Chapter Text
This is not how Lan Qiren expected to end his month. He may no longer be acting sect leader, but many tasks still fall into his hands as they become too numerous to stay within his nephew’s. This is a duty he willingly accepted and is proud to complete. Every time he sees the relieved smile on Xichen’s face, Lan Qiren becomes more certain of his choices.
What greets him this morning instead of the normal rush of financial statements and trade negotiation requests, however, is a panicked guard begging him to come to the stair entrance because the Yiling Patriarch has shown up out of nowhere, uninvited, to demand his attention.
“And he’s explained nothing?” Lan Qiren asks, even as he follows the guard at a pace just barely below a brisk jog.
“He said he’d only speak with you or Lan-zongzhu,” is the near hysterical reply. “He was holding something in his arms but we couldn’t tell what it was.”
None of this bodes well. Lan Qiren’s jaw clenches tight, but he just hurries to find out how bad the fall out of whatever this is will be.
The second guard looks only minorly relieved to see Lan Qiren appear, her face white. There are three other disciples standing around with their hands on the hilts of their swords, but no one has been stupid enough to draw them. Surely, they have abandoned duties to stand here in solidarity, understandable under the circumstances. It’s how he would hope they’d act, and he doesn’t plan to discipline any of them as long as this ends without bloodshed.
That depends entirely on what Wei Wuxian actually wants. He stands several paces further on, the aforementioned bundle held protectively against his chest. The cloak covering it is threadborne and liberally patched from heavy use, but Lan Qiren picks out old embroidery of red along the faded, brown fabric. It matches the quality of Wei Wuxian’s robes. For as much fuss as this boy has caused the world, one would think he’d bother dressing himself decently instead of these homespun rags.
But, perhaps his unorthodox cultivation practices have taken too much of his attention. He certainly doesn’t seem to be taking much care with himself, eyes heavily ringed with bruised skin and cheeks sunken in from what appears to be weeks of missed meals. Lan Qiren’s eyes narrow. He looks terrible, almost sickly and more than half starved. Is he so preoccupied with his growing army that he can’t remember the simple task of eating? Or does he think himself above such bodily needs? Inedia is supposed to be a last resort, not a regular practice.
“Wei Wuxian,” he greets without kindness, nor much in the way of respect beyond the bare minimum.
“Lan-xiansheng.” His voice is quiet, almost subdued, but there’s a determination in his eyes that Lan Qiren does not like the odds of one bit. This man is dangerous, and there is nothing more dangerous than a cornered animal. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“Our disciples can hardly waste their time entertaining you themselves.”
The corners of Wei Wuxian’s lips curl into a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. He glances down at the bundle, squeezing it a little closer, then turns back to Lan Qiren and…
Kneels.
“Wei Wuxian! What are you-”
“Please.” The soft, single word slashes through Lan Qiren’s affront as easily as the blade he refuses to wield. “This one comes with a bargain, if only this child can be saved.”
The cloak slips as Wei Wuxian lifts his burden higher, as if to present it to Lan Qiren like a gift. Lan Qiren’s gaze immediately picks out dark hair and a fever-reddened cheek, the edge of a small nose. As it slips further, the child’s face is revealed. A boy, he thinks. Maybe three or four years old at most. Thin but not nearly as much as Wei Wuxian. Brows furrowed in an uneasy slumber that even all this hasn’t disturbed him from.
Where the hell did Wei Wuxian get this child? How long has he had them? Of all the things Wei Wuxian stands accused of, Lan Qiren finds it strangely unbelievable that he stole the child. How would that do anything but inhibit his growing army?
Lan Qiren's jaw aches with how tight he clenches it.
“What do you expect of us?” he asks. There are plenty of ways his request can be taken.
“Only to see him back to health. We would not dare ask for more.”
We. He and the child’s mother? Is this Wei Wuxian’s son? Lan Qiren glances over the sleeping boy’s face again, watches the way he shivers even when obviously wrapped in a few layers of worn cloaks. Wei Wuxian was known for his flirtations as a teen, but the child seems too old to have come from that period. There is nothing of Wei Wuxian in that face. He looks more… Hm.
“And in return?” Lan Qiren asks.
The knot of Wei Wuxian’s throat bobs before he meets Lan Qiren’s eyes and says, “That depends on whether Gusu Lan accepts my second request.”
Of course there’s more. Lan Qiren can expect nothing else from such a man.
