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It was around the middle of the sixth month when a mishap happened during a night-hunt. Travelling from the Cloud Recesses, Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian and Lan Sizhui were at present chasing a feral ghost which had been terrorizing a small town nearby.
Unlike Caiyi, the roads around this area were mostly unfamiliar to the three of them. The ghost itself was quite tricky to deal with too, although it wasn’t wholly violent in nature. It was just that it had been causing a lot of mischief and annoyance to the inhabitants of the town, so everyone living there wanted it gone.
Therefore, Wei Wuxian had suggested that the three of them embarked on a “family trip” together to take care of it. Lan Wangji, who usually gave in to his husband’s silly whims anyway, had easily agreed. The two men brought an eager Lan Sizhui with them, and the teen had been most delighted to be able to enjoy a holiday as a family.
At one corner of an obscure, unlit lane, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji nodded at one another before signalling to Lan Sizhui to take off towards the right to block the feral spirit from escaping. The teenager sprinted off and started charging, his restraining talismans lighted. The two older men began to do the same.
Trapped, the ghost began to snarl. These three humans in particular were very strong, so it knew that it wouldn’t be able to evade them so easily.
This was when, taking a gamble, it suddenly darted towards Lan Sizhui.
“Sizhui! Look out!” shouted Wei Wuxian, but it was too late.
There was a blinding flash of eerie green light which illuminated the entire street before it warped and dissipated into green fumes. The two men who had been running toward the scene where flung a short distance away when a short bang erupted from where their son stood, and alarmed, they fought wildly to get up again as quickly as they could. They rushed towards the spot Lan Sizhui had been standing in just moments ago.
Lan Wangji stood rooted in shock, disbelief in his usually calm eyes. Instead of a whole person, there was only a pile of clothes where his teenage son once stood.
Going white, Wei Wuxian started to kneel. The two young men crouched down silently, trying to bite down their anger and pain. By now, the spirit was already long gone, far away and possibly in hiding. There was nothing else they could do.
Just when they were going to unleash their sorrow in full force, the pile of pristine white clothes moved.
“????!!!!”
Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji jerked back as the clothes rose up and fell around. Up popped a head, bearing the face of a young boy, just a few years old, an oversized Lan Sect forehead ribbon slipping down by his ears. He stared at the two men quizzically with round eyes before stretching out his arms towards them.
“A… Yuan?”
The first to speak was Wei Wuxian. Without a doubt, this was the same face he had missed seeing for a long time. Since the Yiling Patriarch had died so suddenly, he had never forgotten the face of his ‘son’ whom he had left back in the Burial Mounds before sacrificing his own life. Lan Wangji too, remembered this face clearly, although he didn’t say a word.
“Sizhui, thank god. That gave me a scare,” sighed Wei Wuxian, picking the child up and patting him in relief. The little boy stared at him, pulling at Chenqing and nibbling it with relish.
“Who’s that?” asked the boy, in between mouthfuls of dark wood. “Is it my new turnip brother?”
Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji froze.
“Si—A-Yuan, you don’t remember?” asked Wei Wuxian, bewildered. Beside him, Lan Wangji nodded anxiously, echoing his husband’s sentiment.
“Where’s my toy?” asked A-Yuan suddenly, in reply, when he caught sight of Lan Wangji. He had remembered that his bamboo butterfly had been stored somewhere in his sleeves. But as his current white, oversized clothes were all foreign to him at the moment, and didn’t look like his usual raggedy robes, he was at a loss, not being able to remember where he had put it.
Flustered, the little boy began to tear up. At once he jumped up and clung to Lan Wangji’s thigh.
“Dad,” he cried, “Butterfly is gone…”
In the dark of the night, Lan Wangji’s eyes took a strange, surreal gleam as he watched his little son sob about the missing wooden butterfly. He lifted his jade-like fingers and stroked A-Yuan’s hair, cajoling him firmly, yet gently.
“Let’s buy another one.”
This was the longest sentence that the iceberg Lan had spoken the entire day, even when he had been out gallivanting with his family since morning. When A-Yuan heard that they were going to buy him another toy, he looked up at them, his tears drying up at once and his cheeky little mouth grinning.
“I love dad best!” he cheered, climbing up Lan Wangji’s leg like a monkey up a tree. Lan Wangji took the boy into his arms and patted his head, gesturing to Wei Wuxian to follow as he marched off, as if nothing big had just happened.
“Shameless!” Wei Wuxian muttered under his breath, quickly grabbing the Lan forehead ribbon his son had left behind. The white robes were still wrapped around the shrunken Lan Sizhui, now A-Yuan for the time being.
