I don't even remember walking down that long and empty corridor. It's like my mind had completely wiped itself out and my body was just going through the motions on autopilot. All that I could think about right now was that letter I had found and read. I knew what I was getting myself into the moment I accepted that request to help Lan Xichen. I really just wanted to be that sweet and cheerful niece that made his sad and lonely days just a little more bearable, even if I was just one little girl.

And yet after reading that letter, why did it hurt so damn much? Why did little blots of ink on parchment affect me so much? It was a half angry rant and half love letter that spelled out exactly how Xichen felt about his former sworn brother and ex-lover, one that compiled 3 years worth of betrayal, grief and remorse into one single page. I can hear Wei Wuxian and Lan Xichen's voices getting louder the further I proceed. I now find myself standing in front of a door covered in ornate oak carvings. This must be Lan Xichen's private quarters.

"…seeing him in my dreams," I hear Xichen saying with a voice that sounded too small and vulnerable for a sect leader. "It's been three years, but I can't stop thinking about him! I…I know it's wrong, that he doesn't deserve to be mourned for, but I can't-"

"Xichen-ge," I hear Wei Wuxian interrupting him in a soft and gentle voice. "It's okay to miss him. He made you happy didn't he? Even if he did bad things, your feelings towards him are still valid."

I hear the sound of Xichen blowing his nose followed by a round of wet coughing and sneezing. I clench my hands into fists as I feel the burning sensation in my chest getting worse. I can't help but view him in a different light after seeing that letter. He was one of the embodiments of Guangyao's crimes; someone who'd paid the price indirectly for his hubris and was left picking up the pieces even three years later.

"They're talking about you aren't they, A-Yao?" I ask him.

But he doesn't answer me. I figured as much ever since I slid that letter back under that door. I think about our conversation afterwards. It seemed that he was still shaken up by what we both had read, although I couldn't really blame him.

EARILER

I'm greeted once more to the sight of one very heartbroken and depressed Jin Guangyao. The sounds of thunder and heavy rainfall do nothing to mask the sounds that are coming out of him. Though his arm is muffling his sobs, I can hear how raw and emotional he is right now. A deep sadness hangs in the air, one that was so painful and stifling that it felt like it was sucking every last drop of happiness out of you. I can hear him muttering things like "Er-ge, I'm sorry" and "oh god, what have I done?" back to back even through the rumblings of rain and thunder. Because of my link to him, I can tell how upset he is due to the fact that my chest felt extremely tight and on fire. I approached him cautiously, not sure if he was going to lash out at me or not.

"A-Yao?" I called out. "A-Are you okay?"

He notices my presence as he turns his head towards me, taking his hand away from his face. I've all but seen him at the lowest points of his afterlife. I should have gotten used to it by now, brushed it off as a normal daily occurrence. But my heart still breaks whenever I see him looking so fragile and vulnerable, even if he does try to put on the act of being detached and collected to save face afterwards. His deep, golden eyes glistening with big fat tears, running down his face in droplets and leaving streaks on his face. He just looks so tired and worn out that it looks like he aged ten years in a single day. I want to take him into my arms again, to hug him and comfort him, but that would have been overstepping my boundaries.

"Leave," I hear him say, his voice hoarse and cracking on the last letter. "Please…I…I need some time to myself."

He didn't outright say it, but I knew what he meant. I knew better than to agitate him, especially when he was like this. I couldn't really blame him. It must have been such a shock to him reading what his ex-lover really thought about him three years later. There were a myriad of emotions that I picked up on when I read that letter. They should have conflicted with each other, but they instead painted a very sad and tragic picture about their relationship, one filled with bittersweet memories they'll never be able to get back. As cruel and as heartless as I was for thinking this, perhaps what Xichen said about him was the wakeup call he needed to realize the severity of his crimes and reflect on them. It was probably for the best if I left him alone for a while and regrouped. I placed a comforting hand on his shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze.

"If you ever want to talk or have a shoulder to cry on or a hug, I'll be here for you," I say to him softly. "Just give me a call."

He reaches up and places his own hand over my own giving it a gentle squeeze back. All I could do for him was to be his rock in his times of need.

PRESENT TIME

I hear Wei Wuxian murmuring softly from inside, but I can't hear what he's saying. Xichen sounds like he's about to cry as I gently knock on the door, afraid of what I'll see. There's a padding of footsteps before the door swings open. Wei Wuxian is standing there to greet me, his eyes widening with surprise as he bends down until he's at eye level with me and places a warm hand on my cheek.

"Xiao-Hua, what happened to you?" he asked me. "Your eyes are so red and puffy! Are you hurt anywhere?"

I reached up to gingerly touch the skin under my eyes, only to wince in pain when I realized how puffy and swollen they were. Unfortunately for me, the hand that I used to examine my eyes was also that same hand with the finger I had sliced open. Wei Wuxian is quick to take notice and holds my hand up to examine it.

"Ah…I cut myself while helping Hanguang-jun in the kitchen!" I sputter while trying to yank my hand back. "I-I was cutting onions and couldn't really see what I was doing so I cut myself. I'll be fine, Wei-shifu!"

