Chapter Text
Wei Wuxian is panicking. He feels he has very good reasons for panicking, but that doesn’t change the fact that he knows it’s not very helpful. Still, he can’t seem to stop. The biggest problem, really, is that with Shijie still away at Cloud Recesses, the only person he can go to for help is Yu-furen. That is unacceptable in a whole variety of ways, but if Wei Wuxian is right in his ridiculous hypothesis, then he can’t exactly wait for Shijie to get back. By then, it will be far, far too late.
Feeling like he’d rather throw himself naked and weaponless into the path of a thousand year old monster, Wei Wuxian knocks on the doors to Yu-furen’s private rooms. It takes long enough for her to answer that Wei Wuxian seriously considers going to throw himself off the end of the pier instead and pretending this had never happened. But somehow, his feet remain rooted to the spot, even as he tells himself, very seriously, that he really would be less likely to die a horrible death if he tied rocks to his feet and jumped in the lake. Then Yu-furen opens the door, and any hope of escape withers under her furious and outraged glower.
“What is it?” Yu-furen asks sharply. Wei Wuxian tries to find words, and for once in his life, entirely fails. “Is someone dead? Are we under attack?” Yu-furen snaps out, Zidian sparking on her finger at the thought of a threat. Or perhaps it’s simply her impatience with him.
“No.” Wei Wuxian manages to say. It comes out smaller than he meant it to.
“Then what do you mean by coming here at this time of night?!” Yu-furen demands, hand clenching into a fist at her side. “What is so very urgent that you must disturb what few peaceful moments I have? Speak, Wei Wuxian!” She commands.
Wei Wuxian tries, but the words sound so ridiculous in his head that even he doesn’t have a face thick enough to say them out loud. Especially not in the face of Yu-furen, out in the hall where any passing servant might hear him. He wishes, desperately, than Shijie were here, this his own mother were here. Everyone says he’s a lot like her, so maybe- maybe it would have been easier, to confide in someone similar to himself.
But his mother isn’t here, and Yu-furen is. There’s no one else, and Wei Wuxian cannot do this on his own. If it were only his own well-being on the line, he’d bluster through on hope and daring, but he can’t take that sort of risk anymore.
“If you’re just going to waste my time, Wei Wuxian-” Yu-furen begins, but Wei Wuxian doesn’t let her finish. He drops to his knees and bows low enough to touch his head to the floor at Yu-furen’s feet. She goes silent with a sharp hiss of breath between her teeth.
“This one humbly begs for your advice.” Wei Wuxian says to the floor, heart in his throat. Yu-furen has never liked him, and it’s never been a secret. He knows this, knows she has no reason to want to help him, but he has no one else to ask.
“What sort of game is this?” Yu-furen asks, but her voice has softened from outright anger to simple suspicion.
“It’s not a game.” Wei Wuxian promises, not lifting his head. “Please, Yu-furen. Please.”
Yu-furen clucks her tongue. “Get up.” She commands, and Wei Wuxian does, hardly daring to breathe, hardly daring to look at her, although he finds he has to peek up through his lashes to try and read the expression on her face. She looks as suspicious as she sounds, and frustrated. “Stop making such a spectacle of yourself and come inside already.”
The breath he was holding shakes as he exhales a sigh of relief. Wei Wuxian heads inside as Yu-furen stands back to let him in, and goes obediently when she waves him towards a low table. He sits, and Yu-furen sits opposite him. “Alright. What’s so important that you’d come to me for advice?”
“I think…” Wei Wuxian begins, and then falters, because he just can’t say the words out loud.
“You think?” Yu-furen echoes impatiently. “Spit it out, boy, I don’t have all night.”
Wei Wuxian can’t just blurt it out, but he can at least ask for the information that he needs, right? So he musters his courage, and asks. “Yu-furen, how did- how did you know, when you got pregnant with Shijie? Or Jiang Cheng? What was- what was it like?”
