LXC and LWJ both looked forward to seeing her every month. But one day she was gone, and Lan Qiren couldn't be arsed to explain death to a small child, apparently, so Lan Wangji kept waiting for her door to open, stubbornly kneeling in the snow.

We see Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren coming to retrieve little Lan Wangji--very kindly, which is surprising, but Lan Qiren isn't entirely a dick, I guess.

Lan Xichen talks about Lan Wangji's stubborn devotion to his mother, and says that when Lan Wangji saw Wei Wuxian cultivating the ghost path, his pain and confusion were the same as in the past when he looked at their mother. Lan Xichen is giving tiny 5-year-old Lan Wangji a lot of credit for the depth of his thinking about the nature of love and violence.

Lan Xichen caps this all off by playing a flute solo. Which is a totally reasonable thing to do, since Wei Wuxian speaks flute.

After explaining this long, acutely awful story to Wei Wuxian and tootling for a bit, Lan Xichen is finally ready to talk about his own situation. He says that in the past he tried to advise Wangji (to dump WWX, is implied), but now that he's in the same boat, he finally understands how hard it is to make a decision.

He thought he understood Jin Guangyao deeply, but now he thinks that the hearts of people in this world "may look like fire from the front, but look like ice from the side" which is a really nice poetic image. Wei Wuxian, is a talker but he's also an incredibly good listener; he doesn't say a goddamn thing, but looks at Lan Xichen with concern and sympathy.

Note that when he quietly looks at Lan Xichen it is totally different from when he looks at Lan Wangji. This is a bro look.

Just as Lan Xichen wraps up telling Wei Wuxian about the depth and fierceness of Lan Wangji's devotion to him, Lan Wangji shows up with physical evidence of that devotion, in the form of the forbidden liquor that featured in their first romantic encounter fight.

He looks shockingly beautiful with his hair down and his face totally relaxed and happy. Not pictured: the brass balls it takes to bring your boyfriend forbidden alcohol right in front of your clan leader.

Date Night

Wei Wuxian comes and stands in the doorway and watches Lan Wangji pouring the wine for Wei Wuxian and pouring tea for hiself while Wangxian, tender piano version, plays on the soundtrack.

Wei Wuxian wants to say thank you to Lan Wangji but can't bring himself to be that mushy, in spite having told Jin Ling, ages ago, that every person has to learn to say thank you and sorry in this life. So he changes the subject to talk about Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao.

Lan Wangji then brings up the second flute - which, while not consistent with the novel, is at least internally consistent with the show, so I won't complain about this. But those of you who hate the whole second-flute thing, I get you. Anyway, Lan Wangji says he asked Wen Ning, and that WN remembers hearing two different flute sounds. When has Lan Wangji had a chance to talk to Wen Ning privately? He's so jelly that Wen Ning runs away whenever LWJ gets near.

WWX says it happened at Nightless city as well, and we have a quick flashback featuring the most discordant, godawful flute music, which is the Su She song of fucking your shit up.

They go out on the porch in the snow and talk about it some more. Now that he knows about the Collection of Chaos, he's confident that someone was playing it to mess things up for him.

Lan Wangji says it's Jin Guangyao, but WWX says maybe, maybe not - that it doesn't really matter now, toasting "whatever (suibian), screw it" and drinking from one of the Emperor's smile bottles.

Lan Wangji stands under the roof and smiles one of his little content micro smiles.

Wei Wuxian then talks about his reputation as the Yiling Patriarch, that it doesn't matter who really did anything, that people just need a person to blame, and he is known for being that person.

He's essentially accepting his place in the Great Dao with this speech. While he says this, the camera is looking at him and Lan Wangji from the side, where--as others have noted--the two of them form a balance between dark and light, yin and yang, with Lan Wangji under the roof, wearing white, and Wei Wuxian in the snowfall, wearing black.

Wei Wuxian says that even if there had been no Jin Guangyao or second flute, shit would have still happened, and the camera closes in on him as he drinks more wine; we hear the first notes of Wangxian on the guqin. Wei Wuxian hears it too, and turns with a smile that says "gonna have you nekkid by the end of this song."

