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Lan Wangji has never liked banquets. They tend to be both painfully boring and so overwhelming that they give him splitting headaches. The music, the chatter, the often power-greedy guests—Lan Wangji has just never seen the appeal.

This banquet is no different. Lan Wangji would like nothing more than to leave and spend the rest of the night in his room, but as the guest of honour, he'll have to sit here all night and endure well wishes from people he barely knows. They've all done the same thing, all these members of the gentry—they've all looked at him with the same pitying smile, the same sympathetic eyes. Everyone has wished him good fortune and health in the coming year. No one has wished him a long life, which is understandable. It doesn't make sense to wish him something that will never happen.

Today is Lan Wangji's twenty-first birthday. It is also almost certainly his last.

No one has mentioned it. No one dares. But it's everywhere, if one knows how to look; it's in the funeral-white decorations, from the hanging ivory banners to the pale orchids adorning the windows; it's in the food, which is more extravagant than it's ever been for the prince's birthday feast; it's embroidered on Lan Wangji himself, on the heavy white robes he's wearing. There are near-invisible cranes stitched along his sleeves, and the symbolism is not lost on him—cranes, after all, are said to carry the souls of the dead. His elders are already hoping to ensure that his passage into the afterlife will be a safe one.

Lan Wangji appreciates the sentiment. Really, he does. But he still can't help but feel like he's attending his own funeral.

Xichen, at least, is doing his best to make things better. He keeps sending anxious glances in Lan Wangji's direction and discreetly piling more food onto Lan Wangji's plate. Lan Wangji doesn't have the heart to tell him that he lost his appetite at the start of the banquet, when his longevity noodles broke the moment he picked them up. 

Usually, if there is absolutely no option for him to leave, Lan Wangji gets through these banquets by slipping into a state of half-meditation. He's already built up a reputation of being cold and unapproachable, which means that he's free to sit at the head of the room and ignore everything else without offending anyone too badly. He's been trying to do exactly that for the last half-hour, and he's been failing miserably because—

A laugh cuts through the general din of the banquet hall. Not loud enough to make heads turn, but loud enough to be distinguishable. To be distracting. To catch Lan Wangji off guard and break his meditation. He curls his hands in the insufferably thick fabric of his robes and glares at the laughter's source.

It's a man. Young. Unfamiliar, which is strange; Lan Wangji may not know most of the people here, but he at least recognises their faces. This man, however, is a complete stranger. And, as Lan Wangji studies the man from afar, he thinks that the man is also a complete enigma.

He's dressed almost entirely in black, which is incredibly inauspicious to wear to the prince's birthday celebration—but considering the fact that the entire palace looks like a funeral, Lan Wangji supposes he can let that slide. It's not just the robes, though; the man has a certain air about him, a way of moving that sets him apart. It's like he's being careful to avoid something in the air that no one else can see. Combined with the strange leather pouch at his hip and the shining black flute tucked into his belt, the man certainly seems to be a mystery. 

Lan Wangji tries to ignore him. He really does. The man is probably just someone's guest—perhaps a friend of Nie Huaisang or Jiang Wanyin, since he's been talking with them all night. But every time Lan Wangji's eyes stray from the man, they get drawn back to him when he lets out another loud bark of laughter, or when the red ribbon in his hair catches the light, or when he gestures dramatically at something with his conspicuous black sleeve.

Whether he intends to be or not, the man is an anomaly. He draws attention. Lan Wangji notes, with a faint sense of vindication, that he's not the only one who's been glancing at the man all night. The other guests look at him askance, their eyes lingering on his flute and his pouch and the ink-dark material of his robes. They whisper to each other behind their fans. At first, Lan Wangji assumes that the man doesn't notice—he seems far too preoccupied with draining the empire's entire stock of wine—but then he sees how the man's eyes cut sharply around the room, assessing the other guests.

So: a mysterious man, and a smart one to boot. Lan Wangji can't help but wonder if they've got an assassin on their hands.

Still, even if the man is an assassin, he won't be able to try anything in the middle of the banquet hall, in full view of the most powerful people in the empire. Lan Wangji doesn't worry too much when he realises that the man has disappeared into the crowd. It's getting late; he knows that some of the guests have already started to leave. 

That's probably why, when he glances at Xichen, his brother gives him a subtle nod. Lan Wangji has to fight to stop his shoulders from visibly slumping in relief. He's been kneeling here for so long without moving that his knees are beginning to ache. At the very least, it seems like he won't be missed; all of the guests have already greeted him, and no one's so much as glanced at him since the music started. 

He bids Xichen goodnight, knowing full well that they'll be meeting again in his rooms later. Then, with his crane-embroidered robes sweeping the floor behind him, Lan Wangji stands and makes his way out of the banquet hall as quickly as he can. 

He doesn't go straight to his rooms. He'd like to, but the banquet has been more exhausting than he cares to admit. This whole day has been more exhausting than he cares to admit. His birthdays have never been pleasant—they're always a glaring reminder of how little time he has left—but this one has been by far the worst. Right now, he doesn't want to have to face the birthday gifts that he'll undoubtedly find in his rooms. The gifts from his family will be manageable, but it's the other ones that he hates—the ones from lords and officials who are influential enough to have their gifts delivered directly to his rooms, rather than to a separate hall for the servants to unpack. Those gifts are bound to be expensive and useless, and Lan Wangji is not in the mood to deal with them.

There's a balcony just out of sight from the banquet hall that he likes to visit, sometimes. It overlooks the gardens, and in the autumn he can see his mother's gentians bloom. It's peaceful there, which is just what he needs, so he changes his route and heads there instead.

He certainly isn't expecting to step out onto the balcony and come face-to-face with the man in black.

"Oh!" The man looks startled. He's leaning against the balcony railing, his back to the gardens. "Sorry, I guess you wanted to escape the—oh!"  He yelps as Lan Wangji steps into the light of a nearby torch, then sinks into a hasty bow. "Dianxia."

He doesn't wait for Lan Wangji to give him permission before he rises out of the bow, which, Lan Wangji knows, would have at least two of the more pedantic elders calling for punishment. Fortunately for him, Lan Wangji has never really cared about that kind of thing, and he cares even less at a time like this.

Surprisingly, the man doesn't leave the balcony as Lan Wangji makes his way to the railing; he just moves aside so that there's room enough for them both. Most of the people Lan Wangji knows would have bowed themselves out by now. Perhaps a few of the slimier ones, like Lord Yao, would have stayed and tried to gain favour with the imperial family. But looking at the man in black, Lan Wangji can tell that he's not that kind of man.

They stand together, side-by-side on the balcony, both of them facing opposite directions. Lan Wangji has no intention of breaking the silence. He's perfectly content to stand here and watch the jujube trees sway in the breeze. The man, however, waits only for a few moments before he speaks again.

"You know, dianxia," he says, casual in a way that people who speak to Lan Wangji never are, "I'm hoping you didn't have a hand in the decorations, because for a birthday banquet, they're very morose."

It takes Lan Wangji a few seconds to answer, mostly because he's shocked at the fact that the man addressed him for no apparent reason. He's certainly not trying to curry favour, since he just insulted Lan Wangji's birthday celebration, so is it possible that he's just—making conversation? That's never happened to Lan Wangji before. 

"Morose," Lan Wangji finally says. The word is a statement and a question at once. 

"I mean, look at all this white!" the man says, gesturing at the banquet hall. "If I didn't know better, I'd think this was a funeral."

"A good thing, then, that you do know better," Lan Wangji says curtly. The funeral comment has hit a nerve. "Who are you? Why are you here?"

The man pouts. "So suspicious, dianxia. Can't I just be here to enjoy the festivities?"

Lan Wangji fixes him with an unimpressed glare.

The man holds up his hands. "Fine, fine," he sighs. "You've caught me. This humble one's name is Wei Wuxian, and I'm here to save your life."

Lan Wangji tightens his grip on the balcony railing until the wood creaks a little beneath his fingers. "Be serious," he snaps. "Tell the truth."

"I am telling the truth!" The man—Wei Wuxian?—says indignantly. He holds up three fingers to his forehead. "Dianxia, I swear to you, my name is Wei Wuxian, and I am here to save your life. Didn't huangshang tell you?"

"What does my brother have to do with this?"

"Well, he's the one who hired me," Wei Wuxian says easily. "To break your curse."

Lan Wangji stiffens. Wei Wuxian doesn't seem to notice; he braces his hands on the railing and hoists himself up until he's sitting on it. Lan Wangji's eyes dart from the leather pouch at his side to the flute in his belt to the way his eyes seem to gleam a little unnaturally, like a cat's eyes in the dark.

A sorcerer. Of course. He should've known. 

"Ah, come on, don't give me that look," Wei Wuxian says. Lan Wangji wasn't aware he was giving Wei Wuxian any sort of look. "I understand if you don't like me, dianxia, but you'll have to get used to me eventually. I'll be sticking around for a while."

"You seem to have a great deal of faith in your abilities," Lan Wangji says coolly. In the past, he's known sorcerers who gave up after a week of trying. Most of them lasted a month. One of them, a man named Su Minshan, had only stayed in the palace long enough to eat dinner before he declared that the curse was unbreakable. Lan Wangji suspects that Su Minshan wasn't a sorcerer at all, just a charlatan; he'd gotten antsy whenever Lan Wangji asked him about the methods he was using. 

Wei Wuxian winks at him. "I'm a man of many talents, dianxia," he says. "I'm sure I can use at least one of them to break your curse. Here, I'll even give you an early demonstration. Would you do me a favour and lend me your hand?"

He holds out his hand expectantly, like he thinks Lan Wangji will actually obey. Lan Wangji stares at him disbelievingly until Wei Wuxian rolls his eyes.

"Don't look so scandalised, dianxia, I'm only going to do some palm-reading," he says. "I'm sure you've had your palm read before, haven't you?" 

Lan Wangji has had his palm read before—once, by his mother. The outcome of that palm reading had changed his life forever. He isn't exactly keen to repeat the experience.

But Wei Wuxian is still holding out his hand. He's waggling his eyebrows now, like he thinks that will convince Lan Wangji faster. Lan Wangji sighs and reluctantly extends his hand.

"I knew you'd do it!" Wei Wuxian says triumphantly, snatching Lan Wangji's hand and yanking it towards him with so much force that Lan Wangji stumbles forward and has to grab onto Wei Wuxian's arm for support. "Oops, sorry—didn't mean to pull that hard. You okay?"

Lan Wangji stares at him for a moment, too stunned to speak. Wei Wuxian's arm is warm beneath his hands, the muscle lean and firm, and he's leaning down to peer at Lan Wangji with concern. His eyes are—startlingly bright. There's a mole beneath his lower lip.

"You—" Lan Wangji starts, and then finds that he can't say anything more. His face burns as he realises that he's still holding onto Wei Wuxian's arm, and he lets go immediately. He rips his hand out of Wei Wuxian's grip and makes to move back, but Wei Wuxian grabs his wrist again and reels him back.

"Hey, hey!" Wei Wuxian says indignantly. Lan Wangji should just shake him free again and leave. He doesn't, for reasons that he doesn't particularly want to examine. "Ai, don't tell me I've already scared you off. Don't you want to know your future?"

"I already know my future," Lan Wangji snaps. His face is so warm that it stings a little in the cool winter air. "I will die within the next year."

"Well, that's what you think will happen," Wei Wuxian says, rolling his eyes. "Honestly, dianxia, it's like you have no faith in my ability to break your curse. What if I break it, hm? You'll know nothing about your future, and then where will that leave you?"

Lan Wangji doesn't answer, but Wei Wuxian doesn't seem to mind. When Lan Wangji doesn't move away again, he cheerfully pulls Lan Wangji's hand back into his lap and starts to study the lines. He's humming and kicking his feet as he does so, turning Lan Wangji's hand this way and that like it's a piece of jewellery at the market. It's—ridiculous. Unprofessional. Lan Wangji has never met anyone so utterly uncaring of how they act around him.

"You're a very straightforward man, dianxia," Wei Wuxian says, tracing the deep lines of Lan Wangji's palm. His fingers are calloused, whispering against Lan Wangji's skin. "You're direct and stubborn. Firm in your beliefs. But you're—hm. You'll experience an upheaval in the coming months. A changing of your worldview. That's quite interesting."

An upheaval, he says. Well, Lan Wangji thinks pettily, he's fairly certain that his death would count as an upheaval.

"You're trustworthy," Wei Wuxian continues, tapping the heel of Lan Wangji's palm with his thumb. "You say what you mean, and you don't understand why other people don't. I assume that's why you left your own banquet so early. Can't stand all the politics, can you?"

He looks up at this last part, giving Lan Wangji a wry smile. Lan Wangji stares at him, too stunned to give an answer. It's well-known that he doesn't like dealing with people, but this is the first time anyone's said so brazenly that Lan Wangji hates politics. There's a spark of understanding in Wei Wuxian's eyes, like he, too, came out here to the balcony to escape the double-edged words of everyone else.

The silence stretches too long. Wei Wuxian looks back down to Lan Wangji's hand, abruptly breaking their eye contact. "So!" he says cheerfully. "Your love life!"

Panic flares in Lan Wangji's chest. "That's not necessary," he says, trying to tug his hand away. Wei Wuxian holds fast.

"You'll have quite the rocky start," he says, as if Lan Wangji isn't actively trying to escape the balcony. "But it gets better! See how your heart line gets more solid?"

"Wei Wuxian."

"Ooh, it gets rocky again. The trials and tribulations of love, I suppose."

"Wei Wuxian."

"No need to worry, dianxia, it all ends well! Your love will be strong and persevering, as befitting a man such as yourself—"

"Wei Wuxian!" Lan Wangji snaps, and Wei Wuxian finally stops talking. "Are you done?"

"Almost, dianxia!" Wei Wuxian says cheerfully. "There's just one more thing."

He turns Lan Wangji's hand over, which surprises Lan Wangji enough to stop him from leaving. Wei Wuxian studies the back of his hand just as intently as he'd studied his palm. Lan Wangji waits for him to make a prediction, but no prediction comes.

"I wasn't aware that palm-reading included the back of the hand," Lan Wangji finally says, curious against his own will. He's never seen a palm-reader turn someone's hand over.

"Oh, it doesn't," Wei Wuxian replies casually. "I just wanted to do this." And then, before Lan Wangji can register the words, Wei Wuxian's ducked his head down and landed a kiss squarely on the back of Lan Wangji's hand.

In the split second before Lan Wangji realises what's happening, every sense in Lan Wangji's body narrows down to the sensation of Wei Wuxian's lips. They're warm, dry, a little chapped. Wei Wuxian is using enough pressure for the kiss to be felt, but not so much that he's practically crushing his lips against Lan Wangji's hand. It's...a nice kiss, all things considered.

Then Lan Wangji's mind catches up with his body, and he rips his hand away so fast that his nails catch on Wei Wuxian's lip. Wei Wuxian lets out a little 'ah!' of pain as a tiny cut opens along his lip, blood blooming bright. Lan Wangji would feel guilty if he wasn't so busy feeling utterly scandalised.

