Awkward Turtle.

“you’re mis-remembering, Wuxian – Wangji took to you immediately”

After LWJ’s section, this might be obvious, but LXC has the right of it: Baby!LWJ was too shy/emotionally-constipated to properly show it, but he did take to WWX immediately.

In relation to WWX’s later comment that she wishes LXC would stop talking so much shit at her all the time: about 50% of the time he’s genuinely telling the truth but she doesn’t believe him (as in this case), about 25% of the time he’s valiantly wingmanning for his brother and so can’t give her a genuine answer (as with the cologne), and about 25% of the time he’s talking shit to mess with her because he thinks it’s funny (as with the blind boxes).

“Including even Uncle Lan, who unfailingly forwards her seasonal greeting content, as well as the occasional video about healthy living”

My fellow Asian diaspora children will know the kind; 1) those image files with festival-appropriate text+pictures that get “forwarded many times” on WhatsApp at new year, dragon boat festival, mid-autumn, winter solstice, etc. 2) those videos (and sometimes walls of text) about what you should/shouldn’t eat to benefit various organs or to stave off various health conditions.

Uncle Lan doesn’t just forward any old thing though, unlike my family. He curates all of his forwards very carefully.

"honestly a little offended at the implication that she’d naturally climb Lan Wangji like a tree given proximity and half a chance."

Actually LQR isn't so much worried about the risk of WWX climbing LWJ like a tree, as he is about the risk of his nephew (whom he knows much better, and specifically knows to be besotted) climbing her.

“Perhaps because his brother won’t stop mentioning it”

LWJ is indeed immune to his brother’s teasing about 我不嫁! since it happens all the time.

But he is defenceless against LQR who doesn’t typically talk about it, so is immediately taken out by the friendly fire at JYL’s wedding.

“Watching [LXC] smile up at his approaching wife”

I wanted so badly to include a reference to the fact that NMJ is still taller than LXC in this lifetime, but this was the best I could manage. ._.

“If he’s changed his mind, it’s his turn to propose to me.”/"I’ll make sure that he’s aware”

LXC absolutely makes LWJ aware, and it’s absolutely what’s driving the “marry me” (in addition to what’s mentioned in LWJ’s section).

“She absently wonders which branch of their social network it is that has the big fat mouth.”

LWJ. It’s LWJ.

LWJ’s glasses

The reason I gave modern LWJ glasses is because a friend once told me that “there are two types of (East) Asians in the world: the ones who wear glasses and the ones who are wearing contacts”. While that’s a slight exaggeration, after I finished the first draft, I realised that no one had glasses and couldn’t stand the statistical inaccuracy.

My headcanon is that NHS and JC wear contacts (NHS sometimes even wears coloured ones, which fuels NMJ’s complaints about her frivolity; JC started so that he could play sport in high school and never stopped), JFM and LQR wear glasses, and YZY wears reading glasses.

The story of the cologne (the main reason I am making this post)

LWJ and WWX are in their first year of uni, and they’re back in Jiufen on school break. They’re at a restaurant or something, and LWJ notices that WWX keeps turning to glance at the guy at the next table over and his heart sinks, because this has never happened before, “oh no oh no oh no”. And when the guy leaves, WWX’s head turns to watch him go, and LWJ is internally panicking but when she turns back, she sees him looking at her and smiles at him and is like “Don’t know if it was that guy’s cologne or his bodywash or what, but it smelled really good. Damn, should’ve asked him what it was.”

And LWJ is like PHEW.

So he goes home and it just happens that his brother needs to go grocery shopping, so he asks to tag along because he needs something from the pharmacy. So LXC finishes his grocery shopping, goes to Watsons to pick LWJ up and sees him in there, systematically smelling every single men’s product tester, and is like “...heeeyyy little brother, what’s going on?”

LWJ explains and is like “if I can’t find it here, I’ll go to the Shin Mitsukoshi perfume floor when uni starts again” LXC is like “ok, what about instead of that, we go and see my friend who’s a perfume atelier and see if we can reverse engineer the smell that you remember. Or custom-make you an even better smell?

So they go on their next shared day off, and the atelier friend is like “okay, I’m going to get you to smell a bunch of different things, you tell me what you like/want, and we’ll go from there”. And every time he asks LWJ for his opinion, LWJ is like “WWX likes—” “WWX doesn’t like—” “No, this is too strong, WWX would—”

And the atelier friend turns to LXC and is like “Wow, dude”. LXC is like “haha yeah, I know. But you see why he needs help, right?” And the friend is like “Boy, do I ever.” (“What is she like?” and LXC is like “Hm, difficult to describe. Girl next door, maybe? But a little bit unconventional”, and the atelier friend thinks to himself “Okay so it’s some sort of quirky manic pixie dreamgirl deal, all right. It’s like a 500 Days of Summer couple, quirky girl and strait-laced guy, guess I can see that.”)

So the atelier friend eventually puts something together, gives LWJ a tester and is like “you...try that for the week, and let me know. Sometimes you only know if you like a smell after you’ve worn it out” but he and LXC are both thinking “only know if you like a smell after you’ve worn it near WWX and she likes it”.

Anyway LWJ wears it the next time he sees WWX and she perceptibly blinks at him, and he catches her standing a bit closer to him than usual and leaning in sometimes when she thinks he’s not looking (because at the end of the day, it turns out that LWJ really does have a comprehensive understanding of her likes/dislikes, zhiji for the win), so he goes back to his brother like “Yes this one” and LXC is like lol omg.

And then when WWX comes to LXC and tells him she likes the smell, internally he’s like “LOL I KNOW YOU DO”, and when she asks him where she can get a bottle, he will obviously not do his brother dirty like that.

Anyway, fast-forward a few years, LXC calls his friend up like “Come down to the teahouse, my treat” and his friend is like “? What’s the occasion dude?” and he’s like “Our efforts have finally come to fruition, so it’s time to celebrate” and his friend is like “MY GOD! OKAY!”

And he comes down and they sit and have tea and snacks for a while, and the atelier friend watches LWJ wander around to serve tables (still wearing the same cologne) and is like “You know, I really wish I could meet this woman who managed to turn your serious little brother into...that.” and LXC is like “Why do you think I invited you here instead of out to dinner?” and his friend is like “OHO, I SEE.”

So then a while later, the staff near the door are like “Wuxian, hi!” and LWJ’s head automatically snaps around, and then WWX walks in the door in her off-the-shoulder Free-Palestine cropped tee and black cargo pants, metal-studded belt, blood red lipstick. She gives LWJ a little salute and he’s already halfway to reaching her, and the atelier friend is like “...damn. Can I say that she was not what I was expecting when you said ‘girl next door’ or like, judging from anything about your brother at all.” And LXC is like hahaha “yeah, my brother has depths.”

(When LXC introduces them, WWX is like “Atelier friend? THAT atelier friend? Dage, you’re a genius” and reaches out to shake his hand. “I love your work, you have no idea, don’t even know what’s in it, but it’s like Wangji’s cologne was tailor-made for my interests” and the atelier friend, internally, hysterically, is like “NO, YOU ARE THE ONE WHO HAS NO IDEA.”)

Xiao Ping Guo

The first month he started at Cloud Recesses, LWJ was so good to him that he won Xiao Ping Guo’s loyalty for life. Then one month in, LWJ was still kind, but suddenly got really sad, and proceeded to be sad for the next 6 months, so when XPG finds out that it’s because of a woman, he’s like “TO DO THIS TO SUCH A GOOD MAN – SHE’S DEFINITELY A BITCH” and has secretly hated WWX on LWJ’s behalf for 5.5 months now, even though he doesn’t even know her, or anything about what happened between them.

“Gifts for the man who has everything”

LWJ wears everything WWX gives him because she gave them to him. So he wears the 少爺t-shirt as pyjamas, and the 我這麼可愛，為什麼要上班？hoodie around the house.

He’ll use the mug, too, to drink hot water like a good Asian.

“splurged on Yanli-jiejie’s gift, as well as a separate gift for Jin Ling”

WWX buys gifts for JYL and JL, and nothing for JZX, as a deliberate snub. But JZX doesn’t notice the snub at all, and it infuriates her.

(JYL notices. In an “Oh, A-Xian. What am I going to do with you?” way.)

NHS’s meddling at dinner (and at the izakaya)

She doesn’t know exactly what’s gone wrong between WWX and LWJ (because neither of them will tell her, lol), but she knows that something has gone wrong, so she’s trying to fix it.

OnePiece/Luffy novelty condoms

I 100% made these up, so I don’t know if they actually exist, but it’d be a crime if they didn’t.

On the length of the sex scene(s)

I once read a fanfic with a sex scene that went on for so long that I got tired and started skimming, and then had to keep skimming, and it was like “HOW LONG CAN TWO PEOPLE KEEP HAVING ONE ROUND OF SEX” and then I eventually bombed out of reading the entire fic because I was so tired, and anyway, I learned something about myself that day because I never thought that would happen until it happened.

And then writing this, I had a bunch of key plot/characterisation/thematic points listed under each scene that I was aiming to hit, and I started writing and kept writing and it went on for so long that I got so tired and it was like “omg how can there be so many more points that I still need to cover”. So, as Michael Scott would say, OH HOW THE TURNTABLES, I have lived to become the villain :’)))))))

CHAPTER 1

This being Wei Ying’s story, the first chapter is entirely an introduction to her. I’ll let the text mostly speak for itself, but some additional thoughts:

She is, first and foremost, a very unreliable narrator when it comes to  herself.

Despite what she says, as a direct equivalent to “number 4 most eligible bachelor in the Jianghu”, she is actually considered to be a solid choice for a daughter-in-law (mostly because of how well she’s managed to hide all her quirks from the public eye). She also has more than one young male admirer because she is, in fact, an attractive lady The main thing working against her is the circumstances of her birth and the related lack of connections/assets.

Auntie Yu and Uncle Jiang have received a few overtures from interested parties already, but they’re still using the excuse of “Eldest daughter must be married out first” while they figure out the quality of offer they can settle for (which admittedly does include consideration of the potential benefits to the Jiang family).

Her embroidery is fine, if you ignore the fact that she’s constantly embroidering unconventional patterns: Jiang Cheng has most certainly received more than one troll hebao, and there have also been many an embroidered flower or cloud pattern that bears a suspicious resemblance to something outrageous (no penises because Wei Ying is a Proper and Good Girl and has never seen one until the bedroom books, but almost certainly an unflattering caricature of Jin Zixuan’s face, and the occasional rude Chinese character - always with plausible deniability, of course).

Broadmindedness is for women who have become disillusioned with the mortal coil. Which is to say: Nuns. She takes another bite of meat: I’m not sure if I was right in assuming that it was common knowledge that Buddhist nuns are vegetarian, but if I wasn’t - Wei Ying is definitely Making a Statement here. (And also making a secondary reference to the Chinese use of "vegetarian" to mean someone who is easily bullied/taken advantage of, which Wei Ying is most certainly not.)

Girls of the era were sometimes educated at home by private tutors, and were also often educated by their older brothers.

We know that Wei Ying had a private tutor (whom she shared with Nie Huaisang), but I also think Jiang Cheng would have had an influence on her too, despite technically being younger.

Being afforded a much more formal and comprehensive education (despite being perhaps less suited for it), he would have shared all of his books and learnings with Wei Ying, and that is why she so often references martial arts/military writings and ideas (much more so than the Jiang Yanli of this universe would, being older) - a reflection of Jiang Cheng’s interests and their relationship as more-or-less-same-age-peers within a gendered family hierarchy.

On Nie Huaisang and Nie Mingjue, it bears saying that their upbringing and situation in life here is just as unconventional as Wei Ying’s, if not more so.

Whereas in the earlier Tang Dynasty, women often openly ran their own businesses, Song Dynasty society had become more restrictive in relation to women’s freedoms, so that had become a much rarer occurrence.

My rationale for Nie Mingjue bucking the trend is that her mother was a capable woman with no tolerance for harem politics, and so ruled the Nie household with an iron fist. When her health begins to decline, instead of risking the wellbeing of her household and single di daughter on the goodwill of the next-ranked concubine, she simply starts passing responsibilities directly to Nie Mingjue, who proves capable enough that her father starts giving her business-related tasks as well.

By the time Madam Nie dies, Nie Mingjue is acting mistress of the house and there is no room to argue that any of the responsibilities should be taken from her.

Nie Mingjue being the only child in the entire household, her father also thinks it makes sense to involve her in the family business, and he starts preparing to find a man to ru zhui (入贅) marry into their family, thanks to the (universal?) principle that wealthy people can largely afford to do whatever they want.

Then Nie Huaisang is born and her concubine mother dies in childbirth. Nie Mingjue, having inherited her mother’s distaste for harem politics and distrust for her father’s concubines, simply takes Nie Huaisang into her own courtyard and sees to her upbringing herself.

And then their father dies, Lan Xichen takes the opportunity to propose marriage to Nie Mingjue (ostensibly as an elegant way to lend her a man’s countenance and legal authority to run her business, but the successive pregnancies speak for themselves), Nie Mingjue accepts and then decides that the new Nie family heir will be Nie Huaisang and there is no one around to stop her.

