It made sense of a sort. To love Lan WangJi. To want to kiss someone you loved made more sense than to want to kiss a friend. To be upset that the one you love loves another made more sense than being upset that a friend fell in love.
He couldn't allow himself to forget that crucial piece. Not in public at least. In the comfort of his blankets that night? With the only light the faint starlight peeping through the windows and only a sleeping child nearby? In the dark where no one could see, he gave himself permission to want something he could never have. I love you. I love you. It beat through his soul in rhythm to the blood pulsing through his veins. The wanting was almost crippling in its intensity. To kiss, to touch, to see, to be seen. To give every single part of his being into Lan Zhan's keeping. To receive every single part of Lan Zhan in return. The want was tangible, physical.
Looking back at his childish antics at Cloud Recesses… he could see now how much he wanted Lan Zhan even then. Look at me. Look only at me. From their very first meeting at the gate to their fight on the rooftops and every moment since, he'd been hoping to have Lan Zhan's attention focused squarely on him. As his was on Lan Zhan.
It had always been Lan Zhan. He had just been too stupid to know.
And now it was too late.
If I could make him forget her and love me? I would do anything. Give up anything. Almost anything. He wouldn't hurt his family. But other than that?
Would he let Lan Zhan do that to him? Yes. All of it. To be able to give Lan Zhan pleasure? He'd do anything (almost anything) to make Lan Zhan happy. In the darkness it was easy to pretend the blanket surrounding him was instead his love's body, holding him close and safe.
In the bright light of morning, he forced himself to put his dreams away. He would be Wen ZhiXin, who was definitely not in love with anyone. Upon returning to the Dower House, he would be Wei WuXian, Baba to Wen Yuan and force himself to be content with that. And when Wei WuXian was returned to the living, he would actively work to allow Lan WangJi to marry his lover.
Under no circumstances must he let his true feelings ever be known.
He didn't mean to eavesdrop. He was just taking a morning stroll and happened to pass Lan XiChen's room where he was arguing with his brother loud enough to be heard by anyone outside. "WangJi." From anyone other than Lan XiChen, that would have been a whine. "She's dead. It's been over three years; I've given you time to mourn. Now it's time to join the living."
"No." Lan WangJi sounded determined.
"WangJi. I don't want to marry some stranger, either. We have a duty to our sect. Pick one." There was a rustle of paper. "Please. Talk to her."
"Don't ask this of me. You know my reasons."
"What I know is she's dead. And even if she wasn't? It's impossible. It was always going to be impossible. You would never have been allowed to marry. Or even…. WangJi. Please. Be reasonable."
"I am being reasonable."
"No, you're not. You're stuck on this ideal of what never was. You hold onto those memories and say 'that was perfect' and 'I'll never have that again' and use that as an excuse to ignore your duty to the Sect. Please. We both know it wasn't perfect. You fought more times than you were kind to each other. Stop… please stop searching for perfection, Didi."
"I have no need to search for perfection, XiongZhang. I had it. Why is perfection seen to be without flaws? Why can't perfection be that we saw and accepted each other's flaws, and I loved her anyway? Despite them or because of them is irrelevant. She may not have been a perfect person; she was perfect in my heart. She was a perfect match for my soul."
Lan XiChen's exasperation must have reached his limit. "She didn't love you back! You gave her a love letter and she practically threw it away. She was never going to accept you. I remember how distraught you were after confessing and she rejected you. She rejected you over and over. Don't you remember that last time she rejected you? I've never seen you like that. She hurt you. You went into seclusion for weeks! You wouldn't even let me in when I came to tell you she died. Do you remember now?"
Wei WuXian scurried away upon hearing that. Eavesdropping is bad.
Who was this woman? How could she reject Lan WangJi? And why didn't he mention she died? The poor man…. Three years…. To have his friend 'murdered' and then woman he loved died in the same year?
As the reason for the gathering in Lotus Pier was for a wedding, meetings between various Sect leaders were kept to informal ones only. Wei WuXian as Wen ZhiXin kept his head down and did his utmost to avoid them all. It was hard seeing ShiJie and Jing Ling and not be allowed to talk to her, to fawn over the three year old. It was easier to stay away.
