卧薪尝胆
by Rose Thorne
Disclaimer: I don't own anything associated with The Untamed, and make no money writing fanfiction.
Wei Wuxian hadn't thought anything of the note on his breakfast tray in Lan Wangji's perfect handwriting about a meeting he needed to attend as Chief Cultivator. It wasn't exactly unusual, and he tried to steer clear of that part of the Cloud Recesses during meetings and petitions from the cultivation world. Despite his name being cleared, he was still seen as the terrible Yiling Patriarch by those seeking someone worse than them.
And then he wandered out to feed the rabbits and found Ouyang Zizhen in a pile of them, having buried himself in fluffs of fur.
He sighed; this meant today's petitioner was Sect Leader Ouyang, and if Zizhen was here trying to comfort himself with bunnies…
Everyone thought he was corrupting the Chief Cultivator. What they apparently didn't realize was that Lan Zhan had lived on pure spite the thirteen years he'd been dead, and it hadn't really gone away just because he'd been brought back by the sacrifice of Mo Xuanyu.
They somehow didn't realize they'd given the most powerful position in the cultivation world to someone who fucking hated them.
So while they all thought Wei Wuxian was corrupting him, he had somehow actually found himself trying to be the voice of reason every time some two-bit sect leader talked shit about him where Lan Zhan could hear about it.
Honestly, what were things coming to when he had to be the reasonable one?
"Your dad being a moron again?" he asked, when Zizhen didn't react to his presence.
"He ever stops?" was the bitter reply. "There's not going to be a sect for me to inherit if he keeps this up, Wei-qianbei."
The look of misery the poor kid leveled at him would have looked overly dramatic on anyone else, but Wei Wuxian had known him long enough to know Zizhen felt things deeply.
Hell, the kid had burned more joss paper for A-Qing at Qingming, and he had only seen her spirit.
"Dad's on a rampage about funding for the lookout towers again."
"Well, that's not too bad—"
"He's saying the only reason the Chief Cultivator is keeping them running is so you can take over the cultivation world," Zizhen added. "That you're hiding fierce corpses in them or using them as focuses for resentful energy or something."
Wei Wuxian sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He had to admit this was a more creative accusation than most; he could almost see where Zizhen got his romanticism, though obviously it was much improved in his generation.
"Please tell me he didn't say that in Lan Zhan's hearing."
He hadn't thought Zizhen could look more miserable, but the youth flopped back on the grass dramatically, sending bunnies hopping in all directions and reminding Wei Wuxian poignantly of a younger Nie Huaisang before the world fucked them all over.
"He said it to Jingyi."
Well, fuck. There went any hope of that working out well.
"I'll remind Lan Zhan you're one of our ducklings," he offered, not knowing what else to say.
"I told Dad that maybe if he stopped insulting the Chief Cultivator's husband, he'd be more receptive to his suggestions."
"Aiya, Zizhen, what have I told you?"
It wasn't that Wei Wuxian didn't appreciate the juniors' esteem, but plenty of people in the cultivation world had justifiable grievances with him. If him having died once wasn't enough to assuage them, nothing ever would be. They had every right to hate him. There wasn't any point in defending his reputation.
"I'm tired of them blaming you for all the ill in the world when they cause a lot of it themselves," Zizhen said, his voice almost a wail.
Wei Wuxian sank to the grass beside him with a sigh.
"Everyone needs a scapegoat. I'm just a very convenient one. Hell, half the stuff they claim I did happened while I was dead. I can't keep eating a dead cat."
Zizhen shifted, eying him almost tearfully.
"How do you deal with it, Wei-qianbei?" he asked after a moment.
He shrugged, leaning over to pick up a rabbit to pet.
"Water off a duck's back. I cared too much in my first life. Look where that got me."
It wasn't the right thing to say, if Zizhen's empathetic and tearful expression was any indication.
"Ah, Zizhen, it's really okay. Lan Zhan won't ruin Baling over something so silly."
At least, he hoped not. When Lan Wangji was on Spite Mountain, it was hard to talk him down. And he was more the type to take a sword to a problem. Or refuse to speak to someone for over a decade.
An idea occurred to him suddenly, a way to hopefully keep Zizhen from crying all over him about the injustice of the cultivation world.
"We could always task the Ouyang sect with purifying the towers of resentful energy," he commented offhand, thinking aloud.
"There are twelve hundred of them!" Zizhen said, aghast.
"And all of them so remote!" Wei Wuxian said cheerfully. "If your father thinks I'm using them to focus resentful energy, clearly someone uncorrupted should investigate. Since he's brought it to the attention of the Chief Cultivator, clearly he's volunteering."
Zizhen's expression oscillated between horror and glee.
"Surely he'd want to oversee it personally, and it'd take years," Wei Wuxian added. "I bet you'd inherit the sect by the time it was over."
He was pleased when Zizhen started laughing, clearly realizing that his father would have no choice but to hastily drop his petition if such a thing was proposed.
Wei Wuxian really couldn't wait to recommend the proposal to Lan Wangji. He wondered if he could hide behind a curtain when it was proposed to Sect Leader Ouyang.
After all, as often as a quick sword through tangled hemp resolved a situation, diplomacy before violence could be more effective.
Eating a dead cat is a Cantonese idiom for taking the blame for others' wrongdoing, or being a scapegoat. The last line refers to two different Mandarin idioms.
Chapter 42 of the novel discusses the lookout towers and the plan to expand them to three thousand from twelve hundred. Jin Guangyao is dead before that can happen, obviously.
The title is also an idiom, basically to lie on firewood and taste gall. Basically to suffer patiently but wait bitterly for revenge. Which is Nie Huaisang, of course, but also Lan Wangji here.
This was born of my ruminations about Lan Wangji's spite and how funny it is that they make him Chief Cultivator in cql, followed by crack commentary on a Discord server.