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Chapter Text

Li Lun frowned for three days and a half when Ying Zhao clarified to him that he needed to sprout anew if he wanted another sprout baby.

Xiao Zhi was five years old, and the problem was, Li Lun had never sprouted again. Recently, Demon Hunting Bureau's little doctor's mother, who was a dryad, had become pregnant and ever since a certain someone had been going green that he couldn't create babies as conventionally, conveniently as lady dryads could.

"Xiao Lun, aren't Black Locusts cosexual?" Ying Zhao wondered. "Why did you decide on a strictly male body in the first place?"

"Because Yan gege became a boy." Li Lun seethed.

Feeling wronged, Zhu Yan cried out. "How is this my fault again??"

"Everything is always your fault!" Li Lun and Ying Zhao both snapped at the same time.

"Trees sprout when they experience trauma..." Li Lun mused. "So if I..."

This time, Ying Zhao and Zhu Yan turned towards him with glowering eyes.

"If you complete that sentence," Zhu Yan warned. "I will personally--"

"--break both your arms and legs." Ying Zhao completed. "You can sprout as much as you want, then."

"Shifu!!" Zhu Yan exclaimed, horrified.

Li Lun broke down on spot and started crying. "I only want another baby! Is that too much to ask for?"

It recurred again one midsummer night.

Everything had been going well. Too well, in fact. Xiao Zhi was becoming less and less dependent on her parents, now sleeping in her own big girl room. They were even planning to ceremoniously separate her branch from Li Lun's primordial body and replant her, the moment Ying Zhao finished calculating an auspicious day for her. And the demons hadn't made much trouble in the human world lately, nor had the humans for demons, thanks to the efficient rule of Li Lun and Wen Xiao's Baize Order. 

This meant Zhu Yan had more and more time to have Li Lun all to himself. Li Lun couldn't have been happier because he still had more than half a spring book of tricks that he had yet to go through. 

So they had a romantic evening, enjoying plum cookies and the newest wine blend that Ying Lei packed them when they dropped Xiao Zhi at Kunlun shan, taking aimless strolls -hand in hand- down the winding rivulets in Da Huang, ending the day back on their own bed because the nowhere else felt more paradise-like than the suddenly quiet home.

Sprawled across the bed, Zhu Yan let out a long exhale full of contentment, his arms around the warm, lightly sweaty body of his Lunzi. Li Lun was half-sitting, half-lying on him, resting his folded arms on Zhu Yan's chest and resting his head on the said arms, watching the fireflies flicker outside the window as he languidly rolled his hips on Zhu Yan. They weren't in a hurry, perfectly happy to maintain that bubble of peace and the light simmer of pleasure for as long as they could.

"Yan gege," Li Lun called, voice hushed. In reply, Zhu Yan ran his fingertips down Li Lun's spine.

"It'd be perfect if we create a little sibling for Xiao Zhi tonight, don't you think?"

And just like that, the moment was broken.

Unsettled by Zhu Yan's silence, Li Lun tried to raise his head only to be pulled back down, Zhu Yan's large palm holding his head in place.

"Look, Lunzi" Zhu Yan started. "We talked about this. I don't know if you are in denial or if it's something else, but you and I can't make a baby just like that, just because we are demons."

Li Lun struggled feebly in his arms. "Something should work!" 

For a moment Zhu Yan wondered if he should propose taking in a stray child, be it a demon or human. But deep down, he knew that that was not what Li Lun wanted. Contrary to many people's beliefs, Li Lun had proven to be kind and caring to young children; Ao Yin, Xiao Zhuo, Ying Lei, Xiao Jiu, the blind grandpa's grandson... the list went on. But it was not the same as Li Lun's desire.

"I'm sure you will get another sprout in the future!"

"But when," Li Lun's words were muffled on Zhu Yan's skin. "Is there really nothing I can do but to leave it to fate? Also, I wish to have a child of us both."

"Xiao Zhi is both of ours." Zhu Yan tried, as gently as he could. "When you weren't home, I'm the one who fed her bellflower milk. I grew the bellflowers, imbuing them with my spiritual energy."

Li Lun didn't give him a response. Trying to sigh not too obviously, Zhu Yan pulled the blanket over them both.

"He doesn't look like he hasn't moved on from it." Wen Xiao comments, observing Li Lun and Xiao Zhi playing on the seashore from her swing. Xiao Zhi runs after the waves as they recede, closely followed by Li Lun, and they both screech as the waves crash back over their feet. Even from this distance, Zhu Yan can see that they are soggy and sandy from head-to-toe, and decides to just be grateful that Black Locusts can tolerate all that salt.

