#foundling series

The Yin Iron as Lan Yi knew it, had never been anything but an instrument for the wicked, though try as she did to purify it to its original state. She had believed that the Iron itself, however powerful it had been, was not inherently evil or good. She believed that it was only Xue Chonghai’s malice and greed that had corrupted such an ancient item through dark cultivation. 

Lan Yi, though unsuccessful, was right.

What Lan Yi didn’t know and what no one knew, not even Wei Wuxian, was that something of that magnitude, of that divinity, could not be destroyed by mortal means, cultivator or not.

Before his death, Wei Wuxian was beyond magnificent mostly due to the Stygian Amulet in his possession. It grew so powerful that he eventually lost control of it. Part of the blame could possibly be laid on Jin Guangyao, but his loss of control demonstrated an important truth that no one realized: The Yin Iron and its spiritual force - its essence - were beyond the capacity of man. Every time a piece was supposedly destroyed, the energy was transferred to the closest remaining pieces. By destroying Wen Ruohan’s three Yin Iron shards, Wei Wuxian had unknowingly absorbed additional dark energy in his own Stygian Amulet.

When Wei Wuxian obliterated the seal at the final confrontation before his first death, its spiritual energy had no solid matter to bind to. Most cultivators’ golden cores repelled or were incompatible with demonic energy. Xue Yang’s piece was hidden far away in Lanling. The only place that could sustain such a large quantity of yin energy was the Burial Mount, and there it found a receptive host, in the form of an unwitting coreless child. The Energy itself was partially sentient, and for self-preservation, it laid dormant in the child’s body, hidden and waiting for the day to come.

A dangerous near-death experience during a failed night hunt triggered the awakening of Sizhui’s powers when he was thirteen years old. For years, he nurtured it, kept it a secret with the help of his friends Lan Jingyi, Jin Ling and later on Ouyang Zizhen.

