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robininthelabyrinth · 1 year

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The Other Mountain - ao3 - Chapter 23

Pairing: Lan Qiren/Wen Ruohan

Warning Tags on Ao3

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Lan Qiren was starting to wonder whether paranoia was communicable.

Everyone knew Wen Ruohan was paranoid, of course. He was practically infamous for it, and justly so, with his long record of acting in accordance with it; he was even self-aware enough to make jokes on the subject. Whereas, in contrast, Lan Qiren had always thought himself level-headed and a relatively good judge of risk – yes, he’d made a mistake in underestimating the danger to himself during that last confrontation with his brother, but in fairness to him there was no way he could have plausibly imagined that his brother blamed him for…with He Kexin…

No, he still couldn’t even think about that.

Lan Qiren hadn’t told anyone about his brother’s accusation. He was well aware that withholding information from his allies was a stupid decision, and potentially a risky one, even highly risky, with unknown consequences, but telling someone would involve having to think about it, and he refused to do that. It seemed to be almost an insult to He Kexin’s memory, to the genuine love and affection she bore her sons, to the strange begrudging companionship, if not friendship, that she had established with Lan Qiren himself. He Kexin was – well, she was quite evidently a rather bad person, given what she’d participated in, but her indifference and willful blindness were nothing compared to what the elders of Lan Qiren’s own sect had done, and unlike them, she’d actually paid for it. Ten years’ seclusion…in principle it might not be inappropriate as a punishment for her actions, for what she had done to all those families she had so neglectfully identified, but it nevertheless seemed all the more unfair now that Lan Qiren knew that his sect elders had made He Kexin pay for her culpability when they had not paid for their own.

(These past few days, alone and worrying endlessly and fruitlessly about Wen Ruohan’s persistent unconsciousness no matter how others reassured him, Lan Qiren had had occasion in his darkest moments to wonder whether his sect elders had ever considered telling him what had happened with the mine, drawing him into their complicity. If he hadn’t made such a fuss over the improper exploitation of that one subsidiary sect whose name had long since drifted out of his memory, if he hadn’t demonstrated himself to be quite so rigid and inflexible, maybe they would have.

He wondered what he would have done if they did.

He should like to think that he would have had the strength to go against the might of his sect for the sake of doing what was right, but he was painfully aware that he’d been little more than a boy at the time, a young man with no experience of the world. Would stubbornness and moral certainty be enough to overcome the pressure of his elders’ expectations, of his family’s expectations? It was always easier to be righteous when your opponents were the world, rather than your closest kin, your beloved ones, those to whom you owed everything, those who had themselves taught you right from wrong. It was easier to recklessly gamble when your own life was on the line than it was to put at risk your sect or your family. Faced with the opposition of his sect, with the risk of his sect’s disgrace, would Lan Qiren have had the spine to remember that Be virtuous and Stay on the righteous path outweighed Do not disrespect your elders and Remember the grace of your ancestors? Or would he have convinced himself that he must be missing something even when he knew he had not, that his elders knew better than he and that it was better to just obey, that it was better and easier to just look away and not think about it…?

He did not know. Shamefully, he was happy never to have had to find out.)

Regardless of his mistakes, though, Lan Qiren still had a decent regard for his own judgment. He didn’t think he was the sort of person to be unduly paranoid.

And yet. And yet, and yet…

Perhaps it was simply that he’d allowed himself to fall too much into the habit of worrying?

Certainly he knew that his fears, at the moment, were irrational. Not even Wen Ruohan was especially concerned right now, and given the other man’s ability to see a threat in every stratagem, that was saying something. In fact, Lan Qiren couldn’t even put his finger exactly on what it was that he was afraid of.

They were at the Lotus Pier, after all. They were at a party!

Other than the misery of unwanted social interaction, there was nothing to be afraid of. And even if his nameless fears were validated and something did happen, how bad could it be?

At first Lan Qiren had worried that his brother would find some way to come there to confront them, capitalizing on Wen Ruohan’s temporary weakness to try to launch some type of attack. His brother had always been an exceptional swordsman, an exceptional cultivator, and having fought him – or, more accurately, tried to evade him – Lan Qiren could confirm that his ten years in seclusion had only made him more formidable. There was likely no one else in the cultivation world who could match him one-on-one, excluding only perhaps Lao Nie…though when he’d expressed the concern to Wen Ruohan, the other man had only laughed, pointing out that if Lan Qiren’s brother showed up to the Lotus Pier, it wouldn’t be a one-on-one fight, but rather one-against-many.

Lan Qiren’s brother wasn’t exactly very popular right now.

He was still the Sect Leader of the Lan sect, of course, and due respect for that alone, but his disappearance after the events in Xixiang had bewildered people, and the inevitable revelation that he had moved the Lan sect in an offensive manner, rather than defensive, had generated a certain amount of disapproval. Wars of conquest were only admirable when they were successful. When one coupled together somehow managing to lose such a war despite having every conceivable advantage over the small sect he’d been aiming at (even if the loss occurred for completely justifiable and unexpected external reasons) along with his strange disappearance both during and after the fight against the ghosts…it wasn’t that people had formed bad opinions of him, necessarily, but they certainly had questions they would very much like him to answer.

No, Lan Qiren’s brother wouldn’t show up. He had run away to lick his wounds in private, or so Lan Qiren presumed, and he would stay there, doing that. He was too smart to try to launch an attack somewhere where he would face so much opposition, and he valued his face too much to otherwise allow himself to appear here, where he’d risk becoming the target of other people’s scorn. He would not show up.

Or, well, so Lan Qiren thought, anyway. At this point, he’d given up trying to understand his brother.

But if Lan Qiren’s brother wasn’t going to show up – and since they’d been here a day and half already without any incident, it seemed likely that he wasn’t – then there was nothing for Lan Qiren to fear.

Who would he be afraid of even if he had the inclination, anyway? Jiang Fengmian, spineless puppy that he was, looking pleased as anything by the peaceful gathering he was hosting and not even bothering to bring up that awkward little business of a war being started on his outside border? Yu Ziyuan, presiding over the event with an iron fist, so busy that she could barely even blink? Jin Guangshan, who’d seemingly taken the censure he’d received from the Wen sect seriously enough to be avoiding them, but who was making up for it by being excessively sociable with everyone else – he’d even had his sect create commemorative coins celebrating the defeat of the Xixiang ghosts and was handing them out to everyone who’d take them, presumably trying to gloss over his own hasty exit following the appearance of the ghosts. Not that it would change the fact that everyone knew he was both an opportunist and a coward, but with the receipt of Jin sect gold, they at least wouldn’t be talking about it in public.

