Wei Ying chooses to relive! COMPLETE (Edited)

16: The oath of GusuLan Sect

Wei Ying let his mind pick up all the changes from his old age as he walked. The trees were younger; many of the plants were not the same as before ... or rather later. With a loving smile he stopped and picked a flower by the trail and smiled as he remembered Lan Zhan picking one and placing it in his headband many years ago on their tenth anniversary and then on every anniversary after that he would do the same. After they married, Wei Ying had started to wear white but with black and red trim until their fifth anniversary when he went to the full GusuLan Sect outfit. His headband was where Lan Zhan would place the flower with a loving smile.

Yes, over the years together, Lan Zhan had learned to smile and laugh when his heart told him too and also the man had grown so much that he would also kiss Wei Ying anywhere, anytime not caring who watched. He had told Wei Ying that if he felt like kissing his husband, he would do it. In fact by the time they had been together for five years, people had become accustomed to Lan Zhan's affection for his husband. It got to the point where people could just walk past the kissing couple without even giving it a second glance.

Wei Ying lifted the flower and breathed in the scent. There were two scents he would remember no matter what. The first was Lan Zhan mingled with sandalwood; the second was this flower with its honey sweetness. Lan Zhan had told him it reminded him of his wife after a bath. Heaven help me, that man knew how to make me blush and my heart melt.

'That is a lovely flower A-Xian. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it before.' YanLi walked up to him with a smile.

'That is because they only grow here in the Cloud Recesses now. This flower is the way this sect chose their colours. The pure white and the three tones of blue.' He lifted the flower to the hight that Lan Zhan's head would be with a smile. The first time he had placed a single flower in that man's forehead ribbon and was rewarded with deep pink ears and a growl. Four hours later, he learnt that to his husband, that was an invitation to make love in the forest ... he kept it for special occasions, when no one was around. 'You see, the founder of GusuLan sect scattered the seeds the day the sect was formed as a vow to his sect and the following generations. They have never grown anywhere else since that day as if the gods were blessing his oath.'

As Wei Ying spoke while standing just off the pathway, behind the bushes, unseen and unheard, sat two men, and at the words of Wei WuXian, they peeked through the bushes to see who was talking. For almost four years now, the pair had sat there to hear for a few hours a day, listening to what others said as they entered the Cloud Recesses. This time it was a young man and woman dressed in the lavender of Jiang Sect and a young man, who held the flower, dressed in black with red trim.

'A vow of what?' Cheng asked as if not even thinking of believing a single word that was to come. However, something in Wei WuXian's eyes and voice as he spoke about the flower ... he almost wanted to believe.

Wei Ying kept his hand high as in his mind he pictured Lan Zhan smiling at him as he recited the words. 'I give my oath to follow all the rules I lay before my disciples to follow and will never ask of them something I can not do myself first. I give my oath to protect the sect and those under my care ... and eventually my partner who will walk beside me in this life. For all this, I give my oath and if I fail to uphold this oath, I will give my life as payment.' He remembered reading that just days after he married into the Lan sect and those words resounded in his very soul. He had in fact silently given the same oath after reading it for every lantern he and his husband released. However he never realised that Lan Zhan also swore the oath every time until his husband had told him a few years before they died.

The two listening behind the bush didn't stop their mouths falling open. The young man in black spoke with such reverence that they could almost not believe it.