#imagine learning your predecessor is a hot clown

[smoochie150]

I need these two to interact or I'll die

[gusu-emilu]

Cantatio: Chapter Four

Ship: Lan Zhan / Wei Ying (POV Lan Zhan)

Summary: Wei Ying and Nie Huaisang cause trouble in Lan Qiren’s class. Lan Zhan isn’t amused.

Cloud Recesses Academy AU, Rated T (technically this is a series but this chapter can stand alone too) - read on AO3

< Ch. 3 | Ch. 5 > |  chapter list

Lan Wangji had expected the first day of classes to be long.

But not this long.

The expression ‘time flies when you’re having fun’ had never held much truth for the young cultivator, who believed that a better phrasing would be ‘time proceeds at a pace directly proportional to one’s concentration.’

Being trained in Daoist meditation techniques since his first sign of infantile self-awareness had granted Lan Wangji the ability to bend his perception of time with his focus. When he rose long before dawn and sat in Lotus Position to meditate, the silent depths of stillness enabled him to traverse hours in what felt like the blink of an eye, yet the insights he obtained remained undistorted by the time skip.

Unless he was disrupted by the loud crash of Wei Wuxian falling out of bed on the other side of the room.

But that was beside the point.

The more Lan Wangji focused, the faster the world moved. His studies were one of the pursuits that he paid the most careful attention to. He listened to professors with unwavering interest, picking up on the slightest inflections of their voices, and he ruminated on intriguing sentences for hours after a lesson finished. Therefore it made sense that although the school day would be long, its duration would be reasonable, for his mind would be well-occupied.

Yet Lan Qiren was still lecturing about Ancient Texts, and it was only the first class of the day!

The problem was not a lack of interest. Ancient Texts had always been a special aptitude of Lan Wangji. The problem was that he wasn’t fully focused on the lecture, and therefore it dragged on. As Lan Qiren’s stentorian voice intoned perfectly pronounced phrases of poetry, his mind kept ping-ponging between thoughts of what he would say to Wen Qing about last night, what Wei Wuxian looked like while sleeping—no, that never crossed his mind—and what could be inside the strange closet that sat smugly in his dorm room. He imagined that the closet was fully aware of the mess it had caused and was snickering at the shameful memory of Lan Wangji being thrown around a girls’ dormitory by a giant beetle.

Rule #1034: Learning comes first.

Lan Wangji needed to recenter his focus.

He picked up his brush and pressed the end of its handle into his palm. It was highly improper to mistreat a calligraphy tool like this, but Lan Wangji was getting desperate.

The pressure from the blunt wood roused him back into the moment.

Lan Qiren was pacing alongside the disciples’ desks, his mustache whiskers quivering as he spoke with a stern yet aloof tone.

“The poem I just recited was translated from an ancient predecessor to our language. Of course, translations never capture the full nuance of a passage. Therefore, now that you have heard but a cloudy reflection of this magnus opus, we will begin analyzing the poem in its original language, Trans-Himalayan,” Lan Qiren said.

The entire classroom groaned. Nie Huaisang rested his chin in his palm, looking the most bored out of everyone.

“What’s the point?” Wei Wuxian muttered. “When are we ever going to need to know Trans-Himalayan?”

“Shut up. You’ll need to know Trans-Himalayan if you want to pass the class. That should be enough,” hissed Jiang Cheng.

A few moments later, Nie Huaisang leaned over. “…Who are Tran, Sim, and Leia? They sound like the type to have a threesome.”

“…”

Every disciple in the room sucked in a collective breath of shocked amusement, their twisted smiles on the verge of bursting.

Nie Huaisang opened his silk fan and covered his own smirk in a hurry, looking at the ceiling with light eyes that concealed a calculated satisfaction beneath their innocence. A single wheeze escaped from Wei Wuxian’s mouth before he could stop it, like air escaping from a balloon.

Lan Qiren did not seem to notice. He criticized the Jin Clan disciple who was stumbling over foreign words as she recited the ancient poem for the class.

Of course, once you let go of the mouth of a balloon that’s full of air, it’s inevitable that it will fly around the room in a sputtering chaos.

“Aiya, Huaisang, that’s not how you say it,” Wei Wuxian murmured. “You’ve got the wrong people in the bed. It’s supposed to be pronounced, ‘Tran, Sim, and Lan Qiren.’”

