Work Text:
The first time Lan Jingyi realized the cards had a sense of humor was the same day the Gusu Lan went to war.
That morning, he woke at dawn when Lan Sizhui shook his shoulder. He rolled out of bed, splashed some water on his face, and sat down to cut his deck and draw the card. As he turned it face up, his breath caught in his throat.
The Wanderer. The unknown, a journey, a leap of faith.
Lan Jingyi’s mind filled with possibilities, wondering what the day had in store. For once, he wasn’t even bothered by the stunningly boring task of sweeping and polishing the floor of the Lanshi. Just outside, he could hear Lan Sizhui leading the younger disciples through a meditation practice. It was a day like any other, but he felt certain: something exciting was going to happen.
When he heard Hanguang Jun’s voice, unexpected since the man was supposed to be gone for a cultivation conference, Lan Jingyi popped to his feet and walked over to the door. His hands shook with excitement, enough so that he dropped the broom he was holding. Hanguang Jun and Lan Sizhui both glanced his way as the handle cracked against the freshly polished floors.
Lan Sizhui’s eyes held a sick kind of dread, and Lan Jingyi knew instantly that the journey would require a different type of faith.
***
Over time, Lan Jingyi felt certain that the cards truly did predict the future, but it only ever came together in retrospect. Whatever prescience was in the deck or in his hand was of no advantage to him at all. Lan Jingyi never managed to put it together until after-the-fact.
The day he drew the Knight of Bows, he wondered if there would be an attack at night. Or perhaps there was a spy in their midst. He watched all the edges of the battlefield, staying wary and on edge all day. He didn’t expect a damn immortal. But then the chaotic song of a dizi floated eerily over the battlefield and the Yiling Patriarch descended into the fray, riding upon a trickle of smoke.
The day he drew The Green Woman, he thought of new beginnings, a change in seasons, a new regime coming. Perhaps they would take the upper hand that day and change the tide of the war. Inspired, he fought more fiercely than ever. Although Lan Sizhui still ended up risking life and limb to pull him out of a pickle when Lan Jingyi’s leg sunk thigh-deep into a pit of mud, and a Wen soldier almost lopped off his head.
By the end of the day, they nearly froze solid after a massive thunderhead blew in and the temperature dropped. The clouds unleashed an ice storm that pelted fist-sized hail down on them. The Green Woman, of course, didn’t care about them and their human squabbles. He and Lan Sizhui would have died that night, as many others did, if it weren’t for the Yiling Patriarch, who lit a fire talisman inside Hanguang Jun’s tent, where they sheltered for the night.
The day he drew the King of Arrows, Hanguang Jun rode Bichen into the parlay and negotiated a ceasefire, just for a week. Luckily, the wise Hanguang Jun knew that the Wen soldiers were in desperate need of rest and replenishment too. It might have been the first time Lan Jingyi breathed in two years.
And, well, if Lan Jingyi hadn’t drawn the card while tilting his head back, trying to stop the bleeding on a broken nose, Lan Jingyi might have called that one. Because, come on, a virtuous leader, with profound and principled insight? Finding a balanced path through chaos?
Jin Ling mocked him for days after that because he didn’t even break his nose in the throes of battle. He’d just tripped over his own feet getting out of bed. Of course the cards had pitched him an easy one on a day when he wasn’t at his best.
***
Lan Jingyi tugged on his armor as fast as he dared, never quite able to trust his body to not turn a simple matter into a whole ordeal. As he did, he quickly cut the deck and flipped a card, then continued tugging on his second boot. He finished lacing it up and then glanced over at the card.
Queen of Vessels.
He sighed. Clearly the cards were messing with him today. Over time, Lan Jingyi had come to recognize that the deck reserved the Queen of Vessels specifically for him. It was unclear exactly what was in store for him, but, by this point, he was certain there would be some new embarrassment or horror awaiting him later.
Nose wrinkling with displeasure, he plucked the card up and sorted it back into the deck.
“What is with you and those stupid cards?” Jin Ling asked, shoving his shoulder as he ducked out of the tent. Lan Jingyi pitched forward, only just catching himself from flailing face down onto the floor by dropping the deck and grabbing the center support of the tent with one hand. The cards hit the corner of his cot and scattered. Lan Jingyi grumbled and crouched down to scrabble up the cards. Oddly, they had all fallen face down.
