Reading Time: 88 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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20. Secret Buddha

A/N: Nuibang is Burdock Root, FYI. It grows in deep, well-drained soil which means it’s juuuust within Wei Zhan’s capability of growing it in the Burial Mounds. You know. With help from special grow arrays.

“What is he?” Qiang hissed at Qiren.

“You can see it as well as I can,” Qiren hissed right back at him as they followed the heretofore unknown immortal Wei Zhan into the Burial Mounds.

“He can’t be,” Qiang insisted.

His voice shook. So did his hand, so severely that his sword wobbled in his grip as if he was a brand-new junior who’d never held a sword before in his life. Honestly, Qiren couldn’t blame his brother for that. Qiren’s own knees had gone to jelly when the walking corpse began doing Buddhist mudras.

Liberating itself.

That…

That.

Between the dramatic change in Yiling, that impossible young woman in town, and now this, Qiren’s head hadn’t stopped spinning since he got up this morning.

He could see why Wei Changze had so firmly recommended that they visit. One recommendation in the library had turned into a dozen recommendations that stopped just short of outright orders over the course of their visit to the Cloud Recesses. Cangse Sanren spent nearly every moment of her time with Lin Heixin, much to Qiang’s annoyance.

Qiren uncharitably thought that the wards and arrays that Cangse Sanren had taught to Lin Heixin were what annoyed his brother most. Especially since Qiang no long had free access to the Gentian House. Since their visit, Qiang had not crossed the threshold once.

Lin Heixin was… much happier now.

It was a thing that Qiren had decided not to think too closely on, so of course her smiles lived in the back of his mind along with the laughter of the boys and, as always, the rules. Qiren wasn’t sure what to make of it other than a conviction that someone should have done something much sooner. Like him. Though he had no idea what he could have or should have done differently. The rules were no help in this situation.

Yet.

He did have some promising research into the implications of certain rules on defeating evil and defending the helpless along with a clarification on the limits of authority that could be exerted by those senior to you. Qiren thought, possibly, that Qiang’s expectation of absolute obedience from Qiren and all the other Lan besides his personal friends might, maybe, fall under the strictures against undue influence and aggrandizing yourself.

Possibly. His essay on the subject was still just unconnected notes that he would have to work on when they got home.

Wei Changze had spent nearly all his time with the boys. Telling stories, smiling, encouraging them in all the ways that Qiren couldn’t and Qiang refused to. That had been as much of a revelation as the way Lin Heixin’s smile changed once she was safe in her own home.

Qiren hadn’t known that small children needed, honestly needed, to be held and loved and tucked in at night. Apparently, Cangse Sanren had been surprised over that, too, so Qiren didn’t feel too bad about his ignorance. It wasn’t as though he’d had any education or experience with small children before A-Huan was put into his hands as his sole responsibility other than the day A-Huan got to spend with Lin Heixin once a month.

He was deeply grateful for A-Zhan’s arrival ending that particular situation. Not that he would ever say that to A-Zhan or anyone else.

Oh. Goodness. He was dithering again. Qiren hated it when he dithered. Thankfully, Qiang looked as shaken as Qiren felt, because he didn’t glare or snap at Qiren to stop acting so odd.

The Burial Mounds was both exactly what Qiren had expected and completely unlike anything he’d ever dreamed. The dead trees, the ashy soil, the way the air outside of the path seemed to be filled with low-lying fumes that were sure to choke you was as he’d been told.

The… lights?

The souls. Qiren could feel that they were souls, glowing in every color of the rainbow as they drifted away or towards the boundary that kept the three of them safe as they went deeper and deeper into the Burial Mounds. He’d never dreamed that a soul could manifest in this way.

A ghost? Certainly. Qiren had liberated many on night hunts. He’d even eradicated a few who were too resentful to liberate or suppress. Which…

“You do not suppress or eradicate them,” Qiren observed.

“No,” Wei Zhan said in such a peaceful tone that Qiren’s tense shoulders relaxed a bit despite the oddity of the situation. “There is no rush. They are contained here. Their effect on the wider world has been curtailed. They cannot harm anyone. However long they need to release their resentment, I can afford to give it to them.”

“That’s not how a proper cultivator… does things,” Qiang snapped only to trail off as they went around a thicket of dead trees backed by a copse of black-stalked bamboo. “What is that?”

Terraces, some half-complete and barely begun while others were finished and sporting sprouting plants, stretched up the mountainside ahead of them.

“My home,” Wie Zhan said, still slowly strolling ahead with his hands held perfectly in the exact same positions as the purification statues in Yiling. “We’re almost at the inner barrier.”

He didn’t look back at them, didn’t see the way Qiang opened his mouth and then shut it again. Qiren swallowed down all the thousands of questions he had. His heart pounded so hard against his breastbone that it felt as though it would burst free and fly away at any second.

Not because of the barrier or Wei Zhan.

The scowl on Qiang’s face was… well. It featured in the worst of Qiren’s memories and a great many of his most terrifying nightmares. Nothing good happened when Qiang scowled like that. Qiren clamped his mouth shut and let his brother walk in front of him. Better that his fury focus on Wei Zhan than on Qiren.

Wei Zhan was clearly an immortal of great power. Qiren might be a cultivator, but he didn’t compare to his brother’s power.

When they passed the inner barrier, which was just before they reached the incomplete terraces, Qiren’s ears popped. Wei Zhan kept going, climbing up the irregular stairs towards some simple shacks at the center of the terraces. Qiang paused, watching as the soul lights slowly faded out of visibility, then he stomped onwards after Wei Zhan.

Wei Zhan’s home was… simple. Three rough huts that didn’t look like living places, one that clearly was a one-room house, and, on the other side of the simplest, roughest open courtyard that Qiren had ever seen, a sturdy wooden door set into the wall of a cliff.

“Baba!”

“A-Lun!” Wei Zhan called with the brightest, most open smile that Qiren had seen so far out of the man.

A girl about A-Zhan’s age came dashing out of the orchard beyond the cave door. She dashed straight at Wei Zhan who laughed and scooped her up, making her fly around his head as he spun in place. She squealed with delight and then snuggled against his neck when he pulled her close and set her on his hip.

Behind Wei Zhan, a young woman who was clearly related to the very formidable Cho Lianmin slowly approached with a basket set on her hip. She eyed Qiren and Qiang exactly the way that Lin Heixin had eyed the men in Gusu.

Ah. Qiren bowed properly to her.

Qiang did not.

“How’d the market go?” the young woman asked Wei Zhan.

Wei Zhan smiled gently at her and offered a small coin purse to her. “Quite well. Everyone was glad to buy things once they knew what it was for. Your suggestion was perfect, Xinshi.”

“Oh, good,” Cho Xinshi said with a much brighter smile. “Want me to fix something?”

“Ah, no,” Wei Zhan said. He kissed A-Lun’s forehead which made her giggle and then slowly frown thunderously. “Will you go with Xinshi while I talk with these men, A-Lun?”

“Want to stay with Baba,” A-Lun whined as she clung to him.

“I want you to stay with me, too, A-Lun,” Wei Zhan replied. “But I do not trust them around you. I want to keep you safe. So will you go with Xinshi?”

A-Lun turned and stared at Qiren and Qiang. She seemed to dismiss Qiren after a moment’s study, but her scowl got worse and worse the longer she stared at Qiang who sneered right back her just as he always did with anyone he didn’t like, trust or know.

“Baba makes them sorry if they’re mean?” A-Lun asked entirely seriously.

“Of course,” Wei Zhan said.

“Okay,” A-Lun said, wiggling until Wei Zhan put her down. “We go pick carrots?”

“That is next,” Xinshi said as she caught A-Lun’s hand and led her away. “Carrots and niubang today. Plus the pears we already have.”

“Yay, pears!” A-Lun sang as she skipped along at Xinshi’s side.

By the time Wei Zhan waved for them to join him in the cave, Qiang’s face was so red that he verged on turning purple with outrage. Qiren… stayed just outside of striking range once they were inside the cave.

“You are a poor excuse of a priest to keep your whore and bastard child so openly,” Qiang snarled at Wei Zhan.

“You reveal your own issues when you say things like that,” Wei Zhan replied completely calmly. “Xinshi was raped by her husband and requested sanctuary. And A-Lun’s mother was seduced by a merchant with three wives who refused to take responsibility for her or her child. Her mother died in a rockslide earlier this year.”

He flicked his fingers at Qiang as qi filled the cave so suddenly that Qiren staggered. He’d never felt qi that powerful before. It was as overwhelming, as suffocating, as the time Qiren nearly drowned when he was a young boy.

Qiang fell to his knees, mouth open for a silent scream of agony.

Wei Zhan’s eyes gleamed. “You are a rapist, Lan Qiang. It is written in your soul, on your core. I would wonder how the Lan Elders put up with it if I didn’t already know that three of the ten on the Council of Elders were rapists as well.”

“You can’t… know that,” Qiren managed to say. He flinched as Wei Zhan’s gaze landed on him. “You’ve never been there.”

“Not recently, no,” Wei Zhan said. He smiled wryly. “But I do know. Lin Heixin is my relative. I was not able to do anything about her situation until very recently. My work here consumes most of my attention, if not most of my power. You will not touch her again. You will not force yourself upon her. She will not be required to remain in the Cloud Recesses. If she chooses to leave, she will be allowed to do so. If she chooses to take her sons with her, she will be allowed to do that, too.”

“She’s… my… wife!” Qiang managed to force through his gritted teeth.

Sweat poured down his face, soaked through his robes at the throat and armpit. Wei Zhan sighed and shook his head before drawing a very odd array in the air with one finger. It glowed blindingly white, but it wasn’t so bright that Qiren couldn’t see that it was… distinctly lopsided.

All the characters across the bottom were ancient pictograms rather than proper Chinese characters. The center had three pictograms arranged in an equilateral triangle centered over a dot that blazed like the sun. The top of the array’s wavy circle was open, like a horse shoe.

“That was not a suggestion,” Wei Zhan replied.

He gestured and the strange, ancient array drifted over to sink into Qiang’s chest.

This time Qiang screamed, loud and long and in such agony that Qiren started towards him to help. His legs suddenly stopped working. Qiren’s arms wouldn’t reach out. He couldn’t even shout at Wei Zhan not to hurt his brother.

His sect leader.

The man who had hurt him over and over and over because Qiren could not be exactly what Qiang wanted him to be. Because Qiren wasn’t harmless enough, helpless enough, worthless enough that Qiang would not be threatened by him.

Oh.

Oh my.

Qiren blinked as he stared into Wei Zhan’s apologetic eyes.

There was… another array at work. Or perhaps it was simply Wei Zhan’s qi itself. Qiren couldn’t lie. He couldn’t even lie to himself, as much as he wanted to.

Wei Zhan had Lin Heixin’s nose. Her mouth. The ears were a bit different, but they matched little A-Zhan’s ears to a startling degree. Those eyes were nothing at all like hers, though they were a lighter, more golden, shade of A-Huan’s dark hazel.

Was…?

Was Lin Heixin Wei Zhan’s daughter? Granddaughter? They were obviously related. His stamp was all over her and her children. Anyone who saw them would see it. That must be why Wei Changze had insisted that they had to come to Yiling.

Qiang had kidnapped, forcibly married, and repeatedly raped the daughter or granddaughter of an immortal. It was the only thing that made sense. Qiren bit his lip against the illogical urge to plead for mercy for his brother.

How could he take his brother’s side when Qiren agreed with Wei Zhan?

21. Lightning Strike

A/N: Warning for discussion of past rape and ongoing abuse of an unwilling domestic partner. Also, be warned for the punitive imposition of a Parkinson’s-like condition through cultivation curse. Lan Zhan’s father is sketchy at best in my mind. In this, he’s about as bad as you can get so please be mindful of that.

The biggest problem with opening the path into the Burial Mounds himself instead of using his talisman bead was that Wei Zhan had opened himself up to feeling everything around him.

Including Uncle Qiren who was building wild theories in his head at an alarming rate. Including General Kwan who thankfully had finally released his resentment. Including Xinshi’s fear and A-Lun’s worry.

Especially including Lan Qiang’s monstrous heart.

He’d always known that his father didn’t care about anyone besides himself. Wei Zhan’s earliest memories had included rare visits to the man he was told to call Father. As a child, Wei Zhan had known on sight that he didn’t exist in his father’s mind or heart. Nothing did. Even his “love” for Mother had been a one-sided, cold affair.

Father hadn’t cared that Mother didn’t want him, didn’t love him, was in fact afraid of him.

Wei Zhan had assumed that Father had known and not cared as long as he got what he wanted.

He’d been wrong.

Lan Qiang enjoyed that his wife was terrified of him. That pleasure in her fear, her helplessness against him, radiated off the man even this far away from Lin Heixin. Horrifyingly, Lan Qiang looked at Wei Zhan, saw the reflection of Mother’s features on Wei Zhan, and then his sadistic obsession flamed higher in his heart until he radiated resentment nearly as badly as the corpses still wandering the Burial Mounds.

It wasn’t love. It was obsession, narcissism. Sadism.

It would not continue.

“No…” Lan Qiang wheezed as he sucked in a breath. “No! She’s… she’s mine. I won’t. I won’t!”

“What you will or will not is irrelevant,” Wei Zhan said. He pushed more qi into the array settling over Lan Qiang’s core. “If you touch her, you will qi deviate into convulsions. If you threaten her, have others threaten her, attempt to take her children away from her or in any way restrict her movements, you will qi deviate into convulsions.”

“No,” Lan Qiang grunted, swaying on his knees as he shook his head and tried to fight the array off. “No!”

“The convulsions will not stop,” Wei Zhan continued, more for Uncle Qiren’s sake than for Lan Qiang’s. “Once he retreats or is removed from Lin Heixin and the children’s presence, the convulsions will decrease to a tremor. But they will not cease. I have bound this curse to his core. The only way to remove it is to shatter his core entirely.”

