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Happy Valentine’s Day! All the best to you and your loved ones! Would you write something about secret identity or plots, in either Untamed or Naruto? It can be a continuation of your previous works. Thank you!

The Jiang disciples arrive at Cloud Recesses wearing sashes of mourning white.

Apparently their first disciple had recently been killed during a nighthunt gone wrong in Yiling. He’d been there with Jiang Wanyin and he’d led the creature away. They’d only been able to find pieces of his body, after.

Both Jiang Yanli and Jiang Wanyin keep to themselves that whole season, Jiang Yanli unnaturally quiet and Jiang Wanyin raging at the slightest provocation. Lan Wangji thinks of what his reaction would be to Xichen sacrificing himself to keep him safe and can’t hold it against him no matter how irritating Lan Wangji finds him.

Then there’s a war.

They don’t have enough soldiers to look over the Wen prisoners of war so instead are thrown into the Burial Mounds for demons to feast on.

They are losing the war.

The Yiling Patriarch is a rumor. A fairytale told amongst the commoners.

Everyone believes that until the Wens try to take Yiling.

Everyone believes that until the Wens fail to take Yiling.

They’ve all been losing ground to the Wens for months. They haven’t won a battle even longer.

Yet somehow the city of Yiling remains untouched no matter how fiercely they try and claim it.

Eventually, everyone gets desperate. They keep losing and so all the sect leaders send a message to the only one who keeps on winning. They send a missive to a fairytale and pray for a miracle.

The first thing that Lan Wangji notices about the Yiling Patriarch is that he can’t really notice him at all. They’re standing in the Nie banquet hall when the Yiling Patriarch walks through the doors and Lan Wangji is staring right at him yet it’s impossible for him to see the whole picture. He knows that he’s wearing black robes, that he holds a flute at his side, that he’s wearing a silver mask, that he has long hands and a full mouth. He can hold pieces of his appearance in his mind, but when he tries to pull them all together, the image slips away from him like water.

The second thing he notices is that Wen Qing is at his side.

Wen Qing was sentenced to death in the Burial Mounds month ago.

Her features are clear, her disdain in the slant of her mouth obvious. There’s already yelling, confused shouts overcoming the hall when Wen Qing says, “I speak for the Patriarch. I am his mouth.” She turns her back on Jin Guangshan and Jiang Fengmian and bows to both Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen. “Before this goes any further, we must speak to you and your heirs. Privately.”

There’s another uproar about this, but eventually the six of them are in a room alone together.

“The Patriarch had not intended to found a sect,” Wen Qing says, looking at them. “However, you kept throwing people into his domain and he elected not to let us die.”

“You control the Burial Mounds?” Nie Mingjue bursts out with.

Wen Qing doesn’t react to that. “We had hoped to avoid political matters and leave this war in your capable hands. However, as you’ve proven yourself incapable, it seems as if the Patriarch will have to enter cultivation society.” She pauses and her lip curls back. “I recommended against this course of action. I said that you were the people who had thrown my brother and grandmother to be torn apart by restless spirits and he’d be better off waiting for the Wen to wipe you out to manageable levels.” Lan Wangji feels as enraged as Nie Mingjue looks. Nie Huaisang, interestingly, hides his face behind his fan, as if he doesn’t completely disagree with this assessment. “But I want an assurance that you won’t turn on us after he’s saved your lives.”

“What did you have in mind?” Xichen asks Wen Qing politely.

She sneers and only forces it back into an appropriate shape when the Yiling Patriarch places a hand against her back. “Our price is a marriage alliance to a clan heir. If nothing else, such an arrangement will make wiping us out complicated for the other clans. Jiang Wanyin is the next Sect Leader and Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli are engaged to each other. That leaves leave the Lan and the Nie.”

“You can’t be serious?” Nie Mingjue demands, his hand clenching around his sword.

“Either Nie Huaisang or Lan Wangji will be satisfactory,” she says dispassionately. “No marriage alliance, no assistance. We can hold our own against Wen Ruohan. We don’t need to do anything about this war and we won’t. Unless our terms are met.”

Lan Wangji leaves the tent engaged to a man who’s face he hasn’t seen and who’s voice he hasn’t heard.

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“Why would either Sect Leader Lan or I agree to give up our brothers?” Nie Mingjue demands. “We’ve never seen the Yiling Patriarch on the battlefield. We have no assurance that his assistance will grant us a victory.”

It seems a reasonable question to Lan Wangji, but Wen Qing snorts. “You clearly can’t achieve victory on your own. If he doesn’t help you, you’ll surely fall, so what’s difference? If you are destined to fall, think of it as a kindness. My uncle will not take Yiling even if he marches his whole army to our borders. The safety of the Patriarch’s spouse will be guaranteed. Even if everyone else falls, at least one of your brother’s will live. Is that not worth anything to you?”

