𝒜 𝒲𝒾𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓇'𝓈 𝒫𝓇𝑜𝓂𝒾𝓈𝑒

Chapter 3- The Promise

Hm? What night is he talking about?

"I uh...Lan Zhan, I am sorry. I don't remember..."

Lan Wangji sighs softly, disappointed but not surprised in his reincarnated husband's poor memory—after all, I died an incredibly traumatic death and was reborn into a new body only to experience more trauma, so how could I remember much amidst the chaos of life? Lan Wangji places a hand upon my shoulder to let me know it's okay. Feeling guilty from below him, I stare into his eyes with a warm smile.

"Lan Zhan, I want to remember. Could you please fill me in? Why is today important? What happened on today in the years before now?"

He appears to debate answering my questions or just leaving me to wonder. Picking me up off the sweaty sheets, he places me on his lap again but this time after wrapping me in a clean sheet and pulling me tight. I can feel his hot breath as he kisses the side of my neck and gently nibbles at the area of skin yet to be marked by him. He is avoiding my questions, but is it because he is hurt? Is he just a tease, or is it that I have hurt his feelings somehow? Knowing him, he won't tell. Just as I think he could be ignoring me, Lan Wangji says something:

"I realized something that winter."

"What winter? Was this last winter?" I ask genuinely.

With a shake of his head he says, "No. I mean the winter of the year Mo Xuanyu summoned you to take revenge for him. The same year you came back after being dead for over a decade. The same year when I realized there would be a chance to meet you again before I die."

I am startled by his talkative nature today. He is an honest man, of course, he is possibly the most honest man there is apart from his older brother, but being open and honest are two different things albeit related, so I am not used to such a reveal of emotions even from my own cultivation partner. I think I figure out what Lan Wangji had 'realized' that year.

"Ah, so you mean the thing you realized was that you could be with me again in this life?" I ask, thinking I have found the answer.

"No," he replies without hesitation.

"Oh, well then what is it?"

Lan Wangji is silent. He ponders over how to say what he wants to say, then he starts.

"On that snowy night in the Jingshi, after both of our reputations were officially tainted, I realized something. Though I never said it out loud, I knew that you were the one."

My heart stops for a second. It beats again with his next sentence, rapid like a hummingbird's wings.

"Before then, I had feelings for you too. As a teenager, it was a reluctant crush on the shameless, rebel classmate who I swore I would never befriend. That night in the Jingshi, it was love. In that moment, when the entire world stopped apart from the snow outside softening the sounds of the angry mobs headed our way, there was you, and there was me. And in that very moment, I realized that was, despite the trouble and suffering I endured to get there, exactly where I was meant to be. I still feel this way now."

I am redder than a summer sunset. He waits for me to respond before continuing, but he goes on when he sees I am too stunned to spit out even a single syllable.

"Wei Ying."

I muster up one cracked word, "Y-yeah?"

"You asked me why I chose today?"

I nod.

"I chose today because years ago on this day, we made a silent vow. We weren't married yet then, but there was a vow between us that was unspoken. A winter's promise that we shared. As the cold snow fell on my lips, freezing them shut, I felt it wasn't the time to speak it aloud."

I am still in shock at his poetic speech, my Lan Zhan speaking in a way I have never heard before despite years of marriage and even more years of friendship.

"I waited until the day that I officially married you in all the possible ways I could before I felt ready. Today was the day that I knew it was time to tell you that vow. I want to tell you what I promised you that night."

I decide it will worry him if I let his feelings float around in the air without sharing any of mine in return for his honesty. I think of something to say, but realize I should just speak as I am.

"Lan Zhan, what was the promise that you silently made me that night in the Jingshi?"

"I promise to walk the single-log bridge 'til it's dark with you in this life and whatever lives come after this; so long as you are Wei Ying, and I am Lan Zhan, we will stick together."

A Winter's Promise, End ♡

Thank you for reading! I'm trying not to cry at my own piece of writing; big thanks to MXTX for her brain. Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, you have changed my life. Please vote/comment and show support on my fanfiction, as well as for the original author's works! Let me know good/bad and helpful things about this piece. I am actually quite happy with this, and I hope anyone who finds this is too. Thank you, and I can't wait to write more for you.

- Lavender&Lotus a.k.a. Lav, Lavender or Lavvy :)