“Why?” Uncle Qiren whispered, so stricken that he swayed as if his knees were about to give out underneath him.

“Because he attacked, raped, and then forced Lin Heixin into marriage deliberately,” Wei Zhan explained. He paused as Lan Qiang toppled forward, finally unconscious. “Because he continues to rape her. Because he is sadistic, narcissistic, and unconcerned with either propriety or the rules of the Lan. Because I will not allow Lin Heixin to be harmed or restrained any longer.”

Uncle Qiren hid his face in his hands, shaking violently.

“I didn’t…” Uncle Qiren whispered. “I didn’t want to believe.”

“No good person would,” Wei Zhan replied. “Half the Lan Elders know and do not care. Lan Qiang protects them and their perversions. I know that you do not wish to be Sect Leader, but what I have done to Lan Qiang will rapidly ensure that he cannot lead the sect. You will have to step up.”

When Uncle Qiren dropped his hands, he looked utterly betrayed. It was so odd to see his uncle at this age. A straggly beard, a round, young face, and far less stiff than he had been during Wei Zhan’s childhood. It was like looking at another version of himself, a generation before Wei Zhan existed.

“I cannot,” Uncle Qiren said, horrified and staring at Wei Zhan. “I do not have the training for that. The Elders will never…”

He paused and stared down at Lan Qiang for a long moment. Wei Zhan could see the thoughts ticking over his face, could feel the emotions surging through his heart. So many things that hadn’t made sense suddenly had become clear for his uncle.

“I don’t have to ask which Elders support him,” Uncle Qiren observed far too softly. “They have made themselves obvious already.”

“Of course,” Wei Zhan agreed with a little nod. He waved for Uncle Qiren to follow him further into the cave. “Such people always do. I have several protective talismans that will protect you from reprisal. I also have several talismans that I would like you to give to Lin Heixin and her children. I do not know if they will come here, but they are welcome if they do so.”

Interestingly, Uncle Qiren only glanced at Lan Qiang. He didn’t check to make sure that his brother and sect leader was still alive, still breathing or even vaguely unharmed.

Hm.

Wei Zhan hadn’t been aware before today just how deep the rift between the two of them had been. Irrelevant for now, but it might become quite vital in the future. Wei Zhan would have to keep it in mind.

Since A-Lun had come to the Burial Mounds, Wei Zhan had decided that he needed to expand the livable portion of the cave. The back portion where Wei Ying’s blood pool had been in the future held a small pool. It wasn’t a blood pool. It wasn’t even brackish. It was a very small, very slow spring that Wei Zhan was in the process of expanding into a useful bathing spot.

Having a private bathing place would be very nice in the future when others came to live in the Burial Mounds. The spot he’d set up for bathing before A-Lun’s arrival was now Xinshi’s place as Wei Zhan had no intention of intruding on a place where she got naked. He’d made a point of adding woven bamboo screens and warming arrays so that she could be safe and comfortable.

Uncle Qiren stared around the inner portion of the cave once Wei Zhan opened the array-hidden door back to it. The slender bed, his shelves where Wei Zhan kept books mingled with A-Lun’s clothes and toys, the screened off pool didn’t catch Uncle Qiren’s attention.

It took Wei Zhan a moment to realize just what had caught Uncle Qiren’s wide-eyed gaze.

Wei Ying’s Buddha sculpture had captured Uncle Qiren before he even saw the rest of the space.

“That…” Uncle Qiren’s voice trailed off into nothingness.

“Yes?” Wei Zhan asked with a tilt of his head that Wei Ying had assured him looked mildly curious but not so much as to convey actually caring about other people’s opinions.

Uncle Qiren’s cheeks flared red. “I have never seen a Buddha sculpted that way before. The… intensity. Thinness.”

“Mm. Most thin Buddhas are sculpted skeletal,” Wei Zhan agreed while staring at Wei Ying’s Yiling Patriarch face. “To represent the time he spent as an ascetic monk. The period between his wandering and when he found the Middle Path is virtually never depicted.”

“That’s what this is?” Uncle Qiren asked only to wince as if asking a simple, obvious question was a terrible imposition. “My apologies. I should not—”

“No, it’s not,” Wei Zhan interrupted before Uncle Qiren could talk himself out of his curiosity. “This is a sculpture of my husband as the Buddha. He would have and did find it… highly amusing… before he returned to the cycle of rebirth.”

“He.” Uncle Qiren frowned thunderously. “You kept him from the cycle?”

“No,” Wei Zhan said. He smiled. “You jump to conclusions very rapidly. It is something you should consider working on. No, my husband Wei Ying made… enemies. In the process of saving approximately fifty innocents from being enslaved and murdered, he offended some very powerful people. He was and is a great genius, both intellectually and at cultivation. His enemies hounded him until he committed suicide in a very dramatic fashion. His soul was shredded and then fused to the surroundings. I managed the gather all the pieces up and then spent… a fair amount of time liberating him from the stones and then helping his soul regain structural integrity.”

“That’s…” Uncle Qiren had gone green-faced as Wei Zhan calmly explained what he could. “I’m so very sorry. I haven’t heard of anything like that.”

“Mm. You wouldn’t have. It was… not recent,” Wei Zhan replied. “Regardless, Wei Ying was willing to be my model. I couldn’t bring myself to share this one, though, so I made a more generic version for Yiling to use. I’m grateful that I did. It would be unbearable to walk through Yiling seeing his face everywhere when he hasn’t returned to me yet.”

Uncle Qiren’s frown went confused, horrified, confused again and then so deeply puzzled that Wei Zhan laughed softly. When Wei Zhan patted his shoulder gently, Uncle Qiren flinched as if Wie Zhan had beaten him.

Or as if he’d already been beaten and was working to heal the injury.

Wei Zhan didn’t ask. “Wei Ying is a very advanced soul, my friend. He will remember who he was once he reaches a certain age. I already know that he will return to me. It will be… sad… without him, but it won’t last forever. Now, let me get those talismans for you and your sister-in-law.”

By the time Wei Zhan had pulled out the entry talismans, the protective ones he’d crafted at Wei Changze’s order, and a healing talisman that should help Uncle Qiren overcome whatever injuries he was hiding, Uncle Qiren had overcome his awe enough to look around the cave.

“This is your home,” Uncle Qiren observed as he tucked the entry and protection talismans away into his sleeve. “I had thought you lived in the huts outside.”

Wei Zhan made sure to hold the healing talisman back, placing it in Uncle Qiren’s hand firmly enough that he didn’t immediately secret it away.

“Oh, no,” Wei Zhan said, laughing a little. “The house is Xinshi’s. After the rape, she needed a place of her own to feel safe. The huts are actually for growing vegetables. Xinshi and I are working to ensure that we have enough fresh vegetables and rice to get through the winter without hardship. I eat a nearly entirely vegetarian diet, so the need is large.”

“Logical,” Uncle Qiren said.

He shifted his shoulders and frowned. After a moment, his eyes went wide. When he stared at the healing talisman in his hands, Wei Zhan smiled wryly at him.

“I noticed that you had some discomfort,” Wei Zhan explained at Uncle Qiren’s silent questioning look. “It should help you heal much faster. It won’t last forever, only for a few months, but it can be of help if you’re severely injured.”

“I. Thank you,” Uncle Qiren said, bowing very properly with the talisman still in his hands. “I don’t deserve it, but thank you.”

“Nonsense,” Wei Zhan said, waving for Uncle Qiren to follow him back into the outer part of the cave. “You’re not a sadistic rapist. You’re just a young man caught in a terrible situation. You should prepare yourself for ruling the Lan, you know. Lan Qiang will not be capable of it in very short order.”

“As a punishment,” Uncle Qiren agreed so grimly that Wei Zhan raised an eyebrow.

“No,” Wei Zhan said. “He has a choice. The curse has not yet engaged. If he leaves Lin Heixin alone, allows her and her sons full freedom, then he will never be struck down by the curse.”

Uncle Qiren barked a laugh, eyes shut and face pale. “Then I will have to warn the Elders that he will not be able to lead the Lan as soon as we arrive. He…”

“Agreed,” Wei Zhan said. “He will not change. He will not learn. I would say that he isn’t capable of it, but the truth is that he simply doesn’t believe that he should have to. No one else is a real person to him.”

For a long moment, several more heartbeats than Wei Zhan expected, Uncle Qiren stared at him.

“…You actually know that,” Uncle Qiren whispered.

“Mm.” Wei Zhan shrugged. “I am an immortal. When I opened the path into the Burial Mounds, I opened my soul to the resentful ghosts, the walking dead. And to you. Both of you. I saw your heart, you fears, your worries. And I saw his greed, his lust, his rage. I am sorry. No one should have to deal with a family member treating them so.”

Uncle Qiren sighed; lips pursed very like when one of the students at the lectures would bring up a good point that he couldn’t easily argue. “Justice demanded that you act.”

“Compassion demanded I act,” Wei Zhan corrected. He smiled at Uncle Qiren’s frown. “I am not Lan. I am a Buddhist. There is an old story of a Buddhist priest captured by pirates. Buddhist principles state not to kill. Taking a life is a terrible tragedy. The pirates threatened to rape the women in his party, planned to kill the children and throw them overboard to the sharks. Everyone, including the priest, would be beaten, raped and killed. What do you think he did?”

Uncle Qiren stared down at Lan Qiang, rubbing his fingertips over his thumbnails and up around the first joint of his thumbs. For a long moment, he stood there silently but Wei Zhan could see him pondering it. How strange and wonderful to see his uncle before he became so set in his ways.

“Compassion,” Uncle Qiren murmured as Lan Qiang groaned and twitched on the floor of the cave. “Which is a greater sin: killing the pirates or allowing the other passengers to be tortured and killed?”

“Very good,” Wei Zhan said with his brightest smile. Uncle Qiren looked stunned by it. “It is not just the traveling companions, though. There are the other people the pirates would attack, the people at port who would be forced to deal with them. Yes, killing is a shameful thing, but to allow so many others to suffer and die is far worse. The priest killed the leader of the pirates, casting his body easily into the waters to be consumed by the sharks. Then he beat and intimidated the other pirates into surrendering. They returned to shore and the pirates changed their ways, becoming Buddhists like the priest.”

“Of course,” Uncle Qiren said with a little laugh. “Of course they would become Buddhist priests.”

“It is a Buddhist parable,” Wei Zhan agreed.

He hauled Lan Qiang back to his feet, keeping the man upright easily. While Lan Qiang glowered at Wei Zhan, his eyes were so dilated that he probably couldn’t see Wei Zhan clearly. Good. He would cause Uncle Qiren less trouble this way.

“You will leave now,” Wei Zhan told Lan Qiang. “You are never welcome in Yiling or the Burial Mounds again. The consequences for returning will be twice as bad as if you invoke the curse fused to your core.”

“It will be, will be broken,” Lan Qiang tried to snarl. The words came out as slurred as Jin Guangshan after a three-day drunken debauchery.

“No, it won’t,” Wei Zhan assured him. He nodded to Uncle Qiren. “Come. It’s time for you to go home.”

Uncle Qiren sighed and nodded. “I suppose flying is out of the question?”

“The wards over the Burial Mounds will not allow it,” Wei Zhan confirmed. “But that’s all right. I’ll carry him down the mountain. You can fly him home from there, I think.”

“I can,” Uncle Qiren confirmed even though he didn’t look confident of it.

Wei Zhan wasn’t worried. He’d felt the strength of Uncle Qiren’s core. And of his heart and soul. Ruling the Lan seemed to be his destiny. Hopefully this time he would not have to spend all his time fighting with the detractors who said he was only a regent filling the post for a limited amount of time. Uncle Qiren certainly didn’t deserve that nonsense a second time.

22. Saber Dreams

“Lao Nie!”

Nie Qiheng started. He whirled and then frowned that there wasn’t anyone in the lower courtyard that led to the gates to the Unclean Realm. Then he froze and slowly looked up to see Wen Ruohan grinning down at him from atop his sword.

“How did you get through the wards?” Nie Qiheng demanded with his hands on his hips.

Grinning, yes, because Wen Ruohan visiting was always exciting, but more than a little bit annoyed. Wen Ruohan shouldn’t have been able to get into the fortress by air. The wards should, should but obviously hadn’t, have stopped him.

“You have got to come to Yiling,” Wen Ruohan exclaimed as he flew down to within arms’ length of Qiheng and jumped off his sword.

Which then flew around erratically enough to explain how Wen Ruohan had gotten through the wards. He was so sleep deprived and manic that his intent was all over the place, his qi was probably on the verge of a deathly deviation, and his mind was flying faster than even Qiheng could when his boy’s life was on the line.

“Come in and sit down before you fall down, you idiot,” Qiheng huffed.

“No, no, you really have to…” Wen Ruohan trailed off as his eyes rolled back in his head.

Qiheng sighed, caught his oldest and stupidest genius of a friend, and then slung Wen Ruohan over his shoulder. Three shichen later, after some emergency medical treatment, several messages back to Wen Ruohan’s wives and sons, and Wen Ruohan snoring fit to rattle the mortar free from the stone walls, Qiheng sat down next to Wen Ruohan’s infirmary bed with the stoutest, stinkiest tea possible.

As a sect leader, Wen Ruohan merited one of their few private rooms in the infirmary. It certainly helped that he was exhausted and overworked, not actually dying or something. The room itself wasn’t much. It was barely big enough for the narrow bed, a small table for holding medicines, and a stool for the healer to sit on.

Qiheng claimed the stool, of course, and leaned against the whitewashed walls as he waited for Wen Ruohan to finally wake up. It shouldn’t take long. He never slept too long, having too powerful of a core to need long stretches of sleep.

And Qiheng’s new tea would wake the dead and send them running in horror, frankly.

“Don’ want it,” Wen Ruohan mumbled into his cocoon of blankets.

