Chapter 100: Hatred, Part Twenty-One 3

The string was too fine, and dyed besides with some particular pigment that left it all but invisible to the naked eye; and with Wei Wuxian's mind so lately thrown into utter disorder, with no thought to spare for anything else, it had found its way clean about his vital point.

Wei Wuxian said, 'Lan Zhan, don't! Don't fall back!'

Yet in an instant, without the least hesitation, Lan Wangji fell back five paces. Jin Guangyao said, 'Splendid. Then, if you please, sheathe Bichen.'

With a ringing note, Lan Wangji obeyed at once as well. Wei Wuxian said in fury, 'Don't push your luck!'

Jin Guangyao said, 'You call this pushing my luck? When the next thing I mean to do is have Hanguang-jun seal his own Spiritual Meridians with his own hand — what would you call that?'

Wei Wuxian said in fury, 'You—'

The words were not yet out before a searing pain shot through his throat, the bite of flesh being cut, and a warmth slid down his neck; Lan Wangji's face went bloodless. Jin Guangyao said, 'How could he not do as I say? Think it over, Young Master Wei — his life hangs in my hand.'

Lan Wangji said, word by word, 'Do not touch him.'

Jin Guangyao said, 'Then Hanguang-jun knows what to do.'

After a moment, Lan Wangji said, 'Very well.'

Lan Xichen let out a sigh. He raised his hand, and with two heavy strokes, sealed his own Spiritual Meridians.

Jin Guangyao smiled faintly and said in a soft voice, 'This is truly...'

Lan Wangji, his eyes fixed hard upon them, said, 'Let him go.'

But Wei Wuxian said, 'Lan Zhan! I — I have something to tell you.'

Jin Guangyao said, 'Whatever it is can wait until later.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'It can't. It's urgent.'

Jin Guangyao said, 'Then you may put it that way too.'

He had meant it only as an idle remark; who could have guessed that Wei Wuxian, struck with sudden clarity, would say, 'True enough.'

And having said it, Wei Wuxian roared until his voice tore, 'Lan Zhan! Lan Wangji! Hanguang-jun! I — just now, I truly meant it, that I wanted to be with you!'

'...'

'...'

'...'

Jin Guangyao's hand loosened, the qin-string drew away, and the instant that fine sting at his throat was gone, Wei Wuxian flung himself at Lan Wangji, unable to wait.

That earth-splitting confession of a moment ago had gone through Lan Wangji like a peal of grey thunder, and the shock of it had left him, even now, unable to gather himself; over that ever-unruffled face there passed, for once, a rare trace of blankness and bewilderment. It was not the first time Wei Wuxian had locked both arms about his waist and held him so, for dear life — yet this time Lan Wangji's body seemed to have turned into a clumsy block of wood, so stiff he did not even know where to put his hands. Wei Wuxian said, 'Lan Zhan, what I said just now — did you hear all of it?!'

Lan Wangji's lips stirred, and after a long while, he said, 'You...'

He spoke always in few, clean words, brisk and to the point, never haltingly; yet now he broke off with the deepest hesitation. After a moment, he said again, 'What you said just now...'

As though he wished to have it repeated, to be sure he had not misheard. But to Lan Wangji such words were, in truth, too hard to bring to the tongue. Without an instant's pause Wei Wuxian made ready to say it again: 'I said that I truly want to be with—'

'Ahem, ahem!'

Lan Xichen stood off to one side, his right hand curled into a fist and pressed to his lips. Weighing it a moment, he sighed, '...Young Master Wei, your timing for these words is truly right, and so is the setting.'

Wei Wuxian apologized without a shred of sincerity, 'My deepest apologies, Sect Leader Lan, but I really can't wait so much as a moment longer.'

Jin Guangyao, too, seemed unable to wait a moment longer. He turned his head and said, 'Still not dug up?!'

A monk said, 'Sect Leader, you buried it too deep at the time...'

Jin Guangyao's face went from green to white, exceedingly grim. Even so, he did not berate his man, but only said, 'Faster!'

The words were scarcely out before a ghastly-pale flash of lightning crawled across the edge of the sky, and a breath later the thunder broke with a crack. Jin Guangyao glanced up at the heavens, his face darkening a little. Soon fine, slanting threads of rain began to drift down from above. Wei Wuxian, clutching Lan Wangji, had still been trying to pour out the thousand words and ten thousand that crammed his chest to bursting, when the cold threads of rain drifted onto his face and steadied him a little at last.

Jin Guangyao said to Lan Xichen, 'Zewu-jun, it has begun to rain. Let us go into the temple to take shelter.'

