One thing that bugs me about the way Vulcans are usually depicted (with some lovely exceptions) is that their philosophy—logic, or the teachings of Surak, for short I'm just going to call it Surakianism—is very often shown as a bad thing. Either that, or Vulcans aren't following it at all.
Writing about religion (and I do think Surakianism is best approached as a religion*) is always fraught. Because generally as a writer, you don't actually practice the faith in question, so naturally you'll have an outside view. That's doubly true of Surakianism, a way of life humans basically can't follow and it would probably be bad for us to try.
[*I know they don't call it a religion. But the way it deeply affects the interior life of Vulcans, their ethics, and so on feels very religious to me. It doesn't seem to have a position on theism; Vulcans get their beliefs about god(s) from elsewhere, such as traditional Vulcan polytheism and their own perceptions of the universe. But the way it exists as a social structure AND a guide to the inner self is absolutely religious to me.]
We are told that Vulcans developed this philosophy specifically because they needed it—they were destroying themselves without it! Their emotions were overpowering and violent, and they were clannish to the extreme. So despite what most of the human characters say, especially Bones, I think the path of logic is a good thing for Vulcans, even if humans don't get it at all.
Surak's teachings can be summed up into three basic points (a Vulcan somewhere just raised an eyebrow clear into their bangs at this oversimplification, but I'm doing my best here):
1. Logic, or the use of reason as a guide and the control of emotions
2. Nonviolence
3. IDIC—infinite diversity in infinite combinations.
Of course we only ever hear about the first one, because that's part humans notice. I'd say it was like reducing Catholics to fish Fridays and Mormons to underwear, but that's exactly what people do, so I guess it's understandable.
But I think the ordering goes the other way for Vulcans. First, acknowledge that others are of value, including and especially when they're different from you. Then, do them no harm. And finally, to achieve that goal, control your wild, violent emotions.
People imagine pre-reform Vulcans a lot of ways (and I never get tired of reading about them), but I think the best guide as to what they're like is by looking at Romulans. Romulans aren't wildly expressive with their emotions, we're certainly not talking about people who would otherwise be laughing and crying constantly. Instead, they're secretive and carry long, hateful grudges. They're loyal only to those closest to them, and they seem entirely without empathy otherwise.
Imagine the Vulcan emotions are like that. They have strong bonds to their clan, probably in part because of their telepathy. They're suspicious of outsiders, angry, prone to violence. Preferring the familiar is an instinct in humans too, but a mild one. Certainly humans have been and still are racist, but it's something we can generally overcome. I'm not sure the Vulcans could, not by relying on their emotions.
So they came up with the solution to control their emotions completely. Use reason instead as a guide to behavior, because logic will tell you that your own clan is not more important than another, and that reaching out in peace is beneficial to yourself and others. Don't give your emotions any credence and don't let them run wild.
Humans do some of this ourselves, and should arguably be doing more. We spend a huge chunk of our childhood learning to control antisocial impulses like screaming, hitting, and biting. We demonstrate self control in many tiny, unnecessary ways, in order to show to others that we are in control of ourselves: stuff like etiquette, social rules, even just leaving the last cookie on the tray for someone else. These are signals that say I am not governed by my appetites; I can be trusted to consider the needs of others.
And we could obviously be doing more. Too many political questions are being answered by people's emotional, knee-jerk responses like "I feel threatened by people who are different" or "I am angry about my enemies and want them punished" instead of "what produces the most benefit for everyone?" If we leaned more heavily on logic and reason to get us our answers, we'd make way better decisions than we do. Star Trek doesn't often acknowledge that in real life, making a snap gut decision doesn't actually have a very high success rate. Logic gives you better odds of saving the day.
But, you might say, Vulcans aren't doing very well at any of this. A heck of a lot of them that we've seen are racist. And while they repress their emotions just great, they don't actually make the most logical decisions most of the time.
But I don't think this actually discredits a religion at all. We all know Christians who are great at the easy parts of their religion—learning Bible verses or saying rosaries—but don't seem to be even trying to love their neighbor. That's in fact the way religions are usually practiced! External elements that people can easily see (like never smiling) are adhered to by social pressure, but more heart-level things are aspirational at best. That doesn't mean the message of a religion is bad; it doesn't really tell us anything.
