Chapter 84: Loyal Heart, Part Nineteen, 6

Lan Wangji circled an arm about his waist, drew Bichen up beneath them, and the two of them rode the blade down onto the fishing boat; Wei Wuxian swayed first, was steadied by Lan Wangji, and only then asked again, 'What's going on with Wen Ning? Didn't you say you were only coming to look?'

Wen Ning said, 'I'm sorry, gongzi, it's my fault, I couldn't hold back…'

Jin Ling swung the sword toward him and roared, 'No need for you to put on that act here!'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Jin Ling, put the sword down first.'

Jin Ling said, 'I won't!'

Wei Wuxian was about to say more when, without warning, Jin Ling burst into loud sobbing.

At that, everyone froze stiff as wooden chickens. Dazed, Wei Wuxian took a step toward him and said, 'This… what's the matter?'

Though tears streamed down his whole face, Jin Ling still choked out, loudly, 'This is my father's sword. I won't let go!'

What he clutched so tightly to his chest was Jin Zixuan's sword, Suihua. It was the only thing his parents had left him.

Here and now, Jin Ling weeping aloud before everyone made it seem to him as though he were seeing once more the way Jiang Yanli, all those years ago, had wept her heart out when grief had pushed her past bearing. Boys Jin Ling's age — some were already married, the older ones even had children of their own. To weep, for them, was a deeply shameful thing. And to weep before a crowd: how wronged must a heart be.

For a moment Wei Wuxian was genuinely at a loss. He glanced at Lan Wangji as if hoping for help, but Lan Wangji was even less likely to know what to do. Just then a voice carried across the water: 'A-Ling!'

Five or six great boats had drawn into an encircling ring around the little fishing boat, each one crowded with cultivators, a clan head standing at every prow. The Yunmeng Jiang Clan's vessel lay to the fishing boat's right, nearest of all, no more than five zhang between them, and the one who had called out was Jiang Cheng at the gunwale. Through his blurred and tear-filled eyes Jin Ling caught sight of his uncle, swiped roughly at his face, sniffed, looked this way, then that, gritted his teeth and flew across, landing at Jiang Cheng's side. Jiang Cheng gripped him and said, 'What happened to you? Who bullied you?'

Jin Ling scrubbed fiercely at his eyes and would not speak. Jiang Cheng raised his head, his cold gaze falling toward the fishing boat, the frost in his eyes sweeping over Wen Ning and about to come to rest on Wei Wuxian — when Lan Wangji, idly or not, took a single step that fell just so, screening Wei Wuxian's figure from view. One of the clan heads said warily, 'Wei Wuxian, what are you doing over on that boat?'

His tone was suspicious, plainly assuming Wei Wuxian was up to no good, and it grated to hear. Ouyang Zizhen said, 'Sect Leader Yao, why must you speak in such a tone? If Senior Wei meant to do anything, I'm afraid none of us would be sitting safe and sound on these boats at all.'

At those words a good many of the older cultivators looked rather uncomfortable. It was the truth, but no one wanted to hear it put so baldly. Lan Sizhui said at once, 'Zizhen is right!' and several of the boys chimed in together.

Jiang Cheng tilted his head slightly and said, 'Sect Leader Ouyang.'

At the sound of his name, Sect Leader Ouyang's eyelids began to twitch in time with his heart, and he heard Jiang Cheng say coldly, 'If I'm not mistaken, the one who spoke is your son. Quite the silver tongue.'

Sect Leader Ouyang said hurriedly, 'Zizhen! Come back, come here to your father!'

Ouyang Zizhen said, puzzled, 'Father, weren't you the one who told me to come onto this boat so I wouldn't pester all of you?'

Sect Leader Ouyang wiped at his sweat. 'Enough! Haven't you drawn enough attention for one day? Get over here!' His own seat was Baling, close to Yunmeng and no match for the Jiang clan's power, and the last thing he wanted was for his son's repeated speaking-up on Wei Wuxian's behalf to earn Jiang Cheng's lasting grudge. Jiang Cheng shot a glance at Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, then wrapped an arm around Jin Ling's shoulders and went back into the cabin. Sect Leader Ouyang let out a breath and shouted at his son again, 'You — you — you! The bigger you get, the less you listen! Are you coming or not? If you don't, I'm coming over to drag you back!'

Ouyang Zizhen said with concern, 'Father, you should go in and rest too. Your Spiritual Power hasn't recovered yet, you surely can't make it across, so don't go rashly riding your sword.'

Most people's Spiritual Power was still slowly creeping back, and to force a sword-flight now might well send a man toppling head over heels, which was why they could only take the boats. Sect Leader Ouyang, broad and towering as he was, truly could not fly across to seize him just now, and his son's words so vexed him that he flung his sleeves and stalked into the cabin. On another boat Nie Huaisang burst out laughing aloud; the other clan heads looked at him and were all left speechless, but those who ought to disperse did, little by little. Seeing it, Wei Wuxian let out a long breath. And once that breath was loosed, an utter weariness suddenly took over his face, and he listed to one side.

