Chapter 116: Extra: The Family Banquet 3

The more straight-faced he kept, the less Wei Wuxian could rein in the restless itch to misbehave stirring inside him.

He tapped a fingertip lightly against the little black earthenware bowl, drawing out a faint crisp sound that only the two of them could hear, and at it Lan Wangji's gaze shifted a few inches their way, almost imperceptibly.

And so Wei Wuxian knew that however decorous the angle of Lan Wangji's gaze, the tail of his eye would never let a single one of his movements slip past; so he lifted the little bowl, feigning that he meant to drink, turning it this way and that in his hand until he stopped it at the very spot where Lan Wangji had drunk a moment before, and laid his lips against the rim of the cup.

Sure enough, though Lan Wangji's hands rested as properly upon his knees as before and his posture had not changed in the least, the ten fingers hidden quietly beneath his white sleeves curled faintly inward.

At the sight a giddy lightness rose in Wei Wuxian, and in that easing moment his body began, of its own accord, to list toward the other as it always had, when all at once a most severe cough came from Lan Qiren's direction. Wei Wuxian hastily wrenched his half-tilted frame straight again and resumed his upright, proper seat.

The soup finished, they waited in silence a while before the dishes were formally laid out. Each table received three small dishes, every one a tiny saucer, either green or white, no different by a hair from the fare Wei Wuxian had eaten in his student days. After all these years, but for the bitterness grown sharper, nothing had changed at all. Partly the region, partly his own nature, Wei Wuxian's palate ran heavy: he loved his food fiery, and no meal pleased him without meat, so faced with such plain dishes he had no appetite whatsoever, and shovelled it all down in a few careless mouthfuls without the least idea of what he had eaten. All the while Lan Qiren's eyes swept toward him now and then, glaring fiercely, as ready as in those old lecture days to call out his name and order him gone. But Wei Wuxian, contrary to his usual self, sat so meek and well-behaved that the old man was left without recourse and had to let it go.

The meal eaten through as tastelessly as chewing wax, the servants cleared away the plates and the tables, and as custom demanded, Lan Xichen began to sum up the family's recent doings. Yet Wei Wuxian had heard only a few sentences before he sensed that Lan Xichen's mind was elsewhere; he even misremembered the sites of two Night Hunts and never noticed once he had finished, so that even Lan Qiren turned to eye him askance, his goatee blown up several times over, until after listening a while he could bear it no longer and broke in. And so the family banquet, much ado and no harm done, came hurriedly to its close.

A dreary opening, a dreary middle, a dreary breaking-up: Wei Wuxian had been forced into dreariness for the better part of two hours, with neither fine food nor song and dance to lift it, until his whole body itched as though fleas had been breeding on him half a year. And to top it off, the moment it ended Lan Qiren sternly summoned Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji away, plainly meaning to lecture them again, and the two of them at once. With no one left to run wild on, he wandered about, and spotting a few of the juniors walking in twos and threes was just about to call out and snatch one to play with, when Lan Sizhui, Lan Jingyi and the rest took one look at him, blanched, and turned on their heels and fled.

Wei Wuxian understood at once. He drifted off into a quieter, cooler stretch of woodland, and after waiting a while the little ones from before came creeping furtively back out. Lan Jingyi said, 'Senior Wei, it isn't that we're ignoring you on purpose — it's that Teacher said anyone who speaks with you copies out the Lan Clan Precepts from beginning to end...'

'Teacher' was the single honorific by which all the sons and disciples of the Gusu Lan Clan addressed Lan Qiren; to say the word 'Teacher' was to mean him and him alone. Wei Wuxian said smugly, 'Never mind, I knew that long ago. Your teacher's been guarding against fire, theft, and Wei Ying for a good while now — and has it done him any good? I suppose when you find the fine cabbage you raised yourself rooted up by a pig, a little extra temper is only to be expected, hahahaha...'

Lan Jingyi: '...'

Lan Sizhui: '...hahaha.'

When Wei Wuxian had laughed his fill, he said, 'Right — you were set to copying lines a while back, they said, for going on a Night Hunt with Wen Ning.' He asked Lan Sizhui, 'How is he these days?'

