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Wei Wuxian drank because he hated himself and he hated himself because he drank. It was a vicious cycle. Of course he also hated himself because he couldn't figure out how to be part of this new version of the Jiang Sect that Jiang Cheng was building. And also because he hated so much of what he had done in the war, even thought it had been necessary. And also because he hurt constantly. He used resentful energy to compensate for how much he hurt, but using resentful energy also hurt, and one more person telling him that “resentful energy hurts you, body and soul” was going to get their head bit off because it wasn’t like he didn’t know that. So really less a vicious circle and more a vicious net that was pulling him down and he didn’t want to drown this way and he didn’t know how to not.
Jiang Cheng yelled at him to do the work of a proper first disciple and Wei Wuxian didn't know how to say that he couldn't. He just couldn't. Some of it was physical and some of it was mental, and after a life of attempting the impossible and succeeding, he didn't know how to say that he'd found his limit. And so he drank. While everyone else worked, he found the wine seller who catered to all the other broken men who couldn't do anything else and he drank.
Shijie didn’t yell at him, but she looked at him with soft mournful eyes and that might even be worse than the yelling. She was working so hard, every day, to keep the Jiang Sect running, the young mistress of the Jiang when she should have been the young madam of the Jin, and he had been part of taking that away from her. He didn’t want her gone, but he also wished she weren’t here to see him drown on dry land. So he stayed as much out of her sight as he could manage, and he could manage that at least.
It was another fight, and he had a headache, and he told Jiang Cheng to “respect your elders. Don't shout so loud.” He wasn't the only one in the bar too early, nursing a hangover.
"Respect my elders? Maybe I should just declare you an Elder then!" Jiang Cheng shouted and it hit Wei Wuxian like a bucket of water to wake him up. It was a revelation. An Elder wasn’t just an older person, it was an official status in a sect. One who was too old to perform the duties of a regular cultivator, but whose knowledge and experience still earned them authority and respect.
"Yes," he said. "Yes, you should." Because that solved everything.
Jiang Cheng didn't understand and just shouted, "then I will!" before storming off.
But Wei Wuxian felt dazed, like that one day in the Burial Mounds when he'd realized that he could escape, that there was a chance to get out of this hell he'd found himself in, that he had something to focus on achieving rather than the endless losing battle for survival.
For the first time in months, he left the wine shop still sober, and without carrying any jars.
He went searching for a good walking stick. Something thick and sturdy that could support his weight and also be a realistic threat for a beating. Elders often used walking sticks, and with walking sticks they weren't expected to also carry swords. Anyone who called out an elder for not carrying a sword risked getting beaten by their walking stick for being disrespectful.
Once he had a walking stick, well, he could use it. When his legs hurt and he was tired and he didn't want to pretend to be fine anymore... now he had a walking stick and he didn't have to anymore. Plenty of elders sometimes limped or held an arm poorly or curved their back in a way that spoke of age and injury, but you couldn't point that out because that would be rude to an elder.
And Wei Wuxian could be an elder.
He couldn’t be a first disciple anymore. He didn’t have the golden core of a proper cultivator. But more than that he didn’t have the focus to look at students and train them to replace the last batch of students who had all been slaughtered because he hadn’t been good enough.
It took some searching, but he found his walking stick that very day and then he practiced walking with it. To get the aesthetic right, he imagined telling someone. To figure out what actually helped, he couldn't quite admit even to himself yet. But he was a genius at physical movement as well as talismans and at resentful energy and at research and at invention. He understood how to use his body just so. He had been a master swordsman by fourteen, and had danced through bloody battles at eighteen without being touched. At twenty, he could learn the new constraints of his body when he didn't need to hide. He could learn how to listen to the twinges and aches and sharp pains rather than ignoring them.
It was a new kind of challenge but it was something he knew how to attempt. And he'd still be able to beat any of the new whippersnappers who were the current set of disciples.
The next day, he made sure to dress the part. An old fashioned training robe that one of the Elders from his time as a student had worn, still stored away in the laundry storage rooms, which had survived the massacre when the Elder himself had not. The robes included extra layers for padding and warmth that felt so good and comfortable to him too. Then he went out to the training yard where he never went despite all of Jiang Cheng’s commands and pleas, and started training the new disciples the way an Elder trained disciples, not the way a first disciple did. He watched and gave critique and told the best of them to lead the others and when he needed to show an example he did so with his walking stick.
About half of them were older than him, some of them old enough to be his father, but he was the one with the old-fashioned robes and the walking stick and cultivation affected the appearance of age anyway. They knew who he was, of course. They knew he was Jiang Cheng’s brother, was considered Shijie’s little brother. But they were all so new—so new to Lotus Pier, so new to being disciples of a great sect, so new to living in peace, or at least not living day-to-day with pitched battles—that they didn’t have the experience to know when something was truly unusual. And whatever else Wei Wuxian was, he was still more knowledgeable and experienced than they were.
