Reading Time: 90 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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29. Immortal Wisdom

Yiling sat proud and clean on the shore of the river, looking for all the world like any other town in the Jianghu. The air smelled of fresh water and rice stubble burning out in the paddies. The shrubs along the shore gleamed with bright green leaves. Over near the closest buildings, several maples had blazingly red leaves that would have looked right at home back in Qinghe.

In short, Yiling was a totally normal town. Qiheng shook his head in amazement as he stood at the bow of Wen Ruohan’s boat. He’d heard it from Jiang Fengmian, from Hanyu, from Yu Ziyuan herself, but he hadn’t believed it until now.

“Okay, you were right,” Qiheng called over his shoulder to Wen Ruohan who lounged near the tiller drinking wine from the jar.

“Finally,” Wen Ruohan drawled. “Someday you’re going to learn to listen to me when I tell you things.”

“Nah,” Qiheng drawled right back at him. “Not without verification, I won’t. My wife would beat me through the floor if I did.”

That sent Wen Ruohan to snickering. And a few of his more daring sailors, too, not that Qiheng cared what they thought. He was far too fascinated by the changes in Yiling.

Once the boat docked, Qiheng strode down the gangplank and then up towards shore. Wen Ruohan had said that there were bunches of the purification statues. If anything, he’d understated it. There were thousands of the things lining the side of the river, going up each street, perched next to every door. Qiheng spotted a few on the balconies and rooftops further back in town. Both sides of the river had them, too.

Stepping into the middle of their purification web jerked something under Qiheng’s breastbone. Fuhai jerked at his hip, too, like she’d just gotten the same jolt that he had. She radiated disapproval for a long, long moment.

Long enough for Wen Ruohan to saunter off the ship, greet an elderly woman with flirting who responded with cheerful death threats, and then saunter over to peer into Qiheng’s face. Instead of asking if he was okay, Wen Ruohan just grabbed Qiheng’s shoulders so that he could push him along the street to…

…Oh, that was a teahouse. Rather nice one, actually, with a mostly open main floor and a closed-in upper floor where you could have private conversations.

“He’s all right?” the elderly woman asked as she hobbled along next to them, bent double but still fast as they were with her cane supporting much of her weight.

“He’ll be fine, Entai,” Wen Ruohan said. “I think the magic of the statues caught him and his saber by surprise. Kind of thought something like that might happen but I didn’t expect it to be so strong.”

Fuhai grumbled loudly enough in Qiheng’s head that he just went along with Wen Ruohan’s manhandling. She wasn’t about to attack anyone. Honestly, it felt more like she was confused and angry about it, but there weren’t any true words to her unhappiness. It was just loud grumbling that was very akin to A-Sang’s wails when he needed a diaper changed. Or fed.

More like when A-Sang was hungry or confused, actually, instead of the total outrage of dirty diaper.

Fuhai most definitely did not appreciate being compared to a baby. Her outrage at that concept muddled Qiheng enough that he didn’t really process where he was until after Wen Ruohan had pushed him into a seat and then talked some fierce young woman in peasants’ indigo blues to run and get… someone else.

“Oh, no,” Wen Ruohan said with a horrified laugh as Entai poured tea and offered it to Qiheng. “His wife would cut my pillar off and feed it to me. No strange tea, no alcohol, no mushrooms of any kind.”

Entai frowned at Qiheng so disapprovingly that he started pushing his way past the weirdness of the purification web and Fuhai’s grumbles to explain.

“What did the idiot do to himself?” Entai huffed. “Poison himself so badly that his cultivation couldn’t cope?”

“Yep,” Wen Ruohan said, grinning as Qiheng glowered at him. “Almost gave himself a stroke, among other things.”

“Men,” Entai sighed, shaking her head. “If you weren’t necessary for babies, I’d pray to the gods that all of you would be wiped out.”

Oh. Okay. That’s what Wen Ruohan saw in her, even now when she was a tottering old granny. She was vicious, cold-blooded and had zero respect for everyone. Wen Ruohan had such a type.

“You got lucky,” the fierce young woman said as she walked back in with a blandly calm Lan wearing very non-Lan clothes. “Wei Zhan was on his way into town already.”

Wait. Wei Zhan. It took several blinks for Qiheng to get his eyes to stop making faces double and for Fuhai to register that yes, they had met Wei Zhan before. Not a Lan at all, actually.

“I believe he will be okay if we take him out of town,” Wei Zhan commented as if it was the middle of a discussion that had been going on for a while. “The bond between saber and Nie cultivator is different enough that the purification statues are affecting him more strongly than most.”

“Right,” Wen Ruohan declared before tossing back his tea. “We’ll leave you lovely ladies.”

“I’ll still stab you,” Entai said, glaring up at him. “Stop flirting already. And keep your filthy mitts off my granddaughter.”

“I’ll knock him flat with Wei Zhan’s techniques and no one will ever find his body,” the young woman said, just as flatly and with all the hostility of someone who loathed the idea of being touched.

There was another bit where Qiheng realized after the fact that he’d lost time, mostly because he remembered Wen Ruohan pulling him to his feet in the teahouse and then they were on the edge of town where the purification web subsided into a few threads instead of an overwhelming blanket pressing down so hard that he could barely breathe.

“Fuck, that’s so strong,” Qiheng wheezed as he sucked in great gasping lungsful of air. “What the fuck?”

“It’s grown since my visit,” Wen Ruohan said, patting Qiheng’s back. “You can think again?”

“I can move and think at the same time,” Qiheng said, shaking his head and swaying. “A little farther away, I think.”

Wei Zhan smiled his bland, harmless smile before passing over a tassel with a black clay bead carved with his strange arrays. “This should help, I hope.”

Qiheng took it and then collapsed to his knees on the rough gravel path outside of Yiling.

Accumulated resentful energy, the resentment that Fuhai had gathered up over their time together, boiled off of Qiheng. Fuhai yelped, just as startled as he was, but neither of them dropped the tassel.

It didn’t hurt.

The purification in the beads didn’t hurt, which stunned Fuhai and amazed Qiheng.

Instead, it felt like standing on Fuhai’s blade as they surged into flight high in the mountains above the Unclean Realm. Wind blowing, cold and bracing, washing away everything dark and bloody and painful. The tassel was the physical embodiment of joy, of laughter as he trained with Fuhai, of grinning fiercely as he sparred with his cousins.

Of holding little A-Sang for the first time. A-Jue’s first steps. Kissing Wen Ruohan so hard that it bruised their lips and then watching Wen Ruohan stare at him in shocked awe.

A few dozen rapid-fire heartbeats later, the effect subsided into a pleased murmur of joy that made Fuhai hum happily in the back of his mind.

“What the fuck?” Qiheng wheezed. “Did you… did you just…?”

“Lianmin, if you would go make sure that A-Lun is okay?” Wei Zhan suggested with an expression that suggested that he didn’t think the fierce young woman would do it.

Lianmin stared at him before crossing her arms over her chest. “I’m not leaving. I want to know whatever it was you did to him. I’m your disciple. I’m staying.”

“Seriously, did you just purge all the resentful energy out of my saber?” Qiheng asked as he grabbed Wen Ruohan’s hand. Getting back to his feet wasn’t easy even with Wen Ruohan’s help. “And me?”

“Not all,” Wei Zhan said, shrugging. “Resentful energy appears to be a necessary component to your cultivation method. I did, however, purge the vast majority of it. It was at unhealthy levels for both you and your saber. The tassel should help keep the resentful energy from building to much in the future.”

That…

…Qiheng wasn’t sure exactly what that was, actually.

Insanity? Genius? Both at the same time, twisted around like a rope until they became the same damned thing.

He stared at Wei Zhan as he tried to find words that weren’t outraged bellows or sobbing pleading for Wei Zhan to make enough tassels for every single Nie alive. That wasn’t. Well. It wouldn’t help, and with the tassel having cleared both his and Fuhai’s minds, Qiheng was a lot better able to see all the ways that he made things worse by bulling through everything.

“I. I desperately need to pick your brain,” Qiheng said. “In detail. My whole sect needs tassels like this. And maybe to make statues like the ones in Yiling, just with different arrays on them. And. And the tombs. I need to take you to see the tombs. You might. This. Fuck! This could save my sons from dying of qi deviation before they’re fifty.”

Wei Zhan’s eyebrows went up. Lianmin cocked her head to the side slowly, revealing a red ribbon holding up her ponytail that matched the red ribbon keeping Wei Zhan’s topknot cover in place. She really was his disciple. Huh.

“Can I send someone from the Nie to learn your methods?” Qiheng asked before Wei Zhan had a chance to reply. Or even to open his mouth, actually. “Another disciple? You probably just saved my life. I. This. You—!”

Qiheng spluttered to a stop as Wei Zhan put one hand on his shoulder. The weight of that had was so much more than just the physical. Cangse Sanren had said, late at night a couple of months before she eloped with her husband, that Baoshan Sanren’s qi was a physical force around her.

“She’s heavy,” Cangse Sanren had said while staring into her wine cup. “Smaller than me, shorter and thinner, but she weighs as much as her whole mountain. Immortals are just like that, apparently. If they aren’t careful, their qi presses down on everyone around them until you can’t breathe. Stronger the immortal is, the heavier they are.”

Wei Zhan was just like that. He felt as if he was made of iron, as if his body was somehow thicker, sturdier, than a human’s body should be. Qiheng wheezed and stared into Wei Zhan’s quietly amused eyes.

“I do not do this for praise,” Wei Zhan said. “I do this to honor my husband. I do this to make the world a better place. Yes, of course, we can work together to fix the problem with the Nie cultivation. I would be glad to help with the tombs and your sons and whatever else is wrong. Though I will not leave Yiling. This is my home and I have sworn to purify the Burial Mounds.”

“I’ll…” Qiheng blew out a breath when Wei Zhan released his shoulder. “I’ll see if anyone wants to come to learn.”

Wei Zhan smiled. “Send scholars, too. You may not need me to solve your problem. Someone from the Nie might figure it out themselves given the correct information.”

That seemed unlikely, but hey, that would be better than Qiheng losing all his dignity begging for Wei Zhan’s help. Qiheng nodded as he worked on just breathing and functioning. At his side, Fuhai hummed as she considered Wei Zhan.

He’s strong, Fuhai mused. And old. But good, I think. I feel better. So do you.

Yes, Qiheng did feel better. Much better than he had for decades, honestly. He rubbed his thumb over the array carved into the black bead. Something like this, or maybe something like a cross between this and the Yiling purification statues, could make such a difference in the Unclean Realm.

Whatever it took, he was going to learn this. His sect needed it. More importantly, his sons needed it, and for them, Qiheng would move mountains or fight the whole world. Making nice to a terrifyingly powerful immortal who looked like a Lan but who couldn’t be a Lan?

That was nothing at all.

30. All Clear

“See? He’s right there, A-Ying. Safe and sound.”

Wei Zhan didn’t turn around from his work building another terrace, this time along the edge of the habitable zone that was closest to the orchard. Most of the terraces so far had extended down towards Yiling, but that wasn’t a thing that could be continued for long. His work had to work outwards evenly, which meant extending the sides and working his way up the steep mountain.

In time, he would get everything. With the centuries that Wei Zhan had open to him, it was inevitable. For now, though, he needed to work to extend the orchard and then work his way down towards the river on the other side of his little settlement.

Wei Ying made an indignant baby noise that finally prompted Wei Zhan to turn and look.

He knew that unhappy grunt. Wei Ying only made it when he was on the verge of a truly spectacular temper tantrum because he was being ignored. It was, however, the first time he’d heard baby Wei Ying make that noise.

“Wei Ying,” Wei Zhan said, letting his voice drop into his old scolding tone. “There is work to do.”

Changze grinned as Wei Ying babbled nonsense while waving his tiny fists in outrage. “I don’t think he agrees about that. You’re late for your daily cuddle time, you see.”

Wei Zhan blinked, looking up at the sun which was straight overhead. “Ah. I hadn’t realized that I’d lost track of time. My apologies, Wei Ying.”

He left the stakes where they lay, put down his sledgehammer and followed Changze back to Wei Ying’s hut. Cangse was there, idly sharpening her sword, as were Xinshi and Lianmin who shook her head at Wei Zhan for daring to be late for lunch.

The weather was already turning so cold that eating around their outdoor table was going to be impossible soon. They hadn’t had snow yet, but Wei Zhan expected it in the next ten days or so. The air had that smell to it and the chill had crept out of the darkness of night into the rest of the day, even at noon.

He would have to build a shelter over the table and put in heat and light talismans, but that would wait until he had the next terrace supports in place.

“Let the man eat, A-Ying,” Changze said because A-Lun shoved a rice ball into his hands and then giggled at the way Wei Ying wailed in outrage.

“Have you had a good day, A-Lun?” Wei Zhan asked between bites of rice and sips of the thick potato soup that Xinshi had made.

“Mm!” A-Lun said, beaming as she squirmed on her stool. “A-Lun helped with washing fabric and picked apples and ran around and around and around.”

“She did a lot of running,” Lianmin said, amused enough to actually smile. “We’re getting some really good paths through the terraces because of A-Lun. I’ve made a few more path stones so that we can keep to those trails.”

“Thank you, A-Lun,” Wei Zhan said, hugging her with one arm. “That is very helpful. Having the fastest way from place to place marked out is good.”

A-Lun beamed and bounced in her seat until they were all done eating. Then she ran off to help Lianmin draw water for washing dishes, not that Lianmin needed the help. Cangse shook her head as Wei Zhan accepted Wei Ying from Changze.

“That girl has so much energy,” Cangse said. “You’d think that she had a core the size of the mountain.”

“No core at all,” Wei Zhan said as he rocked Wei Ying and basked in the feeling of his qi. “And no chance of developing one in this life, either, sadly.”

Perhaps in her next life. It didn’t matter. Not really. Wei Zhan adored his daughter. She was bright and cheerful and a joy. He had no doubt that she would grow up to be as energetic as Lianmin, as sweet as Xinshi and as cheerful as Wei Ying had always been.

