Reading Time: 100 Minutes

Title: A Gift of Time
Author: MeyariMcFarland
Fandom: The Untamed
Genre: Established Relationship, Family, Fantasy, Hurt/Comfort, Paranormal/Supernatural, Pre-Relationship, Time Travel
Relationship(s): Lan Zhan / Wei Ying, canon background pairings
Content Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-con/Dub-con, Violence-Domestic, Violence-Against Children/Child Abuse. Time travel, canon typical violence and abuse, name change
Author Note: previous generation focus, relationship weirdness due to reincarnation / immortality
Word Count: 96811
Summary: After achieving immortality three long, lonely years after Wei Ying died, Lan Zhan walked out of the Cloud Recesses for what he expected to be the last time. The Burial Mounds had only become more depressing than the last time he saw Wei Ying. He thought, perhaps, that he could speak to Wei Ying when he played Inquiry. He didn’t. Instead, a completely different soul answered, breaking his heart all over again and sending him on a quest to change absolutely everything.
Artist: Silver Dragonfly
Artist Appreciation: Thank you so much for the gorgeous art–it’s like you saw into my brain! 😀

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11. New Life

Lan Zhan sighed as he slowly walked back towards the path home. The last ten days had been unexpectedly busy. He certainly hadn’t intended to stay in Yiling the whole time. In fact, he hadn’t. He’d run back up twice to reassure Wei Ying and make sure that his garden wasn’t dying of thirst, but the vast majority of his time had been spent surrounded by so many people that he felt as though he’d been boiled in oil and served up to everyone as a treat.

At least the dredging was done. His Buddha sculptures had been easily cast, thank everything and everyone holy. They’d even turned out quite impressive once Cousin Third properly glazed them. All with blue robes and a thin line of red around the collar in an echo of Lan Zhan’s own clothes.

“I hope we’re not causing you a problem,” Wei Changze said from behind Lan Zhan just before he reached to trigger his entry talisman.

Lan Zhan whirled, more than slightly astonished to find both Wei Changze and Cangse Sanren standing there. “I… didn’t notice you.”

Cangse Sanren grinned and wagged her eyebrows just like Wei Ying always did when he was especially proud of himself. “Learned a few tricks from my master. I can hide even from immortals.”

“…I’m deeply curious how you did it, actually,” Lan Zhan admitted after a moment’s dithering and wailing that he wasn’t prepared to deal with either of them. “What did you need of me? I was planning on returning home to rest. This was… a bit overwhelming.”

“I bet,” Cangse Sanren said completely seriously. “Baoshan Sanren ah, never goes out to deal with people but she claims that they’re exhausting. Something about their unstructured energies.”

Lan Zhan managed not to laugh at the narrow look Wei Changze leveled on Cangse Sanren. She ignored it entirely, pretending that he wasn’t standing right next to her. They were a comely pair, Wei Changze in deep purple and accents of red and Cangse Sanren in pure white robes that gave her an ethereal feeling.

At least until she bowed far too properly to Lan Zhan, an impish look on her face that was the mirror image of Wei Ying’s when he was about to pull a prank.

“We are eloping,” Cangse Sanren said. “And we want a priest to be there as we marry. I’d ask my master, but I’m not allowed back on her mountain. She’d beat me about the head and shoulders if I dared ask her to officiate, too. So we decided to ask you if you’d do it.”

“We’ve already got the wine,” Wei Changze said, pulling a small jug of Emperor’s Smile from his sleeve. “I snuck out. No one from Lotus Pier knows we’re doing this. The Elders would kill us both and possibly kill my parents, too.”

It felt as though Lan Zhan’s brains had suddenly turned to cold, crystalized honey. He stared at them, speechless, for entirely too long before shaking his head and blowing out a breath.

That was.

No, it wasn’t an issue, was it? They were still going to marry. Would still, presumably, create Wei Ying’s body. The only issue was whether or not Wei Ying would have a panic attack at seeing his young parents in the Burial Mounds.

“I can, if you’re certain,” Lan Zhan said slowly. “Though I don’t know that my home is the best place for this.”

“Pfft, of course it is,” Cangse Sanren said. She rolled her eyes and flicked her fingers towards the Burial Mounds. “An immortal’s mountain is the proper place for the disciple of an immortal to get married, even if you’re not my immortal.”

Lan Zhan sighed. “Well, I suppose that is a point. I just don’t know that my… guests… are proper attendees. But if you’re determined?”

“We are,” Wei Changze said even though he twitched with curiosity written large over his face.

“Completely,” Cangse Sanren said calmly, bouncing on her toes and making shooing gestures for Lan Zhan to get on with it.

“You’ll need these, then,” Lan Zhan said.

He pulled out two tassels that he’d made in his spare time between all the dredging work. They were rough, cotton thread twisted through the black entry beads he’d made. The thread was multicolored, as that was what Cho Lianmin had had available when he’d asked if she had some thread to spare.

The black bead sat comfortably at the top of the tassel, a simple overhand knot keeping it in place. There was just enough of the multicolored thread looped above the knot to allow one to tie the tassel to one’s belt.

“Oh, wow, these pack a punch,” Cangse Sanren breathed as she held hers reverently. “I don’t… Wow, these are masterful work. Purification and… atonement? Or passage? I can’t quite tell.”

Wei Changze staggered a little when his rested in his palm. “Wow. That’s… wow.”

“They are passage tokens,” Lan Zhan explained. “To get past the ghosts and walking dead. They both open the path and help the dead to find their way to reincarnation, if they are ready to do so. I anticipated that eventually I would have people visiting. I didn’t expect it so soon.”

Wei Changze and Cangse Sanren exchanged wide-eyed looks, but they tied the tassels to their belts. Interestingly, Wei Changze made a point of tying the tassel on the opposite side from his clarity bell. He would have to ask later if there was in interaction to be concerned about. Lan Zhan wouldn’t want any Jiang visitors he had in the future, such as Jiang Yanli, to be uncomfortable.

“We’ll give them right back,” Cangse Sanren promised.

“No need,” Lan Zhan said, waving the offer off as he pulled a third bead out, this one without a tassel. “You can keep them.”

He activated the bead and then strode forth up the path to his home in the center of the Burial Mounds. Lan Zhan didn’t look back to see how his new guests responded. There were ghosts drifting closer, their soul-lights flaring and fading as they moved onwards. Each time, their tiny lotus bloomed and grew until it was the size of Lan Zhan’s head before it faded away.

One of the generals who had fought for Xue Chonghai stumbled closer, boney face somehow sad as he stood just too far off to be liberated.

“When you are ready, General Kwan,” Lan Zhan said as he always had since the day that General Kwan dragged himself up out of the dry earth to moan regretfully at Lan Zhan. “There is no rush.”

“What the fuck?” Cangse Sanren whispered just barely loud enough for Lan Zhan to hear her.

“The task I have set myself is to purify the Burial Mounds,” Lan Zhan explained. He turned and smiled wryly at the way they clung to each other’s hands, faces pale and eyes far too wide. “There’s no rush to it. I expect it will take generations to achieve.”

“But you have time,” Cangse Sanren whispered.

She looked as if she’d just had an epiphany. The far-away look in her eyes suggested that it was something unrelated to Lan Zhan and his quest here. Perhaps something to do with Baoshan Sanren.

Either way, she shook her head to clear it and then nodded sharply to Lan Zhan. “Good to know. Lead on. Do these stones on the side have something to do with all this? And what’s with the ghosts glowing that way? Where did you come up with all this? It’s really fascinating!”

Just like her son-to-be. Lan Zhan smiled and waved for them to follow. He explained about Lan Aining, not using his name, as they strolled up the mountainside together. The sun set behind the mountains as they walked, but their way was amply lit by the souls drifting around the path.

General Kwan staggered along beside the path until they reached the edge of Lan Zhan’s half-completed terraces. He moaned and then wandered off into the black bamboo thicket that Lan Zhan had left intact. Wei Ying would want to make dizis in the future. It would be good for him to have a healthy stand of bamboo to do it. The stand above the cave was… not suitable for dizis, far too wide.

“You’re actually growing food?” Wei Changze asked, the first thing he’d said since they started up the path.

“Of course,” Lan Zhan said. “Purifying the soil and healing it is just as important as liberating the souls trapped here. My… partner… has had many very helpful ideas on how to accomplish it.”

Both of them perked up at that, as Lan Zhan expected. They exchanged a look and then Cangse Sanren put on her most gregarious smile and tilted her head just like Wei Ying did when he wanted to teasingly ask for a favor that he knew that Lan Zhan wouldn’t grant.

“He’s quite dead, you understand,” Lan Zhan continued before Cangse Sanren could open her mouth. “His soul was torn to shreds. We’ve only just patched his soul back together. I expect that he will be returned to the cycle of rebirth in the next year or so. It will be… lonely… without him.”

“Oh,” Cangse Sanren said, biting her lip.

“I wondered at some of the things the townfolk said,” Wei Changze said. “I’m glad he’s not totally lost to you. At least not yet.”

“No, I’ll find him again,” Lan Zhan said. He shrugged. “It’s… complicated. He may not choose to show himself to you. I don’t know. We don’t have many guests other than the crows, so he might decide to be sociable. Or he might object to your having your wedding here.”

He said that loud enough that there was no way that Wei Ying could miss it.

Lan Zhan continued up the broad low steps that he’d cut into the terrace. One day, eventually, he would smooth it out into a proper road. For now, steps worked well enough. They were short enough to allow his handcart up them easily, if very uneven.

When the three of them passed the inner gate to Lan Zhan’s blooming home, Wei Ying was there. Eyes wide and mouth open as he stared at his parents. Who stared back at him in awe, but with no recognition at all.

“I’m home, Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan said. “They’ve come to ask me to officiate at their wedding. They’re eloping tonight.”

“What? What? You?… But!”

Lan Zhan nodded. “I was surprised as well.”

“Wei,” Wei Changze said with a little laugh despite how pale his cheeks were. “I. I can see the resemblance. We must be related somehow.”

Wei Ying glanced at Lan Zhan, sharp and urgent. Lan Zhan reached out a hand and smiled as Wei Ying put his insubstantial hand on top. They couldn’t communicate this way, mind to mind. Lan Zhan had never learned Empathy as it was a Jiang technique. But he didn’t need to read Wei Ying’s memories to communicate with him.

“I have… not told anyone of our past,” Lan Zhan explained in a low voice that would be easy for them to overhear, not that Lan Zhan cared. “It is not my secret to tell. It is yours. If you wish, I will explain. If not, I believe the curiosity will eat them both alive for the rest of their days, but they will just have to survive it.”

Both Wei Ying and Cangse Sanren burst into laughter at that. Wei Changze groaned and shook his head as if Lan Zhan had hit that nail directly on its head. Lan Zhan smiled at Wei Ying’s beautiful laughing face.

“Don’t tell them,” Wei Ying said, his grin evil and eyes delighted. “It’s our secret.”

“Very well,” Lan Zhan said. “I will not tell them unless you change your mind someday.”

“That’s fair,” Cangse Sanren said, grinning along with Wei Ying. “Not like I’m telling anyone what my name actually is. Can’t exactly object too much to other people having secrets.”

Wei Changze snorted, his smile amused and as fond as any smile Lan Zhan had ever leveled on Wei Ying. “I’ll just have to listen to you complaining about it forever. I know how this goes.”

Wei Ying snickered as he draped himself over Lan Zhan’s shoulders. This late at night, there was little light for touring the fields or the grow-huts that Lan Zhan was modestly proud of. He waved for them to follow him into his cave, instead.

Once Lan Zhan opened the night pearl he kept for late night brainstorming sessions, Cangse Sanren’s breath caught. Perhaps justifiably. The cave was neat, of course. Lan Zhan insisted on keeping it that way. But the shelves he’d carved were full of books that he’d brought from the future. His sturdy workbench was filled with half-complete projects and carefully annotated records of events yet to come.

Cangse Sanren’s eyes caught on the clay Buddha that Lan Zhan had created for purifying the river. Not the final one that he’d taken down to Cousin Third. No, this was the one that Lan Zhan had sculpted Wei Ying’s face onto, the thin, wan face of the Yiling Patriarch, just with a wry smile and a wary gleam in his narrowed eyes.

Whether Wei Ying realized that it was his face, the Yiling Patriarch’s face, or not was debatable. It did seem to capture Cangse Sanren’s attention as nothing else so far had.

“Here?” Cangse Sanren asked in a thick tone. She sniffled and sent a watery smile towards Lan Zhan. “I’d like to take our bows here. If it’s okay?”

Lan Zhan studied her and then smiled. “That was my thought as well. Now?”

“Now,” Wei Changze agreed as he cupped Cangse Sanren’s elbow. “And thank you for this. We’ll be in your debt.”

“No need,” Lan Zhan said. “Debt has no meaning to me. Just do your best to live and be happy together.”

It would be years before they died on a night hunt. If that happened, of course. Lan Zhan would have to do what he could to ensure that Wei Ying had his parents for longer. His Wei Ying shouldn’t be unhappy, not ever.

The wedding was as simple as it could be. Lan Zhan made their tea from his remaining supply of his favorite from the Cloud Recesses. They bowed to heaven and earth, Cangse Sanren making sure to give her respect to the Burial Mounds itself. They bowed to Wei Ying’s Buddha sculpture for their ancestors, which was such an oddity that Lan Zhan found his tongue going as thick in his mouth as it used to when he was young.

And then they bowed to each other, both teary-eyed and smiling as if this was the best day of their lives.

They offered the tea to Lan Zhan, and he found tears made a pleasant addition to the tea. Who knew? Not him.

“We should… go,” Wei Changze said though he laughed and looked as though he had no idea where he might go tonight.

“Nonsense,” Lan Zhan said. He waved towards his bed. “Please. Stay the night at least. I don’t need to sleep so the bed sees little enough use. You’re safe here, tonight. You’re always safe here. Take tonight just for the two of you. The world can wait until tomorrow.”

He found himself in a fierce hug suddenly and barely remembered how to wrap his arms around Cangse Sanren’s back. Lan Zhan patted gently until she stopped crying against his shoulder. She bit her lip, joy all but radiating off her as she bowed her thanks.