Perhaps what Lan Qiren ought to be worrying about was Lao Nie, who rather uncharacteristically still had a stormy scowl on his face instead of his regular carefree smirk, and who was being unusually standoffish, completely contrary to his usual self. He’d brought his eldest son, Nie Mingjue, to the party with him, and it was Nie Mingjue who was doing most of the work of greeting people – not an unreasonable task, given that he was his father’s heir, but he was too young for it.

Most people might interpret Nie Mingjue’s rather impressive height, already starting to inch up to nearly match his father’s, as suggesting that he was in his late adolescence, nearly a full man. This was a reasonable assumption, in fairness, since given Qinghe Nie’s habitual reticence with personal details, that strange quirk that meant that they shared neither their childhood name nor their age nor anything about themselves until they reached the point of arranging a marriage, it was impossible to be sure that he wasn’t. But Lan Qiren had taught Nie Mingjue for a whole summer, and he was experienced with teaching boys, experienced enough to be able to tell the gradations of different ages between them. He, at least, knew that the boy, however tall, was likely only thirteen or fourteen at the oldest. And that meant, even as training, it was far too early to make him have to carry the weight of these horrible social events!

But with Lao Nie’s temper, and the deeply forbidding expression on his face at present, it was probably unwise to go over and say as much. To do so would undoubtedly do nothing but invite his anger.

Of course, what really worried Lan Qiren about Lao Nie wasn’t actually the other man’s anger, since that was something he had dealt with many times before. Lao Nie was, at heart, a Nie: angry, yes, but straightforward in the extreme; when pressed, he would either confess what was bothering him or realize that there was no point in taking it out on Lan Qiren and they’d be able to move past it. No, what was keeping Lan Qiren away from confronting Lao Nie was his own newly born fears – not about Lao Nie, but about Wen Ruohan.

After all, Lao Nie was Wen Ruohan’s lover, and not just a lover, but a long-standing lover who had been by his side since before Lan Qiren had even become acting sect leader. Wen Ruohan had admitted to the relationship and never disclaimed it, and as far as Lan Qiren knew, neither had Lao Nie. However twisted their relationship might have gotten, however much they might seem to be at each other’s throats, it was still there, still important, still meaningful.

And that was good, or so Lan Qiren tried unsuccessfully to convince himself. Good relationships between sects, especially the Great Sects, were always a good thing, and of course it was beneficial to Wen Ruohan to have as many meaningful connections with others as he could get, on a personal basis. It wouldn’t be appropriate for Lan Qiren to interfere with that, not without due cause. And certainly not because of – because of some ridiculous impulse to try to monopolize Wen Ruohan’s time like some sort of jealous concubine…

He wasn’t even sure it was appropriate to want to interfere, no matter what he felt about the man.

In fact, the subject of love had been causing Lan Qiren no end of distress recently.

For better or for worse, he had always taken his brother as his model, even when he wasn’t aware that he was doing it. In particular, he had always viewed his brother, however tragic his fate, as the exemplar of what it meant to be a Lan of the Gusu Lan in love, the epitome of what it meant. But in the end his brother’s behavior hadn’t accorded with what Lan Qiren believed love to be. He had turned against his own beloved, committed violence against her, hurt her, killed her,and hadn’t had the nerve to take responsibility for what he had done, even after he’d realized it.

That wasn’t love as Lan Qiren understood it.

Not that he expected everyone in love to commit suicide over their wrongs, of course. But surely it wasn’t too much to expect some genuine regret? To assume that his brother would conduct some introspection, demonstrate some intent to present himself for punishment for the unforgivable crime he had committed against the one he claimed to love the most? Something to mark the fact that his brother had murdered his own wife, rather than this endless non-appearance, as if by hiding away his brother could undo the fact of it…?!

No, that wasn’t love. Not as Lan Qiren understood it.

Though…he was now wondering if he did understand it. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he’d been misunderstanding love this entire time, led astray by his brother’s example.

But if Lan Qiren didn’t understand love, then what if that meant… Well, what if he was wrong?

It would hardly be the first time Lan Qiren had erred in interpersonal matters, though the magnitude of the error in this case would be frankly horrifying. But what if he had?

What if his feelings for Wen Ruohan, strong and burning and all-consuming as they still were, weren’t what most people felt when they spoke of being in love? He’d fallen so hard, so fast, so irrevocably – what if love like that wasn’t merely a quirk of being one of Gusu Lan, the way he’d thought it to be, but yet another oddity that was just him? What if what he felt was too strong for regular people to tolerate?

What if it was too much for Wen Ruohan to tolerate?

Lan Qiren had convinced himself that Wen Ruohan liked him, and maybe, if he was lucky, that he felt more than that for him, however in denial he might be. It was, admittedly, a deduction about another person’s hidden motives, which was something Lan Qiren had historically been fairly bad at, but he’d tried to analyze the situation as if he were analyzing a rule or some piece of poetry, and he thought he had the right of it. He’d even concluded that the fact that Wen Ruohan hadn’t trusted him suggested that Wen Ruohan might not know of his own feelings, or at least might not be ready to face up to a realization of those types of feelings, might not be ready to admit the reality of them. At first Lan Qiren had been fairly confident that this situation was only temporary, and that as long as he made sure to rein himself in and not spook Wen Ruohan too much with the strength of his regard, he could eventually coax the other man into understanding his own feelings and developing their relationship into something mutual…but now he wasn’t so sure.

If Lan Qiren was just being the odd man out again – if he was, yet again, feeling things differently than the way most people felt – then maybe he was wrong about everything. How would he be able to know, looking at it from the inside? How would he know if he’d deduced correctly, or if he was just projecting his own too-strong feelings onto others?

It was just like the matter of lust, which had puzzled him for years and years until he realized that he simply did not feel it the way other people did. He had been constantly confounded by the many ridiculous behaviors of the people around him, behaviors which seemed to him to be completely irrational, but which everyone else seemed to accept as a matter of course; it had given him a reputation for being cold, unfeeling, unsympathetic. He’d erred by using his own behavior as a measure for others, assuming other people felt as he did, and been wrong time and time again when people made decisions that he simply didn’t understand.

He’d failed to understand that they were all feeling something he didn’t.

That he…lacked something that they had.

His lack in that sense had not changed, not even after all the sex he’d been having with Wen Ruohan, physically pleasant as it might be. He liked it well enough, to be sure, but for him the act of sex was the same as having discovered a new type of food he enjoyed or a particularly comfortable blanket, or perhaps a pleasant massage technique – he did not feel any particular internal drive to have to have it, felt no intrinsic need for it, would be perfectly content without it.

