Hanguang-jun's reappearance in the cultivation world was cause for much excitement. Even the gossip-free Cloud Recesses was abuzz with reserved noise. Lan Kang had stared unabashedly at the man; he was very young when Lan Wangji first went into seclusion and he barely remembered what he looked like.
Lan Wangji looked like an unhappy Zewu-Jun.
Lan Yuan was very happy that the 'unhappy Zewu-Jun' had emerged from his seclusion.
One day, he was invited by Lan Yuan to feed the rabbits with him. The eight year-old was thrilled at the invitation, so he made his way to a large field with a basket full of vegetables. Like little balls of snow, the rabbits were scattered among the lime green grass. Lan Yuan was there already with Lan Wangji. He bowed respectfully to his senior and flopped down beside his friend.
Lan Kang shoved a piece of lettuce into the white rabbit's face, but it turned its head to the side and hopped away. He huffed indignantly.
"A-Kang, they'll come if you keep calm," Lan Yuan said. There were two little rabbits on Lan Yuan's lap, nibbling on the same piece of carrot.
Lan Kang tried to sit still. He was a Lan sect disciple, he could stay still!
A rabbit hopped towards him, and he bounced in excitement, which made the rabbit stop. Boy and rabbit stared at each other. A moment passed, and the rabbit must have deemed him to be non-threatening, so approached him once more.
With the rabbit in his lap, he fed it a piece of lettuce.
"A-Yuan, look!" He said softly, wide grin on his face. His friend just smiled happily at him.
After watching the rabbit for a while, Lan Kang asked, "do they have names?"
"That one is called Spotty, because of the spot on its nose," Lan Yuan said, pointing at the spot on its twitching nose. "It's hard to name them, because they all look so similar..."
"Maybe we could get our brushes and draw on them..."
Lan Wangji's golden eyes were pinning him to his spot, and he tried not to wriggle in discomfort.
"Oh no, we shouldn't do that!" Lan Yuan was surprised at such a suggestion.
The boys continued feeding the rabbits. Lan Kang could not stand the silence, and said, "I wonder how they talk if they don't make noise?"
"Maybe they whisper to each other, and we just can't hear them," was Lan Yuan's explanation.
"Hmm, I wonder what they would talk about? Spotty would be saying 'A-Yuan is feeding me again. I'm the luckiest rabbit here!', then its friend would be saying, 'no. I am the luckiest! I've got A-Kang feeding me!', and then..."
Lan Kang's commentary continued, to Lan Yuan's amusement.
Lan Wangji just gave him an odd look.
Lan Wangji was his friend's guardian, and his friend loved the man. He had heard many stories (not gossip!) about the older man's many good deeds, and looked up to him.
But the intense gaze unnerved him.
oOo
In that same year, Lan Kang and Lan Yuan received their courtesy names.
Lan Jingyi. Jingyi, Jingyi... he liked the sound of that!
"Jingyi!" Lan Sizhui said excitedly.
"Sizhui!" He exclaimed back. The two boys held each other's shoulders, bouncing around.
He did his best to ignore the cool air swirling around him.
The cool presence had come and gone since the year that he met his friend. He had been ignoring it since then, and he had not seen the girl ghost either.
There was a small tea ceremony to celebrate their naming. Lan Xichen sat at the front with Lan Qiren, Lan Wangji and a few other Lan elders. Now that the two brothers sat side-by-side, Lan Jingyi compared the two again.
Yes, there was a happy Zewu-jun, and an unhappy one.
After the boring talks, he was finally dismissed and he walked briskly to the physician's ward to see his mother. He adjusted his forehead ribbon, and entered.
Greeting two bed-ridden seniors as he passed by, he went to look for his mother in the adjoining office.
"Mother!"
"A-Kang, voice!" Lan Ju chided, placing her brush down lightly on the brush holder. It looked like she was working on research notes.
"Sorry, mother," Lan Jingyi said more quietly. Then, with a grin. "I am Lan Jingyi!"
His mother smiled at her animated son, and lovingly patted him on his head.
"So, you are a big boy now?"
"Yes, mother!"
She stared at him for a moment, then said, "Jingyi... A-Kang... you certainly are growing up..."
