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Chapter Text

Wei Yuan tosses in what he assumes is his bed, the fever he came down with after walking home in the rain caused his whole body to sweat and ache. He can feel the heat on his cheeks, the clamminess on the back of his neck where the blanket doesn't fully cover him.

Funny, he doesn’t remember falling asleep in his bed. After he left the train and walked to his single bed apartment in the rain, he stripped off his wet clothes and into his pajamas before passing out on the couch, too tired to move from the spot.

He wanted to watch some TV before going to bed, since he has been pulling double shifts at the hospital where he is interning. He can't afford to not show up to work now, he has close to 8 years worth of college debt to pay back, since the only scholarships he could get were the state ones for orphans and children of the state.

He figured if he fell asleep on the couch instead of his bed, he would be so uncomfortable that he would wake up to the smallest things, like the alarms on his phone.

Now he is awake, but his eyes are too heavy to lift. He grimaces, he can feel the crust gluing them shut. He feels a phantom hand on his forehead, the gentle brush of fingers as they check for a temperature.

The last time he had someone to check on him when he was sick was when he was in middle school, before the man he called Dad grew sick. His 100 watt grin dimming, skin turning pallor, and his hair falling out in clumps. The only man he ever called family was dead within a year of his diagnosis. When he was still well, and Yuan was the one who was sick with a fever and sore throat, his father would never leave his side, even calling into his precious job in order to take care of him with calming words and soothing touch. It's still hard to remember that he’s gone.

Yuan is used to loss, especially since he had lost everything once before, when he was a toddler, but losing his father again was more than he could take. Even with his tear ducts blocked with muck, he still felt the tears spring to his eyes. His throat constricted painfully as the memory became too much for him.

“Oh, Baobei” the voice of his father cooed in his head, the memory so vivid that he swore the man was still with him, “It’s okay, when you get better we can play outside again.” he and his father used to garden together in the small single family home they rented before his father died, then he had to move because the landlord didn't want a teenager living in his only multiroom house.

Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes, “Baba… baba… hurts” he had not called his father Baba for years before he got sick due to wanting to sound older, but the fever makes him feel like a child, just wanting the comfort of the memory of his dead father. The phantom feeling pauses in its stroking, before starting back up again, fresh waves of tears flow from his eyes, he can feel his eyes being unblocked by the tears, but he doesn’t want to open his eyes just yet, afraid the memory of his father would disappear if he did.

“Oh Baobei… I-” the voice choked up before sighing. Wei Yuan continues to call out to his Baba, before the voice starts humming to him. He doesn’t remember his father ever humming this particular song, but it's soothing all the same.

Wei Yuan drifts off to sleep again.

Chapter Text

When Wei Yuan wakes again, he can feel the fever has left, but all the strength in his body has been sapped. He can’t even lift his arm to rub at his crusty eyes. He groans, sounding unfortunately higher pitched than what he is used to due to the fever. 

“Are you awake, A-Yuan?” a female voice called out to him. He has never heard this voice before. Whoever they are, they must be Chinese like him to call him ‘A-Yuan’.

“Y-yes” he whispers in a voice much unlike his own. He must have been asleep much longer than he thought to have his voice so affected. 

“You’ve been ill for a few days, so before you fall back asleep, I want you to drink some soup.” The voice came out stern sounding, but also kind, very much the no-nonsense nurse who had a soft spot for the child patients. Wei Yuan met many of them when he stayed in the hospital with his Baba. 

While the nurse spooned the broth of herbs into his mouth, Wei Yuan began to think. His landlord must have looked in on him and found him feverish in his apartment and taken him to the hospital. Only, it was strange, he can't hear any typical hospital noises, no beeping EKG machines, no paging intercoms, no nurses’ voices as they pass his room. One thing you learn when working in the hospital is that there is always noise somewhere. Now he could only hear the sounds of people moving about, people laughing or giving instructions to others, but other than that it was deathly silent. And the smell. He could smell the herbs of the soup mixture but the overall smell was much sharper, more grating on the senses. It is unmistakable, because it is the smell everyone has at some point. It is the smell of death. Wei Yuan has smelled it too many times in his short life, first with his first family, then his Baba, then while he was working at the hospital. The smell is so strong it nearly makes him throw up the herb mixture. 

The nurse sits him up and rubs his back after he gags and then lays him back down. He is almost asleep again when someone else walks into the room. He doesn’t hear a door open but he hears their footsteps. 

“How is he?” Wei Yuan freezes, he has turned onto his side, with his back to the nurse to get some sleep, and in case he can’t keep down his soup. So he can't see who’s talking, but he swears it's the sound of his Baba’s voice again. He hopes he is dreaming again.

“He will live.” The stern nurse says. “ He lost a lot of strength, but the fever is gone. We just need to make sure that he stays clean for a while until he heals.” 

The man who sounds like his Baba hums before sighing. 

“This is no place for a child.What if he gets sick again?” Child? 

“There’s nothing we can do about where we are, you know that Wei Wuxian.”

“But if he gets sick again because of the mountain? I'll never forgive myself.” The man’s voice drops to a near whisper. 

 “If you keep beating yourself up about bringing us here then I’ll make you sleep with A-Yuan using my needles."

The man barks a laugh, just a short one, like he didn't expect himself to laugh. 

“Alright, alright. You win.” Wei Yuan feels a hand fall to his side and rubs his shoulder. The hand feels unusually large. The hand pulls hair out from his face and pulls the scratchy blanket up to his neck. 

“Come on” the nurse says “Let's let him sleep for a while, and you still need to finish with the wards.” 

“But Xianxian is only 3!” The voices trail off as the two leave. 

Wei Yuan turns over, he would bolt up if he had the strength, and looks around at his surroundings for the first time since waking up. 

The room he is in is dark and the air is damp. There are a few candles lit here and there to light up the area. It almost looks like he is in a cave. 

He looks around and notices that he is laying on a makeshift bed on a smooth slab of rock with hay thrown on top. The slab of rock juts out from the wall, and Wei Yuan does confirm that that is definitely a cave wall. He notices that his hand that's gripping the blanket tight looks unusually small, and when he lifts his fingers up to his face all he can see is the short smooth fingers of a toddler. His legs are short, and the room he thought was huge is now looking less so but in actuality is big compared to his body. 

He stares at his body as long as he can before the strength in his neck gives out. The revelation that he has makes him desperately wish he was still asleep. 

Wei Yuan is a child again. 

Chapter Text

Yuan stared blankly at the short fingers of his chubby little hand. The one he thought was a nurse, who he learned is named Wen Qing, has come to feed him,  like the toddler he seems to be, three times this afternoon. The bitter mixture seems to be whatever time he landed in’s version of medicine. From the looks of everything, his clothes, Wen Qing's clothes, and the limited amount items strewn across the floor of the cave, must mean that where or whenever he is is from ancient China, and he is not the young master of any fantasy book's sect, but just a dirty urchin or poor son of a farmer. 

The man who sounds like his Baba has not visited him in the last two days, but this morning he woke to find a straw doll made of sticks and hay sitting on his bed by his pillow. He has been clutching it to himself to help ground himself while he thinks. Apparently, he has been thinking too much compared to the child that used to have this body, because Wen Qing keeps asking him if he still feels bad or if he hurts anywhere (Yes, his back hurts like hell). She has even caught him crying a few times when the thought of his Baba, the discomfort of his fever, and his back pain became too much. 

He also keeps dreaming old memories, but not his own. They seem to be what few memories this body had when it was alive. The worst memory is when he was in what looked like a refugee camp where men dressed in golden robes would force people to work on moving rocks and if they moved too slow they would be killed, one specifically happened in one of his dreams. He woke up shaking and crying with Wen Qing shaking him awake. He could not stop crying the rest of the day and hardly spoke. 

It’s one of those nights when he wakes up to someone rocking him. His weak body shaking with the force of his crying. The person pats down his head and shoulders where his long hair is sticking to the sweaty neck and he is humming to Yuan. It’s Xian-gege humming the same song from when he first woke up. The soothing helps to calm him down to the point of coughing instead of crying.  

“Oh A-Yuan, it's okay, it's okay.” Xian-gege rocked a little with him in his arms. This makes Yuan cry more. He missed his Baba and he’s in a strange world and everything is overwhelming for his child-like body. 

“X-Xian-gege…” Yuan sniffles and continues to repeatedly call for the man. He wipes his face on his Xian-gege’s outer robes that are already dusty from being outdoors. Yuan can feel how his body is becoming slower and he is starting to fall asleep again but he still continues to call for this father figure that this body had, a man so uncannily similar to his own father figure. 

Xian-gege pulls him away from his chest gently and takes the rag from the water bin by the bed and starts to wipe down his face. He is only whimpering now, while occasionally hiccuping. When his eyes become too heavy, Xian-gege places him back down on the bed and starts to leave, when Yuan reaches out and grabs the sleeve of his outer robe, the colors too faded to tell what the original color is. 

“Xian-gege… don’t leave please…. Baba please…” Yuan can feel himself sinking deeper into falling asleep. He is only mumbling at this point, but Xian-gege has frozen in his grasp. “Baba… don’t leave me again… A-Yuan will be good… please” 

Yuan is already asleep when the man crumples onto his bedside. Tears of his own falling as he holds the child's hand. 

“I won’t leave you, A-Yuan. I promise…. I promise…” 

Chapter Text

It has been a week since A-Yuan woke up as a child in a strange time period. He has been sleeping for most of the week when he was not feeling miserable. Now the pain is dull and the fever has subsided, and he finds himself awake at what he can assume is night time. The cave that they have been keeping him in is darker than usual and Xian-gege is sitting at another flat stone drawing on slips of paper with more papers scattered around him, the candles burning low in the night.

A-Yuan finds that now that he is awake, he needs to do some exploring in order to figure out where and when he is. He very carefully swung his legs over the side of the slab and eased his way down to the cave floor. The rocks are rough on his bare feet but he is determined to explore before he gets caught. There are two openings in the cave. He is not entirely sure which is the way out and which is deeper in, but he chooses the one that is easier to get to without being caught.

The opening he goes through is another cavern with more candles burning around it, he finds a man laying on a stone slab. But he is not breathing and his limbs are stiff. Upon closer inspection, he finds it's not a man but a corpse. The corpse is covered in bits of paper with writing that he has trouble reading. Most of the room is taken up by a pool of reddish water. A-Yuan then notices that the room is filled with soft whispering. Almost like a chorus of voices on an old television, but in another room. He is unable to make out what they are saying.

The whispering gets louder as he gets closer to the body of what A-Yuan hopes is water. He is already reaching out to put his hand in the water when he's pulled back from the edge.

"A-Yuan!" Xian-gege sounds panicked as he holds A-Yuan by his shoulders. "Didn't I tell you not to go into the deeper parts of the cave! It's dangerous!"

A-Yuan looks at his feet. He didn't even realize he was reaching out to it until he was.

"Sorry…" There's not much else he can say.

Xian-gege sighs, before pulling him into a hug and picking him up. "It's okay A-Yuan, just don't do it again okay? We don't want you getting hurt, now do we?"

As they are walking out of the cavern, he sees the corpse again.

"Xian-gege, who's that?" A-Yuan says as he points to the corpse. Xian-gege stops and smiles a bitter smile.

"That's your Uncle Ning." Xian-gege leans down to place a hand on Ning-gege's chest, the whispering that he has been hearing throughout the chamber gets louder when Xian-gege touches his chest.

Wen Yuan frowns. He gets the feeling that this is all pretty familiar. Maybe if he asks more questions he can pinpoint why.

“Why is he sleeping?” A-Yuan assumes that this is a decent question a kid would ask.

“He’s not feeling good, so I'm trying to wake him up."

“Why?” A-Yuan asks on impulse. Xian-gege laughs.

“Because Your Xian-gege owes your Ning-gege his life."

Chapter Text

A man with his hair in a bun and purple robes stomps his way through the village where he goes directly to the cave. A-Yuan is curious about what's going on, so as soon as he can get away from Granny, the elderly woman that takes care of him now, he makes his way to the cave. He has some trouble hearing what the two in the cave are saying because the whispering is very loud today, but he can tell the two are bickering. He darts in and hides behind the stone bed.

"Don't you ever think of anyone else besides yourself, Wei Wuxian!" The purple man is standing in the center of the cave while Xian-gege is sitting at the stone table on the other side of the cave and tinkering with some new invention. A-Yuan can see the man's face slowly turning redder as Xian-gege ignores him until he is finished with his tinkering. A-Yuan has to pause and think about Xian-gege’s name, it sounds so familiar…

"I think of plenty of people." Xian-gege spits out without turning around, he puts down the device that he was working on and picks up another. "You don't need me, Jiang Cheng, but the Wen do. If I leave them alone they will be slaughtered like pigs by the Jin sect."

The man in purple, Jiang Cheng (it also sounds so very familiar), turns red in the face as he continues to get angry. His fist sparking. Sparking? "Why is it any of your business! You playing the hero will get you killed one day, and I won't be able to save you from it!"

"Then don't!"

"Damn it, Wei Wuxian!” Jiang Cheng kicks one of the crudely made chairs that was brought in when A-Yuan was sick. “If you don't return to Lotus Pier then I'll break your legs and drag you back myself!"

A-Yuan’s stomach drops and he finally realizes why everything is so familiar. He's in a novel. But not just any novel, it's a novel he read while in college for one of his Chinese classes. It's considered a classic, but no one in class really liked it because the main character dies at the end. And the main character is his Xian-gege! His Xian-gege will die next winter. Right in this cave after the sects kill everyone he was trying to protect, including A-Yuan! And the one to kill Xian-gege (arguably, there was a real debate over the real cause of his death) was none other than his own sect brother, Jiang Cheng, Jiang Wayne (allegedly). But still. Panic starts to overtake A-Yuan after he realizes that not only will he die, but he also knows that his Xian-gege will die young too. No, not again.

On impulse, A-Yuan runs out from his hiding spot, yelling.

"No! Xian-gege don't leave!" A-Yuan grabs onto Xian-gege's robes and buries his face in them. First he tries to hold it in, he knows that the panic is amplified in his childish body, but when Xian-gege hugs him back he starts sobbing. He can’t breathe. All he can see is the face of his Baba smiling weakly up at him as he succumbs to his illness. Will he have to watch his Baba die all over again? To watch as the light leaves his eyes as nurses rush him out of the room.

Xian-gege bends down and scoops him up. "Oh A-Yuan…" he coos "I'm not going anywhere."

"Xian-gege, please…" A-Yuan is crying so hard he can't really think about what he's saying, his small body is shaking violently with each heaving sob. "Baba, Baba don't leave me…" A-Yuan is nearly gasping for air with how hard he is crying. Wei Wuxian starts to walk around the cave while patting A-Yuan’s back.

Neither noticed the sect leader stomp out of the cave.

Jiang Cheng had come to the burial mounds to try to convince his brother to see some sort of reason.

Even though Wei Wuxian was insistent on Jiang Cheng casting him out, Jiang Cheng was not ready to follow his stupid brother's stupid plan. He knew if he continued to talk to his brother, then there would be a high chance that Wei Wuxian would convince him that it would be for the best.

Stupid self-sacrificing brother. Why does he have to save every single person he comes across? Jiang Cheng is stomping his way back down the mountain when he stops, and then actually looks around. There are people, commoners, not cultivators on the mountain, but no one would believe him. Everyone would think him biased due to it being his so-called brother/ head disciple who was the one to free them. But he could not help them. He has so little power, and the sect is barely making any progress on repairs, but what repairs have been made has been due to the Jin’s money. What can he do?. What can he do to help his brother without destroying what little progress they have made with rebuilding the sect. He needs his brother back.

He could still hear the faint crying of the child that ran in. A kid, no more than 2 possibly 3 years old, is on the burial mounds. The Wen bow their heads as he storms past. Out of respect or fear, he does not think about.

He is half way down the mountain, when the memory hits him. The child called Wei Wuxian his Baba. The child is obviously Wen to Jiang Cheng, who has known Wei Wuxian all his life, but from what he could see of the child's eyes, they have similar eye color. A silver-ish gray, but the kid had a warm gray with a hint of gold to them, not like Wei Wuxian's steel gray, but they can easily be mistaken as similar enough.

