Archive of Our Own

The first time it happens, Mo Ran is enraged after he lays waste to the Rufeng Sect, his burning fury all-consuming, refusing to be quenched by the blood of the cultivators he felled. 

Chu Wanning destroys his own spiritual core in his effort to save the people, and Mo Ran’s mind refuses to look past how his Shizun always did the best for others, but never him. Never his own disciples. 

He doesn’t register it at first. He’s standing over Chu Wanning’s unconscious form, the rage and hatred poisoning his veins like oil in water while his Shizun lies there looking pale and fragile, despite what he has just done. And what a thing he has done! Protected the entire sect and allowed people to flee, by barring Mo Ran’s way and breaking his Zhenlong Chess Formation, ultimately sacrificing his entire spiritual core in the process!

Chu Wanning, the great Beidou Immortal, would go out of his way to protect those he doesn’t even know, but couldn’t ever spare a glance to his disciple! Mo Ran hates him. 

He hates him.

“Chu Wanning,” he hisses, hands balled into fists. “Why will you die for these bastards who don’t care about anything but lining their own pockets, but you will leave me to die like I am nothing to you? Why do you sacrifice your power for these no-names, whenall you ever give me is punishment and a cold shoulder? Chu Wanning…I hate you so much.”

It hits him then; a blow to his chest that threatens to send him reeling, and he has to force himself to remain tall. The feeling of something sharp creeps up his throat, and for a second he thinks he’s going to vomit from his anger. But the coughing overtakes him before he can suppress it, and his chest burns, sharp and horrifying. Before he can realise what’s happening, Song Qiutong is there, fussing over him, propping him up because he’s seconds away from toppling. 

Mo Ran retches, and briefly he thinks that Chu Wanning has cast some final spell, even in his unconscious state. His anger reaches its boiling point; as burning as the fire in his lungs. After a few minutes it begins to pass, and as the painful feeling recedes, he’s able to straighten a little and catch his breath. 

“Mo Weiyu,” Song Qiutong says, and it’s the tone in her voice that tears his eyes from Chu Wanning. 

“What?” he snaps. 

When she points, he wipes his mouth roughly with the back of his hand. 

At first, he thinks it’s a smear of blood. Redder than maple, the little petal sits against his skin, as innocuous as a stone on the footpath. He vaguely registers a sound from Song Qiutong, but he brushes it off, and tosses the bruised petal aside so that he can turn back to Chu Wanning, who is beginning to look too pale.

“It’s nothing,” he says harshly. “Take him away.”

The second time it happens, Mo Ran is infuriated. He is always infuriated, but this time, the rage chokes him enough that he retches red smears while Chu Wanning watches him silently, his eyes full of loathing.

Mo Ran knows what this is. This affliction that has embedded itself in his lungs, flowers choking him with their beauty, taking his air from him because he dares to feel. Of course he knows what it is; he is the Emperor Taxian Jun, and Taxian Jun is not an idiot. 

This is the curse that kills, one flower at a time, because he once dared to love. And Taxian Jun knows why it has started to grow within him now. He knows, and he is enraged, because he can do nothing about it save letting it fester like an open wound. His love for Shi Mei can never be returned, after all; Shi Mei is dead, it’s Chu Wanning’s fault, and Mo Ran will never be able to rid himself of the curse by way of having his love returned. 

He will suffer his love for Shi Mei, and he will wear it as a reminder, until the day that he can rip the flowers from his body.

“This is your fault,” he hisses at Chu Wanning, once the wave has subsided. “This is all your fault, Wanning.” 

Chu Wanning’s eyes are red rimmed, and his face twists, but still he says nothing. He just watches as Mo Ran paces back and forth, ranting and raving. The Red Lotus Pavilion is trashed under Mo Ran’s strides, debris and long abandoned projects strewn about the place in a miserable echo of Mo Ran’s fractured mind. 

He hates Chu Wanning so much. It consumes him, body and soul. 

It happens more often, as time goes on.

They are still little more than little smears of spidery petals, but the waves take him over with no rhyme or reason, until he’s on edge as much about the disease as he is about everything else around him. He visits Shi Mei’s memorial in a desperate attempt to ease the cloying pain, but it never does. 

He just gets angrier.

Shi Mei has abandoned him to this, and Mo Ran has no way to fix it.

After he rescues Chu Wanning from his frozen vigil at the entrance to Wushan Palace, the pain comes so fiercely that Mo Ran is forced to  place him on his bed and double over for a few moments, petals and half formed blooms cascading from his mouth in bloody clumps. He doesn’t know whether he’s spitting more flowers than blood, and his vision hazes as he drags in deathly, rattling breaths, the air forcing its way around the plants that have taken root in his lungs. 

When Mo Ran takes Chu Wanning back from the water prison and tends to him, the hacking serves to remind him of his hatred by overtaking him, spilling blood red spider lily petals everywhere. He drags Chu Wanning inside and warms him up, tending to the wounds left in his hands by that harpy he married, and the pain in his chest is like knives seeping through his ribs. Every moment he spends with Chu Wanning brings on the attacks, and Mo Ran can only conclude that being around someone he hates so much just makes him think of the one he loves. 

Being around Chu Wanning makes him miss Shi Mei and his gentle smiles and soft words, and that is what brings on the attacks. 

The petals are beginning to grow thicker, far too soon for his liking. At first, they were one or two here and there, hacked up in a fit of coughing that made him feel like his breath had been robbed. Little smears of blood dot his hand, as red as the morning sun, and he is able to brush them off like they matter less to him than the worms on the path in front of him. Now they’re unable to be ignored, and unable to be hidden from anyone who may see them. It’s impossible to mistake what they are, even as he hacks and wheezes his way back from the Water Prison, an unconscious Chu Wanning in his arms.

When Chu Wanning rouses, Mo Ran hides his face in his stomach, and says that he is the only one who is allowed to hurt Chu Wanning.

His only answer is silence. 

Liu Gong has caught wind of his affliction. 

Not that Mo Ran ever tried to hide it, but the old slave either is oblivious as he seems or has been tactfully keeping silent until he can’t anymore. 

He catches Mo Ran the morning after he has locked up his hateful concubine, preparing to lay siege to Taxue Palace and end them all — including his cousin. Chu Wanning threatened his own death, and Mo Ran won’t hear of it. Chu Wanning’s life is Mo Ran’s to do with as he pleases, and not even Chu Wanning has a say in that. 

The wave comes as he is leaving Red Lotus Pavilion. It catches him so fiercely that he can’t walk; he doubles over on the path and heaves, breath gone and vision darkening with pain like he hasn’t yet felt. For a second, he thinks Xue Meng has found a way to finish him, because it feels like he is dying, and Mo Ran can only lament that he hasn’t outlived his Shizun. 

A gentle hand rests on his shoulder as he’s spilling spider lilies all over the path, and the touch is enough to shock him out of it and knock the hand away. 

“Your Majesty,” Liu Gong says softly. “You are ill.”

“This Venerable One does not get ill,” Mo Ran says, but even to his own ears it sounds pathetic. “This is a minor inconvenience at best.”

“It is the Love Curse,” Liu Gong continues boldly, despite the fact that Mo Ran is clearly in no mood to hear him. “The curse of one who —“

“I know what it is!” Mo Ran rounds on Liu Gong, who takes a step back, but doesn’t shrink or cower. Mo Ran should kill him for that. “Do you think this Venerable One so uncultured that he has never heard of this curse? Do you dare question my education?”

“No, Your Majesty.”

Mo Ran wipes his mouth, the pain beginning to ease now that he has his breath back. He expects that to be the end of it, but the stubborn old slave has never known when to drop a subject, and it’s only his mulishness that has Mo Ran keeping him alive. 

“I can help you remove it.”

The laugh that erupts from Mo Ran’s mouth is deranged. “You can’t. Shi Mei is dead.”