“This is for me, not for you,” Qiheng replied, sipping his tea as loudly as possible.

Wen Ruohan peeked out to glare balefully at Qiheng. “…No. No, I definitely don’t want it. It’s that horrible tea experiment of yours, isn’t it?”

Qiheng grinned and sipped even more obnoxiously. “Not quite strong enough to get Lan Qiang and Lan Qiren drunk, but I think I’m closing in on it.”

“Definitely don’t want it,” Wen Ruohan complained as he buried himself back into the covers, curled up in a tight ball.

That lasted for a count of twenty, during which the stink of the tea permeated the little room, and then Wen Ruohan finally huffed as he flung off the blankets and stomped off to get cleaned up. Muttering the whole time. Qiheng couldn’t quite blame him for it.

The tea was horrifically stinky, though it produced a nice buzz in the ears when you stood up too fast. He’d thought that the mushrooms he’d found would help make it properly intoxicating, but it looked like he needed to keep looking. Something nicely aromatic and sweet might help deal with the smell, anyway, but finding the right intoxicant was the tricky bit.

“I don’t understand how you can drink that,” Wen Ruohan complained when he stomped back into the infirmary in clean clothes.

“It doesn’t taste quite as bad as it smells,” Qiheng lied.

He stood and then sat right back down again as his legs gave way and the whole world swooped around him. Somehow, Qiheng found himself lying in the bed Wen Ruohan had vacated while his head healer, Nie Qiulian, shouted at him for being a complete idiot.

For a very, very, very long time.

Well. Maybe. Time wasn’t exactly flowing properly at the moment. Nor could he hear what people were saying when they were talking through seashells while a gale raged through and A-Jue played drums inside of Qiheng’s head.

Qiheng was pretty sure that was what Nie Qiulian was saying, anyway. Everything was so far away that he couldn’t be sure. But it was fine. After both Nie Qiulian and Wen Ruohan fed him energy and then cajoled Qiheng into circulating his qi as vigorously as if he was in the middle of a war, the effect of the tea faded.

“Dried mushrooms next time,” Qiheng decided finally. “Too strong when they’re fresh. And possibly powdered instead of solid.”

Nie Qiulian made a sound not unlike a goose getting strangled before stomping out of the room cursing under his breath.

“He’s going to stab you in your sleep,” Wen Ruohan predicted.

“Nah,” Qiheng said, waving away the eyebrow Wen Ruohan raised. “He’d have to patch me up if he did that. Swore oaths as a healer, you know. We Nie take that seriously.”

Wen Ruohan opened his mouth and then slowly shut it again, laughter and horror battling it out all over his face. The laughter won after a few moments, sending him into belly laughs that shook the bed they were both sitting on. At least the room was one of the private ones. Qiheng didn’t have to worry about all the other people in the infirmary demanding to know what was so funny.

Because it was sure to be embarrassing for Qiheng.

“You swore to Lan Qiren that you’d find a way to get him drunk without alcohol,” Wen Ruohan finally wheezed.

“Yes, I did,” Qiheng agreed proudly. “Not that far off of it, either. Not that it matters. I don’t dare do any more experimenting for a while. My wife really will stab me for it if I do.”

“When’s the baby due?” Wen Ruohan asked, grinning knowingly.

“Anytime,” Qiheng said with a sigh. “I’m forbidden to so much as look at her right now. Her healer put her on bedrest.”

“Oh,” Wen Ruohan gasped, laughing again. “Oh, that’s bad. So you absolutely need to get out of here. Come to Yiling with me. There’s someone there you need to meet.”

As if either Nie Qiulian or his wife would let him go. A-Jue was going to level the sad eyes at him. Maybe even the wobbly bottom lip while sadly saying that he’d be a good boy while Baba was gone.

“Do you really, honestly, think that I could get up and walk out here without being beaten to the floor and thrown back into this room?” Qiheng asked.

Only half seriously. They both knew that if Qiheng really wanted to go, if he said it was vital, his people would let him. They would just swarm along with him to keep him safe.

“Yes,” Wen Ruohan said.

Completely seriously. The laugher was gone. So was the manic energy that had driven him here. He pulled some of his normal scribbled-over and only vaguely coherent notes out of the qiankun item worked into his bracer.

“What are they?” Qiheng asked as he flipped through the pages. He frowned. “No, seriously. These are ancient. I’m not sure I’m even reading them right.”

“Yeah,” Wen Ruohan said with a breathless little laugh. “They are ancient. They’re arrays that my great-great-grandfather used with great effect to strip resentful energy out of weapons when they came close to attacking their users.”

Qiheng’s head snapped up to stare at Wen Ruohan who was pointedly staring at the far wall of the room. The Nie qi deviation problem was, of course, known. Hard to hide it when the strongest Nie fighters and all of their leaders died far too young of qi deviations.

But Qiheng hadn’t told Wen Ruohan why it happened. No one was allowed to discuss it. His grandfather had made it a Sect secret as soon as he took over and no one had dared to question it since then. Qiheng hadn’t ever questioned the secret and wouldn’t. No one needed to know the root of the problem.

Not when there was no chance of fixing it that anyone in the Nie could find.

“Where’d you find it?” Qiheng asked while studying the papers and Wen Ruohan much more carefully.

“In the Wen archives, of course,” he said, picking one sheet out of the others to put on the top of the stack. “Except that one. That’s a brand-new array that a cultivating Buddhist priest in Yiling used to purify the river enough that it looks like a normal town now.”

The papers fell out of Qiheng’s hands.

Wen Ruohan continued on in a blithe sort of tone even though his face was hard, set, and grim. “It was really amazing. I honestly thought we weren’t there yet when we pulled into the docks. I mean, finding a girl that I tried to court back when I was about thirty was amazing. She’s stunning, even now. So vicious. It’s wonderful. The priest though, he was fascinating.”

“Using ancient arrays with pictograms from generations ago,” Qiheng said.

“Yep,” Wen Ruohan agreed. He turned and met Qiheng’s eyes squarely. “You need to meet him. You really need to meet him. If not for yourself, then for your son. It’s…”

His eyes dropped to the purification array from Yiling. Qiheng stared at it, tracing the simple lines of it. The strange part was that he could tell that it would work. Not as well as a modern array with proper characters, but it would work.

“What’s the basis of his practice?” Qiheng asked, tracing the array and frowning. “This wouldn’t work well with Daoist principles.”

“No, it doesn’t, and it wouldn’t,” Wen Ruohan agreed. “His practice is Buddhist. The arrays are based on the concepts and practices of Buddhism. Very pacifistic, very focused on life, death, reincarnation. This one is all about shedding evil, no, sorry, shedding that which doesn’t promote balance and harmony,” Wen Ruohan said, tapping one pictogram in particular, “so that you can find that which strengthens you and your community and the world.”

He tapped the rest of the pictograms, going clockwise around the array instead of counterclockwise the way Qiheng was used to. Qiheng blew out a breath as he studied the thing.

It would work. Going clockwise, basing it in the cycle of karma and reincarnation, focusing in concentric spirals on purifying the individual, their circle, their location, then the world…

…it would work.

Really damned well, now that Qiheng studied the array closely. He flipped to the other arrays and Wen Ruohan’s scribbled notes on them. They were much the same. If you tried to use them with a Daoist basis, focusing on the basic principles of eternal, unceasing change, living in balance with the Dao and the world, the arrays would be underpowered. Or just not work.

But if you focused on deliberate efforts to optimize yourself and your world, with a clear intent towards bringing the souls of everyone and everything to ascension, it would be stunning.

“They can’t do everything, can they?” Qiheng said once he’d spread all the sheets out and worked through them with Wen Ruohan watching impatiently. “Subduing a resentful corpse wouldn’t work.”

“Why subdue it?” Wen Ruohan asked. He grinned when Qiheng glared at him. “No, seriously. Why subdue? Why eliminate? If you can seal the corpse into a place like, oh, maybe, the Burial Mounds where it can’t hurt anyone, what does it matter if it takes ages before it’s liberated? Just keep praying at the corpse, the spirit, the yao, and eventually the array will wear away at their resentment.”

“Eventually they’ll be liberated on their own,” Qiheng whispered.

His blood pounded in his ears. This…

This was exactly what they needed for the Stone Castles. All his ancestors’ sabers that hungered to destroy evil to the point that they attacked everyone could be slowly, persistently, gently returned to sanity with this. For that matter, putting those arrays all over the Unclean Realm might just keep their sabers from going mad in the first place.

It might even help the living Nie from going into qi deviation.

“Right,” Qiheng said as he gathered the papers up and shoved them at Wen Ruohan. “Go find Nie Qiulian. I need to make a trip to Yiling.”

“Finally!” Wen Ruohan exclaimed as he bounced to his feet and shoved the papers back into his qiankun item. “Seriously, you’re going to learn so much. He’s far too Lan for my tastes, but Wei Zhan is brilliant. Immortal, no idea how old. He’s definitely approaching my age at the least. And you’ll get to meet Entai. She’s amazing.”

“Ugh, just go get Qiulian, will you?” Qiheng groaned though his laughter.

Manic again. Well, this was going to be an interesting trip, but if this Wei Zhan had the knowledge that Wen Ruohan seemed to think he did, well. It might be just what the Nie needed to fix their problems and that was worth almost anything in the world.

Qiheng would do most anything to save A-Jue and his soon to be born second child from the Nie destiny.

23. Lost Brother

The weekly markets had been quite lively ever since the river purification began. Wei Zhan sat in his little corner of the market, occasionally selling a radish or two. He already had a basket full of food that people had gifted to him. Most said that it was for A-Lun and Xinshi, though Elder Entai had brought over a basket of tofu carefully wrapped in leaves so that it wouldn’t leak all over the place.

Wei Zhan had thanked her quite formally, just to make her laugh and swat in his general direction. Then he’d tucked it away into a qiankun pouch so that he didn’t have to worry about leakage at all. Before he headed up the mountain to home, he would do the same with his other gifts. They would stay fresher that way.

In the meantime, it was pleasurable to sit and watch the people of Yiling as they bargained, laughed, and chattered at each other.

It was such a contrast to the Yiling of his memories. Such a joy, honestly. No street child would fight dogs for food in this Yiling, not that his Wei Ying would ever live that way. Cangse Sanren and Wei Changze had blown through like a summer storm a few days previously, both of them happy and excited about their wandering life.

Cangse Sanren’s belly was so large that Wei Zhan was stunned that she could still do acrobatics on her sword.

Much to both Wei Changze and Wei Zhan’s horror.

Wei Ying had yet to drop, so she wasn’t at the waddling miserable with her life stage of pregnancy yet. It wouldn’t be very long. There was only a month or so before his Wei Ying would be born once again.

“He’s back,” Lianmin announced as she marched over to stand guard beside Wei Zhan.

Given her scowl, it was either Wen Ruohan or Jiang Fengmian. A moment later, a swirl of purple further up the street from Wei Zhan’s spot answered the question before Wei Zhan could ask it. If anything, Jiang Fengmian’s scowl was worse than Lianmin’s. It was worse than his son, which was so very odd.

The Jiang Fengmian that Wei Zhan remembered from the future had been a mild, distant man who rarely expressed any opinions about anything other than his admiration for Wei Ying.

Odd to think that Jiang Wanyin had gotten his scowl from his father instead of his mother.

“There you are,” Jiang Fengmian explained as he strode over to Wei Zhan. “I’m looking for my brother. Where is he? I need his help.”

“I’m sorry, but they were here several days ago,” Wei Zhan replied in his mildest tone that Lianmin likened to a kick to the groin and Xinshi giggled over as the rudest sort of politeness she’d ever heard. “They didn’t stay the night. I believe they were headed towards the Cloud Recesses.”

Jiang Fengmian threw his hands up in dismay. “Why? Seriously, Changze has to come home. The sect won’t run itself.”

“…You are the heir,” Wei Zhan said as he slowly stood and gathered up his blanket and basket full of donations. “Not Wei Changze.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jiang Fengmian said. “I was never supposed to be the heir. Changze is older. He’s trained. He has to do it.”

His eyes didn’t quite track their faces. It was as if Jiang Fengmian was looking at a world that wasn’t there. Worse, his fingers trembled as if he was terrified. Which, actually, might be true.

From everything that Wei Changze had said, Jiang Fengmian was a timid man who only wished to be a librarian. The Jiang Elders in this time were worse than even the Lan Elders. They posed a threat to their sect leader, to all three of his wives and both of his sons.

Wei Zhan wondered, now, whether anyone had done anything that might protect Jiang Fengmian from the threats to his life and sanity. And if anyone had checked to make sure that the Elders hadn’t already compromised him. By the time Wei Zhan had reached an age to meet with members of other sects, the Jiang Elders were long-dead or replaced, Yu Ziyuan had viciously enforced the belief that Wei Changze had always been nothing more than a servant, and Jiang Fengmian was…

…much like he was right now: distant, unaware, passive.

“Would you do me the honor of helping me with this, Jiang Fengmian?” Wei Zhan asked with a nod towards his basket of donations.

“I can—” Lianmin’s eyes narrowed when he glanced sharply at her. “I can come help mind A-Lun if you need to work on that.”

Wei Zhan smiled at her, amused when her chin came up defiantly. “That would be appreciated. Thank you, Lianmin.”

“I… guess I can help?” Jiang Fengmian said.

He took the basket of donations with a flustered frown. It shook in his hands. Jiang Fengmian did nothing at all to calm the shudders. In fact, he followed along behind Wei Zhan with a puzzled frown as if he wasn’t sure exactly how he’d come to be walking out of Yiling in their company.

When Lianmin opened the passageway, using her qi instead of her talisman, Jiang Fengmian just frowned. No comment on the floating soul orbs. No shock about the path, or how they did it, or even a single question about the arrays built into the border stones as he had the last time he visited.

Lianmin’s eyes were far too wide and worried when she glanced at Jiang Fengmian, confirming that something was very, very wrong.

