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From his first step into Ghost City, Lan Wangji is drowning in red. The glare of the crimson lamps tints his mourning white robes with pink. The vendor’s stalls lining the road sell a thousand bloody cuts of animal and human corpses, and the ghostly shoppers wear bloodstains over their killing wounds. Lan Wangj’s jaw clenches, the gesture—and his Lan ribbon—hidden behind a white and blue demon-horned mask. He had liked red, once, on others, before it was the sullen shade of Qishan’s lava, the blood on Wei Wuxian’s eyes and teeth as he smiled at the edge of a cliff, the robes of forty dead elderly men and women Wei Ying had loved. Now the red aches at him like the scars along his back, like the resentful energy throbbing through these streets.
Lan Wangji’s hand aches to hold Bichen, but he knows his blade could offer no protection here. This city is the lair of Crimson Rain Sought Flower, and he will live or die by the ghost king’s will. Lan Wangji has spent long years finding the path to Ghost City, piecing Wei Ying’s chaotic notes into talismans to disguise spiritual energy, and learning the rules that Ghost City’s visitors must follow if they want to gamble in the house of Hua Cheng. Do not fight with spiritual energy. Do not harass a ghost or demon. Honor your agreements. Trade what you will.
Reciting the rules helps keep his head steady against the chaos of the Ghost City. Here, a pig demon waves his cleaver, bellowing at passerby to buy his pork; there a band of female ghosts giggles and peers at a window filled with fresh-flayed faces; elsewhere a squabble between two blue-skinned demons knocks over a cauldron of foul-smelling liquid that sizzles as it touches the claws, shoes, or hooves of passerby. Ghostly children careen through the streets, snatching at purses with too-pale fingers. A cloying scent drifts from a stall filled with colorful flowers that sing sweetly and smile with pointed teeth. Lan Wangji wishes Wei Ying was here to ground him. He imagines how Wei Ying would tug at Lan Wangji’s arm, pulling him back into his body and onwards to whatever wonder had caught his eye. The image rips the hole in Lan Wangji’s chest wider.
The crowd thins past the market, and Lan Wangji can see a temple ablaze with lamps of searing white rising above the ramshackle crimson skyline of Ghost City. Lan Wangji has heard of this place: a symbol of Hua Cheng’s devotion to the Flower-Crowned Prince, a twice-fallen god who had become the ghost king’s husband. Lan Wangji has heard what happens to those who disrespect the Crown Prince of Xian Le within Ghost City’s bounds, and he has no desire to join them. Dutifully, Lan Wangji makes his way to the temple. There is no place to kneel, but he burns a stick of incense and holds his prayer in his heart, eyes on the single delicate white flower placed on the shrine. Please, let me find Wei Ying again tonight. He does not expect that the prayer will make a difference. After all, he had prayed for Wei Ying to the gods before, at every temple he could find between Qiongqi Way and Nightless City. His last hope is with demons.
He leaves the temple and takes a different road, and here he sees the red glow of a palatial hall, hears the cackles and hoots and screams of a crowd. The Gambling Den. The doors are carved in ornate reds and blacks of expensive wood, and above the door hang three tablets:
Gains Over Shame.
Money Over Life.
Hahahahaha!
Lan Wangji tucks his right hand into the small of his back before stepping through the doors. The crowd of demons and ghosts pulses with resentful energy, reeking bodies crowded so tight together that Lan Wangji can barely see the nearest gaming table. Lan Wangji steps towards the shelter of a column to watch. For all the madness of the patrons, the building itself is opulent. Silver-embroidered red drapes cascade down the walls; faces carved in black wood smile or frown from the ceiling, beautiful and hideous and perhaps shifting when Lan Wangji looks away. Silver-carved flowers twine their way up the pillar Lan Wangji leans against. Wei Wuxian would have decorated his Demon Slaughter Cave like this, Lan Wangji imagines, if he had the funds for a more intricate lair.
Lan Wangji watches the nearest gaming table: dice roll, gamblers howl in glee or disappointment, and a cleaver flashes down to sever a finger that the dealer scoops up as payment. Lan Wangji stays impassive: it would not do to show weakness here.