Nie Huaisang’s fan snaps shut and he bows to Wen Qing. “Lady Wen’s offer is generous and advantageous, but I must decline. My place is by my brother’s side.”

Lan Wangji hadn’t expected such a decisive response from the flighty man and he can’t help but admire it. Even Nie Mingjue seems surprised at the swiftness of his response. Lan Wangji opens his mouth to offer a similar refusal, but he doesn’t get the chance.

“We accept,” Xichen says.

“Brother!” he says harshly, shocked into rudeness.

Xichen turns to him and his face is different than he’s seen it before. Xichen looks old, suddenly, and there’s a fear and desperate hope that he’d never wanted to see on his face. It occurs to Lan Wangji for the first time that Xichen really believes they’ll lose this war.

That he really believes that they might all die, and that he cares more about securing Lan Wangji’s safety than he does the Patriarch’s help to win the war.

“We accept,” Xichen repeats softly.

Lan Wangji swallows. He is not opposed to a marriage alliance, not for something this important. He does not know what type of man the Yiling Patriarch is, but at the very least he was unwilling to leave them to their fate when Wen Qing urged him to, the woman he trusts enough to act as his voice.

He does not want to be kept some place safe off the battlefield, does not want to leave his brother to fight alone. But that the Yiling Patriarch is asking for a marriage alliance at all means he believes that there will be an after, that there will be sects that he’ll have to politic his way around.

Xichen is his brother and his clan leader and he’d prefer to fight and die by his brother’s side but this too is a kind of sacrifice, a kind of duty.

“We accept,” he echoes.

Three days later he wears a red robe and stands in front of all the clan leaders and their families and their highest ranking disciples, so there can be no doubt about what is about to occur.

He bows three times to the Yiling Patriarch and is bowed to three times in return and he is a married man.

He tries to focus on his husband’s features, tries to hold a picture of him in his mind.

His husband fidgets with his robes during the ceremony and his hair is unbraided. He is about as tall as Lan Wangji, which is unusual. His jawline is sharp.

Even as he remembers noticing these things, the sharpness of his memory fades, until he has remembered descriptions and no image to go along with it.

He’s worried that he’s going to be banished to the safety of Yiling, but instead he’s simply moved into his husband’s tent. It’s sectioned off and he has a bedroll that’s too small for two.

It’s a political marriage. It makes sense that they wouldn’t share the same bed. He thinks he’s relieved about that, but mostly he’s just tired. The war has gone on for so long. Vaguely he’d thought if he were to share his husband’s bed he might at least be able to look at his face, but when he falls asleep alone it feels neither like a victory nor a defeat.

The first battle after his marriage, Wen Qing says, “You may fight, if you wish.” Xichen look over sharply when she says that, but she waves a dismissive hand. “He’s in no danger. I didn’t go through the trouble to set up this alliance only to destroy it so easily.”

The Yiling Patriarch does not go onto the battlefield.

Instead he finds a vantage point over the battle, raises his flute to his lips, and turns the war in their favor.

Lan Wangji is an expert in musical cultivation but he’s never heard anything like this.

Vengeful spirits are summoned onto the battlefield and tear the Wen soldiers apart. As soon as they take their last breath, they’re pushed to their feet in jerky, unnatural movements. The corpses turn on their fellow cultivators, hacking at them desperately, and what they lack in skill they make up for in perseverance. No matter what the living Wens do, they can’t subdue their dead brethren.

Lan Wangji hears more than one of his own fellow soldiers getting sick at the sight, but he doesn’t pause. It turns what was surely going to be a battle they’d lose into be a battle they can win. The more Wens are killed the more Wens rise to fight on their side and Lan Wangji doesn’t let his blade pause or stutter, cutting down their enemies.

The battle is shorter and they don’t lose anyone. They leave the battlefield victorious, with the Wens retreating for once.

It’s not a war won but Lan Wangji understands now how the war will be won with the Yiling Patriarch on their side.

Xichen takes him aside and clutches his shoulders, eyes wide and face pale. “Wangji, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know. I didn’t think… I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he says.

Perhaps they hadn’t anticipated this, exactly, but they’d known a man who made his home on the Burial Mounds and who could hold a territory as large as Yiling couldn’t be using conventional cultivation techniques.

He does not know what his life will be like, after the war.

But now he knows that there will be an after, not just for him, but for his brother, his clan, for everyone else.

It does not seem to be too terrible a thing, he thinks, to be the husband to a man who has saved all the people he loves most, no matter how he has done it.

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Lan Wangji is walking with his husband and Wen Qing throughout the camp. They don’t speak, of course, and he knows this is one more thing that’s Wen Qing’s doing. It’s important for people to see them together, for people to see Lan Wangji walking by his husband’s side.

Usually the walks are quiet and quick and unremarkable except for it’s one of the few times he stands so closely to the man he married.

This one is different.

It’s a Jiang disciple that notices the assassin that has snuck into the camp.

