Chapter Text
He plays ‘Inquiry’ on his guqin, every night when his injuries could let him, and sometimes when bedridden, to call for that precious soul.
Over a decade has passed and there is no response.
He is about to end another night of 'Inquiry' when the strings move by themselves and he wait. with stilted breathing.
But it is not the one he’s looking for.
‘Lan Wangji.’
‘Do you want to redo everything and see your precious person again?’ the voice asks him.
‘Even if you were to become a villain? ‘
Lan Zhan mind is in dilemma over the prospect and the mysterious voice’s words.
{Who are you?}
‘I have been listening to you play...all these years. ‘
‘ consider this… as divine intervention,,,your inquiry has reached the heavens ‘
‘ But there is a price to pay..’
{ I accept.}
A cold shiver runs through him as if drowning him
‘ So be it. ‘
The room spins around his. The jingshi twirls until it fades to white miasma.
When the motion stops his feet is planted on ground and he is standing, a mirror in front of him. The room he was in and the guqin are gone.
Instead of his inner robes he wears the Wen’s red and white robes. When he stares into the mirror his eyes widens.
Lan Zhan comes into the uncomfortable realization that he has traveled back to the past...
..in Wen Chao's body.
He looks into the mirror. It isn't a bad-looking face but it’s not his own. And Wei Ying had always been the type who preferred the pretty types. How else could he seduce his wife! Lan Zhan despairs.
Lan Zhan wonders how he can get away with two of him existing at the present. Wouldn’t the simultaneous existence of two souls of the same person cause a rift?
He gets his answer later when he hears of the burning of the Cloud Recesses. In this reality it is Lan Wangji who is critically injured instead of his father, the sect leader Qinghen-jun. A few days later he dies from the burns.
It’s the exact day when Lan Wangji from the future appeared in this body.
Even this far away, he can feel the hot whipping of flames against his skin. The terrors shake him as he recalls the helplessness as his home burnt down and how he couldn't save anyone, anything.
This time, he vows, he will change things for the better.
After a few weeks Qishanwen will call for the sects to send their best disciples as hostages.
Lan Zhan, now Wen Chao, begins to plan to save his loved ones.
“Wen Chao.. you’ve haven’t been paying attention to me..”
“...”
But first he has to get rid of this woman.
He still has nightmares from when he woke up one day with the woman’s hands down his inner robes. Lan Zhan shivers.