The Three Poisons, Part Twelve

He still had not caught the name of the song. A wave of feverish heat surged up into his face, every joint of his head and limbs burning with an unbearable ache, while a droning ring he could not shake away filled his ears.

When he woke again and opened his eyes, what greeted him was not the pitch-black dome of the cavern, nor Lan Wangji's pale and handsome face, but a wooden board, and on the board a comical row of little kissing heads scrawled in ink.

It was the doodle he had once drawn on his own bedhead back at Lotus Pier.

Wei Wuxian was lying on his own wooden bed; Jiang Yanli sat with her head bent over a book, and the moment she saw him stir her faint brows lifted at once, and she set the book aside and cried, 'A-Xian!'

'Shijie!' Wei Wuxian said.

He pushed himself up off the bed with effort; his limbs no longer burned, though they were still weak, and his throat was slightly dry. Wei Wuxian asked, 'I'm back? When did I get out of the cavern? Did Uncle Jiang bring people to rescue me? Where's Lan Zhan? Where's Jiang Cheng?'

The wooden door swung open, and Jiang Cheng came in dragging a white porcelain jar in one hand, snapping, 'What's all the shouting about!'

Once he had finished, he turned to Jiang Yanli. 'Jie, the soup you stewed. I carried it over for you.'

Jiang Yanli took the jar and ladled out its contents into a bowl. Wei Wuxian said, 'Jiang Cheng, you little wretch, come here!'

'Come over for what?' Jiang Cheng said. 'You want to kneel down and thank me?'

'Seven whole days before you brought anyone, were you trying to get me killed?!' Wei Wuxian said.

'Did you die?' Jiang Cheng said. 'Then who's this talking to me now?'

'It takes five days at most to get from Muxi Mountain back to Yunmeng!' Wei Wuxian said.

'Are you stupid?' Jiang Cheng said. 'You only count the trip back and not the trip there? And once I'd gotten there, I still had to lead people combing the whole mountain for that old banyan, then dig open the cavern Wen Chao and his lot had sealed shut. Seven days to pull you out, and you'd best be grateful for it!'

Wei Wuxian thought it over and found he really had forgotten to count the journey there; for a moment he had nothing to say, and then admitted, 'Now that you mention it, that does seem to be how it was. But why didn't Lan Zhan remind me of it?'

'Just the sight of you was enough to wear him out,' Jiang Cheng said. 'You expected him to listen closely to a word you said?'

'Fair enough!' Wei Wuxian said.

Jiang Yanli finished filling the bowl and put it into his hands. In the soup were chunks of lotus root and pork ribs, all of them a pale pink, stewed until their skins had softened to the point of falling apart, the fragrance rich and the broth scalding hot. Wei Wuxian had gone several days in the cavern without food, so he could not be given anything too heavy all at once, and this was just right; he thanked his shijie and set to drinking with the bowl cradled in his arms, saying between mouthfuls, 'Where's Lan Zhan? He was rescued too, wasn't he? Is he here? Or did he go back home to Gusu?'

'Of course,' Jiang Cheng said. 'He's not one of our family, so what would he be doing staying here? He went back to Gusu, naturally.'

'He went back alone?' Wei Wuxian said. 'And his family, over in Gusu...'

Before the words were out, Jiang Fengmian stepped in. Wei Wuxian set down the bowl and said, 'Uncle Jiang!'

'Stay seated,' Jiang Fengmian said.

Jiang Yanli handed Wei Wuxian a handkerchief to wipe his mouth and asked, 'Is it good?'

Wei Wuxian did not reach for the handkerchief but thrust out his lips in an exaggerated pout and said, 'It's good!'

'Haven't you got hands of your own!' Jiang Cheng said.

Smiling, Jiang Yanli wiped his mouth and chin for him, then picked up the bowl and went out, quite pleased. Jiang Fengmian took the seat she had just left, glanced at the white porcelain jar as if he too would like a taste, only the bowl had already been carried off by Jiang Yanli. Jiang Cheng said, 'Father, the Wen family still won't return the sword?'

Jiang Fengmian drew back his gaze and said, 'These days they are busy with celebrations.'

'Celebrating what?' Wei Wuxian said.

'Celebrating that Wen Chao, by his own hand alone, slew the Xuanwu of Slaughter,' Jiang Fengmian said.

At these words Wei Wuxian nearly rolled off the bed. 'The Wen family killed it?!'