Now at least five disciples were snickering. Nie Huaisang was silently buried in his fan, but his scrunched eyes and heaving shoulders said more than enough. Even Jiang Cheng, who was clearly counting how many hours of detention he’d get if he slammed Wei Wuxian’s face into the desk, could not prevent his lips from curling.

Ridiculous, Lan Wangji thought. He was sorry he had tuned his mind back in to the classroom.

The Jin Clan disciple was still fumbling through her recitation. All eyes were on Lan Qiren, but not for the reason the old professor would have hoped.

“Remember that really poetic line? ‘Balance to both ends of the world,’” Wei Wuxian parroted in sing-song. “Well, that’s the part where Tran and Sim each grab one side of Lan Qiren’s mustache.”

Jiang Cheng was the first to break. His high-pitched giggle—unhinged and childlike—pierced through the air like a siren. However, that surprising turn of events was quickly forgotten as the entire room erupted into feverish laughter.

The balloon had popped.

“What is the meaning of this?! Settle down! Everyone, quiet!” Lan Qiren huffed. He held his arms stiffly out to his sides with the sleeves of his robes draping in two giant hoops, as if he wanted to suck all the laughter into his sleeves to snuff it out.

Lan Wangji glared at Wei Wuxian, but the insolent clown was so overcome with giggling that he did not notice.

Apparently, Lan Qiren had followed his nephew’s line of sight to find the culprit, and soon accosted him.

“Wei Wuxian! What have you done? Confess to your actions!”

This only increased the volume of the laughter that ricocheted off the classroom ceiling into Lan Qiren’s offended ears, which seemed to spew out hot steam in protest. Lan Wangji felt a bit guilty for unintentionally ratting out Wei Wuxian to be the recipient of his uncle’s wrath.

Wei Wuxian finally reigned in his mirth and looked up at Lan Qiren with precariously composed sincerity. “I was only saying that I want to write a poem about mustache whiskers. I call it The Ballad of Catfish.”

Actually, no, Lan Wangji did not feel bad at all.

“Wei Wuxian! What is this disrespect? My classroom is no place for jokes! You should be focusing on the poem in Trans-Himalayan!”

The disciples bit their lips at the mention of the word that had started the whole fiasco, but the balloon of laughter had finally deflated.

“Wei Wuxian!”

“Yes, Shifu?”

“Do you know how to read this poem?”

“Not yet, Shifu.”

“Then why have you been chatting instead?”

“…Because I do not know how to read the poem, Shifu.”

Lan Qiren’s blood was boiling. “Wei Wuxian, since you are so illiterate, you will continue reading the poem to the class!” he barked, apparently not caring about the contradiction he just created.

“Yes, Shifu.”

Wei Wuxian blinked at his textbook.

“Where did we leave off?”

Lan Qiren sighed and shook his head with weary disapproval.

Wei Wuxian was actually able to perfectly read the last line the Jin Clan disciple had said, to Lan Qiren’s obvious displeasure. However, he was already stumped by elementary words in the next line. He must have been reciting from memory and had already reached the end of his mind’s fishing reel.

“Uh…um…” He looked up at the professor like a child asking for a piggyback ride.

“Wangji, please assist Young Master Wei.”

Lan Wangji was used to being called on to help other students. After all, it was rare that he did not know the answer.

“Swan.” Lan Wangji said the word in both languages for clarity.

Wei Wuxian nodded and continued. He was stuck again three syllables later.

“Wangji,” Lan Qiren called.

Lan Wangji looked down at the complex inky scribbles in the poetry book on his desk. He realized that he did not understand the line either.

“Lan Zhan? Some help?” Wei Wuxian said.

Lan Wangji paused, then flattened the page in front of him as he spoke.

“I do not know.”

Wei Wuxian eyes widened in disbelief. He looked at Jiang Cheng. Jiang Cheng scoffed and turned his head away, but his pupils soon snuck into the corners of his eyes to observe Lan Wangji with chilled interest.

“Well, huh, then…” Lan Qiren frowned. “I suppose this text is rather difficult. But that is no excuse for misbehavior! The line reads, ‘Horrified, the warrior realized that, like a swan crushing her eggs as she shielded them from a snake, it was his hand that plunged the knife into the Emperor’s heart.’ It is a pivotal turning point in the poem’s narrative and is frequently quoted by other authors. It is critical that you grasp every literary metaphor related to this line!”

