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Chapter Text

Jiang Cheng hears the flare before he sees it. The sharp whistle of launch makes him spin. Several li to the south, he spots it.

Lan clouds glimmer in the night sky: A distress signal.

His first reaction is irritation. How dare Lan disciples be night-hunting in Yunmeng? The Jiang Sect is more than enough to protect their lands.

His second thought is that the Lans most likely to be in his territory are Jin Ling’s friends— one of whom he has taken to calling his cousin.

Jiang Cheng is partial to his sect and his people, but he will not leave the flare unanswered, not when he is an able-bodied cultivator in his own territory.

The dazzling blue clouds fade against the distant night sky.

Jiang Cheng orders two senior disciples to join him, mounts Sandu, and takes off toward the dark wilderness.

The lakes and forests race beneath him as he eats up ground.

Jin Ling will be upset if either of his friends have sustained injuries. The kid only has three friends. Jiang Cheng endeavors to minimize Jin Ling’s stress levels, especially with the anniversary of Jin Guangyao’s death looming.

The smoke trail guides Jiang Cheng into one of the deeper parts of the forest. He happens to know there is a cave nearby that he and Wei Wuxian explored as children.

Hopefully the Lans have taken shelter there.

Closer now, Jiang Cheng can hear the howling of a great beast. He would bet silver that it’s a ghost hound. Old instincts make him want to drive the canine demon away and make sure his brother is safe.

But his brother isn’t here.

His brother is busy traveling the world like some kind of nomad. He hasn’t even bothered to reach out to Jiang Cheng because Wei Wuxian is an asshole in this life, too. The only updates he hears come from Jin Ling via the letters his brother exchanges with their nephew.

Just as Jiang Cheng spots the clearing and summons Zidian, he hears it.

Sharp, shaking, and pitiful, there comes the demanding trill of a flute.

His heart lurches into his stomach, and his sword dives into the clearing before his brain registers the action.

That damned flute! The unsteadiness of it—

He would know his brother anywhere. And if Wei Wuxian is able to face a dog creature at all, it is because he is protecting someone else. Alone, he would have frozen or fled.

How frustrating that Wei Wuxian will always save others but never himself.

In the clearing, he sees the ghost hound is larger than a bear. It must be even bigger to a grown man than the street dogs were to the malnourished orphan whose early nightmares at Lotus Pier still haunt Jiang Cheng’s memory.

The demon’s pelt is mottled with blood and muscle and bone. It would turn weaker stomachs. As it is, Jiang Cheng’s glad he has not eaten.

The stench of gore and death wafts on the night air, and the animated corpses clinging to the hound and restraining it are not solely to blame for the olfactory assault.

“Wei Wuxian!” he shouts.

The flute chokes off, and the hound rounds on Jiang Cheng.

Over its shoulder, he sees a face that is still new. Softer cheeks, a delicate nose, and darker eyes make him look oddly like Jin Ling. It causes a weird stab of emotion, and for a moment, he can’t remember who he is looking at.

Mo Xuanyu’s body blinks at him, but the exhausted panic streaked with relief is all Wei Wuxian.

“Aim for the neck,” his brother says, and then promptly keels over.

…

Jiang Cheng cannot even remember killing the ghost hound. Zidian seems to have separated its head from its body, and his disciples take care of the rest as he scrambles toward Wei Wuxian’s prone form.

Wei Wuxian is dressed in rough-spun black robes, but even the dark cloth cannot hide the sticky blood soaking into the earth beneath him.

There’s so much blood that for a moment he forgets which sibling he is holding.

Jiang Cheng curses and begins feeding spiritual energy into the small candle of a core Mo Xuanyu cultivated. In the last year it has grown, but not enough.

The ragged gasps of air smooth slightly until Wei Wuxian stirs and blinks up at Jiang Cheng.

“You’re here,” Wei Wuxian says in surprise. His voice is weak and Jiang Cheng wouldn’t be surprised if his brother was halfway delirious.

“Of course I’m here, dumbass. You sent a flare up in my territory. A Lan flare.”