Yu-furen blinks, her face going entirely slack with shock for one glorious moment, before fury sweeps back over it, tightening the skin around her eyes and pressing her lips into a thin, dangerous line. “Wei Wuxian!” She spits out as Zidian throws sparks. “I know you’re a reckless, disrespectful boy, but I still never expected you to so disgrace this family and my husband’s charity as to- Tell me you didn’t get some poor girl pregnant!” She commands.
Well, that much, he can do. “I didn’t.” He says quickly. “I swear, I didn’t.”
Yu-furen glares at him, nostrils flaring as her chest heaves for breath under the force of her rage. “Then why,” She begins through gritted teeth, “are you asking me such things?”
“I-” Wei Wuxian tries again, but it’s even harder now, because even if Yu-furen is wrong on the technicalities, she’s not actually wrong about what he did, or the consequences. Maybe he can lead up to it. If he builds up enough words, maybe he can trick the right ones into falling out of his mouth when they’re not paying attention. “You probably heard, I’m sure Lan Qiren complained about how much I was bothering his precious perfect nephew-”
“He mentioned it once or twice, yes.” Yu-furen bites out, which Wei Wuxian takes to mean that Lan Qiren complained about it incessantly. It’s almost enough to make him laugh. “You bring shame upon Lotus Pier with your conduct, Wei Wuxian.” Yu-furen tells hm sharply.
Wei Wuxian wilts. He’s never cared before, her harsh scoldings and even harsher punishments were nothing, really, when his behaviour had never had any other consequences, besides laughter and fun. But now he’s staring down a whole load of consequences, not just to himself, but…
“Wei Wuxian! What. Did. You. Do?”
Wei Wuxian folds his arms across the table and hides his face in them. “I slept with Lan Zhan.”
Dead silence.
“He started it!” Wei Wuxian blurts out, because that little fact still boggles his mind. “I mean, I’d been bothering him a bit, and I guess I’d kind of been flirting, but it was just because he’s so stiff and serious all the time, but then I brought him this pair of bunnies, and they were doing what bunnies do, right there on the floor of Lan Zhan’s room, and it was funny, and I might have said a few things, but then the next thing I knew he was stealing my first kiss! And- Anyway, I thought it would be fine. It was fun! And we’re both men, it’s not like we need to preserve our virtue for a good marriage like girls are supposed to, and it’s not like there could be any other consequences, right? Only…” Wei Wuxian trails off, still unable to get the words out.
“You defiled the Second Jade of Lan, one of the most respected and peerless cultivators of your generation, and you thought it would be fine?” Yu-furen asks through gritted teeth.
“Hey!” Wei Wuxian pops back upright to give Yu-furen a look of wounded dignity. “If anyone was doing any defiling, it was Lan Zhan!” Yu-furen does not look impressed by this argument. “Besides, that’s not the point.” He adds, because he thought that at least he’d led up to the point sufficiently well that Yu-furen would be able to catch on, even if she didn’t believe it at first, but instead she’d focused on the wrong thing and now Wei Wuxian might have to try and say it again.
“What is the point, then, if not exactly how disgraceful your conduct has been?” Yu-furen demands.
Oh, well, it’s not as though she can think any worse of him than she does already, whether she believes him and thinks he’s irredeemably reckless, or doesn’t and thinks he’s just pulling an elaborate practical joke. “I think I might be pregnant.” Wei Wuxian blurts out, and then hides his face in his hands as he feels a hot flush of embarrassment crawl over his skin in a prickling, shameful wave.
“I had wondered if that was what you were hinting around, but I had thought that even you wouldn’t be so shameless as to play such a tasteless joke or tell such a bold-faced lie.” Yu-furen’s voice started out as calm as Wei Wuxian has ever heard it, but by the end, each word is cracking through the air like Zidian.