He was pushing to his feet when a flash of white beneath Lan Sizhui’s bed caught his eye. He put the rest of the deck down onto the grass and strained his arm to reach underneath the bed. Tongue poked between his teeth, he felt around blindly until his fingers landed on the thick edge of the card.
“Gotcha!” he declared, plucking it out.
As he sat back onto his heels, he placed the card on top of the deck, face up.
King of Stones. Lan Jingyi’s fingers traced over the wolf howling up into the night. He mentally recited what he knew: a steadfast leader, someone practical, no nonsense, dutiful. A ruthless protector through the darkness.
He blinked. He was most certainly in for a disappointment today. He was probably going to get yelled at or punished, which he would likely deserve. Either that or Jin Ling had an interesting day ahead for him.
“Jingyi!” Lan Sizhui called.
Startled, Lan Jingyi almost dropped all the cards again. Rolling his eyes at himself, he plopped the deck down onto his bed roll and hustled outside.
***
Lan Jingyi forgot all about the fallen card as they waded into the heat of battle that day. In the morning, the sky was a perfect cool blue - both bird song and mellow light filled the air. As the day wore on, the beauty of the coming of spring was erased by smoke, the muggy crush of bodies, meadow stomped into mud, the smell of death and shit.
Wen soldiers hemmed in his unit, separating them from the others and forcing them back into the woods. Lan Sizhui’s sword caught the light as it spun in graceful circles, sending droplets of blood spinning through the air, leaving sinew to spill out in the ground. Only Hanguang Jun could make skewering someone through the guts look more graceful.
“This is bad,” Lan Jingyi panted, dodging a sword thrust right at his chest. He still got slapped by the flat of the blade, hard enough to bruise.
Lan Sizhui didn’t answer, instead he flew up the side of the tree, using the leverage to flip up and over an opponent. He slid his blade almost neatly into the man’s chest, and then spun around to face the fierce corpse ambling their way through the woods.
The man choked and spat out dark blood. Lan Jingyi grimaced and jumped back to avoid the spray. In his haste, his heel caught on a tree root, and he pinwheeled his arms, sword dropping out of his grasp, then he tumbled to the forest floor.
“Oof,” he said, the wind rushing out of him as he hit the ground.
An enormous soldier rushed him, eager to take advantage of his stumble. Lan Jingyi yelped and prepared to roll away, lifting his arms defensively to cover his chest. But before the blade of the sword pierced him, an arrow tore straight through the man’s jugular and he staggered, eyes growing wide.
Lan Jingyi didn’t have time to dodge when the dead man’s knees buckled and his body toppled down. The man landed heavily on him, once again knocking the air out of him. The woods whistled as a din of arrows rained down on the grove, felling one Wen soldier after another with unerring aim for any weakness in their armor.
Once things were quiet, Lan Jingyi wedged an elbow into the bulk of the corpse and wriggled out from underneath him. By that point he was covered in more mud and gore than he could just wipe off with his sleeve.
Lan Sizhui offered him a hand and tugged him easily to his feet, then Lan Sizhui turned to greet the commander of the archers who’d just saved them from certain death. They exchanged bows, and the archer introduced herself, although there was no need. The rich violet of her uniform was unmistakable - the Jiang sect had come to support the Gusu Lan and Lanling Jin sects.
***
Aid from the Jiang sect not only enabled them to push back the Wen that day, it gave the beleaguered soldiers from Gusu and Lanling a much needed break. The war had raged on for long enough, depleting both sides of so many resources, that they all looked haggard and dirty. With the exception of the sect leaders, the transcendent clouds of the Lan robes and the luxe gold of the Jin robes were just a mottled brown now. The Yunmeng Jiang sect surged in, dramatic and regal, clean and well-rested.
Sandu Shengshou himself led the charge, recognizable anywhere in the field by the high arc of purple lightning flying above the chaos. Any fierce corpse or soldier that managed to escape the devastating radius of Sandu or Zidian was ripped apart by the two vicious spirit dogs that foamed at his heels. At the very edges of the battlefield, Lan Jingyi and his unit only heard stories of the Jiang sect’s entry into the foray, unable to see much themselves at their present distance.
Either way, tomorrow the Wen would return, likely with a new horde of fierce corpses ready to overwhelm the Jiang reinforcements. Lan Jingyi had learned to take a reprieve when he got it. He slouched down and rested his hands on his knees, recovering his breath as he watched the dwindling Wen forces retreat into the craggy side of the mountain ahead.