Even with Lan Xichen already held in his grip, he remained perfectly courteous to him, never stinting him in the smallest thing; their every dealing was just as it had ever been, only a shade more punctilious — the kind of courtesy that makes it hard for a man, however hot his temper, to round on him: one does not strike a smiling face. Still less when Lan Xichen had never been a man of much temper to begin with. Jin Guangyao stepped over the threshold first and entered the main hall, the others following him in. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji had already come through here by day. The interior of this main hall was broad and of no small grandeur, its red walls and gilt as good as new, plainly the work of someone who tended it often and with care. The cultivators and monks were digging up the earth at the rear of the hall, and who knew how deep they had got, for still they had not turned up the thing Jin Guangyao had buried there all those years ago. Glancing up by chance, Wei Wuxian was brought up short.

The Guanyin Statue enshrined upon the altar had features as fine as a painting; set against the common image of the Bodhisattva, it had a touch less of mild and merciful brow, and rather more of a clear, comely grace. What gave him pause was that this statue of the Bodhisattva bore, dimly, a familiar look — like a certain someone. And was it not the very likeness of Jin Guangyao standing beside it?

At first glance it passed; but set against Jin Guangyao at its side, the longer one looked the more alike they grew, near five or six parts the same. Wei Wuxian thought, 'Can Jin Guangyao be so vain a man as this? Not enough to sit as the immortal head who oversees the Hundred Cultivation Clans — he must have a statue carved in his own image, to receive the kneeling worship and the incense of the thousands? Or is this some dark cultivation art I know nothing of?'

Lan Wangji's voice came suddenly at his ear: 'Sit.'

Wei Wuxian's wandering thoughts were drawn back at once. Lan Wangji had fetched four prayer-mats from the temple, two for Lan Xichen and Jin Ling, two left for himself and Wei Wuxian. But for some reason, both Lan Xichen and Jin Ling had shifted their mats a good distance off, and were, as if by some unspoken accord, gazing away into the distance.

Jin Guangyao and the rest had already gone round to the back of the hall to see how the digging went. Wei Wuxian drew Lan Wangji down to sit with him upon the mats. Perhaps still a little dazed in his mind, Lan Wangji swayed as he was pulled, and only then settled firmly into place. Wei Wuxian, having somewhat composed himself, gazed intently into Lan Wangji's face.

His lashes were lowered, and nothing of his feeling could be read in them. Wei Wuxian knew that, on the strength of those few words alone, Lan Wangji had likely not yet believed him. To have been smilingly flayed inch by inch, for so long, by a man of so many black marks who knew nothing of it at all — that he should not believe was only human nature. At the thought, a tightness closed over Wei Wuxian's chest, an ache so keen it set him faintly trembling, and he dared not follow it any deeper. He knew only that he must give Lan Wangji a few more doses of strong medicine.

He said, 'Lan Zhan, you — you look at me.'

His voice was still a little tight. Lan Wangji said, 'Mn.'

Drawing a deep breath, Wei Wuxian said in a low voice, '...My memory really is very poor. There's a great deal of the past I can't bring to mind. The Nightless City among them — what happened in those few days, I don't remember the least bit of it.'

At this, Lan Wangji's eyes widened a fraction.

Wei Wuxian thrust out both hands and gripped his shoulders hard, then went on, 'But! But from now on, every word you say to me, everything you do — I'll remember it all, and never forget a single thing!'

'...'

Wei Wuxian said, 'You're remarkable. I like you.'

'...'

'Or, to put it another way. That I delight in you, love you, want you, cannot be apart from you — Suibian, however you please to take it.'

'...'

'I want to go on Night Hunt with you all my life.'

'...'

Wei Wuxian held three fingers together and pointed them at the sky, the earth, and his own heart, saying, 'I swear this is no whim of the moment, nor am I teasing you for sport the way I used to, still less is it out of gratitude. There's none of that other tangled nonsense in it at all — I simply, truly like you. I want no one but you, it has to be you and no one else! I—'

The words were not yet out when a sudden gale came howling in and snuffed out the rows of candle-flames within the Guanyin Temple.

Unnoticed, the fine rain had become a downpour, and the lanterns swinging and knocking outside the Guanyin Temple had long since been doused by the water. All around fell of a sudden into pitch darkness.

Wei Wuxian could make no sound. In the dark, Lan Wangji had already crushed him close, stopping his mouth.

Lan Wangji's breath came ragged and quick; in a rasping voice, against Wei Wuxian's ear, he said, '...my heart delights in you...'

Wei Wuxian held him tight and said, 'Yes!'

Lan Wangji said, '...I love you, I want you...'

Wei Wuxian said loudly, 'Yes!'

Lan Wangji said, 'I can't leave you... I want no one but you... it has to be you and no one else!'

