By now, Wei Wuxian should have been basking in victory.

He had confessed. Lan Wangji had shown up. There were rabbits. It was basically marriage by cultivation standards.

And yet…

“Why is everyone still here?” he hissed, ducking behind a screen in the Jingshi. “The war is over! Go home!”

“They say you may have won the battle,” Lan Wangji said, folding laundry with surgical precision, “but the heart of a Lan is eternal, and therefore contestable.”

“That sounds like something Su She would scream while setting fire to a poetry scroll.”

Lan Wangji blinked once. “He did.”

Wei Wuxian peeked out.

In the courtyard, Nie Huaisang was handing out campaign pins. Little silver ones that read “L.W. 4Ever ❤️ NH.”

Wen Ning wore one.

Wei Wuxian pointed. “Wen Ning!”

“I just liked the design,” he mumbled.

“It has hearts on it!”

“I like hearts!”

Jiang Cheng, across the courtyard, was staring into the distance with dead eyes and muttering to himself. Wei Wuxian caught snippets: ‘Lan Wangji would never lose a spar.’ ‘Lan Wangji knows tea temperatures by touch.’ ‘Lan Wangji plays seven instruments.’

“You good?” Wei Wuxian asked, inching over.

“I don’t know what I am anymore,” Jiang Cheng whispered. “I had a dream he complimented my sword technique and I woke up crying.”

“…Okay.”

That afternoon, a banner was erected in the eastern courtyard.

It read:

THE LAN WANGJI GAMES: ROUND TWO

Below it: Talent Show • Confession Poetry • Duel for Affection • Interpretive Dance (Optional But Encouraged)

Wei Wuxian ripped it down with both hands. “This is getting out of control!”

Nie Huaisang fluttered in, robes billowing. “You should be flattered!”

“I’m being emotionally harassed!”

“But with style.”

Su She arrived, shirt slightly unbuttoned, holding a guqin. “Talent round begins at sunset. Be there.”

Lan Wangji looked up from a scroll. “I will judge.”

Wei Wuxian choked. “You agreed to judge?”

“I find this… amusing.”

“You’re enjoying this!”

“I am.”

Wei Wuxian covered his face. “Fine. If it’s war again, then I’m not losing twice. If they want a contest, they’ll get a contest.”

Sunset.

The Cloud Recesses shimmered with lanterns, stage platforms, and questionable ambition.

Wei Wuxian stood backstage with Wen Ning and Sizhui.

“This is insane,” he said, adjusting his collar. “They turned the training field into a theater.”

“They put my name on a program,” Sizhui mumbled, clutching a list. “I didn’t audition.”

“They added you to the duet section with Su She,” Wen Ning said helpfully.

“I don’t sing!”

“You do now.”

Wei Wuxian stepped out as the crowd roared. “Welcome, everyone! To what should not be happening but is—The Second Annual Lan Wangji Courtship Games!”

Lan Qiren had to be tied to a chair.

Event 1: Talent

Nie Huaisang went first.

He painted a portrait of Lan Wangji using his fan as a brush and only ink made from ground spiritual lilies. He cried the entire time. So did half the audience.

Score: 9.5

Su She performed a guqin piece titled “Ode to the Untouchable Moonlight Who Walks Among Mortals.”

It lasted 17 minutes.

Score: 8 (point deduction for mid-performance dramatic shirt rip)

Wei Wuxian stood, arms crossed.

Lan Wangji turned. “Your talent?”

Wei Wuxian grinned. “Public embarrassment and dramatics.”

And then he backflipped off the stage, landed in a crouch, and summoned fifty glowing paper talismans into the air that spelled out:

HE’S MINE, BITCHES.

Score: 11

Event 2: Poetry

Jiang Cheng reluctantly read from a scroll, monotone and dead-eyed:

“Your eyes like winter’s calm...
I fell into your aura
And I can’t get out.”

Everyone clapped.

Nie Huaisang sobbed.

Su She dramatically burned his own scroll after reading it. “Lan Wangji should never have to hear other men’s poems!”

Wei Wuxian walked up with a single sheet, cleared his throat, and recited:

“Rabbits don’t talk,
But if they did,
They’d say you’re majestic.”

Lan Wangji blinked.

“That’s it?”

Wei Wuxian shrugged. “I’m already winning.”

Score: Unofficial but smug.

Event 3: Duel

This… did not go well.

Su She tried to duel Jiang Cheng, but they both ended up unconscious after tripping over a rabbit.

Nie Huaisang threw his sword on the ground and yelled, “My true weapon is my heart!”

Lan Wangji gave him a 6.

Wei Wuxian pulled out a flute.

“Is this allowed?” someone asked.

“Shut up and listen,” he said—and played a haunting little tune that summoned a dozen gentle spirits to lift the petals off every nearby flower into a floating heart shape around Lan Wangji.

Lan Wangji gave a single nod.

Everyone else left the field in silence.

Bonus Event: Interpretive Dance

Nie Huaisang slayed. Sequins. Fans. Swirling mist. At one point he rode in on a paper crane.

Wei Wuxian slow-clapped from the sidelines.

Then Su She showed up with backup dancers and ribbons.

RIBBONS.

“Okay,” Wei Wuxian muttered. “Game on.”

He stepped onto the stage. Silence.

And then—

He danced.

Badly.

Painfully.

Chaotically.

But he did it with so much confidence that the audience began weeping halfway through.

At one point he pirouetted into a spin, launched a spark talisman into the sky, and screamed, “LAN ZHAN, I’D FIGHT A THOUSAND SU SHES FOR YOU!”

The crowd erupted.

Lan Wangji closed his eyes, sighed deeply—and smiled.

Score: ∞

At the end of the night, as petals littered the stage, and half the sect was passed out from emotional exhaustion, Wei Wuxian approached Lan Wangji, smug and winded.

“Well?”

Lan Wangji looked down at him. “You are… difficult to ignore.”

Wei Wuxian’s heart did a full backflip. “That’s your way of saying I won, right?”

Lan Wangji leaned closer.

“You were never competing.”

“Oh come on—”

Lan Wangji kissed him.

There was a long, dramatic pause.

Then—

“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!”

Nie Huaisang fainted.

Jiang Cheng threw his flute into a tree.

Su She screamed into a bush.

Lan Qiren finally passed out.

Lan Wangji stepped back. “Now it is over.”

Wei Wuxian blinked. “Wait… really?”

“I believe we’ve had enough dramatic performances.”

“…So no round three?”

“No.”

“Not even a honeymoon contest?”

“No.”

“…Matching robes?”

“…Maybe.”

Elsewhere, deep in the bamboo forest, a scroll was unfurled.

PLAN PHASE THREE: CULTIVATOR IDOL SEASON FINALE – WIN HIS HEART, WIN THE WORLD

Nie Huaisang dipped his brush.

“It’s not over until I say it’s over.”