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“Sizhui! Did you hear?”
There’s silence, except for a jaw-cracking yawn. “Jingyi? It’s not even dawn yet, what are you doing up-”
“Hanguang-jun just brought back Wei-qianbei! They’re both in Gusu now! I saw them while I was out patrolling!”
Sizhui needs a second to process this. “O-oh! Do you think that they’ll mind if we bring breakfast to them later?”
“No, of course not! In fact, we’d be terrible juniors if we didn’t go pay our respects in the morning!”
“Yes, that sounds reasonable.”
There’s a longer beat of silence. Sizhui tugs his blankets closer to his chin.
“Was there anything else, Jingyi?”
“Nope! Goodnight, Sizhui!!”
Sizhui turns his mind back toward sleep, his best friend’s smile obvious even in the pitch-black night. Sizhui can hardly blame him; his own excitement at seeing Wei-qianbei again threatens to spill out of him, like so many fireflies out of a patch of grass.
When morning comes, heralded as always by Jingyi’s soft snores alongside Sizhui’s dawning consciousness, the excitement is still there.
Sizhui slips into his robes. Years ago, when he first started sharing a room with Jingyi, he tried to be as quiet as possible in the early dawn hours. And then one day, while it was still dark, he’d stumbled into their sword stands, sending them clattering onto his guqin and creating a ruckus that had brought Hanguang-jun to their door. Jingyi, however, had slumbered on peacefully.
Sizhui hasn’t worried about preemptively waking his friend since.
“Let’s go,” Sizhui says, shaking his friend awake. “Jingyi, don’t you want to see Hanguang-jun and Wei-qianbei?”
Jingyi peels one eye open, squinting in the dim light. “Sizhui? Izzat you?”
Sizhui sighs, then shakes Jingyi harder by the shoulders. “Hanguang-jun! Wei-qianbei!”
“What, where?” Jingyi bolts upright in bed, blinking frantically.
“In the Jingshi,” Sizhui says. “Probably.”
“Oh, right!” Jingyi says, untangling himself from his sheets. He’s still excited as he disappears behind the privacy screen, splashing his face with water from his standing basin and tugging his clothes on. He comes back mostly dressed, though one sock is missing.
“Heyyyyyyy Sizhui,” he says, his voice conveying the exact tone of ‘oops, I’m overdue for laundry and forgot I was down to my last pair, and to make matters worse, I used a sock yesterday when one of my feet got wet.’
Sizhui is already holding one of his socks out, having been there yesterday when Jingyi pulled on a new sock instead of deploying a quick-dry talisman. “Yes, you can borrow one of mine.”
“Let’s go, let’s go,” Jingyi says, once he’s wrangled his feet into both socks and shoes, and they walk towards the kitchen together, Jingyi bounding forward with giant steps, then backtracking to catch up with Sizhui’s more proper Lan pace.
The sun is at a more Wei-qianbei favorable position by the time they’ve completed their chores and brought a tray of breakfasts from the kitchen. If they wait any later, Hanguang-jun will already have made the trip, and their excuse to see their two favorite seniors will be void.
Jingyi bounds up the stairs to the Jingshi, two at a time, practically swinging the congee and youtiao off his tray. Sizhui follows, carrying a second tray of tea and side dishes.
“Ah, is that little Lan Jingyi I hear?”
The door slides open all the way, and Wei-qianbei’s smiling face greets them both.
“Ahh, and my little radish, too, back from his long road trip with A-Ning! Come in, come in; it’s been ages since I’ve seen you both!”
Lan Jingyi looks around obviously once everything is set down on the tables. “Where’s Hanguang-jun?”
“Ahh, Hanguang-jun! So noble, so disciplined!” Wei-qianbei puts a dramatic hand to his brow.
Sizhui looks around too, trying to be a bit more discreet than Jingyi. “Perhaps he’s busy with work?”
“Well, maybe! Or, maybe, Hanguang-jun has already gotten tired of this tiresome cultivator!”
“No way!” Jingyi says defensively, “That’s not possible!”
Wei-qianbei chuckles ruefully. “Well, he’s got a lot on his shoulders, With his shufu and his xiongzhang both suffering, don’t be too surprised if this lowly one ends up booted on the streets!”