He needs the impassivity even more as two thick-set headless ghosts in red uniforms drag a man roughly past Lan Wangji. The man flails silently in the bouncers’ arms, his mouth moving desperately as though pleading or screaming. The bouncers push him out the door to stumble on the ground. “You had your chance,” one of the guards growls, the sound coming from somewhere in its abdomen. “Don’t gamble what you don’t wanna lose.” He’d gambled his voice, Lan Wangji realizes. That is less than Lan Wangji plans to risk.
“Sir, are you here to play?” an attendant asks, catching Lan Wangji’s attention. Her build is slight, her mask laughing. Her scarlet uniform drapes on her in obscuring layers. Something about the form hinted beneath is wrong.
“Mn.”
“Excellent! What game do you prefer, sir?”
“Against Crimson Rain Sought Flower.” Lan Wangji has traveled hundreds of miles to say those words.
“Ah,” the attendant breathed, “You must be here to make an… interesting wager. You’ve chosen a good day; our lord is indeed visiting the hall! Would you care for a drink first, or-“
“No need. The game.”
“Of course, of course. It’s just this way-“
The attendant undulates through the crowd, smoothly leading Lan Wangji to an area where the pack of not-quite-people thin out into a clearing. The center of it is a long table, the gamblers at it dressed opulently (though bloodstains seemed an acceptable pattern for formalwear here). Lan Wangji’s eyes, though, fix on the curtained dais. Behind a delicate veil of red embroidered with silver sit two figures, one sitting with easy authority, the other wrapped around him. Hua Cheng and his husband, Lan Wangji assumes.
There are other humans dotted in this crowd, and one human sits at the table now. The woman’s arms are thick with muscles. Elsewhere, Lan Wangji would describe her as strong, but now her face looks near shattering.
“A recipe good enough to save my inn,” she insists, “that’s all I ask.”
“Very well,” the croupier replies, their smile too fixed to belong to something living. “And you offer?”
“The memory of every meal I eat. Past and future, all of them. Please, I’ve cooked the best, eaten the best, please.”
The croupier’s eyes flick over to the curtain, and the figure behind it waves a hand lazily. “Your bet is accepted,” the croupier interprets. “My lord wins on odds.”
The woman snatches the jar of dice, shakes it, and slams it on the table. She yanks the ebony wood up to reveal a pair of threes. She slumps in relief, and the figure behind the curtain gestures again. A servant promptly appears with a battered, food-stained book. She babbles her thanks as they guide her away from the table.
“Next up, please,” the croupier drawls. The attendant nudges Lan Wangji forward, and he steps up to the table’s smooth black expanse. The crowd looks at him appraisingly, whispers and speculation tittering around the table. Lan Wangji does not care. In the years since he had defended Demon Slaughter Cave against his own clan and taken the blows of the whip, such stares had often landed on him. Noting how far he had fallen. Wondering how much further he might go.
“What prize do you desire?” the croupier asks, bone dice clacking in their black cup.
Lan Wangji closes his eyes for a second, takes a breath, imagines his heart freezing into jade. When his voice comes out, it stays remarkably steady.
“The body and soul of Wei Ying, courtesy name Wei Wuxian.”
The whispers around the table explode. The corpse of the Yiling Laozu! Who would dare ask for such a thing?
From behind the curtain comes a lazy chuckle, and the crowd falls silent. “Well, well, well,” drawls a voice that echoes like a Waterborne Abyss. “Congrats, you’re the first to come to my table for that. I’m curious, let’s have a look at you.”
The figure behind the curtain waves a finger, and the curtain pushes aside. The resentful aura of the room strengthens, thick enough now that most cultivators would be pushed to their knees. Lan Wangji stays unbent. The tall, muscular not-quite-man on the not-quite-throne is dripping with scarlet silk and silver jewelry. With one of his eyes covered with a patch and the other alive as a star, he looks like a pirate draped in the spoils of his latest raid.
Hua Cheng sits with his head propped on one hand while the other arm is wrapped possessively around a man in simply cut white robes, clearly the Crown Prince of Xian Le. The deity rests his head on Hua Cheng’s shoulder like a deer nuzzled beside a tiger. Lan Wangji shudders at the easy trust between the two, remembering a boy in white guest disciple robes who had once draped himself across Lan Wangji. Despite this he bows deeply, first to Hua Cheng and then to Xian Le.
