Work Text:
Context:
* The Catalyst: A-Yuan falls into a hidden, ancient array in the Burial Mounds. He is thrown into the past, landing smack in the middle of the Cloud Recesses during the Cloud Recesses Guest Lectures era (when Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are teenagers).
* The Misunderstanding: Teenage Lan Wangji finds a baby who looks remarkably like a Lan, possesses a Gusu Lan spiritual signature (from the future), and is clutching a silver bell with a Wei Sect nine-section lotus engraving.
* The Panic: Lan Qiren looks at the baby, looks at Wei Wuxian’s chaotic energy, looks at his pristine nephew Lan Wangji, and has a spiritual deviation. The entire cultivation world suddenly believes the two top disciples somehow had a secret child out of wedlock through forbidden, experimental cultivation.
* The Dynamic: Wei Wuxian is absolutely delighted (and teasingly horrified) to be a "mother," while teenage Lan Wangji is completely red-eared, deeply confused, but inherently protective of the little boy who keeps calling him "A-Die."
--Hereby immortalizing this unexpected crack fic --
The Great Hall of the Cloud Recesses had never been this quiet, not even during mandatory silent meditation.
Lan Qiren sat at the head of the chamber, his hand shaking so violently that his tea sloshed over the rim of his porcelain cup. His eyes were locked onto the middle of the floor, where a toddler was happily eating a piece of unflavored loquat cake.
The toddler was wearing a tiny, makeshift Gusu Lan forehead ribbon—which Lan Wangji had personally tied around his brow to stop the boy from crying. He also wore a miniature, tattered black robe, and clutched a silver clarity bell that distinctly bore the crest of the Yunmeng Jiang sect.
"Explain," Lan Qiren hissed, his voice dangerously low. "Wangji. Wei Wuxian. Explain."
Wei Wuxian, standing a few paces back, threw his hands up in the air. "Teacher Lan! I swear on my life, I have never seen this child before in my life! I didn't even know it was biologically possible for—"
"Silence!" Lan Qiren roared, slamming his cup down. "The boy’s core is a perfect mirror of the Gusu Lan lineage. He has the spiritual pulse of a direct descendant. Yet, he carries the personal clarity bell of the Wei bloodline, and he was found inside the forbidden back hills of our sect!"
"A-Die!" the toddler suddenly chirped.
The little boy dropped his cake, scrambled up on his chubby legs, and lunged directly for teenage Lan Wangji’s robes. He buried his sticky, crumb-covered face right into Lan Wangji’s spotless white silk trousers.
Lan Wangji did not move. He stood frozen, his face entirely pale, though the tips of his ears were burning a bright, furious crimson. He didn't push the child away. In fact, his fingers twitched against his side, as if desperately wanting to pick the boy up.
"He called you 'A-Die'," Lan Qiren whispered, looking like he might faint.
"He called me 'A-Niang' earlier!" Wei Wuxian blurted out, pointing an accusing finger at the baby. "When I picked him up, he looked right at me and said 'A-Niang, hungry!' I don't even have the parts for that, Teacher Lan!"
"Wei Ying," Lan Wangji muttered, his voice a strangled warning.
"No, seriously, Lan Zhan! Look at his eyes!" Wei Wuxian knelt down next to the toddler, poking the boy's chubby cheek. The baby laughed, grabbing Wei Wuxian’s finger with a surprisingly strong grip. "He actually has your exact glare when he’s annoyed. It's uncanny. Are we sure you didn't... I don't know, clone yourself using demonic arrays? Did you steal a drop of my blood while I was sleeping?"
"Shameless!" Lan Wangji snapped, though he finally reached down and lifted the toddler into his arms to keep him from pulling Wei Wuxian’s hair.
The baby immediately snuggled into Lan Wangji’s neck, letting out a soft, contented sigh. "A-Die smell like sandalwood. A-Niang smell like spice."
The silence that followed was heavy enough to crush a mountain. Lan Qiren slowly rubbed his temples, realizing that short of a miracle, the entire cultivation world was about to find out that the perfect Hanguang-Jun and the chaotic head disciple of Jiang had somehow produced a heir.
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End of crack