Work Text:
Lan Qiren poured himself another cup of tea. He let the steam waft up pleasantly, slightly bitter, like all good Gusu teas. He let a small smile cross over his face. This day was turning out well enough, and there hadn’t been enough tranquil days since -
A shriek cut through his mild musings. Lan Qiren’s face darkened. He didn’t even need to look up to know who it was. “Wei Wuxian!” he bellowed. The boy was a nightmare.
There was another shriek, this one of much lesser volume but higher pitch. Someone propelled Wei Wuxian into a kneeling position in front of him. Looking up, he wasn’t surprised to see it was the boy’s own adopted brother, Jiang Wanyin. The heir to Lotus Pier had a sense of propriety, after all.
The boy in front of him had his head bowed, but there was still a smile showing his gleaming teeth. Lan Qiren shuddered. He so often looked like his mother; she had borne the same smile, often directly before her own scolding.
He sighed, and assigned the boy more lines to write, extending the hours he’d have to spend in the library pavilion under the strict eye of Wangji. He made a note to tell his nephew that Wei Wuxian’s punishment had been extended by another small chapter of the book.
At least one of the children of his generation had turned out well, Lan Qiren thought. Wangji was on his way to being an upstanding cultivator, strict and controlled without being utterly heartless. If they were lucky, he wouldn’t repeat either of his parent’s mistakes.
Wei Wuxian bowed, and then left. Lan Qiren wasn’t surprised when, only a few minutes later, he heard more noise - this time laughter.
He frowned, steepling his fingers beneath his chin. Wei Wuxian was a problem, and he carried a great distaste for the boy. Not because of his boisterousness - no, he had lived with that before, with Cangse Sanren, who had been worse than her son if only because her liveliness had been directed at him, rather than passively harming him. No, Wei Wuxian was distasteful due to his talent.
Lan Qiren let the thought float through his mind that perhaps a lesser teacher might be jealous of the boy’s natural talent, but that was not it either, for envy was against the Lan principles, and Lan Qiren would never envy someone who lived with that thick of a face.
Lan Qiren disliked the boy because he had talent, but he refused to turn it into skill, refused to develop it into anything that would make him great in the future, and Lan Qiren considered it almost his duty to make any of the young men and women who came under his tutelage into better people than they were before they arrived.
But Wei Wuxian shrugged off his punishments, and continued to throw notes - often in the form of papermen, a frivolous use of his admittedly strong golden core - and whisper and joke and make up ridiculous suggestions.
It was because he was bored, and Lan Qiren knew that. Wei Wuxian knew all the answers to everything Lan Qiren could ask him, even the more difficult political or night-hunt related questions only taking him a few minutes to think through.
Lan Qiren often longed to push him harder, make him think of more, just to see where that mind could go, but he could not do so in front of the class. No one would believe that he would show favouritism towards a student he openly disliked, but it was better to not even toe the line there.
At least , he thought to himself, frowning slightly , the boy completes his punishments .
It was true. When under the strict watch of Lan Qiren’s youngest nephew, Wei Wuxian completed his copying at a decent speed, although the noise emerging from the library pavilion was often louder than Lan Qiren would like. He did not blame Wangji for being unable to control his peer - the boy was a wildfire. Control was not something he would ever understand.
But if being watched by his nephew meant Wei Wuxian completed at least some work…
Hm. He had a plan for the next lecture.
He seated Wangji and Wei Wuxian at the same desk. He could see the dislike forming on his nephew’s face as the other boy settled in closer than necessary, half sprawled out, his white robes encroaching on Wangji’s.
Lan Qiren cleared his throat. “Wangji.”
“Mn?” his nephew hummed, glancing up respectfully.
“Take note of each of Wei Wuxian’s wrongdoings. At the end, he will stand and recite that number of Lan Sect Principles, in order, from the beginning.”
Wei Wuxian shrieked, and opened his mouth to complain.
“You have been copying them, have you not?” Lan Qiren cut him off. “You should know at least the first few by now.”
“Yes, yes,” Wei Wuxian said, “Do not talk to Wei Ying, do not eat bunnies, so and so forth.”
Lan Qiren glared at him, only matched in his intensity by his nephew, who was doing the same from the other side of the boy.
