When he wakes up still holding the sword, the memories come flooding back.  He stares at it, the intricate details of the finely-crafted sheath and hilt, and the shining blade within that he can reveal when no one else in Lotus Pier can.

In the stillness of the morning its easy to for Jiang Cheng to sense the golden core within him.  It had become a habit of his to drift into the meditative state that allowed him to feel it.  Just to check that it was still there - not the hollowness he'd felt those horrible few days between being captured by Wen Chao and the Core Crusher and going up the mountain to-

Wei Wuxian.

What had made him do it?  It couldn't have been a sense of duty - or Wei Wuxian wouldn't have stopped there and abandoned his duties at Lotus Pier.  It couldn't have been that he'd cared - or Wei Wuxian wouldn't have abandoned Jiang Cheng.  Gone away to live in the squalor and graveyard dirt with the last of the Wen clan.

It didn't make sense.  Or maybe, Jiang Cheng thought, maybe he was just too stupid to figure anything out.  Wei Wuxian had never used his sword after that day.  Jiang Cheng had never realized why, before it was finally spelled out for him.

He takes a deep breath.  There are things that need to happen today and he can't lie around in bed forever.

It takes him until that moment to look past the immediate sword in his hand and realize he's not in his room.  Or any room at all, in fact.  This appears to be a tent.  

It does in fact appear to be a tent!  The fabric of the walls is letting through just a bit of light, indicating early dawn.

Whatever is going on, at least his camping supplies are in here with him.  He changes and prepares for the day.

He considers Suibian.  Jiang Cheng had made quite a commotion last night, and he's dreading having to deal with any of the people who'd seen him running around shouting about Wei Wuxian's sword.  If he were back in his room like he was supposed to be he'd leave it behind.  As horrible as everything it implies is, he still doesn't want to leave it in a random place like this tent.  Suibian joins Sandu in his hand as he cautiously opens the tent flap and exits.

Outside are more tents set up in a small war camp.  The closest tents are Jiang colors, his symbol on the banners overhead.  Not far away is an adjoining camp with a few Lan tents.  Those are arrayed into perfectly neat rows along the central path.

The only other people currently awake are the sentries.  The nearest one notices and salutes him before going back to scanning the distance.

Jiang Cheng has had enough experience with war to read camps like this as if they were scrolls.  From the presence of smoldering fires, they felt confident enough to not concern themselves with alerting enemies.  Someone is passed out drunk outside of their tent beside the fire (on the Jiang side, not the Lan side, of course).  This feels like a camp which has recently been victorious.

Beneath the campfire smoke, the air is tinged with the sulfurous scent of volcanic activity.  This implies they're in Qishan and somewhat close to Nightless City.

He should probably go over there and chastise the drunk for improper discipline, but he'll get a break today because Jiang Cheng is very confused.  Was he so distraught that he... formed a small army and marched on Qishan?  Is that a thing that people do?  Even if it is, it doesn't explain why the Lan have followed him out here.

Jiang Cheng is hardly going to admit that he doesn't know what's going on.  Putting on his best air of dignity and station, he walks up to the sentry.  

"Do you have anything to report?"

After another bow, the man answers.  "Everything has been quiet, Jiang-zongzhu.  I haven't seen any Wen infiltrators or scouts."

Of course he hasn't.  The Wen have all been dead for over a decade.  Jiang Cheng glares and assumes the man is humoring him, then walks away.  It's not looking any less likely that he did some very embarrassing things last night (or however long it took to set all of this up and march everyone out here.)  

Jiang Cheng will head towards the Lan section.  Perhaps he'll get a better idea of what happened once he sees which Lan joined this whatever-this-is.

He wakes up.

By now it is unconscious instinct for Wangji to tense upon waking, bracing himself for waves of grief and pain to come crashing down.

The grief comes as it always does, hollow and heavy and aching.

The pain does not.

He opens his eyes. Wangji is alone, which is correct, and beneath the canvas roof of a tent, which is not. His head pounds, so he cannot have lost all sensation, but his back feels like... nothing.

He sits up too quickly and flinches, expecting to feel the tearing and cracking of skin as scars reopen. That does not happen. He reaches back and touches a shaking finger to his shoulder blade: nothing. No pain. No bandages beneath his thin nightshirt.

He stands and dresses quickly in only two layers, enough to not be indecent. Exits the little tent.

He does not know what he expected, under the circumstances, but it wasn't this.

The scent of ash and sulfur turns his stomach. He hates this smell. Perhaps this is some strange new extension of his punishment, taking him back -- but no, no, that doesn't make sense. That doesn't explain his completely uninjured back, nothing explains that. He must... be dreaming then. Somehow.

Wangji looks around the campsite. 

It is quiet, though won't be for long.  The tents immediately surrounding his own are all Lan colors and their occupants are on the same early-rising schedule as Lan Wangji.  There are the beginnings of quiet rustling coming from inside of a few as the other Lan wake up.

Jiang Cheng spots Lan Wangji from several tents down in the wide pathway between them.  It just had to be Lan Wangji.  Why would he have thought it'd be anyone else.

He stomps over.  In a tone that doesn't do anything to mask his annoyance, "A pleasant morning to you, Lan-er-gongzi.  As always it's a privilege to see you setting such a good example for everyone by waking up early."

He flinches, which Jiang Wanyin will not be able to notice. He summons Bichen to his hand and draws her blade, which Jiang Wanyin presumably will be able to notice. (He may also notice that Lan Wangji is wearing his swirling silver hairpiece from when they were teenagers.)

This is a nightmare, then, but if it isn't -- and it still does not feel like a dream at all -- he cannot murder Jiang Wanyin in the middle of a crowded campsite. After a crime like that he will never get a chance to raise A-Yuan properly, if he even survives --

where the fuck is A-Yuan --

Wangji glares at Jiang Wanyin in a very heated way that means stay the fuck back and fucking explain. 

What the fuck?

He halts and backs up a step, hand twitching towards his own sword when Bichen is drawn.  With two in his hand he almost grabs the wrong one.  Though, he supposes it wouldn't matter anyway.  

He doesn't want to just ask what's going on because he doesn't want to admit to Lan Wangji that he doesn't know what's going on.  What is he supposed to say upon having a sword drawn at him?

"Is there a problem, Lan-er-gongzi?"

Is there a PROBLEM? Somehow it gets even harder to not kill Jiang Wanyin than it already was.

"Why are you here."

That is a good question.  

Jiang Cheng is initially very confused.  Why wouldn't Lan Wangji know?  However, Lan Wangji probably didn't mean it at the same scale he wants to know on.  That was probably a question about why he was on the Lan side of the camp.  That makes far more sense.  

"Do I need your permission to walk around camp?"

"Why are we in Qishan?"

"...Damn.  You don't know either?  I just woke up here and was looking for information."  

On one hand, it's nice to know that he's not the only one confused.  On the other hand, this probably means they're in serious danger.  Whatever managed to steal him from inside of Lotus Pier's defenses and also capture Hanguang-jun must be powerful.

Well.

Has anyone in the gradually-rousing Lan camp come outside of their tents yet, that he can question?

It doesn't take long before the first emerges, and several more follow in quick succession.  They don't look confused about where they are or what they should be doing about it.

He sheathes his sword and walks to the nearest one. "Summarize our movements yesterday."

Even if the random Lan thinks this request is strange, he does not think that it's his place to question Lan Wangji.

"Yesterday we reached the Indoctrination Bureau and attacked the Wen forces there.  We fought and were victorious.  We currently control this outpost and have retrieved the swords that were being held here."

Random Lan should not be able to read his shock.

Attacking the Indoctrination Bureau. This could mean...

Wei Ying, Wei Ying -- 

He nods curtly. Retraces his steps to Jiang Wanyin and looks and - sure enough, Suibian is grasped at his side. Wangji holds out his hand without offering any explanation.

"Give Suibian to me."

He doesn't want to!

It's bad enough that Lan Wangji just carried off Jiang Cheng's brother.  Now he wants the sword too?  He clings to it protectively.

"No!  It's not like he can use it any more, anyway."

This time he flinches hard enough for Jiang Wanyin to see. 

It's physically painful, how much that hurts. How much the anger hurts. His blood boils and rage nearly blacks out his vision, but attacking Jiang Wanyin in the campsite is still a very bad idea. Telling Jiang Wanyin that Wei Ying is alive (maybe, maybe, maybe, Wei Ying) and will absolutely have use for his sword again is an even worse idea.

Fine. Wangji will go get Wei Ying from the Burial Mounds (maybe) and then he can come back here and murder Jiang Wanyin over Suibian somewhere more discreet. 

He turns on his heel and stalks off, away from the camp entirely.

This gets Lan Wangji a head start, as Jiang Cheng needs to go ask someone where he is separately.  He also spends a few minutes making sure that the camp knows where he and Lan Wangji have run off to and to hand over command to the next highest ranked person.

Then he too starts flying towards the Burial Mounds.  

Wangji, of course, gets there first. Touches down on one of the rocky paths that leads up towards dark smoke and mist and black mountains. The shadow of the Burial Mounds is a touch darker than he remembers.

He runs up the path, the air growing colder and the clouds thicker the further he gets. Wangji remembers this path, and he remembers the snarl of dark, tangled trees that block the way ahead of him. He doesn't hesitate before plunging on into the howling, windy, shadowy woods. 

The Burial Mounds are not peaceful.  Their roiling darkness is not as oppressive as it had been a few months prior, but it still has a way to go before becoming the merely gloomy land that Wei Wuxian's presence would transform it into.  