Jiang Cheng gave a derisive snort. 'What did you expect? That they'd say you were the one who killed it?'

'Those Wen dogs are talking out of their backsides, shameless to the bone,' Wei Wuxian said. 'It was plainly Lan Zhan who killed it.'

Jiang Fengmian smiled faintly and said, 'Is that so? How curious, then, that the Second Young Master of the Lan family told me it was you who killed it. So in the end, who was it?'

'Call it both of us, then,' Wei Wuxian said. 'But the real killing was his. All I did was crawl into the beast's shell and drive it out. Lan Zhan kept watch alone on the outside, and ground away at it for three full shichen before he dragged it down to its death.'

He told Jiang Cheng and his father the main events of those several days. Jiang Cheng listened, his expression complicated, and only after a long while said, 'About the same as what Lan Wangji told us. By that reckoning, the two of you killed it together. What's yours is yours; why push it all onto him alone?'

'I'm not pushing it,' Wei Wuxian said. 'I just feel that next to him I really didn't do much.'

Jiang Fengmian nodded. 'Well done.'

To cut down a giant beast of more than four hundred years at seventeen was hardly a matter of mere 'well done.'

'Congratulations,' Jiang Cheng said.

There was something distinctly odd in the tone of that congratulation, and seeing him fold his arms and arch his brows, Wei Wuxian knew his sour streak had welled up again. At this moment Jiang Cheng was surely chewing it over in his heart, far from satisfied, wondering why it had not been he who stayed in the cavern to slay the beast, and how, if it had been him, he would surely have done such and such. Wei Wuxian laughed aloud. 'Pity you weren't there. Otherwise this head would've had your share in it too. And you could've kept me company, talked to me. My god, these few days, sitting face to face with Lan Zhan, he nearly bored me to death alive.'

'Serves you right to be bored half to death,' Jiang Cheng said. 'You never should have pushed yourself forward, never should have meddled in this rotten business. If you hadn't moved in the first place...'

Suddenly Jiang Fengmian said, 'Jiang Cheng.'

Jiang Cheng started, realizing only then that he had said too much, and fell silent at once.

There was no reproach in Jiang Fengmian's face, yet his expression had turned from its former mildness to something grave. He said, 'Do you understand where what you just said went wrong?'

Jiang Cheng lowered his head. 'I do.'

'They were just careless words said in anger,' Wei Wuxian said.

Looking at Jiang Cheng's expression, his words at odds with his heart, still faintly unconvinced, Jiang Fengmian shook his head and said, 'A-Cheng, some words must not be spoken loosely, even in anger. To speak them is to show that you still have not grasped the family precept of the Yunmeng Jiang Clan, have not...'

A cold, cutting woman's voice came from beyond the door. 'Yes, he hasn't grasped it. What does that matter? So long as Wei Ying has grasped it, that's enough!'

Like a bolt of violet lightning, Madam Yu swept in on a gust of cold wind. She stopped five paces from Wei Wuxian's bed, her brows lifting, and said, 'To know a thing cannot be done and yet to do it anyway — isn't that exactly his way? Knowing full well what trouble he'll bring down on this family, and still he must go stirring it up!'

'Sanniangzi, what have you come for?' Jiang Fengmian said.

'What have I come for?' Madam Yu said. 'How laughable! That I should be questioned like this. Does Sect Leader Jiang remember, or not, that I too am a mistress of Lotus Pier? Remember, or not, that every inch of this ground is my domain? Remember, or not, which of these — the one lying down or the one standing — is your son?'

Questions like these he had heard countless times over the years. Jiang Fengmian said, 'Of course I remember.'

Madam Yu gave a cold laugh. 'You remember, but remembering alone is of no use. This Wei Ying — truly, a single day without stirring up trouble and he can't be at ease in his own skin! Had I known, I'd sooner have kept him shut up at Lotus Pier, forbidden to set foot outside. Would Wen Chao really have dared do anything to the two young masters of the Gusu Lan Clan and the Lanling Jin Clan? And even if he'd dared, that would only be their own bad luck — was it any business of his to go playing the hero?'

In front of Jiang Fengmian, Wei Wuxian always had to grant his lady a measure of face, and so he did not say a single word back, though he thought to himself, 'Wouldn't dare do anything to them? That's far from certain.'

'I'll set my words down here and now,' Madam Yu said. 'Wait and see — one day he'll bring some great calamity down on this family, and there'll be no avoiding it!'

Jiang Fengmian rose. 'Let us go back and talk.'

