Somewhere far away, far from the home she once knew – the home she can no longer remember, or she can but she does not wish too – there is a girl who does not remember her name, nor anything of the life she came from. Until the night she dreams of wolves.

Nie Huaisang thought that - should the time travel array actually work and he end up back in time before everything happened, with his brother still alive and well - that the first thing he would do would be to properly weep and cry and hug his brother, not jump straight into explanations and strategizing. Then again, he hadn't expected that the array would somehow send his spirit into his brother's body, casting his brother's spirit into his own past self, either.

Well, shit, Nie Huaisang thought, even as he comforted Jin Rusong, petting the toddler’s back to try to get him to calm down. What do I do now?

“You want me to what,” Lan Qiren said. “Be the father of my child,” Cangse Sanren said. Simply and straightforwardly, as if that were just a thing people said.

“Hey,” Lao Nie protested mildly. “Who’s the father here, me or you?” “If a-die wants a new wife, little uncle will find one that isn’t inclined to kill him.” That sounded like a recitation. “Then what’s even the point,” Lao Nie grumbled, and reached out to ruffle his son’s hair, enjoying how Nie Mingjue yelped when he did, glaring up at him with offended dignity.

Nie Huaisang’s rooms in the Unclean Realm had a little side door that no one but him ever used. Years after he’d put it out of his mind entirely, there came a terrible banging noise at that little side door, like someone was kicking at it furiously from the outside. Lan Wangji, white robes stained with blood and cheeks bright with fever, shoved something into his arms. “You have a child now,” he said through bitten lips. “Congratulations. He is called A-Yuan. I entrust you with his care, for my sect cannot be trusted with it.”

Snip, snip, snip, go the scissors, as Pudding cuts herself out of her mother's life. She won't be going alone.