#Remember that if anything bad happens to these Jiang disciples in the canon comic - they are happy in this AU B'*)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Lan Wangji Goes To Lotus Pier AU: Part 5: Flip Slip.

(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 4.5)

[gingersnapwolves]

The Untamed, a brief summary [Part 2/6]

Part One: Sword Wizard School

Part Two: The Search for the Yin Iron and the World’s Worst Summer Camp

Ext, Somewhere

Lan Wangji is looking for the yin iron. Wei Wuxian catches up with him and makes some bondage jokes. Lan Wangji is clearly warming up to him, as he doesn’t punt him into the stratosphere.

Jiang Cheng, still incensed that his brother snuck off, goes to look for him. Jiang Yanli packs him a sack lunch and tells him to be careful.

Wen Qing is stuck with Wen Chao, following Lan Wangji, and looks like she wants to throw herself off a mountain.

Ext, Tanzhou [Yiling]

Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian run into Nie Huaisang, who apparently decided not to go home after school, presumably due to his grades. Yiling is nowhere near Qinghe. When Nie Huaisang decides to fuck around and find out, he goes for it.

In Tanzhou, there is a magic florist. She has a piece of yin iron, but they’re too late. Wen Chao has already taken it. I will forget that this happened in 90% of my fanfics.

Ext, Dafan Mountain [Yiling]

The three of them end up at a creepy village. There’s a woman mumbling something about a statue. Everyone else is missing except one creepy dude at a shrine to said statue, whose purpose is to give exposition. For some reason they decide to sleep in the weird cave with the creepy statue outside the abandoned village. Kids, amirite?

Ext, Somewhere

Jiang Cheng runs into Wen Qing. She purposefully picks a fight with him and he looks like someone kicked his puppy. But oh ho! It was just a ruse so she could tell him that his brother is in trouble at Dafan Mountain without anyone overhearing. He thanks her and takes off.

Interior, A Creepy Cave [Yiling]

The statue comes alive and attacks them! It keeps going for Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian makes a joke about it having a crush on him. They seal it to keep it from moving.

Outside, a mob of villagers who look the same as the not-a-corpse guy attack them. Nie Huaisang posits that he would like to be excluded from this narrative, of which he never asked to be a part. Wen Qing shows up and uses a magic flute to subdue the mob. She will never use this flute again despite countless times doing so might come in handy. Jiang Cheng turns up too but is too busy roasting Wei Wuxian for running off to do anything useful. Wen Qing tells Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian that the mob is powered by a shard of yin iron that Wen Chao has in his ‘dire owl’ which is a bird made out of shadow that could not possibly look less like an owl.

Wei Wuxian uses a nifty golden net spell that he will never use again despite countless times it might come in handy to protect the others while he and Lan Wangji fight Wen Chao and kill the absolutely-not-an-owl. The villagers are released from the spell.

Wen Qing tells them that this is where she and Wen Ning grew up. The statue had a piece of yin iron in it, and when Wen Ruohan came and took it, the statue went berserk and killed a bunch of people, including her parents. It also stole part of Wen Ning’s soul and that’s why he’s weak and sick. Then she goes back to Nightless City despite that this is clearly a terrible idea, because Wen Ning is there. Jiang Cheng asks her to stay, but she won’t, and Jiang Cheng is sad. Somehow nobody thinks to point out that she’s serving the man who got her parents killed.

Ext, Yueyang [Qinghe]

Somehow they’re all the way up towards Qinghe now. Please don’t ask questions about travel times. It’s my worst nightmare in my fics.

Nie Huaisang says that Meng Yao is meeting them here. Why? Who knows. My best guess is that Nie Huaisang knows he’s going to be in Big Trouble for sneaking off and thinks Meng Yao can protect him.

They stop at an inn. The waiter tells them something weird happened at the Chang house and now nobody’s there but they hear noise every night. The yin iron starts clamoring to be let out of its pouch and gives Lan Wangji heartburn.

Ext, the Chang manor [Qinghe]

Xue Yang has killed every damn person. It’s fucked up.

