au where wwx takes the demonic path, does his thing in the sunshot campaign, goes back to yunmeng changed—a puppet of himself, a paperman copy of the man he once was.

there's speculation, ofc. everyone knows the rumors that wwx was thrown into the burial mounds. but there's more, born of envy and fear of the jiang clan's new sect leader, the speed at which he rebuilds lotus pier, of his sudden rise to power. dark rumors—

—of parents murdered, of dark powers. everyone knows that no one comes back from the burial mounds alive—and what's this about jc's golden core growing so much stronger at the same time that wwx went missing for several months?

the rumors all but write themselves: jc stole his brother's golden core; jc raised wwx from the dead, stole him from the mass grave in yiling; wwx is a ghost, a new sort, a demon they've never cataloged.

as before, the jin clan tries to woo jyl into their family, but the rumors weigh on her. she's /tired/ of this, of the plague of rumors. so, when madam jin implies that if jyl doesn't marry there will be rumors of her and wwx, it's the final straw

the jiang clan retreats into themselves, but this is jc's yunmeng, his lotus pier, and their retreat is not a quiet thing. it is steeped in anger and disdain, in clear contempt for the path these rumors have taken

wwx stays at lotus pier while his reputation grows stranger, darker, esp when others realize that he does not hold suibian anymore. as they wonder, for the first time, why wwx named his first-class tool "chenqing"

his reputation is already stained, tarnished beyond all recognition, when wwx takes the wens to the "safety" of the burial mounds. but it speaks to the toll the rumors have taken on the jiangs rep that no one is surprised when jc brings wwx and the wens back to lotus pier

they're all dark souls, each and every one of them. their parents' deaths changed them, warped their image, and they ceased to be the twin heroes of yunmeng after the war. likely long before that, if the rumors are even the least bit true

the clans grow restless as they wonder what lotus pier's black dog (wwx /hates/ this moniker) is still doing there. as they wonder why the jiangs have allowed this demonic cultivator a place in their homes, their hearts, their lives.

they wonder why lotus pier hides the wens, what dark things they plan. they're suspicious of wwx's amulet, of this strange new form of cultivation. there is no precedent for this, nothing to put their mind's at ease, and suspicion turns to distrust, to contempt. they know better—

—than to trust a clan so full of pride, of power. they learned their lesson.

a new war is brewing, formed on the fertile grounds of rumor and the ever-changing ghost of memory

the situation grows worse when wwx's golden core returns. "it's surgery," wq explains after her bafflement is overcome. "there is always the chance that small bits of tissue—or, in this case, energy—will be left over."

his core returns slowly, but it is enough to hold suibian—

—to wield the sword that he's had for so long & fall back into old habits. but his cultivation is not as strong as before, not by a long shot, and with the state of things being so turbulent, wwx continues down the dark and lonely path, tucking chenqing into his belt as he—

—practices the sword. as he falls into the arrhythmic churn of battle. he fights with both suibian and chenqing, channeling the resentful energy of the amulet, pushing his soul to new extremes. to places that no one should explore. it changes him.

suibian has known him for so long. she knows him, knows that this is not the path he would have chosen, had he better options. she knows her master, and this is not him. swords cannot be afraid, but fear is the closest thing to what she feels as she seals herself—

—holding out hope that her master will find balance again. that he will be her wwx again someday soon.

but without suibian, wwx cannot dull his attacks. with only demonic cultivation at his disposal, the hateful skirmishes on yunmeng's border grow dark and terrible

the siege on lotus pier is inevitable. everyone knew it was coming, knew that the yunmeng jiangs had to be knocked down a peg, that they were heading down a path that could not be allowed to thrive.

for the second time, flames drive the jiangs out of house and home

it was inevitable. everyone knew this.

what they did not expect, however, was for the reputable hanguan-jun to guard lotus pier's ashen ruin. it is a strange thing, to see one such as him fall to the allure of such a dark clan, but they are quickly pointed to reason—