He confronts him over not being a familiar face, not belonging, loudly enough to attract the attention of everyone nearby. Jiang Yanli hurries over, clearly thinking she needs to mediate a disagreement involving one of her disciples.

Instead the unknown man turns and unsheathes his sword, cutting down the Jiang disciple and then raising his blade against Jiang Yanli.

Lan Wangji reaches towards his sword but he knows he’s going to be too late, that they’re all going to be too late.

There’s a flash of intense heat along his side and he turns just in time to see his husband disappear into a cloud of black smoke and then Wen Qing screams, a terrible, primal sound that he hadn’t known she was capable of.

There’s a sword sticking out his husband’s chest.

The Yiling Patriarch is standing in front of Jiang Yanli, having taken the blow that would have killed her. Jiang Yanli has flinched away and it seems to take her a moment to realize she’s not in pain. She looks up as his husband stumbles and she braces herself against him, keeping him upright.

He’s distantly aware of Wen Qing running across the camp, of himself following, but he can’t take his eyes off what’s happening.

His husband forces himself upright, even as that presses the sword into him even deeper. He holds out a hand and black smoke forms around it. There’s a sword in his husband’s hand, even though there’s too much black smoke around it to make out any details. He hadn’t known that the Yiling Patriarch had a sword.

He cuts off the assassin’s head in one clean motion, sword falling from his hand and disappearing into another cloud of black smoke.

“You idiot!” Wen Qing shouts, grabbing onto his shoulders. “What were you thinking?”

Lan Wangji reaches out, but hesitates, not sure where to put his hands, if he’s allowed to put his hands anywhere.

His husband tries to push Wen Qing towards to Jiang Yanli, even though there’s still a sword sticking out of him.

“She’s fine!” Wen Qing snaps. “She’s perfectly fine because you’re an idiot, I’m not worried about her, I’m worried about you!”

Jiang Yanli is staring at the Yiling Patriarch, paler than Lan Wangji has ever seen her. She reaches out a hand and towards him and it’s trembling.

Wen Qing shakes him. “Come on, before you collapse and embarrass yourself.”

His husband looks at Jiang Yanli again then cringes into Wen Qing’s hands. Black smoke surrounds them both and Lan Wangji reaches out to grab onto one of them, but he’s too late, his hand only catching on air.

He stares at the place his husband was and barely has the presence of mind to nod at Jiang Yanli before he’s running. Surely they didn’t go back to Yiling, that has be harder, right? But he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know anything about his husband’s cultivation. He doesn’t know how he managed to keep standing through a killing blow and doesn’t know if it’s a wound that his husband is capable of surviving.

Lan Wangji wrenches the tent open and sees his husband laying on the ground and catches sight of his bare and bloody chest before it swims out of focus again. “Out,” Wen Qing orders sharply, not looking up at him as she presses his skin together.

“Please,” he says, surprised at the desperation in his own voice. “Let me help.”

She looks up at him, scowling, then gestures him over with a jerk of her head. “You won’t be any good if you can’t focus. Don’t look at his face.”

He sits beside her and doesn’t understand when she means, but keeps his gaze on his husband’s torso, trying to keep it in focus but as soon as he manages it then it slips away again. Then it comes into sharp focus. He can see his husband perfectly. The blood and terrible wound, the richness of the black silk of his robes, his tan skin and the sharp cut of his hips. He sees Wen Qing place a silver mask on the ground and understands. The enchantment that makes it impossible for anyone to remember his husband’s features is connected to that mask. Wen Qing must have her own way to see past it.

He’s aware that his husband’s face is bare, that he could look up and see what he looks up and actually be able to remember it. But he remembers Wen Qing’s order and obediently keeps his gaze below his husband’s neck.

Lan Wangji can’t betray his privacy, not like this, not when he’s lying here gravely injured from saving someone’s live.

“Just hold the wound open and press it together when I say,” Wen Qing orders. “He heals quickly enough that if I can just make sure everything’s in the right place, he might survive this.”

He doesn’t understand, still, but does as he’s told. Wen Qing sticks instruments and needles inside his husband, performing surgery in a way that he’s never seen before, but it seems like she cares less about infection and bloodloss than she does rearranging his insides, which is a terrible thought. But he understands, almost.

That’s how medics have to treat his wounds too. Although he’s never been as gravely injured as this.

His husband’s spiritual energy rolls off him in waves and Lan Wangji wonders if this is something else the enchantment conceals or if it’s only so obvious now because he has his hands on his husband’s skin.

“Now,” she snaps as soon as her hands are clear, and he’s pressing the wound together, keeping it that way as Wen Qing quickly sews it closed with quick stitches.

She picks up his wrist and presses her fingers to his pulse. Lan Wangji can’t help but notice the callouses on his husband’s hands. “Will he live?”