He opened his mouth to speak, but Wangj got there first. “One,” he said, crisp and clear.
Wei Wuxian blinked. “Eh? Lan Zhan!”
Lan Qiren ground his teeth at the familiar term, only to stop in surprise when Wangji merely turned his head to meet Wei Wuxian’s upset gaze, and said, firmly, “Wei Ying.”
Wei Wuxian subsided and turned to his ink stick, preparing for the lesson for… perhaps the first time since he arrived.
Lan Qiren refused to let any expression show, but that was… interesting, to say the least.
Wei Wuxian was better behaved in that lesson than he had ever been before, and Wangji, as usual, did not speak. Still, Wei Wuxian’s posture declined over the course of the lecture until he was practically slumped against the rigid form of Lan Qiren’s nephew. Lan Qiren sighed. Oh, the things he put Wangji through… but at least this one seemed to have worked.
“Wangji. What is the number?”
“Fifty-four.”
Wei Wuxian groaned.
Lan Qiren beckoned him with a finger. “Stand and recite.” That had been… more than he was expecting, and this was one of Wei Wuxian’s better lectures.
Wangji spoke again, this time for no reason, which was basically unheard of. “I included every time Wei Ying disturbed another student.”
Lan Qiren furrowed his brows. The boy had not sent off any obvious notes, and had remained more discrete in his whispers to Nie Huaisang and Jiang Wanyin than normal.
The insolent boy slammed his head into the desk. “I didn’t poke you that much, Lan Zhan!”
Lan Qiren’s face returned to a passive glare. Of course the boy had attempted to distract his nephew. Of course he had. It was just as well Wangji already knew all of the coursework. He had truly been at this level for years, and it was only out of courtesy to the other clans that he participated in the lectures. Xichen had done the same, when he had been Wangji’s age. Xichen had never had such disruptive classmates, however.
Wangji wore a facial expression that strongly implied Wei Wuxian had, indeed, poked him quite frequently. Lan Qiren was not surprised by this. He was surprised by the way Wei Wuxian squinted at the face, and then shook his head, as if he half understood it.
He stood, flattening one hand behind his back, and moved the other in front of his face, as if he was stroking an invisible goatee. Lan Qiren’s face darkened imperceptibly, and across the room, Nie Huaisang gasped, hiding his face behind his ever-present fan.
“Fifty-five,” Wangji said, tone angry.
Wei Wuxian’s shoulders slumped comically, but he recovered quickly, beginning to rattle off the rules with a surprising accuracy. He made it to fifty-five faster than most of the youngest disciples could manage, not an error to be heard.
Lan Qiren frowned. He had hoped that calling the boy out in front of the class would make him stumble or at least feel some shame upon his inevitable failure to remember the rules he had copied, but he had not made a mistake.
“Continue,” Lan Qiren bit out.
Wei Wuxian rolled his eyes, but complied. As he rattled off rule after rule, Lan Qiren grew angrier and angrier. Of course he knew the rules. He knew the most important ones, the ones at the start, off by heart.
He just willfully refused to obey.
Lan Qiren could accept half of his level of rule breaking from someone like Nie Huaisang, a boy with little spine and even less of a head for memorisation, but from a young man with this level of intelligence and memory?
This was unacceptable.
Wei Wuxian stopped again once he reached one hundred. His classmates had begun to be restless, held in the lecture pavilion for longer than usual.
Lan Qiren dismissed them, all bar Wei Wuxian. Wangji stood and walked out as well, unaware as to Wei Wuxian’s trailing gaze. Lan Qiren frowned.
He gestured to the boy to keep reciting. He was well past one thousand, still spitting out the disciplines rapid-fire, when Lan Qiren felt the hangings behind him shift.
Xichen moved through, hands clasped neatly behind him, as always. He took in the scene in front of him, bowed to Lan Qiren, and then retreated.
Twenty disciplines later, he reappeared, Wangji beside him. They stood in silence as Wei Wuxian continued, rattling off the disciplines that took most disciples years of quiet reflection and dedication to memorise.
Once he reached the two thousandth principle, Wangji spoke up. “Shufu, this is all he has copied.”
Lan Qiren frowned, then gestured sharply for Wei Wuxian to stop, some of his words starting to stumble as he reached the precepts he was unfamiliar with.
