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The bunny is so small that Lan Zhan nearly misses it. They have turned into a quieter street, passing from one area to another, but Yiling is still so loud and busy, so much unlike the Cloud Recesses, that Lan Zhan’s ability to focus is being tested like never before. He knows he should be walking just like Lan Huan, shoulders straight and head forward, but it’s hard. He keeps looking at things, turning his head toward noises (or away from them, when they’re too loud and unpleasant). He wishes he could hold his brother’s hand, but his uncle said that he must comport himself like a mature young master, just for this afternoon while they visitthe headman of the town. Mature means Lan Zhan must walk on his own and stand up straight and not speak out of turn. He’s been good so far, but… well, he does get distracted, so he does see the bunny.
It’s curled up, little and black, in the shadow of a snowdrift. It’s shivering, and a little muddy, fur matted down instead of shiny and sleek like some of the wild rabbits Lan Zhan has seen back home in Gusu. There’s also something red tied around its neck: a long, trailing ribbon. This bunny must be someone’s pet, or maybe even a person with a spirit form like Lan Zhan. Without thinking, Lan Zhan breaks away from the end of the train of Lan following the headman on a tour of the Yiling marketplace and goes to the bunny.
As he approaches, it looks up at him with round, dark eyes, and then bolts away. Stretched out, it seems not quite so small, but it still is certainly smaller than Lan Zhan, and not much faster—he keeps up. The street they’re on lets back out onto the main street, where the snow is heavily disturbed, turned to slush beneath the feet of passers-by and dirty brown rather than the white of the side street they just came from. The bunny is much harder to see among the crowd, especially as it dodges and weaves between people’s feet, nearly getting kicked several more times; one person sees it and shouts.
The bunny darts to the right, between another two people, and into a dingy alleyway. Lan Zhan bolts after it, heedless of the mud that splashes up from a puddle to stain the hem of his robes. He’s never been anywhere so dirty, he’s never gotten so dirty himself since he first earned his disciple’s robes. But that matters less than the little black bunny with its red ribbon, which is hard to see now in the shadows but is racing toward the back wall of the alley. The wall is mid-height and made of uneven stones, poorly mortared together, and there are several large cracks near the ground. The bunny slips into one of them, the largest, and vanishes from sight.
Lan Zhan skids to a stop, hesitates for a moment, and then crouches down to peek in, trying not to get his robes too dirty. The crack is small, and Lan Zhan can see light on the other side. Either another street or alley, or maybe a courtyard. He can’t see well enough, and he doesn’t want to lose the bunny—it feels important that he doesn’t lose the bunny. He stands up again and considers the wall, its height, and the size of the cracks, then he uses his still-developing lightness skill to leap up to the top. He has to touch down just at the top of the wall, but he’s able to launch himself over. His teachers have all said he’s very good at lightness.
On the other side is, as Lan Zhan had thought might be the case, a little passage that opens into a courtyard. It’s messy, not a well-kept garden or sitting area like he might have found back home. The snow is drifted high here, gathered up into knee-height piles undisturbed by traffic or wind. Here and there, it drapes over piles of garbage, and a few broken crates poke up out of it. This courtyard is a storage place for unwanted things, discarded things, and the only sign that anyone has been here recently are the footprints and muddy marks of the bunny’s passage, which vanish behind one of the drifts. He thinks that the buildings he passed between to get into the alley might have been shops, but the ones on the other side of the courtyard are obviously homes, though their doors are shut up tight, the cracks fitted with rags to keep out the late winter chill.
Lan Zhan looks around. There’s nowhere the bunny could have gone to get out of the courtyard, not that he can see. The footprints vanish behind a barrier, and he’s not sure if he should approach any further, or if that would frighten the bunny, make it feel even more trapped. The courtyard is totally enclosed by building walls and locked doors.
“Hello?” he calls softly, unsure of his voice. It comes out a bit quieter than he meant, but maybe that’s okay.