Lan Ju seemed to be deep in thought. She said, "A-Kang, I think it is time for you to begin your training in the healing arts."
They had talked about this before, when he was younger. He had told her about seeing their sect leader being unhappy and wanting to know how to help others be happy. He only carried a limited number of his happy rocks, after all.
Additionally, a lot of the Lan disciples had expressed gratitude towards his mother for healing and saving them, which always touched him.
He had been helping his mother in the physician's wards, and had learned a little about what physicians did. However, he had not undergone any official training.
"You are to come here after your meditation classes," she said.
"Yes, mother," Lan Jingyi brimmed with nervous excitement.
oOo
He was twelve when he received his spiritual sword, Yueming [Moonlight]. The sword had a smooth pearl-white hilt and sheath, the colour like its namesake, and had no decorative adornments.
Receiving the spiritual sword meant that he could now go on his first official night hunt!
With Yueming strapped to his side, and a qiankun pouch filled with talismans, medicines and other necessities, he set out.
His first ever night hunt was with Lan Sizhui and two supervising seniors: Lan Zhengyi and Lan De.
The two seniors were first cousins. They had a similar appearance; gangly figures with serene faces and keen eyes. With their twin-like appearance, they sometimes liked to joke that they could be the next Twin Jades of Lan.
Lan Jingyi thought that was an insult to the real Twin Jades, but the fake Twin Jades just laughed at his offence.
The seniors looked on in amusement as Lan Jingyi almost skipped to the hunt, obviously overflowing with enthusiasm. He would finally experience the true cultivator's life!
Lan Qiren would have been disappointed to see a Lan so excited, but even Lan Qiren had come to realise that no amount of handstands and rule-writing could change Lan Jingyi's unLan-like behaviour.
By his estimate, this amount of excitement may have only resulted in copying the rules once.
"Sizhui, aren't you excited? We'll get to use our spiritual swords for real this time!"
Lan Sizhui just smiled at his friend, "I'm actually a little nervous."
"You shouldn't be! I think even Hanguang-jun thinks that you're good enough!"
Lan Sizhui looked embarrassed.
Lan Wangji did not explicitly say anything like that, but he had seemed approving the last time he supervised their training.
Or maybe he was just disapproving of all the other disciples. After four years, Lan Jingyi still did not quite get that man.
He did not know that, with the exception of one person, even the people who had known Lan Wangji his whole life did not get him.
The group noticed Lan Jingyi seeming less and less exuberant as they got further and further from Cloud Recesses. He waved away their concerns.
Of course, they had no clue that once outside the protective barriers of the Cloud Recesses, the ghosts roamed free. Despite being able to ignore the supernatural presences, the sight of the ghostly figures still made him anxious.
Now that he was older, he could easily tell which figures were ghosts and which were humans; the spirits emitted a slightly pale glow, and were somewhat opaque. He made sure not to look at any of them too closely. Although he did step closer to Lan Sizhui when, in his peripheral vision, he saw a large man with a bloody hole in his abdomen.
Despite his physician training, he had not seen many serious injuries treated in the Lan sect physician's wards, and such overtly ghastly sights still made him squeamish.
This night hunt was a request from the townspeople of Caiyi Town, who had reported seeing a walking corpse in the surrounding forest. Being a simple job, their instructor thought it would be a good opportunity for the juniors' first hunt.
Bushes and clumps of grass splattered like inkblots on the pale dirt ground, and the moonlight glowing through the trees cast dark shadows. The dark shadows made easy hiding places for any manner of creatures. Luckily, their target was a simple walking corpse.
The boys' white robes shone under the eerie pale glow of the moon, and Lan Zhengyi and Lan De stood back to see how their juniors fared.
The juniors nodded at each other, at the ready. Lan Sizhui pulled out a Spirit Attraction Talisman and drew on the last symbol to activate it. Lan Jingyi ignored the pale figures floating around the talisman. They were harmless, and not the night's assignment.
Mere moments later, a corpse stumbled from beyond the trees. With blades held aloft, they quickly struck the corpse from two sides before it even registered their movement. It took one more step, then fell in a heap with a final groan.