Grimacing, he flicks a finger to keep the swing moving for Wen Xiao. "Li Lun never moves on from things. He might as well have been an Elephant demon."

"He's very good at masking, isn't he?"

"He has things to keep himself occupied now, is what." Zhu Yan corrects. "Sometimes I can't help but feel that I shouldn't have brought him out of the Wilderness to see the wide world."

"There he goes again..." Wen Xiao rolls her eyes. "Trying to take responsibility for everything and anything that ever happened under the sun.."

"I do feel very responsible for Lunzi." Zhu Yan replies sadly. "Some people are happier within their own bubble of world. They don't deal well with the onslaught of various flavors outside has to offer. The more they try, they will only get more confused."

"Noone is ever better off with less knowledge, Da Yao." Wen Xiao says, like the archivist she is. "If Li Lun never stepped out of Da Huang, never followed after you on adventures, always waiting alone at home like a quiet, obedient child for you to return and tell him stories, would you two have ever connected in a way that has meaning? Would you two have each other the way you do now? "

"But in the process of broadening his horizons, I also brought him so much pain." Zhu Yan laments, watching Li Lun running across the waves with Xiao Zhi on his shoulders. "I wish his life to be simpler, happier, always."

"You need to realise that the day he followed you out for the first time, he learnt what a choice is." Wen Xiao insists. "You brought him no harm, only good. He did it for himself, he did it for you, for both of you. He wanted to understand the world you like and why you liked it. He can choose now, instead of letting things just happen to him. Should he have, just because he's a tree?"

"But... he's desiring for things he can't have and it's hurting him!"

"He may not always grasp things the way they are at first, and stumble along the way." Wen Xiao sets her feet on the ground, pausing the swing. "But he's also likely to find solutions that noone else would have thought of. Even if he doesn't, he will be fine. I would know, after working alongside him for few years. He's the most resilient and steadfast person I have ever met."

Zhu Yan snickers, amused. "I thought you told him that I'm the strongest on your first day?"

"Boring", Wen Xiao rolls her eyes, and bustles down to the beach to join the other two.

Zhu Yan strips Li Lun and Xiao Zhi the moment they return home and dunks them in the sparkling creek, squatting nearby with an exasperated sigh to wash the salt and mud encrusted robes. Just a cleaning spell wouldn't be enough to save them.

"Zhu Yan,"

"Heavens, these stains are not going away..."

"I want the demons to have their own festival." Li Lun says, holding Xiao Zhi's hands as she jumps up and down his lap. It's a marvel how her energy is so endless. "Demons get so excited at all the vibrant celebrations in the mortal world... it's about time we host our own."

"What do you have in mind?"

"Diedie is going to flower soon!" Xiao Zhi announces excitedly.

"Oh yes, it's about the season indeed."

"It's a little different this time, actually." Li Lun smiles. "I only ever had few blossoms in the past years. I suppose I wasn't in a condition to bloom properly. There are a lot of buds this time."

Zhu Yan straightens up, wiping his wet arms on his robes. "Show me."

And Li Lun rises up from the creek, confident and glorious with the sun dapples dancing over his bare body, depositing the child on Zhu Yan before turning to his tree form. The slippery Xiao Zhi squeals happily and crawls up Li Lun like the wild kid she is, and resumes her little branch form on Li Lun's left arm. She's only robust with green leaves, while Li Lun...

.... Black locust buds are often hidden under the leaves and do not show until they blossom, but there are so many tiny spots of white this time, Zhu Yan can already imagine how gorgeous he'd look when in full bloom.

Awed, Zhu Yan walks close for a better look. "Let me guess. We are going to hold a festival of flowers?"

"Why not?" Li Lun's voice is light and relaxed. "The Great Wilderness can also be a beautiful place, and not even many demons know it. It's about time they do."

Lun-zai is going to be alright, Zhu Yan thinks. Relieved, he runs his arms around the tree trunk, as much as he can. "This entire world is a beautiful place because you two are in it."

On the day of the festival, Li Lun looks so unreasonably approachable that minor demons forget to panic at the sight of him, instead gawking openly at him as he walks to the raised platform to observe the celebrations. Having opted for a lightweight set of pastel green robes instead of the usual heavy blacks, hair in a long braid interwoven with clusters of his own full blossoms hanging on it, Li Lun is nearly unrecognisable even with his rattle-staff. The staff also has flowers winding around it, and Xiao Zhi is also wearing a crown made of his flowers that he especially plucked off for her. Zhu Yan also lets out his true white hair to match the color scheme, in resplendent silver robes.

