Chapter Text
She does not have a good memory. She cannot remember much of anything in her past.
She did not remember anything of her parents.
She was young when they left her in the streets and never came back for her.
She was young, but she was not young enough not to know that she has been abandoned.
She did not remember her childhood.
Well, that was a lie. She remembers the days, weeks, months that followed, trying her best to beg for scraps to live, sleeping in the streets with nothing but the clothes on her skin that they left her with. But to call those memories childhood would be absurd. That was her surviving, and she never for once felt like the child that she was at that time.
What she remembers of that time was a blur. On some days, she wishes they would stay blurry, never to surface.
The other days, she wishes she can remember more.
Remembering more of the sufferings she endured as a child would make her master saving her more valuable. Remembering would mean that she would never take for granted her being taken away from that life, that she would never betray her master for giving her a chance to actually live (because living like a street rat, having to fight feral dogs for scraps soiled with dirt from the ground, could never be called living).
For the past few months, the other days became every day.
Cangse Sanren wishes she remembers.
She would rather much remember those horrid days when she clutched her stomach, hoping that it would lessen her hunger, than look forward to the day she can leave this mountain.
She would much rather remember those awful nights sleeping under the rain, holding her tongue with her freezing hands to save her from the pain of biting it off from the uncontrollable chattering of her teeth due to the cold, than wait for the inevitable of her betraying her master who gave her home.
She would much rather remember.
But then again, Cangse Sanren was never praised for having a good memory.
Her master would tell her stories as she grew up.
Stories of old. Stories of a young master who loved his brother too much so he changed the fate of his brother only to pay the price with his life, of a queen who loved her country too much so she died by slitting her throat just to save her people, of a crown prince who loved the common people too much so he created a bridge that would bring his people to heaven only to fail and be scorned by the very people he wanted to save.
But one story she would always remember was the story of a man who was born under a star of misfortune. This man grew up with nothing but misery, enough that he would rather much kill himself than try to survive. Only when he did try, he found someone who was too beautiful, too brave, and too good, someone who had saved him and became his reason for living. He found someone who he loved so much, too much, he devoted his whole life to that person, and to die for that person was to be his greatest glory.
Her master would tell her stories of people who loved too much, and sometimes, she wonders if she can ever love someone enough like that. Suppose anyone can love someone like that, not just in stories, but in real life.
But if she ever could and if she ever would, Cangse Sanren knows she would never find that kind of love secluded in this mountain.
(Sometimes, she feels guilty that the love she has for her master and her brothers and sisters is not enough, will never be enough, for her.)
It was her shixiong who told her stories of the world.
Stories of empires long gone and long forgotten. Stories of adventures, of gods and ghosts, of cities and seas far and wide, full of mystery.
When she hears him tell these stories, she can hear how much her shixiong wishes to live in the stories he tells. How he wishes he can go on an adventure and solve cases left and right, fighting feral corpses along the way, meeting gods and ghosts of the stories of old if he is lucky.
She would listen to him quietly, letting him live his fantasy in his stories.
Some nights, as they both watched the stars that adorned the clear night sky of their celestial mountain, Yanling Daoren would end his stories like this:
"One day, I would have an adventure myself, and when I do, I will tell you all about them, shimei."
She knew it was going to happen. It cannot not happen, not when she can see how much her shixiong desires to see the world in his eyes looking up the sky with great wonder.
So when she hears, months later, that Yanling Daoren has taken the oath and left the mountain for the mortal world, she can only wish in her heart that she would be able to hear his stories when their paths cross once more.
She never did, and it never will.
A few years later, Cangse Sanren would hear a story in the first village she goes to the moment she descends the celestial mountain about a man who was a great and renowned cultivator admired and praised by everyone, only to succumb to the unrighteous path and die under a thousand swords.
She wonders if that was the price people have to pay to be one of the stories that got told.
And if it was, would she wish to be immortalized in a story like that young master? That queen? That crown prince? Her shixiong?
What a price it was to be remembered in a great story, and Cangse Sanren cannot help but think it is what it is.
To wonder was not needed.
To die was the price.
For all the stories she ever heard ended with death.
Later, much later. When the grief from the death of her shixiong passes, Cangse Sanren would remember the stories she heard.
A part of her would argue that it was love. Love was the price. The young master who loved his brother too much, the queen who loved her country too much, the crown prince who loved the common people too much.
Her shixiong who loved adventure too much.
