The first time they had<\/em> met, unofficially, Wei Ying was trying to sneak in cigarettes from a gas station all the way down in Caiyi Town. He’d never smoked before, he’d confessed while Lan Zhan confiscated them. Now that he was away from Yunmeng was his and his brother’s chance to try all the things he couldn’t! Lan Zhan had flushed the toilet with the cigarettes in the bowl twice that night, in case Wei Ying didn’t hear it the first time.<\/p>\n He doesn’t understand Wei Ying, and that pisses him off even more. He ignores the question and goes to move past him.<\/p>\n Wei Ying blocks his way. “Lan Wangji, Lan-er gege,” he says, batting his eyelashes. “I was looking forward to making new friends this summer! And I think you should be friends with me.”<\/p>\n “Your priorities should be on your schoolwork,” Lan Zhan says stiffly.<\/p>\n Wei Ying rolls his eyes. “No, my priorities should be on having fun. Hey, where do you keep the alcohol around here? Is there a kitchen somewhere?”<\/p>\n “Alcohol,” Lan Zhan says through gritted teeth, “is prohibited in the Cloud Recesses.”<\/p>\n Wei Ying sighs. “Man, no alcohol, no cigarettes. Next thing you’re gonna tell me no sex or rock music is allowed either.”<\/p>\n When Jiang Cheng calls Wei Ying’s name then, Lan Zhan makes his escape. He needs to keep a wide berth from Wei Ying, lest he lose his patience.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n When Wei Ying gets detention, Lan Zhan is tasked with overseeing him.<\/p>\n “Yes, Uncle,” Lan Zhan says, because he knows he is his uncle’s star pupil, the most disciplined cultivator of his age, and more responsible than anyone else in the classroom. This takes priority over whatever other\u2026 feelings he has about Wei Ying.<\/p>\n The Gusu Lan library is one of the biggest buildings in their sect: three storeys up, and three storeys down. The detention rooms are on the third floor, which Lan Zhan and Wei Ying make their way up to on the giant wooden spiral staircase, after their lessons.<\/p>\n Wei Ying clutches the railing and pants dramatically as they reach the third floor. “We made it,” he says, as if his face has colored at all. “Is this part of the punishment too? Making me walk up so many stairs?”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan ignores him and continues on, only pausing for a second to make sure Wei Ying is following him before making his way through the rows and rows of bookshelves. Containing nearly a millennia of knowledge, the library was one of Lan Zhan’s favorite places in the sect whilst growing up. He liked to spend afternoons reading, to the point where he has read nearly half the works in the collection. Or when his mother was alive, he would bring a book with him on his monthly visits for her to read out loud to him; and in the last few months prior to her death, he had read out loud to her. Browsing through the library looking for something she might enjoy is one of his favorite memories here.<\/p>\n He is sure in the coming weeks he will be making some of his least favorite memories here, with Wei Ying.<\/p>\n Wei Ying chatters about the books and the library and how the one at Yunmeng Jiang doesn’t compare, as he had chattered about the staircase and the size of the grounds the entire way here. Lan Zhan is tempted to use the Gusu Silencing Spell on him, although he and his brother had been taught to only use it in extreme situations, as it is only a family discipline, not a sect discipline like it was centuries ago. Still, Wei Ying may be an extreme situation. He’s an extreme everything, that’s for certain.<\/p>\n The detention rooms are smaller than a bedroom but bigger than a bathroom, with three low tables and talismans to prevent the use of electronics inside. On the center of one table in each room is an inkwell, a calligraphy brush, a stack of empty scrolls, and one folded scroll: Gusu Lan’s 40,000 Rules.<\/p>\n Lan Zhan leads them into a room, and gestures to the table with the rule book. “Your punishment,” he says, inflecting as little as he can, “is to copy the rules of the sect.”<\/p>\n Wei Ying widens his eyes. “What, like the first hundred?”<\/p>\n “No,” Lan Zhan says. “All of them.”<\/p>\n “All of them\u2014there’s no way I can copy all of them today! Do you know how many there are? Is it even possible to copy them in a lifetime?”<\/p>\n “Yes,” Lan Zhan says stiffly.<\/p>\n Wei Ying squints at him. “Don’t tell me\u2014have you gotten in trouble before, Lan Zhan?” he says, now teasing. “How many times have you<\/em> copied them? Is that why you know the rules so well?”<\/p>\n “I have copied them,” Lan Zhan says, “as a practice of self-discipline.”<\/p>\n Wei Ying stares at him.<\/p>\n “Are you saying you did it for fun<\/em>?”<\/p>\n “Sit down,” says Lan Zhan, instead of responding to that. He sits on the cushion beside another low table, and takes a book out of his messenger bag. “Begin writing. Today, you will not leave until you have completed one thousand.”<\/p>\n Wei Ying scrambles to the table and unrolls the scroll\u2014surprisingly delicately, but not without emotion. “You expect me to write one thousand of these ridiculous rules today<\/em>?”<\/p>\n “In calligraphy,” Lan Zhan adds.<\/p>\n Wei Ying eyes the brush mutinously. “What’s the point? This is so old-fashioned. Can’t you guys put the rules on a website or something?”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan stares at him. “The point,” he says, doing his best not to grit his teeth, “is self-discipline. And yes. We do have the rules on the website.” He turns back to his poetry book.<\/p>\n “The point is self-discipline<\/em>,” Wei Ying mutters under his breath. “The point is modern torture devices, that’s for sure.”<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Cultivation and calligraphy has evolved in such a way from the ancient times that, with the modern cultivator’s ability and access to spiritual energy, among newer inventions and practices, it is much faster for one with a stronger and more developed golden core to do calligraphy than the cultivators in the past, or the average human. So it takes Wei Ying roughly four hours to breeze through the first ten thousand today, exclaiming, “Done!” as he finishes the last stroke on rule 10,000, and whines, “I never want to hold another calligraphy brush again.”<\/p>\n “You will have to tomorrow,” Lan Zhan says, putting his book away.<\/p>\n And Wei Ying does. Afternoon upon afternoon, they walk to the library together, Wei Ying talking about some nonsense and Lan Zhan pretending not to hear him, sitting in the same detention room, Wei Ying inscripting a thousand rules each day. It reminds Lan Zhan of the first month he had ever copied them, when he was ten years old and looking forward to the routine. Though this is not a routine he looks forward to, he tells himself.<\/p>\n One afternoon, Wei Ying says out loud, as he writes (which is not an infrequent occurrence), “Stay on the righteous path<\/em>. What does that even mean? Who’s to judge if a path is more righteous than another?”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan turns a page in his poetry book (it’s a different one today.) “There is only one righteous path.”<\/p>\n “Really?” Wei Ying says. “You know all the other paths that could possibly exist then? You’ve discovered them all so you can say that?”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan merely looks at him over his book, then goes back to reading.<\/p>\n Wei Ying sighs and flops down on the ground. “You Gusu Lan\u2014and you<\/em>, Lan Wangji\u2014” and the use of his courtesy name almost startles Lan Zhan “\u2014are so obsessed with this one<\/em> path, this one<\/em> way of being righteous, when the world is so much more complicated than that! Isn’t it better to set out to be righteous and follow your heart? Who needs forty thousand rules for that?”<\/p>\n “Humans and their hearts are prone to poor judgment,” Lan Zhan says, without looking up.<\/p>\n “So? What’s life without some mistakes?”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan does not mention how he had made a mistake on last week’s class assignment because he had been thinking about supervising Wei Ying’s detention, although the memory makes his ears hot. He continues reading, rather than replying to Wei Ying.<\/p>\n It is of no matter, as Wei Ying sits back up and announces, “I’m done, anyway. And I have a little present for you, Lan Zhan.”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan immediately feels wary. Rather than waiting for Wei YIng to present it to him, he puts his book in his bag and stands up to leave.<\/p>\n “Lan Zhan! Hold on, you don’t have to be so cold,” Wei Ying says, with a very put-upon pout. “In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile. Which is why I drew this!”<\/p>\n He flourishes another scroll Lan Zhan hadn’t noticed along with the scroll of rules, and Wei Ying’s copy of it. It is<\/em> a drawing, of Lan Zhan with a faint smile. In the drawing, he is reading the poetry book he was reading today, and for some reason, Wei Ying had decided to add a flower in his hair.<\/p>\n It is realistic and stunning. Lan Zhan feels the words thank you<\/em> begin to bubble out of his throat.<\/p>\n “Oh wait,” Wei Ying says. “Hold on, I have to fix something.”