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He doesn’t know if it’s a good kiss. He’s had none before to compare it to; it’s his first. It doesn’t feel…exactly good, but it doesn’t feel bad, either. It’s a lot, for sure. Heat and softness and hardness all pressed up against him, warming him up, keeping him pinned and dazed, like a captured moth. It’s enough that he has the time to note the considerable height and strength of this shy, sneaky maiden; time to note how strong and calloused her fingers are against his wrists, how subtle and sweet the sandalwood scent of her, before he gets to wondering just who, in fact, she is.
Bold move, stealing the Yiling Laozu’s first kiss.
Too bold for a Lan. No Jiang would dare. A Nie? Probably not; they’re a wild bunch but he’s not worth risking Chifeng-zun’s wrath.
A Jin?
Unlikely. He’s too lowborn for a Jin…unless Jin Guangshan’s looking to stitch him up into an unwanted marriage.
Bemusement shifts rapidly to alarm. Between one gasping breath and the next, he slams a talisman into her chest and shoves her away, ripping the blindfold off his eyes in the same moment.
The shy, sneaky, probably-a-Jin-but-definitely-not-a-Lan maiden isn’t a maiden at all.
And (s)he’s very definitely a Lan.
Wei Wuxian gapes.
Lan Wangji gapes back at him, his face guilty as sin.
~*~
Half a shichen later, Wei Wuxian’s still pinned against the same tree, by the very same Lan not-a-maiden who’d put him there in the first place, wondering how the hell he’d got here.
Lan Zhan’s tongue in his mouth. Lan Zhan’s dick railing his ass.
Why does it feel so good?
He knows – of course – but he doesn’t really know. Time seems to be slipping and sliding around him, tossing him between the cresting waves. Leaving him unmoored, but for Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan, who’s big and warm and wants him. He’s pretty sure he remembers Lan Zhan telling him that.
That Lan Zhan loves him.
Lan Zhan wants him.
Lan Zhan thinks he’s apparently – supposedly – married to him.
Or engaged. Or something in between. Something about forehead ribbons and rules and other probably-important bullshit. Wei Wuxian’s not sure about the details; his mind’s been blown since sometime around “Love you, Wei Ying, want you, need you.” But it must’ve been important, since its net consequence seems to be Lan Zhan’s very willing cock drilling into him and blowing his mind even more.
Sex is awesome. Or Lan Zhan is awesome. Or possibly just sex with Lan Zhan is awesome. Wei Wuxian feels drunk on it all, Lan Zhan’s name slipping down his throat smooth as Emperor’s Smile, every moan echoing the silky, wet slap of Lan Zhan’s dick sliding up his ass.
It’s so big. It’s his first time, and Lan Zhan’s dick is way, way too big. Lan Zhan’s hands are too strong, his hips thrusting too fast for Wei Wuxian to do more than moan and buck and hold on tight to Lan Zhan’s broad, firm shoulders as he tries desperately to gather his thoughts.
He can’t. All he can see is Lan Zhan, sun-bright eyes and soft, smiling mouth. All he can hear is Lan Zhan’s voice, whispering, Wei Ying, my Wei Ying. All he can feel is Lan Zhan’s skin. The powerful flex of his hips and the way he strains to maintain a steady rhythm. The silky heat of his cock, rubbing against his sensitive insides, catching against something that makes his vision spark and his ears ring and moans go high and guttural by turns.
He loves how overwhelming this is. Loves the intensity of the pleasure zinging through him as much as he’s astonished by it. He’s never felt this good before, on his own fingers.
Why does it feel so good, he wonders, knowing that the answer is because it’s Lan Zhan. Anything Lan Zhan wants would feel good to him. Lan Zhan’s want feels good to him.
He has wanted Lan Zhan to want him for so, so long.
Look at Lan Zhan, proving just how much. Good boy. His Lan Zhan. Fucking him so well. Loving him so hard. Look at him; Wei Wuxian can’t deal with him, or his stupid, soft face, or his big, shiny eyes staring into his soul.
