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Lan Yifei was, Lan Wangji knew, a particular favorite of Wei Ying’s.
Perhaps teachers should not have favorites; Lan Wangji was not inclined to judge either way, given his own blatant favoritism towards his son (regardless of the fact that Lan Sizhui deserved it). Besides, Wei Ying was incredibly good at hiding it. He showed each and every student the same tenderness and pride, remembered their triumphs and sore spots in detail without fail, made every single one feel like his favorite. The only reason Lan Wangji really knew she was particularly special at all was because he knew his husband better than himself.
(And he knew himself. And he knew Lan Yifei, born early in deep winter, over-serious and rigid in her schedules, far ahead and far behind her peers, far less verbal than she should be, eyes too old in a child’s face. He knew that sometimes she withdrew somewhere nobody could find her, sitting frozen motionless and utterly silent for minutes to hours at a time. He knew Wei Ying sat with her during these times whenever her parents could not, patient and warm.
He attempted not to think on it too often.)
She had displayed, lately, a particular hesitance and confusion towards sex and gender. Subtly enough, for a five year old, but also markedly unusual. They had thought she had grasped the concept at the usual time, with her peer group. It was one of several things that had seemed to pass in and back out of her mental grasp. He and Wei Ying had discussed it two nights ago, not quite over dinner. Wei Ying, a little bit over and into and through his dinner, as was his way.
Lan Wangji had reflected on it today, while writing letters. He preferred to think only of writing letters while he wrote letters, but Wei Ying had come into the Jingshi carrying a limp bundle of child in his arms and hastily mouthed boys and girls! ah! at him before sweeping into the adjoining room. It was not the first time Wei Ying had brought a particularly upset child into their home, and he suspected not the last. Sometimes he wondered if any of the parents of Wei Ying’s students were surprised or upset to abruptly find they were co-parenting with him. He also sometimes wondered if they should simply fully adopt another child so that Wei Ying would stop partially adopting every child he taught.
But for now, Lan Yifei. So he considered, while answering more unimportant letters almost but not quite by rote, their discussion.
“She seems more upset by it than confused,” Wei Ying had said, as thoughtfully as one could through a mouthful of noodles and peppers. “Ah, I mean, Lan Yifei is asking odd questions, yes, but she seems personally troubled by the answers. More like- mm, we have, um, in the Yunmeng library, we have these books written by-” He paused to swallow, much to Lan Wangji’s relief, and then turned from the table entirely to rummage through a pile of papers, to Lan Wangji’s dismay. “Written by a woman whose past life was still too vibrant in her, so she lived as the woman she still felt like instead of the man she’d been reborn as, and travelled gathering the stories of all these people who still held their past lives closer than their current ones, and she also had this theory on cinnabar versus blood that I referenced heavily for- uh, stuff. Anyway, the stories were amazing, but the point is I wonder if xiao-Yifei is still busy with a past life, or just remembers it too keenly somehow, and that’s where the issue lies. Shit, what was her- Chen Xiu! Chen Xiu, that’s her name-”
With all of this, it was not much of a surprise to Lan Wangji that after an hour or so he heard, barely muffled through the screen, Lan Yifei quietly asking “Is Wuxian-laoshi a girl or a boy?”
He heard Wei Ying hum, considering. This was not surprising either. He gave even the simplest of questions this treatment when they came from his pupils- a moment of thought, to give them weight, to answer them fully.
Instead of answering directly, Wei Ying asked back, “Tell me, xiao-Yifei, where do you think we know that kind of thing? Do you think we know in the body, or the heart, or the mind?”
Lan Wangji, left to his own devices, would not have asked such a question of a child under perhaps thirteen. Certainly not a child who had already expressed difficulty grasping the concept. (He would not have asked such a question at all. He wouldn’t know how to answer it himself. But such was Wei Ying.) He was still frequently surprised at the complexity of the questions Wei Ying asked his students, from four to- fully adult, really, his class technically moved up to Lan Li-laoshi at ten, but Lan Wangji was fairly certain none of his graduates had yet stopped coming to him with questions about anything at all.