That afternoon, Wei WuXian was passing through Swords Hall when a Jin contingent, led by Jin GuangYao, strode in looking all official. Jin GuangYao bowed to Jiang WanYin, overly formally, and smiled his oily smile. "With our deepest regrets, Jiang ZongZhu." The smile fell, but only briefly. "Jin cultivators out on a night hunt last week found this." 'This' was something long and skinny wrapped in cloth. A senior disciple bowed and handed the object to Jiang WanYin who unwrapped it with an icy expression. Wei WuXian forced himself to not react at the sight of SuiBian laying in his ShiDi's arms. "We regret that it took so long to find your ShiXiong's sword. We hope it will aid you in finding his murderer."
Jiang YanLi, standing with her brother and husband, was openly crying. "A'Xian!"
Jin ZiXuan looked mortified. Not at his wife crying but towards his half-sibling. "I thought you were going to wait for a private moment to give it back," he hissed. "How is this private?"
Jin GuangYao bowed towards his brother. "Father insisted that I hand it over publicly. Otherwise it might look like we had something to hide."
"Something to hide versus privacy and respect for his family?" Jin ZiXuan let his wife burrow into his embrace. "Including my wife?"
Jiang WanYin sighed. "YunMengJiang thanks LanLingJin for the return of our head disciple's weapon. I'm sure this will be very helpful in our quest to find the murderer." Jiang WanYin's gaze swished over the crowd of people in the Hall. Did it linger on one of the Jin?
Wei WuXian looked at that one man a bit more closely. He was wan looking, obviously ill from something, with a foul expression on his face. "I just wish he'd admitted who he pushed the backlash onto before he got himself killed," the wan man said bitterly.
Ah… This is the Jin who may have tried to kill me? What was his name again? The one with the hundred holes curse. I'm 'dead' and he's still cursed. How can he still think that I cast it on him? My 'death' would have ended the curse with or without me pushing the backlash onto someone else. Did he not bother to research the curse in the last few years at all? Wei WuXian found himself looking fondly at Suibian, hands clenching from wanting to hold it again. He forced himself to look away from his sword; he didn't want anyone there getting any ideas about this new spiritual device maker being overly interested in a 'dead' spiritual device maker's sword. He turned to leave the Hall, but was stopped by Lan XiChen.
"You are Wen ZhiXin, correct?" the older man smiled gently.
"Yes," Wei WuXian admitted. "If you'll excuse me, I need to check on my son."
"Of course," Lan XiChen nodded serenely. "I would appreciate you taking a few minutes to discuss coming to Cloud Recesses as a guest lecturer. Wen ZongZhu said you were unable to attend this past spring due to your grandmother's death. Perhaps next fall would be more appropriate?"
"We can discuss it later, Lan GongZi, but first I must see to my son. He's not used to having this many children around and I need to ensure he's behaving and not being bullied." Wei WuXian deliberately used the lesser title as Wen ZhiXin had never actually been introduced to the Lan Sect leader. Wei WuXian gave a quick bow, an equal to an equal, and walked away before the other could try to stall him again.
Wen Yuan was having a swimming lesson with a Jiang senior disciple. His cries of "Baba! Baba! Look at me!" as he paddled around, the disciple's hands holding the child's stomach and chest up. He had to force himself to stay still and not jump into the water when the disciple's hands lowered temporarily and the child flailed in an almost controlled panic and gulped down lake water. "Baba! Baba! Did you see that? I'm swimming all by myself!" A'Yuan was having fun, obviously. A few more days of lessons and he'd be paddling like a dog. Wie WuXian shivered at that thought. Dog! If he stayed at Lotus Pier for the summer, he'd be swimming like a fish long before fall.
If they managed to find the 'murderer', he'd be able to stay at Lotus Pier.
"He looks like he's having fun," Lan WangJi stated quietly.
The scent of sandalwood drifted around his face, soothing him, scorching him. He still had no idea how Lan WangJi recognized him in the first place. Even Jiang Cheng had had difficulty seeing 'Wei Ying' behind Wen ZhiXin's face mask. "I'm going to hate to have to bring him back to the Dower House," Wei WuXian admitted. "All of these children to play with here? And none back home?" He refused to look sideways at the man in pale blue standing straight and tall next to him. The refusal was almost painful. As ethereally beautiful Lan WangJi was in mourning white, he was even more beautiful in colors.
"I wore white because I mourned my mother," Lan WangJi stated calmly. Wei WuXian could feel his face warming as he realized he must have said his thoughts aloud. "When I stopped mourning her, I wore Sect colors. Those last three years? I was mourning again. Now I'm not."
