"Huh? Jiang Cheng? Did he come back too?"

"Came here. He saw you holding a severed head. Knows you did this."

"Okay, well, he was fine with what I did during the Sunshot Campaign, it wasn't until after the war that things started to get--tense--between us. I'm sure if we tell him I did it to avert a future where Shijie dies it'll be fine." 

"Mn."

"Even afterwards things were okay between us until the ambush at Qiongqi path. He helped Shijie sneak out to visit before her wedding so I could congratulate her, since I couldn't go, and again when she was pregnant with Jin Ling and she asked me to give him his courtesy name." 

"You chose Jin Ling's courtesy name?"

"Yeah! Shijie said in the Jin clan it's tradition for one of the parents' siblings to choose the courtesy name and she and the peacock picked me because I couldn't be around much." 

Kiss?

Kiss~<3<3<3

Eventually Wangji notices that the sun is starting to set.

"How many of these will you destroy?" he says, ticking his head fractionally towards the ruined guardhouse around them.

"Um...until I find Wen Xu, I guess? I wasn't destroying them just to destroy them, I was looking for people who had to die, and I wanted to start with Wen Chao and Wen Zhuliu if possible because Wen Zhuliu is a serious threat, and it doesn't really matter whether I kill Wen Xu or Wen Ruohan first, but Wen Ruohan will have more guards and stuff." 

"I want Wen Xu."

"Lan Zhan, if you get seen killing the Wen heir, I can't leave any witnesses," Wei Ying warns. "I'm not letting this turn into another full-out war if I can stop it, and it will, if Lan-er-gongzi is known to have killed Wen Xu."

"Mn."

He cares less about who kills Wen Xu than he cares about Wei Ying going after fewer highly dangerous people, but this is unfortunately a fair point. "I want to help you."

"Okay. We'll find a way to make that work that doesn't have you storming any Wen strongholds openly or anything." Snuggle. "If I don't go in in person again--I probably shouldn't have here, but I really needed to see in person that Wen Chao and Wen Zhuliu were dead--then we can both just. Not risk being seen, everyone can think it was some kind of weird curse or something, and if someone finds us anyway I'll have you by my side. ...And maybe you can carry me, it's faster to go by sword than on foot, if I just gather new corpses each place." 

Nuzzle. "I will carry Wei Ying."

Wei Ying makes a happy sound halfway between a sigh and a purr and nuzzles back. Even with both of them sticky beyond measure with blood that isn't theirs and other fluids that are, lying on the hard (and also sticky) floor of a building that was recently on fire and smells like it, he hasn't felt this good in years. Four years, to be specific. 

"You make me so happy, Lan Zhan." 

"Good. I will stay." He nips Wei Ying's neck a few times, and then sighs internally. "We should make camp before dark. You may check that your brother is alive, if you wish."

"I should do that. ...We should...probably clean up first," he observes, taking in the fact their lack of clothes and flaking layers of miscellaneous fluids. "Ah, I didn't even think about your pretty white robes before getting blood all over you." 

"How will I ever afford it."

He bursts out laughing and kisses him on the cheek. "Excellent point, Lan Zhan. Good thing I was wearing black, though, I didn't exactly pack a spare outfit." 

"I will buy as many outfits as you like."

"I love you. Good thing Jiang Cheng's along for us to make do the shopping, I don't think showing up in town like this would be a good idea." He reluctantly untangles himself enough from Lan Zhan to grab his clothes. 

He reassembles his own robes, to the extent that this is possible. Wangji doesn't think he's ever been this disheveled in his life, and he has both fought a war and been whipped nearly to death.

It's kind of nice. Nicer than he expected. The dishevelment is Wei Ying's, caused all by him, even the blood. He feels like he is Wei Ying's. Wei Ying's Lan Zhan. "How have you been traveling?"

"On foot. Carried by fierce corpses when I got tired."