“There are other ways to cure the disease.”

Mo Ran pauses. Turns, and stares at Liu Gong, who is watching him with a sad gaze. “How?”

Liu Gong tells him. And at first, Mo Ran wants to kill him for daring to suggest such a thing — for even implying he could live without his love, even if his love is dead? What world would be worth living in, if he has nothing but his hatred and the burned remains of his sect? His memory of Shi Mei is the only reason he gets up in the morning — his need to avenge him, and his desire to see the world burn for caring so little about his loss. 

No, Mo Ran refuses to have the flowers stripped from his lungs. He will not give up his memories, even if it kills him. Liu Gong accepts his refusal, even if his expression is sober, and he never brings it up again.

When Chu Wanning dies, the first fully formed spider lily falls from Mo Ran’s mouth onto his blood smeared face, a shock of colour on skin so pale that Mo Ran can only stare at it through his swimming vision. It’s the colour of blood — of hatred and love and passion and power, and it lays across Chu Wanning’s lifeless skin like it belongs there, where there is no love, no life, no passion. Where there’s nothing. 

Chu Wanning is dead. 

He’s dead, and Taxian Jun can’t stop the onslaught of attacks, or the pain that wrenches apart his chest and renders him all but useless. It burns, and he swears that he can feel the tendrils of roots digging deeper into his lungs; burrowing into his ribs to keep themselves sturdy and strong. He can’t stop the way the pain rips through his body, the burning that tears at his throat as flower after flower rains from him. 

It’s all he can do to get Chu Wanning’s lifeless body back to the Red Lotus Pavilion. And it takes him three days to be able to work up the strength to preserve his body once the attacks finally subside. 

Chu Wanning is dead, and Mo Ran is losing time.

He perfects the art of suppressing the attacks, when Chu Wanning is dead and gone. Using his own spiritual energy and the force of his own will, he is able to hold off the attacks and slow the advancement of the disease. Because if Chu Wanning’s death has given him anything, it’s the freedom to do exactly what he wants without having to endure those miserable glares; those baleful eyes that always look to him with such disappointment and sadness. 

Taxian Jun has nothing but time now, when it had seemed to be closing in around him while Chu Wanning was alive. 

So he uses it to continue sacking the cultivation world, and suppressing the disease. 

And no one else knows. No one else outside his own court learns of his ailment, and if any of his servants look like they want to squeal, he dispatches them. 

It doesn’t stop the rumours though. That the mighty Emperor is slowly losing himself to insanity (if he wasn’t already insane enough). That he’s consumed by illness, driven mad by the death of his Empress and favoured Concubine. That he stays holed up inside Sisheng Peak because he doesn’t have the strength to leave anymore. 

Not that anyone is willing to test that theory. 

Fools, all of them. 

Mo Ran pays the rumours no mind, and works on suppressing the disease now that he feels clear-headed enough to do so — clear-headed now that Chu Wanning is gone. He can’t reverse the damage already done, but he can slow it down enough that when the attacks do come, they don’t last as long. 

But the disease still advances. 

Slowly, like a poison spreading through him, the flowers take over. And as much as he learns to suppress; as much as he learns to weather the storm, Mo Ran cannot escape his fate. And when he visits Chu Wanning’s pristine, sleeping form in the Pavilion, and looks at him with spider lilies choking his chest and throat, he suddenly finds that he really…doesn’t want to. 

He is tired.

Mo Ran is so, so tired of fighting. 

So he stops suppressing it. 

When Xue Meng breaks into Sisheng Peak with his army of cultivators, there is no chance for him to have his last words with his cousin. In fact, Taxian Jun is nowhere to be found, and scouring the peak reveals only the graves of his mother, Consort Chu, and the memorial for his martial brother, which is covered with wilted red spider lilies. 

Xue Meng stares at the graves, his throat tight. There’s another one there, dug and marked, but it remains open, empty. The one who should be buried there among what had once been his family is nowhere to be found. 

There’s a call from the main hall, and Xue Meng makes his way back there, feeling hollow and empty. Like this has all been nothing but a waste, without any sweetness to even out the bitter ending. 

He knows what’s in there, after all. He had seen it when he’d barged through the doors, sword drawn and prepared for a fight to the death. Compartmentalising it had been the first thing he’d done, because trying to understand what he saw was just too much in that moment, when he had needed to find his Shizun first of all.

In the main hall of Sisheng Peak, on a throne that once might have been a magnificent piece of architecture, but is now only the harbinger of bitter memories and pain, is a magnificent mound of red spider lilies sprouting from the wood itself. They spill over the edge of the chair and onto the ground, looking like robes of finest silk. Or rivers of the deepest of blood. 

There is nothing else in the room. No Taxian Jun.

No Shizun. 

Nothing but despair and isolation, and thousands and thousands of red spider lilies.

In his second life, Mo Ran had decided to try and be a better man. 

Well, he’d meant to. But after waking up as his fifteen year old self, with the memories of his life as a tyrant and the rage and pain of a lifetime of hatred burning in his veins, doing so is not exactly an easy task. 

But he does try. 

He commits himself to his lessons more, in an effort to regain the cultivation skills he had harboured as Emperor. He listens to his Shizun more, even though the hate burns through his veins when he thinks about those cold eyes, so strong that an ache burns in his chest and he feels like he can’t breathe. 

He dotes on Shi Mei until everyone is sick of it, because Taxian Jun had died of the broken heart disease and Mo Ran is not going to suffer it again. 

Shi Mei accepts it with grace, and the flowers don’t chase Mo Ran into this lifetime. 

Perhaps it’s because Shi Mei is alive, so Mo Ran doesn’t feel the disease consuming him like it had been when he had been Taxian Jun. That’s the only reason Mo Ran can think of, at any rate. Or maybe it’s the way he’s more openly affectionate with Shi Mei, and Shi Mei continues to accept his advances without any indication that he dislikes it.

Mo Ran doesn’t really care to think on it. He’s content that Shi Mei is alive, and that he’s apparently not Chu Wanning’s whipping boy anymore. 

Maybe his decision to be better in this life is a good one, even if he can’t forget what happened in the past. 

Maybe he will get another chance. 

This time, Mo Ran thinks to himself, as he throws himself into his lessons, determined to prove himself as someone worth being paid attention to, he’s going to do things differently. This time, he knows things will be alright. 

He’s sure of it. 

He’s sure of it. 

Until it happens again. 

Not with any fanfare. Not with a moment of bold and desperate declarations or with any grave danger imminent. And not even when Mo Ran is looking at Shi Mei, let alone thinking about him in any kind of fond detail. 

No, the disease rears its ugly head again, when he is watching Chu Wanning play the zither. 

It’s such a simple thing. They have been wrapping dumplings; Xue Meng is drunk and laughing with the other disciples about something nonsensical, and Chu Wanning had gotten angry about something or other, which Mo Ran doesn’t care to remember. Because it’s in that moment, when Chu Wanning goes to settle behind the guqin and begins to play, that familiar feeling begins to creep into Mo Ran’s chest. 

The sharp, suffocating pain he remembers as well as he remembers the day Shi Mei had died in their past lives. The way that it starts at the base of his lungs when he draws in a breath, and then begins creeping its way upwards until it catches him mid inhale, choking him off with the feeling of it invading his throat. Mo Ran has to cover his mouth to let out a rasping cough, and he knows that when he pulls his hands away, he’s going to see a long, thin petal. 

He covers his mouth, and turns his eyes away from Chu Wanning. 

What the fuck? Why are you still…?

Shi Mei is beside him, watching him with concern. Of course he is, he’s so sweet and gentle that he would immediately recognise Mo Ran’s discomfort, and he asks softly if Mo Ran is okay. 

In a panic, unable to speak for the cough he’s choking back, Mo Ran flees. 