<\/p>\n But he doesn’t pick up the brush again; he puts his thumb in his mouth and pricks the pad with one of his teeth, before pressing the blood on his thumb to the back of the scroll\u2014a talisman, Lan Zhan realizes, on the other side that he hadn’t seen earlier. Much of the drawing does not change, but\u2014<\/p>\n The cover of the book in the drawing changes from the poetry book into a picture of a scantily-clad woman.<\/p>\n “Wei Ying!” Lan Zhan shouts, despite his better judgment. But Wei Ying’s already scrambling up from the ground, grabbing his things, and trying not to fall over from laughing.<\/p>\n “Enjoy the present!” he says. “Don’t be too mad! See you tomorrow!”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Summers pass, and then they come again. With them come guest disciples, but as Lan Zhan’s uncle’s summer program is focused on young and less experienced cultivators\u2014or those at the appropriate age, regardless of how experienced they may be\u2014Wei Ying has no reason to return. Lan Zhan has no reason to expect him to return in any other summer.<\/p>\n He graduates when he is eighteen, despite his golden core being fully-formed for a few years now, despite that he has gone on nighthunts, both with his sect and alone, so frequently and successfully that his title of Hanguang-jun<\/em> is no longer whispered with awe just amongst his sect. Jin Guangshan jokes about him teaching Meng Yao, one of his illegitimate sons, how to be a proper cultivator, which Lan Zhan has no interest in doing. No one has his phone number, so every day Gusu Lan starts getting letters requesting for his assistance on commission. This began when Lan Zhan was seventeen, so once he graduates, he goes out to find the trouble himself, liberating resentful spirits and abolishing evil as he finds them, free of charge. Soon the letters sent to Gusu and addressed to him stop, as Lan Zhan begins finding the chaos before it finds him.<\/p>\n In the spare moments between, he occasionally encounters other cultivators on night-hunts. They are typically awed when they see him, especially when he greets them and asks them if they need assistance. And so as Lan Zhan hears a cultivator nearby this night, surely on a hunt, he makes his way through the brambles to see if they need help.<\/p>\n “Shit,” he hears a voice say. And then: “Fuck<\/em>. Why can’t I get this right?”<\/p>\n The voice is vaguely familiar; Lan Zhan tries not to think of summers, of late mornings and early afternoons. The magic cast around his cardigan and sneakers (a gift from Lan Huan when he had graduated) makes it easy to push through the forest, until he can see the cultivator better.<\/p>\n It’s\u2014Wei Ying. Three years later and taller\u2014though not as tall as Lan Zhan\u2014and even in the approaching dusk, he looks alright. Skinner than Lan Zhan remembers, but lively and here<\/em>, red ribbon in his hair and black skinny jeans on his legs just like when he was fifteen.<\/p>\n The same feeling that had gripped him when he was fifteen takes over again, except this time Lan Zhan knows what it is. It’s want<\/em>.<\/p>\n “Goddammit,” Wei Ying curses again. Lan Zhan can’t see what he’s doing, although it involves crouching in the dirt, holding something close to his chest.<\/p>\n Lan Zhan asks, “Would you like some help?”<\/p>\n “Holy shit,” Wei Ying shouts, and jumps to his feet. It’s hard to tell what he was doing from here. “I\u2014Why didn’t you\u2014Lan Zhan<\/em>?”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan nods.<\/p>\n Wei Ying’s face is narrower than he thought, but he breaks out into a full-fledged grin when he sees him. “Or, should I say, Hanguang-jun<\/em>?” he says. “I heard what you’ve been up to. Going where the chaos goes, so I should’ve figured out you’d find me one day.”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan nods again. “Are you night-hunting?”<\/p>\n “I\u2014Yes,” Wei Ying says. “I just dropped something, but it’s not a big deal, I was just being dramatic.” He throws his head back and laughs.<\/p>\n Now that Lan Zhan can get a closer look, he notices a few more differences. Wei Ying’s gait is defiant, but defensive\u2014not like the carefree confidence he had during his summer in Gusu. There are shadows under his eyes. He’s wearing a red hoodie, which is not unusual, but it is sizably bigger than it needs to be. Lan Zhan is unsure if this is because of how skinny Wei Ying has gotten, or because he has adapted oversized hoodies into his wardrobe, or both.<\/p>\n A crow flies down and lands on Wei Ying’s shoulder. It begins to eyeball him. Lan Zhan glances at it, but Wei Ying merely smirks.<\/p>\n “My friend, Qing,” he says, petting its small black head. “She’s a good judge of character. I think she likes you.”<\/p>\n “Thank you, a-Qing,” Lan Zhan says to her.<\/p>\n Wei Ying laughs again. “Man, you were never that nice to me<\/em>. I’m jealous, Qing,” he says to his bird. “They say that receiving kindness from Hanguang-jun will guarantee you luck for the rest of your life.”<\/p>\n He is so bright, the moon before the night has even settled, that Lan Zhan’s heart tugs again. It is hard to think that Wei Ying believes the words he is saying, but his mouth still formed the shapes. Suddenly looking at Wei Ying feels like too much and not enough at the same time.<\/p>\n Wei Ying turns around to pick something off the ground and shove it into his pocket before waving to Lan Zhan. “Well! Back to the hunt!”<\/p>\n “Have you eaten?” Lan Zhan blurts. Then: “My treat.”<\/p>\n Wei Ying blinks at him. “Do I look like I’ve eaten?” he says, then snorts. “Don’t answer that. What the hell, is this Hanguang-jun<\/em> actually choosing to bless me with his kindness? Who needs nighthunts when I’ve got you?”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan’s ears feel warm. He nods and starts to lead them out of the forest.<\/p>\n “Truly who is more honorable than Hanguang-jun? Paying for a meal with me<\/em>,” Wei Ying continues. “Of course, just because you’re the most honorable doesn’t mean you’re always correct. I<\/em> think I’m splendid company, but I know you’d disagree. Huh, Lan Zhan?”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan opts not to answer.<\/p>\n They make their way out of the forest and into the nearby town, small but welcoming. Lan Zhan points out the inn he’s staying at when Wei Ying asks. Wei Ying doesn’t seem that interested in it, though, as they make their way through the streets, passing little hole-in-the-wall restaurants until Wei Ying points out one he’s interested in.<\/p>\n Their table is outside, so they sit and order as the waitresses gawk over Lan Zhan, and fuss over the lack of meat on Wei Ying’s bones. Wei Ying says, “Ah, guniang, I’m doing my best! Food is a luxury for some these days.”<\/p>\n When she leaves after taking their orders, Wei Ying adds, “I’m joking, obviously. For me, anyway.”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan chooses to think more about the sparkles in Wei Ying’s eyes rather than the absence of a bag or wallet, although the Yunmeng Jiang clarity bell had been visibly tucked into his belt loops. There had also been something in the pocket of his jeans that Lan Zhan couldn’t see earlier, but now under the streetlights, and especially as Wei Ying takes it out and puts it on the table, it is clearly a black, sophomorically carved flute.<\/p>\n “Just a little something I picked up a while back,” Wei Ying says airily. “Got inspired by all those lectures on musical cultivation from your uncle.”<\/p>\n “Admirable choice of instrument,” Lan Zhan says, because he means it. “I will let my uncle know.”<\/p>\n Wei Ying bursts out laughing; the pleasure overtakes Lan Zhan so much he feels as though he might drown in it. “You’ve changed these past few years, Lan Zhan,” he says. “I can see it.”<\/p>\n “As have you.” Lan Zhan’s eyes stray to Qing, still on Wei Ying’s shoulder.<\/p>\n Wei Ying’s hands are back in his hoodie pockets. It kind of looks like he’s holding something; a shift of his hand, and Lan Zhan sees a furred head in one, although he can’t tell what it is.<\/p>\n “What is that?” he asks Wei Ying.<\/p>\n “Oh, he’s sleeping,” Wei Ying says. He doesn’t pull it out, doesn’t clarify. “So do you treat all the cultivators you run into on nighthunts to dates, or am I special?” He bats his eyelashes.<\/p>\n Lan Zhan elects not to answer, and Wei Ying snickers again. “A man of silence as always, I see,” he says. “But that’s part of your charm. I’m sure all the girls think that.”<\/p>\n He is so happy and lively and here<\/em>, and Lan Zhan wants to push him up against a tree and kiss him breathless. They eat their dinners and say goodbye and Lan Zhan departs for the night.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n “Did you hear?” says Lan Huan. “Wei Ying was pardoned by Yunmeng Jiang.”<\/p>\n It takes a moment for the words to catch up to Lan Zhan. From the dining table, Lan Qiren looks up from their local cultivator’s newspaper with alarm.<\/p>\n “Pardoned?” he asks Lan Huan.<\/p>\n “As in removed, yes,” Lan Huan replies, to their uncle’s unasked question. “No one knows the reason why, though. Or at least, none of the main family will disclose why.”<\/p>\n The implication remains unsaid: Wei Ying being removed from the sect as a disciple also means he was disowned by his family. Lan Zhan’s chest feels empty.<\/p>\n “Has Wei Ying said anything?” he asks.<\/p>\n Lan Huan shakes his head. “No one even knows where he is. You’d think, as the first disciple, to get pardoned so suddenly, he could certainly benefit from the publicity. But a-Sang said he just vanished.”