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eleanorfenyxwrites · 1 year

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Why Not Me?

Chapter 6

[Ch. 1] [Ch. 2] [Ch. 3] [Ch. 4] [Ch. 5]

[I've decided this is the final full chapter! I'll be posting an epilogue at some point soon but I'm not sure how long it'll be, I know what I want to do with it but I haven't written any of it yet. I've done pretty much everything I wanted to do with this fic, so I think it's time to finish it up and let it be what it is. And for everyone who's been keeping up with it in any way since I started posting it for WIP Wednesdays way back when -- thank you! I probably would've never turned it into a full fic if not for y'all being so lovely and encouraging, and I'm really glad that I did ♥)

-/-

Finding Lan Yishan-laoshi is harder this time of day since he doesn’t have the senior disciples for class until just before dinner when it’s gotten too dark for sword practice, but Jingyi manages to ask enough people that he eventually finds the man in one of the common offices for the adult cultivators to do their non-teaching work in. He knocks carefully on the open door, three light taps with his knuckles in slow motion to make sure they’re extra polite, and only enters when he’s told to.

“Hello Jingyi,” the man greets in his always-soft voice when Jingyi approaches the desk and shifts his weight from one foot to the other, unsure if he should sit down or not.

“Hello laoshi,” he replies, remembering after a second to bow a little clumsily. “I have a note from Lan-xiansheng,” he tells him when Lan Yishan-laoshi raises his eyebrows a little in question, and though he fumbles the letter a little bit in clumsy fingers when he pulls it from his robes again the man doesn’t seem to mind, simply waiting patiently for Jingyi to pass it across to him held carefully in both hands respectfully.

“Mm. Thank you, Jingyi.”

“You’re welcome!” he chirps, smile beginning to curl up the corners of his mouth despite his effort to be serious for his errand. “He also said I can ask you one question about talismans!”

“Oh?” Lan Yishan-laoshi replies with a little smile of his own beneath his neat white mustache and beard. “Just one?”

“Mhm! Then we’ll talk about it when I go back,” Jingyi explains sagely as if he’s done this a hundred times rather than never before.

“I see. Do you already have a question in mind or will you sit down for some tea while you think?”

Jingyi blinks at the offer. Tea? He fidgets a little, fingers tightening around the cuffs of his sleeves as he thinks. Tea wasn’t listed in the steps he was given, so it’s probably better not to accept it. But would it be rude not to? To just ask his question and then leave? The aunties never like it when he does that, they say it’s rude to only care about what’s on his own mind and not everyone else’s too. Is this like that? Will Lan-xiansheng be mad if he takes long enough to have tea after he already spent so long tracking Lan Yishan-laoshi down? But Lan Yishan-laoshi had asked if he already has a question in mind, so it’s probably okay to just ask it, isn’t it?

“I have one!” he hurries to say, wincing when it comes out a little too loudly for the circumstances in his fretting over what he should do. Lan Yishan-laoshi is nice to everybody though, and he doesn’t do anything but keep smiling and gesture with one papery hand for Jingyi to go ahead. He takes a deep breath, relieved that it’s okay not to sit down for tea, and then realizes that he doesn’t…actually have a question in mind yet.

“Um..” he hedges, shifting from foot to foot again. “I um…Oh! Do we really use some of the Yiling Laozu’s talisman designs for nighthunts?” It’s something he’s heard some of the senior disciples talk about before, all hushed and looking over their shoulders like they were worried someone would overhear, but Jingyi doesn’t see what the big deal is. If they work then they work, don’t they? Who cares where they came from?

Apparently Lan Yishan-laoshi. Jingyi feels his stomach drop at the way the man’s face goes hard and cold as ice, his glare sharp enough that Jingyi takes a step back. It’s answer enough, because why would he be so mad if it wasn’t true and he didn’t want people to know? At the risk of being unpardonably rude, Jingyi hurries to bow nice and low before he practically squeaks something about needing to return to Lan-xiansheng and beats a hasty retreat before Lan Yishan-laoshi can say whatever it is that made his face do that.