To love too much will get your story to be told.
For all the stories she ever heard started with love.
She does not know what would be the heavier price.
Love or death?
She had left the celestial mountain for more than two years when she met Wei Changze and Jiang Fengmian.
She was passing by Yiling since she heard a feral ghost rummaging near the border of the Burial Mounds.
It was fate, she decides. It must be.
Meeting them was fate.
Wei Changze and Jiang Fengmian are two brothers, not by blood, but by something as important, who came barreling into her life like answers to her prayers, she did not know she has.
They take her with them after they saved her from the horde of feral corpses, much too many than what she expected to encounter.
She was injured, and Jiang Fengmian promises that Lotus Pier would welcome her with no strings attached.
She agrees to stay for a day. Surely, a gash or two on her arms and legs and a broken wrist can be healed with a night's sleep with her cultivation.
But the next thing she knows, a day becomes two, two becomes a week, and soon, she has been staying in the guest quarters of Lotus Pier for a month.
She never pledged her loyalties to the Yunmeng Jiang Sect.
She may have left the celestial mountain, but Cangse Sanren will be forever known as a disciple of Baoshen Sanren.
So she is, and so she will stay, as Cangse Sanren, rogue cultivator.
If she is also known as a close friend of Jiang Fengmian, sect leader of Yunmeng Jiang, and his servant, Wei Changze, then so be it.
She can never be loyal to any other discipline, but that does not mean she will never be loyal to her special people aside from her master.
And Jiang Fengmian and Wei Changze are her most special persons.
They taught her that she could, after all the wondering and doubts, love enough.
She loves both of them enough, too much, to stay with them and not feel the need to be free, but to finally feel contentment.
After all the years of restlessness, her heart finally has calmed.
She feels like she can do anything with these two people by her side.
She suddenly understands how those people in the stories she heard can do all those impossible things because of loving too much.
She, too, feels like attempting the impossible.
She could not.
And as much as Jiang Fengmian and Wei Changze are of the sect bearing the motto to attempt the impossible, they, too, can never go against forces that are much stronger than they are.
Forces like duty, tradition, and righteousness.
And for what it is worth, the love they have alone is not enough, will never be enough to grant them the happy ending they desire.
Jiang Fengmian is a sect leader of a prominent sect, with no other siblings who can continue the bloodline.
Wei Changze is just a servant, and despite her high cultivation, Cangsen Sanren is just a rogue cultivator.
Forget about the three of them having a deviant relationship that was never heard of.
Status alone dictates they can never be happy together in the relationship they desire.
The three of them were never meant to be together.
(But for Cangsen Sanren, this was fate, too.)
Like hearing the first time her shixiong has taken the oath and has descended the mountain, Cangsen Sanren is not surprised to hear that Jiang Fengmian has been betrothed to Meishan Yu's Violet Spider.
This, too, was something that cannot not happen. Not when she can hear the talks spreading behind their backs and the pressure the elders are giving to Jiang Fengmian.
She is hurt.
The pain is comparable to when she heard her shixiong has perished.
But she knows.
She knows that her pain cannot hold a candle to the pain Wei Changze must be feeling.
It has been Jiang Fengmian and Wei Changze years before it has been Jiang Fengmian, Wei Changze and Cangse Sanren.
Now, it will just be Wei Changze and Cangse Sanren.
And that hurts.
When things were still great, the three of them were still happy and so in love with each other, they promised themselves to each other.
They bowed to heaven and earth.
Then they bowed to one another.
It was not a complete ceremony, but it did not matter.
For them, the promise of forever was enough.
Jiang Fengmian gets married a month later.
Wei Changze and Cangse Sanren does not attend the wedding.
No force on earth can force them to see the man they love to bow to another when it should have been them.
(It was them. How Cangse Sanren wishes she can go back to when it was still them.)
Jiang Fengmian tells them that Yu ZiYuan is pregnant with his child.
Wei Changze is a silent man. He speaks louder with his actions than he ever did with his words.
The way he clutched her hand when he hears the news betrays the emotionless demeanor he has.
She cannot blame him.
She clutches his hand just as tight.
She does not know what else to do.
Everything is slipping apart, and she can only hold on or else.
(She does not want to finish that sentence, nor did she know how it would end.)
Jiang Yanli is a beautiful child.
She might have the coloring of her mother, but her eyes and smile are clearly that of her father.
It should have been hard.