A plan starts forming in his head. Not a good plan, his stupid brother might be rubbing off on him. But it's a plan that might just work.

Jiang Cheng stomps his way back up the mountain, but instead of heading back to the cave, he finds the only sane person on the mountain that could help him with his plan.

Hours later, he's flying back to Lotus Pier to set their plan into motion. He prays his brother does nothing stupid while he's saving his ass.

Chapter Text

A-Yuan is no longer sleeping in the cave, now that he is feeling better. Now he is sleeping with Granny. Now that there are a few hastily built huts to shield them from the elements, he and Granny sleep together alone in a hut instead of with 6-7 others in one hut. A-Yuan finds he still has the body of a child, so he loses energy as quickly as a child does, so Granny often spirits him away for a nap sometime in the afternoon.

Three days after Jiang Cheng visits, A-Yuan looks for a quiet place to think of ways to protect his Baba from the terrible fate of the horrible book they are in. Granny is busy with cooking for now, and is close enough in sight that she probably will not move from her spot until she starts weaving baskets in the afternoon.

He can’t remember much of the book’s details, but from what he can remember, his Xian-gege does not have a very good reputation, and many of the characters believe that he’s lost his mind due to cultivating the dark path. The majority of the book is from the point of view of his martial brother/ Sect leader, Jiang Cheng, and his college Chinese Lit class used it as a look into sect culture at the time and had the class do an essay on if they believed that Wei Wuxian actually went insane by the end or not.

A-Yuan at the time was still healing from the loss of his own father, so he wrote about how he thought that it was the loss of the Wen that made him go insane. Then the death of his sister was his last straw and it pushed him over the edge. A-Yuan only read the book once, because he could not stand the ending, when Jiang Cheng is talking about the death of his parents, sister, and best friend.

A-Yuan wishes he paid more attention to the Wen remnants, so that maybe he might have a clue on how to change the fate of his Baba. He’s writing in the dirt all the names of people who might be able to help his Baba. If he can find someone who will be able to stand up for his Baba, then he might be able to keep from losing everything when he is being convicted of cursing Jin what’s-his-face and the death of his sister’s husband.

While he is thinking, he also thinks he remembers hearing something about how the author was working on a sequel from another character’s perspective and adding more to the ending, but he thinks they died before the ending could be published. He didn’t look into the details back then because it was his finals week and he needed all the brain power he could get to memorize all the medical facts.

Maybe if he looked into what was found of the unfinished manuscript, then he would have more of an idea of what he is up against, instead of just having info from an unreliable narrator.

A-Yuan sighs. He has written every single name he can remember and he still has no idea where to start. What's a toddler to do to get the heck off this mountain and into a place with decent food and sect life-insurance?

There is not much he can do right now, so he gives up on his thinking. It’s starting to make his head hurt. He switches to drawing in the dirt.

He misses technology, where he could look up anything he wanted in a second. Then he would not need to try to think of all the characters of a book he read once ages ago.

He also misses the childhood cartoons he watched with his Baba. To make himself feel better, he tries to draw some of the cartoon characters from his favorite shows. Unfortunately, with his child body, he does not have the coordination needed to make his doodles look anything like the characters themselves.
Still, the only way to get better is to practice.

While he is drawing in the dirt on the far outskirts of the village, away from the prying eyes of the villagers, he hums to himself. First it's the cartoon theme songs that he remembers, then more memorable movie soundtracks, then finally he's humming the song Xian-gege always hums to him when lulling him back to sleep.

While he is drawing, the half-rotted stick he is using crumbles in his hand, he needs another stick or a sharp slim rock to use instead. He starts looking around himself, but he's used up all the sticks around him, so he has to look farther. When A-Yuan looks up, he notices a pair of old shoes in front of him, at first he thinks a villager is coming to get him, but then as he keeps looking up, the robes keep getting more and more ratty and disgusting, until he sees the half rotting face of a corpse. A chill runs down his spine and he's frozen in place. He then notices that there are several other corpses surrounding him. He feels the hair on the back of his neck stand on end and the blood drains from his face. They sway to a nonexistent wind and stare at Yuan with unseeing eyes.

One by one, the corpses drop things in front of him. Sticks, rocks, the occasional sharp bone, a broken brush that has seen better days, even a corroded hair pin.

Yuan looks around to see if Xian-gege is controlling them as a prank. But as he looks around, he does not see anyone. Even Granny, who is supposed to be watching him, is hard at work weaving a basket to take vegetables to the market and is not paying attention to what he is doing. The trees are so sparse that it's impossible for anyone to hide in them.

Yuan picks up a long pointed rock that is worn down enough to not hurt his hand and watches as the corpses turn around and go back to patrolling the forest.

Yuan goes back to humming when he tries to get back into drawing after the chilling encounter, however, he is keeping an eye on the corpses. He notices immediately when they turn back around to go to him. They stand in front of him, not doing anything. As if they are waiting on an order. After another glance around, to make sure he is not being watched still, Yuan goes back to humming. Maybe they need a command? He spies a fallen tree log not far off. He thinks about how he wants them to lift it and move it to the right.

He watches as the corpses almost immediately turn around and fumble their way over to the log not far off, each one gets one or both hands on the log, they then pick it up and move it to the right of the tree cluster. When they drop the log, one or two corpses continue to look at him, maybe wanting more instructions, while the others walk away and fade into the tree line.

Yuan is both excited and terrified. Excited that the corpses seem to listen to him, but also terrified that when the cultivators show up, he will be killed as a heretic, just like what they do with Xian-gege at the end of the book. A-Yuan decides to keep this new found power to himself for now. At least until it's a life or death situation.

Hopefully, he will never need to use it.

Chapter Text

Lan Xichen is sitting in his room at Golden Carp tower. Nursing a cup of tea and wishing, for once, for something slightly stronger.

He finds himself at Carp tower because Jin Guangshan had called an emergency meeting for all the sect leaders, in order to demand an apology from the Yunmeng Jiang Sect. What Jin Guangshan was expecting, he did not know.

Scratch that, he most likely wanted the Jiang sect to give him something to compensate for the deaths of the Jin guards that Wei Wuxian killed. However, Lan Xichen figured Jin Guangshan did not care too much for the lives of the guards, more than what he could get the Jiang to give up. But what he did know was that what Jin Guangshan got was unlike anything anyone could have expected.

While he is settling his mind, there is a pounding knock on the door. He finds himself opening the door in a stupor to reveal his sworn brother, Nie Mingjue. "Greetings, Da-ge." He lets the man into his room, who sits and pulls out a jar of strong wine, and pours himself a glass. Not bothering to ask if the host wanted any. Not for lack of respect, but to respect his sworn brother.
He is three cups in before he slams the small saucer down and curses colorfully.

"Can you believe it, Xichen?" Lan Xichen continues to calmly drink his tea, before gently placing the cup down and looking at his guest with a rueful smile. He could tell that Nie Mingjue is greatly upset about the information that was provided in this meeting. Then again, he probably also looks upset with what has occurred.

Early last week, Lanling Jin had called for Wei Wuxian to face the repercussions of his actions, however, Yunmeng Jiang's sect leader requested that he ask his head disciple about his actions and reasoning that lead to the death of 4 cultivators who were watching the Wen prisoners. Lan Xichen knew that the Jin Sect leader was not happy with granting the wait, but did provide a week to do an investigation. However, no one could have predicted the findings of his investigation.

Wei Wuxian has a son, who was being protected by Wen Qing and her family, who had actually saved the sect brothers during the burning of Lotus Pier. Wei Wuxian had been looking for Wen Ning, who was the last one seen with his son, only to find out that Wen Ning was killed and his son was enslaved as a Wen in the work camp.

When the Jiang sect leader accused the Jin of enslaving Wei Wuxian's 2 year old son, Jin Guangshan's face turned as red as a yiji’s robes and demanded a new investigation to show he was being slandered. The Jiang Sect leader asked for the Nie Sect and Lan Sect be in charge of the investigation, so there would not be any funny business.

This is a political nightmare…

Lan Xichen sighed softly.

According to the Jiang Sect leader, Wei Wuxian lost his temper and killed the 4 after finding the condition of his son and the guardians he had assigned to him. The Wens in question were not cultivators and should have never been in the work camps anyway.

"Wei Wuxian might be a demonic cultivator, but he was protecting his son. A man cannot be faulted for caring for his family, especially a son." Nie Mingjue stated, his brow furrowed as he scowled at the jug in front of him. He continued to pour himself more alcohol. "We have no choice but to look into this ourselves."

"If the child is undeniably his” Xichen took a moment to calm his thoughts. “Then the Lan sect will not press for retribution from the Jiang Sect for the lost Lan disciple." Lan Xichen is appalled that the Lan had anyone there to begin with if what Jiang Wanyin says happened there was true.

Nie Mingjue downed the rest of his cup. Looked thoughtfully into it before discarding it to drink the rest of the wine directly from the jug before stating matter-of-factly "We will need to head to Yiling."

For once, Lan Xichen really wants a drink.

Chapter Text

It is three days after Jin Guangshan gave the Jiang Sect leader a week to investigate that Lan Wangji finds himself wandering the market of Yiling.

Merchants call to him from either side of the market, trying to entice the young master into buying something.

He told his brother that he would be going on a long night hunt in the area, but in reality, he could not keep himself from checking on Wei Wuxian. As he's walking down the road, people parting in waves before him, he is suddenly stopped by a toddler grabbing onto his leg and giggling out to his Baba. Only, when the child looks up, it realizes that he is, in fact, not his Baba and starts crying.

Lan Wangji freezes when the child bursts into tears. The child is still holding onto his legs with a grip he did not know toddlers possessed. As he is frozen, unsure what to do, a crowd slowly starts to form around him made up of mostly old market goers and sellers of Yiling.

"Poor kid, his father must have scolded him." One older woman says to her companion.

"How do you know he's the father?" Her companion, a younger woman with a child also sitting on her hip, asks the older woman.

"Look at their noses," a man steps in and comments, his nose in the air with finality. "Their noses are identical! They also have the same proud forehead!" The younger giggled at the man's antics but the man's words caused the crowd to voice their agreement.

"Well," the older woman addresses Lan Wangji, with the toddler still attached to his legs, "arn't ya gonna soothe the kid?"

“It must be his first.” said an older man to the crowd. “I was like that when I was your age, you will get better at it over time.”

A round of murmurs ripple through the crowd and Lan Wangji finds his ears turning red. His head is spinning trying to figure out how to tell the crowd he is not the father when he hears a familiar laugh towards the back of the crowd.

As he turns he can see Wei Wuxian cutting through the crowd, his sunny smile lights up his face and he has a mischievous glint in his eye.

A-Yuan looks between the man Xian-gege called “Lan Zhan '' and his Xian-gege. He's embarrassed that he was crying as much as he was. When A-Yuan had grabbed onto the stranger’s leg and got dirt on the pure clean robes, he was afraid that he was going to be punished by the strict young master of a prominent cultivation sect, or worse, his Xian-gege would take his punishment for him and he would lose his father figure all over again. When he had that thought, he could not control the tears that sprung to his eyes. Curse his tiny child body that can’t regulate emotions well. It is only when he sees his Xian-gege laughing with (or laughing at, more accurately) the young master, that A-Yuan found himself starting to relax more around the stranger.

A-Yuan is feeling much better, there is only a little stiffness left in his back and when his Xian-gege said he was going to the Yiling markets to sell and shop, A-Yuan begged to go with him. Both seemed surprised that Wen Qing agreed to it. So now here he is, being held by his Xian-gege while the older man stares at Xian-gege’s face any chance he gets.

It's only when he has a wooden butterfly in each hand when he really starts to notice what is happening with his Xian-gege and the stoic Lan er-gongzi.

A-Yuan noticed how Xian-gege talks more upbeat and has more energy than he’s seen in the weeks he’s been here. How he keeps making jokes to try to get the other to laugh or be flustered. He finds this is very similar to how his father flirted in his previous life.

In fact, in his previous life, there was a neighbor who would always come over with too much food for just himself to give to his Baba, then when Baba flirted with the man, he would get flustered and run away with his ears and the back of his neck red. Fortunately or unfortunately, the man moved due to work conflicts shortly before his Baba got sick.

As Xian-gege and the stern faced man walk to the inn to have lunch together, A-Yuan keeps a close eye on the stranger. The man did look a lot like the neighbor, only this one seemed to be an old friend of Xian-gege. But just like he thought, when Xian-gege said something about him giving birth to A-Yuan, the man turned his head away from Xian-gege and A-Yuan got a glimpse of scarlet ear tips as his elaborate and elegant hair moved just slightly with the movement.

Bingo.

The two of them carry A-Yuan to an inn to eat, where Xian-gege then claims he will treat the young master (with what money, Xian-gege). Both sat in a private room where the older Lan was told to order whatever he wanted. A-Yuan couldn’t believe his ears when he heard Xian-gege tell his companion to “Get whatever you like, don’t hold back.” A-Yuan sighed, his Baba was just like this, always spending his money on everyone else without thinking about himself. But then again, that is how his Baba came to adopt him, so he guesses it's not all bad.

After Lan-gege ordered a large order of spicy foods, Xian-gege laughed. “Who knew the great Hanguang-jun liked spicy food so much!” A-Yuan watched the stranger closely while Xian-gege continued to laugh and make jokes while ordering wine. The man pretended to be preoccupied with the tea service, however he continuously stared at the lower half of Xian-gege’s face when the other man was not looking. A-Yuan sat closer to the stranger who bought him half a toy stall in order to keep an eye out for the man’s mannerisms. However, A-Yuan soon became distracted with the toys in front of him after “pretending to play” with them became “playing” with them.

“Come here A-Yuan.” he heard Xian-gege call from the other side of the table. His Baba had a smirk to his mouth like he was amused, A-Yuan subtly (not) looked to Lan-gege and thought. If he stuck with the man to show he approved of him, would his baba take the hint? A-Yuan then grabbed the man’s elbow and buried his face in the silk fabric, only to lose himself in the softness of it and only realized he was rubbing his face into it when he heard his baba laugh.

“Hahaha! Whoever gives the milk is mother, and whoever has the money is father!” Xian-gege exclaimed while drinking his wine. Now that's a thought. But would that mean that Baba is his mother in this case? If Lan-gege is the one with money instead? Xian-gege and Lan-gege continued to discuss things while waiting for the food. So he chose a stronger approach, using his butterflies he acted out a love scene with love confessions, hoping that his father gets the hint. However, his father merely laughs and asks how he got the idea before the food came and he was ordered to eat.

A-Yuan was given a bowl of soup by Xian-gege. After only a few spoonfuls he found it was the best soup he has tasted since transmigrating! Soon he found himself eating ravenously. Soon, out of habit when his baba was sick, he saved a few spoonfuls and presented the bowl to Xian-gege for him to finish the rest.

Xian-gege obliged with great gusto, but was shooshed by the Lan and they soon finished eating in silence. A-Yuan did not know that his little stomach could feel so full. It's not like he is fully starved here, but he does not think he has ever hit the bottom of his stomach before. He finds himself leaning into the lap of Xian-gege as he drifts off while the two discuss the wedding of Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan. A-Yuan remembers them from when the wedding was described in the novel, Jiang Cheng was bitter not only because he hated the man his sister was to marry but also because his brother would rather be with strangers than with him and his sister at the wedding. Only when Xian-gege heard the wedding was happening, and soon, he became sullen and was more reserved in his responses to Lan-gege.

A-Yuan was still tired when he heard a low ringing. It was annoying so A-Yuan sat up and listened to hear what it is. It ended up coming from Xian-gege’s robes, but Xian-gege wasn’t doing anything to stop it. It started to get louder so A-Yuan grabbed Xian-gege’s sleeve to get his attention.

“Xian-gege, loud!” but the man looked puzzled.

“A-Yuan, little radish, what’s loud?” A-Yuan put his hands over his ears and pointed to a spot near his chest. The sound continued to get louder and louder.

