#Jiang Cheng is just here for the eye candy at this point

[robininthelabyrinth]

I'm absolutely delighted your prompts are open! Your writing is amazing and always makes me smile, it's the best way to start the day along with a cup of coffee!

Lan Zhan and Wei Ying are given another chance at raising a child after a family is killed leaving only a young child behind. Lan Sizhui is delighted to have a baby sibling. Though everyone is more or less nervous about it (mostly be Wei Ying is a gremlin) but also there isn't any other options.

ao3

“It’ll be fine,” Jiang Cheng said, rolling his eyes. “Hanguang-jun raised Lan Sizhui, didn’t he? And he turned out fine.”

“I did,” Lan Sizhui said agreeably, then frowned. “I think I did, anyway.”

“Not to be a spoilsport, but, realistically speaking, how much raising did Hanguang-jun actually do with you?” Jin Ling asked, and held up his hands when Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi both glared at him. “I don’t mean any offense or anything! I’m serious. We know he was in seclusion those first few years, right? Who raised you then?”

Lan Sizhui thought about it. “Back in the beginning? Well…that was mostly Teacher Lan, I guess.”

“Teacher Lan’s the best,” Lan Jingyi said loyally, then added, “Well, other than that fondness he has for surprise quizzes. But that’s not applicable to parenting, is it?”

Lan Sizhui made a face that suggested that maybe it was, in some weird way, shape, or form.

“Teacher Lan, really?” Jiang Cheng asked, clearly getting drawn in despite his best intentions – as was often the case. There was a reason their little group swung by the Lotus Pier nearly as often as they did the Cloud Recesses and Jinlin Tower, despite Jin Ling not living there part of the year any longer. “Wasn’t he mostly in recovery for those injuries he got during the war? I would’ve figured Zewu-jun would’ve been more involved, wouldn’t he?”

“He was around sometimes, but no, it was mostly Teacher Lan,” Lan Sizhui said. “Zewu-jun was often busy – he was rebuilding the Lan sect –”

“I was rebuilding the Jiang sect! So what? I still raised Jin Ling, and he wasn’t even supposed to be here – I had to fight the Jin sect for months just to get the opportunity – ”

“Yes, jiujiu, we know!” Jin Ling said hastily. “You don’t have to tell that story again! You didn’t have to tell everyone that story in the first place!”

Jiang Cheng huffed. He was probably going to tell the story again whether they liked it or not.

“I think I see what you’re saying, Jin Ling,” Ouyang Zizhen put in, always a good fellow for throwing himself on a conversational sacrificial sword. “If Lan Sizhui was already a few years old when he was adopted, and then Teacher Lan raised him for the next three years, then he would’ve been old enough to be entered into the Cloud Recesses’ official junior classes by the time Hanguang-jun took charge of his education, right?”

“Yes, that’s what I meant, that’s it exactly!”

“What does it matter?” Lan Sizhui asked.

“Yeah! Hanguang-jun still raised him the rest of the way,” Lan Jingyi put in, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring. “Gave him lessons and tips and all that!”

“Isn’t that something he does as a sect senior anyway?”

“Well, yes, but it’s different for Sizhui, okay?”

“I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with that. After all, the person who teaches the most is the same as the parent, and being the person raising them is what matters no matter when they’re adopted,” Jin Ling said, with an eye on Jiang Cheng, who looked begrudgingly pleased. He looked begrudging all the time, though, so it was probably just pleased. “But my point is – once you were part of the lessons, even if he was raising you the rest of the time, you still already mostly had your personality down by then, right? We’ve never seen what someone raised entirely by Hanguang-jun from birth would be like.”

They all stopped to consider that.

“More than that,” Jin Ling continued. “This kid’ll be raised not just by Hanguang-jun, but by Hanguang-jun as he is now – after he and Senior Wei got together. You know?”

They did know.

“And of course, that’s all putting aside that the kid will be raised by Senior Wei himself, too…”

“Maybe we should start investing in defense talismans,” Jiang Cheng mused. “Because everything is going to explode. Everything.”

-

“Everything will not explode,” Lan Wangji said calmly.

“Are you sure?” Wei Wuxian asked. “Because I’m not sure, and I’m more likely to be involved in these hypothetical explosions than you are.”

“Mm. I’m certain.”

“But…”

“Wei Ying will be an excellent father,” Lan Wangji said, and his voice left no room for doubt.

“It’s easy for you to say,” Wei Wuxian whined, though he was smiling now. “You already have the experience of it! They say that it’s easier the second time, when you know what to expect…”

“Do not tell lies,” Lan Qiren said mildly. He was looking over some of Wei Wuxian’s notes – he’d insisted on any new inventions passing through a sanctioned approval process before they were put into practice and had volunteered himself to review them, a matter that had caused Wei Wuxian no end of stress until he realized that Lan Qiren really did intend to approve anything that met his standards and, moreover, understood musical cultivation enough to understand what he was driving at with most of them, even the esoteric ones, at which point Wei Wuxian gotten extremely enthusiastic about the whole thing.

This didn’t mean that they were friends or anything, but they’d at least formed some sort of tentative truce.

Most of the time, anyway.

Wei Wuxian squinted at his old teacher suspiciously. “What’s that supposed to mean? Are you saying that it’s not easier the second time?”

“I am only saying that I have experience in raising a child not my own,” Lan Qiren pointed out, and Wei Wuxian nodded, slightly abashed; he knew that the old man had basically raised Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen, of course, although sometimes he forgot. “The first child I raised was Xichen and his personality as a child was much as it was as an adult: gentle, amiable, friendly, obedient.”

That made sense. Wei Wuxian nodded.

“The second child I raised was Wangji,” Lan Qiren said. “He bit people.”

Wei Wuxian burst out laughing.

Lan Wangj virtuously ignored them both, continuing to write a letter without the slightest hint of embarrassment – even his ears hadn’t turned red. What a shame!

“I can testify to that myself,” Wei Wuxian giggled, leering at his husband in the hopes of getting a rise out of him. “He’s still a biter – for certain lucky people.”

“He was a lot less discriminating when he was younger,” Lan Qiren said, and Wei Wuxian winced, abruptly remembering that Lan Wangji’s uncle was, in fact, still in the room. Luckily it was pretty easy to flirt around Lan Qiren, who didn’t seem to notice most of the time, but it was still a bit awkward. “And I once succumbed to temptation and gave him mixed messages, which I believe made it worse.”

That sounded like a story.

“He gave me a candy after I bit Sect Leader Jin,” Lan Wangji clarified, which made Wei Wuxian start laughing again. “He did not expect me to remember. I remembered. Nor did I allow him to forget about it.”

“It is easy to make mistakes while raising a child,” Lan Qiren said, ignoring Wei Wuxian’s cackling. “But if one means well, and tries hard to do the right thing, children are very forgiving – usually.”

Despite his best efforts to remain neutral, Lan Wangji’s eyes curved slightly in a smile. Wei Wuxian felt his heart go all warm and melty all over again.

“This is true regardless of whether it is the first or second child,” Lan Qiren added. “I have confidence that you will both do fine.”

“We will,” Wei Wuxian proclaimed. “With parents like me and Lan Zhan, how could the kid go wrong? And we’ll even try to avoid too many explosions!”

“Please do. One Lan Jingyi is enough for the Cloud Recesses.”

“You know, I was wondering – how did you end up with him being quite so…hmm…”

“Oh?” Lan Qiren said, and Wei Wuxian noted to his amusement that Lan Wangji straightened in back in sudden alarm despite Lan Qiren’s extremely nonchalant tone. “Have you not met Lan Yueheng yet? I must introduce you when he returns –”

“Perhaps not,” Lan Wangji said, sounding a little worried.

Worried, in this case, meant fun.

“No, I think I definitely need to meet this person – Lan Zhan, stop batting at me! I know exactly what I’m doing…”

-

Wen Ning looked down at the baby with which he had been entrusted.

“I don’t have any idea what I’m doing,” he confessed.

The baby gurgled.

“I think Wei-gongzi may have been thinking more about ‘babysitter that doesn’t need to sleep and has inexhaustible energy’ and less about ‘is this person qualified to take care of a baby’.”

More gurgling.

“I just wanted to apologize in advance.”

The baby yawned.

“…right then.” Wen Ning straightened up. Someone was going to have to raise this child, and based on how distractable Wei Wuxian was when he was around Lan Wangji and visa versa, it looked like it was going to have to be him. “Let’s do this.”

[ibijau]

Futures past pt19 / on AO3

As music lessons resume, Lan Xichen has a suggestion for Nie Huaisang

Nie Huaisang cheerfully knocked on the door, ready for his first music lesson of the year, only to be met by a decidedly grumpy Lan Xichen. The other boy tried to smile at him, tried to make conversation as usual and to ask how much he’d practiced that week, but Nie Huaisang wasn’t fooled.

“So, what’s wrong?” he asked as he set up his guqin, a little proud to show off again that he had his own instrument now. “You look so dejected that I could mistake you for your brother.”

“Let’s not talk about Wangji right now,” Lan Xichen replied, his expression turning sour. 

Now he looked like his uncle, though Nie Huaisang was too polite to say as much. It was really strange to see him so upset, and a little worrying as well, but Lan Xichen did not give him the chance to ask any questions.

“I’ve been thinking a lot while you were gone,” Lan Xichen announced with a fake smile that wasn’t fooling anyone, “and I think your level is good enough to start teaching you something a little more advanced. Shufu has given me permission to give you an introduction to some techniques we use for musical cultivation, if that interests you.”

Nie Huaisang gasped at the news.

“Really? You mean, real musical cultivation?” he asked excitedly. “The real deal? Like… like battle songs? Healing songs? You think I’m good enough?”

His earlier bad mood quickly melting away, Lan Xichen smiled warmly and came to sit next to Nie Huaisang.

“I think you’re very skilled, yes,” he said, making Nie Huaisang flush at the praise, “though it’ll be a while until you can use musical techniques in a Night Hunt. But since we have this entire year before us, I thought you could try to learn Inquiry.”

“Really?”

To confirm it, Lan Xichen merely handed Nie Huaisang a musical score, one he appeared to have copied himself. Nie Huaisang took it with trembling hands, awed to be trusted in that manner.

“The song itself is not particularly complex,” Lan Xichen explained as Nie Huaisang looked over the score, “and it can be learned and used even by someone of ordinary cultivation level. The real difficulty, and what is going to take us a while, is the Qin language needed to understand the answers given by spirits.”

His eyes still on the sheet of music, Nie Huaisang just nodded. Then, realising what he’d just heard, he looked up and stared at Lan Xichen with wide, shocked eyes.

“Isn’t that a secret Lan technique?”

“I'm not sure about 'secret' but it is an exclusive technique,” Lan Xichen confirmed, his expression turning more serious. “That’s why I had to ask for shufu’s permission before I could offer to teach you. I won’t hide that he was reluctant,” he added with a strained smile. “But I told him that I fully trust you to respect our secrets.”

Hands clenched on the music sheet, Nie Huaisang hurriedly nodded again. He couldn’t think of a bigger honour done to him. He’d never have dared to ask to be taught any Lan secret techniques, but since it was offered he would do his best to be worthy of it, and to show proper respect and gratitude.

“I also told him that having a goal of your own seemed to help you in your studies last year,” Lan Xichen added, “and that this might help you do better in your exams by giving you better motivation.”

However pleased he was that Lan Xichen would trust him, and with something that important, the reminder of his failure to do well in class made Nie Huaisang grimace, and instantly reduced his enthusiasm. “Does it mean the music lessons will be dependent on the grades I get in regular classes?”

“It’s possible that shufu came to that conclusion,” Lan Xichen replied with a mischievous smile. “But I never actually said that, and your grades are of no concern to me. I just like teaching you”

“Xichen-gege, you’re so crafty!” Nie Huaisang laughed. “Who knew you were capable of that! You’re the best, you know? I like when you teach me, too. I’ll try to be as good a student as you are a teacher!”

“I’m pleased you’d think so well of me,” Lan Xichen said, his cheeks turning a little pink. “Now, let’s get to work. I think for today, we’re just going to focus on the song itself. Then next week, if you are comfortable enough playing it, I can show you how to infuse it with your spiritual energy to have the right effect, and we can start learning Qin language.”

It sounded like a great plan, and one Nie Huaisang wholeheartedly agreed to.

Just as Lan Xichen promised, the song itself was not particularly challenging, and short enough that Nie Huaisang had good hopes of quickly learning it by heart if he just put his mind to it. He’d try to be careful not to practice it around the other Nie disciples, since it was a Lan technique, but he’d still work hard on it, and… maybe that might turn Night Hunts into something interesting at last. It should certainly make Nie Mingjue happy if his brother finally became interested in those, even if he had to use another sect’s method for it. 

It opened a world of possibilities, and Nie Huaisang promised himself to practice hard to make this happen, so both his brother and Lan Xichen would be proud of him. Or at least, as hard as he was capable, especially with all that he had to do that year. 

That would come later. The lesson having reached its conclusion for the day, Lan Xichen served tea for both of them, and offered some candies to celebrate the start of a new year of learning. By then, Lan Xichen’s mood appeared to have improved a great deal, and Nie Huaisang decided it would be fine to start the first phase of his great plan. 

"So, Xichen-gege, what do you think of this year's students?" Nie Huaisang asked innocently while grabbing some candies.

Lan Xichen's expression turned sour for a brief moment, before he got himself back under control and smiled again. 

"They are an interesting lot, certainly," he said without enthusiasm. "Are you making friends this time?" 

After taking a quick sip of tea, Nie Huaisang nodded, grinning.

"Gege, you won't believe it, but even last year I made a friend!” he announced. “Apparently, Zixun thinks I'm really cool and told his cousin about me!"

It was still really funny to him, and judging by his surprised expression, Lan Xichen hadn’t expected that either.

"Then Jin Zixun has better tastes than I expected,” Lan Xichen said with some hesitation, “and I must reconsider my opinion of him." 

"Well, me too! But I am making friends this year too, and they're nicer about it than Zixun was. Have you met Wei Wuxian yet?" 

Stopping short of drinking some tea, Lan Xichen's smile wavered. He froze for a second, and put down his glass again.

"I have,” Lan Xichen said in a tone of voice that made it plain the encounter had brought him little joy. “Jiang Cheng… I mean, Jiang gongzi came to greet me on his second day here, and Wei gongzi was with him. I suppose he was polite enough with me."

Nie Huaisang laughed at seeing him struggle to find something nice to say.

"But he upset your uncle and you don't like that."

That was all the encouragement Lan Xichen needed to allow his expression to turn into anger, which Nie Huaisang found very funny.

"He was extremely rude to shufu,” Lan Xichen complained. “It’s very unfortunate that he should show so little respect to a teacher. He's also determined to pester poor Wangji, who isn't used to being treated like that!” He paused, taking a deep breath to compose himself, but didn’t manage to put on a smile again. “Huaisang, since you're his friend, do you think you might tell him to leave Wangji alone?"

All of Nie Huaisang’s amusement quickly dissipated at that demand and he frowned.

"Well that's a problem! You really dislike him that much?"

Lan Xichen fell silent for a moment. Nie Huaisang found it more worrying than if he’d answered right away. A little anger at a misbehaving student was one thing, but he’d talked enough with Lan Xichen to recognise those moments when he was trying hard to be fair to someone he didn’t particularly like. He used to make the same face when talking about Su She, back before he started warming up to him.

"He doesn't seem like a bad person,” Lan Xichen said at last, “and he hasn't done anything to me, so I cannot dislike him. I am just worried for Wangji, who isn’t very good at dealing with people." 

"That's really inconvenient,” Nie Huaisang sighed. “Xichen-gege, I was really hoping you'd help me help them to become friends! It would have been a lot of fun, the two of us scheming together…” he sighed again. “Oh, well. I'll see if I can get Jiang-xiong or Su-xiong instead. I don’t want to involve you in something you’d find upsetting."

"I think the fact you’d want such a thing is already upsetting me a little,” Lan Xichen replied. “Is it even possible for them to be friends? They are… very different."

Nie Huaisang gave that a moment of consideration before shrugging.

"I guess. But we're pretty different too, and we didn't start off so well either, and look at us now! If it worked for us, it can work for them! I’m sure they can become good friends like us!" 

A spot or pink appeared on Lan Xichen's cheeks, but his expression remained conflicted. 

"I think it's different. Their first meeting was a fight."

Nie Huaisang could only laugh.

"And I ran away from you when you tried to chat!” he pointed out, grabbing another candy which he pushed toward Lan Xichen. “Anyway, wouldn't it be good for Wangji to have friends? He's too serious. It's not healthy for a boy his age to be so serious. As his elders, we need to make sure he doesn't get lonely." 

"you're barely a year older than him," Lan Xichen remarked, fighting a smile as he took the candy. "I'm not sure you have much claim as an elder." 

One hand on his heart, Nie Huaisang faked an offended expression which made Lan Xichen chuckle.

"I am an elder!” he protested theatrically. “I am wiser in the way of the world, so it is my duty to guide these children. Wei Wuxian too!” he added, a touch more seriously. “I think he was impressed by Wangji, you know. Jiang-xiong says that it's unheard of for him to find someone he can't beat.” He paused, and considered that. “Jiang-xiong also says he kind of hopes that Wei-xiong gets his ass kicked very hard, so it teaches him humility. And Meng-xiong didn't say anything, but he did nod."

Lan Xichen grinned.

"I do get the sensation that people tend to be as irritated by him as they are endeared. And I suppose… Wangji too was impressed by Wei gongzi's skill. Mostly he said it was quite upsetting that such talent should belong to a person with such poor manners."

Nie Huaisang smiled at that most encouraging news.

"There! If Wangji is complimenting him, then they need to be friends!" he exclaimed, making Lan Xichen laugh hard enough that he felt the need to hide it behind his sleeve.

"That's hardly a compliment."

"Coming from Wangji, it is."

That got another laugh out of Lan Xichen, which he quickly got under control and attempted to replace by a more severe expression. It might have worked, if his eyes had not been shining with barely repressed mirth. 

"Wangji is not nearly as bad as you seem to think,” Lan Xichen said. “He's just very shy, and being distant is the way he deals with it. Not everyone can be as bold and determined to collect friends as you are, Huaisang." 

"I'm not sure how to take that." 

"Coming from any other Lan, it might be an insult,” Lan Xichen admitted. “Coming from me, and to you, it's probably a compliment." 

Nie Huaisang grinned, delighted to be teased like that. How had he ever thought that Lan Xichen was boring? Maybe his future self was right about him not being too bright. But then again, wasn't it easy to make that sort of judgement in hindsight? Lan Xichen was fun now, but it had taken time for his smiles to gain real warmth when they were together. It had been time well invested though, and realising that made him hopeful that this business between Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian might turn out fine. Maybe they too would get to have that sort of comfortable relationship someday.

More comfortable, even, since they were to fall in love someday. It was going to be so funny to see how Lan Wangji acted when he was in love.

After this, the two boys fell silent for a moment as they finished their tea. It was getting a little late, and Nie Huaisang knew that he would soon have to leave. It made him almost wish that Lan Qiren had already given them homework, so he’d have an excuse to stay a little longer by whining that he always worked better when he was with Lan Xichen. Or else, he might have offered to help copy some scroll or other for Lan Xichen’s great secret project. Anything at all so he wouldn’t have to go. After almost a whole winter apart, he just wanted to be in his friend’s company a little more, just a tiny bit more, even if he knew they were sure to have time together again the week after.

Then, just as Nie Huaisang was trying to accept that he couldn’t find a good excuse to stay, Lan Xichen spoke again.

"If we do help Wangji and Wei-gongzi become friends,” he said, “and that's still an 'if' on my part, the main issue will be to make them understand they both want to be friends. Wangji seems to think Wei-gongzi only exists to torment him, and despairs to see again his more positive qualities."

Excited both for the excuse to chat a little more and by the fact that Lan Xichen was falling to his side, Nie Huaisang nodded.

"Wei-xiong is convinced Wangji is giving him the cold shoulder in spite of his efforts to become friends,” he replied. “He’s not used to people not fawning over him, I fear. Xichen-gege, we're gonna have to work hard!" 

"It would take effort,” Lan Xichen agreed. “I can see you're very excited about this little project, but don't let it get in the way of your studies."

Nie Huaisang dismissed that worry with a hand gesture.

"Don't worry! I'll practice the guqin every day no matter what!"

That answer made Lan Xichen laugh.

"I meant your actual studies, Huaisang,” he corrected, trying to sound scolding but too obviously amused to be scary at all. “The lectures? With my uncle? You do remember that's why you're here in the first place?" 

Blushing a little at his blunder, Nie Huaisang shrugged.

"Oh, that. I'll deal with that,” he said with more confidence than he felt. “At worst, I'll just come again a third year. Wouldn't that be fun? We'd get even more time together!" 

"I'm not sure shufu would be thrilled,” Lan Xichen pointed out. “But I would certainly be happy to have you around as long as you want. And… of course, you'd get more time with Su She as well. Apparently you've even told your brother about him?"

If he hadn’t been in such good humour upon hearing that Lan Xichen enjoyed his company that much, Nie Huaisang might have noticed that the other boy’s expression became a little more pained when he mentioned Su She. But he was in too good a mood to be observant.

"Of course. It fell through last year because I didn't plan it enough in advance and my grades were bad,” he explained, “but this year, I absolutely want to invite Su-xiong home with me when I go back, even if I don't pass! I think we'll have a lot of fun, and da-ge can't ground me if I have a guest to entertain!"

Lan Xichen's smile turned strained again, nearly as much as when Nie Huaisang first arrived to see him. 

"How cunning of you. I'm sure you'll have great fun. I could try to steal your brother for a Night Hunt, so you and Su She can have some peace." 

It was a very generous offer, and Nie Huaisang gave it all the consideration it deserved.

"No, I think if you make it all the way to Qinghe, I'll want to keep you around too,” he announced. “Xichen-gege, even though you've come a few times, we weren’t friends back then so I've never really shown you my birds, right? And we could go painting all three of us… wait, Su-xiong isn't that fond of painting!” he remembered, hitting his forehead. “So it won’t do. Then… let's dump him with da-ge for a bit, so they can get all excited together about fighting and cultivation, and I'll steal you away! Oh there's this gorgeous little spot from where you can see the mountains at a wonderful angle… I've always wanted to show it to someone, and I think you're really someone who would know how to appreciate it. Will you go there with me next time you visit us, Xichen-gege?"

Lan Xichen tried to smile, his face a little pinker than usual.

"Wouldn't you rather take Su She, if you like it so much?"

Nie Huaisang considered that, too, before shaking his head.

"There are other places I can show him. That one, I really want to show you."

Looking definitely quite pink now, Lan Xichen smiled.

"Then I will gladly accompany you. If you like it so much, it must be very beautiful indeed, and I can’t wait to see it." 

"Xichen-gege is too kind,” Nie Huaisang replied, delighted by that new plan. “Really too kind. And in his great kindness, will he help me give Wangji a friend?" 

"You’re just as stubborn as your brother,” Lan Xichen accused, his good mood fully returned. “We'll see. I need to see a little more of this Wei Wuxian before I decide. But if I find him to be a good person, and if I am given reasons to think he’ll be good for Wangji, then yes, I will help." 

It wasn't unfair to worry about that, especially when Lan Xichen didn't have a messenger from the future to tell him that Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji were pretty much soulmates. Indeed, without that information, Nie Huaisang would never have guessed that Lan Wangji's cold anger might have hidden any other sort of tender feelings. That was why Nie Huaisang really needed Lan Xichen's help, he was the only person in the world who could understand his brother. 

Since he needed Lan Xichen's assistance so badly, Nie Huaisang wondered if he should maybe not ask Wei Wuxian to help him cheat in the next test. But he had already done his part of the deal in that regards, so it would be very upsetting to have copied all those boring texts for nothing. Besides, it would probably be fine. 

There was no way they'd be caught, right? 

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 18, second part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff) (Previous Post)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Hey OP where’s the funny header gif for this post? Sorry, it was murdered by an angst demon and the framing of these shots.

My Found Family Came to Find Me

Continuing our flashback from last time, we see Baby Wei Ying up a tree, refusing to come down because he's afraid there are dogs. Eventually he falls out of the tree, like a dumbass a child, and Yanli tries but fails to catch him. 

Unlike his grownup counterpart, Baby Wei Ying doesn't pretend he's unhurt when he is hurt. I'd like to put the change at Yu Ziyuan's door, but actually he admits to being hurt during his Gusu summer - he mimics Lan Zhan's stoicism when they're getting beaten, but it doesn't come naturally to him, and he whines a lot afterwards. 

By the time of the Animatronic Dog incident, however, he's laughing off obvious injuries that have secret trauma behind them. By the time he comes back, coreless, from the burial mounds, he won't confide in anyone about his hurts any more, except possibly Wen Qing.

Yanli carries Wei Ying, in a sequence that will be echoed much later in his life when Lan Zhan carries him (gifset here). While they head back, she tells him that Jiang Cheng has a bad temper and to ignore whatever mean things he says. This will also be echoed in the future, when Wei Wuxian says it to Lan Zhan after their argument with Jiang Cheng in the shrine.

Yanli also explains that Jiang Cheng loved his dogs and that he's been very sad since Jiang Fengmian sent them away, demonstrating once again that Jiang Fengmian is a terrible father. Yanli says that Jiang Cheng will be happy to have a friend with him, though. This kind of makes Wei Wuxian's role in Jiang Cheng's life "replacement dog."

Jiang Cheng, after getting over this particular snit, got worried about Wei Wuxian and woke up Yanli to find him, and then went wandering around in the dark like a dumbass a child, and is banged up and crying when the other two find him. Yanli encourages him to apologize to Wei Wuxian and he does, which will not happen again until the very end of the show.  