That… doesn’t sound right. Sizhui wants to come to his defense, but Wei-qianbei is already laying out chopsticks and filling up bowls.
“Eat, eat,” he says, voice now cheerful to a manic degree, and Sizhui sighs and picks up his chopsticks.
Wei-qianbei seems determined to distract them both, asking about their recent night hunts and demanding updates on Little Apple. Jingyi fidgets throughout the rest of their meal.
After breakfast, they walk back to their room in dejected silence. After a few minutes, Jingyi perks up. “You know what this means?!!”
Sizhui: “No, Jingyi.”
Jingyi: “They’re PINING!!!! You saw how forlorn Wei-qianbei was without Hanguang-jun!”
Sizhui, less certain: “…. No, Jingyi.”
Jingyi: “And Hanguang-jun is probably avoiding Wei-qianbei for fear of awkwardness!! You know what he’s like!”
Sizhui: “…. Well, maybe…”
Jingyi, enthusiastically: “Do you know what this means????”
Sizhui: “…I’m really afraid to ask at this point.”
Jingyi: “This means we have to set them up!!!!”
Sizhui: “….. I feel like I should say no.”
Jingyi: “BUTTTTTTTTT??????”
Sizhui, sighing: “ Fine , Jingyi. What’s the plan?”
Jingyi, already playing air qin and striking cool poses: “Don’t worry, I’m on it!” <a/n: look i just think it’d be really funny to splice in rock music sounds but if this sounds ridiculous, please ignore>
Sizhui allows Jingyi to implement the first step of their plan, partially because the whole thing was Jingyi’s idea, but mostly because Jingyi has gotten very good at deploying the butterfly talisman quickly.
“If only you were this good at quick-dry talismans,” Sizhui says mock-wistfully as they make their way to sword practice. “You’d have all the socks you wanted.”
Jingyi tries to elbow him, but Sizhui is too familiar with the path, ducking easily out of the way. “Butterfly talismans don’t catch on fire when you look at them wrong,” Jingyi says. “And besides, you always have clean socks. I’ll just rely on you forever, okay?”
Sizhui laughs, patting his pouting friend on the back. “Sure, Jingyi. Absolutely.”
They take breakfast with Wei-qianbei again the next day, and the day after that. Both times, Hanguang-jun is busy, and Wei-qianbei laments his loneliness, with only these two disciples to cheer up his humble personage, the only two creatures left in the world to care about Wei-qianbei.
“He’s languishing,” Jingyi wails. “What’s taking Zizhen and Rulan so long? At this rate, Hanguang-jun will be so inundated by his Chief Cultivator duties that he won’t have any time left with Wei-qianbei! Both of them really will have fallen out of love!”
Ouyang Zizhen shows up that evening, with a collection of romance books for ideas. “A-die only gave me permission to stay for a week,” he says, “And Jin Rulan said he’d be here tomorrow but can stay longer. It was a good thing we were both nearby!”
“That’s more than enough time,” Jingyi says, with the misplaced confidence of someone who has never actually tried to matchmake two grown adults. Sizhui isn’t entirely sure that this will work as smoothly as he seems to think it will.
From his sleeves, Zizhen produces a thick stack of romance books, setting them one by one on top of Sizhui’s bed, as Jingyi’s bed is too rumpled. He regales them the whole time with the favorite stories of his sisters.
“They should take a moonlit walk by the water,” Zizhen suggests, and when Jingyi points out that the mountains are hardly conducive to the still lakes and ponds he is imagining, he is unfettered. “Flowers, then. Combined with love poems. Surely Hanguang-jun would be wooed by a romantic verse!”
Jingyi agrees and immediately gets to work, pulling out all the best lines from famous works. Zizhen joins him, inserting flowery lines. The result, when Sizhui sees it, is nearly comprehensible.
“Shouldn’t you at least recopy it so it’s neater?” Sizhui asks, in lieu of pointing out how unlikely it is that Wei-qianbei would compare Hanguang-jun to the delicate wings of a cicada in the full bloom of summer. First of all, Wei-qianbei would probably not use the word delicate. Second, the comparison to cicadas might seem more like a back-handed compliment, given their sometimes deafening volumes. “Err, and maybe re-read it a few times?”