Wei Wuxian takes too long to think about this, and Jiang Cheng realizes that his sweaty, ashen skin is burning with fever. “Didn’t have anything else,” Wei Wuxian murmurs, his movements slowing.

“Don’t you dare fucking die on me again,” Jiang Cheng snaps.

“Watch your language around the kids,” Wei Wuxian scolds, his eyes not focused on anything specific.

“What kids?”

“My kids,” Wei Wuxian says, as if Jiang Cheng is the idiot here. Then, he puts his head against Jiang Cheng’s chest and closes his eyes. “They’re in the cave. Call Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian slurs in his last moments of consciousness.

Jiang Cheng scans the area, certain now that his brother was protecting those Lan brats on a night hunt. They better be seriously fucking injured to have left his brother undefended. He doesn’t care if Wei Wuxian babies them; those kids are nearly grown.

And he will absolutely be writing to Lan Wangji to bitch about the man leaving his brother alone again.

Scooping Wei Wuxian into his arms, he walks to the cave they explored as children.

“The hound is dead,” he barks into the gloom. “Get out here so I can get your useless senior back to Lotus Pier.”

He hears a squeak from a voice too young to be a disciple.

Slowly, three terrified, tiny faces emerge from the shadows. Jiang Cheng is abruptly forced to reevaluate how this night is going to go.

A little girl steps forward and two smaller children cling to the skirts of her dirt-smeared robes. A bundle in the girl’s arms squirms and Jiang Cheng realizes there is a baby, too.

The eldest— no more than nine years at the most— sizes Jiang Cheng up with a defiant look and none of the due courtesy. “Who are you, and what did you do to Wei-Shushu?”

Huh.

Wei Wuxian was apparently protecting actual small children.

What the fuck?

…

Jiang Cheng is not going to cry tonight. Maybe his brother is bleeding out in his arms as they fly back to Lotus Pier. And maybe there are four small (seriously, so fucking young), scared children in his brother’s care. That’s fine. Perfectly fine.

If he is going to cry about anything, it would be how Zhao Yue, the oldest of the children, immediately relaxed when he introduced himself as Sect Leader Jiang. She had turned to her siblings and said, “He’s Wei-Shushu’s brother.” His brother. “We can trust him.”

Why, after everything, would Wei Wuxian tell his children they can trust Jiang Cheng? Is he some kind of idiot? The answer to that is of course, yes, but it still makes something hot and painful unfurl in his ribs.

Jiang Cheng is definitely not going to cry about it. There’s no time as he and his disciples fly them toward the safety of Lotus Pier.

When they land, the children refuse to be separated from Wei Wuxian, not even for the promise of warm food and baths.

Zhao Tong screams louder than her little three-year-old lungs should permit when a nursemaid tries to take her and the baby to the nursery. The older two children glare at everyone until the four of them are kept together.

Jiang Cheng cannot help but wonder how long his brother has been caring for these children that they are so loyal and, frankly, codependent. It reminds him of the early days after Lotus Pier fell when A-Jie wouldn’t let them out of her sight.

The compromise ends up being that the children stay in the corner of the medical wing and receive baths and fresh robes from a maid while a doctor cleans and bandages Wei Wuxian’s wounds.

Jiang Cheng would very much like to erase the image of the deep, angry claw marks across his brother’s stomach, but he is not so lucky. The herbal poultice, at least, will draw the infection out.

Wei Wuxian is as pale as he was in the days after Wen Ruohan’s death. Jiang Cheng wonders if he’ll remain unconscious just as long this time.

Once dry, Zhao Yue comes to stand at Jiang Cheng’s side after the doctor leaves. Her face bears much sorrow for one so small. The baby in her arms whines and reaches toward Wei Wuxian. Jiang Cheng wonders if the baby even remembers her birth parents. Not likely with the way she whines, “Ba!”

When she sees the bandages and bruises, the mature mask cracks off Zhao Yue’s face, and she starts bawling. “Is… Is Wei-Shushu going t-to be okay?”

Jiang Cheng carefully lifts Zhao Hua from her arms and sets a steadying hand on her shoulder. Neither little girl is thrilled. “He’s lived through worse.” He leaves out the part about how he’s died once before, too.