Suddenly, Wei Wuxian can feel tears prickling at the corners of his eyes, which is so epically unacceptable that he can’t stand it. He lowers his face until the heels of his palms are digging into his eyes and starbursts of colour dance across the backs of his eyelids at the pressure. “I wish I was joking.” He mutters helplessly. “I thought I was just sick, so I meditated and circulated my spiritual energy like I’m supposed to, but it just got worse, and my spiritual energy started feeling kind of sluggish, and then-” He pauses and sighs. “Then I noticed the bump, and I remembered- and-”
Yu-furen eyes him as he falters in his explanation, one eyebrow rising slowly as she considers. Wei Wuxian swallows and waits for her verdict. He supposes, if she really won’t believe him, he can just run away and go to Cloud Recesses to find Shijie. He’s so caught up in wondering if risking running into Lan Zhan again would be worth it that he jumps when Yu-furen finally speaks. “Very well, I’ll play along.” She says coldly, and then rises to her feet. “Robes off.”
Wei Wuxian blinks. “What?”
Yu-furen rounds the table to stand beside him and snaps her fingers at him, and Zidian sparks. “Robes off. Now.” Warily, Wei Wuxian does as he’s told, tugging his belt open and shrugging out of his robes until they pool around his hips. “Lie back.” Yu-furen orders, and Wei Wuxian does so, glancing down his own body and then screwing his eyes shut because he’s seen the bump in the mirror, he doesn’t need to see it again and be confronted with the very real possibility that he’s majorly fucked up.
The touch of Yu-furen’s hand to his lower stomach makes him jump, but Yu-furen ignores him, and presses down lightly, feeding a little spiritual energy into him as she does so. He shudders, because it feels off, ever so slightly, like pouring water through a cloth instead of straight into your mouth.
Yu-furen’s hand retreats, and Wei Wuxian dares to open his eyes. Yu-furen is staring at him with a look of blank incomprehension on her face. It’s the scariest expression Wei Wuxian has ever seen her make. “So…” He rasps out, and has to lick his lips and swallow before he can try again. “So… I am, then?” He asks, and he hates how young he sounds, how vulnerable.
Yu-furen runs a hand over her face, and then says. “You are. Somehow.” And then, to Wei Wuxian’s utter disbelief, she starts to laugh. He sits up again, staring at her, wondering with no small amount of horror if he’s managed to break Yu-furen. “I am quite sure this is not what Fengmian meant when he told you to attempt the impossible, Wei Wuxian.” She tells him finally.
Which, okay, Wei Wuxian can see the humour now. A snicker escapes him, shaking his shoulders, and then he’s laughing, too, breathless and hysterical, and then he’s crying, tears seeping out of the corners of his eyes even as his giggles continue, and then he’s sobbing, the floodgates open and letting out all the confusion and terror he’s been stubbornly ignoring for the last couple of months, ever since the idea first occurred to him. He hiccups in shock when arms come around him, but then he’s being held against Yu-furen’s shoulder, and the unexpected comfort nearly breaks him.
“Foolish child.” Yu-furen huffs, but it holds absolutely none of her usual rage. Somehow, that makes it dig all the deeper under Wei Wuxian’s skin.
“I’m sorry.” He mumbles thickly.
“For once, I believe it is safe to say this is not your fault.” Yu-furen replies, wry, and Wei Wuxian pulls back to blink at her. When has Yu-furen ever missed an opportunity to blame him for something? “Not that I think it was anything less than disgraceful of you do such a thing with Lan-er-gongzi,” she chides sharply, giving him one of her more usual glares, before looking away and softening ever so slightly to conclude; “but no one could have foreseen this.”
Wei Wuxian grins, glad to be back on somewhat familiar ground, and wipes his face off on his sleeves. “Do you think Lan Qiren would have suffered qi deviation if he learned just how disgraceful Lan Zhan was being with me?” He asks brightly.
Yu-furen’s eyes widen, and then close in horror. “Wei Wuxian.” She says, very seriously, and Wei Wuxian’s good humour fades. “Exactly how likely is it that Lan-er-gongzi will admit to his part in things, if your condition becomes widely known?”
A memory of Lan Zhan kneeling beside him to take a beating he hadn’t even earned flashes through Wei Wuxian’s mind, and he winces. “Very.” He says ruefully, feeling a bit sick. “Lan Zhan would do the honourable thing, even though he basically hates me.”
Yu-furen looks irritated. “As useful as a marriage with the Lan Sect would be, there’s no way it could be done in a way that would be less than disgraceful.” She huffs.