“If only A-Yuan can be healed, I will agree to be cleansed of all resentful energy and punished for my heresy as Gusu Lan sees fit,” Wei Wuxian says. A ripple of shock rolls through the gathered Lans. Such an offer, what more could possibly be coming? “If my other request is honored, I will destroy the Stygian Tiger Seal first.”
Lan Qiren’s heart quickens, his next breath catching. It’s too good to be true, a decisive way to end the growing tensions regarding all that Wei Wuxian has done and will do, remove the temptation of the fearsome weapon he had created. Just how terrible is whatever Wei Wuxian will ask for to provide the cultivation world with such a boon?
“What is the second request?” he makes himself ask.
Wei Wuxian lifts his gaze again, that same determination burning within his eyes.
“This one asks that the Gusu Lan take responsibility for the survivors of the Dafan Wen family, including Wen Ning, and let them live out the rest of their lives in peace and safety within Gusu.”
Someone shouts. Lan Qiren wishes he had the lack of decorum to do so.
The boy, Wen Yuan, is given over to the healers immediately while everything gets decided. His illness is real enough and not even the most staunch can abide by leaving an innocent be when his need is so very pressing. Had he gone untreated for another few days, it’s doubtless he’d have died. When Wei Wuxian hears this, the look on his face is so stricken that Lan Qiren has to look away.
It is both as easy as that and far more difficult to come to an agreement on the matter of the other Wen remnants. It takes a little over a week, several hours per day spent with Lan Qiren, Lan Xichen, and most of the elders considering the full scope of what Wei Wuxian has requested and offered. The debates run hot and cold as every detail is deliberated over endlessly. Lan Qiren’s head never stops hurting with the sheer level of noise he’s subjected to by people who should very well know better, but even his status in the clan doesn't give him leave to properly scold them into more peaceful arguments.
In the end, only one decision can be made. If there is a way to get rid of the threat Wei Wuxian and his terrible weapon pose to the world, one must do everything in their power to attain it.
That leaves the Lan with the uncomfortable business of figuring out how to take a group of apparently fifty or so Wen members into custody. It’s a smaller number than Lan Qiren expected, a suspiciously low number for the reports from the Jin about how many had been involved in the escape from the work camp. Where are the rest? The army Wei Wuxian has been building in the Burial Mounds?
“There is no army,” Wei Wuxian claims. “Just farmers, craftsmen, and elderly.”
Lan Qiren supposes he will have to ferret out the truth himself.
Wei Wuxian doesn’t dispute the need to put him under guard as he sits vigil in the Wen boy’s room, nor does he put up any sort of fight about the sealing arrays Lan Qiren orders around said room. He barely gives them a glance, his attention focused entirely on his small charge. The stillness of both is more unnerving than Wei Wuxian’s practices in the first place, but Lan Qiren shakes his unease away. He’s got a job to do.
The journey to Yiling goes faster than he’s expected, or maybe he’s just that eager to get the answers he wants. Lan Xichen, at least, is patient with the terrible mood Lan Qiren has been in since they left Gusu, his smile soothing ruffled feathers of the townsfolk they interrogate.
Sentiments are surprisingly neutral in Yiling. The citizens don’t seem to care much about the Wen’s past reputations so much as how well the Yiling Patriarch has kept roving corpses from escaping the Burial Mounds and the noticeable downtick in bothersome ghosts. What he’s doing with them isn’t their concern, so much as making sure a spirit isn’t poisoning their well every other week.
“Do you know how much trouble it is to fetch water from the river instead?” one man complains, rolling his eyes at the insinuation that he should be concerned with Wei Wuxian’s intentions. “If he’s keeping the well clear of water ghouls, he’s more than earned his keep.”
Apparently, only the Ghost General himself ever leaves the mysterious settlement, other than Wei Wuxian himself, and they’re even more neutral about him.
“Just about fell over himself bowing when he apologized," a woman says with a click of her tongue. “I guess being dead makes him clumsy, but damned if that stall he rebuilt for me won’t hold up for another twenty years, I’d bet.”