There’s definitely social disapproval (e.g. Madam Jin’s “I know she’s always done things differently” in Ch 3), but not enough to matter. Because wealthy people can afford to do whatever they want..

Enter Lan Zhan (in spirit):

Some of the original professions I considered for him were physician and herbalist, but the thought of doing period-accurate traditional Chinese medicine research ended that dream within 2.5 seconds.

In today’s terms I see him as demisexual, but in Song Dynasty mindset, there is no “sexuality”; there is “stuff that I like” and “stuff that I gotta do”. So he’s fully committed to making it work for the sake of his duty to the family, but also his responsibility to provide his wife with a decent quality of life. (And he is particularly sensitive to the latter, having witnessed his mother’s experience.)

While he'd initially hoped to follow in his Uncle's footsteps and stay single for life, now that marriage is unavoidable, his attitude towards it is very similar to Wei Ying’s, in being “That's life, we gotta make the best of it.”

He doesn’t fully appreciate the extent of the problem, but:

To-date, he has had very minimal interaction with any sort of same-age friend or peer.

His brother does most if not all of his emotional processing for him, mostly by talking him through his thoughts and feelings. This started as the very-Chinese “explain to your child after every situation how courtesy and social mores preserve everyone’s feelings and Face”, and just … never stopped. Probably because Lan Zhan didn’t have peer-interaction to do the rest of the emotional educating.

CHAPTER 2

Again, while Wei Ying speaks for herself, some general notes:

The grip of his hand in hers is strong, if a little damp. Which means that her husband is either nervous or also sweating a river in three layers of robes: He is not nervous, only dutiful. It is 100% due to the layers of robes and the hot, hot sun.

Red wedding banners … which are disappointingly standard, with nary a tea pun in sight: When their sons get married in the distant future, there are SO MANY tea puns.

Her groom, she notes, has wiped his hand at some point. Which means that he’s either a thoughtful man, or a fastidious one. Or a man who has thoughtful and fastidious servants: Lan Zhan is absolutely the thoughtful and fastidious one.

“Why does the groom look so grim?” someone asks from somewhere to her right. “Maybe he’s been forced into the marriage,” comes the answer: That is just Lan Zhan’s face, he bears no particular resentment towards the arrangement of the marriage. He trusts that his uncle has made the best decision possible under the circumstances and certainly he thinks that it’s better than either of the other options.

Lan Zhan has never had wine before, so despite knowing that the Lan family doesn’t drink, he doesn’t actually know why. This is part of the reason why he drinks the toast (the other part being the social pressure that Wei Ying successfully employs).

When they have children, there are some that inherit the Lan constitution, and others who can drink two whole cups before also succumbing to the Lan constitution. Wei Ying is very sad about this, but concedes that they do come by it honestly.

Lan Zhan’s wedding night thoughts:

Not sure if it A) was a real thing, B) is a modern-sensibilities thing (like many Cdrama leads being committed to one wife), or C) is a "Complying with TV Codes Thing", but I've seen/read quite a few stories now where the husband chooses not to push for wedding night consummation because his new wife will be scared, stressed, tired, etc. This means that the couple spends a bit of time co-sleeping and getting used to each other before doing anything. I see Lan Zhan starting out along those lines, and his consideration would have been much appreciated if his wife had been someone like Jiang Yanli. Unfortunately it is 100% wasted on Wei Ying.

So he walks into the room with the noblest of intentions, is confronted with the shock of Wei Ying, and PANICS:

First there are the Lan vs Jiang family cultural differences, i.e.

The "We Are Always Decorous" Lan family vs the "Decorum when in public, at-home manners very different" Jiang family

Lan "I will only very gently try to negotiate your boundaries" Xichen vs ...Jiang Cheng/Yanli/Auntie Yu/Uncle Jiang, who are personal-boundary-chaotics in very different ways

Second, in terms of Lan Zhan’s general social experience:

He has one (1) friend, who is his brother and who is very emotionally considerate.

He has not interacted with a woman in an intimate/domestic setting since the death of his mother (excluding servants, but that’s different). His experience with women is probably limited to the branch family aunties, and maybe daughters of their social circle who he sees for two seconds from across the room, when everyone is on their best behaviour, and they never speak.

He has never interacted with any person alive like Wei Ying in any setting. She called him PRETTY and TO HIS FACE, she chases people, she has contraband goods, she has POCKETS-

Third, there is the additional layer of shock provided by the expectations Lan Zhan had of what “a new wife” would be like, which Wei Ying is … not.

She was going to be a shy, retiring maiden (I think the “unkidnappable” fact just did not compute and he just mentally shelved it).

And unlike Wei Ying, who had the whole breadth of her human experience as “possible range for how much of a fucking weirdo my husband might be”, it never occurs to Lan Zhan to be curious about her because his image of his future wife is pretty much a dress wearing a face and it hasn’t really occurred to him that she might have any personality - or UNREPRESSED personality -  beyond her role and his obligations towards her.

He had this idea of how he was going to be a Dutiful Husband (making sure his wife doesn't go hungry on the wedding night, making sure that her maidenly sensibilities are respected in negotiating bedroom activities, making sure that she maintains a comfortable position in the household, making sure that she gets the dishes she likes to eat even if he doesn't eat them).

Then they were gonna treat each other "with the respect accorded to honoured guests" (another Ye Olde Chinese Thing), and eventually become a peaceful, comfortable couple.

Almost none of it is going in the way that he'd planned and he doesn't have a Plan B because he DIDN'T KNOW PEOPLE COULD BE LIKE THIS.

And now HIS MAIDENLY SENSIBILITIES ARE BEING OFFENDED-

In regards to Lan Zhan’s Filial Procreative Duty:

It's not that he's unaware of it, but there's not as much urgency for him. He doesn't need a son to solidify his position in the household, his own brother has two sons already so the line isn't in danger and he can always adopt the second nephew as his heir, he knows that WY is only 17 whereas the average age of marriage at the time (according to the english-language internet) was 18-20 for women.

He does intend to try for a child with her eventually (for her sake), but HE JUST REALLY WANTS TO START BY BEING FRIENDS FIRST (*/ω＼*)

CHAPTER 3

On Lan Zhan’s side:

It goes without saying that after Lan Zhan flees his bedroom on the morning after the wedding, he heads straight to his brother for his regular dose of emotional processing.

Lan Xichen spends the entire conversation highly amused and trying to keep it hidden under a suitably sympathetic expression.

And then he gently-but-firmly forces Lan Zhan to go home, which Lan Zhan does mutinously

Upon their arrival home, Lan Zhan only stops briefly in his study before heading straight back out on business (or, as Wei Ying half-suspects: “business”): It is most certainly “business”. Lan Zhan is finding any excuse to avoid her because he does not know how to deal with her and he’s a little bit afraid of her (and the danger she poses to his chastity).

Lan Zhan says nothing to Lan Qiren because it is all too mortifying.

Lan Qiren, who still seems to vaguely disapprove of her, despite being the one to agree to this marriage in the first place: While he hears no specifics, Lan Qiren’s propriety-related spidey-senses are tingling nevertheless, and so he starts to observe Wei Ying with extreme suspicion.

Lan Xichen also finds this highly amusing.

Hence Wei Ying noticing that “There’s something about the curve of his eyes that means he always looks mildly amused…Wei Ying is not sure whether this is how Lan Xichen presents generally, or if it is something specific to her.“

(It’s definitely specific to her. He thinks she’s great for his brother and therefore great in general)

Otherwise, Lan Zhan actually does like Wei Ying, despite all of the shocking things about her (He just doesn’t know that this is what he’s feeling, since he’s never felt this way before :’D).

Also maybe he’s used to the people he likes expressing their affection for him via some level of teasing (his mother, to a lesser level his brother).

Lan Zhan is watching Wei Ying as closely as she’s watching him (or even more so) - enough to know that she’s smart, and that there’s more to her than the incompetent wife image she’s projecting (which is why he’s not interfering … beyond a certain extent).

Other notes:

Wei Ying herself is so fully focused on the branch family aunties and how far she needs to escalate to get them to make a move that she probably hasn't given two thoughts to thing else. So there's almost certainly a parallel Mianmian POV to this story that's filled with constant nail-biting about what everyone else thinks of her mistress and the possibility of Wei Ying escalating so hard that they won't be able to fully reverse the damage afterwards.

Secret tunnel + secret storage room: Wei Ying absolutely finds 193847548495 future uses for these after this story is done.

Babymaking is 100% a genuinely high-key concern for Wei Ying, since producing Lan Zhan’s heir is how she secures lifetime economic/social/etc security for herself (that said it is not the MOST urgent issue at this stage, since she first needs to ensure that there is a safe environment to bring the baby into).

(I am high-key channelling "The Promotion Record of a Crown Princess" and "Greetings Ninth Uncle", here. Dowager is very much the life goal for All Women - when it's not Revenge - as far as my own shameful background in consuming Chinese historical romances is concerned.)

In terms of inheritance (keeping in mind that I am far from an expert, and my main source is a lot of historical Cdramas and Cnovels):

There was some amount of flexibility in when to formally split a family and therefore its shared resources:

If there are enough resources to support a split, then a patriarch dying is a good opportunity for brothers to go their own ways without any negative social implications.

If there's a big enough falling out between brothers or between fathers and sons, then it might happen even while Dad's still around.

If you're collectively funding a scholar to get into government and bring a valuable political connection to the family, then maybe you stay together even after Dad is gone.

And the division of property (including property in common) wasn't automatically an "eldest son takes all" situation either.

For the Lan brothers in this story:

The formal economic rational for them not splitting the business yet is that they need the business to fund a government career (Lan Qiren and Lan-papa were intending to maintain a similar arrangement before Lan-papa prematurely died)

But the actual reason is probably Lan brotherly love :'>

The branch families inherited other things, or maybe a different branch of the business when Great-grandpapa Lan died, but then they fucked it! and had to come crawling back to Lan-papa for a lifeline.

Wei Ying knows enough going in (from Nie Huaisang and general gossip) that whenever the brothers finally split (maybe after proxy-dad Lan Qiren dies), Lan Zhan is walking away with a handsome part of the business. Now that she's seen them in close quarters, she knows that Lan Xichen might even cede all of it, at the end of a soppy and embarrassing "no, you!"-"no, you!" fight between the brothers

Rivalled only by the parallel fight between the Nie sisters about whose kids inherit the restaurant empire, and then Nie Huaisang declares her intention to stay a spinster and adopt Nie Mingjue's second son as the Nie heir and then it's chaos.

Or maybe they can grow a tea empire and someone’s children can stay in Lin An and someone else’s children can go establish dominance over a different city.

CHAPTER 4

Lan Zhan’s side of things is coming through more clearly in the text now (I hope), but some notes nevertheless:

Then, she sends some to her husband’s study to serve him as a mid-afternoon snack, and to remind him of her continued existence: By this point, Lan Zhan has realised that he like-likes Wei Ying, so he’s very much aware of her continued existence already.

This gesture on her part seeds a hope that she might at least be receptive to his overtures, if she doesn’t yet feel the same way about him, and the pork-and-ginger-with-extra-ginger dumplings are him trying to take what he thinks is their courtship forward (“In thanks for the pastries … They were delicious.”).

Growing up with Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen and no other friends, it never occurs to him that Wei Ying might not be fluent in the Lan communication method of “indirect statements from which the audience correctly infers implied meanings”.

That the pastries turn out to be for a plot is a small bump in the road that is overcome by all of the “just for you” foods Wei Ying overcompensates with when he finds out.

“Do you…Never mind”: Lan Zhan would never say ‘DO U LIKE ME’, but this is him starting an overture that is (slightly) more direct and then not knowing how to continue and fleeing the scene.

Wei Ying modestly yields to her husband’s leadership, and that is why they spend the evening stopping in front of every opera singer, acrobat or other street performer who crosses their path: Young Master Lan Zhan conducting a thorough study on “what my wife likes”.

The direct consequence of this outing (as mentioned in Ch 5) that Wei Ying is Seen to have Lan Zhan’s esteem is also very much intentional on his part, because Lan Zhan is also thoughtful and efficient like that.

Other notes:

Since making lotus seed paste is a tedious, thankless task that normal families pay other people to do: My love-hate letter to lotus seed paste. I mostly know about the process for making it because I briefly considered making it myself during the first COVID lockdown. This desire lasted approximately 20 seconds into the first instructional youtube video I watched. But it is still delicious.

They pass yet another group of burly, scruffy men - all of whom are carrying an array of mismatched, chipped and obviously-scavenged weapons: foreshadowing for Wei Ying’s realisation in Ch 8, lol.

CHAPTER 5

Notes on Lan Xichen’s Moon-Viewing Party:

She can at least cow them into submission with Auntie Yu's beady-eyed stare: This is far from the only thing that Wei Ying has picked up from Auntie Yu. If anyone were ever to mention how like a real mother-and-daughter pair they can be sometimes, they would both be extremely appalled.

Lan Zhan has been watching Wei Ying since their arrival at his brother’s house to make sure that no one wrongs his wife (though with a credible amount of discretion, so no one else has picked up on anything beyond the boundaries of what is socially acceptable for a besotted husband). So while she has been busy noticing things going wrong, he has noticed her noticing things going wrong, and as soon as she starts taking action, he moves in to support her.