He finds solitude behind the pavilion, where the light doesn’t reach and he’s out of earshot of anyone else. And there, the coughs wrack him, bending him double until he almost vomits, and when he draws his hand away they’re there, mocking him, reminding him that not even death at their hands will spare him. 

Spider lily petals. 

“Fuck,” Mo Ran rasps. Tosses the petals aside, and tries to straighten. “Fuck.”

He’s not ready for this. He’s not ready to examine his feelings for Shi Mei in any serious capacity. Shi Mei deserves more than Mo Ran’s dirty, tainted affections, and Mo Ran hasn’t seriously thought about confessing to him until now. He’s been content to admire Shi Mei from a distance, like he always had, because the thought of tainting Shi Mei with his influence is too much. 

And now Mo Ran may have to, because he has no other choice. If he doesn’t say anything, he will die. 

Mo Ran doubts he will get a third chance to right all of his wrongs if it comes to that.

For days it sits on the edge of his tongue. For days, Mo Ran thinks about how he might pull Shi Mei aside and confess to him, and tell him everything. He pictures it so clearly in his head that he isn’t confronted at all by the disease again, and he reads that as a sign that he should do it. 

But Shi Mei glides along, beautiful and oblivious and so, so fragile, that Mo Ran just. Can’t do it. 

Not right now. 

He can’t ruin such beauty and grace with his dirty hands. 

Maybe when they’re older, or when Mo Ran is on death’s door and has no other choice, he might think about it again. When he’s proven himself as someone of Shi Mei’s affections. 

Yes…yes, that’s it. He will prove himself — he will be a good, smart and educated man worthy of someone like that, and when he achieves that status, then he will confess. When he’s worthy of love from a pure and good person, he will will away the disease. 

Until then, it will be a reminder, buried in his ribs, striving him forward until he becomes that which he aspires. 

He can suppress it, until then. Use his newly burgeoning cultivation skills to hold it back. He’s managed before — this will be child’s play to manage it again, and no one will ever have to know.

Except that he underestimated how much of a busybody his Shizun is. 

Chu Wanning discovers him, hunched over and riddled with wheezes so painful they burn, after a sparring session when they were being taught the finer art of swordplay. 

It’s nothing serious that sets it off this time. Just a lingering look too long on Shi Mei’s look of immense concentration, and Chu Wanning dragging Mo Ran’s attention away to demonstrate a particular set of moves, and suddenly he can’t breathe.

He has to make some excuse to leave, because he can’t let any of them see it. Mo Ran slips into the forest behind their little training field, and shoves his fist in his mouth while he tries to weather through the pain. 

Suppressing the coughs is getting easier as his cultivation grows, but in exchange that terrible burn has gotten stronger, like his ribs are twisting into pieces, and it renders him useless for the few moments that it grabs him. Mo Ran can’t keep a straight face when it comes on, so he flees, because there isn’t anything else that he can do.

No one has followed him before. He’s managed to keep it secret, and it’s been weeks since the disease first began tormenting him again. Mo Ran doesn’t even think that his new secret will be discovered, so he doesn’t bother to go too far into the trees. 

Until he’s found. 

He’s still in the grip of the pain when he registers the sound of soft footfalls. It’s all but impossible to straighten, but he manages, though his body screams in protest and petals sit in the back of his throat like vomit creeping up his neck. 

Chu Wanning’s gaze is sharp, as astute as ever. It only takes one assessing glance at Mo Ran for him to know that something is up. 

“Mo Ran?”

He can’t speak, afraid that if he does, he’ll end up spitting up the blood red petals he’s trying to repress, so he just waves his hand in an effort to make it seem like he’s fine. Of course, Chu Wanning is far too clever to fall for such a weak attempt at diversion. 

“Mo Ran, what’s the matter?”

Mo Ran shakes his head again, but the pain only gets worse. 

It’s only by sheer, absolute force of will he manages to straighten, draw in a wheezy breath, and give Chu Wanning a brittle smile. Phoenix eyes are narrowed in concern, and his mouth is a thin line — Chu Wanning doesn’t believe him for a second. But Mo Ran has never had trouble getting people to believe him. 

“It’s fine, Shizun,” he says, and congratulates himself that his voice sounds steady. “Just a bout of pain. I must have been struck awkwardly by Xue Meng when we sparred. It’s gone now.”

Dark eyes are fixed on him. His words do nothing to sway Chu Wanning’s concern, but Mo Ran doesn’t care. There are things he needs to think about now, and wasting time being belittled by his Shizun is not part of his plans. 

“Thank you for checking on me, Shizun,” Mo Ran offers him a hasty bow. “I need to go and finish our lesson. I’ll go first.”

Without giving Chu Wanning a chance to answer him, Mo Ran hurries away, unable to escape the prickling feeling of his stare, and the lingering burn in his lungs. 

It advances slower this time. Perhaps because Shi Mei is alive and well in this life, but Mo Ran is only wracked by the disease every so often, and he is able to suppress it with iron resolve. He has it firmly under control, so he likes to think, and so he carries on without much incident.

Except for when he doesn’t. And when it does come on, the disease is crippling, bending him double and robbing his breath until tears sting his eyes and he’s sure he’s going to die on the spot. He remembers this from the last life; he’d died from this in the last life, but he doesn’t remember it feeling like this. He doesn’t remember such mind numbing pain, or the feeling like his lungs are going to crawl from his body. He doesn’t remember wishing he would die with every single attack. 

Chu Wanning eventually finds out. Of course he does. 

He knows something is up; he’d seen Mo Ran in the trees after their sparring session, and because he is relentless and nosy and can’t just leave Mo Ran alone for once, he finds out. 

They’re at an inn in a small town at the base of the mountain, making their way towards their next task to help quell a village of a restless ghost. Shi Mei had stayed behind to work on his own studies, so it’s just Xue Meng, Chu Wanning and Mo Ran this time, which makes for both relentless entertainment and unbearable company. 

Mo Ran can’t exactly remember what it is he’s needling Xue Meng about when it comes on. But he is leaning on the table, grinning at his cousin when the server arrives to take their order. Mo Ran is content to eat anything, so he doesn’t speak up right away. But he’s caught by surprise when Chu Wanning suggests one of the spiciest dishes on the menu — because, Mo Ran can remember the way phoenix eyes had slid to him and then flitted away just as quickly — Mo Ran likes spicy food. 

His mind flashes of its own accord back to delicately crafted wontons and Shi Mei’s soft smile, and then the telltale burning starts in his chest. 

The ember simmers like an aura — a warning that an attack is coming, and when the dish is placed down and Chu Wanning serves some out into his bowl,  the ember becomes a nightmare. 

He has to excuse himself in such a hurry that not even Xue Meng can make a snide remark about being unable to handle the heat. And Mo Ran doesn’t make a beeline for the room he’s to share with his cousin — he bolts outside, hurtles around the back of the little inn and into the darkness beyond the perimeter of the town, while that feeling creeps up his throat and threatens to suffocate him. 

And he doesn’t have the fortitude in his rush to get away, to hold back the spasms as they take hold and bend him double while he tries to dislodge the thing gripping his chest.

“Mo Ran?” 

He wants to say get away, get back inside. Wants to tell Chu Wanning to leave him alone and that this will pass, and beg him not to see because this is too painful and humiliating to bear alongside Chu Wanning’s scathing remarks. He doesn’t want to know what Chu Wanning has to say about him being caught in the clutches of a disease like this, like some pitiful lovesick fool. 

Ha! Like Chu Wanning would even know what love is!

But all that comes out when he tries to speak is a faint wheeze that burns his chest, and before he can do anything to stop it, Chu Wanning is there, propping him up, his expression stricken. 

“Mo Ran, what is —?”

He can’t talk. His throat is gagged with the pain of near fully formed flowers, and he has to concentrate to hold it back. 

One escapes anyway, when Mo Ran manages to draw in a rattling breath just as spots gather on his vision. He can feel the moment Chu Wanning recognises the flower expelled from Mo Ran’s mouth in a blood red streak. 

