catch me begging a chinese fan for a name consult later

[bloodyashes]

You find the boy in the mountains.

It's not quite 'in the Burial Mounds,' but it's damn close. It's that unsettling region where Yunmeng, Yiling, and Qishan all blend together, the portion that changed hands three times over the course of Sunshot before Wei Wuxian came out of the Burial Mounds like a ghost and let resentment loose on the Wen army. Not many people lived here then, and fewer since.

You're investigating reports of fierce corpses, because this is still Jiang territory even if there still aren't enough Jiang sect members to properly patrol it (and you're working on that, you are), and you see him.

A flash of black and red, as you fly by on your sword, that causes you to stop and swerve so suddenly that if you were any less practiced than you are, you would have slipped your footing.

You think it's him. You think it has to be him. You don't know if you hope it's him or not.

It's not him.

That much, at least, is obvious when you slow down, because the furl of red too brilliant to be blood on the forest floor isn't a trademark bright red underrobe. It's hair, so out of place that it takes you a moment to recognize it as hair, a shade you've never seen outside of weddings and new year's.

You glide closer on your sword and hop off, risking a closer look.

The boy (he's not that much younger than you, really, somewhere around eighteen or nineteen) is clearly from very far away. His features are exotic in a way you can't quite put your finger on, something about the nose and the jaw and the shape of his eyes, but his clothes are clearly foreign.

He's dead. You figure he must be dead, because now that you're close enough to see, there are huge rents through his clothes, his body, stained the actual dark red of blood. It's fresh enough that you can smell it. There's an empty sheath at his waist, partially hidden under the folds of fabric, but no sword in sight.

You have to wonder how the hell he got out here. Whatever injured him is a danger to the people around here, and you have even more questions about why a Westerner is in such a place. Those questions will probably never get answered, but you might be able to find a letter among his clothing, some indication, even if the only people familiar with the tongues of the West are those of the Lan sect...

Your thoughts race as you bend down, and eventually settle into, At least I can give him a decent burial.

He's still warm, when you crouch to pick him up, to give him some manner of dignity. Eyes already closed, expression gone slack but not rigid -

When you slide an arm under his chest (you'll get blood on your robes, but it's not the first time, it's far from the first time, at this time it isn't the blood of your family), there's a sound. It's so quiet you think you imagined it.

But as you lift him, you hear it again. The faintest gasp of inhale-exhale, of a tiny noise like a breath that someone who has lost this much blood shouldn't be able to make.

You almost drop him in your haste, because it seems impossible, it really shouldn't be, to press a hand to his chest. You feel like you could almost reach in and take the measure of his heart by holding it in your hand if you wanted. The wounds are deep, if narrow.

It's faint, under your fingers. You have to shove aside layers of fabric, and even then the only thing that gives you certainty is the way Zidian twitches in response.

But you feel a stuttering rise-and-fall under your hands, an attempted breath, and you -

(Red is the color of good luck.)

There's no way he'd survive the trip. He can't have more than a few minutes to live.

(How lucky, that you happened upon him at all?)

You get back on your sword and fly anyway, more blood staining your robes from purple to black.

(You're the Jiang sect leader. There's no one else to attempt the impossible but you.)

And so against hope, with a stranger's weight in your arms, you fly.

Comments

more wwx part

[oncedriven]

Yan Xingqi's sword can only barely be called a sword, in the exact opposite way that Nie Huaisang's saber can only barely be called a saber.

It is, technically, a jian. It's double-edged and straight, at least, though the construction of the crossguard looks more Nie than it does Lotus Pier. It wouldn't surprise you if the Nie smiths had a hand in its making, though, because the weapon is to a scale with Baxia itself - narrower than Chifeng-zun's famous blade, but just a bit longer, and with a longer, heavier hilt than you're used to seeing on any blade, presumably to keep the balance in order.

