Only Echoes and Ghosts Linger

by Maeve.Pendergast

Three months is a long time. It had seemed like both a lifetime and a moment at the same time. He had felt Wei Ying's absence like a wound, long-healing and endlessly aching. When Lan Wangji finds Wei Wuxian after he escaped the Burial Mounds, stories come to light and destinies change.

4. Interlude

Damn it. Why did that stupid Lan have to go and make this so complicated? Why of all people did my idiot brother choose him to be… friends with.

Regret is not an emotion Jiang Wanyin is familiar with. Regret makes you vulnerable, weak, unstable. But right now, regret burns like embers, an uncomfortable heat that presses against his skin and makes him want to vomit. He knows he shouldn't have expelled Lan-ergongzi earlier. But is he going to tell anyone else that? Absolutely not. If Lan-ergongzi didn't want to be expelled from Lotus Pier then he shouldn't have been so damn nosy. As if this is all the other man's fault. Screw you Wei Wuxian for making me develop a guilty conscience. Look what you got me into.

Well, now I'm the clan leader and there is nobody who can tell me to stop. Not my father, not you. I am stronger than my conscience. I am stronger than you. I am finally more powerful than you Wei Wuxian, more respected, more admired. And none of your Lan friends will stand up against me, they wouldn't dare.

And just like that, regret kindles into fury, burning indiscriminate and vicious.