Xian-gege ruffled in his robes until he pulled out a talisman that as soon as he pulled it out the ringing was unbearable and it burst into flames.

“Fuck!” Xian-gege then scooped A-Yuan up and ran out the Inn. “It’s Wen Ning!”

Chapter Text

The moment the three of them arrived at the Burial Mounds, A-Yuan found himself whisked away in Granny’s hands. A-Yuan never took his hands off his ears. The sounds that he heard coming from Xian-gege’s robes ended up getting louder and louder as they flew closer on Lan-gege’s sword. The sound was so horrible, like a bunch of voices were shouting at him in his head, screaming, begging to be freed.

The sound was so overwhelming that soon after being handed off to Granny, he blacked out.

The fight with the unconscious Wen Ning took no more than 10 minutes, but felt both faster and longer than that. Wei Wuxian left the Wen siblings to catch up together to talk to Lan Wangji in his Demon-Quelling Cave, laughing at the face Lan Wangji made when he heard the joke on why he gave it that name. It was almost as satisfying as when he told him the name of his sword.

Lan Wangji was reaching for Wei Wuxian’s wrist after the younger man started choking on blood from his injury with Wen Ning when Wen Qing ran in holding an unconscious Wen Yuan, with Wen Ning looking in shyly from the entrance.

“What happened?!” Wei Wuxian exclaims as Wen Qing lays A-Yuan down on the stone bed.

“I don’t know.” Wen Qing says as she goes over A-Yuan’s body looking for any injury they might not have noticed in the hassle of the fight. “Granny said he was crying about a loud sound before passing out… he’s running a fever again.” Wen Qing starts to strip the small child of his robes.

“Again?” Lan Wangji asks.

Wei Wuxian sighs. “When we first came here, A-Yuan was hurt and developed a really bad fever. It could have killed him if it didn't go down. He only just recently started feeling better” Wei Wuxian brushes the hair out of A-Yuan’s face as he holds him by the shoulders for Wen Qing. When he is finally disrobed, Wen Qing starts looking over the wound on his back to make sure it's not reopened or infected.

Wen Qing breathes a sigh of relief. “It's not infected again. There’s no heat and no smell.” Wen Qing is starting to redress him when Lan Wangji gets a glimpse of the wound and releases a small gasp.

“Who would dare-” Lan Wangji starts before being interrupted.

“The Jin.” Wei Wuxian stares at Lan Wangji, daring the man to make an excuse for the sect's actions. However, the look on Lan Wangji makes Wei Wuxian soften, his face holds a righteous fury that says if he was not a better man he would hunt for the sect leader himself to make the man repent his sins. Wei Wuxian would smile with glee if he still did not know why his Little Radish was still unwell.

Wen Qing finished re-robbing the toddler before moving onto checking the child’s wrist, when she did she gasped and her head shot up to look at the other two men in the room.

“What!?” Wei Wuxian asks anxiously.

“A-Yuan has a core." Wei Wuxian is shocked! How could A-Yuan have possibly developed a core? Could it be from before the war or could he have developed it while in the Jin camp?

"How?" Lan Wangji voices the same thoughts that Wei Wuxian has.

"I don't know. It's small and just started, but there.”

"But how is that making him sick?" Wei Wuxian cannot handle the emotional backflips that his stomach has been doing.

She looks at Wei Wuxian apologetically. “ It’s been affected by Yin energy. It will need to be cleansed before the fever goes down.”

Wei Wuxian feels his world start to collapse around him. This child that he cares so much for, who he could consider his own son if he was more selfish, has been hurt by his own decisions. His ears are ringing as he hears Wen Qing explain that A-Yuan must be sensitive to the Yin energy due to being too soon introduced to it after his injury. Wei Wuxian feels faint, and begins to cough up blood again due to the shock. Wen Qing is alarmed before remembering she has two patents on her hands. She quickly stabilizes Wei Wuxian while Lan Wangji looks like he is one second away from snatching Wei Wuxian’s wrist.

“He’s fine.” she ruthlessly says while slapping his back hard, causing Wei Wuxian to cough up a huge clump of black blood and turn to Wen Qing with a betrayed look. “Just some bad blood.” she finishes with.

Before Wei Wuxian can do anything ridiculous, like pretend to faint, she turns to the pale-faced Lan. “Lan-er-gongzi,” Wen Qing raises and bows as deep as she can go. Wei Wuxian sputters. “I must ask if you would be willing to stay and cleanse Wen Yuan of Yin energy while he is recovering for the next few days.”

Lan Wangji stands and bows back, which leads to more stuttering and an exclamation of “Lan Zhan!” With a solemn face Lan Wangji agrees to stay.

Chapter Text

Lan Wangji becomes a fixture on the Burial Mounds Settlement in the following days. For the next two days, A-Yuan was confined to his bed. Well, not technically his bed, because he refused to sleep by himself or with anyone else other than his baba (Wei Wuxian was torn by this. Touched the child considered him family but sad for taking the place of the man that was once A-Yuan’s father). Every time A-Yuan was woken either in a hut or with granny, he would cry pitiful tears until Wei Wuxian rocked him back to sleep. This would have been okay if it was only one or two times a day. But the child was so sensitive to everything due to the Yin energy, even just the act of setting a pot down too hard or walking past the hut would wake the feverish child.

Wei Wuxian found that it was easiest to just let A-Yuan sleep with him. However, this also meant that he had to be there for when Lan Wangji played clarity. The man would sit on the damp cave floor with his guqin laid across his lap twice a day while Wei Wuxian sat with the sick child in his arms or nestled in his lap.

There was noted improvement by the third day when A-Yuan awoke.

When A-Yuan opened his eyes, he found that the weight that was sitting on his chest had lessened and he no longer felt like someone had taped the button down on an air-horn and then strapped it to the back of his head. He could feel the sensation of rising and falling, as well as a muted warmth underneath him. When he looked down, he found he was asleep on Xian-gege’s chest all night. Cradled in the older man’s arms. He felt the most secure he has ever felt since his father died, in both this life and the last. He curled farther into the warmth. He tried to think about what he remembered last.

He remembers the Inn. He remembers a sound and being on Lan-er-gege’s sword but most of his memories after are dark and blurry. What he can remember is begging his baba not to leave him alone, because he was scared that if his baba left him, then he would disappear and he would wake up alone on his couch. Desperate to stay with the memory of his father longer, and now the memories of his past life’s father and his current Baba are so intertwined that he struggles to sparse out which one is which.

A-Yuan has been thinking, these last few weeks, that Xian-gege (now mostly Baba in his head) is most likely another life of his father or his father is the reincarnation of his Baba. However, the thought that his father is meant to die in both lives is too depressing to think about.

While A-Yuan is laying there, thinking about his baba, light footsteps glide into the cave. He looks up as Lan-gege walks in. The man stops when he notices that one of the occupants of the cave is awake. Lan-gege smiles a slight smile and bends down to A-Yuan’s height.

“Good morning, A-Yuan.” The man spoke low, like he did not want to wake his Baba.

“Morning Gege” A-Yuan whispered back. The stoic man smiled and moved to the center of the cave. Then, with a graceful flourish, he sat with his guqin in his lap. Lan-gege played a soft melody that made A-Yuan feel like he was floating down a cool mountain stream.

While the music played, he felt the arms encircling him tighten around him and snuggle closer. His baba hummed contentedly and turned onto his side, still holding A-Yuan close.

When Lan-gege finished playing, Xian-gege sat up with A-Yuan in his lap.

“Hello my little radish, how are you feeling?” The man asked as he stretched himself out. A-Yuan could hear a few pops from stiff joints. A-Yuan was upset that the warmth that was in the bed was gone when Baba sat up.

“Sleepy…” A-Yuan croaks, his voice scratchy from sleep.

His Baba chuckles. A-Yuan then looks to Lan-gege just to make sure he is still there. The older man had put his guqin away and is currently tidying up the cave. A-Yuan can tell that he was not asleep more than a couple nights this time, maybe, but he also knows that Lan-gege will probably leave soon, and that his chance will be gone to try to bring Lan-gege onto his baba’s side, before the man heads back to his sect.

Sleepily, A-Yuan calls out “Baba, m’ hungry.”

Xian-gege nearly fell out of the stone bed when he heard A-Yuan call out. Lan-gege also froze with a stack of papers in his hands. A-Yuan was confused about what was wrong with the two of them.

“Haha! Sure- uh - let’s um…” Xian-gege then plucks A-Yuan from the bed, but before he can walk out of the case, in walks Wen Qing with two bowls of medicinal soup.

“Where do you think you two are going?” Wen Qing asks. A-Yuan could tell that if her hands were not full she would have her hands on her hips. He could almost laugh if he was not staring down the bowls of soup like it was the end of the world.

“Ah, Wen Qing! We were just going to go get something to eat for A-Yuan!”

Wen Qing gives Xian-gege a look. “ You are not stepping foot in the cooking hut.” Xian-gege pouts. It was true tho, Xian-gege is an okay cook, if you liked your food too spicy to be edible. “Here” Wen Qing said as she handed one bowl of bland, watery soup to A-Yuan. A-Yuan must have pulled a face at the soup, because it had his baba chuckling.

“What, now that you have a taste for more than radishes now you want more luxurious meals!” A-Yuan turned a mortified look to his baba, but the man was smiling and completely unserious. “Oh woe is me, my only son would trade me in for a meat bun!” Xian-gege sat A-Yuan back on the bed and does a dramatic swoon onto the slab bed, but peaks one eye open to look at A-Yuan. This makes A-Yuan smile and giggle. He starts sipping on the bland meal. Before Xian-gege can get off the bed, the second bowl that Wen Qing is holding is thrust into the man's hands.

“What!? Why do I have to drink it too!” His baba shoots an incredulous look to Wen Qing, who now does actually have both hands on her hips.

“Wen Ning made it for you, so you better not leave any of it behind.” She stared down at him with eyes that said he would regret it if he did not follow her exact instructions. “And don’t you dare give any to A-Yuan, yours has a much stronger dosage that he cannot take.”

His baba deflated next to him and sipped grumpily on his soup like a grumpy child. Lan-gege, who had finished cleaning, watched the interaction with amusement etched onto his brow.

The next two days are spent with A-Yuan dragging around both his Baba and Lan-gege, showing the man everything of interest on the mountain. The stoic Lan would play the calming song three times a day for A-Yuan and his baba. This also was accompanied by a bitter medicine soup. His baba grumbles everytime, but with Wen Ning’s doe eyes and some help from Lan-gege the man is looking more healthy then he has the entire time that A-Yuan has been on the mountain.

On the third day, when A-Yuan and his baba are sitting on a rock, looking out while Lan-gege and Wen Ning help the villagers rearrange some of the heavier things of the village. A-Yuan is sitting in his baba’s lap, playing with a straw butterfly and the doll that his baba gave him when he first woke up.

“A-Yuan? Why did you start to call me baba?” A-Yuan paused his playing to look up at his baba. The man looked at A-Yuan like the answer to the question would either be the answer to every question he had, or would bring his world to ruin. A-Yuan knows he owes his baba a proper answer, but honestly, he can't really remember what family he had before his baba was in his life. A-Yuan could not really come up with an answer, because in both this life and his life before, his family was always his baba.

“I don’t know,” A-Yuan answered honestly. “Can baba not be baba anymore?” A-Yuan asked, scared that he will be required to call his baba by his name in front of everyone for the rest of his life, like the man no longer wants to be his father anymore. A-Yuan’s lips tremble when he thinks about it.

“NO! I mean- no, you can still call me baba, but-” the man is now stumbling over his words and his hands fly up and gestures wildly. “But what about the baba you had before? You don’t want to- I mean if you still- Is he? Do you still remember him?”

A-Yuan thinks. He honestly does not remember his father from when he was in the modern world. He only remembers the loneliness he felt when he was moved from foster to foster, only to land in his Baba’s home, who he was eventually adopted by. Then, in this life, his memories from before he awoke are so few and far between he cannot know for sure if the man is someone he knew or not. So A-Yuan gives the most honest answer he can give.

“Baba is Xian-gege, and Xian-gege is baba. He’s always been Baba.” A-Yuan must have given the right answer, because his baba hugs him to himself and they hold each other close for the rest of the day.

Chapter Text

Lan-gege has been on the mountain with A-Yuan and his Baba for a week now. He has done every cute thing in his small body’s power to try to get the stoic man to crack and finally admit that he likes his baba and wants to be his other dad. However, it seems ancient china, (or at least this book’s version of it) must have a lot of repressed people, because neither his baba or Lan-gege has done anything more than longing looks and burning gazes when the other is not looking while one plays and the other listens. He even got them both to sleep with him after crying and begging because he was scared that Lan-gege would leave in the middle of the night if A-Yuan no longer needed played to. Which is a valid fear by the way, now that he is feeling all better and no longer feels irritable.  

His attempts must be obvious because this morning, when Qing-jie took him to get his breakfast, she sat him down in the cooking hut and gave him a knowing look. 

“Ease up on them kid, they will get over themselves sooner or later.” 

A-Yuan’s eyebrows shoot up, he sheepishly looks at Qing-jie, who hands him his bowl of medical soup, which has been more full lately. He pouts at the woman, knowing that the innocent look won’t work on her. She has too much experience with her baba to fall for it. 

“But I want them to get together now!” He stares down into the wooden bowl, watching the murky soup as he tips it one way then the other, careful not to spill it. 

Wen Qing huffs, and ruffles his hair before picking him up and sitting him on the table so she can lean down and talk to him. “They will work things out eventually. This isn't something anyone can rush.”  

“But….” A-Yuan eyes begin to water, thinking about how his old baba and this one are so similar, and how his old baba never had anyone, because the one he liked moved away before anything serious happened. How if his current baba and his Lan-gege don’t get together now then it might be too late for his baba and the people of this village. Love isn’t something he can rush, but at this point, it's his last hope. “But, what if they never work things out? What if baba is always alone?” His voice is barely above a whisper when he says the last part. “I just want baba to be happy.” 

He did not know just how much that statement was true until he said it. Yes, he is stressed out. Yes, he is a 23 year old man now living in a toddlers body. Yes, he knows that everyone he knows could die a brutal death very soon if he cannot change fate. But the only thing he ever wanted, in this life and the last, was for his baba to be happy. His baba did not get his happy ending in his last life, so he is going to do everything in his power to make it happen in this one. He will not waste his second chance. 

A-Yuan’s face must have hardened with determination, because Wen Qing just sighs and pats his head. “I’ll see what I can do, brat.” Underneath her hardened eyes, A-Yuan can see a softness behind it, almost like a smile. 

The next day, Wen Qing stops Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji. 

“Wei Wuxian, I need you to stop by the village and pick up some more rice and radish seeds.” 

“What?” His baba asks, confused. He was in the middle of burying A-Yuan in the radish field when she came over. It was still the beginning of the day and Lan-gege was helping Uncle Four with tilling one of the harder fields. His baba was ‘helping’. “Didn’t we already get some last week?” 

“I sent you last week but there was…” She looks to Lan-gege and Ning-gege who looked sheepish as he hauled baskets of rocks and bone away from the field. “... There were distractions.” 

“Oh, yeah. Hehe, I guess we really didn’t grab the stuff we were needing huh.” Baba scratches his head sheepishly before pulling A-Yuan out of the dirt and dusting him off. “Well, A-Yuan, guess I’ll have to grow you a sibling another time!” 

A-Yuan is in the middle of making a pouty face when Wen Qing says “Take him, and that one-” points to Lan-gege “- with you. That way they can keep you out of trouble.” 

“What!? When have I ever been trouble? Qing-jiejie!” His baba protests, but quickly hides behind Lan-gege when she whips out her needles at the title. 

She then turns her needles on Lan-gege. “You-” She steps closer to him, eyes narrowed. “Please keep him out of trouble, even if it's of his own making. And you-” She turns to A-Yuan, who went to grab Lan-gege’s leg. Her posture is no longer strict and A-Yuan can tell she is smiling just a little under her serious mask. “Keep your Lan-gege out of trouble.” Qing-jie gives A-Yuan a subtle wink, and A-Yuan giggles and winks back. This could be his chance to make his Baba fall for his chosen A-Die! 