Rather than carrying it the way that most cultivators do, Yan Xingqi keeps it belted at his hip, the scabbard attached to a leather harness that hangs from his belt which keeps it firmly in place. You can appreciate that; if you'd had one of those, perhaps you would have at least carried your sword even if you didn't draw it. You need both your hands free to play flute, after all.

Under the first layer of his outer robes, which are richly embroidered on the torso but practically bare on the sleeves, he wears a similar set of bracers to the kind you're so familiar with Jiang Cheng favoring. The key difference is that Jiang Cheng's are entirely to keep his sleeves in check in battle, so that they don't get tangled with Zidian. Yan Xingqi's bracers have metal plating across the back of the forearm, going as far up as you can see beneath his sleeves, and that metal isn't clean. It's scratched and nicked, the armor of it having seen its share of use. You'd bet the sleeves of the outer robe are plain so that they can be removed from the garment and easily replaced, rather than throwing the whole robe away.

Everything about it is utterly sensible, in a way that runs counter to so many of the traditions of the cultivation world. Such, you suppose, must be the leeway granted to a foreigner under the protection of one of the Great Sects. None of it is technically unorthodox, after all. There is no resentful energy involved in how one wears their sleeves or carries their sword.

None of the juniors seem to consider it remarkable, or at least no more remarkable than they do anything else about having Jiang Cheng's second in command appear basically out of nowhere to protect them. And when all is said and done, none of them even seem to find it surprising when Jin Ling asks if he needs a ride back to Lotus Pier.

While Yan Xingqi is heckling your nephew with an amused, "Think you're strong enough to carry a passenger, now?" you glance around panicked until you realize that Lan Zhan is already beside you to whisper to.

"He doesn't fly on the sword?" you ask as quietly as you can. No one seems to find this remarkable, so you assume that it is something Mo Xuanyu should already know, but you have to ask.

"He cannot," Lan Zhan replies. "It is not a part of his cultivation path. His sword is not even a spiritual weapon."

You look at the sword again, and then back at Lan Zhan. "It isn't?"

"His cultivation method, which is called the Seven Note Path in our tongue, cultivates the body directly," Lan Zhan replies. "It uses neither golden core nor spiritual tools, but instead strengthens the meridians directly."

"He doesn't have a golden core?" you hiss, and Lan Zhan responds with a simple, affirmative Mn.

That opens so many questions into your mind that you will have to sit down later and put them in order, but the thought that cuts you to the quick is So Jiang Cheng is doomed to have a second with no golden core, huh?

And so of all the questions that roar to the forefront of your mind, the one that leaves you mouth is, "Can it be taught?"

"Mn," Lan Zhan replies, but then crushes your hopes by elaborating, "but he will not teach it outside the Jiang, and one must start very young, younger than any other cultivation method. And there is some other requirement, but what method is used to determine one's ability is a secret of the cultivation path in itself."

You weather your disappointment with a smile, and say, "So he's really something special then. I'm glad. Yumeng lost so much to the Wen that I don't think we could ever replace all of it."

And you mean it, truly you do. But you get the feeling that Lan Zhan can see right through you, because his only response is a shorter, more cut-off, "Mn."

[oncedriven]

You aren't expecting to see him again so soon. Yes, it's only natural for him to appear at Lanling, hovering at Jiang Cheng's side like a shorter shadow, but it still takes you by surprise.

He greets you while Jiang Cheng is still distracted by Jin Guangyao, and even though you can feel Jiang Cheng's glare, he can't very well contradict his second-in-command calling you Mo Xuanyu. Instead, Jiang Cheng gives you a Look, Lan Wangji the barest minimum of greetings, and an actually appropriate response to Lan Xichen.

You glance at Lan Zhan, but he simply shakes his head. "Sect Leader Jiang and I do not get along," he says, which, yeah, you've noticed. "Our usual arrangement with the Jiang is that Yan Xingqi and I speak, so that the Sect Leader and I do not."

Ah, that makes more sense.