“People didn’t want us,” she whispers after a long stretch of sobs. “They say four orphans are unlucky.” She starts to say more, but the words choke in her throat. She cries harder and drops her head on the bed next to Wei Wuxian’s side. “Wei-Shushu… please wake up.”

The ugly, hiccuping sobs remind him too much of Jin Ling’s childhood. He feels out of his depth all over again.

That night, once the four children are settled into an exhausted sleep near Wei Wuxian’s sickbed, Jiang Cheng pens a letter with the hand not feeding spiritual energy to his brother.

His blood simmers with the power of the golden core his brother gifted him a lifetime ago. It’s been his now longer than it was Wei Wuxian’s.

The thought is too much, so he promptly ignores it to glare at Wei Wuxian’s prone form. “You are going to wake up whether you like it or not,” he threatens.

Chapter Text

Wei Ying is injured.

Wei Ying was injured and Lan Wangji was not there to stop it.

The letter trembles in his hands.

How badly injured must Wei Ying be for Jiang Wanyin to write to Lan Wangji?

They have never been friends, and there are sixteen bitter years that festered between them while Wei Ying was dead.

Lan Wangji rises from his desk and stalks toward the Hanshi to tell his brother of his imminent departure.

An hour later, Sizhui and Jingyi flank him as they fly toward Lotus Pier and where Wei Ying lies— injured, but still breathing.

He is so engrossed in worry that he neglects to note when Jingyi sends off a messenger talisman.

…

The sun is high overhead when they land on the docks of Wei Ying’s childhood home. There is something bitter about his first true invitation to Yunmeng being from Jiang Wanyin.

The servants eye him nervously, but they do not question His Excellency when he bids them to fetch their master.

Jiang Wanyin greets them with all his usual grace and a considerable wet spot across the left half of his robes. It reminds Lan Wangji of the nights when Sizhui had been rambunctious in the bath, half-remembering the kind of play Lans never took part in but Wei Ying certainly did.

“Great, you brought a whole fucking party,” Jiang Wanyin says, dropping into the petals of his lotus throne.

“Where is Wei Ying?”

“Oh, now you wonder?” The tone is bladed and walks the edge of mockery.

Lan Wangji narrows his eyes.

“He’s been wandering around for a year and now you give a fuck?” Jiang Wanyin’s glare is fire; Lan Wangji’s is ice. A hurricane brews between them.

“You said you were going to stand by him.”

Lan Wangji clenches the fist behind his back and reminds himself that murdering a sect leader is not allowable. Not even this one.

“Where. Were. You?” Jiang Wanyin sits up and clenches his sword. “Why did I have to find my brother bleeding out and under attack from a demon?”

Jingyi makes an indignant noise, but Lan Wangji silences him with a look. His heart lurches at the thought of his beloved injured so severely and left alone.

“Wei Ying asked for time to see the world.” Much changed in the years he was gone, and Lan Wangji could hardly begrudge a year when Wei Ying has lost a lifetime.

“So you let a notorious demonic cultivator wander the world with his back unguarded?”

Lan Wangji locks his jaw. He cannot deny that once again Wei Ying walked alone and Lan Wangji allowed himself to be kept at the Cloud Recesses. He was trying to be respectful of Wei Ying’s wishes, but perhaps he had been wrong.

As Wei Ying said before his departure, being the chief cultivator allows Lan Wangji to make changes of the sort that they vowed as boys. Still, it keeps him away from the man he cannot lose again.

Jiang Wanyin scoffs at his silence. “As I thought. When it comes to him, you are still a coward.”

Sizhui sucks in a sharp breath. Lan Wangji gestures him back.

“You-!” Jingyi is silenced with a spell.

The newcomer is not.

“Jiujiu!”

Jin Rulan bursts into the reception hall with his golden hair piece askew and his ponytail blown by the wind.

“A-Ling?” For a moment, the sharpness of Jiang Wanyin’s features smooths with surprise. Then he glares again. “What the hell are you doing here? You have trade negotiations with the Ouyang Sect this week.”

