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"So, um, Harry," Wei Wuxian said, leaning back against a pillar with his arms crossed. "Since you're the Chosen One and all, you must get a lot of attention, right? What's the thing you're most sick of about it?"
Harry didn't even have to think. "Hearing repeatedly that I have my mother's eyes and that I'm a copy of my father. Like — okay, good, I know. I can recite it in my dreams at this point. Can we talk about something else? But no."
Silence.
Wei Wuxian stared at him for a moment. Then he let out a short, sharp laugh — not mocking, but something closer to recognition.
"God," he said. "You have no idea how much I can relate."
Harry looked up.
"I have always been told that I had my mother's eyes," Wei Wuxian continued, his voice light, almost cheerful. "And that I looked like my father — when he married my mother, anyway. That was the last time anyone saw him alive. Dead, you know." He waved a hand. "Followed by 'your mother was a whore and you should just go die because you're the son of a servant and don't deserve to live.'"
The silence that followed was different.
Horrified.
Wei Wuxian looked around at the wide eyes, the frozen expressions, the people who had clearly not expected that to come out of his smiling mouth.
He provided helpfully: "Men who can't accept they aren't my father. And their wives — because the men don't love them, but my dead mother instead."
More horrified silence.
Wei Wuxian seemed unbothered.
"I met my mother's only brother once," he continued. "Only one, you know — because of war and deaths. And he had the eyes of... well. Me."
He pointed toward Jiang Cheng, who was standing a few feet away, pretending not to listen.
"Me and him were standing together after we had successfully just captured a war criminal. And A-Cheng — my younger brother — immediately pointed out that our smiles and eyes were the exact same. That's when we stared at each other, and I asked him if he was the son of Baoshan Sanren — my maternal grandmother. He nodded. Recognized the signature family eyes and smile."
Wei Wuxian's voice softened, just slightly.
"I had previously only introduced myself as my father's son. But then I told him I was Cangse Sanren's — my beloved late mother's — son. He was a rogue cultivator, and I was the head disciple of Yunmeng Jiang, so we couldn't meet often. That too, with a war greater than the jianghu had seen in over a century — since the direct great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather of the war criminal we just caught, who was the only living descendant and just discovered to be any at all, waged history's biggest war. So, yeah."
He shrugged.
"Anyways, I found out then that it was a family trait. Coming from my grandmother's maternal family. She was — or is, haven't met her — the last known immortal before me and my family decided to follow Jiang Sect's motto. Attempt the impossible." A small smile. "And yeah. Tadaaaaa."
He gestured vaguely at himself.
"And of course, all four of my kids have my eyes and smile and the exact build of their father. A-Yuan — my eldest —" he pointed toward Lan Sizhui, who was across the hall helping an elderly witch settle onto a cot, "— looked fully like me till he was about ten to fourteen. But then things change." A fond, almost teasing smile crossed his face. "He's my favourite for that matter. Hahahahaha."
Silence.
Harry stared at him.
Then, finally: "...Wow."
Wei Wuxian beamed. "Yuppers!"