Chapter Text
Ten years after Lan Wangji marries into Yunmeng Jiang, Lotus Pier is chosen to host the next discussion conference. It is the first discussion conference that Yunmeng Jiang has hosted since the burning of Lotus Pier. It is an acknowledgment that Yunmeng Jiang has returned to its former glory and taken its place as one of the great sets again. So, although every other year Wei Wuxian has complained that discussion conferences are boring and a waste of time, he and Jiang Wanyin celebrate the decision with a night of triumphant drinking. A rowdy blur of laughter, reminiscent of their youth. For his part, Lan Wangji does not partake in the drinking, but basks in Wei Wuxian’s happiness, quietly pleased at the acknowledgement of what the Jiang clan has achieved.
Wei Wuxian, has worked hard over the past ten years. To the surprise of many, but not Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian had turned out to be a brilliant teacher, taking over the training of the disciples and reforming some of the harsher teaching methods. As Yunmeng Jiang had produced one brilliant student after another, more and more parents began to send their children to train at Lotus Pier.
And even as Wei Wuxian taught his students how to cultivate, he’d been reforming his own golden core. Now, no one not already in on the secret would ever believe that Wei Wuxian had spent years without a core, or that it had nearly killed him. His power is obvious and only enhanced by his dark reputation even though it has been a decade since the destruction of the Tiger Seal. If anything, the tales the common people tell have only become more dramatic with time.
While Wei Wuxian has been rebuilding the school, it is Jiang Wanyin who has forged alliances and made sure that Yunmeng Jiang had a voice in the decisions of the cultivation world. However, it is Sandu Shengshou’s reputation as the keeper of the Yiling Patriarch that is talked of in the markets. These days, Jiang Wanyin and Wei Wuxian laugh about it often. “Ah yes, my greatest weapon, the fearsome Yiling Patriarch,” Jiang Wanyin will say when Wei Wuxian is once more pouting after burning his mouth by impatiently eating food before it has properly cooled.
Yunmeng Jiang also has Hanguang-jun of course. Much has been made of how cultured the students of Yunmeng Jiang have become, their exuberance shaded with a refined edge, at least when they so chose. But it is the common people of Yunmeng who see the most of Hanguang-jun. Lan Wangji still goes where the chaos is, whether that’s dark creatures or the dangers of sickness and failed crops. Lan Wangji likes most when he can combine this with teaching, he and Wei Wuxian taking the students out to night hunt - protecting the weak as they promised all those years ago.
The celebration of Yunmeng Jiang’s hosting selection stretches long into the night, and then is followed by month upon month of preparation for the event in question. No clan member, disciple, or servant of Lotus Pier is unaffected by the driving need to make sure that this discussion conference is impressive and problem-free.
It has meant long hours for Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, but today, on the eve of the conference, they are free, walking through the city together. They’re escorting their son, along with a few of his cousins and friends from other sects, through streets filled to the brim with merchants, music and talk. Not only cultivators, but all sorts of other people have gathered in Yunmeng for the event, and there’s a festival feeling in the air.
Lan Wangji walks sedately at Wei Wuxian’s side as Wei Wuxian greets strangers and friends alike. They know many people in the crowd, the two of them are popular figures in Yunmeng with both those who have needed their skills in a night hunt and the sentimental who tell epic, fantastical stories of their romance.
Somehow, among the common people who have little to do with the cultivation world, Lan Wangji is known more for his devotion to Wei Wuxian than his own formidable skill. The first time Wei Wuxian heard someone at an inn tell the story of how the icy beauty of the second jade of Lan had bewitched and tamed the fierce Yiling Patriarch, he’d laughed for so long that Wei Sizhui, then just getting old enough to be embarrassed by his fathers, had slumped into a flustered heap over his dinner. Lan Wangji’s own amusement had been more subtle, but no less present.
For some reason, a large part of the story had been about the many, fine gifts that the Yiling Patriarch had gifted his love in his wooing. For a time afterward, Wei Wuxian seems to take this as a challenge, or maybe a slight. After hearing the story, Wei Wuxian spends weeks finding increasingly beautiful robes and ornaments to offer Lan Wangji, all in the lavenders and delicate purple thread-work that Lan Wangji had taken to wearing after the wedding. Wei Wuxian presents each gift with a flourish. “For the beauty that calmed the storm in my heart!”
