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the first time it had happened, it was jiang wanyin’s fault.
he hadn’t meant to. lan wangji knew, even though he sometimes wished he could pin the blame on him. jiang wanyin didn’t want wei wuxian dead, not anymore. not now that wei wuxian’s name was cleared and jiang wanyin had realized he was the only other person with memories of his parents and his sister.
they had been talking again. timidly getting closer again. jiang wanyin would come to the cloud recesses, sometimes for discussion conferences, sometimes to speak to lan xichen, but he started to stop by the jingshi to talk to wei wuxian as well.
lan wangji had thought it was a good thing. good for both of them.
it happened one of those visiting days, when jiang wanyin and wei wuxian had slowly started joking the way they did so long ago. “jiang cheng,” wei wuxian had said, “the next time you come here, i’ll smuggle in some emperor’s smile and we can drink it together. i could invite nie huaisang too. it’ll be like when we trained here together.”
“you idiot,” jiang wanyin had replied, but the insult held no bite, just nostalgia. “you’ll inconvenience your husband again and then lan qiren will have you both whipped. you should just die, maybe you’ll… hey, wei wuxian!”
lan wangji remembered hurrying out of the jingshi to the sight of wei wuxian, unmoving, eyes open in a blank stare, and panicking. he remembered that jiang wanyin was panicking even more.
he remembered carrying wei wuxian’s body to the healers, and how the world had fallen apart when they said it was too late. how jiang wanyin had yelled at them, demanding a solution, in stark contrast to lan wangji’s shocked silence.
how lan wangji had finally started to accept everything when dawn arrived and wei wuxian woke, covered in a sheet, and screamed.
–
lan wangji had instructed that wei wuxian’s condition remain as secret as possible. only he, jiang wanyin, lan xichen, lan qiren, and a handful of healers were to know.
“it must be a curse,” jiang wanyin had said, forced to return to lotus pier the following afternoon. “i’ll find whomever did this to him and punish them accordingly.”
lan wangji had no doubt the jiang sect leader would. but he promised to himself that he would dive into the forbidden books and find a solution, even if it was the last thing he did.
as for wei wuxian…
he was different somehow, lan wangji noted. as though time had rewound. when he had calmed down that early morning, lan wangji holding both of his hands, he had looked around wildly like he didn’t know where he was.
“lan zhan,” wei wuxian had said, uncertain, “isn’t this the cloud recesses? what are we doing here?”
lan wangji swallowed. “we are married, wei ying,” he replied.
“i-i know that,” wei wuxian murmured. “but we— we eloped. we were… weren’t we in yiling yesterday? visiting a-yuan and wen ning?”
(the last time they were in yiling was nine months ago.)
“it is okay if wei ying doesn’t remember,” lan wangji said softly. “i will help you. just…”
(do not die again.)
a moment’s silence, then wei wuxian was smiling, full of sunshine. “lan zhan, don’t worry about me!” he said. “i’ll be okay as long as i have you.”
–
it was much later that it happened again. by that point, lan wangji had recounted what happened between yiling and their return to the cloud recesses: lan xichen’s return fron seclusion and prompt invite to stay at the jingshi, how wei wuxian had started to help teach the new lan disciples, how jiang wanyin had learned to apologize and that they were on good terms again.
(“that’s good,” wei wuxian had said. “but i hope he won’t apologize for what happened. it will make things awkward.”)
lan wangji refused to let his guard down. every night, when wei wuxian had gone to sleep, he would continue looking through the scrolls and books he had found in the library pavillion, searching for any curses that were similar. to no avail.
this time, it was a visiting disciple of lanling jin; there to attend the lectures held by the lan sect. he had spotted wei wuxian in one of the courtyards and sneered, pointing him out.
“it’s the yiling patriarch, living a cozy life in the cloud recesses,” he declared, calling the attention of the other students in the area. “do you have no guilt, wei wuxian? for the hundreds of innocent people you killed? i would be living in quiet shame!”
lan wangji tried to step forward, but wei wuxian stopped him. “look,” he tried, gently, “if you want to know–”
“i don’t care! my father died because of you,” the jin disciple shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “if you felt any remorse, you would just die—”
wei wuxian crumpled and collapsed.
the courtyard erupted into chaos. the disciples in the area began to whisper. the disciple of lanling jin, staring horrified at his hands, whispered, “i didn’t do anything. i didn’t—”
“one must never take their own words lightly,” said lan wangji, surprising himself with how steady his voice was. he knelt down, gathering wei wuxian in his arms once more, and brought him back to the jingshi.
and then he waited.
–
wei wuxian woke at dawn.
“lan zhan?” he asked. “why are we at the cloud recesses? we were going to investigate the guanyin temple…”
ignoring the sinking feeling in his chest, lan wangji moved away from the piles of books and scrolls to sit at wei wuxian’s bedside. “rest,” he said. “i will explain it all tomorrow.”
wei wuxian looked confused, unsettled, but agreed. “lan zhan, make sure you rest too.”
(no sweet words. no “as long as i have you…”)
–
they could not stop word from spreading this time. not a week later, an angry letter from jiang wanyin came in, demanding to know why everyone suddenly knew that the infamous yiling patriarch could be killed if you simply told him to die.
it happened again. more and more. once when they were in gusu. again when they visited qinghe. again when they stopped over in yunmeng, to try to convince wei wuxian that jiang wanyin no longer hated him, all useless after an enraged villager condemned him and wei wuxian died once more.
the numerous scrolls and books held nothing. jiang wanyin had interrogated and tortured many, but found nothing. all they could do was wait until dawn once more.
the sun peeked over the horizon and wei wuxian’s eyes fluttered open.
he rose abruptly, looking around wildly. lan wangji stood, steeling himself for wei wuxian’s lost memories, and—
“who are you?”
lan wangji froze.
“where am i?” wei wuxian looked down at himself. “how did i get here– is jiang cheng here, is this a prank? jiang cheng!”
“wei ying,” lan wangji said, panic starting to take over. “this is—”
“how do you know my name?” wei wuxian asked, now apprehensive. “wait, aren’t you… wait, hanguang-jun? the second jade of lan?”
lan wangji was unable to reply, opening and closing his mouth uselessly. this— this wei ying didn’t recognize anything. didn’t recognize him.
and it would continue like this, he realized. wei wuxian would lose more and more memories. he had already lost so many - their happy marriage, the guanyin temple, the first and second sieges of the burial mounds, the sunshot campaign, killing the xuanwu, even attending lectures—
how they had fallen in love—
“die,” whispered lan wangji, and wei wuxian fell. “die. die. die, die, die!”
–
when the sun rose again, wei wuxian did not wake.