Thread by @enigmatree

Okay-- another #WarprizeJiSeason idea: WWX, at the end of all possible choices, Shijie dead, the Wens gone, his reputation in tatters, activates the one enormous array he kept hidden from all. Time-space travel magic.

Take me back to when they were all alive, he screams at it.

But unbeknownst to him, it is impossible for two versions of a person to exist in the same universe. But WWX is desperate, and his array is a result of incredible, mad force. Instead of inactivating, the array shoots him to a different universe-- one where WWX died at age five.

It cannot be said that the array failed.

Every single objective that WWX wove into its soul is met: WWX is in another place, where he isn't known or feared. Everyone he wanted alive is alive. The folding of space and time has been broken through.

Work done, the array vanishes.

For a few months, WWX doesn't even know what the array did. He roams the Burial Mounds --once again untamed-- and soothes its painful lashing. He builds houses and walls and forts with the restless dead he comforted, brick by brick. Just in case, he thinks. If the Wens need it--

He wouldn't really know, anyways.

He went back in time --he must have, he must-- but he hasnt left the Burial Mounds once. He has sent the dead out to find food, has sent the dead around to get stones, has told the dead; I will help you. Help me too.

And the dead has said yes.

And so, for months, he forces himself to stay.

He thinks, they must be alive, it's better this way, I should NEVER have left the Burial Mounds, I won't ruin them this time, I won't ruin them, not again.

I should NEVER have left.

But eventually--

Well.

It makes sense, doesn't it?

Uncertainty is fear. Uncertainty has always been too terrifying to endure.

"...just one look," WWX murmurs to himself, stepping past the boundry with shadows clinging to him, "I'll just see if they're alright and come back."

But out there, WWX finds a horrible, abominable world where the evil grandmaster of demonic cultivation never appeared to turn the tides of war.

He walks out of the Burial Mounds through forests and valleys, uncaring of which yao or gui might appear in their depths-- he's more frightening than anything that might haunt these lands.

He walks towards Yunmeng, walks past Jiangnan, walks--

There, at the passage, is an army.

WWX, and the shadows dogging his steps, stops.

It's an army clad in white and red, a sun blazing on their banners as soldiers on horses drag lines of fouled people tied up to each other. The people are unremarkable. The soldiers, WWX is focused enough on JYL to not care.

But someone is there, staggering on bloody legs, once-white robes crusted brown and red, face blank, hazy, hair messy and cut short--

And WWX snaps out of his anxiety for Shijie into a fury so fierce it ripples through the army he himself in carrying behind him.

Lan Zhan.

How dare they, how dare they, how dare they, how DARE THEY--

WWX takes a single step towards the Wen army, and the resentful dead at his back rushes towards it like a plague of locusts.

Before the hour is over, the Wen army is gone. In its place: blood stains on the dirt.

And the slaves are still tied to each other, shivering and soiling themselves in the midst of the dead surrounding them.

WWX walks through the corpses and ghouls to reach them. Lan Zhan, he thinks desperately, and he finds him standing shakily in front of the other prisoners.

"...We--" LWJ murmurs, his voice hoarse and raw, wavering on what is clearly a crippled leg, "We are not of the Wens."

"I know," WWX tells him, approaching slowly.

"Are you a demon?" Someone whispers from behind LWJ.

"Who are you allied to!" Someone else asks, trembling.

But WWX doesn't care about them. He can't find the breadth in himself to do so. He has erased the Wen army from existence but his head is still ringing; How dare they, how dare they, how dare they--

"..." LWJ opens his mouth to speak, but his body betrays him, pitching forward.

The ropes around his arm drag the slave tied next to him forward as he falls, and WWX cuts off the ropes with one hand at the same time as he catches LWJ in his other.

"Lan-xiansheng?!" The slave exclaims.

WWX cradles LWJ closer, scooping his body --bony, too wry-- up.