Chu Wanning stills. So still that for a second he could be mistaken for one of the golems he spends hours upon hours on perfecting alone in his pavilion.  

There is a sharp intake of breath — Mo Ran doesn’t know whether it belongs to him or Chu Wanning. 

It hurts. It hurts. 

The pain overrides everything else. It claws up his neck and sprawls across his back like someone is digging knives in between his ribs, except these aren’t knives because he’s felt them before, and they won’t stop once they’ve reached the limits of their endurance. They’ll keep growing, keep twisting, bending his ribs and his spine and ripping their way out of his skin until there’s nothing left. 

He can hardly see through it as the pain wracks him again, reminding him how little control he has over this situation. 

There’s a warm hand on his chest. He can faintly register the sound of a harsh reprimand, though the futility of that makes him want to laugh. He would, if he could draw in a breath. 

Light bursts across Mo Ran’s vision, startling him, making him hiss as his eyes burn with it, and in an instant the pain is lessened and his throat is cleared of the obstruction. 

He draws in a rattling breath, and it comes — not free by any means, and not easy, but he can breathe. 

Opening his eyes, his vision hazily focuses on Chu Wanning leaning over him. Chu Wanning still has hold of him where he had collapsed in the dirt, but his eyes are closed in concentration, the spiritual energy pouring into Mo Ran warming him and easing the pain. 

Slowly, but all too surely, the pain begins to ease. The deathly rattle eases from Mo Ran’s breathing, and his vision begins to clear moment by moment, until Chu Wanning withdraws his hand and takes a steadying breath, leaving silence in its wake. 

Mo Ran opens his mouth to ask, but before he can, swift fingers jab at his forehead, and the world descends into darkness. 

When he comes to, he’s lying in bed. He’s been stripped of his outer robe and his hair is loose. There’s a light sheet over him. All this means that someone has taken the time to undress him, make him comfortable, and tuck him into bed — a process that wouldn’t have exactly been fast. 

Which means Mo Ran has been out for a while. 

But what is most apparent to him, once his mind is able to focus on something that isn’t superficial, is the fact that he can…breathe. 

Air is moving through his body without any impediment. There is no pain, there’s no rattle, and there’s no effort. He doesn’t feel like there is a permanent itch at the back of his throat, or like he’s forever choking back something that is forcing its way out. 

It feels like…the disease is gone. 

Mo Ran pulls himself up with a groan. Glancing around, he determines he’s in his own room in the inn. There’s no one else here.

But before he can so much as begin to panic about it, the door slides open, and Chu Wanning steps through, gingerly carrying a bowl of something steaming. 

He pauses, like he’s been caught in a trap when he spots Mo Ran sitting up, but he doesn’t stop to reprimand him, like Mo Ran had thought he would. Instead, he breezes over to the bed and sits the bowl down beside it, before helping Mo Ran to sit into a more comfortable position. 

“How are you feeling?” The question is brusque, matter of fact. 

There’s a sour note on Mo Ran’s tongue at that tone. “I’m fine,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. He is fine. There’s no pain, no flowers, and he has no idea what happened. 

Chu Wanning picks up the bowl, stirring. At a glance, Mo Ran realises it’s a clear broth. Chu Wanning lifts the spoon up and holds it out to Mo Ran, who, unthinkingly, leans forward and slurps the broth straight from it. It's only after he does so that he realises that Chu Wanning probably expected him to take the spoon from him. 

Oh well.

“How long have you been suffering?” Chu Wanning asks, in lieu of remarking on the fact that he shouldn’t be feeding his disciple like this. He takes another spoonful and holds it out. 

The broth tastes fine, so Mo Ran accepts more, while mulling his answer over in his head. 

How much should he reveal? Chu Wanning obviously already knows what's going on, and he doesn’t seem inclined to leave until he has his answers. Will he sit there and patiently wait until he gets them, or will he demand them? Will he rip them out of Mo Ran using Tianwen?

He goes cold at the feeling. Chu Wanning wouldn’t, would he…?

“Mo Ran?” 

Shaking himself out of those thoughts, Mo Ran accepts another mouthful of broth. 

“Since I was…” since I woke up in this life. And before. So many years before. “Fifteen.”

There’s a soft intake of breath, and when Mo Ran looks up, he can see the way Chu Wanning looks stricken. It’s an unexpected look, and it cows him from saying anything more. 

“That long? And you never said anything?”

“I’ve learned to suppress it.”

“But it is still advanced. It nearly killed you, Mo Ran. I’ve never seen it so advanced, not in anyone, especially not someone so young.”

Mo Ran’s head snaps up. “You’ve seen this before?”

“Don’t interrupt,” Chu Wanning snaps, but then his expression softens when he sees the way Mo Ran flinches. “Yes. I’ve seen it before. An older woman, who married a man for the sake of her family, but loved someone else. By the time I was able to see to her, she was bringing up fully formed peonies. But this…I could see the stalks of those spider lilies in your mouth, Mo Ran. It looked like it was ripping you apart from the inside.”

It was.

Mo Ran shudders. The broth doesn’t taste so good anymore. “What did you do to stop it?”

“I placed a seal on it,” Chu Wanning answers. He goes back to stirring the broth, noting that Mo Ran’s appetite is quelled for now. “It won’t hold forever. It’s not strong enough when the disease is so advanced. But it’s forced it back enough so that you are able to continue your normal life for a time, until you decide what to do.”

Right. Mo Ran knows what he means by that. He remembers from before. His old slave had talked him through his options when he was Taxian Jun, and Mo Ran had laughed at the bitter irony of it. Confess to your true love, or have the flowers — and all feelings, memories and desires of your true love — removed.

One option left him without any love, or even mildly fond feelings for Shi Mei, and the other was impossible, because Shi Mei was dead. So Mo Ran had decided to live with it until it killed him, because the thought of being indifferent to Shi Mei was worse. 

“Until I decide what to do,” he echoes.

In this life, the decision is the same. But different. Because one option isn’t impossible any more — he can confess, if he wants to, and maybe Shi Mei will feel the same, and he will be cured of the disease and live his life free and happy with Shi Mei by his side, the way he had always dreamed. 

But the vision of it in his mind is distorted, and Mo Ran can’t understand why. The thought of confessing his feelings to Shi Mei — no longer feeling like Mo Ran would be sullying his martial brother’s purity — somehow feels…wrong. 

“I can take you to Tanlang Elder,” Chu Wanning is saying when Mo Ran zones back into the present. “He will be able to remove the infestation if you choose that option. You can —“

“No”. The words are out before Mo Ran even registers he's said them, and he shoves backwards, away from Chu Wanning. He doesn’t know why, but the prospect of losing all of his feelings, regardless of what they may be or who they’re directed to — it’s abhorrent. It sits in his gut like oil on water. He wants to vomit with the thought of it. It’s a far more visceral reaction than he had ever had before when considering it, and it startles them both as he hunches against the head of the bed, breathing rapidly. 

Chu Wanning is sitting stiffly, watching him with a cold expression. “You would rather die?”

Mo Ran draws in a rattling breath. It doesn’t hurt.

He says nothing. 

Chu Wanning nods once, and places the half finished broth down, dusting off his knees before he stands. He looks irate for some reason, but Mo Ran has never been able to get a proper read on him, so he simply stares, and breathes. 

“If that’s your choice,” Chu Wanning says, and his voice is glacial. “Then I will not interfere. The seal will need reinforcing periodically, until it no longer holds.”

He turns and sweeps from the room before Mo Ran can even register that he’s screwed up somehow. 

Mo Ran recovers reasonably quickly now that he can breathe. He’s able to emerge from his room the following day, and he, Chu Wanning and Xue Meng set off again for the village to complete the task given to them by Xue Zhengyong. 