There was a long row of night market stalls along one lane of the prosperous little town, lighted up with lamps and lanterns as if it were a fairy tale. If A-Yuan had grown up into the mild and respectable Lan Sizhui, the little boy was at the moment as unabashed as he had been more than thirteen years ago. For one, he had no qualms pointing out the various shops he wanted Lan Wangji to carry him to, picking up two sticks of candied fruits along the way. He munched on them loudly but silently, red lips smacking with relish.
At last the three came up to a stall selling many different toys. From the lot of assorted playthings, A-Yuan once again picked what was familiar to him – a wooden sword, a small kite, and of course, a bamboo butterfly. He left the other things alone.
Wei Wuxian was made to carry the sword and kite while A-Yuan playfully twirled the bamboo butterfly in his fingers, still carried by his Lan Sect father. Suddenly, as if catching sight of something, he tensed and tugged at Lan Wangji’s collar.
“Dad!” he called. “Can I buy that?”
Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian looked at the direction of the pointed finger. Strangely enough, it wasn’t a stall selling toys, but one selling different combs and crowns.
The two men looked at each other and walked towards it, carrying A-Yuan there. When the boy got to the stall, his eyes shone with marvel. He quickly scooped up what he had been eyeing earlier and turned to his parents with a big smile.
“I want this one,” said A-Yuan, grinning at his fathers.
“A…Yuan, are you really sure you want that?” asked Wei Wuxian, staring in horror at the ugly, large comb. It was a gigantic, rather garish butterfly comb, golden all over and beset with large pieces of colourful false jewels. Even at night, under dimly-lit lanterns, it stood out amongst the others with a design only its creator would love.
“I want it,” replied A-Yuan, hugging the ugly, large comb to his chest.
Wei Wuxian relented, while Lan Wangji wordlessly paid up for the accessory. It was far too large for the little boy to wear, but every child had their own whims and fancies. However, even this was strange to Wei Wuxian – had A-Yuan always liked these things? Had his tastes changed while Wei Wuxian lay dead? Morbidly curious, the Yiling Patriarch decided to ask.
“So, A-Yuan, what are you going to do with that?” pried Wei Wuxian, swinging by to drape a hand around the small neck. Lan Wangji blinked. He too wanted to know.
“Giving it to my bride.”
Wei Wuxian nearly fell over while his husband froze in mid-step, his expression still calm. They turned towards the boy.
“Your bride!?” exclaimed Wei Wuxian. “A-Yuan, who’s going to marry you!?”
“A pretty flower,” said A-Yuan, playing with his new comb, “living in a big house.”
For the umpteenth time that evening, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji stared at each other. This was news to them – in all honesty, they weren’t very sure which age and point in time Lan Sizhui had regressed to as a child, but they were extremely certain that during this age, A-Yuan hadn’t yet had an inkling of what marriage was. He had never really met or played with any children his age, since he was the only child in the Burial Mounds at that time. Even when they were in the village in Yiling selling vegetables and the like, A-Yuan was usually playing on his own, kept away from other children for fear of being bullied.
This probably meant that somewhere in A-Yuan’s mind, there were still pieces of Lan Sizhui’s memories as a teenager. The youth had indeed regressed into a child’s body, and had a child’s mind and access to his older memories, as well as a child’s cognitive state, but this was still somehow Lan Sizhui, a mix of the past and present. Although the boy was as shameless as he once had been, he had also exercised some profoundly good manners.
For example, while A-Yuan had been eating the candied fruit that they had bought for him, the little boy hadn’t spoken a word. It was only after he had finished chewing and swallowing that he pointed at the things he wanted and called out. If it had been the A-Yuan over thirteen years ago, Lan Wangji would no doubt have pieces of candied fruit all over his face and collar by the time they made it to the stall selling toys.
Hit by this revelation, Wei Wuxian decided to pry more. This A-Yuan was very honest, after all. By the time Lan Sizhui grew up, while he was still sincere and honest, he sometimes chose to keep quiet about things to avoid hurting others. This was the one chance Wei Wuxian had to find out some choice truths.
“A-Yuan, A-Yuan, what do you think of Lan Zhan over here?” the Yiling Patriarch pestered the boy, patting Lan Wangji’s shoulder furiously to show who he was talking about. “Does he always nag at you and scold you?”
A-Yuan gazed at Lan Wangji.
Then, turning back to Wei Wuxian, he smiled and said, “Dad is the best.”