<\/p>\n Lan Qiren straightens out his newspaper. “I am surprised,” he admits gruffly. “That boy loved to talk in excess, but his level of cultivation was almost as high as a-Zhan’s.”<\/p>\n Now that he is no longer fifteen, Lan Zhan can think easily that he and Wei Ying were on equal levels of cultivation. Are<\/em> on equal levels of cultivation.<\/p>\n “It is a shame,” Lan Huan agrees.<\/p>\n “And did they not just announce the wedding of their eldest daughter?” Lan Qiren says. “They must be trying to distract from the scandal disownment could surely stir.” He scoffs.<\/p>\n Lan Zhan remembers seeing the wedding invitation in the mail. It seems cruel, suddenly, and his stomach feels tight. Wei Ying had always seemed close to his martial siblings back in that summer, bothering Jiang Cheng when he wasn’t bothering Lan Zhan, telling everyone who’d listen how good his shijie’s cooking is. How needlessly wicked, to announce the wedding of Wei Ying’s martial sister that he can’t even go to.<\/p>\n A loud crack!<\/em> in the room breaks him out of his thoughts. Lan Zhan looks down. He had been chopping mushrooms for dinner, and now the thick wooden cutting board has been split in half.<\/p>\n “A-Zhan?” Lan Qiren says.<\/p>\n Lan Zhan quickly scoops up the mushrooms and grabs another cutting board, before discarding the broken one. “I apologize, Uncle. I had not been controlling my strength.”<\/p>\n “Evidently,” his brother says, though he’s smiling. “A lot on your mind, didi?”<\/p>\n “No,” says Lan Zhan, even as he remembers that he told Wei Ying he would tell his uncle that he had picked up music cultivation, and had not done as promised. It feels like a cosmic joke to remember it now, as Wei Ying seems to have disappeared from the cultivation world entirely.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n China is a large country. Lan Zhan always reminds himself of that whenever he travels to somewhere new. The largest country in the world, land mass, population. Anyone could be anywhere; every time he finds himself in a new town or city or small village on the other side of the country on top of the mountains where his head feels light, even when he was brought up in Gusu, he will encounter someone new.<\/p>\n When he was younger, he thought he wanted to be like his uncle: in love with the theory of cultivation, researching what it meant and how to enhance one’s journey on the righteous path. Now he spends his day to day travels looking for gui<\/em>, or guai<\/em>, or perhaps a parent while holding hands with a lost child. He hadn’t thought of it as a job; he doesn’t get paid, nor does he need or want to. But then the days pass, and then the months pass, and then the years pass. And again, Lan Zhan wakes up at five in the morning in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar building, drinks a bowl of complementary soy milk for breakfast, and says goodbye to the blushing receptionist.<\/p>\n Chaos does not have plans, so neither does Lan Zhan. He goes where he needs to go. If trouble does not follow, then it will come. So he travels by sword, his brother’s gifted Jordans on the flat surface of the blade as he travels from west to central China. He thinks fleetingly of Yunmeng, before willing the thought away as quickly as it had come. He settles on a small, closed off town, with some but not an abundance of spiritual activity.<\/p>\n The streets are not in great shape, but then neither are they in most towns Lan Zhan stumbles across. It seems relatively busy as it is midday, but busy<\/em> in this town seems to mean about twenty people on the street at once. Not a single car drives by as Lan Zhan disembarks from his sword, although there are certainly parking spaces. One person on a bike bypasses him on the sidewalk. He had seen farmlands just a little further south on his way here.<\/p>\n When he’s on the ground, he has a better sense of the spiritual energy in the area. It seems to be all concentrated in one area. Lan Zhan closes his eyes and focuses on his golden core, reaching out with it to see what he can find. Two blocks down and one block across is a building where it seems to be coming from. He opens his eyes and makes his way over.<\/p>\n As he rounds the corner, he can clearly tell the building it’s coming from\u2014a cafe, by the looks of it, lingering spirits and a resentful energy so strong like it’s chanting dead dead DEAD<\/em>. This, however, he is prepared for.<\/p>\n What he is not prepared for is the figure sitting on top of the building, overlooking the street, one leg dangling off the edge.<\/p>\n Lan Zhan thinks he is hallucinating. Dreaming, perhaps. The hoodie is new, the white cat is new, the slim and full adult face and figure is new\u2014but he could recognize him anywhere. He didn’t know he could, until now.<\/p>\n He stops in front of the door to the building. “Wei Ying,” he breathes.<\/p>\n Wei Ying has already spotted him. He is not surprised when Lan Zhan says his name. “Lan Zhan!” he says, waving cheerfully. “I thought that was you. Wouldn’t miss that white headband from a mile away.”<\/p>\n He jumps down\u2014first to the covering over the entrance, and then to the ground. The spiritual energy around the building shudders and frets and stills. The resentful energy makes Lan Zhan feel like he’s in the middle of a graveyard. But it’s still nothing compared to seeing Wei Ying again, after years<\/em>, after that dinner during the nighthunt. Lan Zhan thought he would never see him again. He wants to embrace him, reach out and touch and know that Wei Ying is real.<\/p>\n He finds words stuck in his throat and manages out, “How have you been?”<\/p>\n “Good! Well, all things considered,” Wei Ying replies. “But how have you been? Wow<\/em>. Just seeing you and I know it’s been years. How’s your family? What’re you doing here?”<\/p>\n The white cat that had been with him on the rooftop has somehow found its way down along with Wei Ying, slinking over and rubbing up against Wei Ying’s calf. Then it approaches Lan Zhan, looping around his legs a few cycles, then pushing its head up down by Lan Zhan’s ankle and purring.<\/p>\n Wei Ying laughs. “Looks like a-Ning likes you.”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan thinks about asking after the crow when mere moments later, she appears, batting Wei Ying’s face lightly with one wing as she lands on his shoulder. She gives Lan Zhan a beady eyed stare but says nothing.<\/p>\n “Alright, guys,” Wei Ying says, beckoning the cat back over and looking at them sternly. “We want to give Lan Zhan a warm welcome, okay? It’s been so long since you’ve seen him. It’s been so long since I’ve<\/em> seen him.”<\/p>\n “I do not believe I have met your cat,” Lan Zhan points out.<\/p>\n Wei Ying smiles. “I guess not,” he says. “C’mon, I ought to treat you to something to drink.”<\/p>\n He enters the cafe they’d been standing in front of, despite all the resentful energy lingering inside and out. Regardless, Lan Zhan still expects a customer or two, or at least employees. But when he enters, he sees that it’s completely empty, a thin layer of dust over everything, and the counter barren.<\/p>\n “This is my cafe,” Wei Ying says, brandishing his arms. “My attempt at one, anyway. It’s alright, you can tell me the truth, I know I’m a failing coffee shop owner,” he says, and glances back at Lan Zhan with a grin. Lan Zhan’s heart feels trapped in his throat. “But look on the bright side\u2014free coffee! Do you want a cup?”<\/p>\n “No, thank you.”<\/p>\n “Aw, come on Lan Zhan. It’s been years, the least you can let me do is try to make you something with caffeine in it.” Wei Ying sits up on the counter and swivels around so he lands on the other side. “Or is it tea? Do you want tea? I’ll figure out how one of these contraptions work.”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan does drink green tea, but he also has reservations on how old the tea leaves would be, if there are any around here, not to mention that even the sink handles have dust on them. “I am alright,” he says to Wei Ying.<\/p>\n Wei Ying deflates. “Aw, fine. But I’m<\/em> going to try to make myself coffee, now that we’re here,” he says. “Now I gotta find the damn coffee beans.”<\/p>\n “How did you come to own this store?” Lan Zhan asks, as Wei Ying begins digging through the cabinets.<\/p>\n Wei Ying’s voice comes from down below. “I was actually already living here before. Granny Wen saw me on the streets of Yiling, said I looked like a skeleton, and made me come home with her upstairs so she could make me eat. And she let me crash here until\u2014well.”<\/p>\n His voice goes quiet and then stops. Lan Zhan thinks he might not finish the thought.<\/p>\n But then Wei Ying comes back up, a little dusty in the face, but with an old bag of coffee beans. “She passed away after a few years,” he says. “But she knew I would still need a place to sleep, and eat, so she let me inherit it when she was gone. So here I am.” He spreads his arms out. “Not that I’ve done such a good job attracting customers, though, as you can tell.”<\/p>\n That doesn’t matter to Lan Zhan\u2014he thinks of Granny Wen, someone he’s never met before but feels inordinately grateful toward. It doesn’t matter how well this former business is doing as long as Wei Ying has a roof over his head and heating during the winter, and Lan Zhan can tell that Granny Wen had been thinking the same thing. He’s been sheltered and safe, and the part of Lan Zhan that he’d compartmentalized away, that had been worried that Wei Ying was dead, or lying helpless somewhere, torn apart by wolves or lost at sea never to be found again, dissipates. The relief is big and small all at once.