Chapter Text
Episode 8: A Happy Ending/After the Final Rose
We reach the surprise ending of the Bachelor’s journey, with Lan Wangji offering his Final Rose to Wei Wuxian, the cameraman whose offscreen voice and rapport with the Bachelor charmed viewers right from the first episode. Although he’s already given out his Final Rose, Lan Wangji insists on taking Wei Wuxian on the traditional family visits, as well as on an overnight date to a special Fantasy Suite.
We then catch up with the Bachelor and his fiancé at the live taping of After the Final Rose, and find out where Lan Wangji’s other suitors have ended up. Nie Huaisang makes a surprise announcement: next season, the show will have two leads — for the first time ever, it’s a Bachelor and a Bachelorette! Tune in next season for more surprising twists and turns on the journey to true love …
###
Dailies: Episode 8
(A shot of the pier in the aftermath of the proposal; most the crew seems to have forgotten that cameras are still filming, as they are milling around congratulating LAN WANGJI and WEI WUXIAN. WEI WUXIAN, wrapped in LAN WANGJI’s arms, is clutching the Final Rose, which someone has rescued from underfoot. MENG YAO, producer, and NIE HUAISANG, host, are arguing about something while the engaged couple watches, bemused.)
NHS: It was my idea to have him return like this in the first place, you were hung up on the idea that the Bachelor could only give the Final Rose to a suitor —
MY: (hissing) That is an outright lie, Nie Huaisang. I was the one who said we had lots of footage of the two of them, and that if we could just find Wei Wuxian we could make it work!
NHS: (smug) Right. And who was it that found Wei Wuxian?
MY: Because Wen Qing tipped you off!
LWJ: (clearing his throat) Are we … are we done filming?
MY: (calling a temporary truce in the argument) I said this would be the last thing you’d film for the show unless you decided for yourself you wanted to film more. We do have a very nice overnight date prepared for you, though …
LWJ: (to WEI WUXIAN) If you want to, Wei Ying, I will take you on an overnight date, and to meet my family, and I will meet your family on camera. But if you do not, this will be the end of it.
WWX: (considering) I wouldn’t mind the overnight date. And your family, okay, and my siblings, but … not my parents. Not yet. Not on camera. It’s not that I don’t want them to meet you, Lan Zhan. They’ll definitely like you, they’ll think you’re too good for me (LAN WANGJI makes a wordless noise of protest) but I just want … I don’t know. I need some time. Is that okay?
LWJ: Of course. We can wait as long as you want, Wei Ying.
________
(A talking-head interview. WEI WUXIAN, 34, camera operator. He is holding the Final Rose in one hand, rubbing absently at the petals.)
Offscreen voice: So, tell us about your journey back to the show. How did you end up here on the pier tonight?
WWX: I went to stay with a friend in Wuhan, and I guess — I guess he ratted me out to the show? (a soft chuckle) I didn’t realize he and Wen Qing were related. Life is full of funny coincidences, I guess. And Wen Ning was probably so annoyed with me, because I was just lying around crying on his couch, so it’s hard to blame him! Anyway, yesterday Huaisang showed up at Wen Ning’s house and said he had something I needed to watch. I tried to say no — actually, I, uh, tried to run away again? — but Huaisang’s pretty persuasive when he wants to be. And kind of surprisingly fast?
(He pauses as he remembers watching the footage.) And then he played the speech and as soon as Lan Zhan said he was afraid, I thought, Oh. He’s scared too. That made it easier to be brave …
________
(The talking-head interviews are still going on. LAN WANGJI, 35, author, and his fiancé, WEI WUXIAN, 34, camera operator, cozied up on the pier, under a blanket. The offscreen voice has mostly given up on asking questions, and left them to their own devices. WEI WUXIAN is rubbing LAN WANGJI’s hand and discovers something under the edge of his shirt cuff.).
WWX: (pulling a red hair elastic into view) You kept this? You kept wearing it, even when I was gone?
LWJ: Mn. I wanted to be able to imagine that you were still here, even if I couldn’t see you.
WWX: (pressing his head into LAN WANGJI’s chest) Ah, Lan Zhan. I won’t leave again, okay? Promise.
###
Not surprisingly, the meeting with Wei Ying’s siblings (plus Jin Zixuan), held the night after the proposal, is a success. Lan Wangji has already met all three of them, and he was there for the telephone call where Jiang Yanli let out an earsplitting shriek of joy when Wei Ying broke the news of the engagement, so he knows going into it that he already has the blessing of the sibling whose opinion matters most to Wei Ying.
He likes to think he has Jiang Cheng’s blessing, too, after his ride in the boat — Wei Ying had howled with laughter when he’d learned that Jiang Cheng had accidentally gotten Lan Wangji drunk in a rowboat — but Jiang Cheng is currently grumpy with both Lan Wangji and Wei Ying because of the incident. (This is what Wei Ying calls it.)
The incident took place the morning after the proposal, when Lan Wangji and Wei Ying went over to Jiang Cheng’s lakefront house to tell him about the engagement. When Wei Ying knocked on the door, there was a very long pause, and then Jiang Cheng cracked the door open.
“Oh. You’re back, are you?”
“Yeah! And I’m engaged!” Wei Ying said, waving the hand with the ring on it near the door’s narrow opening. “Open up, Jiang Cheng, why don’t you? I want to come in!”
Instead, Jiang Cheng slammed the door in their faces.
“I’m not letting those cameras in here,” he said, from the other side of the door. The cameras in question were not yet filming, a fact which Lan Wangji would, in retrospect, be very thankful for.