"Shameless!" he hisses, clutching his hand to his chest like it's been burned. His ears are so hot he feels like they must be glowing. "You—you dare—"

Wei Wuxian laughs and slips off the balcony railing. "I had to do it at least once, dianxia," he says. "I hope you understand. This humble one begs your forgiveness!"

He dips into a bow, so hasty that it looks more like he's been pushed over than anything else, and then darts off the balcony and back towards the banquet hall before Lan Wangji can stop him. Lan Wangji, for his part, stays standing on the balcony for longer than he wants to admit. The back of his hand is still tingling.

This is the sorcerer that Xichen's hired to break his curse? 

No. Of course not. Xichen is sensible. Xichen wouldn't hire a—a hooligan like Wei Wuxian. That would be ridiculous. Wei Wuxian must have been a guest who simply decided to make the most of his one visit to the palace.

Yes, Lan Wangji decides. Wei Wuxian was obviously lying. They will not be seeing each other again.

"Is it true?" Lan Wangji asks, later, because he has to make sure.

"Lean to your left," Xichen instructs. Lan Wangji leans, and Xichen tugs at the sash of his outer robes until the knot gives. "Is what true?"

"That man," Lan Wangji says, obediently letting Xichen turn him this way and that in an attempt to figure out how they're going to get him out of his robes. "Wei Wuxian. He claimed that you hired him."

"Ah, Wei Wuxian. Yes, I did." 

Xichen pushes Lan Wangji's outermost robe all the way off and turns to the side, folding it so he can set it on the table. When Lan Wangji doesn't say anything, letting his stony silence be answer enough, Xichen sighs.

"I know you don't like sorcerers," he says gently. "But Wangji, please—we only have a year left, at most. Wei Wuxian was highly recommended by Xiao Xingchen—you remember Xiao Xingchen, don't you? You liked him well enough."

Lan Wangji had liked Xiao Xingchen. The man had been patient and soft-spoken. He didn't poke and prod at the marks on Lan Wangji's back like most of the other sorcerers did, didn't stick needles in his pressure points or pour bitter medicines down his throat. He'd prescribed Lan Wangji a series of medicines for other, more mundane problems—some herbs to be crushed and consumed before bed, for Lan Wangji's mild insomnia; a sachet of flowers to be brewed into tea, for the cough that always plagued Lan Wangji during winters; a tiny metal token to be kept under Lan Wangji's pillow, in order to safeguard him from spirits. Xiao Xingchen had, of course, eventually bowed before Xichen's throne and admitted that he could not break Lan Wangji's curse, but he'd been Lan Wangji's favourite out of all the sorcerers who'd tried.

Wei Wuxian could not be more different to Xiao Xingchen. He's—brash. Loud. He doesn't seem crude, exactly, but he's certainly not afraid to say what he thinks. 

"They studied under the same shifu," Xichen adds. "Xiao Xingchen is Wei Wuxian's shishu."

"Irrelevant," Lan Wangji says. He knows he's being stubborn, but he just—he doesn't like Wei Wuxian. The man makes him feel...uneasy. No, not uneasy; uncertain. Yes, that's the word. Something about Wei Wuxian makes Lan Wangji feel like he's one wrong step away from losing the careful self-control that he's cultivated all his life. 

"Well, either way, he's still going to be staying here for the foreseeable future," Xichen says mildly, ignoring the glare that Lan Wangji shoots at him over his shoulder. "You'll have to deal with him no matter what. You can handle the rest of the robes on your own, can't you?"

"He might not be here for long," Lan Wangji counters, as he undresses to his waist. Each layer pools around him, making him feel—rather ridiculously—like a baby bird in its nest. "Perhaps I won't have to deal with him."

"I get the feeling that Wei Wuxian won't give up easily," Xichen says, as Lan Wangji takes off his final layer and bares his back to Xichen's worried eyes. In all these years, whenever Xichen sees Lan Wangji's back, he has always reacted the same: he goes silent. Even his breathing seems a little quieter. For the span of a few heartbeats, the only thing Lan Wangji can hear is the sound of the wind outside.

"Well?" Lan Wangji finally asks, like he always does.

He feels Xichen's fingertips touch the small of his back, where the curse marks end. "All black," Xichen says heavily, as if Lan Wangji expected anything different. Xichen stands and retreats to the other side of the room, unfolding a privacy screen and setting it between them. Lan Wangji undresses fully and puts on his sleeping robes, then folds his thick white robes into a manageable bundle. He tries to ignore the cranes that stare up at him from the fabric. 

When he's done, he pulls aside the privacy screen to find Xichen staring at his bookshelf. Xichen seems to be focused on one book in particular: a battered anthology of Lan An's poems, one of the first books that Lan Wangji ever received from Shufu. The pages are a little ragged at the edges, the binding so old and worn that it's at risk of falling apart. 

"How old were you when Shufu gave you this?" Xichen asks. There's an odd undertone to his voice.

Lan Wangji moves to stand beside him. "I do not remember," he says, studying the little blue book. "Five, I assume. Perhaps six."

Xichen nods. "Five," he says. His voice trembles. "Five. Wangji, when Shufu gave you this, you had already lived a quarter of your life."

He doesn't say anything more, but he doesn't need to. Lan Wangji knows what he's trying to say. Twenty-one is a young age to die at. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't very long ago that Lan Wangji was still trailing his brother everywhere, tugging on Xichen's robes and silently asking to be carried.

Xichen opens his arms, and Lan Wangji steps into them. They don't hug often. They certainly don't hug as much as Lan Wangji knows Xichen would like. But every year they do this. Every year Xichen will say that maybe, miraculously, the curse has broken on its own. Every year, he is wrong.

So, every year, Lan Wangji will grant his brother this: a hug, for as long as he wants. This time, Xichen clings to him tightly, his chin digging into Lan Wangji's shoulder.

"You'll be fine," Xichen says, his voice muffled against Lan Wangji's hair. "Wei Wuxian will figure out how to break it, and you'll be fine."

Lan Wangji doesn't bother reminding him that that's what he's said about all the sorcerers who have tried and failed. Xichen already knows.

They say that, when Lan Wangji was born, the midwives thought he was already dead. When they wiped him off and saw the white marks that lined his back, they thought the bone of his spine had come out of the skin.  It wasn't until he opened his mouth and cried that they realised—he was perfectly healthy, and the white marks on his back were nothing more than strange birthmarks. It looked like a chain, of sorts: twenty-one short white lines, about as thick as Lan Wangji's thumb, criss-crossing over each other to form a line that stretched from the nape of Lan Wangji's neck to the small of his back.

No one thought he was cursed until his first birthday. Lan Wangji doesn't remember it, of course, but Xichen tells him that, when the nurse came to fetch him in the morning, she saw that one of the marks had turned black. Just a single mark, the topmost one. The other twenty were still as white as they were at birth. Whiter than snow, Xichen had told him once. Whiter than the purest jade. 

They took him to the royal physician immediately. The woman had checked him all over, had opened his tiny mouth and inspected his tiny eyes, and bemusedly declared that nothing was wrong. Lan Wangji was as healthy as ever. The physician could find no reason for why the second prince's odd birthmark had suddenly changed colour.  

It was his mother, apparently, who first suggested that it was a curse.

At first, Shufu and the elders had refused to even consider the thought. Who had ever heard of a curse beginning right from the womb? But then Lan Wangji's second birthday had passed, and then his third, and then his fourth. And, with every birthday, another mark on his back had turned black. 

No one wanted to believe it. It was a bad omen for the imperial family to have a second son who was cursed from birth. What did it mean for their reign? Would they be toppled or overthrown? Perhaps the second prince would grow up to be a traitor. Perhaps he would slaughter his father, his uncle and his brother, and take the throne for himself. 

Lan Wangji's mother was one of the greatest seers the capital had ever seen. Even Shufu had begrudgingly admitted that she was brilliant. When she was young, at the peak of her fame, the word on the street was that she could read the fate of the world in the pebbles beneath her feet. Lan Wangji knows nothing about any of that. What he remembers of his mother is a soft voice and fingers that pinched his cheeks, and the horrible, broken sob she'd let out when she read his future for the first time.

He was still young when it happened, only five years old. The elders had asked his mother to read the futures of her sons. They'd wanted to do it early, before anyone could get too attached to the little second prince. If Lan Wangji's mother, the seer who saw everything but her own wretched future, saw Lan Wangji growing up to be a danger to the empire, then the solution was clear: Lan Wangji would have to be disposed of. It was easier to kill a child than it was to kill a young man.

If Lan Wangji tries hard enough, he can still remember kneeling in his mother's chambers, the curtains all tightly drawn. Xichen had been beside him, and Shufu behind them both, a rigid hand resting on each of their shoulders. The elders had been silent spectators, watching from the edges of the room as Lan Wangji's mother beckoned Xichen forward. She'd had all her charts laid out in front of her: palmistry, astrology, and some kind of guide to reading the elements in one's body. There had been an iron pot, too, small and stout. Lan Wangji hadn't paid much attention to the things on the table; he'd been far more interested in what his mother was doing.

She'd taken Xichen's hand, his palm dwarfed by hers, and studied the creases in his skin with a single-minded intensity that made Lan Wangji feel like he should've been holding his breath. She'd traced her fingers along the lines of Xichen's cheekbones, pressed the pads of her fingers to his eyelids, mapped out his jaw and his brow. It had looked almost comical: Xichen, his cheeks still round with baby fat, sitting quiet and so serious as their mother read his future on his face. When she was done, she'd consulted her astrology chart, occasionally marking things down on a separate piece of paper.

Finally, she'd looked up at Xichen and beamed. "It's good news, A-Huan," she'd said, reaching over the table to bop his nose. "You'll live a long and happy life, and your reign will be kind to both the empire and to you. You'll have good fortune and good health. Your love life looks like it'll be a little complicated, but I'm sure you'll be fine—just look at you! So handsome!" She'd pulled at Xichen's cheeks until he laughed and swatted her hands away, the elders muttering darkly in the background.

"So Lan Huan lives, then?" one of the elders had asked, a stringy-looking man who Lan Wangji had never liked. "He will not be—" He glanced conspicuously in Lan Wangji's direction, and did not finish his question. The implication hung heavy in the air. 

"No," Lan Wangji's mother had said firmly. "A-Huan will grow to be a noble emperor with a long rule." 

As one, the elders had seemed to sigh a collective breath of relief. If Xichen ruled long as emperor, then it meant he wouldn't be killed by Lan Wangji. Still, that didn't rule out the possibility of Lan Wangji trying to kill his brother. So, when Xichen trotted happily back to Shufu's side, Lan Wangji found himself being gently pushed towards his mother.

Her fingers were cold when she took his hands into hers. He remembers looking up at her, suddenly unsure, and the reassuring smile she'd given him. "It's all right, A-Zhan," she'd said, guiding him to sit down on the cushion that Xichen had just vacated. "I'm sure your future is just as good as your brother's."

His future was not as good as his brother's.

The realisation was gradual. He'd watched his mother's face as she read his palm. Her mouth had turned down at the corners, a furrow appearing in her brow. She'd checked the palmistry chart on the table once, then twice, then three times, and the furrow only got deeper. When she reached out to pat her hands over Lan Wangji's face, there was a tenseness to her motions that hadn't been there with Xichen. By the time she reached Lan Wangji's cheeks, the tips of her fingers pushing in so that his lips puffed out slightly, her hands were trembling.

"Wu Qingyu," one of the elders had said, when the silence stretched too long. "What do you see?"

His mother had shaken her head minutely. "No," she'd said nonsensically, her eyes darting all over Lan Wangji's face like she was looking for something that wasn't there. She'd reached up, briefly, to smooth the fabric of his forehead ribbon, her thumb pressing down on the metal filigree in the middle. "No, it doesn't make sense. I'll—give me a moment." 

"A-Niang," Lan Wangji had said, so quietly that only his mother could hear it. There was something wrong, he could tell. The elders were standing too straight. Shufu's face was too still. He wanted to know what was happening, but his mother had just smiled again and kissed his nose. 

"It's all right, A-Zhan," she'd repeated. "A-Niang will take care of you."

Her hands were still shaking when she let go of his face. They didn't stop shaking even as she reached for her astrology chart, marking down Lan Wangji's details like she had with his brother. The notes that she copied down were blotchy and almost unreadable, the lines uneven. At five years old, Lan Wangji had better calligraphy than his mother did in that moment.

"A-Zhan," she'd said, when she was finished writing, "could you show A-Niang your back?"

The air had been cool in his mother's chambers, despite the braziers burning and the thick curtains all being drawn. Lan Wangji had shivered as his mother pressed her fingers to the marks on his spine. Five black, sixteen white. She'd declared, after a brief pause, that the marks were indeed curse marks: one for every year that Lan Wangji would be cursed.

The implications were clear. There were twenty-one marks. Either Lan Wangji's curse would break before he turned twenty-two, or he would die at twenty-one. And, with the curse seemingly having no origin and no information with which they could use to break it, all the signs pointed towards the second option.

His mother had promised him, her voice low: "A-Niang will find out how your curse ends, A-Zhan, I promise," she'd said. "Be patient and sit still a little longer, hm?"

She'd pressed her palms flat against his back, one where the marks began and one where they ended. She'd closed her eyes, her chin tilting down towards her chest, all of her focus aimed towards seeing Lan Wangji's future.

Her mouth had gone tight. Her brows had pinched together. She'd screwed her eyes shut like she was guarding herself against a blinding, horrible light. And then she'd gasped, and torn her hands from Lan Wangji's spine, and there was a single terrible moment where mother and son stared at each other before she covered her face with her hands and sobbed.

It was a wretched sound, torn from her throat like it had been hooked and reeled out like a fish. Lan Wangji had reached out to touch her, to comfort her, and she'd only sobbed harder as she held him close to her chest.

"Wu Qingyu," the elder had said again, "what do you see?"

When they left his mother's chambers, Lan Wangji knew two things: firstly, that he would be killed before his twenty-second birthday. And secondly, that his brother would almost certainly be the killer.

"The person who kills him will be older than him," his mother had said to the elders, her mouth a thin, trembling line. "They will have kissed him, at least once. And they will love him, wholly and unconditionally."

There were three people who loved Lan Wangji: his mother, his brother and his uncle. Shufu had never kissed him before, not even when he was an infant, and once they heard his mother's prophecy, Lan Wangji knew that he never would. But Xichen and his mother—his mother loved to drop little kisses on his temple, his hands, his nose and cheeks and eyes. And Xichen would kiss Lan Wangji's hands and knees when he scraped them in the gardens, claiming that the kiss would somehow make it heal faster. Lan Wangji knew they didn't actually help, but the kisses made him feel better anyway.

So there were two people in the world who could kill him. One of them was confined to her rooms, forbidden from seeing her sons more than once a month. The other was destined to be the emperor, the imperial son of heaven, the ruler of the empire and all its power. It wasn't hard to see who was more likely to be the killer.

That night, Xichen had clung to Lan Wangji so tightly that it felt like he was trying to fuse them together. "I won't hurt him!" he'd cried, as Lan Wangji buried his face in his brother's chest. "I won't, I won't! Not now and not ever!"

