This part, Wei Ying knows, is where everything took a nosedive into tragedy. So far, Lan Zhan and himself have described a rocky path with ups and downs, but this? This is a descent, albeit in stages. It's like throwing a huge rock down a mountainside. They just hadn't realised it, back then.
“The banquet in Koi tower had already begun and people were enjoying the freedom to drink as much as they liked. That Jin guy-”
“Jin ZiXun,” Lan Zhan helpfully supplies, hating that guy for lots of reasons, not just for picking on Wei Ying and for being an obnoxious rotting piece of corpse brain, but also for singling himself out on that day.
“Yeah, him, Jin ZiXun, was standing in front of Lan Zhan and trying to force him to drink a toast. Everyone knew the Lans did not drink, and that Lan XiChen only drank toasts because it was expected of him, but he used his golden core to burn away the effects of the alcohol.” Wei Ying glances at the little boy currently shielded by his uncle, sitting in his lap.
“That's despicable behaviour! Did no one stop him from doing that?” Lan Qiren demands, obviously shocked by the rampant bullying among the gentry disguised as polite behaviour.
“XiChen-Ge couldn't really say anything because he would be one voice, and it didn't help that he was holding his own cup at the time. Meng Yao, now known as Jin GuangYao, tried to intervene, but he was equally hated by Jin ZiXun and Jin-Furen, so him speaking out against it only made things worse.
“But it was convenient for me to step in, seeing as that was the very man I intended to speak to, the reason I had come back to Koi tower in the first place. I took the cup out of his hands and swallowed it down, tipping the cup upside down to prove it was empty. Jin ZiXun was still sore from losing the night hunt previously, and to me, who was in his eyes, so much lower born. Sorry, Baba, Mama.” Wei Ying looks down, hating that he has to tell them this part, that the Cultivation world was so deeply rooted in status and heritage that they scoffed at anyone not born of a noble house.
“A-Ying, I am only going to tell you this once,” Wei Changze tells him, sounding like he never has before. “You do not have to apologise for their derogatory behaviour. That's their prejudice, their vanity. For my part, I am proud that my own accomplishments led to my position of being Head Disciple in Yunmeng Jiang. I was a servant, but that is nothing to be ashamed of. People cannot make us feel less if we do not allow them to do it in the first place. When they begin to differentiate, that's only true in their small-minded logic, and because they feel threatened. It has nothing to do with us.” He smiles kindly after his bluntness. “The Cultivation world has always been riddled with snobbery, and that is another reason why your mother and I stepped back from joining a Sect altogether.”
“That's also why my Master won't have anything to do with them. They're just a bunch of hypocrites with too much money and too little skill.” Cangse Sanren glances at Lan Qiren and giggles. “Sorry, and no offence.”
“I can hardly take offence when we share the same opinion,” he replies back.
But Lan Qiren has been doing some thinking of his own. He suspects that there's still much these two children haven't told them, and it's another indicator of their maturity, shown just now with A-Ying not wanting to upset his parents by the slurs and name-calling that he was subjected to by people who obviously thought they were better than him, simply by birthright.
Worse than that is the suspicion that the Lan Clan is also at fault, though he has no idea why his instincts are telling him this. He must wait until the children finish telling them everything and then his questions will be more probing, especially when directed towards Lan WangJi. There, he knows he will get the truth, and if it is something terrible, something hard to bear, then it won't be too late to stop things from rushing towards self-implosion.
