#But here it comes back full circle. WWX gives away a part of himself to be 'consumed' by Jiang Cheng.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Market based mistakes.

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[robininthelabyrinth]

CQL-verse! The characters have the same age gaps between them as their actors and actresses! Wwx and Jyl are the same age, jc is 5 years younger than them. Lxc is 3 years younger than wwx&jyl and lwj is 3 years younger than him. Nmj is two years older than wwx&jyl and nhs is 8 years younger than him and the same age as lwj. (1/2)

Meng Yao is 2 years older than nhs and jzx is 2 years older than MY. I'm leaving the Wen Sibs out of this because otherwise WN would be the same age as wwx and WQ would be 4 years younger than him. But hey! If you want to go with that, go crazy! I was thinking more of Yunmeng Sibs focus, but I will be happy with anything! (2/2)

ao3

Untamed

Nie Mingjue hated the Wen sect to the point of death and war, but he had always had trouble hating sad and gentle Wen Ning.

Wen Ning was technically his peer – there were only two years between them in age – and therefore capable of the same sorts of responsibilities and duties towards righteousness as Nie Mingjue, meaning that he ought to hate him as much as all the rest. But at the same time, Wen Ning was only part of the main branch family indirectly, a ward of Wen Ruohan; he was constantly suppressed and even tormented by Wen Chao, the eldest son of that family. If anything, it seemed almost as if he’d been brought into the family just to act as the family’s scapegoat, the inferior copy that was so hapless that he made that self-indulgent hedonist Wen Chao appear somewhat competent in contrast.

Nie Mingjue couldn’t imagine treating any of his own cousins that way.

He and Wen Chao were often compared, both being about the same age, and their young brothers were of similar age as well, both of them only fourteen; this juxtaposition made sure that every single person in the cultivation world talk of them in the same breath. Nie Mingjue always came out the better in the comparison, and Wen Xu the same for his, which in the minds of most people balanced out, but which caused Wen Chao no end of rage. He knew he couldn’t take out his anger on the talented Wen Xu and so took out on poor Wen Ning instead.

Nie Mingjue hated the Wen sect.

He did not hate Wen Ning.

Wen Ning, who should not be here.

“Please,” Wen Ning said, nearly in tears, as he threw himself down to the floor in front of Nie Mingjue. He’d burst into the room in the inn Nie Mingjue was staying at, the guards that no sect leader could do without no matter what they wanted following close behind in alarm until Nie Mingjue had waved them off with a gesture; he’d been panting so hard that he’d only just now caught his breath. “Please help this useless older brother do one good thing with his life.”

Alarmed, Nie Mingjue reached out and caught Wen Ning by the shoulders, pulling him to stand and even forgetting himself enough to reach forward with a sleeve to dab away the tears staining the other man’s face.

“What is it?” he asked, feeling anxiety curdling in his gut. He’d spoken with Wen Ning before during the discussion conferences, both when he was younger and even, in a few stolen moments, after he became sect leader; he knew Wen Ning had a steady personality, if a weak one from all the bullying he endured, and that he was not given to unnecessary hysterics. If he could tolerate Wen Chao’s endless torment with a faint smile and a don’t worry sect leader Nie once you’re used to it it’s more funny than anything else, then what could make him act like this? “What is that you need help with? I do not understand.”

Wen Ning looked tired. He always had, his health had always been poor, but now it seemed worse than ever; there were circles under his eyes, and Nie Mingjue had no idea how he’d managed to get away from the Nightless City to come find him. The town he was currently in was close to the border the Qinghe Nie shared with Qishan Wen, but it was still an effort, especially for someone like Wen Ning. He might be a member of the Wen family by name, but his freedom was significantly curtailed, and it wasn’t only because he was sickly.

“My little sister is going to be attending the lectures at the Cloud Recesses,” Wen Ning said.

“The - Lan sect lectures?” Nie Mingjue repeated blankly. It was a stupid thing to say; of course it was the Lan sect’s lectures, who else would give lectures at the Cloud Recesses? And yet, at the same time – “The Wen sect hasn’t gone to them in generations.”