He said over and over the words Wei Wuxian had spoken to him, voice and body trembling together, until Wei Wuxian was caught by the illusion that he was on the very edge of weeping.

With each sentence, the hand at Wei Wuxian's waist drew a fraction tighter. Wei Wuxian was clasped until it hurt, yet the arms round Lan Wangji's back only grew tighter and tighter too, near enough to leave him breathless, and still he found it sweet, wishing only that he could hold harder.

Nothing could be seen.

But their chests were pressed close one against the other, and the two hearts had nowhere left to hide. Wei Wuxian felt it, clear and plain — that heart of Lan Wangji's beating wildly, that scalding ardor on the very point of breaking from his breast, and, fallen at his neck and vanishing without a sound, the one teardrop that he could not be sure was real.

Just then a run of quickened footsteps came into the fore-hall: Jin Guangyao, who had gone to look at the rear, had turned back again with several cultivators. Two monks, bracing against the great wind, one to either side, strained with all their might to shut the temple doors once more and bar them heavily. Jin Guangyao then drew out a fire talisman, blew on it gently so that the paper kindled, and with it rekindled the red candles, a row of dim yellow flames becoming the one light in that lone temple of the night rain. Suddenly, from beyond the doors, came two crisp raps — knock, knock.

Someone was knocking. Everyone in the temple drew taut and turned their eyes toward the doors. The two monks who had barred them braced as for a great enemy, leveling their swords without a sound at the doors. Jin Guangyao said, with no change in his manner, 'Who is it?'

A man outside the doors said, 'Sect Leader, it's me!'

Su She's voice.

Jin Guangyao made a sign, the two monks drew the bar, and Su She came in with a gust of wild wind and driving rain.

That row of red candle-flames was all but caught by the squall, flaring and guttering, flickering without rest, until the two monks at once braced the doors shut again. Su She was soaked through by the downpour, his face cold and stern, his lips gone purple with cold; in his right hand he held his sword, and in his left he dragged a man. Stepping through the doorway, he was just about to fling the man down when he caught sight of Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, still not parted, seated upon the two mats off to the side.

Su She had not long ago suffered badly at these two men's hands, and his face changed on the instant; he drew his sword at once and shot a look at Jin Guangyao, and seeing him with the air of one untroubled, understood that these two must by now be held fast, and only then grew calm.

Jin Guangyao said, 'What's this?'

Su She said, 'I came upon him on the way. I thought he might be of use, so I took him along.'

Jin Guangyao drew near, bent his head to look, and said, 'Did you wound him?'

Su She said, 'No wound. He fainted with fright.' And so saying he threw the man in his hand to the ground. Jin Guangyao said, 'Minshan, don't be so rough — he can't take a fright, nor a fall.'

Su She said hurriedly, 'Yes.' And at this he lifted up the man he had so carelessly flung down and, with careful hands, set him beside Lan Xichen. Lan Xichen had been watching the man closely all the while; he brushed aside the soaked, tangled hair from the man's face and looked, and the one who had fainted with fright was indeed Nie Huaisang. He must have been waylaid and seized by Su She on the road back to Qinghe Town, his convalescence at Lotus Pier complete.

He raised his head and said, 'Why have you detained Huaisang?'

Jin Guangyao said, 'One more sect leader in hand always makes the others a touch more wary. But rest easy, second brother — you know how I have dealt with Huaisang in the past; when the time comes, I will surely let you all go without a hair harmed.'

Lan Xichen said evenly, 'Should I believe you?'

Jin Guangyao said, 'As you please. Believe it or not, second brother, there's nothing you can do either way.'

At this, Su She turned his cold gaze upon Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji.

He gave a snort of a laugh and said, 'Hanguang-jun, Patriarch of Yiling — who would have thought we'd meet again so soon. And the tables have turned clean over. Well? How does it taste?'

Lan Wangji said not a word. To provocation so pointless he had never paid the slightest heed. Wei Wuxian thought, turned over how? On the Burial Mounds you fled in a rout, and now are you not fleeing in a rout as well?

But Su She's was a grievance bottled up, most likely, for years, needing no goading to spew its bile in a one-sided harangue. He looked Lan Wangji over and said in mockery, 'Even now, you still keep up that pose of self-styled calm and composure — how long do you mean to hold it?'

Lan Wangji remained silent still. It was Lan Xichen who spoke up: 'Sect Leader Su, during your years of study under our Gusu Lan Clan, we should not have wronged you in any way. Why set yourself so against Wangji?'

Su She said, 'How would I dare set myself against the gifted, proud Second Young Master Lan, peerless from his childhood? I merely cannot abide that air of his, forever thinking himself such a great figure.'