This is especially true for a religion whose practice isn't optional. You have to follow Surak to stay on the planet. I can see this rule was necessary during the time when the Romulans were kicked out—pacifism doesn't work as a global solution unless everybody's doing it. Now, it seems a bit harsh. I think they get around it by not exiling anybody who's at least giving lip service to logic. That racist baseball guy in DS9 isn't a good Vulcan, but as long as he doesn't do anything violent or openly reject Surak, they're willing to say he counts.
Why are Vulcans so often the opposite of what their religion teaches? I think it's the other way around: their religion focuses specifically on their chief faults: clannishness, racism, ego. It just hasn't successfully transformed everyone. Makes perfect sense, really. We might as well ask why Christianity goes on and on about sex when humans are well known to be super obsessed with sex. Well that's WHY! It's one of our strongest impulses which in the past we felt the most desperate need to control.
The best argument against Surakianism is that total repression isn't the best way to handle emotion, that we need self-awareness of our emotions before we can account for them.
To which all I can say is, don't you think Vulcans know that?
I imagine there are lots and lots of viewpoints on this among Vulcans. Some favor repression and some favor understanding and acceptance; some think it's okay to have a little dry humor and some think we should be serious. We have the kolinahri who believe in the excision of all emotion (which I imagine is universally seen as extreme, like we might see cloistered nuns or monks who reject the world to achieve enlightenment). And surely there are ancient, wise Vulcans who deeply understand all their emotional impulses and are completely in control of them. Spock certainly seems this way by the movie era if not before: he knows that he has emotions, what they are, and how to respond to them. He has overcome the emotion of shame. So he seems not impassive on the outside, but a person at complete peace inside and out.
I just feel like we could stand to see more good Surakians, who are good not in spite of their belief in logic, but because of it. Kind of like how we see both good and bad followers of the Prophets on Bajor. I'm kind of anti religion myself, but I still want to see it given its due—especially a religion founded on such good principles. Sure, it's not a religion humans can really practice, nor need—a good half of our emotions are positive and pro-social, so it's no wonder a person like Bones would be convinced Vulcans are just punishing themselves unnecessarily. But it successfully turned Vulcan from a planet so violent it almost destroyed itself to a home of peace and learning. Of course Vulcans aren't going to mess with what works!
That has been my rant about logic for today. I highly recommend @dduane 's book Spock's World for a much deeper dive into logic and the path Vulcan took to get there.
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Fractured Ice - Ch. 6/7
Xue Yang whisks a nihilistic Lan Xichen off on a murder roadtrip to raise Xiao Xingchen and Meng Yao from the grave. Because that will solve all of their problems, right? AU where Wei Wuxian never came to Yi City and Xue Yang is still running around post-canon disguised as Xiao Xingchen.
Chang Ping ducks his head slightly. “Of course, my good daozhang. Anything for you.”
“Anything other than putting that crazed monster in the ground, you mean.” Chang Ping blinks, his watery pink-rimmed eyes bulging even farther out of his head.
“I beg your pardon, daozhang?”
“Xue Yang. You let him go.”
XueXiao & XiYao - Rated M - Read on AO3! Tumblr: Ch. 1 Ch. 2 Ch. 3 Ch. 4 Ch. 5 Ch. 7
A bit of blood in this chapter - brief violence onscreen and a brief graphic aftermath
Ch. 6: meaner than my demons
“I need to make sure it’s truly him,” says Lan Xichen. He stares at the spirit-trapping pouch clutched in his hand. Everything is blurred but the small brown pouch, which stands out starkly in the flickering orange torchlight. “I need to—to—”
“If he’s not in there, he’ll never be, and we have to get out of here.” Xue Yang shoves the heavy stone lid back onto the sarcophagus and steers Lan Xichen out of the tomb. The rain has stopped, and the morning star twinkles brightly through a gap in the clouds. “Fun as this is, we can’t hang around here. Those guards—”
Lan Xichen doesn’t spare a glance at the Nie guards, still lying strewn around the tomb. He’s too absorbed by the spirit-trapping pouch in his hand.