Lan Wangji, amused, accepts the gifts solemnly. He can play this game too. Lan Wangji wears everything he’s given proudly and, if gossips whisper excitedly behind their hands when they go out together, then Lan Wangji only counts that as points in his favor.
They do make a contrasting picture. Wei Wuxian, despite being the right hand of Yunmeng Jiang, has never changed his own habit of wearing simple black robes. Indeed, without his siblings pointing out that his appearance reflects on the sect, Wei Wuxian would probably still be wearing robes made from the practical, rough cloth they’d worn in the Burial Mounds. Maybe he’d be wearing the very same robes if they could be patched. Lan Wangji thinks Wei Wuxian beautiful no matter what he wears, but the darker and sloppier he dresses next to Lan Wangji’s bright, new finery, the more people stare, and the more points Lan Wangji mentally allots himself in this competition.
Wei Wuxian finally concedes the unspoken game about three months in, when Lan Wangji manages to fight off several fierce corpses in the long, impractical sleeves of his latest gift from Wei Wuxian. Without getting a single drop of blood on the pristine, white fabric.
Lan Wangji runs Bichen through the last corpse, and lands gently in one of the patches of grass not currently occupied by dismembered limbs. His robes fall neatly into place around him. Wei Wuxian watches this with an undisguised hunger. “If only they saw you fight, they would tell different stories about why I married you.”
Lan Wangji wipes the gore off his sword on the grass and sheaths it. “So it wasn’t my bewitching beauty?”
Wei Wuxian laughs and steps into Lan Wangji’s space, sweaty from the fight. He pulls Lan Wangji into a deep kiss, with no regard for the mess around them. When they finally part, Wei Wuxian says, voice low, “It’s on the list, but, I have to tell you, it’s a very, very long list.”
Lan Wangji is forced to kiss him back and, in the end, Lan Wangji’s robes do get a bit mussed.
Today though, there are no corpses to fight, only teenaged boys to keep out of trouble. Wei Sizhui is a good child, although he has inherited enough of Wei Wuxian’s spark to get into occasional mischief, especially when he’s with his friends. Now, he’s laughing, darting through the crowds with Jin Xuanyu, Jin Ling, and Lan Jingyi. They’re all clearly in high spirits and the chance of trouble is not small. Perhaps they should have brought Wen Qionglin along. He’s no disciplinarian, but his earnest presence always seems to bring out the best in Sizhui. That or Wen Qing, who can keep all children in line with a single raised eyebrow. But the two of them are busy these days - an endless stream of eager students taking advantage of the discussion conference to learn from Wen Qing, who has made Yunmeng synonymous with medical innovation.
In any case, it’s a day for high spirits. Tomorrow the conference will begin, and with it the long days of talk - no fun at all for teenagers.
Wei Wuxian comes back from a conversation with a vendor, one of the Wen uncles, no longer forced to farm fields of bone. No doubt Wei Wuxian has found out all sorts of useful information, or at least funny stories to share later, but now he simply offers Lan Wangji a loquat. “Enjoying yourself, Lan Zhan?”
“Mn.” Lan Wangji takes the fruit.
Wei Wuxian’s smile is full of affection and Lan Wangji lets himself drift close enough for their shoulders to brush. Wei Wuxian’s smile turns softer, even more fond.
For the thousandth time, Lan Wangji is struck with wonder that he’s allowed to have this. That Wei Wuxian is safe, that he’s accepted in this world, that they can walk together like this. That everyone knows they are married, knows that Wei Wuxian chose Lan Wangji, knows that they chose each other. So many times in their past, it had seemed like all of those things were impossible and yet here they are, with their whole family gathered together for the conference.
Lan Wangji smiles back, because he can, and Wei Wuxian stumbles a bit. “Ah, Lan Zhan. Every time you smile at me, it makes me weak in the knees. Maybe these rumors of your magical beauty are on to something.”
Lan Wangji can only shake his head at that, turning his attention to the fruit, tasting the sweetness of it
The flavor is almost as bright as the sound of Wei Wuxian’s laughter, mingling with the more distant sound of their son laughing too. Almost as bright as the sun on the water, almost as bright as the Jiang banners freshly hung out for the conference, and almost as bright as the future Lan Wangji sees stretching before them.