Some day, the Gods of the Nine Heavens will say that it was always meant to be Wen Yuan… that Fate had chosen him to bear the powers of the God and Demon who had fought and died for the middle ground.

 ~~~

 Following the incident at the Guanyin Temple, Lan Sizhui lived up to his promise to Jin Ling. He came back for Jin Guangyao’s soul sealed within the temple along with Nie Mingjue. His uncle, the kind and gentle Lan Xichen had gone into seclusion, unable to face the fact that his blindness had allowed Jin Guangyao to go unchecked or that he had been the one to kill him. Nie Huaisang’s vague answer had confirmed everything he needed to know.

Confident and naïve as youths often were, Lan Sizhui believed he could find a way to bring Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao back from the dead without using life sacrifice as Mo Xuanyu had done. Mo Xuangyu had barely been a cultivator, and Lan Sizhui had grown in leaps and bounds and was on the verge of surpassing even the great Yiling Laozu himself.

Sizhui stole Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao's souls and brought them to a place that he knew no one visited anymore: The Wen Sect’s ancestral seat of power, Wen Yuan’s birthright, Nevernight. There, over the chasm where Wen Ruohan had once cultivated three pieces of the Yin Iron, Lan Sizhui kept the souls of his uncle’s sworn brothers in protected suspension.

If he were to do this, he knew he could not just save Jin Guangyao alone, but Nie Mingjue as well. He did not understand the grievance and hatred between the men of the previous generation, but his family deserved happiness and closure, and if he could give it to them, he would without hesitation.

This, he kept as a closely guarded secret. Only Jingyi and Jin Ling were his confidants.

As a child, he did not tell Lan Wangji about his power out of fear, but now, Sizhui kept his silence for another reason entirely. Let him be selfish just this once. He did not want to answer to anyone, to explain himself, his motivations or his powers. A part of Sizhui instinctively knew that Xue Chonghai, Wen Ruohan, Wei Wuxian, Xue Yang - they were all just vessels, a long line of cultivators that the Iron used to get to him. With him was where the Iron’s power always belonged; it may have taken centuries in the making, but finally, the wrong had been righted.

Sizhui hid his secret it from his fathers, from his sect, from everyone. Meanwhile, his powers grew, both spiritual and demonic, to the point where Wei Wuxian's willful ignorance could no longer deny the fact that something was very different about this boy he saved. He hoped it was not true, hoped that Sizhui hadn't been doing exactly what he thought he was.

"A-Yuan," he said to Lan Sizhui one evening when they were taking a stroll through the back mountains of Cloud Recesses. Lan Wangji was busy with Chief Cultivator business and could not join them.

"Yes, a-die?" Responded Sizhui. He heard the change in Wei Wuxian's tone, but he pretended to be none the wiser.

Wei Wuxian paused in his step, turned, and placed a hand on the shoulder of his child. Sizhui had grown taller over the last couple of seasons. He was no longer a boy.

"Is there something you'd like to tell me?"

By then, Lan Sizhui was already in too deep. Since the early days of his resurrection endeavours, he had realized there was no way that he, as a mortal cultivator, could bring back a life from nothing. A sacrifice was always needed, and even if he were to give up his own, it would only revive one of the two souls. 

Both Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao’s souls had been damaged, though in different ways. The seals placed upon them would hinder their reincarnation for a hundred years, and after that, there was no telling where they would end up. Without resolving the hatred they both carried into their deaths, their next several lives would be fraught with perils and misfortune.

Jin Ling had by this point come to terms with the passing of his uncle, but Lan Xichen…

If he could not bring back Chifeng-zun and Lianfang-zun to be reunited with Zewu-jun, then at the very least, Sizhui would alleviate his Uncle’s guilt by offering peace to his sworn-brothers. With this in mind, Sizhui did not give up, and eventually he had found a way.

So when Wei Wuxian confronted him, there were so many things he wanted to tell him, but he knew he couldn't. Sizhui was so close to the end, so close to achieving what he needed to do, and he could not afford anyone standing in his way. He had learned from the past. He'd heard of Wei Wuxian's audacious suggestions spoken right here within the walls of Cloud Recesses. Even then, as a guest disciple, he had planted the idea in the minds of his peers and mentors that he, Wei Wuxian, was a divergent from The Path, that he was to be wary of, to be monitored and to be taken down before he could uproot their lives.

Lan Sizhui had no intentions of allowing the small-mindedness of his elders to hinder him. He also did not want his fathers blamed for his own doings, though being his fathers, perhaps they would be blamed no matter what he did. He knew it was unfilial of him to disregard that, but he had gone too far to turn back now.

Lan Sizhui had started out wishing to help Jin Ling, to help Lan Xichen, but now… now he wanted to do this for himself. He didn’t want to stop; he wanted to know if he could do it, if he could make this one thing come true. They say power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. They also say curiosity killed the cat, and Sizhui was willing to find out if satisfaction was really able to bring it back.

Thus, the secret of his power must be kept hidden until the spell was complete. Both Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji must have reasonable deniability. When all is said and done, Sizhui had made plans to disappear and save the cultivation world the trouble of removing him.

"A-Yuan, is there something you'd like to tell me?" Wei Wuxian repeated. The hand on Sizhui's shoulder tightened.

Lan Sizhui stared the man in the eye and lied, "No, a-die. There isn't."

 ~~~

 When Sizhui revealed the plans of his departure, that was when Jingyi finally broke.

"No, Sizhui, no! You were supposed to be Sect Master, it was supposed to be you!"

"I can't go back, Jingyi, if I do this, I can never go back."

"Sizhui, please, please don't - "

"You'll still have our friends when I’m gone. Zizhen is a good man, a trusted friend. He would stand by your side. And Jin Ling too, he would never leave you.” 

"J-Jin Ling?! Th- that brat, I - I don't know what you're -"

"It's okay. He likes you too." Sizhui smiled brightly at his friend's flushed cheeks.

