiritual sword—and Wei Wuxian instantly relaxes. “Oh, yeah, I’m very familiar with this problem. I had it myself, when I first got Suibian!” He pats his sword and grins at Lan Wangji, who represses a shudder, as always, at the sword’s name. “I developed a foolproof technique – and I’ve tried it out on a couple Jiang disciples, too. It’ll take some trust, but I know it’ll work. She’ll be leaving the rest of the class in her dust.”

Lan Wangji accompanies Wei Wuxian to his first session with Lan Ran. When Wei Wuxian gives him a sideways glance, Lan Wangji says, “I am curious to see Wei Wuxian’s technique.”

It is not a lie, but is not, he acknowledges to himself, the whole of the truth: as a condition of the elders’ consent to this endeavor, he had promised to supervise Wei Wuxian’s lessons.

“Is that so,” Wei Wuxian murmurs. There is something cynical about the curve of his smile. But he says nothing more.

When they enter the clearing Lan Wangji has reserved for the session, Lan Ran is waiting for them.

Lan Ran is a tall thirteen-year-old, plain but for her fiery golden-brown eyes. She looks at Wei Wuxian with no suspicion, only hunger. “Muqin says you can help me.”

He meets her brushfire gaze solemnly. “I can,” he says, with perfect confidence, and her shoulders sink slightly in relief.

“You were the best with inert swords,” he continues, their gazes still locked. “I was, too. You know how to move with a piece of dead metal like it’s an extension of yourself. You can control it, utterly and completely – that’s what makes you so good. That sword is your arm, really.”

“Yes,” she says, nodding furiously. “Yes.”

Wei Wuxian smiles, crooked and apologetic. “Yeah, a spiritual sword’s not like that. Sorry.”

Lan Ran blinks, and so does Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian begins to walk back and forth, passing Suibian back and forth from hand to hand as he lectures:

“You wield a spiritual sword with your spiritual senses. Sounds obvious, I know, but that’s the root of your problem. Your classmates never had the kind of perfect physical control that you had, so it’s easier for them to rely less on their physical senses now. But you, shimei – you had it all figured out. You had all the answers, all the control… and now you have to break all those great habits you learned.” He grimaces. “Sorry.”

“How?” Lan Ran asks, desperate, taking a step toward Wei Wuxian.

“You need to retrain yourself away from dependence on your physical senses and toward reliance on your spiritual senses. And fortunately for you…” He grins, and pulls a long, thin length of cloth out of his sleeve. “I know just how to do it.”

To Lan Wangji’s surprise and dismay, Wei Wuxian ties the cloth around the girl’s head as a blindfold, then sets her to practicing the simplest Lan forms at half-tempo. She is using a real, spiritual sword – a deadly cultivation weapon that could easily cut down anyone who approached—or do real damage to herself.

But Wei Wuxian guides her with unfailing confidence. He fearlessly approaches his blindfolded student to correct her grip or posture in the middle of her strikes, dodging with easy grace, and his calm voice warns her when she is approaching the edges of the clearing, and steers her away from areas where the ground is uneven.

When the session is complete, he warns her not to practice with anyone else. “When you feel the progress you’re making, you’ll get impatient to practice more so you can advance faster. I understand! But it’s not safe,” he says with narrowed eyes, wagging a finger. “Don’t practice like this without me, and especially don’t try this with your friends.”

Lan Ran nods, but she looks worried. “I won’t, I promise, but… but what if Wei-laoshi is too busy to teach this one?”

Wei Wuxian half-laughs and looks away. The loose end of the blindfold, dangling from his hand, flutters in the wind. “I don’t think that’s very likely,” he says, at last.

It works.

Lan Ran’s progress is swift. Under Wei Wuxian’s tutelage, she quickly progresses from half-tempo to full-speed, and then from simple forms to more complex ones. Lan Wangji drops in on their sessions occasionally, but only to satisfy his curiosity; he sees no need for further supervision.  

After just half a month of daily tutoring, Lan Jia mentions to Lan Wangji that Lan Ran is rising toward the top of the class again. “Please convey my gratitude to Wei-gongzi,” she says.

Lan Wangji nods.

That afternoon, when Lan Ran arrives for her lesson, she flings her arms around Wei Wuxian, who looks shocked. After a long moment, his student steps back and coughs, looking at the ground. “Thank you, Wei-laoshi,” she says, in a scratch of a voice. “The things people say—you’re not like that at all. You’re…”

“Ah, Ran’er,” says Wei Wuxian, gently interrupting. His gaze is warm. “You didn’t think we were done, did you? If Lan Jia-laoshi thinks you’re back where you should be with drills, that just means…” He grins. “It’s time to try sparring!”

Her eyes go wide. “Blindfolded?”

Wei Wuxian laughs. “You think you can get a touch on me, Ran-shimei? You’re welcome to try.”

Lan Wangji keeps his thoughts on the wisdom of this endeavor to himself. A xun ago, he might have objected, or at least questioned. But he must bow to his husband’s expertise. If Wei Wuxian believes he can spar safely with a blindfolded opponent, Lan Wangji will not doubt him.

It is still somewhat distressing to watch. Lan Wangji therefore pulls Wangji from his sleeve and devotes himself to perfecting one of the advanced Songs of Healing. It is a tricky one—

“What is this?!”

At the entrance of the clearing, Lan Zibin is standing, jaw dropped, face purple with anger. Lan Wangji’s next breath is full of ice. He knows Lan Zibin well—there is perhaps no elder in Gusu Lan Sect less willing to entertain new ideas or techniques. This will not end well.

It is even worse than he predicted. Lan Zibin sends messenger talismans summoning the entire teaching council—and then he rounds on Wei Wuxian.

“Unorthodox, arrogant, reckless, dangerous—”

Lan Wangji rises to his feet, and Lan Ran cries out, “He’s not, Lan-xiansheng!” But they are both ignored.

“It was not enough for you to seek to teach demonic cultivation to our children – now you proceed to endangering their very lives, not merely their souls,” Lan Zibin spits. “Bare blades, blindfolded – a fully grown cultivator against a child—”

Lan Ran interjects again, “He’s helping me, please, Lan-xiansheng—”

“Do not interrupt,” he snaps. Then, to Lan Wangji, Lan Zibin says with quiet disgust, “I warned your uncle against it. Do not accept disciples without careful screenings. Avoid imparting knowledge to the wrong individuals. This is what comes of letting political expedience overcome the wisdom of our ancestors.”

It is a blatant insult to every member of Lan Wangji’s family: Lan Qiren and Wei Wuxian directly, but also, by implication, Lan Xichen, in his capacity as sect leader. Lan Wangji’s ears burn with a heat that races down his spine to blaze in his guts, but—Lan Zibin is a clan elder, and very senior in the sect. Lan Wangji’s own rank as heir and head disciple is still not high enough to permit him to reproach Lan Zibin for the insult, however much he might wish to. And doing so could only further damage Wei Wuxian’s cause.

Lan Wangji wishes, passionately, that his brother was here. Words are Lan Xichen’s gift, as they have never been Lan Wangji’s – he would know just what to say to gently rebuke Lan Zibin for the insult while deferring to his seniority. He would know the words to put Wei Wuxian’s actions in the best possible light, to point out the manifold good that he has done.

While Lan Wangji is attempting—and failing—to find such words, or any words at all, the rest of the teaching council begins to arrive in the clearing.

He can see on their faces that their minds are made up the moment they see who the players are: a respected elder like Lan Zibin on one side, and the troublemaker Wei Wuxian on the other.

From there, events unfold with bewildering speed.

There is no dispute of fact about what Wei Wuxian has done. Neither he nor Lan Ran deny it, and the blindfold lies discarded in the dirt. The unorthodox nature of his methods being conceded, the verdict is a foregone conclusion.

Wei Wuxian tells them he has used this technique often, without ill effect; he insists, again and again, voice growing ragged, that he would never have let Lan Ran hurt herself. Lan Ran tells the council of Wei Wuxian’s care for her safety. Her mother, Lan Xuyan, argues vehemently in favor of continuing the tutelage that has done so much for her child. “She is my daughter – do you really think I would want her to come to harm?” she demands.

None of it matters.

Wei Wuxian loses his student anyway.

Lan Ran sobs when the elders reach their decision; she is assigned extra chores as punishment for her breakdown in decorum. Her mother ushers her away, tight-lipped, with a pointed bow toward Wei Wuxian.

The remainder of the council gradually departs the clearing as well, murmuring to one another. Lan Xichen gives Lan Wangji a soft look of apology as he turns to go.

Finally, there is no one left in the clearing except Lan Wangji and his husband.

Wei Wuxian sinks to his knees in the dirt. The blindfold is there—a scrap of pale blue fabric, crumpled and filthy now. He picks it up, draped over his fingertips. The ends trail in the dust. His other arm is curved over his stomach. As if he is afraid of something spilling out.

“I wouldn’t have let anything happen to her,” he whispers. “I would never have let Ran’er get hurt, Lan Wangji. I swear it.”

“I know,” Lan Wangji replies, low.

He meant it to be reassuring. But the look Wei Wuxian gives him – Lan Wangji can’t read it.

“You know,” Wei Wuxian says slowly.

When Lan Wangji has no response, Wei Wuxian rises to his feet and walks away into the forest. There is no path for him to walk—he is simply swallowed up by the trees, and gone.

For the rest of the day, Lan Wangji’s skin feels too tight for his body. He is unnecessarily sharp with Yan Fang when she sprains her wrist in training. He turns away from the dining hall when he sees Lan Xuyan enter the hall before him.

Instead, he visits the kitchens, and takes dinner to the Jingshi for himself and for Wei Wuxian. But Wei Wuxian is not there. There is no sign that he has been there. And there is no sign of him for the rest of the night.

That morning, in the clearing, it had felt like there was no choice but to be silent. There had not been time to find the words, even if Lan Wangji had any talent for using them—and what could he have said, anyway? The outcome was sure.

But all day, an unfamiliar choking feeling has been growing at the base of his throat. He realizes, as the last of the sun’s rays go dark, that it might be shame.

Lan Wangji retires at hai shi. He is unsure, at first, that he will be able to sleep, but his body’s rhythms are a heavier stone than mere restlessness can move.

As he slips under the surface of sleep, he hears the door of the Jingshi open, and a step upon the floor. Wei Wuxian’s. He knows its weight, by now.

But in the morning, when Lan Wangji wakes, Wei Wuxian is gone again.

The morning stretches, long and silent, before him.

He has been derelict in taking on night hunting assignments since the wedding. Fallen far behind his usual pace. Lan Xichen has not mentioned it, but he should not have to: Pursue such work as will lighten others’ loads. Do not unduly burden your peers.

He dresses, and asks his brother for an assignment.

“Are you sure, Wangji?” Lan Xichen asks him, as he hands Lan Wangji the letter containing the request. The concern in his eyes feels—smothering.

Lan Wangji takes the letter, nods, and departs.

That evening, Lan Wangji places his qiankun bag for travel in his robes and stands. Wei Wuxian looks up at him, blinking, from his nest of talisman paper and notes.

“I will be night hunting in Xue,” Lan Wangji says.

“Alone?” asks Wei Wuxian, face blank.

There is something in his tone that Lan Wangji does not understand; something bleak but not cold. The white ash left by a long-burning fire.

He swallows his unease. “Mn.”

With excruciating slowness, Wei Wuxian nods.

“Be careful,” he says softly, eyes on the ground. “Come back safely. You would be missed.”

Lan Wangji is startled, but—touched. The words warm him as the wind whips against his face, flying high above the darkening land.

It does not take long, in Xue, for Lan Wangji to realize that the problem is worse than described. The magistrate had called for assistance with a minor haunting in the blacksmith’s shop. In the intervening two days, the ghost had possessed the blacksmith instead, and driven him to burn down a neighbor’s home, with the neighbor’s children inside. The blacksmith then took his own life: perhaps overcome with guilt; perhaps fearing he might be so used again. The grief-stricken neighbor had desecrated the man’s remains—an understandable act, but with dangerous consequences—and meanwhile, the original murderous ghost is still on the loose.

Lan Wangji is not too proud to send a messenger talisman to the nearest Gusu Lan relay station to request additional cultivators. Even if the children’s spirits are at rest—and given the nature of their death, he very much doubts that they are—the blacksmith and the arson spirit together are likely too much for Lan Wangji to handle alone. And time is clearly of the essence. They must track and liberate, suppress, or eliminate the arson ghost before it kills again.

When Wang Dongbo and Lan Xiaojing arrive, he puts them to work dealing with the blacksmith and the dead children, and sets himself on the trail of the arson ghost.

It is difficult work; the living cannot tell Lan Wangji where the ghost is, and the blacksmith’s spirit is too distressed to tell him anything intelligible. He must consult the other unquiet dead—and many flee him, knowing he will liberate them when the conversation is through.

Still, he has made progress. He retires for the night confident that he will find the ghost tomorrow.

The ghost must believe it, too. That night, Lan Wangji wakes to the smell of smoke. The inn they have lodged in is burning.

It is an evil act by the arson ghost—but a foolish mistake, as well. “Find the person who set the fire, and perform an exorcism,” Lan Wangji says to Wang Dongbo and Lan Xiaojing the moment they run outside, coughing. “The ghost has revealed its new host. Do not delay.”

Lan Xiaojing’s face is tight. “Lan-er-gongzi, the people in the inn—”

“I will rescue them,” he assures her. “Go.”

The fire was set in the dead of night, and from the screams of those trapped inside, many were not woken by the fire until there was no longer any safe path to the ground floor. There is nothing Lan Wangji can do to put the fire out—he wishes he had paid more attention to Wei Wuxian’s talisman ramblings, which he is almost certain included a “talisman for dousing campfires when you don’t have any water, Lan Zhan!”—so he must find and rescue each guest or worker one-by-one. It is work that no non-cultivator could do, and both physically and mentally grueling. He has little fear for himself, but he knows ordinary people can quickly succumb to smoke inhalation. Every moment of delay is a moment when someone inside might breathe their last. He cannot lag, and he cannot rest. Not until the inn is empty.

Wang Dongbo arrives just as Lan Wangji is leading the last of the trapped patrons out of a second-floor window and then onto Bichen. When the patron is safely on the ground, Lan Wangji approaches Wang Dongbo and says, “Report.”

“We found the fire-setter,” Wang Dongbo says. He looks strangely dazed. “Xiaojing-shijie exorcised his host and eliminated the ghost, but she’s holding the host in case we missed something. Lan-er-gongzi, you—you’re covered with soot but you’re… not burned?”

“Mn.” There is no way to say My cultivation is high enough to protect me without violating the rule against bragging, so he does not.

Faintly, Wang Dongbo says, in the same stunned tone, “Not even your clothes are burned?”

Lan Wangji’s clothing is of no significance. “Take me to Lan Xiaojing,” he orders. Smeared with ash and exhausted, he verifies that the poor woman who was the arson ghost’s last host is spiritually clean and free of any malign foreign influence.

Then, with deep gratitude, he books a room at Xue’s other inn, bathes, and sleeps like the dead until mao shi.

When he returns to Cloud Recesses, he expects Wei Wuxian to ask about the night hunt.

But he does not.