It turned out the swaying just now had not been the fishing boat's unsteadiness at all — he had truly grown so spent he could no longer keep his feet.

Not minding the dreadful blood that fouled him, the boys went to prop him up the same flailing, many-handed way they had just propped up Lan Sizhui. But there was no need for any of them: Lan Wangji bent slightly, one hand under his arm and one hooked behind the bend of his knees, and in a single motion swept Wei Wuxian up sideways into his arms.

Holding Wei Wuxian just so, he carried him into the cabin. There was nowhere to lie down inside, only four long wooden benches, so Lan Wangji kept one arm around Wei Wuxian's waist and let his head rest against his own shoulder while, with the other hand, he pushed the four benches together into a width broad enough to lie on, and laid Wei Wuxian gently down upon it.

Lan Sizhui noticed all at once that, for all the blood that bathed Hanguang-jun head to foot, the bandage Wei Wuxian had torn from his sleeve to bind a small wound was still neatly knotted, tied about a finger of his left hand.

Until now there had been no leisure to mind appearances; only now did Lan Wangji draw out a handkerchief and slowly wipe the clotted blood from Wei Wuxian's face. Before long a snow-white handkerchief was stained a blackish red all over. And having cleaned Wei Wuxian's face, he had not yet wiped his own.

Lan Sizhui hastily offered up his own handkerchief in both hands and said, 'Hanguang-jun.'

Lan Wangji took it, lowered his head, and one pass of the cloth across his face left it snow-white, and only then did the boys breathe easier. Just so — Hanguang-jun ought to be like this, a face pale as ice and snow; that was how he looked right.

Ouyang Zizhen said, 'Hanguang-jun, why did Senior Wei collapse?'

Lan Wangji said, 'Tired.'

Lan Jingyi marveled, 'I always thought Senior Wei would never get tired!'

The other boys found it scarcely believable too — that the legendary Yiling Patriarch should be worn flat by dealing with a Walking Corpse, when they had all assumed the Yiling Patriarch need only crook a careless finger to settle the matter. Lan Wangji only shook his head and said three words: 'He's only human.'

Only human. What human never tires, and how could one never fall.

With the benches all pushed together by Lan Wangji, the boys could only hunker down in a ring, watching wistfully. Had Wei Wuxian been awake, cracking jokes and wagging his tongue, teasing first this one and then that one, the cabin would surely have been lively now; but as it happened he lay there, and only Hanguang-jun sat beside him, spine ramrod straight. By rights someone should have struck up idle chatter to warm the air, but Lan Wangji did not speak, and so no one else dared. They squatted a good long while, and still the cabin held a deathly silence.

Every one of the boys grumbled inwardly, '…So boring.'

They grew bored enough to start conversing with their eyes: 'Why won't Hanguang-jun say a word? Why isn't Senior Wei waking up?'

Ouyang Zizhen, cradling his cheeks in both hands, surreptitiously pointed at one and then another, meaning: 'Is Hanguang-jun always like this, never a single word — how does Senior Wei bear being around him all day…'

Lan Sizhui nodded gravely, affirming without a sound: 'Hanguang-jun really has always been exactly like this!'

Suddenly Wei Wuxian's brows knit and his head lolled to one side. Lan Wangji gently set it straight again so he would not crick his neck. Wei Wuxian murmured, 'Lan Zhan.'

Everyone thought he was about to wake and was overjoyed, only to find Wei Wuxian's eyes still shut tight. Lan Wangji, his expression unchanged, said, 'Mn. I'm here.'

Wei Wuxian fell silent again, and as if wholly at ease and settled, nestled closer to Lan Wangji's side and went on sleeping. Several of the boys stared blankly at the two of them and, without knowing why, suddenly flushed. Lan Sizhui was the first to rise and stammered, 'Han— Hanguang-jun, we'll just step out for a bit…'

They all but fled in rout, bursting out onto the deck, and only when the night wind struck them did that stifled, pent-up feeling dissolve. One of them said, 'What was that about? Why did we have to rush out? Why?'

Ouyang Zizhen covered his face and said, 'I don't know what came over me either, but I suddenly felt it was very wrong to stay in there!'

Several of them pointed at one another and cried, 'What are you blushing for!'

'I only blushed because I saw you blushing!'

From the very start Wen Ning had neither gone to prop up Wei Wuxian nor followed into the cabin, but squatted on the deck. Earlier the others had thought it strange that he would not go in; only now did they realize the Ghost General had been the wisest of them all.

There was simply no room in there for a third person!

Seeing them come out, Wen Ning, as though he had foreseen it, made space for them to crouch. Yet only Lan Sizhui walked over and hunkered down beside him. On the other side several of the boys muttered, 'How is it Sizhui and the Ghost General seem so familiar with each other?'

Wen Ning said, 'Lan-gongzi, may I call you A-Yuan?'

Every one of the boys went cold inside as one: '…The Ghost General turns out to be the sort who makes himself at home in no time!'

Lan Sizhui said gladly, 'You may!'

Wen Ning said, 'A-Yuan, have these years treated you well?'

