The Tears of Thirteen Years

Chapter 21

So, my wonderful friend Anu, sent me a lovely link for some of the Mo Dao Zu Shi short stories. Thank you sweetie!

In Wei Wuxian's dream during the Incense Burner short story, Lan Wangji was weaving fabric, to make clothes.

This could be Wei Wuxian being himself, embellishing the scene or...Lan Wangji has great interest in tailoring. The loom would then be a gift to Lan Wangji not a chore or a ninsult to him. Sizhui is always immaculate too...From that random thought, came this chapter.

A cun is an ancient Chinese measurement equivalent I think to an inch. Every article seems to contradict another, so I'm going with an inch.

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The late afternoon sunlight caresses the floor of the Jingshi, pooling around small bare feet balanced on his father's desk.

Only the rustle of cloth disturbed the soothing quiet and the creak of the tree branches outside the window, swaying with the wind. The skies were beginning to threaten rain, storm clouds building on the horizon. It would probably rain overnight, Sizhui thought, glancing out the window to his left.

Sizhui kept his silence and lightly shifted his feet to release the strain, after standing for so long. Gold eyes lifted from the hem of his robes and glanced up, stilling his feet immediately. He nodded his head in apology and nearly fell from the desk, when he misjudged the edge.

Long hands callused from the guqin, gently grasped his waist and one leg, preventing him from falling. The look he received was mildly disapproving and Sizhui flushed. "Sorry Father." He tried to say it quietly but the words seem to echo in the silence around them, shattering the peace of the room.

His flush deepens and Lan Wangji watches him with amusement and mild admonishment, from where he gracefully kneels before the desk, holding a long measuring stick.

"Do not fall." He reminds his son gently, guiding him to stand further back.

He was currently one of the best students in class, for his age at least, in wushu and had surprised many of his Elders by displaying a natural talent for shisan shi as well. Despite all those achievements, that many begrudgingly considered, befitting of the son of Han Guang-Jun, his balance and flexibility far advanced for his age...but he had never stood on this desk without almost falling.

The wide desk had been cleared of all items; except for a single scroll, a pot of ink and his father's oldest calligraphy brush. The wood beneath his feet was gleaming with freshly applied wax and the scent of sandalwood incense fills the air.

Every year, on the same day almost as if it was an anniversary, his father would guide him onto the prepared desk, to adjust the measurements for his robes.

He could remember standing up here as a small child, one of Father's hands supporting him as his height was carefully recorded. Always in the afternoon too, even back then, when Father was officially in seclusion. He smiled now thinking of it.

Those days when Father would lift him so effortlessly onto the gleaming desk, that brief moment being airborne was so exciting, before being told to stay still, while Father straightened his baby clothes. By six years old he was climbing onto the desk by himself, tottering forward to where Father knelt, his small hands trying to smooth the cloth ready for inspection.

Each value would be carefully written down on the lone scroll sitting on the corner of the desk. His current height and the adjustments in length he needed for robes this year. The scroll so innocuous and plain, would be then sent to the seamstresses that produced every robe set, for every member of the Gusu Lan Sect, from Lan Qiren to Father himself.