The path is not quite the same as it would have been in the future.  Fetid and deceptive algae-capped pools cover dips in the path, and dead twisted trees almost seem to ambush him from spots he'd expected to be cleared.  Heavy black fog oozes from between the branches, clinging despite the wind as if it could hold him in place and obscuring everything beyond his arms reach.  Beneath, the ground almost seems to writhe.  There are so many corpses, piled on one after another, trapped within the knotted embrace of the tree roots and screaming from the muck.  Even knowing the general location of the cavern at the heart of the Burial Mounds, every step forward is hard-fought to gain and keep.

And the mostly intact corpses gather towards the intruder from across the hills.  

"Wei Ying!" he screams, though he can barely hear himself. Drawing Bichen fails to break the darkness around him. "Wei Ying!"

He forces a step, another step, leaning into the awful, clinging fog. His foot sinks deep into something soft; Wangji shudders. With the next step, foul mud seems to rise and curl around his ankle, squeezing tight for one moment before releasing him. The fog drags at him as well, pressing his chest.

In the dark and with this much resentful energy close on all sides, Lan Zhan cannot detect any encroaching fierce corpses until they are fully upon him.

This is going to make them quite hard to fight.  

The first few, which had already been wandering close by, approach.  Their mouldering clothing reeks but even that is lost in the general affront to the senses that is the burial mounds.  With their shambling gait they aren't travelling much faster than he is in the mud and roots, but they're coming from every direction and more arrive with each passing minute.

Those first ones, he dispatches easily. As more converge on him, he cannot guard every side no matter how fast Bichen flickers through the gloom. Nails scratch down the length of his arm and he hisses, quickly cutting down the offender.

Desperation flares within him; Wei Ying is in here, Wei Ying is in here and alone and without even his sword. He can only defend himself with a cultivation method that causes him pain. Wangji needs to get to Wei Ying immediately, but the constant assault prevents him from moving onward.

"Wei Ying! Wei Ying!" he cries. Something cold wraps around his throat and squeezes, lifting his feet from the clinging mud. Wangji struggles, kicking out at the nearest corpses and slashing Bichen overhead.

It is struck down, releasing him back into the muck.  Another takes its place after mere moments.  

A stalemate is reached - if he puts all of his energy towards fighting, he can keep them at bay for now.  This doesn't give him any extra energy to progress closer to the caves.

Meanwhile, Jiang Cheng has just arrived in Yiling.  He can't remember if there would still be Wen there or not, so he can't take much time to look around.  He pauses just long enough to check for any cultivators in pure white robes, then heads towards the Burial Mound itself.

Then he leaps in after him.  Jiang Cheng had been here too, once.

He has a slightly easier time getting to where Lan Wangji is stuck than Lan Wangji had - the undead between there and the outer edge having already been dealt with.  Now any they fought would be coming from the front and sides.  Uncontrolled corpses weren't intelligent enough to try flanking strategies.  They just came in waves until they were all cut down.

The black fog blocks out the purple light of Zidian as it crackles through the few that broke off their attack on Lan Wangji to get at the other target, but nothing else in the howling forest sounds quite like the crackle of lightning once he's close enough to be audible.  Followed shortly afterwards by a great deal of cursing directed at the zombies and also Lan Wangji.  Who is an idiot and could have waited for five minutes to tell him so they could have gone in here together to rescue Wei Wuxian.  What was he thinking going in here alone?

Fuck him, actually!!!

This is technically a tactical improvement over being intermittently strangled by angry fog, but if Wei Ying's life weren't at stake Wangji would take angry fog over Jiang Wanyin any day.

"If you touch him --"

Wangji is barely audible, and looking back in order to yell earns him another thin scratch. Fuck. He will yell at Jiang Wanyin later, and then also stab him.

But for now, thanks to the Zidian, he can resume forging ahead,

Jiang Cheng has an astonishing lung capacity for yelling at people, but it's true that this is hardly the time and place.  Personal issues set aside for a common goal, they fight side by side with skill and practice.

This earns them slow but steady progress towards the place where Wei Wuxian should be.

The slow progress gets easier the further they go. Fewer corpses, in this direction, and patches of the forest that are shadowed but visible, passable. The ground becomes more solid beneath their feet. There are bones everywhere, but as the resentful energy thins, it becomes easier to avoid stepping on them.

They reach a clearing that both of them will recognize, free of bodies and bones and trees. Across it, the entrance to a familiar cave. The Demon-Subdue Palace.

Wei Wuxian is inside. He knows intruders are approaching; the Burial Mounds have told him. They whispered, visitors, visitors. Bright ones. Wei Wuxian, Wei Wuxian, let us have them.

He waits, curious to see who else the Wen Sect hates enough to condemn to this fate.

It hurts to be here again. This place where for so long Wei Ying was happy (and starving, and lonely). This place that he first abandoned and then failed to protect.

It hurts.

He steps forward cautiously and calls out.  "Wei Wuxian?  Can you hear us?"

What.

He's heard plenty of voices since he arrived here, Jiang Cheng certainly among them. But never so loud and clear and isolated from ghastly shrieking.

Wei Wuxian gets to his feet and gingerly ventures from the cave, eyes narrowed. 

"Wei Ying."

He lurches a step forward, eyes wide. Wei Ying looks terrible: pale and starved and smudged with dirt. Wei Ying looks beautiful and alive. So impossibly alive. 

Well what the fuck is he supposed to do now. 

"Sorry, I didn't know I was expecting guests," he says mildly, looking at Jiang Cheng. "I would have set out tea."

(He is aware that his voice is hoarse and slightly too flat. He is aware that resentful energy drifts like smoke from his shoulders. He does not look at Lan Zhan, because wow telling Lan Zhan about any part of this had super never been the plan!)

alive alive alive alive

Jiang Cheng is at a loss for words as his face cycles through a dozen emotions.  His brother, who is brilliant and stupid and always managing to do everything he sets his mind to even when it's impossible.  His first thought is to ask if Wei Wuxian is okay, but that's... too obviously wrong.  Jiang Cheng needs to drag him back to where his sister can feed him until he stops looking so thin.  He needs to break his legs so he stops running into danger too far for anyone to help. 

He needs to hug him. 

"Never mind tea.  We're here to get you out."

"Aw, but Jiang Cheng, I'm not done with my landscaping project yet. You don't like the decor?" 

He walks forwards. He hasn't touched another living person in three months, but he's sure he can hug just fine.

No he can't.

Wangji inserts himself between them in an instant, Bichen brandished in her sheath. "Wei Ying --"

God Here It Comes

He figured Lan Zhan would be angry about -- well, everything here, everything Wei Ying has been doing to survive -- but he didn't expect him to stop him from hugging his brother just in order to be lectured first.

"Lan Wangji," he sighs, tilting his head so he only sees Lan Zhan in the corner of his eyes. "Your Gusu rules really don't say anything about waiting your turn?"

That hurts as much as it did the first time they reunited, that Lan Wangji. It should be better, knowing that this passes and Wei Ying doesn't hate him forever, but it still hurts.

Wangji exhales, doesn't move. "Wei Ying," he says again, softly. "Do not go near him."

He laughs unpleasantly. His stomach hurts. "Lan Wangji, Lan Wangji, do you think I'm going to hurt my own brother? Or no -- will you not let me leave at all? Am I so foul, you expect me to taint everything I touch? How righteous you are!"

"Wei Ying."

He is so upset at Lan Wangji for getting in the way.

"Piss off, Lan Wangji.  I didn't come out here to hurt him."

Wei Wuxian walks in a circle around Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan doesn’t stop him, just watches with his fists tight and eyes furious.

Jiang Cheng can collect his hug now.

Hug!  He clings, though it's a bit awkward knowing that Lan Wangji is glaring at him.  Look how not dead Wei Wuxian is continuing to be in his presence.

He has so much to say but doesn't know how to say it.  So many of the things he wants to talk about haven't happened yet.  None of them he wants to get into in front of Lan Wangji.  

That sounds like Jiang Wanyin's problem.

(Wangji is being very reasonable and on the lookout for danger. He is not jealous of this hug at all. He refuses to be jealous of Jiang Wanyin over anything.

Just, completely unrelated to current events or to Jiang Wanyin, Wangji would also really really really like to hold Wei Ying.)

Hug. He does not cling back, but the clinging is... nice. He thinks. Touching another body can be nice, he is reminded, if that body is alive. And intact. 

"Jiang Cheng. How did you find me here?"

That's a valid question.

He hadn't gotten a chance to discuss with Lan Wangji what they were going to say regarding future information.  Mostly because fuck Lan Wangji.  Still... Would Lan Wangji say anything?  Probably.  One of those rules of his was probably about not hiding valuable tactical information in war, or something.  Which Jiang Cheng can see the point of.  There's a part of Jiang Cheng that just wants to tell Wei Wuxian everything.  Another that wants him to never find out.  But - that's not what he's getting to choose between.  He's getting the choice between telling him or letting Lan Wangji tell his side of the story first.  

"We're from the future."

"The future." He pulls back to look at Jiang Cheng's face; he looks completely serious. "Both of you?"

He glances at Lan Zhan, who nods stiffly. Lan Zhan messing around with something like this at a time like this is even less likely than Jiang Cheng doing so. So. What the fuck.

"...Both of you together? How did that happen? Why don't you look any older?"

