Wei Ying is not a morning person, Lan Zhan discovers along with Shufu and A-Huan.
No amount of shaking, prodding, poking or jostling will wake him up enough to get him out of bed and the three that ARE up look at one another in defeat.
"What if we give him another half hour?" A-Huan says cautiously to their Uncle.
"WangJi, make sure both of you are not late today. Punctuality is respecting your teachers, and proves a willingness to learn." Uncle Qiren frowns at the covered lump on the bed after Wei Ying has unconsciously pulled the blanket all around himself in an impenetrable barrier against those who do not appreciate sleeping as much as he does.
"Why does Shufu call me WangJi?" Lan Zhan blurts out. This has always bothered him, why their Uncle calls him a different name to his birth name.
For a moment, Lan Qiren looks flustered, not usually on the end of a question regarding his own behaviour, but he recovers quickly.
"What do you mean? I have always called you WangJi."
"But you call XiChen, A-Huan." Lan Zhan replies. He doesn't know where this bravery is coming from, but this has always irked him, this slight difference in how he's treated from his brother. Is there a specific reason why it exists? Or has Shifu never considered why?
"Would you prefer me to call you A-Zhan?" Uncle Qiren asks him, crouching down to his height at last.
Good because Lan Zhan was getting a crick in his neck from looking up constantly. He shakes his head after a while. He does not like being this short, not when he is used to being slightly taller than his uncle.
In his past life, the inner family Lan members received their courtesy names by the time they were around sixteen years old. He remembers being on night patrol and seeing a rebellious young boy climb over the walls of Cloud Recesses with prohibited contraband in the form of two jars filled with Emperor's Smile.
What had induced him to give Wei Ying his birth name then? That had definitely been a spur of the moment thing, certainly not thought out in advance...
But the practice of using courtesy names even before they were officially bestowed upon the individual is an old one, because Lan Zhan cannot remember a single soul calling him anything except WangJi from a young age - only his mother called him A-Zhan.
Perhaps instinctively, Lan Zhan had unconsciously known how important Wei Ying was going to become to himself? He had after all, only allowed Wei Ying to call him by his birth name, and anyone else using "Lan Zhan" felt wrong. Those two words said after one another only felt right coming from two people in his life, and one of them was dead.
"Then why bring it up?" Uncle Qiren asks him, peering into his eyes.
"It was just a thought," Lan Zhan replies, flustered himself for the tables having been turned on him.
"When you were born, I met with your father to let him know about you. He wanted to give you that name, but your mother liked Lan Zhan. We compromised, but I think I always thought of you as WangJi, regardless."
Shufu sounds as if he's thinking back to the past when these events must have happened to him.
"Shufu may continue calling me WangJi," Lan Zhan says quietly, wishing he had not brought it up. The not knowing of a small issue such as his name had his mind creating rifts between himself and his brother that had no foundation, no truth except for the imagined slight when there wasn't one.
"Mn. I shall send for breakfast for both of you. Do not be late, WangJi," Shufu says, marching out of the Hanshi with XiChen not-running to catch up to him.
