Chapter Text
It was like a usual day for Wèi Wúxiàn.
He was strolling through the bustling markets of Caiyi town with his favorite companions, the heirs of Jiāng and Niè.
Due to some urgent matters, the old man Lán, Lán Qǐrén was hastily summoned to Qinghe again. Niè Huáisāng was paranoid about the Grandmaster, telling his Da-ge about all his downfall in his studies or his complaints about causing trouble in cloud recesses.
So, this is how they got another short vacation and roaming through the beautiful town to cheer up their friend’s mood.
They were looking around for some interesting shops to buy something nice for Shijie as a present. Wèi Wúxiàn’s arms were lazily crossed behind his head and a blade of grass between his lips.
All of a sudden, the Niè heir pulled on his white sleeve bring him to an abrupt stop. When he turned to look at his friend, he was pointing at something with his closed fan.
Ah, his favorite shop which equals the heavens, the emperor’s smile!
“ Wèi-xiong! How about we purchase some jars of emperor’s smile and hide them in our qiankun pouches? We can sneak them easily inside; I know you can get past the checking at the gates without being caught.” Niè Huáisāng said, his fan lightly flapping in front of his face, trying to cool himself from the torturous summer heat.
“ Huh, Do you really have that much faith in that idiot? Even though he is a master in smuggling, he cannot get away with that in Lán Wàngjī’s presence. That airhead just loses his mind and tends to attract trouble as soon as he sees the Second Jade.” Jiāng Chéng scoffed.
“ How rude ChéngChéng!” He feigned hurt by placing a hand over his heart as a physical proof.
The Jiāng heir ignored his Shixiong’s antics as they walked towards the Gusu’s wine shop.
“ Don’t you know Jiāng-xiong, Wàngjī-xiong has been in seclusion for a week now.” The Niè heir said, inspecting the beautiful, shiny ceramic white and black jars displayed on the counter.
“ In seclusion? Ah, now that I think about it, it’s been a week since I’ve last seen Lán Zhàn, it felt like ages ago. I assumed that he stopped attending the lectures because of the rabbit prank I pulled on him, I thought it was his last straw to my insolence.” He pondered.
“ You think too highly of yourself, don’t you? Assuming someone like that stoned face ice-block is affected by an idiot like you.” Jiāng Chéng scowled at him.
“ Hey! Don’t call him that. It may be difficult to get any emotion out of him but he is too much fun when he gets rail up.” Wèi Wúxiàn said cheerfully, making the Jiāng heir groan in annoyance.
“ Anyways, lets buy some emperor’s smile so we can sneak in for tonight. We can have a great night after so long!” He said, throwing his hands up as Niè Huáisāng talked with the vendor, doing the bargaining for the alcohol prices.
“ Gongzi, please try to understand this lowly one’s situation. We cannot carry our lives like this if we started selling every jar present here in that little amount. We need to feed our family and require medicines for our old ailing parents.” The vendor tried to reason with the Niè heir.
Wèi Wúxiàn was about to stop his friend from bargaining and pay the rightful price for the sweet wine, when a swift white moved in front of him to place gold on the counter.
All three of them froze as they saw the swirling cloud patterns embroidered on this person’s white sleeve. This person was a member of Lán Sect!
The vendor stared at the gold with bulging eyes as the gold was obviously overprice for just three jars of wine!
“ T-Than-you Gongzi for your generosity! This lowly one would like to offer you two extra jars for free for your kind heart.” The vendor quickly snatched off the gold from counter immediately, before the owner would change their mind or realize his mistake of giving gold instead of silver.
Even silver was too much for those jars, but for their exquisite flavor, he would’ve considered a silver as a nice deal in exchange of three jars of wine.
“ Thank-you Shushu! You have even bigger heart to offer such heaven for free.” The person with an unusual up beat in his voice as a Lán.
The vendor handed him five jars, three black with red strings and two white with blue, dangling in the vendor’s grasp. A bright smile plastered on the Lán’s face which made him uncomfortable for some reason, just by witnessing it.
The strange Lán took the jars with a polite and a graceful bow as expected from a Lán, and turned towards them.
They stiffened as the Lán leisurely walked and stood right in front of them. With a grin, the Lán extended three jars to them as if offering them.
Wèi Wúxiàn could swear on his life that this was a test. No, a trap. And if they took this now, then they would be punished for breaking the rule.
Even though Wèi Wúxiàn had really misses his time alone in Library with Lán Zhàn, but he never really missed copying the three thousand rules.
As if the man could hear his thoughts, he replied.