Hua Cheng snorts. “Interesting. You look like the uptight sort. I bet you’ve never been in a gambling hall in your life, am I right? Certainly not in one with this many lowlifes.” He gestures at the crowd and they laugh. “So tell me, why do you want the Yiling Laozu bad enough to play my game?”
Lan Wangji ignores the question. Instead, he asks, “If I win, can you pay?”
“Let me think,” Hua Cheng drawls, leaning back in his chair and idly popping a blackened piece of food in his mouth. He smacks his lips with satisfaction and eyes his petitioner while blood pounds in Lan Wangji’s ears. Hua Cheng doesn’t look like he’s weighing the contents of his treasury; he looks like he’s deciding how best to play with his newest toy.
“I can swing it,” Hua Cheng says finally, and Lan Wangji breathes again, trapping a hundred questions about Wei Ying on the tip of his tongue. “That said, your gamble is going to be pretty pricy. How about you warm up with a smaller bet first?”
“Do I have a choice?”
Hua Cheng laughs in delight. “Oh, you’re bitchy, aren’t you? But nah, you’re right, you don’t. This will be simple, evens and odds. I win, you give me your mask and the reason you’re so desperate for Wei Wuxian. You win, I’ll give you… eh, you choose the stakes. No Yiling Patriarch, though.”
Lan Wangji grinds his teeth. “Fine. A rare script on Cleansing.”
“Does that sound like a fair bet, gege?” Hua Cheng asks Xian Le. He nods, and Hua Cheng claps his hands. “If His Highness says so, it must be fair! Let’s play. Remember, the cup lifts, and then there’s no going back. I win on odds.”
The croupier offers Lan Wangji the cup, and he shakes it. Hua Cheng raises an eyebrow at the smooth rattle of dice in the cup, and Lan Wangji allows himself a moment of smugness that he had paid a gambler to teach him the movement. He will control what he may in this game.
But chance will take its price. At last, Lan Wangjji lets the dice roll, trapping them to the table. The cup lifts to reveal a five and six. Odds, Hua Cheng’s numbers. Lan Wangji steels himself as Hua Cheng smirks and the onlookers roar with delight.
“That’s our lord!”
“Take it off, sexy! Don’t stop with the mask.”
Lan Wangji unlaces the ribbon of the mask and pulls it off, ignoring the wolf-whistles of a succubus. With only his face left to shield his emotions, he steps across to the dais to offer the mask in a polite two-handed grip. Hua Cheng lazily snatches it with one hand, playing at putting the mask up to his face and making a face at his lover. The god gives an amused smile in return, two fingers lightly resting on his temple as the pair’s attention turns again to Lan Wangji.
“Quick payment! Good, good, we like that around here. Cough up the rest of it. You wanna drag the Yiling Patriarch’s body through the streets? Torment his soul for a million years because he kicked your puppy, killed your uncle’s cousin, something like that?”
No weakness, Lan Wangji reminds himself. Be jade. “No. He deserves respect.”
Hua Cheng makes a show of counting on his fingers. “Two, three, four whole words! Wow. Still not enough, though. Spill.”
“I seek him because I have regrets. I failed to protect him in life. I wish to protect him in death.”
Lan Wangji keeps his eyes fixed on the dais. Hua Cheng’s uncovered eye locks onto Lan Wangji with a sharper intensity, some hard-to-read emotion in its depths.
“Why did you care? Did you owe him money or something?”
“No.”
“Did he owe you money? Hell of a long way to go to collect a debt, but I get it.”
“No. He owed me nothing.”
“Then what was he to you?”
Lan Wangji pauses. No, he cannot allow himself to hold back; he cannot risk that Crimson Rain Sought Flower will end their game. “He is my soulmate.”
“And yet he fought three thousand men at Nightless City, alone. He fell off a three hundred foot cliff, alone.” Hua Cheng’s face twists into a snarl of disdain. “Are you that shit a soulmate, or is he?”
“Wei Ying is good. I am not.”
Hua Cheng scoffs. “You just wanted to ditch a guy who the whole world hated.”
“Not the whole world. I loved him. His son, now my son, loved him. If he was returned to us, the world may love or hate as it wishes.”
