#(who could recognise which was lin shu? the one who stands before him now)

[neuxue]

Mu Nihuang: 你认识林殊吗？// Do you know Lin Shu? Mei Changsu: ……认识。// ...yes. Mu Nihuang: 他是真的战死了？// Did he really die in battle? Mei Changsu: 是。// Yes. Mu Nihuang: 战死的哪里？// Where did he die? Mei Changsu: 梅岭。// Meiling. Mu Nihuang: 尸骨葬于何处？// Where was he laid to rest? Mei Changsu: 七万英魂，天地为墓。// For seventy thousand valiant souls, the earth and sky are their grave. Mu Nihuang: 他的尸骨都没人收？一块遗骸也没有找到吗？// No one retrieved his body? Or any remains at all? Mei Changsu: 战事惨烈，堆尸如山。又有谁能认得谁是林殊呢？// In such a fierce and terrible battle, with bodies piled high as a mountain, who could recognise which was Lin Shu?

when you’re alive but you’re a ghost but the people who knew you look at you like you’re still alive but you’re a ghost: the Mei Changsu Experience™

[presumenothing]

meteoric  //  平步青雲

Or, what if the ones framed alongside Prince Qi wasn’t the Chiyan army... but Prince Jing’s instead?

(AO3)

i.

They’re drawing up plans for this week’s drills with Nie Duo – the Chiyan army hardly lacks battle experience over any terrain one could care to name, but Donghai presents a rare opportunity to test that mettle over water – when Wei Zheng crashes into the command tent at a flat-out run, face red with more than mere exertion. “Young Marshal!”

Lin Shu’s gaze flicks quickly from his lieutenant to his father, who nods slightly. Outside of official situations, the Chiyan generals have never been excessively particular about protocol, and whatever made Wei Zheng agitated enough to rush in here is clearly urgent. 

“What is it?” he asks.

“News from the capital, they’re saying that–” is all Wei Zheng manages to get out before they’re again interrupted, this time by the officious tones of a herald.

His father’s gaze meets his again across the length of the table, and Lin Shu doesn’t even need to guess at what they’re both thinking: what could bring a court herald all the way out here?

The answer, it turns out, runs something like this: “Xiao Jingyu and Xiao Jingyan have been found guilty of plotting treason against His Majesty, and are posthumously stripped of their titles. The Chiyan army is hereby ordered to return to Jinling effective immediately. Thus it is decreed.”

It is his father accepting the decree in a perfectly flat voice even as slow horror permeates their ranks like an inexorable tide, because Wei Zheng hadn’t been the only one with friends in Prince Jing’s army – or even Prince Qi’s, for that matter.

It is the dull roar of Jingyan’s name in his head.

(The answer, as far as Lin Shu is concerned, runs exactly like a lie through and through, and he will tear Meiling apart with his bare hands if that is what gets him the truth.

“Xiao Shu.” His father is already starting to roll up the first of many maps covering the table. “Go, get the men ready to return.”

“Father,” Lin Shu protests.

Marshal Lin looks up, but his hands don’t stop moving, even as he tears two letters to shreds and casts them into the fire. 

“We have our orders,” he says finally, but Lin Shu hears We don’t have a choice and – well, they really don’t, not with the damning brand of traitors on the line.

Seventy thousand lives have never weighed this heavy before, even in battle.)

ii.

“What’s going on? Jingyan-gege would never d–”

Someone rounds the corner, and Lin Shu reacts on reflexes newly honed on this return to Jinling – he tugs on Nihuang’s hand so that she stumbles forward mid-sentence with a sharp cry, though he relaxes on recognising the tall figure of her father in matching white and blue.

“Huang-er,” Lin Shu says, and Nihuang startles because he hasn’t called her that since they were much younger but he needs her to listen this once. “You can’t talk about Jingyan or Prince Qi like that, do you understand? Not to me, not to anyone.”

Much as she’d complained about it, it’s a perverse blessing that Nihuang had spent most of the past year in Yunnan with her father, learning the ins and outs of their army.