Once again, Lan Wangji froze in mid-step. Although his expression didn’t change much, the tips of his ears went red with pride. Lan Wangji hugged his small son tightly.
But Wei Wuxian was dissatisfied. At this point in age, didn’t A-Yuan know him, the Yiling Patriarch, better than his other father? It didn’t make sense that Lan Wangji was the best one, considering how the tall man in white liked to nag at and admonish people whenever they misbehaved. He continued to press.
“No, no, then what does that make me?” pestered Wei Wuxian. “If Lan Zhan is the best, then how am I also the best? A-Yuan, it’s alright, Hanguang-Jun won’t scold you, you can just tell me the truth.”
Again, A-Yuan gazed at Lan Wangji.
Then, turning back to Wei Wuxian, he smiled and said, “You are third best.”
“HUUUUUUUH!?” shouted Wei Wuxian. “ONLY THIRD!?”
Poor Wei Wuxian – he was in a terrible state. He had expected to be first, but not only was he not first, he wasn’t even second place. He just had to know who had taken his precious spot in his son’s heart.
“A-Yuan—you—who’s second best, then?”
A-Yuan pondered for a while.
“My bride.”
Wei Wuxian was speechless. He glanced at Lan Wangji helplessly, then at his son. This was agony.
So it was alright for A-Yuan to love his Lan Sect father more than his bride, but not him, Wei Wuxian? Again, this made no sense. The Yiling Patriarch was tenacious. He was going to get to the bottom of it.
“So why is Lan Zhan better than me?” he asked, trying to hide his wounds.
To that, A-Yuan had a simple answer, “Dad is rich.”
Wei Wuxian was floored.
“And your ‘bride’?” he asked.
“Even richer,” replied A-Yuan, before popping in the last of his candied fruit into his mouth and chewing loudly. After he swallowed, he added, “I always get a lot of food and things when I see my bride.”
The nail in the coffin’s head was about to come.
“You’re not as pretty as my bride,” finished A-Yuan, finally nailing the coffin shut with the formidable Yiling Patriarch in it. “Also not as handsome as dad.”
“I’m also your father!!!” Wei Wuxian exploded. “A-Yuan, how could you!?”
“You said to tell you the truth,” said the little boy, resuming his game with the bamboo butterfly in his fingers, as Lan Wangji began to stroll forward once more, how that the answers Wei Wuxian needed to hear were already aired.
Struck speechless and utterly defeated, the Yiling Patriarch could do nothing else except follow the two Lan Sect men in his life.
That night, when they got back to the Cloud Recesses, Lan Wangji stopped by the main hall to share a few details with Lan Qiren, before heading off with Wei Wuxian to pay Lan Xichen a quick visit in the Frost Room. Lan Xichen was still in secluded cultivation, and didn’t speak much as he was tired, but when he looked at the innocent little boy, he couldn’t help smiling.
“Still a bit of Sizhui in there,” he remarked, patting the little boy’s head. Awed, the boy bowed at him the best he could. There was something very elegant and refined about the otherworldly Zewu-Jun that everyone couldn’t help but respect.
“Brother, we’ll be excusing ourselves for the night,” said Lan Wangji, cupping a bow to his older brother.
“Come to me if anything happens,” said Lan Xichen, smiling faintly. Lan Wangji nodded and left with his family.
When they finally arrived at the Silence Room, A-Yuan was already sleepy.
“Don’t want to sleep yet,” argued A-Yuan feebly, feeling rather unwilling, but his eyes were already closing. It was as if he didn’t want his good time to end.
“Little turnips need to sleep at nine,” chided Wei Wuxian gently, knowing full-well that the Lan Sect internal clock was still working, even at this point.
Tucking the child into the covers, Wei Wuxian slid over to his husband to wrap the taller man in a warm hug, the little boy comfortably sandwiched between them. He breathed in deeply and played with his sleeping son’s hair.
“Lan Zhan, Hanguang-Jun…” Wei Wuxian trailed off, as if deep in thought.
“Mn?”
“Are we going to find a cure for Sizhui?” he asked, a subtle tone in his voice.
Shifting slightly to gaze at his husband’s face, Lan Wangji understood what he meant.
After all, Wei Wuxian had died early, leaving behind any chance of raising Wen Yuan to adulthood. The Yiling Patriarch hadn’t had the chance to see the little boy grow up and develop, nor had he the chance to guide the boy through his life, offering the love and parental advice his young son would have wanted from him, all those years growing up.
