Broken Memories, Broken Sabers - JaenysBloodcourt - 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

His child is gorgeous.

His child is doomed.

That is the truth Wei Wuxian knew since the moment his pregnancy had been discovered by, a very shocked, Wen Qing. He was supposed to be barren, the surgery to remove his golden core had left him like that, a broken, useless omega. Until his little miracle. Wei Wuxian looked at the child cradled in his arms, his tiny scrunched face resting against his chest, this child was his hope. This child is all he is ever going to get from the alpha he loves, the alpha who is beginning to hate his cultivation ways, who is going to tire of him soon enough.

Wei Wuxian knows, rationally, that he must give the pup away; he is in the middle of a war against the very same clan that helped his child into this world. A f*cking war where he dugs corpses out of the ground in order to survive. But a primal part of him refuses to consider the possibility of their child away from his loving arms. Frowning, he turns his teary eyes at the beta kneeling by his side. “I don't know what to do”

Wen Qing glares at him, there is fear in the depths of her eyes, fear that Wei Wuxian will be found as a patient in her clinic. “Whatever you do, do it fast. You must be gone by morning”.

Wei Wuxian looks at his baby, a calloused finger tracing his delicate figures, counting his little eyelashes and marveling at the softness of his skin. His child already smells of him.

He looks up, determination burning on his eyes, and pleads; a sound like crushed flowers and burned paper. “Help me”.

Wen Qing snarls.

He wakes up. Wei Wuxian is trapped in bed by the heavy and warm arms of his alpha, his mate, his husband; Lan Wanji. His Lan Zhan. Cold sweat clings to his body like a second skin and makes the sheets stick to his numb legs, he wants to scream and cry. He remembers the pup, he remembers the lies he has told since that day. A small whimper leaves his dry lips. He remembers all. Wei Wuxian, he thinks as he disentangles himself from his husband, you are really a coward.

He steps out of bed and tip-toes his way out of the Jingshi, towards the small garden where Lan Zhan had built him a lotus pond. A birthday gift, a reminder of his first home, of memories that taste like a hot meal on a cold day; it is also a reminder of his failures, of his transgressions. One of his hands travels towards his lower belly, a phantom ache runs through his body, the hand clenched on his underwear. Memories of his first alpha swam across his mind, his rare smile, the sharpness of his eyes, his hair swinging on the air, and his scent, oh gods his scent! Fresh like the water of the rivers crashing down from the Gusu mountains, metallic with the blood of his enemies and the steel of his Baxia.

Wei Wuxian falls to his knees, the moist soil damps his bed clothes, his memory has been full of fragments and odd flashbacks ever since Mo Xuanyu invoked him back to life, but now everything makes sense; how could he have forgotten his first alpha? their child? His memory is truly a cursed thing.

Nie Mingjue and Wei Wuxian had gotten together in the midst of the sunshot campaign, one drunken night of passion giving way to another and another, until every night they were in the same camp Wei Wuxian would sneak and spend the night on Chifeng-Zun’s tent, nestled under his big, strong arms. He would also spend a great part of the morning purring and rolling on the sheets filled with the musk of their combined scents. But of course, the sex was not just sex, both were, in a way, demonic cultivators and while the sex helped Mingjue to align his Qi after weeks of battle and blood lust; it helped Wei Wuxian to keep a clear mind, it grounded him back to earth.

Four months before the final battle at Nightless city, Wei Wuxian had given birth. The last remnant of Nie Mingjue in this world. Pieces of Nie Mingjue’s staged death burned his eyes, in a way it was poetical that Nie Huaisang had brought him back to life to help avenge his brother, almost to poe...Huaisang didn't know did he? If he knew, was that the reason he had summoned Wei Wuxian? The clarification of his crimes be damned, if his old friend knew... then why hadn't he said anything? Was he waiting for Wei Wuxian to approach?

But no one knew, Mingjue and him had taken agonizing measures so that it remained as such during the war, perhaps Mingjue had confided in his didi before his death? Somehow that didn't seem like somentig the late alpha would have done, and besides, Mingjue had never known about the child, nor what Wei Wuxian had done with it. He had wanted to tell the man, but shortly after A-Yu had been born, Mingjue had started to look down at his cultivation, had raged at him some nights for the deep scent of rot and death that covered him, on those nights Mingjue would bath and scold him; but ultimatly those nights of comfort had ended alongside their sex life just a week beofre the siege at nightless city. Mingjue had found him in the middle of the night, elbows deep into a grave, a dozen corpses stacked on a pile behind him; eyes as red as blood.

“Would you ever grow tired of this?”

The echo of the hissed words burned at his heart once more, it had been the only time Mingjue had whispered defeatedly to him , his hands tight on Baxia’s hilt as his eyes roamed all over his crouched figure. Yes, he had wanted to shout, yes I will. But all that came from his mouth was a snarl.

“ Why does sect leader Nie care about what I do? My cultivation is winning us the war.”

“It is killing you!”

“You worry too much, A-Jue.”

A muscle on Nie Mingjue’s jaw had jumped as he clenched his teeth, the sect leader stomped towards him, catching him by the nape of his neck and raising him out of the grave, “Is this a joke to you? Have you not seen yourself? It is as if ou-,” a loud growl-like exhale left the alpha, “Never mind, you’ve done enough for one night.”

Wei Wuxian had not been in his sane mind for quite a while, if he had he would have been able to see the hidden emotion lurking on his alpha’s irises. He would have kept his mouth shut.

“As if our what? Our f*cking is nor working the way you wanted? Your pheromones are not clinging to my skin the way you want? Piss off A-Jue, I have work to do, I can't be your f*ckhole every second of the day.”

Nie Mingjue dropped him, taking a step back from him as if Wei Wuxian’s skin was made of molten lava. The alpha’s face contorting into a vicious snarl that bared his teeth and sharp canines towards the omega snarling back at him.

“f*ckhole!? Is that what you think this is,” he gestured between them, “ just a way to satisfy our needs? Am I that dishonorable in your eyes!?”

“Who said anything about needs! For all I know half the army already knows that Chifeng-Zun keeps the greatest demonic cultivator of the world pliant by the sheer force of his co*ck!”

“I have never sought to control you! Our relationship started as a mutual benefit! You know it! Has your cultivation twisted you this much? Have our nights of dual cultivation meant nothing for you? Have they not helped you?!”

Something froze inside Wei Wuxian, dual cultivation, Nie Mingjue, the great leader of the Nie sect, had been dual cultivating with him. He had poured his spiritual energy inside Wei Wuxian and all he had received in exchange were moans and the back-lash of the resentful energy inside Wei Wuxian’s soul. If he had known...he would have stopped Mingjue from doing so, from tying part of his spiritual energy towards the empty carcass he had become. A lump formed in his throat.

“Dual cultivation? How could that help me?”

“Do not play dumb with me Wei Wuxian,” spat Mingjue, “ You know demonic cultivation damages the core, dual cultivation mends those wounds! Like it helps realign my qi after a long battle.”

And, oh how much had Wei Wuxian wanted to tell him the truth, to spill his weakness in front of the alpha he cared for, the alpha he had fallen in love with...but it was impossible. If Mingjue knew...Wei Wuxian could not bear to look at the disgust on his handsome face. The demonic cultivator licked his lips and looked straight into the concerned honey-colored eyes of his alpha.

“Have you considered that it only helps if the energy is accepted?”

Nie Mingjue took a step back, the firenecess of his face, replaced by a strange vulnerability that disappeared in a flash, in its place, anger clouded his face.

“What did you just say?” there was a warning on his tone, on the way his shoulders squared back, it was an opportunity to take back what he had said, to pass it off as irate words. If he retracted those words he could spend the night on Mingjue’s arms. He could be the omega of the strongest and most ferocious man in the cultivation world, he would be protected; he would be living a lie, for there was no way Mingjue would love him if he knew the truth. Even now, in the midst of a war his lover hoped for him to put a stop to his dark path, and Wei Wuxian could never stop.

“I said, it would have only helped if I accepted your energy.”

With just a few words he doomed their relationship. When two cultivators engaged in dual cultivation, their cores would expand and thrive under their shared spiritual energy, brought to life by their intimacy. Love was the purest form of cultivation, to trust and confide in each other, to let your partner see and care for you during your most vulnerable moment created an enormous amount of spiritual energy. Dual cultivation was regarded as a space of mutual acceptance to let your partner’s spiritual energy fill you up and vice versa, energy blending at their cores and creating something strong, beautiful and pure. Dual cultivation was a statement, a way to say to the world, we belong to each other.

But, sometimes, when cultivators were forced into an arranged marriage and felt nothing for their spouse, one of them would cultivate during intimacy and the other would turn down that energy, sending it back to the earth. It was not a noticeable act during the first few years seeing as the energy still returned to the cultivator and helped to strengthen his core, but after some time it would come to light that in spite of so many years their cores and energies remained separated, never relaying in each other. It was a way to say to the other, I don't care for you, your power doesn't please me, you are nothing to me but a bed mate, a means to an end.

To Nie Mingjue, who trusted deeply and rarely, who opened his heart once in a million years, who had allowed Wei Wuxian to hold him and bath him, to whom he had spilled his worries, pains and hopes; to him Wei Wuxian had just told “Can’t you see you don’t mean the same to me? Whatever I’m to you, you are not so to me.”

Wei Wuxian had explored the raw places of this man’s heart like no other before him, had been held in those arms as he cried and found comfort on the sound of his beating heart, on his scent that had come to mean home, and to Nie Minjue’s eyes his small actions of comfort and care had been found him lacking. Not worth being Wei Wuxian’s mate.

To this man who had bared his all to Wei Wuxian, to reject his dual cultivation, to spit down on this action meant his heart had been seen, known, and placed back on its place; rejected, unwanted, used and played with.

Baxia began to vibrate inside its scabbard.

Wei Wuxian’s eyes shone red as a self satisfactory smirk spread on his face, arrogant and detached.

Nie Mingjue roared and launched towards him, heartbroken, rage burning at his core.

Wei Wuxian raised Chenqing and played.

Saber and flute battled that night and in the morning Wei Wuxian ran away towards his brother’s camp, broken arm and a broken, guilty heart weighing him down. The next time they saw each other's eyes was during the siege at the burial mounds, where Nie Mingjue rained steel on Wei Wuxian’s second family.

“I could have protected you” his honey eyes had hollered, “but you chose to break me. Bear the consequences.”

Thus Wei Wuxian had died, torn apart in his grief, madness and despair; with his eyes set on the strong retrieting back of Nie Mingjue, one last stolen glanze so he wouldn’t have to look at his shidi’s distorted face.

“Wei Ying”

A startled squeak left his mouth and Wei Wuxian rushed to dry his tears with the back of his hand, trying to hold back the sobs and nausea coming up his throat. Coward, roared his mind, monster , echoed his heart. He really was both of those things. It had taken him almost a year to fill all the gaps in his memory and now he wished they had never come back, he wanted to be ignorant of this heartbreak, unresponsive to the memory of A-Jue’s severed head, to the phantom wailing of his child as it was placed on bony, wrinkled arms.

“Lan Zhan,” his voice came out quivering, nasal, broken, “Don't...Don’t come near.”

A soft rustle, a tiny breeze and suddenly strong arms were hugging him from behind, the reincarnated omega began to struggle, for all Lan Zhan was his current alpha right now all Wei Wuxian wanted were the tense arms of Nie Mingjue, he wanted to hear his voice and hide his nose on the crook of the older man’s neck. A wail slipped from his lips, Lan Zhan’s arms tensed around him and it felt wrong to mourn his former lover on the embrace of a man that had given almost everything up for Wei Wuxian. His stomach flipped and Wei Wuxian vomited at the side, bile burning his throat and staining his chin.

“Wei Ying! Wei Ying, what's wrong?”

Wei Wuxian blurted something, his strength gave up and he fell into his husband's chest like a stringless puppet, eyes closed and tears pouring down his cheeks. Nie Mingjue’s face, sharp as Baxia’s edge, smiling at him was the last thing he saw from behind his eyelids before everything went black.

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

“Does he have a name?”

The old woman was eyeing him warily, her bony arms wrapped around the blanket bundle that was Wei Wuxian’s son.

“Does it matter if he does?” he replied with a bitter smile.

The old woman shrugged, “The look on your face, I assumed you cared for the child. Some parents name them before leaving them behind, one last kindness from a father the war will take from them.”

Wei Wuxian exhaled loudly, he was already having a hard time suppressing the tears and sobs threatening to spill out, if he continued to talk he might snatch his child back consequences be damned. But, his baby deserved to know his name, the name Wei Wuxian had pondered on since he had been placed on his arms.

“JunJie, a handsome hero like his other father”

The wrinkled eyes of the woman sparked in delight, she bowed towards him, “Shall you not return from the war, young master, Xiao-Jun will be in good hands.”

Wei Wuxian bowed low and walked away as fast as possible, ignoring the bloody screams of his inner omega to go back for their pup.

He woke up with the taste of blood and bile on his mouth, it took him a second to realise he had bit his tongue while he was lost in the memory of the last time he had seen his child.

“Wei Ying.”

He offered his husband a wan, sleepy smile, “Lan Zhan.”

“How are you feeling?”

Like I want to puke my brains out. “ Fine, thirsty.”

A cup of fresh water was placed on his lips and he drank in small sips, his mind toying with hundreds of plans, of ideas about what to do next.

“Wei Ying, why were you crying?”

Wei Wuxian stretched his arms and placed a sunny grin on his face, part of him wanted to tell Lan Zhan, to cry on his arms and beg the other alpha for help, for forgiveness. But he couldn't find the courage to look straight at him in the eyes and tell him he had bore a child for another alpha, that while Lan Zhan was being lashed because of him, Wei Ying had been moping about his previous lover. He didn’t have a face thick enough for it. “It was nothing, just a silly nightmare.” I’ll tell him. Once my brain feels normal again. When I have an idea about what to do. He swore to himself.

“Mn. Not silly, I was worried. Wei Ying slept for almost four days.”

“Four days!” That's when he looked around for the first time and noticed he was no longer on the Jingshi but in the healer's quarters, the eerie smell of herbs and sickness slammed against his nose and brought forth memories of Wen Qing’s office. He gagged, rushing to face the opposite side of the bed so Lan Zhan wouldn’t see him puke and cry, but nothing came out his mouth. Lan Zhan’s warm, big hand began to draw comforting circles on his back as he demanded a healer to approach them.

When the healer came forth a few minutes later it was to the sight of Lan Zhan calm-scentig Wei Ying. The healer in charge of him calmly coaxed his husband away so that he could examine him, but Wei Wuxian growled, deep on his throat, his mate was not leaving his sight.

“It is just for a few minutes, young master Wei, you were asleep for too long. I have to make sure your meridians and internal organs are undamaged. Your golden core is still relatively young to practice inedia for long periods of time.”

“It is alright, Wei Ying.” Lan Zhan placed a kiss on his brow, prayed his arms away from Wei Wuxian and stood away in fast movements before he could register the loss of his husband's warmth. A growl got stuck on his throat when the healer placed his cold hands on his wrist, sending a wave of unknown spiritual energy to prod at his meridians. Another flash clouded his mind and made his eyes glare vacantly at the floor.

“You should be fine in a few days, I don't need to remind you again of how important it is for you to rest, do I?”

Wen Qing retracted her fingers and needles from his body. Wei Wuxian’s hands caressed the bump on his stomach, a calming gesture “Wen Qing, I’m fighting a war.”

She growled, “Yes you are, and you are also hiding your pregnancy with a very obscure spell, pushing your body to the limits by harnessing all of that resentful energy and, how did you put it? f*cking like a rabbit with your alpha. Wei Wuxian it is no wonder you had a miscarriage scare, you were lucky you arrived in time or else your pup would have died.” Her hand connected with the back of his head, “You are being too reckless, If you don't want the pup, I can give you the herbs right now.”

Wei Wuxian’s eyes grew big, he curled into himself, placing his knees in front of his belly, protectively and cried out , “Shut up! Don't say it, I want my A-Yu. Of course I want my A-Yu. Don´t take him from me! shut up! I want my A-Yu, A-yu. I want my baby back, give me my baby!”

He launched himself towards the healer, eyes red and teeth bared, a feral omega out of his mind. Iron-like arms caught him by the stomach and slammed him into the ground as he struggled, kicked, wailed and growled.

“Let go! Let go! I must have my baby back! I want my baby! A-Yu!” his cries grew despaired and morphed into heart wracking sobs, his fists landing against Lan Zhan’s hard chest. “Don't take him from meee,” he whined, “I want my baby, give me my baby!”

With a small frown Lan Wangji pinned his distressed omega to the ground, catching his wrtists and nuzzling at his neck, realising calming pheromones so that his husband could think straight once more.

“Wei Ying, Wei Ying. Sizhui is fine he is with Wen Ning. A-Yuan is fine.”

Wei Wuxian’s glazed eyes landed dead on the his husband’s golden ones, “Wen …ing, Wen Qing said… she said that I was-”

“Shh,” interrupted Lan Zhan, he nestled the distressed omega against his body, making sure Wei Yings neck was secured against his own scent gland so his scent could comfort his mate. “A-Yuan is safe, you are safe. All is well.”

Demonic cultivator and Hanguang-Jun rocked on the floor for what seemed an eternity until Wei Wuxian’s sobs and pleads became whimpers and finally stopped as he cried himself back to sleep. Lan Zhan stood up and carried Wei Wuxian back to bed with a heavy frown on usually blank face, then, once he was sure his omega was resting in a comfortable position, he turned to the shocked faces across the room, his gaze landing on the head healer.

“What’s happening to him?”

The healers bowed low, “We are not sure, Hanguang-jun. It may have something to do with his unusual reincarnation. Please rest assured we will do our best to help your spouse.”

Wei Wuxian was drowning in memories, fast flashes that made his head hurt, leaving him dazed and nauseated on his pained slumber. He was choking in the phantom of Nie Mingjue’s voice. His heart was going to stop. Wei Wuxian wanted the memories to stop and at the same time he wanted to remember, he wanted to make it right. So he drowned on flashbacks, shame, anger and the never ending urge to smack himself awake.

“What are you doing in my tent!?”

Wei Wuxian burped and turned his heavy head towards the man at the entrance of the tent, his tall frame occupying all the space between the floor and the wool-roof. “My tent.” he slurred, offering the intruder an intoxicated grin.

“Are you drunk!? We are in the middle of a war and you are drunk! Who the f*ck are you?”

The omega got up on shaky legs and made a messy bow to the handsome stranger that had bargained into his tent, “Wei - hic- Wuxian, at your servisseee.”

Nie Mingjue stared at him, sharp eyebrows furrowed, “You are the demonic cultivator, the one that follows sect leader Jiang.”

Wei Wuxian swayed on his feet and fell back into the bed, a jar of wine raised high, “The same! the same! Wanna celebrate w’h me?”

Their first time was messy and fuzzy. Big hands roaming everywhere, bites and hurried, sloppy kisses spreading around Wei Wuxian's intoxicated body. What he remembers is the morning after, waking up to Mingjue’s stern glare, to the shameful downcast look on his eyes as he fixed his outer robe on Wei Wuxin’s naked form.

“I apologize. I should not have taken advantage of your drunken state." Nie Mingjue made a low bow, “Whatever you ask in return for this offence shall be provided.”

Wei Wuxian smiles, big and bright. He had not been that drunk, part of it was just so he would not get scolded from entering the wrong tent. “Sect leader Nie should rest assured he took no advantages, had I wanted him to stop, he would be dead.”

And then with a light laugh he stole a kiss from the muscled alpha, “Though, if sect leader wants to apologize maybe a proper repetition would be alright.”

Mingjue raised an eyebrow, looking straight into the omega's eyes. “Are you sure? Don't you have somewhere to be?”

Wuxian shrugged, the echoes of last night’s powerful org*sms still running through his veins. He wants more. He wants to feel full instead of cold and empty.

“I’m always late anyways.” He playfully bit on Mingjue’s thumb. “We just won a major battle, surely another round of celebration is due?”

“You are not what I expected.”

“Is that so?” Laughed Wei Wuxian, eying Nie Mingjue from inside the bathtub, “What did you expect, then?”

“A rascal.” Was the quick reply. Wei Wuxian threw water at him with a pout.

“I’m not a rascal, sect leader Nie. I’m a menace.”

Nie Mingjue blinked at him, droplets of water running down his nose and landing on his naked chest, and roared a laugh.

“You should be more careful.”

“Don’t tell me how to fight this war.”

A heavy sigh, “A-Jue, I don’t like seeing you injured. Suggesting caution is not telling you how to fight.”

Mingjue grimaced as his omega cleaned his wound. “Said the kettle to the pot.”

Wei Wuxian grinned cheekily, “ This kettle is very stubborn, just like his pot.”

Nie Mingjue slumped against the pole in the middle of the tent, the ghost of a smile on his face, his shoulders tense as Wei Wuxian cleaned, stitched and dressed the gash on his chest. Frowning the omega placed a gentle hand over the bandages, “If you had been slower, they could have splitted you in two.”

Nie Mingjue took Wuxian’s hand into his own callused one, caressing his knuckles with his thumb, and then placing it against his lips to lay a soothing kiss on his palm.

“Is my omega worried?”

Wei Wuxian let out a dry chuckle and moved to hide his face on the crook of Mingjue’s muscled neck, breathing in his scent, “If I tell you I am worried, would you be more careful?”

A heavy sigh, then, “I will. I just get lost into the battle, I forget about everything but killing Wen-dogs.”

“Distracting things, those Wen-dogs can be,” Wei Wuxian smirked and placed a kiss on the jaw line of his lover, “Then we must make sure I’m there when you fight, at the very least my corpses can watch your back.”

Mingjue pried him from his neck, his thick fingers pulling his hair to move his head until they were seeing directly into each others’ eyes. “I will not move an entire battalion on a whim, just because you have no faith in me.” he growled and Wei Wuxian bit back a frustrated snarl, instead he dove forward and kissed his alphas nose, startling him.

“Of course I trust you, you are one of the best cultivators in our generation. I’m just worried, what if something happens to you? War is not a friendly playground A-Jue, I have already lost a home, don't make me lose another one.”

Confused Mingjue caressed at Wuxian’s nape, “Lotus Pier won’t be lost again.”

Wuxian let out an amused giggle, fake annoyance painting his pace, “Lotus Pier is my home, yes. But, during these past months, I have also found another one on your arms. Don’t make me lose it.”

Mingjue clashed their lips together, tongue tasting the residue of Jiang Yanli’s soup on the omegas mouth, his hands digging at his omega’s shoulders. When he moved away to admire the beauty of Wei Wuxian’s blushed face, he smiled, a tiny thing, full of something the omega could almost call hope. The alpha placed his forehead against the omega's. “You are also my home, my safeline, you ground me in this earth for as long as you will have me.”

Wei Wuxian offered him a shy saccharine grin, “I’ll have you till you tire of me.”

“Never.”

Wei Wuxian burst into the tent, wide eyes and anxious, corpse scent around him. His eyes landed on the bloodied form of his alpha and lunged into his arms, “I came as soon as I heard! Is it true?”

Nie Mingjue squeezed him against chest and twirled them around in a delighted circle. “It is! We have pushed them back to the borders of Qishan, Heijan and its surroundings are ours!”

Wei Wuxian laughs and plants kisses on every inch of his alpha he can reach, a silly smile on his face, relief pheromones covering his stench, “I knew you could do it. We are closer now!”

Nie Mingjue roars a laugh, his strong arms resting on Wei Wuxian’s waist as he leans his forehead against the omegas, their breaths mixing together, “One step closer to kill Wen Ruohan and his dogs.”

Wei Wuxian kisses him, “We will burn them all, A-Jue. You’ll see.”

His eyes catch the ill-conselided jar next to Mingjue’s bed, “Is that emperor’s smile?”

Mingjue breaks their embrace to follow his line of sight and drag out the jar from its hiding place, he raises it in the air. “It is, Xichen gave it to me after they retook the rest of Gusu. I have been saving it for a special occasion.”

Wei Wuxian swayed towards him, lips parted on a playful grin, ”What occasion?”

Mingjue places the jar against Wuxian’s lips, a blood hungry smile on his face, “For when my omega and I could toast to being thorns on Wen Ruohan’s side!”

Wei Wuxian’s eyes shine red as he takes a big drink and kisses his alpha, exchanging liquor and saliva during their heated kiss.

------

On a dark field, illuminated by the moon behind a mountain that hides them from the camp, Mingjue’s voice broke their quiet midnight escapade.

“Spar with me.”

“No.”

“Come on,” smiled Mingjue, “it will do you good to practice normal cultivation for a while. Where is Suibian?”

“I don't know.”

“Wuxian…”

Wei Wuxian smiles coyly and bates his eyelashes at his lover, defectingly “Why spar, when we can do more pleasant things?”

“We are in a war, you know?”

Wuxian plants a multitude of tiny kisses on Mingjue’s jaw and neck, persuading him. “We can spar after the war, but who says if we will be able to f*ck tomorrow?”

Nie Mingjue’s eyes were almost balck with desire as he pressed Wuxian to the ground, his big hands diggin on the omega’s thighs, his mouth leaving a wet trail as he came to bite Wei Wuxian’s earlobe.

“I can’t argue against that.”

There was madness and anger on his veins, so much anger, so much frustration. So many voices screaming to get out, to get revenge, tu murder them all. Wei Wuxian wants to cry, to rage, to scream...he misses Suibian, he misses the feeling of the air against his face and the warmth of his golden core on his lower daintain. He feels so broken and he just wants to feel warm once more. He needs Mingjue, right now.

But the battlefield is vast and he is surrounded by corpses, his own and that of the men he just slaughtered. ´Wen dogs, no men.´whispered a serpentine voice in his mind. Wei Wuxian knows the voice is wrong, these people were just following orders, the orders of a tyrant who would have murdered them as easily as he had ordered the burning of Lotus Pier.

Wei Wuxian knew this, he knew there were innocents of both sides of a war, but the voices in his head did not. He nearly fell to his knees when the voices began to scream again, the stygian tiger seal burning on his chest. He wants to breathe but all that comes to his lungs is a waft of resentful energy. He chokes.

His eyes burn red as he plays a sinfully terrifying song on his dizi and the corpses begin to march to the edges of the battlefield. Ready to ambush the LanlingJi-. NO! he halts the music and takes a step back. The red bleeds out of his eyes as he forces the voices to shut down, the seal cries in rage and Wei Wuxian wants to puke. He needs to regain control. He needs...he needs to forget. He needs Mingjue’s arms.

Instead all he gets is a face full of angry Lan Zhan, as if he knew Wei Wuxian almost lost it, that he almost turned against their own men.

