#and give the lan siblings a clean slate with no war

[baoshan-sanren]

Prologue? I guess?

to that Madam Lan runs away AU I’m probably never gonna write

The fall had come early that year, and more than one harvest was ruined by frost. 

Not many know it yet, but the winter will follow too soon as well, harsh and long, as if intent on exacting punishment. Firewood will run out long before new trees can be cut. Newborn sheep will die in the pens, before their mothers have a chance to surround them with warmth. Rivers, lakes, and wells will freeze, orchards will be destroyed by the heavy snow, thatched roofs will bow and break, and hundreds of people will perish in the icy winter storms.

But all of that has yet to come. The fall might have arrived early, but the streets and markets of Gusu are as crowded as ever, despite the early frost, despite the unforgiving cold.

“Did you hear? Madam Lan has run away!”

“Madam? What Madam?”

“Madam Lan! The wife of Qingheng-Jun!”  

The word spreads quickly on the autumn winds, from one mouth to the next, from one ear to the next, each eager to hear the story, and even more eager to repeat it to a neighbor.

“She ran away? How do you know?”

“The Lan Sect has sent out search parties all across Gusu. Dozens of them! Checking all the farms and wagons and travelers, creating ruckus everywhere they go. They will come here next, I reckon, then you will see I was right.”

It must be said that there is something satisfying about the land’s most esteemed cultivators being brought low. Especially the Gusu Lan, the paragons of righteousness, the unflappable, the ever-dignified. No common man would accuse the Gusu Lan of pride that is not deserved, or arrogance so commonly seen in cultivators from the other sects. And yet, when the mighty fall and make fools of themselves, it is hard not to look down, if for no other reason than to see what their face might look like, once it is smeared with mud.

“A search party? For one woman? Ridiculous.”

“Shame, shame. To make such a disturbance. What does Qingheng-Jun mean by shouting about it from the rooftops? Who announces to the world that his wife has run away?”

“What do you know about it? She took the children too. Both of Qingheng-Jun’s sons, stolen away in the middle of the night.”

More than one woman at the market snorts at these words, but none speak their thoughts out loud. Can a woman really steal her own children? And if she does, what does this say about the father? That Qingheng-Jun must have been a cruel one, if a Madam, a wife of a Sect Leader, would run in the night like a thief. To leave a warm home and full larders, silk clothing and fur-lined cloaks, to abandon all connections and family, with two children in tow, just to wander the world like a beggar-- eh, there must have been some heinous event, some grave injury, some unforgivable sin.  

The men yell back and forth, shocked and indignant, that such a woman can exist in the world. But by the evening meal, it will just be another anecdote for them, quickly forgotten.

In contrast, more than one woman will light an incense that night, and pray that the winter cold hold off a little longer. Running alone, with a child on each hip, is no easy thing even in the height of summer. They think, she should have come to her senses earlier, when the ground was not frozen, and the crop abundant.

Although not many will voice their true thoughts, they will not forget. When the cruel winter comes, cracking their hands, freezing the breath in their chests, they will think of Madam Lan and her two children. They will remember a woman who turned her back on comfort and riches and status, to give her children a better life, and they will feel a little warmer with that thought alone.

--

The first year passes, and Madame Lan is not found.

--

The second year passes, and Madam Lan is not found.

--

The third year Qingheng-Jun falls ill. For many months the cultivation world does not know if the Gusu Lan Sect Leader will live long enough to continue his search. By the spring the following year, his condition improves, but his spirits do not, forever altered by the loss. He enters seclusion as the first magnolias bloom, and his brother, Lan QiRen, takes the duty of the Sect Leader. Neither Madam Lan, nor her two children, are ever spoken of in Cloud Recesses again, as if by silence, the stain can be washed away.

The leaders of all sects, large and small, shake their heads when the incident is mentioned. What a terrible precedent. What a horrifying event. Who could have guessed, that a wife of a Sect Leader could do such a thing? How could Qingheng-Jun have married such a woman?

