The flag hanging from the eaves of the wine shop fluttered on the breeze that had accompanied Lan Wangji through his journey. It was unremarkable, this village, the sort of place that would never draw a cultivator even if they did need help—though Lan Wangji was doing his best to change that, making it so places such as this felt they might rely on the chief cultivator for aid instead of holding out hope that someone like Wei Ying might come along.
He would never have been able to find it if not for the hints Wei Ying had left in his last letter, little more than a tale and a direction and a landmark. Now that he was here, he was infinitely grateful. Every time they parted, Wei Ying seemed to grow more distant from him. It made him difficult to find and even more difficult to anticipate. As such, Lan Wangji hesitated before stepping inside. Perhaps Wei Ying did not want him to come and it was merely coincidence that he’d shared more information than usual. It might well be that he preferred to leave Lan Wangji in the past as he struck out and found his own way.
Unlike others, it was not easy for Lan Wangji to retain anonymity in the world any longer. His forehead ribbon marked him out regardless, but those he met inspected his robes and bearing and extrapolated the truth of him more often than not. It didn’t seem to matter what he wore or how he spoke. That’s the chief cultivator, was sometimes whispered when he traveled, which he could do far less often than he preferred.
It used to be he could stop wherever he wished, help whomever he wanted. Now, he could not leave the Cloud Recesses without an entourage and an itinerary. Even this was stretching it, this demand he’d made that he be free to go for a short time without interference or assistance; he would find nothing but grief when he returned to Gusu, more work piling up in his absence because the world could not do without their chief cultivator for long, never mind that the ones who came before hadn’t proved themselves to be reliable in the slightest.
He thought—or, at the very least, hoped—that Wei Ying had brought him far enough from the centers of power that he might pass undetected. His robes were ever so slightly shabby from road dust and too-fast travel via sword. His determination to catch up to Wei Ying outweighed every other consideration. He was breaking at least three rules on which he regularly tutored the youngest Lan disciples.
The truth of the matter was such that Lan Wangji wanted to see Wei Ying and nothing was going to stop him, not politics, not duty, not Wei Ying himself, not the fact that the wine shop was nearly empty and Lan Wangji feared—
But no, he didn’t have to fear. In one corner, there was Wei Ying, a year older than the last time they’d seen one another, a year more travel worn and body weary. From this angle, Lan Wangji saw it all. Wei Ying, as he picked idly at the lacquer coating the table he’d chosen, saw nothing. Shoulders rounded, hair falling in his face, he looked… unlike himself. Even the cup before him seemed abandoned, was still entirely full.
Lan Wangji’s heart squeezed in his chest.
“Gongzi,” the proprietor said, a little too loud for Lan Wangji’s liking, sure to draw Wei Ying’s attention, always looking for novelty as he was. It was too quiet here and Lan Wangji did not want to be seen before he was ready. He wanted…
“I would like to purchase a jar of liquor,” he said simply, keeping his voice down in demonstration of how the proprietor should behave.
“Ah, of course, of course,” the proprietor replied, quieter. “Feel free to take a seat and I’ll bring it to you, hmm?”
Lan Wangji trailed after him as he made his way to the back of the room. “Just the jar, please. Whatever from your stores that is best.” The request sounded childish in his mouth, the sort of thing someone who didn’t know what they wanted would say. Unfortunately, he knew little about alcohol beyond that Wei Ying enjoyed Emperor’s Smile above all others and when he was younger, he infused his own from the lotus that grew endlessly in the lakes around Lotus Pier.
Though the proprietor made a strange, thoughtful sound, he did as Lan Wangji requested, placing a ceramic jar directly into Lan Wangji’s hands. Payment was a matter of handing over a small ingot as the proprietor’s eyes widened. He disappeared and returned with two more jugs and forced them into Lan Wangji’s arms. “I won’t have you telling others I charge exorbitantly, gongzi. Even here, we take care of people.”
Perhaps the hardest part of seeing Wei Ying this way was how counter to his understanding it was to the Wei Ying he usually saw. After the first few times they’d parted, early in Lan Wangji’s tenure, he’d seemed fine every time he said goodbye. It was Lan Wangji who began to struggle more and more with it.