“Goodnight,” Lan Zhan said, leaving them alone in the cave.

Wei Ying, of course, darted out in front of him as if the sheer thought of peeping on his parents consummating their marriage might set him on fire and send him to the afterlife instantly. Lan Zhan felt almost the same. He breathed easier once outside in the star-filled darkness.

“The grow huts?” Lan Zhan asked Wei Ying.

“Yes, good plan, Lan Zhan.”

Anything would be better than peeping on a wedding night. Lan Zhan didn’t regret that he and Wei Ying hadn’t gotten one. He just had no interest in seeing Wei Ying be conceived again, now or in the future, whenever it happened.

12. Hidden Sanctuary

Changze collapsed on the not at all narrow bed of their thoroughly confusing immortal, distantly surprised that dust didn’t billow up off it. Obviously, Wei Zhan did sleep. Or meditated on the bed. Or possibly did… things… with his not-quite-dead husband that Changze was absolutely not going to think about.

“I can’t,” Cangse whispered, pacing back and forth across the cave. “I can’t. I mean, I can, obviously, but I can’t. This is. I just. I can’t!”

“Slow down and use all of your words, please,” Changze said. “Can’t what? Why can’t you? What is this? You just what? And why can’t you, again?”

“Stop being so good about this,” Cangse said, flinging one hand out towards the very austere Buddha statue.

It was an odd one. Changze was used to Buddhas being sculpted with very round faces that were so nondescript that they looked like no one at all. If they had any personality, they were sculpted to look like the rich donors who’d paid for the sculpture, complete with the donor’s preferred hairstyle and ornaments.

This one looked… human. Young and hungry, like an ascetic just returned to the world. But with a bright, vicious expression that suggested you’d be in for the debate of your life if you met him, complete with teasing and wise-cracking jokes and possibly sly threats that you didn’t figure out until well after you parted ways.

“More words, please,” Changze said. “It’s distinctive, yes, but I don’t see what you do.”

“That’s Wei Ying’s face,” Cangse said with such slow and perfect pronunciation that Changze sat up from his sprawl on the bed. “That’s our son’s face, Changze. That’s our son grown up.”

“…Wait, what?” Changze squawked. “What do you mean Wei Ying is our son? I mean, I know you wanted to name our first son after Wei Ying.”

“No, not after him,” Cangse corrected as she stood there shaking. “He is our son. Literally. Wei Ying is our son’s soul from the future, returned to the past at Wei Zhan’s side. I, I don’t know how, or why, or anything. But I know that much for sure.”

That…

Changze caught his wife’s hands (his wife!) and pulled her down to sit on the bed next to him. She promptly straddled his lap and started muttering more nonsense against his shoulder. The really lovely thing about it was that she fit perfectly. He’d never dared hold her this way before. It wasn’t proper, not that Cangse cared about proprieties. But she fit as if she’d been born to sit on his lap and cling to him while having a panic attack about…

…their son. From the future. Who was dead, apparently. Or not born yet?

Changze abandoned thought in favor of clinging to her just as hard as she was clinging to him. After a bit, maybe a quarter of a shichen, both of them managed to calm down enough that they ended up lying on the bed, arms around each other in a pose so intimate that Changze’s nether regions became very, very interested in things other than discussing impossible sons and too-thin sculptures.

“I don’t like that he obviously starved at some point,” Changze observed while running his fingers over the nape of Cangse’s neck.

“No, that’s not good,” Cangse agreed. “Don’t stop doing that.”

He stopped, of course, but only so that he could kiss his wife (his wife!) to within an inch of both of their lives. Which led to them losing their clothes and consummating their marriage about six times over the next shichen.

Changze was pleasantly surprised by his stamina. He wasn’t at all surprised by Cangse’s. As far as he’d seen, she rarely slowed down as much as she just flopped over when she got too exhausted to continue whatever she’d decided to work on.

Which.

Actually. That was kind of a terrifying concept when applied to their possibly-not-hypothetical son. Huh. He’d better be prepared to keep both of them busy in harmless ways for the next, oh, several decades. Perhaps he could enlist Wei Zhan. Obviously he was an expert with it. He’d kept their son occupied and happy to death and beyond.

Changze sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I think I’m too tired to think anymore.”

“Nonsense thoughts?” Cangse snickered into his neck when Changze nodded. “Yeah. Can’t blame you. I can’t believe that Lan Aining’s writings were still around anywhere.”

“Who?” Changze asked.

He peered at the top of Cangse’s head but all he saw was a rumpled, messy nest of dark hair. At least until she lifted her head to smile sadly at him.

“Lan Aining was Baoshan Sanren’s shizun,” Cangse said with a sad little smile that hurt his heart. “I didn’t think he left any of his writings anywhere else. You know, other than the mountain. I wish I could go ask her a million questions. I never really paid attention to her stories of her shizun. It was too long ago to be important, you know? I was such a little idiot.”

No sad smiles.

Kissing the sad smile away led to another round that left both of them panting, sweaty and exhausted enough to fall asleep. Somehow, Changze had no idea how, he ended up in the wet spot even though Cangse had promised not to make him take it.

Morning came entirely too early. There wasn’t much sign of it other than an increase in the cawing of the crows and a faint brightness under the cave’s door. It didn’t matter. Changze had been waking up with the dawn since he was about three years old. Getting married in the middle of the Burial Mounds by his not-yet-conceived dead son’s immortal husband who was, possibly, taught by the same immortal as his new not-quite-immortal-and-maybe-not-fully-human wife wouldn’t stop his habits.

Cangse, of course, hid under the covers as soon as Changze got out of bed.

He chuckled and made sure she was properly tucked in. Then he made sure her clothes were folded and waiting for her next to the tray with a delicious looking breakfast on it.

Under a stasis seal so that the congee would stay warm, and the tea wouldn’t go bitter, no less. He ate his portion quickly, making sure not to disturb the stasis seal on the other portions so that Cangse would have a good breakfast when she woke.

The congee was light and delicious, with a hint of spice that turned into a burn after a few moments. The tea did a good job of taking the burn down to something manageable, anyway, so Changze couldn’t be too upset. He was kind of curious what spices Wei Zhan used. Most food he’d eaten with that level of spiciness were bright red, not bland, mild, creamy white.

“Apparently our son marries a very good host,” Changze murmured to Cangse’s snoring face. “Good to know.”

Outside, the Burial Mounds was…

… a thousand times more impressive than it seemed during the night.

He’d expected a small clear space carved out of the resentful energy and devastated earth. Instead the sky hung blue and beautiful overhead. Bright grass and wildflowers grew everywhere. There were fruit trees, including a small lychee that looked as though it might grow into a monster in the future. It looked young from the lack of fruit, but its branches already spread wide over its thin trunk.

The outer terraces that he’d noted had been unfinished and dead as the rest of the Burial Mounds. Close in? The terraces were so full of life and abundant produce that Wei Zhan could’ve fed a small army. Maybe he planned on that? Yiling could certainly do with good, healthy produce.

“Good morning,” Wei Zhan said when Changze found him working on the lower, incomplete terraces. “Your wife is sleeping?”

“Yes,” Changze said, beaming at the reminder that he and Cangse were married at last. “She’s not much for mornings.”

“Neither was my husband,” Wei Zhan said, amusement wrinkling the corners of his eyes. “I’ve been trying to be quiet. Do you think pounding stakes in would wake her?”

“You could pound them in next to her head and I doubt that she’d do more than mumble,” Changze said, amused at the sheer thought of anything waking her before she was ready to get up. “She’s had eight toddlers play a climb the mountain game on top of her and not woken up before.”

Wei Zhan’s eyes squinched shut in a sudden grin though his lips barely curled. “That sounds familiar.”

“…Can I help?” Changze asked.

“Please,” Wei Zhan replied with a more openly welcoming expression.

By the time they’d hammered stakes into the edge of the terrace and woven strips of bamboo between them, Changze had a better understanding of just why Cangse was so strong. And so unstoppable.

Wei Zhan didn’t get tired.

He didn’t breathe hard, no matter how hard he swung the sledge hammer or how fast. His strength was ridiculous. The bamboo strips weren’t steamed or soaked or anything. Wei Zhan seemed to bend them with his bare hands and will power alone, though there was likely some level of qi involved to keeping them from shattering into a million pieces.

One shichen later, they had a terrace wall built.

Wei Changze used his sleeve to wipe the sweat off his face. “How many do you plan on doing?”

“Oh, all the way down the mountain eventually,” Wei Zhan replied with a distant look to his eyes. He smiled. “It’s part of the process of reclaiming the land, you see. This one will need to be filled, of course. Then I’ll need to set the soil conditioning arrays up. A great deal of straw, manure and special prayers later, it will be… better. Not healed. Not yet. That will take, oh, at least four or five years, I think.”

Changze stared at the upper terrace with its beautiful rice and gorgeous radish greens. “This isn’t healed?”

“Not yet,” Wei Zhan said. “It’s healthy. Edible and not full of resentment. But the small lives, the insects and worms and fungi, they’re not restored yet. Nothing but time will repair that.”

When Changze just stared at him frowning, Wei Zhan waved for Changze to follow him into one of the huts clustered near the lychee tree. Inside, instead of a house or storage building, there were more plants growing in the earthen soil.

“What…?” Changze asked.

Wei Zhan knelt down, nodding at the soil between the cabbages and carrots. “Grow huts. I have enough food for one, maybe two people, in the terraces. This is my attempt to find a way to keep growing food all year round. The array on the roof will provide summer daylight and heat. The arrays on the foundation stones keep the soil from freezing. And the walls protect everything inside from the weather killing them.”

“That’s ingenious,” Changze murmured. He knelt and dug his fingers into the soil, expecting rich black earth. Instead the soil was brown, a bit too dry and nowhere near as rich as he expected. “Oh. Oh, now I see.”

No worms. No organic matter built up over generations. Wei Zhan had to bring everything in. That was why he wanted the manure. That was why he wanted any used straw the farmers had. Changze frowned.

“Do you bring in soil from the surrounding mountains, too?” Changze asked.

“Mm,” Wei Zhan agreed. “It’s the only way to get the small lives. I can purify the soil but bringing life back will take a very long time. Which is fine. I have the time.”

“You’re planning for a village here eventually,” Changze said. “Separate from Yiling.”

Wei Zhan nodded and stood so smoothly that you wouldn’t know he’d just spent a full shichen doing the sort of labor that broke prisoners’ bodies and wills. Standing wasn’t anywhere near as easy for Changze, even when he circulated his qi through his aching back, knees and shoulders. His back kept popping obnoxiously.

“There are always people who need a safe place to hide,” Wei Zhan said so distantly that he sounded like he was a thousand miles away. “I cannot save everyone, but I want to create a place for those who need a home. And a project. Eventually, I hope to have a whole village here helping me purify the Burial Mounds. In a generation or so, I would expect that people will be living here with me. I look forward to it, honestly.”

In all her rambling, Cangse had never said much about Baoshan Sanren. She’d told jokes and diverted conversations and occasionally done shamelessly ridiculous things to keep people from learning anything about Baoshan Sanren.

About the only thing she’d ever told Changze was that her shizun cared about children. Abandoned children, lost children, children who had nowhere to go and no way to survive. Those were the ones that she rescued and gave homes to.

And most of them never left Baoshan Sanren’s mountain. Only two. Cangse seemed… ashamed of leaving when she thought Changze wasn’t looking.

“I hope you succeed,” Changze said instead of asking all the questions he wanted to about Wei Ying, about Wei Zhan, about the place or time that Wei Zhan had come from. “It’s a good idea. And a better goal, really, than most sects have.”

“I do not have a sect,” Wei Zhan said just a little too bitterly for Changze to believe it. “I just have a home that I hope to share someday.”

Changze nodded his understanding of that, just as the cave door opened and his wife (his wife!) stumbled out yawning and grumbling about morning coming too early. He would talk to her about it all later. When they were away from the Burial Mounds. Given how she’d responded to Wei Ying and the sculpture, given how Wei Zhan reacted about sects, Changze needed to spend some time thinking about what to ask.

And how to handle any answers he managed to wring out of the two of them, if he got any. That was probably going to be the hard part. Cangse alone knocked him off his sword on a regular basis. Adding Wei Zhan’s… everything… was sure to be twice as bad.

Wei Ying?

Changze wasn’t sure he was ready to really think about the possibilities of his son traveling back in time or the way his sculpture looked, so he pushed that way and went to kiss his lovely new wife (his wife!) awake. It could all wait. For now.

13. Tiny Laughs

Lan Zhan hummed a bawdy song that Wei Ying had been singing endlessly since his parents left to go night hunting instead of going back to Lotus Pier to tell everyone about their elopement. It had gotten well and truly stuck in Lan Zhan’s mind, complete with the thoroughly indecent lyrics about a shop keeper and the huli jing that repeatedly seduced him for his sweets.

The latest set of terraces were coming along well. He’d gotten the drainage in, set up the irrigation channels, though they weren’t lined yet. He’d even moved enough dry, ashy soil that he could start creating conditioning arrays.

Now he needed some good healthy worms, bugs and fungus from soil well outside of the Burial Mounds. Which was why he’d tromped off into the mountains with a backpack-basket and a shovel. The last spot he’d mined was more or less worked out, so he’d hunted around until he found a slow-moving spring with lovely rich soil all around it.

“Oh, she smiled with her sharp, sharp teeth,” Lan Zhan sang as he shoveled rich, wet soil into his basket. “She smiled with her sharp, sharp teeth. She smiled and the shop keeper smiled back. Can I have a piece of candy, oh, can I have a piece of candy, kind, kind sir? I’ll do whatever you want. Just can I have a piece of candy, kind, kind sir?”

Someone giggled off in the bushes near the spring.

Lan Zhan stopped shoveling, staring at the bush. A pair of bright brown eyes stared back at him, out of a round little face that was covered with mud.

A child, maybe four years old. The child’s hair was full of mud and leaves as if no one had taken care of the child for days. A-Yaun’s ghostly wails slid through Lan Zhan’s mind as he carefully set down his shovel, kneeling so that he wouldn’t be as intimidatingly tall.

“Hello,” Lan Zhan said. “Did you like the song?”

“Mm,” the child said as… she creeped out of the bush. “It’s funny. You sing pretty.”