Wei Zhan patted her back and then followed her up to his home. As soon as they crossed the boundary line, A-Lun was there, cheering as she ran over to tackle Lianmin’s legs.

“What?” Lianmin asked, grinning instead of angry. “What is this? Is this some new monster come to attack us?”

“It’s A-Lun!” A-Lun giggled, dancing to be picked up with her hands held up to Lianmin.

Lianmin laughed and carried A-Lun off, leaving Wei Zhan to sigh that he’d been supplanted as his daughter’s favorite, but then Lianmin was happy to brush and braid A-Lun’s hair almost endlessly when she visited. Xinshi laughed, off among the orchard, so clearly Lianmin had gone to visit her cousin, too.

“Please, come with me,” Wei Zhan said. “Those need to go in my cave.”

Which had the strongest arrays for health, for protection, for purification, in all of the Burial Mounds.

Wei Zhan had to make sure that A-Lun stayed safe and healthy, after all.

“She’s grown,” Jiang Fengmian commented. “I… She’s grown a good bit.”

“Mm,” Wei Zhan agreed. “She has. It feels as if I turn around and she’d grown a finger’s width. Sometimes I want to just sit and watch her constantly so that I don’t miss her growing up all of a sudden on me.”

“My wife says the same thing about my daughter,” Fengmian said so faintly that Wei Zhan cupped his elbow with one hand for fear that Fengmian was about to pass out.

None of the arrays in the cave went off when Jiang Fengmian came in. So it wasn’t a curse or demonic cultivation or even a qi deviation. Wei Zhan took another talisman from the shelf, putting that in Jiang Fengmian’s hand when he took the basket and began to unload it.

That one, designed to find and purge drugs, poisons and contaminates from the body, also did not go off.

Ah.

Jiang Fengmian was going mad, then. He looked at the talisman without interest, passing it back without a care once Wei Zhan reached for it. When Wei Zhan put one hand on Jiang Fengmian’s shoulder, all Jiang Fengmian did was frown up at him.

With blank, distant eyes that didn’t quite meet Wei Zhan’s.

“How do you feel?” Wei Zhan asked.

“Upset,” Jiang Fengmian replied instantly. “Changze needs to come home. I can’t do this without him and he’s off carousing with that wife of his, ignoring all his duties.”

“He is not the heir,” Wei Zhan said far more gently. “You are.”

“No, that’s ridiculous,” Jiang Fengmian said, huffing at Wei Zhan. His eyes went even more distant as his hands shook harder. “It’s. No. They only have me officially in the position because of, of politics. Father won’t die anytime soon. With Changze having a child, well, he’s the logical heir. Even if they skip Changze, the position should go to his child. Not to me. I’m not suited for it at all.”

Jiang Fengmian shook his head, rejecting the sheer idea of being heir. He all but radiated distress to the point that Wei Zhan tugged the young man into his arms for a hug which made Jiang Fengmian gasp and then whine against Wei Zhan’s shoulder.

Young man. No, this was a boy. A frightened, overwhelmed boy who was the verge of collapse.

“Shh,” Wei Zhan murmured into Jiang Fengmian’s hair as he shook and whimpered and then cried against Wei Zhan’s shoulder. “Shh. You’re safe here. You’re safe. It’s all right, my friend. It’s all right.”

Wei Zhan held Jiang Fengmian up when his knees gave way. It was easy enough to pick the boy up and carry him over to Wei Zhan’s bed. A quarter shichen later, Jiang Fengmian had cried himself to sleep.

“How is he?” Lianmin asked when Wei Zhan emerged from his cave.

“Not good,” Wei Zhan said with a sigh and then a soft laugh as A-Lun danced to be picked up. “What did you sense from him?”

“He’s… breaking,” Lianmin said slowly. “Lots of fear. Lots of pain. He’s terrified of losing his life. The images of threats cycled between his wife, the Jiang Elders glaring at him, and blood. Lots and lots of blood. Not sure what that was. For whatever reason, he’s convinced that his brother will save him. It’s like a ringing bell in his heart.”

Wei Zhan nodded as he brushed his lips over A-Lun’s forehead to her giggling delight. “I thought as much. He is… justified in his fear. Unfortunately, I don’t know what I can do for him. If it were poison or curses, I could fix it. What he fears is rational. His Elders are dangerous to him, to his brother, to his whole family. I’m not sure his wife is a threat to him, but I can’t battle his own sect for him…”

Lianmin sighed. “No one can fix that.”

“Can’t we?” Xinshi asked in a much more thoughtful tone than Wei Zhan was used to out of the flighty girl. “I mean, there’s Wen Ruohan and that Lan, the younger one. Qiren? And I’d bet that you could get the Nie on your side, too. Maybe they could intervene. You know, like you did for me.”

He met Lianmin’s eyes with surprise. She looked almost impressed with her cousin. It wasn’t necessarily a perfect solution, but it might help. At the very least, having the support of the other sect leaders might make the Jiang Elders back off.

Wei Zhan knew that there was a massacre, that Jiang Hanyu and his wives died in the other timeline. He’d never paid attention to the exact timing, but Wei Zhan thought it was fairly close to when Wei Ying was born. That was not that far off, so there wasn’t much time to save Jiang Hanyu.

Save Jiang Hanyu and it would prevent Jiang Fengmian from becoming sect leader. Prevent Jiang Fengmian from becoming sect leader and it would prevent Yu Ziyuan from becoming furiously jealous of Wei Ying.

Anything was worth it to save Wei Ying.

Wei Zhan nodded as he rocked A-Lun in his arms. “I will send a message to Wei Changze. Perhaps he can come visit before the baby is born. Lianmin, have Elder Entai send a message to Wen Ruohan. He is the Chief Cultivator. If anyone has the power to come and deal with the Jiang Elders, it is him.”

“Done,” Lianmin declared. She smiled at A-Lun. “Bye, sweetie.”

“Bye-bye, Auntie Li!” A-Lun said.

She giggled for Lianmin’s kisses all over her little face, then squirmed to be let down so that she could run around some more. Xinshi laughed and shook her head at Wei Zhan’s awe at his daughter’s endless stamina. Even as an immortal, he had trouble keeping up with her.

“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Xinshi promised with a grin. “Go take care of that poor boy and send your message.”

“Thank you.”

Wei Zhan headed back into his cave to send messages to everyone he could. Wei Changze needed to know. Lan Qiren certainly did as well. He’d meant to send a message to his uncle a while back, but life had gotten in the way of dealing with the Lan he’d left behind.

Jiang Fengmian slept in fetal position, curled under the blankets as if he wanted to protect himself even in sleep.

Yes, something had to be done there. Whether it would work or not was a different question. All Wei Zhan could do was try. If he could save Jiang Hanyu, it would make the world so much safer for Wei Ying, which would make all the effort well worth it.

24. Baby Boy

“Gah, my back is so sore,” Cangse complained as they coasted into Lotus Pier. “Are you sure we need to do this?”

“Wei Zhan was pretty clear that Fengmian isn’t doing well,” Changze replied, keeping an eye on Cangse’s belly.

She’d insisted that she could still fly on her sword. That Wei Ying dropping meant nothing at all. That the back ache was just a back ache and that her slowing qi was nothing more than her taking it easy. The occasional ripples over her belly, which was highlighted by the wind pushing her robe’s skirts back, told a very different story.

They landed at the edge of Lotus Pier, deliberately. Changze firmly pushed Cangse into the first inn they came to, smiling as Yimu, the innkeeper, hurried over with a huge welcoming smile. Yimu stopped in her tracks as another ripple went over Cangse’s belly.

“I’ll send for the midwife,” Yimu announced before welcomes, before asking if they needed food or a room or anything.

“Thank you,” Changze said. “I truly appreciate it, Yimu.”

“What?” Cangse spluttered. “I’m fine! What are you talking—”

She stopped as her waters broke right there on the spot. Yimu rolled her eyes and sent her youngest grandson to run up the street to the midwife. As Cangse protested, Yimu and Changze got her to a private room, out of her clothes and then there was a baby on the way.

It happened far faster than Changze expected. To him, it felt like they arrived and then in a blink of an eye, A-Ying was nestled in Cangse’s arms, whimpering and kicking as if he didn’t like being out in the world.

“He’s so beautiful,” Cangse whispered, tears dripping down her sweaty face.

“And quiet,” Changze commented with a frown to the midwife, Yongli, who was Yimu’s third daughter.

“Not a thing wrong with him,” Yongli replied as she tidied things up. “Or with your lovely wife. Though you should not have been traveling so close to your time, dear.”

“Pfft, I was fine,” Cangse said, rolling her eyes. “How does this feeding thing work? I’ve never really paid attention before.”

Changze left Yongli and Cangse to figure that out as he slipped out of the too-close room to get some fresh water and some clean towels to wash A-Ying in. Somehow, they’d skipped right past midday and now it was the middle of the night. As he stared out at the lanterns in the street, Changze blew out a breath.

His son was here. Their little Wei Ying was alive, nursing hopefully, and far, far too quiet for a new baby. Changze bit his lip against the knowledge of that old soul inside his tiny son. No one could know.

“You’re here!”

Changze started so badly that he nearly fell over as Fengmian ran at him with a delighted smile. “Fengmian. You’re… no, there’s definitely been enough time for someone to let Father know, hasn’t there?”

“Are you all right?” Fengmian asked with a disapproving little frown. “You’re not drunk, are you?”

“No,” Changze said, letting the joy out finally. “I just have a son. He’s so tiny. So tiny, Fengmian. Like. He fits in my hand. He’s… I can never, ever tell Cangse that he’s small. Oh, shit. I can never say that to her.”

Honestly, Changze felt a bit drunk. The worries and the waiting were over. He had a perfect little son, and his wife was healthy. He laughed and engulfed Fengmian in a hug that made him splutter and then cling to Changze the way he hadn’t since they were little boys together, running on the piers and swimming like fishes.

“I’m so glad you’re home for good,” Fengmian muttered into Changze’s shoulder.

Which made Changze freeze as hard as the river in the deepest cold of mid-winter.

Changze leaned back and frowned at Fengmian. “Fengmian, if we come home for good, the Elders will murder my son. Just like they’ve murdered every single one of our siblings before they could be born. That’s exactly why Cangse and I have been away.”

Fengmian’s eyes went from sharp to something distant and hazy as he shook his head. “No. They wouldn’t do that. They’re our Elders. They wouldn’t.”

Ah. So that’s what Wei Zhan had meant. Fengmian was breaking. He couldn’t handle all the dangers, couldn’t face down the sect that he was going to have to lead.

Great. Just what he didn’t need on top of Cangse who would almost certainly refuse to take her proper lie-in, a new baby who had a very old soul, and the threat of the Elders breathing down their necks. Not to mention the way Yu Ziyuan glared hot death at Changze every time she saw him.

“Does Father know we’re here?” Changze asked instead of the thousands of things he wanted to lecture Fengmian on.

“Mm,” Fengmian said, still distant, still not quite seeing Changze’s face. “But A-Niang Renzi is pregnant again, so Mama Yitian and Auntie Yixian are with her. And Wen Ruohan is visiting again. Again! He brought Sect Leader Nie with him, too. I half expect to see Lan Qiang show up, but apparently he’s ill or something?”

“That’s an “or something”, little brother,” Changze said, patting his shoulder fondly. “He pissed off a certain very powerful priest and got smacked with consequences for the first time in his life.”

Fengmian’s eyes cleared up again as he stared at Changze. “What did he do? Wei Zhan never gets angry at anything!”

“Hah… well, you know how no one knew where Lan Furen came from?” Changze asked.

He checked that no one was in the hallway or around to hear them. Far too late on that. He should’ve checked as soon as he saw Fengmian, but the time away from Lotus Pier had dulled those instincts. Checking for people listening in and plotting wasn’t second-nature anymore and that was very not-good with a new baby to protect.

Fengmian nodded. “Of course. The head librarian is terribly curious about it.”

“Lin Heixin is Lan Furen,” Changze murmured. “And Wei Zhan’s natal name, before he married his Wei Ying, was apparently Lin.”

He nodded as Fengmian sucked a sharp breath through his teeth. Hopefully Fengmian hadn’t forgotten that Wei Zhan was an immortal in his generally poor… condition. Hopefully he would remember to keep secrets now.

“Wow,” Fengmian whispered, the single word barely more than a breath of air through his lips.

“Yeah,” Changze agreed. “So, well, I expect there’ll be an announcement that poor Lan Qiren has to take over sometime soon. Which, you know, you might want to mention to Wen Ruohan.”

“They talked with me for quite a while at the last conference,” Fengmian said, frowning at the floor. “Brought tea and everything. Qiren and I had a great time discussing education for non-cultivators. Wen Ruohan seemed… interested… by it all.”

“Now, that is a fascinating idea,” Changze said, eyebrows going up. He snorted when Fengmian scowled at him. “No, really. It is. I’ve seen a lot in our travels. Finding a way to teach the commoners how to read and write and do basic math would be very good indeed, no matter what various Emperors have to say about it.”

Fengmian blossomed the way he always did when someone supported one of his ideas. Then he faded just as fast, sighing and looking away with a dispirited little purse of his lips.

“The Elders say that it’s a foolish idea,” Fengmian said sadly. “That only a little boy who knows nothing of the world would suggest it.”

Changze snorted. “The only people who’d say that are ones who don’t want the money spent on anyone but them. Better educated peasants means more trade, Fengmian. More trade means more shipping over the rivers and who owns most of the boats used to ship things in the Jianghu? Us. Anyway. Can you please run home and tell Father and Wen Ruohan and Lao Nie that we’re here? And that it’s a boy. We’re naming him Wei Ying. Probably going with Wuxian for his courtesy name but that’s not decided yet.”

“I can do that,” Fengmian said, perking up a little with a clear task to do. “Anyone else?”