From the pile that the bunny’s prints vanish behind, there’s a small twitch. If not for being a dragon, Lan Zhan thinks he might have missed that too. Today he’s very grateful for his vision.
“I will not hurt you,” Lan Zhan says in as reassuring a tone as he can manage, trying to channel his brother. Xiongzhang is much better at being nice to people than Lan Zhan is, but he knows it’s important to try.
He crouches down again instead of approaching and he holds out a hand, palm up, close to the ground. “My name is Lan Zhan. I am a friend,” he promises.
There’s a long pause, and then the drift twitches again, flakes of snow drifting free and settling again. It seems like there might be a pile of something—fabric scraps, perhaps—under the snow. Then, from behind it, a little bunny nose pokes out, whiskers twitching. Lan Zhan holds in an undignified coo.
Another moment later, the rest of the bunny’s head pokes out, its ears springing up once they’re no longer buried. It sniffs the air, then wiggles out entirely and hops a little closer. It stops, a body-length away, and watches Lan Zhan for a moment. He stays very, very still. It hops a little closer.
The little nose, dry and soft, touches the ends of Lan Zhan’s fingers and then withdraws. The bunny flinches back a little, ready for a reaction. When none comes—Lan Zhan is working so hard not to react, to let the bunny come to him—it extends its little face again and sniffs Lan Zhan’s fingers, then touches its nose to them again. It waits.
Lan Zhan gives it one more moment, then carefully he moves his hand, just to stroke the bunny’s nose the tiniest bit. It doesn’t flinch away again, so he makes a larger movement, stroking up its nose and between its eyes to the top of its head. His fingers are almost immediately coated with mud—the bunny is black naturally, he thinks, but the dirt is not helping. It must also be very uncomfortable to be wet in the cold air, though he’s sure that the bunny can’t entirely help that.
“You are muddy,” he tells the bunny. “You need a bath.”
It nudges its head against his fingers as if in agreement, or maybe just a demand for more stroking. Lan Zhan is still not quite sure if the bunny is a person or just an escaped pet. Maybe… he strokes its ears and while he does, he says, “I think you are a shifter like me. You do not have to turn back.”
The bunny presses its face into Lan Zhan’s fingers. Then it tilts its head and peers up at him with one dark eye, a little mischievous.
Lan Zhan blinks back at it. “Do you need help?” he asks it.
There is no response at first, and Lan Zhan begins to feel a little foolish, because he has been talking to a regular bunny like it can understand him. He does not yet have a keen enough qi sense to tell just from touch whether a creature is a spirit or a shifter. But then the bunny very obviously nods. Lan Zhan’s heart kicks and begins to race.
“You do?” he asks again, a little breathless.
The bunny nods again and presses into Lan Zhan’s hand more firmly. He lets out a breath and sits down on the ground. The mud doesn’t matter. Anyway, the bunny, this little shifter, is much muddier than him.
“You do not want to turn back?” he asks.
The bunny shakes its head. It hops closer, nudges past Lan Zhan’s hand, and then begins chewing on his sleeve.
Lan Zhan pulls back, but the bunny is persistent. It chases his trailing sleeve, trying to get the fabric between its teeth, even leaping up to grab at it when Lan Zhan raises his arms. “Stop that!” he says. He doesn’t want to grab the bunny, because he doesn’t want to hurt it—it’s very small—but he doesn’t want his sleeve chewed either.
The bunny pauses and gives him a look, then immediately tries again to catch his sleeve. Lan Zhan huffs, annoyed, and finally tries to make a grab for the bunny. At once, it’s gone, darting back into its pile of fabric and snow. However, its nose pokes out almost immediately and wiggles, as if laughing.
“It’s not funny,” Lan Zhan says, holding his sleeve. “You should not destroy others’ belongings.”
The bunny wiggles in the pile, then sticks its head out and makes a little jerking motion, its ears twitching.
“What?” Lan Zhan says.