But she would not be a cultivator. She had no spirit veins, not even the starts of meridians. Wei Zhan’s Buddhist method of cultivation still required the veins, the meridians, a core. They were used differently, but they were still necessary.

So A-Lun would be a mortal woman and Wei Ying, who was still a baby so small that he could barely hold his own head up, already had more spiritual power than A-Lun could ever dream of.

If Wei Zhan closed his eyes, he could imagine that he held his husband in his arms instead of a baby.

He rarely closed his eyes while holding Wei Ying if only because it hurt too much when he opened his eyes to see that no, his husband had not come home.

Yet.

Spirit globes bloomed outside of the safe zone. Wei Zhan raised an eyebrow. They weren’t expecting visitors anytime soon. In fact, they’d planned on having a quiet few days without any trips into town or visitors coming up.

“Be good for your father, Wei Ying,” Wei Zhan said.

He kissed Wei Ying’s forehead before passing him back to Changze. Then he strode down towards the ‘gate’ to see who was coming in. It wasn’t line of sight. Their little proto-village was too far from Yiling for anyone to see or be seen from the outside. But Wei Zhan’s senses were much stronger than anyone else’s when he extended them outwards.

Yu Ziyuan, on her sword, flew carefully and slowly up the path with a small girl in her arms.

“Who is it?” Cangse asked, naked sword still in her hand.

“Your sister-in-law,” Wei Zhan replied. “Along with your niece. There doesn’t appear to be anyone else, though.”

“Fast or slow?” Cangse asked with a frown that looked thunderous despite her qi brightening with anticipation.

“Slowly,” Wei Zhan said. “Neither of them seem concerned. If anything, I would assume that Yu Ziyuan is flying slowly so that her daughter can see everything.”

Cangse snorted a little laugh as she sheathed her sword. “Right. I’ll let you greet her and pass the news onto Changze. I’m surprised that she’s come alone. Or, you know, with A-Li.”

She strode off before Wei Zhan could comment that it likely meant that they were safe to return to Lotus Pier. Wei Zhan had explained the plan to both Cangse and Changze, but Cangse hadn’t believed that it would ever happen. Changze had looked desperately hopeful that it never would.

But now Yu Ziyuan was here with her daughter, without guards and flying so calmly that she might as well have been strolling.

“I want…” Wei Zhan sighed, shutting his eyes and tilting his head back so that the wan noon sun warmed his face.

He wanted Wei Ying back. The fully grown Wei Ying. Baring that, Wei Zhan would very much like not to have to struggle every day, all day long, against conflating baby Wei Ying with grown-up Wei Ying.

Or worse, with the ghost of Wei Ying. Those times almost broke his heart. And they always set A-Lun to wailing in sympathy, even though she didn’t understand what had upset her baba so much.

“See?” Yu Ziyuan said. “That’s Wei Zhan. He was waiting for us.”

“He’s tall,” Jiang Yanli, little A-Li said. She smiled when Wei Zhan opened his eyes and looked at her. “Oh! Your eyes are so pretty!”

“Thank you,” Wei Zhan said. He stepped aside so that Yu Ziyuan could land and then sheathe her sword. “Your mother told me about you. Welcome to the Burial Mounds.”

“Thank you,” A-Li said with a pretty little smile and a nod of her head that was too stiff.

The way she held her arms was awkwardly stiff as well. More tellingly, she made no effort to get her mother to set her down, even though she was about the same age as A-Lun. Where A-Lun was constantly in motion, it looked as though A-Li was constantly held still, trapped in her own body.

Or perhaps not trapped as she stood on her own feet quite competently once they reached the central courtyard by Wei Zhan and A-Lun’s cave. She didn’t walk quickly, and obviously needed her grip on her mother’s hand, but she wasn’t helpless by any means.

“Oh!” A-Lun shouted as she came rampaging back out of the orchard. “Hello! Hello hello hello!”

“Gently,” Wei Zhan said, catching A-Lun before she could tackle A-Li in a hug that would send them both to the ground. A-Lun’s legs churned the air for a moment before she stopped running and stared up into his eyes. “A-li is not good at walking. You must be as gentle as if you were petting a bunny.”

“Oh,” A-Lun said, blinking rapidly. “Oh! A-Lun is sorry!”

When he set A-Lun down, she bobbed a quick bow of apology that set A-Li to giggling with delight. And, once A-Lun offered her hand, A-Li gladly switched over to holding her hand. Her walk was very stiff, very slow and awkward, but A-Lun chattered at her about Auntie Xinshi and the fabric being dyed while carefully helping A-Li make her way on her own the dozen or so paces to Xinshi’s hut.

“She is such a good girl,” Changze commented from the porch of Wei Ying’s hut.

“…She is,” Yu Xiyuan agreed. One hand gripped her sword. The other gripped the protection tassel that Wei Zhan had given her. “I just… I. The Elders are all dead, Changze. A-Niang Renzi’s pregnancy is going perfectly now. Your mothers are… well.”

“They want us to come home,” Changze said with perfect calm, if one didn’t account for the total lack of inflection in the words.

“I want you to come home so that my husband will stop going mad,” Yu Ziyuan declared with a fierce scowl that looked odd on her too-young face. “The stress of leading is breaking his soul. The Elders are dead, other than three who Hanyu put in place. Between Hanyu, Wen Ruohan, Nie Qiheng and my mother who came to visit specifically to make sure that I could get pregnant again, your family will be safe.”

Wei Zhan’s eyebrows went up. He found himself on the verge of laughter at the sheer horror on Changze’s face and the way that Cangse cringed away from Yu Ziyuan at the mention of her mother.

“I’ll leave the three of you to discuss it,” Wei Zhan said. “I believe you wanted me to see what could be done for your daughter, yes?”

“Please,” Yu Ziyuan begged, desperation in her eyes and voice and the stiff line of her shoulders.

Wei Zhan nodded and moved off to Xinshi’s hut to hold A-Li in his lap while A-Lun ran back and forth between Xinshi and him, bringing bits of fabric and samples of dye tests for her to play with. A-Li giggled over it, bright and cheerful just like A-Lun.

The serious, calm young woman he knew in the other timeline was… not there. This child had no cause for gravity. Despite her physical limitations, she was as happy as A-Lun.

“Wait a moment, A-Lun,” Wei Zhan said. “A-Li, can you try something for me?”

“Mhm,” A-Li said, nodding stiffly. “What?”

He shifted her so that he could support her cubby little arms, then let qi flow down his arms into his hands. A moment’s thought had his fingertips glowing. A-Lun squealed in delight while A-Li gasped and bounced excitedly in his lap.

“Did you feel what I did?” Wei Zhan asked.

“Mm!” A-Li said. “A-Li should do it?”

“Yes,” Wei Zhan said. “Please try.”

The normal methods of training a child to use their qi involved meditation and directing them to swirl the qi in their belly. Wei Zhan was sure that A-Li would be good at it. She had powerful spiritual veins and channels, though no core even began to glimmer in her lower dantian.

What she had, however, was a strong flow of qi through her body already.

A-Li instinctively worked with her qi to deal with her birth trauma. She was already healing herself, though without direction and without understanding what she did. Which meant that when A-Li screwed her eyes shut and focused on pushing her qi into her fingertips, it was a flood of qi that lit her arms, her hands and her fingertips turned into blazing little stars.

“Ha, too much, A-Li,” Wei Zhan said. “You’re pushing too hard. Here, try doing this instead.”

His arms were tired from the work hammering the terrace supports into place. Not severely but enough that he could show A-Li how to ease pain and stiffness in one’s arms. He still made his fingertips glow, of course, but along the way his qi soothed the aches and loosened the too-tight muscles.

“Oh!” A-Li gasped. “Makes better?”

“Mm,” Wei Zhan agreed. “Your turn. Not too much. Just enough to feel better and then a soft glow on your fingers.”

A-Li kept her eyes open this time, frowning as ferociously as her mother in a rage. Her qi flowed down her arms like water, sinking in to gently soften and loosen the tendons, ligaments and twisted muscles that made her body too stiff, too tight, and unresponsive.

At the same time, Yu Ziyuan came marching over with Wei Ying in her arms, Changze on her heels and Cangse trailing along behind grimacing miserably to Lianmin who showed not one shred of sympathy for her. All four of them froze as A-Li’s fingertips began to glow.

“Pretty!” A-Lun applauded, bouncing in joy. “Baba, can A-Lun learn, too?”

“No, A-Lun can’t do it,” Wei Zhan said apologetically. “You’re like Xinshi.”

“Awww, poo,” A-Lun pouted. “Do it again, A-Li! Do it again!”

A-Li giggled and made her fingertips glow in a soft lavender light a second time. This time, the healing effect was stronger, loosening her shoulders and elbows and wrists to the point that A-Li waved her hands around freely.

“A-Li,” Yu Ziyuan gasped, shoving an indignant Wei Ying into Changze’s arms. “Look at you!”

“Feels good, Mama,” A-Li said. She tipped her head back further than Wei Zhan had seen her do before. “Toes glow, too?”

“Yes,” Wei Zhan agreed with a little smile. “You can do that. Or just an elbow. Or knee. Or nose. But you will have to practice to get good at it.”

A-Li laughed in delight, hugging her mother who shuddered and held her tightly. Wei Zhan pulled A-Lun into his lap for a kiss and a hug that lasted exactly half as long as he wanted it to. A-Lun wiggled free far too soon to run over and tell Lianmin all about glowing fingertips.

“I’ll work on a tassel just for A-Li,” Wei Zhan said, meeting Yu Ziyuan’s eyes which shone with tears. “She’s already working on healing herself. She just needs direction and support. The tassel will support. I’d recommend asking Wen Ruohan to have one of his healers come to give A-Li and you guidance. There’s no reason to suspect that she can’t be a very powerful cultivator in time.”

If it had gone a few years longer, Wei Zhan suspected that the damage would have been too deeply set into A-Li’s qi. Her qi would have been dedicated to ensuring that she could walk normally, talk normally, breathe and bend and move like a normal person. But it would have been an act, a mask, hiding the damage rather than healing it.

As young as she was, not yet three, her body was still growing ferociously. If she had the support and healing, her qi should be able to ease the worst of the damage, leaving her body intact enough for her to focus on improving her cultivation.

Jiang Yanli in this world would not be the discounted, overlooked older daughter. She would be the heir of her parents, in and of herself. Wei Zhan couldn’t help but think that it would be much better for everyone involved this way. Especially for Wei Ying who would never be caught between Jiang Fengmian and Jiang Wanyin.

31. Tentative Steps

The Cloud Recesses’ perfect peace shattered as Lin Heixin’s precious youngest son hurled a puffball of snow at his older brother. It exploded an arm’s length from A-Zhan’s hand. A-Zhan huffed that his snowball hadn’t held together, only to squawk as A-Huan’s snowball survived being flung straight into A-Zhan’s chest.

“No fair!” A-Zhan wailed. “Mama!”

Lin Heixin laughed as she brushed A-Zhan off. “Try again, dear. Pack it good and hard.”

She crouched down to help A-Zhan pack a good snowball which A-Zhan promptly flung into the snow at A-Huan’s feet. Her poor baby started bawling immediately, so Heixin scooped him up and cuddled him while A-Huan trotted over to pat A-Zhan’s ankle.

“There, there, dear,” Heixin murmured against his bare forehead. “It’s all right. You’ll get better. You just have to practice at it.”

Three more bounces in her arms, another kiss and A-Huan patting A-Zhan’s thigh calmed the storm of tears. Another two bounces and A-Zhan started squirming to be let down. Her little boy never did sit still. For all that he was not and never would be a cultivator, he had enough energy to run and play all day.

If he could.

Elder Tindong scowled at Heixin from the walkway nearest her little cottage. “Children should learn disciple, not chaos.”

“They’re still babies, Elder Tindong,” Heixin replied as calmly as she could when her fingers shook inside of her mittens. “There’s several years before they will join the junior disciples.”

Neither of them said that A-Zhan would never join the disciples. Qiren had made it perfectly clear that it was not to be spoken of after Qiang’s… illness… struck. Given half a choice, Heixin wouldn’t allow either of her sons to be heirs to the Lan sect. A-Zhan had no chance of developing a golden core in this lifetime. A-Huan was so tender-hearted and sweet-natured that she couldn’t see him making the hard decisions that came with leading a sect.

“You will still see that they display decorum,” Elder Tindong said, glaring at the boys before turning his glare back on Heixin.

“I’m sorry, but were you promoted to sect leader, Elder Tindong?” Heixin asked in her quietest tone so that she wouldn’t upset the boys. “How extraordinary. I suppose congratulations are in order. I’ll have to write my ancestor.”

Elder Tindong went as white as the snow, as white as his ribbon. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. As Heixin smiled, a forced and too stiff smile, Elder Tindong turned and hurried away.

Good.

“Mama, can we go meet him?” A-Huan asked. He had, apparently, heard the discussion because he had A-Zhan’s hand gripped firmly in his hand and a far too serious expression on his little face.

“That’s…” Heixin paused in the middle of her automatic denial, stopping to think about it.

She had her sword back. The few years since A-Zhan’s birth had been good. Better than she’d feared they would be. Heixin had been allowed to cultivate again and her core, once fading, was now as strong as it ever had been. Perhaps even stronger.

While the Yiling was a long ways away, it wasn’t so far that she couldn’t fly there. A-Zhan wasn’t that heavy. And A-Huan asked to leave the Cloud Recesses every couple of days, always with thinly veiled reasons that Heixin had ignored so far.

But why ignore his desire to leave?

Why ignore her own need to escape this horrible place with its endless rules and oppressive elders?

“That’s a lovely idea,” Heixin said finally. “Let’s go tell your Uncle Qiren that we’re going visiting. We’ll pack up and leave.”

“Pack first,” A-Huan suggested far more seriously than she ever wanted to see from her little boy. “Then tell Uncle Qiren.”

Not that he was wrong. Less chance of forces being marshalled to stop them if they were ready to walk out the instant they gave notice. Heixin ran her mitten-covered hand over A-Huan’s head, smiling down at him.