Then Lan Zhan gets a fumbling, urgent hand on his dick, right as he aims up with a particularly vicious thrust, and Wei Wuxian is gone.
~*~
~*~
Lan Wangji can’t believe what’s happening to him is real.
He knows what he can see – Wei Ying, bending over him, all cheek and playful, sparkling eyes. What he can hear and feel – the soft, slurping sounds of Wei Ying’s mouth, sucking teasingly on the tip of his cock. The tickle and scrape of electricity zinging through his nipples, his waist, the dip of his hips, as the tips of Wei Ying’s fingers dance over his skin. He feels overheated; one giant, pulsing heartbeat from his burning ears to his toes, curling with pleasure.
It’s indescribable. It feels amazing. Hot and wet and filthy and uninhibitedly erotic in a way that had once seemed to him shamefully obscene.
How could such a wonderful, precious thing be real?
Wei Ying goes from teasing to intent. His mouth closes over the entire head of Lan Wangji’s cock, his tongue lapping around it, making things wet and sloppy and smooth. Wei Ying’s mouth feels like fire on his flesh, the pleasure so intense that Lan Wangji forgets about philosophising and scrabbles for purchase, finding Wei Ying’s hands and tangling their fingers together.
Desperate.
Wei Ying clutches back, holding on tight. Lan Wangji moves to circle his wrist, and the thundering pulse that meets the sensitive pads of his fingers beats synchronous to his own.
It’s too much. It’s far, far too real. Wei Ying – Wei Wuxian, bright and brilliant and good, foremost of their generation, the best person he knows, his dream boy – Lan Wangji’s dream man – sucking his cock.
He moans. He’s loud. He never thought he could be, but in fairness, life hasn’t equipped him anywhere near adequately for the mind-blistering sensation of Wei Ying’s everything. He moans again – or shouts – something guttural and garbled that has Wei Ying pulling off him to meet his gaze, all smiling and smug about himself.
It’s the look in his eyes that snaps Lan Wangji back to himself, back to perfect clarity.
He had thought he was done for, when Wei Ying caught him out with that talisman. Here comes ruin, he had thought, waiting for Wei Ying’s shock to morph into anger, betrayal, disgust – so many ugly, unutterable – deserved – things.
Anything but the way Wei Ying had gone quiet. Disbelieving. Asking Lan Wangji over and over what he felt. If it was true. With that look on his face – like he wanted to believe, so, so badly. Like he didn’t dare to – like he wanted to be convinced. Asking to be convinced.
Asking again, and again – Lan Zhan, are you sure? You love me, Lan Zhan, are you sure?
And then, how he had looked when Lan Wangji told him exactly what he meant by come back to Gusu. Wanting. Needy. Trusting that if Lan Wangji said it, it was true.
Real.
It’s the perfect, complete trust in that look, now, that does him in. He’s about to come. Wei Ying isn’t even touching his dick properly anymore, just flicking it gently with his fingers, but it’s going to be enough –
He doesn’t want to come like this, alone.
Quick as a minnow, he flips them over and buries himself inside Wei Ying with a single, deep roll of his hips. He pins Wei Ying down, stretched tight and hot around his cock, with a hand on his hip. With his other, he grabs hold of Wei Ying’s erection. He’s soft and hot around Lan Wangji’s cock, hot and hard in his hand.
He wants to take care of Wei Ying. He had promised him that – minutes ago – or hours – how long has today been?
It doesn’t matter. He’s meant to take care of Wei Ying, always.
He tells Wei Ying exactly so, and watches with warm, shameless pleasure as Wei Ying proceeds to go completely to pieces.
Lubricated with the slick from his dribbling precum, Lan Wangji twists his hand over him, root to tip, in long strokes. Slow. Deliberate. Revels in the way he shudders and writhes, trying to fuck himself on Lan Wangji. Savours his whimpers, his pleas for more, have mercy, be good to me, Lan Zhan, look after me, my good boy, my Lan Zhan. Watches with satisfaction as he jerks and arches, coming in hot spurts all over Lan Wangji’s hand.
