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His name is Zhao Yunlan this time.
His hair is short and his clothes are tight, in the modern fashion. He looks at Shen Wei's loose silk robes and long hair with a curiosity tinged with awe. He's so young.
Shen Wei pours the tea, explains the shop. Only someone with a wish can enter. A wish can be granted for a price. He's done this before, but the form helps, mouthing familiar words as he drinks in this familiar stranger.
KunLun taught him how to pour the tea, fill a pipe. Solid little things drumming like a heartbeat through an age of wishes.
Zhao YunLan reached for his pipe with thoughtless presumption, daring where anyone else would have been struck down. "It's been a while since I quit smoking," he said, with a sly sideways glance "I guess I'm bad at resisting temptation." He pulled a lollipop from his pocket and unwrapped it, popped it into Shen Wei's mouth without giving him a chance to protest. "Equivalent exchange." And startled by sweetness, those words transported Shen Wei back through the years. To the beginning.
"Tell me your wish," He said, and vowed to himself like every time before that whatever the price, KunLun's reincarnation wouldn't pay it. Shen Wei would. Blood or bone or breath, anything he had and paid gladly. Equivalent exchange for this. This gift of seeing him again. Of not having seen him for the last time.
"What could I possibly want?" Yunlan asked, smiling "You're right here."