Jin Ling whacked him on the back, almost sending him flying down into the mud, and said, “Well, you didn’t break any bones or get stabbed, so I’d call today a win.”
Lan Jingyi cast a side-eyed glare up at his friend, a high-ranking Jin disciple, but he was still too relieved, too jubilant to be bitter. Jin Ling must have been feeling the same, because he grinned fiercely, his teeth bright against the mud and ash smeared over his face.
***
Because water was scarce, any that was sterilized was either reserved for the medics to heal the wounded or rationed out to the soldiers to drink. The Lanling Jin soldiers occasionally distributed liquor or wine, but the Lan sect did not drink. That left Lan Jingyi drying out his boots and warming his toes by the fire, doing his best to scourge dirt and blood off of him with a now dirty rag. His eyes strained harder to distinguish dirt and blood from skin as the sun set in the distance.
Beside Lan Jingyi, Lan Sizhui jumped to his feet, and the chatter around the fire came to an abrupt halt. Lan Jingyi glanced up in time to spot a few figures materializing from the trees into the flickering firelight - just a couple of Jiang soldiers, dressed down from their deep purple robes into simpler robes with fewer layers. One of them led the band of soldiers, dressed no different, but somehow authoritative with the imposing confidence of his gaze; his spine was perfectly straight, and he held a dark expression in his eyes. Lan Jingyi would’ve had to be blind not to notice he was beautiful.
The soldier bowed his head toward Lan Sizhui and asked, “Lan-gongzi, do you mind if we join you by the fire? Our forces brought few provisions in our haste to lend aid.”
“Of course!” Lan Sizhui bowed as well, less because of the apparent station of the soldier and more because the Yunmeng Jiang had saved their lives that day. “We’d be honored to have you join us. Make yourselves at home.”
They passed around meager rations from the pot of soup on the fire and shared wine and tea in equal measure. Eventually the authoritative soldier settled down in the spot between Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi. His presence was pointedly silent.
Lan Jingyi found himself transfixed. Firelight illuminated the sharp planes of his cheekbones, the aquiline slope of his nose. Lan Jingyi didn’t realize that his hand had gone limp on the rag he’d been using to scrub his skin pink again until it dropped to the ground. He inhaled sharply and jumped to pluck it back up and resume his scrubbing.
“Here.”
Lan Jingyi startled, dropping his cloth again, when the Yunmeng Jiang soldier spoke beside him. The other man was holding up a cloth - it was clean, pristine, with a nine-petalled lotus embroidered into the corner. It practically gleamed.
Lan Jingyi grinned sheepishly and waved a hand, “Oh! No. Have you seen me? There’s no way this is coming out of your nice handkerchief.”
“Take it,” the other man said gruffly, tossing it at Lan Jingyi’s knee. Lan Jingyi scrambled to catch it, trying to prevent it from falling into the dirt. As he did, his hip slipped off the rock he was sitting on, and he hit the ground hard. Still, he caught the handkerchief, holding it up high above the muck.
His unit burst into raucous laughter as Lan Sizhui hopped back to his feet and helped Lan Jingyi up.
“There’s no point, Jiang-gongzi! The moment Jingyi scrubs all that dirt off him, he’ll just trip over nothing at all and land face-first back in it,” Jin Ling said, his cheeks pink from wine. Another howl of laughter followed.
As Lan Jingyi crawled back up onto his rock, he narrowed his eyes at Jin Ling, finding himself unusually flustered by Jin Ling’s all-too-familiar ribbing in front of the Jiang soldier. The other man was… well, he was intimidating and cold and gorgeous. It was impossible to tell his age in the dark - maybe a few years older than Lan Jingyi, but who knew? But most importantly, Lan Jingyi somehow wanted to make a good impression on him.
The unit moved on to other topics around him while Lan Jingyi glanced down at the handkerchief in his hands. His fingers were so grimy that the mere act of touching it stained it.
“If you’re not going to use it, I would like it back,” the other man said, arching one eyebrow at him.
Before he even knew what he was doing, Lan Jingyi’s face stretched into a grin and he scoured the cloth over his knuckles.
“Thank you, Jiang-gongzi,” Lan Jingyi said, wincing down at the ruined cloth. “I owe you and your clan twice now today for your generosity.”
“Jiang Wanyin,” the man replied.
“Jiang Wanyin,” Lan Jingyi echoed, inclining his head. “It’s good to meet you. I’m Lan Jingyi.”
