Lotus Flower

Growing in the sunlight

Lan Qiren was going to the small Wen remnants settlement. He was walking on the cleared up path which the Wen remnants were keeping clean and he could already hear a rambunctious laughter followed by children's giggles. Those were sounds which one would not really expect in the Cloud Recesses but that was fine, Lan Qiren decided, as long as no other Gusu Lan sect disciples knew.

He stopped in the middle of the path and had to try to calm himself. He could tell he was smiling and it would not do to appear like that in front of anyone. He was truly happy that Wei Wuxian had finally started to recover, by leaps and bounds as well. He would have never thought so two weeks ago when he had been sitting by his sick bed and passing him spiritual energy in order to make him feel at least a little bit better.

Now when he heard that laughter, he could almost believe that everything was alright.

However, there was still a long way to go for the boy to be healthy again. There was still resentful energy in his body and if no one was clearing his meridians every single day, he would always regress. They had yet to find a sustainable solution to this. Playing Cleansing could also only do so much so they were stuck with daily sessions.

Not that Lan Qiren minded all that much, as long as it was helping Wei Wuxian. The boy had truly grown on him in that short time he was finally coming out of his room and playing with A-Yuan. They were both behaving like children but Lan Qiren assumed that Wei Wuxian needed an outlet for all of his excess energy now that he got some to spare. He was eating well and all the Wen remnants were keeping an eye on him so he had not missed a single meal in those two weeks.

Finally, Lan Qiren felt like things were turning for the better. Still, his guilt stayed right there where it had always been. He had not managed to apologize to the demonic cultivator, and by now, he was doubting he would ever find the courage to do so. He was more of a man of action than man of words when it came to showing he was sorry for something.

His slightly morose thoughts had efficiently erased his smile from his lips and he now wore his usual serious expression. Even though most of the inhabitants of the Wen remnants' settlement were older than him, he still wanted to keep up his respectful image. He was a Gusu Lan sect elder after all, he could not go around smiling like a certain Wei Wuxian.

Another wild laughter sounded somewhere nearer and Lan Qiren looked around. It now seemed like the giggling he had heard previously was now surrounding him from all sides. Unless it was some auditory hallucination, there must have been more than one child in the woods of the back mountains.

Lan Qiren scowled a little bit. Why would there be more children around these parts of the Cloud Recesses? He knew for certain that A-Yuan was the only one of young age amongst the Wen remnants and no one else came by here. What had happened?

He found his response to those questions soon enough. Suddenly, a dozen of small children, all clad in white robes and wearing the Gusu Lan sect ribbons on their foreheads, came running out of the woods and towards him. They all had a stick in their hands and were holding it as a disciple would hold a sword even though they were still too young to have received any training. Those children were at most the age of five or six, most probably coming from the nursery where they had been supposed to be taking their first lessons.

All the children surrounded him and started to shout and wave their sticks in an adorable display of childhood victory. Lan Qiren still could not understand anything. How was it possible that the children from the nursery were here in the back mountains? And why was there no teacher with them to supervise? And more importantly, why were they all running and shouting like that? Did they all forgot the rules?

Before Lan Qiren could ask one of them, he heard rustling coming from his right side a little up ahead. He turned that way and saw Wei Wuxian coming out of the woods and dusting his robes, a wide grin on his face. The children immediately lost their interest in Lan Qiren and hurried to surround Wei Wuxian instead. They started dancing around him and Lan Qiren saw how the fearsome demonic cultivator fell to his knees, his hands clutching his chest in an exaggerated gesture of pain. Then he fell to his side and played dead.