“Thank you,” Lan Zhan said, bowing his head to her. “I am Wei Zhan. What is your name?”

“A-Lun,” the girl said, twisting her fingers in her muddy, torn skirt. “Do you know A-Die? Mama won’t wake up.”

“I do not,” Wei Zhan said as something like dread twisted in his stomach like her fingers did in her skirt. “Perhaps I can help your Mama? Can you show me where she is?”

“Mm!” A-Lun said, beaming at him.

She waited politely for Lan Zhan to put on his mostly-full backpack and then giggled as he scooped her up in his arms. Thankfully, she didn’t feel as though she’d gone hungry for long. Her little stomach growled, but she didn’t pout or beg for food. All she did was curl trustingly into his arms as he followed her instructions around the mountain’s slope and to an old, barely-used trail through a too-narrow to be useful pass.

A-Lun’s mama was already starting to decompose. It looked as though a rock had fallen and cracked her skull. She must have staggered away from the accident site, sat down with her daughter and then died in her sleep.

“I’m sorry, A-Lun,” Wei Zhan murmured once he checked that her soul had already moved on. “Mama won’t wake up again. Did your mama tell you where your A-Die lived?”

“Mm,” A-Lun said, sad in that blank uncomprehending way that very small children had about death. “Yiling. Mama said he was in Yiling. No going there. Not ever, ever, ever. A-Die was mad Mama had me, so we had to stay away. But Lao Lao went away. Mama said JiuJui was mad about me, too. She rubbed her face a lot. We went on a long, long walk. Then Mama fell down and wouldn’t wake up.”

That. Lan Zhan sighed and nodded. He had A-Lun sit next to his basket and shovel, then used one of his old arrays for dealing with resentful corpses to cremate A-Lun’s mother’s body. She gasped and clapped her hands as the white-hot fire flashed so bright that her mother’s body all but evaporated.

A bit overpowered but that was all alright.

He certainly had the power to spare.

The old Lan cleaning trick removed the worst of the mud and leaves from A-Lun’s hair and clothes. She squealed in delight, then happily settled into his arms. There was…

…well, there was little choice, was there?

A-Lun’s father was either a rapist or a married man who’d had an affair with another woman. Clearly, he wouldn’t take care of A-Lun. Her uncle had taken to at the minimum slapping her mother once A-Lun’s grandmother died. She had no home on either side and few families among the peasantry valued girls the way they should. Both sides would likely say that he should have left her to starve to death or be eaten by animals rather than save her.

“Would you like to live with me now, A-Lun?” Lan Zhan asked.

“…Where?” A-Lun asked, eyes wide.

She sucked on her thumb, abruptly shy. Not frightened, exactly. She didn’t lean away from him or try to wiggle free from his arms. It was as though she’d suddenly realized that he was someone she didn’t know and thus wasn’t sure how to take the offer.

Good instincts, at any rate. Better than A-Yuan’s instant trust of Lan Zhan to the point of clinging to his leg the moment they met.

He felt bad for judging A-Yuan the next moment, only to huff a laugh at himself that seemed to reassure A-Lun because she stopped sucking her thumb to smile at him.

“I have a home of my own,” Lan Zhan explained. “There are terraces with plants and lots of crows. I live in a cave with lots of books and my friend Wei Ying. He’s very funny. I think he’ll love you as soon as he meets you. I hope to have many people live with me someday but for now it’s just Wei Ying and me. We would like someone else to take care of.”

“Food?” A-Lun asked hopefully.

“Yes,” Lan Zhan agreed immediately. “Rice and beans and radishes and soup and pears and plums and lychees. And other things, too.”

“Mmm, okay,” A-Lun said, setting her head on Lan Zhan’s shoulder. “I stay with you until Mama comes back. No more food in her scarf. A-Lun is hungry, Wei Zhan.”

“Then we will get you some food to eat,” Lan Zhan declared.

He could have pulled his sword from the qiankun pouch he used to store it, but honestly, Lan Zhan wasn’t that far from the path. It wasn’t too far of a walk. He did harvest an early pear from a wild tree they passed, giving it to A-Lun to eat.

Unsurprisingly, she fell on it like a ravenous wolf and made a thorough mess of both herself and Lan Zhan. She didn’t object until he stopped her from licking her fingers to clean them.

“Here,” Lan Zhan said, doing the cleanliness trick again.

“Oh!” A-Lun exclaimed. She giggled and patted her little hands together happily. “Is good!”

“It is,” Lan Zhan agreed as they reached the path. “Now, watch. This is the path to my home. I will give you a… pretty… that will let you in. These mark the path. You must always stay between them.”

A-Lun blinked at him, clearly not understanding. When he knelt down and showed her the markers, she nodded, but there was no light behind her bright brown eyes. So Lan Zhan sighed, stood with her in his arms, and then triggered the bead. He deliberately put a bit more energy into the array so that the path markers would visibly glimmer in the afternoon light.

Light bloomed up the path as a wave of tiny lotuses bloomed above the dead’s bodies. The soul-lights bounced, drifting to or away from the path as they chose. Thankfully, no walking dead approached, not even General Kwan. The bleakness of the Burial Mounds went magical as it always did.

A-Lun gasped, hands flying to her face. She stared at everything. Then clung to Lan Zhan’s robes as he carried her up the path towards his home.

“Shiny,” A-Lun whispered as one of the larger, most fiercely resentful soul-lights finally drifted into the path and dissolved into the afterlife.

“Mm,” Lan Zhan agreed. “They are alive. People. If you see them, be kind. They are sad and angry and lonely. When they go poof, like that one, they’re going home to be happy and safe.”

“Home?” A-Lun asked. “New home? With us?”

“No, a new home somewhere else,” Lan Zhan said. “Like you and Mama. There was a home, but it wasn’t good. Mama wasn’t happy. You weren’t happy. So you left and now you’re here.”

A-Lun thought about that until they reached the outer terraces. She tugged on his robes, biting her lip with square little teeth as white as the rabbits back in the Cloud Recesses. Lan Zhan smiled and nodded to encourage her to ask.

“Mama goes new home here?” A-Lun asked.

“No, Mama went to a new home like the lights,” Lan Zhan said, heart breaking a little inside of him.

“I miss Mama.” A-Lun sniffled alarmingly so Lan Zhan crooned and cuddled her close.

Wei Ying waited on the far side of the inner boundary, hands over his mouth as he stared at A-Lun in Lan Zhan’s arms. As expected, Wei Ying stared at A-Lun as if she was the most precious, adorable, perfect child the world had ever seen.

“A-Lun,” Lan Zhan said as he crossed the boundary and the soul lights faded, “this is my friend Wei Ying. Wei Ying, this is A-Lun. Her mother… There was a rock in the pass, the small one. She was struck. A-Lun has been alone for at least a couple of days.”

“Well, hello, A-Lun,” Wei Ying said, enunciating his words as carefully as Lan Zhan had ever seen.

A-Lun lifted her face and gasped. “Pretty! Pretty-gege Wei Ying!”

Wei Ying made a squeaking noise as his whole form flushed pink. It made A-Lun laugh in delight. She clapped her hands and then applauded even harder as Wei Ying took flight and drifted along next to them.

He did a lovely job keeping A-Lun distracted as Lan Zhan gave her a bath and washed her tangled hair. A careful brushing with a few drops of sandalwood oil and she no longer looked like an abandoned ragamuffin. Her clothes were torn badly, but she had no issues curling up in one of Lan Zhan’s worn work shirts as she ate the carefully portioned meal Lan Zhan made her.

In fact, she fell asleep easily once Lan Zhan washed her face and hands free of all traces of the vegetable soup, fried scallion pancakes and sliced pears he’d given her.

“She’s so small,” Wei Ying whispered, fingers ghosting over A-Lun’s hair.

“I know,” Lan Zhan agreed. “Her mother’s soul was already gone. I believe she had an affair with either a rich man or a married man in Yiling. I am… not inclined to give her to him. Or to her uncle who apparently slapped and abused her mother to the point that she ran away with A-Lun.”

Wei Ying huffed at the very thought of it.

Then he laughed softly because Lan Zhan had pulled out some of his carefully stored away fabric from the future. There was red and black and blue, of course, but he’d also brought back some pale lavender cotton and a delightful pale green that would make A-Lun a beautiful dress.

Lan Zhan settled in to mend her dress first, then used it as a pattern for her new clothes. In the morning he would have to consider going to town to get extra bowls and perhaps some toys for A-Lun. She should have a few things, certainly.

But for now, he sewed and hummed the bawdy song while Wei Ying watched over them both. She wasn’t A-Yuan, thank everything and everyone holy, but that was good. A-Lun would grow up here, safe and happy, the way A-Yuan hadn’t.

Lan Zhan would make sure of it.

14. Rumbling Rumors

“What do you mean by “a new immortal”?” Wen Ruohan demanded.

Lan Qiang raised one eyebrow like the supercilious little brat that he was. Wen Ruohan had always thought that it was a shame that he was the eldest son instead of Lan Qiren. While Lan Qiren was stiff, formal, and a profound introvert, at least he attempted to follow the Lan rules. The rules were nothing more than suggestions to Lan Qiang.

“I didn’t say that there was a new immortal,” Lan Qiang said. “I said that people think there is one in Yiling. I spoke with Wei Changze about it recently when he and Cangse Sanren came to pester my brother. There’s a Buddhist priest, a cultivator with a legacy from Tianzhu, who’s settled there. He’s done some amazing things with some unique purification arrays, which, of course, means that the common folk think that he’s an immortal.”

“Huh,” Wen Ruohan grunted.

The discussion conference rambled on around them. Lao Nie was busy attempting to get Lan Qiren drunk with him, which he always did. One of these days, Lan Qiren was going to use that arm strength of his to put Lao Nie on his back. Then he’d never get rid of Lao Nie, not that Wen Ruohan intended to tell Lan Qiren that.

Though the scowl marring Lan Qiren’s face did prompt a change of topic.

“Interesting,” Wen Ruohan said. “Maybe he can do something for your second son.”

As predicted, Lan Qiang stiffened and then stormed off. For a man who’d only just emerged from a supposedly life-long seclusion because of the tragic health condition of his second child, Lan Qiang didn’t act like a grieving man.

He did act like one who needed to be beaten with his own limbs as he all but shoved Lan Qiren away from Lao Nie who shrugged and set to work plying him with alcohol instead.

“Lan Qiren,” Wen Ruohan called as Lan Qiren hesitated visibly. “A word?”

“Of course,” Lan Qiren said. He really was ridiculously young, in soul and body. “How can I help you, Sect Leader Wen?”

“First, call me Wen Ruohan,” Wen Ruohan said with a little snort. “You used to do that. I’m not letting you slip back into your old ways.”

“I was… informed that it was inappropriate to be so familiar,” Lan Qiren said even more stiffly than normal.

Wen Ruohan raised an eyebrow before turning to stare at Lan Qiang. “I decide what’s too familiar, not your brother. Call me Wen Ruohan.”

“I wish the two of you wouldn’t fight through me,” Lan Qiren complained like the barely twenty-one-year-old man he was.

“I won’t normally,” Wen Ruohan said, amused. “I just wished to know how your nephews are doing. The news that’s slipped out hasn’t been… good.”

Lan Qiren stilled entirely, eyes shutting so tight that pained wrinkles radiated around his eyes. He breathed slowly and evenly for a few moments, then raised his chin and opened his eyes again. The attempt at a polite smile was atrocious, more of a grimace than anything else.

“Don’t try,” Wen Ruohan said as kindly as he could in the middle of a raucous feast in the Unclean Realm. “I truly am just curious if the boy will survive. And what happened to him. No one has been able to find anything out.”

Lan Qiren jerked his chin for Wen Ruohan to follow him before striding out of the banquet hall with Wen Ruohan on his heels with two quickly snatched cups and a fresh pot of tea. Always good to have an excuse. Everyone in the Jianghu knew just how little Lan Qiren liked these affairs.

And Wen Ruohan was old enough and powerful enough to do as he pleased.

“Ah, thank you,” Lan Qiren said when Wen Ruohan poured him some tea.

“Anytime,” Wen Ruohan said. “So?”

Lan Qiren sighed. “A-Zhan… was born with… he seemed not to be alive. His heart beat. He breathed. There was no birth trauma. But there was no soul inside of him.”

“No soul?” Wen Ruohan snapped, wincing as he heard himself. “My apologies, that was…”

“Appropriate,” Lan Qiren replied. He hadn’t even flinched. “His mother was the one who said it first. The baby rarely kicked when still in her belly. She asked almost daily if he still lived. Once he was born, we expected that he would die.”

“He hasn’t,” Wen Ruohan said, fascinated. “Just… lies there?”

“Oh, no,” Lan Qiren said. He laughed breathlessly, fingers shaking around his teacup. “No, A-Zhan has… grown. He started reacting as a normal baby within a day or two. He walks, talks, laughs, plays. He’s a perfectly normal child. Who has no spirit veins or signs of cultivation at all. His soul is as pristine as new-fallen snow. I and his mother are convinced that A-Zhan has never lived before.”

All the air went right out of Wen Ruohan’s lungs, punched out in a grunt of pure shock. He’d heard of new souls when he was a very young man, but he’d never seen one in his long life. Never found records of one, either. Even non-cultivators were born and reborn over and over. They simply had to spend hundreds of lives before they developed their spirit veins and began to be able to cultivate.

“New?” Wen Ruohan whispered. “Truly new? Not an animal in his first life as a human? Just purely new?”

“New-new,” Lan Qiren agreed. “He is. Very strange. We protect him, of course. He’s a sweet, innocent toddler. Bright. Inquisitive. I expect that he will be quite intelligent when he grows up. But he will never be a cultivator.”

“I would imagine not,” Wen Ruohan said.

He refilled their cups for the lack of anything else to say. That was stunning. A new soul. Lan Zhan, and it was the first time that Wen Ruohan had heard the boy’s name, was not one in a million. He was one in a million trillion billion, one out of all the grains of sand plus every grain of rice plus every star in the sky plus every drop of water in the world.

“Keep him safe,” Wen Ruohan finally advised.

“As best we can,” Lan Qiren agreed.

