Irresolution, Part Fourteen: 2

Wei Wuxian drew out his flute and played a passage according to the score, and sure enough, the two strains broke apart — the half-score on the preceding page and the half-score on the following page were not the same piece at all.

Between these two pages there should have been one more, torn away by someone careful, meticulous, leaving not a trace behind.

Whoever had done it had done it with great care, not a scrap of the page left to be noticed. Wei Wuxian turned the volume over, and on the deep-blue cover saw a title of three characters.

Wei Wuxian said, 'Collection of Turmoil? What kind of book is this? The tunes inside are a little strange.'

Lan Wangji said, 'A collection of secret music from Dongying.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'From over in Dongying? No wonder the melodies aren't quite like ours.'

A complicated look crossed Lan Xichen's face. 'The Collection of Turmoil — it is said that a cultivator of the Gusu Lan Clan, set adrift by ship to lands across the sea, wandered Dongying for several years and gathered together this anthology of malevolent music. The pieces in it, if played with Spiritual Power woven through them, can be turned to harming others — wasting a man to thinness day by day, troubling his mind to restlessness, churning his blood and qi, or robbing him of his five senses. One whose Spiritual Power is high enough can take a life within seven notes.'

Wei Wuxian slapped the table. 'This is it!'

The blow nearly toppled the paper lamp on the desk; Lan Wangji, quick of eye and hand, caught and righted it. Wei Wuxian said, 'Sect Leader Lan, in this Collection of Turmoil, is there a piece that can disturb a man's mind — that makes his very spirit churn, his blood and qi roil, his temper turn violent and quick to rage?'

Lan Xichen said, '...There should be.'

Wei Wuxian went on, 'Jin Guangyao's Spiritual Power isn't strong enough; he couldn't take a life within seven notes, and anyway that would be far too obvious — he would never have picked one of the violent, killing pieces. But if, under the pretext of playing the calming, mind-stilling melody for Chifeng-zun, helping settle his spirit, he played this piece over and over for three months running — could it, like a slow poison taken daily, have hastened Chifeng-zun's affliction along?'

Lan Xichen said, '...It could.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Then it all makes sense. That fragment of score that does not belong to Cleansing — it comes from the lost page of this Collection of Turmoil. The Dongying pieces recorded in it are all intricate and hard to learn; he had no time to copy it out in the forbidden chamber, so he simply tore it away — no, that isn't right either. Jin Guangyao has the gift of never forgetting what he reads once. He tore the page out not because he couldn't commit it to memory, but to leave no evidence behind. To make certain that even if one day the whole thing came to light, even if he were seized in the act, no one could trace where the melody had come from.'

'Everything he did was meticulous in the extreme. To your face, what he played, openly, was the complete version of Cleansing. Chifeng-zun was no devotee of elegant pursuits, yet he had heard you, Sect Leader Lan, play Cleansing, and would have carried a rough impression of the melody. So Jin Guangyao did not dare play the malevolent piece for him outright; instead he took great pains to fuse two pieces of utterly different character, of wholly opposite effect, and fuse them so seamlessly, so wholly of a piece, that not a seam showed — his gift for music was truly considerable. I would guess that in the Cleansing passages he used only the faintest Spiritual Power, and saved his force for the Collection of Turmoil passages. Chifeng-zun, after all, was no master of this art, and so could never have told that one stretch of it had already been altered by Jin Guangyao into a life-stealing tune!'

After a long silence, Lan Xichen said in a low voice, '...Though he often came and went within the Cloud Recesses, the forbidden chamber beneath the Library Pavilion — that I never told him of.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Sect Leader Lan, forgive me for speaking plainly. In the Sunshot Campaign of those years, Lianfang-zun served as a spy inside the Nightless City of the Qishan Wen, and an extraordinarily successful one. He could find even Wen Ruohan's hidden chamber, slip into it without ghost or god the wiser, commit every map and document to memory, then write the intelligence out again and send it back to Koi Tower. Before a man like that, the forbidden chamber of the Lan Library Pavilion... is really nothing at all.'

Lan Xichen took the paper bearing that fragment of score into his hand, stared at it for a while, and said, 'I want to find a way to test this fragment.'

Lan Wangji said, 'Xiongzhang?'

Lan Xichen said, 'By the time my eldest brother passed, the Siege of the Burial Mounds was already over, and Young Master Wei was no longer of this world. If, on trial, this fragment can indeed derange a man's mind — if it is no fabrication, no invention — then I...'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Zewu-jun, to test a malevolent piece on a living man runs counter to the very teachings of the Gusu Lan Clan, I fear.'

Lan Xichen said, 'I will test it on myself.'

For the head of the Gusu Lan Clan to speak words that bordered on recklessness showed how tangled his heart had become in that moment. Lan Wangji raised his voice a fraction: 'Xiongzhang!'