At the midday meal he started telling them stories that started with "Back in my day," and it felt so good. Good to acknowledge that time from before the Wen came. Good to acknowledge that that time was in the past, never to be truly recreated, but also never to be forgotten.
Jiang Cheng came in at one point, took one look at him with his old-person robes and his walking stick and walked right out again. But he hadn't shouted at him. Hadn't yelled at him to do something useful. Because for the first time in days, weeks, possibly months by now, Wei Wuxian was doing something useful.
That whole day he worked with the disciples on their martial training and was still there to join Jiang Cheng and Shijie for dinner.
"I wasn't actually going to make you an elder, you know," Jiang Cheng said. Wei Wuxian understood. They had always rolled their eyes at the elders of the sect before, although not where any of those elders could see, of course. The elders always seemed so out of touch with the world around them and slow and boring. Wei Wuxian vaguely wondered if he owed them an apology but brushed the thought away: of all the apologies he owed to the many dead of Lotus Pier, that would surely be a minor one.
"No take backs," he said instead. "And don't argue with your elders!"
"Father was always arguing with the elders."
As far as Wei Wuxian could tell, every sect leader argued with the elders of their sect, at least when they thought outsiders couldn’t see. It might be the whole point of having elders really, having people who would argue with the sect leader. “It’s good for you.”
Jiang Cheng snorted. “Well, if you want to be an elder, then you have to deal with the library.”
The Lotus Pier library hadn’t been burned like the Cloud Recesses library had been, but it had been ransacked and neglected. “I will see it done!” He saluted his sect leader and he felt so good accepting an order for something he could do. He had known that library backwards and forwards. He could figure out how to fix it and expand it. He’d add everything he had come up with himself and even some of the knowledge he had gleaned from those frantic days of searching through Wen Qing’s library. His mind already started to work on figuring out where he might be able to get copies of some of those books as well.
Jiang Cheng also looked so relieved to have given him an order and have him accept it. His stomach twisted with guilt. His brother and his sect leader shouldn’t have to doubt his loyalty and obedience like that. “I can take on talisman classes for the disciples as well.”
That was another type of class that elders often taught. Sitting down in the library, focused on copying and lecturing about theory and history, they were important lessons but they didn’t require any more spiritual energy than an elder could spare, which meant that Wei Wuxian should be just fine. He’d be able to do any demonstrations using what spiritual energy any living person always had, without needing any of the sustained use of spiritual energy that required a golden core, that prevented him from even drawing his own spiritual blade from its scabbard.
Jiang Cheng looked so surprised and pleased that it made the twist of guilt worse rather than better. “I could even take on music lessons if you wanted?” He grinned as he offered.
Jiang Cheng’s grimace was exactly what Wei Wuxian had been going for, as was his immediate “Absolutely not! I’d teach music myself before I let you near them with your caterwauling.”
Jiang Cheng had hired a non-cultivator to teach disciples the basics of music, since Lotus Pier had never been particularly focused on music cultivation anyway, even if it was a required part of a well-rounded education. But the argument was back on familiar ground. Wei Wuxian might be a brilliant researcher who had developed a new mode of musical cultivation with resentful energy, but that didn’t mean his music was appealing. It did the job, but it was really only corpses who wanted to listen to his playing. Or maybe only corpses that couldn’t manage to voice their complaints about having to listen to him.
“I’ll stick to the library then and talismans, then.”
“You do that.”
Even if Wei Wuxian could see the questions in Jiang Cheng’s eyes about why he was acting the way he was, why he had refused so many orders before to take up the role of a first disciple again but obeyed them now to act as an elder, at least he didn’t ask those questions. He didn’t ask so Wei Wuxian didn’t have to lie.
Instead, he did the work that an elder should do. He taught the disciples talismans. He took pride in teaching them talismans that no one had ever seen before, and teaching them not just how to use those talismans but also how to read them, so that even if they saw talismans they didn’t recognize, they’d know what those talismans did. He had killed hundreds of Wen by simply reversing their own protection talismans and none of them had known what he’d done. He made sure the disciples of Lotus Pier would never be caught in such a trap.
He took charge of the library. He worked with merchants and book dealers and scholars and even worked with a scribe to get his own notes into something legible for people other than himself and his siblings to read. The massacre of Lotus Pier had destroyed not just people but all their accumulated knowledge as well, but Wei Wuxian worked hard to fill in that massive void. It would have been horrifically expensive if he couldn’t trade his own unique knowledge in exchange.
He hadn’t planned to be a scholar, but it was the bartering tool that worked for the people he was trading with. He even somehow developed a correspondence with Teacher Lan Qiren, who was doing similar work for the Lan Sect library. Both the Lan and the Jiang sects had more rebuilding expenses than they could afford, but they could trade copies of books. Lan Qiren even wanted copies of Wei Wuxian’s own notes on demonic cultivation if only to ensure that their Lan researchers would be able to develop a defense against such wicked tricks. The Nie and Jin also wanted copies, but Wei Wuxian didn’t believe them nearly as much regarding their reasons and, after consulting with Jiang Cheng, traded more censored versions to them than he had to the Lan.
