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After the fifth time rumour of the so-called ‘Yiling Patriarch’ crosses Jiang Cheng’s desk, he can’t leave the matter alone anymore. Wei Wuxian has been audacious already, but this—this is just—

He tells his temporary head disciple that he’s going to visit the Unclean Realm for a few days, mounts Sandu, and heads to the Burial Mounds.

It takes the better part of a day to fly to Yiling, and the pressure of an oncoming storm front does nothing to help his Wei Wuxian induced headache. He lands outside the wards just as mist descends over the desecrated battlegrounds, shortly followed by the first few light drops.

“Hey!” he yells, and throws a stick at the wards. “Hey! Wei Wuxian!”

He waits.

And waits.

By the time a hooded figure emerges from the shadows and scraggly trees, he’s already used one drying talisman to try to ward off the rain and been soaked all over again.

“Took you long enough,” he says, but when the figure steps forward he catches a glimpse of large round eyes and the shift of black feathers behind her and realizes that it is Wen Qing, not Wei Wuxian, who has come to greet him.

“Sect Leader Jiang,” she says. “My apologies for keeping you waiting.”

“Where is my sister?” he asks, narrowing his eyes. Anxious fury claws at his belly.

“Why are you here?”

“I am here to see my sister. Obviously.”

“Last time you came here, you stabbed her.”

He grimaces. “That was her idea.”

Wen Qing hums, neither approving nor disapproving in that way she has that nonetheless makes you feel like she is judging all your life choices and, possibly, your fundamental personality.

“Listen, do you know what they’re saying about her?” Jiang Cheng asks. “The ‘Yiling Patriarch’? I want to know why she’s back to dressing like a man and terrorizing the countryside with demonic cultivation! It was bad enough when the cultivation world thought she’d just gone mad for love and ran off to live in a cave with your little brother. If people think there’s some powerful demonic cultivator amassing an army here, they won’t stop at banishing her. They’ll kill her.”

Wen Qing’s apathetic expression morphs into a slight grimace, and her black wings rustle. “What Wei Wuxian gets up to is no longer a concern of the Yunmeng Jiang. He has been protecting us, nothing more and nothing less.”

“Bullshit. Let me see her.”

“No.”

“Why?!” he shouts, running out of patience. Zidian sparks at his wrist, and his tail thrashes behind him.

Wen Qing’s grimace deepens. “He is… recovering. From surgery. Now… is not a good time.”

The bright bite of anger washes away to cold. Almost unconsciously, Zidian snakes down off of his hand and into a sparking whip.

“Open the wards,” he commands, “before I shatter them.”

—

Dear eldest sister,

I am writing to ask that you most urgently make your way to visit our second sister. In order to arrive safely and swiftly, your younger brother suggests that you meet with the estimable Hanguang-jun, to whom this Sect Leader has also written…

—

When Wei Wuxian returned from the three months she was missing during the war, Lan Wangji felt his heart return to beating from a long absence in his chest.

He wishes he could say she looked beautiful, but war stripped any illusion he had that women had any more capacity for constant loveliness than anyone else. She looked exhausted, ill, gaunt. Vengeful, furious, cold. Alive.

The relief was immense. So too was the concern. Where had she been? What had she become, to go from the laughing girl who taunted and teased him in the Cloud Recesses to the dark smear of anger and hurt that drove Wen soldier to madness with the sound of her flute? What could he do, to stop her from driving herself deeper into whatever hole demonic cultivation made of the mind and soul of those who wielded it?

A good husband would know. A good husband would have been able to stop her.

“Hanguang-jun,” she said, holding that cursed black flute between them, wisps of dark energy shedding off the black robes she wore now. Men’s robes, sturdy and sharp, and her hair in a sleek, simple style too. He’d heard whispers that most of their troops thought she was a man; the Jiang head disciple, leading and commanding them. When she wasn’t standing at Jiang Wanyin’s back like an imposing shadow, she transformed and slipped into the small, quiet corners of the camp. In his human or dragon forms, he would not be able to follow her.

A good husband wouldn’t leave his wife to wear men’s robes and command troops. A good husband’s fiancée wouldn’t feel the need to hide from him.

“This is the private business of Yunmeng Jiang,” she said. “Outsider’s need not concern themselves.”

Her sister was behind her, wiping tears from her face and hastily drawing herself back together. And Jin Zixuan beyond her, his attendants fussing over the blood on his collar.

“Your affairs are my affairs,” he said. “You are my intended. This concerns me, as well.”

Her expression was completely blank. She hadn’t worn her ears or tails in her human form since returning either, and their lack was like being reduced an entire sense in reading her. He searched her eyes for the girl he knew, who’d carried him when his leg was broken and laid her head in his lap when she was feverish.

“Apologies, Hanguang-jun, but whatever agreement we had before the war, consider it broken. I belong with Yunmeng Jiang, and I won’t leave them.”

She turned and took her sister’s arm. Lan Wangji stood, staring. Word and action felt beyond him.

As she pulled Jiang Yanli towards the Yunmeng Jiang camp, she glanced only once over her shoulder, to call: “From this day forward, I am not your fiancée. We aren’t anything to one another. So please, don’t involve yourself in my affairs.”

—

Lan Wangji descends at the tree marked with a purple sash, just as Jiang Wanyin described in his letter. Large clawed feet catch at the scraggly underbrush and dig deeply into the soft earth through dust and leaf-litter. He smothers the urge to growl or roar, the instinct to scare off any nearby predators, and instead lowers his head so that Jiang Yanli can slide off of his back. It is a relief not to have a human clinging to his mane any longer, although to her credit Jiang Yanli has been nothing but quiet and courteous throughout their somewhat abrupt and harried trip. Dragon flight is not easy on those with weaker cultivation.

Once they are both settled on the ground, he shifts back into his human form. Scales shrink and smooth into pale skin, long limbs sweep into silk robes. Jiang Yanli looks away politely, which is appreciated but unnecessary. He has long outgrown the clumsy and uncomfortable shifts of youth, and now it is only slightly more strenuous than changing clothes. Jiang Yanli’s own soft white ears twitch, one direction and then other, picking up the distant sounds of Yiling and, likely, the shambling corpses not to far away. He sees in her the same anxiety that he has felt skittering under his skin since he received the curt letter from Jiang Wanyin asking them to come to the Burial Mounds. Something has happened, most likely to Wei Ying.

This fear is only confirmed when Jiang Wanyin appears to greet them. His face is a stony mask of anger, his striped tail whipping and lashing like Zidian. His expression is familiar even to Lan Wangji, who does not make it a habit to study Jiang Wanyin’s prickly emotions the way his siblings seem to; one he often wore during the war, when Wei Wuxian’s demonic cultivation was at its most frightening.

