Chapter Text
It has been less than a year of seclusion before Lan Wangji packs all his essentials into his qiankun pouch, bundles up his son in warm robes, and leaves a sparse note for his brother on his bed.
Xiongzhang. Do not come and find me. I will miss you.
A-Yuan makes a noise in his sleep, sighing and rolling his head into Lan Wangji’s neck. “Please plant A-Yuan, Zhan-gege, A-Yuan will be a nice radish,” he mutters, shivering.
Lan Wangji smiles in spite of himself. The radish dreams are always happy in the end, which will make the journey out of Cloud Recesses much better for everyone involved.
There are clothes in his qiankun pouch, but he does not have many clothes for A-Yuan, and only mourning robes for himself. It’s no matter, really– before her death, his mother had taught him to sew. Lan Wangji will never stop wearing mourning clothes, so his old robes will make plenty of material for A-Yuan’s new robes.
He spends some time holding his forehead ribbon between his fingers and considering. In the end, he decides to wrap it around A-Yuan’s wrist, so that his son would have a place to go even if he is gone.
There is always the chance that Gusu Lan would not accept Lan Yuan into their midst. This is precisely why Lan Wangji is leaving.
It’s surprisingly easy to sneak out after curfew. He uses talismans to put the guards to sleep, and then another talisman to bend the wards. His golden core is weaker after the whipping– he wants to sustain as much energy as possible for the sword ride out of Gusu, so he uses talismans. They’re simple talismans, stubborn things Wei Ying had left him.
Lan Wangji had realized the truth of the matter a week after the whipping. He’d never felt his golden core so weak , but talismans had been easy, almost second nature. It was fairly simple logic from there– Wei Ying went into the Burial Mounds with a sword and came out with talismans and a demonic flute. He’s surprised nobody’s realized it.
Or maybe he’s not. Nobody cares enough to realize it, except for him. Maybe he will tell A-Yuan when he is older, when he is able to learn how to draw talismans like his father.
Lan Wangji pulls his son closer into his embrace and hurries down the side of the mountain, faster than he’s ever walked before.
At least it isn’t raining. Lan Wangji remembers kneeling outside his mother’s prison in the rain for three hours before Xiongzhang had come to take him back, yelling his name even though it was not allowed.
Xiongzhang is the only one he will miss, really. There is a certain amount of resentment that is buried deep inside Lan Wangji, entwined with his veins, festering there ever since Lan Qiren looked at him once with disgust and decided he should be whipped for trying to protect someone he loved.
Loves. According to the elders, Lan Wangji’s mistake is that he keeps loving.
(Despite all this, Lan Wangji does not hate his uncle. He knows that the other choice was death, and that the whipping is the easiest he could get off. It doesn’t change the fact that he still looks at A-Yuan like Nie Mingjue used to look at the Wens.)
However, Lan Wangji is his mother’s son. He bore the punishment, if only because he was forced into it. He kept his son next to him in the jingshi, refusing Xiongzhang’s pleas to take A-Yuan away to be raised like an orphan, biding his time until he would be healed enough to leave.
Lan-furen never truly left. Lan Wangji would not make the same mistake.
It is dark by the time they reach Caiyi, and Lan Wangji is tired. His hair is already free-flowing, mourning whites unrecognizable. Nothing places him as a former member of the Lan sect.
“One room, please,” he tells the innkeeper, clutching A-Yuan tighter. ‘And – medicine. If you have it.”
A-Yuan still gets fevers, so it would be prudent to keep a stock of medicine, just in case. Lan Wangji would like to make sure his son never has to deal with a fever alone again.
The innkeeper nods, asks for a price that seems fair. Lan Wangji remembers he has to count his silver now and spends a long time at the counter, calculating in his head. Finally, he nods, gives the innkeeper his asking price, and hikes A-Yuan up higher on his hip as he heads up to their room.
A-Yuan stirs, yawning and then opening his eyes. “Zhan-gege? Where are we?” he asks sleepily, tilting his head to the side.
“We are at an inn. A-Yuan, do you remember I told you we would be going on a long trip one day?”
A-Yuan nods. “Away from people who hurt us.”
“Mn. This is that trip.”
“Oh,” says A-Yuan, yawning again. “Does this mean A-Yuan should call you A-Die again?”
Lan Wangji pats A-Yuan’s head, lips tilting up. “If you would like. You can call me A-Die or Zhan-gege whenever you want.”
A-Yuan sighs in contentment, snuggling closer to Lan Wangji’s chest. “A-Yuan was having a dream and you buried me like a potato but Xian-gege came and told you I was a radish, so you had to bury me like a radish. Also, you were a rabbit.”
“That sounds like a very nice dream,” Lan Wangji says solemnly, laying A-Yuan down on the bed carefully. “Go back to sleep so you can keep it.”
Lan Wangji takes off his outer robe. He’s only wearing two layers anyways, since there’s really no need for more at the moment.
It's a restless sleep. Even though he's tired, every time he closes his eyes, he's faced with Wei Ying falling and falling and falling and finally looking at peace.
Lan Wangji thinks instead. There is an old memory in him, buried under years and years of rules and conditioning. He does not remember much, since he was probably younger than A-Yuan at the time.
He does remember his mother holding him to her breast, hurrying down the side of the mountain, Xiongzhang's hand clutched tightly in her own. It had been raining, he thinks.
Gusu Lan had sent out a search party, obviously, and they were dragged back to Cloud Recesses. At least, Lan Wangji assumes this is what happened, since they were, quite obviously, still in Cloud Recesses for the rest of their lives.
It is this memory that Lan Wangji draws strength from. Would he have been a sweeter child, had his mother succeeded? Would he have talked more, smiled more? Would he have met Wei Ying?
It's no use to dwell on this, so instead Lan Wangji goes over the plan once again.
He's had a long year to iron out the details. It's a fairly simple plan, mainly because he thinks he can count the number of people who would take him and Wei Ying's son in without a second thought on one hand.
Baoshan Sanren, hopefully, will be one of them.