“Why not? You’ve already been on camera this season, Lan Zhan told me all about it. And it’s not like you’ve got someone in there with you,” Wei Ying said. Silence from inside, which Wei Ying seemed to interpret as significant. “Jiang Cheng! Do you have someone in there with you?”
This was followed almost immediately by a splash from the porch at the back of the house, and then Lan Wangji, Wei Ying and the entire crew of The Bachelor were treated to a view of a man wading sheepishly through the reeds along the shore.
“Wait,” Wei Ying said, delighted, raising his voice. “Wen Ning! Is that you?”
“Ah,” Wen Ning said, coming to a stop. “Wei-xiong! I was just doing some birding! This is a very good spot for long-tailed pheasants, you know …”
This incident is how Jiang Cheng ends up spending most of the official meet-the-family dinner fending off jokes from his siblings about how he’s taken up birding, a state of affairs which he somehow blames on Lan Wangji.
“I expect it from them,” Jiang Cheng mutters, after dinner is over and the cameras have gone away. (Lan Wangji has found that Meng Yao will actually listen to him, now, when he announces that filming is done for the day.) “But you? What did I ever do to you?”
Jiang Cheng has taken up a seat at the opposite end of the couch from Lan Wangji, while Wei Ying is curled up on the couch across from them, chatting with Jiang Yanli about her pregnancy.
(“Can I name the baby, A-Li? I’d be good at naming a baby.”
“Maybe,” Jiang Yanli says, indulgently, as Jin Zixuan voices a protest. “What would you name a boy?”
“Hmm … how about Jin Rulan?”
“That’s actually not too bad,” Zixuan says, surprised.)
“You did call me an asshole,” Lan Wangji says. He decides not to point out that Jiang Cheng and Wen Ning have, in fact, gone birding — an activity Jiang Cheng has defensively described as “really interesting, if you’re with someone who knows what they’re talking about” — twice in the last twenty-four hours.
“True,” Jiang Cheng mutters. “The jury’s still out on that one.”
Lan Wangji surprises himself by laughing. Then Jiang Cheng laughs, too, and says “Welcome to the family, asshole,” and Wei Ying looks up and says “Jiang Cheng, you take that back!” and when they start to squabble about whether Jiang Cheng can call Lan Wangji names — Jiang Cheng says, darkly, that Lan Wangji should know “exactly what he’s getting into,” and Zixuan puts in that he’s been “the peacock” for years and that it’s someone else’s turn, and that descends into a series of bird jokes — Lan Wangji realizes that he’s enjoying himself immensely. The hum and buzz of spirited sibling banter is nothing like his experience of family, but he likes it. When Wei Ying looks up and catches his eye and grins, Lan Wangji actually grins back.
“Lan Zhan! Jiang Cheng says you have to pick a bird nickname!”
“It’s that, or you’re stuck with asshole.”
“Mn. I will be a goose, then.”
“Why?” Jiang Cheng says, suspicious.
“They mate for life.”
Everyone groans, except Wei Ying, who bounds over to sit beside Lan Wangji on the couch. Now that he’s not a member of the crew, production has put Wei Ying in a tight purple t-shirt and the same pair of slim white jeans he was wearing that morning in the beach house library, and Lan Wangji thinks that when this is all over he is going to make Wei Ying wear them every day just so Lan Wangji can tear them off of him.
“This one’s mine, everyone,” Wei Ying announces, and Lan Wangji slips a polite arm around his shoulders, instead of squeezing his ass like he wants to. He will not be horny in front of the future in-laws. That can wait until the sixth time they meet, or perhaps the seventh.
The rest of the evening is spent happily arguing about whether Jiang Yanli actually knew that there was something going on between Lan Wangji and her brother during the visit to Koi Tower in the second week.
“I definitely knew,” she says, smug. “It was obvious.”
Lan Wangji feels duty-bound to point out that nothing was actually happening at the time — “Besides, you know, some mutually-oblivious pining,” Wei Ying says — but Jiang Yanli waves away this objection.
“How could you possibly have known?” Jin Zixuan says. “You barely even saw them speak.”
“Sometimes you just know,” she says, and then turns to Lan Wangji. “Oh! I’ll have to make my soup for you now! You don’t eat meat, right?”
“Mn. I could advise you on meat substitutes, if you would like.”
Jin Zixuan cuts off his fianceé’s answer with a pout. “My soup, A-Li? You’re going to make him my soup?”
“I make the soup for anyone I want to welcome to the family, A-Xuan.”
“But you made it for me right at the start of the show!”
Jiang Yanli makes a face that suggests that Zixuan, too, is oblivious. “Yes. I did.”
Understanding dawns. “A-Li …” He leans in to kiss her, softly. Lan Wangji takes the opportunity to pull Wei Ying in for a kiss of his own.
“Gross,” Jiang Cheng mutters, but his heart clearly isn’t in it.
###
Dailies: Episode 8
(MO XUANYU is in a small but exquisite library, full of rare and ancient books and manuscripts. He wanders from shelf to shelf, inspecting without touching; it is clear from his face that he is entranced. A door opens off camera, and NIE HUAISANG walks into the shot.)
NHS: So sorry for the delay, I don’t know what happened!
MXY: (indicating the bookshelves) These are all yours?
NHS: Ah, you like my collection?
MXY: It’s beautiful … you’ve got books I’ve never seen before …
(NIE HUAISANG looks surprised, but then pleased. He watches MO XUANYU wander around for a minute longer, then startles — seemingly remembering that they are being filmed — and quickly gestures for MO XUANYU to join him in a pair of chairs by the window. They both sit down.)