“What happened?” he asks before his mind has caught up to his mouth.

“Wei Wuxian has gone too far this time!” Jiang Wanyin exclaims. He storms over and takes Jiang Yanli’s hands, giving her a quick look over and sending Lan Wangji a suspicious glance, as if Lan Wangji might have let her come to some sort of harm during the flight. “Let me take that, jie,” he says, gesturing to the wicker basket Jiang Yanli has on her back. She obediently slips off the straps and hands it to Jiang Wanyin.

“Thank you, A-Cheng. Is A-Xian alright?”

Jiang Wanyin shakes his head, which makes Lan Wangji’s belly swoop with fear, but Jiang Wanyin’s expression now isn’t easy to read. If Wei Wuxian’s life was at risk in some way, Lan Wangji thinks that Jiang Wanyin wouldn’t look so constipated about it.

“See for yourself,” he says, gesturing at the forest of black bamboo in front of them. “I’ll bring you past the wards. Wen Qing is with her now.”

Jiang Yanli takes Jiang Wanyin’s arm and he begins leading her down a thin, winding path, pausing at some unseen line to draw a talisman in the air that causes the world around them to shimmer and ripple before the three of them continue onwards. Jiang Wanyin seems content to more or less pretend that Lan Wangji isn’t here, which is fine by Lan Wangji; he has no desire to make small talk with the Jiang siblings when Wei Wuxian could be in danger. The dragon within him wants to burst out and fly straight to her himself, damn his companions or anything else that might be in the way.

After several agonizing minutes of quiet walking, light appears in the distance. Jiang Wanyin heads straight towards it, and eventually they leave the tree-line and emerge into a large clearing bordering a twisted stone cavern. The clearing has been carefully carved out of the scraggly forest and small huts erected in the space. Several campfires burn and elders sit around them on logs, large rocks, or crude wooden benches. All eyes turn to them as they leave the tree-cover.

There is a wailing noise, and then Lan Wangji jolts as a weight hits his leg. His hand flies to Bichen’s hilt and he looks down, expecting an attacking corpse puppet. Instead he is met by a puff of black wings and huge, watery eyes looking up at him.

“Gege…” the little puffball whines, the eyes growing even shinier and wetter. Small hands clench onto the hem of Lan Wangji’s robes.

Lan Wangji is so flabbergasted he feels his tail burst into existence under his robes and begin to wriggle.

What has he done? What could he have done to upset a child so fast? Whose child is this?

“Gege…” the little child says again. His face reddens and crumples, and his next words are a wail. “Xian-gege! Where is Xian-gege! I want—I want Xian-gege! Gege…”

“A-Yuan!”

Wen Qing hurries over, looking harried. She is much different than the last time he saw her during the Wen indoctrination camp. Gone are her fine red robes, her neat hair, her lean but solid muscle. She is thin and dressed in ragged farmer’s robes, but just as stern. She scoops up the little boy despite his wailing and flapping his wings furiously in upset.

“Apologies, Hanguang-jun,” she says. A middle aged man at one of the campfires sets aside a jug and hurries over to grab A-Yuan, slinging the boy over his shoulder and patting at his back between his puff-ball wings as he hiccups. Wen Qing pinches the bridge of her nose.

“He’s used to getting to play and sleep with Wei Wuxian, and he’s upset that he isn’t allowed to right now. Give him a little while and he’ll be fine again.”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says, not really sure how to follow that up.

“He’s in here,” Wen Qing says, gesturing at the mouth of the cave. “It’s where he sleeps.”

“It’s my workshop!” a distant voice hollers, and Lan Wangji is moving after it before he can think anything more. Out of the corner of his eyes he sees Jiang Yanli hurrying the same way, trailed by a scowling Jiang Wanyin.

The inside of the cave is… troubling. It’s dark, illuminated by a few candles and some odd talismans that create a dim glow. The metallic scent of blood is overwhelmingly strong in the air, and the walls and floor are littered with talisman paper scrawled on with rusty red characters in a familiar hand. Against the far wall of the cave is a straw mattress laid over a mostly flat outcropping in the rock.

Wei Wuxian is laid on the… bed, propped up by several ragged pillows. She looks pale in a way that speaks of recent blood-loss, her face as gaunt as it has been since she re-appeared during the war. Her ears are visible, which they hadn’t been during the war but were the last time that he saw her. Her tails are still absent, and there are dark smudges under her eyes. She is shirtless, the slim expanse of her arms visible over the thin blanket pulled up to her chest. Lan Wangji almost averts his gaze on instinct to preserve her modesty before he catches sight of the bandages wrapped around her chest and over one shoulder.

“What happened?” he asks, aghast.

“Ask her. She did it to herself,” Jiang Wanyin growls, gesturing sharply at Wei Wuxian.

“As much as anyone who needs surgery to fix something that was wrong with them ‘does it to themselves.’” Wen Qing snaps, following in behind them.

“What was wrong with her? What was wrong with you?!” Jiang Wanyin demands.

“Ah, A-Cheng, haven’t you always thought there was something wrong with me in the head? Isn’t this just confirmation?” Wei Wuxian asks. She shifts in the bed like she wants to push herself up, and Wen Qing snaps around to level a stern finger at her.

“Wei Wuxian, you stay right where you are. You nearly pulled your stitches earlier, you are done for the day.” She glares around at the rest of them. “Talk. You have an incense stick’s time until I kick you out. He should sleep.”

“Qing-jie, we don’t have incense.”

“Then you will have until I feel it has been long enough,” Wen Qing says. “So don’t make me shorten it.”

Wei Wuxian whines and makes dramatic puppy eyes at Wen Qing. It’s familiar. Lan Wangji feels some secret thing in his shoulders come loose. Wei Wuxian is still herself, even in the Burial Mounds. Maybe more herself than the last time he saw her, that night at Qiongqi Pass.

But no. That night, that was Wei Ying. The burning sense of justice, that had always been a part of her, and perhaps that was the miracle, that the war hadn’t stolen that from her, too.  Even if it brought her here.

While she is distracted pouting and whining, he steps closer to her bed. Not as swiftly as Jiang Yanli does, though, and he has to hover a few paces away instead of being able to reach her.

“A-Xian,” Jiang Yanli says, reaching out to smooth back Wei Wuxian’s hair. “What does she mean?”

“Ah, Shijie. It’s really not such a big deal,” Wei Wuxian says. Her face looses some of its false misery and teasing, instead going soft and a little shy in the way that only Jiang Yanli has ever seemed to elicit from her.