They all smile and laugh together, as Wei Ying looks to Yanli to guide him through the insanity that his life has suddenly become. 

(more behind the cut!)

They head back to Lotus Pier in a sweet montage of walking and smiling together, with Jiang Cheng carrying the world's most beautiful candle holder with the world's most wind-resistant candle in it, to light their way back. Back in the present day for a brief moment, Jiang Cheng pretends to sleep and listens to his sister insisting that the three of them should always stay together, while a single tear rolls down the side of his face.

Soup is Love, Chapter 1 of 1000

Then we head to the past again. In Jiang Cheng & Wei Ying's now-shared room, Wei Ying sits on the bed trying to figure out how to deal with his grumpy new roommate.

Wei Ying is unsure what to do when confronted with pajama game this strong. Tiny Jiang Cheng is already a fashion king. 

Then he tells Jiang Cheng he's not going to narc him out to the clan leader, since it was his own fault that he hurt his leg. This is all Jiang Cheng needs to hear to decide Wei Ying is all right, and he says that he will help Wei Ying chase away dogs in the future.  In fact, Wei Wuxian will protect Jiang Cheng from punishment basically forever, while Jiang Cheng will continue to threaten Wei Wuxian with dogs...forever.

They shake hands on their new understanding and then jump up and down laughing, Wei Ying's leg being all better now, apparently.  When Yanli arrives (carrying a tray of...can you guess? I'll let you guess), they stop jumping. Wei Ying dives in to give Jiang Cheng a little tickle/embrace in an adorable moment that would have me saying "oh, my ovaries!" if I hadn't surgically sent my ovaries to hell a few years ago.

Yanli introduces Wei Ying to the emotional and gustatorial miracle that is her lotus and ribs soup. He hesitates a long time before tucking in because he's so unused to being fed.

Consent? I Don’t Even Know Her

The flashback wraps up with Yanli conked out on the table from the drugs in the incense burner, while Wei Wuxian, who is somehow unaffected despite sitting almost as close to the smoke as she was, checks on her. Jiang Cheng and his Uggs period-appropriate sock thingies get out of bed to come stand with Wei Wuxian, and have feelings about sending Yanli away after she JUST said she doesn't want to be parted from them.

Wei Wuxian: If she didn't want us to do this, she shouldn't have signed that blanket consent-to-medical-treatment form.   Jiang Cheng: Wen Qing made me sign one of those plus a durable power of attorney, is that bad?

This episode is all about people overriding each others' agency and making massively important decisions without the consent of the people who will be affected. But in a feudal context, it's not a violation, no matter how it feels to the person being controlled. In feudal life, your body belongs to your lord -- your sect leader, in the world of CQL. Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng's choices are overridden by their clan leader's final command to Wei Wuxian.  Wei Wuxian's core is arguably Jiang Fengmian's property--Wei Wuxian certainly sees it that way, just as his hand was Yu Ziyuan's to take if she wished.  

The brothers tenderly tuck Yanli into bed in the rolly cart and hand her off to Song Lan. They talk about how important it is to get her to Lanling and that she's probably going to be mad, as they thank Song Lan for helping them. 

Yanli listens while she sleeps and, in what is becoming a trademark Jiang move, lets a single tear roll down the side of her face. Jiang Cheng points out that Yanli never gets mad at Wei Wuxian and Wei Wuxian is like, true dat.

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?

Song Lan is always so emotional about every damn thing, I love him. Here he's like OH GOD NO DON'T FORMALLY THANK ME! STOP!!!

Then he starts to ask Wei Wuxian to pass a message to Song Xingchen for him, but then decides not to say anything, making it super obvious that they fought and aren't together. 

Wei Wuxian reacts to this with confusion and distress, probably because he doesn't want to imagine ever having a breakup with his own soulmate. Which he soon will be having.  But possibly he's just upset that his OTP broke up.

After Song Lan takes off, Jiang Cheng gives Wen Qing a rude & perfunctory thank-you bow, turning away before she can return it. Wei Wuxian tells her not to take it to heart - basically everyone who deals with Jiang Cheng gets a version of the "ignore what he says" speech. She says she understands and that in his place she would have behaved worse, which is so totally not true.  

Then she asks Wei Wuxian if he's sure about the core transfer (not in so many words, because the script is being kind of being vague about it, without actually hiding what's happening). His reply pretty much encapsulates the whole Wei Wuxian experience.

Then he and Jiang Cheng walk off, with Jiang Cheng giving us a rear view that had me googling Wang Zhuocheng's fashion shoots to determine if that wagon he's draggin’ is really as delightful as this belt makes it look. Alas, there is not a wealth of photographic evidence for this research, as compared to, for example, photos of Xiao Zhan's outstanding ass.

Wen Qing and Wen Ning see them off, with Wen Qing wishing they valued their lives more. Although, what she and Wen Ning are doing is massive treason, so their lives will be pretty much forfeit if they're caught, so...

The Sunshot Campaign of Like 60 Dudes

Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng walk up the mountain for the whole beginning of the Sunshot campaign, which...okay. Maybe it's like Dunkirk or The Witcher where they intercut stuff that is happening in different timeframes, which is one of my least favorite new film style thingies.

You know, for a guy Wei Wuxian constantly calls "peacock," Jin Ziyuan really doesn't wear a lot of adornment; just some subtle metalwork on his belt with no dangly bits at all, and a single reasonably-sized hair crown. Compared to the extremely fancy Lan Wangji he's almost plain. We already know that Wei Wuxian is a massive hypocrite when it comes to his idea of a perfect boy, however.

So, this is the Lanling Jin army, which consists of literally 60 guys, including the ones on the stairs and Jin Zixuan and Douchebag Dad. How are they going to fight a war with this tiny group? Why do they have such a big plaza? Hasn't anybody on this production learned CGI cloning?

That’s better.

Nie Mingjue and his best bitch Baxia make quick work of the 4 Wen guys who were assigned to hold the Unclean Realm. 

Hello, Daddy Da-Ge!

Squeeee, it's Lan Wangji! He's taking back Cloud Recesses! Ooooohhh we've missed you Lan Wangji.

Look guys he's here! Look how beautiful he is. He's looking at the gate of cloud recesses and thinking thoughts that Lan Xichen or Wei Wuxian could probably see in his bewitching eyes if they were here to see him, which they aren't. But at least he is here!

....and now he's gone again. *cries*

Hares On The Mountains

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian continue roaming prettily around this pretty mountainside. The locations in this show are such eye candy. 

Young laddies they run like hares on the mountains Young laddies they run like hares on the mountains  Young laddies they run like hares on the mountains  If I was a young lass I’d soon go a hunting

Jiang Cheng starts to have doubts about the whole Baoshan Sanren thing. Wei Wuxian's reply pretty much encapsulates the whole Wei Wuxian experience.  

Then we have just the tenderest blindfolding scene, (more gifs here), which is fodder for your ChengXian dreams, if you have those.

Here's a good place for a sidebar about what is and isn't incest. Whee! In the CDrama context, relationships tend to be more clearly defined than in western media. The mechanism of confession & acceptance means that people either are or are not in a romantic relationship, with few grey areas. So a character can literally say "we grew up as brother and sister, but now we are dating" and when someone looks startled they just say "there's no blood relation" and everyone is like "cool cool" and that's the new definition of the relationship.

For a strong example of this, the extremely wonderful Go Ahead is about a contemporary family in which a girl and two boys, who are not blood relatives, are all raised together, and call each other brother and sister. When they become adults, they and everyone around them expect the girl (now a woman) to marry one of the two men who have been her brothers, while whichever one she doesn't choose will carry on as her sibling. It's treated as the most natural, logical thing in the world; the only question is whether she wants to make that transition, and with whom.

Looked at through this lens, Wei Wuxian's relationships with his adoptive siblings have just as much potential to turn into romances as his relationships with his friends do, and there's nothing creepy about it. As such you can expect my meta to always get into ChengXian moments without treating it as a wrong or forbidden love. Hopeless, of course, because Jiang Cheng is such a prick the power of WangXian is stronger, but that's a different matter.

What is wrong is wearing this fantastic hat & veil combination when the most fashionable person on the mountain is blindfolded and can't see it.

In the course of this blindfolded encounter with Wen Qing, Jiang Cheng gets to kneel before a powerful woman, be led along by a length of silk that's placed in his hand, and then knocked the fuck out and operated on. He'll wake up in a hotel room in a tub full of ice with "we took your kidney" written on the mirror in lipstick, and he'll love every minute of it.  

Soundtrack: 1. Still Fighting it, by Ben Folds 2. Hares on the Mountain, by Steeleye Span

Writing Prompt: The NEXT time somebody blindfolds Jiang Cheng

[razberryyum]

TGCF donghua Special Episode Thoughts (SPOILERS for episode & novel!)

Favorite moment:

Of COURSE that amazing ending sequence, which is the mirror of Dianxia's backstory at the end of the first episode, except this time from Hua Cheng's point of view. Speaking of, holy mother of YUM, dear gods, Hua Cheng:

Look at this "hideous" man. I am DROOLING.

Funny thing is, I didn't even know his appearance was supposed to be a secret, that we technically hadn't seen his face yet all this time. I remember we had a super quick glimpse of him in the Banyue pit and I thought that was his reveal, that that'll be all we'll get for now and I was fine with that...that is, until this ending sequence happened and we actually see him in his entirety. My eyes will forever never be the same. What was I even thinking??? The flashes in the pit were absolutely inferior to the real thing. No comparison. He is so gorgeous; I can't WAIT for Xie Lian to meet him next season.

Second favorite moment:

What I love about this scene is first of all it features some of my favorite lines from the novel, "If you don't know what to live for, then just live for me. If you don't know the meaning of life, then take me as the meaning your life." Even though Dianxia was playing it up for dramatic effect, I loved how he crawled towards San Lang and then uttered the lines with such conviction. I LOVED the way the music reached a cresendo during his words--hell, I love the music in this entire episode, this entire show, period. I also love how bittersweet this scene is: here Dianxia is so embarrassed by his own words that he even laughs about them, dismisses them, not know just how much of an effect they had on the person he said them to, how they really did serve to motivate that person to live on, to exist, utterly for him. Not knowing at all that that person he said what he now thinks were silly words to is right in front of him. The irony!

I'm still making my way through the book so I haven't gotten to the part where all is revealed to Xie Lian yet, but I can only imagine how shocking and emotional this particular revelation would be. It'll probably be ten years before we get to see all that in the donghua, if we ever do, but I'm gonna keep on crossing my fingers and hoping.

"I swear, whether in Heaven or or on Earth, you cannot find someone more sincere than me". The subs left out the Heaven or Earth part but it's still such a good line. Love also how San Lang precedes that by trying to reach out to touch Dianxia but is like too afraid to. The donghua really captured his feelings of...I guess I'd call it timid inferiority...so well.

I have a strong suspicion what that ring is (irl, I've seen companies advertising turning ashes into diamonds as a keepsake of your loved ones...never tried it so I don't know if it's the real deal or some kind of scam) and I cannot wait to get to that revelation as well. Putting aside the potential significance of this momento, the fact that Hua Cheng left Dianxia a ring to wear around his neck is already a beautiful gesture on its own.

I already miss seeing how San Lang looks adoringly at Xie Lian. In fact, I think I'm going to miss San Lang for quite a while since next season I think we'll be mostly spending time with Hua Cheng. Not complaining at all since Hua Cheng will no doubt look at Dianxia just as adoringly, but I will miss this cute guy.

Also already missing the cuteness that is Dianxia. I love all his expressions...the way he said "San Lang" just made my heart explode. How can he be this adorable??? Really, bravo to Jiang Guangtao-laoshi, his voice actor, for such an endearing voice performance. I actually started listening to the Qiang Jin Jiu audio drama because I've become a fan. Imagine Xie Lian being super seductive all the time. That's the ear candy I'm enjoying now, even though I only understand like less than half of the plot due to my shoddy Chinese comprehension.

Proud of how San Lang didn't just lose it when Dianxia cradled his face like that. This man really has unbelievable self control.

I loved that they were chatting in bed like an old married couple. I'm sure this is a glimpse into their future married life. 😁

Besides SanLian, I know Banyue was in this episode as well, I still think she's adorable and love her voice, and I'm glad she gets to enjoy a torture-free life now (I am assuming she does).

I'm glad we got this special episode to really close out the season, but I'm still kinda confused as to why we didn't get it at the actual end of the season but rather as an odd stand alone episode like this. Obviously it picked up right where the 11th episode left off, so it would've slotted in perfectly well. I was hoping the reason they held on to it was because they were going to attach a teaser PV for the next season, but alas that wasn't the case. I wonder if they just needed more time to finish the episode. I still don't quite understand how the Chinese donghua industry works: for something seemingly as popular as TGCF, you would think they'd have good enough budget and resources to finish episodes in time and to make more than just 12 episodes. There are other donghua shows I've seen on Bilibili that have blown way past 12 episodes, so I don't understand why they have to stubbornly stick to a dozen only for something like TGCF. Or is it a danmei thing, I wonder. They just don't want to devote the time and resources to danmei shows beyond just 12 episodes? So weird. Again, VERY GRATEFUL we're getting a second season. SINCERELY praying that we get many more seasons after so that eventually they'll finish out the book. God I hope I finish reading before the donghua team finishes putting out the show.

And that brings me to: Current Reading Progress...chapter 160. Look, I'm gonna be honest, I'm just not a fan of the whole jinx demon concept or the Brocade Immortal. I know all mysteries of the week lead back to the gods and their backstory, but as CONCEPTS, I was just NOT into them so I constantly got distracted. I know MXTX-laoshi was under a LOT of pressure from both censorship and just ridiculous deadlines (I was told she had to produce a chapter a day, which is INSANE), so I feel like a douchebag for even thinking anything negative about the book...not to mention I'm only on Book 3 still so maybe all of this will be wrapped up nicely at the end. But for now, yeah, those two as ideas are a bit underwhelming and almost silly (especially the Brocade Immortal) and maybe I don't need the backstory of ALL the gods. Anyway, before anyone yells at me, there's always a chance I might change my mind about all this by the end...which I hope to get to soon. Didn't finish the book in time for this special episode which was my goal, so readjusting the goalpost back a little further...hopefully just a tad...like a few weeks, because I DO want to get to the unrelenting pain soon so that I can get through the suffering and finally to the HuaLian happily ever after ending.

[goodlucktai]

the ship sways but the heart is steady

chapter two: how the light gets in 

the untamed pairing: jiang cheng & wei ying, lan zhan/wei ying word count: 3713 summary: Wei Ying’s friends are at rock-bottom, and Wei Ying puts his life on hold to help them put theirs back together. To absolutely no one’s surprise except Wei Ying’s, his family goes with him. read on ao3

x

“We’re here,” Wen Qing says, bringing Jiang Cheng out of an involuntary doze. He realizes that the car has stopped.

He can’t see much of the estate through the glare on the windshield, so he glances into the backseat. Wei Ying is still very much dead to the world, and still sprawled against Lan Zhan, who is playing what sounds like Candy Crush on Wei Ying’s phone. Wen Ning is fast asleep on Lan Zhan’s opposite shoulder with the rabbit crate nestled safely in the loose loop of his arms.

It can’t possibly be comfortable for any of them, except maybe the rabbits.

“I’ll extract you in a sec,” Wen Qing says.

“Take your time,” Lan Zhan replies peacefully.

Rolling his eyes, Jiang Cheng drags himself out of the car. The dry heat smacks into him like a solid wall. Stretching stiff muscles, he gazes across the overgrown yard. It’s—alright, it’s a lot.

The whole property is clearly old farmland gone to seed. There’s some rusted equipment all choked through with weeds sitting off to one side of a dirt road, which wings around to a distant structure that must have once been a barn. Goldenrod is growing all over the place, and with the late afternoon sun baking overheard, it really adds to the illusion that everything has been bathed yellow.  

The villa itself is both better and worse than Jiang Cheng was expecting. It has exterior walls, at least. And most of a roof. Maybe once, it might have been someone’s pride and joy.

Wen Qing leaves the engine running, circling around the front of the car to stand next to Jiang Cheng. Her eyes look ancient with fear.

“I don’t know if we can do this,” she says. She’ll only say it now, where her brother and her best friend can’t hear. She’ll be strong all the rest of the time.

Jiang Cheng can’t begrudge her this important, much-needed moment of weakness. He bumps their shoulders together. He lets her lean on him for a bit. Jiang Cheng isn’t either of his siblings—he doesn’t know how to be a voice of comfort. The best he can do is just be here.

“What’s that stupid thing you and your siblings always say before you do something that almost gets you killed?” Wen Qing asks suddenly.

Immediately defensive, because he’s the one who started it back when he was like seven and Yanli and Wei Ying thought it was adorable and wouldn’t let it die, Jiang Cheng snaps, “It’s not stupid. It’s fucking—motivational.”

“It can be both. You’re living proof.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

She sighs, that familiar laughing sound that defangs Jiang Cheng in one fell swoop.

“‘Attempt the impossible,’” he recites grudgingly.

The sun is steadily sinking lower through the sky. All the daytime color is deep and rich now with the promise of evening, everything on the brink of shadow. A breeze rolls through the yard, catching Jiang Cheng’s hair and tossing it into his eyes. It carries smells he can’t recognize, smokey and woodsy, a little floral, clean.

There’s no smog, no oppressive diesel or baked garbage smell, no heavy industry works bleeding its fumes all over the place. It smells the way summer smelled in the books A-Li used to read to him.

He’ll get used to the heat, Jiang Cheng thinks. Summer has always been his favorite season. He doesn’t know if he’ll get used to the smell.

“Did you ever manage it?” Wen Qing asks quietly. “The impossible?”

Jiang Cheng can’t help but smile, half a dozen memories crowding forward in the space of a heartbeat. Him, and his brother, and his sister, always together. Never apart. Keeping each other safe, and even more importantly, keeping each other happy.

“All the time,” he says.

It must be the right thing to say. Wen Qing stands a little taller. Her expression goes so firm with resolve that Jiang Cheng would never have believed that she’d wavered if he hadn’t seen it for himself.

This was right, he realizes. It finally quiets the uncertain voice still loitering around in the back of his mind. Coming here for her was right.

#

Wei Ying is much more enthusiastic about the decrepit property than Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing combined, and for the life of him, Jiang Cheng can’t decide how much of it is an act to make the Wens feel better about their circumstances. It seems largely genuine.

“Can you believe how huge this house is?” Wei Ying says gleefully, somewhere in the middle of his third lap around the property. “Babe, the dining room is as big as our entire apartment!”

Lan Zhan smiles at him, likely just because he called him ‘babe’. Jiang Cheng is going to throw up on both of them at least once.

The inside is not actually quite as depressing as they feared. There’s old furniture stacked up in most of the rooms, each individual piece moldy and cobwebbed and not likely to support anyone’s weight without breaking in half, and collections of miscellaneous things, like ten-thousand stacks of newspapers in the study, and just as many empty wine bottles out on the back porch.

But there’s something to it, Jiang Cheng can’t deny that. Some sort of presence to it. A history, maybe, that haunts all these empty spaces that used to be full and busy and lived-in. It makes him linger over an old console table at the end of the second floor hallway, with a dusty jewelry box sitting on top. There are someone’s ruined treasures inside. This was someone’s home.

Maybe it could be that again.

“We’ll have to drive into town for dinner,” Wen Qing says, surveying their progress in the living room. They’ve set up camp there, since they’re losing too much light to do much else. “And flashlights. The electric company promised they’d have an inspector out here in the morning.”

Wei Ying collapses onto a dusty sofa, which is probably actively infested with something, or at the very least was at some point, and pats at the cushion next to him until Lan Zhan unfolds himself from his seat on a wine crate and joins him there.

“This place really isn’t that bad, A-Qing,” Wei Ying says. “You made it sound like they’d gutted it down to the studs.”

“That’s how it was described to me,” she says. She seems a lot firmer on her feet, now that she’s walked the length of the place and knows firsthand that it probably isn’t going to collapse on top of their heads at a moment’s notice. “What was it our cousin called it, A-Ning?”

“A rathole,” Wen Ning says helpfully, feeding the rabbits bits of dried rosemary out of his hands. “He said he was glad it was our problem and not his.”

“He’s probably just angry it wasn’t left to him in nainai’s will,” Wen Qing says.

“Is this your cousin who got kicked out of school for driving his professor’s car off a bridge or the one who was arrested for breaking and entering?” Wei Ying asks.

“Same cousin,” Wen Ning says. “He’s not very nice.”

Jiang Cheng doesn’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to asshole relatives, so he stands up and says, “Let’s get a move on. We’re already gonna be coming back in the dark. A-Ning, put the rabbits away. Lan Zhan, stop mooning over my brother.”

“If it’s gonna be dark by the time we get back anyway, there’s time for mooning,” Wei Ying grumbles.

He squeaks and scrambles over the back of the sofa when Jiang Cheng advances on him, and Wen Qing berates them for trying to break what little furniture they have three minutes after they fucking got here, and for a few minutes the old house is packed to the rafters with shouting and laughter as they jostle each other out the door.

It already feels a little fuller than it did when they arrived, in a way that has nothing to do with the suitcases stacked in the hall.

#

Jiang Cheng gets up the morning feeling unfairly jet-lagged. Everyone else is awake already, sitting on the floor of the kitchen, eating dry cereal because the fridge isn’t running yet and things like milk are still only a distant dream. They greet him with a round of sleepy but sincere hellos and Wei Ying passes him a box of Lucky Charms. 

Lan Zhan, who bought a camping generator and a power strip when they went to town the night before, holds his hand out for Jiang Cheng’s phone. Jiang Cheng surrenders it so it can be charged and refuses to admit out loud that he’s glad that Lan Zhan is marrying into his family.

By the time the inspector arrives, they’re picking their way through the junk in the kitchen. “Start with one room,” Wei Ying says, likely repeating the helpful Youtuber whose DIY videos he paid an obscene amount of his fiance’s money on the in-flight WiFi to watch. “Make it ours.”

So they’re clearing out cabinets and removing ancient rodent carcasses and sorting dusty glassware into possibly-salvageable and definitely-garbage piles when a loud knock draws their attention down the hall to the foyer where a friendly-looking, if bemused, man in a hard hat is standing on the threshold of the open front door.

Wen Qing shoves a blender into Jiang Cheng’s hands that probably hasn’t blended a damn thing in thirty years and pats as much dust off of her person as she can.

“You’ve got this,” Wei Ying says with enough belief to power a small aircraft. “And if you need me to flirt with him for any reason, just say the word. Lan Zhan will understand.”

Lan Zhan won’t understand, if Jiang Cheng is as good at reading his mico-expressions as he thinks he is. The inspector, who could clearly hear Wei Ying’s voice from like ten feet away, is already grinning when Wen Qing introduces herself.

Ultimately, after a walk around the house, the inspector has good news and bad news. He starts with the bad news.

“It could be a lot worse,” he says frankly. “But this building is practically an antique, and it hasn’t been upgraded in two decades, at least. We might be able to get away with a partial wiring, but anything less than a full one would leave you at a real risk of an electrical fire.”

Wen Qing’s whole body goes stiff. Wen Ning steps up beside her, taking her hand in one of his bandaged ones.

“A full rewiring then,” he says, firm in the way he only is when someone else needs him to be. “We’ll figure it out.”

Apparently sympathetic, the man nods. He imparts the good news. “We’ll get started on the repairs right away. I can probably get some guys out as early as this afternoon, and it shouldn’t take longer than a week.” After a beat, he adds, “We can arrange a payment plan when all’s said and done. I’m not going to hound you about a lump sum up front. We’re a pretty close-knit community out here, pretty neighborly. Don’t be surprised if you’ve got people poking their heads in at you soon.”

Wen Qing, who grew up in LA, seems to need a minute to digest that. Wen Ning seems automatically delighted.

“Hey, thanks for everything,” Wei Ying says when the inspector starts to head back to his truck.

The inspector grins and taps his hard hat in reply, looking amused. Jiang Cheng doesn’t have to search farther than two inches past Wei Ying’s shoulder to find out why.

“Jesus Christ, Lan Zhan, they’re not going to elope,” Jiang Cheng says, shoving him back towards the kitchen. “Wei Ying has literally never looked at another human being since the first time he looked at you.”

“Aww,” Wen Ning says.

“Shut up, that wasn’t—it’s annoying! Not cute!”

“It can be both things,” Wen Qing says dryly. She’s smiling.

#

Through some grace of god, the plumbing is sound. Unlike the wiring, the pipes were replaced recently enough that they’re not made of lead or polybutylene or anything else that will make them violently sick from bathing or drinking out of the tap.

This leads Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying on an expedition to the basement in search of the hot water heater. Jiang Cheng could fucking cry when they find out it’s one of those huge gas-powered tanks. Wei Ying looks up how to turn the gas on without exploding the place into tiny pieces, because of course he has data out here even though no one else does, and it’s as simple as turning a valve they find in the middle of some big fuck-off spiderwebs.

“Hot showers tonight!” Wei Ying sings when they make it back upstairs, significantly more dusty than they were when they descended. Wen Ning gazes at them with such open admiration that Jiang Cheng doesn’t want to admit there was literally no skill involved in the process at all.

The electricity inspector is proven right about curious visitors exactly four hours after he said it, as a warbling little voice calls, “Hello?” from the front porch.

The kitchen is in the middle of a thorough scrubbing, and Wen Ning isn’t allowed to put his hands anywhere near chemicals or heat or anything, really, aside from the lazy rabbits, so he pops up to his feet and scurries to the front of the house in a desperate bid to do something productive.