Lan Wangji tastes metal in his mouth, like his heart is trying to rip itself out through his throat. Xian Le leans into Hua Cheng, and the two have a quick whispered discussion, their eyes flicking occasionally back to Lan Wangji. At last Xian Le nods and then settles his head against Hua Cheng’s shoulder, softening the effect of Hua Cheng’s glare at Lan Wangji.
“That, finally, is a reason.” Hua Cheng’s voice rings out like a carnival barker. “Took him a few tries but he got there. Let’s get a round of applause.” A crescendo of claps come from demonic hands, some of them clicking or sloshing instead. “Moving on to the main bet, then. What are you gonna pay me if you lose?”
Lan Wangji’s heart hammers as he tugs at his qiankun pounch. He pulls out his guqin first, and several demons start back at the sight of the instrument. Crimson Rain Sought Flower is unmoved, even as Bichen joins Wangji against the smooth dark of the table.
“C’mon, do better,” Hua Cheng scoffs. “Sure, you could bet that if you wanted to win an arm or a leg at another table in this room. But soulmates don’t come cheap.”
Lan Wangji nods, tucking his spiritual tools away. It had been worth trying, but he has always known the bet would come to this. There could be nothing else, in a hall where futures traded for memories. “My golden core.”
The crowd roars, a hurricane with Lan Wangji and Hua Cheng at its silent center. A scuffle breaks out in the crowd, but Lan Wangji does not turn. Be jade, he reminds himself, be jade. A slow smile of satisfaction spreads across Crimson Rain Sought Flower’s face.
“Your golden core. A bright, shiny currency to buy a necromancer with. I’ll take it! For this match, we’ll each roll some dice. Roll higher than me and you win. You lift the cup, your fate is sealed.”
Lan Wangji nods, and Hua Cheng takes up the dice cup sitting beside him, popping the dice into his hand and offering them for his husband to blow on. He blushes and puffs a breath across Hua Cheng’s hand. The ghost king almost purrs in satisfaction, then shakes the cup and the dice with a flourish. He slams the cup on the table, hand trapping it down. The crowd waits in silent suspense as Hua Cheng raises the cup.
Six, five. Eleven in total. Lan Wangji’s path to victory narrows to a single-log bridge, a one in thirty-six chance at best even if his opponent were not a master of luck. Hua Cheng smirks, staring Lan Wangji down in a challenge.
“You haven’t rolled your dice yet, kid. Give up now and I’ll let you walk away, special one-time offer.”
The watching demons murmur and shriek with surprise at the offer. Lan Wangji does not answer or move his eyes away from Crimson Rain Sought Flower’s predatory gaze. Instead, he shakes the cup and imagines how Wei Ying would have blown on his dice for luck. How he would have smiled to see Lan Wangji gamble. But there is no Wei Ying, that is why Lan Wangji is here, so he shakes the dice alone. He slams the cup down, alone, and lifts it with the last prayers of his heart.
A six, then a one. Seven. Failure.
Lan Wangji drops to his knees, eyes falling briefly shut as jeers crack like a discipline whip. The sulfur scent of resentment crowds in his nostrils as the surrounding monsters draw closer, claws curling along his neck.
“You gonna tear his core out, boss?”
“Ooh, bet it would make a pretty lamp!”
Hua Cheng’s voice booms over them all. “Hey, back it up, he’s my prize now! And a gift for His Highness, so none of you bastards better fucking touch him.”
The demons slide back again from Lan Wangji, and he watches numbly from his knees as Xian Le and Hua Cheng have a final whispered conversation. Hua Cheng softly trails a hand through his husband’s hair and kisses him as Xian Le’s ribbon twines across Hua Cheng’s shoulders and then back around the deity’s neck. Poetic, some part of Lan Wangji thinks helplessly, that his golden core is going to be part of someone else’s courting gift.
At last Xian Le pulls away from Hua Cheng and crosses to Lan Wangji. His hands grip Lan Wangji’s shoulders, gentle but strong with spiritual energy. Lan Wangji does not resist their pull as Xian Le tugs him to his feet. During the war Lan Wangji had seen victims of Wen Zhuliu, plenty of them, and he remembered the way they screamed, the hollows in their gazes. But many of them survived, as long as they kept the will to live. Lan Wangji only offered this wager because he knows he can endure, and return to raise his son, and be no more empty than he had been before. The only thing he cannot bear is that he has failed Wei Ying.
