When Lan Qiren and Lan Zhan arrive in the back hills, Wei Ying and Xue Yang are playing tag, looking out of breath even as they laugh and play. After the heaviness of the afternoon, it makes a refreshing change to see them having fun and playing as ordinary children ought to.
"It is nearly time for dinner, but I think we should spend a few minutes with the bunnies," Lan Qiren murmurs.
When Lan Zhan looks over to him, he's already staring back at him, a melancholic smile on his face.
"Mn?"
"Ah...I realised just now, how difficult it can be to apologise and say thank you to someone much younger than I. But it must be done, A-Zhan. Even if you're twenty inside, you're still a decade and a half away from me. But you have already taught me much. You have stopped me from turning into whatever my- whatever Qingheng-Jun has become. I can only see how disastrous that way would have been now that I have been led away from such folly."
To Lan Zhan's shock, his uncle bows low to him, and only because showing respect has been ingrained into him does he bow back.
"Then we both have to thank Wei Ying," he blurts out.
They're still a distance away from the other two, and neither have noticed them standing here.
"What do you mean?" Lan Qiren straightens but makes no move away from this position.
Lan Zhan turns towards his beloved, carelessly running towards Xue Yang to catch him. Only those who didn't know Wei Ying like he did, would mistake any of his actions as being careless. Wei Ying loved as fiercely as he did, and that's why they matched each other so well.
"In our past life, I had grown up secure in the belief that if I adhered to the rules, they would help me whenever I felt lost. They could guide me towards the right answers to any questions that came across my way. On a mountaintop not far from here, I made a vow with that boy, to protect the weak, stand with justice and live without regrets. Just as he did, I meant every word." Lan Zhan thinks back to that evening, the sun dipping past the peaks in the distance, casting a golden glow over all those ready to light their lanterns. Wei Ying, who shone brighter than anyone else that night.
Of a boy whose wants were so simple, who drew a bunny for him just because Lan WangJi liked rabbits. Who was able to put into words the promises that felt like dreams in his head and voice them out loud.
In that single second, Lan Zhan had his first ever epiphany about Wei WuXian ... He was in love with Wei Ying. Finally able to put a name to that unknown feeling, to understand that when this boy made his heart thump painfully in his chest, who made his stomach flutter like butterflies trapped in a glass jar, and the thought of speaking to him shrank his vocabulary to a single word, it meant something was changing inside of him. He felt like a butterfly himself, tearing his way out of the cocoon of his former life, held back by the endless rules, silken threads meant to bind him, finally able to breathe and look outside of his tiny world only to find that he had changed as well. Now, he could fly.
"But when the time came to stand up for what was right, I faltered. Wei Ying did not. He stood up for justice, while I floundered, waiting for the rules to show me the way. He was my beacon in the night, but I closed my eyes and did not see. By the time I opened them, finally sure of what I had to do, it was too late. There were too many who opposed what Wei Ying showed them, because if they agreed then it meant owning up to their own mistakes. The views of the many do not mean they are right just because of their volume. I found that out the hard way." Lan Zhan looks back at his uncle. "I will never make that mistake again."
With that, Lan Zhan walks on ahead towards Wei Ying.
***************
"Do you think they noticed?" Wei Ying asks breathlessly, dodging a swipe of Xue Yang's hand and grabbing the back of his robes.