The pouch is warm. Almost pulsing. The throbbing warmth seeps into his cold hands, into his veins, flooding his numbed body with pleasant heat—
“Stop here.” Xue Yang lays a hand on Lan Xichen’s arm when he doesn’t look up. “We’ll change into dry clothes, and then you can try playing Inquiry. I’ll hold him while you change.”
Lan Xichen reluctantly surrenders the spirit-trapping pouch to Xue Yang, who sits on a boulder with the pouch set carefully on his lap, both hands cupped around it to make sure it doesn’t fall. Lan Xichen transforms back into Lan Huan in record time, throwing his hair up in a sloppy knot. Then, upon reflection, he takes the time to do it up properly out of respect for the little brown pouch on Xue Yang’s lap.
He sits cross-legged on the rocky ground as Xue Yang changes. Takes out his guqin, gently plucks a few strings.
The answer is clear, a thousand times stronger than Xiao Xingchen’s agonized murmur:
Meng Yao.
A glowing warmth suffuses Lan Xichen. Meng Yao. He’s always thought of A-Yao by that name, even after he’d received his courtesy name and title. Simple Meng Yao, the man who had risked everything to shelter him when he had nothing. Not Jin Guangyao, not Lianfang-zun, but his Meng Yao, his A-Yao, soft and welcoming and warm and bashful and giving.
And then, I didn’t think you would come for me.
Of course I came for you , he responds, then puts away his guqin out of fear of what A-Yao would respond to that.
He doesn’t realize how long he’s been sitting like that, eyes closed, one hand on the guqin, the other on the pouch, until Xue Yang touches his shoulder.
“Sun’s up, Zewu-jun,” he says. “We need to put distance between us and Qinghe. Can’t bring your friend back if we’re getting dragged back to Gusu by a dozen Nie meatheads.”
Lan Xichen doesn’t bother asking where they’re going. Xue Yang’s plan has worked so far. He just follows the delinquent cultivator through the mountains. Practically floats. It’s a different kind of drifting than before, though.
He examines the sensation. It takes a while before he finally realizes that it’s happiness, of a sort.
Rule 70: Do not be overly happy.
He laughs to himself. Xue Yang shoots him a curious look but doesn’t say anything. Uncharacteristically quiet, his friend seems to be lost in his own thoughts.
They meet several Lan cultivators on the road, obviously searching for someone, but they don’t recognize Lan Xichen and Xue Yang in their peasant getups.
“They’d never imagine the great Zewu-jun, fashion icon to thousands, would stoop to this ,” says Xue Yang, flicking a finger at Lan Xichen’s ragged tunic and trousers. They’re sitting in a roadside inn, not as much as a hellhole as they would have preferred, but so far no cultivators have entered. “I do wish you were a bit shorter, though, and still had your beard. Do you think the Lans roped the Nie beefeaters in on their hunt, after all?”
“For you, perhaps, but my uncle would never allow a whisper of my defection to leave the Cloud Recesses. They're probably simply affronted by our attack on the tomb's guards, with you getting the brunt of the blame.”
Xue Yang jerks a thumb in the direction of the qiankun pouch inside Lan Xichen’s tunic. By Xue Yang’s suggestion, he’s stashed the spirit-trapping pouch safely away in the qiankun bag. “Just remember, if I go down, so does he.”
Lan Xichen frowns. “I wouldn’t abandon you.”
“Good. Remember that I have the knowledge you need.”
Lan Xichen puts down his cup of what might be actual tea this time. “I wouldn’t abandon you, whether or not that were the case.”
Xue Yang sneers. “Is that a Lan Clan rule?”
Various elements of loyalty, fidelity, and gratitude are encompassed by a good five dozen rules, but Lan Xichen chooses to ignore that. “It’s my rule. Have I ever given you reason to doubt me?”
Xue Yang shrugs, idly picks up a piece of chicken with his chopsticks, examines it as if looking for bugs. “At least not until my usefulness runs out.”
“Xue Yang—”
Xue Yang shrugs again. “Don’t worry, my friend: I will make myself indispensable for as long as possible.”
Lan Xichen wonders just how strong the wine was. Xue Yang doesn’t speak for the rest of the meal.
Despite getting no sleep the night before, Lan Xichen lies awake a long time that night. He can stay awake for days by drawing on his golden core, but he doesn’t need to tonight. His heart is beating too fast for idle slumber , mind racing.