Mu Nihuang is perfectly capable of holding her own in almost any fight, of that Lin Shu has no doubt, and she’d never known Prince Qi that well anyway.

But Lin Shu had also returned to find the capital of Da Liang deadlier than a knife’s edge, where one wrong question could draw more than blood, and he already has too many people to worry over in this capital for reasons obvious and otherwise – his parents, Aunt Jing, the Chiyan army. Xie Yu, Xia Jiang, Prince Yu and Xian.

He doesn’t know how much of this Nihuang can hear in his voice, how much she’s already guessed, but then she asks “Why?” barely above a whisper and he knows that she doesn’t just mean the reason why their friend’s name is now unspeakable.

“I don’t know yet,” Lin Shu admits, just as quietly. “I’m going to find out, but until then, can you do this for me?”

Nihuang bites her lip before nodding, and Lin Shu steps back, gently pries his hands from her grasp. “Duke Mu,” he says, with a respectful bow.

He is met with an even nod. “Young Marshal Lin.”

They haven’t addressed each other this formally in years – Lin Shu and his almost-uncle, fellow warrior, future in-law. Though the last is no longer to be, now.

One cannot win a battle without sacrifices. He dreams in strategies; this is the first of many. 

Lin Shu draws himself up to his full height. “My father has something to discuss with you this evening, if you’re amenable.”

Duke Mu exhales, tired and knowing. “Is that so.”

(“Lin Shu-gege?” Nihuang says, and he hates how her voice quavers and breaks now, where it hadn’t before.

“Everything’s going to be alright, I promise,” Lin Shu answers, and swears, silent and terribly sure, that he won’t let this be a lie too.)

iii.

The sudden dissolution of the long-standing betrothal between Lin Shu and Mu Nihuang sends shockwaves throughout the court of Jinling – only to be quickly overshadowed the next day by the sudden and violent fallout between Lin Xie and his only son, told in hurried whispers of overheard arguments.

Chiyan’s marshal (its only marshal now, the rumours say) demands a private audience with the Emperor that very afternoon, sweeping past the guards like a raging fire, and the entire city watches with bated breath.

(“I’ve spoken to Wei Zheng and the others. Half the Chiyu battalion can be reintegrated back into the main army, that’ll make just over fifty-five thousand men in total.” Lin Shu hands two lists to his father, names of the men that are no longer his. “Meng-dage says that the Imperial Guard can take perhaps another four thousand, at best. The rest will have be reassigned among the border armies.”

His mother places the tea set on the table – all their servants have been dismissed to a careful distance – and glances over the papers quickly as she pours the tea out. “Including Yunnan?”

Lin Shu receives his cup with both hands, and nods. “Excluding the Mu army would end up drawing the wrong kind of attention to them instead, though we should at least avoid sending any of Chiyu’s ranking officers.”

Even without anyone else around, none of them have given voice to the reasons why this stripping of force is necessary, why seventy thousand men of Chiyan had entered Jinling wearing only the lightest of armour and sword, why Lin Shu is now single-handedly tearing down everything he’s ever built.

None of them need to.

“If the Emperor asks, let him believe that you regret your decision in giving me too much power too soon.” Lin Shu feels his smile twist into something bitter. “He won’t need much convincing on that front, I think.”

His father grunts in wordless assent, only studying the lists for a moment longer before folding them up again, and the room falls quiet aside from the crinkle of paper.

“...Xiao Shu.” If he’s ever heard his mother sound this hesitant before, he doesn’t remember it. “You don’t have to do this. Your father can handle it.”

And that would have been true, in any other situation; but Lin Xie is not the one who’d been tutored by Prince Qi, not the best friend of Prince Jing, not the young prodigy who already commanded a good third of the Chiyan army before the age of twenty.

Jingyan hadn’t even had ten thousand men.

Lin Shu uncurls his hands from where they’ve clenched into fists, shakes his head. “That’s exactly why I have to.”