And when Lan Wangji asks, “Does Wei Wuxian know of any talismans for putting out fires?” he does not get the disquisition on fire talismans that he is expecting.

Instead, Wei Wuxian nods and silently pulls out a sheet of blank talisman paper. A few strokes later, he presents it to Lan Wangji with a quiet, “Let me know if you need more.”

Lan Wangji nods in return. More such talismans would be useful. But he will study the example and make his own. He has no wish to further intrude upon Wei Wuxian’s time.

For most of the cultivation world, the prospect of a banquet without meat, alcohol, or dancing girls is unthinkable. It is thus likely not a coincidence that Gusu Lan Sect rarely hosts such banquets, or the conferences where such banquets are required.

But the Yueyang Chang Sect are important allies, and Chang-zongzhu’s visit to Cloud Recesses must be observed with high pomp—or as close as Gusu Lan can come.

Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian will be seated at the high table with the rest of the inner family, and Chang-zongzhu’s family and head disciple as well. Lan Xichen had announced that the rule against speaking during meals would be relaxed for the duration of the banquet, so as not to slight their guests; Lan Wangji has no plans to take advantage of this exception. Diplomacy is his brother’s gift, not his.

When Lan Wangji returns to the Jingshi after the juniors’ afternoon lesson, Wei Wuxian looks up from his desk and asks, “Lan Wangji, may this Wei Ying borrow a robe for this evening’s banquet?”

Wei Wuxian has a set of formal robes, Lan Wangji could say. A part of him wants to. But it would be petty and unfair. If Wei Wuxian disliked his gift so intensely that he would rather wear borrowed robes, that is Lan Wangji’s failing as the giver.

He says only, “Wei Wuxian is welcome to any of my clothing.”

But when Wei Wuxian arrives for the banquet, he is wearing the robes Lan Wangji gifted him, or—some of them.

His outfit is pieced together from different wardrobes, although only Lan Wangji would be able to tell: Wei Wuxian’s own black undershirt, followed by midnight and then gentian blue inner robes from the set gifted by Lan Wangji, topped with a sky-blue outer robe and white top layer borrowed from Lan Wangji’s closet. The gradient effect is elegant and striking – every eye in the room is on him as he smiles graciously and takes his seat beside Lan Wangji.

From the moment he takes that seat, however, he becomes—a stranger.

Gone is the quiet of the last month – but neither does he revert to the loudmouth who first arrived at Cloud Recesses. This new, sparkling Wei Wuxian is talkative but not loud; charming and erudite; deeply interested in their guests and amused by their jokes. Chang-zongzhu—Chang Ci—and his wife, Zhou Mei, are immediately taken with him, and Lan Wangji is thus relieved of the burden of conversation entirely.

He is not, in any other sense, relieved. Unease twists around his ribs like a climbing vine and saps his appetite.

“So what fills your days here, Wei-gongzi?” Chang Ci asks, as Wei Wuxian pours him tea. Wei Wuxian’s movements are smooth and elegant; despite his long and heavy sleeves, it looks effortless.

“Nothing much, to be honest,” Wei Wuxian replies, with a careless laugh. Lan Qiren glares at him, but no one regards it—all eyes are on Wei Wuxian. “I dabble in some talisman research, but the benefit of marrying the heir, instead of the much more difficult job of marrying the sect leader—” Here he pauses to offer a fluid bow to Zhou Mei, who giggles. “—is that no one minds too much if you just sit around looking pretty.”

He says it all so lightly—tossed aside like one of his scraps of talisman paper. It is false. Lan Wangji does not know what Wei Wuxian thinks of his limited responsibilities, but it is not… this.

Chang Ci replies, with a sly grin, “I’m sure no one minds that, no—especially not Lan-er-gongzi, mn?”

Lan Wangji’s ears burn, and his fingers clench on his chopsticks.

Wei Wuxian laughs again—he laughs at everything Chang Ci says—and then, Lan Wangji’s shameless husband somehow contrives to blush. “I’m sure I couldn’t say.”

“You do look very nice, Wei-gongzi – those are lovely robes,” says Zhou Mei, after a reproving glance at her husband.

Wei Wuxian perks up, offering the table a glittering smile. “Ah, thank you, Chang-furen! The finest Gusu silk, of course,” he says proudly. “Even in Yunmeng, with our famous dyes, we covet cloth from Gusu – nothing matches it for quality. Of course, that’s why they can charge such high tariffs…” He trails off, looking glum. Lan Wangji has never heard the word “tariffs” pass Wei Wuxian’s lips before.

Chang Ci puffs up like a rooster, beaming. “Fortunately for Yueyang Chang, we just negotiated a discount on those silk tariffs,” he says, in a confiding tone.

Wei Wuxian’s eyes widen, and he rocks backward. “You don’t say! Aiya, that deserves a toast!” With smiles ranging from the polite to the enthusiastic, the table toasts with tea the agreement the two sects have newly reached.

Lan Wangji forces himself to join the toast, swallowing past the knot of rage building in his throat. He does not know what Wei Wuxian is playing at, but he knows it is—wrong.

Wei Wuxian refills their guests’ cups again, careful of his sleeves, and says in an imploring tone, “But say it’s not too much of a discount, Chang-zongzhu – don’t impoverish my new sect!”

That earns an indulgent laugh from Chang Ci. “Don’t worry, Wei-gongzi – it’s a very fair agreement all around. Your husband will still be able to keep you in fine robes.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Wei Wuxian’s smile is warm. He gestures at himself—no, at his clothing—and says, “He has excellent taste, no?”

Lan Wangji sets down his chopsticks. The thought of eating one bite more makes his stomach churn. To be praised for his taste, for a gift Wei Wuxian cannot bear to wear…

“Very elegant!” Zhou Mei agrees, nodding. “I’d expect nothing else from the Second Jade of Lan, of course.”

For the first time tonight, Wei Wuxian looks at Lan Wangji.

His gaze is soft. Adoring.

“Yes,” he says. “He knows just what will suit me.”

The words land on Lan Wangji like the strike of the discipline whip. His hands clench on his thighs, and he wishes dearly for Bichen; wishes more to be elsewhere.

“Ah, young love!” sighs Chang Ci, with a paternal nod. “I presume Wei-gongzi is enjoying married life?”

Anywhere else.

Wei Wuxian laughs. Again. “Of course!” he says, lifting his cup to his mouth with easy grace. “I’m married to the most beautiful man in the world, Chang-zongzhu. How could I ask for more?”

Anywhere other than this banquet table, where he must listen and watch in furious silence as his husband mocks him, and mocks his clan.

The remainder of the banquet passes in a haze. Lan Wangji can barely hear the rest of the conversation for the pounding of blood in his ears, and he is grateful for it.

When the dinner is over and the night’s entertainment ends, Lan Wangji departs as quickly as he can without genuine rudeness. Wei Wuxian accompanies him, after making their farewells. They walk to the Jingshi in icy silence.

The moment the door slides shut behind them, Wei Wuxian wheels on him.

“Okay, let’s hear it. You’ve been glaring knives at me for the whole dinner—”

“You will not behave this way again,” Lan Wangji bites.

“What way?”

Lan Wangji cannot even look at him. “You will desist from this—this mockery—”

“I was helping, Lan Wangji,” says Wei Wuxian, sharply. “Maybe you can’t tell, but Chang Ci was eating it up with a spoon, he loved tha—”

“You have learned nothing of our ways,” Lan Wangji interrupts, “nothing of our principles.”

Wei Wuxian takes a faltering step back. “What are y—”

“Lying is forbidden.”

Lan Wangji’s voice falls like the slice of a sword. Definitive. An ending. He is proud of the sureness, the steadiness, of his own voice.

His pronouncement is greeted by silence. It stretches long enough that Lan Wangji’s gaze flicks upward.

Wei Wuxian is not looking back. Eyes unfocused, he laughs, jagged. “Of course,” he says, as if to himself. “Of course. I can’t even be useful at being useless. No good even as an ornament on your arm.” He laughs again – a blood-red sound. “Even a false Wei Wuxian has nothing to offer Gusu Lan.”

Lan Wangji’s stomach drops. That is not what he was saying at all, that is not—

With quick, jerky movements, Wei Wuxian strips off Lan Wangji’s white and ice-blue outer layers, and throws them at his feet. Then, chest heaving, he strips off the deeper blue layers from Lan Wangji’s ill-chosen gift, balls them up, and throws them at Lan Wangji’s feet as well. Lan Wangji does not know what is happening. He is too shocked to speak.

In his black undershirt and trousers, Wei Wuxian stands before Lan Wangji, breathing hard. He fists a hand in his shirt, and for a moment, Lan Wangji fears that he will remove that, too – strip everything, and present himself entirely bare.

But he does not. Instead, he turns on his heel and walks out the front door. It is after curfew, and he is not properly attired, but Lan Wangji makes no move to stop him.

He cannot move at all.

It has all gone wrong.

Lan Wangji does not realize how deep the damage runs until days and days pass. Days in which Wei Wuxian sinks completely into himself; talks to no one; eats little; and does not leave the Jingshi except for meals, or to sit in the Cold Springs until his lips are blue.

He no longer leaves the Jingshi after hai shi. But neither does he keep a lamp lit or make sounds after curfew, or rise at mao shi. Lan Wangji fears that he simply lies in bed, awake, in the dark, for hours. He is too much of a coward to find out.

The days turn into a month, with no change. Wei Wuxian spends his daylight hours practicing sword forms, meditating, or mechanically making copies of basic household talismans – his more creative talisman work appears ended. There are no more piles of scraps; no more glimpses of brilliance. He is losing weight—and he was slender to begin with.

When he speaks—which is rarely—he calls himself “this husband” and Lan Wangji “Lan-er-gongzi,” and Lan Wangji wishes, with raw desperation, for the days when Wei Wuxian called him “Lan Zhan.”

As the weather turns colder, Lan Wangji attempts to engage Wei Wuxian in conversation. He is met with a politely blank wall. He knows something is wrong. Very wrong. But he does not know what, or how to fix it.

Eventually, his brother pulls him aside, into his office, after a meeting of the teaching council.

“I went to the Jingshi yesterday to look for you, Wangji. Wei-gongzi was there.”

Lan Wangji’s pulse skips a beat. He senses, suddenly, a precipice before him.

Lan Xichen presses his lips together for a moment. With visible concern, he says, “Wangji. He seems—unwell.”

He is fine, Lan Wangji draws breath to say. For all of his failings as a husband, which are manifold, he is at the least not a betrayer of Wei Wuxian’s secrets.

Instead, what comes out of his mouth is a shuddering exhale. Too faint to be a sob.

“Oh, Wangji…” Lan Xichen breathes.

“I don’t know,” Lan Wangji says, just above a whisper. His eyes are stinging. “Xiongzhang, I don’t know. Something is wrong with him. Something is wrong. But I don’t know how to help him. Xiongzhang, please. Please, I don’t know what to do.”

Before the wedding, his brother had told Lan Wangji that they could find a way out of the marriage if Wei Wuxian was truly unbearable. Now, he is too frightened to ask, What if I am unbearable, Xiongzhang? What can you do, then?

Being married to me is killing him, he does not say. I love him, and I am killing him. I have tried to be a devoted, conscientious husband, to guide him in the right ways, and all I have done is make him miserable.

“Wangji,” Lan Xichen says gently. “It will be all right.”

“It will not,” Lan Wangji insists, voice cracking. “He hates being married to me, Xiongzhang.”

Lan Xichen frowns. “He said that to you?”

Lan Wangji hesitates, then shakes his head.

“Didi… you must talk to him,” Lan Xichen says firmly. “There is no other way. You must ask him what is wrong, and how you can help. No one else can tell you what he needs.”

Wei Wuxian does not talk to him. Not anymore.

But then, Lan Wangji does not ask.

He will try. He does not know what else to do. And he must do something. His husband is becoming a ghost before his eyes.

That afternoon, when he returns from teaching to find Wei Wuxian at his desk, copying talismans as if sleepwalking, Lan Wangji says, “Husband.”

Wei Wuxian looks up at him, blank.

Lan Wangji grips Bichen tightly for courage. “You are not happy here.”

A deafening silence falls in the Jingshi. Wei Wuxian is perfectly still, except for the movement of his chest, in and out. His plain disciple’s uniform is too big on him. It swallows him up.

“I will do my duty,” he says finally. Then he places a finished talisman on the pile, as if that is the end of the matter.

“Husband.” The word scrapes Lan Wangji’s throat on the way out.

Wei Wuxian pauses, waiting.

Lan Wangji’s knees bend. By the time he hits the floor, he understands the instinct that made him move. This is his fault. He does not know how, but he has done this—turned his bright and vibrant husband, who loved teaching and inventing and soft little rabbits, into this fading shadow that loves nothing, says nothing, and only endures. When they made their bows, he made himself responsible for Wei Wuxian—for his happiness and well-being—and he has failed utterly. It is right for him to humble himself. It would be right for him to crawl the length of Cloud Recesses to prove his contrition.

But it would be selfish. Wei Wuxian’s forgiveness is something he needs. What matters now is what Wei Wuxian needs.

And so, instead of apologizing, Lan Wangji bows at the waist and says, “This husband begs a favor of Wei Wuxian.”

“What.”

Lan Wangji did not know one word could hold so much weariness.

His courage flickers, but he goes on: “This husband begs Wei Wuxian to name one thing I might do that… that would please him.”

This statement is met with silence. Lan Wangji is grateful to be bowing – it keeps his eyes on the floor.

And—it is familiar. To kneel. To wait. This is how he knows to love. Even if he did not know it was love until today.

He hopes it is not too late.

“If Lan-er-gongzi could bring this husband some lotus seeds to eat,” says Wei Wuxian. His voice is so thin and grey, it’s almost a whisper. “That—that would please me.”

Lan Wangji’s heart leaps. He deepens his bow, then rises. “Thank you.”

It takes several days to procure the seeds. When they arrive, Lan Wangji presents them to Wei Wuxian, in the Jingshi after supper.

“Thank you,” Wei Wuxian replies, in that same grey almost-whisper. He does not eat them, or even touch them.

But the next day, half of the seeds are gone. Lan Wangji exhales. Relief flows through him like snowmelt.

That night, after dinner, he says, “As a favor.”

Wei Wuxian’s head lifts to look at him. There is no spark of interest in his eyes.

“This husband asks to know one thing he might do to please you.”

Silence greets the question.

Wei Wuxian’s hands have stilled. His gaze is distant. He is not ignoring Lan Wangji, that much is clear.

And yet still the silence stretches on.

And on.

Lan Wangji cannot escape the conclusion that Wei Wuxian is not disregarding his request: he is simply unable to think of one single thing that would make him happy.

Lan Wangji has not wept since he was a child. Even when he missed his mother terribly—but now a sob is scratching, fighting, bare-knuckle brawling in his chest, trying to battle its way out of his throat and into that pitiless silence.

His attention is so focused on smothering it that he nearly misses the words when they come.

“If this husband could eat dinner here, in the Jingshi, tomorrow,” says Wei Wuxian, very softly. “That would please me.” He says it with a detached air; as if he expects to be refused, and so does not wish to spend scant coin on hope.

As with the lotus seeds, the request is so modest as to be heartbreaking, and this request can be even more easily achieved. The following night, Lan Wangji retrieves dinner for them both from the kitchens, and they share the meal in the Jingshi.