NHS: Thank you for coming to film a final interview … we thought it was best if it wasn’t in the mansion or the same location as the proposal … (MO XUANYU flinches at the mention of the proposal, and the host notices.) Ah. I’m sorry …
MXY: (shaking his head) No. I’m happy for him — I just … Well, I knew I didn’t have a chance with him. That’s why I agreed to step aside … I mean, you know that. It was your idea.
NHS: (very gently) I’m sorry it hurt you … I wouldn’t …
MXY: It wasn’t your fault, though. It was just circumstances. We don’t — (swallows) nobody owes us love, you know? Or even a chance for it, really. I just thought, that this time …
(He shrugs, and falls silent, as if there’s nothing else that can be said. NIE HUAISANG looks sad.)
###
It turns out that the overnight date is at Hengdian, starting with a private tour of the extensive historical sets — the palace of Qin Shi Huang, Guangzhou in the late nineteenth century, the Forbidden City — and ending with a period-accurate Song Dynasty meal, served in a replica riverside town from the Northern Song. There’s an orange stuffed with hairy crab, clams in rice wine, sour bean sesame buns, and plum cake soup. All of it — the food, the tour — is probably amazing; Lan Wangji can’t say, because he can’t think of anything but what will follow, of being alone with Wei Ying. When their hands brush together as they wander the site, an electric shock runs up his arm, the feel of skin on skin enough to leave him shivering.
The night after the proposal they had been too tired to do anything more than fall asleep. Then, last night, Meng Yao had suggested they sleep apart: “Keep it for the Fantasy Suite,” he’d said, then left them to discuss it themselves.
“We can hold out,” Wei Ying had said, a little uncertain. “Right? It’s only one night. And it’ll be fun to wait … you can think about me, and I can think about you, and then, tomorrow, it’ll be … ”
He’d trailed off, breathing heavily, but there was a challenge, in his eyes. Lan Wangji, who had thought he might combust with the dizzying desire of it, had nodded, agreed.
And now Wei Ying is teasing him, as if waiting was easy, as if he doesn’t know that Lan Wangji wants to pull him into a darkened corner of the Imperial Summer Palace and fuck him against a wall.
“This is so amazing,” he says, with a bright smile, running his fingers lightly along Lan Wangji’s forearm. He blinks up from under long eyelashes. “The level of detail, that they’ve built it almost to scale … don’t you think so, er-gege?”
Lan Wangji leans close to Wei Ying’s ear, muffles his mic with one hand. “Later,” he hisses, “I am going to take you apart. Do you understand?”
The harsh breath Wei Ying sucks in is very satisfying.
###
Dailies: Episode 8
(A shot of LAN WANGJI and WEI WUXIAN, holding hands, and walking through a series of pavilions at Hengdian that are decorated in serene blues and whites. Eventually they find themselves on a gravel path leading to a low wooden building tucked in against a bamboo forest. A plaque above the door says Quiet Room.)
MY: (offscreen) This is it! Normally we’d make a big deal about whether you’re going to offer him a key to the Fantasy Suite, and whether he accepts it, but you’re already engaged, so … have fun, I guess!
###
After Lan Wangji slides the door closed on the cameras, he turns back to find that Wei Ying has wandered off into one of the other sparsely-decorated rooms. The central room, where Lan Wangji is standing, has a wood-framed bed beneath a round window, a low table with a tea set, and very little else. The dim lighting lends everything a sepia tint.
“Someone’s poured us a bath, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says, coming back in from the other room. In here he seems to glow softly, skin the gold of lantern-light. “Isn’t that nice?”
“Mn,” he says. “It is.”
“Do you want to take a bath?” Wei Ying lingers by the other door, arching one eyebrow.
“No,” Lan Wangji says, “I do not.”
He crosses the room so that they are standing inches apart, and runs a hand slowly up Wei Ying’s chest.
“That is for later,” he murmurs, and leans forward to suck softly at the tender flesh behind Wei Ying’s ear. Wei Ying shivers, full-body, but otherwise doesn’t move. He understands the game. “For now, I am going to play with you until you come undone.”
“Fuck,” Wei Ying groans, as Lan Wangji moves to lick the little mole under his lip. “Fuck, baobei, sweetheart, I’ve been turned on for the past twenty-four hours. I almost went to my knees for you in old Shanghai, you have” — Lan Wangji ghosts fingers over the front of Wei Ying’s pants, pulls away from the evidence of his desire — “you have no idea …” he reaches for Lan Wangji, to pull him in to a kiss, but Lan Wangji is ready for this; he captures Wei Ying by the wrists and presses him back to the bed, tips him over so that he’s flat on his back, hands pinned. Wei Ying grins, wildly, his hair falling loose across the pillow. It would be so easy to just fall into his embrace, to give into the magnetic pull of his smile, but Lan Wangji wants to see Wei Ying shaking beneath him first.
“You will keep talking,” he commands, and Wei Ying shivers again. “Keep talking, and I will keep touching. Do not move your hands.” He pulls Wei Ying’s shirt up to reveal that strip of golden skin, unbuckles his belt and begins to run a finger along the top edge of his boxers.
“What — ahh, Lan Zhan, yes — what do you want me to talk about?”
“When did you fall in love with me?” Wei Ying hadn’t ever answered, for the cameras.
“Ah. Right away — right away,” he says, and Lan Wangji rewards him by tracing the strokes for 我爱你 on Wei Ying’s stomach with his fingers. With his other hand he pushes Wei Ying’s pants down, and his boxers, freeing his straining cock. “I saw you sitting on the terrace, looking absolutely terrified, and then you said I am not naturally charming, and I thought, oh, no, what have I done?” He lets out a little gasp as the downstroke on 爱 trails down, right to the base of his cock, before Lan Wangji pulls away and starts to write 你 along the crease of his leg.