“Hm!” A-Yuan nods his head very seriously. This has his baba laughing from behind Lan-gege. 

Together, they depart from the mountain to the market. A-Yuan is held in Lan-gege’s strong arms while they walk the steep tail down the mountain, the dirt path lined by gnarled dead trees and stick bushed reaching up from the mountain soil. Ning-gege would have joined them, however Qing-jie asked him to stay behind and help Uncle Four in Lan-gege’s stead. For some time, A-Yuan was happy to swing between the arms of the two adults he cares about most. However, he grew tired quickly, and with his toddler body, he truly felt like he could not go forward anymore. This caused Lan-gege to pick him up and walk the rest of the way with Baba telling him funny stories from when they were in what A-Yuan thinks is their equivalent of a school together. Most of these stories left Lan-gege red in the ears but never saying anything more than an exasperated “Wei Ying…” 

This continues down the mountain. Every time there is awkward silence or when his baba snaps his mouth closed like he is remembering a bad memory, A-Yuan chimes in something childish to clear the air or change the subject. But mostly he is just truly enjoying spending time with his new baba and all the new stories that are from this world. 

When they do manage to get to the market of Yiling, The trio manage to complete the shopping list Wen Qing had given them by making sure each other does not get too distracted. Lan-gege pulled Baba away from the potato seller after he started up an old argument with the old man about the quality of potatoes, before paying for a bag himself. Then Baba had to prevent Lan-gege from buying half the toy stall because they had new types of grass toys for sale that week. A-Yuan himself was pulled back into the arms of his baba after his eyes wandered to the bright colored kites at the stall next to them. The day was past noon when Baba suggested getting lunch in town. The three of them were just starting down the road to the inn they went to before baba freezes. Since A-Yuan is in his baba’s arms, he can tell that something in an alley had caught his baba’s eye. A-Yuan turns to look and sees a man in purple with a scowl on his face. It’s Jiang Cheng. A-Yuan can't believe he did not recognize him before, he looks exactly as the book described him, but his scowl makes him look more constipated then anything in the real world. 

The man, while still staring into the street at his baba. The town’s people still passing, oblivious to the man in the alley. Jiang Cheng uses his chin to signal that he wants his baba to follow him. His baba huffs and turns to Lan-gege, A-Yuan can just see Jiang Cheng disappear down the alley before his baba turns fully. 

“Sorry, Lan Zhan, I have to take care of something, you and A-Yuan order food. I’ll be there as soon as I take care of this silly thing.” A-Yuan is then handed to the waiting arms of Lan-gege. Baba is smiling and taps his finger to A-Yuan’s nose but A-Yuan can tell that he is stressed out when the smile drops almost immediately as he is walking away. The two continue silently to their destination but are soon stopped again to be asked directions from what looks like merchants. Not the poor farmers making a living, but well off merchants that A-Yuan can tell only stopped Lan-gege because of how well dressed he looks. A-Yuan is placed on the ground while Lan-gege talks to the merchant, but A-Yuan has a mischievous idea. If he can get lost and then ask someone to help him find his A-Die, then maybe he can convince all of Yiling that his baba and Lan-gege are dating. A-Yuan giggles quietly to himself at his idea.  As soon as Lan-gege loosens his hand to give physical directions to the merchant, A-Yuan slips away. 

A-Yuan is giggling to himself as he goes from stall to stall, looking at all the fair. He thinks he is far enough away to be able to point out Lan-gege as his A-Die, but as soon as he turns back, he does not see Lan-gege anywhere in the crowded street. A-Yuan holds his breath, keeping his panic at bay. He planned this, but the panic is making it hard to think. Soon he sees white robes at another stall across the road. A-Yuan books it, weaving through the feet of the crowd. 

“A-Die! Found you!” he yells. Not only is he grateful he found Lan-gege but he can also implement his plan since Lan-gege was talking to a big man in olive green robes. The man stares down wide-eyed at A-Yuan. Like he is surprised that someone like Lan-gege has a child, only when Lan-gege looks down at him, A-Yuan notices that although the face is similar, the facial expression is nothing like his Lan-gege. This Lan-gege has a thinner face, softer eyes, and is maybe a tiny bit taller this his Lan-gege. A-Yuan takes a shocked step back and the two of them stare at each other before A-Yuan blurts out, “You’re not my A-Die!” indignantly. 

As if to solidify that this is not Lan-gege, the man’s eyebrows shoot up, before dropping down into a polite smile. “Hello, Little one,” the man says, even his voice is softer and more smooth then his Lan-gege’s deep cadence. “Who might this one be?” The man asks. A-Yuan is still indignant that this stranger is going around smiling at people with a face so similar to his Lan-gege. 

While A-Yuan is frozen, staring at the shocking face of this stranger, he hears his name called over the crowd of people. Behind him, he sees HIS Lan-gege turning frantically in the middle of the busy street, looking low, trying to find A-Yuan. A-Yuan bolts to him. 

“A-Die!!” he cries. A-Yuan slams himself into Lan-gege’s legs and is comforted when he is lifted into Lan-gege’s arms. 

“A-Yuan, please do not wander away like that again.” Lan-gege lectures sternly. 

“Sorry, Gege.” A-Yuan is close to tears. Not only did he get himself lost (accidentally and on purpose) but he also disappointed the man he was trying to get to like him and his baba. A-Yuan continues to babble while hugging Lan-gege’s neck. Something about “Scary bad man with gege’s face”. 

Lan-gege rubs A-Yuan’s back. Before asking “What do you mean, A-Yuan?” A-Yuan then points to the two men that are still staring at them from the side of the street. When a larger group of people pass and Lan-gege can see the faces of the two men, he freezes up. Just like when his baba saw his brother in the alley. This time, Lan-gege slowly crosses the street to the copy-cat. The fake Lan-gege is still smiling, but now it is strained. The man next to the copy-cat is also looking from one face to the other, then down at A-Yuan. When his eyes land on A-Yuan, A-Yuan hides his face in Lan-gege’s neck again. Finally, after an uncomfortable silence. Lan-gege speaks up. 

“Xiongzhang.” Lan-gege bows to the stranger as much as he can with a toddler in his hands. 

“Wangji.” Lan-gege’s apparent brother addresses him back, but the man’s eyes flick down to A-Yuan. With a strained smile the man asks “Could you perhaps follow us back to our inn? I think we have a few things to discuss.” The man immediately turns to head the opposite direction without looking to make sure Lan-gege or his companion is following him. 

They follow. A-Yuan wants to cry over his rotten luck.

Chapter Text

A-Yuan somehow finds himself sitting at a low table of a private room at the Inn that they went to the week before when he first met Lan-gege. A-Yuan was grateful that they were having this meeting here since this is also where they planned to meet up with his baba. Apparently Lan-gege was also thinking of his baba because he told the owner that he is waiting for someone, and gave Baba’s description. Then asked that he be brought up as soon as he arrived. Hearing this helped ease some of the anxiety A-Yuan felt about missing his baba, thinking they left without him. 

HOWEVER, it did nothing what-so-ever for having to sit in a room with two sect leaders and an apparent SECT HEIR. How come Lan-gege never said anything about being the heir to a major sect, he just thought he was from a secondary branch from his name. Also, ‘Lan Zhan’ is apparently the stone faced Lan Wanji in the novel. The man who spent three months helping Jiang Cheng look for Wei Wuxian, only to lose his temper when he found out his baba started practicing the demonic arts. The book described him as a cold, by the book, stuck up who would stop at nothing to hold Wei Wuxian accountable for every misdead tha Wei Wuxian was a part of. However, as A-Yuan looked into the face of the ‘stone-faced man’ he could not help but remember the man who has to be physically pulled away from toy stalls for fear of spending all his money on A-Yuan, or the man who helps his baba bury A-Yuan in the dirt, and the man who is unafraid to play some dirty tricks in order to make his baba take his medicine. The disconnect was too jarring for A-Yuan to understand without some time alone to sort out his memories of the book. Could the book not be reliable? If he is different then what else is different. All A-Yuan’s thoughts were making his head spin. 

There is a gentle cough from across the table. 

A-Yuan had almost forgotten the two men sitting across from them.  

A-Yuan shyly looked at the two men. While A-Yuan was deep in his thoughts, Lan-gege had used preparing the tea set in front of them as a means of avoiding a conversation. But the second the preparation was over and all three had a cup of tea in hand (or water in A-Yuan’s case) that is when Lan Xichen decided that this was the time to break the silence. The tall man in white elegantly sipped his tea as he began his questioning. 

“Wangji, How did your nighthunt go? I assume it has ended since I was able to locate you in the market, or were you still working on the case.” The man continues to have a polite smile, but it's one that is not as creepy as A-Yuan expected. He could almost believe he was seriously entertained. 

Lan-gege’s ears turned red. “I had finished the case when I became… distracted.” At the word ‘distracted’ Lan Xichen’s eyes flicked to A-Yuan for a second before moving back to Lan-gege. A-Yuan could have sworn that the man’s smile became bigger.

“I can see that.” 

…

The conversation soon dies again. The two brothers continue to exchange looks between the two. Like they are having a conversation only they can hear. A-Yuan then notices that the large man in the green robes is leisurely reclining on one arm, the other holding his cup of tea, and is subtly looking at A-Yuan. A-Yuan hides his face behind Lan-gege’s sleeve. Purely because he is embarrassed about what happened on the road, and definitely not because he is scared. When A-Yuan peaks back out to see if the man is still looking, A-Yuan is shocked to find the tea cup is no longer in his hand and the man has covered his face with one of his large palms. A-Yuan is confused until the man peaks one eye through his fingers only to quickly close them again when he sees A-Yuan looking. It takes this big burly man one more time of doing this before A-Yuan realizes that the man is playing peak-a-boo! A-Yuan giggles uncontrollably at how this man is acting so childishly when he is twice the size of an adult man. The man also releases a deep low chuckle before speaking. 

“So Wangji! Won’t you introduce us to the little one you have with you?” The two Lan’s were broken out of their silent argument when A-Yuan started giggling. The two then turned to A-Yuan, and he was suddenly nervous again. Lan-gege smiled reassuringly at him and helped A-Yuan stand. Lan-gege whispered to him

“Just like we practiced A-Yuan.” A-Yuan nodded. When they had free time this week, one of the lessons that Lan-gege helped teach him was how to bow and greet someone. A-Yuan stands, puts his hands together and bends forward into a respectful bow. 

“This one greets S-Sect leaders.” A-Yuan is embarrassed that he stuttered due to his nerves, but he thinks this can be excused as being a child. The two sect leaders are smiling anyway. 

“And what is this one’s name?” the Lan Sect leader asks politely. 

“T-this one is Wei-WEN, Wen Yuan!” A-Yuan stumbles through. A-Yuan glances at Lan-gege to see if his mistake was caught. But the man is not looking at him. He is instead glaring daggers at his brother. There is a clink from the other side of the table and A-Yuan looks just in time to see that Lan Xichen’s tea sloshed as if it was quickly set down. There was a slight tremor in the man’s hands as he folded them together on the table. The smile was thin again.  

“Wangji…” his brother starts but stops. The man is obviously struggling with what to ask first. A-Yuan can feel how Lan-gege has stiffened next to him. A-Yuan crawls into Lan-gege’s lap, not only to comfort himself, but to also comfort the other. 

Lan Xichen sighs before continuing. 

“Why didn’t you tell us? We would not judge you for who you are with.” Lan-gege continues to be stiff, even as he answers his brother. 

“It is not you who I fear to be judged by.” A-Yuan is shocked as the statement comes out almost as a growl. The taller brother deflates a little, as the polite smile turns wistful.

“No, I suppose there are some in our clan who would not be supportive…” 

“Uncle is only one.” Lan-gege states in his deep cadence.  

“Yes, Uncle is only one of many.” the other Lan agrees. “There are many reasons to keep this from our sect, however, I might have been able to help you if I had known.” 

Lan-gege continues to be stern in his responses, but A-Yuan does not know what they are talking about. Are they saying that if Lan-gege told them about Baba earlier, then he would have helped them? A-Yuan keeps moving from one Lan face to the other. His Lan-gege’s brows keep knitting deeper and deeper as the conversation continues. 

“I could have been able to convince Uncle to add him to the family tree.” Lan Xichen insists. 

Lan-gege holds A-Yuan tighter, his brows let up slightly in shock. “I did not know that that was an option?” A-Yuan is even more confused at this point. 

“Of course that is an option, did you think we would cast out our heir?” 

“Uncle would never approve.” 

“Uncle is a sucker for children, he could never say no to his grand-nephew!” Lan-gege freezes. 

“Grand-nephew?’ He asks, confused. 

“Of course! Even though A-Yuan was born out of wedlock and the child of the Yiling Patriarch, he is also your son, he is still family.” A-Yuan is so very confused, and Lan-gege has the Lan equivalent of a dropped jaw. Just when Lan-gege opens his mouth to speak, the sliding door to the private room is slammed open. 

“Lan Zhan, quick! We need to get to the Burial Mounds before Sect Leader Lan sees… you…” His baba freezes as he sees that sitting across from the two of them are the two sect leaders. His baba looks like he is about to faint.

Chapter Text

Wei Wuxian stood in the doorway, he felt dread as he saw who was sitting at the low table in the room. The two sect leaders stiffened instantly. Wei Wuxian did not take his eyes off the two sect leaders. Could they be here to take A-Yuan away from him? Did they come to convince him to turn in the Wen back to the Jin sect? There was no way he would let that happen, in this life or the next. While Wei Wuxian felt his anger rising and the two sect leaders subtly moved their hands to their swords. It wasn’t until A-Yuan had wiggled himself out of Lan Zhan’s lap and launched himself happily at his baba, ignorant to the ozone that was now flowing from Wei Wuxian.

“Baba!” he cried happily, clinging to Wei Wuxian’s leg. Wei Wuxian reached down and pulled A-Yuan up to cling to his chest, if only to ground himself in the moment. He still feels the anger pulse inside himself, however he agrees to himself to hear out the sect leaders, but will use whatever it takes to flee back to the burial mounds the second anything seems like a trap.

Wei Wuxian glances at Lan Zhan, who is sitting across from his brother with an equally pale face, he is looking at Wei Wuxian hopelessly, so it looks like he has no idea what they are doing here either. With what Jiang Cheng has told him today, if it wasn’t from his brother who is terrible at telling jokes, then he would not have believed any of this is real either.

Wei Wuxian hardens his gaze when he looks back to the two sect leaders. Lan Xichen is smiling his diplomatic smile, but it is not quite reaching his eyes. While the Nie sect leader is now sitting up and looking ready to pounce, just like Wei Wuxian.

Wei Wuxian does not move from the doorway before speaking.

“This one greats the honorable sect leaders,” He makes a half bow, not risking looking away from the two. He knows his eyes have turned red without meaning to, but he cannot risk them making a break to grab A-Yuan. “Would the great and honorable Nie and Lan Sect leaders be willing to fill in why they are here in my territory with my guest and son?”

The Lan Xichen sits up straighter but it is Nie Mingue who speaks up first.

“Relax, Wei Wuxian, we did not come here to steal your son.”

Lan Xichen jerks to look at Nie Mingjue, his mouth open. The man then whips his head back to look at Wei Wuxian again, this time the smile is replaced with a look of horror.

“Oh, heaven’s no! We would never dare to take your child away from you!” The man looks shocked, like the thought had never crossed his mind, but Wei Wuxian does not relax yet. Lan Xichen continues, looking more honest. “We are here to confirm the rumors that the Jiang sect's Head disciple, Wei Wuxian, infiltrated and killed the guards at Qiongqi Path while looking for his son.” When Lan Xichen says ‘your son’ and looks to A-Yuan in his arms, Wei Wuxian holds the child closer to himself.

Wei Wuxian stares at the two before him, before glancing at Lan Zhan again. The man is even paler and staring out into the distance. He then makes a decision he hopes he doesn’t regret later.