They eat in silence, of course. But there is something nevertheless companionable about it. Wei Wuxian seems… a little taller, here, than in the dining hall. His shoulders looser; the lines of his face softer. Lan Wangji has spent the day thinking on why Wei Wuxian would make this particular request—but here, with the evidence before his eyes, it is so plain that he is furious with himself for failing to see it sooner.

To Lan Wangji, the dining hall is a comfortable, familiar place, and the people therein are familiar faces, who look at him—if at all—with respect, or even pride. But for Wei Wuxian, every bite, every sip, is taken under wary scrutiny. Stared at, or pointedly ignored. Whispered about, by people who sit in judgment upon him without knowing him. Always waiting for his next misstep…

“If it would please Wei Wuxian,” says Lan Wangji, the words spilling from his mouth before thought, “Wangji would arrange for every dinner and lunch to be brought to the Jingshi. I can make the arrangements tomorrow.”

Only when the last word has left his lips does he realize that he has broken the rule against speaking during meals.

Wei Wuxian—his better in obedience, for once—merely nods. He waits until their bowls are empty to say, softly, “Thank you.”

Lan Wangji swallows. Stomach fluttering, he asks again, “A-as a favor.”

It is too soon, perhaps—it was so difficult for Wei Wuxian to think of anything that would bring him pleasure the last time, and it has only been a day—but Lan Wangji hopes that, seeing his previous requests granted, Wei Wuxian might dare to ask for something more. Something he might have wanted before, but feared to ask for, thinking he would be denied.

He is right.

“If Lan-er-gongzi would… spar with me,” Wei Wuxian says, eyes downcast. “That would please me. I understand Lan-er-gongzi has many duties—”

“It would be my pleasure.” Indeed, nothing could please Lan Wangji more.

To spar with Wei Wuxian was one of the joys of Lan Wangji’s married life. It startled him, upon hearing Wei Wuxian’s request, to realize that he could not remember the last time they had crossed swords.

To know that Wei Wuxian has missed it, too, is a great and unearned gift.

In the morning, when they have finished their breakfast, Lan Wangji rises, Bichen in hand, and inclines his head toward the back door of the Jingshi. Wei Wuxian follows.

In truth, Lan Wangji thinks, he should have been the one to suggest this. If anything could break through Wei Wuxian’s wall of grey silence, it would be sparring – he has always been most voluble and lively in the ring, laughing as he dodges a strike, commenting on Lan Wangji’s moves.

But when Wei Wuxian unsheathes his sword, he is silent, and silent he remains as they begin to test one another. He has advanced, that is plain – unsurprising, since he has had little to occupy him besides sword practice. And his style has changed. Jiang forms, as Lan Wangji has observed before, are water: but Wei Wuxian’s movements now carry the crystalline cold of ice, not the swirl and rush of river currents. He is precise, but dispassionate.

Lan Wangji finds it unsettling. Seeking to provoke a reaction, he attempts a Jiang stroke of his own, and earns a slight crack in Wei Wuxian’s façade: the flicker of a sneer as he turns Lan Wangji’s blade away with ease.

It is as if that one crack begets a spiderweb of new ones; step by step, strike by strike, the passion begins to return to Wei Wuxian’s swordplay. He remains silent, but the chilly reserve gradually falls away, replaced by a fierce intensity evident in the force of his attacks and the grimace on his face. As the pace of their bout increases, they are both breathing hard. Lan Wangji’s muscles begin to sing with the effort of matching his husband’s movements.

He settles into the rhythm of the bout, now content—but it is a false contentment. For as they continue to trade blows, Wei Wuxian does not stop here, does not plateau. He speeds up.

The intensity that Lan Wangji was so glad to see is now becoming sharper, honed like the edge of a knife. There is something wild about Wei Wuxian’s face—as if his teeth were bared, though they are not. It does not feel, any longer, like a practice bout, or a friendly sparring session.

It feels like a battle.

It is harder for Lan Wangji to match Wei Wuxian’s pace. When Wei Wuxian lunges toward him, Lan Wangji is shocked to feel a sharp line of pain across the plane of his right cheek. Without touching his face, he knows that Wei Wuxian has bloodied him. They have never done that before. Always, always, they have pulled their blows. But not now.

At Lan Wangji’s cultivation level, it will be the work of a moment to heal the cut. But if he had not pulled back, had not parried successfully, then Wei Wuxian could have laid him open to the bone—or hit his eye, instead.

Still, it is first blood: a traditional end to a bout, if not for the two of them. Lan Wangji lowers Bichen—

And then must raise her again, stumbling back, caught off-guard by Wei Wuxian’s renewed attack. He is relentless, a whirlwind, dark eyes sparking with some emotion that Lan Wangji cannot name. Lan Wangji does his best to counter, but he is shaken, and Wei Wuxian is, thanks to his hours spent in solitary training, the better swordsman now.

Before long, Lan Wangji overcommits to a feint and cannot recover. He finds himself on the ground, on his back, and instantly, Suibian is at his throat.

He looks up into his husband’s eyes and for a moment, he is truly afraid. Suibian’s point hovers above his skin, almost brushing it. Wei Wuxian’s face is unreadable.

He breathes, shallow, waiting.

Wei Wuxian sheathes Suibian in one smooth movement, and looks away. The moment passes.

He bows. “Thank you for the bout, Lan-er-gongzi.”

Lan Wangji climbs to his feet. He does not flinch when Wei Wuxian reaches toward his cheek and, with a flick of spiritual energy, heals the superficial cut he left there.

He watches as Wei Wuxian turns and begins to walk back toward the Jingshi; watches as the energy subtly drains out of him. His shoulders droop slightly; his steps become slower; he holds his arms in tighter to his sides, as if afraid to take up too much space.

Without waiting to consider it, Lan Wangji calls, “Tomorrow?”

Wei Wuxian pauses. He does not turn around when he says, quietly, “I understand Lan-er-gongzi has many duties.”

Lan Wangji does, in fact, have many duties. But he resolves that, when he is in Cloud Recesses, he will spar with Wei Wuxian every day. While their swords were drawn, Wei Wuxian was truly alive. It was the only time in the last month or more that Lan Wangji has seen that. He will not deprive his husband of that feeling, unsettling as it may have been for Lan Wangji himself.

The knife-edge, hard-eyed Wei Wuxian of that first day does not make an appearance at any subsequent bout. But the energy, the vividness—that returns each time, for as long as the bout lasts. Wei Wuxian often tries to demur, when Lan Wangji offers to spar, asserting that Lan Wangji must be too busy—but he cannot conceal how much he enjoys it. And he never refuses.

Lan Wangji is glad that Wei Wuxian is no longer being stared at over dinner. But he realizes, with a twist in his gut, that Wei Wuxian is now even more isolated than he was before—for meals were one of the few times his husband left the grounds of the Jingshi.

Every time he returns home to find Wei Wuxian hidden within its walls, while the sun beams down and life continues outside, he chokes on a familiar bitter taste. It makes him desperate.

“I am going to the library,” he says. “Would Wei Wuxian accompany me?”

He holds out little hope. But, silent, Wei Wuxian nods his assent.

When they enter the library, Wei Wuxian seats himself at a desk. But Lan Wangji immediately sets off in search of the main collection of writings about talismans. He pulls down a hefty volume on theory, and brings it to Wei Wuxian.

“Wei Wuxian.”

Wei Wuxian looks up from his stack of talismans, which he brought to the library with him. Lan Wangji does not wish to interrupt his work if he finds it meaningful, but…

“Wei Wuxian is very skilled at talismans,” he says. “I thought perhaps he would find this book of interest.”

Wei Wuxian accepts it and bows, silent. But he does read it, and there is something more lively in his face when he does – something not grey or empty. Lan Wangji came to the library to review a treatise on mountain demons, but he reads not a line of it, staring at his husband without shame.

When he gets up to leave, Wei Wuxian shelves the book and does not take it with him.

He did not enjoy it, Lan Wangji thinks, crushed.

But when Lan Wangji goes to the library three days later, Wei Wuxian accompanies him, and before Lan Wangji can make a second attempt at providing him a book he will like, Wei Wuxian heads directly for the talisman book. He remains immersed in it for the rest of their time in the library, but reshelves it when they leave.

After one more iteration of this strange behavior, Lan Wangji intercepts Wei Wuxian on his way to reshelve the book.

“Wei Wuxian may take this book, or any other—” home “—to the Jingshi.”

Wei Wuxian pauses, then bows. “This husband is grateful,” he says, voice thin and dusty.

Lan Wangji does not wish to claim credit for kindness he did not show. Any adult sect member is permitted to borrow the books.

But… Wei Wuxian receives so little kindness here. If he sees it in Lan Wangji’s actions, Lan Wangji will not take that from him. It would be cruel.

So he only nods, and keeps his peace.

The next time Lan Wangji asks Wei Wuxian to tell him what would please him, Wei Wuxian pauses and asks, “Would Lan-er-gongzi tell this husband about the ribbon he wears?”

At first, Lan Wangji merely stares, dumbfounded. The question is innocent. But what it implies is horrifying.

He imagines himself in Wei Wuxian’s shoes, traveling through Cloud Recesses for the better part of a year, seeing some of those he passes wearing a ribbon, some not; some with a metal centerpiece, some an embroidered centerpiece, some plain… and never knowing the why of any of it. A secret language he was never taught. Something so basic and fundamental that no one thought to explain it—and that he was, perhaps, embarrassed to ask.

It was Lan Wangji’s responsibility to think of such things – to teach him such things. A failure.

He keeps his eyes down, cheeks hot with shame, as he explains the purpose of the ribbons, the differentiation between them, and the rules about touching them.

When he is finished, there is silence.

Then, Wei Wuxian asks, “Would it be appropriate for a person who married into the inner clan to wear one?”

“It is not obligatory. Such a person may. Wei Wuxian may.”

Wei Wuxian nods, and says no more.

He did not ask for a ribbon. But—he rarely asks for the things he wants, unless Lan Wangji begs him to. And he asked the question, which suggests… perhaps nothing. But perhaps—

He should have one, Lan Wangji thinks. The idea is accompanied by a strange urgency. If he wants one, he should have one. He should not have to ask.

Lan Wangji makes the request to the quartermaster in person, and she nods. “What would Lan-er-gongzi like embroidered on the ends of Wei-gongzi’s ribbon?”

The ends of Lan Wangji’s ribbon are unadorned—but the quartermaster spoke with such casual certainty. “Is such embroidery customary?”

“Yes, Lan-er-gongzi.”

For a moment, Lan Wangji is tempted to abandon the whole endeavor.

The lotus-embroidered robes were a wretched failure, and Wei Wuxian clearly disliked the Jiang embroidery most of all—so, no lotus flower or clarity bell. Rabbits—but it would be cruel to remind Wei Wuxian of a gift of his own that Lan Wangji had rejected. Wei Wuxian has showed partiality to so little else.

The lotus seeds, Lan Wangji remembers. Wei Wuxian had asked for them specifically, and since then, Lan Wangji has made sure to provide a steady supply. Wei Wuxian does eat them, with greater relish than he eats anything else.

He asks the quartermaster if it would be possible to embroider lotus seed pods; her eyebrows fly upward but she says yes. He asks for an extra ribbon, unembroidered, as well, in case Wei Wuxian does not like the lotus pods.

A few days later, when Lan Wangji goes to pick up the completed ribbon, he overhears the sewing women talking.

“Seed pods, he wanted on there!”

“Seeds… for fertility?” A giggle. “Lan-er-gongzi does know where babies come from, doesn’t he? Or rather… where they don’t come from?”

Lan Wangji’s ears burn. He had not considered the symbolism.

“Well, there’s no harm in trying, I suppose,” says the first voice, with audible amusement. “And if I had a husband as pretty as that, I’d be trying for a baby every night!”

“Ah, Wei-gongzi is truly a beautiful man, isn’t he? And such a devoted husband—”

“The way he cares for Lan-er-gongzi’s robes! The talismans – ah, it’s sweet when an arrangement turns into a love match, isn’t it?”

There is a general round of agreement.

That is more than enough eavesdropping for one day – Lan Wangji will have to assign himself a suitable punishment. He enters the hall to pick up the ribbons, ears still pink—and as he walks back to the Jingshi, he wonders what the embroiderers meant, when they mentioned his robes.

He would much prefer to just leave the ribbons in Wei Wuxian’s room for him to find, but he knows he cannot – if his latest attempt at a gift causes Wei Wuxian as much distress as the first one, it is right that he be there to bear the brunt of it. To learn, if Wei Wuxian will give him the chance, from his mistake.

And so, after dinner, he places the first ribbon, coiled, on the table before Wei Wuxian. “If you wish to wear it,” he says quietly. “It is not obligatory.”

Wei Wuxian picks up the ribbon. It unspools in his hand. When he sees the seed pods, his head jerks up, staring at Lan Wangji.

Lan Wangji finds himself unable to meet Wei Wuxian’s gaze. “If the embroidery displeases you, there is another.” Awkwardly, he presents the plain ribbon.

Wei Wuxian watches him in silence for five breaths.

“This husband is grateful,” he says, eventually, bowing.

But is my husband pleased? Lan Wangji desperately wants to know and knows he cannot ask.

Wei Wuxian does not wear either of the ribbons.

Lan Wangji reminds himself that Wei Wuxian did not actually request them – did not ever indicate that he wished to wear one. He simply expressed curiosity about the custom.

It does not make Lan Wangji feel like any less of a failure.

As the days pass, though, he starts to wonder whether his gift was, in fact, a failure—or whether it merely succeeded in a way he did not expect. For although Wei Wuxian does not wear the ribbons, his habits begin to change.

Wei Wuxian continues to spend large amounts of time in training and meditation, as is right and proper. But now, he spends his remaining free hours immersed in the library, or reading borrowed books that begin to form a wall on his desk. Lan Wangji no longer needs to invite him along—indeed, he often arrives at the library to find his husband already ensconced behind a pile of books, taking careful notes in the terrible unreadable chicken-scratch that he favors when writing only for his own use. He no longer seems tentative in his enjoyment of the sect’s collection; he seems to understand, at long last, that Gusu Lan’s most precious treasure is his to use.

A knot in Lan Wangji’s chest eases, as a xun goes by without Wei Wuxian returning to his self-confinement in the Jingshi. The forehead ribbon is an unmistakable symbol of belonging; even if Wei Wuxian did not wear it, perhaps it was enough for Lan Wangji to demonstrate clearly that Wei Wuxian had a right to that symbol. Perhaps that tangible proof was what Wei Wuxian needed all along.

Lan Wangji is assigned to a night hunt near the border with Yunmeng – a spate of drownings, with the victims’ headless bodies spat up on shore in the night. When he tells Wei Wuxian of his assignment, Wei Wuxian asks, “Are you a strong swimmer?”

Taken aback, Lan Wangji replies, “No.” He received perfunctory swimming lessons, as a child, as all Gusu Lan children do, but he has not used those lessons in years.

Wei Wuxian nods, and says nothing more.

The next morning, as Lan Wangji prepares to leave, Wei Wuxian hands him a pair of talismans. “Don’t tell anyone I gave you these,” he says quietly, eyes on the ground. “They’re Yunmeng Jiang secrets.”

