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Lan Wangji had seen Wei Wuxian look flabbergasted before. Most of the time he’d been pretending. This time he decidedly was not.
“I’m sorry?” he asked, finally, blinking. “You what?”
“I will take responsibility,” Lan Wangji repeated calmly. “For my child and his mother.”
“Your…” Wei Wuxian scratched the back of his neck. “You, ah, have a child?”
“A-Yuan,” Lan Wangji said, patiently. “You said you birthed him yourself.”
“Ah,” Wei Wuxian said. “Yes, yes, yes, I did say that. But what does this have to do with you?”
“Only a very strong cultivator could have impregnated you,” Lan Wangji continued. Wei Wuxian is usually a little less dense than this.
“What!?” Wei Wuxian asked. “Is that really possible?”
“There are many ancient records of it,” Lan Wangji informed him.
“Are there really?” Wei Wuxian asked.
“Mn. It has also been recorded that strong cultivators have come to women in their dreams and gotten them with child.”
“It has?” Wei Wuxian asked. “Are you sure they weren’t just trying to cover up…?”
“I am a strong cultivator,” Lan Wangji said.
“Yes,” Wei Wuxian agreed. “One of the strongest.”
“A-Yuan bears a distinct resemblance to me,” Lan Wangji said.
“I have noticed that,” Wei Wuxian said, then froze. “Lan Zhan… are you…?”
“Therefore,” Lan Wangji said, “it is easy to conclude that A-Yuan is my child and therefore I am responsible for both his care and yours.”
“ It is easy to … Lan Zhan, A-Yuan isn’t really…” Wei Wuxian began, but Lan Wangji cut him off with a quelling glare.
“It makes sense!” Sect Leader Yao shouted from behind his table, clearly enjoying the spectacle.
“I’ve heard those ancient legends too,” Sect Leader Ouyang chimed in. “I thought they were fake, but Hanguang-jun is an unparalleled cultivator. If anyone could…”
“The child does resemble him,” someone else yelled, to a chorus of agreements.
“Scandalous!” someone else shouted. “How dare the Yiling Patriarch seduce Hanguang-jun!?”
“If it was in his dream, was it really a seduction?” someone else asked.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian asked, under the cover of the shouting. “What are you doing?”
Lan Wangji silenced him by winking at him.
He wasn’t lying. Not exactly . There were ancient records of strong cultivators impregnating men. There were also ancient records of strong cultivators impregnating people in their dreams. The ancient records were obviously false and written for the purposes of titillation, but leaving that out wasn’t lying exactly .
He’d found them when he’d been looking for music scores in the forbidden section of the library. The forbidden section of the library had contained a great number of spring books and Lan Wangji’s self-control had been fraying a little at the edges.
It couldn’t hurt, he’d thought, when he’d come across the shelves and shelves and shelves of erotica, to look a little. A short break from his study of alternative versions of Clarity. After all, Wei Wuxian had once said it was perfectly normal to look at such things.
That’s where he’d come across the account, told in an overly dramatic and anatomically incorrect manner, of a pair of male cultivators who had several children together.
(How? Where did the child gestate? In the lower intestines? Would that not have blocked the functioning of the digestive tract? And wouldn’t the digestive juices have harmed the developing fetus? Unsatisfyingly, the erotica failed to answer these simple and obvious questions.)
Another story, in the same text, spoke of a demon who preyed on women in their dreams, engaging in coitus with them without their consent. The poor women had discovered, upon waking, that they were many months pregnant with the demon’s children.
This surely belonged more to the horror genre than to erotica, Lan Wangji had thought with disgust as he had reshelved the book.
He’d put all thought of the stupid stories out of his mind and years had passed. And then Lan Wangji went to Yiling just to try to get a glance of Wei Wuxian and he’d been accused of being the father of a young child (cut out of the same mold, the gossiping townspeople had said) and then Wei Wuxian had bounded up to him and claimed he’d birthed the child out of his own body and suddenly the two stories popped back into his head.
For a moment, a split second, he’d wondered if it could be true. He’d had a lot of sex dreams about Wei Wuxian. A lot . But then, of course, he’d come back to reason and realized that Wei Wuxian was just teasing him like always and he’d tried to push the stories out of his mind again.