“This isn’t the worst thing he’s survived,” she says, which is another terrible thought. “If he lives to morning he’ll be fine in a couple days. Then I’m going to kill him.”

He says nothing as she places the silver mask back on his husband’s face and his vision swims in front of him, once again making it impossible to see the Yiling Patriarch as more than a collection of pieces.

His husband is still alive come morning and Lan Wangji tells himself the heavy relief he feels is because they need him to win this war.

Wen Qing pulls several needles from his neck and his husband shifts and slowly pushes himself upright and Lan Wangji understands then that his husband’s unconsciousness had not been a natural thing.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Wen Qing snaps. “You’re impossible to work with when you’re awake. I should snap your neck. What would I have told A-Yu- what would I have told everyone if you’d died? Moron!”

She slaps him upside the head and he shrugs and pats her shoulder. Wen Qing’s hands twitch like she’s thinking of wrapping them around his throat and Lan Wangji once again feels like an outsider with them, because that’s what he is, but for the first time he doesn’t want to be.

Later that day Jiang Yanli comes to their tent, a tray in her hands. No one has dared come to the Yiling Patriarch’s tent, not even Xichen, who has more right than anybody else.

His husband turns his back to her but then seems to realize there’s nowhere in the tent he can go and she’s blocking the exit.

“I wanted to thank the Patriarch for helping me,” she says, her head held high.

“I already told your brother and father that that’s unnecessary,” Wen Qing says coldly. “We are allies, after all.”

Jiang Yanli doesn’t back down. Instead she looks past Wen Qing to the Yiling Patriarch’s back. “It’s just a small thing,” she continues, “but I’ve made you lotus root and pork soup.”

Lan Wangji’s looking for it so he sees the way his husband almost turns around before stopping himself.

Wen Qing isn’t even facing him but she sighs and holds out her hands. “He will accept it.”

Jiang Yanli places the tray in her hands, stands there another long moment with a look on her face he can’t explain. Then she bows to them before leaving, her eyes lingering on his husband until the last moment.

“You have to be more careful,” Wen Qing says. It seems strange to Lan Wangji for Wen Qing to scold him again for recklessly endangering his life to save Jiang Yanli’s, but that’s not what he’s focusing on right now.

His husband shrugs then reaches out, carefully picking up the bowl of soup from the tray.

Lan Wangji looks at the way he gently cradles the bowl between his hands, thinks of how he’d thoughtlessly taken a sword for Jiang Yanli, how he’d wanted Wen Qing to check her over first, and something sours at the bottom of his stomach.

The Patriarch’s choice of spouse had come down to him or Nie Huaisang because Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan are promised to one another. Perhaps he would have been equally indifferent to all of them, it would have mattered to him as little as it had when he’d told the Nie and Lan to decide amongst themselves which heir he’d marry.

But perhaps not.

The evidence seems rather damning, after all.

His husband is in love with Jiang Yanli.

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The war is won.

The Wen soldiers are all dead. The civilians still live, which many of the clans are furious about, but Wen Qing had ordered them to remain unharmed. Wen Qing is the Yiling Patriarch’s mouthpiece and after watching him win the war, they’re not willing to go against him over it, not when they know he could turn that strange cultivation onto them.

The need for a marriage alliance had become increasingly obvious as the war progressed, as the awe turned to disgust and settled on a pitiful mixture of envy and fear.

Wen Ruohan is dead, killed by the hands of Meng Yao.

It is a comfort to some people, that the final blow was not dealt by the Yiling Patriarch, although Nie Mingjue is furious. Jin Guangshan publicly invites his illegitimate son to join his clan, his eyes gleaming at the idea of claiming Meng Yao’s small piece of glory for himself, and Lan Wangji has to struggle to keep his face blank. He knows what Meng Yao did to the Nie clansmen, and it is reprehensible, but so are the actions of Jin Guangshan.

Meng Yao still has Wen Ruohan’s blood on his hands, the body is still cooling, and the battlefield is littered with all their dead and all their living, watching them. The clan leaders are here, their senior disciples hovering nearby. Jiang Fengmian is leaning heavily against his son’s side, and perhaps the way he winces is because of his injury, and not at the crassness of Jin Guangshan, but perhaps not.

Instead of accepting the offer, instead of taking his place among his father’s clan like Meng Yao has always infamously wanted, he looks Jin Guangshan in the eye and says, “I must decline your generous offer, Clan Leader Jin.”

For a moment, there is only shocked silence.

“Insolent son of a whore,” Jin Zixun hisses, “Who are you to deny him?”

Jin Zixuan, to his credit, is already reaching for his cousin, but it’s not enough to stop him. Jin Zixun raises his sword against Meng Yao. Xichen and several Nie clansmen move to stop him, but it ends up being unnecessary.

His sword freezes midstrike, black smoke curling around the edges.

Meng Yao hadn’t even flinched, as if that’s what he’d expected to happen.