“ This is no trap. I won’t snitch on any of you, let this be a secret between the four of us.” The Lán Senior said as now Wèi Wúxiàn got a much better look of this stranger, he can tell that this person was many years older than them.
He stared at the man dumbfoundedly, beside him both his friends were as speechless as him. Looking at their expression, the Senior started laughing boisterously.
“ Om my heavens, I wish I had a mirror right now with me so I could show you all your faces.” The man clutched his stomach with his other hand that held two jars, still shaking with laughter uncontrollably.
At that he was snapped out of his trance, and so does his easy to rail companion. Jiāng Chéng fumed as he started yelling in the middle of the market.
“ How dare you make fun of us!” Before he could do anything stupid like hitting the Senior as he tends to do with his Shixiong, Niè Huáisāng stopped him by putting a hand on his arm. At least that worked instantly, calming the anger of the Yunmeng boy.
Niè Huáisāng eyed the man from behind his fan. He noticed his friend’s eyes wandering over the bare forehead of the Lán Senior which was again a surprise to see one without their precious ribbon.
The Senior has finally calmed down from his laughing fits. He straightened up, adjusting his robe in an appropriate manner which was disheveled from the previous tumult.
“ Now, now quick, Take these before I change my mind. If you don’t wish to than don’t worry, I can drink all five of them like water!” The Senior said happily, making their jaws almost drop on the floor.
‘How is he even a Lán? Is this person trying to imitate the Láns or something? If so then he is failing miserably.’ He thought gawking at the man.
Again the man did some kind of telepathy, “ I’m a Lán. I’ve been a Lán for a decade now when I married to my lovely spouse ten years ago.” He said with a nostalgic fondness as if remembering the memory of his wedding day.
“ A happy marriage of ten years, that I’m really grateful for every living second of my life.” The Senior had mumbled this part to himself longingly but they were still able to hear him, as this person didn’t learn how to low down his volume even after being a Lán for ten years. What a shame.
“ Anyways kids, I don’t have all day to just stand here with almost half dozen jars of wine in the middle of the road like an idiot. And moreover, I need to purchase loquats for my beloved, they are his favorite.” Wèi Wúxiàn felt like the last sentence was said to him.
The Senior had a weird melancholic look in his eyes as he looked at him, this made him weird out.
Then suddenly the Niè heir closed his fan loudly, “ Ah, yes, yes. We shouldn’t be keeping a loving husband away from his beloved for too long. Thank-you Qianbei for your generosity! We promise you that this secret will be buried in our grave along with us.”
His friend said that shit with his dramatics, taking the three dangling jars from the man’s hand and bowing to him to show respect.
Following his cue, he and his Shidi also bowed to the man, but he didn’t miss the displeasure dusting on his Shidi’s face.
“ Goodbye then. It was nice to meet such adorable kids.” The man chirped before leaving the three youth in a flustered mess, disappearing in the crowd.
“ What a strange man.” He breathed out as he heard Jiāng Chéng muttering, ‘an idiot like you’.
“ Well, let’s head back before the curfew starts or we might have to spend our night outside in the cold.” Niè Huáisāng said.
But before he could agree with his friend, his eyes landed on something shiny on the ground.
It was a red tassel with a gemstone attached to the black bamboo dizi.
He bent down and picked it up.
When he touched it, something disquieting crept under his skin. For a movement he felt something close to resentment, but it was gone as quickly as he had sensed.
Running his fingers lightly over the smooth surface, his finger tips brushed over the carving on it.
The character was spelled as ‘ChenQing’.
“ Wèi Wúxiàn! What the fuck are you doing, standing over there?” His Shidi called him.
“ You two…. Just go ahead, I’ll be right back.” Saying that, he dashed towards the direction the strange Lán had left.
He was able to hear loud yelling from Jiāng Chéng, who was probably being restraint by their best friend.
‘This dizi definitely belongs to that Qianbei from earlier.’ His mind supplied it as if on reflex. He was shocked by the fact that how much definitely sure he was that this was the belonging of the man whom he just interacted for a few minutes.
It is just haunting, how that stranger felt more familiar than Grandmaster Lán. But he had never met this man prior today’s meeting, it was unsettling.
He wandered around the town for a while, looking for the owner of the beautiful dizi when he finally caught the sight of white with swirling blue clouds.
The strange Lán was flirting with a lady who was selling the Loquats. ‘Hey! That’s the same JieJie I flirted with during our last trip to the Caiyi for the waterborne abyss incident.’ He thought as he watched the woman flush brightly at the flirtatious words and charming smiles of the man.
“ Didn’t he say that he was married?” Wèi Wúxiàn scoffed internally at the not-so-honest-husband, dallying with the woman when he has a spouse waiting for him back at their home.