“A-jie,” he calls a moment later, in a tone that gets Wen Qing’s attention faster than a fucking lightning bolt from the sky probably would have. Her urgency is distracting. The rest of them don’t want to keep cleaning cabinets while Something Is Happening, so Jiang Cheng, Wei Ying and Lan Zhan get up and follow after a minute of pretending to work.

There’s a little old woman, probably well into her seventies, holding one of each of the Wen siblings’ hands and talking warmly. A little boy is clinging to her leg, peering up at them with wide eyes.

Granny, as she insists they call her, has lived in this town her whole life, and was a close friend of Wen Qing and Wen Ning’s grandparents.

“I heard about the fire,” she says, clutching their hands, “and I want you to know that I’ll help you however I can. There’s not much heavy lifting I can do, really, but—cooking and cleaning, I am more than capable of!”

Jiang Cheng, who had respect for his elders literally beaten into him growing up, would sooner walk into traffic than he would let this kind old woman clean for him. The sentiment is clearly echoed on all of his friends’ faces, and his brother steps forward to look at her with big, liquid eyes.

“Granny, you’ll stay and keep us company even if we don’t have any interesting stuff for you to do, won’t you? Even if all you do is sit here in the shade and chat with us for a bit? It’ll break my heart if you don’t, it really will.”

This earns Wei Ying a fond pat on the cheek, as he’s adopted by Granny on the spot. She does stay for a few hours, and they make a meal out of some day-old donuts and chips and sunflower seeds. Jiang Cheng watches Granny visibly come to the conclusion that they’re all incapable of feeding themselves, and something needs to be done about it, even if she politely declines to say it out loud.

Her grandson, A-Yuan, has picked his way cautiously to the little makeshift enclosure they’ve constructed for the rabbits, and crouches next to it to look in at them with wide, wanting eyes.

“Do you want to pet them?” Wei Ying says. The answer is obviously yes, no matter that A-Yuan shyly ducks his head and doesn’t answer, so Wei Ying lifts the white rabbit out and places it carefully in the child’s lap. “This is Bao. She’s my favorite. Don’t tell Pidan.”

A-Yuan giggles, carefully petting Bao’s velvety ears with the tips of his fingers. Bao is content to just sit there and soak up the affection until the end of days, the most laid-back creature on the planet.

“Pidan?” A-Yuan asks, glancing inquisitively at the black rabbit, who is chewing noisily on a piece of cardboard.

“Her sister,” Wei Ying says, lifting the black rabbit out and putting it next to Bao. A-Yuan is laughing fully, now, gifted with too much rabbit for his tiny arms to contain. “She’s silly and annoying and a trouble-maker. For some reason, she’s Lan Zhan’s favorite. Don’t tell Bao.”

“For some reason,” Lan Zhan intones solemnly. He’s looking at Wei Ying the way he’s always looking at him.

“I can’t stand this,” Jiang Cheng says to Wen Qing. “There has to be something else for me to clean, far away from them.”

“Have you seen where you are? There’s a million things for you to clean.”

But she gets up when he does, and they wander through the mostly-clean kitchen and into the pantry, where the shelves are nearly fully-stocked with foods at least ten years past their expiration. Sighing, Wen Qing ties back her hair. The curve of her neck is disarmingly delicate.

Jiang Cheng glances away quickly and refuses to think about why.

#

There’s a spigot in the conservatory that refuses to work. There’s a wall dividing the dining room and the living room that just doesn’t make sense. There’s broken windows and holes in the roof. Wen Ning walks across the second floor balcony to release an angry squirrel that they found in a wardrobe and nearly falls over the edge when the wrought iron railing bends beneath his weight. The yard and the grounds are an outright disaster.

The plot on the west side of the house was once home to a small vineyard, which explains some of the tubing and big gallon buckets they found in the conservatory. The original owners must have made their own fruit wine. The land by the barn is fenced off in a way that suggests a vegetable garden, and the rest of the considerable acreage is eaten up by the edge of a big lake, the remains of a dock leaning out over the water.

It’s all neglected, overgrown, untamed.

But, Jiang Cheng thinks, almost a month after they arrived, it’s getting there.

The last time it rained, he and Wei Ying and Wen Ning ran through the house looking for leaks, and couldn’t find a single one. For some reason it was so fucking exciting to have a roof without holes that they called people about it.

Yanli was ecstatic. Lan Huan, who, Jiang Cheng thinks, still doesn’t fully understand why his brother and future brother-in-law disappeared to California to begin with, was bemused but very happy for them. Granny brought over a strawberry sponge cake in celebration.

She’s been spending more time at the villa, anyway. One of the guest rooms has become hers, for those nights that dinner runs late and Wei Ying employs his wide gray eyes and convinces her not to drive home in the dark. All of them are more than okay with it, because otherwise she would go home to an empty house with no one for company but a four-year-old, and that makes Jiang Cheng’s stomach feel sour.

Granny says that A-Yuan has gotten attached, but she doesn’t specify what he’s attached to. It could be the bunnies, it could be all the wide open space to run around in, and it could just as well could be Jiang Cheng’s idiot brother, who carries A-Yuan around on his shoulders or under his arm tirelessly and threatens to plant him with the radishes every time he misbehaves.

They returned the rental car because someone in town had an old truck they didn’t mind parting with. There’s no A/C, but it’s not exactly a hardship to crank the windows down and drive really fast instead. Jiang Cheng usually volunteers Wei Ying for trips into town with him, because, even though he would die before he’d admit it out loud, it’s nice to have his brother to himself for a change.

If Yanli were here, he thinks, trudging through the little grocery store and deflecting most of Wei Ying’s attempts to sneak stupid shit into their shopping cart, it would actually be perfect.

#

They’re piled on the new second-hand sofa and a couple salvaged leather armchairs in the living room, watching a Dreamworks movie with A-Yuan on the satellite TV that Lan Zhan’s fuck-off bank account secured for them, when Wei Ying’s phone rings.

Wei Ying is sharing one of the recliners with Lan Zhan, tucked into his fiance’s lap with his legs draped over the arm of the chair and his head tucked into Lan Zhan’s shoulder, and it looks as though it would take an act of god to move him.

“Here,” Wen Qing says, amused, and leans over to pass the phone to Jiang Cheng.

“What are you good for if you won’t even answer your own phone?” Jiang Cheng grumbles without heat.

“Eye-candy,” Wei Ying says shamelessly.

“Hello?” he says loudly into the phone so he won’t have to spend a second thinking about what his own brother just fucking said to him.

“A-Cheng,” Yanli says.

“Oh, A-Li,” Jiang Cheng says, smiling automatically. “You didn’t call this morning. I meant to call you after dinner, but my phone died, because someone hogged the charger to play Candy Crush all day.”

Lan Zhan gazes at him serenely.

“A-Cheng,” Yanli says again, very gently. “Are you with A-Ying?”

“Yeah, of course,” Jiang Cheng says. His smile is fading. After a life spent reading verbal cues from his siblings, something about Yanli’s tone has his stomach doing somersaults. “He’s right here. What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Wei Ying sitting up. A-Yuan’s bright little voice is asking what’s wrong, and Wen Ning is shushing him. Wen Qing’s hand covers Jiang Cheng’s free one, as light and insubstantial as a bird landing on a telephone wire, until the second he needs a firmer hold.

“Of course I am, I’m okay.”

“A-Li,” he says, feeling light-headed. “What’s wrong?”

With a deep, shuddering breath, she tells him.

[rosethornewrites]

Fic: this body yet survives, ch. 5

Relationship: Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn

Characters: Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī, Lán Huàn | Lán Xīchén, Lán Qǐrén, Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín, Jiāng Yànlí

Additional Tags: No War AU, Recovery, Trauma, Dissociation, Courtship, Courting Rituals

Summary: Wangji approaches the Jiang siblings with betrothal gifts, hoping for their approval. More of Wei Wuxian's self-esteem issues rear their ugly heads.

Notes: See end

Parts 1 & 2

Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

AO3 link

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Wei Ying offered to help carry the baskets, or even the two cages containing a fat white-feathered wuguji rooster apiece, but Wangji refused to let him—it seemed improper to have him carry any part of the betrothal gifts. 

Fortunately, xiongzhang and the outer disciple were both able to help. Wangji could not recall the young man’s name, only that he was an average cultivator with merely adequate guqin skills. Wangji himself carried the cages.

On the way to the guest house Jiang Wanyin and Jiang Yanli were staying in, Wei Ying stayed close, one hand grasping the edge of Wangji’s sleeve, the other holding the box with his forehead ribbon with a sort of reverence. He kept looking at it, his expression tinged with wonder and disbelief. 

Wangji knew it would take time for Wei Ying to process the events of today; he wondered if perhaps everything was moving too quickly—telling Wei Ying he wished to court him, the clarification of his acceptance to GusuLan as a disciple, and now formally delivering betrothal gifts to his siblings. Wei Ying was still recovering, after all, but it was too late to change course now.

If he stopped now, Wei Ying might interpret it as changing his mind, and that would be so much worse. Wangji did not want to give him any cause to doubt, not after all he had been through. If he could shield Wei Ying from everything that might hurt him, he would—but he also knew that way of thinking could turn him into his father. 

He would not cage Wei Ying, even to protect him. 

Jiang Yanli was writing outside in the early afternoon sunshine when they arrived, and Wangji could see her immediate understanding and joy at seeing the decorated baskets before she schooled her expression and called for Jiang Wanyin. 

He froze coming from the guest house, a stunned look on his face.

Wei Ying noticed and stopped short, his expression shifting to uncertainty. He didn’t know how his brother would react, Wangji realized. Wangji hovered next to him, not sure how to help. 

Fortunately, Jiang Yanli seemed to know what to do. She came to Wei Ying and tucked her arm into his, pulling him forward, then called Jiang Wanyin’s name with a hint of exasperation in her voice.

Quickly, the three siblings were seated at the table, Wei Ying in the middle. He still looked uncertain, almost overwhelmed, and Wangji longed to go to him and draw him into his arms. 

He was relieved when Xichen stepped forward, that xiongzhang would handle this part. Technically neither himself nor Wei Ying should be present for this, but on a similar note the Jiang siblings were the family of Wei Ying’s heart, not blood, so nothing about this was strictly traditional. They were both orphans, and thus no parents were involved in this betrothal process. 

Xichen directed the disciple to place the baskets he was carrying and set his own down as well. At his pointed look, Wangji placed the cages with the roosters on the table as well. 

“Wei Wuxian received his ribbon today,” Xichen began calmly. “As only family and cultivation partners may touch it, Wangji thought perhaps he could show Maiden Jiang how he ties his into his hair.”

Jiang Yanli looked delighted, and Wei Ying opened the box to show her the ribbon. 

“Oh, it has little embroidered clouds,” she exclaimed.

“An inner disciple’s ribbon,” the outer disciple said, sounding surprised.

“Wei-gongzi has contributed much to Gusu Lan already,” Xichen clarified. “Shufu and I made the decision.”

Jiang Yanli eyed his hair, clearly thinking ahead to the lesson, and she smiled. 

“Oh, is that a new guan?”

To Wangji’s delight, Wei Ying blushed.

“Mine broke this morning. This one belonged to Lan Zhan’s mother.”

“A love token?” Jiang Yanli asked, her smile widening. “It is lovely.”

“You have a whole bag of guan,” Jiang Wanyin muttered. 

Wei Ying froze, his eyes going distant. The Jiang siblings looked startled by his reaction.  

“The guan in his bag all had lotus on them,” Wangji stated. 

He offered nothing more, but they realized anyway if the grief on their faces told him anything. As Wei Ying has predicted, they were sad, but there was a determination there as well. 

“I’ll go through your bags for you,” Jiang Wanyin told him softly. “Get rid of anything with lotuses.”

“I’m sorry we didn’t realize, A-Xian.”

Wei Ying attempted a smile, but it was weak. 

Both of his siblings looked as though they felt guilty for not having realized, but Wangji had only noticed this morning, had connected his fugue with the fallen lotus guan scattered across the floor. 

“I didn’t tell you,” Wei Ying murmured. “How would you know?”

“Tell us what’s bothering you, you idiot. We can’t help otherwise.”

The smile turned more true, and sheepish.

“I’ll try.”

Xichen cleared his throat delicately and gestured to the baskets on the table, and he and Wangji bowed and took their seats across the table as the outer disciple started to unwrap the cloth covering them. 

“Regarding the love token…”

Inside the baskets was white tea from Gusu Lan’s stores, aged decades to develop its delicate flavor. Sweet osmanthus cakes stamped with dragon designs—no phoenix, as both he and Wei Ying were men. A pair of dragon candles. One of the baskets contained cuts of pork, obviously purchased in Caiyi; this gift implied Jiang Yanli was a maternal figure. Another basket contained an assortment of seafood to symbolize a long and happy marriage. Oranges and apples, dates, dried tangerine and melon slices, lotus seeds, candies symbolizing prosperity, good fortune, luck, peace, and offspring—perhaps the hope he and Wei Ying would adopt? Sprigs of pine for longevity. Carved jade in different hues—green dragons and turtles, red and purple birds, white clouds, a black bat, orange fish, blue butterflies, flowers in all colors, and other auspicious symbols—all to show Wei Ying’s worth. 

Gold had a value; jade was invaluable. 

“We have brought a betrothal gift for you, Wei-gongzi’s siblings, to seek your approval for him to be wed to Wangji.”

“I asked him if he would consent to be courted, and he agreed,” Wangji offered.

Instead of responding, Jiang Wanyin looked at Wei Ying with what seemed like anger at first glance but was actually disappointment and grief. 

“You’re not coming back to Lotus Cove,” he said. 

It wasn’t a question, and he clearly already knew the answer. Jiang Wanyin’s voice was resigned and rough, as though he had held out hope all this time while knowing it was unlikely. 

Wei Ying flinched, his face pinched with his own emotions. His throat worked soundlessly for a moment. 

“I can’t,” he finally said, his voice shaky. “I’m sorry, Jiang Cheng.”

“Don’t apologize,” Jiang Wanyin told him. “It’s not your fault. After what happened…”

“I promised I’d be your right hand man,” Wei Ying murmured. 

His hand was fisted in his sleeve, Wangji noticed, his knuckles as white as the robe, as he fought his emotions.

“But I can’t go back. Not now. Maybe not ever. I’m sorry.”

Jiang Wanyin took him by the shoulders and shook him slightly.

“It isn’t your fault!” he hissed as Wei Ying stared at him wide-eyed. “You have nothing to be sorry for, A-Xian!”

Instead of releasing him, he pulled his brother into an almost violent hug. Then they were both crying, as was Jiang Yanli, who put a hand on Wei Ying’s back. 

“It’s enough that you’re here,” she said. “That you’re alive.”

Wangji knew from her expression she was seeing Wei Ying wan and bloody in the mud.

“You will always be his siblings,” he said impulsively, trying to stave off those same memories. “That cannot be taken from you.”

“Yes,” Jiang Yanli whispered. “A-Xian is the brother of our hearts.”

Jiang Wanyin released Wei Ying and fixed Wangji with a calculating look, measuring him as though trying to decide if he was worthy of his brother. Wangji did not begrudge him that—he should do so. 

“You’ll protect him?”

Wangji nodded. 

“He lies. He’ll pretend he doesn’t need help or protecting when he really does. You’ll protect him from himself?”

Wangji nodded again, reflecting on the way Wei Ying has, how he often put himself last in sneaky ways. He would need to compensate with that in mind. 

Jiang Wanyin nodded back, looking very much like he was struggling to find words. 

“He’s afraid of dogs. Terrified of them. Even the tiniest puppies. You have to protect him from them. And he forgets to eat. Even before, he forgot when he was working. He gets too focused and forgets to eat and sometimes even sleep.”

Wangji realized abruptly that these instructions were Jiang Wanyin’s way of expressing his approval. It would be his responsibility to care for Wei Ying. 

Jiang Yanli expressed the importance of spice, of nutritious and delicious foods, of hugs and affection.

“Xianxian is three,” she said softly, tweaking Wei Ying’s nose between two knuckles and then dabbing at his tears with her sleeve. “He doesn’t say when he’s hurting. He keeps it inside, like with the lotuses. He fears becoming a burden.”

Wei Ying sat still between his siblings, his face flushed, clearly overwhelmed by their discussion of him and his needs.

“Wei Ying is never a burden,” Wangji said. “Wei Ying is a joy.”

His face flushed deeper, and he hid behind his sleeves.

“You can’t just say things like that, Lan Zhan.”

“Mm, can.”

“Lan Zhan!”

“Xianxian deserves to be spoiled,” Jiang Yanli said with a smile, nudging him playfully. 

Wei Ying peeked out to shoot her a tremulous smile, but otherwise kept his face hidden. Jiang Wanyin shoved him lightly. 

“I won’t be able to get away with staying here forever,” he said regretfully. “I’m the heir. Eventually I’ll be expected home.”

He fixed Wangji with a scowl. 

“But if I can be sure Wei Wuxian is protected before I have to leave, I’ll feel better.”

“He is a Gusu Lan disciple,” Xichen pointed out softly. “He will be protected even without the courtship and marriage.”

“Unlike in Yunmeng,” Jiang Wanyin muttered bitterly.

Though Wangji knew xiongzhang hadn’t meant it in that way from the way he winced, he didn’t disagree with the Jiang heir’s interpretation. As a disciple—as head disciple—Wei Ying should have been protected, even from the fury of Madam Yu. She should have faced consequences for attacking a disciple alone, not protected by Meishan Yu with Wei Ying dismissed as a mere servant, as though he was property to be done with as she pleased. 

These things still angered Wangji a year later, and probably always will. 

“A-Cheng,” Wei Ying said. “It wasn’t—”

“You should’ve been protected,” Jiang Wanyin interrupted. “A-die should’ve protected you. We failed you.”

“You didn’t,” he whispered. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Jiang Yanli reached out and took Wei Ying’s hand.

“A-Xian, we want to be sure it never happens again. A-Cheng and I couldn’t protect you well enough, and Father should have protected you from a-niang, and he failed to.”

“Shijie…”

Wei Ying ducked his head, and Wangji knew he was trying to avoid thinking poorly of the man who he’d been raised to consider an uncle. But there were other issues as well—in truth, Jiang Yanli was no longer his martial sister, but he had called her that since he was young and perhaps hadn’t fully realized. Or, more realistically, he didn’t know what to call her otherwise. 

“He could have officially adopted you, A-Xian,” she said gently. “He could have made you our brother officially. She wouldn’t have dared touch you then.”

“It isn’t too late,” Xichen interjected. “The three of you could become sworn siblings.”

The Jiang siblings froze, blinking at each other in surprise. They had not considered the option, but Wangji had not either. The act would send a clear message to the cultivation world at large, would serve as further protection for Wei Ying. 

“It would mean you still have a connection to Yunmeng Jiang,” Jiang Wanyin said after a moment.

Wei Ying looked flummoxed, surprised beyond words by the suggestion, and perhaps a bit torn. With his reaction to lotuses, his trauma, a connection might not be a good thing. 

“You could call me jiejie,” Jiang Yanli whispered, squeezing Wei Ying’s hands. “I’m not really your shijie anymore, but I’d really like to be your jiejie.”

That was apparently the final straw for Wei Ying, who let out a sob and buried himself in her arms. Jiang Wanyin managed a smile, putting a hand on his shoulder, but looked close to tears himself. Becoming sworn siblings would just make official the relationship they had had most of their lives, would solidify their connection to one another. 

“We can set up the ceremony for tomorrow,” Xichen said, smiling gently. “As Jin-furen and Jin-gongzi are visiting, they could serve as witnesses.”

Jiang Yanli glanced at Wei Ying in concern.

“Jin-furen?”

“We met her in Caiyi,” Wangji stated. “She has dissolved the sworn sisterhood and wished to commission Wei Ying.”

The news clearly comes as a surprise to the Jiang siblings—apparently in previous visits Jin Zixuan hadn’t mentioned it. 

“They are having tea with shufu presently, but likely intend to visit you,” Xichen added. 

The Jiang siblings were watching their brother with concern, and he managed a smile, straightening.

“I’m fine. Lan Zhan was with me. We rescued a turtle at the fish market and released it in the pond at the jingshi. And we got a book about turtles and poetry and oil for my hair and tanghulu.”

None of his rambling mentioned the Jin, and Wangji could hear exhaustion in his voice, despite how he tried to keep his tone light. From his siblings’ expressions, they could tell as well. 

“It was a long day for Wei Ying,” he said softly. 

A broken guan and slight breakdown, consenting to be courted, rescuing the turtle, shopping, encountering Jin-furen unexpectedly, receiving his ribbon and clarification that Cloud Recesses was now his home, and now this. Too much for him while he was still recovering, almost certainly. He wanted to take him somewhere quiet so he could rest, or to the meadow to bury him in soft rabbits. 

“You’re already protecting him,” Jiang Yanli commented approvingly. 

“We’ll need to establish chaperones,” Jiang Wanyin said, frowning.

They were agreeing to the betrothal, Wangji realized, and warmth spread from his chest in a way he usually only felt around Wei Ying. Joy. He was feeling joy. The siblings of Wei Ying’s heart had accepted their courtship. They would wed. 

Xiongzhang smiled and nudged him gently, clearly happy for him. 

“Wei Wuxian deserves no less,” Xichen agreed. “We want to make his worth very clear. Chaperones through the courtship period will be appropriate.”

Wei Ying looked embarrassed by this, as though he felt the fuss was too much for him. 

“A-Xian has faced enough questions over his worth. He is precious to us and will be treated as such.”

Jiang Yanli was watching Wei Ying, too, he noticed, and was speaking in part to him.

“A-Cheng and I will be happy to chaperone,” she finished.

“For times when you are indisposed, or if myself or shufu are unavailable, I’m sure we can have some of the outer disciples act in that capacity,” Xichen added. “They are often responsible for escorting guests.”

“Wei Ying may need rest before dinner, while you are visiting with Jin-furen and Jin-gongzi,” Wangji stated, watching him. “I would like to escort him to his quarters once Jiang-guniang has tied his ribbon.”

In truth, their lunch in Caiyi had been more of a second breakfast, too early to truly be lunch. There were still several hours left before dinner. 

“I’ll just take it off to rest, won’t I?” Wei Ying protested.

“And I will help you put it back on before dinner,” Jiang Yanli said. “I’m happy to.”

“Disciple Su can chaperone your return to Wei-gongzi’s quarters before he returns to his other duties,” Xichen said.

The disciple bowed. He had a somewhat petulant look on his face, but as Wangji recalled that seemed to just be his natural expression. 

“Yes, Lan-zongzhu.”

Jiang Yanli reached into the basket of osmanthus cakes and presented the disciple with one, bowing.

“Thank you for your help.”

He took the cake, blinking at her in a startled way, then quickly returned her bow and retreated. 

She moved around the table to study Lan Wangji’s hair, and he removed his ribbon and demonstrated how he wove it through his hair for her twice before she was satisfied she understood. 

Within minutes, Wei Ying was wearing his ribbon, the pale fabric making the skin of his face look less pallid, demonstrating how much healthier he looked in comparison to only weeks ago. He looked beautiful as a Gusu Lan disciple, with a proper ribbon—but he was always beautiful to Wangji, so perhaps he was biased. 

“It suits you,” Jiang Yanli told him softly. “The clouds almost look like wings from a distance. Perhaps the wings of a crane.”

Wei Ying blushed, and Wangji felt his ears heat. A pair of cranes alluded to a wish for a long married life. He had never considered the resemblance of the embroidery to wings, but he could see it now. 

“Or lucky roosters, like these,” Jiang Wanyin muttered, pointing at the cages. “I don’t know what we’ll do with them.”

Jiang Yanli brushed her thumb against the embroidery on the ribbon, smoothing what must have been a minute wrinkle. The gesture was almost motherly. 

“They’re for Xianxian’s wedding, to lead him to his husband. We’ll keep them until then, of course. They’re lovely.”

She sat beside him, and Wei Ying leaned his head against her shoulder, a beautiful smile gracing his lips. He looked radiant, if tired, filled with a joy Wangji felt as well. 

“Shufu and I will consult to select an auspicious date,” Xichen said. “I would be honored if you two would assist in the planning of the wedding.”

Jiang Yanli looked overjoyed, and Jiang Wanyin nodded, his expression of a man about to embark on an important mission.

“A-jie and I had ideas,” he said.

Wei Ying stared at him, open-mouthed in shock. 

“What, you thought we didn’t do that for you like you and I did for A-jie? Like I’m sure you two did for me?” Jiang Wanyin demanded. 

“Of course we made plans for you, A-Xian.”

“I didn’t expect to get married,” Wei Ying whispered. “I was going to help Yunmeng Jiang.”

Wangji was surprised by that, but perhaps he shouldn’t have been—Wei Ying was exactly the type to deny himself to do what he saw as duty. His siblings were looking at him in horror, as though just realizing that terrible truth.

“You were allowed to marry, you idiot,” Jiang Wanyin exploded, then took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. “Even if it meant marry out. You didn’t have to stay.”

“I did. I promised.”

Jiang Wanyin looked to his sister, clearly trying not to lose his temper. 

“Xianxian,” she whispered, looking like she felt helpless. “We would never want you to give up your future for Yunmeng Jiang. You always talked so much about Lan-er-gongzi, I always assumed…”

Wei Ying blushed and glanced Wangji’s way, then down at his lap. He was struck again by how exhausted he looked. 

“He did not know my regard for him,” Wangji realized aloud. 

Worse, Wei Ying had thought he’d been rejected, that he was despised. And, knowing him, he had probably justified to himself that he deserved it. 