“He’s ours,” Wen Qing says.

His husband pulls an outer robe from his pouch as he steps forward, dropping it over Meng Yao’s shoulders. It comes into clear detail then, when it’s no longer in his husband’s hands. The robe is of a similar black silk with silver and red embroidery that Wen Qing wears, that he thinks his husband wears.

It fits Meng Yao. Wen Qing is slimmer than he is and the Yiling Patriarch is taller. This is not simply a robe, but his robe.

“You were kind enough to let me live, Sect Leader Nie,” Meng Yao says as he takes a careful step backward, away from all of them and to the Yiling Patriarch’s side, Wen Qing shifting to make room for him and not reacting at all when the Yiling Patriarch wraps in arm around Meng Yao’s shoulders, slumping enough to give the impression of leaning on the smaller man without actually putting any of his weight on him. Lan Wangji feels a familiar sensation burn in his chest that he’s used to feeling only when he notices Jiang Yanli staring at his husband. “However, one of your senior disciples was not so gracious. I was marched in with the rest of the prisoners to the Burial Mounds.”

“This whole time?” Xichen asks, and Lan Wangji is startled at the surprise in his brother’s tone. “That’s not possible.”

Meng Yao’s face softens as he looks to Xichen. “Did you not wonder in who’s caves you resided? Who provided the food and fresh water? Who prevented the Wen soldiers from finding you?” He paused. “You were delirious for much of it, but you must remember. I found you in the tunnels under Yiling.”

“We sent Meng Yao to investigate when the perimeter wards went off and he insisted that we take care of you, in spite of the risk,” Wen Qing says coldly. “The Yiling Patriarch allowed Meng Yao to care for you. I made the medicine he gave you myself.”

Several pieces fall into place and Lan Wangji finally understands what they’re talking about. Those months his brother spent in hiding and the person who helped him. Meng Yao had saved his brother, but apparently not on his own.

The Yiling Patriarch had sheltered Lan Xichen in the cave system under Yiling years before joining the war properly, even through the risks from both the other clans and the Wens.

His husband had won the war and saved Lan Wangji’s brother and was, in fact, responsible for Wen Ruohan’s death, because Meng Yao was one of his people.

“We had hoped to avoid the war,” Wen Qing continues, “but it was Meng Yao who convinced us otherwise.”

His husband went to war on Meng Yao’s word. His husband, when pulled between the council of Wen Qing and Meng Yao, chose the latter.

Meng Yao tilts his head down then looks up at all them from below his eyelashes. “As you see, I cannot accept your generous offer, Sect Leader Jin. I belong to the Patriarch.”

His husband’s shoulder’s shake like he’s laughing, but he tugs Meng Yao flush up against his side, and Wen Qing rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t seem at all surprised by this behavior.

Lan Wangji supposes that Meng Yao is rather pretty, with his delicate features and small stature, if one were into that sort of thing.

Jiang Yanli has those same features, wide eyed and beautiful and small.

Lan Wangji knows there are still important issues to discuss, that this revelation will anger several of the clans, that there’s a strange look on his brother’s face that probably requires his attention, however.

However.

Circumstances prevent his husband and Jiang Yanli from being together.

Circumstances do not prevent the same for him and Meng Yao.

He grinds his teeth together and keeps his face blank and tells himself that it doesn’t matter.

This is just a political marriage, after all.

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The war is won and it’s time for Lan Wangji to go to his new home.

“You can’t visit too soon,” Wen Qing tells Xichen, although not without sympathy. “It’ll look bad. Come when the season changes and bring the rest of your brother’s things. It’s still a little soon, but having an excuse helps.”

Lan Wangji had already had so many of his things with him do to the war that there was no reasonable way to justify stopping at Cloud Recesses instead of going straight to the Burial Mounds.

Xichen agrees, although there’s a tightness around his eyes that Lan Wangji wishes he could do something about.

Meng Yao, now properly outfitted in the black and red silks of the Patriarch’s people, smiles at Xichen and says, “Don’t be upset. We’re not going to hide him away forever. He’ll always be your brother, after all.”

Xichen’s relaxes and his whole face softens as he says, “Thank you, A-Yao.”

Wen Qing huffs and his husband twirls his flute in his hands and then they’re off, heading towards the Burial Mounds.

Jiang Yanli’s watches them go, her eyes firmly glued his husband like they have been so often after he’d saved her life. Lan Wangi does what he always does, which is nothing.

The people of Yiling cheer when their Patriarch returns.

Wen Qing rolls her eyes and Meng Yao waves to all the civilians with a bland, benign smile. His husband doesn’t do anything at all. Lan Wangji can’t help but wonder how much of his husband they can see, how much of him they remember, and how much of him is obscured by the enchantment on his silver mask.

Eventually, they enter the Burial Mounds, and Lan Wangji tries not to react the oppressive weight of the resentment energy bearing down on them. None of his companions act as if there’s anything at all, although they must feel it.

