WHO Jiang Cheng & Wei Wuxian WHERE Burial Mounds WHEN March 4th WHAT Yunmeng Brothers have a lil angst, lil bonding. STATUS Complete! WARNINGS Spoilers (lots) for The Untamed!
The Burial Mounds still felt like a place better left to the dead, as far as Jiang Cheng was concerned. He had no good memories here. He’d fought his brother here. He’d started to understand the depth of lies he’d been living here. But even before all that, Wei Wuxian had turned to demonic cultivation here. Only now did Jiang Cheng understand that Wei Wuxian had been cast aside here with no golden core to protect himself. Could he say he wouldn’t have done the same? He didn’t know.
He did know that the blood pool was still as disturbing as ever. He wrinkled his nose down at it before letting his gaze wander the room again. His brother would return soon, no doubt. Or Wen Qing. He stared at the place where Wen Ning had rested with all of Wei Wuxian’s paper talismans covering his body. It seemed like a cursed existence to him. The Ghost General’s half-life. But he hadn’t been able to take it away when Wen Ning had been a body laying on this slab of stone and he wouldn’t be able to now, even if it were an option.
Brushing a hand over the stone walls, Jiang Cheng reached out with his core, feeling for the energy of this place. He heard someone enter behind him and he didn’t need to open his eyes to know it was Wei Wuxian.
“I still don’t understand why you found comfort here,” Jiang Cheng murmured. “Did you truly miss it?”
When Wei Wuxian did return, he had both arms full of lotus roots and flowers, grown in the ponds out front. Grown technically years before, but the Burial Mounds was out of time and place in an unusual way.
He wasn’t complaining. It was quiet, but not quiet as it had been when he visited here before. Not the quiet of a Wen Clan gone and this place ransacked. That thought, coupled with Jiang Cheng’s words, put a frown on his face. He hoped his brother wouldn’t turn to see it, so Wei Wuxian busied himself by dropping the lotus roots into a nearby tub of water. He sat down and went to work starting to clean them.
“In a way,” Wei Wuxian admitted. He knew saying yes probably wasn’t what his brother wanted to hear, but he also didn’t like lying when there was nothing to be gained for it. “To me, it’s proof of my successes and failures,” The Wens. Lotus roots. A found family among the grief. But a family left behind in the wake. “It’s a good reminder.”
That was one of many ways they were different, Jiang Cheng supposed. He did not want or need a physical reminder of his failures. He had a memory like a steel trap. His mistakes were always there, in the back of his mind, pushing him forward, pulling him back. But then he also struggled to see what Wei Wuxian called his successes here.
For the first time in many years though, he wanted to understand.
Swiveling smoothly, he circled around the room, until he was back near his brother. “What are your successes here?” He held up a hand and tilted his head. “Don’t...take that as a judgment. I am trying to understand what this place means to you.”
Wei Wuxian’s eyebrows creased together as he stared down at the water that was slowly turning murky in the turnip cleaning process. He was surprised Jiang Cheng added the last part, but the question still made him-- a number of things. Sad, for one. There were people missing, because of actions out of his control.
“Jiang Cheng--” The demonic cultivator sighed and reached over for his knife to start trimming away the green roots. How he wanted to joke in this moment, to make it light and easy, like the old days. But that was disrespectful to the dead that lay at rest well under their feet. “For a year, this place was out of Jin Guangyao’s reach. It was safe, and quiet, and we farmed. I helped raise a child here, for a time.”
That made him beam a little with pride, knowing now what kind of good man Yuan had grown up to be, a few months ago it would have been peppered with sadness at the thought of losing him.
There was a part of Jiang Cheng that would always leap to defensive and it did so now. But outside of a frustrated noise between his teeth, he managed not to bite out the first prickly thought in his head. Or even the second. He sat down on a stone seat and stared at the ground instead. After a silent moment, he sighed.