Wei Wuxian puts on a smile but with how tense he is it comes out more like a snarl. “If sect leaders would please excuse this one, I need to have a discussion with Lan Zhan.”

Lan Xichen nods “Of course!” but Lan Zhan had already stood up to move mechanically out of the room. The three of them move silently to the empty room next door.

When in the room, Wei Wuxian handed A-Yuan off to Lan Zhan and quickly slapped a silencing talasman to the door and windows. Wei Wuxian started to pace while he told the tale that his scowling faced martial brother spun for him earlier this afternoon. While Wei Wuxian is telling the story to Lan Zhan, the man sits down hard when Wei Wuxian stops to take a breath.

“It's absurd! What the hell was he thinking!? No one would believe that A-Yuan is my son!” Wei Wuxian turns to pace the other direction. “Even if they did somehow believe that A-Yuan is my son when could I have possibly sired a son?” He turns. “Unless I claim some unfortunate Jiang or Wen maiden was the mother, but all the disciples for Jiang were killed in the war and the only Wen young enough to have that small of a child is Wen Qing.”

That last sentence snaps Lan Zhan out of his dazed stupor as his gaze snaps back to Wei Wuxian. Before Wei Wuxian can turn around again he blurts out uncharacteristically.

“I will take responsibility…”

“Huh?” Wei Wuxian stops in his tracks and turns to Lan Zhan. A-Yuan is sitting quietly in his lap, also looking confusedly at Lan Zhan. The man stares solidly at Wei Wuxian and repeats “I will take responsibility… for you and A-Yuan.”

…

Wei Wuxian burst out laughing after that absurd statement. He ends up laughing so hard that he doubles over holding his side with his forehead to the floor. His hysterical laughing starts to die out when he is in near tears. He wipes his eyes. “Oh Lan Zhan, you know exactly what to do to get me to laugh, your sense of humor is amazing.” The man in question’s neck turns red, but he continues to look at Wei Wuxian with a serious look. “I mean, it almost sounded like you wanted to marry me and make A-Yuan your son too. Like you would ever want to do that with me!”

Lan Zhan then moves A-Yuan out of his lap before kowtowing. Wei Wuxian’s jaw drops and he immediately goes to try to get Lan Zhan off the ground, but the man does not budge. “Please allow this one to marry Wei Wuxian and be a father to A-Yuan.”

Wei Wuxian sputters. “Y-you can’t be serious Lan Zhan!”

Lan Zhan continues to kneel before him.

“Lan Zhan! There is no way I can let you do that! If you claim to be the father of my child, by blood or not, then your reputation will be ruined!”

This is when Lan Zhan straightens back out, only to point his determined face at Wei Wuxian before saying “This one cares not for his reputation.”

“But you should!” Wei Wuxian finds himself yelling. “Reputation is everything for the sects! If your uncle even so much as thinks that I have turned his perfect Nephew astray then he will find me and kill me himself, let alone what the other sects would do to me!”

Lan Zhan frowns. “Uncle can be dealt with. Wei Ying deserves safety.” With each word spoken, Wei Wuxian sees the stubborn set in like it did when they were teenagers.

“My safety comes at a cost! I cannot allow myself to drag you down too!” Wei Wuxian continues to yell.

“Wei Ying would not drag this one down.”

Wei Wuxian feels like tearing his hair out from the frustration. “Lan Zhan, be serious! If I allow you to do this then- then you’ll be stuck with me! ME! You HATE me!” Wei Wuxian is at his wits end trying to get Lan Zhan to understand how bad of an idea it would be to tie himself to the ruined cultivator called Wei Wuxian. But Lan Zhan does not back down. After a long time of staring each other down, Wei Wuxian deflates. Falling onto a cushion and putting his head in his hands.

“Fine! You win! But don’t blame me if no one believes me when I tell them that A-Yuan is your child.”

“That will not be necessary.” Lan Zhan quickly states. Not looking directly at Wei Wuxian.

“Huh?” its Wei Wuxian’s turn to be confused. Lan Zhan continues to NOT look at Wei Wuxian as he explains.

“Xiongzhang already believes that I sired A-Yuan.”

Wei Wuxian stares at Lan Zhan, who is now looking at him with a serious look on his face. He is not sure if he wants to laugh or cry.

‘L-Lan Zhan, you can’t be s-serious? How?”

Lan Zhan looks down at the child that Wei Wuxian almost forgot was still in the room. A-Yuan has his face buried in the white sleeve of his outer robe. “A-Yuan called this one A-Die in front of Xiongzhang, then said his name is Wei, not Wen.” Wei Wuxian’s jaw drops.

“A-Yuan! You naughty boy! What could have possibly possessed you to call him that?”

A-Yuan pulls his face from the sleeve and pouts. It's a face so similar to the one Wei Wuxian himself would always make that it would not be hard to see a resemblance. A-Yuan mumbles something that sounds something like “I don’t want Lan-gege to leave me.” The answer nearly breaks his heart, he can't fault the kid, he has also lost his own fair share of family.

Wei Wuxian sighs. “I guess I have no choice but to go with the lie, if I try to tell them the truth, then they will blame my brother or they will just think that I’m trying to cover up the truth.” Wei Wuxian rubs his eyes, already stressed out by what’s to come. "I don’t know how we will get through this mess.”

“Wei Ying is a wonderful father and brother. He is smart and will find a way to make it work.” Wei Wuxian finds himself blushing scarlet. He covers his face and stutters out.

“L-Lan Zhan! You don’t really mean that, do you?”

Lan Zhan grabs his hand and just holds it.

“Wei Ying finds his way out of trouble as equally as he finds himself in trouble.” The man says seriously. That got Wei Wuxian to laugh, then it was his turn to pout at the man.

“That doesn’t sound like a compliment, Lan Zhan!” Said man smiles a small smile.

Wei Wuxian is so stunned by the rare smile that he almost misses the reply. “Wei Ying will think of something. He always does.”

Wei Wuxian takes a second to breathe. When he opens his eyes again, he finds two faces he knows he can trust with his life. And makes another choice he hopes he will never come to regret.

“Alright, here is the plan…”

Chapter Text

Lan Xichen watches his brother and newly found nephew leave the room to have their discussion. It’s hard for him to grasp that he now has a two year old nephew, considering when he woke up this morning he had no nephew that he knew of. When he heard that Wei Wuxian had a son, he dreaded the moment that he would have had to tell Wangji that his crush had a child. He had known how his brother felt about the rambunctious Jiang Head Disciple since the two of them were taking the classes his uncle offered together. Like a sunflower searching for the sun, he could see the way his brother always sought out Wei Wuxian during every single sect meeting since that fateful summer. He thought after the war and their many public fights, their relationship was permanently damaged. As irreparable as a shattered tea cup. The bigger pieces can be put back together, but would never be the same. Lan Xichen understands why his brother was hiding his relationship with Wei Wuxian, especially after the war when everyone else thought that it was a matter of time until the demonic cultivator lost control. What hurt him more, was that the child has to be no more than three years old, possibly two with how small the child is. Did his brother not trust him to tell him the truth? Has his brother lost so much faith in him to keep a major part of his life so secret that he was using a cover to meet his secret family? Is there no way for his brother to regain his faith in him? 

While all these thoughts swirl around him like a storm, he is brought back to the present with a warm hand on his shoulder from his sworn brother. The man is still lounging against the table as he sips the tea that they were brought. 

“Let me hear your thoughts Xichen, I know you are bothered. You're making that face.” 

Lan Xichen cracks a real smile. Nie Mingjue always knows when something is bothering him. He does not know how he knows, because no one else but his family can tell. He feels himself swell with emotions knowing that there is someone who knows him so well. 

Lan Xichen takes a deep breath and releases it before trying to put his thoughts to words. 

“I am worried about Wangji…” Xichen swallows down the emotions that threaten to overwhelm him as he tries to articulate his worry.  “I am afraid …” that he will follow in their father’s footsteps to destruction, that he will leave the sect and their family and never look back, that his brother is being taken advantage of for his kindness and love. All of these statements lay on the tip of his tongue, but he is too afraid that voicing them will give them the power they need to take his brother away from him. Instead he leaves the sentence unfinished. 

He only realizes that his hands had started to shake when Mingjue dislodges one of his hands from the crumpled robes where he was gripping his knee in order to place a cup of tea in his hands.  

“Drink.” he orders. “We will talk to them when they get back. You know Wangji, he is stubborn, more than Huaisang can be at times. He will tell you what he needs from you, then you can start making plans.” 

Xichen takes a deep breath and forces his other hand to release his rumpled robes. He cradles the cup of tea to his lips and takes a sip. He takes another deep breath before he sighs. 

“You’re right, Da-ge, there is nothing I can do until I hear them out.”

“There you go. No need to stress at the moment. Save the stress for your Uncle.” 

This makes Xichen chuckle. Mostly because he talked big about how his uncle would love any child of Wangji’s, however he is unsure. The man is already adverse to Wei Wuxian, it is speculation at best to know how he will react. There is only one thing he knows. “Uncle will have a deviation.” 

This makes Mingjue snort. “Best notify the healers now so they can meet you at the gate.” 

This makes Xichen smile and he can feel himself finally starting to relax again. Just when he finishes his cup of calming tea, the waiter comes to bring in the food they ordered. It is after the table is finished being filled that his brother and his hidden family rejoin them. 

Wangji is stiff and noticeably uncomfortable and Wei Wuxian is not as openly hostile, but still holds the air that any hostile move will cause him to pounce to the defenses. The little toddler holding onto Wei Wuxian’s neck as they sit is now looking very intensely at the two of them. No longer shy from the earlier introductions.

Before, he did not get a good look at his face, but now he could see the resemblance to his brother. The thin lips from their mother, his forehead he shares with their uncle. The same nose that must have come from their mothers family. What does shock him, though, is the child’s eyes. 

 Wei Yuan has the same gray eyes and almond shape that Wei Wuxian has, but close to the center, there are flecks of gold that cause the gray to become warm in the light. However, the most striking resemblance to Wei Wuxian is the intelligence behind those eyes. This becomes apparent to Xichen while he observes them throughout dinner. 

They all agree that they will discuss their important business after eating. So it is while Xichen is preparing his bowl that he watches how the three of them interact. He watches as Wei Wuxian sits the child in between the two of them and then grabs a bowl and begins to fill it with rice and vegetables and small bits of meat. At the same time the child sees a meatbun sitting in front of him and reaches across the table to grab one, and gets his hand caught by Wangji who proceeds to take out a handkerchief to clean the child's fingers. The child only looks slightly surprised before presenting his other hand to be washed by Wangji. Only after his hands are thoroughly washed does Wei Wuxian present the toddler with the bowl of food and then begins to prepare two more bowls. Wangji presents the child the meat bun he had reached for, who takes a large bite of the meat-filled dough. The child’s eyes sparkle as he looks up at Wangji, who is smiling a small smile. “Remember to chew.” he reminds the child who looks like a rodent caught in a well stocked pantry. 

The scene makes Xichen so explicitly happy, that he almost doesn’t notice the look in the child's eyes. Everytime the child looks up at himself and Nie Mingjue, it is as if the child is analyzing their every move. The first time it happens, Xichen is so startled that he drops his food back into his bowl. But as soon as he notices it, it is gone when he turns to Wangji to receive the next bit of food. Xichen almost chalks it up to stress over the situation until it happens again. While Wangji is preparing the next bit of food, the child looks at him with his striking gray eyes and Xichen freezes. He gets the feeling the child is looking right into his very being. Like he is analyzing, calculating, contemplating what to do about the two strangers across from him. 

Xichen cannot help but compare it to the same feeling he got from the Yiling Patriarch during war strategy discussions. When the man was evaluating everyone’s in the rooms reactions before announcing his demonic plans. 

Now Xichen knows that even if the Jiang Sect leader did not state the child was Wei Wuxian's, he would have known immediately after the child simply looked at him. 

When the meal is finished and plates cleared, the two sect leaders are once again sitting awkwardly across from his brother and child with a pot of tea between them. Only now with Wei Wuxian also sitting stiffly next to them. Wei Yuan snuggles deeper into Wangji’s lap when Wei Wuxian sighs. 

“Well, lets get this over with. What do you want to know?” 

Chapter Text

Lan Xichen is not sure what he should ask first. He has so many questions plaguing him that it is somewhat overwhelming. A rare frown graces his face. Usually, he is the one who knows what to say when it comes to discussions, but now he feels unmoored due to all the revelations of today. Again, it is his sworn brother who steps in to rescue him from his thoughts.

“I suppose-” he says as he relaxes back with a cup of tea, “we should start at the beginning. How did all-” he gestures to three across from them. “-this happen?”

Wei Wuxian and Wangji look at each other, a silent conversation that is over before Lan Xichen can have a chance to decipher anything. Wei Wuxian shrugs nonchalantly. “If you mean me and Lan Zhan, then this morning. If you mean A-Yuan, then that's a longer story.”

“This morning?!” Lan Xichen blanches.

“Yep!” Wei Wuxian also makes himself comfortable, with one shoulder leaning against Wangji and A-Yuan settled on the other using his arm as a pillow. Him and his sworn brother must have both been making some amusing faces, because Wei Wuxian grins and laughs before continuing. “Lan Zhan didn’t even know he existed a week ago, but he keep asking to ‘take responsibility.’” At this, the Yilling Patriarch looks fondly at Wangji. “I didn’t want to drag him down.” At this he looks away, a melancholy smile gracing his lips. He soothes the hair of the child in his lap, trying to make the unruly hair lay flat, only for one piece to flip back up. “The great Hanguang-Jun having a child outside of marriage is bad enough without it being me as the other parent. The other sects would tear his reputation to pieces for that alone.”

At this, Wangji takes Wei Wuxian’s hand. “Reputation means nothing. Only actions can show who is right or wrong.”

They smile at each other before turning to Lan Xichen. “Well, I spent a week trying to convince him to be selfish but you know how stubborn he is. He finally convinced me this morning.”

“Am being selfish.” Wangji states stubbornly.

“See!” Wei Wuxian, the spark from his youth back in his eyes. “Stubborn!”

“As a mule.” Lan Xichen agreed with a chuckle which also gets a hearty laugh from Nie Mingjue.

Now that they were all loose and more relaxed then before, Lan Xichen feels ready to ask the next question.

“Now what about A-Yuan? How did my dear nephew come to be?”

“W-well…” Wei Wuxian stutters with a blush. “It’s a bit of a complicated story, and much of it I don’t even know the ‘how’s myself.”

“Xianwu of slaughter.” Wangji spoke.

At first Lan Xichen was confused, what did that incident that he was told about have to do with the current conversation.

Wei Wuxian laughed at the twin looks of confusion on the two sect leaders before elaborating what Wangji ment.

“It was when we were stuck together in the cave with that cursed turtle that A-Yuan was …conceived.” At the word ‘conceived’ Wei Wuxian blushed a deep scarlet.

“Hold on-” Nie Mingju sat up fully and looked seriously at the two across the table. “That was less than a year before the war started. That means you were…” His sworn brother trails off with a shocked and horrified look. Lan Xichen tries to remember the timeline clearly, it was hard to do considering he was on the run at the time. First was the burning of cloud recess. His uncle and brother were hurt, his father was killed, and he went into hiding. After that he was later told that the Wen had taken all the young masters as hostages in the Nightless realm. It was not long after that that he was able to join the war after convincing all the other smaller sects to go to war. No one wanted to join until… Lan Xichen feels like someone doused him in cold spring water.

“You were pregnant during the burning of Lotus Pier…” He finished Mingju’s statement.

Wei Wuxian smiles another melancholy smile. “I was, just didn’t know it yet.”

Nie Mingjue finished his cup of tea and reached for the wine. Meanwhile, Lan Xichen feels sick. He could have lost another family member without even knowing it. He only realizes that he has started to grip the fabric on his knees again when Wei Wuxian coughs and speaks up again.

“The medical stuff, the how’s and why’s is stuff I’m not too sure about myself. However, there is someone you can ask.” He smiles his signature mischievous smile. “But you would have to follow me up the mountain. If that's amiable to the sect leaders.”

