Read on Twitter
Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng simply hating each other and staying out of the other's way is such a missed opportunity. I mean, they both care about Wei WuXian, his legacy and the things he left behind so they both should have something the other is interested in: the children.
Lan Zhan has Wei Ying's son (I refuse to believe that Jiang Chen hasn't seen baby A-Yuan at the Burial Mounds or that he hasn't found out that Lan Zhan took him in. If he kept Chenqing for over a decade it just seems realistic to me that he would try to find out what happened to
the kid.) And Jiang Cheng has Wei Wuxian's nephew, his precious shijie's son to whom Wei Ying gave his courtesy name. To me it stands to reason that they would at least try to see the other child.
So what I would like to see out of this situation is the two of them begrudgingly
So what I would like to see out of this situation is the two of them begrudgingly
organising playdates for Jin Ling and A-Yuan. Neither of them trusts or likes the other so they are both present which means that they start spending a lot of time together. They get to know, not like, know each other. They start to respect each other, at least when it comes to
parenting. A few years in they basically have shared custody. Jin Ling spends a couple of weeks in Gusu and A-Yuan spends a couple of weeks in Yunmeng every year on top of their regular playdates (but only once Lan Zhan and Jiang Chen get to the point where they trust the other
enough to leave them alone with their child.) Their parenting style is an ungodly mix of Jiang and Lan as they start adopting the other's principles and practices when they find them better suited.
All the devopment though doesn't mean that they start liking each other. Oh, no.
All the devopment though doesn't mean that they start liking each other. Oh, no.
The whole reason Jiang Cheng gets introduced to Lan JingYi, the most un-Lan Lan to ever Lan is that during one of A-Yuan's arranged two week visit Lan Zhan just decides to take him along and drop him off at Lotus Pier claiming that A-Yuan would be said without his friend but
really, it's that Lan Zhan knows how "too much" JingYi can be (and how much energy it takes XiChen to keep up with him) and he wants to make Jiang Cheng's life just a little bit harder (at this point he knows JC is a good parent, he knows that he will try his best to take a good
care of JingYi and that's the point. Keeping up with JingYi is exhausting). But it backfires. JingYi take to Jiang Cheng like a baby duckling to its mother so now JingYi always talks about visiting Yunmeng and always tries to stick to Jiang Cheng when he visits the Cloud Recess.
It is embarrassing, but since it gives XiChen a break and Jiang Cheng doesn't mind (he imprinted too), JingYi gets pulled into the loop as well.
By the time the kids are ten years old WangJi and Jiang Cheng got that wordless communication down to perfection. When it comes to the
By the time the kids are ten years old WangJi and Jiang Cheng got that wordless communication down to perfection. When it comes to the
kids, they don't even have to be in the same room (or region for that matter) and they can still act perfectly in sync because that's just how well they know each other. And they hate it.
After the kids turn old enough the question of Wei Wuxian inevitably comes up. It is a
After the kids turn old enough the question of Wei Wuxian inevitably comes up. It is a
painful topic for all of them, more so for Jiang Cheng. Lan Zhan is the first to broach it with the kids frankly because he wants to be the one to give the kids their first proper impression of Wei Wuxian to combat whatever Jiang Cheng will tell them. Still it's a difficult
subject so he picks a story from back when they all attended lectures at the Cloud Recess. The children naturally parrot it back to Jiang Cheng and he... He doesn't know what to do. At first he gets angry, but he is also glad that it wasn't him who had to bring it up.
So he decides to take Lan Zhan's lead on this (for now) and simply tells his own version of that story.
This is how Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng start talking about Wei Ying, with exchanging stories through the children. Then as the stories from their discipline years start running
This is how Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng start talking about Wei Ying, with exchanging stories through the children. Then as the stories from their discipline years start running
out they start drifting towards other topics. Lan Zhan cautiously starts speaking about the Sun Shot campaign and what came after. He is very careful about what he chooses to tell and he keeps everything about the horrors of those years very sanitized to protect
the children. Jiang Cheng naturally starts drifting towards stories from their childhood. Of course they still respond to each other's stories, which means that the children oftentimes have a clearer understanding of who Wei Wuxian was than either of the adults. But they are
learning. The stories challange both Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng's understanding about not just Wei Wuxian but also of each other and through that they start piecing together the bigger picture, they start to see where and how it all went wrong. After a while they get to the point
where they can't avoid actually, directly talking to each other about all of it. So they leave the children with Xichen and they meet on what they consider as neutral ground: a teahouse in Yiling. It is a painfuland slow conversation with a lot of pauses and both of them are
very glad that they learned to read the other enough that they don't need that many words anymore. They have a lot of conversations like that and not just about Wei WuXian but about their own families and upbringing as well. They bond over things.
As they get a clearer picture of who Wei WuXian was with all his bravery brilliance, with his arrogance and idiocy, with his kindness and cruelty they also start seeing the manipulations of the rest of the cultivation word. Of the Jin sect to be more specific. It's a slow going
process, the discussions and the healing, so they start snooping around only a few months before Wei Ying is back but they already have a few things figured out by then. Then Wei Ying is suddenly back and Jiang Cheng just doesn't know how to deal with it so he bows out.
He and Lan Zhan agree that Jiang Cheng would keep an eye on the Jin sect and protect the children as much as he can while WangXian investigates.
During the investigation Lan Zhan talks a bit about Jiang Cheng because he came to understand how important that relationship is to
During the investigation Lan Zhan talks a bit about Jiang Cheng because he came to understand how important that relationship is to
both brothers and he wants to see it restored. For Wei Ying. So he can have his brother back, so he can have his home back if he wants it. Because of that, when the dust settles after the GuanYin temple WangXian doesn't just run off to elope. They stay so Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying
could talk. And they do. A lot. It involves a lot of crying, the ugly kind too with snot running everywhere. It involves a lot of hugs too. Of course one conversation doesn't fix everything, but it is a start. It takes them years to get back, not to where they were before but to
an even better space. The Yunmeng brothers finally had the chance to clear up everything that put a strain on their relationship and caused confusion and misunderstandings. It's better than it ever was.
They hold WangXian's wedding ceremony in Gusu and the celebration in Yunmeng
They hold WangXian's wedding ceremony in Gusu and the celebration in Yunmeng
it's a bit of a hassle but they wouldn't want it any other way.
In the end Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng are still not exactly friends, but they are not not-friends either. It amuses Wei WuXian to no end. They became family.
In the end Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng are still not exactly friends, but they are not not-friends either. It amuses Wei WuXian to no end. They became family.