To see a child that was a fruit of their broken promise.
But A-Li is a child of Jiang Fengmian as much as she is a child of Yu ZiYuan.
How could she and Wei Changze not love her, too?
Cangse Sanren finds it annoying to face the reality that it is not enough despite loving too much.
It will never be enough.
Just like the stories of old.
It is Wei Changze who decides in the end.
"I can't, A-Mian." He says during the night, the only time that the three of them can be together and pretend that everything was all right. "I can't do this anymore."
And it is a testament to what they are all feeling when Jiang Fengmian does not even ask him what 'this' meant.
Jiang Fengmian shudders, hands tightly clenched on his lap.
Cangse Sanren watches as he opens his mouth to speak but closes it again when no words were spoken.
She feels speechless, too, like him. She was expecting this (always expecting she was), but she did not expect that tonight would be the night that this would happen.
She reaches out for Jiang Fengmian's hand, rubs it, and holds it gently. She shares a look with Wei Changze sitting on the other end of the bed the three of them were sitting on.
Wei Changze sighs when he sees tears started to fall from Jiang Fengmian's eyes.
They were hidden in Jiang Fengmian's residence, tucked away in his bedroom.
No one would see them here.
No one would see the Yunmeng Jiang sect leader in his weak state.
"Don't cry, A-Mian." Wei Changze brushes away the tears from Jiang Fengmian's cheek, tenderly like he always was with them.
Jiang Fengmian holds Wei Changze's hand on his face with his free hand and cries harder.
"You're leaving." He says a few moments later when his cries have quiet down. "You're leaving me."
Jiang Fengmian turns his head, eyes still full of tears gazing at her. "You're leaving me, too."
She closes her eyes, resting her forehead against him. She cannot bear to see Jiang Fengmian look so broken before her.
"It's putting a strain on all of us, Jiang Fengmian." She chokes. She can feel the tears gathering behind her eyes. "A-Li is almost four now. They will be expecting you to have another child as an heir to this sect."
She can feel Wei Changze moving, and the weight of Jiang Fengmian against her became heavier. He must be hugging him from behind.
"I love you, A-Mian." Wei Changze's confession was nothing new, but hearing him say it softly against the silence of this room makes it feel like he is confessing something he has never said out loud before. "I love you. A-Se loves you. We love A-Li, too. She's yours, and every day she is starting to become like you."
Jiang Fengmian's cries begin anew.
She cries with him.
Wei Changze is breaking all of their hearts, and they can do nothing but let it happen.
"But we cannot bear to see you break your promise to us again, A-Mian." Wei Changze deals with the final strike. "I don't think I can survive to have to face another reason why you will never be ours."
If their hearts would break a third time, it might actually kill both of them.
"But you have me." Jiang Fengmian attempts to stop the inevitable. "I belong to both of you."
Wei Changze smiles bitterly.
"Not in the way we want, A-Mian." He kisses Jiang Fengmian's cheek. "Not in the way that matters."
It always was never enough.
Even when she thinks it is, even when she hopes it is, it always was never enough.
Ang Cangse Sanren is so, so tired of never being enough.
A-Li was there when they were leaving.
It was night, way past her bedtime, but she says she felt something was wrong, and she cannot sleep, so she went out to look and finds her Wei-bobo and Cangse-gugu.
She sees them outside the gates. Jiang Fengmian was not with them. They decided it was better to leave when he was asleep.
They have already said their goodbyes.
"Wei-bobo and Cangse-gugu leaving?"
She looks at A-Li, the daughter of the man they love, and feels nothing but regret.
She could have been theirs.
Wei Changze pats A-Li's head, not unlike the way he would pat her father's head when they were younger, and the words sect leader and servant did not matter. He crouches down to her height and offers her a quick hug.
"Yes, princess." He answers. "Cangse-gugu and I will go out and hunt monsters to keep you safe."
"Oh. Is A-die going with you?"
This time, it was she who squats down and hugs A-Li.
"Not this time, A-Li." She kisses A-Li's cheeks, rubs it under her thumbs. A-Li's eyes were just like her father's. "A-die has to stay here and protect you."
A-Li pouts, but she is Jiang Fengmian's child through and through. She does not make a fuss and only nods her head.
Cangse Sanren smiles at her once last time. "You should go back to bed, sweetheart."
"When will you be back, Cangse-gugu?"
Wei Changze helps her to stand up and keeps her hand in his. "We will come back when all the monsters are gone and not a moment too soon." He answers for her.