He could see Xichen’s surprise, but his brother had always known how he felt, before he could even understand himself.

“He thought I disliked him,” he clarified for xiongzhang. 

A look of guilt passed over Jiang Wanyin’s face, and Wangji realized perhaps he had thought similarly, had said something to Wei Ying about it. But ultimately the fault lies with Wangji, for not expressing himself more clearly, not until it was almost too late. 

Xichen also looked somewhat guilty, as though he felt he should have done something himself, but Wangji wouldn’t let him blame himself.

“I will strive to be clearer. Wei Ying should know he is loved.”

Wei Ying made an almost strangled sound.

“Lan Zhan, my heart can’t take it,” he groaned, hiding his face dramatically again. “You’re too much!”

“As much as Wei Ying deserves. Wei Ying will acclimate.”

Jiang Yanli patted her brother’s shoulder, looking softly fond, but also concerned. Wangji wondered if she too realized that Wei Ying might disbelieve he was loved. Jiang Wanyin stayed quiet, but watchful, his jaw still clenched, his expression still stormy. 

“Xianxian will need to get used to it, I think. Lan-er-gongzi will need to use the courtship period to help him adjust.”

Wei Ying gave her a mock betrayed look, and she laughed gently and tweaked his nose. He blinked at her cross-eyed, looking like a sleepy kitten. 

“But I think perhaps you could use a nap.”

The lack of protest was enough of an indication, but Wei Ying swayed when he stood, steadied by his siblings. Jiang Yanli pulled out a handkerchief, then put some of the dates, dried tangerines and melon, candies, and an osmanthus cake on it before tying it into a pouch and pressing it into Wei Ying’s hands.

“A snack would do you good,” she said, leading him around the table to Wangji. “I’ll send A-Cheng for you when dinner is ready. Lan-zongzhu and Lan-er-gongzi are welcome as well.”

Wangji took Wei Ying’s arm in his own to help steady him and received a tired smile. Disciple Su frowned at him, as though scolding him for touching his betrothed, but he ignored him. Xichen smiled.

“I will discuss courtship etiquette and terms with Wei-gongzi later, Wangji. You are aware of them. I trust you to respect them.”

He nodded to his brother and led Wei Ying toward his quarters. 

Respecting courtship etiquette was the same as respecting Wei Ying, particularly to the rest of the cultivation world. Wangji was disappointed, in some ways, that he had been right; the trip to Caiyi was to be their last time spent together alone for some time to come, and part of it had not been.

But as Wei Ying leaned closer, starting to wilt, Wangji focused on him alone, ignoring the disciple accompanying them. He would ensure Wei Ying ate at least some of what Jiang Yanli had packed before leaving him to rest, and the disciple could simply wait as he did so. 

Wei Ying’s health came above all else.

---------

Lots of symbolism in this chapter. Different colors of jade have different meanings. Green, which is the most prized, is for friendship, harmony, and renewal. Red for energy, life, and love. Yellow for optimism, success, and generosity. Orange for ambition, vitality, and libido (lol, like WangXian need help in that department). Blue for loyalty, freedom, and faith. Purple for insight, peace, and devotion. Black for elegance, security, and pride.

There are a lot of meanings involved in carved jade specifically as well. The bat, for instance, would represent happiness and longevity. Butterflies are a symbol of love. Dragons, power, strength, and goodness, as well as masculinity. Fish represent wealth and abundance, and when paired, harmony and connubial bliss. Different birds have different meanings as well, though Lan Wangji doesn’t specify which ones there are, or which flowers are carved.

I am not as familiar with betrothal customs as I would like to be, but it seemed killing and cooking the roosters would be crass at best, at least before the wedding. Apparently some customs include putting the betrothal chickens under the marital bed for the wedding night. In essence, this betrothal is different in a lot of ways because they’re both grooms and both orphans. Because of Wei Wuxian’s lack of blood family, the decision to go to the Jiang siblings is more a courtesy and recognition of their relationship than anything.

“Gold has a price/value; jade is priceless/invaluable” is a Chinese saying that seemed apt for a betrothal gift. 

Wuguji are black-boned chickens, specifically silkies. They’re a smaller breed, but prized in cooking.

Also, I keep meaning and forgetting to thank my amazing beta, @missyriver, for all her help!

[thewickling]

I’m thinking about calling my Wangxian Werewolf AU Winding Moonrise because this is 100% going to be a long trip. Aye or nay? Heads up, I just write and post this. If there’s interest, I’ll do light proofreading pass for the previous ones and post them to my dreamwidth. Anyway here we go:

Wei Wuxian circles Lan Wangji’s room. It took him a hot minute to realize that was what it was. In his defense, the prim and proper Lan family would have guest rooms so pristine they look like high-class hotel rooms.

A bed takes up far side of the wall, sitting below a window. A few steps away is a low table. Along with the shelves that lean on two thirds of the walls with calligraphy hanging above them, the room looks exactly what you would expect from a man who looks like polished jade.

Wei Wuxian glances at the door. Tiptoeing, he opens a book, checking to see if the sleeves match the interiors. He skims long lines from books on proper instrument care, ancient poetry, or classics Wei Wuxian always fell asleep reading when his teachers assigned them. 

Chuckling, he thinks, He’s still so stiff. 

A tiny of fraction of him savors how nice that is. That Lan Wangji can always be trusted to always remain a gentleman in the trust sense of the world even if he’s so uptight his expression reminds Wei Wuxian of a stoic widow in mourning.

He flicks another page with a sigh. His finger traces along the page. The grainy texture of paper fades.

He freezes, smiling. He picks up a tidy candy wrapper folded into a turtle. How delightful and surprising. He never expects Lan Wangji to do something as scandalous as use a candy wrapper as a bookmark.

A shout knocks the calm out of him. He runs. His steps echo in the silence. Sliding down the polished floors, he skates to a stop.

He stops in front of a pile of teens, more like a heap of them. Each one pushes up against Lan Sizhui as if they need to touch him immediately. One of the six climbs Sizhui, forcing the mild-mannered seventeen year old to carry him. 

Sizhui smiles, helplessly. He offers a helping hand. He opens his arm out for his other cousins. Whether or not he understands their need to scent him the attention is nice. All the concern they offer him when usually he’s the one coaxing them. 

“No running,” a teen gasps, staring at Wei Wuxian wide-eyed.

The others take notice of Wei Wuxian. Their chatter dies. They freeze like a deer in headlights. 

Only the one on Sizhui’s back remains boisterous, Jingyi rubs his cheek on his best friend. His nose twitches at how faintly Sizhui smells of pack, of home. He whines that he can never take his eye off Sizhui again. 

The others separate, eying Wei Wuxian. One tugs Jingyi and mouths a warning.

Lan Sizhui blinks at parting wave. “Mister Wei. Sorry. We were noisy, weren’t we?”

“You call that noisy?” He laughs, thinking of all the times he’s screamed across the Jiang residence for Jiang Cheng.

“You saved Sizhui?” Jingyi asks, hanging like a monkey.  

He nods. 

“Cool. I’m Lan Jingyi, the one usually in charge of keeping Sizhui out of trouble,” he chatters a kilometer a second. 

At that, Lan Liqin protests, “Zhui-ge always keeps you out of trouble.” 

The others shake their heads in unison. 

Ignoring it, Jingyi continues, “You’re a hunter right? Have you killed people before? Do all hunters smell like death? How did you beat the vampires? Did you ki—”

“Lan Jingyi,” Wangji warns. “30—”

“30 times all the rules?” he wails.

Shaking his head, he finishes, “300 lines.”

“Oh.” He releases Sizhui. Landing, he rubs his neck and bows to Lan Wangji with the rest of his cousins. He thanks the heavens it wasn’t Lan Qiren who caught him. Copying the four thousand principles that guide their pack once would be a kindness in his grand-uncle’s book. 

But his mouth always gets the better of him. He adds, “It’s not an insult! You kind of smell like an altar.”

Lan Wangji inhales. Less of the utter relief of finding his moon alive in his veins, he notes the difference Jingyi mentions with concern. The hint of incense and burnt paper infuses Wei Wuxian’s naturally cool, salt water scent. What happened in the last thirteen years to stain him with ash?

Sizhui straightforwardly covers Jingyi’s face. He apologizes, nudging Jingyi behind him and away from Lan Wangji. 

“Oh.” Wei Wuxian tilts his head, wondering what to do with that information. He’s never wondered how he smelled to supernats before. He asks, “Lan Zhan what do I smell like?”

It’s a passing curiosity. Why would Lan Wangji actually answer?

“Like.” He pauses. Words escape him. How can you capture the essence of an lake’s breeze warming your skin, a splash of water that revitalizes you,  or a hint of something unexplainable that fills you with emotions you haven’t been able to name in the last decade and a half? Love barely begins to cover it. He settles, “Like Lotus Pier.”

“Oh.” He grins, inching closer. “Lan Zhan? Every time I invited you, who rejected me? So how do you know what Lotus Pier smells like?”

Pointing his finger, he says, “It’s as a nice I described it right?”

“Mnn.” He averts his gaze. There’s too much of his moon in front of him. He yearns to drink in the easy affection Wei Wuxian gives, but he can’t. 

Not when he has no right to hold on to it. Not when all he wants to do is soak in the warmth of his moon`s light. Not when all he wants to do is see if he can taste the sea on Wei Wuxian’s skin. 

He bites his cheek. “Dinner will be at five.”

Wei Wuxian tries, he does his best not to judge, but the Lan family meal leave his taste buds yearning for salt and spice and flavor. Most would call the spread of vegetarian dishes, lightly seasoned meat, and clear soup refreshing and light but for his tastes shaped by Yunmeng and Lotus Pier it is truly an ascetic meal. He wants pepper to numb his tongue. For a bite to delight him with lemon and salt and a dozen other flavors that mingle with the sweetness of fish.

He swallows a sigh. He can endure one night to bask in the glow of a family. 

Lan Qiren ignores him, yes, but Xichen offers light, considerate smiles. They do not speak, but they show their familiarity in other ways. When Lan Qiren isn’t looking the children shuffle dishes. Jingyi hands his sprouts to Liqin who pushes over his coriander. Only Sizhui cleans his plate like the good and proper teen he is, taking on the bits and pieces of his cousins’ plates without complaint. The elders avert their gaze but laugh in their hearts at the shenanigans. 

Peeking at Lan Wangji’s handsome profile, he thinks, Lan Zhan, you’re so good. Thank you. 

This isn’t the Jiang residence, but Lan’s home has its pros. Now he knows that behind their clean, immortal like calm they are a fussy family like any other. The Lans have their own an uptight elder and mischievous children just in a different tone. 

Thank you, he praises again, enjoying the aura of kinship. 

This isn’t Lotus Pier, but he feels transported back over a decade. The feeling of comradery, of kinship, of care warms him to his bones. He didn’t know he needed this.

[veliseraptor]

it’s another round of the 150 words meme my lads!!! just seven this time, send me one (or up to three max) numbers from the below list and I will write 150 words in that project/

hit me with your best shot, these are all untamed wips + one bonus lymond because that’s about what my brain looks like these days, and if you’re curious about what any of these are check the WIP masterlist for brief descriptions.

1. Xiao Xingchen’s hands slid down from his shoulders, over his back to his waist, light and gentle again and Xue Yang broke away, breathing fast. 

“I keep telling you,” he said. “I’m not gonna break.”

“I know you’re not,” Xiao Xingchen said, giving him that smile that made something twist and turn over like a dying animal in his chest. “That’s not the point.”

Xue Yang made a face at him that made Xiao Xingchen laugh, and used his thumbs to urge Xiao Xingchen’s head back so he could drag his tongue all the way up the length of his throat like licking sugar off candied ginger. That won him Xiao Xingchen’s fingers digging in harder as he tilted his head back further, offering himself up, and it would be so easy.

No, he thought, again. I’m not done with you yet. (lick your exit wounds)

2. The moment after he did it he thought he’s going to kill me, and the moment after that registered that Lan Wangji’s mouth was warm and surprisingly soft, and the moment after that Lan Wangji - responded.

If that was the right word for it. 

It was graceless and rough and it didn’t feel good, exactly, but it was something and Jiang Cheng grabbed for the front of Lan Wangji’s robes, dragging him closer. He was pretty sure a kiss was supposed to be something different than this, something - nicer. 

This wasn’t nice. It wasn’t sweet. It was like a fight that one of them was going to lose, and Jiang Cheng was determined that it wasn’t going to be him. (By Proxy)

3. Xiao Xingchen laughed, sweet and silvery, the sound that made Xue Yang’s guts twist. “All right,” he said. “All right, that’s enough. Thank you for offering Zichen your room, Chengmei. It’s generous of you.”

“That’s me,” Xue Yang drawled. “I’m a very giving sort of person.” 

Xiao Xingchen shook his head and Xue Yang pushed himself up, resting his hands on Xiao Xingchen’s shoulders. Song Lan had reemerged and was looking at him, mouth a flat line, shoulders tense. His eyes moved from Xiao Xingchen to Xue Yang and back.

“Thank you,” he said stiffly. He sounded like it hurt him to say.

“You’re welcome, Song-daozhang,” Xue Yang said. “I’m happy to share.” 

Song Lan looked like he wanted to spit venom. Xue Yang pushed off Xiao Xingchen’s shoulders. “I’ll make dinner,” he volunteered, “but someone else is going to have to clean up. I’ll let you guys decide who.”

XIao Xingchen smiled in his direction, and Xue Yang resisted the urge to smirk in Song Lan’s. See, he thought. He’s not yours anymore. (tell you my sins (and you can sharpen your knife))

4. Lan Wangji found Jiang Cheng sitting with Jin Ling, who was asking for advice under the guise of complaining. Jiang Cheng saw him approaching and tensed, quickly looking for a black-and-red clad shadow and finding him alone. Jin Ling broke off and looked over his shoulder.

“Oh, no,” he said, and then looked like he regretted saying it. Jiang Cheng pressed his lips together.

“We can finish this conversation later,” he said to Jin Ling, who looked pained.

“Maybe I should stay,” he said, reluctantly. Jiang Cheng snorted, though he was touched in spite of himself. 

“I don’t need protecting from Hanguang-jun, a-Ling,” he said. 

“I’ll go find Wei Wuxian,” Jin Ling said, which was not a vote of confidence. (With Absolute Splendor)

5. Of course they went to somewhere ridiculously expensive, several levels above anything Xue Yang would’ve ever been able to afford on his own. You could almost smell the money. He had a feeling a point was being made though he wasn’t quite sure what it was. Maybe remember I’m powerful and wealthy and could crush you like a bug if I wanted.

To which Xue Yang just wanted to say and I could spill all your dirty secrets like blood out of a slit throat, and I will if you try anything.

But all he said was, “nice place.” (Mutual Friends)

6. “Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji said again. His voice sounded wrong in his own ears. His heart was pounding outside of his control. 

The swirling resentful energy coalesced like a coiling snake and struck. Lan Wangji deflected it with Bichen and started to counterattack only to come up hard before he actually struck. The ghost’s smile was a slash in its pale face. 

“Lan Zhan,” it said, the first words he’d heard it say, and the familiarity of the voice even all these years later cut to the bone. “Are you here to stop me?”

Speech never came easily to him. In that moment it felt impossible to make an answer at all. He was frozen, voiceless, all his training forgotten. 

The ghost laughed, awful and echoing. “You can try,” it said. “Do it. Try. If you have the guts.” (the fair and the brave and the good must die)

7. The drugs took hold of the acute mind and dragged it slowly, spiralingly downward. He slept fitfully; when he woke again he was alone. 

He fought a battle to stand, supported by the wall, but the distance between sickbed and door was as vast as Mare Pacifi and as traversable by foot. Over-bright eyes regarded it nonetheless with the air of a deer considering a chasm as hounds closed behind.

Before the slowed thoughts ground to a conclusion, the door opened, and the window of opportunity closed.

“Ah,” Lymond said. “Behold, Ganelon.” (et ipsi sunt jacula)

[lotus-mirage]

The Untamed episode 39 + 40 liveblog

Not sure how this is going to end, but I think this arc is wrapping up.

I can’t tell if he’s doing something magic or if he’s just really good at sneaking around in fog

Yikes, that was a pretty close call. Good thing Wen Ning caught on so fast.

Bringing up the actor friend again

Oh, Wen Ning kept his chains, just as like weapons/reinforcement then?

Wait, I thought she was a ghost already?

Guess not?

Wait, was that Song Lan back to having normal eyes again?

Shoot here’s the masked guy- is he the actor friend? He’s the only other one associated with Xue Yang at the moment.

And he’s gone.

Oh, the girl has the puppet marks too?

Stabbed 3 times!?

Yeah I’d give Song Lan the final blow here

Oh, there is something weird with his finger

Kind of just yikes at Xue Yang’s whole monologue

:,(

Oh no

I wasn’t initially expecting that to be how he got his neck wound, but after the last episode... yeah

Wow, that seems really lacking compared to the setup that WWX had for Wen Ning.

Can’t fully feel bad for him at this point, but it is kind of hard to watch

Threatening the guy isn’t going to help if it’s still just a corpse

Guess the guy really was the first person to treat him alright huh

Who left the candy there while he’s dying?

It’s a sweet gesture (no pun intended), but unless he was using Song Lan to ferry them around, who’d even have them??

I wonder how long there been there after that.

Where’d Song Lan go?

Oh they made a grave for her :,)

Wait, they’re just leaving Wen Ning and the disciples together?

Oh there he is. He doesn’t have the markings?? I thought he was, like, still undead, surely?

Awww his plans are very sweet, even if tragic. Is he keeping the spirit bag on him along with the sword?

The white sword + carrier really contrasts the rest of his outfit in a nice way

cut from Song Lan with his sword to both of them walking together, my heart

:,)

I think this might be the last we see if either of them, honestly - it feels pretty final.

I’m so glad I wasn’t more attached to these guys - they don’t have the luxury of the fallen half of the pair getting resurrected, and it hurts enough as it is.

Wait, what was in the bag that went into the coffin?

A second coffin underneath it!?

Is that Nie Mingjue? The robes look like the same pattern.

They cut away but I’m going to assume it was.

Okay more focus on the disciples, particularly on Lan Sizhui at the toy stalls

The butterfly for younger kids, then? I think Wen Yuan had one in a stick, right?

Okay there was a lot of emphasis being put on that butterfly

Wait. Wait that quick flashback cut was one of Wen Yuan and his toy, wasn’t it!?

Is. Is the implication that Lan Sizhui is Wen Yuan. Am I reading this right? I’m fairly certain, but I’m also like !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! right now

How’d he get to Gusu, though? None of the Wens were cultivators, right? And the burial grounds were far away - they only had 3 days before WWX could get up.

I’m sure it’ll be elaborated on, I’ve just had this screen paused for like a solid 5 minutes to type this all out on my phone.

Anyway !!!!!!!!!!

Awwww WWX flashing back to Wen Yuan too

That’s definitely the intended connection to draw, okay.

!!!!

Just hands Lan Sizhui the lantern with no explanation, haha

Oh good he’s got his mask back on

It was headless!?

That is a lot of data points on the masked guy

The implied ‘him’ is Meng Yao, I’m assuming?

Yeah I’m not sure that he’s a good enough fighter (or cultivator) to do all this, but I guess he could be getting someone else to? Maybe?

And now for whatever the disciples are discussing, I guess

Ouch, Jin Ling

LAN XICHEN KNOWS, OKAY

wasn’t expecting him to just. address him like that out of the blue

End notes:

Okay. Okay that was a lot.

We got our last bit of flashbacks from Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen, backstory Xue Yang, and probably the last we’ll see of either party.

We also had the heavy implication/pre-reveal sort of thing that Lan Sizhui is Wen Yuan, which I am very happy about and eager to see more of (best boi twice over it seems, haha).

There was also momentum on the main story - found Nie Mingjue’s body and a heavily implied murderer. Even if he isn’t the guy in the mask, at this point I’m not sure how Meng Yao could not be involved, particularly with how the show has been building him up.

Also like. Where is Wen Ning? He can’t be inside with the disciples, right? ...was Jin Ling there when he got identified on Danfan mountain?? Does he know who that is?????

- episode 40 -

A couple hours later: I have time to watch more and lingering hype from the Lan Sizhui thing, I’m going to keep going

Pfft - ‘lets not attract attention’ ‘shoot he’s right there’

The staring as he asks for liquor, haha

Hahaha it just keeps going

He just stuck the chicken back in his friends mouth

Was that Wen Ning outside?

Yes, okay, it was him. Coming in spider-man style

I love this episode

Ouch haha

Wait is LWJ planning to drink liquor again

Oh thank goodness I don’t know if I could handle that again so soon

Why the head? Wouldn’t it be the most damning to have?

Are we skipping right to the next month??

Wait I just realized - who are these other guys in red? They’re dressed differently than the Wens, but...???

Did Jiang Cheng come just before them? He doesn’t seem to have a retinue. Or was he waiting for them??

Jin Ling and his boatload of uncles

Wait that’s actually like more accurate than I thought they’re all more or less uncles. Wow.

Oh right Mo Xanyu got thrown out of here

Okay, so Meng Yao’s wife is going to be relevant

Is Nie Huaisang drunk?

Doesn’t seem to be handling things well

Awwww Jin Ling’s trying to defend him

Oh boy that’s, ah. Yeah that’s gonna land him in hot water with everyone.

Oh, teaching him a new move?

Hahaha he’s kind of an awful influence

Haven’t seen the paper person in a while. What’re they doing now?

Even with the paper person he’s messing with LWJ’s ribbon.

There’s synth music I can’t

Is she scared of Meng Yao?

What’s in the letter? Really doesn’t seem to be good.

So it is definitely the letter and not, like, food poisoning, so: really bad.

So it implied he got their son killed?

They’re saying a ‘she’ sent the letter, but WWX said ‘he’. Unless there’s multiple then I guess there’s a broad range of suspects.

He’s. Switching emotions being projected really fast and it’s kind of terrifying.

What’d he just do to her

That was a doorway?

Are those chains

They’ve been building him up for a while but I genuinely am shocked that he’s gotten so bad. Holy crud.

I assume that’s the head?

Yyep

He can do Empathy with just the guy’s head??

End notes:

So this episode started out really fun. And then it went a little internal politic-y and then it went to whatever brand of spy-slash-horror drama this is.

I really don’t know how to feel about this one. In other news: major plot progression, I guess?

I don’t know. When he was first introduced (and for a while afterwards) I kind of liked Meng Yao, so I don’t really have a solid emotion towards whatever’s happening right now. Definitely don’t like him as he is now, though, and he has concretely gone full-blown evil antagonist.

He’s also probably the ‘actor friend’ of Xue Yang, considering... the conversation between him and his wife (Qing Su?). I didn’t comment much during that, admittedly, albeit mostly because my brain was blanking out with internal sirens going the entire time.

[robininthelabyrinth]

JC adopts stray/rouge cultivators after the war au to cope with the destruction of lotus pier. also i love your writing so much!!

Gratuitously Acquired - ao3

-

1

At first, he took anyone who would join, needing numbers – needing people. There were plenty of cultivators that wanted to be associated with a great sect. Plenty, too, that were barely more than criminals, wanting to use the smoke and ash of war to obscure the past, to cover up old crimes and wash themselves clean.

Jiang Cheng wasn’t in any position to refuse them. Soldiers were soldiers.

After the war ended, though…

Some he cast out. Others, even more despicable, he slaughtered for what they’d done.

A few –

“Yan Qiao.”

The female cultivator in question, who had been sneaking out of the still mostly ruined Lotus Pier at night in flagrant violation of curfew, froze in her tracks.

“Uh,” she said. “Sect Leader Jiang. Fancy finding you…here…now…at this time…”

Jiang Cheng looked at the basket of buns in her hands. “You’re stealing leftovers from our kitchens to feed orphans among the common people,” he said. “Again.”

She blushed. “No one wants them now that there’s better available, Sect Leader! Really, they’ll only go stale, and then rot – and I never stole when it was the army eating them!”

“That’s not the point,” Jiang Cheng said irritably. “Tell me, how in the name of heavens did you really get branded as a criminal? Distributed too many alms? Did too much charity?”

Yan Qiao coughed, turning red. “I told you before, Sect Leader. I killed a man.”

“He must have done something particularly heinous, then. You’re shitat killing.”

“Now I am. Sect Leader, if you don’t mind…”

“You’re one of the ones who wants my surname, right?” he interrupted. “Consider it granted.”

Yan Qiao – no, he supposed he’d better start thinking of her as Jiang Qiao – gaped at him. “But…Sect Leader!”

“I’ve barely granted it to anyone, so you’d better live up to it, you hear me?” Jiang Cheng said in his best threatening voice. He’d been assured by several people that it was really quite threatening, anyway. “I don’t want any excuses. Now go feed your damn orphans, and in the morning I want a report on how you think we can do it in a more structured manner. I can’t have you sneaking off every night anymore! Now that you’re a Jiang, you’re going to have work.”

-

2

When they were done with war and started firmly on rebuilding, the Jiang sect’s name was firmly reestablished as a Great Sect once more, it was the opportunists that came.

Smiling faces, sycophantic voices, cowards one and all – like beetles crawling out of the woodwork, not willing to risk their lives, but willing enough to beg for scraps and advantages later on when it seemed safe enough to do so.

Jiang Cheng wanted to chase them all away, but his sect was still weaker than he wanted to admit, still rebuilding, still more army than civilian operation. They had valiant soldiers by the dozen, but they needed more than that. They needed administrators, supervisors, artisans, smiths, merchants, laundry-women…

They needed workers. The ones they got – well, cowards they might be, but skills they had.

He still rejected most of the worst of them.