"Lan Zhan..." He whispers, looking down at LWJ's beautiful dirt-smudged face scrunched in pain, the night black hair cropped short with a knife, or a sword. A punishment, perhaps, meant to humiliate.

The dead around him are screaming, so WWX forces himself not to think about it.

"W-what are you going to do with him?" One of the braver prisoners manages to ask, shivering like a leaf, "G-give him back, please..."

"Who are you?" WWX demands.

"J-Jin Mei...Meiyue," The woman says.

WWX's eyes flash red, every hair on his body standing. A Jin dares to--!

"Wait, wait!" Another slave pulls Jin Meiyue back, shaking in place himself, "We-- we're thankful. For great master saving us! Please spare her! Please. We're sorry!"

WWX glances at him. Then at the rest of the prisoners. They're huddled together, not daring to meet his eyes.

Just like that day, at the Nightless City. Maybe it's destined to be.

WWX holds LWJ more gently and turns around. The Jin woman shouts behind him.

"Wait! Lan-xiansheng--!"

"I'm taking him," WWX laughs, harsh, "Does he have anywhere else to go but with me?"

She can't answer.

As expected. The Cloud Recesses, burnt down. The Wens, winning. LXC missing, LQR injured, QHJ dead.

Has JC been able to recover Yunmeng alone, or is he also injured and enslaved? Is Lotus Pier still home to those cockroaches that call themselves Wen?

WWX cradles LWJ close.

"Leave," He tells the rest of the slaves as he walks away with his ghosts, his voice so cold he barely recognises himself. What has he done? What has he done?

"Please--"

"Leave and tell them," WWX says, the dead tittering around him, "The Yiling Patriarch is coming for them."

----

LWJ, when he wakes up from the fever that kept him asleep for three days, is silent. He doesn't protest bedrest. He doesn't begrudge the ghouls acting as friend and servant to WWX. He doesn't ask WWX who he is, despite the fact that he has never met him before.

He eats the food. He sleeps at nine and wakes at five. He watches with placid eyes as WWX smears medicine on the wound over his cheek, sitting up in the bed.

He doesn't ask about the palace around them. He doesn't ask about WWX's eyes, red. He doesn't ask whether he can leave.

"Do you want to go?" WWX asks him instead, as he carefully rubs the medicine with his thumb, hand on LWJ's jaw.

LWJ looks at him, the soft edges of his short hair brushing against WWX's wrist. "Where?" He asks quietly.

WWX pauses.

Then, humming, he goes back to work. "Okay."

Almost everything that they use to fill the obsessive number of buildings that WWX has ended up with on the Burial Mounds comes from Wen Supervisory Offices that WWX destroys. He had handed the riches to Yunmeng Jiang, last time. This time, there IS no Jiang Sect to support.

He hasn't managed to find JYL and JC yet. Most members of the four great clans seem to have either died off or hidden, and WWX hopes for the sake of all of China that his sect siblings are not part of the dead. He hasn't seen any Wen celebrations yet, so he holds strong.

In the mean time, there is the wrong WWX has to right, and there is LWJ.

LWJ, who needs help walking, because his leg --already broken even before the Wens found him trapped in the Xuanwu's cave and decided to use him as servant and punching bag-- is still a long way to healed.

LWJ, who doesn't protest being served by the dead, but is still clearly uncomfortable with them touching him.

LWJ, who is clearly ashamed of his short hair and barely longer bangs, and closes his eyes while WWX helps him wash and brush it, and who thanks WWX for it anyways.

LWJ, who sits in the bathtub of hot water behind the folding screen, his silhouette blurred by the steam, and asks WWX, now that WWX is back from another short battle with the Wens, "...my family?"

WWX sits at the table and tilts his cup of wine. "I'm sorry," He says. "Not yet."

After the Wen Indoctrination ended with all the heirs except for LWJ managing to run away, with LQR the only one left in the CR, Jiang Sect was the first sect destroyed. That's what WWX has managed to learn. The second was the Lan Sect. LQR, like LXC, JYL, JC, is still missing.