Lan Jingyi and Lan Sizhui grinned at each other, cheering their first success. However, with the Spirit Attraction Talisman in action, they knew not to let their guards down.
Lan Zhengyi was praising their quick work when they heard a rustle near them.
"Sizhui!"
Lan Jingyi suddenly grabbed Lan Sizhui and pulled with a frantic force as a walking corpse appeared where Lan Sizhui was a moment ago.
Five more walking corpses emerged from their surroundings, melding out from the darkness into sight.
"Sizhui, Jingyi, stand back!" Lan De instructed the boys upon seeing the number of walking corpses. He and Lan Zhengyi moved to stand between the corpses and the junior disciples.
Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi watched in awe as their seniors fended off the walking corpses with practiced ease, moving around each other fluidly and striking down the corpses in barely a blink of an eye. However, they both gasped in shock at the sudden appearance of a demon.
It leapt.
The Lan disciples hurriedly dispersed; the juniors in one direction and the seniors in the other.
It was a wolf demon, with dark fur that made it blend into the nightscape, and stood taller than an adult human. Amber eyes glowed above a row of sharp fangs which glinted in the moonlight. The only sound in the dark forest was the wolf's loud pants.
With a deep growl it leapt at the smallest disciple in the group; Lan Jingyi.
In a panic at the wolf's sudden advance, Lan Zhengyi threw some talismans at its back, while Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi were frozen in shock, barely managing to lift their swords in defence.
Lan De jumped in to intercept the wolf with a thrust of his sword.
The talismans had no effect on the wolf, and it effortlessly pawed away Lan De's sword, following up with a bite at his arm.
Lan Zhengyi stabbed the wolf's neck, and it let go with a grunt. He then threw a fire talisman directly in the wolf's face. At the shock of the sudden fire, it jumped back.
Lan Jingyi paled when he saw the dark patch blooming on his senior's sleeve.
The disciples regrouped briefly.
"De-ge, your arm..." Lan Jingyi said.
"It's fine. We can deal with it later," the senior said. "Get into the Fifth Formation!"
The Fifth Formation was one of many formations the Gusu Lan Sect used for multiple disciples attacking a single opponent, and was one of the earlier ones taught to all sect disciples due to its ease of application and suitability in various situations.
Raising his sword, Lan Zhengyi ran at the wolf, sword aiming directly between its eyes, while the others quickly jumped to surround the wolf.
Lan Zhengyi flipped in the air and landed heavily behind the wolf, and they had the wolf effectively surrounded on all four sides. Left hands held in front of their chests with fingers pointing straight to the sky, and right hands holding their swords, they all stabbed their swords into the ground. There was a blue glow as a barrier was created. With their right hands, they quickly took out talismans and aimed them at the wolf.
Luckily for the lingering ghosts, the barrier created by the formation could only hold physical beings, and the ghosts all moved out of the barrier at the presence of the demon and talismans.
"How rude!" Lan Jingyi heard one of the ghosts yell as it floated away.
The wolf yowled as the multiple talismans struck its large body, and it writhed under the combined power of the talismans. It tried to jump away, but rebounded off the barrier, landing with a heavy thud on its back. Soon, the wolf quieted as the demonic energies left its sagging body.
When the wolf stilled, Lan Zhengyi began a ritual for its soul to be at peace, while Lan Jingyi and Lan Sizhui looked at their other senior's arm.
Pulling up the sleeve, there was a shallow gash running up the forearm. Fortunately, the wolf only managed to nick the arm. Lan De winced as Lan Jingyi deftly cleaned the wound with slightly trembling hands, and applied an ointment. Lan Sizhui helped him bandage the arm, expression grim.
"Good work," Lan De praised as he raised his arm, eyeing the bandages and making a fist, feeling the numbness down his arm. "Physician Ju has taught you well."
The seniors noted his juniors looked miserable.
Lan Jingyi said, impassioned, "we'll get stronger, so that you don't have to jump in and defend us!"
Lan Sizhui looked at his friend, determination in his eyes, and nodded in agreement.
oOo
Frightening though the unexpected turn of events were, it had been exhilarating. Exhilarating, and exhausting.
