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[He snorts.]

I want to know about Jiang Cheng, and Jin Ling. I want to know about Lan Zhan. I've been thinking this for a while, but...Itachi suggested to me that I should ask you about the future as well.

So, I want to know about the things I've been pretending to know nothing about too.

[He doesn't know what it is, but Wei Wuxian isn't a fool, and there are only so many discrepancies he can pretend not to notice. But he's grateful that everyone had allowed him this. It was what he'd wanted for so long. Now, nearing the end, he's decided he wants something different.]

So, everything?

Ugh, alright, but I want tea for this conversation. Do you want to come over, or am I making it just for myself?

[ meaning, does he want to have this conversation in person or like this... huaisang isn't sure what he would prefer, actually. it's funny — he has been expecting this, eventually, and when it is happening he finds he's not prepared at all. ]

Tea would be nice. I'll be over soon, Nie-xiong.

[He rises from where he'd been sitting at the edge of his bed and stops in front of the mirror, staring at his reflection. There is a sinking feeling in his stomach and jittery feelings of anticipation singing through his veins. He's nervous and he raises a hand to smooth through his hair, eyes flickering away from the mirror. Will he be changed the next time he looks in the mirror or will he be the same man?

It's a silly thought and he bats it away, slipping out of the room and into the hall. He has protected himself for long enough. It's time to face the truth.

He reaches Huaisang's door all too soon.]

[ with a deep sigh, huaisang takes out his best tea — he has been saving it for no particular occasion, and if this is not it, then nothing is. maybe it will be enough to get them both through this. there had been, after all, reasons he had been all but too happy to comply with wei wuxian's request; he'd told gwen as much, and itachi, later. that there were things he never wanted his friend to hear, simply for how painful they would be for him to hear.

but maybe... this wei wuxian is not the same man who woke on the station, all that time ago. this wei wuxian is not the same man who let himself fall to his doom.

maybe, huaisang thinks, i am doing what everyone else fell victim to: underestimating him.

the tea is brewing as the knock sounds on his door, and it slides open with a hiss. the huaisang who opens it is not the same man who wei wuxian remembers from all those years ago, either; for once, perhaps for the first time, he doesn't bother to pretend. he walks instead of fluttering, his expression is calm, considering, instead of wide and exaggerated. the look he gives his friend is assessing; when he finds what he is looking for, he nods. ]

Maybe you're actually ready for this. Sit down, Wei-xiong. I think this may take a while.

[Wei Wuxian sits, eyes never leaving Huaisang. It isn't the first time he's noticed the changes in his friend, but it is the first time they're so blatantly on display. Everything from the sharp assessing look in his eyes to the way he carries himself. This is the real Nie Huaisang now, Wei Wuxian knows. Intelligent, critical, strong. Because he had to be, Wei Wuxian remembers. He hasn't forgotten all that Huaisang had shared with him after he'd seen the memory of Jin Guangyao's passing.

Wei Wuxian finds that he's relieved to be able to see his true face.

No matter the rest, Huaisang will always be his friend.]

A while, huh? [He chuckles and takes a deep breath, nerves clear.]

Then we should start.

[ there is a pinprick of relief he feels when wei wuxian gives no sign of being unsettled — it doesn't show on his face, but a part of him had feared his reaction.

he sits down, too, pouring both of them tea, moves unhurried.

he hands wei wuxian the cup, and says, ]

There was a young man called Mo Xuyanyu. He was one of Jin Guangshan's illegitimate children, except nobly born, so he was taken in to Lanling Jin... most likely as an insult to Jin Guangyao. After San-ge murdered his father, he found that Mo Xuanyu knew some things he shouldn't have known... and arranged for him to be disgraced, and thrown out of Lanling, left with a family that hated and abused him into madness. [ he takes a sip. ] While in Lanling, Young Master Mo had found his way to a secret storage he shouldn't have... one containing what the Jin had taken from the Burial Mounds. Including many notes made by someone you might be familiar with — one of them being instructions for how to sacrifice your own soul to summon a spirit into your body.