ENTER SUPERMAN and BATMAN, like seriously, imagine you were in a DC Comic and those two just dropped in for cameos and nobody bothered to explain who they were because they figured you would already know. Their names are Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan, and by the time they show up again, you will have forgotten that.

They’ve been tracking Xue Yang for All the Crimes and want to arrest him. There’s a fight. Xue Yang loses and enjoys it way too much.

Wei Wuxian asks him questions about the yin iron. He acts like a little punk. He doesn’t have any yin iron on him even though he obviously used it for Carnage, and they can’t find it anywhere.

Meng Yao and Nie Huaisang show up. They agree to take Xue Yang back to The Unclean Realm to be tried for All the Crimes.

Xue Yang cheekily says, “Don’t forget me!” to Xiao Xingchen, who immediately forgets him.

Exeunt Superman and Batman, while Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian both stare after them longingly, clearly wishing that they too could hunt monsters and criminals instead of dealing with political bullshit.

Ext, The Unclean Realm [Qinghe]

Meng Yao shows them in and tells Nie Huaisang that the Wen sect has demanded each sect send an ‘inner heir disciple’ for ‘indoctrination’. Nie Huaisang remembers that he’s the only inner heir disciple sect in the Nie sect and panics. Meng Yao laughs at his histrionics. To be fair, they are indeed funny.

ENTER THE WORLD’S MOST BADASS MUSTACHE

This is Nie Mingjue. He is the head of the Qinghe Nie sect. He carries an enormous sword and has the title ‘Red Blade Master’. Every molecule of this man exudes big dick energy.

Nie Mingjue decides to immediately execute Xue Yang. Meng Yao steps in and counsels that maybe execution shouldn’t be their go-to, being rather permanent and all. Xue Yang can give them information and they shouldn’t waste their chance to get it. Nie Mingjue agrees. The others admire the fact that Meng Yao is clever and persuasive, and Wei Wuxian makes a comment about how Meng Yao’s biological father (the head of the Lanling Jin) is an idiot for not realizing he could make use of such a talent.

Nie Mingjue orders Xue Yang put in prison and the guard strengthened. Meng Yao delivers this order to the Captain of the Guard, who decides he’s going to be a giant prick about it. He’s too good to take orders from the bastard son of a whore. Meng Yao puts on his best retail smile and says that he’ll make do.

Meanwhile, the others are discussing the yin iron and the Wen sect’s demand to send disciples. Nie Mingjue says Lan Xichen has written to him and he thinks Lan Wangji should go back to Cloud Recesses. There’s only one piece of yin iron left unlocated and Xue Yang clearly knows where it is, so they’ll take it from here. Wei Wuxian reluctantly agrees that he and Jiang Cheng should probably head home too, to see how their father wants to handle the Wen sect’s demands.

Int, Cloud Recesses [Gusu]

Wen soldiers have showed up. It’s bad. Lan Qiren tells Lan Xichen that he should take their most precious knowledge and run away. Lan Xichen tries to argue but Lan Qiren insists.

Ext, The Unclean Realm [Qinghe]

The Captain of the Guard is still being an asshole to Meng Yao, this time while drunk.

Wei Wuxian, also drunk, has decided to sleep on Lan Wangji’s roof like any well-adjusted person would.

Lan Wangji gives him a longing stare and says ‘farewell’ under his breath like the stoic repressed gay he is, before heading back home.

ENTER MINIMUM WAGE REPRESENTATION MAN

The next morning, Wen Chao shows up with his Head Henchman, Wen Zhuliu. He’s clearly there because Wen Chao can’t find his ass with two hands and a flashlight. They demand the release of Xue Yang and grandstand a lot. Nie Mingjue tells them to fuck off.

There’s a big fight, mostly between Nie Mingjue and Wen Zhuliu.

Someone shouts that Xue Yang has escaped. Nie Mingjue makes it to the prison and finds Meng Yao standing there with a sword through the gut of the Captain of the Guard. We all take a moment to wish that we could stab the people who have bullied us. Nie Mingjue, however, does not agree, and is very upset. Meng Yao hilariously says ‘Xue Yang did it’ even though he’s literally got his hand on the hilt of the blade. Nice going, Meng Yao. I spend the next ten months wondering if that was a translation error.