Well, maybe not perfectly content. The physical pleasure of release was nothing, as he could obtain it far more conveniently on his own, but he did have to admit he deeply enjoyed how much Wen Ruohan liked it.

He liked being able to elicit such profound reactions with relatively little effort, and he liked how much and how obviously Wen Ruohan wanted him, how he knew that it kept the other man constantly thinking about him. He liked how it let them feel close, liked the way sex made the otherwise prickly Wen Ruohan soften…and, yes, if he wasn’t lying to himself, he liked the way it let him bully and tease Wen Ruohan in ways the man would normally not permit. If tomorrow Wen Ruohan told him that he could return his love but that they would never have sex again, Lan Qiren’s only real regret would be the loss of that particular hobby.

Not that he thought such a thing was likely, given that Wen Ruohan was very fond of sex. Indeed, if it wasn’t for his devotion to his sect and his political ambitions, he would clearly be inclined to follow Lan Qiren’s father’s example and simply absent himself from the world for two months to do nothing else.

But…that was precisely the problem. Wen Ruohan felt that way – most people felt that way, Lan Qiren’s father and other predecessors included – but Lan Qiren did not. What if the same were true with love? What if what he felt was yet again different from the norm, and he just didn’t know it? For that matter, was what Lan Qiren felt love? Or was it merely some form of insanity, some type of obsession that he had convinced himself was love? Would it be something Wen Ruohan would enjoy being the subject of, or would he be repulsed, unnerved, even disgusted…?

Lan Qiren was aware that it was a little ridiculous to worry about Wen Ruohan being disgusted by him when he’d so recently thrown Lan Qiren into the Fire Palace.

The marks were gone, courtesy of the Wen sect’s really quite remarkable doctors, but the fact remained, and most people would not be inclined to forgive such a thing. For him, though, it simply was what it was, an unfortunate event but one he was confident would not occur again – but perhaps that was another sign that his irrational overwhelming affection was out of the ordinary. That it was perhaps out of line with normal people’s expectations, and perhaps, because of that, unwelcome…?

For the time being, Lan Qiren had decided to keep his feelings to himself. He wanted to have a chance to think about the subject further and maybe even, if he could, to get a better handle on it, try to be a little less intense in his affections. But it was fiendishly difficult, the first time Lan Qiren had ever struggled with Maintain your own discipline, and it was making him doubt himself in all other respects, too. It was simply impossible to know when he was being reasonable and when he was going too far.

Take his ridiculous jealousy over Lao Nie, for instance. Early in their marriage, more fool him, Lan Qirenhad told Wen Ruohan that he was pleased to know that the other man had other lovers, people who would be able to take the brunt of Wen Ruohan’s insatiable lust when he tired of it. It would surely be unseemly to try to take that statement back now, would it not? Much less to try to explain, however incoherently, that it wasn’t that he so much objected to the fact of Wen Ruohan having sex with Lao Nie, but rather that he found the notion of Wen Ruohan continuing to devote his heart to a relationship that at present didn’t seem to be especially beneficial or even entirely mutual to be a highly unpleasant one...no, it would simply be impossible to explain.

No, Lan Qiren was just losing his mind, plain and simple.

Worrying about Lao Nie, worrying about the Lotus Pier even though there was nothing actually wrong – it was paranoia, pure and simple.

Or maybe he just didn’t like the way people kept looking at Wen Ruohan.

It wasn’t even a bad sort of looking, not really. In most cases, their gazes were filled with admiration, whether outright or merely begrudging. After Wen Ruohan’s display at the mountain, each one of them had no choice but to respect Wen Ruohan’s formidable arts, no matter how much they might despise him personally. If it had been someone from Lan Qiren’s sect that was the subject of such glances, he would have been worried about the eventual consequences of that lingering resentment, mixed in with envy, but that was hardly relevant to the case here. With Wen Ruohan, the difference between him and other people was so great that their envy was almost inevitable, unavoidable and therefore irrelevant…though perhaps that was just some of Wen Ruohan’s arrogance that had started rubbing off on Lan Qiren.

Still, he didn’t like it. There was something profoundly different about the way they looked at Wen Ruohan now in comparison with the way they’d regarded him before. Before, everyone had acknowledged Wen Ruohan to be the most powerful cultivator in the world, but he hadn’t publicly displayed his abilities in a serious fashion for as long as Lan Qiren could remember. As leader of the largest and most powerful sect, it would have been crass for him to go out and do something himself, so he would always send someone else to act on his behalf; he was a general at the head of his armies, not a hero out to show off and win fame. Before Xixiang, his power had always been theoretical – something spoken of but only half-believed, understood but not actualized.

There was a difference between hearing someone boast that they were only a half-step away from being a god and actually seeing them prove it.

They were all of them cultivators, and all cultivators by necessity went against the natural order, whether by flying on swords or hoping to achieve immortality. But there was going against the natural order and then there was stopping a natural disaster in its tracks, pitting yourself against not only the natural flow but against the rampaging torrent – and more than that, Wen Ruohan had done it by himself. To take Wen Ruohan’s joke about Lan Qiren’s brother not being able to fight one-against-many as an example, if all the cultivation world joined hands together against Wen Ruohan, his display in Xixiang had been a declaration that it was no longer so certain who would win.

That was an exaggeration, of course; even at the peak of his power, Wen Ruohan would not have been able to fight off the world. But in another ten or twenty years, another fifty years, it might not be – and unlike most people, Wen Ruohan, who’d already broken the confines of one lifetime, had the time to spare.

So people were looking at Wen Ruohan with a certain strangeness in their eyes now, and Lan Qiren didn’t like it. He didn’t like the way they were whispering about him, he didn’t like the way they were obviously scheming against him or even for him, wanting to get in good with the Wen sect now that they knew how strong its leader was. He didn’t like the dirty looks people were sending his way, as if they thought he’d known about the extent of Wen Ruohan’s power in advance and decided to marry in just to beat the rush.

But what he really didn’t like was that despite him having instructed Wen Ruohan to stay by his side and not go too far afield during their visit to the Lotus Pier, Wen Ruohan had gone and disappeared on him.

Lan Qiren was perfectly aware as to the reason behind it. It hadn’t exactly been very subtle, not even for someone as occasionally oblivious as him: someone had shown up with a somewhat shifty expression, which suggested that they were up to some shady business on behalf of the Wen sect, and Wen Ruohan had decided to go off to deal with it alone rather than risk irritating Lan Qiren’s conscience, or perhaps because he wished to avoid Lan Qiren’s temper.