Most.

“Bo Zhou,” he said, inspecting the surprisingly flush list of taxes they’d collected that quarter, and the man in question turned to grin unrepentantly at him. “You’d tell me if you were a con artist in a previous life, right?”

“A previous life, Sect Leader?” Bo Zhou said. He was still grinning, but then, he was always grinning. He had a crooked leg and an even more crooked heart, and he’d probably steal candy from little children if he happened to have a hankering, but he was amazing at getting people to do what he wanted. Too amazing, really. “Why limit yourself? What about thislife?”

“…Bo Zhou. Tell me you aren’t a former con artist.”

“I may or may not have had a sideline selling snake oil and protective talismans before I became a cultivator,” Bo Zhou admitted cheerfully, and Jiang Cheng pinched the bridge of his nose – less out of actual irritation and more to keep from actually laughing. The only person he knew that was more shameless than Bo Zhou was Wei Wuxian; he couldn’t wait to introduce them once Wei Wuxian stopped skulking around in wine shops long enough to get back to doing his job as Jiang Cheng’s head disciple and right hand. “Who would’ve known that making all those fake talismans ended up making me pretty good at making actual talismans when I became a cultivator? Really, who could have called that?”

Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes. “Who taught you how to cultivate, anyway? Can I – I don’t know – seek vengeance on behalf of the rest of the world or something?”

Bo Zhou rolled his eyes right back at him. Shameless! “Is this about the taxes? Just be happy I got them all!”

“I can’t just be happy! What if this money is stolen property?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Sect Leader. They’re what we shouldbe getting, and from all the right people. You told me this was the right amount yourself!”

“Yes, but no one ever actually pays the full amount!” Jiang Cheng enjoyed the way Bo Zhou’s jaw dropped. “I just wanted to see if you could actually do it.”

“I’m hurt at your lack of trust.” Bo Zhou paused, considering. “Also a little impressed at you for keeping a straight enough face to trick me. Well done, Sect Leader.”

“Yeah,” Jiang Cheng said. “You too, Jiang Zhou.”

“It’s Bo…” He trailed off, comprehension arriving and speech departing, and this time he didn’t have a quick retort. He’d been nagging Jiang Cheng on and off for the Jiang surname for the last few weeks, more joking than anything else – he knew that Jiang Cheng hadn’t given his surname to the vast majority of the new people in his sect, only the very few he thought were worth it.

Jiang Cheng enjoyed the newly dubbed Jiang Zhou’s moment of speechlessness thoroughly, since he was moderately sure he wasn’t going to get another one anytime in the next – ever, possibly.

“You proved your worth and your trustworthiness,” he said, patting Jiang Zhou on the shoulder. It occurred to him that he should probably come up with a courtesy name for the man, although he wasn’t sure the man would want one. “Also, congratulations, you’re now the person in charge of tax collection. See if you can think up some new thoughts about supplementing our income, will you? We have so many costs, and I don’t want to rely on Lanling Jin more than I can help it, not like Gusu Lan…”

“Oh, really?” Jiang Zhou interrupted, abruptly excited. “I have so many ideas! How ethical do you want to be about this?”

Jiang Cheng paused. “…very?”

“Be reasonable, Sect Leader!”

“…moderately?” he tried, a little more desperately.

“I can work with moderately. I don’t suppose you’d accept ‘thin and barely plausible veneer’?”

“No.”

“Oh well. Moderately ethical it is!”

-

3

Most of the Jiang sect was slaughtered during the attack on the Lotus Pier. Disciples Jiang Cheng had grown up with his whole life, had expected to see by his side in the future, his friends, his family, even his petty childhood enemies – all gone.

Well, not all gone. There were some Jiang disciples that had been away from Lotus Pier at the time, whether on some errand or a night-hunt or other reasons; they rushed back to his side as soon as they could, of course, and formed the core of Jiang Cheng’s new Jiang sect. When he’d felt utterly alone, when even Wei Wuxian was missing, they had been there for him. They’d preserved their lives and then they’d promised them to him, and it wasn’t until they knelt before him that he really felt like a Sect Leader.

There was no way he could give any of them up now.

“Jiang Meimei, you can’t go,” he said, having completely abandoned all shame in favor of clutching at her robes as if he were a child. “I need you!”

“I’m not even a proper Jiang disciple!” she exclaimed, exasperated – or possibly just annoyed that her grand plan to sneak out in the middle of the night had been stymied by his ambush. “Just because my surname is still Jiang doesn’t mean I didn’t get kicked out, remember?”

“I thought you just left,” Jiang Cheng said, temporarily distracted. “No one ever really talked much about it, actually, but to the extent anyone did, they said that you’d decided that your inclinations were more suited to being a rogue cultivator. That you didn’t want to be weighed down by sect expectations –”

“Hah!” Jiang Meimei tossed her head. “As if it wouldn’t be better to be a roving sect cultivator than a rogue cultivator! I won’t deny that I had a fair bit of wanderlust in my youth –”

“You’re only ten years older than me, you’re not that old.”

“Shut up, brat.”

“You can’t tell me to shut up, I’m your sect leader.”

“You’re my baby cousin is what you are, and, again, I’m actually not part of the Jiang sect!”

“That’s ridiculous,” Jiang Cheng argued. “You’ve been at my side during the entire Sunshot Campaign.”

“I wasn’t going to let my baby cousin get himself murdered, now was I?” Jiang Meimei sniffed. “But I’m still a rogue cultivator. They kicked me out when I wouldn’t accept a marriage, and I’m still firm on that.”

Jiang Cheng blinked. “Wait, you don’t want to be married? Really?” he asked, concerned. “But what about poor Liu Lingling? You shouldn’t be sleeping with her if you don’t intend to be serious about it! I’m pretty sure she’s just waiting for the current project you’re working on to finish to find a matchmaker to exchange birth characters –”

“They wanted me to marry a man,” Jiang Meimei clarified, but her habitual frown had eased considerably; she looked almost on the verge of a smile. “A-Cheng, you’re being dense again. You’re the Sect Leader of a Great Sect now. You know that that means you need to have alliances, marriage contacts with other sects, and that means using your subsidiary branches.”

“Jiang Meimei, you’re the one being dense,” Jiang Cheng said. “You think I’d force you into a marriage? I don’t have subsidiary branches. I barely have a sect, even after all this time. I’m not Wen Ruohan, handing out my surname to anyone who wants it – I only give it to the ones that matter, the ones I want to keep, and those of you that actually share my blood are even rarer, even more precious. How could I give you away?”

Jiang Meimei pursed her lips.

“I really do need you,” Jiang Cheng said quietly. “You weren’t part of the Jiang sect at all, not really, but you still came to help me – you were there from the beginning of the Sunshot Campaign, and you’ve never strayed, never left. You’re my right hand. I can’t do without you.”

Jiang Meimei turned her head away. “It’s not that I want to leave you,” she said. “But becoming a rogue cultivator was hard enough the first time. I couldn’t rely on any of the things that I had always had, everything always changing. I was young and angry then, I could handle it, but things are different now. I’m less flexible, less compromising, older, more tired – I can’t just walk out on a whim and just rough it anymore. I have a girl who, yes, I want to eventually marry; I want to have children. I need certainty. Are you going to give it to me?”

Jiang Cheng looked down at his hands. He’d known it was going to have to come to this, but he’d been dragging his feet, not wanting to succumb to a reality that already existed. Had existed for longer than he wanted to admit, as if simply denying it would mean that it wasn’t the truth.

Like a child.

“Yes,” he said, though it tore his heart out of his chest to do it. “I will. Jiang Meimei…will you take the position of Head Disciple?”

Wei Wuxian wasn’t coming back. Jiang Cheng had already cast him out of the sect, just like Jiang Meimei had been, except in Wei Wuxian’s case it had been something that Wei Wuxian himself had demanded. He was living in Yiling now, and by all reports was quite happy there with his little Wen sect family that he’d picked over Jiang Cheng and all his family.

He was never coming back.

It was time to move on.

“Yes,” she said, and shoved her pack into his chest. “Now go unpack that for me. Consider it payment for driving me to extreme measures!”

“I’m your sect leader, you know,” he grumbled. “Officially, now. You could show me some respect.”

“Would you rather pay for my wedding down the line?”

“I’m going, I’m going!” And then, as he scurried over away, he shouted over his shoulder: “As if I wouldn’t be paying for it anyway! You think my Head Disciple’s going to be married in anything other than top style? Better start planning…”

“Don’t rush me! Brat!”

-

4

Jin Ling wasn’t surnamed Jiang, but he was the most important person in all of the Lotus Pier – and Jiang Cheng wanted to make sure everyone knew it. It hadn’t been easy for him to get the chance to help care for Jin Ling, especially here, so far away from home; Jiang Cheng had expected to barely be allowed to visit, to have to cool his heels outside of Lanling City begging just for a glimpse of him. Being able to take him home to raise for half the year, even if it was due to the dangerous infighting amongst Lanling Jin, was more than he’d ever dreamed.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t clear that Jin Ling himself agreed.

“He’s still crying,” Jiang Cheng muttered, rubbing his eyes. “Surely he’s got to stop sometime? I mean, just – physically?”

“They say a boy resembles his mother’s brother,” Jiang Meimei said, echoing the gesture. “If he’s got your lungs and stamina, Sect Leader, we’re doomed.”

“I’m rethinking the whole having children thing,” Liu Lingling said blearily, having fallen asleep on her soon-to-be wife’s shoulder several times, only to be woken up by the next round of crying. “I need sleep.”

“Go get some, both of you,” Jiang Cheng ordered. When his cousin scowled at him, he scowled back. “I’m serious. If he keeps this up, we’re going to need to go into shifts. I can last a bit longer.”

“That’s a filthy lie.”

“It is not. Your sect leader has given you an order – get to it!”

It was a filthy lie.

Jiang Cheng opened his eyes when the crink in his neck grew too irritating to ignore, at which point he realized he’d been asleep – and, more importantly, that Jin Ling was somehow not crying.

He sat up with a start, suddenly terrified: had something happened to him? Had he been silenced forever? Had Jiang Cheng failed this one last duty he had to his sister?

“Shhh, little one,” someone was whispering, not far away. “Let me tell you the one about the Weaver Girl and the Cowherd, yeah? You seem like someone who’d appreciate stars. It all started –”

Jiang Cheng went to go look.

A teenage girl was rocking Jin Ling in her arms and telling him a story in murmured tones, and Jin Ling was yawning and trying to gnaw on her shirt. She wasn’t even a cultivator, as far as Jiang Cheng could tell. Her clothing suggested some level of poverty, her accent the countryside – how’d she even end up here?

He wasn’t sure he cared.

Jiang Cheng didn’t want to disturb her, but he did anyway; a shift of his weight, a scuffling of his feet, and the floor creaked. The girl jumped, startled, but luckily Jin Ling was already most of the way asleep and just grumbled a little instead of starting to screech.

“How’d you do that?” Jiang Cheng asked, nodding at Jin Ling. “Make him stop crying.”

“My mother had seven kids after me,” the girl said, answering automatically. “And her sister had six. Someone had to learn to deal with all those babies, and it ended up being me. Think it’s just habit after this long.”

Jiang Cheng couldn’t handle one baby. He couldn’t even imagine.

That’s when the girl seemed to remember herself, and bit her lip. “Uh, sorry,” she said, hanging her head. “I heard him crying and I couldn’t resist...I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to be here. It was an accident.”

“How did you get here?” Jiang Cheng asked, because accidental or not, a security breach was still a security breach. “And who are you, anyway?”

“My name’s A-Hua. I’m here to work in the kitchens, just got hired this morning; the fourth cook is my uncle’s wife’s cousin, she got me a job, said it was a good place to start – I was trying to find my way out so I could go to the servant’s quarters to get some sleep, but then I got lost…”

More likely she’d decided it was better to try to stay somewhere indoors than go out in the pouring rain to try to find her way to the right set of quarters, Jiang Cheng thought to himself. “Give me your hand.”

“Uh. What?”

He ignored her stare, took her hand and felt her pulse. There was a little bit of natural talent there, though not much; she might, if she tried hard enough, become a cultivator, but she’d never be more than a servant.

Unless, of course, she did something unusual to impress someone.

“Forget the kitchens,” Jiang Cheng told her. “You’re hired on a provisional basis to keep an eye on Jin Ling.”

The girl nodded, eyes wide as saucers. “Can you – do that?”

Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes. “Yes, I can. What’s your surname? You can’t go around being called A-Hua, we have at least seven people that I know of that go by that name.”

The girl looked distressed.

She probably didn’t have a proper surname. Some people in the countryside didn’t.

But they really couldn’t go around shouting “A-Hua” every time Jin Ling was crying, which was basically all the time.

“Fine,” he said, giving in. “Do well, and I’ll consider letting you use mine. But only if you do well!”

-

5

Jiang Cheng was covered in mud thanks to a successful-but-at-what-cost night hunt and angry about it, stomping around the lotus pools on his way back to town, when he heard the familiar sounds of someone having a panic attack.

He slowed, involuntarily, and took a look: it was some teenager dressed in black, heaving miserably by a tree.

Jiang Meimei had once said that Jiang Cheng was a bit weak when it came to teenagers.

Jiang Cheng said that was nonsense.

Jiang Hua chimed in, quite loyally (if perhaps not with the best timing), and said he wasn’t.

Jiang Cheng yielded the argument at once to keep Jiang Meimei from laughing herself sick.

In view of that, he was better off ignoring the kid. After all, what was it to him that some kid was having a fit of anxiety right next the same old lotus pool that he used to have his own teenage fits of anxiety next to, under the shade of the same old tree that had sheltered him – one of the few places that remained untouched by the Wen sect’s aggression, one of the few places that was exactly the same?

Jiang Cheng groaned and walked over. “Okay, fine. What’s your problem?”

The kid looked up at him. He had dark circles under his eyes. “I think my heart’s about to explode.”

“That’s just the anxiety,” Jiang Cheng said, and sat down next to him. “What’s causing the anxiety? Don’t say that someone is better than you and your parents are disappointed in you.”

“What?” the kid blinked. “No, it’s not – it’s not that. I’m about to screw up the very first job I ever got.”

Jiang Cheng considered that. It was just different enough from his own issues that he didn’t suspect a plot, and yet close enough that he might actually be able to offer some expertise.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked reluctantly.

“Not to some mud-man,” the kid said, and – hey! It wasn’t that bad. He thought, anyway. Actually, it probably was that bad. “I just…I’m the only one left. I have to make something of myself!”

Jiang Cheng’s eye twitched. “What do you mean, you’re the only one left?”

The kid stuttered through his story. It wasn’t as bad as Jiang Cheng had initially feared, but it was still pretty bad – his small village had had bad harvests, and there had been starvation, a bad winter; the kid had been sent out to get help, but it had taken too long and he’d arrived back to find them all already gone. He’d been lost, but some traveling cultivator had agreed to take him on as a disciple provided he proved himself, had taught him all sorts of skills, cultivation and talisman-writing and music –

“Music?” Jiang Cheng asked. “Not the sword?”

“There was only the one,” the kid explained. “Obviously he kept it for himself.”

Jiang Cheng didn’t think much of that – surely this cultivator, whoever he ws, could have shared, just long enough to teach? – but he didn’t comment. It seemed fairly clear that the kid didn’t actually think very highly of his teacher, although he was very earnestly trying to be appropriately filial.

It was a little cute.

“…and I was supposed to wait here for someone when they came by here, some fancy rich person, and then get them to follow me, but it’s been ages and no one’s come by at all!” the kid wailed. “I’m such a screw up!”

“You don’t even know who you’re waiting for?” Jiang Cheng asked, and the kid shook his head. “How were you supposed to get them to follow you, then?”

The kid scratched his nose. “My master said that if I showed off some of my cultivation, they’d follow me right away.”

Jiang Cheng suppressed a smirk. “It must be very impressive cultivation, then.”

“…not really. I only know one trick,” the kid admitted. “But it’s not that hard, and it looks impressive – here, see, wait; give me a second, I just need to whistle –”

Zidian crackled to life on Jiang Cheng’s finger before the kid finished the first stanza.

“Stop that!” he cried out, leaping to his feet, and – startled – the kid stopped, blinking owlishly at him. “Is that what your master taught you?!”

“Yes?” the kid said. “Did I do it wrong?”

Jiang Cheng gnashed his teeth. “That’s demonic cultivation. Never do that, okay? Ever.”

“But then how am I supposed to get the fancy rich person to follow me, assuming he ever showed?”

Jiang Cheng’s eyes narrowed. If he hadn’t tripped over that branch and fallen into the mud – if he hadn’t taken an extra half-shichen to struggle out of the mire – if he’d walked by in all his usual finery, rich person that he was, and seen some kid practicing demonic cultivation…

He’d have given chase in a heartbeat.

More to the point, everyone knew he would. His reputation had been pretty much set in stone by this point.

“Let’s go find that master of yours,” he said. “Right now.”

Of course, that ended up leading Jiang Cheng straight into the bastard’s trap, which would have been a problem except that he’d taken the time to send someone to tell Jiang Qiao, who’d been waiting for him back in town, that he’d be a bit late and not to worry, just wait where she was.

She’d ignored his instructions and arrived just in time to knife the demonic cultivator – a human trafficker whose operations Jiang Cheng had shut down with extreme viciousness only a few months before – right in the belly, gutting him like a fish in a swift easy motion.

“I think I’m getting the hang of it again,” she said, smiling at the knife, and Jiang Cheng made a mental note to ask exactly how manymen she’d killed to get that criminal brand of hers, except the poor kid was sinking down to his knees with a horrified look and, shit, that horrible bastard, evil as he might have been, was probably the last person the kid had in this whole rotten world, wasn’t he?

“Does Jiang Hua still have those beginner manuals we dug up for her?” Jiang Cheng asked, and Jiang Qiao nodded. “Good. Tell her that starting today, Jiang Jianwen here’s her little brother. She’s been pining over raising someone ever since Jin Ling got to be too old to snuggle.”

The kid looked up with wide eyes.

“No, you don’t get a choice on the name,” Jiang Cheng told him. “Whatever name this piece of crap gave you, just forget it, you hear me? You can do better than him. But no more demonic cultivation!”

-

+1

“I wish I could visit the Lotus Pier,” Wei Wuxian mumbled, looking wistfully downriver. They were very close by, but he still didn’t dare, even though Jiang Cheng had grumpily extended an invitation through Jin Ling. So much had happened – he just didn’t know where to even start.

He didn’t want to get into all that messy history with Jiang Cheng.

He just wanted to visit, that’s all.

He missed Jiang Cheng, but he missed the Lotus Pier, too. The food, the places, the air…

“I just need a secret way in that even the sect leader doesn’t know about,” he sighed. He’d once known them all – but there was a different sect leader now, and a different Lotus Pier. He couldn’t risk it: Jiang Cheng might find out that he’d snuck in and feel hurt, thinking that Wei Wuxian was avoiding him, when he was just avoiding the conversation; that would just make everything worse.

Lan Wangji would have distracted him, but Lan Wangji himself had been distracted – some man in Jiang sect colors with a heavy limp and an excited sort of air had rushed over, shouting something about wanting to talk about tax policy and possibly also games of chance, and Lan Wangji had all but fled. It had been so funny that Wei Wuxian had nearly laughed himself sick.

“I know one,” someone said, and Wei Wuxian glanced over: it was a young man in Jiang sect disciple robes, little more than a teenager – only a few years older than Jin Ling, if he had to guess. He was smiling, ducking his head a little; he looked proud of himself. “I mean, if you really want. But only if you don’t mean any harm!”

How adorable, Wei Wuxian thought, and grinned at him. “I just want something spicy without having to go through the whole process of greeting people, is that a crime?”

“Not at all!” the kid exclaimed, beaming, and Wei Wuxian almost felt bad for conning him. Almost.

“Do you really know a secret way in?” he asked, pretending to be doubtful. “Really?”

Sure enough, the kid – Jiang Jianwen, apparently, he must be the kid of one of the ones that survived the massacre – was easily lured into insisting that he did know, and then to agreeing to act as guide.

And, moreover, it turned out he really did know his way inside, which made this the easiest infiltration ever.

Or so Wei Wuxian thought right up until he felt a knife point touch his ribs.

“Well done, Jianwen!” a young woman – also in Jiang colors – said, reaching out and ruffling Jiang Jianwen’s hair.

“Aw, it was nothing,” he said, just as bashful as he was when he’d been talking to Wei Wuxian. “I couldn’t have done it without shixiong luring off Lan-er-gongzi.”

Wait, that’d been part of this, too?

That was worrisome.

“Hardly nothing,” the older woman standing behind Wei Wuxian said. She had a certain sort of rock-hard steadiness that was more worrying than the knife she was holding on him – she was a powerful cultivator, familiar with killing and scarred with a criminal’s brand, and yet she seemed entirely at ease in a way that suggested a strong sense of righteousness, with no guilt or weak points he might exploit to make an easy out. “You successfully conned the Yiling Patriarch into following you right into a trap.”

Wei Wuxian wondered if he could deny it.

“I don’t know, shijie, that doesn’t seem that hard,” the first woman said. “Isn’t he the kind of person to run head-first into danger at the first instance?”

“Head-first into danger, and like his tail’s on fire away from dogs,” the older woman agreed, and – damnit. There was clearly no denying it; they actually knew him. Though from where, he had no idea. “A-Hua, Jiangwen, let’s go – we don’t want to be late for our meeting.”

“I don’t suppose I can convince you to tell me who we’re going to go see?” Wei Wuxian tried, putting on his most charming smile. “Or, perhaps, who you are, and what you have against me…?”

“Jiang Jianwen you know,” the woman said, rather unexpectedly. “I’m Jiang Qiao, and this is Jiang Hua. Our shixiong is Jiang Zhou – he’s the one that makes Lan-er-gongzi lose his wallet every time he’s forced to visit Yunmeng.”

Wei Wuxian was almost distracted with the tantalizing prospects of stories about Lan Wangji. Almost.

“You’re all surnamed Jiang?” he asked, surprised: he might have believed it for Jiang Jianwen, maybe, he was young enough to be the son of someone in the last generation. But Jiang Hua and Jiang Qiao looked absolutely nothing alike either to each other or to Jiang Cheng, and at least Jiang Qiao was old enough that he should’ve recognized her if she’d been a Jiang. There’d been a lot of people in the old Jiang sect, even if you limited it to those surnamed Jiang, but he’d been Head Disciple back then – he’d known almost all of them.

“We’re adopted,” Jiang Jianwen said. He looked very proud. “Sect Leader Jiang took us into the family as part of the branch lines.”

Wei Wuxian had never once in his life wanted to have the surname Jiang, not even when he’d been mocked for not having it. He’d never even thought about it. Not ever.

He felt a stab of envy at the word family, though.

“He gave you his surname?” he asked, and tried not to feel jealous when they all nodded. “Oh.”

It made sense, he tried to tell himself as they walked through the back streets of the Lotus Pier. The Jiang sect had been demolished, and Jiang Cheng practically the only survivor but for whoever happened by coincidence to not be at home – the Jiang sect would need branch family members, and adoption made sense. There was no reason to resent the idea of Jiang Cheng giving the name he had always treated as being so precious to a branded former criminal, to a con man, to a commoner from the countryside, to a –

“You were a what?” Wei Wuxian exclaimed.

“A demonic cultivator,” Jiang Jianwen said bashfully. “Not a very a good one, though.”

Wei Wuxian wanted to say something to that. He didn’t know what, but something.

“Enough chatter,” Jiang Qiao said. “We’re here.”

Jiang Hua opened the door and Wei Wuxian stepped inside.

Then he tried to step back out, only to be crowded in by the others.

“No, no, no,” he said. “No, I was willing to play along until now, but this is a step too far. You don’t understand! She’s going to eviscerate me!”

Jiang Meimei – older than the teenager he remembered her being when she left the sect, but still unmistakable – grinned with her teeth bared.

“Oh good,” she said. “At least your brain is still working. Now come on and have a seat, and we’re going to talk about how you’ve been treating my baby cousin recently…”

[ibijau]

Lapse in memory pt 3 / on AO3

aka the fic where nhs is cursed into amnesia a few years post canon, and came to lxc for help

The worst part of Nie Huaisang’s amnesia, Lan Xichen soon decided, was the realisation that he should have seen long ago that there was something wrong with Nie Mingjue’s little brother.

Although the other man had apparently always possessed frightening self control which made it difficult to know how much his current loss of memory impacted him, he used that control in a manner very different from what he had done after the death of his brother. Instead of displaying eternal sorrow and helplessness, Nie Huaisang was acting exactly the same as he had done before his life took a turn for the worst. He smiled, and chatted with people as if things were perfectly fine, only to break down once alone with Lan Xichen, asking when this person had died, whether that remark had been a joke or a reference to a true event. 

If he hadn't known better, if he hadn't been shown the other side Lan Xichen might have fallen for that new comedy as he had fallen for the old one. Nie Huaisang was good at this.

In fact, as Lan Xichen started remembering over the following days, he was good at many things. 

For example Nie Huaisang was smart, it turned out. After a decade of lies, Lan Xichen had forgotten that, too used to a man who barely managed to pick his own outfits without needing three different opinions, and would make four mistakes in a two digit addition. And indeed, when it came to cultivation, or when Wei Wuxian tried to discuss his ideas about what curse might have hit him, Nie Huaisang was clearly lost. But when the topic interested him, when someone mentioned art or literature, he spoke expertly and always made excellent points. 