“Xiao Ping can go.” is the result of Lan Zhan finally finding an opportunity to step in after an extended period of patient waiting.

“Guanren,” she gasps in surprise: The possessive part of Lan Zhan (which is most of him) very much likes it when Wei Ying calls him that.

Lan Zhan discovers this night that he has a massive “bae helping other people” kink, and an equally massive competence kink.

At some point, Lan Zhan goes to his brother for advice on how to court his wife beyond his current “giving her things she likes” strategy, and receives the suggestion that maybe he should show her the things he’s good at too.

This births the “chrysanthemum wine + qin-playing” plan.

Continuing so late into the night that they fall asleep together is not an original part of this plan, but Wei Ying doesn’t seem upset by it and Lan Zhan is not one to retreat when he can advance, so it’s big wins all around.

Worth noting that while Lan Zhan does like his early bedtime in general, his particular insistence on xu shi (as noted by Wei Ying in re: “Her husband has revealed himself to be surprisingly fastidious about the strangest things as of late”) is not actually for health/moral habit reasons.

It also births the “Wei Ying [stumbling] across him in mid-song at an unusually high frequency” plan (which slightly predates the “chrysanthemum wine + qin-playing” plan).

And it is also why ultimate wingman Lan Xichen makes sure to mention poetry and Lan Zhan’s proficiency at it when he visits. It is very much not the only time he does something like this.

Other notes:

Which makes it even funnier that Lan Qiren so very obviously dislikes her: He does not, in fact, dislike her.

But he is experiencing trauma flashbacks from his interactions with Wei Ying’s mother back in ye day (/touches his beard protectively).

He is also burning with the passionate drive created by finally meeting a worthy challenge.

Every time one of his texts comes back annotated, he probably does the Tom-Hanks-Laptop meme of rubbing his hands and wiggling his fingers in preparation for writing his rebuttal. Except instead of "happy", his expression is "happily seething".

It bodes well for her ability to educate his nephew's children before they begin their formal education - if only he can get her to learn restraint and reform her character first!

So he is determined to succeed in fixing this one, this time! (He won’t).

Lan Xichen notices his uncle putting almost more energy into educating Wei Ying than his actual students and is highly amused.

Over time, Lan Qiren notices that verbally sparring with Wei Ying on various topics has improved the quality of his corresponding Academy lessons, and that he sometimes even discusses her takes on texts. This mildly infuriates him, especially when he receives expressions of admiration from students and parents for the depth of his scholarship and teaching.

Sometimes the result is that Lan Zhan gets a sudden and unexpected lecture on controlling/educating his wife and neither he nor Wei Ying can identify what she’s done to deserve it.

(Sometimes this is further complicated by the fact that she has committed too many potential affronts to pick just one.)

Uncoded notes have already been conclusively proven to be a terrible idea, and Wei Ying and Nie Huaisang do not already have an established code (Wei Ying cannot believe that they do not already have an established code; in reflection, it truly is an unforgivable oversight): They establish a code after everything in this story is finished, but they use it so infrequently that they keep forgetting it.

She would have loved to have used the opportunity to discuss Meng Yao instead, but when Wei Ying had mentioned her name, Nie Huaisang had simply hummed noncommittally and made no move to add anything further: Nie Huaisang’s initial reason for not involving Wei Ying in her own counterscheming against Meng Yao/Jin Guangshan is that Wei Ying has enough to deal with in re: the branch aunties and much fewer resources to draw on. This turns into “Wei Ying had better save her energy to focus on growing some emotional understanding of herself and her husband”, because that situation is dire. And then Meng Yao and Jin Guangshan escalate so far that it turns into “this is my personal grievance and requires my personal vengeance, and I will not risk having my bloodthirst restrained”.

Uncle Jiang had stopped him in the street and expressed his wife and daughter’s desire to see Wei Ying: A brief apology to Jiang Yanli who features very minimally in this story because while Wei Ying visits her a lot, she is also taking pains to stop her beloved sister from unnecessarily worrying about her by not mentioning anything serious at all and painting a very rosy picture of her married life where she “only has your run-of-the-mill teething problems, hardly worth talking about, except could you do me this one favour and send this wad of joss paper over to my residence in your name?”.

Jiang Yanli politely keeps up her end of the social fiction but is, in fact, still worrying. She deals with this by making and sending over a lot of nourishing food.

Wei Ying pulls the bundle out from a drawer and is struck by a sudden and completely uncharacteristic wave of self-doubt. This is odd and completely inexplicable - she’d been so confident in the quality of her gift only a shichen prior; she has no idea why she feels so nervous about it now: This is the point at which any other person might notice that their feelings for their husband run deeper than they’d previously thought (if they hadn’t already realised at many points before this), but Wei Ying is special. Lan Zhan, unfortunately, manages to pick up on the “any other person” part, but not the “Wei Ying is special” part.

There’s a sudden clatter, followed by Xiao Ping swearing and they startle apart: This is deliberate on Xiao Ping’s part. There are branch spies watching!

On Scheming Abilities:

Nie Mingjue, as the eldest di-daughter of a wealthy household who has only ever been second to her parents in terms of authority, has never needed to scheme in her life, and is used to dealing with everything straightforwardly. After she marries, Lan Xichen doesn’t have concubines and Nie Mingjue is too wealthy/powerful for the Lan relatives to otherwise interfere with her, so she never has to change (and is therefore completely unprepared for Meng Yao).

Similarly, Lan Xichen has zero scheming skills (although he will need to acquire some to survive in government, probably)

Lan Zhan has acquired more skills than his brother, by way of greater involvement in the family business and having to deal with the branch families. His involvement with Wei Ying, however, is fast teaching him that he is also very much a novice.

Nie Huaisang, a shu-daughter (although I never managed to explicitly say that anywhere in the text) and Wei Ying, a servant-born foster daughter, have acquired scheming skills due to the precariousness of those positions in life. These include:

Being targeted by and winning power games against people within the household

For Nie Huaisang, perhaps her father’s concubines or the servants loyal to them - either as a way to get to Nie Mingjue, or just directly.

For Wei Ying, maybe some of Madam Yu’s close maids feel aggrieved on their mistress’s behalf, maybe some of the servants resent Wei Ying for having a better position despite being equal to them in terms of birth.

Winning power games against people in their social circles who look down on them (Nie Huaisang for being a shu daughter, Wei Ying for being servant-born).

Needing to scheme their way out of feminine hooligan-related scrapes from their youth, of which there were many.

CHAPTER 6

Can’t find much to say about this chapter. Just that:

Treating Wei Ying to almost half a shichen of her own lecture on the importance of rewarding loyalty to old servants: Wei Ying remembers this with great clarity during the confrontation and associated fall-out (“Loyal people are difficult to come by; I would hate to deprive them of such a precious resource.”).

Miss Cang had been diligently using those accomplishments to slowly and subtly appeal to the similarly-accomplished Lan Zhan not one year ago: On the other hand, Lan Zhan could not pick her out of a lineup if his life depended on it. Wei Ying asks him after the first time she and Miss Cang have a run-in and receives a very genuine response of “???” “????????????” She chooses not to mention that to Miss Cang either.

CHAPTER 7

Lan Zhan received a bit of abuse in the comments of this chapter (:’D), which came as a bit of a surprise to me. I suppose I have the benefit of clearly plotting out my son’s perspective for my own understanding of the story, and Wei Ying’s perspective limits the ways in which his side of the story can be conveyed, so that’s what I’ll address.

Lan Zhan is not angry, his feelings are hurt.

He's invested 110% in this relationship and he'd thought Wei Ying felt the same until she hit him with the joke about divorce, and now it's like "she's built herself an exit strategy, is standing with one foot out the door and none of my feelings or actions-to-date have mattered enough to outweigh that".

For any Legend of Minglan viewers, the parallel with Gu Tingye’s “You’re leaving yourself an escape route!!” is very much intentional.

You can see a bit of this hinted at in Lan Zhan’s “You don’t even know”, which indicates that all of Wei Ying’s theories on what she has done are wrong.

While Lan Zhan is particularly sensitive about divorce for some understandable mother-related reasons (which means that there's an additional "how could she think that of me? does she know me at all?" in there), he has an additional contextual defence: most women would not joke about divorce, at least before the marital relationship is solid enough that everyone knows it’s obviously a joke.

Meanwhile, Wei Ying has thrown the joke out there on the back of some solid evidence that she has some real viable alternatives for supporting herself, so for all Lan Zhan knows, she might actually go.

Given his limited emotional-management tools, Lan Zhan is working it out in the best way he knows how:

Firstly going to see his brother

Secondly by hiding away and nursing his wounds while he awkwardly tries to process his feelings, calms down, takes stock of the situation and decides what he wants to do about it.

He can't actually come out and say "I'M UPSET BECAUSE YOU DON'T LOVE ME!", hence: making his brother promise not to tell her, and his brother agreeing because lol yes that's quite embarrassing.

So we can see in: “But her efforts are only met with her brother-in-law - while smiling in a way that seems as if he’s laughing at her even more than usual - simply telling her not to worry, and that his brother’s anger will doubtlessly burn itself out any day now“ that:

Firstly, the problem is something that Lan Xichen can be amused about. We’ve already mentioned the embarrassment factor, but beyond that, the nature of the problem is not that serious. Lan Zhan in the throes of heartbreak is melodramatically thinking “SHE DOESN’T LOVE ME”, but Lan Xichen is astute enough to suspect that Wei Ying is maybe a bit emotionally dense, and is probably not as unmoved as all that.

Secondly, Lan Xichen recognises that the problem is something that Lan Zhan needs space to work through himself, and that there’s nothing to be done on Wei Ying’s side.

Mianmian’s “refusal to tell Wei Ying” is explained in Ch 8, but it’s worth noting here that loyal maidservant Mianmian would never refuse to tell Wei Ying something important. What actually happens of course is that Mianmian keeps insisting that Lan Zhan is in love with Wei Ying, and Wei Ying keeps refusing to believe it and then she finally says “Fine! Don’t tell me then!” and Mianmian is like /o\

Susu genuinely doesn’t know though, lol. She’s a bit younger, not as emotionally mature.

Nie Mingjue also genuinely doesn’t know (Lan Xichen hasn’t told her because he knows she’d just call Lan Zhan an idiot to his face).

Nie Huaisang does know, but after hearing about Mianmian’s valiant attempts, she decides it would be better to take a more slowly-slowly angle and show Wei Ying how much Lan Zhan likes her instead. With mixed results.

Even given all the above, Lan Zhan is very much invested in protecting Wei Ying’s public standing and reputation:

We can see this in his insistence that she stays at home, so she doesn’t become a convenient target or sacrificial fall-guy  during the family proceedings.

Nie Mingjue further explains his fears in her conversation with Wei Ying about the Lan elders and their treatment of Lan Zhan’s mother vs herself.

We can also see it in “While he does not ignore her, precisely, Lan Zhan also never lingers in her company a moment longer than strict decorum would require”: Lan Zhan is still demonstrating to the servants and the public that, at the very least, her position as his wife should be respected and all related benefits afforded to her.

And of course he’s still sleeping in their bedroom.

Both the Lan brothers underestimate the emotional impact that this will have on Wei Ying, because neither of them has correctly understood how emotionally invested she is or how emotionally invested she realises she is. (In their defence: neither has she.)

This assumption is shored up by the way that she stays pretty upbeat and flippant, especially in the way she goes about trying to make amends. Not yet understanding her, they take this to mean that she’s feeling sorry and a little awkward, but otherwise is unaffected.

Lan Zhan’s points of realisation that he's hurt her are "Forgive me anyway - I can't bear it" and finding her curled up in bed. “I have an engagement” is true, but it is also him needing some space to process this new knowledge. At this point he:

half-caves to the decision that he'll just love her anyway and not give her any excuse to leave, and

half-comes to the realisation that actually, maybe Wei Ying really doesn't know about his feelings or her own, so he's going to need to recalibrate.

There were a few comments along the lines of “this could have been resolved through direct communication”, and while that’s true to some extent, I feel like direct communication in the context of relationships and feelings is a very modern-Western value that doesn’t necessarily have the same application here.

I do fully accept that despite its setting, this is a modern story, for a modern audience. But even so I think the non-modern setting and context (in addition to Lan Zhan’s particular personal situation) make it a little unfair to blame Lan Zhan for not starting a heart-to-heart outpouring of feelings. (Though of course this is my personal opinion.)

Even in my modern-but-still-Asian family, there’s a much stronger culture of being expected to read unspoken meaning from social situations, and in turn being able to expect that other people do the same. The cultural conflict is, as Jay Chou once sang in the song “Cliff of Love” (lololololol): You say that I am like a child, delighting in always leaving you guessing. I say that you’re the one who is like a child, always needing me to spell things out for you.

Semi-relatedly, I think there’s a “child of asian parents” meme about your parents apologising by bringing sliced fruit to you instead of saying anything with words. I have imputed this to Wei Ying and Lan Zhan.

In very general terms, I would also say that we as a Chinese family have a much weaker culture of “you did this thing that violates my boundaries, I will tell you and expect you to change your behaviour” and a much stronger culture of “you did this thing to violate my boundaries, I must manage myself so that unacceptable boundary violations do not happen in future”. I have on some level imputed this to Lan Zhan.