Which was of course a perfectly logical and reasonable method of handling such things, because Lan Qiren would feel obligated to stop anything unethical he knew was going on and Wen Ruohan was unlikely to stop everything he was doing that fell into what Lan Qiren viewed as being unethical. After all, even if Lan Qiren’s love was requited, and even it was requited to the same degree of madness, it still wouldn’t solve all the disputes between them, politically speaking. It was completely reasonable for Wen Ruohan to leave him out of this sort of thing.

Besides, there was no marriage in the world that did not permit both sides to spend time on their own particular interests – just as Lan Qiren wouldn’t expect Wen Ruohan to develop a passion for the Lan sect rules, he didn’t expect to be included every time Wen Ruohan was scheming something.

And yet.

The logic might all be there, but none of that meant that Lan Qiren didn’t want to track down Wen Ruohan and smack him upside the head. He’d said that he would stay close by, and then hadn’t. He could be so obnoxious sometimes…!

“Whatever it is that you’re chewing over, Qiren, I’m sure it can’t be that bad.”

And here was the only person capable of being more obnoxious.

Lan Qiren turned and gave Lao Nie a look, deeply unimpressed at the lack of greeting, then followed it up with a polite nod at Nie Mingue, who was unsurprisingly trailing after his father. For his part, Nie Mingjue greeted him with an appropriate salute and a perfectly respectable murmur of “Teacher Lan.”

“Is it Hanhan?” Lao Nie asked. He was passing a bowl of wine between his hands, oddly restless. “Don’t worry about him. He’s got a top-notch combat sense. He could have the cultivation level of a hamster and still beat out most of the sect leaders here.”

“Lao Nie! That is both highly disrespectful and also false.”

Not to mention playing on Lan Qiren’s current anxieties.

Lao Nie shrugged indifferently. “Disrespectful to who, the other sect leaders? What are they going to do about it?”

“If you continue in your present vein, I am going to stop talking to you,” Lan Qiren informed him. “I have done nothing to merit you taking your evidently terrible mood out on me. What is your problem, anyway?”

He regretted asking the moment after he did. What if Lao Nie’s problem was that he’d finally realized that Lan Qiren had married his lover and that he didn’t like it? It hadn’t seemed to be a problem before, he’d seemed to be more upset on Lan Qiren’s behalf than Wen Ruohan’s, but still, if it were Lan Qiren in his position…

“Was it your brother?” Lao Nie asked abruptly, and Lan Qiren stared at him, taken aback. “Xixiang. That was where he met his wife, wasn’t it?”

Lan Qiren opened his mouth, then closed it. He didn’t know exactly how to respond to that question. It wasn’t strictly true to say that his brother had been involved in the original fiasco with the mine, and yet it would be untrue to deny his involvement in what had happened just now…that wasn’t the problem, though.

The problem was that Lao Nie was asking at all.

Lan Qiren had agreed with Wen Ruohan that the best result of the situation with the mine would be for those within the Lan sect that had been involved to take responsibility for what they had done and face justice, but for it to happen internally, not externally. It was better that outsiders not learn of the matter, letting the sect save face and serving as an additional motivation for the people involved to give themselves up, since they would not be harming the sect in doing so. They hadn’t reached a similar agreement as to what they would do with regard to Lan Qiren’s brother’s behavior, but presumably the same applied, since explaining one would mean having to explain the other.

If at all possible, and Lan Qiren was painfully aware that it might not be, he would prefer to preserve his brother’s public reputation for the sake of his nephews. He hadn’t had a chance yet to speak to them about their father, though he would, since they deserved to know the truth – but he didn’t want them to have to bear the burden of being publicly known as the sons of a madman. Everything was easier if you had a good reputation; everything was harder without. And for better or worse, the world put immense value on who your parents were…

“I thought so,” Lao Nie said darkly, interpreting Lan Qiren’s silence correctly. His question had been vague, purposefully, which Lan Qiren decided to interpret as his consent for Lan Qiren to try to handle this internally with the Lan sect; Lan Qiren was appropriately thankful. “Do you know, the last time we were here, he told me to my face that he was going to try to make things better?”

Lan Qiren winced.

“If it does any good,” he said slowly, “I think that he was sincere, in his own way.”

It was only that Lan Qiren’s brother’s view of what was “better” had been warped by his self-absorption, by his years of obsession in seclusion, by the death of his wife – by his murder of his wife.

Lan Qiren wasn’t sure that knowing his brother had simply lost all perspective would help make Lao Nie feel better, but he hoped that it might. It hadn’t helped him, but then again he hadn’t been his brother’s friend, not the way Lao Nie had been.

He hadn’t helped his brother try to win He Kexin’s heart the way Lao Nie had, either.

His brother had been wrong about many things, virtually everything, Lan Qiren reflected, but he’d been right about how terrible complicity could be. Poor Lao Nie: he hadn’t even done all that much back then, just a few kind words by letter, a careless “you can do it!” or two that Lan Qiren’s brother had taken as encouragement. In the time since then, it was clear that Lao Nie had deeply regretted his inattention back then, so he’d tried so hard to make up for it now, extending faith and attention both, but it had only resulted in him making further mistakes, piling wrong on top of wrong. And now this was the what he got for all his efforts…!

No wonder he was upset.

Lao Nie snorted disdainfully. “As always, Qiren, you have no idea what would and would not do good.”

He tossed back the rest of the wine in a single gulp and stalked off into the crowd, leaving Lan Qiren staring after him in surprise at the uncharacteristically cruel comment. Lao Nie was quite often rude, of course, but he was rarely nasty, and certainly not nasty to Lan Qiren. What had happened to his seemingly never-ending good humor…?

“Please forgive my father, Teacher Lan,” Nie Mingjue said, and the longer sentence combined with the way he scuffed his heel embarrassedly against the floor reminded Lan Qiren yet again of how young he was. “He hasn’t been feeling well.”

Lan Qiren frowned and stroked his beard. “That is no excuse for rudeness. Have courtesy and integrity.”

“Yes, well…” Nie Mingjue’s eyes flickered from side to side, as if trying to determine whether the corner they were in was sufficiently private. There was no one around – Lan Qiren had picked it especially for that purpose – but they were still part of the main room. “Teacher Lan, could your student consult you with a question?”

“Of course,” Lan Qiren said at once, a little surprised by the request and the way it was phrased. But perhaps he shouldn’t have been. Had it really only been two years since he’d taught Nie Mingjue? “I am at your service.”