The teenage sect leader crosses his arms and glares right back. “Zizhen will wait for me. I heard Da- uh, Wei Wuxian was injured. Where is he?”

Lan Wangji appraises the boy. While he has not forgiven Jin Rulan for stabbing Wei Ying, he knows that they maintain correspondence and have gone on night hunts together this past year.

Jiang Wanyin scowls, but after sighing he looks more human and tired. “He’s unconscious in the medical wing. Infected claw marks.”

Jin Rulan’s face pales. “And the children?”

All eyes fall on Jin Rulan.

“Children?” Sizhui glances at Lan Wangji and Jin Rulan with a question in his furrowed brows.

“You knew about the kids?” Jiang Wanyin asks his nephew.

Jin Rulan flushes and opens his mouth. “I—“

At that moment, a small child—younger even than Sizhui was when Lan Wangji adopted him—darts into the receiving hall and slams straight into Jin Rulan’s legs.

“Ling-Ge!”

A little boy, probably six years old, follows after her with a cry of “A-Tong!” He bows sloppily to the gathered men and snatches the little girl’s arm. “What are you doing?”

“Heard Ling-Ge!” A-Tong sticks out her tongue at the boy as Jin Rulan pats her head.

“A-Tong, A-Lei, where are your sisters?” Jin Rulan asks, crouching to speak to the tiny interlopers. His face is a picture of naked relief.

He knows these children.

“They’re with Wei-Shushu!” A-Lei reports. “Where we’re s’posed to be.” He glares at his sister.

Jin Rulan places A-Tong on his hip. “TongTong, you should stay closer to your father,” he scolds, as if he was not known for running away from his guardians just last year.

“Father!?” Jingyi squawks now that the silence spell has worn off. “Wei-Qianbei?”

Jin Rulan blushes fully pink and glances at Jiang Wanyin— who offers no assistance. “Yes…”

Lan Wangji feels adrift.

Wei Ying has more children. Wei Ying has more children and never mentioned them in any of his correspondence.

Why would his beloved hide something like this?

Suddenly, he recalls a letter some months ago where Wei Ying asked what Lan Wangji would say if they gave Sizhui siblings. Amidst the jokes about child bearing, Lan Wangji had missed the bigger question.

Did Wei Ying really think this would change things between them?

Lan Wangji had never considered fatherhood until the moment he laid eyes on Wei Ying with A-Yuan, but then a desperate, yearning ache in his heart opened up. One he had not thought it filled until he and Wei Ying took turns filling Sizhui’s bowl when they were last together months ago.

He raised Wei Ying’s child once, and he would be happy to do so again, and happier still to do it at his side.

Lan Wangji bows slightly to the little boy. “I am Lan Wangji, many call me Hanguang-Jun.”

The little boy’s eyes go wide and he hastily bows far deeper than Lan Wangji would ever demand— especially of Wei Ying’s children. “This one is Zhao Lei. Wei-Shushu has told us stories about you!” When he rises, his eyes sparkle with Wei Ying’s brand of excitement. “Did you really behead the Xuanwu of Slaughter?”

“Mn.”

“Wow!” Zhao Lei looks stunned for a good minute before shaking his little head. His chubby cheeks jiggle and Lan Wangji feels a brief flash of longing before looking back at Sizhui, whose baby fat has mostly melted. “A-Tong—“

At that moment, a servant slips in and goes straight to Jiang Wanyin. She whispers into his ear, and his sharp eyes widen.

“He’s awake. Follow me.”

Chapter Text

Wei Wuxian is in a not-insignificant amount of pain. His stomach burns where the torn skin stretches back together, but he can tell that the infection is no longer deadly.

His first thought is somewhere along the lines of “Ow.”

His second is an all-encompassing panic about the children, which makes his battered lungs struggle more.

His third thought is that he could have sworn he was dreaming about Jiang Cheng. He finds out why shortly thereafter.