Lan Wangji’s been teetering on the edge for so long that the searing clench of his body is all it takes for him to thrust helplessly once, twice into Wei Ying, before he follows him over the edge, his body quivering, overloaded with sensation.
He hopes Wei Ying knows, that Lan Wangji will always be there for him.
~*~
Wei Wuxian doesn’t know how many times he’s come. He’s spent the afternoon in a haze of good-too much-good-too much-too good-too much. Somewhere along the line, though, he turned a corner. There’s something in his body and soul that’s built weird like that – he can only take so much of something before it can’t overwhelm him anymore. Right now, his nerves are sizzling with pleasure, but for the first time that day, he has perfect clarity.
He looks up and sees Lan Zhan – properly, thoroughly, checks him out. Lan Zhan looks undone. There’s colour high on his cheeks, his hair’s wild around his shoulders, clinging to his neck and arms where he’s damp with sweat. Lan Zhan, sweating. Wei Wuxian never thought he’d get to see such a sight. He’s glorious in the dappled sunlight filtering through the canopy; it gleams off the finely chiselled planes of his body, throwing every flexing, working muscle into sharp relief. Wei Wuxian wants to slurp him up.
He hooks an arm around Lan Zhan’s neck, dragging him down for a sloppy, lazy kiss. It’s not really a kiss – they don’t have the skill or experience to coordinate kissing and fucking just yet. Only their mouths brushing ineptly, eagerly against each other, tongues reaching out to flick and tease with each thrust of Lan Zhan’s cock in his body. Lan Zhan peers at him through heavy-lidded lashes, golden eyes smouldering with passion.
He shifts to a strange, dirty grind suddenly, burying his cock in to the hilt with every stroke and keeping it there while he moves his hips in tight little circles. Wei Wuxian’s gasping into his mouth, choking on his cock, dying for more. Lan Zhan feels so big like this, he doesn’t even need to aim for anything special on purpose, he’s stimulating every inch of him without even trying.
Through it all, he never stops kissing Wei Wuxian. Lan Zhan’s lips rove like a butterfly over his face, his neck, the hard rise of his pectorals, the pleasure-pained points of his nipples. He pecks, nips, and sucks, making love to Wei Wuxian’s body for long, slow, syrupy moments, his gaze never leaving him, daring him to look away just once. Saying all the things that he can’t with words.
Like this, Wei Wuxian can believe that Lan Zhan loves him. Loves. Him. Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian.
Somehow, incredibly, it’s real. It’s taken Wei Wuxian a (very) panicked (and disjointed) confession, and a minimum of (he thinks) four orgasms to get here, but he’s finally got here.
Lan Zhan loves me, he thinks, and is simultaneously astonished and delighted to find that it feels right. Real.
He laughs, soft and joyful and definitely way more weepy than warranted when getting railed into gentle oblivion. Lan Zhan looks worried – still devastatingly adoring, but mostly worried, and more catastrophically, he’s stopped moving, which – nope, nope, nope. Wei Wuxian knows that they have a whole lifetime’s worth of hard conversations to have – later – when he’s not going out of his mind with the need to orgasm.
Specifically, on Lan Zhan’s cock, with Lan Zhan grinding into him all sweet and sensuous, before he stopped, because Wei Wuxian caught an emotion.
Ugh. He’s so ridiculous. Wei Wuxian loves him so much. So, so much. He can’t help the tears that spring to his eyes again with the weight of that admission settling into his chest, anchoring him down and keeping him locked into reality. It hurts, strangely, in the way that a wound aches when it finally begins to heal – a little itchy, a little sweet, a little sharp, and full of relief.
Lan Zhan and Wei Ying, together.
“I believe it,” he tells Lan Zhan, smoothing a hand over his cheek, tugging him back down for a hard, deep kiss.
“I believe that you love me,” he whispers into Lan Zhan’s mouth. And then, so hushed that it almost vanishes into the space between their mingled breaths – “I love you. Do you believe me?”
Lan Zhan’s answering gaze is feral. Yes, he doesn’t say – but he doesn’t need to.
