"Lan Zhan, I--

you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. But I love you, and I want to know how you've been hurt. So I can do whatever I can to make it better. Even if that's just promising never to leave you like that again." 

"I found a branding iron. Of the Qishan Wen Sect."

WOW OKAY. 

He's not sure what he was expecting but boy that wasn't it. 

"I promise to never leave you like that again," he says, and adjusts his position in Lan Zhan's lap to snuggle in even closer. 

Cling. Much cling. "I was the one who left you," he says softly. "I regretted... with the iron, I wanted...

I missed you. Love you."

"I missed you too. But we're--we're both right here, we don't have to miss each other anymore." His fists clench in the fabric of Lan Zhan's robe. "It's okay now. I'm here. I love you." 

Cling. "I love you. You are alive and I love you."

"I love you. I promise I won't die, I won't ever leave you alone like that again." 

He kisses his temple softly. "Neither will I."

Nod nod. Really intense cuddle. 

He's not going to bring up the other part of it, the part of missing Lan Zhan that going to the past didn't fix, seeing every milestone of A-Yuan's and wishing, desperately, that Lan Zhan could see it. This time neither of them will. But just because he can't help dwelling on it sometimes doesn't mean he has to pull Lan Zhan into it. 

Eventually he murmurs, "We should probably head for the next outpost at some point."

Yes, they should.

He pulls them both up. "You should eat something."

"We should eat something. Maybe we should send Jiang Cheng into town sooner rather than later and ask him to buy provisions as well as not-ruined clothing. Meanwhile I guess we can see if the current outpost had anything other than wine." 

"Mn."

The current outpost has anything other than wine, although it doesn't say anything about the current Wen regime that they don't already know that the alcohol is significantly better than the food. Whatever, it's edible. And then they can leave. 

Wen Xu isn't at the next outpost either. 

Wangji is increasingly concerned that Wen Xu is, in fact, in Nightless City. He would like further reassurances that Wei Ying will not do anything stupid if this is the case.

"Define 'stupid.'"

"If I tell you a plan and you say 'no, Wei Ying, that could get you killed' or 'no, Wei Ying, that would get a lot of innocent people killed' then I won't do it. If you say 'no, Wei Ying, that's crazy and definitely won't work' then I make no promises."

"Okay! Fine! Nothing stupid!" 

He will be rewarded with a kiss and an ease of tension around Wangji's eyes. "Thank you."

He doesn't necessarily believe this, but it's more than he was hoping for. Can they make it to another outpost today?

They definitely can. 

The ease of tension around Lan Zhan's eyes is so important, Wei Wuxian may be shit at valuing his own well-being but he does NOT want to make Lan Zhan look like that. 

Wen Xu is not at THIS ONE EITHER, UGH. 

Ugh.

"We should start planning, if he is in Nightless City."

Sigh. "Yeah. Meanwhile there's a town pretty near here, now might be a good time to send Jiang Cheng for supplies."

What a good use of Jiang Cheng.

Jiang Cheng comes back a couple hours later, interrupting their ongoing strategizing by asking, "So which one of you lunatics is responsible for awakening the Xuanwu of Slaughter?"