There is also a much stronger culture of avoiding things that are embarrassing (as the person who might be embarrassed, as the person who might cause someone else to be embarrassed, and as a bystander who might worsen the embarrassment by bearing witness). There’s a lot of “not mentioning and just moving past these things by unspoken agreement”. I have on some level imputed this to … everyone in this story. 

The entire story, but this sex scene in particular, have been my manifesto on My Beef with Historical CNovels (which I recognise is sometimes about censorship and not the authors’ artistic vision). In terms of the sex scene this includes, but is not limited to:

Only the dudes or top dudes being horny or up for it (or being the 80 in an 80/20 split in who is horny/up for it)!

The relative passivity of ladies/bottom dudes in bed!

JADE STICKS (didn’t manage to get a reference to CHERRY NIPPLES in, but THOSE TOO)!

Lack of preparation and the resultant pain!

The lady/bottom “not being able to get out of bed for 3 days afterwards”!

The fun relationship tension/dynamics disappearing after a pivotal point where the couple variously gets together/gets married/has sex!

CHAPTER 8

Without guidance from questions in the comments, some general notes:

“It matters not,” he murmurs when they break apart: This is Lan Zhan both recognising that Wei Ying is not mentally/emotionally ready to believe the actual answer, and also genuinely meaning that it doesn’t matter anymore.

It’s also probably quite obvious right now that this Lan Zhan knows he’s not very verbally demonstrative and so he compensates with physical affection instead.

This also means that he’s very cuddly with their children when they’re born, and 100% takes A-Yuan everywhere with him, including on business.

While Lan Zhan directs her from his place behind her, seated with his chest pressed flush against her back: Lan Zhan would have been one of those children who is independent and standoffish in public, but a total cuddlebug with his mum in private. And so in addition to the above, the result of being touch-starved for over a decade following his mother’s death means that he fuses himself to Wei Ying at every (private) opportunity. It’s not that he doesn’t touch her in public, but it’s all very hand-on-elbow proper and decorous - until the moment they cross into a place with any amount of privacy and then FWOOM.

Wei Ying has wondered more than once whether she might one day bully Lan Zhan into sitting in the circle of her arm, while she appreciates fine wine as the ancestors intended: It definitely happens, and takes minimal-to-none bullying.

If her friend is suspicious enough of Meng Yao to interfere in her sister’s household, limit Meng Yao’s access to Nie Mingjue and attack Meng Yao’s father, then why has she done nothing to Meng Yao herself?: Nie Huaisang started out leaving Meng Yao every opportunity to come clean about what Jin Guangshan wanted her to do. If Meng Yao had had a change of heart and done this at any point while her disruptions to the household were still minor, Nie Huaisang would have happily worked with her to get her due from the Jin family (and then relocated her to somewhere suitably removed from Lan Xichen). But then Meng Yao proves that she is willing to completely sell Nie Mingjue out for her own gain, and now Nie Huaisang is giving her enough rope to hang herself.

And so Wei Ying spends the latter part of the evening half-lying on Lan Zhan’s bare chest: This behaviour begins as the result of Wei Ying misunderstanding something she hears (probably from Uncle Jiang’s men) about post-nut clarity. But it is in Lan Zhan’s interests to encourage it, and it doesn’t actually impede the thought process, so it continues.

“I didn’t mean to,” Nie Huaisang says in a small voice, to no one in particular: Going to leave this open as to whether Nie Huaisang is telling the truth or not.

===

Two days, one diagnosis of shock-induced memory loss and some discreet enquiries (as well as some indiscreet enquiries) later, this is what he knows about his situation:

He’s the main consort (unfavoured) of the crown prince of whatever place he’s landed in;

Three days ago, following a disagreement with one Consort Yun (favoured, main competitor for husband’s affections);

In the course of this disagreement, both women somehow fell into a palace lake and mostly-drowned;

Consort Yun (admittedly quite pretty) was revived at the scene, but Wei Wuxian took a full day to “miraculously” recover;

Angered by the unseemly behaviour of her daughters-in-law, particularly upon learning that the Crown Princess’s first act upon waking was to stumble upon a chance meeting between the Crown Prince and Consort Yun in one of the pleasure gardens and bodily throw herself between them (a tactical error on Wei Wuxian’s part. He’d been trying to throw himself over the battlements to freedom, but he’d gotten lost and scaled the wrong wall), the Empress (Crown Prince’s political opponent, not particularly fond of either consort) grounded both of them to their respective residences for a month, with no visitors allowed.

Which brings him to his current position, feeding the fish in his personal pond as an excuse to be alone. Not truly alone - he shoots a pointed glance at the maids watching anxiously from the other side of the courtyard - because he’s apparently a “suicide risk” now (and honestly, yes, he’d meant to throw himself off that roof, but he hadn’t meant to die - it’s simply that this new body’s cultivation level is not what he’s come to expect even from Mo Xuanyu’s modest abilities), but alone enough to start planning his next move.

Direct escape is out - he didn’t have a plan for what to do once he’d gotten out anyway, and honestly he’s better-resourced for finding out how he got here in the Palace than anywhere else, so it’s no great loss.

“What do you think, Master Fish?” Wei Wuxian asks a gold and black spotted koi with particularly sage-looking whiskers. “Shall I just stay here for the time being?”

It’s not a terrible place to be for the time being, he must admit, throwing more food into the water and watching the fish swarm. Being grounded, he’s at no risk from the Crown Prince’s amorous attentions for a month (a salute of gratitude to the Empress for the inadvertent protection). And thanks to Consort Yun and her voluptuous figure (and if the Crown Prince is more partial to that than the Zhao Feiyan style of willowy fragility that Wei Wuxian seems to have inherited, who can honestly blame him?), he’s at no great risk from them after that, either (a salute of gratitude to the unknowing sister-in-arms, taking one - and hopefully a great many more after that - for the team).

According to his maid (sleeve-clutcher extraordinaire, who even now is boring two holes into his skull with her woeful gaze from across the way while he does nothing more suspicious than scatter another handful of feed towards some latercomer fish), the body he’s inhabiting comes from a powerful military lineage. In particular, her father is (was?) a powerful general who currently commands more than half the nation’s military forces and has the absolute trust of the Emperor. So that more or less keeps him safe from the machinations of the majority of the nest of vipers in this palatial cesspit.

That just leaves the Empress, who - if his servants and the smuggled letters from the Original Goods’s mother (a salute of gratitude to the worthy woman for spelling it out so that even such an interloper as he can understand) are anything to go by - would definitely kill him to damage the Crown Prince’s political standing or throw any sort of roadblock in the way of him from becoming Emperor.

Less immediately - if his secret informants are anything to go by (a salute of gratitude to the resourceful host for cultivating such a valuable resource if not her dantian) - it also leaves the Crown Prince, who, upon cementing his power as Emperor, would also definitely kill his current Crown Princess in order to wedge his beloved Consort Yun into the Empress role.

Really, the only road to any sort of security for someone in his position is to raise the next Imperial heir, outlive the Original Goods’s faithless husband and become the Empress Dowager.

Hopefully Wei Wuxian will be long gone by then, but if leaving means the Original Goods will return (from … Mo Xuanyu’s body? The Ether? Or???) - well, he doesn’t want to repay her hospitality by leaving her house in a mess, so to speak. So he’ll try to set her on that career path, if he can.

But that’s an aspirational goal. First, he has to not-die before he can find out how to get himself home.

And find out how to get himself home.

If getting himself home is even possible.

Wei Wuxian dumps the rest of the fish food in the water and yells.

(It startles the maids, the fish and the poor eunuch the Crown Prince has sent as a spy into falling out of the tree he’s been hiding in and into the prickly bushes below.)

===

The problem with “staying for the time being” is … well, how interminably boring it is. The approved list of hobbies for an Imperial consort seems to consist of: eating (but not too much), sleeping (but not too much), embroidery (which he can’t do), reading (but only texts on female virtue and the occasional terrible novel), playing music (but not the flute), conversing with his maids (who are very sweet, but are all like, 12) and walking in the gardens (which he’s not allowed to do).

Honestly, it’s no wonder all the consorts turn to scheming and murder.

It only takes a week of confinement for him to snap and sneak himself out for a nighttime adventure, setting off to explore the grounds and see … a night-blooming flower, a ghost, a rat, he’ll take pretty much anything at this point.

In the end, he finds none of these things, but the walking is still pretty nice, and he even hears the faint sounds of a guqin wafting over from one of the other consorts’ residences. (He should probably learn who lives where at some point, but it’s not exactly a priority. What’s he going to do with the information when he can only visit during the nighttime? Peep?) When Wei Wuxian wanders closer, the notes resolve themselves into the familiar strains of Flowing Waters, and his breath catches on a sudden surge of longing to hear the same song, played by a different set of fingers.

(First played on a familiar guqin and then, later, accompanied by soft humming between soft, worn sheets, played across the edges of Wei Wuxian’s ribs, along the dip of his spine, and finally lower, into--)

((Is Lan Zhan thinking about him?))

(((Is Lan Zhan looking for him?)))

Stumbling blindly on, he’s so caught up in missing Lan Zhan that he misses the first few stanzas of the next piece, and it isn’t until the music starts to rise in a familiar refrain that he freezes.

He knows that song.

He’s one of the only two people who know that song, which is in fact how he got caught out the last time he found himself in a farce of an identity charade, by the only other person who knows that song, who must be - who must be -

Lan Zhan, his blood sings in his ears as he takes off in a dead run towards the source of the playing. Up ahead of him, small courtyard glows softly with the light of the only burning lamp in their vicinity. Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan-

He scrambles up the wall with the ease of a lifetime’s practice, using bloody-minded determination to make up for the lack of muscle memory.

“Lan Zhan,” he yelps, forgetting to whisper in his excitement as he flings himself over the top and into the branches of a convenient, wall-side tree. “Lan Zhan, it’s me, I-”

This is, naturally, when his foot slips. He manages to catch hold of a branch, but his tender hands and puny wrists, unused to holding up anything heavier than a chicken leg, fail to maintain their hold through his weight, and he tumbles down the trunk into a sad puddle of fabric on the ground.

“Lan Zhan,” he gasps, fighting to untangle himself from the ridiculous train that, admittedly, made a considerable contribution to cushioning his fall. He clambers up onto his hands and knees--

--and looks straight into the wide-eyed stare of Consort Yun.

===

“I cannot believe,” Wei Wuxian growls, palming the ample softness of one exposed breast with one hand, while shoving the other deeper into the many (too many) layers of fabric between them and between Lan Zhan’s splayed legs, “that after everything that’s happened, you’re still taller than me.”

Lan Zhan huffs a laugh that turns quickly into a moan, and Wei Wuxian swallows it, smothers Lan Zhan’s gasping breaths with his own parted lips and sucks them greedily down even as he coaxes out more with twisting fingers here, another tug to Lan Zhan’s poor, abused nipple there.

He slides his fingers back between slick folds and then upwards again, pushing in and out in a few languid strokes before curling them to make Lan Zhan arch harder against the wall behind him, tilt his head back and expose a beautifully vulnerable stretch of neck to Wei Wuxian's teeth.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan murmurs, and his voice is different, the shape of his lips is different, but the way Wei Wuxian’s name fits inside his mouth (tender, beloved), the way he tucks the flyaway strands of hair behind Wei Wuxian’s ear, the look in his eyes when their gazes meet (warm, open, knowing) are the same, same, same.

===

===

I am entirely too lazy to write the rest of it, but afterwards they regroup and it turns out LWJ has been in this world for exactly one more day than WWX, having woken up in Consort Yun’s body when she was “revived”. Consort Yun is the daughter of a high-ranking Minister in the Treasury or something, so Lan Zhan been using his new position as the daughter of a ~scholarly family~ to build a reputation for being really into Buddhist scripture, and eventually he’s going to request to be allowed to go to a nearby Temple to attain some virtuous brownie points for the Imperial family via prayer as his penitence.

That there’s also an elderly monk living there who’s got a reputation for being super good with the divine mysteries and spiritual lore about curses and whatnot is totally immaterial, if Lan Zhan happens to run into that guy, it’ll be a total coincidence, yeah.

So WWX also starts on the divine penitence route, and if everyone thinks it’s because the Crown Princess refuses to be outdone by Consort Yun, then even better, and two weeks into confinement they wear the Empress down into letting them make the trip, and when they get there, turns out the monk is Nie Huaisang.

(NHS: “OH THANK GOD, I’ve done the research but the lynchpin of this mess is definitely somewhere in the Palace and I could not for the life of me figure out a way to get in.”

WWX: “That's nice, but seriously, how come you got to stay a man?”

NHS: “My friend, I may be a man, but my balls are currently swinging somewhere around my ankles.”

WWX: “...show me.”

And LWJ is like “NO.” except WWX can tell by the look in his eye that he sort of wants to see, too).