Although this first festival isn't open for the human masses, their friends from Demon Hunting Bureau are all invited, to observe the atmosphere and have fun. Zhuo Yixuan visits with Zhuo Yichen, who takes one glance at Zhu Yan, Li Lun and Xiao Zhi and mutters under his breath; "Were we invited to eat dog food?"

"Xiao Chen!" Zhuo Yixuan looks scandalised. "I'm sorry, he's in that age."

"Or more like he never grew out of it." Wen Xiao observes, and Zhuo Yichen flushes.

Zhuo Yixuan advises his didi to let loose and scampers off to find the beautiful snake demon he apparently saw on the way. Li Lun scans Zhuo Yichen's face, who just stands there, looking completely lost. "I can introduce you to some dog demons..."

Other than few minor commotions like that, the day goes supremely well. A fierce looking lady archer called Pei Sijing comes with her brother, and they get almost immediately whisked away to who-knows-where by a supremely excited Wen Xiao. Bai Jiu delivers his mother's greetings and regret that she cannot visit this year, and immediately moves onto strike a negotiation with Li Lun for legal purchase and distribution of demonic herbs and body parts for medicine. It goes on for a while, so Zhu Yan takes Xiao Zhi for a walk down the temporary street market.

He's delighted to find a little shop selling pinwheels. The little beaver demon who owns the stall tells him that when she visited human markets with her parents, trinkets like this impressed her very much, how humans turned even the wind to a source of amusement. She has so much leftover dead twigs at home, and even though her parents want her to do more "useful" things like building dams, this is what she'd rather do.

Zhu Yan finds a pinwheel with red, yellow and blue wings, just like the one from all those years ago. He blows at it to demonstrate for Xiao Zhi and gets her to do the same.

"When I first saw one of these, I thought it was a hairpin and tried to put it on your diedie's hair."

Xiao Zhi grabs the pinwheel and sticks it through one of her little buns, making the beaver demon coo.

"She's been pouting for a while that her flower crown had withered." Zhu Yan pays the beaver demon. "This will keep her occupied."

They roam from stall to stall till the sky goes pink, purple and deep blue. They buy a beautiful carved jewelry organiser from the stand of woodpecker demon, and enjoy a warm bowl of soup at the reserved table of Ying Lei's makeshift restaurant. When Xiao Zhi finally falls asleep, drooling on Zhu Yan's shoulder, he decides it's time to head back.

Fairy lanterns light up one by one and Zhu Yan notices a quaint little shop that he didn't notice before, selling what seems to be little bottles of glowing potions. A demon with a sly expression and nightshade flowers on his robe stands up and courtesies.

"Well, well. What an honor to have you at my place, Da Yao." the demon smiles cryptically. "I wouldn't have thought you'd need my wares though, especially not tonight."

Zhu Yan raises an eyebrow and brings a bottle to his nose to sniff at. A sweet, cloying fragrance. Roses. Ambergris. Ginkgo and Ginseng. Love potions and aphrodisiacs.

"Oh, so that's what you sell." Zhu Yan says mildly, putting the bottle down. "What did you mean by 'especially not tonight'?"

The demon stares at him for a long moment. "Today is a celebration for all the plant demons in the flowering season."

"Yes." Zhu Yan replies, slightly befuddled. "We are celebrating the beauty of The Great Wilderness."

"Wow," The demon whispers. All of a sudden, he holds up his palms in surrender. "I am sorry, Da Yao. I have to ask you to leave, I'm about to pack up and close."

Confused, Zhu Yan does as he's told. Behind him, he faintly hears the demon muttering; "Unbelievable. And I was about to ask will we get a festival for animal demons too when it's the season."

Sure, why not? Zhu Yan thinks. What, did you think we are being biased here because Lunzi is a tree demon?

Speaking of whom, Li Lun is still deep in conversation with Bai Jiu when Zhu Yan reaches them, though it seems to be of more casual nature now because they are laughing over tea. Bai Jiu and Li Lun's friendship had taken everyone by surprise at first. Li Lun likes how Bai Jiu is a walking encyclopedia on herbal medicine, and Bai Jiu likes how Li Lun always talks to him like he's a full adult even though he's only fourteen. It's as simple as that.

Li Lun's eyes soften when he sees the pinwheel in Xiao Zhi's hair. "Did you guys have fun?"