There must have been something wrong with her, some affliction of mind, or a disturbance of temper. After all, had she not lived in seclusion herself? The Gusu Lan must be better off with such an influence removed. One should not mourn a diseased branch cut off from the inheritance line, but be grateful that it was removed in time. Heavens can only guess what her children would have grown to be, under such guidance.

They mutter, and shake their heads, and avoid the subject when it strikes too close to home. Their wives, and mothers, and daughters, listen in silence.

--

In the fifth year, Madam Lan is not found, but something else of importance occurs. The Sect Leader of LanLing Jin, Jin GuangShan, dies in his sleep.

He dies in his sleep, with three prostitutes in the room, and a pillow over his face. He dies in his sleep beating his heels against the bed, lungs struggling for breath, nails clawing at the sheets. It takes him two incense sticks to stop thrashing around, like a dumb chicken with its neck severed, not knowing when it is time to lie down and die.

Madam Jin is understandably distraught. Her only son is eleven years old, not quite ready for the mantle of the Sect Leader. However, there is nothing to be done, but bear the loss the best that they can. After all, she had been a Sect Leader’s wife for many years; who better to guide the child, to lead him by the hand, to offer advice? It is a heavy burden for a woman still in mourning clothes, but Madam Jin shoulders the responsibility, and bravely carries on as she always had.

And if the three prostitutes find their home in the Koi Tower, who is there to raise opposition? One is a decent seamstress, as it happens, and the other two have a good head for numbers. Poor girls, to have lived through such trauma and misfortune. How can they not be forgiven, and offered another chance at a better life?

Madam Jin’s kindness and benevolence truly knows no bounds.

--

In the sixth year, Madam Lan is not found.

--

In the seventh year, Madam Lan is not found.

--

In the eight year, Madam Lan is not found, but a tragedy in two parts occurs in QiShan Wen.

First, Wen RuoHan and both his sons are assassinated in the night. All three are found in their beds, their tongues severed, their chests split open, their ribs pulled out like wings.

Many mutter under their breath when the details become known, naming old curses, debts unpaid, and offenses against the gods. No ordinary assassin would put on such a display. An entire inheritance line snuffed out in one swift blow, in one night, the slaughter so vicious that the hardest men can only speak of it in whispers? And for the assassin to never be discovered? 

No, no, it is no assassination, this. It is more likely to be punishment. What could have the three done to deserve such a thing? Something odious to be sure; nothing a common man should know, or ask about.  

On the heels of the slaughter comes a plague, mysterious and deadly. Wen RuoHan’s bloodline is the first to feel its effects. His brother, and his brother’s sons, all of his cousins, and all of their sons. Not a single mother, daughter, sister or a wife catches the plague, but the men perish in droves. Each feels perfectly well one day, and is found dead the next morning, their necks swollen and black, their tongues rotten in their heads. Fear sweeps across QiShan, permeating every household. 

First the gristly murders, and now this? What had Wen RuoHan done, for the heavens to punish his people in such a way? Are they all to perish for their Sect Leader’s sins?

The best healers from every sect are summoned, but long before any arrive, the plague disappears as swiftly as it had arrived. No one knows what had caused it, or what had stopped it, but soon, the word spreads of the little girl healer from the north of QiShan, whose brother had fallen ill, and been cured by her hands.

Who is this girl? Surely someone blessed by the gods. Otherwise, how can a child stop a plague on her own? 

It is not long before her name is on everyone’s lips. Thousands of people descend on the Nightless City, hoping for a glimpse of this blessed creature who had brought the land back from the brink of disaster. Songs are composed in her honor, and stories written of her deeds, each one more fanciful than the last. She is a girl child who had tricked death, who had gambled with demons of misfortune and won, who had crossed into underworld to find her brother’s soul, then carried it back into the land of the living. 

Not a year goes by before she is elevated to a goddess among the common folk; the patroness of healers, the mother of the sick and downtrodden, the subject of thousands of prayers.

Who else can sit the Sect Leader’s seat now? How else would dare?

The Wen Sect begs Wen Qing to lead them, and she accepts graciously.

She must be, beyond any doubt, a saint clothed in human flesh.

--

In the ninth year, Madam Lan is not found.

--

In the tenth year, her two sons descend from the Immortal Mountain.