I’m sorry, he thought. I’m sorry I didn’t ever ask if you wanted to stay. It was a dream, maybe, to think Wei Ying might have wanted to, a dream or vanity. Truly, Wei Ying had no reason to want to stay. Then again, Wei Wuxian had little reason to want to do any of the things he did. He needn’t come back to Gusu and he needn’t write to Lan Wangji. He could have put down roots anywhere and lived a settled, gentle life. Or he could have floated, listless, wherever the wind took him, light as dandelion fluff. Instead, he continued to help others. He let himself be tied to Lan Wangji by ink and paper and whirlwind visits.
Lan Wangji was close enough now that his shadow fell across Wei Ying’s back.
He let himself sit alone in wine shops, fingers pressed against the table, head still bowed. With the means at Wei Ying’s disposal, he could hide so much.
All Lan Wangji had to do was take another step, sit down across from Wei Ying, fix everything that was wrong with this moment in whatever way he could manage. It shouldn’t have been difficult. For a short time, Lan Wangji had been pretty good at making Wei Ying happy.
Given it was the only thing he truly wanted to do in this world, that made sense. It was just everything else that had gotten in the way—all things he’d believed he had to do. Everything he did, it needed to be done, but it didn’t need to be done by him. There were wiser people in this world than he, more diplomatic people, people for whom allowing a friendship to fade into the past for the sake of all would be an easy trade.
For Lan Wangji, no exchange could be more worthless.
He wished, with a fervency that bordered on the deranged, that he had given himself and Wei Ying a direction in which to travel together. The first time they parted, the second. It didn’t matter. Any of them would have done.
Wei Ying, he was beginning to think, would not agree. He would probably say that Lan Wangji was, of course, doing what was best and shouldn’t be dissuaded from his path and that he, too, was doing what was best and shouldn’t be dissuaded.
Another handful of steps brought him closer to Wei Ying, so close that Lan Wangji could have reached out and brushed the back of his neck if he’d wanted to. Still no reaction from him, but there was a slight tension across his shoulders. His presence wasn’t unnoticed now.
Quick, quicker than Wei Ying, he placed a jar on the table. Before Wei Ying got further than saying, “I didn’t order—” Lan Wangji was already seating himself across from him. His eyes widened and caught on the pair still cradled in Lan Wangji’s arms, the ones he was carefully placing on the table just out of Wei Ying’s reach, just so Lan Wangji had an excuse to pour for him. “Lan Zhan!”
For another long moment, he stared and then he shook his head, palmed his eyes, blinked rapidly. “Lan Zhan, what are you doing here?” Under his breath, he added, “I haven’t had that much to drink, have I?” His fingers hooked in the fabric covering the jar’s stopper and yanked it free. More brightly: “And bringing me the best this fine establishment has to offer. Tsk.”
“I would have brought better, if I’d…”
“If you’d…?”
I didn’t know I’d find you in need of cheering. If he’d known…
Well, if he’d known, he would have done many things differently.
“Nothing. It doesn’t signify.”
Wei Ying rolled his shoulder, tipped his neck one way and then the other, exposing the beautiful line of his muscles. “Not that I’m not glad to see you and the never-ending coin that flows from within that pouch in your sleeve—this really is good stuff, Lan Zhan—but what are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you,” Lan Wangji said, placid, even as his heart fluttered against his chest at the admission. He hoped Wei Ying would take it for a joke, a tease, the sort of thing he’d done sometimes back when Wei Ying visited more often just because he’d discovered it would make one of Wei Ying’s many pretty smiles bloom on his mouth. “And you deserve the best.”
It did so again now. A slow, curling grin stole across his face, lighting it up from his eyes outward. Truly, how could he have allowed himself to stay away so long? The minute Wei Ying didn’t come back to Cloud Recesses within a month the first time they parted—in truth, even a week was too long; after a day, a half a day, an hour, less than that, Wei Ying should have returned to him—he should have followed him. In an ideal world, he would have.
In this world, he had this moment and the chance to make the most of it.
“Lan Zhan, you had the nerve to travel hundreds of li just to spoil me. What’s the occasion?”
“Need there be an occasion?” Taking Wei Ying’s now empty cup and the jar, he splashed the liquor into it. He might not have been able to imbibe it well, but he could easily offer it with Wei Ying. “Can I not simply wish to?”
“You never have before,” Wei Ying said, taking the cup. Scratching the back of his head, he leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. “Well, not since the Guanyin temple. Or… no, that’s not right either. You spoil me too much when I come back to Gusu.” Biting his lip, he sighed. “Ah, Lan Zhan. I guess I just mean that you’ve never followed me before. There has to be a reason, right? You need help with a case?
