Into...still the Cloud Recesses. A different part of it, though. 

That was strange.  A creature that teleports people a few hundred feet?  Whatever the mirror-snake was, it wasn't supposed to be in the Cloud Recesses.  He starts walking back to where he had been, this time paying more attention to his surroundings.  

It isn't long before he runs into Lan Xichen. Who looks genuinely startled to see him. 

"Jiang-gongxi! You're back?"

"Zewu-jun," he greets with a quick bow.  "Back?

"There was a giant snake with a mirror where its head should be, in the walkways over there.  It sent me to a different part of Cloud Recesses.  Did you see it?"

"What?" 

Jiang Cheng repeats himself, "A giant unnatural snake was over there.  It ...ate? me, with the mirror it had for a face.  I'm uninjured, but wound up a few hundred feet away." 

He's still looking towards the direction of the relevant paths.  It wouldn't be appropriate for him to order Lan Xichen to help investigate.  Perhaps he'd rather have them go warn someone else.  

"Jiang-gongxi, I just came from that direction and would definitely have noticed an enormous snake. You've been gone for several days looking for your brother. Do you not remember?"

"What?  No.  I spoke to you earlier today.

"Wei Wuxian is missing?"

Lan Wangji is going to try to kill Jiang Cheng again.

"Yes. You received a letter from Lotus Pier about it and set off with my brother looking for him." This is a slight oversimplification but one thing at a time. 

"That doesn't make any sense.  He's in Cloud Recesses with us.  Or was about ten minutes ago, when I last saw him.

"I think there might be another time-related thing going on."

"...Wei-gongxi hasn't been here in well over a week; he was expelled for punching Jin Zixuan. Time-related thing?" 

He forces himself to take a deep breath.  Between drawing swords on Lan Wangji and then the giant snake, he's on edge.  

Right.  He remembers Wei Wuxian getting expelled the first time around.  And Lan Xichen doesn't remember their conversation.  Did the snake send him to another version of the unaltered past, later than the first time?  This is going to get confusing.

Well, he'd decided the first time he'd wound up in the past that the best person to tell would be Lan Xichen.  It feels a little hopeless telling him again, though.  For all he knows, he'll be sent somewhere else tomorrow.  

"This might take a while to explain, and need somewhere more private," he says with a grimace.

"Fine. Follow me," he says, leading him to a private office. 

He follows.

They arrive, and he closes the door, putting up a privacy talisman next to--is that a fireproofing charm?

Jiang Cheng is not paying attention to the decor.  He sits down heavily as soon as it would be appropriate, and looks like he wants to rest his head on the table.  

"I am from about eight years in the future.  Various things happened, most of them bad."  He doesn't feel like explaining all of the everything right now.  If this Lan Xichen wants a full report he can ask later.  

"A few days ago, I woke up back on the morning of the salute ceremony in my old body.  I went through the motions more or less as normal.  I quickly realized that Wen Ning remembered the same future events that I did.  Together, we decided that you should be informed.  When we did, you mentioned that Lan Wangji had also experienced this same phenomenon and also told you about it.

"It's only been a few hours since I did that.  

"I think the snake sent me to another point in the original past, so everything before now is what I remember the first time around."

He takes a moment to consider that.  Would Wen Ning and Lan Wangji also have come with him, or is he the only person who now remembers the future.  The future and the not-past?

"That could explain...much. Not long after Wei-gongzi was sent home, Wangji came to me and asked where Wei-gongzi was. When I told him, he asked me how to tell if one was dreaming. Subsequent to that, he behaved very strangely, including actions which were apparently intended as...a more extreme form of advice I gave him related to the dreaming issue. Then you received the letter and Wangji heard about it and left immediately, at which point you came up to me and asked if I thought he knew anything and then left to follow him on the grounds of not having any better leads as to your brother's location." 

That sounds dangerous for that Jiang Cheng, if the Lan Wangji was from the future.  

"Did Lan Wangji seem unusually upset with me?"

He's having a hard time remembering exactly when he currently is.  Eight years is a long time.  Lotus Pier couldn't have been attacked, yet, if he was receiving mail from there.  So much had happened.  One or more people are also acting differently than they did the first time - this might not be something he should remember.  

"...Yes. Do you not get along in the future." 