Shufu had said nothing, but he'd pried Xichen off Lan Wangji with a face like thunder. The elders had been watching from the doorway, muttering amongst themselves; if Lan Wangji had owned an ounce more bravery, he would've disobeyed Shufu and run right back into Xichen's arms. 

Lan Wangji barely remembers the slew of sorcerers who were called to the palace, after. His mother had said it was a curse. Curses could be avoided, could be circumvented, could be broken, and the palace had all the resources of the empire to break Lan Wangji's. They called in the most revered, most skilled sorcerers they could find. For Lan Wangji, the year after his mother's prophecy was a blur of poking hands and ink flaking off his skin and medicines that made him cry because they burned his tongue. 

One of the sorcerers, a brisk old woman with hands like leather, had discovered the source of the curse, but that particular road had led them nowhere. Lan Wangji didn't find out what the source was until he was fourteen. Before his mother married his father, she'd murdered a respected scholar. That scholar's son had cursed her, knowing that the only person who could kill her was the Emperor himself. The curse had misfired, latching not onto the woman it was aimed at, but onto the baby growing in her belly. 

The scholar's son was brought to the palace and interrogated, but he confessed that he'd bought the curse from a travelling sorcerer, and he didn't know how to break it. So the palace had executed him. And yet, even as the servants scrubbed the man's blood off the palace tiles, Shufu had asked to see Lan Wangji's back—and the curse marks were still there.

The curse had not broken, and so the need for sorcerers had not stopped. And yet, even after sixteen years of being examined and studied and poked this way and that, Lan Wangji is still cursed. And that, of course, brings him to where he is now: a year away from his twenty-second birthday, which he will never reach.

Wei Wuxian's arrival is officially announced at court the day after Lan Wangji's birthday. Lan Wangji is required to be there, since Wei Wuxian is here on his behalf; he watches as Wei Wuxian bows to Xichen and introduces himself as Wei Ying, courtesy Wuxian, with none of the cheek from last night. He's perfectly courteous about it, thanking Xichen for inviting him into the palace of Cloud Recesses, the heart and home of the imperial family. Quite frankly, it's infuriating to see Wei Wuxian being so civil and polite when Lan Wangji knows what he's really like. It's almost a relief when Wei Wuxian tosses the smallest of winks in his direction on his way out of the hall.

His first appointment with Wei Wuxian is scheduled for tonight. To Lan Wangji's complete dismay, the thought of it distracts him all day; he makes three more mistakes than usual while practicing his qin, and his mind isn't nearly as focused as it should be when he practices his swordwork. His thoughts drift when he sits down to read the latest academic scroll that he's been assigned to take notes on. Worst of all, he finds himself unable to meditate for the first time in seventeen years. Every time he tries, he inevitably begins to wonder what Wei Wuxian will do, what techniques he'll try to use. The back of his hand still feels like it's been branded. Lan Wangji keeps expecting to look down and see a mark in the shape of Wei Wuxian's lips, announcing to the world that Wei Wuxian had kissed him there last night.

He gets so worked up about it that it's almost a letdown when, precisely two hours before curfew, Wei Wuxian sweeps into his rooms with nothing more than a bow and a murmured, "Huangshang, dianxia." Xichen, who's insisted on accompanying Lan Wangji for this first session, moves to the back of the room and gestures for Wei Wuxian to do what he must.

Wei Wuxian, for his part, seems to have be more professional than Lan Wangji gave him credit for. He sets his leather pouch down on the desk—it makes a low clanking sound that implies it's far more heavy than it looks—and turns to Lan Wangji, his eyes scanning him critically.

"Would you disrobe for a moment, dianxia?" he asks. His voice is perfectly level, no hint of insinuation whatsoever. "I'll need to examine the curse marks first. They're on your back, are they not?"

Lan Wangji nods. He sits on the edge of the bed and undoes his outer robe, letting the cloth pool around his waist in folds of pale blue. Then he turns to face the wall, letting Wei Wuxian see the twenty-one black marks that line his spine.

His ears heat as he hears Wei Wuxian move closer, but there's no hint of the flirtatious charm from last night. Wei Wuxian is brisk and clinical in his examination, studying Lan Wangji's back so intently that Lan Wangji swears he can almost feel the weight of his gaze. When he reaches out to touch the marks, his hands don't linger; he brushes them over each mark in turn, his fingers skipping down Lan Wangji's back like he's trailing them over river stones. He raps his knuckles on Lan Wangji's spine as if he's listening to the sound the bone makes. He digs his fingers into the divot between Lan Wangji's shoulder blades, splays his palm across the centre of Lan Wangji's chest and tells him to breathe. It's simultaneously one of the most intimate and the most impersonal inspections Lan Wangji has ever received.

When Wei Wuxian moves away and reaches for his leather pouch, Lan Wangji instinctively tenses. He knows what's coming next: acupuncture needles, sharp and tingling with an energy that will make his hair stand on end, or perhaps dried herbs that Wei Wuxian will press onto his tongue. He's surprised, then, when Wei Wuxian pulls out—a stack of papers, and a cinnabar stick. Lan Wangji watches, bemused, as he scribbles a brilliant red design on the topmost paper, then turns to face Lan Wangji's back.

"Stay still for me, dianxia," he murmurs, almost as if without thinking. "Though I'm sure you'll have no trouble with that particular task."

The paper is light; Lan Wangji can barely feel it against his skin. Wei Wuxian makes a displeased sound and takes it off almost as soon as he's stuck it on. Lan Wangji hears rustling as he writes out a new talisman, and then sticks that one, too, to his skin. 

The process repeats over and over, with Wei Wuxian writing new talismans and applying them to Lan Wangji's back, then tearing them off and trying again. The torches are burning noticeably lower by the time Wei Wuxian sighs and steps back.

"Dianxia, this will sound strange, but I'll need you to stay disrobed," he says. "You can turn around, though."

Lan Wangji bites back the urge to demand why Wei Wuxian won't let him pull his robes back on. He shifts on the bed, turning around so that he can see the other two people in the room. Xichen is hovering near the door, his face pinched with worry; Wei Wuxian is pacing around before the bed, fiddling with his flute.

"Your curse is interesting, dianxia," Wei Wuxian says, tapping his flute against the palm of his hand. "You see, most curses don't have such a specific time limit. Most curses don't require the participation of an unnamed individual. And, most importantly, most curses are not cast when the victim is in the womb. " He pauses, then looks at Lan Wangji consideringly and says, "Most curses also break with the death of the caster."

"The caster is already dead," Xichen says, before Lan Wangji can so much as open his mouth. "We executed him when Wangji was—"

"Six, I know," Wei Wuxian says absently. "And there was no change in the curse whatsoever. Which means, dianxia, that your curse must be conditional."

Lan Wangji exchanges a look with Xichen. None of the sorcerers they've had before have mentioned anything about conditionality. "Conditional?" Lan Wangji asks.

Wei Wuxian nods. "All curses are breakable," he says. "Most of the time, the solution is simple enough: if you destroy the source of the curse, then you destroy the curse. In your case, the source of the curse is already long dead, and your curse has continued. So the solution to the curse must be tied to the curse itself. In other words, dianxia, the curse has—ah, how do I put this—a built-in self-destruction mechanism. If you complete a certain action, or eat a certain food, or touch a certain thing, then the curse will break by itself. It's odd, since you usually only see conditional curses when it comes to romance. I'm sure dianxia knows what I'm talking about." He says this last part with an overexaggerated wink in Lan Wangji's direction. Lan Wangji recoils, his face heating inexplicably.

"I do not, as you put it, 'know what you are talking about'," he snaps. 

Wei Wuxian tilts his head. "I was under the impression that everyone had read one of those books at some point," he says, amused. "You know, those books where the hapless princess is cursed to die unless she spends a night in the bed of the rugged general—"

"Wei Wu—!"

"—and the curse, of course, is broken when she acquiesces," Wei Wuxian continues, completely undeterred by the fact that he's discussing spring books in front of the Emperor and Crown Prince. "You see what I mean, dianxia? Conditional curses. In the case of the princess and the general, the condition to break the curse was for her to—well. I'm sure you get the picture."

Lan Wangji glares at him. Wei Wuxian gives him a guileless grin.

"So?" Xichen prompts, after a long and weighted silence. "If Wangji's curse is conditional, then do you have an idea of what that condition could be?"

Wei Wuxian sighs. "Unfortunately, it could be almost anything that he's never done before," he says. "And, huangshang, I say this with the utmost respect, but the list of things that dianxia has never done before is quite long. How many rules does Cloud Recesses have—four thousand?"

"Four thousand, two hundred and twelve," Lan Wangji says neutrally.

"Four thousand, two hundred and twelve," Wei Wuxian repeats grimly. "A long list indeed. Which is why I need to do this first, before we continue. My apologies, dianxia."

He's striding forward before Lan Wangji can react, leaning down and pressing his palm to the left of Lan Wangji's chest. He leans in, so close that Lan Wangji can feel his breath against his hair, and whispers a string of words that Lan Wangji cannot hear. His fingers dig into Lan Wangji's skin until they sting; it's as if he's trying to pluck Lan Wangji's heart right out of his chest. Lan Wangji watches, stunned, as five beads of blood form beneath Wei Wuxian's nails.

"Wei Wuxian!" Xichen snaps. "What do you think you're—"

Wei Wuxian pulls back like a string snapping back into place. "Again, dianxia, my apologies," he says cheerfully, as if he hasn't just drawn blood from a member of the imperial family. "Do you want a cloth to wipe that up?" He nods at Lan Wangji's chest, where the five pinpricks of blood stand out bright against his skin.

Lan Wangji accepts the cloth that Wei Wuxian passes him. He feels oddly numb; the initial stinging pain is gone, leaving an itching sensation where Wei Wuxian's hand was. Xichen looks ready to draw Shuoyue and cut off Wei Wuxian's head.

"Drawing blood from the Prince is an imperial offence," he says, his voice cold. "Wei Wuxian, if you think you can simply walk up to my brother and draw his blood—"

"Just watch," Wei Wuxian interrupts, gesturing at Lan Wangji's chest. Xichen looks. So does Lan Wangji. And—

As Lan Wangji dabs away the blood, he realises that the marks left by Wei Wuxian's nails aren't disappearing. No, they're growing darker, thicker, elongating until they form a jagged circle around his heart. The colour deepens to a dark red, the same colour as Wei Wuxian's hair ribbon. Lan Wangji stares down at what is now, unmistakeably, a curse mark.

"You cursed me," he says blankly, uncomprehending.

"I did," Wei Wuxian says nonchalantly. "I cursed you to die exactly two days after your twenty-second birthday. You'll be speared through the heart by a particularly aggressive pigeon. Very tragic, but quite fast and painless."

Wei Wuxian has cursed him to die two days after his twenty-second birthday. But—the thing is—

"I will be dead before then," Lan Wangji says, looking up at Wei Wuxian. "I will die before my birthday. If I am dead, then how will I die again two days later?"

Wei Wuxian shrugs. "That's the thing," he says. "Right now, dianxia, you are under two conflicting curses. Either your birth curse will win out, and you'll die before you turn twenty-two, or my curse will win out, and you'll die two days after. Of course, I can remove my curse at any time, so if you happen to live past your twenty-second birthday, then we have a whole two days to lift it and grant you a long and healthy life. By cursing you, I'm hopefully guaranteeing that you'll die as close to your twenty-second birthday as possible, which gives us almost a full year to figure out the conditions of your curse."

Lan Wangji stares at him. This—counter-cursing him, trying to buy him time—this is nothing like what the other sorcerers did. They were all focused on cleansing Lan Wangji's body of the curse's energy. They treated Lan Wangji like he was infected with an unknown disease, helpless to stop it. Wei Wuxian is the first to think that Lan Wangji himself should be an active participant in breaking his curse.

For the first time in his life, Lan Wangji speaks without thinking. "Why are you so convinced that this is how the curse will be broken?" he asks. "Every other sorcerer who's tried has attempted to break the curse through medicines and tinctures. Acupuncture as well. Occasionally they have tried talismans. Why do you believe that the curse hinges on me?"

Wei Wuxian wrinkles his nose. "Why would I try giving you medicines and needles when that's what everyone else did?" he asks, tilting his head like a curious bird. "They tried it, and they failed. It clearly isn't the right path to break your curse. Besides, my shishu already tried treating you, didn't he? I bet he gave you every medicine under the sun. There's no use in exploring the known path; for something like this, we'll have to try what no one else has tried before."

There's a glint in his eye that Lan Wangji doesn't quite trust. "And what, exactly, do you plan on trying?" he asks warily.

The glint in Wei Wuxian's eye gets brighter. "It's quite simple," he says. "You've lived your whole life with four thousand rules, which means that there's a great many things you haven't tried. In other words, dianxia—" He flashes Lan Wangji a grin, his teeth shining white. "—I'm going to get you to break every single rule of Cloud Recesses."

"Absolutely not," Lan Wangji says.

"Absolutely yes,"  Wei Wuxian counters, patting the cover of the rulebook that he's just dropped on the stone bench where Lan Wangji is sitting. "If we're going to get you to break the rules, dianxia, then we need to start somewhere. What rules have you already broken?"

"None," Lan Wangji snaps, lifting his book so that it blocks his face from view. He'd been having a perfectly fine morning, here on his secluded stone bench within the palace gardens, until Wei Wuxian came bounding out of nowhere with a rulebook in hand. "Leave me alone."

Wei Wuxian sighs and pushes down the top of Lan Wangji's book with a single tanned finger until his eyes are peeking up at Lan Wangji from over the book's cover. "Would you really rather risk death than break the rules?" he complains. "Huangshang's already given you permission. And I swear we'll start small! Let's see, hmm—running is forbidden in Cloud Recesses. Dianxia, have you ever run within the palace?"

Lan Wangji had run within the palace, when he was young and not yet required to know the rules. Shufu had reprimanded him lightly, saying that running was not befitting of a prince. But he's certainly not going to tell Wei Wuxian.

"Who am I kidding, of course you've run within the palace," Wei Wuxian mutters. "It's impossible that you grew up without running even once. Next one—loud noises are forbidden in Cloud Recesses. Ah, that one's easy to remedy. Were you a fussy baby, dianxia?"

Lan Wangji pointedly raises his book again. Wei Wuxian lets out a long, drawn-out sigh. 

"With an attitude like that, I bet you were a fussy baby," he grumbles. He probably didn't mean for Lan Wangji to hear him, but...well. Wei Wuxian has a loud voice. Lan Wangji debates the merits of ordering Wei Wuxian to be escorted out of the gardens. 

"I'll just ask the nursemaids if you ever cried loud enough to wake the dead," Wei Wuxian says conversationally. "Next rule, next rule...promiscuity is forb—ahem. I think we can skip that one, no?"

Lan Wangji stops debating the merits of ordering Wei Wuxian out of the gardens and starts debating the merits of simply closing his book and whacking him over the head with it. It's not too thick of a tome. He doesn't think Wei Wuxian would be seriously injured. Besides, he's fairly certain that sorcerers have higher pain tolerance than others. Or, if the book doesn't work, he could threaten him with Bichen. Maybe that would make him back off.