"I don't know.  I didn't do anything to cause it, and we weren't even in the same place.  We just woke up here, where we would have been.  Unless Lan-er-gongzi was doing anything?"  He directs that last part at Lan Wangji, looking towards him from the corner of his eye.  

Jiang Cheng had been regretful.  Devastated.  Wishing that he could have gone back, knowing what he'd learned.  But.  This had hardly been the first time he'd felt that way.  It wasn't known to invoke time travel.

Is that supposed to be humorous. No, of course he was not doing anything. 

Headshake.

Believing them is giving him a headache. Wei Wuxian sighs. "Well, Jiang Cheng, look who's done the impossible now! Shijie will be proud."

He is having another case of complicated emotions.  A-jie is still alive, now.  They could go see her.  He wants to protect her from Wei Wuxian.  He wants them to all be a family again, like they'd promised.  Jiang Cheng's still pretty sure that this trip into the past wasn't him, but it's still nice to hear that Wei Wuxian could think he was capable of anything.  They had so much to fix.  The most important parts were still broken - it was still too late for many to be repaired.  The weight in his hand is unusually heavy; two swords, and he knows now why Wei Wuxian had abandoned Suibian.  (One of the mysteries of what Wei Wuxian abandoned.)  

"...We should get out of here."

Sigh. "I guess my housecleaning isn't good enough for you, Jiang Cheng, how cruel. Is it the bones?"

"Wei Ying. Let's go."

"Go where."

"Just about anywhere that isn't a mountain of corpses."  Why.  Why is Wei Wuxian arguing with him.  "Do you really hate me so much that you keep choosing to stay here than to leave with me?"

"What? When did I ever say that? No, don't say anything, I know it's never. I don't hate you, Jiang Cheng, what the hell."

He is crying and hates that he is.  He regretted asking as soon as he did.  

"Are... I... You..." he tries to begin a few sentences before settling on one with something approaching an assertive tone.  "It's going to take hours to get you caught up on everything that's happened, and I'm not going to do it in here.  We are all covered in filth and you look more than half starved."

He glances at Lan Wangji for backup on this.  

"Please. Wei Ying."

Ahaha what the fuck is happening.

Siiiiigh. "Fine. I'll come as long as someone pays for wine, how's that?"

"Agreeable."

Ahahaha What The Fuck Is Happening.

They are here to rescue him.  Jiang Cheng isn't sure how this is unclear.

Well he picked up on that. He remains unclear about why Jiang Cheng is crying and why Lan Zhan agreed to buy alcohol for him!

“Alright, alright, alright, let’s go. Why are you both still staring at me like that, go on!”

Gladly.  

They leave the way they entered.  It's still grueling and unpleasant, but the undead immediately along the path have already been taken down.  Getting back to the edge of the Burial Mounds is simply a matter of wading through the foul-smelling mud and tripping roots and unnatural screaming fog.  Wei Wuxian is kept safe between them.

The sky is dark when they get out, and they make their way to the Yiling Inn without further challenge.  

He tears himself briefly from Wei Ying's side in order to pay for a room upstairs and a solid meal: rice, soup, steamed buns. One order of tea and two bottles of wine.

Wangji carries a tray of the tea and wine over to their table, sets it down. He gives both bottles of wine to Wei Ying and pours him a generous cup of tea. "Food coming."

Jiang Cheng has been sitting quietly.  Thinking.  Brooding, if he were being honest.

He'd wanted to be the one to tell Wei Wuxian, but now that it was approaching a point where he had to he is also dreading it.  Not enough that he'd let Lan Wangji be the one to do it without him.  Still.  He's gone through enough diplomatic dinners and unpleasant conference meetings that he hopes he can manage this one.  Lan Wangji is maybe not as bad as Sect Leader Yao?

He keeps glancing at Wei Wuxian, looking so thin and pale.  Remembering the future, watching him collapse.  Jiang Cheng feels the wrongness of Wei Wuxian being anything but strong revolving in his chest and in the weight of the two swords which he'd set well out of arm's reach so Lan Wangji would let him sit down next to his brother.  

The wine is decent. Wei Wuxian is playing a fun game called: how much wine can he drink before someone tries to talk to him about his Problems. So far he's fucking acing it.

Wangji is staring fixedly at Wei Ying. The innkeeper brings over their food and he barely notices.

Right here. Alive, Wei Ying, right here. Those are his eyes, eyebrows, lips. That is the correct movement of his throat as he drinks. This is all Wei Ying, truly, right here. Really here.

Yes, alive.  As he's been for the past two months or so of the future.  Much of which was in Lan Wangji's presence.  Now that their primary shared goal is finished Jiang Cheng is going back to finding Lan Wangji a bit creepy, staring like that.

"Let's start at the beginning and go in chronological order," he states with a sigh once the innkeeper is out of their way. 

"Right around when you were captured, the Sunshot Campaign began - all of the other great sects against the Wen.  Lan Wangji and I retrieved our swords, then started looking for you together.  We originally found you later than this, after you'd left the burial mounds.  You were in the process of killing Wen Chao."  That'll have to happen again, one way or another.  Something he is looking forward to getting to do again.  

"You had... new abilities.  A black flute and a stygian tiger seal, which assisted in the war.  We... weren't careful enough.  Demonic cultivation corrupts the user.  Though - that was later."  He's struggling to stay chronological, and he hasn't even gotten through the first year.  They'll get back to that in a moment.  Jiang Cheng takes another breath.

"Anyway.  The war ends.  Jin Guangshan wound up with the Chief Cultivator position, because he's a coward who held back and let everyone else do the dirty work, meaning they were still at full power.  Gusu Lan and Yunmeng Jiang were rebuilding, but fragile.  

"The Jin were abusing their prisoners - the last of the Wen.  Including Wen Ning.  None of us had the political power to stand up to the Jin and survive.  

"You did anyway.  You broke them out, travelled to the Burial Mounds with them.  I told you I couldn't protect you from the fallout, and you told me that - that I shouldn't.  You defected.  We staged a fight, enough that everyone in the Jiang sect would be safe from the Jin.  You lived in the Burial Mounds again, for a while.  Long enough that A-jie got married.  To Jin Zixuan.  Had a son."

“The peacock? How’d you let that happen, Jiang Cheng, and why, were you sleeping?”

Wen Ning. The idea of Wen Ning held prisoner in any capacity, after he’d done nothing but help and risk himself, makes his fists clench and tremble. His ears roar.

Kill them first. Kill them all. Wei Wuxian, don’t you want them ruined?

"She loved him.  I couldn't stop her from going.  I never could stop anyone from going.  You both just... left."

Breathing.  This isn't even the worst part.  They need to get through all of this.  Convince Wei Wuxian of this.  Jiang Cheng doesn't know how to fix anything, but Wei Wuxian can do anything.  He'd never really stopped believing that.  Not when they became enemies.  Not when Wei Wuxian died.  He'd kept looking.

"And he did improve, over time.  Before he -"

"I mentioned that there were side effects to demonic cultivation?

"Over time, you'd been getting less and less stable.  Angrier.  Less reasonable.  I mean, I always said you were unreasonable before, but it was worse.  Really, leaving to go back to the burial mounds in the first place might have been the first sign.  I hadn't seen the pattern, then.  

"A-jie invited you to Jin Ling's one month celebration.  Jin Rulan, you named him.  We'd visited, in secret, months before.  So you could give him a courtesy name.  A-Ling hates it, by the way.  You hadn't gotten any better at naming things since you named your sword." 

Jiang Cheng realizes he's putting it off.  

"On your way there, you met up with Jin Zixuan and his retinue.  And Wen Ning was with you.  He'd died, at the camps.  You'd brought him back as a fierce corpse.  Damn, why can't I tell this in order?  A new kind of fierce corpse - stronger, and able to think.

"You lost control, and attacked them.  His entire retinue was killed.  You ordered Wen Ning to tear out Jin Zixuan's heart."

More wine. More wine is the appropriate course of action here.

“He lost control. You do not know what he ordered.”

"Fine.  He ordered Wen Ning to do something and Wen Ning tore out Jin Zixuan's heart.  Maybe that was Wen Ning's idea; he's surprisingly vicious.  Afterwards, Wen Ning and Wen Qing left the burial mounds to turn themselves in.  For all the good that did.  Jin Guangshan wasn't satisfied.  He called everyone to Nightless City.

"And you.  Or the Yiling Patriarch.  Whatever you were, by then.  You showed up.  Fought.  I was there - the group of Jiang cultivators I brought with me were initially just standing there, trying to stay out of it.  We thought we were recognized, at first, but then we were attacked too.  

"And A-jie ran onto the field, looking for you.  One of your fierce corpses struck her."

He chokes on his wine. "No. No, that wouldn't happen."

"Did you think I was joking when I said that demonic cultivation corrupts a person's mind?

"As for the rest.  Once A-jie was dead, you... I'm not sure what it was you did.  Something with the stygian tiger seal that shattered half of it and sent the other half into the milling crowd.  It made the living people start attacking each other.  Hanguang-jun was there too.  Attacking his own side.  I think that might have been before then?  It was more evidence that you'd developed something to control living people too."

"There wasn't anything left.  Of you, once you did that.  I knew you wouldn't if you weren't already gone.  No way left to bring you back.  Just a danger to everyone else still alive.

"I killed you."

He drinks more wine.

He laughs, eery in its unsteadiness. Tosses his head back over the chair and sprawls with his eyes on the ceiling. "Good. Good, very good, Jiang Cheng."