“If you walk in with that mask on, you know they’ll all make fun of you for it,” Meng Yao says as they’re climbing up the mountain.

His husband pauses. “Oh, right,” he says, and Lan Wangji nearly trips. He’s never heard his husband speak before. His voice is mellow and warm, nothing like the screeching terror some people at the camp had speculated he sounded like.

His husband reaches behind his head and pulls the ribbons free, pulling off his mask in one smooth motion. Lan Wangji is staring, make sure he doesn’t miss a second of it.

He would not consider himself a shallow person. It would not matter to him what his husband looked like, only the contents of his character, which he’s already demonstrated is very attractive.

However.

His husband is handsome.

Very handsome.

His long hair is held up by a single red ribbon and he has high cheekbones and plump lips with bright, mischievous eyes that meet his gaze head on. “Not too disappointed, I hope,” his husband teases, although there’s a thread of real uncertainty there.

“No,” Lan Wangji says, “not at all.”

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The sun has yet to set, but a red lantern hangs from a tree on their path.

His husband pauses, his fingertips ghosting over the red paper, and his mouth pulls into a small smile. “What’s this for?”

“You get lost so often,” Meng Yao says blandly. “Maybe they were just worried you wouldn’t know the way home.”

His husband rolls his eyes and they continue moving. More red lanterns hang in the trees, guiding them to wherever it is that the Yiling Patriarch’s people called home. He’d thought they’d stay in the town, but at the same time hadn’t been surprised when they’d entered the Burial Mounds.

Lan Wangji hears the people before he sees them. There are sounds of talking and laughter, sounds that he does not associate with the Burial Mounds. The forest falls away quickly and there, on the edge of the mountain, is a whole other village.

People wear black robes and ribbons over their Wen red. There are cultivators practicing in the yard and farmers hauling carts of food and in the distance he can just barely see the sun reflecting off the rice paddies. The buildings are made of unweathered wood and the pathways are laid from fresh stone.

“They’ve been busy,” his husband says softly, eyes wide and warm.

Meng Yao shields his eyes from the sun. “I’m glad the gardens worked out. I was worried about that when I left. Good job on not ruining that.”

His husband laughs, the sound light and carrying and attracting the attention of several villagers.

“Well, I imagine there was time for building once we got the food into the ground,” Wen Qing says, rolling her eyes. “You knew they weren’t just going to sit around waiting for us to come back.”

“He’s back!” An old man yells, nothing frail about the way his voice carries across the village. “Our patriarch is back! Master Meng and Lady Wen are back!”

People are cheering and pressing forward, grins lighting their faces, and Lan Wangji stiffens and has to take a deep, slow breath to remind himself that these are just civilians, that this many people charging towards him isn’t an attack.

People are parting, laughing as they step aside, and Lan Wangji is expecting it to be for some sort of elder or leader, for whoever kept the village running in his husband’s absence. But instead it’s a boy who can’t be more than seven or eight running forward, gripping a toddler’s hand who’s struggling to keep up. “Baba! Gege! Aunty!”

“I’m always last,” Wen Qing sighs and Meng Yao laughs. Lan Wangji doesn’t understand.

His husband leans down, bracing himself for when the children come running into his arms. The older boy throws his arms around his neck while the younger wraps himself around his leg. “Baba, Baba, you’re back!”

This boy is obviously talking to his husband.

His husband has a son. Two sons, even.

This time Lan Wangji has to take a slow, calming breath for an entirely different reason.

“I told you I would be, didn’t I?” his husband asks, wrapping one arm around the elder boy’s back and reaching out to ruffle the hair of the other child. “A-Yuan, you’ve gotten so big! Who told you that you could grow while I was gone? You weren’t supposed to do that until I got back!”

The toddler giggles and presses his face into his husband’s thigh.

“What about me, Baba?” the older boy presses, stepping back so he can get a good look at him. “I got bigger too, right?”

“You did, Xuanyu,” his husband says warmly. “I should punish you for it. Who told you that you could?”

“Uncle,” he answers promptly. “He said that if I didn’t eat all my vegetables it would stunt my growth and I’d never get any bigger and then I’d only ever get as tall as Gege.”

His husband tries to disguise his laugh as a cough and doesn’t do a very good job of it. Wen Qing doesn’t even bother.

“Did he say that?” Meng Yao asks pleasantly. “I’ll have to thank him for that.”

His husband says, “Be nice! He’s only looking out for the children.”

“I’m always nice,” he says in return. Both his husband and Wen Qing raise an eyebrow. Meng Yao huffs and holds out his arms. “What about me, A-Yu? Didn’t you miss your elder brother?”

“Yes, ge!” he shouts, running forward to throw his arms around Meng Yao’s waist. There’s ripple of laughter from the villagers, who are watching them but are letting the children have their reunion in peace.