Lan Sizhui said, 'I've been very well.'

Wen Ning nodded. 'Hanguang-jun must be very good to you.'

Hearing the respect in his tone when he spoke of Lan Wangji, Lan Sizhui felt all the closer to him and said, 'Hanguang-jun has treated me as both gege and father; everything I know of the qin, he taught me.'

Wen Ning said, 'When did Hanguang-jun begin to raise you?'

Lan Sizhui thought a moment, then said, 'I can't quite remember either — perhaps when I was four or five. I have no real memory of things from any younger than that. Though when I was smaller still, Hanguang-jun likely couldn't have raised me — it seems for several years back then he was in secluded meditation.'

It struck him suddenly that, while Hanguang-jun was in seclusion, the First Siege of the Burial Mounds had also taken place in that same span of years.

Inside the cabin, Lan Wangji raised his head to glance at the door the younger ones had pulled shut on their way out, then lowered it to look at Wei Wuxian, whose head had lolled to one side again. Wei Wuxian's brows had drawn tight once more, and he twisted his head this way and that as if very uncomfortable. Seeing it, Lan Wangji stood, crossed to bar the wooden bolt, then came back to sit beside Wei Wuxian, lifted him by the shoulders, and gently let him lean into his embrace.

With that, Wei Wuxian's head at last stopped swaying; he burrowed and shifted against the breadth of Lan Wangji's chest until he found a comfortable posture for sleep. Seeing him settle, Lan Wangji lowered his head and gazed at the face in his arms, the long black hair spilling loose — and suddenly Wei Wuxian, eyes still shut, seized his collar, his five fingers closing by chance upon the forehead ribbon.

He gripped it tight, and when Lan Wangji pinched one end of the ribbon and gave it a tug, far from drawing it free, he only made Wei Wuxian's lashes quiver, and a moment later he woke.

When Wei Wuxian slowly opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the planking above the cabin. He sat up. Lan Wangji was standing at one of the cabin's wooden windows, gazing toward the round bright moon at the far heart of the river.

Wei Wuxian said, 'Eh, Hanguang-jun, did I faint just now?'

Lan Wangji said calmly, his face in profile, 'Yes.'

Wei Wuxian said again, 'Where's your forehead ribbon?'

'…'

Having asked, Wei Wuxian looked down again and said in wonder, 'Hey, how did this happen — it's in my hand?'

He swung his legs down off the bench and said, 'I'm truly sorry. When I sleep I like to hold on to something, and if there's nothing I grab about wildly. My apologies. Here.'

Lan Wangji was silent a moment, took the ribbon he held out, and said, 'It's nothing.'

Wei Wuxian, meanwhile, was holding back his laughter hard enough to do himself an injury. There had indeed been an instant just now when he very much wanted to lie down, but he was not so frail as to faint at a moment's notice. Who would have guessed that he had only listed a little before Lan Wangji, with matchless speed, scooped him up — and Wei Wuxian hadn't the face to open his eyes and say, hey, you needn't bother, I can stand on my own. Besides, he hadn't wanted to be set down. When one could be carried, why stand?

Wei Wuxian rubbed at his neck, half smug and gloating within, half rueful: 'Ah, this Lan Zhan really is… If I'd known, I wouldn't have woken. I'd have kept fainting and gotten to lie in his arms the whole way.'

By the hour of the Tiger, they reached Yunmeng.

Before the gates of Lotus Pier and along the dock the lanterns blazed bright, casting a glittering gold across the water. In the past this dock had rarely had occasion to gather so many boats great and small at once; not only the guards at the gate but even the few old men still keeping their late-night food stalls along the bank stared in a daze. Jiang Cheng was the first ashore, said a few words to the guards, and at once countless fully armed disciples came pouring out the gates. The crowd disembarked in batches, ushered inside by the Yunmeng Jiang Clan's retainers. Sect Leader Ouyang finally caught hold of his son and, scolding him in a low voice, hauled him off. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji came out of the cabin and stepped down from the fishing boat.

Wen Ning said, 'Gongzi, I'll wait for you out here.'

Wei Wuxian knew Wen Ning would not pass through the gates of Lotus Pier, and that Jiang Cheng would never let him, so he nodded. Lan Sizhui said, 'Wen-xiansheng, let me keep you company.'

Wen Ning said, 'You'll keep me company?' Wholly unprepared for it, he was very glad. Lan Sizhui said with a smile, 'Yes. The seniors are going in to discuss weighty matters anyway, and I'd be of no use in there. Let's go on talking. Where were we just now? Did Senior Wei really plant a two-year-old child in the dirt as if he were a radish?'

His voice was soft, but the two ahead had extraordinary hearing. Wei Wuxian's foot stumbled. Lan Wangji's brows curved once and quickly settled. Only after the two of them had vanished beyond the gates of Lotus Pier did Lan Sizhui go on, low, 'That poor little child. Though, actually — I remember that when I was small, Hanguang-jun once set me down in a heap of rabbits, too. In some ways the two of them really are rather alike…'