"I'll kill them all," WWX whispers, fingers clenching around the wine cup so hard that it spills off and the sharp-nailed ghost smiles sharply before she leans to pour him more wine.

"I know," LWJ says.

WWX lets out a breath. "They might know more of Gusu, eastward. Next time."

There is a splash, and before WWX can do more than look over at the folding screen, LWJ is leaning on the arm of a fierce corpse to walk to the table.

"Lan Zhan?" WWX downs the wine and drops the cup down, "Need help?"

LWJ shakes his head and sits next to WWX. "Not now."

When LWJ settles in a manner that won't hurt his leg, he's so close their thighs touch. WWX tilts his head down to watch him lean over the table; in just his white inner robe, bath warm and damp, LWJ looks softer than anything WWX remembers. He smells like freesia soap.

LWJ puts WWX's dropped cup back in front of WWX. He glances at the ghost hovering behind them, and whatever his gaze does, the ghost grins again and raises her two arms up, offering the bottle of wine to LWJ's hands. Through no intention of WWX, the undead hastily leave the room.

Holding the hem of his sleeve back, LWJ pours the wine into WWX's cup. It glistens in the flickering light of candles.

"Isn't this against the rules?" WWX asks, meaning the rules of the Lan Sect.

"You have no rules," LWJ answers, "You have nothing but me and the dead."

"That's rude," WWX laughs, hoarse. "But fair enough."

"I apologize," LWJ says, presenting the cup of wine to WWX, his side braced against WWX's arm, "I also have nothing but you and the dead."

Leant close like this, his hair is short enough that WWX can see his nape in the dim light; the scars climbing up under his neckline, new-pink.

WWX breathes the smell of the flowery soap as he slowly reaches up to brush his fingers over the scars, and LWJ shakes at the touch.

He drops the cup that he so meticulously prepared. Wine spills all over WWX's robes. A short breath, sticky and damp, and then LWJ's lips are over his, LWJ's one hand fisted painfully in his hair, the other on his wrist.

"Lan Zhan--" WWX gasps. LWJ climbs over him, onto his lap.

"You wanted me," LWJ whispers onto WWX's lips, his eyes as fiery as they were before, as WWX had thought they wouldnt be anymore, "You want me. So have me."

LWJ rips off WWX's sash, tugs at his pants, and WWX groans when realises that LWJ isnt wearing anything under his robes.

"You," WWX laughs, incredulous, dragging his hand up LWJ's soft inner thigh until he hits the crease where it meets with his body, bare, still damp from the bath, "You planned this!"

LWJ answers him with another harsh kiss, his tongue in WWX's mouth, as much a claim as a plea.

In what feels like a single minute, they're on the stone floor over the layer of WWX's wine-smelling robes, LWJ shuddering around WWX's three fingers as WWX kisses his throat, hot and soft and pulling on WWX's hair so hard that WWX will probably end up bald before he hits thirty.

"Ow hey!" WWX curls his fingers and catches LWJ's ankle with his free hand when LWJ kicks at his back like he doesn't even mean to, "Lan Zhan stop moving, fuck. That's your injured leg!"

LWJ rocks down again, completely not listening to WWX. His hands are spasming in WWX's hair.

WWX bears down on him with all of his available body weight. "I'm going to fuck you," He says to LWJ's ear, the locks not caught in LWJ's hands falling around them, "So just-- stay. STILL."

LWJ stops, panting and messy, glaring up at WWX like he's being cruel for no good reason.

"Wow," WWX whispers, kissing him once because he can't help himself, "You're driving me crazy, Lan-er-gege..."

"Wei Ying," LWJ says, so desperate it comes right back around and he bites down on WWX's chin, "Wei YING."

WWX pulls out his fingers and buries himself into LWJ.