“Nope,” Changze said. “I’ve got to get water and some more towels. The midwife won’t be able to keep my wife in bed for too long. Hopefully at least until morning. Please let her stay in bed that long.”

He rolled his eyes and was rewarded with a soft laugh from Fengmian. Once Fengmian ran back home, Changze took care of his wife. He held his beautiful little boy with his too-wise grey eyes. He made sure that Cangse slept and ate and rested. Her qi was moving slowly, still, so they stayed at the inn and kept to themselves.

Changze made all their food from things he bought in the market or from the qiankun pouches filled with food that Wei Zhan had suggested were a very good idea for rogue cultivators.

Wen Ruohan sent congratulations. Lao Nie sent a beautiful baby blanket that Changze stored in a secure qiankun pouch for Wei Zhan to inspect before they allowed Wei Ying or Cangse to touch it.

Mama Yitian sent a coded message that they absolutely should not come home. Auntie Yixian sent a gently worded warning saying the same thing. A-Niang Renzi’s messenger sent a profanity-drenched warning that bringing Wei Ying and Cangse to Lotus Pier would end up with all of them dead within a shichen.

“Wow,” Cangse murmured once A-Niang Renzi’s messenger marched back towards home. “This really is a big deal.”

“Yeah, nothing much is likely to happen with the Chief Cultivator around,” Changze said while pacing and patting A-Ying’s back. He’d started crying pretty much as soon as the messenger left.

As if he’d understood the entire speech.

“He can’t stop poison,” Cangse said, tapping her fingers against her forearm. “Or curses.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about the curses,” Changze countered, amused. “It is Wen Ruohan. But no, the poison is an issue. Fengmian and I are… fairly sure that’s why A-Niang Renzi has never been able to bear a child to term.”

Cangse’s eyes went hard. “We can’t stay here, can we? Not even long enough for me to recover fully.”

“I don’t think so,” Changze sighed as he nuzzled A-Ying’s downy head. “But there’s nowhere safe to go. The Elders are very well connected, love. They’ll hunt us down no matter where we go.”

“Oh, there’s one place we can go,” Cangse said, a hard, sharp smile curving her lips. “And I know we won’t be turned away. No one would be able to get at me or A-Ying there. Wei Zhan would take us in with no questions asked. Gladly.”

Changze stopped in his tracks.

Not because of the idea of hiding in the Burial Mounds. Changze had been thinking of that, too. It was the only logical choice. No doubt, it would be very, very weird for Wei Zhan to be around the infant version of his husband, but, well, his husband’s reincarnation would live to his hundred days celebration and beyond if he was in the Burial Mounds.

No, Changze stopped in his tracks because A-Ying’s fretful cries turned into a delighted giggle the moment Cangse mentioned Wei Zhan.

“Little man, that’s going to be very difficult for your Wei Zhan,” Changze said, rocking A-Ying. “But fine. It’s what we’ll do. I’ll secretly charter a boat tonight. We’ll slip out after dark. Spend some time doing your best to stop the bleeding, Cangse. I’ve watched A-Niang Renzi nearly bleed to death far too many times to be able to handle you bleeding too much.”

“I’ll be fine,” Cangse said, rolling her eyes. “Cuddle our baby for a bit. Then we’ll get out of here and to safety where none of those assholes can get at us or Wei Ying.”

Despite being only a day old, Changze could have sworn that he felt a swirl of qi from A-Ying. Not a lot. Just the faintest touch, but even that much was stunning given that he was a literal newborn.

With an old soul that was on the verge of immortality when it died.

“Don’t grow up too quick, A-Ying,” Changze whispered against A-Ying’s downy black hair. “Let us love you. You’ll be back to your Wei Zhan sooner than you think.”

There was no reply, of course. Not even a change in A-Ying’s baby giggles and gurgles. That was all right. Changze would help his son live a good life this time. He wouldn’t end up that half-starved sage that Wei Zhan had sculpted.

This time Wei Ying would grow up happy, healthy and loved.

Changze would make it happen and no one, not the Elders, not his brother’s failing sanity, not the entire Jianghu, would stop him.

25. Surprise Visitors

“We going town!” A-Lun sang from her spot in the basket on Wei Zhan’s back. “We going town!”

She bounced every time she said “town”, which rocked Wei Zhan a bit more than it should. Mostly because it made A-Lun squeal and laugh and bounce again. Every time she waved her arms, the brightly colored beads on her bracelets rattled, which just encouraged A-Lun to rattle them all the more. It was a good thing that he’d used qi to reinforce A-Lun’s beads. As vigorous as his daughter was, she might have broken her protective bracelet in a shichen otherwise.

Next to them, Xinshi laughed into her sleeve at A-Lun’s squealing.

Much as A-Lun had brightened having a safe place to live, Xinshi had started smiling again over the last few weeks. Not as much as she used to. Not as brightly, but any smiles, any laughter, were good as far as Wei Zhan was concerned.

He’d spent his entire previous life around women who had been abused until their spirits broke.

That would not happen to Xinshi or A-Lun. Not anymore. This was the first time Xinshi had agreed to come into Yiling with Wei Zhan and A-Lun since her husband beat and raped her. Wei Zhan was fairly certain that Xinshi would retreat back to the Burial Mounds after she delivered the fabrics she’d dyed for Lianmin and Dalong.

Which was fine. However long it took for Xinshi to find her strength, Wei Zhan would protect her. He had time, after all. It was easy enough to encourage her damaged soul to heal in the endless work and quiet comfort at the heart of the Burial Mounds.

Around them, the soul orbs seemed as delighted by A-Lun’s joy as Xinshi. They drifted overhead, shifting colors from sadder blood reds to brighter greens and blues. Sometimes, late at night, Wei Zhan wondered whether the Burial Mounds of the future had sent back their memories of A-Yuan living among them. As soon as A-Lun came to live with him, the Burial Mounds had seemed to lift and cheer for her.

The difference had been… stark, now that Wei Zhan looked back at it.

“Look! Look!” A-Lun squealed as she pointed over Wei Zhan’s shoulder. “Auntie Li! Hi, Auntie Li!”

“Hi, A-Lun!” Lianmin called back, waving from her spot at the gate into the Burial Mounds.

She’d put her hair up in a ponytail with a red ribbon that matched the one that Wei Zhan wore. Her robes were indigo blue, three shades of light to dark, just like Wei Zhan’s. And she’d chosen the simple peasant style that Wei Zhan wore: duan da, loose pants with a narrow-sleeved undershirt covered by a mid-thigh length robe that the poorest of peasants wore, instead of the graceful dresses she wore when Wei Zhan first emerged from the Burial Mounds.

Of course, most cultivators chose duan da, too. There was a reason that Wei Zhan had selected this as his garb. Lianmin had chosen it for many of the same reasons.

“You are never getting married,” Xinshi said, shaking her head at Lianmin once they emerged and the soul lights faded back into nothingness.

“No, I’m definitely not,” Lianmin agreed with a toss of her head that set her ponytail swinging defiantly. “Which is irrelevant. Your friends are in town, Wei Zhan. Dalong is trying to arrange a cart for Cangse. She had that baby of hers.”

“So soon?” Wei Zhan asked despite the leap of his heart at the thought of seeing Wei Ying again.

“Mm,” Lianmin said, nodding.

Her frown was worried enough that Xinshi and Wei Zhan exchanged a look. Wei Zhan took Xinshi’s fabric so that Xinshi could carry A-Lun. While Xinshi had yet to learn anything that would let her cultivate, in any style, Lianmin had learned enough to be a formidable threat to anyone who dared to come after A-Lun.

“We’ll bring her right along,” Xinshi promised. “Go say hi to your friends.”

“Thank you,” Wei Zhan said.

He dropped a kiss on A-Lun’s forehead, accepted a sloppy kiss on his cheek back from her, and then ran for Yiling with the purple and pink fabric in his arms.

It was too soon. Wei Ying should have been born around now, yes, but only within the last day or two. It was far too soon for Cangse to be traveling.

Unless there was a threat that Wei Zhan didn’t know about. Unless Changze had decided that the Burial Mounds were the only safe place for his wife and his son. Which would be… odd… to say the least, but Wei Zhan would endure the oddity of his Wei Ying being a baby if it meant that Wei Ying survived to adulthood.

Maybe.

Possibly.

Damn it, he wasn’t sure that he could be there, watching, as Wei Ying went through childhood. Infancy and childhood and teenage years. It was too odd to think if watching Wei Ying with his very adult, very sexual, love in his heart when Wei Ying was a literal baby. And if Wei Ying did grow up around Wei Zhan, would he even fall in love with Wei Zhan again?

Elder Entai took her pink and purple fabric with a smile and a pat on Wei Zhan’s hand. She shooed him off to the new inn on the south side of Yiling. Dalong was there, working to put clean straw and cushioning blankets on a small hand-drawn cart.

“Ah, you’re here,” Dalong said. “Upstairs, last room on the right. They’re eager to see you.”

The last room on the right was the one that Wen Ruohan had painted protective arrays in. Wei Zhan frowned as he hurried up the stairs, waving at the people who called welcomes without parsing who they were or what they said.

“Oh, thank fuck you’re here,” Changze wheezed as soon as Wei Zhan knocked on the door.

He was far too pale. When Changze pulled Wei Zhan into the room, he looked up the hallway as if expecting to see spies and assassins coming at them. Then he locked the door behind Wei Zhan and sketched several rather nasty arrays on the door that throbbed with his qi.

“A-Niang Renzi is pregnant again,” Changze explained as if that made sense of his paranoia. “She’s not going to survive another poisoning, Zhan. I mean, Wen Ruohan and Lao Nie are there, helping Father protect her from the Elders, but there’s only so much they can do. The Elders could use poisoned incense, tainted water, all kinds of curses. I had to get A-Ying and Cangse out of there. You were the only one we could think of to go to.”

Wei Zhan blew out a breath, grateful that Wen Ruohan’s suite had two rooms so that he had a moment to brace himself before seeing Wei Ying as a newborn.

“You are, of course, welcome,” Wei Zhan said. “For as long as you wish to stay. There are several things I might be able to give you that can help her and your father, back in my cave. Are they… okay?”

Changze laughed ruefully. “Healthy as horses. A-Ying is a quiet baby, surprisingly so. And he… well. I think he remembers. Not everything, but I think he remembers you.”

Wei Zhan’s knees wobbled so alarmingly that Changze grabbed at his elbow, propelling Wei Zhan over to a cushion. He sat and breathed through the shock of Wei Ying remembering.

Remembering… all of it? Just Wei Zhan? How much could an infant’s mind hold? Had Wei Ying done something brilliant during the times when Wei Zhan was out in Yiling?

“I need to see him,” Wei Zhan whispered. “I need. I need to know. There might. He was, is, a genius, Changze.”

“Ah, my friend,” Changze sighed. “Zhan, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he had done some wild, crazy, impossible thing. His mother does it all the time. I’m pretty sure that it runs in the family.”

Wei Zhan nodded. He took a moment to settle his nerves and then stood up once more. Changze frowned at him, studying Wei Zhan’s face for a long moment, but he finally nodded and waved for Wei Zhan to come into the private inner room.

Where Cangse lay nursing a tiny, tiny baby with a fluff of unruly black hair on his head.

She beamed at Wei Zhan, pointing proudly down at Wei Ying.

“I make good babies,” Cangse declared. “Wasn’t sure I’d be any good at it, honestly, but this one turned out very well. I think I want more. In, like, a couple of years.”

Wei Zhan laughed despite himself. “You excel at baby-making. Can you walk? Stand? Run?”

“Maybe, yes, and oh, fuck no,” Cangse said. “The walking thing is iffy. My hips are such a mess. I wasn’t kidding about waiting a couple of years. I’m going to have to use some tricks my master taught me for reforging bones after they were badly broken. I mean, my hip’s not shattered or anything, but the distortion of the bone is kind of scary. Not to mention all my innards are kind of squished and out of place.”

“That…” Wei Zhan paused as Changze groaned and hid his face in his hands, “was considerably more information than I needed to know about child bearing. And birth.”

Cangse grinned. “Too bad. We’re coming to crash in your cave.”

“I’ll build you a house of your own,” Wei Zhan promptly promised.

That set Cangse to cackling despite wincing and rubbing her belly gingerly. They had few things out in the room. Changze picked the qiankun pouch embroidered with a smiling baby’s face up, tying it to his belt. The one loose blanket was stored in his sleeve. Nothing else remained other than Cangse and little Wei Ying who suckled as if determined to never let go of his mother.

“Were you followed here?” Wei Zhan asked Changze.

“Almost certainly,” Changze said grimly enough that Cangse stopped snickering. “I know there are spies in town, though they’re all afraid of Elder Entai.”

“Wise of them,” Wei Zhan said. “If you can carry Wei Ying, I will carry Cangse. We can fly home much faster than anyone can chase us.”

Cangse carefully detached Wei Ying and burped him as she eased towards the edge of the bed with a grimace. “You think we’re in danger, too.”

“Very much so,” Wei Zhan agreed. “I. Mm. I would fight the entire Jianghu for Wei Ying. For the two of you. But it would be better for Yiling if there was no fighting.”

“Agreed,” Changze said.

He took Wei Ying, wrapping his blanket close around the very quiet, very still, oddly watchful baby. The blanket obscured so much of Wei Ying that Wei Zhan wasn’t able to see him properly. Well, he’d check Wei Ying out later.

After he and his parents were safe.

Lianmin waited at the head of the stairs with a scowl. “Back stairs. Out the back. Dalong is making a spectacle in the front of making sure the cart is “comfortable enough”.”

“A-Lun and Xinshi?” Wei Zhan asked as he picked Cangse up in his arms despite her squawk of surprise.

“With Elder Entai looking at the new fabric,” Lianmin said. “Once you sneak out, I’ll go guard them until you can come back for them.”