He keeps giggling.

Jiang Cheng isn't lying. He knows about the Stygian Tiger Seal when nobody in this present but Wei Wuxian should know that name. He might be wrong, but he isn't lying.

"Wei Ying."

"Ah, sorry, sorry Lan Zhan, I'm -- being loud during a meal, and also being a mass murderer, those are against your rules aren't they! How uncourteous of me! I -- ha, I --

Why are you here, Lan Zhan, did you come to punish me?" He clicks his tongue. "So presumptuous. Lan Wangji, correcting my course is Jiang business and not Lan, no one asked for you --"

"I was not under your control."

"-what?"

"Never was I under Wei Ying's control." Magically speaking. "I chose to fight for you." (Late. Too late, too late, too late.)

"I'm not here to punish you.  I'm trying to warn you, and to fix things so they'll go better this time."

Snort. "Yeah, sure, Jiang Cheng, you know how much I ever do what I'm told. By you in particular! Tell me this -- you say my Chenqing assisted in the war. How much? It was important, wasn't it?"

"There will be another way." No one can see the Stygian Tiger Seal. No one can conspire against Wei Ying in order to steal it. Never.

Exasperated sigh. "What way, Lan Zhan?"

Well for one thing you could use your SWORD. Or a bow and arrow, or literally anything other than the tools that actively harm you.

Wangji doesn't say that. He knows how well it will go over if he tries. (What do others know about my temperament, and why should it be their concern? Who do you think you are?) 

"I will figure it out."

He rolls his eyes and tries to drink more; the bottle is empty.

Has he been eating too?  Does Jiang Cheng need to nudge one of the dishes closer to him before he'll remember?

Jiang Cheng is also trying to come up with ideas.  "Perhaps if the Jin had committed more of their forces."

He has not been eating, but does so when nudged.

"You think we should rely on Jin Guangshan."

"I think he needs to be dealt with for other reasons too.  It would be rather convenient if Jin Zixuan were to take command of Carp Tower before any of the other events can get set into place."

"Wei Ying should not be involved." Nothing that could possibly paint a target on his back from any angle. Never again.

"Lan Zhan. Don't you trust me at all? Even after all the time we’ve spent together?"

"Not safe."

Jiang Wanyin should go kill Jin Guangshan, since killing in cold blood is a hobby of his. Maybe he could get himself killed in the process, that would be efficient.

But he might also leak information that endangers Wei Ying.

Wangji should to it himself, then, but it will be difficult to kill both Wen Ruohan and Jin Guangshan before Wei Ying can get near them.

SIGH. 

"Where is the peacock now, anyway? Do you already have Jin forces with you?"

"We'll have a better chance if we work together."  He says this to Lan Wangji, and is resigned to the fact that Wei Wuxian is going to be coming along anyway.  Jiang Cheng is not looking forward to dealing with more of Lan Wangji, but at least his current insistence that Wei Wuxian avoid using demonic cultivation is reassuring.  The way that Lan Wangji had been willing to protect what had looked like a possessing spirit had not been.  

"I don't remember seeing Jin tents before I left, but I'm sure that someone knows their location.  They would have sent his sword off to the right place."

"Qinghe." He had seen Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli in the Unclean Realm before leaving to find Wei Ying.

"Uh huh. So what's the plan then, we kill Jin Guangshan and then ask them to send more troops away from Lanling during the upheaval? Fat chance."

All the other sects have taken losses. All the other sects are still fighting on the front lines. The war has been nothing but upheaval. 

"You literally already know how to win this war, both of you! The one path to guaranteed success is letting me do whatever I want, yeah? That's how you won last time. For all you know, that's the only way to beat Wen Ruohan!"

"And we know how it turned out after the war, too!"

"It's not like killing Jin Guangshan is going to be easy, Jiang Cheng. Unless you let me..." He raises his eyebrows.

"No."

"You don't like our ideas?  Then why don't you start thinking of other ideas, because we aren't going to let you use demonic cultivation."

He huffs. "Fine, maybe you should try frowning at him until he shrivels up and dies."

"This is no time for jokes, Wei Wuxian!"  Jiang Cheng is too riled up.

Wei Wuxian needs more wine. He waves off Lan Zhan, who tenses furiously beside him. "Alright fine, no jokes. No jokes. The truth is, I am not going to hold back from winning this war and saving lives if I am able to do that. I am not going to hold back from tearing Wen Ruohan limb from limb if I am able to do that. I can destroy them, Jiang Cheng, the people who slaughtered children at Lotus Pier, I can end them. I'm not going to let you -- not either of you stop me from destroying them. I won't go too far, not this once. Any single plan you can come up with will still be made easier by my Chenqing."

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.

"Ah, Jiang Cheng, don't cry. It's not a big deal, yeah? Everything will go better this time. Let's wait and cry in front of Shijie sometime, okay? She actually knows things to say when people are upset, she knows what to do, you know that both of us are useless."

He nods.

Jiang Cheng needs to sit down and take a careful look at his priorities and figure out what he actually wants.

Haltingly, "I hadn't been a good brother, the first time around."  Can he change that too, and not just the world?  

“Ah? Oh, don’t worry about that, everyone kills their brother once in a while.”

Lan Zhan snaps back to attention. “Don’t joke.”

He shakes his head. “Seriously, Jiang Cheng, it’s okay.”

It is NOT okay.

Oh right, Lan Wangji is still there.  Jiang Cheng will glare at him.

Fuck you.

...weird. Wei Wuxian will just... finish his soup, while these two resolve whatever glare fest they're putting on.

It is impressive how odious Lan Wangji can be without even talking.  

Jiang Cheng is not going to win any glaring contests with someone who had just seen him cry.  Also, he is exhausted.  Yesterday (or however time worked now) had been awful, and today hadn't been much better.  

Was there anything else that needed to be mentioned about the future?  He thinks they've covered the biggest things.  The only thing left was the golden core.  That would need to be said.  Not in front of Lan Wangji, though.  Jiang Cheng already was going to have a hard time sleeping in the same inn as Lan Wangji as it was.  He didn't want to get stabbed in his sleep and the last thing he needed was another thing that Lan Wangji would blame him for.

He'll be going to bed now.

Ah, okay. No one will stop him.

Jiang Cheng has his choice of two bed-alcoves, each broad enough to comfortably fit two people without them needing to touch or acknowledge each other's existence.

He picks one at random and prepares to sleep.  This ends in him lying with his back to one of the walls.  Zidian stays on his wrist as always, but he doesn't bring the swords to bed.

Wei Wuxian stops trying to smile as soon as Jiang Cheng is in bed. His face relaxes into exhausted misery.

"Were you there?"

"When I k--

When I killed Shijie. Were you there."

"The killing strike was not yours."

"My fucking puppet then, Lan Zhan."

"The killing strike was not yours. She pushed you out of the way as a human man attempted to kill you."

That's... more painful, actually, to hear. That hurts.

Of course she would! Even after Wei Wuxian had left her behind and murdered her husband and ruined everuthing, of course Shijie would still let him be the reason she lost her life. 

Wei Wuxian has always known that he doesn't deserve his sister, but until now he didn't realize quite how much.

"I'm lucky Jiang Cheng is even willing to look at me," he mutters to the table.

Jiang Wanyin is lucky that he hasn't already been violently murdered.

He takes one glance at Lan Zhan's face and laughs humorlessly. "Why do you hate him so much, Lan Zhan? He can't have done anything more annoying than I subjected you to in our classmate days."

Wangji is caught completely off guard by this not being obvious. He stares at Wei Ying. (Right in front of him, still, pale and miserable and unwilling to trust him and alive.)

"Killed you."

An even emptier huff of a laugh. "Beat you to it?"

Wangji wants to ask, do you truly believe I would ever aim to harm you?

He does not. He already knows the answer.

Wei Ying invited him to fight to the death on two separate occasions. At Nightless City, Wangji had rushed to the rooftop to calm him down, get him out of danger. 'I knew it,' Wei Ying had said, then. 'I knew that one day we would have a real fight.'

And Wei Ying had turned the Stygian Tiger Amulet against him, and Wangji had drawn his sword just to get close to him, just to get close enough for Wei Ying to listen -- 

and proved him right. Proved to Wei Ying that Wangji was willing to kill him, that he could ever, ever, ever bear to harm him, and Wei Ying died not knowing any different.

"No," he says at last, hoarsely. 

"I have never wanted Wei Ying to hurt."

"Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan. Don't - ha. Don't say something like that. I'm not the same Wei Ying I was, I'm not. You'll be disappointed in me again - you're already disappointed in me, in what I was last time, aren't you? You must be. And I'm gonna make decisions you hate and use tools you hate, and I'm dangerous, you and Jiang Cheng both said so, please don't say you won't hurt me before you know what I'll put you through."

"I will never want you to hurt." There is nothing Wei Ying can put him through more painful than letting his love die.

"Stop it, Lan Zhan!"

He doesn't know where this is coming from or what this is, exactly, what feelings Lan Zhan may or may not be having right now, but he knows for certain that he isn't deserving of them. Lan Zhan has had two years for his memories of Wei Wuxian to soften, but Wei Wuxian is fresh from the Burial Mounds: a wreck of himself and halfway a demon and not ready to meet anyone's expectations from any timeframe. 

"If I lose control and wreak chaos, don't tell me you'll just sit there on your ass."