Jingyi clicks his tongue, apparently not having realized that even Wei-qianbei is unlikely to deliver his confession on a piece of writing with scratched out lines and blots of ink. “Right, right.”
Sizhui can only hope that as they review their poetry again, Jingyi and Zizhen tone some of it down.
Jin Rulan arrives before Jingyi puts the finishing touches on Wei-qianbei’s love poetry, which is a good thing for all their sakes. They would never hear the end of it if they’d sent out the first step of their plan before he even stepped foot in Gusu.
(“Are we sure we need to invite them both?” Jingyi had asked. “Don’t we just need Zizhen’s romance?”
“No,” Sizhui had responded. “Jin Rulan is Wei-qianbei’s nephew, and he also regularly talks with Sect Leader Jiang. The two of them must know Wei-qianbei better than anyone else, right?”
“Right,” Jingyi said. “That, and the young mistress might throw an entire tantrum if he’s left out of the loop.”
“Best not mention that possibility to him,” Sizhui said.)
Anyway, Jin Rulan arrives just in time to help them figure out how to get the letter to Wei-qianbei.
In the end, the four of them decide to slip the letter to Wei-qianbei in his lunch tray, during one of Hanguang-jun’s interminable meetings. That way, Wei-qianbei will have to sit in the Jingshi all day without being able to interrupt the meetings. By the time Hanguang-jun returns in the evening, Wei-qianbei will be so worked up by his pent-up love for Hanguang-jun that he’ll confess his feelings straightaway!
“That seems reasonable,” Zizhen says, as they return from hastily leaving the lunch tray right outside the door to the Jingshi. “Given the probability of Wei-qianbei utterly losing his composure when it comes to Hanguang-jun.”
Jin Rulan, who seemed like he had opened his mouth to argue, abruptly closes it, looking thoughtful.
“Rulan?” Sizhui asks, mindful of his friend’s feelings.
“Yeah,” Rulan says. “Wei-qianbei already confessed his feelings to Hanguang-jun once when he was being threatened by my- by the former Jin Sect Leader. It shouldn’t take much for him to do it again.”
“Wait, what?” Jingyi says.
“Well, he already confessed at Guanyin temple, didn’t he?” Rulan says. “But they had to go their separate ways afterwards, because Hanguang-jun had his duties and dajiu had to figure himself out, or something.”
“WHAT?” Jingyi screeches, with Zizhen nodding along vigorously. “I didn’t realize they’d confessed to each other! Sizhui, how could you have forgotten to tell me that?”
“I didn’t actually see that part,” Sizhui admits. “I thought it might have been mere rumor, since I had a hard time believing Hanguang-jun would leave someone he loved so much.”
Jingyi’s mouth opens and closes wordlessly.
Zizhen jumps in. “Rulan, then! It’s your fault! You should have told us! We just delivered a love note to Wei-qianbei!!”
Jin Rulan rolls his eyes, making a grumpy sound. “First of all, you never told me what was in the letter, just that we had to get it to my dajiu. Second: exactly when did I have time to catch you up on the gossip that happened? I can barely keep up with what’s going on now! I’ve been so busy helping my jiuma run this sect, I only managed to sneak away a few days because I was already so far from home!”
Each sentence is coming out more ferociously than the one before. Sizhui decides to speak up before Rulan actually gives himself a heart attack. “So if they actually confessed…. What exactly are we doing now, delivering a love letter to Wei-qianbei?”
Jingyi turns betrayed eyes onto him. “Sizhui, you’re supposed to be the smart one! Obviously, Hanguang-jun must have decided that the needs of the cultivation world are too important! He must have decided that he doesn’t have time to woo Wei-qianbei, or that Wei-qianbei’s love will last until he’s done!”
“Err,” Sizhui says, but Jingyi isn’t done yet.
“We need a grand gesture! Wei-qianbei is withering away from neglect, and if this continues, he’ll definitely leave!”
“Yes!” Zizhen, ever the romantic, agrees emphatically.