[ he sighs. ] I couldn't persuade him not to go through with what he wanted to do. [ there is no untruth in that... yet it is not the whole truth. but he'd never said he would give all of it, and he is not willing to find out how far wei wuxian's goodwill goes, in this. he's not proud of what he did — but then, that had never stopped him. that couldn't stop him. ] But I confess it was my doing, him adding Jin Guangyao to the list of people he wanted you to exact revenge on.

[ yes, that means exactly what you think it means. ]

Edited 2024-01-02 23:22 (UTC)

[A long time ago, mere months after he'd come to the Ximilia, Lan Xichen had let it slip where Wei Wuxian could hear that his sacrifice summons hadn't been destroyed, and that the Jin had taken it kept it for themselves. He had also learned that someone had used the sacrifice summons—an array he never should have created, something he should have burned the moment he'd seen it complete.

He'd known that someone had died using it, but he didn't have a name until now.

Mo Xuanyu.

Wei Wuxian had been warming his hands on the tea cup but now he sets the tea down to hold one hand up and gaze at his palm. It's a strange thing to know that the body he resides in now will be replaced. He'd known that this one was destroyed in the fall, but he hadn't thought to inhabit another, not in this incarnation at least. He slides a thumb across his forearm and wonders which arm Mo Xuanyu had sliced into. He might have made the cuts somewhere else, but the arm made the most sense. If he was right handed, then most likely his left forearm, right?

It must have hurt him to make those cuts. They were meant to be deep. Or maybe pain like that didn't reach him anymore, if his life was as miserable as Huaisang had explained. If he was desperate enough to use that stupid array.]

It must have made sense to choose me, [he says, voice carefully neutral and fingers still ghosting across his forearm.] the rumors about me when I was alive were brutal. I can't imagine my death and...and sixteen years of time improved them.

[Sixteen, he knows. Lan Zhan had been sixteen years from him and had still mourned. But Zewu-jun was sixteen years and he'd known. Lan Sizhui was sixteen years and so did he. Somewhere in between then. It all makes sense now, a hundred comments from Zewu-jun that had never sat right. The way a-Yuan looked at him. He curls his fingers in against his arm and takes a deep breath, setting aside the panic threatening to take hold of him.]

Did I avenge him? Did I at least do that?

[There is too much to take in, a hundred questions brimming on his lips, but this one rises above the rest. Mo Xuanyu paid the price for Wei Wuxian's cruel creation, he needs to know that at the very least, he gave whatever echoes of his soul remained some peace.]

The legend of the Yiling Laozu hasn't diminished over the years, no.

[ calmly, huaisang takes another sip, and doesn't add that as soon as he knew what he would do, he made sure to keep those legends alive.

a glance at his friend tells him that he is taking it — if not well, then at least not as badly as he once would have. that is good. he may make it through it all, at this rate. ]

You did. [ a pause. ] Well, you technically didn't actually kill anyone — a tainted sword spirit did everything needed at the Mo Manor, and Er-ge was the one to kill San-ge.

[ had xichen-ge ever said that much? probably not. huaisang also does not add that he was the cause of baxia being in mo manor in the first place, and er-ge moving to kill san-ge.

... huh. does that mean he helped avenge mo xuanyu, albeit without meaning to? maybe. ]

But it was your actions that led to everything, so... the wounds did close. He didn't sacrifice himself for nothing.

Ah. That's something then. [Not much, not in the face of the destruction of from what it sounds like to him was an innocent desperate soul. But it was something. Wei Wuxian stares down at his tea cup and raises it on a whim, taking a long sip. The tea warms his throat and chest and he exhales quietly after.

His head is spinning.

He asked for this though, he wants to know, no matter how it stings.]

So I...[Come back, he doesn't say, shaking his head. That much is obvious by now, it's a foolish question.]