"If I kill your brother, your uncle, you? Come on, Lan Zhan. I'm everything your sect has taught you to extinguish since you were born, I thought lying was forbidden for you Lans."

"Wei Ying has not yet done anything --"

"Cut it out, Lan Zhan. You know what I'm capable of, you know what my Stygian Tiger Seal is for."

"You never need use it."

He won't allow it. They have more time to figure this out, don't they? Wangji already has more music scores memorized than he did to begin with, last time, it must be enough. He will make it be enough.

"I will not allow it to pass."

He can't even be properly angry that Lan Zhan feels entitled to sticking a nose in his business and keeping him on a fucking leash, because apparently future Wei Wuxian has already done more than enough damage to make that appear necessary.

"Ah, Lan Zhan. You're too good, you know, trying to save absolutely everyone at once. Too good. Really, you're spending so much effort trying to convince me you value my safety, who told you you had to do that? I won't be offended that you're keen on saving hundreds of lives, seriously. Fuck, I wouldn't be offended if you decided to cut the crap and tried to kill me right here!"

"Ai, Lan Zhan, don't look at me like that without at least buying me another drink first," he mutters eventually, looking away. "Have mercy on this poor criminal."

"I. Do not. Want. You. To die."

SIGH.

"I need. You. To live."

-- well what the fuck is That. What the fuck is he supposed to do with that, what is that, what is his heartbeat doing, what.

That's -- too much. Too much to understand and certainly too much to shrug off with a sigh. He can't -- can't. Can't. Lan Zhan doesn't know what he's talking about and Wei Wuxian doesn't know how to be whatever Lan Zhan mistook him for, and -- he is both too sober and not nearly sober enough for this.

"Lan Zhan," he says, aching.

"-- I'm alive right now. I'm - I -- I do plan to live, Lan Zhan. I promise. And I am not planning to become the scourge of the cultivation world. I swear it, that that isn't what I want. I promise. Is that enough for now? Isn't it late for a Lan, shouldn't we be going to bed now? I really really don't have enough wine."

Slow nod.

Wei Ying definitely does need sleep. He looks like he might collapse at any moment and the circles under his eyes are dark enough to compliment Chenqing. 

“Okay.” He stands. Cocks his head to the side and grins unconvincingly. “I assume you’d prefer I spare you needing to snuggle up to Jiang Cheng.”

“Don’t.”

“Oh? Ah, then you do want to snuggle up to him?” 

“Do not sleep near him.” 

“Lan Zhan, if you want me in your bed so badly you could have just said so.”

Yeah okay it’s a bad time for dumb jokes, that’s fair.

Wei Wuxian flops down in the unoccupied bed, then, still fully clothed and with Chenqing tucked in his belt. He remembers at the last minute to halfheartedly kick his shoes off. The prospect of sleeping on something soft is strange and alien to him, after all this time. Not uncomfortable, but oddly discomfiting.

He plays off his own strangeness with some prolonged huffing and flopping, twisting to try different positions and make himself comfortable.

Wangji pays as little attention as possible to the squirming, huffing Wei Ying in his bed. (...so, most of his attention.)

He extinguishes the candles and draws the curtains within the room, stalling.

He lays down beside Wei Ying in the dark. This does interesting things to his pulse. 

“I’m surprised, Lan Wangji, you really are willing to get in bed with such a despicable weapon. You aren’t that worried about my Chenqing after all, then?”

I would let you do anything you like with me, he does not say. You can kill me however you like.

He has never been frightened of what Wei Ying’s cultivation might do him.

Sigh. 

“Lan Zhan,” he whispers into the dark minutes later. “I hurt you in the future, didn’t I.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, I know I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to. I’m sure I didn’t.” He has the urge to take Lan Zhan’s hand and squeeze it. He does not do that. “I don’t want to do that again, I really really don’t. You can go, Lan Zhan.”

"I will not leave."

Hopefully Lan Zhan has some nice dreams. One of them should probably get a good night's rest, and Wei Wuxian doesn't particularly intend to. If he has a nightmare, he might lash out accidentally; he can't be sure of himself. Better to meditate and hold tighter to the control he has over the resentment of Yiling Burial Mounds. Containment.

Besides, he couldn't sleep right now if he wanted to. Wei Wuxian's thoughts and feelings are buzzing too rapidly, flitting back and forth and filling his head like bees. Jiang Cheng, Shijie. The Stygian Tiger Seal. Wen Ning. Shijie.

Lan Zhan.

They are still buzzing by the time dawn breaks.

Jiang Cheng dreams. 

Wei Wuxian is holding him down and prying out his own teeth to shove into Jiang Cheng's mouth.  Wei Wuxian hollowing himself out until he's nothing more than a paper lantern painted with glowing red eyes.  Being back in the Cloud Recesses as a teenager, but everyone is being chased by their lanterns.

He wakes, and refuses to go back to sleep.  It would be best to not stay in bed and have to deal with anything else his mind comes up with.  

Wei Wuxian isn't immediately visible, so he goes looking.  

Oh, of course they are in the same bed.  Jiang Cheng makes a small noise that is possibly less annoyed than it is hurt, then stalks off to sit at the room's table. 

There isn't anywhere for him to go.  It would be monumentally stupid to go out.  Doing so would only get him captured, meaning he's trapped in the inn.  He's almost tempted to go down to the main room and demand wine then make Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian deal with a drunk Jiang Cheng first thing in the morning, but discards that thought almost immediately.

His swords could use polishing.  There's nothing else to do.  Jiang Cheng starts with Suibian, wishing that the sword would remain sealed.  It recognizes him and unsheathes, and he sets to work.

Wei Wuxian sits up a few minutes after he hears Jiang Cheng move around. He rubs his eyes and looks around; the room is still very dark. Lan Zhan is a still, soft silhouette beside him.

He creeps out of bed with great effort to be quiet, though he isn't entirely sure why he bothers. Back in the Xuanwu's Cave, Lan Zhan slept like a rock.

Wei Wuxian sprawls down beside his brother. "Jiang Cheng, you're doing my chores for me now?"

"No."

Jiang Cheng is sulking.  Instead of expounding on his answer, he continues polishing Suibian.

"I know that you won't use your sword again."

Jiang Cheng isn't sure why he's bothering to polish it, really.  It's useless.  He wasn't expecting that he'd be seen doing it.  Habit, he supposes, from all the times he'd maintain Chenqing in his brother's absence.  

"I know why."

Oh fuck.

His fist tightens around Chenqing. "H - Who told you? Did Wen Qing tell you?"

"No.  I wish she had.  I wish you had."

He's almost more upset about never finding out than he is about the transfer itself.  That had been.  How Dare he.  How dare Wei Wuxian lie and trick him into taking part in something that he must have known Jiang Cheng would never agree to.  But - a worming pain hidden beneath the anger agreed with Wei Wuxian.  Jiang Cheng was worthless.  Not clever, not persuasive, not skilled with art.  If he didn't have cultivation, he might as well not exist.

"I would have wanted to know.  All of those times I tried to push you to use your sword-"

What would Jiang Cheng have done, if he'd been told right afterwards?  Yelled, probably.  

No wonder Wei Wuxian hadn't wanted to tell him.

His own hand tightens on Suibian, enough to leave thin lines of blood from the exposed blade.  He doesn't notice.

Wei Wuxian notices. He hisses through his teeth and bats at Jiang Cheng's injured hand. "Ai, Jiang Cheng. You'll just have to clean the whole thing again, put that down. Come on."

"Don't get distracted," he huffs, but checks his hand.  The sword is reluctantly put on the table.

"Well?  Do you have anything else to say?  Or is your only point that I can't even clean a sword, let alone have the right to know about things?"

"Jiang Cheng. This doesn't have anything to do with you being incapable of anything, it never did. Your natural ability, it has nothing to do with that. It's about you having the right to live. If your leg had been cut off the exact same way and you'd been starving yourself to death the exact same way, of course I would have done the same thing! Nothing to do with thinking you're too short, that you're not good enough. You deserved to have your own golden core, the one you earned and worked for all your life, and I know that. I'm not the one who took that from you, Jiang Cheng, it was already gone and it was never coming back and you were dying."

"That's not the part that -" bothers him, he was going to say.  But of course it fucking bothers him.  "That's not what I was asking about."

Sure seemed like the part he was sulking about. "Then what are you asking?"

"Why didn't you tell me afterwards?"  

"It wouldn't be fair to you if you knew."

"Fair to me...?" he echoes, puzzled. 

"What.  Because you can't trust me not to start shouting it to the whole world and embarrass myself?  Wei Wuxian telling me to be more careful of my image in front of others?  Well.  Given what I immediately ran off and did after Wen Ning told me, that's probably accurate."  

"Are you serious? No! Because it's - made you all upset, just like this! When you didn't ask for it and you wouldn't have accepted it, how is it fair to dump a thing like this onto your lap? It would be unfair for you to know and feel bad."

"So instead I spent the entire time up until you died harping on you for not using regular cultivation.  How much demonic cultivation did you do, just so that it wouldn't look suspicious?"

"I don't know, Jiang Cheng, so far it hasn't been any. I don't know how much it was in the future you came from. I can't tell you."

He nods. 

Jiang Cheng starts wiping the blood off of his hand.  Suibian still needs to be cleaned, and that at least is a manageable amount of mess to deal with.  

"I can go get some water for that."

"That's a good idea."

He ventures downstairs to retrieve some more water from the innkeeper.

