On the north end of Caiyi city, autumn was turning quickly to the cold of winter. Lan Zhan watched impassively as another person left the tea-house as the shadows grew ever longer on the pavement outside.
In his hand, the video on his smartphone, bought especially for its video capacity, continued to play, dragging his attention back. Sunlight gleamed off the silver edges and he shifted in his seat leaning forward. It didn't matter that he had watched this five times in the last three days, or that he had checked seven minutes ago for any updates on his feed.
He wasn't obsessed. To be obsessed, you had to have an obsession, and he didn't.
And it was entirely coincidental that he followed all of the tech blogs that in turn followed Furong and the devoted fans who followed Wei Wuxian's career. There were a lot of people who knew that the House of Lotus, as they were nicknamed were going to do a product unveiling in twelve days. There were a lot of people who also knew that the company was going to unveil their new talisman arrays, launched by Wei Wuxian himself as the Director of Cultivation Products.
It didn't make him obsessed that he knew that as well. He was a follower of Jiang Yanli's Weibo account too and active in their shared business. He had the photos of the new cakes to review for their website.
That his friend and business partner, enjoyed speaking of her brothers in every single conversation, and that she was immensely proud of both of them, was entirely coincidental. A bonus.
It was being supportive that he watched all of Wei Ying's painting tutorials and learned more about oil painting in the last few weeks than he ever wanted to know.
In the video, Wei Ying, dressed in a red t-shirt and artfully ripped jeans was explaining the process of mixing colors when using oil paint. There was a white canvas behind him and the curving ceiling just visible that always made Lan Zhan think of attics.
His voice coming through his headphones was smooth, hypnotic in its power.
This of course was only his art channel. Wei Ying also had video series on cultivation techniques, origami, playing the flute, sword practice forms, mastering sword flying and talisman making.
How he survived before he knew this, he didn't know.
At some point past midnight, two days into his first video binge, Lan Zhan had wondered if Wei Ying was hyperactive. By the end of the weekend, he was convinced of it. And it was adorable.
It should have been irritating that Wei Ying never settled, flitting from one project to another, that his mind as sharp as it was dynamic, also had a short attention span. But it didn't. Wei Ying focused always on what was important, like his little boy but creatively he was brilliant on a different level.
What did it matter if he was hyperactive? Three weeks of research into the matter, led to some worrying moments about depression and burnout, but from what he had seen Wei Ying was laid-back, always looking for the good life, no matter his hardships. It was admirable, but frankly it just made him love Wei Ying more.
Lan Zhan had literally gone from seeing him once in thirteen years, exactly one month ago in October with A-Yuan, to seeing him in every spare moment and most of the night.
The loneliness had eased, the feeling of the walls caving in on him gone without memory. His painfully still life only interrupted by investigations, calls from Mother and visits from his brother, was now filled with a vibrancy that was addictive.
The silent apartment now featured Wei Ying's voice as he cooks or cleans. Enraptured by his flute songs and enthralled by his art classes. Wei Ying is a brilliant teacher, patient and impressive, welcoming and charming in his enthusiasm for the subject.
Sometimes he paints with Nie Huaisang, who shares this painting tutorial series. If its a shared video, they always choose the same empty white room, with a skyline just visible from the window. They spend most of the time together and it shows.
Wei Ying though really specializes in oils and abstract acrylic, while Nie Huaisang teaches watercolor, ink and jewelry making. After three weeks, Lan Zhan finally knows all the names, the different between acrylics and watercolor beyond the things everyone knows.
Their pastels series was remarkable for the level of detail the duo managed to achieve. Their traditional ink paintings were a marvel and the silk one was eye-opening.
He loved watching that steady pale hand, the stroke of the brush as it dabbed color or sketched a line. The look of sweet concentration in mercury eyes, as color traces and bleeds into the canvas, building something from what was empty space.
From nothing he boldly creates, sweeps and dashes in ink or paint transcending to form something new, something beautiful.
It's like watching life itself, he thinks lost as he watches. Shapes emerge from simple lines, shadows and shade, light and highlights. A simple oval standing in for a face, but the longer he waits, the more that appears.