Wei Wuxian wants to scream. He screams at Lan Wangji, the alpha screams back.

The voices quiet down.

As long as the voices go down he can bear the hate that Lan Zhan’s golden eyes burned through his heart for the rest of the day.

But he couldn’t help but think, if his old friend hated him now, how much longer until his alpha began to hate him as well?

“Where is your sword?”

“Piss of, A-Jue.” Don’t ask please.

Big hands grab his arms, hard. Mingjue is confused, annoyed, his sharp eyebrows frowning down at him. “Where is it? Or have you become so addicted to this heretic cultivation you no longer want to turn back to the righteous path!?”

“I don’t remember you complaining before! I don’t remember you complaining on the battlefield when it was helping me kill Wens by the thousands!!”

“Your normal cultivation would as well! Your core must already be damaged beyond repair, can you not see it!? It was fine at the beginning when we were losing, but there is no need for such methodes any more! It is a disgusting cultivation path! You reek of death!”

“Piss off! Don’t like it? Dont’ f*ck me! Stay away then!”

Nie Mingjue roars, an impotent sound that echoed on the deserted path they had been strolling, and engulfs him into his arms before he can stomp away. “The war won't last forever, we are winning! stop this crooked way!”

Wei Wuxian snarls at him, “Let go! Let go, you f*cking hipocrite!”

“No!”

“Argh! Let go! Let go!”

“You are my omega! No omega of mine should reek of death and risk qi deviation like you do!”

“Then get another omega!”

Wei Wuxian wants to scream at him, “I have no core to deviate, you moron!” but bites his tongue and keeps struggling. Without a golden core, without the wisp of hope that burns on Mingjue’s eyes every time he shows concern for his core, what use is he to the other alpha?. He knows deep down his bones, Mingjue does not love him enough to keep him if the truth were to come out. No one loves him enough for that. And right now he can't deal with the rejection, he would go mad, well more than he already is, if he were to be denied access to Mingjue’s arms. At least if they squabble he’ll get pretty good reconcilation sex and get pampered afterwards. If Mingjue knew he was of no use to him, that he was just an ordinary omega and a barren one at that... No. Wei Wuxian didn’t want to think about it.

“I don’t want another one! I want you!” Declares Mingjue, his lips against Wuxian’s neck, an attempt to restore the previous calm tone of their date. But Wei Wuxian is having none of it as he snaps back.

“You could have fooled me!”

“Look at you, such a pretty sight for my eyes.”

“A-Jue, stop it! I want to sleep."

Nie Mingjue smiled dangerously and rubbed his hard member against the crack of Wei Wuxian’s ass. “I know you don’t, you are all wet and ready for me.”

A choked sound left Wei Wuxian’s lips as the big head of Minjue’s co*ck grazed against the rim of his sensitive, puffy, hole. Wei Wuxian threw his lover a coy look from over his shoulder. “Perhaps… I could stay awake if my alpha changed my mind?”

Nie Mingjue laughed, the sound of a whip against the air, his big hand moving to encircle Wei Wuxian’s reawakened dick and stroked it at a sinful pace. “I can change your mind alright, my omega.”

Wei Wuxian’s delighted laugh soon turned into moans and groans of pleasure that echoed in their shared tent well into the night.

“Is everything alright,A-Jue?” Wei Wuxian eyed his lover suspiciously as he entered the tent, “Why was there a Lan here? I thought they were stationed in the Gusu borders?”

Mingjue passes a cleaning cloth over Baxia’s edge before answering, “They are. I wrote to Xichen, his reply was just delivered to me.”

“Oh,” Wei Wuxian smiles genuinely curious, “Is everything alright on his front? Does he mention my shidi?”

“I didn't ask him about the war. He sent me a report about that two days ago. I wrote to him about something more personal.”

Wuxian tilted his head, and went to sit by his lover’s side, unable to get rid of the sudden feeling of uneasiness on his belly. But perhaps that is just nerves, after all he has some happy news to deliver.

“Personal?”

Mingjue sighs and places Baxia back on its scabbard, leaning to take one of Wuxian’s scarred hands on his own calloused ones, “I asked him for the scores of clarity. I’m somewhat proficient on the flute. I shall play it for you.”

Something dark creeped up Wei Wuxians spine, he wanted to cry and snarl. This alpha of his is really something else, Mingjue’s stubbornness really knows no boundaries. His previous excitement dies on his belly when he sees into his lover’s eyes and realizes Mingjue will not take a no for an answer.

“Lan-er-gonzi already asked to play for me a million times. What makes you think I will allow you to destroy me when one of my closest friends was not even allowed to try.” Wei Wuxian hisses, tearing his hand out Mingjue and standing up.

“Destroy you?” Inquiries Mingjue, a little baffled, chasing after the omega and placing a hand on his shoulder. “Purging you of resentful energy is not destroying you! Is healing you!”

His alpha moves to cradle Wei Wuxian’s pale face in his hands. “I want to help you. I want you to be my mate, resentful energy would only stand in the way. You are an amazing cultivator, the war is almost done, the time for smart tricks is also over. Let me help, let me bring you back from the edge.”

Edge? smart tricks? Where had he hea- Lan Zhan. Lan Wangji obviously warned his commanding officer about the risks of a demonic cultivator and now Mingjue thinks he can fix Wei Wuxian. He cannot be helped. He has no absolution, and the sooner Mingjue sees and accepts it the better. Wei Wuxian had accepted his lover’s hot temper, his anger and his bloodlust, surely Mingjue could put up with a little demonic cultivation, surely his lover was not such a hypocrite.

“No one can help me, I don’t need help,” snarls the omega, “if you think I do then you certainly have not been paying attention to me.”

“This cultivation path is twisting you!”

“Like yours is poisoning you!”

Wei Wuxian smiles, a sharp thing with fangs and scorn, “I tell you what, leave your saber and I’ll leave my flute. A compromise, how about that, you brute?!”

“Wei Wuxian is not the same! How can you ask this of me!”

Wei Wuxian snarls back. “How could you !”

Nie Mingjue stands tall, hovering over his rebellious omega and speaks through gritted teeth. “I. want. to. help you.”

“Why?” exhales Wei Wuxian, the old argument already engraved on his brain, every few days in the last few months Mingjue had brought forwards his cultivation, has chasitated him because of it, has f*cked him to oblivion whenever he won territory for them with it; has scolded and ragged when Wei Wuxian’s hands tremble on chengqing and he is just sitting on the ground, dazed, drugged by the resentful energy and the price to control it.

Wei Wuxian knows he loves his lover, he would kill for Nie Mingjue, but he is not stupid. He knows the alpha is going to leave him as soon as the war is over and he has no more need for a warm body on the nights, their constant fights are proof of that, his demonic cultivation is just an excuse. Their fights are just Mingjue’s way of softening the blow he will deliver once Wen Ruohan lays dead. Wei Wuxian knows this, so, “why?”

Nie Mingjue kisses his forehead. “Because I love you.”

Wei Wuxian flees, because it cannot be true.

“My path is the righteous path! How can you stand next to me when you follow the dark and twisted? shall I bring you back to the unclean realm with corpses as dowry?!”

See, he was right. It was not true. His alpha is cruel to play with his feelings, saying he loves Wei Wuxian and declaring he will never marry him the next day, that is not fair. Wei Wuxian loves him, can Nie Mingjue not play with his feelings so carelessly?

He was going to do it. He could do this. All he needs is to approach Mingjue, nestle into his arms and confess about their child. His lover will be angry but in the end he will celebrate the birth of the child, right? He’ll make sure Junjie is safe even after he breaks up with him. Mingjue is too honorable to not recognize his child. Perhaps they could even pick up Junjie together.

Wei Wuxian pats himself, mentally, on the back as he sneaks into his alpha’s tent. He moves aside the flap, stamped with QingheNie’s symbol, and walks in with a cheerful smile plastered on his face.

“A-Jue!”

Nie Mingjue looks up from the battle map and scowls at him. Wei Wuxian swallows hard, his smile diminishing a little, transforming into a tense little thing. “Mingjue?”

“Why were you in this battle? You were ordered to stay and watch our back!” snapped Mingjue, baring his fangs and Wei Wuxian took a step back. Looks he won’t get a chance to talk about A-Yu now.

“Our back was protected,” he argues back, “I made sure of it! Didn’t you see the docens of corpses I left behind?”

“You should have stayed behind! What if they returned? Do you crave glory so much you couldn’t sit still for a few hours?!”

“They didn’t return! My presence helped to shorten the battle! Why am I being scolded!?” Wei Wuxian frowned, even if Mingjue was stressed he didn't have to scream at him, they were funnier ways to relieve stress.

“Because you refuse to follow orders!” roared the alpha, coming to stand chest to chest with his lover. “We didn't need your help! We were already winning!”

Ah, though Wuxian, this is about last week. Last week after yet another confrontation about his dark cultivation Mingjue had set on to prove they could win fights without Wei Wuxian’s interference, he had commanded the omega to stay put and not move; of course Wuxian had not listened to him, his shidi was on that battlefield, his lover and his best friend as well, he’ll be damned if he stayed still just so Mingjue could satisfy his pride. Wei Wuxian came to his lover's tent for confessions and some cuddles, but it was clear he was going to leave with another fight burned on his heart.

“You would have lost a lot of men had I not interfered! Men you will need when we arrive at Nightless city!” shouted Wei Wuxian, spit flying to his alphas face. “Just because you want a meek, useless, proper omega doesn't mean I will suddenly become one for you!”

Nie Mingjue took a step back, an incredulous expression on his face. “What the f*ck are you talking about?” He surged forward again, growling deep on the back of his throat. “This is not about our relationship! This is about you disobeying direct orders! About your disrespect for your commanding officer!”

“I didn’t disrespect anyone! I helped! You should be thanking me!” cried the omega, pushing at his alpha's shoulders, making the older man stumble back a couple of paces.

Nie Mingjue took one look at his omega and scoffed. He pressed the bridge of his nose and exhaled. “Why must you be like this? Have you not realized how crazy you sound?” Nie Mingjue was tired, injured and stressed, they were approaching Qishan’s center and he needed to have a clear mind. He didn’t have time to deal with his omega’s moods and incoherences. Neither did he had the energy to try and get through Wei Wuxian’s thick skull.

He turned around, back to his maps. “Leave, I have no time for this.”

There was a heavy pause, a shuffle of cloth against the soil and Wuxian’s hand came to his shoulder, but Mingjue moved away.

“Leave. I have no desire to smell roth right now.”

Wei Wuxian held back a sob and ran back outside. His seal burned and mocked him as he went to check on his army of corpses to distract himself from Nie Minjue’s parting words.

Alone in his lonely tent at this brother’s camp, Wei Wuxian nursed his broken arm and wailed against his pillow, “Im sorry, I’m sorry, imsrroyimsorryimsorrry. Mingjue, I'm sorry.”

But Mingjue broke him so many times, it is alright if Wuxian breaks him just this once, right? It was never going to last anyway. Nie Mingjue is better off without him. He no longer has to pretend to love Wei Wuxian. Nie Mingjue is free.

He thinks, resenting himself “Mingjue, Mingjue, I rather you hate me than you knowing how weak and dependent I have become, for you would be disgusted and insulted that I tricked you into bedding a simple, ordinary man like me. I’ll have your hate over your scorn any day.”

“Were you hurt?”

The voice came from behind, startled Wei Wuxian turned around and his eyes widened a bit in surprise.

“Sect leader Nie?”

Nie Mingjue stands tall and bloody next to him, the ruins of the nightless city before their eyes, dead Wens, dead cultivators of every clan and cheers of joy surround them. Mingjue clears his throat, “Were you hurt?”

Wei Wuxian forces himself to stick his eyes on the vacant gaze of a corps a few meters away from them, he swallows hard, his hands twitching with desire to caress Mingjue’s face. “I fail to see how my health is sect leader Nie’s concern.”

“Wei Wuxia-”

Wei Wuxian could feel the hand reaching for his shoulder, and he knows that if Mingjue manages to touch him he will break, he will fall to his knees and clutch the fabric of Mingjue’s robes, he will cling to him and spill every dark secret he holds, he will die of heartbreak after Mingjue knows the truth and rejects him for it. Steeling himself he dances away from the hand, ignoring the cries inside his mind to go and hug his alpha, to surrender to his touch.

“Sect leader, I thought it was clear, I’m but a low, demonic omega undeserving of your mighty intentions and care.” He bits out. “Those were your exact words, were they not?”

The hand falls and returns to the handle of Baxia.

“The war is over,” argues Mingjue, and Wei Wuxian loves him for that, “we were angry that day, we said and did thing we didn’t mean, I know yo-”

“You don’t know me,” cuts the omega, eyes shining red, a dark edge on his voice, “you just thought you did and when you realised I was truly a demonic cultivator you stopped trying, you tried to force my cultivation out of me with dual cultivation, so I could be perfect for you, Sect lider Nie.”

“That is not true,” Miengjue takes another step advancing, invading Wei Wuxian’s personal space. “You know is not true, my concern of your cultivations is justified, just look at how you are twisting my words, it is corrupting you! The war is over, you can stop now.” He spreads his arms a little and the omega holds back the impulse to jump into them, to bask into his embrace. ‘He doesn't know the truth, if he knew we could not stop he’d hate us’ whispers a voice inside his mind, the voice of his seal tainting his thoughts.

Mingjue smiles awkwardly and lets out a puff of pheromones, calming, understanding, his scent turns cozy and everything Wuxian needs right now. “It is alright, A-Xian, you can come home, you can stop, it will be alright.”

Home. A-Jue, A-Yu. Junjie. Wei Wuxian locks his knees so that he doesn't fall to the ground or worse to Nie Mingjue’s expecting arms and uncomfortable kindness. He lets the red bleed out of his eyes and raises Chengqin between them, his last barrier. And speaks with a poisoned tongue, “I have no home here.”

He turns away before he can process the break in Nie Mingues face, the devastation and anger in his eyes. He runs away.

Wei Wuxian wakes up in tears, his mind whole and semi-sane for the first time since he lost his golden core. He wants Nie Mingjue, he yearns to apologize, to kiss him one last time.

Wei Wuxian also wants Lan Zhan’s arms around him, to bury himself in his alphas arms and never let go, else he be taken from him as well or worse, driven away by Wei Wuxian’s stupidity.

Oh, heavens. He thought. I’m a f*cking mess.

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

He sobs. The motion rocks his body against the bed, and Wei Wuxian realized he was no longer alone. His blurry sight moves to the lump sleeping by the side of his bed, and sniffs. Honey mixed with sandalwood and spice. Sizhui was here. The boy was sleeping with his head nestled on the side of Wei Wuxian’s body, his soft scent acted as a balm to his raw mind, a reminder he still had one pup to look after and could not be found in the middle of the breakdown by his kind and gentle little radish. So, no. Wei Wuxian pushed back all the feelings and the urge to cry at least three rivers and focused on looking at Sizhui. He centered on the way his breaths were even and how he seemed to snuggle into Wei Wuxian’s side now and then.

“A-Yuan.” He whispered, caressing the soft face with sharp cheekbones that once had been chubby cheeks under his dirty fingers. The boy stirred softly and blinked several times until his brain registered Wei Wuxian’s activeness.

“A-Niang! You are awake!” he cried, actually cried, a few tears slipping past his cheekbones and towards his chin. Wei Wuxian dried them with clumsy hands and a small smile.

“Now, now, my A-Yuan should not cry. I was only asleep for a couple of days, surely my little radish doesn't think I’m this fragile.”

“A-Niang slept for a week.”

Wei Wuxian’s hands halted, his thumbs freezing just below Sizhui’s eyes, “I-What?”

“Baba went to found us, me and uncle Ning all the way down the borders of Qishan. He told us you were ill and that you’ve been calling for me and Uncle Ning in your sleep. We rushed here and just a few days ago.” Sizhui took a deep breath, holding back a sob, “The healers said that you could die if you continued unconscious.”

Sizhui lent forward, resting his head on Wei Wuxian’s belly, like he had done when he was a toddler sneaking into Wuxian’s bed back in the burial mounds, and sighed. “I was so scared, A-Niang, I just got you back. I can't lose you.”

“Oh, A-Yuan. I don’t plan on leaving you again, once was enough.”

Sizhui hummed softly but buried his face deeper into Wei Wuxian’s stomach, purring softly at his omega scent. That is how Lan Zhan and Wen Ning found them a couple of minutes later, embraced and purring.

“Wen Ning, Lan Zhan.” Greeted Wei Wuxian with a small grin, voice rough and dry, and his hands buried on Sizhui’s hair. Lan Zhan smiled at them, his shoulders slumping with relief as Wen Ning made his way to sit next to A-Yuan.

“Wei-gongzi.”

“Wei Ying. You are awake. I’ll call the healers.”

“No!” shouted the omega, attempting to reach for his husband and accidentally throwing Sizhui to the floor. “Oh sh*t! A-Yuan I’m sorry, are you alright?”

His pup smiled softly, rubbing his bottom, “I’m okay, A-Niang.”

Reassured Wei Wuxian rushed, on wobbly legs, to stop his husband. “No healers, please, they’ll make it all wrong again.”

Lan Zhan’s thick eyebrows turned down a little, “Wei Ying needs help.”

Wei Wuxian shook his head, wildly, from side to side. “Wei Ying is fine. All he needs is his alpha.” He tugged coyly at his husband's sleeve, “will his alpha stay and cuddle with him?”

Lan Zhan looked from Wei Ying’s hand on his sleeve to Wei Ying’s eyes and scowled, hard. The corners of his mouth tugging down on a displeased gesture. “Wei Ying swore not to hide his hurt. I’ll call for the healers.”

“I don’t need those damned healers.” He growled. A pen-up frustration he had not felt since Minjue’s scowling glances swelled in his chest, “they would only trigger me again!”

“The healers know what they are doing, I trust them to help you.”

“But I don’t. The only healers I ever let near me were Wen Qing and Wen Ning! Wen Ning is here, he can check me.”

Lan Zhan gave his husband a flat glare. The alpha inhaled and exhaled as if asking the deities above for patience. “Wei Ying, Wen Ning is dead.”

“I know. He is still a good healer.”

“He is dead.” snarled Lan Zhan, losing his patience, his mate had been in and out of consciousness for days, mumbling weird things and on the verge of dying due to the weakness of his golden core. Lan Wangji had very little patience for Wei Ying’s stubbornness right now, all he wanted was to make sure his omega was well cared for and the GusuLan healers were unparalleled in the cultivation world, they were better than his husband's dead best friend.

Wei WuXian made big, pleading eyes, and released a bit of his stressed scent. Trying to make his husband understand he did not trust those people. Especially not with the sunshot campaign so fresh on his mind and the memory of the disgusted glances they used to direct at him if he ever went to the healers’ tent. “Please no healers. I know what...what is wrong with me. Wen Ning will be able to help. I promise.”

Lan Zhan examined his face, digging deep into the omega’s eyes, searching for the truth. Finally, he inhaled deeply and replied. “You know?”

“I do.”

“You are certain you will be fine?”

Lan Zhan wants his mate to be healthy, the alpha in him demands he ignores Wei Ying’s stupid request, but he also vowed to trust Wei Ying’s decisions, and he will as long as the omega does not endanger himself. At the first signal of something going wrong, he will run, dam the rules, to drag the healers to his husband’s side. Wei Ying gives him a sad, tense smile and nods assuredly. Lan Wangji decides to relent just a bit. He grabs Wei Ying by the waist, kisses him on the forehead, and carries him to the bed, before placing a glass of water on the omegas trembling hand.

“What is wrong with you?”

Wei Wuxian licked his lips, took a long sip, and pulled at Lan Zhan’s sleeve to make him sit on the bed. His eyes never left his lap as he spoke. “I got my memories back. All of them Lan Zhan.” He shot a quick glance at Wen Ning and continued on a whispered voice, barely audible for those around him. “I remember my first alpha. I remembered my… my pup.”

----

Lan Zhan’s ears are malfunctioning, he is sure of that. There was an annoying ringing on them, accompanied by the howls of his inner alpha because his omega just said that...Wei Ying said that...Lan Zhan swallows the growl growing inside his throat and locks his golden, intense eyes on his mate’s embarrassed face.

“Repeat that, please.”

Wei Ying licks his lips, a nervous gesture Lan Zhan adores and right now finds annoying, he needs Wei Yin to tell him this is a very bad joke. When Wei Ying sneaks another glance at Wen Ning, Lan Zhan growls, loud and dangerously. Because the alpha remembers the whispers about the scandalous relationships between a Wen alpha, probably a cousin of Wen Ning, and the omega Yiling Patrich; of how the gossiping tongues would go into detail about their supposed torrid romance that ended dragging Wei Wuxian out of the righteous path. Bile rises on his throat, did his husband use to hold someone so close to his heart? Was A-Yuan truly his and some unknown, dead Wen’s child? Or worse… was he someone else's child? Was that alpha still alive, had he taken Wei Yin away from his mate and family? Had he let his selfishness win him and tore any chances of a reunion between Wei Ying and his mysterious first alpha? If the child was not A-Yuan, had he taken the omega away from his child? Lan Zhan held back a whimper, he could not be like his father. He was not. That is why Wei Ying needed to tell him this was all a joke so that he could kiss, hug and make love to his husband without the guilt that was starting to pool on his belly. Lan Wangji could not be like his father.

Instead, Wei Ying reached to take his hand and whispered once more. “I used to have a-another alpha, Lan Zhan. I had a pup with them, and I-I want to-”

Lan Wangji cannot hear this anymore, he needs some air, he needs to organize his mind, to stop the turmoil growing on his heart at the thought that he...oh gods. He needs his brother. He takes his hand out of Wei Ying’s, his eyes distant, and he, Lan Zhan, for the first time in years, flees Wei Wuxian’s confused eyes.

Wei Wuxian reaches for him, but he is already past the threshold, white robes blowing behind him, leaving behind a deep scent of disgust. Disgust on himself.

---

His hand remains extended, grasping air, for a few seconds. The tears appear because he had thought...he had not thought his alpha would be so disgusted by the notion that Wei Wuxian wanted to take his pup in, that he would leave him like that because he had loved another person. Lan Zhan was not like that and yet…

“A-Die!” Lan Sizhui’s scream made Wei Wuxian tremble and he raised a hand to call his pup back.

“It is alright, A-Yuan. It is his right to react however he wishes.”

Lan Sizhui turns to him, there is a frown on his beautiful face. “No, it isn’t, A-Niang.” He looks past the door, to his father's retreating form and sighs. “He has been troubled since you were brought to the healer’s office, I’m sure he just needs time to get his mind in order, he’ll be back in no time, A-Niang.”

Wei Wuxian hoped he did. He smiled shakingly at A-Yuan, the young omega came to sit by his side, his face resting on Wei Wuxian’s knees. “Would A-Niang tell me about my brother?”

Wei Wuxian swears he loves A-Yuan so f*cking much. His little radish is, indeed, a very rare treasure.

----

They talk for hours, Sizhui comes and goes carrying a tray of congee and tea that Wei Wuxian eats slowly but surely. He tells A-Yuan about how much he had wanted his pup, how much he had loved him, about how he had called his pup A-Yu during all his pregnancy because one day he had been complaining about Madam Yu and the pup had kicked as if he agreed with his carrier’s thoughts, and so he had nicknamed him A-Yu to piss off the woman’s ghost. Of how he had wished Sizhui had known him, of how he had let A-Yu behind to finish the war and had never gone back for him.

“...and I wanted to, when we arrived at the burial mounds I would have run for him but I didn't,” Wei Wuxian sighed, a trembling puff of air that sounded more like a sob, “instead I promised myself that as soon as Wen Ning’s consciousness was back I would take you to the same place, to make sure you were safe. Granny nearly had my head, but Wen Qing approved. I-I’m sorry A-Yuan, I tried to take you a thousand times and each time you clung to my leg, to Grannys, to Qing-Jie's, to Wen Nings.” A humorless laugh stumbled past Wei Wuxian’s lips, he placed a hand on Sizhui’s cheek. “I swore I would take you, screaming if needed, to A-Yu, so you both could be safe and then all went to hell. I’m sorry A-Yuan, but at the same time, I’m not. If I had left you there you would not be the strong cultivator you are today, you would not have grown with Lan Zhan and he is the only other one I could ever imagine raising you, my little radish. I’m sorry.”

Lan Sizhui had tears in his eyes, his scent soured as he cried, his head resting on Wei Wuxian’s knees. “A-Niang need not be sorry,” he whispered, a gentle sound that warmed the omega's troubled heart, “ A-Niang did his best, and I know A-Niang loves me. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

Wei Wuxian placed a kiss on his son’s forehead, at least he knew one of his pups was safe, one still loved him. He enveloped Sizhui in his arms, his son’s face buried on his stomach, he nuzzled at the top of A-Yuan’s hair and placed a kiss on his forehead ribbon.

There was a small sniff and suddenly father and son were enveloped in strong, cold arms. Wen Ning's face resting against theirs. Wei Wuxian let out a startled laugh as A-Yuan cried in mock reprimand, laughter bubbling in his voice “Uncle Ning!”

As Wei Wuxian watched his best-friend crush A-Yuan to his chest, his eyes traveled to the window and he let out a small exclamation. “A-Yuan is nearly afternoon! Don't you have classes?”

“I was exempted from them until you awoke. Granduncle was not pleased, but A-Ninag, he can suck it.”

Wei Wuxian blinked dumbly a couple of times and then roared in laughter, he cackled so loud his back landed on the bed. “Oh, Oh my sweet A-Yuan what a bad influence I am!”

Wen Ning patted A-Yuan’s head and leveled Wei Wuxian with an unimpressed glare. “ You are, Wei-Gongzi. A-Yuan used to be so well behaved until you planted him in the radish plot.”

Wei Wuxian smiled softly, a right of sunshine on his face. “ You can’t prove that, I’m sure he was always a rascal, I just unlocked his potential.”

“I knew him since birth, Wei-Gongzi. I know this is the result of your parenting methods.”

Wei Wuxian turned to say something to his son but stopped, there was a small frown, so similar to Lan Zhan’s, on Sizhui’s forehead. “A-Yuan?”

Lan Shui smiled kindly, removing his eyes from the window. “My apologies A-Niang, I just remembered I had something to do.” Sizhui stood up and made a small bow to Wei Wuxian, “I’ll be back soon, don’t worry.”

Wei WuXian nodded. “Of course, of course, take your time, Sizhui.”

His son nodded and departed with hurried steps. Leaving Wen Ning and Wei Wuxian surrounded by an expecting silence.