Jingyi’s heart is in his throat the entire way through the Sect back to Lan-xiansheng, dread prickling along his scalp and anger at himself for saying the first thing to come to mind (when past history has shown that’s never a good idea) making his hands twitch like he needs to move them. He fishes his rock out of his sleeve as he walks just shy of ‘too fast to be begrudgingly ignored’ and squeezes it hard first in one palm and then in the other.

“Jingyi?”

Lan-xiansheng doesn’t sound mad when Jingyi opens the door so he probably doesn’t know yet, even though adults always seem to be able to tell each other things quicker than should be possible when it comes to getting someone in trouble.

“I delivered the letter, Lan-xiansheng!” It’s too cheerful, too tumbling as it passes his lips and he closes the door too hard in his panic, but if he starts with what he did right then that’s okay, isn’t it? He made Lan Yishan-laoshi mad but that’s only one thing out of the list of things that he did.

“I didn’t run, I gave Lan Yishan-laoshi the letter, I asked my question, I came back without running,” he ticks off on his fingers that he realizes are shaking. “I was good, right?”

Lan-xiansheng gives him a look that feels like it pierces right down to his soul. “You look as though you feel I will tell you no. Part of being good is being honest, and that includes not lying by keeping things hidden.”

Jingyi had been afraid of that. He winces and crosses the room to sit down next to Lan-xiansheng’s desk and start grinding some ink for him, careful to go slowly and not to splash any out of the dish to have something nice and useful to do with his fidgety hands now that his rock is tucked back up in his sleeve.

“My question made Lan Yishan-laoshi angry,” he admits in a whisper, like if he says it really quietly it’ll incriminate him less. “I got distracted and asked something bad on accident.” No one can punish him if it was an accident, right?

Lan-xiansheng hums and sets down his scroll to stroke his beard in thought. “It is quite difficult to anger Lan Yishan-laoshi. What did you ask him?”

Jingyi swallows down the lump of panic and chances a glance up to meet Lan-xiansheng’s stern, questioning gaze.

“Um…I..do we use some of the Yiling Laozu’s talismans when we go night hunting?”

The flash of anger that crosses Lan-xiansheng’s face makes Jingyi flinch, his ears burning with shame for messing up the very first thing Lan-xiansheng gave him to do.

For good measure, he whispers a distraught, “I’m sorry.”

Lan-xiansheng sighs long and slow over his head. Jingyi ducks down a little further to keep grinding ink even though there’s more than enough in the dish, and what he’s grinding now is full of little popping air bubbles from where he’d accidentally sped up in fear.

“You understand why this was an inappropriate question?”

Jingyi bobs a hasty nod. “He hurt a lot of people and did really bad awful things, of course we don’t use his talismans, that would make us wrong and bad too. It was gossip, I’m sorry Lan-xiansheng.”

There’s a long enough silence over his head that Jingyi peeks up again through his lashes and Lan-xiansheng has frozen mid-stroke, hand looped around his beard and his eyes far away as he looks at the door across the room.

“Lan-xiansheng?”

“Is this something you heard from Hanguang-jun?”

“No! I swear, it was just disciples talking in the woods a long time ago, I don’t know who. Lan Yishan-laoshi asked me if I wanted tea but I didn’t know if it was okay to add to the list of things you gave me but I didn’t want to be rude and refuse so I got confused thinking of what to do, and then I accidentally lied and said I had a question ready but I didn’t and then I messed up and spread gossip and it made Lan-laoshi angry with me.”

Lan-xiansheng finally looks away from the door to blink down at him and his fingers slowly staining black from twiddling the damp ink stick between them, and after a long moment he lifts his hand to press it firmly to the top of Jingyi’s head like he had that morning.

“Jingyi, do you frequently think about tasks like this, in such detailed lists that do not allow interruption?”

“It’s okay usually if they get added onto,” he confesses, wrongfooted with both the change in topic and the soothing gesture. “But I didn’t know if it was allowed. I wanted tea, but you didn’t say it was okay and I didn’t want to be in trouble. But now I am anyway, aren’t I?”

“No. You are not in trouble.”

