Chapter Text
“Do not think that A-Yi or I will allow the both of you to elope without our permission.” Baoshan Sanren spoke, a stern look on her face as she looked at the kneeling forms of her grandson and her Lan. “Your mother would roll over in her grave if she knew I didn’t throw you both the lavash wedding you deserve.”
“But we don’t need-”
“You are the heir to the Celestial Mountain, A-Zhan is the heir to the Lan Clan. Whether or not you both recognize your positions, they still exist.” Lan Yi started, smiling at the way Wei Ying’s eyes widened. “A-Ying, you deserve to have your union celebrated, and those who live here would want nothing more than to be able to show you how much they welcome you, how much you are welcomed here.”
“They never got to give A-Se a wedding,” Baoshan Sanren’s voice was quiet when she spoke, a single tear sliding down her face, “But when they found out that you were her son, the first thing A-Yan asked me was ‘when can we start planning the wedding?’ and everyone else was immediately on board.”
She let out a laugh.
“You’ve been here for a year, it wouldn’t surprise me if they have had everything prepared for months, just waiting for you both to finally ask.”
“I’m the heir?” Wei Ying whispered, “To the whole mountain?”
“I don’t see anyone else blood related to me, so yes, that role goes to you.” Baoshan Sanren waved a hand, “Of course, that assumes that I plan on dying or leaving anytime soon, of which I do not.”
“Symbolic status.” Lan Zhan spoke, still trying to wrap his mind around being addressed as an heir to the Lan Clan, when both he and Wei Ying would never be returning back to that world, to those positions, to those people and Clans.
They held no position. They held no space within their prior clans.
However, he supposed they would never know they had left. They would never formally draft resignations from their positions. As far as they knew, by the time their clans realized something had gone wrong on their assigned night hunt, he and Wei Ying could have long forgotten about them.
By the time their families realized something was wrong would they even remember their faces? Their voices? Would they reminisce about them? Would Wei Ying tell him stories about teaching his shidi? Would Wei Ying remember stories about Jiang Yanli?
When they decided to have children, would Lan Wangji be able to teach about what he was taught? Would he be able to share the guidance of his teachers? Would he remember the faces of his teachers when they scolded him? Would he remember the ways he felt as a child when they expected the world from him, when he couldn’t compete with such expectations?
He felt Wei Ying’s hand in his, turned and met his beloved’s gaze, and found all those questions turning to dust, becoming worthless in his mind, not requiring answers - because he knew the answer.
With Wei Ying at his side, with Baoshan Sanren and Lan Yi and everyone within the Celestial Mountain there to support them, there would be nothing they would ever want, nothing left to desire that they weren’t able to find. There would be nothing they couldn’t face together.
If they started forgetting the faces of those they once knew, they would be replaced by those they now knew, those who cared for them. When they start to forget the smaller details, when they start being unable to recall the sound of someone’s voice, it would be replaced by details they learned about one another, it would be replaced by the sounds of their new families and their voices.
Lan Zhan held onto Wei Ying’s hand tightly as he faced the two women he knew would soon become dear to both of them.
“When can they have everything prepared?”
He almost smiled at the sound that came from Wei Ying, the choked out gasp as he whipped his head around, eyes wide as he looked at the man he loved.
Baoshan Sanren and Lan Yi were laughing, mumbling about how eager Lan Wangji was for a wedding.
They had been on the Celestial Mountain for a year.
A year full of memories, of being able to exist in the world without the pressure of their clans on their backs. A year of Wei Ying not being forced to endure Madam Yu’s punishments. A year without the constant pressure on Lan Zhan from his brother, his uncle, those in the Lan Clan around him who expected better of him, who had expectations of him and were disappointed when he didn’t meet them as soon as they wanted him to.
A year for them, an hour for everyone else.
To everyone else, they were still on their nighthunt, the moon was still high in the sky, the farmer they were helping was still sleeping in his bed or awake and waiting for them to report back, not thinking anything about how long it had been, knowing that cultivators often needed time for their nighthunts.
“I’m sure they can have everything ready within a week.” Baoshan Sanren stared, “They would want to make sure everything was perfect, robes need to be hemmed, altered for your bodies, announcements made for such a grand event.”