And he wakes, first to an empty bed and then to the sight of — an empty room, no sign of Wei Ying, and Jiang Wanyin is cleaning blood from his hands —

Wangji bolts out of bed, Bichen flying to his grip, eyes wide with fear. “You —”

Jiang Cheng jumps up at the metallic noise of Bichen's movement.  His hand moves towards his own sword, ready for danger.  Lan Wangji is looking at him?

"Lan Wangji.  Do you summon Bichen and threaten the first person you see every morning?"

"Where is Wei Ying?"

Jiang Cheng glares.  He doesn't appreciate how Lan Wangji keeps pointing a sword at him.  And now Sandu has blood on it's hilt where he grabbed it.  That's one more thing that needs to be cleaned.

"He'll be back soon."

"What did you do?"

... Actually saying 'I grabbed the wrong end of a sword and sliced my hand open,' is far too embarrassing for Jiang Cheng to manage.  Also none of Lan Wangji's business.

Wangji runs past him, Bichen still drawn, and darts out into the hallway of the inn. He doesn’t know where to go, what he’s expecting to see, but Wei Ying isn’t in the room and that means Wangji needs to find him —

Wei Ying is halfway up the stairs from the inn's lobby, carrying two jugs of water on a small wooden tray. He blinks. "-- Lan Zhan? What happened, are the Wens --"

Wangji lunges forward and grabs his arm. "Wei Ying."

Wei Wuxian flinches, jerking his arm back.

A dull pain bursts low in Wangji's stomach. Even after their discussion last night, his touch is unwanted. That's -- fine. Whatever Wei Ying needs. He lets go of his arm. "Where are you hurt?"

"What?"

"Where did Jiang Wanyin hurt you?"

"Did he tell you that I got hurt?? Lan Zhan, I'm fine! Look at me and how well I'm carrying this water tray, I'm good as new. Aiyah, what's gotten into you?"

"There was blood."

"Oh - ohh. No, Lan Zhan, Jiang Cheng was just a cranky fool and squeezed his own sword too tightly, you know how he can be. I'm getting this water to help him clean up. Do you really think you could've slept through Jiang Cheng trying to murder me in the very same room? He yells when he's angry, the whole inn would've woken up before he was done!"

"Ahh, let's go, let's go, everything's fine." He takes Lan Zhan by the arm and pulls him along back up the stairs, patting his shoulder.

Touching is happening again, suddenly, apparently? Wei Ying doesn't mind touching him after all?? Wangji is not sure what this Means but he certainly doesn't object; it feels like breathing gets easier, when Wei Ying acts so comfortable.

They return to the room.

"Here you go, Jiang Cheng." He stops patting Lan Zhan in order to hand over the water.

He takes the water.

It was too much to hope for that Lan Wangji would somehow miss Wei Wuxian and wander off into the wilderness somewhere.  He gestures to the spot as far away from himself as possible while still being at the table.  "Have a seat, Hanguang-jun.  You must be tired after such a long trip."  Not to mention all that jumping to conclusions - after he'd left, Jiang Cheng had finally realized that he'd just been accused of stabbing his brother.

Wangji pointedly sits a foot to the left from where Jiang Wanyin indicated, still at a far distance. Wei Ying flops down at the table between them.

At the very least he does not make any comments about how Jiang Wanyin must be tired after performing such innovative sword technique. But he thinks it. Loudly.

He finishes bandaging his hand.  Lan Wangji is pointedly ignored, and Jiang Cheng angles himself away to indicate that just because they're at the same table does Not mean they're talking to each other this morning.

More carefully, this time, he starts cleaning the swords.  Suibian had been left unsheathed so his blood wouldn't wind up inside of the scabbard, so it should be cleaned first.  Then Sandu only has a bit of blood on the hilt.

He hasn't seen Suibian's blade unsheathed in years. 

It must be a good sign, surely, that Wei Ying opened it today. It feels like a very bad sign that Jiang Wanyin is the one holding it. 

-- did Wei Ying lie to him, about being unhurt? Seeing blood on both swords...

Wangji gazes intently at Wei Ying, focused, as though a hidden wound might reveal itself on Wei Ying's face at any moment.

"So, what's our plan for the day? I hope you've both come up with something good, since apparently I'm not allowed to make choices. If you don't have a strategy, I'll have no choice but to sit here in Yiling like a mindless radish until more righteous cultivators arrive to boss me around!"

He is ignoring Lan Wangji's creepy watching and absolutely not glaring because he is focused on his task.  Look how clean these swords are.

"I want to go to Qinghe first.  A-jie is there."  

He really wants to see his sister.  Jiang Cheng has to ignore the dread in his chest at the thought, but Wei Wuxian needs to see her too.  Wei Wuxian is... probably safe - it took the entire Sunshot Campaign and whatever he'd been doing at the Burial Mounds with the Wen before he became dangerous, and they've rescued him early this time.  They were never supposed to be separated.  If anyone can convince him of that, or give him a reason to stay, it will be their sister.

Wei Wuxian would really like to see his sister too, as it happens. It does frighten him, the thought of getting close to her again when he has the possibility within him of destroying her entire life. Killing her.

He won't let that happen. He would rather die than let that happen. If even the slightest thing happens to put Shijie at risk because of Wuxian, he'll have to leave immediately.

"I'm glad she made it there safely," he says in a soft voice. "Who else is there? Has anyone important died or gone missing or something like that that I should know about?"

"In the months we had looked for you?  Not that I recall."

He's really hoping there wasn't.  Jiang Cheng has had an extra decade to forget details, and he doesn't want to give Lan Wangji the opportunity to correct him.  

Wangji does not recall anything either.

That may or may not be good, given what important people apparently get up to after they win the war. "I'm going to get more wine before we leave."

"Yeah, fine."  

He wonders if Wei Wuxian is using drinking as an excuse to not fly.  

Time for more wine. Wei Wuxian vanishes off downstairs quickly so that he won't hold them up. He's eager to see Shijie again.

Lan Wangji does not fly into a panic the moment Wei Ying leaves his line of sight, though he looks pretty displeased. He is entirely aware that Wei Ying is capable of buying wine without getting hurt. He is entirely aware that Wei Ying can protect himself quite well under most circumstances. Knowing these things doesn't diminish the sensation of fear.

Jiang Cheng continues to ignore Lan Wangji.  He gets ready to leave as quickly as possible.

Wei Wuxian reappears a few minutes later. They can leave! He'll just... ride with Jiang Cheng, then. Casually.

Yep, that is a perfectly normal brotherly activity.  If it had been anything to remark upon or draw attention to, Jiang Cheng would have been complaining.  Instead he just nods. 

He will be so careful to keep Wei Wuxian from falling.

He had better be.

Fine. They can go like this to Qinghe.

Jiang Cheng doesn't like the thought of his brother falling any more than Lan Wangji does.  He had been there when Wei Wuxian died, too, after all, or at least something which had once been Wei Wuxian.

He picks an altitude high enough that Lan Wangji will have plenty of time to catch him if he falls anyway, but not so high that the air will be uncomfortably cold for someone without a golden core.  It makes logical sense for Jiang Cheng to be in front, so he can see where he's going and block the worst of the wind.  This leaves him anxious for the entire trip, not trusting that Wei Wuxian will hold on tight enough.  That he won't just pull his hands away from Jiang Cheng and fall, without Jiang Cheng being able to grab him back.

If he'd been a better person, he could say something like 'If you need to go anywhere, just tell me.'  Wei Wuxian deserves that.  It's his golden core making the flight possible at all.  Instead, Jiang Cheng is stressed out enough to feel like he never wants to leave the ground again.

Wangji does not exactly expect for Jiang Wanyin to toss Wei Ying off his sword, but his eyes stay glued to the two of them in front of him all the same. The entire ride to the Unclean Realm he watches for the slightest sign of danger, even with wind sharp and unforgiving in his eyes.

Wei Ying does not fall. Wei Wuxian keeps one hand on Jiang Cheng's shoulder for support; the other holds Chenqing behind his back. 

He hates this -- hates flying without feeling any connection to the sword beneath his feet, without power and confidence thrumming through his body, without a golden core. The world feels empty and flat, and he is powerless. It reminds him of his last sword ride. The one that had ended with Wen Chao hurling him down...

So no, Wei Ying does not fall, but for the entire journey the memory of falling claws at his bones. At least Jiang Cheng cannot see him sweat and tremble.

They finally land a bit outside of the Unclean Realm and approach the rest of the way on foot.  Sentries identify them and let them pass into the fortress itself.

The courtyard has been turned into a hospital.  Wounded cultivators lie in uneven rows of stretchers, having been carried in from the battlefield for treatment.  Healers and those too young or weak to fight tend them, kneeling by the sides of the fallen or running this way and that carrying medicine and bandages to where they are needed.  Jiang Yanli is one of them, though it takes a careful eye to recognize her.  She's wearing a simple and faded robe that doesn't stand out well from the gray.

It does take longer than usual to spot his sister, but not long. Never long. Even looking as worn and exhausted as she does now, exhausted enough to break his heart, Jiang Yanli is a radiant person.

Wei Wuxian drifts across the courtyard until he stumbles to a halt behind her, chest tight. Chenqing burns against his palm.

"Shijie..."

Yanli turns slowly, half expecting that she was just imagining the quiet voice.

"Xianxian," she breathes, looking up at him.  What happened to him?  He looks awful.  Yanli slowly stands, not taking her eyes off of him as she approaches for a hug, making her face into a smile because that's what A-Xian needs.