“You’re hurt,” Jiang Yanli says. Her hand trails down to the top of the bandages.

“I’m healing. You guys all came at a bad time. Give me another week and I’ll be back on my feet, promise!” She rolls her neck to look at Jiang Wanyin. “Really.”

“Not a big deal?!” Jiang Wanyin asks. His face goes red—even redder than usual, which makes Lan Wangji frown, a bit confused. “You cut off your—your—”

Wei Wuxian’s conciliatory expression pulls back to mischief. Her ears twitch in a little back-and-forth wiggle that he knows means she is fighting not to laugh. “Can’t say it A-Cheng? That’s right, I cut off my boo—” 

“Enough!” Jiang Wanyin shouts. He brings up his hands to cover his face, and that’s about when Lan Wangji realises he is not only angry—he’s embarrassed.

He and Jiang Yanli exchange a befuddled look. At least he isn’t the only one her with no idea what’s happening.

Wei Wuxian laughs so hard she rolls on the bed, then winces and uncurls so she's laying still on her back again. Lan Wangji’s hand twitches with the desire to touch her, to make sure she isn’t hurt.

“You’re so funny, A-Cheng” she says. “Can’t even say the word, and you’re so upset that they’re gone? Why do you care?”

“It’s not about your—It’s not about that! It’s about you doing experimental surgery on yourself for no reason in the middle of the goddamn Burial Mounds! Not to mention running around in men’s clothes, getting the great sects into an uproar—”

“Oh, yes. About that. I don’t actually plan to stop.”

“A-Xian,” Jiang Yanli interrupts gently. “Please. What are you two talking about? What happened to you that made you so hurt?”

“Not so hurt. It’s just a little, ah, cosmetic adjustment.”

Wei Wuxian shifts carefully and pulls down the blanket. Lan Wangji turns away, going hot with embarrassment, but Jiang Yanli’s soft exclamation of, “Oh, A-Xian,” has him turning back.

Wei Wuxian’s chest is tightly bound with bandages that wrap around her ribs. At first, Lan Wangji isn’t sure what caused Jiang Yanli’s shock. Then Wei Wuxian grins and smoothes a hand gently over her flat chest and says, “Nice, right?”

Lan Wangji blinks and looks closer, despite the vague impression that his uncle would be very disapproving of their present circumstances.

Wei Wuxian’s chest is very flat.

Lan Wangji has, admittedly, not spent a lot of time looking at Wei Wuxian’s chest. He has heard other boys and men exclaim over women’s ‘endowments’ many times throughout his life, and has always found it distasteful at best. Wei Wuxian’s chest is like the rest of her—just a part of her body, the way any man’s is. However, they have spent enough time in close quarters that he is at least aware of the shape of her body. He has spent a lot of time looking at her as she fights, as she moves, as she lounges and scampers around. He has held her while she was injured and feverish, and sat next to her bed during the long days she was asleep after the battle that won them the Sunshot Campaign.

This is to say, he is pretty sure her chest did not used to be so flat, even with tight bindings.

He blanches.

“Wei Ying, you…”

She what? What can he say? This. This is outside of his area of expertise. This was not covered in the pre-engagement talk that his uncle gave him about the duties a husband and a wife had to each other, which involved a lot of flowery metaphor, nor in the post-engagement talk from his brother which involved so many bitter realities that it made him vaguely nauseous.

“Yep!” Wei Wuxian says happily. “I am planning to be a man from now on, so it seemed like the thing to do. Plus, when else will I have such easy access to the best physician in the world? I had to make the most of it.”

Across the cave, where she has been politely pretending not to listen to everything the four of them are saying, Wen Qing scoffs.

“Wei Wuxian!”

Jiang Yanli brings her hands up to cover her mouth, brows furrowed. “A-Xian…”

“What’s the big deal?" Wei Wuxian asks. "It’s not like I was being a good second young mistress of the Jiang, anyways. My marriage prospects were already bad before I broke my engagement and ran away to the Burial Mounds! Er, sorry Lan Zhan. But seriously, who else would have me? So it’s not a political loss. And I can do everything as a man that I could do as a woman. More even! People are really annoying to women, you know, I got so much more done during the war once I put on men’s robes. As a man, I can drink when I want, fight who I want, go where I want… isn’t it kind of a better deal?”

“You can’t just become a man because you want to drink more!” Jiang Wanyin shouts. His tail is standing straight up, bristling like a bottle-brush. He turns away, paces back and forth twice, and then punches a wall.

“Hey!” Wen Qing calls over. “Do not stress out my patient!”

“Tell your patient she’s finally gone insane! Better yet, fix her—fix it!”

“I can’t just slap them back on Jiang Cheng, they’re gone!”

Jiang Wanyin makes a noise like a cat that’s had its tail stepped on.

“Besides,” Wei Wuxian says in a smaller voice. “It’s—it’s not just that. I’ve never felt right, being a woman. The way my body looks, the way I have to behave, the way people talk to me… I’ve always hated it.” She gives a hollow laugh, looking very tired suddenly, without all of her grandstanding and motion, laying under patched together bedclothes.

“The war just gave me a chance to try something different. Even when everything was awful and falling apart… it was nice. To dress the way I wanted, and finally feel—I don’t know. Not comfortable in my skin exactly, but different. More like myself.”

She clears her throat, hand and ears twitching. He can see in his mind’s eye her brushing at the side of her nose while her black fox ears swivel around. She is so full of familiar gestures, even while saying things… that Lan Wangji doesn’t really understand.

“So, yeah. I guess I thought, when am I going to get another chance? No one expects anything of me out here. I could be dead tomorrow if my wards fail and all the fierce corpses get in. Why not do it now? Just stop trying to be a good woman, and live the way I want instead. As a man.”

“You can’t just decide to be a man, Wei Ying,” Jiang Wanyin says. Some of the sun-burst anger has faded from him. He rubs at his eyes and looks down at Wei Wuxian in her shoddy bed.

“Why not? Who cares?” she asks. “From now on, just call me ‘Young Master’ and ‘Brother,’ right? Is it so different to have a big sister and a big brother, instead of two big sisters? I can be your shixiong.”

The smile she gives him is small, tentative. It floors Lan Wangji. Even worse, when she turns to look at him and says, “Lan-er-gege, you could call me Wei-didi you know,” with an over-the-top wink. He feels his ears turn red, at the same time that the reality of what she is saying sets in.

The reality of what he is saying.