He takes A-Yao’s spirit-trapping out of his qiankun pouch and sets it on the bed beside him at eye-level. Traces the bloody symbols with his finger. Strokes the soft black tassels.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. His voice catches in his throat. “I never should have doubted you. I’ll bring you back. I swear I’ll bring you back…”
* * *
“Where are we going, exactly?” he finally asks Xue Yang on the fourth day. They’re walking through the trees near the main road, keeping out of sight.
“Yueyang. We’ll arrive tomorrow.”
“Yueyang?” Something faint stirs in his memory. “Isn’t that where the Chang Clan lives?”
Xue Yang bows with exaggerated deference. “Zewu-jun is wise indeed.”
Lan Xichen smiles. “Why are we going there?”
“I’ve been waiting for you to ask.”
“…and?” Dealing with Xue Yang can be maddening sometimes. His flair for the dramatic and love of bantering is at complete odds with how Lan Xichen was taught to hold a conversation.
“You’ll find out once we’re there…” He makes a face when Lan Xichen raises his eyebrows. “All right, we’re going to pay Chang Ping a visit. He has something we want.”
“Something to bring Jin Guangyao back?”
“Wise. Most wise.”
“What about your…friend?”
Xue Yang unconsciously touches his qiankun sleeve. “We’ll get there, in time. But Jin Guangyao is the key.”
“You wouldn’t do anything that might harm Jin Guangyao—”
Xue Yang’s—Xiao Xingchen’s—fine black eyes are large and deer-like. “Zewu-jun—” He stops, as if too taken aback to respond. Instead he shakes his head. “Jin Guangyao’s spirit is whole,” he explains. “Xiao Xingchen’s spirit was shattered. Different methods are needed. Your friend was immersed in demonic cultivation towards the end of this life, and had access to books he didn’t let me near.”
“You think he hid those books?”
“No, but he remembered everything he saw, and I’m certain he knows something that can help Xiao Xingchen.”
Lan Xichen wants to tell him that this is a fragile hook to be hanging his hopes on, but doesn’t dare point that out to him and let it snap. The important thing is that Xue Yang is helping him get A-Yao back. And, he tells himself, he’s not taking advantage of the delinquent cultivator. Once he has A-Yao back, he, Lan Xichen, will do everything in his power to help return Xiao Xingchen to Xue Yang. From everything he’s ever heard about the rogue cultivator, Xiao Xingchen deserves a second chance at life.
“How exactly did it happen, anyway?” Xue Yang asks.
“Did what happen?” Lan Xichen is itching to get to an inn, take out the spirit-trapping pouch, tell A-Yao that they were close, so close to bringing him back—
“Jin Guangyao’s death, of course.”
It's like Xue Yang dumped a bucket of ice water over his head. Lan Xichen doesn’t realize he’s stopped walking until Xue Yang doubles back for him.
“His death?” Lan Xichen repeats.
“I need to know these things if we’re going to bring him back. The kind of death might affect the kind of spell we use, and besides, you don’t want me saying the wrong thing once he’s back, do you? I casually mention honey and find out he died after being stung to death by a horde of angry hornets—”
“You must already know what happened.” Lan Xichen finds that his feet are moving, but it’s as if someone outside him is making him walk, talk, breathe. He’s doubly desperate to sit down and take out A-Yao, but he and Xue Yang agreed not to handle the pouches unless within the safety of a locked room.
Xue Yang trots along beside him, voice low and sympathetic. “I know this is a painful subject, Zewu-jun, and believe me when I say I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t have to, but there are too many things that can go wrong.”
“He moved.” Lan Xichen’s voice is flat and toneless. “He moved.”
“Moved to…Koi Tower?”
“Moved. I told him not to move. I warned him. I told him not to move. I warned him. I warned him. Then—then that—that bastard —”
“Nie Huaisang?”
“—he told me A-Yao had moved. Made me think A-Yao was going to hurt me, and I—I believed him. Believed A-Yao would do me harm.” Lan Xichen’s voice is so thick he can barely push the words past his lips. “I stabbed him through the heart. Straight through the heart.”