The plan had slowly been forming in his mind since then, but only when he was invited to the hundred-day ceremony at Jinlintai had it really solidified. He’d convince the Jins to invite Wei Wuxian to the ceremony, he’d go to the Burial Mounds and convince Wei Wuxian to bring A-Yuan along, he’d bring them both back here and then, in public he’d…
“Hanguang-jun must marry Wei Wuxian now!” someone shouted. “How can he be so irresponsible to let his child grow up without a father?”
“Hanguang-jun marry the Yiling Patriarch? That would be a travesty!”
“Wangji,” Brother said, rising from his table and coming over to where Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian were standing in the middle of the hall, A-Yuan on Wei Wuxian’s him. “Is it true?” he asked much more loudly than was typical of him.
Lan Wangji blinked at him, for a moment disconcerted that Brother might be taken in by the story. But then the ghost of a grin crossed his face and he realized, with relief, that Brother was playing along.
“Mn,” Lan Wangji said vaguely.
“Zewu-jun,” Wei Wuxian began. “It’s not…” But Lan Wangji gave him a look and he fell silent.
“Then these honored cultivators are right,” Brother continued loudly. “You must take responsibility for your child and his mother. Wei Wuxian, will you accept our sect’s deepest apologies for how you’ve been treated?”
“Um…” Wei Wuxian said. “...yes?”
Brother smiled down at A-Yuan. “May I meet my nephew?” he asked.
“Your…” Wei Wuxian was sure taking his time understanding what was happening. “Ah… yes…” He bounced A-Yuan a little. “A-Yuan,” he said. “This is rich-gege’s brother, Zewu-jun.”
A-Yuan looked up at him and smiled, shyly, his fist in his mouth.
“You can call me bufu, zhizi,” Brother said. He fished around in his robes, pulled out a candy, and gave it to the child.
“Say ‘thank you’,” Wei Wuxian prompted A-Yuan.
“Thank you,” A-Yuan said, around his fist.
“We will have to discuss arrangements,” Brother said still a little more loudly than was appropriate.
“Arrangements?” Wei Wuxian repeated, all of the calm that seemed to have come from talking to the child suddenly gone.
“For your marriage,” Brother said, calmly.
Wei Wuxian was openly gaping now, looking back and forth between them, then around the hall, where the cultivators who had been invited to Jin Ling’s 100-day ceremony were gaping at them.
“What the fuck, Lan Zhan,” he said, heedless of the toddler still clutched in his arms. “What the actual fuck?” With a disgusted look, he turned on his heel and stomped out of the hall.
Brother looked sideways at Lan Wangji, a ‘I sure hope you know what you’re doing’ look. Lan Wangji returned with an impassive ‘it’s part of the plan’ glance. Brother gave him a ‘your plan seems flawed’ eyeroll and wandered off.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Jiang Cheng hissed at him.
“Hm?” Lan Wangji asked, turning to the angry sect leader.
“What the fuck?” Jiang Cheng said. “How dare you insult my shige in such a way?!”
“Is Wei Wuxian your shige?” Lan Wangji asked coldly.
Jiang Cheng colored and looked away.
Lan Wangji decided he’d accomplished what he’d set out to accomplish and left the hall. There must be some peaceful place in Jinlintai where he could meditate.
Wei Wuxian’s head was buried in his shijie’s lap, which was where it belonged and it had been unfair, deeply unfair, a crime against the heavens that he’d had to go so long without it.
“I just don’t understand,” he whined into her robes. “Why would he do this?”
Shijie smiled down at him and stroked his head comfortingly. “He must have had a good reason,” she said. “Hanguang-jun wouldn’t have made such a public display for no purpose.”
“Unless he’s qi deviating.” Wei Wuxian sat up abruptly. “Shijie, do you think he’s qi deviating?”
Jiang Yanli laughed softly. “No,” she said. “A-Xian, is it really so bad?”
Wei Wuxian looked up at her. “What do you mean?”
“Marrying Lan Wangji,” she said. “Having people think A-Yuan is your son. Is it really so bad?”
He stared.
“You’ve been such close friends for so long now,” she said. “Don’t you want to marry him?”
“I ah,” Wei Wuxian said, opening and closing his mouth, aware that he was gaping like a fish. Beside him, A-Yuan was playing with some of baby A-Ling’s toys.
