Chapter Text
Lan Wangji sees a young man who lives in a house by the lake and who swims like a fish.
The young disciples see him too. They walk by the lake and they notice someone swimming in it. He looks so elegant and natural in the water that they stare and whisper because they can’t quite believe that he is a man and not a fish.
Lan Wangji gives them a stern look. They stop their talking, continuing their walk silently and orderly.
There’s some trouble with an unknown being in the nearby village, and there they walk. Lan Wangji leads the disciples, a group consisting of four youngsters.
Once the trouble has been dealt with – it wasn’t much of a commotion after all, a good opportunity for the young disciples to handle it on their own while Lan Wangji kept watch from the sidelines – they walk back to the mountain and fly on their swords to the Lan clan dwelling on top.
On their way, they pass the lake again. Now they can see that the young fish-like man is indeed a man as he’s sitting on a small wooden pier by the lake. He wears a thin robe; his hair falls open and long down his back, glistening darkly-wet from the water.
“Not a fish, after all,” one of the disciples says.
“No talking,” Lan Wangji admonishes.
The disciple looks quickly to the ground.
The young man turns and looks their way. Maybe he heard them, even if they are still quite far away. He looks at them and smiles.
*
Wei Wuxian sees a young man who lives in Cloud Recesses on top of the mountain and who plays the guqin like a miracle.
He sees him in a recital, and he looks so very stern while he’s performing such wondrous music.
Many cultivators from nearby have come to watch the talented Lan musicians and other learned and gifted performers play this evening. The young man is an inner clan member, wearing the forehead ribbon. He is stately dressed in long white and flowing robes.
Wei Wuxian arrives too late, as always. He is barely able to make it into Cloud Recesses; the guards at the entrance to the mountain look just as stern as everybody else here. But they see his invitation and let him in.
He wonders once more if all this trouble is worth it. Life is a lot simpler away from the big clans, and he has already heard things about the Lan clan that makes him rethink his decision once again.
He is led over paths of white stones to a big hall that is built from dark wood and decorated with fine white screens and wallpapers. The cloud symbols in the style of the clan are everywhere. There the young member of the Lan clan is already playing, and this is how Wei Wuxian realizes while watching him that he plucks the strings of his guqin with a concentrated yet overly frosty look.
Wei Wuxian is very sure that this is the Lan cultivator he saw lead the young disciples like ducklings along the lake the other day. His expression was just as reserved and strict, his back just as straight.
There is much acclaim when he’s finished with his performance. He bows and walks to the side, his posture very upright and regal. Wei Wuxian’s eyes linger on his tall stature for a second longer.
A principal member, an elder of the clan, calls for the next performer. His voice is measured, but it carries through the hall. Wei Wuxian hears how some of the gathered cultivators ask “Who is that?” – “I’ve never heard that name before.” – “It must be a stranger.” – “Maybe he has come from far, far away.”
It looks like he has come right on time for his performance. He walks to the front and there’s more whispering, some of the cultivators trying to keep it low and polite.
He smiles and bows, trying to make it look more refined than his usual relaxed manner tells him to do. Oh, they overdo it so much here.
He lifts the dizi to his lips. And then he plays, and the whispering stops. He doesn’t play in any such rigid manner as he saw in the young man before; the notes sound from his heart and mind.
His eyes wander over the crowd that sits in long orderly lines. They land on that young man from before who kneels so very primly at the side. He can’t help but blink slightly at him because he watches him play with such an intense gaze. That results in a suppressed angry expression on the other’s face, his mouth a strict curl.
Wei Wuxian almost has to laugh. But he’s still in his performance and he would never interrupt that.
He bows again when the last note has ended and they applaud him. He doesn’t know where he is supposed to go, so he walks to the side to the young man, the only face that has made any impression on him so far. There he sits down while the next musician is already coming up to the front.
He feels the other man’s eyes on himself. But when he glances at him, the Lan cultivator is immediately turning his head away, the line of his mouth straight and humorless. No, he really will make Wei Wuxian laugh if he continues in this way.
There are a few more performances, and then the gathered cultivators get up and mingle and talk.
The room is stuffed with people. Some of them talk about the Wen clan, but no one really wants to discuss that right now on this beautiful evening of music.
A few people ask Wei Wuxian curious questions, others watch him from afar. They all and the general air of the cultivators quickly bore him to no end. He walks outside.
He wishes he took the bottle with him that is with his Little Apple right now. He could use a drink.
He gazes into the bamboo forest, its stalks reflecting the lights with their green sheen, turning denser and more mysterious in the distance and the dark of the night. Mist rises on the mountainside. He freezes a little in the cold.