"We do not."  

"Lovely. Do I want to know why Wangji apparently decided that a priority was plastering fireproofing charms all over the Cloud Recesses?" 

"Yes.  Cloud Recesses is attacked and burned by the Qishan Wen sect."

He wracks his mind, trying to remember exactly when.  It was before they were sent to Indoctrination as hostages.  "Relatively soon, I think."

"They recovered enough from the Xuanwu of Slaughter to attack other sects?"

"The Xuanwu of Slaughter?  We didn't encounter it until after Cloud Recesses burned.  That must be something that someone changed.  What happened?"

"Apparently it was hibernating in a cave in Qishan. The Wens disturbed it and it went on another, smaller rampage before they managed to kill it. Many Wen cultivators died, including Wen Xu. Then its death released some kind of curse, leading to unusually coordinated fierce corpses attacking more Wen cultivators; last I heard, that was still happening." 

Wei Wuxian vanished, something woke up the Xuanwu of Slaughter, and then a bunch of fierce corpses started attacking.  

"Shit.  Wei Wuxian is from the future."  The corrupted, dangerous Wei Wuxian.  

"Is that bad?" 

"Yes."

"Wei Wuxian vanished for three months, a bit after the takeover of Lotus Pier.  When he returned, he had learned Demonic Cultivation and the ability to raise and control armies of fierce corpses.  At first, there weren't many mental effects.  The only unusual thing was that he refused to even carry his sword from that point onward, instead taking a strange black flute everywhere.  

"His behavior became less stable over time.  He left Lotus Pier to live with a group of rescued Wen prisoners inside of the Yiling Burial Mound.  A-Jie marries Jin Zixuan, and they have a child together.  He is invited to the one-month celebration, despite having alienated every other sect.  While on the way, he kills Jin Zixuan and dozens of other Jin along with him.  When all of the sects get together to discuss what can be done about his growing instability, he attacks them all.  I was there, and A-Jie.  She is injured by the corpses, and dies on the battlefield.

"I was the one who had to kill him, in the end."  With A-Jie gone, no one alive would be able to talk him down.  Leaving him would mean more massacres in the future.  How many lives would he have taken from that point onward, if he'd been left alive.  Hundreds?  Thousands?  

"If he's from the point he died, he's not my brother any more.  I don't know what he is."  

"I see. I'm so sorry." 

He takes a moment to pull himself together.

"The Yiling Patriarch will be wherever the fierce corpses are."

He's hoping that Lan Wangji isn't one of those corpses.  Not that it wouldn't serve him right, but it also wouldn't do anyone any good.

"I don't know where that is more specifically than Qishan." 

"I suppose I'll go looking.  Tomorrow, preferably.  Could I... do I still have a room here?"

Nod. "You'll need an explanation for why you're back empty-handed and without Wangji, but..."

"I woke up in my old body last time, so it probably happened again this time," he considers.  He checks his robe for any letters or information that had been tucked away.  Nothing.  "I don't know why he returned.  Perhaps he lost their trail?"

He is trying hard to ignore his memories of the Yiling Patriarch's crazed crying laughter at the end, before he set his Demonic constructs on his own sister.  Had Jiang Cheng been running away from that?

"Perhaps. It will do." 

He stands, bows politely, extracts himself from the office, and goes to his room.

There are differences from how he last left his own room, but it does look like a place where he's been staying. Apparently the other Jiang Cheng didn't pack his things before leaving. 

It's early even by Cloud Recesses standards, but he is going to just fall asleep now.  

The next morning dawns as bright and peaceful as if the sun rose on a world that didn't contain the Yiling Patriarch. 

He might as well go back out before anyone thinks to question why he came back.

Without a specific goal, he'll just travel in the general direction of Qishan.  He'll be able to get better rumors out there.

There are so many rumors! Also fire-damaged Wen outposts. The rumor mill isn't entirely consistent or, one assumes, accurate, but judging by the general threads Wen Chao and Wen Zhuliu are also dead. 

As he travels further in he can learn that apparently Wen Ruohan is also also dead, very recently, in his own palace at Nightless City, and people are praying that the Xuanwu's curse will be satisfied with that. 

One can only hope as much.  

He travels towards the most recent attacks, trying to figure out the pattern of where they'll go next.