“Sect Leader Wen asked A-Qing to look for something,” Wen Ning said. “I don’t know what. He talks to her more than he talks to me, when she’s treating him with acupuncture and other such things – he only wants blood relations treating him now, so she’s passing along what she can do, the doctors all say she’s talented – he told her something, I think, but I don’t know what, he doesn’t talk to me…and she doesn’t talk to me, either.”

“She’s sixteen, they’re like that,” Nie Mingjue said, trying to offer comfort, but he didn’t like the sound of that – Wen Ruohan growing reliant on the medical skills of a teenager, talking with her as if she were an adult…it didn’t speak well to the Chief Cultivator’s state of mind. “So she’s going to go spy on them?”

“She is. And maybe more. There’s – there’s something back in the Nightless City, something Sect Leader Wen is refining in order to increase his power. Whatever it is, it’s powerful and evil.” Wen Ning looked paler than usual, somehow. “It was something that was kept in a cave near our village when we were younger, once. Sect Leader Wen took it away to study, and it made something go crazy, I got hurt, and my parents – anyway, it doesn’t matter. I can’t go near it without losing my senses, so I really don’t know anything about it. But I know that Sect Leader Wen only has a piece – and the Lan sect has another.”

Lan Xichen had never mentioned such a thing, but then again, he wasn’t really old enough that Nie Mingjue would expect him to know everything about his sect – he was after all a full five years younger than Nie Mingjue, three years younger than Wen Ning; he was still only seventeen, having only just graduated from his uncle’s classes the year before. He was only very technically sect leader, in the same way Nie Mingjue had only been technically sect leader after his father’s death, although unlike Lan Xichen Nie Mingjue had fought his way to step up to the task for real early on. He himself was only barely considered an adult at the age of twenty-two; it was no surprise that in the Lan sect, which had Lan Qiren to rely on, Lan Xichen might not know it all.

Or perhaps he knew, and simply didn’t say. Each sect was entitled to its secrets.

“What are you thinking?” Nie Mingjue asked.

“I’m thinking that my sister is constantly afraid for me, even though she’s younger than me,” Wen Ning said solemnly. “I’m thinking that she will break her own principles into pieces to protect me. I’m thinking that she’ll find whatever it is, or find a hint to it, and then Wen Chao will take his forces to burn the Cloud Recesses to the ground in search of it.”

Nie Mingjue could see that.

He didn’t want to, but he could.

“My brother is attending those lectures,” he said blankly. Nie Huaisang was there right now. He could be in danger – no, he would be in danger. Nie Huaisang wasn’t a good cultivator, and at fourteen, he was just a baby. Nie Mingjue had sent Meng Yao with him, nominally as his attendant, but in fact to get the benefit of the classes himself and also bully Nie Huaisang into actually learning something – he’d brought Meng Yao into the Nie sect after Jin Zixuan, full of guilt over how his father had treated a boy only two years his junior, had sent him a letter beseeching him for help following Meng Yao’s public and humiliating rejection from Jinlin Tower – but Meng Yao was only sixteen, of age with Wen Qing; what could he really do?

Moreover, sending Wen Qing and not Wen Xu, even though Wen Xu was the same age as Nie Huaisang and Lan Wangji, indicated that Wen Ruohan didn’t want his more promising son to get involved in whatever it was that he was planning, or maybe in whatever consequences followed. If Wen Chao really were to try something violent, they couldn’t afford to have a weakness already there…

“I need to get A-Qing out of the Wen sect,” Wen Ning said, and Nie Mingjue turned to look at him in shock. “Permanently. I’ve begged her to go, but she won’t leave me, she won’t leave our family of the Dafan Wen, but she has to. Something bad is going to happen soon. I know it. I don’t mind trading my life for hers, but she has to live.”