“I cannot imagine that you will cease receiving lines as punishment,” he told Wei Wuxian, and the boy had the decency to look halfway ashamed. Everyone knew that he would not start behaving. “Once you have finished copying the principles and can recite them like this, I will select more texts for you to copy.”
Wei Wuxian groaned.
Lan Qiren was suppressing a smile. He could not challenge the boy in the lectures, but he could force him to copy more advanced texts, and the Lan library certainly had more advanced works than the library at Lotus Pier, had the boy even deigned to enter it. He would force the boy to learn something.
“Dismissed,” he told Wei Wuxian.
The boy pouted, and Lan Qiren felt his earlier anger spike once more. “No words of praise for this disciple?”
In truth the boy had done better than Lan Qiren had expected, but that had only furthered his disappointment in Wei Wuxian’s dedication to wasting his potential. “None.”
“Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian asked, drawling out the last sound much longer than necessary.
Lan Qiren did not turn to his nephew to await the answer, but he did pay attention.
“Wei Ying did as expected.”
Wei Wuxian pouted, not seeming to realise that that was, in itself, high praise. As he left the room, Lan Qiren turned to Wangji. There was not a trace of dishonesty on his face.
Xichen hummed. “As expected?”
Wangji made the verbal equivalent of a shrug. “Wei Ying learns easily.”
Lan Qiren found himself frowning. “And yet, he disobeys the rules he so clearly knows.”
Xichen gave a soft laugh, smiling. “It is in his nature, Shufu.”
Lan Qiren could not disagree, but the disobedience rankled him. “I am sorry for forcing you to spend time with him, Wangji.”
Wangji inclined his head. For some reason, Xichen smiled even more brightly.
As expected, Wei Wuxian continued to break rules that he knew. As also expected, Lan Qiren and the other senior disciples continued to assign him copious amounts to copy. He finished the Lan principles, and Lan Qiren supplied Lan Wangji with titles of works for him to copy as he completed the previous ones.
It was a slight surprise when Wangji approached him one afternoon. “Shufu,” he greeted, bowing. “Wei Wuxian seems to be… enjoying his punishment more.”
Now that , he thought, was interesting. “What do you mean?”
“He has stopped being a disturbance and started studying. Yesterday, he finished copying, but continued reading.”
Lan Qiren smiled. “As I half expected. What is he reading?”
“A treatise on musical cultivation. The last one was a study on variation of nighthunting practices across sects.”
Lan Qiren nodded. “Show him where they are kept in the library. Do not say I suggested it.”
Xichen had approached and made his greetings. “I see your plan has come to fruition, Shufu?”
He nodded once more. Wangji turned a quizzical eye on them both.
“He is learning something new,” Lan Qiren explained to his nephew. “The lectures are boring for him. With this punishment, I am forcing him to learn and do some work.”
Wangji nodded.
“Tell me, Wangji,” Xichen said, “Does he ever discuss what he is reading?”
Wangji nodded again, and Xichen smiled, prompting him to speak. “He reads the most interesting parts out loud.”
They could all read between the lines there - Wei Wuxian, sprawled in the library, shouting the interesting passages across to a properly-seated Lan Wangji.
“And you reply?”
“When necessary.”
Xichen hummed thoughtfully. “Young Wei-gongzi will be a fine cultivator,” he remarked.
Lan Qiren did not fail to see the red tipping his younger nephew’s ears. He frowned, and was going to carefully inquire when he was interrupted.
“Lan Zhan! Lan Zhan!”
Wei Wuxian skidded to a halt, panting and grinning. His eyes widened with shock, and then he executed hasty bows. Xichen smiled, and greeted him in turn. Lan Qiren nodded shortly.
“Apologies,” he said quickly, then turned to Wangji, grabbing his wrist. “Lan Zhan! I found something about the shen and how best to counter the shell-”
His babbling faded into the distance as he, half-dragging Wangji, skipped away from Lan Qiren and Xichen.
“No running!” Lan Qiren called after them, half-heartedly. A half-gleeful promise of twenty more copied pages drifted back to him, but he sighed. In all likeliness, Wei Wuxian was planning on copying those pages anyway.
Xichen was still smiling. “It is no longer a punishment,” he said.
