E. Hyde's Archives

It's said that the Lan It’s said that the Lan are cursed to love only once. This is false—no curse can stop the workings of a heart. The truth of the matter is this: the Lan are cursed if they love only once. Perhaps it’s an advanced form of the flower-spitting sickness. Most cultivators are immune to that disease, but the Lan are cursed to cultivate it, and while ordinary people might choke on their flowers and die, the Lan subsume them, and grow deep roots.

If their love isn’t returned by the time their loved one dies, if they still can’t let go, then eventually they’ll take root. Eventually, they’ll become a tree, indistinguishable from any other. It’s a tragic fate, but one that has overtaken enough Lans over the centuries that it isn’t horrifying anymore. Any cultivator who it happens to will be well tended in the generations to come.

Lan Wangji doesn’t take root during his three years of seclusion, but the signs are all there. He is... encouraged, to remain in seclusion, until the time comes to move into the grove. He refuses—he will remain a part of Sizhui’s life as long as he can. It’s a slow process. Even after he takes root, he’ll have years of humanity left. He encourages Sizhui to keep coming to him. His stiff, wooden fingers can’t pluck notes on the qin anymore but there’s still much he can teach. The other juniors visit, too—unusual, but it’s not against any rules. Everyone, even the elders who accept the family curse as a matter of course, seems to find it a bit disconcerting. Everyone they can remember it happening to before behaved as if they had nothing left to live for.

It’s the juniors who, after that first winter where Hanguang-jun loses his leaves and doesn’t speak a word till spring, decide that something has to be done.

The curse is almost a tradition, as much a part of the clan as the wall of rules. Trying to break it would be unthinkable. But Lan Jingyi has long since embraced his “un-Lan” moniker and Lan Sizhui, though he’s told no one else, knows he’s no Lan by blood. Maybe they’ll be expelled for it (they say, in their teenage rebellion, but really they can’t even comprehend how grateful Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen would be) but they vow to find a way.

They do not find a way. After two long years of research, they’re not even close. So in desperation, after being rescued in Mo Village by a lunatic demonic cultivator, Lan Jingyi calls out “Hey! Do you know a lot about curses?”

Wei Wuxian does, indeed, know a lot about curses, but it isn’t until the little Lans say it’s Hanguang-jun that he agrees to go back with them. He even knows about this curse. “Lan—ah, someone, caught me stealing some fruit once,” he explains. “Eventually he told me what was so special about those trees.”

Lan Jingyi and Lan Sizhui are looking at each other in horror. “Maybe...this was a bad idea,” says Lan Jingyi.

But Lan Sizhui shakes his head resolutely. “If he thinks he can help, we bring him back.”

Wei Wuxian can’t get them to tell them anything about Lan Zhan’s tragic love, which is really unfair. It must have been something special, for the curse to have come over him so fast in the time Wei Wuxian has been gone. “Well actually, we have no idea,” Jingyi finally admits. Wei Wuxian has been pestering them about it all the way back to Gusu. Sizhui stays silent—he has a guess, but even if he was sure enough to say, even if he didn’t think the name Yiling Laozu would frighten Mo Xuanyu away, it’s Hanguang-jun’s personal business and Sizhui isn’t going to violate his privacy like that.

As they reach the gates of the Cloud Recesses, Sizhui offers Wei Wuxian a chance to rest first, but Wei Wuxian waves him off. It’s funny—back when the Lans first appeared at Mo Manor, he really was hoping Lan Wangji wouldn’t show up. Now, knowing he’s cursed, he needs to see him. Needs to make sure he’ll be alright.

He follows the juniors to the back hills, to the grove.

As the founder of the demonic path, Wei Wuxian has seen a lot of horrifying curses in his time. This one horrifies him in its beauty. Lan Wangji’s lower half is all wood and bark, but there’s still the soft curve of a hip if you look at the angle right. Above the waist, he’s more human. Someone has taken care to drape white robes over his frame, but they only serve to draw attention to the misshapen angles of new branches growing from his shoulder, his back, his neck. His own arms are held stiff as branches, but far more elegant. Of course they are. They’re flesh, too, or—are they? A few extra twigs bud from his wrists. His fingers are longer than they used to be, and woody, but as his sleeves move in the breeze Wei Wuxian thinks he sees soft skin, too.

His face is still his face.

The new branches have grown high above him, spreading out their crown in the sky. A few smaller branches lift strands of Lan Wangji’s hair upwards, even though someone—one of these boys? Lan Xichen? It cannot have been Lan Wangji himself—has been keeping it brushed and tied up.