“Besides,” Wei Wuxian says, squirming in a way Lan Wangji knows means he would like to be dancing around, draping himself on things and poking at the rest of them teasingly. “Did you know, all Huli Jing are female until they grow up? Some legends say it takes a hundred years, or a thousand, and then they turn themselves into handsome men and gods. I’m just speeding up the process a little bit. That sounds like it will take so long, right? I’m impatient.”

Lan Wangji’s tail wraps around his ankle, a hidden twist of worry. He can’t say he fully understands what he means by it all, but the intent seems clear. Wei Wuxian intends to live as a man. Feels that he already is, and has taken drastic action to make it so. In some ways, it is much less of a shock than learning he intends to live as a demonic cultivator, reigning over a mountain of corpses.

A mountain of corpses… and a group of tired, elderly refugees. A little child, with tiny little black wings.

Maybe Wei Wuxian has never changed. Maybe Lan Wangji has just spent the years finding new layers of who he has always been. Wei Wuxian shifts into new forms, just like the Huli Jing ancestor that begot his bloodline, but they’re all the same person inside. And he is decisive when he makes up his mind.

That’s what made him so determined to make Lan Wangji his friend, he thinks. That decisive nature. The willingness to shift. How can he scorn it, when it’s the same trait that brought him his only true friend? 

Jiang Wanyin still looks consternated, and Jiang Yanli faintly distressed, although Lan Wangji isn’t sure if it is due to this revelation or the bandages wrapped around Wei Wuxian’s chest. Certainly Lan Wangji is still feeling that sickening anxiety over anything harming Wei Ying.

“Time’s up,” Wen Qing says as soon as the conversation lulls. She sweeps over and begins to usher Lan Wangji and the Jiangs away, even as Wei Wuxian immediately takes up whining at her, his ears drooping pathetically. It reminds Lan Wangji of the little boy out in the camp, tugging at his robes and crying.

“You can talk more tomorrow,” Wen Qing says, mercilessly pinning Wei Wuxian in bed when he starts to wriggle. “I need to check on the drainage from the incisions. Do you want your brother and sister around to see that? Do you want Second Young Master Lan—”

“Okay, okay, no! I’ll be good, I’ll be good.”

Wen Qing waves her hand at the rest of them, dismissing them.

—

The three visitors to the Burial Mounds hover awkwardly together outside of Wei Wuxian’s cave, neither daring to re-enter nor to wander through the rest of the camp unaccompanied. Perhaps taking pity on them, an old woman approaches. The boy, A-Yuan, clings to her skirts and peers at them with his large eyes and a scrunched expression. Lan Wangji blinks at him slowly. He has not met many children, and feels his inexperience shows.

“Xian-gege,” the boy says, trying to look past them into the cave, and for the first time Lan Wangji realises that he’s talking about Wei Wuxian. That he calls him gege . “Is Xian-gege done sleeping now?”

This makes Lan Wangji feel things. He will have to examine what those things are later.

“I am afraid not,” he says. “Your Xian-gege needs more rest.”

The little boy looks crestfallen, and Jiang Wanyin casts him a sidelong look for the address.

“Honored guests,” the old woman says, bowing. Her back is bare. So far, Wen Qing and A-Yuan are the only ones in the camp with wings that Lan Wangji has seen. The only members of this group of refugees with enough direct blood connection to the main branch of the Wen Clan to show characteristics of their divine ancestor. She straightens to gesture them over to one of the fires. “Please, sit. We don’t have much to offer you, but I’ve boiled some water.”

“Oh!” Jiang Yanli exclaims, clasping her hands. Her soft white ears swivel forward, at attention. “I had almost forgotten. Grandmother, we've brought food and tea for everyone. Please, how would it be best to distribute it?”

She and the old woman quickly go over what she brought, with Jiang Wanyin playing obedient pack-horse to his elder sister. The Wen remnants wave off Jiang Yanli’s offers to cook, but they take the rice, chicken, fresh produce, tea, and spices that she brought very happily and begin to ration it with the efficiency of those who have been starving and learned how best to use every scrap of food.

Once that is done they gather back together, each of them carefully taking up position around the fire. The old woman kindly leaves them after delivering a clay pot of hot water, now with Jiang Yanli’s tea leaves brewing despite her attempts to wave them away to be saved for later, and a few small cups.

For a moment, each of them lingers quietly in their own thoughts without speaking. Then Wen Qing emerges at last from the cave, glances around, and makes a beeline to their small group.

Jiang Cheng stands as soon as she approaches, but she cows him into re-taking his seat with only a glare and a slight flaring of her black wings.

“Before you say anything, let me get the useful part out of the way. We did the surgery three days ago, just before Sect Leader Jiang arrived. It was successful, no complications so far, but I am worried about the possibility of infection due to our surroundings and Wei Wuxian’s weakened constitution. We traded with the town for clean implements, herbs, and bandages, but that’s no guarantee. Assuming that everything goes well, he should be back up and about by the end of the week, and more or less completely healed in a month.”

“A month?” Jiang Wanyin asks, brows furrowed. “That’s a long time. It took me a week to heal my arm when he broke it, and his cultivation has always been stronger than mine.”

Wen Qing’s face is blank, too stony to read, although Lan Wangji senses something in the slight curl of her lips that discomforts him.

“A month,” she says, brooking no argument. She takes a seat on another of the rotted logs. “Now then, let’s get the more ridiculous conversation out of the way.”

There is a moment of silence, before Jiang Wanyin bursts out with, “Why the fuck did you two do this? Do you just like breaking the laws of nature? Is it fun for you?”

“Wei Wuxian approached me about it a few months after we arrived here,” Wen Qing says, not rising to the bait of Jiang Wanyin’s words. “He was already dressing as a man and had been since he rescued us at the labour camps. He introduced himself to my family as a young master of the Jiang, not mistress, and told me that was his preference. Once we were settled, we discussed more permanent changes.”

Her matter of fact tone takes some of the wind out of Jiang Wanyin’s sails. He slumps back in his seat and scrubs a hand over his face.

“I can’t believe I didn’t see this coming. Every day, I think Wei Wuxian has been as audacious as he could become.” He pauses, lost in thought. “I guess I could have seen it. He liked to dress in my clothes as a child. Before mother got on about him behaving like a proper lady, we would run around Yunmeng like that. And at the Cloud Recesses, he borrowed my uniforms to sneak into the boy’s dorms to drink.”

Jiang Yanli nods. “He did. He’s never really seemed to prefer the more… feminine arts. He learned them well, and he was always so sweet when we would work together, but I know he wasn’t as passionate about it.” She gives a small, slightly strained laugh. “I just didn’t realize he would ever want to live as a man entirely.”