Lan Qiren nodded. “I no longer know how to punish his minor misendeavours. Corporal punishment is too severe, and he now takes joy in the copying. He is seeking out more books in his spare time.”
Xichen hummed. “You have made quite the scholar of him.”
Lan Qiren held back a snort. It would not be seemly. “That boy could not be scholarly if he tried.”
“How is he in lectures?”
“Quieter.”
Xichen raised an eyebrow. That could not be the end of the story. “Why?”
Lan Qiren sighed. “He has been smuggling in books from the library pavilion to read underneath his desk.”
Xichen laughed, softly and briefly. “As I should have expected. His other lessons?”
Lan Qiren frowned. “His golden core is well cultivated. He continually misbehaves in sword classes, however. He shows no respect to the conductors and will only complete the bare minimum asked.”
Xichen hummed. “Wangji had a high opinion of his swordsmanship, when they sparred.”
It was hard to keep the frown from deepening. That rascal had drawn his perfect nephew into a fight. “He does not even try in classes, the masters there report.”
“Shall we observe his next class, then?”
Lan Qiren thought about it. The boy’s swordsmanship was not his direct responsibility, but he felt for the seniors having to instruct him, and he was the one overseeing the program. He was fortunate in having found a way to temper the boy’s energy and rebellious nature into something constructive in his academic learning. It would be good to see if he could find a way to do the same for his sword skills.
They did attend Wei Wuxian’s next swordsmanship class, remaining inconspicuously behind the hedges that surrounded the training arena. The groups of white-clad juniors moved in perfect lines, swords moving in time with the instructor’s call.
Lan Qiren had expected Wei Wuxian to be sloppily throwing in extra steps or flourishes, being a nuisance. The moves they were learning were a combination of the typical moves of the five major sects, giving none of the guest cultivators an advantage or disadvantage in training, but teaching them things that would be useful in the battlefield, and there were certainly opportunities for foolish embellishments.
Lan Qiren did not expect to see Wei Wuxian’s sloppy grip and almost-correct motions. He was good, yes, but not as good as one would expect from someone whose swordsmanship Lan Wangji had spoken well of. With skill like the one he was displaying, he would get fellow cultivators killed. He would not quite be a weak link, not like the young Nie boy, but he would not be an asset, and Lan Qiren could not let that stand for the son of one of the most talented swordswomen he had ever met.
Lan Qiren observed closely. Wei Wuxian was performing at a level slightly worse than Jiang Cheng. It seemed Xichen had noticed the same, as he pointed out how Jiang Cheng’s moves mirrored those of his mother’s, but he was weakened without the second weapon - the whip - that she had carried in battle, and the gaps in her defence that she would fill with it were not filled in his.
At their next break, Lan Qiren strode down the stone steps. He beckoned Wei Wuxian over. “Show me your grip.”
The boy blinked in surprise, and then held up his sword. Lan Qiren peered at his hands. They were… perfectly correct. “Stance?”
Also correct. He directed Wei Wuxian through the moves they had just been practicing, making sure he could feel the weight and heat of Lan Qiren’s glare at all times, then frowned. The boy was not perfect, no, but he was nowhere near as sloppy as he had been in the group practice.
Lan Qiren beckoned his nephews over. “Wangji?”
Wangji studied the other boy intensely for a moment before replying. “Wei Ying should remember that he is not at Lotus Pier.”
Wei Wuxian flinched, and Lan Qiren’s frown deepened. “What?” Wei Wuxian said, eventually. The word wasn’t quite even.
Wangji hummed. “Does Wei Ying not remember all the things he says?”
“What - what? No, of course I don’t! Lan Zhan! I didn’t know you actually listened to my ramblings! Aw, Lan Zhan! I knew you liked me more than you said!”
They all knew that he was merely covering his discomfort by trying to make Wangji more uncomfortable. Wangji ignored the teasing. “Wei Ying said that he often misbehaves and underperforms in group training and then practices properly away from Madame Yu.”
Wei Wuxian flinched again, his gaze sliding to Jiang Wanyin, who was wiping his forehead on the other side of the training ground. Jiang Wanyin, who was performing slightly better than Wei Wuxian. Jiang Wanyin, who looked more tired and sweaty than Wei Wuxian. Jiang Wanyin, the heir of Lotus Pier.
