Work Text:
SUNSET
When Jin Ling is one month, two weeks, and one day old, his Uncle Wei is running through a forest.
Wei Wuxian is wearing his black and red robes, but Chenqing isn’t swinging by his side. It is broken and shattered into bits, to be scattered on the stairs of Jinlintai. He also has no golden core, but he hasn’t had that for years.
There’s a hollow tree somewhere in this forest, and inside is the small, sleeping figure of a four-year-old boy.
“A-Yuan,” Wei Wuxian had said, “I need you to stay here, okay? I need you to stay here and be quiet. And if anything happens–just stay here, okay? I’ll come and get you, I promise. Just stay here. Can you do that for me?”
Now Wei Wuxian is a mile away, running like a hunted animal.
He is a hunted animal.
There’s a rustle in the trees behind him, which could be an animal, followed by the unmistakable swishing sound of a cultivator’s sword. By the time the sword flies through the air, Wei Wuxian has whirled behind the nearest tree. A Jin cultivator comes bursting out from his cover, surprised to find that his sword has not found its mark.
“Wei Wuxian,” he growls, “where are you hiding?!”
Wei Wuxian steps out from behind the cover of the trees, an easygoing smile on his face. “Now now,” he says patronizingly. “That’s no way to greet an opponent! How about an introduction?”
The Jin cultivator does not introduce himself. He sends his sword out again, and Wei Wuxian dodges. He ducks and weaves around the older man, until the man, frustrated with the ease with which Wei Wuxian dodges him, overextends himself.
Immediately, Wei Wuxian grabs his sword from the air and plunges it into the cultivator’s back. The man stumbles, then falls to his knees. Wei Wuxian pulls the sword out and then stabs it through his neck in one smooth motion. He falls over, dead, and Wei Wuxian stares down unfeelingly at the Jin cultivator’s dead body.
He barely takes two steps away when he hears another noise behind him and turns to see three Jin disciples, swords drawn, circling him.
“Wei Wuxian,” one of them condescends, “you don’t have your ghost flute, and you’ve lost your golden core. You’re an easy prey. Why don’t you make this easy on yourself and tell us where you hid the Stygian Tiger Seal?”
Sunset is falling in the forests of Lanling. The light filters through the fire orange and velvet green trees to shine on Wei Wuxian, bathing him in setting sun’s light. This place has nothing on the Burial Mounds, he thinks scornfully.
Wei Wuxian drops the sword, and rips three leaves off of the nearest tree. His smile is sharper than a knife. “Why don’t we test that theory?”
RUST BROWN
One day when Jin Ling is ten years and one week old, he asks his mom the question that’s been on his mind for years.
They’re in Jinlintai, even though Uncle Jiang doesn’t like it when they go there. His mom says that Uncle Jiang is just being overprotective, and Uncle Jin just accepts it, but Jiang Yanli still takes her son to Jinlintai for at least a few months of every year. She says it’s important for Jin Ling to be raised in his father’s sect, even though his father is dead, because he’s still his father’s heir. Uncle Jiang scoffs and says that they should just name Jin Ling the heir to YunmengJiang, but he doesn’t argue with Mother.
“I don’t understand,” Jin Ling asks, after they’ve returned from lighting incense for Father. “Why doesn’t he just come back?”
He’s not talking about his father.
Mother sighs. She always looks sad when Jin Ling asks these questions, which is why Jin Ling has avoided asking. But at least she doesn’t get angry like Uncle Jiang. “I don’t think he knows, A-Ling,” she answers.
“But how can he not know?” Jin Ling demands.
“He ran very, very far away,” Mother says. “I don’t think there’s anyone to tell him.”
“Can’t you send out messages?” Jin Ling persists.
“Your Uncle Jin has tried,” Mother says. She sighs again. “But I don’t think they reached him, and if they did, I don’t think he believed them.”
“Oh.” Jin Ling tries to think for a second why he wouldn’t believe Uncle Jin, but can’t think of why. Eventually he decides not to ask his mother, because she’ll just get sadder. “But isn’t he all alone?” Jin Ling asks instead. “Won’t he get bored and decide to come back?”
Mother’s eyes go soft, which means that Jin Ling has said something that reminds her of him. “I hope he’s not alone, A-Ling, that would be very sad.”
Jin Ling decides right then and there that he’s going to be the one to find Wei Wuxian and bring him back home, because he’s spent almost all of his life making his mother sad. No one should be allowed to make her sad. But he still has one last question to ask, and he thinks if he doesn’t ask it now he might never ask it.
“I don’t understand,” he says again. “How did he do it?”
He’s heard the stories from everyone but his family. He thinks if anyone would be able to tell him, it’d be them, even though they weren’t there. But Jin Ling has been to gatherings of hundreds of cultivators before, and he can’t imagine one man standing against all of them.
“Your uncle is extraordinary,” Mother says, but that’s not what Jin Ling wants to know. That’s like when his tutors say that he has potential. He wants to know how, not why. He doesn’t want them to say he’ll advance to a new skill set soon, he wants to learn it now. “People often underestimated him.”