—clearly, lwj was protecting the honor of lotus pier! it was once the home of a great clan, after all, and deserves some modicum of respect

no one knows how lwj's chest fills with tired dread when he sees suibian sealed and forgotten amongst the rubble

no one knows how his dread grows to panic when he cannot find wwx. he is missing, appears to have dropped off the face of the cultivation world; there is no sign or trace of him. only whispers.

they are not the kind of whispers that ease lwj's aching soul

(i swear i'm gonna finish this but i really do have to pack blz bear with me in these trying times)

// i'm alive! (sorta) time to get back to the good stuff :>

they are the kinds of whispers that make lwj anxious and unsteady, that pull the earth out from beneath his feet. they follow the same theme as those terrible deeds that heralded wwx's return once before, only now they have grown worse, so much worse, bc it's not just lwj and jc—

—wondering anymore, and the things that are happening...

well, it stands to reason that lwj feels himself dying as the man he loves loses himself to the very thing that lwj warned him abt. it should not have happened, should not have been /allowed/ to happen

but what could lwj have done? followed his father's path? hidden an "evil" man in cloud recesses, stealing him from house and home, locking him away from the world that wants him dead?

there is evil in this world, lwj reasons, but it does not lie with the person locked away, the prisoner to another's desire. it does not lie with them, but with another...

meanwhile, wwx is struggling.

his heart aches, and not in the metaphorical, romantic way—it hurts like dying, every beat a hammer against his chest. he can't breathe, can barely stand without getting so dizzy that he faints.

it worries wq. it worries jc and jyl. it worries wwx, too

but wwx has never liked dealing with his feelings. where jc responds to every emotion with anger, wwx smiles. stab him in the gut and he'll laugh; twist the knife and his smile will twist with it, wide and toothy and horrible.

he smiles now, too. makes jokes. tries to shove off his family's concerns even as those same worries gnaw away at his meager soul

"it must have been the surgery," wq says, although she doesn't know how. wwx knows that this is her way of hoping; if she made a mistake, did smth wrong, then surely she can fix this before it gets worse

she did not make a mistake.

wwx can feel it deep inside. a weight, foreign and uncomfortable, building in his chest. "dark tricks will affect your body," lwj had said. he didn't know how right he was. the thought does not bring wwx any comfort

neither do the rumors that have finally floated down to yiling, the whispered intonations of the latest acts of terror the jiangs' black dog has wrought upon the world

"how could i do that?" wwx asks. "i can't even get out of bed! besides, i'd do it better"

jc punches his shoulder when he says that, but it's true; wwx would not do such a thing halfway. he might torment his prey, drawing out their terror so they feel his pain and his agony, but he does not let them get away. he does not bite off more than he can chew, not in this.

if this were wwx's doing, there would be no survivors. no one left to whisper

he does not share this with jc, suspecting that it would not go over well, but he's curious now. wants to know who is doing these terrible things in his name.

wants to know who has bastardized his path of cultivation and tried to make it their own, twisting his inventions—

—to suit their needs.

he wants to know so badly that it becomes a physical thing, another ache to add to his constant melody of agonies. a minor distraction from the stabbing pains in his chest. an obsession to keep him busy on his path to the grave

against everyone's advice (wq worries for his health; jc cites the dire political situation, as if wwx has forgotten; and jyl puts her hand to wwx's chest, over his terrible heart, and says she worries for him), he pens a letter to lwj

it's simple & straightforward, brief & concise. not in an attempt to be polite or formal—altho that's not such a bad idea—but bc wwx's hands shake, can barely hold the pen and steady the paper. it's bc his handwriting is so nearly illegible that he worries it won't be enough

it is enough; anything wwx sends will always be enough for lwj.

lwj reads the letter so often that he practically memorizes wwx's words, could mimic his terrible handwriting from memory alone. he reads it, knuckles white with how firmly he holds it, as if he's afraid this—