A calm soothing tone of voice, confidence in this new world he's creating, beckoning and leading his audience as he adds and smooths. This is Wei Ying's magic. Suddenly its a face, with expression and life, subtle color to add contrast, a complexion with the perfect hue, eyes that appear real. Good enough to be confused for a photograph, and Lan Zhan realizes he's lost two hours watching this, but his heart doesn't feel heavy, his breathing is steady.
Like this he is Lan Zhan, Wei Ying's Lan Zhan. In these quiet perfect moments, he has energy and strength, grief held at bay, expectation distant. He is himself and he's content.
Wei Ying has given him this...peace. Something meditation and work for all he tries to help others, to protect and serve his community has never offered...it is this that gives him hope.
He was simply a fan. Loyal and...in love. A sigh was lost to the sunlight. Maybe he did have a problem.
Lan Zhan supposes that of all the places to realize you have a problem, a modern tea shop in the heart of Caiyi city is not the worst place it could happen. Better here than his monthly dinner with Shufu and Brother.
He has one photo of Wei Ying, taken with permission and he thinks that's restraint. It's his home-screen picture nevertheless and every time he sees it, it nurtures the flame in his chest. Wei Ying holding A-Yuan at the table in Yiling one month ago, both smiling.
Shufu says that its absurd for a cultivator of his skill to risk his life like this. When he straps on his bulletproof vest, he looks at this picture now as a ritual and thinks, that if he dies today, he'll carry this image in his mind, in his heart as he goes. If its also the last thing he looks at before sleep, and the first thing he looks at when he wakes...well no needs to know about that.
It's his phone. Its his heart.
Wei Ying smiles at the camera in the video and in his ear, he hears him thank his patrons Wangji and Zhongying, for this question. His ears burn red, but its beautiful to watch A-Yuan come into view holding his soft toy bunny. And Lan Zhan's heart is suddenly too big for chest, when he sees that's it the same one he bought him in Yiling. A-Yuan hugs Wei Ying's leg and smiles happily up at him, saying "Baba." Wei Ying swoops down, brush pointed away and his kisses his head and A-Yuan giggles, before running off.
"My son." Wei Ying says happily in explanation and Lan Zhan feels his mouth curve into a smile.
Adorable.
He looks around the bright airy space, glancing at the white walls and pristine white tables, the just comfortable wooden chairs and bamboo floor and resists the urge to check his watch. Watches a few pedestrians walk by the tea-house window, the odd car as it turns into this quieter street.
Wei Ying would say it needed some art.
Jin Zixuan had called him for this appointment, pushed and pushed for a meeting somewhere private. Lan Zhan had only caved for two reasons. He was Jiang Yanli's husband and he sounded distressed.
He was now eleven minutes late. He'll give it another ten minutes and if he doesn't show, they'll have to reschedule. It's Saturday and if he wants to be in Gusu by sunset for that monthly dinner, he'll need to leave soon.
The tea-house is mostly empty so the waiter comes by after a few minutes. He's just asked for a refill when Jin Zixuan hurries inside, dressed entirely in black. "Another pot and a tray. Thank you." He orders politely and waits as Jin Zixuan spots him at the back facing the window.
"I apologize for being late." Jin Zixuan offers as he sits. "Traffic was brutal. I gave up and walked here eventually."
Lan Zhan nods at him in greeting and pours the tea. There is enough for a single cup for both of them. "What do you wish to talk about?"
Jin Zixuan grimaces, "I always forget that you like to speak directly." He says and folds his hands on the table.
In the years since their time in Gusu, Jin Zixuan has proven himself a capable lawyer, choosing to become a criminal prosecutor over the expected businessman or financial lawyer that his father had chosen. He had business interests, wise ones unlike his father, considering his marriage to Jiang Yanli and their young son born only last year.
But then, he doubted that Jin Zixuan knew his father owned the primary shares in the largest chain of brothels in the country.
Without that, Jiang Fengmian likely would have denied him, betrothal or not. Jiang Yanli had been setting up her bakery with Lan Zhan's silent, financial help, something neither parent was particularly supportive of.
"You said it was urgent." Lan Zhan replies coldly.
The waiter arrives with a fresh pot of tea and a tray of small cakes, a fruit platter and a triangular bowl of shelled nuts. They wait as he sets it out and removes Lan Zhan's first pot, before Jin Zixuan speaks again using his Sect title, "It is urgent. I wouldn't risk coming here, Lan gongzi, otherwise."