“Have you heard talk of the so-called immortal?” Wen Ruohan asked.

He desperately changed the subject because he had so many questions about Lan Zhan. Every single one of them was utterly inappropriate. Wen Ruohan was an ass on a regular basis, but he couldn’t dream of doing it about a little boy who was literally new in that way.

The things that a truly new mind and soul could potentially do…

How different would his thought processes be? Every single thing in the world was brand new to him, never before seen, so he would see the world in ways that an older soul never, ever could. Past lives, past cultivation, affected all of them profoundly. It was why people tended to reincarnate back to familiar places, within the same bloodlines that they’d had before.

New…

“Ah, yes,” Lan Qiren said with obvious relief. “He’s studied the ways of Lan Aining. Quite fascinating, you know. Lan Aining was one of the early founders of the Lan. He purified the land that the Cloud Recesses sits on. Eventually, in several generations, I expect that Yiling may be similar.”

“Wait, he’s an actual immortal?” Wen Ruohan asked.

Lan Qiren leveled one of his ‘you’re not that stupid so stop acting like it’ glares on Wen Ruohan. “I couldn’t say. I haven’t met him. Wei Changze and Cangse Sanren were quite impressed with him. When I visited Lotus Pier, Jiang Fengmian was less impressed, but that may have been because Wei Zhan suggested dredging the Yiling River.”

Wen Ruohan grinned over the rim of his teacup. “Fengmian was on the ground in the middle of the stink and muck?”

Amusement wrinkled Lan Qiren’s eyes again. It was one of the very few ways that he showed emotion. Wen Ruohan was glad to see that his fingers had stopped shaking. Good. Lan Qiren wasn’t an awkward, stilted boy anymore, but he hadn’t quite come into himself yet. Getting him to relax as they talked was an accomplishment that Wen Ruohan felt proud of.

“Yes,” Lan Qiren said. He sighed and stared out over the Unclean Realm. “No one expected my brother to emerge from seclusion, you know. It took bringing A-Zhan to Qiang for him to decide he had to come out.”

“And his wife?” Wen Ruohan asked because he was very aware of her plight, no matter what the Lan Elders wanted. As if anyone could keep a secret like that from him.

“She’s… emerged,” Lan Qiren said slowly, eyes locked on his empty teacup. “But she focuses all her energy on her sons. She does not act as Lan Furen.”

“Mm, perhaps in the future, once the boys are older,” Wen Ruohan said even though he knew that was never going to happen. “I’ll go through the Wen archives, see if we have anything on new souls. We do have some very good resources for children who are born with weak or no cultivation. It’s common enough for the Wen since we’ve expanded so much.”

“That would be very welcome,” Lan Qiren said gratefully.

Wen Ruohan nodded. He’d have copies made of the books and then bring them along to the Cloud Recesses himself. Perhaps arrange a whole trip, visit all the sects. It had been a while since he’d done that, though honestly, he had been thinking about getting out to Dafan Mountain to see his half-brother sometime soon.

Ah, well. That would wait. They’d never gotten along that well. Having a brother who was literally two generations younger than you would never stop being weird, though he’d grown up to be a very good doctor and a reasonably solid cultivator.

“Ah, no more tea,” Wen Ruohan sighed once they’d finished the pot off. “I suppose we should head back inside before someone decides that I’m out here seducing you.”

“No one would believe that,” Lan Qiren said so promptly that Wen Ruohan frowned at him. “They might believe that of you, but not of me. No one is interested in me.”

“Now, that’s a lie,” Wen Ruohan said, wagging his finger at Lan Qiren. “I know for a fact that Jiang Fengmian thinks you’re fascinating.”

“We correspond about the research we’re doing.” Lan Qiren huffed as his cheeks went bright red. “That’s nothing to do with seduction.”

“Not with Jiang Fengmian,” Wen Ruohan agreed. “But Lao Nie wouldn’t try and get you drunk so persistently if he didn’t find you interesting. I find you interesting. If you ever want to lose your virginity, look me up. I’ll be delighted to help. Cangse Sanren would help, too, with or without Wei Changze.”

Lan Qiren was so red that he all but glowed in the light of the moon. “You’re teasing me.”

“No,” Wen Ruohan said, both amused and not at how little credence Lan Qiren gave to his words. “I’m not, actually. You’re the fifth most eligible male cultivator.”

“…Fourth,” Lan Qiren corrected while staring pointedly anywhere but at Wen Ruohan’s face.

Wen Ruohan blinked. “Who got married?”

“Wei Changze and Cangse Sanren,” Lan Qiren said very quietly indeed. “They asked me not to tell anyone until they spoke to Sect Leader Jiang about it. Especially not to Jiang Fengmian and his wife.”

“Is that why Jiang Fengmian is here instead of Jiang Hanyu?” Wen Ruohan breathed, delight spreading a grin across his lips. “Huh. Huh! Well, that’s interesting. Eloped, I assume? The Jiang Elders will lose their minds. So will Yu Ziyuan. She’s so very touchy about the whole inheritance thing despite having borne the first grandchild.”

“Exactly,” Lan Qiren agreed far more grimly. “That’s why Jiang Fengmian is here instead of there. It’s to keep him safe. Apparently, Yu Ziyuan came along to guard his back but then stormed off when someone asked about Wei Changze attending.”

Wen Ruohan straightened up, waving his teacup for Lan Qiren to follow him back inside. “That woman. Well, let’s go make sure the boy is safe, shall we? He’s going to be upset when it comes out. Better to have his… research friend… around.”

Lan Qiren glowered at Wen Ruohan, but he followed willingly enough. A lecture visibly battered against his teeth trying to escape. Amazingly, Lan Qiren kept it in. Pity.

Wen Ruohan loved how bright Lan Qiren’s eyes got when he got in one of those disciplinarian moods.

Either way, it was easy enough to find Jiang Fengmian curled into a corner of the banquet hall with a tiny cup of wine held in front of him like a shield. Wen Ruohan liberated another pot of tea, a third cup, and then cheerfully went over to spend some time with the young Jiang heir. He wasn’t as much fun as Lan Qiren, but put the two of them together and any party became a joy. They had such fascinating ideas about cultivation techniques and no verbal filters at all.

“Jiang Fengmian!” Wen Ruohan exclaimed as he settled down next to him. “Have some tea with us. I was just talking with Lan Qiren about education for sect members with little to no cultivation and we were wondering if you had any ideas on how to handle it.”

Lan Qiren’s little nod of confirmation, without stating that it was for any specific child with a completely new soul, was enough to set Jiang Fengmian off on a rambling lecture on development of spiritual power, how education was as much a matter of learning reading, math and craft skills as it was cultivation skills, and how civilians should be educated in culture as much as anyone else.

Wen Ruohan kept the tea flowing and listened with amusement as his two most bookish acquaintances proceeded to plan out how to educate every single person on the planet together. They really were adorable. And sometime soon he needed to seduce Lan Qiren. Maybe propose to him. He could be such a credit to the Wen, he really could.

And if he was plotting out how to meet the possible-maybe-maybe-not immortal in Yiling while listening and throwing verbal fuel on their fire? Well, that was his business and no one else’s, now wasn’t it?

15. Bruised Eyes

Lan Zhan stared, without shame or subtlety, at Xinshi’s bruised face. Someone, her new husband obviously, had punched her repeatedly in the face. Her eyes were nearly swollen shut. A split ran down one side of her mouth and there were bruises marking her throat.

Encircling them, in fact.

Lan Zhan breathed through the rush of fury for her, then through the sorrow that she had to experience that, and then through the flashes of memories of Wei Ying with bruises, cuts and still trying to smile.

Xinshi didn’t try to smile. She flinched before squaring her shoulders and peering up into Lan Zhan’s eyes.

“I…” Xinshi stopped and swallowed painfully when the word came out as a croak that even crows would frown at.

“You are of course welcome,” Lan Zhan said, pulling out a talisman and passing it to her. “I just wonder if I should go speak to your husband once you’re safe.”

“No!” Xinshi squeaked. She clutched the talisman to her chest while shaking. “No. Please don’t.”

Her cousin, then. Lianmin would muster the whole family against Xinshi’s husband, Ho Zhifei. It wouldn’t take long before the entirety of Yiling turned against him. If his family had tolerated the abuse, well, Lan Zhan suspected that they would all be driven out of town in short order.

He’d intended to go to town to get some advice on how to deal with little girls who wanted to braid hair but who couldn’t do more than make gigantic messes. Wei Ying had laughed until he’d nearly faded from sight at Lan Zhan’s hair once A-Lun was done last night. Obviously, that would wait until later.

“Owies?” A-Lun asked, peeking out of the basket on Lan Zhan’s back where she’d been hiding and peeking out every few steps while giggling.

“Yes,” Lan Zhan said over his shoulder to A-Lun. “This is Cho Xinshi. She is coming to live with us. Cho Xinshi, this is my newly adopted daughter A-Lun.”

“Wow,” Xinshi whispered. Her eyes widened, then squinted as she peered at A-Lun, then she smiled as much as she could with her bruised face and split lip. “Hi, A-Lun.”

“Uncle hit?” A-Lun asked.

“Ah, no,” Lan Zhan said, waving for Xinshi to follow him back to the path. “Her husband hit her.”

“…He’s bad,” A-Lun declared after a long scowling moment of contemplation. “Naughty. No treats for him.”

Xinshi started giggling. The giggles set off A-Lun’s giggles which lasted until they reached the path and the soul lights appeared. A-Lun squealed and clapped her hands, waving to General Kwan who lumbered slowly towards them only to stop out of range of the path’s purification array.

“Hi-hi, Gen’ral Kwan!” A-Lun called, waving to him. “New auntie for A-Lun.”

General Kwan waved one skeletal hand at A-Lun. Despite having no flesh left on his face, he had the general feeling of a shy smile that Lan Zhan nodded approvingly at. He kept one hand on the small of Xinshi’s back because she whimpered at the sight of him, at the soul lights and at stepping across the boundary line up the path to Lan Zhan’s home.

“The path I created liberates all souls that enter it,” Lan Zhan explained to Xinshi. “General Kwan is… not ready to go onto the next stage of reincarnation yet. I think it may be soon. He is much less resentful than he was when I first came here.”

“You, you, you live,” Xinshi wheezed. “You live in.”

“Inside the Burial Grounds,” Lan Zhan confirmed. “I am working to purify them from the inside out. Right now, only you, A-Lun, and two cultivator friends of mine have access. You will be utterly safe there.”

“With yummies!” A-Lun exclaimed.

She bounced in the basket just a bit too enthusiastically. Lan Zhan patted her head, calming her into delighted giggles, and then huffed a laugh as she ducked back down into the basket to play Go-and-Peek again. Small children were surprisingly easy to keep amused. He hadn’t expected that, but it was good now that he had Xinshi walking on trembling legs by his side.

Every time Lan Zhan had brought someone into the Burial Mounds, it was…

…nerve wracking. Exciting. Frightening. Fraught with tension as they neared the center where Wei Ying always waited. He saw less of their souls when he used the talismans, but there were still echoes of their emotions pouring into him.

This time was worse because Xinshi knew about Wei Ying. He’d told stories of Wei Ying to her and the other townsfolk, never admitting that Wei Ying was still with him despite being dead. He expected to have to explain Wei Ying to Xinshi, to at least explain that Wei Ying would not be lingering as a ghost for too much longer, but Xinshi gasped when she saw him.

“Oh,” Xinshi breathed. “Oh. Your Wei Ying. Oh, no wonder.”

Wei Ying, hovering on the other side of the inner barrier, stared at her and then scowled.

“Cho Xinshi does not wish me to speak with her husband,” Lan Zhan told Wei Ying. “I do still need to run my errand into town, though. If you wouldn’t mind, I would appreciate it if you would watch over Xinshi while A-Lun and I go back.”

Wei Ying nodded firmly, waving Xinshi through. She hesitated for a moment but stepped over the line willingly enough. When Lan Zhan hesitated, Xinshi bit the unsplit side of her lip.

“I could watch A-Lun?” Xinshi suggested hopefully.

“Let me get some healing talismans for you then,” Lan Zhan promptly said.

Half a shichen later, Xinshi’s injuries had faded to spectacular yellow and green. She sat with A-Lun in the little courtyard he’d built outside of the cave, humming songs that didn’t come from brothels to A-Lun while brushing A-Lun’s hair. That was a delightful enough event that A-Lun sat perfectly still, eyes shining with delight.

“Watch over them,” Lan Zhan asked Wei Ying.

Wei Ying nodded firmly, making shooing gestures at Lan Zhan. The joy in his eyes at seeing A-Lun so happy was mixed with fury over poor Xinshi’s situation. If there wasn’t mingled fury and love in Lan Zhan’s face it would only be because of his face’s general lack of expression.

The trip to town had never taken so little time.

When he passed the Cho farm, no one was home.

Lan Zhan was not surprised.

Yiling was quiet. Still. Tense in the way that the air got when a lightning storm was about to hit, thunderclouds looming and billowing higher overhead.

Lan Zhan made his way to the teahouse, the unofficial center of Yiling, nodding when he saw that most everyone in town was there.

Cho Dalong stood looming over Xinshi’s weedy husband who had quite a few bruises of his own on his face. Given that Dalong’s fists were bloodied, Lan Zhan suspected that he knew exactly where those bruises had come from.

“I told you,” Zhifei said, slurring his words as if his teeth were loose in his gums. “She was sleeping around on me, so I disciplined her. It’s none of your business.”

“Sleep around on you?” Dalong yelled. “Xinshi all but worships the ground you walk on for some damned reason. She wouldn’t sleep around on you!”

“I’m telling you, she was!” Zhifei huffed, rubbing his face and then cringing as Dalong clenched his fists again.

Oddly, not one person in the crowd looked as though they agreed with Xinshi’s husband. Lan Zhan saw more scoffs, rolled eyes, and scowls than he’d seen anywhere other than one of Jin Guangshan’s more extravagant feasts or on the Lan Elders when someone suggested that they should allow guest disciples to have alcohol and meat.

