[ The landscape, stripped of detail in increments: Wei Ying abstracts himself, more negative space of his passing and absence than shape coalesced, than flesh-being formed. He flickers, flits between child and yao and Lan Wangji, attending to one with cooing and distractions, to another with caresses, to the third with a drying cloth, like an honoured, trusted servant, or a — ]
Gratitude.
[ ...Lan Wangji nods his thanks before the thought suffocates him, before he might crown it with laughter. Like a wife, her household bustling under the white roil of domestic routine. As if they meet each day under this roof, a young family of four and their fifth member — an elder son — only departed to carve his own path in beauty, martyrdom, war or sweeping declarations. Youth propels Lan Sizhui, commands him. He will return to them a little scraped, a little worn, looser-jointed, more rounded at his edges. A jade piece cut and carved and polished splendid by Gusu Lan, relinquished by the heavens to be warmed, finally, by mortal hands.
And the rest of them, two parents and two brothers, like white birds calling in an empty sky, waiting for the flock's completion to head on for warmer winter pastures.
Each day, on waking, Lan Wangji carries the weight of a minute, reduced, cultivators' world on his shoulders. Tonight, readying for the disaster of rest in the close quarters of two children ignorant of one another, he wears his weight in water, mounted on his shoulders — narrowing them, shrinking his arms, licking at his ribs, kissing the lines of his webbed scars deeper than any paid concubine. Qingbai and Wei Ying's prepared dried robes in hand, he excuses himself behind the modesty screen long enough to trade his silks for coarse inn linens, then the yao's scant layers for comfort in kind.
They return back on stuttered step, drifting over dust-desaturated, chilled tiles to leave behind writings of condensation — and he takes again, catching Qingshan from Wei Ying's arms, dragging the boy beside his brother. They weigh less than armour, less than a fresh steel-tipped quiver, than the bearings of salt and stone and rice that Lan disciples must ferry with respectful obedience for each night hunt. Once, for all his rank, Lan Wangji delivered this burden, and his mouth pursed tight and curdled, and he complained not one step, not one word.
Now, he speaks even less of disgruntlement, not when Qingbai shakes his head and shuts his eyes and flattens himself to the side of Lan Wangji's chest, avoiding his brother's scolding swats. Not when Qingshan, ignored and unused to indifference, perseveres in babbling to attract his new playmate's attention, only to earn the click of Lan Wangji's tongue, and a one-armed rise above Lan Wangji's head, from where he kicks out his legs and arms in a delighted squeal. ]
Come here. [ He steals the babe back down and sets him too against his breast, where Qingbai retreats like oil from water, allowing coexistence — but not inviting it. He is too loud, Qingshan, too greedy. He has not spent the day in chase, has not worn himself. Lan Wangji's mouth, a fledgling thief, finds first the yao's distinctly human temple, then his brother's. ] Shhhhhhhh. You are my heart, quartered. My heart is disciplined.
[ Behave, both, while Lan Wangji walks the room with them with perfunctory twitches of each arm to mime cradling. Easier, perhaps, with two parents present, to surrender half his burden — but he has wasted a day deprived of touch, starved of it. He will steal more now, and stitch his eyes close, and wish Wei Ying merciful enough not to speak a word of Lan Wangji's indulgence.
He remembers to sit on the slow-yielding seating cushion, the sound of hard, milk-stained breathing a reassuring fixture from two soft mouths wetting his robe's rim and collarbone. Cute. And past the children and Lan Wangji's unseemly selfishness to claim them, stands Wei Ying — thawed, the common, frenetic electricity of his presence mellowed out in full. A beauty of a different kind, low candle light in rusted brazier. Trust it, and find your touch burned. ]
Wei Ying. Sit with us, before I think to offend you with cup rites. [ A choice, bittersweet moment when threatening to repeat an ill-timed marriage proposal can rouse laughter, sooner than cast fresh wounds. ] The temple. Shall we close it?
[ A tenuous proposal, to deprive the natives of their last vestiges of worship. And yet, more often, in villages that have not yet succumbed to the dread and despair of urgent survival, belief steers closer to spirituality than structured observance. Men wake and sleep too overcome by daily exhaustion to waste coin and breath on spirits and ancestors.