“Is there any way you can go to the Cloud Recesses as well?” Nie Mingjue asked, his mind already racing. He’d long ago given up on helping Wen Ning because he knew the other man wouldn’t turn traitor against his family, being an upright and filial child, but if his family had reached such a depth of corruption as that, then it was only right to leave them behind. If Wen Ning was finally accepting that, maybe there was something he could do. “You’re sensitive to the – whatever it is. Right? Maybe Wen Qing can suggest bringing you around to help her find her way to it.”

“How would that help?”

“It gets you somewhere safe, while I can rescue Dafan Wen – without a threat to you or to them, your sister would have no reason to insist on staying,” Nie Mingjue said, though it wouldn’t be him, exactly, that did the rescue – he’d need a firm alibi lest Wen Ruohan use it as an excuse to start something with his Nie sect. He might have prepared for war as much as he could, but the Wen sect was still stronger; if war broke out, he needed to make sure that he had the moral high ground.

Luckily, Wei Wuxian, that walking calamity of a head disciple of Yunmeng Jiang, had of late developed the habit of wandering over to visit various other sects, including Qinghe (and Nie Mingjue in specific), at his leisure, and no one ever would think to blame him for such a strange thing as a subsidiary sect of distant Wen sect cousins disappearing.

After all, Wei Wuxian had no reason to know or care about the Dafan Wen, and everyone knew he abjured politics completely, violently and repetitively, so as to make no mistake about anyone who might otherwise see him as competition for the Jiang sect’s true heir, Jiang Cheng. The five-year gap between their ages kept them from being compared – you couldn’t expect a child, and at fifteen Jiang Cheng was still very much a child, to keep up with an adult just turned twenty like Wei Wuxian – but there had always been whispers given everything with Cangse Sanren, and Wei Wuxian had had to work very hard to put a stop to them.

Wei Wuxian’s wandering habit had started back when he’d been trying to find Jiang Yanli a new fiancée to replace the engagement he’d broken by fighting with Jin Zixuan, however shameful it was for him to fight with a boy two years his junior. It was for that that he had come to Qinghe to meet Nie Mingjue, leading to them hitting it off as friends despite Nie Mingjue expressing that he had absolutely no interest in getting married to Jiang Yanli, or indeed to any nice young lady at all; then, in turn, Nie Mingjue had brought him to the Lan sect to meet Lan Xichen. They’d gotten along as well, although the most notable outcome of that visit had been little Lan Wangji developing a crush on his elder brother’s new friend while Wei Wuxian remained blissfully oblivious. His wanderings had continued even after Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan had found their way back to each other, affianced once again through their own choice rather than their parents’.

Said parents had not yet been informed of this new situation, as they were waiting for the right time to mention it. Or perhaps more accurately, the right situation to exploit with it…

Now, Nie Mingjue thought. Now was the time. It would work perfectly.

And not just as a distraction.

“Are you sure…?”

“I am,” Nie Mingjue said. “Whatever it is, Wen Ruohan must be kept from obtaining all of the pieces; he’s already too powerful, and more power will only make him more arrogant. I’ll speak with Lan Qiren. Once I take the Dafan Wen back to the Nie sect, your sister will be able to testify to whatever it is that she was asked to search for, which will give Lan Qiren the evidence he needs to get his sect’s approval for retaliatory measures. Moreover, using Wei Wuxian to help me will force Jiang Fengmian to support me as well; there’s no way he’d ever refuse to back him to the hilt.”

“The Jin sect –”

“Will join us,” Nie Mingjue said, thinking of Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan’s yet-to-be-announced engagement. Once Jin Guangshan realized that he would be pulled into the same boat as the rest of them whether he wanted to or not, any resistance he had would crumble like a structure made of sand being beaten down by the tide. “They won’t have a choice. Is there anything else I should know?”

“There’s a child,” Wen Ning said, biting his lips. “Around the same age as your brother or my sister, or maybe the Jiang sect heir, I don’t know, around that. He helps Sect Leader Wen with whatever he’s doing.”

“A child helps him?”

Nie Mingjue didn’t like the sound of that.