“We ought to stop back in at Qinghe when we’re done,” says Xue Yang, “and take care of that fan-waving little plum blossom.”
“I told you, we’re not killing Nie Huaisang. Or anyone.”
Xue Yang tilts his head. “You mean anyone else .”
Lan Xichen has stopped walking again. “What do you mean?”
There’s something catlike about Xue Yang that he’s never noticed before, but his companion’s voice couldn’t be softer, couldn’t be gentler, almost as if he’s impersonating Xiao Xingchen again. “Nothing, Zewu-jun,” he says, bowing. “I was just thinking of Jin Guangyao. My apologies. It was uncalled for. ”
Lan Xichen doesn’t remember much after that, too focused on the thought of what is to come. They must have had a conversation about stopping, but he can’t recall it as he later lies on his cot, stroking A-Yao’s soft warm spirit-trapping pouch. Can’t recall eating the evening meal, or coming up the stairs, or taking off his tunic or shoes or letting his hair down, but he must have at some point.
He presses his forehead to the spirit-trapping pouch on the pillow beside him. Inside is A-Yao—Meng Yao. Not Jin Guangyao. Not Lianfang-zun.
Meng Yao.
Not the man he had stabbed through the heart with twelve inches of ice-cold steel, but Meng Yao.
It takes all of his strength to turn away from the pouch and roll over onto his back, limbs filled with mortar. Who is he fooling? No matter what name A-Yao went by, all four of them were the same person.
He had killed Meng Yao. Not Jin Guangyao, not Lianfang-zun. Meng Yao.
His Meng Yao.
He’d believed everyone’s slander, he’d believed A-Yao’s own words of self-reprobation, he’d believed that A-Yao—A-Yao!—could have ever meant him harm.
“But never have I ever thought about doing you harm!”
He dreams that night of floating, not quite flying. Floating over a river of blood streaming from his sword, with A-Yao’s hat bobbing in the current.
He wakes up numb. Dresses, fixes his hair with nerveless fingers. Gets a shave. Is too nervous to eat. Doesn’t hear a word Xue Yang says as they leave the inn and head down the road towards the Chang Manor.
“I’ve been thinking,” says Xue Yang. “—Zewu-jun? Are you listening?”
With a tremendous effort, Lan Xichen turns his attention towards Xue Yang.
“I’ve been wondering if you should dress in your Zewu-jun getup, or not. I figure that—”
“Yes.”
“Yes—?”
Lan Xichen doesn’t know how to explain that he wants to look presentable for A-Yao. He remembers how Xue Yang had put on his best clothes for Inquiry at the Cloud Recesses and hopes he’ll figure it out on his own.
Xue Yang smiles. “I understand. But on the off-chance something goes wrong, we don’t want it known that Zewu-jun was there.”
A surge of desperation. “I won’t wear my ribbon or give my real name. Although—you’re only getting in on the strength of Xiao Xingchen’s name, and the people after us know we’re traveling together.”
Xue Yang sighs. “I suppose they would have figured we came this way sooner or later, after tonight.”
“Is whatever you're planning absolutely necessary? If it will give us away…”
An odd look creeps over Xue Yang’s face. “It’s Chang Ping or nobody.” He turns away slightly. “Do what you want about your clothes.”
In the end, Lan Xichen puts on the best robes he brought, dressing while hidden in a copse of cypress trees up the road from the Chang Manor while Xue Yang puts on the green-and-white robes he arrived at the Cloud Recesses in.
They’re let into the manor soon after Xue Yang sends in Xiao Xingchen’s name. The grounds are dark and empty, very quiet and very still.
“Where is everyone?” Xue Yang asks the servant as they’re led through the courtyard into the discussion hall.
“The great Phoenix Mountain hunt, daozhang.”
The servant’s words pierce Lan Xichen’s numb shell. If Chang Ping isn’t here, their entire trip was for nothing—
“And, of course, Clan Leader Chang avoids Koi Tower as much as possible since that sickening miscarriage of justice,” says Xue Yang.
The servant ducks her head. Xue Yang winks at Lan Xichen.
He must have known Chang Ping would be mostly alone, thinks Lan Xichen, and he knows this should alarm him but he can’t bring himself to care.
