[ closed post: hold fast to the center ]

[lightbearinglord]

With Dark behind them, most of Lan Wangji's routine has managed to reassert itself. He awakens at mao hour and disentangles himself from his clinging cultivation partner, who tends to sprout several additional limbs in the night. He dresses and slips away for his morning meditation. He takes Bichen to the air, circles the grounds of the mansion and checks the woods for any changes beyond the known quantities of Ragnelle's nest and Magnus' camp, and runs through his sword forms. He stops in the kitchen and makes breakfast for his husband. By that point, his day can branch in several ways: he can, upon bringing the breakfast to Wei Ying, also opt to return to his bed, a perpetually tempting option. He can find Magnus and indulge in listening to him talking about whatever strikes his fancy. He can practice his qin, work on his calligraphy, retreat to the library for the endless project of educating himself, or embark on some more ambitious culinary endeavor.

Recently, however, Lan Wangji was reminded of a promise he made to someone important. Where possible, he prefers to keep his promises. So this morning, after he has sufficiently fed Wei Ying, made his apologies in the form of several lingering love-bites along his neck and shoulders, and changed his boots for house slippers, he approaches Claudius and Galahad's room. This route is one of the few persistently familiar paths that seem to exist in the ever-changing mansion.

It is early, but not so early. And Claudius did ask him for this, not once but twice. He lifts a hand and knocks crisply at the door.

Comments

[lightbearinglord]

"Wei Ying and I extracted his nephew from the walls of one of the castles." And not a moment too soon. "He had acquired a curse mark from within them. When I left in pursuit of Nie Huaisang, Wei Ying took the curse mark onto himself." Lan Wangji says this part just a little darkly, the way he can never be entirely unruffled about anything that involves Wei Ying sacrificing himself for another. "The arm in our possession reacted violently to the mark. We surmised that Wei Ying's nephew must have been in the presence of the arm's corresponding leg."

[wickedwit]

Wei Wuxian does seem to be in the habit of sacrificing himself for family members, whether giving up a golden core or taking on a curse mark. "Fascinating," Claudius remarks. "A sort of sympathetic magic. Like calls to like. Was that why the arm had led thee to Qinghe?"

[lightbearinglord]

Again, Lan Wangji nods. "The body wanted to reconstitute itself. Within those walls, we found both of its legs. Once we had them, it shifted course and pointed us to Yueyang instead."

[wickedwit]

It's a puzzle, which delights Claudius -- that it's a puzzle with body parts doesn't put him off at all. Anatomical books always mesmerized him. Even on the battlefield, it was envisioning those pages and diagrams that carried him through his first amputation. "The next arm, I suppose. Or something else?" A head? A torso?

[lightbearinglord]

"The torso, within the cemetery of the massacred Yueyang Chang clan. It was not until Yi City, where we encountered corpse poison, several of my junior disciples, and Xue Yang, the cultivator who exterminated Yueyang Chang, that I located the second arm." Explaining Xue Yang in his entirety would take an entire additional story.

[wickedwit]

It was the torso. Even hearing the story, there's a satisfaction in feeling the pieces come together, across a long journey (which Lan Wangji neatly elides). "From Qinghe to Yueyang to Yi City. The pieces sound quite deliberately scattered, as though to make the reassembly more difficult. Did you have any sense of what would happen, once they were united?"

[lightbearinglord]

"Only that it would be a fiercer corpse than any we had seen." Excepting, perhaps, Wen Qionglin, but the Ghost General was docile enough by then, and very forgiving of Lan Wangji's tendency to drunkenly shove him aside in pursuit of time with Wei Ying. "Before we could locate the head, it reassembled itself. Wei Ying led it away from the juniors. Xiongzhang had joined us. He subdued it with me, and realized that he recognized it." Here, Lan Wangji obligingly pauses so that Claudius may try his hand at guessing the corpse's identity.

[wickedwit]

Claudius considers the cast of characters. Naturally, it would have to be someone already dead before this particular leg¹ of the story began. There was a veritable cascade of deaths and inheritances, between Qinghe Nie and Lanling Jin. But the most important clue is someone Lan Xichen would recognize. Perhaps someone he was close to, all those years ago, when Lan Wangji failed to befriend Nie Huaisang.

"No," Claudius says with shock. "Not Nie Mingjue?"

¹ Heh.

[lightbearinglord]

"Nie Mingjue," Lan Wangji repeats, with another small nod of confirmation. He is surprised to find himself with just enough distance from this story to feel a little satisfaction at Claudius' apparent shock. "It was known that he had died of a qi deviation, but his corpse was powerfully resentful. Its ferocity could be explained only by a murder."

[wickedwit]

Claudius audibly gasps. Yes, he knew this was a revenge story from the beginning, but all the pieces start to come together like -- well -- like the reassembled corpse of a close friend with an unmistakable torso who died from a qi deviation. "Nie Huaisang," he says. "Nie Huaisang knew it was a murder, didn't he?"

[lightbearinglord]

"Nie Huaisang knew," Lan Wangji confirms again. "But we did not realize that until later, after Nie Mingjue's murderer had been discredited, disgraced, and then killed, too. Nie Huaisang's reputation cloaked him well."

[wickedwit]

“Who was it? Thou hast me on the edge of my seat,” Claudius says, as though he wouldn’t be inching towards it regardless. He’s given up that straight posture to lean eagerly forward.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji can hardly restrain himself from a fleeting look of affection at Claudius' eagerness. He is, of course, still sitting as straight as a brush, and he does return to some more overt somberness as he answers. "Wei Ying knew it. Xiongzhang was reluctant to believe. He and Jin Guangyao had been intimate friends since the Sunshot Campaign."