They left the main hall and went to one of the side rooms that were inevitably provided for these types of meetings. This might technically only be a party, not a discussion conference, but the whole point of making up for the missed discussion conference was to give the cultivation world a chance to do all the things they’d intended to do last time: to broker the deals and fix up the relationships, to make new alliances or to reassure themselves of existing ones.

“What is the matter?” Lan Qiren asked Nie Mingjue. Something to do with his father, he surmised; something that would explain Lao Nie’s terrible mood, his uncharacteristic grouchiness – maybe even why he was so upset about Lan Qiren’s brother’s actions, when normally he seemed to take everything light-heartedly, no matter how awful.

He expected the issue to be something political, perhaps something in internal Nie sect politics (someone complaining about Nie Huaisang’s lack of aptitude for cultivation again, perhaps?), or maybe even a new romantic relationship gone wrong. Something like that, anyway.

And that assumption meant he was completely unprepared when Nie Mingjue took a deep breath and blurted out: “He had a qi deviation.”

“What?!” Lan Qiren exclaimed.

“Just a little one,” Nie Mingjue said. He looked miserable. “He got better – or, well, I mean, he’s mostly better, and he would be getting the rest of the way better if he’d only rest the way the doctors told him to. But…I don’t know. He’s not taking it well.”

No wonder, Lan Qiren thought to himself, numb and horrified. No wonder.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know about the tendency for leaders of Qinghe Nie to die of qi deviations – to eventually die of rage, insuppressible and irresistible. They bore the weight of their sect upon their shoulders in a way that other sect leaders did not. Their cultivation style had always prioritized the present against the future, trading years of their lives in exchange for the power to fight evil today, and their leader bore that charge more heavily than the rest.

As a sect leader of a Great Sect, and in particular one that was closely allied to the Nie sect, Lan Qiren was more aware of the details than most. Like most of his ancestors, Lao Nie had devoted a certain level of effort to trying to find a solution to the problem, not wanting his children to bear such a heavy cost for their ancestors’ choice if they could avoid it. Lan Qiren had even offered his personal assistance a few times, but Lao Nie had always declined, noting that previous generations of their sects had worked together without success; he had always preferred to be sanguine on the subject, taking things easily, hoping for the best…

Surely Lao Nie was still far too young for the bill to already be coming due!

“The doctors say it was just an aberration,” Nie Mingjue explained. “He’s got at least another ten years…maybe fifteen or even more, if we’re lucky. He was nearly thirty when he inherited the sect, and we’re all hoping he’ll make it until I’m thirty myself. That would be a perfectly respectable lifespan for a common person, even if it’s short for a cultivator. I think it’s more that he just didn’t want to think about it, and now he has to. But…I mean…”

“I will speak with him,” Lan Qiren promised at once. “If there is anything we can do to aid him, we will.”

Nie Mingjue looked at him gratefully. “Do you mean that? I mean – I know you will, Teacher Lan…”

“Wen Ruohan as well,” Lan Qiren said firmly.

He wasn’t sure there was anything Wen Ruohan would actually be able to do about the Nie sect’s familial disorder, for all his brilliance, but he was also fairly sure Wen Ruohan had never devoted any attention to the issue – Lao Nie had undoubtedly never asked, given his preference not to think about the problem, and Wen Ruohan was sufficiently self-absorbed that he would never think of it independently without being asked. He was inclined towards indolence, and for someone as paranoid as he was about his own business, he could be remarkably relaxed when it came to future threats to others.

On the other hand, if there was anyone who could help Lao Nie, it would be Wen Ruohan. He was a genius among geniuses, the only person to have successfully used his cultivation to break through the limits of a human lifetime, and that was all even before one took into account whatever it was that he’d used to fight the landslide. If he really put his mind to it…well, who knew?

Maybe he really could come up with something.

“Thank you, Teacher Lan. I really appreciate it!” Nie Mingjue paused. “Uh, one more question.”

“You may ask.”

“…did Baoshan Sanren’s mountain really – ”

“Permission to ask questions revoked,” Lan Qiren said sternly, and Nie Mingjue laughed gleefully, completely unabashed by the implicit rebuke. “You are my student, Mingjue. I know you know better than to believe such nonsense.”

“But the representatives of the Lan sect were saying – ”

“It was an earthquake,” Lan Qiren stressed. “If there had been a celestial mountain moving overhead, we would have seen it. Baoshan Sanren is unrelated to what occurred, and Cangse Sanren was merely jesting.”

And his sect representatives were acting like idiots, though he didn’t come out and say that. It was stupid enough to have believed her to begin with, but to continue talking about it was compounding stupidity on top of stupidity!

“Sure, Teacher Lan,” Nie Mingjue said in a tone that suggested that he was going to go around saying the exact opposite because it was funnier. Sometimes Lan Qiren could really tell that Nie Mingjue was his father’s son, even though he was generally more earnest and certainly far more righteous. Lao Nie would fight evil with the best of his sect, but Lan Qiren had to admit he had the personal moral sense of a damp noodle. “I’ll keep that in mind. Tell Xichen I said hello?”

“Of course.”

“And Wangji! Tell him I look forward to seeing how much he’s improved with the sword the next time we meet.”

“…I shall inform him.”

Lan Qiren managed, just barely, not to sigh until Nie Mingjue had left. He recalled with painful clarity how Nie Mingjue’s time at the Cloud Recesses had gone, particularly as it related to his nephews, and he could already see what would happen if he passed along the words as requested: Lan Xichen would start walking on air, delighted that Nie Mingjue had remembered him and becoming absolutely useless for anything else, while Lan Wangji would immediately triple his training time for the next half-month, undoubtedly drawing questions and potentially jealousy from Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng. Not to mention Wen Chao, who took after his father in disliking anyone spending any time on anything that didn’t involve him…

He rubbed his eyes once Nie Mingjue had left to return to the party and reminded himself that Nie Mingjue was a sweet and earnest boy, and it really wasn’t his fault that he’d apparently charmed not one but both of Lan Qiren’s nephews into developing little puppy crushes on him. He couldn’t hold it against him.

What a disaster. Why did people, including himself, insist on falling in love?

Lan Qiren gloomily mused on the subject as he walked further out into the Lotus Pier, opting not to return to the party. He didn’t enjoy socializing with his fellow sect leaders at the best of times, and the revelation about the source of Lao Nie’s distress had soured what little taste for it he might have had. He was in no mood to celebrate. Well before Lao Nie had been what Lan Qiren might consider a romantic rival, he had been Lan Qiren’s friend, and that was by far more important.

He would ask Wen Ruohan to assist him as soon as he found him.

