"Wei Ying, wait outside."

She opens her mouth, glances at Lan Xichen, then closes her mouth and nods and steps out. 

She bows to her uncle and stares very intently at the skirt of his robes.

"I am pregnant."

"What--how--have you been carrying on with someone else, besides that ridiculous Wei girl?" 

"Uncle," he says warningly, to no apparent effect. 

"Wei Ying will marry me. The child will be hers."

Wei Ying is pacing outside the tent. She does not have her ear pressed against the fabric. 

She can still hear some of the words Lan Qiren is yelling right now. They include "shame" "dishonor" "no place to be with child." 

She grits her teeth and glares at the tent as though she could bore through the fabric to her fiancee's uncle when something makes her look up. 

"Oh shit hi. Um. Wow this is approximately the least ideal way for you to find out." 

He bows, scraping together a smile. "Wei-guniang. This one apologizes for his intrusion."

Lan-guniang's first child. Wen Chao's bastard.

The obvious thing is to quietly pawn it off in some poor province, where the kid is unlikely to amount to anything and come wandering back to stir up rumors. Lan-guniang will be too visible for the rest of the war for that to work, however. They must have some other plan.

"It's mine. I mean, when we tell everyone I'm the other blood parent and it was a magical accident while I was messing around with talisman design you'll know that's a complete lie, but that is my Lan Zhan and my baby and Wen Chao is never touching either of them, he gets nothing but pain and death." 

That is not the alternative plan he was expecting.

How lovely.

She takes one look at his face and hugs him. 

"I'm sorry your father is a piece of shit. I'm sorry your mom didn't have anyone better. I must look like such an asshole, family keeps falling in my lap out of the sky and--you deserve that too and you didn't even get your biological family and that sucks and I wanna share. Do you wanna be my brother, I have practice being a sister, I think I'm okay at it." 

Meng Yao is pretty sure he must have misheard that, because it does not actually make any sense.

"...I have no practice being a brother. You honor me, Wei-guniang, but I do not actually expect I would be good at it." 

"Why not? You're good at lots of things. More importantly, I already like you a lot. And--what you did when you found out--that was really thoughtful and good, like, if you'd known her longer you might have known about the thing where she can get drunk on literally one cup of wine, but like, if you think being siblings involves never messing up or arguing you have not seen me and A-Cheng together enough." 

"I confess to be unsure how you plan to implement this publicly," he says slowly. This almost feels like it has to be a trap. "But being more closely associated with Wen-guniang could only ever be an honor for me."

He bows deeply.

"I mean, sworn brothers and sworn sisters are a thing, right, sworn brother-and-sister is less conventional but so's two girls marrying, I'm on a roll here." 

He is feeling a lot of emotions and several of them are completely unfamiliar.

"I appreciate your generosity, Wei-guniang. I would enjoy being your sworn brother, with your family's approval." 

People will talk, of course, but Wei Ying's wedding to Lan-guniang will preoccupy most people's attention. And. The more powerful he becomes, the less it will matter that people talk. 

"Excellent. I look forward to it," she says, and turns back towards the tent. 

Lan Xichen has just done the unthinkable, and slapped his uncle into silence, after repeated entreaties failed to work. Lan Qiren gapes openmouthed at him. 

"Uncle," he hisses. "You will shut the hell up about A-Zhan's child. The official story, which is a lie, is that Wei-guniang caused the pregnancy by accident while working on related talismans. Lying is against the rules, and you and I will go along with it anyway, because the truth is that the child was conceived some days earlier, while she was in Wen captivity." 

Lan Qiren freezes and goes pale. He is remembering what Wen Xu said to her, when she had just given herself up. 

"Yes, Uncle. This child happened because A-Zhan chose to make an incredibly painful, selfless sacrifice for the sake of our sect. Now get the hell out." 

He gets the hell out, looking, for the first time in anyone else's memory, horrified with himself. 

Wei Ying passes him on her way in. 

"Well, he looked suitably told off. Uh, he...shouted...a little too much, and, uh, Meng Yao caught the gist of what he was yelling about, and I filled in the cover story, and then he made that face he made when Xiao Xingchen and I figured out he was my uncle and I realized I was being an ass having all this family in front of him ANYWAY once I send a letter to A-Cheng and he sends back with approval he's gonna be my sworn brother. This has been an eventful day!"

Zewu Jun looks understandably upset. Meng Yao goes over to him and touches his arm.

(He closes his eyes and leans into it slightly.) 

Lan Zhan barely processed any of what Wei Ying just said. She is staring into space and reflecting on how she just destroyed her brother's relationship with their uncle. Uncle left, which means that no one is even going to punish her for it. She doesn't know what else to do.

Be hugged. Be hugged is the thing to do.