“What about you?” Jiang Wanyin asks, glancing sharply at Lan Wangji. “Did he ever say anything to you? The two of you were supposed to get married. ” 

Lan Wangji lets the sting of that wash over him and away. Yes, they were engaged.

“It’s a sensible arrangement,” his brother had said, when they received the proposal from the Jiang Sect. “She’s a strong cultivator, a natural talent, and Sect Leader Jiang treats her as his second daughter. And the two of them are close.”

Uncle had sniffed, disapproving. “She brings chaos wherever she goes, just like her mother. And her father was a servant. Hardly worthy of the Second Young Master of the Lan.”

“Still, she may secure an alliance with the Jiang. Not to mention, even though she isn’t a descendant of the Jiang White Tiger, she still carries the bloodline of an immortal beast. It would be valuable, especially since no one is sure if Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan will renew their marriage contract.”

“Why not Jiang Yanli, then?” Uncle proposed, and Lan Wangji had to fight not to wrinkle his nose. It was not that Jiang Yanli was unpleasant or poor company. He was no Jin Zixuan, to be blinded by her weak cultivation and plain face and miss the genuinely kind person beneath. However, she would always be Wei Wuxian’s elder sister to him, and the thought of a marriage with her was discomforting.

“She will marry a sect heir, even if it isn’t Jin Zixuan,” Lan Xichen countered, shaking his head. “Nie Mingjue, perhaps.”

“Hmph.”

Lan Xichen had looked to Lan Wangji then, turning the proposal letter to face him. “What do you think, Wangji? The two of you were close during your studies. I haven’t seen you take an interest in any other young ladies.”

Lan Wangji had thought it over, weighing the proposal. On the one hand, he didn’t have very much interest in marriage to anyone. Romance and sex were abstract concepts, best kept at a safe distance and glanced at very rarely.

Wei Wuxian certainly made him… feel things. Often annoyance, outrage, or irritation. But also other, softer things. Affection. Closeness. Joy. 

Lan Xichen was right. He hadn’t ever felt even that for another young woman before. He liked Wei Wuxian. She might be a good wife. And the marriage would be good for the sect.

“That is acceptable,” he said, and Lan Xichen wasted no time in sending their reply to the Jiang.

But that was then, and this is now. Wei Wuxian broke their engagement in the camps during the Sunshot campaign, severing herself from him cleanly and without explanation.

It hurt, but he understood. The war had changed her. Had changed him too, and destroyed both of their homes and broken their families. He told himself that she wanted to focus on rebuilding the Jiang with Jiang Wanyin, rather than marrying out into another clan, and this was a desire he respected.

With this new information… he wonders if that was all there was to it.

“No,” he says, in answer to Jiang Wanyin. “He never said anything to me.”

But is that true? Casting back to his memories of their time together at the Cloud Recesses, he thinks he does remember him making comments. Innocuous at the time. Wishing that he could join in on the men’s cultivation practice, or that he didn’t have to sleep in the girl’s dormitories. Lan Wangji isn’t sure if Wei Wuxian meant anything by them at the time, or if he is reading too much into things in retrospect.

“The most important thing is that A-Xian is alright,” Jiang Yanli says firmly. “Whether he is our sister or our brother, he is still our family, and we love him, right?”

She prods Jiang Wanyin, who gives a reluctant nod, his ears flicking.

“Right,” he says, “sure. I can’t say I disapprove more of this than I do the demonic cultivation. Or being here at all.”

“That’s right. And he is injured right now, and recovering. We should be doing what we can to support him while he heals.”

“If we want him to heal well, we should take him back to Lotus Pier,” Jiang Wanyin says, scowling.

“I agree. But you try getting him to leave. I have done all I can,” Wen Qing says, shaking her head bitterly. “He’s determined to save my people or martyr himself trying. If you can convince him…”

She trails off, all of them well aware of how impossible it has been to change Wei Wuxian’s mind on this topic.

Jiang Wanyin stands sharply. He turns from the fire and shifts into his tiger form, loping off away from the camp without another word. 

Wen Qing half-rises as he leaves, but Jiang Yanli catches her sleeve and shakes her head. “He’ll need some time to cool off,” she says. “It’s just hard for him, worrying for A-Xian, but it will be alright. Why don’t we all get some sleep? Things will be easier in the morning.”

Wen Qing nods slowly. “Wei Wuxian should be out until morning, I just gave him a draft for the pain and something to help him sleep. Just… try not to scare anyone, while you’re here.”

Jiang Yanli nods. She, too, rises and shakes out her skirt neatly before transforming, her tiger form only a little smaller and more slender than Jiang Wanyin’s massive bulk. She takes off after her youngest brother, heading into the trees. 

Lan Wangji and Wen Qing are left at the fire. Lan Wangji sets down his cup of tea as Wen Qing regards him.

“You should speak with him,” Wen Qing says.

“… I am unsure what to say.”

“Speak to him anyways. He always has plenty to say, I’m sure you can find a middle ground.”

She stands and offers him a nod before adding, “He’s the same, you know. The same man he always was.”

Lan Wangji nods back, feeling he understands this better than he did before today. “I know.”

“Good.”

She departs, back to join her family in their small huts. To continue to lead and care for her people, as she has been doing for months, with only Wei Wuxian for support.

Lan Wangji looks between the Wen remnants, the cave, and where the Jiang siblings disappeared. After a moment he steps far enough away from the encampment that he won’t crush anything and transforms as well, taking his dragon shape and then curling up in front of the mouth of the cave.

Protect him, the dragon inside him says. Guard him.

For the night, Lan Wangji indulges.

—

Lan Wangji wakes early the next morning to the peculiar sensation of someone playing with one of his ears.

Very slowly, he shifts his head around, trying to see around the curve of his own jaw. There is a little squeak and a flutter of wings as A-Yuan rolls into view, unseated from where he had been trying to use Lan Wangji’s ear like a blanket.

Lan Wangji blinks slowly at him.

“Dragon-gege,” the boy whispers, his little eyes huge once more, this time with wonder instead of distress. Lan Wangji much prefers it. He nods his head slowly in recognition, and the boy squeals.

“So big! Dragon-gege, can you fly? When I’m a grown up like Qing-jie and Xian-gege, I’m going to fly. Only Xian-gege can’t fly like Qing-jiejie, because he does not have wings, he has tails only they’re not here right now and so he can’t fly at all and that’s why we all have to stay here.”

Lan Wangji can do nothing in the face of this onslaught but give another long, slow blink. Feeling his dragon form is inadequate for such a high stakes conversation, he shifts into his human form, rising from the ground and dusting off his robes.

“Aww,” A-Yuan says, pouting at the loss of the dragon.