He felt sympathy for whoever unfortunate lady that has married this minx in the male version. Wèi Wúxiàn was tempted to just turn around and walk away, letting man feel sorry about the loss of his dizi. Well, he won’t mind keeping a beautiful dizi such as this.
But his Shijie’s voice chided him softly about how it is rude to behave like that. It doesn’t matter if this person is a douchebag of a husband but he was the rightful owner of the dizi at the end of the day.
With a sigh he started walking towards the man. He was about to call out to him but had to come to an abrupt halt in his pace to stand there on the road, looking flabbergasted at the scene.
What he saw had literally made his eyes bulged, his mouth gaping in shock as he saw a familiar figure almost yanking the man away from the Loquat vendor.
The youth held the man’s upper arm with both his hands and pulled him closer, practically gluing both their bodies together as if they were a couple.
The noisy Lán started to laugh controllably as the other white young boy in same swirling patterns of cloud started to drag the freak away from the crowd staring at the ruckus.
Wèi Wúxiàn just stood there stupefied for a good few second at the sheer ridiculousness of his imagination.
Just the smell of alcohol can get someone this intoxicated someone like him that he started hallucinating about something impossible, that too in broad day light?
‘I think I should consider the amount of alcohol I usually consume in one go….. that definitely can’t be Lán Zhàn. He would never act in such an impulsive manner, much less touch intimately someone, but Qianbei, like that.’
“ You idiot! What the hell were you thinking running off like that? You know the curfew will start soon; we need to get back up the mountain less than an incense.” A familiar voice pulled him out from his trance.
Jiāng Chéng and Niè Huáisāng were standing behind him. Both held a mild look of concern on their faces as they observed him.
“ Wèi-xiong, what happened? Why do you look so pale? Are you feeling sick?” Niè Huáisāng asked worriedly.
He quickly shook his head to shake off the image that he had seen earlier, dismissing it as a mistake before plastering a grin on his handsome face.
“ Why would I feel sick all of a sudden? It’s just dehydration, the sun is extremely cruel with us today.” He said, tucking the black dizi into his sleeves. Mentally preparing a list of tasks for him to do later.
“ The sun has always been cruel to everyone.” It was an off-handed comment by the Niè heir but the gravity of words had sent a chill down their spines while talking about ‘the sun’.
Thankfully they were back just before the curfew. They had decided not to use sword as they wanted to delay their outing and enjoy the remaining time of little freedom from the three thousand rules of cloud recesses by enjoying the view along the path up.
The three of them were headed back towards their assigned dormitory room when they hear a light rustle of leaves nearby.
The path to the dormitories had a dense vegetation with many trees and bushes. Wèi Wúxiàn thought that it might be another wandering rabbit and thought of capturing it to torment the young fuddy-duddy with it.
“ Can you just stop causing trouble for once? You are not just only embarrassing yourself but also our Sect too!” Jiāng Chéng whisper yelled but nevertheless followed him along with Niè Huáisāng.
“ Jiāng Chéng, you should learn to have some fun like this for once, you know. And don’t worry, catching some wild rabbits won’t bring any shame on Jiāngs.” He said as he slowly proceeded towards the bush.
Before he could sneak up on the rabbit, the white furball just leaped out from the bush. They both startled at each other’s surprise presence.
“ Oh, don’t you think of getting away from me, you little rascal. I’ll roast you crisp if you keep on that behavior.” A voice said as a man in white came into view from behind the tree, lifting the poor innocent bunny by their ears.
The three of them froze hearing such outrageous words coming from a Lán, nevertheless.
“ You!” Wèi Wúxiàn pointed an accusing finger at the man they had unfortunately made an acquaintance with in the Caiyi town this evening.
“ Oh, it’s you kids. Well, hello there. I didn’t expect to meet you all this soon….. anyway, now that we met again, I would like you to kindly return my belonging to me.” The man said as he let his hand fall to his side, the bunny still struggling, dangling by their ears in the man’s rough grasp.
Their high-pitched sound of distress made the three youth there, wince with grimace on their faces.
“ Uh, I- I think you should….. not supposed to handle a creature that roughly?” Niè Huáisāng said, hiding his face behind his fan when the man’s attention was directed towards him.
Before he could speak, Jiāng Chéng was quick to talk, “ What belonging are you talking about? We don’t have anything of yours and let the rabbit go!”
The moron had the audacity to smirked, his eye twitched as he had a feeling that this person would open his mouth to spit shit but a commanding smooth voice from behind the tree did not let the man utter a word.