Nie-xiong, [He starts, eyes fixed on his tea,] I know the state of mind I'd have come back in. And I know the sects would have just as soon taken the opportunity to kill me and destroy my soul this time.

[He pauses, trying to figure out how to ask a question that will make sense. He knows that even if the sects hadn't found him, he would have sooner let the curse take him than get involved. Maybe he would have fulfilled Mo Xuanyu's revenge against his family, but he wouldn't have wanted to get involved with Lanling politics. He'd have walked into the world to wander until the curse destroyed him.

And all of that is if he didn't find the nearest cliff and get it all over with sooner rather than later. So why didn't he?]

There was nothing left for me there, so how...why did I get involved? I know I'm asking you a question that maybe some other version of myself can answer but...you must have an idea. Or a theory.

Oh, the sects tried.

[ kind of. sort of. it's complicated! ] Not Qinghe Nie, though. Or Yunmeng Jiang. Or Gusu Lan. [ he adds each as if every one of them is an afterthought, said absently as he waits for wei wuxian to gather his thoughts. and when he does — ]

You met the youngsters. Jin Ling was among them, I believe that played a role. They all got involved in something dangerous, and I don't think you felt you could leave them unsupervised. You found Wen Ning was alive, which I think meant you couldn't leave before you'd freed him... and Hanguang-jun recognised you. Are those enough to explain it?

[ because i gave you a mystery to solve, he thinks. because you never could walk away from one, one that seemed to speak of someone asking for justice. because i made sure the juniors were in danger. because i couldn't afford for you to just leave it all behind. ]

[There's a lot to process in that.

Unfortunately, Wei Wuxian's mind has ground to a complete halt and he stares at Huaisang with wide disbelieving eyes, his jaw falling open for a moment.]

Wen Ning is...Wen Ning is alive?

[Oops guess who didn't know that particular detail yet?

And then, desperately, with the stirrings of hope in his voice—] Does that mean—is Wen Qing...? Did they escape?

You... didn't know?

[ sizhui didn't tell him?? well. this — this is not how he would have brought it up, if he'd known. ]

Wei-xiong... No, Lady Wen is dead. I'm sorry. But I suppose the Jin never dispose of what they think they can use to their advantage... they never executed Xue Yang, and I guess he thought he'd be able to control Wen Ning eventually. So they imprisoned him in secret, and kept him... ah, I don't really know. I think they had some nails in his head?

[His gaze darts away and he blinks his eyes rapidly, forcing himself to take deep calming breaths. Of course he'd known it was a long shot. He'd said his goodbyes to her long ago. For a long time Wei Wuxian says nothing, busying himself taking another sip of tea and looking anywhere but at Huaisang's face, lest he catch a glimpse of the devastation that he's quickly tucking away.

The rest of the information sinks in slowly and his fingers clench around the tea cup.

Ah, that makes sense. Like the soul sacrifice summons. If they thought they could use him, then they would keep him. He closes his eyes, exhaling, and opens them again.]

Did I free him? Did someone? [It is too soon to rejoice that his friend yet lives. Not when he doesn't know if Wen Ning has become nothing more than a slave to the whims of the Jin and someone like Xue Yang.]

[ huaisang takes a moment to drink his tea, eyes downcast, to give his friend time to process it all — or, at the very least, not crumble under the weight of the news. ]

You did. You made sure of it. He's alive and well, and doing what he wants to be doing, now. He didn't die because of you, Wei-xiong, and now he's free because of you.

There are many people alive today who owe a lot to you.

[The weight in his chest lightens and he finally allows himself to think about what that means. Wen Ning lived. For terrible reasons perhaps, but he lives now, free and of his own accord. He lives and that means a-Yuan must know. He must finally be getting the chance to know his cousin.

He huffs out a breath of air, amusement touching the edges of the sound.]

I don't know about all of that, but if Wen Ning lives, then I'm glad. [And he knows with every fiber of his being that if Wen Qing had to choose between them, she always would have chosen her beloved little brother. If Wei Wuxian must come back, then at least he can continue her work in looking after him.]

