Wishes of the Thousand Yearnings

PAINTING

Its three thousand years...

Three thousand years of waiting...

Three thousand years of yearning...

Three thousand years of loving someone his memory cannot remember...

Lan Xichen's saddened sigh resonated within the room. Lan Wangji did not bothered to spare him a glance as he continued to stare outside watching the misty rain falling.

'I want him to be happy... Even if it would mean forgetting everything'
He cannot forget the words squeezed from the dark robed young lad. The soft broken yet resolute tone facing him with such unbreakable gaze, 'even if he had forgotten... He will be happy, as if I never existed in his life.'
'But you are wrong..' Lan Xichen muttered under his breath. Watching his brother's eyes filled with sadness and yearning for whom he can never remember breaks his heart. The same instance, the same sight, the same expression worn throughout those detestable thirteen years.

"Wangji" he softly called, "don't you have to work today?"

Lan Xichen sees Lan Wangji's soft smile and gentle gaze at him. For three thousand years, he had done everything to distract his brother. To a point where he almost discarded even his own. "Sizhui's in high school now... you could also send him off to school..." he added, "he will definitely love that..."

Lost are those words of encouragement, only a simple 'hms' and a faint smile was his only answer. He could only smiled. He, who has everything, life of eternity and power above else, can never bring that fond smile in his brother's face - again. He willingly gave up living in the heavens and stayed with his brother and patiently wait for someone, for who knows when to return... rather... will that person still return?

As a brother... his heart breaks as time passes by. He could only watch his brother stare at an abyss he cannot fathom to imagine. Lost. Yearning. Mourning. That one sided pain only one person has to take.

'How can someone continuously love one he cannot remember?'

"Sizhui do you want me to go to school with me?" he heard Lan Wangji asked.

"Can I Dad?" Lan Sizhui smiled, "cool... Let's go together dad!"
"Mm."

'Absurd. A waste... he should free himself and find new love...'

Lan Xichen smiled at the sad thought. He cannot tell his brother to move on. Lan's are at fault for falling for one. The love that founded their clan became a cruse rather than a blessing.
He can't even help his own brother. He can't even save him from despair. He could only wait with him. Let time to move and the surroundings change. He could only watch from the side and begged the heaven's for one more time. Just one time – just one more chance. He could only wither with time and grow that resolve once again.

For three thousand years, the one who kept his brother's emotion and sanity is the same child he took from the burial mounds... The same child he and that person protected and raised as close as blood son in that lifetime... He and that person's child.

Three thousand years of faithfulness.

Three thousand of the same sadness and pain. With just three thousand.

'have he gotten enough yet? Why struggle? Struggle in such a losing battle?'

Even with the changes of society, the loss of cultivation, and the gradual innovation made by human hands, Lan Wangji remained who he was eons ago. They may have abandoned the sect clothes, coped with the modern style and even kept the forehead ribbon. However, Lan Wangji's heart remain as it was three thousand years ago. He remained as a father to his child's each life time. He remained as father of that person child.