Work Text:
Jin Rulan has sixteen summers when he becomes sect leader.
Jiang Cheng’s fingers feel thick and clumsy as he affixes the headpiece on top of Jin Ling’s hair. It’s a good one, clearly expensive and well-wrought. A symbol of power, of wealth, of the long history of Lanling Jin.
He steps away and Jin Ling turns to him. He’s almost as tall as Jiang Cheng now, which came as a horrible realisation. He’s matured into a young man, taller, wiser. The gold in his outfit makes him look resplendent like a crown prince and he stands with confidence.
Jiang Cheng wants to strip him of this facade. He wants to put him in the purple robes of Yunmeng and take him back to Lotus Pier, away from this. He knows what comes next and he knows that this isn’t something he can help him with, knows that anytime Jin Ling looks to him that it would be seen as a sign of weakness by the vipers both within Lanling and without.
He thought they would have more time before this. Had protecting Jin Ling not been his only reason for being all these years? Yet here Jin Ling was, doomed to the same fate. A crown for a body too young to wear it, duty for a body too small to carry it.
He wants to cry, wants to dig up Jin Guangyao from the cursed coffin and make his corpse bow to Jin Ling, force him to apologise for the destruction he’s caused on the child over and over and over, stick his head on the parapet of JinLinTai to forever see Jin Ling grow into a better person than Jin Guangyao, or even Jiang Cheng, could ever hope to be.
“Jiujiu,” Jin Ling says, voice soft. “I’m fine.”
He was a-jie’s son and he had inherited her kind heart and her thoughtfulness, despite all of Jiang Cheng’s failures in nurturing it. How many times has he failed this child?
Jiang Cheng watches Jin Ling’s coronation with pride and trepidation. He watches the other sect leaders, takes notes of their expressions as they watch the boy take his birthright. He clenches his fist hard enough for Zidian to cut into his skin and for the electricity to singe and hurt.
Afterwards, he goes to the lotus pond. He had thought it gracious for Jin Guangyao to let it grow as a living memorial for Jin Ling to keep. Now mouth tastes of ash when he sees the flowers emerging through the mud.
Jin Ling is there, a vision of gold amongst the green and white.They sit together in silence for a few moments before Jin Ling inches closer and reaches for Jiang Cheng’s sleeve. If Jiang Cheng closes his eyes, he can pretend that Jin Ling is still a child, that these past years have been nothing but a bad dream, that he is only here to visit his nephew and his sister is still alive and healthy and the world is a better, kinder place.
“Sect Leader Tang has intentions of building a dam,” Jin Ling says with a hoarse voice. “Across a tributary into Yunmeng. It’s going to damange your irrigation plans if he does.”
Jiang Cheng is already aware. Jin Ling saying it aloud, loyalty to Jiang Cheng clear in his concern, makes his heart expand until his chest cavity feels full and he struggles to take a breath.
“Worry about yourself,” he manages at the end. “You’ll be busy enough with the vultures of Lanling.”
“You can’t protect me anymore,” Jin Ling says, voice brave but eyes soft and wet. “But thank you.”
He doesn’t let go of Jiang Cheng’s sleeve.