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Nie Huaisang takes one look at the smile on Lan Xichen’s face and knows he’s going to die. He doesn’t mind.
No one knows of this smile except for him, and Nie Huaisang is flattered by it. He giggles like a maiden as Lan Xichen entertains him—just as they used to before everything fell apart in that temple.
If he’s going to die today, he might as well do the things he’s always wanted to do, so he shoves a cake into Lan Xichen’s mouth mid-sentence, and the Lan Sect Leader laughs in delight.
It’s been four weeks since Guanyin Temple, two weeks since Lan Xichen left seclusion, and no one else knows what to make of it—how should they respond to Lan Xichen’s serene smiles and calm words when they’d been certain he would waste away in seclusion just like his father?
Nie Huaisang wasn’t surprised—Lan Xichen isn’t his father, he’s more flexible. Nie Huaisang knows if he’d gone to his dear Second Brother about Jin Guangyao all those years ago, as soon as he’d garnered enough evidence, Lan Xichen would definitely have helped him—and Lan Xichen knows it, too. Nie Huaisang can tell from that smile, the one that would haunt his dreams if he were to live past today. Lan Xichen has come to the conclusion that Nie Huaisang deliberately left him in the dark—and he’s right—because he’s smart like that.
He’d only suspected he would die when he’d gotten Lan Xichen’s letter. For one moment, he bit his lip in panic, but then he realized—what did he have left to panic for? The only thing was his life, and it had never been precious in the first place. So he sent a letter back to Lan Xichen explaining he needed to get his affairs in order before he left (left for what? Lan Xichen knew very well) and his Second Brother agreed.
Now he’s here, and he can already feel everything outside the Hanshi fading away. None of it matters now—just the man sitting across from him. There are a few things left that he wants to do, and he needs Lan Xichen to do them. First, he says, “Second Brother, it’s getting dark outside.”
Lan Xichen smiles. “I know.”
“Will we be going for dinner?”
“Of course not,” he admonishes lightly, as if eating dinner with everyone else is a silly notion.
Nie Huaisang nods along. “I guess I’ll eat the rest of the cakes, then.”
“They’re your favorites,” Lan Xichen responds, allowing Nie Huaisang to eat as many as he wants.
As Nie Huaisang takes bite after bite, he gags on the sickly sweet flavor—wonderful on its own, terrible in large quantities—but he keeps going because Lan Xichen keeps shoving more into his hands, and because Nie Huaisang has to admit: he’s a little scared. This side of Lan Xichen is completely new, and he doesn’t know how he’s going to die, just that he will.
He still has unfinished business. When the cakes are done, with absolutely no build-up, Nie Huaisang reaches over and clasps Lan Xichen’s hand with his own. Something on Lan Xichen’s face stutters—a shift in the mask he’s been wearing since Nie Huaisang arrived. Nie Huaisang warns, “I’m going to keep going,” because if he’s going to die, then he deserves at least this much.
Lan Xichen does not turn away when Nie Huaisang presses their lips together—they’re just as sweet as he’s always imagined, or maybe it’s all in his head and it’s just the cakes he’s forced himself to swallow. When he pulls back, Lan Xichen has frozen, staring at him blankly.
Nie Huaisang does the final thing he intended to do, and says, “Before it all happened—I really wanted to court you.” He’s done, he’s confessed, and does his best to communicate with his eyes that he’s ready for whatever Lan Xichen is going to do.
Lan Xichen’s eyes widen in realization, and instead of lunging as Nie Huaisang expected, tears start to leak out of his eyes. “Huaisang,” he says, “you don’t trust me. Why don’t you trust me?”
Nie Huaisang is surprised and confused, and he doesn’t like it. He asks point-blank, “Are you going to kill me?”
Lan Xichen shakes his head, crying harder. “I’m your friend—I wanted to rebuild what we lost.”
“Why don’t you want to kill me?”
“Not everyone wants to kill those that wronged them.”
But the smile—Nie Huaisang knows that smile. It’s the smile of murderers and con-artists, the one he wore on his face for so long, as had Jin Guangyao. Those smiles don’t lie. (Then again, it feels like everyone has been wearing those smiles, recently.)
(He came to Lan Xichen because, out of everyone, he desperately wanted his dear Second Brother to be the one to kill him.)
Lan Xichen scrambles to grab his hands and reassure him—to make sure this beautiful thing they’ve found won’t wither away—that he won’t hurt him, and that he loves him, too, and that he’d love to be courted. Nie Huaisang’s lips thin.
“Dinner?” he asks weakly.
“I’m having it sent over.”
Nie Huaisang really is a fool, seeing murderers in good men—it’s just the kind of person he is. He whispers, “I’m sorry, Second Brother.”
Lan Xichen—sweet and kind and too good for Nie Huaisang—believes him, and Nie Huaisang wonders what it feels like to forgive so easily. Surely it won’t make him feel so empty. He wonders if he should try it sometime.
When Lan Xichen cups his face and asks to kiss him, Nie Huaisang finally stops thinking he’s going to die, and then asks what he has left to do, seeing as he’ll be alive for the foreseeable future.
“We’ll figure it out together,” Lan Xichen promises. And, for the first time in a decade, Nie Huaisang lets himself cry real tears.
He thinks—maybe—it’s time to start being a good person.