"But you saved my wife's life and last week you sent a congratulations gift to Wei Wuxian's son's celebration."
Lan Zhan frowned about to snap, 'his name is Sizhui', but he hurries to add, "No one who simply...Yanli told me you made those almond cakes personally, shaped them into rabbits for A-Yuan. She said that it was your mother's recipe. Wei Wuxian looked like he was going to cry! That's care, not some easy token gift."
He frowned at him doubtfully as he pours them another cup. He really hoped the gesture hadn't reduce a grieving Wei Ying to tears. The adoption of A-Yuan was supposed to be a happy occasion, a celebration. One he had to miss when a genuine SCD investigation nearly ended in disaster. It was on the news.
Wei Ying had seen it and called immediately, demanding to know if he was okay.
But overall, Wei Ying had sounded happy when he called to thank him and had said that A-Yuan loved them. At the time all he had felt was pure relief. Lan Zhan had spent weeks plying Mian Mian with almonds cakes looking for the perfect filling for a four year old. He had probably over-packaged them for delivery to Yunmeng, but thankfully Mother had added a package of her homemade lo mai chi too.
It had been the only thing he had known how to cook when he first met Jiang Yanli, before they had become friends.
"Mian Mian swears that you are best cop she's ever known. So I'm taking the risk." Jin Zixuan finishes.
"What risk?"
Jin Zixuan shifts, sipping his tea. "The Jiang family have been through hell. We can both agree on that. Their parents were murdered. Disciples they grew up with were slaughtered. There was blood staining everything in their home, what Wen Chao didn't set on fire."
"I was there." Lan Zhan says sharply and Jin Zixuan subsides.
"Well, by accident I learned some things." Jin Zixuan said with intensity, "Someone began a rumor that Wen Chao was murdered at the end of summer by Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian, helped by Nie Huaisang and possibly a Wen defector."
Lan Zhan pauses, the teapot positioned in midair. "Who?" He hisses quietly.
"I don't know." Jin Zixuan says in frustration. "After everything they have been through, how justice failed them...now the Sects are banding together! Against them! My father is leading the charge and others like Clan Leaders Ouyang and Yao are joining their voices. One of the more ridiculous parts, is that Nie Huaisang helped murder Wen Chao. They are claiming he was the one who dealt with the CCTV and the electronic locks."
Forcing the hand of people like Nie Minjue and Lan Xichen. "What of Brother and Nie Mingjue?" He asks quickly. "What have they said?"
Nie Mingjue was desperate to reconnect with his didi and would not take the rumors well at all, with his...more aggressive temper.
Brother had only said he was going to Lanling to the conference, when he left yesterday, and never made any mention of this beforehand. Which meant Brother didn't know. Deception was not his brother's nature and he couldn't believe, even if Xichen didn't trust Wei Ying's innocence or Jiang Cheng's, that Brother would stand by and let Nie Huaisang be slandered.
He couldn't believe that Jin Guangyao and Nie Mingjue would let that one sit well either. The former had been trying for months to ease the reconciliation talks between the older and younger Nie brothers, with Lan Xichen at the forefront. At this point the reconciliation could sell tickets as Wei Ying had put it, permanently caught been love and betrayal, guilt and tragedy.
The cause was simple. Their father, possibly not in his right mind at the time, considering he died a year later, had disowned Nie Huaisang. Who rather than lie down and take this, had left in the middle of the night and moved into Lotus Pier.
"Neither believe it of course. Particularly the accusations over Nie Huaisang!" Jin Zixuan confirmed making his poor opinion of the younger Nie clear. "But to discredit the rumors and the growing campaign against the Jiang family... my family, both of them have decided to launch an quiet investigation."
"They wish to drag the Jiang family into interview?" Lan Zhan said shocked.
"No. Thankfully." Jin Zixuan said with feeling. "I could fight that easily enough."
He looked around the room and then leaned in closer, "The charges being leveled with no proof and a lot of rumor, is that the Jiang family are running a narcotics business!" Jin Zixuan snapped, running a hand through his hair in distress. "I can't think of anything more ridiculous, but as something has got them convinced."
