grant a name to a buried and burning flame (MDZS)
Wen Xu finds him in Yiling.
At first, he does not think much of what he mistakes for a pile of rags laid out next to a building.
He passes by him, swearing under his breath at his little brother’s audacity. Wen Chao is twelve and somehow thinks it is old enough to escape supervision and head to the nearest brothel that would have him. As Nightless City and the surrounding Wen territories rightfully consider bearing their father’s displeasure to be a fate worse than death, no one will serve him there before he is properly married to the general’s daughter Wen Ruohan has promised him to. His idiotic brother had a brilliant idea to go where he will not be recognised, and so Wen Xu must drag him back before someone notices his absence. The little worm isn’t even cleared for night hunts yet.
And so, Wen Xu is here, in this backwater place stinking of resentful energy, and he would not have paused for the street rat hidden under dirt and torn clothing if he had not felt him circulating spiritual energy. It makes him pause. He turns.
His bodyguard, the useful hindrance that is Wen Lin, turns with him. Wen Xu tilts his head. The man approaches the pile of rags and reveals the child underneath it, dirt-smeared and pitiful.
Wen Xu has no pity left in him, but those eyes...
“Wei Changse,” he murmurs.
Flashes of a held-out hand, of concerned eyes and a reassuring smile fill his vision.
Wen Lin tenses. He remembers Wen Xu’s... outburst at the announcement of the man’s death. His wing of the palace is still under reconstruction.
“You know Baba?” asks the little boy, losing some of the fear in his gaze. “Is he coming to get A-Ying?”
“I knew him,” says Wen Xu. “A long time ago.”
He can’t bring himself to say more.
He turns back to Wen Lin. “Xiao Xiongdi can wait. Take him to an inn and have him bathed. To anyone who asks, he is my son.”
***
Wen Chao whines endlessly when he and Wei Ying are introduced, but his older brother’s expression is firm enough to dissuade him from further complaints. He has other things to worry about; his sword instructor blabbed, hoping to curry favour. Father is displeased.
Upon learning about Wei Ying, their father only hums.
“Sect Leader Jiang has been looking for this child for a year,” he only says.
Wen Xu sneers. “He must not have looked for very long. Everyone knew Cangse Sanren and her husband died close to the Burial Mounds. It must not have been a stretch to think their child would be somewhere in the nearest city.”
Wen Ruohan concedes the point. He does not care. The opinions of the Sects, Great or otherwise, are irrelevant to him. Rather, it would please him to show off Wei Ying to Jiang Fengmian, adorned in the white and red of his sect, and dare the man to say anything.
“You wish to add this child to my line,” he says after a beat of silence.
Wen Xu nods. He holds himself carefully still and does not make the mistake of holding a sleeping Wei Ying closer to him. He will not show care for this child until his father has given his approval. If the Sect Leader should refuse and instead make him a regular disciple, the vultures will surround him instantly, seeking to leverage the child against Wen Xu, emboldened by the fact that he does not have the Sect Leader’s favour.
Wen Xu doubts he will not be able to make his case. But one is never too sure, in the treacherous halls of Nightless City, full of grasping hands, bladed smiles, and obsequious bows.
“I planned to leave Xiao Xiongdi to fulfil our filial duty, but he does not have enough brain to impart anything worthwhile to our lineage, Fuqin.”
It says a lot about the reports Wen Ruohan gets from their instructors that their father does not even refute him.
“And you think this can be solved by making a child not of our blood Wen-san-gongzi? Adopting promising cultivators into distant branches is one thing, Xu’er. This is not what you are proposing.”
"Blood isn’t everything.”
His little brother is proof of this, and Wen Xu does not like him or his mother enough to shield him from this truth. He does not forget that his father’s least favourite concubine – until she gave him a son, that is – had laughed when his mother, the Madame of the Sect, died birthing a stillborn daughter. Wen Chao and he have a tacit understanding; he never mentions his mother still lives, and Wen Xu graciously pretends she doesn’t.
Ensuring Wen Chao does not lose them face is his responsibility as the Sect Heir; he does not have to like it. And should Father give him any indication that he has resigned himself to considering Wen Chao a lost cause, Wen Xu will drop him without a second thought.
“If I raise him and shape him to be my son, he shall be no one else’s. His might as a cultivator will be forged by my hand, his will by my word. Didn’t you say it yourself, Father? If I want it, it shall be mine, because the world is yours to give away.”
His father looks more awake than he ever has. Wen Xu does not smile.
He knew his father would like that.
“Very well. Wen Ying shall bow to our ancestors and join our family.”
Wen Xu bows. “Thank you, Father.”