Or, well, he’d ask as soon as they were alone in private, anyway. He couldn’t imagine Wen Ruohan having a good reaction to the notion that his lover and one of his few genuine friends was facing down the prospect of his own potentially imminent death…

“Senior Lan! Senior Lan!”

Lan Qiren turned in surprise, finding that a young man that he did not recognize, wearing Jiang sect colors, had run up to him, looking panicked.

“Senior Lan, can you come help?” the young man asked urgently, pointing back the way he came. “We need a musical cultivator – please, come quickly – ”

“Yes, of course,” Lan Qiren said, alarmed. He at once followed the young man back to wherever he had come from, drawing his guqin from his qiankun pouch as he did. “What is the issue? Can you explain – ”

“There’s no time,” the young man interrupted, rather rudely. “I’m sorry, Senior Lan, they didn’t tell me much, just that we needed a musician, and urgently. This way, come through here.”

Lan Qiren found the request a little odd. If they just needed a musician, why not get one of the Jiang sect’s? Many of them were skilled with instruments as well, usually flutes and the like. He supposed it made a certain amount of sense to ask him if he was the first potential musician they’d seen, since unlike most sects virtually every member of Gusu Lan was practically guaranteed to be a musical cultivator of some degree. But just in terms of saving face, it seemed strange that the disciples of the Jiang sect would bother someone from another sect in the middle of a party like this, rather than seeking to keep it to their own people…

Moved by instinct or possibly simply infected by his earlier paranoia, Lan Qiren slowed his steps, coming nearly to a complete halt instead of continuing to trail the other man at full speed.

He took a half step into the room, hesitantly starting to ask, “Can you tell me what exactly – ”

The person standing behind the door brought their sword down.

Luckily Lan Qiren had not gone too far inside, so the strike passed in front of him rather than falling on his undefended back. He hastily used his guqin to block the follow-up blow, the heavy wood resounding with a heavy and unfortunate-sounding clunk, but before he could do anything else, the instrument was yanked out of his hands by the young man he’d followed here. The other man’s fingers were already glinting with spiritual energy already brought to bear, even though Lan Qiren was still summoning his own – he’d been expecting this.

No. He’d been part of this.

A moment later, before Lan Qiren could get his bearings, someone hit him at speed from behind, knocking him stumbling over the threshold and fully into the room they’d been trying to lure him into.

The person that had shoved him – another man he did not recognize, this one heavy-set and fierce-looking – stepped into the room after him, pulling the door shut behind him. The moment the door closed, a privacy barrier flared to life, having obviously been placed there in advance, and the sounds from outside the room abruptly cut off.

They wouldn’t be able to hear the outside world, and, more importantly, no one from the outside would hear what was happening here.

“What is this?” Lan Qiren demanded. There were five in total in the room with him, three men and two women, all of them dressed as Jiang sect disciples, although in slightly ill-fitting clothes. It occurred to Lan Qiren they might have stolen the outfits so as to better make their way through the Lotus Pier unnoticed and to better lure him away without raising suspicion. Certainly that was more likely than Jiang Fengmian ordering an assassination. “Who are you – ”

One of the women threw dust into his face.

No, it wasn’t dust, but rather – something spicy.

It was painful, and instantly effective. Lan Qiren’s eyes immediately started to tear up, making it hard to see, and he choked on the spice, his tongue tingling with pain and throat immediately getting coated by it, rendering him unable to speak another word.

How clever, some part of Lan Qiren’s brain commented, distant and remote from the immediate panic of the situation, strangely appreciative. It sounded a bit like Wen Ruohan. They have taken away my instrument and cut off my ability to whistle; those are the two main sources of power for a musical cultivator. And with my eyes blinded and throat blocked off, even if I manage to escape this room, it will be difficult for me to reach others and call for help.

As assassination attempts go, this one seems to be pretty well put together.

“Execute him quickly, while he’s helpless!” the young man from before snapped, his voice sounding harder and more professional than it had before. “I don’t want to waste too much time here. The sooner we can go help the squad targeting Sect Leader Wen, the better – ”

The what?!

Everything suddenly made a great deal more sense. Lan Qiren had been wondering who in the world would bother trying to assassinate him – he wasn’t even a sect leader anymore, he was only a sect leader’s husband, and nothing more. But if the real target was Wen Ruohan…

Wen Ruohan, who had just used up virtually all of his spiritual energy in one blow.

Who was currently weakened, vulnerable, and all because of something he had done for Lan Qiren.

Absolutely not.

Lan Qiren, still choking, raised his hand and drew his sword out of his qiankun pouch.

“Don’t hesitate!” the leader called, meaning that presumably at least one of the purple-clad figures had done so. “He’s a musical cultivator, not a swordsman, and he even can’t see. Get him!”

Lan Qiren had always preferred to use his guqin for public events, the night-hunts and the like that he had attended while acting as the Lan sect leader. This was for several reasons: firstly, he thought himself better at musical cultivation, and it was important for his sect to put their best foot forward when in public, particularly since he was only technically standing in for his brother. Secondly, Lan Qiren’s teachers in swordsmanship growing up had always drawn comparisons between him and his brother, an undeniable genius with the sword, and his brother had often criticized him for his lack of real-life experience or warrior instincts; this had led Lan Qiren to conclude that he was at best barely better than average and doomed to remain so, and therefore he was a little shy about demonstrating his swordsmanship in public. Lastly, as an adult, he had largely socialized with his own peers, meaning the leaders of the other Great Sect, and so his most common point of comparison was Lao Nie – and there was really no point in a comparison like that, since Lao Nie’s skill with his saber was to such extent that he could fight even Wen Ruohan to a standstill.

None of that meant that he was not a swordsman.

Lan Qiren closed his eyes.

He breathed in through his nose. He let himself forget about sight, and focus only on hearing – the other important skill a musical cultivator had to have.

He could hear a sword coming towards him from the left, the blade whistling through the air; he blocked it, using his arm strength to knock it straight into the path of the next sword flying towards him from another direction, causing a loud clang. Someone to his right startled, taking an extra step forward, and the sound of their footfall against the floorboard echoed in Lan Qiren’s ear – he swept his sword over, aiming low, and they stumbled back. He stepped forward to follow through on them in a fluid motion he’d practiced a hundred thousand times or more, over and over again every morning with the same monotonous regularity that he excelled at the most.

Sword struck flesh.

Lan Qiren did not hesitate. He drew his sword back, and swept it wide again, raising his free hand to his chest and forming a hand seal, sending his sword out with his spiritual energy, a quick thrust – another strike, aimed a little ahead of the last footfall he’d heard. And then the thud of another body hitting the floor.