“Wei-Gongzi…” began the fierce corpse, only to be interrupted.

“I’m leaving. I need to find A-Yu and Lan Zhan... Lan Zhan, you saw his reaction.” Wei Wuxian swallowed loudly. “I’m not going to stay here and wait for him to give me the divorce.”

Wen Ning blanched, and exclaimed in an alarmed voice “Divorce!? Wei- gongzi I think you are overreacting.”

Wei Wuxian frowned at him and stood up, arms crossed over his chest. “Did you not see his face? How quickly did he leave? He has not returned in hours! He hates me now, I know it. Just like how Nie Mingjue hated me in the end.”

“Lan-er- gongzi does not… wait... Nie Mingjue!? Wei-Xiong, the child my sister helped you bring to the world was Nie Mingjue’s !?”

“Yes. I’m sure I told you.” Wei Wuxian tilted his head to the side, after a moment he shrugged, a pretended carelessness easing into his movements. “ Anyhow, now you know and I’m leaving to the unclean realm with or without your help. I must start somewhere, perhaps Nie Huaisang knows something.”

Had he been alive, Wen Ning would have sounded exasperated. He shook his head slowly. “We should wait, at least for A-Yuan to come back.”

Wei Wuxian scoffed. “So he can stop me? No thanks. I’m leaving right now.”

“Wei-Xiong, you are in your inner clothes.”

The omega blinked down at himself. “Right, that is why I need your help. Unless you want to see me sneak around on such scandalous attire! What would happen to my reputation then?!”

“What reputation, Wei-gongzi?”

Wei Wuxina gasped dramatically and placed a hand against his chest in mocking pain. “So mean, my friend! Does that mean you’ll help me?”

Wen Ning sighed and looked straight at the demonic cultivator's eyes. “ Wei- gongzi, when have I not?”

Wei Wuxian beamed.

---------

Sneaking out of the Cloud Recesses was easier now that he had a jade token. All he had to do was ask Wen Ning to go to Jingshi to collect his clothes ( Just his clothes, of course, in case anyone asked), his token, and his dizi; and smuggle them to the medical wing where Wei Wuxian had spent several minutes pacing anxiously. Once dressed and with the token tied to his sash, sneaking out had been...boring. When they were way past the borders of the cloud recesses, it became obvious that, in his current state, he could not fly a sword and Mo Xuanyu’s body was not strong enough to walk to Qinghe. So Wen Ning found a solution. He had then decided that a piggyback ride was the best option. Needless to say, Wei Wuxian had been equal parts mortified and overjoyed.

Thanks to Wen Ning’s strong legs and undead physique they had left Gusu behind by midnight and now in the afternoon, two and a half days later, they were standing at the gates of the unclean realm. Where a very nervous Wei Wuxian was twisting his fingers and biting severely at his lower lip.

“You can Do this, Wuxian-ge.” Wen Ning placed a comforting hand on the demonic cultivator’s shoulder and smiled encouragingly.

Wei Wuxian beamed at his friend, it was only during the past few months that Wen Ning had started to drop the formalities between them. Warmth spread from his shoulder to his soul, his heart nearly stopped every time Wen Ning called him so personally as if he was truly family.

“Thanks, Ning-didi.”

He exhaled loudly, trying to shake his nervousness. Wei Ying squared his shoulders and walked towards the gates of the unclean realm with eyes as red as blood, Chenqing twirling on his fingers.

It was now or never.

Don’t worry Mingjue,” he thought, “I’ll make sure our son finds a home in the Unclean Realm. No matter the price.”

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

The fan snaps shut with a final sound that echoes across the room. In front of them, Nie Huaisang’s dangerous eyes glare sharply at Wei Wuxian’s face, searching for signs of a bad joke on the demonic cultivator’s face. He finds nothing but heartbreaking and longing. Still, he doubts. Nie Huaisang has not known anything but masks and lies for years, he will not fall prey to them again.

“Wei-xiong, I consider you a friend, however, you should think your next words carefully. My Da-ge’s memory is not something to play with.”

Perhaps Wei Wuxian should have expected this reaction, he should have planned his words better, but in his haste to reach the Unclean Realm --to reach A-Jue’s brother— he may have forgotten his tact. Not that he ever had much, to begin with. But seeing as his first words upon facing Nie Huaisang had basically been ‘I f*cked your brother and I had his child’; he should have thought a bit before speaking.

Wei Wuxian eyed his fellow omega apologetically. “ I would not lie to you, Nie- Xiong.”

And it’s true if possible Wei Wuxian will never do anything that places him in Nie Huaisang’s “to kill” list. He values his second life too much to end like Meng Yao. Also, Huaisang is his friend, a bit strangled but his friend nonetheless. He tries not to lie to his friends since his secrets and lies got him killed last time ( alongside the schemes of the Jins).

Mask dropped in the solitude of the Nie’s throne room, Nie Huaisang bares his teeth in an angry snarl, for a moment he looks so much like Mingjue it hurts to watch. Mingjue had been snarling when he died, when he turned his back to Wei Wuxian, and when Wei Wuxian ran from him.

“Wei Wuxian,” growls Huaisang, with all the might of an angry omega defending his family’s alpha, the alpha that raised and protected him. “ My brother-“

“Had a mole on his inner thigh, hated sweet candies but loved tanghulu. For such a ferocious man he could not handle spice even if bit him in the ass.” Wei Wuxian took a deep breath to drown the sobs in his chest. “ He could drink ten jars of emperor’s smile and remain as sober as a monk. Mingjue hated the smell of flowers and enjoyed the chirping of birds in the morning because they reminded him of you. A-Jue’s feet were always cold and he felt restless if his hands were not busy, he often had to cross his arms during meetings or hold an empty cup so he would not attack the first idiot that said something stupid. He had morning breath and loved cold baths. He was not a fan of music but had a passable talent with the flute, he complained that his father made him learn against his will but in secret, he found peace in this little hobby. Mingjue-“ a sob tore, unwillingly, out of Wei Wuxian’s mouth as he spilled out all the knowledge about his lover he had hoarded during their brief relationship. A tear slipped down his cheek and he wiped it away in a blink — he had no right to cry for the man he had driven away. “Mingjue cleaned Baxia first thing in the morning and right before going to sleep, fourteen swipes of the cleaning cloth against Baxia’s edge. He-“

“Enough!” Cried Huaisang sinking back into his seat, eyes wide open and vulnerable. He had never thought there would be someone else who knew his brother's little quirks as he did, he had never dared to hope someone could one day understand his grief when he walked around the unclean realm and saw his brother in every corner. And now Wei Wuxian stood before him, attempting the impossible, proving him wrong. “Enough, you’ve made your point.”

Wei Wuxian furiously rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, his treasonous weeping eyes, and sniffed, leaning quietly into Wen Ning for support. His heart felt raw and open, it hurt to think that, at some point, he had lost all the knowledge and fondness he had for Mingjue’s antics.

“Why now?”

Wei Wuxian blinked, “What?”

Nie Huaisang leaned towards them, hands twisting on the tassel of his fan. “Why come forth now? Now that you are married and have, clearly, moved on? Why wait a year, Wei-Xiong?”

Wei Wuxian touched the side of his nose and looked at who could have been his brother-in-law if Mingjue had not hated his cultivation so much and if he had not been an arrogant idiot back then.

“The ritual that brought me back had some side effects as you can imagine,” throats suddenly dry, the resurrected omega stepped forward and drowned Nie Huaisang’s forgotten tea. “My memory was full of holes and missing spots, think about it as a wet book that was quickly dried with a talisman, some words are legible and others are so blurred they could be anything and thus you only get at best half of the knowledge the book tried to impart. My memory was like that some parts were beyond recognition until recently ‘the blur’ that was holding the knowledge back disappeared and all came back to me like a massive wave. It is still coming back, but Mingjue’s memories were the first, they rushed one after the other, I was unconscious for days as the holes filled up, Nie- Xiong.”

Wei Wuxian placed a hand on Huaisang’s forearm and squeezed, begging the other omega to believe him. “I did not remember, Nie- Xiong. I did not f*cking remembered my son and my alpha, I am so sorry Nie-Xiong,”

Huaisang locked his eyes on his old friend and poured himself another cup of tea and wished it was wine, his thoughts racing one after the other. He’d known it was a possibility for Wuxian to come back flawed since the array he’d given Mó Xuanyu had been incomplete and slightly worn by the years, but at worst he had thought his old friend would be forced to permanently seal Xuanyu’s little core in case it rejected him. The ritual side effects made no mention of memory troubles, only a little bit of soul damage, but then again weren’t they all made of memories? Recollections to anchor and forge them. Cultivators' souls were strong and Huaisang would not be surprised if once dead they were truly held together by the echoes of their lives. What memories could have forged his brother's, he wondered as he sipped his tea and analyzed the facts on his mind with the ease of someone that had spent half his life dealing with a psychopath.

“I see, I believe you Wei- Xiong,” Huaisang said finally and ignored the way the demonic cultivator seemed to sag in relief. He did believe there was at least some truth in Wuxian’s tale and if he truly had a nephew … he hoped Wuxian was not lying or confused. He would believe him until he got a reason not to. “ And what has your husband said about this?”

Wei Ying looked away. “He got mad. I haven’t spoken to him since I told him about my pup.” Wei Ying pointed at Wen Ning and to the jade token on his sash, “We ...kind of sneaked out the Cloud Recesses.”

Huaisang choked down a laugh, truly his friend never changed. Instead, he raised an eyebrow, “Forgive me for saying this, but I don’t believe Hanguang-Jun was angry at you, Wei -Xiong.”

Wei Wuxian huffed in disbelief. “ You did not see him. I thought he was going to kill something, I’ve never seen him like that.”

Nie Huaisang had, once when he visited him a few days after the first siege of the Burial Mounds. If the man had not been bedridden he would have destroyed till the last stone of Carp Tower. Huaisang wisely held his tongue and broached the subject he was still having a hard time wrapping his mind around.

“You said you had a child. My brother’s child.”

Wei Wuxian licked his lips nervously, “Yes, a boy. I named him Junjie.”

“Where is he, then?”

An expression similar to a toddler being caught red-handed with his hand on the cookie jar appeared on Wei Wuxian’s face. “Ah, haha, you see that’s why I’m here.” He rubbed the back of his neck, and his voice grew smaller, filled with guilt. “ I don’t know where he is or...if he’s alive.”

A fan landed straight on Wei Wuxian’s forehead making himself tumble backward into Wen Ning’s arms, eyes wide open he rubbed the sore spot. “I do deserve that one. Nie-”

“Wei-Xiong,” scolded Huaisang with exasperation, his right eyebrow twitching as he pinned down the other omega with a cold look. “Why are you like this? No, shut up, don't answer that, you idiot.” Huaisang exhaled soundly, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Tell me what you remember, If we find him I’ll consider not exorcising you out of that body.”

Wei Ying nodded with a shaky smile and revealed, as precisely as he could, every detail he could remember of the orphanage, an approximation of its location and the name of the woman who’d received his pup. It was not much but it was a start.

Huaisang nodded along and reached to pat Wei Wuxian’s shoulder. “ Good. You’ll obviously stay here while I ask around, I may come to you to clarify a few details, Wei-Xiong. I’ll have a servant escort you to your rooms.”

Wei Wuxian made a deep bow, lower than the chief cultivator’s omega should have. “Thank you so much, Nie-Xiong.”

“Don’t mention it, it is my ...nephew after all.”

As they were escorted out Wei Ying turned around to face the calculating sect leader with a sunny grin. “You did not mean the exorcise bit, right?”

The glare Huaisang sent his way made ice grow in his veins, his smile vanished as he stumbled out the room. In all fairness, he somewhat deserved it for abandoning his pup, for not telling anyone about his precious A-Yu. Still, he would make sure to keep Wen Ning between then until Huaisang had some good news.

Running away from one’s problems was against the rules, but it could just be added to the long list of rules Lan Wangji had broken because of Wei Wuxian. At least this one would not end with him being a victim of the discipline whip once more, instead, the problem he was walking —very fast — away from had driven a knife to his heart and twisted.

Wei Ying had...his Wei Ying… not his Wei Ying, he belonged to someone else, someone the omega wanted to go back to even after fourteen years. Because Lan Zhan was not enough. How could he compete with a man he’d never met and yet, whose sole memory made Wei Ying so eager to leave his side. Was he truly not enough? Was he a bad mate, a bad alpha? How had he failed that he was forced to watch stars dancing on Wei Ying’s eyes at the mere mention of his other alpha?

He could not bear to hear Wei Ying say “I want to go back to them, Lan Zhan. Let me go” with that hopeful smile that had stolen Lan Wangji’s heart.

After waiting thirteen years, how could Lan Wangji let Wei Wuxian go away, and yet how could he even think of forcing him to stay by his side when his other family had waited for him as long as Lan Zhan. Never mind that Lan Wangji was also his alpha and that they also had a child together, if the earnest look on Wei Ying’s face was anything to go by, they held no shade against Wei Ying’s first family, against his other alpha.

It was obvious Wei Wuxian thought the world of that man, that he was certain he would be welcomed back with open arms despite having mated Lan Zhan. But Wangji would have done that as well had Wei Ying been mated upon his resurrection. Why was that other alpha better than him?

Lan Wangji reached for his brother’s arms in the middle of a panic attack fueled by his jealousy, misunderstandings, and the possessiveness he’d battled his whole life.

Lan Huan’s arms circled his brother’s wide shoulders and he pressed Wangji’s nose against his scent gland. Wangji breathed in the familiar, soft alpha scent of rain and gentians until his pounding heart slowed down and his hands stopped shaking.

Once upon a time, he would have gone to Lan Qiren for this kind of comfort, once he’d enjoyed his uncle’s soft, analytic words and stormy scent, that had been before the whipping that broke the trust between him and his family. Now he could barely stand his uncle's scent without having phantom pains on his scars. Lan Xichen had been the one that reached for him time and time again even when Wangji kept pushing him away and running to the freedom outside the Cloud Recesses, even when he’d growled and snapped to his brother as he prayed for forgiveness at his bedside. Forgiveness he had not granted until the day he saw Xichen with Sizhui, teaching the boy how to play the strings of Wangji’s guqin. His brother did not approve of his actions but from now on he would support him.

It had taken years for Wangji to trust his brother again, to be able to draw and offer comfort to his fellow alpha, but now fourteen years later, his brother’s arms were the only ones he could trust inside the Cloud Recesses.

“Brother, I don’t know what to do.”

“Wangji,” warm hands drew circles on his back, “ Wangji, what’s wrong?”

“Wei Ying.” he mumbled against his brother’s chest and felt Xichen tense under him.

“Is Wei-gongzi alright? Has he woken up?”

“He’s awake, he… remembers more.” Lan Zhan took a deep breath and sniffled, “He remembers his other mate and son. He wants to go back to them.”

Lan Huan’s hands stilled on his brother’s shoulder blades and a growl grew on his throat. “Come again, Wangji? Wei-gongzi said, what?”

Lan Wangji cried out quietly, biting his brother's shoulder to control the spasms of a broken heart. “Wei Ying wants his previous alpha. Wants to go back to them. Wants to leave me.”

************

More than half the cultivation world was under the misconception that, between the twin jades of Lan, Lan Wangji was the one prone to anger and the typical alpha violence, that Wangji hid all this behind his frosty facade.

They were abysmally wrong.

Wangji was victim of the emotionalism, possessiveness, and romanticism that had cursed Lan An’s descendants for centuries, the same characteristics that had doomed Qingheng-Jun. Between the two of them, Wangji was the least likely to kill someone in a fit of rage.

Lan Xichen was the one prone to anger, to be filled with blinding rage, he was his mother’s son. It had been a pain the ass for his tutors to teach him as a young boy when all he’d wanted was to bite and kick every one of them until they’d let them see their mother, until they allowed his brother to smile and play instead of drowning him on rules as soon as they discovered his tender heart. In time Lan Huan had learned to hide his anger behind political smiles and soft tones, he’d learned patience, to hold his anger and attack a different day. It was amongst the reasons he got on so easily with A-Yao.

For all that he’d forced himself to become slow to anger, he had one tiny weak spot, his little brother. It had been those teachings of restraint that had nearly cost him his brother. Lan Huan had nearly lost his Didi to the will of the elders and his uncle due to his calm demeanor and lost voice. It angered him that it took them harming Wangji for him to get his voice back from wherever the elders had coaxed him to bury it.

His little brother was his weakness. The little brother that had just come to him in disarray, Xichen had thrown his scrolls away and rushed to hold him in his arms, where he knew he’d be safe.

“He wants to leave me” cried Wangji and oh, Xichen saw red.

He would pu-shake some sense into Wei Wuxian later, right now he had to make sure Wangji could function and pry the whole story from him.

“Come sit, Wangji.”

He lured him a warm cup of tea imbued with spiritual energy to help Wangji calm his turbulent mind, and as Wangji sipped shakingly Xichen took his chance.

“What happened, Wangji? Why would Wei-gongzi want to leave? He’s been happy here with you, he eloped with you.” Punctuates Xichen in a concerning tone.

Wangji took a long sip to hide the way his tongue seemed to tremble inside his mouth, his eyebrows twitched battling to keep a seemingly calm face, even though he was failing. “Ge, ge don’t make me repeat it,” he pleaded.

The cup began to shake on Wangji’s hands and Xichen rushed to cover them with his own sword-calloused fingers. Swallowing another threatening growl he offered Wangji a comforting smile. How dare that Wei play with his brother like this?! He’d trusted Wei Wuxian with Wangji’s heart because he seemed to care and now it turned out his brother was just second best to some else, a plaything Wei Wuxian thought he could leave whenever he saw fit.

His inner alpha was roaring inside his mind, claiming for blood at Wangji’s heartbroken expression. He had to be positive for Wangji, dammit!

“You are still mated, right didi? Perhaps you misunderstood”

Wangji denied softly. “Only because I left. I-I don’t want to face him right now.”

Xichen smiled softly, if it was up to him Wei Wuxian would never be near his brother again. “That’s alright didi. I’ll play for you, it will do you good to meditate.”

*****

Lan Sizhui did not run to the Jingshi in search of his father. He was walking fast, thank you very much. He had all the intention of calmly asking why hadn’t his father stayed behind just a few more seconds or better, why had he not returned, and let his A-Niang explain. Sizhui loved both of his parents, he really did, but sometimes they could be...dramatic and well, oblivious. Even more than Jingyi and Jin Ling.

Except that when he opened the doors, the Jingshi was empty. Frowning and pondering on the implications of a probably angry uncle, Sizhui made his way to the Hanshi. And certainly, as he stepped inside he was greeted by the sight of his uncle playing the soft tunes of a calming song on Liebing to his downcast father.

Sizhui sighed.

“Father, uncle.” He greeted.

A soft, final sound — like a caress to the air— left the flute as Lan Xichen stopped playing and turned to his nephew at the same time Lan Wangji spoke in a relieved tone. “Sizhui, you are here.”

The: you are here and not with him. You came to me, was left unsaid, hanging in the air. Sizhui winced internally, he did not want to have to choose.

“I am, A-die. The question is why are you here? A- Niang has been waiting for you for hours.”

Lan Wangji recoiled, a tiny flinch backwards that made the lines of Xichen’s shoulders tense.

“He wants me there?” Asked his father, Sizhui heard a hint of despair in his usually serene voice. “ Or does he want to break the bond and leave as soon as possible?”

Lan Sizhui had only heard stories of the fatal mixture of his father's jealousy and possessiveness from his A-Niang’s amused mouth or in the cautionary tone of his grand uncle. But now that it stood in front of him in the form of a snarky, sad, snapping Lan Wangji, Sizhui wanted to cry. Why were his parents like this?

“Diedie, mother just wants to explain things. You should not have left so quickly and in such a way. A-Niang was distressed.”

“Oh,” interrupted his uncle in his signature passive-aggressive tone, “ should he have stayed to hear wonders about Wei Wuxian’s first mate? The man he intends to leave Wangji for! I’d hoped you’d be on your father’s side, Sizhui,”

Sizhui tenses like a bowstring ready to shoot, he turned to his uncle with wide incredulous eyes and to his father’s blank face with growing distress. “Is that what you think, Baba? What on earth made you-“ the young Lan sighed and extended his hand to his father. “Just come with me, A-Niang will explain and you’ll understand.”

“Wei Ying will explain?” Asked Wangji, gripping the table edge. Sizhui nodded. “Then will he break the bond?”

“No, father! It is not like that. Just come with me, hear him out. Then you can apologize to each other.”

“My brother,” hissed Xichen, pinning Sizhui with a disappointed glare, “ will not apologize for Wei Wuxian’s schemes.”

Sizhui felt his heart stop, his uncle was angry. Furious at a perceived offense that was not even real. Gods help him. Why couldn’t his father just wait another second before making his dramatic exit?

“How is this my A-Niang’s fault? If anything is just another misunderstanding between them, uncle.” Tried to pacify Sizhui only to be blocked by his uncle’s shark-like politician smile that always made sect leader Yao piss his pants.

“Forgive me, but with Wei-gongzi’s record, it is not hard to believe he misled my brother— your father— once more. How could he not tell him before about his mysterious mate? His child? Allow us some face, Sizhui. That Wei has played with my brother's feelings once more and I shall not stand by it. If Wangji does not want to go, he does not have to go back to him.”

Sizhui wanted to slam his face in the wall, instead, he pleaded softly, like a good omega pacifying a distressed pack member. “A-Niang did not remember, uncle. His memories just came back. He would not harm Baba on purpose.”

Lan Xichen scoffed. “No omega worth the name would forget its pup. In fact, I can assure you this was all a charade and he left the moment you came looking for us.”

Sizhui puffed out his chest and planted his feet firmly on the ground. “Then come, if he’s gone you’ll be right, and if he is there you’ll let him explain. After all, we should not judge based on prejudice, uncle.”

His uncle’s smile grew alarmingly large. “Very well. Wangji, are you willing to go?”

His father looked ready for a battle and Sizhui held back the urge to scream or whine in distress. It would be alright, they would go to the infirmary, talk to A-Niang and all would be well. He had to be positive. His parents had already suffered enough due to misunderstandings and their own inability to communicate like reasonable human beings, they could not suffer anymore. Sizhui would see to that, even if he had to lock them in the same room and distract his uncle.

Except, of course, when they reached the infirmary Wei Wuxian was gone and on the bed was a single note saying “I’m sorry” on his A-Niang’s horrible calligraphy.

Sizhui didn’t even pretend not to curse his mother’s impulsiveness, nor did he attempt to disguise the distressed whine that left his lips. He ignored his uncle’s victorious gaze and went to sit on the bed. Screaming internally why were his parents like this!

A little town at the outskirts of QingheNie’s territory, twelve years after the first siege of the Burial mound.

Jin Guangyao had not been certain Su She’s paranoia was real until he laid eyes on the boy. Tall and broad-shouldered, with his hair held high on a ponytail, Wang JunJie looked like a carbon copy of his father, especially when he raised his ax to chop trees down with a strength he’d only seen on Nie Mingjue during the few night hunts they’d shared.

Nie Mingjue had a son… a child no one knew about. Why would sect leader Nie hide his bastard away? It was not his way. Animosity aside, Nie Mingjue had not been the type to look at his son and cast him aside. Jin Guanyao had been, at least, certain of it until the boy turned around.

Jin Guanyao’s eyebrows shot straight up to his hairline. Now, that was an interesting development.

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

There are little regrets in his life, ponders Nie Mingjue a clear morning two weeks after the siege on the burial mounds, as he cleans Baxia sitting in one of the gardens Huaisang had insisted on decorating himself. The biggest amongst those regrets was Wei Wuxian. A-Xian. His wild omega lost to demonic cultivation and...Wen-dogs. He does not regret involving himself with A-Xian, he regrets they were never more than a war affair, that he let Wei Wuxian run from him when he should have grabbed his hand and never let go. He regrets that he forgot that under his arrogance, A-Xian was just a domestic omega yearning for home and family. He regrets he could not help him see the light before it was too late, before those Wen sunk their claws on him. That Nie Mingjue was never able to show him the unclean realm and let A-Xian’s brilliant mind run free, safe between the high walls of QingheNie.

How many times did he not find himself finishing a night hunt and setting curse to Yiling without realizing, before coming back to his senses at the looming sight of the burial mounds. And the few occasions he came close to the mountain's base Wei Wuxian’s rejection burned inside his chest alongside his wounded pride and made him turn around, run back to the Unclean Realm like a coward.

Now he wondered, what would have happened if he went to Yiling and knocked at the wards surrounding the burial mounds, if he spoke to A-Xian one more time. Would have he been able to convince the omega to leave his crooked path? To come back with him, to Mingjue’s eager arms? Would've he been able to pry him away from those poisonous Wens?

But more than anything he regrets turning away as Wei Wuxian died. His one-time omega deserved the respect of Nie Mingjue holding his eyes as he witnessed the aftermaths of the siege, of the destruction of the Stygian Tiger seal that they had forced him to perform as a desperate act to escape their swords and punishment. He deserved Mingjue watching him breathe his last as he had watched him succumb to sleep many times. But the screams… he could not handle the screams. Hearing A-Xian scream that way had wrock havoc on his mind and core that still recognized A-Xian as his prospective mate, his other half.

Nie Mingjue looked at the sky, his unmarked neck tanning under the sun, and wondered ‘what if…?’

*******

Wang Junjie looked at the moon, practice sword in hand, and asked to the heavens “Did my mother love me? Did my father? Would they be happy I’m training to be a rouge cultivator? Would they approve of the way Baba has raised me?”

He looks down at his hands after running away from the place he’d been imprisoned for five hundred forty-seven days, running his calloused fingers over the remnants of his burned childhood blanket, and wonders: were his parents alive, would they have come looking for him?

Junjie fears the answer as much as he is disgusted by the blood on his hands.

“Momma, Dad, Baba.” He prays silently, “ Wherever you are I hope you can find in yourselves to be proud of this disgraced alpha.”

******

Wei Wuxian hated this and yet had no will to against it. He clutched Junjie tighter against his chest checking he was properly wrapped on his blanket and protected from the cold wind of the night. His baby’s still blue eyes blinked back at him with such innocence the omega’s knees grew weak. He had to fight back the urge to flee back to Yiling, go on his knees and beg Wen Qing to take Junjie in. It would be the wrong decision for all of them, Junjie deserved a happy home with a mother and a father that could take proper care of him, that could nurse him without fear that the resentment inside their bodies would poison Junjie. His baby deserved someone that could ensure he lived happy and safe, that he never knew hunger or pain the way Wei Wuxian had. Someone who would not hate his child because Wei Wuxian was his mother.