Lan Wangji doesn’t understand.

“Where’s your sister?” Meng Yao asks. “You didn’t leave her in a field again, did you, Xuanyu?”

“I was just trying to help her grow!” he protests. “Baba planted A-Yuan so I was planting her!”

His husband groans and Lan Wangji tries to control his face. These children must have a mother. Where is she? Is she also married to the Yiling Patriarch? Is she some sort of concubine? Is she the one who has ran the village in the Patriarch’s absence?

If his husband already has such a woman by his side, then what use can he have for Lan Wangji?

A baby’s cry pierces the air and a young man with a baby in his arms hurries forward.

Wen Ning looks different than Lan Wangji saw him last. He moves confidently and easily, dressed in black and silver robes embroidered in silver.

His husband lights up. “A-Ning! Is that my baby?” He looks down and smiles at A-Yuan, who returns it with a gap toothed grin. “My other baby.”

“I’m not a baby,” his eldest says proudly from where he’s hanging off of Meng Yao.

“You’ll always be my baby A-Yu,” his husband says, reaching out to pinch his cheek. His son squeals and ducks behind Meng Yao.

“No, it’s some other man’s baby I’m carrying,” Wen Ning says, deadpan. Everyone laughs but Lan Wangji’s eyes narrow. Wen Ning still has the same soft, sweet features he had when he studied at Cloud Recesses. Just like Meng Yao and Jiang Yanli.

Wen Ning carefully places the wailing baby in his husband’s arms. He shushes and rocks her, saying, “Oh, my little A-Qing, look how much you’ve changed! I was only gone for a few months, how could all my children betray me by growing so much? It’s very unfilial of you all.”

A-Yuan tilts his head back to give his husband a watery, disapproving look and Lan Wangji feels his heart melt. They’re only children, after all. His is a political marriage that his husband hadn’t planned on having to make. The eldest is older than this war.

He and the children’s mother will just have to find a way to exist with one another.

The baby eventually quiets, turning to tug on his husband’s robes.

A-Yuan is still clutching onto his husband’s leg, but he puts himself on his tip toes and asks, “Baba, who’s that?”

Lan Wangji becomes very aware of the child’s hand pointing at him and of having the village’s undivided attention. He doesn’t know what they’ve been told of their Patriarch’s marriage, but he’s sure at least most of them know who he is. The cultivator’s do, at the very least.

“Ah.” He trades a series of looks with Meng Yao and the Wen siblings that makes Lan Wangji distinctly uncomfortable. “This is Lan Wangji, the second jade of Lan.” He swallows and Lan Wangji gets the pleasurable experience of watching a flush crawl it’s way up his husband’s face. “He’s my husband.”

Lan Wangji feels an answering heat crawling its way up his face and his husband’s lips quirk into a grin.

“Does this mean he’s our mom?” Xuanyu asks. “Granny’s always saying you have to get us a mother so you can make more brothers and sisters for us.”

There’s another round of laughter and his husband hands A-Qing to Wen Qing so he can bury his face in his hands.

“I don’t see why he’d need to get married for that,” Meng Yao says dryly. “He got the lot of you just fine without it. And you even came pre-made.”

“You’re the one who brought me A-Yu!” his husband protests. “You started this since you’re the one who gave me my first child.”

Meng Yao blinks and then stares off into the distance. “If only you could have said that in front of my father.”

Ah. It sounds as if – he could be wrong, of course, but by the way they’re speaking, well. It sounds as if the children have no mother. As if they’re adopted.

The relief he feels is entirely selfish and inappropriate, but he can’t help it.

“Mama?” They all look down at A-Yuan who’s still pointing at him with a confused frown. “He’s Mama?”

“Oh, no baby,” his husband says, although it comes out muffled since his face is still in his hands.

“Then what is he then?” Xuanyu demands. “If he’s your husband.”

“I, he’s – what I mean is,” his husband starts, then stops, lifting his head to stare at Lan Wangji with a helpless look that he can’t help but feel warmed by.

He hadn’t thought about children before. He was too young before and then there was the war. But these are his husband’s children.

These are his children.

He lowers himself down to one knee so he’s closer to the child’s height and meets his gaze to say solemnly, “I am your father’s husband. So I will also be a father to you.”

He hopes he’s not being too presumptuous, but when he risks a glance at his husband’s face, he’s smiling, so he doesn’t think he is. It may be a political marriage, but it’s still a marriage, this is still the man he’ll spend the rest of his life with and the children he’ll see grow up. It would be insult to them for him to be anything less another parent.

Xuanyu frowns and lets go of Meng Yao to go running over to him, barely stopping short of running into him and looping a skinny arm around his shoulder. “What should we call you then?”

“Can’t be Baba,” A-Yuan pipes up with. “Baba is Baba.”

“Aunty and I called our father A-die,” Wen Ning offers. “Why don’t you call him that? Baba and A-die.”