“I can fly,” Lan Wangji says in consolation. After a moment of thought, he offers A-Yuan his hand and is gratified when the boy takes it. “Does your family know you are here with me?”

The pout grows, but A-Yuan does begin to happily tug Lan Wangji in the direction of the small huts.

“Ye-es,” he says. “I can play here. But no Xian-gege.”

“Mm,” Lan Wangji says. “Perhaps if A-Yuan is good he can see Xian-gege later.”

He hopes that he is not making false promises. He isn’t sure of the exact relationship between Wei Wuxian and this main-bloodline Wen child, but Wei Wuxian has always been fond of children. He talked often of his little shidi and shimei at home, and doted on the smallest Lan disciples on the rare occasions he was given the chance. Surely with A-Yuan he  is no less playful and indulgent.

“That’s right,” Wen Qing says, approaching as soon as she spots them and taking A-Yuan’s hand in her own. Lan Wangji lets go of his own small, sticky palm reluctantly.

“Hanguang-jun.”

“Wen-guniang.”

They exchange nods, and she gestures in the direction of Wei Wuxian’s cave before beginning to lead A-Yuan away.

Inside, he finds Wei Wuxian asleep. He looks much like he did during his time unconscious after the battle of Nightless City that, on instinct, Lan Wangji draws his guqin from his qiankun sleeve and settles down on the stone floor to play.

He has no idea how much time passes in healing music before Wei Wuxian stirs in the bed. His nose scrunches and he shifts, nearly rolling off of the stone slab before opening his eyes and settling himself, black ears swiveling.

As soon as his eyes open, they meet Lan Wangji’s. 

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says.

“Wei Ying.”

“You know, I didn’t really want anyone here for this, but it’s nice that you decided to visit.” He sits up a little more, the blanket falling to pool around his waist. Wen Qing must have changed his bandages, because they are clean and crisp. “It’s a much nicer sight to wake up in the morning and see your face. Usually I wake up to Wen Qing and her scary needles.”

“I’ll play for you,” Lan Wangji says.

“Ah, Lan Zhan, how long have you been playing already? I bet I’m practically healed.”

“Wen-guniang said it would take you at least a month to heal.”

Wei Wuxian’s ears dip, and he turns to prop his back against the stone wall of the cave. “A month to heal fully. Give me a few more days and I’ll be running around again. Walking around. Slowly. Better than laying here, at least.”

“Wei Ying…”

“Lan Zhan.”

Lan Wangji lets his hands fall still on his instrument, his head bowing. “You did not tell me that you felt this way.”

“… no. I didn’t.”

“Did you think that I would think less of you?”

“Do you?”

Lan Wangji looks up, and finds Wei Wuxian’s own head bowed, turned away from him and down at the thin blanket. His long fingers pluck at fraying threads, and his ears droop.

“I do not,” he says. Wei Wuxian’s gaze rises slowly to meet his own. “Wei Ying is Wei Ying. I told you I once considered you my soulmate in this life. I still do.”

Slowly, Wei Wuxian’s ears come up and around. He awkwardly scrubs at his eyes with the back of one hand without raising his upper arm and laughs, bright and real.

“Lan Zhan, you’re something else. Even now that I’m telling you I’m a man? Even now that I’m the Yiling Patriarch, and people are all afraid of my evil corpse army?”

“I do not approve of your evil corpse army,” Lan Wangji says sternly. “But that doesn’t change what you are to me. Nor does your gender. Wei Ying was not Wei Ying because he was a woman. Wei Ying is Wei Ying because…”

Because he’s brave. Because he’s righteous, and asks hard questions. Because he’s irritating, frustrating, and stubborn. Because he’s kind, just, and funny.

“… because he is who he is,” he finishes lamely.

“Lan Zha-a-an,” Wei Wuxian whines. “You’re being too nice to me. Is this just because I’m recovering? Is it because I look extra handsome now?”

“Mm,” he says, meaning no and maybe a little.

Wei Wuxian laughs in a way that tells Lan Wangji he understands. Another of his best features, that ability to understand Lan Wangji’s unsaid words.

“Does Wei Ying like it?” he asks, realizing he hasn’t yet.

“What? This?” Wei Wuxian asks, gesturing at his chest. “I do! I, ahaha, I guess I was a little afraid, even though I knew it was what I wanted. I’ve been binding my chest since the war, so I was pretty sure, but it’s a big change.”

“A permanent change.”

“Yes,” Wei Wuxian agrees, tilting his head so that his loose hair flows over one shoulder. A more somber expression steals over his face. “But so are lots of things. Lan Zhan, every day in this world something can change your body permanently in ways you have no control over. So why should it be so extreme to make a change for yourself? On purpose?”

Lan Wangji bows his head. “You are correct.”

That makes Wei Wuxian laugh. “I think so too. Thank you for accepting this. For accepting me, as I am.”

“There is nothing to accept. Wei Ying is Wei Ying.”

Wei Wuxian curls his legs up and sets his chin on them, gazing at Lan Wangji with star-bright eyes. It makes Lan Wangji feel rather warm, and he isn’t sure if it is a disappointment or a relief when A-Yuan bursts in in a whirlwind of little black feathers and yelling, followed by Wen Qing.

“Xian-gege! Xian-gege! Are you all better?” A-Yuan asks, bouncing over to the makeshift bed.

“Absolutely!” Wei Wuxian says, at the same time that Wen Qing says, “Absolutely not. A-Yuan, not getting on the bed today.”

“Awww…”

“Wei Ying…” Lan Wangji begins as A-Yuan and Wei Wuxian eagerly greet each other. “Whose child is this?”

“This is Wen Yuan!” Wei Wuxian says. “I gave birth to him myself!”

Lan Wangji experiences a rainbow of emotions so vivid and varied that it altogether makes him a little nauseous in about the five seconds it takes Wen Qing to roll her eyes and say, “He’s my cousin’s son. My grandmother takes care of him. And this idiot, when he’s not healing up or chasing corpses around.”

“Oh,” Lan Wangji says faintly, “I see.”

While Wei Wuxian laughs at him uproariously, Jiang Yanli creeps her way into the cave and smiles at them all.

“I’m glad to see you’re feeling well, A-Xian,” she says softly.

Wei Wuxian perks up at her presence, and A-Yuan goes suddenly shy, creeping behind Wen Qing’s skirts.

“I am, I am,” Wei Wuxian says.

Wen Qing checks his pulse, and presses in a few places against the dressings on his chest.