Wen Chao (or maybe Wen Zhuliu? I don’t remember tbh) throws his sword at Nie Mingjue. Meng Yao leaps in front of it and gets lightly stabbed. Then Wen Chao talks a lot of shit about how much the Nie sect sucks and also the Lan sect sucks and his brother has taken men to go burn Cloud Recesses to the ground. Everyone is upset. Wen Chao gallantly agrees he’ll let them off the hook for the day, but if they fuck with the Wen sect again, they’ll regret it.

Nie Mingjue drags Meng Yao inside and they have a messy breakup. Meng Yao tries to explain that the Captain of the Guard was a big douchebag, bullied him for years, and took credit for his accomplishments. Nie Mingjue points out that this was not an excuse to murder him. Because Meng Yao just saved his life, he says he won’t execute him, but exiles him from Qinghe.

Meng Yao bids farewell to Nie Huaisang, who is upset and tries to get his brother to reconsider, but Nie Mingjue is adamant. Everyone seems to forget that Meng Yao just got fucking stabbed. He’ll walk it off.

So who released Xue Yang? This question is actually never answered! Did the captain of the guard do it for some reason, and Meng Yao stabbed him because he caught him in the act? Did Meng Yao do it? If so, why? Did he have nefarious purposes? Or did he do it because he thought it would make the Wen sect withdraw and stop attacking The Unclean Realm? Did the Wen soldiers get to him and let him out? Did Xue Yang just escape on his own? You may believe any canon that you wish. (My personal head canon is generally that Meng Yao released him to try to get the Wen soldiers to withdraw, but I’ve also written some variations.)

Ext, Lotus Pier [Yunmeng]

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian are home. Yay! They reunite with Jiang Yanli. It is cute.

ENTER A PAIR OF EXTREMELY BAD PARENTS

So here’s the tea on the super dysfunctional family that basically drives this whole story. Jiang Fengmian is the head of the Yunmeng Jiang sect. His wife is Yu Ziyuan. He didn’t really want to marry her, mostly because he was in love with another woman named Cangse Sanren. However, the leaders of their two sects were pushing them to marry for alliance reasons. Jiang Fengmian kept refusing, but then Cangse Sanren married a guy named Wei Changze, who was one of Jiang Fengmian’s close friends. Since she was no longer an option, Jiang Fengmian then agreed to marry Yu Ziyuan. They hate each other.

The two of them had two kids, Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng. Jiang Yanli is not a strong cultivator and seems to have some health issues, although these are never detailed. Therefore all the sect responsibilities fall to Jiang Cheng, and Jiang Yanli was betrothed to Jin Zixuan (whose mother was the sect sister of Yu Ziyuan).

Meanwhile, Cangse Sanren is what we call a ‘rogue cultivator’ ie a cultivator who is not formally part of any sect. Wei Changze was a servant at Lotus Pier. They had Wei Wuxian and went to fight evil. When Wei Wuxian was four, they were killed by a monster. He lived on the streets for about three years before Jiang Fengmian found him and adopted him.

Yu Ziyuan is super pissed that Jiang Fengmian adopted the child of the woman he was in love with. She’s also super pissed because Wei Wuxian happens to be a more powerful cultivator than Jiang Cheng. Jiang Fengmian is very indulgent of Wei Wuxian’s behavior because, you know, his parents died, and Jiang Fengmian loved his mother and was friends with his father. Yu Ziyuan constantly accuses Jiang Fengmian of loving Wei Wuxian more than he loves their own son, constantly abuses Wei Wuxian for having the audacity to exist in her home and be a good cultivator, and constantly berates Jiang Cheng for not being as strong as Wei Wuxian and says he’s not going to be a good sect leader. Meanwhile Jiang Fengmian can’t be arsed to reassure Jiang Cheng that yes, he does love him very much. Jiang Yanli basically raised both the brothers which is probably the only reason they turned out as well as they did.

tl;dr this is a super toxic environment for everyone involved

Ext, Cloud Recesses [Gusu]

ENTER A MAN WHOSE POSITION IMPLIES HE SHOULD BE IMPORTANT YET PLAYS LITTLE ROLE IN THE STORY

Wen Xu, the first son of Wen Ruohan, is coordinating the attack on Cloud Recesses.

