Elegant Commotion IV: 2

That brand seized the whole of Wei Wuxian's attention, leaving him to wonder whether he had somehow misread what he saw, with no thought to spare even for the man's face, his breath stumbling two beats out of rhythm. Then, all at once, his vision went white, as though a curtain of snow had fallen before him, and in the same instant the snow split open, and a blue blade-light came at his face bearing a breath of bitter cold.

Hanguang-jun's sword, Bichen, was famous beyond all telling — who would not know it? This was a disaster: it was none other than Lan Wangji!

Fleeing for his life and dodging a blade was old, familiar ground to Wei Wuxian; he threw himself into a roll where he stood and just barely slipped clear, and even spared the leisure, as he burst out of the Cold Spring, to flick away a stray blade of grass that had caught in his hair. Like a headless fly he charged straight into a few who happened to be passing on the night patrol, and was seized by the collar and scolded: 'What are you running wild for? Hurrying is forbidden in the Cloud Recesses!'

Seeing that it was Lan Jingyi and the others, Wei Wuxian was overjoyed beyond all measure, thinking that now he could surely be driven down the mountain under a hail of staves, and he hurried to deliver himself up: 'I didn't see anything! I saw nothing at all! I was absolutely not there to spy on Hanguang-jun bathing!'

At these words the young disciples were struck dumb, gaping, dazed by the sheer audacity of him. Wherever he went, Hanguang-jun was a name to be looked up to as one looks up at a high mountain, a man not to be profaned, and to the family's juniors and students he was revered as one would revere a being from heaven. To spy on Hanguang-jun bathing near the Cold Spring! The mere thought of such a thing was a crime of the blackest order, unpardonable. Lan Sizhui was so frightened his voice changed: 'What? Hanguang-jun? Hanguang-jun is in there?!'

In a fury Lan Jingyi grabbed hold of him: 'You wretched cut-sleeve! This — this — this is something you can peep at?!'

Wei Wuxian struck while the iron was hot, nailing the charge to himself: 'I didn't see one bit of what Hanguang-jun looks like with his clothes off!'

Lan Jingyi raged: 'No silver buried here, three hundred taels! Still saying you didn't — if you didn't, what were you doing skulking about here? Just look at you, too ashamed to face anyone!'

Wei Wuxian covered his face with both hands: 'Don't be so loud now. Noise is forbidden in the Cloud Recesses.'

In the middle of all this uproar, Lan Wangji came out from behind the layered ranks of orchid grass, draped in a single white robe with his long hair loose. In the space of no more than a few exchanged words he had somehow already dressed himself trim and proper, though Bichen was not yet returned to its sheath. The young disciples hastened to bow. Lan Jingyi said quickly, 'Hanguang-jun, this Mo Xuanyu is truly detestable. It was only for the sake of the help he gave at Mo Village that you brought him back, and yet he... he...'

Wei Wuxian assumed that this time he would surely, past all endurance, be kicked out the mountain gate; who would have guessed that Lan Wangji merely swept him a light, careless glance, was silent for a moment, then with a clear ringing note returned Bichen to its sheath and said, 'Disperse, all of you.'

Three flat, unremarkable words — yet under the weight of his long-built authority there was no second word to be had, and the company dispersed at once. Lan Wangji, unhurried and composed, lifted Wei Wuxian by the back of his collar and hauled him off toward the Jingshi. In their past lives the two had been of like build, both rare for their slender height, Wei Wuxian only a shade shorter than Lan Wangji, so that when they stood together the gap of less than an inch looked next to nothing. But in this life he had woken into another body, and though he counted as tall among ordinary men, he was still a good two inches and more below Lan Wangji, dangling from his hand with no room at all to struggle. Stumbling along, Wei Wuxian made to cry out, and Lan Wangji said coldly, 'Silence for those who make noise.'

To be thrown down the mountain was everything he could wish for, but to be silenced he respectfully declined. Wei Wuxian turned it over and over and could not make sense of it: since when had the Lan grown so lenient toward a shameless crime like peeping at one of their own famed gentlemen at his bath — even this could be borne?!

Lan Wangji carried him into the Jingshi, made straight for the inner room, and with a thud dumped him on the bed. The drop knocked an 'ow' out of Wei Wuxian, and for a moment he could not get up; he sat up with coy, mincing reluctance, meaning to wheedle a line or two and raise gooseflesh all over Lan Wangji, but he lifted his eyes for a glance and found Lan Wangji standing over him, Bichen in one hand, looking down at him from above.

Accustomed to seeing the Second Young Master Lan with his forehead ribbon bound and his long hair gathered, every line of him by the book, every thread in place, Wei Wuxian had never before seen this look of dark hair slightly loosened and thin, light robes, and he could not help stealing an extra glance or two. With all the hauling and dropping about, the collar Lan Wangji had drawn tightly closed had come a little undone, baring the clean line of his collarbone, and below the collarbone that patch of deep crimson brand.

At one sight of that brand, Wei Wuxian's attention was drawn away once more.

This brand — before he had ever become the Yiling Patriarch, he too had borne one upon his own body.

And the one now on Lan Wangji's body, in both its place and its shape, was not the least bit different from the one he had carried in his former life; small wonder it struck him as familiar, and as strange.

And it was not the brand alone that was strange, but also those thirty-odd Discipline Whip wounds across Lan Wangji's back.

Lan Wangji had made his name young and was held in the highest esteem, the most orthodox of the cultivation world's famed gentlemen, ever one of the twin jades that the Gusu Lan Clan held up with pride, his every word and deed taken by the elders of the great houses as the very standard of an exemplary cultivation disciple. What in the world had he done, what unpardonable wrong, to receive a punishment so severe?