The most recent attack was Nightless City; before that it seems to have been nigh-random zig-zagging. 

That seems like a place he might stay for a day or two.  He'll go there, and keep an eye out for any especially close Wen outposts which hadn't been touched.  

Hey is that an oddly-familiar figure washing a pot in a stream?

...What has the Yiling Patriarch been doing?

He ducks behind a tree and watches the doppelganger.  

Washing a pot. Not looking particularly worried about anything. The pot appears to have been used to make congee. 

He breaks cover and approaches, hand ready to pull Sandu from its sheath if necessary.  

"Who are you?"

"What the fuck? I'm Jiang Cheng, who are you?" 

His hand goes to his own sword, which--if he's some kind of forgery constructed by the Yiling Patriarch, he's a very good one, because that sure looks like Sandu. 

"I'm Jiang Cheng."  The real one.

Keeping his distance, he looks at the other.  In particular, he checks for any signs of undeath.

"Is Wei Wuxian creating copies of people now?"

No signs of undeath whatsoever. 

"What the fuck? No?"

"Have you found Wei Wuxian yet?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because I ran into Zewu-jun in Cloud Recesses, and according to him I left to go find him."

"I did do that. And I did find him." 

"And Lan Wangji?  Are they both still alive?"

"Obnoxiously so. Seriously, what's your deal?"

It's only fair, since that Jiang Cheng answered his questions.  

"I'm from the future."  He pauses, trying to figure out how to describe going back in time, then going forward in time to another point in the original timeline, except apparently altered by other time travelers, maybe?  

Or he can figure out how to deal with having his other self's sword pointed at him. 

"Which future. What did you do to Wei Wuxian?"

"What do you mean 'which future'?"

"I mean are you from the one where he lives or the one where he dies or some third one entirely. I mean did you hurt him, did you kill him. I mean are you the reason Lan Wangji doesn't trust me around my own brother." 

"After he attacked me.  After he killed our sister."

"Bullshit," he snarls, lunging forward, slashing. 

He pulls up his own version of Sandu, guarding, knocking away the attack.

"I didn't do anything you wouldn't have, obviously."

"But you claim Wei Wuxian did." Strike. 

Jiang Cheng blocks again.  He's had about 8 more years of practice.  He can keep blocking and dodging.

"Demonic Cultivation corrupts people.  It wasn't him by the end, any more than if he'd been a fierce corpse."

That sure isn't going to stop his younger version from trying!

"Try that on someone who hasn't been traveling with him for days. I'd love to blame being stupid enough to have sex in a burning building on some kind of mind-warping effect, but I think we both know better than that." 

"He what?  What the fuck?  With who?"

Maybe he can use the distraction to land a hit! He will sure try. 

"Lan Wangji." 

"Lan Wangji?"

Jiang Cheng doesn't have a very high opinion on Hanguang-jun's intelligence, but why was he having sex in a burning building.  

He very much does not want to think about him having it anywhere, and especially not with the Yiling Patriarch.  

"I mean, I wasn't happy about it either, but as far as things that happen in the future go, Lan Wangji descending to my brother's level of shamelessness and dumbassery is somewhat less horrible than me turning into a fratricidal maniac, so, you know." 

"Doesn't it bother you at all that you have all of your information from the future told to you by two people stupid enough to fuck in a burning building?"

Future Jiang Cheng has been defending for a while.  He will add in a few offensive swings and try to disarm his past self.  

"That would be a whole lot more compelling if you had said anything that didn't corroborate them!" 

Past Jiang Cheng has eight years less experience but fortunately at the moment exactly the same muscle memory, he can avoid being disarmed. 

"Did they bother telling you about how he also murdered A-jie's husband, and his entire retinue?  

"How many thousands of other people was I supposed to allow to die?  You think he was going to stop at killing his sister?"

"What I was told was that A-Jie died stepping between him and someone who was trying to kill him, which sounds a lot more plausible than that he'd willingly let her die. I don't know what happened with the peacock, but seriously, it's the peacock." 

"They had a month old child."

A-Ling.  

Stab.

"Like I said, I don't know what happened. But I trust my brother over the guy who tried to kill him." Whoah that was close. 

"I'm you, you dumbass!"

"But I don't have to become you." 

