Irresolution 14.3

Lan Wangji drew near and handed him the Emperor's Smile. Wei Wuxian carried the jar in through the door, and at his retreating back Lan Wangji shook his head, though his gaze had grown very gentle. Lan Xichen glanced at him and said, 'You brought it from your own rooms?'

Lan Wangji nodded.

Lan Xichen said, 'You... had best not touch wine. Be careful, lest it go as it did that year.'

His eyes settled on the cloth near Lan Wangji's collarbone. Lan Wangji too lowered his head, glancing once at the place above his heart, and said, 'It will not be like that again.'

Lan Xichen managed a faint smile, then sighed once more.

Only after Lan Xichen had gone did Lan Wangji step inside, easing the door shut behind him. Wei Wuxian, working the seal loose from a jar, was still turning over in his mind the tale of Lan An, founding ancestor of the Gusu Lan Clan, and of Qingheng-jun, and he thought: 'The Gusu Lan Clan really is a wondrous house — for all that their first ancestor was a monk and their family ways so stiff and rigid, they are, when it comes down to it... a line of hopeless romantics.'

Savouring the thought, he could not help but look toward the other scion of the Gusu Lan Clan there in the room.

Lan Wangji sat bent over a book, and at the corner of the writing desk stood a paper lamp whose pale flame lent his face a beauty finer still, like jade in a coronet, so that even his cool expression and light-coloured eyes were gilded with a warm hue, refined past the look of any living man. For a moment Wei Wuxian's senses swam and his eyes blurred, and without meaning to he leaned toward that side.

Lan Wangji lifted his lashes. 'What is it?'

Wei Wuxian came to himself at once. 'Nothing. Your bookmark is rather pretty.'

Lan Wangji's bookmark was a pale dried flower, kept exceedingly well, its colour vivid as ever, the veins of its petals fine as if still alive, and pressed between the pages it gave off a faint, clear fragrance. Wei Wuxian raised his hand and plucked it out. 'Peony?'

Lan Wangji said, 'Mn.'

Wei Wuxian toyed with it a moment, then handed it back. 'Your gege has taken quite a blow.'

Lan Wangji slid the dried peony carefully back into the book and closed the pages. 'Once the proof is found, he will show no leniency.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Of course. He is your gege, after all.'

However close Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao might be, he was still a man of the Gusu Lan Clan, with principles of his own.

Wei Wuxian broke open one of the wine jars and thought: 'The time before last, when Lan Zhan was drunk, he answered me honestly — said he had never stolen a drink of the Emperor's Smile in his room. So what is he keeping all this Emperor's Smile for? Surely not laying it by just for me to drink — to think that would be a touch shameless. Then again, ought I to apologize to him about the forehead ribbon? I have played with it that many times now. But what if he flies into a rage and throws me out? Still, I've been carrying on this long and he hasn't gotten angry, which only shows his temper has grown more forgiving than ever — a little more mischief likely won't anger him either. No, I shouldn't ask him at all. Better to feign that I've no idea what the ribbon means, so that next time I can tug at it on purpose, and if he's angry I can play innocent and say I didn't know — no crime in ignorance, after all...'

Wei Wuxian was pleased with himself when Lan Wangji said, 'What is it.'

He turned, all composure. 'Nothing at all. I'm just happy.' Distractedly he opened one of the small jars, lifted it, tipped his head back to drink — and at once spat it out with a splutter.

Lan Wangji set down his scroll in an instant. 'Now what.'

Wei Wuxian waved a hand. 'Nothing! It's nothing, nothing!'

Even as he insisted it was nothing, he set that jar back and, with a thoroughly disgusted look, swapped it for another.

Last time, after stealing a drink, he had topped the jar up with plain water on purpose, thinking that when Lan Wangji came to drink it himself he would taste water and get a fright. Who could have guessed his luck would run this foul — of the two jars Lan Wangji had brought, this very one of clear water was among them, and he had gone and drunk it himself.

Ever since coming back, every time he meant to play a trick on Lan Wangji it ended like this — a stone heaved up only to drop on his own foot — truly a thing past all understanding!