He didn’t take on any of the first disciple duties. That went to Zhou Haoyu, a disciple who had followed Jiang Cheng for most of the war and had more than earned the position, even if he wasn’t as good at it as Wei Wuxian would have been. Wei Wuxian did attend the trainings regularly and provided critique and assistance as an elder should, and also worked directly with Zhou Haoyu to make him a better replacement.
Life carried on and Wei Wuxian stopped drinking almost entirely and got busy enough with the work he could do to be too busy to hate himself quite so much.
He had his cane and his old-fashioned padded robes, and having a high pain tolerance was slowly becoming less necessary. When he felt too creaky to move, he sat in the library where he didn’t have to move. When his gut felt empty and cold, he wrapped another layer around himself and sent a servant to get him something hot to drink. When he knees threatened to give out, he shifted his weight to his walking stick. And absolutely none of that meant that he couldn’t help the Jiang Sect flourish.
Jiang Cheng had even commented that having him in the meeting hall while doing his own negotiating with merchants helped because it showed that even as a young sect leader he had the wisdom of an elder advisor to help him. So many people had died and the war had been so traumatizing that even the rumors had started to change.
The rumors of Wei Wuxian having been Jiang Fengmian’s bastard child drifted away like old flotsam to be replaced by reminders that his mother had been an immortal’s disciple. He had always been older than Jiang Cheng but now he was an elder so he must have been much older. It made so much more sense that the Yin Tiger Seal was a secret tool of an elder who brought it out only in the most dire of circumstances. It couldn’t possible have been some young man's new creation. The war was over and such a monstrous tool was once more hidden away, back in the secret hidden treasury of Lotus Pier where it had obviously been hidden for generations, possibly since the last time the Yin Iron had been used.
Life was getting better.
The Jiang Sect was getting better.
It was Jin Zixuan, the asshole, who came to invite the Jiang Sect to the Jin’s Phoenix hunt, who was the one who first looked at Wei Wuxian with confused concern and asked Jiang Cheng, "Is he really...? Lan Wangji always said his cultivation was hurting him. Did it really hurt him so badly?"
Jiang Cheng and Shijie were so used to Wei Wuxian’s play-acting that they hadn't thought to question this latest choice of aesthetic. It had been months since Jiang Cheng had yelled that he’d just declare Wei Wuxian to be an elder, and Wei Wuxian had seen his path forward, his new way to achieve the impossible. They were all so busy that they hardly saw each other except at dinner, and Wei Wuxian was always interested in what they were doing and always had things to report back regarding what he had been doing.
Everything made sense and it worked for all of them right up until Jin Zixuan came and asked, “Is it really true?” And Wei Wuxian could see Jiang Cheng and Shijie consider it for the first time and realize how likely it was.
Wei Wuxian thought about running away to go get drunk rather than see their faces. He also considered throwing away his cane and trying to bounce into the room as he might once have done, declaring that he was just fine and it had all been one of his jokes. He would need to summon resentful energy to help him if he tried that and he hadn't heard those angry whispers in weeks.
He stomped into the room with his walking stick and interrupted. "What a rude generation this is to gossip about their elders. What are you doing here Young Master Jin?"
He couldn’t meet Jiang Cheng’s eyes or Shijie’s either, but he didn’t have to, if Jin Zixuan was there to harass and he didn’t owe Jin Zixuan anything.
Eventually Jin Zixuan left, which was for the best, but they’d agreed to all attend the Phoenix hunt.
They would be a small delegation, especially to represent one of the Great Sects, but Wei Wuxian assured Jiang Cheng that by the time the hunt took place, he would ensure that Zhou Hoayu was ready to properly represent them, and several of the disciples were coming along nicely with their talisman abilities. They wouldn’t be winning any sword fights, not against adult disciples trained since they were children, but they wouldn’t embarrass Jiang Cheng.
Jiang Cheng let him deflect the discussion but pointedly noted that an elder should have his own personal attendants. He would be assigned two disciples with golden cores strong enough already to at least train to carry a second person on a sword. They’d be able to alternate on longer trips.
Wei Wuxian couldn’t argue against that. He looked away instead, tacitly acknowledging that he could no longer fly himself but unable to look at Jiang Cheng when he admitted it. Jiang Cheng stormed out. The next day, Wei Wuxian had personal attendants to do whatever he told them to do, to stand in for the cultivation abilities he no longer had.
Having two disciples at his direct command took more getting used to than using his walking stick had, but it was a similar process of figuring out how to incorporate them into his plans and methods. Managing them was more similar to managing ghost brides than anyone appreciated hearing, but he practiced moving with them, in a battle scenario or in a market scenario, while sitting quietly or making an entrance. They were part of his presentation and part of his abilities now.