“The Lan Clan principles would need a week to be met either way.” Lan Yi spoke - causing Wei Ying to groan.
“What do those rules say now? Am I not allowed to even share the same air as Lan Zhan? Are we to be separated? Can we not see each other for a week? Do we need to spend a week in isolation meditating to purify our minds?” He let out a laugh. “Because I can assure you, Waipo, Popo, that Lan Zhan’s thoughts and actions are anything but pure.”
“Oh, we’re all aware of that.” Baoshan Sanren teased, smiling as Wei Ying’s face turned red.
“No, A-Ying, they aren’t that extreme,” Lan Yi pulled out a small booklet. “They just state the declarations that one must make to their intended. I’m sure A-Zhan could share more about the current state of affairs within the Lan Clan.”
Lan Zhan shook his head.
“There has not been a wedding within the main family in my lifetime, so I have not been made aware of the stages. However, I do not think we need to go through such procedures.” He held on tightly to Wei Ying’s hand. “We know what we mean to one another, we communicate at all times, nothing gets decided among us without speaking about it.”
“Yeah,” Wei Ying agreed, leaning onto Lan Zhan’s shoulder, “We promised that any serious decisions - ones that will have consequences that will last longer than a day - will be spoken of in depth.” He met Baoshan Sanren’s gaze.
“It came up when we spoke about staying here. That if either of us ever decided that we didn’t want to be on the mountain anymore, that we would talk about it.” Wei Ying let out a light laugh, almost depreciating in tone. “It also doesn’t help that I kept dreaming of Lan Zhan leaving without telling me, of waking up and him being gone, of him leaving a note saying he was too afraid to tell him he wanted to leave. So we decided that we will be honest about our thoughts, we will speak of everything we want, no matter how stupid or insignificant, words between us will always matter.”
There was a look in the two women’s gazes as they looked at them - a deep understanding.
They had both spent who knows how many years, millennia, epochs, periods - the math made Wei Ying’s head spin the few times he tried to calculate just how old everyone was on the Celestial Mountain compared to the cultivation world.
Both Lan Yi and Baoshan Sanren had likely had conversations about certain topics hundreds of times. Often, Wei Ying would look over at them and find them in an exchange of minute facial expressions, sharing entire conversations in a language that they developed over such an extended period of time with one another, something that they could only share with one another through long-term exposure.
He hoped that he and Lan Zhan would one day develop such a language, such an immediate understanding, knowing one another to such an extent that nothing between them was secret, they knew each other as if they were themselves.
“So then what’s our next steps? Who do we have to see to get all of this started?”
“Well A-Ying,” Baoshan Sanren smiled at him, “Notifying the mountain would be the first step - I suspect you both will speak with more people over the next week than in your whole lifetime.”
“Aside from that? Leave the rest to us.” Lan Yi smiled at both of them. “We’re more than capable of managing all of this. All you two need to do is show up when we ask you to.”
A week passed in no time, it was as if Wei Ying blinked and suddenly he was in red, multiple aunties pulling at his red robes, smoothening out layers, making sure that everything fell
perfectly, that he looked perfect. They were putting pins in his hair, pulling on his sleeves and collars, one of them had even taken a brush and rouge to his lips and cheeks.
At some point, they all just stood in front of him, their eyes scanning over him before they all nodded.
Wei Ying finally looked down at himself, he finally looked at what they had been doing to him when one of them handed him a mirror.
He wanted to cry, but knew that the aunties would berate him for ruining their hard work before Lan Zhan got to see him.
There was an amount of care that he had never felt before when he finally looked at himself. All the women around him had worked together to make this day special for him - because they all cared about him and Lan Zhan and wanted them to be happy and show that they were loved.
They all knew his mother, they all cared for her, and while they weren’t able to do this for his mother, they were able to do it for him.
They were all able to dress him up as he deserved, as the heir of the Celestial Mountain deserved to look on his wedding day.
If he was still in the cultivation world, if he had gotten married as the head disciple of the Jiang Clan, he would never have gotten anything close to the care and attention that he was getting with every breath on the mountain.