"I should hope not!  Not that you're doing a good job at avoiding it.  What with the army of corpses Wei Wuxian commands."

"What army of corpses." 

The area does seem pretty corpse-free at the moment. 

"The Demonic Cultivation.  What he's been using to take out Wen Outposts."

"I'd hardly call that an army."

"Oh, since you became an expert on fierce corpses in the past week, maybe you can tell me: how many does it take to make a proper army?"

"I don't know, an army-sized amount? Why would how many it takes to make an army be different between people and fierce corpses?"

This is not what he was expecting to find when he pursued the sounds of swordfighting. It is... interesting to see Jiang Cheng appropriately angry at his future counterpart. Both gratifying and slightly reassuring.

Lan Wangji will not be able to contribute to this interaction in ways other than murdering the Jiang Wanyin from his timeline, which might not actually be the best move, so for now he will keep watching from behind these trees. If it starts to look like present-Jiang Cheng is in actual danger, he will step in.

For Wei Ying's sake. Obviously.

Unfortunately there's really only one stream nearby and both Wei Wuxian and A-Yuan are covered in more congee than is remotely sustainable. 

"What's going on?" he says, bewildered, spackled in congee and holding baby similarly adorned, not bothering to hide, to both Lan Zhan and the...two...Jiang Chengs???

Current Jiang Cheng immediately steps around between Wei Wuxian and Future Jiang Cheng. 

Appreciation for Current Jiang Cheng increases.

Wangji very quickly moves from his hiding spot to join Current Jiang Cheng in Future Jiang Cheng's path.

He steps backwards out of striking range and lowers his sword.  Sheathing it would probably be a good idea, but he can't force himself to do it.  He isn't going to be able to win a three-against-one fight.

"Why are there two Jiang Chengs? If there were going to be two of anyone I would pick Lan Zhan, that would be a wet dream come true." 

"Wei Wuxian! Are you going to say things like that in front of the baby???"

"It's fine, he's too little to have any idea what I'm saying." 

Does he have to say things like that in front of Jiang Cheng?  Not that he isn't grateful to not be stabbed yet.

He really doesn't but eventually you learn to give up on things like that. 

"This one," he gestures, "is from the future. Lan Wangji's future, where you're dead." 

"...How are both he and you here?" 

"I don't know!" 

"...Okay, well, hi future Jiang Cheng, I'm going to go wash this baby, please don't attack me while I'm holding him." 

He makes his way the rest of the distance to the stream and sits down in it with the baby, removing congee with more splashing and baby-giggle-inducing than strictly necessary. 

Wangji goes with him, hand on Bichen's hilt and glare fixed on Future Jiang Cheng. He doesn't expect even Jiang Wanyin to try to murder someone holding a baby, but if he tries Lan Wangji will be happy to kill him for it.

Current Jiang Cheng slowly circles to continue being between his future self and the others, blade still pointed at his brother's killer. 

He gives Wei Wuxian a wide berth, backing away from where he's walking to, more focused on Lan Wangji and his past self.  At least for the moment, Wei Wuxian seems in a stable mood.  He'll revise this opinion if he starts maniacally laughing or spewing smoke.

Warily, he sheathes his sword.  He can still dodge or parry with the sheath if one of them lunges at him, and not having it out will make that less likely.

He slowly lowers his blade but doesn't sheathe it. 

Wei Wuxian finishes cleaning the baby and cuddles him and blows a raspberry against his tiny baby tummy. He's also managed to remove most of the congee from himself, which reveals that his neck is almost entirely purple with crescent-shaped bruises. 

He is confused about the bruises for about three seconds, once he notices them.  Then he makes a face and redoubles his effort to instead focus on the other two. 

It's almost tempting to sympathize with him about that but if he were ever going to sympathize with his evil future self about anything it wouldn't be in front of Lan Wangji. 

Wei Wuxian gets the rest of the congee off of himself and climbs out of the water. 

He looks at future Jiang Cheng and sighs. 

"Two Jiang Chengs. This is going to be so complicated. What will Uncle Jiang and Madam Yu think?" 

"Seriously? He killed you and that's your first concern?" 

"Well, he didn't kill me me, and it's not like he didn't have good reasons." 

"There are no such things as good reasons for that!" 

