writer's block prompt - LQR comes off as so strict as a teacher because in his youth, he slept with half the cultivation world in a whirlwind year before events with his brother made him settle down, and he is struggling not to ask his misbehaving students if they kiss their father, who he has also kissed, with that mouth.
“Teacher Lan, is it true that the Lan sect has a journeyman stage in your disciple training?” Nie Huaisang asked, his eyes wide and innocent.
Lan Qiren’s eye twitched, Do not tell lies warring with You know exactly what you’re doing by asking that, you impertinent brat in his head, but in the end the first was a rule and the latter merely a complaint, so he sighed and said, “Yes, that’s true. Generally, our sect members will go out for a year to gain experience in the world before returning home and deciding on what they want to do.”
“Wow, that’s so interesting,” Nie Huaisang enthused, and even the other students looked interested now. “Are you still bound by your sect rules during that year? Or do you get to just go completely wild?”
“We are naturally bound by our sect rules at all times,” Lan Qiren said, wincing. “But it is admittedly quite common for young men and women to – choose to violate some of them, during that year, and to take the penalty in punishments later on instead.”
“Did you violate any rules, Teacher?” Wei Wuxian asked, like a dog catching a scent – provided that that scent was trouble. “During your year off?”
“…I was not an exception to the rule.”
Wei Wuxian looked delighted with the realization, while Jiang Cheng appeared to be questioning the basic facts of his own existence – the poor boy probably had never thought of Lan Qiren as human enough to violate a rule, and the idea of someone violating rules on purpose with the intention of repenting later had probably not occurred to him. Well, that was fine; a bit of rebellion would do the boy some good, even if only in letting out some steam before he completely lost his mind in the face of his parents’ impossible demands.
“What rule did you violate, Teacher?” Wei Wuxian asked, eyes dancing, somehow missing the way that Lan Wangji closed his eyes and very firmly started to ignore everything that was happening around him. He’d seen this scene, or variants thereof, before – it wasn’t Nie Huaisang’s first time in Lan Qiren’s classes. “Let me guess: did you wake up a half-hour late? Did you wear four adornments on your waist? Oooh, no, maybe you slouched while sitting one time –”
“I slept with your parents,” Lan Qiren said, long-suffering, and Wei Wuxian choked on his own breath. “Yes, both of them. At once, in a few instances, but also separately.”
Nie Huaisang, that brat, cackled.
“You didn’t really,” Jiang Cheng said, bravely trying to defend his brother in all but blood. “Teacher Lan, don’t joke around with Wei Wuxian like that…”
“I slept with yours, too,” Lan Qiren informed him, and Jiang Cheng’s face turned green. “If you don’t believe me, you can ask them yourself.”
Nie Huaisang was by now howling with laughter.
“Nie Huaisang…”
“An essay on Speak meagerly, I know,” he interrupted, wiping his eyes. “Just like last year. This never gets old!”
“Wait,” Wei Wuxian said, eyes narrowing. “You’ve done this before?”
“Sure have! Open secret of the cultivation world: Teacher Lan slept with everyone’s parents.”
“Not mine!” Jin Zixuan said.
Nie Huaisang gave him a pitying look.
“It’s true,” Jin Zixuan insisted. “My father only likes girls!”
“…now,” Lan Qiren said, deeply regretting – as he often did – his impetuous youth. His brother had been right about saying that he’d think back on it later and kick himself. “He only likes girls now. And your mother was very admirable when she was younger as well.”
Jin Zixuan made a strangled sound and covered his face with his hands.
Ah, well. A little bit of teenage trauma was probably good for him. For all of them, really. Maybe now they’d listen to him when he explained why the rules were so important…