Lan Wangji arrives in time to find most of his sect rushing to shelter in the magic cave because the Wen troops are slaughtering everyone there.

A bunch of disciples are trapped outside because only members of the Lan bloodline can get in. Wen Xu starts murdering them all until one will tell him how to get in.

ENTER A 2 WHO THINKS HE IS A 10

A disciple named Su She, who incidentally is the guy who lost his sword in the lake like a dumbass while fighting the water demon, tells Wen Xu that only members of the Lan bloodline can get in and he could do it if he had one of the Magic Ribbons.

Lan Wangji emerges from the cave to try to fight off Wen Xu and a zillion guys single-handedly. Unsurprisingly, this does not work and he is captured. Since he’s got the yin iron, Wen Xu decides that’s good enough and they take off. Everyone left behind presumably calls Su She a jerk.

Int, Lotus Pier [Yunmeng]

They’ve received the demands from the Wen sect. Jiang Cheng is the inner heir disciple and he has to go. Wei Wuxian says he’ll go too. Yu Ziyuan tells him nobody gives a shit what the son of a servant does.

Ext, The Indoctrination Bureau, which may or may not be in Nightless City. It sure seems like it is but then later it sure seems like it isn’t [Qishan]

Wen Chao has lined all the disciples up outside so he can insult them and brag about how great he is. Wei Wuxian is worried because Lan Wangji isn’t there at first, but then he’s escorted in, clearly injured and trying not to show it.

Wen Chao forces them all to surrender their swords. Surprisingly it’s Jin Zixuan who picks a fight about this.

ENTER A WOMAN WHO IS NOT PAID ENOUGH FOR THIS SHIT

Jin Zixuan’s retainer, a woman named Luo Qingyang but who everyone calls Mianmian because of how cute she is, calms him down and reminds him that Jin Zixuan’s father told them not to make trouble. He’s pissed but hands his sword over. So does everyone else.

(A note on swords: there are strong implications that the swords are semi-sentient and connected to their bearers on a spiritual level. I’m sure I would know more about this if I was more familiar with xianxia. But the long and the short of it is that taking their swords is a Big Fucking Deal.)

Wen Chao tells them all to memorize ‘The Quintessence of Wen’, basically the rules of their sect.

Ext, somewhere nearby [Qishan]

Wen Ning is excited that Wei Wuxian is in Qishan and asks Wen Qing if he can go outside and play. Wen Qing says no because Wei Wuxian is supposed to be their enemy. Wen Ning uses sad puppy eyes. It has no effect.

Ext, The Indoctrination Bureau [Qishan]

Wen Chao tells them to recite the Wen stuff. Lan Wangji refuses. Jin Zixuan refuses.

Wei Wuxian eagerly volunteers, and then like the chaos gremlin he is, starts reciting the Lan principles instead. Wen Chao is pissed. Lan Wangji is smitten. Even Jin Zixuan thinks it’s funny. Jiang Cheng is upset that Wei Wuxian is causing trouble but he also thinks it’s funny and just won’t admit it.

Wen Chao punishes Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji, and Jin Zixuan by making them do some menial labor involving buckets of dung. Jin ‘never done a day of actual labor in his life’ Zixuan is the most upset about this.

Wei Wuxian takes the opportunity to try to talk to Lan Wangji about the yin iron and what happened at Cloud Recesses and why he’s injured. Wen Chao gets even more pissy and throws Wei Wuxian in a dungeon with a terrible CGI wolf monster. Wei Wuxian nearly gets eaten but Wen Qing intervenes by using long distance acupuncture to knock the monster out with throwing needles. Wen Ning brings him some medicine to stop the bleeding from his multiple wounds.

The next day, they’re still reciting the stupid Wen stuff, or at least pretending to. Nie Huaisang either falls asleep on his feet, passes out, or decides this is bullshit and pretends to pass out, and is dragged back to his guest house.

The rest of them go on a field trip.

