Summary:
"He faintly processes the fact of what he had been about to do. How could he try to do this? Leave A-yuan? Leave his Xiongzhang?
And then he remembers why. And then he feels his brother's sobs shake his own body.
And Lan wangji breaks down...
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Lan wangji didn't understand how he could feel the pain he felt right now. All his life, he had barely felt anything outside of simple old loneliness (though he wouldn't admit that) and a strict sense to be righteous and follow every rule to its end.
He didn't know his heart was capable of receiving and processing such emotions. Well, he realized his capabilities the moment he met a certain someone under the moonlight, on a rooftop. He realized his Jade heart wasn't so solidified after all.
For at that moment, that shining smile shone brightly upon his heart like a warm ray of sunshine after a long, long winter.
Gusu was known for its winters and cold, and yet perhaps the longest winter Lan wangji had ever experienced was the one in his heart. A winter that had lasted for more than 10 years.
Wei Ying had come like a thunderstorm. Jumpstarting his still jade heart. Lighting up his life, bringing a liveliness that had died with his mother.
And he had apparently left the same way with a devastating calm of utter confusion, overwhelm and pain in his wake.
Lan Wangji didn't know he had enough of himself left to feel any of this. Now he knew he did.
As much as the thrill of loving someone was exhilarating, the kick of losing that very person was excruciating.
Was it worth it? (Is it worth it to love someone so deeply enough to give it the power to destroy you)
'Wei Ying is worth it. Worth everything'
The last time he had lost someone (he hadn't lost Wei Ying but it felt all the same) it was his mother. (Sure he felt grief when his father passed away but could you really lose someone you've never had?)
He hadn't understood it immediately. But when he had it was awful. It was terrible. No words could do justice to how Lan wangji had felt. And yet he had overcome it. He had accepted it.
But this was so very different. He felt like he was mourning and he knows he shouldn't be, not yet. He was in limbo. A dizzying, volatile limbo.
And If he was being honest, this was worse.
The very delicate thin edge of holding the knife of hope so close to your heart. The mere idea of having his hope be in vain was excruciating for what it implied was too devasting.
Yet having that hope was not far from hell.
If Wei Ying wasn't dead, where was he? Because for Lan wangji to hope that Wei Ying was alive but was not really hoping if he was alive in the burial mounds.
As much as it hurt him to admit it, he hoped that if Wei Ying had been thrown into the burial mounds, as the wen soldiers had told him, he had died from the impact.