Yan Xingqi, who must have the thickest face in the entire cultivation world, says, "In exchange, Jiang Wanyin deals with Lan Qiren, so that I do not start a clan war."

Now your eyebrows are shooting up. Lan Zhan simply says, "The ideal of justice that the Jiang follow has become very different from that of the Lan."

"Perhaps this afternoon, you could come to our quarters for tea," Yan Xingqi offers. "Jiang Wanyin will be negotiating the next year of Jin Ling's life for most of the day."

"I think that would be good," Lan Xichen says, cutting into your conversation. "I am glad to see that Wangji has friends who will look out for him so."

You'd been planning to take the afternoon to investigate things, but you can't help but be curious now. Not in the least because the Yan Xingqi you are seeing here, playing at being the 'face' of the Jiang, is very different from the one you met in Yi City.

The movements of the arriving crowds, of course, result in your group of Lans being separated from the Jiang group all too soon. Jin Guangyao greets you in turn, watching you like he already knows, but you know better now that to people who knew Mo Xuanyu, you're obviously not the real article, so it's not that surprising.

Once you are tucked away to freshen up, you whisper to Lan Xichen - hoping that he'll be more effective at sharing details than Lan Zhan - "Is Yan Xingqi really not allowed to speak to Teacher Lan?"

Lan Xichen's lips tighten in that slightly tense way he has where he knows that he shouldn't smile, and says, "Sect Leader Jiang taught him to write our language using a copy of the Lan Sect rules. The Lan thought this was well and good, until the next discussion conference, when Yan Xingqi first showed the nature of his character to the cultivation world. He marched directly up to Uncle and asked what pain was supposed to teach a child about justice."

You're flabbergast. "He did that? How thick-faced is he?"

"Very. The year before, he arm-wrestled Nie Mingjue." That, at least, gives you an idea how long Yan Xingqi has been around, if he was able to meet Chifeng-zun. Lan Xichen's face is somber. "Uncle was not happy. Wangji was still recovering in seclusion at the time, and he told me later that he thought that that had been a targeted attack by the Jiang to draw attention to that fact - but as it happens, that is simply how Yan Xingqi thinks, with his whole heart."

"The Jiang no longer strike disciples as punishment," Lan Zhan says. "Yan Xingqi will not permit it."

You back aches, with heavy memories of a whip. You remember Jiang Cheng crying out at his mother to stop.

You do not think he needed much convincing from Yan Xingqi to enforce that policy.

Neither of the Lans could know that, of course. What happened in the Jiang hall that day is between you, Jiang Cheng, and the dead. But you know that your smile must be tight when you say, "Surely he did not just say that to Teacher Lan and not expect a response?"

"He did not," Lan Xichen says. "It would have been easier to smooth over the incident if he had. As it is, he had several arguments prepared, which Uncle was unable to answer except to condemn their form, as Yan Xingqi still did not have mastery over our language then."

"He couldn't speak this language?" you ask. "I feel as though I'm the last to know anything about him. Not being able to write is one thing - there's lots of commoners like that - but..."

Lan Xichen smiles faintly. "You would have no idea to listen to him now, no? But it took him close to two years to be able to speak well enough that everyone could understand him, and another three to become eloquent enough that cultivation society can find no fault in his speech. Though, by preference, he still argues for justice like a commoner."

"If common men cannot understand the law, how are they supposed to follow it?" Lan Zhan says, clearly a quote, because you cannot imagine him ever speaking like that himself.

Lan Xichen's smile is slightly pained, then. "As you can see," he says quietly, "he and Wangji get along surprisingly well."

You consider that, and then nod. "I think I can see it," you agree. And then, because the atmosphere is too heavy, "Lan Zhan, you aren't going to abandon me for a foreigner, are you?"

"Never," Lan Zhan says, and it relaxes you a little.

"Even one with fantastic hair and good morals?"

"Never," Lan Wangji repeats, and all is right with the world.