“Thank you,” Wei Zhan said, smiling at her even though his face felt as stiff as it used to when he was young. “It will be very fast. We’ll be flying.”

“You can fly on someone else’s sword?” Lianmin asked, blinking as she tried to sort out how that would work.

“No,” Wei Zhan said. His smile this time was more natural, though still far too sharp. “I have my own.”

All three of them stared at Wei Zhan as if that was the last thing they’d expected to hear. Given his choice of Buddhism-based cultivation, it was rather… unorthodox… but Wei Zhan could hardly leave Wangji behind. Who knew when he might have to defend his husband, his home and the world?

Wei Ying giggled.

“They do look rather amusing, A-Ying,” Wei Zhan said. “Head back downstairs and tell Dalong that Cangse is taking her time getting up.”

“Too much bleeding,” Lianmin agreed with a firm nod. “That’ll set Dalong into a frenzy and amuse all the people watching. And then I can lecture him for being an idiot.”

She smirked and marched down the front stairs, leaving them to sneak down the back stairs used mostly by the inn’s servants. Absolutely no one was there. Lianmin had obviously warned the servants to be elsewhere.

Once in the back courtyard where the wood for the kitchen was kept along with the chickens and the small vegetable patch, Wei Zhan summoned Wangji from his sleeve. Changze blew out a breath while Cangse hummed appreciatively.

“Now that’s lovely,” Cangse said. “Strong just like you, A-Zhan. Let’s go. I want to see what kind of acrobatics you can pull off while carrying an old lady.”

“If I was carrying Elder Entai I would be more likely to do acrobatics,” Wei Zhan said, stepping onto Wangji as Cangse groaned in disappointment. “Do your best to keep up, Changze. The closer together we are, the easier it will be to trigger the path.”

And the less likely someone else would be to run into the path after them.

“I’ll be right on your back,” Changze promised.

His arms wrapped around Wei Ying who quieted against his father’s chest in the exact opposite way to a true newborn who would have protested and fussed over being held so tightly.

Wei Zhan opened his senses, casting out a light thread of power to see what they were up against. Most of the town was in the street watching Lianmin scold Dalong for being a fussy fool.

Two people stalked towards the back of the inn, glancing backwards repeatedly.

One was hiding near the entrance to the Burial Mounds. With spears. And a bow.

A different route in, then.

Wei Zhan took flight and Changze did ride exactly to his right, within arm’s reach. Even as Wei Zhan sped down the alley and then took a hard right towards the river, Changze stayed with him. They swept out and across the river, flying up-river until they were halfway past the Burial Mounds. Only then did Wei Zhan turn and head towards the boundary again.

“Will that work? Somewhere else, I mean,” Cangse murmured into Wei Zhan’s ear so that he could hear her over the drumming of the wind against their ears.

“Yes,” Wei Zhan replied. “It’s just harder.”

He paused at the border, twisting so that Cangse could stand with him on Wangji’s blade. Then he used the mudras and the mantra to open a path into the Burial Mounds. Cangse sucked in a breath, hands too tight on his arms, but she said nothing. Neither did Changze who was so close to Wei Zhan that he could have climbed onto Wangji, too.

It took thirty repetitions of the mantra to fly from the border to the safe inner zone. Much faster than normal, which was good.

“Go,” Cangse said. “Get your girls. Bring them home safe.”

“Mm,” Wei Zhan agreed. “Take my bed for now. You need to rest.”

“Gladly,” Cangse said, flapping her hands to shoo Wei Zhan off.

He went without looking back. It was delightful to fly again. Wei Zhan had forgotten the joy of slicing through the air, had forgotten how cool the wind was, how different the world looked from above.

It was easy enough to slip back into town and then into the back courtyard of the inn. He slipped upstairs and then came down the front stairs normally. Both Lianmin and Dalong looked up when Wei Zhan came out by himself.

“She nearly fainted standing up,” Wei Zhan said, not even slightly regretful for the small lie as he saw several of the new townsfolks exchange avaricious looks. “Changze decided that they’ll spend the night at the inn and then try coming to visit tomorrow.”

“See?” Lianmin said so scathingly that Dalong went brick red. “I told you that you were being ridiculous. She’ll probably need a whole week before she can even move around the room. Men! You never understand just how hard birthing babies is.”

“As if you’ve had one or ever will have one!” Dalong snapped at her as if he was on his very last nerve. “Go away, will you? Go do your, your, your stupid prayer things.”

Lianmin bristled, hissing at Dalong with such outrage that Wei Zhan shook his head and firmly guided her away. Back to Xinshi and A-Lun. Back to Elder Entai who had gotten a huge stack of raw cotton and hemp that she wanted Xinshi to die for her.

It took all three of them to carry it with A-Lun back in the basket on Wei Zhan’s back.

They walked right past the spy with the spears and bow. He didn’t rise from his hiding spot under the black-leafed shrub growing by the boulder covered with sickly yellow-green moss. Wei Zhan used the talisman to open the way and smiled as A-Lun clapped her hands in delight.

It might be a while before he brought A-Lun back to town.

Though tonight he would have to make a trip out. A very quiet trip in the dark of night to deliver some protective talismans and arrays to Changze’s father and mothers. Wei Zhan wouldn’t destroy the Jiang Elders himself. He wouldn’t leave the Burial Mounds for that long. But that didn’t mean that he couldn’t make it much, much harder for the Jiang Elders to threaten Wei Ying and his parents.

26. Lessons Taught

Qiheng sighed as he settled down at the end of one of the eponymous piers of Lotus Pier. It stuck way out into the river, not in one of the busy areas. Lotuses and lily pads covered the water around him, all turned sliver and black by the dark of night and the light of the moon. The air was full of humidity, warm and wet and welcoming.

He missed the cold, biting air of the Unclean Realm.

“Surprised you’re out here,” Hanyu commented as he sat heavily next to Qiheng. “And without wine or that horrible tea you’re always drinking.”

“My wife threatened to take my heavenly pillar, stuff and mount it if I tried to drink more of the tea for the next year,” Qiheng said. “I think she was serious, so not doing that. And our healer threatened to take both my hands and my feet if I drank more than a few cups of wine a day for the next month. Worried I’ll have a stroke, apparently.”

Hanyu snickered. “Messed yourself up that bad, did you?”

Wen Ruohan plopped down on Qiheng’s other side. “You have no idea, my friend. No idea at all.”

The three of them sat in silence. There were a million things to say. It wasn’t safe enough to whisper a single one of them.

Qiheng had always considered the Lan Elders to be the worst in the Jianghu, but this trip was showing him just how wrong he was about that. The Lan Elders were stuffy, obnoxious assholes who needed to loosen up and live life.

The Jiang Elders were power-hungry murderers who needed to be killed as quickly and efficiently as possible.

And who were so skilled and so dangerous that even Hanyu hadn’t been able to manage it.

Not for a lack of trying, but still.

Qiheng sighed. At least Wei Changze had escaped with his wife. Disappeared in the middle of the night, the day after his son was born, which said a lot about how aware he was of the danger the Elders posed. Also said a hell of a lot about just how strong and unstoppable Cangse Sanren was.

Even Qiheng’s wives wouldn’t have been able to get up and run for their lives the day after giving birth, and they’d had the best care possible.

Granted, they all knew where Wei Changze had gone. It wasn’t hard to figure out. Yiling was close enough and they had their Buddhist cultivator-priest friend to hide them away. Qiheng expected to hear that all of them had been hunted down and killed by tomorrow morning. The Jiang Elders were more than a little… peeved… that Wei Changze had dared to sire a son before his brother had sired one with Yu Ziyuan.

Little Yanli was a sweet, lovely child, but there had been birth trauma that meant that she would never be a powerful cultivator. She’d already formed a core, yes, but too much of her qi went to stilling the tremors and weakness of her hands and legs for her to be a warrior the way her mother wanted her to be.

“I don’t know what to do,” Hanyu whispered. “Renzi’s gonna die. All we’ve ever wanted was to have a house full of babies to raise together, and she’s going to die this time.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Wen Ruohan growled.

Qiheng shook his head. “Any chance that Yu Ziyuan is pregnant? That would divert their attention.”

He didn’t need to say whose attention. Hanyu grimaced, thumping one huge fist into the dock. So. That was a no. Which meant that something needed to change very quickly, or Hanyu would kill his own sect the moment the Elders murdered his wife.

“What’s that?” Wen Ruohan whispered.

When Qiheng looked up the river, he saw nothing. Nothing. And then a stray glint of a sword flying close to the surface of the water. All three of them stood as one. Hanyu had his sword out already. It felt very, very strange to be the one putting a hand on Wen Ruohan’s arm to keep him from drawing.

A single man appeared out of the darkness on a very nice sword. One could say that it was impeccable, actually. Nice straight blade, double-edged with a deep fuller up the full length. The hilt was wrapped in simple black leather, obscuring the original handle, but Qiheng nodded at the cross guard and pommel. Very fine work, there.

“Wei Zhan?” Wen Ruohan asked, arm relaxing underneath Qiheng’s hand. “What are you doing here?”

“I wished to inform Jiang Hanyu that his grandson, son and daughter-in-law are safe,” Wei Zhan said in a cool enough voice that Qiheng could’ve taken him for a Lan. Just needed the forehead ribbon and white robes instead of simple indigo peasant’s clothes. “I have given them sanctuary inside of the Burial Mounds. The spies in town will be… well. Elder Entai is taking care of that.”

Wen Ruohan barked a laugh, smothering himself with one hand as he giggled in delight. That had Wei Zhan smirking and nodding. Given everything that Wen Ruohan had said about his beloved old lady Entai, those spies were going to regret all their life choices.

“Please give these to your lady wives,” Wei Zhan said.

He passed over three tassels made of multicolored cotton decorated with three very complicated black clay beads, each. Without touching them, they felt like standing too close to the forge. Like staring into the sun. Hanyu sucked a breath between his teeth as he staggered backwards and nearly fell.

Wei Zhan’s sword didn’t even bobble as he stood there watching.

He really was an immortal. When Wei Zhan nodded and turned his sword, Qiheng flung out a hand to stop him, not that he managed to connect with Wei Zhan’s sleeve.

“Wait, I had a million questions to ask you,” Qiheng said.

Wei Zhan smiled, a bare flicker of the lips. “I know. Come to Yiling. I will talk to you there. I do not leave Yiling for much. Keeping Yiling safe, keeping my daughter safe, means keeping the Jiang stable. I would… hm. Wen Ruohan, I would suggest that you check underneath the piers. There may be things to be learned there.”

“Oh, you tease, you,” Wen Ruohan purred as he grinned and rubbed his hands together. “Would those arrays of yours help?”

“If implemented with the proper foundation, they would protect like nothing else,” Wei Zhan said, nodding. “But the way must be cleared first. I look forward to your visit, Sect Leader Nie.”

Wei Zhan flew off so fast that he sent up rooster tails of water. He hadn’t on the way coming in. There’d been not a glimmer of the water moving underneath him to give him away. Qiheng bit his lip and then turned to his friends, both of whom looked like they’d been smacked in the face with a dead fish.

“Right,” Qiheng said as he pushed Hanyu towards the looming dark bulk of Lotus Pier. “Get those to your wives. Wen Ruohan, take one. Study it while we’re walking. Then come up with something wild and ridiculous to give to Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan. That boy needs something to help him calm down before he loses his mind entirely.”

They both nodded grimly.

By the time Hanyu delivered the tassels with their powerful black beads to his wives, Wen Ruohan had ideas for how to protect Hanyu’s son and daughter-in-law. By the time he’d convinced Yu Ziyuan to take the array he’d created, the Elders were awake and lurking around corners to listen in on everything said.

By the time the sun came up, Qiheng and Wen Ruohan were on a little boat underneath the piers, poking into dark corners and scraping off algae and slime mold formations to find any signs of deadly arrays hidden under the piers. Overhead, Hanyu and Yu Ziyuan were having screaming battles with the Elders that involved multiple threats of death, a very creative threat of dying by having a barrel of wine poured up someone’s ass, and terrified silence from every disciple and servant the Jiang had.

There were lots of hidden arrays.

“This is ridiculous,” Wen Ruohan muttered to Qiheng as he scraped the eight-seventh one off with a casual blast of qi and then the spatula he’d stolen from the kitchens. “Another hidden death one.”

“No wonder she couldn’t bear a baby to term,” Qiheng agreed. “They’re on every single post. Every beam. Most of the floorboards.”

“We’re going to need to get under the buildings on land, too,” Wen Ruohan complained. “They’re on stilts, you know. There’s plenty of room for someone to get under there and do this shit.”

“They’ll come back once we’re done,” Qiheng countered. “No matter how many you scrape off, no matter what you put up, it’s going to be undone as soon as we leave.”

He could hear water lapping against another boat’s hull somewhere off to their right among the piers but couldn’t see anything in the gloom. If the day had been overcast, whoever it was would’ve been easily visible. It was the shafts of bright light stabbing down between the boards of the pier that made seeing any distance impossible.

“Fuck, you’re right,” Wen Ruohan complained.

He frowned at the deadly little array. Then started drumming his fingers against his knee as if he was furious about it. Qiheng was certainly irate about the whole thing. Not only was this cowardly as all hell, it was going to destroy the Jiang and that was bad for the entire Jianghu. The Jin might have more money, but the Jiang were the ones who handled all the shipping within the Jianghu.

Not to mention that he hated that the Elders were striking against innocent children before they’d even been born. If the assholes weren’t so damned well-protected and well-connected, he’d already have used the Nie’s reputation for terrible tempers to kill the lot of them.

“There has to be a trigger,” Wen Ruohan finally said. “Otherwise everyone in Lotus Pier would already have died. There’s something that they do, some way that they trigger these things. If we can figure out what that is, we can block it and keep Jiang Renzi from dying.”

“Good plan,” Qiheng said. “Let’s find another one, an intact one. You can study it and then we’ll get out of the muck and go yell at some elders with Hanyu and his daughter-in-law.”

