Chapter Text
A small child had attached themself to Lan WangJi’s leg. The moment he looked down, the toddler had looked up with a big bright smile that dissolved into tears a moment later. Then Lan WangJi was standing in the middle of the crowded street in Yiling with a crying child attached to his leg and he had no idea what to do.
It took no time at all before a crowd surrounded Lan WangJi and the toddler. They were on the whole absolutely useless, none of them tried to help him really, they just all assumed that Lan WangJi was the toddler’s father because they shared the same nose. He looked down, the boy’s face was buried in his leg, and he couldn’t see their nose. The question really was, if Lan WangJi was the father, who was the mother?
‟A-Yuan! A-Yuan!” called a voice over the crowd, Lan WangJi looked up from the child and over to the voice. Wei WuXian was standing at the edge of the crowd, chuckling at the scene.
‟Wei Ying,” Lan WangJi pleaded.
Wei WuXian immediately sobered, though the grin on his face remained as he shooed the crowd away and Lan WangJi’s breath caught in his throat, as that was the same smile that he had glimpsed on the toddler’s face before they had started to cry. If the crowd was right, and the child had his nose, could they be the child of Lan WangJi and Wei WuXian?
‟A-Yuan, never run away again, I was so worried about you!” Wei WuXian scolded as he picked the toddler up off of Lan WangJi’s leg and settled the toddler on his hip with ease—the ease of a parent.
‟Wei Ying, who is this child?”
‟Oh! I gave birth to him!” Wei WuXian said cheerfully.
Lan WangJi’s heart stopped for a moment and then Wei WuXian was laughing again. ‟I’m kidding, A-Yuan is one of the Wen.”
His heart stopped for a whole new reason, Lan WangJi asked, ‟He was at—?”
Wei WuXian’s mirth disappeared. ‟Yes, yes he was along with other innocents.”
A silence settled between them of quiet contemplation and reflection, Lan WangJi whispered a prayer to the innocents lost at Qiongqi Pass. Wei WuXian perked up a bit, ‟What are you doing here, in Yiling?”
‟Night hunt.”
‟Oh! Are you coming from it or heading to it?” asked Wei WuXian.
‟I finished last night.”
‟That’s great!” Wei WuXian beamed. ‟Do you have time? We’ll take you to lunch! Won’t we A-Yuan? Can you say, ‘hi’ to my friend Lan Zhan?”
A-Yuan, who had his face buried in the crook of Wei WuXian’s neck, looked over at Lan WangJi and waved his hand. The crowd had been right, A-Yuan had the same nose as Lan WangJi—he could be their son, if he was in need of parents. He waved back and A-Yuan smiled—it was definitely Wei WuXian’s smile.
‟I have the time.”
Wei WuXian let the toddler slide down until he was standing on the ground then he grabbed the little hand and said, ‟All right, let’s go and have lunch!”
A-Yuan cheered, and Wei WuXian gave Lan WangJi a bright smile and a wink before he turned and led them off down the road to the restaurant. Lan WangJi walked behind them, his mind racing on how he should best convey that he wanted this life with Wei WuXian, parents, together.
A toy seller caught A-Yuan’s attention by waving around a grass butterfly. Lan WangJi watched as the child turned towards the seller and stopped walking. Wei WuXian dragged A-Yuan another step before he realised that the boy had stopped and he turned back to see why A-Yuan had stopped.
With an indulgent smile and a slight shake of the head Wei WuXian went over to the seller and squatted down so that he was on A-Yuan’s level. ‟Do you want one?”
‟Yeah,” murmured the boy.
‟Not today, A-Yuan, we need to get going now,” Wei WuXian replied and started to pull A-Yuan away.
The little boy looked like he was about to cry again. Lan WangJi stepped closer and said, ‟Why will you not purchase an item for him?”
“And why should I?” Wei WuXian asked curiously.
“You asked if he wanted an item. Was this not an indication of your intention to buy it for him?”
“Asking is asking, buying is buying. They’re two separate things,” Wei WuXian replied in a deliberate tone. “Why do I have to buy something just because I asked him about it?”
Lan WangJi didn’t know what to say to that. He looked at Wei WuXian and really saw him. Yes, he had been wearing black, his preferred colour, but now that he was looking he saw that Wei WuXian was dressed in the clothes of a poor farmer. It was in that moment that Lan WangJi realised that it might be an issue of money.
He bent down like he had seen Wei WuXian do and wrapped an arm around A-Yuan’s shoulders and then pointed with his other. “Which…do you want?”
The boy looked at Lan WangJi in confusion and Lan WangJi gestured to each toy and asked about them. The gesture seemed to scare the boy as he started to cry and wouldn’t answer. Lan WangJi was about to just hand the money to Wei WuXian and let him do the shopping when the seller moved the grass butterfly again and grabbed A-Yuan’s attention. As if the tears had never happened A-Yuan stopped crying. Lan WangJi bought two grass butterflies.
After the toys were bought they got to the restaurant without any further issues, the main room of the restaurant was crowded, so Wei WuXian asked for a room and once they were seated he said, ‟Order something, Lan Zhan.”