His parents exchange one of their silent looks, and Lin Shu waits.

Then his father stands to retrieve brush and paper from the side table, while his mother turns back to him, lays her hands over his.

“Don’t worry about my brother, then,” says the Grand Princess Jinyang, with the same smile that he’d learned from her, sharp and blinding. “I know what he wants to hear.”)

iv.

Lin Shu arrives at Langya Hall in the early morning.

The brisk wind on the mountain path clears his mind for perhaps the first time since that day at Donghai, and he thinks that he can understand the draw of this location – could stay here for long, even, if not for everything that had happened on the plains below.

He hands his father’s letter to the attendant which comes over, waving off his explanation of how Langya’s questions work. “Is your master here?” 

The attendant bows politely. “Please wait a moment,” he says, which isn’t really an answer either way, but that really isn’t surprising by this point.

What is surprising is the person who descends the entrance stairs a minute later, the letter vanishing up one billowing sleeve to be replaced by a fan. 

“If you were expecting my father instead, I could almost say the same to you. Well, that’s one question answered and paid for, at any rate.” The young man shrugs easily, all long black hair and flowing white robes. “I don’t suppose you have any more?”

“Two more, actually.” Lin Shu studies the young master of Langya Hall – Lin Chen, his father had told him – with undeniable curiosity. They look more alike than different now that he’s shed his usual attire for plainer clothes, hair falling dark on his shoulders in the half-knot he hasn’t really worn in years, even when Jingyan kept teasing him about trying to look too serious, and –

“Two?” Lin Chen repeats with false shock, flicking his fan open and waving it lazily about. “My, we’re going to be here for a while. No wonder you came this early.”

It’s no longer difficult at all for Lin Shu to imagine how his father ended up fighting for three days and nights here, if they’re both sons anything like their fathers.

He puts all those thoughts out of his mind and asks, “Will you help me overturn Prince Qi’s treason case?” 

The fan doesn’t even waver in its arc. “You’re assuming that he was innocent.”

“Will you help me overturn Prince Qi’s treason case?” Lin Shu asks again, implacably.

Neither of them so much as blink. “Langya Hall has never interfered in matters of the court, by tradition.”

He doesn’t ask a third time, only waits.

The young master snaps his fan closed and points. “And what do you intend to pay with, for such a question?”

Lin Shu smirks. “I’m sure you could use an additional assistant around this hall of yours, correct?”

“You?” There’s nothing fake about the surprise, this time, or Lin Chen’s light snort of amusement. “Aren’t you thinking a little highly of yourself?”

It’s not a no. Lin Shu is the one to shrug, this time. “I’m sure Langya Hall is perfectly capable of judging something like that. Is it not?”

“There are easier ways to get employed, you know.” Lin Chen crosses his arms, closed fan tapping an irregular rhythm, and still doesn’t say no. “And your last question?”

Lin Shu takes a breath; it catches in his lungs. “Is Xiao Jingyan still alive?”

The young master stills, and lets out a sigh before turning away. “You’d best come with me, then.” 

“What, you’re not asking me to pay for this question?” Lin Shu blurts out, and it sounds nonsensical even to him, but his very person feels suddenly immobile from the weight of this final answer.

“Maybe I’m still deciding,” Lin Chen retorts, and tosses a careless glance over his shoulder when Lin Shu still doesn’t move. “Do I need to lay out the red carpet or something, o great Young Marshal Lin?”

(He’s not that person anymore – or at least he can’t be until this is settled and done, but he is still his father’s son, even here in the jianghu.

Lin Shu pushes one foot forward and the next, until they’re standing together on the stairs, and takes one last step. “It’s Mei Changsu, actually.”

“Changsu.” Lin Chen considers this for a moment, nods. “I’m Lin Chen.”

“I know,” he answers in a half-singsong tone.

Lin Chen side-eyes him as they start down a long corridor at a brisk pace. “Oh, is that how you’re going to play this?”

His answering grin almost feels real.)

v.

“Jingyan? Oh thank god, Jingyan–”