“How could I find you? You’ve never told me where you’d be before. Your letters arrive or you do and in both instances you only ever tell me where you’ve been.” He willed his fists to unclench. They were beginning to ache, pressed against his thigh. “There is no case.”
Wei Ying’s mouth fell open. He recovered quickly, filling it with the entire contents of the cup. A few droplets collected on his lower lip. His tongue, pink and wet, darted out, swiped the evidence away. Lan Wangji would rather have done the same with his fingertips. Perhaps the liquor would not be so affecting if he were to taste the flavor from Wei Ying’s lips. “Ah, that can’t really be true, can it?”
“It is true.” Though he’d never considered chasing Wei Ying before, he knew he would have. If Wei Ying had spilled such a secret sooner, he would have come that much more quickly. He would never have been able to resist. It was like the loveliest sickness in the world, his feelings for Wei Ying. He never intended to recover, even if it was hopeless.
“I wanted to see you,” Lan Wangji said before he sounded too much like he was scolding Wei Ying, “and you were forthcoming about the details of your travels. That was enough of an occasion for me.”
For an agonizing moment, Wei Ying said and did nothing more than blink. Perhaps Lan Wangji had presumed too much and extrapolated the wrong thing from Wei Ying’s behavior. Perhaps he was merely tired after a long, fulfilling day and now Lan Wangji had disrupted his rest. Perhaps Wei Ying had gotten sick of waiting and found he no longer wished to suffer the vagaries of Lan Wangji’s few whims, the push and pull of duty to his people and the world and his duties to himself and Wei Ying.
It was a fair thing to want to break away from. Lan Wangji had been reliable right up until the moment he could no longer be so. What good was his friendship when Lan Wangji would always have to choose his role?
And then Wei Ying softened by degrees, eyes carrying all the warmth Lan Wangji could ever hope to need. His eyes shone and the smile he offered, heartbreaking in its intensity.
Perhaps Lan Wangji was wrong and Wei Ying did want to be chased from time to time. It would not be Lan Wangji holding Wei Ying too close if he expressed his wish to be near him.
He was not his father and Wei Ying was not his mother. Lan Wangji’s care would not stifle Wei Ying or destroy him. Wei Ying did not appear as though he could be held too tightly by Lan Wangji.
“Lan Zhan, ah, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying said, capturing Lan Wangji’s hand when he tried to take the cup to refill it for a third time. His touch was gentle, was not one that Lan Wangji had to fight to keep. Instead, it was Wei Ying holding tight. “What am I to do with you?”
Appropriate and inappropriate answers alike crowded his tongue, all clamoring to be the first out of his mouth. “Let me stay with you tonight,” he managed, quiet, halfway between the two. “Go to bed with me. Wake up with me.” His ears burned and, though it would not show, his cheeks heated. Wei Ying again looked surprised, pink mouth rounded. This was not what Lan Wangji meant to say, such a selfish request as it was. He might have said anything at all and it would have been better.
No, not anything. Some of what he imagined was quite crass.
“So forward, my Lan Zhan is,” Wei Ying said gamely, searching Lan Wangji’s face. “Who could know what lives in his heart when he holds it so close?” Lan Wangji heard what he didn’t say, saw as every remaining step of unlocking this puzzle box played itself out on Wei Ying’s face, the truth spilling from each piece as it fell apart. Laughing, he squeezed Lan Wangji’s hands one more time. “You really do know how to improve a man’s mood. Here I thought I’d be spending the evening all alone and then you fall out of the sky behaving even more shamelessly than I would. You’re a true hypocrite.” Though his words were harsh on the face of them, his tone was fond. “Do you know how many times I considered inviting you into mine before I chickened out?”
Lan Wangji shook his head.
“Far too many,” he replied. “Every time I saw you, Lan Zhan, I thought, ‘This time, I’ll be truly shameless. It’ll ruin everything. It might be worth it anyway.’”
“Nothing you want from me could lead to ruin.”
“You stubborn man. The fact that you came out here at all—why not just call me back? I would have come. I always found your letters eventually. You could have—if I’d known…”
“I did not wish to hold you to Gusu.” It seemed like such a terrible justification now. Inviting Wei Ying back was not the same as spiriting him to Cloud Recesses against his will. “You always seemed intent on going.”