"Oh... how come you never told me the person in the love letter had died? I overheard you and ZeWu-Jun talking this morning by accident. I'm sorry for your loss."
"There was no need to tell you," Lan WangJi said. "Did it bother you when your shimei married another?"
"Of course not," Wei WuXian huffed. "ShiJie thought we might suit. Once or twice I thought I saw that shimei look at me like she wanted me to kiss her…. I thought about it. I never did anything about it."
"Why not?"
"You know why. I'm sure your uncle drilled it into your head as much as Uncle Jiang drilled it into mine: if you don't intend to offer marriage, don't offer anything else. Not even a kiss."
"But you said…." Lan WangJi turned to look at his friend.
"I say a lot of things, Lan Zhan. It doesn't mean they're true. Sometimes I just say things."
"You said you've been kissed lots of times!"
"I lied." Wei WuXian kept his gaze on the water. He was too afraid that if he looked at Lan Zhan, the other would see the yearning in his eyes. Talking about kissing made him want to even more. "That night on the bridge you seemed to imply I was the kind of person who would feel free to kiss a woman without making her any real promises, and I was angry about the letter. I thought you knew me better than that, and, besides, all young men brag about their vast experience even when they're complete virgins, so… I lied."
"Why would you lie to me about that?"
"Sometimes when people are already disappointed in you, it's just easier to admit to the allegations rather than try to defend the truth. If I had told you the truth, that I had never kissed anyone, would you have believed me?"
"Yes."
Such a simple answer, heartfelt and honest, ripped Wei WuXian's gaze from the water to his friend's face. He wanted that to be the truth. Who wouldn't want to have someone with an unwavering trust in them? He wasn't sure what he saw in Lan WangJi's eyes… faith, acceptance, something elusive.
"Please don't lie to me again," Lan WangJi whispered. "Tell me the truth, no matter how painful."
Wei WuXian found himself nodding, agreeing to that bequest.
"Lan Zhan has never lied to Wei Ying. Will never lie to Wei Ying."
Wei WuXian looked back at his son, now happily splashing in the shallows. His stomach hurt again. He wanted to yell, to scream 'You have been lying to me ever since I gave you back that love letter!' What good would it do? Their arguments back in Koi Tower didn't accomplish anything. Arguing about it back in the Dower House didn't accomplish anything. Arguing about it now would be just as useless. He was just going to have to accept that he was never going to know her name. Especially now since she was dead.
Let the dead stay dead. Let the lies about them follow them to the grave as well. It didn't matter anymore.
The wedding ceremony was restrained and overly proper. Wei WuXian felt like he couldn't breathe after seeing a memorial tablet with his name on it next to tablets for Jiang Cheng's parents and other ancestors. There were a few people who grumbled too loudly that his tablet should not be there. Jiang YanLi accosted one and made her voice loud enough to be heard by the others. "Wei WuXian was my shidi in name only because my parents would not adopt him out of respect for his parents. He was my didi in my heart. No less a true brother than A'Cheng is. As a part of our family, he is more than deserving of a place of honor here."
The banquet following the ceremony was anything but refined. The many toasts to the new couple meant there was soon a hall full of drunk people. Wei WuXian, as much as he would have liked to drink to his heart's content, needed to stay sober for his son's sake. The child deserved better than a drunkard stumbling around their room in the middle of the night.
The morning after, while most of the guests were nursing hangovers, Wei WuXian holed himself away in the library. He was sure there was a book he needed to read.
His memory for people was filled with holes. His memory of being shot and thrown into the quarry was non-existent. Use of the qin language to talk to the dead was useless since he wasn't actually dead. He wanted to find his murderer not only so he could resume his life, but so A'Yuan could have a more normal life.
The first step could be finding who cast the hundred holes curse onto that horrible Jin cultivator. Finding the actual person who cast the curse by hand would be like looking for a specific sand flea near the ocean. Asking every cultivator to open his robes to prove he hadn't cast it could take years.
But what if they accelerated the curse? If Wen Qing or Wen QiongLin would monitor the victim, and someone cast an accelerate spell on him, it should, theoretically, also accelerate the spell on the castor. Within hours at most, holes would be visible on parts of the body not normally covered by clothing like the hands, neck and face. It would be nearly impossible for the castor to hide them.