—written version of wwx will drift away on the open breeze if he does not hold on tight enough. he reads it again and again, and feels his heart break each time that he reaches the end & there is still no indication of where wwx is. just a question:

"do you love me, lan zhan?"

the answer is yes, always yes, forever yes, but lwj has no way of telling wwx this. no return address, no words to say it; there are no words for what lwj feels, let alone how strongly he feels them.

no words for this burning need to touch and hold and love, to keep wwx by his side forever and always. even with the words, he could not send them.

he tells himself that this is fine, that he does not want there to be words for a love like this. but he aches to write back.

wwx keeps sending letters

they're short, getting shorter, sloppier. lwj ties each one to "wwx's" latest act of villainy, tries to figure out how they come together, to see the picture they paint. nothing makes sense, and lwj's crumbles beneath the weight of it all as he wonders—

—if wwx has changed so much that lwj truly does not know him anymore.

(that's not the case at all; wwx is just... well, his memory has never been very good, but it's getting worse. /much/ worse)

he forgets that wq visits in the morning to check his temperature, to tip medicinal tea into his bone-dry mouth. he forgets that jyl is there, that she did not stay at koi tower after all. he forgets that jc loves him despite everything he's put him through.

(he forgets that lwj doesn't know where he is)

he remembers a few things, though

he remembers lwj & the ache of longing he feels each time he sees him. he remembers how kind & good lwj is, how he is everything a cultivator is meant to be. he remembers that lwj doesn't want to marry; he remembers every time he thinks lwj wants to hold him forever

he remembers that he is nothing more than the orphaned son of a servant

wwx cries now. it's hard to smile, harder to laugh when he can hardly breathe, but the tears come easily. he doesn't know where they come from, how he has so many tears to shed

on the night he thinks he'll die, wwx sends another letter

"Lan Zhan," he writes. "I asked you once if you loved me. It's fine if you don't—I understand. I'm not exactly easy to love, am I?

"Despite it all, though, I think I love you. Even after everything.

"It's not fair of me to say this, not to you, Hanguang-jun—you do not need—

—another of my foibles to burden you. You still don't need to know, really, but when I thought I would take this to the grave, I didn't expect the grave to come for me so soon.

"It's funny how things change. It really is—don't make that face, I know how you are—but no matter what happens... Lan Zhan, you must have noticed by now? How I need you to look at me, pay attention to me, touch me? My need for you is constant, Lan Zhan.

"I want to fall into your eyes; I want to look at you for now and forever. I want you to look at me.

"...maybe not now, on second thought. Definitely not now. I am not good to look at anymore, so just remember me as I used to be, hm?"

wwx's hand trembles and he loses his grip on the pen. ink drips and smears across the page, looking uncomfortably like blood in its spread. as he stares at the mess, an idea creeps unbidden into the back of wwx's mind

// cw: mentions of canon-typical self-harm & inappropriate uses for blood

biting his finger to draw a spot of blood, wwx flips the half-dried paper over (the letter will smudge, but that will probably be an improvement over wwx's scribbling text) and begins to draw

wq finds wwx panting as he stares at the paper before him. her heart stills when she sees the rivulets of ink creeping down wwx's arm; her heart stops when she realizes that it isn't ink.

that wwx's blood is /black/

"wwx?" she asks, tentative, terrified as she takes in the drawing before him.

it's a sketch of two people—men, she thinks—standing of a cliff, looking into the great, yawning stretch of the world beyond their touch

she looks at it and she sees goodbye.