“For someone so lazy, you always seem to choose the hardest path to the simplest end. It’s like you refuse to get anything the traditional way.” He didn’t sound unkind. Weary, yes. Melancholy. But also a little wistful. Like he was remembering days when this was easier. Talking to his brother about the things that made him happy. He slid a taunting glance Wei Wuxian’s way and his mouth twitched. It was almost a smirk.
“What do you know of raising children anyway?” he asked.
Immediately offended, Wei Wuxian opened his mouth and made a noise of annoyance. A loud one, that was practically a squawk across at his brother. Lazy. What do you know of raising children. “Hey hey hey hey!”
At the end of the day, he could sound as angry as possible, but it was rare for Wei Wuxian to be seriously annoyed. When he was, it was a quiet, simmering anger below the surface, one that made him use courtesy names and proper manners. This was the opposite, in more of a comical yell that was similar to when the Yunmeng Siblings had all teased each other young. “Lan Sizhui is a very upstanding member of the Lan Sect, you know! He was a very good baby and learned everything he needed in life from me.”
There was a beat, a pause, before finally he conceded. “And Lan Zhan. But I taught him things too!”
That obnoxious sputtering brought on a wave of nostalgia and Jiang Cheng’s barely there smirk grew by a half an inch. He turned his head to hide it.
“Oh, like what? How to nap? Where to find the best lotus--” The name Lan Sizhui finally settled into Jiang Cheng’s conscious mind and he snapped his attention back to Wei Wuxian, shocked into stillness. It had always been a question, of course, the truth behind where Hanguang-Jun had found a young child to raise. But Jiang Cheng had a lot on his mind in those days and stayed as far from Lan Zhan as possible.
“Lan Sizhui is a Wen?” He was glad he was sitting down already. “Does he know?”
Wei Wuxian paused in his turnip cleaning and turned to look at his brother, the expression of shock and annoyance and any amusement he’d held there were gone. He went serious very quickly, and quietly. He worried, immediately, that this was a conversation they shouldn’t have had, that it could only end with them fighting about the Wens.
Again.
With a little sigh, he nodded, and looked back down at his turnip. “Yes, he knows. He was Yuan, the child here at the Burial Mounds with us. Lan Zhan took him in after--” He didn’t need to say it, so he didn’t. After a minute, he looked back up at his brother. “Jiang Cheng, is that a problem?”
Jiang Cheng scowled. His feelings about the Wen Clan were undoubtedly complicated, but he’d never especially wished ill on those few that had remained after the war. The old and sickly hadn’t raided Lotus Pier and murdered everyone after all. And Wen Qing and Wen Ning had helped their family against clan orders more than once.
What he’d really wanted was for Wei Wuxian to choose his family and himself over them. Just once, he’d wished his stupid stubborn brother would pick the option that kept them all together and alive. But that was a long time ago now.
“No, it’s not a problem,” he snarled, defensive hackles raised. “It’s just a surprise.” It probably shouldn’t have been. It answered a lot of questions. He clenched his fingers into the fabric at his knees. “There isn’t even any gossip hounding him. He’s a well-respected young master.”
Wei Wuxian relaxed, his shoulders dropping slightly and back was the little smile he liked to keep around. The one that made him less dangerous, even if he knew Jiang Cheng saw right through it, it was habit. “Good.” It was. He knew Lan Zhan had done a good job - an amazing job. He had heard stories, since finding out about Yuan, from both the young master and the second master that shared his bed.
Stories that made him even more thankful to his partner, glad he was there, that there was something that was done, since he hadn’t been around to follow through. “He is as smart and brilliant as I am,” Wei Wuxian boasted, and pointed his paring knife in Jiang Cheng’s direction. “And I am glad you like him, because he has a friendship with Jin Ling that seems very strong.”
It was strange for Jiang Cheng to hear anyone speak of Jin Ling having friends. He hadn’t thought the boy was doing very well in that regard, but he hadn’t been in the right mindset to care either. He’d cared more that his nephew was strong and capable than well-liked. If he’d realized Jin Ling was making friends, he’d probably have gotten paranoid about their intentions and what trouble they were going to get his nephew into - knowing full well that Jin Ling didn’t need any help there.