Getting Jin ZiAss what's his name to agree to accelerate the curse might be an issue. Public pressure on him would probably work. A bit of hinting that he was scared of dying combined with an outright derision that he wasn't manly enough to handle the immediate pain. Add to that a suspicion that he was the one who cast the curse, but he was too incompetant and he cursed himself. Afterwards, he was too ashamed to ask someone to help him remove it, so he blamed Wei WuXian. The sorts of rumors and innuendos that could be used to get him to agree to this plan were wide. And he knew just the person to start them.
Wei WuXian slipped a piece of paper into the book to mark the spell. It was time to go find Nie HuaiSang and let him in on a little secret. With his blend of innocence and depravity, he was sure to know exactly how to get people talking.
The Fall festival was only a few days away when Jiang Cheng arrived at the Dower House looking triumphant. "It was fucking Su She! The one who cursed Jin ZiXun was fucking Su She!"
"Who is Su She?"
"You have the memory of a goldfish, I swear. Remember Biling Lake? The guy who almost drowned? Him. Jin ZiXun is an ass, so everyone hates him. Su She thought the hundred holes curse would be a great way to kill him off. He was too stupid to know about the backlash. That acceleration spell you found? Worked perfectly. A'Qing kept Jin ZiXun under observation while Jin ZiXuan cast the spell. Fucking Su She fainted almost immediately in front of Lan XiChen and Nie MingJue. They grabbed him right away and saw the holes.
"Oh. And you'll never guess who talked Jin ZiXun into thinking you were the one who cursed him?"
"Who?"
"Jin. Fucking. Guang. Yao. It gets better."
"How?" Wei WuXian was obviously happy he was cleared, but he still wasn't sure why he was accused in the first place if it hadn't been Jin ZiXun's idea all along.
"Jin GuangShan told Jin GuangYao to discredit you and then kill you so he could get his hands on your tiger amulet! Koi Tower is a mess right now. A'Jie took Jin Ling and is staying at Lotus Pier for now. Jin ZiXuan assumed the role of Sect leader and has his father and half-brother imprisoned awaiting a trial for ordering your murder. Su She has been beheaded. Jin ZiXun has been hanged. I did think to tell everyone you weren't actually dead, but it wouldn't make much of a difference in either case. Attempted murder and actual murder are close enough for the same punishments, right? And watching that Jin bastard kicking and tearing at the rope was rather satisfying, actually. Before he died, Jin ZiXun implicated almost twenty other people who were with him hunting you down. They were all hanged, too. It was quite the morning.
"Lan XiChen is in seclusion for some reason. Maybe it's due to his friendship with Jin GuangYao? They did swear as blood brothers right after the war…. Lan WangJi was appointed acting Sect leader in his place.
"Nie MingJue is demanding that he be the one to execute the Jin father and son pair. They haven't even been tried yet, but he's found them guilty."
"I can go home," Wei WuXian breathed like he was praying.
"You can come home." Jiang Cheng looked like he was happy enough to burst. "In other news, I'm going to be a father! A'Qing says twins."
"Congratulations!" Wei WuXian hugged his brother tight. "That was fast. SheJie must be so happy for you."
"Of course she is. She's waiting for you to come home. I told her and Jin ZiXuan that you were alive and well once Jin GuangShan was implicated. Our brother-in-law is waiting to hold his father and brother's trials until you arrive in Koi Tower. Once they're dead, ShiJie is expecting you at Lotus Pier."
Wei WuXian's return to the living was met with surprise (of course), some angry skepticism (as was expected), remorse (oddly enough from people other than the ones who wanted him dead), and in the case of Lan QiRen, disgust. Jin GuangShan was loud in his protestations that he never actually told anyone to kill Wei GongZi. He just wanted to take the amulet under Jin control because Wei GongZi was too young to properly use and protect it. He was still protesting his innocence when he was found guilty and beheaded.
Wei WuXian's return to Lotus Pier with Wen Yuan was met with a days-long festival and liters of tears of joy. His junior disciples were eager to impress him with the skills they had learned over the previous years. Jiang YanLi insisted upon him staying no more than a hand's length away for an entire day. And at the end of the festivities, not only was Wen Yuan formally adopted, Wei WuXian was added to the rolls as being a member of the Jiang family. That night Wei WuXian lay in his own bed in his own room with his son, Wei Yuan, asleep across the room. This was happiness.
If there was a small but significant part of his mind wishing there was someone else at Lotus Pier welcoming him back to the living? That person had already welcomed him. He could wait to see him again.