Wei Wuxian did not know when he had drifted off; he sank dim and heavy into the small hours, then woke with a start. A jolt ran through him, and scrambling up to look, he found Lan Wangji still dressed, qin and sword slung at his back, drawing back the hand he had laid on Wei Wuxian's shoulder and fixing his gaze on a jade-white something in his palm. 'There is an uninvited guest.'

Wei Wuxian narrowed his eyes and saw that the thing was the Gusu Lan Clan's Jade Passage Token. He recalled that Lan Wangji's was of fairly high rank, and that it would give warning should an outsider breach the wards of Cloud Recesses.

Yet for a dozen years and more no one had dared intrude carelessly upon Cloud Recesses. Wei Wuxian sprang down from the bed, found his outer robe had been slipped off him at some point he could not name, and pulling it on he asked, 'Who is it?'

Lan Wangji shook his head and signed for Wei Wuxian to follow. The two stole along until they reached a dwelling half-hidden among green bamboo, lamplight bleeding through the paper window, and Wei Wuxian glanced at the wooden plaque before the courtyard. 'Hanshi?'

Sure enough, within sat Lan Xichen, upright and grave; at the entrance of the two he showed no surprise, only exchanged a glance with Lan Wangji, each understanding the other at once. Lan Wangji drew Wei Wuxian to sit behind the screen.

After a while the bamboo curtain of Hanshi was lifted aside, and a set of light footsteps came into the room, seeming to seat itself across from Lan Xichen.

A good moment passed before a sound came — jade meeting stone — as if someone had set a thing upon the table and pushed it across.

It was Lan Xichen who spoke first. 'What is the meaning of this?'

A voice said, 'Returning it to er-ge.'

It was none other than Jin Guangyao.

Lan Xichen said, 'This I have already given to you.'

Jin Guangyao said, 'This Jade Passage Token has gone all these many years without ever failing, and now that it has failed, it ought to be returned to its rightful owner.'

Wei Wuxian understood. Because Zewu-jun and Lianfang-zun were on such close personal terms, Lan Xichen had given Jin Guangyao one of the Jade Passage Tokens of Cloud Recesses as well, that he might come and go without hindrance; but these past few days Lan Xichen had likely altered the wards and seals of Cloud Recesses, or revoked the right of passage on Jin Guangyao's token, so that when Jin Guangyao came to call he had been shut out at the gate, and thus he had come of his own accord to return the token.

Like Lan Wangji, Lan Xichen had no gift for hollow courtesies and feinting. Where Jin Guangyao advanced by appearing to retreat, he simply held his silence; then, after a moment, he said, 'What brings you here?'

Jin Guangyao said, 'Still no word of Hanguang-jun or the Yiling Patriarch on this side. With my refusing to let anyone comb through Cloud Recesses, many of the clans have grown thick with doubt and raise no small objection. Er-ge, whenever it suits you, do open the gates for one full hour; I shall bring people then and smooth the matter over.'

Wei Wuxian had assumed Jin Guangyao came to demand a search, yet to hear him speak so — seeming to take no interest at all in hunting down the whereabouts of the Yiling Patriarch — left him faintly puzzled. Beyond the screen, Jin Guangyao spoke again. 'Er-ge, what is the matter with you?'

Lan Xichen said, 'It is nothing.'

Jin Guangyao said, 'If it is Wangji you worry over, you need not. Hanguang-jun is upright and proper in his conduct, as all the hundred clans have witnessed these many years; if he has done such a thing it can only be that he was deceived, and besides, he has done nothing yet beyond mending. When the time comes it will be cleared up with a word. I shall give no one the chance to spread idle talk.'

Lan Xichen said, 'When the time comes? When is that?'

Jin Guangyao said, 'After the Burial Mounds have been cleared out.'

Wei Wuxian gave a start. Lan Xichen said, 'The Burial Mounds?'

Jin Guangyao said, 'Since that day of the brawl at Koi Tower, strange portents have appeared across Moling, Lanling, Yunmeng and other places. Graveyards torn up, corpses vanished into thin air. There are signs that great hordes of the dead are making their way toward Yiling. I fear it is to the Burial Mounds they go.'

Lan Xichen said, 'What in the end is this meant to accomplish?'