“Everything looks good. You can get up and walk around for a while. Nothing strenuous. If you pull a stitch…”

“I’ll be good, I swear!” Wei Wuxian raises three fingers in a solemn promise. Then he sniffs himself and grimaces. “Can I bathe yet? I stink.”

“You always stink. You smell like rotten blood and corpses.”

“Hey!”

“The bandages can’t get wet,” Wen Qing says. “I’ll help you bathe with a rag later.”

“Wen-guniang, could I help A-Xian bathe this morning? I saw a stream that looked clear while walking earlier.”

Wen Qing nods slowly, giving Jiang Yanli a considering look. “Fine. As long as the dressings don’t get wet and he doesn’t re-open the incisions.”

Jiang Yanli smiles brightly and offers Wei Wuxian an arm out of bed. “Come, A-Xian. We’ll get washed up together.”

—

Jiang Yanli walks Wei Wuxian to the river arm in arm with a bucket and a scrap of fabric. A hastily scrawled heating talisman from Jiang Cheng and the soap from Lan Wanji’s travel pack mean that, despite the fact that he can’t fully immerse himself, this is about to be the most luxurious bath he’s taken in months.

When they arrive at the small river, she firmly sits him on a small outcropping of rocks and gathers the water herself, despite his protests.

“A-Xian, Wen-guniang said you’re still healing,” she scolds lightly. “No lifting anything heavy for at least three weeks.”

Wei Wuxian moans and groans but allows it, waiting patiently while she hauls the full bucket back to him. She sets it down on the barren, dusty ground with a thunk and then strips off her own outer robes, folding them and neatly setting them aside to avoid dirtying the gold and lavender silks. He resists the urge to say that she should leave entirely, if she wants to avoid getting dirty here. Besides her practical caution, he knows his sister has never shied away from dirty work.

When her sleeves are tied up and the talisman attached neatly to the bucket, she turns her attention to him.

“Arms out.”

He ducks his head and obediently holds his arms out as far as they can go without pulling at his bandages, which isn’t as far as he would like. She slides his worn, rough robes off of his shoulders and down his arms. Unties his belt, and helps him shuffle to pull the layers away from his chest. He tries to get his pants himself, but she bats him away and strips him of those as well, tugs off his boots and socks and folds it all up with the same care she afforded her fine silks.

He sits on the rock completely naked, fighting not to shiver in the slightly cool air. They observe each other. The linen bandages bound tightly to his chest wind around his ribs and over one arm, hiding what lies (or rather, doesn’t lie) beneath.  

He expects her to say something, but she doesn’t. She just strips off her own inner robe and undergarments before gently nudging his shoulder until he turns around on the rock.  

“Shijie?” he asks, unsure.

“Hush, A-Xian,” she says. A cool hand runs through his hair, ever so gently unsnagging tangles and brushing away bits of hay and dust. She winds his hair up, and he feels one of her own combs slide against his scalp as she secures the bun. A moment later she touches his shoulder, and the touch is followed by the drag of the rag against his skin, wet with water that’s steaming hot, hot enough to prickle.

Wei Wuxian closes his eyes as Jiang Yanli carefully wipes down his skin, and listens to the quiet rustling as she does the same for herself. He’s so busy fighting back tears at how tender her touch is, how much he’s missed her, how the world has seemed to lack gentleness until this moment, that he mistakes the soft drip of water against his shoulder blades as excess from the rag until he hears a familiar sniffle.

He jerks around so quickly that it wrenches at his chest, and he has to pause and breathe through the pain before he can get a good look at Jiang Yanli’s wet, flushed face.

“Shijie!”

“A-Xian don’t, you’ll hurt yourself!”

He catches her small, pale hands and the soapy rag, halting her motion, and turns to face her. She draws one of her hands back from him to wipe at her eyes with the wrist, sniffing hard as another tear falls.

“Shijie, what’s wrong?”

“I-It’s nothing, I’m sorry. Oh, I’m sorry A-Xian, just let me—”

“Shijie, no.” He squeezes her fingers. “Talk to me, please. Tell Xianxian what’s wrong. Please, you can tell me. I promise I won’t mind. Are you upset, about…?”

She wipes away another tear and gives a wet little laugh that doesn’t sound very happy. “A-Xian, you know that whatever you choose I will always support you. I love you so much. You and A-Cheng, you’re the most important people in the world to me. You’re my family.”

“I know, Shijie,” he says softly. “But…?”

“There is no but!” she says firmly, shaking her head. “I love you. I support you, and I want you to be happy. I just—I feel like I’ve failed you.”

“Shijie! Why?” He rushes to wrap his arms around her and she allows him to take her arms, but gently pushes him back when he tries to draw her in, shaking her head gently.

“I know that… that mother was never kind to you. And that she… could never be a mother for you the way that you deserved, the way that your own mother would have been. I suppose I’ve always thought—I’ve always tried to be that for you. Not your mother, of course, but… a feminine role model. Someone who could guide you in the ways of women. I remember when you came to Lotus Pier, teaching you to tie your new dresses. Painting your face for the first time, and trying and failing to get you to sit through embroidery and etiquette classes.” She gives another wet laugh, but this one sounds a little more real. “I hope that I didn’t—that I didn’t ruin it for you somehow. That I didn’t make you think it’s such a bad thing to be.”

Wei Wuxian can’t take the tremulous quality of her voice. Tears spill down his own cheeks, and he draws her in more insistently for a hug. They’re both still undressed, and it should be invasive or embarrassing, but it’s not. He remembers those days too, after all.

These are the hands that bathed him when he was a child, showing him how to use the soaps and hair oils that he’d gone without for years on the street. Wiping his face, brushing his hair, tending his scrapes and bruises. She’d brought him to the tailor for new undergarments when his chest first started to fill out in adolescence, and patiently explained his body to him when he’d awoken to blood on his sheets and a new pain in his belly.

“You didn’t,” he whispers into her hair. “I promise you didn’t. Shijie, you’ve always been the best sister anyone could ever ask for. You never made me feel anything but safe and loved. It was never about that.”

He pulls back and wipes at her cheeks and then his own, their tears mingling, and they both laugh at what a sight the other one is.

“It’s just not about that,” he continues softly. “I think that in another world, if I was a different person, I could have loved all of those things. And the reason I don’t is because of me, it’s just who I am. I just… I feel like myself this way. I feel like—like a tree in bloom, for the first time. Like I’ve been holding myself so tightly, and now I can finally unfurl. It’s not about the makeup or the needlework, it’s about… seeing myself the way I feel inside.”

She nods, and her tears slowly start to dry, although her eyes are still pink and wet. “I don’t pretend I understand entirely, but what matters most to me is that you feel good, A-Xian. If this is what you need, then I am so happy for you. I just…” she pets his cheek gently. “I guess, deep down, I’m selfishly afraid of losing my sister.”