HUG. "Shijie," he whispers, tears stinging his eyes. "I've come back."

She holds him, reassuring herself that he's really there.  Over his shoulder she looks at Jiang Cheng.

Physically, he isn't pale or thin or hurt.  Emotionally, he looks like he hasn't seen her in thirteen years since he watched her bleed to death in his arms.  He wants a hug too, but is being patient.

He turns to Hanguang-jun.  Jiang Cheng has already lost more face than he wants to in front of him and knows he's not going to get through this without more crying, so he would really like it if Hanguang-jun would stop following them for the evening.  He bows, polite and formal.  "I thank you for your assistance in reuniting Wei Wuxian with A-Jie.  But now we really must discuss things as a family."

Wei Wuxian blinks back tears before turning and nodding to Lan Zhan in affirmation.

Fine.

Yanli has no context from which to assume Lan Wangji would even want to join them.  She bows, then drags her little brothers over to their guest suite and sits them down.

"We were so worried.  Where have you been?"  She is, in fact, still worried.  A-Cheng is openly crying now that they aren't in public, and that's not a good sign.  She reaches out to hold A-Xian's hand, and her other hand reaches to settle his hair.  They're all together at least.  Her worst fear has been averted.

"I'm sorry, Shijie, I didn't mean to be away for so long. I'm all in one piece.  Have they been taking good care of you here?"

"Don't worry about me, A-Xian," she says, tapping his nose playfully. "Qinghe has been most welcoming.  I enjoy having the chance to visit, though I wish it had been under better circumstances.  It's been busy working with the medics but its good that I've had the chance to help in some way since I couldn't go looking for you myself."

"I knew I could trust A-Cheng to bring you back.  That sounds like it must have been quite a story." she says, turning to Jiang Cheng.  Perhaps he'll be willing to tell her something?  Yanli didn't miss that A-Xian didn't tell her anything about where he'd been.

Jiang Cheng doesn't want to be on the opposite end of the table anymore.  He scoots to one of the closer sides and hugs her, clinging like he's drowning.  He attempts to explain.  The explanation does not start out especially coherent.  Jiang Cheng takes a breath.  

"This should probably wait until we've eaten.  And Wei Wuxian has gone to bed."  He's already heard it, and there's no reason to make him sit through it twice.  Jiang Cheng pulls slightly out of the hug to address Wei Wuxian for a moment.  "You look even more tired than you did yesterday," he accuses him.  

"A-jie.  The short answer is that I've gone back in time.  So has Lan Wangji, though from 11 years earlier than I was.  No, I don't know how.  You and Wei Wuxian both die, in the future.  Thirteen years before the time I came back from."

Oh no!  She shifts herself so that she's hugging him instead, her arms wrapping over his.

Yanli doesn't want to leave them after hearing that, but yes they absolutely need food.  After another minute of hugs, she excuses herself to hurry to the kitchens and start preparing something.  That's something she can do, and also something very important.  She still doesn't know what happened to A-Xian, but from how thin he is it looks like it involved not having enough to eat.

Shijie is being too nice to him, really, of course she is. The last time they were together, Wei Wuxian had gone behind her back to put her asleep and send her away in Yiling. He still squirms with guilt about that.

Not to mention the fact that he kills her. He doesn't deserve any soup right now, but Shijie is still herself.

He sighs and sprawls back in his seat. "Have you looked in a mirror lately? We all look tired."

"I'm not the one trying to keep hold of mental stability through whatever demonic cultivation you've already done in the Burial Mounds.  Lan Wangji wasn't keeping you awake by staring at you or anything weird like that, was he?  If he does anything to make you uncomfortable I'll break his legs."

"What, no! Jiang Cheng! Lan Zhan doesn't stare. I just had a lot to think about. Don't you think you should be more worried if I slept easily, after everything you told me? You want me to just snooze around knowing I'm supposed to fly off the handle and kill everyone?"

"Try anyway.  Sleep deprivation isn't going to make you any more clever or stable."

Will food help with being clever or stable?  Because Jiang Yanli is back and setting down the bowls.  

"Shijieee, you're too good to us." Gripped by a sudden desperation to seize the food before it vanishes, he barely refrains from snatching his bowl and gulping it down at once. That would alarm the both of them, probably, and they don't need anything more to be alarmed about.

A-Xian can have as many bowls as he wants.  His Shijie is very happy that he's eating, no matter how fast.  

Jiang Cheng eats at a normal pace.  He had the recipe, in the future, but not his sister.  It's her that he focuses on.

Yanli takes over the conversation.  She'd been shown Nie Huaisang's aviary along with the rest of the Unclean Realm shortly after arriving.  Describing her favorite birds sounds like a safe enough subject.  Far better than wounded soldiers or war.

He likes listening to her talk! And the soup is tasty and filling wonderful, certainly better than anything he deserves. He thinks his tongue forgot it could taste anything so delicious.

He makes no effort to bring the conversation around to anything more urgent or serious, even once two and a half bowls are empty and he's had enough. That can be Jiang Cheng's job.

Jiang Cheng is content to stay quiet for a surprisingly long time.  He doesn't know what to start with.  Oh, wait, yes he does.  "Wei Wuxian, now that you've eaten you should go to bed.  You look terrible."

He scoffs. "Are you trying to get rid of me? What about you?"

He doesn't appreciate being caught at that.  And he is also very tired. 

"A-jie still needs to be told everything, and you'd get it wrong if I left you to do it."

"Jiang Cheng, who says you're gonna get it right?" He narrows his eyes. "You just don't trust me to be near her."

Dealing with Wei Wuxian after so many years feels like coming back to an instrument after long enough for the callouses to fade, like there's a part of his mind getting blisters from the now-unfamiliar contact.  He wants his brother back, and is terrified of losing him.  He also wants him to go away, because he is too much and it hurts.  He's so tempted to storm off, prove him wrong by leaving him with A-Jie and just go to bed himself, but he isn't going to shirk his responsibility no matter how much it pains him. 

So of course he does what he always does, and shouts something he doesn't mean.  "It's not like I don't have good reason not to."

Whatever is going on, this is unacceptable.  She is not going to let her brothers fight when they've only just been reunited.  Both of them need to be here.  She puts her hand on A-Xian's shoulder comfortingly.  "I think A-Cheng needs some time to calm down.  Do you really want to stay up?  We can step out for some fresh air, then come back."

Wei Wuxian's hands have curled into tight, trembling fists. That's -- bad. He doesn't want to be threatening, he doesn't want to be a danger to his family. He should calm down. He should lash out so that Jiang Cheng can punch him already; that would probably make both of them feel better.

-- but that would not make Shijie feel better, that would make Shijie feel even more stressed and sad, that would be unacceptable. Getting punched is unfortunately not on the table right now.

"Whatever," he grits out, not looking directly at either of them. "Stay with him, Shijie, I don't need anything."

Jiang Cheng sits still and watches as Wei Wuxian turns to leave, then suddenly speaks up before he can leave.  He offers terse directions to the guest room.  "You'd better not get lost and make me go looking for you for breakfast."

"I think I'll manage."

He strides out, face stormy.

She braces for the worst.  Tea sounds like a good idea.  She prepares it while A-Cheng collects himself. 

Jiang Cheng has, for better or worse, pretty much cried himself out already.  Which isn't to say that this retelling is logical or well put together.

He tries to start out chronological.  This is... hard.  Some of the things he'd done turn out to have been unspeakable, even before they got to Wei Wuxian's death.  Not in that they were worse - or even as bad - as the things the Wen had done.  Merely in the literal sense that they catch in his throat as he tries to say them.  How is he supposed to look A-Jie in the eyes and tell her that he'd threatened a comatose patient who had saved his life twice?

He forces everything out anyway.  It's easier to speak to her than anyone else, even after all this time.  Easier in a cozy, dimly-lit room than looking at the cold cenotaph at the heart of Lotus Pier.  That makes it possible at all, but it's still muddled.

She is patient, and mostly quiet.  Having already expected this to be terrible, she had sat at the same side of the table where she could easily reach over to hug him.  Feeling how and when he tenses under the arm she has wrapped around his shoulders is more honest than facial expressions anyway. 

At the final battle of Nightless City, when he struggles to keep going, she brings over a jar of a strong Qinghe province wine.  She pours a cup for herself, then hands over the rest. 

He drinks and keeps talking.

He already knew he'd made mistakes with Wei Wuxian after his resurrection.  Squandering every opportunity that he'd been in his presence.  Expecting that Wei Wuxian would just bounce right back towards him no matter how often he shoved him away.  That he would keep his promise.

Did Wei Wuxian resent him because Jiang Cheng hadn't somehow known what he'd done for him?  How was that fair?  That asshole, leaving and not coming back.  He'd go to the Burial Mounds, to Cloud Recesses, but never to Lotus Pier.

He tells her about the golden core transfer.  He doesn't mean to, but he doesn't have control over his mouth.  And about how he'd really been captured in the first place.  He can't even get sacrifice right, when he tries it.  Wei Wuxian wound up captured and golden core-less anyway.

She clings, and cries.

Jiang Yanli is angry.  At the world, and a bit at all three of them.  But.  She doesn't think of herself as the sort of person to be angry.  She knows that she will forgive them.  Always.  So she might as well do it now.  Besides, they have enough of thinking that they hate each other when they don't; the last thing that needs to happen is more misunderstandings.

Jiang Cheng hates that she's crying.