The bunny makes the motion again: its head tips up sharply, almost like a come-here someone might do with their hand.
“You want me to come?” Lan Zhan says.
The bunny nods.
“I am too big.”
The bunny shakes its head, then squirms back out of the pile to sit up on its haunches. A little awkwardly, owing to having an inappropriate articulation of joints, it attempts to tap a paw against its own chest.
“You…?” Lan Zhan says, then realizes—like me. “You want me to shift?”
The bunny nods so enthusiastically that it falls forward onto its front feet again.
Lan Zhan gives the bunny a look with furrowed brows. “You don’t know my form. I could be very large. I am a predator.”
The bunny just sits up again and looks at him. It cannot currently speak, but Lan Zhan feels like if it could, it might say, I’m waiting!
Lan Zhan sighs. Then he looks around, making sure that the courtyard is as hidden away as he had initially felt it to be—it is. Which is good. The truth is, he hasn’t hit his first growth yet in his spirit form, so he isn’t very big. He would be much more able to protect his new bunny companion if he were to remain human. However, the bunny looks very insistent.
It’s only a moment’s work to transform. His dragon form is natural, and pulling it on feels only like stirring up his qi and letting it do its work. Light flares around him, and when his vision clears, he’s much closer to the ground. His body is thin and light, closer to a snake than a grand dragon like his uncle or even his brother, whose first growth granted him substantial stature.
The bunny makes a delighted squeak when the light fully fades and reveals Lan Zhan’s form. His horns and claws are still small and blunted, and his mane is not yet especially flowing and majestic. From a distance younger Lans mostly look like snakes. However, he is definitely long enough to wrap around his bunny companion several times, and he goes over to do so.
It feels normal, natural in this form to wrap a coil of his body around the companion, although in his human form he rarely likes to touch or be touched. His scales are still thin and very sensitive, so he can feel the bunny’s heat through its fur, the vibration of its rapid heartbeat. The sensation is slightly muted by the mud still caked into the bunny’s fur, which is all the more obvious at this size—it coats Lan Zhan’s body almost immediately, sticking in his own hair, gritty particles catching in between some of his larger scales. He is going to be very itchy until he gets a bath, he thinks, resigned. He makes a little huff at the bunny.
The bunny squeaks quietly in return, then hops toward the pile of fabric. Lan Zhan moves along with it, ignoring the undignified way his tail is trailing. That is a problem for later. Right now, the bunny seems to be letting him into its… den, he supposes.
Indeed, on the opposite side of the snowdrift there is a small hole that the bunny heads for. The passage is not large, so Lan Zhan uncoils from the bunny and lets it enter first, then follows behind.
The hole is the opening to a short tunnel, which burrows through, as Lan Zhan had suspected, a pile of damp fabric scraps, leaves, some hay, and a not insignificant quantity of mud beneath the snow. However, as they delve deeper it gets drier and warmer, until he finds himself in a small, dark hollow, just slightly larger than the bunny, who curls up in the centre of the space. Lan Zhan coils his body around the bunny’s, circling twice to get his whole length properly wrapped up and none of his tail left in the tunnel, and then settles. He makes a little huff.
The bunny squeaks back and turns its head to nuzzle against Lan Zhan’s scales. They can’t exactly communicate in these forms, but the bunny make little soft squeaks from time to time, purrs and little noises of its teeth, as if it were chattering away to Lan Zhan. Even though he can’t understand, he settles in contentedly, enjoying the soft hum of the bunny’s fluttering heartbeat—much, much faster than Lan Zhan’s own—and its little noises. It’s kind of sweet, he thinks. Not very many people want to talk to Lan Zhan.