On the other hand, Lan Wangji, who had managed to raise a young Lan Yuan into Lan Sizhui, had never really had the chance to share parenthood with his husband, whom he loved and missed with all his heart, through all the years the black-robed man remained dead. Lan Yuan had been a blessing in the Lan Sect heir’s life, but also a painful reminder of Hanguang-Jun’s past and loss and yearning, earning the boy his courtesy name.
Now that Lan Sizhui was small again, they would be able to retrieve all the lost time they could have had together as three, instead of just two.
And yet, if they raised him as they would now, from childhood to adulthood, the Lan Sizhui whom they knew and loved would also vanish, along with all the happiness and hard work he had put throughout in the many years he had grown up to become the wonderful young disciple he was today. The ties he had with the people he already loved and associated with would also be gone.
With all these things in mind, it was hard to make a decision. However, sleep soon overtook them, and they rested peacefully for the night.
~*~
In the morning, there was a commotion around the Silence Room as a group of the junior disciples huddled around to take a look at their shrunken leader. Lan Jingyi was there, of course, talking loudly over everyone to keep order over things, but he himself had been very curious and excited as well.
“So this is what Sizhui-xiong used to look like,” exclaimed one of the newer disciples, who had never seen Lan Sizhui as a child before, grinning with delight. “His cheeks are so round!”
“You can see he still likes butterflies,” said another, spying the bamboo butterfly in the little boy’s hands. “Did you know a number of his sword tassels also have butterflies on them?”
They were chattering away enthusiastically like a flock of magpies when Hanguang-Jun came out and sent them all away, except for Lan Jingyi, who was held back by the Yiling Patriarch. He had wanted to ask the youth for his opinion.
“Jingyi… out of curiosity, how is Sizhui getting along with the other juniors?” enquired Wei Wuxian. “They respect him, right?”
“He’s the best junior leader we’ve had so far,” said Lan Jingyi, after giving it some thought. “To be honest, in the past before Sizhui started leading us, we had another one. A lot of times we got into trouble for his mistakes. Once or twice, a few disciples had sustained some serious injuries.”
“What happened to the injured disciples?” asked Wei Wuxian.
“Most of them recovered,” replied Lan Jingyi. “Two of them couldn’t cultivate anymore, and therefore have left the sect.”
Wei Wuxian was dumbfounded.
Was there nobody capable enough to lead the juniors before Sizhui came along and shouldered that role?
In all honesty, Wei Wuxian hadn’t expected that it was going to be that hard to fill in Lan Sizhui’s shoes. Now that he knew, however, he had newfound respect for his son – that boy was a miracle worker. If they didn’t change him back into his grownup self, there might actually be a few casualties down the road in the future.
It was quickly decided that Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian would work to find a cure for the shrunken Lan Sizhui, but between the two, there was no hurry. They wanted to enjoy their time spoiling their son as well. While Hanguang-Jun minded the sect duties on behalf of Zewu-Jun, the Yiling Patriarch looked after A-Yuan just as he used to in the Burial Mounds. Sometimes the dark-robed man took him to the back of the mountains to play with Wen Ning, who was only overjoyed to do so.
About a week passed, and one day Jin Ling visited the Cloud Recesses with a few of his most trusted retainers, all around his own age. He looked around for Lan Sizhui, but found that the youth was missing. Puzzled, he went to speak to Lan Jingyi.
“Lan Jingyi, where’s Lan Sizhui?” asked Jin Ling.
“Ah, this… Sect Miss——I mean, Sect Master Jin, come here for a moment.”
Waving the golden-robed youth’s retainers away, Lan Jingyi pulled Jin Ling aside to whisper. Even though it was unbecoming of a sect leader to do so, Jin Ling crouched down in one corner and listened to the other boy, both teens looking very suspicious.
“We’re trying to keep this hushed and a secret from the other sects,” said Lan Jingyi, whispering loud enough for the dead to hear. “Something has happened to Lan Sizhui. He’s now... a child.”
Jin Ling stifled a need to roll his eyes – with a voice that loud, how was this even a secret anymore? However, this was also news to him. What did Lan Jingyi mean when he said that Lan Sizhui was now a child?
“Can I see him?” requested Jin Ling, after some thought. Lan Jingyi nodded.
“If it’s you, it’s fine. He’s currently behind the Cloud Recesses, playing with Senior Ghost General,” informed Lan Jingyi. “Are you sure you want to go and meet them? I mean, with your past with the Wens and all…”
“It’s fine,” replied Jin Ling, briskly. “Don’t keep harping on that sort of thing.”
“You’re so bossy,” remarked Lan Jingyi, huffing. “Anyway, Wei Wuxian should also be there. You can go greet your uncle while you’re at it.”