ENTER THE HUMAN VERSION OF PERIOD CRAMPS

Wen Chao has a girlfriend, somehow. Her name is Jiaojiao and she is the absolute worst.

They head off to a mountain where bad mojo is going around. Wen Chao is clearly planning to use all these cultivators as cannon fodder, because he’s a fucking asshole. Wen Zhuliu accompanies them, presumably because Wen Chao will trip over his own sword and die if left to his own devices. Wen Qing also comes along, even though she’d clearly rather not. Wen Chao keeps hitting on Mianmian and it makes Jiaojiao jealous.

Lan Wangji is limping badly. Wei Wuxian wants to help him. Jiang Cheng tells him they’ve got their own problems and they shouldn’t get involved in other people’s business. Wei Wuxian says, ‘but consider: I do what I want’. He offers to carry Lan Wangji, who refuses. So instead Wei Wuxian uses a little paper talisman to ask Wen Qing if she can help them out. She calls for a break so they can get some water.

Wen Chao tells her she’s too soft-hearted. She tells him he thinks too much, which seems vastly inaccurate.

Int, Muxi Mountain [Qishan]

They find a cave and go inside. There’s a steep drop off and nobody wants to go see what’s at the bottom, so Wen Chao pushes Wei Wuxian over the edge. Everyone is pissed about this, and they all have to climb down.

They’ve discovered an underground lake and the home of the monster! But it’s nowhere to be found. Wen Chao wants to string someone up and cut them to attract it. Jiaojiao suggests Mianmian. Wen Chao clearly doesn’t want to because he has the hots for her. Jin Zixuan tells him to get his grubby eyeballs off his friend. For the first time in the show, we feel a jot of respect for Jin Zixuan.

One of the other disciples tries to grab Mianmian anyway, Jin Zixuan intervenes, and there’s a big fight.

Wei Wuxian tells Wen Chao that using his position to bully others means he should be executed, using the words they had to memorize from the Quintessence of Wen. Wen Chao doesn’t recognize their own principles. Everyone laughs at him, and Wen Zhuliu looks like he’d rather be flipping burgers at McDonald’s than have this stupid job.

While Wen Zhuliu is distracted mentally updating his resume, Wei Wuxian grabs Wen Chao, puts a sword to his throat, and jumps to a rock in the middle of the lake. He tells Wen Chao to make all his guys lower their blades. But then, uh oh! Turns out the rock he jumped to is in fact the monster, which is a terrible CGI turtle snake thing.

There’s another big fight. Jiaojiao decides that this is an ideal time to punish Mianmian for being pretty near other people, and tries to burn her with a hot iron. Wei Wuxian jumps in between them and gets hit with it.

At some point, Wen Chao decides fuck this. The Wen soldiers all retreat, dragging Wen Qing with them, cut the ropes to the bottom of the cliff, and seal the entrance.

They find an underwater exit from the cave. While Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian fight the monster and keep it distracted, the other cultivators escape. But they don’t manage to make it out themselves. They’re now trapped in a cave together, soaking wet and wounded. Thank you, Untamed.

Wei Wuxian teases Lan Wangji and is too stupid to realize he’s flirting. Lan Wangji prays for patience. He tells Wei Wuxian that he went back to Cloud Recesses and that his uncle is injured and his brother is missing. Wei Wuxian covers Lan Wangji with his robe while he sleeps. We all swoon.

In order to get out, they have to kill the monster. Wei Wuxian goes inside it and we all very studiously do not ask which entrance he went through.

The inside of this monster is very gross. There’s a black sword inside it which emanates evil energy. Wei Wuxian grabs it because he is sixteen and stupid. He hears lots of screaming ghosts and such, but hangs onto it anyway because he is sixteen and stupid. They kill the terrible CGI turtle snake thing but it collapses on top of the exit so they still can’t get out. Wei Wuxian is badly injured. Lan Wangji sings to him and there is a montage of their significant moments together up to this point, because the Chinese censors apparently weren’t looking.