And the risk of leaving it open, for hapless visitors to invite whatever resent yet lingers, until the waters pacify the ghosts... ]
steers this thread back to the righteous salt path
Gratitude.
[ ...Lan Wangji nods his thanks before the thought suffocates him, before he might crown it with laughter. Like a wife, her household bustling under the white roil of domestic routine. As if they meet each day under this roof, a young family of four and their fifth member — an elder son — only departed to carve his own path in beauty, martyrdom, war or sweeping declarations. Youth propels Lan Sizhui, commands him. He will return to them a little scraped, a little worn, looser-jointed, more rounded at his edges. A jade piece cut and carved and polished splendid by Gusu Lan, relinquished by the heavens to be warmed, finally, by mortal hands.
And the rest of them, two parents and two brothers, like white birds calling in an empty sky, waiting for the flock's completion to head on for warmer winter pastures.
Each day, on waking, Lan Wangji carries the weight of a minute, reduced, cultivators' world on his shoulders. Tonight, readying for the disaster of rest in the close quarters of two children ignorant of one another, he wears his weight in water, mounted on his shoulders — narrowing them, shrinking his arms, licking at his ribs, kissing the lines of his webbed scars deeper than any paid concubine. Qingbai and Wei Ying's prepared dried robes in hand, he excuses himself behind the modesty screen long enough to trade his silks for coarse inn linens, then the yao's scant layers for comfort in kind.
They return back on stuttered step, drifting over dust-desaturated, chilled tiles to leave behind writings of condensation — and he takes again, catching Qingshan from Wei Ying's arms, dragging the boy beside his brother. They weigh less than armour, less than a fresh steel-tipped quiver, than the bearings of salt and stone and rice that Lan disciples must ferry with respectful obedience for each night hunt. Once, for all his rank, Lan Wangji delivered this burden, and his mouth pursed tight and curdled, and he complained not one step, not one word.
Now, he speaks even less of disgruntlement, not when Qingbai shakes his head and shuts his eyes and flattens himself to the side of Lan Wangji's chest, avoiding his brother's scolding swats. Not when Qingshan, ignored and unused to indifference, perseveres in babbling to attract his new playmate's attention, only to earn the click of Lan Wangji's tongue, and a one-armed rise above Lan Wangji's head, from where he kicks out his legs and arms in a delighted squeal. ]
Come here. [ He steals the babe back down and sets him too against his breast, where Qingbai retreats like oil from water, allowing coexistence — but not inviting it. He is too loud, Qingshan, too greedy. He has not spent the day in chase, has not worn himself. Lan Wangji's mouth, a fledgling thief, finds first the yao's distinctly human temple, then his brother's. ] Shhhhhhhh. You are my heart, quartered. My heart is disciplined.
[ Behave, both, while Lan Wangji walks the room with them with perfunctory twitches of each arm to mime cradling. Easier, perhaps, with two parents present, to surrender half his burden — but he has wasted a day deprived of touch, starved of it. He will steal more now, and stitch his eyes close, and wish Wei Ying merciful enough not to speak a word of Lan Wangji's indulgence.
He remembers to sit on the slow-yielding seating cushion, the sound of hard, milk-stained breathing a reassuring fixture from two soft mouths wetting his robe's rim and collarbone. Cute. And past the children and Lan Wangji's unseemly selfishness to claim them, stands Wei Ying — thawed, the common, frenetic electricity of his presence mellowed out in full. A beauty of a different kind, low candle light in rusted brazier. Trust it, and find your touch burned. ]
Wei Ying. Sit with us, before I think to offend you with cup rites. [ A choice, bittersweet moment when threatening to repeat an ill-timed marriage proposal can rouse laughter, sooner than cast fresh wounds. ] The temple. Shall we close it?
[ A tenuous proposal, to deprive the natives of their last vestiges of worship. And yet, more often, in villages that have not yet succumbed to the dread and despair of urgent survival, belief steers closer to spirituality than structured observance. Men wake and sleep too overcome by daily exhaustion to waste coin and breath on spirits and ancestors.
And the risk of leaving it open, for hapless visitors to invite whatever resent yet lingers, until the waters pacify the ghosts... ]