LWJ groans either in pain or pleasure, a deep growling sound, but he doesn't even let WWX ask which one it is before he's dragging WWX closer, arms strong around him, clearly throwing WWX's earlier request to stay still out of mind so that he can fuck WWX deeper into himself.

WWX tries his best to support LWJ's bad leg with his arm wrapped around it, against the maddened pace LWJ is setting despite how little leverage WWX has allowed him.

"My mistake," WWX laughs, exhilirated, folding LWJ down and fucking him like he wants, "YOU are being crazy."

It takes so long, because of course it does, of course LWJ has an insane, inhuman stamina. By the end, WWX himself feels barely sane, watching as LWJ writhes under him, his sweaty hair dragging on the floor as he digs his fingers into WWX's back, toes curling above WWX's head.

"Mine," LWJ half-growls half-sobs into WWXs neck, holding him so tight he might actually succeed in burying himself into WWX's chest. "Mine, mine, mine, MINE."

WWX comes inside, managing to hold out until he forces an orgasm out of LWJ too, and he thinks, Ah, Lan Zhan, probably.

LWJ lies down as early as he always does, that night, on his back with his hands clasped on his chest. But this time, WWX drinks his obligatory drinking himself to sleep while sitting next to him on his bed.

"Will you tell me your courtesy name, now?" LWJ asks, voice hoarse.

"Why?" WWX asks, absentmindedly petting through LWJ's hair, "You know all the ones I use."

"Yiling Laozu," LWJ murmurs, "Wei Ying."

"Wei Ying for you." WWX says, as a promise, "Yiling Laozu for everyone else. The people who called me by my courtesy name are all gone to me."

"Tell me," LWJ says again, and when WWX glances at him he's looking up at WWX with his eyes low, intense-- like he wants to protest being given just one of WWX's names, no matter how intimate, like he wants to own them all. Like he wants nobody else to be able to name WWX at all.

WWX's lips crack into a grin. "Whatever my good Lan-er-gege wants," He chuckles, leaning down to kiss LWJ's bare forehead. "Wuxian."

"Wuxian," LWJ repeats, soft. "Wei Ying, Wei Wuxian."

"Yes," WWX says.

LWJ drags WWX closer by the waist, burying his face in WWX's neck. "Mine."

"Yes," WWX says onto LWJ's ticklish hair, having barely saved his cup of wine by holding it up in the air, "You can have me, if I'll have you. My Lan Zhan."

In a few seconds, when WWX manages to fish himself out of LWJ's unfairly strong arms, LWJ is fast asleep, warm and loose.

WWX leaves LWJ behind to rule over the palaces of dead as he goes to steadily destroy Wen territory until LWJ deems himself healed enough. Then, WWX offers to take him along, but LWJ's hand goes to his waist --no sword-- and hair --criminal short-- and he shakes his head.

That time, WWX razes down the Supervisory office he remembers hiding all their swords and takes each one he recognises --Bichen, Suihua, Sandu, but no Suibian. Just as well. WWX couldn't use it-- back home.

When WWX presents him with his sword and a veiled hat, LWJ jumps him.

Feeling silly and maudlin, WWX asks LWJ if they can go around the nearest town in Yiling first, before raiding anywhere. "We're running out of soap!" He says like that isn't a huge lie.

LWJ nods, as if he believes him. Perhaps he's also desperately in need of a normal outing.

They walk around the market --sombre but not barren-- and sit down at an inn where WWX orders costly dishes on Wen silver, watching LWJ drink tea behind his veil with a fondness that could burn down mountains, if left unchecked.

And then they hear. "... about the Yiling Laozu!"

LWJ sets his teacup down slowly, head tilted suspiciously towards the sound. WWX raises a brow, moving only his eyes there.

"What," The voice repeats, "Do you know about the Yiling Laozu?"

It's Jin Zixuan, disguised in brown. WWX's eyes are wide, his breath stuck in his throat.