There was a significant pause. Lan Wangji half expected no answer to come at all.
“Oh, there?” he finally heard Wei Ying say. “Your chest. So you think we feel it in our hearts? Do you feel it in your heart?”
Another pause. “I feel it there too,” Wei Ying said, gentle, almost hushed. “But it can be confusing, can’t it? Does it feel a little confusing?”
Lan Yifei made a little incoherent murmuring noise, edged with a tone that threatened tears.
“I know,” Wei Ying soothed. “We feel things in our hearts very strongly, but sometimes the things we feel there are hard to understand. But it’s okay, isn’t it, xiao-Yifei? We have the people around us to help us understand, and to help us be calm and patient when we can’t understand things right away.”
Lan Wangji attempted to swallow and found it more difficult than it should have been, then realized he was holding his brush above a half-filled page, unmoving, and presumably had been for the past few minutes. Instead of refocusing and continuing, he set it down and folded his hands in his lap. Perhaps it was unfair to Lan Yifei to listen- but if Wei Ying had the same concern, he would have activated a silencing talisman the moment he had entered the room, and Lan Wangji would not have heard any of this at all. He trusted Wei Ying’s judgement, in this matter. It may have been that this was something Wei Ying purposefully wanted heard, for one reason or the other.
“When people talk about boys and girls to you, it seems like it hurts. Does it hurt?” Wei Ying asked, and then “Where does it hurt?” and then “Do you have any words for the hurt?”
“I don’t like boys and girls,” Lan Yifei said, in a painfully little and thin voice. “I don’t like boys and girls. I don’t like to be a girl. It’s small.”
“It’s small?”
A sharp-edged noise, muffled by cloth. When Lan Yifei spoke again, she was barely intelligible. “I’m big. Girls are small.”
“Oh,” said Wei Ying, very softly. The hesitation was so short Lan Wangji wasn’t sure anyone else would have noticed. “Are boys bigger? What if xiao-Yifei was a boy? Do you think it would fit better?”
There was a long silence, punctuated by the rhythmic susurration of robes shifting and Wei Ying hushing the child he was rocking in his lap.
“Boys and girls is both small,” Lan Yifei said tearfully, nose so stuffed the words were barely comprehensible. Lan Wangji noticed the break in grammar with some concern- Lan Yifei had started talking late but picked up the rules of speech with shocking immediacy. It was unusual of her not to use concise, correct sentences.
“You’re bigger than a boy, too?”
“I’m big ,” Lan Yifei insisted, frantic, and Wei Ying immediately said “I believe you,” solid and final. Then, to Lan Wangji’s confusion, “What we put them together? Would there be enough space for xiao-Yifei inside, if we put boy and girl together, and we could have both at once?”
Apparently this made a lot more sense to Lan Yifei than to Lan Wangji, because her immediate response was to burst out in loud sobs that Lan Wangji intimately recognized as the relieved breakdown of a child who has finally communicated a great turmoil to someone they trust to fix it. He had heard it comparatively often since Wei Ying had begun teaching, and Lan Yuan had only done it a single time, but it had been- memorable.
(What he had been trying to say was that he couldn’t remember what Wei Wuxian looked like. Lan Wangji will never, for the rest of his life, forget the exact way his son’s voice cracked over my a-die instead of Xian-gege in the depth of his distress.)
“I know,” Wei Ying was murmuring, “I know, I know. It’s okay, I’ve got you. We’ll figure it out, xiao-Yifei, don’t worry. You can be big. You can be big. It’s okay to be big.”
Lan Wangji felt at this point like he was listening to something more private. Uncomfortable, like his inner robe sat wrong- but it was, of course, exactly in place, and it was Lan Wangji who was not. In silence, he wrote a deliberate note to inquire with the Yunmeng library for their collection on lingering past lives, rose and headed for the porch, slid the door shut behind him and settled to meditate.