"Yeah, there are all sorts of interesting stuff. We should go again later." Zhu Yan plops himself down beside him. "One shopowner was being very mysterious, though."

Li Lun's eyes sharpen. 

"No no, not like that. It was nothing suspicious." Zhu Yan hurries to explain. "I just didn't understand what he said about us not needing his potions, because this is the flowering season for plant demons.."

"Um," Xiao Jiu says, while Li Lun also looks confused. Gratified, Zhu Yan shrugs and pulls Li Lun's braid to the front.

"Wow, your flowers are still full of life, aren't they?" He marvels, breathing in the fragrance greedily. "We threw away Xiao Zhi's crown because it withered, but I guess that's because hers were plucked ones, unlike yours."

"Um," Xiao Jiu says again. "Da-yao men"

Li Lun and Zhu Yan look at him, Zhu Yan absently pinching two of the black locust blossoms from the braid and smooshing them together, because he's feeling playful. It's been a busy day.

And Li Lun goes rigid.

Xiao Jiu guffaws. "Do you.." he stammers. "Do you realise what you just did?"

"Hehe," Zhu Yan pinches two more flowers and makes them kiss again. "This?"

Interestingly, Li Lun goes very, very red. "Oh," he gasps. "Oh."

"Yeah." Bai Jiu says. "Glad to see at least one person understood. I'm leaving right now. I can't take Xiao Zhi, because I'm also a kid, but I'll see whomever is still here to come and get her. Bye."

"What..." Zhu Yan says. Li Lun looks at him with heated eyes, gasping. "What??"

Chapter Text

By the time the Festival of Flowers ends after three days, Li Lun is exhausted in all possible ways. He feels a little embarrassed too, but he has to keep his head high and attend to his duties and pretend like he was aware of and fully intended the underlying meaning of the festival all along. Other demons' stares at him take a whole different meaning now, like they are looking at him with pity, how he still has work to do when everything below his waist feel like jelly.

While he's at it, Li Lun visits Bai Jiu's mother too. He will take a weeklong break in one go, after this.

The heavily pregnant descendent of the Divine Jianmu tree happily pats the seat next to her when she sees him.

"Xiao Lun ah Xiao Lun," she wiggles her eyebrows. "Had fun few days eh? You look like you did."

"Bai Yan daren.." Li Lun says mournfully. "My head hurts. Why did I ever think this was a good idea?"

"I think it was a great idea," Bai Yan hides her giggles behind her palm. "Too bad I couldn't go this time; I love myself a good rave! Wish I had this when I was younger."

Li Lun looks enviously at her belly. "I might've felt a little bit better if I could have what you do too."

"Don't be like that, Xiao Lun." Bai Yan pulls him into a one-armed hug. "Look, if you really want this, I can look into other older tree demons and see if anyone faced this same problem and what they did about it. It might cost you some cultivation, but I believe you can probably change your body..."

Li Lun perks up. "Really?"

"Sure. Your base form is a tree, your human form is all but an imitation. It's quite unlike Zhu Yan's whose base form is an ape which is practically the same as a human."

Li Lun scoffs. "He's a monkey who likes to pretend he's a human."

"You two sound so unkind to each other, to outsiders' ears sometimes." Bai Yan swats at him. "But speaking of pretending to be others... I think you can consult your friend Ao Yin too! Isn't she a shapeshifter?"

Li Lun sucks in a breath. "Yeah??" Bai Yan grins. "The answer might be closer than you think. Stop stressing about everything. Things will happen when the time is right."

Hope overwhelms Li Lun so much, he forgets his headache. 

"Aiya what did I tell you, calm down, don't you dare do anything rash." Bai Yan tsks disapprovingly. "Sit down in front of me, I'll massage your head. Since my son is a doctor, I also know a thing or two about acupoints."

Li Lun obliges, still in a daze. Bai Yan starts dragging her fingertips on Li Lun's temples, and then...

"Xiao Lun!" She yelps, thrill evident in her voice. "You definitely don't need to look into that for a while."

Unimpressed at the ups and downs of emotions Bai Yan is making him feel, Li Lun frowns. "Wha-"

Bai Yan pulls up Li Lun's hand and presses it on a spot on his head. "Feel here. Were you wearing your flowers around here earlier? Bring them out!"

Li Lun does, and Bai Yan quickly but carefully touches down each panicle. She takes Li Lun's finger and makes it touch the belly of a flower, and then another. "The source of your headache, Xiao Lun." She whispers. "Congratulations."