His attackers were yelling now, panicked. Listening to them, it was clear enough that they had not counted on him having much skill with the sword, and they had not expected that he would be able to fight them without his sight. Most of all, they had in no way anticipated that he would be willing to attack so decisively, striking immediately with intent to kill rather than injure.

Foolish.

The rules said: no killing in the Cloud Recesses. Applying the standard canons of rule interpretation, the exception proved the rule – because there was a rule against killing within the Cloud Recesses, it therefore stood to reason that there was no restriction on killing outside of the Cloud Recesses, provided one respected the other rules that called for virtuous conduct and righteousness.

Not that anyone would question the righteousness of executing a would-be assassin.

Lan Qiren lunged forward in a sudden burst of acceleration, surprising his attackers; he took down a third, then spun and slit the throat of the fourth. Only one was left: the young man who had been acting as their leader.

Him, Lan Qiren stabbed only in the shoulder, pinning him to the wall.

“Wen Ruohan,” he said sharply, not opening his still-streaming eyes. “You said a second squad was attacking him. Where?”

“You – you…!”

“Wen Ruohan,” Lan Qiren stressed. “Where is he?”

“Will you let me live?” the assassin gasped.

“You will not die by my sword today,” Lan Qiren agreed. He left open the possibility that the man might die by other means – if Wen Ruohan was dead, he was making no promises as to what he might do. And if Wen Ruohan was not dead, well, Wen Ruohan would probably have some questions, and the man’s fate would be determined based on how well he could answer those. “Tell me where he is.”

“The westernmost pavilion,” the man confessed. “They drugged his drink and lured him there. He – ”

Lan Qiren did not stay to hear any more. He knocked the man out by grabbing him by the chin and slamming his head into the wall, pulled out his sword and sealed the wound with a hasty talisman, then turned on his heel to go, taking only a moment to forcefully flush out his eyes with water before hurrying onwards.

He needed to find Wen Ruohan.

He needed – he needed Wen Ruohan to be all right. He didn’t know what he would do if he wasn’t.

He’d known that something was wrong, hadn’t he? He wasn’t paranoid, it was only his intuition, and in his distress over what he’d discovered about his brother, his worries about love, he’d ignored it. And now they were here, with Wen Ruohan weakened and now apparently drugged…

If Wen Ruohan was dead, Lan Qiren was going to hurt someone.

He wasn’t going to do anything on the scale of what his brother had planned, but he was going to find out who had ordered this, by whatever means it took, and then he was going to use every single resource he had to do whatever he had to in order to avenge him. He had already established that he could and would govern the Wen sect in the event that Wen Ruohan was incapacitated – presumably that was why there had also been an attempt on his life, rather than merely Wen Ruohan’s – and he would use them as well, if that was what it took.

Anything. Everything.

How had Wen Ruohan put it?

“A broken-hearted Lan on the path of just revenge will not rest until the cause of their grief has been obliterated”?

It was true. Lan Qiren had always believed it to be true. Such grief demanded answer, and always had, and the madmen of his sect would always provide it. Whether the cause was external or internal, whether they needed to wield the sword against another or against themselves…

Only – Lan Qiren didn’t want to obliterate anything. He didn’t want to be broken-hearted. He didn’t care if Wen Ruohan didn’t want him back, if he would be spooked by the strength of Lan Qiren’s emotions, he just wanted Wen Ruohan to not be dead.

Wen Ruohan wasn’t allowed to die!

Lan Qiren rushed to the westernmost pavilion and found its door ominously shut. He sent his sword out ahead of him, spiritual steel ripping into the wood so violently that the entire door went to pieces. He followed only a moment later, leaping across the threshold, looking around with still-reddened eyes to see…there.

Wen Ruohan was still alive.

He was by the water – no, in the water, being forced down by the hands of the assassins, who were overwhelming him with sheer numbers. There were more here than the five that had been assigned to Lan Qiren; at least twenty, at first glance, though quite a few were already on the ground, unconscious or dead.

They were trying to drown him.

It was a smart move. Wen Ruohan’s skin was glowing, which meant he’d activated his favorite self-defensive array, the one that made him virtually invulnerable to sword strikes – as long as his guard wasn’t down and he hadn’t been taken completely by surprise, he could bring it up at a moment’s notice, and clearly he’d done so here. But having invulnerable skin didn’t mean he didn’t need to breathe, and with his spiritual energy reserves being as low as they were, most of his power had to be going to maintaining the array. If he dropped the array long enough to fight back, they would stab him; if he didn’t, they would drown him.

There were even sticky black threads wrapped around Wen Ruohan’s arms, the wet seaweed and rotted rope that signified the presence of water ghouls; they were pulling him down and impeding his efforts to fight back. It was impossible for such creatures to exist so close to the Lotus Pier, which was full of cultivators that would normally banish them, so they must have been brought here deliberately, presumably as a flimsy excuse upon which to blame his death.

Wen Ruohan’s hair had fallen loose in the struggle, his crown having been knocked away, and it was even wet and heavy, which meant the assassins had gotten his head into the water at least once already. Even as Lan Qiren watched, they managed to force him down again, Wen Ruohan gasping for air before he went under, though a few of the assassins turned away from the spectacle to raise their swords against the invader –

Lan Qiren threw himself forward with a fury unlike any he’d ever felt before.

His first strike was perhaps a little too powerful – he’d intended to slit the throat of the first assassin that was trying to lunge at him, but he ended up decapitating him entirely, sending the head rolling on the floor. It ended up being a fortuitous turn, as it got the attention of the assassins in earnest, distracting them from Wen Ruohan, who in turn was finally able to free a hand, fingers twisting into the initial stages of summoning an array of some sort into existence.

Lan Qiren kept one eye on him as he fought the other assassins, side-stepping their blows where he could and blocking them where he couldn’t, counterattacking at every opportunity. His fighting style had always been elegant and smooth, a little slow but immensely steady, leaving no openings that anyone could take advantage of. It served him well now. The assassins were not able to get at him even when they teamed up and tried to attack him from multiple directions at once.

A few moments later, Wen Ruohan’s array finally activated. Lan Qiren had been focusing on his fighting, but he still noticed, if only because the array had the somewhat unexpected result of pulling all the decorations off the wall and flinging them straight at the assassins who were still trying to push Wen Ruohan down into the water. Vases, plates, even some decorative swords, they all fell like hailstones.