He didn’t expect it to come so easily, but somehow, he sunk as simply as he does every early morning, and only came back up for Wei Ying’s fingertips settling on his shoulder.
Wei Ying stood holding Lan Yifei against him. It was impossible to tell whether the child in question was sleeping or merely cried out and limp with exhaustion.
“We need to speak with the parents,” Wei Ying murmured, “But that can wait. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Wait for me?”
Lan Wangji dipped his chin in acknowledgement.
When Wei Ying returned, he came up the path with the kind of meandering, swaying walk that screamed with every step I have something very important to talk about, but I don’t want to talk about it in any way, and I have been prolonging my suffering the entire way here by walking very slowly and imagining every possible way it could go wrong in excruciating detail.
“Wei Ying,” he called softly, and Wei Ying’s head snapped up in surprise like he somehow hadn’t expected Lan Wangji to actually wait for him. Possibly he had been actively hoping Lan Wangji was not.
“Ah, beloved husband! You didn’t actually have to wait out on the porch for me all this time,” Wei Ying said, confirming this suspicion.
He hummed, neutral, and gestured to the space beside him.
Wei Ying flung himself down on the boards with a hollow thud that would have made anyone but Lan Wangji flinch. “So xiao-Yifei,” he said, rolling to the side and curling around Lan Wangji’s folded knee, “I suppose I was right. I described one of the stories, to- mm. To xiao-Yifei, after you left, and xiao-Yifei liked it very much. Xiao-Yifei, it would seem, holds the past life and the current life in xiao-Yifei’s heart. Which is- I did tell the parents, briefly, but we should- I wonder if Yunmeng would send us copies of the Chen biographies-”
“Made a note,” Lan Wangji told him, “I will draft a letter after dinner,” and Wei Ying turned a delighted look on him that still had the power to turn his ears hot every single time.
“Ah, you are so good,” Wei Ying sighed, clumsily patting Lan Wangji’s shin. He shifted, hair falling in such a way that it obscured his expression, and said with careful lightness “Xiao-Yifei couldn’t be the first person in Cloud Recesses to feel this way, but, ah- how to put it-”
“Xiao-Yifei will be permitted to live how xiao-Yifei wishes,” Lan Wangji said, immediately catching onto Wei Ying’s concern, and combed the strands away from his husband’s face. Wei Ying’s eyes were searching, nearly suspicious. It spoke to the fierce protection he offered to every child that came under his care. Lan Wangji knew, had he said anything else, Wei Ying would have fought him to the bone to defend Lan Yifei’s right to live freely. Might still, if Lan Wangji didn’t make himself clear enough. The knowledge sent a rush of great fondness through him.
“Cloud Recesses has been... rigid,” he continued, and then paused, gathering his thoughts. “The Gusu Lan. Our rules should provide structure. Support. Temperance, morality.” He fell silent again. Wei Ying waited, tilting his head into Lan Wangji’s hand where it stroked through his hair.
“It is my hope,” he said deliberately, “That the Gusu Lan should grow to embrace those who are good, yet unfamiliar.”
Wei Ying’s expression was unreadable in a way that made Lan Wangji’s stomach tighten, and his fingers were still on the lines of the embroidery on Lan Wangji’s outer robe, not tracing, not picking, not counting threads.
“Illustrious sect leader Lan is very kind, as always, to those under his care,” Wei Ying said, voice too low for Lan Wangji to pick out any emotion in it. “This one wonders, however, what Lan Zhan thinks.”
Ah.
“Lan Zhan… strives not to judge what he does not understand. Lan Zhan trusts his husband’s judgement, in this matter and all others.”
There was a new kind of bareness to Wei Ying’s face. He must have known in some way, because he sat up in one smooth motion, tucking his feet under his thighs, facing towards the Jingshi.