Madam Yu would likely have rushed the ceremony, wanting nothing more to have Wei Ying brushed aside, diminishing his importance. She never cared about him, she never wanted him to have any attention, any portion of the spotlight that would take away from her children.
She would have picked his bride based on the best trade agreements or benefits that they could get out of such a union. She would have picked a woman that maybe Wei Ying would never have liked, never loved, forcing both of them into a loveless marriage.
He would’ve been unhappy, unsatisfied - but he would have accepted it, because it’s what he thought he deserved, what was expected of him. Wei Ying was expected to take whatever decisions Madam Yu made about his life, as his life was hers. All aspects of his life controlled, never allowed to make his own decisions - not when they could make the Jiang Clan look bad.
Any feelings he would have towards Lan Zhan would have been forced aside, shoved to the back of his mind, left for him to reminisce about late at night when he would be alone. He would have spent the rest of his life longing with every moment he spent with Lan Wangji in his line of sight. Wei Ying would be forced to think about the benefit of the Jiang Clan, versus what he himself wanted.
Maybe, one day he would think about leaving, about abandoning his wife in the night, running away and living on his own - accepting a life on his own as a rogue rather than be forced into a marriage he didn’t want.
Maybe, one day Lan Zhan would encounter him on a night hunt, rumors flying around about the Jiang disciple who abandoned his wife and his position, not even leaving a note behind, shaming his marriage and the Jiang Clan - and whatever lies they would make up about him.
Maybe, Lan Zhan would continue encountering him, indulging him, helping Wei Ying.
Maybe, one day Wei Ying would kiss him, maybe he would’ve thought about it, seen moments where Lan Zhan looked like he would have accepted such advances.
Maybe, eventually they would have ended up together, but in shame, in hiding, never able to be public with one another because of the way Wei Wuxian’s name was disgraced among the cultivation clans, the way they would start talking about Lan Zhan in such a way if they found out Wei Ying left his wife to enter into a clandestine relationship with Lan Wangji.
But they didn’t need to ponder such possibilities, they didn’t need to think about the maybes and the what if’s because they were here and they were in it together.
They were getting married in front of all the people they have come to appreciate - new friends, new academic partners, night hunt partners, groups of people who had lived on the mountain for longer than Lan Zhan or Wei Ying could ever comprehend, Baoshan Sanren and Lan Yi.
He was dressed in red, robes that had been made with his mother’s wedding in mind. Robes designed with absolute care, with every thread stitched with love, with pride, with all the force of those on the mountain. Wei Ying was dressed in the love that they held towards his mother, and now the love they hold towards him and Lan Zhan.
He turned towards them, setting the mirror down, and dropped into a deep bow.
“Thank you.” Wei Ying whispered, willing his tears away, forcing them not to fall and ruin the red lines they drew around his eyes - the designs that they spoke about with care, that they would represent prosperity, change, an indication that Wei Ying was entering into a new section of his life and everything that happened before didn’t matter now.
When he rose, he saw how all of them were wiping away their own tears, smiles on all of their faces - pride for him and their work, for being able to see the wedding robes they had spent so much time working on finally being worn by someone they loved, even if it wasn’t the intended wearer.
The door behind them opened, Lan Yi peaking her head into the room.
“Are we ready?”
Wei Ying nodded, stepping through the gap the aunties created for him, and taking the hand Lan Yi offered to him.
She pulled him through the courtyard, past rows of disciples that were all attending, all smiling, wanting to be part of such a celebration.
They stopped at the ancestral hall, Baoshan Sanren was already waiting for them, tears in her eyes as they approached.
“He’s waiting.” She spoke, gesturing for Wei Ying to enter, for Wei Ying to pass through the large wooden doors to the rest of his life.
He ran into her arms, whispering thanks before pulling back, and eyeing the doors, knowing that Lan Zhan was waiting for him.
Lan Zhan was waiting for him, waiting in front of the tablets for their parents - for Cangse Sanren, Wei Changze, and Madam Lan - the only people they needed to make their bows to.
Wei Ying pushed open the door, and stepped towards the rest of his beautiful life.