"They are claiming the Jiang family are running a cartel?" The idea was so ludicrous it hardly made any sense at all.
"Basically, yes." Jin Zixuan said with wide eyes. "It's not true. They run a tech business that bridges cultivation and today's modern technology. Everything is above board because Jiang Fengmian was a hands-on painfully honest man and his daughter is much the same!"
Jin Zixuan put down his cup with a clink. "Jin Ling's birth last year was the last time I saw my parents-in-law before they died. A-Yuan's adoption was the first thing since that horrible day that has put a smile on their faces. Yanli laughed. She laughed and she was smiling holding her nephew. It was the first good day."
He eyes were wistful and sadness gathered in the air like a storm. Lan Zhan tried not to remember the blood and the crumpled bodies.
"The massacre broke them. Jiang Cheng doesn't seem to have slept at all. He looks like death and Ke Qingzhao is all that's really holding him together. Wei Wuxian...he...he tries to keep busy and he's got A-Yuan...but he's not coping that well. He won't step foot in the main hall. Yanli had to pries him from the courtyard after he knelt there for an entire night. He was soaked to the bone after it rained." There is genuine care in his tone and it eases some of the distrust.
Lan Zhan tries even harder not to imagine that and his heart aches. 'So what are they planning to do?" He demands instead.
"Quietly investigate. Put them under surveillance eventually, but I suspect its Wen Chao's girlfriend that's doing this in revenge." Jin Zixuan said angrily. "She's trying to frame the Jiang family. That's what she warned. That she would get revenge."
Jin Zixuan rested his hands back on the table. "I came here to ask you for help Lan Zhan. The Jiang family don't know. Jin Ling and her brothers are the only thing keeping my wife going. She has nightmares and anxiety. She is trying to be brave and strong for Furong. To live up to her parents, their legacy. She is doing an amazing job. This will wound her so deeply."
Lan Zhan swallowed his tea with difficultly. The problem wasn't that he believed that the Jiang family were running a cartel. That was absurd and deeply, deeply insulting. That they committed brutal murder...
The problem was that Lan Zhan knew bone deep, with a terrifying unshakable certainty that Wei Ying had murdered Wen Chao.
He knew that Jiang Cheng had been there with him and considering everything, that Nie Huaisang had helped them.
No word would ever pass his lips, the secret etched into his marrow. When he left this world in the embrace of death, this would go with him.
The worst part was that he knew exactly how Wei Ying had achieved this, knew the steps as if he had walked them with his love. No perhaps that isn't the worst part. Because the question that plagues him in the hush of the night and the glare of a computer screen in the early hours of the morning is harder to answer.
He knows what he should answer, the teachings of his Sect, his Uncle's beliefs they all tell him what he should have done. The badge that hangs from his neck, that reminds him everyday of the oath he took. The slander against his mother, the whispers of murderer that followed her in the shadows.
It demands an answer, there in the eyes of his brother. Expectation that he would be righteous, honorable, justice-driven. Above such things like revenge and vigilantism.
Would he have helped Wei Ying?
Would have offered his power to that portal, even if he had not helped kill Wen Chao directly?
Lan Zhan doesn't know.
He does know one thing though. If Wen Chao had succeeded in murdering Wei Ying that day three months ago, he would have tried everything possible to bring the Wens to justice. Tried things that no cop should. Tried to shove that boundary that should deter him, away just to get the chance of conviction.
The Wen Clan were a triad, dealing in narcotics, slavery, weapons and death. Wen Ruohan had forged a path of murder, a trail of blood dripping from his hands. Organized crime planted in the heart of the jianghu and in the non-cultivator world.
And if he couldn't, if justice failed him, failed the Jiangs...Wen Chao would have died by his hands.
Lan Zhan would have killed Wen Chao and nothing would have stopped him.
So that made him the same. The knowledge that he would have murdered Wen Chao, perhaps cleanly, perhaps not, cemented the fact that he couldn't judge Wei Ying for taking revenge.
If he couldn't judge and had no desire to fight for justice for Wen Chao, who liked murdering children and thought it was fun to lock people inside a building and set it on fire.