So they return to the Palace and WWX whirls into one of their morning audiences with the Empress, distraught about a ~dream from the ancestors~ where they warned him about disrupted ley lines or accumulated resentment or an offended minor god that needs investigation by someone, and “How convenient, because we met just the guy!” And the Empress looks like she was Done Five Years Ago, but the Empress Dowager, who’s old and doddery, is like “oh no, you must bring him!” and the Empress mutters “to fucking what, offend some major gods and really do the job properly?” and that’s how they find out the Empress is Jiang Cheng.

In the meantime, the confinement edict expires and WWX+LWJ are allowed to return to their regular programming, which means that as the legal wife, WWX can continuously summon LWJ to his residence for increasingly tenuous and spurious reasons. The best thing is, it’s not even out of character for the Crown Princess, who used to regularly summon Consort Yun to subject her to not-so-veiled barbs and petty torments. So WWX summons LWJ, and then immediately expels both their entourages from the room, instructing that no one is to enter on pain of death.

So LWJ’s maids are gnashing their teeth helplessly while all sorts of piteous moans, pained gasps and the occasional scream emanate from behind the closed door, and when their mistress finally emerges there are no marks on her body, but she’s weak-kneed and having trouble walking straight, so who knows what kind of terrible tortures the Crown Princess has visited upon her.

The Crown Prince obviously hears about this, so he bursts in one day without warning, only to find the two sitting together, the Crown princess’s arms around Consort Yun’s waist, her cheek pillowed on one heaving bosom, and although she’s smiling besottedly at him now, he could have sworn that he felt killing intent being directed at him only a second ago? And to tell the truth, he’s not really in love Consort Yun either, it’s all an act to keep the two consorts (and their families) pitted in a power struggle against each other until he can finally outmanoeuvre the Empress and cement his position as heir to the throne (and also to protect his actual favourite, a third consort who’s a nondescript nobody with no political backing). So the fact that “It was all a misunderstanding, we’re friends now,” his Crown Princess says sweetly (and did she … rub her cheek against his Consort’s chest? Must be his imagination) is not the worst thing (at least neither of them/their families can be enlisted by the Empress in support of her son, and if they’re caught up with Being Besties, then at least they’re not bullying his actual favourite), but for some reason he still feels kind of … threatened? Like someone’s making moves on his wife, which is absurd because they’re both his wives, but the vibes he gets from the first one in particular are kind of … off?

“Not restless,” Wei Wuxian doesn’t need magic to do that, “I just want to … encourage them to feel certain things. Or have certain states of mind.”

He slings a dart at the door and sighs when it only barely makes it into the target’s outermost boundary.

“You mean,” Nie Huaisang begins slowly, “like that time with Professor Lan and your shitty flute playing in third year?”

“Well, yes,” Wuxian allows, because technically that is what happened, “but also no. I’m also thinking more through the actual music than the quality thereof. And ... I’m also possibly not looking to induce rage?”

His second dart lands closer to the centre, but not by much. A paper bird embedded into the next section over starts to shake its butt at him in a smug victory dance.

Rude.

“So instead,” Nie Huaisang prompts gently, “you’re looking to induce…?”

“...arousal?” Wei Wuxian offers hopefully.

There’s a moment of silence, which is eventually broken by the slide of Nie Huaisang’s fan as he flicks it open.

“Why?” he asks finally, doing a remarkable job of keeping the judgment out of his face.

“The pursuit of knowledge is a worthwhile goal in and of itself,” Wei Wuxian supplies in his loftiest impression of Lan Qiren’s lecture-voice.

Nie Huaisang simply looks at him.

“And maybe in this case, the knowledge might have some personal application, too,” Wei Wuxian admits, and is met with a second moment of silence.

“I truly don’t know if Lan Wangji deserves my condolences or congratulations,” Nie Huaisang says eventually, and shakes his head.

“Why not both?” Wei Wuxian shrugs.

-

“It comes down to a question of whether lust is fundamentally physical or spiritual, doesn’t it?” Lan Xichen muses between stirs. “Could you pass me the three-legged crow feathers, please? They’re in the box on the - no, the one next to - yes, that one, thank you.”

He takes the dish from Wei Wuxian, scatters the feathers evenly across the bubbling surface of whatever potion he’s brewing and immediately takes a step back, drawing Wei Wuxian along by the elbow. A second later, the feathers begin to spark, whizzing around in jerky figure-eights before finally sinking into the pale liquid with a soft hiss and a few wisps of white smoke.

“Now where were we?” Lan Xichen asks himself, picking up his wooden ladle to resume his gentle stirring. “Oh yes, that’s right. Requiem acts on the metaphysical component of the being - the mind and soul, if you will. We know that because of its effectiveness on ghosts, who possess no physical component at all. Therefore, it follows that if lust is purely - or, otherwise necessarily - physical, then Requiem will not be a useful basis for what you’re trying to achieve.”

“Right,” Wei Wuxian says, nodding slowly. “And that’s not even considering that the physical and mental components of lust might vary in comparative size from person to person...”

Lan Xichen hums in agreement and opens a box of yao grass, carefully selecting a sprig and then slipping off the small cord binding it together.

“We’ll just have to test it, then,” Wei Wuxian decides firmly.

To Lan Xichen’s credit, his hand, outstretched as it is over the mouth of the cauldron, only pauses for the briefest of moments before his fingers uncurl to allow the yao grass to fall in.

“I look forward to your findings,” he says serenely.

-

“Get out,” Lan Qiren says.

“But-” Wei Wuxian protests, because he has an entire speech prepared to explain why, as the Theory of Magic teacher, Lan Qiren should be absolutely be interested in this project.

“OUT,” Lan Qiren thunders.

Wei Wuxian gets.

-

“Can ghosts even … release?” Nie Huaisang wonders from his perch on the edge of the water, on one of his rare visit to the Gusu Academy. 

With both classes and Nie Huaisang’s official business finished for the day, the afternoon presents a perfect opportunity for Wei Wuxian to indulge in nostalgia for their schooling days. And so, as soon as lunch is over, he drags Nie Huaisang and Wen Ning out the door and into a romp all over the grounds to marvel at all the things that have changed, as well as all the things that haven’t.

Somehow they’ve ended up at the cold springs, the scene of many a student tryst (tragically, not a single one of them involving Wei Wuxian), and countless youthful fantasies.

None of which the three of them are calling to mind, sitting as they are with their pant legs rolled up to their knees so that they can soak their feet (or, in Wen Ning’s case, hold their feet above the water in a good approximation thereof) like the old men they are.

It’s not quite like the old days (the absence of a familiar, derisive snort; of the loud words that are almost sharp enough to hide the fondness thrumming beneath them like heartbeats under breastbone, is too pronounced for that), but in the miracle of After, it’s more than Wei Wuxian thought he’d be able to have.

(It’s enough.)

“Let’s say lust is metaphysical enough for your reverse-Requiem to work,” Nie Huaisang continues, “and then you play it for a spirit, and get them worked up. What do they ... do with that? Can ghosts-”

He makes an unmistakeable jerking gesture with his hand.

Wei Wuxian frowns. He hadn’t considered that.

And then, with an eerie synchronisation that Wei Wuxian can only attribute to the seven formative years they spent living in each other’s pockets, they turn as one to look at Wen Ning, who lets out an alarmed squeak.

“Does it matter?” Wei Wuxian asks, deciding to take pity on Wen Ning and refrain from pursuing that line of inquiry, 

“Well,” Nie Huaisang answers, turning to him with a significant wide-eyed glance, “think about it this way: if you were a resentful spirit, and someone played a song for you that made you build up all this lust that had nowhere to go … wouldn’t you become more resentful?”

Wen Ning squeaks again, his eyes like black saucers in his pale face.

“Hm,” Wei Wuxian says, pausing to consider this most excellent point.

“Actually, wait” Nie Huaisang says after a moment. “There’s at least one outlet that I’ve just thought of-”

“Possession,” Wei Wuxian supplies immediately.

“Right?” Nie Huaisang exclaims, waving his fan excitedly. “Can you imagine, a horny, possessed horde-”

“-charging around the countryside” Wei Wuxian continues, grinning with mixed horror and delight, “humping everything in its path-”

(They spend the next hour casting bubble-head charms on themselves and taking turns to swim to the bottom of the cold spring so that they can promise Wen Ning that no, they certainly won’t be asking him to help them test any of this, and they won’t be testing anywhere near him, either, Wei Wuxian will make sure that all testing happens far, far away, so can he please come back out now, the students would be sad if he stayed hiding inside the pool forever-)

-

“WHY ARE YOU SO EMBARRASSING?” Jin Ling yells, not letting the fact that he’s currently upside-down and hanging from the ceiling get in the way of his outrage.

“Students who break into my office to poke around my things have no right to complain about what they find,” Wei Wuxian replies calmly, leaning back in his chair so that he can look up at the two bodies suspended in mid-air and wriggling fruitlessly against the confines of their bindings. 

“IT WAS A DARE,” Jin Ling shouts defensively, starting to swing back and forth from the force of his own righteousness.

“I wouldn’t be so proud of that if I were you,” Lan Jingyi mutters under his breath.

“Oh?” Wei Wuxian inquires politely, leaning forward so that he can rest his elbows on his desk and pointedly steeple his fingers at his miscreant students. 

“A dare to look through my notes?”

“No,” Jin Ling shoots back hotly, before subsiding into a muttered, “I just looked at those because they were there. AND,” he resumes, remembering his earlier indignation, “when I did,” it turned out to be all - all -”

What the boys have managed to find are actually all Wei Wuxian’s half-sketched plans of ways to surpass (or just match, Wei Wuxian would be more than happy with even approximately matching) Lan Zhan’s patently unmatchable love confession. 

(Ten years of waiting and the first thing out of his mouth when he sees Wei Wuxian’s face again is “Wei Ying, I love you.”

What was the first thing that came out of Wei Wuxian’s mouth after seeing Lan Zhan’s face again?

“Ho ho ho, you think your puny barrier charm is gonna make me sleep in this box when I could be sleeping in your bed? Well think again!”

It really doesn’t compare.)

So far, each one has ended in a frustrated jumble of scribbled-out lines and some variation on WHAT WAS I THINKING? THIS DOESN’T EVEN COME CLOSE, but he’ll get there eventually.

“-all-” Jin Ling continues to splutter, “plans to - to have your way with Professor Lan!”

Wei Wuxian hums in agreement. What a charmingly missish turn of phrase - Jiang Cheng’s fingerprints are all over the boy’s upbringing.

“Everyone’s always talking about all the things you invented during the War,” Jin Ling continues to rage, unaware that his intended audience is only half-listening, “talking about how you were the best mind of your generation - The best mind, and THIS IS WHAT YOU’RE WASTING IT ON?”

“Can you stop?” Lan Jingyi hisses. “If you make him angry, he’ll never let us go!”

He jerks his hip in a clear attempt to nudge his fellow prisoner. Unfortunately for him, he uses too much force and overshoots the mark, excess momentum instead sending them both spiralling around each other as the charmed ropes holding them up begin to rapidly intertwine.

“What else would I use it on?” Wei Wuxian asks, watching with badly-concealed amusement as the boys’ efforts to stop spinning only make them spin faster. “I don’t know about you, but I certainly can’t think of anything more important than getting into Lan Zhan’s-”

“SHAMELESS!” Jin Ling howls as he and Lan Jingyi begin to spin in the opposite direction.

“STOP YELLING!” Lan Jingyi yells.

“You wouldn’t have seen it, because I haven’t written it down yet,” Wei Wuxian continues mercilessly over the top of the resultant shouting match. “But if the song doesn’t work, there’s this part-human creature in Europe that does an apparently irresistible seduction dance. It shouldn’t take me too long to learn it-”

Jin Ling’s answering bellow of rage, Wei Wuxian notes fondly, is almost an exact copy of Jiang Cheng’s.

-

“So what’s this actually about?” Nie Huaisang asks during their next mirror-call, after Wei Wuxian plays another three notes that create a curl of something in his belly that could maybe be mild interest (or could maybe be just gas).

“What do you mean, ‘actually’?” Wei Wuxian asks reflexively, picking up his brush and carefully crossing yet another failed stanza off his list. “It’s about what it’s about - expanding my foreplay repertoire so that Lan Zhan doesn’t get bored and leave me for Mianmian.”

“You said it wasn’t about inciting rage,” Nie Huaisang continues thoughtfully, completely ignoring him. “So what else would you need to draw out of people?”

He tilts his face up towards the ceiling and purses his lips.

“It wouldn’t be happiness - we’ve already got charms for that - sadness? But why would you-”

Nie Huaisang freezes, and then slowly, carefully, brings his eyes back down to meet Wei Wuxian’s.

Theirs is a generation that grew up in war. Who among them doesn’t have unresolved grief? Who doesn’t have emotions they’ve repressed (trauma, resentment, guilt) - at first because there wasn’t the time or energy between the fighting and the surviving to properly work through them, and then afterwards because it just seemed easier to move on and try to forget?

(How many ghosts are unable to move on because they cannot resolve worldly attachments that they’re too afraid to remember?)

Nie Huaisang clears his throat.

“Why don’t you play me that last one again?” he suggests lightly. “I think you inverted one of the chords wrong. After we fix that, maybe it’ll work better.”

