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Contrary to popular belief, Lan Xichen enjoys cooking.
Even the Lan sect, in all its austerity, doesn’t expect its disciples - far less its heir - to perform or know how to perform basic household chores. There are disciples who pick up cooking or basic laundry nonetheless because when you’re three days of non-reckless sword flight away from any vestige of an inn or a proper human settlement you tend to regret not knowing things like this. No matter what a powerful, lofty cultivator you are, none of them can practise inedia or snap their fingers to magically clean their clothes. A most unfortunate occurrence, if one were to go by the Juniors’ frequent and loud complaints.
Lan Xichen, of course, is expected to have disciples with him who will offer to shoulder such mortal burdens if the time ever came. He never did get the hang of doing laundry, even while on the run. Thinking about the clothes he’d ended up inadvertently ripping to unusable states brings a dull ache to his chest, because the one who had shaken his head in dismay while politely chasing him away from the vicinity of clothes to be washed is no longer here. At least now he can think back on that person without feeling the coils of guilt in the pit of his stomach.
But it is precisely because it isn’t expected of him that Lan Xichen enjoys doing it so much. As sect heir and then sect leader, he has never been free of expectations. As he grew up into the pleasant, polite, perfect Jade of Gusu Lan, the expectations winded around him tighter and tighter until sometimes he swore he couldn’t breathe under their weight.
In those days, the memories of his mother and the small slices of time he’d spent with her became a breath of fresh air. She would make them the strangest dishes - so far from the normal bland Lan fare which was supposed to not taste like much of anything - and Lan Xichen found his heart aching for another taste of his mother’s cooking, another glimpse of her warm smile that never faltered even though now he realised how much pain she had to have been in all the while, another flitting touch as she ruffled his hair and laughed at his flush, not being used to affectionate touches from the other adults around him.
Only one of those was achievable, and so Lan Xichen set out to learn how to cook his mother’s dishes. It was an endeavour that scarred more than one Lan cook and Lan Xichen himself as he proceeded to accidentally start fires on three different occasions, but in his defense he didn’t have the best teachers. Or any teachers, except some dusty tomes from the library and whatever little scrolls about cookery he could find while out night hunting. Whenever he tried asking a cook or one of the disciples he did know could cook, he’d be met with either consternation (because why would First Young Master Lan need to know how to cook, is he dissatisfied with the food cooked by this humble one -) or with one of the Lan dishes that paled in comparison to the taste of his mother’s dishes.
Needless to say, that was an adventurous time in his life (and also the lives of the disciples and cooks who manned Gusu Lan’s kitchen). Along the way, though, he realised he genuinely enjoyed cooking. The thrill of mastering a new recipe was no less to him than the thrill of mastering a new talisman or sword move would be to his peers, and he loved getting to taste them after - something he had made, with his own two hands.
Yet, it always felt as if something was missing from the experience. No one ever asked if he could cook, and he never told anyone he could. On occasions, he had thought about telling someone - A-Yao, Da-ge, Wangji… perhaps even
shufu
. Contemplated sharing the dishes he was so proud of with the people he loved. And yet…
Shufu
and Wangji would surely frown upon such an excessive action, because his food was anything
but
bland. It didn’t conform to the Lan tenets of not over-indulging in delicacies. Da-ge was a sect leader, he could ask one of his own cooks to make him whatever he wanted however he wanted whenever he wanted. A-Yao...well, at first Lan Xichen hadn’t had the inclination to cook anything, then they’d been in the middle of a war, and then A-Yao had been instated as a son by Jin Guangshan. His dishes could hardly compare to the feasts the Jin sect could offer.
So in the end, it remained his own little secret. Over time he even liked the idea of it being a little secret, if only because he never did end up finding a dish that tasted the same as his mother’s. Once Wangji found Wei-gongzi and began to branch out into trying out those spicy dishes from hell Wei-gongzi liked to call ‘good food’, he even started thinking that one day he might end up discovering his mother’s dishes and inviting Wangji to try them with him.
But in the darkest days of his life, when he frequently wished that he could just fade away like the last leaf of autumn, or the last petal of a flower trampled upon by thousands… Cooking was his sole escape. It was good busywork that kept his head occupied and his thoughts from wandering, and even if he had to pour out most of the food to the fishes because he rarely had an appetite he tried not to feel too guilty about it.
“Can’t think about how you killed both of your sworn brothers if you’re too busy measuring out ingredients.” He told Jiang Wanyin once, with a rueful smile, after he was officially out of seclusion.
Jiang Wanyin gave him an unimpressed stare that had made lesser men quake, and pointed his chopsticks threateningly at Lan Xichen, forgoing all the careful manners and etiquette they’d both been raised with.
“If you start blaming yourself again, Lan Huan, I will stab you right here and right now.”
To someone who didn’t know either of them or their journey together, it might have sounded harsh. Lan Xichen, who had known Jiang Wanyin quite intimately for some years now, laughed at this well-worn threat. His heart felt light and warm.
“Yes, yes, Sect Leader Jiang, this one apologises. Does Sect Leader Jiang want some more soup?” He asked, tilting his head in mock apology.
“Don’t think I didn’t notice you piling my plate with all the duck.” Jiang Wanyin grumbled.
“Ah, it is only fair to pay Wanyin back for the mapo tofu he cooked for me earlier today.” He smiled brightly, eyes twinkling. “Besides, it was Wanyin who taught me-”
“-how to make the dishes? I told you already, you don’t need to keep bringing that up.” The other man cut him off, cheeks flushed a lovely shade of pink.
Someday, Lan Xichen would tell him just what the dishes meant to him. Meishan Yu was a reclusive sect, and Meishan itself was mountainous terrain difficult for travelers to go in and out of. As for Lan Xichen’s mother, no one even remembered or was willing to talk about her maiden name. She existed solely as the disgraced Lan- furen , and even then only in hushed whispers when the sect leader or the second young master wasn’t listening. If not for Wanyin deciding to share his a-niang ’s favourite dish with Lan Xichen, his not-quite-lover at the time, he never would have made the connection.
Someday, Xichen thinks, he will take Wanyin to that region of mountains and waterfalls and memories of two women who are no longer there, yet whose presences haunt them both.
But right now, he wants to preserve this moment - the little blush on Wanyin’s cheeks, the way he can feel his own lips stretched in a smile. The softness welling up inside his heart, the sweetness on his lips that has nothing to do with the dishes set in front of them.
“Not quite. It’s Wanyin who taught me the secret to the best dishes.”
“Huh?” Wanyin looks up from the dish he had found interesting all of a sudden.
“Sharing it with someone you love.” Lan Xichen finishes, and swoops down to capture Wanyin’s lips and swallow his half-affronted, half-embarrassed squeak.