“I don’t not want to marry him,” Wei Wuxian said. Lan Wangji was his best friend, after all, the best person he knew, and the most beautiful on top of that. He’d missed him so much in the last few years, missed his quiet, calm, company, missed his silent looks and quiet voice, even missed fighting with him. “But I can’t, shijie,” he said. “Not with…” not when he was cultivating resentful energy. Not when he was protecting the Wens. Not when he was missing his golden core .
“Hm,” Jiang Yanli said, then looked up when Jiang Cheng stalked in. “A-Cheng,” she said. “It’s so nice seeing you, but don’t yell. A-Ling’s asleep in the next room.”
“Why do you think I’m going to yell?” Jiang Cheng hissed.
Wei Wuxian rolled his eyes. “Hey, Jiang Cheng,” he said. “How are you doing?”
“You!” Jiang Cheng hissed, pointing at him. “What the hell? How the hell are you so shameless to have a love child with Lan Wangji and then show up here with him! And you even lied to me about who he was! You said he was a…”
“A-Cheng,” Jiang Yanli interrupted. “Please be quieter.”
Jiang Cheng looked at her apologetically before rounding on Wei Wuxian again. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me he was my nephew!”
“Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian said, slowly. “Do you really think I… carried a child? Lan Zhan’s child?”
“Who else’s child would you carry?” Jiang Chang demanded, yelling as quietly as possible. “Are you suggesting you cheated on Lan Wangji?”
Wei Wuxian dropped his head into his hands. “How could I cheat on Lan Wangji?” Wei Wuxian asked. “I was never with Lan Wangji!”
“You had a child with him and you weren’t even together?” Jiang Cheng demanded.
“It was in a dream!” Wei Wuxian protested and then realized what he’d just said. He stood up and grabbed the toddler. “I can’t believe this,” he said. “I’ve been gone from the cultivation world for three years and everyone’s gone insane.” He paused. “No offense, shijie.”
“It’s fine, A-Xian,” Yanli said, with a smile.
There was, surprisingly, a little lotus pond tucked away beside shijie’s rooms and Wei Wuxian led A-Yuan to it and sat with him in his lap, pointing to the dragonflies and the fish that wound through the lotus stems.
There was a quiet step and then a rustle of robes and the comforting feeling of someone sitting beside him. A hand held out a jar of wine.
“Thanks,” Wei Wuxian said, moving it quickly so the baby couldn't grab it. He took a sip and winced and handed it back. “I always forget how terrible Lanling wine is.”
Nie Huaisang accepted the bottle and took a swig.
“What the hell is going on?” Wei Wuxian asked. “Has everyone straight up gone mad? Pretty soon I’m going to start thinking I birthed this child and I swear I did not.”
“I would think birthing a child would be a very memorable experience,” Nie Huaisang said mildly.
Wei Wuxian huffed out a laugh. “Me too, but apparently…”
The toddler reached out his arms and Wei Wuxian let Nie Huaisang take him and tease him with the tassel on his fan.
“You could just leave,” Nie Huaisang said. “Take the kid and go back to the Burial Mounds and write Hanguang-jun off.”
“I want to know,” Wei Wuxian complained, “why he would do something like this.”
“You could ask him,” Nie Huaisang pointed out.
Wei Wuxian scoffed. “Talking to Lan Zhan has never led to any good,” he said. “He’ll just try to play his stupid music for me and take me back to Gusu…”
He gasped. “Nie-xiong! Do you think this is an elaborate plot to get me to go to Gusu?” he asked.
Nie Huaisang bounced the baby on his lap.
“Why?” he asked. “Why would he want you to go back to Gusu so badly he’d embarrass himself in front of the whole cultivation world and marry you and pretend to have a child with you?”
Wei Wuxian worried his lip. “I don’t know! It’s so weird!”
“It’s kind of a lot if you just want to punish someone for demonic cultivation,” Nie Huaisang said, thoughtfully. “Have you thought that he might be in love with you?”
Wei Wuxian laughed. “What? Of course he is! We’ve been in love with each other for ages!”
“Wait, you are?” Nie Huaisang asked. “I mean, you know you are?”