Wei Wuxian sees the flower in his hair, a magnolia blossom growing where Lan Wangji once wore a crown, before he pays any attention to the flowers in the leafy green above. Ah, he thinks. It’s that same magnolia that stood outside the library long ago. It suits him. Idly, he wonders how the curse chooses—the grove is filled with trees of all sorts, from pine to plum to loquat. Wei Wuxian cannot imagine Lan Zhan as a fruit tree.

The boys don’t look at Lan Wangji like a horror or a curiosity, they run to him like a beloved friend, and that—that puts a smile on Wei Wuxian’s face. Lan Sizhui introduces “Mo Xuanyu” and explains how he saved their lives. “He practices, um, alternate cultivation methods,” Sizhui says.

“You brought him here for me,” says Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian stifles a laugh. Apparently the juniors have not been as subtle as they thought about their rescue mission. “I appreciate your concern,” he says, and Wei Wuxian can tell he really means it. ”But there is no need.”

“But Hanguang-jun!” Jingyi protests. ”He really does know all sorts of stuff! He even raised corpses to fight the evil hand, it was really cool!”

“Ahh...Lan-gongzi,” says Wei Wuxian, “I don’t really think that’s going to endear me to your Hanguang-jun...”

But to Wei Wuxian’s surprise, Lan Wangji lets it go. “You’ve researched,” he says. “I know you have. What have you learned?”

As one, the juniors straighten up as if they’ve been given a pop quiz in class. “No one has found a way to reverse it,” Jingyi says, but Sizhui shakes his head.

“Not at this stage,” he says. “In the earlier stages, there have been a few successes. Only...only if the victim was also able to find someone else and...and move on.”

Wei Wuxian’s eyes widen as he realizes the implication. “I’m not—Lan Zhan, that’s not why they brought me here, that’s not what they asked me to do to break the curse.”

Wei Wuxian has never been in love, but part of him, maybe the part of him that still lives on in Jiang Cheng, knows that with some things there’s no turning back. And if Lan Wangji loved someone this much, Wei Wuxian couldn't think of asking him to set his feelings aside. He sighs. He wants to stay, he wants to do the research. He wants to save Lan Wangji’s life oh, so much. But—

“You won’t want me to make a puzzle of you, either, Lan Zhan,” he says. “Thank you for—for letting me see you. I’ll be going.”

Then Lan Wangji says, “Stay.”

“Of course you can stay the night,” Sizhui adds. ”You saved our lives.” He pauses. ”Hanguang-jun, which rooms should I give him?”

Wei Wuxian thinks this is an odd question to ask someone who hasn’t set foot in any room in the Cloud Recesses in years, but he understands better—and not at all—when Lan Wangji answers “the jingshi.”

Wei Wuxian tells himself he shouldn’t snoop in Lan Wangji’s old rooms for evidence of who he might have been in love with, and lasts less than an incense stick’s time. But there’s nothing there. All personal belongings have long been cleared away. He wonders if this is just a general guest room now. When he’d thought Lan Wangji was asking him to stay in his personal quarters, he’d felt strangely sentimental. Ah, well, at least it’ll be a good night’s sleep.

In the middle of the night, he’s woken by a tap at the door. It’s one of the juniors. “Lan Jingyi, right?” he asks. “Out past curfew?”

Jingyi glares up at him. “You’re not really going to give up, are you?”

Wei Wuxian likes these kids so much. “Find me an excuse to stay here and I’ll try,” he says.

“Even though Hanguang-jun said...?”

“The way I see it,” says Wei Wuxian, “if there was a well-known cure that didn’t affect his feelings, he’d have already done it. So is it that he actually wants to stay like that, or is it just that no one’s done it before?” Of course, Wei Wuxian doesn’t actually know the answer to that question. “If I find the method, maybe he’ll think about it differently.”

Jingyi nods, then says, “Alright. What about the evil arm?”

“Hm?”

“As an excuse to stay, I mean. No one knows what to do with it.”

It’s a good thought. The arm is interesting, too—probably not interesting enough to keep him here as long as it will take to break the curse, but it’s a start.

By the time Wei Wuxian wakes up again, the sun is high in the sky. He doesn’t know where any of the juniors are—probably in class—and he’s not even sure who else knows he’s here. But he knows where to find Lan Wangji, so that’s where he goes. “Good morning, Lan Zhan!” he calls from across the grove.