Chapter Text

Wen Qing was enjoying having most of the day to herself.

After sending Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji, and A-Yuan to town she did most of her chores that she has imposed on herself since arriving here at the Burial Mounds. She gave Uncle Four the new batch of soothing joint rub, brewed Granny a lung soothing tea, and restocked her limited supply of salves.

She sits in the hut she has claimed as the medical hut and sips on a cup of watery tea and looks around at the newest supply of medicine that A-Ning had brought up from the base of the mountain. A lot of it she had asked for in her letters to Sect Leader Jiang but there was also a lot that she did not ask for. There were even some that looked way more expensive than she was comfortable asking for. Those she mostly used on Wei Wuxian's batch of medicine. The others she made into stock lotions and ointments that can be used later. She was unsure when the Nie and Lan sects would show up for their investigation of the Burial Mounds, so she wanted to be prepared just in case it took months, possibly into the winter. Since they need to stay here at least until then. After, Sect Leader Jiang has already assured her that they would be welcome in Yunmeng, whether at Lotus Pier as paid workers or on their own farmland. She has already talked to the other Wen and they have decided to take the Sect Leader at his word, but are holding off on making a choice until Wei Wuxian is told.

She has not bothered to tell Wei Wuxian that his brother has been secretly sending them new supplies because she didn't want him to get agitated again so recently after his last incident. She also did not want to weather another glare from Lan Wangji if he falls sick again and being unable to tell him exactly why she can't just fix him with his midians. Wen Qing sighs and leans farther back on the crudely made chair. She will be glad to finally get off this mountain, if only to get Wei Wuxian and A-Yuan somewhere where the stagnant air is trying to actively take them from her every time they leave the wards. She is also not entirely sure which option would be best for her family. If they go work in Lotus Pier, then there might be some people there still resentful of the Wen Clan. They again would have to face quiet scorn and perhaps even bullying from the members of the clan too bold to listen to their young leader. However, if they try to live quietly on a farm outside of Lotus Pier, they would be sitting ducks for others inside and outside of Yunmeng. She already knows that if anything happens to them again after Sect Leader Jiang pulls them out of the burial mounds, Wei Wuxian might do something worse than killing a few guards.

It is exactly because she cannot decide the best course of action that she has not brought the plan up to Wei Wuxian. It would be better to ask is forgiveness than to ask for his opinion on this matter.

She finally puts her thoughts aside to just enjoy the afternoon to herself before her worst patient returns with his poorly concealed crush and adopted child. She had closed her eyes and was in the process of meditating when there is a knock at the opening of the hut.

“Jie?” She turns to find her brother's pale face in the opening. A-Ning still has on the straw hat that he uses when he goes down the mountain and is looking more nervous than usual. “I-I'm sorry to disturb you Jie, b-but there are people coming up the mountain.”

She immediately stands up. “Do we know them?” she asks as they start to head to the edge of the wards.

“Yes, it's Wei-gongzi and Lan-er-gongzi with A-Yuan, but…” Wen Qing had relaxed a little when she heard it was her troublesome trio, but she could tell that A-Ning was still on edge, so she stops her tracks to look at her brother.

“But?”

“H-He has the Nie and Lan sect Leaders with him…”

Wen Qing rubs her face. If they had met in town this means that they got to him before she could explain the plan to Wei Wuxian.

She quickens her pace. Hopefully he hasn't said anything too damning to make them not believe their lie. She hopes that whichever god that has not forsaken them already is listening as she prays that the sect leaders believe their ruse.

“This one greets Sect Leader Lan, Sect Leader Nie.” Wen Qing bows as the group approaches the edge of the wards. She doesn't want to risk any reason for the sect leaders to dislike her other than her name. So she gives them all the respect she can afford. “What brings these honorable ones to our humble village?”

It is the Lan Sect Leader that steps forward. “Greetings, Wen Qing. We are here to investigate claims made by Sect Leader Jiang. Would we be able to join you for the afternoon?” Wen Qing lifts an eyebrow and looks at Wei Wuxian, who shrugs.

“It is not my permission to ask.” As she says this Wei Wuxian hands a sleeping A-Yuan to Lan Wangj and steps forward twirling his flute.

“Welcome Sect Leaders,” he states with an exaggerated bow before swinging back up and making a flourish with his hand up the mountain path. “to the lair of the fearsome Yiling Laozu!” Wen Qing huffs at his antics and rolls her eyes but steps aside to let the group through. Wei Wuxian cackles at the look on Wen Qing’s face.

“Wen Ning?” Wei Wuxian calls over his shoulder.

“Y-yes Wei-Gongzi?” Wen Ning steps out from behind a cluster of trees lining the path, he chose to hide so he did not seem hostile to the sect leaders but was there in case he was needed. His sudden appearance made both sect leaders stiffen, but only Sect Leader Nie placed his hand on his sword.

“Please lead the sect leaders up to the village. I have some goods that need to be taken care of immediately so I will drop them off with Wen Qing.” He lifts up the pouch that contans their shopping. Wen Ning nods stiffly.

“O-Of course, Wei-Gongzi, I-If the S-Sect Leaders would f-follow me,” Wen Ning asks, as he turns back up the mountain. “P-Please do not leave the p-path, since there are sentry currently in the area.”

Wen Qing lets her brother lead the group up the mountain until they are out of hearing range before turning to Wei Wuxian. He has not looked at her yet and just keeps spinning his flute. Finally, when she could not take the silence any more. She bowed her head.

“I'm sorry, Wei Wuxian, I meant to tell you, but I wanted to wait until you were more healed from your injury. I also did not expect Lan-er-gongzi to stay as long as he has. I-”

“Enough.” He finally interrupts. When she finally looks at him, he looks hurt but accepting. He, however, still has not looked her in the eyes. “What's done is done, and I expect you to tell me the whole truth after this.” When he finally does turn to her and look at her, it is with his doe eyes of fake innocence that spells nothing but trouble. “But, you will need to tell one more little white lie for me.”

Wen Qing takes a deep breath and rubs her face, harder this time. She deserves this, she thinks to herself, as she listens to the utterly ridiculous tale he is spinning to her. By the end of it, she is wondering how this has gotten so out of control.

“Fine. Leave it to me. I know what to do.”

Chapter Text

Wen Qing watched from the doorway of the medical hut as the two sect leaders were completely enraptured with the toddler in their laps. When the Lan and Nie sect leaders first came, they went around asking the residing Wen questions. Are you aware of who the parent of the toddler is? (it is Wei-gongzi’s, they said) Do they know who the other parent is? (No, Wei-gongzi never told them.) Do they know who gave birth to the child? (Wei-gongzi found him by digging in the radish field!) The sect leaders did not get too far into their questioning before the toddler in question woke up from his nap with the energy of 5 toddlers and proceeded to insist on giving the two men a personal tour of the mountain. Wen Qing then took this time to distribute the supplies she had asked Wei Wuxian to get in town (and she just so  happens to slip in the information Wei Wuxian told her while in conversation with the others.) 

It is almost an hour later that she finds herself leaning against the door frame of the medical hut. The Sect Leaders are listening to A-Yuan explain very seriously to the two that his grass butterfly and straw doll are married and search the fields everyday for a little radish of their own. Wen Qing doesn’t think they understand more than half of what the toddler says, but they nod along anyway. 

From the side, Wen Qing sees Wei Wuxian coming back from “gathering firewood” with Lan Wangji, who is looking more red than when he left. He gives her a subtle wink, to which she rolls her eyes, but understands anyway. She steps forward while A-Yuan in the middle of explaining that his dolls are rogue “cultizaters” who fight for “justhis” and bows to the two. 

“Excuse me, Sect Leader Nie, Sect Leader Lan. But would you mind joining me in the medical hut?” She motions to the hut that is behind her. “ I'm sure the two of you have many questions you wish to have answered.” 

“Of course!” The Lan Sect Leader answered. “We would appreciate a moment of your time.” 

A-Yuan pouted the entire time while being handed over to granny and was only placated when he was asked to help with making supper, to which he happily agreed. 

It is when the five of them are crowded into the hut that she realizes how small it is. There is a crude bed in one corner for when someone needs to lay down and only three chairs. One by the bedside and two at the small table near the doorway. Behind the table she had Uncle Four build her a shelf to house her little bit of ingredients, minus the ones she currently has hidden that Jiang Wanyin had sent her. She doesn’t want A-Yuan to try to get into them again and is way too expensive to replace. 

She herself sits at the bedside chair, while Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji sit together on the bed. This left the Sect Leaders to sit at the table. It was then that her brother showed up, right on time with tea. 

When both were settled with a cup, Wen Qing started. “Well, what questions do you want to have answered first?” 

Lan Zichen finished his sip and sat his cup down. “Thank you for taking the time to meet with us. We are grateful for this chance to meet with you.” They both bow to her, though the Nie Sect Leader is stiffer than the other. She bows back, if only to get politeness out of the way. “We are here to investigate the statement given from the Jiang Sect Leader that the cause for Wei Wuxian’s… outburst… at Qiongqi Path was due to the treatment of his child. We assume the child is the one we were with outside.” 
Wei Wuxian scoffs “Nah, that one is a random Wen I found in the dirt.” Wen Qing sent him a “shut the hell up” look, but both Sect leaders just chuckle. 

“Since there are no other witnesses to what happened, we are here to ask your side of the story.” 

For a moment Wen Qing just stares at them. If all they wanted was their side of the story, then they would have gotten it a long time ago, they would not have to have resorted to a lie for this to come about. No, they want the one Jiang Wanyin has fabricated. But now she has to add more embellishments. Wen Qing takes a deep breath to steel her nerves, before starting to spin her tale. 

 “I guess you would need the very beginning. I first met Wei Wuxian when my naive brother decided to pull the two from the wreckage of what my clan had done to Lotus Pier and hide them in the supervisory office I was in charge of.” She stops to glance at Wei Wuxian. His face is paler than when she started, but he doesn’t look to bad yet, but he must be remembering the day. 

“Both were badly injured, mostly Jiang Wanyin, but they were able to leave after a time to go join the war.” 

This is when Nie Mingjue spoke up. “But Wei Wuxian did not immediately join the war. He was missing for a few months.” 

“Correct. It was almost a month later when I found him again while searching for medicinal mushrooms. He was broken and in pain at the foot of the Burial Mounds. From what I could tell, he was not going up the mountain, he was going down-” 

“Wen Qing.” Wei Wuxian growls in warning. She looks at him again. His face is still pale but he now has the slight red to his eyes he gets with his cultivation. She shakes her head. She decides to say no more about the burial mounds to spare his health, besides, it got her point across. Both Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue are now pale. 

“But…” Lan Xichen clears his throat before continuing. “How does this pertain to our investigation, if you do not mind me asking.” 

“Of course.” She waits for Nie Mingjue to take a polite sip of his watery tea. “It is because this is when I discovered him to be 7 month pregnant and in labor.” The Nie sect leader coughs hard. Lan Xichen stares at her in horror. 
“7 months!?” 

“Yes, Whatever he went through on that mountain had caused his medians to start to collapse and this caused the labor to be triggered early.” Wen Qing again glances to her left, to check on Wei Wuxian. His mouth is pressed in a thin line, looking at no one in particular. He has Lan Wangji’s hand in his, but the sect heir’s hand has a tremor to it. She doesn’t know how much Wei Wuxian has told him, but she did tell the both of them in private that she will keep it as factual as she could. He must be connecting some of the pieces he had already. 

“But, how is it possible? Male pregnancy is nearly unheard of.” Nie Mingjue asks. 

“It's not too unheard of, only very old. If I had any of my family’s medical journals I could show you, but there have been three known cases of male pregnancy in the cultivation world. One was from the Lan sect, and you are probably aware.” She motions to Lan Xichen, who nods, but Lan Wangji jolts in his seat, like this is new to him. “One was part of a smaller sect that was disbanded and absorbed by the Nie sect.” Nie Mingjue frowned. He probably had no interest in his clans medical history before this, so it probably never crossed his path. “The last one was in Qishan Wen. The partner was a rogue cultivator who was brought in with his husband, but when he started getting ill and his cultivation started to fluctuate he was sent to my clan's ancestor. That's when he was discovered to be pregnant as well.” 

Both sect leaders nodded. Taking a minute to absorb all the information. After a moment, Lan Xichen spoke up. “The Lan couple you spoke of. They are from a branch of my family. It is said that the child was born too early, and caused the birthing parent to become too frail and the child too sickly. They both died within two nights. How did the partners fare with the other pregnancies?” 

“The minor sect’s pregnancy was also born early and both parent and child passed during the surgery. With the one that my ancestor handled, both parent and child lived, but both were left very frail and sickly. The child lived until the age of 5 before passing from a respiratory infection.” Wen Qing gave the information as impassively as she could, while trying to let the sect leaders believe what they could about the information. However, she now realizes that she might have been too honest, because both Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue are looking a little green and Lan Wangji’s tremor is curiously stronger. 

“But how did… if its not too much to ask, but how did Wei Wuxian and A-Yuan survive?” At this, Wen Qing looks at Wei Wuxian. He is still pale, but he moves his hand to where his lower dantian would be and nods while gripping the fabric there. 

“I and my brother performed an emergency surgery that lasted two days and two nights. Since it was important that his midians remained open, he had to stay awake the entire time.” This time the three truly did look like they would be sick, so she handed Wen Ning a pouch from her shelf so he could make some calming tea. 

She waited to continue until both Sect Leaders, and this time even Lan Wangji had a cup of tea in their hands. Their faces had just managed to return back to normal when Nie Mingjue voiced his next question. 

“And the boy? He seems healthy enough?” 

Before Wen Qing could say anything, Wei Wuxian growls. “Healthy enough. he has almost died twice! One could have been prevented if not for those fucking JIN!” His eyes had already changed to red and he starts to leak resentment, but just when she starts to think about pulling out her needles just in case, Lan Wangji uses the hand in his to nudge Wei Wuxian towards him. Wen Qing watches as Wei Wuxian turns and for a second she thinks he will rip his hand away and fly into a rage, but then their eyes meet, and he relaxes just a little. He closes his eyes. “I’ll never forgive them for what they did. I don’t care what they do to me, but A-Yuan means everything to me.” 

Both Sect Leaders relax out of their stance and nod. Nie Mingjue bows his head. “ I apologize for my words. I know what it is like to take care of a sickly child. Huaisang was also sickly. There were a few winters we worried about him.” 

“It is precisely why he was left in my family's care when Wei Wuxian left for the war the second time. He had to have care around the clock to survive. Since he was born spiritually, he had to have spiritual transfusions daily for years. I don’t imagine that being feasible in the middle of a war.” 

“No,” Nie Mingjue agrees. “I don’t imagine that would have gone well.” 

…

This is when they pause. Wen Qing can tell that the two in front of her are piecing through the information she has been giving. Coming to their own conclusions and thinking of their next questions. Wei Wuxian is now calmed down and is absentmindedly rubbing the back of Lan Wangji’s hand, who looks pleased with this new development. Wen Qing still can’t tell if they have worked through their issues or if they are still too dense for their own good. 

“Now…” Lan Xichen speaks up after settling his thoughts. “You have answered our questions about the birth, but I am still unsure about the … conception? The medical books in our library were not too detailed on the how, but mostly focused on the why.” 
Wen Qing smiled. She is glad she got Wei Wuxian’s side before meeting with the sect leaders. This will be fun. “Yes, While Dual Cultivation is a thing, even for most sects. Not all of the male pregnancies involved it. The Lan one you mentioned specifically was studied by my ancestor when he got his patent and he found that the Lan’s Golden Core was strong enough that just a prolonged chi transfer with a cultivator he had strong feelings for caused the pregnancy.” 

Wei Wuxian’s face was quite red when she looked to them. Even Lan Wangji had red running all down his face. 

“You will have to ask them for those details.” 

The three of them then turned toward the couple on the bed who were still looking beet red. When neither of them spoke up after a while. Lan Xichen cleared his throat and questioned softly. “Wangji?” 

