Second Time Around

37. To Define Happiness

The wonderful thing about having older siblings was that nearly all the wedding details were handled by someone else. Wei WuXian was quite happy to leave the planning details to his sister; he only insisted on good food and good wine. Lan WangJi already had a wedding ceremony; a second one was for the families, sects, and prestige. As long as Wei WuXian showed up, he would be happy.

Lan XiChen was not happy. The GusuLan elders wanted to oppose the marriage, but were stymied due to it already having occurred. That did not stop the daily grousing. Or the increased pressure for him to marry. And by marry, they meant to a woman of their choosing who would bear heirs for the sect. While Lan XiChen welcomed the idea of marriage, he did not welcome the near constant parade of potential candidates, either in person or their picture. He much preferred the old fashioned idea of meeting a person, finding mutual agreements, falling in like, falling in love, and then getting married. How was he supposed to meet and woo a woman when he was under stringent supervision?

Jiang YanLi wanted to be happy. She was planning her shidi's wedding which should have been a source of joy. It was a source of joy. It was. Unfortunately, morning sickness lasted all day long and did not disperse after the first trimester. Having to stop wedding discussions to vomit put a damper on things.

Thankfully, Jin ZiXuan accepted all blame for the morning sickness and the disruption of her happiness. It was a rather small price to pay for a daughter.

Nie HuaiSang was reveling in his happiness. After being deemed well enough to return to the Unclean Realm, Nie MingJue resumed his duties there. Which included night hunting. Only a few months passed before he suffered a massive qi deviation. Scared that he would lose his brother, Nie HuaiSang sent for Wen Qing. She was able to stabilize his dage's qi quickly. And instigated an investigation into why the QingheNie sect died from qi deviations younger and more frequently than any other sect.. It took her a few more months to pry the answer out of Nie MingJue. The arguments in the meanwhile? Pure comedy of the likes not seen outside of farcical plays and books. They spent almost as much time insulting each other as they did properly talking about how the Nie sabers behaved differently from swords. And how the Nie cultivation techniques differed from the sword path. (Those discussions were noteworthy in and of themselves for the Nie heir who refused to pick up a saber without knowing exactly why the idea of using one unnerved him.) Telling DaGe that he looked forward to having QingJie as a sister-in-law had him running for his life. Telling Wen Qing he looked forward to having her as a sister-in-law had him running even faster to escape her needles.

Wei Yuan wasn't quite sure if he was happy or not. His friends all had a mother and father. Having only a father made him appear different even though he knew that he once had a mama and baba who died. And now he was going to have another father instead of a new mother. JiGege was stern where A'Die was full of smiles. But he smelled nice and was patiently teaching Wei Yuan how to play the guqin. He also was good at playing with wooden swords. Most importantly, he merely had to be near A'Die to make A'Die smile that special smile that made Wei Yuan's chest feel funny. So that was good. Even if he was stern.

Wei WuXian discovered a dilemma immediately upon their return to Lotus Pier after Jin GuangShan's funeral. Lan WangJi was assigned his own room. Which shouldn't have been a problem as they had no intention of him actually using it. But Wei WuXian's room was exactly that: a room. A single room with two beds. The first night he and Lan Zhan had tried to explore each other, they'd (he'd) woken XiaoYuan up. Thankfully, they were still properly clothed. But a child who did not sleep soundly was a problem.

The first solution was to put XiaoYuan in the care of a junior disciple at bedtime and escape to Lan Zhan's room for playtime. The knowing looks and giggles Wei WuXian received on the training grounds the next morning ended that pretty quickly. His face wasn't thick enough to withstand the comments and questions about his sex life from his students and fellow teachers.