There are so many papers here, pages and pages held down by artifacts which are no doubt priceless. Wei Ying doesn't know even where to begin looking, but when his eyes fall on the white envelope with the flame border, he gasps, reaching for it.

"That's what Wen Qing handed to me last night!"

"Yes. And you can see for yourself, it's not even one tenth of what our teams extracted from her." Baoshan Sanren says, frowning. "Clearly, she underestimated us, but that's okay because this is everything they could find. Her treasury is still intact with other expensive antiques, but nothing of my husband's property is left there."

Wei Ying puts his arms around her shoulders.

"All of this belongs to you anyway, grandmother. I'm glad you were able to get it back," he whispers, leaning his head on top of hers.

He's taller than her, but like this and because of her vibrant larger-than-life personality, he feels much smaller.

"I'm going to need your help in translating it." She sniffs and clears her throat. "And that brings me to you."

"What about me?" Wei Ying asks her suspiciously, stepping back from her, but he's smiling.

"So I was wondering if you'd like to come and work for me?"

She's barely finished speaking before Lan Zhan chimes in. "I believe I offered Wei Ying employment first," he says firmly, standing very close to Wei Ying.

"You did..." Wei Ying looks at him first and then at his grandmother.

There seems to be a clash of opinions here, definitely a nonverbal one.

"But my job offer is something only he can do!" Baoshan Sanren steps forward adamantly, not at all intimidated by a young vampire at least a foot taller than herself.

"Mine, too!" Lan Zhan also steps forward, just as sure. "And my brother is looking for someone we can trust to look after our Homeless people charity."

"I want to train him!" Baoshan Sanren is relentless.

They're almost nose to chest at this point.

"I asked him first." Lan Zhan is beginning to look fierce.

Wei Ying decides to intervene.

"And what about me? Can I choose, or are you both gonna decide for me?" He says it lightly, knowing that both of them are astute enough to recognise his dislike for where this conversation is going. He giggles at the expressions on both of their faces.

"I am sorry. I did not mean-" Lan Zhan begins to say, but Wei Ying closes the distance between them and wraps his arms around his waist, with a finger on his lips.

"We said, no apologies between us," he smiles gently. "I'm still in my drifting mode. But both of you will know when I decide what I'm going to do. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for your consideration...it's just that I also want to spend time with our children, too. These past few years, I've been eeking out time to do that, and I feel, I dunno, stretched? I can't stop feeling like I've been neglecting A-Yuan, and now JingYi. I know it wasn't my fault before, but because now we're in a better place in every way that matters, I want to make better decisions."

Lan Zhan lets himself hug Wei Ying back, satisfaction settling in his bones.

"As long as Wei Ying knows that he has a choice."

"I do." Wei Ying leans up to kiss his cheek. "Now, let's see what Wen Qing wanted me to see. How long before she realises that we've robbed her, Grandmother?"

Baoshan Sanren looks immensely proud of him.

"It's not theft if we're taking back what belongs to us already," she states, smiling back at them.

They both look so happy right now, and she knows she will do anything to protect them and their well-deserved joy with everything she's got. She hands him the envelope, first.

Wei Ying is proud of himself too, because his fingers aren't shaking when he rips open the white envelope.

There are six pages in all, written in his grandfather's coded language. They're not in order, nor are they all pertaining to the Elixir of Life, as Wei Ying had requested. He looks up to his grandmother.

"Alright, it's safe to assume that either Wen Qing just grabbed a few random papers in order to show cooperation with what I asked her to hand over, and probably, she doesn't know how to read grandfather's code, which is great."

"Hm." She taps her nose thoughtfully. "It's taken them an awfully long time to figure out the bare bones of these categories. Either way, it matters not since we have everything that belonged to your grandfather now. And she obviously thought she was being clever by fobbing you off with a few papers, when just look at all this!" She spreads her hands out to encompass three quarters of the table.

"How soon do you think she'll figure it out?" Wei Ying asks her.

This is something he'd rather not think about, but it is imminent, and he should prepare for his response to her certain phone call.

"Since half of this came from her personal safe at her home, I'd say as soon as she opens it. From there, it's not that much of a stretch to get to me, since she knows you would have help. So probably by Monday? If not sooner." Baoshan Sanren sighs. "I know it's hard for you, A-Ying."

"I don't feel angry," he says, not seeing anything in particular. "Just, I guess I'm disappointed in her. I really thought of her as my older sister, and no matter how she tries to justify it, there's really no excuse for keeping all this from me, even if she has no idea what any of this is. It's the thought that she wanted to, you know what I mean?" He doesn't mean to sound so sad about it.

Lan Zhan rubs his back sympathetically.

Betrayal was never an easy pill to swallow.

***********

They look through some of the piles of neatly stacked papers, beginning the arduous task of sorting them out. They have labelled the piles into categories of Necromancer, Elixir of Life, HeartStone, Inventions and Miscellaneous.

"You know, if Grandfather had survived a little longer, he would have made a phenomenal difference to the Cultivation world," Wei Ying remarks in admiration, looking at plans to create an evil spirit luring flag, and a compass to detect evil, among other helpful tools.