She could see Lan Wangji look up and slowly look away as he swallowed. The quiet reply was not one she expected. “He was dying, Xiongzhang.”

“Wangji, what do you mean?” 

Lan Wangji them levels a look at Wei Wuxian that had more emotion in it then she has ever seen him emote before. 

“After slaying the Xuanwu of Slaughter he came down with a fever. I did not know if he would make it.” Lan Wangji looked at his lap, but Wei Wuxian continued to grip his hand. He bumped shoulders with him. 

“Hey, I think I remember some of it. You insisted on transferring me energy, but I kept telling you that you need to save your energy to heal your leg.” 

Lan Wangji shook his head. “Wei Ying fell asleep and did not wake for three days.” 

“Oh Lan Zhan, you must have been so scared, I’m sorry.” 

“Hm. Continued to give Wei Ying energy until help arrived.” 

“That would explain it then.” Wen Qing butted in, figuring she had tortured them enough. “Three full days worth of continuous transfers from someone with Hanguang-Jun’s level of cultivation could have easily been the cause. Are there any other questions you need answered?” Wen Qing asks. 

Lan Xichen was still looking at his brother with misty eyes, but Nie Mingjue bowed to her. “No, thank you. However, you did mention that you had medical records from your ancestor. Do you know if these medical journals would be able to be recovered?”

“If they are still intact and not destroyed, there is a medical pavilion in Nightless city. I kept all our important journals in a secret room under the 4th stairwell. You should be able to find them there.” 

“Haha, why would you need those?” Wei Wuxian chuckled nervously. 

“During the trial next month, any information I can find will help your case.” At this Lan Zichen looked up at his sworn brother curiously. 

“Don’t you mean ‘we’ Mingju?” 

“No, I will be taking over the investigation from here. You should focus on your family. And besides. If worst comes to worst and the other father comes into question. I do not want the Jin trying to claim that you were partial to the case because it is your brother.” 

“No” Lan Zichen sighed “I suppose you are right, and I still have to discuss this with Uncle.” He then turns to Lan Wangji. “Will you be returning with me Wangji?” 

“No, will help them move.” 

“Oh? Help who move?” 

“Me and the Wen” Wei Wuxian cuts in. “My brother wants me back ho… back at Lotus Pier, so we will be moving them to an undisclosed location in our territory.”

 
Lan Xichen nods. “Very well, however, Wangji. I do ask that you do come back when they are settled so you may speak to Uncle personally. I fear he may not believe me without your presence.” 

“Hm.” Lan Wangji answers. 

It is later when the three are waving goodbye to the sect leaders with a teary eyed toddler in their hands that Wei Wuxian turns to her. 

“Hey, shouldn’t we be worried about them not finding some mysterious journal describing an impossible medical procedure?” They began the large track back up the mountain. 

“Not particularly.” Wen Qing answered nonchalantly. 

Wei Wuxian narrowed his eyes at her. “And why not?” 

“Because the journals exist. Everything I said about the pregnancies is true.” 

Wei Wuxian stops in his tracks. “It's WHAT!?”

Wen Qing continues up the mountain with a smile. 

Chapter Text

Wei Wuxian narrows his eyes at Wen Qing from the other side of the carriage. He has a sleeping toddler in his lap and all the others in the carriage are either sleeping or pretending to sleep. Apparently Wen Qing has been exchanging many letters back and forth with Jiang Cheng, because they both planned to move them to Lotus Pier’s territory in the dead of night. With a procession of five carriages and a few Jiang disciples with their robes hidden, they were now on their way to their new home. Wen Qing continues to ignore him as she sits with her eyes closed. He knows she's not asleep, he can’t sleep, not until they get to where his sect leader is taking them. He feels his heart pinch from being able to call Jiang Cheng his sect leader again. He had fully prepared himself to cut ties with them in order to save what was left of his family from the consequences of his actions.

He didn’t want to touch on the pain of that thought so he doubles down on his glaring until Wen Qing sighs.

“What.” she whispers to him as she squints one open eye at him.

“I really didn’t give birth to A-Yuan… Right?” She sighed and sat up more. Their legs were crowded in the carriage, because to be as inconspicuous as possible, they are in a storage carriage, with no seats and no windows, just to be safe. At least Jiang Cheng thought to line the bottom with cushions to help the elders that can't sit for very long.
“No, you really did not give birth to A-Yuan.”She whispered back to him. Wei Wuxian nodded, but then he squirmed in his seat.

“And my golden core? There was nothing else with it… right?” He whispered to her again. Wen Qing scoffed at the man across from her. But still answered his question.

“No, there was nothing ELSE with your golden core when I removed it.”

“But what-”

“Wei Wuxian.” She growls. “I swear to the gods if you ask me for the hundredth time that you did not really give birth on that mountain I will take my needles and make you sleep for weeks.

Wei Wuxian clamps his mouth shut and pouts. He plays with A-Yuan’s hair while the child sleeps. It is getting longer but it is almost as unmanageable as his own with it this short. It is currently pulled back in two topknots on either side of his head. The toddler has been moving around alot in his sleep so one has already come loose and is sticking to the side of the child's face.

“Wei Wuxian” Wen Qing sighs. “What are you really worried about? If it was really about giving birth to A-Yuan, it would have bothered you more to have everyone think you had given birth to him. So what's actually wrong?”

Wei Wuxian bites his lip. His mind has been nothing but a whirlwind of emotions and thoughts and feelings and sometimes it feels like he is drowning in all of them all at once and there is no way to articulate what exactly is happening to him. So he tries to grasp anything, something that he can say. What ends up coming out of his mouth is- “Do you think Jiang Cheng will be mad at me?”

Wen Qing looks at him for a solid minute, before leaning back against the wall of the carriage. She rubs her face with her hands before answering his question.

“When is Jiang Wanyin ever not mad at you?”

Wei Wuxian squirms some more, causing A-Yuan to rub his face against his leg and snuggle deeper into his lap. Wei Wuxian freezes until A-Yuan sighs and relaxes back into sleep. This time, when he whispers back, Wen Qing has to strain to hear him. “But if we tell him the lie about A-Yuan, then he will know about…” Wei Wuxian moves one hand to his lower dantian.

“He might realize it, he might not. We will cross that road when we get to it. For right now, we need to make sure everyone is on the same page, in case Nie Mingjue comes to ask any more questions.” Wei Wuxian nods solemnly. The noise in his head is still buzzing, but it has at least quieted for a moment.

Wen Qing goes back to her meditation, but Wei Wuxian is still too wound up to pretend to sleep. Now that they are far away from the burial mounds, there is no longer the baseline of resentment humming underneath his skin. All he has left in him is the stuff he was using before, but now instead of automatically pulling it to him, he has to consciously look for it to pull towards his body. It is both freeing and limiting.

He is both glad to be off the mountain, for the sake of A-Yuan’s health, and scared to be so far away from his current source of power. He feels the inner pocket of his robe. There, stitched into the lining of his chest, right where his scar from the Wens, is his amulet. The Yin Tiger Tally. Both halves split to different pockets, in order not to risk them coming together. In the days leading up to their move, most of his nervous energy has been channeling into finding a way to safely destroy both halves. Before, when the war was over and he had no use for it anymore, his plan was to flood both halves and have them destroy each other, but this would have created a backlash that would have torn him to pieces. A fitting end to a demonic cultivator like him. But he kept pushing back when to destroy it, because he wanted to see Jiang Cheng become the amazing sect leader he knows he will be. Then, he wanted to see his Shijie get married. Then finally, he needed to protect the Wen. And now he doesn’t have the heart to leave A-Yuan fatherless again.

He brushes stray hair from A-Yuan’s forehead. His skin is soft and squishy, like a peach. Sometimes he can’t believe that this child chose him to be his father. Deep inside, he doesn't believe that he will be a good father, but he is still willing to try everything in his power to keep A-Yuan happy and safe.

…

It is sometime later, when the carriage stops and he is pulled from his thoughts by a gentle knock on the door. Slowly, the others around him sit up. The door of the carriage opens to show the rare sight of Lan Zhan in plain clothes and a straw hat, much like Wen Ning. Both of them had chosen to help steer the carriages while the Jiang disciples kept watch for any who would oppose removing the Wen from the mountain. The sight of Lan Zhan in anything other than burial white or pale blue is jarring. It makes the man look less untouchable than in his usual garb. The common robes are small for his build, considering their hasty procurement of them and unable to conceal the muscles moving in his shoulders as Lan Zhan helps the elderly out of the carriage. Wei Wuxian has trouble keeping his eyes off of those broad shoulders, but he forces himself to look away when, instead of taking the toddler in his arms, Lan Zhan instead grabs Wei Wuxian around the waist and lifts him as if he weighs nothing. Wei Wuxian turns away quickly so no one can see how red his face is. He uses this time to look around the Wen’s new home.

The sun had just begun to rise, leaving orange streaks throughout the sky. The area around was still dark but the light seemed to grow with each second standing there. The entrance to the road that they had just come from was surrounded by woods. At the end of the long secluded road is a small village of about 20 houses surrounding a lake. There, at the entrance of the village, stands 3 figures. One is an older man. His back hunched from years of physical labor, his hair neatly pleated to keep out of his way. Next to him is an old woman, hair turned white with age and pulled into a neat bun at the top of her head. She has a gentle smile on her face that accentuates the crows feet that shows a full life of laughter. The last figure is one that Wei Wuxian would know anywhere. Jiang Cheng is standing tall with his arms folded as he watches the procession of elderly in front of them. He has his usual frown that makes his face look pinched, like he is smelling dung. This makes Wei Wuxian chuckle. His usual Jiang Cheng can make anyone nervous with that face. But Wei Wuxian knows it is merely because he is thinking. So Wei Wuxian walks over to Jiang Cheng and throws one arm over his sect leader’s shoulder, one that is not currently holding a groggy toddler anyway. Jiang Cheng tisks and shrugs his arm off, but does not push him away.

Wei Wuxian laughs but moves back so he is in front of the group of Wen and half bows to the sect leader in front of him.

“Greetings to the honorable Jiang Sect leader. His wayward head disciple has returned with friends.” At ‘with friends’ Wei Wuxian smiles a real smile. But Jiang Cheng continues to frown. But eventually Jiang Cheng puts on a more serious Sect Leader like face and speaks to the crowd before him.

“Welcome to Yunming. The Yunming Jiang Sect welcomes all of you to the area. All you need to get settled will be provided through my disciples.” He motions to the disciples who had finished moving their boxes out of the carriage and were now standing behind their sect leader. Wei Wuxian took his time memorizing each face. Of the five disciples present, Only one has a face he remembers from the war. All the others are older disciples but are new to the sect. While Wei Wuxin continues to memorize faces. Jiang Cheng continues. “I have picked the most discreet to work with you. I welcome any questions or concerns about your safety or wellbeing.”

The crowd in front of him nodded stiffly with agreement. Wen Qing, who stood next to Wei Wuxian in the front of the crowd, crossed her arms and stared down the sect leader.
Jiang Cheng then gestures to the older couple next to him. “This is Wan He-” the older man bows to the crowd before him and smiles a small gentle smile. “ and his wife Fu Qiang.” The old woman also bows to the crowd and smiles a big smile. “They are the leaders of this town. If you have any questions about your accommodations you can direct your questions to them. There should be enough space here for everyone.” At the end of speaking, Jiang Cheng steps aside to let the old couple step forward.

The old man speaks first. His right leg is stiff as he steps forward and uses a carved stick to balance. “Welcome to our small village. It is only the two of us left here. All of the younger people left to be closer to the sect. We were the only ones to stay behind to take care of the lake.”

Fu Qiang speaks up next. “We were willing to let this village die with us, however, when Sect Leader Jiang asked if we were willing to have company here we were thrilled. All of you are welcome to whichever house strikes your fancy. Ours is the one with the flower patch in the front.” She motions to the house that is farthest from the lake. It is a smaller home with a flower patch lining both sides of the house. “Most of our income comes from the lotuses in the lake and selling flower seeds at the market. However, with my husband's bad knee and my hands getting stiffer we gratefully accept the help.”

An excited murmur runs through the Wen when they hear this. They are excited for their next adventure at this Lotus Village.

…

Jiang Cheng is watching all the movement before him with a scowl on his face. He tried to corner his brother to talk to him, but he keeps avoiding him. Instead he watches as Wei Wuxian is moving from house to house with Lan Wangji trailing after him like a lost puppy. Jiang Cheng thought he would never see the day that the great Hanguang-jun would be in plain clothes and rearranging furniture like it meant nothing. Jiang Cheng wants to know what the hell he is even doing here but nooooo. He can’t get a word in to talk to Wei Wuxian before he sees something else he needs to do.

He could feel a vein pulse on his temple with each passing second of watching his brother go from house to house, doing who knows what. He also set his disciples to also help with the cleaning and arranging effort. Because the faster this goes the faster he can talk to his brother. He already spoke to Wen Qing but all she said was that it was better if Wei Wuxian told him the new development with their lie. But it's not easy when the subject is. fucking. avoiding. him!

Jiang Cheng grinds his teeth to keep his anger from showing, when all of a sudden his leg is tackled and a weight is wrapt below his knee. When he looks down, he sees the child that started this whole movement. The child is looking up at him with wide curious eyes and has a look of awe on his face. Jiang Cheng frowns, unsure of what to do with Wei Wuxian's adopted child. Wen Qing says that the child now goes by Wei Yuan, due to their lie. But the Sect Leader is unsure what to do with a child this small. It was always Wei Wuxian who taught the younger disciples, and even then there were never any under seven.

He is then saved when an old woman hobbles to him and bows. “Forgive him, Honorable Sect Leader. He has just woken and is excited to meet new people.” He nods his head to her and she goes to pry the child from his leg, but the child holds on tighter and pouts. “Come on A-Yuan, let the nice man go. He has a job to do.”

“No!” The child shouts before burying his face in Jiang Cheng's robes. Jiang Cheng is frozen stunned while this old lady tries to coax the toddler to let go of the sect leader. The hilarity of the situation causes Jiang Cheng to chuckle. The next time he looks down the child is still pouting, his cheeks puffed out and looking at him as if asking him to do something. It reminds him of when Wei Wuxian was trying to get him to play with him in the water even when the water was cold in their mild winter.

Jiang Cheng huffs at the memory. He then reaches down and picks up the child. He expected the toddler to give some resistance like with the granny, however the child lets go almost immediately. Like it was what he wanted the entire time.

“Are you the one called Granny Wen?” he asks the woman as the toddler settles himself on his hip and starts looking around.

“I am.” She nods.

“Well, Granny, have you been helped into a house yet?” He asks her. He can see that his disciples are moving boxes to and from different house, blankets are being fluffed in doorways, bamboo mats are being cleaned, but here this old woman is, taking care of the toddler while everyone else gets settled.

“I'm in no rush. I have seen many years. I can wait a few minutes.” She then also turns to watch the bustle in the village. Her back hunched and skin browned from years in the sun. She had a look like she was seeing past the figures moving and seeing instead images of the past. Jiang Cheng shifted feet.

“Let me help you find a house.” He had nothing else to do, since a certain someone keeps avoiding him. He switches the toddler from one arm to the other, so he can offer his other arm to help Granny navigate the uneven terrain of the paths, making a mental note to have some workers come to level the path before someone trips and hurts themselves.

The first house they encounter is close to the lake and Granny says it will work just fine. However, the flooring is slanted due to the house settling. It would not do, so he continued on, unaware that his disciples were looking his way. The next house has a lovely wildflower garden and good workable soil in the back, but it is far from the other houses and more secluded. It would be harder to spot if anything happened to the old woman while in the house or in the secluded garden. Jiang Cheng shakes his head and keeps going. Granny smiles as she follows this sect leader on a mission. Jiang disciples sneak glances at their sect leader. The man that has trained them hard, some to the point of tears, is holding a toddler and has an old lady on his arm, escorting her from house to house. Jiang Cheng can feel the gazes, but tries to ignore them, but he can feel a blush forming on his face.