“But how?” Jin Ling persists. He knows, logically, that the only person who could tell him how is the one person who is no longer here. Nobody who saw him in the forest returned to tell the tale.
Mother sighs again and stops walking. They’re walking along the edge of one of the Lanling forests, the ones that burst into an entire sunset of colors in autumn. It’s autumn now, but it’s not yet cold enough for Jin Ling to mind. He asked his mother if they could take the long way back, partially because he doesn’t like Jinlintai and wanted to avoid walking through it, and partially because he likes walking through the forest and pretending his uncle might just turn up in one of them.
Jiang Yanli and Jin Ling stand under the bright foliage of the Lanling forest, within shouting distance of outer Jinlintai. She reaches up and snags a red leaf off the branch of one of the trees and stares at it. It’s the only red leaf on a branch covered with decaying brown leaves. When she pulls the leaf off, several rust-colored leaves fall and drift to the ground to be crushed underfoot.
It’s not cold yet, but autumn has passed the stage where green and pink foliage bursts everywhere. Now the ground is blanketed in rotting, rust brown and bright yellow leaves.
Jin Ling reaches for her hand, but doesn’t interrupt whatever it is she’s doing. Mother always answers his questions. Mother always has the answers. If she needs to stare at a leaf for it, he won’t interrupt her.
Eventually, Mother looks up and looks around, as if she’d temporarily forgotten where she was. Her gaze fixes on Jin Ling, who’s still staring up at her, waiting for her answer. How did his uncle do it? And can Jin Ling learn to be that cool one day?
Mother stops holding his hand and presses her red leaf into his hand wordlessly. Jin Ling looks down at it, wondering what it’s supposed to tell him.
“Your uncle did what he had to do to survive,” Mother says quietly. “But Jin Ling, I don’t want you to be him. He was–very lonely, in the end.”
Jin Ling doesn’t argue with her, even though he thinks this mysterious uncle that he’s never met is very cool. Instead, he wraps his fist around the red leaf and stuffs it in his robes. He still doesn’t get it, but Jin Ling listens to his mother, so if she gives him a leaf, he’s keeping the leaf.
“And Jin Ling?”
Jin Ling looks up, and Jiang Yanli smiles down at him. “If you meet him,” she says, and her eyes twinkle now, like she’s sharing an inside joke, “you’ll know. He’s quite unmistakable.”
Jin Ling has been to the Jiang ancestral hall, and he’s seen the silver bell that Uncle Jiang keeps there. It’s his Uncle Wei’s, his mother said, because “that idiot will need it whenever we find him again,” Uncle Jiang said.
He knows that Mother and Uncle keep it bright and silver whenever they visit, polishing it thoroughly until it shines, no matter how much Wei Wuxian’s sect bell wants to rust.
MIDNIGHT BLACK
When Jin Ling is one month and one week old, his mother is bleeding from a gash in her back on the stones of Nightless City.
“A-Xian, please…stop. Just stop,” Jiang Yanli begs, spending the last of her breath gasping out a barely coherent sentence to her little brother.
“Okay,” Wei Wuxian says, desperate as always to make her happy. “Okay. If that’s what you want.” He raises his flute to his lips, calming the fierce corpses currently rampaging around Nightless City.
Jiang Yanli feels the world going blurry, but forces herself to focus for her brother. Wei Wuxian gently picks her up and passes her to Jiang Cheng, who came running over as soon as he heard her.
“A-Yuan,” he says to Jiang Cheng urgently. “Please, Jiang Cheng, A-Yuan–he’s just a child.”
Then he backs away, hands at his side, and turns to face the assembled cultivators.
“Wei Wuxian!” The sharp voice of Sect Leader Nie. “What is this? Are you surrendering?”
Wei Wuxian looks back, once, at Jiang Yanli.
No, she wants to say, don’t do it. A-Xian, I came to tell you that I don’t blame you. I know it’s not your fault. I know you would never. Don’t surrender to them, A-Xian, there’s something rotten in the heart of Jinlintai and they’re not interested in justice. But she can’t. She’s losing consciousness in her brother’s arms, and she can do nothing but watch as Wei Wuxian looks away with resolve on his face. She’s never hated herself more for being weak.
Wei Wuxian stands, surrounded by 3,000 cultivators that he could destroy if he wanted. His black robes blend in with the midnight sky, save for the red sash of his belt. The other cultivators are a riot of colors, illuminated by firelight.
Later, Jiang Yanli will remember how he looked like he belonged there; in the dark, in the lonely night.
“Yes,” he says.
It’s the last thing Jiang Yanli hears before she loses consciousness. It’s the last thing she hears her brother say.
VIOLET
When Jin Ling is one month and one week old, Jiang Cheng’s sister is bleeding out in his arms, and he has to make a choice. His brother stands two meters from him, surrounded by enemies on all sides, resigned acceptance on his face. His sister’s eyes have closed. They both need him.