“Very good planning, A-Huan,” Heixin said. “Let’s do just that.”

She’d made a habit of keeping everything she valued in qiankun pouches long before Qiang raped and kidnapped her. He’d tried to find and destroy them all, but Heixin was much better at making and hiding them than he was at finding them. Most everything Heixin had ever owned was already packed.

It took about a quarter shichen to pack the boys clothes and toys, plus several days worth of food from the kitchen. The cooks smiled and gave the boys treats. They did not ask why Heixin would need so much food.

She’d needed it before, when Qiang was still in charge. Even now, Heixin made a point of always having a couple days worth of food available. Just because.

Qiren blinked at them when she found him in his office. “Heixin. A-Zhan, A-Huan. I did not expect a visit today.”

“You work too hard,” Heixin commented as the boys stampeded over to give their beloved uncle hugs that made him smile and pat their backs fondly. “We came to tell you that I’m taking the boys to meet their ancestor. We’ll be gone for, oh, a while.”

“Are you?” Qiren asked. There was a wary look in his eye, but he smiled as he sent the boys back to Heixin’s side. “Would you like guards? I can arrange for some if you prefer company for your travel.”

“No, thank you,” Heixin said. She didn’t know what her face did, but Qiren flinched. “I plan on flying. The boys are just small enough that I should be able to do it without issue. Any longer and I’d have to bring another person along to carry A-Huan. He’s getting bigger by the moment, growing in front of our very eyes.”

A-Huan giggled and preened, standing on his tiptoes while A-Zhan gasped and then laughed at the little trick. To Heixin’s surprise, Qiren laughed quietly. He nodded and stood, leaving his paperwork and letters behind with the accounting books that had replaced history and philosophy and music scores on his desk.

He walked with them to the gate, chatting the whole way about whatever came to A-Zhan’s mind. Given that A-Zhan was as bright and observant as a little bird, the conversation flitted from the weight of the snow on the pine branches to how to make proper snowballs to the clouds drifting by overhead.

At the gate, within hearing of the juniors standing guard, Qiren smiled and bowed to Heixin as she secured A-Zhan to her back with a nice snug sling. It wasn’t as easy as it would have been with A-Huan who had always been inclined to cuddle without wiggling, kicking or craning his neck to see everything going on around him.

“Enjoy your visit,” Qiren said, and it was very much an order no matter how gently he smiled. “Take as long as you wish. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to contact me. I’ll ensure that you get whatever you need. Or want, for that matter.”

Heixin laughed breathlessly because the only other option was to cry. “Thank you, I will. Make sure to rest, Qiren. You’re working entirely too hard. Take some time to play your erhu before it goes completely out of tune.”

This time it was Qiren who ducked his head and laughed breathlessly. His ears were bright red, which on a normal day Heixin might have teased him about. Not in front of the juniors who most definitely would gossip about this little conversation, no matter what the precepts said.

Qiren reminded her of her cousin, long dead now, always so stiff and formal but underneath it all a kind, gentle, caring man.

“You may be right,” Qiren said, nodding once. “Be good for your mother, boys. Enjoy the flight and the visit.”

“Thank you,” Heixin said.

She let A-Huan dash over to give Qiren one last hug, then drew her sword and stepped onto it. Heixin had to hold A-Huan’s hands to let him balance, but he caught on quickly. Both the boys squealed with delight as they carefully and slowly flew up the road and then over the treetops.

Heixin took her time getting to a good height and then slowly picked up speed. Only once she was past Gusu’s borders did she push as hard as she could to escape. By that point, A-Huan was tired, so Heixin crouched on her blade and scooped him into her arms. A second sling, carefully arranged over her shoulders under the sling for A-Zhan, kept him safe.

They were both asleep by the time Heixin landed outside of the Burial Mounds two shichen later.

Once, during her wandering as a rogue cultivator days, she’d come by here to see what the Burial Mounds looked like. Yiling had been smaller, desolate and grim. The Burial Mounds had seemed to loom over everything, larger in their impact that they were in reality. She remembered being breathless during the whole visit, as if the air here was so bad that she couldn’t draw a full breath, no matter how hard she tried.

Now it was… strangely familiar. There was a similar feel to the Cloud Recesses that she wouldn’t have credited. What with spending years hidden away in her horrible little house, Heixin had spent an amazing amount of time poking at everything with her slowly fading qi. She’d never found a way to escape, but she had gotten very familiar with the feeling of the Cloud Recesses.

“Ah, looking to visit Wei Zhan?” a woman said behind Heixin.

“Yes…?” Heixin said. She turned and then blinked at the way the young woman stared. “I’m sorry. Is something wrong?”

“No, no, not at all,” the woman said even though her pale cheeks and wide eyes made that a lie. “My apologies. Your resemblance to Wei Zhan is stunning. I’m Lianmin, his disciple. Follow me. I’ll take you in to see him.”

She was beautiful, if stern and formidable. Long black hair fell down her back from a simple ponytail held up by a single red ribbon. Her clothes were indigo-dyed linen duan da, just a wrapped shirt and simple pants with woven straw boots covering her feet. Given that it was cold, if not yet snowing, in Yiling, she must have a powerful core.

Heixin’s boys were warm only because of her core. She’d been projecting a bit of warmth the whole time to ensure that they didn’t get chilled.

Lianmin bowed her head, hands held in classic Buddhist mudras for purification and peace. Ahead of her, stone markers that Heixin hadn’t noticed bloomed with gently glowing light. A feeling of peace and, oddly, welcome swept over them all. At the same time, globes of glowing light formed all over the Burial Mounds.

“Soul lights,” Lianmin explained, not losing her concentration or her mudras. “Please, follow me. Stay fairly close. While the path is open, its safest closest to the person opening the way.”

“Thank you,” Heixin said, hurrying to station herself at Lianmin’s right side.

The feeling of peace was even stronger right next to Lianmin. It had been so very long since Heixin felt safe. Weirdly, walking up into the Burial Mounds with soul lights and the resentful dead all around her, Heixin felt safe. Truly safe.

“He can’t get in here, can he?” Heixin whispered as her boys started to stir.

“Your husband?” Lianmin asked. “No. He most certainly cannot. Even if someone brought him here bodily and tried to carry him in, he wouldn’t be allowed. Neither Wei Zhan nor I would allow that. Lan Qiren knows that.”

“You were here when he was cursed,” Heixin said, patting A-Huan’s back as he mumbled and shifted against her chest.

Lianmin looked at Heixin with dark, angry eyes. “I opened the path to let him in to meet Wei Zhan. This… this technique lets you see what the person is like at their deepest levels. I know what you went through. He will never be allowed in, and you will never have to go back if you don’t want to.”

“…Thank you,” Heixin said and then bit her lip against the need to cry.

To sob all her pain and fear and loneliness on this lovely young woman’s shoulder. They weren’t that far apart in age. Heixin had maybe four years on Lianmin, though you wouldn’t know it from their appearance.

Heixin felt old. Old and broken by everything she’d gone through. Everything that man had inflicted on her.

“You’re safe now,” Lianmin promised. “We won’t let anyone hurt you again. Just like my cousin Xinshi, you’re perfectly free to stay here as long as you like with your children. No one can get at you here.”

They reached the inner section of the Burial Mounds where the curving path widened out into a circle of protective stones that wrapped around rising ranks of terraces. Most of the outermost of which were in construction. At the top of the long line of terraces, a tiny village sat.

And there, seated at a rough table under a very new-looking open-sided shelter, was Heixin’s son Lan Zhan.

Grown up with a daughter of his own, but Heixin knew him the instant she saw him. That was A-Zhan’s nose, his ears, his… eyes. Except no, the eyes were different. Oddly golden like A-Huan’s instead of bright blue like A-Zhan’s. Still, that was A-Zhan all grown up.

“We have guests,” Lianmin called, startling both Grown-Up A-Zhan and his daughter. “Wei Zhan, A-Lun, this is… you know, I never did ask your name.”

Heixin laughed as she let her now-squirming and excited sons down. “My name is Lin Heixin. My sons are A-Zhan and A-Huan. Both Lan, at least for now. We’ll see what Lan Qiren decides in time.”

Wei Zhan stood, slowly walking over to stare into Heixin’s face as if he could never look enough to fill his heart. Around them, A-Huan took over introductions with A-Lun who was nearly as bright and energetic as A-Zhan. Another young woman who looked as hesitant and fearful as Heixin felt appeared from one of the other buildings with a big steaming stew pot.

“Welcome,” Wei Zhan murmured. “Please, join us for dinner. It’s vegetarian, but quite good. Xinshi is a very good cook.”

“And it’s not as bland as I’ve heard Gusu prefers things,” Xinshi said. She looked consideringly at Heixin and then nodded a little acknowledgement of their similarities. “Plus we have some very nice chili oil left over from Cangse Sanren and Wei Changze’s stay. You can spice it up as much as you like.”

“How is she doing?” Heixin asked as she let Wei Zhan lead her to the shelter which had shockingly effective warming talismans overhead. It felt more like summer under the shelter than early winter. “Cangse Sanren. I haven’t seen her since before she gave birth.”

Her boys settled in to eat with A-Lun who played at being hostess with glee, if little effectiveness. Wei Zhan helped, as did Xinshi and Lianmin. Who stayed at Heixin’s side, like she would protect Heixin from everything that might threaten her.

“They have a new son,” Wei Zhan said as he served Heixin a steaming bowl of vegetable stew. “It’s finally safe at Lotus Pier, so they went back to help support their parents and their brother and his wife. It’s a bit of a shock. We can talk about it after dinner, while the children play.”

“Please,” Heixin asked, bowing her thanks for the meal before taking a careful bite of the stew.

She nearly cried for the rich, complex broth, laden with herbs and the sharp tang of turnip mixed with bok choy. There was spinach and soft, delicious beans and just enough chili oil to give the stew a welcome, warming bite.

Heixin shuddered. She’d expected the same bland nothing-food she’d been forced to eat in the Cloud Recesses. Instead, this was very much the sort of thing she was used to before she was kidnapped by Qiang.

It felt…

Tasted…

It was home. The stew tasted like home, like safety, like freedom at last. Heixin bit her lip, swiping away tears that everyone other than Wei Zhan ignored. He smiled and nodded reassuringly before turning back to the children, praising them for eating neatly even though only A-Huan came close to managing it.

Heixin breathed through her tears and her relief, eating her wonderful spicy stew while listening to the children chatter and the adults chat about their days.

32. Laughing Babies

For some reason, Wei Zhan had never expected to meet himself in this life. His baby body, the one that he’d altered by returning to the past, was in Gusu. He was in the Burial Mounds. He’d assumed, incorrectly, that there was no reason for him to ever be in the same place as his younger self.

A foolish assumption, as it turned out. He should have considered the possibility when he cursed Lan Qiang. At the very least, he should have made plans when he offered Lin Heixin the safety of the Burial Mounds.

He hadn’t.

Thus he sat at the table while all three of the children ran all over the safe portion of the Burial Mounds, A-Lun showing the boys exactly what was safe and what wasn’t. From the look on his face, A-Huan expected to be scolded for running at any moment. He kept glancing over at Wei Zhan and his mother as if afraid that he would have to write the principles a hundred times for every step.

A-Zhan, on the other hand, rampaged around with A-Lun with not a concern in his little head. He laughed loudly, danced in place with delight as A-Lun showed him where they’d planted burdock root for next year’s harvest, and hugged anyone who got in range of his arms.

Actually, Wei Zhan found himself less disturbed by his younger self than by his brother’s younger self, now that he considered it. Poor A-Huan looked so very confused.

“You don’t have to run if you don’t want to,” Wei Zhan commented as A-Huan came trotting by the table with wide, shocked eyes. “A-Lun has more energy than she knows what to do with at this point, rather like you brother. You can come sit if you’d like. Or run. Or just walk, if that is your preference.”

A-Huan bit his lip before coming over to climb onto a stool next to Wei Zhan. He was shaking slightly, not from the cold but from nerves. His lips and fingertips were nicely pink, not blue with the cold like A-Lun and A-Zhan’s.

“It’s… very different,” A-Huan said after a moment. “My apologies.”

Wei Zhan chuckled and patted his back. “Change is always a challenge, unless one is very, very young. You are old enough to have some trouble with big changes. Give yourself time to adjust.”

A-Huan nodded, licking his lips before biting his bottom lip. “Um. Are there… rules… I, we, I should know?”

“Mm,” Wei Zhan said, nodding. “I can show you, if you’d like.”

A-Huan looked so very relieved at the idea of it that Wei Zhan’s heart broke a little bit for his brother. Now not his brother, but always, forever, his Xiongzhang. Wei Zhan scooped him up, slowly strolling towards the path into the Burial Mounds. No surprise, both A-Lun and A-Zhan came rampaging over to his side.

“A-Huan asked to know what the rules are,” Wei Zhan explained to A-Lun.

“Uuugh, rules,” A-Zhan complained with a dramatic droop to his shoulders. “Lots and lots and lots?”

“No, only a handful, actually,” Wei Zhan said. He chuckled at the way A-Lun giggled over A-Zhan’s dramatics. “They are all safety rules. Things that keep A-Lun and Lianmin and Xinshi safe. Now you and your brother and mother, too.”

“Oh!” A-Zhan said, staring up at Wei Zhan with those wide blue eyes that looked so very strange. “But not you?”

“I am immortal,” Wei Zhan explained. “I will not age. I cannot die. No one can fight me successfully. There are very, very few things that are a threat to me. There are many, many things that can hurt you and your family, which is why we have our rules.”

Lin Heixin followed along behind the four of them with Lianmin at her side. Neither Lin Heixin nor Lianmin spoke. They hung back far enough that they weren’t part of the conversation while still be able to hear what Wei Zhan said.

“This is the first rule,” Wei Zhan said, crouching down at the head of the stairs to set A-Huan down. “These are boundary markers. Wherever you see these, you must be very careful. Inside, where we are, is safe. Outside is very, very dangerous.”

“No going outside,” A-Lun agreed with a firm nod. “Only Baba goes outside and only with special-est of special prayers. Even Lianmin doesn’t go outside markers. Not strong enough yet.”

