Zapallo

“Yes, truly!” roars Lan Qiren. “Look at you, you’re skin and bone! Even if you had come here with a gang of Wen Ruohan’s lieutenants, I would never let the mother of my nephew’s child languish on a hill of the dead alone—much less my own great-nephew! Has Wangji not cared for you well enough, that you would think so poorly of us? Shall I have words with him on the matter?”

“En. Shufu should,” says Wangji, lowering his head. “Wei Ying, this one has failed you.”

“Lan Zhan, what-no, of course you haven’t!” Wei Wuxian rushes to Wangji’s side and leaps into his arms, careless of the large black bundle on his back. “You haven’t. If I had known that you and Zewu-jun would value me this much, well—then I would never have come here.”

Lan Qiren sniffs at him. “Good. Now spend tonight with us at the inn, and every day hence until the Wens can be moved.”

“I will,” Wei Wuxian says, wringing his hands. “Now that I’m sure it’s safe, I will. But Lan Zhan, there’s something you and laoshi should know about first.”

Wangji tilts his head to the side and kisses Wei Wuxian’s nose. “What is it?”

In answer, Wei Wuxian reaches for the shapeless bundle on his back and unravels it, revealing the tousled black head of a child.

“Look at A-Yuan,” he says quietly, “and then you’ll understand.”

So they look, and at first, Lan Qiren can’t imagine what Wei Wuxian might mean. A-Yuan is still well-fed and healthy, despite the month he spent living here in the Burial Mounds before Wangji could finally track his family down, but...

But A-Yuan is bigger than he used to be. Considerably bigger, given the fact that children grow slowly after passing their first birthdays, and Wei Wuxian has only been gone for five weeks, if that. His little nails have grown long, too, and thicker than his father’s; and the pupils of his dark round eyes have contracted down to pinpricks, though the sunlight is weak for early autumn.

And the two teeth that emerged during his short absence are pointed, though both are in the wrong place to be eyeteeth.

“Wei Ying?” Wangji pleads. “Trust me, dearheart. I will not leave you, no matter what the matter is.”

That is how Lan Qiren discovers that his great-nephew was born of the resentment filling the Burial Mounds, for Wei Wuxian lost his jindan to the Wens before being thrown in to die. But Wei Wuxian lived, and A-Yuan did not yet have a body, so he used resentful energy to survive and emerged fully-formed three months after his conception, instead of nine.

“I don’t know what Yuan’er will grow up to be,” Wei Wuxian says at last, “or what he would have been, even before this last month in the Burial Mounds. Everyone thought he owed his reflexes to having exceptional parents, but that-that’s not the case, Lan Zhan. If A-Yuan goes back to the Cloud Recesses, and someone notices how different he is, then...”

“Then we will hide it. No matter what he is, or what he grows to be, he is ours, and he is precious,” vows Wangji. “You need never speak of his origins, save to say that he is your child and mine.”

Wei Wuxian gives him a sad, lost look, and pulls the child a little closer to his chest.

“Well, I suppose it can’t be helped,” he sighs. “A-Yuan is a Lan, and he should grow up with his family. If the world should turn against home someday, so be it. We can run off into the wild again, if we must, and find somewhere to live in peace. But until then, sweetheart, we’ll stay with you.”

He transfers the baby into Wangji’s lap, brushing his lips over his fluffy hair before rising to his feet; and then he bows to Lan Qiren and points towards the dark path leading back into the Burial Mounds.

“Stay here, Lan Zhan. Laoshi and I will go talk to the Wens, and then I’ll be back with you by dusk.”

Lan Qiren clears his throat.

“Very well,” he says gruffly. “Let’s go, then. And Wei Ying, let there be no more of this. We are your family, and we will stand by you in all things. You are ours.”