He knows she cannot get past the sob that threatens to come out of her mouth to answer.
Jiang Yanli, sweet, sweet Yanli, trusts the words of her uncle and smiles her sweet toothy smile.
That was the last image they saw in Lotus Pier before they left and never came back.
Wei Ying came into their lives, and he slowly started to heal their broken hearts.
Wei Ying was theirs, hers and Wei Changze. A fruit born out of their love and a promise fulfilled, although not fully.
When they left Lotus Pier, they became rogue cultivators and did not, in any way, continue to keep contact with Jiang Fengmian.
They both decided it was for the best.
It will only hurt them more if they do.
So Jiang Fengmian does not know about their child, their Wei Ying.
But news travels fast in the cultivation world, and they hear about the birth of Yunmeng Jiang Sect leader's son five days after Wei Ying's birth.
Wei Changze and Cangse Sanren are glad they have Wei Ying.
It is easier to forget the pain of their broken hearts when taking care of a newborn.
Wei Changze is dead.
So she would be, not too long now.
Her golden core was gone, and she does not believe she can survive how much blood she has lost.
Wei Changze is dead, and Cangse Sanren would soon join him in death.
Wei Ying, her lovely, wonderful son, would be left with no parents and no one to take care of him.
Her A-Ying, abandoned just like she was.
Only, it was to protect him from a much miserable death.
Which is what awaits her child if no one finds him on time.
'Please, if there is anyone out there who can hear, find our Wei Ying.'
They did not have much time. They did not expect to get ambushed passing through Mount Yu Jun.
It has been more than three moons since Wei Ying has been born, and they have been traveling north ever since. Far away from Yunmeng, quite literally leaving everything in the past behind.
Locals said that Mount Yu Jun had been a comparatively peaceful mountain for as long as they could remember, with only a few stray fierce corpses that come and go from the Unclean Realm a few days away from here.
They were only supposed to be passing by and fight the corpse they encounter along the way.
But they came, killing intent so palpable, Cangse Sanren immediately hid her son swaddled in a crimson blanket inside a tree trunk as her instincts shoved her in action.
"Why is he here?" She asked, frantic, fear gnawing deep in her bones. "Why is he here? How did he find us?"
Wei Changze, seeing the imminent danger they were about to face, took out his Yunmeng Jiang's bell and tucked it safely against Wei Ying's chest.
"We'll protect, Wei Ying, A-Se." He leaned down to kiss the hand of their child, face grim with determination. "We will."
Cangse Sanren bites her lips, refraining her tears from falling before falling to her knees and kissing their son's forehead for what may be the last time. She pulls her red ribbon from her hair and hastily ties it around her son's wrist, tears clouding her vision.
They only had a second of professing their love to their son before she began to seal Wei Ying with her strongest concealing talismans.
She can feel her life slipping away with her consciousness as the last memory she had with their son flashes through her mind.
She can barely breathe with all the blood in her mouth and lungs.
Wei Changze is dead.
Cangse Sanren is good as dead.
Wei Ying, her sweet Wei Ying, might die tonight, too.
Who knows if anyone would be able to find them here deep in the mountain?
What if no one will come?
Will their Wei Ying die pitifully inside the tree, crying his heart out when he wakes and finds no one to take care of him?
The thought alone makes her cry hard in her heart.
She cannot die yet. She cannot leave their child there alone.
But she cannot do anything else.
She can barely open her eyes.
So she prays.
"Do you believe in gods, child?"
She remembers her master asked her once.
She cannot recall what she answered.
She just remembered her master laughing at what she did say.
"Remember, child. They may not have been glorious as they were during the days of old, but that does not mean that they are not there anymore."
"Do you believe in gods, master?"
Baoshan Sanren hums, her voice like bells tinkling in the summer breeze. "I prayed to no one once and got my prayers answered."
"Was it a god who answered your prayer, master?"
She remembers her master patting her head, her silver hair glistening under the afternoon sun as she smiles.
But what comes after, Cangse Sanren does not hear.
She hopes anyone who can hear her prayer answers her.
Anyone.
'Please, if there is anyone out there who can hear, find our Wei Ying.'
'Our sweet little A-Ying.'
'Please let him live.'
'Grant him the chance to live.'
It was both.
To love too much and to die with that love was the price.
And Cangse Sanren learns how heavy the burden of such price was.