"What happened in the other future?" he asks quietly.

He swallows. 

He looks away. 

"Lan Zhan came to stay with us at the Burial Mounds and he--died. During the Siege. And I--killed a lot of people about it. And then for the past four years there was a sort of detente. Nobody sticks their nose in, nobody sticks their nose out." He snuggles the baby closer. "But it didn't happen, now, everyone's fine. Shijie's fine. And I'm not--I had to use demonic cultivation to deal with the Wens but I'm done, okay, I'm done." 

He puts an arm around him.

He leans against Lan Zhan gratefully. 

"I can't promise that I won't use it again if an emergency comes up that merits it. But I know my limits now. I won't use it and use it and use it until I lose control and someone dies. Someone who wasn't supposed to. Things are different now." 

He thinks about this.  Can he trust Wei Wuxian to be telling the truth?

Either way he's not going to kill him in front of his...?  Lan Wangji.  Or.  Where did he even get a baby.

"I'm not going to kill you unless you kill them, Wei Wuxian."  He gestures at his companions.  "You know that you're the greatest risk to them.  Remember that before you try anything with Demonic Cultivation."

"Fuck you." 

"I know." He looks at the child he's holding. "But there are things more important than my life or yours or even Lan Zhan's." 

Squeeze.

Snugglean. He hooks one of his ankles around Lan Zhan's. 

He very much wants to stop being in a conversation with those two before he has to learn more about where those bruises came from.  

Unfortunately, the only person left is his past self.  "What are we going to do about there being more than one of me?"

"If the answer isn't killing you then I don't have the first fucking clue." 

"Are you going to go back to Cloud Recesses?"  he asks, then pauses.  "...Considering that Wei Wuxian is not currently corrupted with any sort of dark influences, I'm going to need to update Zewu-jun."

- so apparently Jiang Wanyin saw fit to misdirect Wangji's brother with the completely unfounded claim that Wei Ying is a demonic menace to society. Wangji is furious.

"Then leave," he growls.

"Er, if you're going to update Lan Xichen on the situation, you should probably tell him his brother eloped and he has a nephew now." 

"Gladly," he says to Lan Wangji.  He'd rather not be here longer than he needs to be.

He considers the baby, and their age at this point in the timeline.  "I'm guessing that's Wen Yuan?  Are you going to change his name to Lan Sizhui this time too?  I'll need a name to tell Zewu-jun.  Also an explanation for where you got him."

"Wen Ruohan killed his parents while he was having a tantrum about the Xuanwu. We, uh, haven't decided which surname to give him this time." 

"I'll inform him."

If they don't object, he'll be leaving.

Literally nobody objects to him being farther away from Wei Wuxian. 

Jiang Cheng finally sheathes his sword, hands trembling, then turns to Lan Wangji and bows. "I'm sorry." 

This is very unexpected. He blinks and waits for Jiang Cheng to explain.

"When you first came back, I--I didn't understand why you were angry with me, at first. Even after I heard what happened in the future, I--resented you for it. I didn't understand, I thought--but he was--I don't think I really believed I could end up like that until he showed up and--fuck, he wasn't even sorry."

He takes a deep breath. 

"If I ever turn into that, you have my permission and my blessing to kill me." 

He bows in return. "I will."

"We worked together once. When Wei Ying was missing. We looked for him together. 

If you stay as you are, I will not need to hurt you. That is preferable."

"Thank you." 

"Okay, this is way too depressing. Nobody we care about is going to die, I said that already, I'm not taking it back! Everything bad that happened is going to, instead, not happen, everything's going to be fine. Lan Zhan, if I offer to let Jiang Cheng hold A-Yuan for five minutes are you going to have a qi deviation?"

His opinion of current Jiang Cheng just skyrocketed, but this is still pushing it.

It would be appropriate to agree right away as a gesture of reconciliation. That's the kind of thing that Brother would do. And Wangj is feeling much friendlier towards Jiang Cheng at the moment, but. He mostly does not want anyone but he or Wei Ying or Brother to hold A-Yuan for his entire childhood.

"Why?"

"Because he's A-Yuan's uncle, and he didn't actually do anything wrong." He bounces A-Yuan a little. "...A-Yuan deserves all the aunties and uncles. And we can't give him Wen Qing or Wen Ning or Uncle Four or Granny or anyone." 