Lan Xichen propped his brow against one hand, as though enduring something, and said in a heavy voice, 'Wangji — the Jin Guangyao I know, the Jin Guangyao you both know, and the Jin Guangyao the world sees, are utterly different men. All these years, in my eyes, he has always been... one who bore disgrace and shouldered burdens, who held all living things in his heart, who honored those above and pitied those below. I have always believed, without wavering, that the world's reproach of him sprang from misunderstanding, that what I knew was the truest of all. And now you ask me to believe, this very instant, that everything that man was before me was false — that he plotted the murder of one of his own sworn brothers, that I too was a link in the chain he forged, that I even lent him a hand... Might I be allowed to be a little more careful, before I render judgment?'

It had been out of mindfulness for the estrangement between Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao, out of a single-hearted wish to see them reconciled as they once were, that Lan Xichen had taught Jin Guangyao the mind-stilling melody and entrusted him to settle Nie Mingjue's spirit in his stead. Who could have known that his goodwill would become the instrument of Jin Guangyao's venom? How was a man to live with himself after that?

None of the three spoke again. Not until they had left the Library Pavilion did Lan Wangji say, 'I will go to see Shufu.'

Lan Xichen, long silent, said too, 'I will take Young Master Wei back. Come over again afterward.'

He led Wei Wuxian along the white-stone paths winding through the Cloud Recesses for a while, until they came again before that secluded little dwelling deep within, the one wreathed in gentians. Standing at the door, Wei Wuxian said, 'Does Master Lan know that Hanguang-jun...'

Lan Xichen said, 'Shufu woke not long ago. I have told everyone to spare him the details.'

If Lan Qiren were to learn of the fine business Lan Wangji had done with him at Koi Tower, he would surely be enraged into a dead faint the moment he woke. Wei Wuxian said, 'A hard burden on the venerable elder Lan.'

Lan Xichen said, 'Shufu has indeed had a hard time of it.'

Then suddenly he said, 'Young Master Wei, do you know what manner of place this house is?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'What makes Zewu-jun think I would know?'

Lan Xichen glanced at him and said, 'This was the dwelling, in those years, of Wangji's mother and mine, here in the Cloud Recesses.'

Wei Wuxian found it rather strange. The dwelling of the Gusu Lan Clan's heads down through the generations was named Hanshi, and surely it was not this Small Hut tucked away in a corner of the Cloud Recesses. Could it be that Lan Wangji's parents, like Jiang Fengmian and Madam Yu, had been ill-matched in temper, and so kept to separate quarters?

And besides, the wife of Qingheng-jun, the last head of the Gusu Lan Clan, was said to be frail and weak of breath, ailing year-round, unfit to be seen — others had always known little of her, and privately the clans had guessed whether this 'illness' was some affliction that could not bear daylight, a disfigurement, a maiming, the like. So Wei Wuxian, finding it improper to press, kept his silence.

Lan Xichen said, 'Young Master Wei, you must know that my father has spent his years in seclusion, indifferent to the affairs of the world; all these years, the Gusu Lan Clan has been managed almost entirely by my uncle's hand alone.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'That I know.'

Lan Xichen let his hand fall, the hand that held Liebing sinking into his white sleeve, and said slowly, 'My father has spent his years in seclusion — and the reason was my mother. To call this place a dwelling... it would be truer to call it a place of confinement.'

Wei Wuxian was struck still.

Qingheng-jun, the father of Zewu-jun and Hanguang-jun, had in those years been a man of name and renown, famous in his youth, peerless in glory — yet at the age of his capping he had withdrawn abruptly from the crest of the wave, declared his marriage, and ceased to concern himself with the world. Called seclusion, it more resembled retirement. Others had guessed at many reasons, but never one that could be confirmed.

Lan Xichen bent down beside the cluster of gentians and gently stroked those tender, fragile petals. 'My father, in his youth, returning one time from a Night Hunt, met my mother outside the city of Gusu.' He smiled faintly. 'It is said he lost his heart at first sight.'

Wei Wuxian smiled too. 'Young and full of feeling.'

But Lan Xichen said, 'Yet this woman had no heart for him at all — and what was more, she had killed one of my father's revered teachers.'

This was beyond anything he could have imagined. Wei Wuxian knew well it was a discourtesy to press, but the thought that these were Lan Wangji's parents made it impossible not to ask. 'Why?!'

Lan Xichen said, 'I do not know. But I imagine it came down to no more than those four words — debts and grudges, right and wrong.'

Finding it improper to dig deeper, Wei Wuxian forced the question down. 'Then... what came after?'

'After,' Lan Xichen said, 'my father learned the truth, and was naturally in great anguish. But after wrestling with himself again and again, he still brought this woman back in secret, and against the clan's opposition, without a word, bowed with her before heaven and earth — and told everyone of the clan that this was his wife for this life and all his life, and that whoever would lay a hand on her must first get past him.'

Wei Wuxian's eyes went wide.

Lan Xichen went on, 'Once the rites were done, to keep the clansmen from demanding that woman pay with her life, my father found a house and shut her inside it, then found another house and shut himself inside as well. Called seclusion, it was in truth penance.'

He paused, then said, 'Young Master Wei — can you understand why he did this?'

After a silent moment, Wei Wuxian said, 'He could neither forgive the one who had killed his teacher, nor watch the woman he loved go to her death. So he married her to protect her life, and forced himself never to see her.'