With the bunny’s body heat and the insulation of the den, it’s not long before Lan Zhan is comfortably warm and somewhat sleepy. He should probably go back out and look for his brother and his uncle, he knows, but he doesn’t want to leave and have his new friend run away. It’s clear that the bunny is all on his own, and no one is taking care of him, which Lan Zhan thinks is wrong. Everyone should have someone to look after them, and if the bunny has no one, Lan Zhan will do it himself. His uncle can find him by tracking his scent or his spiritual energy, so they’ll come to find him eventually. For now… maybe he’ll just nap for a little while. It’s not hai shi, but he’s just so comfortable, wrapped around the bunny, who is soft, and warm, and…
—
To his shame, Lan Qiren is not the first one to notice that A-Zhan has gone missing. If he had been, perhaps it would not have happened in the first place, because he would have stopped his younger nephew from running off at all.
Unfortunately, he did not, and so Lan Qiren discovers the issue only when they arrive back to their inn and he finds himself absent one nephew. He looks around, hoping A-Zhan has simply been caught back a moment in the admittedly thin crowds of Yiling’s marketplace, but he does not appear. Lan Qiren resists the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose, then interrupts the headman’s long, obsequious farewell to say, “My sincere apologies, but we appear to have lost my nephew along the way. Did you happen to see him go?”
As expected, the answer is no. The headman immediately bows deeply and says, “This lowly one apologizes, Lan-xiansheng, but I did not. Is it possible he was distracted by something in the market? Perhaps someone selling toys or sweets?”
Little chance of that, Lan Qiren thinks. He sighs. “That is possible. If it is alright with you, myself and my other nephew will double back to look for him. We appreciate your tour of the town and will bring your request and information back to Gusu Lan’s wardmasters in hopes that they might be able to assist.”
Truthfully, they shouldn’t be here at all—Yiling is traditionally Yungmeng Jiang’s problem, but the headman had reached out with a request for a ward matrix to keep resentful energy out of the marketplace, which the Lan were more likely to be able to assist with than the Jiang, as they had superior warding talisman-makers. Jiang Fengmian had been very gracious about the whole issue. However, Lan Qiren had been obliged to go himself to do the initial inspection due to the slightly awkward politics of the whole situation, and he remains… reluctant to leave his nephews in the care of any more distant relative or sect disciple, even those who run the children’s halls and are therefore eminently qualified. He has chosen at this time not to interrogate the impulse to keep them close; doing so harms nothing.
Except, apparently, that bringing A-Zhan to this cursed place has resulted in his getting lost. Lan Qiren looks around once more in vain hope, then feels a small tug on his robes. He looks down.
A-Huan is looking up at him with an unusually solemn expression. “Shufu?” he says. “I saw A-Zhan run away.”
“Ah,” Lan Qiren says. He no longer needs to kneel to be on his older nephew’s level—he’s nearly twelve—but he considers doing so for a moment anyway. “Where did he go, Lan Huan?”
“He was chasing a bunny. He went down one of the big streets and then I couldn’t see him any more.” A-Huan points back the way they came, toward the market. Yiling is not particularly busy compared to Caiyi, but certainly busier than either of the boys is used to; anything could have happened.
“Why did you not say when he ran off?” Lan Qiren says.
“You were talking to the headman. I’m not supposed to interrupt, except if it’s an emergency, and emergencies are when someone is hurt or about to get hurt,” Lan Huan says, which is in fact a perfect recitation of what he’s been taught. Perhaps he’s learned a little too well. Lan Huan is sweet, polite, and substantially more biddable than Lan Zhan is, which Lan Qiren realizes at this very moment is maybe not, in fact, preferable. Well. A problem for when they have retrieved A-Zhan and made it safely back to Cloud Recesses.
For now, he has a nephew to find. “Show me the place you lost sight of him,” Lan Qiren says.
Lan Huan turns and trots away, leading the way back into the warren of the marketplace. He brings Lan Qiren some distance back into the main part of the town, but Yiling is not particularly large, and A-Huan walks at a less meandering pace than the headman. Soon he comes to a stop and points at a muddy smear in the snow. “I think the bunny was there,” he says. “A-Zhan ran after it, that way.”