His path was simple. Protect and keep the secret. The memory of Wei Ying's face when he recounted what he had seen when he broke into Lotus Pier with his disciples, hardened Lan Zhan's resolve. The agony of grief in grey orbs that should only sparkle, cut deeper than any knife, the tears falling like glass beads from reddened eyes.
Never again. Not while he breathed. He hadn't been able to help Wei Ying that night, hadn't been able to prevent the mass murder that took place in the Jiang home, but Lan Zhan would carved out his own heart before he would see Wei Ying cry again.
See Wei Ying as he had been, silent and gaunt at the funeral, holding onto his sister's hand like a lifeline to reality. He doubts Wei Ying was even aware of most of what was happening, tears running down his cheeks. Lan Zhan had wanted to stand closer, wanted to put his arms around him and couldn't.
Jin Zixuan shifted in his seat, a frown of impatience marring his features. "Lan.."
"I will help in any capacity." Lan Zhan promises and Jin Zixuan's shoulders sagged. "The Jiang family have suffered enough."
Leaning forward, he says calmly, belying the turmoil and burgeoning panic in chest, "Tell me everything you know."
-------
As the night deepens, long fingers pluck and dance along the strings of a guqin. Its a song that no one else knows, one of the collection he's written thinking of one man.
The notes shiver in the air, deep and resonating. The melody has a hint of melancholy, thoughtful pauses and a wandering heart. There's hope in the higher chords and fear in the lower tones, the shifts mellow with grief.
Underneath it all, he lets the love he carries wash into the song, like the waters from the mountain as they fill the ancient pools around Jingshi. He thinks of a boy standing beneath the cherry blossoms, laughter on his lips and grieves at the restrained agony in grey eyes when he said goodbye to his parents.
He thinks of a flute played long into the night on a lonely rooftop. So he plays that same song, stitching the melody with practiced ease.
His single contact that had any useful information in Qishan told him that he had heard a flute outside that strip club.
They did this to you. He thinks, remembering his own father's death, the fire and the pain of his broken leg. Remembered the anger and terrible grief in Wei Ying's eyes in the news photo. They broke your heart and thought you weak. They had no idea how dangerous you are.
Oh my love, they didn't know your capacity to withstand pain.
They drove you to this and I didn't stand with you. I wasn't there Wei Ying when you looked at this path. I didn't talk you out of it or walk with you either.
Lan Zhan pauses resting his fingers on the vibrating strings, the thin gold chain bracelet Wei Ying sent him. The first gift he had ever sent him, dances as his hand stops.
His white outer Sect coat lies folded on the bed. He's wearing the white pants, but everything else is folded neatly, beside the pile going into the bag, his toiletries and the bottle of sandalwood aftershave Wei Ying sent him for his recent birthday.
He supposes that he should have been ready for this. Suspected the coming storm well before the grey clouds loom threatening and stark in the sky overhead.
Thirteen years ago Wei Ying kissed him beneath the boughs of the white magnolia tree high in the mountains.
For thirteen years he had waited for some sign, his heart already given and love lived in him still, stronger than ever. He didn't know what they were. Friends? Distant and hardly there? Friends that sent each other thoughtful birthday gifts and spoke every week? Friends that gamed together and shared ideas, talked of talismans and murder cases?
That was what Wei Ying wanted he thought. A friend. He desperately needed one after all that had happened three months ago. He needed a lifeline and support.
He didn't need to know about the investigation.
Changing the song as this one finishes, he considers what he knows. This melody is sharper, anger resonating along the strings and within the notes. His movements are fierce but gentle, a battle song from the days of his ancestors, when it was layers of white robes instead of a formal long white uniform coat. Without spiritual energy it was just an aggressive song.
They won't understand, couldn't see and Lan Zhan wouldn't let them have the entire picture.
On the 29th of September, Lan Zhan was in Caiyi arguing for a deeper investigation into Wen Chao, ironically with Jin Zixuan. A-Yuan was with his grandmother that night, he was sure of that now.
The three Jiang siblings had apparently returned that week to Lotus Pier, to honor their parents and in Jiang Yanli's words, set their hearts at ease over the repairs and changes.
They invited that night Wen Qing, Wen Ning and Nie Huaisang for dinner. Their alibi for the night was simple and easily corroborated by an entire group. It rained heavily, so no one left the house apparently.