“A-die,” Xuanyu says slowly before nodding. “Okay! I like it. A-Yuan, this is A-die. Come here and say hi.”

“It’s alright if he doesn’t want to,” Lan Wangji starts, but before he can continue there’s a toddler impatiently hoisting himself on to his knee.

Lan Wangji wraps an arm around him to steady him and A-Yuan looks back at him with a grin and says, “Hi A-die.”

“Hello,” he says, and he can feel his mouth pull into an answering smile that he couldn’t stop even if he wanted to.

“What does Baba call you?” Xuanyu asks. “You have to be nice to him. Granny says he needs to get married so he has a wife to take care of him, so you have to take care of Baba.”

“A-Yu!” his husband yelps while Meng Yao ducks behind Wen Ning, as if him being out of sight will muffle his laughter.

Lan Wangji flushes but answers honestly, “I’ll do my best.”

Xuanyu seems satisfied by that. One of the villagers yells out, “Master Wei is finally listening to his elders!”

“Oy, uncle! Be nice to me,” his husband complains and there’s more laughter.

“Master Wei?” Lan Wangji repeats slowly.

“Oh, yeah,” his husband says carelessly. “They tried calling me sect leader, but we’re not really a proper sect, so I told them to call me something else.”

“And what shall I call you?” he asks, voice measured. Wei. If nothing else, he at least has part of his husband’s name.

His husband stills and he rubs a hand over his face, a look on it that Lan Wangji doesn’t understand. “Oh. Right. Uh, don’t – don’t use it outside of the village, but everyone here already knows, so. You can call me Wei Wuxian. It’s my name, so.”

“Wei Wuxian,” Lan Wangji repeats, savoring the way his husband’s name feels in his mouth.

Wei Wuxian goes an even deeper shade of red and then the villagers are pressing forward, slapping all of them on the back and picking up the kids and ushering all of them forward, directing them to the feast they’d prepared for their return.

Wei Wuxian.

Lan Wangji is almost certain he’s heard that name before, he just doesn’t know where.

shanastoryteller

They share a home with the Wen.

Wei Wuxian has a sprawling manor that sits higher up the mountain than the rest of the village so it’s possible to see everything from the front of the house. There’s a dark stone path leading up to it and a cave entrance near the back that’s covered in several protective talismans so only his husband can access it, although after seeing how eager Xuanyu is to get into absolutely everything, Lan Wangji isn’t sure if it’s to protect his privacy or to just keep his son out.

His room is very nice. It’s in the same wing as his husband’s and the children’s rooms, and he tries to take comfort in that. He’d thought that, perhaps, now that the war is over, they might share a room, but – but, they’re not, and that’s fine. This is a political marriage, after all. And Meng Yao and Wen Ning are right here, if his husband wants them.

“This place is too big for just us,” Wei Wuxian complains at breakfast, flashing a smile at the servants as they lay out the dishes.

“You may not care about decorum, but everyone else does,” Meng Yao says. “You’re our leader and it’s only proper. Besides, you can’t raise your kids in a cave.”

Meng Yao has his own more modest home on the path midway between the village and Wei Wuxian’s – between the village and their home. However, he’d walked in this morning and settled down next to Wen Ning as if it were commonplace. Xuanyu grabs his sleeve and sprawls against his back and tugs on his hair, all things that Meng Yao ignores with an air of practiced ease.

“The cave wasn’t terrible,” Wen Ning says, wiping A-Yuan’s mouth with one hand and pouring tea with the other.

Wen Qing raises an eyebrow. “The cave was atrocious. It was just the only place that wasn’t constantly under attack from fierce corpses.”

“I personally was a big fan of not being attacked by fierce corpses, even if the décor left something to be desired,” Meng Yao says, picking Xuanyu up by the back of his robes and settling him in the seat next to him. “Enough of that. Eat your breakfast.”

“Or I won’t get any taller than you?” he asks.

Meng Yao’s eyes narrow while Wen Ning ducks his head down and Wei Wuxian laughs outright. A-Qing makes discontent noises as her father’s chest jumps underneath her and his husband muffles his laughter and rubs her back until she calms down.

Something in Meng Yao’s face has Xuanyu reaching for his chopsticks and stuffing food into his mouth.

“Did you collect and read the reports from the uncles and Granny already or did you get a decent night’s sleep?” Wei Wuxian asks.

Meng Yao sniffs. “Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”

“Getting a proper night’s sleep is important,” Wen Ning says earnestly.

“Yeah,” Wen Qing continues, “lack of proper sleep can stunt your growth, you know.”

Lan Wangji is certain that A-Yuan and Xuanyu’s presence is the only thing that keeps Meng Yao from cursing.

They’re all so comfortable with each other. They all fit with one another.

He doesn’t. Not yet.

These people and this house is going to be the rest of his life. He has to find a way to fit.