“ Be gentle with him.” The voice was stern, but it wasn’t as cold as when he spoke to him the last time they met. It even sound…… fond. Maybe it’s just his brain tricking him.
Lán Zhàn came from behind the same tree the man had come from previous. His looked as regal and elegant as always, but today his hairs seemed to be oddly a little disheveled, another snowball nestled in his arms.
‘What was Lán Zhàn doing out here past the curfew? And most importantly why was he with this moron?!’ His head started to ache from the thought and the offending image from the Caiyi town.
The stupid man looked at Lán Zhàn with sparkly eyes before holding the bunny proper by placing it in his elbow crease, lightly patting their tiny head.
“ You know I can’t disobey you when you speak to me with that voice Lán-er-didi!” The man chirped; a disturbing feeling settled in the pit of his stomach at the tone used by this despicable.
“ Mn.” Was all Lán Zhàn had replied to the man’s teasing who had just horrendously manhandled his precious bunny.
‘Really!? Just ‘mn’? This felt like an insult. If that was me then Lán Zhàn would’ve screwed me with Bichen by now….. maybe he couldn’t be rude to a Qianbei, no matter how horrible he is. After all, disrespecting their elders was against the rules.’ He thought dejectedly.
“ Well, now give me back my dizi.” The man said again looking at him.
“ What dizi are you talking about?” He asked, not showing how anxious he was while lying straight to the face of man who just somehow confident enough to directly confront him without any evidence.
“ The black dizi you’re currently hiding in your sleeve. And don’t you think of lying again as I can feel Chenqing’s energy coming from your sleeves.” The man said pointedly, nodding towards his left arm.
‘Fuck.’ He cursed internally for being caught red handed. He knew that this dizi was some sort of a spiritual instrument but he did not anticipate it to be a spiritual weapon!
“ Wèi Wúxiàn! The hell he is talking about? When did you steal his dizi!?” His Shidi was furious.
“ I didn’t steal it!” He yelped.
The other four just looked at him with doubtful eyes as if to ask really? He can’t believe even his best friend and Shidi thought that he had stolen it!
It was really rude how even his peers just didn’t believe him, he felt betrayed by his own peoples.
Okay he admits that, not returning the dizi to its owner was almost as close to as stealing though. But he wanted to teach this man a lesson for getting handsy with someone who wasn’t his spouse.
“ I- I found it on the road, and did not know who it belonged to…. so, I just decided to keep it!” He said, concealing his nervousness masterfully.
He could feel Lán Zhàn’s deadpanned gaze, even without looking at him. He hastily took out the dizi and practically shoved it in the man’s outstretched hand.
“ And anyways I was about to give it to Zewu-jun so that he could give it back to his rightful owner.” He internally winced at his own terrible lie.
“ Haha, lets forget and forgive. Don’t you think Qianbei?” Niè Huáisāng said, fanning himself anxiously.
“ It’s past curfew, you should be in your dormitory rooms. Retire back for the night.” Lán Zhàn sounded like an elder who had said this far many times to his spoiled students. It was oddly weird, as Lán Zhàn wasn’t dragging them to the discipline hall right now to receive their punishments.
“ My little Lán-er-didi, it’s not even an incense time since the curfew started. Let them be, you know at least they returned back just before the dusk. That should be an improvement we should praise them for.” The older Lán said, scratching the rabbit behind their ear with his dizi.
“ Shufu might not see the positive side of this.” Lán Zhàn said turning back to look at the unruly Lán. If Wèi Wúxiàn haven’t known him well, then he would have believed that Lán Zhàn’s bright amber had softened to a degree while looking at the rusty old man.
It seems like tonight again, Lán Zhàn was assigned the duty of night patrolling. But what the hell was this senior doing with Lán Zhàn this late at night.
‘Shouldn’t old men be sleeping by now? To give their fragile bone and rusted joints a little rest or something?’ He thought begrudgingly as he watched how Lán Zhàn’s eyes where wander over the old man rather than being focused solely on him(?)
A small spark of longing and desperation evoked inside his heart as those gorgeous golden held their attention to someone who wasn’t him.
“ Lán Zhàn.” He called out, even though his mind was in despair at the thought of someone stealing his place as the only rumbustious person in Lán Zhàn’s life, who can draw out even a tiniest emotion from him.
His mind finally sensed some peace when those amber were back to where they should belong to, they should always stay on him.
“ Lán Zhàn, look at me.” He couldn’t help but say those words even though his person of interest was already looking at him with that intense gaze of him that made him crave for more than he could afford.
He quickly took out a jar of wine which was hidden in his qiankun pouch that was in his sleeve. He let the jar dangle in front of the twin jade so that he was again punished with copying the three thousand rules in the library with Lán Zhàn.