Both A-Huan and A-Zhan widened their eyes in awe. A-Zhan patted one with his hand. Nothing happened until A-Huan carefully touched one, too. Then the boundary marker glowed softly, reacting to his blooming core.

“That is the second rule,” Wei Zhan said, smiling at the way both A-Lun and A-Zhan clapped their hands in awe. “Some people cannot activate the markers. Some can. A-Huan, neither A-Lun nor A-Zhan can activate them. If they accidentally cross the line, the markers will not activate. If you see that, you must run and get help. Do not chase them. Just come and get me, Lianmin or your mother.”

A-Huan’s eyes went very wide. “But… they could be hurt? If I don’t stop them?”

Wei Zhan shook his head. He had A-Lun show off her tassel, which the boys promptly cooed over.

“The tassel has protective qualities that I keep charged up,” Wei Zhan said. “It will help protect them, but it will be scary if they go beyond the outer boundary markers. This line is a path to Yiling. The outer circle at the base of the terraces is different.”

“No going down past the terraces,” A-Lun said very seriously. “Is lots of work, lots of holes, lots of unhappy dead. Only Baba goes because he’s very strong.”

“Exactly,” Wei Zhan agreed. “If you play here, on the upper terraces where plants are growing and where we have houses, it’s fine. One terrace down, bring a grown-up with you. Those are for harvesting. Beyond that, do not go. Not for this winter and probably not for next summer, either. I’m still working on making the safe place bigger.”

“Orchard is good, though,” A-Lun offered to A-Huan’s worried frown. “All kinds of trees to play around and climb!”

A-Huan gasped. “You can climb the trees?”

“Mm!” A-Lun said, already turning to dash off and show them.

Wei Zhan caught her and laughed as he put her over his shoulder, much to her delight. “Two more rules, A-Lun.”

“Oopsie,” A-Lun said, giggling and not at all apologetic.

“The other two rules are about what we do for cultivation here,” Wei Zhan said, pointing to one of the rough sculptures of Wei Ying as the Yiling Laozu he’d tucked into a too-small corner of the top terrace. “Most sects, including the Lan, follow the Dao. Have you learned about the Dao?”

“A little,” A-Huan said, shuffling his feet against the path while looking half-terrified that he would be quizzed.

“No?” A-Zhan said, grimacing. “Shufu says A-Zhan will learn when he’s older.”

“You will,” Wei Zhan confirmed. “The Dao believes in living a simple life, in harmony. It is a path that says to let go and follow the path rather than pushing to do everything all the time. The Lan do a good job of following the Dao, mostly. Other sects do a less good job. Cultivation with the Dao is a path that says you must push to free the dead and destroy any monsters you find.”

“Just,” A-Huan said, nodding slowly. “Shufu says you need to learn to be just and live a pure life.”

“That,” Wei Zhan agreed. “Daoist cultivation does not do well with a place like the Burial Mounds. Generations have tried to liberate the Burial Mounds and failed. They made it worse, over and over and over. So, the rule is that Daoist cultivation is not practiced inside of the Burial Mounds. We follow Buddhist cultivation instead, which is the last rule.”

“Love everyone, alive and dead!” A-Lun exclaimed as she flung her arms up and nearly smacked Wei Zhan in the nose. “Give them time to find peace, com, com, compish until they do.”

“Compassion,” Wei Zhan said, grinning at A-Lun’s recitation. “Very good, A-Lun. The basis of Buddhist cultivation is compassion. We pray for ourselves, our families, our neighbors and the whole world to be healthy, happy and safe. We give love to all who ask for it. We do not fight because fighting just causes hurt to increase. It will take generations for the Burial Mounds to be liberated. We have time to give each soul here the compassion and love they need to release their hated and pain themselves. There is no rush.”

A-Zhan nodded but there was no comprehension in his eyes. Not surprising. The boy was no older than A-Lun and she’d taken months to soak in the concepts that Wei Zhan was working with. If he stayed long enough, Wei Zhan was confident that he would understand it just as A-Lun had by living it.

On the other hand, A-Huan’s eyes were wide with surprised understanding. He stared at the boundary markers, then out over the terraces to the blackened earth of the Burial Mound beyond the safe zone.

Wei Zhan smiled. “A-Lun, why don’t you show A-Zhan your favorite climbing tree?”

“Eee!” A-Lun squealed, running in place while shaking her hands in excitement. “Thank you, Baba!”

She caught A-Zhan’s hand, running off with him towards the orchard. Her favorite tree was easy to climb quite deliberately. Wei Zhan had pruned it as it grew, reinforcing its limbs and trunk so that A-Lun could climb all she wanted without getting caught in the branches or falling. The highest branch was all of chest-high on Xinshi, so it was very safe indeed.

A-Huan sucked in a breath then sighed it out as if afraid to ask the questions obviously hovering on his tongue. When Wei Zhan offered his arms, A-Huan blushed but nodded to be picked up. Wei Zhan slowly strolled back towards the cave with him. He nodded to Lin Heixin and Lianmin as he passed.

They nodded back, but they didn’t follow. That was fine. Lianmin could explain the principles they followed just as easily as Wei Zhan could. He was fairly certain that Lin Heixin knew something was odd about him, beyond his immortality, but she clearly wasn’t ready to ask.

A-Huan was. If he was given the chance to. Wei Zhan didn’t know if Uncle Qiren had already reached the point of scolding questions. Hopefully not. If not, the Elders certainly would have. Wei Zhan remembered them as loathing the very existence of questions, as if asking a single question might bring down the entire leadership of the Lan Clan.

At this point, it very well might, not that Wei Zhan considered that a bad thing.

“Did you curse Father?” A-Huan whispered as they reached the dining shelter.

“I did,” Wei Zhan confirmed. “He was a threat to your mother and to you and your brother. Plus most of the rest of the world, too. I could not allow him free rein to hurt people.”

A-Huan flinched. “He’s bad?”

“Mmm, he is very selfish,” Wei Zhan said. How to explain this to a small boy? “The spells that allow us to bring people into the safe zone let us see into the heart of those entering. Lan Qiren, your shufu, is a very good man who tries very hard to do what is right. He may not understand everything, may make bad decisions because of things he does not know, but he tries very, very hard.”

“Shufu says we should always try to understand before we decide,” A-Huan said, staring into Wei Zhan’s eyes.

“It’s a good thing to attempt,” Wei Zhan agreed. “Not always easy or fast, but it is a good idea to start with. Lan Qiang, your father… I am sorry, but he does not care if someone else will be hurt. He. There are people he enjoys hurting.”

“Mother,” A-Huan whispered. He buried his face in Wei Zhan’s shoulder, shivering again.

“Mm,” Wei Zhan agreed. “She is… a relative of mine, though she did not know it before. I could not allow her to be hurt. I could not allow you or your brother to be hurt, either. Thus, I cursed your father so that if he didn’t try to hurt her or you, he would be fine. He could rule the Lan, live his life, be free to do whatever he wanted. But if he tried to hurt you, your brother or your mother, he would collapse. Lose his strength and control over his body. All he has to do is not hurt people.”

A-Huan huffed, thumping Wei Zhan’s shoulder. “He started shaking as soon as he saw Mother!”

“I am sorry,” Wei Zhan murmured, rubbing A-Huan’s back. “I can keep you safe. I have that power. But cannot change him. His actions and thoughts are his own.”

The little grumble A-Huan made was one that Wei Zhan barely remembered from his youngest days in the other timeline. He’d rarely heard it after Mother died. As Lan Zhan, he’d tried desperately to be worth of visiting his mother again, at least until he understood that she was gone.

A-Huan, Lan Xichen, had stopped grumbling this way immediately after her death. It had taken years for Wei Zhan to realize that his brother had decided that there was no point to complaining about the things that frustrated or angered him. He couldn’t change them so he might as well just accept them with a cheerful smile.

No one scolded Lan Xichen for being too cheerful and accepting, after all.

“Sorry,” A-Huan muttered.

“No, do not be sorry,” Wei Zhan murmured. He brushed a kiss over A-Huan’s forehead. “Your feelings are valid. It is frustrating. Infuriating. To have such a simple task and to fail utterly. I find it frustrating, too. But safety for those I care about is more important, so I have let the frustration go. Mostly.”

A-Huan pulled back to frown at Wei Zhan while blinking repeatedly. “Mostly?”

“Mostly,” Wei Zhan confirmed with a nod and a wry smile. “Immortal or not, I do still have feelings. I care. It is and will always be frustrating when I cannot do things. That’s human. You can be frustrated. You can be angry. You can be sad or afraid or whatever you feel. That’s okay. What’s not okay is making everyone else hurt or angry or sad with you. Part of being a cultivator, of whatever type, is learning to accept and deal with your emotions.”

“I’m not good at that,” A-Huan muttered while picking at the collar of Wei Zhan’s shirt.

Wei Zhan grinned. “You are very young, A-Huan. You will be twenty to thirty before you’re good at it. Give yourself the gift of time to learn to deal with your emotions.”

A-Huan looked so doubtful about that idea that Wei Zhan found himself laughing as he cuddled the boy. Who truly was not his brother, was he? Ah, he’d changed so much in his return to the past. Perhaps he could give his brother the chance to be a boy instead of the perfect heir at far too young an age.

He’d try, either way.

As A-Lun and A-Zhan came running over to see why Wei Zhan was laughing, A-Huan’s dimples came out. He started giggling. Then laughing because A-Lun climbed all over Wei Zhan, followed quickly by A-Zhan who laughed as freely as a bird sang.

Yes, it was odd having his younger self and his brother here, but it was worth the strangeness. So very worth it.

33. Forbidden Techniques

“Ah, I really should be heading off to Dafan Mountain,” Wen Ruohan said as he strolled through Yiling at Wei Zhan’s side.

Actually, of course, he should head back home. He’d been away long enough this time that his sect was probably convinced that he was never coming home. Which was ridiculous. Wen Ruohan went off on these trips around the Jianghu ever twenty or so years. If this one was a bit longer than normal, well, events had been a bit more dramatic, too.

Sect leaders being deposed due to “illness”. Nearly the entire Elder Council for another sect dead because they were lousy, murdering bastards. Qiheng almost killing himself with his stupid tea project. That was a big one.

And, of course, Wei Zhan and the Burial Mounds.

The biggest thing that had happened to the Jianghu in easily several hundred years. Probably closer to five hundred years. Even Wen Ruohan’s wives had a million questions about Wei Zhan and his odd cultivation methods in their letters, though they were getting snippy about not wanting a new wife brought back to the Nightless City.

It took a couple more steps before he realized that Wei Zhan had stopped in his tracks to stare at Wen Ruohan with such disapproval that Wen Ruohan looked behind his back to see if someone else might have offended Wei Zhan.

“What?” Wen Ruohan asked.

“Dafan Mountain,” Wei Zhan repeated, frown turning into a stern scowl.

“Yes?” Wen Ruohan said. “My brother lives there. He’s two generations younger than me, which is always odd, but I do try to visit from time to time. He’s got two kids that I really should go meet before they’re too much older.”

“Follow me,” Wei Zhan said, whirling and stomping back out of Yiling.

Without waiting for Wen Ruohan to follow him.

But then, there was absolutely zero chance that Wen Ruohan wouldn’t be on his heels. He’d never seen Wei Zhan act like this before. Wei Zhan got angry about very few things, mostly abuse of women and children. Wen Ruohan couldn’t figure out what about visiting his brother and his family in Dafan would prompt anger like this.

There was, after all, no chance that Wei Zhan had a clue about his… tentative thoughts… about Yin Iron and the Dancing Goddess.

They did not head into the Burial Mounds which was a crying shame. Wen Ruohan had yet to be invited inside, due to Wei Zhan’s propensity to adopt abused women who did not appreciate men flirting like they breathed. Understandable, really, but a bit annoying given just how curious Wen Ruohan was about the work going on in there.

Instead, they headed around the Burial Mounds, following a rough foot path that Wei Zhan walked as if it was something he did on a daily basis.

“Where are we going?” Wen Ruohan asked. “Somewhere secret?”

“No,” Wei Zhan said, snorting. “Just private.”

“We… need to have a such a private conversation that we couldn’t use muffling arrays to keep people from listening in?” Wen Ruohan asked in amusement.

The look in Wei Zhan’s eyes when he turned to stare at Wen Ruohan was anything but amused. Grim, frustrated, a bit angry and a lot desperate, yes, but not amused at all.

“Seriously, what about Dafan Mountain is setting you off?” Wen Ruohan snapped.

He got no answer until they arrived at a lovely little spring with ferns that were still green despite the snow blanketing the ground. There was a spot off to one side where someone, obviously Wei Zhan, had been digging up earth. Not lately, given the snow, but the pit was still clear.

Wei Zhan bowed his head and then…

A lotus bloomed under their feet.

A bubble of rainbow light formed over their heads, sliding down to englobe the lotus underneath them. As soon as it settled, all sound from outside disappeared. Wen Ruohan couldn’t see though the bubble, either. The world outside was a blurry shimmer. He assumed that they would be equally blurry to anyone out there.

Wei Zhan nodded his head once and then slowly sighed while staring at Wen Ruohan.

“I’m very, very confused and very, very fascinated,” Wen Ruohan admitted. “This is amazing.”

This time when Wei Zhan huffed, it was more like a laugh than like he wanted to stab Wen Ruohan. That was an improvement, anyway. Didn’t answer any questions or explain what the problem was so Wen Ruohan cocked his head inquisitively at Wei Zhan.

“Lan Aining traveled back to the past to purify the ground that the Cloud Recesses now stands on,” Wei Zhan declared.

And then said not one more word.

“That’s…” Wen Ruohan started to say “interesting” but then his mind caught up to what Wei Zhan had just implied.

He opened his mouth, but no words came out. Wen Ruohan cleared his throat and tried again, this time managing a garbled mess that was a mixture of “purified”, “you time traveled”, and “what the fuck”.

None of which he tried to clarify because Wen Ruohan’s legs gave out from under him as a thousand little things that had been quietly bothering him about Wei Zhan suddenly clicked into place. And about recent events, too.