“You know,” he told Jiang Cheng, “it’s like demonic cultivation except that the people are still alive and uncorrupted with resentful energy.”
“Please don’t say things like that.”
“And they’re less responsive to my flute but more capable of independent action. Non-destructive independent action, at least.”
“Please,” Jiang Cheng repeated, “I’m begging you: do not tell people that having disciples is like demonic cultivation.”
He was opening his mouth to explain in more detail about the similarities when Jiang Yanli interrupted. “Do not tease your brother. I’m glad you’re doing well with Wang Xinbao and Zhang Jiahao.”
“I suppose they’re not terrible,” Wei Wuxian admitted, begrudgingly.
They weren’t terrible. They were especially not terrible when he discovered Wen Qing outside gates of Koi Tower trying to track down Wen Ning, and he abruptly needed to be multiple places at once. It would have been easier if she had agreed to just go to Lotus Pier and wait for him there, but at least he was able to convince her to let Wang Xinbao get her fed and then clothed in Jiang robes before catching up to him after Wei Wuxian had a chance to figure out where Wen Ning was being held. The end of the war had not been kind to Wen Qing, and hopefully no one would recognize her thinner face if she was out of context in purple instead of red.
So next he had to figure out how to get that information when he was no longer in a position to simply threaten to kill everyone if they didn’t tell him. He liked being an elder: it was less painful and surprisingly more productive than being a terrifying war hero had been. But there were still unfortunate trade-offs.
The power of an elder came from knowledge, experience, and the wisdom that came with those. Despite only being twenty, Wei Wuxian had the knowledge and more experience than anyone should have, with more trauma than most cultivators survived. And maybe it was still in the process of transforming into wisdom, but he was learning how to delegate.
Which was why, when he arrived at the banquet and saw Lan Zhan being harassed he didn't go over there himself. Instead he turned to Zhang Jiahao and, speaking as loudly and crankily as any elder of a century or more, said, "Go over and rescue Second Master Lan from that Jin boy. In my day, we knew how to treat guests to make them feel welcome, rather than harassed."
It felt like every elder in the hall, most of them Jin elders, since they were in Koi tower, perked up at those words. There was a low rumble of agreements: in their day, they had been much more respectful than the youth of today were. That Jin boy really was being disrespectful.
That Jin boy was furious and red-faced with embarrassment, especially when Lan Zhan ignored him entirely to come directly to Wei Wuxian’s side. He looked young and beautiful and still very much a young master while Wei Wuxian was in the heavy padded robes of a respected elder with a walking stick and an attendant.
"Wei Ying?"
Wei Wuxian snorted like he'd heard many an elder do when faced with a too innocent youth. "Everyone knows resentful energy causes harm. But I could hardly focus on my health while we were fighting a war."
Lan Zhan looked devastated. Like maybe he was finally acknowledging how useless his pleas had been during the war. Good. Sect Leader Nie, interesting, nodded his understanding and agreement. He even seemed to be considering something. Wei Wuxian wondered if maybe Nie Mingjue, with all his reputation as the great Red Blade Master, might be hiding weaknesses of his own as Wei Wuxian had done before he'd discovered the benefits of officially being an elder.
"Anyway, I've heard disturbing things about what the Jin sect is up to with their Wen prisoners and since I don't want to go to war again I thought I'd go see for myself. Where is this prison camp you keep, Sect Leader Jin?"
"Oh there are always rumors around the Great Sects,” Sect leader Jin waved off all concerns with condescending dismissal. “We can deal with them more comfortably after the banquet."
"I'm sure I'll be able to enjoy the food and dancing so much better after my mind has been relieved. Why don't you lend me some disciples to escort me and my attendants to check it out and then come back to report. No need to bother yourself at all."
Once you started delegating, the more the merrier really. And if it wasn’t a big deal, then he should have no reason to delay.
“I will go too,” Lan Zhan announced, which make Zewu-Jun wince, but once Lan Zhan had said something he never backed down and everyone knew it. Wei Wuxian wasn’t entirely sure how intentional it was on Lan Zhan’s part, but his statement immediately shifted the conversation from whether or not the Jin would tell Wei Wuxian where the prisoners were to a discussion of who would go there. Jin Guangshan could still refuse to say anything, but it would be a massive loss of face and an admission that he was keeping secrets.
Soon enough disciples from nine different sects were all flying along with Wei Wuxian and his now three attendants making their way to Qiongqi Path. The four Great Sects, of course, but also three others with Sect Leaders hoping to make the jump to acknowledged Great Sect, and two more that just had enough disciples with them that they could afford to send some for their own curiosity..