“Well, neither of us are idiots,” Wei Wuxian said. “I mean, the way we look at each other? And use each other’s personal names? And I think we’ve called each other ‘soulmate’ more than once, so…”
“I don’t understand,” Nie Huaisang said. “If you’re in love with each other then why…”
Wei Wuxian took another long drink from the wine bottle. “It was never the right time. We weren’t there yet when we were in school together, then… you know a lot of shit just kept happening. The Wens kept doing shit and then there was the war and then, after that I just wasn’t in a good place... “ he sighed. “And then I went to the Burial Mounds with the Wens and started getting my head on straight, but what was I supposed to do? Ask him to move into a graveyard with me? I literally sleep in a pile of straw…”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji’s voice interrupted their conversation.
Nie Huaisang looked up and blanched. “Hanguang-jun,” he said, scrambling to his feet, still holding onto the baby. Abruptly, he shoved A-Yuan into Lan Wangji’s arms. “See you later, Wei-xiong!” he called. “I’m just going to…”
Lan Wangji sat down beside Wei Wuxian, settling the confused child on his lap. “I’m sorry, Wei Ying,” he said, in a low voice.
Wei Wuxian looked up at him, then looked away. “Why?” he asked.
“If everyone believes A-Yuan is my child, no one will object if I take the both of you back to Gusu,” Lan Wangji said. “Especially if they believe you were against the idea.”
“I can’t go to Gusu,” Wei Wuxian said, stubbornly. “I have to protect the Wens.”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji said. “There was supposed to be an ambush for you. They were going to kill you on the way here. It’s not safe for you or the Wens at the Burial Mounds anymore.”
Wei Wuxian laughed, feeling a little hysterical. “It was never safe for us at the Burial Mounds!” he exclaimed. “It’s the Burial Mounds.”
“Come to Gusu,” Lan Wangji said. “Bring the Wens to Gusu.”
“I know,” Wei Wuxian said. “Come to Gusu and give up demonic cultivation and take up the sword again, yadda, yadda, yadda.”
“No,” Lan Wangji said. “Come to Gusu. I don’t care what else you do. If you’re my child’s mother, if we’re married, you’ll be protected.”
Wei Wuxian looked at him with enormous eyes. “But why?” he pushed.
Lan Wangji bounced the baby (currently teething on his jade token) and sighed. “I want to marry you,” he said. “I want A-Yuan to be my son.”
Wei Wuxian laughed, despite himself. “You could have just asked,” he said. “Lan Zhan, ah, Lan Zhan, you’re such a drama queen.”
Lan Wangji’s ears went pink.
“You’ll come?” he asked.
“I have to!” Wei Wuxian exclaimed. “Even I’m not shameless enough to run off with Hanguang-jun’s child!”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji said, and his voice was full of pleading, so Wei Wuxian turned his head and kissed him.
In retrospect, Lan Wangji should have expected what happened next. He’d been so fixated on what his plot would mean for Wei Wuxian and A-Yuan and the poor Wens, so obsessed with the idea of finally knowing Wei Wuxian was safe and, finally getting to express his feelings to him...
And he did; they moved everyone to Gusu and Brother ran interference with Uncle and the Elders and everyone kind of scratched their heads about the whole dream-pregnancy thing but everyone knew Hanguang-jun didn’t lie. And A-Yuan looked so much like him, after all. And, honestly, if anyone was going to do something as weird as getting knocked up in his sleep it was Wei Wuxian.
And for a while it was everything Lan Wangji had dreamed of. Wei Wuxian and A-Yuan moved into the Jingshi and they were able to finally consummate a love that had been burning inside of both of them for years (when the baby was asleep and silencing talismans were in place) and it was… heavens… it far exceeded his wildest dreams and his wildest dreams had been, well, wild.
And then the first of the women arrived.
You had to have some sympathy, Lan Wangji thought while staring wildly at the scene before him. The sobbing girl, the angry mother scolding Brother so thoroughly Brother had no time to interject a word in edgewise.
Finally, Uncle butted in. “Madam,” he said, coldly. “You have yet to offer proof that your daughter has been… impregnated… by my nephew.”
The woman sniffed and looked critically at Wei Wuxian, who seemed torn between laughing and crying. “Did that one offer any proof?” she demanded.
“Wei Wuxian is a different story entirely,” Brother said smoothly. “In that case, it was Hanguang-jun who made the claim; and he and Wei Wuxian had been known to each other for years. My brother has never met your daughter- how could he have invaded her dreams?”