Eyes flying open, he tries to bolt upright, but there’s a pair of tiny hands pushing him down. “Wei-Shushu,” Zhao Yue scolds. “The doctors and Jiang-Shushu say you have to rest.” For a moment, she sounds so much like Wen Qing that some part of his ceramic heart cracks open and aches. He takes a long breath and lets the moment pass.

When he turns his head just enough to catch her imperious look, he almost laughs. Lotus Pier: He realizes that’s where they are. He certainly got injured often enough as a kid to recognize the medical wing behind her head.

He meets the eye of a servant before turning back to Zhao Yue. Reaching up, he pokes her pouting cheek. “A-Yue, I’m sorry. Did I worry you all?”

Her lower lip juts out, and she hides behind a curtain of uncombed hair— he’ll have to fix her usual braids when he can sit up. “A-Hua was worried,” she huffs, not looking at the baby who is sleeping in a crib beside his bed.

“Mmm.”

“And A-Tong. And A-Lei.”

“But not you? My strong girl.”

Her slim fingers clench around her fresh, purple robes. “Maybe,” she croaks.

Wei Wuxian gently takes her hand. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to scare you. But I couldn’t let you get hurt.”

“They need an adult! They need you. You promised to be our father,” she cries, voice breaking.

He feels the words as keenly as he’s felt many swords. “And as your parent, I couldn’t let you get injured, A-Yue.” He brushes a few tears away with the pad of his thumb. “You’re just as important to your siblings. And to me.”

The sobs she was holding back spring forth. “D-don’t die. Please. I can’t lose anyone else. I don’t want to!”

“I know,” he murmurs. “I know, sweetheart.” Wei Wuxian scoots over on the bed and Zhao Yue hesitates for a moment before clambering up to lay next to him. She’s careful to hold herself away from his wounds, but he tugs her closer until her head rests over his heart. “Hear that?”

She nods into his clean, borrowed robes.

“That’s my heart. It’s beating steady and strong. Do you know why?”

“‘Cause you’re alive?”

“Yep! I’m alive, and I have plenty to live for. I’ve got you, A-Lei, A-Tong, and A-Hua; then there’s your elder brother who you haven’t met yet, and your Ling-Ge.”

“And your Hanguang-Jun?” She grins when she feels his heart speed up under her cheek.

He flusters. “Cheeky girl. But, yeah. Him, too.”

“Good,” she says, and he hears a thread of mischief in her voice that he thinks might be his fault, “because I think that he’s here.”

If not for A-Yue’s weight, he would have lurched upright. As it is, he lifts his head and immediately finds a whole party rushing toward them with Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng in the lead.

“Wei Ying!”

He winces, knowing that he can’t hide his infirment; he can’t even attempt to sit up because his daughter is glaring at him. “Hey, Lan Zhan. Fancy seeing you here.”

Lan Zhan’s lips purse in disapproval as he kneels by the bedside. “Wei Ying.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I was on my way to you, at least.”

“If you had told me you were near, I would have met you before the border.”

“But you are preparing for the cultivation conference,” Wei Wuxian replies. “I couldn’t draw you away from that. You’ve been working so hard on it.”

“Nothing is more important to me than you.” Lan Zhan takes his hand and looks at the children. “You and our family.”

His heart swells at the words, and he can’t help grinning. So Lan Zhan recalled his letter after all. “Ah, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says as he runs his fingers over the calloused palm of his soulmate’s hand. “Help me sit up? I think introductions are in order.”

When he’s been carefully propped upright, Wei Wuxian turns to the others. “LeiLei, TongTong, come here, please.”

The children scamper over to stand beside where A-Yue sits at his side.

Wei Wuxian pats their heads and receives a shy smile from A-Lei and a sparkly grin from A-Tong. “Sizhui, my grown radish, I finally made good on my promise to give you siblings.” He catches Sizhui’s wide eyes and prays he’s reading the hopeful expression correctly. “Kids, meet your Da-Ge, my first son: Lan Yuan, Lan Sizhui.”

The children bow with varying degrees of politeness and success.

“Your son?” Jiang Cheng barks, only to be elbowed and shushed by Jin Ling.