'Go back and talk about what? Talk where?' Madam Yu said. 'I'll say it right here. My conscience is clear, after all! Jiang Cheng, come here.'

Caught between his father and his mother, Jiang Cheng hesitated a moment, then went to stand at his mother's side. Madam Yu seized him by both shoulders and pushed him forward for Jiang Fengmian to see. 'Sect Leader Jiang, there are things I have no choice but to say now. Look closely — this one, this is your own flesh-and-blood son, the future master of Lotus Pier. Even if you can't stand the sight of him because he's the one I bore, he still carries the surname Jiang! And don't tell me you don't know what those people outside are saying — that Sect Leader Jiang, after all these years, still nurses an undying devotion to a certain sanren, that he treats an old friend's son as his own — they're all guessing whether Wei Ying isn't your...'

'Yu Ziyuan!' Jiang Fengmian thundered.

Madam Yu thundered back, 'Jiang Fengmian! You think raising your voice changes anything?! As if I don't know you through and through!'

The two of them went out the door to have it out, Madam Yu's furious voice rising higher all along the way, while Jiang Fengmian pressed down his own anger to argue with her. Jiang Cheng stood rooted to the spot, dazed, and after a long while glanced at Wei Wuxian, then abruptly turned his head and walked out as well.

'Jiang Cheng!' Wei Wuxian called.

Jiang Cheng did not answer; a few hurried steps and he had already turned onto the corridor. Wei Wuxian had no choice but to roll off the bed and drag his aching, stiffened body after him, calling, 'Jiang Cheng! Jiang Cheng!'

Jiang Cheng kept his head down and walked straight on, and Wei Wuxian flew into a rage, lunging forward to clamp a hand around his neck. 'You heard me and still won't answer! Asking for a beating!'

'Get back in your bed and lie down!' Jiang Cheng swore.

'That won't do,' Wei Wuxian said. 'We've got to set this straight. Don't you dare believe any of that ugly nonsense.'

Coldly, Jiang Cheng said, 'Which ugly nonsense?'

'The kind that dirties a man's mouth just to say it,' Wei Wuxian said. 'My father and mother are people with names of their own. I can't abide anyone reassigning me a household out of thin air!'

He hooked an arm over Jiang Cheng's shoulder and forced him over to sit together on the wooden railing at the edge of the corridor. 'Let's lay it all out plainly, no twisting about with things buried in your heart. You're Uncle Jiang's own flesh-and-blood son, the future head of the Jiang family. Of course Uncle Jiang has to be stricter with you.'

Jiang Cheng looked at him out of the corner of his eye.

Wei Wuxian went on, 'But I'm different — I'm someone else's son, and my parents were both good friends of Uncle Jiang's, so naturally he treats me more courteously. You understand that much, surely?'

Jiang Cheng gave a snort. 'It isn't that he's strict with me. He just doesn't like me.'

'Who doesn't like his own flesh-and-blood son?' Wei Wuxian said. 'Stop dreaming things up! Those gossiping mouths spreading rumors — I'll beat them every time I catch them, beat them till their own mothers wouldn't know them.'

'There is such a person,' Jiang Cheng said. 'He doesn't like my mother, and so he doesn't like me along with her.'

That one was truly hard to refute.

It was known among the Cultivation Clans that Yu Ziyuan, third daughter of her house, and Jiang Fengmian had trained together in their youth, acquainted since they were barely past ten. Jiang Fengmian was gentle and refined in temperament, while Yu Ziyuan was forceful and coldly severe; the two shared little common ground, and so, though well matched in standing, hardly anyone ever paired them in their minds. Later Cangse Sanren came into the world, and passing through Yunmeng she chanced to befriend Jiang Fengmian, even joining him on the Night Hunt several times, each holding the other in the highest regard. Everyone guessed that Cangse Sanren was very likely to become the next mistress of Lotus Pier.

Who could have foreseen that before long the Meishan Yu Sect would suddenly propose a marriage alliance to the Yunmeng Jiang Clan.

The Jiang sect leader of the time found this prospect quite agreeable, but Jiang Fengmian had no such inclination. He did not care for Yu Ziyuan's character and nature, judged the two of them an ill match, and gently declined several times. Yet the Meishan Yu Sect worked from every quarter, bringing heavy pressure to bear on the then-young, still-unestablished Jiang Fengmian; and not long after, when Cangse Sanren bound herself as a cultivation partner to Wei Changze — the most loyal of Jiang Fengmian's household servants — and the two flew off together to wander the world afar, Jiang Fengmian at last gave way.