-

“Oh good, you’re back,” Wei Wuxian says when he steps into the Jingshi to find Lan Zhan already waiting. “Shall we-”

“Am I not passionate enough for you?” Lan Zhan cuts in, apropos of nothing. His voice is mild, but there’s a glint in his eyes that puts Wei Wuxian on immediate alert.

(And Little Wei Wuxian on immediate alert too, but that’s basically a given when Lan Zhan is involved.)

“...no? What makes you think that?” Wei Wuxian asks carefully, and Lan Zhan mutely lifts up a very familiar, half-finished composition.

Ah.

“I can explain,” Wei Wuxian offers quickly, holding his arms out between them and automatically stepping backwards in response to Lan Zhan’s very forceful (and very long!) step forwards.

“I have very valid reasons,” he adds, continuing to scramble back as Lan Zhan continues to advance, until he finds himself pinned between a rock and Lan Zhan’s hard, manly chest, “none of which are in any way a challenge to the strength of your ardour-”

He has just enough time for a half-laugh, half-yelp as he’s picked up and thrown onto the bed, and then all further protests are put on hold while Lan Zhan proves, aggressively and comprehensively, that he’s more than passionate enough.

-

With Lan Zhan’s musical expertise involved, the deconstruction of Requiem into its core magical components goes a lot more smoothly, and much more quickly.

The “testing” of Wei Wuxian’s derivative composition also becomes a lot more fun, if a lot less reliable in terms of producing valid results.

In the end, Wei Wuxian is only a little disappointed that they don’t manage to get an aphrodisiac song out of it.*

-

In the second year after his return, Yiling Patriarch Wei Wuxian developed the song Release, which has since been adapted for a wide range of therapeutic applications, including use in treatments for anxiety, depression, stress and trauma. 

With assistance from noted symphonimagus Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian deconstructed the then-established Requiem and, by applying its foundational magical principles in reverse, was able to create a song that, when played, encouraged the controlled expression of emotion under the player’s guidance. 

Unfortunately, his notes and experimental logs have since been lost.

-excerpt from the Annals of the Cloud Recesses

-

*

“Oh no,” she replies, hurrying to make up for the awkwardness of her overly-long pause. She even tries for a reassuring laugh. “There’s nothing wrong. Would you like an almond cookie?” 

She holds them out to him. 

“They’re fresh - I made them last night.”

Jin Zixuan blinks down at the plate that’s suddenly being thrust before him. Then he nods cautiously and takes one with murmured thanks.

He takes a bite and  his eyebrows rise with the surprise of someone who doesn’t think they like sweets.

“S’good,” he mumbles around his mouthful and Yanli’s smile is genuine this time.

“Xichen likes them too,” she says, feeling the small bloom of warmth that always accompanies the sight of someone enjoying her cooking, “so I-”

"A-Jie!"

Wuxian's easy grin travels rapidly up the corridor towards them and Yanli can’t help but return it. 

“A-Xian,” she replies, and while her greeting is milder than Wuxian’s exuberant one, she is by no means less happy to see him. 

She feels bad about being relieved for the interruption, because Jin Zixuan has been perfectly nice to her - not only during today’s conversation, but during every interaction they’ve had for a while now. But although she’s accepted his apology and doesn’t like to think of herself as someone who places too much importance on her own pride - well, she likes to believe that anyone would have difficulty feeling at ease with a man who’s called them “neither attractive nor interesting enough to be worth his time”.

(And also “too stupid to be offended by his comments”, but Wuxian had punched him in the face for that, so she feels like the ample cause for awkwardness on both sides might cancel each other out.)

She sees the exact moment when Wuxian recognises her companion from the way his mouth pulls sideways into a slight sneer, which only deepens as he approaches the meeting room door and-

“Ugh, are those roses?” 

Wuxian wrinkles his nose and sticks his head into the doorway, completely ignoring Jin Zixuan.

(Half of Yanli feels like she should say something about how rude he’s being, but the other, more pragmatic half feels like she should be grateful he hasn’t done something ruder, like punch Jin Zixuan in the face, so in the end, she chooses to leave it.)

Wuxian must recognise her drink bottle and handbag, because he turns around wearing an incredulous expression and says, “A-Jie, did someone leave those for you? God, what a douche.”

“A-Xian!” she exclaims, because she will reprimand him for being rude about this, even if the person who left the flowers isn’t here to hear it. “It was a very nice gesture, and lovely of them to be thinking of me.”

“You hate roses,” he points out, completely unapologetically. “And more importantly, you’re allergic to them! Look, your eyes are already red! Whoever it was clearly hasn’t thought about you at all!”

“I don’t hate them,” she protests, more for form than anything. “But - oh, are they really?”

She suppresses the impulse to touch her face - if her eyes are red, rubbing them will only make it worse.

“I don’t think it was malicious,” she adds, taking a few steps back in the vague hope that it might reduce her exposure somehow, even though the damage has already been done. Jin Zixuan steps forward to stand between her and the open doorway, which is a nice, if completely futile, gesture. “They could be from someone who doesn’t know me very well.”

“Then that’s even douchier,” Wuxian tells her, shaking his head emphatically.  “Look at the size of that monster - that’s not a casual acquaintance bouquet, that’s a Sorry I cheated on you number of roses!”

Yanli can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of her and Wuxian grins, looking pleased.

“In any case,” she says firmly, struggling to regain her lost gravitas, “you-”

“UGH, ARE THOSE ROSES?”, her other little brother yells, appearing from around the corner with a pinched expression more suited to someone who’s smelled rotting meat than flowers. 

“Yeah, someone left them for A-Jie,” Wuxian shouts back.

“But you hate roses,” Jiang Cheng says at a more moderate volume when he reaches them, looking so offended on her behalf that Yanli has to bite her lip against another inappropriate laugh.

“Right?” Wuxian says, giving her a meaningful look. “A-Jie, close your eyes and hold your breath for a moment. I’m going to take care of these - Jiang Cheng, you come in and open all the windows to air the room out after I’ve gone.”

“What are you going to do with them?” Yanli asks, closing her eyes and holding her breath as requested. 

“Bin them!” Wuxian yells, running past with enough speed that it makes her hair flutter slightly.

“Don’t do that!” she calls after him, shocked into opening her eyes again. “At least leave them for the ladies’ group meeting at 7 - they can each take some home!”

Still running, Wuxian lifts a hand in acknowledgment, before turning the corner and disappearing.

Every so often, when another one of his romantic overtures has soared right over Wei Wuxian’s head, Lan Wangji considers Jin Zixuan’s over-the-top demonstrations of affection and thinks (bleakly) “...Jin Zixuan got a singing telegram. Must I also resort to a singing telegram? ; _ ; “

In re: the concert hip-hop number, shirtlessness is the goal all along:

A-Qing (who is also a troublemaker on Lan Qiren’s radar - as soon as he receives the form that says that she and Wei Wuxian will be working together, his spidey senses start tingling) has been constantly referencing it throughout all their practices like: 

“Well, because you’ll be shirtless, you’ll have to make sure to-”

“Yeah, that’s a great idea, totally do that, but remember that you’ll be shirtless too, so-”

Even Song Zichen and Xue Yang know about it and have been visibly bracing themselves for the dress (or undress, lul) rehearsal

Wei Wuxian has missed all of this because of his amazing tunnel vision.

Speaking of Song Zichen and Xue Yang, while they’re having their Moments:

Xiao Xingchen is swanning around like “But do you think the performance had artistic integrity? A-Qing, I’m a little worried that the choreography didn’t do full justice to the abilities of all our members! I hope they don’t think I’m hogging the limelight!”, taunting them with his half-nakedness while he earnestly tries to make sure that all the other dancers are comfortable and happy with the final arrangement

A-Qing fully notices the heart-eye beams shooting over from the wings (and fully notices the same heart-eye beams shooting over during various practices), briefly thinks about saying something to put the two losers out of their misery (because Xiao Xingchen is not the special level of oblivious that Wei Wuxian is), but then thinks ... nah.

During practice back-painting, Wei Wuxian is so focused on Not Looking that his mistimes his ~sexy stretch~ and gets it in precisely when Lan Wangji has turned his back to get the towel, so it really is all for nothing, RIP.

In the reprise back-painting session (and there definitely is one, what with Lan Wangji’s love for marking and the fact that Chinese calligraphers usually sign their name on their work), the levels of both shamelessness and trolling shoot through the roof on both sides:

Wei Wuxian suddenly feels the need to do a lot more whimpering and moaning, and his flinches of “surprise” and wriggling to “get comfortable” suddenly happen a lot more in the hip area than they did before.

Lan Wangji does a lot more touching of the skin he’s about to paint to “warn” Wei Wuxian that the brush is coming (do warnings have to be quite so ... lingering? Only Lan Wangji knows), discovers a sudden need for wrist-pinning to “hold Wei Wuxian still while he works” and his blowing on ink to get it dry suddenly gets a lot more ... sensual ...

Lan Wangji is the teacher that all his babies are always proposing to. They lOvE him with every inch of their tiny baby hearts, and after they get together, Wei Wuxian watches on with a knowing nod, like “My fam, I getcha. Gege will support you in expressing your feelings and we can ALL win!”

Wei Wuxian doesn’t know it, but he has a group of grannies and grandpas wringing their hands over his happiness, too: It’s all well and good that he’s seeing the Lan boy now, but when are they gonna get married, huh? HUH?! WHAT’S THE POINT OF SAVING THE PLANET IF YOU’RE NOT GONNA FILL IT WITH BABIES, WEI WUXIAN???

So once they officially start dating, Wei Wuxian steps into the Cultural Centre like “Ah, our fresh new romance! Even after all this time of fake-dating, I’d better give people some transition time to get used to this new state of affairs!”

And in the background, 73 aunties and grannies are thinking “Look how behind schedule you are, Wei Wuxian!” (because it’s definitely his fault, and not Lan Wangji’s). “Where are the babies? WHERE ARE THE BABIES??”

The wedding advice Wei Wuxian got from the grannies during Mianmian’s wedding prep is liberally flavoured with real life anecdotes like:

“Don’t be like XX’s son. He made the mistake of trying to skimp on the dowry - so disrespectful to people who’ve poured so much love and energy into raising a daughter - and it poisoned the entire relationship.”

“That venue is no good - YY’s daughter had her reception there, and we all had diarrhoea after eating the prawns.”

(And Wei Wuxian is like: “How can you retain all of this bullshit detail about every wedding the Cultural Society has ever witnessed, but still not know how to say the phrase ‘Excuse me, what time is the bus coming’ in English?!”)

Mianmian definitely also gets strong-armed by her excited mother into some glorious(ly terrible) Chinese-style studio wedding photos (with industrial-strength airbrushing and wedding costume changes that span many cultures and many Chinese time periods).

Mianmian swears to never let Wei Wuxian get his grubby hands on that album, on pain of death.

But then her parents host something, and Wei Wuxian goes, and right there, hanging in their living room, is a floor-to-ceiling calendar, featuring Mianmian and Mian-man dressed as Chinese emperor and empress (because Mianmian certainly didn’t want it in her house, but it came with the package.)

Wei Wuxian makes a noise that Mianmian previously thought only dolphins could produce, and proceeds to take SO MANY photos with his phone.

At some point after Mianmian’s wedding, Lan Wangji comes out of the shower to find:

1 pair of pyjama bottoms waiting for him on the bed; and

Wei Wuxian in the corresponding top (which doesn’t cover his butt after all, but whatever, he’s committed), shooting him a double-thumbs up and wearing an expression like 8D!

(And Lan Wangji decides it’s not worth fighting and just goes with it.)

Lan Qiren

Lan Qiren is totally the kind of parent who never boasts about his children directly, but will listen politely to you telling him about how your son scored 86 in his maths examination, and wait for you to obligation-ask about his kids before casually saying, “Oh, Wangji? He scored full marks” and smiling thinly.

He’ll add “Sounds like your son worked really hard” for extra fuck you value if you were being particularly obnoxious.

The greatest tragedy in his parenting life is realising that if your children are The Best, it’s only possible for them to marry down.

His initial feelings regarding Wei Wuxian dating his nephew can probably be summed up as: “Wei Wuxian, I did not lovingly raise my precious Lan Wangji just to give him to you!!!” 

(The problem is that his nephew (inexplicably) likes Wei Wuxian so much, mumblegrumble.)

For weeks after The Resentment of Lan Qiren, every time Lan Qiren sees Wen Ning, he shakes his head sadly to himself and mutters “What a shame, what a shame.”

When Wen Ning responds with a slightly panicked “?!”, Lan Qiren just pats him on the shoulder, like, “No, no, it’s not you. We can’t choose our relatives. And isn’t that the greatest shame in the world?” - and then DOESN’T EXPLAIN ANYTHING.

And after many bouts of thinking and rethinking still lead him to the conclusion that Wei Wuxian is the best choice in comparison to all the other available options, Lan Qiren may or may not visit Cangse Sanren’s grave to burn some incense for an excuse to stand there and offer a sullen, “You fukken got me again, you bastard. I can’t believe you.”

He doesn’t know who he hates more:

Wei Wuxian for being himself and yet still the best choice

Cangse Sanren for not letting being dead stop her from continuing to be a thorn in Lan Qiren’s side

Wen Ruohan for being undesirable enough to disqualify the only valid competitor

The other parents for failing to produce children who are better than Wei Wuxian 

(Like: Surely it can’t be that hard if he (+ his brother + his sister-in law) managed to produce two)

So he settles for hating everyone.