Later, he will tell himself that he couldn’t have helped Wei Wuxian in that moment. Jiang Yanli will tell him that as well. He won’t ever believe it, but even if he couldn’t have helped–shouldn’t he have attempted the impossible?
But in the moment, Jiang Cheng looks down and chooses his sister. “YunmengJiang!” He barks. “We’re leaving!”
He turns, violet robes whirling, Zidian crackling, and strides out of Nightless City. The scores of Jiang disciples follow him, and he doesn’t allow himself to look back.
Jiang Yanli will recover one week later. The gash was minor; the best doctors (now that Wen Qing was dead) all look it over and say she will recover soon. He doesn’t believe it until she does, because it means he wasn’t necessary. Jiang Yanli is the wife of the heir to LanlingJin and the sister of Sect Leader Jiang. She was always going to be given the best medical attention. She was always going to recover. She didn’t need Jiang Cheng.
Wei Wuxian, on the other hand.
Well.
JADE
Jin Ling is one month, one week, and three days old when the Lans hear about the Hunt. Wangji is furious. Lan Xichen knows that without having to see him, because he knows his brother. He, too, is sickened, but he believes that there’s nothing they can do.
“We will not participate in the Hunt,” he says, trying to pacify his brother. A useless gesture. “GusuLan does not condone such archaic practices.”
“Barbaric,” Wangji snaps, and Lan Xichen holds back a wince at the utter rage in his brother’s tone. “Jin Guangshan is a vile, disgusting person.”
“Nonetheless,” Lan Xichen continues doggedly, “his sect has been wronged; they’re entitled to enact justice as they see fit.”
“Justice?” Wangji snarls, and Lan Xichen cannot hold back a wince at that. “Brother, this is not justice.”
“Certainly not by Lan standards,” Lan Xichen allows.
Wangji settles, and for a moment Lan Xichen lets himself hope that Wangji has accepted it. He wishes there was something he could do, but he can’t. He has no power over LanlingJin. Then Wangji turns to face him, and Lan Xichen is thrown by how blank his face is. He knows people often think that Wangji’s face is always blank, but it has never seemed that way to Lan Xichen until now.
“And will you allow this injustice to occur, Sect Leader Lan?” Wangji asks flatly. “Will you not pursue righteousness?”
Lan Xichen smiles nervously at his little brother. He and Wangji have always been formal with each other, Wangji especially so, but this feels different. He cannot tell what Wangji is thinking, and that unsettles him–he finally understands what can be so unsettling about the Second Jade of Lan. This feels as if his answer will determine their future.
“Wangji, I wish I could do something about it,” Lan Xichen says, pleading with his brother to see reason. “But I can’t. I know you–care–for Wei Wuxian, but–Wangji!”
For what is possibly the first time he can remember, Wangji rudely walks away from a conversation. His white robes whirl around him and he mounts Bichen swiftly.
“Wangji!” Lan Xichen calls desperately. “Wangji, you cannot walk away like this, at least talk to Uncle first–Wangji!”
But GusuLan’s Second Jade does not wait, does not turn around, and will not return. The truth is that Lan Xichen does not think that Wei Wuxian deserves this devotion from his little brother. In fact, there is very little that he thinks Wei Wuxian does deserve, and it will be years before his opinion changes.
Later, he will wonder that if they had shown mercy as they ought, if perhaps he’d dared to believe that Wei Wuxian deserved something, he might have avoided what followed.
Later still, when he learns the extent of Jin Guangshan’s crimes, and the lack of Wei Wuxian’s guilt, he wonders if anyone had stood by Wei Wuxian, Wangji would not have felt forced to do what he did.
But in that moment, it is too little too late. He knows now that Wei Wuxian has no golden core, but this only moves Wangji. Lan Xichen does nothing to help Wei Wuxian, does nothing but watch his brother walk away. Lan Xichen does nothing, and in return he loses his brother.
LAVENDER
When Jin Ling is one month, one week, and three days old, he is in his mother’s arms once more. She is sitting up in her bed for the first time in three days, speaking for the same, and immediately demanded to be given her son.
Now Jiang Cheng paces back and forth in front of her, twisting his ring around and around, then making another grand gesture with his arms.
“I don’t understand,” he says again, agitated. “They said he has no golden core. How can he have no golden core? If the Wens destroyed it when they caught him, why didn’t he say so?”
He turns to Jiang Yanli, a desperate fear in his eyes. “He knew how to restore a golden core. He said he knew where Baoshan Sanren’s mountain was. He said it was her. He said–why did he–”
“A-Cheng,” his sister interrupts. She shifts Jin Ling over to one arm and holds the other out to Jiang Cheng.
Immediately, Jiang Cheng crumples to his knees by his sister’s bed. “I didn’t know,” he says desperately. “I swear I didn’t know, I didn’t know!”
“Shh, A-Cheng,” she soothes. She is the injured one, he should be the one soothing her. Instead, he cries into her lavender nightgown while she runs her fingers through his hair. “I know you didn’t, A-Cheng. I know.”