"H-he does?"

"Yes, yes he does."

They didn’t know it then, but Sect Master Jin Rulan and Sect Master Lan Jingyi would one day become cultivation partners. Openly and without shame, they formed the Lan-Jin alliance their predecessors wished but could never achieve.

 ~~~

 The plan was this:

Sizhui had discovered that he could put souls into human bodies if he manipulated with their reincarnation cycle and transported them distantly enough in time. Jin Guangyao and Nie Mingjue were not destined to meet again in another life, but Sizhui had his ways.

Against Fate or not, he was going to do it.  

Somehow, Lan Xichen found out. After years in seclusion, he emerged one day and sought out his nephew at Nevernight where he couldn't deny what he'd been planning.

Sizhui had panicked, thinking his uncle would for sure admonish him for tampering with reincarnation and matters entirely too divine and out of his control.

But Lan Xichen simply stood there, gazing up at the two suspended souls above the pit of Sizhui's swirling demonic and spiritual energy. His sworn brothers. They had knelt before Heaven and Earth and promised that though they had not been born on the same day, in same month and in the same year, they would seek to die on the same day, in same month and in the same year.

And what became of them? Mingjue was beheaded, A-Yao stabbed. Both murdered. Yet, here he was, still alive.

Left behind.  

"I want to go with them." Lan Xichen said.

For the first time since his journey began, Lan Sizhui was truly horrified. 

"I - I can only transport souls, and yours -"

"Then transport mine."

Sizhui shook, sputtering, "But – but - you would have to die! I would have to kill you!"

"I know. Sizhui," Lan Xichen turned to the boy he helped raise into the fine young man he was now and bowed his head. "A-Yuan, please."

Sizhui floundered. What would Father say, if he knew his A-Yuan had been the one to take the life of his beloved brother?

"You can't ask this of me, you can't Zewu-jun, no - da'bofu… da'bofu don’t…"

But Sizhui knew, he knew, deep down, that he would do this for Lan Xichen. In the hallow abbey of Nevernight, his uncle held him as he cried, as if he was still that scared lonely little boy. 

"I am a selfish man. I'm sorry, child, forgive me."  

 ~~~

 Sizhui spun the spell for nine days and nine nights.

A barrier was formed from his mixture of demonic and spiritual energy, barring anyone passage into the palace. Lan Xichen’s disappearance from Cloud Recesses quickly alerted cultivators all round, and the strange energy coalescing around Qishan commanded the attention of Chief Cultivator Hanguang-jun and the other sect masters. Together, Sizhui’s fathers and the leaders of all major and minor sects marched on Nevernight for a third time, completely surrounding the place on day two of the nine-day spell. 

Lan Sizhui’s absence from Gusu Lan’s entourage drew speculations right away, as he was the unofficial Sect Heir.

Under immense pressure and terrified by the development of both political and spiritual tension, Jin Ling and Lan Jingyi caved and told their qianbeis the truth: that Sizhui was a practiced demonic cultivator from an early age, that he planned to release Chifeng'zun and Jin Guangyao's trapped spirits into reincarnation for a second chance, that Zewu-jun had begged him to send him as well, that Sizhui had agreed to it all.

The reveal shocked all, even the usually nonplussed Nie Huaisang.  “Is he really able to do it? To give my brother peace and absolution?”  Jingyi nodded. “If anyone can, Sizhui can.” 

For nine days the cultivators meditated, their collective cultivation keeping yet another barrier between the surrounding land and Nevernight’s epicenter.

As the only non-spiritual cultivator present Wei Wuxian knelt before the long stone steps, stained and darkened by the blood of countless lives that were ended upon it. 

Whose blood they were yet to spill he did not know and was too afraid to think on it further. Two live-times’ of memories flooded his thoughts, threatening to overtake him. Wen Ning knelt with him, silently by his side as always. 