Sizhui holds his gaze for a moment, and Wei Wuxian vividly recalls the wondrous look A-Yuan gave him a lifetime ago while half-buried in soil. When Wei Wuxian smiles and nods, Sizhui crosses the room to kneel beside them. “Hello,” he says in a watery voice that makes Wei Wuxian fight back pressure in his own eyes. “I’m very happy to meet you. I hope we’ll get along.”

A-Yue assesses her new brother with a shrewdness that Wei Wuxian unfortunately remembers from his childhood on the streets of Yiling. He cannot blame her for the lack of trust she struggles with, though it still makes him ache.

TongTong, bless her little heart, immediately tries to climb Sizhui’s leg while demanding to be held. When she all but burrows into Sizhui’s outer robe from her place on his hip, A-Yue finally relaxes.

“Da-Ge?” A-Lei asks cautiously, like it’s a forbidden word.

Sizhui beams and nods. “And you’re my didi, A-Lei.”

“No fair!” Jingyi cries. “I want siblings, too.”

Laughter bursts from Wei Wuxian’s lips. “Sorry, Jingyi, but I promised A-Yuan siblings first.”

“Well, next time you’re gallivanting around the country, I’d like a brother,” Jingyi requests, only half-joking.

“Aiyah, don’t you have plenty of sect siblings?” Wei Wuxian teases.

“Yeah!” Jin Ling interjects. “If he was going to get siblings for anyone it should be me. Everyone at Carp Tower sucks.”

“A-Ling!” Jiang Cheng snips.

“I’m the sect leader,” Jin Ling retorts. “If anyone knows how awful they are, it’s me.”

He’s laughing outright now, though his stomach wound burns. Lan Zhan gives him a worried look and feeds him spiritual energy. It feels good enough that he doesn’t fight it.

“I’m afraid you boys are just going to have to settle with your adorable new cousins,” he says, ruffling A-Lei’s hair.

“They’re my cousins,” Jin Ling says, glaring at Jingyi.

“Nuh-uh! They’re mine, too.”

“How? They’re my DaJiu’s kids,” Jin Ling huffs. “What are they to you?”

“Any kids of Wei-Qianbei are also kids of Hanguang-Jun. That makes them my cousins.”

Jiang Cheng snorts, and Wei Wuxian immediately wishes he had spoken to his brother sooner because Jiang Cheng says, “It’s not like they’re married.”

Jingyi’s mouth is open, but Sizhui shoots him a look, and the sounds turns into a fake cough.

Jiang Cheng immediately rounds on him with narrowed eyes. “Wei Wuxian,” he grits out slowly.

“Ahaha… funny story…”

“No.”

“No?”

“I am your sect leader and your brother and you have given me no bows, therefore you are unmarried.”

Lan Zhan glares openly at his brother now, but Wei Wuxian has been raising four children on his own for six months; he no longer has the patience for grown men to throw tantrums. He sighs and rolls his eyes where the juniors can see.

“We are married.” Lan Zhan says firmly.

“Sort of,” Wei Wuxian adds when he notes that his brother is about to lose his shit. Lan Zhan gives him an injured look, but he sends his beloved a quelling glance. “Lan Zhan and I accidentally had a hand-fasting ritual and bowed to Lan Yi.”

“Not an accident,” his husband says mutinously.

“A hand-fasting ritual?” Jiang Cheng’s brow furrows, and then he jabs a finger in their direction. “We were fifteen!”

“Yes, well, I did not realize we were exactly married…” Wei Wuxian’s blush darkens and he coughs. “However, we are planning a proper wedding so I can finally put this man in red.” Wei Wuxian reaches for the travel sack on the table beside his bed. “Before you get all huffy, I was on my way to give you this.”

Jiang Cheng snatches the scroll from his hands and reads. “You’re holding the wedding in Gusu?”

“Well, where else would it be?”

Jiang Cheng’s sneer makes the kids flinch, so Wei Wuxian glares back at his brother.

“At Lotus Pier. Where your family’s ancestral plaques are.”

Wei Wuxian holds back the thought that his parents’ plaques have never been welcomed in the ancestral shrine. “But I’m marrying into the Lan Sect.”