<\/p>\n Wei Ying continues, “Are you sure you don’t want coffee? You still get up at five every morning, right? You’ve gotta want some<\/em> caffeine.”<\/p>\n “I do not drink caffeine,” Lan Zhan admits.<\/p>\n Wei Ying sighs dramatically. “Well, alright. I guess I’ll just make coffee for myself then,” he says, and turns to the back counter. “Now which one of you babies makes coffee\u2026 ?”<\/p>\n There’s still the question of all the resentful energy circling the shop. Was Granny Wen a cultivator too? Likely not, Lan Zhan decides, as some of these spirits are several years old, old enough to have known Granny Wen when she was alive. If she had been a cultivator, she could’ve easily detected the spirits and banished them. They’re strong enough that even a child with a weak golden core would be able to sense them.<\/p>\n “How do I even make coffee with beans?” Wei Ying wonders out loud as he continues searching for supplies.<\/p>\n “You need to grind up the beans,” Lan Zhan says.<\/p>\n Wei Ying snaps his fingers at him. “Lan Zhan! You’re a genius. Right, now I need a bean grinder. Bean grinder, bean grinder, where are you?”<\/p>\n “Wei Ying,” says Lan Zhan. “Why is there so much resentful energy in this shop?”<\/p>\n He does not get a response at first. Wei Ying is still puttering around, looking for other coffee making supplies, though he’s not far away enough that he couldn’t have heard the question.<\/p>\n Lan Zhan waits. Eventually, Wei Ying pulls out something from the cabinet beneath the sink.<\/p>\n “Aha! I think you’re a coffee grinder,” he says, setting it on the table. “And I dunno, Lan Zhan. Maybe it’s just haunted? You know, non-cultivation stuff.”<\/p>\n “Can you not detect it? The resentful energy?” Lan Zhan asks.<\/p>\n Wei Ying hums. “I think I’m just used to it,” he answers. “Hey, you have a smartphone, right? Can you search up how to use a coffee grinder? I’ve never made coffee before.”<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Lan Zhan stays at a motel a few blocks down, dingy on the outside but brightly lit on the inside. Wei Ying had joked about renting a room out to him\u2014”That is, if I had a room”\u2014but Lan Zhan would not have wanted to overstep his boundaries, anyway. This life Wei Ying has pieced together is strange, worrying even with his building swimming with resentful energy. But it is his, a life he made for himself after disownment, and though Lan Zhan cannot speak for the quality, he is glad. Despite it all, the things about Wei Ying that make him shine, that made Lan Zhan know that he would never forget him the first time they met\u2014those things are still there.<\/p>\n He spends a few days getting familiar with the town, especially as the locals seem to be unused to visitors, so they’re eager to point out where he should or shouldn’t go to eat, or shop, or drink. There’s slivers of resentful energy, too, seeping through the sewers and underground. The town was surely a burial mound some centuries ago, with the whispers that Lan Zhan can still hear, the decayed skeletons miles below their feet, bits and pieces but never whole, like they’ve all forgotten how to be alive. It comes strongest from around the cafe, like they’ve gravitated toward it, like they can’t help it.<\/p>\n Lan Zhan is tempted to gravitate toward the cafe, as well, but for entirely different reasons. He instead allows himself several days to learn the town and extinguish some of the more troublesome resentful spirits. One woman says she had never seen a cultivator in-person before, and hadn’t recognized him as Hanguang-jun. Lan Zhan thinks of Wei Ying, and whatever’s become of his cultivation\u2014if, perhaps, he’s stopped practicing since he got disowned.<\/p>\n But Lan Zhan knows he is capable of staying away for only so long, so it feels both soon and not soon enough when he decides to return, pausing at the storefront. As usual, through the window the cafe looks barren and closed. But the front door is unlocked, so Lan Zhan opens it and steps through, not sure where to go from here.<\/p>\n It doesn’t matter\u2014Wei Ying appears less than a minute later, from a door beside the entrance. “Oh, a customer!” he says, grinning when he sees Lan Zhan. “What a surprise, we never get customers. What would you like to order? A coffee? Not like I’ve figured out the machine yet, but maybe I will today.”<\/p>\n “No, thank you,” Lan Zhan says, even though he knows Wei Ying is not being serious.<\/p>\n “Then what’s up?” Wei Ying asks. “I thought you’d be gone by now. Off to tell everyone where I’d been. I feel like I’ve hallucinated the sound of Jiang Cheng’s knocks like five times since you got here.”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan is not hurt, but it is strange, hearing Wei Ying’s perception of him now. He had not even thought about telling anyone about Wei Ying, much less telling anyone from the main Jiang family of his whereabouts.<\/p>\n “I have not,” he answers. “If I had gone, I would have liked to say goodbye.”<\/p>\n “Then is this what you’re doing right now?” Wei Ying asks. “Saying goodbye?”<\/p>\n He is smiling, but there’s something defensive about it. His arms are crossed.<\/p>\n “No,” Lan Zhan says. “We have not seen each other since I first arrived here.”<\/p>\n He lets his words linger. Visibly, it takes a moment for Wei Ying to process his words.<\/p>\n “Are you saying you missed me, Lan Zhan? Oh my god, teenage me would never<\/em> believe this.” Wei Ying laughs. “Perfect timing, too, since I was about to take a smoke break. Hold on.”<\/p>\n He disappears back behind the door he had come out from. The faint sounds of footsteps running up stairs comes through the walls. Then Wei Ying is back down with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.<\/p>\n “I know, I know, smoking will kill me,” he says, as he leads them out of the cafe. “But I promise you, something else will kill me before my lungs do. I’m only joking,” he adds, to the expression that is surely on Lan Zhan’s face. “For the most part.” He lights a cigarette.<\/p>\n Lan Zhan schools himself. “With your golden core, it is unlikely that smoking would kill you.”<\/p>\n Wei Ying offers him a wan smile. “Oh right, my golden core, of course,” he says. “That’s a good point. Hey, do you want one?”<\/p>\n He holds out his pack. Lan Zhan thinks of saying yes. “No,” he says.<\/p>\n Wei Ying shrugs. “Suit yourself,” he says, before closing it back up. “The aunties at the gas station get so mad every time I come by. But they know I’m broke, so they can’t say no to this handsome face.” He turns a roguish smile to Lan Zhan.<\/p>\n Lan Zhan understands those aunties too well. For a second, his breath catches in his throat. “How do you eat then?”<\/p>\n “Not very well,” Wei Ying laughs. “Granny Wen had a garden in the back, so I still take care of it, even though it’s mostly flowers and fruits. And there’s a lot of abandoned farmland around here, so occasionally I find something useful. I found a bunch of potatoes the other day, oh my god, Lan Zhan, you should’ve seen them! So now I’m trying to grow them. Well, learning how to, I guess.”<\/p>\n He’s so casual, discussing food like it’s a luxury, even though he had been raised in one of the most well-known sects in the cultivation world. Lan Zhan does not know how to reply, so he remains silent, aching for Wei Ying to happen upon a large rice field sometime soon. Aching to cook for Wei Ying, to take the cigarette from between his lips and inhale the smoke from his mouth.<\/p>\n “Hey,” Wei Ying says, after a beat. “Do you wanna exchange numbers? I know I don’t have a smartphone, but one of the aunties gave me this.” He takes out a flip phone from his pocket. “Not that I have anyone else’s number beside hers in here. But you can consider this a reward. A ‘first customer of the day and probably the first customer in like four years’ reward.”<\/p>\n “Yes, I would,” says Lan Zhan. The question is so random, and yet Lan Zhan realizes that he has never wanted anything more in his life until this moment. To have Wei Ying pass him his flip phone, and Lan Zhan pass him his smartphone, so they can add each other’s numbers.<\/p>\n “Oh my god, it’s been so long since I held one of these,” Wei Ying says, as Lan Zhan easily navigates through the flip phone. “I can’t text, by the way, but I can call. I’m assuming you can call. Hypothetically,” he says, and laughs again. “I know how much you don’t like talking. It’s almost as much as I like talking.”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan does not say, I like it when you talk<\/em>, as he finishes adding his contact information. Wei Ying had been telling the truth; there is only one other person in his contact list besides him, now.<\/p>\n “There. I think I’m done,” Wei Ying says. “Now you can call me any time you want. If you ever want.” He hands Lan Zhan his phone back, and Lan Zhan returns his own. “Let me see my contacts. Look, there you are! Wow, this makes it seem like we’re friends. Imagine if the cultivation world knew I had Hanguang-jun’s<\/em> number in my phone.”<\/p>\n “I would not mind,” Lan Zhan replies, and Wei Ying laughs so loud he makes the midday sun look like his shadow.