Lacking Wei Wuxian’s skill with talismans, Lan Wangji cannot discern their function simply by looking at them, especially as both are highly complex. Wei Wuxian must have worked all night.

When he asks, Wei Wuxian answers, “The first one lets you breathe underwater. Not for long – a ke, maybe, with your cultivation level. Activate it before you go on the water. The other will pull you to the closest dry land; if you’re not a strong swimmer, it can be easy to get turned around and head in the wrong direction."

While he speaks, he is transformed: businesslike, clear-eyed, meeting Lan Wangji’s gaze easily and confidently. He is Yunmeng Jiang’s head disciple, through and through – the boy who first sparred with Lan Wangji by moonlight, before they were wed.

When his answer is complete, however, he shrinks in on himself again; settles at the desk, eyes lowered. “Be careful,” he says softly, as he always does. “You would be missed.”

Lan Wangji stands before the door, armed with Wei Wuxian’s work, Wei Wuxian a quiet shadow behind him. And it occurs to him that this is… stupid.

He is used to working alone. When he is not teaching, he prefers it. But he is not the cultivator best suited to this assignment.

Lan Wangji turns back to face his husband. “Wei Wuxian. I do not wish to disturb your studies. But if you would be willing to join me… I would be grateful.”

For a moment, Wei Wuxian sits frozen, staring up at him – he does not even appear to breathe. Then he drops his gaze again and demurs, “This husband wouldn’t wish to be a burden to Lan-er-gongzi.”

But Lan Wangji saw the flash of desperate hunger in his eyes, before he locked it away. The same hunger that Lan Wangji glimpses sometimes as they spar.

“It would be no burden,” Lan Wangji says. He would say it anyway, but he is confident it is true, despite his limited experience night hunting with Wei Wuxian. “Wangji would be honored to learn from Yunmeng Jiang’s head disciple.”

Wei Wuxian’s eyes travel the lines of Lan Wangji’s face. “So you do remember,” he murmurs. There is something bitter in his voice – something Lan Wangji does not understand.

Before he can think more on it, Wei Wuxian bows. When he says, “This husband would be honored to learn from the Second Jade of Gusu Lan,” there is nothing left in his tone but politeness.

It is a day’s journey by sword. They arrive in the evening.

“We will investigate tomorrow,” Lan Wangji decides – it is too dangerous to try the lake at night. Instead, he enters the town’s only inn, and requests a room.

“Just one?” the innkeeper asks, his eyes flicking back and forth between Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian.

Lan Wangji nods.

When they are alone in the room, unpacking their bags, Wei Wuxian gives him a cool look.

“Lan-er-gongzi could have reserved a separate room,” he says. His mouth quirks. “Found some company more to his taste.”

Lan Wangji’s blood rushes in his ears. His cheeks flush, hands clench; if they were not empty, he would have broken whatever they held. Anger has often been a slow thing with him, but this time, it comes upon him like a clap of thunder.

“I am no vowbreaker,” he bites out, sharp. Then, as quickly as the anger came, it is gone. Now, he only hurts – that Wei Wuxian expects so little from him, and that Lan Wangji has given him, still, no reason to expect more. He draws in a breath and says, more quietly: “I would not humiliate my husband so.”

And how strange, how strange to be so misunderstood – how strange to find himself for once too good a keeper of secrets. For who could be more to Lan Wangji’s taste than his own husband: lovely as polished obsidian, graceful as the winter’s first snowfall, fierce as the white slash of lightning through a dark sky?

Wei Wuxian’s eyes widen slightly. He bites his lip, perhaps in remorse. Then, surprisingly, the corner of his mouth curves upward.

“Ah, Lan-er-gongzi,” he says ruefully, with a small bow, “please forgive this husband. He’s been cooped up in the Jingshi too long and has become savage. Lan-er-gongzi has been kind to this husband and doesn’t deserve nasty comments like that.”

Lan Wangji returns to his unpacking, and tries not to let his hands shake. Cooped up in the Jingshi, Wei Wuxian had said.

It is not the same, he knows. Wei Wuxian is here, outside of Cloud Recesses; Wei Wuxian in fact leaves the Jingshi often, to go to the kitchens or the library, or perhaps other places while Lan Wangji is attending to his duties.

Still. Still.

Those are not words Lan Wangji can hear without a shiver.

After depositing their belongings in their room, Wei Wuxian follows Lan Wangji downstairs, where the innkeeper brings a selection of dishes for their dinner.

Wei Wuxian lifts a bite of carrot to his mouth with the same absent look that he wears during dinners at Cloud Recesses. When he begins to chew it, though, his eyes go wide. He swallows quickly. Lan Wangji watches, bemused, as Wei Wuxian swiftly takes another bite of carrot, then a green bean, then a cube of doufu, then a piece of mushroom, each with visible enjoyment.

He is… smiling. Smiling as he eats. Lan Wangji has not seen his husband smile at the dinner table since… since the first month that they were wed.

Lan Wangji dares to put a particularly plump-looking mushroom in Wei Wuxian’s bowl.

Wei Wuxian’s head flies up. He blinks at Lan Wangji, owlish.

Lan Wangji picks up another morsel—a square of doufu dyed a deep chili-red, as he has noted Wei Wuxian relishing the spiciest dishes the most—and deposits it in Wei Wuxian’s bowl as well.

After a pause, Wei Wuxian resumes eating. He keeps an eye on Lan Wangji, but as the dishes on the table empty, his attention returns to his food, which he continues to consume with great enthusiasm.

This, then, is what it looks like when Wei Wuxian actually enjoys the food that he is served. When he eats for something more than survival.

Lan Wangji thinks of how thin Wei Wuxian has become. How he has traded in his robes for a smaller size. His throat feels tight. He places another mushroom in Wei Wuxian’s bowl.

Too soon, Wei Wuxian sets down his bowl. But he casts a longing look at the remnants left on the table – clearly, he wishes to eat more.

Lan Wangji wordlessly begins to fill Wei Wuxian’s bowl with what is left.

Wei Wuxian’s hand comes to cover it.

“No more than three bowls,” he reminds Lan Wangji. He looks… wary, Lan Wangji realizes. As if he thinks Lan Wangji is testing him.

Lan Wangji shakes his head. “We are not in Cloud Recesses,” he says.

Wei Wuxian lifts an eyebrow. “Does that rule only apply in Cloud Recesses?”

Lan Wangji hesitates.

It does not.

But.

When Wei Wuxian arrived in Cloud Recesses, he would complain about the food – how bland it was, how unappetizing. After a time, he stopped. Lan Wangji had thought that it meant he had acclimated to their cuisine, their palate. He was pleased. Proud, even.

Now he knows that it was as ominous as the moment when a wanderer lost in a blizzard ceases to complain of the cold.

Lan Wangji puts more food in Wei Wuxian’s bowl. Looking at his chopsticks and only at his chopsticks, he says, “It is good to see Wei Wuxian enjoying his dinner.”

“Lan-er-gongzi…”

“Please. As a favor.”

Lan Wangji has never asked another person to break a rule before. He thought it would feel queasy, dizzy—it doesn’t. the opposite, really.

Wei Wuxian starts to eat again.

Lan Wangji summons the innkeeper and orders more of the food that Wei Wuxian seemed to like best. “And meat dishes,” he adds.

Wei Wuxian’s head snaps up to study him again, wide-eyed.

“The rule against eating meat does apply only in Cloud Recesses,” Lan Wangji reminds him, when the innkeeper is gone. “Some choose to forego meat entirely. But it is not obligatory.”

“Lan-er-gongzi does.”

“Mn. But Wei Wuxian need not.”

Slowly—wary again—Wei Wuxian nods. But he doesn’t hesitate to eat the meat dishes when they are brought out. And he smiles when he does.

The next day, Lan Wangji finds himself largely superfluous – examining the banks of the lake, Wei Wuxian finds the creature’s spoor and confidently identifies it as a Blinded Shark. “Not blind,” he explains, “and not a shark, either, really – just a type of fish yao that eats eyes. Hence the decapitation – it doesn’t care about the head, it’s just biting off the heads because that’s where the eyes are. They’re mostly ocean dwellers, but sometimes they wander into freshwater for some reason. We’ve—I mean, Yunmeng Jiang has been seeing them more and more, lately.”

Having seen this problem before, Wei Wuxian knows how to set up a system of spelled buoys and nets, and he succeeds in driving the creature into the shallows, where Lan Wangji’s contribution to the hunt is a single swing of Bichen. In every meaningful respect, it is Wei Wuxian’s kill.

Upon his return, Lan Wangji places himself on the roster for more night hunts – not teaching exercises with the junior disciples, but ordinary night hunts that he can handle on his own. Or with a partner.

His other duties do not permit him to accept as many of those assignments as he would wish, but it helps, to bring Wei Wuxian to new places, and see him come alive outside of the confines of Lan Wangji’s home. It hurts, too. But that is nothing.

Wei Wuxian still conducts himself according to the principles, when they travel together – still eats in silence, sits properly, refuses alcohol. But he seems more comfortable in crowded spaces full of laughter and color – teahouses and markets and small-town festivals, where he banters easily with shopkeepers and hawkers. And if Lan Wangji fills his bowl after he has already eaten three, or orders meat dishes for him, Wei Wuxian accepts the implied permission and eats with pleasure. He is still too thin. But he no longer looks as if a strong wind could blow him away.

Because he cannot take Wei Wuxian night hunting as often as he would wish, given his teaching responsibilities and other tasks as head disciple, Lan Wangji begins finding excuses to visit Caiyi Town. He brings his husband with him, and watches with satisfaction as Wei Wuxian offers effusive compliments to the innkeepers and waiters when his meal is finished; as the staff come to know Wei Wuxian’s likes and dislikes, and bring him his particular favorites.

On one such occasion, a small child toddles up to their table and deposits a toy lion in Wei Wuxian’s lap. “Can you make it roar?” the child asks, blinking up at him.

“Of course,” Wei Wuxian says, beaming. “What’s your name?”

“Yan’er.”

“Well, xiao Yan’er, are you sure you want me to make your lion roar?” He makes a ridiculous face. “It’s going to be very scary!”

A young couple rushes up behind the child, apologies tumbling out of their mouths: “So sorry to bother you, gongzi, our daughter is very friendly, we just looked away for a moment—”

“We don’t mind, do we, Lan-er-gongzi?” Wei Wuxian says, including Lan Wangji for a moment in his smile.

Lan Wangji shakes his head. They are, technically, still eating, and should therefore refrain from speaking. But young children cannot be expected to understand and abide by the rules—much less young children who are not a part of the sect.

The child’s attention was directed to Lan Wangji by Wei Wuxian’s glance – she gasps. “So pretty!”

Wei Wuxian’s eyebrows fly up, but his smile is undimmed. “He is, isn’t he?”

The little one’s mother takes her hand and tugs, exasperated. “Yanyan, come away, stop—”

“Is he your brother?” the girl asks Wei Wuxian.

Wei Wuxian shakes his head. “No, xiao Yan’er – he’s my husband.”

“Your husband?”

Yan’er looks back and forth between them, wide-eyed. Then she frowns and says to Wei Wuxian, with the brutal candor of childhood: “That’s not right. You’re not pretty enough for him.”

Yan’er’s parents are horrified, but Wei Wuxian merely shakes his head again, still smiling. “You’re not the first to say that, meimei, and you won’t be the last. Between you and me,” he adds confidingly, ducking down to the girl’s level, “I think you’re right.”

“Yanyan, come on—”

“Lan-er-gongzi, can—can you give her some lucky money?” Wei Wuxian asks – there’s something anxious about his expression. He must have forgotten his purse.

Lan Wangji offers the parents a generous but not extravagant sum and ignores their refusals. They leave the restaurant blushing and pleased, bowing excessively and scolding their daughter half-heartedly.

Later, as they ascend the stairs to Cloud Recesses, Lan Wangji says, “My duties often require my presence in Cloud Recesses. But Wei Wuxian may visit Caiyi Town whenever he wishes. Or travel more widely.” He is not, after all, a prisoner.

Wei Wuxian just nods silently.

Uncertain whether his point was made, Lan Wangji makes it finer: “Wei Wuxian may leave Cloud Recesses when he pleases, in whatever company he pleases, or alone. He need not confine himself to days or times when his husband may join him.”

There is something tight in Wei Wuxian’s nod this time; something fixed to his gaze, straight ahead.

Lan Wangji replays his words, searching for what he might have said that would be displeasing. Perhaps… perhaps Wei Wuxian believed him to be expressing—

“That is not to say—I would be pleased if Wei Wuxian would continue to accompany me, to Caiyi Town and on night hunts,” he says quietly. “I enjoy my husband’s company.”

My husband. The words land strangely. He is not sure he has said them out loud before.

Wei Wuxian nods for a third time. But he does not, in the end, make solitary trips to Caiyi Town or farther afield. He waits for Lan Wangji – never refusing an invitation, but never leaving his husband behind.

It is so much more than Lan Wangji deserves: this small, quiet implication of affection. This shadow-shape of silence that takes the place of the words: I enjoy your company, too. I miss you when we are apart.

This echo, at long last, of the companionship he had hoped he and his husband would share, before he knew the fine-boned beauty of Wei Wuxian’s face, or the fatal grace of his sword-arm.

His next night hunt is a teaching exercise; Wei Wuxian seems to understand without explanation that he will not be accompanying Lan Wangji.

The infestation of low-level crow spirits is easily dealt with, but the trip back to the inn afterward is accompanied by a torrential downpour, and none of the juniors are advanced enough to ride the sword in this weather. A wet trudge is the best they can do.

When they reach the inn, Lan Wangji goes to order dinner, but the other senior disciple, Li Wujin, clears his throat.

“Lan-er-gongzi, if we might have a moment to change out of our wet clothes…”

Lan Wangji blinks in surprise. He does not find his own clothing uncomfortable, but now that Li Wujin raises it, he can see that the juniors look rather bedraggled. “Mn,” he says, and the disciples climb the stairs to their separate rooms.

Lan Wangji is last to go upstairs, and as he passes the shimeis’ room, he hears one of them say, “I’m telling you, Lan-er-gongzi is an immortal!”

“Chanchan—”

“She’s right. Did you see him out there? Even the raindrops don’t dare to touch him. We’re all drowning and he was bone dry!”

“And did you hear about when he ran into a burning building?”

“Yes! The fire didn’t dare to touch him, either. I don’t think he’s an immortal, but he’s—Lan-er-gongzi is really the best. His spiritual power is beyond compare.”

“He’s not that great,” a new voice mutters—a familiar voice, although Lan Wangji cannot place it.

“Ran’er!” one of the others exclaims. “How can you say that?”

Lan Ran – of course. Wei Wuxian’s student.

Lan Wangji is… not surprised that she thinks little of him, even as her friends respond to her statement with outrage. After all, Lan Ran watched as Lan Wangji allowed her teacher to be stripped of the only task—the only relationship—in Cloud Recesses that had brought him any joy.

He has eavesdropped too long – he should not have eavesdropped in the first place. He assigns himself handstands to do tonight as punishment.

When the door of his room closes behind him, Lan Wangji sits and grasps the hem of his robe, and then the ends of his hair.

The hem is completely dry; his hair is soaked.

He hums to himself, intrigued.