He was fairly sure that some of the Jin disciples were supporters of Madam Jin in the fraught court politics of Koi tower, who would defend the Jin reputation to the death but would be more than happy to publically embarrass Jin Guangyao if they could connect him to dishonorable behaviors. He was even more sure that Luo Qingyang—he had to remind himself that it was inappropriate for an elder to call an unrelated young female disciple by a personal nickname, but it was a struggle to not think of her as Mianmian—was Jin Zixuan’s representative, with goals separate from either of his parents. Wei Wuxian still didn’t think Jin Zixuan was good enough for his Shijie but she liked him and he was definitely trying to be better.
And then they arrived at Qiongqi Path. Wei Wuxian hadn’t intentionally gathered resentful energy in months. But was still a part of him. It was still his to call, and it was dense in the air, a hundred wrongful deaths and unburied bodies, the ghosts all screaming at him for justice.
He didn’t carry a sword, but still carried Chenqing and it would be so very easy to take this morass of rage and use it. Instead, he gripped his walking stick with white knuckles.
And then, “Wei-gonzi?”
It was Wen Ning. He was visibly bruising in a way that spoke of a severe beating just moments before, but he was well enough to call out, and the guards gripping his arms were worried enough by so many observers that they didn’t continue to drag him away.
Wie Wuxian was relieved to notice that Wang Xinbao had kept an iron grip on Wen Qing, whispering in her ear and making sure she stayed still and didn’t draw attention to herself. Wen Ning was found and he was still alive, but now they needed to keep it that way.
There was shouting, but there wasn’t any fighting. The delegation of disciples numbered nearly as many as the Jin guards on this travesty of a prison camp and these disciples were the trained elite that sect leaders trusted to represent their sects at a major conference. They were vastly more skilled than any disciples assigned to guard duty at a work site, and everyone knew it. If this became a fight, it was a foregone conclusion who would win.
Less than a hundred prisoners were left alive, but at least Wen Ning was among them. When the storm clouds rolled in, threatening to drown them all in mud, Wei Wuxian gave the command that they would take the horses and carts of the guards and transport everyone – guards and prisoners both – back to Koi tower for the convened sect leaders to sort out. The disciples who had come with would need to sort themselves out as to who stayed with the carts to make their slow way to Koi tower and who flew ahead to report back. “I’m staying with the carts. I’m too old to fly through the rain anymore, but my attendant Wang Xinbao will report to Sect Leader Jiang immediately.”
Luo Qingyang looked torn between staying to supervise and returning to Jin Zixuan immediately, but Wei Wuxian assured her, “I can keep things under control here on the trip, but if that peacock is going to have a hope of fixing his father’s mess, the sooner he knows the better.”
It surprised even himself that he trusted Jin Zixuan to not be part of the problem. Jin Zixuan wasn’t good enough to Jiang Yanli, but he wasn’t such a monster as this. And if he wanted his shijie to be happy, Wei Wuxian needed to support Jin Zixuan.
Luo Qingyang did some consultation with the other Jin disciples and they divided into the group that would fly ahead and the group with that would follow more slowly. Luo Qingyang would be among the fliers and also offered to take two of the Jin guards back with them to report directly sooner rather than later. Wei Wuxian accepted the offer even if he wasn’t quite sure why his input was requested at all. Of anyone here, Luo Qingyang had to know that he wasn’t actually her elder, and yet, she was treating him with just as much respect as anyone who was might seriously think he was as aged as he presented himself to be.
Meanwhile Lan Zhan was never more than ten steps away from him and had made no move to leave with the Lan disciples chosen to fly back to give Zewu-Jun a first report. Wei Wuxian wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, since Lan Zhan was certainly faster than anyone else, but decided that it wasn’t his problem right now. Anyway, Zhang Jiahao had apparently decided that it was his duty to stand between Wei Wuxian and Lan Zhan whenever possible.
Rather than consider Lan Zhan, Wei Wuxian made sure that Wen Ning was as comfortable as possible and Wen Qing able to treat his injuries while Wei Wuxian settled in to rest. It had been a long day and he was tired and the screams of the resentful ghosts still echoes in his mind. “Someone will need to go back to cleanse Qiongqi Path later, before the resentful energy has time to soak in too deeply.”
“I will do so,” Lan Zhan said, from the other side of Zhang Jiahao.
“Hanguang-Jun is so good.” Wei Wuxian really wished he could offer to go with, to night hunt together, but that wasn’t possible anymore.
The journey took three day. Luckily Lan Zhan started arranging food for everyone without any prompting. It was mostly bland congee twice a day, but it was better than a group this large trying to use only inedia to survive, especially since few of the Wen remnants even had the golden cores that would make that possible. That discovery had lead to another round of shouting that actually had Wei Wuxian pulling Chenqing. He didn’t summon any resentful energy, but the threat of it made the fight pause, and then he started playing common drinking songs that pretty much everyone could sing along to. Lan Zhan looked disapproving, but didn’t say anything, and it kept everyone at least somewhat distracted from fighting.
He might not be a great musician but he was good enough for this. There would be plenty of time for fighting and yelling once they were back at Koi tower.