Traveled back to the past. Wei Zhan had traveled back in time. Which meant that he’d known about the Jiang Elders and their persecution of Hanyu’s wives, the murder of their babies. He’d known about Qiheng’s qi deviation problem. He had to have known exactly how to handle Yiling and the Burial Mounds before he ever set foot here.

And he had to know about Wen Ruohan’s plans to use the Yin Iron to fuel his ascension into immortality.

“Went that bad, did it?” Wen Ruohan finally said, staring up at Wei Zhan whose face had gone Lan cold and Lan severe while Wen Ruohan sat there dithering.

Wei Zhan grimaced. “Every single Wen died. All of them. Even the children. Even the babies. The last living wen was a four-year-old boy named Wen Yuan. He died of a fever after being abandoned in the middle of the Burial Mounds. My husband, Wei Ying, was their only protector. He was hunted and driven to the worst death possible because of it.”

“…Just how bad was that death?” Wen Ruohan asked as ice shivered up his spine.

He was in the middle of the forest, in a bubble with an angry immortal who knew exactly who he was and how he fought. Wen Ruohan was the strongest living cultivator, yeah, but he wasn’t a match for an immortal. No mortal ever would be.

This could very well be Wei Zhan deciding that Wen Ruohan was too stupid and dangerous to let live.

Or it could be him giving Wen Ruohan one last warning before the end.

Hopefully the latter.

Wei Zhan huffed, looking away. “His soul was torn to shreds and fused to the surrounding terrain. To the rocks and sand and trees around him. It was… challenging… freeing the fragments of his soul and then knitting them back together again.”

“Fuck,” Wen Ruohan whispered. “Okay, yeah, that’s not good. And… correct me if I’m wrong here, but this path, the one you’re warning me about, all starts at Dafan Mountain.”

“Yes,” Wei Zhan said as if Wen Ruohan was a blithering idiot.

Any number of women and men would have agreed with him. Right at that moment, Wen Ruohan wasn’t too sure that they weren’t all right about that. Fuck.

“Every Wen?” Wen Ruohan asked, shaking his head. “We’re the biggest sect. How could they all be killed?”

“You went to war against the entire Jianghu,” Wei Zhan explained far too calmly. “You’d already sucked up most of the smaller sects. Then you went after the Great Sects. You burned down the Cloud Recesses, had every single person in the Jiang killed, only missing three people, and went after the Nie.”

“I’m really shocked that Qiheng didn’t slice my testicles off and serve them to me,” Wen Ruohan said, pushing back to his feet.

“You’d already killed him several years before,” Wei Zhan replied. “You cursed his saber. It shattered in the middle of a night hunt, allowing the bull yao to gore him. He had a massive qi deviation and died six months later.”

Wen Ruohan collapsed back down to his knees. “I killed my own lover?”

“You killed your brother and his wife,” Wei Zhan said, staring down at Wen Ruohan implacably, the perfect, icy immortal as he never was. “You took their children as hostages. You attempted to conquer the entire Jianghu, and when they fought back, you raised the dead to fight as your army. You became a monster who was more yao than human, and it all began at Dafan Mountain.”

“No,” Wen Ruohan whispered.

His heart beat so hard that it felt like his whole body jerked for each pulse. Every breath was a panted through his gritted teeth. Wen Ruohan wanted to scream that Wei Zhan was lying. That he was wrong. That he couldn’t possibly know.

But…

Wei Zhan had never done this before.

He’d been kind. Cordial. Helpful in the extreme. Wei Zhan had saved the Jiang. He was known for protecting women and children from abusers.

Fuck.

Wei Zhan always protected the weak and downtrodden from the powerful who would harm them.

“I.. no, I wouldn’t,” Wen Ruohan protested even though he could see it. “I mean, I thought about it. The Yin Iron would balance me out. It, it, theoretically, it would help.”

Wei Zhan shook his head. “Only if the yin energy was freely given and pure. The Yin Iron is steeped in resentful dead. It is all but a living being with thoughts and plans of its own. And it wants to be whole. Anyone who touches it, who tries to use it, will be possessed by it.”

“Fuck!” Wen Ruohan shouted.

The word echoed inside of Wei Zhan’s lotus privacy bubble.

“Fuck,” Wen Ruohan whispered, burying his face in his hands.

The horrible part was that it all made sense. Xue Chonghai had been working with yin iron specifically to try new methods of liberating the dead. Instead of forcing them to release their resentment and destroying them if they wouldn’t, he’d thought to use them. Make them into tools.

So his Yin Iron had to be chock full of the souls of the dead. If it hadn’t achieved something like sentience, hadn’t started to control him, then Xue Chonghai wouldn’t have gone mad and then been destroyed by the sects.

“I would, I did, become the next Xue Chonghai, didn’t I?” Wen Ruohan said, shuddering.

“Worse,” Wei Zhan agreed. “I cannot allow it to happen again, Wen Ruohan. I have a responsibility as an immortal not to interfere too badly. Doing as much as I have is already pushing the line. But you are not very far from immortality, yourself. If you exerted yourself, you could be there in very little time. A few years, perhaps less.”

“Seriously?” Wen Ruohan asked in surprise.

Wei Zhan’s smile was wry enough that Wen Ruohan’s cheeks went red for a moment. “It took me three years from the time I made the choice to attempt immortality and I started from life-threatening injuries. If you truly wanted it, you would already have it.”

Wen Ruohan winced.

He sighed and dragged himself back to his feet. That was… far to perceptive, but then that was Wei Zhan. The man saw far too much.

It was, actually, one of the things that Wen Ruohan had first asked Cangse Sanren about. What was her master like? The answer had sent shivers up his spine then, just as Wei Zhan was doing now.

“She sees everything,” Cangse Sanren had said with a wry smile. “Everything. Not just because she’s, you know, old. No, it’s because immortals just see more. You can’t hide a damned thing from them. There are, actually, several reasons why I came out into the world.”

Wen Ruohan sighed. “So, ah. If I go visit my brother and his family, will you kill me for it?”

“Only if you disturb the Yin Iron,” Wei Zhan replied perfectly calmly. “I will not risk the death of over half the Jianghu, just for your pride and refusal to admit that you do not truly want to achieve immortality.”

“I do, too,” Wen Ruohan grumbled. He grimaced at the flat look Wei Zhan leveled on him.

“No. You don’t,” Wei Zhan said. “You want to be the best. You want to exceed everyone around you. You want to keep living so that you can learn more things. You do not want to be truly immortal, because it would mean stagnation, retreating from the world that you find so engaging, and slowly losing all connection to humanity.”

“And less fucking, admittedly,” Wen Ruohan said with a sigh. “Fine. You’re right. I’ve been putting off doing the work. It’s just…”

“The world is beautiful,” Wei Zhan said with a little smile. “People fascinate you. A day spent alone might be fine. A lifetime? That would be torture for you.”

“And you?” Wen Ruohan asked even though he knew the answer.

“I wouldn’t notice the passage of a lifetime unless someone commented on how long I’d been gone,” Wei Zhan replied.

Completely calmly, as if that was a lovely idea. Something to look forward to. Wen Ruohan shuddered.

“All right, can I head back to town if I swear that I won’t go after the Yin Iron?” Wen Ruohan asked. “And then maybe back to Qishan? My wives are getting impatient.”

Wei Zhan snorted a laugh. “I doubt that. But Elder Entai and Lianmin would appreciate your departure. Swear. Or die. It is your choice.”

The bubble around them shifted somehow, getting thicker and heavier. The lotus under their feet took on the gleam of pearls instead of the translucence of a soap bubble. Wen Ruohan’s tongue went so thick that he could barely get words out.

This was more than an oath. It would be binding. Wen Ruohan sucked a breath between his clenched teeth, shuddering under the weight of Wei Zhan’s gaze and power.

“I, Wen Ruohan, will never seek out the Yin Iron,” Wen Ruohan swore. “Nor will I seek to find a way to short-cut my progress to immortality through usage of yin iron of any kind. And also, I won’t seek out Xue Chonghai’s secrets.”

The bubble around them burst, dropping Wen Ruohan face down into the snow surrounding Wei Zhan’s little spring.

“Fuck me,” Wen Ruohan whined.

“No, thank you,” Wei Zhan replied as he hauled Wen Ruohan back up as easily as if he was a toddler. “You’re not my type.”

“Thank fuck for that,” Wen Ruohan muttered. He worked to get his feet underneath himself and then gave in and let Wei Zhan carry him back down the mountain. “You’re too much for me. Much too much for me.”

34. Child Games

“A-Zhan will be a lovely bride,” A-Lun said as she draped a scrap of red cloth over the top of A-Zhan head.

A-Zhan giggled and nodded. “Mm! A-Lun will be a handsome husband.”

The two of them had taken to playing Marriage together since Lianmin’s second cousin got married a week ago. They had no real grasp of what marriage was or how the roles were portioned out, but they’d decided that, very clearly, the two of them were destined to be married to each other when they grew up.

They were both not cultivators. They were both cheerful. They both loved apples and turnip stew with chili oil. Obviously they were made for each other.

Wei Zhan was doing his best not to go hide in his cave from the prospect of another version of himself even pretending to fall in love with and marry a woman.

A-Zhan was not Wei Zhan. He would never be Wei Zhan. Even if their bodies had at one point been the same, Wei Zhan’s return to the past had ensured that they were fundamentally completely different people now.

Though really, A-Lun was far too young for such thoughts.

“They’re just babies,” Lianmin murmured to him, smile going sly as he grumbled at her. “Seriously, they’ll forget this game in the next couple of days and invent some complicated thing with snowballs, hopping and running in circles.”

Wei Zhan couldn’t help but laugh at that. Their last game before the wedding had been much like that, only it’d involved singing random bits of song at the top of their lungs instead of hopping. Small children seemed to be endlessly creative at keeping themselves busy when given a chance. Even A-Huan had relaxed the longer they stayed in the Burial Mounds. He not only participated in their games; he sometimes planned them out and initiated them all on his own.

He really shouldn’t fuss over it. Whether it made his insides curdle or not, A-Lun and A-Zhan were truly babies playing together. He already knew that neither of them understood what “beautiful bride” or “handsome husband” meant.

“I’ll watch over them,” Lianmin murmured as she shoved him off towards his workshop. “Go make beads or something. The Nie will be here all too soon and they’ll need the special beads.”

Wei Zhan went.

Reluctantly, pouting a bit as if he was a child himself, but he went. He didn’t want to work. What he wanted was Wei Ying back. He’d promised…

…So many things. He’d promised to save Wei Ying and he had. He’d promised to liberate the Burial Mounds and he was. But then again, he’d promised to keep Wei Ying from growing up on Lotus Pier as he had before, and Wei Zhan couldn’t decide whether he’d broken that promise or kept it.

Yes, Wei Ying was there now as a helpless baby who couldn’t do more than scoot about on his belly. But no, it wasn’t the same Lotus Pier. His parents were alive and healthy with no intentions of being rogue cultivators. The doom that had killed them was, probably, dealt with by the charms that Wei Zhan had given all three of them.

And the Lotus Pier that Wei Ying had grown up on was never going to happen. Wei Ying had three living grandmothers, a living grandfather who still ruled Lotus Pier. His father wasn’t the heir, no, but Jiang Renzi was finally bearing a healthy baby who would be the true hair to Lotus Pier so that it would never fall to Wei Changze, Jiang Fengmian, Wei Ying, or Jiang Cheng.

Wei Ying might even have siblings in a few years, which Wei Zhan knew that he would love.

Lotus Pier was a whole new place that would be safe for Wei Ying.

The whole world was a new place, which Wei Zhan had not expected at all when he came back in time. The Nie sect was on its way to solving their qi deviation problem. The Wen would not fall into death and destruction under a mad Wen Ruohan. For that matter, Wen Ruohan was no longer pretending that he wanted to become an immortal.

He’d changed so many things.

“You’re very pensive today,” Lin Heixin commented, starting Wei Zhan out of blankly staring at his supplies for making beads. “Is something wrong?”

She still hadn’t asked about Wei Zhan’s resemblance to A-Zhan. More than likely, she didn’t have to. He’d seen her awareness of who he was the first time she laid eyes on him. It had been echoed in his inability to look away from the face he’d forgotten so long ago.

“Just change,” Wei Zhan said as he actually started work instead of staring blankly. “Even an immortal had trouble with change sometimes.”

“They would be good for each other,” Lin Heixin commented, only to laugh when he flinched. “I know, I know. It’s strange. They’re too young. But he’s not you and she is a darling little girl. You’re raising her very well. I hope that I was…”

The workbench creaked alarmingly under Wei Zhan’s hands.

Lin Heixin instantly went silent. She stared at Wei Zhan for a long, painful moment before letting out a breath that was just the right side of a sob. Thankfully, the children didn’t notice. Lianmin certainly did from her spot watching over the children, but she stayed where she was.

Reluctantly.

Her affection for Lin Heixin grew by the day. Wei Zhan usually found it easier to separate his long-dead mother from Lin Heixin. The romance slowly blooming between Lin Heixin and Lianmin certainly helped with that.

“My apologies,” Wei Zhan breathed once he got his emotions under control. “My mother died of suicide when I was very young. Not quite six. It is why I have been so fierce about protecting the women I encounter. I would never see another woman trapped and driven to the point of despair again.”

Lin Heixin shut her eyes and breathed carefully until her hands stopped shaking. “I see. My apologies as well. I did not intend to bring back bad memories. Your… resemblance… to my A-Zhan tends to make me assume things.”

“Understandable,” Wei Zhan said with the wryest smile possible. “The bloodline is very powerful, obviously.”

This time Lin Heixin laughed softly.

Wei Zhan breathed through his discomfort. Then through his sorrow for having lost so much. Then through the ache to see his Wei Ying again. So many years left until his Wei Ying could come home. He still wasn’t sure that the Wei Ying living with his parents in Lotus Pier would ever become his Wei Ying again, but it would be all right.

Wei Ying was Wei Ying.