“Who’s my uncle?” Jin Ling shot back, crossing his arms. He stood up and motioned to his retainers. “Jin Bing, Jin Xin, both of you, I’ll be following Lan Jingyi somewhere for a while, and you can’t come along. I’ll be back to look for you at the main pavilion after an hour or two.”
Before Jin Bing could stop his friend, Jin Xin shot up and asked eagerly, his eyes shining, “You’re going to see Lan Sizhui, aren’t you? Are two hours really enough?”
Jin Ling sighed and turned around, leaving his wayward followers behind. Lan Jingyi led the way to the back of the Cloud Recesses, down a narrow mountain path, where the two youths presently heard the voices of a man laughing, a corpse calling out with worry, and a little boy giggling.
“A-Yuan, don’t run so fast! A-Yuan, you’re going to fall down and crack your head…” Wen Ning paused and trailed off when he noticed the two teens who had come by to the small clearing. “Ah, Young Master—no, Sect Master Jin! H-Hello!”
Jin Ling didn’t reply. He stared at the little boy dressed in white, who stared back at him with an equal amount of curiosity. Then, suddenly, like a stone out of a slingshot, A-Yuan ran towards Jin Ling and promptly clutched the currently older boy’s thigh.
“Pretty flower!!!” the child screamed with joy, his clutch quickly turning into an iron grip. He pointed at the Jin Sect emblem on Jin Ling’s chest. “Papa! Flower is here!!”
Wei Wuxian slowly folded his arms, sinking backwards against a tree as a wave of realization gradually washed over him.
So this was A-Yuan’s ‘pretty flower bride’.
Except it wasn’t a bride at all, but a groom. It dawned on the Yiling Patriarch that Lan Sizhui had still somehow remembered his feelings for Jin Ling as a teen, but that he also couldn’t exactly remember Jin Ling’s name or face as he had regressed to a time where he hadn’t yet met the other youth. The only thing A-Yuan could go by was his deep-seated desire to marry the current Jin Sect Leader, and that he recognized the emblem of the golden peony.
Putting two and two together, Wei Wuxian gazed at Jin Ling and smirked. “So… what brings you here today, A-Ling?”
“A conference,” replied Jin Ling, curtly. “Wei Wuxian, what’s wrong with Lan Sizhui? This is Lan Sizhui, isn’t it?”
“It is,” said Wei Wuxian, pleasantly surprised that his disciple nephew hadn’t decided to push A-Yuan away yet. “Doesn’t he look cute?”
“Hmmm,” Jin Ling pursed his lips, but did nothing to extract himself from the child. “Wei Wuxian, will he always be like this? What happened?”
“A ghost changed him into a child while we were out on a night-hunt,” answered Wei Wuxian, this time bending down to make an effort to remove A-Yuan from Jin Ling’s thigh. “I believe he’ll grow up at a normal rate. A-Yuan, do you hear me? This means you’ll have to wait ten or so more years before you can marry A-Ling.”
Jin Ling was shocked.
“W-Who… Who’s marrying who!??” Jin Ling exploded, red in the face. “I’m not marrying anyone!!”
It was Wei Wuxian’s turn to be shocked.
“A-Ling, you can’t possibly want to be anything like Jiang Cheng!” Wei Wuxian tried to reason with his nephew. “Just because he’s unromantic doesn’t mean you have to end up that way as well. A-Ling, don’t worry, ten years isn’t much. Besides, isn’t it good that way? By the time you’re a dandy old man you’ll have a young man looking after you. You’ll be the envy of every dandy old man out there…”
“I don’t want to be the envy of every dandy old man out there!” thundered Jin Ling, aggravated. “Lan Sizhui, I’ll give you a chance. Let go right now!”
At this, A-Yuan began to scream loudly, clutching on even more tightly than ever. He couldn’t be pried away, and Jin Ling couldn’t leave. Wen Ning came over to try to help, but it was no use.
“I’m sorry, Sect Master Jin, for all of this,” Wen Ning apologized meekly. “A-Yuan’s not usually like this.”
Jin Ling breathed a frustrated sigh and shook his head.
“You need to discipline him, really,” said Jin Ling, after A-Yuan simmered down, still clinging to his leg and sniffling. “He’ll grow up spoiled at this rate. I won’t be marrying anyone, and I definitely don’t want to marry a spoiled man.”
Wen Ning and Wei Wuxian glanced at each other.
Jin Rulan, you’re the one who has been brought up extraordinarily spoiled…
When they could finally get A-Yuan calm enough to give Jin Ling enough room to move, Jin Ling squatted down to rest against a tree. Instead of running off or playing with the rabbits, however, A-Yuan scooted closer to the young sect leader and made him turn to face him.