Jingyi bites his tongue around the desperate cry of ‘why not?!’ that wants so badly to escape. None of this makes any sense! He doesn’t like being in trouble and punished, not at all, but this is so much worse! Before, he always knew if he made someone mad because they said so. Now people are mad but they aren’t saying it even though he knows they are, and it scares him. Because if he doesn’t know how mad someone is, he won’t know when he’s crossed the line too far to be allowed to stay.

“Lan-xiansheng?”

“You were correct, Jingyi. We use some of the Yiling Laozu’s inventions to help people. We do not speak about this openly, but we do make use of some of his spirit-summoning and -banishing talismans.”

“Why do we do that if we don’t think it’s okay to talk about?”

“Do you think that using them makes us as bad as the Yiling Laozu?”

That’s a very big question, and Jingyi scrunches his face up as he feels out the edges of it. Lan-xiansheng asked it like one of his usual teachers, the one who cares a lot about asking them all sorts of ‘why’ and ‘what do you think’ questions, and she always gets disappointed in him if he answers without thinking first.

“No,” he eventually settles on, cautious as he speaks but confident that he likes his answer even if Lan-xiansheng might not. “We use them to help people, if they only help then that’s okay, I think. But we don’t say it because…people might be scared if we say we use them?” Jingyi sits up straighter as a new thought hits him. “But then Lan-xiansheng doesn’t that mean that we’re not honest? You said keeping things I’ve done a secret is like lying, but if we use talismans and don’t tell people that we use them then isn’t that the same? Are we lying?”

Lan-xiansheng blinks at him, his expression as stony as ever. Jingyi is just about to hurry to apologize for talking back, for doubting his senior’s teachings, for asking rude questions, but just at that moment there’s a firm rap on the door frame and Jingyi, certain that it’s Lan Yishan-laoshi come to punish him for his irreverent curiosity, darts to his feet with a squeak to hide behind Lan-xiansheng’s back.

“Sit properly,” Lan-xiansheng scolds, sounding startled more than angry, so Jingyi sits up on his knees and very carefully makes sure that he’s still hidden behind Lan-xiansheng’s broad shoulders despite having corrected his posture. Lan-xiansheng looks back at him over his shoulder out of the corner of his eye and Jingyi shoots him a pleading look that morphs quickly into a grin of pure relief when Lan-xiansheng simply sighs and turns forward again without comment, clearly unable to find fault with his posture even if he’s sitting in a strange spot.

“Enter,” he calls out to whoever it is at the door, and Jingyi doesn’t dare peek over Lan-xiansheng’s shoulder to see if his fears are founded or not.

“Shufu,” the person greets, but it’s not Hanguang-Jun’s cool monotone, it’s much warmer, which means it must be —

“Xichen.”

Jingyi subtly hunches a little further down again now that he’s not being watched and squeezes his eyes shut, praying fervently that he’s not so deeply in trouble that the Sect Leader had to get involved.

He wants to go back to the bunny meadow. He wants to be helpful and useful to Lan-xiansheng, of course, and he knows he has to stay here to do that and be taught how Lan-xiansheng said but… Well maybe if he thinks hard enough about the soft breeze and the little quiet rustling plops of the rabbits hopping through the grass then maybe he won’t be so afraid of whatever’s going to happen to him for being nosy and spreading gossip when he shouldn’t.

“I spoke with Wangji,” Zewu-Jun says once the sound of swishing silk has stopped and he sounds much closer this time, likely sitting in the spot across the table where Jingyi should be. “It sounds like yesterday was..eventful.”

“In what way?”

Jingyi stays perfectly still where he’s hidden behind Lan-xiansheng, staring wide-eyed at the expanse of deep blue silk — broken vertically down the middle by the tails of Lan-xiansheng’s pale blue ribbon and the ends of his hair — hiding him from Zewu-Jun. Why isn’t Lan-xiansheng admonishing him to come out now that they know it’s not Lan Yishan-laoshi come to scold him? Doesn’t this count as eavesdropping since Zewu-Jun doesn’t know he’s here?

“He said you have decided to care for a boy from the children’s home,” Zewu-Jun replies. Jingyi realizes with a jolt that they’re talking about him. “And that the child in question is the young troublemaker who’s been vexing everyone in charge of the discipline hall these last few months.”