The final house is in the center of the village. Far from the slippery shores of the lake and close to the other members of her clan. It also happens to be the one next to the older couple that run the village. They locate it just in time for A-Yuan's nap, because the toddler had been fighting sleep since the second house. After putting the child to sleep, Granny then gets caught up talking with Fu Qiang about her flower garden. It is then that he sees Wei Wuxian, talking to Lan Wangji by the edge of the lake.

This is as good of a time as ever to corner his brother to finally get some answers.

Chapter Text

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian never got the chance to talk while in the village. While on his way to the water’s edge where Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji were talking Jiang Cheng watched Wei Wuxian make a fool of himself in front of Lan Wangji, but instead of storming off, like he expected the Lan Sect heir to do, instead he stands there with his blank like a statue face. His eyes never leave Wei Wuxian’s face. It is the look on Wei Wuxian’s face that makes him stop in his tracks. He has not seen his brother that happy. Not since before the war. After the war he barely even saw his brother, then when he did come back, he was drunker than a monkey who broke into an alcohol storage room. His brother had always smiled at him before he left to save the Wen, but it was different, more strained. Seeing him with Lan Wangji, smiling freely like he did before the war made something inside of his chest ache. He could not quite place it.

When Lan Wangji responds back to Wei Wuxian, his brother laughs so hard that he loses his footing, only to be caught by Lan Wangji. Jiang Cheng’s stomach drops. He watches his brother laugh but never steps away from Lan Wangji. Instead he watches the stone faced cultivator’s lips curl up, and that leaves his brother staring at the other man’s face. He realizes what the feeling in his chest is as he watches Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji stare into each other’s eyes.

He turns back around and stomps his way back to the carriages. He feels like his world is going black around him. He realized that what he was feeling was the same feeling he felt when he watched his sister chase after the Jin sect heir. When she fussed over wedding details with him. When he thinks about her moving into that sect that almost made him lose another family member. It felt like he was losing Wei Wuxian all over again, except this time it was to the Lan, not the Jin.

Jiang Cheng talked to no one else until he and his disciples departed for Lotus Pier with his wayward Head Disciple, the Lan Sect heir, and a toddler in tow.

__________________________________________________

It is nightfall in Lotus Pier when his brother finally comes to him in his study room. He thought it would be just to two of them, however Lan Wangji joins them in his office when Wei Wuxian says they need to talk about the plan. He assumes that it's the changes that Wen Qing had spoken about in her last letter to him, but he doesn’t know how this could have anything to do with the Lan Sect heir.

Wei Wuxian sits down heavily on the cushion across from his desk. He lounges back on one arm with a jug of wine in the other. He must have swiped it from the store room before coming. He huffs, this is the typical Wei Wuxian he knows. But he looks to Lan Wangji to see how the other reacts to this particular habit of his. However Lan Wangji merely looks at him with that face that Jiang Cheng is starting to hate. Jiang Cheng sighs and rubs his face. The Lan is sitting in his elegant statue way, they are sitting so close he swears that their sleeves are touching, but neither moves to change the closeness. Jiang Cheng grits his teeth. It's confusing and he hates things being confusing.

Jiang Cheng decides to get formalities out of the way first.

“Welcome, Hanguang-jun, to Lotus Pier. I was unaware that you would be joining us this evening.” Lan Wangji bows his head to him, but does not explain anything. This makes Wei Wuxian snort.

“That means that he wants to know why you are here, Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian knocks his shoulder against Lan Wangji, and again Lan Wangji only looks at Wei Wuxian in his confusing way. Wei Wuxian continues. “Don't worry, Jiang Cheng, he is important to this discussion, I promise.”

Jiang Cheng sighs. He was afraid it was something along those lines. His brother is always dragging others down into his adventures, but he is surprised that he was able to drag the honorable Hanguang-jun into their mess.

“So I am assuming that he knows the plan for getting the Jin off your back, since he is here?” He asks his brother.

“More or less. He encounter his brother during their investigation of the Burial Mounds before he knew what was happening, so I had to explain to him what you and Wen Qing had planned, oh, and might I remind you that I had no say in this so its not my fault, and then there were circumstances that required his involvement so here we are.”

Jiang Cheng frowns.

“What happened that was so important that you couldn't shoot me a letter? I was still in town when Wen Qing sent me a letter saying the plan had changed.” Wei Wuxian looks away and scratches his nose. He has his typical pout that means he doesn't want to say something. Jiang Cheng feels his eyebrows twitch.

“Wei Wuxian, I swear to the gods, if you dragged Hanguang-jun into this just because you thought it would be funny then I will break your legs and force you to stay in your room for a month.” Jiang Cheng growls.

“Hey! I didn’t-”

“I am willing.” Lan Wangji interrupts, causing both brother’s to look his way. Lan Wangji huffs at the twin looks of bewilderment. “I am willing to continue the plan to ensure the safety of Wei Ying, Wen Yuan, and the Wen. I will be taking care of A-Yuan as his other father.”

“...what?” Jiang Cheng asks.

“Now Jiang Cheng, hear us out, it's not that bad of an idea. We already settled all the details with Wen Qing and-”

“No, shut up. What do you mean ‘other father’?”

“What he means is that well… you see what happened was…” Wei Wuxian’s face starts turning red. He won’t look at him and Lan Wangji has placed his hand on Wei Wuxians arm, stopping his head disciple from flailing.

“Wei Wuxian will have a son named Wei Yuan, but I will be the other father of Wei Yuan.” Lan Wangji explains.

Jiang Cheng feels his jaw drop. He looks from Wei Wuxian, who is rubbing his neck sheepishly to Lan Wangji, whose face has not changed from its serious expression since sitting down in front of him. It has to be a joke.

“How could Wen Yuan have two fathers, that makes no sense.”

Lan Wangji huffs again and Wei Wuxian puts his head in his hands.

“It’s more likely than you think, ChengCheng. And his name is Wei Yuan now, for better or worse.”

“Don’t call me ChengCheng!” Jiang Cheng snaps. “Fine, then explain to me what happened that caused this whole mess to happen!.” This time it was Lan Wangji who looked away sheepishly.

“Well,” Wei Wuxian starts. “I was with you when the sect leaders were in Yiling, and I was with Lan Zhan and A-Yuan before going to talk with you. So when they sect leaders found A-Yuan with Lan Zhan they just sort of… assumed…that he was also Lan Zhan’s son.”

Jiang Cheng felt his temple throb. His hands balled into fists as he tried to think through what was happening.

“So let me get this straight…” Jiang Cheng hissed slowly. “Sect Leader Lan and Sect Leader Nie took one look at the three of you and decided that you all were a secret family?... do you think I’m fucking stupid?”

“Your face looks stupid but that has nothing to do with this.” Wei Wuxian mumbles but before Jiang Cheng can clobber his brother Lan Wangji speaks up again.

“Wei Yuan has physical traits and exhibits habits that match both Wei Ying and I. Xiongzhang made the connection after A-Yuan called me A-Die. I felt no need to correct the misunderstanding.”

There is silence after Lan Wangji has finished speaking. He takes a sip of his tea calmly. There is no hint of this being a joke on his face. Jiang Cheng feels his heart drop. He sits down hard back into his seat. He doesn’t even know when he has stood up. Jiang Cheng rubs his face hard.

Jiang Cheng curses softly under his breath. He feels like he is stuck in a nightmare.

“Well, look on the bright side, ChengCheng, at least now you won’t have to find some poor maiden to be A-Yuan’s mother during the trial, and AND Wen Qing has explained all the medical stuff to the Sect Leaders already so you don’t have to!”

“Wei Wuxian, If you do not shut up this second, I will tell Jiejie that you were the one who put the itch powder in Young Master Jin’s robes when he was last here.” Wei Wuxian laughs.

“Like she doesn’t already know!”

Jiang Cheng sighed. It takes another two hours for him to get the rest of the details out of the two, and then for them to alter the current plan to include Lan Wangji. They all agreed that they will withhold the information on who Wei Yuan’s other father is unless it is truly necessary at the trial. Lan Wangji agrees except for one person. His uncle. He asks that he notify his uncle of A-Yuan’s existence so that A-Yuan would be able to go to and from Cloud Recess freely. Jiang Cheng reluctantly agreed.

“Whatever, It’s your funeral. So long as he doesn’t interfere with the investigation.”

All three of them are tired and exhausted. It is quite past the Lan bedtime when they all agree to call it a night. The next morning Jiang Cheng, Wei Wuxian and a teary eyes A-Yuan see off Lan Wangji. A-Yuan is in Lan Wangji’s arms and has a strong grip on the Lans neck. Not wanting to let go.

“Does A-Die have to go?” A-Yuan asks, his eyes wide and watery. Lan Wangji smiles a small smile and pats the toddler’s head.

“I will return after speaking with Uncle.” Lan Wangji then turns to Wei Wuxian, he gently passes the crying toddler into Wei Wuxian’s arms. Their hands linger together longer than Jiang Cheng thinks they should so he coughs. Wei Wuxian jolts and blushes and Lan Wangji glares at him.

Jiang Cheng doesn’t care. But he does want to get this over with because he still has to send a letter to his sister. She knows what his plan was but now he has to explain the wild story that Wei Wuxan has created.

Jiang Cheng is so fucking tired, but their adventure has only just begun.

Chapter Text

A-Yuan has always been the type of person to find enjoyment in all things. Even when there was nothing to occupy him. However, he now finds himself so bored that he might just roll around on the floor if he does not find something to do.

It has been a week since he saw Lan-gege off at the entrance to Lotus Pier, and he and his Baba have fallen into a routine. First they wake up in Baba's childhood bed, sometimes A-Yuan is already in his Baba's arms when breakfast is on the table for them. Then after a filling breakfast of congee, A-Yuan makes sure his Baba takes his medicine. It’s difficult sometimes because his Baba likes to point out cool new items and when he looks back the bowl of medicine is empty. Then, after they are done eating and taking medicine, Baba has to go and train the new disciples in basic sword forms. It was confusing at first because in the book, Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng always fought over the fact that Wei Wuxian never carried his sword around. It was an argument that had woken A-Yuan up in the middle of the second night.

He was sleeping in the room he and his Baba would sleep in but the lights were on in the sitting area. A-Yuan was too tired to stay awake for most of it, but he learned the next morning that the argument had ended in a compromise. His baba will teach basic sword forms in the morning with a training sword, and then have the afternoon off to spend with A-Yuan.

This then led to every morning he had to wave goodbye to his Baba from the doorway of their rooms. The one downside is that he is not alone, he is left with an outer disciple named Jia Jia. Jia-jiejie is usually quiet. She doesn't try to entertain him like some of the other Jiejie's do when he is introduced to them, but she usually lets him do whatever he wants, as long as it's not leaving the room or hurting himself. Instead she sits in the sitting room reading books or scrolls that she brings with her.

A-Yuan is honestly a little scared of her. He tried to go outside the room once to look at one of the many cool looking insects that flew past the window, but he was pulled back roughly by the arm. He was confused until he saw the furious look on Jia-jiejie’s face. She twisted his arm so he would face her and she hissed “I am in charge of you! You will NOT run around causing trouble!” She shook the arm she had in her grasp, “Do you understand?” A-Yuan finds himself shakily saying “Yes, Jiejie” before he is let go. His arm hurts for the next few days, but he has not tried going outside of his Baba’s rooms since.

It is on the fifth day of this quiet routine that he is bored out of his mind. He has already pulled every book he can reach off its shelf, doodled on all the non-important paper, and inspected every single inch of the space he’s allowed. There was nothing else for him left to do, and it was still the morning! Eventually he would just simply fall asleep in the middle of an activity, like when his baba came home to him sleeping on top of a bunch of open books like a little literature dragon, but he still had too much energy to sleep.

He ended up surrounded by all of the toys he has collected so far and closing his eyes and trying to remember the plot of some of the movies and shows he used to watch. It is only a little bit later that he is awoken from his doze by a knock on the door. A-Yuan get up and is on his way to the sitting room, thinking that his baba has returned early, but he had not even had the chance to slide open the bedroom door when he hears Jia-jiejie’s voice.

“Morning, Lei-shimei.” he heard Jia-Jiejie answer in her cold tone.

“Good morning, Jia-shijie! I brought you the books from this morning's lessons!” there is a small pause.

“Thanks.” He hears Jia’s clipped tone as there’s a thud, like a heavy stack of books was placed on the table.

“So, how’s the assignment going?” He hears the other voice asking.

“Are you asking about the kid, or the paper that Fenfang has me doing?” He can hear the snear in Jia-jiejie’s voice as she asks.

“About Xiao Yuan silly, but you really shouldn’t be so disrespectful to Yu-shijie, then she would not punish you so often.”

“Yu Fenfang has a stick so far up her ass that she rivals the sect leader in strictness.” Jia-jiejie snorts.

“Well she is originally from the Yu sect, Sect Leader is somewhat related to both her and Jiang Baozhai.” there is a sound of a cup being set down, so A-Yuan figures they are probably making tea. He leans against the door to listen in. He hears Jia-jiejie start speaking again.

“The relationship between the three are so far in distance that it would be like calling a hound a wolf, and yet both feel they are entitled to boss us around like they are any better than us.”

“Baozhai-qianbei isn’t so bad, and she is the only one left from the branch family who survived the siege. I can’t imagine what it would have been like if I had joined before the war! And she's really kind to everyone! Even you! Remember when she bought you that new quill set you were eyeing?”

Jia-jiejie huffs. “It wasn’t as great as I thought, there was a crack in the handle and the well doesn't hold enough ink.”

There is a lull in the conversation. Some more sound of tea cups being set down.

“Jia-shijie, what about Xiao Yuan? What’s it like to care for Wei-qianbei’s son?”

This sparked A-Yuan’s interest so he pressed his ear to the paper door, hoping to hear better.

“Horrible. I would rather be practicing my sword forms with Gong Da instead of being stuck here watching a snot nosed child.” A-Yuan freezes.

“Aww, but children are so cute! I wish I was able to watch him instead, I would have volunteered but Yu-Shijie said I can’t since I have to go to remedial calligraphy lessons.”

“I would not have taken this assignment if I had known Sect Leader was going to place me in this room with that brat.” A-Yuan starts feeling uncomfortable about listening in anymore. But Jia-jiejie continues.“He does nothing but get into things and makes a mess. He asks annoying questions and is constantly asking for Wei Wuxian to come back when Wei-shixiong has better things do do then catering to his ever whim.” A-Yuan is starting to get up and wants to just hide away. He didn’t know he was making such a mess that it was bothering Jia-jiejie. However, before he can even back away from the door, he hears Jia-jiejie say one last comment. “ The brat is probably a Wen anyway, he will be nothing but trouble for the sect if he stays here.”

…

When Wei Wuxian gets back to his rooms after another grueling session of teaching the younger disciples, all he wants to do is snuggle with his son for the rest of the afternoon. He loves the younger disciples but due to the lack of resentment, his body is not attempting to heal all the horrible things that have happened to him these last few years, and with no core to hear speedily, everything is now coming back and leaving him in a massive amount of pain.

He slides the door open to find the disciple that Jiang Cheng left in charge of A-Yuan reading like usual in the sitting room. He nods to her as she gets up to leave, thankful that she is not up for idle chit chat. What is unusual is that his bedroom door is slid closed instead of cracked open. A-Yuan must have fallen asleep earlier today than usual. He has noticed that A-Yuan has been sleeping a lot more often than usual lately. He has been meaning to send off a letter to Wen Qing about it, but he has just been so tired himself that when he has nothing important himself to do, he would sleep with A-Yuan.

He tells himself that he will send that letter today after their afternoon nap as he slide his bedroom door open. The first thing he notices is that it is a mess like usual of toys and papers strewn every which way. But as he looks around he starts to feel an empty pit in his stomach. He looks in his bed for a tell tale lump. Then pulls all the blankets off and throws them on the floor. Then he pulls all the clothes and linen out of his cabinets. Then looks under all the desks and tables in both his room and the sitting room.
After an hour of searching, realization hits and the panic starts to set in.

A-Yuan is gone.