Jiang Cheng is unhappy.  Wei Wuxian has always been the cleverer of the two of them, and if he doesn't have any answers either...

It's been over 14 years since he got revenge on the Wen.  That's enough distance for even Jiang Cheng to figure out that Wei Wuxian is trying to distract him.  That doesn't mean he's wrong, though.  He snarls and crosses his arms.  

"Any thoughts from you on this?" directed at Lan Wangji.

He doesn't look at Jiang Wanyin. "We have other advantages. Knowledge of the battles to come. We will set ambushes; move on Nightless City before his strongest monsters are ready. We need only distract Wen Ruohan long enough for Meng Yao to fell him."

Wei Ying will not look at him. Wangji is afraid.

"Wei Ying. Let us try."

"Right.  Meng Yao."

Jiang Cheng is still processing that.  He'd trusted Jin Guangyao, more or less, before the allegations began.  They'd raised Jin Ling together.

"He'll be useful for the war, though that's another mess that'll have to be taken care of afterwards."

What mess?

“Mess? What mess?”

"Meng Yao killed Nie Mingjue.  And he killed his own father, by tying him to a bed and ordering a group of prostitutes to have sex with him until he died.  Then he killed the prostitutes - all but one, who he then had locked up.  He also married his own sister, then murdered the son they'd had together.  That death had been blamed on a smaller sect which he'd then slaughtered in claimed retribution."

"What? You're sure? Can it be possible for a single person to do so many different disgusting things in one lifetime?" 

"When?"

He doesn't understand why Brother wouldn't tell him any part of this. Was he ashamed? Was he too deeply grieving? But -- Wangji would have noticed that. He doesn't believe that Brother could hide the grief of that large a betrayal from him.

He wishes Lan Wangji would speak in complete sentences so he could tell what he meant to say.  Is he being chastised for mentioning things out of order?  Well if Lan Wangji wants to tell this story he is free to do so and Jiang Cheng can sit back and critique him.

"Jin Guangyao married his own sister a year after you died, then killed Nie Mingjue about a year later.  He caused Nie Mingjue to have a qi deviation so it would look like a natural effect of his temper.  Jin Guangshan was murdered about two years after that, then Jin Rusong - the son - died three years after that.

"As for when I found out - all of this was uncovered only in the past few days."

What. No it was Not. That's -- too many years. Way too many years. What the fuck.

At least Wei Wuxian's new fears for the future don't include murdering his own son. 

(Maybe his future self was only spared that by not having one, though, if he would kill even Shijie -- Wei Wuxian still can't process that. Every fiber of his being rejects the possibility; it should be as impossible for Shijie to die as it is for Wei Wuxian to ever, ever, ever hurt her.)

It should be some comfort, perhaps, that he will not become the worst monster known to the cultivation world in the next decade. 

That is not comforting at all. He feels sick to his stomach. "You heard about this too?" he asks Lan Zhan with a knock of his head in that direction, not looking up from his plate.

"I hear Nie Mingjue has fallen deeply ill. No one tells me of any deaths."

His chest aches as he pictures that far-away future. The thought of the world going on for six, seven more years without Wei Ying in it, having to live that much longer without his love, exhausts him deeply. Pains him deeply.

The thought of watching his Brother be slowly, agonizingly dragged through a process of similar grief unsettles him also. 

"It has only been two years since I watched you die."

"It's been thirteen years since he died."

Thirteen years is a very long time.

"How did you both get here at the same time from different times? That feels even less likely than this whole thing already was, and it was already so extremely unlikely. Why didn't you figure this out before?"

Wei Wuxian shakes his head. How can this Jiang Cheng be so much older than them? He acts just as huffy and temperamental as Jiang Cheng always has been.

"I still don't know how we got here.  I told you I didn't do anything."

"As for how no one suspected - Jin Guangyao is good at hiding things.  And smart.  No one was able to see through him until you came back."

"Came back where?"

"One of Jin Guangshan's bastards found a ritual you made.  He sacrificed his own soul and brought you back in his body.

"We met on Dafan Mountain, about two months ago.  I - entirely reasonably given what I knew at the time - assumed you were a possessing spirit with an unwilling host.  Wen Ning was also there - I still don't know how he came back again.  Lan Wangji showed up and interfered with my attempts to exorcise you.  Something which was rather morally fucked up of him given that we both had the same information, but I guess it worked out well enough.

"He flew off with you, and you two have been gallivanting around the countryside with the restless spirit of Nie Mingjue's saber, Baxia, solving murders.  I'd been hoping that Lan Wangji could shed light on the details, since I wasn't there for most of it and had to hear much of it secondhand from Jin Ling."

Jiang Cheng is jealous of this.  He is very slowly starting to come to the conclusion that maybe he'd handled things... badly?

He is suddenly very dizzy. He doesn't hear anything Jiang Wanyin says after 'brought you back.'

Brought him back. Brought him back.

There - there had been a ritual, there had been a way to bring him back all this time, why hadn't Wei Ying told him.

He taps his nose. "What a wild fucking ritual. Thirteen whole years later? How far back is the limit, of when someone died, could you use it to bring back, like - I dunno, Wen Mao? Is there a limit? Was there even a reason I made this, how did I test it? Do you have to - oh Lan Zhan, don't look like that! Apparently you're fine with the ritual in the future, isn't that enough for you now? I didn't possess an unwilling host, I would never do that. And I'm not doing anything with it now, I'm just curious."

Jiang Cheng is deep in thought and not paying attention to questions he obviously doesn't have the answers to.  

What had he ever done to show Wei Wuxian that he cared about him?  Had he done anything?  Once, but Wei Wuxian could never know about that.  That Jiang Cheng hated Wei Wuxian would be an entirely reasonable conclusion to come to, based on what he's been doing.  For everyone else, that had been an intentional façade to avoid getting tarnished by association; to keep Lotus Pier safe.  To keep all of the disciples who were relying on Jiang Cheng to lead them safe.  He wasn't trying to make Wei Wuxian think the same thing.  

"Even after you died, I never got another dog.  Just in case you wanted to come back."

That isn’t the answer to any of his very valid and important questions!! Wei Wuxian is already opening his mouth to complain about this when Jiang Cheng’s words actually sink in.

“In case I wanted to come back,” he repeats softly. He feels like he is holding a delicate, injured baby bird in his hands; Jiang Cheng attempting to express sincere feelings is a rare and vulnerable little beast. 

“Aiyah, Jiang Cheng. I would never stop wanting to come back to Lotus Pier with you and Shijie. That’s always my first home. Just because I couldn’t for some of your future doesn’t mean I didn’t want to. Sometimes people can’t do the things they want.”

Is this patronizing? He’s really not trying to be patronizing, but it is difficult to explain something this obvious without sounding patronizing and apparently Jiang Cheng does actually need this to be explained.

Jiang Cheng hadn't been able to do so many things he wanted to.  He hadn't realized that Wei Wuxian had also felt that way.  

There are too many things that he wants to say, and he doesn't know the words.