His grandmother looks sad at that, and Wei Ying hates it. It might be hard, but he wants to make sure that she doesn't feel like this too often.

But before he can say anything, her phone goes off.

"Nie Huaisang wants to ask you questions," Xiao XingChen says, on the other end of the call.

Wei Ying is surprised he can hear both sides of the conversation, and he's grinning because his grandmother never wastes time with a greeting first.

"Alright, we're coming up," she replies, snapping her phone shut. "Are you ready to go up?" She asks Wei Ying.

Wei Ying stretches out the kinks in his back, smiling back at her. He hadn't noticed his hunched back over the table until he straightened up.

"Yeah, let's take a break. Besides, I'm interested in what Huaisang will do, if he's actually come to a decision about going public."

Baoshan Sanren nods and they leave the library.

****************

But none of them are prepared for the animosity thickly present in Baoshan Sanren's office.

Xiao XingChen is by the door with Song Lan, watching a glaring contest between Huaisang and Mo XuanYu.

"I don't know what happened," he tells Baoshan Sanren helplessly. "One second, they're absolutely fine, and then once I introduced them properly, Huaisang went all cold."

"That's because this is Mo XuanYu," Huaisang bites out, not looking away from the young man in question.

It's worse because Huaisang is standing right next to him with one hand bracing himself on Baoshan Sanren's desk, and the other one holding Mo XuanYu's chair tightly, the whites of his knuckles showing in his grip.

"A-Yu, what's going on?" Wei Ying steps forward, trying to gauge what the problem is.

There's no way Lan Zhan is going to let him get hurt by going towards what he perceives as danger, so he steps forward too, and slightly in front of Wei Ying's body to deflect any violence that is definitely brewing between the other two.

"Beats me!" Mo XuanYu shrugs, but he can't look away from the naked irritation in Huaisang's face.

"I wish I could!" Huaisang mutters, clearly vibrating with tension. "You're Mo XuanYu!" He repeats.

"Duh!" Mo XuanYu replies, in that careless way of all teenagers who are impervious to imminent consequences of their own actions. "That's my name!" He says cheerfully.

"Also a direct translation meaning, Warm Sky." Huaisang bites out as if he's talking to the stupidest person alive.

"Oh." Baoshan Sanren murmurs.

She's not the only one who looks stricken; Mo XuanYu also looks as if he knows why Huaisang is livid.

"Someone better start explaining right away," Wei Ying says, looking at the only three people who seem to know what the hell is going on.

"That's my online identity," Mo XuanYu explains.

"As well as F4keSt0ries?" Wei Ying asks him.

Mo XuanYu takes a chance to look away from Huaisang then, to nod sheepishly at him.

"But that doesn't explain-" Wei Ying begins to say, but Huaisang is done with playing around.

He grabs Mo XuanYu by the front of his t-shirt, yanking him up.

Wei Ying is there immediately, pushing Huaisang back.

"Get off him!"

Lan Zhan is there not even a second later, securing Huaisang's arms behind his back.

"Alright, start talking, Huaisang," he says sharply, placing himself in front of Mo XuanYu and facing Huaisang.

"Remember I told you I had a contact and we were sharing information? My contact's name is Warm Sky. That's him!" Huaisang growls, spitting fire at both of them.

"Right, and now you've met him...sorry, but I don't get what the problem is? Say hi and hug it out." Wei Ying shrugs, ignoring his grandmother's chuckle.

"Let go of me!" Huaisang turns his face towards Lan Zhan.

Lan Zhan is looking at Wei Ying, ignoring Huaisang, waiting for Wei Ying to say if it's okay or not.

"Only if you promise not to touch him!" Wei Ying crosses his arms over his chest, not budging.

Lan Zhan tightens his arms, out of pettiness.

"Ow!" Huaisang scowls and then his face smooths out. "As you say. I won't hurt him."

Wei Ying nods at Lan Zhan to let go.

The first thing Huaisang does is stretch out his arms, and then he rubs a hand over his face. He looks tired now.

"So, basically you guys have been feeding me information through him?" He says, staring at Baoshan Sanren.

"Hey, hey, hey!" She protests. "I'm not his keeper, whatever he does in his down time is his business! I don't expect you to believe me, but I had nothing to do with whatever he's told you."

"My grandmother doesn't lie," Wei Ying says.

"Not to you," she mutters.

"Grandma?!! NOT helping!" Wei Ying rolls his eyes.

"They're telling you the truth!" Mo XuanYu gently pushes Wei Ying aside, throwing his arm around his shoulders. "Everything I told you was the truth as well, but I didn't get anyone's permission or anything. I wanted to expose the nasty experiments the Wen Laboratories were doing. All that stuff about their suppressants, the medication they were developing? All true."

"So I guess the only question worth asking now is, have you decided what you're going to do?" Wei Ying asks Huaisang. "Is exposing the truth more important than stopping it from happening all over again?"

"I need to think about it," Huaisang shoots back, not letting anyone push him into deciding prematurely.

"Okay." Wei Ying says easily. His stomach rumbles, and he grins at everyone, grabbing Mo XuanYu and giving him a noogie. "Who's hungry?"