“Please don’t tell anyone else about our visit,” Xue Yang tells the servant. “It is of a highly sensitive nature.”
“It’s just my husband and I right now, daozhang,” bows the servant. “Clan Leader Chang is not a fussy man.”
“Or a rich man,” says Xue Yang, glancing around the room after the servant hustles out. “This place was a lot nicer sixteen years ago.”
“What are you going to do to him, exactly?”
Xue Yang’s face is serene, but there’s something decidedly unquiet flickering in his eyes. “Nothing he doesn’t deserve.”
Lan Xichen winces. “Yes, but—”
Xue Yang unwinds the bandages covering his hand and rips off his glove with his teeth.
His left hand is a mass of scars, as if the original wounds that had once covered it had been badly infected at some point. The delicate bones along the back had healed all wrong, crooked and painful-looking. Worst of all is his little finger. It’s missing from the first joint, a ragged stump, looking as if—as if it had been bitten off with small weak teeth.
“He did this to you?”
Xue Yang is staring straight ahead. “I was seven.”
“Xue Yang, I’m—”
“Don’t.” He tugs his glove back on. “I don’t care about my hand anymore. But he’s the one responsible for Xiao Xingchen’s death—”
Chang Ping bustles in before Lan Xichen can ask questions. “Xiao Xingchen! I did not expect to see the daozhang again.” He makes ridiculously large gestures as he bows, sleeves flapping. He’s small and fat and, despite what the servant had said, quite fussy-looking. He has a rather unfortunate beard and mustache combination and reminds Lan Xichen of Wangji’s pet rabbits. “And—ah—Zewu-jun! What an unexpected honor!”
That’s right. Chang Ping tends to avoid Cultivation Conferences, but they’d met once before at Lotus Pier.
Chang Ping seats himself on his seat of office. His eyes dart to Lan Xichen’s face, observing the lack of forehead ribbon, but he’s too polite to ask about it. “What can your humble servant do for Zewu-jun and the esteemed daozhang?”
“Funny Clan Leader Chang should ask,” says Xue Yang, calm again. He bows low. His glove is still exposed, but he’s in full Xiao Xingchen mode, down to his posture and the way he holds his head. “There is something I need.”
Chang Ping ducks his head slightly. “Of course, my good daozhang. Anything for you.”
“Anything other than putting that crazed monster in the ground, you mean.”
Chang Ping blinks, his watery pink-rimmed eyes bulging even farther out of his head. “I beg your pardon, daozhang?”
“Xue Yang. You let him go.”
Chang Ping’s obsequious smile freezes on his face. “I beg your pardon?”
Lan Xichen senses something different in Xue Yang’s voice. It’s Xiao Xingchen’s voice—there’s not a trace of Xue Yang’s teasing, overly casual tones—but there’s a harshness to it belonging to neither Xue Yang or his usual Xiao Xingchen impression. A metallic tang, a brittle bitterness.
“You let Xue Yang go,” Xue Yang repeats. He’s slowly walking— gliding —back and forth in front of Chang Ping, a leopard stalking its prey. There’s a certain poise, a slight arch to his back, a grace to his step that Xue Yang perhaps intentionally lacks when he’s not Xiao Xingchen. “And do you know what that lowlife bastard did?”
Chang Ping licks his lips nervously. “Daozhang, you know I had no choice! My clan was in ruins; I needed the Jin Clan’s support—”
Shuanghua flies through the air, plunging deep into the chair cushion beside Chang Ping’s head. “ ‘No choice’?”
Chang Ping shrinks away from the blade. “I—I had a duty to my clan!”
“What clan? They were all dead! Wiped out by that maniac!”
“Not—not all—”
Xue Yang is up on the dais, retrieving Xiao Xingchen’s sword. At Chang Ping’s words, he grabs the clan leader by the collar and throws him down the dais’ steps, floating gracefully down after him like a flower petal on the breeze.
“Do you know what that monster did?” he repeats. His foot is on Chang Ping’s bulbous Adam’s apple. “Slaughtered my partner’s entire temple, blinded him for no reason other than his own petty revenge and amusement—”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I had a duty to my clan—”
Xue Yang stabs down with Shuanghua, skewering Chang Ping’s hand. “You wanted to be a clan leader—” He twists the blade, tearing the wound open, separating the bones in the back of the clan leader's hand.