“Let’s wait to see how Hanguang-jun responds to the letter,” Sizhui says. “That might produce a grand enough gesture, don’t you think?”
They don’t have to wait very long. Later that day, Wei-qianbei swings by their quarters, laughing as he draws near.
‘Good prank, Jingyi,” Wei-qianbei says as he wraps Jin Rulan into a giant hug without warning. “You’ve got to try harder to disguise your handwriting next time; don’t you remember that I’m helping Hanguang-jun grade all your night-hunt reports while I’m here? Anyway, I didn’t bother reading past the first few paragraphs, so you can try to surprise Hanguang-jun with a better idea next time.”
He whistles as he walks off. Sizhui joins Zizhen and Rulan in looking at Jingyi with dismay.
“Oops,” Jingyi says, scuffing a toe on the wooden floorboards. “That one’s on me.”
Fortunately, Rulan has a backup plan. Sizhui is grateful that they had thought ahead in telling the others why their presence was urgently needed: a letter from Sect Leader Jiang with advice is sure to come to Rulan at any moment.
The missive, when it arrives, is as long as it is helpful.
Jin Ling,
You’re too young to court anyone by at least two decades, and I’ll break your legs if I find out you’re seeing someone in secret. However, since you insisted that you were getting advice for a friend, let me just say that a comb should do it. In return, you’d better tell me who you’re trying to matchmake.
From, Jiujiu
“Can I pretend I never saw this?” Jin Rulan asks. “I don’t really want to bring up the subject of Hanguang-jun with Jiujiu; his face turns all purple. It’s bad for his health.”
Sizhui shoots him a commiserating look. “Why don’t you tell him that you’ll send any updates after they happen? He’ll understand if you’re being superstitious.”
Rulan sighs. “Yeah, okay.”
After a moment of silence, the other boys look from the letter to each other.
“So…” Zizhen asks. “Who’s buying the comb?”
“We will,” Jingyi says, then promptly winces when Sizhui elbows him.
“With what money?” Sizhui asks. “It’s got to be beautiful and practical for Wei-qianbei, but it should look like it fits in with the rest of Gusu Lan, especially if it’s a love token. It needs to be extravagant, but tastefully so. Neither of us has that kind of gold laying around!”
As one, Zizhen, Jingyi, and Sizhui look at Jin Rulan.
He sighs. “Fine. For dajiu, I guess.”
A letter from Wei Wuxian to A-Cheng, beloved Sect Leader:
My darling shidi,
You told me to write you if I experienced another problem, so please advise this humble one –
Our darling nephew came to visit his friends here in Gusu, and I didn’t think anything of it! The kid needs a break from the Jins, of course.
But yesterday, I caught him in the market! He was specifically asking vendors for a comb that suited Hanguang-jun’s tastes! My own future husband! Jiang Cheng, I must ask: is our nephew developing a crush on Hanguang-jun?????? If so, he would have excellent taste! But I don’t fancy having to beat up my nephew for being unfilial!”
A letter from Sect Leader Jiang to Wei Wuxian:
Wei Wuxian,
I see. You’ll figure it out soon enough. Back to business: how much silk did you want?
After Jin Rulan sneaks the comb into Wei-qianbei’s belongings—Sizhui is not planning to ask, just in case he’s ever questioned—the juniors troop into Little Apple’s stall to wait. There’s no better hiding spot from the elders, as it’s far away from practically everything in Cloud Recesses. Plus, there are more than enough seats for all of them, and they won’t have to pick hay out of their clothes afterwards.
Zizhen sighs. “I have to leave tomorrow, and I won’t even know whether this worked!”
“We’ll write,” Sizhui promises. “No matter what happens, we’ll let you know.”
“Know what?” a kindly voice asks, and all four juniors jump up. To Sizhui’s delight, it’s Wen-shushu.
“Wen-qianbei!” Jingyi and Zizhen greet him in loud, excited voices. Rulan greets him too, but his voice isn’t quite as merry as the others.
After he pats everyone on the head, Wen-shushu turns back to Sizhui as everyone settles onto their own stools. “What is it that you’re trying to find out?”