When the spell ended, the spiritual and demonic powers in Lan Sizhui came to a culmination. The earth quaked, the sky darkened. For a minute, all was quiet.

Then, suddenly, four flashes of lightning cut across the sky, lighting up night as though it were day. Its thunderous echoes shook the cultivators down to their knees. Even the mighty Hanguang-jun, the Chief Cultivator himself, bowed to its strength. Men and women quivered and trembled, for they knew those were not your ordinary lightning.

Four, consecutive strikes, each hitting where Lan Sizhui would be within the main palace. Those were Omens, Heaven's Trial. It was clear to all of them what had happened.

Lan Yuan, Lan Sizhui, had ascended.

"That was...that was an ascension." Jiang Wanyin’s voice spoke out first.

Beside him, his nephew the young Sect Master Jin Ling bit back his sobs. He had hoped this wouldn't happen, though the signs were all there in the preceding days. Ascension was what all cultivators sought, though in this case, it was most definitely not a blessing.

He feared for his friend, and he blamed himself for ever posing that ridiculous request that day at the Guanyin Temple.

“Sizhui!!” Lan Jingyi was the first to break rank, dashing forward in a mad panic. He was stopped in his track by Jin Ling’s arms circling his waist from behind.  

“Jingyi, stop!! It’s too late, we can’t stop this!”

“Sizhui! Sizhui!”

“Jingyi! Jin Ling!”  Ouyang Zizhen rushed to their side and helped Jin Ling haul back their friend.  

“He’s ascended! He’s ascended, he’s ascended, it’s just an ascension, just an ascension,” chanted Jin Ling over and over to his friend as they crumbled to their knees.

"No, not 'an' ascension," corrected Lan Wangji, his voice rising over the deafening silence. He stood and helped Wei Wuxian to stand. His husband was white as sheet, for he too understood what four lightnings meant.

Historical records have always noted that one lightning was the sign of ascension from cultivator to di’xian (lesser immortal). Unlike popular belief, the lightning was not a sign of Heaven’s favour, but a Fated Trial. To be an immortal, a cultivator must survive the trial, and of the few who were ever graced with the lightning, even fewer survived. Aside from Baoshan, no cultivator had even reached anywhere close to this stage in over a hundred years.

Three lightnings, however, were the price to pay for the ascension from lesser to higher immortal (shang’xian). 

Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian clung to each other. To leap through two tiers and ascend twice consecutively...it was completely unheard of. Was their son still alive?

“We have to find him,” said Wei Wuxian when the lightning faded. Sizhui’s barrier had slowly melted away from Nevernight. Above them, the thick clouds parted, giving way for the soft morning light. 

“Mn.”

“Jiang Cheng –”

Jiang Wanyin stood up right, drawing Sandu from its sheath and nodded. “I’ll keep watch. Go.”

When Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian finally reached Sizhui, he was waiting for them. Well...a form of him was. 

Soaring around along the vaulted ceiling was a large fire bird, Qishan Wen’s symbol immortalized. Its feathers were as black and shiny as obsidian, and its belly as pale as pearls. Crimson flames trimmed the edge of its large wings and trailed behind in its wake. With a sharp piercing cry, the creature dived mid-flight and came sweeping down until it disappeared into fractals of bright lights and materialized the next instant into a young man. 

Half of Lan Sizhui’s hair had gone completely white. Mixed with black, it fluttered loose and wild in the waves of divine magic that now enshrouded his person.

His Gusu Lan robes once pristine were in tatters, and from where he stood several feet in front of them, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian could see the streaks of lightning scars running where his veins ought to be.

Then, he looked up, revealing a blood-red iris.

"A-die, fuqin.” Sizhui took a couple steps towards them and crumbled in their arms. Somewhere behind his shoulder, Lan Wangi saw his brother's body lying prone on a slab of rock. There was no doubt Lan Xichen was dead.

"I don't have long. They're coming for me." Sizhui hugged them close.  