Lan Sizhui said, 'He's probably tucked away in some corner down the mountain now, waiting for us to come out on the next Night Hunt so he can find us again.' He thought a moment, then added with some worry, 'Though when we parted, Sect Leader Jiang still seemed quite angry. I hope he didn't give him a hard time.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'What? Jiang Cheng? How did you run into him on a Night Hunt?'

Lan Sizhui said, 'Last time we'd arranged to go on the Night Hunt with Young Master Jin, so...'

Wei Wuxian understood at once.

He could have guessed it: when Lan Sizhui led the others out on a Night Hunt, Wen Ning would hardly stay idle, sure to trail behind them in secret to guard them and lend a hand the moment danger struck. And Jiang Cheng, of course, would be skulking after Jin Ling just the same, terrified the boy might land himself in trouble again. So at some critical moment the two had come face to face. A question or two confirmed it, exactly as he'd thought, and Wei Wuxian did not know whether to laugh or cry.

After a pause he asked again, 'And how have Sect Leader Jiang and Jin Ling been lately?'

With Jin Guangyao dead, the only heir left of the purest Lanling Jin Clan blood was Jin Ling; yet there remained no shortage of elders from the family's collateral branches eyeing the seat like tigers, stirring at the sight of such an opening. The Lanling Jin Clan, mocked and scorned without and a nest of scheming hearts within, and Jin Ling no more than a boy of a dozen-odd years — how was he to hold the place down? In the end it had taken Jiang Cheng walking the length of Koi Tower with Zidian in hand to settle the boy, for the moment, in the master's seat. As for what turns the days ahead might bring, no one could say.

Lan Jingyi said with a curl of his lip, 'Seems well enough — Sect Leader Jiang's the same as ever, fond of whipping people left and right. And the young master's prima-donna temper has only blossomed further: before, his uncle would scold him once and he'd shoot back three times, now he can shoot back ten.'

Lan Sizhui said reproachfully, 'Jingyi, how can you call someone names behind his back like that.'

Lan Jingyi protested, 'I call him that to his face too, you know.'

Hearing this from Lan Jingyi, Wei Wuxian let out a small breath of relief.

In truth he knew well enough that this was not what he had really wanted to ask; but since both Jiang Cheng and Jin Ling sounded as though they were getting on well enough, there was nothing else worth saying.

He stood, brushing off the hem of his robe, and said, 'All right then, that's good — they can keep it up just like that. You all carry on playing; I've things to do, I'll be off first.'

Lan Jingyi said scornfully, 'You never do a thing at Cloud Recesses — what could you possibly have to do!'

Without so much as turning his head, Wei Wuxian said, 'Gnawing on cabbage!'

A rare early riser that morning, he had gone back to the Jingshi and slept the whole day away with his head buried under the covers, and the price of turning night and day on their heads was that by the time he woke dusk had already fallen, dinner was missed, and nothing was left for him to eat. Wei Wuxian did not feel hungry, though, and went on rummaging through chests and turning out drawers for Lan Wangji's old copybooks and manuscripts to read, waiting and waiting all the while. Yet wait as he did, right on into the dead of night, his big cabbage still did not come home.

Only by then did Wei Wuxian notice the emptiness in his belly. But reckoning the hour, it was already curfew at Cloud Recesses, and by the family rules idle persons were not to roam abroad by night, still less to scale the walls and slip out. Back in the old days, never mind what was 'not to be' done or what was 'forbidden,' Wei Wuxian simply ate when he was hungry, slept when he was tired, flirted when he was bored, and bolted when he'd made trouble. But things stood differently now: if he broke the rules, the reckoning would be laid straight at Lan Wangji's door, and so, hungry and stir-crazy as he was, all he could do was heave a long sigh and bear it.

Just then a faint sound came from outside the Jingshi, and the door was eased open a crack.

Lan Wangji had come back.

Wei Wuxian lay sprawled on the floor, playing dead.