Lan Qiren nodded, understanding. The Purple Spider was not a forgiving woman, especially not to those of her own blood. “Stop slacking,” he told Wei Wuxian. “It is disgraceful.” The chance to learn something under a proper instructor should not be wasted by forcing the instructor to correct flaws that did not exist. A cultivator could not train properly on their own.
Wei Wuxian tilted his head and grinned, but he nodded.
When the teacher called start again, there was marked instant improvement. Wei Wuxian was moving in time, his stance and grip just shy of perfect, his sword almost an extension of his arm.
Watching him, Lan Qiren could see the potential he had seen in the lecture halls. He nodded once, imagined the boy’s improvement over the coming weeks now that he had a chance to correct actual shortcomings, watched Wangji performing the same moves gracefully, and then left.
The teachers of the class came to him the next day to report steady progress in the students, bar Wangji and Wei Wuxian. Wangji, who had been performing these forms near-perfectly before he could lift a proper sword and had by then reached mastery, and Wei Wuxian, whose progress had accelerated at an astonishing rate. The teachers did not gush over him, because they were Lans, but they came close.
Lan Qiren nodded once, privately pleased. He would turn this boy into a cultivator worthy of his parents’ legacies, even if he had to deal with the occasional ringing in his ears from the noise.
“When they spar,” he instructed the swords masters, “always pair him with Wangji.”
One of the instructors took a sharp inhale. “With all due respect, he has only shown improvement in the latter half of this one lesson. The improvement may not stay. We do not know if he will withstand your nephew, even if he improves steadily over the weeks before they begin sparring.”
Lan Qiren shook his head. “They have duelled before. Wangji said he was good. Wei Wuxian has been fooling you.”
They still eyed him dubiously.
“Pair them the first time. If you are unconvinced, change it for the next.”
They nodded, still looking slightly concerned, and then gave their farewells.
Despite his statements about Wei Wuxian, or perhaps because of them, Lan Qiren showed up to watch the first lesson where the students were allowed to duel. He was unsurprised to see Xichen there too, and he joined his nephew in lurking behind the hedges in a way entirely unbecoming of a sect leader.
There was only enough space in the ring for two dueling pairs, due to the range of movement needed.
“Standard rules,” the instructors stated. “To first blood or yielding.”
For whatever reason - perhaps the swordsmasters were eager to get it over with in case there was a large fallout - Wangji and Wei Wuxian were one of the first pairs.
“Standard rules?” he whined.
“En.”
“Do we have to?”
Lan Wangji hesitated enough for it to be taken as doubt.
“Flying, limited to the buildings we can see right now, not to first blood?”
Lan Wangji took a sharp breath, mirrored by his elder brother. “To what?” Wangji asked, cautiously, effectively confirming the rest.
Wei Wuxian grinned, delightedly. “To first yield!”
Wangji appeared to consider this, and then nodded. “Passing out counts as yielding.”
“Aw, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian teased, “I promise I’ll catch you!”
Wangji shook his head. “Agree.”
Wei Wuxian nodded. “Yes, yes, I agree. Now, can we start?”
The trainers and the other pair were waiting for them impatiently. Jiang Yanli had her hand over her mouth.
As they took their ready stances, the seniormost trainer rang the bell to signal the start of the match, and Wei Wuxian leapt for Wangji.
It was… astonishing, how well they fought together. From the distance he was at, all Lan Qiren could see was flashing blades, meeting each other strike for strike, counter for counter.
Wei Wuxian feigned to Wangji’s left, and Wangji didn’t even sway out of the way. He had known exactly where it would go, and Wei Wuxian barely leant back in time to avoid Bichen thrusting unceremoniously through his throat.
Someone in the audience gasped.
Wei Wuxian was almost parallel to the ground as Bichen retreated back to guard position, and he used that to spring into a backflip, landing a short distance behind his original position. Wei Wuxian blew the hair out of his face with an annoyed huff.
Lan Wangji lifted up into the air, and an instant later they were a white blur again, steel clashing against steel. Wei Wuxian almost landed a blow, but Lan Wangji sprung out of the way, turning it into a neat mid-air roll.
Wei Wuxian laughed, launching himself onto the nearest rooftop. Eyes narrowing, Lan Wangji followed.