There are two tiny sparks of energy pulsing inside those two flowers.

It's certainly a special kind of effort to walk all the way back home and not run. Zhu Yan sees him from the kitchen window and rushes out, concerned because Li Lun is moving like a hopping Jiangshi, stilted and unnatural, but beaming from ear to ear. 

"Did something happen to you?!" Zhu Yan yells, speeding across the valley. Li Lun immediately holds his arms out in a 'halt' gesture.

"Don't jostle me!"

"Did you break something again?" Zhu Yan prods with trepidation.

Li Lun takes Zhu Yan's fingertips and puts them on his blossoms the same way Bai Yan did. "Feel."

"This.." Zhu Yan blushes a deep scarlet. "I will do anything you ask of me, darling. But please let me rest for few days before rousing your 'flowers' again. You wrung me out completely already."

"As if I'm the one who started it", Li Lun grips onto Zhu Yan's fingers impatiently. "Always running away when it's time to take responsibility. Feel!"

"What am I supposed to feel for!" Zhu Yan wails. "Aren't I just touching your..."

"Two flowers have been pollinated!" Li Lun shouts over him. "Because of you! Feel it! There are two sparks!"

By the time several weeks have passed after this incident, Zhu Yan feels like he's seen it all, that nothing can ever surprise him again in this world. Li Lun would only lie on his side; demands that Zhu Yan monitors him when he rests and wouldn't sleep when Zhu Yan is asleep. Xiao Zhi is peeved that she can only sit on Li Lun's lap at most and not climb onto his shoulder or do anything that would risk damage to the two panicles on his head. Li Lun sits on an armchair on the front porch all day and orders Zhu Yan and Xiao Zhi about to do this and that.

"Diedie doesn't like me anymore!" Xiao Zhi complains with wobbling lips as she's making her bed with the help of Zhu Yan.

Zhu Yan resists the urge to facepalm. Part of him does feel like this entire situation has gotten too dramatic, but Li Lun was the one who was desperate for another child, and Zhu Yan is more than willing to serve his hands and feet just so he can see his beloved relaxed and basking in his moment. But explaining that to a five-year-old is an entirely different matter.

"Xiao Zhi knows how you are a little branch on diedie's shoulder?" Zhu Yan asks her, sitting down on the newly made bed. "This time, two of diedie's flowers are going to be two babies, just like you."

"Why!" Xiao Zhi demands. "Diedie and Fuqin has Xiao Zhi, no need for more babies!"

"Aiyah, isn't it because we want Xiao Zhi to have little siblings to play with?"

"I don't want them!" Xiao Zhi shrieks from the top of her lungs. "They are not even here yet, and diedie already isn't playing with me."

"He will come play with you soon, treasure." Zhu Yan promises, pulling her close. "It's just that those two little flowers aren't strong as you were, you know? You were a mighty little sprout from day one!"

Xiao Zhi looks at him skeptically. "I'm strong?"

"Very much! We never had to worry about you, you made us very proud! It's just that the new babies are so much more fragile, and diedie has to be very careful until they become stronger."

"But when will that be?"

"Soon. They will turn to seeds, and we will have to plant them and care for them till they become little plants."

Xiao Zhi perks up at that. "So they won't get to be on diedie's body for a long time like I did?"

This child. Zhu Yan tsks inwardly. She definitely got that possessive streak from Lunzi.

"It's about time you are planted on your own too." Zhu Yan tells her sternly. "You are the big sister, you need to set an example for the babies and show them how to grow up by yourself."

Luckily, Xiao Zhi is easy to coax just like Li Lun is. She's placated when Li Lun tells her that he's been secretly learning pottery, just so he can make her pot with his own hands. Xiao Zhi is even more satisfied to see that the flower babies are going to have a smaller pot than hers. It's only sensible, new seeds do not need a big pot, but Xiao Zhi interprets it differently. Zhu Yan and Li Lun just lets her be.

Only Zhu Yan knows just how hard Li Lun tried to create the perfect pots, what's with one failed attempt followed by another, then another. Only Li Lun knows how afraid Zhu Yan was when he was carving the two pots with a tiny twig motif and a tiny seed-pod motif, that his hands would shake and destroy the design.

The night before the grand replanting ceremony, Zhu Yan and Li Lun stand in front of the pots, all shiny and filled with the best soil, awaiting their new inhabitants tomorrow. Under the column of moonlight coming through their bedroom window, the two pots represent their happiness and hope for the future.

