His arms come up to return the embrace. Is this shock? No, he went into shock after the discipline whip; this is something else. 

"Would wait forever." 

Wei Wuxian breaks down crying. 

Well. 

Snuggling a crying Wei Ying is much worse than Wei Ying not crying but it is much better than not snuggling a crying Wei Ying, so. 

Also, on reflection, it is much much much better than Wei Ying needing to cry but instead pasting a smile on and pretending everything's fine. 

She comes back to the Jingshi after a bit.

Her dads are still cuddling and looking sort of shell-shocked. Wangji dips his head in acknowledgement as she enters. 

"Everything okay?"

"Ah...just having a lot of feelings, little radish." 

He half-lets go of Lan Zhan to pull her into the hug. 

Hug!!!

So much hug. He was going to bathe in the cold springs after he had unpacked his sleeves but instead he is hugging Wei Ying and THEIR DAUGHTER at the SAME TIME and you could not pry him out of this hug before someone else lets go for anything. 

Eventually Wei Wuxian does let go. 

"I think I need some time to go think by myself." 

"Mn." 

"Okay. Good - luck with thoughts?"

"Thanks," he says, and kisses her on the forehead and wanders off. 

It's been years--decades, really, or nearly so--but he remembers Cloud Recesses well. It's weird, considering how bad his memory is in general. His feet draw him down familiar paths as his thoughts wander in directions he's never considered before. 

There are a lot of things from the past that he has to examine in a new light, now, all the way back to the way he had constantly teased Lan Zhan for attention back at Cloud Recesses. Well. Back when they had been students, he reflects wryly, glancing at his surroundings. 

How does he feel about Lan Zhan? Clearly it isn't anything simple. He likes him, he cares about him, he...he had felt like he was being punched in the gut when Lan Zhan said "Because I love you." But. In a good way? And when he thought but thirteen years is plenty of time to get over me it had felt like icewater. 

He tries to imagine kissing Lan Zhan, and a frisson of heat stabs down his spine. He imagines going deeper, prying open Hanguang-jun's oh-so-proper shell in a much more intimate way than he had ever aspired to as a teenager, and, okay, he is definitely feeling some things. 

He had never before known himself to be attracted to men, but, he reasons, if one was going to be attracted to any man, Lan Wangji would be a good bet, considering that he's basically the most gorgeous human being on the planet. 

But how did one go about figuring out if it was any more than that? Disentangling affection from attraction and gratitude and the overwhelming desire to cling to the few people in the world who don't absolutely despise you? It would be wrong, after everything Lan Zhan had done, to take advantage of him, to tell him his feelings were returned only to wake up one morning to discover that it was nothing more than physical attraction and passing infatuation. 

How could he possibly figure it out? 

Well...well, Lan Zhan had at one point, right?  

He wends his way back to the Jingshi only to find it empty. Well, Lan Zhan and A-Yuan wouldn't spend all their time here even while at Cloud Recesses, that only makes sense. He initially intends to wait quietly for one or both of them to come back, but, due to who he is as a person, that resolution lasts less than five minutes. He starts rifling through Lan Zhan's things, and discovers a thick stack of paper with...what is this? 

When A-Yuan returns she will find him utterly engrossed in the adventures of Bun Yuan. 

"Found something interesting?"

"You are adorable." 

"Oh?"

"Bun Yuan!"

"You found those?"

"I did."

She laughs. "I'm glad I wrote all those down, then."

"Is Fox Cultivator supposed to be anyone?"

"My friend Lan Jingyi's character - you met him, he's the other junior disciple who was with us."

"Ah, yes. Neat kid. He's pretty unLannish, too, but you overshadow him a bit." 

"Maybe I was a bad influence."