He knocked on the orphanage’s door fully expecting to be greeted by the old omega that ran the place and that he’d met in the morning, instead, the door opened to reveal the edge of Baxia pointed at them, ready to strike. Suddenly Wei Wuxian was in the middle of the first siege of the burial mounds with his second family dying around him and Junjie’s older, skeletal form wailing on his arms, and A-Yuan bleeding at his feet.

Wei Ying screamed and tried to run only to crash into Mingjue’s blood-stained chest and Lan Zhan’s disgusted glare. Baxia and Bichen sang above his head, ready to strike them down!

“I thought I may find you here, A-Xian. You are up early, another memory?”

Wei Wuxian turned around from where he was perched atop of a rock on a small garden and greeted his fellow omega with an apologetic smile, “Nightmare.”

He hated the slightly disappointed look that crossed Huaisang’s eyes, they were in better terms after that first night when Wei Wuxian had begun to share a few, if not all his memories, of Nie Mingjue and Junjie with the sneaky omega as they talked over several cups of wine and spicy food. Sometimes he’d even share them as soon as they came barreling into his mind, which meant sneaking into Huaisang’s room at unholy hours and waking him up with stories of how Mingjue had once tripped with his pants in his rush to leave for the battlefield.

“It was about the siege.”

Huaisang came to sit next to him, his bare feet joining Wei Wuxian’s on the little pond, and began to purr and rub small circles on Wuxian’s back. His metal and flowery scent mixed with Wei Wuxian’s spicy one as he comforted his friend in the soft light of the rising sun.

“I’ll have them serve you a cup of wine for breakfast.”

Wei Wuxian huffed out a small chuckle. “Thank you, A-Sang. Is it time for breakfast? Is that why you were looking for me?”

“No,” Huaisang fanned himself rapidly. “One of my men just came back, he says he found something in one of the border towns with LanlignJin. He’s waiting in the throne room for us.”

Wei Wuxian’s heart skipped a beat. For all his eagerness to meet his pup he found himself filled with dread, what if they were bad news? Or, what if Huaisang’s man had found Junjie and the lad wanted nothing to do with them?

His hand was squeezed softly and he locked eyes with Huaisang, some of his fears were mirrored in those green-honeyed eyes. Reminding Wei Wuxian that since the moment he’d come to Nie Huaisang begging for help, they were in this together, this was not only Wuxian’s son but also Huaisang’s nephew.

Wei Wuxian locked his dry lips, “Could we...could we wait a little longer before speaking to him?”

“Yeah,” smiles Huaisang, “ sunrise in this garden is gorgeous to watch, it would be a shame if we missed it, don’t you think?”

Wei Wuxian smiled softly. “It would be.”

Later as the sun rays bathed both omegas in golden light, drawing strength from each other, hand in hand they went to meet with Nie Huaisang envoy.

***

“Sect leader, Yiling Laozu.” Bowed Nie Yong, one of Huaisang’s many cousins and a man the head-shaker had trusted to help in Jin Guangyao’s downfall.

Nie Huaisang sat on the beast-like throne of QingheNie and gestured to Wei Wuxian to sit next to him. His fan at the ready, he asked, “What did you find out?”

“Sect leader, it was a bit difficult finding the orphanage Wei-gongzi mentioned since it was destroyed during the war, but we managed to discover the children were translated to a smaller orphanage in the Langling borders. In this place, there was a record of a baby boy named Junjie that matched the birthdate and description provided by Wei-gongzi, but he was adopted shortly after his arrival by a man named Wang Liu. They live in the town of Huayuan. The carriage will be ready at your disposal, sect leader.”

Wei Wuxian clutched Chenqing so hard it began to crack, his heart was on his throat, his pup was alive! His pup had been adopted. He could see Junjie’s face one more time. He turned a blinding smile to Huaisang who snorted behind his fan at Wei Wuxian’s ridiculous expression.

“Thank you, Nie Yong. Inform them we'll leave after breakfast.”

The man bowed and left with big steps.

“Why a carriage? We could fly on your saber.”

Nie Huaisang glared at his friend. “Wei-Xiong, please do not insult me this early in the morning. Fly on my saber, ha! As if! My brother would rise from his grave in happiness if I had such strength.”

Wei Wuxian laughed lightly, warmth bloomed on his cheeks. “Right, right, sorry. I’m just used to A-Sang exceeding my expectations.”

“Shut up, A-Xian.” Huaisang tried to sound annoyed but was betrayed by the fond glances he kept shooting at Wei Wuxian over the fan. Their mood was light and hopeful, Junjie had been found, he was more than likely alive. They could be meeting him by tomorrow morning.

Nervous excitement built between the two friends as the minutes passed, they were so close, and yet so far. Wei Wuxian just hoped, for once, everything went alright.

Sizhui was a man on a mission, a mission for which he needed back up. Desperately so. He marched to the juniors’ dorms once he was certain his mopping, brooding father was safely tucked inside the Jingshi and away from his uncle’s prejudiced anger, and dragged Jingyi out of the Cloud Recesses with nothing but a clipped ‘We are going to Carp Tower’ as an explanation.

“Why?” protested Jingyi, the alpha had no wish to see Jin Ling after their last argument in their war for courting Sizhui, war the two of them had been unsuccessfully keeping from Sizhui’s ears. If you asked the omega, they were oblivious idiots. Sizhui was a Wen, Wens were known for having multiple mates, some Lans were known for that as well.

Sizhui leveled him with a tiny smile that reminded Jingy of a cat about to show his fangs. “Because I need your help and Jin Ling’s. A-Niang is running around looking for my little brother and my uncle is angry at him because of another misunderstanding. I have to find A-Niang before Uncle talks father into doing something even more stupid.”

“Hang on!” Jingyi planted his feet on the ground, “I thought Senior Wei was unconscious in the infirmary? And what is this about a brother? Hanguang-Jun only has one child! You!”

Sizhui growled a little, releasing his pheromones to show Jingyi how frustrated he was. “Just mount up your sword, I’ll explain in the way.”

Jingyi raised his hands to the sky, but climbed atop his sword and followed Sizhui to the sky. “What do we need the young mistress for?”

“We don’t need Jin Ling perse, we need Sect leader Jiang.”

“Why?”

“He is an expert at tracking my mother, or at the very least used to be, according to A-Niang's stories. If he turns out to be useless in that matter, at the very least he may have an idea about where mother would run to.”

“Shouldn’t we set course to Lotus Pier, then?”

“Sect leader Jiang is in Carp Tower, helping Jin Ling prepare a courting gift.”

Jingyi nearly fell from his sword. “A courting gift?! For whom? I didn’t know he had found himself another omega!”

Sizhui hid his Cheshire kitten smile under a bashful look, “He did not. The gift is for me. He asked and I accepted. You should try it someday.”

Then Lan Sizhui sped upon his sword and left a gaping Jingyi behind. “Wait! Sizhui what does that mean! Sizhui!”

Huayuan was a little town surrounded by trees and streams, it looked picturesque and peaceful as if nor disgrace nor disease had ever knocked at its doors. The simple houses were full of color and were cared for, its streets were filled with color, animated chat, and the laughter of children playing between the market stalls. At the sight of the town a weight he did not know he was carrying, lifted from Wei Wuxian’s chest. This was a great place for a child to grow up; a nice, safe, healthy environment.

“Excuse me, uncle.” He heard Huaisang approach a street vendor and went to stand next to him, both of them dressed in the simplest pair of robes Huaisang owned and made a striking omega pair that had turned heads as soon as they’d entered the town. They were a little dusty having left the carriage hidden in the woods and guarded by Wen Ning, better to keep a low profile, had suggested Huaisang, we don’t want to scare him. “Do you know where can we find Wang Liu or his son?”

The vendor, a middle-aged man with a fat belly and hands full of candy, eyed them warily. “What business do you have with the Wangs? Are they in trouble?”

Nie Huaisang shook his head and waved his hands to dissipate the man’s concerns. “No, no, nothing like that. We have something to discuss with him and his son that’s all.”

The vendor hummed, not fully convinced but pointed them to the other end of the town. “The biggest farm, it has a lot of chickens. You can’t miss it.”

They made a short bow, “Thank you, uncle!”

Nie Huaisang linked his arm with Wei Wuxian to refrain the other omega from running to the farm. Still, he set a fast pace. They were so close to meeting his brother’s son, his nephew. Their hearts beat faster as the farm appeared on their line of sight.

One of Wang Junjie’s favorite childhood memories was hearing the story of his adoption during a stormy night, enveloped by warm scratchy blankets and his Baba’s arms.

His Baba, Wang Liu, had lost his wife and daughter during the war, so a few years after the Wen sect had been defeated, Wang Liu defected from his sect and chose to settle in a peaceful place like Huayuan, like his A-Li would have wanted. One day three years or so after the war, as he returned home from a successful night hunt, he'd stumbled upon a struggling little orphanage overloaded with children and decided to ask if he could help. The lady in charge smiled at him, thanked him, but assured him that unless he was looking to adopt, there was nothing Wang Liu could do. And so Wang Liu asked to see the children.

None of the children pulled at his pack bonds the way the sight of little Junjie playing with blocks and half-wrapped on a blanket of stiched lotuses — that once had been red or a very dark violet— did. Wang Liu went straight to the child and held him in his arms, looked into Junjie’s silvery red eyes, and knew in his heart Junjie was meant to be his son. Wang Liu had turned to the woman with a bright smile and nuzzled the child’s forehead. “Lady, this one is mine!”

“You know what that means, little chicken?”

A seven-year-old Junjie shook his head as lightning rumbled outside their house. “It means,” smiled Wang Liu, “That I was meant to find you, that fate wanted you to be my son so much it gave a little push. And you know what? Fate was wise, for it gave me the best son in the world!” Wang Liu blew a raspberry on Junjie’s cheek and laughter filled their cozy house.

Years later, it warmed Junjie’s heart to know that despite having lost his birth parents he had been raised by someone as kind and just as his Baba. That he’d the fortune of growing up protected by those scarred arms and mischievous smile, to learn cultivation, talismans, and runes from his calloused, crooked fingers.

Once he’d asked his father, why had he left his sect, when belonging to one meant back up and the best night hunting materials. Wang Liu has taken a wistful look tinted with frustration. “I would have stayed, had the war shaped the cultivation world for the better. But my sect leader ended up being talked into killing his brother, a man I owed my life to, and I could not serve under such a man. I could not watch him lead the sect into disaster, turning it into the opposite of what his ancestors stood up for.”

Wang Liu held a finger under Junjie’s chin. “Never follow a man that is willing to forget his roots and how he came to his position. Such people are not worthy of our loyalty.”

“Yes, Baba!”

For years Junjie and his Baba lived happily on their farm surrounded by pigs, and chickens, and growing crops; they went on night hunts as often as possible and relished in sharing their stories in the town's tavern. But as time went by, his father's old injuries surpassed the power of his golden core, so Junjie took his Baba’s sword and started night hunting on his own, always coming back with a purse full of coin and new stories to tell his Baba, who always greeted him at the porch with his favorite meal.

But one day, when Junjie was fifteen, he came home to an empty porch. His Baba had died in his sleep, alone and cold. Junjie buried him in the backyard and buried his sword with him. He traded night hunts for farm life, for the thrill of chasing chickens and watching the piglets grow. He kept his farm alive as his Baba would have wanted.

Until the man in gold came knocking to his door with a pleasant smile on his face and asked. “Are you the rogue cultivator that killed the herd of undead deers a few months ago?”

“Yes, sir. But I don’t hunt anymore. I have a farm to tend.”

The man’s smile grew larger. “Ah, what a pity. It is rare to find a cultivator of your age with such talent, especially out of a sect. I came here to offer you a spot at LanlingJin as an outer disciple. We could use your strength and you would benefit from formal training.”

Junjie sniffed the air and held back the urge to tense his shoulders. “A kind offer, sir. But I won’t leave my farm.”

The man’s smile disappeared as he motioned for the people behind him to enter Junjie’s house. “I’m afraid I shall not take a no for an answer. You can come on your own, child, or I can drag you outside.”

Junjie threw a half-made basket at the man’s face and tried to run away only to be overrun and subdued by the man’s disciples.

Later as he was sneaked into the dungeons of Carp Tower he’d learn that the man was Jin Guanyao, the chief cultivator. But it was beyond his intelligence what could the chief cultivator win from taking Junjie in such a way. Later he would understand that somehow Jin Guangyao had found out about his talent with talismans. Later he would understand and wish he hadn’t.

But at that moment as he was being dragged away from his home, JunJie vowed he would break the man’s pretty face and feed him to his pigs, for you see Junjie had a great nose he could smell even the more diluted smells, and Jin Guangyao’s scent of peonies and dust had clouded the inside of his house the day he’d found his father dead on the bed.

Sadly, he never got to punch the little imp, though he made a toast to Hanguang-Jin, the Yiling Laozu, and Zewu-Jun when he heard they’d been the ones to kill him. That had been soon after the awkward new sect leader of LanlingJin had appeared at his cell and let him go with a purse full of gold and thousands of awkward apologies. Junjie had taken an amazing pleasure in burning down all the research Jin Guanyao had pushed on him during his captivity, and then, then he had all but run back home and cried over his Baba’s tomb. He apologized time and time again for not fighting harder, for not being strong enough, for leaving the farm alone. He’d cried until his eyes felt dry and his throat was raw.

He cried and then he rebuilt.

He cleaned his house and the abandoned fields that the Jins had burned when they took him away. He became wary of strangers and preferred to spend his days in the company of the chickens that had made their nest under his bed while the house had been abandoned and half-burned.

So imagine his surprise when one day he heard his Baba’s name in the market, spoken by two strange cultivators dressed in grey robes. They were looking for Wang Liu and his son. They were looking for him .

Junjie ran back home and took out the sword he’d stolen from a Jin cultivator, and prepared to defend himself. He would be damned if he let some stranger take him away from home again.

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

It was against Jin Guangyao’s nature to make mistakes, particularly if those mistakes created a risk to his career and reputation. It was the reason he’d waited so long to have his father killed, so there would be no errors, no overlookings that lead the deed back to him. It was the reason he’d staged A-Rong’s murder, to prevent the world from knowing his disgrace, his blatant ingenuity at believing he could earn his father’s love, a desire that leads him to perform shameful acts still to this day.

Mistakes could get a man killed or worse, destroy his reputation. His aversion to them was the reason that as soon as XueYang had begun to sink into despair and madness due to the death of the plaything he called mate, Jin Guangyao had begun to search for alternatives; after all the talismans and spells carved into his lookout towers had an undertone of demonic cultivation to make them perfect, flawless. He needed Xue Yang to draw those talismans, to create the shapes of the arrays, and to place into motion what he desired, what he wanted to leave behind as his legacy.

But Xue Yang was useless right now, more so than in the past few years. Jin Guangyao needed an alternative and fast. Xuanyu would have been a good option if the boy was not… touched on the head. Which was the reason he decided to test Mingjue’s bastard, with those eyes the boy could have only been whelped by the Yiling Laozu, and who better to help him strengthen his towers and construct new ones than the son of the founder of demonic cultivation. If the boy had a fraction of his mother's intelligence, Jin Guangyao’s towers would be a power to be reckoned with in the cultivation world, a feat that would be praised generation after his demise.

So he’d tasted the boy against a herd of Yao* deers and watched with delight the talisman wielding and creative talent the boy possessed. Guanyao’s eyes had sparkled as the boy drew talisman upon talisman to deal with the ferocious animals. So much talent wasted on a farm, when it could have been helping him change the world, helping him decipher the rest of Wei Wuxian’s manuscripts and messy notes. Junjie’s talent would only fortify Jin Guangyao’s machinations. Who would have thought Nie Mingjue’s son could be so useful.

Perhaps in time, he could make the boy create another half of the Stygian Tiger seal, one that belonged to Jin Guangyao to do as he pleased, unlike the one that was currently resting in the crazy hands of Xue Yang.

If he pushed the right bottoms the boy could help him achieve all his father had wanted and had failed to obtain, and more, so much more.

At least that had been his hopes after he’d managed to drag and threaten the boy into compliance a few weeks ago. For his efforts he’d gotten a pair of excellent paralyzing talismans and had decided to upgrade the boy’s workload, only to find himself fooled by defective arrays and talismans that had injured half of the men working on the renovations of the towers.

Jin Guanyao was not a man many had the galls to fool, those who tried lived very short and miserable lives. But, for the sake of his own legacy and the memory of Nie Mingjue dying at his feet, he decided he would only teach the boy a little lesson.

Thus, wearing his best smile — the one that showed his dimples and canines— he entered Junjie’s cell, only to be greeted by a deep growl. His smile widened, his little gift had taken effect. Jin Guangyao took a couple of dainty steps, careful not to dirt any of the pages on the ground, and came to stand in front of Junjie’s crumbled form.

“Did you know,” grinned Guangyao, “alphas are ironically at their most vulnerable point during their ruts? They go from mighty people to pigs ready to be slaughtered. Your father was at the beginning of his rut when I killed him. Oh! Don’t put that face!” Pouted Jin Guanyao, his eyes wide open in faux innocence. “ I’m not talking about that useless Wang Liu, with him all I had to do was tell him you died on a night hunt and he consumed himself in no time, with the help of a little poison to spread the process of course. I was referring to your birth father.”

Jin Guangyao shrugged indifferently “Those were easy kills.” He knelt next to the trembling form of Junjie, whose body was shaking under the force of a forced rut. The poison Guangyao had slipped into his food would induce his rut but made sure he would not lose his mind and feel every second of the pain that came with an unaccompanied rut, that the boy would be aware of every surge of heat burning his insides and driving him mad with the need to mate.

Smirking, Jin Guangyao placed a sharp fingernail under Junjie’s quivering chin and grinned at the boy’s painful eyes.

“My masterpiece though was your mother’s death. He died in such disgrace and pain, and all it took were a few twisted words in the right places. My, in the end even your father hated him so much, he helped tear him to pieces.” Jin Guanyao made a small pause to make sure his words sank. “You understand what I’m saying, child?”

Junjie did, his trembling limbs and weakened tongue prevented him from lashing and clawing the other alpha’s eyes out. This man had known his birth parents, he had killed them, he had broken Baba’s heart. Junjie was going to kill him as soon as he could feel his hands once more, as soon as his trembling thighs allowed him to stand up.

“Such rage!” snorted Jin Guangyao with a baneful sound. “Just like your father. You are lucky you inherited your mother’s talent, otherwise, I would have left you all alone! Can you imagine how boring your life would have been? How awful that a mind like yours was being wasted in farming.”

A malicious giggle came out of Jin Guangyao and echoed across the prison's walls. Sect leader Jin pated condescendingly at Junjie’s cheek and raised a copy of Junjie’s sabotaged talisman before plastering on the boy’s chest, a shark-like grin marred his perfect features at the increasing fear on the Junjie’s eyes.

“Good. You recognize your error, let this be the last time you try to play me. If you survive, I expect your work to be impeccable. Make your dead mother proud, little beast.”

As Jin Guanyao exited the dungeons, Junjie's screams and desperate whimpers added a jump to his steps, if only Nie Mingjue had been so easy to deal with. Still, many months later as his heart was pierced by the blade of his dear friend, Meng Yao would remember that for a man so obsessed with perfection, Jin Guangyao had had a very long list of mistakes buried one atop of the other, mistakes he had thought to be hidden forever; that had been his greatest miscalculation .

**********

In a half-burned farm at HuaYuan an empty grave joined the edges of Wang Junjie’s property, a tomb the young alpha kneels before trembling, and burning paper money to the ghost of parents he never knew.

Wang Junjie watched the grey-dressed cultivators approach his home from the edge of the window, doing his best to disguise his massive frame from their inquisitive eyes. Junjie took a deep breath once they were close to the fence of his farm and frowned, they were omegas. Why were there two omegas looking for him? His hand clenched on the stolen sword, omegas could be dangerous too, he reminded himself.

Junjie observed every single movement they made as they examined his house, one of them -- the one with spice and death on his scent-- giggled at the chickens running around the porch, making noise and stumbling on their tiny legs.

“It looks...cozy.” admitted the one with a fan and whose scent had smelled vaguely familiar to Junjie, as if it had come to him from the echoes of a dream.

“It looks like a dream.” Replied the one that had his eyes fixated on the chickens.

“Oh, a dream A-Xian?” snickered his companion, “ Did you dream of having a farm with my Da-ge?”

A-Xian let out an embarrassed laugh. “Can you imagine him running after animals and tending the crops? Ha! Mingjue would have ended up running back to Qinghe after a few months.”

“Yeah,” the other omega fanned himself to hide his wistful smile, “My brother was never one for life in the countryside, he did not have the patience for it.”

“No.” Agreed A-Xian, “but I did not love him for his patience.”

Junjie pricked up his ears to keep track of the conversation as the chickens began to cluck loudly.

“...a few more seconds?”

“Since when are you a coward, A-Xian? Man up, I’m supposed to be the chicken here. Let’s hope someone is home.”

The omega with a fan knocked loudly at the fence.” Hello? We are looking for Wang Liu and his son! Is anybody home?”

Junjie stepped away from the window and came to stand before his closed door, heart beating faster than ever. The little conversation had told him nothing but that the two strange omegas were most likely brothers-in-law, and cultivators if the sight of the saber on the older omega’s waist was any indication. Omegas could be tricky, could be sneaky; he had learned that on carp tower when Jin Guanyao’s subordinates had tried to gain his trust to make him work harder, to steal his secrets, to break him. One had almost succeeded, the consequences of her actions still kept him up at night.

He would not fall prey to scheming cultivators again. Junjie took a deep breath and kicked the door open. Sword in hand, he made an imposing figure against the porch of his home, his long black hair tied on a low ponytail, and his mismatched eyes glaring at the intruders.

“I’m Wang Junjie, why are you here? What do you want?” he growled, hoping to frighten the omegas into leaving. But both of them were staring at him with wide eyes and pale faces as if they’d seen a ghost.

Junjie approached the fence with big steps and pointed his sword at the unwanted visitors. “What do you want? You are not welcome here, cultivators!”

A lonely tear slipped from the grey eyes of the one called A-Xian and Junjie snarled.

Wei Wuxian’s heart skipped several beats at the sight of the young alpha before him, his knees began to wobble and he had to grasp the wooden fence to stop himself from falling to his knees. There had been small doubts on his mind regarding the identity of the child Nie Yong had found, surely it could not be that easy to find his long-lost pup. It had to be someone else that shared a birthday and name with his pup because Wei Wuxian was not made for happy endings. He had tried to delay Huaisang from knocking, afraid that the face of this mysterious Junjie turned out to be as strange to him as his current body once was.

How wrong had he been. Wang Junjie could not be anything else than the pup he’d abandoned all those years ago. Even if his scent had not matched the metallic edge of all the Nies, his face would have given him away. He looked just like Mingjue, but he had Wei Wuxian’s nose, the shade of his hair, and...the eyes. Red and silver glaring at him with distrust.

A tear slid down his face, all he’d wanted was to keep his son away from the resentment that had intoxicated him, to keep him away from the backlash, turns out he’d failed. Some of the resentful energy must have slipped into Junjie to give him such eyes. Wei Wuxian let out a tiny sob and wondered how many more times was he going to fail his first cub.

Still, at the sight of Junjie’s face, of his snarl, Wei Wuxians’ heart soared up to the sky. His pup was alive, his pup had reached adulthood, his pup was a farmer living a peaceful life, his pup knew how to use a cultivator's sword. His pup...his pup...his pup. A snake uncoiled at Wei Wuxian’s chest and before he knew it he was jumping the fence, hand extended to caress Junjie’s face. He just had to make sure Junjie was real and not a product of his imagination, that his handsome face would not change the moment Wei Wuxian touched him.

The cold tip of a sword graced the skin of his exposed throat. Junjie was snarling, his pheromones saturated the air and the anger in them made Wei Wuxian cry.

“Please,” he whispered, his fingertips so close to Junjie’s nose, “Please, please.”

The sword drew blood and its smell clouded the space between him and Junjie. In the back of his mind Wei Wuxian heard Huaisang scream and rush over, but he did not care, his pup was before him. He just needed to touch his face. “Please, I had- I had not dared to… please just one touch. Please.”

Wei Wuxian took a step forward and the sword sank a little bit more into the skin of his neck, but he was so close, his fingertips were brushing Junjie’s nose, and that’s when the fan came between them.

Nie Huaisang had partially believed Wei Wuxian’s tale, more than anything due to the memories and stories he’d shared at very odd moments of the day. But now that Junjie stood before them, wearing a face so akin to his beloved Da-ge, Nie Huaisnag could no longer doubt the veracity of his friend’s story. Huaisang barely registered the words coming out from his nephew's mouth; instead, he sniffed the air deeply. A burning scent of angry alpha overpowered the base scent of metal and moist soil. His nephew smelled like a Nie, he smelled like Da-ge.

Huaisang licked his lips ready to speak, to calm down the mistrustful boy in front of them but Wei Wuxian leaped forward, hand extended and tears running down his eyes. The next thing he knew was the stench of blood coming from his last friend’s neck. The pheromones switched to made the alpha’s killing intent known the moment Wuxian’s fingertips made contact with Junjie’s nose, for a moment everything seemed to stop and Nie Huaisang knew how the future would play: Wei Wuxian would keep reaching towards his son and die trying because to Wang Junjie they were strangers that had invaded his territory, because judging by the boy’s previous words -now clear on his mind- a cultivator had harmed him badly, and Junjie was willing to kill to avoid being harmed once more.

He recognized the sentiment, it was the same instinct that filled his mind after Da-ge’s death. But that did not mean he was going to let his nephew kill his own mother in the same cold fashioned way he’d killed Jin Guangyao. Also, he was not going to let his friend’s impulsiveness kill him once more; his fan flew out his hand with a little wave of qi and knocked the sword out of Junjie’s hand.

“Please, we mean no harm!” Huaisang rushed to stand between Wei Wuxian and Junjie, collected the fallen sword, and handed it back to Junjie as a gesture of goodwill. “He did not mean to attack you, my friend was just elated to see you alive and grown.”

Junjie raised the sword once more, this time pointed at Nie Huaisang and roared. “He jumped at me! Like a mad man! How can I be sure you mean no harm?!”

“We truly just wish to speak with you and your father, my friend was just happy to see you.”

“And why,” snarled Junjiie, “Would an omega that reeks of death would be happy to see me, if not to cause me more trouble?”

“Ah,” fanned himself Huaisang while eyeing the place Wei Wuxian had landed amongst the mud. “It is a long story, one best told in calm and behind closed doors.”