Because he had his own duties to attend, and he aimed at being a better sect leader than he had been in the past, Lan Xichen spent little time with Nie Huaisang at first, and thus rarely enjoyed his conversation. Since the other man couldn’t be allowed to wander freely when there was still the possibility that all this was only a deception, Lan Xichen assigned one of his young disciples he trusted the most to stay with Nie Huaisang and make sure he didn’t misbehave. Almost immediately, he started hearing about the heated debates that Lan Jingyi and Nie Huaisang got into over classics, over art, over just anything that could be debated, and quite a few that shouldn’t. Lan Xichen had offered to find another person to keep Nie Huaisang company, only for Nie Huaisang to protest he was having great fun with Lan Jingyi.

It surprised Lan Xichen at first. Nie Huaisang wasn’t a man who enjoyed confrontation.

But he had once been a boy who did. Nie Mingjue used to complain at length about that, as did Lan Qiren when he’d had the dubious pleasure of teaching him. Nie Huaisang once had opinions on just about everything, especially if it could get him out of doing something he didn’t enjoy. Lan Xichen had found it amusing for a long time, and even he had been tricked into the odd argument here and there. But then there had been the war, there had been the constant worsening of Nie Mingjue’s temper, and Nie Huaisang’s tendency to argue over everything hadn’t felt so cute anymore.

After those difficult final few months, it had been a relief, in a way, when Nie Huaisang’s grief had made him so mild and pliable. He had never objected to any advice given to him, agreeing to everything and anything that Nie Mingjue’s sworn brothers suggested. If Lan Xichen hadn’t been so devastated by the loss they had both suffered, perhaps he would have noticed something was wrong.

Perhaps it was guilt, then, that soon pushed Lan Xichen to rearrange his schedule so he could spend a little more time with Nie Huaisang every day. He refused to let him down again. Or perhaps it was selfishness, the joy of having an old friend back in his life, someone who didn't know about his failings, and didn't judge him for being imperfect. 

"Imperfection is more fun," Nie Huaisang claimed one evening, as they sat together inside the Hanshi's courtyard, watching a pair of swallows build a nest under the rafters. "I like you better when you're not trying to be Zewu-jun. Zewu-Jun is a very boring person, while Lan Xichen is delightful company. Do you remember how we used to laugh sometimes when I came here to study? You did such a good imitation of your uncle. And you'd help me with my homeworks, and I'd let you have candies… wasn't that more fun than being perfect?"

"I miss those days," Lan Xichen admitted, something he had never told anyone except Jin Guangyao, once. He'd instantly regretted it back then, realising that Jin Guangyao had never had a chance to enjoy a carefree youth. He didn't regret telling Nie Huaisang who laughed so hard he startled the swallows, making them fly away for a moment. 

"Of course you miss that! Well, I'm back now, and until I'm better I can give you a taste of how it used to be. If I make you laugh enough, you'll stop being angry at me, right?"

“I’m not angry at you,” Lan Xichen said, which to his surprise wasn’t even a lie. This young and innocent Nie Huaisang, whose biggest crime was cheating during exams, who hadn’t yet discovered his own viciousness through fighting with Nie Mingjue and then for him, who could be irritating but always remained endearing… how could Lan Xichen have been angry at him?

“But you’re angry at the man I’ve become,” Nie Huaisang said.

Lan Xichen looked at him, that handsome young man sitting just a little too close, leaning somewhat toward Lan Xichen and yet tense enough that at the first sign of anger he’d probably leap away and disappear, the way he used to do with Nie Mingjue.

Lan Xichen wondered again how he had forgotten how observant Nie Huaisang could be. He should have known. The moment Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji told him that something terrible had been done to Nie Mingjue’s body, Lan Xichen should have guessed that Nie Huaisang knew as well, and that he’d be doing anything to avenge his brother.

“I think I’m more angry at myself than at you,” Lan Xichen said. “What happened, what you’ve done, it was… Maybe you really had no choice, or you thought you had no choice anyway, and I’m not sure I have a right to judge you. You… you still don’t remember, do you?”

“No. I don’t think I want to,” Nie Huaisang said. He started playing nervously with his sleeve, having forgotten his fan somewhere, and hesitantly spoke again. “I don’t think he wanted to remember either,” he whispered. “Him. Me. I… I don’t think it was an accident, Er-ge. I think I forgot on purpose.”

Startled by the confession, Lan Xichen stared again at Nie Huaisang who avoided his eyes. He looked pale, and started shaking slightly, as if again expecting a burst of anger that didn’t come. Lan Xichen was too stunned for that.

“When did you start suspecting this?”

“Right away,” Nie Huaisang confessed, nervously playing with his sleeve, pulling and tugging at the fabric. “It was just too odd that there was nothing at all about those lost years. I found some recent correspondence which let me know I wasn’t on very good terms with you, Jiang Cheng and Jin zongzhu, but that was it. And I know myself, Er-ge. I’ve kept a journal of everything I do since I was seven. Everything important, I write it down so I remember, I should have had a trace of those missing years.”

Lan Xichen nodded. Nie Huaisang had mentioned that habit of his, back when he was studying in the Cloud Recesses. Back then he’d complained that too little happened and he had nothing to write down, but also that homework and studying took so long he almost didn’t have time for his diary. Lan Xichen hadn’t realised that the habit was such a serious one, and he’d never heard Nie Huaisang mention it again as an adult, so he hadn’t thought to ask about that.

“Could it be that you simply stopped doing this?” Lan Xichen asked.

Nie Huaisang shook his head and frowned.

“It’s not just a hobby. My memory isn’t great, I really forget things if I don’t write them down. Everything important… in code if it's too important, of course, I’m only a little stupid. And I hid the journal, and kept all of them, from the very first. I’m the only one who knew where they’re all kept, but when I went to check, many of them had been destroyed, or at least moved somewhere else. Everything after the Sunshot Campaign is gone. Maybe he hoped to forget the war too.”

Not so much the war as what had happened just before it, Lan Xichen thought. He’d heard about the way hostage juniors had been treated by the Wens, and the horror of the Xuanwu of Slaughter killing people in that cave. Nie Huaisang had never wanted to talk about that, Lan Xichen recalled. He usually loved to complain, but on that particular topic he’d always close off or change the subject.

Aside from the death of Nie Mingjue, the terror of the evil Xuanwu had to have been the worst moment of Nie Huaisang’s life.

Without thinking Lan Xichen took Nie Huaisang’s hand, hoping to comfort him. Nie Huaisang startled and trembled, but didn’t try to remove his hand.

“I think it’s like you said,” Nie Huaisang explained, looking pleadingly at Lan Xichen. “That he did certain things because he thought he had no choice. He… I… if someone harmed da-ge, then I’d want to harm them back," he hissed with such rage that Lan Xichen shivered, reminded of the man Nie Huaisang had indeed become. "Even if it was san-ge! I can’t believe he’d do something like that, he’s always so nice, but it doesn’t matter. If I had been sure he’d hurt da-ge, then I… I would…”

“I know,” Lan Xichen said, squeezing Nie Huaisang’s hand.

“I think I had regrets of a sort though,” Nie Huaisang said. “The way it seems to me… I didn’t regret that these things had been done, I didn’t regret that people had died or been hurt, but I didn’t want to live with the weight of that either. I think… I’m a little bit of a coward, Er-ge. I’m fine with knowing I did horrible things, I just don’t want to know what they are, because that way it’s not really me who did them. So I can see why I chose to forget, and I also don’t want to remember.”

Had it been anyone else, Lan Xichen would have found that person cowardly indeed. Just as he bore the guilt of his failures and strove to do better, he would expect others to face their own faults, take their punishment, and try to improve in the future. But Nie Huaisang wasn’t just anyone, and Lan Xichen pitied him too much to wish for his suffering. Nie Huaisang had already been punished enough for what he’d done, having lost his brother, having lost all his friends, having lost the respect of his sect.

Having lost himself, too.

“It’s fine if you don’t remember,” Lan Xichen said. “You can stay here with us. Wei Wuxian seems happy enough to have you around, Lan Jingyi loves having someone to argue with… even uncle said the other day that it’s been a while since he’s had a decent opponent at weiqi.”

“And what about you?” Nie Huaisang asked, his cheeks a little pinker than they ought to be. “Are you also happy to have me here?”

“I am,” Lan Xichen replied, surprised to find that this, too, was the truth.

Partly because he’d always been a little too fond of Nie Huaisang, back before the Sunshot Campaign changed everything and forced him to set aside most of his personal attachments to better serve his sect. Partly, also, because he liked this current Nie Huaisang, who wasn’t quite as naïve and self-absorbed as he’d been as a boy, but lacked the cruelty years of solitude and resentment had taught him.

This was Nie Huaisang as he would have been, had the world been a little kinder. A clever young master who watched the world around him and understood people a little too well, but loved fun too much to ever do anything with what he learned, as long as his loved ones were safe.

“I’m glad to be here as well,” Nie Huaisang said.

He shuffled a little closer until he could rest his head against Lan Xichen’s shoulder. It had been years since anyone dared to be so carelessly intimate with Lan Xichen, who found he didn’t mind. Not if it was Nie Huaisang.

“You know, I’ve talked with Wei-xiong today, about this,” Nie Huaisang continued. “About what happened to me, and why, and how. He thinks it’s a curse, and there’s probably a condition that would allow it to be lifted. There usually is, after all. But I think if I really did this to myself, I'd have picked an impossible condition, because I wouldn't want to be saved from it. So I might stay like this for the rest of my life.”

“And you’ll be welcome to stay here that entire time,” Lan Xichen promised without thinking, squeezing Nie Huaisang’s hand again.

“That sounds really nice. I think I’ll take you on your offer, Er-ge,” Nie Huaisang said with a smile that Lan Xichen would have kissed if he’d dared. Later, while lying in his bed, he would wonder if he should have tried, only to eventually decide it would have ruined the moment.

Perhaps someday, in the future, thing would take that direction. For now they both had too much to deal with, too much to learn again about each other. It was fine. Lan Xichen was content to remain like this, sitting close together, holding hands, and watching those swallows finish their nest.

Just this was already more than he’d ever imagined he would get.

[antiquecompass]

And it’s a double ficlet posting day today. Once again since setting all these ficlets in an AU ‘verse kind of steers away from some of the prompts, I’m not posting this one in the official Untamed Fest tag, but it is for Day Six: Quote.

“I can’t believe I’m actually getting to see a professional baseball game in person,” Zizhen said. He was decked out in Red Sox gear, from an obviously new ballcap on his head to the perfectly white Mookie Betts jersey on his back.

“How long have you been attending Lan Academy? And you never took one of the weekend trips to see a day-game?” Jingyi asked.

Zizhen shrugged. “You know my father doesn’t believe in frivolous things. He only let me go this time because Teacher Lan and Mr. Lan-Wei are taking us.” He looked around the ballpark. “Are we not in one of the boxes? Father always gets one of the boxes for sporting events.”

“Are we what?” Jingyi asked, pulling his battered cap further down over his eyes. “We’re here to see a game, Zizhen, not eat caviar or some shit.”

“Though if you do get overheated, the Jins have a suite that we can use,” Shizui said. “That’s where my parents are with our uncles, Auntie Yanli and all the little ones.”

“That means Jin Ling should meet up with us soon,” Jingyi said.

He slid into their usual seats along the third base line. Dad’s season tickets didn’t get as much use as they used to with all of them in Western Massachusetts these days, but the coming of summer meant entire months in Boston, and Sizhui couldn’t wait.

He loved Lan Academy. He loved the Cloud Recesses camp. But Boston would always be home and since Uncle Cheng had offered him and Jingyi summer jobs at Jiang Industries, Sizhui was glad to be back in his city. They’d be working in the mailroom and helping Miss Luo with whatever she needed, but it was job experience. 

“I didn’t expect the seats to be so small,” Zizhen said as he gingerly sat down, trying not to spill his soda or drop his nachos.

“Fenway’s over a hundred years old,” Jingyi said. “There’s only so much they can do when it comes to renovations.”

“It’s about the experience,” Sizhui quickly explained before Jingyi started his baseball lecture. Sizhui actually loved listening to it, to see Jingyi be so passionate over something, but poor Zizhen wasn’t ready to hear that sort of devotional speech as he tried to fold his long legs, sit up straight, and put a napkin over his lap to not mess up his khakis.

They really should have given Zizhen a dress code. When Jingyi had seen the button-up shirt he’d worn, he’d immediately dragged him into the Team Store to buy a jersey. 

“Shove over,” Jin Ling said, appearing in a worn pair of jeans and a faded Nomar Garciaparra shirt Sizhui was sure once belonged to Aunt Yanli. 

“You’re small. Climb over,” Jingyi said.

Honestly, Jingyi deserved to have his hat knocked off his head for that, though Jin Ling did easily climb over him to plop down on Zizhen’s other side. 

“Are those?” Jin Ling looked up at Zizhen then leaned over to look at Jingyi. “Is he wearing khakis?”

“They’re dockers,” Zizhen said. “They’re casual. I went to a department store and bought them myself.”

“And boat shoes?” Jin Ling asked.

“Stop,” Sizhui said. “We don’t all fall into your and Jingyi’s sneaker obsession.” He glanced down at Zizhen’s navy blue cloth shoes. “I like Zizhen’s shoes. I’m sure they’re comfortable, and if something spills on them he won’t immediately be yelling about needing to go clean his shoes.”

“That was one time,” Jingyi said.

“We were in the middle of a date,” Sizhui replied. “At a fairground. What did you think was going to happen?”

“I didn’t expect that much mud!”

“It’s called a weather app,” Jin Ling said. He stole one of Zizhen’s nachos and slid back into his seat. “Now shut up and let’s watch the game.”

**********

By the seventh-inning stretch, the warmer weather was finally starting to get to Sizhui. Zizhen’s enthusiasm had definitely died down, but he was still into the game. Even Jin Ling had started to look deflated. Jingyi would sleep out on the mound if he was given the choice, grass stains and heat stroke be damned, so Sizhui tugged on his hand to get his attention.

“Box time?” Jingyi asked.

Sizhui nodded, digging into his bag to pull out their suite tickets. 

“Oh, good,” Zizhen said. “I’ve needed the restroom for three hours, but I was afraid I’d get lost.”

“Dude, just ask next time. We’ll buddy system it,” Jin Ling said.

The suite was up an elevator and on the first base line, so they gave Zizhen a small tour of the park, quieter now than when they entered. They also got him to a much needed bathroom. As they finally reached the suites, Sizhui was pleased to hear that their family’s wasn’t the loudest one there. When Dad, Uncle Cheng, and all the younger cousins got together, the noise level tended to be ear-shattering.

“Holy shit,” Jingyi said, right before they approached the suite. He grabbed Sizhui and pulled him back, Zizhen and Jin Ling stumbling after them.

“Dude, what the fuck?” Jin Ling asked.

“Look,” Jingyi pointed to two figures down the hall. 

Papa and Mr. Keller. 

That wouldn’t end well.

Jacob Keller had decided, sometime in eighth grade, that Sizhui was his mortal enemy. He’d done his level best to try and make Sizhui’s life hell, but since Sizhui refused to react in the way he knew Jacob wanted, he’d started escalating things last year. An incident in the chem lab that could’ve resulted in serious injury was the final straw. Jacob had been on probation ever since, and recently had started the downslide towards academic probation as well.

Honestly, out of all classes to try and plagiarize a paper in, Sizhui couldn’t even imagine the lack of thought--and arrogance--it took to plagiarize a paper in one of his father’s courses.

On Bernini of all people.

Using the Wikipedia entry and claiming it as original.

“Who is that?” Dad asked, one of the younger cousins hanging off his side and a stick of cotton candy in the other.

He smiled as they all yelped. 

“Are you boys up to mischief? Let me in on it. They’re being boring adults in here.”

Jin Ling grabbed his sister and walked into the suite. “She’s too young to hear any of this,” he explained. “Zizhen, come on. Let’s get you and your precious boat shoes into safety.”

“That’s Mr. Keller,” Zizhen hissed.

“I know,” Jin Ling said.

“Who is Mr. Keller?” Dad asked. 

“Jacob Keller’s dad,” Jingyi said. “He’s an asshole.”

“Jacob or his dad?”

“From the looks of it, both,” Uncle Cheng said, both him and Uncle Xichen leaning out of the suite to see what the problem was.

All of them froze as Mr. Keller grabbed Papa’s arm.

“Does that man want to die?” Uncle Zuxian asked. 

Papa pulled his arm away without a word and walked towards them.

“Hey, you!” Mr. Keller yelled after him. “I’m not done talking to you.”

Papa stilled and turned around. “You are not qualified to speak to me.”

“Excuse me?” Mr. Keller asked.

“Mr. Keller, unless you’ve suddenly obtained degrees in Art History and Secondary Education, you are not qualified to speak to me about my grading system. And in regards to giving my son unfair treatment, I would argue that I grade both my son, and my younger cousin, harsher than other students since I am well aware of their capabilities. Perhaps if you had more concern over your son’s lack of dedication to his schoolwork, you wouldn’t have to accost his teachers on their private time. Your son has already had one hearing regarding the Honor Code after his plagiarism incident. Your actions in this moment are not aiding his cause.”

“And what are you going to do about it?”

“As the Headmaster is standing not even fifteen feet away from you, I shall leave that matter in his capable hands.”

Uncle Cheng took Uncle Xichen’s plate and patted him on the shoulder. “Hey, Law of Averages. It was about time for your job to interrupt our dates.”

Uncle Xichen closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m getting exceedingly tired of the Keller family,” he muttered. He put on his best professional smile as he walked towards Papa and Mr. Keller.

“Mr. Keller, as I’m sure you know from the many letters I have personal typed and sent to your address, to the emails I have also copied both you and your wife on, we have a strict standard of conduct at Lan Academy. This not only extends to our students, but our staff, and I find your unfounded accusations towards one of our most highly decorated teachers an insult not only to me, my family, and my school, but also the honor that Lan Academy prides itself on. Perhaps it was wrong of me to argue for such leniency in young Mr. Keller’s case. Any other school would have expelled him by now, but it is the very teacher you accuse, and one of the students you have insulted, who argued to the Board for your son to stay on at Lan Academy on a probationary basis. I cannot rescind such a decision without a member of the Board present, but know that I will be making inquiries once school resumes on Monday.”

“A member of the Board is present,” Uncle Zixuan said. “And he recommends that perhaps Mr. Keller should find another educational institution for his son’s senior year. Let him finish this year, it’s almost over, but only so many chances can be given.”

Uncle Zixuan stood with his back ramrod straight, all the arrogance Dad and Uncle Cheng had ever accused him of on his face. 

“I can’t imagine how you would ever think it appropriate to air your grievances to a teacher on their private time. The syllabus is sent to you in paper and email form with all the contact information provided. There are teacher conferences once a quarter. Mr. Lan even keeps later office hours after the school day has ended for parents to come by if they make an appointment, knowing full well that some parents have to travel hours to reach the school. Mr. Keller, I am sorry to say you have made an unfortunate decision today.”

“He came here to threaten him,” Dad said, not even bothering to give Mr. Keller a glance. “Grabbing someone like that? Did you think you could shake a Lan’s arm and they’d give in to you?” Dad laughed. “It’s like a fly trying to shake an elephant.”

Mr. Keller narrowed his eyes, but some common sense his son lacked cleared his head.

“You’ll be hearing from my lawyers,” he spat.

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll be hearing from ours first,” Uncle Zixuan said. He waved his hand at a set of security officers. “These officers will see you out now. I hope you enjoy the rest of your afternoon.”

“Uncle Peacock for the smackdown,” Jingyi said. “At least Jin Ling comes by it honestly.”

[ctl-yuejie]

all of @howdydowdy‘s most loveliest tags for my fanfic, you are so wonderful i don’t know how i deserved the good luck to find you ;A;

1. #OH MY GOD!!!!!!!#it's here!! i'm gonna lose my whole entire mind!!!!!#well i hope everybody's ready for me to scream about every single installment as it comes out because this is the most important thing now#i didn't even know turnip!ah yuan was gonna be in it THIS IS THE BEST SURPRISE!!!!!#i feel so honored that my tags had anything to do with inspiring this incredible au but this is absolutely so much better#even in this short installment i'm getting such a good feel for the three characters who have made an appearance so far!#excited to see your lwj!!!#'the only thing his viewers enjoyed more than his content were the occasional take-downs Wen Qing was dishing out in the comment section'#ahahaha you are so funny#PLEASE EVERYONE LOOK AT THIS AMAZING FIC! I'M SO EXCITED FOR IT!!!!#i don't know all the things that are gonna happen but i have a general idea and guys it's such a good au#op is so creative and brilliant!!!#the untamed#ah yuan and his two dads will be the death of me#fic#these are a few of my favorite things

2. #second! installment!! time!!!#i feel like i'm a reader in dickensian london waiting for the new chapter to come out in the magazine#except there's less pollution and i don't have to put coal in an oven#why are those my associations with dickensian london? idk don't worry about it#jiang cheng makes an appearance! okay so i have never really understood him but i've been reading a LOT of fic#and i'm starting to get the picture i think#this is like...just the right amount ominous to get me super excited to see what happens next#WYD JC????#also wwx's characterization is just *chef's kiss*#<3 <3 <3 love u op you're too good to me#puns

3. #ohhhh shit everybody lwj is here! things are happening!!!!#i love all the sibling feels lxc gives me always#in every single fic i read he's like 'lwj i found another boy your age please be friends with him i love you so much'#oOoOoO the shoot will be four whole days i wonder what can happen in four days you guys...#like maybe...mister stoic guqin falling in love with disaster farmer man????#STAY TUNED#you know what just occurred to me is that lwj needs an emotion translator#i'm thinking like luther the anger translator for obama in those key & peele sketches#except it's just someone interpreting all of lwj's stoic faces#i mean lxc can read his faces so you'd think he could do it but idk if lxc himself is emotive enough#i'll have to think about it more

4. #this fic is the gift that keeps on giving#slowly introducing new characters...now we're meeting my sweet baby wen ning...i don't deserve this happiness...#also wei wuxian's carefree chaotic energy is just to die for#and what's this? jiang cheng appears on the horizon? narrowing his eyes at a tumbleweed that rolls across his path#his spurs jingling menacingly as he stalks ever closer?#hold on to yer hats cowboys i smell some Plot approaching#the untamed#fic#(okay also 'explosive arts & crafts projects' ahaha you are the best at these descriptions)

5. #oooooooo things are really coming together my dudes...#more jiang cheng content! okay he is really growing on me. grouch with a heart of gold. huge schemer. just wants to make fun of his BIL with#his brother but feels like he has to prioritize his ~responsibilities~#he loves wwx and understands what motivates him and at the same time just wants him to like. chill#the air quotes ahaha#that wwx makes them and that jc hates it#also i think my favorite image from this is the fact that one of the draws of the tv show is that all the cultivator hosts are handsome#which means that when lxc needed someone to cover for him he just went to the producers like#'no worries my little brother is also super hot so he should meet all your requirements'#'is he personable? no. does he speak in complete sentences? also no. but are the viewers gonna go batshit over his face? absofuckinlutely'#and the producers were like 'oh yeah dude say no more'#this is so fun i'm really enjoying these updates!!!

6. #not the city centre itself but a nearby mound#which sounds unusual and ominous#honey you got a big storm comin'#lwj is getting there early...oh fuck the suspense...#also 'either this is just how show business works or no one really knows what they are doing' why not both lwj??#ahaha i am cackling and steepling my fingers imagining how this is all gonna go down#babe i'm glad you decided not to give me spoilers because it is so fun watching things unfold

7. #i'm just imagining the perspective of the film crew showing up and it's a barren wasteland#they're like...wtf kind of establishing shots are we supposed to take of this??#don't worry guys the cutest child on the planet lives here. just get some footage of him frolicking in the turnip fields#the audience will lose their effing minds

8. #i love jc's logic like 'no one can find out about this or it'll be bad for the family. how to accomplish this? better get a film crew'#also i love how he's lowkey bitter that no one wants to interview him AHAHA jc you peach#and he's like 'maybe i'll watch the show. JUST TO MAKE FUN OF WWX FOR NO OTHER REASON'#wow i'm like becoming really fond of this character op!!!

9. #AHAHA love this image of lwj staring after nhs as he traipses down the street#'fancy birds? tf kinda innuendo is that??'#also lwj deciding to wear all white so that people won't approach him ahaha damn where is my equivalent outfit??#MATCHMAKER LXC STRIKES AGAIN!!!!!#did lxc even have to go out of town for real or was it all a setup to get lwj and wwx in the same place??#wouldn't put it past him tbh#lwj is so perfectly taciturn here i love it#and not just because he's not personable or something it's because he's having FEELINGS#also because wwx never shuts up lol#'he is doomed just like before because even this unknown wei wuxian he wants to be close to and find out who he is'#ughughguhgghhghhh how are you finding and pushing all my buttons???#hot DAMN i am HERE for this!!!

10. #i've now read this three times and i love it more every time!#you have such a way with words and i love how you're getting into wwx's head#it can be hard to relate to him with how dense he can be but you make it all seem incredibly plausible and realistic!!#i love him like 'wonder what it would be like to share a hotel room. it's totally normal that i'm thinking about this'#and like. you show how he got there in his thought process and it makes total sense!#also: lwj as eye candy YES EXACTLY#nhs is the perfect choice for a tv interior designer expert. that is SO what he would be doing in a universe with tv about interior design#okay and MOST IMPORTANTLY we have come to the part in the gifset!! this is the best crack that ever caught feels omg ilysm#demonic blood pool WEI YIIIIIIIING#wen ning being all yeah goth guys and blood pools two great tastes that taste great together#i love everything about this and it was so worth the wait. very excited for the next installment!!!