For his next birthday, Lan Xichen sends him a box of blood-pressure-lowering supplements.

Lan Qiren is like “!!!” but he still takes them because just because his nephew is being impudent does not mean there is not also a Need.

In re 3zun:

Lan Qiren goes around determinedly Not Thinking about Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao. Every time his eyes approach something he doesn’t want to see, he just turns his head like NOPE.

He eventually realises that he and Wei Wuxian have this in common and that Wei Wuxian is therefore his most valuable ally - both in terms of having someone to pivot to and have very loud, very enthusiastic conversations about anything else whenever the 3zun do something they don’t want to see, and also having someone to commiserate with about Not Wanting to Know. (But because they’re them, they alternate between teaming up for self-preservation and using their mutual weakness to take petty jabs at each other.)

"-If two of them are dating, then where does that leave the third one?!"

"RIGHT? Imagine finding out that they were silently pining away, forced to third-wheel for their unrequited love and best friend - unrequited LOVES AND BEST FRIENDS? What would you say to that?!"

"That's not even considering which one the third wheel would be - I honestly don't know which option would be the worst, they're all terrible."

"I'm almost ready to say that I'd rather they all be dating each other, except then I'd have to think about how that would work, dynamic-wise, like - who calls the shots? Do you think Nie Mingjue is domineering all the time, or do you think it’s a public front, and he then goes home to be dominated by-"

“STOP.”

Even before 3zun get together (both Lan Qiren and Wei Wuxian have chosen to Never Know when this is), Jin Guangyao is throwing out suggestive comments left and right and then immediately whipping out his (◔◡◔✿) face for anyone’s double-take:

50% to test the waters of public sentiment before he makes a move and it actually becomes his problem

50% because he’s a troll who likes dominance displays

Knowing this factoid, one of Wei Wuxian’s mental 3zun Dynamics possibilities features Superdom!Jin Guangyao, but he does his best to avoid thinking about that.

After Lan Qiren mentally accepts Wei Wuxian into the fold:

He still internally responds to at least 50% of the things that Wei Wuxian does with “Why, that little shit”, but it’s also implied that Wei Wuxian is their little shit now.

And for Lan Family! Qiren, this means: If you shit on him, WE shit on you.

“Shufu” 

Lan Qiren definitely Notices when Wei Wuxian calls him that, but it Doesn’t Do to make a fuss.

He probably has a conversation with Lan Xichen sometime around the first family dinner that goes:

LQR: You've noticed that he's still calling me 'Uncle Qiren' like we're nothing to each other.

LXC: ...If you want him to call you Shufu, should you perhaps not mention that to him?

LQR: What? No, he should already know these things!

And then after the wedding:

LQR: Your brother's boyfriend is finally acting like one of the family. LXC: Haha, oh my.

Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan

Although their mothers have been friends for ages, Jin Zixuan grows up in a different city, so they don't see each other growing up. The Jins later move for Jin Zixuan's high-flying corporate job, Madam Jin joins the Culture Society at her friend's behest and immediately falls in love with Jiang Yanli as a daughter-in-law. 

After a lot of cajoling (in both directions), she gets them to agree to one date, which is a disaster (I have more headcanons about this but they won't fit in here) 

Jin Zixuan has a lot of money and zero sense of proportion, which does not generally result in tasteful things. (Where Jiang Yanli is concerned, his desire to keep up a "cool" image is completely overpowered by his desire to please, so that doesn't help either. Like a golden retriever who wants people to think he's a cat.) 

After they get married, Wei Wuxian sometimes thinks about the peacock's peacocking rituals, like: "It's good that he's gotten more reasonable now that they're married - no, wait, what if he hasn't gotten more reasonable, but there's just no one around to see it because they're married?!" and never gets brave enough to ask his sister about it. 

After Jin Ling's birth, Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng (and maybe even Jin Zixuan) get locked in an ongoing battle for Jin Ling's affections. Jiang Yanli is the clear favourite, as she should be, but they all want to be #2, and their constant jostling is how he ends up with no chill despite being raised by one calm mum and one aloof (but secretly disaster) dad

But because Jiang Yanli is around, he's very polite about it: the kind of kid who barrels in screaming blue murder, skids to a halt and says "Auntie", and then tears out screaming blue murder again

Wei Wuxian tones it down a lot after he and Lan Wangji adopt A-Yuan because he’s got better things to do, but it’s still A Thing (during visits, A-Yuan spends a lot of time in Auntie Yanli’s lap being gently fed things while his dad and shushu yell at each other over the top of his cousin’s head)

Lan Xichen and Jiang Yanli

Initially brought together by their brothers, they now meet up for regular, peaceful, wholesome tea-dates where they discuss the lives of their mutuals and gently exchange advice (and strategies on how to keep their angry-angry parent/proxy-parent's blood pressure down.

Whereas Jiang Cheng gets closer to coughing up blood with every year that passes by without Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji getting their shit together, Lan Xichen and Jiang Yanli take the more optimistic view of "Look at how well-prepared we are, we've just run another year ahead of schedule!"

Dinner Crew

Jiang Cheng has been the unwilling audience to years of Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji’s bullshit. 

If asked, he would say: “And you wonder why I’m so angry?! What do you mean ‘dating’, you’ve been fucking married for the last five years!” but no one ever does :’D

Every so often, he thinks about how happy their sister is about the dating situation because she doesn’t know that it’s fake, and he grinds his teeth because why can’t he also not-know!?

To this, Nie Huaisang says, “If we didn’t know we couldn’t help!”

And Jiang Cheng replies, “WE’RE NOT HELPING ANYWAY, LOOK AT HIM!!!”

Meanwhile, Jiang Yanli continues to gush about how happy she is for Wei Wuxian and all Jiang Cheng can do is laugh really unnaturally because he has to “Be strong, Jiang Cheng! Be strong for A-jie! ╥﹏╥”

He goes to read the comments on the Society Facebook after the fujoshi conversation, and gets so angry at all these people who are like “Ah, their love is so beautiful!” that he has to uninstall his Facebook app, and go and shout into a cupboard somewhere.

The non-Wei-Wuxian members of the dinner group have set up a separate chat to act as a support group, where they all go to:

Wail and gnash their teeth after Wei Wuxian does something particularly dumb

Scheme ways into getting Wei Wuxian to get a clue

Console one another when someone’s brave attempt at getting Wei Wuxian to face the truth fails miserably (because while they play by the rules of ‘what a normal human would do’, Wei Wuxian lives by the principle of ‘lol norms are for losers’.)

Relatedly: for every resigned Nie Huaisang face or enraged Jiang Cheng face that Wei Wuxian notices, there are at least three desperate-yet-silent exchanges that he doesn’t. 

Wen Ning is always really optimistic about it, nodding encouragingly like “He’s gonna get it - he’s gonna get it! - oh no, he’s not gonna get it. Oh. Oh no. Ó╭╮Ò”

Wen Ning always has at least one small child hanging off him at all times when he’s at the Cultural Centre because they know he can always be bullied into playing with them and they think he’s great.

Past bullshit dinner group projects have included Getting Jiang Cheng a Date and Making a Picture out of Jin Guangyao’s Forehead Dot While He’s Sleeping

(In re the forehead dot, they end up settling for making it bigger every time he nods off during a movie night at Nie Huaisang’s house, and Nie Mingjue comes home to what’s basically a Japanese flag on Jin Guangyao’s forehead and is like ಠ_ಠ)

Future dinner group projects include providing Wei Wuxian with support for Grand Plans like Getting Along with Uncle Qiren and providing Jiang Cheng with unwanted support for things like Workshopping Jiang Cheng’s List of Partner Requirements

A-Yuan

After A-Yuan’s adoption, Wei Wuxian and Lan Qiren redouble their efforts in Can we divorce an in-law?! because although they couldn’t save themselves from being related to Jin Guangyao, for their PRECIOUS BOY--

Therefore, when A-Yuan is five or six and starts to sound out how he’s related to people and why:

A-Yuan: So if Jin-yeye is Uncle Guangyao’s dad, then that makes him my-

Wei Wuxian: NOTHING!

Lan Qiren (springing up from the other side of the room): NOTHING!

Lan Xichen: lol

At around about this same time, Wei Wuxian, who is never gonna stop trolling Lan Qiren about ruzhui until the day he dies, runs A-Yuan through the “You see, my son, my family is not so well-to-do, and since your Uncle married into the Nie family-” talk, and then proceeds to reference it at every opportunity:

1: Despite A-Yuan almost certainly not asking, and

2: despite (/especially because of) Lan Qiren shouting “DON’T TEACH HIM WEIRD THINGS!” in the background.

Things that happen during fic #1

Once in Gusu, Wei Wuxian’s plan is to recover from the curse and then go back to have it out with Jin Guangyao.

His initial reason for not doing a “surprise!” reveal to Lan Wangji is that he’s not actually clear on what LWJ’s opinion of him as Yiling Patriarch is - i.e. what if it gets him turned in to the Ministry, the tender mercies of Jin Guangyao and a Wizengamot that’s Jin-controlled and/or already decided that Wei Wuxian is guilty?

(Lan Wangji blames himself for this: “a boy who would not accept his help because Lan Zhan failed to clearly tell him what he was offering.”)

His reasons for still not doing a “surprise!” reveal to Lan Wangji after 1) spending time with him, 2) spending time with the WWX-shaped hole in his life and 3) finally Getting It are that:

He also Gets that everyone and their dog (lul) already Get That, too

Jin Guangyao knows Wei Wuxian is at large, which therefore makes Lan Wangji suspect numero uno on the list of People Who Would Hide Wei Wuxian

(Wei Wuxian is proven 100% in the right regarding this when Jin Guangyao comes knocking for control over the Academy and Lan Wangji acts in precisely the way he does)

If Wei Wuxian is caught, he can at least keep Lan Wangji safe if Veritaserum shows that he actually knew nothing

He does, however, secretly change back at least twice to:

Talk to Lan Wangji while he’s asleep;

Break out of Lan Wangji’s rooms to go roaming around the school.

As soon as Wei Wuxian is recovered, he goes off to fight Jin Guangyao on his turf (before Jin Guangyao can come back to Gusu and try again). 

Unfortunately, this coincides precisely with Jin Guangyao coming back to Gusu and trying again - they out-manoeuvre each other and each ends up at the other’s base.

Wei Wuxian is the first one to realise what’s happened and rushes back.

Being unconscious, Lan Wangji misses out on:

Nie Huaisang bringing out his vast stores of proof in re: the Jin machinations behind his brother’s death (and incidentally, his discovery of Wei Wuxian)

Jin Guangyao being bound and arrested by non-corrupt Aurors in front of Lan Xichen, the previously-Imperius-ed Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang, the retrieved-from-hiding teachers/students/Lan elders

Wei Wuxian taking advantage of this audience to be like “Now all of Gusu knows you’re evil!”

Wei Wuxian being proven to therefore be not (that) evil after all.

Especially given that the larger part of the jury is now from the generation who had their youth consumed by/were greatly changed by the War, and who mostly agree that the Jins shitting on the innocent Wens was kind of gross anyway (as represented by Lan Xichen).

Things that happen after fic #1

Wei Wuxian falls into teaching because:

During his ten years of being trapped, he invented some really neat magical things

Nothing better to do

Don’t want to leave Lan Wangji just yet (or: lol just try prying yourself out of the deathgrip Lan Wangji is using to metaphorically clutch you to his manly chest, I dare you)

Or rather, he hangs around because of the above, and then Lan Wangji helps him to demo something in class, and he’s like “Sure!”. And then Lan Xichen sees this and is like “hey can you help me demo something too”, and he’s like “Sure!” and -

(And then after this goes on a while, Lan Qiren is like “IF YOU’RE GONNA HANG AROUND AND EAT OUR FOOD YOU MAY AS WELL EARN YOUR KEEP” and also “WE MAY AS WELL PUT YOU ON PAYROLL TO AVOID EMPLOYMENT LAW VIOLATIONS AND ALSO FOR TAX PURPOSES”.)

Wei Wuxian totally enters his first class as a rabbit, and sits on the desk, nodding to each student as they come in. And then when everyone’s present, he stands on his hind legs like he’s going to teach as a rabbit, too, just to see what the students will do.

(If Jin Ling is in that class, the answer is: riot)

Lan Wangji is the kind of Professor who’s consistently a hard-arse because:

He wants to push you, as a student, to reach your full potential; and

He wants you, as a student, to have clear/consistent expectations to work and grow within.

On the other hand, Wei Wuxian is the kind of Professor who’s like “Everything is lalala” during term, and then suddenly the exam is diabolical, made up of 70% lateral-thinking/problem-solving and only 30% of things you actually studied because “That’s real life, kids.”

Now that Lan Wangji knows he’s the rabbit, Wei Wuxian uses his powers to do really dumbshit things like

Perve on Lan Wangji in the shower (Lan Wangji looks down, sees a little black nose under the cubicle door and is like “...”)