He hasn't seen JZX since Wen Ning punched through him. WWX watches, frozen in place, as JZX talks impatiently with the innkeeper. He seems to be interrogating the man about WWX, for some reason.

For the first time, WWX hears the rumours about himself, in this world.

YLLZ is a lord of demons, a manifestation of the Wens' sins. YLLZ is a man who mastered death. YLLZ lives in the Burial Mounds. YLLZ lives in the Underworld alongside King Yan.

YLLZ will destroy the Wens, and he's only taken the Young Master Lan as his warprize, to warm his bed.

"Young Master Lan?" JZX asks, "The Second Young Master Lan you mean?"

"How many are there?" The innkeeper asks uncaringly, "Anyways whicher young master it was, he was unearthly beautiful, righteous, and learned! YLLZ decided that he would be enough to be worth the Wen Sect."

"How would you know about any of this! This is so stupid," JZX sighs sharply, "I want to know if you've seen him around, or if you've gone to the BM!"

"Do I look like an idiot? Of course not," The innkeeper says, turning around, "If you won't be getting a room or meal, leave!"

"Wait, maybe you've heard about Second Young Master Lan, or at least--"

"What can I hear! He's been taken as YLLZ's consort, so he's serving YLLZ in bed!" The innkeeper blusters, "All these people want, gossip! Does anybody want to pay? No!"

JZX buries his face in his hands.

Before he's thought it through, WWX has opened his mouth. "Hey, the Young Master over there!" He leans on his elbow as JZX looks at him, "I live pretty close to BM. Wanna ask me your questions?"

JZX approaches with a cautious curiosity. "How close?"

"Eh. Close enough, I think!"

"I'm uh," JZX coughs, "I'm Fan Yu, I'm looking to meet the YLLZ with a. Petition. For my, uh... big brother. He's ill with resentful energy."

"Uhuh," WWX says, raising his brows. Sure he is. "Wei Wuxian. Pleasure!"

LWJ makes an almost inaudible huff across him, unhappy.

"Yes, pleasure to meet you," JZX says as he sits down, and LWJ reaches forward to pour him a cup of tea as well. Ever polite, even when he's being petty and jealous of WWX's courtesy name, which he received with such difficulty. "And this gentleman..?" JZX asks towards LWJ.

"Oh, you didn't know?" WWX grins mischievously, waiting for JZX to take a sip of his tea, "He's my consort and bedwarmer!"

JZX spills the tea and snaps his eyes to look at LWJ.

LWJ tilts his head behind his veil, but doesnt deny it.

"I... see... That's... good!" JZX coughs.

"So you want to meet the YLLZ," WWX asks, feeling cheered like nothing else at the sight of JZX gaping like a fish, healthy and dumbly confused, as he should always be.

"Y-yes," JZX says, "But it's too dangerous going into the BM... so I'm looking for a way for, um. my family."

"Hmmmm," WWX says. On the one hand: Dubious. JZX is NOT going to be coming with a 'family'. On the other hand: WWX once swore that he wouldn't call JZX Peacock or trouble him for an entire year, for inviting WWX to JL's one month celebration. That year still has 8 months to go.

"So I'm looking for any information on BM, and the YLLZ, and whatever he's doing--"

"Ah, yeah, you know," WWX says, waving a hand, "The evil YLLZ actually opens the BM at ten every morning--"

LWJ taps WWX on the shin.

"--at TWELVE I mean," WWX corrects, "So you can go then!"

"Really?" JZX asks, looking rightfully very disbelieving of this information.

"The scourge YLLZ also has to let people leave and enter if he wants to buy food, don't you think?" WWX asks casually, "If you're going to try your luck entering BM anyways, you might as well go then!"

JZX eventually leaves, although whether he was convinced is up to fate, and WWX stays to finish the food with LWJ. "Ten is too early?" He asks, warmth bubbling in his chest.

"You wake up at nine," LWJ says accusingly.

