this changes everything. ⟲ wangxian

41. To Yield

Eyes fly across the hall to the front of the pavilion. Ah Xian's eyes widen in amazement.

Wen Qing sashays coolly to the front of the Hall, deathly glower transfixed on Xichen, whose face is suddenly sickly pale. Only then does Ah Xian notice that no veil conceals her face: the raw, ugly scars which embellish her right cheek—from her bottom eyelid to the edge of her jaw—glint in the white lights. Frightened cries echo around the room as one by one the guests rise from their seats to gawk at the monstrosity on the lady's face. Wen Qing doesn't seem to give a shit.

She thrusts a finger across the room, at a meek little lady standing in the corner of the Great Hall—Baiqian—already trembling, "Ah Xian never attacked the lady. It was Lady Gu who bribed her own handmaid into being a witness, and to testify to the crime. I know—I was an accomplice in their mission."

Ah Xian's eyes widen, "Ah Qing."

"The witch is delusional!" shrieks Meiyou. She searches the faces of guests in the front row. The elaborate headdress upon her head jangles clumsily. "I ju... Honoured guests, don't listen to this intruder! For Heaven's sake, she is a Wen disciple. If anything, she is the one who put the control talisman on the Yiling Patriarch, a-and is trying to frame me for Lord knows why."

"You see how desperate the lady grows?" Wen Qing's voice rises bitterly. "It's because I am telling the truth. And she knows Baiqian is the only one who can prove it!"

Ah Qing reverts her attention back to the quivering maid—only to find an empty spot.

Baiqian bolts for the doors.

"Stop her!" yells Ah Xian.

The Gu Clan maid only gets as far as the entrance before two large arms seize her, immobilising her.

"Sorry about this, miss," apologises Wen Ning. "I'll let you go... but only if you admit to what you did!"

Baiqian shrieks and struggles in her captor's arms, white peach face contorted with panic.

Finally, she wails, "Alright, alright! Yes... i-it's true, it was all a setup. Master Wei didn't do anything. That talisman, Lady Gu snuck it from the Gu Clan Leader's personal stash, and I just said that he attacked her... b-but I had no choice! The lady p-p-promised me extracts of canabelle roots, and m-my baby n-needed it... I swear, I would never!"

By now the guests are flashing befuddled, suspicious glares at two points in the room: the Lan Clan Advisor and Gu Meiyou.

"Meiyou... how could you?" murmurs Liban, eyes glassy.

Lan Zhan's eyes narrow.

"Wangji, darling..." Gu Meiyou's face burns a shade of red brighter than her entire ensemble. "Th-this isn't what it looks like. P-Please, believe me. I would never..."

She reaches for him, but he jerks away with the sweep of his arm. There is a silence. Ah Xian's heart swells with emotion, eyes transfixed on the cold, quiet, pained, bewildered, frustrated, beautiful Lan Zhan.

"Then, that day... at Yujing..."

"Lan Zhan." It is Ah Xian who speaks. But he feels the words overpower his body and brain and entire physical being. They are like ghosts transcending all time and matter and universe—straight from his heart. "I would never hurt you."

And then—in front of everybody—Ah Xian sees himself glide across the hall to Lan Zhan's side, who is for the moment unable to face him. He sees his fingers slide shakily into Lan Zhan's, intertwining by the hard white lights of the Great Hall. Someone gasps. His hands are as cold and clammy as Ah Xian remembers, stickily trapping him into a fierce grip of his own. Skin burns against cold skin, in a sweeping caress. Lan Zhan looks up finally and meets his watery eyes with immeasurable gentleness—unrestrained emotion—across the two feet of space between them. Smiling. One, a ruby groom. The other, a disheveled maniac who ran halfway across town to stop a wedding.