“Just like old times, Lan Zhan!”
Lan Qiren checked to make sure his mouth was not hanging open. His nephews were both exquisite swordsmen. He had never seen anyone except the masters or his brother force Wangji through his paces like this, and the dueling pair moved like they were dancing, like they were one amalgamated being.
There were still things he would correct, of course - Wei Wuxian thrust once when he would have had a better chance slicing, and Wangji placed a foot on part of the roof that slid away and barely managed to turn his fall into a jump - but overall, they were both exceptional warriors.
They did not need time to feel out each other’s defenses, like the other dueling pair on the ground below them. They simply fought, with a ferocity and intensity Lan Qiren had rarely glimpsed in his nephew’s face.
No one in the court was watching the other duelers. They were focused, trainers included, on the masterclass that Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian were putting on. One of the masters even started to provide a commentary in a hushed tone. “See how he balances on one leg as he pushes forward? Wei Wuxian is forced to lean back and lose even more balance himself, as combating that direct thrust would be too hard.”
Wei Wuxian used his scabbard to parry Bichen, the two staying locked together, Lan Wangji continuing to bear down on the slightly smaller boy’s grip. Wei Wuxian let out a grunt of surprise as Lan Wangji whipped his own scabbard overhead, a perfect arc aiming for Wei Wuxian’s head, parried gracelessly by Suibian.
Lan Qiren smiled slightly. His nephew had an upper hand, and the student he had spent so much time on showed significant improvement.
Then Wei Wuxian dropped to the ground and slid , straight between Lan Wangji’s legs, spread in his balanced stance, and barely avoided tugging his robes. Bichen’s blade followed him, sharp and deadly, as Lan Wangji executed a perfect leaping twist underneath himself, just as Wei Wuxian launched himself back to standing, Suibian raised.
They stood there, swords held neatly to each other’s throats. Suibian wavered slightly, but Bichen was steady.
Wei Wuxian grinned. “Do you yield?”
Lan Wangji stepped closer, using his superior height and reach to press Bichen directly to Wei Wuxian’s neck. “Do you?”
Wei Wuxian was still grinning as he swallowed, the movement of his throat scraping it against the sword. A thin red line trickled down his neck, and Wei Wuxian swiped at it with his unoccupied hand, making a face as he saw the blood. There wasn’t much, just a thin, quickly-congealing line down his index finger. He looked at the stain, rubbing it with the other fingers on that hand. When that didn’t make a difference, he went to shrug but aborted the movement halfway due to the sword at his throat. He stuck his index finger inside his mouth, and it emerged a second later, blood-free and shiny with spit which he wiped off on his clean white robes.
Lan Qiren shook his head. “Disgusting,” he muttered.
Lan Xichen sounded strangled. “Look at Wangji.”
Lan Qiren looked. There was something foreign on Wangji’s face - oh.
Oh.
Oh no .
He’d seen that look on the face of Lan clan members before. It never ended well. The last time… the last time had ended with a lonely house surrounded by gentians and two nephews growing up without parents.
Lan Qiren shook his head. “ No ,” he breathed, and for a second, he was saying the same thing to his own brother, two decades in the past.
He jerked himself back to watch the proceedings. Perhaps… perhaps Wangji could be saved his father’s fate. Perhaps this was mere lust, to be expected at his age. Perhaps this was as far as it would go.
Wei Wuxian pulled a face at the taste of the blood, then chanced a look at Lan Wangji. There was confusion there, and something unfamiliar. He shrugged - mentally; he’d learned his lesson - and then used the distraction to inch closer, turning his neck to face Bichen but shifting the rest of his body, and rested Suibian against the pale column of Lan Wangji’s throat.
Lan Wangji focused his gaze on him, and Wei Wuxian was suddenly breathless for a reason other than the one drawing ragged pants from both of them. “Yield?” he asked, voice tight for that unknown reason.
“I accept your yield,” Lan Wangji said smoothly, pushing the trembling sword slightly away from his neck and sheathing Bichen.
“I- what? Lan Zhan, I didn’t yield!”
Lan Wangji ran a finger along the still-raised blade in front of him. “Didn’t you?”