‟I do not know what is good here, you should order.”
‟The dishes are pretty big, if we each ordered a dish then we would have too much food left over. I’ll eat anything, you should choose a dish, and I’ll tell you if it’s a dish that they don’t do well or not, how about that?” Wei WuXian asked.
Lan WangJi gave in and took the menu and looked through it. He chose a dish that was vegetarian but also spicy, a sweet soup for A-Yuan and rice.
Wei WuXian looked at his choices and then grinned. “Dang, Lan Zhan. And here I thought you Gusu folk didn’t eat spicy food. The vegetables in this actually seem to cut some of the spice, so it won’t be as spicy as you would expect, is that all right?”
‟Mn,” Lan WangJi agreed. Then he called over the waiter and ordered their food. ‟Did you want anything to drink?”
‟I wouldn’t mind a bowl of alcohol, and I think they have that Meishan Walnut Drink here, you could order some for A-Yuan,” Wei WuXian replied.
With a glance through the menu again, Lan WangJi ordered a bit of wine, walnut drink, and a pot of tea.
Once the waiter had left, he looked down at A-Yuan to see him in his seat between the two adults, he was playing with the butterflies and having them profess their ‘like’ for each other. Wei WuXian was also watching the toddler; he shook his head and grinned up at Lan WangJi. ‟Kids, am I right? Where do they come up with these things?”
‟I do not know,” Lan WangJi admitted.
‟So! Tell me what has been going on? Anything interesting going on in Gusu? Or have you heard any other news from the other sects? No one comes to Yiling; we get no news here!”
‟I do a lot of night hunting, the war left behind many problems,” Lan WangJi said.
Wei WuXian nodded. ‟Do you just travel the Jianghu saving people and hunting things?”
‟Sometimes,” Lan WangJi admitted. ‟If I am in Cloud Recesses, then I will play Inquiry and then I will follow up on what I learn from the spirits.”
‟But wouldn’t that…” Wei WuXian began but then he trailed off and hummed in thought. Lan WangJi waited patiently for Wei WuXian to gather his thoughts. ‟Wouldn’t that just draw the spirit of Cloud Recesses or maybe Gusu? But you had a recent night hunt near Yiling, which is on the far side of Yunmeng from Gusu.”
Lan WangJi nodded it was a good, intelligent question. ‟My cultivation is at a level at which the spirits are unable to lie to me, and if they really want help they will be able to hear me over long distances and tell me their stories. However, the most recent night hunt, had been a request sent to Cloud Recesses from the old Wen Territory.”
There was another hum of thought from Wei WuXian, he then brightened. ‟I wonder if I could send a spirit to you with a message! Or maybe I could call on to you from the Burial Mounds, I can talk to them, we could pass secret messages to each other! We should test this, I don’t know what you should ask during Inquiry, if any of the spirits know me or something!”
‟We could try.”
Wei WuXian grinned. ‟You’ll have to ask every night and if it doesn’t work after a month you’ll have to come back!”
‟Mn,” Lan WangJi agreed.
The grin grew wider. ‟What about the rest of Gusu?”
Lan WangJi thought about it for a moment and then said, ‟We finished repairing all the damaged books in the library.”
‟Oh, good! I was worried that all the books had burned.”
‟My brother saved many of our more important books, other disciples had also been able to grab and hide books, and our Forbidden Section never burned.”
‟That’s good, but I could see how a lot of repairs might be needed,” Wei WuXian reasoned.
The tea came and Lan WangJi poured himself and Wei WuXian a cup and then hovered the pot over a third cup and looked at Wei WuXian questioningly. The other shook his head and A-Yuan didn’t even notice that he was being excluded. Once he took a sip of his own tea, Lan WangJi added, ‟We also waited to do book repairs until all the buildings had been repaired. Some of our disciples created a fire-proofing talisman, so there was a series of tests and modifications before it was ready.”
‟Clever, are they selling the design?”
‟I am unsure.”
A silence fell between them, filled with the mumblings of the toddler’s game. ‟How about outside of Gusu? Have you heard any news?” Wei WuXian said with a cough.
‟There is a marriage alliance between LanlingJin and YunmengJiang.”
‟My shijie and Jin ZiXuan?” asked Wei WuXian with another cough, but this time it was from his tea going down wrong.
‟Yes.”
‟When did that happen?”
‟In seven days,” Lan WangJi replied, though he had wished he hadn’t said anything to begin with because Wei WuXian looked so pale.
The food came then and they didn’t speak while the dish was placed down with the sweet soup, along with the bowl of wine and the walnut drink. Before the waiter could leave Lan WangJi asked them to bring the rice immediately. He turned back to the table and saw that Wei WuXian was getting A-Yuan ready to eat.
‟Come on A-Yuan, Lan Zhan got you a nice, sweet soup, and the rice will come soon, and look you have your own fancy drink! Hey! It kind of looks like milk!” Wei WuXian said as he helped A-Yuan put his butterflies to the side.
When everyone was settled, Wei WuXian added, ‟We should toast! To…”
‟To family,” Lan WangJi finished.