"This one seems easy enough," Wei Wuxian says, tapping another rule. "Lying is forbidden. Go on, dianxia, lie to me."

"I am enjoying this," Lan Wangji says flatly. Wei Wuxian sighs again. A rosefinch lands on the branches of the plum tree that they're sitting under, rustling the leaves; Lan Wangji looks up to watch as it flits among the leaves, red feathers flashing in and out of view.

"Dianxia," Wei Wuxian says, his voice suddenly quiet and serious, "I understand if you don't want to break the rules, but the rules aren't more important than your life. If running around in Cloud Recesses and hollering at the top of your lungs is what it's going to take to break your curse, then I'm making sure you do it no matter what. Would it help if I broke the rules with you? We could make a bonding activity out of it."

Lan Wangji says nothing. The rosefinch is perched precariously on the tip of a branch now, stark against the pale sky. 

Wei Wuxian groans and throws himself down on the stone bench beside Lan Wangji. He lies there for a moment like a beached fish, puffing out little white breaths in the chill air. Then he sits up abruptly, turning around to face Lan Wangji.

"Fine," he says. "Fine! If you won't cooperate, dianxia, then I'm afraid I'll have to take things into my own hands."

Lan Wangji looks away from the rosefinch to meet Wei Wuxian's gaze. "What on earth are you talking a—"

He feels the brush of fingertips against his forehead before anything else. By the time he realises what's happened, Wei Wuxian is already tearing off across the gardens with Lan Wangji's forehead ribbon clutched tight in his hand.

"WEI WUXIAN!"  Lan Wangji shrieks. He snatches up Bichen and sprints after Wei Wuxian, but the man is fast. He darts between trees and bushes, so agile that Lan Wangji can barely keep track of him, let alone catch him. Bichen's blade shines bright in the sunlight as Lan Wangji unsheathes it, fully prepared to pin Wei Wuxian with it if need be.

"Running is forbidden in Cloud Recesses!" Wei Wuxian calls over his shoulder. "Loud noises are forbidden in Cloud Recesses!"

"Touching another's forehead ribbon is forbidden in Cloud Recesses!"

"Is that an unsheathed sword I see behind me? Fighting is forbidden in Cloud Recesses!"

"You are forbidden in Cloud Recesses!" Lan Wangji yells. "You—insolent, disrespectful, maddening—"

"Slander, vulgar language, and criticism of others—all forbidden in Cloud Recesses!" Wei Wuxian gasps, vaulting over the garden wall. "That's, what, six rules broken already? How shameful, dianxia! Or should I call you Lan Wangji? No, no—Lan Zhan!"

"You—" Lan Wangji bites out, his hands trembling so badly with anger that he nearly drops Bichen. He follows Wei Wuxian over the wall, landing in one of the decorative pavilions. Wei Wuxian has stopped running, which would have surprised Lan Wangji if he weren't so blinded with rage. He charges towards Wei Wuxian, Bichen already raised, and it's only when he skids to a stop just in front of Wei Wuxian that he realises how close he's just come to taking off Wei Wuxian's head.

It's strange to be shocked into such stillness when, a moment ago, he was more angry than he's ever been in his life. But now Wei Wuxian is looking at him over Bichen's blade, his dark eyes calm and understanding, and Lan Wangji just—can't. Wei Wuxian hadn't so much as flinched when Bichen came to rest too close to his neck. Then, wordlessly, Wei Wuxian extends his hand, his fingers unfurling to reveal Lan Wangji's forehead ribbon.

Lan Wangji snatches it up, running his thumb over the fabric as if to ensure that it hasn't been harmed in any way. The ribbon is still pristine, with no sign of the ordeal that it's just been through. There isn't even a dirt stain.

"I'm sorry I took your ribbon like that," Wei Wuxian says quietly. "I really am. I just—I didn't know how else to get you to react." He holds up his palm for Lan Wangji to see; there's a shimmering iridescence on his skin, like the surface of a soap bubble. As Lan Wangji watches, the iridescence dissolves, leaving behind nothing but Wei Wuxian's skin. "If it helps, I cast a spell to make sure that I never actually touched it. I read the rules, dianxia; I know what the ribbon means." 

"If you knew what the ribbon meant, then you wouldn't have taken it," Lan Wangji snaps. His heart still feels like it's about to beat out of his chest. He yanks Bichen back towards himself, sheathing it so that he can tie his ribbon back on, but Wei Wuxian winces as he pulls the blade away. And it's then that Lan Wangji sees—his other hand, the hand that wasn't holding Lan Wangji's forehead ribbon, had been holding Bichen's blade, keeping it from biting into Wei Wuxian's shoulder. There's a deep red line scored across the palm of Wei Wuxian's hand, blood sluggishly welling up.

Drawing blood is forbidden in Cloud Recesses. Lan Wangji stares at the cut, and he realises: in the brief span of a few minutes, he's already broken countless rules—which was, no doubt, Wei Wuxian's intention. No running, no loud noises, no fighting, no slander, no vulgar language, no criticism of others, no drawing of blood. He has broken the rule to act virtuously, the rule to be reasonable, the rule to have courage and integrity, the rule to—

"Hey, hey, you okay there?" The touch on his shoulder is so unexpected that Lan Wangji jumps. Wei Wuxian leans back, holding up his hands as if to signal that he's not a threat. The cut on his palm has started bleeding more steadily; the blood is almost the same colour as the rosefinch that Lan Wangji had been studying earlier. 

"I—yes," Lan Wangji says hurriedly. He ties his forehead ribbon as quickly as he can, reminding himself of all that it stands for: self-restraint, control, honour. All of which he had promptly lost the minute Wei Wuxian pulled it off. It was shameful behaviour, on his part. He will have to copy out the rules tonight. He glances at where Wei Wuxian is gingerly prodding at his palm, takes a deep breath, and says, "You are injured."

"Ah, this?" Wei Wuxian waves his hand nonchalantly. "This is nothing, dianxia. Don't worry about it."

Lan Wangji frowns. "You are injured," he insists. "The cut is deep. You should go to the physician for treatment."

Wei Wuxian laughs. "Really, dianxia, it's not that bad. Besides, I don't even know where to find the physician!"

Lan Wangji frowns harder. Wei Wuxian doesn't know where the physician's quarters are? Surely the servants should have shown him on his first tour of the palace. "I will take you, then," Lan Wangji decides. This problem must be remedied.

"What?" Wei Wuxian asks, surprised. Lan Wangji simply turns and strides out of the pavilion, heading into the hallways of the palace. Wei Wuxian stumbles after him. "Hey! Dianxia! What are you doing?"

"Taking you to the physician," Lan Wangji says curtly.

"I told you, I don't need the—"

"I injured you," Lan Wangji interrupts, which is yet another rule broken. "It is only right that I ensure your injury is treated."

"Ai, dianxia," Wei Wuxian sighs, "this injury was entirely my fault. I'm the one who provoked you. I stole your forehead ribbon. You were right to be angry—who wouldn't be, with the way I was acting?"

"You were rude," Lan Wangji allows. "And disrespectful. Discourteous, insolent, uncivil, ill-mannered—"

"I'm glad to know dianxia thinks so highly of me."

"—but no amount of anger justifies harming an innocent person," Lan Wangji finishes. He turns a corner into the hallway that leads to the physician's quarters. "The blame for the injury rests on me."

Wei Wuxian is silent as they draw nearer to the physician's quarters. Then: "You really are as stubbornly righteous as they say," he murmurs, almost sounding impressed. "I thought it was an exaggeration, but no—you really are just...like that."

"Like what?"

Wei Wuxian shakes his head. "Doesn't matter," he says, reaching past Lan Wangji to knock on the physician's door. They wait a few moments, but no one answers. 

"Hello?" Wei Wuxian calls. "Daifu? Are you in there?"

"Wen-daifu may be attending to other patients," Lan Wangji says. "Her granddaughter is usually here in her absence, but it's possible that she is gone as well."

"Well, then it looks like I can't get this treated," Wei Wuxian says, looking much happier about it than he has any right to be. Lan Wangji doesn't deign to give that a response; instead, he just pushes open the door and strides into the physician's quarters, ignoring Wei Wuxian's yelp of shock. Wen-daifu keeps her bandages and cleansing salves on a desk by the door, in case anyone should need them. Lan Wangji turns to find Wei Wuxian still hovering in the doorway, gaping at him like he's gone insane.

"Sit down," Lan Wangji says, gesturing at the many empty cots in Wen-daifu's quarters. "I will bandage your hand."

Wei Wuxian makes a strangled kind of sound. "Don't be ridiculous, dianxia," he says, his voice pitching up higher with every word. "I can't expect the Crown Prince of the empire to bandage my poor little hand. Are those bandages? Here, hand them over, I'll do it myself—"

Lan Wangji glares at him until his words trail off into nothing and his shoulders slump. Wei Wuxian trudges into the physician's quarters and reluctantly sits down on one of the cots. Lan Wangji gives him a brisk nod, then brings over a chair so he can sit opposite Wei Wuxian while he cleans and bandages the cut. He finds a cloth and wets it in the basin by the corner of the room, then sits down and carefully dabs at the dried blood. Wei Wuxian lets out a hiss of air through his teeth, but otherwise stays silent; they sit together quietly as Lan Wangji works at cleaning the skin around the wound. He determinedly does not think about how long Wei Wuxian's fingers are, how his hand looks like it could wrap around Lan Wangji's own with no problem at all.

It's Wei Wuxian, predictably, who breaks the silence. "You can call me Wei Ying, if you want," he says, apropos of nothing. Lan Wangji flicks his eyes up to him, a silent question. 

Wei Wuxian coughs. "You know, because I called you Lan Zhan," he elaborates. "Remember? When you were chasing me? I just said it to get a rise out of you, but—I shouldn't have. I'm sorry. So you can call me Wei Ying if you want."

"Shameless," Lan Wangji mutters, scrubbing at a particularly stubborn bit of blood with a little more force than is necessary. And then, because Wei Wuxian is still looking at him hopefully: "I do not wish to call you Wei Ying."

"But you should!" Wei Wuxian protests. "It's, y'know, payback! Revenge!"

"I fail to see how calling you by your birth name constitutes as revenge."

"If you can bully me into letting you bandage my hand, then I can bully you into calling me by my birth name, " Wei Wuxian says, which is, quite frankly, some of the strangest logic Lan Wangji has ever heard. He returns his attention to dabbing away the blood. Wei Wuxian's nonsense isn't worth wasting his words on.

"I'm serious!" Wei Wuxian insists, once it becomes clear that Lan Wangji won't answer. "I won't respond unless you call me Wei Ying."

"Then I will not respond unless you call me Lan Zhan," Lan Wangji replies curtly. He's expecting Wei Wuxian to splutter and go silent, discarding the idea. He's not expecting Wei Wuxian to nod decisively and say, "Alright, then. Lan Zhan!"

Lan Wangji drops the cloth, the shock of his birth name crackling through him like lightning. Wei Wuxian clicks his tongue. "Well, that's a lost cause," he says, peering down at the cloth. "I don't think it's sanitary to use cloths that have fallen on the ground." 

"You—" Lan Wangji starts, but—it's not as if he can reprimand Wei Wuxian for calling him by his birth name when he gave him express permission. He decides that the cut is clean enough and he picks up the bandages, hoping that Wei Wuxian doesn't notice how his ears are burning. To his complete mortification, he fumbles the bandages, and Wei Wuxian has to catch them with his uninjured hand to keep them from unravelling onto the floor. Lan Wangji hasn't fumbled anything since he was nine years old.

"I thought you were more graceful than this, Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says amusedly, and Lan Wangji nearly drops the bandages again. Wei Wuxian must notice, because he snorts and says, "I'm just joking, dianxia. Of course I wouldn't call you by your birth name. I'm surprised you haven't called for my execution yet."

Lan Wangji takes a deep breath. Self-restraint, he reminds himself. "The palace does not execute innocent people, Wei Wuxian," he says evenly. 

"I'm sorry, who's Wei Wuxian?" Wei Wuxian asks innocently. "Did you mean to say Wei Ying, dianxia? A simple slip of the tongue, I'm sure."

Lan Wangji doesn't reply, but he momentarily tightens Wei Wuxian's bandages enough to make him wince. That's enough to make Wei Wuxian shut up until Lan Wangji is finished wrapping the bandages, tucking the end in so that it stays wrapped. Wei Wuxian lifts his bandaged hand up to admire the wrappings as Lan Wangji busies himself with putting away the bandages.

"This is so neat, dianxia!" he says, sounding almost indignant about it. "I guess that's to be expected from someone as prim and proper as you." He cuts his eyes sideways at Lan Wangji, looking at him pensively. He's clearly working his up to saying something. Lan Wangji crosses his arms and waits for Wei Wuxian to say whatever it is that he wants to say.

"I have another favour to ask of you," Wei Wuxian finally says. He's already fiddling with the bandages. He looks up at Lan Wangji, his face suddenly serious, and says, "Dianxia, I'd appreciate it if you let me do my job."

Lan Wangji raises a brow. "Your job," he repeats.

Wei Wuxian nods, rising from the cot. He walks over to Lan Wangji; they're nearly the same height, but Wei Wuxian is ever so slightly taller. "I'm here to help you break your curse, not to sit around and get my hands bandaged by you. But to break your curse, I'll need your co-operation. I want to make sure we have no more repeats of today, since it's pretty inconvenient if I have to get you into a murderous rage for us to do anything." 

"You want me to agree to break the rules," Lan Wangji supplies neutrally. 

"Yes," Wei Wuxian says steadily, meeting Lan Wangji's eyes without any fear or trepidation. He holds out his bandaged hand. "Do we have a deal, dianxia?"

Lan Wangji looks at his hand, considering. Well—to be completely honest—Xichen has given him permission, and Wei Wuxian seems so convinced that breaking the rules will bring them closer to freeing Lan Wangji from his curse. Surely—surely, it can't be that bad.

"Lan Zhan," he corrects, and shakes Wei Wuxian's hand. 

And that, it turns out, is how it starts.

Lan Wangji refuses to start Wei Wuxian's 'project', as he calls it, until the new year has passed. It's fairly early this year, only a week after his birthday; he watches as the palace transforms from white to red, lanterns being hung along the streets to form strings of glowing red. Xichen, of course, is expected to preside over the festivities, and Lan Wangji assists him. The new year is always when Xichen is the busiest, dealing with preparations for the new year's feast and the expectations for him to lead them into a prosperous year. Lan Wangji tries to help as best as he can, but Xichen is still stretched thin.

In the fifteen days of new year celebration, Wei Ying follows Lan Wangji around like a particularly talkative shadow. He's there as Lan Wangji checks on the cleaning of the palace, saying that he's 'looking for any secret passageways you might be keeping from me, Lan Zhan'; he's there as Lan Wangi oversees the importing of the fireworks, musing about what would happen if he set them all off at once; he's there when Lan Wangji discreetly frees a small pair of rabbits from the butcher's clutches, laughing himself sick. The only time he's not there is when Lan Wangji sits down for dinner with his family on the first night of the new year. 