“I don’t know. Some secret his family knows, I think…his surname is Xue.”

Nie Mingjue frowned.

“I don’t know much about him,” Wen Ning added. “Only that he has some history with the Yueyang Chang clan. Bad history.”

“That’s a good start,” Nie Mingjue said. He realized that he hadn’t yet released Wen Ning’s shoulders, and gave them a small squeeze before doing so. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I will do everything I can to help you.”

Wen Ning looked at him with admiration in his eyes, making Nie Mingjue feel a little hot under the collar.

“Thank you, Chifeng-zun,” he murmured, and Nie Mingjue shook his head.

“Call me by name,” he said, and tried to smile. “You’ll be here a lot in the future, if all goes well.”

Nie Mingjue hated the Wen sect, but he didn’t hate gentle and sad Wen Ning.

He didn’t hate him at all.

[vermillioncrown]

the idea of completing the body swap circle by giving z!mxy wwx’s body is so funny. imagine everyone that knew wwx pre-death having mental whiplash and having to recalibrate because that shady expression/dead fish stare does not belong there??? where is the trademarked cheeky smile??? (jwy is really gonna go through it…maybe lqr too because he CANNOT with the associated memories)

Bonus: they don’t tell anyone that it’s zyx in wwx body so everyone assumes that everyone is in their proper bodies. wwx tries to convince zyx to pretend to be him just to mess with people

yes

yesss

exactly what i'm going for there

first off, gotta stop everyone from coming after z!mxy's life (again) (he didn't ask for this, he was sleeping and ready to fade away and now wwx and lwj stuck him here and ... ooo . he's taller. this is nice. weather's great)

any body that z!mxy comes back in will be cursed to the extreme, let alone in wwx's original body. lqr was about to bring the entirety of gusu lan's exorcism prowess upon z!mxy, if not for that uncanny serious expression and genuinely, sincerely thankful bow "elder, thank you for giving this undeserving mo xuanyu shelter. this one will not trouble you any longer" he's not going to stay if unwelcome.

and then seeing the 🥺 face from wwx in mxy's body (lqr: there's two of them i can't think straight) and the 🥺 emotion from his nephew's soul, lqr resolves to just... never look in the direction of wwx's body.

"... get him in here. we're closing the wards for the night." damn it all.

bc z!mxy has more emotional competency than a toddler (sometimes he disproves himself okay but generally higher eq than the other two), he does not put himself in the way of jiang-zongzhu if he doesn't have to. bc if he ever shows himself, it's either letting jc think that z!mxy is a bodysnatcher (which will piss jc off) or letting him know that wwx defied the natural order... again. for someone else (which will also piss him off)

he's not getting within a li of jc until wwx talks to him. and then lwj also talks to him. and then z!mxy might feel comfortable walking in yunmeng territory.

bonus:

it will work. wwx can't play z!mxy convincingly, but z!mxy can play wwx.

comes w the hobbies/experiences from previous life (theater. dance. playing pranks. cosplaying. being professional. to name a few) and then a second life pretending to be someone else.

... i don't think there are many people left that know both wwx and z!mxy to trick. perhaps the first night, both of them can't stay conscious and lwj fears the ritual didn't stick. it's highly plausible they switched back to their original bodies, yeah?

lwj isn't completely fooled, but there's a slight sense of unease when z!mxy in wwx's body latches onto him. he's saying the right words, earnestly leaning into him, eyes so full of feeling and depth of connection, it must be wei ying -

and then wwx in mxy's body tries acting polite and the whole game is up.

the best part of the prank is when z!mxy in wwx's body drops the ruse. the immediate transition from (￣y▽￣)╭ -> (ㆆ_ㆆ) is like watching a serial killer.

oh, they can try to trick lxc (w z!mxy's cooperation, the main story won't devastate lxc to such an extreme). that's probably the only person they can trick to some degree. if and only if lwj isn't present for lxc to read.

oh, jin ling would be fun to trick. it's not about knowing how wwx was like in his first life - but if wwx can play z!mxy well enough. ("i have so many fucked up uncles...")

z!mxy trying to go through his day, letting wwx mimic him (z!mxy thinks it's a waste of effort)

"there's nothing distinct to rely on - i'm too boring for that," z!mxy explains

"subtle." wwx trying to pour tea for the nth time, almost with the same posture "the pattern is subtle."

