#lan tianming is 天明 tiānmíng

[chuplayswithfire]

Is Nowhere To Be Found

Inspiration grabbed me by the throat the second I finished the fic@robininthelabyrinth posted today, and I just HAD to share my idea of whodunnit.

Summary: Wei Wuxian was stabbed, found barely breathing, left for dead. His would-be murderer has no regrets.

0000

The Cloud Recesses were abuzz with chaos, serenity abandoned in the wake of the attack on Wei Wuxian. The news had already spread that he would live. That soon he would be sure to wake and then to carry on with his second life. Gates had been shut, entrances and exits barred to prevent escape. Disciples were combing every building, every potential hiding place.

Lan Chaoyun was not hiding.

The knife that he had used lay before him, still stained with blood that had dried now, tacky, flaking like rust in the air. The iron scent had faded, as the blood dried, as the incense burned. It was a paltry offering, he knew now, marred by failure as it was, but it was an offering. He hoped that Lan Tianming would appreciate it, that his wife would know he had done his best to give her justice.

Perhaps it was not justice. Perhaps it was revenge. He no longer knew, just as he no longer cared. It was her birthday, and the knife, the flowers, the incense - he could only hope that all would reach her, that all would grant her peace if she had not yet moved onto her next life.

Gradually, the incense burned, one by one each stick dwindling to ash. When the last had been lit, and the last burned, he bowed low, face to the ground.

"I may be joining you, this night," he said. Her silent tablet offered no response. "Forgive me my delay."

Still, nothing. He knew there would be nothing. He knew that Inquiry had yielded no answers, that her spirit was gone from this world.

It did not stop him from wanting, aching, wishing.

0000

The noise was louder, outside of the memorial hall. It seemed the rules for running and shouting had been discarded. Lan Chaoyun was not surprised.

Many rules had been discarded for the sake of Wei Wuxian.

He walked among the hurrying, searching, worrying masses, tranquil as the feather that falls to the river and floats along its surface. His path was set, his fate lifted from his hands. He felt no fear and carried no worry, as he walked to the courtyard where discipline was carried out and knelt on cold stone.

Lan Chaoyun inhaled, filling his lungs with cool, sweet mountain air, and exhaled slowly. He would clear his mind, and he would breathe. He would wait, settled patiently.

It would not take long for him to be noticed.

0000

"Hanguang-jun! Hanguang-jun!"

Shouting at the door of the jingshi, the banging of a fist - enthusiastic or fearful or both, and Lan Wangji rose from his place as silent sentinel. The path to the entrance of their home from their bedroom was a short one, crossed in a few brisk step.

If he jerked the door open rather than slid it with grace, if wood groaned at the strength of his grip, who would complain?

"What?" Bitten out, terse. Wei Ying was sleeping and this noise would wake him. Short, yet eager. No one would disrupt them without reason. "What is it?"

A junior stood at the door, round-cheeked with youth and shaking. The top of this one's head would have barely met Wei Ying's shoulder. His name escaped him, lost to Wei Ying, his health, his stuttering breaths and still form.

"Z-Zewu-jun sent for you!" The stuttering child near-shouted, his hands coming up to his mouth in horror. He was nervous. Lan Wangji should have reassured him.

Lan Wangji did not.

"The - the culprit has been found - and Zewu-jun has called for you to -"

He did not hear the rest of what was said, either. The culprit has been found. Nothing else was as important as this.

No, one thing was as important as this.

"Where?"

0000

Lan Chaoyun held his head high. His meditation was long concluded with the arrival of so many others, but his poise still held, even - no, especially - with the weight of so many eyes on him.

Lan Qiren and Zewu-jun both stood before him, faces dark with anger. On any other day, the sight of them united against him like this would have set his guts to tightening in fear, his knees weak. It was their misfortune that this was not any other day.

It was their misfortune, not his, that he regretted nothing.

A sudden stirring behind him, the hurried rustle of fabric, the swift snap of steps across the stone.

"Hanguang-jun," was the whisper, the breaking of the heavy silence. More than one voice spoke, silent Lans set to chittering like startled birds.

Lan Chaoyun kept his silence. The arrival of his distant cousin was nothing for him to fear. He had known from the moment he woke this morning that this would break whatever remained of the tie between them, and he had made his peace with it.

Only his cousin's happiness had kept him oblivious to the fact that that bond had been one-sided, rotted from within and long decayed.