“Why?” Jiang Cheng cries. His little nephew cries with him, and Jiang Yanli does her best to calm both of them. “I never asked! Why would he?!”
“Oh, A-Cheng,” Jiang Yanli says softly. “He loves you.”
“But I–” Jiang Cheng stops and swallows hard. Neither know what he was going to say, but both can guess. Jiang Cheng removed him from the sect. Jiang Cheng turned his back on him in Nightless City. Jiang Cheng screamed at him and strangled him in the rain for something that was never his fault.
“I know, A-Cheng,” his sister says again. She’s so unbreakingly gentle. Jiang Cheng doesn’t know how she finds the strength to be so kind. It’s a strength Jiang Cheng and his mother never found, but one that Jiang Yanli and Wei Wuxian have always possessed.
(If Wei Wuxian had gone to stand up just a few seconds later, Jiang Yanli would’ve taken a sword for him).
“But that’s just what big siblings do,” Jiang Yanli says. She holds the two remaining members of her family close and swears to never let them go.
Jiang Cheng cries until he can’t anymore.
GOLD
When Jin Ling is one month, two weeks, and one day old, the object of Jin Guangshan’s desires is finally within his reach for the first time since the end of the Sunshot Campaign, and he has ideas about what to do. Consequently, he ignores Jin Guangyao’s suggestions and orders him to arrange the Hunt. It’s not that he listened to Jin Guangyao before, it’s just that he was willing to let Jin Guangyao arrange everything for him. That was just less work for him. Now there is something Jin Guangshan wants to do, and it’s stupid.
But Jin Guangyao has known for a long time that his father is stupid. So he organizes the Hunt on his behest, tells Xichen truthfully that it wasn’t his idea and that he’s appalled too, but that there’s nothing that he can do. He calls for 2,000 Jin disciples to participate, and then watches as his father deems that unnecessary, and takes 1,000 disciples out of the Hunt. His father believes that they should only put the most trustworthy disciples on this Hunt. Jin Guangyao does not say that no Jin disciple is trustworthy, because that’s not what his father wants to hear. He does not say that 1,000 disciples is not enough, even though it isn’t. His suggestion was that they tell the world that Wei Wuxian is dead, like they did with Wen Qionglin. But Jin Guangshan has always believed in ostentatious displays of power, and he thinks that death is too light a punishment for Wei Wuxian killing his heir. He wants Wei Wuxian humiliated, and he knows that no one will stop him.
The Lan, Nie, and Jiang sects all refuse to participate on moral grounds. Jin Guangyao does not bother saying that Wei Wuxian agreed to it. He only agreed for the chance to protect Wen Yuan, the little four-year-old child he saved from the Burial Mounds. Jin Guangshan does not plan on keeping this promise, because he does not believe any measure of courtesy is owed to the Yiling Patriarch. Not that he shows courtesy to anyone else.
But when Jin Guangyao takes Wei Wuxian out to the middle of the corpseless Lanling forest, he hands him the sleeping figure of Wen Yuan. There are five hundred Jin disciples surrounding this forest, within visual distance of each other. There are a further five hundred entering the forest at this moment, for what they see as a chance for glory, a duty to their sect, and the most dangerous night hunt all in one.
After all, the Yiling Patriarch is the prey.
Jin Guangshan thinks that Wei Wuxian, who is the son of nobody, has nothing.
Jin Guangyao looks at the face of someone who is willing to do what it takes to survive. 2,000 disciples would not be enough, he thinks.
Wei Wuxian looks down at the child in his arms, then up at him, and Jin Guangyao knows that Wei Wuxian knows who exactly is responsible for saving the child, and that it isn’t Jin Guangshan.
“Thank you,” Wei Wuxian says.
Jin Guangyao is momentarily thrown, because Wei Wuxian is genuine, and he cannot believe that Wei Wuxian finds it within himself to be kind, despite all that has happened. Jin Guangyao never could.
“Please, Wei Wuxian, do not thank me,” Jin Guangyao says. “I am merely upholding my end of the bargain.”
“Still,” Wei Wuxian says. “Thank you, Jin Guangyao.” Then he bares his teeth, all sharp edges and shadows. “Perhaps I’ll spare you from the upcoming slaughter.”
Jin Guangyao bows uneasily, not convinced that Wei Wuxian is anything but an arrogant fool, about to be hunted and put down like an animal.
He will spend weeks finding the bodies of all the dead Jin disciples, gold robes soaked in blood, and recovering them from the forest.
PORCELAIN
When Jin Ling is four years and four months, the sects execute Sect Leader Su on murder charges. He’s not there, obviously; he’s in Lotus Pier with his mother. But most of his uncles were there, and the story is told for years to come. The leaders of all the sects gathered. The most capable cultivators the world had to offer, all seated around a table. The accusations that emerged, and the sudden trial that followed; a parade of evidence and the increasing terror of Su She. By the end of the evening, he is found guilty for the deaths of Jin Zixun and Jin Zixuan. By the end of the night, he is dead.
