Chapter Text
It is a little known fact that, as a rule, Lan Wangji prefers big cities. Especially ones like Lanling, where the common folk are too used to cultivators to be intimidated, and he is a stranger just like any other, weaving through its bustling crowds, letting its liveliness and chatter sink into his skin.
Of course, sometimes a little intimidation wouldn't go amiss. “Oh, esteemed cultivator, sir,” says the woman who has just accosted him, in a low, affected voice. “How incredibly handsome you are! This lowly one is so blessed, to have received the pleasure of such a sight!”
Lan Wangji takes a measured step back, then another. Unfortunately, she seems only amused by her frosty reception, giggling and lifting a sleeve to demurely cover her bright red lips. “Why, I may swoon,” she declares, her voice rich with meaning that Lan Wangji does not want to parse, “Oh, sir, if this delicate one should be so overcome, will you take responsibility?”
He takes another step back as she steps closer, impervious to his glaring. He does not want to think about what goods or services she might be selling. He considers escaping on Bichen—except her grey eyes are surprisingly familiar, despite being half-hidden under furiously fluttering lashes. She’s surprisingly tall for a woman, as well, and when she reaches out to tug on his sleeve, he looks down and realises that he knows those hands. He has stared at those hands for far too long to forget them.
The pieces click into place.
Lan Wangji sighs in exasperation, and lets Wei Ying lead them away, still cooing about what a lucky lady he must be to have met such an impressive cultivator. He doesn’t say anything as Wei Ying laughingly brings them to a nearby inn, and continues not to say anything when Wei Ying brazenly orders a single room for the both of them.
The proprietor's eyebrows jump at the request, her gimlet eye taking in Wei Ying’s cheap but serviceable robes, accidentally loosened collar, and the bright red of his painted lips and cheeks. But she only purses her lips, and gives Lan Wangji himself a once-over, quickly sizing him up as a customer who can pay, in more ways than one. He feels his ears burning, but Wei Ying sends a bright-eyed, calculating look his way, and he finds himself without the words to protest.
Soon, they are led to what is clearly the best room in the house. Wei Ying sits himself down daintily at the low table, and once Lan Wangji is seated across from him, leans over in an exaggerated slouch, head tilted coquettishly in one hand. The proprietor gives a snort, and leaves.
“My, this honoured sir is too generous,” Wei Ying flutters, once the door shuts. “Will you buy this poor one dinner, too? Too long has this humble one gone without a good meal, and without such good company!”
Lan Wangji wonders how long Wei Ying intends to keep up this pretence, and to what purpose. But his cheekbones are standing out even more starkly than they used to—than they should—and Lan Wangji doesn’t want to lose the chance to buy him a meal, if they’re about to argue again, like they did in Yiling. So he goes back downstairs to order dinner for the both of them. He ignores the gleam in the proprietor's eyes as he orders, which indicates that he's being excessive, and probably also about to be overcharged. None of it matters, not compared to the way Wei Ying exclaims joyfully as the dishes start to arrive in a steady stream, each dish redder than the last.
Wei Ying falls on the food with vigour, waving his chopsticks around wildly and chewing with his mouth open, still chattering; he praises the food and Lan Wangji's apparently superior tastes, laments the danger of the streets at night to a maiden such as himself, appeals to Lan Wangji's surely gentlemanly reputation... Lan Wangji himself sips at his subpar tea and soaks in Wei Ying's voice, but also feels a familiar niggling anxiety rising within him, that he will someday see Wei Ying choke and die right at the table. Eventually, he can't help but say, “Speech is forbidden during mealtimes.”
“But Lan Zhan, we're not at the Cloud Recesses, so—” Wei Ying freezes, staring at him with wide eyes. His half-chewed chicken falls out of his mouth back onto his plate. What lipstick he still has on is smudged in the corners. Lan Wangji fights the urge to carefully wipe it clean for him.
“Eat, Wei Ying.” He says finally, when the silence drags on for too long. The food wouldn't taste as good, if it goes cold. Wei Ying hesitantly begins to eat again, still eyeing him warily. When Lan Wangji does nothing but continue sipping from his tea, Wei Ying relaxes, and finally gives a sheepish laugh.