“I wouldn’t do that to Lan Zhan, anyway!” Wei Wuxian yelps, and then scowls when Yu-furen eyes him with clear disapproval. “He doesn’t deserve to be stuck married to someone he doesn’t love just because my body’s doing weird things. If it’s not my fault, it’s certainly not his!”
Yu-furen’s eyebrows are up near her hairline, but Wei Wuxian refuses to be cowed by her incredulity. “You do realise that it’s far too late for you to terminate the pregnancy, even if the usual teas would work for you, which I couldn’t guarantee.” She informs him, and Wei Wuxian startles. He’s barely allowed himself to think of this baby as a real thing so far, but in the moments where he has, it’s never occurred to him to consider… Something like guilty relief bubbles up in his gut, that he hadn’t brought this to Yu-furen when the thought had first crossed his mind. “Someone is going to have to deal with these consequences, and Lan-er-gongzi played an equal part in creating those consequences. You don’t think he ought to have an equal share in dealing with them?”
“My life is going to be upended anyway, that doesn’t mean I should drag anyone else down with me!” Wei Wuxian counters, a little indignant that she would think so poorly of him, even though he’s never exactly expected her to think well of him.
“How do you expect to hide this, then?” Yu-furen asks, instead of pressing the point.
Wei Wuxian doesn’t have an answer for her, but he tries to think of one. “I don’t know, go into seclusion?” He suggests.
Yu-furen gives him a look, and then rolls her eyes. “No. There is far too much to be done, and far too much risk involved, given…” she waves a hand at him vaguely, indicating, he supposed, his male-ness and everything else that’s weird about this pregnancy, “-for you to deal with it with only a minimum of medical care. You will have to come with me to Meishan. It’s far enough out of the way, and we’re a secretive enough lot that if there is any gossip, it shouldn’t reach the Great Sects.”
Wei Wuxian eyes her dubiously. “Everyone’s going to wonder why the fuck you’d take me back to your home with you.” He points out.
“Let them wonder.” Yu-furen sniffs disdainfully. “I have endured worse gossip on your account.” She adds, shooting him a bitter look that Wei Wuxian is absolutely sure he doesn’t deserve, even if she is technically correct. “Whatever ridiculous reasons they come up with, I highly doubt any of them will light on the truth, even if we return with a baby in tow.”
“What do you mean, ‘if’?” Wei Wuxian asks sharply. “Of course we’re bringing them home!”
Yu-furen levels a look at him that makes Wei Wuxian squirm. He thinks he’d prefer it if she were glaring at him, rather than this unreadable, strangely thoughtful look. “A baby is a lot of work.” She warns him. “And you are still practically a child yourself. Even after the birth, which is going to be a problem all on its own, you’re going to have months and months of sleepless nights and stress. Followed by years and years more of challenges and responsibility. Are you sure you’re ready for that?” She asks.
Strangely enough, Wei Wuxian thinks the question is sincere. It’s not a dare, like he was half expecting, but a genuine attempt to understand his position. “Maybe I am too young, and maybe I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, but I’m not just going to abandon them. I’ll do my best for them, even if I’m not good enough, because they deserve that much. They’re just- they’re innocent. I’m not going to punish them for my mistake.”
“It need not be a punishment.” Yu-furen huffs with a roll of her eyes. “If you are not ready, you are not ready. I am certain we can find someone in Meishan who would be happy to take in a baby, who would love the child as their own.”
“And let them grow up thinking they weren’t wanted ? That the person who gave birth to them thought they were too much hassle to take care of? No. This baby is mine.” Wei Wuxian insists. It’s not until Yu-furen’s gaze flickers down to his stomach that he realises he’s got his arms wrapped around himself protectively. He tries to uncurl, but it makes him feel awkward and twitchy.
Yu-furen almost smiles. She doesn’t, but her lips twitch and pull to one side as though she’s trying very hard not to. “Well, it’s not as though Lotus Pier isn’t already used to taking in strays.” She says acerbically, but for the first time, Wei Wuxian thinks she reminds him of Jiang Cheng, and the way he can never say anything nice without burying it under an insult or three.