// i'm screaming i wanted to get this thread (mostly) done tonight, but instead i have to listen to scrivener fuckin' read over this novella for a client bc i stopped being able to think ~5 hours ago. anyway, hold in there! i'll be back with your regularly scheduled twitfic soon!

about that,,, turns out breaking me foot & pain meds do not mix well w/writing. bear with me, & blz take this egg in these trying times

stuck in navigator role for the next 6-7 hours so let’s see how much i can get done before my reception cuts out

on the day wq fears wwx will die, she slips an extra page into wwx’s letter. she does not understand the way wwx has devoted himself to lwj—hardly understands what he sees in the man—but she isn’t half blind, not like wwx, whose lack of sight burns him to the core

on the day wq thinks her friend will die, she sends a plea of her own

lwj feels cold when wq’s demanding script falls from wwx’s clumsily folded sheaf of papers. feels his gut turn small and hard as he reads wq’s letter

three days after lwj received wwx’s final letter, he arrives at the burial mounds

lwj is a sight to see, having abandoned decorum and ridden his sword w/out rest. he stumbles as his feet touch the ground, steadies himself with bichen’s sheath in the desolate earth

he fears he is too late

when he sees the deep lines of exhaustion drawn beneath wq’s eyes, the tight purse of her lips, lwj feels himself begin to shatter

it takes a monumental amount of effort to follow her to wwx’s cave—but it is not for nothing, bc there is wwx, laying on his stone slab of a bed. his face is pale, his cheeks sunken, but his chest moves with the rise and fall of his breath

“how long?” lwj asks w/out thought. he steps toward wwx, his hesitation gone with the weight of his grief

wq tells him that wwx has been asleep for nearly a week now. it’s better than the death they all feared, but—

lwj interrupts, unsure if he is annoyed at her for misunderstanding or at himself for speaking w/out clarity

“how long has he been sick?” lwj asks, using the proper words this time

“months,” wq says, brow tightening w/suspicion and fear at the question

but lwj is not afraid, not scared, not anymore, bc here is the proof that lwj still knows wwx, that the man he loves is not confined to paper letters—that his wwx is not the black dog others think he is

it is strange, he thinks, to feel so relieved when wwx is unconscious before him

it is a sobering thought

lwj listens as wq explains the illness that has been eating away at wwx since he fell at lotus pier. the blood drains from his face when she tells him abt the ink-black color of wwx’s blood

and then, at last, she shares her theory on the matter with him

it makes sense, her theory, except—

“why would wei ying be developing a new core?”

—that lwj cannot reconcile the thought of wwx w/out the strong flow of his spiritual energy.

(but he can, can’t he? lwj saw him then, fresh out of hell and hellbent on revenge; it makes a traitorous sort of sense. ofc, he thinks now, ofc there was more at play than the resentful energy surrounding him)

the answer to his next question is obvious, but lwj asks anyway:

“can you heal him?”

“perhaps,” is wq’s answer. “but after the procedure, there won’t be anything left”

“will he care?”

lwj knows the answer before wq sucks in her cheeks and glances at the still-sleeping wwx

he remembers, absently, the weight of suibian in his qiankun pouch & removes the sword, folds wwx’s hands around her hilt.

lwj swears the sword /hums/ as he pulls his hands away.

resolute, lwj says, “we’ll find another way”

~-~

/do you want revenge?/

this is all wwx hears now, echoing through the deepest recesses of his mind. he tries to respond, to claw his way back to the surface, but he is here, and he is trapped.

again.

/do you want revenge?/

the question isn’t cruel, although it has every right to be. instead, it just echoes, echoes, /echoes/ through him until all he hears are the overlapping screams, the aching cries of mothers without sons, of daughters without fathers.

he hears a merchant’s anguished sobs, and lives his death more than any of the others.

he has died so many times now.

the first time was under wq’s supervision, her spiritual energy touching his, tearing into him, and /dragging/ his core away.

the second time came shortly after, in the Burial Mounds; he died there, came back haunted.

and now, trapped as he is beneath this oppressive /darkness/, he dies again, and again, and again.

he is a mother shielding her child’s body with her own, sobs tearing through her throat as she begs them to spare her child.

he is a shepherd, returning home to find it besieged, dying under a blade glistening with blood before he has the chance to understand what has happened.