Ext, Muxi Mountain [Qishan]

Wei Wuxian wakes up to find he is outside. Jin Zixuan and Jiang Cheng have rescued him. Lan Wangji has already left to go back to Cloud Recesses to look for his brother. Wei Wuxian is still holding onto the creepy sword. They awkwardly thank Jin Zixuan for helping out with the rescue. Jin Zixuan awkwardly accepts their thanks and then bounces. Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng head back to Lotus Pier.

Nobody ever mentions how Nie Huaisang gets out of Qishan, and for some reason I find this very funny.

~end part 2~

[boxoftheskyking]

Here’s some Untamed fic

I don’t know that I’m going to continue it

But

To make this AU work I had to do a lot of canon divergence so here we go

Part 1: The Cautionary Tale of the Yiling Not-Quite-Patriarch

---

It’s meant to be redemption, or at least a chance in that direction. This is what mercy looks like, for someone like him.

There’s a crack in the skin between his left thumb and forefinger, not bleeding now, but it will as soon as his hands dry again. He beats the flat paddle against another set of identical white and pale blue robes, keeping his distance from the fire below. Of course, he has to keep the fire going to boil the water. Simple things like this he forgets, a phantom ache inside him as his instincts tell him to just turn energy into heat.

It will be better, he tells himself, once he charms some of the other house servants. After nearly three months, he’s worn the younger ones down to at least talk to him at meals, even smile at him in passing sometimes. It’s meant to be an extra punishment, a lesson, sticking him with laundry, dishes, scrubbing down the floors. The most menial labor, mostly performed by women. Well, lucky for him, women love him. Or they will, once his status as a cautionary tale wears off. It’s not cautionary for them, anyway.

That Wei Wuxian, you know he used to be such a promising cultivator. Head Disciple of the Jiang Clan, can you believe it? You see, juniors, the punishment for traveling the path of demonic cultivation. No golden core, not so much as a whisper of spiritual power.

He scratches his nose and sighs, a little rueful. Right events, he thinks to himself, wrong order. But no one needs to hear the real story; decisions were made, judgments handed down, and no one had been there to speak for him. Sometimes that’s the way of it. He’s been abandoned before, and he turned out fine. Well, he laughs at himself, maybe not entirely fine, in the eyes of the world.

It’s not the drudgery of the work that bothers him. He still remembers enough of his childhood on the streets in Yunmeng, trading a day of cleaning the corners of an inn that only his tiny hands could reach in exchange for a place to sleep and a bowl of cold congee. It’s that he’s really not good at it. They could have assigned him elsewhere—there are servants that tidy up the library pavilion, that run messages into town and back. Even polishing the wall of Lan Sect rules would be closer to his actual skillset. But that’s both more public and less demeaning, so here he is on laundry duty. Heavens forbid any of his former peers see him and recognize the once-great Wei Wuxian, perhaps give a polite nod or a hello. Even without a golden core, his demonic influence may leap out and corrupt the innocent young Lan disciples. Wei Wuxian laughs at the thought, and it’s only a little bit bitter.

He’ll find himself again, eventually. The common version of Wei Wuxian. The servant version. He can still smile, after all, and whistle, and offer to carry the heavy cookpots to save old Madam Xiao the trouble. And at night, while his roommates snore and hog the blankets, he can work up new talismans to hide under the bed. He’s technically not allowed paper or ink, but there are rags aplenty that no one will miss, and it’s not like he hasn’t written in blood before. 

Mediocre, Jiang Cheng’s voice echoes in his brain, half horrified, half disgusted. The cultivation classes all agreed, it’s what he deserves.

He whistles as he hangs the robes out to dry. There’s no power to these songs, no wicked tricks, but he’s forbidden from doing it anyway. You can’t forbid music, he thinks to himself,  laughing at the memory of Wen Ruohan, so superior, so righteous as he spoke on behalf of all the sect leaders, laying down all that is now forbidden. Music is just around. It’s a living thing, and it always has been. It doesn’t give a damn what the mighty cultivators think.

“Wei Ying!” Madam Xiao snaps from behind him. “Finish that laundry and get in here to attend to these dishes. Breakfast ended thirty minutes ago!”

So he hasn’t charmed her yet, but he will. Eventually, someone will call him “Wei Ying” and mean it as affection, not as an insult.