“Sect Leader Su Minshan,” Sect Leader Nie announces. “You have been found guilty of murdering Jin Zixuan–”
“You can’t! You can’t!” Su She screeches. He’s being held by a Jin and a Jiang disciple, neither of whom look keen to keep him alive. None of his disciples look eager to step in to help him. “There’s no proof!”
“–and Jin Zixun–SILENCE!” Nie Mingjue’s large fists pound the table, making Su She jump and cower, even pinned as he is.
“You killed my half-brother, and now you have the gall to deny it?” Sect Leader Jin is the picture of heartbroken betrayal.
“I-it could’ve been anyone playing the flute!” Su She insists. “Wei Wuxian is the only known demonic cultivator–”
“And yet you were the one to curse Jin Zixun!” Sect Leader Yu shouts.
“My brother once laid the corpses of Nightless City to rest while under siege from 3,000 cultivators,” Sect Leader Jiang growls. Arcs of electricity race up and down his arm. He looks ready to slaughter Su She on the spot. “Yet you suggest he would lose control when ambushed by 300? Don’t make me laugh!”
“Well maybe if you’d stood by your brother none of this would've happened!” Su She shouts. “That’s all you high and mighty cultivators ever do–harping on about righteousness and justice but your will breaks faster than a porcelain teacup! One rumor and you’re scrambling over each other to denounce him, and now you want him back! Well he’s not coming back! You think if you’re sorry enough that you let him be hunted down like a fucking dog he’ll come back! Don’t make me laugh!”
“You–! I’ll kill you myself!” Jiang Wanyin roars. He leaps up on the table, Zidian unfurling to its full length. Every inch of it crackling with violent violet light. The other cultivators flinch away from the rage of Sandu Shengshou, but Su She, deranged, stares him down, purple light reflected on his porcelain-pale face.
“Jiang Wanyin, please!” Jin Guangyao intervenes, stepping forward but still out of range of Zidian. “Would it not be a more fitting punishment to seal his spiritual energy and cast him from the cultivation world?”
Sect Leader Jiang pauses, Zidian still humming with energy on the table. He looks down at Su She, who went white as a sheet at Sect Leader Jin’s suggestion. Slowly, Jiang Wanyin’s face rearranges into a gruesome interpretation of a smile. “Hmph. I suppose.”
“No! No!” Su She screeches as the disciples drag him to the front of the table. “You can’t do this! You can’t!” He struggles desperately, cursing his sect disciples out for abandoning him, cursing out all the cultivators assembled for crimes both real and imaginary. The eyes of all the cultivators are glued to the drama unfolding before them.
“I suppose it is fitting,” Nie Mingjue grumbles, sitting back in his chair.
“And where is your precious Hanguang-jun?” Su She demands shrilly when he passes Sect Leader Lan’s seat.
Lan Xichen’s smile has been dimming with every revelation of Wei Wuxian’s innocence tonight, and it disappeared completely after Su She’s rant to Jiang Wanyin. Now he sits, tighter then a drawn bowstring, in his seat. His fingers are still clenched around his teacup, and his face is blanched completely white. He looks ready to shatter like a porcelain cup.
“Do you not think it suspicious that Lan Wangji went into seclusion the day Wei Wuxian disappeared?” Su She asks the assembled cultivators, before turning back to Sect Leader Lan. “Wei Wuxian at least killed him! Or is it that the ever-righteous Hanguang-jun tried to save the oh-so innocent Yiling Patriarch, only to be punished by his sect? Or perhaps he ran off with Wei Wuxian, fed up with the utter hypocrisy of the fucking righteous GusuLan–!”
Lan Xichen’s teacup shatters in his grip. Before anyone can move, he stands, Shuoyue flying into his grip in the space of a single thought, and in the next moment it is buried in Su She’s stomach.
In the stunned silence that follows, Sect Leader Lan flicks his sword up, slicing Su She in half from stomach to chin. He steps back, and Su She collapses on the marble floor in front of him, stone cold dead, warm blood pouring from his body. He does not move when the slowly spreading puddle of blood reaches his white boots. He stands stiller than a jade statue, looking blanker than his brother was said to be.
“Apologies, A-Yao,” he says finally, looking up from the dead body at his feet. He’s still not smiling. “I know you had an event planned.”
Jin Guangyao stares at him like he’s never seen him before for two long seconds before he recovers. “But of course,” he says, and they both paste their pleasant smiles on again. “He should’ve known better than to spread such foul lies about your brother.”
Lan Xichen nods once, sharply. “Indeed.”
CRIMSON
When Jin Ling is one month, two weeks, and two days old, his grandfather is sitting uneasily in the throne constructed for him beyond the reaches of the Lanling forest. Jin Guangyao stands next to him, smiling as always.
“What is taking so long?” Sect Leader Jin demands of the Jin disciples patrolling the boundary of the forest. “Surely someone has found him by now. He can’t be this good at hiding.”