he is a farmer’s daughter, tucked beneath creaking floorboards, hand clamped tightly over her baby sister’s mouth, tears streaming down her face as she realizes that her sister’s life will come at the price of her own.

mostly, however, he is the merchant in the middle of the square, qi raging through him, bursting through his meridians and tearing him apart as he is filled with the all-encompassing rage and grief and loss of /everything./

/do you want revenge?/

wwx’s blood quivers, aches in the confines of his veins. somewhere, someone touches him. warmth pools in his gut, supplementing his golden core with their own energy, but it is too late.

he understands, now, why no one survives this dark and lonely path.

he doesn’t know how long he’s been trapped here, soaked with blood and sweat and bile—doesn’t know what his family is doing now that he’s failed in this, too, unable to even /die/ properly. he thinks Madam Yu would have a fit if she knew

again, the echo. but wwx wants nothing for madam yu but peace, for a better life and happier marriage in her next life. of this, he is certain.

he sinks deeper, lost, and knows he is almost beyond reach. soon, then.

/Wei Ying?/

a new voice, lighter, ringing through the thing that has bound him here. except it isn’t a /voice/, exactly; it is the cry of birds flocking above Lotus Pier, the steam wafting off his shijie’s soup, the gentle press of leather in his hands.

/Wei Ying!/

he reaches for the voice, this one speck of sunlit hope in this forsaken place. he stretches until it seems he will fray into oblivion before finding the source of the voice, and then he stretches further.

he’s died so many times—what’s one more to add to the pile?

and then—finally!—his hand wraps around the voice, gripping the solid, hefty weight of his sword in one hand, holding onto his Suibian like his life depends on it. because, he realizes, it does.

as wwx’s hand finds Suibian, a new energy wraps itself around him, a blanket of warmth and peace and love. his heart cries with the feel of it, of this beautiful thing as yet untainted by by the paralyzing grip of grief and loss and terror.

/Not true./

the warmth flickers, and he remembers it now, the way Lotus Pier looked as it burned. the bodies of his sect left for the dogs.

he wants to scream, to beg for the pleasantry of ignorance, but Suibian holds him here, forces him to /look/, to remember, and to recall the way his heart broke, of the way he dug into wq’s medical texts, of the way he died before he had the chance to heal.

his chest is warm now, full of fluid like lead—as if someone has filled every part of him with mercury, seeing into every forgotten part of him until nothing is left untread. he feels it now, clearer than ever, the tendrils of resentful energy he’s been channeling, /cultivating/—

—and he realizes that this is the crux of it.

they need his heart. even dead, they remember what it is to love.

but their love has been perverted, twisted into an angry, unforgiving thing, hungry for only one thing: revenge.

/but love is not a sacrifice,/ Suibian tells him, soothing the heavy burn of his heart, coaxing blood back to the places where it belongs, driving the resentful energy outward, into his lips, his bones, his /breath./

it all returns to this, after all.

just as he channels the energy within himself, he can turn that practice outward and draw energy from others. he can empower himself with others’ pain, can use their lust for revenge to achieve the impossible.

but he doesn’t have to anymore, does he?

tentative, he reaches for the gentle ebb of spiritual energy, sees that it is still there, albeit quieter than before. its sharing its home with the resentful energy, but it’s /there/, and despite its limits, it is /strong./

/Let them go./

the mother, the shepherd, the farmer’s daughter—even the merchant in the square. but letting them go means—

/It is time to move on./

wwx’s heart stills. he focuses on his qi, on the deaths he has died so many times. he thinks about the lives that preceded those deaths, the sheer humanity of these spirits demanding vengeance. he visits them

then he does what he has to do

//that’s all for tonight, folks!! i’m hoping to have the final update out tomorrow (with wangxian united! i promise!) but we’ll see what happens lol

and for anyone who’s just stumbled onto this thread, here’s the beginning for your reading convenience! https://twitter.com/alcego_writes/status/1294731347265818627