Though Jiang and Yu were wed, they became a resentful pair, living apart year after year, their words never meeting. Beyond the strengthening of the family's power, no one could say what else had been gained.

Jiang Chi, the founding ancestor of the Yunmeng Jiang Clan, had risen from the ranks of wandering swordsmen, and the family ethos prized the bright and open, the candid and unfettered, the frank and free — a spirit that ran entirely counter to Madam Yu's whole bearing. Jiang Cheng took after his mother in both looks and temper, by nature ill-suited to Jiang Fengmian's tastes; through every kind of teaching from childhood on, the cast of him could never be brought round, and so Jiang Fengmian had always seemed less than fond of him.

Jiang Cheng threw off Wei Wuxian's hand and stood, venting, 'I know! I'm not the sort of temperament he likes, not the heir he wants. He thinks I'm unfit to be head of the family, that I don't understand the Jiang precepts, that I haven't a shred of the Jiang backbone. Fine!'

He raised his voice. 'You and Lan Wangji joined forces to cut down the Xuanwu of Slaughter, fighting drenched in blood! Magnificent! And what about me?!'

He drove a fist into the corridor pillar and said through clenched teeth, '...I too ran myself ragged for days, worn to the bone, without a single moment's rest!'

'What's a family precept worth!' Wei Wuxian said. 'Does having one mean you must obey it? Look at the precepts of the Gusu Lan Clan — over three thousand of them, every single one to be obeyed. Is a man supposed to keep living, or not?'

He hopped down from the railing. 'And besides — must a head of family be bound to the family ethos, beholden to the family precepts? The Yunmeng Jiang Clan has had so many heads down the generations; I refuse to believe every one of them was cut from the same cloth. Even the Gusu Lan Clan produced an outlier like Lan Yi — yet who would dare deny her strength and her standing? Speak of the great cultivators of the Lan family, and who dares pass her over? Who could pass over her String Slaying Technique?'

Jiang Cheng held his silence, as if he had cooled a little. Wei Wuxian laid his arm over his shoulder again. 'In time you'll be head of the family, and I'll be your subordinate, just like your father and mine. The Gusu Lan Clan has its Twin Jades — so what? We of Yunmeng have our Twin Prides of Yunmeng! So, shut your mouth. Who says you're unfit to be head of the family? No one's allowed to say that — not even you. Anyone who dares is asking for a beating.'

'In the state you're in now?' Jiang Cheng snorted. 'Who could you beat?' And with that he slapped a hand against Wei Wuxian's chest. The wound branded there by the iron, though already salved and bandaged, could hardly fail to hurt under so sudden a blow. Wei Wuxian roared, 'Jiang Cheng!!! Come and die!!!'

Jiang Cheng dodged aside from his wild slicing palm and shouted, 'Hurts like death now, does it — so why play the hero back then! Serves you right! Let it teach you a lesson!'

'Was I playing the hero!' Wei Wuxian said. 'I had no choice either — I moved faster than I could think! Stop running, I'll spare your little life, just let me ask you one thing! There was a sachet tucked in my belt, an empty one — did you see it?'

'The one Mianmian gave you?' Jiang Cheng said. 'No, didn't see it.'

Wei Wuxian gave a cry of regret. 'I'll have to ask her for another next time.'

Jiang Cheng frowned. 'There you go again. You don't actually like her, do you? The girl's looks are passable enough, but one glance tells you her birth isn't up to much. She's probably not even a disciple — more like the daughter of some household servant.'

'What of a servant?' Wei Wuxian said. 'Aren't I a household servant's son myself?'

'Can you really be compared to her?' Jiang Cheng said. 'Whose household servant is treated the way you are, with the master peeling lotus seeds for you and stewing soup for you to drink — I never even got any!'

'If you want some, just ask shijie to stew it again,' Wei Wuxian said. 'That reminds me — we were talking about Lan Zhan just now. Didn't Lan Zhan leave any word for me? Has his brother been found? How are things at his home?'

'You still expect him to leave word for you?' Jiang Cheng said. 'Count yourself lucky he didn't leave you a sword instead. He's gone back. Lan Xichen still hasn't been found, and Lan Qiren is run off his feet with it all.'

'And the head of the Lan family?' Wei Wuxian said. 'How is he?'

'Passed away,' Jiang Cheng said.