In the evenings, after everyone had eaten, and they were bedding down, Lan Zhan summoned his guqin and played beautiful yearning songs that calmed them all before sleep, even as they traveled towards an unknown future with enemies as companions.
Lan Zhan’s music was so beautiful. Wei Wuxian missed his zhiji so much, even when he was right there next to him. They were together here and now, but it couldn’t continue. Lan Zhan was a young man on a path towards immortality, and Wei Wuxian was an elder with creaking joints and little more spiritual energy than any ordinary person who had never cultivated a day in their life. It was painful to miss someone while still in their presence. Wei Wuxian spent most of his days with Granny Wen and young A-Yuan, discussing what would happen when they reached Koi tower.
Their arrival at Koi tower was as chaotic as their arrival at Qiongqi Path had been. Just as much yelling and ten times as many people. Fewer threats of immediate violence though, and significantly better weather.
After the initial introductions were done, Wei Wuxian tottered his way over to Jiang Cheng and sunk down, with performative exhaustion. “I’m too old for this.”
It was a joke. It was also true. Jiang Cheng’s glare held a bit too much consideration for Wei Wuxian’s comfort: like maybe he could see past the humor to the honesty. He didn’t like that at all.
The yelling continued but at least now they were all inside and the Jin guards and the Wen remnants and all the witnesses who wanted to give their testimonies, and no one trusted anyone to go out of sight, so it was an extremely crowded hall with ever more disciples being summoned to support their sect leaders so that they couldn’t be outnumbered by the others. Unfortunately, the Jiang Sect was still too small to properly compete with the other Great Sects or even with many of the lesser sects. But, “how many extra disciple robes, do we have with us right now?” he murmured to Jiang Cheng, his words easily masked by the general roar of discussion.
“What are you planning?” Jiang Cheng sounded suspicious but also like he wouldn’t really mind some of Wei Wuxian’s mischief.
He kept his voice down as he answered. “The Wen remnants are mostly the Dafan branch. They’re mostly artisans and healers. Granny over there was one of Wen Qing’s teachers. There’s an uncle who’s a brewer, another two are woodworkers.”
“Where are you going with this?” They both knew that Lotus Pier was woefully low on craftspeople. It hadn’t just been cultivators who’d died in the massacre.
“What if we just quietly put them in Jiang robes? Would anyone even notice?”
Jiang Cheng looked at him like he was insane. “Yes. People would absolutely notice.”
“But would any of the people who noticed be the type of people who could, or would, point it out and be believed?”
“My mother was right. You are going to get me in so much trouble.”
“So, was that a yes?”
Jiang Cheng pushed himself up, “Do whatever. I’m going to go yell at someone else.” Before he left though, he turned around, “Every disciple here should have a spare set of robes. And Jin Guangshan is always bragging that anything can be found at their markets.” Then he stomped off, apparently to go talk to Jin Zixuan actually rather than yell at anyone. Although, who knows, maybe he was going to yell at Jin Zixuan? But not with Jiang Yanli right there next to him with Madam Jin acting the overly permissive chaperone. Well, that was something to consider on a different day.
Jiang Cheng had definitely given permission, and was giving himself plausible deniability as well. Perfect. Wei Wuxian grinned over at Granny and made a small summoning gesture for her to bring him A-Yuan.
While the debate raged about what to do with the Wen remnants, Wei Wuxian dandled the toddler A-Yuan on his lap. Zhang Jiahao and Wang Xinbao alternated staying by his side, and going off on various tasks he set them.
Over the course of the week of discussion, the Wen remnants group got smaller and the Jiang servants got more numerous. Wei Wuxian now had "a child of his old age" despite being too young to have a child rather than too old. The old nurse that assisted with A-Yuan’s care had helped even with his birth so was also obviously a Jiang. And the nurse’s brother was there too, partly to care for his elder sister and partly to discuss wine production with the Jin servants because Elder Wei had opinions about wine and was eccentric enough to bring a servant for that.
The debate raged among the sect leaders about the dangerous Wen remnants that were a potential army. The rhetoric got ever more grand, and the remnants got ever more bedraggled, until finally even Nie Mingjue was looking bemused at the level of vitriol cast towards less than thirty bedraggled civilians and one extremely humble cultivator with visible bruises and a stutter, who assured everyone that he never wanted to fight anyone.
Those last Wen remnants, fewer than half of the people collected from Qiongqi Path, were the ones who looked most visibly Wen or who had refused to give up their names, even temporarily, to join the Jiang. They and Wen Ning, who was the face of the Wen remnants, the one with the closest blood tie and the only one with a golden core.
Periodically, Nie Huaisang would come by the Jiang delegation, generally looking fit to burst with giggles. “Uncle Wei! This is the best discussion conference I have ever been to. I’m honored that you’d put on a play of this magnitude for my enjoyment!”
“Entirely for you, young A-Sang. You and A-Yuan are too young for such boring events.”
“Don’t you encourage him. Either of you. Both of you!” Jiang Cheng glared at them both.