"you can't even do the expression right."

"isn't it just being relaxed?"

"senior i am far from relaxed at any given moment."

[i-like-plan-m]

Something I've been thinking about is what if Madame Yu was just a bit more obvious in how much she hates wwx, and wwx ran away from Lotus Pier? It's clear his siblings matter more to him than anything else and he hates causing them strife. If he believes that he's the cause, he'd take steps to make them happy, right? I want to write story about that but I dont think I have the ability. If you ever wanted to write something like that I would be overjoyed to read it! - an0n

[Ao3] [Chapter 1/3]

I love this, thank you!! _____________________

“What are you doing?” 

It was the fear in Jiang Cheng’s voice that stopped him. 

Madam Yu’s last words to him still ringing in his ears, Wei Wuxian pasted on a cheery smile and spun on his heel to face his... to face Jiang Cheng. 

“Ah,” he said on a little laugh. “Jiang Cheng…”

“She didn’t mean it,” Jiang Cheng said desperately, stumbling towards him with a panicked edge to his words. “You know that. She wasn’t serious, it’s just the same stuff as always.” 

“I know,” Wei Wuxian said gently. That was exactly the problem. Madam Yu’s hurled abuse at her children hurt them, and Wei Wuxian was too convenient of an excuse for her to ever pass up. She would never stop, not while he was there to set her off again. 

“You can’t leave,” Jiang Cheng said, curling a fist in the front of his robes and holding tight like he could keep Wei Wuxian in Lotus Pier if he just held on tight enough. 

“Madam Yu is right,” Wei Wuxian said with a sad smile, reaching up to cover Jiang Cheng’s hand with his own. “I’ve spent too long causing trouble for her and the sect to stay any longer. I shouldn’t be a burden for you all anymore.” 

“You’re not a-- did you even tell jiejie? Does she know you’re leaving?” He seized on Jiang Yanli, knowing that she was his weak point. “She doesn't know, does she? Were you just going to disappear?” 

Wei Wuxian ached at the thought of Jiang Yanli, of never seeing her again or having her hate him for leaving. But Madam Yu had been clear-- she no longer wanted him at Lotus Pier. He’d heard such things from her before, basically ever since he’d been brought back by Jiang Fengmian, but Madam Yu’s use of Wei Wuxian as a way to torment and ridicule Jiang Cheng had only escalated since their return from the lecture at Cloud Recesses. 

Without him, she would have fewer things to be angry about, and less anger to take out on her children and husband. 

“I left shijie a letter,” Wei Wuxian said, swallowing roughly. He reached down to pick up his bag, Jiang Cheng still clinging to him, and took one last look around his room. He hoped whoever got it next appreciated the art carvings, the hidden stash of snacks and alcohol under the floorboard, the small, colorful trinkets he’d collected over the years. 

Or maybe they would get rid of it all, erasing the signs that he’d ever existed here. 

“Then go give it to her yourself,” Jiang Cheng snapped. 

“I can’t,” Wei Wuxian said truthfully. He tried to smile, felt it waver in the face of Jiang Cheng’s betrayed expression. “It’s time for me to go, shidi. Ah, and think of it this way! Now you can have dogs again.” 

“I don’t want the fucking dogs,” Jiang Cheng choked out. “I want you to stay here. You promised we would be brothers, in this life and the next. You promised.”

Yes, he had. But Madam Yu had told him she’d had enough of him taking advantage of their family, of him thinking himself a part of it when in fact he was nothing but a burden. When he did nothing but make Jiang Cheng and by extension their sect look bad. 

So. Better to leave now under his own power before the rest of them started to feel the same, or Madam Yu made Jiang Cheng hate himself and resent Wei Wuxian even more than he already did. 