As he considers that conundrum, his mind keeps returning to what he overheard at the embroiderers. And so, when he returns to Cloud Recesses, Lan Wangji undertakes an experiment.

In the forest by the Cold Springs, he drops a lit fire talisman on a folded-up robe from his closet. The talisman sputters out. The robe is untouched.

He dips a corner of the robe in the springs and pulls it out. The fabric is dry. He pours water onto the robe from his cupped hands. The water pools, beads, or runs off. It is not absorbed.

Well, then.

He eventually succeeds in locating the embroidered talismans on the hem of the robes, and succeeds in identifying those that pertain to strength and cleanliness—the standard for Gusu Lan robes—and the distinctly non-standard fireproofing and waterproofing talismans that must be Wei Wuxian’s work. There are others that he cannot identify. Something to do with temperature, and another referring to… corruption? He’s not sure. He suspects those, too, come from Wei Wuxian.

His next stop is the embroiderers. When he speaks to them about the waterproofing and fireproofing, they assume that Wei Wuxian informed him of the extra talismans—indeed, they assume he told Lan Wangji of them at the start—and Lan Wangji does not correct them.

When he asks why these talismans are not incorporated in all Lan robes, the embroiderers exchange uneasy glances. With patience, he learns that Wei Wuxian demurred credit for his inventions and asked the servants to claim that they stumbled upon the talismans in an old embroidery manual.

“Wei-gongzi is so humble and modest,” they murmur, approvingly.

But they knew that they would be asked to explain the new talismans if they were incorporated more widely, and they did not feel right about claiming credit for Wei Wuxian’s ingenuity, so they did not apply the talismans to robes other than Lan Wangji’s.

“Wei-gongzi is so clever,” the head embroiderer says, eyes lowered. “Perhaps his husband can persuade him to accept the accolades that he deserves.”

Lan Wangji nods his thanks.

For the rest of the day, Lan Wangji ponders what he has learned.

The Wei Wuxian who came to Cloud Recesses, the Wei Wuxian who Lan Wangji married—the Wei Wuxian who was happy, and free—had not seemed particularly humble. If anything, the opposite. And it is a strange humility that allows Lan disciples to go without protection on their night hunts just because—

He collects their dinner from the kitchens, then stands there like a fool—he is a fool—holding the tray and staring at nothing. Their dinner, which they eat in the Jingshi because Wei Wuxian does not wish to be stared at by the other disciples. Stared at, and whispered about – Lan-er-gongzi’s dangerous husband, who subverts the principles of their sect and promotes demonic cultivation.

If the others knew the fire and water talismans were Wei Wuxian’s, they would be rejected, despite their benefits. And Wei Wuxian knows it.

It is not modesty that makes him disclaim credit for his inventions. He simply knows how little he is trusted.

But he stitched the talismans into Lan Wangji’s robes. By his own hand, according to the embroiderers, once they had taught him the basics. Knowing he might be caught, he had taken the risk, for Lan Wangji’s safety and comfort.

Another echo. Another shadow-shape. And what has Lan Wangji done for Wei Wuxian? Brought him some lotus seeds, and a ribbon he does not wear.

The chief instrument-maker of Gusu Lan Sect lives on the far west side of Cloud Recesses. Lan Qu made Wangji, Lan Wangji’s qin, and Liebing, Lan Xichen’s xiao, and cultivators from every sect and from outside the sects call upon her talents.

She is a cousin of his father and Lan Qiren, but much older than either, and, in the way of many artists and artisans, somewhat eccentric.

It is thus no particular surprise that, when Lan Wangji goes to visit her and greets her with appropriate respect as “Lan Qu-qianbei,” she lifts an eyebrow and says, “That’s Qu-ayi to you, young man.”

He can feel the tips of his ears heating. “Qu-ayi,” he says obediently.

“What brings you here?” she asks, ushering him inside the cottage she shares with her wife – the swordsmith who forged Bichen and Shuoyue.

Lan Wangji keeps his silence until he has poured the tea. Then, looking down at his cup, he says, “This Wangji wishes to ask Qu-ayi to craft a dizi.”

He should look up. He cannot look up. The silence stretches.

“Well, what took you so long?”

Lan Wangji’s head jerks up without his volition.

Most of the Lan elders look at Lan Wangji with pride, or approval, or distance. He does not believe any of them have ever looked so… unimpressed with him.

“Yes, I heard about that brushoff Qiren gave your pretty husband – as if he’s the arbiter of what instruments are and aren’t suitable for cultivation!” She rolls her eyes. “And did anyone think to ask me? No.” Lan Qu glares at some point over Lan Wangji’s shoulder for a moment. Then she sighs and takes a sip of her tea, looking mollified. “Well, you’re here now. Yes, I’ll make a dizi for Wei Wuxian. And I’ll do it for free, just to prove the old goat wrong.” Lan Qu is, Lan Wangji remembers, significantly older than Lan Qiren. “A dizi is a grand choice for a spiritual tool. I’ve made ‘em before for cultivators from other sects.”

Lan Wangji cannot suppress a flash of curiosity at that revelation. “Does La—does Qu-ayi know why—”

“Why Gusu Lan doesn’t use ‘em? Well, there’s no rule against it,” she says, shrugging. “We just never have. My guess is it’s because the qin comes first, here, and the xiao makes a better pair for the qin than a dizi does – it’s quieter. Played together, a dizi will overpower a qin – unless you have a very strong qin player, and a very sensitive dizi player. That would make for a lovely pairing indeed.” This last is said very knowingly. Lan Wangji’s ears burn again.

“Thank you, Qu-ayi.” He rises to his feet and bows deeply.

As he turns to go, she calls to him, “Oh—what color do you want it?”

Lan Wangji should say white. Every xiao player in the clan has a white flute. But his mouth colludes with his memory to betray his good sense.

“Black,” he says.

Immediately, Lan Qu smiles. “Good. I was afraid you’d say white, you know. Everybody wants white flutes here – makes me so bored I could spit. It’s good to have some variety.”

Lan Wangji nods, offers his thanks once more, and departs.

The injury is more of an embarrassment than anything else. It is not unheard-of for the living relatives of unquiet spirits to resist—sometimes violently—the exorcism of their loved one, and Lan Wangji is trained to be alert to that eventuality. But in his defense, his attention was primarily on the fact that the teahouse the man and his deceased wife had owned was collapsing all around them. The man, and his sharp and well-aimed cleaver, had escaped his notice until the moment of the attack, by which point it was no longer possible to get entirely out of the way.

If Lan Wangji were not a cultivator, he would likely lose the use of the arm from the elbow down. He is a cultivator, and will therefore suffer no permanent impairment, but there was nevertheless a great deal of blood. As a result, he has been the subject of much unnecessary fussing by the junior disciples who joined him on what was supposed to be a routine training hunt, and by Lan-daifu, now that he is in her care at the medical pavilion.

He is seated on a bed in the examination room, Lan-daifu winding a bandage around his elbow, when suddenly, Wei Wuxian appears in the doorway.

His clothes are disheveled, and he is panting. No running in Cloud Recesses, Lan Wangji almost says, automatically—but there is something wild in Wei Wuxian’s eyes that stops up his mouth.

“I am well,” he says instead. “Wei Wuxian, I am—”

Wei Wuxian sinks to the floor at Lan Wangji’s feet, as if whatever frantic energy impelled him here has fled. He takes Lan Wangji’s left hand—his uninjured side—and presses it to his forehead. His cheek.

Lan Wangji’s heart knocks against his ribs. There is not room enough in his chest, in this moment.

Lan-daifu clears her throat, and Wei Wuxian flinches. He drops Lan Wangji’s hand and links his own for a brief bow.

“This husband apologizes for intruding,” he says – his throat sounds raw.

“Nonsense,” Lan-daifu says briskly. “It’s good you’re here. He’s not to use the arm at all for three days – no, not even for writing,” she adds, with a sharp look at Lan Wangji. She has treated his injuries since he was a small boy, and knows his tendencies too well. “And nothing strenuous with the arm for another two days after that. Then come back and I’ll see if you’re ready for more. If you disobey me, your husband will tattle on you. Won’t you,” she demands of Wei Wuxian, who blinks and then quickly nods. “Good.”

When they are back in the Jingshi, Wei Wuxian offers, quietly, “If there’s anything you need help with…”

“Mn.” Lan Wangji nods in acknowledgement of the offer, but does not take him up on it. There is something about the thought of Wei Wuxian involving himself in the intimate rituals of Lan Wangji’s day—his fingers threaded through Lan Wangji’s hair, his hands on the ties of Lan Wangji’s inner layers—that Lan Wangji cannot—cannot—

It is too much. That is all.

He removes his guan one-handed; takes down his hair, changes his robes, washes himself, one-handed.

In the morning, it is difficult to eat his breakfast with his left hand. But Wei Wuxian does not offer his help again.

Upon Lan Wangji’s return to his full duties, he is sent to supervise a joint night-hunt with Lanling Jin disciples. The night-hunt itself lacks any special interest, but he is intrigued by the way the Jin disciples rely on their bows almost as heavily as their swords. Gusu Lan disciples do not even carry bows, as a general matter, although they all receive some basic instruction in archery, and some pursue further study.

As he walks the path to the Jingshi upon his return, he thinks of how much Wei Wuxian enjoys teaching.

After dinner, he remarks, “Yunmeng Jiang is lauded among the sects for their skill at archery.”

Wei Wuxian inclines his head in polite agreement – his gaze is dull and uncurious. Lan Wangji is not deterred.

“This husband would be grateful for a lesson, if Wei Wuxian is willing.”

That does spark a flash of interest in Wei Wuxian’s eyes. Something in Lan Wangji’s belly goes tight with satisfaction. He has found something that will please his husband, without having to ask.

If it also creates a reason for Lan Wangji to spend more time with Wei Wuxian… that, too is praiseworthy. It is good for married couples to partake of each other’s company.

“This husband is honored,” Wei Wuxian says, with apparent sincerity.

When Lan Wangji meets Wei Wuxian at the archery range the following day, he is surprised to see a Lan longbow in Wei Wuxian’s hand—distinctive for its paleness, made of bleached wood. He had thought that Wei Wuxian would use the bow he presumably brought with him from Yunmeng. But then, Wei Wuxian has been diligent and humble in clothing himself in the appearance of a Lan disciple, wearing the same robes as the low-level disciples and forgoing adornments other than the jade entry token. This, too, is likely an earnest attempt to conform himself to the Lan ways—attempts for which, Lan Wangji cannot help but note with frustration, he gets no credit from the sect elders.

He controls his breathing and sets that frustration aside. He asks instead, “Might Wei Wuxian honor this husband with a demonstration?”

Wei Wuxian nods. Without fanfare, he nocks an arrow; shoots it; it hits the center of the target. He makes it look like child’s play. Before Lan Wangji can make any expression of appreciation, however, Wei Wuxian nocks another arrow and shoots it. It splits the first arrow in half. This, too, Wei Wuxian performs casually – as if it is nothing.

Lan Wangji finds himself short of breath at this display. He has heard of trick shots like this, but rarely seen them – only at inter-sect archery contests, from the very best contestants. He wonders, now, why Yunmeng Jiang did not bring Wei Wuxian, as he clearly would have been a strong contender.

He opens his mouth to praise Wei Wuxian’s skills—but Wei Wuxian is in motion again. He pulls a strip of cloth out of his sleeve and blindfolds himself. Then, just like that, he nocks a third arrow; shoots it; and splits the second arrow in the bullseye with his third.

Lan Wangji’s mouth goes dry. It is a cool day, but his robes suddenly feel much too hot.

As Wei Wuxian unties the blindfold, Lan Wangji bows deeply. “Wei Wuxian will find this husband’s skill level disappointing. I apologize for my presumption in asking him to provide mere remedial tutoring.”

Wei Wuxian half-smiles. “This husband is accustomed to teaching archery to five-year-olds,” he says, with a hint of his old teasing. Then, a spasm of pain flashes across his face. Before Lan Wangji can reach for him, the sorrow is gone as if it was never there, replaced again by the teasing twist of his mouth. “Whatever Lan-er-gongzi’s skill level, it will not be too low for this husband’s attention.”

Lan Wangji bows again. “This husband is grateful for Wei Wuxian’s instruction, and will be a diligent student.”

Wei Wuxian is an excellent teacher. The lesson is, nevertheless, agony.

Wei Wuxian is constantly in Lan Wangji’s space, touching him, correcting his stance with hands on his hips, his chest—all done in perfect innocence, Wei Wuxian’s gaze clear and focused, his touch light and professional. But the effect of all this touching is not innocent – not on Lan Wangji’s part.

He is very, very grateful to have worn so many layers of robes today. It is a constant struggle not to reach out and touch Wei Wuxian in return.

But… Would it be inappropriate to do so? he wonders.

Wei Wuxian had asked him for greater intimacy, before. He had not spoken about it again after Lan Wangji rebuffed him, but… that does not mean he has not desired it again. Merely that Lan Wangji’s refusal—which he now regrets—discouraged him.

Perhaps… perhaps Wei Wuxian would welcome an overture from Lan Wangji. Perhaps that is even one source of his unhappiness: that he expected a marriage of physical intimacy, and has been denied.

Summoning his courage, Lan Wangji dares to rest his hand on Wei Wuxian’s waist.

Wei Wuxian flinches violently away. The liveliness is stripped from his face.

“If that’s what you wanted,” he says, quiet as a knife, “you had your chance.”

Lan Wangji’s skin feels hot and tight with shame. He cannot argue with Wei Wuxian’s statement. He was in the wrong, to make such an overture after rejecting Wei Wuxian’s own attempts at intimacy. And now he has undone all the good he hoped to do here – perhaps, by his thoughtless actions, he has even made Wei Wuxian believe that the request for lessons was itself a ruse. A ploy, to engineer a closeness that Wei Wuxian does not desire, and Lan Wangji does not deserve.

He drops immediately to his knees and bows. He would put his forehead to the ground if he did not think it would make Wei Wuxian even more uncomfortable.

“This thoughtless one begs for Wei Wuxian’s forgiveness. He sincerely wishes to learn from Wei Wuxian and regrets that he has repaid Wei Wuxian’s instruction with an unwelcome gesture. He vows that his error will not be repeated.” He keeps his eyes down, fixed on the bare dirt beneath him.

“I’m sure,” Wei Wuxian murmurs.

Then he sighs, and steps forward to tug Lan Wangji to standing. “The Yunmeng Jiang style of archery instruction is very hands-on,” he acknowledges, gaze distant, face blank. “Perhaps Lan-er-gongzi should demonstrate what he has learned so far, and this husband will observe.”

Lan Wangji nods, grateful for the offered escape. He knows that is what it is.

When it is time for Lan Wangji to join his brother and uncle for dinner, he bows again and thanks Wei Wuxian for the lesson. His archery has indeed improved, in one afternoon. Further proof of Wei Wuxian’s talent as a teacher.

He expects Wei Wuxian to part from him halfway, to return to the Jingshi, but instead, Wei Wuxian walks with him as far as the armory, where he ducks inside and emerges without his bow.

It is strange. The clear implication is that Wei Wuxian borrowed the bow that he had used for today’s lesson, but why?

