this is my first foray into threadfic because this concept will not stop eating me alive & i know i’ll never fully write it so —

the binding au. for those who haven’t read the book, all you need to know: the central concept is that memories can be bound into books. let’s go?

it starts with wwx on the road; he’s been sent away from lotus pier to learn the highly controversial craft of bookbinding from a mysterious mentor.

all he knows is that she’s a recluse who lives alone on the marshes, and that his mother once knew her.

“is there anything you can tell me about baoshan sanren?” wwx asks the jiang disciple driving the cart.

“only that she’s a witch, and a dark cultivator,” the disciple replies. “they say she's lived for hundreds of years.”

wwx had been sent away from lotus pier at madam yu’s insistence. both his adopted siblings had put up a fight about it. bookbinding is a dark, forbidden craft; to study it, under his mother’s mentor, is as good as an exile.

madam yu had won, using wwx’s recent, random bouts of illness as an excuse. wwx is generally v healthy & spry, almost never gets physically ill, but lately he’s been getting odd, confusing fevers — mental fogs, almost, that leave him down for the count.

madam yu had cryptically, though not at all kindly, said that bssr could help him.

the house truly is secluded, tucked far away into the marshes, the nearest town li and li away. the marshes reflect sunlight strangely, gathering it up on the horizon like shards of a broken mirror.

clearly spooked, the jiang disciple drops him at the door & leaves. bssr ushers wwx in with no further ado. she’s dressed in white, sleeves ink-spattered, her face youthful despite the rumors of her age. the house is...nice, but eccentric. binding supplies scatted everywhere.

“so you have the binder’s fever?” bssr asks, before wwx can introduce himself.

wwx’s mouth snaps shut.

“the what,” he says, succinctly.

“yu-furen's letter said you have binder’s fever,” bssr says; appraising wwx, near-harsh. “only two types of folks have that: those who have been bound, or those like us.”

“what exactly does that make us?” wwx asks.

bssr’s mouth twitches. “let’s say uniquely gifted cultivators.”

wwx’s first weeks living with bssr are boring as HELL. he’s used to running around lotus pier with other disciples, training and playing and generally being unruly. plus, he misses jiang cheng and shijie; he’s never been so lonely.

bssr sets him to work on the most rudimentary of tasks — cutting paper until it’s exactly right, threading until his fingers nearly bleed.

it’s more fastidious, focused work than wwx has a taste for. he hardly sees bssr; she keeps to herself, mostly in the basement, although sometimes she drops by to silently correct him on something he’s doing wrong.

once a week, wwx asks bssr if he’s ready to actually bind yet, whatever that entails. each week, she declines.

as the months creep by, and some of wwx’s fierce homesickness abides, a couple of clients come by to see bssr. they are always odd and discreet, keeping their heads tucked low, and bssr ushers them immediately in and down to the basement.

they always come out and look at wwx as if they don’t know where they are.

then, one rainy evening in the late fall, there’s a knock at the door. bssr is off who knows where, so wwx goes to answer it and is met with the most handsome face he’s ever seen — golden eyes, pale skin, bone structure to die for, long inky hair.

the man is also getting drenched in rain. he doesn’t seem to notice — his eyes widen when he sees wwx, his mouth falling open. on anyone else, it would register as subtle surprise, but wwx can’t shake the sense that the stranger is. shocked, for some reason. an odd reaction.

then the man breathes, “wei ying.”

wwx stares back at him, totally disarmed by this. he’s
𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 certain he’s never met this man before — he would absolutely remember a face like this.

the stranger stares at him like he’s seen a ghost, eyes flickering to trace over every one of his features.

the man had called him by his personal name, no less.

“do i...know you?” wwx wonders, and the man’s face closes off, a smooth shuttering.

“i had heard...that you were…” the man murmurs, almost to himself. “so i came to…”

wwx is growing more confused & alarmed by the second.

also, this stranger is now totally sopping wet, and wwx is hovering in the doorway like a terrible host, so he ushers him inside.

“i take it you’re here to see baoshan sanren?” wwx guesses. “i’m just the apprentice.”

“apprentice,” the man echoes softly. he keeps staring at wwx, dripping all over the hardwood floors. wwx is too flummoxed by this entire situation to think to offer a towel.

a pause, then: “does it make you happy?”

oddly personal question.

“ah, it’s alright, i guess,” wwx says.

the man keeps staring at him, his eyes dark with some complicated emotion.

“she’ll be up any minute,” wwx says, and the man keeps staring at him like the words don’t register.

“wei ying,” he says quietly. “do you really not…?”

“ah, hanguang-jun,” bssr interrupts, entering the room with a reproachful look at wwx. “i did not realize you’d come already.”

the man tears his gaze away from wwx with evident difficulty. hanguang-jun. wwx tests the name. no, it definitely does not sound familiar.

“come, come downstairs and we can talk,” bssr says, and leads a dazed hgj by the elbow. then, more firmly, “wei ying, stay put.”