Zhifei’s bottom lip pouted out as much as Wen Chao’s used to when someone disagreed with him. He wasn’t someone that Lan Zhan had noticed before Xinshi married him. Lan Zhan had been too busy in the Burial Mounds to notice the man until after Xinshi was married. He wasn’t even sure when the marriage had happened, other than it was sometime between the dredging of the Yiling River and his last visit to town.

If he’d know ahead of time that Xinshi’s family was considering the match, Lan Zhan would have spoken against it. Zhifei had poor character and was far too spoiled for such a bright-hearted and imaginative young girl.

Well. No time like the present to speak, then.

“She is no longer your wife,” Lan Zhan announced, startling everyone except Cho Lianmin who stared at him with hot, angry eyes. “I have given her sanctuary in my home. As long as you are here, she will not come out.”

“See?” Zhifei said, waving one bruised-knuckled hand at Lan Zhan. “I told you she was sleeping around on me like a whore.”

“You take that back!” Lianmin shouted at him, stomping one foot hard enough that Lan Zhan was surprised that she didn’t break the floorboards of the teahouse.

He scowled at Zhifei.

Oddly, it was… liberating… to show his disgust and disapproval openly. A bit frightening given the way he’d lived his whole life, but still an amazingly good feeling. Lan Zhan knew that Wei Ying had always believed that Lan Zhan should show his emotions more clearly, that it would be good for him.

Lan Zhan would have to tell him that he was right once he got home.

“I do not sleep with women,” Lan Zhan said sternly enough that most of the town flinched. “I never have, and I never will.”

Lianmin blew out a breath as she shook her head. If she could have shot daggers from her eyes, Zhifei would be dead already. Elder Kangren cleared his throat before thumping one fist into the floor of the teahouse.

Zhifei flinched. Violently.

Lan Zhan did not.

“It is a serious accusation,” Elder Kangren offered. “That she has not been faithful to him. They did give their bows to each other.”

“No, it isn’t,” Lan Zhan replied. “He beat her severely, strangled her, and I suspect raped her as well.”

“She’s my wife!” Zhifei squawked. “It’s not rape!”

“My father raped my mother repeatedly,” Lan Zhan replied in the frostiest tones he’d learned in the Cloud Recesses. “I am the result of rape. My older brother was the result of rape as well. She killed herself when I was six years old in the middle of the night because she couldn’t bear to live any longer. It doesn’t matter if you’re married or not. Rape is rape.”

That drained the color from Elder Kangren’s face. He sighed and rubbed both hands over his face. When he dropped his hands, the wrinkles marking the corners of his eyes and mouth seemed to be a thousand times deeper.

“She should account—” Elder Kangren started to say.

Elder Entai swatted his shoulder at the same time that Lan Zhan stiffened and Lianmin clenched her fists as if she was going to start punching people, too. Unsurprisingly, Elder Kangren snapped his mouth shut again.

Zhifei sneered as if he was certain that he would win everyone over. Or as if he intended to beat Xinshi again as soon as he saw her. That was not going to happen. Ever.

“No,” Lan Zhan declared. “I have given her sanctuary. As long as he is in town, she will not come here.”

“She’s my wife,” Zhifei whined to Elder Kangren who shook his head no. “Why are you taking his side? Xinshi’s my wife. It’s my right to discipline her. She’s supposed to do what she’s told, not go mooning after another man. I don’t care if he’s a cutsleeve, she was talking about him like she’d climb him like a tree!”

Lan Zhan hissed and strode up the stairs of the teahouse. The villagers scattered out of his way, other than Lianmin who took up station at his right shoulder and Dalong who stepped to the side but stayed in punching range of Zhifei.

Zhifei’s eyes went wide as Lan Zhan drew an array in the air in front of his face.

Negation, enforcement of the chains of karma, denial of protection, and a plea to all the deities and the Buddha that Zhifei bear the consequences of his actions.

When Lan Zhan pushed the array into Zhifei’s face, Zhifei screamed and scrambled backwards even though he couldn’t have felt it affecting him. The man had no spiritual cognition at all, much less cultivation.

“What did you do?” Zhifei screamed as he batted against his face like the array was a spiderweb he’d walked into. “What did you do to me?”

Lan Zhan stared down at him and waited.

Instead of calming when nothing happened, Zhifei started panting. Sweat beaded up on his forehead, then began to soak through his clothes at his armpits and throat. In a matter of moments, Zhifei was shaking and whimpering so violently that everyone edged away from him, even Lianmin.

“No!” Zhifei screamed as he scrambled to his feet and ran out of the teahouse.

He fell down the stairs, scrambled to his feet, and then ran screaming out of town.

Heading the opposite direction from the Burial Mounds. Lan Zhan nodded approvingly. Good. Exactly what a wife beater and potential rapist deserved.

“What did you do to him?” Lianmin asked. “I think I’d like to learn how to do that. I’m supposed to get married soon, too, you know.”

“I will teach you how to tear a man’s testicles off with your bare hands,” Lan Zhan offered, smirking when Lianmin perked up in delight. “What I did takes more power and knowledge than you have time to learn it in. What I did, simply put, was remove all the protections he had to keep from noticing the… weight… of the Burial Mounds. Then I asked the Buddha and all other deities to ensure that he was punished appropriately for his behavior.”

“Well, that was effective,” Elder Kangren said cheerfully. “Huh. I’ll let my brother’s son know that his son was no more capable of making his way here than he was back home.”

Lan Zhan shook his head. “We can discuss that later.”

“I want to see Xinshi,” Lianmin snapped. “I don’t care what your home is like, I want to see her.”

“Of course,” Lan Zhan said. “I had intended to ask your help with a problem anyway. We can discuss it on our way back home.”

Lianmin swatted at Dalong when he tried to keep her from marching straight out of town towards the Burial Mounds. Unsurprisingly, Dalong flinched away and let her go. What surprised Lan Zhan was that Elder Entai hauled herself up to her feet and determinedly hobbled after them.

“Now, what was this problem you wanted help with?” Lianmin asked as they strolled along with Elder Entai between them.

“I’m unfamiliar with small girls,” Lan Zhan explained, “so I need assistance with my new daughter. A-Lun is sweet but I’m unsure how to handle the braiding and decorating of hair that she loves so much.”

Both Elder Entai and Lianmin stared at him. Elder Entai started snickering, hobbling up the road ahead of them while Lianmin stopped in her tracks. Her mouth moved as she stared at Lan Zhan as if he was the biggest idiot she’d ever met.

Not uncommon with Lianmin but Lan Zhan found himself blushing as she started making spluttering noises and waving her hands at him angrily.

“When did you adopt a little girl?” Lianmin bellowed so loudly that it echoed through Yiling’s valley, across the river and back at them again.

“What?” echoed back from behind them in Yiling. All the while, Elder Entail cackled as she headed up the path ahead of Lan Zhan and Lianmin.

16. Torturous Curiosity

“That can’t be right.” Wen Ruohan frowned as the boat’s pilot edged them in towards the biggest dock in Yiling.

“No, this is Yiling,” Jiang Hanyu confirmed.

“Where are the ash clouds?” Wen Ruohan asked. He waved at the neat, tidy little town. “The aura of despair? There’s no black muck in the river, no sickly seagrass or stunted trees. This can’t be Yiling. We must not have gone far enough up river yet.”

Jiang Fengmian snorted from his spot behind them. “Oh, it’s Yiling. Trust me. I know this stretch of river very, very well now.”

Despite his shock at the abrupt change in Yiling, Wen Ruohan had to fight a grin at Jiang Fengmian’s sour tone. So did his father, Jiang Hanyu. The two looked like near twins, only the wrinkles around Jiang Hanyu’s eyes and the thread of silver at his temples showing that he was older than his son.

Well, the wrinkles and hair plus the shoulders. And biceps.

Where Jiang Fengmian had the build of a moderately athletic librarian, his father had the build of a river pirate who could and would take down anything he could get his hands on whether it was man, building or submerged obstacle in the river.

Wen Ruohan turned back to Yiling, letting Hanyu direct the crew on tying off the boat and getting the gangplank out. He could’ve just flown over to shore but that was a bit ridiculous even for him. As it stood, Wen Ruohan was kind of glad that he’d left his wives back home and insisted on leaving the majority of his entourage back in Lotus Pier.

Every single one of them would’ve gotten in the way of his poking around Yiling to see what had changed.

Yiling’s two elders, a bald old man with a white beard and eyes so sharp that they could cut your core out and a doubled-over old woman who looked like she’d gladly chop your heavenly pillar off if you spoke to her the wrong way, stood on the shore.

Waiting for them.

Someone had good scouts to have seen them coming in time for the old woman to make it to the dock. Yiling wasn’t a big town, only a couple hundred civilians at best, or at least it hadn’t been. Seven or eight new buildings going up along the edge of town opposite the Burial Mounds showed that they were growing quickly.

Very quickly given that the teams working on the new buildings didn’t even slow down to ogle Jiang Hanyu’s ship coming to shore with its purple sails, purple silk-clad sailors and Wen Ruohan standing there like a blazing torch in pristine white edged with flame-red.

And that meant that the changes that had been wrought were believed to be long-term. Not a fluke that might slip away with the turn of the seasons. People were willing to uproot their families to come to Yiling of all places.

Wen Ruohan really did need to get away from everyone so that he could track down just what had happened here.

“Sect Leader Jiang,” the old woman said. “Sect Leader Wen. Welcome to Yiling.”

Wen Ruohan grinned down at her. “Welcome and get out as quickly as possible?”

She grinned right back up at him and cackled. “I do like a man who understands tone. Yes. We’re doing well and we’d appreciate it if you didn’t destroy all our progress by being all…” she waved one gnarled hand at Wen Ruohan in particular, “you.”

Laughter was about the only way to respond to that, so Wen Ruohan laughed at her as Jiang Hanyu groaned and rubbed a hand over his scruffy chin. Jiang Fengmian sounded like a strangled cat, all sharp noised and outrage. Really, he was so very young. Yu Ziyuan had a lot of work to do straightening him out.

The other elder rolled his eyes to the heavens, but he didn’t try to stop her. Or scold her. She must’ve been amazing when she was younger. Still was.

“My friend Hanyu wanted to show off your progress,” Wen Ruohan explained once he stopped belly laughing. “I’m deeply curious how you’ve done it. I would’ve sworn that this wasn’t Yiling at all. Nothing we’ve ever tried has worked this well. It’s stunning.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” the old woman said. “I know your type. And I’ve seen you breeze through here every twenty years, accomplishing nothing while talking about all your great and mighty powers.”

“Elder Entai,” Jiang Fengmian groaned. “Please don’t offend the Chief Cultivator.”

“Entai,” Wen Ruohan said, waving one hand. “Wait. Wait, wait, wait! I proposed to you! That was, oh, about sixty years ago?”

“And I stabbed you in the heart, tried to cut off your heavenly pillar, and then went for your throat before your people pulled me off,” Entai agreed. Her grin went even more vicious. “Pity I missed that you don’t have a heart.”

Wen Ruohan put one hand on his chest, exactly where she’d stabbed him, while grinning at her with glee. “You were the best part of the whole visit. My family wouldn’t let me go back and court you properly. My current wives would love you. They’re just as vicious as you are.”

She whacked at Wen Ruohan’s groin with her cane. He laughed as he danced out of the way, ignoring both Jiang’s groans and the other Elder complaining, at volume, at Entai. Despite having a spine so bent she was folded in half all the time, she was still marvelously vicious with her cane. A few not-very-serious swats and dodges later, Entai huffed and thumped her cane against the flagstone covering the path into town.

“Fine,” Entai huffed at him even though she was grinning and displaying her still very solid set of teeth at him. “You won’t leave?”

“Nope,” Wen Ruohan declared. His face almost hurt from how wide his grin was. “Did you ever marry that young blacksmith? Or was it the potter?”

“Hah, I married both of them,” Entai said as she set off into town with Wen Ruohan at her side. “First the blacksmith, then the potter. Had four boys with the blacksmith, two with the potter, then once they died, I married a lovely young lady. We’re still together.”

“The seamstress?” Wen Ruohan asked. “The one who tried to take my eyes out, right?”

Entai shook her head. “You are hopeless. Right, but hopeless.”

“I never remember boring people,” Wen Ruohan explained, much to Entai’s snickering amusement. “Only the interesting ones. People who dare to try and kill me for being an ass are always interesting.”

More strangled cat sounds from Fengmian. More groans from the other elder and some very profane muttering from Hanyu that Wen Ruohan pretended he didn’t hear.

Looking at the town was much more interesting than listening to them be shocked by his behavior. It wasn’t as if this was anything new. Wen Ruohan had been this way since he was sixteen. No one should be surprised by it now.

Yiling really had changed. The streets had proper paving stones instead of bare dirt or scattered gravel. Every time he’d been here before, the houses had a worn look to them. The walls around the houses never looked properly whitewashed. Instead they were grey and had odd black slime-mold trails dripping down from the eaves. Every shrub looked sickly. The grass always had a yellowed tone, as if it was days away from dying from drought even in the middle of the rainy season.

Now the houses’ whitewash was beautiful, as white as his robes. The plants were bright green and putting out leaves. One camelia bush was blooming despite it being out of season for them. The bright red flowers were starkly beautiful against its shiny green leaves and the bare white of the courtyard wall behind it.

Wen Ruohan frowned. “What are all these sculptures? They were never here before.”

“That’s what’s done it,” Entai said. “Go on. I know you’re aching for the chance to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. Get on with it.”

He grinned. “I really should have come back to court you.”

“I would’ve cut your throat and dumped your corpse in the river,” Entai countered with a smug smile and a roll of her eyes when he pretended to be shocked at her.

Wen Ruohan knelt down to check out one of the sculptures. They were men, every single one of them, clay. Cast, at a guess which meant that someone had sculpted the first one and then the town potter, one of Entai’s descendants certainly, had duplicated it hundreds of times over.

A man, sitting in lotus formation, with his hands… in Buddhist mudras? The face was thin, not round as Buddha sculptures always depicted. The expression as sharp, not blankly calm. Those half-shut eyes were insightful even in fired clay. The clothes were simple robes, blue. The hair was black with a red ribbon. Those hands, though…

When Wen Ruohan touched the sculpture, it knocked him on his ass. Not an attack. Just the raw power of the array built into it.

“What?” Wen Ruohan whispered. “Entai. What?”

