On the north end of Caiyi city, autumn was turning quickly to the cold of winter. Lan Zhan watched impassively as another person left the tea-house as the shadows grew ever longer on the pavement outside.
In his hand, the video on his smartphone, bought especially for its video capacity, continued to play, dragging his attention back. Sunlight gleamed off the silver edges and he shifted in his seat leaning forward. It didn't matter that he had watched this five times in the last three days, or that he had checked seven minutes ago for any updates on his feed.
He wasn't obsessed. To be obsessed, you had to have an obsession, and he didn't.
And it was entirely coincidental that he followed all of the tech blogs that in turn followed Furong and the devoted fans who followed Wei Wuxian's career. There were a lot of people who knew that the House of Lotus, as they were nicknamed were going to do a product unveiling in twelve days. There were a lot of people who also knew that the company was going to unveil their new talisman arrays, launched by Wei Wuxian himself as the Director of Cultivation Products.
It didn't make him obsessed that he knew that as well. He was a follower of Jiang Yanli's Weibo account too and active in their shared business. He had the photos of the new cakes to review for their website.
That his friend and business partner, enjoyed speaking of her brothers in every single conversation, and that she was immensely proud of both of them, was entirely coincidental. A bonus.
It was being supportive that he watched all of Wei Ying's painting tutorials and learned more about oil painting in the last few weeks than he ever wanted to know.
In the video, Wei Ying, dressed in a red t-shirt and artfully ripped jeans was explaining the process of mixing colors when using oil paint. There was a white canvas behind him and the curving ceiling just visible that always made Lan Zhan think of attics.
His voice coming through his headphones was smooth, hypnotic in its power.
This of course was only his art channel. Wei Ying also had video series on cultivation techniques, origami, playing the flute, sword practice forms, mastering sword flying and talisman making.
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Ink Lines
FanfictionIt's been thirteen years since Lan Zhan was last in a room with Wei Wuxian, but its been five minutes since he saw Wei Ying teaching art online. Devising a complex plan to save Wei Ying from being framed from murder, Lan Zhan throws his life and he...