There’s the faintest sound of flowing fabric.
He turns and sees the young Lan clan member from before. The other man is walking by, one hand held behind his back, his steps measured. His robes cloud him in a white, radiant shimmer as if spun from pure white and silver light. His richly black hair shines as well, flowing over his back.
A jade pendant hangs from the strictly arranged sash around his waist. It’s unassuming in its elegance, a truly exquisitely crafted piece.
He is indeed very tall, Wei Wuxian realizes once more, probably a tad taller than he is.
Their eyes meet. The Lan cultivator stops. He bows quickly, and Wei Wuxian hurries to keep up with his bow in return.
He smiles at him. “You played beautifully.”
An expression crosses the young man’s face he cannot comprehend. “Are you mocking me?”
The grin falls from Wei Wuxian’s face. Maybe the Lan clan member misinterpreted his smiles; they don’t do this here, in the end. He heard there are more rules in this clan than stars in the sky, but that sounded like an exaggeration.
“No, not at all,” he says at once. “I’ve never heard someone play the guqin like you before. It was wondrous.”
The other man seems to believe the sincerity of his words this time. There’s a pause while the two of them appraise each other.
At last the young man asks: “To which clan do you belong?”
“To none. I’m an orphan and a wandering cultivator, living on my own and settling wherever I see fit for the moment.”
Some surprise is evident in the other man’s eyes.
“Who are you?” Wei Wuxian finally asks. It comes out just as stark as that – he can’t help it, feeling like he is seriously missing something at this point.
“You don’t know who I am?”
There’s a slight curl at the other’s mouth. It sounds disbelieving, surprised at Wei Wuxian’s open lack of knowledge. His voice is deep and rich yet with a catch as if he doesn’t use it often. He seems to be a man of few words.
“I’m not from around here, and I’ve never been here before,” Wei Wuxian replies quite evenly.
“Yes, I saw that you arrived late.”
It sounds displeased. Oh, he is so very prickly, Wei Wuxian thinks.
“I can guess since I heard a few things,” he says. “You’re one of the young Lan heirs –”
“Wangji,” someone calls.
They turn around. If this here is Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian thinks, then the man coming towards them must be his elder brother, Lan Xichen. While Lan Wangji reminds him of a sharp, icy blade in a winter night, Lan Xichen is like the fallen snow on a sunny winter day.
And they are apparently allowed to smile, in the end, because Lan Xichen does so in a refined way. His robes are colored in light blue hues, the outer one decorated with a soft wavy pattern.
“A splendid performance,” he directs at Wei Wuxian after they have exchanged bows, his smile honest and graceful.
Wei Wuxian smiles in response.
“We are happy to greet such a wonderful musician we didn’t have the pleasure of listening to before,” Lan Xichen adds.
Wei Wuxian nods. “I’ve never been to Cloud Recesses before.”
He feels Lan Wangji’s eyes on himself, but when he turns to him, the other quickly looks away. Wei Wuxian smiles some more.
Just then they hear the noise of a donkey. It echoes in the mountains.
“My Little Apple!” Wei Wuxian exclaims.
“This donkey is yours,” Lan Wangji states. He looks angrily at Wei Wuxian.
Wei Wuxian gives the venomous look right back. No need to be so mean about it.
“Don’t worry, I’ll go,” he says and bows hastily in the general direction of the two Lan brothers.
A few Lan disciples have already gathered around his donkey when he gets there. Little Apple calms when he sees Wei Wuxian.
Those were enough impressions of the mountain, he thinks. He feels tired. It’s time to return to his little house by the lake.
Taking his donkey by the harness, he starts on his way downwards.
*
It is a warm, sunny autumn afternoon when Lan Wangji spots Wei Wuxian swim in the lake again.
He knew the flutist playing in Cloud Recesses and the swimmer are one and the same person once he saw that smile. He might have only seen it from a distance on that day while passing the pier, but he would recognize that smile everywhere.
It is too bright.
Wei Wuxian is such a strange, wild young man, barely trying to employ the decorum that is needed to move in polite society, Lan Wangji thinks. He played that dizi of his with such natural skill and confidence that it caused Lan Wangji to stare in the most unrefined way.
At that moment, he was sure that Wei Wuxian began to make him look like a fool right then and there, even if the other denied that.
Lan Wangji doesn’t understand why he’s been curious to see him again when he is actually so displeased.
He flies on his sword down the mountain and walks to the small wooden pier by the lake. There is that little house that Wei Wuxian seems to call his home at the moment. It’s old but not unsightly, rustic and simple in looks.
Wei Wuxian is swimming in the lake. Lan Wangji saw the young man gliding through the water from afar and knew there was no need to hurry, so he approaches the pier slowly.