Lan Qiren scrutinizes the prints in the snow and finds that yes, he can see a few scattered paw prints left by a small creature, probably a rabbit. However, the tracks are quite muddled, so they will need to use other means to track A-Zhan through the market. Once they’re closer, he’ll be able to pinpoint his nephew’s spiritual energy—a shifter tends to stand out to the spiritual senses—but for now they’ll need to attempt to track by scent.
Lan Qiren’s own spirit form is unfortunately massive and therefore inappropriate for this venture, though it certainly comes in handy at other times. Instead he turns to A-Huan and says, “Lan Huan, do you feel able to track your brother’s scent in your other form?”
“There’s a lot of people out still,” Lan Huan says a little doubtfully. “But I’ll try, shufu. I think I can do it.”
He closes his eyes briefly and his form shimmers with spiritual energy, then emerges transformed. Lan Huan’s dragon shape is still relatively small, the size of a large constrictor snake, and he drifts up to coil around Lan Qiren’s shoulders, then draws a deep breath. He hesitates briefly, then points his nose forward, toward the main street.
They draw stares as they emerge into the crowd, but Lan Qiren is uninterested in the opinions of common people. He has attention only for the direction of Lan Huan’s gaze, the point of his snout. Up the street first, and then he wavers. The scents here must be muddled, but after a moment he tilts his head tentatively toward a small alley that connects to the main street. It’s shadowed and muddy, but when Lan Qiren comes closer he can see further footprints—a boy’s, some obscuring those of a rabbit.
“Good work, A-Huan,” Lan Qiren says. He raises a hand to stroke his nephew’s ruff once, then steps into the alleyway to look around.
It is difficult to say for certain, enclosed as it is, but he assumes A-Zhan must have chased the bunny past the low barrier at the end of the alley. He would have had to transform to squeeze through the thin crack in the shoddily mortared stones that make up the wall, or else used his rapidly-developing lightness skill to leap over. Probably the latter. Lan Qiren does the same, A-Huan still wrapped around his shoulders, and brings himself fully over the wall and into the tiny square on the other side in a single bound. The place is obviously a dumping ground, piled with rubbish, long-neglected and covered in snow. He scowls slightly in disgust, then broadens his spiritual senses. Perhaps A-Zhan and whatever manner of creature he’d been chasing had gone into one of the houses; the animal might be someone’s pet.
But he finds no spiritual signatures in the houses—their occupants must be out—and two small sparks of qi buried in one of the piles of refuse. “Ah,” he murmurs. Perhaps that does make sense; something about the creature must have caught A-Zhan’s attention, which would be more likely if it were a shifter, who often bear unusual appearances.
Lan Huan makes an inquiring little snort.
“The other is a shifter,” Lan Qiren says softly. It is quiet here, and he does not want to frighten the stranger, nor alarm A-Zhan. However… “A-Zhan,” he calls.
There is a small movement from the pile of garbage. Lan Qiren’s ears, sharpened by cultivation and his draconic nature, catch a muffled exchange of noises. Then A-Zhan’s tiny snout pokes out of a near-invisible hole in the pile. Apparently he’d shifted in order to join his new companion in their den.
“We must go,” Lan Qiren says. “Say goodbye and come along.”
A-Zhan growls and withdraws back into the pile. Lan Qiren stares. A-Zhan has not growled at him since the last time he tried to force him to stop kneeling in front of his mother’s door. What on earth…?
“A-Zhan,” he says, stepping over toward the entrance. “Come out at once.”
There is no response. Lan Qiren sighs and examines the entrance to the den. It is small, but he should be able to get his hand in. Carefully, he reaches in with a few probing fingers, trying to ascertain how deep it is, and feels small, sharp teeth sink into his skin. Shocked, he jerks his hand back.
“Did you just bite me?” he demands. “Lan Zhan! That is unacceptable behaviour.”
There’s a snort from inside the pile, and then a squeak—the rabbit, Lan Qiren assumes.