Yes, that's right, onions. Since I was in the kitchen earlier, I could just chalk up my puffy red eyes and cut finger to helping Lan Wangji cut onions. Though that was another list of things I added to my ever growing list of lies I told, surely he had to believe me when I told him that my swollen puffy eyes and cut finger were from the same incident right? After a tense moment of silence, Wei Wuxian finally releases my wrist.

"Be careful next time alright?" he says as he ushers me inside. "You only get one index finger on each hand."

I realize that I've stepped into the personal quarters of Lan Xichen. This room is vastly different from the rest of the house as there are scrolls and dog eared books scattered across the floor, some of them looking like they were beginning to fall apart at the spine. It's split into two areas with a screen; a study and a place for sleeping. Whereas the rest of his cottage looked empty and devoid of life before I started visiting him, this room is perhaps the messiest place I've ever seen. It looked as though Xichen tried to contain most of his mess to his study area, but failed miserably due to the fact that some of those books and documents had spilled into the sleeping side of his room.

I hear Xichen's hoarse and wet coughing echoing from the back followed by the sound of him sneezing and blowing his nose. I turned my head towards where the noise was coming from. There he was, sitting in bed with a soiled handkerchief in his hand. His nose is red as a tomato and he looked like he was on the verge of tears. His eyes look very bloodshot, as though he'd been rubbing at them non-stop. He takes notice of me approaching him and composes himself so as not to worry me. It looked like Guangyao wasn't the only person who wore a mask around here.

"Xiao-Hua, what are you doing here?" he asks, tucking his handkerchief away in his sleeve pocket. His voice sounds very nasally and congested, his near constant coughing doing nothing to clear the phlegm his throat.

"H-Hanguang-jun told me to find you and Wei-shifu while he finishes cooking downstairs," I told him sheepishly. "H-he…kicked me out of the kitchen."

He notices my cut finger and shakes his head at me. I feel my cheeks heating up as Wei Wuxian picks me up by the armpits again and sits me on his lap. There's something embarrassing about admitting that you were clumsy enough to get kicked out of a kitchen by your shifu that makes this even worse. I see Xichen hiding his hand behind his sleeve, a snort escaping from his lips.

"Don't take it too personally, Wangji just wants the best for you," he says with a small smile. "You'll soon get the hang of it and become his little assistant. Now, how about we pick up from where we last left off playing checkers? I remember that I was winning against you."

Dinner that night was thick, hearty vegetable stew with fried tofu puffs served over beds of rice from what Lan Wangji and I could gather from the reserves in the storage room. Because the members of the Gusu Lan sect were usually vegetarians unless they were going out to eat, there were no preserved meats anywhere to be found, only pickled vegetables in jars and root vegetables as well as meat substitutes in bins were to be found. Although I had grown weary of the bitter and medicinal vegetables that made up the diets of the Gusu Lan sect, Lan Wangji somehow manages to take something as mundane as vegetables and turns them into something edible. Of course, this was to be expected from someone who's had years of experience to refine their cooking skills.

Yet despite Lan Wangji's cooking prowess, my mind is too preoccupied with other things to fully enjoy his cooking. I'm worried about Guangyao, as much as it was spelled out how much he had hurt the people around him. Even if I had said that he deserved all those horrible things Xichen had written about him, what use would it have been? My martial uncle would still be a recluse living in the woods and Guangyao would just have slid further into a depressive slump. Nothing would have changed unless he genuinely wanted to make it up to his ex.

"Lihua? Do you want to go upstairs and collect your Shibo's dishes? And while you're at it, can you also take his medicine up to him as well?" asks Wei Wuxian as he started collecting the soiled dinnerware from around the table.

I nod as I get up from my seat and take the tray containing his medication up to his room. I can hear the sound of a guqin being played coming from his room as I approach his room. A loud sneeze is heard followed by the sounds of discordant notes being played. It's a very sad and melancholy song I've never heard before that makes my chest tighten and my eyes water. What was this man doing? Shouldn't he be resting? It shouldn't be my place to judge people, but even I knew how important it was to let your body rest. Taking a deep breath, I gently knocked on the door with my knuckles. The sound of the guqin playing immediately stopped followed by the sound of shuffling.

"Come in!" he calls out hoarsely.

I bite back the urge to roll my eyes as I push the door open. I see him sitting at a low table at his study area with a guqin lying on top of it. It seemed that playing the guqin seemed to be more important than his overall health. I approached him with the tray in my hands, the water inside his teacup sloshing around slightly with each step I took.

"Shibo? Shouldn't you be resting?" I ask him as I walk over to his night stand.

His dinner is half eaten, sitting on the table next to his bed having gone cold a long time ago. It wasn't my place to once more judge people, but didn't the Cloud recesses have a rule about not wasting food? But it would be a waste of time to call him out on it so, I force down any complaints I have to swap out his dishes with his medication.

"I…I couldn't really lie in bed all day," he admits to me sheepishly. "I wanted to stretch my legs for a bit or else I'd become restless."