Xian Le murmurs softly, “Come on, just a few steps to the manor.” Lan Wangji numbly allows himself to be guided through a doorway—dice roll, Lan Wangji flinches—and the stink of the Gambling Den falls away. Here instead is the scent of water and flowers, almost like Lotus Pier. Almost like the place Wei Ying will never see again.
“Good, good. That was very brave of you, you know,” the god continues, helping lower Lan Wangji onto a soft seat. A porcelain cup of tea is pushed into his hands, and Lan Wangji stares at it as Xian Le quietly tells a servant to prepare a guest room.
So Lan Wangji will be allowed to recover in the airy, golden comfort of this manor after losing his core. A small kindness.
“Please take it quickly,” Lan Wangji requests. “I am awaited at home.”
The deity blinks. “Your core, you mean? Oh, did you really think I would take it out of you?”
Lan Wangji stares blankly back. Hua Cheng’s husband had noticed the number of limbs changing hands in the Gambling Den, had he not? “Yes.”
Xian Le shakes his head, his eyes gleaming with gentle humor. “Oh no, I plan to pass your golden core on again. To our bartender, my good friend. He should be here soon, assuming he ran from the library. He sounded like he was planning to hurry.”
Lan Wangji’s eyes furrow into a frown. What new game is this?
Dashing footsteps skitter to a halt in the hallway outside, and the god’s voice rises to call to someone else. “He’s all yours, friend.”
“Lan Zhan?” Lan Wangji’s head snaps up, his breath catching. The man stepping through the doorway wears red robes and a silver mask, but Lan Wangji knows those shining grey eyes beneath. Knows that voice, knows the birdlike tilt of his shoulder.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says hoarsely. The teacup shatters at his feet as he stands. Wei Ying takes a couple hesitant steps forward.
“You meant all that,” Wei Ying says slowly. “You must have really meant that, to gamble your golden core.”
Lan Wangji’s mouth fills with things too large to say. “Yes,” he breathes softly instead.
Wei Ying steps closer, his smile wobbling. “And you saved A-Yuan.”
“He is a good son. Wei Ying raised him well.”
“Ah, I can’t wait to meet him!” Wei Ying tries to scrub at his eyes, then tears the mask off in a frantic scramble of fingers and tries again. Lan Wangji is hit with a wave of dizzy euphoria. Yes, here is the face Lan Wangji fell in love with, back and with the vibrancy the Wei Ying of Nightless City had lost. Wei Ying’s eyes dance with a hint of tears, and his smile brings his entire face to life.
Lan Wangji closes the distance between them, and wonderingly brings a hand up to Wei Wuxian’s neck, feeling his warmth and his heartbeat. “You are alive. How?”
Wei Ying almost startles back from the touch, then settles into it with a laugh, his breath ghosting over Lan Wangji’s face. Something that had been dead blooms again in Lan Wangji’s chest as Wei Ying places his hand over Lan Wangji’s.
“I got a surprise friend for once!” Wei Ying laughs. “I’m much more used to surprise enemies. But you remember the whole thing—cliff, falling, lots of rocks at the bottom—except it turns out this guy is really good at catching people who fall off things, and he was waiting around at the bottom.”
Lan Wangji glances over at Xian Le, who gives an embarrassed smile and a small wave.
“Oh yeah, looks like you’ve met, but this is Xie Lian, also known as the Crown Prince of Xian Le. He’s a god, but he’s still really cool.”
Xie Lian explains, “I don’t get a lot of prayers at my Scrap-gathering Immortal shrines! So when someone offered incense at one and asked for me to protect a good man who everyone hated, I decided to take notice. Lucky thing, too. He was in a bit of a bad way by the time I caught him, so I brought him back here to recover. And then the bartender had just quit—well, been devoured by a rude patron—so my husband offered him a job. Wei Ying has been excellent company, and quite a hand with the odder cultivation scripts in the library.”
Lan Wangji wonders who had prayed, then remembers a stop he had made the night before Nightless City. A small roadside shrine, as much a shelter for beggars as a place for worship, a quiet inscription to the god of things forgotten and unloved. Lan Wangji would have paid heaven or hell anything that night.