“It is past noon,” Lan Wangji returns.

“I guess you must have a good sense for the sun by now,” Wei Wuxian muses. The leaves and branches above Lan Wangji flutter—which Wei Wuxian realizes is from Lan Wangji’s nearly imperceptible nod. Oh, that’s actually adorable. He wants to ask what does sunlight feel like, he wants to ask do you sleep at night, do the branches hurt, can you feel the soil, are you attuned to cycles of growth and life the way I once was to death? But he said he wouldn’t do that. He’s sure Lan Wangji wouldn’t like being stared at, studied.

“So the thing is—” he begins, then launches into his thoughts about the night hunt at Mo Manor. “—the timing is too much of a coincidence,” he concludes. “Someone placed the arm there on purpose.” The biggest coincidence is his own summoning, but he can’t say that. “Where is it being held? Have you tried summoning its spirit?”

Lan Wangji pauses. “I have not played the qin in some time.”

...was that a joke? Why does Lan Wangji making a joke make him so sad?

Against his better judgment, Wei Wuxian reaches for Lan Wangji’s hand. It’s still a very human hand, despite the rough bark on the surface, despite the lengthened fingers. He could lace his own fingers in between just like normal. The tree creaks as Lan Wangji’s fingers bend slightly, weakly, almost as if they’re following the very same impulse.

Wei Wuxian pulls his hand away. “I don’t know where that came from! We’re complete strangers, after all!” But remarkably, Lan Wangji isn’t upset. He just nods once more, and they continue.

Despite the fact that Lan Wangji obviously can’t go on night hunts anymore, it seems he likes to stay up-to-date on the sect’s various investigations, especially when the juniors are involved. Of course he wouldn’t stop, Wei Wuxian thinks. And Lan Wangji agrees they should do more than just contain the hand. But Wei Wuxian isn’t expecting Lan Wangji’s suggestion that he lead the search himself, taking the juniors as backup. “We’ll come back as soon as we find anything,” he promises. “You’ll still be here, right?”

“Mn. I am not going anywhere.”

Admittedly, it was a very silly question, but Wei Wuxian can’t forget what the juniors said about winter. Well, Lan Wangji’s flowers plainly say it’s spring now. There’s plenty of time.

Wei Wuxian returns to Gusu in early summer with a severed leg in a pouch and a dizi at his waist. He’d picked it up soon after they left—if Lan Wangji was counting on him to keep his juniors safe, he’d arm himself with more than just whistles.

As soon as he makes his report to Zewu-jun, he goes to the grove. Lan Wangji’s spring blossoms have given way to verdant new growth. Where there were buds and branches almost too small to notice, there’s now an abundance of green leaves, and Wei Wuxian has to duck under a few low hanging branches in order to see his face. He wonders how Lan Wangji feels about that—forced to be so close if they want to talk at all. There’s a short leafy branch sprouting from his right eyebrow, giving him a perpetual bemused expression, and Wei Wuxian thinks it’s cute until he thinks about how it will thicken in the years to come until it covers his eye, too.

He’s going to find an answer, but right now, he doesn’t want to think about it.

“Your juniors were great, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says. “I barely had to come to their rescue at all.”

“But,” Lan Wangji asks, sensing there’s more.

“We met Jin Rulan.” He can’t conceal the emotion in his voice—but Jin Ling is Mo Xuanyu’s nephew too; it wouldn’t be strange for him to comment on their meeting.

“Ah,” says Lan Wangji, and Wei Wuxian doesn’t expect him to say any more, but then he says “Wei Ying.”

Suddenly all those branches feel less like a caress and more like a cage. Lan Wangji knows, and—

—and Wei Wuxian could easily get away before Lan Wangji has a chance to tell Lan Xichen or the juniors or anyone else—

—and that would mean never seeing Lan Wangji again.

He doesn’t want that. When he first woke up as Mo Xuanyu, he might have been content leaving everyone from his past life behind, but not after seeing Lan Wangji’s curse. Honestly, cursed or not, just seeing Lan Wangji might’ve been enough.

Anyway, mentioning Jin Ling’s name can’t have been enough to give himself away. “You already knew,” he realizes. “You knew who I was, and you sent me off with your juniors?”

“Wei Ying saved them once already,” Lan Wangji replies.