He catches her hand and presses it firmly to his cheek. “There’s a part of me that will always be your sister, Shijie. That little girl you raised so well just… grew up to be someone different.”

“I love you,” Jiang Yanli repeats. “Both of my… of my brothers. I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Shijie,” he says, and then of course he has to cry a little more about that.

Jiang Yanli makes him sit still as she finishes washing them both, then dries them and pulls them both into their under robes. By the time she helps him fasten his, his braided hair already soaking into the shoulder of the loose fabric, he’s finally run out of tears and regained enough composure to sing ridiculous songs as they both walk back to the camp.

—

Lan Wangji is drawn back into Wei Wuxian’s cave (he is not calling it the Demon Subduing Palace no matter how many times Wei Wuxian says it) by a groan, followed by a sharp sound of pain.

He hurries in and finds Wei Wuxian standing next to a woven basket, dressed in only his underrobe, holding a brown overrobe and attempting to slide it on.

“Wei Ying,” he says, and Wei Wuxian whirls around to smile at him.

“Lan Zhan! Sorry, I’m just getting dressed. Trying to get dressed. I told Shijie that I didn’t need any help but, ah…”

“Allow me.”

Lan Wangji strides across the cavern to take the robe from his hands, straightening it out and inspecting the garment. It’s coarse but clean, and he can see places where it has been very neatly patched or repaired with mis-matched thread. It makes his hands clench in the fabric, thinking of Wei Wuxian carefully repairing this robe here in the Burial Mounds.

He discards that train of thought to focus on the Wei Wuxian before him. “How is it easiest to move?”

“Lan Wangji, are you dressing me yourself? How scandalous.”

“Wei Ying should get used to this. We’re both men after all.”

Wei Wuxian laughs, but he also goes a little pink. It makes something in Lan Wangji’s chest stir, makes him want to bite or kneed his claws into something. He clears his throat and is careful not to let any claws join his human form and punch holes in the fabric.

“It’s just hard to raise my arms, or twist around,” Wei Wuxian says. “Which makes getting on the robe a little…”

“Here,” Lan Wangji says. “Just hold them out as far as you can.”

Wei Wuxian does as commanded, and Lan Wangji grips his wrist gently to hold his grey under robe in place as he slides his arm through first one sleeve, then the other. He neatly pulls at the collar so that it falls into place, then draws one side across his belly and chest to reach the opposite ties.

As he secures the small knots in the fabric, his fingers brush against Wei Wuxian’s stomach. His skin is warm under the thin layers of fabric, and the muscles of his abdomen jump slightly when Lan Wangji touches them. Wei Wuxian makes a small noise, and Lan Wangji finds his heart racing and his face hot as he moves on to the next tie.

He doesn’t raise his gaze to meet Wei Wuxian’s, doesn’t allow him to look at the other man’s face at all. He picks up what looks like the matching belt from the basket of laundry and loops it around Wei Wuxian’s slim waist, carefully pressing at his hip to turn him so that he can tie it into place.

As he secures the last knot, Wei Wuxian’s hands wrap around his wrists. He breathes slowly and finds himself burning, Wei Wuxian’s touch a brand so hot he cannot bear it.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says.

“Wei Ying.”

Lan Wangji slowly straightens, raising his head until the two of them are face to face. They are standing very close. Close enough that he can see each crease and pore of Wei Wuxian’s face and feel his breath against his skin.

He isn’t sure which of them moves first, only that one moment they are so close they are almost touching and then their lips have met. Wei Wuxian makes a sound at once, one Lan Wangji is pretty sure is pleased. He can’t say for sure, too busy bringing a hand up to cup the back of Wei Wuxian’s neck, threading his fingers through the thin, soft hairs that have already dried from his bath. His other hand comes to rest on Wei Wuxian’s hip, Wei Wuxian’s own hands fisting in Lan Wangji’s robes as their mouths move against one another. It’s soft at first, but soon they press deeper, more firmly against each other, and Lan Wangji opens his mouth when Wei Wuxian’s tongue brushes against his lower lip.

They break away from each other some time later, both panting. Lan Wangji’s lower lip is sore from Wei Wuxian’s teeth, and Wei Wuxian has a red spot blooming just under his chin that Lan Wangji will be hard pressed to explain to either of his siblings later.

“Wow,” Wei Wuxian says breathlessly. “That was great. We should do more of that. A lot more. Right now.”

“When you are healed,” Lan Wangji says, meaning it as a reminder to them both. “We should not risk aggravating your injury.”

Wei Wuxian gives a long, dramatic whine. He reaches out and catches Lan Wangji’s belt, pulling him in close and burying his face in the neck of his robes. Lan Wangji allows it, and tentatively brings his arms up to press against Wei Wuxian’s back in a loose hug.

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan… you’re not doing this because you still think I’m a girl, right?”

“Wei Ying, I have never been interested in a woman. I have only passingly been interested in men. I am interested in you. ”

“Oh. Good.” Wei Wuxian heaves out a big breath. Lan Wangji can feel his shoulders loosen under his palms, and revels at the sensation.

“Wait,” Wei Wuxian says, raising his head, “You’ve been interested in men?”

Lan Wangji stares down at him. “Nie-zhongzhu used to train with Xiongzhang at the Cloud Recesses. Often without much clothing. It was… formative.”

Wei Wuxian stares at him for another long moment before breaking out into hopeless giggles. “Lan Zhan! I can’t believe I never knew this. This is the best day of my life.”

“Marry me.”

Wei Wuxian freezes, then looks up. Lan Wangji looks down at him, slowly registering his own words. He opens his mouth to take them back, but hesitates.

“If… Wei Ying. Would want that,” he says. Wei Wuxian’s mouth falls open, and he hastens to continue. “If Wei Ying broke off our engagement because he felt he could not be honest, or be himself, then you know now that I do not care. As my wife or my husband, I… that is, I would be honored. To marry Wei Ying.”

Wei Ying stares for another moment, in which Lan Wangji tries to will himself out of existence from shame and embarrassment. Then, a smile blooms over his face, slow and small and half-afraid.

“Lan Zhan, Lan Wangji, Hanguang-jun. Anyone would be lucky to be your husband. But that… that isn’t why I broke off our engagement back then.”

Slowly, he takes Lan Wangji’s hand and brings it to his sternum, just below his ribs. Then he presses his face back to Lan Wangji’s chest, shivering.

“There’s something I have to tell you. About what happened while I was gone, and when Lotus Pier fell…”