He winces and ducks his head, shame burning in his ears and the back of his throat. He knows he has a reputation, he knows. But it still hurts to hear his Sect Leader bring it up like this.

“Lan Jingyi.”

Jingyi stiffens and looks up sharply, expecting to see Lan-xiansheng leaning to the side to reveal his hiding spot, or at least turning to look back at him to tell him without words to come out. But he’s still facing forward, still and immovable as a mountain, so Jingyi just holds his breath and hopes he can keep hiding.

After a moment, Lan-xiansheng continues, “His parents were lost in the war.”

“Ah… yes of course — a young cousin, then?”

“Second, once removed.”

“I see.”

There’s silence for a long few moments, just the sound of porcelain clinking softly and liquid burbling as tea is poured.

“You have already officially brought him out of the children’s home?”

“I have.”

More silence except the bird twitters outside the window and the quiet click of ceramic against wood. Jingyi kind of wants to hop up and beg them to talk instead of just sit there in unbearable silence, but ultimately he’d rather stay hidden and quiet since he’s apparently allowed to eavesdrop on whatever this conversation is. Plus Lan-xiansheng promised he won’t punish him for things anymore unless he’s doing bad things on purpose to be bad, so if he’s letting this happen then that must mean it’s okay, right? Jingyi hopes it’s not a trick, that Lan-xiansehng isn’t giving him a chance to not break the rules just to trap him for failing and breaking them anyway. Lan-xiansheng wouldn’t be mean like that, right?

His head hurts.

“Shufu…is this really..wise?”

Jingyi is more than a little shocked to hear Zewu-Jun question Lan-xiansheng and he half expects Lan-xiansheng to be angry. Instead, he sighs long and slow and sets his teacup down again, just as gently as before.

“You do not think it suitable for me to raise a new ward?”

“It is not a matter of suitability, Shufu. Your health-“

“Will grow no worse than it already is by having a child in my home.”

“Even when the child is so lively he disrupts all of his classes, runs nearly everywhere he goes, acts out so regularly you have had to develop fresh punishments just for him? I worry that his energy levels will be a burden to you.”

Lan-xiansheng sits up a little straighter, which is weird because Jingyi wants to curl up into a tiny little ball and never come out of it again. He doesn’t want to be a burden to Lan-xiansheng, but isn’t that why no one has come for him before? Is this why Zewu-Jun never came for him when he seems to already know who he is?

Jingyi doesn’t want to eavesdrop anymore, he doesn’t want to hear any of this, but he can’t reveal himself now so he stays put and covers his ears, though it doesn’t keep him from being able to hear Lan-xiansheng when he replies.

“I am still a cultivator, Xichen — I am not so feeble I cannot handle one child. He simply requires guidance, which I am able and willing to provide. Why should I not help care for the next generation of the Sect when I have been on light duty ever since you returned from Qishan?”

Whatever Zewu-Jun says is quiet enough that Jingyi can’t hear it through his own muffling hands, which is good. It’s easier to just hear Lan-xiansheng. He sounds mad, his voice is raised and everything as he argues with the Sect Leader — but he’s arguing for Jingyi. To keep him. That feels much better than Zewu-Jun’s worries that Jingyi will hurt Lan-xiansheng just by living with him.

Their argument ends there with whatever Zewu-Jun said in response, however, so there’s nothing else to hear. Jingyi keeps his hands over his ears just in case, but eventually he feels a warm, dry hand tugging on his wrist and he peeks one eye open to find Lan-xiansheng turned enough to look down at him. A quick glance past him reveals an empty office so Jingyi sits up straight immediately, mindful of his posture now that he’s being observed again.

“Zewu-Jun doesn’t like me,” Jingyi blurts before he can help himself. Lan-xiansheng sighs but he doesn’t tell him he’s wrong, which stings in a distant sort of way.

“Do you know why I allowed you to hear our conversation?”

Jingyi, still feeling more than a little glum and definitely confused, simply shakes his head.

“Zewu-Jun is filial. He is mindful of my health, and concerned that I will be overwhelmed. He was right to tell me so. However, he is misguided in his belief that your presence will harm me.”