Xichen had asked Wei Ying if there was anyone he might want to write to, any family to spend the new year with. Wei Ying had only laughed and said there was no need, and he'd disappeared into his room the moment the fireworks began to be lit. Lan Wangji can't help but wonder if Wei Ying truly is sitting up there in his room, passing the new year alone.

If Wei Ying did, in fact, pass the new year alone, then he certainly doesn't show it. He's just as loud and bright as he always is when he finds Lan Wangji on the second day of the new year, promptly dragging him off to watch the lion dances. Lan Wangji can't even protest by saying he has responsibilities, because Xichen waves him off with a tired smile and a 'go enjoy yourself, Wangji', like the traitor he is. He resorts to saying that he'll bring far too much attention, but unfortunately for him, Wei Ying's stock of talismans includes several for travelling discreetly. Before Lan Wangji can so much as blink, Wei Ying's slapped a talisman on the back of his back and steered him out the gates, and suddenly—miraculously—no one is looking at them at all.

"I call it No-Eyes," Wei Ying explains, when he asks what the talisman does. "It diverts people's attention from you. They look at you, and then, without realising it, they just look away."

He drags Lan Wangji through the streets of the capital until the sun is starting to go down and Lan Wangji's feet are aching. It's a strange experience—he enjoys it, but at the same time...he doesn't. He likes watching the lion dances, the way the lion costume moves and flips like a great red-and-white ribbon, but the noise is far too much. The cheering crowd, the pounding music, the popping of small firecrackers—it makes his head ache. It comes as a surprise when Wei Ying notices him grimacing at the noise, and gently steers him to the wide canal that runs through the capital. They sit there in silence, a good distance away from the main celebrations, until Lan Wangji's head stops feeling like it's being hit repeatedly with something very heavy. It's then that Wei Ying offers to take Lan Wangji back to the palace, and Lan Wangji gladly agrees.

On the fifteenth day of the new year, the palace holds a feast for all the gentry. It's been barely three weeks since they last came to the palace for Lan Wangji's birthday banquet, but they all act as if they haven't seen each other in years. Lan Wangji has to make a perfunctory appearance, but he slips away as soon as possible; he rejoins only when the guests are directed to the palace gardens for the lantern ceremony, and he is required to make a lantern alongside his brother. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Wei Ying sitting on the stone bench beneath the plum tree, the place where he'd stolen Lan Wangji's ribbon; Wei Ying grins when he sees him looking, then holds up his lantern. There are two rabbits on it, obviously meant to be the rabbits that Lan Wangji had released. It takes a considerable amount of effort for Lan Wangji to keep himself from rolling his eyes in front of the most influential people in the empire.

By the time the new year's celebrations are over, Lan Wangji has almost forgotten about Wei Ying's plan to break his curse. He's abruptly reminded when, on the day after the festivities end, Wei Ying marches into his rooms with the rulebook held triumphantly over his head.

Wei Ying is a man of his word: he starts out small. He doesn't push Lan Wangji to drink alcohol, or to kill livestock on the palace grounds, or to cause harm to anyone. Instead, he asks Lan Wangji if he could try staying in bed until after five in the morning, and sleeping after nine at night. He tries to wheedle Lan Wangji into going out after curfew. Lan Wangji staunchly refuses, until Wei Ying's whining gets too high-pitched for him to bear. He does go out past curfew—under Wei Ying's watchful eye, he takes exactly one step outside the palace grounds, waits for a count of thirty seconds, and then promptly turns around and goes back inside.

"Lan Zhan!" Wei Ying says, indignant. "That can't be all!"

"I have broken curfew," Lan Wangji replies coolly. "That is all you asked me to do."

"You're insufferable," Wei Ying mutters, and follows dejectedly as Lan Wangji returns to the palace. He refuses to mark off the rule about curfew as being broken, though, which is how Lan Wangji knows that he's planning to make him do it again at some point.

They have broken quite a few rules at this point. Most of the rules, Lan Wangji will admit, are rather easy to break. For instance, there is the rule about not eating more than three bowls of rice. The rule dictating that no bells should be worn on one's belt. The rule that forbids ostentatious clothing (Wei Ying had been particularly entertained by that one. He'd insisted on dressing Lan Wangji in the most colourful, gaudy robes they could find—"To offset your boring blue robes, Lan Zhan!").

"I think we can skip over any rules concerning morality," Wei Wuxian says, as they near the end of winter. They're sitting on the stone bench beneath the plum tree again; it's become a common place for them to meet and mull over ideas together. "It's hard for anyone to judge morality, let alone for a curse to judge it. And, Lan Zhan, I hate to say it, but I really don't think the curse would hinge on you wearing less than three yaopei on your waist."

"Do you mean to tell me," Lan Wangji says flatly, "that, for the last month, you have been encouraging me to break minor rules for nothing?"

Wei Ying rolls his eyes. "It wasn't for nothing," he says. He reaches out and plucks a leaf off the plum tree, idly twirling it between his fingers. "I was just, y'know. Warming you up to the idea of rule breaking. You're much more comfortable with it now than you were at the start, aren't you?"

Lan Wangji is loath to admit that he's right, but...he's right. The minor rule breakings have slowly eased him into a position where he's more relaxed about infractions. It's a little frightening to see how quickly his views have changed; Wei Wuxian has only been at the palace for two months.

"See!" Wei Ying says triumphantly, when Lan Wangji doesn't refute him. He's getting too good at reading Lan Wangji's silences. "Now we can move on to the big ones, you know?"

"No alcohol," Lan Wangji says sharply. Wei Wuxian groans.

"Damn, I was hoping I'd get to see a drunk Lan Zhan before Qingming," he mutters. "Okay, then. I was thinking—remember the rule about curfew?"

"I have already broken that rule."

"You did not," Wei Wuxian says indignantly. "You stood outside for ten seconds—"

"Thirty seconds."

"Same thing! You stood outside for five seconds and then turned around and walked right back inside. That's not what breaking curfew looks like, Lan Zhan!"

"I was outside when I should not have been," Lan Wangji says dryly. "I broke the curfew."

Wei Ying throws the leaf at him. "You Lans and your technicalities," he mutters. "Hey, Lan Zhan, uh...I have a question."

Lan Wangji tilts his head. Go on.

Wei Ying looks like he regrets throwing the leaf, now, because he starts fiddling with his fingers instead. "Your hobbies," he says, and then he goes quiet. Lan Wangji counts up to twenty-eight before he speaks again. "You play the qin, you read poetry, you meditate, you practice sword forms. Is that—is that it?"

Lan Wangji narrows his eyes at him. Over the years, he's had far too many people tell him he should 'open up more', that he should consider more things. "I am content with my hobbies," he says sharply. "If you have an issue with how I spend my time—"

"No, no issue!" Wei Ying waves his hands, like he's trying to brush Lan Wangji's words out of the air. "I think it's great. It's cute, actually, how predictable you are. Just...are you happy, Lan Zhan?"

"I am content," Lan Wangji repeats pointedly.

"But are you happy?"  Wei Ying blurts out. "I just—if I hadn't come here, Lan Zhan, if no one had come and you were left to spend the next year knowing you were going to die—were you going to just...keep doing this until the end? Playing your qin and reading your poetry? Were you never going to decide to just do whatever you wanted and—oh, I don't know, maybe you could try visiting the ocean. Trying your hand at cooking. Going down to the marketplace where the street musicians play folk songs from all over the empire and dance with the little kids. Ah, who am I kidding, you'd never do that last one—but still, Lan Zhan! There's so much you haven't done yet, and you're just...would you really be happy, spending your last days doing the same thing over and over? Wouldn't you want to live?"

The silence that comes after is damning. Lan Wangji stares at Wei Ying, a strange low ringing in his ears. There's an uneasy tightening feeling in his chest, and it takes him a moment to recognise it as anger.

"Get out," he bites out. His voice is colder than it's been in a long time. Wei Ying recoils. Lan Wangji raises one shaking hand and jabs a finger at the exit to the gardens. "Get out."

"I—wait, no, Lan Zhan, I'm sorry," Wei Ying says frantically. "I only wanted to know if you'd actually be—"

"Get. Out."

"I'm going, I'm going," Wei Ying says, holding his hands up. He slowly eases off the bench and backs away. Lan Wangji watches him until he's out of sight, his red hair ribbon disappearing between the bushes. His hands are still trembling, though he's not entirely sure that it's all anger. There's another emotion there, somewhere. Something tangled and sharp that he doesn't want to unpick.

Lan Wangji doesn't even know why he reacted so strongly. Wei Ying was only asking if Lan Wangji would be happy, repeating the same routine until his death. And—Lan Wangji would be happy, wouldn't he? He has no problems with his current routine. He likes it, he does. It's what he's used to, the same interests that he's carefully cultivated since childhood.

But—

Maybe you could try visiting the ocean, Wei Ying had said, and now Lan Wangji can't stop thinking about what that might be like. He's never seen the ocean, never smelt the salt air or felt the sand beneath his feet. Gusu is close enough to the coast, but he had frail health when he was younger, and Shufu didn't want to risk the journey. When he was older, in his early teens, Xichen had been terrified of somehow killing him, even though they knew the curse would last until he was twenty-one. Once, when Xichen was sixteen and Lan Wangji eleven, Nie Mingjue had gifted Xichen the first mulberries of the season, and Xichen had offered Lan Wangji some. That was the day they found out that Lan Wangji was deathly allergic to mulberries. For six years after that, Xichen had been so paranoid that, when Lan Wangji asked if they could perhaps visit the coast one day, he'd refused because he was afraid he'd somehow drown Lan Wangji. 

And then there are the other things Wei Ying had said. Trying his hand at cooking—he's not particularly enthusiastic about cooking, but perhaps he could be, if he started. And going down to the marketplace to dance with the children—Wei Ying is right, he'd never do that. But, he thinks, he would like to hear the songs the street musicians play. Folk songs from all over the empire, Wei Ying had said. Lan Wangji barely knows the folk songs of Gusu, much less the rest of the empire.

It's there, sitting on the stone bench beneath the plum tree, that Lan Wangji suddenly feels an all-encompassing, aching sense of loss. Yes, if Wei Ying hadn't come to the palace, he would have been perfectly content to whittle away the rest of his life with qin-playing and poetry. There's nothing wrong with it, of course—he wouldn't have died with any regrets—but somehow, suddenly, he's realising just how much of his life has been spent on these select things. He's barely even ventured outside the palace since his father died and Xichen became Emperor, the elders too afraid to let Xichen's only heir out alone. There are so many things that Lan Wangji hasn't experienced yet. No wonder Wei Ying asked if he was happy; to someone like Wei Ying, a rogue sorcerer who's been travelling the empire for years, Lan Wangji's life must seem so terribly dull. Like an animal that's been pacing its cage all its life, not knowing enough of the world outside to know that the cage is a cage.

Wei Ying was right. Lan Wangji would have been content with his life, but he wouldn't have been happy. Not really. He wouldn't have known himself well enough to be happy.

Lan Wangji needs to apologise. He should find Wei Ying, at once, and apologise. But when he gets up to go looking for him, he finds that Wei Ying has all but disappeared.

Wei Ying remains elusive for the rest of the day. Lan Wangji would have believed that he'd left the palace completely if it wasn't for the Head Cook, who told him that Wei Ying had been hiding out in the kitchens with her until he caught wind that Lan Wangji was coming down to ask the servants if they knew where he'd gone. Wei Ying, it seems, is much better at hiding than Lan Wangji gave him credit for.

Lan Wangji gives up on looking when the sun goes down. By now, Wei Ying could be anywhere; he might not even be in the palace. He might be in the capital, in the marketplace. Perhaps he's at a winehouse; he has said, more than once, that he has quite the taste for fine wines. 

Lan Wangji goes to bed that night with that strange sense of loss still eating away at him. He's not disappointed with how he's spent his life so far. He's perfectly happy with how he is. It's just that now, he's suddenly aware of all the different ways he could've spent it. All the different things he could've done, if he'd just dared to look a little further.

His thoughts are jumbled enough that he finds it hard to fall asleep. He doesn't toss or turn—he's never tossed and turned in his life—but he feels as though he does the mental equivalent. Sometime in the night, right as he's about to drift off, he hears a faint tapping at his windowsill.

Perhaps it's a bird. He waits for it to fly away, but the tapping doesn't stop. In fact, it only gets louder and more incessant, until finally—

"Lan Zhan!"

Lan Wangji bolts upright. He stares at the window, his heart pounding. Did he—did he just hear—

"Lan Zhan!" Wei Ying hisses again, and Lan Wangji watches as the distorted silhouette of a head appears through the paper screen on the window. "Lan Zhan, are you awake?"

Lan Wangji could pretend to be sleeping. It is past nine, and Wei Ying would be none the wiser. But curiosity gets the better of him, and he pads over to the window and pushes the paper screen aside.

"Lan Zhan!" Wei Ying says brightly. "You are awake!" And then, before Lan Wangji can respond or ask him how on earth he's somehow standing outside Lan Wangji's very, very high window, he finds something white and fluffy being shoved in his face.

The white and fluffy thing drops, and Lan Wangji instinctively catches it. It's warm, and soft, and alive, and—

"Rabbits?" Lan Wangji asks, because he's too stunned to say anything else.

Wei Ying beams at him. "Caught them myself," he says proudly. "I asked around the market after the Head Cook kicked me out, and turns out there's a whole bunch of them in the mountains behind Cloud Recesses! Aren't they cute? Watch out for that one, though, he bites."

Lan Wangji stares. There are two white rabbits in his arms, snuffling around and pawing at his shirt. He looks at them, then at Wei Ying, who, for some inexplicable reason, has spent the entire day catching rabbits.

"Why did you bring me rabbits?" he asks, because, well—what else is he supposed to ask? Wei Ying scratches the side of his nose sheepishly.

"Ah, you can say no if you want," he says sheepishly, "but could I come inside first? It's just that my legs are getting tired, and I don't know if my levitation talisman will still work if I'm not moving."

Lan Wangji blinks, then looks down. Wei Ying's legs are dangling in the air, kicking wildly in every direction. And...Wei Ying is floating. He is very much floating. Lan Wangji's bedroom window is on one of the highest floors in the palace. 

If Lan Wangji were the kind of man to swear, then this would be the moment that he would say, with great feeling: "What the fuck." He is not, however, the kind of man who swears, so he simply says it in the privacy of his own mind instead. Then he carefully deposits the rabbits on the floor and hauls Wei Ying in through the window.

"Ah, thank you, thank you," Wei Ying says, and then promptly sinks down onto the floor in a mess of tangled limbs. "Fuck, my legs are tired. Remind me to rework that levitation talisman so I don't need to be moving for it to work."

Lan Wangji blinks at him. He doesn't think he has the mental capacity to talk right now. Too many bizarre things have happened to him in too short a timespan. He goes to pick up the rabbits, which are now tentatively exploring the floor, as a fluffy consolation for his overloaded brain.