This is an unfairly good point.

"Mn." He nods his head in Jiang Cheng's direction by way of permission.

Jiang Cheng takes the baby very, very carefully. 

Oh wow this is kind of a really excellent baby. 

"Hi. I promise not to turn evil and murder your dad. I'll try not to let him fry your mouth with the insane amount of peppers he thinks are appropriate but I can't make any promises there." 

So far this is going pretty well. Wangji approves of both of those commitments. He watches very very carefully, but not aggressively. Mostly. Being aggressive at Jiang Wanyin is a pretty tough habit to break.

Jiang Wanyin does not super want to push his luck and hands the baby back to Lan Wangji after significantly less than five minutes. 

Good. Now baby can resume being cuddled by his dads.

The future Jiang Cheng travels back to Cloud Recesses.  Being unencumbered by a baby, he is much faster.

Does Zewu-jun seem to be around?

Yes he is. 

"I have news about Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian.  They've decided to elope."

"...How concerned should I be for Wangji?"

"They both seemed enthusiastic with the idea.  And Wei Wuxian is... about as reasonable as he's ever been."  He can't really say that even the Wei Wuxian from this part of time was reasonable.  

"There are other things, though we should move this conversation somewhere private."

"Alright." 

He leads Jiang Cheng inside to a private office. 

Now that he can speak plainly.

"There are at least two futures involved.  Possibly three.  Lan Wangji is from one which either is or resembles mine - Wei Wuxian having been killed by me.  Wei Wuxian is from a future where he survived and Lan Wangji died, and he spent the next several years after that living in the Yiling Burial Mounds in relative peace.  Either he had found a different method of Demonic Cultivation in that timeline that was less damaging to his mind, or not actively using those abilities for a time allowed him to regain his senses."  

There are other possibilities in his mind as well.  Worries that the madness is intermittent and he's merely between bouts; that one day he'll hear a message that Wei Wuxian had snapped and painted whatever town he was in with blood.  Worries that, despite the needless attack on Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli he had decided too soon that Wei Wuxian was past the point of saving.  Would the Yiling Patriarch of his timeline have come to his senses?  It wasn't a new thought, of course.  He'd made the decision with the information he had, and the fractional chance he'd given for Wei Wuxian coming home without A-jie had not been enough when weighed against all of the people he was likely to kill if not pushed off of that cliff.  

Seeing one who had reformed still made it feel worse.  

"I haven't seen anything else that indicates someone other than Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian, and myself have knowledge of the future.

"There is a second me.  The one originally from this time.  He knows - some - of the future events.  The ones Lan Wangji told him, which apparently did not include that Wei Wuxian had gone mad before being killed.  He attacked me when I told him I was from the future.  He's fine - still travelling with them, when I left."  Jiang Cheng is visibly annoyed with his past self.  

He shivers at "and Lan Wangji died."

"I'm very glad that everyone involved seems to be alright." 

"They also have a baby with them.  Wen Ruohan had killed his parents, and they've chosen to adopt him.  It's the same child that both of them adopted in their respective futures.  Given name is Yuan.  At least in my timeline, Lan Wangji had named him Lan Sizhui.  They were still undecided on whose family name the child should have - Wen being obviously no longer acceptable."

"How strange...well. I don't relish telling Uncle, but that at least sounds like a happy piece of news." 

"From what I know, he's a good child."

"What happened with him, in your timeline?"

"He'd been one of the Wen remnants captured by the Jin sect, then rescued by Wei Wuxian to live at Yiling.  Either Wei Wuxian sent him to Cloud Recesses before his final battle, or Lan Wangji found him in the burial mound afterwards - I don't know.  Publicly, no one knew where he came from, and I wasn't exactly on speaking terms with Lan Wangji."

"...I see." 

"I think that's everything important to mention.  I asked whether they were going to come back to Cloud Recesses right away, but Lan Wangji was too busy glaring at me to answer."

He's tempted to make sure than Zewu-jun has the entire future account, since apparently Lan Wangji is only interested in telling people an incomplete version that will get them to hate Jiang Cheng in particular, but this is enough for the moment.

Sigh. "Well, thank you very much for explaining all this." 

He can leave Lan Xichen to consider the news.