[OOM] Cultivate Virtue in the Family, and it will be Overflowing

[thesecondjade]

Lan Zhan was under house arrest.

The jingshi is his again -- he is imprisoned there, his jade charm removed. The Elders believe he cannot escape the wards, and honestly, he doesn't care to. He doesn't need to. He knows at any time, he could leave. Anytime, he could ask. The Bar answered once, and the Bar will do so again. It will not leave A-Yuan fatherless. It knows too much is at stake.

He tends to his own wounds like the elders convene, puts all of his old clothing with it's bright blues and crisp, expensive whites into the brazier and pulls out his thin, mourning whites. He is dressed for a funeral. Potentially his own, he knows, but... if that is it, so be it. He has only one future he must secure now, and it is not his own.

Lan Zhan makes his last preparations. He takes his guqin and cuts its strings, a message to all that will see it. The cord is cut between him and Wei Wuxian, and this guqin that bore his same name will never sing again. Then he traces his most potent wards, infusing them with all the energy he can spare and still be functional. No one will find his cache of treasures, hidden beneath the jingshi floorboards. No one would bother to look, anyway. No one suspects Lan Zhan of sentimentality.

Then he waits. Lan Xichen will come to him when it is time. They will try to take his pride, may yet take his life, but there is only one thing that matters now: the child in need. So he waits, kneeling before the open doors of the jingshi in silence, while guards are posted at the gates to his courtyard.

Comments

[thesecondjade]

"If my will alone enough, I will not die." Because he has this to live for. This thing that needs him alive to see through.

He looks across the space of between, and says, "Do not tell Jin Guangyao you have seen the way. I'm not the only one who walks this path. If he tries to lead, do not follow. There are many there who will not forgive the slaughter of Wen. I would not see you caught in it."

There will be consequences. They should not fall on Lan Xichen.

[reachforblueskies]

Lan Xichen could protest that he had nothing to do with the destruction of the Wens, that Jin Guangyao could hardly have stopped the slaughter, but... they both know one man would have tried. That one man who is the point of contention now, even after he is dead.

"What is the child's name?" He asks, veering away from the specter of that man who could still separate them, just by being mentioned.

[thesecondjade]

"Wen Yuan," he says, tiredness seeping into his voice as he realizes he's won, if at great cost. "He is Wen Yuan. He will be--- he will be Lan Sizhui, when it is time."

He will not speak that other man's name without the bounds of Cloud Recesses, ever again.

[reachforblueskies]

"Lan Yuan." Lan Xichen replies, firm. He has lost so many battles recently, seen so much death and anger and despair, and he wants it over. He will defend his brother's chosen son where he cannot defend his brother. It is true, there are many orphans these days, and at this point it would not be difficult to insinuate there is an heir, of their blood, that has not been previously claimed. A moment's temptation, a difficult war... the story would come easily from the lips of others without him having to say barely a word.

"Your son, Lan Yuan." Safety lies in playing this boldly. If there is any hesitation in claiming the boy, some might wonder why. Being born a bastard is not reason enough - if he was truly shameful, the boy would never be claimed, so their story would start to fall apart. "The less details about the mother, the better - there will be five explanations and ten counterpoints within a week, and anyone concerned will be too busy focusing on that to think to protest."

[thesecondjade]

"I'm glad you understand," Lan Zhan says, eye closing in wearied relief. Yes. Let him be his bastard, let him be anything they want to say. "I was seen in Yiling with him, and all swore I was his father. He clung to my leg and cried for me to comfort him."

There is an exhale, a breathless laugh. "They scolded me for being a poor father."

[reachforblueskies]

Lan Xichen does not pinch the bridge of his nose, but only because he has been forced to be a diplomat for far too long.

"Well, at least there will be some rapport between you." He had been somewhat afraid that the child would come and not know to look to anyone for comfort.

"And you know that he must never state that he is a Wen? Never be told it, never have it reinforced? It will be... years, decades, before that clan's name will be spoken without blinding hatred behind it."

[thesecondjade]

"Yes," he says, faintly, eyes closing to treasure that stupid memory, because it has Wei Wuxian smiling in it. "He will be Lan Yuan, and I will go from Rich-gege, to Father."

That brings him to a final matter: "I was supporting the Burial Mound villages with my stipends. Help is bought very cheaply, across the threshold. But it was injustice to let them starve or freeze."

This brings up the obvious that he will not speak of: he was seeing Wei Wuxian in secret. This casts all sorts of new light on his behavior, but he is certain it no longer matters. Wei Wuxian is dead, his heart sundered with him.

[reachforblueskies]

Lan Xichen is not so cruel as to point out that if even with this added aid Wei Wuxian lost control, there was truly nothing to be done. He has sat with enough grieving widowers to know that logic plays very little into that reasoning. But his heart does bleed for his brother, who has tried so hard, and repaid so poorly.

"It would be helpful if you could take up some small habit or hobby. Enough that the funds withdrawn do not suddenly decrease." He does not suggest informing Lan Qiren of the true use of this particular expense - he has spent so long keeping the elders from asking for worse punishment.

[thesecondjade]

When he comes out the other side of this, he will if not know, he will understand where he failed and why. Or at least, he will think he knows.

"There will be expenses for a child, now," he says instead, always favoring a twisted truth instead of an outright lie. "Let it have been secret support for him. It is, after all, true."

[reachforblueskies]

"As you wish." He cannot grant much, with the shackles of clan responsibility weighing his every move, but this is within his power. "Though when I thought of it, I expected some warning before gaining a nephew."

[thesecondjade]

"Adoption was the only way you could get one," Lan Zhan says, turning his back on the threshold and walking back toward the jingshi. "After our last discussion, I thought I would just settle into teaching and forget the rest."

There would be no wife, and with no wife there are no children.

"Now, you have a nephew. He is a good, smart boy," Lan Zhan says. "He was... he was sick, very ill, when I found him. I was able to summon a threshold, and get him to the safe place beyond. They have good medicine, and kind people who are tending to him."

So if he survives, he knows that he will be well enough for travel. There is no way they'll let A-Yuan die.

[reachforblueskies]

"I will care for him, while you recover." Lan Xichen refuses to think about his brother dying under the lash, refuses to accept that can be an option. He also refuses to place the child under the care of Lan Qiren - he will always love his uncle, and revere him as the closest thing he has to a true father figure, but he knows Lan Wangji would never accept it. Not now. Probably never again.

Lan Xichen's small family is fractured in so many ways, and even with all of his effort, he is only barely holding it together. He stays at his brother's side, not wanting to hurry this moment on.

[thesecondjade]

"Mn." Lan Zhan is in no rush to return to the jingshi - half because he is exhausted and he needs all his spare strength to survive what it coming, half because he knows once he's on the otherside of this, he will never look at his family the same way again. For now he can delude himself that this will be survivable, that he will not be entirely changed by it.

He will be wrong, and he knows it. But he wants to believe that he will still be able to pursue justice without regret.

It's not the first lie he's told himself.