"Oh, the rabbits!" Wei Ying says, looking delighted at the sight of Lan Wangji with a fluffy white rabbit in his arms. "Ah, Lan Zhan, the rabbits are because I wanted to say sorry. About earlier today. It wasn't my place to judge you like that, and you're completely entitled to live your life however you want, and—"

"You were right," Lan Wangji interrupts. Wei Ying stops talking, but his mouth stays hanging open. Lan Wangji reaches out and closes it with a gentle click.

"Um," Wei Ying says weakly. "Did you just say I was right?"

Lan Wangji nods. "You were right," he repeats. "I apologise for reacting so harshly. You were right that I have missed out on many experiences. I...I would appreciate it, if you taught me how to—to live. As you put it."

Wei Ying's mouth drops open again. "You've gotta be kidding," he mutters. "I'm dreaming. This is a dream. There's no way you just completely switched your view on this in the span of a day."

"In the span of ten minutes, actually," Lan Wangji informs him. 

"That's even worse," Wei Ying says faintly. "Can I have a rabbit?"

"You may," Lan Wangji says graciously, transferring the rabbit in his arms to Wei Ying's. He clutches the rabbit's fur hard enough to make the rabbit squeak and Lan Wangji glare, so he relaxes his grip until the rabbit goes lax under his hands. Lan Wangji takes the other rabbit and watches as it noses at his sleeping robe, paws getting tangled in the fabric.

"Pets are forbidden in the Cloud Recesses," he says, without any real heat behind it.

"Count this as your first big rule breaking," Wei Ying suggests. "You have pets now. It's long-term!"

"I am extremely underprepared for pets."

"Fine, then give them back to me and I'll roast them."

Lan Wangji clutches the rabbit he's holding close to his chest and eyes the one dozing off in Wei Ying's arms. Wei Ying just laughs. "Ai, don't worry, Lan Zhan," he says. "Of course I wouldn't roast them. They're a symbol of that time that I apologised to you and then you apologised to me and everything was fine." He sneaks a glance at Lan Wangji, then, and says, "...Everything is fine, right?"

Lan Wangji nods. Wei Ying relaxes, and then, to Lan Wangji's dismay, he lifts the rabbit in his lap like it's a cup of wine. "To living," he says solemnly.

Lan Wangji absolutely refuses to lift a rabbit in a toast, but he inclines his head in acknowledgement anyway. "To living," he agrees, and Wei Ying's smile is bright enough to rival the moon.

"Now put the rabbit down," Lan Wangji says, and Wei Ying snorts so hard he chokes.

The months slip through Lan Wangji's fingers like sand.

Winter melts into spring. Qingming, the tomb-sweeping festival, comes at the start of the second month of spring; he visits his father's tomb with his brother, both of them dressed in elaborate white robes. They burn incense and leave offerings, asking their father to guide the empire into a new year of prosperity. Lan Wangji barely hears his own voice for most of the proceedings. Out of his two parents, his father is not the one who he wants to pay his respects to.

His mother's tomb is grand, as is befitting an Empress, but also hidden. Even in death, they wanted to keep her out of sight. Lan Wangji bows to her, too, with Xichen at his side, and he prays that his mother's spirit will somehow see it when—when, not if—Wei Ying breaks his curse.

They will break this curse. Lan Wangji swears it. There's a new need burning in him, now—he wants to live. 

On the night of Qingming, he sees a light burning in the garden from his window. He sees the red hair ribbon, and he thinks: ah. This, then, must be the reason why Wei Ying had no family to spend the new year with.

He will not broach the topic with Wei Ying, but, a few weeks later, Wei Ying will quietly broach it himself. He tells Lan Wangji about his parents as they sit together in the Cloud Recesses library, studying an ancient guide to curses under the light of two candles. Wei Ying tells Lan Wangji about how his mother's shifu had only found him when he'd already spent a year on the street with stray dogs that were bigger than he was. Then, with a soft fragility that Lan Wangji dares not break, he reveals that the black flute he keeps tucked in his belt belonged to his mother, and the red ribbon in his hair to his father. They are his most prized possessions.

Lan Wangji, in turn, tells Wei Ying about his own parents. About his father, who booked an audience with the most famous seer in the capital and promptly fell in love; about his mother, who killed that renowned scholar and married his father for protection. He tells Wei Ying about the rooms she was confined to, about the monthly visits, about the gentian garden that she carefully cultivated in the small plot of land she was allowed to have. And then he tells Wei Ying about how, at six years old, he'd waited outside his mother's door for months until he finally realised that she wasn't coming. And then they lean closer into each other's sides and pretend that neither of them have glassy eyes, and the candles burn out and leave them in the raw and vulnerable darkness.

The Dragon Boat Festival comes and goes; Wei Ying participates, boasting that he'll win the race for Lan Wangji. Halfway through the race, he leans out too far over the water to throw a peony at Lan Wangji, who's watching from the banks of the canal, and his boat promptly capsizes. He whines about it the whole day until Lan Wangji threatens to push him into the canal again. Wei Ying laughs so hard that he trips and falls into the canal anyway, whereupon Lan Wangji has to fish him out.

Spring turns to summer. They've already worked their way through most of the rulebook by now, avoiding only the rules that deal with killings and morality. Lan Wangji still staunchly refuses to try alcohol, no matter how much Wei Ying tries to convince him that Emperor's Smile is perfectly alright for a beginner. Once, when he was younger, he'd seen Shufu accidentally take a sip of wine. The Lan alcohol tolerance is to be feared.

By the time summer fades into autumn, Lan Wangji has almost forgotten that Wei Ying is here not as his friend, but as a sorcerer. Lan Wangji genuinely enjoys spending time with him—Wei Ying is smart, and witty, and he reads Lan Wangji's expressions with an accuracy that's almost uncanny. He's kind to a fault, always speaking his mind, and most of all, he's good.

The Mid-Autumn Festival comes too soon. Suddenly, Lan Wangji is acutely aware that, soon after this, it will be winter—and with winter comes his twenty-second birthday. With winter comes his death.

But, firstly, there is this: Wei Ying, once again clambering through his window after curfew, a finger pressed to his lips.

"I'm kidnapping you," he says to Lan Wangji, and then he seems to realise that Lan Wangji is wearing nothing but a gauzy sleeping robe, and he abruptly turns around. "I'm kidnapping you after you get dressed," he amends. "Hey, where are the rabbits? I miss my babies."

"Why are you kidnapping me?" Lan Wangji asks, slipping out of bed and padding over to his privacy screen to get dressed. "And the rabbits are in my antechamber. Do not disturb them."

"I can't believe you're depriving me of my rabbit rights," Wei Ying sighs. "Are you done yet? I don't want us to miss the lantern show."

"The lantern show?"

"For the Mid-Autumn Festival! Everyone's down at the canal lighting their lanterns right now."

"I see," Lan Wangji says, tying his outermost sash. "Is this your latest attempt to get me to break curfew 'properly'?"

"What—how did you know that!" Wei Ying squawks indignantly. Lan Wangji steps out from behind the privacy screen and raises a brow.

"You have been speaking about teaching me how to 'properly break curfew' for half a year now," he points out. "The Mid-Autumn Festival seems to be an ideal time for that."

Wei Ying deflates. "Yeah, okay, you've got me," he grumbles. "But that doesn't make it less fun! Now come over here so I can kidnap you properly. It's faster if we jump from your window."

It's a testament to how much Lan Wangji's come to trust Wei Ying that he jumps out of his bedroom window with no protection but a flimsy spell on his back. Thankfully, Wei Ying's cushioning spell activates right before they hit the ground—though it activates a little too strongly, since Wei Ying bounces off the invisible cushion so hard that he lands flat on his back with an 'oof', and Lan Wangji hits the cushion at an angle that makes him land directly on top of Wei Ying.

For a moment, every sense in Lan Wangji's body narrows down to the feeling of Wei Ying pressed against him from chest to thigh. Wei Ying is startlingly solid, all lean muscle, and even more startlingly warm. They stare at each other for a moment, wide-eyed, before Lan Wangji very abruptly realises that he is on top of Wei Ying, and he throws himself off with so much force that he kicks Wei Ying in the ribs.

"Are you alright?" Lan Wangji asks stiffly, hastily straightening out his robes.

"Never better," Wei Ying groans. "Maybe a few bruised ribs, but it's nothing I can't handle. Here, help me up."

They clean themselves up, and Wei Ying once again sticks a disguising talisman to Lan Wangji's back. It's not the same as the one he used at new year's, Lan Wangji can tell. But when Wei Ying leads him right into the heart of the busy night market, no one so much as looks twice in his direction, so it clearly works.

The town at night is...different. To Lan Wangji's surprise, he actually likes the bustling atmosphere; it feels more casual than it does during the day, with none of the frenzied rushing and shouting that usually overwhelms him with crowds. It does help that he has Wei Ying by his side, who is always ready to bound up to a stall owner and strike up a conversation.

The stroll down to the canal is...nice. There are lanterns strung cheerily along the streets, lighting their way, and the canal itself is beautiful. Lan Wangji can see what Wei Ying meant when he talked about the lantern show—the whole canal is full of lanterns, tiny boats of golden light that are slowly drifting downstream.

They buy two different kinds of mooncake and end up swapping after they try each other's and like them more. Wei Ying stops every now and then to chat with the aunties and uncles who are sitting by the street, playing weiqi or just talking; he always comes away with some new candy or treat or a promise for a discount the next time he rents a boat for the canal. "I love old people," Wei Ying says gleefully, handing Lan Wangji the entire pack of haw flakes he's just received from an old woman. "They're so eager to give you stuff."

"Stop exploiting the elderly."

"Hey, this is just me using my natural charm," Wei Ying says, rolling his eyes. "Besides—oh! Lan Zhan, look, there are the lanterns!" 

He drags Lan Wangji to a stall selling paper lanterns, oohing and aahing over the different designs. Lan Wangji has no particular preference as to what lantern they decide to set on the river. (He tries to ignore the flutter in his chest when he remembers that they're going to release a lantern together.)

Wei Ying eventually settles on a simple rectangular lantern design. He tows Lan Wangji down to the banks of the canal, where there are countless families and couples releasing their own lanterns. Lan Wangji and Wei Ying make quick work of theirs, and soon enough they have their own little box of light in their hands. Lan Wangji is about to set it on the water when Wei Ying grabs his wrist. 

"Wait!" he says, his eyes bright. He rustles around in his sleeve for a moment, then pulls out a talisman."I've been working on this for a while, look—"

He touches the talisman to the fire within the lantern, and what happens next can only be described by an explosion. Light bursts out from their lantern in all directions. Lan Wangji throws his hands up, half-expecting bits and pieces of wood and paper to hit him in the face, but nothing comes.

"Lan Zhan!" Wei Ying is tugging at his arm. "Lan Zhan, look! It worked!"

Lan Wangji dares to open his eyes, and—oh.

The explosion, it seems, had been nothing but light. The light is fading now, drawing itself into dozens of hovering yellow blobs. As Lan Wangji watches, the blobs of light resolve themselves into—into rabbits.

There are dozens and dozens of rabbits, iridescent and made of light, hopping around them. Some of them bound out over the canal, their reflections blurred in the water. Lan Wangji reaches out to touch one, stunned; it nuzzles at his finger for a moment, a brief warmth, before it dissipates into glowing specks.

"You made this?" Lan Wangji asks, awed. "For—for the festival?"

"Hm?" Wei Ying turns from where he's been distracted by two rabbits tussling on the ground. "Oh, no, Lan Zhan. I made it for you."

Lan Wangji's heart skips a beat.

Oh, he thinks, as Wei Ying grins at him through the haze of rabbits. Oh, no.

(To Lan Wangji's dismay, life After realising he's in love with Wei Ying is nearly identical to life Before realising he's in love with Wei Ying.)

Everything goes to shit on the night when Wei Wuxian finally convinces Lan Zhan to try alcohol. Just once, in his rooms, safe in Cloud Recesses. A single cup of Emperor's Smile. Wei Wuxian will be watching over him the whole time.

Lan Zhan had squinted at the cup suspiciously right before he drank it, but he did drink it, which Wei Wuxian is supremely proud of him for. Lan Zhan had blinked down at his empty cup after, his blinks getting progressively more sluggish, and Wei Wuxian had carefully eased the cup out of his hands.

"Oh, so you're a sleepy drunk, huh?" he'd murmured, wrapping one arm around Lan Zhan and propping him up when he listed sideways. "Guess I should've expected you to be the most boring drunk there is."

Famous last words, Wei-Wuxian-of-half-an-hour-ago. Famous last words.

Lan Zhan is anything but a boring drunk. Once he'd woken up from his drunken stupor, he'd promptly grabbed Bichen, declared that "Wei Ying is waiting for me at the canal", and launched himself out the window. Wei Wuxian had managed to cast a cushioning spell in time, but he is not yet recovered from the utter panic of seeing the love of his life his best friend determinedly topple out of his bedroom window with a sword in hand. Now, he's wandering around the gardens with Drunk Lan Zhan, desperately trying to convince him to go back and sleep like a good boy.

"No," Drunk Lan Zhan says stubbornly, stopping beneath one of the trees. He peers up through the leaves and nods, satisfied. And then, to Wei Wuxian's utter horror, he starts trying to climb the tree.

"Nope, nope, nope, nope," Wei Wuxian says, rushing forward and tearing Drunk Lan Zhan off the tree. Drunk Lan Zhan frowns at him in a way that's probably meant to be intimidating but is instead just painfully adorable. 

"Jujubes," he insists, gesturing at the tree. "For Wei Ying."

Wei Wuxian's heart is very full and also very tired. "Wei Ying already has jujubes," he tries. Also, the jujube fruits won't be in season for almost half a year, but Drunk Lan Zhan doesn't need to know that.

Drunk Lan Zhan scowls. "Wei Ying has jujubes?" he asks. "From who?"

"From you, obviously," Wei Wuxian says. Drunk Lan Zhan relaxes marginally. Wei Wuxian inches closer. Maybe...if he just manages to gently steer Drunk Lan Zhan back towards his rooms, he can cast a propulsion spell to get them back up through the window...

He's barely touched Drunk Lan Zhan's sleeve when Drunk Lan Zhan stiffens and bolts off into the bushes, for no apparent reason whatsoever. "Hey!" Wei Wuxian yells after him. "Where the hell do you think you're going?"

There is, predictably, no answer. Wei Wuxian sighs and follows Drunk Lan Zhan (it's not hard—he just follows the trail of destruction), and finally finds Drunk Lan Zhan by the stone bench beneath the plum tree. He's got Bichen out, and he's squinting down at the bench intently.

"Okay, okay, what have we here?" Wei Wuxian sighs. "Put away that sword, would you? You'll end up poking your own eye—"

His voice dies in his throat when he sees what Drunk Lan Zhan's done: he's carved two names side-by-side on the stone bench. Lan Zhan, reads the one on the left. Wei Ying, reads the one on the right.