“I would never!” Nie Huaisang said, “I’d like learn at Teacher Wei’s feet. Let me kneel to you!”
“No,” Jiang Cheng jumped in before Wei Wuxian had a chance to respond to that bit of shamelessness. “Go back to your brother before he comes over here too.”
Nie Huaisang left laughing.
Jin Guangyao was not laughing. He was clearly just as aware of what was happening, but it was such a ridiculous series of events that there was no way for him describe it to the arguing sect leaders without sounding ridiculous himself. And who was he, an only recently legitimized but still disrespected younger son to accuse a sect leader like Sandu Sengshou of such behavior. So Jin Guangyao watched as the Wen remnants diminish day by day and the Jiang servants increased, and the process was not subtle, but it was also not important to the eyes of the people in power and so it didn’t matter. The fact that the same unacknowledged erosion was happening with the Jin guards didn’t seem to make him any happier either.
His eyes just got tighter every day and his smile faker.
Wei Wuxian felt more than a little sympathy, but also curious.
“He’s doing it too, right?” he asked Nie Hauisang. “That’s not Jin Guangshan’s style – he’d just make them all vanish at once and declare it an internal matter.” This was not a guess: Jin Guangshan tried to do that regularly and had to be just as regularly reminded that the Sunshot campaign and its results were not an internal matter to the Jin Sect. “And Jin Zixuan wants to hang them all.”
Wei Wuxian’s understanding was that Jin Zixuan thought it would be a lesson to the other disciples that if they couldn’t have honor for the sake of honor, they’d damn well better have it for self preservation. Jin Zixuan did not like being embarrassed, especially when he was trying to court a woman who already had plenty of reasons to think poorly of him. Jiang Yanli was prepared to forgive and forget his past behavior. Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian were still deciding whether forgiveness was available but had made it clear that forgetfulness was not.
Nie Huaisang laughed and waved his fan lightly. “Oh yes, A-Yao’s absolutely doing it too. It’s not very subtle and I think he’s offended that it’s working.”
“Isn’t he your friend? He looks like he’s going to have a stroke.”
Nie Huaisang sighed. “He is my friend, but he’s always so serious. I’ve told him so many times that he needs to relax more, but.” He shook his head. “I still don’t know what happened between him and my brother. They both take things so seriously! They both tell me to be more serious and don’t listen when I tell them to be less. You’d think they would get along better.”
“No,” Wei Wuxian shook his own head, “that makes sense. When you take everything seriously, then any conflict or disagreement is also taken seriously.”
“Ah,” Nie Huaisang said, apparently getting more from his words than Wei Wuxian had intended. “Is Lan Wangji still angry at you?”
“Always,” he laughed. It really did seem like always, except that maybe there had been times between when he was angry at Wei Wuxian pestering him and angry at Wei Wuxian doing demonic cultivation, that they had gotten along. He had once thought that Lan Zhan was his zhiji but had given up that dream when he had demanded that his golden core be taken out and given to Jiang Cheng. Now that Wei Wuxian had given up on both – pestering and demonic cultivation – Lan Zhan shouldn’t be angry at him anymore. But he was still constantly staring at him, mostly from across the hall since Zhang Jiahao kept blocking him from glaring up close. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
Lan Zhan stared at him with his golden eyes, not saying anything but also not looking away. It was hard for Wei Wuxian to look away, even though he knew he had to.
“It’s funny that all of the sect heirs know and none of the sect leaders care.”
“Are you talking about the Wen or about me?” Because as ridiculous as the eroding Wen situation was, the ability to just declare himself an elder at twenty seemed even more so. And all the sect heirs at least knew him from Cloud Recesses when he’d been fifteen, five years ago.
“Both. Definitely both, Uncle Wei.” Nie Huaisang flitted off again with a giggle.
Meanwhile Wen Qing has taken the lay of the land and figured out how Wei Wuxian was hustling the whole cultivation world and takes ruthless advantage of it. She’s checking his pulse every time he turns around it seems like, and half his drinks at this point were medicinal teas while the other half were regular teas and almost none of them were the good alcohol that the Jin were distributing in the vain attempt to get people into a good humor. He had not expected to ever miss the time when she was overwhelmed with worry about Wen Ning but now that her little brother was found and she’d been able to confirm that he would recover, she had latched on to him as the most fragile patient around and wouldn’t leave him be.
“I survived the entirety of the Sunshot Campaign like this, you know.”
“Yes, I understand that the Jiang Sect motto is to attempt the impossible and your survival shows that.”
“It’s not that bad.” He did not like the look in Jiang Cheng’s eye, because Wen Qing had not been quiet about that.
“Which of us is the doctor here?”
“It’s my body, I know it best.”
“Do I need to ask your Sect Leader to order you to take better care?”
The abrupt laugh came from Lan Qiren of all people, who was approaching with Lan Zhan behind his shoulder staring at Wei Wuxian with even more than his usual anger. “This is a conversation that comes to all elders in their time.”