“I’m sorry,” was all he could say. A thousand words between them and not a single one spoken, their relationship permanently fractured by the competition neither of them had signed up for, that neither of them had ever wanted. 

Wei Wuxian’s presence at Lotus Pier made Jiang Cheng’s life harder. There was no way around the truth of it. 

Jiang Cheng’s grip went slack, as though he realized that this was really happening, that his brother was leaving him behind. Wei Wuxian saw stark pain in his eyes before they shuttered, anger becoming his armor against such hurt. 

“Fine,” he spat, but the hitch in his breath betrayed him. “If you want to leave so bad, then just go.” 

“Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian said, torn to pieces at the anguish in his brother’s voice. “I don’t want to leave you or shijie. But…” 

Jiang Cheng looked away. They both knew the real reason he was leaving. Coming to terms with it would be hard for both of them. 

“I’ll write,” Wei Wuxian offered quietly. “If… if you want.” 

“You’d fucking better write,” Jiang Cheng said, swiping impatiently at his damp cheeks. There was a brief pause, the tension softening into a quiet, shared grief. “Where will you go?” 

“Who knows!” Wei Wuxian said, trying for cheerful and sounding uncertain instead. “There’s a whole world out there, you know. Plenty of trouble to find.” 

Jiang Cheng made a familiar exasperated sound that made him want to laugh. “Weekly letters,” he threatened. “Or I’m coming to find you.” 

Wei Wuxian’s smile was a little more genuine this time. “I can do that.” He hesitated, then added, “Can you…” 

“I’ll tell jiejie,” Jiang Cheng said quietly. 

“Thank you.” Wei Wuxian enveloped him in a hug, squeezing his eyes shut against the tears that threatened when Jiang Cheng gripped him back hard enough to bruise. 

“I will see you again,” he promised, and felt the eyes of his brother watch him leave. 

~*~ 

His new mantle of rogue cultivator hurt a little less when he thought of his parents. They hadn’t belonged to a sect after they married, and he wondered if they’d been happy to freely wander the world. 

His one clear memory of them made him think so. There’d been laughter, and warmth, and a sense of safety and security that Wei Wuxian found himself wishing for during those first few weeks after leaving Lotus Pier. 

Too much freedom, he’d discovered, was a hard adjustment to make. He had no responsibilities other than finding food and water, no duties or chores around a sect, and no sect leader to answer to. 

He���d considered, briefly, going to Gusu. The lecture would be over by now, the guest disciples returned home. He wondered if Lan Zhan was happier now that the Cloud Recesses was quiet again. He wondered if Lan Zhan would even want to see him. 

But after losing his home so abruptly, Wei Wuxian found that he did not want to go where he was not wanted. Usually he wouldn’t pay any attention to it, would not care what others thought of him or his presence, but now… 

Well. He’d been kicked out of Cloud Recesses. Out of Lotus Pier. Neither would welcome him now. Maybe he could go to Qinghe and accomplish the trifecta of banishment. 

The thought would be funnier if he weren’t so cold and hungry. 

There was a trick to surviving as a rogue cultivator, and that was bartering. Larger towns were typically protected by sect cultivators who could banish spirits or ghosts. Smaller villages usually could not afford such services, so they would trade shelter and a hot meal for a cultivator’s help. 

Wei Wuxian hadn’t yet made it far enough away from Yunmeng territory to find these villages. Mostly he hunted or fished to feed himself, and slept out in the open since he couldn’t afford to stay at an inn. It was a far stretch from his days in Yunmeng, never wondering where he would sleep or when his next meal would come. 

He was lost in a way he hadn’t been since a recently orphaned child living on the streets and eating trash to survive. Funny, how these things came back full circle. 

Wei Wuxian poked at his miserable little fire, hunched over it in the fading light within the forest to soak in the weak warmth it emitted. The wood was too wet to truly burn, still damp from the downpour earlier. 