That night, as he takes down his hair to prepare for bed, Lan Wangji says, “Wei Wuxian may select any of the bows in the armory as his own, and keep it. That is his right as a member of the inner clan.”

Wei Wuxian frowns, looking unconvinced. He is ensconced at the desk, perusing a book on binding arrays. “This husband doesn’t want to offend anyone by absconding with a bow that is not his own.”

“What is in the armory is yours,” Lan Wangji says. “But if Wei Wuxian is concerned, I would be pleased to accompany him to the armory while he selects a bow.” It is the least he can do, after his misstep this afternoon.

“This husband could not trouble Lan-er-gongzi.”

Lan Wangji sits across the table, and waits for his husband to look up. When he does, Lan Wangji says, “As a favor to me. I would be grateful.”

Wei Wuxian studies him. It is strange, to be so closely scrutinized when he is not arrayed as the Second Jade of Lan – when his hair is down and unadorned, and his robes are plain and loose for sleep. Lan Wangji has been married for months and months and he still does not know, he thinks, what a marriage is. But it might be this. To be known. Seen. Too close for pretense or display.

He drops his gaze and makes himself open – a subject of study.

In the end, Wei Wuxian nods.

Lan Wangji is in the armory with Wei Wuxian, watching with interest as Wei Wuxian examines the available bows, picking them up and testing them – Lan Wangji barely knows a good one from a bad one. He tucks this matter away as a future topic of conversation on a night hunt, or sitting in the Jingshi after dinner.

Then, the quiet of the armory is interrupted.

“It was bound to happen.” A voice outside the armory is speaking – one of the disciples Lan Wangji’s age. Lan Hong, he thinks. “I haven’t seen him in weeks.”

“Of course Lan-er-gongzi would have no time for such a person.” This voice carries a sneer. “So free with his favors – smiling at anyone, even once he was married…”

“Shameless,” a third voice supplies.

Lan Wangji is frozen. Wei Wuxian. They are speaking of Wei Wuxian.

“It’s clear why Yunmeng Jiang was in such a hurry to unload him,” says the sneering voice. Lan Wangji recognizes it now. Su She.

“Before he embarrassed them further,” Lan Hong remarks.

“It’s appalling,” the third voice sniffs. “To sell used goods to someone as virtuous as Lan-er-gongzi. But what can you expect from the son of a servant?”

Distantly, Lan Wangji notices that he is trembling with rage. His breath feels scalding-hot in his throat, in his lungs. He glances at Wei Wuxian, seeking a matching fury.

But he doesn’t find it.

Wei Wuxian’s gaze is fixed on the floor, neck bent, shoulders pulled in tight. The language of his body is humiliation. Not anger. Not even surprise.

He’s heard this before, Lan Wangji realizes. Heard it before and endured it, said nothing to Lan Wangji—

Lan Wangji steps toward the door; Wei Wuxian reaches out and takes his arm.

“It’s not worth it,” he says quietly.

“It is,” says Lan Wangji. It feels as if each hand is clenched around a palmful of thorns. Wei Wuxian did not tell him—

The trio of backbiters go pale when they see him. From their babbled excuses, it is clear that they do not understand the source of his anger – that they believe him affronted by the public nature of their discussion, not by its content.

Su She actually dares to say to him, “Of course, we all understand that his behavior does not reflect on you, Lan-er-gongzi, you could not have known what Yunmeng J—”

Lan Wangji silences him. He should have long before.

He sweeps his gaze across the three disciples—none of them half as skilled, half as clever, half as compassionate, as Wei Wuxian.

Coldly, he says, “You are not qualified to speak about my husband.”

The Gusu Lan rules are replete with admonitions against cruelty, but those are not the sort of rules that have ever been enforced with punishment. The most important rules rarely are.

Lan Wangji would change that, if it were his to decide, but he doubts his brother would agree to order these three whipped for the crime of being cruel to Lan Wangji’s husband. Neither would his uncle.

In the end, all he can do is order them to report for punishment for gossiping. It does not feel like enough.

Afterward, he returns to the armory.

Wei Wuxian is standing in the doorway. There is an indentation in his bottom lip, as if he had been biting it. His eyes are wide.

“We will return another day,” says Lan Wangji.

Wei Wuxian holds up a bow, unstrung. “No, I—I found one.” He hesitates for a moment, then bows deeply – too deeply. Head down, he says, “This husband thanks Lan-er-gongzi.”

It could be for the weapon. Lan Wangji does not think it is.

“There is no need for thanks,” says Lan Wangji, lifting Wei Wuxian to stand upright.

As they walk along the path back to the Jingshi, Lan Wangji says carefully, “This husband would take it as a great favor if Wei Wuxian would inform him when he hears such statements. Gossip is forbidden in Cloud Recesses.”

Wei Wuxian dips his head with a hum of acknowledgment. It is not agreement. And they both know it.

It is not unusual for Lan Wangji to wake, bathe, dress, and eat breakfast without seeing his husband. It is unusual, however, for him to open the back door and find his husband curled up on the back porch of the Jingshi, asleep – book in his lap and burned-out candle beside him.

Lan Wangji examines the clues presented to him; the conclusion is straightforward.

That evening, after dinner, Lan Wangji says, “Wei Wuxian.”

Wei Wuxian looks up at him, blinking.

“I sleep very deeply,” Lan Wangji tells him. “I would not be disturbed by light, or the sound of turning pages.”

Wei Wuxian blushes slightly, knowing himself caught. There is something soft in his eyes when he says, quietly, “This husband thanks Lan-er-gongzi for his consideration.”

But the interpretation of those clues leaves Lan Wangji with a larger mystery.

He seeks out Wu Jingrui, who is charged with managing the night watch, and who looks crushingly uncomfortable as he says, “I—he was removed from teaching, so…”

Lan Wangji waits. His silence is generally a sufficient prod.

Wu Jingrui looks, if possible, even more uncomfortable. “I assumed that if Wei-gongzi was not trustworthy enough to train the younger disciples, then he shouldn’t be assigned to sentry duty—”

“Do not make assumptions,” Lan Wangji bites out.

Wu Jingrui flinches, and attempts to drown Lan Wangji in apologies. Lan Wangji is not the person to whom he ought to apologize.

“Should I add Wei-gongzi to the roster again?” he asks.

Lan Wangji almost says yes. But it occurs to him, in the moment before he speaks, that Wei Wuxian may not wish to be exposed again to this person and this situation that had humiliated him.

“I will ask Wei Wuxian what he prefers,” he says coldly.

But he does not. He plans to, each night after dinner. But time and again, he loses his nerve. For Wei Wuxian to be rejected from the night watch was a humiliation. And one he clearly he did not wish Lan Wangji to be aware of.

He does not wish to bring it up. And he does not wish Wei Wuxian to turn to him and say, Did you only notice now, Lan-er-gongzi?

Time passes. He says nothing.

Lan Wangji is practicing guqin on the porch of the Jingshi when he hears a high voice calling for him. “Lan-er-gongzi!”

Lan Ran comes flying through the gate, kicking up gravel as she runs, panting. “Lan-er-gongzi, come quick—”

He shakes his head and says mildly, “No running in Cl—”

“They caught Wei-laoshi in the forbidden chamber of the library!”

Lan Wangji’s breath is trapped in his lungs. He cannot move.

“Please, Lan-er-gongzi,” Lan Ran begs. Tears are running down her face. “A-Niang says it will be the discipline whip—”

Lan Wangji does not run, but only because he knows it would diminish his standing to plead on Wei Wuxian’s behalf. His own adherence to the rules must be perfect. He will not be taken seriously otherwise, no matter the merits of his position.

When he arrives, Wei Wuxian is already on his knees, face blank, before Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren. One of the elders holds the discipline whip, coiled in his hand.

Lan Xichen plainly notices his arrival – his mouth tightens when his eyes light on Lan Wangji. But he does not stop speaking as Lan Wangji walks through the assembled elders and stands at Wei Wuxian’s side.

“Wei-gongzi. This is a very serious infraction. And an intentional one. Moreover, this is not an isolated incident – Wei-gongzi has demonstrated a pattern of such rule-breaking.” Lan Xichen closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them again, his jaw is set. “For that reason, the sentence is three strikes of the discipline whip.”

Wei Wuxian nods. He shows no other reaction.

Lan Wangji drops to his knees, eyes straight ahead. “Wangji will bear his husband’s punishment.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Wei Wuxian flinch – a full body recoil. “No! Lan-er-gongzi, please—”

Lan Wangji keeps his gaze forward; his posture impeccable. He does not respond.

“Lan-xiansheng, Zewu-jun, please,” Wei Wuxian begs, voice tight with desperation, “Lan-er-gongzi didn’t know anything about this, it was all this one’s doing, this one should bear the punishment. Please—”

The Lan Wangji who made his bows with Wei Wuxian would never have expected his—he thought—selfish, frivolous husband to plead for punishment to spare another. But the Lan Wangji who kneels beside him now knew that his husband would resist. He had prepared his arguments as he walked, step by agonizing step, when every fiber of his heart wished to run.

“Wangji has failed to impress upon his husband the importance of the sect rules,” he says, expressionless and implacable. “It is necessary and proper that he bear the punishment for this failure.”

“Lan-er-gongzi has done everything to instruct this one in the rules,” Wei Wuxian counters. “The fault is with the student, not the teacher.”

Lan Qiren holds up a hand. Both of them fall silent. “Wangji is correct,” he says. Lan Wangji releases a breath he did not know he was holding. “As head disciple of this sect, he is responsible for teaching and enforcing its rules. If he cannot instill obedience to those rules even in his own household, punishment is necessary.”

Wei Wuxian’s voice is a broken thing. “No, please—”

“Maintain decorum,” Lan Qiren snaps, his eyes narrowing as he looks at Wei Wuxian with unmistakable anger. “Which principle is that?”

“Seventy-four, Lan-xiansheng,” Wei Wuxian whispers.

“You will observe it, unless you wish to add to Wangji’s punishment.”

“Yes, Lan-xiansheng,” Wei Wuxian whispers. His head sags forward, defeated.

Lan Wangji is offered the chance to bare his back. He declines. He values his dignity more than his robes.

His brother shepherds Wei Wuxian off to the side. Lan Wangji cannot look at him.

The strikes cut through cloth and flesh. He is able to bear them upright. When it is over, he coughs, bloody. He can stand, and walk, so he does.

Wei Wuxian catches him before he’s taken more than a few steps. He lifts Lan Wangji’s arm to rest on his own shoulders. Lan Wangji bites his lip against the pain as the movement pulls on his wounds.

Lan Xichen comes to take his other side. Together, they support him on the walk to the Jingshi, and lay him in bed, on his front.

When Lan-daifu arrives, she treats the whip marks with salve and bandages them, narrating to Wei Wuxian, who will rebandage him.

“How long?” Wei Wuxian asks. “Until…”

“He is young and strong,” Lan-daifu says briskly. “And it was only three strikes. If he rests—really rests, lies in bed and does nothing strenuous, then he’ll be up and about in a xun.”

Lan Wangji exhales, and allows his eyes to drift closed. He had prepared for worse.

When he becomes aware again, it is dark. Only the lamp allows him to see Wei Wuxian’s form kneeling beside the bed.

“Husband,” he whispers, and Wei Wuxian jolts.

“Let me—I have water heating, and—and tea for the pain,” he whispers, rising.

When he has helped Lan Wangji drink down the foul-tasting tea, and a cup of water to wash it down, he returns to his earlier spot on the floor.

“Go to bed,” Lan Wangji says softly. “Wei Wuxian. I am well.”

Wei Wuxian shakes his head. The light of the lamp is behind him; Lan Wangji cannot read his expression. But his voice is tear-thick. “Why would you do that?” he asks. “Why? Lan-er-gongzi…”

Lan Wangji takes a deep, slow breath in, then lets it out, testing the way the movement pulls at the wounds on his back. “If Wei Wuxian does not understand the importance of the rules, Wangji is at fault.”

“I already said—”

“And if Wei Wuxian understands the importance of the rules and chose to enter the forbidden chamber regardless…” Lan Wangji closes his eyes. “Wangji trusts that he had a good reason.”

There is a shift in the light against his closed eyelids – some movement creating a shadow where before there was none. But there is no further movement – no sound, no touch. It is after hai shi. Before long, Lan Wangji is asleep once more.

Lan Wangji is confined to his bed for a xun – a xun in which he must watch Wei Wuxian listlessly pick at his food. He urges Wei Wuxian to go to Caiyi Town without him, but Wei Wuxian silently shakes his head. He will not leave Lan Wangji’s bedside.

Lan Wangji speaks with one of the servants, and later that day, he is able to sit up in bed long enough to present Wei Wuxian with a bottle of chili oil. He should have thought of it before. But it is not too late to do what he can. Wei Wuxian accepts it blankly, with whispered thanks. But he uses it. That is the important thing.

When Lan Wangji is healed, there are three shining scars crossing his back. The scars of the discipline whip are meant to evoke shame – to remind the wearer of their failings. Lan Wangji feels their pull and tug each time he practices with Bichen, and wonders what it would be like to see them – to trace the long, silver lines with his eyes.

He does not know what the sight would make him feel.

But it would not be shame.

The letter arrives with the rest of his correspondence. The Yunmeng Jiang seal ensures that it is the first one he opens.

He scans it quickly – it is from Jiang Yanli, and pertains to personal matters. That much now known, he begins to read.

Lan-er-gongzi: Please forgive my boldness in writing you directly. I hope that forgiveness will be easily obtained now that you are my brother-in-law, and I your sister-in-law.

I am writing to express to you my most sincere and heartfelt thanks. I was concerned, when A-Xian married out, as he knew no one in Cloud Recesses and I worried about who would take care of him. Now I know that I did not need to worry. You have taken such good care of our A-Xian, and I am so grateful.

She is exaggerating, of course, but even so… To know that Wei Wuxian has spoken of him in this way, has told his beloved sister that Lan Wangji cares for him well… it warms him deeply.

It now seems silly that I ever worried. From A-Xian’s letters it is clear that his married life is happier than I dreamed it could be – indeed, I think he may be happier in Cloud Recesses than he ever was in Lotus Pier.

A trickle of icy water begins to make its way down the back of his throat. Lan Wangji is not privy to every aspect of his husband’s life—but he knows all too well that there is nothing happy about Wei Wuxian in Cloud Recesses.

I have been so pleased to hear that A-Xian has become the Lan shidimeis’ favorite teacher, but of course, we all expected that – it was true here in Lotus Pier, too! The Jiang shidis and shimeis miss their da-shixiong very much. And it is a great comfort to me to know that you accompany A-Xian on all of his night hunts: he is not always as careful with his own safety as he should be, but I know his husband would never let him come to harm.

In truth, that is what makes me happiest of all: to know that A-Xian has found a love match after all. He sings the praises of his “Lan Zhan” in all of his letters. It means so much to me to know that he is cared for and provided for. Please allow me to express my deep and sincere gratitude in particular for your generosity in giving A-Xian access to your funds, and my deep and sincere apology on behalf of Yunmeng Jiang that such generosity is necessary.

I hope soon to be able to deliver my thanks in person! A-Xian is always telling me he’s too busy to visit, with all those night hunts. If I may presume upon Lan-er-gongzi’s generosity once more, this sister would humbly ask that A-Xian be released from his duties for a few days, at a time most convenient for Gusu Lan Sect.