Tears of pain stream down Chang Ping’s face. “I had to honor my father—”
“By setting free the man who exterminated his family?” Xue Yang walks around the quivering man, trailing the bloody sword tip over the stone floor with a scraping sound that sets Lan Xichen’s teeth on edge. “Not that he deserved your honor. Your father was as much a monster as Xue Yang. Chang Cian’s entire bloodline deserves to be wiped out!”
“Please! Please don’t! I did what I thought best—”
“You did what you thought best for you.” Xue Yang crouches before Chang Ping, grabs him by the throat and jerks the cowering clan leader’s head up so he’s forced to meet his eye. “You blinded my partner,” he says in a flat, toneless voice. “I gave him my own eyes, and then I met him , and because I couldn’t see I let him stay, and it’s all your fault— everything that happened; all your fault —”
Chang Ping’s face is a mask of fear and confusion. “I—I think you might have the wrong—”
“It’s all your fault, you and your whole tainted bloodline—”
Lan Xichen slips out of the room. He knows Chang Ping must be screaming, but Xue Yang obviously learned a silencing spell while at the Cloud Recesses, because Lan Xichen feels an energy barrier springing up around the room as soon as he exits and hears nothing.
The servant from earlier is waiting nearby.
“I need writing materials,” he tells her.
Bowing, she leads him to what appears to be Chang Ping’s study.
Lan Xichen settles down before the table. “Please go tell your husband to pack your bags. Return in ten minutes for the letter. Thank you.”
“Zewu-jun?”
“I discussed it with your master. Hurry!”
She hustles out.
Lan Xichen picks up the brush and removes a folded section of paper from the carved wooden stationary box on the desk.
The letter is ready when the servant returns with her husband and a little girl, traveling packs slung over their shoulders.
“Go straight to the Cloud Recesses in Gusu. Deliver this letter to the Chief Cultivator, and the Chief Cultivator only. This letter is for Lan Qiren, and Lan Qiren only. Take this as well.” He passes them a purse full of silver pieces. “Speak to nobody along the way. Now go!”
“With all due respect, Zewu-jun, we ought to see our master first—”
“If you do not go now,” Lan Xichen says, “you will never leave this place at all.”
He doesn’t think they quite pick up on what he means, but they hurry out. He follows them, making sure they leave, waiting outside the manor as they disappear up the road leading to Yueyang.
He remains on the side of the road for a bit, breathing in the crisp night air. The stars are particularly bright tonight, the moon full. He has a sudden urge to strip off his robes, stretch out middle of the road and bathe in the starlight. Be fresh and clean and glowing when A-Yao sees him again.
His heart beats faster at the thought.
A-Yao.
For reasons he can’t explain he feels suddenly like walking down the road, walking until his legs give out, walking off the edge of the world, leaving everything in this one behind, dissipating into a cloud of starlight.
Ridiculous. Just because he let Xue Yang execute a man who thoroughly deserved it is no reason to feel—feel unworthy of A-Yao’s return.
He turns quickly and heads back into the manor.
“A-Yao. A-Yao.” He repeats the name to himself, focusing on the word’s warmth on his lips. “A-Yao. A-Yao…”
“Not if you don’t get back in here.” Xue Yang is leaning against the door to the ancestral hall, himself again. “Where did you run off to?” He’s grinning broadly, eyes bright. Too bright. Shuanghua gleams in his hand, wet with blood. “The main event is about to begin.”
* * *
Chang Ping deserved it, Lan Xichen reminds himself. Over and over. Chang Ping deserved it. Chang Ping deserved it…
The clan leader’s naked body is hanging from ropes attached to a ceiling beam, a bucket set directly beneath his feet. The body is swaying slightly, as if Xue Yang gave it a playful push before going to wait for Lan Xichen. The corpse is a mass of pulpy red and oozing pink, exposed bone and ruptured fat and flayed muscle, an inhuman horror glistening wetly in the lamplight.
Chang Ping’s eyes are missing.
“Not bad, if I do say so myself.” Xue Yang is cleaning his blade with Chang Ping’s robes. “Considering how out of practice I am.”