“For you, flower ge-ge,” he said, pulling out a huge, ugly, golden butterfly comb from his pristine white sleeve. He stuck it into Jin Ling’s hair, over his crown, and gazed at it proudly.
It was only after that that he ran off, giggling, covering his face with his hands, to hide behind Wen Ning.
“Hmph,” said Jin Ling, but he made no remark about the comb’s appearance. He didn’t take it off either.
At last, free from the little boy’s clutches, Jin Ling made his way back to the main pavilion of the Cloud Recesses to meet up with his retainers, intending to attend the conference that afternoon with them. When his retainers saw him, they were horrified by the colossal comb in his hair, but wisely said nothing. They followed him into the main hall where the discourse was taking place.
When Jin Rulan walked in, one of the sect leaders clicked his tongue, “As usual, youngsters nowadays show no restraint.”
He was talking about the loud, garish comb on Jin Ling’s head, two times bigger than every crown on every other leader’s head in that room.
Lan Wangji at once looked up from the podium to gaze at the sect leader who had opened his mouth. Hanguang-Jun’s eyes showed no mercy – they were cold and unnerving and brimming with dark, frozen wrath. The sect leader who had spoken boldly only moments ago withered on the spot.
After that, nobody dared to say anything about Jin Rulan’s enormous comb. They couldn’t help glancing at it now and then because it was just too difficult not to do so, but nobody dared to utter a word about it. Whenever they looked at it, their eyes would quickly dart back away from it and they would try their hardest to babble loudly about something else.
Once the conference was over, Lan Wangji walked up silently to regard Jin Ling. He stared at the youth, and then at the humongous golden comb.
“Mn,” he said, nodding once in approval, before walking away.
Jin Ling couldn’t find any words to speak.
~*~
That evening, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian decided to take their son to Caiyi Town to enjoy a sumptuous dinner. The little canals there flowed and rippled beautifully, its clear rivers a sight to behold. A-Yuan ran here and there to dip his small fingers into the cool water, his white forehead ribbon fluttering in the wind.
“To think that this is the life we could have had,” Wei Wuxian breathed, holding Lan Wangji’s hand as they watched the little boy scamper around, laughing. Lan Wangji held his husband’s waist.
“We are living it now,” said Lan Wangji, firmly.
Wei Wuxian chuckled. Somehow, as simple as it was, this was bliss. The Yiling Patriarch had in the past only experienced boredom in the Cloud Recesses as a student, but right now he wouldn’t trade life in Gusu for anything else in the world. Wherever Lan Wangji was, it was home.
“A-Yuan, what do you want to eat?” asked Wei Wuxian, carrying up his son, who was now tired from running around. “Pork? Fish? Chicken?”
“Pork congee!” A-Yuan cheered. The boy hadn’t gotten much meat to eat in the Cloud Recesses, and he was currently a growing child with the mindset of one. Wei Wuxian had roasted fish at the back of the mountains, but the little boy had soon grown tired of it.
Two adults and one child made their way to an inn, one that they knew served high-quality pork. The congee itself was excellent too, with a generous helping of stew on the side. Although any shop would do, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian wanted A-Yuan to have at least one luxurious meal a week, or more.
Eating with two Lan Sect disciples was no fun, however. Wei Wuxian jabbered away gaily, but A-Yuan only kept silent throughout the entire meal, following in the footsteps of Lan Wangji. In the past, the A-Yuan that Wei Wuxian knew would make plenty of noise and even answer back whenever he was spoken to, or even when he wasn’t spoken to, but this time, it was like having a meal with two blocks of stone seated beside him. Wei Wuxian was frustrated and at a loss.
“A-Yuan, won’t you talk to your papa?” pestered Wei Wuxian. He missed having conversations at the table.
Swallowing his mouthful of pork, A-Yuan opened his mouth to speak, “No talking during meals.”
Lan Wangji nodded in approval. They were on the right track of raising their son, or at least, A-Yuan had decided to follow in the footsteps of the right parent.
Wei Wuxian sighed exaggeratedly and brought a cup of wine to his lips. After that, he drank ten more cups to kill his boredom. As he brought the eleventh one upwards, they heard a scream outside. Jolted, the Yiling Patriarch carelessly spilled some wine on the table.
“Someone, help, please!!” wailed a woman. “My husband… my husband, he’s…”
Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian immediately jumped up, the Lan Jade leaving some money on their table before leaving, carrying A-Yuan in his arms. When they rushed outside, they saw the woman grieving over a pile of clothes, presumably her husband’s.