Jingyi blinks at that and tries to process the idea that his Sect Leader could be wrong about something. Aren’t Sect Leaders supposed to know everything? Do everything right? It sort of seems like that should come with the job description.

“It is important for you to learn early that no one is truly perfect — and so I do not expect you to be. Just as my nephew is wrong in this, you are allowed to do the wrong thing, to ask or say the wrong thing. You do not have to be afraid of being wrong, so long as your heart is right.”

His head definitely hurts.

“What about being punished though?” Jingyi finally asks, because if there’s anything he knows for sure it’s that wrong things have consequences. That can’t go away just because Lan-xiansheng says so, can it?

“I cannot promise you that you will never receive discipline for things that warrant it, but for now tell me – did you intend to upset Lan Yishan-laoshi by asking about Wei Wuxian’s talismans?”

“No!”

“So should you be punished for asking?”

Jingyi sits back on his heels, thoroughly stumped. Instinct tells him that yes, he should be. But the way Lan-xiansheng is asking makes it sound like he doesn’t think so, which means that there’s something that Jingyi is missing. Lan-xiansheng doesn’t interrupt him as he tries to think it through; he goes back to the things he’d been reading before Jingyi and then Zewu-Jun had interrupted him, and Jingyi pulls his rock from his sleeve again to slowly turn it over and over between his hands as he puzzles the question out from every angle he can think of.

Hadn’t Lan-xiansheng that they would do things like this together to help him learn? He’d said something that morning about solving problems, and answering questions as part of his cultivation theory. This must be one of the exercises he’d had in mind, then. The rules, Jingyi knows, are all there to help aid in cultivation, even though he doesn’t really understand how that happens. What does changing clothes after bathing or only eating three bowls at meals or not wearing too many things on his waist have to do with cultivation, anyway? But if thinking about the rules so much will help grow up into a strong cultivator like Hanguang-Jun and Zewu-Jun then he figures he’s probably got a good start. No one his age knows them better than he does after all – he’s the one who has to copy them the most.

“I could be punished for gossip,” he finally hedges, the statement nearly coming out as a question.

Lan-xiansheng doesn’t look up from his papers as he asks, “What is wrong with gossip?”

“It’s…it’s against the rules?”

“It is. Do you know why?”

Jingyi wrinkles his nose a little and tries to think of why it could be. He can’t remember anyone ever telling him the reason behind the rule, just that it is one, but he supposes that Lan-xiansheng is trying to tell him that there are meanings behind the rules. In that case, if he can get out of punishment by his heart being in the right place even if he does something that seems like it goes against them…then maybe there’s a hidden rule inside the one that’s written down that he’s secretly following without knowing it. The rule against gossip is actually ‘Talking behind others’ backs is prohibited’, and Jingyi thinks about the wording of it for another few long minutes as he tries to figure out all the ways around it that he could have been doing without realizing it.

“I didn’t do it to be mean, that’s why you aren’t punishing me,” he decides. It wasn’t the question Lan-xiansheng asked, but if he notices as much he doesn’t say so. “I didn’t talk about anyone else or try to get others in trouble, I only asked if it was true.”

“Learning comes first. Rather than share the gossip with your friends, you approached a trusted teacher to ask if it was true. You were asking because you found the information strange and unexpected and wished to verify it – you were trying to learn. I also did not expressly forbid the content of your question before you left other than that it had to pertain to talismans – as it did. You will apologize to Lan Yishan-laoshi for upsetting him with careless speech and I expect to see you be more careful with your words in the future, but I will not punish you for having asked to satisfy your curiosity as well as to do what I asked.”

Lan-xiansheng trails off for a moment before he turns enough to look at Jingyi more directly where he’s still sitting a little behind him. “Are you upset by Zewu-Jun’s doubts about you?”

Jingyi thinks, very briefly, about saying no just to be good. No one’s ever really cared if he’s upset about something before, and the instinct to brush it off runs deep. But that wouldn’t be honest, and Lan-xiansheng just said he wants him to be more thoughtful about what he says anyway, so after a moment he swallows down the ‘no’ and nods instead.

