It'd been three days before Wei Lan stirred from unconsciousness.

"Young master, he's awake," Qi Zi had been guarding him left and right. As soon as the attendant saw Wei Lan opening his eyes, he called for someone to find the young master.

Wei Lan laid there stiffly. He didn't seem to be in pain anymore. He was on a bed and the room around him looked like a log cabin. Simple, but very clean and tidy.

Luo Wei arrived at the bedside, reaching out immediately to feel Wei Lan's forehead.

The move surprised Wei Lan and he wanted to pull back, but he remembered that this youth was his savior and wouldn't hurt him, so he stayed still.

"The fever's gone," Luo Wei pulled his hand away and smiled to Wei Lan, "I had someone make you soup, they'll bring it over for you later."

"A-Are you," Wei Lan's voice was hoarse as he spoke, "this slave's owner?"

"Owner?" Luo Wei smiled, "You can come with me, but I'm not some owner. They all call me young master for my position in my family. If you want to, you can call me that as well."

"Young master," Qi Zi brought some water.

"Drink a little water first," Luo Wei said to Wei Lan.

Wei Lan wanted to sit up, but even the slightest movement brought a wave of pain over his body, making him unable to move.

"Stay down," Luo Wei had already pressed the edge of the bowl to Wei Lan's mouth, "Here, drink."

Slowly, Wei Lan managed to take some water as Luo Wei fed him.

From beside the bed, Qi Zi asked Wei Lan, "Are you still in pain?"

Wei Lan looked at Luo Wei.

"This is Qi Zi, he's an attendant of mine," Luo Wei explained, "His personality is awful but his mouth is worse, you can just ignore him if you feel like it."

Qi Zi rolled his eyes.

Luo Wei fed Wei Lan patiently, a little mouthful of water at a time. As he did, he asked Qi Zi to go out and check on the soup. When Qi Zi was fully out of earshot, he addressed Wei Lan, "I've helped clean you up, but you're pretty torn up back there. I've given you some stitches, so you're only allowed soup for the next little while."

"Young master, you did this?" Wei Lan wouldn't dare imagine Luo Wei sorting out whatever they'd put into his body. The toys, the fluids, all of it was utterly disgusting!

Luo Wei himself didn't mind. In the last ten years of his past life, he'd had to do things like this nearly every day. He comforted Wei Lan and smiled, "Ten and the rest of the secret guards transferred some of their internal energy into you. They said there were antidotes back in the palace for the poison in your body, and said not to worry about it."

"In... in the palace?" Wei Lan felt as if he was in a dream of some kind.

"Oh, I'm Luo Wei. The third son of the Senior Chancellor's estate. Qi Zi is an attendant of the Luo family. Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, they're all secret guards of the emperor," Luo Wei gave Wei Lan introductions for everyone in their group.

Wei Lan seemed to be very shaken. He didn't think that this youth would be from the nobility.

"So... what's your name?" Luo Wei asked Wei Lan.

Wei Lan responded honestly, "This slave is numbered twenty-nine." Qi Lin's Shadow Guards had no names, only a number.

Luo Wei asked, "I'm asking for a name. You must've had a name before you became a shadow guard?"

Wei Lan hesitated for a while before answering, "Before I turned six, this slave was called Wei Lan."

Luo Wei asked, "Which 'lan'?"

Wei Lan answered, "This slave is illiterate, and doesn't know."

"You're not some slave," Luo Wei corrected, "You can refer to yourself by 'I' or 'me' from now on."

How would he dare to? Wei Lan quickly said, "This slave doesn't dare."

Luo Wei said, "You're going to have to listen to me on this, be good!"

Qi Lin's Shadow Guards has always been extremely obedient. Wei Lan would of course obey whatever Luo Wei asked of him, it's only that these orders from this person made Wei Lan feel as if he was human again.

Luo Wei, however, was lost in his own thought. He walked over to the table and wrote the character 'lan' for Luo Wei to see, saying, "Wei Lan, you can use this character for 'lan'. Wind and mountains makes 'lan', it means mist in the valleys, do you like it?"

TRANSLATOR'S NOTES:

Wow it was hard to get the title down for this one. It was very simple in Chinese, explaining that the character Luo Wei wrote was made up of "mountain" and "wind" stacked vertically, but that didn't make sense in and of itself in English. In the part where he actually says it, I added an extra bit of meaning behind the word. It doesn't exist in the original text, but it felt nice, especially since this would be referred to far far far in the future.

Also, I've been thinking of setting a site up myself for these translation updates. I read some posts on NU that wattpad has a tendency to take stuff down randomly. Would you guys be interested? I'd still update here, but will just run two parallel updates, perhaps. : ) Let me know~