“Young master cultivators, please help me,” cried the woman. “Only you can help me! Without my husband to work and provide for us, how can I fend for myself and my children? I need a husband, not another child…”
Another child…?
Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian nodded to one another before the Yiling Patriarch gingerly inspected the deflated pile of clothing on the ground. True enough, a young face of a little boy peeked up at him.
“Gu-gu?” asked the little boy. The woman began to sob loudly again.
This was exactly the thing had happened to Lan Sizhui a few days ago. The two young masters stood upright, facing each other and talking in low tones.
“Do you think it’s followed us to Caiyi?” asked Wei Wuxian. “It seems like it’s going around doing the same thing now. In the other town, nobody dared to tell us how they were being attacked. This could be why – it’s risky to be turned back into a child, so nobody said anything in case the cultivators they called on didn’t dare to help.”
Lan Wangji shook his head. “It may not have followed us.”
If the spirit had indeed followed them, then it would have been in the Cloud Recesses as well, wreaking havoc there. It appeared to have randomly gone to Caiyi, which was quite close to the town they had previously visited. During the night-hunt in that other town, the three had scared it away, and therefore it had come to haunt this town instead.
Before they could say more, they heard another shout nearby. This time, the voice was familiar.
“Your Excellency!” yelled one of the Jin Sect retainers, rushing towards a golden pile of clothes on the ground. A tiny Sect Master Jin sat up, bewildered, and when he saw strange faces around him he began to cry loudly.
When he saw this, A-Yuan pushed at his father’s collar and scampered down the man’s body, running towards his now also-shrunken friend. He scooped up the giant butterfly comb that had fallen off onto the ground and placed it in Jin Ling’s hands, hugging him defensively.
“I’ll protect you!” declared A-Yuan, swinging his wooden toy sword around.
If Wei Wuxian’s heart could flutter harder, it would. Looking at the two, they were adorable to a fault. However, they had no time to waste watching the scene – they had to capture or destroy the feral ghost before it caused more trouble to others, such as the woman they had just met earlier. The Yiling Patriarch turned to regard the Jin Sect retainers.
“Make sure nothing happens to them,” instructed Wei Wuxian. “I can trust you with this, can’t I?”
The more responsible-looking retainer stepped up and cupped a bow. “I apologize for our previous slip-up, but I promise you that we will.”
The other retainer merely said, “They’re so cute!”
He wasn’t paying attention to Wei Wuxian at all.
The Yiling Patriach had no idea how this youth, who was currently squatting down and cooing at the two children, had ever become one of his nephew’s most trusted aides, but he didn’t say anything. He took off with Lan Wangji to vanquish the ghost.
Tracking it down wasn’t terribly difficult – all they had to do was follow the sounds of screaming and shouting and piles of clothes on the floor. It seemed like the ghost was out on a vengeful streak to blow off steam from its previous encounter with the cultivators in the other town. This time it was simply changing people into children left and right.
Some of the faces were familiar to both Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian. There had been a conference that day at the Cloud Recesses, so some of the sect leaders had wandered out to town that evening to sightsee. Among the sect leaders who had been turned into children, Sect Leader Yao had turned into a magnificently round baby with red buttocks, while Jiang Cheng had turned into an angry, sullen child.
“Wait till I catch it!! I’ll break its legs!!! I’LL BREAK ALL ITS LEGS INTO ITS NEXT LIFE!!!” roared Jiang Cheng, in a childish voice, black like thunder. Strangely enough, he had managed to keep the cognitive state of an adult, but this could have been the work of Zidian, which was like a protective charm on his finger. He stormed and raged, but as he kept tripping over his overly-large robes, he had been unable to give chase to the ghost.
Nearby, Sect Leader Yao’s retainers also shouted a similar chant, raving about justice.
Suddenly, the baby farted. The retainers fled around in a circle, forgetting their riled up tempers. The fat little Sect Leader Yao had an unfortunately loud fart, and it smelled like poison.
“……” Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji silently flew by.
Following the shouts and mounds of clothes, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji finally caught sight of the feral spirit. This time, having learned from experience, Wei Wuxian used Chenqing to band other spirits around to trap it.
The ghost couldn’t turn other spirits into children, only humans. Demonic cultivation seemed to work, since it now couldn’t break out of the circle like it did before. Snarling and pacing furiously, the ghost gnashed at the other spirits, but as they were fully controlled by the dark flute, they couldn’t cave in.