“What about you, Lan Zhan?” Wei Ying still has the composure to ask without his voice breaking, so Lan Wangji carefully pulls Wei Ying’s shirt off, pushing his hands back down, and then drops his mouth to Wei Ying’s brown nipple. When he licks, the salt tang of sweat in his mouth goes right to Lan Wangji’s cock. “Ah. Fuck, fuck, I’m still talking, I promise, please do that again …”
“When did I fall in love or when did I know?” he murmurs, ghosting a hot breath over the nipple and then licking again, while his hand pinches the other one, rolls it between his fingers.
“Both,” Wei Ying says, now a little high-pitched. Maybe he can feel Lan Wangji pressing against his thigh, hard in his own pants. Lan Wangji pushes against him, wanting him to feel it. Wanting to know what’s coming.
“Right away, as well. But I did not realize it until we were in the canal boat in Tongli and you gave me the loquat.” He doesn’t lift his face, so that his voice vibrates against Wei Ying’s chest. Lan Wangji can feel the friction of his own cock pressing against his fly, leaking. He ignores it.
“Love at first sight, er-gege?” Wei Ying groans. “I thought you didn’t believe in it.”
“I can admit when I am wrong,” Lan Wangji says in a low voice, and now bites at one nipple before teasing bites down the curve of Wei Ying’s waist, to his hip. He runs a hand through the pre-come leaking from Wei Ying’s cock and gets a loose grip. His hand slides up and down at a leisurely pace, in no hurry. “Keep talking.”
“It’s not fair, sweetheart — ah, fuck, yes, don’t stop — you’re still dressed, you can see what you’re doing to me,” Wei Ying says. Lan Wangji sits back up, keeps his hand going, slow, slick. He can see: Wei Ying is flushed red, writhing beneath Lan Wangji’s hands, trying to buck up into his hand for more friction. Lan Wangji presses him back down flat, resumes the lazy hand job.
“Mn. You said it would be fun to wait. Is it not fun to wait?”
“I want you so bad, er-gege,” Wei Ying says, pupils blown dark. The muscles in his stomach are twitching, like he’s trying to control the urge to lunge up, to reach for Lan Wangji.
“Do you want me to fuck you?” Lan Wangji asks. He holds it together. Manages to sound in control. “I want to fuck you.”
Wei Ying lets out a desperate moan. He sounds wrecked. It’s glorious. “Please, sweetheart — I can’t wait any longer — if you don’t I’ll come just from this, I swear — ”
Lan Wangji stands up — Wei Ying groans, but doesn’t lift his hands from the position Lan Wangji put them in over his head — and grabs the lube from a small shelf behind the bed. There’s a big box of condoms, too, but they’ve talked about this already, that they won’t need them.
Lan Wangji comes back with the lube, slicks up a finger.
“Keep talking,” he instructs, and Wei Ying begins to babble, broken exhalations of Lan Wangji’s name, of sweetheart and baobei and please, as Lan Wangji runs one finger around his entrance and slides it in to the heat of him. That sparks a bonfire in Lan Wangji’s guts, a burn that quickens his breath, topples him forward. Now he’s the one shaking, struggling to find the thread of thought, to think of anything but the feeling of Wei Ying, hot and tight, stretching around his fingers, of anything but the sound Wei Ying makes when Lan Wangji curls his fingers into the right spot to have him arching off the bed.
“Fuck,” Wei Ying says. Lan Wangji feels almost drunk, wobbly; it’s like being at sea, trying to find his balance on the uneven deck of a boat in heavy water. Just this, just touching Wei Ying, watching him twist against Lan Wangji’s fingers, hearing him fall slowly into incoherence, is almost enough. Lan Wangji thinks that if he let go of the last thread of control, he might come in his pants. He gives in, unzips and presses his pants down. The shirt will have to stay on; he doesn’t have a hand free for it.
He leans forward and finally kisses Wei Ying, swallowing his little gasps, tasting the warm softness of his mouth. “You can touch me now,” Lan Wangji murmurs, sliding another finger inside. “Touch me, Wei Ying.”
“Ah, Lan Zhan, I’ll never stop.” Wei Ying pulls him in close for a messy, frantic kiss. When Wei Ying buries his hands in Lan Wangji’s hair and pulls, arousal coils low in his belly, threatening to strike. Lan Wangji sits up, slicks up his cock, pulls his fingers free. Wei Ying gasps, at the loss of them, tries to hang on.
“I’m ready,” he says. “I’m ready, baobei.”
Lan Wangji pushes inside, slow, achingly slow, even as Wei Ying groans that he can take it, begs for it faster, faster. When he’s all the way in, Wei Ying’s heels pressing into his back, Lan Wangji kisses him, and drives in again. He struggles to keep a slow, even rhythm, to keep from giving in to the pounding desire that pulses through his core. He doesn’t think he’ll last long, but Wei Ying looks ruined, too, eyes blown wide and dark, his gasping breath and twitching cock suggesting that he’s barely holding off.
“Do you like that?” Lan Wangji gasps, shifting his angle.
“Nnnngh,” Wei Ying says, as if that’s all the answer he can manage. His fingers are curled around Lan Wangji’s where he’s gripping Wei Ying’s hip, just barely holding on. Lan Wangji slides out and then thrusts back in, hard. Wei Ying lets out a keening moan. Lan Wangji rocks in again, the pace of his hips picking up, the rhythm now lost in favour of a driving need.