‟To family,” Wei WuXian agreed as he held up his bowl.
Lan WangJi repeated the sentiment and held up his teacup and then A-Yuan copied with a two-handed hold on his own glass. ‟To family!”
Wei WuXian tapped the bowl on the table and took sip, A-Yuan followed suit and tapped his glass on the table before he took his own sip.
‟So, are you going to the wedding?” Wei WuXian asked as the rice arrive. He stood up and scooped rice into three bowls and passed them around. He then scooped on spoonfuls of chili oil onto the rice. When he was finished he looked up at Lan WangJi and asked again, ‟So? Are you going to the wedding?”
“Food is taken in silence,” Lan WangJi replied curtly.
With a frown, Wei WuXian settled back in his seat in a pout and then reached forwards and grabbed some of the vegetables from the communal plate. A-Yuan pushed his bowl over and offered it to Wei WuXian like it was a great treasure. ‟It’s good, try!”
‟Food is taken— you should not talk while you eat, A-Yuan.” Lan WangJi said rewording his mandate when he saw the confused look on the toddler’s face.
‟Mn,” A-Yuan agreed and he pulled the soup back and began to eat it alongside the bowl of rice.
“This really is outrageous. I have to say something a dozen times before he listens to me, but he listens to you the moment you speak,” Wei WuXian complained. “How absolutely outrageous.”
“You as well; food is taken in silence,” Lan WangJi replied impassively but he could feel a twitch of a smile tug at the corner of his lip. By the brief sparkle in Wei WuXian’s eyes before he returned to eating his own food in a petulant pout, Wei WuXian knew that the smile had been there.
The three of them ate in silence. Wei WuXian and A-Yuan took seconds on rice, but Wei WuXian was eating slowly as if to punish Lan WangJi for the silence mandate and Wei WuXian’s second bowl came at A-Yuan’s third bowl.
A-Yuan reached for bowl of rice to get more. Lan WangJi put out a hand to stop the toddler. ‟You should not eat more than three bowls of rice.”
‟Lan Zhan, let him eat more, he rarely gets such a treat, don’t deny him,” Wei WuXian argued.
‟He will get an upset stomach if he eats too much,” Lan WangJi insisted.
They both looked over at the toddler and saw the tears welling in his big lychee eyes. A-Yuan looked at Wei WuXian and sniffled, ‟A-Die!”
‟Here, A-Yuan you can help me eat some of my rice, then you are not eating more than three bowls, you’re helping me to eat my second bowl,” Wei WuXian replied with a triumphant smile in Lan WangJi’s direction. He picked up his unused spoon and scooped up a bit of bright red, chili oil laden rice and held it out for A-Yuan to take a bite.
The toddler’s mouth went into a tight line and he shook his head.
‟Wei Ying, it is too spicy, he cannot eat that,” Lan WangJi reasoned.
‟Nonsense! Spice is delicious, he’ll love it!” Wei WuXian insisted.
‟Wei Ying, no.”
A-Yuan looked between the two and then looked at Lan WangJi with big watery eyes. ‟A-Die!”
Wei WuXian sputtered, Lan WangJi was sure he had a proud look on his face. ‟A-Yuan! You just can’t call us both A-Die!”
‟Popo, said only A-Die would be nice to me,” A-Yuan claimed.
With an exaggerated gasp, Wei WuXian put the bowl of rice on the table in front of the toddler and clutched at his chest. ‟Aren’t I nice to you?” He looked around and picked up A-Yuan’s half-drunk glass of walnut drink, that had been forgotten in the joy of drinking sweet soup broth. ‟Here look you still have the walnut drink; this is great for stopping spice. You can share my rice, eat your fill and if it is too spicy you can drink this!”
A-Yuan rolled his lips in and pressed them together in a tight line and shook his head.
‟Wei Ying, he does not want your spicy rice, it is too spicy,” Lan WangJi argued.
‟Come on, Lan Zhan, he won’t know if he likes it unless he tries!” Wei WuXian countered.
‟Wei Ying!”
‟Lan Zhan!”
‟A-Niang! A-Die!” A-Yuan interrupted the adults.
There was a beat of silence and then Wei WuXian burst out laughing. He held up the glass of white milky walnut drink and then waved at the grass butterflies, ‟I guess it is true what they say the mother has the milk and the father has the money!”
Lan WangJi’s lip twitched in amusement. ‟He does have your smile and my nose.”
The grin grew more and then Wei WuXian put the glass down and swept A-Yuan up is his arms in a giant hug. ‟I’ll be your A-Niang if you want me to be, we’ll just have to ask Popo.”
A-Yuan nodded. ‟Mn!” he then looked over at Lan WangJi and said, ‟A-Die?”
Lan WangJi looked at the boy and then over briefly at Wei WuXian before looking at the toddler again. ‟I would be honoured to be your A-Die, as long as Popo agrees.”
The toddler made grabby hands at Lan WangJi. He walked around the table thinking the toddler wanted to be held by him, but instead he was pulled into a hug with Wei WuXian and A-Yuan.