Wei Wuxian was distraught, "Who's coming for you?! A-Yuan -"

"I've tampered with timelines, changed fates, the Gods are angry. The demons tell me so."

Lan Wangji cradled his child’s face in his hands and found it hard to imagine this was the little boy he saved from the Burial Mount early twenty years ago. "Sizhui, son, please let us help you -"

"You can't help me. This is my burden to carry."

But Lan Wangji refused to accept it. "We won't let you die -"

"I won't die, fuqin, a-die, but I will be going now."

"G-go? Where will you go? You’re not going anywhere! I won’t allow it!" Wei Wuxian held him tighter.

"A shangxian's place is with the Heavenly Court. That is where I must answer for my crimes."

“No…no, you won’t – A-Yuan, our little A-Yuan…”

Sizhui clasped all three of their hands together and whispered, "Qing-gugu once said that when there is too much to say, all one really need to say is thank you and I’m sorry. Fuqin, a-die, Sizhui has been unfilial. I hope you can forgive me.”

As he spoke those words, the entire hall was suddenly lit aglow. A figure appeared, too bright and blinding to discern its feature.

The voice that called out to him was calm but commanding, heavy with gravitas. "Lan Sizhui, your presence is requested." 

"I know."

"Do you admit your guilt?"

"I do."

"Then come."

A-Yuan stood, pulling his hands from his fathers' grasps. With one last gentle smile, half in pain half in love, he turned to face his future. He could no longer bear to see the devastation on his fathers’ faces, awash with tears.  

As he walked calmly into the light, his last words, spoken over his shoulder, were: “Tell, xiaomei that I would’ve loved to meet her." (xiaomei = little sister.)

“SIZHUI!!” 

“A-YUAN!!” 

 ~~~

 On their way back to Cloud Recesses from this eternal parting, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian happened upon an orphaned baby girl on the side of the road.

They brought her home and adopted her. Their daughter was named Wei Xiao, courtesy Lan Mengyuan.

To dream of a reunion...

Wei Xiao grew, happy and loved. Then, nearly a century later, at the end of a very long life, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian passed, peacefully and together.

 ~~~

 In front of a Starbucks in a modern metropolitan city, a young man holding a latte and talking quickly on the phone is attempting to cross the road without looking both ways.

"I'm honestly trying my best here! I have my thesis to finish and my PI is -"

He is struck by a car, which immediately took off. This is witnessed by a jogger coming from the opposite direction and a man in professional attires waiting by the bus station. The jogger and the bus taker both rush to the injured man at the same time, as many others crowd around to the scene.

The jogger introduces himself as "Nie Mingjue, a fireman", and the bus taker pulls out a stethoscope from his bag and replies with a polite smile and a quick handshake, "Lan Xichen, doctor – pediatrician specifically."

A student in the crowd exclaims, "Oh my god, that's Meng Yao, my finance TA. Please help him!"

“Do you have contact for his next of kin?” Nie Mingjue asks.

“N-no, but I-I can call his department. My prof should know, or HR, hold on.”

“Call the ambulance,” instructs Lan Xichen to another bystander, “Tell them we have a man, in his twenties, who’s been struck by a hit and run…”

…

Across the street, under the umbrella of Starbucks’ patio, a young man raises his head. His hair is cut short, though strangely dyed white on one side. The sunglasses on his nose slips a little, revealing a startling red iris. On the table beside his elbow, his phone pings, showing an email alert from [email protected], bcc-ed to the entire class and cc-ed to [email protected].   

Midterm Tutorial Session: Updated Slides.

“Finally, I was starting to think it would never happen.” A young woman slides into the seat across from him, sipping on a freshly made frappuccino.

The young man picks up his own cup and smiles. “Good morning to you too, Mengyuan.”

“Satisfied now, my meddling rebellious brother?”

“Yes.” The god in mortal clothes sighs, content. “Yes in fact, I am.”

 FIN