There he waits and watches while Wei Wuxian does his rounds in the lake, nimble and quick.
The sun dips lower on the horizon, the view of nature and light meditative. He sees the head of Wei Wuxian emerge and submerge into the water again and again, his hair following in his wake like an inky spot.
Then he swims towards the pier. Lan Wangji can see the grin that splits his face as he's drawing nearer, unrestrained and free. It immediately annoys Lan Wangji. It immediately draws him in.
Wei Wuxian doesn’t seem surprised at all to see Lan Wangji here. His forward motion stops in front of the pier, his arms paddling in the water. He looks up.
“Hanguang-jun!”
“Now you know my name?”
“Don’t be like that. I heard things about you, I just didn’t see you in person before,” Wei Wuxian says.
Drawing himself up onto the wooden platform in one graceful motion, he sits down at the edge. Water runs over his naked form and splashes on the wood. His hair falls wetly and long down his back, dripping water.
He doesn’t wear that red hair ribbon, Lan Wangji thinks, but his figure is just as lithe and slender as it was on that day those few weeks ago on the mountain. His robes were all black and red then, cinched at the waist, flowing at the hem, the cuffs of his sleeves narrow and practical – fitting for this seemingly wandering and carefree spirit that plays the flute so lively and dives into the water just as vividly.
Wei Wuxian looks over his shoulder. There lies a white robe, and he reaches for it and unfolds it. He keeps his back to Lan Wangji while he lays it over his shoulders and inserts his arms.
He gets up, closes the robe at the front and side and draws out his hair. Lan Wangji’s eyes linger on the exposed white column of Wei Wuxian’s neck. He blinks, confused.
Then the hair tumbles still wet and dripping over Wei Wuxian’s shoulders like a drawn cover.
Wei Wuxian turns around to Lan Wangji.
Only then does the young Lan heir step closer on the wooden pier and bow to him. Wei Wuxian bows in return, lazily, a grin readily on his face. “Wouldn’t want to miss the bow!”
“It’s an act of politeness and etiquette,” Lan Wangji informs him as if Wei Wuxian doesn’t know.
“Just as it befits the second jade of Gusu,” Wei Wuxian replies, still grinning in a way that looks completely unruly. “Would Hanguang-jun be so polite, then, to tell me why he comes to visit this humble and low-ranking cultivator?”
It is just as fitting for Wei Wuxian to immediately draw on Lan Wangji’s upmost sense of politeness when he can use it for himself.
“I am here to give you this,” Lan Wangji says and reaches into his wide sleeve. He hands Wei Wuxian the invitation, and the other young man unfolds it and reads it quickly.
He gazes back up to him, surprise evident in his eyes. “You came here to give me this invitation yourself?”
Ah. A good point to make, one Lan Wangji considered but shoved aside in his mind earlier when curiosity played at large.
“My brother insisted that he’d like to hear you play your flute again,” he responds, a bit irritated that he has to use so many unnecessary words for this matter. “I am passing by to look at a problem in the town, so I am very much able to give this to you – since we’ve already been introduced to each other.”
Wei Wuxian’s mouth is drawn into a grin. There’s something in the glint in his eyes.
“Yes, we’ve already met,” he says.
There was their first meeting in Cloud Recesses, but Lan Wangji’s mind inevitably wanders to his first sighting of Wei Wuxian as he swam nimbly in the lake, looking like a creature of the water.
He turns to the side. “I have to go,” he says quickly. “Will you accept the invitation?”
Wei Wuxian’s face is carefully and unusually neutral as he’s gazing at Lan Wangji. But then he smiles again.
*
Little Apples accepts the bribe in form of an apple, trotting quite calmly up the mountain path. Wei Wuxian remembers Lan Wangji’s displeased face at the donkey’s noise. Well, it’s a donkey, and his trusted mount.
Dusk is falling when he reaches the entrance gate. But he is early this time and the guards let him pass with almost no critical look on their faces. They do remember the donkey, of course.
A few other cultivators walk in front of him. They are all greeted and welcomed by a few Lan clan members when they finally reach the top. Wei Wuxian pats Little Apple one last time before the donkey is led away.
“Wei Wuxian,” someone calls. Lan Xichen has greeted the other cultivators and is now walking towards him, his robes azure blue this evening, his hair decorated with a stately ornament. They exchange bows.
“We are glad to welcome you back,” Lan Xichen says.
Wei Wuxian looks past him, but the other man’s stern younger brother is nowhere to be seen.
“I am happy to listen to more amazing music,” he replies, his gaze returning to the Lan heir. “The Lan clan’s appreciation for music is a wonder for a starving soul.”