“Yes, Madam, of course! Just making sure the robes are perfect, you know. Nothing but the best for the Gusu Lan Sect!” He notices a hem that he must have scorched in the fire while hauling everything out of the cauldron and scoots subtly in front of it. “See, perfect!”

Madam Xiao mumbles something irritated and moves on.

He gives the hanging robes a last pat, remembering fondly the days when he used to wear something so similar, those months of study before everything went to shit. They never suited him. He always felt like he was dressing up as someone, like a child at a festival, pretending to be the great Zewu-jun. Or maybe Hanguan-jun. He has one great memory of Lan Wangji, the last time he actually used his sword, the feeling of recognizing a skill even greater than his own as they clashed on the rooftop. 

And then word had come from Lotus Pier. And then he had lost the only parents he truly remembers. And then Wen Zhuliu had come out of the shadows, slow and deliberate, like a coming storm, and Jiang Cheng had passed out and—

Well. It doesn’t matter now. He goes into the kitchen and starts scouring out the wok. He thinks one of the cooks is purposely leaving it on the stove too long, letting food cook on to it so he has to practically hack at it with a chisel to get it clean. There’s no way they’re actually serving burnt food to Lan Qiren.

When still he had a golden core, he had such a strong sense of things. The emptiness inside him is still an ache, an infected wound, but he’s learning how to read his new feelings. His instincts. His gut—that’s what the other servants say. A gut feeling. He knows one of the cooks has it out for him, just as he knows that Wen Zhuliu was not acting alone.

Of course, the Wen Clan disowned him, said he had gone rogue. Not a true Wen, after all. But Wei Wuxian knows in his bones that it wasn’t true. But Jiang Chen remembers nothing. Jiang Yanli wasn’t there. And Wei Wuxian will die before he tells the cultivation classes what really happened. It wouldn’t change anything for the better, and would be worse for Jiang Cheng, for Wen Qing, for anyone he truly cares about.

So he works. He is pleasant, he is polite, and he says nothing. What would Lan Qiren say, or Lan Wangji, if they knew he doesn’t even need a Silencing Spell anymore. Who would have thought Wei Wuxian’s greatest talent would be saying nothing.

“Wei Wuxian!” Lin Biming hurries into the kitchen in a swirl of robes and papers just as Wei Wuxian sets the last pot against the wall to dry.

“Master Lin! A pleasure to see you, sir!” He quite likes Lin Biming, mostly for his constantly overwhelmed expression and his comically red face. In another clan, his close confidence with Lan Qiren would be accompanied by some rumor about his parentage, but the Gusu Lan hold themselves above such matters. Wei Wuxian secretly wonders if any Lan are born at all, or if they just rise up out of the Cold Spring as fully formed sixteen-year-olds, blood running clear and icy through their veins.

“Wei Wuxian, you have a new assignment, starting tomorrow. Don’t ask questions, just report to Sect Leader Lan first thing in the morning.” He makes a pained expression. “That means five o’clock. Please do not be late.”

“Master—” but before he can even ask the question, Lin Biming is gone.

A new assignment? Surely they can’t have found something more degrading, more menial than dishes and laundry? Perhaps they need a new gravedigger, or someone in town needs someone to muck out their stables. If there’s anything he hates worse than bad news, it’s bad news on a delay. If he knows it’s coming, he’d rather just get it over with. But of course, there’s a full day of cleaning, scouring, and scrubbing ahead of him, and none of his tasks are consuming enough to calm his racing brain. Maybe the council has changed their mind and he is to be killed after all. Maybe Jiang Cheng has found a backbone or a sense of brotherly love and has come to take him home. Maybe someone noticed the scorched robes and he’s just going to be reprimanded for his carelessness.

He’s too distracted to work on his talisman at night—a variation on a protection charm that’s meant to respond to a person’s voice, something a person can set and then arm with a certain word or a tone. Instead he stares up at the ceiling of the servants quarters, listening to the soft breathing of his companions, his peers, and builds within himself a spine of steel. Whatever it is that is coming, he will take it as he always has. There will probably be some whining, but his back will not bend.

Part 2