#Nie Mingjue is trying so hard to be a responsible guardian | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

robininthelabyrinth · 4 years ago

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Unfettered - part 2 - previous parts: on ao3 or tumblr part 1

It’s time. Come back.

Awareness came slowly and fitfully.

His body felt heavy, weighed down - it was as if his spirit had gone roaming freely and returned only reluctantly, sinking back into the skin and bone and flesh that bound it, the return voluntarily but begrudging, like an ox submitting to the yoke or a donkey to its bridle. There were times when he was there, awake but unable to get up the strength even to open his eyes, only barely aware of the world around him in the murmur of voices, the smell of food, the consistent feeling of spiritual energy being transferred into his body. There were times he was not awake at all.

One day, he heard a child laugh.

That was strange enough to catch his attention – it had been a long time since there were children here in the place where he slept, a place so familiar to him that he could feel where he was in his bones. It had been even longer since there were children who laughed.

It’s time. Wake up.

He did not wake all at once. It was a gradual process, slow – he had to struggle against the infinite heaviness of his eyelids, the sopor that kept trying to steal him back into the dark, but he did struggle. He tried, he strained, he pushed, he forced.

He summoned the rage that was his birthright and said to his body, we have been friends these many years, I have honed you as I did a beloved blade, you will not stand in my way in this.

He woke.

A child was laughing.

“Be careful, A-Song,” a voice, unfamiliar to him but gentle, said. It was male, young, and kind. He thought perhaps he had expected someone else. “Remember, you must not disturb the array.”

“I won’t touch it, gege,” the child said cheerfully. “I’ll be good, and then A-Ling will come visit us!”

“When he can, A-Song. It may not be for a while, because of the war…”

A weight settled on his chest at the word – war – and he almost lost his will to wake, not wanting to return to everything that word entailed: the pressure of all the expectations that rested on his shoulders, the stress and fear of the decisions he was forced to make, the guilt at each life lost and the butchers’ bills that piled up on his desk, the exhaustion and pain that followed the slog of life at the battlefront, adrenaline melting away to leave him feeling vacant and empty…

Duty was duty, though. Even in war.

Especially in war.

He forced his eyes open, staring at the ceiling for long moments as the noises of a child playing continued around him, the soft voice alternatively praising and gently chiding him. After a while, his gaze stabilized enough for him to recognize that above him was his own ceiling in his own room in his own home.

He could always tell, thanks to the drawings right above his face – his brother had once insisted on sitting on his shoulders while he stood on the bed so that he could reach the ceiling to carve something into the wood and stone. Something that would make him smile every morning that he opened his eyes, his brother claimed, his own eyes curved into a smile of his own, and he had never been able to resist his little brother anything that would make him happy.

He swallowed several times, wetting his throat, and asked in a voice little better than a rasp, “How goes the war?”

He meant where is my brother, is he well, is he whole, he meant what has happened to my sect, he meant what has happened to me. But duty called, and so he asked instead – how goes the war.

It helped, he supposed, that the words were familiar on his tongue, even as his throat and lips ached the strain of having to speak for the first time in what must have been a while. How goes the war – it had been his watchword for years now, all throughout the Sunshot Campaign and even before, the first question in the morning and the last question at night. How goes the war.

“Gege! Gege!” the child shrieked. “He said something!”

“No, I – but…did… – Sect Leader Nie…?” The unfamiliar voice was deeply surprised, almost shockingly so – how long had he been asleep? “Sect Leader Nie, did you say something? Please confirm.”

Sect Leader Nie.

Yes, that was how they called him. That was who he was: Sect Leader Nie, Chifeng-zun.

Nie Mingjue.

He had forgotten it, for a moment, the name and the weight of it, all the responsibilities that went with it, but now he remembered.

Nie Mingjue struggled to force himself up on his elbows, trying to look further around the room – it felt like the hardest thing he’d ever done, harder than moving through waist-deep muck through a swamp, which he’d also done, more than once.

As he’d expected, there was a man there, and a child. Both were unfamiliar to him, he thought, even if he did not entirely trust his memory at the moment. They were both gaping at him.

Well, gaping at his general direction, in the case of the man. He was dressed in white, like the Lan sect did, but the narrow band of white that they had in common encircled his eyes, not his forehead – he was blind.