The rest of Ancient Texts passed peacefully. Lan Wangji enjoyed the challenge of dissecting the poem in its original language. It was a tragic story about a warrior who, upon learning that he had been manipulated by the enemy in an assassination plot to kill the emperor he served, abandoned his beautiful homeland to hide in repentant shame for eternity.

Although the stories were different, it reminded Lan Wangji of his father.

He quickly shoved that thought away.

After class ended, the disciples entered the courtyard outside. Lan Wangji hung back. He had to tell his uncle about last night’s incident. Someone needed to be alerted if a portal really did exist in a Cloud Recesses dormitory, and who better to inform than the overseer of the Cloud Recesses himself, Clan Leader Lan Qiren?

However, his uncle already had a lot of tasks on his plate, especially now that he and the clan leaders had to track down wherever the monster spirit that possessed the beetle had come from. Furthermore, it would be embarrassing for Lan Wangji to convey the full details of his story, and he still did not have an adequate explanation for what had transpired. And he definitely was not secretly worried that if he exposed the truth of the closet door, he and Wei Wuxian would be relocated and would no longer be roommates. That was not a factor.

Yet the rules tugged at his feet and at his tongue.

Shoulder the weight of morality. Be strict with yourself. Be loyal and filial.

If he did not tell his uncle…perhaps his brother would be an acceptable confidante?

But first, Wen Qing. He stepped out into the sunny courtyard.

“Wei-xiong, that was hilarious! I’ve never had such a good time in a class!” Nie Huaisang said as he bounded over to his dark-robed friend.

“Ahaha, why give me all the credit, though? You’re a funny little devil as well.”

Nie Huaisang shook his hands wildly in front of him, as if this suggestion were too much for him to hold.

“No, no, no, I wasn’t trying to be funny! I really didn’t know how to say it!”

“Hahaha! That’s even funnier, then!”

Jiang Cheng elbowed Wei Wuxian in the ribs. “Neither of you are funny.” He grabbed his brother by the arm and started dragging him across the courtyard. “Move your ass. If I’m late to the daozhang’s class because of you, I’m going to punch your head in.”

“What are you fussing about, Jiang Cheng? You were laughing louder than anyone!”

“Was not!”

Lan Wangji swooped in front of their path. “Causing disruptions in class is prohibited.”

Jiang Cheng scowled. Nie Huaisang covered his face with his fan and hid the rest of his body behind Wei Wuxian, who stood smirking with his hands on his hips.

“Aiya, Lan Zhan! You better be careful! If you say those rules so much, you’ll turn into the scroll they’re written on!”

Lan Wangji furrowed his brow. “Boring.”

“Yeah, exactly! Okay, step aside, Lan Zhan, you’re going to make us late for class. Unless you want to be the reason we break another rule? Haha! Come on, let’s go,” he said as he tugged Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang away.

“Get your fat hands off me,” Jiang Cheng said with a shove.

Nie Huaisang turned his head over his shoulder and waved. “Bye, Second Young Master Lan!”

Lan Wangji eyed Nie Huaisang suspiciously as he scurried after the bickering siblings and disappeared around a temple at the far side of the courtyard. In the time Lan Wangji had spent accompanying Lan Xichen on trips to Qinghe, he had learned a few things about the small, skittish young cultivator.

Nie Huaisang was crafty. When he wanted entertainment, all he needed to do is throw a match into the firepit—nothing profound, just a provocative little comment that could provide some kindling—and then he would sit back and watch as everyone burned down the world around him. Most assumed he carried his signature fans for decoration. Lan Wangji theorized that he carried them to exercise his talent for fanning the flames of discord.

Of course, if confronted, Nie Huaisang would insist that he knew three times less about the world than anyone else.

On his own, the boy was manageable. Endearing, even.

But next to Wei Wuxian?

It was a partnership forged in Hell.

After the troublesome trio disappeared, Lan Wangji searched for Wen Qing, hoping to apologize for intruding in her room and discuss the teleportation closet with her, but she had disappeared after Ancient Texts.

He caught sight of her again right as Song Lan’s Beings & Creatures class was beginning. To his disappointment, he would have to wait until its completion to speak to her.

It was a long wait. Song Lan’s class did not pass peacefully.

* * *

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Ch. 5 > | chapter list