It goes smoothly. Mo Ran marvels at how much easier everything has just become with the seal suppressing the flowers. Nothing is painful, he’s able to move freely and use his weapons effortlessly when attacked by a vicious ghost, and he doesn’t need to spend hours catching his breath afterwards. He’d had no idea how difficult life had become for him until he had learned to breathe again, and part of him recognises that he has Chu Wanning to thank for that. 

Chu Wanning had intervened and placed the seal without ever being asked, because he had recognised what was going on and knew that Mo Ran would die if he didn’t. Really, his Shizun had saved Mo Ran’s life. 

A curl of warmth unfolds in Mo Ran’s belly when he thinks of it. 

Which just confuses the hell out of him. 

When they return to Sisheng Peak, Shi Mei greets them and remarks at how much brighter Mo Ran looks when Mo Ran bounds up to him to say hello. Mo Ran almost blurts it out right there, but something stops him, and he simply grins like a fool and thanks him. 

If he’s going to confess, it needs to be done right. Shi Mei deserves more than a garbled splatter of words that are forced out unexpectedly. 

Mo Ran begins to plan.

It should be easy. It should be the easiest thing he’s ever done, really, because the alternative is to die. 

But Mo Ran doesn’t figure out how he’s to confess, because every time he thinks on it, his body wants to rebel. That oil that sits in his gut churns until he forces himself to think on something else, and the feeling fades again. Mo Ran doesn’t understand why, but he really can only come to the conclusion that he’s just not meant to. Not yet, at least. 

Chu Wanning continues to reinforce the seal over the disease. He doesn’t ask if and when Mo Ran has made up his mind — doesn’t ask for anything besides how Mo Ran is feeling when he trudges into the Red Lotus Pavilion to have his chest cleared away of the encroaching flowers. He doesn’t ask who the object of Mo Ran’s desires even are, and Mo Ran is honest with him besides that. 

So time passes, and Mo Ran is able to live with the disease, no one else besides his Shizun aware of what is slowly growing in him. But as time does continue, Mo Ran finds he is needing to visit Chu Wanning more and more often.

And he has to make his way up to the Pavilion more frequently, which eases the pain even before he gets there, as though anticipating where Mo Ran is going. 

“You need to stop doing this. It will kill you.”  Tanlang Elder’s voice is flat, and it halts Mo Ran in his tracks where he stands.

He’s been making his way into the Pavilion sooner than planned — only a few months after the seal was last reinforced — which is how  he overhears the conversation. And he pauses, momentarily torn about whether to turn around and come back later, or whether he should stop and listen like the nosy part of him always wants to. 

Something is killing his Shizun.

Anger roils under his skin before he can stop it — an ancient feeling that he hasn’t had since his previous life. The feeling of rage that someone might have the gall to hurt or injure his Shizun. His Shizun. It’s familiar, and it’s burning.

Something in Mo Ran shifts, almost unnoticed. 

There’s a moment of silence. Then, Chu Wanning’s voice. “It’s necessary.”

“Just tell me who it is, won’t you? I can help them, and then you can stop doing this to yourself.”

There’s no response. Silence falls, and Mo Ran senses the hum of energy in the air — spiritual energy. Tanlang Elder is…? Healing Chu Wanning?

“You’re aware that if you keep doing this, it’s going to take root. Then no one will be able to stop it because you’ve brought it on yourself. Is that what you’re trying to do? Be a martyr or something? Trying to prove a point?”

Chu Wanning only offers a faint “hm,” in response. Tanlang Elder is clearly making about as much progress as a fern leaf against a brick wall. 

“Your students will be miserable if they lost you to something like this. Think of them at least, won’t you?”

“I am thinking of them.” The anger in Chu Wanning’s tone is surprising. “If you’re going to lecture me every time I come here then you can forget about these sessions. I will manage on my own.”

There’s a beat of silence. “It’s one of them, isn’t it?” The realisation in Tanglang Elder’s voice is awful. “You’re healing one of them at the expense of yourself. Does he know that you’re doing this? That you might be taking the flowers away from him, but that you’re only absorbing it yourself? Yuheng, I don’t believe any of your disciples would be happy to see that this is what you’re doing to heal them.”

Healing one of them…at the expense of yourself.

Healing one of his disciples by absorbing their disease into himself.

…

It hits Mo Ran like a thunder strike. 

Chu Wanning had been absorbing the malevolent energy of the curse into himself all this time, accepting the flowers, choking off his own lungs. All the while telling Mo Ran that he was placing a seal on the disease, that there was nothing else that needed to be done aside from these regular sessions, until Mo Ran could decide what to do. 

He'd been lying. 

The whole time, Chu Wanning had been taking the disease into his own lungs to incubate, and suffered in Mo Ran’s stead for his indecision.

Why?

Why would Chu Wanning do such a thing to himself? 

Mo Ran doesn’t know whether to feel furious or touched. He thinks he’s mostly furious, but there’s something else in his belly that’s stirring, only he’s too much of a dumb brute to be able to figure out what that means. 

And because he’s a dumb brute, he marches right into the pavilion without caring about the fact he’s breaking several rules in doing so.

“Is that true?”

Tanlang Elder and Chu Wanning have been facing away from him, so they turn to him with wide eyes when he interrupts. Chu Wanning blanches when he sees Mo Ran, but Tanlang Elder stands, evidently sensing the oncoming storm.

“Mo Weiyu, what are you doing here?”

“To hell with that!” Mo Ran snarls. There’s a spark of old rage in him — rage from a lifetime past that simmered for years whenever he laid eyes on his Shizun, and rose like a snake to a charmer at the drop of a coin. And it flares now, all consuming, blinding Mo Ran to any proprietary or politeness as he stares a pale Chu Wanning down. “You told me you were placing seals on it! Chu Wanning, is that true?” 

Chu Wanning is bristling despite looking small and pale on the mat, where he hasn’t moved at all.

Sick. He looks sick. 

“Chu Wanning!” 

He wants to go to him and drag him up by the arm. Wants to shake him and demand answers, and then drag him away where no one else can lay eyes on him. Where no one else can hurt him, because only Taxian Jun can hurt Chu Wanning, and anyone else who thinks they have that right will meet the end of his spiritual weapon!

He’ll reach in and drag those stolen flowers out himself if that’s what it takes!

Mo Ran begins to advance, but Tanlang Elder moves in between them then, his expression cold. Mo Ran turns to glare at him, and his expression must be terrible, because for a second Tanlang Elder pauses. But it’s gone almost before it can be spotted, and Tanlang Elder’s eyes turn fierce. 

“Who are you to speak to your Shizun like that? Do you have no manners?”

“Get out of my way,” Mo Ran snarls. “You’ve been enabling him this whole time, while he’s been pretending to heal me up good as new!”

A blink. “You’re the one with the curse?”

Mo Ran grits his teeth. “That’s not important.”

“It is. There are ways that —“

“Yes, I know, there’s ways that can heal me properly. I don’t care about that, I care about finding out why I'm being lied to and I care about you getting out of my way.”

If Tanlang Elder was feeling any sympathy, it evaporates with the demand. His eyes turn cold, and even though he’s facing the rage of someone who once destroyed worlds, he keeps his shoulders square and does not back down.

“I think you need a lesson in respect, Mo Weiyu,” Tanlang remarks coldly. “I don’t care how angry you are, barging in here unannounced and making demands is the behaviour of someone who was raised in a barn, not someone who is a respectable disciple of Yuheng Elder!”

Mo Ran wants to hit him. He could, if he were someone else, if he had the power to truly show Tanlang Elder just how much power could behold someone who was raised in a barn. 

But Chu Wanning intervenes before Mo Ran’s anger takes over reason, his tone harsh. “Mo Ran, be quiet!”