“I don’t mean to be a..a burden...”

“I know.”

Jingyi chances a glance up to find that Lan-xiansheng’s expression is much less severe than usual, something a little sad in the way he’s looking down at Jingyi.

“Lan-xiansheng…is it going to be harder now that I live with you?”

Lan-xiansheng doesn’t say no right away, but Jingyi tries not to let it hurt – mostly because Lan-xiansheng is looking at him like he sees him, like he’s looking through him but not in the way that’s always meant trouble before. It’s actually sort of..comforting, in a way. Probably because it seems like, out of anyone else in the Sect, Lan-xiansheng seems to be the only one able to tell what’s in his head even when Jingyi can’t say it very well (except maybe Hanguang-Jun).

Finally he takes a deep breath in and looks square in Jingyi’s eyes to say, “It’s been a long time since I raised a child, so I cannot honestly say that I will find it easy to raise you. But I will raise you, Jingyi, that is a promise. And I will not regret it – I will be happy to raise you.”

That…sounds a lot more realistic than anything else so far, to be honest. All of this..not getting punished, and getting to run and play how he likes, and not having to go to classes anymore just because they’re hard to sit still through – that all sounds too good to be true, and like it could change again at any time. But this? He knows he’s hard for adults to deal with, and it’s comforting that Lan-xiansheng doesn’t lie to him and say that he’s not. But he says that he’s going to do it anyway. Because he wants to. Because it’s worth it. He’ll just have to make sure he’s a proper filial child to make sure that it really is worth it to have him around.

“Do you feel better?”

Jingyi thinks about it for a long moment more before he smiles tentatively and nods. “Yes, Lan-xiansheng. And…and I’ll be even more filial than Zewu-Jun and Hanguang-Jun, you’ll see!” It’s a reckless promise, one that he doesn’t even know if he can keep seeing as it’s difficult to imagine either Hanguang-Jun or Zewu-Jun being anything but perfect and dutiful nephews. But it makes Lan-xiansheng smile of all things, maybe even almost laugh, so he figures it’s okay.

“Avoid undue pride,” Lan-xiansheng reminds him, but he reaches out to press a hand against the top of his head again in a clear gesture of affection that warms him from the inside out, so Jingyi just grins and shrugs. “Do not take your words lightly.”

“Be loyal and filial,” Jingyi responds immediately, still grinning. “Have affection and gratitude. It’s not taking them lightly if I really mean it, right Lan-xiansheng? And I should be filial like they are! I’m…I’m really really grateful, Lan-xiansheng.”

Lan-xiansheng sighs and presses a little harder on the top of his head for a moment before he withdraws his hand again and pours a fresh cup of tea to pass to Jingyi. “Drink this, and when you’ve finished it go to the training field, it’s nearly time for your sword lessons.”

Jingyi hurries to sit in the seat he should be and picks up the tea, drinking it in polite little sips as he watches Lan-xiansheng work. The tea tastes good, a little sweeter than he thinks he’s ever had before, and he smiles a little as he wonders if Lan-xiansheng made it special for Zewu-Jun, if maybe Zewu-Jun likes his tea sweet too. He wonders if that’s maybe a little bit what it’s like to have family – someone who makes you something you like, just because you like it.

He finishes his tea and stands up to brush himself down and straighten out his clothes even though they’ll be a mess again by the time he’s done practicing his sword forms with his practice stick.

“I will see you at dinner,” Lan-xiansheng says once Jingyi is nearly ready to go. “We will walk home together after, so do not run off.”

“Yes, Lan-xiansheng!” Jingyi chirps and heads out to train with the rest of his agemates. The phrase ‘We’ll walk home together’ pings around in his head and warms his chest all the way through training and dinner. After the meal is over, when Lan-xiansheng makes good on his promise, Jingyi reaches up tentatively to take his hand for the short walk back to the Yashi. Lan-xiansheng doesn’t say anything, but he curls his fingers tightly around Jingyi’s as if to make sure he won’t go, and that’s more than enough.

#the untamed fanfic #Lan Jingyi #Lan Qiren #Lan Xichen #Why Not Me?

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