You weren't kidding when you said this might take a while. [Because he knows there is more to cover still, even with two life changing revelations already having been uncovered.]

I should probably make us more tea.

[ it's said with a sigh — and as he sets another pot of water to boil, he starts to speak, slow and measured. ]

When I realised what had happened to Da-ge, I started to think, what if he wasn't the only one? I'd uncovered San-ge's method: his murders never leave doubt. Everyone knows the Nie are doomed to qi deviate, strong warriors faster than others, even if they don't know why. Of course Da-ge would qi deviate. Of course it was going to happen. Why would anyone find it suspicious that it happened so fast, in a time of peace?

[ huaisang's eyes are fixed ahead, looking at something only he can see — perhaps the moment of his brother's death, or perhaps the intricate machinations of one jin guangyao he'd become so familiar with. ]

So I started looking at everything that had happened. Pride was always San-ge's downfall — he didn't think anyone else was as smart as him. But once I knew what to look for, it was easy. Jin Guangshan — why would anyone think twice of an old man dying of a failing heart, in the middle of such activities? Of course it was going to happen. Never mind this was a great sect leader, a cultivator. And even little A-Song... how could anyone accuse him of murdering his own son? That was unthinkable.

[ the water, some of it already hot, reaches the perfect temperature for green tea, and huaisang moves the pot away, sets in tea leaves to steep. ]

San-ge wanted to rise to the very top, to prove that he was not just as good as everyone else, but better. Da-ge never trusted him; he couldn't have someone leading one of the great sects who would always be against him. So he had to go. Jin Guangshan had to go, not just because of all the slights against him, but because he wanted to lead the sect.

[ slowly, huaisang looks up from the tea pot, right at wei wuxian. ]

Can you see where I'm going with this?

[Wei Wuxian is a bright man, but it still takes him a long while to actually see where Huaisang is going with it, and when he does, he shakes his head immediately, ignoring the way his stomach tightens uncomfortably. Any questions he had about Jin Guangyao—his own son?—fade to white noise in lieu of it.]

I took on the mantle of demonic cultivator. I took the Wen away to the Burial mounds. I created the Yin Tiger Tally. I killed Jin Zixuan and his cousin. [a man whose name he can't recall even now.]

And I went to Nightless City that night and made my choices there too. [I jumped, he doesn't say, though the words are on the tip of his tongue. I killed Shijie. There is a memory he has of that night that he has refused to consider even though it remains in his mind, a blot on an otherwise pristine page. There is a sound he can't erase from his memory, the high pitched trilling of a flute.

Hallucination, he reminds himself. Don't think of it.]

What you're suggesting isn't possible.

And I didn't...[He falters, shaking his head.] I didn't do anything to him. I wasn't in his way.

No, but Jin Zixuan was.

[ of course jin guangyao saw his chance — a way to be rid of the brother he never wanted, never cared for, but always, always envied. ]

It was the perfect plan, really. San-ge wasn't wrong to have pride in his intellect. Who would believe you hadn't really lost control? You were dangerous and unstable. Even if you'd heard the other flute... even if you tried to speak out about it, who would believe you? There were no other demonic cultivators like you. No one else could do the same thing. [ he shakes his head. ] You were the perfect scapegoat. When all the bad things that happened were already laid at your feet, what was one more thing?

[ he pauses, then grimaces. ] I'm sorry, Wei-xiong. It shouldn't have taken me so long to realise that it was never really your fault. But you never once lost control of Wen Ning before, did you? Did you even think it was possible, until that moment?

[ he doesn't give him time to answer. ] You didn't, because it wasn't. Not until someone else took control of him instead, and made him kill Jin Zixuan.

San-ge didn't care if you'd never done anything to him. You just happened to be... convenient.