“But he did,” the young girl said, so quietly they almost couldn’t hear her.
“Hmm?” Wei Wuxian said. “What was that, miss? You’ve met Hanguang-jun before?”
She nodded, red-faced. “I sold him some buns at the market in Caiyi.”
Wei Wuxian looked at Lan Wangji who gave him a look that meant I have no idea if that’s true .
“And then he invaded my daughter’s dreams that very night!” the mother exclaimed. “Look at what he did to my poor girl!”
She pulled the girl’s dress against her stomach aggressively, needlessly, since it had already been impossible to miss the bulge.
Wei Wuxian tugged on Lan Wangji’s sleeve. “Perhaps we could speak to the young lady without her mother,” he whispered.
Lan Wangji frowned at him, then nodded.
“In the interest of… verifying… the girl’s claims, my husband and I would like to speak to her privately. You know,” Wei Wuxian added, “for certain information no one else wants to hear.”
He winked, horribly, at Uncle, who blanched and assented. The mother opened her mouth to protest, but Wei Wuxian already had his arms around the girl’s shoulders and was coaxing her out of the room. Lan Wangji followed behind, bemused.
Wei Wuxian helped the girl lower herself onto a cushion, then fed her little cakes and tea until she stopped crying and seemed a little happier.
“What’s your name, miss?” Wei Wuxain asked.
“A-Fen.”
“Why don’t you tell us what really happened, A-Fen?” Wei Wuxian asked, passing her more cakes.
The girl’s expression fell as she looked between him and Lan Wangji. “But… but I told you!” she exclaimed.
“A-Fen,” Wei Wuxian said, softly, “dream impregnation isn’t real. Hanguang-jun only claimed it had happened for political reasons.”
“But…” the girl said, flushing, her eyes darting back and forth. “Everyone knows that Hanguang-jun doesn’t lie.”
“Well,” Wei Wuxian said, “he didn’t lie. He just implied and people kind of ran with it. The point is that my husband cannot be the father of your child.”
“How do you know?” the girl demanded. “He could be lying to you! Men lie all of the time.”
To Lan Wangji’s dismay, she broke into tears again.
“A-Fen,” Wei Wuxian said, wrapping one of his lanky arms around her shoulders and stroking her hair. “Is that what happened to you? A man lied to you?”
The girl froze, then finally nodded, relaxing into him. “He…” she sobbed. “He said he loved me. He promised I’d be his concubine and he’d take care of me, then he acted like I was… like I was dog vomit.” She wiped her nose loudly on Wei Wuxian’s sleeve.
“Oh, poor A-Fen,” Wei Wuxian said, consolingly. “Poor A-Fen. Men really are vile creatures.”
She nodded and eventually fell asleep on Wei Wuxian’s shoulder. Wei Wuxian gently lowered her to the cushions, then crossed the room to lean on Lan Wangji’s arm. Lan Wangji took a cloth and wiped as much of the snot off of Wei Wuxian’s sleeve as he could manage.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian whispered to him. “Do you want another baby?”
Lan Wangji stared at him. “What?” he asked, finally.
“A baby?” Wei Wuxian whispered. “Do you want another one? Or were those things you said to me last night lies?”
Lan Wangji opened his mouth but nothing came out. He could feel the tips of his ears burning. Wei Wuxian took pity on him and handed him a cup of tea.
“It’s just a wild idea,” he said. “But here’s a poor girl whose life got ruined by some asshole and, yes, she shouldn’t have lied, but what was she supposed to do? You gave her the most convenient of excuses!”
“So you want me to… take her as a concubine?”
“Oh, no no,” Wei Wuxian said, reassuringly. “How would you ever handle having two partners? I’m more than enough for you. Anyway, having concubines is against the rules. No, I was thinking- this is just a wild idea- if you agreed that the baby is yours and the girl is okay with it, we could keep it. But because it happened in a dream the girl’s still a virgin, right? We give her some money to keep as a dowry and she goes back to her family and everyone’s happy!”
“Hm,” Lan Wangji said. “What if she wants to keep the child?”
Wei Wuxian scratched his head. “I didn’t think of that.”
“No!” the girl said, suddenly, trying to scramble up, but impeded by her big belly. “I’ll do it, I’ll do it! I don’t want a baby! I’m too young! And babies poop too much.”