Perve on Lan Wangji while he’s changing in their room (Lan Wangji pulls off his shirt, sees a little black nose peeking out from under the bed, is like “...” and drops the shirt straight onto the rabbit’s head)

Upskirt Lan Wangji through his robes (Lan Xichen sees a little black shape running behind his brother in the halls, constantly darting forward to peek under the hem of his flowing robe and is like “...”)

Other things

When Lan Sizhui is five or six or something, he enters a stage of ultimate Lan-Wangji-hero-worship, where he dresses like his dad and follows him around, doing everything he does. So:

Lan Wangji sweeps down the school hallway, one arm in front and one arm behind (in true Chinese Gentleman Style), and a tiny Lan Sizhui follows behind, running slightly to keep up but also holding the same arm in front and the same arm behind.

Lan Wangji stops to look up at the moon, Lan Sizhui also stops to look up at the moon. Lan Wangji nods at students/his brother/a fellow teacher/his uncle, and tiny Lan Sizhui does the same, all the while darting little upwards glances at Lan Wangji to make sure he’s doing it right.

The students/Lan Xichen/teachers/Lan Qiren think this is adorable (”The Little Professor has graced me with his approval ;A;!”), so no one says anything in case Lan Sizhui gets self-conscious and stops.

And then before he knows it, Lan Sizhui has picked up all the things as habits and welp, this is who he is now.

In re: Wen Ning:

All the years Wei Wuxian is gone, with it being common knowledge that the Wen clan was completely wiped out in the War, Wen Ning thinks he’s alone and mostly wanders the Wizarding world by himself (not daring to go anywhere too populous in case he alarms people, but helping anyone he stumbles across if they’re in need - without being seen, if he can manage it).

Then Wei Wuxian comes back, and with him is Sizhui, and Wen Ning thinks, “Oh, I’m not alone! I have one family member and one friend!”

But actually, all the Gusu students have already adopted him, so he has an entire school of family, he just doesn’t know it yet.

One afternoon the students catch him playing two-man Quidditch with Wei Wuxian as goalie, and are like “!!! Why didn’t we think of that?!” so now Wen Ning plays in all the casual games, and the students fight over who gets to have them on their team.

In re: Mianmian: 

Mianmian spends the years following the War as a wandering cursebreaker, disarming all the nasty magical mines/traps/offensive spells that now litter the country, helping magical folk who don’t have enough skill/expertise to deal with the problems themselves, as well as any hapless muggles who get unwittingly caught.

She probably meets her husband when she saves him from something.

She becomes a teacher after Lan Xichen finds out about her exploits and invites her to come back.

When her muggle husband comes to visit her workplace, he’s like “So this is where you grew up. Wow.” and he’s not even amazed by the magic, it’s that he picked the same day that Jiang Cheng came to visit Jin ling, so a rabbit shoots down the hallway and up Lan Wangji’s robes, a dog goes chasing after it, a shouting purple man goes charging after that (firing spells and yelling for Wei Wuxian to “COME BACK HERE!”), while being half-held back by a ... ghost? and it’s total bedlam.

"You're not going to praise me?" Wei Ying asks archly, head still on Lan Zhan’s torso, though the rest of his body is now sprawled across Lan Zhan's legs. He crawls forward, shoulders further rucking up Lan Zhan's robe as he goes, to rest his chin on Lan Zhan's chest.

The challenging light in his eyes is belied by the laugh in his voice when he adds, "Do you know how many times I practised that to make sure I wouldn't accidentally shred your clothes or land on your face?"

Lan Zhan can imagine. Wei Ying’s focus, when he chooses to apply it, is formidable, and while he usually dedicates it to things like developing new defensive arrays or honing the precision of his spellwork (at the expense of staff meetings and Sect Leader Jiang’s Howlers), his willingness to spend equal amounts of time and energy on finding new ways to surprise and delight Lan Zhan is humbling.

Lan Zhan doesn’t need elaborate ploys, would be surprised and delighted enough by Wei Ying simply waking him with a kiss on the cheek, but he recognises these moments - and the work that Wei Ying puts into creating them - for the gifts that they are. It hasn’t been so long that he’s forgotten the wartime years of stealing too-brief, too-few snatches of warmth (a light brush of fingers, the tug of a ribbon, smiles exchanged across a low dining table laden with just-short-of-enough food) to hold in his heart and sustain him through the days of blood and fear. 

He looks back on that time and the period directly after it - the ten years spent subsisting on a handful of memories and a hope born of desperation - and is unspeakably grateful to have the luxury of Wei Ying here with him now. 

“You’ve worked hard,” Lan Zhan says obligingly, carding his fingers through Wei Ying’s short hair. 

(“It’s not like it was ever as long as yours, but let me tell you, Lan Zhan, you don’t understand how much hair collects until you’ve spent 10 years in a confined space with it just constantly shedding. I Banished so much that there have got to be piles of it sitting around in Yiling somewhere.”) 

“I’m very impressed.”

He brushes a thumb across Wei Ying’s cheekbone, traces the shell of an ear and briefly considers loosening the tie of his robes before deciding to leave it. It’s nice, having Wei Ying pressed to his chest, wrapped together with him in soft, warm cotton. Cosy.

“You know,” Wei Ying says ruefully, turning to nuzzle at Lan Zhan’s fingers, “this has all gone very differently from the way I’d pictured it.”

Judging by the way he bends to press a kiss to Lan Zhan’s rib cage, he’s not terribly disappointed by the turn of events, but Lan Zhan still gives a questioning hum, a wordless prompt for Wei Ying to explain.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying this as well - very much in fact,” Wei Ying continues, lending proof to his words with another line of kisses dropped along Lan Zhan’s side, “but it was supposed to be - well. Sexy?”

He lifts his head and Lan Zhan meets his gaze, holds it for a moment before inclining his own head and asking:

“Who says it isn’t?”

Wei Ying’s response is to goose him.

Someone is immediately sent running for the Headmaster, but it's Professor Lan who comes to the gate, Little Apple perched on his shoulder and looking curiously at the students crowding along the edge of the wards.

"Ah!" the ghost says when he approaches, speaking for the first time. "Lan Wangji! I- I don't know if you remember me, but, uh, I'm-"

"Wen Qionglin," Professor Lan says in greeting, and furious whispers travel up and down the line of students. 

The Ghost General! 

"Oh, you do remember!" the ghost - the Ghost General says, sounding quietly pleased. "I heard that - that he'd returned, and that he was here, so I…'

He trails off, looking hopefully at Professor Lan, who nods.

"He did. But he's away on a trip."

"Oh."

The Ghost General's entire figure seems to deflate.

"Then-"

"You may come inside and wait for him here," Professor Lan offers, raising a hand and holding out a small jade token. "If you'd like."

Twenty-odd pairs of wide student eyes suddenly zoom towards him.

The Ghost General's pale eyes are also wide with surprise, but he smiles and nods tentatively.

"Y-yes, I would. Thank you."

-

It just goes to show how well-grounded in principle the Gusu Academy rules are, because just a week of having Wen Qionglin among them unequivocally proves to the students that common knowledge is completely and utterly full of shit.

While no one actually believed that the Ghost General ate babies (being a ghost and therefore incapable of eating anything), most people did take it, and the other stories like it, to be illustrative of his general ferocity and cruelty, since even the conservative estimates of his bodycount in battle are alarmingly high.

Now, a general sentiment is growing amongst the student body that the influence of Jin Guangshan's self-serving propaganda must be stronger than they'd thought, because Wen Qionglin is - well.

(To be honest, they should already have known this. According to Jin Guangshan, the Yiling Patriarch was power-hungry and evil, and in the end the power-hungry one was Jin Guangshan, and Professor Wei is only evil at exam time.)

He is very strong for a poltergeist, that much is true, but he mostly uses his abilities to help Professor Lan cart around class supplies, or stop over-burdened students from dropping their books in the hallways. He can always be found hovering around the Quidditch pitch when practice is in session, waiting to catch anyone who falls off their sword and rush them to the infirmary if they've sustained any injury heavier than a bruise. He spends most mealtimes sitting next to Professor Lan and smiling nervously at anyone who meets his eye, and is terrified of Senior Professor Lan, who apparently taught him in school and left an impression.

(The students can sympathise. He's left much the same impression on them.)

In short, the poltergeist Wen Qionglin is lovely and a student group has already formed to protect him from being bullied. 

And then Professor Wei Wuxian comes back with his group of fourth- and fifth-years. 

"Young Master Wei!" Wen Qionglin exclaims, zipping through the students towards the dusty figure in the doorway, Professor Lan and Little Apple following behind him at a much more sedate pace.

"Wen Ning?" Professor Wei exclaims, halfway through shrugging his cloak off, his mouth already stretching into a beaming grin. "Where did you come from? When did you get here?!"

"I-" Wen Qionglin begins, and that's when he catches sight of Lan Sizhui walking in the door and turns even whiter than his usual ghostly pallor

"Young Master," he whispers after a moment. "Is that-"

Professor Wei smiles crookedly. "Why don't you ask him yourself?"

He beckons Lan Sizhui over with a wave. "Sizhui, why don't you introduce yourself to our guest?"

"Lan Yuan," Lan Sizhui says obediently, bending into a beautifully-correct bow. "Courtesy name 'Sizhui'."

Lan, Wen Qionglin mouths soundlessly, and his gaze immediately flies to Professor Lan, who nods.

"Sizhui," Wen Qionglin repeats softly, turning back. "So your courtesy name was given to you by-"

"Professor Lan," Lan Sizhui confirms with a nod, and then shoots a curious glance in his direction.

Instead of explaining anything about Wen Qionglin, Professor Lan nods a second time and says, cryptically, "Names are for things we intend to keep." 

But it must make sense to Lan Sizhui, because he lets out a soft oh!, cheeks dusting with pink and Professor Wei grins. 

"You should make some time to spend with Senior Wen," Professor Lan tells Lan Sizhui. "After you've had time to rest and settle back in. He has a lot to speak to you about."

"There's no hurry, though," Professor Wei says, leaning in to rub the top of Little Apple's head, and then tug gently on the end of Professor Lan's hair ribbon. "Unless Wen Ning's got somewhere to rush off to - which I don't imagine he does - Hey Wen Ning, you're staying a while, right?"

"Um," Wen Qionglin says. "I - yes? If it's all right. I'd - I'd like that very much."

And these exist because I had headcanons with nowhere to go:

5 Things Lan Xichen knows about his nephews

The reason their uncle did nothing when he discovered the boys with Little Apple was that it was just so ugly. Had Little Apple been cuter, their uncle would have had no qualms in telling them to get rid of it, or at the very least punishing them for their rule-breaking. As it is, the little bird is so pitiful that their uncle simply cannot bring himself to do anything but turn a blind eye.

Wei Wuxian refers to the newly-returned Little Apple as Sizhui’s 兄长 so much that Sizhui himself starts doing the same, which is fine until the new teacher, Luo Qingyang, overhears him telling Jingyi that his 兄长 likes to nibble on his ear to get his attention.

Little Apple’s new favourite perch is Wangji’s shoulder (Wei Wuxian moves around too much), and the visual impact of this when Wangji walks through the Gusu halls has their uncle wondering what, exactly, has caused the sudden surge of student interest in the jelly-legs curse.

The Gusu house-elves like Wei Wuxian. Theirs is a friendship built on frequent, late-night kitchen visits; food provided without question and in exchange for much-coveted goods smuggled in from the muggle markets. They love Wangji because he is a Gusu Lan, raised in their domain (instead of the more usual Cloud Recesses) and under their care from the first. But they love Sizhui because he is theirs; because when Wangji brought him back, tiny, feverish and much too skinny, it was a parade of house-elves that helped a heartsick Wangji nurse him back to health. It was they who taught Wangji how to see to his needs, who rocked and soothed Sizhui to sleep when Wangji was exhausted from calling out to a ghost who never answered. It was they who comforted and cossetted Sizhui when he came back crying but didn't want Wangji to know it because someone had teased him about being adopted - about being an Outsider, about not being a Lan.

(Wangji knew. Xichen had had to intervene in a great many confrontations with other Lan parents because Wangji knew.)

5 Things Luo Qingyang knows about Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji (one of which is actually about Lan Xichen)

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji meet in first-year, on the first day of class, when they're assigned as potions partners for the year.

They become enemies approximately ten minutes later, when Lan Wangji discovers that Wei Wuxian is equally likely to follow instructions as not and Wei Wuxian discovers that Lan Wangji is a lot of fun to rile up.

They become friends the following month, when Lan Wangji comes across Wei Wuxian in the hallway, mid-scuffle with two of the Wen boys. As fists and knees go in all directions, one of them blames something or other on the fact that Wei Wuxian has no parents, and Lan Wangji stops short, says, "I also have no parents. Would you like to say something to me?" and throws himself into the fray.

When Gusu is paid a visit by its British counterpart, and the Headmaster (flanked by Professors Lan and Wei) steps forward to receive their guests, Lan Jingyi asks Lan Sizhui (in what he no doubt fondly believes to be a whisper) whether the foreign teachers are kind of….uglier than he was expecting? and receives a swift elbow to the ribs for his trouble. 

(When Qingyang tells the Headmaster about it, he glances at the copy of The Thirty-six Strategems* on his bookshelf and smiles.)