‘I don’t care how many time the old man Lán would make me copy those awful rules, but I want Lán Zhàn to be the one supervising me in the library. Away from that creep.’
He was sure that this would definitely annoy the second jade, but his confidence faltered when he saw something flash across Lán Zhàn’s beautiful eyes.
He wasn’t able to decipher it but something in his heart clenched as he felt that Lán Zhàn looked a little bit melancholic. What can it be that this time Lán Zhàn felt like a stranger and no longer the Lán Zhàn he knew.
“ Wèi Wúxiàn! Wèi-xiong!” Voices echoed in the background but he couldn’t focus on them. Right now, his attention was entirely devoted to the minute change in Lán Zhàn’s expression where he could see nostalgia and sadness.
It felt like for Lán Zhàn, it was ages ago rather than months when he displayed the wine to him for the first time. In that moment Lán Zhàn felt way too older than him. Older than anyone else preset there.
His golden ambers held softness which was something new to Wèi Wúxiàn.
“ Ah, you kids won’t ever learn your lesson, don’t you?” The stinky old man said, bring both of them back to reality.
“ Tomorrow all three of you will come to the discipline hall at Chen Shi to receive your punishment for breaking the rules.” He lectured them.
“ B- but wasn’t it you….. who gave us the alcohol?” Niè Huáisāng stammered.
“ Yes, it was because as your Qianbei I should be helping you guys in need.” The man said casually, spinning his dizi idly.
“ But still you broke the rule too.” Jiāng Chéng said, narrowing his eyes.
“ Alcohol is prohibited in cloud recesses. Never mentioned anything about outside.” Lán Zhàn stated calmly, then he turned to look back at the stinky Lán.
They gawked at Lán Zhàn’s ability to find a loop hole in his own Sect’s rule. The fuck is this? If he could do this now then why did he punished him so many times these past few months?
And that too for this man??
Wèi Wúxiàn was hurt by the fact that Lán Zhàn could bend the rules for the ones whom he cares too deeply. It hurts even more to know that he was never a part of that limited group of peoples in Lán Zhàn’s life.
He thought that Lán Zhàn at least saw him as a friend. Oh, how wrong was he.
Now looking at this, Wèi Wúxiàn doesn’t know if it was really the golden eyed boy this evening, being so intimate with the old man or should he still stick to his absolute denial of his own two eyes that had witnessed it himself.
His heart hurts worse than being punished with spiritually charged Zidian. He wanted to drink himself into oblivion.
“ Now, now will you stop staring at little Lán Zhàn like he had offended your ancestors?” The stinky bastard spoke again.
“ Now off you go, go back to your room kids, it’s time for bed.”
“ Hey! Who are you calling kids, you old man!?” Jiāng Chéng shouted.
Feigning a gasp the man held the dizi to his chest, “ Old Man? I’m only thirty-five!”
Before Jiāng Chéng could explode, they heard a tiny huff from the stoic second jade.
It can be passed as a laugh for someone as Lán Zhàn with caliber of displaying their maximum emotion like that.
The old man had the brightest smile plastered on his face as he looked at Lán Zhàn with a sappy expression.
“ Come on kids, go back now. I won’t be able to save you if someone else found us here.” The rusty old Lán ushered them away.
The three of them silently continued their way to the dormitories, still feeling lightheaded as they had somehow just managed to escaped the perfect prized disciple of Lán Qǐrén, Lán Wàngjī.
That to without getting their alcohol confiscated or the jars being broken.
Wèi Wúxiàn was still upset about the part that he had failed to invoke such emotion from the second jade.
He couldn’t help but glance back for last time to see that beautiful face one more time before who knows how long it will be the next time, they see each other again. The thought makes his heart ache for some reason, he does not know.
When he turned back, he froze in sheer horror.
That fucker circled his free arm around Lán Zhàn’s waist, plastering their body together before leaning down to kiss the shorter one’s forehead.
And, and Lán Zhàn just let him, just like that.
His eyes burned, his palms started to sweat as he could hear the ringing in his ears, his chest felt too small all of a sudden, he felt suffocated as no air reached his lungs, he started to hyperventilate.
There was no time for him to process what was happening to him, after a few minutes, his head got cleared and the last thing he knew he was being hurled into his bed.
“ Sleep you idiot. It looks like you needed a proper one to function like a normal human.” His Shidi said, there was no bite to his words, only concern.
That night, Wèi Wúxiàn never caught a wink of sleep. Silent tears rolled down all along till he noticed the dawn outside the window.