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n He is still in town a few days later, ordering lunch at a noodle shop and thinking of buying Wei Ying a portion. They had not met up since the day they exchanged numbers, and Lan Zhan feels like the aunties Wei Ying talked about, wanting him to get more meat on his bones. But if Wei Ying had not been receptive to them, then he would certainly not be receptive to Lan Zhan.<\/p>\n He’s eating outside\u2014despite the rundown state of the town, the weather is remarkable\u2014when his phone rings from inside his qiankun bag. Frowning, Lan Zhan reaches in to take it out.<\/p>\n His heart leaps when he sees the name Wei Ying<\/em> on his phone screen.<\/p>\n He answers it immediately, before it can ring again. “Wei Ying,” he says.<\/p>\n His voice nearly crosses with Wei Ying’s. “Lan Zhan,” says Wei Ying, and Lan Zhan waits for more.<\/p>\n But after that, there is nothing but silence.<\/p>\n Lan Zhan checks his screen to make sure he hasn’t hung up accidentally. “Wei Ying,” he repeats. “Can you hear me?”<\/p>\n He waits again.<\/p>\n Still, as much as Wei Ying does love talking, there is nothing.<\/p>\n Unease grows in Lan Zhan’s chest. “Wei Ying,” he says again. “I cannot hear you. I can try calling you again.”<\/p>\n The repeated silence is unsettling, but still with no response, Lan Zhan resigns himself to hanging up. He taps Wei Ying’s name in his recent calls list. Perhaps he has a bad connection, even though he had said Lan Zhan’s name so clearly that one time.<\/p>\n But when Lan Zhan calls him, Wei Ying does not pick up. The phone rings, and rings, and rings, and rings\u2014eventually, Lan Zhan gets to an automated message that tells him that the owner of the phone does not have a voice mailbox set up.<\/p>\n Lan Zhan gets up from his table, abandons his meal, and briskly walks to the cafe, not too far from here. He does not think too much about it, what it means that Wei Ying had called him and then did not speak, that he did not pick up when Lan Zhan tried calling him again. Lan Zhan will enter the shop and Wei Ying will call him a customer again, and say he had misplaced his phone for those brief minutes, and all will be fine.<\/p>\n He walks into the cafe. After a few minutes, nothing happens.<\/p>\n “Wei Ying?” Lan Zhan calls.<\/p>\n Still nothing.<\/p>\n Lan Zhan opens the door that Wei Ying had come out of before, to find a narrow stairwell with a single staircase leading upstairs. Taking the stairs three at a time, Lan Zhan makes his way up, hoping his heart in his throat is for nothing. Hopes Wei Ying will see him and laugh at him and tease him for breaking into his house, for worrying. Lan Zhan<\/em>, he’d say, you care about me? Looks like we’re friends after all.<\/em><\/p>\n The stairs open into a small kitchen with a two person table in the middle of it. Beyond that is a small hallway with four doors; two are closed, while the other two are ajar. All of the rooms are empty.<\/p>\n He goes back downstairs and into the main room of the cafe. There’s a door behind the counter that Wei Ying had never opened before. Lan Zhan pushes his way past the counter flap and opens it, revealing a small concrete tile room that might have been a supply closet at one point. But now it’s like something out of a horror movie.<\/p>\n Scattered around the raised floor, scrolls and flyaway talismans lie in stacks, lining the walls, smears of blood and scribbled ink staining the parchment and the concrete alike. And in the middle of the room is an arrangement of blood, seeming to be forming a character rune, although Lan Zhan cannot tell what it is supposed to be. Because sprawled all over the blood\u2014his<\/em> blood, Lan Zhan realizes\u2014is Wei Ying, unconscious and bleeding, two talismans on his neck and his flute clutched loosely in his hand.<\/p>\n “Wei Ying!” Lan Zhan shouts, rushing over. But Wei Ying does not respond.<\/p>\n Lan Zhan pulls his body into his lap, checks his breathing. He still has a pulse, but he’s losing blood quickly. Wasting no time, Lan Zhan gently rests Wei Ying back down, then pulls out his qin from his qiankun bag and plays the first healing song that comes to mind. He pushes his spiritual energy into his playing, watching Wei Ying’s body rather than the strings, his practiced fingers moving flawlessly along with the melody.<\/p>\n Slowly, Wei Ying’s wounds begin knitting together. But he does not stir.<\/p>\n Lan Zhan changes the song. Cleansing<\/em>, much more complex but also far more effective, fills the air as Lan Zhan pushes through with confidence. Wei Ying is not dead and he will not die. He will make sure of it. Lan Zhan learned this song, mastered all forms of cultivation at an early age, perfectly developed his golden core, for this moment. To see Wei Ying open his eyes again.<\/p>\n It feels like hours pass. Hours that are eternities. But Lan Zhan sees the exact moment when Wei Ying regains consciousness, a tension between his eyebrows before his eyelids crack open.<\/p>\n “What the fuck?” Wei Ying croaks out, and relief washes over Lan Zhan like a tidal wave.<\/p>\n He doesn’t stop playing, watching as Wei Ying comes back to his senses. “Lan Zhan?” he says. “What are you doing here? And what was I\u2014” He stares at the inscription of his blood on the ground. “What? It didn’t work? I thought it was going to this time\u2014”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan does not like interrupting, but the quick escalation of Wei Ying’s voice and expression so shortly after waking will not end well. “Wei Ying,” he says, to distract him. “Where are your friends? A-Qing and a-Ning?”<\/p>\n “Them? They’re in the garden,” Wei Ying says distractedly, gesturing vaguely at another door on the opposite of the end of the room. He stands up, picking up his flute, and turns in a circle. His blood has smeared on the back of his torn jeans. There’s a faint stain on the white of his converse. His black hoodie hides any visible bloodstains, but there are surely some on it. “This shouldn’t be\u2014”<\/p>\n “Relax,” Lan Zhan says, and reaches out for him. “You need spiritual energy.”<\/p>\n “I don’t.” Wei Ying pulls himself away so quickly that only Lan Zhan’s blunt nails brush the edge of his hoodie. “But thank you for saving me, Lan Zhan. You don’t have to worry about me anymore.”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan ignores the dismissal. “Wei Ying,” he says, so seriously that Wei Ying actually turns around to meet his eyes. “What are you doing?”<\/p>\n Wei Ying considers him.<\/p>\n And now that Lan Zhan is no longer focused on Wei Ying, he feels it\u2014the resentful energy is strong, strongest here more than anywhere else in Yiling, or the cafe, or anywhere else Lan Zhan has ever been. If he was not as powerful a cultivator as he is, he would’ve noticed it earlier. It’s swarming like it wants to choke Lan Zhan, with hands and rope and down his throat. It reeks of death. The room reeks of death.<\/p>\n “Did you know,” Wei Ying says conversationally, “that when animals die, they can end up as resentful spirits too? But that they’re much easier to control than human spirits?”<\/p>\n “Wei Ying,” says Lan Zhan, and grabs his hand.<\/p>\n When Wei Ying had been unconscious, Lan Zhan hadn’t thought about passing his spiritual energy into Wei Ying, thinking that the music could do it, that Wei Ying blinking his eyes open would be enough. But Wei Ying\u2019s freneticness, the anger and the rot and the decay and the hatred of the room swallows Lan Zhan up so suddenly that he tries to push his own spiritual energy into Wei Ying to calm him a little, to shield him from all the death.<\/p>\n There’s nothing. When Lan Zhan moves his palm to touch Wei Ying’s lower dantian over his hoodie, focusing on his own golden core, there’s nothing.<\/p>\n Lan Zhan pulls away so fast that he nearly stumbles out of the room, managing to avoid the step. Wei Ying has no golden core. The spiritual energy did nothing. And with the talismans and the bloodstains and Wei Ying talking about controlling the resentful energy of animals and humans<\/em>\u2014he can see it all now. It all flocks to Wei Ying, the spirits and half-spirits and evil, hateful pieces looking for a master and a prey. They swarm around Wei Ying like he is both, like they want to protect him and eat him all at once.<\/p>\n “Lan Zhan?” Wei Ying says.<\/p>\n “Your golden core,” Lan Zhan says, although there is so much more to say. “Is that why you are doing this?”<\/p>\n “This<\/em>? Oh, you mean this little form of cultivation I invented,” Wei Ying says. His eyes flash red. “Well, yes, though I guess it doesn’t benefit me now. In the cultivation world, at least. I’m surprised it took the Jiangs as long as it did to kick me out.”<\/p>\n He laughs, cold. He doesn’t sound like himself. The resentful energy becomes more suffocating, but Lan Zhan cannot bring himself to step away anymore.<\/p>\n “At least they didn’t know I’d gotten my core ripped out of me for them. Maybe if they did, then they wouldn’t have kicked me out,” Wei Ying says thoughtfully. It’s jarring. It’s like he’s transformed into a different person right before Lan Zhan’s eyes. Yet Lan Zhan knows it’s still him. “Although they did see me bring a cat back to life, so maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. It doesn’t matter anymore now.”<\/p>\n “Wei Ying,” says Lan Zhan, and tries to step back into the room, even as the resentful energy grows stronger, pushing him out, trying to choke him. “It matters to me.”<\/p>\n “What do you mean?” Wei Ying’s tone is mocking. “What, is the great Hanguang-jun going to save me? Bring me back to the righteous path, the cultivation world?”