Said stall that Wen Qionglin had apparently stumbled over and collapsed accidentally does indeed look far sturdier than many of the others along the market street. The visits by either Wen Qionglin or Wei Wuxian have been regular, either to enquire about night hunting needs, haggle for pitifully few goods, or sell radishes they’d apparently managed to grow in that cursed land. Certainly what they’ve bought wouldn’t be enough to feed a whole army, barely enough for a few dozen people, but if most of that army is dead already…
It’s luck that has the Lan contingent spotting Wen Qionglin on his way down to Yiling. Lan Qiren has to give Wei Wuxian credit: if he didn’t already know about the man’s death, he’d think him merely recovering from prolonged illness. The pallor of his skin is grave and the dark veins climbing up his neck unnerving, but the rest of his countenance appears remarkably lifelike.
“Lan-zongzhu, Lan-xiansheng,” the fierce corpse greets with a polite salute, made only a little awkward by the loss of some finer motor control. Lan Qiren supposes that it makes sense there would be drawbacks to heretical necromancy.
“Wen-gongzi,” he returns, nodding with barest politeness. “We have come to investigate claims of a corpse army.”
Wen Qionglin blinks.
At his side, Lan Zichen sighs a little. “If Wen-gongzi would lead us into the Burial Mounds, we’d like to observe what is going on there for ourselves.
That doesn’t have Wen Qionglin exactly stiffening, given his already awkward posture, but he does glance back up the trail with apparent unease.
“Did… did Wei-gongzi send you?” he asks, looking back at them. His shoulders square up as he gathers himself, the act of defense if Lan Qiren ever saw one. Every sign of this dead man being truly conscious is more upsetting than the previous.
“We have a letter from him,” he says. The letter is fished out and handed over for Wen Qionglin to check over. As he does so, his brows twitching just barely closer together. How much control of his facial muscles has he lost, Lan Qiren wonders. How much has he retained and how? Fierce corpses often have expressions in the rictus of rage or pain, but rarely changing even once vanquished. It’s amazing work, even if terribly blasphemous.
Has Wen Qionglin been asked what he thinks about his continued existence? Has he even thought about what has been done to him, to his soul? It’s something to consider later, if things go the way Lan Qiren is growing more sure they will.
He’s proven correct. Wen Qionglin leads Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen through the fascinating wards Wei Wuxian erected around the Burial Mounds, leaving the disciples behind to wait on them in Yiling. What they find is a barely surviving village of elders and a doctor struggling to keep them alive on basically nothing. They won’t last much longer without intervention, despite their efforts. Lan Qiren can see that in all the signs of malnutrition and winter sickness throughout the population. Things that even a small amount of cultivation would have staved off easily. If there is no more damning proof of what these people are and what they aren’t, it’s this. Wen Qing is a cultivator, but she is very much the only one other than Wei Wuxian.
There’s no army here. If this is the kind of people Wei Wuxian took from the work camp, there’s much for the Lan to consider in their current partnerships with other sects.
The decision is easy to make. Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen still perform a thorough review of the settlement and as much of the surrounding land as they can outside the protective arrays keeping the Wen safe from corrosive resentment, but they find nothing they aren’t now expecting. Wei Wuxian’s efforts are ingenious, the way he’s slowly draining resentment to widen the settlement little by little without a hint of spiritual power in the sigils. Lan Qiren gives himself some extra time to examine one of the anchoring posts around the outskirts of the settlement, but the blood soaked spellwork is too intricate for him to make full sense of without taking it apart component by component. To think a mind this brilliant exists presently, and it fell to heretical practices so easily.
Lan Xichen speaks with Wen Qing before they leave, as she appears to be the de facto head of the settlement without Wei Wuxian despite being the second youngest person there. They promise to send supplies to keep the Wen fed while they figure out housing and other concerns back in Gusu. There’s a stubborn glint to his nephew’s eyes that reminds Lan Qiren more of Lan Wangji, but he isn’t unhappy to see it. The elders will be brought around, there is no righteousness to be had in letting things stay as they currently stand.
Returning to Gusu, Lan Qiren is pleased to hear that young Wen Yuan is responding well to treatment. There’s confidence he will make a full recovery. That’s just one small thing to tick off the list of Lan Qiren’s outstanding worries. That Wei Wuxian has behaved while they were gone is of some comfort, even if Lan Qiren isn’t sure it will hold.
"Gusu Lan has chosen to accept both of your requests," he tells Wei Wuxian, after managing to tear the man away from Wen Yuan's bedside for a few private moments. "Pending, of course, on you carrying out your end of the bargain."