“Amazing command of invective on that woman,” Wen Ruohan said, grinning brightly. “Pity she’s already married.”

“And people think I’m hopeless,” Qiheng drawled.

They didn’t descend into a splash fight. Not quite. If they were a bit damp and snickering when they emerged from under the piers, well, people could make their own assumptions about that. Given that it was them, the rumors were probably going to be something on the order of the two of them going to have kinky sex under the piers while people walked overhead, completely unaware.

As if either of them had the capacity to be quiet while fucking. Everyone would’ve known what was going on. Nice idea, though. Maybe after things calmed down a bit.

If they ever did.

Either way, Qiheng emerged from the gloom under the piers to the Jiang sect descending into a civil war. Blood hadn’t started to flow yet, but it wouldn’t be long. He followed Wen Ruohan towards Hanyu’s private pavilion off on its own pier, just as determined as his friend to fix this whole mess.

He hadn’t realized just how much Hanyu was dealing with. Sure, he’d always known there were issues. It was like with Lan Qiang and Lan Qiren. They all but had people screaming warnings everywhere they went about how messed up the two of them were.

The Jiang Elders had always been the same sort of thing.

But it wasn’t. Not really.

All those pregnancies, failed. All those babies, murdered before they had a chance to breath. Hanyu and Renzi had both talked, so many times, about how hopeful they were that this time the pregnancy would last. That she’d carry to term.

Every single time it’d ended in blood.

Yeah, no.

Not anymore. As much as Qiheng wanted to charge right off to Yiling to pick Wei Zhan’s mind about how to fix the qi deviations, he was staying right here until either they broke the power of the Jiang Elders, or the Jiang Elders killed them all.

And yeah, not likely to happen. No one got the upper hand on Wen Ruohan. Especially not when he was backed up by Qiheng and Hanyu.

This was going to end.

Very soon.

27. Deep Betrayal

Jinzhu jerked sharply next to Ziyuan waking her to the darkest time of night when the moon had set, and the sun had yet to brighten the horizon.

On her other side, Yinzhu hissed a warning breath that kept all three of them still in their shared bed. Ziyuan had flatly refused to rejoin her husband’s bed until she was ready to bear another child. With the Jiang Elders being what they were, that wasn’t going to happen until they were all dead.

Ziyuan would accept no other alternative.

Their singular night pearl had been closed up, sealing its light away so that their eyes would be as dark-adapted as any attacker. A wise precaution, it seemed. Ziyuan would have to get that lavender embroidery silk for Yinzhu now. Pity. She’d been so sure that open warfare would break out during the day instead of late at night.

Two people, men by the size and weight of their bodies, slipped in through the broad window that overlooked the lotus pond. They didn’t drip water so they must have come over the rooftops. That they came over the roofs guaranteed that they were Jiang sect instead of hired outside assassins.

Damn it. That meant that she owned Jinzhu a new jade comb, too. Not her night for bets, obviously.

The men, and yes, it was only two men, slowly crept towards Ziyuan’s bed where they’d laid out pillows and piled clothing under the blankets to give the impression of a single body in her wide, too-soft bed. Both of them ignored Jinzhu and Yinzhu’s hard, narrow bed which most would assume could only hold one small woman.

As if they weren’t all practiced in sleeping like puppies piled together. It was so much safer and warmer this way, especially when one went to sleep in one’s battle clothes as they had for the last three months.

A lone firework exploded overhead, showering red sparks down towards the river.

“Now!” the left man hissed.

They lunged together towards the bed, stabbing into the blankets with vigor but no awareness of the triple threat rising behind them.

“What—?”

There was no other noise. Jinzhu took the left man, garroting him efficiently. Yinzhu took the right, stabbing him precisely in the heart with her poison-filled knife. Ziyuan opened the night pearl’s cover just enough to see that the men were favored servants of Elder Zhifei, the one who always smiled at Ziyuan as if she was a prize broodmare about to be brought to auction.

She snorted. “Zhifei must have lost the battle for power among the Elders. I know he favored keeping me alive so I could breed more heirs for him.”

“We will protect A-Li,” Jinzhu murmured, jerking her chin towards the door that led to Fengmian’s quarters. “Go protect your husband. He still needs to give you a son.”

A-Li poked her head out from under the servant’s bed, eyes wide as she stared up at Ziyuan. She was such a miracle to have survived the Elders’ attempt to kill her at birth. The damage was enough to take her out of the running as the heir, but not enough to keep her from being valuable.

“Be good, A-Li,” Ziyuan murmured to her. “Be quiet, stay with Jinzhu and Yinzhu, and do not scream. No matter what you see or hear, do not scream. They can find you if you scream.”

“Mm!” A-Li said, nodding firmly as she crawled out of her hidden bedding. “I’ll be good, Mama. Keep Father safe.”

Ziyuan kissed her forehead and then left the room as silently as only a Meishan Yu woman could. A-Li was her darling. Her dearest daughter. Her deepest disappointment. Her worst failure, all at once. Though how Ziyuan could have kept A-Li safe after she passed out from unexplained blood loss, she would never know.

The Elders would be the ones who bled to death today, not the women of Lotus Pier.

A lone scream echoed over the water. Ziyuan slipped through the dark hallway to her husband’s room. There was no noise from inside. Ah. Already awake then. Fengmian snored like the roar of a yao in a fury which was why Ziyuan had insisted on her bedroom being somewhat removed from his.

She silently slipped inside. The sitting room showed no signs of a struggle. A lone grunt came from the bedroom, then a strangled wheeze.

Zhifei knelt on the floor, hands scrambling at the garrot wound round his neck

“A little help?” Fengmian asked as he struggled to keep the garrot tight enough to kill the fat old man.

“Of course, darling,” Ziyuan said. A quick stab to the heart with her poison knife killed Zhifei instantly. She dissolved the knife and then pulled her second poison knife from the qiankun pouch built into her gauntlets.

“Thank you,” Fengmian said, shaking his arms. “A-Li?”

“With Jinzhu and Yinzhu,” Ziyuan said. “Wen Ruohan was right. They are frustrated.”

One lone scream turned into a cascade of bellows, begging and terrified wailing that sent both Ziyuan and Fengmian dashing out of his rooms. There were fires in the heart of the sect, off near the kitchens. Ziyuan ignored that.

“Your mothers!” she snapped at Fengmian.

“A-Niang’s pregnancy!” he snapped back.

He was far too pale, hands shaking on his sword, but he followed Ziyuan into battle without hesitation. The last few months had been… tense. The threat of the Elders had been bad enough that Ziyuan had pulled away from Fengmian in public. And in private.

There was no distance now.

They charged into Renzi, Yitian and Yixian’s rooms side by side. Ziyuan took in the lay of the room at a glance, picking her targets. Yitian and Yixian stood in front ot Renzi who cowered on the floor with her hands over her belly.

All three of them had ragged tassels with brightly glowing black beads on their belts. The power radiating off those beads was enough to stop the breath in Ziyuan’s lungs. Just for a moment.

Blood soaked their night robes. Sprays of blood arced up over the walls and across the ceiling. Three men lay dead at their feet, one with a broken neck, the other two with knives through their eyes. Hanyu stood in the center of the bedroom, wrestling with Elder Muning who was just as tall, just as burly and just as prone to solving his problems with his bare hands.

Ziyuan jerked her chin towards Elder Muning’s back.

Fengmian snarled and stabbed Elder Muning straight through the heart, stopping his thrust before he could stab his own father.

“The others?” Ziyuan called to Yitian and Yixian.

“They went after Ruohan and Qiheng,” Yitian said.

“Take care of Renzi,” Ziyuan ordered.

She whirled and ran for the guest quarters, fully expecting to find more dead Elders. Along the way, she killed a dozen or so of their sympathizers and paid assassins. None of them were worthy of her poison knife so Ziyuan used Zidan to whip, decapitate or fling them through walls.

“Ha!” Nie Qiheng bellowed as he chopped straight through one of the sturdier wattle and daub walls that had been faced with thin cedar veneer. “Got you, you bastard!”

A torso dropped out of the hole. Ziyuan raised one eyebrow. Well, that was Elder Muye.

“Wen Ruohan?” Ziyuan asked.

“Asking questions,” Nie Qiheng said, jerking his chin back in towards the guest rooms. “Got some special arrays or something to extort answers, no matter what the subject thinks about it. What about Jiang Renzi?”

“Alive when I left, but clutching her belly,” Ziyuan said, scowling as a dozen more people charged at them. “Ttch. These idiots.”

Between Nie Qiheng’s saber and Ziyuan’s saber, the battle lasted just over six breaths. She jerked her chin towards the kitchens where the fire had already been put out.

“Make sure things don’t burn down,” Ziyuan ordered. “I’m going to eliminate every single one of those bastards’ people.”

“Go,” Qiheng said, nodding. “I’ll guard the path here. We already made sure that Lotus Pier won’t burn. Did that yesterday afternoon with the new arrays we put in.”

Ziyuan cocked her head at that, tempted to ask further, but no. There were traitors to kill and a sect to secure. She left him there and went to the senior disciples’ dorms to marshal them for battle.

The Juniors had already done as she’d instructed them over the last couple of years: They’d gathered all the servants and retreated into the warded safe houses that Ziyuan had created secretly with Jinzhu and Yinzhu.

Good. It was always pleasant to see people follow their instructions properly.

By dawn, the fighting was over.

Ziyuan personally killed all but three of the remaining Elders. Those three, Daikun, Lixin, and Taizi, had been put in place by Hanyu. They fought with Ziyuan instead of against her. She didn’t leave them in charge of the cleanup. Trust only went so far. Instead, she set Daikun into checking for all records in their personal quarters of what the dead Elders had been up to, Lixin to getting food going in the damaged kitchens, and Taizi to telling the growing flood of worried people in town that everything was all right.

The seniors handled cleanup. The juniors handled medical care for those who needed it. A great many more than she liked needed it.

More training. Definitely more training.

Ziyuan marched back to her rooms where A-Li had been changed into day clothes and was now quietly playing with her dolls.

“Mama, is it over?” A-Li asked, eyes wide and thankfully innocent.

“It is,” Ziyuan agreed. “I need to check on your grandmothers. There should be food soon. Will you be okay here with just Jinzhu?”

“Mm!” A-Li said. “Father came by. He looked better. Messy, but he met my eyes!”

“Good,” Ziyuan said, ashamed of how that bit of news made her knees go weak. “Be a good girl. I’ll be back to get cleaned up soon.”

Yinzhu followed Ziyuan to Renzi, Yitian and Yixian’s rooms, stiff and ready for anything. Just like Ziyuan. The damage now that there was light was far more obvious. Hanyu had killed at least eight people with his bare hands as he battled to his wives’ sides.

The walls were shattered, windows splintered. Tiles had been knocked off the roof down into the water. The boards of the pier had been broken in multiple places. The body of an assassin was still wedged into one hole, his head and one arm dangling down for the carp and turtles to nibble on while the rest of his body sprawled across the way.

“It’s Ziyuan,” she said, rapping against the lintel before entering.

“The baby’s still alive,” Hanyu said, holding Renzi in his arms and rocking her as she cried against his shoulder. The tassel at her waist still glowed. “The baby’s still alive. Whatever Ruohan and Qiheng came up with, it worked. It worked. Renzi’s baby is still alive.”

Ziyuan let her head sag a bit as relief made her knees go weak for a second time. “The only Elders still alive are Daikun, Lixin, and Taizi. I’ve set them to work. We shouldn’t have too much work left to do sorting out the allies and assassins. Most of them are already dead.”

“Good,” Hanyu said. “I should. I should go…”

“You should stay right there with your wife,” Ziyuan snapped at him. “I’ll take Yitian and Yixian. They can speak for you right now. Where did Fengmian go?”

“He said something about making sure that the records weren’t destroyed,” Hanyu said.

His smile was shaky, more grateful than anything Ziyuan had ever seen out of him before. She smiled back, sharply because she was Meishan Yu, because she didn’t know how else to be, because if she didn’t stay sharp-edged and dangerous, she would collapse to her knees sobbing as well.

The copy of Wei Zhan’s talisman that Wen Ruohan had made for her was tucked next to her skin gently radiating protective power that was a pale shadow of what Renzi, Yitian and Yixian’s talismans did.

She hadn’t believed Wen Ruohan when he said that it would prevent a woman from bleeding to death, that it would protect her against the arrays built into every part of Lotus Pier. Ziyuan hadn’t allowed herself to believe it.

But it was true.

It was true.

And the Elders were dead now, killed in the middle of their own plot. Fengmian might not have to be the heir after all. Renzi’s baby, if they both survived, could be the heir which would give Ziyuan her husband back.

Her gentle, studious husband who looked at Ziyuan like she was a miracle. Who touched her like she was the most precious thing in the world. Who snored, yes, but who held her tenderly and gently, exactly as no one ever had in her life.

“I’ll gather him up, too,” Ziyuan said.

“Change your clothes,” Yixian advised as she emerged from behind the changing screen in clean, non-blood-stained battle clothes. “You’ll frighten A-Li.”

“She wasn’t frightened when I checked on her earlier, but yes, I should,” Ziyuan said.

A quick wash took care of the worst of the blood. Fresh clothes took only a moment. Then Ziyuan sought out Fengmian who had already buried himself in auditing the records to see where the Elders’ money had come from. Hiring that many assassins wasn’t cheap.

“It worked,” Ziyuan announced as she pulled Fengmian out of his files and records and account books.

“What?” Fengmian asked, blinking at her.

For a moment his eyes didn’t focus. Didn’t see her. Then she put her hand on the talisman under her clothes. Fengmian gasped, gripping her arms as his mouth dropped open.

“It worked?” Fengmian whispered. “A-Niang Renzi is alive?”