"What do you want to call them?" Li Lun whispers like he's sharing a secret.

"You decide," Zhu Yan whispers back. "All this joy is because of how amazing you are, so you get the honors."

"Alright," Li Lun says, preening shamelessly. "Well, then... Da Zhongzi, Er Zhongzi."

Big seed, second seed. Zhu Yan bites down on the insides of his cheeks. 

"Da Zhong, Er Zhong." He agrees, and runs his arms around Li Lun in a crushing hug -while still being very careful, of course. "I'm so happy that you are happy, Lun-zai."

At one point, Li Lun wonders if his root cuttings can bring forth new babies too, but Ying Zhao immediately dissuades him, pointing out that roots are where a tree demon's cultivation is resides in, which is why they can use their primordial root as a last-resort way of regenerating themselves, therefore if Li Lun's root cutting cultivates by itself, it wouldn't bring a baby, but another Li Lun! Which would be a catastrophe that noone wants. Zhu Yan is mildly interested at the idea of two Li Luns, which drives the only existing Li Lun very mad. Zhu Yan sleeps on the porch that night and the topic of root cultivation is never discussed again.

You don't feel the years pass when your household consists of three little tree demons and a bigger tree demon who is just as bad as the kids on most days- sometimes worse. On one memorable occasion Zhu Yan arrives home to see all four of them hanging in midair, hopelessly entangled in their own vines and unable to get out. 

The kids might be having some monkey blood running in them, after all.

He grows three new streaks of grey hair that day, trying to figure out how to pull them out without damaging the vines. Xiao Zhi gets her ear tweaked by Zhu Yan, Da Zhong's left cheek and Er Zhong's right cheek, and once the kids have gone to bed, Li Lun receives a smack to his backside and then they get tangled up in vines for a completely different reason.

Xiao Zhuo Yichen takes over the Demon Hunting Bureau while Zhuo Yixuan finally settles down with that snake demon who caught his eye during the first Flower Festival, though he had a several more flings afterwards that didn't work out. Wen Xiao marries Pei Sijing, and trains the blind grandpa's grandson as her successor, and Li Lun trains Ao Yin as his. No record had ever said that the Great Demon cannot be a Demoness, nor that the Baize goddess cannot be a Baize god. Ying Lei establishes Tiandu's first charity kitchen, alongside Xiao Jiu's charity hospital.

And speaking of Li Lun's long-rooted desire to create a baby like the characters in stories did.... fifty years after the birth of the twins, Li Lun manages to successfully modify his human form, under the guidance and observation of Ao Yin, Lady Bai Yan and Ying Zhao, who grumbles that a shifu's work is never ending. Once the news reaches her ears, even Zhao Wan'er returns from her round-the-world travels. "I always knew I'd get to witness yet another spectacle created by you two before I died", she says.

Much to everyone's amusement, Li Lun finds out the hard way that human pregnancy is really not fun, that no one was exaggerating when they shared their horror stories with him. He moans and grumbles all day for months and swears that he will never do this again, that he's absolutely, definitely going to be satisfied with his four kids from now on.

The only person who doesn't laugh to his face is Zhu Yan, who wishes he could bear all of his discomforts and finds his Lunzi very impressive no matter what. It's not like he could ever have done what Li Lun has done even if he wanted, right? Therefore;

When Li Lun says tells him that all this is his fault, while pale and shivering from morning sickness,
"Whatever you say is right, Lunzi." Zhu Yan says, wiping Li Lun's face with a cool towel.

When Li Lun howls so heartbreakingly in the labor bed and mewls that all this is, indeed, Zhu Yan's fault, Zhu Yan vehemently agrees as he holds Li Lun's hand and kisses his forehead.

When Bai Jiu places little Rui'er in their arms, sweet and perfect, and Li Lun cries and says, "Thank you, Yan gege", Zhu Yan cries harder and says, "No, thank you, Lun-zai", instead.

Surrounded by the love and best wishes of all their family and friends in the sunlit and vibrant Huaijiang Valley, Li Lun smiles radiantly, a picture of fulfilment and peace. He tells them that he wouldn't have this life if not for them, and they tell him that they might not even have been alive, if not for him.

Later, Li Lun sits beside the sparkling creek in front of their home, chin in his hand, thinking. He looks eons wiser and still full of childish innocence at the same time. "I am pretty awesome, aren't I?" He decides. "We both are pretty awesome."

Zhu Yan doesn't even need to say it out loud anymore. Li Lun is always right.

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