11. #you are LITCHRALLY killing me with this sharp characterization!! how are you nailing all their voices!!!!#nhs just in it for the hashtag drama that's so spot on omg. breaking all the rules HE wrote just so he can torture jc#all 'are you seeing this??? ARE YOU??' poor nhs and jc having to watch these two lovesick fools make googly eyes at each other#for YEARS and not REALIZE it well it's your lucky day mr. fan man because soon the whole world will see this UST and validate you#okay but what i love the most is jc the masochist being so uncomfortable he has to keep turning off the video ahahahaha#wangxian out here romancing so hard that jc needs a barf bag. or therapy. or selective amnesia.#you ever get secondhand mortifying ordeal of being known? that's what's happening for jc here#it's mortifying watching other people experience the ordeal of being known. this is the hardest i have ever related to jc#it's like oh fuck. lwj loves wwx and it's so obvious. oh my god. i'm so embarrassed.#wwx is so gone for lwj and it's right there on his face for anyone to read. i'm in agony.#ALSO 'jiang cheng can feel his head get hot and he drops the phone on the table like it personally betrayed him' THANK U FOR THIS#everything about this is the best and my favorite#ahhh i'm so excited for the next chapters and so glad they're already up so i can read them right now!!!!

12. #lxc shooting lwj pointed looks every time the jiang sect comes up in conversation for the past 13 years!!!!! he would!!!!!!#i love the way you describe wwx through lwj's eyes. the love just shines through#also you are so insightful about his character but what else is new??? you're the character breakdown QUEEN#OH MY GOD AH YUAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111#i am writing these tags as i read or that would have been the first tag it's SO important#i mean my tag isn't important it's incoherent but AH YUAN IS IMPORTANT!!!!!#you really want me to die. you really want me to be all the way murdered.#this image of lwj just standing there with impeccable posture one arm behind his back the other holding a sword in the air randomly#with this squirmy lil bab clutching at his clothes and reaching up on his tiptoes#okay dang i didn't know there was gonna be action! intrigue!! an ambush!!!#this fic really has it all#bamf!wwx and rescuer!lwj#battle couple ftw#NOT TO MENTION DRUNK!LWJ!!! SELF SACRIFICING!LWJ!!!!!#how am i supposed to live knowing lwj Did That#ughghughghgughgh#'at least i made him happy.' at least you made him happy???!?!?!?#just let me live for a second!!!#just one second though then i'm gonna read the next chapter

13. #awwww jiang 'I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU I'VE JUST BEEN CUTTING ONIONS' cheng gets a tear in his eye#they are...a fambly.....#my man lxc coming thru for the people!! title of my upcoming inspirational children's book: Lan Xichen Takes a Stand#op you made me love jiang cheng. i'm in it now

14. #omg i forgot that you had written this and sent it to me weeks ago so when i read it just now i was like...obviously that's what happened???#i had already just fully incorporated it into my understanding of these characters in my head and forgotten how it got there#so this was the BEST surprise#i can't believe you. putting ah yuan and bunnies in the same chapter because you love drowning me in cute#soft domestic adoptive dad content???? ugh i literally need to lie down and go into a coma.#just a lil coma. to recharge my feels.#i don't know what you could possibly be putting in the 'extra' but i am. vibrating with excitement!!!!#this is one of my favorite fics ever and i'm forever happy that you came up with this amazing idea and executed it so well#I APPRECIATE AND ADORE YOU!!!#HEART EYES EMOJI#these are a few of my favorite things#the untamed#ah yuan and his two dads will be the death of me

15. #OH MY GOD NHS MASTERMINDED ALL OF IT#this is so perfect i'm in awe!!!!#of course he did!!!!#also 'he had been very invested in this romance he had even painted themed fans for this' ahahaha#these schemes! these machinations!! he got lxc out of the way! he put the idea in jc's head! ahhhhh!#mr. fan man

[robininthelabyrinth]

Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng start hooking up post-canon and Wei Wuxian assumes it's part of a scheme on Nie Huaisang's part. Possibly it was actually a scheme but Nie Huaisang got into it anyway. Or if sadness is more your thing, he didn't, and Wei Wuxian is left being like "see Jiang Cheng? I knew he couldn't have been hanging around with you for fun!"

ao3 (short)

“You need to stop,” Wei Wuxian said, his eyes narrow and expression fierce.

It was a lot less effective on Mo Xuanyu’s face than it had been on his original features. No one had yet told him, presumably out of a desire to avoid being murdered by Lan Wangji for making his lover sad.

Nie Huaisang frowned at him. “Stop…what?”

“Whatever it is you’re up to!”

Oh, were they doing this again?

Nie Huaisang opened up a fan and hid his face behind it in a single movement – he’d gotten really good at it over the years – and started idly fanning himself. “Wei-xiong, really, you’ll need to be more specific. I’m up to so many things, don’t you know…?”

Normally Nie Huaisang wouldn’t bother playing along, but he could see Jiang Cheng coming down the hallway at an angle that put him directly in Wei Wuxian’s blind spot – if there was one thing Jinlin Tower was good for, it was not seeing people – and he could already see Jiang Cheng starting to smile at his nonsense, which was obviously far more important than whatever it was that Wei Wuxian thought he’d figured out.

Hmm. Maybe Nie Huaisang was being too hasty in judging Lan Wangji’s rudeness – love really did make you do the stupidest things…

“I meant in relation to Jiang Cheng.”

Nie Huaisang stopped fanning and stared blankly at him. A few steps away from the turn, he saw Jiang Cheng come to a halt as well, already scowling.

“Jiang – Cheng?” he said hesitantly. “What exactly does Wei-xiong think I’m doing with Jiang-xiong?”

Wei Wuxian crossed his arms. “I’m not sure,” he said. “What are you doing?”

Nie Huaisang blinked at him. “But if I knew that, Wei-xiong, I wouldn’t have asked you, would I?”

The main problem Wei Wuxian had with confronting Nie Huaisang about anything, really, was that he genuinely found Nie Huaisang terribly funny. The twitching lips made the glaring more difficult.

(Behind him, Jiang Cheng was rolling his eyes, a full-body production that involved a great deal of heaving of shoulders and clutching at his head at the rampant stupidity on display. Nie Huaisang appreciated his lover's dedication to the art.)

Still – and this part was worrisome – Wei Wuxian’s smile faded away soon enough, replaced by a solemn expression.

“We may not be on the best of terms right now,” he said. “But he’s still very dear to me. I won’t put up with you using him as part of one of your schemes.”

“I don’t actually have any schemes,” Nie Huaisang said, mostly because Jiang Cheng was frowning now and Nie Huaisang did not want Wei Wuxian to mess up his budding relationship. “Really, Wei-xiong! I had one scheme, and it took me over a decade – I’m hardly the shadowy puppet-master mastermind you seem to sometimes seem to take me as. Why would you think that I’m using Jiang-xiong?”

“You’re deceitful,” Wei Wuxian said. “You made Jin Guangyao think that you were weak and dependent on him for years even as you plotted to bring him down. And now you’re pulling the same thing on Jiang Cheng – what am I supposed to think?”

Wei Wuxian must have seen them in the market, Nie Huaisang thought. He’d been carping around, playing up his good-for-nothing self – Jiang Cheng liked it when he did that. Mostly because Nie Huaisang really was a bit of a good-for-nothing, his one scheme claim to fame being firmly in the past; his cultivation was weak, his achievements few, his personality…questionable…

(Jin Ling had, upon discovering them spending time together, told Nie Huaisang that he fit everyone one of the criteria that Jiang Cheng had set out for a wife, right down to the weaker level of cultivation and the proper family background. Nie Huaisang had bought him some candy on the basis that ‘be nice to Jin Ling’ was on the list, and told him to think about the type of mileage he could get out of something like that. Jin Ling had looked appropriately thoughtful, after.

Nie Huaisang was a very good influence – or possibly a bad one, he wasn’t sure.)

At any rate, Jiang Cheng liked indulging him, liked and was reassured by the contrast between them. No one looking at them would ever put Jiang Cheng second – Nie Huaisang wasn’t even prettier! – except maybe in terms of insults, and even Jiang Cheng had to admit that he didn’t really want the privilege of being called the worst Great Sect leader, even if it was a superlative.

Wei Wuxian must have seen.

Wei Wuxian must have totally misunderstood.

“Jiang-xiong was at the Guanyin temple as well,” Nie Huaisang pointed out. “It’s not like er-ge at all.”

Wei Wuxian frowned. “Do you really have the right to call Lan-da-ge that?”

“My brother’s no less my brother because he’s dead, and he kept his oath to the end,” Nie Huaisang pointed out. “Why should the other two be released from the obligations of their oath just because they chose to foreswear their side of it?”

“Stop getting away from the point,” Wei Wuxian said, probably because Nie Huaisang was right. Bitter and mean and resentful, but right. “Whatever you’re scheming that involves Jiang Cheng, stop it.”

“No.”

Wei Wuxian blinked.

“I’m not scheming, but even if I was, the target would be Jiang Cheng,” Nie Huaisang explained. “You don’t understand, Wei-xiong. You see, I like Jiang Cheng.”

“I’m sure you do,” Wei Wuxian said. “But I also think you liked Jin Guangyao, a bit.”

Maybe he had. A bit.

But it wasn’t the same at all!

“I especially won’t tolerate you using him for sex while also –”

“Wei Wuxian!” Jiang Cheng bellowed, and Wei Wuxian jumped a chi into the air.

Nie Huaisang fanned himself. “Oh good,” he said. “I was about to be worried that you’d misunderstand, Jiang-xiong, but luckily Wei-xiong decided to take all the awkwardness onto himself.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” Jiang Cheng snarled at Wei Wuxian, who blanched but scowled back.

“I was just trying to help –”

“By embarrassing me?”

“How is it embarrassing to you?!”

“You think I’d be – what – led around by my dick like some new model Jin Guangshan –”

“Oh, that’s a good insult,” Nie Huaisnag said approvingly. “I’m going to need to use that in the future. What do you think the odds are for Lan Wangji biting me if I said it to him?”

That got both of them to stop fighting and turn to look at him.

“What? Does he only bite people he likes now? He used to bite everybody.”

Blank staring.

“That was back when he was five,” Nie Huaisang allowed. “It’s been a while.”

“You have stories about baby Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian said at once, as one might’ve expected. “I want them. All of them. Now.”

“Weren’t you threatening him a moment ago?!”

“That’s different! That was for you!”

“Right, because you don’t think anyone would actually like me,” Jiang Cheng said.

He sounded hurt.

Unacceptable.

“I’m sure Wei-xiong just meant that you were so unbearably attractive that people would compete for the opportunity to manipulate them into your bed,” Nie Huaisang assured him while Wei Wuxian was still trying to find words. “And since Wei-xiong thinks I’m the best schemer, obviously I won hands down, and secretly eliminated all my love rivals to boot. It's all my fault. Alas! I've been caught red-handed!”

“Are you actually capable of saying a single word that isn’t complete nonsense?” Jiang Cheng asked him, his tone having returned to exasperated and fond, which was worlds better than hurt.

Nie Huaisang considered the question seriously and then shook his head.

“You…! Good-for-nothing!”

Nie Huaisang nodded happily. “Your good-for-nothing,” he said cheerfully. “I’m going to make you do everything for me from now on.”

He was, too.

Wei Wuxian looked between them. “Wait,” he said. “Is this – a thing?”

“If you mean Jiang-xiong and I, yes,” Nie Huaisang said. “He’s been courting me for years, and I refused.”

“Only on the basis of a secret murder plot which you didn’t want to get me involved in.”

“How was I to know that everything would turn out well in the end? I thought there was every chance san-ge would find a way to drag me down with him. I couldn’t let that happen to you, of course.”

“Of course,” Jiang Cheng jeered, but he looked pleased and smug the way he always did when Nie Huaisang admitted to having been won over by the very first day of his courtship, years ago. He liked being successful at things.

“No,” Wei Wuxian said. “Not that. The – good-for-nothing thing. It’s a thing. For you two.”

“Fighting words,” Nie Huaisang remarked, even as Jiang Cheng flushed red. “Coming from the dreadful Yiling Patriarch that needs to be defeated by the mighty and righteous Hanguang-jun and then taken away for a good ravishing –”

“Wei Wuxian!”

“Uh - listen – I can explain – actually, no, I can’t. Nie-xiong, you have my blessing, just don’t break his heart, bye.”

“Come back here you -!”

Yes, Nie Huaisang decided, watching Jiang Cheng chase Wei Wuxian. This was the best possible result.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Prompt~ hoping you'll like it ♥️

Things between the Nie brothers are not always nice and happy, they fight, just like any other pair of brothers, and sometimes things are said, sometimes these things are heavy and painful. Sometimes they're said in the wrong moment (maybe at the eve of a battle? Sunshot campaign?) and huaisang doesn't know what to do with the broken look his brother gives him before leaving the unclean realm. Because what if he doesn't return? What if the last thing he said to him was how much he hated the man he became?

Labyrinth - ao3

“But I didn’t mean to wish him away!” Nie Huaisang cried out.

“That’s really too bad,” the goblin king said, looking pleasant and humble and charming the way he always did, even in his cape of glittering gold and high-browed hat. “I wish there was something I could do for you, but the rules are the rules. You wished him away, and I took him.”

“Aren’t you supposed to only take babies?” Nie Huaisang demanded.

“Your brother’s enough of a crybaby to count, it’s close enough.”

“It is not!” Nie Huaisang wrung his hands. “You don’t understand, the last thing I said to him was that I hated him! Meng Yao, please!”

“It’s Jin Guangyao,” the goblin king corrected. His smile looked a bit strained. “Listen, do you think I’m happy about this? He’s my sworn brother! I’m only doing what I have to –”

“Oh, save it for Lan Xichen,” Nie Huaisang growled. “Show me the labyrinth already.”

“You’re going to face the labyrinth,” the goblin king said. His voice was very polite, and yet still expressed significant doubt. “You.”

“Yeah, me!”

“You remember that it goes ‘through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered’, right? Not ‘through a nice teacher and a forgiving grading system’?”

“Yeah, well, your father is a fragging aardvark. Let me at the labyrinth already!”

-

“You know what,” Nie Huaisang said thoughtfully. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

The life-sized animated puppet blinked at him. “You – don’t want my help?”

“Nope. I’m good.”

“You haven’t even gotten into the labyrinth yet!”

“It wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t have a chance to get in,” Nie Huaisang said, patting around his sleeve and pulling out a fan. “So I’m just going to walk over and beat at the wall till something happens.”

The puppet followed him, staring blankly. Quite a change from his original apologetic ‘I’m sorry, I’m busy with my own things, I really can’t help you, also it’s too dangerous and you shouldn’t go’ response.

“You were blackmailing me to help you just a moment ago,” the puppet said after a little. “Don’t you need a guide?”

“Listen, I’m bad at memorizing things and I’m a little useless, but I’m not actually dumb,” Nie Huaisang said, fanning himself. “Jin Guangyao is a demon of the mind above all else, and the labyrinth is supposed to be ‘fair’ – which means, more than likely, that the labyrinth is a reflection of the subconscious, specially tailored to each person’s strengths and weaknesses. And that means that you, who sound exactly like Lan Xichen, are almost certainly a set-up sent by Jin Guangyao to ‘reluctantly’ aid me and then betray me.”

“Uh,” Lan Xichen-the-puppet said. “My name’s Hoggle, actually.”

“Whatever makes you feel better, er-ge…A-ha!” Nie Huaisang beamed at the gates that automatically opened. “Perfect!”

-

“Oh, don’t go that way,” the worm said. “Never go that way. And are you sure you don’t want to come in for a cup of tea?”

“No time,” Nie Huaisang said. “Thanks a lot – wait.”

The worm blinked at him.

“You’re a pretty attractive worm, in a slimy sort of way,” Nie Huaisang said, frowning at him.

The worm blinked again. “Why, thanks!”

“No, that’s not what I meant. Is your name Su She, by chance?”

“Definitely not!”

“Mm. Oddly vehement of you. Never mind. Just, quick, could you tell me exactly why do I not want to go that way?”

-

“I don’t suppose straight ahead is an option?”

The hands-faces stared at him.

“I’m just saying, I feel like most of my problems so far have come from the fact that I decided to accept the whole concept of turns. It seems like a mistake.”

“…it’s a labyrinth,” another set of the hands said. “You have to make turns!”

Nie Huaisang shook his head mournfully. “I should’ve brought Baxia or something and just – ZIP. Gone straight through. You know what I mean?”

“I’m dropping you in the oubliette regardless of your decision,” the first set of the hands said. It sounded a bit like Sect Leader Yao. “Just so you know.”

“My life is so hard,” Nie Huaisang sighed. “So hard! Do you know what it’s like to be overlooked by everyone? Do you know how hard I have to work at being this useless?”

“Drop him,” the set of hands that sounded like Sect Leader Ouyang said, and the set of hands that sounded like Sect Leader Yao said, “Yes. Now!”

Down Nie Huaisang went.

-

“I can take you back to the beginning of the labyrinth,” Lan Xichen offered.

“What, and waste all that time? I have a time limit, er-ge!”

“It’s better than being stuck in an oubliette. That’s where they put people to forget about them, you know.”

Nie Huaisang’s eyes filled with tears. “You want to forget me, er-ge? You think I’m useless, don’t you? A good-for-nothing, who’ll never amount to anything –”

“Please don’t cry.”

“ER-GE! WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME!”

“Please stop crying!”

-

“So what’s the point of you?” Nie Huaisang asked the Wise Man with the Talking Hat.

“Not everyone exists to contribute to your storyline,” the Talking Hat snapped at him. “Some of us’ve got our own problems. Now hand over the candy!”

“Don’t be mean,” the Wise Man said. He had a white cloth over his eyes, and was smiling like he found the hat funny.

“Awww, but daozhang…!”

“Different plotline entirely, I guess,” Nie Huaisang decided. “Probably just here as a foil. Shall we keep going, er-ge?”

“I can’t believe you scammed me to get out of the oubliette,” Lan Xichen mumbled. “I can’t believe…”

-

“Oh, leave him alone, he’s just sensitive!” Nie Huaisang snapped.

“Am not!” the upside-down creature snarled, curled up on itself and trying to hide from all those that had been hitting him. Its fur was a vivid sort of purple. “Go away!”

“Don’t you have some sort of special power to help you here,” Nie Huaisang asked him as he tried to get him down before the goblins came back with weapons. “Rocks, maybe?”

“…lightning?”

“Well then get to it, will you?” Nie Huaisang frowned. “Wait. Lightning, constantly being tormented, terrible at communication, and purple? You’re Jiang Cheng, aren’t you?”

“…maybe.”

“Well then get down faster! I need to copy someone’s notes here!”

-

“Leave me aloooooooone!” Nie Huaisang howled, running away from the measuring snake.

-

“Wow,” Lan Xichen said, holding his cheek. “You kissed me.”

“You saved me from the snakes,” Nie Huaisang said. “Can we focus on how we’re in this awful stinking bog?”

“It’s not that bad!” a voice piped up. “I don’t smell anything!”

Nie Huaisang turned to stare, then pinched the bridge of his nose. “Of course you don’t,” he said. “I bet the total absence of a sense of smell helps when you eat spicy food, Wei-xiong.”

“There’s nothing wrong with spicy food!”

“You’re short,” Nie Huaisang informed the small goblin-like creature with the big grin and the red ribbon in its hair. It looked vaguely fox-like, or possibly like certain large breeds of rabbit.

“Why you..!” Wei Wuxian crossed his furry little paws over his chest. “Just for that, I’m not going to help you.”

“Uh-huh,” Nie Huaisang said. “Really. That’s awful…oh no! A dog!”

Wei Wuxian jumped high into the air. “A dog?! Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan! Save me!”

Much to Nie Huaisang’s surprise, a furry dog immediately darted out of nowhere – only Wei Wuxian didn’t seem afraid of it, but rather hid behind it, teeth chattering.

Truly, Nie Huaisang reflected, the eyes of love are blind.

“I think the ‘dog’ is gone now,” he said. “Your brave and noble Lan Wangji must’ve scared him away.”

Wei Wuxian’s head popped out from behind dog-Wangji. “Well, Lan Zhan is really cool…hey. Are you trying to manipulate me?”

“Is it working?”

“No!”

“So you won’t help me?”

“No!”

“Not even if it means you get to figure out a really tricky puzzle?”

“No – wait. A puzzle?”

“I can’t believe this is going to work,” Lan Xichen muttered from behind Nie Huaisang. “I mean, I can. But also…Wangji…I love you, but you could do so much better than this.”

-

“Ugh,” Nie Huaisang said. “I’m so thirsty.”

“Have some Emperor’s Smile,” Lan Xichen said, offering a jar.

“Amazing,” Nie Huaisang said, accepting it and taking a swing. “I had my doubts, you know, but you’re actually good for something after all, er-ge –”

-

The golden bird was Nie Huaisang’s favorite.

He’d worked so hard to bring it back to his aviary – it couldn’t be forced, he knew; it would play along at first but in the end it would turn on you and bite you. It had to be coaxed with gentleness and kindness, approached indirectly so as not to spook it, convince it that you really did mean well – that you were harmless, that it had no reason to fear you. It was arrogant, too, proud of its shining feathers and ashamed of the brown plumage of its chick days, which still remained visible on its tender underbelly. Ironically, that was Nie Huaisang’s favorite part of it, the soft and gentle part; it might not be as pretty as the gold, but it felt more genuine.

Nie Huaisang smiled as he brushed the beautiful feathers, and the golden bird allowed him. He felt cherished, treasured. So what if he had to hide all the sharp parts of himself to get this close?

It was fine. He didn’t like to be sharp.

He wanted to be soft. Soft and gentle, careless and free, relaxed and without effort, good for nothing –

Wait.

No!

-

“It’s all junk,” Nie Huaisang hissed at the pile of burning fans, tears in his eyes. “I want my da-ge!”

-

“You’re all right!” Wei Wuxian exclaimed, helping pulled Nie Huaisang up.

“Huaisang-xiong,” Jiang Cheng said, looking relieved. “You’re back.”

“We have to go to the temple beyond the Goblin City,” Nie Huaisang said, teeth gritted together. “We have to. I won’t let that bastard…we’re going to go there and throw all his damned tricks right in his face!”

“Just us?” Wei Wuxian asked. “I mean, I’m awesome, Lan Zhan is fantastic, and of course Jiang Cheng is great, too, but…uh…there’s a lot of goblins in the city.”

“We’ll sneak in,” Nie Huaisang said. “He thinks he’s sidelined me entirely – he thinks I’m useless. He won’t be expecting me to get this far.”

“I can get help,” Jiang Cheng said. “I have friends.”

“…not to be rude, Jiang-xiong,” Nie Huaisang said. “But – really?”

-

“You know what,” Nie Huaisang said, eyeing the pile of rocks following Jiang Cheng around, each one painted with a name. One of the names was yellow. Two were in white, with forehead ribbons. “This is fine. I feel like it says something really rude about my empathy for and interest in our junior generation, or lack thereof, but you know what? I don’t care. It’s fine.”

-

“You saved me,” Nie Huaisang said blankly, looking at Lan Xichen, who shrugged, abashed. The remains of the mechanical temple guard were scattered all over. “Over – him?”

“Huaisang –”

“No,” Nie Huaisang said, holding up his hands. “Don’t. Don’t…I don’t want to hear you talk.”

Lan Xichen’s head dropped down and he looked at the ground. “You knew from the beginning what I was like,” he murmured. “I never tried to hide it –”

“I forgive you for being what you are,” Nie Huaisang told him, and Lan Xichen looked up at him, startled and pleased. “I forgive you for not having the backbone to stand up against Jin Guangyao for me – or for da-ge. For being willfully blind for so long, for needing someone else’s proof of his ill-intentions, for always picking him first, for never trusting me…I forgive you, even if you’d never forgive me for the same.”

He dashed away the angry tears in his eyes.

“I just wish this wasn’t a fucking metaphor.”

-

Nie Huaisang left the fighting to the people who knew what to do – Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji, Jiang Cheng, even the rock-juniors – and went to the temple at the center of the city alone.

Some things, he knew, needed to be done alone, even if it was the type of alone when you were surrounded by other people. Even when those other people stood by his side and made him promise that if he needed them, he would only need to call. Some things…

“I want my da-ge back,” he said to the maze of stairs.

“Then go and find him,” Jin Guangyao replied, looking smug, and Nie Huaisang had to go up and down all those fucking stairs, because Jin Guangyao was nothing if not predictable with his trauma, looking all over, looking for –

Looking for pieces.

“It’s just a metaphor,” he whispered to himself, ignoring how tears were streaming down his face. “It’s just – I need to put him back together, it’s fine. I’m not too late – I’m not too late –”

-

Jin Guangyao held Nie Mingjue’s head in his hands, blinded and gagged and bound with talismans, pulled out of whatever oubliette he'd shoved it into to forget about what he'd done. “Beware, Huaisang,” he said, still smiling. Always smiling. “I’ve been generous up until now, but I can be cruel.”

Nie Huaisang laughed, scoffing. “Generous? What have you done for me that’s generous?”

“Everything! Everything you’ve wanted, I’ve done – I cared for you, I gave you attention, I got you out of work, doing your schoolwork for you and coming up with excuses to get you out of saber training. I gave you presents, fans and pretty clothing, and when that brute of a brother of yours tried to take them from you, I rescued you. And then I even managed your sect for you, answered all of your questions, any time you had – Huaisang, I’m exhausted trying to live up to your expectations of me. Isn’t that generous?”

Nie Huaisang bared his teeth. “Half of those are burdens that only fell on me because of you. Why should it matter to me that cleaning up your own mess and satisfying your own guilt is hard? Why should I pay such a price when all I wanted was to be your friend? When all da-ge wanted was to be your friend? How dare you, Meng Yao!”