“Yes,” Ziyuan said. His face blurred until she blinked the tears away. “Both she and the baby are still alive, Fengmian. They’re alive. It worked. The Elders are dead, and it worked.”

She flung herself into Fengmian’s arms, very aware that Jinzhu was guarding the door so that no one would see this moment of weakness. As Fengmian wrapped his arms around her, whispering broken prayers against her hair, Ziyuan didn’t care if someone saw.

The talisman had worked. If Ziyuan got pregnant again, there wouldn’t be another birth injury. Her next baby wouldn’t be harmed the way A-Li had been. She could have another child and not have to worry about bleeding to death despite everything she, Jinzhu and Yinzhu could do.

It had worked. They were free.

28. Sharp Words

Wei Zhan hammered away at driving the support pillars for Changze and Cangse’s house into the hard earth. It was set back a bit, away from the cave, in the middle of his growing orchard. There was room closer in, but Cangse had idly commented that it would be nice to live in a house surrounded by trees. Wei Ying could grow up climbing them.

The idea stuck in Wei Zhan’s head, so he’d sited their home in a spot with trees all around. While he’d done work to improve the soil here, it wasn’t as loose as elsewhere. That would make for good sturdy pillars, but it slowed the construction process rather dramatically. Instead of five to seven days to finish their house, it looked as though it would take ten to twenty days, even with Changze’s help.

“You’ve got a guest from town,” Lianmin called over the hammering.

Wei Zhan paused and then stared.

Yu Ziyuan stood behind Lianmin, so very, painfully young. Her face was just as sculpted as before, eyes just as cold as she measured Wei Zhan’s naked torso, hair pulled up into a simple topknot and dangling red ribbon. After a moment, her lip curled as she visibly found him lacking.

Neither of her handmaidens were with her, though, which was odd.

From what Wei Ying had said, Yu Ziyuan rarely went anywhere without her handmaidens. They were friends, bodyguards, assistants in every task that Yu Ziyuan undertook. Between the lack of them and how very young she looked, Wei Zhan found himself a bit at sea as he slowly put his mallet down.

“So I see,” Wei Zhan said. “Very well. Will you tell Cangse and Changze for me? I imagine they will wish to see their sister-in-law.”

Lianmin’s eyebrows went up. “Done.”

She marched off, ponytail flipping at Yu Ziyuan with disdain that Yu Ziyuan returned, sneering. Except that Wei Zhan could see a nervous flutter in Yu Ziyuan’s fingertips. Just for a moment. Then she pressed her fingertips to her thighs, hiding the tremor.

“Welcome to the Burial Mounds,” Wei Zhan said as he pulled his shirt back on, tying it firmly in place before making sure that his tassel was properly situated at his left hip. “You wished to speak to me?”

Yu Ziyuan turned back to Wei Zhan. She had been a striking and beautiful woman as an adult. Now she was barely more than a girl. Jiang Yanli was just three which meant that Yu Ziyuan was not quite twenty-four.

So young. Had he ever been that young? But no, he’d been younger and stupider and less capable of talking to people so he shouldn’t be cruel, even in his own mind. Her age showed in so many ways, not just in the lingering baby fat softness around her chin but also in the way she swallowed before nodding once, sharply.

“Wen Ruohan said that you provided those tassels to my mothers-in-law,” Yu Ziyuan said.

“I did,” Wei Zhan agreed. “They are designed to enhance existing protections around the woman and to cushion a woman’s body so that no damage will come to her child if she is in combat while pregnant.”

Yu Ziyuan nodded again and now her hands shook even with them pressed so hard against her thighs that her knuckles went white.

“I would like to purchase one. For myself. Depending on the cost, I might purchase three so that my handmaidens can be secure if they choose to have a baby.”

“Ah,” Wei Zhan said. “I see.”

That was a bit of a shock. He’d assumed she was here to scold Changze and tell him not to come back to Lotus Pier. That she wanted to conceive Jiang Wanyin was more logical, though, given what he knew of their situation right now.

While building the new house, Changze had told tales of the stress, fear and hatred that had swirled about Lotus Pier his entire life. As much as Wei Zhan hated the way he’d grown up in the Cloud Recesses, Lotus Pier sounded as if it was worse. He honestly shouldn’t be surprised that Yu Ziyuan would want to have her second child now that Lotus Pier had been cleared of those making the situation untenable.

“I can pay for it,” Yu Ziyuan declared, chin coming up defiantly.

“No, no, that’s not an issue,” Wei Zhan said, waving her blooming anger off. “I give them away for free, actually.”

“You… what?” Yu Ziyuan asked. She stared at him as if he was insane, following him back towards the cave. “How? Why would you give something like that away? A sect needs to make money and that would be worth… fortunes!”

Wei Zhan chuckled and shook his head as A-Lun came running at him with a huge grin. He caught her under the armpits and made her fly around his head, spinning as she shrieked with delight. A-Lun clung to his neck once he tucked her to his chest, giggling happily.

“I don’t have a sect,” Wei Zhan said. “I have my adopted daughter, A-Lun. I have Xinshi who was raped and beaten by her husband before he was driven out of Yiling. And I have Lianmin who has decided that the path I follow is one she wishes to follow, too. But it is not a sect. Perhaps a small religious community. Maybe the very beginning of a tiny village, but not a sect. Any money I earn goes to A-Lun’s dowry. My clothes and boots and everything else are traded for.”

“Oh, did you offer to pay for something?” Xinshi asked as she came over with a steamed bao that she passed to Wei Zhan before offering one to Yu Ziyuan. “Mushroom with greens. Lianmin brought them from town. Did you want one? There’s no meat, since Wei Zhan doesn’t eat meat, but they are tasty.”

“Yummy!” A-Lun declared, taking a bite of Wei Zhan’s bao. “Mm! Mm! Yummy, yummy, yummy!”

Yu Ziyuan hesitated just long enough for Xinshi to deposit a bao in her hand. Before Yu Ziyuan could pass it back, Xinshi meandered off to the cave to give some to Changze and Cangse. She’d gotten better about just doing things lately. It seemed as though A-Lun and Lianmin’s confidence were wearing off on Xinshi.

“Did she just…?” Yu Ziyuan spluttered.

“It’s good to see her being assertive,” Wei Zhan commented as he and A-Lun traded bites of the bao.

It didn’t take long to finish the bao. A-Lun squirmed to be put down once she ate the last bite. She ran off after Lianmin, singing at the top of her lungs. Yu Ziyuan scoffed a little, laughing derisively, but there was a hint of yearning in her cold eyes.

At least she ate her bao as the two of them wandered to Xinshi’s dye shop. Wei Zhan collected enough random bits of fabric and thread to make three new tassels. Then he waved for Yu Ziyuan to follow him to his pottery shed. Unlike the other buildings, his pottery shed was an actual shed, just three sides with a rough roof over top. He’d upgraded his kilns several times. He now had one large one that would hold eight plates or six bowls or four hexagonal bricks at one time, plus two small ones that he used specifically for firing new beads.

“What is this?” Yu Ziyuan asked.

“This is where I work in clay,” Wei Zhan explained. “You saw the sculptures in Yiling, I assume?”

“Yes,” Yu Ziyuan agreed, still scowling though the way her hands had gone to fists said something other than insult or anger had her upset. “They’re. Powerful.”

“Thank you,” Wei Zhan replied. “I rarely charge them now. Most of the time, Lianmin handles it. She spends far more time in Yiling than I do. Cousin Third, the potter in town, has learned how to do it, too. Between the two of them, there’s rarely a need for my attention.”

She watched as Wei Zhan carefully formed three rough tassels made of scraps of yarn and torn bits of cotton fabric. The braided cord was from bits of linen yarn that Xinshi used when dying spun yarn to keep it from turning into a tangled mess.

“So you just, what? Sit around and do nothing?” Yu Ziyuan said only to flinch when Wei Zhan turned to raise an eyebrow at her. “My apologies. That was rude.”

“No apologies needed,” Wei Zhan said. He chuckled. “A great many people think that the Burial Mound is purifying itself. In truth, I spend the vast majority of my time doing the physical labor needed to ensure that my purification arrays actually work. You see the end result around you. The terraces you passed coming in are what make this area possible. For every chi of reclaimed earth, there are weeks of digging, spreading manure, bringing in good soil from outside of the Burial Mounds. And praying for the resentful dead, of course.”

The three beads he’d created to make Renzi, Yitian and Yixian’s tassels worked in concert with each other and their surroundings. The central bead was based on the soil conditioning arrays with the top bead mimicking the effect of his border arrays and the bottom one being based on a sketch that Wei Ying had done far in the future. His notes on it had been among the very few things that Wei Zhan had been able to save from the future Burial Mounds after Wei Ying’s death.

“There’s the first,” Wei Zhan said, placing it in Yu Ziyuan’s trembling hands. “If you keep other defensive arrays around you, it will be more effective. And if you practice with your qi diligently while you are pregnant, it should help your child be born healthy and strong.”

“Birth trauma?” Yu Ziyuan asked in a hoarse, desperate voice as she clutched the tassel to her chest. “Can it help with that?”

“Mm, an interesting idea,” Wei Zhan said as he finished the second and third tassels. “They should protect during birth but afterwards, no. The child will be separate from you. I’ll ask Elder Entai. She may have ideas of how to ensure that the child has the protections constantly from birth onwards. At the very least, it should be possible to give your children bracelets with A-Lun’s protective beads to prevent most childhood accidents and illnesses. I believe I still have some here. Healing such trauma is a totally different venture, I’m afraid.”

Wei Zhan rummaged through the prototype beads he’d created before finalizing the bracelets he’d made for A-Lun. He shook his head.

“No, I’ll have to make a new batch of those beads,” Wei Zhan said once he’d sorted through them all. “None of these are formed properly or strong enough, I’m afraid. How long do you have before you need to go back to Lotus Pier?”

When Wei Zhan turned back to Yu Ziyuan, tears dripped down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry, are you all right?” Wei Zhan asked, heart lurching a little at seeing the formidable Violet Spider crying at him. “What’s wrong?”

“You… you could heal birth trauma?” Yu Ziyuan whispered as she shook from head to toe. “You could heal my A-Li?”

“Oh.” Wei Zhan blinked at her and then started. “Oh! I don’t know. I might be able to. I might not. I depends on the depth of the damage and her potential for cultivation before the damage occurred. There are old, old arrays and prayers from Tubo that can work, in some cases. Not in all, you understand, but some. What damage occurred?”

“Breathing,” Yu Ziyuan said, breath hitching as she shook and clutched the tassels as if they were more precious than life itself. “She stopped breathing. There was, was damage to her brain. Her arms and legs are too stiff. She struggles to sit up, to walk, to hold things in her hands. Spasms, tremors when she’s too tired. It was. She almost died. My little girl almost died.”

He guided Yu Ziyuan over to the rough log bench that he’d created just after Xinshi came to live in the Burial Mounds. She’d spent time watching him work on his pottery while she healed, though she hadn’t done it for quite some time. Xinshi had her own tasks, her own work, so they orbited each other rather than interacting constantly.

Lianmin spent more time on it anymore, cuddling A-Lun while she slept or braiding yarn into cord for various sorts of tassels they were distributing to the populace of Yiling.

Yu Ziyuan sat on the log bench and curled around the tassels, keening under her breath. Rather than press her for answers, Wei Zhan knelt in front of her for a moment. She didn’t stop. Wei Zhan didn’t…

Well. He didn’t feel that he could comfort this young woman who grew into one of Wei Ying’s persistent nightmares, so he went back to his workbench and set to work crafting a new set of the protective bracelet beads. The clay was always black or at least purple-ish, but with the addition of pigments from Cousin Third, Wei Zhan could create a dark blue, a deep burgundy red and a very nice forest green.

Wei Zhan worked in silence, letting Yu Ziyuan remaster her emotions in peace. He could hear Changze talking with A-Lun and Lianmin, Xinshi laughing at something Cangse said inside the cave. Laughter echoed out of the cave like nothing else.

“How long will they take?” Yu Ziyuan asked finally as Wei Zhan used his qi to start firing the beads.

“Not long at all,” Wei Zhan said. “A quarter shichen since I’m firing them with qi instead of hot coals. They’ll be stronger for it, too, which is good for protective beads. I’ll have Lianmin make the bracelet cords. She’s better at braiding than I am, by far.”

Yu Ziyuan nodded; gaze distant even though she still clutched the tassels to her chest. “I’ll… I’ll stay until they’re done. Then I’ll go home. When we’re sure it’s safe, I’ll come back with A-Li so you can assess her.”

“It is safe here,” Wei Zhan said, frowning.

“No,” Yu Ziyuan huffed, shaking her head. “No, I mean Lotus Pier. When it’s safe there, I’ll come back to let Changze and Cangse know that they can come… home. For however long they want. When I come back, I’ll bring A-li with me.”

“Excellent plan,” Wei Zhan said. “Go talk with Changze, Yu Ziyuan. I will bring the beads once they’re fired and cooled.”

She nodded, stood, and then bowed to Wei Zhan as if he was the emperor or a god come to walk the earth. Before he could splutter something, she strode off towards the others.

Well, that was unexpected.

But it would solve the problem of how to cope with watching Wei Ying grow up again. He’d seen no signs of anything Wei Ying might have done to preserve his memories of their lost future, which meant that more than likely, Wei Ying would just be a fairly normal child.

Maybe.

Other than the way Wei Ying responded to Wei Zhan’s name. And the way he laughed in delight every time Wei Zhan held him. As if Wei Ying knew Wei Zhan and loved him even now that he was a literal infant.

Wei Zhan sighed and dismissed that worry. No point to fussing over it. He would make Yu Ziyuan beads and then go read Lan Aining’s notes to see if there was a way to help heal little Jiang Yanli of her birth trauma. It would be another way to keep Yu Ziyuan’s disapproval off Wei Ying as well as a good thing to do for a lovely, kind young woman.

 

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