Though it was by no means the first time Wei Wuxian had learned that a man's hatred can come without any reason at all, still he could not help a fit of bafflement, and said, 'Has Hanguang-jun ever said he thought himself a great figure? If I remember rightly, is there not a precept among the Gusu Lan Clan's house rules: forbidding arrogance and conceit?'

Jin Ling said, 'How do you know what's in the Gusu Lan Clan's house rules?'

Wei Wuxian rubbed his chin and said, 'Copy them out enough times and you remember them, don't you.'

Jin Ling blurted, 'Why on earth would you be copying out the Gusu Lan Clan's house rules — it's not as if you're—' He had meant to say, 'it's not as if you're one of their family,' but before the words were out he sensed the wrongness of it, bit them back, and his face went dark. Wei Wuxian said with a laugh, 'Could it be that Hanguang-jun has worn that cold, frosty face since he was a boy, and that's why Sect Leader Su thinks so? If so, then Hanguang-jun has been wronged to death. He plainly wears that one face for everyone alike. Sect Leader Su, you ought to count yourself lucky you didn't study under the Yunmeng Jiang Clan.'

Su She said coldly, 'Why is that?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Or you'd have been driven to your grave by me long ago. When I was small I felt, every single day and from the bottom of my heart, that I was a world-startling prodigy, truly damned remarkable. And I didn't only feel it in here — I went about saying so everywhere too.'

The veins stood out at Su She's temple, and he said, 'Hold your tongue!' He seemed about to strike with a flat palm, but Lan Wangji swept Wei Wuxian into his arms and shielded him fast within the crook of his elbow. Su She's movement checked; just as he hesitated over whether to strike, Wei Wuxian poked his head out at once from behind Lan Wangji and said, 'Better not, Sect Leader Su — Lianfang-zun still holds Zewu-jun in great respect, and if you should wound Hanguang-jun, you guess for yourself whether Lianfang-zun would be pleased.'

It was on this very count that Su She had been inclined to stay his hand to begin with; but with Wei Wuxian saying it aloud, he felt all the more thwarted. Unwilling, in the end, to let it go, he still had to fling out a few more jibes: 'Who'd have thought the Patriarch of Yiling — he of the legend that set both yin and yang paths quaking at his name — would fear death too!'

Wei Wuxian said, without the least shame, 'Very kind, very kind. But I don't fear death — I only don't want to die just yet.'

Su She sneered, 'Splitting hairs — ridiculous in the extreme. Fearing death and not wanting to die — is there any difference?'

Wei Wuxian, nestled in the crook of Lan Wangji's arm, said, 'Of course there's a difference. For instance — my not wanting to get up off of Lan Zhan just now, and my being afraid to get up off of Lan Zhan — can those be one and the same thing?'

He thought it over and added, 'Sorry, I take it back. It does feel rather like they're one and the same after all.'

Su She's face went livid. Riling him had been Wei Wuxian's whole intent; and just then, from somewhere above him, there came a soft, soft laugh.

So very soft a sound that one might almost have doubted one had heard it.

But Wei Wuxian jerked his head up, and there, truly and unmistakably, at the corner of Lan Wangji's lips, he saw it — that faint, pale smile not yet had time to fade, like clear light upon snow. At this, not only Su She but Lan Xichen and Jin Ling too were struck dumb.

It was known to all that Hanguang-jun wore forever a face cold as ice and frost, sparing of any smile, as though stripped of all joy in living; almost no one had ever seen what he looked like when he smiled, even the barest crook of the lips. None had foreseen that the sight of his smile would come to them under such a scene as this.

Wei Wuxian's eyes went, in that instant, wide and round.

After a long while, he swallowed, the knot of his throat rolling once up and down, and said, 'Lan Zhan, you...'

At that very moment, from beyond the Guanyin Statue's hall came again a knocking — knock, knock.

Su She whipped out his sword and held it in his hand, saying warily, 'Who?!'

No one answered, and the great doors burst open to either side!

Within the wind and rain that broke through the doorway, a Zidian alive with coursing spirit-light struck Su She full in the chest and flung him backward. Su She crashed heavily against a vermilion wooden pillar and spat out, on the spot, a mouthful of fresh blood. The two monks who had stood guarding the temple doors were caught by the backlash as well, sprawled flat and unable to rise. A figure in purple stepped over the threshold and walked, with steady tread, into the great hall.

Outside the temple wind and rain raged together, yet this man had been scarcely wetted at all, only the purple of his hem grown a shade deeper. His left hand braced an oil-paper umbrella, the raindrops pattering down upon its face and splashing up in spray, while in his right hand the cold light of Zidian still crackled and leapt wildly. The look upon his face was darker than this night of thunder and rain.