"Of course," Wei Wuxian agrees easily. It should seem too eager, but there's a level of exhaustion obvious to Lan Qiren's glance over that makes him think this to be more of a relief than they'd expected. "As soon as the Dafan Wen have been secured on Gusu Lan controlled land, I will destroy the Stygian Tiger Seal and submit myself for cleansing and punishment."
Lan Qiren searches his face without finding signs of deception, just more of the same tired acceptance. "Very well. Wen Yuan is welcome to remain within our custody for further treatment while arrangements are made. You are not."
For anyone else, Lan Qiren would expect anger or embarrassment. Wei Wuxian just bows to him even lower than before, and it is so sincere that Lan Qiren ends up being the one embarrassed by the gesture.
"Please contact us as soon as the move can begin and with any updates on A-Yuan's condition," Wei Wuxian says, then whispers his goodbyes to the sleeping child before leaving.
Now Lan Qiren just has to figure out what to do with several dozen refugees and a sentient fierce corpse. With Lan Xichen’s assurance, they manage to get the elders whipped up into a righteous fury that proves favorable to their purposes. Yes, it’s more about having been led so obviously astray and made fools of by the Jin than for the misfortune of the Wen remnants, but the ends amount to the same. Lan Qiren has used more guile for less reward in the past.
The Lan mobilize to survey and build out the beginnings of a new settlement. It’s situated close enough to Cloud Recesses for them to keep track of the Wen and aid them in the event of an emergency, fertile land they can farm a lot easier than anything in the Burial Mounds for self sufficiency, and close enough to Caiyi Town for trading . It takes a few weeks to get enough of it ready for habitation that they can start planning the relocation itself. Security is of utmost concern. With the lies that had been spread to further the edge between the Wen and the other sects, Lan Qiren isn’t sure they can count on a peaceful journey.
He’s lucky that Lan Wangji arrives back from his last night hunt in perfect timing to lead the expedition. Of course, it takes some doing to keep his errant nephew from immediately going off to confront Wei Wuxian the moment he hears the man had been there, but Lan Qiren is old hat at wrangling young men. Soon enough, Lan Wangji heads off with a force of Lan disciples under his control to retrieve the Wen remnants for their journey to Gusu.
Lan Qiren would count this as a good time to drink to good health, were he a drinking man. Instead, he lets himself bask in his own excellence for exactly as long as acceptable by the sect rules, then concentrates on more preparations while he waits for the Wen to arrive.
It's gratifying to witness how his own sect reacts to seeing the refugees a few weeks later, bedraggled, thin, and with a few more injuries than he was expecting. A glance to his nephew finds low boiling anger, but Lan Qiren doesn't find out until hours later about the three separate attacks they'd had to fight off along the way, all by people without clan colors or other signs of identity. For now, he lets disciples swarm and expertly handle dividing out those who need medical attention from those who can be taken straight to the settlement. Wen Qing is uninjured, but she remains to assist with grim determination to see to her people while Wen Ning allows himself to be taken for examination by the top experts of the Gusu Lan. Just because they've agreed to house the fierce corpse doesn't mean they'll do so without assuring themselves of their relative safety in his presence.
All in all, the arrival is a smooth process. Lan Qiren observes the last of the Wen being taken to their respective places before he turns to view the one person who has not yet stepped past their gate.
"What preparations are needed for the destruction of the Seal?" he asks point blank, knowing better than to give someone like Wei Wuxian any wiggle room now that he's gotten what he wants.
Wei Wuxian smiles, but it's small and tired. "I've already made them while we were preparing for the move. It can't be done here. Just have someone escort me back to the Burial Grounds and stand guard outside the barrier for a bit, and it'll be done."
"What is the procedure you're following?" Lan Qiren eyes him suspiciously. Wei Wuxian just gives a little laugh.
"My secrets aren't part of the bargain," he says. Cheeky, but correct. "Don't worry, I'm not about to double cross my new benefactors. The Seal will be destroyed entirely before I ever leave the Burial Grounds again."
They'd see about that. "Very well. I'll send Wangji with you, then."
If anyone might be able to hold Wei Wuxian to his word, it's his nephew. Wei Wuxian tenses but doesn't object to the decision. He just nods and the two of them leave that evening for Yiling.
In some ways, it feels anticlimactic. Still, better than a massacre when Wei Wuxian inevitably loses control of his heretic magics. The sooner that horrible tool is destroyed, the better.