Junjie lowered his sword a little bit, but his scent still lingered around them acid and twisted, he would still kill at the first sight of an attack on his person. “Whatever you have to say, you can say it right here. Like hell, I’ll let you into my home. But let me be clear, I don’t do business with cultivators, so if any of Jin Guayao’s people send you here, you can get going, I’ll let you leave with your life, which is more than he did for my Baba.”

Nie Huaisang’s fan clattered on the ground and Wei Wuxian’s eyes shone bright red as they both echoed a name with horror, wishing they’d heard wrong. “Jin Guangyao!?”

Lan Xichen stood at the doors of the Jingshi for what felt like hours before squaring his shoulders and taking a step back. He walked briskly to the great stone archway at the entrance of the Cloud Recesses and mounted upon his sword. The sad, mournful melody that poured from his brother’s home -an echo of Wangji's broken heart- burned at his core and made the alpha certain he was making the right choice. With the wind toying his hair, Lan Xichen set course to Qinghe. Wei Wuxian had no right to play with his little brother’s heart. Xichen was going to find him and drag him back to the Cloud Recesses and make him apologize to Wangji on his knees. And who better to track that wayward excuse of an omega than the man that had orchestrated his resurrection.

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

The first time Wei Wuxian saw Jin Guangyao was at nightless city after Wen Ruohan’s body had been beaten and burned by every possible cultivator that took part in the attack. He’d been standing next to Nie Mingjue with wide, pleading eyes and for a moment Wei Wuxian felt a horrible anger claw at his chest at the thought of another omega standing proud and acknowledged by Mingjue’s side.

The first time Wei Wuxian saw Jin Guangyao he thought the man was an omega until the wind blew his way and Wei Wuxian caught a grip of the alpha scent surrounding Jin Guangyao, a scent that made the hairs in the back of his neck raise and urged him to pry his alpha away from the spy’s sweet face.

For a long time, jealousy festered inside his chest at the closeness Mingjue and Jin Guangyao seemed to share in the eyes of the cultivation world, at the end of the day it was not unusual for alphas to seek the company of other alphas, and Jin Guangyao was all Wei Wuxian was not. The feeling lasted until his memories came back and the truth of Nie Mingjue’s death was revealed to him. That did not stop him from wondering how an unmovable person —such as Mingjue— did not see the type of person he was inviting into his home, although to be fair Jin Guangyao was an amazing actor.

What Wei Wuxian did not realize was that he’d gotten his answer months before the first memory came back to him, when he performed empathy on Nie Mingjue’s severed head. He conveniently ignored that after the spell had run its course he’d woken up crying blood in Lan Wangji’s lap, red rivers that ran from his eyes and stained Lan Wangji’s ethereal robes, tears born from the backlash of Nie Mingjue’s emotions, of his pain and misery.

Incredulity and anger, Embarrassment and impotence; were the feelings that assaulted Wei Wuxian’s soul as he watched the death scene of Nie Mingjue. It was an incredible feeling to hear Nie Mingjue’s thoughts scramble across his dying brain, connecting dots and increasing in anger, in outrage with every realization of what led him to die in such a painful way, in such a place, so far from home.

The alpha’s screams mix with Baxia’s, her shrilling screeches and serpentine voice coil around them as Qi deviation shatters their — Nie Mingjue’s — meridians and cracks their core. Her screams grow stronger as Nie Mingjue raises her for the last time, waving her against the fake duplicates of Jin Guangyao.

“Coward!” They scream together, Baxia elevated above Mingjue’s bloodied face ready to behead the traitor. But the only sound that leaves Mingjue’s mouth is an inhuman roar, the final statement of a dying predator.

Traitor! Traitor! Dishonorable! Sneaky bastard!

Baxia screams with joy at the taste of blood on her edge and Mingjue raises his triumphant eyes — they got the coward, he will die with them! — only to scream in denial once more, defeat pulverizing what’s left of their meridians as they realize it’s Huaisang’s blood, their family's blood.

Baxia shouts again, urging them to raise her again and kill the coward, but their arms are weak, their vision is red and blurry as they fall to their knees and then to the floor. What remains of their core is trembling inside them, blinking in and out of existence.

Wei Wuxian never thought something could be as painful as having his core ripped away, but he stands proven wrong as the torment of Nie Mingjue’s Qi deviation lacerates his fragile soul.

Hands grab at them, they pull and pull until they’re laying ins something soft whose cries soon overpower the last of Baxia’s voice, their connection with the saber breaks, and dissolves as if it had never been there as if all of Nie Mingjue’s training had been for nothing. Tears land on their cheeks, they look up to Huaisang’s face, they try to speak, to warn but their tongue is tied, drowned in blood.

Warmth spreads from their forehead to their cracked core, Huaisang’s spiritual energy is too weak to heal them — even Lan Xichen’s would not have been enough— is not enough to save them, but it’s enough to soothe their pain, to let them die with a bit of peace.

Wei Wuxian feels the disassociation between their souls and knows Nie Mingjue is about to die, he shares his pain, his peace but finally he can think as himself once more. Which makes the painful tug inside his ghostly chest a rarity, for it was not a feeling coming from Nie Mingjue but from something pulling at Wei Wuxian’s heart, something making him want to beg Nie Mingjue to live, to kneel next to Nie Huaisang and try to help. He does not understand the sentiment, he does not understand why his inner omega is wailing in grief. Nie Mingjue was nothing more to him than a general, the brother of a man he’d once called friend.

A wandering phrase in a distorted voice divides his focus from the dying Nie Mingjue and stretches his soul until it’s too painful to bear. “ ...dirty methods, you are right of course, but that does not mean I like it.” “ …home with me?”

Wei Wuxian screams and finally, the strange voice is overthrown by Nie Mingjue’s last thoughts but is no better, the ache inside his chest only grows as the unbearable yearning inside Nie Mingjue’s heart blooms like a flower that feeds of death; as his defeat chokes him in blood. Nie Mingjue wants many things, he wants revenge, he wants to warn his little brother, to protect him, he mourns for the honorable death he'd always imagined. He craves for a love long lost, Mingjue can’t come to regret mourning the man he once loved, even if it had clouded his mind and eyes to the peril next to him. Love always has a way to make fools of everyone.

There is anger and impotence, embarrassment and incredulity, denial and defeat, but there is also hope to see him again, to make amends.

Nie Mingjue closes his eyes, his soul fluttering wearily, pressure builds and builds inside Wei Wuxian, urging him to reach for something; Nie Mingjue dies and the connection is broken, the pressure disappears and Wei Wuxian is back at Lan Wangji’s arms, with the scent of blood overwhelming his nose.

Wei Wuxian was covered in blood and grim. The smell of his own body made him nauseous, still, with light steps, he sneaked into Nie Mingjue’s tent. Their relationship only had a few months, but it was old enough that Wei Wuxian was confident he would not be thrown out if he showed up bathed in blood in the middle of the night.

“What,” grunted Mingjue, “ in the everlasting f*ck, happened to you?”

At the entrance of the tent, Wei Wuxian shifted his feet awkwardly. “Well, you see, the corpses I was sent to make part of my...stock were very much alive and not happy to be part of my service. Can I use your tub?”

Nie Mingjue blinked at his lover for a couple of seconds before moving aside and letting Wuxian, fully, into his tent. “I just drained it, can you make water talismans?”

Wei Wuxian nodded enthusiastically as he stripped, leaving his cacked clothes all over the dusty ground. Then, naked and with blood dripping from his long hair, he drew a water talisman above the empty tub, and watched in fascination as it filled with warm water. Wei Wuxian jumped in with a big splash.

A soft exhale left his mouth as he sank into the water and began to scrub himself in slow, forceful motions.

“Not that I’m complaining, but why not use your bath, at your tent?” Prompted Mingjue as he lay a set of clean undergarments next to the tub.

Wei Wuxian turned to beam at him, the dirt on his face cracking at the force of his grin. “Jiang Cheng would have not let me pass the flaps once he saw me. He’d send me to wash at the cold river.” He batted his eyelashes at Mingjue. “You would not want that for this poor omega, right?”

Nie Mingjue frowned. “Why do you share a tent with sect leader Jiang, an unmated alpha?”

Wei Wuxian shrugged and raised one of his long, pale legs out of the water to scrub it. “He insisted I was not to leave his sight after those three months I went missing, I’ve tried to ask for my own tent but he is stubborn. It is pointless now that Shijie agrees with him.”

Wei Wuxian removed his sight from his leg and turned to Mingjue, a joke on the tip of his tongue, only to freeze at the dark aura coming from the alpha.

“Mingjue?”

The alpha replayed through clenched teeth. “Do you bathe like this in front of him?”

Wei Wuxian tilted his head to the side, "what?”

“Do you give this type of show to sect leader Jiang?”

Realization dawned upon Wei Wuxian and he exhaled with a mischievous grin forming on his face. “If I say I do, will you be jealous?”

Mingjue looked away, his lips twisting into an annoyed grimace that displayed his sharp canines. “No.”

Wei Wuxian laughed jovially and slapped the water with his hands. “You are! You are! Mingjue, Mingjue,” he extended a hand, wrinkled by the water, and beckoned Nie Mingjue to come close, but the alpha crossed his arms and turned around.

“Mingjue!” Pouted Wei Wuxian, “Mingjue! Look at meee! A-Xian was playing! I only bathe like this for you, I know how much you like the sight of my wet, naked, pretty self.”

Nie Mingjue looked at him from atop his shoulder, an eyebrow raised and Wei Wuxian perked up, moving in the water with childish delight, and batted his eyelashes at his lover. “Mingjue! Mingjue! Wash my back for me please?”

Nie Mingjue let out a long, suffering sigh before coming to kneel at the edge of the tub and moving aside a handful of Wei Wuxian’s dirty hair. “Your hair is disgusting, I’ll wash it.”

Wei Wuxian let out a fake whine, “But my baack"

“After I clean your hair, A-Xian. It stinks so badly, even ghosts must be able to smell it.”

“Well then, I’ll leave it in the capable hands of my alpha.”

With an amused snort, Nie Mingjue poured an entire bottle of hair wash into Wei Wuxian’s head, ignoring the omega’s indignant yelp. Mingjue began massaging his lover’s scalp and watched in morbid fascination as the water and his hands began to obscure due to the incredible amounts of mud and dried blood coming out of Wei Wuxian’s hair.

“How many were there?” Asked Mingjue as he twisted the length of his omegas hair so it could be easier to wash.

“Fifty.” Whispered Wei Wuxian, his voice had the undertone of a purr, a sign that he was being undone by Mingjue’s hand on his head. “ Jiang Cheng said there were dead, the casualties of today’s battle. But they were alive, A-Jue. They pretended to be dead to attack at night. If I had not been sent for them...It could have been a disaster.”

Mingjue Kissed a newly cleaned spot on Wuxian’s neck. “You were there, it never happened. Their bodies will serve their purpose in the next battle and be disposed of once we are strong enough for you to stop demonic cultivation.” Suddenly Mingjue let out a scoff full of scorn, “Although I’m not surprised Wen Ruohan would use such dirty methods. It is the way of cowards like him.”

Wei Wuxian remained quiet for a few minutes as he mused over his lover’s words. For Nie Mingjue anything that was not a direct challenge, a fight face to face, was a dirty maneuver, a dishonorable act. Wei Wuxian’s cultivation, his fighting style, the way he tore Wens into pieces was barely an honest fight, and only because they saw his face before he set the ferocious corpses into them. He wondered, as his fingers toyed with the now filthy water, if Nie Mingjue would ever understand his ways.

“War is not a fair game, A-Jue. There is little place for honor in it.” He whispered finally, Mingjue’s hands halted in his hair and then began to move again.

“You are right of course, but that does not mean I like it. Give me an honest battle, an honorable enemy any day, I’ll be happy. But the Wens are not honest, nor honorable in their methods, why should we, right?”

Mingjue drew a talisman in the tub and the water cleared back to its original transparent color, free of the grim that clung to Wei Wuxian’s body. Nie Mingjue grabbed a bowl and began pouring clean water into Wei Wuxian’s soapy hair. “When the war began, I spent those first months thinking how fast could we reach Qishan, how strong were my men, our joined forces; and then the first surprise came.” The alpha let out a strange sound to Wei Wuxian’s ears, like a whimper, but rougher and filled with defeat. “They came in the night, burned the supplies, and collapsed our supply lines to Heijan. It took me...us, weeks of fighting in the dark of night, of ambushes and me killing Wen Xu, to finally get that small part of the front in order. I was eager, and foolish, clouded by my desire to avenge my father. I thought that if I stood proud in front of them, my enemy would be honorable and face me the same way. I thought my enemy could be as honorable as I am.” Nie Mingjue let out a dark chuckle. “ I just thought, despite what happened to my father, someone of Wen Ruohan’s standing would confront me face to face, that mistake could have cost me my men, could have cost us a war that was in diapers at that moment.”

There was a splash of water and suddenly Nie Mingjue’s arms were locked around Wei Wuxian’s middle, his chin resting on a pale shoulder and digging into Wei Wuxian’s collarbone. “It is good you were there tonight, that you were able to stop them. An attack like that would have weakened us severely, especially considering I’ve just sent reinforcements to Xichen.”

A kiss landed on Wei Wuxian’s scent gland. “I’m glad you were there. Thank you, A-Xian.”

A strange feeling began to grow on Wei Wuxian’s chest, a soft pressure that felt like butterfly wings against his naked heart, he turned a place a kiss on Nie Mingjue’s temple as his lover reminisced about the first months of battle, and his arms tightened around the omega’s belly as the ghosts of comrades and friends came to his mind.

Sometimes when Wei Wuxian sees Nie Mingjue on the battlefield he forgets that there are only a few years between them, that if Wei Wuxian was struggling and falling apart with every step they took forward, Mingjue had been shouldering decisions like these since he was thirteen and his father had been cruelly taken from him; that even if he could not show it while commanding an entire war, Nie Mingjue was human. Sometimes he forgot how young Mingjue was.

It is then, while they hug in a rare show of vulnerability from the alpha, that Wei Wuxian realizes he is in love with this man. That he would paint the world red for him.

“A-Xian.” The heat of Mingjue’s breath sends shivers down his spine, Wei Wuxian wishes, that if he were to die, for his final moments to be as peaceful as the feeling of Nie Mingjue’s arms surrounding him .

Nie Huaisang crawls up the stairs of Carp Tower and launches himself to the expecting arms of Jin Guangyao with teary eyes and distress clouding his scent. He inhales in an almost comical way and wails, “San-ge! San-ge! Help me! I don’t know what to do!”

Jin Guangyao smiles down at him with infinite patience, “What happened, A-Sang?”

“There is something in Qinghe! It’s a great beast! I don’t know what to do! I don’t know what it is!”

Jin Guangyao places a hand on the small of Nie Huaisang’s back, a gesture meant to comfort, instead, it raises all the red alarms inside the omega’s brain. Nie Huaisang forces himself to breathe, to think of things that bring him peace so he can remain sprawled on Jin Guangyao’s arms, the perfect picture of a distressed omega, a useless omega.

“What type of creature did you say it was?”

“The disciples said it was a Guài! But I’m not sure! San-ge, it is just too big! It swallowed one of my men whole!”

“All will be alright, A-Sang, breathe with me.” Jin Guangyao guides Huaisang to his chambers and pours tea for the both of them as Nie Huaisang cries out the tale of the new plague assaulting his territory. Jin Guangyao listens carefully, making questions at the right moments, and, by the end, he offers the little omega his best smile.

“What a coincidence, A-Sang. One of my disciples just came up with a couple of talismans that could work on such a thing, would you be willing to test them? If not, don’t worry, I’ll send a dozen men to help out, will that be enough?”

Nie Huaisang opens his fan as excitement blooms on his face. “A dozen! Oh, thank you San-ge!” Then as if the words just entered his brain, Huaisang raises the fan to cover his blushing cheeks. “Talismans? Will it be easier to deal with it then?”

Jin Guangyao smiles wider, “Much easier, A-Sang. Would you like to try them?”

He hands over a bunch of talismans that Huaisang only eyes for half a second before turning his eager eyes to Jin Guangyao. “San-ge, they look so simple, will they really work on the ...thing?"

Jin Guangyao pushes the talismans into Nie Huaisang’s hands. “I assure you they will, this disciple of mine has no reason to fail. But, as I said, in any case, I shall send a dozen disciples to help QingheNie in the hunt for this Guài.”

Nie Huaisang pockets the talismans and scoots to sit next to Jin Guangyao, resting his head over the alpha’s shoulder. “San-ge, you’ll be joining me for my heat, right? Alongside with er-ge? It’s in two weeks.”

“I’ll be there, Huaisang, as always.”

Nie Huiasang beams at him.

Years later, when he finds an abandoned copy of one of those talismans, his blood boils and his saber shakes in its holder, for at that moment Nie Huaisang knows that the crooked handwriting that gave life to such powerful talismans belongs to his nephew. Now he knows that Jin Guangyao offered to help him with tools made with the tears and blood of his beloved nephew. In his opinion, Jin Guagyao's plain death was not enough to atone for his wrongdoings, even if he’d been crushed down by a building it would not have been enough.

Wang Junjie’s mind is a bee's nest. There is an annoying buzz in his ears as his brain tries to assimilate the story, the tale of love, betrayal, and abandonment that has just been told to him. The story of his birth. Coming from the mouth of his resurrected A-Niang, nonetheless.

Perhaps he should try to understand how this happened by analyzing the conversation that took place a couple of minutes ago.

First, there was a disturbing wave of shock covering the strange omega's faces, then there were red eyes, shining like blood on the omega that reeked of death. A demonic cultivator. Junjie had let out a warning growl, he’d had enough of demonic cultivators, he did not want another one in his life. Or so he had thought until he’d learned the truth. After that little display, the omega with a fan - that now he knows is Nie Huaisang, his uncle. He has a thrice-damned uncl e- had introduced himself and his demonic companion as sect leader Nie and the Yiling Patriarch, to which Junjie had wisely replied: “Bullsh*t.”

And then his mother, his mother the Yiling Patriarch, had summoned the ghost general. A corpse Junjie would recognize anywhere as he had been in charge of working on his chains every now and then during his captivity. It was well known that the Ghost General answered to no one but his original master, Wei Wuxian. The cursed Wei Wuxian who was Junjie’s omega parent, who had given birth to him!

With the ghost general as proof, Junijie had been willing to listen, and now his ears were ringing. His birth parents - whose murder had been used to taint him and scare him- were Nie Mingjue and Wei Wuxian, and didn’t that made sense with Jin Guangyao’s ramblings. But it got better, he was not the product of a one night of blurred passion during the war, no, apparently his parents loved each other very much but - by his A-Niang’s word, his A-Niang’s!- they had both been idiots about it. He had been left in an orphanage not because he was not loved or desired, but because he had been birthed by the greatest evil in China, the terrifying Yiling Laozu; and Wei Wuxian had wished to spare him from the consequences of that unremovable fact (it had not worked very well, for it had come to haunt him years later, his eyes and face had dragged Jin Guangyao to his door).

Wang Junjie took a deep breath and asked, “If you loved me as much as you claim you do, why did you never go back for me? Why appear here a year after your very public resurrection, when you already have a family?” There had been anger in his voice, resentment pure and raw, ready to burst and burn the pale face before him; but Wei Wuxian’s answer had made it disappear, like magic. He wanted to hate the man that gave birth to him, wanted to make him suffer as he’d suffered when his Baba had been taken from him, but now he found he could not. Not with such an honest answer like that, not with such a heartbroken look on Wei Wuxian’s eyes.

“I-I’ve loved you since the moment I knew I was pregnant, I loved you even when I thought your father would hate me and despise us. I loved you so much I knew I could not raise you if I wanted you to live, to have a normal childhood filled with laughter instead of the burdens that shadowed mine and Mingjue’s. I loved you so much I forced myself to place you in the hands of that old matron at the orphanage so you could grow up without my name staining your life. Please never doubt there was not a moment I was not wishing to come and get you, to gather you in my arms and watch you smile. I loved you so much that even when I was dying, watching your father soaked in the blood of those I tried to protect, I was at peace knowing you had not been there, that you were safe and sound somewhere; under the care of a gentle couple or a kind man that could give you the life I was unable to provide you. I wanted to come for you, I wanted to collect you in my arms and present you proudly to your father, to see him laugh at your chubby face, but if I had done that you would have ended up dead or imprisoned much earlier than you did this time. I don’t know how Jin Guangyao found you, but I’m certain he was just lucky to stumble into you.” Wei Wuxian sniffed, his entire frame leaning into the Ghost General, but his red eyes, red with tears, never left Junjie’s face. “ I did not come sooner, I did not look out for you sooner because I did not remember you and your father, the ritual that brought me back kept my memories away. The second I remembered your little face I ran out of the Cloud Recesses and asked A-Sang’s help to find you. I love you, with an intensity you’ll never know until you hold your first child in your arms, I would kill for you, I would sell my soul for you, just to see you have a happy, plentiful life. This lowly omega understands if it's beyond your abilities to accept him as your family, but this lowly omega begs that you let him watch over you as he was unable to do during the first half of your life.”

With tears running down his face Wei Wuxian made a low bow, asking for forgiveness, for a second chance, for anything Junjie would give him. Junjie was certain that if he offered him pig sh*t, the man would gladly take it and treasure it. Wang Junjie did not have the will to hate such a man, did not have the will to hate his own mother, but he was not ready to be part of a family again, not so easily. Not with all the baggage and scars, he carried with himself.

“Please raise, mother. You and...uncle, and your friend, are welcome into my house. We have much to discuss.”

Junjie turned around and led them inside his cozy little house, his thoughts being pulled in a thousand different directions, trying to decide the next course of action, how to live with these revelations. Junjie never noticed he’d left his sword in the mud or that the chickens had gone mute at the sight of the Ghost General; what he did notice was the way his heart kept beating up with a strange mix of trepidation and...relief, for it seemed he would no longer be alone.

Lan Sizhui was not angry, being angry was against his very, very tender nature. He was not angry, he was raging, like a stormy cloud filled with thunderbolts.

“What,” he seethed, doing his best to keep his voice low, “do you mean by that, sect leader Jiang?”

Jiang Wanyin scoffed and crossed his arms over his chest, effectively blocking Lan Sizhui and Jingyi from approaching Jin Ling as they had intended upon their arrival to Carp Tower. “It means I have no reason to help you, especially now that you are here to break my nephew's heart. I knew you were not good enough for him.”

Lan Sizhui took hold of his father’s best calming tool: in through the nose, out through the mouth; and snarled. His patience had run its course at some point during this tiresome verbal exchange that had started the moment he’d appeared at the golden doors accompanied by Jingyi.

“I’m not here to break my engagement to Jin Ling, now I will appreciate it if you stop causing problems between me and my fiance just because I arrived in the middle of the night drenched by a storm, and leaning onto my best friend for support. I need-”

“Your best friend who is also an unmated alpha you’ve spent the last days alone with.” Interrupted Jiang Wanyin, his face set on a cold scowl, Zidan cackling on his finger as he incriminated the young omega. “An alpha that has also made his intentions towards you very clear.”

Sizhui raised a perfect eyebrow, looking extremely like a disappointed younger version of Lan Qiren or, a pissed-off copy of Wen Ning. But the sight of it made Jin Ling gesture wildly behind his uncle’s back for JingYi to make Sizhui calm down. To which Jingyi replied with a smug smile and let Sizhui snarl the words that would freeze the scary Sect leader Jiang in his spot, after all, there was a time to follow the rules of propriety and a time when finding his A-Niang was excuse enough to be rude with the likes of Sect leader Jiang.

“Would it pacify you if I told you I want to f*ck them both? I want to be mated to both of them, so please stop with the territorial display and help me find my A-Niang!”

Before Jiang Wanyin could say anything more, Lan Sizhui’s disturbed scent penetrated the air and made Jin Ling surge forward in need to protect his omega, to console him in any way. “Uncle Wei is missing?”

“Yes,” sagged Lan Sizhui, “please I need your help to find him, I have no idea where he would run to.”

Jiang Wanyin crossed his arms over his chest, snorting. “Why would that idiot leave the Cloud Recesses, that makes no sense he’s attached to Lan Wangji by the hip.”

Sizhui pinned his A-Niang's shidi with a hard glare. “A-Niang’s memories returned, he remembered a lot of things, his first son among them. He’s gone to find him, of that I’m sure, but I don’t know where to begin looking and I have to find him before father and uncle do something they'll come to regret.”

Zidan came to life in a shower of purple lighting against Jiang Wanyin’s hand, “What do you mean ‘his son’?”

Lan Xichen arrived at Qinghe during the afternoon, a soft breeze playing with his hair as he stepped inside the Unclean Realm for the first time since A-Yao’s death.

“Zewu-Jun, we did not expect the sect leader’s letter to reach you so late. Sect leader has already left for HuaYuan, would you like a carriage there?”

What letter? Zewu-Jun smiled tightly, “ No, thank you. I will wait here until he comes back. I just need his help finding my brother’s mate.”

Nie Yong bowed to hide his smirk. “Sect leader Nie is with Wei-gongzi at HuaYuan, Zewu-Jun. Would you like a carriage?”

Lan Xichen’s smile froze on his face. “No, thank you, I will fly.”

As his figure loomed over the horizon, Lan Xichen could not help but wonder if this was all part of Nie Huaisang’s plan, was he the one Wei Wuxian had had a child with? But he was not an alpha...did he know the one Wei Wuxian was planning to leave Wangji for? Were they friends? Had they colluded in this together? Lan Xichen clenched his fists, he was going to shake the answers out of them, and when he found out why they had deceived his brother, Lan Xichen was going to make them regret it.

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

There is a sense of inevitability in the silence that surrounds Lan Wangji. A reminder that for 365 days his life had been filled with the delightful noise of Wei Wuxian’s laugh, of his voice, of his moans. A mnemonic of what he’s stolen from someone else, someone who’d mourned for Wei Ying with -probably- the same intensity Lan Wangji had done. A reminder of the unavoidable fate of divorce that hangs above his head.

Lan Wangji could not handle silence anymore, for it was a heavy silence that corroded his bones and could not be dissipated even by the soft notes he was plucking out of his guqin. It was a silent scream inside his heart and ringing in his ears.

He yearns for Wei Ying, even if it has only been twelve days since his...the omega ran away from the home Wangji had wanted to build for them. Since Wei Ying had run back to the arms of his other alpha, of his other son. Lan Wangji wants to go back in time, to fetch the healers before allowing the tale of Wei Ying’s other family to slip past plump lips; if he’d done that, maybe Wei Ying would still be his.