It serves to clear Mo Ran’s head of that blinding rage somewhat, but he is still infuriated, and while he says nothing more to Tanlang Elder’s rebukes, he doesn’t step back, and doesn’t apologise. Let Tanlang Elder think him uncivilised, Mo Ran is not here for him!

“Please leave us,” Chu Wanning says to Tanlang Elder with a dip of his head.

Tanlang Elder glances between them, and then shakes his head. “This is between you two. Yuheng, consider what I said. Until then, I’ll be going.” With a swish of his robes, he turns and leaves the pavilion, leaving a terrible silence in his wake. 

Mo Ran turns back to Chu Wanning. Chu Wanning has turned his head away, and Mo Ran can no longer see his face, but he is sitting rigidly, hands fisted on his lap, and the tension radiates from him in waves.

“Why?” It’s all Mo Ran can say without exploding. 

Chu Wanning takes a breath. “You were suffering.”

Mo Ran explodes anyway. “That doesn’t mean I wanted you to suffer instead!” 

He doesn’t get a response, and he wants to shake that beautiful, perfect posture out of Chu Wanning, until he can get the answers he wants. That filthy beast that had always lived under his skin is rearing its head — nearly taking over. 

His breathing is beginning to hurt. 

Mo Ran marches around where Chu Wanning is sitting, and stares down at him. The look on Chu Wanning’s face is reminiscent of another time, when he had tried so hard to avoid showing emotion. But he wears it anyway, in the straight backed posture, in the red rimming his eyes. In the hard line of his jaw. 

“What good does taking all of this into yourself do? What do you possibly achieve by lying and telling me you’ve sealed it away, when all you’re doing is making yourself sick? How long were you planning on keeping this up, Shizun?”

Chu Wanning says nothing, and Mo Ran does reach him then. Boldly, baldly, he grips his shoulders tightly. Chu Wanning doesn’t move.

“How long?”

“Until you made your decision,” Chu Wanning finally says quietly. 

“What if I never made a decision?”

“Then I’d continue.”

He leaves the rest unspoken, but part of Mo Ran knows what it is anyway. I’d continue until one of us dies. 

His stupid, selfless, beautiful Shizun. 

“Shizun, why didn’t you tell me?” 

Chu Wanning stays silent. His expression is stony, even if his eyes are rimmed with red. 

Mo Ran doesn’t know who he’s more angry at. Chu Wanning for sacrificing his own health for this, or himself for being stupid enough to believe a simple seal could be strong enough to prevent the disease from advancing. And when he thinks back over the time Chu Wanning has been sealing his illness…

Mo Ran drops to his knees in front of Chu Wanning, and reaches for his hands in a desperate attempt to get some kind of response out of him. And the anger fades into despair — that Chu Wanning would harm himself for a scoundrel like Mo Ran. 

He had always wanted Chu Wanning’s attention. Had always dreamed that he would turn his gaze to Mo Ran just once, to acknowledge him, to appreciate him as a disciple and a cultivator. 

But not like this. Never like this. 

“Shizun,” Mo Ran whispers, “why?”

Chu Wanning draws in a breath, and for the first time Mo Ran can hear, really hear, the rattle in it. The way Chu Wanning has to work to suck in air, as though those flowers are blooming in his own chest. 

“Because I cannot let you suffer,” he says, his voice quiet and hard. “I won’t. And if this is what I have to do, then I will do so gladly.”

“Even if it’s killing you?”

“No one will —“ Chu Wanning’s mouth snaps shut, like he spoke too soon. As if his iron control has slipped for a split second, giving Mo Ran just the tiniest glimpse at something festering. 

“No one will what?” Chu Wanning doesn’t answer, so Mo Ran tightens his grip on his hands. “Shizun, no one will what?”

Chu Wanning’s shoulders are drawn up, his gaze fixed to the side, like he can pretend that if he’s not looking at Mo Ran, he can make this scenario go away. 

“Pay attention to me,” Mo Ran snaps, the tone so cold and bitter that Chu Wanning’s eyes do shift to him.  “No one will what?”

Chu Wanning is staring at him, eyes wide now. Something of Taxian Jun must have slipped into Mo Ran’s voice, because there’s an undercurrent of something in his eyes that is neither cold indifference or an attempt at it. Mo Ran doesn’t want to stop and think about it, so he draws in a — slightly rattly — breath, and wills himself to calm. 

“No one will what?”

This time, after a beat, Chu Wanning does answer. And it’s so unexpected that Mo Ran’s balance goes, and he slips from his knees to his ass on the hardwood floor. 

“No one will miss me if I'm gone.”

No one will miss me. 

Is that what Chu Wanning thinks? Does he seriously —?

“You can’t be serious,” Mo Ran manages. “No one will miss you?”

Brilliant red colours Chu Wanning’s ears, the humiliation evident in his posture and the way he now leans away from Mo Ran, like he’s let out some vicious poison that hovers in the air between them. Like he’s the poison. 

“Shizun, do you have any idea how much we love you?”

Phoenix eyes snap back to him so fast that Mo Ran almost misses it. But as fast as it happens, they’re gone, and for a split second Mo Ran thinks he saw something like…hope? 

So he presses on. “Shi Mei, Xue Meng and I would be lost without you,” he says, wanting to squeeze Chu Wanning’s hand where he has hold of it, but deciding not to lest he ruin this moment. “You’re our Shizun, you’re the reason we are the cultivators that we are.”

Why are Chu Wanning’s shoulders dropping? 

“Shizun, this whole peak would be lost without you. You really think you wouldn’t be missed? I would walk through death myself to get you back if I could!”

I tried to walk through death to get you back, back then…

Chu Wanning draws in a steadying breath, and nods. “Yes, of…course.”

But he doesn’t look like he believes him. In fact, Mo Ran thinks Chu Wanning looks even more miserable than he had before Mo Ran spoke, and he wonders stupidly what it is that he’s done wrong. 

“Shizun, I…you’re so important,” he says. Urgency rises in him — a desire to let Chu Wanning know that he is special, that he would be missed, that Mo Ran would miss him if he was gone. “You can’t do this to yourself, and I won't let you anymore. You think you wouldn’t be missed, but you’re so wrong. You’re so important to this peak, to your disciples.”

To me. 

The thought gives him pause. 

Yes, Chu Wanning is important to him. But…when did he become…more important than everyone else?

He can’t answer that, because before he realises it, Chu Wanning is nodding, and making to rise, his face still beet red and brows furrowed. He still doesn’t get it — still doesn’t believe Mo Ran. 

He has to make him believe it. 

“Shizun! I won’t let you die,” he says, snaring Chu Wanning’s hands so that they’re in his grip and he can't walk away. “I can't let you die again. I won’t go through it.”

“Again?”

But Mo Ran just shakes his head, ignoring the slip as the past and present blur together in a miserable blend of pain and despair. “A world without you in it is a world of nothing but grey. There’s so much hatred and pain and you are the one who is able to control it. You’re the only important person, Wanning, no one else matters. Not me, not Shi Mei, not…not…anyone…”

Mo Ran can feel the stone settle in his gut just as the realisation clicks into place. 

Not anyone. 

Not even Shi Mei. 

Oh…

He manages to leave the Red Lotus Pavilion before he makes a bigger fool of himself. It takes him five minutes to convince Chu Wanning that he isn’t lying when he says he would be missed, and then another five to make him understand Mo Ran will not be allowing Chu Wanning to seal his illness anymore. 

Chu Wanning tells him before he leaves that if the disease is left alone, he has little more than a year left to live, because it will advance at a rapid pace now as though making up for lost time. 

Chu Wanning is clearly distressed by this, and Mo Ran files it away.

A year to make his decision. 

A year to come to terms with what he had thought he knew. 

You are the most important person, Wanning. 

How long has it been Chu Wanning? Mo Ran doesn’t have an answer for that, but he shuts himself in his room to brood, and allows himself to mull it over, under the excuse of not feeling well. Not that it’s a lie — he is feeling drained, and miserable at everything he’s learned, but…

How long?