“Look at the back, Ruohan,” Entai said, patting his shoulder and urging him to get back at it. “That’s where the array is.”

He carefully moved to the other side of the sculpture and then plopped down right there in the grass to stare at it.

“I know this,” Wen Ruohan breathed.

“Wait, what?” Jiang Fengmian squawked. He hurried over to kneel down next to Wen Ruohan, eyes like saucers. “But this is unique.”

“No,” Wen Ruohan said as he gently traced the ancient array. Sculpted in, cast and then glazed in a delicate white that stood out beautifully against the deep blue of the sculpture’s robes. “No, it’s not, actually. This is ancient. No one has used arrays like this in, oh, at least four hundred years. My great-grandfather taught me about these when I was a boy. They’d stopped working well before his time, but he swore that they used to be the most powerful arrays you could use for purification, protection, settling the dead. They come out of Tianzhu by way of Tubo.”

Entai nodded thoughtfully, leaning on her cane as she studied Wen Ruohan’s face. “Did they stop working about the time the Wen became Daoists?”

Wen Rohan stared at her. Then at the sculpture. And then he was up and pacing back and forth down the street while cursing because of course. Of course! That was…!

“Didn’t take much to figure it out, did it?” Entai cackled at him. “Come on. Have some tea. Our monk’s hidden away in his home tending to one of our girls who was beaten and raped by her no-good husband. He’s not coming out anytime soon. You might as well talk to Cho Lianmin. She’s the one who charges them when Wei Zhan’s not around.”

The teahouse hadn’t changed much since his last visit twenty or so years ago. It was still the center of town, still open-sided downstairs with a few too-small rooms upstairs. Entai settled in at the center table downstairs, waving for Wen Ruohan to sit opposite her.

“You do realize you don’t rule here, don’t you?” the other elder snapped at her as he creaked down to the chair next to her.

“No, but you’re too boring for him to remember you,” Entai said with a smirk that was just as wicked as it had been when she was twenty-one and stunningly beautiful. She still was beautiful, just in the way of an old woman who didn’t give a single fuck what you had to say about anything.

“Did we meet?” Wen Ruohan asked Entai. She stared at him, flat-faced. “No, seriously. I don’t remember his name if we did.”

“I was the one who kept her from cutting your damned throat!” the elder snarled at Wen Ruohan. “You–!”

Wen Ruohan tapped the table, noting as a young woman who was clearly one of Entai’s descendants came in. Same broad nose, same dark, angry eyes, same sneer that promised to cut your heavenly pillar off if you dared to look at her wrong. Yeah, he really should’ve come back to court Entai. Just imagine that blood, that fire, in the Wen. It would’ve been wonderful.

“Don’t,” Entai warned Wen Ruohan, seriously this time. “She’s engaged.”

“Pity,” Wen Ruohan sighed. “She’s perfect. Oh well, I don’t suppose I need another wife yet. So what’s this about charging up the arrays? Your granddaughter does it?”

“Great-granddaughter,” Entai said. “Cho Lianmin, this is Wen Ruohan. You remember the stories about me almost cutting off a man’s pillar? Yeah, this is him.”

“You should’ve gone back in the night and finished the job,” Lianmin said flatly enough that Wen Ruohan beamed at her. “I can finish the job if you want, Great-Grandmother.”

“Please don’t kill the Chief Cultivator when he’s traveling under my protection,” Jiang Hanyu said to the ceiling because he’d rolled his eyes towards the heavens while Jiang Fengmian had his face buried in his hands while he whined incoherently.

“Fine, another time then.” Lianmin waved off their complaints and sat well out of easy grabbing range. “What did you want to know?”

Wen Ruohan resisted the urge to say “everything”. Jiang Hanyu might just put his head through the floorboards if he did, not to mention what Entai and her great-granddaughter might do. And this time he doubted that what’s-his-name, the other elder, would interfere.

“Tell me about the purification sculptures,” Wen Ruohan said as he leaned on the table. “Especially how you charge them, what you picture, how to move the energy. It’s not how we,” he waved at himself and the Jiang, “do things anymore, so I’m desperately curious about what you were taught and how you do it.”

Lianmin raised one eyebrow. Then she checked with Entai before settling in to explain. Wen Ruohan focused his qi on listening and remembering every single nuance of her explanation. Until he could interrogate the priest Wei Zhan, this would have to do.

That it worked was stunning. That Wei Zhan had managed to easily and quickly teach someone else, a non-cultivator presumably, how to do it was… flabbergasting. This was supposed to be a quick day trip to Yiling and then back to Lotus Pier again. Somehow, he was going to have to extend the trip so that he could learn everything about Wei Zhan and his ancient, miraculous techniques.

Who knew just what they could be turned to, with the proper focus and effort? They might be just what he needed for his future plans. He had to find out, one way or the other.

17. Fading Image

Lan Zhan hummed as he hammered the large foundation stones for Xinshi’s new home into the earth. He’d offered to let her have the cave, but she’d gotten a skittish look before refusing flatly. That meant building her a house of her own.

The remnants of the old palace were long gone. Lan Zhan had used the bricks and stones of the walls for the earliest terraces. The gravel that had filled the walls was drainage in the terraces and covered the paths he’d worn across his little sanctum. There wasn’t much left besides some strong beams and a large number of roof tiles.

That meant that Xinshi’s house would be strong, solid, and one room with a heavy tiled roof. Dalong had supplied even more beams, promising that Xinshi would have whatever she wanted when she wanted it, as long as she felt safe.

She felt very safe inside the Burial Mounds, but Lan Zhan dreaded attempting to get her to leave. Xinshi had not reacted well to the wandering dead, especially General Kwan. Just as well that General Kwan was approaching the barrier closer and closer every day. Once he passed over, Lan Zhan suspected that Xinshi would calm down.

Wei Ying had given Lan Zhan a huge number of suggestions in the middle of the nights, whispered quietly so that they wouldn’t wake either Xinshi or A-Lun. Xinshi’s home would have its own bath, a kitchen outside with a nice stove that had a roof over top, and as much storage as he and Wei Ying could arrange.

“Baba!” A-Lun called from the cave’s courtyard. “Auntie Xinshi has lunch!”

“I will be right there,” Lan Zhan called back.

Three more whacks with his wooden mallet and the final foundation stone was in place. Lan Zhan nodded approvingly before joining the others at the little table that Xinshi had set up outside of the cave.

“I kind of miss meat,” Xinshi admitted as she served congee with mushrooms and tofu to Lan Zhan and A-Lun, “but this turned out really tasty.”

“Mm!” A-Lun said around an over-eager mouthful of congee.

“It was one of my mother’s favorites,” Lan Zhan said, smiling as Wei Ying drifted down to sit next to him. “She liked to add chili oil to it, but it was too hot for me.”

“Hah, next time you go into town, get some chili oil,” Xinshi said with a smile that was about half as bright as her normal ones. “I miss it.”

Wei Ying beamed at her, opening his mouth to comment.

He winked out.

Then reappeared with wide eyes. His hands were clamped over his belly. No, over his bellybutton.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying whimpered.

“Is… is it time?” Lan Zhan asked as he dropped his spoon back into his congee without a care for how it splashed over the table.

“I think?” Wei Ying paused, biting his lip as he faded, faded, faded until he was a bare outline of a man kneeling next to Lan Zhan. “Yes.”

“Oh, love,” Lan Zhan breathed. He didn’t reach out, didn’t dare to disrupt Wei Ying’s delicate grip on this place and time. “Then go. Be reborn. Be happy. I will find you again when you are older, I swear. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, I will find you.”

There was a glimmer like tears on Wei Ying’s cheeks and then he blinked out again.

This time he didn’t come back.

The moments passed until Lan Zhan shuddered a breath into his lungs. When he let it out, it came with a wounded sound that sent A-Lun scrambling into his lap to hug him desperately. Lan Zhan wrapped his arms around A-Lun and rocked with her, unable to think or speak or behave properly.

He tried to speak and failed. Failed a second time. Keened on the third attempt that went so poorly that A-Lun burst into tears along with Lan Zhan.

“Oh, honey,” Xinshi whispered. “Take your time. You keep telling me to take my time. This is just as big a thing. I mean, bigger, really. Sit here and cuddle your baby. I’ll clean up. You can eat later when A-Lun gets hungry.”

Lan Zhan nodded and did just that.

He hadn’t allowed himself to rock in place, not for years and years. Since he was A-Lun’s age, really. The Elders always scolded him to be still and proper, not to rock or make odd noises or shake his hands when he was excited. They wouldn’t let him see Mother when he did it, so he’d stopped.

There was no stopping it now.

Wei Ying was gone again. Not like last time when he died, but gone for at least a year or so. It wasn’t something that Lan Zhan should grieve over. Wei Ying was going to be alive again. He’d been conceived! His new body, old body? The body Cangse Sanren carried for him was strong enough to support a link to his soul, to draw his soul in.

This was good. He’d been waiting and planning for it. They’d both been planning for it.

But Wei Ying was gone again.

And that hurt.

So Lan Zhan held A-Lun until she cried herself to sleep, rocking with her in his arms. Xinshi gave him a wet cloth to clean A-Lun’s face. He did. Then she huffed and took it to clean Lan Zhan’s face, too.

“It’s okay,” Xinshi whispered when he started crying again. “It’s okay. Take as much time as you need. Talking isn’t working now, is it?”

Lan Zhan shook his head. He had been teaching Xinshi to read in their spare time. She wasn’t very good at it yet, but she understood when he pulled out a scrap of paper and a bit of charcoal to write the four characters for “mute sometimes”. Xinshi nodded.

“When you’re upset or hurt,” Xinshi said. Her smile was a little wry. “I wondered. You talk like someone who’s learned to do it but who doesn’t really understand or enjoy it.”

Lan Zhan’s ears went red.

“You learned for Wei Ying, didn’t you?” Xinshi asked. Her grin this time was wide and teasing. “He acts like someone who never stops talking but who’s lost his voice.”

The “acts” was both a stab to the heart and a salve on the wound. Lan Zhan nodded his agreement.

他總是健談 Lan Zhan wrote because Wei Ying was always talkative, even when threatened by the entire cultivation world and hunted to the ends of the earth.

“He is… talkative,” Xinshi mumbled as she tapped the scrap. “Oh! He is always talkative! Hah, yeah, A-Lun commented on it yesterday. Well, don’t feel that you have to chatter for me. I can talk just as much as Wei Ying, and you can be mute as long as you need. We’ll work it out.”

Lan Zhan smiled, a crooked, broken smile, but it was a smile. Xinshi patted his shoulder before she went to work on the sewing she’d taken on since she arrived. By the time A-Lun woke up, hungry and worried about Lan Zhan, Xinshi had a new shirt for Lan Zhan to wear in warm, soft indigo-dyed cotton.

A-Lun ate the cooled congee along with Lan Zhan. She looked up at him often as the two of them gathered fruit off the trees and vegetables out of the terraces. When he went to check the flow of the irrigation system, A-Lun toddled along with him, seriously peering in under the capping tiles along with Lan Zhan.

No.

Not Lan Zhan. He’d been Lan Zhan in his previous life. He’d worn the name of Lan with pride, then with reluctance, shame, resignation and finally indifference.

This life was new. He was not Lan. There was no one his age in the register with the name Lan Zhan. There might be a very small boy named Lan Zhan, but they were not and would never be the same person.

In this life, Lan Zhan was Wei Zhan.

It was time to stop giving the Lan even the token allegiance that he’d granted them in the privacy of his mind.

His name was Wei Zhan.

Wei Zhan paused, looking out over the terraces that he’d built and the plants that he’d grown in the heart of the worst place on the planet. It wasn’t Lan Zhan who had done all this. It wasn’t Lan Zhan who’d saved A-Lun or Xinshi.

Wei Zhan had done that, so Wei Zhan he would be from now on.

Until the day he could marry Wei Ying again. Beyond that day. For all eternity, hopefully with Wei Ying at his side, he was Wei Zhan now.

“Baba smiling?” A-Lun asked, tugging at his pants.

Wei Zhan nodded and scooped her up to press little kisses against her cheeks. A-Lun squealed and laughed before pressing dozens of her own messy kisses against his cheeks. Her giggles drew Xinshi out.

“Feeling a bit better?” Xinshi asked.

“…yes…” Lan Zhan managed to say, though only that. No other words would cooperate with his mouth and tongue.

“Good,” Xinshi said as if that one word was a treasure. “Going to go back to the building? Because I was going to show A-Lun how to make dumplings.”

A-Lun gasped and squirmed so violently that she nearly toppled right out of Wei Zhan’s arms. He laughed silently and set her down. Xinshi was waiting to scoop her up as A-Lun cannonballed right at her. The two of them headed to the little kitchen area that Lan Zhan, Wei Zhan, had created in the cave.

Wei Zhan returned to working on Xinshi’s new home.

It was a very good thing that he was an immortal with nearly endless qi. Constructing a house without assistance would have been impossible if Wei Zhan hadn’t had the ability to stabilize the beams, to attach cross-supports with qi alone until he could cut the joints and fit things together.

As it was, the day that Wei Ying was conceived saw Wei Zhan frame out Xinshi’s house. Her house had wattle and daub walls within the next five days. The roof went on in a single day as that was relatively simple hauling and placing. Another three days, during which the knot keeping Wei Zhan’s words inside slowly eased, and Xinshi’s house had a beautiful lime coating inside and out, tinted a pleasingly warm yellow-orange through creative use of the blood-red turnips.

“I wouldn’t have thought that those turnips would make such a great dye,” Xinshi commented as she stared around the inside of her house with awe. “This is great. I’m going to have to try dying cotton with those turnips.”

Wei Zhan nodded, catching A-Lun when she dashed by and nearly toppled face-first into the doorframe. “Carrots, too.”

“Oh, yeah, those are so dark,” Xinshi agreed. She put her hands on her hips. “Well, now all I need is furniture and a loom. And dye pots. Gotta have dye pots, though I’m not sure where I can rinse the fabric clean.”

“We… can build it,” Wei Zhan said after struggling with his words.