He heard Lan Wangji's footsteps cross softly to the desk and set something down upon it, never once speaking. Wei Wuxian had meant to keep up the playing dead, but Lan Wangji seemed to lift the lid off something, and a wave of sharp, insistent spice in an instant overwhelmed the cool sandalwood that had filled the Jingshi.

Wei Wuxian rolled up off the floor in one motion and said, 'Er-gege! I'll be your beast of burden all my life!'

His face unruffled, Lan Wangji lifted the dishes from the food box on the desk out one by one, and Wei Wuxian drifted to his side: five or six snow-white plates, every one a sweep of fiery red, a sight that filled his heart with delight and set his eyes glowing. 'Hanguang-Jun, you're far too kind — so thoughtful, going out of your way to bring me food and all. From now on, whatever you want doing, just call on me.'

Last of all Lan Wangji took out a pair of ivory-white chopsticks, laid them crosswise over the bowl, and said mildly, 'No talking while eating.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'And what about no talking in bed? Every night when I'm saying so much and crying out so loud, how come you never stop me then?'

Lan Wangji shot him a glance, and Wei Wuxian said, 'All right, all right, I'll hush. After everything we've done you're still so thin-skinned, flustered at the least thing — and that's just what I love about you. Did you bring this from that Hunan place in Caiyi Town?'

Lan Wangji neither confirmed nor denied it, so Wei Wuxian took it for a yes, and sitting down by the desk said, 'I wonder if that Hunan place has closed. We always used to eat there in the old days — otherwise, on nothing but your clan's cooking, I doubt I'd have lasted those few months. Ah, look at all this. Now this is what you call a family banquet.'

Lan Wangji said, '“We”?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Jiang Cheng and me. And now and then Nie Huaisang and a few others.'

With a sidelong glance at Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian said with a smile, 'What are you looking at me like that for? Hanguang-Jun, don't you forget — back then I invited you to come eat out with me, so warmly, so hard I tried, and it was you who wouldn't come. I'd say one thing to you and you'd glare, every answer beginning with “No,” and all the snubs I took I haven't even called you to account for yet — and now here you are put out again. Come to think of it...'

He sidled up beside Lan Wangji and said, 'I was the one worried about breaking the rules, so I held myself back and didn't sneak out, sitting good as gold in the room waiting for you — and who'd have thought Hanguang-Jun would go and break the rules himself, slipping out to find me something to eat. You, flouting the rules like this — if your uncle found out, he'd have chest pains all over again.'

Lan Wangji lowered his head and drew an arm round his waist, seemingly still, with no movement to it, yet Wei Wuxian could feel his fingers stroking at his waist, careless and deliberate at once. The fingers were burning hot, the heat passing through the cloth straight to his skin, the touch perfectly clear. Wei Wuxian reached back to hold him in turn and murmured, 'Hanguang-Jun... I drank that medicine soup of yours, and now my whole mouth is bitter, I can't get a thing down. What do we do.'

Lan Wangji said, 'One sip.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'That's right. I took only one sip, but whoever brewed that soup of yours, the aftertaste is fierce — the bitterness ran clean from the tip of my tongue down to its root and into my throat. Go on, tell me — what do we do.'

After a silence, Lan Wangji said, 'Neutralize it.'

Wei Wuxian asked, all earnest deference, 'And how should we neutralize it?'

Lan Wangji lifted his face.

A faint breath of medicine lingered between the lips and teeth of them both, and the slight bitterness drew the kiss out long beyond measure.

When at last they parted, Wei Wuxian said softly, 'Hanguang-Jun, it's only just come to me — you drank two whole bowls of that soup, so you must be even bitterer than I am.'

Lan Wangji said, 'Mn.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'But you taste rather sweet. How strange.'

'...' Lan Wangji said, 'Eat first.'

After a pause, he added, 'Other things once you've eaten.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'I'll start with the cabbage.'

A faint knit came to Lan Wangji's brows, as though he could not quite see why cabbage should suddenly come up, and Wei Wuxian, roaring with laughter, hooked an arm round his neck.

A family banquet, after all, is best held behind closed doors.