zero, oh how have you been

[coreless]

[ it starts when Wei Ying is eighteen years old and somehow accepted into the prestigious Gusu University with a grade-pending scholarship for the whole four years (a miracle if you were to ask Madame Yu, or perhaps she would say that Wei Wuxian was selling his soul for the change, both were plausible). it means that he leaves the lakes and rivers and thunderstorm clouds of Yungmneg to go to Gusu. means he leaves what has been his home for so long and moves to a different city that is all mountains and strange forests and mists to get a degree in something that will make his family proud of him (impossible, a voice that sounds strangely familiar will whisper, but when has Wei Ying ever not tried to achieve the impossible?).

it starts when, the first week of school, Wei Ying is caught smuggling in alcohol to the dorms one night (prohibited, according to rule one hundred and something, but he didn't really bother memorizing them so he could have made that number up). he is old enough to be drinking according to the country, but the university has a rather strict 'no alcohol on the premises unless it's the one shitty on-campus bar' rule. and of course Wei Ying couldn't get caught by someone that would be easily charmed by his bright grin and coy looks, oh no. no, Wei Ying had to go and get caught by Lan Wangji of all people.

so, that is to say, it really starts, when instead of obeying the rules after that (all fucking two thousand of them) Wei Ying spends the next four years toeing the line of being rulebreaker and model student. well, no, he is never a model student, but he is fucking brilliant, and he keeps his grades above 95 so the university can't actually get mad at him and kick him out like they really want to (also for some reason, the rules he breaks, or cracks really, are never quite bad enough to merit being expelled, just enough to earn him a glare from Lan Wangji -- Lan Zhan -- and a light punishment. at the end of it all, he has paid a few fines and spent a lot of time with the cleaning staff in the labs).

if you were to ask Wei Ying why he continually broke the rules the way he did, he would tell you it was because he was bored. because this place was too stuffy and too still and he needed to do something in order to feel like he was alive again. (but that is a bit of a lie, really he just likes it when Lan Zhan's gaze is on him, when he can have that attention, even if it is accompanied with a glare and a muttered 'ridiculous').

it stalls when, after four years and being top of his class later, Wei Ying vanishes before graduation. (technically he still 'receives' his degree, well Jiang Cheng does, but it is in his name but-- whatever). he has his reasons, honestly, but it involves some assholes and shady background politics and the last thing that Wei Ying wants is to drag the Jiang family name through the mud so-- he just vanishes instead. vanishes and tries to fix a problem that isn't his to fix at all and that's fine, it's fine, he does what he has to and, in the end it all works out. at least, it does it if you ask him. (if you as Wen Qing, it does not all work out, not for a long while, and she has plans to use a tranquillizer dart on a certain idiot that she knows sooner rather than later even if it goes against the Hippocratic oath).

it starts to crawl, molasses-in-winter slow when after a few dead-end jobs (read: five years of them) lands him a writing gig at a local blog that wants someone to review the little known nooks and cranny restaurants in the area. that tasks of and gets him some recognition, a kind of tripe-and-stumble down the hill momentum that lands him a job at a more regional blog, then newspaper (a real one), before there is a well-known magazine reaching out to him for his reviews. he has flair, they tell him, wit and charm and knowledge about the dishes that are served to him in a combination that makes people want to read about food and also apparently increases the traffic in every restaurant that he as written about in the last two years. (it was the four years of culinary school plus his penchant for helping Nie Huiasang with his Business Communication's homework coming to play all at once).

it jumpstarts, the kind of jack-rabbit quick, oh-shit-what kind of freefall start, when he is asked to go back to mainland China for a series on regional cuisine that is specific to each area. he hasn't been home in almost nine years at this point and-- well his siblings know that he is alive, but that's about it, and nothing else. but he takes the assignment anyway (not just because of the number of zeroes at the end of the salary) but because the Wen's are established and safe, and there really is no reason at all for him not to go. well that and Wen Qing threatened to use him as a cadaver when she taught the next batch of first-year med students.

so of course, the first place that he is sent is to Gusu of all places and the master chef is none other than Gusu's own 'Hanguang-Jun' of cuisine: Lan Wangji.

Wei Ying is pretty sure that, if there are gods watching him, they are laughing their asses off at him right now. hard. thankfully, talking to chef isn't usually a part of what Wek Ying has to do. he just has to dress as nice as he can, order the dish that the restaurant is the best known for, and then eat it. well, and then write about it, but that part was obvious, he hopes. (and if Wei Ying happens to wear his nicest black suit to dinner this time it has nothing to do with the name of the chef at all, it's just a classy place that is all.)

when Wei Ying gets to the restaurant (simplistic decore he notes, clean and neat and so very Lan in the aesthetic) he is absolutely sure that the gods are laughing at him because he is seated near the back with a clear fucking view of the kitchen. of course. fuck. he orders himself a glass of their best wine and-- maybe just leave the bottle on the table yeah. ]

...I would ask what I have done to deserve this but the list might be too long.

[ the waiter looks confused as he pours a glass, leaves the bottle, and gives Wei Ying times to decide what he wants to eat. (pretty sure the head chef isn't on the menu but-- no, bad Wei Ying, focus. he probably doesn't even remember you.) ]