Jiang Cheng missed him more than he would’ve thought possible.
“I shouldn’t be surprised that you’re trying to take credit for his intelligence, like you gave birth to him yourself.” He rolled his eyes but it was a softer - almost fond - sort of judgment. “He’s a little soft. Possibly gullible...” He raised one lofty eyebrow and stood to move closer, carefully kneeling by the tub Wei Wuxian was sitting by. “At least take credit for that too!” he demanded, reaching for a root. “Do you have a spare blade?”
Wei Wuxian huffed. “Maybe I did,” he replied haughtily, calling back to the joke he’d made sixteen years before, to Lan Zhan, about A-Yuan. It had come up then just to see the look on Lan Zhan’s face, but also because as an orphan, he understood the need and desire to be claimed by someone, to be parented and kept. Jiang Fengmian had been that for him, even if not everyone in the family had been on board.
Before handing over a second knife, Wei Wuxian pointed it at his brother, “People could do with being a little soft. Being angry all the time is bad for your skin.” He flipped the blade and offered the handle. “Besides, Jin Ling is soft too even if he tries not to be, and it is good for him! He’s a good young man. Just as my Lan Sizhui is.”
It was very tempting to knock the knife out of Wei Wuxian’s hand when it was being pointed at him, just to see his brother’s dumb face shift into surprise, but Jiang Cheng narrowed his eyes and waited instead. Once the knife was offered properly, he took it and started trimming the lotus.
He was trying very hard to shove down the feeling of pride he got at hearing his nephew spoken of so highly. “Considering who his mother is, there was never any doubt he’d stay soft,” he said softly. His trimming got a little more aggressive and his mouth twisted. “I just didn’t want him to be a victim. Softness is rarely rewarded.” He moved onto a new lotus, but his motions were slower. “I wish jiejie could know him.”
Wei Wuxian shrugged, acting the very picture of casual, for a very serious and decidedly not-casual conversation. But that was his way. Jiang Cheng made everything more serious and Wei Wuxian made everything more casual, as the balance of the world stayed round.
“Maybe he’ll show up,” He sounded optimistic, hopeful, and he graced Jiang Cheng with a smile. “Then he can be here, and he can meet her and I can take him for noodles.” At least at this point, he was fairly certain Jin Ling would want to have noodles with him. Maybe. His face fell a little, betraying his inner-worries for a family member that had rightfully blamed him for so many things going wrong in his life. “If he wants.”
Jiang Cheng felt trapped by emotions he had no interest in dealing with at present. He knew it was his own fault, offering up any of his feelings at all on the subject of their nephew, but that was Wei Wuxian’s gift. He made people feel at ease even when they shouldn’t. Well, some people anyway.
He’d been so sure the days of him being one of those people were long behind him.
“The way he’s been acting lately…he seems to be determined to be just like you. Doing as he pleases no matter what I tell him.” Jiang Cheng dropped the knife next to the lotus trimmings and pushed himself to his feet. “I should go.” He dusted off his clothes, tension quickly slipping back into every joint. “Warn me…” If you’re in trouble, he doesn’t say. “…If things change here.”
Wei Wuxian’s chest puffed out, oblivious to his brother shying away from things and only feeling pride over the admission that Jin Ling was like him. It was meant as an insult, of course, he was smart enough to know that, but to him, it made him feel special. He could ignore the tension in the air for that selfish second.
But he was back to frowning when Jiang Cheng got up to leave. He opened his mouth to protest, to ask him to stay - but not much came out, just a little noise of displeasure.
He couldn’t force it, even if it hurt at how quickly his brother was willing to leave him. But they had made progress, so he just nodded and let Jiang Cheng go. “I will.”
But before that, he could find the wine he had stashed away in the back of the cave.