He’s not hiding, Jin Guangyao thinks, but his father has heard his reports of the dead Jin disciples found all over the forest, and elected to ignore it. There is no point in reminding him again. Jin Guangyao knew from the very beginning that it was a bad idea.
“Guangyao,” Jin Guangshan says sharply. “You were responsible for arranging this. Please explain to me what has gone wrong!”
Jin Guangyao bows deeply, a dozen excuses on his tongue, when he hears a cry from the forest. He turns just in time to see the Jin guards getting mauled by corpses. Fierce corpses come pouring out of the forest, and Jin Guangyao is drawing his sword even though he knows it won’t do any good.
Jin Guangshan is frozen in his seat. He didn’t bring his sword–sometimes, Jin Guangyao is not sure he remembers how to use it–so he flutters his fan nervously in front of his face.
Within moments, Jin Guangyao and Jin Guangshan are the only living Jins left in the clearing. He estimates that there are hundreds of fierce corpses facing them; fierce corpses who, based on their robes, are the very disciples they sent into the forest. What happened in that forest?
Wei Wuxian emerges last, makeshift flute in his hands, and eyes glowing crimson red.
Jin Guangshan recovers faster than Jin Guangyao thought he would, which is unfortunate, because it means Jin Guangyao doesn’t have time to advise him on what to say to get Wei Wuxian to not kill him. “Wei Wuxian!” Sect Leader Jin shouts. “You devil!”
Wei Wuxian twirls his newly-made flute in one hand, smiling with the graceful and arrogant ease that Jin Guangyao now believes in. He knows now that Wei Wuxian was lying when he claimed that he didn’t pick up his sword because he didn’t need to. Wei Wuxian would’ve picked up his sword if he could. But he wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t need a sword to defeat all of them, when he said he was still more powerful than any of them without it.
“Jin Guangshan,” Wei Wuxian sing-songs. “You bitch.”
He raises his flute to his lips and begin to play.
The corpses lurch into motion, circling Jin Guangshan and Jin Guangyao and quickly overrunning the Jin disciples who stand in their way. Then Jin Guangyao hears a distant roar, from the direction of Jinlintai, and his heart sinks to his shoes.
Wen Qionglin, the Ghost General, bursts into the forest clearing, chains dragging behind him. He stops in front of Wei Wuxian, who has stopped playing in shock.
Wei Wuxian tears his gaze from his friend to glare at the two Jins. He narrows his eyes, and they blaze with crimson light once more. “Jin Guangshan,” he hisses. “You fucking liar. You’ll pay for this!”
He raises his flute again, and very soon, Jin Guangyao is the only Jin left alive in the entire Lanling forest. He is surrounded by the fierce corpses of his fallen disciples, his father slumped on the ground, dead, right next to him.
On a better day, he would be able to appreciate the vicious irony of it: Jin Guangshan sent in an army of disciples to hunt him down, and torture him for information before finally killing him. Instead, Wei Wuxian massacred his army and then raised it from the dead to lead it against Jin Guangshan.
This is, however, not a better day. Wei Wuxian stands in front of him, eyes still crackling with red light, keeping the corpses eerily still. Jin Guangyao tries not to show how unnerved he is.
Xue Yang has nothing on the Yiling Patriarch.
“Wei Wuxian,” Jin Guangyao says quickly, “if you spare me, I will clear your name.” He has no idea if Wei Wuxian is still there behind the unholy crimson light, but he has to try.
Wei Wuxian blinks slowly. When his eyes open, the crimson light has faded from his eyes, leaving them clear and silver. “I did promise,” he says, darkly amused.
Jin Guangyao remembers with terror his condescending attitude towards Wei Wuxian when he left him in the forest just a day ago. Wei Wuxian looked like a wild animal then, spitting and snarling, and Jin Guangyao had doubted him–coreless, swordless, and without corpses, weaponless–what chance did he have? Wei Wuxian still looks like a wild animal; hair sticking up wildly, a predatory grin on his dirty face. But he has gone from the hunted to the hunter.
He is as untamed as ever, and Jin Guangyao resents him for it. He wants to understand Wei Wuxian’s power. Somewhere in the forest, under the cover of foliage, is a story begging to be told. Somehow, under the cover of leaves, Wei Wuxian killed or incapacitated hundreds of Jin disciples, all without a golden core or a weapon. Jin Guangyao covets that power. With it, his possibilities are endless. Wei Wuxian could crush the cultivation world under his boot. He is allowed to remain untamed, to never bow his head to anyone, because no one can make him.
Unlike his father, Jin Guangyao knows when to stop.
The Yiling Patriarch disappears back into the forest, Ghost General by his side, army of corpses following behind him. He’ll slowly lay them to rest, scattering their bodies all over the forest. Jin Guangyao will never be sure if he did it to cover up the extent of his power play, or just to give him more work. He doesn’t exactly get a chance to ask.
The Yiling Patriarch disappears, and Jin Guangyao gets to work plotting his redemption.