Thirty-odd strokes of the Discipline Whip Scar — that was flogging meant to kill. And once the Discipline Whip Scar was set upon the body it would never fade for the rest of one's life, the whole purpose being to make the punished remember forever and never offend again.

Following his gaze, Lan Wangji lowered his eyelids a fraction, drew his collar closed with an idle hand, covered the collarbone, hid the wound away, and was once more that Hanguang-jun cold as frost. Just then a deep, heavy tolling of a bell came from beyond the sky.

The Lan family rules were strict and their hours strictly kept — to rest at the hour of Hai, to rise at the hour of Mao — and this bell was the signal that enforced it. Lan Wangji listened with full attention until the tolling had finished, then said to Wei Wuxian, 'You will sleep here.'

Giving Wei Wuxian no chance to answer, he turned away into the adjoining chamber of the Jingshi, leaving Wei Wuxian alone and sprawled on the bed, lost in his own bewilderment.

It was not that he had never suspected Lan Zhan of having guessed who he was. Only the suspicion made no sense, by feeling or by reason. Since the offering of the body was a forbidden art, those who knew of it had to be very few. What had been handed down was mostly broken fragments, useless, and as time went on fewer still believed in it. Even Mo Xuanyu could not have known from what source he had obtained the secret scroll that summoned Wei Wuxian back. Surely Lan Wangji could not have recognized him on the strength of that one wretched stretch of flute-playing.

By his own reckoning he and Lan Wangji had shared, in life, no bond carved into bone or heart. They had been fellow students, had braved dangers, had fought shoulder to shoulder — but always like fallen blossoms upon flowing water, coming in haste and gone in haste. Lan Wangji was a disciple of the Gusu Lan Clan, and that fated him to be both 'refined' and 'upright', a temperament rather ill-matched with Wei Wuxian's. Wei Wuxian felt their relations could not be called bad, but he had not the face to call them good. He supposed Lan Wangji's estimate of him ran the same as everyone else's: heretical energy running rampant, righteous energy wanting, a man bound one day to become a great calamity. After Wei Wuxian had defected from the Yunmeng Jiang Clan and become the Yiling Patriarch, the grudge he had built with the Gusu Lan Clan could not be called small either, least of all in those last few months before his death. If Lan Wangji had truly decided he was Wei Wuxian, the two of them ought to have been locked in a fight to darken heaven and earth long before now.

And yet the present state of things was enough to make one laugh and weep at once: in the old days the most Suibian, trifling thing he did was more than Lan Wangji could endure, whereas now, for all the mischief and havoc he stirred up with every trick at his disposal, Lan Wangji could somehow bear it all. Was this to be called real progress, a thing worthy of congratulation?!

After a long stretch of staring blankly into the dark, Wei Wuxian rolled off the bed and, with the lightest of movements, made his way to the adjoining chamber.

Lan Wangji lay on his side on the bed, seemingly already sunk into deep sleep. Without a sound, without a breath, Wei Wuxian drew near.

He still would not give it up, meaning to feel about and see whether he could turn up that Jade Passage Token that, for all his calling, had never once shown itself. But no sooner had he put out his hand than Lan Wangji's long lashes trembled faintly, and his eyes opened.

Wei Wuxian steeled his heart and flung himself onto the bed.

He remembered that Lan Wangji thoroughly detested bodily contact with anyone; in the old days a single touch could send a man flying. If he could endure even this, then it absolutely was not Lan Wangji. He would suspect that Lan Wangji had been taken by Body Possession!

Wei Wuxian's whole body loomed above Lan Wangji, his legs apart and kneeling to either side of his waist, his hands braced against the wooden bed so that Lan Wangji was hemmed in between his two arms, his face pressing slowly down. The distance between the two faces grew nearer, and nearer, and so near that Wei Wuxian was almost short of breath — and Lan Wangji finally spoke.

He was silent a while, then said, 'Get down.'

Wei Wuxian thickened his face and said, 'Won't.'

A pair of eyes of the palest hue, a hand's breadth away, met Wei Wuxian's gaze. Lan Wangji looked at him, fixed and steady, and repeated it: '...Get down.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'I won't. You told me to sleep here, so you should have reckoned this kind of thing would happen.'

Lan Wangji said, 'You are certain you want this?'

'...' For some reason, Wei Wuxian had the sense that he had better weigh his answer with care.

He had just begun to crook the corner of his mouth when, all at once, his waist went numb and his legs gave way beneath him. The next instant his whole body dropped with a thump, flat against Lan Wangji.

That half-formed curve froze there at the corner of his mouth, his head pressed to the right side of Lan Wangji's chest, his whole body unable to stir. Lan Wangji's voice came from above.

He spoke low and deep, his chest trembling faintly with the shaping of each word:

'Then you will stay like this the whole night.'

Wei Wuxian had never in the world foreseen this ending; he shifted, meaning to rise, but his waist went on weak and aching without strength, so that he could only, in this mortifying posture, lie pressed tight against another man's hard body, his whole mind gone blank.

What in all these years had happened to Lan Zhan? How had he turned into this?

Was this still the same Lan Zhan as before?!

Surely the one taken by Body Possession ought to be him?!?!

His heart was still in the throes of towering waves when, all at once, Lan Wangji raised himself slightly. Wei Wuxian assumed that he had at last reached the end of his endurance, and his spirits leapt at it. Who would have guessed — Lan Wangji gave a light wave of his hand.

The lamp went out.