Wei Wuxian understands.
“Show me,” he begs, or demands, or something in between. It’s barely out of his mouth before Lan Zhan grips his hips and pounds into him, the head of his cock nailing straight into that spot that feels so good with every rough smack of Lan Zhan’s hips. Wei Wuxian jerks and comes with a scream, the sound muffled by Lan Zhan’s lips covering his own. Lan Zhan doesn’t stop, just keeps going, and going, till Wei Wuxian feels rubbed raw from overstimulation. He thinks he’s coming again, or maybe he never stopped coming after the last time – his dick’s wet with come dribbling down to his thighs, he’s a mess, he’s Lan Zhan’s mess.
And Lan Zhan, finally, finally shuddering to completion in his arms, is his.
~*~
Jin Zixuan is having a day.
It’s a ridiculously hot and humid afternoon for a crowd hunt, Zixun’s lurking around every corner with his mouth open, braying like an ass, and he’s pretty sure his father’s got something horrendously nasty planned because he’s just like that.
So he had – what seemed at the time – the bright idea to escape the whole mess by getting his mother to hook him up with an afternoon of showing Jiang Yanli around the hunting grounds. A little light conversation, a little suave flirting – who was he fooling; he’d be lucky if he could get up the nerve to apologise for having been a general piece of shit.
The problem is, he tends to go completely to pieces around her.
It’s half the reason he’s been so antagonistic to the idea of marrying her. Not having any choice in it is one half, but the other – he just never knows what to do with her. She’s always seemed so soft and gentle; more so than any person he’s ever known. He was raised in a snakepit, he doesn’t know how to be soft.
There are women in Jinlintai who play well at that sort of refined gentility. Well-camouflaged vipers, one and all. But Jiang Yanli’s nurturing nature has always seemed uncomfortably real – or very well acted. He doesn’t know, he’s never really been able to tell. She never speaks her opinions, never puts herself forward, is never natural when around him – it makes him suspicious. Or used to, before the damned soup thing happened.
The soup thing. He can feel his insides curling up in shame at the humiliating reminder of just how wrong he’d been. Not just about Jiang Yanli, but also to her. The public insults for years. The lack of courtesy at social events. The open disdain and verbal criticism, without regard for her status or personhood. The way he’d put his hands on her. The bruises his fingers had left around her wrist.
Even his father’s never hurt his mother like that.
Jin Zixuan knows he’s a generally ineffectual failure of a human being, but he never thought he’d sink to depths even his father hadn’t breached. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t have the guts to show his face around Jiang Yanli – he made his mother invite her here because she deserves the dignity of an apology.
So why the fuck, he despairs at himself, is he lecturing her on basic facts about measuring snakes, like she’s some kind of village idiot?
She’s a far better person than he is, which means she’s too nice to tell him to piss off down the gullet of the nearest reptile. But he can see it in her face. She’s totally judging him right now. Him and his whole tacky, ill-mannered, overbearing, tactless, selfish family.
What was he thinking, inviting Jiang Yanli, noted homebody who can barely swing a sword, to a crowd hunt? To apologise? Why hadn’t he hied himself off to Lotus Pier and eaten dog shit on her turf, like a considerate adult?
He can just hear MianMian telling him she told him so, because she did tell him so. Loads of times. At least six times.
The only way this day could get worse, he thinks miserably and independently of his mouth, which is still carping on condescendingly about night hunting for morons, is if her horrible little brother decides to cause yet another scandal with Lan Wangji.
Seriously, what is with those two?
And why do they have to be so – so – public, with the intense eye-fucking and extremely charged “fighting” and the forehead-ribbon pulling? If he, son of the greatest whoremonger in the cultivation world, can see it a mile off, surely their families must be sick of it by now? Why hasn’t anyone married them off yet?! It’s disgraceful.
One incense-stick later, he’s staring haplessly at Jiang Yanli’s horrible little brother’s horrible, naked backside, snuggled right up to Lan Wangji’s equally naked buttocks, not knowing whether to laugh or cry or scream like a little girl and run away, completing this disaster of a day with a flourish.