SILVER
By the time that Jin Ling is one month, two weeks, and three days old, Wei Wuxian has made his way back to A-Yuan. The forest is dark, and dawn has yet to break. But Wen Ning has no difficulty locating the small heartbeat of his last remaining family.
The conscious fierce corpse lifts the sleeping toddler out of the hollow trunk, and holds him like a precious artifact.
“He hasn’t eaten in two days,” Wei Wuxian admits. His new, rough bamboo flute is tucked into his belt. “I couldn’t find any food for him.” He doesn’t mention that he did steal a bow and some arrows, thinking he could hunt game, but ended up using them to shoot Jin disciples instead. He never found his way back to A-Yuan until now, merely hoped that the child was safe.
“Master Wei,” Wen Ning says softly, wonderingly, “you did more than enough.”
Wei Wuxian flushes at the sincerity in his voice. “Well,” he laughs awkwardly. “I’m glad that’s over with! We can’t go back to the Burial Mounds, there’s nothing left there anyway. But I’m sure there’s plenty of empty space in the world for us! Or maybe we can move around–”
He spins around, flute coming up to his lips. Wen Ning was turning even before he was, his senses sharper in death than they were in life.
From above the foliage of the Lanling trees, a cultivator in white descends. His black hair is illuminated by the light of the silver moon. He floats down on his sword like a god from the heavens. His fingers rest on the strings of a guqin.
Wen Ning immediately sets Wen Yuan down on the ground and moves to protect Wei Wuxian, who backs up. His eyes spark red, and Wen Ning can feel power coling in his body, ready to spring into motion.
“Lan Wangji,” Wei Wuxian spits bitterly. “I didn’t know that GusuLan was participating in this night hunt.”
Lan Zhan’s eyes widen at the implication. “No–Wei Ying, I did not come to fight.”
“No?” Wei Wuxian challenges.
He pushes past Wen Ning, because even now he’s determined to defend Wen Ning and Wen Yuan to his dying breath. Even now that he’s up against Lan Wangji. He shouldn’t have left his corpse army behind; now it’s just him and Wen Ning against Lan Zhan, and despite having just fought hundreds of Jin disciples, he knows he won’t win. He hasn’t slept in days, and he’s been fighting for his life for over a day, and all the Jin cultivators have nothing on Hanguang-jun.
“But you were so determined to fight me in Nightless City,” Wei Wuxian reminds him. “What changed, Hanguang-jun?”
Lan Zhan hesitates for the barest of moments. “You do not have a golden core,” he says.
Wei Wuxian’s eyes widen for a fraction of a second–did the Jins make this information public?–before they narrow even further, burning crimson. “So now that you know, you think you can beat me, is that it? Or are you also looking for the Stygian Tiger Seal?”
“No,” Lan Zhan denies frantically. He touches down on the forest floor, white boots landing softly on the dirt. Bichen is sheathed in one smooth motion. “Wei Ying, I do not want to hurt you.”
Wei Wuxian hesitates, because Lan Zhan does not lie. But he was told that all the sects were invited to join this farce of a hunt, and here is Lan Zhan, flying in the dead of night. Why else would he be here? But whatever he was going to say next is interrupted by a small sound from the forest floor.
“Uncle?” Wen Yuan says sleepily. He tugs on Wei Wuxian’s robe. “Where’s Auntie Qing?”
Wei Wuxian freezes. “A-Yuan!” he hisses. He glances back at Wen Ning and picks Wen Yuan up. “Lan Zhan,” he begins desperately, covering Wen Yuan with his arms, “you remember A-Yuan, right? He’s–he’s innocent, Lan Zhan, he’s just a child, please–”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan interrupts. “I know.”
“Then why are you here, Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian asks, frustrated. “If you’re not here on behalf of your sect for the Hunt–”
“I am not,” Lan Zhan insists.
“–and you’re not here because you heard the Yiling Patriarch escaped his trap–”
“No!” Even Lan Zhan looks surprised by the force he put into that one word, but he doesn't back down. “I came to help you,” he says lamely. His words seem so inadequate in the face of Wei Ying’s words, in light of how Wei Wuxian clearly survived by himself.
“But now you know I have no golden core,” Wei Wuxian says dully. “I can’t ever return to normal cultivation, even if–” he sighs, “even though I want to.”
“I do not care,” Lan Zhan insists.
“How can you not?” Wei Wuxian demands.
“You are still Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says, as if that explains anything. He visibly steels himself before continuing. “I still–love you.”
Dead silence.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says. He looks dazed. “You–say that again.”
“I love you,” Lan Zhan says firmly.
Wei Wuxian blinks rapidly, the last flecks of crimson fading from his eyes. They sparkle with a mischievous silver light, and he breaks into his signature grin. “Lan Zhan, ah, Lan Zhan,” he says, a smile in his voice, “why didn’t you just say so?”
Lan Zhan’s ears burn bright red. “I did not know how,” he professes.