“Ah, I slipped up, I slipped up, it's just too easy to let my guard down around you, Lan er-gege. But who knew even one so righteous and principled as Hanguang-jun would be weak to a sweet girl's flirtation! Haha, if—”
“Untrue.”
Wei Ying laughs uproariously, slapping his thigh. Clearly any attempt to emulate a gently-born lady has been abandoned. “Don't worry, Young Master Lan, I swear I won't tell a soul! But I did get you to follow me here and buy me dinner by batting my eyelashes at you, didn't I? Imagine if people found out that one of the Twin Jades of Gusu Lan locked himself in a room with a pretty maiden, without a chaperone! I make a very pretty maiden, if I do say so myself. Don't I?” Wei Ying pauses, looking at him expectantly.
“Mn,” he eventually says, because he can't refute any of those statements. Wei Ying bursts out laughing again, throwing his head back. The long line of his neck is framed by the collar of his faded green robes. The collar has come further askew, and his undergarments are a dark red. The words locked in a room without a chaperone ring in Lan Wangji's head.
“Of course, I had Wen Qing's help, but I'm pretty proud of this disguise! So simple, yet so effective! Even you were convinced, so—”
“I was not.”
Wei Ying pauses to stare at him. “You were.” And then, after a longer pause, “weren't you...? Wen Qing and Wen Ning did a great job, even A-Yuan was fooled.”
Lan Wangji decides not to point out that A-Yuan is also four years old. “Wei Ying is Wei Ying,” he says instead.
“...well. Well! Not everyone can be as astute as the great Hanguang-jun! I'm sure everyone else would be fooled too! Definitely those idiots at Koi Tower, anyway.”
“...You plan to go to Jin Ling's first-month celebration like this.”
“Yes.” Wei Ying tears at a piece of meat with his teeth with particular viciousness. “The Jin sect sent their servants to the Burial Mounds with an invitation, but it's clearly a trap, and they must think I'm a complete idiot if they expect me to fall for it. I'm sure they've got men lying in wait around the Burial Mounds, ready to attack once I show my face at Koi Tower.” He looks away, and knocks back the rest of his drink. Lan Wangji quietly refills his cup. “...but I can’t not go.
Anyway, Lan Zhan, that's my plan! Ah...you’ll bring me in as your guest, won't you? No one will suspect anything if I’m with you, I'm very convincing.”
Lan Wangji chooses not to address the many, many things that people will suspect, if he decides to bring an unknown woman as his guest to such a gathering.
“You're too tall.” He says instead, because as long as they don't suspect that the Yiling Patriarch has left the Burial Mounds undefended, then it doesn't matter, for Wei Ying's purposes.
Wei Ying sighs. “Wen Qing said the same thing, when she was poking holes in my plan. But I can't help being tall! You know, she didn't have a single helpful thing to say—some friend you are, Wen Qing! She even threatened to cut off my legs to make me shorter, which—”
“You could.”
“...cut off my legs?”
“Use a wheelchair.”
Wei Ying blinks at him, and then his smile blooms. “You're a genius, Lan Zhan, truly a genius! If I'm sitting down all the time, no one can tell how tall I am! Perfect—no wait, how would I even get into Koi Tower?”
They both take a moment to consider the long stairway at its entrance. “A mobility construct,” Lan Zhan suggests.
“What?”
“Elder Chenque uses a talisman construct, for mobility. A hound.” Elder Chenque was a hundred if she was a day, and went from place to place on the back of a large paper dog, elaborately painted with sigils. It would wag its tail if patted delicately by a child. But she only taught the senior disciples, so perhaps Wei Ying had never met her.
Wei Ying shuddered. “No dogs, no dogs. A wheelchair is fine.”
“Such constructs take numerous forms.”
“No, no, it's fine. A simple wheelchair for this humble guest will do!”
“Wheelchairs are less suitable for navigating Koi Tower.”
“But where would I get such a complicated construct so soon,” Wei Ying argues, as though he hasn’t built far more complicated constructs, in far less time. “It doesn't matter, my Young Master Lan will just have to carry his very frail guest up those many, many stairs. You will, won't you, Lan Zhan?”
“...Mn.”