“You’re making too big of a deal out of the cloth,” Jiang Wanyin replied, lifting his mug to his lips and realigning his eyes back toward the fire.
Smiling grimly, Lan Jingyi replied, “You don’t know how much I’ve missed seeing white.” Suddenly, what he’d just implied hit him, and he practically stumbled over himself to add, “I mean, in the Lan way! Not the funeral, mourning kind of way.”
Jiang Wanyin’s eyes crept toward him, some kind of dark amusement in them that caused Lan Jingyi to shut his eyes and curse himself. Idiot. The other man’s eyes flicked back to the fire and a silence passed between them, stretching on for long enough that Lan Jingyi thought that was just the end of their conversation.
It almost startled him when Jiang Wanyin said finally, “I felt the same way about purple.”
Lan Jingyi inhaled deeply. One of the Qishan Wen’s first acts of aggression was to burn Lotus Pier to the ground. Who knew what losses Jiang Wanyin had faced when they’d sacked Lotus Pier. It was only because the Jin and Lan sects had been drawn into war that they’d abandoned their occupation of Yunmeng, allowing Sandu Shengshou to return and rebuild.
He lifted the handkerchief and wiped grime off his cheeks and neck. The flickering light illuminated burnished red on the white cloth. Ugh. Lan Jingyi scrunched his nose. In spite of all his efforts, he was still caked with blood. It drifted off the handkerchief in flakes. In the heat of battle, he hadn’t noticed just how much the Wen soldier had bled when he’d fallen on him. Now, Lan Jingyi wondered how awful he looked. Who knew an arrow to the jugular would be so messy?
His eyes strayed toward Jiang Wanyin again, and Jingyi was careful to avoid sullying the stitching of the lotus. After he’d finished, he stuffed it surreptitiously in the folds of his inner robe to keep.
***
Jiang Wanyin spoke sparingly and only in response to Lan Jingyi or Lan Sizhui, each answer gruff and efficient. Lan Sizhui eventually bid goodnight to them and other soldiers began to trickle away, impacted by the dual-whammy of fatigue and alcohol. Lan Jingyi found himself unable to tear away from Jiang Wanyin’s silent vigil, too enthralled by stealing mute glances and waiting for him to say anything at all.
Jin Ling and one of the other Jiang soldiers begged off last. Jin Ling wrapped an arm around her shoulders, swaying on his feet, and threw his head up to the night sky to crow, “To the fucking Wen! May they crumble under Zidian again tomorrow.”
Lan Jingyi’s lips quirked as he watched them go. He cupped a hand to his mouth and shouted, “Sleep well, young mistress!”
Jin Ling threw his middle finger up in the air and slinked off into the dark with the other soldier.
Suddenly, Lan Jingyi felt very conspicuous: the only man left there in the dimming firelight, sitting next to Jiang Wanyin. A beat of silence passed.
“I gather you are accident prone,” Jiang Wanyin said flatly, making Lan Jingyi jump.
“Oh, yeah,” Lan Jingyi replied, chuckling self-consciously, “I think I do more harm than good out here, if I’m being honest. Lan Sizhui might have changed the tide of the war by this point if he wasn’t looking after me.”
His cheeks flamed in the dark, an instinctive response to his unstoppable mouth. Even he seemed determined to embarrass himself in front of the serious man beside him.
“But you’re here,” Jiang Wanyin pointed out.
“Yeah, sure,” Lan Jingyi agreed, “of course I am. For all the good that is doing. I mean, my clan is here. How could I not be?”
Jiang Wanyin scoffed, his nose scrunching with it, not that Lan Jingyi was watching the way the firelight played over his nose. It made Lan Jingyi’s heart stutter in his chest.
“You don’t have to be. It’s enough that you are,” Jiang Wanyin replied.
Lan Jingyi sighed, tipping his head up to glance at the starless night. It had been a long time since he’d seen the moon, always hidden behind a haze of smoke from the campsites.
“You disagree,” Jiang Wanyin commented.
Lan Jingyi tipped his gaze back toward the other man again. It seemed like there was a bit of mirth in the man’s eyes. Lan Jingyi could almost make out a smirk on his lips.
“Well, what are you like out there?” Lan Jingyi asked, waving a hand back in the direction of the battlefield. “You seem competent and composed. And I can’t help but notice that you aren’t covered in dirt and blood. You probably know how to handle yourself.”