Halfway to a mournful melody, the doors of the Jingshi are slammed open by Lan Qiren. His scent of books and dust fills Lan Wangji’s nose with annoyance and anger.

“Uncle. I’m in seclusión for the foreseeable future, please leave.”

Lan Qiren does the opposite, he closes the doors and sits in front of his rundown nephew without losing his frown. “A letter arrived from QingheNie.”

Lan Wangji keeps playing, the music escalates in volume to drown his uncle’s voice and urge him to leave. Instead, Lan Qiren’s monotonic voice rises with the music. For no one can be as stubborn as the descendants of Lan An.

“A letter arrived from QingheNie, for you.”

The corners of Lan Wangji’s mouth twitch an inch down. “Uncle is in a better position to answer it.”

Lan Qiren resists the uncouth impulse of rolling his eyes at his melodramatic nephew, at the child that used to be his pride, and replies as calmly as he can. “I thought the same, so I read it.” Lan Qiren makes a pause, not believing he is about to do Wei Wuxian a favor and handles the folded letter to Wangji. “It’s about Wei Wuxian’s whereabouts. You should read it, Wangji.”

Lan Zhan’s fingers freeze atop the guqin strings, shoulders tense as he looks up to his uncle’s eyes. Lan Qiren nearly chokes on thin air, his precious nephew's eyes are so big, so sad, so vulnerable. The last time Wangji allowed his uncle to see his heart was before the war, before everything went in a dark spiral from bad to worse.

“Please, uncle. Read it for me.”

“Of course, Wangji.”

Swiftly Lan Qiren opens the folded paper and begins to read.

“ Wangji-Xiong, I hope this letter finds you in good health. Wei Wuxian arrived at the unclean realm seven days ago--and what an entrance he made, he scared the souls out of my guards-- amongst other things he mentioned you were quite displeased with him. Enough to ask him for divorce if he dares to return to the Cloud Recesses. I tried to assure him you would not (you better not), but you know how Wei-ge can be when he gets something on his head. Hence, I took it to myself to clear the air as you are, both, dear friends of mine.

Wei-ge arrived at my door with a story I did not believe at first, but that now has become undoubtedly true in my eyes. During the sunshot campaign, Wei-ge was involved -romantically and intimately- with my late brother, Nie Mingjue. Liasion that resulted in the birth of my nephew, a baby Wei-ge was forced to leave behind, and that now he wants to find. I’ve, of course, sent my men to investigate. We are currently waiting for answers but the wait should be over any day now.

I pray this information serves to ease your mind and to prove that, should you arrive at the Unclean realm in a few days, Wei-ge would be more than delighted to see you.

Your friend, Nie Huaisang, sect leader of Qinghe Nie.”

Lan Qiren had not finished reading the closing when Lan Wangji rushed out of the Jingshi in a blur of white robes. Sighing, the grandmaster poured himself a cup of Wangi’s abandoned tea and prayed that his nephew could finally be happy despite his choice of mate. Of all things, why did Wangji have to inherit his father’s taste?

The moment his bare feet touch the stone floor of the Unclean realm’s courtyard, Lan Wangji wobbles on his feet, exhaustion finally catching up to him after days of refusing food and having pushed his golden core too far to reach Qinghe in less than a day.

A gentle hand steadies him. “Thank you.”

“Hanguang-jun,” greets the head disciple of QingheNie. “This one is Nie Yong, may we assume you’ve received the letter the sect leader sent you?”

“Mn.” Lan Wangji takes a deep breath and straightens his back. “Take me to Wei Ying.”

Nie Yong makes a deep bow. “Hanguang-jun, Sect leader and the Yiling laozu have already left to find young master Nie. They headed to HuaYuan. Would you like a carriage there?”

Lan Wangji's eyebrows go down on a proper human frown. He almost refuses the carriage, he is one of the strongest cultivators in the world, surely he can handle the trip to the borders of Qinghe. Except, the moment he reached for Bichen his golden core made a sickening roll inside his chest. It is enough to make his knees buckle. “I’ll take the carriage, right away.”

He just hopes Wei Ying is still there when he arrives.

Junjie had not laughed in a long time. Now his peals of laughter fill the little house, mixing with his bearer’s wolfish laugh and his uncle’s soft scoffs. Even the ghost general’s frozen face was twisted into a little smile. It turns out his mother really could bring fun and entertainment to those around him, a talent he had not inherited, not even from his Baba. When he tells this to his companions he is met with silence for the first time since he left them inside his home.

“Your father was the same,” whispers Wei Wuxian. “He could not make a joke if his life depended on it.”

Nie Huaisang gives a kind smile, eyes full of longing every time they land on him. “You are a wonderful person, Xiao-Jun. You don’t need Wei-ge’s goofing nature, it has brought him enough trouble as it is.”

“Hey! That is not true! People adore my goofy shameless side.” Wei Wuxian runs to half-cover his son’s ears and shrieks with a mocking offense. “Don’t turn my boy against me!”

Nie Huaisang opens his fan to cover his amused grin. “Let me tell you, Xiao-Jun, that one managed to get married by confessing in an MPH! mm! HMMM!”

His uncle’s lips had sealed shut and he was waving his fan wildly at Wei Wuxian’s face. Junjie turned to his A-Niang. “Is that the famous silence spell of the Lans?”

Wei Wuxian nods with a smirk and raises his nose in the air. “He should not try to embarrass me further in front of your young impressionable eyes, Xiao-Jun!”

Dramatic is the word Junjie would use to describe his A-Niang, alongside persistent and smiling. He likes what he’s gotten to known of his mother and his uncle so far. Even the calm face of Wen Ning is likable. But Junjie can’t wait to see their worst side. It is good to know that on good days with clear skies he can get along with these people, these people who want to be his family; but he needs to know if that desire can withstand stormy nights and shaking grounds. Junjie needs to be sure he’ll be loved at his worst and his best, in richness and poverty; like his Baba loved him.

Junjie opens his mouth to speak but his words get swallowed by the motion of his A-Niang standing up and going out to get some water. “Time for tea”, he says and exits the house. Junjie turns to his uncle, bewildered. Nie Huaisang shrugs, it is Wen Ning who answers in his uncle’s place.

“Don’t mind him, he’s gotten used to the Lans routine. Hanguang-Jun spoils him too much.”

An opportunity presented, Junjie assaults Wen Ning with questions about his mother’s husband while they wait. His A-Ninag is gone for a few minutes when they hear angry screams bounce into the walls of the house. Junjie gets on his feet and runs for his A-Niang. Heart pounding inside his chest as fear squeezes his lungs, a phantom of his A-Niagns fright that has swept through the bond. Junjie flies outside. He just got him back, he can not lose him.

The image that greets him when he arrives at the source of the commotion makes his blood boil. There is a strange man in Lan robes screaming at his A-Niang, his A-Niang who is being held by the shoulders and shaken roughly, head bouncing back and forth. His A-Niang who is struggling to get out of the bruising hold and is crying soft replies at the screams being roared at his paling face. Junie’s inner alpha claims for the blood of the one who dares to make his mother cry like that. His mother who in the past few days has cried enough tears to make a river.

Wang Junie surges forward, fist raised, and lands a punch on the stranger’s face sending him to the ground. Junie growls in dominance, defending his territory and his omega parent from this unknown, rude alpha.

The Lan alpha growls back and stands up ready to fight him, only to halt as his eyes land on Junjie’s twisted face. The stranger staggers backward as Junjie approaches and hides Wei Wuxian behind his back, his eyes land on Wei Wuxian’s hand on Junjie’s bicep. Junjie does not need more incentive, an anger -the likes of which he had not experienced in a long time- takes hold of him as he punches the other alpha straight in the face for a second time, and delights in the sound of bones breaking under his assault. He goes for another hit when his mother holds him back, securing his arms around his waist, Wei Wuxian pleads him to stop. Junjie growls in denial, he has to make sure this stranger won't ever lay his hands on his mother again, that he bleeds for attacking his newly found A-Niang.

“Junjie, that's enough! You broke his jaw! Junjie please!” Wei Wuxian’s screams become desperate as he tries to hold his son back. “A-Sang! Wen Ning!”

The alpha on the ground is not moving, his eyes locked on Junie’s raging form, pale as if he’s seen a ghost. It only serves to infuriate him more. Junjie breaks from his mother's hold, ready to kick the Lan out of his territory when there is a pain in the back of his head, and everything goes black.

Chapter 9

Chapter Text

Lan Xichen was not sure about what he expected to find when he finally caught Wei Wuxian, but it had certainly not been what he’d found. He’d watched from the edges of the tiny farm as Wei Wuxian went to collect water, whistling and jumping every few steps. His happy scent reached Xichen’s nose, the spice of Wei Wuxian was intermixed with a metallic and earthy one that was unfamiliar to him. Wei Wuxian had only been gone a little over a week and he already reeked of his lover. Lan Xichen growled a rumble that echoed until it reached Wei Wuxian’s ears.

The Omega turned towards him and dropped the bucket of water he’d been holding. “Xi...Xichen-ge.”

Lan Xichen pounced, his hands digging into Wei Wuxian’s collarbones. “Wei Wuxian! Have you no shame?! How can you call yourself my brother’s mate and frolic around with someone else while you still bear his claiming bite! Have you no remorse?!” He began to shake the omega roughly, trying to pry the answers out of his trembling lips. “Do you have any idea of what’ve you done to my brother! You useless excuse of a man! Answer me damn it! Why would you leave my brother when he has given you everything! Why would you leave him for some trice damned farmer!”

“It..I-I not what-” Wei Wuxian’s stammers grew weak as Xicehn shook him harder and continued to scream and roar at his face, not caring for the way Wuxian seemed to struggle or how pale he was becoming. Lan Xichen was on a mission to get answers and then drag the adulterous omega back for punishment. He digs his fingernails into the soft flesh below Wei Wuxian’s scent gland and demanded answers as the omega cried in pain for him to stop. He is ready to shake him again and again until his rattled brain can provide the answers Lan Xichen wants to hear. It is in the midst of all that a fist collides with his face and sends him to the ground.

An aggrieved scent clouded the air, it smelled like grain and pigs, and chickens and metal. It was the scent surrounding Wei Wuxian in place of Wangji’s sandalwood scent. Spitting on the ground, Lan Xichen stood up and turned around to return the hit, when he came face to face with a ghost. It was Nie Mingjue’s face, twisted in anger like the last time he’d seen it, the same salvage snarl twisted his lips. He took an involuntary step back and watched, mystified as Mingjue’s ghost placed Wei Wuxian behind his back, protecting him from Lan Xichen.

Xichen’s eyes landed on the possessiveness of Wei Wuxian’s hand against Mingjue’s bicep and he glared. It was wrong! Mingjue should not be protecting that shameless omega! He should not be taking Wangji’s mate! He should not be alive! This had to be some kind of monster masquerading as his Da-ge. Lan Xichen clenched his fist and took half a step forward, before receiving another hit, this time it did hurt. Like a bitch. His jaw was on fire and he fell to the ground like an ugly stringless puppet.

Despite the pain, he turned his betrayed eyes to Mingjue’s ghost only for his face to lose what little color remained on it. Those were not Mingjue’s honey brown eyes, that was not Nie Mingjue. The man had twisted his lips into a different snarl, this one less familiar to Xichen but easy to recognize. It was the same snarl the Yiling Patriarch wore before he died, as he rained death over the four sects. The ghost’s eyes were fully red, like Wei Wuxain’s who was trying to hold his lover back.

What on earth was happening? How could Wei Wuxain’s lover look so much like Nie Mingjue? Was it a product of the demonic cultivation he so obviously practiced? Realizing he was in trouble and that he would- more than likely- lose this fight, Lan Xichen tried to crawl back from the alpha now free of Wei Wuxian’s useless arms.

Only to watch in marvel as Nie Huaisang knocked his attacker. He tries to thank the omega he has not spoken to for over a year, but his former rut partner eyes him with disgust. An indignant whine tries to leave his lips only to be replaced by a pained hiss. He is blindly assessing his injury when he hears it. Three words that send dread all over his body.

“ ....my nephew, Zewu-Jun.” Nephew! Nephew? Da-ge had a ...son? With...with Wangji’s mate? His brain runs wild as he tries to understand the reality of the situation, lost in his thoughts he blinked owlishly at the Ghost General’s approaching form.

Then, there is pain and he blissfully passes out. Ready to clean his mess another day.

Nie Huaisang stared down at his nephew's unconscious form, at the nephew he just knocked out with the back of Junjie’s stolen sword. He looks at Wei Wuxian’s pale face, at the tear tracks on his cheeks, and sniffs his acrid scent of distress; then his judging eyes land on Lan Xichen’s paralyzed body, and regrets not letting his nephew give sect leader Lan another punch.

Opening his fan, Huaisang approached the man he used to call ‘er-ge’ with a grimace. “Way to make a first impression on my nephew, Zewu-Jun.” The darkening bruise and the twisted line of Lan Xichen’s jaw should not cause satisfaction inside his chest, but his nephew did that! to one of the strongest alphas in the cultivation world. He is allowed to be a bit proud, gods know Da-ge would have been happy to see his son defend his mother.

Zewu-Jun tries to speak, but his words get overpowered by his hisses of pain and the cracking of his dislocated jawbone. Risking another look at his friend, he finds Wei Wuxian nestling Junjie’s head on his lap as he transfers a little of his meager spiritual energy to the boy. Looks like it is up to him to assist Lan Xichen. He glances at Wen Ning’s awkward stance and remembers the screams and the scent that still clings to Wei-ge like a rancid smell. Huiasang smirks. “Wen-Xiong, would you be so kind as to help Sect leader Lan with his jaw?”

With a shy smile, the fierce corpse approaches Zewu-Jun. It should not be funny, the way Xichen tries to back away from Wei Wuxian’s dead pseudo-brother, but Huaisang has to hide his smile behind his fan at the terrified look on Lan Xichen’s pained, bruised face. With a loud crack! and using perhaps a bit more strength than necessary, Wen Ning realigns Zewu-Jun’s jaw, only for the alpha to pass out straight into the chicken sh*t pile that was behind him.

“Let's take them inside, shall we?”

With struggling arms, he and Wei Wuxian carry Junjie back inside the house and lay him down, gently on his little bed. Then they dump Lan Xichen in a nearby chair.

“Now what?”

Wei Wuxian, for once without words and still processing the accusations screamed at him, shrugs and goes to sit next to Junjie.

Nie Huaisang fans small currents of air into his nephew's face, to cool him down. “I suppose we shall wait, then.”

Lan Wangji’s feet are cold even inside the lukewarm inside of the carriage. He does not wish to step outside and confront whatever is the noise that has made the carriage stop just a few hours before reaching HuaYuan. Lan Wangji is saving his energy to see Wei Ying, for the long and uncomfortable talk that is sure to follow their reunion. The driver is a skilled cultivator, he can deal with whatever it is.

He is sure of that until he hears what is unmistakably his son’s voice. Lan Wangji is out of the carriage faster than one can say ‘hi’.

“Sizhui.”

His son, dressed in a LanlingJin outer robe, turns from where he’d been arguing with the driver and grins. “A-Die! You are not in seclusion.”

“Mn.” Nods Lan Wangji, as he comes to embrace his son. “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?”

“JingYi, A-Ling, sect leader Jiang, and I were set to Qinghe, but a storm sent us out of the way.” Sizhui pouts. “I was trying to ask the driver to give me a ride to the next town. He was being very rude, A-Die.”

Hanguang-Jun can count with the fingers of his left hand the times Sizhui has acted as a truly spoiled omega, this is one of those rare occasions. His big eyes and pouty face were never something he could resist. In these rare situations, Sizhui always gets what he wants.

Golden eyes pine the driver down. “He rides with me to HuaYuan.”

Sizhui tilts his head to the side in a gesture he’d copied from Wei Ying and wonders, “HuaYuan? Why are you going there, A-Die?”

“Wei Ying.”

Sizhui’s smile is like the heavens parting to bestow their light upon Hanguang-Jun. “You found A-Niang! Quick let's go!”

“Your companions?”

Lan Sizhui looks bashfully to the ground, ashamed of having momentarily forgotten about his alphas. “The storm separated us, I was alone when I woke up. They must be around the forest somewhere.”

“Mn. Get inside, We’ll search for them on the way.”

Sizhui nods and rushes to get refuge from the cold night, but as he is halfway inside the carriage he halts and turns to ask his father with an apologetic smile. “DieDie, where are your shoes?”

Lan Wangji’s ears change to a very bright shade of red as he buries the tip of his socks on the moist earth. “Get inside.” He will absolutely not let his son know he left his shoes behind on his urge to reach Wei Ying before the rift between them grew bigger. He will never let Sizhui know his shoes, all embroidered by Wei Ying, were the first thing he took off the moment he thought Wei Ying no longer loved him. That he took them off so he could admire the work Wei Ying had done for him, to remind himself Wei Ying had loved him at least a little bit.

Lan Xichen wakes up with a less burning pain than the one that knocked him out. He wakes up twisted in a handmade chair and with his jawbone cracking every time he opens his mouth. Click, click, click.

“Where am I?”

A growl makes him whirl towards the brooding alpha glaring at him from the only bed in the house. In the clear morning light, he looks less like Mingjue and more like Wei Wuxian, especially in the shape of his cheekbones. Mismatched eyes burn holes into Xichen’s weary form.

“My home. Shut up. If you wake them, I’ll kill you.” The strange alpha whispers harshly. Xichen’s eyes finally register the sleeping forms of Nie Huaisang and Wei Wuxian, snuggled into the stranger’s belly. The scent of comfortable omega fills the house, Lan Xichen has the sudden feeling of being caught spying and moves his eyes away from the scene.

“You are not...his lover, right?”

A dirty blanket lands on his face. He deserved that one.

“My name,” snarls the alpha, as quietly as possible, “is Wang Junjie, and that was my mother you assaulted yesterday! You are only alive because uncle and mother asked me not to drag your sorry ass out of HuaYuan.”

Lan Xichen chuckled unamusedly. “Lucky me.” He licked his lips nervously and decided to risk asking another question. “Your father is Nie Mingjue, right?”

Junjie shrugs. “It would seem so.”

“Why did he never mention you? I was his sworn brother, I would have helped him raise you.”

Junjie growled back at him. “Like you helped the imp perpetuate his wrongdoings?”

Xichen blinked. “The imp?”

“Jin Guangyao. He found me and decided that I was worth imprisonment to do his every wish. He talked about you, you know. He sang your praises and giggled about every time you went to him in search of comfort after Nie Mingjue’s death. He bragged about how he killed my parents, threatened to do the same to me so I would work harder to survive.” Junjie looks down at his mother before scoffing at Xichen’s shocked face. “ I bet you would have allowed him to kill me if he mentioned I was the dangerous son of the Yiling Patriarch.”

“If you’d been truly innocent, I would not have let them harm you.”

Junjie smiled sharply at him, one of his big arms curled around the omegas drooling all over him. “Who decides who is innocent? You? The lies and half-truths you choose to believe? Ha! Don’t make me laugh.”

Lan Xichen frowned, his scent taking a displeased note. “You’ve certainly inherited your mother’s tongue.”

“Ah!” laughs Junjie, “Now I’m my mother’s son, right? Mere seconds ago I was the second coming of Nie Mingjue, there was so much hope in your eyes. Such pettiness, Sect leader Lan.”

Wei Wuxian made a sleepy sound in response to raising alpha pheromones in the air, and the line of Junie’s shoulders softened. “You are wrong, by the way.”

“Huh?”

“My tongue is not my mother’s. I got that from my baba. The one your sworn brother killed. Also, you are wrong about my A-Niang.”

Lan Xichen nearly rolls his eyes. He lost count of how many juniors had impulsively defended Wei Wuxian’s arrogant ways in front of him and his uncle over the past year. “How are you so sure about that?”

“You made your decisión about him a long time ago, whatever it was I’m a hundred percent sure is wrong. Whatever villain you believe him to be, that is not what my A-Niang is. Not unprovoked at least.” Junjie looked down at him. “Which reminds me, why are you here?”

“I came for answers on my brother’s behalf.”

Junjie snorted. “Yeah, that does not sound like the melancholic husband Wen Ning described.”

Lan Xichen raised an eyebrow. “You inquired about Wangji?”

“Yes, mother and uncle have been trying to convince me to live with them since they arrived. Surprisingly, A-Niang is the one being subtle about it. Uncle just plain told me my room was ready.”

“That does not sound like Nie Huaisang.”

Junjie’s smile stretched beyond the corners of his face, displaying his sharp canines. “And I suppose you know uncle soo well.”

Lan Xichen decided to, wisely, drop the conversation and focus his eyes on the chickens running in front of the window. Once Wei Wuxian woke up and gave a proper explanation, Xichen was going back home and back into seclusión, for it seemed he still had a lot to learn about himself and the world.

Lan Sizhui eyed the little farm with a smile and wondered if his little brother had already been subjected to their A-Niang’s unhealthy love for trying to plant potatoes. He wrapped his arm around his father’s and pulled him beyond the fence, straight to the door. Bating his nerves down, Sizhui clasped his father’s hand, placed his best smile on his face, and knocked on the wooden door.

Chapter 10

Chapter Text

Wang Junjie eyed his mother and uncle as they slept, he knows he is not being rational or logical for that matter, but his alpha has been tugging at his empty pack bonds ever since he learned the truth about his parentage. It is almost a painful pull inside his heart every time he looks at his mother’s face, at his uncle’s lonely scent; a thirst he can’t satisfy. His alpha howls and Junjie knows this is a battle he will lose. Swallowing hard, he made the first move, shaking slightly at his uncle’s shoulder until he woke up and looked at Junjie through groggy eyes.

“Xiao-Jun? What is it?”

Junjie swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing under his nervousness. “Can...hm. Can I have your wrist please?”

Half-asleep Nie Huaisang thrusts his slender wrist right under Junjie’s nose. His flowery scent saturates his nephew’s nostrils. Junjie’s inner alpha salivates at the smell. Delicately he grabs his uncle’s arm and prods for the scent gland with trembling fingers. At the first brush against the gland, Huaisang bolts awake and stares at his nephew with wide eyes. “Xiao-Jun?”

His nephew trembles under his eyes, his unsteady hands sending tremors up to Huaisang’s shoulder. “Xiao-Jun?” he repeats.

“Can-Can I scent you?” there is a strangled sound in place of his nephew's rough voice and Huaisang melts at the desperation, the insecurity on Junjie’s scent as he asks to be acknowledged as Huaisang’s familial alpha. His protector, his family, his pack.

The rusty bonds inside Huaisang bloom open in eagerness, they’d remained firmly closed since the moment Da-ge died. His omega trashing wildly against the back of Huaisang’s mind as it screamed in joy at the prospect of a new pack, of safety and an alpha to watch over them. Something he has not had in years, for even if he shared his heat with Jin Guangyao and Lan Xichen in a show of omega weakness and dependence he was never able to bask in the attention they provided for him. Always weary, afraid that his scent would reveal too much during the haze. Those were years of torture compared to the embarrassing company of his Da-ge who’d always remained at the edge of Huaisang’s nest, ready to provide for his every need, to deliver hugs, cuddles, and cold tea every time Huaisang as much as whined in distress.

His eyes cloud at the memory, and he smiles softly at his trembling nephew who still has a hand spasming around Huaisang’s wrist. His nephew whose only family had been ripped from him in a similar manner Da-ge had been ripped from Huaisang. His nephew whose barriers had stood tall despite the days they’d spent on his company, of the laughs they’d plucked out of him. Junjie who'd been afraid of his family, of their judgment as he had cried himself to sleep just the day before after confessing every terrible thing Jin Guangyao had forced him to do, as his distressed scent had sent Wei Wuxian on a rampage against the grove behind the farm.

His nephew who wants a family as much as he fears one, who is so afraid of taking one step wrong and yet so happy when despite their anger at his predicament they turned to hug and pepper kisses all over his tight frame. This young alpha that is terrified of f*cking it up with his -bit unstable- mother, that he’d gone for Huaisang first, that he decided to be vulnerable in front of the uncle he barely knows and for whom his alpha is clamoring.

“It will be my honor, A’ Jun.”

Almost reverently, Junie presses his nose to Huaisang’s wrist, and instead of breathing in, a tremulous flush of hot air lands against Huaisang’s scent gland. It carries the blunt of Junjie’s smell, his metallic scent twisting around Huaisang’s as the pack bond opens between them, a brittle thing that could break easily if any of them made the wrong move.

As the alpha, Junjie has to make the next move and yet he’s frozen on his spot as the new bond prods at him, its blinding light illuminating his darkened heart. A few tears land on Huaisang’s arm.

“It’s alright, A’ Jun, we can leave it here.”

But Junjie growls- a tiny sound resembling a lion cub’s first roar- and proceeds. His cheek pressing to Nie Huiasang’s scent gland as he releases his pheromones and they latch at the omega, their golden cores beating in resonance as they register the beginnings of a familial bond. Huaisang lets out a trembling gasp and digs his nails into the mattress at the sheer desire for family that bursts out of Junjie and slams into his little core.

Finally, Huaisang bares his neck and Junjie surges forward, his main scent gland rubbing against his uncles, their scents mixing and the pack bond firmly taking shape in the center of their golden cores. They are officially family. From this day forward Huaisang will know if his nephew is in danger, sick, or afraid. From today hence Junjie will know when his uncle requires care, when he is sad or in danger. Their heartbeats will forever echo in the back of each other’s core until the day they die.

Junjie cries on Huaisang’s shoulder as his alpha yells out in happiness, as it delights on the feeling of a pack member alive and warm in their arms. Huaisang allows himself a few tears as his fragile scent takes a hint of Junjie’s strongest one, from now on anyone who smells at him will know that the sect leader of QingheNie no longer stands alone.

It takes Junjie two days to find the courage to ask for Wei Wuxian’s wrist. It takes half a day after Wei Wuxian has bonded with Junjie for Huaisang to, bravely, present his wrist to a crying Wei Wuxian. The aftershocks -that feel like ice on burned flesh- rock through them till the morning of the day Lan XiChen shows up, it takes them so long to recover from the intensity of the bonding, to get used to it, to the raw emotions that can’t seem to stop rushing to the tips of their hearts, at the feelings they can no longer hide from each other.

It takes a few days, a few nights sleeping cuddled into each other under the ever-vigilant eyes of Wen Ning, for them to grasp the foundations of their little family.

Wei Wuxian wakes up not because of the cluck of the chickens or the chirping of birds, he wakes up due to a slam on his marriage bond with Lan Wangji that wrecks his core and has him bolting away from where he was nestled on Junjie’s arms. He sniffs the air, eyes landing immediately on Lan Xichen’s brooding face where Wen Ning is attempting to place a chunk of meat on the sect leader’s face to reduce the new bruise Junjie left behind after yet another semi-failed conversation between them and Nie Huaisang.