“I’m going to — Lan Zhan, I’m — ” Wei Ying says, voice breaking, and then he’s coming, in hot spurts all over his own stomach. Lan Wangji thrusts back in twice, three times, and then follows, shuddering through the white heat of the aftershocks.
Afterwards he collapses slowly forward, no strength left. Wei Ying is waiting for him, arms open.
“See?” he says, in a soft, blurry voice. “Waiting was worth it.”
“You’re incorrigible,” Lan Wangji murmurs.
“You love it.”
“Mn. I love you.” They trade soft kisses, thread their fingers together. Lan Wangji has an idea about what they can do next — the bath will need to be heated up again — but there’ll be time for that, time for many things. For now, he can just hold Wei Ying, and be held.
###
Dailies: Episode 8, Meet the Families
(A shot in the small back garden of LAN WANGJI’s home in Shanghai, framed against the slopes of Sheshan National Forest Park. Someone has foolishly left WEI WUXIAN alone with LAN XICHEN, the Bachelor’s brother.)
LXC: (totally flat) So. You’re the man who tried to break my brother’s heart.
WWX: (suddenly very nervous) Ummm. Yeah. That is … I can see how you would think that was what happened.
LXC: And you understand what would happen if you tried to do so again?
WWX: (glancing around the garden, as if either the answer to this question or a rescuer might be found there) Well … I’m not sure I do, actually? (hasty) But I can probably imagine something pretty bad all on my own, so …
________
(A talking-head interview. LAN XICHEN, 38, the Bachelor’s brother.)
LXC: (disappointed in himself) I’ve never had to give a shovel talk before. I don’t think it was a very good one …
Offscreen voice: It was better than the one your brother gave me three years ago.
LXC: (outraged) A-Yao! He gave you a shovel talk?!?
Offscreen voice: Well, he came up to me the first time I stayed the night and stared at me for a long time and then said, Do not hurt him. And then he walked away. So … I guess so? But, you know … Wei Wuxian really does love your brother. If that makes you feel better.
LXC: (unconvinced) How can you be sure?
Offscreen voice: Because I’ve seen the footage. I’ve been doing this a long time … I know what love looks like.
________
(A talking-head interview. LAN QIREN, 65, the Bachelor’s uncle).
Offscreen voice: Thoughts on Lan Wangji’s choice of fiancé?
LQR: (stiff) Wei Wuxian seems to be a very pleasant and respectable young man. I am pleased that Lan Wangji has found someone who makes him happy.
Offscreen voice: (disappointed) That’s it? That’s all you have to say?
LQR: … Yes.
Offscreen voice: (irritated) Did Lan Wangji tell you to keep your mouth shut? (LAN QIREN’s face twitches, just a little.) He did, didn’t he?
###
An otherwise awkward afternoon introducing Wei Ying to the Lan family is redeemed, in Lan Wangji’s eyes, by the fact that Wei Ying and Sizhui are clearly delighted with each other. When Lan Wangji and Wei Ying and the crew arrive at the Songjiang house, Sizhui leaps out and greets Wei Ying with “I wanted it to be you, right from that day at the beach house!” and Wei Ying volleys back “I wanted it to be me, too,” and then their happy chatter is the only thing to cut through the silence Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen maintain all through lunch. (Xichen does almost laugh at one of Wei Ying’s stories before catching himself, though, and on that basis alone Lan Wangji allows himself to imagine that his brother and fiancé will become friends in the not-too-distant future.)
After lunch, Meng Yao forces Lan Wangji to leave Wei Ying alone in the garden with Lan Xichen while he films interview with Sizhui. There, too, he is rewarded by Sizhui announcing that he approves of Lan Wangji’s choice, because “Xian-ge says he doesn’t understand how no-one else ever notices how hilarious you are, which is exactly what I’m always saying, Baba!”
“You are happy I am getting married? You do not mind that our family is growing?”
“Baba. I told you. I want you to be happy, and I think you’re happy now, right? Besides …” Sizhui grins, the smile of a ten-year-old who can see a future in which he gets his way a lot more often. “Xian-ge said he likes the idea of us having a trampoline, too!”
When Lan Wangji returns to the garden, he finds Wei Ying alone with the cameras, looking thoughtful.
“Was my brother horribly rude?”
“It’s fine, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying mutters, which means yes. Wei Ying shifts so that they can lean against each other on the low stone bench, and Lan Wangji adds Wei Ying sitting on my lap to the long list of things he plans to do immediately post-filming. “Your brother agreed to give me some time to show him that I’m not going to mess things up again, and I thanked him for coming to help you after I got scared and ran away.”
Lan Wangji must look skeptical, because Wei Ying reaches up and brushes a thumb across his temple, a gentle echo of the night in the pool. “Really. It’s fine. I’d face down a dozen angry older brothers if that was what it took to keep you, Lan-er-gege.”
“Kiss me,” Lan Wangji murmurs, a little overwhelmed, and Wei Ying does, and this is how the story of the Bachelor, Lan Wangji, comes to an end — at least the filming of it — with Meng Yao waltzing into the garden and yelling “We’re all done here, folks!” while Lan Wangji has one hand buried in the silky hair beneath Wei Ying’s ponytail.
A happy ending for the Bachelor, he thinks, and out loud says: “We’re done?”
“Yup. You’re free to go live your life!”