He wishes he could make Wei Wuxian tell her.  But this Wei Wuxian doesn't have first-hand experience.  It was always better to have first-hand accounts than to rely on rumors and gossip which could grow and mutate, even among people who had better memories than Wei Wuxian.  He was such an inconvenience.

They reach the long stretch of time where nothing really happened, and there's a long digression about Jin Ling.  "He learned to swim in Lotus Pier," he says, face almost in a smile.  "In the same pond that we all learned in."

Jin Ling, coming back from Lanling with his first tiny bow.  He insisted on trying the kite-shooting exercise that he'd read about, but couldn't even hit stationary targets.  This had improved.  He was a good archer - the best of his age group in Carp Tower or Lotus Pier. 

Jin Ling, hands covered in ink, paper covered in childish scrawls.  First attempts at handwriting and painting that were indistinguishable from each other.  Each one was kept. 

He shakes.  He doesn't know what's going to happen to Jin Ling now.  Will he even be born, even if Jiang Cheng manages to arrange A-Jie's marriage again?  A-Ling, but raised by someone who had any business raising a child?

Jin Guangyao's name comes up, inevitably, and his crimes.  Jiang Cheng had never realized how unobservant he was.  And yet, it seemed to be a theme.  Not knowing what Wei Wuxian needed.  What Wei Wuxian did.  What Jin Guangyao had been doing.

And speaking of complete assholes: Lan Wangji.

He'd been holding Wei Wuxian up as he had dangled over the side of that cliff, when Jiang Cheng had approached and shouted and swung his sword around and wasted time until Wei Wuxian had slipped.  Lan Wangji had claimed yesterday that he hadn't been under Wei Wuxian's control.  Jiang Cheng still isn't sure he wants to buy that.  Would he know?

But.  He also saw Lan Wangji as Wei Wuxian had escaped Carp Tower after his identity had been revealed.

He tells her what happened when he first woke up, back near the Indoctrination Bureau in the past.  Lan Wangji had pulled a sword on him just for saying hello.  He's also apparently not allowed to clean his own wounds without being threatened.  Lan Wangji has been rude to him for over a decade, and is only escalating.  After he helped him and everything!  What a menace.

"But he still went with you to help A-Xian," she says.  She knows how to see things in the gaps of what her brother's say, and has suspicions that Lan Wangji is motivated by love.

Jiang Cheng is Absolutely Refusing to have suspicions involving Lan Wangji's motives.  As far as he is concerned, Lan Wangji is entirely inscrutable. 

"You trust him to be on A-Xian's side, though?"

"I... expect him to do whatever he thinks is best for Wei Wuxian," he admits, sullen.  "But not that he'd know what is.  Back in this time, the first time, he'd been adamant against the demonic cultivation before anyone else.  He seems to be now.  So far.  But I still remember ten years of him opposed to my tracking down of demonic cultivators, and then just letting Wei Wuxian wander off doing demonic cultivation like it is suddenly okay."

"Yes.  I suspect that they love each other, too.  That's good, right A-Cheng?"

He huffs.

Jiang Cheng says nothing about how he hates it.  Why should he care if Wei Wuxian wants to leave.  Good riddance - he's a trouble maker.  Or A-Jie, with Jin Zixuan.  He had never been anyone's first choice, and he'd never been able to win any competition.  And that's.  Fine. 

She is proud that Jiang Cheng has figured out the value of giving information to people.  There is more here than she can reasonably work through right away, in fact.  She supposes that finding out about his golden core and all of Jin Guangyao's hidden crimes would do that.  She hopes that this this conviction to make sure everyone stays on the same page is a lesson that sticks.

He has not managed to work out how to speak about feelings.  Nor has anyone else. 

She hugs him, and he doesn't put up even a token resistance.  "Your brother loves you.  I love you."  When he predictably starts crying at this, she holds him for a while.

Then it is off to bed with him, because he also needs sleep.  She doesn't care if he is in his thirties, he is still her little brother.

As for herself, she can't sleep.  Jiang Yanli realizes that she'll pay for this later, but she can't bring herself to lie still for the remaining... not very long at all, any more.  It has been a long night. 

Besides, she has something she very much wants to do, on top of keeping her hands busy and her mind distracted.  She makes another batch of soup, this one more suited to the Lan palate, extra gentle on spices and lacking meat and as always very very good.  Some Lan, she knows, will eat other foods outside of Cloud Recesses, but she doesn't know Lan Wangji's tastes in particular.  She can always make him a normal batch later if she finds out differently.

At the reliable Lan wake-up time, she packs up a generous portion and goes looking for a chat with Lan-er-gongzi.

As it happens, Wangji is right at this moment on his way to the Jiangs' quarters.

Last night after leaving them, he went and reported to Sect Leader Nie that the Indoctrination Bureau had been taken, the hostage swords retrieved, and Wei Wuxian rescued.

He does not go into any detail about the latter. Nor does he mention any time travel. Wangji retains a complicated respect for Nie Mingjue, but he will never trust him again as he did when he was first this age. Nie Mingjue turned his back on the Wens and turned his sword on Wei Ying. Wangji will entrust his brother alone with his memories of the Sunshot Campaign, and Brother can figure out how to best feed Nie Mingjue the appropriate strategic information. No one else needs to be told.

Lan Xichen is still missing; as Wangji remembers, he won't reappear for another few weeks. He knows there is no need to worry, but anxiety still snags at him. It is difficult being back in this time and place where his two most important people had both been missing or dead. It feels like something is urgently wrong. He needs to be out in the field looking for Brother and Wei Ying right now.

The solution to these irrational fears is to meditate them away, but first Wangji wouldn't mind reassuring himself of Wei Ying's safety in person. As soon as he wakes, Wangji heads back to where he left the Jiangs. 

When he sees Jiang Yanli approaching him he stops in his tracks and bows, feeling oddly caught.

She returns the bow.  Jiang Yanli can instantly tell where he was going and finds it extremely cute.  He wants to check up on A-Xian!  What a good thing for a potential future brother-in-law to be doing.  She had already looked in on her brothers as she was leaving but she doesn't mind doing so again on her way back.  They're closer to the Jiang guest quarters than the Lan ones anyway. 

"Lan-er-gongzi.  Would you care to join me for breakfast?" 

Awkward nod.

She retraces her steps back to where she started, once again checking on the sleeping Wei Wuxian as she passes his room so that Lan Wangji can do so too. 

"Thank you again for finding A-Xian and bringing him here," she whispers.  "My brothers mean so much to me.  Though we should let them rest for now.  A-Xian has sleep to catch up on and isn't good at rising as early as everyone does in Cloud Recesses."

Seeing Wei Ying still feels like being unable to breathe and yet breathing for the first time in two whole years. He nods, eyes still trained on the door to Wei Ying's room. "Wei Ying should sleep."

She will skip A-Cheng's room this time.  She goes to the table with her soup.  Two bowls are set out and soup is ladled into each. 

"Would you prefer to eat in silence and then speak afterwards?" she asks, remembering the way meals worked in Cloud Recesses.  It shouldn't apply while they're in Qinghe, technically, but there's no need to make her guest uncomfortable.  Meals are about enjoying food, not being efficient.  They have the time.

Slow half-nod. "Unless there are urgent matters."

"Nothing urgent, no."

And they can eat in silence.  The soup is amazing. 

She's happy with how the meatless variant turned out, and tries her best to read Lan Wangji's expression to see if he likes it too.  He is a person who is so very important to her little A-Xian, who is so very important to her. 

He does enjoy the soup, although it's difficult to stay absorbed in the taste when his mind runs off to so many other fearful places. He drags his mind back to the present again and again; when they finish eating, he thanks Jiang-guniang sincerely. 

Jiang Yanli is pleased! 

"Yunmeng does have non-spicy food, even if A-Xian does usually prefer our spiciest dishes," she says.  "You need to come to Lotus Pier once the war is over, and I will make you even better soup.  There's nothing like using roots fresh from a Yunmeng lake.  We have a perfect climate for them to grow.  I remember spending hours at a time looking out at the flowers from the quiet pavilions."

"I would visit."

He would like to help rebuild those quiet pavilions. He would like to be there for Wei Ying this time, after the war.

"A-Xian will be happy to have you there." 

She doesn't speak further on that.  Getting Lan Wangji and A-Xian together is a pot best left to simmer for a while.  It will be better if Lan Wangji and A-Cheng are on better terms first.  Her family needs to stay together.  She doesn't know if there's any chance for Lan Wangji to decide to marry into Lotus Pier instead of taking A-Xian to live in Cloud Recesses, but it won't hurt to try. 

"I was hoping to speak with you about your plans for changing the future.  Is there anyone else who you think ought to be told?  A-Cheng thinks it should be kept to only a handful of trusted people and doesn't intend to tell anyone except his siblings, but we don't know what your thoughts are on the subject."

“He is correct. Few people can be trusted to treat the information well.” He sips his tea. “I will inform Zewu-jun of the circumstances when he is found, but I will not tell Wei Ying’s future to anyone.”

Interesting.  Are the Twin Jades of Lan not on good terms with each other?

"Zewu-jun is widely known for being respectable and wise.  I was relieved to hear that he will be found safe.  A-Cheng hadn't mentioned much to me about Zewu-jun beyond that he is still the Lan Sect Leader in the time he came from."

He nods slightly, but does not elaborate.

"That sounds fine.  You do know him best, after all.  I will see that A-Cheng knows how much Zewu-jun will be told so there aren't misunderstandings later."