[wickedwit]

Claudius nearly gasps again. “Nie Huaisang’s own counsellor?” And another close friend of Lan Xichen’s — Claudius begins to understand why a charming, trusting man like that would end up in seclusion, with a pang of sympathy.

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn." Nie Huaisang's counsellor, and the former right-hand man to Nie Mingjue. "Meng Yao and Nie Mingjue had met on the battlefield at Hejian. Nie Mingjue defended Meng Yao against his detractors and took him in as advisor to the Nie clan. Xiongzhang visited Hejian and they became close as well. Later, at Langya, Nie Mingjue witnessed Meng Yao killing a Lanling Jin commander using Qishan Wen techniques. After his dismissal by Nie Mingjue, Meng Yao became a spy. He infiltrated Nightless City, the seat of the Wen clan, and passed intelligence to my brother, who passed it to Nie Mingjue."

[wickedwit]

"A rather complicated relationship," Claudius surmises. Claudius rarely spoke to anyone from his service in Normandy, but he knows what bonds form on the battlefield. And for one man to defend the other from all detractors, until there's one step taken too far ... He thinks back to what he recalls of Qishan Wen and the Sunshot Campaign, their brutal methods, their shows of force. All the same, Claudius's instinct is to wonder what the Lanling Jin commander did, particularly to a bastard son of the Jin family. Unwanted sons aren't treated kindly. "Thy brother is a sympathetic man, to still trust in Meng Yao. Was his intelligence reliable?" There's a complicated feeling there -- it would be very easy for this man to take advantage of Lan Xichen's trust, and pass on faulty information to hurt Nie Mingjue. It's the sort of thing Claudius used to do, which he only occasionally feels a pang of guilt for.

[lightbearinglord]

"It was reliable, and Nie Mingjue won several victories," Lan Wangji says, "until an attempted ambush on Yangquan. Qishan Wen took Nie Mingjue captive and brought him before Wen Ruohan, the sect leader. He met Meng Yao again there, and learned that he was the spy in Nightless City. Meng Yao killed many of Nie Mingjue's subordinates and offered him to Wen Ruohan for death by torture. At the last minute, Meng Yao killed Wen Ruohan instead. That is how he earned acceptance by his father, who granted him the name of Jin Guangyao."

[wickedwit]

Ah, of course. Claudius could almost roll his eyes, if it weren't for the tragedy of it. He's met bastard sons of nobility who would do anything for their fathers' approval, to have some proof their birth and life were worth something, despite their illegitimacy¹. "I see. Despite Meng Yao's last minute reversal and acceptance as a Jin, I take it Nie Mingjue wouldn't forgive the slaughter of his subordinates that easily."

¹ Edmund. He's thinking about Edmund FromKingLear.

[lightbearinglord]

"No. Nie Mingjue was a morally rigid man." Famously so, and he was one of the first to condemn Wei Ying and advocate for his exile from the cultivation world. Lan Wangji is glad for the small, peaceful world of this room, the lingering and familiar sandalwood scent, and Claudius' company. It makes it easier not to dwell. He is not telling that story today.

"After the war, my brother, Nie Mingjue, and Jin Guangyao entered a sworn brotherhood, the Venerated Triad. Nie Mingjue was reluctant, but agreed. Xiongzhang knew he wanted to monitor Jin Guangyao."

[wickedwit]

"Thy brother was popular, to have two sworn brothers. No wonder he was counted among the cultivation world's eligible bachelors." A tease, but a softly-made one. From the way Lan Wangji has described him, Claudius imagines Lan Xichen as a kind, attentive man who cares as deeply as Lan Wangji himself does, and who would've taken his oaths of brotherhood seriously. A loyal man, whose heart would be divided between two of his sworn brothers' enmity for each other -- and Lan Xichen lost them both. It's sincere, when Claudius says, "It's a shame his heart was not treated more kindly."

[lightbearinglord]

The cultivation world's most eligible bachelor, Lan Wangji could correct him -- but he knows Claudius must remember that. Lan Xichen has always wanted to please and see the best in everyone. One brother, killed by the other. Lan Wangji thinks it will be some time yet before Lan Xichen emerges from seclusion and resumes his duties.

"Yes," he says, simple enough and equally sincere. There is a story to resume. "Xiongzhang, Wei Ying, and I determined that we would investigate further at a Lanling Jin discussion conference the following month. Jin Guangyao had been the sect leader for years by then, following Jin Guangshan's death."

[wickedwit]

An investigation at a discussion conference. Claudius's interest is certainly piqued. "A fine opportunity, with so many gathered. How didst thou proceed?" he asks.

[lightbearinglord]

"Wei Ying used the Paper Metamorphosis technique the evening of the pre-conference banquet." A little abruptly, Lan Wangji's face softens with fondness. "It is dangerous, but it affixed his soul to a small piece of paper in the shape of a man. He slipped into Jin Guangyao's quarters to spy on him, and discovered his hidden treasure room in the process."

[wickedwit]

A hidden room! And a little paper man with Wei Wuxian's soul -- Claudius's eyes catch on that moment of softening fondness, as they always do on his friend's face. "Dangerous, and fiendishly clever. Wei Wuxian seems to like plans that are both."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji gives himself that moment to recall Wei Ying's paperman, the absurd fragility of it in his hands with Wei Ying's unconscious form beside him. Wei Ying's soul, which had already spent thirteen years in fitful, half-aware discontentment, in the flimsiest possible vessel. They needed those answers, but his breath had not quite filled his lungs properly until Wei Ying returned to his new body. "He barely escaped. I called him back just in time. Before Jin Guangyao discovered him, however, he found a land deed for Yunping, and the final piece of Nie Mingjue's body."