Jin Guangyao said, 'I do not know. My guess is that Wei Wuxian has set some evil array in motion, or has made use of the Stygian Tiger Seal.'

Lan Xichen said, 'At Koi Tower that day he took a sword-thrust from Jin Ling — and he can still set such things in motion?'

Jin Guangyao said, 'Er-ge, that year when Wei Wuxian broke with the Yunmeng Jiang Clan and fought Sect Leader Jiang, think how grievously he was wounded — and did he not all the same go back to summon wind and rain and command the legions of the dead? For the Yiling Patriarch, what difficulty is there in this?'

Wei Wuxian rubbed his chin and thought, 'You think far too highly of me...'

Jin Guangyao said, 'And so, before long there will likely be a second siege of the Burial Mounds. I have already sent word to certain other clans to come to Koi Tower and deliberate the matter together. Er-ge, will you come?'

After a good while Lan Xichen said, 'I will. Wait a moment in the Reception Room; I will set out with you presently.'

Once Jin Guangyao had left, Lan Xichen came round behind the screen, faced Lan Wangji a moment, and said, 'I go to Koi Tower; the two of you go to the Burial Mounds. We part and act separately.'

Lan Wangji nodded slowly. 'Very well.'

Lan Xichen said, 'If he truly harbours treachery, I will show no leniency.'

Lan Wangji said, 'I know.'

The two took a small path down from Cloud Recesses, and along the way the clump of grass beside the white-stone track rustled and stirred, then parted of a sudden, and out poked a little head like a ball of snow-down and a pair of long, long ears.

The rabbit's pink nose twitched, and at the sight of Lan Wangji its drooping ears shot upright; with a kick of its legs it bounded toward him. They came out onto the stretch of green grass where Little Apple lay beside a tree, dozens of round, plump white rabbits gathered around it — most with eyes shut, sleeping soundly, a few still nosing about. Wei Wuxian went to the tree and scratched at Little Apple's head; Little Apple gave a jolt, snorting awake with a start, and at the sight of Wei Wuxian was about to set up a great braying. The huddled rabbits woke too, shook their long ears, and went bounding off in a body toward Lan Wangji, clump upon clump gathering at his snow-white boots, circling round and round him, who knew at what they were so thrilled.

Wei Wuxian took up Little Apple's lead and, tugging and threatening, hauled it along, while the rabbits stood up on their hind legs, rearing like little men, pawing one after another at Lan Wangji's legs, every one of them wanting to climb up. Lan Wangji stood unmoved as a mountain. Once the two set off, the white rabbits came stumbling and tripping after that pair of white boots, refusing to leave no matter how Wei Wuxian shooed them, and Lan Wangji bent and lifted one into the crook of his arm, his face cool as ever though his hands moved gently, his long fingers scratching at a rabbit's chin; the rabbit flicked its long ears, turned its head away, its ruby eyes narrowing to a thread, seeming scratched to the heights of contentment. Wei Wuxian came over to scratch it too, and it turned its head clean away. Wei Wuxian said, 'So scornful of me, loving you and you alone — it really does know its master.'

Lan Wangji glanced at him and set the white rabbit into his arms. Wei Wuxian took it with a grinning laugh, and the rabbit twisted this way and that in the crook of his arm, struggling with all its might; Wei Wuxian gave its ears a tug. 'Don't like me? Can't stand me? Run, then — run all you like, you'll never get away, so you may as well be good and like me.'

Wei Wuxian pinched and teased the rabbit a while, and only when they had nearly reached the great gate of Cloud Recesses did he set the creature down, its white fur all rumpled where he had mussed it. These rabbits could follow no farther, and only now, ears drooping in sorrow, did they sit where they were and watch their master go.

Wei Wuxian looked back. 'They can't bear to see you off, Hanguang-jun. I'd never have thought you'd be so dear to these little things. You must have been so gentle and careful with them when you kept them. I'd be no good at it.'

Lan Wangji said, 'No good?'

Wei Wuxian said smugly, 'That's right! The things that fly in the sky, that walk on the ground, that swim in the water — one look at me and they turn tail and flee.'

Lan Wangji shook his head, his meaning all too plain: it must be that Wei Wuxian wronged them first, and so won none of their fondness.