Lan Xichen smiles finely at him in response.
They enter the hall, the same in which they gathered the other day. Wei Wuxian spots Lan Wangji then; and the other cannot ignore him, however much he might want to do that. Wei Wuxian doesn’t know what it is that causes this urge inside to him to grin immediately at Lan Wangji when he sees that frosty expression. How surprised he was when he saw the taciturn and serious young man wait for him at the lake, only to give him an invitation anyone could’ve delivered to him.
“Come with me” is the first thing Lan Wangji says to him after they bowed towards each other. Wei Wuxian blinks at him.
“You didn’t know where to go last time,” Lan Wangji adds, his expression turning sourer.
“I didn’t,” Wei Wuxian agrees as he’s following him. “Will you play today as well?”
Lan Wangji nods.
“That’s lovely,” Wei Wuxian says. Lan Wangji slightly turns his head to look at him, his expression undefinable. Leading Wei Wuxian to a place up front, at the side, he sits down next to him in an elegant movement and draws back his sleeves. The gesture is ever so refined.
The clan elders greet the gathered Lan clan members and the cultivator guests. Lan Xichen steps in front and starts the performances by playing the flute. Wei Wuxian did not hear him last time – maybe he did in fact arrive way too late, he thinks lazily.
Now he’s instantly captivated by the stunning music.
He’s almost a bit surprised when it ends and Lan Wangji suddenly gets up. He joins his brother at the front and settles behind his guqin, once again drawing his sleeves back to free his hands. Wei Wuxian blinks a little, feeling a sudden touch in his mind and soul, when the first measured notes resound, sweetly and poignant.
The guqin sounds, the flute is added, and together they flow and surge through the air.
Wei Wuxian can see Lan Wangji’s face more clearly from where he sits up front. He still looks stern, he thinks; but also enraptured, the corners of his mouth, of his eyes softer than Wei Wuxian expected while his hands move most gracefully. He has long hands, Wei Wuxian notices, not big or out of proportion but with slender, nimble fingers.
The gathered members and guests of the Lan clan listen with bated breath. They erupt in cheers and sounds of approval when the duet is finished. “Just as expected from the two jades of Gusu,” they say, “Most befitting and meritorious of the two young men!”
Lan Xichen invites Wei Wuxian to the front, then. Wei Wuxian is glad about it. The strict sitting has made him nervous and impatient by now and the music inspired and moved him, so he knows he’ll play in accordance to that.
Some of the cultivators seem to remember him, at least those of the Lan clan who were and are most numerous here, but some do not. There was a time and place when Wei Wuxian would’ve been puzzled if he wasn’t known, his abilities and reputation not clear, but this is not the case here and now.
Once again he plays his dizi in the Lan clan’s hall and his music touches hearts and minds. His eyes wander once again to Lan Wangji whose gaze lasts with such intensity on him.
The cultivators praise him afterwards ardently. They do not want to compare him to the two jades, most impolite as that would be, but some of the cultivators who are not part of the Lan clan seem to insinuate a rivalry in craftsmanship.
This is the kind of trouble Wei Wuxian does not want to be part of. He bows deeply to the two Lan brothers and excuses himself, leaving the hall.
He looks to his Little Apple and stays with the donkey for a bit. The people and the atmosphere – it already is enough for him. He marvels how things have changed.
He takes the bottle and sits down at the base of a tree. There he sits and drinks until his eyes feel heavy. He falls asleep.
He wakes up some time later to a furious looking Lan Wangji. “So you drink alcohol and fall asleep outside,” he states.
Wei Wuxian blinks at him in confusion, waking further from his slumber.
“Is it forbidden to sleep underneath a tree?” he asks, his voice raspy from sleep – and his drink.
Lan Wangji only gazes angrily at him before tugging him to his feet by the arm and dragging him with himself. Wei Wuxian doesn’t understand a thing. Did Lan Wangji look for him?
“What now, where do you drag me?” he asks, annoyed and still confused.
“To disciplinary action.”
Wei Wuxian gapes at him. “I’m not one of your Lan clan disciples, I’m a guest!”
“You don’t act like one as your utter disregard of the rules shows.”
Oh gods, the rules of which there are supposedly so many.
“Alright, I drank and fell asleep,” he concedes. “I was tired. But you are not angry at me because – of how I played earlier?”
Abruptly, Lan Wangji stops and turns to him. He seems to grow even angrier at those words, as if Wei Wuxian insulted him greatly. He grabs Wei Wuxian’s hand more tightly and starts to tug him with himself anew.