The assassins shouted, more annoyed than anything else, but their distraction gave Lan Qiren the opening he was waiting for, and he used the opportunity to attack in full force, cutting his way through them without the slightest bit of mercy. It turned out that the best fighters were the ones holding Wen Ruohan down, one of them leaping up and meeting Lan Qiren head on, but by then it was already too late. Wen Ruohan was steadily fighting his way free of both assassins and the water, an array meant to forcefully liberate evil spirits appearing over his head and dissolving all the water ghouls in the vicinity.

With a loud splash he managed to break away from them and make his way back onto land.

At that point, the remaining assassins – there were only two left by then – realized that there was no hope and tried to flee.

Wen Ruohan’s teeth were bared in a snarl. He lifted up his hand to put an end to that foolish notion, but he never got the chance: Lan Qiren’s sword made it there first, slashing first at one and then, with a sudden burst of acceleration, skewering the other one just as he was about to make it to the door.

And then there was no sound but their heavy breathing: Lan Qiren from exertion and strain, and Wen Ruohan still trying to regain his breath from having been nearly drowned.

Wen Ruohan recovered first, unfortunately.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you kill before?” he remarked, sounding remarkably cheerful. “You’re far better at it than I expected. Clearly an oversight on my part – ”

Lan Qiren turned his head slowly to look at him. He wasn’t sure what was in his face, but whatever it was, it made Wen Ruohan cut off his words and stare at him, wide-eyed.

“Your eyes,” he said blankly. “They’re all – all red and teary. What did they…are you all right?”

Was Lan Qiren all right?

Lan Qiren stormed over to Wen Ruohan and grabbed him by the collar.

“You were supposed to be invulnerable!” he howled, shaking him. “No one was supposed to be able to hurt you! That was supposed to be the one advantage of falling in love with a bastard like you!”

Wen Ruohan was staring at him.

Lan Qiren didn’t care.

“The next time I tell you to stay by my side, you are going to do it, you hear me?” he snarled, his hands curled so tightly into Wen Ruohan’s collar that his knuckles had gone white. “I do not care if you have to discuss all of your dirty business in my presence! I will support you in the moment and we can fight about it later, like normal married couples. But this will not be happening again, do you understand? Tell me you understand!”

“I understand,” Wen Ruohan said. He was smiling, for some reason – no, not smiling. He was beaming. “Tell me again anyway.”

Lan Qiren shook him once more, because he deserved it, then released him.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, looking Wen Ruohan over, still panicked but starting to calm down a little now that it appeared that Wen Ruohan was indeed alive and likely to remain that way. This was definitely not how Lan Qiren had wanted to learn how to really empathize with his brother. “The assassin that tried to kill me said they fed you a drugged drink. What was in it? Should I call a doctor?”

“No need. I noticed that the flavor was off after the first sip and discarded the majority of it,” Wen Ruohan said. “I’m only a little disoriented. Where did they take you?”

“One of the northern pavilions. Not far, a little less than a ke to walk.” Lan Qiren had made noticeably better time than that. “Less by sword flight. Why?”

“Just wondering how many people got to see you covered in the blood of your enemies and leaving behind a swath of destruction on your way to rescue your wife.” Wen Ruohan was still grinning. “But also, can we go back to the bit where you said that you’re in love with me?”

Lan Qiren started, having not realized he’d said that. Certainly not out loud.

“With a bastard like me, I believe you put it,” Wen Ruohan helpfully reminded him.

The memory abruptly returned.

“…I had not meant to bring it up like that,” Lan Qiren said, feeling his entire face go hot and probably red. “Or to imply – I mean, I did not intend – that is – your parentage – ”

Vulgar language is forbidden was a good rule, Lan Qiren thought miserably, and really ought to be followed in one’s thought as well as in one’s speech. If he’d been a little more faithful, perhaps he wouldn’t have blurted out something like that…!

He’d have to punish himself for it later. Assuming this embarrassment wasn’t punishment enough…

“Think nothing of it.” Wen Ruohan caught him by the waist and pulled him closer, ignoring both his own soaked robes and Lan Qiren’s blood-stained ones. “You can insult my parents as much as you’d like as long as you say it again. And I’m being serious this time – say it again. Please.”

Lan Qiren was a little shocked by Wen Ruohan knowing the existence of the sincere version of the word ‘please.’ Nevertheless, there was no reason to refuse him. He’d come this far already; there was no turning back, there was only going forward.

“I have fallen in love with you,” Lan Qiren said, opting to omit the insult this time around. “I am presently in love with you. I expect to remain in love with you for the rest of my life.”

He hesitated for a moment, but, impelled by honesty, added: “In fact, I seem to have rather lost my mind over you.”

Wen Ruohan’s hands shook where he was holding him.

“Do not tell lies, Qiren,” he said, staring at him intently. “If you say that, you must mean it.”

“I do mean it,” Lan Qiren confirmed. “I refrained from telling you because it seemed that you did not – that is, that you might be unsure as to whether you returned my feelings, and that being forced to determine if you did or did not might cause you some distress. I did not want to impose – ”

“Impose?” Wen Ruohan interrupted. “You thought – you didn’t want to impose? Aren’t you a Lan? Aren’t you all mad for love?”

“I had thought so,” Lan Qiren admitted, a little relieved to finally be able to share his thoughts on the subject with someone else. “After what happened with my brother, I became worried that perhaps my feelings were not as common as I might have thought. I have something of a history…that is, I was afraid that perhaps being so incredibly consumed by love in such a manner would be – inappropriate.”

He paused there, waiting for Wen Ruohan’s reaction.

For his part, Wen Ruohan opted not to reply in words. Instead, he dropped his hands from Lan Qiren’s waist, reached up to his face and pulled him in to kiss him.

Not just once, either: he kissed him again and again, at times light, at times deep and hard.

After a little while, he let Lan Qiren go.

“Never,” Wen Ruohan said, and the look in his eyes, while no less intense, now contained nothing but joy. “Never inappropriate, never an imposition. If you have been consumed by love, if you are mad with it, then I am mad alongside you.”

There was a hot feeling in Lan Qiren’s chest.

“I swear it,” Wen Ruohan added. He was looking directly at him, sincere and almost too much to handle. “I swear it, Qiren. My feelings are just as strong as yours. I’ll prove it to you, this time. I will be your partner, just as you have been to me, and I will match you in this as I will anything else. Believe me.”

It was undoubtedly foolish to believe a known liar like Wen Ruohan about anything. But no more foolish than having fallen in love with him in the first place.

“Trust me, Qiren,” Wen Ruohan said. “Please. Believe me.”

Lan Qiren did.

#mdzs #wen ruohan #lan qiren #nie mingjue #sect leader nie #my fic #my fics #Megafic

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