“Some of it,” Xinshi agreed. Her smile went wry and then delighted as A-Lun drooped limply in Wei Zhan’s arms because he didn’t immediately allow her to keep rampaging around Xinshi’s house like a little barbarian. “We do need to be ready for winter. There’s so much to salt and pickle. That comes first.”

“Pickle?” A-Lun asked, perking up again and kicking her legs until Wei Zhan put her down cautiously. “We make pickles? A-Lun likes pickles!”

Xinshi laughed. “Yes, we’re going to make lots and lots of pickles. And salt a bunch of food, too. It’ll be hard work, but we’ll have plenty to eat in the winter.”

“Grow huts!” A-Lun exclaimed, dashing out of Xinshi’s house to, apparently, run circles around the grow huts.

Wei Zhan shook his head, amused. Perhaps this sort of thing was why Wei Ying had buried A-Yuan in the radish fields in their lives before. He certainly wouldn’t do it to A-Lun, but it might be a story to tell her someday.

Once his words returned. Once his heart stopped aching so much. Once A-Lun stopped charging everywhere as if she had all the energy in the world and couldn’t feel exhaustion like Wei Zhan.

“Come on,” Xinshi said, patting Wei Zhan’s shoulder. “Let’s make a list of what I need from town. I think we’re going to need some toys to keep A-Lun busy. She’s turning into such a handful.”

Wei Zhan nodded his agreement. When he smiled, Xinshi grinned and wrinkled her nose as if she could see just how delighted he was by A-Lun’s bright, cheerful heart. He nodded to Xinshi, grateful that she was regaining her joy after her husband hurt her so badly. She huffed and swatted his shoulder as she marched out to recapture A-Lun for counting practice with the radishes, carrots and quickly growing cabbage.

Between those, the bok choy, mustard greens and beans, they should do well over the winter.

Though, now that Wei Zhan thought about it, he might want to plan for another few people joining them here in the Burial Mounds. Winter was always a hard time. He should be prepared for someone to need sanctuary from the world.

Wei Zhan joined Xinshi and A-Lun, making plans in the back of his head for more buildings, more water, more grow huts. There wasn’t a lot of time before autumn hit, but he should be able to make a start on expanding their little village at the very least. That would have to be enough until Wei Ying came home again.

18. Bright Smiles

“Qiren!”

Changze winced as Cangse bellowed across the calm, quiet perfection of the Cloud Recesses as if they were on the docks back in Lotus Pier while eighteen different ships came into port to unload their goods. Didn’t help that she waved her arm wildly, bouncing up and down in excitement.

Lan Qiren flinched, turning to glare across the distance as if he intended to march over and throw Cangse right down the stairs again.

Only to freeze when she pointed with both hands at her heavy belly where their baby boy was growing.

The two little boys with Lan Qiren and the woman holding their hands smiled as Lan Qiren buried his face in his hands like they’d just dropped him into a pit of despair. Actually, he might have just fallen into despair. Changze didn’t think that Lan Qiren had ever forgiven Cangse from shaving off his beard a few years back. The thought of her having children probably sent chills up Lan Qiren’s spine.

Changze followed Cangse as she bounded across the grass, completely skipping the manicured paths, so that she could engulf Lan Qiren in an enthusiastic hug.

“Don’t smother him, love,” Changze said, amused that the two boys looked utterly delighted by it while Lan Qiren looked like he was going to have a heart attack.

“I won’t,” Cangse declared without letting Lan Qiren go. “He just needs more hugs.”

“Hugs!” the littlest boy exclaimed as he pulled free of his mother and cannonballed into Lan Qiren’s legs.

“Oh, I like this one!” Cangse said, grinning down at him. “Who’s this?”

“A-Zhan,” the little boy said, beaming up at Cangse. “Who’s you?”

‘Who are you?” Lan Qiren corrected with a sigh of relief as Cangse let go and sat down on the grass to beam at little Lan Zhan.

Lan Zhan blinked up at Lan Qiren. “A-Zhan. Uncle knows A-Zhan.”

Cangse cackled and opened her arms for a hug that Lan Zhan squealed over. The two of them sat in the grass, rocking side to side as they laughed together. Little Lan Huan grinned at them though he stayed with his mother, holding her hand tightly.

“Sorry about that,” Changze said to Lan Furen and Lan Qiren. “You know what she gets like. Ever since she got pregnant, it’s gotten worse.”

Lan Qiren shuddered. “That’s a horrifying thought. When are you leaving?”

“Qiren!” Lan Furen laughed despite her scolding tone. “Why don’t you go ahead to the meeting? I’m sure I can escort them to the guest quarters just fine.”

Surprisingly, Lan Qiren hesitated as if he thought that was a bad idea. And, worryingly, the few Lan in the area frowned like they wanted to ensure that they spent no time at all around the trio. That was… not good.

“I’d appreciate it,” Changze said as Lan Qiren slowly, reluctantly, opened his mouth with an expression that promised denial. “There’s a bunch of stuff about pregnancy that I’m just not prepared for.”

“And my teacher wasn’t exactly the best for teaching me what to expect,” Cangse agreed as she cuddled Lan Zhan under her chin despite the swell of her belly. “Immortals aren’t exactly the best for messy reproduction stuff, you know.”

“Ah,” Lan Qiren said. He looked away, ears blazingly red, and then huffed when he saw the eavesdropping Lans. “Of course. I’ll have a meal sent to the Jingshi, if you wish, Lin Heixin?”

“Please,” Lin Heixin said with a smile just a hair too stiff for politeness.

“You did bring the chili oil, right?” Cangse said, peering up at Changze. “I was promised chili oil with every meal for enduring this whole baby thing.”

“Yes.” Changze laughed despite himself. “I brought the chili oil. And the spicy nuts. And the fiery dried mangos.”

“Oh,” Cangse breathed, eyes wide and shiny with enough awe that even Lan Qiren’s lips twitched towards a smile. “You’re the best husband in the whole world.”

She set Lan Zhan on his feet and then held her hands out so that Changze could haul her back upright. Not that she needed it, yet, but it always amused her and Changze loved helping his formidable wife. She so rarely actually needed his help with anything.

Changze ended up with Lan Zhan riding on his shoulders while giggling madly. At the very least, Lan Zhan’s open joy seemed to calm the suspicious, borderline hostile looks directed towards their group. By the time they got to the Jingshi, a beautiful little cottage set well away from everything else with gentians in front of it, Changze was sure that the disapproval was for Lin Heixin rather than for Cangse Sanren.

That was…

…interesting.

Their meal was delivered just about the time Lin Heixin managed to get both the boys hands and faces washed. It was simple Gusu fare, of course, rice, congee, sauteed vegetables so light and airy that they seemed to be made of clouds rather than anything edible.

The boys didn’t have any of Changze’s stash of fiercely spicy condiments. Lan Zhan looked as horrified as if he’d seen a venomous snake curled up in his rice bowl. Lan Huan kept rubbing his eyes and wheezing once Cangse dosed her congee and rice with enough chili oil to float a barge.

Lin Heixin added a full spoonful of chili oil to hers and ate with quiet joy.

It was a loud, cheerful meal. Lan Zhan in particular was so bright and happy that it was like having a mini-Cangse, just in Lan whites and blues instead of her new favorite red, black and grey robes. The two of them sat side by side, whispering and giggling with each other while Lan Huan supervised and made sure that Lan Zhan actually got at least a third of his food into his belly.

“I can help them clean up,” Cangse offered the instant Lin Heixin suggested ever so faintly that it might be time for the meal to be over.

“Ah, thank you?” Lin Heixin said.

He couldn’t blame her for looking a bit alarmed, but Cangse did a reputable job of cleaning off the table with the boys’ help and then trooped off into the other room with them to wash faces and hands and laugh in delight together.

“She’s good with children,” Lin Heixin commented quietly.

“She’s little more than a child herself sometimes,” Changze said as he took the tray outside and set it on the porch for someone to come collect.

Lin Heixin came with him. She stood on the porch and gulped lungsful of air as if being inside was torture.

Which.

Honestly, given some of the very quiet rumors that Changze had not admitted to hearing on their way here, might just be true. He cast one of the little muffling arrays that Cangse had created to keep people in inns from hearing their lovemaking.

“Do you need help?” Changze murmured. “To escape?”

Lin Heixin blinked at him, and then laughed ruefully. “I couldn’t leave my boys. I don’t. I don’t want any more, no matter what my husband,” the scorn on husband could have scorched every tree off the mountainside, “says, but I won’t leave my sons behind.”

“Fair enough,” Changze said. “I’ll distract the boys. You ask my wife about her personal security arrays. They’re… impressive.”

One delicate eyebrow arched up as Lin Heixin’s lips curled in an intrigued smile. She really was beautiful, strong jaw and fine nose, golden eyes that…

…looked very much like a certain immortal Wei that Changze was trying hard not to speak of.

“I did have several things to talk with her about the pregnancy,” Lin Heixin said, smile gone and face completely innocent.

“I certainly don’t need to hear it all,” Changze said. And then grinned. “At least until Cangse tells me every single detail later.”

Lin Heixin laughed. Cackled, really. Which drew the boys outside which let Changze claim them so that “the ladies” could talk privately. He led Lan Zhan and Lan Huan away by their hands, smiling at the way Lan Zhan skipped and waved at everyone they passed.

“He’s very new,” Lan Huan said apologetically. As if being a child was something to be ashamed of, to escape as quickly as possible.

“Well, of course,” Changze said. “You’re young, too, you know.”

“No, new,” Lan Huan emphasized. “Baba says that it’s unusual. Uncle says that he has to be protected because of it. A-Zhan is special.”

“Can we go to the library?” Lan Zhan asked with a smile that showed zero signs of having overheard or understood what Lan Huan had just explained.

“Absolutely yes,” Changze said, grinning at the way both boys brightened up. “The library here is amazing. I always loved it.”

They ended up in the children’s section with Lan Huan carefully reading a picture book to Lan Zhan. Who, actually, looked exactly like Wei Zhan other than his bright blue eyes. Same nose, same hair, same jaw under the baby fat. Even the curl of Lan Zhan’s ear was the same and that was as unique as the swirls of a man’s fingertips.

The pictures in their book were simple, austere ink paintings in an engagingly cute style. Changze chuckled along with Lan Zhan, gladly cuddling both boys in his lap. Which was, of course, how Lan Qiren and Lan Qiang found them.

Lan Qiren’s lips twitched with amusement.

Lan Qiang’s lip curled in a faint sneer.

Changze studied him and then nudged the boys. “Looks like your father’s here, boys.”

“Baba!” Lan Zhan exclaimed.

He scrambled out of Changze’s lap, kicking him in the thigh entirely too close to the groin. Lan Huan gasped and hurried to get up, catching Lan Zhan before he could cannonball into his father’s legs.

That was… about what he’d expected, actually. Changze rubbed his thigh, breathing through the pain as he circulated his qi to make sure that Lan Zhan hadn’t actually damaged anything. Close call, but no, nothing too bad. Just painful.

“A-Zhan,” Lan Qiren said, stepping between Lan Zhan and his father, “what have we said about running into people for hugs?”

“Um, don’t?” Lan Zhan said, bright blue eyes wide. “But it’s Baba. Baba should have hugs. Baba works hard and everyone listens to him, so he needs hugs when he has free time.”

Changze glared over the boys heads, over Lan Qiren’s head, at the way Lan Qiang’s shoulders tensed. After a too-long moment, Lan Qiang sighed and opened his arms to both of the boys. Lan Huan’s hug was a brief, very proper thing, quickly over. Lan Zhan’s hug lasted long enough that Lan Huan had to pull him off because their father looked like he was about to start yelling.

“I expected to find our wives here,” Lan Qiang said, staring at Changze.

“Oh, no,” Changze said with a little laugh and a wry smile. “They’re ah, discussing all the womanly things that go along with making babies. In detail. All the detail.”

Both Lan Qiren and Lan Qiang paled.

“Yeah,” Changze said with his brightest, least sincere smile. “They said they’d be busy at that for a while, so I brought the boys to the library. It’s our favorite place, all three of us.”

Lan Qiang huffed and nodded, already turning away. He waved over his shoulder to Lan Qiren as he walked out of the library.

“I trust you can tend to the boys, Qiren,” Lan Qiang called as he walked out the door without waiting for an answer. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

“Aww,” Lan Zhan sighed, pouting up at Changze and Lan Qiren. “No story with Baba?”

“He’s very busy leading the sect, A-Zhan,” Lan Qiren said. He patted Lan Zhan’s little head, getting a sad look that bloomed into a sudden hug. “A-Zhan, we’ve talked about the hugs.”

“No one here but us,” Lan Zhan mumbled into Lan Qiren’s hip. “Okay to hug when no one’s around.”

“You did say it was okay when we were alone, Uncle,” Lan Huan said, giggling at the resigned look on Lan Qiren’s face.

“How about you two gather up the books we were reading?” Changze suggested. “I’m tired of sitting still and it’s been a long time since I saw the Cloud Recesses. We can go for a walk, and you can show me all your favorite places.”

Both boys gasped as they stared up at him in delight. Two little boys were not good at putting things away, but it made for a good distraction. Changze bit his lip and then jerked his chin at Lan Qiren. The two of them moved a few paces away, not really out of earshot but far enough away that the boys wouldn’t really pay attention to their conversation.

“He’s jealous of any man spending time with Lin Heixin, isn’t he?” Changze asked.

Lan Qiren’s lips thinned out so much that his mouth looked like a slash across his face. “Yes. I’m very sorry for his… inappropriate behavior.”

“Mmm,” Changze hummed, watching the boys. “Let’s make this walk last a while. I… We’re naming our son, if it is a son of course, after the husband of the Buddhist priest who married us. He’ll be called Wei Ying. You might want to go meet Wei Zhan. I think… I think you need to. And your brother might need to meet him, too. Soon.”

He would have to make sure that they send a message to Wei Zhan right away. Tonight, if possible. Because if Lin Heixin was trapped in a marriage to a jealous, possibly abusive rapist, then something should be done. Lan Qiang thought that Lin Heixin had no family, no connections, nothing and no one that could cause him problems other than the Lan themselves.

And clearly the Lan would side with Lan Qiang over Lin Heixin.