“I changed my clothing,” Jiang Wanyin replied, the humor clear in his deep voice now. Lan Jingyi huffed out a little laugh in response. Of course, the luxury of having a change of clothes - the Jiang sect still had that.
The other man’s voice darkened, growing serious again as he continued, “That’s all foolishness anyway. No one is competent and composed with a sword at their throat. Heroics and showiness,” he scoffed with distaste, “some people might get away with that for a while, but it’s a great way to get stabbed in the back. People who have to work harder for it live to fight another day because they’re not caught up in their own glory.”
Lan Jingyi could see some of the sense in that, but Lan Sizhui was more capable than him and also still very humble. Hanguang Jun was the most graceful and powerful person he’d ever met, but Lan Jingyi couldn’t ever imagine describing him as showy. Perhaps they were the exceptions that proved the rule? Jin Ling certainly seemed like he was in it for the glory sometimes - maybe most people were like him. Or perhaps Jiang Wanyin was just trying to be encouraging?
For a brief moment, Lan Jingyi eyed the dour expression on the other man’s face and decided that, no, he didn’t seem like a man who went around doling out hollow encouragement.
“There’s gotta be something in between though, right?” Lan Jingyi hedged, trying very hard not to be impolite. “Not disagreeing, of course! Just saying - someone who isn’t obsessed with themselves and glory who also doesn’t regularly trip over their own feet?”
Jiang Wanyin smiled. Lan Jingyi was certain of it this time because his teeth glinted in the firelight. Lan Jingyi wished fervently that he could see it better. He had a feeling it was a rare sight.
“Just stay alive, Lan Jingyi,” Jiang Wanyin ordered, the type of steel in his voice that came with practice. “That’s all you’re responsible for.”
Then Jiang Wanyin levered himself up with one hand to stand. Dismayed that he was leaving, Lan Jingyi shot up to his feet too, determined to do… something. He didn’t know what. In his haste, he stumbled forward, straight into Jiang Wanyin. The other man caught him in both arms with a grunt.
Lan Jingyi flushed so hot that he broke out into a sweat as Jiang Wanyin pushed him away and back to his feet.
“Easy,” Jiang Wanyin murmured, his voice hushed with their proximity.
“See? Hopeless,” Lan Jingyi joked, wincing at himself even as he did it.
Jiang Wanyin snorted out an almost laugh. Lan Jingyi cursed the infernal and endless smoke for obscuring his view!
“Just stay alive,” Jiang Wanyin repeated, squeezing his shoulder once and then releasing him.
Lan Jingyi’s heart beat too fast for him to respond or think or do anything at all as Jiang Wanyin stalked off into the trees.
***
The next morning, Lan Jingyi ate his congee and then dressed before he drew his card, determined not to get yelled at for not being ready quickly enough. Chewing on a mouthful, his eyes lingered on the uncut deck, and he recalled the odd second card he drew the day before. The one that had landed face-up, a spirit draw of sorts, caused by Jin Ling’s brusqueness and his own clumsiness.
Oh. Duh.
As always, it came together after the fact.
Jiang Wanyin’s image materialized in his head - each sharp edge of his features carved into razors by stingy touches of firelight. Someone practical, no nonsense, dutiful. It fit. But the cards had never predicted anything so mundane before. Just a happenstance run in with a soldier Lan Jingyi would probably never see again? Were the cards predicting he would see Jiang Wanyin again? That the man would play some role in his life?
He could only hope.
Still lingering on that white flash of a smile in the dark, he cut the deck and drew his card mindlessly, not even looking down until he finally managed to banish the man from his head.
Lan Jingyi’s heart stuttered in his chest. The Forest Lovers. A relationship in harmony. The light of love.
He’d only drawn that card once before: the day after he’d drawn the Knight of Bows. It had taken a bit for him to figure out what it meant then, but he’d put it together when he’d barged into Hanguang Jun’s tent one day and immediately after turned on his heel, practically falling back out the flap in his hurry to escape.
The Yiling Patriarch and Hanguang Jun were… well, engaged in an act that Lan Jingyi would prefer to never think on again. But the cards told him it was love, so there was that at least.
Lan Jingyi thought of Jiang Wanyin again. Then he thought about what Jiang Wanyin would say, probably something like, Tch. Of course the cards are right. They’re vague enough you can make them mean whatever you want.
Ok, King of Stones, Lan Jingyi replied jauntily in his head.