"And you insist on monopolising my morning, Consort Lan?"

"Crude," LWJ says to the name, and he doesn't reply at all to the question. "Eat."

"Whatever my lovely Lan-er-gege says," WWX laughs, going back to picking the meat from every dish. "You too. I didnt pay all this money so you can drink tea!"

"Mn." LWJ picks up his chopsticks.

The night passes as wonderfully as nights have been passing for WWX, as of late. Then, in the morning, WWX is still passed out on the bed when he hears LWJ say "Wei Ying," in a strange tone of voice which terrifies WWX enough to slam him back to wakefulness.

WWX scrambles up on the bed to find LWJ standing at the doorway, leaning against one of the fierce corpses to walk. LWJ has, well, it's less that he has gotten used to them and more that he's truly realised that they are unwilling to pass on but happy to help.

The expression on LWJ's face stills the terror in WWX's heart. He looks disgruntled, somewhat baffled, somewhat smug. Although WWX knows LWJ hates his short hair, the way it frames that annoyed look on his face is unfairly attractive.

"The guards caught seven people," LWJ says.

WWX blinks. What?

LWJ's lips twist, clearly pissed off. "It's EIGHT."

"..." WWX bursts out laughing, trying to comb his hair down as he climbs out of the bed. "Oh no! Did your morning sex plans fall through, Consort Lan? Poor you, aiyah!"

LWJ's annoyance is redirected at WWX.

In a few seconds, WWX is out of his sleeping clothes and in his black silk robes (that he used Wen silver to buy), his hair half tied back with his ribbon. He pats LWJ's own silk robes (he has a set in every colour, because WWX has Wen silver) and places the veil hat on his head.

"Shall I take over your good escort, my Lan Zhan?" WWX asks with a smile, offering his arm for LWJ to lean against.

LWJ arranges the veil more properly around his shoulders and reaches for WWX, stepping forward with all of his weight like it's a certainty that WWX will catch it.

WWX does catch him. Of course he does. How could he not? But he doesn't think that's what matters. Whether WWX will catch him or not is irrelevant to LWJ not bracing himself when he falls towards WWX.

"Wei Ying," LWJ says, and WWX snaps out of it.

"Lets go," WWX smiles wrily.

At the simple, comfy guest hall of WWX's (he does admit) a-little-obsessively big palace, there is a group of very nervous cultivators sitting in the middle of a few dozens of high ghouls.

"I DID say to come at twelve, no?" WWX sighs when he spots a contrite-looking JZX.

"It's you!" JZX gasps. "What are you doing here?!"

"What, you break into my house and now you're asking ME what I'm doing here?" WWX raises his brows as he sits at the table across them, LWJ sitting at the side on his right.

"I fucking KNEW it!" Comes a voice, too familiar.

WWX's heart stalls and skips. Sitting next to JZX on the same side is a cloaked figure, hood hiding his face sufficiently enough for most to be fooled. Not WWX, though. That's his BROTHER.

"I knew it was too suspicious," JC hisses, "So your informant was the YLLZ himself!"

"I don't know what's suspicious about a host that requests you not to come too early," WWX asks with a forced casualness. "Isn't it more suspicious to ignore it and sneak in?"

That shuts JC up long enough for LWJ to brew tea and decide he is NOT above denying it to intruders.

"Wait," JZX says, with a shaky swallow, turning towards LWJ. "If YOU're YLLZ, then who is... that... Lan-er-gongzi?!"

LWJ tilts his head in greeting but refuses to bow, since they are STILL intruders, and he hands WWX a cup of tea and places the other in front of himself.

"Lan-er-gongzi?!"

"It's LWJ?"

"Really?!"

There is a small commotion amongst the cultivators, but before WWX's hackles rise even higher, the third cultivator sitting beside JZX and JC raises her voice. "We're not here to negotiate for Lan-er-gongzi's freedom," She says, steely.