It would be rude in the extreme to destroy this other shifter’s den, but he has no choice. He will pay for this person to spend a night in an inn if he must while they rebuild their home, but they are presumably an adult if they are living independently in this way, if an odd one to be squatting in such a space, and will simply have to accept reasonable compensation. They cannot expect to keep Lan Qiren’s nephew, nor can A-Zhan expect to stay, no matter how interesting this other cultivator might be.
There is nothing for it. Ignoring A-Huan’s little huff of surprise, Lan Qiren crouches down and pries away the top layer of half-rotted wood and musty fabric, scattering wet snow everywhere. A-Huan flows off his shoulders and gets a little distance from the mess, giving Lan Qiren space to lift another layer, this one drier, though no cleaner, and bare a muddy hollow in the dirt, previously protected from the cold. Inside is, sure enough, Lan Qiren’s nephew in his little draconic form, coiled around… a very small black rabbit, wearing a tattered red ribbon around its neck.
Hm, Lan Qiren thinks, looking at the rabbit. Perhaps he has made an error. There is no way this creature is full-grown. Its paws are still rather too large for its body, its proportions stunted, round, and babyish.
It takes one look at Lan Qiren and attempts to bolt. Hampered by A-Zhan’s coil, however, it doesn’t get far, and Lan Qiren is able to catch it with a gentle but firm hand around its middle. He ignores the scrabbling, kicking feet that strike his wrist and forearm and its distressed squeaks and says, “A-Zhan, your… friend may accompany us back to the inn if you insist. But we must go now.”
A-Zhan transforms back to his human shape and gives Lan Qiren the darkest scowl his round face can muster. “You’re scaring it,” he says.
Lan Qiren looks at the rabbit in his hand, which is still fighting his grip quite fruitlessly. “I am not going to harm you, little one,” he tells it. “You need a bath and a meal. You are coming with us at least for tonight, and tomorrow my nephews will help you rebuild your nest before we depart.”
The rabbit stills, then twists to sink its teeth into Lan Qiren’s finger. He drops it on reflex; it was that or squeeze, and the little thing is delicate. Fortunately, he had crouched low enough that it falls only a short distance to the ground, where A-Zhan scoops it up at once and holds it close to his chest, still glaring at his uncle.
“You destroyed its home,” A-Zhan says, stubborn. “You should say sorry.”
“Yes.” Lan Qiren rises and makes a proper bow to the rabbit in A-Zhan’s hands. “I apologize, little one. I made assumptions. However, please allow us to compensate you, as I have already described.”
There is a delay, then a little squeak. Lan Qiren sees the rabbit produce some approximation of a nod. He nods in return, then gestures toward the exit back into the market. “Come along now.”
Lan Qiren leaps back over the wall and turns to supervise as his nephews do the same, A-Huan still in dragon form and flowing lightly over the stones. Once they are back on the street, he returns to his human form and begins asking his brother quiet questions about A-Zhan’s new friend. Lan Qiren brings their whole party back to the inn, listening as A-Zhan gives little affirmative or negatory hums to A-Huan’s questions. Mostly he seems to ascertain that the rabbit needs help, seems to be on his own, and had tried to play with A-Zhan. The latter is often a pointless endeavour for other children, but this time A-Zhan seems to have become attached.
Attached enough to allow the black rabbit to smear mud all over his robes, Lan Qiren discovers to his own dismay once they make it back to the inn room. He sends A-Huan downstairs to request a bath and dinner a little later, and he draws a change of clothes out of his qiankun pouch for A-Zhan. Children do get dirty, but rarely his nephews. At least he was prepared.
The bath arrives in a timely manner and Lan Qiren orders A-Zhan to bathe himself first, then sits down to watch the rabbit hop around their inn room and variously sniff or chew the furniture and textiles in the space. A-Huan has already retreated to his own side of the room and has settled on the bed to meditate for a while before dinner.