“Gusu isn’t where I want to be,” Wei Ying said, musing. It was a gently offered truth, wrapped in silk. A truth Lan Wangji already knew couldn’t hurt him. “But out here isn’t where I want to be either.”
He asked, feeling the need for truth, too, “I presume you would like to return to Yunmeng?”
Wei Ying shook his head, a surprise. “Well, I mean… Yunmeng is fine. It’s like everywhere else with better food. I don’t want to go back to Lotus Pier if that’s what you’re really asking.”
That was, in fact, exactly what he was asking without knowing it. His heart eased at the assurance.
“Honestly, Lan Zhan, I don’t know where I want to be, but what I do know is I want to be there with you. If it’s Gusu or here or wherever. But you’re the chief cultivator. Only one of those places is viable.”
“What if I wasn’t?” Lan Wangji blurted, shocking even himself with the question. It was something, well… it was something he’d have to work toward. There’d be so much he needed to do to extricate himself from the position and ensure it was given to someone whom he could trust.
“Ah?”
“I don’t have to remain the chief cultivator,” he said. “I don’t even like the position.” Surely his brother would want to come out of seclusion soon. He would be a good fit possibly. Or even Nie Huaisang, who, since the Guanyin temple, had proved himself to be rather viciously capable of keeping people in line and was nigh incorruptible. “I never wanted this.”
It was his first time articulating it aloud and seeing Wei Ying’s horrified expression transform itself with something like grief, something like hope, something like desire unfurling from its center, well. He was glad it was Wei Ying to whom he could tell this. Who else understood his heart better than Wei Ying after all?
There was a time when they were both younger that Wei Ying might have teased him mercilessly or would have congratulated him with a throaty laugh for having a heart in that Lan regulation chest of his. But they’d experienced so much, the two of them, that Wei Ying did neither. “Ah, Lan Zhan,” he said with such warmth that Lan Wangji’s own fondness welled up, curling around his throat so tightly that it threatened to choke him. “You’re so good.” Perching his cheek on his fist, he smiled, cheek rounding. “Has there been anyone as good in this world as you?”
He was good, he knew, good enough to be trusted as the chief cultivator in a time when such a designation was so thoroughly stained by past misdeeds. He was good enough that when he spoke, people listened, though not always well. His work accomplished much and that was good, too, even if he was also stymied more often than he liked.
And even so, nothing felt quite as good as sitting across from Wei Ying right now, seeing his mood bloom like wildflowers under a sun-drenched sky. This was the highest calling of his heart.
“Flattery is not allowed,” Lan Wangji said in reply, less able to speak such things to Wei Ying in return, though he also felt Wei Ying was good, even better than Lan Wangji in many ways.
“How can the truth be flattery? Lan Zhan has no peer. He exists on the highest peaks, all alone—”
Alone. That was something he did not want to be. “Not alone,” he insisted. “Wei Ying is there with me.”
A flush climbed Wei Ying’s throat and he nearly spilled his drink as his fingers fumbled the carefully fired clay of the cup. “Ah, that is…”
“The truth.”
“…very kind of Lan er gongzi to say. He insists flattery is not allowed and then this.” To his face, he pressed the sleeve of his robe, wiping the corner of his mouth with it. “How am I, a humble traveling cultivator, supposed to withstand such fine words?” Leaning across the table, he blinked up at Lan Wangji, coquettish. “Lan Zhan, what if you took me to bed instead?” This, he said quietly, his cheeks growing even pinker as Lan Wangji watched. His voice shook a little, the only place where his flirtatious bravado cracked. As far as distractions went, it was a good one.
That sounded just as appealing if not more so than having Wei Ying take him to bed. He could be flexible. “Mn. Have you arranged accommodations for the evening?”
“Lan Zhan!!!” Wei Ying said, scandalized and hushed. “Who are you?”
Right now, he was who he wanted to be most of all: Wei Ying’s.
Wei Ying’s room was small and empty. Only the bed, a small table, and a stand by said bed filled the room. What little Wei Ying carried with him was stowed in a satchel in the corner. In his mind, this wasn’t the way it should be. Even Lan Wangji’s own accommodations were rarely as austere as this. “Wei Ying,” he said, though he didn’t know how to follow up.
Now that they were here, he didn’t know what to do. Bed or be bedded, he supposed, but the task seemed insurmountable. Even taking one step toward Wei Ying seemed like a distant dream, something he could not do, like watching Wei Ying as he fell from Lan Wangji’s blood-slicked hands.