He really should have known better than to send fate an open invitation like that.
~*~
Jiang Yanli’s too busy cooing over the disgustingly adorable way Lan-er-gongzi is cuddling her precious baby brother to worry about minor concerns like the embarrassing (they’re butt-naked), or the alarming (they’re butt-naked in Jin territory with half the cultivation world roaming this mountain), or the scandalous (my little brother is no longer an innocent maiden!!!), or even the tiresomely predictable (A-Cheng’s going to throw SUCH a tantrum).
It's not her fault, really; the two of them are just so cute together. She’s always known they would be – she’s not the wilfully oblivious manchild of the family. Nope, that’s her brothers. Both of them.
Yanli, on the other hand, can see true love when it’s been smacking them all in the face for years. All that staring, honestly. How does no one else see it?
For a long time there, she’d been worried that even A-Xian and his Lan Zhan couldn’t see it. So that’s one problem solved, she reflects with no small amount of relief. It had pained her to watch them fight and argue and hurt each other all through the war and after, breaking each other’s hearts repeatedly without even realising the damage they were doing to themselves. She’s hated recognising what was happening and being unable to do a single thing to fix it regardless.
They needed to do that on their own. Now it appears that they have, and she’s so over the moon she could cry. She takes a moment longer to savour the sight of them curled into each other, deeply asleep and obviously trusting in the other’s embrace. Lan Wangji’s arms are locked firmly around her brother, one hand curled into the mass of hair at A-Xian’s nape. And A-Xian…she doesn’t think she’s ever seen her brother look so at peace. So content. He’s only sleeping, but all the stress lines he’s been carrying around his eyes and mouth have relaxed – he looks young again, like himself again, but happier. He looks warm, and safe, and loved.
Practicalities loom in the background – Jin Zixuan, for starters, who’s about to start hyperventilating next to her. The social and political implications of Jin Guangshan’s heir witnessing this very private affair. Clothes.
Her mind starts working double-time, trying to figure out damage control, and coming up entirely blank, when Jin Zixuan takes the matter entirely out of her hands. He yanks her back round some shrubbery so that they’re no longer getting quite such an eyeful of the sleeping couple, and begins whispering furiously at her about propriety and scandal and weddings and –
Wait.
She forces herself to actually pay attention to his – babbling? Ranting? She’s not sure – he’s gesticulating with very pointy fingers as he goes on and on about “…you can’t let this go on, surely! The scandal – at my family’s hunt! Jiang-guniang! The two of them have been at this for years, there are limits, surely you must admit things have gone far out of hand – if Zixun trips over their ankles there’ll be hell to…”
Huh. So Jin Zixuan does have some social sense. She hadn’t expected her thick-headed ex-fiancé to see what everyone else refused to, but apparently he has it in him to surprise her. Yanli factors this revelation into her calculations and rapidly works out a strategy.
“I’ll cut you a deal,” she ruthlessly cuts him off mid-rant. “Help me secure my little brother’s happiness, and I’ll make sure I get your mother off your back about marrying me.”
That hurts a little – even though she doesn’t actually want to marry him, or into his hellhole of a sect. Their betrothal had been the foundation of the first seventeen years of her life, however, and like any teenaged idiot she had harboured – not hopes, because she’s a realist, but fantasies, of happiness with him. Aside from the love of her brothers, those fantasies were all she’d had to comfort herself with, in the face of her general unpopularity with literally everyone of her social class, including her own mother.
But if it gets the job done – it gets the job done. She’ll live with it.
And then, of course, he surprises her again.
With a firm chin and enough gravitas to rival the looming spectre of Lan Qiren, Jin Zixuan looks deep into her eyes, and says, “I’ll do it – if you agree to not get my mother off my back!”
She stares.
He winces. “Please?”
At least it’s progress.
~*~
In after years, Wei Wuxian will look back and laugh at the fact that he owes his present joy to the Peacock’s prissy sense of propriety, of all things. In the present, he’s too busy dealing with the consequences of said outraged sensibilities, to worry about who, what, why, or wherefore.