He runs back over every single occasion he’s had attacks of the disease, rolling the memories over in his mind with a comb, wanting to untangle the knots of his feelings so that he can gain some understanding. 

It had resurfaced when Chu Wanning had been playing the zither. When Mo Ran was fifteen and stupid, and had still thought that he had hated his Shizun despite wanting to be a better person. He remembers that he was watching Chu Wanning play and thinking about how skilled he was, when that burning had risen in his throat. 

Mo Ran had thought it was because Shi Mei was there at the time. 

When Chu Wanning had been helping them make food for the new year feast, and his sad, lumpy noodles had made Mo Ran choke back a laugh, because it was so endearing and Chu Wanning had been so embarrassed, and he had felt the flowers invade his mouth. 

Shi Mei had been there then too, and he’d thought it was because of that. 

When they had been sparring, and Chu Wanning had first found him in the forest. He’d been watching Chu Wanning demonstrate his moves. 

At the inn, when Chu Wanning had got him spicy food because he knew that Mo Ran liked spice, even though Chu Wanning couldn’t stand it. 

And every time before or after, every time in this life, when Mo Ran had been around Chu Wanning or thinking of Chu Wanning, the disease had caught hold of him. And Mo Ran — stupid, blind, ignorant Mo Ran, had been so wrapped up in his feelings from his previous life, that he had mistaken it.

He is such a fool. 

Unbidden, Mo Ran’s mind drifts back to his past life, when he was Taxian Jun. The disease had persisted then too, after Shi Mei’s death. Does that meen even then, Mo Ran had been in love with Chu Wanning and was too stupid to realise it?

The hatred that he thought he had was not hatred at all?

But no…that can’t be right. Mo Ran remembers that visceral hatred. He had felt it coat his tongue when he awoke here in this life too. It had taken time to fade when he spent more time with his Shizun, and worked on himself in an effort to be better. 

For Shi Mei, he thinks with a bitter laugh. He had tried to be better for Shi Mei.

But then as the disease advanced, the thought of Shi Mei hadn’t spun his mind like it used to. Mo Ran doesn’t feel that idol worship for him anymore, and the thought of saying anything genuine to him about the disease…

Something in Mo Ran’s gut recoils. 

It's confirmation enough, for him. 

It was never Shi Mei. 

Even back then. But why…why had Mo Ran hated Chu Wanning so much?

As much as this has answered questions for Mo Ran, a thousand more have surfaced; about Taxian Jun, about his past life, about his past deeds. About why he had no capacity to recognise that he loved Chu Wanning even then, and only read his intense feelings as hatred and bitterness. 

Why.  

All of this is so much. It’s too much. He can’t think about it now, or why. He can’t think about anything but Chu Wanning. 

That’s when the curse strikes him.

With a vengeance, the flowers pierce his chest and crawl their way up his throat, and Mo Ran bends double, tears brimming in his eyes and streaming down his face as fast as the spider lilies that are finally free to do as they please. 

But he knows — he knows what he has to do. 

Air burns as it whistles through the miniscule spaces in his chest, the threat they pose to his life loud and clear even as Mo Ran stumbles up to make his way back to the pavilion. He can feel the flowers pushing themselves forward, desperate for this to be the time they claim him, after two lifetimes, when he slipped this fate the first time around. He remembers this feeling — remembers the pressure in his head, and in his lungs, and in his heavy limbs as he drags himself, trying to draw in the air. 

Maybe he doesn’t have a year left after all.

Mo Ran races back across the paths, past those endless stairs, dizziness threatening to take hold of him as spider lilies begin to spill from his mouth. They fall like rain, spattering against the path, but Mo Ran pays them no mind. He has to get to Chu Wanning.

It’s dark in the Red Lotus Pavilion when he finally makes it. Chu Wanning must have decided to go to sleep in the time since Mo Ran had left, but Mo Ran doesn’t stop from barging through the doors without so much as a knock. 

This is a gamble like he has never taken before, and he’s fairly certain that either way, it’ll end in his death. Either because he’s wrong, so wrong, or because Chu Wanning will kill him for what he’s about to do.

He can’t even feel nervous.

Chu Wanning is curled up in that tiny space on his bed when Mo Ran stumbles into his room. He jolts upright, and his expression is initially wide eyed and sleep riddled — a rare glimpse into a man with his guard down, like Mo Ran has only ever seen him a scarce few times — but it rapidly becomes hard with concern when he takes in Mo Ran’s state, and he pulls himself up off the bed without Mo Ran having to say a single thing.

It's obvious why. 

Spider lilies are falling from his mouth like rain now. With every breath out another one takes its place, and his vision is swimming so much that he’s stumbling. He hasn’t had an attack this bad in this life, and in the past they only grew this bad towards the end, when he had resigned himself to his fate. In his hazy eyes, Mo Ran sees Chu Wanning stand and make his way over, but Mo Ran doesn’t quite reach him before he misplaces his step and lands hard on his knees.

“Mo Ran?” Chu Wanning’s voice is pitched, the worry so evident, and part  of Mo Ran wants to laugh at the fact that all this time he had thought Chu Wanning had never cared, when the opposite has always been true

He cared so much. Always so much. Enough to harm himself in an effort to spare Mo Ran the pain of his illness. 

“Wanning,” Mo Ran manages to rasp, but it’s all that he can get out around another surge of lilies. God, this is just like last time, only last time he had the foresight to get himself drunk on opium so that he had barely had the mind left to suffer. 

He’d thought he’d known suffering. 

He’d been so stupid. 

Before Mo Ran can gather himself to say anything, Chu Wanning is behind him and firm hands have jabbed at his back, and spiritual energy is flowing between them. Mo Ran tries to twist away, not wanting Chu Wanning to absorb it anymore, still steadfast on that refusal, but he doesn’t have the strength to pull away when Chu Wanning just follows him.

“The disease is too advanced,” Chu Wanning says, and he doesn’t bother to hide the despair from his voice. “I can’t seal it anymore.”

Mo Ran manages to turn and snare one thin wrist in his hold. The room is spinning and he can barely draw a breath, but he sucks it in around the stems and roots and flowers that have taken his body hostage, and manages to wheeze out the only thing that matters in the world now — the only thing that he wants to say.

“Wanning, I love you.”

The pain overwhelms him again, and he doesn’t see Chu Wanning’s expression at the declaration. He has to force himself to weather it again, and then sucks in another whistling breath. Tears blur his vision — tears at his own stupidity and his own stubbornness, and at the prospect that he’s gotten this all wrong again. 

“I love you,” he says around the pain. “I’m sorry. It’s always been you.”

Chu Wanning still hasn’t spoken. He’s frozen in place, his face bone white. 

“Mo Ran, I —“

But he doesn’t hear what Chu Wanning says as blackness finally takes him, his body giving into the fight. 

I love you.

Chu Wanning…

…

…

…

He comes to after what feels like eternity, to the dim light of a candle and pressing, suffocating silence.

There’s a faint ache in his chest, and while his breathing is still heavy and harsh, he’s able to get enough air again. 

The attack has passed. 

Blearily, Mo Ran blinks his eyes open, and gazes at the ceiling of the Red Lotus Pavilion, in Chu Wanning’s chamber. On his bed. 

Any other time, he might have pushed himself up in shock and a little bit of terror. But he’s tucked in and warm and comfortable, and that last attack has taken his strength from him. 

Memory of it comes back in pieces. But the awareness of what had transpired in the minutes before he had passed out sits at the back of his mind, turning his calm tranquility into nerves. 

There’s movement next to him. Turning his head slowly — painfully, because his neck is so sore — he spies Chu Wanning perched at the bedside, his face pale, his expression drawn. 

Their gazes meet, and there is…silence. 

