Return of The Yiling Laozu

Reverse Empathy

Wei Wuxian stood at the threshold of the Jingshi, watching the man who had once been unshakable, a pillar of righteousness and strength, reduced to fragile silence. Lan Wangji sat curled in the center of the room, his usually pristine robes slightly rumpled, his eyes distant, unfocused. He swayed slightly, murmuring something too faint to catch.

Lan Xichen had said there was no way to fix him.

Wei Wuxian refused to believe that.

He stepped forward, dropping to his knees beside Lan Wangji. A trembling hand reached out, brushing against his cold fingers.

"Lan Zhan," he called softly.

No response.

Wei Wuxian clenched his jaw.

Lan Wangji wasn't just wounded—he was trapped.

Not by chains or walls, but by something far crueler: his own mind. His own resentment.

Wei Wuxian had seen it before—how pain could weave a prison more impenetrable than any fortress. How it could suffocate, drown, consume. Lan Wangji was lost in a place created from his own grief, his own loss.

His mother’s absence. His years of silence. The death of the one person who had been his light.

Wei Wuxian had to pull him out.

But simply calling his name wasn’t enough.

He needed to change what Lan Wangji saw inside his mind.

He needed to replace the darkness with light.

Wei Wuxian sat back on his heels, thinking. Lan Wangji’s happiest memories…

He thought of Lan Xichen. A brother who had always been by his side. But during Lan Wangji’s first loss, Lan Xichen had been a child too, unable to truly understand.

No.

If he needed someone who had been there, who had known Lan Wangji’s childhood, who had seen him grow and had shaped him—

"Lan Qiren."

---

The old master stared at Wei Wuxian as if he had grown a second head.

"Reverse empathy?" Lan Qiren's voice was sharp with disapproval. "Empathy itself is a volatile technique, let alone manipulating it in reverse!"

Wei Wuxian raised his hands in mock surrender. "I know, I know, it’s not exactly in the Lan rulebook."

"Not in the rulebook?" Lan Qiren’s brows knit together in a furious scowl. "It is a perversion of a technique already deemed dangerous!"

"Yes," Wei Wuxian said smoothly, "but I’m the one doing it. And you already think I’m a lost cause, so what’s the harm?"

Lan Qiren looked ready to lecture him for a decade, but Wei Wuxian pressed on before he could.

"I’m not asking for much. I’ll be the only one entering his mind—I just need you to guide me through his memories. Happy ones. The moments that gave him peace, the ones that can remind him there’s more than just pain in this world."

Lan Qiren’s expression darkened. "And if something goes wrong?"

"If either of us starts bleeding from our orifices, yank me out," Wei Wuxian said casually.

Lan Qiren inhaled sharply. "You do not take this seriously enough!"

Wei Wuxian’s face turned solemn. "I do. Trust me, I do."

A beat of silence.

Lan Qiren exhaled, long and slow, rubbing his temple as if already regretting what he was about to agree to.