He relaxes a little bit, almost certain the jolt he felt was the product of a nightmare, Lan Wangji was back at the Cloud Recesses probably submitting his request for divorce. That must have been, thinks Wei Wuxian patting his chest and turning around to offer his son a wan smile in return for the questioning noise that had left Junjie’s lips; when there is a knock in the door, and a scent of honey Wei Wuxian knows all too well filters through the cracks on the doorframe.

Wei Wuxian bolts away from the bed, heart almost up to his throat as Lan Sizhui’s scent reaches his nose.

“A-Niang?” questions Junjie, carefully extracting himself from Huaisang’s iron grip- a safety measure to stop Junjie from maiming Xichen- and coming to place a big, calloused hand on Wei Wuxain’s shaking shoulder. Next to them, Lan Xichen has risen to his feet, his eyes square on the door. Both brothers-in-law share a long look before they are racing each other to the door, to be the first to lay down the truth they know -or imagine- into Lan Sizhui’s feet.

There is a strangled sound on his left and Wei Wuxian spares half a glance to see Junjie sitting above Lan Xichen before he wrenches the door open. His little radish is there, bated by the dying lights of the afternoon, his forehead ribbon is twisted and he shines brighter with the gold of LanlingJin draped over his slender frame.

Wei Wuxian beams. Until his nose caught a second scent, and his eyes turn to Lan Wangji’s chest. He staggers back as a heartwrenching sound moves past his lips and turns Sizhui’s smile into a frown. Wei Wuxian is not ready for this! He thought he had more time before Lan Zhan came to ask for his signature, before he came to break Wei Wuxian’s heart. Sizhui extends a hand towards him, ready to take Wei Wuxian’s shaking fingers when Wei Wuxian’s face collides with Junjie’s chest and hears a warning growl that sends shivers down Lan Xichen’s traumatized face.

Lan Sizhui takes one look at the seventeen-year-old alpha hiding Wei Wuxian into his chest and raises his hands in peace, elbowing his father to take a step back. His father does not move, golden eyes fixed on Junjie’s twisted face and mismatched eyes.

“So it is true.”

The scared whimper that leaves Wei Wuxain’s at his father’s voice makes both, Sizhui and Junjie, snarl at Lan Wangji. One with less intensity than the other. Despite it, Lan Wangji takes a step forwards and is greeted by a roar that sends spit flying into his face even as Junjie retreats from his advance with Wei Wuxian secure in his arms. As the doorframe clears, Lan Wangji tilts his head minutely at his brother sprawled on the ground with Nie Huaisang sitting atop of him.

“Brother.” He greets with one dirty sock past the threshold, ignoring the way Junjie seems to bristle at his disrespect.

“Wangji.” Cames Xichen muffled reply. “W’y're you here?”

“Wei Ying. I came for Wei Ying.”

There is a squeak as Wei Wuxain is tossed to Wen Ning’s expecting arms and then Lan Wangji has a face full of snarling Junjie. “Out of my house!”

Lan Wangji levels his stepson with his most unimpressed glare, he’s dealt with worst tempered alphas than the boy before him, and he is not going to let his own cowardice separate him from Wei Ying again. Lan Wangji plants his dirty socks firmly into the ground, squares his shoulders, and opens his mouth when Sizhui interrupts him.

“He means no offense,” bows Sizhui, his sweet scent aiming to disperse the tension that has clouded the small living room. “He is just eager to see A-Niang.”

Junjie scoffs dismissively, his aggressive standing losing strength as he eyes Sizhui up and down. “A-Niang does not want to see him. He is not welcome here...little Lan.”

Sizhui bites his tongue at his brother’s disrespect and places his best imitation of Lan Xichen’s smile on his face. “A-Die means no harm, he just wishes to talk.”

Junjie spits at Lan Wangji’s feet. “And does he need a little omega to be his voice? Is he that much of a coward?”

Lan Wangji’s deep warning growl shakes Wei Wuxian out of his stupor and he runs to stand between his little chicken and his little radish, hand firmly closed around Junjie’s forearm.

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, forgive him, he is just a kid, he does not know to whom he is speaking.”

Junjie snatches his arm away and raises his chin at the father and son duo before him, the duo his A-Niang has been moping about recently, the duo whose visage had sent apprehension through the bond he shares with his A-Niang. As far as Junjie is concerned no matter what wonders his A-Niang speaks of them or how caring this Lan Sizhui is, they are not coming near Wei Wuxian until Junjie deems them worthy of it.

“I know to whom I’m speaking, the worthless alpha that sends his brother to hit sense into his pregnant omega!” He moves around Wei Wuxian and places a finger on Lan Wangji’s chest. “You are not welcome here, you are not fit to be my mother’s husband!”

“Junjie!” screeches Wei Wuxian, pulling at his sleeve and sending panicked looks to Lan Sizhui, who despite being on the defensive a moment ago now has relaxed as he stares at his little brother’s face, at the way he stands ready for anything, and knows this is a test his father must pass if he ever wants to be near Wei Wuxian again. The Yiling patriarch all but pleads with those big silver eyes of his for Sizhui to step forward before there is a territorial fight in the middle of the living room, but A’ Yuan wisely steps aside with a little, almost unperceptive nod to Junjie.

Then Lan Wangji falls to his knees, much to the surprise of the room, and bows deeply before Wei Wuxian and his son.

Wei Wuxian’s heart stops.

Nie Huaisang fans small currents of air into his nephew's face, to cool him down. “I suppose we shall wait, then.”

Whatever was going to be Wei Wuxian’s replay gets lost in the sudden attack of retching that has him moving away from Junjie’s side and straight into an empty basket.

“A’ Xian!” exclaims Nie Huaisang as he runs towards his packmate, sending a dirty glare to Xichen’s slack, twisted face. “Are you alright? Did Lan Xichen hurt you? Where are you injured? Wen Ning, come here!”

Wei Wuxian waves a hand as he continues to retch inside the basket, his stomach fighting against the urge to spill the little meal Junjie cooked for them. Finally, he emerges from the basket, face red and gasping for air. He gives Huaisang a trembling upturn of lips. “Mu-Must be the...the adrenaline catching up. I’ll be fine.” He dismisses. But much to his dismay Nie Huaisang ignores him and places him straight into Wen Ning’s chest.

“Check him.”

Wen Ning silently prods at Wei Wuxian’s squirming body and exhales. “I cannot find anything else aside from the bruises on his collarbones, it must truly be the shock going out of him, Sect leader Nie.”

Wei Wuxian beams with his hands crossed over his chest and a childish put. “See, A’ Sang, I Told you so!”

“However,” interrupts Wen Ning. “If sect leader would be so kind as to use his spiritual energy to make sure of it.”

Nie Huaisang nods. “Tell me what to do.”

Under Wen Ning’s gentle instructions Huaisang leads his energy to prod at Wei Wuxian’s tense meridians, and scan the innermost parts of his friend's body. There seems to be nothing wrong until…

“W-Wen-Xiong?”

“Hm?”

“There is a...a knot in A’ Xian's belly!”

Wei Wuxian jumps away from Nie Huaisang’s fingers and prods at his midsection. “I feel nothing! Huaisang, stop making up things!”

“I’m not making it up! There is a knot in there!”

“There's not!”

“There is!”

“Ahem,” cuts Wen Ning. “Can you describe the knot, please, sect leader Nie?”

Huaisang bobs his head up and down so fast his topknot goes a little askew. "It’s a tight spot, just about…here!” He circles his finger around Wei Wuxian’s belly and stops in a spot just below his belly button, “It is warm and pulsing and icky.”

If he could, Wen Ning would raise an eyebrow. “Icky?”

“Icky! As it something would bite me if I reached for it.”

Wen Ning makes a noncommittal sound and grabs Wei Wuxian’s wrist, placings his scent glad under his half-working nose, and inhales deeply till the point if he’d been human his lugs would pop. A saccharine smell reaches his dead nostrils, well hidden under the stress that had clouded Wei Wuxian’s scent the past few days and that is still to fully dissolve.

“Congratulations, Wei-Xiong, you are pregnant.” Deadpans Wen Ning, then to Nie Huaisang. “How big was the knot you felt?”

Nie Huaisang makes a tiny space between his thumb and index, staring owlishly at his packmate's flat belly.

“About a month or so, if sect leader’s Nie measurements are to be trusted. Congratulations Wei-Xiong!”

Wei Wuxian turns as white as Lan Xichen’s robes. Not again, please. “Pregnant?! No, no, no, no! You are very wrong! It is not possible!”

Wen Ning tilts his head to the side. “Everyday right, Wei-Xiong?”

Wei Wuxian goes red. “But- But I’ve been married for a year! It would not have taken so suddenly, right?!”

“Perhaps,” speculates Wen Ning, as Wei Wuxian reaches to take Nie Huaisang’s hand in comfort. “It did not happen before because your golden core was too weak to handle the intensity of Hanguang-Jun's dual cultivation. Now that it is stronger it can handle nurturing for a new life, perhaps its renewed strength is also the reason your memories finally came back.”

Wei Wuxian falls flat into the floor, his back digging against a loose screw. For f*cks sake he can’t be pregnant by a man that is going to leave him, not again! Wei Wuxian lets out a tiny, high-pitched wail that awakes Junjie from his slumber faster than a tornado ever could, an alpha answering to its mother's distress.

“A-Niang? What… Did he come near you again?” roars Junjie struggling to stand up from the bed, fist clenched and ready to send Lan Xichen to the afterlife if he is responsible for Wei Wuxian’s distressed state, again. At the sound of his voice, Wei Wuxian launches himself at Junjie’s unprotected belly and hides his teary face against it.

“A-Niang? What's wrong?”

Nie Huaisang clears his throat. “It appears he is pregnant.”

Junjie opens and closes his mouth several times in a row. “Who’s pregnant?”

“Me!” wails Wei Wuxian. “Why is it always me!”

Junjie’s entire body goes rigid, his eyes, big as saucers, connect with his uncle’s amused ones, searching for signs of a joke. When there is nothing else but the sound of his A-Niang’s crying, Junjie allows himself to freak out a little. He’s just found out he has a mother for f*cks sake, and that his mother has another son (adopted) and older than Junjie. Junjie can play the part of a sh*tty little brother, but he is not ready whatsoever to be a role model for some toddler that is going to be spewed out of his A-Niang’s body. He is not ready for an expanding pack!

His eyes roll to the back of his head and he lands straight back into the pillow he'd just abandoned.

Pregnant, pregnant, pregnantpregnatnpregnant, Wei Ying is pregnant.

Lan Wangji allows his knees to give under the weight of his conscience and bows as deep as he’s able to Wei Ying, and to the boy whose cheekbones look so much like the ones on Wei Ying’s original. To know the child Wei Ying is currently carrying will never have those cheekbones.

He bows until the tip of his forehead ribbon contacts with the grime in the floor and speaks, for once praying he can get the exact words out of his mouth.

“Wangji understands he is not worthy of forgiveness for having made his omega feel unsafe and uncertain inside the place he’d come to call home. Wangji understands if Wei Ying would like to be free of this failure, as Wangji reacted and made assumptions in regards to Wei Ying’s persona, thus breaking the promise he made on the day you did Wangji the honor of being his omega.” There is a shaking sound as Hanguang-Jun takes a breath. “Wangji understands now why Wei Ying had the urge to leave as soon as possible and apologizes for not listening before. Wangji apologizes for having to learn the truth from the words of an outsider rather than from the lips of the husband he refused to listen to. I am willing to do anything in my power, anything that is asked of me to earn the forgiveness of the man I love and that I have, against my better judgment, let down.”

Finally, Lan Wangji raises his eyes to meet Junjie’s unmoved ones and declares. “However, this one had no idea about Wei Ying’s condition, and neither did he send his brother to harm Wei Ying. Wei Ying, I would never condone you being harmed, brother should have considered that before acting against you.”

Lan Xichen makes a strangled sound from where he is buried underneath Nie Huaisang. “Wangji, Wangji get up, this is not solely your fault!” At the same time, Wei Wuxian attempts to crash into Lan Wangji’s chest, tears falling down his cheeks- Wangji frowns, it was not his intention to make Wei Ying cry- only to be retained by Junjie’s arm clamping around his waist.

Lan Wangi remains kneeling under the judging stare of Wei Ying’s son, Wei Ying’s family alpha- so painfully obvious by the new smell mixing with his husband's scent- who after a few minutes finally delivers his judgment. “Get out.”

Numbness clouds Lan Wangji’s mind as he stands up and goes outside, the fresh wind of the first hours of the night brushing against the tears he did not he’d been shedding. His feet carry him to the edge of the porch from where his alpha refuses to move and demands to go back inside, to disregard whatever authority that young alpha thought he had over Wei Ying, but he stays rooted on his spot; fighting to regain to control, to accept Wei Ying’s family has rejected him. To accept that, through whatever circ*mstances, he’d been found unworthy, that his heartfelt words rang fake inside Wei Ying’s son's head.

“Would you know,” smirked Wang Junjie ignoring his A-Niang indignant screams and the glare Lan Sizhui was sending his way, “he actually left. Ha, I thought he was going to fight back, his smell was all over the place.”

With a chuckle, he nodded to Sizhui. “Little Lan, be a dear and tell him he can come in.”

Sizhui snarled softly at him. “I am older than you, Junjie.”

Junjie shrugged, hands drawing calming circles on Wei Wuxian’s back as the omega finally understood it had all been a test for Hanguang-Jun. “You are a head shorter than me, little Lan.”

Sizhui went after his father with an exasperated look on his face. Junjie nuzzled against his Wei Wuxian’s neck. “I don’t like him, but he seems to care a lot for you.” He placed a peck on his mother’s forehead and smiled showing his canines. “He makes you cry again, I’ll punch a hole through his face.”

Wei Wuxian let out a watery laugh and ran straight out of the door, jumping into the arms of a dumbfounded Lan Wangji. “Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan you’re not going to divorce me, are you?!”

“Wei Ying,” sags Lan Wangji, burying his nose on the crown of his husband's head. “I will never let Wei Ying go again unless he asks me. Wei Ying is my heart, my life, my home.”

“Lan Zhan! My poor heart! Sizhui tell your A-Die to be kind to me after so long apart! Sizhui why are you laughing? Sizhui?”

And poor Lan Sizhui had dissolved into a fit of hysterical laughter as the tension that had kept him moving for the past days left his body and had him falling to the floor and into the arms of his little sh*t of a brother.

“You alright there, little Lan?”

“How long are you going to call me that?”

“Until I get to see what it is that A-Niang sees in you that made him sing your...my...new brother’s praises.”

Sizhui hums, voice breaking with the aftershocks of laughter. “You’ve spent too much time with A-Niang. You sound like him. I like it. Didi.”

Junjie removed his arms and lets Sizhui fall to the ground, “Oh, hell no, no. Jun-Xiong is a better start, little Lan.”

“But didi, ” smiles Sizhui, “we share the same mother and as your senior is it only fair I address you properly, didi.”

Junjie and Sizhui’s bickering gets interrupted by the sound of wood cracking and both turn to stare at where Lan Wangji had broken the railing of Junjie’s porch in his urge to press Wei Wuxian to the floor and devour his mouth. Sizhui goes red all over his face and covers his eyes at his parents' shameless display.

Junjie has a moment to process the situation before tackling Lan Wangji into the mud, separating him from Wei Wuxian’s lips with a disgusting wet sound that would haunt him for the years to come.

“Junjie! Don’t be so mean to Hanguang-Jun, we were done talking and he made my poor heart burst in joy, it is natural we make up for all the everyday’s we missed! Junjie, don't send him to the pigsh*t pile! Junjieeee!”

The end

Chapter 11: Epilogue part 1

Chapter Text

The moment Wang Junjie stepped inside the Unclean Realm, he was welcomed by the sound of swords clattering into the ground and wide-eyed stares fixed on his face. He scratched behind his neck and wisely took shelter behind his mother’s smaller frame. Junjie sent an uncertain look to his uncle.

“Is...everything alright?”

Nie Huainsag covered half of his face with his fan and glared at his disciples, the ones old enough to remember Da-ge’s face, for disturbing his nephew. “Of course, of course, it's just...well…”

A warm hand circled Junjie's bicep, and the boy turned his mismatched eyes to his A’ Niang.

“You look too much like your father at first glance, Xiao-Jun.”

“Oh... Do I really look like him?”

This time it was the excluded Lan Xichen who answered. “ You share many of his features, though your mother comes through when you are angry.”

Granted, it was the appropriate answer but it was not coming from someone Junjie wanted to hear ever again, a growl got stuck on his throat as his uncle took hold of his other arm and dragged him forward alongside his A’ Niang.

“Ignore him, though, he does speak the truth. You have many Nie features. Here.” Huaisang placed Junjie’s fingers on his face. “Da-ge and I shared the same nose and cheekbones, we took that from our father. You have them too, a bit softened by Wei- ge’s features, but alongside other tiny details it would be impossible to hide you are Nie and Da-ge’s.”

Wei Wuxian nuzzled into Junjie’s shoulder, a comforting gesture that Junjie had seen many omegas do to their children over the years, so different from his Baba’s gentle head pats and squeezes, but equally effective. “Does it really bother you that much, A’ Jun?”

Junjie smiles softly at his mother. “No. It's just, growing up people would often remark how different I was from Baba. I’ve never heard someone telling me I look like my parents before, that's all.”

His mother and uncle squeezed his hands, but it was Sizhui who hugged him and embraced him with his soft honey scent that Junjie had begun to associate with another pack member. Startled, he places a hand over Sizhui’s arms and gives his stepbrother a thankful touch. Fingers circling the older omega’s wrist. Then there are soft words murmured in between his shoulder blades, quiet enough to remain a secret between Sizhui and Junjie. A hand in friendship.

“If you ever wish to talk, you are always welcome to come to me, Didi . I may be able to offer advice in regards to family matters if you find yourself in need.”

With the way Hanguang-Jun and A’ Niang treat Sizhui it's almost easy to forget the little Lan is adopted, that like Junjie he resembles someone else than the father that raised him. That if Junjie decides to open up, to remain a permanent fixture on A’ Niang’s and uncle’s life, Sizhui could be one of the few people to understand his struggles for he had gone through similar doubts across his life.

In an impulse that Junjie fully blames on his A’ Niang’s influence, he rubs his cheek into Sizhui’s temple. A thank you. A perhaps in a different life we could have been brothers raised together and toddled the same path. Sizhui lets out a surprised purr of happiness and smiles widely at Junjie.

He smiles just like A’ Niang. Junjie hopes his smile looks like that as well.

Unbenstknow to the step-siblings, Wei Wuxian was watching them interact with a grin as wide as the world, eyes bright and hands digging into Lan Wangji’s. His pups were getting along. Which was all he’d ever dreamed during those years at the burial mounds while he raised A’Yuan and let him chew on Chengqin. He’d dreamed of both his sons laughing and growing together under his watchful eyes. Of course, in those fantasies, they were living at the Unclean Realm with Nie Mingjue.

He had failed them both, of course, and they had grown up into fine young men without his help, but Wei Wuxian still hoped that they would allow him to embrace them and cuddle them as he’d dreamed of doing all those years ago. He hoped to be able to watch them turning into adults and getting their own families, he hoped they allowed him just to be there and watch them smile. It was all he’d ever wanted.

Lan Zhan drew him against his chest and kissed Wei Wuxian’s exposed neck, sending him a wave of peace through their marital bond. “Wei Ying,” he whispered, “all will be well.”

One of Lan Zhan’s big hands traveled to rest on Wei Wuxian’s still flat belly, his husband was right, from now on all would be well. They would have a big, complex family; but as long as they loved one another, as long as their pack was strong, they would be fine.

A scream drew the couple from their loving stares and made Wei Wuxian’s neck hairs raise. His omega howled inside of him at the sight that greeted his eyes when he turned around and wished he had not.

His Junjie was tangled on Zidan’s purple fury and he was bleeding.

Ripping his arms away from his husband, Wei Wuxian rushed forward all red eyes and dark shadows. The Yiling patriarch in all his glory and with one single objective in mind, to defend his pups, for Sizhui lay on the ground eyes wide and his acrid terrified scent fueled the rage inside Wei Wuxian’s heart.

Nie Huaisang hid his soft smile behind his fan as he stared at his nephew bonding with Lan Sizhui, at his nephew that was finally home where Huiasang could keep him safe from now on.

“Sect leader. Welcome back, I see you were successful.”

Huaisang hummed, clever eyes moving to his right hand’s face. “I was. Are his chambers ready?”

“Yes, sect leader, next to your and Wei- Gongzi’s rooms.”

“Great. Tell the cook to prepare some chilly snacks. Junjie has seemed to inherit Wei-ge’s taste for burning his mouth.”

Nie Yong made a small bow. “Yes, Sect leader.” But remained in his place despite the obvious dismissal that was Nie Huaisang turning his attention back to Junjie.

“Is something the matter?”

“Sect leader Jiang, his nephew, and Lan Jingyi are here.”

Nie Yong had barely finished speaking when Huaisang saw-- from the corner of his eye-- the sizzling serpentine form of Zidan twisting towards his nephew.

The sect leader had enough time to scream a warning before Zidan collided with Junjie’s body and all hell broke loose.

As it seemed to be usual these days, two sect leaders and a disciple arrived at the gates of the Unclean Realm. Except this trio differed quite a bit from the previous sect leader that showed his face in front of Nie Yong. For starters, they were covered in mud, grass and drenched to their very souls.

Sect leader Jin was the first one to speak, moving in a flash to demand answers. Hands tight against an obviously Lan-styled sword. “Sizhui! Is Lan Sizhui here?!”

Nie Yong raises an eyebrow. “The only Lans that have come this way are the twin jades, sect leader Jin.” He eyes the little group with an unimpressed eye. After all, he’s been subjected to Nie Huaisang for decades. “Would you like some rooms to freshen yourselves? Dinner, perhaps?”

Jiang Wanyin nods. “That would be appreciated.”

“But Jiujiu! What about Sizhui? He must still be lost in the forest!”

“You’ll be of no use to him if you get sick, follow the servants and clean yourself. Afterward, we’ll see what to do about your omega.” Then he turns to Nie Yong with a scowl. “Have you heard any news about Wei Wuxian?”

Nie Yong tilts his head in his best imitation of Nie Huaisang’s birds and denies softly. “I’m afraid not, sect leader Jiang. However, if you wait for my sect leader’s return, he may be of help to whatever seems to be your predicament.”

Jian Wanyin makes a small growl-like sound. “Very well, I’ll wait a few days.”

In the end, they waited less than two days before Nie Huaisang returned to Qinghe. They were in the middle of tea, and Jin Ling and Jingyi were in the middle of a heated argument about triads when a servant came to inform them that Nie Huaisang was back.

As one, the three alphas stood up and made their way to the courtyard where Jian Wanyin would demand answers from his old friend. Except, when they arrive at the courtyard is to witness a scene that steals the breath out of Jin Ling’s lungs, and brings tears to his eyes as he stumbles backward into an equally shocked JingYi.

Lan Sizhui is there, still draped on Jin Ling’s outer robe...cuddling and scenting a tall unknown alpha. Sizhui smiles at the alpha and Jin Ling feels his heart break in two. Next to him, JingYi lets out a pained noise so close to a whimper.

How could this happen? They had only been apart a few days, who was this alpha? With what right was he so close to his betrothed?

The alpha moves his face close to Sizhui, their cheeks resting together. Sizhui purrs, Jin Ling knows that sound, it's the little noise that Sizhu makes when he is trying to get a kiss from Jin Ling, is the sound he uses when he is happy and trusts an alpha. It's the sound of a fertile omega feeling safe, a sound Sizhui would never have done if it was not in the presence of Jingy and Jin Ling, of the men that were courting him.

WHY!? is the scream of denial going over their heads.

Sizhui’s sword falls from JingYi’s numb fingertips.

A sense of brokenness invades the bond between uncle and nephew.

Jiang Wanyin turns to see devastation painted all over his nephew’s, his child’s face. Red clouds his vision, and without thinking it he summons Zidan to life in a shower of purple lightning that finally takes the young alphas' gaze from the heartbreaking scene.

A dangerous growl escapes Jiang Cheng’s throat as he raises Zidan, and points it at the alpha that dared to take Jin Ling’s mate away from him. He does take a certain pleasure in the way the alpha has to push Sizhui to the ground before Zidan hits its mark and opens a river of red on the stranger’s chest.

He raises the whip again, determined to bring as much pain to Lan Sizhui as he has brought his nephew when a cloud of dark miasma and red eyes crashes into his chest and makes him take some involuntary steps back. Snarling he raises his eyes, Zidan at the ready. Only to halt at the furious face of Wei Wuxian staring back at him, Chengqing raised between them.

“What are you doing?” roars Wei Wuxian, and for the first time in more than a decade, Jiang Wanyin is standing face to face with the Yiling Patriarch. This time, he would not back down.

“Defending my nephew. Get out of my way.”

“No.”

There are angry thunders in both of their voices, the tension between them drowns the rest of the sounds around them. They are just a protective alpha and a protective omega quarreling for the sake of their loved ones.

Jiang Cheng grinds his teeth. He can see Lan Sizhui and Nie Huaisang tending and crying over the downed alpha, he can see the stranger still moving. He twists Zidan and strikes at Wei Wuxian’s feet.

“Get. Out. Of. My. Way.”

Wei Wuxian raises Chenqing to his lips, ready for battle. For the life of him, Jiang Cheng can't understand why his brother is defending some stranger rather than seek justice for Jin Ling’s broken heart. Can't Wei Wuxian see the pain in Jin Ling’s eyes? Is he blind? Jin Ling was never meant to have such an expression on his face, and Wanyin will kill anyone who has dared to place it there.

Jian Cheng takes a step forward, Wei Wuxian plants his feet on the ground. Red eyes meet electrical purple. Weapons are drawn. Then a scream breaks through them, loud and concerned it takes Wei Wuxian’s attention away. It’s Lan Wangji’s voice. As always.

“Wei Ying!”

Jiang Wanyin moves to take a step but Jin Ling’s hands close around his arm. He turns his furious eyes to his child’s broken eyes.

“Jiu jiu, it's not worth it. Jiu jiu, please calm down.”

Jin Ling may have been aiming to cool him down, but here is the thing, Jin Ling is worth everything. And if he looks at Wanyin with Yanli’s eyes looking like his world has been destroyed, like his jiejie had looked before she died; then Jiang Wanyin will paint the world red for him, because of him.