Mo Ran can see the way Chu Wanning’s throat bobs as he swallows. His eyes are red, and his hands are clenched on his knees, giving away the tension that he is carrying in his slender frame. He doesn’t look happy, not in the slightest. 

“You’re awake,” Chu Wanning eventually says. “I had thought for a moment there that my estimates were grossly under-calculated.”

“I’m fine,” Mo Ran says and his throat is like knives. 

Chu Wanning nods. “Then I will find you something to eat so you can recover from the attack.”

Before he can stand and walk away, Mo Ran shoots his hand out and snares Chu Wanning’s wrist, anchoring him to the spot. Painfully, he pulls himself upright against Chu Wanning’s protests, and manages to sit up enough that he’s level with Chu Wanning. 

“Shizun,” Mo Ran says hoarsely. “Did you hear me before? What I said to you?”

Chu Wanning goes rigid. But he doesn’t pull away from where Mo Ran still has hold on him. 

“Did you hear?”

There’s a beat. Two. And then, infinitesimally, Chu Wanning nods his head once. He says nothing. 

The silence stretches, until it’s unbearable. The weight of it settles on his shoulders like stones, until his shoulders are slumping the longer Chu Wanning is silent. But Mo Ran doesn’t speak, because Chu Wanning is gazing at his hands, looking like he’s trying to summon whatever it is he wants to say. 

Eventually, blessedly, when Mo Ran thinks he’s going to die from waiting, Chu Wanning speaks. 

“I understand.”

Mo Ran blinks. “Understand?”

Chu Wanning nods his head with a jerk. 

“Okay…because I don’t.” 

“You’ve avoided the worst of the attack now. I can’t be sure whether your actions delayed the disease any, but it certainly seems to have bought you enough time to reconsider your decision not to act. Perhaps I could go and fetch Shi Mingjing —“

“Wait, what?” What? “Shizun, what are you talking about?”

Chu Wanning’s expression is stony. “Your…declaration. Before. Seems to have done the trick and bought you some time.”

Mo Ran still doesn’t follow, but something in his stomach curls unpleasantly, nudging him to understand that he’s on the edge of something perilous. 

Clearing his throat, Chu Wanning straightens his robes and then moves to stand again. “So you may take a little longer to decide your next course of action. Though, I don’t know how long this may last given how terrible that attack was, so you ought to consider your options carefully —“

“Shizun,” Mo Ran interrupts. He feels cold. “Did you mistake what I told you before?”

Chu Wanning’s mouth snaps shut. Red is painting his ears. “You don’t need to continue. The disease is dormant again.”

Continue!?

Mo Ran is so confused that he wants to hit something. “Shizun, I —“

“Mo Ran,” Chu Wanning says, his tone turning hard. “Please stop this. You don’t need to keep pretending.”

Pretend…pretending!??

Realisation sinks into his stomach like a stone. Like the coldest, most jagged stone in the world, grating its way down, making him feel sick. 

“Shizun…do you…did you think I was pretending when I told you I love you?”

Chu Wanning’s silence is answer enough. His face is aflame, his eyes down, and his brows are knitted in a way that gives away his humiliation. Mo Ran leans forward and grips his other hand.

“Wanning, I wasn’t pretending,” he says, the urgency bleeding into his tone. The desire to make Chu Wanning understand. “It’s always been you, Wanning. I’ve only ever loved you. I was just too dumb to see it before. And…I know I’m not smart or special, it took me until today to realise it, and then the attack came on and I…I want you to know, Wanning. Even if you never feel the same, even if this changes nothing and I’m going to fall to these flowers anyway, then I’ll be alright with that. Because I love you, Wanning. Only you.”

Through both lifetimes.

Chu Wanning is staring at him. His eyes are glimmering, red tinging the corners, but his expression is still rigid. He holds himself so still he could be a statue. Mo Ran decides to throw all caution to the wind, and shifts so that he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, knee to knee with Chu Wanning, and one hand shifts from the thin wrist at his lap, to brush a thumb under his eye. 

A rattling breath is drawn, but Mo Ran doesn’t know whether it comes from him or Chu Wanning. It doesn’t matter. He has to make him believe. Has to make him see. 

Chu Wanning’s eyes flutter shut, and his breath fans across Mo Ran. Short, shuddery breaths, like he’s forgotten how. 

“Wanning,” Mo Ran whispers, and he swears he can feel Chu Wanning lean into his touch just the smallest amount. “It’s always been you.”

The brush of their lips together is faint, but lingering. Chu Wanning is holding his breath as Mo Ran kisses him as softly as a butterfly’s wings, his shoulders trembling.

“I’m sorry it took me so long,” Mo Ran whispers against Chu Wanning’s lips. “But it’s true.”

Chu Wanning shudders in a breath, and Mo Ran leans back, but doesn’t pull away entirely. He watches emotion flash across Chu Wanning’s face so fast he can barely follow it, before gently unfolding one slender hand to curl their fingers together. 

He waits, silent, but breath held while Chu Wanning gazes at him. While he takes in Mo Ran’s confession, and the waiting feels like a lifetime or more, but he has already spent that long blind to it. He can manage a few more moments.

“You…” Chu Wanning’s voice is hoarse. Brittle. “Love…me?”

Mo Ran lets go a breath, and nods. 

“But I…”

“No buts,” Mo Ran says softly. “Just us, if that’s what you want.”

He watches Chu Wanning’s throat bob a swallow. 

“Is that what you want?”

Chu Wanning’s eyes drop closed, and a crystalline tear slips from one corner, its warmth coating Mo Ran’s thumb. After another moment, Chu Wanning nods. 

The effect is instantaneous. 

Pain cripples him. It’s like something is being forcibly ripped from his lungs, and Mo Ran doubles over where he sits, gasping desperately, clutching at his chest and pulling at his clothes as though that will make any kind of difference. He can taste blood in his mouth, his ribs collapsing one by one, and his vision swims again. 

For a moment, Mo Ran thinks he got it incredibly, stupidly wrong, and that he’s about to die here. 

No, no. No, he can’t die here. Not right now, this is cruel — it’s too cruel. 

And as quickly as it comes on…it’s gone. 

His vision clears. Mo Ran is leaning over Chu Wanning, wrenching air into his lungs, gripping at his shoulders where Chu Wanning is clutching at his upper arms. 

He’s breathing…in. And out. In…and out.

No pain. 

No wheezing. 

No…no flowers.

No nothing.

“Mo Ran?” Chu Wanning’s voice is stricken. 

He slowly sits up, gazing up at Chu Wanning wide eyed and shellshocked, and unable to believe that it…happened. It worked. 

“It’s gone,” Mo Ran whispers. And then laughs in disbelief. “Shizun, it’s gone.”

Chu Wanning furrows a brow, and then presses one hand over Mo Ran’s chest. There’s a faint burst of spiritual energy, but it fades as quickly as it flares. And something like relief sinks Chu Wanning’s shoulders like a stone. 

“It’s gone,” he echoes. 

And Mo Ran can’t help himself. Laughing, he stands from the bed and pulls Chu Wanning into his arms, clinging to him like a desperate man. A man born anew, except this is the third time, a third life — a real life. Because the disease is gone. Chu Wanning loves him, and the disease is gone. 

Chu Wanning loves him. 

When Mo Ran kisses him this time, he doesn’t hold back. And neither does Chu Wanning. He yields almost straight away, opening his mouth to Mo Ran with a quiet sound that could be a sob or a groan, and Mo Ran pulls their bodies flush together, fingers tangling in hair he knows so well, but has never touched in this life. 

“Wanning,” Mo Ran breathes against Chu Wanning’s lips, “I’m sorry I kept you waiting.”

Chu Wanning just kisses him harder, lets himself be guided around until Mo Ran is able to lower him to the bed. And when they finally come together, it’s everything Mo Ran remembers, but more. So, so much more. 

Because he loves Chu Wanning. 

And Chu Wanning loves him.