From his robes Lan Wangji produced a bright talisman, and darting past the wall of souls, he struck the feral ghost with it. Shrieking, the creature began to shrivel and wilt before their eyes, transforming from an old person to a young one rapidly, before shrinking to a baby’s size.
A final, mournful wail came from the spirit baby, sending a shiver up people’s spines. It dissolved into a puddle of green liquid and smoke went out in separate directions, rather like thousands of miniature spectres.
“It’s gone now,” remarked Wei Wuxian, after inspecting the liquid left behind. “I think I’ve heard of something like this. Some ghosts can change others into children, because they themselves had deeply wished they were one, right before they died. This would have been convenient to them, but I can’t imagine why they would want to do something like becoming a child again.”
“One sometimes wants to escape the burdens of the world,” said Lan Wangji, gazing at the puddle with a small amount of sympathy. Although what the spirit had done was wrong, it had also given the Lan Jade a chance to share the life of a parent with Wei Wuxian.
The dark-robed man nodded, and joined his husband in returning to A-Yuan and the others. All they needed to do now was figure out a way to lift the curse, and bring them all back to their adult selves.
Retrieving the children, the group comprising of Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian and the Jin Sect retainers trekked back to the Cloud Recesses, A-Yuan skipping in front of them hand-in-hand with Jin Ling, who was clutching the butterfly comb in one hand, ambling absently as he was dragged around by his sprightly friend. Wei Wuxian leaned towards Lan Wangji and snickered.
“Solves the ten year wait,” he said.
“Mn,” agreed Lan Wangji, nodding.
When they got back to the Cloud Recesses, they bathed both the children, sending the Jin Sect retainers away to rest for the night. Bringing a clean and freshly-dressed A-Yuan and Jin Ling into the Silence Room, Wei Wuxian began to tuck them into the covers.
“It’s a little more cramped than what you have in Lanling, but it should be alright,” said Wei Wuxian, settling the two children down together in the middle of the bed. After that, he climbed in himself and beckoned to Lan Wangji to join them.
Before the Lan Jade could slip in under the covers with his family and in-law-to-be, however, a gust of wind blew into the room, with it two specks of green smoke. The specks, which looked like miniature ghosts, entered the mouths of the two drowsy children.
They began to convulse violently.
“A-Yuan!! A-Ling!!” Wei Wuxian cried, sitting up and patting their backs concernedly. He checked their meridians, but they seemed fine.
“They’re growing bigger,” said Lan Wangji, after observing and noticing it. Pulling his husband away, he gave the two youngsters some space on the mattress.
True enough, in merely one fifth of an hour, the two were already the size of adolescents, and after a short while, they grew to full size, which was their age before they had regressed. The youths stopped heaving, and looked around the room, dazed.
“Senior Wei…?” Lan Sizhui looked up. “Hanguang-Jun?”
Lan Wangji nodded in affirmation.
“You were shrunken into a child by the feral ghost,” said Wei Wuxian. “Sizhui, do you remember anything since then?”
Lan Sizhui shook his head. However, he also had something surprising to say.
“I don’t remember anything since then—the last thing I remember was being charged at by the ghost. But… I seem to have some additional memories of a childhood I didn’t have before. They’re very muddled, and I can’t remember much, but they’re there…”
He turned to look at Jin Ling, who went crimson in the face.
“I-I don’t remember anything like that!” shouted Jin Ling hotly, before getting up and shaking his fist by the doorway. “Lan Sizhui, how dare you!”
With that, he fled out of the Silence Room, leaving the three behind. Then, with an unexpected calmness, Lan Sizhui removed himself from the bed. Borrowing one of his father’s white robes, he bowed to both his parents.
“Senior Wei, Hanguang-Jun, thank you for looking after me these past few days,” he said politely. “I apologize for any trouble I may have caused you.”
“No need to be shy,” laughed Wei Wuxian, waving his hand. “Anyway, Sizhui, where are you running off to? If it’s a report you need to give to that old man Qiren, you can do it tomorrow, at the break of dawn. It can wait.”
“I need to get a few things sorted out as soon as possible, before all the sect masters leave tomorrow,” replied Lan Sizhui, smiling courteously as he picked up the discarded butterfly comb.
The two men nodded. They knew what he meant.
“But what’s the hurry?” asked Wei Wuxian, slightly puzzled. “You’ve got the whole night to talk it out with A-Ling, haven’t you?”
Walking towards the entryway, Lan Sizhui graciously beamed back with his friendly reminder.
“This turnip needs to sleep at nine.”
With that, he slipped out, and the door of the Silence Room slid shut.
