Your dreams

Chapter 3

Lan Wangji managed to forget all about the two unusual incidents from the day before. His sleep that night had not been disturbed by anything, and even if he had dreamed about something, he did not remember it in the morning. He woke up calm and refreshed.

Only when he was putting on his forehead ribbon did his thoughts strain to the upcoming day. And inevitably also to Wei Wuxian.

His determination to keep an eye on the supposedly rowdy Yunmeng Jiang sect head disciple was back. After all, he was the main disciplinarian in the Cloud Recesses, especially among the younger generation, if he did not maintain order, who would? For sure, Lan Qiren and the other elders would be on high alert as well, at least in the first few days and would educate the guest disciples when it came to the Gusu Lan sect rules. However, Lan Wangji wanted to make their duty easier by personally being aware of Wei Wuxian's every move.

He went to breakfast in high spirits. As expected, he was one of the first ones there. The guest disciples would be given several days for adjusting to the new routine so no one was expecting them to follow all the rules right from the start. He looked around, enjoying the calm atmosphere. He was worried that the usual quietness of the Cloud Recesses would be soon disturbed.

He was not incorrect. Though he would hare preferred to actually have a rowdy and loud disciple to deal with over another daydreaming vision.

It happened just as he had finished his breakfast. While he has been eating, small groups of guest disciples have been filtering in and sleepily getting their morning meal. It looked like nearly all of them were actually aware of the breakfast time. Even the Yunmeng Jiang sect party showed up kind of on time. Jiang Yanli looked the same as yesterday, but Jiang Wanyin and Wei Wuxian were clearly having a lot more trouble to stay awake at this early morning hour. The last one's head was falling down at times, as if he was in fact falling asleep again.

Lan Wangji was watching him with eagle eyes, ready to go reprimand him at the slightest of infractions. It was better to keep him in line from the very beginning than to regret later on. Then, when Wei Wuxian's head fell down to his chest again, Lan Wangji's eyes were suddenly watching a whole different scene.

Lan Wangji was sitting in the lecture hall, feeling bored. His uncle was standing in front of the class and reading the Gusu Lan sect rules one by one. He had only just started the list when somewhere around rule 134, there was a loud bang from the back of the classroom. Lan Wangji turned his head with a start, a bout of curiosity run through him like electric current. The sound was made by the door being roughly opened. A delegation of disciples in Qishan Wen sect colours were standing on the doorstep and marching into the classroom as if the place belonged to them.

Lan Wangji closed his eyes and shook his head slightly in an attempt at chasing the vision away. His head was spinning from the quick succession of images in his mind. This particular daydream had been a lot shorter than the two previous ones. And also a lot messier in a sense. Everything seemed to have happened way too quickly and out of any chronological timeframe. For a second, Lan Wangji was considering going to see a healer. He was afraid that something was seriously wrong.

After another second of consideration however, he decided against this idea. Although this had in fact happened thrice to him now, there was no reason to think too much about it. He must have still been tired, he would go to rest earlier today. Some meditation was perhaps also called for, he needed to regain his usual calm and composure.

If this had been any other time, he would have gone to his brother or uncle for advice. Surely they would know what was wrong, or if not, they could at least point him in a correct direction. He fully believed that this had already happened to people before him. As things stood however, both Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren had their hands full with the guest lectures hosting. It would not do to give them even more worries. Especially if he himself did not know if he was just imagining things.

He stood up unhurriedly as his balance was still not fully recovered after the confusing vision. He had decided to call them visions for now as he could not find any better term. He put his bowl and chopsticks away and went out of the dining hall. His steps took him to the Library pavilion. Luckily, he had the key so he could access at any time of the day. Not that he usually needed it, but today was a special case.

He found a quiet spot and sat down in lotus position. He wanted to meditate a little bit first before going to the lectures. He still had some time. He could try going though the books afterwards to see if he could not find any clues in one of them.

His mind was however refusing to cooperate with him and was bringing back many questions to be considered. He wondered why this kept happening to him. If it had been only once, it could have just been a strange occurrence. If it had been twice, then he was tired. Three time through, that was uncomfortably close to a repeated habit. And why such strange visions? He had never been in those places for the bigger part of them. They could definitely not be his memories.

After several minutes of failed attempts at meditation, Lan Wangji finally accepted that he would not be able to properly calm down before he dissected this problem and found a solution. He did not want this happening again, it was interfering with his daily activities and duties. On top of being very unusual, strange and concerning.

He thought back to all the three times he had had those visions. Had they had something in common?

He came up with several points:

Firstly, all the visions had felt more like a dream than anything else. The images were flashing in front of his eyes without actually showing a full scene. Sometimes, they had even been out of order and hazy.

Secondly, they have been portraying him as another person. They were definitely not memories, and if yes, then not his own. The first one was the biggest clue as he had seen himself coming up the stairs to the Cloud Recesses. But also the other two had felt more like he was not himself. Why else would he had been grinning or had been so easily excited when there was a distraction from a boring lecture? He did not even think that his uncle's classes were boring!

And third common point, although he did not want to admit it, was that he had been watching Wei Wuxian. On every single instance, the vision had flooded his mind when he had been in the proximity to the Yunmeng Jiang sect head disciple or had been watching the window of his room at night. This could have been completely unrelated – and he actually hoped it was – but it seemed like a little too much of a coincidence.

He decided not to discard this clue right of the bat but also not to think too much of it for now. He did not like the thought of Wei Wuxian being somehow, even marginally, part of this all. It had to be tested if this hypothesis was the correct one or if he was imagining things. Now that his imagination was actually playing tricks on him, he knew he apparently had abundant amounts of it.