"We are what remains of the sects not under WRH's tyranny and unfortunately neither we nor the Lan are in any position to negotiate Laozu's return of Lan Wangji," She bows her head, and LWJ nods, "However, we have indeed arrived with a request."

WWX thinks he probably hates her.

"If you don't want my Lan Zhan," WWX murmurs, narrowing his eyes at them and leaning back on his arm, knowing he scares them more when large, "Then what DO you want?"

"This humble one is Yu Jiao," The woman says, "We, the Sect Alliance, are here to negotiate for eleven swords."

WWX is annoyed enough with them that he doesn't mention he only took the spritual swords other than Bichen so that the Wen wouldn't have them, that he was planning to give the swords back the moment he found their owners. LWJ, who does know this, also keeps silent.

It's a good amount that Yu Jiao --Acting Sect Leader Yu-- offers on behalf of all the Sects. Most of their heirs being weaponless seems to be a big issue.

"We wish to negotiate on good faith," YJ says, "Thus, we won't contest Laozu's claim on Wen possessions-- goods or slaves."

JC holds rigidly still while JZX shifts and glances uncomfortably at LWJ. LWJ ignores them and YJ who hasn't even looked at him once after that first time. She's a Yu through and through.

WWX, with his eyes red, spreads his lips in a knife-edged smile and says, "Is that so."

He adds twenty percent more to the price of the swords. But then he detracts Sandu in his head, because he would NEVER take money for it, so it only rises a little bit over the already offered amount.

"We agree to it," YJ says immediately, when she hears it.

"Yiling Laozu is a generous lord," YJ praises, a smile on her face like a poison flower, just the way Yin Zu used to smile. "We were only scouting the area, but it is true we intruded on your domain. This Yu Jiao is grateful that you have chosen to regard us back in good faith."

WWX ignores that to glance at A-Yue, the red robed ghoul that LWJ hates for no reason, who leaves grinning fanged and crawls back with Sandu.

"Here," WWX says, red eyes smiling as he places the sword on the table with a clink. "You can take this now. And the rest, when you pay."

"But--" JZX shuts up when WWX's glare flicks to him.

"I guess you have a sword in my custody too?" WWX grins, like he doesn't already know. "Alright. A-Yue. What does it look like, young master?"

JZX hesitantly describes Suihua, and he still startles when it's thrown at him.

"Two up front," WWX drinks his tea, looking at YJ, "Nine after payment. Good enough for you, Acting Sect Leader Yu?"

"I am very grateful to Laozu's generosity," YJ says, grinning back at him. "We will return to collect the price. Is a week acceptable for Laozu?"

"Sure. Go!"

The cultivators leave with very proper bows and attempts at saying farewell, nervous. Barely any of them even dare look at LWJ.

"And don't intrude next week, alright?" WWX says pleasantly, "You won't see the guest hall this time."

"We will wait at the walls," YJ nods.

By the time they're all gone, as guaranteed by the ghosts escorting them, WWX feels like going right back to sleep. He droops over to wind himself around LWJ, hugging his waist and burying his head on his good leg. LWJ's hand immediately goes to his hair, petting it.

"They didnt even TRY to save you," WWX whispers, hugging LWJ tighter as if he can clutch him hard enough to make up for those who should have kept him at any cost. They already BARELY deserved him.

"You are the end to this war," LWJ says, "They will always sacrifice me for you."

"No, no I don't like that," WWX decides, sitting up to push the LWJ's hat back over his head and parting the veil with his hands to reveal LWJ's golden eyes, the almost satisfied tilt to his lips. "Ah, but what should I do? I want them to want you, but I don't want to give you."

"'Give', Wei Ying?" LWJ demands as WWX trails his hands into his hair, looking haughty and mean in the best way.

WWX chuckles, leaning under the brim of the veil. "There's been a misunderstanding, Consort Lan!" He says theatrically onto LWJ's lips, "DO allow me to pay for it."