Thread by @alljiangzongzhu

#xixian || #zhancheng || sect swap amnesia au

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There were secrets that the jianghu kept under tight lock and key, especially with the Wens on the rise through the ranks, building their forces, tampering with their evils.

There were just some things that the larger sects couldn’t let be known by anyone but themselves. The “amnesiac heir” incident was most definitely under heavy lock and key. The prestigious Gusu Lan sect, and the fiery Yunmeng Jiang had a serious internal issue.

During a joint mission between the two sects, some sort of covert operation to uncover the Wen sect’s newest plans, something went horribly wrong when the two heirs were split from their parties. When they came to, however, they insisted they belonged to the other’s home.

Jiang Cheng had been abnormally silent, rather meek in contrast to his usual fire and wit, smaller than his self made yet frail ego had ever been, as if his ego had all but vanished, any fragile confidence dashed as he exclaimed to the Jiang disciples, “My name is Lan Wanyin!!”

Lan Xichen had seemed rather composed as usual, though it was suspected that his age had something to do with it, his maturity not dwindling, though he was just as adamant with the Lans that he was not of their sect, proclaiming to be “Jiang Huan”.

The sects had quietly ushered them both to their new respective homes to appease the young men, only to have the sect leaders convene almost immediately. The nature of their movements had to be secret, so they met while the other sects sent their disciples to Cloud Recesses.

The young heirs were separated from their peers while the leaders and elders attempted to make heads or tails of the issue at hand. The only others who knew, were the heirs’ brothers, and to that extent they knew very little.

The elders first believed that the boys had had their souls swapped to the wrong body, but that was quickly ruled out, as each heir insisted they were who the were, the sects were the only incorrect fact. Wanyin and Huan, yet Lan and Jiang, respectively.

Then the elders had begun to ask the boys to describe their homes, to which they could only gather basic details. More still when asked about their families, their childhoods, their cultivation; neither could answer with clarity.

The heirs were both amnesiacs.

Their only collections were somehow swapped, and there was no talking either of them down.

So the two sects made a pact, to hide this ordeal as training for the boys, letting them learn the ways of other sects heirs as closely as if they were family.

Soon it became much more.

It became Jiang Fengmian treating Lan Xichen, Jiang Huan, like the son he had once had but never cared for. His attitude was good and his temper was mild, and while Wei Wuxian loved Jiang Cheng, he grew to mind this new brother of his more, pestering his shixiong good-naturedly.

Jiang Yanli was the most distraught at the loss of her brother, confiding tears in her mother’s arms openly while her mother also lamented the loss of her only son, swearing to never accept this farce, swearing to find a way to get her Wanyin back home.

It also became Lan Qiren having to convince his youngest nephew that Jiang Cheng, Lan Wanyin, was to be his shidi from now on in Xichen’s absence. Lan Wangji wanted nothing more than to keep away from the boy who was only a bit younger than himself, some sort of supplemental kin.

But Lan Wanyin followed Wangji everywhere, beaming at the lessons he had “forgotten” after his mishap, watching his shixiong with an amount of admiration that Lan Wangji had never experienced before.

It became more in private ways as well.

More when Lan Wangji took to his shidi’s room in the night to speak with him more, then when speaking turned into touches that Wangji perhaps distantly had sought from his brother, now he could give them to Wanyin, who was only bashfully receptive.

It became more for Jiang Huan and Wei Wuxian as well, Jiang Huan letting out the unabashed temperament he had never been known to have prior, caging his new shidi in his arms and seeking to devour a young man so whole. Wei Wuxian was only too pleased to concede.

It became like that so secretly, whispers tucked away between young boys thrown into the mix of want and confusion, became hushed words and gasps in shared rooms that none of them belonged in. It was more, it was difficult, but it held them together throughout.

And then, that comfortable amount of “more” gave way like a storm, to the “more” none of them were ready for.

Recollection, and memories.

Those started when Lan Wanyin visited Lotus Pier with shifu. It was all fine when they were greeted by unknown faces.

It was even okay when Lan Wanyin saw Wei Wuxian and Jiang Huan running about in the distance, briefly greeting him and shifu as they went by.

When Wanyin had seen Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan, however, he recoiled. Startled, Wanyin had seized shifu’s robes and suddenly sobbed.

The images that came flooding back made the Lan want to run, to flee into the arms of his shixiong back home, to forget them all again. The words of how he wasn’t good enough, how he would never be like Wei Wuxian, how he could never really be the heir, were so crystal clear.

All of the kindness he knew in Cloud Recesses, while stern, was still kindness, but these words gave him nothing but sadness, tucking himself away behind Lan Qiren, whining miserably for his shixiong.

It broke his mother’s heart to pieces.

The wailing brought Wei Wuxian and Jiang Huan over to where the group was, and then Jiang Huan also felt a distant pain, the sight of Lan Wanyin clinging to his uncle— no, Jiang Huan’s uncle— reminded him of watching Wangji fight back tears, tucked behind himself.

How he had always had to remain the strong one for them both as Jiang Huan had to retrieve his baby brother in the snow, silently mourning his mother they had both lost, yet he had never been able to grieve for.

Now he watched his new mother grieve for her true lost son.

Both boys silently broke that day, two heirs disillusioned and displaced, their secret so scabbed over and clotted black, that not even the jianghu could hold that secret in. And with their heirs broken, outside of themselves with grief, the Wens stood against no resistance now.

-end 🥳💕

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