[ just like mo xuanyu was, he thinks, unbidden. convenient.

sometimes, he thinks he can hear san-ge laughing at him; he'd rid the world of jin guangyao, and created someone just like him in his place. ]

[He pushes away from the table so fast that he nearly knocks his tea over, jumping to his feet and turning to begin pacing the room without a word. He'd had his suspicions about some of what Nie Huaisang had to tell him, but never in a million years had he considered this. His thoughts are in disarray, and it feels like he's being dismantled from his foundation up.

He stops in his pacing and stares at the wall in front of him, eyes unseeing.

The thing is, it was his fault. It was supposed to be his fault. It had to be his fault. Because if it wasn't then...then what?

The question echoes in his mind.

If it wasn't then what? Then Shijie didn't have to die? Then he could have saved Jin Zixuan if he'd just been paying attention, if he's been listening, if he'd been sharper and faster and better. He could have saved Jin Zixuan and the Dafan Wen didn't have to die. He didn't have to be there at Nightless City that day. He didn't have to watch Shijie die in Jiang Cheng's arms or see his brother look at him with pure loathing in his eyes.

If it wasn't his fault, then what was it all for? What was the point of any of it?

He turns to face Huaisang again, taking a few steps forward back to the table and not quite making it there before sinking to his knees. He doesn't cry. What's the point? He closes his eyes, head tilted up towards the ceiling, and he exhales softly before tilting his head back down and raising a hand to cover his face. His second hand joins the first and then he starts to laugh.

It isn't hysterical, the laughter soft and unhurried, but there's an edge to it that speaks to something horribly desparate.]

Sorry Nie-xiong, I need a minute.

I'm sorry, Wei-xiong. It's not fair.

[ but then, nothing that jin guangyao had done had been so. all of them had gone through so much — for nothing but the ambitions of a man scorned by his father and turned into something terrible.

instead of speaking, he busies himself with the teapot, pouring them both more tea, leaving the cup in front of wei wuxian, sitting back and drinking his own in silence.

after five minutes have passed, he says, quietly, ]

Don't blame yourself for not having seen it. No one did, until it was too late. Even me.

[ and — though it sounds arrogant — his mind was the only one in the cultivation world sharp enough to match san-ge. ]

[He doesn't know if that's why it hurts. If he hadn't seen it but no one else had either, should it really be so heavy a burden? Should it feel like this? He shakes his head, wordless, and drops his hands. His eyes are open and dry, but there is an emptiness behind them that wasn't there before.]

All of this...[He starts and lets himself trail off. He's quiet for another minute before he picks up again.] All of this for one man.

Thousands dead. Your brother. My Shijie.

All of it.

[It's crushing.

There is no relief, no revelation of innocence. There is only the knowledge that none of it had to happen. That all of that suffering was at one man's whim. He doesn't even feel anger, there is simply nothing. Wei Wuxian has lived so long with this yoke that the thought of peeling it away feels like carving out a piece of his own flesh, and there is only so much of his body that he has left to give.]

I should hate him. [He mumbles.] Shouldn't I?

Would it make you feel better?

[ no — he doubts anything would. to have thought that he was deserving of all the suffering must have been a way to cope with it all; now that it's gone, what is left? ]

I don't think it helps, but I believe he never meant for Lady Jiang to die. [ an unfortunate accident — she should never have left the jinlintai.

he sighs. ]

I also believe some of the blame lays at Jin Guangshan's feet. I was never able to find out just how much of it — everything that happened to the Wen, certainly, as well as Jin Zixun confronting you over the curse. Perhaps even the idea that Da-ge should be killed... sometimes, I wonder what kind of a man San-ge would have been, if he'd never sought for the approval of his father. Or if his father had been a better man.

[ he pauses, taking out his fan, flipping it open as if reflexively. ]

I hated him, you know. More than anyone or anything. But he was my brother, who helped me, cared for me, lied for me. [ his fan is decorated with the perfect image of the unclean realm, seeming almost alive as the fan moves back and forth. ] In the end, I think there were two people San-ge actually cared about, still. Er-ge, of course... and me. He was killed by Er-ge, knowing it was me who'd been behind his downfall.