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan wants to reach out for him again. He wants to hold Wei Ying’s hand again. “Please, come to Gusu with me.”<\/p>\n Wei Ying lets out a loud, harsh laugh. “Come to Gusu<\/em> with you? Of all places? What, you’re going to play music for me day and night until a golden core somehow spawns back inside of me? Don’t be ridiculous, Hanguang-jun<\/em>.”<\/p>\n “Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan pleads.<\/p>\n Wei Ying’s eyes flash red again. “If that’s all you’re here for, to rescue me, to bring me back<\/em>,” he sneers, “then you can get lost. And don’t<\/em> come back next time. I’m not interested in going anywhere with you.”<\/p>\n “I am not here to bring you back,” says Lan Zhan. “Wei Ying, I love you.”<\/p>\n The resentful energy flares even more, so much so that it feels like it is physically pushing Lan Zhan out of the room, even though Wei Ying’s hands are by his sides, and his red eyes are full of so much fury that he looks like a stranger. “Piss off,” Wei Ying says to him. “Turn around and go away. And don’t come back for me. Don’t come back at all.”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan’s chest hurts, his throat hurts, and a heartbreak he hasn’t felt since his mother died shatters inside of him. Wei Ying and the swirling resentful energy around him looms like a menace, and although Lan Zhan is not frightened, he knows that it is hatred in Wei Ying’s red eyes. There is nothing else he can do.<\/p>\n He leaves.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Yiling is but a memory in Lan Zhan’s head, or so he tells himself. He tries to remember Wei Ying’s smile when he first saw him, the grace with which he’d jumped from the rooftop of the cafe, his laughter which seemed neverending that Lan Zhan could never get enough of, the joy with which he’d put his number in Lan Zhan’s phone and said, we’re friends<\/em>.<\/p>\n He tries not to remember the ice in Wei Ying’s voice or the resentfulness in his eyes, stronger than any of the dead spirits in that tiny concrete room.<\/p>\n A year passes, and then two. Lan Zhan goes from town to town, province to province, careful to avoid Yiling, as small a town as it was. He sees Wei Ying’s name in his phone every day, but does not dare think to call him, even as he scrolls to his contacts before bed, an assurance that it is still there. A reminder that it is not an option. Wei Ying does not want to hear his voice or hear from him, and so Lan Zhan allows him that, despite what he wants. Lan Zhan loves him. Wei Ying does not.<\/p>\n Don’t come back at all<\/em>, Lan Zhan sometimes hears, when he wakes up from the same nightmare.<\/p>\n The cultivation world continues on as Lan Zhan returns to his day to day routine, and so Lan Zhan must as well. He keeps to Wei Ying’s unasked request; he does not tell the Jiangs about running into Wei Ying, nor anyone else. He continues following the chaos, as if the biggest destruction isn’t in his heart.<\/p>\n Another year passes, and Jiang Yanli has a baby.<\/p>\n It’s a boy, Lan Zhan hears, and at the next cultivation conference, he attends to congratulate her, from himself and also, he thinks, from Wei Ying. Even though Wei Ying hates him, he would still love to see his martial sister’s son. He’s a chubby boy who grabs at Lan Zhan’s pinky and Jiang Yanli remarks wistfully that she would’ve loved Wei Ying to give him his courtesy name, as rarely used as they are. Lan Zhan swallows and says nothing.<\/p>\n There is not a day that Lan Zhan does not think of Wei Ying. Time passes like a long, drawn-out yawn, like a joke. Lan Zhan goes from city to city, nighthunt to nighthunt, missing Wei Ying as much as he misses his mother. But with Wei Ying the wound always feels fresh, even after three years, and after another, and another.<\/p>\n He doesn’t know how he spent seven years not seeing Wei Ying before, when every second of these five feel far longer than that. His thirtieth birthday passes. Jin Ling turns two. Lan Zhan has known Wei Ying for half of his life, and he does not regret it, no matter how much of it hurts. Wei Ying is out of reach, even if only barely, and so Lan Zhan gives him that.<\/p>\n But China is only so big, and time is only so long. And Lan Zhan finds himself flying toward Yiling again, passing by for the first time in years. It takes a split second to consider, because Lan Zhan decides that he will not interact with Wei Ying. He doesn’t have to see him\u2014he just wants some sign that Wei Ying is still alive. With the aunties to look after him and a-Ning and a-Qing to keep him company, Wei Ying is fine, Lan Zhan tells himself. Wei Ying needs nothing else.<\/p>\n He nearly does not recognize Yiling at first blush. The farmlands open up into the town, he remembers, but the town itself looks vastly different. Buildings have fallen apart, decrepit, and vines trickle out of the sewers like blood. There is not a single soul on the streets. Lan Zhan even considers that perhaps he had stumbled into the wrong town, until he catches sight of the cafe building in the middle of it all.<\/p>\n The cafe, at least, is still standing, exactly as it was the last time Lan Zhan was here. That should be enough to perhaps indicate that Wei Ying is alive, but Lan Zhan is greedy. He flies further down, getting close to the sidewalk.<\/p>\n Before he touches the ground, he can already feel the resentful energy coming off in waves, as if it’s spread and covered every inch of the town. It is not hateful like before, though, merely passive, existing in the same space as the town. Lan Zhan steps down from his sword, ignoring it, and strides over to the cafe, hoping to catch a glimpse of Wei Ying.<\/p>\n Wei Ying is not on the roof like he was last time, nor is he inside the cafe. Lan Zhan sees no hint of the cat or the crow either, and makes to perhaps lurk outside, for the next time Wei Ying comes down or out.<\/p>\n On the other side of the street, a figure turns the corner. Black hoodie and torn jeans and red ribbon, like he’d stepped out of a memory. He’s whistling to himself, crow on his shoulder, cat by his side. He stops by a sewer grate and sets down his flute, before reaching towards it. The skeleton of a human hand slides out, handing him a single pink flower.<\/p>\n Lan Zhan can’t bring himself to speak or move. Wei Ying says, “Thank you, sweetheart” as he takes the flower, and then kisses the skeleton hand before straightening back up. His eyes fall on Lan Zhan.<\/p>\n His mouth breaks into a smile.<\/p>\n “Lan Zhan?” he says, walking towards him. “Is it really you?”<\/p>\n “Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says, and it’s the first time he’s said his name in five years, the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted.<\/p>\n “Wow, it’s been so long.” Wei Ying stops in front of him and looks him up and down. “I don’t know if you’ve changed or look exactly the same.”<\/p>\n He doesn’t seem bothered that the last time they’d seen each other, he’d told Lan Zhan never to see him again. Perhaps he’s changed his mind after not seeing Lan Zhan for so long, and doesn’t want to bring it up. Lan Zhan does not, either, in case it scares Wei Ying away.<\/p>\n “You as well,” he says to Wei Ying.<\/p>\n Wei Ying laughs. Lan Zhan never wants to leave this moment. “Me as well what? Do I look the same? Different?”<\/p>\n He’s wearing the same clothes as on that day: they’re much easier to control than human spirits. <\/em>The human skeleton hand reaching through the sewer grates like it was of its own volition.<\/p>\n “Both,” Lan Zhan replies.<\/p>\n “I have to stop saying things that don’t make any sense, otherwise you’re going to start saying them too,” Wei Ying says with amusement. “Well, what are you doing here? Just passing through?”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan hesitates. He nods.<\/p>\n “Well, let me give you a quick tour of everything you missed while you were away,” Wei Ying says. To Lan Zhan’s surprise, he does not enter the cafe, instead continuing down the street. “So, as you can see, there’s no one else here anymore. The resentful energy had been too much, especially since there was so much before. I bet you knew that, didn’t you? That this town used to be a burial mound?”<\/p>\n “I suspected,” says Lan Zhan.<\/p>\n “Yeah, that and my,” Wei Ying gestures, “cultivation combined summoned all the resentful spirits from before that it became too much for people. It’s understandable, though, like, who’d want to hang out with the dead and a bunch of ghosts who keep seeking revenge?” He laughs again. “Well, me. They’re pretty good company, all things considered.”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan is wondering so much: when Wei Ying decided to forgive him, if Wei Ying forgives him, does he still smoke, has he found out how to make coffee, does he still have his phone.<\/p>\n “Have you eaten?” he asks, instead.<\/p>\n Wei Ying’s eyes light up.<\/p>\n “I have not,” he says, “and you should see what I made of the farmlands! Follow me!”<\/p>\n As he trails behind Wei Ying among the whispers and the questions from the dead, Lan Zhan feels more alive than he has in years.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Wei Ying has turned the farmlands into his own\u2014”An extension of Granny Wen’s garden,” he tells Lan Zhan with a grin. There are rows and rows of crops, potatoes and carrots and greens and rice. “Qing also keeps bringing me turnips that she finds,” he says. “I think she wants me to grow them too.”