“Huaisang…” Jin Guangyao shook his head mournfully. “Huaisang, the last step here is to say the words to break the spell. But you were never good at memorization, were you?”

Nie Huaisang bit his lip until he drew blood.

“Through dangers untold, and hardships unnumbered,” he said. “I have fought my way here to the temple beyond the goblin city –”

“Huaisang, stop! Look at what you’re risking here. You know how everyone loves me – do you think anyone will forgive you for taking me down, for tricking them all? You’ll be all alone!”

I already am, Nie Huaisang thought.

“My will is as strong as yours,” he said. “And my kingdom is as great…”

His voice trailed off.

“I ask for so little,” Jin Guangyao said beseechingly, convincingly, looking just like he always did, like the man who'd been their friend. “Just let me fool you, and you can have anything you want. No responsibilities, no stress, a life of your own. You can even have Lan Xichen, if that’s what you want…”

What’s the last line, Nie Huaisang thought, hating himself for being such a poor student, for cramming things into his mind without any order, for never being able to retain a single drop of it no matter how hard he tried. What is it? Why can’t I ever remember?

“It’d be so easy,” Jin Guangyao crooned. “Much easier than this. Just fear me, love me, believe me, and I’ll be your slave.”

Sharp teeth in a false smile.

Nie Huaisang shook in terror. He couldn’t – his da-ge needed him – he couldn’t be afraid, couldn’t be a coward, couldn’t be good-for-nothing – couldn’t let Jin Guangyao win – couldn’t let him –

That was it.

Nie Huaisang raised his head until his eyes met his enemy’s.

Sensing something wrong, Jin Guangyao’s eternal smile dimmed, and he began to step forward, reaching out, but it was too late.

“You have no power over me,” Nie Huaisang declared, and the world within a world collapsed.

-

Nie Huaisang opened his eyes.

-

Nie Huaisang sat in his desk in the Unclean Realm, trying to amuse himself by trying to figure out what exactly he’d eaten the night before that had given him such bizarre dreams. It was not successful, on account of him being alone.

Alone, just as he had been every night, and every day as well, since the success of his scheme at the Guanyin Temple.

Just as the dream-Jin Guangyao had threatened.

It wasn’t that Nie Huaisang regretted what he had done – the dream was clear enough about that; he’d do it all again in a heartbeat if he had to. But in the dream he’d been working alongside his former friends, with Lan Xichen betraying but then returning to him, with Wei Wuxian dragging Lan Wangji around, with stone-faced Jiang Cheng and the rather interchangeable junior squad behind him…and in his dream, in the end, they’d let him go to take his revenge, telling him that if he needed them for any reason, he could just call.

Just call, and they’d come back to him. Instead of turning from him in disgust, they’d stand by his side…

“Stupid subconscious,” Nie Huaisang mumbled to himself. “What do you expect? That I'd write to them and say ‘for no real reason at all, I find that I rather need you’?”

Silence answered him.

“Well, I do,” he said with a sigh, putting his chin on his hands. “Does that make you happy? I do need you.”

“You do?” Wei Wuxian’s voice rang out, and Nie Huaisang jumped nearly out of his skin. “Well, why didn’t you say so?”

Nie Huaisang turned, staring: it was Wei Wuxian at the door, the human version of him, and of course there was Lan Wangji right before him, and Jiang Cheng, and the (still mostly interchangeable) juniors, and – and even Lan Xichen, who Nie Huaisang was sure had gone into seclusion with no intent to leave.

“What are you doing here?” Nie Huaisang squeaked. And why hadn’t any of his sect disciples warned him?

“We just bullied our way though the door before anyone could stop us,” Wei Wuxian said cheerfully, answering the unspoken question first. “As for the rest – it turns out that I had the strangest dream the other night, really, truly bizarre, and obviously I had to tell Lan Zhan all about it, except it turned out he had a strange dream too.”

Nie Huaisang’s jaw dropped. “But –”

“I felt da-ge’s qi woven into the labyrinth,” Lan Xichen said quietly. “I thought it’d have long ago dissipated or been locked away, but – it was there, in every stone, in every turn. Every obstacle that didn’t really hurt you, every goblin that was more silly than scary…he was there. It was unmistakable.”

Nie Huaisang swallowed. The story of the labyrinth, baby-stealing wish-granting goblin king and all, had been one that Nie Mingjue had told him as a bedtime story, when he'd been a child in need of comfort; he hadn’t thought of it in years before last night. “But…why…?”

“Because Chifeng-zun has a demented sense of humor?” Jiang Cheng suggested, looking irritated.

“Jiujiu means that he hasn’t had that much fun in years, and also that you should throw a party,” Jin Ling said. “You are hosting all three of the sect leaders of all the other Great Sects. Also, why were we rocks?”

“Uh, no idea,” Nie Huaisang said. “Da-ge’s weird sense of humor, no doubt! Anyway, did you say party? I can do a party!”

He rushed out of the room, calling for his servants, calling for them to bring food and wine and tea, and as he did, he looked out of the window – a golden bird was flying away, looking hunted as if something was chasing it, and even as he watched, it crossed the borders of the Unclean Realm and suddenly dissolved into a fizzle of golden dust.

Nie Huaisang put his hand on the stone wall, and felt a familiar echo.

A very familiar echo.

“Oh,” he said, to his servants, feeling somehow simultaneously sheepish and filled with joy. “And while you’re at it, can you bring me my saber? I seem to have – misplaced it…”

[robininthelabyrinth]

Same universe as the one where LXC kills JGY on a boat to not-Japan. JRS-centric as he grows up in the Nie clan and deals with his reputation as an inbred son of a traitorous bastard.

so I don't think I've ever written a fic in which LXC kills JGY on a boat, and definitely not one where JRS is a character? I mean, I've written a lot of fics, so possibly I did and I forgot, but I'm pretty sure about this one.

That being said, I don't think I've gotten any Jin Rusong prompts before so I'm reinterpreting this to be a prompt for a fic about JRS growing up in the Nie clan. Fic below!

ao3

-

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, Nie Huaisang reminded himself. Risk is proportionate with reward. Your spine should be made of steel, just as your saber is.

He licked his lips, thought of his brother who had loved him, and threw himself forward with tears in his eyes.

“Oh, gongzi!” he blubbered. “Can you help me? I’ve gotten completelylost, I don’t even know where to begin –”

Xue Yang blinked at him, the lids of his eyes moving slowly like a reptile.

“Maybe you know where my san-ge is? Lianfeng-zun?”

The feeling of immediate threat lessened. It seemed he’d gambled right, and the rabid dog that was Xue Yang could still be controlled by reference to Jin Guangyao.

“I’d really appreciate it if you could just give me some guidance on where to find him,” Nie Huaisang said, lowering his voice confidentially. “I’d be sure to pay you back! If there’s anything you want –”

“Do you have any snacks?” Xue Yang asked.

Nie Huaisang, who had come prepared based on the rumors he’d painstakingly collected, produced some dragons’ beard candy.

“Not bad,” Xue Yang said. “Okay, sure.”

Nie Huaisang smiled, and even meant it.

-

“Hey, good-for-nothing,” Xue Yang said, and Nie Huaisang turned to look at his least favorite but nevertheless highly useful source of information in Lanling Jin. The fact that Xue Yang had no idea that he was functioning as such just made it more satisfactory. “You like kids, right?”

Nie Huaisang blinked. “Yes?” he hazarded, not so much because he actually did – he’d never had strong feelings about children one way or the other, though perhaps he was being presumptuous in thinking that the reference did not involve goats – but because that seemed to be the answer Xue Yang was looking for.

Xue Yang wrinkled his nose in distaste, though not, Nie Huaisang thought, at him.

“Theoretically,” he said, and he wouldn’t know ‘theoretical’ if it hit him in the face, ��if there were, I don’t know, a whole bunch of them hanging around somewhere without parents, you’d be able to do something about that, right? Especially if they had a talent for cultivation?”

It took only a moment to piece together what must have happened to lead to such a question, given the ruthlessness of the cultivation world and of Jin Guangyao in particular, and Nie Huaisang marveled briefly at the idea that Xue Yang might draw a moral line in the sand over something. Presumably he felt some kinship to the children, being similarly utterly infantile, amoral, and fond of sweet things.

“Oh sure!” he said, playing up the brainless idiot who didn’t know to ask questions. “My sect is always recruiting, you know. We took some losses in the war and, well, I feel like adult cultivators aren’t really all that interestedin joining ever since I took over…”

“Because you’re a waste of space,” Xue Yang said, and Nie Huaisang pouted at him. “Whatever, the important thing is that you have space for kids. Orphans. Think, like, a whole orphanage getting shut down or whatever – anyway, not important. You’d take them back to Qinghe, right?”

“Oh, that would be so wonderful!” Nie Huaisang clapped. “That would suit everyone, wouldn’t it? They don’t have to worry about the children, and we get new disciples. I should tell san-ge – no, on second thought, he might be too busy –”

“Definitely too busy,” Xue Yang said quickly. “Wouldn’t it be nice to accomplish something yourself? You could casually show him that your numbers went up at the end of the month instead so he gives you the credit, without explaining that it’s kids making up the increase.”

“That’s a great idea! He’ll be much more impressed by that, I should definitely do that. Where is the orphanage?”

“…uh, in the forest. The back forest.”

You couldn’t come up with a better lie?

“You already brought them here?” Nie Huaisang asked, batting his eyelashes. “You’re so nice, Xue-xiong! I’ll go tell my second in command to go deal with it right away!”

-

It was in the fifth round of kids getting picked up – small cultivation clans being massacred and there was nothing Nie Huaisang could do about it, because there was either no evidence or else Jin Guangyao had come up with some motive to justify his actions and, inevitably, Lan Xichen would be there behind him, soothing over tempers and providing explanations because he believed him, every time – that something unusual happened.

“Sect Leader Nie,” one of his most trusted subordinates murmured into his ear. “There’s a problem.”

Nie Huaisang found a reason to leave the party early, a reason to go to the rendezvous point, and, once there, found the reason for the problem.

“Oh, hey there,” he said with a smile fixed onto his face by sheer force of willpower, crouching down to make himself seem less intimidating. Not that he was ever particularly intimidating, though given the rage coursing through his veins right now, he thought he might be able to pull it off if he tried. “What a lucky chance! It’s so funny, finding you here, Songsong. How are you?”

Jin Rusong wiped his eyes and looked tearily at him, recognized that the person asking was his Little Uncle Nie, and threw himself into Nie Huaisang’s arms with a howl.

This was pretty typical – Jin Rusong wasn’t much of a crier, but when he did he definitely took Nie Huaisang as his model, something all the other adults in the cultivation world had a tendency to give Nie Huaisang dirty looks over.

The only problem here, of course, was that Jin Rusong was dead.

Or, rather…he was supposed to be dead.

And if Jin Rusong was here – here, in the rendezvous point where Xue Yang put those of his prospective victims that happened to be a little too young for even him to stomach killing, at least without the personal grudge that had driven him to slaughter the Chang clan in its entirety – that meant only one thing.

Jin Guangyao had ordered his own son to be murdered.

Through demonic cultivation, no less, which was a pretty nasty way to go. There was a reason everyone implicitly countenanced Jiang Cheng’s vendetta against demonic cultivators no matter where they were, even when he ignored all territory lines and forgot to not ask for permission – the things a demonic cultivator gone bad could do were just so much worse than what anyone else could that they couldn’t risk any delay in dealing with the problem.

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?

-

“There has to be a reason,” Nie Huaisang insisted. “He’s not rabid. Songsong was his son!”

“Sect Leader Nie, we can’t find anything that might explain it.”

“Look harder. I don’t care how minor it is, I want to know everythingto do with Songsong. Every little detail – every person who saw him – every medical report, every compliment, every good grade –”

“He placed last in one of his classes,” one of his spies volunteered.

“What?”

“He placed last in one of his classes. About two months before his ‘assassination’, and shortly before his father started collecting evidence against the other sects that were in his way, which he later used to ‘prove’ that they had been involved in the alleged murder.”

“He wouldn’t kill his son for failing a class,” one of the others objected. “The kid’s barely more than a baby. What’s he expecting, genius from birth?”

“He’s a genius himself. Why not?”

“If everyone inherited everything directly from their parents, he’d be a whore.”

“He’d be a Jin. They’ve all got that nose, every one of them…”

“I heard he’s having the other Jin bastards killed. All of them, even the women…”

Something snapped in Nie Huaisang’s hands.

They all turned to look at him.

“Investigate Qin Su,” he said, looking down at the mess of wood and paper that had once been a fan. “Come to think of it, she has a Jin nose, too.”

-

“I don’t want to go!”

“I don’t want you to go, either,” Nie Huaisang said, feeling tired and also much more in sympathy with his poor older brother than he’d ever been while Nie Mingjue had been alive. “But you disobeyed me, and that means we don’t have a choice. You have to go.”

Nie Songsong looked down at the ground, his lip quivering. “I didn’t mean to…”

“You did,” Nie Huaisang said. “You have to own your decisions, Songsong. You can’t take them back once they’re done, no matter what the consequences. Not even if you feel bad, but definitely not because you feel bad for having to pay for what you did.”

“But…”

“No, Songsong. You cannot be in the Unclean Realm when – when he’s here.”

Nie Songsong hung his head.

“He’s not your father anymore,” Nie Huaisang said. “You know that, right?”

Nie Songsong nodded.

Nie Huaisang sighed and held out his hands, and his arms were full of a teary-eyed child a moment later.

“He loved you once,” Nie Huaisang murmured into his child’s hair. “I love you now. I wish I could give you more than that – I wish I could give you an answer, tell you why he didn’t love you enough to keep from doing what he did. But I can’t. All I can do…”

Is what I’m already doing.

“You’re enough, er-ge,” Nie Songsong whispered back. “You’re enough. I promise.”

-

“When will I get to go night-hunting?”

“You go night-hunting all the time,” Nie Huaisang grumbled. “You’re a fraction my age, and already my height, my weight, yet you wield a saber like my brother was around to raise you properly. You’re ruining my reputation, you know; now no one will believe that my incompetence comes from how short I am…”

“Not night-hunting with the rest of the sect, er-ge,” Nie Songsong said, rolling his eyes. “With other juniors!”

“Not long now,” Nie Huaisang said, looking down at the paper beneath his hands. It was all finally coming together. “Not long now. Just give er-ge a little more time to finish taking care of matters for da-ge, and you’ll be able to go night-hunting with anyone you like.”

-

“Er-ge! Are you all right? You look so pale…”

“I’m sorry,” Nie Huaisang whispered. “Songsong – I’m sorry. I’m so sorry –”

“What happened? Are you injured?” Nie Songsong demanded, already starting to pat him over, looking for wounds. “Er-ge, what’s wrong –”

“Your mother’s dead.”

Nie Songsong’s hands stilled.

“I told her about your heritage,” Nie Huaisang said, his lips numb. He’d never tried to hide it from Nie Songsong, although he’d introduced the subject very gradually and only once he thought that he’d be able to handle the revelation. “About your father – your grandfather. What they did. I wanted her to be angry at him, to turn against him, to distract him…instead, she killed herself.”

“Er-ge…”

“I shouldn’t have told her. If I knew –”

“Er-ge.”

“I should have brought her in earlier – told her about you surviving – I kept her from you for years –”

“Er-ge!”

Nie Huaisang looked at the child he had raised as a little brother the way his older brother had raised him, a father in everything but name, and who he had the constant feeling of having failed.

He wondered, as he always did, whether his brother had felt the same about him.

“Er-ge, it’s all right,” his little brother, his adopted son, said, and took his hands in his. “It’s all right. You tried, remember? Time after time, you tried to talk to her, but every single time you concluded that she would’ve told her husband instead of trusting you. She would’ve ruined everything. If she did that, I’d be dead all over again, and you with me.”

That had been what Nie Huaisang had concluded. That was why he’d never told her.

But…

“She’s your mother.”

“And you’re my er-ge. As long as you don’t die on me, too, it’ll be all right. Okay? It’ll be all right. It’ll be worth it in the end.”

Nie Huaisang shook his head. He’d already done so much, caused so much chaos and strife, and yet this moment – this was the step too far.

This was the first time he realized that he wasn’t sure he believed that it would be worth it anymore.

But by now…what else was left to do? There were no ways out of the plan he’d made himself; he’d designed it that way on purpose, because he’d known that if there was a way out, that snake would find a way to slither through it. He just hadn’t thought that he would be the one looking for it.

It didn’t matter.

He had to keep going.

His older brother deserved it, even if the younger one didn’t.

-

“I represent the Nie sect,” the young man – just about their age, though shorter than either of them – said with a smile. He seemed kind, gentle and polite, easy-going, but Lan Jingyi and Lan Sizhui looked at each other, and then at Jin Ling, who just scowled. “Can I come in?”

“Were you even invited?” Jin Ling asked in bitten off words. He was still bitter about some of the things that had happened in the Guayin Temple a month before, and of all them the one he was most bitter about was his second uncle’s retreat into seclusion – they were all upset about that.

“But it’s a discussion conference,” the young man said, blinking in confusion. “We’re a Great Sect. Why wouldn’t we be invited?”

In the face of such profound ignorance, there really wasn’t very much they could say, and eventually Lan Sizhui stepped forward with a smile, welcoming the young man – Nie Songsong, he introduced himself – into the Cloud Recesses.

Everything seemed fine for a little while. Lan Sizhui was able to talk to the people in charge of arranging juniors into finding another place for Nie Songsong to stay, although it would be a little delayed – Nie Songsong assured them that there was no issue – and as recompense they even showed him, at his request, a few of the main landmarks.

And then they turned around and their guest had disappeared.

“I knew he was up to no good!” Jin Ling exclaimed.

“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Lan Sizhui told him.

“I’m with Jin Ling,” Lan Jingyi said. “He seemed so nice and understated – just like you know –”

“Don’t talk about my little uncle,” Jin Ling hissed at him. “I know it’s true, but just – don’t, okay?”

“We should find where he went,” Lan Sizhui decided.

It took them a while, but in the end they found him in the most unexpected place: in the rooms their sect leader had chosen for his seclusion, sitting on the bed with Lan Xichen’s head on his shoulder, sobbing as if his heart had been broken.

“What are you doing?” Lan Sizhui exclaimed, unnerved even out of his own habitual politeness.

“I came to greet my uncle,” Nie Songsong said, his manner just as gentle and polite as it had been from the beginning, although it was now evident that he was as stubborn as a rock and not easy-going at all.

“Your uncle?” Lan Jingyi gaped. “How can he be your uncle?”

“You’re Sect Leader Nie’s son!” Jin Ling accused.

“I’m Sect Leader Nie’s little brother by adoption,” Nie Songsong corrected. “It’s through my father that he’s my uncle – and you my cousin, I suppose.”

“Your – father?”

“Oh, yes. My birth name, you see,” Nie Songsong said, “was Jin Rusong.”

-

“Why did you choose to reveal yourself?” Lan Sizhui asked. “Given that everyone knows – well –”

Nie Songsong finished the character he was writing and put down his brush. “Wondering if you should let it be known that you were born with the surname Wen?”

Lan Sizhui jerked in surprise, then flushed. “How did you – that didn’t come out in Guanyin Temple.”

“No, I knew it before,” Nie Songsong said. “My er-ge is very clever, you know.”

“Yes, I suppose I do...why do you call him brother? Shouldn’t he be uncle, or – or –”

“Uncle is probably right,” Nie Songsong said. “But he raised me like a son, just as his brother did for him.”

Lan Sizhui looked down at his hands.

“Why did he publicly reveal your background, knowing that you were still around?” he asked again. “Everyone will know. Who your father was, all those terrible things he did, his relationship with your mother –”

“Why shouldn’t he? He did do all those things, and he did have that relationship with my mother.”

“But what about you? What about your reputation –”

“Are you planning on sweeping Wen Ruohan’s grave?”

Lan Sizhui stared at him.

“He’s your grandfather, isn’t he?” Nie Songsong looked calmly back at him. “Who he was, all those terrible things he did –”

“That’s nothing to do with me!”

“And the crimes of my father are nothing to do with me. My er-ge gave me his surname, just as Hanguang-jun gave you his, and for the same reason – to cut us off from the sins of our original family.”

“I suppose that’s true. But – no one knew about you, just as no one knew about me until I told them, and I only told them because they were my friends. Why’d you tell us? Aren’t you worried we’d tell more people?”

“Of course I am,” Nie Songsong said. “I hope you don’t, of course, but you would’ve found out regardless – second uncle wasn’t exactly subtle in his grief. And I had to tell him.”

“Why? To bring him out of seclusion?” Lan Sizhui hesitated. “Do you care so much for him?”

“Of course not. The last time I met him, I was a small child, and my father was just about to order me murdered; that’s not much of a basis to build a relationship. But having him lock himself away like that, as if he were in mourning…it hurt er-ge. And I won’t let anything hurt my er-ge. Anything, or anyone.”

They looked at each other for a long moment.

“I understand,” Lan Sizhui said.

“I’m glad you do,” Nie Songsong said, and then smiled. “I would’ve had to escalate to threats next, and I’m given to understand that I’m too short to really pull them off properly.”

Lan Sizhui snorted. “I think we’ve all learned that that’snot true.”

-

“Should we talk about this?” Jin Ling asked, arms crossed over his chest and glaring.

“What do you want to talk about?” Nie Songsong replied.

“How about the fact that your father tried to kill me?”

“Sure. Can we talk about the fact that you got all of his affection for years and years after he tried to kill me?”

Jin Ling blanched.

“I wonder if he would’ve gotten me a dog, too,” Nie Songsong mused. “I was too young for that when he ordered his demonic cultivator to feed me to fierce corpses and have my body ravaged until it was barely recognizable…but sure, let’s talk about how he tried to kill you.”

“I was talking about Sect Leader Nie!”

“Well, then, you should have been more specific. Sect Leader Nie’s my brother, not my father.”

“He’s a whole generation older than you!”

“My little uncle, then.”

Jin Ling flinched. “That’s worse. Go back to calling him your brother.”

Nie Songsong shrugged. “Would it help if we fought?”

“…what?”

“It makes me feel better, sometimes. Besides, I may be short, but I’m pretty good with the saber. I bet I could match your sword…maybe not your arrows. But I’ve always wanted to try.”

Jin Ling looked at him suspiciously for a long moment.

“Okay,” he finally said. “Sure. Why not?”

-

“I really hate that you’re kind of cool,” Lan Jingyi told him.

“I am so cool,” Nie Songsong said, and passed him another jar of wine. “Want to see my spring book collection?”

“…yes please.”

-

“Thank you for taking care of him,” Lan Xichen said to Nie Huaisang, who shrugged. “I’m sorry that you couldn’t trust me to help.”

“It’s only what I should have done,” Nie Huaisang said, not for the first time. He’d said it so often these past few days that it felt like a new refrain, an alternative to the old I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. He preferred the original. “I was his little uncle, remember? I held him on his first month party. How could I do any less?”

He did not say that Lan Xichen, who could be classified as Jin Rusong’s older uncle, had done much less, but from Lan Xichen’s expression, he’d taken it that way anyway.

“You never…” Lan Xichen hesitated. “Did you ever have any – concerns?”

“That he’d turn out an idiot? No. I figured he’d be in good company, with me.”

“That’s not what I meant!”

“Oh, you meant whether I was worried that he’d grow up longing for his blood family over his adopted family and turn against me in favor of his real father?” Nie Huaisang asked mildly. “No, not really. The memory of your father ordering you to be mauled by fierce corpses and to make sure your face is destroyed so that there’s a reason to refuse to let your mother see the body, as it would only upset her, is a fairly effective panacea against things like that.”

“No,” Lan Xichen said, though he looked sick all over again at the reminder of how considerate Jin Guangyao could be when it came to those he thought of as people, and how monstrous he was towards those he didn’t. “No, just – your brother always took such a hard line against the Wen sect…”

“Because they were raised with the philosophy that they were superior to the rest of us and my brother purposefully made himself into the symbol of their fallibility, thereby making himself and all the rest of us the primary target for their traumatic realization that they’re just as weak and vulnerable as everyone else,” Nie Huaisang said, rolling his eyes. “Our Nie sect cultivators were always especially targeted whenever we were captured – our survival rate as prisoners of war was less than half all the other sects, and it wasn’t just because we were usually more injured when we got caught. Even the civilians surnamed Wen would pull out knives and try to stab us in the back if they had half a chance! We were in a blood feud with them, er-ge. You don’t put down blood feuds just like that, not even if you want to. That’s not how it works.”

Lan Xichen nodded slowly, thoughtful.

“Anyway, Songsong is mine now,” Nie Huaisang said. “Just as Lan Sizhui is your brother’s, and Jin Ling Jiang Cheng’s. Can’t we all just agree to not care about the rest?”

“I suppose we have to,” Lan Xichen said, bowing his head. “Huaisang…did you ever think about what happens now? I mean – what should we do next?”

“I don’t know,” Nie Huaisang said, and smiled humorlessly when Lan Xichen looked at him. “I’m not joking. I didn’t know what to do when I got Songsong for the first time, er-ge, and I don’t know what to do now, either. I just wanted to see justice done for my da-ge, and I did, and for the rest – I don’t know.”

“That’s fine,” Lan Xichen said. “I don’t know, either.”

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, Nie Huaisang thought. Spine as steel as your saber.

“Would you like to come visit the Unclean Realm sometime?” he asked, pretending to be casual. “Perhaps we can figure out what we don’t know together. If you like.”

“…perhaps I will,” Lan Xichen said.