Please accept my thanks, finally, on behalf of your sect. Yunmeng Jiang lost much when we lost our da-shixiong, but it is a great consolation to know that Gusu Lan values A-Xian’s talents as much as we did, and as much as he deserves. Although I miss A-Xian very much and eagerly await his first visit, I cannot begrudge his absence, knowing that it is because his new sect finds him indispensable.

With profound gratitude,

Jiang Yanli

He finishes the letter through the blur of tears.

His first instinct is to confront Wei Wuxian—

And what, then? Recite lying is forbidden? Send him for punishment? No.

No.

He cannot imagine what would come, after showing Wei Wuxian the letter. What could he do? What could he say? His mind returns a blank, in answer to those questions.

And if he has no answer, he must not proceed. To shove Wei Wuxian’s face in the difference between this fantasy he has woven of happiness and purpose, and the isolated, unhappy life he truly lives—it would humiliate him. It should not be done, then, without a good reason. Lan Wangji has none.

The back door slides open—Lan Wangji stuffs the letter in his sleeve and wipes his eyes. But there is only so much he can do.

“Lan-er-gongzi!” Wei Wuxian rushes to him. “What’s—what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Lan Wangji attempts.

“You’ve been crying—”

“I—”

Lan Wangji’s eyes fall upon the bottle of chili oil on the table, laid out in preparation for their dinner.

Lying is forbidden.

“I—I tried some of your chili oil,” he says, ashamed to have resorted to falsehood.

Wei Wuxian believes him. “Lan Zh—L-Lan-er-gongzi!” He covers his mouth, eyes dancing. “That stuff’s not for the faint of heart, you know!”

“So I have learned,” Lan Wangji says, dryly.

Wei Wuxian laughs, and for a moment, Lan Wangji forgets the letter, forgets everything.

He has not heard Wei Wuxian laugh in so long.

He cannot confront Wei Wuxian about the letter. But he cannot do nothing, either. One issue, at least, seems straightforward.

Jiang Yanli had thanked him for giving Wei Wuxian access to his funds, and had attributed the need for such funds to a failing on Yunmeng Jiang’s part.

The inescapable inference is that Wei Wuxian has no funds of his own; and that this is because Yunmeng Jiang did not provide for any.

Lan Wangji knows little about dowries and how they are negotiated. It was never considered an important part of his education. Lan Xichen would be sect leader, and so such matters would be his remit.

But Lan Wangji knows that Yunmeng Jiang is a wealthy sect. And when he considers Wei Wuxian’s situation, and what little he does know about how a marriage portion is usually arranged, the only conclusion to which he can come is that this was intentional: that whoever negotiated Wei Wuxian’s dowry deprived him in order to humiliate him. To put him in the position of a beggar, coming to Lan Wangji every time he needs anything – making him feel like a pauper, or a burden to the sect.

Rather than make himself such a burden, of course, Wei Wuxian has simply refused to spend money at all. Lan Wangji sees that now. So many things suddenly make sense: Wei Wuxian wearing ordinary disciples’ uniforms, which he can get from the quartermaster for free, or borrowing Lan Wangji’s robes when something more formal is required; Wei Wuxian borrowing a longbow from the armory rather than buying his own; Wei Wuxian leaving Cloud Recesses only in Lan Wangji’s company—or, more accurately, Lan Wangji now understands, only in the company of Lan Wangji’s purse.

And Lan Wangji, fool that he is, had taken it as a sign of affection. A sign that Wei Wuxian found him a pleasing companion, that he preferred Lan Wangji’s company to going out on his own. He had stupidly—pathetically—thought that Wei Wuxian was lonely without him. When, in truth, he now suspects Wei Wuxian would be eager to get away from him: to pass his time in Caiyi Town or farther afield without worrying that Lan Wangji will lecture him for drinking alcohol or eating his fill or sitting casually or expressing joy in the wrong way.

But a person without funds cannot leave home – for how will he eat? And so Wei Wuxian found himself a prisoner. With Lan Wangji’s purse the only key to the lock.

And Lan Wangji did not notice.

He goes to Lan Xichen’s office immediately, and is fortunate to find his brother alone. He does not bother with pleasantries.

“Did Wei Wuxian’s dowry include provision for his expenses?”

Lan Xichen frowns slightly. “No – it was a generous dowry, but it did not include currency, or income-producing land or rights. It’s unusual, but not unheard-of; some clans prefer to deed land or other income-producing rights to the departing spouse separately, as I assume Yunmeng Jiang did here.”

“No.”

Lan Xichen’s mouth drops open. “Nothing?”

“Mn.”

He has never seen his brother look so disconcerted. “Then what has he—there wasn’t even jewelry—”

Even Lan Wangji knows that jewelry is a typical fallback provision for the expenses of the departing spouse – a portable and relatively liquid asset that can be sold off gradually when necessary. The lack of such a provision here is telling.

It is immediately apparent what needs to be done. Lan Wangji leans forward. “Xiongzhang. Please arrange for my allowance to be disbursed to Wei Wuxian going forward.” He hesitates. The Lan way to proceed—the right way, under the rules—would be to do this openly and conceal nothing. But… “He is proud,” he says, and Lan Xichen nods. “Lying is forbidden. But if it could be—implied that he is receiving a separate allowance, untied to mine…”

“He will receive a separate allowance,” Lan Xichen says firmly. “He should have been disbursed an income all along. His dowry was more than generous enough to cover that. And even if it were not, if I had known Yunmeng Jiang was not providing for him…”

He shakes his head and sighs. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Wangji. He will have access to your funds as well, going forward.”

Lan Wangji rises and bows. “Xiongzhang.” As he turns to leave, he pauses. “He said nothing to me. I learned of this from a letter from Jiang-guniang. If…”

From the look on his face, Lan Wangji can tell that his brother understands. Lan Xichen is so attuned to these nuances. “I will speak to him about it. He does not need to know it came from you.” He closes his eyes for a long moment. “It should not have had to come from you. This is… I should have noticed. Or… I wish he had spoken.”

Lan Xichen’s voice is soft, but Lan Wangji bristles all the same at the implication of judgment—the implication that Wei Wuxian has only himself to blame for failing to speak up sooner.

“Wei Wuxian is very concerned about being a burden on the sect,” Lan Wangji says stiffly. He could leave it there. Should leave it there. Instead, he says, “Wei Wuxian is not permitted to contribute to the sect in ways commensurate to his abilities. Thus, he perceives an imbalance.”

Lan Xichen gives him a long look. He does not reprimand Lan Wangji, as perhaps he ought to, for criticizing his sect leader and the sect elders—although he surely knows exactly what Lan Wangji is saying, in the silences between his words. Instead, Lan Xichen says evenly, “I will consider that also, Wangji. Thank you.”

Lan Wangji bows again, and departs.

The next day, after they bow to conclude a morning sparring session—another draw, to what Lan Wangji believes to be their mutual satisfaction—he tells Wei Wuxian that he will be going to Caiyi Town to order a new set of robes. “Wei Wuxian is welcome to accompany me.” Not enough. Lan Wangji sucks in a quiet breath and corrects himself: “I would enjoy his company.”

Wei Wuxian gives him a flat look. “Zewu-jun talked to you. Didn’t he.”

That is… not untrue. Lan Wangji nods.

Wei Wuxian studies his face. In the end, he sighs. “I guess it would be nice not to wear exactly the same thing every day.”

Lan Wangji takes pains to conceal his satisfaction.

At the tailor’s shop, Wei Wuxian asks for robes in the same fabrics that the tailor’s assistant had spread on the counter for Lan Wangji’s approval: white and pale blue.

But one of the bolts on the wall catches Lan Wangji’s eye. He lifts a corner of the fabric in his hand—a rich storm-blue shot through with threads of silver. “Wei Wuxian would look well in this,” he suggests.

In an instant, Wei Wuxian’s face becomes closed, like a door slamming shut.

Tightly, he says, “I’m a disciple of Gusu Lan Sect. I know I may not be allowed to act—” He presses his lips together, breathing out through his nose. “But I can at least look the part.”

Lan Wangji pauses, unsure how to respond. He believes he understands what Wei Wuxian is implying, but…

“Blue is a Lan color,” he points out.

“Light blue, sky blue,” says Wei Wuxian, flicking his fingers at Lan Wangji’s robes, and the cloth laid out on the counter.

“Shufu wears darker blues,” Lan Wangji points out. “Xiongzhang wears darker blues. So do other clan members. It would not be remarked on for Wei Wuxian to do the same.”

“You don’t.”

“I prefer lighter colors. But it is only preference.”

Wei Wuxian watches Lan Wangji, as if waiting for the punchline of a joke. When nothing of the sort appears, his breath leaves him in a soft rush, and he looks faintly embarrassed.

“Oh.”

Lan Wangji turns to the tailor’s assistant. “Please bring out fabrics in shades similar to those worn by Lan-zongzhu and Lan-xiansheng.”

The assistant obliges, and Wei Wuxian peruses the cloth, eyes widening. In the end, he still selects white outer layers, but the inner layers are in a deep ocean blue.

Lan Wangji is pleased.

As they leave the shop, Wei Wuxian says quietly, “This husband owes Lan-er-gongzi an apology, I think. For being so ungracious about Lan-er-gongzi’s gift, when we were newly married.”

“No apology is necessary.”

“They’re beautiful robes. I thought—they were beautiful robes for… an outsider.”

“No—”

“I see that, now.” Wei Wuxian ducks his head and looks up at Lan Wangji through his lashes as they walk. It makes Lan Wangji’s stomach flutter. “Thank you for the gift, Lan Wangji.”

Lan Wangji.

Not Lan-er-gongzi. Not Lan Zhan yet, true, but—somehow, today, some tiny piece of intimacy Lan Wangji had lost has been regained. He has to take a steadying breath before he can say, “You are welcome.”

They stop for a silent lunch at Wei Wuxian’s favorite teahouse, eating cold noodles and marinated greens, with a pork dish for Wei Wuxian, so spicy that just the smell of it makes Lan Wangji’s tongue burn. Wei Wuxian smiles as he eats. It is those smiles, and those smiles alone, that truly feed Lan Wangji.

As they depart to return to Cloud Recesses, a group of dirty but energetic children runs up to them in the street, begging. Lan Wangji reaches for his purse, but Wei Wuxian is faster—faster to collect his purse, faster to open it… and faster to empty it, which he does immediately.

A part of Lan Wangji wants to sigh, exasperated: no sooner has Wei Wuxian acquired funds than he has disposed of them, leaving his money pouch as empty as before. But the larger part of him knows he cannot fault Wei Wuxian for being generous, especially to children—rather, such generosity should be praised.

Wei Wuxian has always been kind to the poor on their night hunts, and has always had a soft spot for children. Lan Wangji wonders how many beggar children Wei Wuxian has had to turn away, on their trips, because he had nothing to give them. The thought makes him feel sick.

“Rich-gege, Rich-gege,” the children call, dancing around Wei Wuxian’s feet, plainly delighted.

But Wei Wuxian points at himself, eyebrows flying up, and shakes his head. “Me? No, no, this one isn’t rich. That—” He points back at Lan Wangji, grinning. “That’s your ‘rich-gege.’ All my money comes from him! He’s the one who buys all my dinners.”

That cuts close to the bone. But there’s no edge of bitterness in Wei Wuxian’s voice, no shadow on his face. He seems sincerely, purely happy, in a way that Lan Wangji rarely sees.

As Wei Wuxian banters with the street children, it occurs to Lan Wangji that his husband likely cherishes dreams of being a father—and indeed, that some of his unhappiness may trace to a mistaken belief that he has lost that chance by marrying Lan Wangji.

But he has not. Indeed, when they are a little older, more settled in their relationship, they will surely be expected to adopt children to be Lan Wangji’s heirs, especially as Lan Xichen appears disinclined to marry.

Gusu Lan has always been unusual among the sects in strongly encouraging adoptions. This was explained to Lan Wangji as a way of bringing new blood into the clan and sect – necessary because Lan disciples, unlike those of other sects, usually marry within their own sect.

It had not occurred to Lan Wangji to ask, at that time, why so few disciples of other clans married into Gusu Lan.

It had not occurred to him that, perhaps, they did not want to.

He wonders, now, if that was the source of the strange look of triumph on Yu Ziyuan’s face at his wedding to Wei Wuxian. If disciples of other sects looked at Wei Wuxian that night, exquisite in his red silk robes, and pitied him.

They would not have been wrong to do so, Lan Wangji thinks, and the thought tastes bitter.

But not all is lost. Parenthood is one thing that Lan Wangji knows he can offer his husband. Indeed, raising children could give Wei Wuxian’s days the sense of purpose that they now lack, and would surely bring back his smile. Even if he is not ready for fatherhood yet—and Lan Wangji quietly hopes he is not, as he himself does not quite feel ready at present—just knowing that children are in their future will surely please him.

As they approach the entrance to Cloud Recesses, Lan Wangji starts to fumble through an explanation of this.

“Gusu Lan encourages married couples to adopt children. If fatherhood is something Wei Wuxian desires, there is no impediment—”

Wei Wuxian gives him a look of such caustic fury that Lan Wangji takes a physical step back. Even the sky seems darker.

Then, as suddenly as it came, the rage is gone, replaced with mocking cynicism.

“Lan-er-gongzi,” Wei Wuxian drawls.

Not Lan Wangji; not anymore. Whatever little progress was made has just been lost.

“The Lan elders won’t even let this husband near the shidimeis,” Wei Wuxian reminds him, eyes hard. “There is no chance he’ll be allowed to raise the clan heir.”

With that, he walks away.

Lan Wangji stands motionless in his wake, shell-shocked. He can barely think.

But he cannot deny the ring of truth in Wei Wuxian’s words.

Numbly, he forces himself to move – to walk, with nothing approaching his usual grace, through the gateway arch and onto the paths of the only home he has ever known.

Wei Wuxian is right. He is right.

And Lan Wangji was a fool to think otherwise.

The Lan elders will never entrust the future heir of Gusu Lan to someone who is not even trusted to teach the young disciples how to hold a wooden practice sword.

If Lan Wangji has children—and he must, if Lan Xichen does not—then Wei Wuxian will be…

Sequestered in a house built as a cage, visited once a month by children who call him A-Die but do not know him and to whom he is not permitted to speak about anything real, so that he does not contaminate them with his ideas, his love—

“L-Lan-er-gongzi?”

The sound of his title brings him back to himself. He takes stock: his eyes are burning, and his hand is screaming in pain from clenching so tightly around Bichen’s sheath. He blinks away the tears and acknowledges the disciple who has sought him out. “Mn.”

“Lan Qu-shigu asked to see you,” the disciple says. She looks slightly terrified. If he were a better head disciple, he would care. He would know her name.

He is sure Wei Wuxian knew all the disciples’ names, when he lived in Lotus Pier.

“Thank you,” he says, struggling to keep his voice even. He turns and walks toward the west side of the mountain.

“Some of my best work,” Lan Qu says, with intense satisfaction, as she hands him the black dizi. It is a thing of beauty.

Lan Wangji bows. “Thank you, Qu-ayi.”

She peers at him, frowning. “Wangji. You look upset. What did the old goat say to your pretty husband this time?”