<\/p>\n It is not yet harvesting season but the crops seem to grow irregularly, perhaps due to the earth being laced with so many remains of the dead, Wei Ying explains. He lets Lan Zhan choose what to cook, but as Lan Zhan places the picked vegetables into his qiankun bag, Wei Ying will occasionally rush off to grab something and then give it to Lan Zhan and say, “Oh, and this too.” He grabs two handfuls of chili peppers for Lan Zhan’s bag, and an armful of potatoes for himself. Lan Zhan remembers him learning how to grow them.<\/p>\n They head back into town and Wei Ying’s cafe, Wei Ying chattering all the while. About the weather, about the dishes he’s cooked successfully and unsuccessfully, about how he has so few fruit because he’ll pick them and then forget about them and has to throw them away rotten. “It’s been a while since I had a good mango,” he says as Lan Zhan opens the staircase door for him. “I used to eat them all the time as a kid. But I don’t think a mango tree would grow too well here.”<\/p>\n In the kitchen, Lan Zhan prepares and cooks the food, consciously aware of Wei Ying’s eyes on him as he continues to talk about everything and nothing. They’d passed several more skeletons on the way there and back: a hand without an arm that Wei Ying had given the flower he received from the sewer skeleton to, a skull on a pile of rubble that Wei Ying had kissed the top of, a foot by what looked to be an old gas station that Wei Ying kissed the ankle of and said, “Thank you, a-yi,” to. And everywhere, on the farm and in the town and in the cafe, the resentful energy had lingered, but only that\u2014settled, like it has become a part of the air, like oxygen and water. None of the aggression, the choking feeling Lan Zhan had when he approached it before is there anymore. Like it’s been controlled. Harnessed.<\/p>\n Wei Ying doesn’t talk about his cultivation, just complains about winters and wishing for summers. It’s unreal to be here with him right now, preparing the dishes like this is something they normally do, that they’ve done before.<\/p>\n “Oh wow, Lan Zhan, this looks excellent,” Wei Ying says, as Lan Zhan brings over the dishes, neatly and evenly spiced. “Do you have any peppers left?”<\/p>\n They eat, and afterward, Lan Zhan washes the dishes in the sink while Wei Ying watches him over the countertop, smiling.<\/p>\n “So,” says Wei Ying. “Any news from the cultivation world I should know about?”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan would not know, politics-wise. He finds caring about bureaucracy to be a waste of time, compared to keeping resentful spirits at bay. However, after a moment’s pause, he says, “Your martial sister\u2026 Jiang-guniang, has gotten married.”<\/p>\n Wei Ying squawks, straightening up as he slams his fist on the table. “What? When? To who?”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan does not answer when. He says, “Jin Zixuan.”<\/p>\n “That cocky little son of a\u2014” Wei Ying huffs and blows a strand of hair out of his face. Lan Zhan wants to kiss him so badly. “Well, I guess the important question is, are they happy? Is she<\/em> happy?”<\/p>\n “Yes,” Lan Zhan says with a nod, putting the last plate on Wei Ying’s makeshift drying rack. “They have a son. Your nephew.” After drying his hands, he pulls out his phone and opens up his camera roll, where Jiang Yanli had made him take pictures of her and her son at the last cultivation conference to show his uncle, who couldn’t attend but had a soft spot for Jin Ling. Lan Zhan had easily obliged.<\/p>\n Wei Ying stares at the photo on Lan Zhan’s phone. When Lan Zhan hands his phone over to him, Wei Ying takes it without a word, scrolling through their various takes. “Oh, wow,” he says wetly, in a low voice. “What’s his name?”<\/p>\n “Jin Ling,” replies Lan Zhan.<\/p>\n “Jin Ling,” Wei Ying repeats, thumbing across Lan Zhan’s phone screen. Then, realizing what he’s doing, he quickly hands the phone back to Lan Zhan before wiping at his eyes. “Thank you, Lan Zhan,” he says, voice thick.<\/p>\n “No need,” Lan Zhan says, and puts his phone away.<\/p>\n He and Wei Ying stand in silence for a moment in the kitchen, as Wei Ying finishes wiping his nose with his sleeve. Lan Zhan glances out the window.<\/p>\n “It’s getting dark,” he says. The sun is beginning to set, a splash of hues in the sky seeping onto the ceiling. “It may be too late for me to leave.”<\/p>\n “Hm,” Wei Ying says, eyes darting up to meet Lan Zhan’s eyes. “Are there any motels in town that are still in operation?” He looks like he’s fighting a smile.<\/p>\n Lan Zhan replies, “I did not check.”<\/p>\n Wei Ying grins. “Well, conveniently for you, you don’t need to check. Because I have a spare room here!” he announces. He leads them into the little hallway Lan Zhan vaguely recalls from before. “This one used to be mine before Granny Wen passed, so I took hers and now you can take mine.” He opens the door to a small, but cozy bedroom. “Bathroom’s over there,” he says, pointing to another door. “And it’ll be one thousand yuan per night.”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan pulls out his wallet and hands him ten 100s.<\/p>\n “Ah\u2014Lan Zhan, you had<\/em> to have known that I was joking!” Wei Ying says, though he doesn’t offer the money back. Lan Zhan would not take it even if he had. “What is this? Do you have jokes now too?”<\/p>\n “Does that include the tax?” Lan Zhan asks.<\/p>\n “It doesn’t now<\/em>,” says Wei Ying, and looks both surprised and delighted when Lan Zhan hands him two more 100s.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n This is not how Lan Zhan imagined his brief stop in Yiling would go. Then again, nothing involving Wei Ying has ever been predictable.<\/p>\n Wei Ying invites him out for a smoke break an hour before Lan Zhan typically goes to bed, and Lan Zhan is so starved for more of Wei Ying that he accompanies him, against his better judgment. They go to the front of the cafe, even though there is no one around to scold him for smoking indoors\u2014”Because Granny Wen hated it when I smoked too,” Wei Ying says, with a roll of his eyes. “So I always smoke out here for her.”<\/p>\n A slight breeze whispers by, sounding like a thank you<\/em>.<\/p>\n “Want one?” Wei Ying offers from his cigarette pack. “Or you can smoke from mine.”<\/p>\n Smoking has never been appealing to Lan Zhan at all, but the thought of putting his lips right over where Wei Ying’s had been is. “Yours,” he replies.<\/p>\n Wei Ying smiles. “I was hoping you’d say that,” he says. Then realizing what he’s said, hastens to add, “Didn’t want to waste a cigarette if you ended up hating it.”<\/p>\n He inhales from his cigarette and then passes it to Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan observes it, then tries to imitate Wei Ying’s motion.<\/p>\n The taste is foul and instantly makes Lan Zhan’s eyes water. He coughs, handing the cigarette back.<\/p>\n “No?” Wei Ying says, amused. “What, Hanguang-jun is too righteous to have a nicotine addiction?”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan is too busy coughing to answer him. He finally manages to pull out his water bottle from his qiankun bag and takes a hearty gulp.<\/p>\n Wei Ying watches him all the while. “You’re so funny, Lan Zhan,” he says, and takes a drag of his cigarette again. Despite the taste, he really is an image, with the smoke escaping through his mouth and nose.<\/p>\n “Isn’t it weird,” Wei Ying says, “that I don’t want you to leave?”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan startles, But what about last time?<\/em> on the tip of his tongue, like a child.<\/p>\n Wei Ying continues, “Like, I know you have to. You have the whole cultivation world to get back to. And I’m nowhere near a part of it.”<\/p>\n It takes a moment for Lan Zhan to find the right words to say. “I go where the chaos goes,” he replies.<\/p>\n Wei Ying shoots him a smile, a small upturn of his lips. “That’s true,” he says. “Maybe I just have to create more chaos than everyone else in the world, then.”<\/p>\n He continues smoking, a pensive look on his face. With the burnt taste still in the back of his throat, Lan Zhan thinks about asking for his cigarette again.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n He goes to sleep that night at nine, per his body’s schedule. In the morning, he wakes up at five, brushes his teeth, changes his clothes, and jogs around the dead town. When he comes back, he takes a brief shower from all his sweat, then goes out into the fields to pick some vegetables he had seen yesterday, for breakfast. Wei Ying had told him there was a chicken nest in the forest that he occasionally stole eggs from, so Lan Zhan tracks it down and takes three. By the time Wei Ying wakes up, Lan Zhan’s in the middle of cooking.<\/p>\n Yawning, Wei Ying blinks at him in his kitchen. “Lan Zhan, you’re still here?” he says.<\/p>\n Lan Zhan divides up the food onto two plates. “Eat,” he tells Wei Ying instead.<\/p>\n “Alright, I guess I don’t have a choice,” Wei Ying says and sits at one of the chairs.<\/p>\n After breakfast, Wei Ying doesn’t ask if Lan Zhan is going to leave now, and Lan Zhan does not want to, so he doesn’t. Instead, he mentions a particularly aggressive spirit he noticed out in the fields when he was picking vegetables. Wei Ying says, “Someone should get rid of that thing.”<\/p>\n “I agree,” Lan Zhan says.