“You’re not a bride,” Jiang Cheng mutters. “It shouldn’t matter where the wedding is if it’s two men.”

“The wedding’s already happening at Cloud Recesses,” Jingyi says with his usual lack of self-preservation. “Lan-Laoshi approved the ceremony.”

This gets Jiang Cheng’s attention. “Really? Old Man Lan approves?”

Wei Wuxian looks at Lan Zhan, too. “He approved?”

Lan Zhan’s ears burn pink, but he nods. “Wei Ying was approved by Lan Yi and Xiongzhang. Shufu acquiesced.”

“Fine,” Wei Wuxian says, pretending he’s going to say anything serious. “I guess I’ll give him four more grandchildren.”

A-Tong bursts into giggles, and Wei Wuxian has the absolute pleasure of watching Lan Zhan melt at the sound.

“Husband, dear, I have borne you four more children,” he teases, pinching A-Tong’s fat cheek and ruffling A-Lei’s bangs. “What a dutiful wife you have, hmm?”

“Wei Ying,” his husband huffs in pleased embarrassment.

“Wei-Shushu,” A-Yue begins, “is Hanguang-Jun really going to be our other father?”

Lan Zhan kneels in front of her and bows. “I would be honored to be your father if that is what you want.”

A-Yue goes stiff and scared until Wei Wuxian pokes her gently. “Four children are a lot of work,” she says, parroting the elders Wei Wuxian had rescued them from. “Are you sure?”

Lan Zhan’s golden eyes are soft when he meets her gaze. “I am sure.”

Quietly, A-Yue goes to the crib and lifts A-Hua into her arms, which stirs the baby. When she returns to Lan Zhan, she says, “Make sure you support her head.”

“Mn.”

When Lan Zhan cradles their youngest daughter in his arms, Wei Wuxian has never felt so content.

Naturally, that is when Jiang Cheng interrupts. “Fine. You can get married in the Cloud Recesses, but I will be overseeing your wedding robes. I cannot have my brother embarrassing our sect on his wedding day.”

Lan Zhan’s hackles rise like a disgruntled cat, but Wei Wuxian merely laughs. “Whatever makes you happy, Shidi.”

“Don’t call me that!” Jiang Cheng snaps. He deflates when Wei Wuxian flinches. “A-Jie called you Didi. Respect her words. You are more than my sect brother; you always were.”

Stunned, Wei Wuxian feels his lips wobble out a wet smile. “Oh. Okay.”

As if he’ll burst into hives after experiencing a real emotion, Jiang Cheng turns away from him and addresses the Zhao children. “And you all— and Lan Sizhui, I guess— you will address me as Shushu. If you call me Shishu, I will throw you in the lake.”

“He means it,” Jin Ling tells his cousins; the elder three nod.

“Lan Wangji,” Jiang Cheng starts. “You’d better take care of this idiot,” he says, gesturing to Wei Wuxian.

“Hey!”

“If not, I’ll kill you.”

“Do not orphan my children, Didi.”

Jiang Cheng shudders at the term of address but doesn’t comment.

“Will you keep my family safe, Lan Wangji?”

Wei Wuxian reads the stubborn lines of his husband’s face and gives him an imploring pout. He wins because Lan Zhan’s jaw unclenches and he says, “I will.”

“Then Lotus Pier’s doors will remain open to you all,” Jiang Cheng declares. “So you’d damn well better visit,” he says, rounding on Wei Wuxian with a glare.

He grins in reply. “I’ll come bother you every summer and harvest.”

Jiang Cheng nods sharply, still looking deeply uncomfortable about expressing positive emotions. “Good. And one more thing.”

“What now?” Jingyi moans.

“I want to hold my niece,” he says, holding his arms out to take A-Hua.

Though he doubts they’ll ever be friends, Wei Wuxian sees something shift in the air between his brother and his beloved as Lan Zhan carefully places A-Hua in his arms.

None of them will ever forget the past, but perhaps now they can truly begin the path forward.

After nearly a year of traveling, Wei Wuxian— propped up on pillows and surrounded by this family he has pieced together— is home.