Third Elder's fingers lingered on Wei Xuan's pulse like frost on steel. "Cold qi roots in your marrow," he pronounced, gaze slicing toward Wei Wuxian's wine-stained collar. "Youth masks decay."
Wei Xuan's wood energy coiled tighter, smoothing her meridians into deceptively placid rivers. She'd rehearsed this – the perfect patient, the repentant sister. Yet when the physician's eyes narrowed at her fabricated vitality, ice crackled beneath her ribs.
"Nightmares," Lan Wangji had claimed earlier. Wei Xuan watched him now through the medical pavilion's moon window, his silhouette cutting through mist like an unsheathed blade. Her brother's laughter echoed too brightly as he uncorked Emperor's Smile, the scent of fermented lotus seeds masking her frozen exhales.
Lan Qiren paid the bill with a flick of his sleeve.
Alone in his dormitory, Wei Wuxian drowned in the qiankun pouch's contents – new robes smelling of mulberry fields, pear blossom candies wrapped in oilpaper, two jars of contraband liquor. The first sip burned hotter than usual.
By the third gulp, the ceiling spun.
He laughed into the silk pillows, unaware frost crept across the floorboards. Outside, Wei Xuan's departing figure paused mid-stride. Her broadsword hummed as Lan Wangji's guqin resonated from the Cold Spring – twin vibrations rippling through Cloud Recesses' ancient wards.
"Gege," she whispered to the wind, "You always were a lightweight."
The empty liquor jar rolled from Wei Wuxian's grasp, its hollow clatter swallowed by snow beginning to fall in midsummer.