Sizhui fidgets, trying to figure out how to get his advice without specifically mentioning Wei-qianbei and Hanguang-jun. “Well,” he says. “We were… wondering about love?”
Wen-shushu nods hesitantly.
“We’re just trying to figure out how love works,” Sizhui says, then winces. That came out wrong.
Wen-shushu’s eyebrows are raised. Given that his facial features aren’t supposed to move, that really says a lot. “Do I need to give my nephew—and his friends—the sex talk? I wasn’t quite prepared to do so yet…”
Jingyi jumps in, and Sizhui has never been so grateful for his friend’s disregard of the rules. “Not us,” he practically shouts. “Sizhui’s talking about Wei-qianbei and Hanguang-jun!”
Wen-shushu blinks. “Um? I would prefer to not get in their way. Hanguang-jun once slapped me for talking to Wei-gongzi.”
“Sick,” Jingyi says, before realizing that a more diplomatic response would probably have been better.
Zizhen, on the other hand, looks intrigued. “So Hanguang-jun was jealous of you? Perhaps you should pretend to be interested in Wei-qianbei! That would force Hanguang-jun to confess his undying devotion for certain!”
Wen-shushu grimaces. “If those are my two options, I would honestly rather give you the sex talk.”
The four juniors stare at him. Could the suggestion to make Hanguang-jun jealous really be so bad?
Wen-shushu stares placidly back. After a moment, he opens his mouth to speak. “When one cultivator loves another cultivator very much,” he says, and all four juniors shoot back to their feet.
“It was great seeing you,” Sizhui says, even as Jingyi pulls him by the wrist.
“Good talk,” Wen-shushu says, sounding a bit smug. If Sizhui weren’t so traumatized by the idea of his gentle uncle talking about sex—sex that his adoptive fathers might have in the future—it could have been a good thing. “Let’s never speak of this again.”
Perhaps Sizhui’s unconscious need for comfort is what draws them to the rabbit meadow. Jin Rulan’s face is alarmingly red, though it’s unclear what caused it: their quick pace, or the embarrassment of getting part of a sex talk, and in front of all his friends, no less.
“We should be safe here,” Jingyi says.
Sizhui sighs. “I didn’t think that asking advice about love from Wen-shushu was going to be that perilous,” he says, just as two tall shadows loom over their heads.
“Pardon?” Hanguang-jun says, a steely glint in his eye. His “Dating at your age?” is cut off almost completely by Wei-qianbei swooping in.
“Are you in looooove with someone?” Wei-qianbei asks Lan Sizhui with a teasing glint in his eye, even as Hanguang-jun looks faintly green.
Oh no.
Sizhui looks around, mortified, but none of the juniors are meeting his eyes. Even Jingyi is pretending to be studying their shadows.
He squares his shoulders. “I wasn’t asking for me!” Sizhui says at last. The truth will come out anyway, and Sizhui cannot possibly be more embarrassed than he is right now, Wen-shushu’s “when one cultivator loves another cultivator very much,” still echoing in his ears.
“Oh?” Wei-qianbei says, looking worried. For some reason, his eyes glance over at Rulan before flicking back to Sizhui.
Sizhui sighs. “I was just… trying to make the both of you happy.” There it is, the whole truth.
Hanguang-jun and Wei-qianbei look at each other, blinking in surprise. “… We are happy.” Hanguang-jun says, a touch of a question in his voice. “What made you think we are not?”
“Not just happy!” Sizhui says. “You’re in love! You should be together!”
Wei-qianbei sounds confused. “... We are together, though?”
Now Jingyi sighs too. “You weren’t! We had breakfast with you every day, and Hanguang-jun wasn’t there, not even once! You said you were wasting away without him! We wanted to get you both back together!”
A honking snort suddenly rings out in the air. From its direction, Sizhui could have sworn Hanguang-jun produced it. But that can’t possibly be true.
Could it?
Sizhui makes nervous eye contact with the other juniors before looking up at Wei-qianbei, who laughs. “Okay! You all tell me what you think is going on, and then I’ll tell you what is actually happening.”
Wei-qianbei’s laughter apparently gives Jingyi the courage to continue, which is good. Since this was all Jingyi’s idea to begin with.