And he was officially insane because now he was talking to himself and pretending it was the beautiful, aloof soldier he’d met the night before.
Placing The Forest Lovers back into the deck, he laid the stack neatly on top of his bed roll. Then he stood up and threw back the flap of the tent, squinting as he emerged into the sunlight. Jin Ling turned toward him, wide-eyed.
“What is this? You’re ready early!” Jin Ling asked incredulously.
Lan Jingyi rolled his eyes and continued off toward where his unit was gathering for the day. He muttered once he’d passed, “Asshole.”
“What was that?” Jin Ling yelled after him.
“Nothing!”
***
Fierce corpses surged down from the mountains, throwing their combined forces into chaos by mid-day even with the addition of the Yunmeng Jiang. Lan Jingyi had long since gotten separated from his unit. It was a struggle to even breathe in the clog of violent bodies all around him. The air rolled past thick with smoke and sweat.
A sword was a poor weapon in the tight press of the onslaught. Lan Jingyi mostly dipped and dodged and managed to be shoved forward at opportune moments. There was no real finesse to keeping himself alive.
An arrow pierced straight through the eye of the nearest fierce corpse, bright purple fletching swaying where it protruded from the creature’s socket. Lan Jingyi gagged and staggered off in the other direction. Then a hand grasped his wrist, clenching hard enough that his bones ground together.
He tried to spin and lop off the hand, but everything was too close. He couldn’t get his sword through the sea of bodies. The hand on his wrist clenched harder and he cried out in pain. His sword fell out of his hand.
Just as his knees buckled, a blur burst through the fray and slammed into his assailant. The vice around his wrist opened and Lan Jingyi jerked his wrist to his chest. He whirled around just in time to see the spirit dog tear open the fierce corpse’s throat. Gray flesh spewed all over the ground as the dog shook the fierce corpse like a toy.
Lan Jingyi heard the buzz of Zidian before he saw it, singing through the air with about the same rhythm as the Yiling Patriarch’s awful dizi. Fierce corpses and soldiers staggered away from its bite as it snapped past Lan Jingyi’s ear and then recoiled back with a crackle of energy.
Sandu Shengshou, Lan Jingyi realized with awe.
Two black boots squelched into the mud by his knees and Lan Jingyi looked up from where he knelt at the feet of Sandu Shengshou.
“Get up,” Sandu Shengshou commanded sharply.
Lan Jingyi wasn’t a competent soldier, but he was well-trained, so he snapped right to it, clambering up as gracefully as he could manage, which was to say not very gracefully at all.
“Take the dagger in my belt,” Sandu Shengshou ordered next, flinging his arm in a high arc to strike Zidian at a fierce corpse who dared to enter his perimeter.
Lan Jingyi looked down at the layer of rich purple cloth wrapped around the general’s middle. Panicking when he didn’t see the hilt of the dagger immediately, he pawed at the man’s waist and patted around to his back.
“You - ! What are you doing?!”
Something about it - the way the man was taken off guard, shocked maybe, dropping the mantle of leadership for just a second - jerked Lan Jingyi’s gaze straight up.
“Jiang Wanyin!” Lan Jingyi gasped.
The man’s sharp features, fully visible in the light of day, were even more stunning than Lan Jingyi had realized. Lan Jingyi’s hand finally closed over the hilt, but by this point he was practically hugging Jiang Wanyin, both arms wrapped around his waist to grab the dagger tucked away at his back. He yanked it out, hilt and all.
Eyes smouldering, Jiang Wanyin put a hand on Lan Jingyi’s shoulder and shoved him back a step. Then a fierce corpse crashed past the little boundary Jiang Wanyin had ceased to defend and slammed into Lan Jingyi, throwing him sideways.
Lan Jingyi gripped the leather scabbard with his teeth and yanked the dagger out with his free hand. He stabbed the fierce corpse between the ribs while Jiang Wanyin’s whip wrapped around its neck, dragging the thrashing creature away.
When Lan Jingyi met his gaze again, Sandu Shengshou was back in full force, his face an almost unrecognizable mask of rage and command. He growled, “Remember what you’re responsible for, Lan Jingyi!”
Then Sandu Shengshou took his whip and his dogs and his sword and his gorgeous face and whirled off into the fray, leaving Lan Jingyi to defend himself alone once more.
Lan Jingyi tried to muster a reply, “I - I -” I will? I won’t let you down? I love you?
Oh fuck.