“i wasn’t going anywhere!” wwx protests, sulking a little, then stares at hgj’s back as he disappears.

it feels like hours pass. this appointment seems so much longer than the usual. wwx is dying of curiosity, too consumed by it to settle and focus on his boring tasks.

finally, hgj emerges from the dark of the basement, bssr behind him.

“h-hanguang-jun?” wwx tries, and hgj turns to stare at him. blank, confused, maybe a little annoyed. like he’s never seen wwx before in his life. wwx falters.

hgj doesn’t say another word, dipping his head to both of them in thanks before vanishing out into the rain.

“well,” bssr sighs. she’s holding something. “come downstairs, wei ying.”

“who was that man?” wwx demands on the way down. “how does he know me?”

“not for me to tell,” bssr replies. “however, before he was bound, he told me to give you this.”

she hands what she’s holding to wwx. it’s a book, beautifully crafted, the paper of its pages made from sandalwood bark. embossed on the front are the characters lan zhan, zi wangji.

“he said you would know what to do with it, when the time was right,” bssr says.

wwx stares at the book, then at bssr in open frustration. what the hell?

“sit,” bssr says.

then, she explains: “binding is a forbidden craft because it is demonic cultivation. i’m sure, by now, that you have guessed this.”

wwx nods once.

“what does it do?” wwx asks.

“people come to me to forget,” bssr answers. “binding takes their memory away, stores it in books. we do this using a practice called empathy.

“few have the gift, as you and i do.”

“this is why i had the binder’s fever?” wwx guesses, his thoughts racing. he can’t stop thinking about the man, the stricken way he’d stared at him in the doorway.

“perhaps,” bssr says. “or perhaps you’ve been bound.”

not likely, wwx thinks.

“binding is exceedingly dangerous in the wrong hands,” bssr says. “for too long, those who corrupt their positions of power have used it to manipulate information. that is why i see so few people. and to keep the books safe.”

wwx looks around the basement with dawning awe, bordering on nausea. hundreds, thousands of books stored down here. millions of memories that bssr has threaded with her own hands.

he looks back down at hanguang-jun’s — lan wangji's — book in his hands.

“what did you want so badly to forget?” wwx murmurs to himself.

plot happens (ooh, threadfics are nice in this way), and wwx ends up going to a manor called jinlintai on his first binding assignment. mostly because bssr refuses to take it.

“you can’t trust a single one of those dogs,” she tells wwx, helpfully.

still, the letters from the jin sect to bssr grow more & more threatening, so wwx takes the assignment on bssr’s behalf, sneaks off in the middle of the night with one of the horses & rides to lanling.

the sect leader who requested his service does not need a binding himself. his name is jin guangshan. no, he wants wwx to bind one of his maidservants, who is so pale and shaking so hard that she won’t look wwx in the eye.

wwx has a fair idea as to why, and refuses jgs’ demands.

however —

“i will only do this if this is what 𝘺𝘰𝘶 want,” wwx tells the young woman.

“please,” she whispers, tears in her eyes. “take these memories from me.”

wwx binds her, his first time doing so, and in the process sees a good deal he rather would not have.

he leaves the room shaking and on the verge of vomiting, in a blind rage toward jgs, when he crashes right into — strange handsome man.

“oh, sorry,” wwx says, then says, more eagerly in recognition, “lan zhan!”

hgj recoils from him a little, his gaze hardening at the over-familiarity.

“oh, sorry,” wwx says again. “uh, lan wangji?”

“who are you?” lwj says, still with that cold and unforgiving stare. it’s so markedly different from the man he’d met in bssr’s doorway that wwx feels his stomach twist a little.

“right,” wwx says, and salutes. “wei ying, courtesy name wei wuxian.”

something flares in lwj's eyes then; not quite recognition, but some kind of awareness.

“you are the son of cangse sanren?” lwj asks. “the bookbinder.”

it’s true, wwx’s mother had bound books as well, although she hadn’t been alive long enough for wwx to know anything about her or the craft. just that she’d learned from bssr, and various aspersions from madam yu.

he’s somewhat surprised lwj knows of her.

“yep, that’s me,” wwx says. “hey, you really don’t remember us meeting? i was there when you were bound.”

lwj gives him a flinty look. “i have done no such thing.”

“yes, you have,” wwx protests. “i was there for it.”

“ridiculous,” lwj snaps, and moves to sweep past him.

how is wwx supposed to tell this man that he’d given him a gift he has no idea what to do with?

“your name,” lwj says, surprising wwx. he has paused at the door on his way out, as though in thought. “i recognize it. wait here.”

wwx dutifully waits, trying his best to forget the events from the last hour. jgs had taken the maid’s book from wwx with a satisfied air and ordered one of his servants to stash it away.

it makes wwx feel dirty and sick. bssr had been right. the further from jinlintai he is, the better, although he does wonder why lwj is here.

lwj returns not long after, holding something in his hands.