Lan Xichen said, 'Do you think what he did was right?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'I do not know.'

A faint blankness passed over Lan Xichen's face. 'Then what do you think would have been right?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'I do not know.'

After a while, Lan Xichen said low, 'What my father did, one might say he did with no thought for anything else. The elders of the clan were furious — but they had watched him grow up, and could do nothing, and so they guarded the secret strictly, hinting to those outside that the wife of the head of the Gusu Lan Clan had a hidden ailment, unfit to be seen.'

'They no longer dared call that woman to account; instead they came to need her. For once my father had shut himself away, he would see no one at all. At their wits' end, desperate enough to clutch at any cure, the elders could only ask that woman to go and persuade him.'

'She did nothing — only set a single gentian on the steps before my father's courtyard.'

'From then on, only my mother could go to see him. She always had a way of making my father open the door. She did not even need to say a word.'

'When Wangji and I were born, the clansmen took us out at once to be raised by others, and once we were a little older, handed us over to my uncle to be taught.'

'My uncle... was upright and blunt by nature to begin with, and because of what happened with my mother — which led my father to ruin his own life — he came to loathe all the more those of flawed conduct. And so he taught Wangji and me with all the more care, all the more severity. Once a month was all we could see our mother, here in this little dwelling.'

Two small children, who all day long faced nothing but a stern uncle, rigorous instruction, and books piled mountain-high; who, however weary, however worn, had to hold their tender young backs ramrod straight, to be the finest disciples of the clan, the model and the measure in others' eyes. Year upon year, never to tumble and romp in a father's arms, never to nestle and coax against a mother's side.

Lan Xichen said, 'Each time Wangji and I went to see her, she never spoke a word to us of her own bitterness, nor asked after our lessons. She loved most of all to tease Wangji — but with Wangji, the more you tease him, the less he will say, the worse the look on his face. He was that way from childhood. Even so...'

He smiled. 'Though Wangji never said it, I knew he waited, every month, for the day he would see our mother. He was so, and so was I.'

Wei Wuxian imagined the very young Lan Wangji gathered into his mother's arms, his small snow-white face flushing pink, and a smile escaped him too.

But before the smile had faded, Lan Xichen said again, 'Then one day, my uncle suddenly told us we need not go anymore.'

'Mother was gone.'

Wei Wuxian said softly, 'How old was Lan Zhan then?'

Lan Xichen said, 'Six.'

He said, 'He was too small then to understand what it meant to be ‘gone.’ No matter how others consoled him, no matter how my uncle scolded, every month he still came here, sat in the corridor, and waited for someone to open the door for him. Later, when he had grown a little and understood that our mother would not come back, that no one would ever open the door again — still he came.'

Lan Xichen rose to his feet, his dark eyes meeting Wei Wuxian's. 'Wangji has been stubborn since he was small.'

The leaves rustled, and before the house the clustered gentians swayed and dipped in the wind, tender beyond measure, lingering past telling. Wei Wuxian's gaze fell upon the little dwelling's wooden corridor, and it was as though he saw a small child there, his forehead bound with its ribbon, sitting upright and proper before the house, waiting in silence for that door to open.

He said, 'Madam Lan must have been a very gentle woman.'

Lan Xichen said, 'The mother of my memory was indeed so. I do not know why she did what she did in those years — and in truth, I also...'

He drew a deep breath and admitted, '...do not wish to know.'

After a silent while, Lan Xichen lowered his lashes and took out Liebing, and all at once a night wind carried over a thread of mournful flute-song, the notes low and sunken, like a sigh.

Wei Wuxian had heard Lan Xichen play Liebing before; the sound had been like Zewu-jun himself, like a spring breeze turning to rain, warm and gentle and refined. And now, at this moment, the playing was as exquisite as ever — yet to the ear it left a taste hard to bear.

The night wind stirred lightly, and Lan Xichen's black hair and forehead ribbon had both gone faintly disordered, yet the ever-decorous head of the Gusu Lan Clan paid it no mind at all, until the piece had ended and he set Liebing down. 'In the Cloud Recesses, music may not be played in the deep of night. Today I have stepped past the rules again and again — Young Master Wei must think me a fool.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'What of it? Has Zewu-jun forgotten — the man standing before you is the very one who has broken the most rules of all...'

Lan Xichen smiled. 'The matter of Wangji's birth and mine, the Gusu Lan Clan has never breathed a word of to outsiders; by rights I should not have told you. Tonight I only suddenly wished to pour it all out to someone — a moment's impulse.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'This Wei is no loose-tongued man; Zewu-jun may set his heart at ease.'

Lan Xichen said, 'Though I imagine Wangji would hide nothing from you either.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'If he does not wish to speak, I will not ask.'

Lan Xichen said, 'But with Wangji's nature, if you do not ask, how would he ever speak? And some things — even if you ask, he still will not tell.'

Wei Wuxian was about to answer when he heard footsteps behind him.

He turned to look: Lan Wangji came walking through the moonlight, in his right hand two round, plump jars of wine sealed in bright red. Wei Wuxian's eyes lit up. 'Hanguang-jun, you really are thoughtful!'