“Well,” he said, opaquely cheerful, “That’s good! I have the best judgement, Lan Zhan is very wise to defer to me.”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji said.
“Yes?”
“Wei Ying.”
Now Wei Ying fiddled with the edge of Lan Wangji’s robe, worrying the material between his fingers and palms, and laughed. “Lan Zhan, you have to say a little more than my name, come on. How can your beloved husband help you?”
Lan Wangji reached out and cupped his elbow lightly, so as not to prevent him from his fidgeting, and did not speak. Wei Ying’s chin dropped slightly. After a moment, he sighed.
“Ah, Lan Zhan.”
He waited.
“It would be too much to ask. This, on top of- everything. Lan Zhan, he puts up with so much already, ah, how could this one take advantage?”
He squeezed Wei Ying’s elbow slightly.
“... I understand Lan Yifei,” Wei Ying whispered, gaze darting briefly to Lan Wangji before just as quickly darting away. “I understand xiao-Yifei very well, Lan Zhan. I think I know exactly how xiao-Yifei feels. I think maybe we could have- very, very similar hearts. Does Lan Zhan hear what I mean?”
Lan Wangji did hear what Wei Ying meant. He let go of his partner’s elbow and reached out to pull Wei Ying in against his chest. There was a distinct sensation of relief when the body in his arms relaxed into him, trusting despite the fear.
He had seen his husband sit on more than one occasion unnaturally still and quiet, staring searchingly into the pale polished bronze of a once-cursed mirror for long minutes. He hadn’t known, before, what Wei Ying could have been looking for. He knew what he feared Wei Ying was looking for- Yiling Laozu, the bones of the past self beneath the skin of the new, the guilt he still felt so intensely. It frightened him to imagine that Wei Ying might have been searching for the person Lan Wangji loved and failing to find them. It was a balm, in some ways, to now form a different idea.
He hoped Wei Ying had found some kind of peace in that mirror. Mo Xuanyu had and so Wei Wuxian now has fine features, delicate and sharp in equal turns, easy enough to balance between yin and yang with the flicker of a candle in a dark room- or, Lan Wangji thought, a change of clothing. A dusting of color across the cheekbones and lips. Hair gathered to a feminine grace rather than a masculine elegance. He would not presume to know what exactly Wei Ying felt, but it wasn’t all that difficult to see the balances that had already been struck there.
He pulled back just enough to gather Wei Ying’s hands in his own, with a delicacy that Wei Ying usually loathed to permit, the delicacy Wei Ying deserved.
“It would be the most profound honor,” he said, deliberate, soft, “To know and love all sides of the person I married.” He inhales; exhales. “It has always been my deepest joy to love my husband. I expect it would be just the same to love my wife. My spouse.”
Wei Wuxian did not cry easily. Tears do not come freely to people who have suffered pain with the particular intimacy and regularity that Wei Ying had. But when his spouse closed their eyes, their lashes glinted in the low light, and when they looked at Lan Wangji again their eyes were bright half-moons, the tears nearly pressed to falling by the size of their smile, and it came to him abruptly that there was nothing he wanted to do with his life but strive to bring more tears to them with happiness than he had ever brought with hurt. As many more as to make them drops to an ocean, if he could.
He wondered, with a small ache, how long Wei Ying had felt like this, had known and feared to say it aloud.
“If you… have words,” he said, recalling the phrasing Wei Ying had used earlier, “I would be glad to hear. When you are ready.”
“Are you- did you just quote me at myself? Me talking to an upset five year old?” They cackled, abrupt and loud and rude, reeling back. Lan Wangji watched them go with immense fondness. “You just told me to use my words! You! ”
Lan Wangji reached out, unable to resist, and his husband and wife and other half pressed their cheek happily into his palm, glowing with joy. He regretted deeply, in that moment, all of the time they might have missed, that Wei Ying could have been as bright and unfettered as they deserved- but they would now.
They would now.