“You’ve… influenced… so many,” Lin Heixin said, studying his molds and the clay for the new beads he set back to work on. “I had wondered why you have not reached out to the Jin.”

“I didn’t reach out to any of the sects,” Wei Zhan said with a startled glance at her and then a shrug. “They reached out to me. Frankly, I have no interest in interacting with any of them. If they stopped visiting, I would go on with my work here quite happily. Purifying the Burial Mounds and raising the children is all that I want to do until my husband returns to my side.”

“You’re sure he will?” Lin Heixin asked, eyes blinking in startlement for a moment.

“Mm,” Wei Zhan confirmed. “He has already been reborn. His memories seem to have carried over to his new incarnation, as has a large portion of his cultivation. I truly believe that he will return to me when he’s old enough. Until then, my work here is important, and I have family to take care of.”

Lin Heixin’s cheeks went rosy when she realized, a few seconds after he stopped speaking, that she was included in that family.

Because she was. By blood, she was his mother. The version of her that he had lost wasn’t the same version as the stunningly young woman before him, but she was still important to him. Her sons were now Wei Zhan’s family as much as A-Lun.

Who knew? In the next decade or so, his family, his little village here, might grow to be something that echoed the home that Wei Ying had created so long ago and so far away in the future that would never be. Wei Zhan could only hope that this family would be a happier, healthier and much safer one than what Wei Ying had built in the other version of the Burial Mounds.

He would certainly work to make that happen.

Lin Heixin sucked in a breath and then didn’t say anything. She did bite her lip and fidget as she watched him work, but no words were forthcoming. Wei Zhan gave her time to overcome the nerves. He always hated it when people rushed him into speaking before he was ready.

“Eventually, I have to go back, you know,” Lin Heixin murmured after long enough for Wei Zhan to get the next set of beads shaped, stamped and set up in his kiln.

“To the Cloud Recesses?” Wei Zhan asked.

He fiddled with the bamboo skewers supporting the beads. The bamboo should last long enough for the clay to stiffen in the kiln before burning off. He’d had a bit of trouble from making the skewers too thin last time, but this batch looked to be the correct dimension.

“Yes,” Lin Heixin sighed while rubbing her upper arms as if she was cold despite the warming talismans he’d put over his work area. “The boys are the heirs. I have to bring them back.”

“Why?” Wei Zhan asked. “Do they want it? More accurately, does A-Huan want it? We both know that A-Zhan cannot do it.”

Lin Heixin flinched, hugging herself. She would not meet his eyes. “No. He doesn’t. I know he doesn’t. He was the one asking to go away. Almost every day, he would ask to leave. I finally… realized that we could visit.”

“Lin Heixin,” Wei Zhan murmured and then waited until she reluctantly met his eyes. “You do not have to go back. You can stay here as long as you want. If A-Huan does not want to become the Lan Sect Leader when he’s an adult, then he does not have to. There is, perhaps, one person who could make me send you back to the Cloud Recesses. I doubt very strongly that Baoshan Sanren would ever leave her mountain, and even if she did, I’m certain that the woman who raised Cangse Sanren would never force a woman to go back to the place and the man who imprisoned and raped her. You can stay. The boys can stay. The Lan can pound against my wards as much as they wish. It will not matter.”

“But… the heir…” Lin Heixin whispered, eyes wide and face pale enough that Lianmin was frowning ferociously at him. “A-Huan is… the only one.”

“There are six other lines in the Cloud Recesses with sufficient closeness to become the heirs,” Wei Zhan said.

Having been reminded a million times over the course of his life of just how many other cousins, aunts and uncles there were, Wei Zhan knew better than to believe that bit of manipulation. Lan Jingyi had been declared the heir after Wei Zhan achieved immortality. Lan Jingyi wasn’t born yet, of course, but his father had been the eldest son of eight sons and two daughters, all of whom had at least a couple children each.

Wei Zhan shook his head as Lin Heixin continued to stare at him as if she couldn’t comprehend what he’d said. “There are dozens of potential heirs. Even if there were not, Lan Qiren is a young man. He can sire children himself if there is a need. Or adoption. That’s perfectly valid as well. You and your children do not ever need to go back if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t want to,” Lin Heixin whispered, tears starting to creep down her cheeks. “I never want to see that place again. I know A-Huan doesn’t want to go back, either, but he’s…”

“It’s hard,” Wei Zhan agreed with an understanding little nod. “He will be fine. He’s young enough to adapt well. Very well. I’ll send a message to the Cloud Recesses demanding your release from the sham of marriage and informing them that A-Huan and A-Zhan are now members of my family instead.”

Lianmin promptly strode over as Lin Heixin buried her face in her hands to sob her heart out. She gladly turned into Lianmin’s arms, crying out all the pain and fear and loss that she’d been saddled with over the years.

Wei Zhan nodded for Lianmin to take Lin Heixin off to regather her composure, waving for A-Huan and A-Zhan to come to him as they stared at their mother.

A-Lun trotted over, hands on her hips. “Mama Heixin is staying then?”

“Yes,” Wei Zhan said, smiling at her despite himself. “She’s staying. So are A-Huan and A-Zhan.”

“But… don’t we have to go back?” A-Huan asked, eyes too wide as he trembled with mingled fear and excitement.

Wei Zhan knelt down, hugging A-Lun and A-Zhan, both of whom promptly climbed into his lap. “No, you don’t. I know that you and your mother were told that you are the sole heir, but there are six other lines that can take the position if your Uncle Qiren does not sire children of his own. He may. He is quite young, after all. I do not know that he wants to do so, but he could.”

“Oh,” A-Huan breathed, blinking rapidly. After a section he started to smile brightly. “Oh! Mama is going to be safe now? We’re safe? We never have to go back?”

“Not unless you choose to,” Wei Zhan agreed. “And if you do go back, you will be wearing protections that I supply that will ensure that no one can harm you, keep you there, or attempt to control you. You’re safe, A-Huan. I swear it.”

A moment later, Wei Zhan had his arms full of small children crying. A-Huan set off A-Zhan and then A-Lun who was crying just because A-Zhan was. Wei Zhan laughed softly and scooped them all up in his arms, carrying them off towards the dining table where Xinshi had started setting out the very beginnings of their next meal.

The display of strength transformed the children’s tears into laughter, just as Wei Zhan had intended. They gladly helped Xinshi setting up while Wei Zhan went to his cave to figure out what exactly he should write in his next letter to Lan Qiren.

Or, perhaps, it would be better to simply go there to make the demand directly.

Wei Zhan grimaced. He didn’t want to but securing his family’s safety was more important than his desire never to set foot in that place again. Ah, well. He’d figure it out and decide which way to go before bed tonight.

One way or the other, Lin Heixin and her sons would never be forced back to the Cloud Recesses, no matter what the Lan Elders or anyone else thought about it.

35. Final Revolution

A knock sounded at Qiren’s office door, startling him so badly that he almost splattered ink all over the stack of treaties, purchase records and account books littering his desk. He swallowed, realizing with a grimace that his mouth was dry not because of fear but because he’d been at this far longer than he realized.

“Come,” Qiren called as he hung up his brush and set to work organizing the mess that was his desk.

Elder Lan Tindong frowned at Qiren from the doorway, not stepping inside despite his invitation. “That so-called immortal was spotted heading towards the gate. Go send him away, Qiren.”

Qiren stared at Elder Tindong for a long moment. “Let me confirm. An actual immortal is coming to the Cloud Recesses and you… think that I should… shoo him off like an unwelcome child? Are you insane? You know what he did to my brother. I’ll do no such thing.”

“I don’t believe for a minute that he’s an actual immortal,” Elder Tindong huffed even though his eyes went shifty as he looked everywhere but Qiren’s eyes. “As the acting sect leader, it—”

“I am the actual sect leader,” Qiren agreed, interrupting Elder Tindong firmly, “which makes your demands even more inappropriate. I will, of course, go meet Wei Zhan at the gates. You will come with me.”

“What?” Elder Tindong squawked. His face went pale which put his “doubts” about Wei Zhan’s immortality to the lie. “Absolutely not!”

“You will either come with me to greet the Immortal Wei Zhan or you will be removed summarily from the Elder’s Council,” Qiren replied with every bit of the sternness he’d learned teaching.

Amazingly, it worked. He’d halfway expected Elder Tindong to scoff at Qiren as he always did, but the tone of authority plus the threat of losing his position apparently cowed Elder Tindong enough that he trailed along behind Qiren without too much muttering and complaining.

By the time he reached the gate, Wei Zhan stood there in his peasant indigo-dyed duan da. Even though it was winter, and snow lay piled in banks higher than Wei Zhan was tall, Wei Zhan only had a many-times-patched padded and embroidered jacket over his duan da.

The sword at his side was plain, a wooden sheath and a hilt that had been well-wrapped in simple brown leather.

It was…

…worrying that Wei Zhan, a Buddhist priest and cultivator who practiced pacifism would not only have a sword but that he would wear it so openly during his first visit to the Cloud Recesses.

“Wei Zhan,” Qiren said as he bowed a welcome to the ice-cold and very distant immortal and offered an entry talisman that was charged specifically for Wei Zhan, “welcome to the Cloud Recesses. Please, come in. Let me show you around.”

“No need,” Wei Zhan said as he took the entry talisman and looped it casually at his belt next to the black beads of his own talismans. “This is not a social call.”

The blood in Qiren’s veins chilled until he felt as cold as the snow surrounding them.

Lin Heixin was not coming back.

There was no other reason that Qiren could think of that would drive Wei Zhan out of his Burial Mounds. Protecting a woman who had been abused, defending her and her children? Oh, yes. That would do what nothing else could.

“I’m glad Lin Heixin made it to you safely,” Qiren said, waving off Elder Tindong’s squawk of confused outrage. “The boys are doing well, I hope?”

A little of the ice in Wei Zhan’s eyes melted. “Quite. They all attended a small wedding in Yiling shortly after they arrived. A-Lun and A-Zhan have decided that they will marry when they grow up. A-Lun believes that A-Zhan will make a beautiful bride, while A-Zhan thinks that A-Lun will be a handsome husband.”

Qiren swallowed down a startled laugh as they headed up the stairs with Elder Tindong glowering at their backs. If the other elders weren’t there at the top of the stairs by the time they reached the top, Qiren would be astonished.

“They’ve no idea what any of it means, do they?” Qiren said, amused despite his rising nervousness.

“None,” Wei Zhan agreed. “Though in all honestly, A-Lun and A-Zhan are very well matched in personality and cultivation levels. I won’t arrange a marriage for her, of course, but letting them play at making a home together is fine.”

“It’s a good way for children to learn the skills of home-making,” Qiren agreed. “I thought they would be well-matched when I first met A-Lun. I’m glad they’re getting along. And A-Huan? How is he handling the new place?”

Wei Zhan’s frost gradually melted as Qiren drew out stories of the children, of Xinshi and Lianmin and Lin Heixin. It sounded as though everyone was doing quite well there, which was a huge relief. If this was what Qiren thought it was, well, he could be satisfied in their safety and happiness even if he never got to see them again.

But he could visit, surely? Wei Zhan had given him an entry talisman of his own. Qiren had tucked it away in a secret qiankun pouch that he kept hidden on his person at all times so that none of the Elders could steal it from him, but he did still have it.

If… something unfortunate… should happen in the Cloud Recesses, Qiren would not be trapped the same way that Lin Heixin had been.

The entire Council of Elders was, in fact, waiting when they reached the top of the stairs. Some, such as Lan Maioshu who ruled the infirmary with an iron fist and a caustic tongue, looked excited to see Wei Zhan. Others, Lan Menglong and Lan Zhuocheng in particular, looked as bitter and angry as they could be. Qiren had rarely seen them with anything other than disgruntled, angry faces but even for them, this was bad.

“The Council of Elders,” Qiren said with a wry smile and a lift of one eyebrow when Lan Menglong huffed at him. “This is Wei Zhan, Immortal Buddhist cultivator from the Burial Mounds.”

“I told him to send him away,” Elder Tindong snapped as he slipped around the two of them to join the rest of the Council as if that would somehow save him if Wei Zhan decided to be difficult.

“I am here for… two reasons,” Wei Zhan said, all the ice back in his eyes as he gazed across the Cloud Recesses and hesitated as if weighing every word. “First, I will take the Yin Iron from the Cold Pond cave. You have not adequately secured it and it needs to be properly disposed of. Second, Lin Heixin will be given a divorce. Her children will be removed from the line of descent.”

“What?” Qiren said, startled enough that he stared openly at Wei Zhan. He shook his head sharply as Wei Zhan’s eyes went ice cold as he glared at Qiren. “No, not that. The Yin Iron?”

Wei Zhan nodded. His eyes warmed a tiny bit when he looked at Qiren, but only a tiny bit. He might have been carved from ivory for all the emotion on his face. Staring at him here, at the entrance to the Cloud Recesses, he showed his immortality more than Qiren had ever seen before.

“It is a threat to the survival of the Cloud Recesses,” Wei Zhan explained. He waved one hand towards the Cold Pond. “I can feel it from here. The wards are beginning to fail. In ten, fifteen years at most, they will fail, and the resentful energy will infect the entire mountain.”

“You, you just want to strengthen whatever evil you’re doing with that woman in the Burial Mounds!” Elder Lan Zhuocheng snapped.

Every single one of the Elders took a sharp step back when Wei Zhan turned to glare at them. The aura of his qi, already overwhelmingly powerful, became so strong that Qiren couldn’t breathe. His knees went out from under him, as did Lan Zhuocheng’s.

Wei Zhan caught Qiren so that he didn’t crack his kneecaps against the flagstone path.

Lan Zhuocheng’s knees were not so lucky. He lay, gasping and white-faced, on the path as he stared up at Wei Zhan.

Who hummed and then sketched an array in the air.

A pure white light swept over them all. The power of Wei Zhan’s purification spell was so strong that it was distinctly like being punched hard in the chest. Qiren clung to Wei Zhan’s arm while focusing on nothing more than staying conscious.