It was good that Wei Ying was brazen, bold. He bridged the distance easily, curling his arms around Lan Wangji’s waist, their cheeks brushing so close that Lan Wangji could feel the heat of Wei Ying’s against his.
His lips brushed Lan Wangji’s ear. “Lan Zhan, how did you know to come here at a time like this? Like you knew I needed you and nothing else would do?”
Swallowing, Lan Wangji settled his hands around Wei Ying’s back, palms splayed over his shoulder blades. He had not truly believed he’d ever get to touch Wei Ying this way, had spent their youth thinking he disdained Wei Ying, had grown of age in his grief, Wei Ying well beyond the touch of any living person. By the time he realized, he’d thought he was too late. “I didn’t,” he said, the problem in its entirety. He didn’t know enough about what Wei Ying did and where he went to know what Wei Ying needed. In this one instance, he’d gotten lucky.
He didn’t want to rely on luck any longer.
“I want to,” he said, a promise, as much of a promise as he could give. Soon, he would free himself of the responsibilities on his shoulders and then he would be able to give that promise fully. “I want to know what you need.”
“Isn’t that unreasonable? Aren’t you being unreasonable, Lan er gege? Why should you have to follow all my—”
Whatever he intended to say, Lan Wangji swallowed the words with a kiss. He brought his arms up and swept them around the back of Wei Ying’s neck to hold him in place. His tongue, unpracticed though it was, slid between Wei Ying’s lips. His mouth opened easily under Lan Wangji’s. “Were I able to,” he said, breathing the same air as Wei Ying, “I would follow you everywhere. I wouldn’t have to wait for messages that are so stingy with the details of your life.”
“Lan Zhan…”
He pressed another kiss to Wei Ying’s waiting lips because he could and because this was theirs now and he did not want to argue over Wei Ying’s taciturn recitations of night hunts, like he was filing a report with all the important details missing rather than corresponding with his friend, his soulmate, his whatever they were to one another now, lovers, maybe. Lan Wangji liked the sound of it: being lovers.
“Wei Ying, I want to be with you wherever that might be. I would like to know where you are so I can come when I am able if that is what you wish to. If for whatever reason you wished to return to Cloud Recesses, you would be welcome at any time.”
Wei Ying snorted. “Your uncle would lose all of his hair in grief if I came more often than I do.”
“He would not.” In fact, he would adjust as he’d adjusted to every disappointment he and his brother had presented to him over the years. “But you needn’t come if you don’t want to. I will follow you.”
“Ah, Lan Zhan. It’s nice going there when you’re always doting on me and I have a gaggle of little juniors following me around who want to be corrupted.”
“They do miss you when you go,” Lan Wangji offered. He never saw so many sad faces as when Wei Ying swept in and then swept back out again far too soon for anyone’s liking.
“Then I’ll haunt the Cloud Recesses more often,” Wei Ying said, grandiose. “I do miss some things about Gusu, you know, when I leave.”
You shouldn’t have to, he thought. And, more daring: I will not give you the opportunity to miss anything.
Lan Wangji did much more than that, as was his wont. And in the morning, he did it again, kissing Wei Ying awake in the morning sunlight, a better wake up than he’d ever experienced in his life. If the soft smile that adorned Wei Ying’s face was any indication, it was the same for him.
When he readied for the day, he accompanied Wei Ying to the path leading away from the village and toward his next destination. When they parted this time, it was not a sad parting, because Wei Ying told him where he was going. In turn, Lan Wangji promised him that the next time they met, he would be unencumbered.
He heard the strains of Wei Ying’s dizi before he saw him. As he climbed to the top of the hill, fingers grazing the tall, swaying grasses, he finally saw the dark-robed figure he sought. The wind tangled in his hair, teased at his ribbon. His posture was good, strong, his shoulders broad as he held the flute to his lips. He did not turn. Again, Lan Wangji approached him from behind.
Though Lan Wangji still wore his forehead ribbon, he was dressed in robes that were ready for hard travel. He did not intend to return to Gusu for some time. It did not make sense to dress as though he were.
He drew in a deep breath and counted out a few quick heartbeats in this, the last moment before his life changed irrevocably. This was the gift he could finally give to Wei Ying, the gift of his time, his life, his ardor, the only gift Wei Ying had ever truly wanted of him.
This would be a joy to give and a joy to give endlessly.
“Wei Ying.”