Then Wei Wuxian leans in the doorway and we get a rare internal monologue from him. He says to himself, that he was really lonely back then (at the end of his previous life, that the few people who cared about him had died, and lists Wen Ning and Jiang Yanli, despite Wen Ning being only mostly dead. Then he thinks "Luckily…" and Lan Wangji finishes the thought with his own internal monologue: there's still someone who believes in you (trust/believe, 信) in this world.

Then Wei Wuxian drinks the most erotic toast possible to Lan Wangji, saying in his internal monologue that having one zhiji in life is enough for him to be content.

Lan Wangji's voice says, nothing else is needed but to have a clear conscience; Wei Wuxian's voice replies - or coincidentally thinks - I don't care what they say about me as long as I have a clear conscience.

Then he says out loud - very quietly - "I'm sorry, and thank you." Lan Wangji looks up and we get the sung version of Wangxian, the duet version, I think, although my hearing is crappy so I'm not sure.

They continue making beautiful music together as the camera sweeps up and away, followed by a fade to black - not a crossfade to the next scene, but a fade to a full black screen before picking up the next scene in the morning. This is c-drama film language for: they fucked, y'all.

There's Got To Be a Morning After

In the morning we see Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian sleepily meditating in the Hanshi. They had a long night, clearly. Wei Wuxian dozes off and falls into Lan Wangji's side, which doesn't bother Lan Wangji. Some fic writers seem to take this as showing that Wei Wuxian is bad at meditation, but he's just worn out - normally he's great at meditation, since that's how he formed his grade-A core, and we also saw him meditating the yin iron into submission back in the day.

Jin Guangyao shows up, getting the sinister-walking-feet camera treatment that we've seen before when someone was about to fuck shit up. He just sits down to have tea, however, and to give Lan Xichen's entry token back since it seems to have been turned off on the server side.

Next we get a super uncomfortable interaction where Jin Guangyao keeps pressing to find out why Lan Xichen has turned cold, and Lan Xichen keeps pretending everything is fine while still glaring daggers at Jin Guangyao. Wei Wuxian is super alert and listening during this conversation. Eventually JGY gives up and leaves, and Lan Xichen dispatches LWJ and WWX to find out what's going on at the burial mounds while he goes to Jinlintai to join a discussion about a second siege of the burial mounds.

Road Trip

The trip to the burial mounds kicks off with a cute romantic interlude where Wei Wuxian mishandles and pesters Lan Wangji's rabbits, and Lan Wangji gazes adoringly at him. Lan Wangji's rabbits sure look like the descendants of Lan Yi's rabbits, but they aren't wearing headbands any more, thank heaven, because that shit was ridiculous. So ridiculous I decided to paint a headband onto one of them for the first image in this chapter.

The rabbits follow them to the gate of The Cloud Recesses because they love Lan Wangji, and he clearly loves them back. It's a nice moment that brings nuance to his character - just a little reminder that he's built a life for himself in Wei Wuxian's absence, and is beginning to share it with Wei Wuxian.

Wei Wuxian noisily pesters Lil Apple while wondering aloud why animals don't like him as much as they like Lan Wangji.

We then get a long scene of Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian, Lil Apple, and Wei Wuxian's fake donkey-riding foot, traveling through beautiful scenery while Wei Wuxian plays music for Lan Wangji.

He has, at last, figured out that playing Wangxian is what let Lan Wangji recognize him. Lan Wangji admits to writing it but won't tell him the name of the song.

They stop for water at a ramshackle house that is absolutely NOT any place style queen Luo Qingyang/MianMian would live, no matter who she married.

Look at this plant! Is that not a weed? And what's with all the random empty baskets, fabric, and skins? And the sticks that make up the railing aren't even trimmed to the same length despite her having a magic sword. Mianmian would live in a cute little cottage with good feng shui. This is a house where bandits would live.

Anyway, after some ridiculous hiding behind a haystack, they meet Mianmian, her husband, and daughter. Wei Wuxian has to fully reboot his brain in order to recognize her, which seems to make perpetually-jealous Lan Wangji happy.

My favorite moment from this scene: Wei Wuxian picks up a melon to check if it's ripe and Lan Wangji immediately gets out his coin purse like the sugar daddy he yearns to be. In the book his coin purse is (indirectly) stolen from MianMian, because of jealousy, so this is a nice callout.

Soundtrack: Rock Your Body by Justin Timberlake, The Morning After by Maureen McGovern