“i was assigned to deliver a collection of these from the cloud recesses to be stored here,” lwj says. “this one has your name on it. i know little about the binding craft, but thought perhaps it belongs to you.”

it feels like the earth shakes under wwx’s feet. he reaches out to take the book, his hand trembling.

the cover has the characters, unmistakable: wei ying, zi wuxian.

this means…

he had been bound?

why on earth would he do such a thing? no, wwx is not the type; he has weathered much, but has never tried to forget any of it. just what had happened to drive him to a measure like this? what is being kept from him?

still holding the book, wwx’s gaze flits toward the hearth on the opposite side of the room. lwj follows it, and says, with a faint trace of alarm, “no.”

wwx scrambles away from him, lunging toward the fire. lwj dives after wwx, lightning-quick.

it’s too late, though —

— the flames devour the pages of the book, and wwx passes out.

PART 2: the memories start in lotus pier.

just one year of them, really; they begin when a young lan disciple had come to stay in yunmeng.

his name is lan wangji, jiang cheng tells wwx in mutters. super scary and proper.

super hot, wwx thinks, a bit dreamily as he stares at lwj standing in the center of sword hall like some descended deity, and right then and there, he makes it his life’s mission to be noticed by this person.

“i don’t know you,” jiang cheng says, when this is revealed to him.

wwx will start his plot with flirting; that’s been a surefire way to woo others into his graces around lotus pier.

“do you mean the grannies who give you sweets?” jiang cheng says scathingly. “i’m pretty sure they don’t count.”

“shut up!” wwx says. “i can be charming!”

lwj hates it. hates wwx, full stop. anytime wwx comes trouncing into his space, lwj ignores him, gives him icy looks, or repudiates him for poor behavior.

by the end of day one, wwx has been called ridiculous six times and told to get lost once.

“he’s been sent to help us with the issues at shayang,” uncle jiang tells wwx the first night with great, long-suffering weariness. “a-xian, please don’t scare him away from here.”

“i’m just trying to be his friend,” wwx protests while jc groans.

so wwx starts to hang around lwj every day. whether due to sheer exposure or some secret growing affinity that shows wwx’s plan is working, lwj is still mean to him, but not, like, in a real way. habitually mean, sort of.

wwx likes flustering him the most, getting a rise out of him and making his ears flush.

wwx brings him tang hulu from the market, forces him to try some of yunmeng’s spiciest food (which brings lwj to real tears), tries to ply him with liquor; anything to get a reaction, and lwj’s attention. after his days with lwj, wwx falls asleep smiling stupidly at the ceiling.

(“i don’t get your obsession with him at all,” jc says one morning, baffled. “the guy’s dead boring.”

“maybe to you,” wwx sniffs. “lan zhan likes me very much, as it happens.”

“keep dreaming,” jc says with a sneer, & then he & wwx start tussling in the middle of the courtyard.)

wwx gifts lwj a pair of bunnies next, and lwj looks so oddly touched by it that he forgets to be mean to wwx, just for a minute. he’s even prettier with his guard down, with his eyes soft and his mouth parted in gentle surprise. wwx counts this as a victory.

soon after, to jc’s total bewilderment, wwx and lwj start to hang out every day. lwj starts to silently seek wwx out in the mornings, materializing by his quarters around when wwx wakes up (usually far too late), and this quiet ritual fills wwx with complete delight.

lwj is still a little mean to wwx, but there’s no real heat or malice to it. wwx likes it when people are mean to him sometimes, anyway.

the summer passes like this, and lwj extends his stay into fall, citing reasons he needs to help with the ongoing night hunt. wwx is fiercely glad for it; he’s not ready to say goodbye to lwj yet!!! he’s never had a friend like this, outside of his siblings.

there’s another strange development: while lwj had been incredibly cagey and hostile about touching when they’d met, he now seems to seek out reasons to touch wwx. lingering, almost shy; usually a little unnecessary, but never unwelcome.

wwx was supposed to be the wooer here, so he’s unwound by how much this flusters him. especially because lwj is so apparently calm and unaffected by it. wwx spends his days in a frenzy of madness about it, to shijie’s amusement and jc’s endless suffering.

wwx starts to show lwj places outside of lotus pier’s manor too; he takes him into the markets, out on the lotus ponds in a rowboat, some of the secluded places in the woods only he and his siblings know about.

there are some truly beautiful hidden glades and pools to be found in the woods, but wwx is much more eager to watch lwj’s face experiencing these places. it starts to occur to him, woefully late, that the warm mushy feelings rolling around in him are likely...not friendship.

this thread is already massive so i can’t slow-burn this the way i’d like, BUT there is a scene where they’re in a stable before an afternoon ride and wwx is whining he needs lwj’s help reaching something.

wwx can reach it fine, but he delights in the way that lwj huffs a little and 𝘢𝘭𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 rolls his eyes and reaches over him to grab it, their chests touching —