She lets go of her. She does not move out of the way between Madam Yu and Wei Ying.

She looks at her tightly for a long moment, then away. "I apologize. I'm sure Wei Ying's presence was valuable to your sect." 

She nods tightly and then glances back at Wei Ying. Do you want me to move?

She nods slightly. 

"It's really good to see you, Shijie. Um--did A-Cheng tell you two...?"

"Tell us what?" 

"I thought you should get to tell." Also he was not taking the fall for her on telling his mom. 

Dammit. "So, uh, you've probably heard about my producing all sorts of new talismans," she says, gesturing at a random bit of ground that currently has a tent covering part of it but is still rather distinctly lightning-scorched. "I...well, you can't get stuff like that without a few mishaps, and, well, I was doing more biological stuff early on, and, uh. Sometimes things got weird. Strictly speaking the time I turned a Wen soldier inside out was less weird, but, Lan Zhan and I are getting married and we're going to have a baby." 

Madam Yu s t a r e s at her. She's pretty good at telling when Wei Ying is and isn't bullshitting but she doesn't look like she's bullshitting but this sounds extremely bullshit???

"Really?"

"You got pregnant and you'd have us believe it was by magic?" 

"Uh, no, she's the one who's pregnant." 

"..." 

The Second Jade of Lan misbehaving and Wei Ying covering for her sounds so much less plausible than the other way around. 

"Only you would have something like this happen, A-Ying." 

"Heh, I can't deny it." 

"About the matter you wrote to me about--do you mind if we talk in private?" 

"Not at all," she says, and kisses Lan Zhan on the cheek as she follows her brother somewhere more discreet. 

Lan Zhan glares one more time at Madam Yu, bows to Jiang Yanli, and wanders vaguely after Wei Ying to wait nearby out of earshot.

"You want Meng Yao for a sworn brother," Jiang Cheng says.

"Yes." 

"Are you trying to make it harder for me to be the cool uncle?" 

"Didn't cross my mind. What, afraid of the competition? 

"Of course not!" 

"Good, 'cause it was his idea to bother asking permission first and if you'd been difficult about it I was going to have to insist. I didn't know ahead of time what I would hypothetically be using to insist but if it'd been about the cool uncle thing I'd've threatened to tell them all kinds of embarrassing stories from your childhood." 

"Shijie!" 

"What? I didn't think it was likely that you were going to refuse or anything." 

"I'm not, I'm not. ...Mom might object. Considering Madam Jin is her best friend." 

"Madam Yu can cope, if Madam Jin didn't want her son outshone by a half-brother she should've raised a cooler son. Or, you know, married not Jin Guangshan." 

"I'm not objecting in principle, I'm just saying, if Mom decides to be difficult about it, you get to deal with her." 

"I don't promise not to try to shirk dealing with her but I do promise to try to do it in such a way that doesn't make you or Shijie deal with her instead." 

Sigh. "That's all I can ask." 

Meng Yao drifts closer when he first hears his name.

Once he's sure that Jiang Cheng's stance is not 'adopting Meng Yao will ruin the reputation of you and our clan and I will take steps to make that not happen', he feels no need to stick around -

but then he hears 'if Madam Jin didn't want her son outshone by a half-brother', which is. Not something he ever expected to hear someone say.

Wei Ying emerges from the tent, spots him, and beams. "Hi! There you are! A-Cheng says yes." 

He beams back. "It gladdens me to hear that, Wei-guniang. When should I arrange the ceremony?"

"Uhhhhhh I'm good with whenever," she sticks her head back inside the tent. "A-CHENG WHEN IS A GOOD TIME FOR THE SWEARING CEREMONY." 

"Shijie I'm right here you don't have to yell." 

"A-Cheng..." 

Sigh. "Three days from now?"

"I will ensure that everything is prepared."

She hugs him. 

He still hasn't had many opportunities to practice hugs as an adult but he does his best.