“They do poop a lot,” Wei Wuxian said, making a face. “Lan Zhan, you’ll be on poop duty.”
“This is your idea,” Lan Wangji reminded him.
“But you’re the one who has been unfaithful to me in your dreams,” Wei Wuxian said.
The girl looked at them, confused. “Are you serious?” she asked.
“Rarely,” Wei Wuxian said, but he glanced at Lan Wangji. “Do you want to do this? You want to have a baby with me?”
“I already have a baby with you,” Lan Wangji reminded him.
“Another one,” Wei Wuxian said.
“Yes,” Lan Wangji agreed promptly.
Lan Wangji had always loved children. They were so much less annoying than adults. He’d never thought before that he’d be able to have them, not considering the biology involved, but he was coming to realized that he wanted children. Lots of children. He wanted to be surrounded by people he could love and care for.
Most of the women who came, usually accompanied by irate parents, did not want to give away their babies like A-Fen did. With each one, Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji and Wen Qing took the girl into a separate room (Wen Qing was added after it was pointed out it might not be appropriate for the two men to be alone in a room with a girl. She also was useful if any medical issues came up) and Wei Wuxian wheedled their stories out of them.
There was a surprising amount of diversity in the stories. Some of the women had been impregnated by men who they were in love with and who loved them who they wanted to marry but their parents wouldn’t let them. Some were married but wanted the fame of having Hanguang-jun’s child or who wanted a better life for their child. Some wanted to get away from their parents. A few, horribly, had been raped. One girl and three boys who were definitely not pregnant also showed up, though one of the boys was toting around a child.
Wei Wuxian talked to each of them until they admitted what had actually happened (except for one girl who Wen Qing thought was suffering from delusions and who she referred to the healers) and then kept talking to them until they arrived a solution. Sometimes he gave them a little bit of money to help them and their child. Sometimes he talked their parents into promising to let them marry the men they loved. Sometimes he found positions for them as maids or shopworkers in Caiyi (not surprisingly, Wei Wuxian had befriended all of the inhabitants of Caiyi within six months of living in Cloud Recesses).
And four more times they ended up with a baby. Spaced out over three years, it was manageable, although only just, and only because they hired wet nurses and nannies and because after the first child after A-Yuan Lan Wangji decided to build an additional wing on the Jingshi.
After that first child, Brother had become a little concerned. “Should you really be confirming this?” he asked Lan Wangji. “Won’t this just encourage more to come forward and lie?”
But Brother loved children almost as much as Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian did, and he loved his little nieces and nephews.
After the fourth child Brother again protested. “Wangji,” he had asked. “How many children are you planning on adopting?”
Lan Wangji looked down at A-Lin. “Wei Ying and I have not settled on a number,” he said.
Brother sighed. “I suppose it is nice to not have to worry about sect heirs,” he said. “At this rate we’ll stop being able to accept outer disciples, though.”
“Mn,” Lan Wangji said, bouncing A-Lin a little. She’d been having colic lately and they’d discovered that the only thing that would get her to sleep was being held in Lan Wangji’s arms. So far he’d taught six classes, conducted four training sessions, sat through nine meals and taken two baths with the baby in his arms.
Wei Wuxian had sighed the third night A-Lin had shown up in their bed and said “I guess we’re never having sex again, huh?”
“Maybe in eighteen years,” Lan Wangji said.
Wei Wuxian sighed. “I love all of our children,” he said. “But maybe we should stop at six? Just in the hope that someday we get our sex lives back.”
“Mn,” Lan Wangji said, uncertainly. Their sex life wasn’t nonexistant. They put in a lot of effort and found times where they could manage. Granted sometimes it was rushed and in… inappropriate places. The forbidden chamber of the library was seeing more visitors than normal. There was a little place in the back hills… And babies were so cute and smelled so good and they grew up so fast.
A-Yuan was already starting classes, with his serious little expression and serious little headband, frowning down at his first character sets. A-Zi was already a toddler getting into all sorts of mischief. Recently she’d somehow gotten her hands on some wet ink and decided to paint on the paper windows of the Jingshi. A-Mi followed her older sister around and tried to imitate everything she did. A-Peng was just starting to walk and spent most of his time clutching onto Wei Wuxian’s robes with one hand, the other hand stuffed in his mouth. A-Bo had recently started crawling and moved amazingly fast.