“Aw, you’re embarrassed,” Wei Wuxian coos. “Lan Zhan, your ears are turning red. Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, I love you too, you know that?”
“Mn.” Now Lan Zhan looks dazed. Wei Wuxian darts forward and throws his arms around Lan Zhan, who looks a little overwhelmed but very pleased with this turn of events. He holds Wei Wuxian close, and his heart sings, Wei Ying, Wei Ying, Wei Ying. “Wei Ying, I wish to stay with you,” he confesses.
“Yes,” Wei Wuxian says feverently, answering the implied question. “Yes, Lan Zhan. Stay. Stay.” He doesn’t know where they’re going, or how they’ll survive, but for now? This is enough.
He leans forward again, and Wen Ning quietly covers Wen Yuan’s eyes.
SUNRISE
The GusuLan sect will say that Hanguang-jun went into seclusion, and Nie Mingjue joins his sworn brothers in trying to spread the news that the Yiling Patriarch has been cleared of his crimes. YunmengJiang quietly adds Wei Wuxian back into its ledgers, and Jin Ling grows up hearing stories about his wild, genius uncle Wei Wuxian.
But no one knows what happened in the Lanling forest that autumn. Nobody would ever provide a first-hand account of how Wei Wuxian turned the tables on 1,000 Jin disciples sent to slaughter him and killed them instead. Somewhere under the blood-soaked foliage of the nameless Lanling forest is a story of violence, vengeance, survival, and kindness. Somewhere, written in the dappled beams of moonlight that shine through the cover of Lanling’s foliage, is a story of love, abandonment, and the beginning of something new.
If anyone knows that story, it’s the fragile autumn leaves, and they’ve long since been lost to the winds.
When Jin Ling is eleven years and two months old, he is once again walking through a forest, this time alone. He’s in Qishan, this time. His parents (by which he means his mother and all his uncles) have taken him along for a discussion conference, seeing as he’s the future of the cultivation world or something.
Jin Ling prefers to hunt. He got permission from his mother to do so, and so he headed out to a forest, then ditched his escort disciples as soon as he could. Now he’s maybe a little bit lost in the forest, but that’s fine, because Fairy is with him, and Fairy will always be able to guide him home.
Fairy growls softly in that moment, and Jin Ling whirls around, stringing his bow, expecting an animal of some sort. Instead he shoots at a person, and barely has a moment to panic that he might have just shot a person before there’s a flash of red and white and the sound of crackling leaves.
Fortunately, Jin Ling didn’t shoot the person. Unfortunately, he finds himself flat on his back, a leaf pinning him to the ground with an invisible weight. The person dressed in red and white turns out to be a kid maybe a few years older than Jin Ling. He’s clearly a cultivator, based on the sword that he uses to fend Fairy off with, but Jin Ling can’t recognize his sect from his clothes.
“Hey!” Jin Ling yells, for lack of anything else to say.
The other boy looks down at him, eyes wide with surprise. “Sorry,” he says, shamefaced. He makes a little beckoning motion with one finger, and the leaf flies off of Jin Ling’s stomach. “I thought you were a cultivator! I didn’t realize you were a kid.”
“Who are you calling a kid!” Jin Ling splutters, ignoring the obvious fact that he’s eleven. Then he narrows his eyes. “And why would you attack a cultivator?”
The other boy’s eyes go round. “Uh. Did I say that?” He asks nervously.
“Yes, you did,” Jin Ling accuses, even though technically no, he didn’t.
Fairy barks loudly, and the other boy edges away. “Can you please call off your dog?” He asks. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to attack you–and to be fair, you attacked me first.”
Jin Ling rolls his eyes. “Fairy! Heel!” He calls, and Fairy comes, because she’s a good dog and Jin Ling loves her very much. “Why, are you scared of dogs?”
“No,” the other boy protests, “but my dad is terrified of them, and it’s kind of rubbed off…”
Jin Ling narrows his eyes. “Your dad is scared of dogs?” He repeats. “Does he wear a red ribbon?”
“Yes,” he answers, surprised. “H–”
“Does he play the dizi?” Jin Ling cut across him.
“Yes,” he said again, and then his eyes narrow. “How did you know?”
Jin Ling looks at the sword in the boy’s hand. He can just make out the characters for Suibian etched near the hilt. In the boy’s other hand, he still holds the leaf he used to pin Jin Ling to the ground between two fingers. Slowly, he reaches into his robes and pulls out a red leaf that his mother gave him over a year ago.
He’s quite unmistakable, Mother had said. Jin Ling knew she’d been talking about his uncle, and not this kid, but all the same–
You’ll know, she said.
Jin Ling stands in a lonely Qishan forest, across from a fourteen-year-old boy who wields Suibian, wears red and white yet has no sect, runs from cultivators, and twists a red leaf between his fingers. There’s something happening again, another story being told as sunrise passes them by and lights up the sky in a riot of colors, from rust-colored brown to golden yellow and crimson red.
Jin Ling stands under the foliage of another nameless forest, and he knows.