Chapter Text
“That was unusually stupid,” Jiang Cheng tells him. “Even for you that was stupid. What were you thinking?”
He knows it was stupid. Lan Zhan and his stupid face, standing there in front of Jin Zixuan--what was that supposed to be? What was he supposed to think? Fight me instead, he'd said, and Wei Ying came perilously close to snapping: bad day for people promised to each other, huh?
But no matter how betrayed he felt, he couldn't put his fist in that perfect face. Not after Lan Zhan had almost smiled at his drawing. So he drew his sword, and everyone trying to get between them was suddenly a lot farther away.
“It really wasn't a good idea, A-Xian.” His sister's voice is soft and sympathetic, so he squeezes his eyes shut and hides behind his hands.
“I know!” he groans. “I know, it was bad! He probably hates children, no one that clean likes kids, and now he's getting punished because of me again! What if he stops talking to me? What if he won't even look at me?”
No one answers--not even his sister, and she never ignores him. He peeks through his fingers, disappointed and curious and still very offended on her behalf. He's just dismayed by his own situation at the same time. He can be offended and dismayed together. He's sure Lan Zhan manages it all the time.
Jiang Cheng seems disgusted, so that’s normal. “He doesn’t look at you now,” he says. “Get over yourself.”
Their dear sister, the light of Wei Ying’s life and the only one he’ll forgive for being confused, asks, “Who are you talking about?”
“Shijie,” he says, because she’s forgiven but she should also be educated. “I only fought with one person yesterday who’s worthy of our conversation! Your stupid fiance is nothing; I hope he falls off the edge of the world and no one remembers his name.”
“Why can’t you think like that when you see him?” Jiang Cheng retorts. “If you actually hit him they’ll kick you out for sure!”
“Oh, I was going to hit him,” Wei Ying promises. “He’s a terrible person with awful manners and no conscience! Also he has poor footwork,” he adds, because it’s true: if that’s how Jin Zixuan holds a sword then Wei Ying never wants to see him dance. “It’s an embarrassment to his family.”
“You’re an embarrassment to our family!” Jiang Cheng exclaims. “If that Lan Wangji hadn’t gotten in front of you with a sword they’d have taken away your robes by now!”
“He did, didn’t he,” Wei Ying says, frowning at the memory. Lan Zhan had already drawn his sword when he said, fight me instead. He didn’t hold it up, but he’d pulled it out. Apparently in an effort to de-escalate the situation, if not for the words he’d spoken.
If Wei Ying had drawn first, it would have looked like aggression.
Well. It would have been aggression, with anyone else. The idea that he could hurt someone like Lan Zhan was laughable, and that was what made it safe to try. He never meant it, obviously.
But if he’d made threats and then drawn his sword unopposed, it wouldn’t matter if he meant it or not. It would have been slightly better than punching the Jins’ golden boy, maybe. Probably. The sects were strange about acceptable violence and retaliation. It still wouldn’t have been good.
Value harmony. Do not sow chaos. Fighting is prohibited.
But Lan Zhan hadn’t told him, don’t fight. Lan Zhan hadn’t tried to stop him: he just goaded him to do it with swords instead of fists. And Lan Zhan always drew first; it was Wei Ying’s favorite thing about him. It was how they met, how they argued, how he knew his words made an impression.
If this time it happened to keep Wei Ying from getting thrown out of Cloud Recesses, surely that was a coincidence.