The day bled by, each second a grain of sand in an hourglass that refused to empty. Lan Wangji sat in the suffocating quiet of the Jingshi, waiting for the single night that felt like it would never come.
He remained there, motionless, until the distant sound of returning footsteps signaled Lan Xichen's arrival. His mind was a silent chant, rehearsing the heretical steps he would soon take. A deep, cold part of him whispered that he would fail—that the precision of Gusu Lan orthodoxy could never bend to the chaotic art of resurrection.
'First, the array from forbidden scroll 1237… a drop of my blood upon the skull… then the invocation from scroll 1896…'
He revised the steps from memory, though he had read and re-read the stolen texts for years, their blasphemous characters now etched behind his eyes.
When he heard the group return, he rose with a hunter's care. He secured the hidden panel in the floor, smoothed his robes, and stepped out into the evening light from a side entrance, his face a placid mask. Nothing could be out of place.
Lan Xichen saw him and offered a faint, weary smile. "You rested."
Wangji merely nodded, the motion as curt and final as a closed door.
The other Lan disciples accompanying the sect leader averted their eyes. Some were the very men who had, under order, wielded the discipline whip against the Second Jade's back. Their silence was a soup of guilt and unasked questions—the same questions that haunted Wangji, but which they lacked the courage, or the ruinous love, to pursue.
The Twin Jades walked the final path to the inner chambers alone, their footsteps a synchronized whisper on the polished wood. Only when they were away from prying ears did Xichen speak again, his voice soft with a concern that felt like a searchlight.
"You look more tired than before, Wangji. Did you practice sword forms and open your wounds?"
Wangji halted mid-stride. His gaze fixed on a knot in the wooden floor, his hand tightening around Bichen's hilt until the leather creaked. He was aware, painfully so, of how his body betrayed his mind to his brother. A new layer of deception was needed—a lie woven with a thread of truth.
'Another falsehood. Another rule shattered' The weight of it was a stone in his stomach.
"I was… testing the efficacy of Qing Xin Yin," he said, his voice low. "To see if its cleansing power could truly affect a blade steeped in resentful energy. Two hours of practice. My hands are unsteady." It was not a complete fiction; he had tested the theory earlier, in the soundproof silence of his secret chamber, the guqin's notes a futile attempt to clean his own intent.
Xichen's gaze held him for a long moment before he nodded, resuming their walk. The concern did not leave his eyes. "I see. But you should not force yourself so soon."
Wangji said nothing. They walked in silence for several paces before Xichen spoke again, his voice dropping to a near-whisper meant for Wangji alone. "You may write to me of your troubles. If the words will not leave your lips, let them flow from your brush."
Tell me what is breaking you. The offer hung in the air, a lifeline thrown to a man who had already chosen to drown.
"Mn. I will," Wangji replied, the promise hollow. They had reached their uncle's quarters.
Lan Qiren looked up from his scroll, his sharp eyes missing nothing. They swept over Xichen and then landed, with particular weight, on Wangji. The air in the room grew several degrees colder.
"Rise," Lan Qiren said, his tone permitting no warmth. "Report on Yueyang."
Xichen stepped forward, the picture of calm authority. "The situation is contained, Shufu. The remaining corpses have been dispatched and the burial sites properly sealed." He paused, a subtle shift allowing space for Wangji to speak, to maintain the fiction of his presence.
Lan Qiren's expectant gaze settled on his younger nephew.
Wangji did not falter. He recited details as if he had witnessed them firsthand, his voice flat and precise. "The Gusu Lan disciples arrived in time to prevent significant escalation. The damage was minimized." He paused, a calculated beat, and glanced at Xichen.
His brother's lips moved silently behind his sleeve. 'Jiang Clan.'
Wangji continued seamlessly. "The Jiang Clan of Yunmeng was also present. Our forces coordinated. Casualties among the common people were kept low."
Satisfied, Lan Qiren gave a single, slow nod, some of the earlier storm in his expression receding. Wangji's flawless performance was the antidote to his fear—proof that the foundation was not yet cracked. "You may go. Xichen, remain. We have matters to discuss."
"As you say, Shufu." Wangji bowed and left, the door closing behind him with a soft, definitive click.
