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There’s been a wound festering in Lan Wangji’s heart for years now. Black veins crawling out, thorns piercing him from within, making it hard for him to breathe. It poisons him, weighs down his bones and robs him of sleep.
There’s a wound festering in Lan Wangji’s heart, and the best physicians in the world can do nothing to heal him.
A-Yuan is his balm. With his son in his arms, the angry wound calms and for a moment, the weight in his chest relaxing ever so slightly. A brief reprieve from a life of pain, evenings where the jingshi's silence is broken by the gurgles of a happy child.
But A-Yuan can’t stay by his side forever. He’s a growing boy, he has classes to go to and friends to make, and Lan Wangji would never hold him back. He watches the white robes disappear out the door, is reminded of another back that faded into the distance, red and black, and the wound reopens anew, a hundred times deeper.
It’s been bleeding since that fateful day years ago, and Lan Wangji suspects it will bleed for many more.
Brother worries. He worries, but as sect leader, as a member of the Venerated Triad, there’s only so much he can do. Nearby clans come knocking on Gusu’s stone walls, pouring out their problems, and Lan Xichen has his hands full.
It’s just as well. This isn’t a wound that can be healed, and he’d rather spare him the pain of watching his younger brother waste away before his eyes.
A-Yuan is older now, chubby petulant toddler reforming himself as a young man, as a cultivator making a name for himself, but Lan Wangji wants nothing more than to wrap him up in the sleeves of his white robes and protect him, shield him before the world eats him alive, chews him up and spits him out and rips his A-Yuan away like it did him.
That’s not an option, so Lan Wangji makes it a point to accompany all the junior disciples’ night hunts instead.
“Coddling.” “Showing favoritism is against the rules.” “Hovering parent.”
Lan Wangji hears the whispers behind his back and doesn’t care. A-Yuan is the only thing tying him to this cruel world, A-Yuan and the wild, irrational hope that fills him every time he plays Inquiry, and he’ll do anything to keep him safe.
He made the mistake of letting go once. He won’t do it again.
When he’s thirteen, A-Yuan asks to learn the soul seeking song. It’s no surprise, he’s heard Lan Wangji play it almost every night for the past ten years.
If Lan Wangji sheds a tear when he asks who he calls so desperately for every night, neither of them mention it.
It becomes a ritual, two guqins playing twin songs in the jingshi. Inquiry echoes into the night sky, reaches past the mountains and over the lakes, reaches past the Burial Mounds, searching for an answer that never comes. Each time, Lan Wangji feels his heart break a little more, the wound tear just a little wider, and A-Yuan is there, a steaming cup of tea and quiet companionship.
He should feel ashamed. He is the father and A-Yuan the son, yet it’s A-Yuan who keeps him from falling apart. He would feel ashamed, if he had any strength left in his exhausted soul to feel it.
The wound festers more and more every day, a pulsating, ugly pain that never goes away, sucking away at his energy, and he wonders how he’s still alive. If he’s still alive. He feels like a shade haunting these familiar pathways, remnants of a person long gone.
He pretends to not see the stares from his uncle, from the elders. They are disappointed. He has lost the ability to care.
Brother visits him. He’s worried, Lan Wangji pretends to be okay. It’s a lie, but he’s already broken so many rules, what’s one more? But the concern in his gaze haunts him, and he finds himself feeling guilty. His brother should not suffer. Xichen is not at fault. In fact, he’d been the only one besides A-Yuan to visit him while Lan Wangji had been in supposed seclusion.
So he goes to the cold springs, if only to see the relief in his brother's eyes. The cold is a welcome distraction, bodily sensations temporarily numbing the pain. He closes his eyes, lets himself relax, immerses himself in the sensations and peace and-
And he’s reminded of another time, of a splash and a loud voice and a bright, bright smile and-
He rips himself out of the water, hastily throws his robes back on, and storms away. The wound bleeds anew, throbbing in his chest, stabbing to his very core. He does not return to the cold springs, and brother does not ask.
That night, his fingers shake as he plucks the Wangji’s strings, Inquiry a desperate plea, and as the last notes dissipate into the cold, unforgiving night, A-Yuan sits by his side.
He dismisses his son early, and cries like he hasn’t cried in years.
Life goes on, even if Lan Wangji can’t.
The next week brings another job to be done. The Mo village is a good fifty li away, but no other sect in the area had been willing to respond. The Gusu Lan sect is different; Lan Wangji is known to go wherever the chaos is, big or small, and true to his reputation, he begins packing. A-Yuan and a group of juniors accompany him- he will supervise, but tonight the hunt is theirs.
They arrive early in the afternoon. Lan Wangji books them rooms at an inn and watches as the juniors leave to gather information for their hunt, A-Yuan at their forefront.
A-Yuan has grown up well, the best Lan Wangji could’ve hoped for and more. He would be proud.
Darkness falls, the moon overhead is bright. The hour is well past nine, but Lan Wangji won’t rest until his juniors have returned safe. He plucks at the guqin. His fingers have long grown weary of Inquiry- tonight they dance to a different tune, free of any spiritual energy. It’s been years since he last played this melody; memories of a cave, a weak voice next to him asking for a song. The notes still come to him with ease, long since burned into his heart.
The wound aches.
He’s just plucked out the final note, letting it echo in the otherwise silent night, when a shrill hiss sounds, followed by a boom. The clouds of the Gusu Lan sect burn a brilliant, searing blue.
Lan Wangji stands. He has a job to do.
His job takes him to the Mo residence, calming an abnormally vicious arm with a strum of Wangji. A-Yuan is, thankfully, unhurt. He mentions a supposed lunatic who helped them out, but the man is long gone, and as grateful as Lan Wangji is, he won’t leave his son to chase after a lunatic in the night.
The ache in his chest lurches, as if reaching forward, but the pain subsides, a blessing he won’t question. He’s not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and he has juniors to take care of. By the time they’re back at the inn, all thoughts of the lunatic are gone.
And then.
And then.
Dafan mountain. The goddess. The ghost general. A-Yuan and the rest of the juniors, just barely having escaped danger.
The melody, squeaky and damaging on a poor excuse for a dizi, but there’s no doubt. It’s a perfect match to the melody he’d been playing the night before, the melody he composed, and he’s only ever played it in the presence of one person, one person who had died years ago and left an ever growing wound in Lan Wangji’s heart and-
The wrist in his hand is thinner, the hair tickling his chin just a touch too wavy, the head a few centimeters shorter. The face isn’t the same, features soft where Wei Ying had been chiseled but.
Lan Wangji would recognize that soul anywhere.
Familiar silver eyes widen. A whisper.
“Lan Zhan.”
Lan Wangji’s heart comes alive in his chest, and for the first time in thirteen years, the wound begins to heal.