And with that, he stepped close into Wei Wuxian’s space, gripped him smoothly by the shoulders, and launched them both off the roof. They landed roughly in the training ring, Wei Wuxian letting out a startled huff as all the air was forced from his body. Lan Wangji was still on top of him, pinning him to the ground with his weight, and he had maneuvered Wei Wuxian’s own sword to be resting horizontally against Wei Wuxian’s throat.
Wei Wuxian could feel the gentle puffs of his breath as Lan Wangji repeated the question, those dark eyes boring into his above the cool metal blade. “Didn’t you?”
Wei Wuxian gasped. “Ok. Ok, fine. I yield.”
Lan Wangji gave a satisfied smile, one for Wei Wuxian and Wei Wuxian alone, a mere tilting of his lips, and stood. Wei Wuxian reached out for the offered hand to pull himself upright. For some reason, his legs felt like jelly.
Back behind the shrubbery, Xichen let out a soft laugh. “Neither of them know what they are doing.”
Lan Qiren turned to him. “Neither?”
“Have you not seen how Wei Wuxian always sees Wangji first, out of anyone in a room?”
Lan Qiren thought, and then nodded. “There is nothing on the boy’s face, though.”
He took another look, and yes, all there was was that teasing grin as he tugged on Wangji’s sleeve… and confusion. Oh, that was it. “Because he hasn’t realised,” he said, finishing his own earlier statement.
Xichen nodded. “I wish them well,” he said, and left Lan Qiren to stew in his own thoughts.
On one hand, Lan Wangji was his beloved nephew, and Wei Wuxian was… Wei Wuxian. A rebel. A mischievous but smart rascal. A boy he’d turned into a decent cultivator, one who read things Wangji was interested in, one who could stand against Wangji in a fight and could stand beside him too, without being a liability. One who could almost read Wangji’s expressions - and that would come with time, now that it had started.
Lan Qiren shook his head. There was nothing substantial he could say against it, but he would try and prevent it from going the same way as his brother’s love had.
And one thing his brother had never had was… support from his family. Wangji had Xichen’s support, but…
Lan Qiren caught Wangji’s eye as he strode out of the training area, and nodded.
He could take that as he would - Lan Qiren meant it in every way that could be conceived.
Please , he thought, turning away, let my nephew be happy .
The last thing he heard, fading into the distance as he walked away, was Wei Wuxian complaining to Nie Huaisang. “I was caught off guard when he grabbed Suibian! Had it been anyone else I would have slashed them instinctively but it was Lan Zhan and so - ”
Many years later
Lan Qiren pulled himself into waking, Sizhui’s face blurring into existence beside him. He spared him a reassuring grunt, then maneuvered himself upright. He shooed the boy out - it was sweet of him to care so much, but Lan Qiren had thinking to do and didn’t want to be distracted.
He remembered waking briefly in the summoning room, to see Wangji still kneeling before his guqin, and he knew he had heard flute music. It had turned awful the second he had moved, but he knew what he had heard.
He knew what he had seen, too. There had been that look on Wangji’s face - half agony, half hope, all absolute devotion. He'd seen that expression for years, on and off, most recently only when Wangji was tired, playing one particular song of his own composition, or dealing with reports of anything related to demonic cultivation or the Yiling Patriarch.
Lan Qiren knew that look, and he knew what it meant for Wangji to be wearing it in that situation.
Lan Qiren sighed. Wei Wuxian was back.
He had been glad that the two of them had never worked out whatever it was between them when Wei Wuxian had fallen into the teeth of demonic cultivation. And yet, Wangji had remained devoted. He had gone to Yiling, against direct orders. It had broken something in Lan Qiren to sentence him to kneeling reflection for the day, but he had to be seen to do something.
Wangji had misunderstood one thing, though. Lan Qiren had not been against Wei Wuxian, not since the day Wei Wuxian started learning something. He had been, however, strongly against demonic cultivation. So had Wangji, but Wangji’s love had been stronger than his dislike. Lan Qiren’s definitely had not been.
It had torn him apart when Wangji would not let him tend the wounds on his back, only allowing Xichen the task.
Even when they’d had nothing, even when Cloud Recesses had burned down around them, the three of them had had each other. And then… Wangji had not wanted him to be there, helping him heal. Wangji had not trusted him with that.
It had taken years to recover from that, years for the small boy tugging at Wangji’s sleeves to smile at Lan Qiren, years for Wangji to trust his uncle with his son.