“No need to drag me like that, I’ll follow willingly!” Wei Wuxian says quickly, his hand compressed in Lan Wangji’s firm grip.
Lan Wangji releases his hand. “Then come.”
But Wei Wuxian immediately tries to make a run for it now that he’s free. Too bad that Lan Wangji is extremely quick as well as strong. He catches Wei Wuxian in his arms at once , gripping him with force.
“Ah, man,” Wei Wuxian whines. He can feel how powerful Lan Wangji is hidden beneath all those long orderly robes as he’s holding fast to him. They stand still for a moment. Lan Wangji’s heartbeat is pressed to Wei Wuxian.
Suddenly, Lan Wangji suddenly springs to life again. He drags Wei Wuxian off once more, and now there’s no escape.
Wei Wuxian doesn’t know how late it is by now. The gathering has apparently long been disbanded. It is still and silent on the mountain apart from the sounds of Wei Wuxian’s dragging feet on the paths and his occasional whining.
Lan Wangji tugs him into a room and to his uncle – Lan Qiren, as Wei Wuxian has heard. Lan Xichen joins them as well and Wei Wuxian looks in a huff at him and the ground and everywhere but Lan Wangji who has fully revealed himself to be the spoilsport Wei Wuxian has made him out to be this whole time.
“You are our guest, and as such we would’ve expected you to follow the rules of our clan,” Lan Xichen directs at him.
“I was ignorant,” Wei Wuxian replies, trying to play meek and sheepish to bring an end to this and finally be able to leave. “I didn’t know your rules, so I was destined to break one or two or three.”
Here he flings a bitter look at Lan Wangji who stares back just as darkly.
“It would be our pleasure just as our duty to educate such a promising young man as yourself,” Lan Xichen says.
Wei Wuxian’s eyes snap back to him. Oh no, this is not what he –
“You are to stay and learn,” Lan Qiren concludes matter-of-factly, the expression on his face even stricter than Lan Wangji’s. “We understand that you are a wandering cultivator, so you may lack a basis. It is the Lan clan’s mission and pride to offer guidance and education.”
Wei Wuxian feels his mouth fall open. “Wait, am I actually your guest or a prisoner?”
“Both can be true at the same time,” Lan Xichen responds, smiling ever so gracefully. Wei Wuxian stares at him. And Lan Xichen adds: “I think it would be best if you stay with Wangji.”
Lan Wangji turns to him. “Brother –”
But Lan Xichen wouldn’t hear a thing from him. “You are both of the same age, and you seemed to get along so well earlier,” he says. “Wei Wuxian will surely learn a lot from you.”
Wei Wuxian keeps staring at him.
Lan Wangji abruptly bows and turns and leaves. Wei Wuxian is shaken from his frozen state and follows him numbly.
“See what you have done,” he says to him while he hurries after him in shock. “You didn’t want that, right? And me neither. Now we both will suffer.”
Lan Wangji doesn’t respond, looking darkly ahead. He walks for a bit, a complaining Wei Wuxian in tow. Wei Wuxian wonders how far off his rooms are.
They are a bit secluded, he learns, surrounded by a shimmering bamboo forest and built from the same dark wood as the other buildings he has seen so far. The doors, the hanging screens and the lanterns are all white like way too much is here in Cloud Recesses, Wei Wuxian thinks. It all looks like they are constantly mourning.
It’s very silent apart from a chime than sings in the wind – and Wei Wuxian.
“That’s too much,” he whines as Lan Wangji approaches the doors. “I can’t stay with you in your rooms. It will be horrible for both of us.”
“You will,” Lan Wangji says, ushering him through the doors and sliding them shut behind them. “I am very tired, it is very late, and you will sleep in your half of rooms and I in mine and you will not speak any more words.”
He said this in such a rush like Wei Wuxian has never heard him talk before. He seems to be very livid indeed.
There is one bed in one half of the rooms and another in the other, and Lan Wangji simply sets a screen in the middle and vanishes into his half never to be seen again. This is ridiculous, Wei Wuxian thinks, all of this is his rooms.
He stands frozen for a moment, his eyes wandering over the small table set to the right on which intricate pots, for ink and purely decorative, sheets of writing and brushes are neatly and carefully set, over the adorning elements on the walls, the graceful vase with a flowering twig placed on the bigger table in the center of the rooms and over finely worked lampstands.
He utters a breath, not unlike a sigh. There lies a folded white robe on the bed, so he undresses, setting his shoes aside, hanging up his robes, and puts on the robe from the bed. Unbinding his hair, he rolls up the red ribbon.
Then he lies down in the bed. Just as he’s thinking that it is way too quiet here, he drifts off, completely beat after that whirlwind of an evening and night.