The first shock comes when he’s actually, officially, honest-to-gods-and-ancestors-really-truly allowed to marry Lan Zhan. It’s not as if he expects Lan Zhan to dine and dash, as it were. He knows Lan Zhan loves him, but he had somehow harboured only vague ideas of them conducting their love in secrecy, where his reputation couldn’t hurt Lan Zhan, so Lan Zhan could always have the option to walk away, if (when) he was forced to, or if (when) he found someone better, or if (when) he couldn’t handle the reality of Wei Wuxian’s ageing, wrinkling, mortal, rapidly decaying self. He knows he’s on a half-life, ever since he gave up his core. He knows he’s dying, just like any common man.
He knows Lan Zhan loves him, but in the cold hard face of post-nut clarity, combined with predictable opposition from Lan Qiren and his cabal of elders, Wei Wuxian doesn’t expect Lan Zhan to stick around for any of his messiness. Lan Zhan, he thinks, deserves better and will inevitably see it for himself one day. If (when) that day comes, Wei Wuxian is prepared to deal.
It’ll probably kill him, but he’ll deal.
Somehow, the one thing he isn’t prepared for, is for the truth to absolutely galvanise Lan Zhan into overhauling Wei Wuxian’s entire life, like his life depends on it.
The first thing he does is haul Wei Wuxian off to his sister.
The betrayal is stunning. There’s no escaping shijie. Wei Wuxian is going to die. She’s going to cry, and then she’s probably going to murder him. She might even make him tell Jiang Cheng. It’s going to be the worst. XianXian is only three years old; he does not want to face his execution like a man.
~*~
Once shijie’s on a roll, she’s like a boulder. You get the hell out of her way, or you get pulped into paste. She and Lan Zhan are a lot like that.
Wei Wuxian’s sins have returned to roost. His bullshit falls on deaf ears. His very logical reasoning meets wide, tragic eyes and quivering, doleful pouts.
He gives up and lets them haul him to a doctor.
Well, more like the doctor. The actual head of Gusu Lan’s healing halls, the woman who personally maintains the health of the Lan clan’s ruling family. Lan-yisheng in turn has Wen Qing hauled in from the general infirmary where she’s in the middle of a demonstration on meridian repair, and then Wei Wuxian gets to experience the unbidden glee of watching someone turn Wen Qing speechless. Well, not the part where she gets dressed down like she’s a twelve-year-old playing doctor-doctor with her dolls. But also maybe just a little bit the part where she gets dressed down like she’s a twelve-year-old playing doctor-doctor with her dolls.
And then, between a chastened-but-desperately-motivated Wen Qing, a determined-and-plain-old-desperate Lan Zhan, and a horrified-but-adamant-on-fixing-him healer, they haul in all the doctors.
And then it’s just tests after tests, which he submits to with terrible grace, Lan Zhan holding his hand all through it.
One of the older healers remarks that core-melting apparently isn’t even the first time someone’s invented a way to mess with people’s golden cores. He expounds that Wen Zhuliu’s ability was particularly devastating because he wrecked a person’s entire system, including their root and meridians. These, he thinks, can be rebuilt, but not healed or kept open unless there is spiritual power unendingly moving through them – impossible since the core has been melted. That’s his hypothesis on why the golden core transfer worked – the transplanted core provides the qi to heal the system and keep it open till it has been fully repaired. A surprised and impressed Wen Qing confirms it.
Turns out he has a decent chance of recultivating his golden core, seeing as how his meridians never got melted. Just…emptied. Then refilled with resentful energy, true – but a full vessel can always be tipped over again. Qi is qi, be it pure or corrupted, and corrupted energy can be cleared out given a solid broomstick and considerable application of elbow grease.
Lan Zhan is very smug about the fact that he officially gets to play Cleansing for him. Wei Wuxian is totally not finding that heart-meltingly sexy. Not at all.