But they had recovered. They had grown past that.
Lan Qiren breathed deeply, pushing past the deep anger and resentment that welled up inside him, all aimed at Wei Wuxian. It was not entirely the boy’s fault that their little family had been torn asunder.
But it was his fault that Wangji had been mourning for sixteen years, and Lan Qiren wasn’t sure if he was ready to forgive him for breaking his nephew’s heart.
As soon as he felt able, Lan Qiren called Xichen to him. “So he’s back,” he said, in lieu of a greeting.
Xichen hesitated.
Lan Qiren scoffed. “Xichen, I saw Wangji’s face and heard a flute. There is nothing else it could be.”
Xichen nodded. “Please don’t send him away.”
Scoffing again, Lan Qiren shook his head, then indicated Xichen. “I’m not the one that decision lies with. Besides, I’m sure they’ve already left to follow this new quest.”
Xichen nodded. “They have.”
Lan Qiren took more deep breaths to calm himself. “I will see them when they come back.”
Xichen nodded.
And that was how Lan Qiren found himself outside the Jingshi a few long weeks later, hand raised to knock. He laughed at himself internally. He’d rarely been as uncertain about something as he was about this.
Wangji opened the door before he could make up his mind properly. “Shufu,” he said, inclining his head. “Wei Ying is awake, but he has been given medication. I am unsure of his lucidity.”
Lan Qiren nodded, walking inside stiffly. Wangji had a hand on Bichen.
“I mean him no harm,” he said, softly, and his nephew relaxed slightly, the pain at the thought of fighting his uncle written clearly on his face.
When he entered the bedroom - alone, and that was a further sign of his nephew’s trust, a trust that he would not betray - Wei Wuxian was awake, smiling stupidly at the ceiling. He waved a hand at Lan Qiren as he entered. “Pardon me for not standing, but Lan Zhan has already told me off for moving too much.”
Lan Qiren bowed, and waved away his apologies. “I see you’re back,” he said, still soft.
Wei Wuxian let out a non committal hum. “Not really my choice. Some stupid guy decided he wanted a fierce ghost to go kill the people he hated, and he picked me, so I get a shiny new body.” He paused, and stared more intently at the ceiling. “As long as I kill them all. And all but one of them are dead and I didn’t even do it.” He raised his arm, shaking down his sleeve to reveal a gaping slice in his skin. “See? Only one left!”
Lan Qiren shook his head. “I see you’re back,” he said again, and then, with emphasis, “with my nephew.”
Wei Wuxian laughed. He really did sound slightly drunken, not quite aware of himself and his surrounds. “Yeah,” he said, the word long and drawling, unspooling softly from his mouth. “Lan Zhan’s my favourite, you know. He’s really great. Doesn’t even hate me after everything I did.”
Lan Qiren eyed him carefully, and saw nothing but honesty and sluggishness.
“Don’t hurt Wangji again,” he said, at long last. “I don’t think any of us could stand it.”
Wei Wuxian scrunched up his face. “Hurt Lan Zhan? Why would I want to do that? I’d never!”
He sat up suddenly, aghast. “Did I hurt him last time? I don’t remember much of the end. What did I do?”
Wangji rushed into the room, but Lan Qiren had already sped towards the bed, pushing Wei Wuxian gently back down by the shoulders. “Stop moving,” he told the insolent boy, but Wei Wuxian still looked panicked. Wangji soothed a hand over his forehead.
“Here,” Lan Qiren said, tapping over his own heart and hoping Wei Wuxian got his message, even through the haze of the pain medication.
The boy (for they were all still boys, to him, despite or perhaps because of what they had suffered) nodded slowly, head drooping as the panic left him. “That’s what Xichen-ge said too,” he said, like he had just realised something, before closing his eyes and sliding quickly into sleep.
Lan Qiren exchanged a glance with Lan Wangji, who looked just as stunned as he felt.
“Well,” he said, after a few shocked moments had passed, “I guess that’s something.”
He left before he had to look any longer at that besotted gaze Wangji wore. He loved his nephew, yes, but some things were too sickeningly sweet for him to handle for too long. It’d been almost two decades since Wei Wuxian first came to Cloud Recesses, but it seemed some things never changed.