Ten minutes later, Lan Wangji’s house is empty: no more Bachelor crew, no more Lan Qiren or Lan Sizhui (who announces that he has no desire to cut short his visit with Jingyi), and no more Lan Xichen, either, although there’s a note on the kitchen counter that says Wangji: I will spend a few days at A-Yao’s. Please enjoy some time alone together, which Lan Wangji takes to be a peace offering, of sorts.
It is (Lan Wangji checks his watch) barely 5:30 in the evening. The two of them are alone in the kitchen.
“That went okay, right?” Wei Ying says. “Like … it could have been worse.”
“Mn. Yes. It might have been worse.” They’ve already been through worse, Lan Wangji reflects. At some point they’ll have to finish having that conversation, and Lan Wangji will get to say my father’s mistake was not in loving my mother, but in failing to live like he loved her. Not now, though. There will be time. “Are you hungry?”
He tries to remember what he would usually make, wondering if his brother has kept the fridge stocked or just eaten takeout from the noodle place around the corner for five weeks.
“Lan Zhan.” Wei Ying comes up behind him, leans a head against Lan Wangji’s shoulder blades, circles his waist with one arm. “Dinner can wait. Take me to bed?”
###
In the morning, Lan Wangji makes shengjianbao while Wei Ying sleeps in.
“That smells amazing, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says, padding in to the kitchen at half-past nine, a pair of Lan Wangji’s sweatpants hanging loose on his hips. The soft path of black hair on his stomach that Lan Wangji noticed the very first day they met draws his eyes down; the spike of desire that hit him back then is magnified tenfold by knowing exactly what it’s like to lick his way down that trail, and lower. “I’m going to be spoiled if you keep this up.”
“Mn. I hope so,” Lan Wangji manages, holding back for the moment, and pushes a plate full of steaming bao across the counter. “Have some breakfast.”
Wei Ying sits down and begins to make his way through a bao, making appreciative noises as he eats.
“What would you like to do today?” Lan Wangji asks, studiedly casual, as he begins frying the second batch. He has his own thoughts on what it would be nice to do on their first full day together without cameras around, but something tells him that if he’s not careful, Wei Ying is capable of squashing his own wants and needs into dark corners where they might go too easily unnoticed.
Wei Ying takes the cup of coffee that Lan Wangji passes to him. Neither Lan Wangji nor his brother are coffee-drinkers, so he had raided the stash Meng Yao keeps for nights when he stays over. “I hadn’t really thought about it, I guess. What are my options?”
“Anything you want.” Satisfied the bao are sufficiently browned, he pours the water into the pan and claps the lid on.
“Anything?” Wei Ying says, wiggling his eyebrows.
A thought occurs to him. “Do you need to go back to your place? I could drive, if you do.” He doesn’t actually know where Wei Ying lives, Lan Wangji realizes. It hadn’t come up in any of their conversations.
“Uh. Actually, I don’t … I don’t have my own place?” Wei Ying puts down his bao, looking rather embarrassed. “I mean, it’s not that I’ve never had my own place, but I let the lease run out on the last one go during Wild China because it felt like I was never there, and then when I got on with the show Meng Yao told me I’d be living in the beach house, so I thought … well, I guess I just thought I’d find something once the shoot was over.”
There are a million things they don’t know about each other yet, Lan Wangji thinks. He wants to find out everything immediately, and also he wants to spend years and years taking a leisurely exploration of everything Wei Ying.
“Is that okay? That I’m just kind of squatting at your place, Lan Zhan? I mean, I could find a place, hopefully not too far away, although Songjiang might be a little outside my budget” —
Lan Wangji huffs a little laugh. “Wei Ying. We are engaged. You do not need to find somewhere else to live.” I don’t want you to leave again, he thinks, and then, because he doesn’t want to keep his thoughts to himself anymore, not with Wei Ying: “I don’t want you to leave again.”
Wei Ying laughs, the laugh that Lan Wangji now understands to mean this isn’t really funny but I have to pretend it is in order to talk about it. “Of course I won’t leave, Lan Zhan. Your house is beautiful.”
“It is your house, too, xingan.” Wei Ying takes another bad off the plate, juggling it between his fingers as it cools. “And since there is nowhere you need to go, then yes, we can do anything you want today.”
“Well … it’s a beautiful day,” Wei Ying says, in a teasing tone. “We could rent a boat and cruise up the Bund. Or learn how to fly a helicopter? Or … there was apparently a date that didn’t get used this season, that involved ballroom dancing at the Paramount …”
Lan Wangji remembers what Meng Yao had said, about couples from the show finding the transition back to real life difficult, and how Wei Ying had reacted when he’d heard that, as if Lan Wangji might want to live the Bachelor life forever. “Do you want to do any of those things, Wei Ying?”
“No.” Wei Ying laughs again. “I think … I think what I’d like to do is stay in.”
This is exactly Lan Wangji’s idea of the perfect day. “Wei Ying?”
“Hm?” He looks up in the middle of another bite of his bao.
“This is the good part,” Lan Wangji says, as certain as he’s ever been of anything in his life. “This, not what we just did — although that was good, too, because it brought us together — but this. Everything that comes after. The rest of our lives.”
###
After the Final Rose: Live Studio Taping
(On stage at the live taping are SONG ZICHEN, XIAO XINGCHEN, and XUE CHENGMEI. They, along with the live studio audience and NIE HUAISANG, are watching a highlight reel of their appearances on the season: SONG ZICHEN announcing that no-one who likes XUE CHENGMEI could possibly like him (onstage, SONG ZICHEN groans and covers his face, embarrassed); singing karaoke; a series of shots in which one or another of the trio is staring hungrily at one or both of the other two; the fight between XUE CHENGMEI and SONG ZICHEN (XUE CHENGMEI whispers something to SONG ZICHEN and he blushes); the bungee-jumping; and the reunion on Liangzi Lake. The studio audience cheers wildly.)