“Nothing. It was not—”

If only it were something so small. One man, instead of the whole of Lan Wangji’s world.

Lan Qu purses her lips. There is something kindly in the tilt of her head. His eyes prickle with tears again. “Hm,” she says. “Well, if Qiren gives that boy any trouble for cultivating with my work, you send him to me and I’ll set the old goat straight.”

Lan Wangji takes a deep, steadying breath. It is a good reminder: Wei Wuxian is not without allies, even in this place. He will meditate on that, when his mind is clear enough to make plans. “Thank you, Qu-ayi,” he says, with another, deeper bow.

“Take a tassel on your way out!” she calls as he turns away.

His hand hesitates only a moment over the boxes of tassels by the door. He knows what he wants.

When he returns to the Jingshi, he finds Wei Wuxian writing something that he hides in his sleeve as soon as Lan Wangji approaches. Lan Wangji, who hid a letter in his own sleeve not too long ago, does not feel himself in a position to question or judge.

Lan Wangji kneels before him and sets the dizi on the desk. “For you,” he says softly.

Some of the dullness flees Wei Wuxian’s eyes as he stares down at the flute in consternation. “W-what—why?”

“You need not use it as a spiritual tool,” Lan Wangji says quietly. “I thought it might bring you pleasure simply to make music. But it is suitable as a spiritual instrument if you wish. It was made by the same master as my qin.”

There’s a wariness in Wei Wuxian’s face that Lan Wangji cannot say is unfair. “I thought a dizi was never a suitable spiritual tool.”

“That may be Shufu’s opinion.” Lan Wangji is pleased with the evenness of his own voice. “It is not mine. If it would please Wei Wuxian to learn musical cultivation, I would be pleased to teach him.”

Wei Wuxian hunches slightly – he’s studying the dizi now, not merely staring at it blankly. After a long moment, he looks up. “Why a red tassel?”

Lan Wangji wills his ears not to flush. “For the ribbon in your hair.”

Wei Wuxian frowns. “I don’t wear a red ribbon in my hair.”

“When you came to Cloud Recesses.” The moment that Lan Wangji first saw him. “Then, you did.”

Lan Wangji’s words land on Wei Wuxian in a way that Lan Wangji does not understand. His face twists: some deep emotion, which he smothers as ruthlessly as an assassin.

Ignorant and unarmed, Lan Wangji blunders forward in the dark. “If you would prefer another teacher, I understand. We have other disciples whose command of musical cultivation with a flute is superior to mine. I can arrange for you to train with Lan Xuyan, or—”

“And what will your uncle think of that?” Wei Wuxian asks softly. A clear challenge.

“It does not matter,” Lan Wangji says, shocking himself with how true it is – with how little he cares about his uncle’s opinion, his uncle’s judgment, when set against Wei Wuxian’s happiness.

Wei Wuxian’s eyes go wide.

It is an indictment: his own husband, surprised that Lan Wangji would take his side. This is the lesson Wei Wuxian has taken from their marriage. Lan Wangji’s throat burns with shame.

“I have not been a good advocate for you,” he acknowledges, hands fisted in his lap, gaze fixed on the floor. “I have not yet earned the right to ask your forgiveness for this failing, but I hope to.”

Outside the Jingshi, a bird calls, three times. There is no answer.

“It’s a beautiful gift, Lan Wangji,” Wei Wuxian says gently; Lan Wangji’s heart leaps at the sound of his own name. Forgiveness is his, then—far more swiftly than he deserves. “Thank you. No need for lessons, though,” he adds, with a fleeting smile. “This husband couldn’t waste Lan Wangji’s time in such a way.”

“It would not be a waste.”

“Mn.” The look on Wei Wuxian’s face is odd; unreadable. “Thank you,” he says again. It sounds very final.

That night, something wakes Lan Wangji. He does not know what. A feeling of unease.

He sits up in bed, and does not see a candle or a lantern that would betray Wei Wuxian’s presence.

Likely Wei Wuxian is himself asleep. Or perhaps he is out in the garden, practicing sword forms.

But Lan Wangji remembers the odd finality of Wei Wuxian’s thanks, earlier. Feeling foolish, he rises from his bed and peers around the edge of the screen separating Wei Wuxian’s sleeping area from his own.

Wei Wuxian’s bed is empty, except for a piece of paper.

Heart pounding for no reason he can name, Lan Wangji seizes the paper and opens it.

Thank you. I’m sorry.

Lan Wangji’s breath turns to ice in his throat.

He throws on the first outer robe he finds and runs out the door, Bichen in hand.

He wastes valuable time checking the wards—no, it is not a waste. He knows now that Wei Wuxian is still within Cloud Recesses. More precious minutes are wasted checking the library. He breaks the seal on the forbidden chamber with brute spiritual force, but Wei Wuxian is not there.

Instinctively, he knows he should not wake the rest of the sect. Instead, he rushes toward the Cold Springs, and as he approaches, he catches sight of a fire.

In a small clearing not far from the springs, Wei Wuxian is standing before the largest, most complex array Lan Wangji has ever seen. Scores of talismans are fluttering from strings woven in patterns like a spider’s web. In one hand, Wei Wuxian holds Suibian; over the other, a palm-sized piece of metal floats, exuding a nauseating aura of resentment and rage.

He hears Lan Wangji approach, and wheels to face him.

“Lan Wangji, stay back!” he shouts.

That is the last thing Lan Wangji wishes to do. But he stops in his tracks and calls, “Wei Wuxian. What are you doing?”

Wei Wuxian walks toward him, skirting the edge of the fire that illuminates the clearing. When he is almost—only almost—close enough to touch, he asks, “Does Lan Wangji know the story of Xue Chonghai?”

Lan Wangji sucks in a sharp breath. If Wei Wuxian has turned to demonic cultivation after all… if he has been driven to it by the very suspicion that he might, and the cruelty that followed, he will—

But Wei Wuxian says instead, “I see he does. But does Lan Wangji know that Xue Chonghai’s rise was powered by this?” He nods down at the strange piece of metal. “It’s called the Yin Iron,” he explains, looking almost like the Wei Wuxian that Lan Wangji knows. The Wei Wuxian who would not build secret, blood-fueled arrays in the dead of night. “After Xue Chonghai’s defeat, it was split into pieces. This one was hidden in the back mountains here. Your ancestor Lan Yi told me it needs to be destroyed, to keep it from being misused again, but she couldn’t figure out how. And you know me—well…” A jagged smile slices across his mouth and is gone. “You don’t. But just trust me. I love a good cultivation problem.”

There is too much there for Lan Wangji to entirely assimilate—Lan Yi spoke to Wei Wuxian? Is she not dead?—but he puts together what little he did understand.

“You are trying to destroy it.”

Wei Wuxian nods. “More than trying,” he says. “I’ve figured out how. I’m sorry you took the beating for me, but… my trip to the forbidden chamber of the library paid off.”

With that knowledge, Lan Wangji looks again at the array, at the talismans. Knowing their purpose, he understands them more clearly.

Understands what this feat will cost.

“Wei Wuxian,” he says, with urgency. “This spell will kill you.”

“I know.”

Silence. Lan Wangji cannot move or speak. He cannot breathe.

A tiny smile blooms on Wei Wuxian’s lips. Softly, he says, “I’ve finally found something I can contribute to Gusu Lan. To the whole cultivation world. It’s all right, Lan Wangji. Don’t be sad. This is what I want.”

Lan Wangji stumbles forward – Wei Wuxian’s words are like a knife through his gut. “No—”

He stops when Wei Wuxian lifts his sword hand, barring his way. “Don’t try to stop me,” he says, steel in his eyes. “We’re cultivators: we always know we may have to trade our lives for the safety of others. Like my parents did. This is what I was born for, Lan Wangji. For once, for once—” His voice breaks. “—grant me some dignity. Grant me the dignity of a useful death, instead of the slow wasting of a useless life.”

“Wei Wuxian’s life is not useless—”

Wei Wuxian laughs – a metallic sound. “Yes, sorry, you’ll have to find another sparring partner. Small price to pay for sparing the cultivation world another brutal war.” The firelight flickers over his face. It makes his eyes look like embers. “This is the right thing to do, Lan Wangji. For everyone. With one act, I can protect Gusu Lan and Yunmeng Jiang, finally acquit myself with honor as a part of this sect, and—and free you to find a better husband. One who could be happy in your world, and make you happy, too.” The gentleness in his tone—the forgiveness—makes Lan Wangji sick.

“I do not want another husband.” His voice sounds thick and wet. He has never said anything more true in all his life. “Wei Wuxian. I will never want another husband.”

Wei Wuxian looks nonplussed. “Well. That’s between you and Zewu-jun.” His eyes flick up to the moon, clear in the otherwise bare sky. When he looks back at Lan Wangji, his gaze is even. “We’ve talked long enough. You know my reasons. Don’t stand in my way.”

Lan Wangji leaps. When he lands, he is standing between Wei Wuxian and the array.

Wei Wuxian’s face hardens. “So be it,” he says.

They fight.

Both of them are fighting to incapacitate, not to kill—but they battle in earnest, for real stakes, bringing all of their physical and spiritual power to bear. It is nothing like their sparring matches.

Lan Wangji’s thigh is bloodied—Wei Wuxian’s sword arm, too. Neither of them can stop.

Eventually, Wei Wuxian gets the upper hand. He dashes past Lan Wangji, into the circle of the array, and raises a ward between them.

Lan Wangji, exhausted, supports himself against a tree and watches. No observer would say that he won the fight. But he did enough.

He sees Wei Wuxian try to activate the spell; sees it barely flicker, and then sputter out.

“No. No!” Wei Wuxian makes another attempt – not even a flicker this time. He turns to stare, desperate, at Lan Wangji.

Lan Wangji lacks Wei Wuxian’s genius for spells and talismans. But he knows enough to know when a spell requires a massive amount of energy to activate. He did not win the battle. But he cost Wei Wuxian enough spiritual energy that he no longer has enough to enact his plan. That was all Lan Wangji needed.

Wei Wuxian’s eyes are red; his face is twisted up with crying. He stalks toward Lan Wangji and snarls, “Why? What does this gain you?”

“Your life,” Lan Wangji says steadily.

“A few days,” Wei Wuxian sneers. “A week. I’ll try again as soon as I’m recovered. I’ll keep trying and trying. You can’t watch me all the time. So what are you going to do? Turn a figurative prison into a real one? Lock me in the Jingshi?”

Lan Wangji flinches. But his instinctive revulsion is his teacher. He knows what to do.

“Leave with me,” he says. “Wei Wuxian, leave this place and—”

“Run away? Don’t you think I’ve thought of that?” Wei Wuxian replies, imploring, tears tracing down his cheeks. “Don’t you think I think about running away every fucking day? I can’t, I can’t… All that would do would be to bring dishonor on you, and Gusu Lan, and Yunmeng Jiang, and Shijie and Jiang Cheng—”

“Wei Wuxian. You are not listening. I did not say ‘leave me.’ I said ‘leave with me.’ We will go together,” Lan Wangji says, willing his face and his voice to reflect his urgency. “Travel, doing good where we are needed. Going where the chaos is. There is no dishonor there.”

“Lan Wangji.” Wei Wuxian sounds almost exasperated. He swipes at the tears on his cheeks. “You can’t do that.”

The answer was there all along. He should have seen it months ago. “I will,” he says.

“You can’t!” Wei Wuxian spits, shaking his head. “You can’t throw away your life like that, just to keep me alive, no one wins if we trade my misery for yours—”

“I would not be miserable.”

Wei Wuxian steps close, in Lan Wangji’s face. “Bullshit. You love this place, these rules—”

“I love Wei Wuxian.”

As soon as he has said the words, he is shaking. He can hear the fire crackle, and the harsh scrape of his own breath in his throat. Wei Wuxian is staring at him, wide-eyed.

“I am in love with you,” he says. He cannot afford to be misunderstood in this.

“What?”

Lan Wangji does not know what to call the expression on Wei Wuxian’s face. He hopes he has not hurt his husband even more with his confession. He expects nothing; he must make that clear.

“I know you have no affection for me,” he says, low. He is too great a coward to look Wei Wuxian in the eye. “And I have no right to it – I have failed you. I know you flinch at my touch, and I deserve that. But I am in love with you, and I want your happiness above everything, Wei Wuxian—”

“Wei Ying.”

Lan Wangji looks up. He cannot help it.

“If you’re going to confess your love to me,” Wei Wuxian says, voice shaking, “you should call me Wei Ying.”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says, the sound precious on his tongue. “Leave this place with me—”

“I don’t want you to run away with me,” Wei Wuxian interrupts, standing tall now, eyes piercing. “I was driven from my last home. I don’t want to be driven from this one, too.”

“If you do not want me to run away with you then what—”

“I want you to fight for me.”

There’s a hectic energy in Wei Wuxian’s eyes, and his cheeks are flushed. His fists are clenched at his side – one empty, one around Suibian.

“You told me you hadn’t been a good advocate for me,” he says. “Do better. Go to battle for me.”

“I have been trying, lately. It has not made you happier,” admits Lan Wangji, feeling his failures like a deep fever-ache.

But Wei Wuxian surprises him. He shakes his head and says softly, “It has.”

Lan Wangji sucks in a breath.

“It… it was working.” For the first time tonight, Wei Wuxian looks at the ground. The line of his shoulders now is curved – not proud. As if there is something shameful in feeling a tiny shred of happiness. “It was working too well. I tried to destroy the Yin Iron tonight because… I was starting to—to see too much that I would miss.” He swallows. “I was afraid, if things kept going like this, I would… lose my nerve.”

“Good,” Lan Wangji says, fiercely. He dares to close the last distance between them; dares to take Wei Wuxian’s trembling form into his arms. He fits there so well—Lan Wangji’s match in height and strength. “I will do more. I will do everything in my power. And if I have exerted all the influence I possess and it is not enough to make you happy, I will leave with you,” he swears. “But I will not step aside and allow your spirit to be crushed. Not anymore.”

For a moment, they stand silent in the shivering night. From above them, leaves flutter and fall, shaken loose by the wind.

Wei Wuxian rests his hands on Lan Wangji’s chest. Lan Wangji leans back, studying the dance of the firelight over his weary face.

“Lan Wangji is a good man,” Wei Wuxian says. There’s something almost sad in the way he says it. “Too good.”

He turns his head away, just as exquisite in profile.

“I’m in love with you, too,” he says quietly – the words delivered with no weight or pomp. As if they mean little. As if they do not pierce down to the innermost muscle of Lan Wangji’s heart.

“Lan Zhan,” he says, when he can speak again.

That makes Wei Wuxian turn his head to look. Whatever he sees on Lan Wangji’s face, it makes him smile – a quiet, hopeful thing.

“Lan Zhan,” he echoes.

That night, when they reach the Jingshi, they are walking in hand-in-hand. At the moment where they would normally part, Lan Wangji hesitates.

“Husband,” he says.

There’s a catch in Wei Wuxian’s—Wei Ying’s—breathing. “Yes?”

“As a favor to me. Tell me—”

“Come to bed with me, husband,” says Wei Ying, with a sketch of a sweet and secretive smile. “If you would please me. Lan Zhan. Come to bed.”

Lan Wangji does.