He died as nothing. He died with nothing. If you do feel hate for him, just know he died having lost everything that ever mattered to him.

[It's a tale so tragic, he isn't sure his heart can take the weight of it. Tragic for Huaisang, tragic for Zewu-jun, tragic for the Wen and Shijie. Even tragic for Jin Guangyao himself. Later, he thinks, when he has had time to tuck the broken pieces of this tragedy away into the places he will keep them, he will return to Huaisang. To his role in this tragedy and the way it has left its scars on his friend.

He isn't unaware of the pieces Huaisang is laying at his feet either. Of the mess and tangle of love, friendship, and betrayal in which Huaisang appears so prominent.

Maybe if he was newly resurrected after sixteen years and he learned of this, he would feel differently about his friend, the stranger who conducted things so coldly from the dark. But he is not newly resurrected. He has lived alongside Huaisang for two years now, watching him slowly remove the masks he had forged in all that time. Learning about the sides of him that Huaisang has slowly allowed him to see. Seeing how he cared for Gwen and others aboard the Ximilia.

If Jin Guangyao was as clever as Huaisang says, isn't the dark the only place he could have remained to survive?

This is not the boyhood friendship they had shared in late nights of self-discovery and teen rebellion. They are grown now, aged by war and pain and darkness burrowing into their hearts. Who would he be if he turned away from Huaisang's darkness now? Who would he be but a cruel hypocrite?

(So he does see it. He does. And he knows there is a cruelty to Jin Guangyao's end that the Huaisang he left behind wouldn't have been capable of. But it only makes his heart ache for all of them.)]

I never told you what my regret was.

[ it's more than he's ever before spoken on the subject, with anyone — even xichen-ge, who knew it all. but perhaps that was the reason; they were both too close to what had happened. every time they stood to speak, the ghosts of their brothers stood by them, unseen but very much felt, two shadows they could never banish.

it's easier, to speak of it all to someone to whom jin guangyao had been — nothing. ]

You didn't, [ comes his answer, somewhat relieved to be changing subjects, if only slightly. ]

I first thought it might be the massacre of Lotus Pier, but we'd have lost the war then [ said with absolute nonchalance, like it's an obvious conclusion to make, ] so it couldn't be... so I always assumed it was either what happened to the Dafan Wen, or Lady Jiang.

[We'd have lost the war then, Huaisang says, and this time when Wei Wuxian laughs it is a wet choking sound. He doesn't abandon himself to the grief that tries to drag him under, but it escapes just for one moment in that sound. It's a relief, he thinks, to finally be acknowledged. To know that someone understands that all of his sacrifices were worth it at least for one bright and shining moment. That he did what he was supposed to do with it.

He doesn't ask how Huaisang knows about that sacrifice. They'll get there, he's sure.

After another moment of silence, he continues.]

Even with the orb's power, I couldn't find a way to save everyone. There is no one moment that exists to set everything right.

But I thought there was one moment that was...the closest. The best I could do.

I thought, if I just let Jin Zixuan's cousin kill me that day at Qiongqi Pass and his stupid curse didn't vanish...even if he found another reason to blame me, Jin Zixuan would live. There would be no battle at Nightless city. Shijie would be safe. My brother would only hate me as much as he did at that time and not the way he did at the end.

And if I was very lucky, Lan Zhan could make it to the Dafan Wen before the rest. [It guaranteed Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli's lives if nothing else, or at least he'd believed as much. The Dafan Wen were not guaranteed but it was the best he could do.

And he hadn't known then that a-Yuan survived, because if he had, his best wouldn't have been enough. He never would have risked a-Yuan.]

I gave it up months ago. That's a good thing of course, as I'm sure you understand as I do now. It wouldn't have worked. I didn't know that it was never going to work.

I didn't know anything.

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