He surged forward, pushing Wei Wuxian aside. Zidan swirls in the air ready for a final strike when strong arms clamp around him and a fist surrounded by shadows digs into his belly, expelling the air from his lungs.

“Jiu Jiu!”

Jiang Cheng falls to the floor gasping for air, Wei Wuxian comes to stand before him all snarls and bared fangs.

“Stay away from my sons.” Hisses the Yiling Patriarch and a ringing fills Jiang Wanyin’s ears.

He’d always said he’d do anything for Jin Ling, he never said he'd do the right things.

As Jiang Cheng tries to catch his breath, he is certain of one thing: all the progress Wei Wuxian and him had made over the year was now officially lost, and this time he only had his impulsivity to blame.

The next thing he knows, as Jin Ling is helping him stand up a furious Nie Huaisang descends upon them. His hands covered in blood and his raging scent tickled Wanyin’s nose.

“Get out!” Huaisang screams and a bunch of Nie disciples surround them, their hands were dangerously close to their sabers.

“Sect leader Nie, why are we being thrown out when it was not us who were being dishonorable...” Begins JingYi, but is interrupted by Nie Huaisang’s growl.

“He dares to harm my nephew while I’m in my house! To spill my blood without a cause and you are talking to me about honor?! GET OUT!”

Then, it happened. Huaisang let out a distressed, high-pitched wail. An omega cultivator’s most dangerous weapon, a call of distress for his pack to save him from danger. It was a sound reserved only for when omegas felt their lives were at risk, that they could not handle the danger and needed their pack, their alphas to protect them. It was said the last omega who used it had been Qingheng-Jun before he died. A last-minute repentance that to this day still echoed in the bones of Lan Qiren and the twin jades, for they had failed to save him from death.

In seconds, the entirety of QingheNie’s alphas were surrounding them, hundreds of angry snarls came to answer Huaisang’s call. The ruling omega of QingheNie hid behind his fan and pointed a bloodied finger at them.

“Get them out here.”

Next thing they knew, they were unceremoniously dragged out of the Unclean realm by dozens of angry alphas. Without a single opportunity to speak for themselves or to get answers from Sizhui for that matter.

All because Junjie's blood was staining Nie Huaisang’s hands as Nie Mingjue’s had done all those years ago. And this time Huaisang did have the power to expel those who harmed his family.

Nie Huaisang, Lan Wangji, and Lan Xichen had immediately rushed to the harmed youths. Xichen’s calloused hands tore a piece of his robe he then pressed into Junjie’s bleeding wound. Everything aside, he would not let another piece of Mingjue be taken away in the midst of chaos. Junjie took a raspy breath, his own hands now red-stained as he made pressure on his injury. He glared at Xichen.

“I..don’t... owe you sh*t.”

Xichen almost smiled. “I know.”

Huaisang fell to his knees next to Junjie, hands trembling and hovering above the open wound on his nephew’s lower chest. “Xiao-Jun, Xiao-Jun you’ll be fine, the healers will be here any second.”

Junjie reached blindly for his uncle’s hand and squeezed, the attempt of a smile twisting his features. “I...really hate cultivators.”

Huaisang swallowed a wail and finally placed his hands on Junjie’s wound, helping Xichen to stop the blood flow.

With panic in his eyes, Lan Wangji rushed to his fallen son and helped him stand up from where Junjie had pushed him out of danger. “Sizhui, are you harmed?”

The young omega’s eyes were wide in shock and his ankle was twisted from his rough landing, but as soon as he heard his father’s words he launched himself towards his didi . Towards the heavy scent of blood that clouded the air, only to be held back by his father’s strong arms.

“A’ Die! Let me go! Junjie was injured...by.. by…” Slowly, as realization dawned upon him, Sizhui turned his gaze towards Jin Ling’s figure, half-hidden by the powerful forms of Wei Wuxian and Jiang Wanyin. His betrothed was just standing there, his eyes fixed on Sizhui, and they were echoing the same betrayal that at that moment rang deep into Sizhui’s soul.

Just what on earth had happened? What was happening? Why had Jin Lin allowed his uncle to harm Sizhui’s didi? Why was he looking so...angry and...sad?”

The next few minutes passed in a blur for Sizhui’s shocked brain. He remembers Junjie coughing a lot of blood, A’ Die screaming, sect leader Nie screaming, and finally, watching-- as in a dream-- both his betrothed and intended getting kicked out alongside Sect leader Jiang.

Then Sizhui’s gaze fell upon his didi’s pale face, the face of the boy that had woken up sides of their A’ Niang they hadn’t known existed, the young man he could see himself calling brother in the future. The boy that shared their A’ Niang’s smile and that now was pale and bleeding on the floor surrounded by the wails of their mother.

Jin Ling’s angry eyes flared on his mind, Jingyi’s glare and clenched fists.

His vision went black and Lan Sizhui fell into the ground like a stringless puppet.

Chapter 12: Epilogue part 2

Chapter Text

There was not much blood, but the echo of Mingjue’s screams still rang inside Huaisang’s ears as he clutched his Da-ge’s prone body to his chest. He’d always been fond of crying in front of Da-ge to get what he wanted, it made the man uncomfortable and forced him to awkwardly pat Huaisang’s head, or his shoulders, or --in the best scenarios-- look at the young omega with soft eyes and leave him to laze around. Right now, he wished the tears falling from his cheeks had the power to revive his brother.

This time as Huaisang’s wails grew louder and his tears stained Mingjue’s disheveled hair, no arm rose to comfort him, no words to stop his tears or to bribe him with new fans if he completed a day of training came to his ears. All that Huaisang had been left with were screams and blood. His fingers dug into the cooling arms of his brother and he screamed, an anguished sound the likes of which had not been heard in the Unclean Realm for centuries, that scared the birds inside their cages.

“Da-ge! Please! Please! I won’t make you mad anymore! Please wake up! Please, scold me, scream at me! Anything! Please...Please.”

He rocked Nie Mingjue’s body as he sobbed, his brother’s face buried on his chest as he begged all above for this to be a nightmare, that he would wake up with the screams of his brother, with his rough hands shaking him awake and dragging him to breakfast.

He prayed, and hoped; but the sharp sting on his bicep and the blood flowing from the wound made by Baxia made it all so real, so painful it was too much for the omega’s poor heart.

His brother could not be dead, Da-ge’s blood could not be staining his hands and robes. The last memory he had of his brother could not be Mingjue’s face twisted in fury and regret; it could not be the horror on Mingjue’s eyes at the sight of Huaisang’s blood on Baxia’s edge. It could not be.

Da-ge could not die, his brother was supposed to be there all of Huaisang’s life, to laugh with him while drunk, and to scold him for being an imperfect Nie. Mingjue had been the pillar Huaisang had built his life around and now...now as Mingjue’s body grew colder and Huaisang’s tears and sobs tore his soul apart, as the shattered fragments of their familial bond stabbed Huaisangs heart, everything in the world seemed to have lost its meaning.

What was the sunlight worth if Da-ge was not there to see it? Why should Huaisang paint beautiful sceneries when Da-ge would no longer be there to hang them at his study with a proud if annoyed look. Why? Why had his brother died! Why!

The blood on his hands dried and seemed to paralyze his hands, permanently gluing them to Mingjue’s strengthless shoulders. A waft of something disgusting reached his nose and he realized, with a panicking heart, that death had already begun to eat Mingjue’s scent away.

“No!Nooo!” he cried, burying his nose into Mingjue’s neck, where his metallic scent remained alive, Huaisang would never move from there, from the last comfort, from his last hope this had not happened at all.

Gentle hands tried to pry him away from Mingjue after what felt like an eternity and when Huaisang fought back, kicking and screaming like a feral omega, a second pair of hands joined. Strongly, mercilessly he was pried away from Da-ge. He was forced to see his body slump in the cold stone of the courtyard and be covered with a withe blanket, he was dragged away when all he wanted was to stay inside those dead arms and die there!

Nie Huaisang screamed all the way to the healers' pavilion, where he was put to sleep while his mind processed the shock. A suggestion he later found out had been Jin Guangyao’s idea. And while he slept, his brother’s body had been stolen away, his Da-ge had been butchered and all because Huaisang had become a useless pile of tears the moment Da-ge had died, all because Huaisang was...weak.

There was so much more blood this time, Huaisang’s wrists and hands were soaked on it, on the fabric pressed against Junjie’s wound. His nephew was laying on the cold stone of the courtyard Mingjue had scolded Huaisang for the last time, his nephew was laying on a small pool of blood.

His nephew was dying because of a Jin.

His nephew could not die, not when Huaisang had found a family again in those mismatched eyes and sharp smiles. Not when he was the last thing, tangible andthere, that he had of his Da-ge.

Nie Huaisang could not be left clutching a second corpse inside the unclean realm, he could not. He raised his desperate eyes to Wei Wuxian's anguished ones and knew, right then and there, that if Junjie died Jiang Wanyin would die by Wei Wuxian’s hand; and oh, Nie Huaisang would be more than happy to help.

It took Junjie a week to wake up. An agonizing week, where Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang never strayed from his bed; but the soft conversations held over his unconscious form and the reactions to his waking will have to be discussed at a later date, for right now we should focus on the warring emotions of Lan Sizhui as he stares at his fiances with a frown worth Wen Qing’s worst outbursts.

“You thought what...gongzis?” There was a snarl hidden somewhere in Sizhui’s voice, a sharp sound that contrasted with the blank mask upon his face.

Both alphas had the decency to look away from Sizhui’s burning eyes, heads lowered down in shame. Lan Sizhui stood up with one swift, abrupt movement and scoffed.

“I can not believe this! I told you!” The omega pointed a finger at them as his face twisted in an un-lan snarl, a frown of the lips that reminded the alphas of an angry Zewu-jun. “I told you I was looking for my A’ Niang! Who was looking for my brother! I told you! I all but spelled it right in front of you before we got caught in that storm and the first thing you think when you see me again with an unfamiliar person is thatI’M CHEATING ON YOU?!”

Sizhui lowered his arms and stared down at his...friends. “If that is how low, how easy you think I am, then, considering all that has transpired, it’s better for our marriage arrangement to be nullified.”

“Sizhui! No!”

“Young mistress is right! Don’t be so rash, Sizhui!”

“Rash!” snarled Sizhui, fists clenching at his sides. “Tell that to sect leader Jiang! Tell that to my brother who is still laying in bed unconscious and in pain! I..” His voice went down a little, eyes frail as he looked at the faces of the men he had been ready to spend the rest of his life with. “I can’t believe you two. You haven’t even apologized to my mother or sect leader Nie. You haven’t asked about my brother since I stepped inside and you have the nerve to still try and make me marry you? Honestly, what a fool I have been.”

“Sizhui, wait!”

But it was too late, the omega had left their quarters at the inn on the edges of Qinghe where they had taken refuge after being thrown out of Nie territory.

Jingyi crossed a look with Jin Ling, disbelief painted all over their faces even when they knew they had been at the wrong, that they had overreacted, that their insecurities had led to a disaster; they had still hoped to resolve this matter when Sizhui came to visit, quite suddenly, this morning.

They had forgotten how, like Lan Qiren and Lan Wangji, Sizhui was prone to decisive judgment and quick words that left no room for excuses. They had forgotten how to use their tongues at the pale and gaunt look on their beloved’s face, guilt had stolen their words for they knew that it was partially their fault that Sizhui looked so haggard and run through, so betrayed.

How on earth were they going to fix this?

“...iang”

The whisper made Wei Wuxian jump out of his chair and straight to his Junjie’s bedside, quick hands placing a wet rag on his son’s face to clean away the sweat. “A’ Jun, little one, I’m here. Can you open your eyes for me?”

“Not...little.”

Junjie’s eyes fluttered open, still half-closed from the fever and blood loss. Wei Wuxian’s lips parted in a wide grin and he surged to place kisses all over Junjie’s face. “A’ Jun! A’ Jun, you are awake.”

Then as if he had remembered something Wuxian grabbed one of the discarded pillows and threw it straight at Huaisang’s face. “A’ Sang! He is awake!”

Nor in his first or second life had Wei Wuxian seen Nie Huaisang move so quickly, not even when they’ve been sneaking around the cloud recesses past curfew as teenagers.

“Loud...thirsty.”

“Sorry, my love,” whispered Wei Wuxian, removing the sweat-drenched hairs from Junjie’s forehead.

“Here,” Huaisang offered a small cup of water to his nephew, placing it against his lips so the weak alpha could drink. His hands shook a little from the sudden bout of relief flooding his chest. Both omegas could feel it again, the soft humming of their bond with Junjie, with their pup and familial alpha, as if an empty space on their chests had been refiled.

“I’ll fetch the healers.” Said Huaisang with reluctance, unwilling to part from Junjie’s bedside. Weak fingers grabbed the hem of his robes.

“Stay,” breathed Junjie, hands seeking the comfort of his mother and uncle. And how could they refuse, how could they refuse a face that was so similar and yet so different from Nie Mingjue’s sleepy frowns.

With a small shrug, Wei Wuxian climbed on the bed and lay next to Junjie, brushing his hair softly as he hummed a lullaby he’d almost believed forgotten. Huaisang climbed on the other side, changing the wet cloth on Junjie’s forehead and purring softly to comfort his nephew.

Wei Wuxian and Huaisang crossed looks of reassurance and found solace in the way Junjie relaxed between them, his hands clutching at their free ones. All would be well, nothing could go wrong from now on, they would make sure of it.

The first steps he took out of his room, two and a half weeks after the incident, were to the gardens and with the help of Sizhui. The older boy never hesitated to serve as support for Junjie’s taller frame, after all, Sizhui had always wanted a little brother to spoil.

“Little Lan, I can walk alone.” Complained Junjie with fake annoyance, in truth he was enjoying being pampered by his family, he was enjoying having a family again however strange his newly founded pack was.

“You are still bleeding,didi. We have to be careful, less you reopen your wounds by mistake.”

Junjie made a strangled sound on the back of his throat at Sizhui’s insistence and allowed himself to be guided to the garden they would be having breakfast with the rest of their family, minus Lan Xichen who had set back to Gusu the moment Junjie had woken up and been declared out of danger; which was a pity, Junjie wanted him around for the sole reason of finding an excuse to punch him again.

As the buildings parted to give way to Nie Huaisang’s favorite garden, where he kept most of his birds, Junjie felt his breath stuck on his lungs; the scenery was gorgeous. Junjie had never seen flowers like that before-- so vibrant and full of color-- nor grass and bushes so green. It was as if every single thing in the garden, from the plants to the water of the fountain, had been given an extra layer of color, an extra boost of life.

Not even his best crops had looked likethis.

Junjie turned his wide eyes to his uncle and asked breathlessly, “How?”

Huaisang smiled slightly and motioned for the boys to join him in soft blankets and cushions placed carefully on the grass. “It is amazing what a little spiritual energy at the right moments can do.”

“You grew these plants?”

Huaisang nodded slowly, “Every single flower, bush, and tree I planted and watched grow, infusing them with spiritual energy at different stages of their growth.”

“It is incredible, uncle.” Exhaled Junjie as he turned his head around to take it all in. “I could stay here forever.”

“Me too, A’ Jun. It has always been my favorite place inside the Unclean Realm.”

“I can see why,” smiled Sizhui. “It is very peaceful here, it reminds me a bit of the cold springs, but better.”

Junjie, finally removing his eyes from the chrysanthemums blooming at the feet of the trees, turned his attention to the conversation. “You’ll have to take me there some time, little Lan. But I doubt they can compare to uncle’s garden.”

Huaisang snorted lightly. “Of course my garden is better! The cold springs are freezing!”

Sizhuu’s replay got interrupted by Wei Wuxian’s and Lan Wangji’s arrival and their rumpled robes. Junjie narrowed his eyes at Hanguang-Jun after spotting a hickey on his A’ Niang’s neck.Shameless, he thought, even as his A’ Niang sat between him and Sizhui and kissed them both on the forehead.

“How are you feeling today, A’ Jun?”

“Better, A’ Niang. The wound is already closing up and bleeding less.”

Which after being hit by Zidan-- a high-class spiritual weapon-- and only two weeks of rest was a very good development, for it meant Junjie’s core had not been damaged beyond repair by the attack.

Wei Wuxian placed an arm around Junjie’s shoulders and nuzzled against his cheek, before placing a bowl of rice into his youngest’s hands. “Great! Eat then, so you remain strong! The same goes for you Sizhui, don’t think I haven’t seen you moping around these days.”

Sizhui promptly looked away from their A’ Niang, cheeks flushed red. “I have not been moping around. Excessive emotion is forbidden, A’ Niang.”

Wei Wuxian raised an eyebrow and pointed at an unsuspecting Lan Wangji that was distributing breakfast with Nie Huaisang. “Tell that to your father,” then he added in a lower tone, only audible for his children's ears. “Have you talked with...them?”

“ A few days ago, before didi woke up.”

Wei Wuxian raised an eyebrow when Sizhui didn’t elaborate further. “And?”

“And nothing, A’ Niang. I’ve always known they were a bit dense...but it never crossed my mind they thought so little of my feelings to believe I would change them at the first opportunity, nor that they would lead to a mess like this.” Sizhui took a deep breath and revealed the secret he’d been holding back while Junjie improved, but now that his brother was better he could speak of it. “ I’ve put a stop to their courting and rejected their marriage proposals.”

Wei Wuxian’s plate fell and shattered against the ground, staining the blankets. Junjie stared at Sizhui with a frown. “And they just let you go...like that?”

A’Yuan looked down at his bowl and whispered. “It’s not like they had much choice. Not that I would change my mind even if they begged. To allow their jealousy to cloud their minds in such a way… I don’t want a marriage like that, that can easily bring harm to others and be filled with misunderstandings.”

Junjie reached to clasp Sizhui’s hand. “But you love them.”

A lone tear slid down Sizhui’s cheek, and the smell of salt and sad omega brought Lan Wangji’s attention to the trio of mother and sons. In one swift movement, the second jade was on Sizhui’s other side and caressing his hair.

“Yes,” whimpered Sizhui, tears running down his face and into his rice. “Yes, I do.”

Wei Wuxian went to cuddle Sizhui as Junjie caressed his brother’s knuckles. “Then you should mourn that love, little Lan. You can cry, we won’t judge you for it.”

It was as if a dam had broken and Sizhui allowed himself to cry for the first time since his conversation with JingYi and Jin Ling, he cried surrounded by the comfort of his parents, he allowed himself to mourn his first loves and the future he’d envisioned, the love story he’d hoped for and the expectation that had burned down the moment Zidan had collided with his brother’s chest, that would have collided against him had Junjie not pushed him away. He cried because it felt like it had been his fault. If it hadn't been for his involvement withthemnothing bad would have happened. He whined for the guilt that had swallowed him whole as he stared at Junjie’s unconscious form and his A’ Niang’s distressed face, at Nie Huaisang’s shaking hands.

He cried because he had loved them and they had not trusted him.

He cried until his eyes were dry and his nose red, he cried until he could not stomach the thought anymore; Sizhui rubbed his eyes with the back of his free hand and offered a weak smile. “This one apologizes for ruining breakfast.”

Nie Huaisang smacked him lightly on the forehead with his fan. “Nonsense, the food is still warm and the day is sunny. How could your tears have ruined it, Lan Sizhui, when we all have right to a little outburst here and then, right Wei-ge?”

Wei Wuxian passed his thumbs under Sizhui’s eyes, cleaning the tears away. “A’ Sang is right, you can cry all you want. Little radish, it may not look like it but everything is going to be alright, you’ll see.”

“Mn. Time will make it better,” said Lan Wangji, his big hands resting next to Wei Wuxian’s on Sizhui’s cheeks.

Exchanging a quick glance with his uncle, Junjie joined in and gave Sizhui’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “It was not your fault, little Lan. No one blames you for their lack of brains, certainly not I, and I would do it again. Between you and me I’m more used to having my ass handled by stupid sect leaders.”

Sizhui let out a wet chuckle. “That was a very bad joke, didi.” He sniffed and then he launched himself at Junjie, minding his injury, he placed his arms around Junjie’s neck and murmured an apology.

Junjie sat frozen for a few seconds, eyes wide as he pleaded the adults for help but they only laughed at him. Finally, Junjie patted Sizhui’s back. “Didn’t I just tell you It was not your fault?

Sizhui hugged him tighter.

“Little Lan, Sizhui-ge... your knee is digging on my wound!” groaned Junjie.

Sizhui jumped away from him and waved his hands around Junjie not knowing where to place them. “I’m so sorry! Does it hurt? Of course, it hurts! I’ll go for the healers!”

Junjie waved a hand. “I’m good, I’m good, no harm done.”

“Are you sure, A’ Jun?” asked Nie Huaisang even as he handed a new plate of food to Wei Wuxian.

“Yes, uncle.” Then Junjie’s stomach growled much to his mortification. “Let’s have breakfast, I haven’t had proper food in ages!”

Giving sideway glances to Junjie, Sizhui sat down and grabbed a bun. “ It was only a couple of days, didi.”

Junjie glared at him, chopsticks halfway to his mouth. “You try to eat broth for two weeks and we’ll see how you fare!”

“Probably better than us, the Lan diet is practically medicinal. I’m sure Sizhui won’t notice the difference.”

“A’ Niang!” exclaimed Sizhui even as Huaisang and Junjie laughed loudly.

“Wei Ying, don’t be mean.”

“Eh! But Lan Zhan, it's true! Lan Zhan don’t look at me like that! La-hm!hmp!”

Junjie exchanged an amused look with Sizhui as they watched Hanguang-Jun stuff a big portion of rice into Wei Wuxian’s mouth.

“Not talking while eating.”

It took years for Jiang Wanyin to be allowed within speaking distance of Wei Wuxian, his letters of apology were returned unopened, alongside Jin Ling’s letters to Sizhui. Eventually, his nephew gave up trying to restore his relationship and conformed himself with the hand in friendship Sizhui had offered him and JingYi a few years after the incident.

When Jiang Cheng had asked his nephew why he had not insisted anymore, Jin Ling’s answer had baffled him.

“I...love him, but we wounded him deeply. We betrayed the only thing he had always given freely to us. That he allows us to be his friends again is more than we deserve after almost being responsible for his brother’s death.” Jin Ling had shrugged, eyes downcast and resigned. “I can live with that, at least this way I keep his eyes in my life, and my eyes on his life.”

His nephew had given up, but Jiang Wanyin had never been anything if not persistent.

It came as a surprise when, five years after the incident, a servant announced sect leader Jiang was at the gates of the Unclean realm, seeking to speak with Wei Wuxian.

Junjie looked up from where he’d been playing with his four-year-old sister, a little alpha dressed in Lan robes and a twisted forehead ribbon. Junjie’s hand stilled midway, the toys still on his hands.

“A’ Niang?” He asked.

Wei Wuxian had been lazing on the grass next to them, gossiping with Nie Huaisang and basking in the sun, his pregnant belly swallowing almost his entire frame. Wei Wuxian looked back at his son and extended a hand for Huaisang to help him up.

“I’ll go see what he wants.”

Junjie rushed to his feet, toys falling to the ground. “Absolutely not! You are not going to meet that man alone! Especially in such a state!”

“I’m pregnant, not invalid, my love.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Junjie, picking up his sister and making a motion to place her on Huaisang’s expecting arms, but Wei Wuxian placed a hand on his shoulder.

“I rather you not be near him again, Xiao-Jun.”

Junjie frowned. “I don’t care, your husband is not here, and even if he was, my responsibility is to protect you, A’ Niang.”

Wei Wuxian caressed Junjie’s cheek with the back of his knuckles. “As my familial alpha, yes that is your duty. But as my son, it is my job to protect you. Don’t fret, I’m sure it will be fine, little chicken. Look after your sister while I’m gone.”

“You have some balls, showing up in Qinghe after Sect leader Nie expelled you from his territory.”

Jiang Cheng crossed his arms over his chest, lips twisted. “I had no choice, you never came to Yunmeng, or its vicinity. I had to look for you, as usual.”

Wei Wuxian scoffed. “If it was so much trouble, then you should have stopped, Sect leader Jiang.”

Jiang Cheng looked away for a few seconds, eyes lost in the distance before facing Wei Wuxian again. “Did you...got my letters?”

“I did.”

“Then why did you not open them?”

Wei Wuxian let out a mirthless chuckle, twirling Chenqing between his fingers and leaning against one of the tall walls of the Unclean Realm. “I think my sons and I deserved better than a written apology from you,shidi.”

“I'm not good with words, open one of the letters and accept my apology so we can move on!”

“Move on!? You almost killed my son!” roared Wei Wuxian, eyes blazing red for a second.

“I didn’t know he was your son! Everything was confusing back then! All I knew was that Jin Ling was broken-hearted and someone had to pay for it!”

“That’s your excuse?!” Asked Wuxian. “If not to apologize why are you here today!? To fight again!?”

“I want my brother back!”

Rage bled from Wei Wuxian’s face as he stared and Jiang Cheng’s fragile expression, at the brother he used to adore peaking from behind the mask of Sandu Shengshou. “I’ve forgiven you many things, plenty of which were out of our control, but this...you could have killed my son, you could have wounded Sizhui! All because you jumped to conclusions, as usual,shidi.”

Wei Wuxian turned around ready to walk back inside the safety of Huaisang’s home when Jiang Cheng spoke again, a soft sound of leaves in the wind.

“I’m sorry, Wei Wuxian, I’m sorry. Please come to Yunmeng, JieJie would appreciate a visit.”

Wei Wuxian froze, tears welled up in his eyes but he allowed the wind to dry them as he turned to look at Jiang Cheng from above his shoulder.

“Things will never go back to how they were, shidi.”

Jiang Cheng fell to his knees, he knew that the chances of Wei Wuxian accepting his apology were slim, that they would never be as when they were young and unburdened, but he'd hoped...that for old times sake his brother would forgive him one last time, would give him one last chance. A single tear slid down his face and landed on Zidan’s sleeping form.

“Expect me after I give birth, just in time for the winter festival.”

Jiang Cheng raised his eyes and smiled at Wei WuXian's retreating back. A chance! He would not fail this time!

They would move on, slowly and hesitantly dancing around each other, but in time the sight of the Yiling Laozu and his family swimming in the lakes of Lotus Pier would not be a cause of wonder anymore.

In time, their wounds would heal and they would become a family again; strange, odd, and full of sore spots but a family nonetheless.

And if the newly renamed Nie Junjie knocked him out of one the piers and into the water during his first visit to YunmengJiang--ten years after their disastrous first meeting--, well Jiang Cheng had that one coming.

The end.