<\/p>\n And so they both do, Lan Zhan with his qin and sword, and Wei Ying with his flute. They’d been on nighthunts together before, back during the Gusu summer lectures, but it had never been like this. Back then, they’d been proctored, and they hadn’t necessarily been alongside each other, one on one. But here, Lan Zhan feels like a new man\u2014or, perhaps the man he turns into when he thinks about Wei Ying too long.<\/p>\n He doesn’t know anything about Wei Ying’s cultivation, but he knows that Wei Ying is good<\/em> at it. And from what he can tell, there are no repercussions to the user or health, especially since he no longer has a golden core. The reminder always makes Lan Zhan feel guilty, and he would tear his core in half to give the other to Wei Ying, if he could.<\/p>\n Afterward, Wei Ying says, “Animals are supposed to be easier, but they’re the wild ones. I’m honestly impressed a-Ning turned out as well as he did. I should do humans next. Bring a person back fo life.” He laughs.<\/p>\n “You could,” Lan Zhan says with confidence.<\/p>\n “I could, couldn’t I? And hey, didn’t I kinda do that for you anyway?” Wei Ying says, gesturing to himself. He smirks. “No cultivation involved!”<\/p>\n “I believe you would be capable of doing it.”<\/p>\n “Aw, stop Lan Zhan, you’re making me blush,” Wei Ying says, waving a hand at him. “What happened to following the righteous path, huh? Don’t tell me Hanguang-jun has been secretly unrighteous all along.”<\/p>\n I do not need to be righteous if I am with you,<\/em> Lan Zhan does not say, but he watches Wei Ying stare at him fondly, instead of replying.<\/p>\n “I’ll have to find a proper subject for the experiment, though,” says Wei Ying. “So many of these skeletons are torn apart and old, and I’ll need a full one. I’ll have to go hunting for bones. God, that’s gonna suck. The things I do in the name of science.”<\/p>\n Some skeletons move beneath the ground under their feet. Lan Zhan feels as they flock to Wei Ying, as if they’re trying to help him. “Not now<\/em>,” he says to them. “Wait until Hanguang-jun goes away.”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan makes a point to hide behind a tree. He watches as a skeleton arm taps Wei Ying’s foot, and Wei Ying laughs and laughs.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n When they head back, Wei Ying excuses himself to shower, so Lan Zhan begins to prepare lunch from the food they collected when they were out. Wei Ying comes back as Lan Zhan starts the rice cooker, looking thoughtful and distant all at once.<\/p>\n “Lan Zhan,” he says. “When are you going to leave? We can’t pretend that you approve of my cultivation methods forever.”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan’s chest pangs. It’s not the same as Wei Ying asking him to leave, but Lan Zhan’s eyes cloud over anyway.<\/p>\n “Wei Ying, I am not here to ask you to come to Gusu with me,” he says.<\/p>\n Wei Ying stares at him. “Come to Gusu with you?”<\/p>\n “I can understand why you may think so,” Lan Zhan continues. “I know that is what I requested of you before. But I have no intention now to take you where you are not willing.”<\/p>\n He swallows to prevent his throat from closing up. “Please do not ask me to leave again,” he begs.<\/p>\n “When,” Wei Ying starts, then takes a deep breath. “When would I ever<\/em> ask you to leave? Lan Zhan, I don’t think\u2014I don’t think I know what you’re talking about. You said last time<\/em>, but I don’t know what time you mean. Do you mean the last time you were here, when you saved me from dying and then disappeared for years?”<\/p>\n “I did not,” says Lan Zhan. “You told me to leave, when I asked you to come back to Gusu. We fought.”<\/p>\n “I don’t remember that at all.” Wei Ying looks stunned. He sits down on a chair at the dining table, processing Lan Zhan’s words. “Lan Zhan, I didn’t want you to go. I don’t.”<\/p>\n Lan Zhan does not know what to say either. He continues working on lunch.<\/p>\n “There’s a blank spot in my memory. I thought I had passed out again,” Wei Ying continues. “I thought you had just healed me and left. Sometimes the blank spots happen when I do a cultivation experiment and the resentful energy is too strong. But I just thought I’d fainted.”<\/p>\n “No,” Lan Zhan says, although he remembers the resentful energy trying to strangle him, push him away. “You do not remember anything from that day? Anything I said?”<\/p>\n “No.” Wei Ying looks up at him. Lan Zhan suddenly hates himself for telling him the truth. “Lan Zhan, I’m so, so sorry.”<\/p>\n This is what gives Lan Zhan the courage to continue telling him everything, all the truths of the world until he runs out of things to say to Wei Ying.<\/p>\n “Wei Ying,” he says. “I love you.”<\/p>\n And he bends down and takes Wei Ying’s hands and kisses him.<\/p>\n It is too much and not enough at the same time, like the morning rays of the sun when he wakes up early. Like how he wakes up every day. Wei Ying’s lips press against his own, hesitant at first, and then eager, like he wants to do this for the rest of his life. Lan Zhan wants to do this for the rest of his life. Taste this version of Wei Ying, every other version of Wei Ying, even the ones that don’t want him. Lan Zhan wants them all, as he slides his tongue into Wei Ying’s mouth, breathing too heavy through his nose as the world shakes and tilts beneath his feet.<\/p>\n It steadies when he pulls away, when they break apart. Lan Zhan doesn’t want to go too far, though, keep his face close to Wei Ying’s. He can feel Wei Ying’s breath against his lips.<\/p>\n “Hi,” Wei Ying says, eyes bright.<\/p>\n Lan Zhan can feel his mouth spread into a smile. Wei Ying’s eyes widen, and he kisses him again. “Oh, Lan Zhan,” he says, wrapping his arms around Lan Zhan’s neck, kissing the corner of his mouth and his chin. “I love you too. I knew when I saw you again\u2014I think I knew when you left, but I had thought you’d\u2014”<\/p>\n “No,” Lan Zhan says, and kisses Wei Ying back.<\/p>\n After the kiss, Wei Ying says, “No interrupting in the Cloud Recesses.”<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Sometime later, once they can last longer than five minutes without kissing, Lan Zhan says, “I will not leave if you do not want me to leave. I would like to nighthunt with you for the rest of my life.”<\/p>\n “Lan Zhan! You’re making me blush.” Wei Ying covers his face with his hands on the pillow next to him. But when Lan Zhan removes his hands from his face, there’s not a single trace of embarrassment, and he’s grinning. “Ah, but it looks like you’re<\/em> blushing.” He tweaks one of Lan Zhan’s warm ears. “And so Hanguang-jun disappeared from the cultivation world without a trace, huh?”<\/p>\n “Just like the one he loved,” Lan Zhan answers solemnly.<\/p>\n This time, Wei Ying really does blush, and he kisses Lan Zhan on the cheek. “No more Hanguang-jun now,” he says. “Just Lan Zhan.”<\/p>\n “Just Lan Zhan,” he agrees.<\/p>\n Later, perhaps they will go back for Wei Ying to meet Jin Ling, to name him Jin Rulan, to tearfully reunite with his martial sister, and later, his martial brother. And some time after that, perhaps Lan Zhan will plant a seed in their back garden, and with a little help from some spiritual energy it will grow into a mango tree. And perhaps sometime in between, Lan Zhan and Wei Ying will learn dual cultivation.<\/p>\n Right now, Wei Ying strokes Lan Zhan’s cheekbone, nose, lips. “We’ll tell the world that you eloped,” he says. “With such a beautiful bride that you just couldn’t stay away from him. How does that sound?”<\/p>\n Instead of responding, Lan Zhan turns his head to kiss Wei Ying’s palm, and Wei Ying laughs and moves to kiss him on the mouth. With their heartbeats pressed against one another, Lan Zhan couldn’t agree more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Let me ask you again: there is a cultivator raised in a renowned sect, first of all the disciples and with a golden core stronger than nearly any other, but before he disappeared, he started practicing demonic cultivation. He was suddenly discovered by his sect and, to punish him for his deeds, was disowned with shame and as quietly as possible. Without a golden core or a sect to return to, he continued his crooked way of cultivating. What should be done? [Modern Cultivation AU]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[99,305,100,96,304,101,98,97],"fandom":[464],"rating":[675],"ship":[577],"relationship":[606],"minorfandomships":[],"class_list":["post-53","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-default","tag-amnesia","tag-fic-based-on-art","tag-mdzs-reverse-big-bang-2023","tag-modern-cultivation","tag-reverse-bang","tag-rogue-cultivator-lwj","tag-smoking","tag-timeskips","fandom-mdzs","rating-teen","ship-wangxian","relationship-slash"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53"},{"taxonomy":"fandom","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fandom?post=53"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=53"},{"taxonomy":"ship","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ship?post=53"},{"taxonomy":"relationship","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/relationship?post=53"},{"taxonomy":"minorfandomships","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/minorfandomships?post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nsuppress<\/h2>\n
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\nredirect<\/h2>\n
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