"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."

"Awwwwwww." 

"I'm really really glad you're okay, too, Shijie." 

She kisses him on the temple. "I'm absolutely fine, A-Xian. Want to help me cook something for the baby?"

"I absolutely do." 

Jiang Yanli's cooking is absolutely delicious.

How nice! He bows and thanks her.

They can all take turns feeding A-Yuan the delicious cooking, spoonful by spoonful. 

He is FEEDING TINY BABY A-YUAN SHIJIE'S SOUP WITH LAN ZHAN this is the BEST THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED. He is in absolute raptures right now. 

Awwww. Wei Ying is adorable and beautiful when he is this happy, it requires lots of kisses.

Tiny baby A-Yuan also requires lots of kisses! Hug hug kiss kiss, have some soup.