......A little take on the 13 yrs Wei Ying was dead.
It was a few years after the return of Wei Wuxian when Jin Ling stumbled upon a realization. An epiphany if you will.
If you ask why it took him years then I would answer simply that he hadn't held all the pieces in hand until then. As it happened, Lan Jingyi, in one of his famous ramblings, spilled that Senior Wei doesn't remember anything from the 16 years that he had been dead. How he came upon the knowledge Jin Ling doesn't know, but knowing the both of them, it wasn't hard to imagine Lan Jingyi being blunt and straight up asking senior Wei.
That said, something in Jin Ling settled hearing it. Like pieces of puzzle finding their way home. Because, unlike Wei Wuxian, Jin Ling knew.
Knew the red energy that would show up when he needed help the most. Fierce and protective when he was in physical danger. Warm and soft when he felt all alone, emotional danger.
He always thought it was his parents. A-die and a-niang looking over him from beyond grave.
Shaking his head at his childish hopes, he accepted that his parents couldn't have been there, no matter how much he still hopes..
But he knows a person who can. One, who he, himself has seen defy death again and again.
Not to mention that the red protective ball he always finds himself in, is so, so familiar now, it could be no one else.
Wei wuxian, had spent all these years keeping him safe.
Him, not Lan Sizhui, not Lan Wangji.. Him. Jin ling.
Maybe he can tell jiujiu about his red protector now.