Then he has to abandon his sulking to trade it in for outright horror – because apparently it’ll take years of cold hard slogging to get him anywhere near not-ageing-rapidly. Which turns into sly, squishy, sugary glee when Lan Zhan of all people brings up dual cultivation. And gets handed a detailed manual, plus explicit permission to fuck the literal life back into Wei Wuxian anytime they please.
He meets Lan Zhan’s eyes, and they make a silent agreement right then to bone like bunnies. For health reasons, of course. Doctor’s orders.
He gets a little carried away fantasising about all the ways he’s going to tease Lan Zhan into doing it everyday, unaware of the way his face goes soft and dreamy; only the way Lan Zhan stares at him, matching desire in his gaze.
~*~
Lan Qiren nearly achieves sainthood. At the very least, he definitely achieves the patience of a saint.
For the next few decades, he watches, the foundations of his being melting brick-by-brick into total despair at the complete chaos that takes over his sect, leaving it ruffled, discombobulated, altered.
That Wei Wuxian.
He changes everything.
He revolutionises their foundational cultivation, till they churn out hearty, life-loving disciples, with golden cores shining with the potential to be bright as the sun. He normalises noise, spinning stories by the twilight hours, so full of vigour and drama that the quiet, subdued Lan children eat it up – and ask for more. He carries music with him, impromptu concerts with chopsticks and spoons taking over the mess hall more than once, till meals are forever entwined with mischief and merriment.
He overthrows their entire talisman department in an overnight coup, and rebuilds it from scratch till they have the foremost talisman research and production facility in the entire cultivation world – till they are reknowned as much for their talismans as they are for their music, in fact.
He takes to gardening like some kind of agricultural fiend, sprouting flowers and fruit trees at random spots in the Cloud Recesses, till the once solidly green mountaintops and misty, winding paths are layered with colour and surprises lurking around this and that corner.
He leads Wangji down unprecedented paths of study, till the two of them have upended the entire forbidden section of the library, till Wangji has mastered every single piece of music in their lexicon, till he burns bright enough to seem like a star fallen to the earth.
Lan Qiren watches all this with a careful, critical eye. Watches helplessly as the beloved traditions of his sect are torn down and dusted into the wind, as the behemoth that emerges from their bones is something much more magnificent and stable than 3,000 incessantly winding rules could be.
There are rules, and then there are principles, as Wangji grows fond of saying, till it becomes an unofficial clan motto, generations of juniors treating it as gospel.
Wei Wuxian makes, and teaches, and creates, and cultivates, till he becomes, perhaps, what he was always meant to be: the greatest cultivator of their age. And guided by his relentless inspiration, Wangji shimmers with power.
Lan Qiren lives in the background, unable to do a single thing about any of it.
~*~
Thirteen hundred years later
Wei Wuxian wakes up just before dawn on a cool morning. He can hear the drizzle of an early spring shower pitter-pattering on the eaves, and sense the damp, misty chill in the air. It doesn’t bother him; the Jingshi is warm and comfy, and he’s all cosied up to his husband, who’s very definitely awake. And very definitely taking advantage of his lax, loose body in a shameless display of pure hedonism.
He wiggles his butt a little further into Lan Zhan, trying to draw Lan Zhan’s cock deeper in him. But his husband’s too clever by half – and apparently feeling playful this morning, because he immediately cants his hips back, teasing Wei Wuxian with phantom touches all along his flanks, little tingly nippy kisses at the nape of his neck that make him shiver and spark with arousal. The head of Lan Zhan’s cock finds that spot in him that makes him whine and pant, and thrusts shallowly against it, rubbing it till Wei Wuxian’s overstimulated with need and denial.
He lets Lan Zhan set the pace, lets him draw it out, all sweet sensuousness for Wei Wuxian’s pleasure. Lets Lan Zhan love him gently, carefully, in sharp contrast to the way he’d pounded Wei Wuxian raw the night before.
He comes like that, drowning in sleepy touches and slow sex, floating on a dreamscape of pleasure and sensation. He feels loved. He feels happy.
It’s a good life. He can’t wait to live the rest of it.