...

"Well, I hope you know what you're getting into," she tells Lan Wangji. 

"I do."

"Wonderful," she says, and leaves. 

Phew. That could have gone so much worse. 

It really could have. 

Jiang Yanli snuggles baby A-Yuan. He's just so snuggable. 

"So if that's not what really happened, and you don't want to say what really happened out here, I think A-Xian's room would be a good place," she decides firmly. 

"Sounds good." 

He tows Lan Zhan and Shijie to his room. It's cluttered, with talismans complete and partial scattered about, Suibian leaning against the wall, and dirty laundry heaped in one corner. He pauses to pick up his sword and draw it partway out of its sheath, just marveling for a moment that yes, he has a golden core again and can use a sword. 

Then he puts the sword down again and sits on the bed. 

"So...this is going to sound really, really crazy." 

"A-Xian, two weeks ago you hadn't noticed you had a crush on this boy and now you're saying you two are married. I think we've crossed that line already." 

"That's fair. It's just--okay, I swear I'm not lying or joking or anything, but Lan Zhan and I are from the future." 

"...The future?" 

"Technically two different futures, but from the same amount forward in them, and we both suddenly woke up in the past for no reason we can find at the same time, and we both set about changing the future as much as possible. Lan Zhan wrote a letter describing the location of some fake hidden treasure and arranged for it to fall into Wen hands, and where the treasure was supposed to have been located there was, instead, the Xuanwu of Slaughter. And I...um. You remember that really heterodox idea I had that I told you about, the one about harvesting resentful energy instead of dispelling it?"

"A-Xian! You didn't! That has to be really dangerous!" 

"Shijie, in the future where I invented demonic cultivation using resentful energy all my other options were worse. The Wens had started attacking everyone and Lotus Pier had fallen and Wen Chao--

all my other options were much much worse." 

She hands the baby back to Lan Wangji so she can hug her brother some more. 

That is entirely reasonable. He cuddles the baby. "I will not let him destroy himself," he tells Lady Jiang. "He is not allowed to."

"Thank you," she says, still hugging A-Xian.

"So we eventually beat the Wens and things got a little better for a while but then they got worse again. In my future Lan Zhan died and in his future I did. You died in both of them. But--before everything got worse again--we took in A-Yuan, so when we found out his birth parents had died again..."

"I see. He seems like a lovely child."

"A-Yuan is very good." Pats for the very good perfect lovely baby.

"So in the future everything was horrible and we had to fix it when we came back and I left Suibian behind so people wouldn't suspect I was involved but I left on purpose and I was fine the whole time, I'm sorry for worrying you." 

"I'm just glad you're okay, A-Xian. Is it--over, then? Fixing things? You're not going to have to--do anything else like what's been happening in Qishan?"

"Shouldn't have to, no. There are a few other things we'll have to keep an eye on, but even if we have to intervene it shouldn't be like that." 

"Good. So...what else happens in the future? I mean, is there anything that didn't go wrong, that you don't want to change?" 

"The peacock came to his senses and married you." 

"--What, really?" 

"It takes him a while and a few more blunders, I might have to punch him again, and I can't guarantee that it'll happen without the war, but yeah. And you had a baby! I...never got to meet him...on account of things going horribly wrong...but he existed, his name was Jin Ling."