A-Zhan is quick in the bath and returns scrubbed and changed, his hair still damp.
“I’ll comb your hair, A-Zhan,” A-Huan offers, opening one eye. Apparently he was not meditating very deeply.
But A-Zhan nods and goes over there. Lan Qiren turns his attention to the rabbit, who goes still under his appraising look, its back pressed to the privacy screen in front of the bathtub.
“You,” he says to it. “You also need a bath before we have dinner. Are you capable of changing shape to do it yourself?”
The rabbit stares at him a moment longer, and then gives itself a shake. The motion transforms it from a small, muddy black rabbit into a small, muddy boy with tangled hair, tattered clothes, and silvery-grey eyes that throw Lan Qiren years back in time. He immediately suspects whose child this is—the suspicious look he is receiving only deepens the impression of familiarity, though it reminds him more of the cool, quiet man who must be this child’s other parent than the woman whose eyes sit in this child’s face.
“Heavens,” Lan Qiren mutters. “Boy, what is your name?”
The boy looks at him for another moment, then glances over to where A-Huan and A-Zhan are watching their face-off with wide eyes. Lan Qiren looks over at them as well, and watches as A-Zhan’s attention darts between Lan Qiren and the filthy boy. A-Zhan gives a tiny nod, and that seems to be enough for—
“This one is called Wei Ying,” says the boy.
Lan Qiren lets out a harsh breath. So he was right: the child of Cangse Sanren and Wei Changze. Filthy, untrusting, abandoned. There was a rumour that they had been killed on a nighthunt over two years ago now, but Lan Qiren, to his shame, had assumed that their son had been left with a caretaker. He had abdicated responsibility for looking into the matter to Jiang Fengmian, who would surely have been invested in such a thing, given the parties involved. Not that Lan Qiren hadn’t indulged briefly in his own grief—they had been his friends too, once—but he had not thought…
“Wei Ying,” he says, freezing the boy where he had begun to inch toward A-Huan and A-Zhan, or perhaps the door. “I am Lan Qiren. I knew your parents once. Please do me the honour of allowing me to care for you in their stead.”
If Wei Ying is unwilling, Lan Qiren will ensure he is fed tonight and convey him to Lotus Pier tomorrow. Lan Qiren is aware that he is not the most friendly of faces, and Jiang Fengmian has two children of his own, as well as a wife who, regardless of her… other attributes, is surely capable of assisting with childrearing. However, if Wei Ying chooses to grant his trust, Lan Qiren will do what he can in return to honour it. It is the least he can do to assure the peace of his former friends’ spirits.
Wei Ying looks him over once more, and then he beams. That is Cangse Sanren all over, and it makes Lan Qiren’s heart ache to see the brightest part of her live on. “Alright, Lan-shushu!”
Lan-shushu. Lan Qiren suspects that this child will be as much trouble as his mother. “Come along with you then. Into the bath.”
His prediction of trouble starts to come true almost immediately, as Wei Ying is not particularly interested in bathing and, furthermore, his hair is tangled into knots nearly so matted with dirt and other unidentifiable filth as to be unsalvagable. Even once the rest of him is clean, it requires an extensive amount of time rinsing, combing, and then rinsing again to make Wei Ying fully presentable. He squirms throughout most of the process, and eventually also begins to complain, at first softly, and then more and more loudly as he realizes that he can do so without immediate reprisal. Lan Qiren only sighs and reminds the boy repeatedly that cleanliness is required when in company and before dining, and that complaining about necessity is unseemly. These citations of the Lan rules bounce right off Wei Ying, which Lan Qiren likely should have expected.
Once he’s clean, however, Lan Qiren releases Wei Ying and he immediately darts around the privacy screen—still damp and dressed in only a single layer of white underrobe—and flings himself at A-Zhan, who is by now seated primly at the table, his hair combed and his forehead ribbon refastened.