Wei Wuxian's heart clenches. He'd known, abstractly, that he's wanted to kiss Lan Zhan since practically the first time he saw him. Lan Zhan is pretty! That's just an objective fact! It was just that, later, when Wei Wuxian realised that Lan Zhan was pretty and smart and mean and one of the most competent swordsmen he'd ever seen, well...he'd decided to ignore that part of him that suggested maybe he wanted to kiss Lan Zhan for reasons a bit deeper than 'he's pretty'. Maybe the way his heart beat faster around Lan Zhan meant something. He'd shoved those thoughts deep, deep down, because falling in love with Lan Zhan was a Big No-No, and yet—

And yet. He's looking at their names now, carved here on the side of a bench that barely anyone knows about. It's a secret for Wei Wuxian and Drunk Lan Zhan to take to the grave. And, for some reason, just seeing their names together—like they belong together—is enough to make all those repressed thoughts come rushing back. 

There's no hiding it anymore: he is completely, utterly, and stupidly in love with Lan Zhan.

"Ah, fuck," Wei Wuxian mutters. Next to him, Drunk Lan Zhan mumbles something about cows.

Wei Wuxian looks up to the sky and despairs. "Lan Zhan ah Lan Zhan," he says, "what am I going to do with you?"

When Lan Wangji wakes up, the sun is much higher than it should be. His head is pounding so badly that, for a moment, he thinks that someone is outside ringing a gong. Perhaps most alarming of all is that fact that the night before is nothing but a long stretch of blankness, interspersed here and there with brief images of—the stone bench beneath the plum tree?

Lan Wangji winces as he sits up. He cracks his eyes open, squinting against the sunlight—and then his eyes fall on a letter that's been left on the table beside his bed. What really catches his attention is the familiar red hair ribbon, neatly folded and laid beside the letter. Lan Wangji frowns and leans forward, picking up the letter and unfolding it.

Lan Zhan,

I'm sorry I didn't wait until you woke up, but I didn't think there'd be a point to me sticking around any longer. I hope your hangover wasn't too bad—you really weren't kidding when you said you couldn't hold your alcohol! In case you were wondering, you didn't do anything worth being embarrassed over. You tried to give me jujubes from the trees in the gardens. I don't think you realised that the fruits don't come out for another five months. 

You've been a great friend, Lan Zhan. I hope I was the same to you.

You can keep the ribbon. It's probably safer with you, anyway.

The letter isn't signed, but it's clearly from Wei Ying. Even if he hadn't called Lan Wangji by his birth name, Lan Wangji would still recognise his handwriting anywhere. But what he doesn't understand is why the letter exists in the first place. What does Wei Ying mean, talking about waiting until Lan Wangji woke up? And why would he leave his ribbon—his ribbon, the last keepsake he has left from his father—with Lan Wangji?

There's a nagging suspicion beginning to grow at the back of his mind, but—no. Surely not. But, just in case...

Lan Wangji loosens the ties of his sleeping robe and tugs one sleeve down until his chest is exposed. And the suspicion grows louder, because—because Wei Ying's curse mark is gone. The jagged dark red circle, the one that Lan Wangji has gotten so used to—it's just gone.

He dresses just enough to be considered decent and promptly begins scouring the palace for Wei Ying. He asks the servants, the Head Cook, the gardeners. None of them know. None of them have seen Wei Ying since yesterday.

The sun is sinking towards the horizon by the time Lan Wangji decides to call upon his last resort: his brother. He knows Xichen is in the middle of answering correspondence right now, so it won't matter if he interrupts. He strides up to Xichen's chambers, knocks and declares, "It's Wangji," and pushes the doors open.

Xichen is seated at his desk, stacks of letters in front of him and an inkbrush in his hand. "Xiongzhang," Lan Wangji starts, not even bothering to bow first, "do you know where Wei—?"

The words die in his throat when he sees Xichen's face. His brother looks at him with a heavy kind of expression. There's something about his eyes, a sense of—guilt? Regret? Lan Wangji isn't sure. But he knows, with a sudden, startling clarity, exactly what has happened, even before Xichen begins to speak. 

Wei Ying has left the palace. Not for wine, not for spicy food, not to sneak in another pair of rabbits for Lan Wangji to keep as pets. The letter, the ribbon—it all slots into place.

Wei Ying has left the palace, and he is not coming back.

Wei Wuxian's first night back on the road is miserable. 

He'd bought a donkey and a new green hair ribbon the moment he was out of the capital. He needed to get as far away from the palace as quickly as he could; he wasn't sure what he'd do if Lan Zhan took one of those sure-footed horses from the imperial stables and came riding out after him. When he bowed before the emperor and said he was sorry, but he couldn't break the curse, Lan Xichen had simply looked at him. Just looked, his eyes sharp as arrowheads, like he knew exactly why Wei Wuxian was leaving without so much as a goodbye. Wei Wuxian wouldn't be able to handle it if Lan Zhan looked at him the same way.

The donkey is...temperamental, to put it kindly. She clearly doesn't like her new owner. She didn't seem to like her old one, either, so maybe she just hates people. The only thing that gets her to stop huffing and trying to kick Wei Wuxian off her back is when he pulls an apple out of his pack and dangles it in front of her face. They're moving slower than Wei Wuxian would like, but he supposes that's what he gets for buying the cheapest donkey he could find.

His money pouch is heavy, now. Lan Xichen had paid him a hefty fee for his services, so much that Wei Wuxian could live comfortably for a couple of years. Wei Wuxian's first instinct is to save it all, but the Lan-Zhan-shaped ache in his chest is enough to convince him to splurge, just for one night. Maybe, if he eats well and drinks well and sleeps well tonight, it will hurt less in the morning.

So he rents a good room at the best inn he can find. He buys food so spicy the waiter's eyes tear up as he brings it out. He's thrilled to find that he's close enough to the capital for them to still serve Emperor's Smile, and he drinks so much of it that everything starts to feel a little fuzzy around the edges. He makes friends with the inn's other patrons, plays weiqi with an old man and loses so spectacularly that he can't help but laugh, winks at the innkeeper's daughter and grins when she blushes and scurries away. He stumbles up to his room late in the night, his stomach warm with food and his head warm with alcohol, and collapses into a bed that's welcoming and soft.

When he wakes up, his head is pounding from one of the worst hangovers he's ever had. His mouth tastes...he doesn't want to think about how his mouth tastes. But, worst of all, the Lan-Zhan-shaped ache hasn't lessened. If anything, it's gotten worse. 

It gets worse the day after that. And the day after that. And the day after that. And so on and so forth, until Wei Wuxian feels like he's less of a man and more of a man-shaped thing that longs for Lan Zhan.

Wei Wuxian isn't stupid enough to keep trying to drown his sorrows in alcohol, especially when that alcohol is expensive. After that first night, he doesn't indulge that much—not even on his birthday, a mere week after he leaves the capital. But every night he lies in bed and thinks that even if this wasn't an inn, even if he was lying in the most comfortable bed in the world, it still wouldn't measure up to those scant few hours he spent lying beside Lan Zhan. He hadn't slept, of course. He hadn't dared. By the time Lan Zhan pulled him into the bed, drunk and clingy, he already knew he was done for. 

When he left the palace, Lan Xichen had seemed to suspect that something else was going on, but the truth of it is painfully simple. Lan Zhan is cursed to die at the hands of someone who is older than him, someone who has kissed him, and most of all someone who loves him. Wei Wuxian is older than him by three months. He kissed Lan Zhan's hand the very first night they met. And, as he realised when a drunken Lan Zhan carved their names side-by-side on the stone bench, he is completely and foolishly in love with him.

In other words, it is very much possible that Wei Wuxian will be the one to kill him.

He can't risk that. He can't. He had to leave the palace, no matter how much it hurt. He won't be able to kill Lan Zhan if he never sees him again. It's a simple plan. A good plan. All Wei Wuxian has to do is stay away.

He is, historically speaking, absolutely terrible at staying away from Lan Zhan. This time, though—this time he's sure. If Lan Zhan's life is on the line, then he can do it. To keep Lan Zhan alive and well, he'd do just about anything.

The first snows come to Gusu two months after Wei Ying's departure. Lan Wangji watches it fall from his window, and he plans.

He is thirty-three days from his twenty-second birthday. He is thirty-three days from his death. 

These days, Xichen refuses to see him without a doctor by his side. At every meal they take together, Wen-daifu is standing quietly in the shadows, fully prepared to jump in if Lan Wangji requires it. Xichen also insists that their meals should be prepared separately, just in case. It's sweet, Lan Wangji thinks, that Xichen still thinks this can be avoided. Everyone else in the palace has already accepted it. Shufu, in particular, has looked more and more haggard by the day, gruffly inviting Lan Wangji to come sit with him in his chambers after dinner. Lan Wangji has not refused him. He would not deny his uncle these last few weeks with his youngest nephew.

Yesterday, the seamstress came in and fitted Lan Wangji for his funeral robes. They were white. Intricate. The cranes had stretched all the way from his sleeves up to his neck, their wings arcing towards his throat like a noose. One of his brother's attendants had asked him about his preferences for the funeral. What wood would he like the coffin to be made from? What grave goods did he want to take with him to the afterlife? Was there a specific incense that he wished to be burned before his plaque in the ancestral hall? Did he have any offerings that he wanted them to burn?

The answers had come easily enough. He had no preference for the wood of the coffin. He wanted his qin and his sword, and the copy of Lan An's poems that Shufu gave him when he was small. He would appreciate it if they burned sandalwood incense for him when he was dead. Could they leave him gentians, when the flowers were in season? Could they burn music for him, so that he might continue to play?

When the attendant had left, Lan Wangji had opened his drawer and taken out the letter that had come for him three days ago. The messenger was discreet; his brother had not noticed. The writing on the letter had been neat and small, the characters densely packed together. 

Dianxia, Xiao Xingchen had written, it was a pleasure to hear from you again. I'm sorry to hear that Wuxian-di wasn't able to break your curse. Unfortunately, he has not contacted me since he departed from the capital. I hear that dianxia sent out a notice for any man by the name of Wei Wuxian to be called to the palace; if these notices were not successful in finding him, then I assume he must be travelling under a false name. Dianxia, I must tell you that my nephew is not a liar by nature. If he is travelling by a false name, then he must have a good reason, and I believe that this reason is that he wishes to remain hidden from you. I do not think this is due to any fault on your part—he spoke highly of you in his letters to me. He was very fond of you, dianxia. Perhaps more fond than he should have been.

In any case, I have heard that a sorcerer by the name of Yuandao Sanren has been making his way across the country. He's relatively new to the rogue sorcerer scene, but he's already made quite the name for himself. They say his talisman work is extraordinary. I may be wrong, dianxia, but Yuandao Sanren's spellwork appears to be nigh identical to my nephew's. Yuandao Sanren was last seen near the outskirts of Gusu, a day before the date on this letter; depending on when you receive this, your best bet of finding him will be around a small village near Dafan Mountain. Mo Village, I believe. I've included a map for reference.

Wishing you good health, and luck in the coming year,

Xiao Xingchen.

Lan Wangji tucks the letter into his robes now, his thumb tracing over the creases in the paper. It's the only real news he's had of Wei Ying since he left. From what he's gathered, Wei Ying had travelled straight out of the capital. He'd purchased a donkey and rented a room at an inn not too far from Gusu. But after that first inn—Wei Ying had all but disappeared. It was as if he'd simply been blown away by the wind on the road. All the resources of the empire couldn't help Lan Wangji find a man who no longer seemed to exist. Xiao Xingchen, on the other hand, could. It had been hard work tracking him down, since Xiao Xingchen, too, was a rogue sorcerer, but Lan Wangji had managed it in the end. And now: Yuandao Sanren. Mo Village. A person, a place—it's more information than Lan Wangji has had for the last two months.

Lan Wangji knows that, if he were to ask, his uncle and brother wouldn't let him leave the palace. He's just over a month away from the curse's deadline; he could die at any moment. They wouldn't dare risk him dying alone and on the road, with no one to watch over him as he passes.

So Lan Wangji doesn't ask. He writes a letter, so that Xichen will not worry, and he packs a saddlebag full of dried food and water. He brings Bichen, its sheath wrapped in nondescript leather, but his qin is too bulky; it will have to stay here. 

It begins to snow lightly right as he leads the white horse out of the imperial stables. He fastens his cloak tighter around himself and hoists himself up onto the horse's back. And, as the moon rises on the thirty-third night before Lan Wangji's death, he turns his horse towards Mo Village and begins to ride.

Mo Xuanyu is an absolute terror of a boy. He's twelve years old and, though he's long outgrown the ankle-biter stage, Wei Wuxian would certainly classify him as a biter. Like, in general. He's a biter. His mother, a tired-looking young woman who introduces herself only as Lady Mo, confides in Wei Wuxian that she thinks her A-Yu would bite the ghost that's haunting them, if he could. Wei Wuxian has to formally excuse himself and then go stand outside for a solid fifty seconds, muffling his laughs in his palm.

Mo Xuanyu, it seems, is also fascinated by all things magic, because he's been following Wei Wuxian around ever since he arrived in Mo Village. He peers out from behind a pillar as Wei Wuxian disposes of the ghost that's been haunting Mo Manor, and then he immediately demands to know if Wei Wuxian can teach him how to fight. He follows Wei Wuxian even as he makes his way to the inn like a very persistent shadow. It's cute, but Wei Wuxian does want to hit the local winehouse before he leaves, and he can't exactly do that with a twelve-year-old boy attached to his hip.

It's a relief, then, when Lady Mo comes running out onto the street after them. "A-Yu!" she scolds, tugging Mo Xuanyu away from Wei Wuxian. "I'm sure Yuandao Sanren's tired from helping us with the ghost. Come, let's let him sleep." She escorts Mo Xuanyu away, but, before she does, she leans in towards Wei Wuxian and says, "A man came by the manor asking for you. Dressed all in white. I sent him to the inn, in case you want to talk to him."

She's gone before Wei Wuxian can answer, ushering Mo Xuanyu down the road. Wei Wuxian stands there for a moment, stunned.

A man dressed all in white. His first thought, of course, is: Lan Zhan. But—no. Lan Zhan doesn't know who Yuandao Sanren is. Lan Zhan would be asking for Wei Wuxian. A man in white...it's much more likely that it's his shishu, Xiao Xingchen. He's probably heard about Wei Wuxian's new gig as Yuandao Sanren and wants to interrogate him about why he left his 'incredible, amazing, darling Lan Zhan'.

(Yes, that was how Wei Wuxian had described him in one of his sporadic letters to his shishu. He wishes he'd never sent it, but he was drunk and heartsick, and it seemed like Shishu was the only person he could spill his heart to. The letter he'd gotten back in response to that had been...well. He doesn't want to think about how Shishu, Song-ge, and A-Qing had all yelled at him through writing for leaving Lan Zhan. The actual terminology they'd used was 'the love of your life', but Wei Wuxian...is not ready to think about Lan Zhan like that yet.)

So Wei Wuxian resigns himself to being lovingly but viciously torn apart by his shishu. He trudges towards the inn and pushes the doors open. Ah, there—in the corner booth, he can see the hint of a white sleeve. Strange that he hadn't brought Song-ge or A-Qing with him, but maybe he was feeling gracious and decided to let Wei Ying only embarrass himself in front of one person.