Soon A-Lin would grow up as well and Lan Wangji wouldn’t have any baby to hold and secretly smell when he thought no one was looking.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian said. “Seriously, how many babies do you want?”
Lan Wangji rubbed his nose against A-Lin’s and she gurgled happily.
A-Zi tumbled into the room, A-Mi close on her heels and they both clamored for Wei Wuxian to pick them up.
“See?” Wei Wuxian said, grunting as he lifted both girls into his lap. “It’s getting too squishy in here. I don’t have enough lap space for all of these children we’ve acquired.”
“Wei Ying just needs to grow fatter,” Lan Wangji said.
Wei Wuxian laughed. “I don’t think that’s how laps work,” he said.
“I still can’t believe you’re okay with this!” Jiang Cheng exclaimed, too loudly.
Yanli sighed. “A-Cheng,” she said, “we’ve had this discussion. If A-Xian says he’s okay with it, why can’t you be supportive?”
“But how are you okay with it?” Jiang Cheng demanded. “Your husband having babies with other women?”
“It’s in his dreams,” Wei Wuxian said, with a shrug. “That’s not really cheating, right? Anyway, look at the outcome! I get babies,” he held up A-Lin as evidence. Thank goodness she’d finally gotten over her colic and was back to being a happy, easy-going baby, “and I don’t have to be pregnant or give birth. Jiang Cheng, do you have any idea how horrible being pregnant and giving birth is?”
Wei Wuxian had now tended five women through the later stages of their pregnancies and deliveries and sometimes he had nightmares about it. After he’d held A-Fen’s hand during her birth (sixteen hours! SIXTEEN HOURS!), he’d put a hard stop to the dirty talk about Lan Zhan getting him pregnant. Turned out that once he’d seen the actual result of pregnancy on a human body there was nothing Lan Zhan could say that could make it even remotely sexy again.
Yanli made a sympathetic face and Wei Wuxian felt a little bad that she was actually the only person present who’d actually been through that suffering. She was playing on the floor with A-Peng, and her youngest, A-Jun, who were about the same age.
“It just… does he ask their permission first, or does he just… do it?” Jiang Cheng asked.
“Are you… are you asking about my husband’s sex life?” Wei Wuxian asked, confused.
“No!” Jiang Cheng cried, revolted. “Ewww… I just wanted to know… how it works.”
“How it works?” Wei Wuxian repeated. “You mean how my husband gets people pregnant?”
“Ew, stop calling him your husband,” Jiang Cheng said.
“But he is my husband,” Wei Wuxian said.
“It’s weird. Stop.”
Yanli snorted in a very graceful and delicate way.
“Okay,” Jiang Cheng said. “Yes, I do want to know.”
Wei Wuxian stared at him. “But why?” he asked finally.
“Because I don’t want to get married!” Jiang Cheng exclaimed, much too loudly. “I don’t actually want to do like… gross married stuff with people! But I have to have children for like filial piety and the sect and everything so I thought maybe if I did it like Hanguang-jun does it… it can’t be that much like sex because you’d never be okay with that and he’d never be okay with that, so maybe it would be something I’d be okay with and not too… gross…”
He looked down, blushing.
“Oh, Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian said. “The truth is…” he sighed. “The truth is that he doesn’t.”
“What?” Jiang Cheng demanded.
“Lan Zhan doesn’t impregnate people in their dreams- he didn’t impregnate me in my dreams, and all our babies… they’re not his, not biologically. It was just something he made up so he could marry me and bring the Wens back here and treat A-Yuan like his kid and no one would make too big of a fuss.”
“WHAT?!?” Jiang Cheng yelled, so loudly half of the babies in the room started crying. The battalion of nannies glared at him until he began apologizing.
“What?!?” Jiang Cheng repeated, in a more reasonable tone of voice, once the babies had been calmed down enough for them to carry on a conversation again.
“I tried to tell you!” Wei Wuxian said. “Right after Lan Zhan… remember? You came storming into the room and I tried to tell you.” He sighed. “I still can’t believe anyone believed it!”
“And you just let me believe it after that?” Jiang Cheng demanded.
Wei Wuxian shrugged apologetically. “I just thought I’d roll with it, honestly. Lan Zhan and I thought it would be best for everyone to think A-Yuan was our biological son. You know people still aren’t very nice to the Wens.”