Wei Ying waves his free hand, the other one still gripping on to Lan Wangji’s. “Anyways! Gods, jobs, who cares. I figured I’d stay here because—well, everyone I ever wanted to protect was dead, and everyone I ever loved hated me. I thought. But I guess…” he bites his lip, glances away and then back. “…I guess one person I wanted to protect survived me. And one person I loved never hated me.”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says hoarsely, then slides his hands to Wei Ying’s face and kisses him. He had imagined kissing Wei Ying in so many different ways: laughter under his lips in the library, cool trembling touches in the Xuanwu of Slaughter’s cave, moans against a tree on Phoenix Mountain. None of those dreams had prepared him for the reality of this first kiss, the desperate fire that crackles to life at Wei Ying’s touch. His lips land first against the corner of Wei Ying’s mouth, paper-soft warmth against Lan Wangji’s lips. Wei Ying whimpers and moves to kiss Lan Wangji properly, and Lan Wangji’s nose is filled with the scents of spice and sulfur and Wei Ying . Their heads tilt at just the right angle to lock together, and they kiss like starved things, hungry for heat and touch and taste. Lan Wangji’s world narrows to every place they connect, trying to memorize the silky feel of Wei Ying’s hair tangled in his hands, the grip of Wei Ying’s hand on Lan Wangji’s shoulders, every warm inch of Wei Ying’s mouth. If Wei Ying somehow vanishes from his arms again, Lan Wangji thinks dizzily, he could live a lifetime on this moment.
They come up for air, and an overwhelmed Lan Wangji buries his head into Wei Ying’s shivering neck, nuzzling in another lungful of his scent. He murmurs Wei Ying’s name just to feel him respond to it. Wei Ying’s hands run up and down Lan Wangji’s back as though checking whether Lan Wangji is really, truly there.
A polite voice coughs in the background, and Lan Wangji pulls back enough to see their host blushing a brilliant red. “Well, that went well! I’ll just leave you to it. And, um, maybe write an apology to Mu Qing and Feng Xin. I perhaps understand their perspective on some things now.”
Wei Ying laughs giddily, still not looking away from Lan Wangji. “I would apologize, but I’m not sorry at all and also I owe you a lot more revenge than that.”
“I suppose so.” Xie Lian winces, then a smile breaks through his embarrassment. “However, congratulations to you both. Lan Wangji--I know this has been an odd introduction, but I’ve heard so many stories about you--please consider yourself welcome. I’m glad you passed my husband’s tests.”
The Crown Prince bows to the couple, then rolls a pair of dice and vanishes through the doorway. Wei Wuxian tugs gently at their joined hands, leading Lan Wangji out a pair of doors that overlook an elegant pond and garden. Will-o-the-wisps dance across the water, their reflections shimmering between the perfect blossoms of lotuses. As the pair wind along a pathway of golden stone, Wei Ying easily starts up a torrent of words: telling Lan Wangji about the new forms of cultivation he’s developed, the best of Ghost City cuisine, the regular customers at the Gambling Den’s bar. He shyly, then eagerly, asks about A-Yuan, and Lan Wangji glows with quiet pride as he tells Wei Ying about A-Yuan’s crusade against an older bully and his progress on the guqin. Lan Wangji delights in Wei Ying’s chatter, soaks up every bounce in Wei Ying’s step, every quick joke and sly look. He luxuriates in a wave of contentedness as Wei Ying rants about their hosts’ indiscretions.
“Seriously, every available surface,” Wei Ying tells him. “The kitchen. The bath. The garden pavilion. The foyer, seriously, the foyer! The two of them can’t keep their hands off each other, they’re even more shameless than me. It’s sickening.”
“That terrible?” Lan Wangji asks wryly. Wei Ying raises his free hand (the only hand he will have free ever again, if Lan Wangji has his way) and rocks it back and forth.
“Ehh, pretty bad. Mostly, though, I was…” he pauses. “Remember the time we met Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen? It felt like that. And it took me a long time to figure out what that was.”
“Mn.”
“I was jealous,” Wei Ying says with a self-deprecating smile. “So damn jealous I was practically sick with it. Jealous about the way they could just move around each other, and touch, and share the same bed every night. Jealous of the way they know and trust and- and love each other. And I finally realized that I knew the only person I wanted a life like that with, too.”