When the light faded, Qiren felt lighter than he had in years. Perhaps since before his brother’s marriage. Certainly since before the boys were born. It was as if something deep inside of him had been filled with black tar and now it had been scourged clean and set out to dry in the sun.

Lan Zhuocheng lay unconscious on the path. Only Lan Maioshu was still awake, though she looked as though it was by a hair. She stared at Wei Zhan, mouth open even though no noise came out.

“They will be… somewhat better now, I think,” Wei Zhan said quietly. “The resentment and greed is still quite strong inside of them, but the Great Peace array is very good at clearing out the old grudges that fuel resentment.”

“That… that feels very accurate,” Qiren said as he forced himself to stand upright once more. “The. The Yin Iron is making it worse?”

Wei Zhan tilted his head to the side and then sighed. “I do not know. It will, absolutely. This is older and feels organic to them. It may just be who they are. They are, after all, on the Council of Elders specifically because they chose to be.”

Qiren blinked, a bit startled by that observation. “Ah. A very good point. We stopped insisting that all the Elders take a turn on the council about a decade ago. Perhaps we will return to it again.”

“I think it might be a wise choice,” Wei Zhan said. “The Yin Iron?”

Qiren looked at his Council of Elders and then nodded. It took Wei Zhan less than a short incense stick to enter the cave, claim the Yin Iron and then purify it so thoroughly that it was merely spiritually active iron. He dropped the beautifully carved chunk into Elder Lan Menglong’s hand when they passed him on the way back to Qiren’s office.

“The divorce,” Wei Zhan said while utterly ignoring Lan Menglong’s splutters and broken cursing. He placed A-Huan and Lin Heixin’s ribbons on the desk with precise implacable care.

“Of course,” Qiren said.

By the time Lan Menglong came to Qiren’s office, still cradling the purified Yin Iron in his hands, Qiren had the divorce written out, signed, and sealed. He’d already recorded it in their books and, heart aching, removed both of his nephews from the line of inheritance.

“Very good,” Wei Zhan said, taking the copy for Lin Heixin. He tucked it away into his sleeve.

Wei Zhan didn’t exactly snort at Lan Menglong. It was close, but not quite audible. He did look at Lan Menglong as though he thought Lan Menglong was lower than a dung beetle.

“If you ever wish to join us,” Wei Zhan said as if that was the sort of thing that one did, “you would be welcome. There are many in the Lan who could take your place and frankly, I doubt that you are interested in choosing a spouse and siring children.”

Qiren gaped at him as his stomach roiled. “I. I hadn’t considered that. Oh. Oh, my. That’s. That’s not good.”

“He’s all we have left,” Lan Menglong protested weakly, still so obviously overwhelmed that his normal acerbic temperament was entirely missing.

Wei Zhan raised one eyebrow at him. “The Lan main line, perhaps, is limited to him now. That does not mean that he is the sole remaining descendant. There are dozens of other potential heirs, six other lines, who could take his place easily.”

“I will not marry,” Qiren declared, hands shaking as hard now as they had been after Wei Zhan’s Great Purification array. “I will not. I have no interest in siring children and will not be forced into doing so just because you, you, you…”

His words ran out at the same time that Lan Menglong turned away with a shamed face. All his life, Qiren had struggled to be what the Lan Clan and the Lan Sect needed. He’d given up his every dream over time, from wandering as a rogue cultivator, to music, to even getting to teach freely without the Elders dictating every single thing he taught the young people who came to the Cloud Recesses.

Submitting to a marriage he didn’t want and siring children when he found the entire process of sex repellant would mean giving up what little soul he had left.

Wei Zhan nodded as if he’d expected Qiren’s response. Perhaps he had. The path into the Burial Mounds had granted him insight into Qiheng’s soul. Most likely, it had done the same for Qiren’s soul.

“Again, you will be welcome if you choose to leave,” Wei Zhan said. He reached into his sleeve and pulled out a ragged red tassel with a simple black clay bead. “If you need rescue, simply focus on this. I will hear. I will come. You will be freed.”

“Why?” Lan Menglong asked with a hint of his normal acid. “Why would you do this?”

Wei Zhan turned and stared at him so coldly that Lan Menglong flinched away. “Lin Heixin is my family. She is my blood. Both A-Huan and A-Zhan are my blood. Lan Qiren has done is best to protect and cherish all three of them, despite everything in his way and despite his own nature. He has chosen them. Thus I choose him back. If he wishes to leave, he will do so. If you interfere, I will deal with you personally.”

The threat was delivered in such a cold tone that Qiren almost expected ice to form on Lan Menglong’s hunched shoulders.

No one objected when Qiren walked Wei Zhan to the stairs. No one commented when he followed Wei Zhan down to the entrance. Not even the juniors on guard there gave Qiren a glance when he followed Wei Zhan out of sight of the gate.

“I… will follow by spring,” Qiren decided even though the thought of leaving his home and his duties made him feel sick enough to spill his stomach all over the snowy path. “I do not. I never wanted any of this, Wei Zhan. Not a bit of it. If the boys aren’t here, if Li Heixin isn’t here, then I won’t stay here, either. Though I will miss teaching.”

Wei Zhan’s face relaxed from the icy immortal back to the kind, considerate man that Qiren had seen in Yiling. “We have many people who want to learn in Yiling. Trust me when I say that you will not be without students for long. The lectures existed because of you, not because of the Lan. To pass your time until you leave, perhaps you can think of what you would teach without the Elders looking over your shoulders. And, perhaps, make copies of any books you can’t bear to be parted from.”

The twinkle of mischief in Wei Zhan’s eyes was enough to buoy Qiren’s spirits as he went back to the Cloud Recesses. Not home. It hadn’t been home for a very long time, though he’d refused to admit that.

What would he teach? He could go in so many different directions, stretch himself and his students. Hm. He really would need to spend the winter copying books.

Well, that would be a lovely task to break up the monotony of the Elder’s demands and the stress of training his replacement. There was a decided bounce to Qiren’s steps as he climbed the stairs. Not too many more times and he would finally be free to live his life as he’d always dreamed.

He couldn’t wait.

36. Destined Route

Winter in Yiling was a very different thing from winter in the Cloud Recesses. The mountains covered in snow that blocked all travel and all trade didn’t exist, for one. Yiling was in the lower country with its many rivers, so winter weather tended towards colder rain than the summer rains, with wind and scattered clouds. Up in the Burial Mounds, they had scatterings of snow from time to time, but it was so very mild that it barely felt like winter to Wei Zhan.

Lianmin looked at him like he was insane when he commented on the mild winter. “This is one of the worst winters we’ve had in my lifetime. The sleet has been horrible. We’ve frosted over every single night for the last month. We’ll be lucky if we don’t have people starving by spring because its killing all the winter plants we rely on for survival.”

“Ah,” Wei Zhan said, staring at her as she stared at him. “Hm. I’m from the mountains. This is… mild… to me.”

“That explains why A-Huan thought it would be okay to go swimming,” Lianmin muttered while rubbing her temples. “Fine. It’s mild to you. It’s not mild to us. Help me come up with a way to make sure everyone’s fields survive the winter, please.”

In the end, after several shichen of discussion, Wei Zhan went into town and helped set up grow huts for the town to share as communal gardens instead of doing something like arrays over their fields or reshaping the weather over the entire valley. He knew it could be done. He wasn’t sure what the long-term effects would be, so it was better to leave such wide-ranging ideas alone.

Perhaps once Wei Ying returned they could work on it together. Wei Ying always had such a creative mind. He could probably figure it out without too much difficulty.

“Sometimes it’s really obvious that you’re immortal,” Lianmin commented on their way back through the Burial Mounds. “Yes, I understand that this is a big issue. Yes, clearly, it will take a long time to come up with a permanent solution. Waiting for your Wei Ying to come back isn’t reasonable given that he’s younger than your daughter. Would you wait a whole lifetime before securing food for her?”

Wei Zhan froze in his tracks, staring at Lianmin whose lips started twitching with amusement. “…You have a talent for making me reconsider everything, Lianmin.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Lianmin said with an amused snort and a decidedly smug smirk. “Either way, the huts should help. A secure way to preserve food long-term would be better. Better ways to keep pests out of the fields would be lovely. I can think of a dozen things that might help, especially if they’re layered together.”

“Mm,” Wei Zhan agreed. “I will teach you how to craft them yourself. Then you need not wait for me. My tasks do not need to be the same as yours, after all.”

This time Lianmin was the one stumbling in shock. His smirk earned him a glare that might have stripped the tar off a Jiang warship, not that he cared. She was more than ready to explore her ideas for his cultivation style on her own with just a bit of checking and reassurance.

Five days later, Wei Zhan had finished all the special beads for the Nie and sent them off to Nie Qiheng. Another three days after that, Wei Zhan went back to Yiling with Lin Heixin, Lianmin and all the children. Market day was not something which happened during the winter. The weather was too bad and there were no crops to trade or sell.

Elder Entai did not care about such things. She’d decreed that it was a day for storytelling and eating communally at the tea house, so all of them, other than Xinshi who still was not ready to leave the safety of the Burial Mounds, made their way into town with food to share and all three children singing off-key as they marched downwards.

“We’re going town,” A-Lun sang while skipping along at Wei Zhan’s side. “We’re going town. We’re going, we’re going, we’re going town.”

“To town?” A-Huan asked hesitantly.

“Nope,” A-Lun declared with a big grin as she jumped into a puddle, spraying freezing water and delicate shards of ice everywhere. “Doesn’t fit the tune.”

“Ohhh,” A-Huan breathed, eyes wide. “Okay. That makes sense then.”

He was the only one of the children not to get himself soaking wet by the time they made it to town. Wei Zhan had to dry A-Zhan and A-Lun off six times. Lianmin used warming talismans on them three times. And Lin Heixin just laughed and let them be children which was probably for the best, honestly.

They wouldn’t be cold and wet for too long. Better to challenge their bodies and learn their limits than never test themselves at all. Wei Zhan would have kept all three of the children wrapped up safe if he could, but that wasn’t healthy for them at all.

Nie Mingjue stood at the edge of the Burial Mounds with his arms crossed over his chest.

Wei Zhan blinked, a bit flustered by the thought of a Nie Mingjue who wasn’t broad-shouldered and impossibly tall. At ten, Nie Mingjue was already taller than Lianmin by a finger’s width, but he was as thin as a reed with wiry muscle lining his gangly limbs instead of as burly as an ox.

“It’s about time you came out,” Nie Mingjue grumbled while eyeing Wei Zhan with twitching nervousness he clearly didn’t want to show.

“You’re early,” Wei Zhan replied, patting Lianmin’s shoulder as she glowered at Nie Mingjue. “We didn’t expect the Nie delegation to arrive for another day or two.”

“I came early,” Nie Mingjue replied. He lifted his chin and stared into Wei Zhan’s eyes defiantly. “I want to learn how you do things. I need to be able to protect my baby brother.”

Both Wei Zhan’s eyebrows went up.

While he was completely unsurprised that Nie Mingjue wanted to protect Nie Huaisang, he was a bit… astonished… that anyone among the Nie thought that Wei Zhan’s methods of doing things would work for Nie Mingjue. If there was a person alive, beyond Cangse Sanren, who was more of a blunt instrument, Wei Zhan hadn’t met them.

“You’re welcome to try it,” Wei Zhan said after studying Nie Mingjue’s rapidly blushing face. “It’s not something many people are suited for. The determination would help, yes, but there’s a level of detachment and calm that’s required that few manage.”

“That’s for sure,” Lianmin huffed. “You’d really teach him?”

“He wants to protect his family from their qi deviation problem,” Wei Zhan said with a calm shrug. “And most likely everything else too.”

“Okay, yes, that makes sense,” Lianmin said.

She still narrowed her eyes at Nie Mingjue threateningly. Amusingly enough, Nie Mingjue went blazingly red at her glare, which was a thing that Wei Zhan should have expected. After all, Nie Mingue’s father was prone to falling all over fierce women in much the same way that Wen Ruohan was. The Nie Mingjue he’d known in the future had never seemed interested in anyone in that way, but that might have been because of the loss of his father.

Which, hopefully, would not happen this time.

“She’s taken,” Wei Zhan said only to get loud spluttering noises from Lianmin, Lin Heixin and Nie Mingjue all at the same time and in much the same tone.

“Silly.” A-Lun giggled from her spot in front of Wei Zhan, dancing in a puddle as she watched everyone else.

“They are,” Wei Zhan agreed.

Various sorts of horrified lecturing about “too young for such things” mingled with “not a baby” and “I am most certainly not taken!” Wei Zhan ignored the three of them, leading A-Zhan and A-Huan by their hands while A-Lun sang the Going Town song.

A-Zhan abandoned his hand as soon as they reached the edge of town for there were other children to run and play with, then cups of tea to drink with A-Lun, and then even more warming and drying charms because they had, yet again, gotten utterly soaked. At least they collapsed happily in a puppy pile of exhausted children once in the teahouse, off by the fire where it was warmest.

“When can I start learning?” Nie Mingjue demanded as soon as Wei Zhan sat down at the table closest to the children.

“Sit,” Wei Zhan said.

“I won’t back down on this,” Nie Mingjue said, all youthful defiance and terrified determination. “What do I have to do to convince you?”

Wei Zhan blinked at him. “Nothing. But you could sit. I’d rather not crane my neck while explaining.”

Red crept across Nie Mingjue’s cheeks. He scrambled to sit down, as stiff and formal as Wei Zhan had been as a repressed teenager back in the Cloud Recesses. It was such an awkward look on him that Wei Zhan chuckled.

“Relax first,” Wei Zhan said. “I will be happy to teach you what I can, but I was serious that this is a path that I don’t think you’ll be suited to. There’s a certain level of detachment and calm that’s needed.”

Nie Mingjue turned to look at Lianmin who glowered right back at him. “Right. Calm. Sure. So what do I need to do?”

“Trust me when I say that this is Lianmin being calm,” Wei Zhan said. He laughed at the pure disbelief that filled Nie Mingjue’s eyes. “Now, my path is based on following the Buddhist principles of peace and pacifism. That doesn’t mean never fighting. It just means that patience is important and that generally we don’t fight. Over anything.”