Jingyi gamely explains how he saw Hanguang-jun and Wei-qianbei during their first night back, and how excited he was to see them together with Sizhui. “But then, we never saw you together,” Jingyi says, “And when Wei-qianbei said that he was being neglected, we decided you both needed an intervention!”
Sizhui sits up straighter, acutely aware of being included under the ‘we’ designation. Zizhen and Rulan sit up too, bless their hearts.
“We got the love poetry from Zizhen,” Jingyi says, and Wei-qianbei lets out an “A-ha!” before letting him continue. “We wanted it to make it seem like Hanguang-jun was confessing to you, but that clearly didn’t work.”
He seems to be pouting a bit, and Sizhui remembers how Wei-qianbei had snickered at the note having been in his handwriting. Maybe it’s Sizhui’s turn to jump in.
“When that failed,” Sizhui says, “Rulan said that a comb would work. It was Sect Leader Jiang’s idea, you see-”
Hanguang-jun’s nostrils flare, and Sizhui decides to skip past who said what. “Rulan bought a nice courting comb for Wei-qianbei, one that would fit in with Gusu Lan’s decorations, and say that it was from Hanguang-jun. But that didn’t seem to work either.”
Wei-qianbei looks… relieved? And like he’s just figured something out, before he breaks out into a giggling fit. “Okay, okay,” he says between helpless half-breaths. “Oh no, Lan Zhan, they’re so precious,” he gets out, before he’s taken over by another bout of laughter.
Hanguang-jun sighs, patting Wei-qianbei’s shoulder and supporting his weight as he fully leans onto Hanguang-jun.
“So after the incident at the temple,” Wei-qianbei finally says, “I got really drunk one afternoon and sent off a butterfly talisman to your Hanguang-jun, saying that I missed him, so, so much. Apparently I really waxed poetic! I said that he reminded me of the delicate wings of a cicada in the full bloom of summer-”
(“I told you so!” Jingyi hisses. Sizhui does not point out that Wei-qianbei only wrote such a ridiculous thing when he was drunk out of his mind.)
“-and that I would truly perish if I didn’t have his beautiful face in my sight soon! Well! Your Hanguang-jun came that very night to bring me to Gusu.”
He trails off, a satisfied look in his eye. Sizhui is almost afraid to ask for more information.
Zizhen clears his throat, his eyes suspiciously wet. “And then what, Wei-qianbei?”
“Well, we knew we wanted to be together forever! But we had so many things to do first. Hanguang-jun had more meetings than usual this past week because he is trying to find a suitable replacement for Chief Cultivator! And I was busy pestering Jiang Cheng—err, Sect Leader Jiang—to fund our super extravagant wedding!”
“Wedding?!” Rulan blurts out.
Wei-qianbei winks at him. “Don’t tell anyone else yet; the details are still being finalized! We might need to buy all the silk in the region!”
They’re all stunned into silence.
Wei-qianbei seems content to bask in their stunned expressions, but Hanguang-jun, ever the teacher, steps in.
“What have we learned from these efforts?” Hanguang-jun asks.
“Hanguang-jun always has everything under control!!!!” Jingyi says. “We never should have doubted him in the first place!” Sizhui can practically see little hearts floating above his head.
“And?” Wei-qianbei says, waggling his eyebrows, stepping in before Hanguang-jun can lecture Jingyi on any of the several rules he’s just broken.
Sizhui elbows Jingyi. “... do not make assumptions about others. We apologize.”
This time, Hanguang-jun’s eyebrows go up. Still waiting.
Jingyi: “And do not gossip about others either.” <a really melodramatic sigh> “I guess it’s time to do handstands, Sizhui, let’s go.”
Sizhui allows himself to be led away. Zizhen and Rulan follow, clearly unsure whether they need to be included in punishment but too afraid to ask lest they hear an answer they don’t want.
He does feel better, though, when he looks back and Wei-qianbei’s arm is around Hanguang-jun, both of them looking deeply into each other’s eyes. The contentment on Hanguang-jun’s face! The amusement in Wei-qianbei’s lips!
Speaking of lips… Sizhui hastily turns back around.
Perhaps it was all worth it, in the end.