So was he, as a matter of fact. His wet robes clung to him uncomfortably, and he would take them off to let them dry if the descending night weren’t so cold. 

Quiet voices had him lurching to his feet, Suibian in hand as he warily scanned the heavy shadows thrown by the trees. They were coming closer, light footsteps that echoed through the forest and hid the direction of their approach. 

And then white robes bled out of the darkness, his heart skipped a beat in breathless, astonished hope… and then fell at the sight of a stranger’s face. The man’s companion wore dark robes like his own, a curious pair that moved in sync and spoke without words. 

“Our apologies, Young Master. We did not realize there were others so deep into the forest,” the white-robed man said with a polite bow. 

Wei Wuxian returned it, noting with a spark of interest that they carried swords that marked them as cultivators. “No apology necessary. I am Wei Wuxian,” he said, rising from the bow. “I was hunting for dinner and didn’t realize how far I’d walked before the sun set.” More like he’d had nothing to turn back for.

“My name is Xiao Xingchen, and my companion is Song Lan.” Xiao Xingchen looked around his campsite with a mild look of curiosity. “Are you traveling alone?”

“I am,” he said, his smile dimming despite his best efforts. 

Song Lan studied him for a moment, then shared another brief, wordless conversation with Xiao Xingchen. “Do you have a destination in mind, Master Wei?” 

“Ah… no? I’m just wandering,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. 

“You are welcome to travel with us, if you wish,” Song Lan offered. “Rogue cultivating can be dangerous and challenging on your own.”

Wei Wuxian looked uncertainly between them, remembering his recent vow to stop going where he wasn’t wanted. These two were obviously close, and he wondered if he would be intruding. 

“As Song Lan said,” Xiao Xingchen added at Wei Wuxian’s hesitation. “You are welcome to join us.”

“Yes,” Wei Wuxian decided, spirits lifting. “I would appreciate your company.” 

“We are headed for a nearby town,” Song Lan said. “Do you need to rest, or can you make it through the rest of the forest tonight?” 

Wei Wuxian stomped the dying fire out and eagerly grabbed his bag. “No need to wait!” He followed them through the forest, grateful to have their company. The world seemed less lonely all of a sudden, and the companionship was a buoy for his spirits. 

“Have you two been traveling together long?” He asked. 

“We met a few years ago. I was raised in Baixue Temple,” Song Lan said, drifting gracefully over the uneven ground. “And Xiao Xingchen was a disciple of Baoshan Sanren.” 

Wei Wuxian made a startled sound and nearly tripped over his own feet. Song Lan steadied him and traded a look with Xiao Xingchen over his head. 

“Baoshan Sanren?” Wei Wuxian asked, stunned by the reminder that he had family left in the world. 

“Yes,” Xiao Xingchen said, eyeing him with some concern. “Are you familiar with her?” 

“She is my grandmother,” Wei Wuxian said distantly. 

Xiao Xingchen’s eyes widened. “You are the son of Cangse Sanren? Adopted into the Jiang Sect as a child?” Wei Wuxian nodded, and Xiao Xingchen’s surprise morphed into a smile. “Your grandmother wishes to meet you, Wei Wuxian.”

Wei Wuxian was a little surprised she even knew he existed. “She does?” 

“Yes, she does,” Xiao Xingchen said, smile lines crinkling at the corner of his eyes. “I can tell you where to find her, if you wish.” 

What else did he have? No place to call home, no family left other than the immortal cultivator secluded on her celestial mountain-- and the part of his heart that urged him to find her, the only ones left in their line. 

“There is no hurry,” Xiao Xingchen said gently when the silence stretched too long. “You are still welcome to travel with us as long as you wish. Your grandmother is a patient woman; you can take as long as you need.” 

Wei Wuxian swallowed hard and paused to bow to him. “Thank you, Master Xiao. I… I think one day soon I would like to know how to find her.” 

Xiao Xingchen nodded. “You need only ask.” 

Wei Wuxian let the pair lead him out of the dark, unknown forest, with something like hope burning in his chest.