I hear a loud gurgling noise coming from Xichen, which causes him to blush in a way I've never seen him doing before. I look at him with an eyebrow raised, silently judging him.

"Shibo, are you still hungry?" I ask him, handing him his half empty plate of food and spoon.

"I-I'm not that hungry…" he tells me, gently pushing it back to me, "Really, I'm not. You just tell Wangji that his stew was delicious though."

Another loud gurgling escapes from his stomach, causing even his earlobes to turn a brilliant shade of red. I give him a very unimpressed look as I push the plate back to him. I've hung around enough people to know that when someone says they're fine, they're really not.

"I'll tell you a story," I say with a sigh as I push the half empty plate into his hands. "For every bite you take, I'll tell you the next part. If you stop eating, I'll stop telling okay?"

Lan Xichen looks at me in confusion as I stick my hand out at him. Even if Lan Xichen was a sect leader and my martial uncle, I was going to make sure that he at least had some food in his stomach, even if I had to negotiate something with him. He seems to pause, as though he's seriously thinking things over. After a few moments, he then puts his hand out and shakes my own.

"Deal," he says as he gives it a firm shake. "It'd better be a good story then."

'…and then Alice noticed a plate of cookies on the table.'

"Xiao-Hua, what are…cookies?" asks Lan Xichen with a confused expression on his face.

"Oh those? They're like flat pancakes, only smaller, sweet and crunchier." I reply to him with a smile.

Lan Xichen hums for a bit before taking a bite out of his food and wiping away a grain of rice that got stuck to his face with his thumb.

"That sounds tasty." He muses. "So what about these… 'cookies' were so special?"

'Well, these cookies came in many shapes and colours. Next to that plate was a little place card that said "Eat me". You know what she did?'

"What?" asks Xichen, "What did she do next?"

"I won't tell you unless you take another bite," I huff as I cross my arms over my chest.

Was I telling a sect leader Alice in wonderland in an effort to get him to eat? Yes, yes I was. I could only think of how proud Guangyao would be of me coming up with something this convoluted to get someone to eat. I watch Xichen taking a bite of his food, chewing for a little bit and then swallowing. After being satisfied, I continue as promised.

'She took one of the cookies off of the plate and ate it! But then she realized how much of a mistake it was, because you see, those cookies weren't just ANY ordinary cookies. They were magical. They made her grow so big that she couldn't even fit inside the room anymore!'

"Oh no! That's terrible! What did she do next? How did she get back to normal?"

Just when I was telling him to eat, a sudden knocking at the door startled me, nearly making me jump out of my skin. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are both poking their heads in through the doorway with concerned looks on their faces. I suddenly realized that it'd probably been a while since they last saw me after dinner.

"Xiao-Hua? What are you doing?" asks Lan Wangji as he enters the room with his husband in tow. "You didn't come down after a while. What happened?"

"She was telling me a story. For every bite I took, she'd tell me more of this interesting tale she has. Look, I'm even done eating!"

He holds up his now empty plate for me to see. Not even a single grain of rice remained; only smudges of the thick sauce coated the plate. I take his empty plate and soiled spoon from him and place them on the tray I brought in. I come back with his teacup filled with water and a slip of paper containing his cold medication inside. I plop the two items in front of him before returning to my spot. I stare at him intently, making sure he holds up his end of the bargain.

"Xiao-Hua, what are you doing?" asks Wei Wuxian with a laugh as he takes the tray and heads towards the doorway.

"Making sure Shibo takes his medicine." I told him. "I won't continue unless he does as I say."

At my mentioning of him, Lan Xichen almost immediately pops the pills in and drinks all the water inside that cup in one gulp. I smile at him innocently as Lan Wangji takes a seat beside him and I clear my throat before continuing.

'Now where was I? Oh yes, you see, Alice had gotten…'

'….The Cheshire cat only smiles a huge toothy smile and tells her that "Why, this is Wonderland my dear! Where down is up and up is down! We're all mad here after all."'

I stifle a yawn with the back of my hand, struggling to continue with the adventures of Alice in Wonderland. Perhaps I should have chosen a shorter tale to tell since this was a pretty lengthy book and not something you could tell in a single go. Though I wasn't sure how Xichen would react to me telling him the story of Snow White or Rapunzel. I watch Wei Wuxian get up from his seat and walk over to me.

"Xiao-Hua, I think it's time to let your Shibo retire for the night. It's getting late," He tells me gently.

"But Wei-shifu! I haven't gotten to the best part yet!" I protest. "I haven't told Shibo about the Mad Hatter and the March Hare!"

"Wei Ying is right," says Lan Wangji as he rose from his seat, smoothing out the front of his robes. "You can tell him more about Alice and her adventures some other time. It's time for you to go to bed."

I turn to Lan Xichen, who's looking rather sleepy for a sect leader and flash him one of my signature smiles.

"Good night, Shibo," I tell him gently, "I'll see you in the morning."

Author's Notes:

This chapter took so long to write. I paraphrased a lot of Alice in Wonderland because I was trying to remember how the story went. Did I purposefully name my main character Alice to make this allusion happen? well... you can decide that for yourself.