The rest of the day was a performance. He taught the juniors, his movements a study in controlled grace, all while scattering mental sand in the eyes of anyone who might look too closely. He was laying a false trail over the real one that led straight to hell.
When true night fell, a profound silence descended upon the Cloud Recesses. By the second watch, all lanterns were extinguished, all disciples asleep.
All but one.
At nine in the evening, when his body usually demanded rest, Lan Wangji was vibrantly, terribly awake. He moved through the final preparations in his hidden chamber with a mortician's care. The texts claimed the ritual would be silent, internal—a whisper to the underworld that would not alert the righteous energy of the Cloud Recesses.
He arranged the components with ritualistic precision: the bones laid in their grim approximation of a skeleton, the bowl of yao blood, the fragments of Wei Ying's black robes, the shattered pieces of Chenqing, and lastly, the new, vibrant red ribbon—a promise never given.
He waited. The night deepened.
At the third watch—the hour of ghosts—he began.
The spells could be spoken or played. Words had never been his allies. He chose the guqin.
He settled before the instrument, the forbidden scroll open beside him though he needed no reference. The melody was called 'Mu Huo'—'Wood-Fire.' the retual name and so as the melody.
His fingers found the strings. The first notes were not music; they were a command, torn from the silence.
The air in the small room changed. It grew thick, charged. A wind with no source began to swirl around him, plucking at his robes, tugging the ends of his forehead ribbon until the knot gave way. The white silk slithered free, drifting down to drape over the dry skull on the floor. He did not stop.
His heart was a frantic bird in his chest. Then, a new sensation cut through his focus—a presence. No. Not one.
Two.
Two souls? The texts spoke of one anchor, one call… Am I mistaken? Is my desperation conjuring phantoms?
Panic, cold and sharp, lanced through him. He cracked open one eye, just a sliver, to assess the truth.
He forgot to breathe.
The bones were moving. Not reassembling, but… reconstituting. A pale, ghostly luminescence was weaving between them, sketching the outlines of tendons, the shadow of muscle, the suggestion of flesh over the armature of death. The form trembled violently, a butterfly struggling in a spectral cocoon.
He snapped his eye shut, fingers flying over the strings with brutal, bleeding speed. He could not stop. Not now. He was so close. He would see that stupid, brilliant smile again. He would tie his own forehead ribbon around that wrist himself.
A few more notes. Just a few more—
The world outside his ritual shattered.
"WANGJI!" The roar was muffled by floorboards but unmistakable—Lan Qiren, furious and close. "Demonic texts are missing from the Forbidden Library! Present yourself immediately or I will have this door broken down!"
The sound of rushing footsteps and gathered spiritual energy was a thunderclap in the tranquil night.
Wangji froze. His hands slammed down on the guqin strings, killing the note with a discordant twang.
In the sudden, awful silence, the half-formed skeleton collapsed. The sound was not of breaking bone, but of something wet and heavy hitting the floor. The spectral wind died with a sound like a mocking sigh.
A ragged, wounded sound escaped him—a hiss of pain that had nothing to do with his bleeding fingers.
'Stolen?' His mind raced, cold and clear amid the ruin. 'I took them. They were here. Who else…?'
He was on his feet in an instant. He swept the guqin aside, sealed the hidden chamber with a slash of spiritual energy, and was back in the main room of the Jingshi in three strides. He did not go to the door. Instead, he went to the balcony.
As he slipped over the railing into the night, a figure in black robes was already fleeing into the treeline, a satchel clutched to its chest. Other Lan disciples gave chase, their swords glinting, but the thief hurled talismans that erupted into gouts of black flame.
Wangji's body screamed in protest—old wounds aching, new exhaustion a lead weight in his limbs, his mind reeling from the catastrophic, incomplete ritual. A single, desperate prayer formed in his mind: Let no harm come of what I have done. Let it simply… fade.
But duty, even now, was a chain he could not break. He drew Bichen and joined the pursuit, a white flash against the dark, his focus forcibly shifted from the ghost in his chamber to the thief in the woods.
He did not look back.
He did not see what happened in the locked room behind him.
On the floor, draped in a Gusu Lan forehead ribbon, Wei Ying's skull tilted. Slowly, impossibly, it turned its empty sockets toward the window through which its summoner had vanished.