“Did you have to—have to—”
“Give him the full experience?” Xue Yang laughs. His laugh is a bit too high and a bit too long. “I needed that resentful energy, my friend. Do you think I enjoyed torturing the good Chang Ping?”
Lan Xichen looks at Xue Yang’s left hand.
Xue Yang wags a finger at him. “What his father did to me had nothing to do with any of this. But believe me when I say he was just as guilty.”
“His father? I thought it was Chang Ping who…” Lan Xichen remembers what Xue Yang said about Chang Ping’s involvement in Xiao Xingchen’s death. “Never mind. What do you need the resentful energy for?”
Xue Yang points to the floor beneath the swinging corpse. Drawn in blood on the floor is a large, complicated array, with a new-looking spirit-trapping pouch near the bucket. “Three guesses. Now, I’ll be back in just a minute...Have you seen that servant woman?”
“I sent the servants away.”
The grin slips from Xue Yang’s face. “You what?”
“I sent them away.”
Xue Yang is staring fixedly at a spot just behind Lan Xichen. “And why did you do that? Pang of conscience?”
“I needed someone to deliver a letter to my brother. That’s all.”
“Suicide note?”
“Suicide is forbidden—”
Xue Yang jerks a thumb at the corpse. “So is murder.”
Lan Xichen swallows hard. “I could never do that to my family, or demean the gift of life given to me.”
Xue Yang keeps staring at that invisible spot, then bursts out laughing again. “We’ll get there eventually,” he says, shaking his head.
“What do you mean?”
Xue Yang pats his arm. “Not the suicide, my friend. Don’t worry. I want you whole and healthy. I’m talking about your sticking your nose in with the servants. It was my own fault. I thought you…ah, never mind. We have time. We have time.”
Lan Xichen moves out of arm-patting range. “Time for what?”
“Time to bring back your friend, of course .” Xue Yang sheaths Xiao Xingchen’s sword in the scabbard strapped to his back. “The pouch, please.”
“You mean—”
Xue Yang is grinning again. “I told you this would be worth it.”
Lan Xichen doesn’t remember him having said that, or given him any forewarning about what he’d done to Chang Ping, but he’s too nervous to think about it.
Xue Yang takes A-Yao’s spirit-trapping pouch from him delicately, holding it with as much care as if Xiao Xingchen himself had been inside the pouch. “Your hand.”
Lan Xichen extends his hand. Xue Yang uses his needlessly large knife to prick open the now-healed little wound he’d made back at the tomb, using his blood to create a number of talismans, which he hangs on Chang Ping’s body.
Then he picks up the new spirit-trapping pouch from the floor and takes a curved, palm-sized chunk of black-and-gray metal out of his sleeve. He grips it in the same hand as the new spirit-trapping pouch and A-Yao’s pouch, black smoke pouring off the metal piece and curling around the pouches.
Lan Xichen’s eyes widen. “That’s—”
Xue Yang puts a playful finger to his lips. “We know what it is.”
“But—”
“Don’t worry. I don’t use it often enough to go the way of Wen Ruohan or Wei Wuxian. I don’t want to lose my mind any more than the next person wants me to.”
“But—”
“Do you want me to continue or not?”
Lan Xichen ducks his head and steps back.
The black smoke twines around Xue Yang’s fingers. He sends the chunk of metal at the body, drawing a rapid-fire sequence of glowing red symbols in the air, then opens the new spirit-trapping pouch.
A blast of resentful energy escapes the bag, so potent that Lan Xichen is sent flying across the room. So Xue Yang had trapped Chang Ping’s resentful energy in the new pouch—
Xue Yang reaches for the metal, releasing a second burst of dark energy so powerful that Lan Xichen loses consciousness.
He awakens almost immediately. Sits up and looks around, heart beating wildly.
Xue Yang is kneeling before Chang Ping’s body, not in an act of contrition but as if using the…the chunk of metal had taken more out of him than expected.
But Lan Xichen barely notices him. His eyes are riveted on the naked, shivering figure lying curled up inside the array.
Lan Xichen rises, trembling, and takes a few shaky steps towards the small white figure.
“…A-Yao?”
Up Next: The final chapter! Things come to a head.
Or: The night sky sure is pretty and stars are cool.
Chapter 7
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