“You know,” Wei Wuxian says slowly, “I asked them once, how disciples of Gusu Lan could be so accepting of demonic cultivation. They said you taught them to look at a man’s goals before his methods. ‘Wen Xu, who burned the Cloud Recesses, followed the path of the sword,’ was what Jingyi said you told him. I never would have guessed.” He laughs. “And then Sizhui asked if he should play Clarity for me, so I guess some things don’t change.”

“And did he?”

”Mhm, he’s quite good! Did you teach him?”

“At first,” says Lan Wangji, and Wei Wuxian is brought harshly back to reality. He wonders if it’s the person Lan Wangji grew roots for who had such a profound effect on his ideas of right and wrong. Love’s supposed to do things like that, isn’t it?

He swallows. “Lan Zhan, I want to break your curse,” he says. “Not because I want to erase what someone meant to you, but—look at these kids. You’re already their best teacher, just think how amazing they’d be if you could lead them on night hunts yourself. Lan Zhan, the world shouldn’t lose you yet.”

All the leaves around him tremble like a sigh. “You . . . do not remember,” says Lan Wangji.

Should he? “Ah, you know how far gone I was, at the end. If I ever met her . . . I’m sorry. I don’t.”

Silence.

“I don’t know,” Lan Wangji finally says, ”if Wei Ying can break the curse. But stay. Try.”

After Wei Wuxian exhausts the books in the library—the juniors were right, there’s nothing helpful there, although the history is interesting—his next thought is to try Empathy. He picks the oldest looking tree in the grove: a gnarled, twisted pine, with no trace of human features remaining. But he blinks back out of his trance almost as soon as he enters it. “There’s no wayward spirit here, Lan Zhan. She’s still alive.”

“Did the books not say?” Lan Wangji asks.

“No, I—” He knew the trees were alive, obviously. He’d just thought— “I didn’t realize you wouldn’t even be able to move on.” Saying it out loud like that, it’s obvious. The whole curse is about being unable to move on, isn’t it?

Going by the records in the library, that pine has stood here for over three hundred years. “Can she hear us?”

“No, I don’t think so,” says Lan Wangji, and Wei Wuxian doesn’t know if that’s better or worse. Impulsively, he wraps his arms around Lan Wangji in a hug. His chest is as unyielding as his trunk but his arms bend ever so slightly towards him, and Wei Wuxian knows Lan Wangji would tell him if this was unwelcome. “That won’t be you,” he says. “I promise.”

Wei Wuxian has promised to take the juniors out again once they’ve recovered from their first outing, to continue investigating the mystery of the arm. As their departure approaches he spends more and more of his time with Lan Wangji. The summer nights are warm enough to sleep beneath the stars. Lan Wangji sleeps and rises with the sun, but then, he always did. One night a wild rainstorm blows through the mountains, and just as Wei Wuxian thinks Lan Wangji is going to sleep through the whole thing (lucky him), he speaks up. “You should go back to the jingshi.”

“You’re keeping me dry enough.” It’s not true—Wei Wuxian is drenched to the bone—but it feels true.

The next morning Sizhui brings clean, dry robes for Lan Wangji, and together, they help him dress. Where robes no longer fit—branches growing in ways no tailor ever accounted for—Wei Wuxian and Sizhui carefully unpick the seams. Clothing is more a courtesy than a necessity to Lan Wangji by now; torn or cut-up clothing would go against the whole point of it.

Undressed, it’s harder to pretend Lan Wangji is still human; he certainly doesn’t register as nude. Clothing had made branches into arms, placed a waist on a straight trunk. Without them—he’s just a tree, almost entirely. Across the summer, the last of his skin hardened into bark. “Let’s—let’s just get these back on you again,” Wei Wuxian says, lifting the first layer of Lan Wangji’s robes, but pauses. There’s a scar on Lan Wangji’s chest, as if someone had carved a mark there long ago. But Lan Wangji’s chest hasn’t been bark and wood long enough for that, and the mark is the sun symbol of Qishan Wen, in—near as Wei Wuxian can tell—the very same place where Wei Wuxian’s old body was branded.

Very strange.

“Mo-qianbei, I’ll fetch Zewu-jun to tie his ribbon,” Lan Sizhui says, only for Lan Wangji to say “no need.”

“Uh? You’re sure?”

At Lan Wangji’s murmur of assent, Wei Wuxian goes ahead and picks it up, and Sizhui blushes bright red.