“He’s a Wen?” Jiang Cheng demanded.
Wei Wuxian rolled his eyes. “Where did you think I got him?"
Surprisingly, the next girl who came didn’t come for Lan Wangji, but for Brother.
They assembled like usual, Lan Wangji and Brother and Uncle and Wen Qing and Wei Wuxian (all smiles but tapping his flute against his thigh) and A-Lin who was too fussy to be left behind and A-Peng hiding as usual in Wei Wuxian’s skirts.
But unlike usual, when the accusation came, it wasn’t Lan Wangji who was being accused of dream-impregnation but Brother.
“Me?” Brother asked, so surprised he forgot to be polite.
The girl, crying, nodded.
“I’m afraid… I don’t think so,” Brother said.
“Well, why not?” the girl’s mother snapped. “He can do it and he’s only the Second Jade.”
“Ah,” Brother said, really taken aback. “That’s a birth order thing, not actually about skill.” He looked helplessly at Wei Wuxian.
“Why don’t you tell us why you think Zewu-jun is the father of your child?” Wei Wuxian asked, with his customary gentleness. He pulled A-Peng out of his clothes and swept him into his arms.
“Be...because I had a dream,” she stammered. “And then…” she looked around helplessly until she spotted Wen Qing and relaxed a little. “You know,” she said.
Wen Qing nodded.
“Shame on you, Zewu-jun!” the mother of the girl said. “Abusing young girls like this!”
“Ah,” Brother said again. “I’m… I’m really sure I didn’t.”
“It couldn’t have been him,” Lan Wangji said, suddenly.
Everyone turned to stare at him.
“Zewu-jun doesn’t know the spell,” Lan Wangji said. “Wei Ying and I invented it and we haven’t shared it with anyone.”
“Plus I would never sleep with a woman!” Brother blurted out. “Not even in my dreams!”
Everyone stared at him.
“Ah, yes,” Wei Wuxian said. “Both very good points. I’m sorry, miss, but you must be mistaken somehow about where you got your baby. Perhaps a fairy visited you in the middle of the night?”
The girl stared at him with wide eyes. “Can… can that happen?” she asked.
Wei Wuxian shrugged his shoulders. “Why not?”
Surprisingly, it was this incident that made Lan Qiren put his foot down. The next time a girl and her parents were brought in, even before the mother had a chance to open her mouth, Lan Qiren snapped “enough! Neither of my nephews were responsible for getting your daughter pregnant! No Lan sect cultivators were! A new rule has been added to the Lan Sect disciplines!”
“A new rule?” Wei Wuxian repeated, concerned.
“Lan Sect cultivators are now forbidden from impregnating people in their dreams! I hope you are not suggesting at Hanguang-jun breaks the rules!?”
The mother, who was gaping, shut her mouth quickly, then rounded on the daughter. “Were you lying to slander Hanguang-jun?” she demanded.
“See them out!” Lan Qiren ordered, and the family was escorted from the gates by the guards.
Lan Qiren turned to Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian with his hands on his hips. “I should have put a stop to this years ago! If you want to do charity work, go fund an orphanage or something!”
“Ah,” Wei Wuxian said, but he bowed. “Yes, grandmaster. Sorry to bother you, grandmaster.”
He waited until he and Lan Wangji were out of the reception hall to burst into laughter. “Lan Zhan!” he cried. “What have you done? There’s now a Lan Sect rule against impregnating people in their dreams!” he wiped the tears out of his eyes. “I guess we’re going to have to limit our brood to six children after all!”
“There are always orphanages,” Lan Wangji reminded him.
Epilogue:
“Um, Sandu Shengshou,” the Jiang disciple said, swallowing nervously. “There’s a woman here who claims you impregnated her in her dreams?”
Epilogue 2:
“Hey, A-Ming, come and take a look at this!”
“What is it?”
“The guide book says that this is the rules the sect members had to follow.”
“Seriously? There are thousands of them! How did they even survive?”
“‘Do not stand incorrectly ’. What even does that mean?”
“‘Do not laugh for no reason. ’”
“‘Destroy the five poisons.’”
“Oh my god, A-Ming come and look at this one.”
“What is it? ‘Do not impregnate people through dreams.’ What the fuck?”