As Wei Zhan drank his tea and ate the meal the staff delivered, prompting Nie Mingjue to eat and drink as well, he explained the core principles. Most everyone in the teahouse listened in as well, especially A-Huan who came over to curl up next to Nie Mingjue’s side shyly. Where A-Huan nodded as if it all made perfect sense, which it likely did given A-Huan’s personality, Nie Mingjue got more and more uncomfortable as Wei Zhan went on.

“Wait, so you don’t actually suppress or destroy any spirits?” Nie Mingjue finally spluttered in the middle of Wei Zhan’s explanation of the long cycle of repeated soothing instead of the more standard Daoist methods of purify, suppress or destroy.

“No,” Wei Zhan agreed. “It’s not necessary. We have time, generations if needed. There is nothing to gain by rushing the process and much to gain by letting it take as long as it wants. As long as the spirit, ghost, resentful corpse or other creature wants, that is.”

“I don’t think I can do this,” Nie Mingjue murmured.

His expression was as tragic as if he’d been told that Nie Huaisang was going to die in the next few moments and there was nothing that he could do about it. A-Huan made a distressed noise while patting Nie Mingjue’s hand.

“It’s okay,” A-Huan said. “We can do it for you, you know. And other people can do it, I’m sure. Maybe your little brother will learn to do it for you someday. You don’t have to do it all yourself.”

“Exactly,” Wei Zhan agreed, nodding and then smiling at the way A-Huan beamed for the approval. “Not every path is suited for every person. Certainly, take your time. Learn how we do things. There may be tidbits that you can utilize in your own practice. If not, well, you can help others in your sect learn it and support them. There’s truly no rush. You’re young. Your father is strong, and the excessive resentful energy has already been purged from him and his saber. Take your time.”

Nie Mingjue sighed and rolled his eyes to the roof. “Fine. I suppose I can, you know, slow down a little bit on this. I just wanted to make sure my little brother never needed to worry about this.”

“Talismans, then,” Wei Zhan said. “Let me explain how our talismans work. That might be more what you need, anyway.”

He gladly explained the whole thing to Nie Mingjue. No one in Yiling was going to steal his techniques. Not because they were so trustworthy but because everyone knew that Wei Zhan would gladly teach them whatever they wanted to know.

But also because everyone was afraid that Lianmin would rip their hides off, one strip at a time for the disrespect.

It was fine. He had a good twenty years before Wei Ying was a grown man. Teaching the Nie how to save themselves, teaching everyone how to save themselves, was a lovely way to spend his years of waiting.

37. Growing Family

The sun’s first rays sent glints of golden light across the river to Lotus Pier. Wei Changze breathed deep in the chilly winter air, desperately grateful to have escaped from the press of people waiting to hear if A-Niang Renzi had had her baby yet. There was frost on the railing under his hand and a fragile film of ice over the water around the pilings under his feet.

Coldest day of the year. Also the longest, so of course that was the day A-Niang Renzi chose to go into labor. After everything that had happened over the last couple of years, Changze couldn’t even be upset about the timing.

Because both A-Niang Renzi and her being-born baby were alive. So far. There were a million things that could go wrong, of course, even with a perfectly normal pregnancy and childbirth. He’d learned… so many horrible things during the wait for Wei Ying to be born.

But so far it was okay.

Though if he had to say it to one more person he might just start punching people on principle…

“It’s done,” Yu Ziyuan appeared at Changze’s elbow like the assassin she was. “A boy, perfectly healthy. They’ve named him Jiang Bo. All our mothers are attending to her and Hanyu.”

“They’re…?” Changze didn’t even know how to finish the question.

He didn’t have to. Yu Ziyuan’s triumphant smile answered the question for her. Changze sagged against the frosty rail, laughter welling up under the lump in his throat. There was a sheen of tears in Yu Ziyuan’s eyes as she nodded her agreement.

“I should, should tell everyone,” Changze said. “It’s. They’re all in the banquet hall, waiting.”

Yu Ziyuan snorted. “I’ll tell them. They won’t dare to ask too many rude questions of me. You go tell our spouses and children.”

Changze breathed through the urge to pull her into a fierce hug that would absolutely get him stabbed. “Thank you. I’ve been on the verge of punching people all day.”

She just nodded again before striding off and leaving Changze to catch his breath. If he had a few half-frozen tears on his cheeks as he snuck through the back ways to get to their private quarters, well, there’d been plenty of crying and fretting over the last month of A-Niang Renzi’s pregnancy.

“Happy, happy bunnies,” Cangse sang, just audible through the door. “Hoping, hopping around, all happy together, happy, happy bunnies!”

Wei Ying’s delighted giggle mixed with A-Li’s laughter. When he opened the door, Fengmian was sitting on the floor supporting A-Li so that she could hop in time with Cangse’s song. Her hands and legs glowed with a soft violet light, legacy of the golden core she’d already developed and the techniques that Wei Zhan had taught her. Every hop got stronger and more agile, which made Wei Ying clap his hands in delight.

He’d only started sitting up on his own a month ago, a bit early for a normal baby. Not early enough to make anyone question it. Cangse intended to explain any of Wei Ying’s oddities away by saying that it was something she taught him that she’d learned from her master, Baoshan Sanren.

“Bofu!” A-Li exclaimed, eyes bright with excitement. “Has Yima Renzi had her baby yet?”

Both Cangse and Fengmian froze while Wei Ying’s little face was suddenly far too alert and aware for a baby who wasn’t even a year old yet. Changze blew out a breath before striding over to collapse on the couch next to Fengmian.

“We have a brother, A-Mian,” Changze said. “According to Ziyuan, he’s healthy and strong and our parents are all doting on each other and him.”

“Name?” Cangse asked as Fengmian pulled A-Li into his arms to hug her while shaking with relieved tears.

“Jiang Bo,” Changze said. “Didn’t bother asking what the characters are but A-Niang was insisting that it had to be the character for “wave”.”

“Ha!” Cangse said, grinning as she scooped Wei Ying up to press a thousand butterfly kisses all over his face and belly. “Perfect name!”

“Bofu, does that mean that A-Bo will be the new heir?” A-Li asked while cuddling with Fengmian.

“It does,” Changze confirmed. He grinned at the way Fengmian made a strangled noise and then huffed at himself. “Father promised that whatever gender the baby was, if they lived and were strong, they’d be the heir. And honestly, all three of our mothers want more babies so there will be plenty of options for heirs beyond Fengmian and I.”

A-Li thought about that, her little head tilted to the side. “Good. I want a little brother of my own. And maybe a little sister, too.”

“Oh, you can discuss that with your mother.” Fengmian laughed through his tears, grinning at Changze the way he used to before they grew up enough to understand all the plotting and terror the Elders used to keep control of Lotus Pier. “Though I don’t think you’ll have to wait too long for a new sibling.”

“Already?” Changze said.

He laughed at the way Fengmian blushed. So did Cangse who wagged her eyebrows at Changze before thrusting Wei Ying into his arms to take care of. She scampered off to either go cause havoc while everyone was busy or to go see the new baby.

After a moment, A-Li managed to get Fengmian up and moving to follow Cangse towards the new baby, too.

Changze let them go, cuddling Wei Ying who was entirely too serious still. He nuzzled Wei Ying’s downy hair, smiling at the pleased sound Wei Ying made. When Changze pulled back enough that he could meet Wei Ying’s eyes, the expression was anything but a baby’s.

“A boy for Fengmian and Ziyuan?” Changze asked softly enough that no one could possibly overhear.

Wei Ying’s eyes went wide.

Changze grinned. “Ah, my little man. We know you’re so much older than your body. It doesn’t really matter. You just went very still when Fengmian admitted Ziyuan was pregnant again. Was he your brother in the other timeline?”

Wei Ying hesitated for a moment, tears welling up. Then he nodded and sniffled. Changze soothed him, patting his back and rocking Wei Ying in his arms.

“It won’t be the same, A-Ying,” Changze promised. “There’s no way that Father and my mothers survived in your other timeline. No way. They couldn’t have. It was your Wei Zhan who saved them. So this will be a whole new place for you to grow up. You’ll have me and your mother, at least another two or three siblings of your own. Ziyuan’s new baby and A-Bo and however many babies my mothers have together. There’ll be a whole pack of kids running riot over the piers with you. You’ll be Da-ge, you know. The Jiang Da-Ge, Wei Ying.”

Wei Ying raised his head to stare at Changze with wide, shocked eyes. He babbled utter nonsense for a moment before huffing as if infuriated that he couldn’t speak the way he wanted. Then he shoved himself up so that he could sit upright with Changze’s hand supporting his little back.

“Can’t be Da-ge,” Wei Ying signed at Changze in perfect battle sign. Granted, it came out more like “forbidden me general” but the intent was very clear.

“You brilliant little monkey, you,” Changze said, grinning at him. “Of course you will be. You’re literally the oldest male of your generation. A-Li will be oldest, everyone’s Da-Jie. You’ll be Da-ge.”

“No,” Wei Ying signed firmly while pouting his bottom lip out. “Nie Ming-Jue is Da-ge. Always.”

Changze laughed and pressed kisses on Wei Ying’s face until he stopped pouting and started laughing instead. He didn’t protest when Changze wrapped him up in a blanket so that he wouldn’t freeze his little fingers and toes off.

The sun had risen over the mountains when he stepped outside. There were people shouting and singing off in the distance. Firecrackers were already going off as the celebration spread out from Lotus Pier into the town. By the end of the day, everyone was going to be stuffed with food and drunk from celebrating A-Niang Renzi’s successful pregnancy.

His parent’s pavilion was quieter, even with the servants scurrying about, all of them with huge delighted grins on their faces. Yu Ziyuan had beat them there. So had Cangse who was crooning as she rocked A-Bo in her harms.

A-Niang Renzi smiled when Changze came over to press a kiss on her sweaty forehead. She looked utterly drained but so very happy. Decades of effort, blood and loss, but she’d finally had the baby she always wanted.

“Congratulations, A-Niang,” Changze said, keeping Wei Ying close so that he wouldn’t climb right on top of A-Niang.

“Thank you, A-Chan,” A-Niang Renzi said. “Make sure to have your father send someone to thank Wei Zhan for me. For us.”

“For all of us,” Changze agreed while Wei Ying predictably crowed and clapped his hands for the mention of Wei Zhan.

Wei Ying ended up passing from arms to arms giggling in delight at all the love. A-Li did the same thing, though she pretty quickly settled on A-Niang Renzi’s bed to brush her hair out for her. When A-Bo finally ended up in Changze’s arms, Cangse leaned over his shoulder to brush a gentle finger along his little brother’s cheek.

He was as red-faced and smushed as any baby ever was. His eyes didn’t quite focus, and he just lay there in Changze’s arms like an oversized potato, but he was a miracle despite that.

“Hello, little brother,” Changze murmured to A-Bo who just yawned. “I’m so glad to finally meet you. Sorry it took so many attempts for you to get here. We’ve all been looking forward to your arrival.”

“You think he’s the same soul?” Cangse whispered, a little frown marking her forehead.

“No idea,” Changze replied equally quietly. “Stranger things have happened.”

They both looked at Wei Ying who was busy pulling on Father’s braids and giggling in delight at the funny faces he made. His parents pavilion had never been this way before. This open and happy and full of family. There had always been a feeling of stress, fear for the threat lurking just outside the door and under the floorboards.

All of that was gone.

In his wildest dreams, Changze had never imagined that he’d get to experience this: holding his new baby brother, heir to the Lotus Throne, while his mothers clustered around, and his entire family laughed at his own son’s antics.

“Yeah,” Cangse murmured with a fond expression as she leaned in to kiss his cheek. “They really have. We’re gonna have more babies, A-Chang. Just warning you. At least two more. I’m thinking one more single kid and set of twins would be about right. All boys.”

“Oh,” Changze said, laughing despite himself. “I suppose if you’ve decided then that’s exactly what’ll happen.”

He had to pass A-Bo back to A-Niang Renzi. The laughter set A-Bo to wailing so it was time for his feeding. Which meant that everyone else needed food, which led to Father leading him and Fengmian, both their wives and their kids, plus Mama Yitian and Mama Yixian out to the banquet hall where they could receive everyone’s congratulations.

Changze held Wei Ying in his arms, occasionally kissing his little cheek. Usually when the giggles died down into the grumpy little mumbles of an over-tired baby. A-Li was already asleep in Yu Ziyuan’s arms, lax and trusting with one hand clenched on Yu Ziyuan’s collar. Fengmian had an arm around her back. He hadn’t stopped smiling since the news of A-Bo’s survival came.

There was a certain roundness to Yu Ziyuan’s belly that suggested that she was going to have that new baby sooner than expected. For that matter, Mama Yitian kept rubbing her belly in a decidedly proprietary way while Mama Yixian would nudge Father every few congratulations as if she expected to be getting a baby of her own soon.

Changze chuckled.

“What?” Cangse asked, grinning in anticipation of whatever the joke was.

“Our little Da-ge,” Changze said.

Wei Ying squawked and waved his tiny fists while scowling thunderously at them both.

“No!” Wei Ying signed. “Not Da-ge!”

“Always Da-Ge,” Changze said. “You’re going to be general of the Jiang horde.”

“Flock?” Cangse said as her grin widened, and she bounced on her toes. “School? No, no, with this family, it’s gotta be a horde. I mean, me, at least three more kids. Renzi wants two or three more. Yitian claimed she wants six. Yixian was saying four was perfect. Ziyuan wants two more. That’s a horde, all right.”

“No!” Wei Ying signed and wailed, the sound almost comprehensible. “Not Da-ge!”

Changze laughed and cuddled his son though the horror of realizing that he was going to have a whole pack of little brothers, sisters and cousins to love and play with and help teach to be impossible amazing cultivators.

He couldn’t wait. It was going to be amazing watching his Wei Ying grow up into the man that Wei Zhan had fallen in love with. Even better, Changze already knew just how worthy Wei Zhan was for his Wei Ying.

The years to come looked so very bright as the sun set on the first day of the rest of their lives.

#

 

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