Chapter 1: The Catalyst in the Present
Lan Qiren stood on the balcony of the Grand Library, his fingers tightly gripping the wooden railing. Down in the courtyard, the spring wind was blowing blossoms across the grass.
There, under the shade of a magnolia tree, were Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian.
Wei Wuxian was laughing, his eyes bright and completely devoid of the heavy darkness that had once plagued his first life. He was leaning against Lan Wangji, practically vibrating with energy as he showed him a small wooden toy he had carved. And Lan Wangji—the nephew Lan Qiren had raised to be an untouchable statue of stone and rules—was smiling. It was a tiny, soft curve of the lips, but his eyes held a warmth so intense it looked like a hearth fire in the dead of winter.
They were whole. They were together. But the cost to get them here had been a mountain of corpses, a war that tore the cultivation world apart, and thirteen years of agonizing grief.
Lan Qiren felt a sharp, bitter pang in his chest. Why did they have to suffer so much just to love each other?
His mind drifted backward, dragging up old ghosts. He thought of his older brother, Qingheng-jun, who lived and died like a prisoner in lifelong seclusion, heartbroken and broken-spirited. He thought of his sister-in-law, locked away in the Gentian House, separated from her babies until the day she died.
And then, the deepest, most well-hidden scar in his soul throbbed. Wen Ruohan.
Before Wen Ruohan was a mad tyrant, he had been a proud, brilliant, laughing young man who looked at Lan Qiren with that same fierce devotion. But Lan Qiren had been weak. He had listened to the Lan Elders. He had allowed their words—heresy, unorthodox, improper, dangerous—to poison his mind. He had fought Wen Ruohan, broken their bond, and walked away to be the "perfect gentleman" the sect demanded. He had left Wen Ruohan alone in the dark, and that isolation had driven the man to absolute madness.
We did this, Lan Qiren thought, a cold tear slipping into his beard. The Elders, the rules, my own cowardice. We break everything beautiful, all in the name of righteousness.His chest grew incredibly tight. His spiritual energy began to fluctuate violently. His vision blurred, the image of Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian fading into a blinding, suffocating white light. His heart hammered a frantic rhythm, and then, absolute silence.
