It only took a few hours to fly back to Gusu, and Wei Ying quite enjoyed wrapping his arms around Lan Zhan for the whole journey. On arriving though he expected Lan QiRen to grab him and take him off to some space in Gusu where he would never get found, and lectured on the evils of his type of cultivation until either the man lost his voice or he lost his hearing. Instead Lan Zhan landed not in the main landing zone but in the outer courtyard of his own JingShi. He of course had stayed in Lan Zhan's JingShi before but with the impact of his latest stunt he at least expected both his uncle and elder brother to have told Lan Zhan to have distanced themselves from him.

Another shock greeted Wei Ying when Lan Zhan opened the doors to the home, the second bed, though still in place was no longer made up for a visitor. Confused Wei Ying looked over at Lan Zhan…

'Where am I sleeping?'

Lan Zhan simply nodded over to the single made up bed in the room.

Wei Ying was sure he was missing something as he dumbly asked.

'Then where are you sleeping'

Without any change of expression Lan Zhan once again nodded over to the bed.

Wei Ying just switched his dumb stare from the bed to Lan Zhan and back again without actually saying anything.

Lan Zhan eventually seemed to take pity on the other and decided his mind wasn't working enough to put 2 and 2 together. Lan Zhan spoke quietly as he took one of Wei Ying's unresisting hands in his own.

'Wei Ying is still unwell' he began looking him squarely in the eye…..'and I promised Uncle I would look after you while you were here and not let you get into too much trouble'

Wei Ying nodded, with his mind beginning to work enough to think…they had shared beds before, all they had to do was keep their clothes on and everything would be fine. Of course another side of his mind was screaming at him…they had shared beds in inns before but never in each other's rooms. Wei Ying shook his head to clear it of the conflicting thoughts and nearly fell over in the process, Lan Zhan tightened his grip on his wrist and his gaze turned serious.

'Are you ok?'

'I'm fine Lan Zhan' Wei Ying argued, although he could see by the concerned look on the other man's face that he was far from convinced.

A few weeks later Wei Ying was silently cursing shaking his head. For the past few weeks he had been stuck in the JingShi as Lan Zhan has decided he was not well enough to go out. As if this wasn't bad enough Lan Zhan had also decided he needed medicine every day, as if the normal food in Gusu didn't taste bad enough, the medicine tasted damn awful. Finally though, yesterday, Lan Zhan had pronounced him well enough to take short walks in the courtyard area of the JingShi. Just being able to get out in the fresh air after being stuck inside for so long was doing him good.

He hasn't been doing nothing though while he had been 'ill'. Every day Lan Zhan and himself had been working either on his control of the new power inside of him by him playing chenqing in the early morning. Most of the time Lan Zhan would sit and watch, looking for any cues that the power was going to overpower or restart the illness, if this happened Lan Zhan would begin playing himself and the raging rapids inside him would die down. If they were not working on cultivation then they were working on either marking the junior disciples work or secretly looking into what happened to the few Wen survivors who survived the purge at Nevernight.

All in all the life since Wei Ying arrived at Gusu was very different to what he had expected. He would never have imagined that Lan QiRen would have allowed HIM to mark the work or the new disciples of his own sect. He knew that the older Lan knew Lan Zhan wasn't marking all the work assigned to him because the workload coming to the JingShi had doubled in the past few weeks, also when placed next to Lan Zhan's handwriting his own looked like a spider had crawled across the paper with ink on its feet. He didn't expect the Gusu to turn a blind eye to his looking into the Wen Survivors either, after all they were one of the four large Sects and one of the main aggressors at Nevernight. However no matter what he did, or how openly he asked for help, Gusu seemed to have a view of not seeing him.

He wasn't a fool of course and he never asked straight out, but he understood the feeling. The main thing that was different from he expected though was sharing Lan Zhan's bed in the JingShi. Of course they had shared beds before but there seemed something more intimate about it being Lan Zhan's own. When on the first night Lan Zhan had stripped out of his outer robes and got into the bed only in his thin inner robes, Wei Ying hadn't felt he could say anything. He instead had climbed in the bed fully dressed and rolled over with his back to Lan Zhan hoping to go to sleep quickly. Lan Zhan though had pressed one arm over his waist as if to keep him in place before sleeping promptly at 9pm. This routine went on for a few days and slowly Wei Ying got used to having a half-naked Lan Zhan sleeping next to him. About a week after he was there though after he had draped his arm over his waist Lan Zhan leant over and given him a kiss on his forehead. Stunned Wei Ying had not moved before Lan Zhan had fallen asleep.

Lan Zhan's behaviour had changed towards him ever since he fell from the roof in the battle. Lan Zhan had become more protective and affectionate. If he was honest Lan Zhan had also become more physical, always initiating some kinds of physical contact between the two whenever he was able. Wei Ying wasn't sure if this was supposed to soothe himself or Lan Zhan, but he did have to admit that sleeping with his hand in the strong grip of the other did allow him nicer dreams.

While all this was going on in Gusu, while Wei Ying was learning how to control the power now surging through his veins, while both Wei Ying and Lan Zhan where trying to figure out how they felt about each other and the puzzle of the Wens, there was another figure who was trying to sort out his own problems.

The figure sat at a low table, drumming his fingers idly on the surface as he thought to himself. Wei Ying had been the ideal person to set up for what he had in mind, the man was idealistic and foolhardy, he never thought of the implications when he made a choice. Such a person would not be tolerated in the cultivation world for long as he challenged the established order. Who cared if he had a loyal and honest heart, if anything that made him easier to manipulate. But then he had gotten involved with Lan Zhan and Lan Zhan was another matter altogether. Unlike Jiang Cheng, ZeWu Jun would not be manipulated and Lan Zhan would never have is mind changed once it was made up. This meant that the once ideal person to set up now had complications.

That was until Wei Ying had arrived at Nevernight with his normal temperament of confidence and foolishness. He had shown his power to the entire cultivation community, and also shown that by using Lan Zhan's power to support his own, he had the Lan Sect under his control. The figure smiled….yes…maybe if he let just the right people know the right details…..Wei Ying could still be the ideal person he needed.