After the boys wrote their reports and parted ways, Lan Jingyi went to take a long soak in a warm bath. Submerged in the water with his eyes closed, he enjoyed the comforting warmth.
"It is not good for your skin to sit in the bath for too long," a voice said beside him.
Lan Jingyi hummed, "just a little longer..."
"The water has cooled, you will become ill."
"No I won't. I do this all the time."
"Trust me, I'm a doctor."
He abruptly realised there was a female in the room. His eyes shot open and he stood in the tub, turning around to look at the voice. When he saw the familiar female ghost, he blushed and quickly sat down again, water splashing everywhere.
"You came back? What are you doing here?" He asked angrily.
The ghost smirked. "To talk to you."
"Have you no shame? Bathing in the presence of females is forbidden! Please leave!"
The ghost laughed, "it's nothing I've never seen before.".
"What are you even doing here?"
"You're always surrounded by people, this is the only time you're alone."
A likely reason.
"You've been watching me!?" He said fearfully.
The ghost laughed again, "only for a bit."
He was sitting naked in the tub, any useful talismans were with his belongings. He could not exorcise the ghost now, so he sighed. "What can I do to make you leave me alone?"
The ghost became serious. "I will leave you alone if you learn everything I have to teach you."
Lan Jingyi dreaded the demand, and gasped. "What? I have to study?" He was definitely going to exorcise her once he a got hold of some talismans.
"As I mentioned, I am a doctor... was a doctor, when I was alive. It'd be a pity if the knowledge I accumulated in life were to disappear because of my death."
"But it might take YEARS for you to teach me everything that you know!"
"Then it's all the more reason for you to study hard," the ghost said with a smirk.
Lan Jingyi thought about it seriously for a moment. If what the girl ghost taught him could be used to help others, then there was no real reason to deny her request. He had already learned a lot from his mother, surely this girl ghost could not know that much more than his mother. If he was lucky, she would be gone in no time!
"Fine. But you can't come here to talk to me. We should meet in my mother's office."
The ghost smiled, and Lan Jingyi could not help gaping at how different, how pretty, the girl looked when she smiled.
"I'll see you at the physician's ward tomorrow after your meditation class."
Of course, she'd seen him training with his mother. It would make sense to train in the physician's ward.
"What's your name?"
The girl seemed to consider the question for a moment. "You may call me Shifu [master]."
Lan Jingyi pouted at this. "That's not your name!"
"That's all you're going to get, my good Tudi [apprentice]"
oOo
"Mother, that girl ghost came back and wants to teach me medicine during our sessions!"
For some reason, his mother did not seem so surprised. She just smiled and passed him a cup of tea.
"You knew about this!?"
"I communicated with her through Inquiry after you saw her the first time. You were too young before, but now that you are older, we thought it's time you learned from her. She means no harm, and is indeed a skilled doctor. Her expertise far surpasses mine. You will become a wonderful healer under her tutelage."
He was not sure what 'tutelage' meant, but his mother beamed with such joy that he could not refuse to learn.
oOo
Although ghosts still gave him the willies, he had gotten used to ignoring them in general.
However, he was not lying when he revealed to others that he was scared of ghosts...
"Jingyi! That is not how you store your needles!"
"Jingyi! You don't massage with your fist like that!"
"Jingyi! You have to close that box straight away or the herbs will be ruined!"
He was not lying. He was always fearful of angering one particular ghost.
Yueming (月明)- moonlight. From the saying 守得云開見月明 (shou de yun kai jian yue ming), the translation is something along the lines of 'guard (keep watch) until the clouds open and see the moonlight'. It's supposed to be a motivational saying with a meaning is similar to 'there will be a rainbow after the storm'. Sizhui's spiritual sword is Shouyun 守云 (from the same saying) because I struggled to come up with something more fitting. Shouyun litereally means 'defend clouds'.
Zhengyi (正義)- just, righteous
De (德)- virtue
Shifu (師傅)- master. This term can be used for one's actual master, or as a polite way to refer to a master of a craft.
Tudi (徒弟)- apprentice, disciple
-ge (哥)- I'm sure you've come across this one by now. But just in case, it literally means 'elder brother', and one uses it for older males (who are in the same generation).