Thread by @tunnelOFdawn

#MDZS, #Wangxian. #DarkLanZhan. AU - Modern magic/cultivation school

What cultivator doesn’t have a bit of inhuman blood in them? Wei Ying doesn’t discriminate! He even has some jiaoren blood in him from his father’s side of the family—just enough for him to breathe underwater.

And yet when Wei Ying looks at Lan Zhan, he thinks that those golden eyes are not “a bit of inhuman blood”. There’s something about the way Lan Zhan’s mouth parts ever so slightly whenever he enters a room, as if catching a scent. His teeth are endlessly white and sharp.

It makes Wei Ying swallow dryly as his eyes flicker around the room, searching for a place—any place to take refuge in. Jiaoren are predators of the sea but on land, they are more prey than predator, with pearls falling from their eyes as they cry ever so prettily.

Wei Ying cannot cry pearls, he will say when questioned. Blood too diluted, he will say half-apologetic and half-grateful. And then Jiang Cheng will shoo away whoever asked with a scowl and a flash of his sharp, sharp teeth. The jiaoren blood runs stronger in the Jiangs.

But not in a pretty way; it is beautiful and it leaves them with permanent fangs and claws. Nobody ever asks Jiang Cheng if he weeps pearls because he will make you weep instead. Even Jiang Yanli has two rows of razor-sharp teeth that flash bone white with every girlish laugh.

Sometimes, Wei Ying wishes that his jiaoren blood had manifested differently but when he dreams, he dreams of his father crying in joy, hands on his mother and pearls rolling down his cheeks—a soft plink, plink on hardwood. Wei Ying was supposed to be an older brother.

Wei Ying watches the way Lan Zhan interacts with his older brother & it is wrong. There is none of the deference of young to old, but neither is there youthful rebellion. Lan Zhan just seems so sure of himself, carrying with him a lonesome air of zen that his brother can’t copy.

It is as if Lan Zhan somehow has greater authority than his brother—a higher standing in his family, innate from birth and unremarked upon. Wei Ying could almost envy him—the certainty of his position. Wei Ying lives with the Jiangs and with Yu-ayi’s wavering forbearance.

“You’re our brother,” Jiang Yanli will say, high and sweet. Jiang Cheng will nod his head, but he will not say a single further word as his eyes flicker away. Yu-ayi does not believe in locked doors in the Jiang estate.

And in the locked room of their school dormitory—

Jiang Cheng still remains silent. Wei Ying knows better than to dig deep into their hearts; he knows that this is sort of thing that will fester for a lifetime—indomitable. They are 16 years old & even the shine of cultivation cannot gloss over the cracks of their relationship.

Wei Ying finds refuge in the library where bound books, bamboo scrolls, and the rare silk scroll lay at rest. Eventually, his path collides with Lan Zhan, who seems to disdain people and seclude himself for an abundance of if rather than Wei Ying’s lack. Wei Ying is lonely.

Lan Zhan is just alone even as he begrudgingly lets Wei Ying share the best, secluded table in the library. Sunlight fractures through stained glass windows and lends a resplendence of color to Lan Zhan’s faintly scaly skin.

It is impolite to ask what inhuman blood flows through a person and so Wei Ying seethes with the question on his tongue until even Lan Zhan catches the scent of it. His back stiffens and his eyes are dark. “Ask,” he commands.

Something leaps in Wei Ying’s chest—giddy with fear.

“What’s your cultivation affinity?” Wei Ying asks obliquely. Yu-ayi would throttle him if she ever discovered him to be impolite to a Lan—his social better.

And with a rare playfulness, Lan Zhan flashes his teeth—sharp & endless. “Water,” he intones, “from both familial sides.”

Nobody knows anything Lan Zhan’s mother but everybody knows about Lan Zhan’s father. Wei Ying thinks of chained dragons undersea, one last bastion against the creatures that had spilled into the mortal realm during the hundred years when yin and yang had reversed.

That period of time had been when the bulk of inhuman blood was introduced into the cultivation gentry. The world had fallen into chaos as the barrier between the mortal and divine realms had thinned. No sect had endured without experiencing some fundamental change.

Wei Ying’s paternal line stems from the first jiaoren of Lotus Pier that had washed ashore during a monsoon. The Jiang sect leader at the time had become infatuated—infatuated enough to wed and bed until human blood ran thin.

Meanwhile, the Lan clan had begun to consort with dragons—the ocean feeding into Caiyi Lake. Gusu Lan had descended into a civil war after too many infusions of dragon blood into the main line. No amount of rules could hold back the tide of a dragon’s longing.

Water dragons are the loneliest creatures, having been drafted into guarding the endless prison at the bottom of the ocean when the realms split. No water dragon has ever truly escaped—only a sliver of them manifests in the mortal realm. And yet it is enough to incite a clan.

After all this, the Heavens had finally descended to restore yin and yang until all that was left of the chaos was the altered nature of the major cultivation sects. Wei Ying should be used to the way Lan Zhan looks and acts, but he thinks that even the rest of Gusu Lan is—

unaware of how distorted their main line is. A polite fiction scaffolded by thousands of rules. The reality is that hard wood presses up against Wei Ying’s back as a nose and sharp teeth dig into his neck. His claws slide off scales with an almost musical screech.

Wei Ying thinks of his sword, resting on a table.

“My mother,” Lan Zhan says heavily, “was a full-blooded jiaoren.”

This is the sort of lineage that will beget insanity. Jiaoren seek other jiaoren; it is instinct. It is also instinct for a water dragon to guard endlessly.

Wei Ying has always wanted a family. A family that would acknowledge him publicly & not just in secret. Isn’t ownership a form of acknowledgment? Yu-ayi helps Lan Zhan weave his web around Wei Ying. Good riddance, she will scoff when the year ends & Wei Ying is declared missing.

And Jiang Yanli will ask, too little and too late, “Where is my A-Xian?”

Headmaster Lan Qiren will say disdainfully, “The boy ran away.”

And Jiang Cheng will look away with eyes that burn and a mouth that twists. Hollowly, he will say, “He’s gone, jiejie.”