“Lan Zhan!” he cries, landing half-sprawled on A-Zhan. “Hi!”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says, startled, and catches him as best he can. “What—“
“Sorry I didn’t transform back before, I wanted to show you my den, I made it myself! Wasn’t it nice? Before Lan-shushu destroyed it, I mean, that wasn’t nice, but I can always make another one!” As he chatters, Wei Ying arranges himself so that he’s sitting next to A-Zhan, not quite properly but at least upright and not in someone else’s lap.
“Mn,” A-Zhan says. He glances up at Lan Qiren, who offers him a little nod, understanding the question in his gaze. “No need. Wei Ying will come with us.”
“Come with you?” Wei Ying looks around at all three of them, confused. “Come with you where? I live here!”
“You will come to live in Cloud Recesses now, if you wish,” Lan Qiren says, settling himself across the table from the younger boys, next to A-Huan. “I could also take you to Lotus Pier—“
“No,” A-Zhan interrupts, startling Lan Qiren into silence. A-Zhan never interrupts. “Wei Ying will come and live with us.”
“A-Zhan,” A-Huan begins, placating, but A-Zhan just glares at him and—even more shocking—reaches out to grab Wei Ying’s hand in his own.
“Wei Ying will stay,” he insists.
Wei Ying, fortunately, nods. “I want to stay with Lan Zhan,” he says. “Lan Zhan is so nice! And pretty!”
Nice, again. Lan Qiren will need to work on expanding the boy’s vocabulary. Apparently he will, at least, have the opportunity to do so. “If that is your wish,” he concedes. He has plenty of experience in the raising of children who technically do not belong to him as of these past few years. One more cannot be a burden. Even once so loud as Wei Ying, he thinks, as the boy cheers and once more hugs A-Zhan exuberantly.
It will be a challenge to raise this child, for he is quite unlike either of Lan Qiren’s nephews, and has spent formative years without the grounding influence of any rules; he has not been raised to understand and incorporate the Lan Sect’s many edicts into his behaviour. Their clan’s ways are always more of a challenge for those who join them later in life. And yet, Lan Qiren can hear in Wei Ying’s chatter a spark of intelligence, and his spiritual energy is bright to Lan Qiren’s senses; he has mastered his shift at such a young age, and with parents such as his is sure to be a promising student of cultivation.
He will be disruptive and loud, and will surely get into trouble inadvertently and cause trouble very much on purpose, if he takes after his mother even a little. Observing him now, Lan Qiren suspects that that is the case. He lacks his father’s polished servile manners—all to the good—but also lacks any manners, likely as a result of living on the streets. When their food arrives from downstairs, he eats too quickly, too messily, and needs to be reminded repeatedly not to speak during the meal. He seems uninterested in many of the milder dishes, which does not bode well for his enjoyment of the cuisine at Cloud Recesses.
Lan Qiren does wonder once more whether it might be better to send him to the Jiang. They are a warmer people, more outgoing, the home sect of Wei Ying’s father and a lively group that Cangse Sanren liked well, for all that her wandering ways prevented her from accepting Jiang Fengmian’s offer to join and settle down. They will be more accepting if Wei Ying has inherited his mother’s wanderlust, and tend to be less hung up on status; Lan Qiren knows some of the elders will turn their noses up at Wei Ying solely because he is the son of a servant.
And yet, he thinks again when he sees that A-Zhan and Wei Ying’s shoulders remain pressed together, their hands often joined. He sees that Wei Ying turns to A-Zhan like a flower to the sun, and A-Zhan offers the glow of his happiness in return, brighter than Lan Qiren has seen him since well before his mother’s passing. Wei Ying’s presence banishes the shadow of grief and loneliness that has hung over A-Zhan for longer than Lan Qiren wishes to dwell on. And he can see, in the contented smile on A-Huan’s face, that he sees it too, and is comforted.
Much as losing A-Zhan earlier had nearly reduced Lan Qiren to panic, he finds himself now grateful for it. Some good has come of it. More good will come.