NHS: (as the cheering dies down) So, you’ve all been dating now for, what, four months?
(Nods from all three.)
NHS: We were going to ask you how that was going, but we thought it might be fun to bring on a special guest to give us a little commentary …
(They are joined onstage by XIAO QING, 12, XIAO XINGCHEN’s daughter. She gives SONG ZICHEN a high-five, hugs her father, and sticks her tongue out at XUE CHENGMEI, before sitting down in an extra chair.)
NHS: So, Xiao Qing! Thoughts on your dad’s boyfriends?
XQ: Okay, so, first, Zichen-ge is great. Like, he paid off the three hundred bucks I owed to my friends when my dad didn’t win The Bachelor? So, yeah, he’s really great.
(XUE CHENGMEI shoots SONG ZICHEN an outraged glance, and SONG ZICHEN just shrugs, unapologetic about his efforts to be XIAO QING’s favourite.)
XQ: But if that one (she gestures to XUE CHENGMEI) thinks he can win me over with just a bit of candy, he should think again.
XCM: (petulant) She locked me in the bathroom for an hour the last time I was over! Nobody even noticed!
XXC: (laughing) To be fair, you do like to spend a lot of time in the bathroom.
NHS: (to SONG ZICHEN) Who’s going to win the battle of wills between those two?
SZC: Oh, A-Qing. No question.
________
(On stage at the live taping are WEN QING and LUO QINGYANG, being interviewed by NIE HUAISANG.)
NHS: … can’t help but notice that you two are wearing engagement rings?
(The two women exchange fond glances, and then LUO QINGYANG answers).
LQY: A few weeks ago Wen Qing took me on a bicycling tour around Lake Tai —
WQ: I felt terrible when I realized that she fell off the bike in Yangshuo because I distracted her —
LQY: It wasn’t your fault! (obviously a well-worn disagreement)
WQ: Still. We like bicycling! I wanted to make a better memory for you …
LQY: Anyway, we stopped to admire the scenery and when I turned around she was down on one knee with a ring and she said (she chokes up) “I want to pick you up every time you fall, for the rest of your life …”
________
(The next Bachelor and Bachelorette, MO XUANYU and QIN SU, are brought onstage to join NIE HUAISANG, to big cheers.)
NHS: So! Have you two talked about how you’re going to handle this?
QS: (gentle smile) Well, I’ve agreed I wont’t quit to protect his feelings.
NHS: (to MO XUANYU, sounding ever-so-slightly anxious) And how do you feel, four months on from the last season? Are you ready to start a new journey towards love?
MXY: I think so. Seeing Lan Wangji looking so happy tonight … well, I guess I’m ready to find that for myself.
NHS: Great! So we’ve got a bit of a surprise for you tonight — I don’t quite know how we got special permission for this, but apparently I’m allowed to introduce you to one of the suitors that we’ll have next season. I want you both to meet my brother …
(Polite applause as NIE MINGJUE, who has a boxer’s physique and an excellent moustache, joins them on the stage. The only empty chair is beside MO XUANYU, but when NIE MINGJUE moves towards it, NIE HUAISANG quickly intervenes, rather awkwardly forcing his brother to take the host’s chair beside QIN SU and taking the empty one for himself. Everyone but NIE HUAISANG looks confused by this).
QS: (polite) Nie Mingjue, is it? It’s very nice to meet you.
NMJ: Ah, I’ve heard about you! You’re the one who knows all about protecting your didi, right?
###
After four months away, the glare of the cameras feels strange, intrusive.
Filming segments for the documentary Wei Ying is making based on The Soil Before Spring, Lan Wangji’s book on ancient agriculture and cuisine in China, isn’t quite the same; there, Lan Wangji is on solid ground, comfortable. Here, under the studio lights and staring eyes of the audience, he fights down a queasy urge to loosen his bow tie, and holds on tight to Wei Ying’s hand while they answer Nie Huaiang’s seemingly endless questions on their lives post-Bachelor:
Yes, Lan Xichen and Wei Ying are friends, now. Xichen likes to say he was won over by Wei Ying while watching Meng Yao edit the third episode to include the pool security footage and a shot where Wei Ying knocked champagne out of Jin Zixun’s hand during the photoshoot date, but Lan Wangji suspects he began to thaw almost immediately. Maybe by the end of the first week, when Xichen walked into the kitchen and found Lan Wangji wheezing with laughter at one of Wei Ying’s stories. Or maybe on the first weekend, when Wei Ying spent three hours helping Sizhui make a wildlife documentary in the garden on his phone, then played the resulting film during dinner. Lan Wangji, who had been unable to participate in the creation of this masterpiece due to an overflowing email inbox, was nevertheless rather smug about the way Lan Xichen’s expression went from sulky to charmed as he watched.
Yes, Lan Qiren actually does approve of Wei Ying. In fact, Wei Ying’s ongoing campaign to improve the Lan spice tolerance has found fertile ground in Lan Wangji’s uncle; on one memorable occasion, they even made chili oil together.
Yes, Lan Wangji has met Wei Ying’s parents, once, on neutral ground at Koi Tower. Nie Huaisang doesn’t press the point, which is probably for the best; Lan Wangji doesn’t want to say on live television that he dislikes both Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan, and that he will not easily forgive them for the fact that it took Wei Ying three hours to stop shaking in Lan Wangji’s arms after the family dinner.