"I know what you're going to say," Wei Wuxian complains, sliding into the booth with his eyes shut in preparation for Shishu's Disappointed Eyebrow. "Wuxian, why did you leave, Wuxian, I thought you said you were in love with him, Wuxian, how will you break his curse if you're halfway across the empire, Wuxian—"

"Wei Ying."

Wei Wuxian's eyes snap open. And—oh. Oh, shit. That—that's not Shishu. That's definitely not Shishu.

Lan Zhan is sitting across from him, looking just as beautiful as the day Wei Wuxian left him. He's wearing a thick fur-lined cloak—trust Lan Zhan to travel in the most fancy clothes he could possibly find, Wei Wuxian thinks fondly—and, beneath it, his clothes are the white of the winter snow outside. He's staring at Wei Wuxian, those gold eyes wide, his lips ever so slightly parted.

Every single repressed thought that Wei Wuxian's had about him in the last three months comes rushing back. He very nearly leans over the table and kisses Lan Zhan right then and there. The urge to do it is so strong that he has to grip the table hard enough to make it dig into his palms. 

"Lan Zhan," he croaks out. 

"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan says again, and his mouth curves into the tiniest smile. Wei Wuxian's next breath comes out as a wheeze. Three months—three months!—of aching and pining and wishing he loved Lan Zhan just a little bit less so he could see him one more time, and suddenly Lan Zhan is here, in this tiny little village, smiling at him from across the table. Wei Wuxian must be dreaming. Or maybe he's dead. Maybe he didn't actually exorcise that ghost from Mo Manor and he's currently getting his guts torn out by its ghostly claws, and this whole interaction is a fever dream that he's having on the brink of death.

Lan Zhan reaches across the table to rest his hand on Wei Wuxian's. He's wearing Wei Wuxian's red ribbon around his wrist. Wei Wuxian's hand automatically lets go of the table and turns around so he can grasp Lan Zhan's, and Lan Zhan's smile grows wider.

Or—and Wei Wuxian hardly dares to think it—maybe this is real.

In which case Wei Wuxian absolutely cannot fuck this up. He—oh, god, it's winter now. It's almost Lan Zhan's birthday. He needs to send Lan Zhan on his way, so that he won't risk killing the man he loves above all else. He needs to act like this isn't a big deal, like it's just two friends meeting by chance, so Lan Zhan will go wherever he was going to and Wei Wuxian can curl into a little ball in his inn room upstairs and sob his stupid heart out. His stupid, Lan-Zhan-loving heart.

"Funny I should come across you here," he manages to say, his voice coming out as some semblance of normal. "So, ah, what brings you all the way to Mo Village, Lan Zhan?"

Lan Zhan blinks. "You," he says. "Was it not obvious?"

Wei Wuxian is going to die. He is going to expire, right here on this inn table. He can't take this. "Ha," he says, his voice coming out strangled and high-pitched. "Haha, funny joke, Lan Zhan. What are you actually here for?"

Lan Zhan frowns. The light in his eyes dims a little. "You," he repeats. "Wei Ying, I am not joking. I've been looking for you."

And Wei Wuxian just—crumples. He buries his head in his hands, and he doesn't cry, but his eyes do grow suspiciously hot. "Lan Zhan ah Lan Zhan," he says, muffled. "If we keep doing this here then I'll embarrass myself in front of the poor innkeeper. Can we go up to my room?"

"Of course," Lan Zhan, kind, wonderful Lan Zhan says. "Wei Ying, are you—"

"I'm fine!" Wei Wuxian squeaks. He scrambles out of the booth and practically sprints upstairs. "Just, ah, just this way, Lan Zhan, if you could follow me really quickly so no one else sees my face, please—"

All too soon, Lan Zhan is closing the door to Wei Wuxian's inn room and they're sitting on the edge of the bed. And oh, no, this is worse, this is so much worse, because now they're alone and Lan Zhan is next to him and Wei Wuxian's hands are itching to take Lan Zhan's precious face between his palms. He clears his throat and says, "So!"

"So," Lan Zhan echoes.

Fuck it, Wei Wuxian decides. "What I said before," he says, staring determinedly at the wall and not at Lan Zhan, "when I thought you were my shishu. You, um. You heard what I said, didn't you?"

A pause, and then: "I did," Lan Zhan says. "You said you were..."

"In love with you," Wei Wuxian finishes, closing his eyes in resignation. Well. The secret's out. Lan Zhan knows, now. "I am, by the way," he adds, just to put the final nail in the coffin. "I'm in love with you. That's why I left."

There's a long, weighted pause. And then:

"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan says slowly, "why do you think I came looking for you?"

Wei Wuxian knows what he hopes is the reason why Lan Zhan came looking, but he also knows that the chances of that being the case are slim. So he shrugs and says, "You wanted me to break your curse?"

"No," Lan Zhan says. "Try again."

"...You want me to find my shishu for you, because he can break your curse."

"I found you because I contacted Xiao Xingchen. Try again."

"...You want to return my ribbon?"

"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan says, so fondly that it makes Wei Wuxian squirm, "I came looking for you because I am also in love with you."

There's a hand at his chin, then, turning his face to meet Lan Zhan's eyes. And oh, Lan Zhan's face is so close; Wei Wuxian can see every single one of his lashes, can see the flecks of dark brown in his honey-gold eyes. He reaches up with a shaking hand and, daringly, cups Lan Zhan's petal-soft cheek; Lan Zhan leans into it, a warm weight against Wei Wuxian's palm.

"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan whispers, his words more breath than sound, "I came looking for you because I am in love with you, and I wanted to tell you that I am in love with you, because in a week's time I will die."

"Oh," Wei Wuxian says, his voice cracking. "Oh, Lan Zhan. It's so soon already?"

Lan Zhan nods. "My twenty-second birthday is in a week," he says, with the kind of cool acceptance of someone who knows full well that they are out of time. "I—Wei Ying, before I die, I would like to kiss you."

Wei Wuxian is nodding before he even registers the question. "Yes," he says, "yes, Lan Zhan, yes," and then the rest of his words are muffled, because Lan Zhan has pulled him in and kissed him.

What Lan Zhan doesn't know is that, in all these months that they've been apart, Wei Wuxian has been thinking and thinking of ways to save him. They couldn't break the curse. Perhaps they could buy Lan Zhan more time if they secluded him away on a mountain somewhere, far away from anyone who loved him, but what kind of life would that be for Lan Zhan?

Wei Wuxian had, eventually, come up with a solution. It was not a perfect solution, but it would mean that Lan Zhan would live, and that was enough. 

So, as Lan Zhan kisses him within an inch of his life, Wei Wuxian rests his hand on the nape of Lan Zhan's neck. He touches his fingers to the top of Lan Zhan's spine, where the curse marks start. 

Wei Wuxian breathes in; breathes out; presses his mouth to Lan Zhan's and tries to memorise what it feels like. And then, because he is nothing if not a fool in love, he takes Lan Zhan's curse onto himself.

It feels, Lan Wangji thinks, like his spine has been replaced with lightning. A shock goes all the way down his back, pressure and electricity that makes him jump and recoil backwards. His heart is rabbiting in his chest, thumping against his ribcage. He leans back on the bed, out of breath from more than just the kissing, and he stares at Wei Ying.

Or, more accurately, he stares at the curse marks that are snaking their way up Wei Ying's hand. Black, all of them, little lines that cross over each other to form a chain. They trail their way down from Wei Ying's sleeve and end at the tips of his fingers—the very same fingers that had been pressed to Lan Wangji's neck, to Lan Wangji's spine, mere seconds ago.

"No," Lan Wangji says. "No, you didn't—no, no—"

"Lan Zhan," Wei Ying says, his voice unbearably gentle. "Lan Zhan, everything will be fine. It's better if it's me—"

"No!" Lan Wangji grabs Wei Ying by the shoulders and shakes him. "Why would you—why did you do that? Give it back, Wei Ying, Wei Ying—"

"I'm not giving it back," Wei Ying says firmly. "Lan Zhan, listen, we don't know how long it'll be before this takes effect for me, so it's best if you leave as soon as possible. I have a donkey out back, her name's Lil Apple, if you just take her and—"

"I will not," Lan Wangji snarls. He grabs Wei Ying's hand and interlaces their fingers together, as if that will make the curse move back onto his skin. "Wei Ying, if you do not give it back—"

"Lan Zhan," Wei Ying says, staring at their hands.

"—this curse is my responsibility," Lan Wangji continues. "You—"

"Lan Zhan."

"What?" Lan Wangji snaps. "Wei Ying, if you attempt to convince me that, for whatever reason, it is better for you to die instead—"

"Look," Wei Ying says, and his voice is so awed that Lan Wangji looks. And—oh.

The curse marks on Wei Ying's skin are breaking. The black lines are fracturing apart, splitting into dozens of tiny pieces, and shrinking into nothing. Lan Wangji stares as the entirety of the curse mark breaks apart and disappears like it was never there.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Ying says, "remind me what each line of your curse mark represented."

"One line for every year I would be cursed," Lan Wangji says numbly. He yanks Wei Ying's hand towards him, poking the skin to check for anything wrong, but it seems perfectly normal.

And then Wei Ying starts laughing.

"Lan Zhan," he gasps out, "Lan Zhan, I can't believe—it was so simple! This whole time!" He grabs Lan Wangji's hands and squeezes them tight. "Lan Zhan, the curse didn't work on me because I'm older than twenty-one."

"What," Lan Wangji says numbly. Wei Ying starts laughing again.

"There were only twenty-one curse marks!" he says, delighted. "The curse started from birth, so it would only last until the victim turned twenty-one. But Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan—my twenty-second birthday was almost three months ago. The curse doesn't apply!"

Lan Wangji stares at him. The pieces are slowly connecting, but the picture that's forming is so unbelievable that he must be wrong. "The curse," he says slowly, "is...broken?"

"It's broken!" Wei Ying says giddily. "Lan Zhan, it's gone! It's broken! Neither of us have to worry about it ever again!"

It's—broken. The curse is broken. The curse that's been hanging over him for twenty-one years is just...broken.

"Lan Zhan ah Lan Zhan," Wei Ying says, looking at Lan Wangji with eyes so warm that Lan Wangji swears he'll look outside and find that the season's changed to summer, "that curse of yours was a tricky one. To break it, you had to find someone with the exact same qualifications as someone who would fulfil it."

Lan Wangji is still stuck on the 'the curse is broken' part. "What?" he asks dazedly. "I—what?"

Wei Ying laughs. "Don't you see, Lan Zhan?" he asks. "The curse dictates that you'll be killed by someone older than you, someone who's kissed you, and someone who loves you. But, on the other hand—only someone who's older than you can outlive the curse. Only someone who's kissed you can absorb it. And only someone who loves you would think to take it onto themselves in the first place. Ah, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan—I can't believe it was so simple!"

Lan Zhan blinks at him. He understands the age and the love conditions, but..."The kissing?" he asks. Wei Ying makes a small 'ah' sound.

"I forgot you weren't here for that part," he says sheepishly. "But, ah, when we were apart, and I was trying to come up with more solutions to your curse, I figured out why the curse seemed so fixated on conditions and love and kissing. It was originally a love curse—remember what I said, way back when we first met, about those novels with the cursed princesses and rugged generals? It was one of those, but the original curse had been changed so much that it wasn't a love curse anymore. But it still kept some of the love curse components, hence the kissing." He pauses, looking slightly out of breath, and then says, "But who cares, Lan Zhan? It's broken!"

"The curse is broken," Lan Wangji repeats, and for the first time the words sink in. The unreality of it is beginning to fade. The curse is broken. He's free to live his life. And—and Wei Ying—

Lan Wangji looks at Wei Ying. "You love me," he says, stunned.

Wei Ying beams at him. "I love you," he says back. "And you love me."

"And I love you," Lan Wangji repeats dazedly. And then, because he really can't hold it back anymore: "Come back to Gusu with me," he says, desperate. And Wei Ying laughs, laughs, as bright as the rising moon outside, and he presses his forehead to Lan Wangji's and says, "Yes."

Lan Wangji wakes up to the sound of tapping.

He recognises it almost immediately. He takes a moment to turn his face into his pillow, smiling uncontrollably, before he gets out of bed and moves to the window. He can see it now, through the window's thin paper screen: the silhouette of a finger, tapping lightly on the wooden windowframe to get his attention.

He slides the window open with a soft shhk and leans on the windowsill.  "You're not supposed to be here," he says, mock-sternly. He can't keep the fondness out of his voice.

Wei Ying grins up at him from below his window, where he's no doubt using another one of his levitation talismans to keep himself afloat. Those levitation talismans have failed one too many times, but Wei Ying keeps insisting that he'll get it right the next time. Considering that he always tests them out by sneaking up to Lan Wangji's rooms, Lan Wangji can't really bring himself to complain.

"Would you really deny me my right to be the first to wish you a happy birthday?" Wei Ying asks, pouting. Lan Wangji rolls his eyes, but when he feels Wei Ying's fingers coming up to grab his collar, he lets himself be pulled down anyway. Wei Ying's mouth tastes like the mandarins from the trees in the gardens; he must have plucked and eaten a few on his way here. 

They part for air, eventually. Wei Ying is beaming at him, looking so incredibly happy that Lan Wangji can't help but smile softly back. Wei Ying, predictably, pretends to swoon, clutching a hand to his chest like he's going to keel over right then and there.

"You really should leave," Lan Wangji murmurs. "Xiongzhang will be expecting to find you here. Shufu, too. They've already caught us too many times."

Wei Ying groans. "I just want to see youuuu," he wails, dragging out the 'you' until he runs out of breath. "Is that too much to ask?"

"The wedding is in two months," Lan Wangji reminds him. "Be patient."

"I've been patient!" Wei Ying says indignantly. "I've been so patient! I can't believe they made us wait a whole year to get married. A year! One entire year where I'm not supposed to touch you or kiss you or even talk to you without a chaperone! It's torture, Lan Zhan. I swear your brother's punishing me for all that drama with your curse."

"Xiongzhang would not."

"You didn't see how he looked at me when you brought me back to the palace," Wei Ying says darkly. "I slept with one eye open for weeks."

Lan Wangji huffs out a quiet laugh, and Wei Ying's entire being softens. It's one of Lan Wangji's favourite sights in the world: the way Wei Ying's shoulders will drop down, the way his eyes go warm and half-lidded, the way his mouth turns into a gentle tilted curve. Wei Ying reaches into his sleeve and pulls out a perfectly preserved gentian, one that Lan Wangji knows for a fact he's been keeping carefully for months; he'd seen Wei Ying fiddling with the preservation talisman once, before Wei Ying noticed him and promptly shoved the gentian behind his back. He ducks his head to let Wei Ying tuck the gentian behind his ear, and then, before Wei Ying can withdraw his hand, Lan Wangji catches it with his own.

Wei Ying's smile turns even softer. "Happy birthday, Lan Zhan," he says, drawing Lan Wangji's hand to his lips and dropping a kiss to the back of it. "How does it feel to be twenty-three?"

Lan Wangji tangles their fingers together. "Good," he says, and the truth of it warms him down to the core. "It feels good."