They return from Yi City with the Ghost General as a new member of their party and every one of the Lan juniors knowing Wei Wuxian’s true name. Sizhui has spent most of the journey talking quietly with Wen Ning, but as they near the gates of the Cloud Recesses he addresses the whole group. “This is Mo Xuanyu, understand? No one speaks a word of his other name. We can’t let him be sent away! He has to stay and save Hanguang-jun!” Not a one of them argues.

“Look at all you rulebreakers,” Wei Wuxian jokes—but he’s glad. He doesn’t know what he’d do if anyone tried to make him leave. “Anyway, Hanguang-jun already knows.”

”Well of course he does,” says Lan Sizhui. Wei Wuxian can see the others’ relief—if Lan Wangji knows, then it must really be alright.

They part ways with Wen Ning outside the gates. High in the mountains, the leaves have already started turning color.

“They almost died,” Wei Wuxian confesses to Lan Wangji, later. “They almost died and Xue Yang got away and someone knows we’re looking for those body parts and I don’t even know who that someone is. And all the while I kept thinking if you were there, everything would be alright.”

“They didn’t die.” Has his voice grown weaker?

“Yeah, well, that’s mostly thanks to Wen Ning.” Whose survival another mystery all on his own.

“Night hunting with you...” Lan Wangji begins. “It’s a wish I’ve indulged in, too.”

“Not just a wish,” Wei Wuxian swears. “We’ll make it happen.”

The sun sets earlier, and rises later, and the nights are too cold to sleep outside. Wei Wuxian spends them awake in the jingshi, or the library, scribbling notes and ideas. Finally he has something.

Lan Zhan is arrayed in leaves of golden bronze, now, but they haven't started to fall. Wei Wuxian draws lines in the dirt around him, hangs talismans from every branch. Finally he activates the array. “Lan Zhan, what do you feel?”

Before Lan Wangji can speak, a shiver rustles the leaves. It’s doing something —and then every bud bursts into sudden flower, like a second spring, white and gold intermingled. “Lan Zhan, you’re beautiful,” Wei Wuxian breathes.

But still not human.

“Wei Ying,” says Lan Wangji. His voice, at least, is more vibrant, more alive. “These were meant to bloom next spring.” Does that mean—no. All it means is he has to keep trying.

That night, he catches Sizhui sneaking out of the wards after curfew. ”Where are you off to?” he asks.

”I’m going out to talk with Wen-qianbei,” Sizhui says

Huh.

“You know,” Wei Wuxian reminisces, “it was Hanguang-jun who caught me the first time I broke curfew. We fought—he was brilliant even then.”

“You didn’t think so then,” says Sizhui. “You considered him an enemy in your first life.”

“Hm? I guess that is what people say. He certainly had it out for me.” Sizhui frowns. “Can I ask you something?” says Wei Wuxian. “When you brought me here, you said Hanguang-jun would sleep through winter. Will he wake up?”

“I don’t know,” Sizhui admits. ”He’s not... very human...” He chokes out those last word, close to tears, and Wei Wuxian pulls him close. This is familiar, somehow. “It’s been a generation since anyone was cursed,” says Sizhui. “And Zewu-jun doesn’t like to talk about it.”

They hold each other in silence for a while, then Sizhui pulls away. “So,” he says. “You really can’t break it, then.”

“I tried,” says Wei Wuxian. “I promise I’m trying, I’m not going to stop trying. But if he doesn’t wake up I don’t know what I’ll do.” Does Sizhui really think Wei Wuxian considered Lan Wangji an enemy? Even in his first life, he—

Oh.

“Lan Sizhui,” Wei Wuxian says, “I think I’m in love with your Hanguang-jun.”

Sizhui looks up at him with fierce eyes. “Then tell him! Tell him how you feel, and break the curse!”

Wei Wuxian shakes his head. “I don’t think it works that way. I wish it did. But it’d have to be the one he loved and lost back then—”

Lan Sizhui cuts him off. “Wei-qianbei, you are the one he loved and lost back then!”

No, that’s—that can’t be true. If Lan Wangji felt this strongly about him, Wei Wuxian would have known. Granted, he had a lot going on, but—surely. “What...makes you say that?” he asks, weakly. “You weren’t even around back then.”

“I was around,” Sizhui says. ”Wei-qianbei, Hanguang-jun told me this soon after he took root—I think he wanted to make sure he could tell me himself. I don’t know everything, but I know I was not born to the Lan clan. He found me in the burial mounds, and brought me home, and raised me like a son.”

“In the burial mounds,” Wei Wuxian repeats. “You’re—you’re Wen Yuan, you’re A-Yuan!”

