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His heart had never swayed, but he couldn’t deny that during those thirteen years, once or twice his resolution was sorely tempted.
Tempted by an easy way out from his lonely road, by his sense of obligation to fulfil his duty or to break free from his everlasting dull ache of grief that resided permanently inside him.
Afterall, he is only human.
No matter what people say about him, he isn’t made of stone. He might look like a cold stone made of Jade, but he feels so much on the inside, perhaps even more than some people ever do.
People often likened his cold visage to a widower who lost his wife. But lots of widower get remarried and move on with their lives. So why shouldn't he?
He was never married. He and Wei Wuxian weren’t even lovers when the latter was still alive. In his heart he knows that Wei Wuxian regarded him as a friend, as his zhī jǐ, but there was no indication that his love was reciprocated.
All he ever had was a one-sided love and a child to raise. A precious child who made him hold on to the will to live during the darkest times of his life after Wei Wuxian died. When the grief was still too fresh and too raw, as raw as the scars that marred his back.
He walked a lonely life but it didn’t mean that there weren’t attempts to challenge that circumstance.
For one, as Hanguang-Jun, the second most eligible bachelor in the cultivation world, he was never short of suitors during those thirteen years. He was also the second young master of Lan Sect, so it was to be expected.
Many proposals came to Cloud Recesses petitioning for a marriage alliance. Apparently his obvious association with the demised Yiling Patriarch did nothing for his reputation. People still held him in high esteem and a superior marriage catch.
In the fourth year after Wei Wuxian died, his uncle started requesting him to meet prospect matches. But he said nothing when Lan Wangji denied that request.
In the fifth year, when his uncle kept persisting on his request, Lan Wangji did his duties by obligingly going to those meetings.
In the sixth year, he still dutifully met those suitors but nothing ever came out from those meetings.
In the seventh year, his uncle even invited some of the maidens for Lan’s yearly lecture, in the hope that one of them could persuade his nephew’s unyielding persistence.
In the eighth year, Lan Qiren seeked Lan Xichen and Sizhui’s aid to coax Lan Wangji from his unbending stubbornness.
His good hearted brother, who wants nothing except his happiness, proceeded to ask him “Wangji, don’t you think Sizhui will benefit if you take a wife? He would have a mother, which might be good for him. He would be raised with a complete family.”
Sizhui who is an obedient and model disciple, did nothing to carry out Lan Qiren’s request. He understands his father well.
In the ninth year, Lan Qiren pressured him to accept an exceptionally advantageous betrothal, in which he stoutly denied. He has fulfilled his duties up to the point of meeting those candidates, but nothing his uncle or his sect do would pressure him to commit another person into his life.
All those maidens were typical: they were objectively lovely, came from gentry families, have faultless demeanour, education and an agreeable character. Lan Wangji was sure any of them would blend perfectly into his clan as his wife, being a perfect mother to Sizhui and their subsequent offsprings. This wasn't a peculiar thing, given the reason that they have been handpicked by Lan Qiren personally, to make sure only the ones who qualified would be considered.
In his vulnerable moments, treacherous doubts occasionally crawled into his mind; His heart felt nothing to any of them, but how many marriages he knew started with love anyway?
No, he would never love his wife, but what he might get instead is perhaps some sort of companionship, a chance of raising a family and some sort of sedate solace for the remainder of his life.
Take that as a route of your redemption for defying your sect, and paying your dues by producing an heir - he could almost hear his uncle, as it was drilled to him over and over again.
But as usual, as those fleeting doubts started to sprout like weeds, one unrelenting voice inside him whispered - Is this what you truly wanted? An expectation for a second rate so-called ‘contentment’ as replacement, because the only person who took your heart was gone and never to come back?
The answer is always no. He didn’t want that.
By the tenth year after Wei Wuxian died, his uncle stopped his request and just let him be. No more meetings.
Lan Wangji, in his quiet way, has been living stubbornly through his grief, and made his intention clear. Finally his message was understood.
But that doesn’t mean his obstinacy stopped being challenged even after his uncle yielded to his disposition. Simply because during all those years, not only he was faced with marriage prospects, there were people who craved him as a lover as well. Some explicitly, some subtle and discreetly. The second Twin Jade of Gusu was famed not only for his righteous deeds and high cultivation, but also for his ethereally beautiful looks. Naturally, he got many admirers; commoners, officials and fellow cultivators, male and female alike.
Thirteen years found him in many places, met all kinds of people. Sometimes he was propositioned with someone who just wanted any specs of him he could spare, albeit it would be as short as a one night affair. It was so easy if only he wanted it to happen.
But he never desired for anyone except for one person and had no plans to foster a relationship with anyone else except with that particular person only. Neither he desired for discreet one night dalliances. What’s the purpose of fulfilling carnal desires when his heart was longing for another? For him, it would be an act of deception.
At the end, none of those matchmaking meetings were fruitful, and none of those liaison offers were accepted.
At the end, he is unable to do anything else except being true to himself. It is not in his nature to live a lie, or to live for the sake of confirming with the crowds. He lives with the truth and not falsehood.
What he did instead in those thirteen years was upholding their promise: to defend justice, help the weak and live without regrets. Honouring his love for Wei Wuxian by living out their promise. He goes to wherever the chaos is.
In the eleventh and twelfth year, he kept walking steadfastly on his solitary road. The one he chose to be, rather than sharing his life with someone who isn’t Wei Wuxian.
Until in the thirteenth year of his loneliness, he heard a distinct song played by a Dizi in Dafan mountain.
An early bird chirping on a Magnolia tree suddenly interrupted his reverie. He sees rays of lights begin to stream Jingshi’s window. It is near the time for him to get up, but it is still enough time for Lan Wangji to lay still and take pleasure on the weight settled in his chest and his husband's peaceful breathing.
Every once in a while, when he wakes up earlier than the designated time, his mind takes him to the times when his life was empty and desolate. When his heart was forlorn and left parch like a desert.
But now, as he looks at his husband who sleeps soundly on top of his chest, legs hugging him like an octopus, his hair splayed on their sheets… he feels complete.
Gently he caresses that smooth cheek. This impossible man nuzzles his nose to the crook of his neck and grumbles sleepily “... Er-gege, five more minutes… let your husband sleep…” Lan Wangji’s heart is bursting with such love and happiness.
He knows it is all worth it.
Years of loneliness, sadness and grief, all of those are worth it, for the man who is in his embrace right now.
During those bleak and lonely times in his life, he never knew his true love would come back to him. Despite bitter realisation at that time, he still made the best choice, by staying true to his heart.
He never settled for the second best.
At last Lan Wangji got his best reward. Not only his beloved is back, alive and vibrant as ever, his Wei Ying also reciprocates his feelings.
Finally he got his one true love.
Wei Ying is the one for him and he never settles for anything less.