If asked they might talk about how everyone was subdued, how Nie Huaisang kept the conversation going. Jiang Yanli had made mention to him that Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian had ended up drunk in the back sitting room with Nie Huaisang. She added a photo to their group chat. Wei Ying asleep face down on the carpet, Nie Huaisang sprawled half on a sofa and Jiang Cheng with his head on Wei Ying's back, feet on the sofa cushion.
The problem was that the group had been alone pretty much for three days at that point. The early morning photo of the drunken three could have been at any time during the week, especially those three days. Only the workmen and construction crews could account for some of their movements if asked and possibly a few that worked for Lotus Pier.
But it was the scene of a massacre. No one wanted to get too close and so many families were grieving in Yunmeng.
The three friends had always been close. Jiang Yanli if she knew, would die before betraying her brothers. Wen Qing or Wen Ning probably told Wei Ying where he would be, maybe to prove their loyalty to Jiang Cheng. It wasn't what Jiang Cheng himself would think of, or ask for. But it was something the others would.
At sixteen years of age, Wei Ying had explained to him during an argument in the Library Pavilion, the mechanics and power required to use a portal talisman.
At twenty nine, with a high level of cultivation, a clever, clever mind and a burning need for revenge, it would have been easy enough.
At sixteen, Wei Ying knew nine songs that could subdue. Was already pushing musical cultivation boundaries by adding electro base beats to his repertoire of defensive hits.
At sixteen, Jiang Cheng could hit small targets with a chain whip.
At sixteen, even Lan Zhan had known that Nie Huaisang was good with computers.
At sixteen, both brothers were just qualified in martial arts, archery and weapons training that included firearms before military service. At twenty nine, he doubted any of those skills had grown rusty.
At university Wei Ying had written a controversial thesis on reverse talismans. Evil attracting instead of evil dispelling. At twenty three he added a research paper on the resentful energy that controlled fierce corpses, apparently to see if you could disrupt this resentment to dispatch them quickly and perhaps more safely.
At eighteen he had proven in a night hunt you could add cultivation techniques to music that was already playing.
At sixteen he was talking about how there were techniques that improved or damaged memory retention when using musical cultivation.
Wen Chao's bodyguards were killed by fierce corpses at his strip club. According to the only living eyewitnesses who escaped which just happened to be Wen Chaos' girlfriend, and the strippers....a portal was opened in the middle of the floor and three black clad figures came into the building. Some said two and one said it was four men.
Talismans were thrown in all directions and a something hit Wen Chao's guards knocking them down, sparking with electricity. A man with a gun in his hand fired at the ceiling and motioned the girls to run. They did, so what happened next could only be learned through Wen Chao's disemboweled corpse.
A purple whip that Lan Zhan knew was Zidian, Lady Yu Ziyan's spiritual weapon that could deceive cultivators and non-cultivators alike by pretending to be an inert bracelet. That Jiang Cheng had inherited and could use with impressive skill. It certainly explained the burn marks that went around Wen Chao's neck like rope bands.
There were no working cameras, the system stripped and ruined. No fingerprints and no one saw the portal remade or an escape out the building.
On the e30th of September, Nie Huaisang posted to the group chat, that they were going to the temple to pray for Jiang Fengmian and Yi Ziyan. He mentioned being hungover and that Wei Ying seemed immune to hangovers, not even complaining of a headache.
He posted a selfie to social media of three of them at a breakfast table. Jiang Cheng had his eyes closed, his hair wet from a shower and Wei Ying was rubbing his brow only wearing pants, while in front, Nie Huaisang was sitting in a black t-shirt, silver ear piercings glittering, eyes bloodshot.
He commented that he was babysitting a toddler and a baby with 'Granny Jiang' while the Jiang siblings went to the temple.
Xichen had commented on how kind he was and how proud he was that 'Ah-Sang' was supporting the grieving siblings. While fretting over how bad he looked, Lan Zhan suspected. Somehow Lan Zhan didn't believe that all for the reconciliation effort.
A lot of planning went into this and a lot more would be needed to keep the Jiang siblings and Nie Huaisang from prison, if the framed evidence was in fact genuine.
He hadn't been able to protect Wei Ying that day, and would regret that for the rest of his life. But he would protect the Jiangs now. Whatever the price.