“I didn’t remember any of it,” says Sizhui. “But now I’ve met Wen-qianbei, some things are coming back.”

Lan Wangji saved A-Yuan. Wei Wuxian didn’t think he could love him any more than he already did, but he saved A-Yuan. “My little radish,” he says. “I’d never have guessed.” He sighs, though, and shakes his head. “But you know, all this proves is that Hanguang-jun is very, very good.”

“It’s true I can’t prove anything about back then,” says Sizhui. “But he let you touch his forehead ribbon. He loves you now! Wei-qianbei, until tonight I thought you just saw him as a friend, but if you love him—maybe you can break the spell, maybe not. But do you really want him never to know his feelings are returned?”

Wei Wuxian doesn’t know what to say. He knows all about not telling, about wanting him never to know. But is that really what he wants here? “Ahh, be gentle with your Wei-qianbei, I only just figured it out myself.”

“So you’ll tell him?”

“Is that—is that really what your ribbons mean?”

“You can read it on the wall of rules yourself.”

Wei Wuxian bows to Sizhui in thanks, then changes his mind and hugs him. He races back to the jingshi and finds his warmest cloak, do he can be with Lan Wangji the moment he wakes. He loves Lan Zhan, and he’s not going to let him go a moment longer than he has to without knowing that fact.

Sunrise finds Wei Wuxian curled around Lan Wangji’s trunk, cloak covered in a fine layer of dew. Petals lie scattered on the cold ground; most of the blossoms didn’t even last a day. A few leaves have fallen, too.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says as he wakes. “You don’t need to wait in the cold for me.”

“I don’t,” Wei Wuxian agrees. “But I wanted to. If you’re still here in winter I’ll wait for you till spring.” He takes a deep breath. “Sizhui thinks it’s been me all along. I told him he’s just being a romantic, but I need you to know—I need you to know I love you. I love you so much that if we never solve this, I’ll make them adopt me into the clan just so I can grow into the ground beside you.” He knows the curse doesn’t work like that but he doesn’t care, he’s the Yiling Patriarch, he can make a new curse if he has to.

“Wei Ying—” Lan Wangji’s voice is quiet, too quiet.

“And I’m not just saying this because I’m scared of losing you! I’d love you if you stood at the top of the world, I’d love you whatever!” And before he can think better of it, he stretches up and kisses him.

Lan Wangji’s lips are rough bark, his mouth as cold as the crisp autumn breeze, but he can still move enough to kiss him back. Wei Wuxian grabs a branch—one of the others, not an arm, and pulls himself higher; Lan Wangji can’t lean into the kiss but his eyes, his mouth, say he wants to. A vine, Wei Wuxian thinks, I’ll turn myself into a vine and twine around you like this forever. And as he pulls away to catch his breath, Lan Wangji says “Wei Ying. It has always been you.” Then—there’s a thunderous crash that shakes the whole grove. For one disorienting moment Wei Wuxian thinks Lan Wangji has been struck by lightning. The tree is split from top to bottom and the branch Wei Wuxian was holding hangs by just a sliver, throwing him off balance. He starts to fall back—

—and Lan Wangji reaches down to him and holds him tight.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian breathes.

Lan Wangji steps forward on legs, his own legs. His tree is still there, split down the middle and hollow, as if it had never been anything more than a cocoon, waiting for the right moment to set him free. “Wei Ying,” says Lan Wangji. He looks down at his body in wonder, then back at Wei Wuxian.

“I love you, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian repeats. “I’ll say it as many times as you need to hear it, but I’d like to finish kissing you first.”

It’s a good long while before they finish.

At first, Lan Wangji’s skin is still the texture of bark, but as they hold each other Wei Wuxian feels it turning back to skin. All but a few budding twigs fall away—but flowers continue to adorn his hair. He’s been growing in the ground for so long, he might never be completely human again, but he’s human in every way that matters.

They fail to make it back to the jingshi without being spotted by a horde of junior disciples, but Wei Wuxian waves them off with an “ask Sizhui! He’ll tell you how it happened!” Lan Wangji can greet them properly later. They’ll have a lot to do later—there’s still the mystery of the arm, and of everything that transpired to bring Wei Wuxian back. They’ll have to finally tell Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren who “Mo Xuanyu” really is; with the curse broken, there’s really no way around that.

They step into the jingshi and close the doors behind them. For now, all those other things can wait.