He would understand, now.

He heard those crisp footsteps falter, a brief stutter in an otherwise perfect rhythm. Were he looking, Lan Chaoyun was sure he'd be seeing the moment his cousin recognized exactly who knelt for punishment before their sect's leader.

"Lan Chaoyun," Lan Wangji said, voice tight. Nothing else followed. Perhaps he was at a loss for words.

How fortunate for him that that was his only loss.

"Lan Wangji," Lan Chaoyun returned. He did not look at his cousin. He did not want to see his face.

More whispers, at that. It had been many years since any save Zewu-jun and Lan Qiren himself referred to the great Hanguang-jun by name.

Zewu-jun cleared his throat, a quiet noise that nonetheless silenced the gathered crowd and drew all attention to himself.

"Lan Chaoyun, you confess to and submit yourself for punishment to this crime?" For all his anger, his voice was remarkably steady. Lan Chaoyun had wondered if seclusion would restore his control, his still-lake facade.

"I do," he confirmed, locking eyes. Zewu-jun too was his cousin. Younger, though their cultivation meant that such distinctions were impossible to see and their status meant them inert. "I stabbed the Yiling Laozu. My regret is only that he lives. I should have cut his throat instead."

Lan Qiren flushed with anger at Zewu-jun's side, his nostrils flaring. "Have you no shame at all for what you've done?"

Of all things, this was what sparked the smile to Lan Chaoyun's face.

"My only shame is that I waited until A-Tian's birthday to take justice for her," he said. If he relished in the surprise that spread over Lan Qiren's face, in the realization that filled Zewu-jun's eyes, for the anger the tightened Lan Wangji's jaw -

who here could justly blame him?

"Did you forget?" He asked, knowing he was being cruel and caring not for it. What was one more broken guideline in this place that bent to the whims of any ruling Lan? "I understand. It has been fourteen years. I didn't."

Zewu-jun drew breath, undoubtedly intending to begin a pacifying speech on the nature of rules and grief and the unjust nature of revenge. Lan Wangji spoke first.

"Wei Ying did not kill Lan Tianming," he lied, his hand clenched around his sword's hilt. Perhaps he didn't know he lied. Perhaps he thought he spoke the truth.

"His fierce corpses did. Perhaps you did not know. I understand you were busy ferrying him from the battlefield that night, but I bore witness to my wife's murder. I know who is responsible, and the corpse of our shidi was only Wei Wuxian's murder weapon."

The sight of him, white robes stained with blood and draped in black, arms filled with the body of the man responsible for that unending hell, had been the second worst of Lan Chaoyun's life.

Lan Tianming's face as she breathed her last, their shidi's clenched fist still driven through her chest, had been forever seared into his eyes, haunting his waking days, his dreaming nights, but his cousin's back as he fled that field of death with the murderer in his arms was not a sight he could forget.

All these years, he'd kept silent. Wei Wuxian was dead. His cousin may have betrayed them, but it had been for nothing, and the punishment had kept him off his feet for years. Lan Chaoyun had never forgiven it, but he had been willing to keep his peace.

Ruining Lan Wangji would not have brought Lan Tianming back to him, would not have restored the laughter in his life, the song that matched his guqin, would not have re-lit the flame of their small dreams, their hope of a family.

But Wei Wuxian was no longer dead. Wei Wuxian breathed this earth's air and ran through the Cloud Recesses and his laughter rang through every corner of their home and Lan Tianming would never breathe or run or laugh again.

His home, her home, every corner of it tainted by her murderer's life, his joy, his happiness, as if a single brief lapse (what more was a death that ended than a lapse?) were enough to account for her death.

Lan Wangji's throat worked but no sound left his lips. The knuckles of his sword hand were white where they gripped at Bichen.

"I attempted to murder the Yiling Laozu," Lan Chaoyun said again, voice raised. He met Zewu-jun's gaze once more. "I submit myself to punishment, Zewu-jun. I do not regret offering my wife justice. I do not regret the knife that now rests before her in offering. I regret only that she is dead and her home is defiled by the presence of her killer, who failed to so much as kneel before her tablet and beg forgiveness."

Whispering. No amount of throat clearing now would silence them. Zewu-jun seemed to know that - his eyes were hard as he bowed his head.

"Lan Chaoyun. The punishment for raising a weapon to one of our own is -"