Wei Ying settles onto a bench and Lan Wangji joins him, sliding an arm around Wei Ying’s side and still marveling at how warm and soft he is. Wei Ying looks serious now.
“Lan Zhan, I’ve hurt you so many times. I’ve dragged your name in the mud, I’ve said every cruel thing to you I could, I’ve pulled you off that perfect path your clan put you on. A Jade of Lan gambling his golden core in Ghost City!” he shakes his head. “Really, Lan Zhan, gambling with golden cores is my thing, you’d better not try it ever again and I don’t know why you were even enough of an idiot to do it once. And against much worse odds than my bet, I’ll have you know!”
Lan Wangji startles at the implication, and Wei Ying’s eyes widen and he rapidly leans in to cut Lan Wangji off with a finger to his lips.
“Nope, nope, forget about the golden core stuff, we can talk about that another day! I’m fine, I’m fine. I just… Xie Lian told me what you told Hua Cheng, and I want you to know that you owe me nothing. No regrets, no debts. You’ve done so much for me, even when I made it hard. So if you’re here because you have regrets, please go home and consider yourself free. But if you’re here because you want me--this whole mess--then I want everything you want to give. I’m selfish that way.”
Wei Ying’s gaze lowers to the water, soft and vulnerable, and Lan Zhan wishes he could curl himself around Wei Ying like a lamp around a candle. He swallows, instead, and tries to unstick his throat.
“Wei Ying. I choose you. I want all of you, always.”
“Lan Zhan, you horrible monster,” Wei Ying breathes, slowly lifting his eyes back to Lan Wangji’s. “You really, really want me around? You’re sure? Be careful, I’m awfully hard to get rid of.”
Words have never been easy, so Lan Wangji kisses Wei Ying instead. He cups a hand to the back of Wei Ying’s neck and thinks, You are so much better a person than you imagine. He licks into the sweetness of Wei Ying’s mouth and thinks, You bring me to life; you make me more than jade. He slowly lowers Wei Ying’s back to the bench and pins him down, and then he no longer thinks, just revels in Wei Ying’s soft eager whimpers. Wei Ying moves constantly under Lan Wangji’s hands and mouth. Lan Wangji realizes Wei Ying is exploring, cataloguing every hitch in Lan Wangji’s throat, coming back to the gestures and touches that Lan Wangji responds to the most. Their kisses keep getting better , and now Lan Wangji can see the start of a lifetime of exploring one another like this stretching in front of them. The heat of his desire is a slow, warm burn, a promise of years of pleasure to come. They lose long minutes to kisses and moans and Lan Wangji sucking a tender line of marks along Wei Ying’s collarbone and throat.
“Alright, enough for now, Lan er-gege,” Wei Ying laughs breathlessly, pushing his hand to Lan Wangji’s chest and gently nudging him up to a seated position. “This poor body will be so much happier tomorrow if we make it into one of Paradise Manor’s very fancy bedrooms before you fully savage me. Also, I wanna keep the moral high ground with Xie Lian for at least a day.”
“Mn,” Lan Wangji hums with a slight smile on his lips, helping Wei Ying back up from the bench. His hair is beautifully messy, and Lan Wangji feels a possessive thrill at the sight. Wei Ying lets his hand linger on Lan Wangji’s chest, tracing a circle above where his golden core thrums.
“Guess this is mine now,” Wei Ying says with a feigned nonchalance. “I’ll have to take good care of it; it’ll be such a chore. What an inconvenient gift, Lan Zhan!”
“Mn. It changes little. My heart was already yours.”
Wei Ying blushes. “You can’t just cut me off and say that, I was going to be smooth! And then you had to be all smooth at me first, absolutely unfair of you.”
Lan Wangji shakes his head with mock gravity. How long has it been since he last joked like this? “Unfairness is forbidden in Ghost City. Continue.”
Wei Ying huffs. “Well, fine. I was going to say, if I have to look after your core, I think it’ll be a lot easier if I leave it in your chest. So it looks like we’ll have to stick around with each other forever.”
Lan Wangji kisses Wei Ying again, long and deep, as sprites dance over the waters.
“Forever,” Lan Wangji promises, letting the word settle into his heart. Forever.