But if the Lan believed that Lin Heixin was from a line that included an immortal Buddhist priest who was purifying the Burial Mounds, quickly, efficiently, amazingly effectively, it might buy her some room to breathe. It might, possibly, even free her.

He’d check with Cangse before they went to bed tonight, see what she learned from Lin Heixin.

“Hm.” Lan Qiren frowned at Changze. “It’s important?”

“Well, he’s purifying the Burial Mounds and he’s made Yiling livable,” Changze said with a bright, blank smile that made Lan Qiren pale. “Wen Ruohan’s already all up in the cultivation manuals trying to figure out what Wei Zhan did. I think. Well. I think you might recognize him when you meet him. I didn’t see it until I got here, but, well. You should go. You should take your brother with you. But not the boys, not yet. They’re not old enough.”

“Very well,” Lan Qiren said.

He glanced over at the boys and squawked to find them absolutely failing to refile the books properly. Changze winced and hurried over along with Lan Qiren to save the poor books from total destruction at small boys’ hands. That was a mistake.

Hopefully Wei Ying would be less destructive and calmer than Lan Huan and Lan Zhan.

Changze winced. Yeah, no, not with Cangse as a mother. Oh well. He’d just have to practice his mending and fixing things skills before Wei Ying was born because afterwards he just knew he wasn’t going to have the time.

19. Snowy Robes

“I almost want to send you straight back home,” Lianmin complained as she helped Wei Zhan unload his carrots, turnips and radishes for the market.

Somehow, Wei Zhan wasn’t sure exactly how or when, over the last year and a half Lianmin had become the closest thing that Wei Zhan had to a sister. Or perhaps a student. Of all the people in Yiling, she was the one who decided that he was both brilliantly talented and completely incapable of living like a normal person.

She was, of course, quite right about that, which was why he’d taught her the basics of charging the cleansing statues’ arrays. And then the basics of meditation. And then, when she stood outside the path into the Burial Mounds until the crows and General Kwan came to warn him that he had a guest, the one who insisted on learning exactly how to open the path, how Buddhist spiritual energies worked, and how to set up an array that would warn Wei Zhan when he had guests waiting for him.

Wei Ying would have loved her, especially once she started learning to cultivate.

Still, she was rather harsh at times. His vegetables weren’t that bad. Xinshi loved them.

“I know they’re odd looking,” Wei Zhan said, frowning at her, “but they are quite healthful and tasty, despite their odd coloring. Xinshi thinks that they taste better than the normal white radishes.”

Lianmin blinked at him, then looked down at the black-skinned, red-fleshed radishes. She snort-laughed, waving one hand to dismiss that concern entirely.

He could feel her qi drifting over her skin. She’d gotten so much stronger over the last six months or so. Her core had been a weak, hazy thing that barely circulated her spiritual energy when he first started teaching her. Now it blazed with power, though that power moved somewhat differently from what he would have expected.

Slower, more certain, like the power of the Yiling River instead of a babbling brook. Lianmin’s qi felt as broad as the earth under their feet, as wide as the blue sky overhead, and as enduring as the Burial Mounds that loomed over the town.

It was, perhaps, part of why Lianmin had turned down every marriage offer so far after she ended her short-lived engagement. He hadn’t asked why the one engagement she’d had had fallen through, but he suspected that it was either her reluctance to marry someone who would die long before she would, or it was jealousy on the young man’s side for her skills, beauty and refusal to accept being relegated to the kitchen, children and serving a man’s needs.

“Not that,” Lianmin said. “There are a couple of Lan in town, poking around and asking questions. One of them is all right. He’s stiff as a board but respectful about it. The other is… rude. I can’t describe him as anything other than rude. He acts like we’re all worms that he’s disgusted to have to look at. They’re both intent on questioning you, despite Elder Entai threatening them with both her cane and calling Wen Ruohan to beat them up.”

Wei Zhan swallowed a laugh at that. He wasn’t sure what Wen Ruohan was up to, but the flirtation with Elder Entai hadn’t ended when he went back to Lotus Pier. There had been letters nearly daily, gifts that Elder Entai sent back unopened, and a whole series of lectures delivered second-hand through Wen Ruohan’s scandalized messengers.

Though Wei Zhan thought that at least a couple of those messengers were deeply amused to get to lecture Wen Ruohan second-hand for Elder Entai.

Either way, Wei Zhan was quite glad that he was tucked away in a quieter corner of the market. At this time in the summer, the market bustled with people buying produce, selling produce, gossiping endlessly as they went about their business.

Last year, the early harvest market had been a small thing. Only the local farmers came to trade squash for beans or turnips for pears. Wei Zhan had brought in a basket of lychee that he’d shared with anyone who wanted them instead of selling them. The children had loved the treat, so he planned on doing it again at the next market.

This year the market filled all the streets around the teahouse and spilled out into the side streets from one end of Yiling to the other. Every single village in the area had brought goods to trade. There were local farmers trading with people from Lotus Pier who sold from their boats. There were Wen doctors at the far end of town treating anyone who needed healing.

It was big, messy, and glorious. Wei Zhan couldn’t believe the change wrought in only two years.

His blanket, supplied by Lianmin, was a simple blue one, but it gave him enough room for his stacks of odd vegetables. The only reason he was selling them instead of giving them away was that Xinshi thought it would be good to build up a dowry for A-Lun. A little bit saved every chance would eventually grow into a very nice sum for her, after all.

“I will be fine,” Wei Zhan reassured Lianmin as he settled into lotus position and nodded to a passing Cho cousin who hummed at seeing all the oddly colored vegetables. “Go tend your own goods, Lianmin.”

She huffed and marched off to do that. The cousin, a second-cousin twice removed named Sixth, side-eyed Wei Zhan as he checked out the purple carrots. Wei Zhan waited patiently, already having been questioned sixteen times before he even arrived at the market about why he used Lianmin’s personal name.

“Did she say you should call her that?” Cousin Sixth asked in a low enough undertone that Lianmin shouldn’t have heard him over the cacophony of the market.

Lianmin’s head came up. She glared right at Cousin Sixth. And then narrowed her eyes threateningly.

“Right,” Cousin Sixth yelped as he scooped up an armful of the purple carrots. “So what are these? They look like carrots.”

“They are carrots,” Wei Zhan said without showing how amused he was by Lianmin threatening the entirety of Yiling into accepting that she would not marry and would cultivate in Wei Zhan’s strange style. “Xinshi claims that the darker color results in a more flavorful soup and that they are significantly sweeter than regular carrots. Personally, I find them a bit stronger than my preference, but they do make a lovely pale pink vegetable dye. The radishes make a stunning red, not very long lived, dye, while the turnips will dramatically thicken a stew. While turning it purple. A-Lun loved the purple turnip stew. We haven’t figured out a stable purple dye yet, but Xinshi is still working at it.”

Cousin Sixth blinked and then added several turnips and one very large black-skinned, red-fleshed radish the size of his thigh. “My wife is going to look at me funny for this but I’m telling her that Xinshi recommends them.”

“Do,” Wei Zhan said with open amusement. It still felt a bit strange to be so emotional to strangers, but Wei Ying had been right that it made interactions much easier. “Xinshi’s a far better cook than I am.”

“Your husband was the cook between the two of you?” Cousin Sixth asked with a huge grin.

“Oh, no,” Wei Zhan said. “He couldn’t cook at all. Everything came out inedible due to the spice. Everything I cook comes out ridiculously bland. You can fix bland by adding things. There is no fixing too spicy to eat.”

“Wow,” Cousin Sixth breathed as several people conspicuously not listening in snickered. “Why are you selling these, anyway?”

“Xinshi suggested that it would be good to start a dowry for A-Lun,” Wei Zhan explained with a little shrug and a small smile. “I don’t care about money or need it, but it would be good to have the money for her wedding clothes and such someday. All the goods I sell now or in the future will be for her.”

And that, as Xinshi had predicted, sold all of Wei Zhan’s vegetables in very short order. Cousin Sixth bought two more radishes, barely bargaining at all. Several of the not-listening eavesdroppers bought carrots. The turnips went to the new innkeeper who was Lianmin’s former fiancé’s father.

He hummed as he shook out Lianmin’s blanket and folded it.

And then nearly dropped it back into the grass.

Uncle Qiren stood stiffly next to Lan Qiang. Sect Leader Lan. Wei Zhan’s father.

Wei Zhan stared at his father, heart pounding in his ears so loudly that the din of the market faded into a distant roar. This wasn’t a face that Wei Zhan knew. He’d seen his father perhaps four times in his life. All of those times had been brief glimpses that Wei Zhan had stolen while paying his respects to a man that he did not and could not respect.

The oddest part was the Wei Zhan was the same age as his own father. While Uncle Qiren looked like a baby-faced version of himself, barely any beard at all, his father looked no more than thirty.

A very cranky, very foul-tempered thirty.

Uncle Qiren turned away as Lianmin rose to her feet, an angry snarl on her face for whatever Lan Qiang had said. He scanned the market and then froze when he spotted Wei Zhan staring at the two of them. Emotion had never been a thing that showed on Uncle Qiren’s face unless he was deeply upset.

His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open very slightly. That was all the shock that he showed. For Uncle Qiren, it was as severe as someone staggering and falling down.

Wei Zhan bowed his head and then walked over to put the blanket in Lianmin’s arms before she could haul off and punch Lan Qiang in the face.

“Calm,” Wei Zhan told Lianmin, very aware that she was on the verge of screaming in fury. “Remember, extremes are to be avoided.”

Lianmin growled through her gritted teeth as she dropped the blanket behind her. “Oh, I’m calm. I’m so very calm. And certain.”

Wei Zhan laughed and tapped the tip of her nose. “I would believe that if your nostrils weren’t flaring like stallion about to go into battle, Lianmin.”

She froze and then swatted his elbow. “You didn’t hear what that man said!”

“Words are just words, Lianmin,” Wei Zhan said, heart stunningly calm for how shocked he’d been to see his father and uncle standing in the Yiling market. “They only hurt if you allow them to. Go back to selling your goods. I’ll talk with them elsewhere.”

“If they cause you any trouble–!” Lianmin snarled while glaring at Lan Qiang.

“Lianmin, they can’t do a thing to me,” Wei Zhan said. “Follow us up to the cave when you’re done. I suspect the conversation will take a while.”

He turned back to Uncle Qiren, who looked spooked, and Lan Qiang, who just sneered. How odd to meet his father this way. He’d lost all respect for his father when he realized that both he and Xiongzhang were products of rape. His mother’s rape, specifically. But that wasn’t the same as seeing that Lan Qiang was actually as spoiled as Wen Chao ever had been. Even Jiang Wanyin had been a better man and a better leader.

“And why would we go with you?” Lan Qiang demanded.

“If you want to ask questions, then you follow me,” Wei Zhan replied. “It’s up to you.”

He smiled gently, serenely, almost floating in the stunning calm that came from realizing that these weren’t the people he’d left behind. The bitter, angry old man that Uncle Qiren had become did not exist. The corpse his father had become in his refusal to leave seclusion obviously wouldn’t happen. He should be deep in seclusion.

Instead he was here, dressed in his too-fine blue silks with a forehead ribbon that looked as though it cost as much as Uncle Qiren’s entire yearly budget for the library.

“Ah, there are some…” Uncle Qiren started to say only to stumble to a stop as Wei Zhan turned and walked away.

Out of the market and up the street towards the Burial Mounds. Cousin Third and Lianmin had created enough purification sculptures to line every single street. Wei Ying’s stylized face smiled back at Wei Zhan every step of the way through town and out to the Cho farm on the edge of town.

“Where are you taking us?” Lan Qiang demanded as Wei Zhan paused at the gate to the path.

“My home,” Wei Zhan said. “I assumed that you had been told that I am working to purify the Burial Mounds. My home is in the center so that I can work from the inside out.”

“That’s not possible,” Uncle Qiren said, shaking his head. “Not even the Wen have been able to purge the resentment here.”

Wei Zhan shook his head. “That’s why he and you fail. There is no need for purging. Only liberation. Follow me or not, as you choose.”

Instead of trusting the talisman bead, Wei Zhan used the mudras and the mantras to open the path specifically because it would show him more of what was in their hearts. Before they even stepped onto the path, the feeling was like being dipped in oil. Not because of Uncle Qiren.

No, the oily revulsion was all Lan Qiang.

The gate markers glowed. Then the path’s border markers hummed into life. Soul-lights bloomed over the un-purified ashy land. There were fewer now then there had been, but tiny glowing lotuses still dotted the landscape. Up the path, near to a thicket of black-trunked trees that once had been majestic, General Kwan slowly lurched into sight.

Two swords sang.

Wei Zhan frowned at them sternly enough that Uncle Qiren flinched and sheathed his sword again. Lan Qiang, of course, did no such thing, but he didn’t charge out to battle General Kwan so that was good enough.

“In your time, at your will, General Kwan,” Wei Zhan said as he always did.

For the first time, General Kwan slowly lifted his hands. The right one, more bone than anything else, slowly curled into the first mudra. The left slowly turned and dropped, bony palm facing out, so that General Kwan’s hands mimicked Wei Zhan’s.

As Wei Zhan quietly chanted the mudra, General Kwan slowly lurched forward until he passed the line of the pathway stones. His body went up like a torch soaked in oil, ash and bone flying into the air as if they were embers. One step, two, a third, and then the battle-worn soul of General Kwan stood in the middle of the path, staring at Wei Zhan with gratitude.

His ghost shimmered like a reflection on a still lake after a pebble was dropped in. He turned into a glowing white soul-light that flared and then blinked out.

“May your next life be a better one, General Kwan,” Wei Zhan murmured.

He bowed properly and then slowly strolled up the path with Uncle Qiren and Lan Qiang stumbling along at his heels. The coming discussion was… going to be unpleasant. Lan Qiang had never been a good man, no matter what the Lan Elders like to claim whenever Xiongzhang or Wei Zhan did something they disagreed with.

But it was necessary. And perhaps, if Wei Zhan kept his wits about him, he might find out if Mother was still alive. He wasn’t sure why they’d come to visit right now. Wei Zhan would find out and he would keep his sanctuary safe, no matter what Lan Qiang thought about it.

If he was very smart and very lucky, he might even get on Uncle Qiren’s good side.

 

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