As predicted, Yu Ziyuan had said “I don’t know what someone like you is doing with someone like him, but I suppose the world is full of mysteries,” to Lan Wangji within fifteen minutes of their arrival. Lan Wangji had waited until dinner was halfway done, leaned over to her, and whispered, “It is baffling how someone as horrible as you produced three such wonderful children, Yu-furen. But then, I suppose that is one of those mysteries you were speaking of earlier.”
There have been no further attempts to get together, although Lan Wangji is resigned to the idea that meetings are inevitable once Jiang Yanli has her baby in six weeks.
No, Jiang Cheng is not single. (Based on the reaction from the studio audience, this is distressing news to a large segment of the Bachelor fandom.) Wen Ning and Jiang Cheng are in the audience, in fact, although Lan Wangji and Wei Ying refrain from pointing them out, since Jiang Cheng has made clear that he never wants to be on television again.
No, Lan Wangji hasn’t spoken with Su Minshan since sending him home in Suzhou. Su Minshan hasn’t shown up for the live studio taping, but the boos from the audience when he’s mentioned are extremely pleasing to the ear. Yes, he and Wei Ying are friends with Luo Qingyang and Wen Qing. No, they haven’t been back to Cloud Recesses, but they’ve talked about going and spending some time erasing troubled memories with happy ones. Yes, Jingyi — apparently very popular with the studio audience — has given the union his blessing, pronouncing Wei Ying “like, so extremely cool, Lan-xiansheng, you don’t even know,” to which Lan Wangji had responded, “Actually, Jingyi, I think I do know.”
No, Wei Ying won’t be coming back to The Bachelor as a cameraman next season. It had taken a while for Lan Wangji to convince him that this was alright — and that it was alright for him to film the documentary instead.
“I don’t want to take advantage of you, or get something I haven’t earned,” he’d fretted, after admitting that what he really wanted was to go back to making documentaries of his own, like he had in film school, and more specifically a documentary about the history of food.
“Am I receiving a benefit I haven’t earned, then?” Lan Wangji asked. All three of his books had received major sales bumps when the show began to air, something he’d never considered when he had agreed to be the Bachelor.
“No, of course not!”
“Why are you different, then? If you want to do it, we should do it.”
“Really, Lan Zhan?”
“Mn.” Lan Wangji had even agreed to try drinking the re-creation of the seven thousand-year-old Jiahu wine on camera. The aftermath had been much more fun than the last time he’d had something to drink.
When Nie Huaisang throws questions open to the studio audience, a woman stands up and says “Okay, this is more of a comment than a question, but how did everyone around you two not know that you were falling in love, like, immediately? It was so obvious, and we could only see one of you.”
Lan Wangji thinks a lot of the credit for this goes to Meng Yao, who had put together the available footage in a way that hinted at the coming twist. Nie Huaisang, who Lan Wangji has learned is much more perceptive than people like to give him credit for, grins at the two of them. He’s told them that he, like Jiang Yanli, knew something was going on from the beginning — right from the first cocktail party, in fact.
Wei Ying laughs. “People see what they’re looking for, I guess,” he says, shrugging. “Even we didn’t really know for a bit …”
After the shoot wraps up and the studio audience funnels out, Meng Yao bumps into Lan Wangji and Wei Ying just outside the doors to the studio. They have just finished saying goodbye to Wen Ning and Jiang Cheng, who are taking the opportunity to spend a night enjoying Shanghai together.
“Another successful night,” Meng Yao says, triumphant, one hand on the door to go back in to the studio. “How do you two feel about doing a wedding special? Your wedding would do huge numbers.”
“Ah.” Lan Wangji, having been instructed to keep Meng Yao from re-entering the studio for a few more minutes, decides to unleash news he knows will keep Meng Yao’s attention. “About that. We are getting married this weekend.”
“What?” Meng Yao says, genuinely startled.
“A small ceremony. Just close family, at home. You are invited, of course. My brother assures me that you will be available.”
“What? This weekend, as in, four days from now? That’s not enough time to get together a film crew. And a small wedding — no, no, we’ve got to do something spectacular — ”
“Ohhh, he’s mad,” Wei Ying says, hopping back a bit and dragging Lan Wangji with him. “I told you we should have told him on the phone, er-gege.”
“Your brother knows about this?” Meng Yao says. He is, in fact, spitting mad. Lan Wangji hopes his read on Meng Yao’s inner romantic is correct.
“Mn. Of course. He and Jiang Cheng are the best men.”
Wei Ying cracks the door to the studio back open while Meng Yao fumes. The floor inside has, in the time since everyone left, been carpeted in thousands of red rosebuds. Lan Xichen is standing in a spotlight at the centre, diamond ring in hand. It is excessive. Meng Yao is going to love it.
“Ah, perhaps we can discuss this later,” Lan Wangji says, and pushes Meng Yao towards the door. “I think someone needs you in there …”
###
Dailies: Episode 8, Overnight Date
(Dawn, on the porch outside the set in Hengdian where LAN WANGJI and WEI WUXIAN have just spent the night. They are sitting together on the steps, WEI WUXIAN reverently stroking the ring on his finger while he leans against LAN WANGJI. The camera is an afterthought.)
WWX: I still think you’re going to want to leave, Lan Zhan. Maybe not today, maybe not a year from now … but someday, you’ll look up from whatever you’re doing and think, why did I choose him?
LWJ: (gently) I will not. And I have a whole lifetime to convince you, if you will let me.
WWX: (a laugh, soft and shaky) You’ll have to convince me every day, Lan Zhan.
LWJ: Mn. Every day.