"Could you try climbing the cliff, even without ropes?" 

"I could try...I don't think it would work, though, since I'd have to carry you too. I don't think they left any convenient ropes at the top either."

"Try without me."

"I guess it can't hurt to try. And if I succeed maybe there'll be some convenient vines or something that they didn't think to destroy." 

Nod. Lan Zhan would rise to accompany her to the base of the cliff, but. Well.

Well. 

Wei Ying actually manages, with several attempts and a great deal of bloody-minded determination, to make her way up the cliff. 

She comes back not long after, sliding down in a much more controlled fall than when Wen Chao pushed her. 

"They blocked the entrance." 

Fuck, of course they did.

Lan Zhan lowers her eyes in contemplation. "I can distract the Xuanwu while you escape. I cannot swim anyway."

"Absolutely not!!! There isn't any help I could go for that A-Cheng hasn't already."

Getting help isn't the point.

"I'm not going to just abandon you!"

"Wei Ying."

"Lan Zhan! Do you really think I'm going to kiss you and then run off to leave you alone with this horrible thing? What kind of girl do you think I am!"

"You could kiss me multiple times."

She leans in and kisses her.

"Still not abandoning you," she says when they part. 

"I want you to live."

"Well I'm not going to let you kill yourself accomplishing that!"

"I cannot help you get past the Xuanwu."

"Well I'm not going to go past it without you."

"Do you think I could stand to lose you now?"

"Then you must come up with another plan."

"See, that's fine, I'm good at coming up with plans." Snuggle. 

Sigh, snuggle.

"I think," she declares, some cuddlesome time later, "that we are going to have to kill it."