“Teacher Lan…” Wei Wuxian couldn’t help but whine a little bit, but also couldn’t go any further because Lan Qiren knew how old Wei Wuxian really was. He was one of the few members of the older generation who still lived and had met Wei Wuxian as an adolescent and he knew exactly how much Wei Wuxian was not an actual elder. Not really. No matter how many aches and pains he might have, he was still too young to be an elder.
As if he could read minds, Lan Qiren said, “In my experience, most people think they’re too young to really be an elder when they first become an elder.” Then he turned to Wen Qing who he absolutely recognized despite her changed appearance and purple robes. “Doctor.”
“Teacher.” She looked wary but not fearful.
“You and your brother were not part of Wen Ruohan’s attack on Cloud Recesses.” It sounded like a statement rather than a question.
“No, we were not. My brother is entirely innocent but I had been sent as a spy.”
“I expected as much.”
“Are you going to reveal me to the everyone here?”
“Wei Wuxian, who has killed more Wen than any other single person in the Sunshot Campaign, has not killed you. Has instead, decided to protect you and yours.”
“He thinks he owes me.”
“Does he?”
“Yes!” Wei Wuxian interjected, overriding Wen Qing’s “No.”
“You hid us. You saved Jiang Cheng.”
“I didn’t save you.”
“Hmm,” Lan Qiren said, stroking his beard. It really was an awful beard and Wei Wuxian could imagine why his mother would have wanted to shave it off. But for the first time, Wei Wuxian could also imagine why Lan Qiren kept it. Lan Qiren couldn’t have been that old when he found himself acting sect leader of the Lan Sect with two young nephews. He had probably looked more like their older brother than their uncle at that point. Wei Wuxian wondered if he should try to cultivate a beard too, except he was absolutely sure that Jiang Cheng would mock him endlessly if he did.
“What exactly is Wei Wuxian’s condition? I have examined the treatise he wrote and while his method is both dangerous and unorthodox, it should not have had the results it appears to have had.”
“I will not be telling anyone about the process or circumstances of my developing my method,” Wei Wuxian interrupted again.
“You asked me before why such things shouldn’t be explored more fully.” Lan Qiren referenced that long ago day when Wei Wuxian had spoken out of turn in his classroom and been thrown out for it.
“And you told me that there were some things no one should explore.”
“And have you learned that lesson?”
“I was a poor student, but the world is a harsh teacher.”
“Very well.” Lan Qiren seemed satisfied before turning to leave again. “Come, Wangji.”
“Uncle…”
“There will be time later.” Lan Qiren spoke cryptically as far as Wei Wuxian was concerned, but Lan Zhan must have understood, because he turned away from glaring at Wei Wuxian to follow his uncle back to the rest of the Lan delegation.
Wei Wuxian traded looks with Zhang Jiahao and Wang Xinbao and was at least reassured that they were just as confused as to the purpose of that interaction as he was. Wen Qing didn’t look confused but also didn’t look like she cared which was just as unhelpful.
Soon after, it was agreed that the Lan Sect would take on and supervise the remaining Wen remnants while the Jin sect would deal with their own guards as an internal matter, and a handful of treaties would be renegotiate with different aspects favoring different sects that felt aggrieved for reasons that Wei Wuxian could not keep track of except that they made Jiang Cheng roll his eyes.
Wei Wuxian was not the only elder to creakily rise with the assistance of a walking stick and an assistant or two. It wasn’t actually necessary. He could have risen more fluidly, even without calling on any resentful energy, but it had been a long week and he’d had A-Yuan sitting in his lap for most of it, and levering himself up was part of the elder aesthetic at this point.
When they all returned to Lotus Pier, he’d continue to train with Zhang Jiahao and Wang Xinbao and get better. He’d probably continue to drink medicinal teas prepared by Wen Qing as well, more’s the pity. Although he might be able to have breaks from that if Wen Qing went to visit her brother in Cloud Recesses.
The Yunmeng Jiang Sect was still too small for a Great Sect, but it was getting better. It had multiple generations now, rather than just the war-time fighting force, with both an elder and a baby disciple. It had doctors and crafts people, and a potential marriage alliance in the future.
This isn’t the life that he had once dreamt of, but then again, after the core transfer, after the burial mounds, he hadn’t actually dreamt of a future life at all. So this was an unexpected gift to continue living and finding new things to delight in. He might try for a beard next after all. When Jiang Cheng mocked him for it, he’d just have to remind his shidi to respect his elders. That could be a lot of fun.
He bounced A-Yuan on his hip and held his walking stick in his other hand and thought, no one had even mentioned his lack of sword. That’s the importance of really taking command of the aesthetic. As a young master, he’d had a sword; as a demonic cultivator, he’d had a flute; as an elder, he had his walking stick.
Life was constantly changing, but at each change he remained who he was. With his walking stick in hand, he could stand with justice and live without regrets.