No, Nie Mingjue was sure of it now: this man was totally unfamiliar to him.

The child was, too, but that was less of a surprise, given that he was only two or three at the utmost, the age children changed the most, and after all Nie Mingjue had been away fighting the wars for several years; it was reasonable not to recognize him.

But a man he did not recognize, here, in his own bedroom..?

“The war,” he rasped again, and swallowed to try to clear his throat. That was the only thing he could think of that might explain it. “My brother…?”

“Oh,” the man said, not especially intelligently. “The Pallbearer isn’t here – he’s away. There’s a war.”

The – what?

Nie Mingjue narrowed his eyes and forced them to focus, realizing that what he had taken for a man was little more than a teenager, certainly younger than twenty. Old enough to fight in the war, regrettably, but he supposed the blindness might keep him from it. It was sometimes hard to tell, with cultivators, how much they would be impacted by something like that.

“My brother,” he insisted. He wasn’t dead; what did he care about where some pallbearer - technically, the phrase meant ‘virtuous mourner’, or possibly ‘person whose virtue is in their mourning’, but either way it was a strange appellation - was? What he wanted was – “My brother.”

The child had been hiding behind the young man in white, but he popped his head around to stare at him, tugging at the young man’s robes. “Isn’t he Nie-er-ge’s brother?”

“Yes, he is,” the man said automatically, then flushed, ducking his head. He was very handsome, almost pretty, and at some point when Nie Mingjue didn’t feel like drowning in his own exhaustion he would spare a bit more time to wondering why he had been left here at his bedside, whether it was because he was the only one who could be spared or if it was for his own protection or both. “Ah, forgive me, Sect Leader Nie, of course you wouldn’t – your brother is away at the moment, but I will send him word at once. He’ll be so happy to hear that you’ve awoken.”

Nie Mingjue let himself slide back down from his elbows, his most severe worry assuaged – Nie Huaisang was alive, he was fine, he was safe. That was good.

Now he could concern himself with the war, he supposed. Although…

“Wasn’t the war…over?” he asked the ceiling. He thought he remembered that it was, the vague memories of seeing Wen Ruohan’s body hit the floor burnt into his brain as if with a brand – it was so different from what he had dreamt of for so many years that he thought it must be true. And with Wen Ruohan dead, his sons dead, who would continue to fight? Some small pockets of the truly devoted, maybe, but surely not the bulk of the forces…?

He didn’t remember. There was something there just beyond his memory, and he was abruptly struck with the feeling that he wasn’t sure he wanted to remember.

There was a whisper of cloth, the man beside him shifting from side to side in awkwardness. Probably trying to decide if he should stand here and answer questions or go to send out the alert about his reawakening at once.

“You are correct, Sect Leader Nie,” he finally said. “The Sunshot Campaign ended…it’s a new war.”

A new war, Nie Mingjue thought, and closed his eyes for a brief moment to stave off the pain of it. It wasn’t that he hadn’t discussed the possibility that something like that would happen with his sect’s elders during his war counsels, the fact that wrecking the established system of the Five Great Sects might lead to a power vacuum and more fighting, but the alternative of submitting to Wen tyranny had been worse; they had had no choice but to hope that their worst fears would not come to pass.

In vain, it seemed.

“I should – go tell someone,” the young man said. “I’ll go –”

“Go,” Nie Mingjue agreed. “Return after, and then you can…what’s your name, anyway?”

“Xiao Xingchen,” the young man said. “Disciple of Baoshan Sanren…you wouldn’t have heard of me. Your brother took me in after I lost my eyes.”

Baoshan Sanren? Another disciple of the immortal mountain? Surely Nie Mingjue would have heard of something like that happening – it would have been the talk of the cultivation world, ongoing war or no. But he hadn’t heard anything, and this Xiao Xingchen fellow didn’t expect him to. And that meant…

“How long have I slept?” he asked. No, not asked. Demanded.

“Oh, I definitely can’t answer that one,” Xiao Xingchen said, sounding genuinely distressed. “I’m going to go get someone who can.”

He dashed out of the room in a swirl of white that Nie Mingjue saw out of the corner of his eye. A moment later, he heard a small shuffling sound and, with a slight groan, lifted himself back up again to look at the child, who had lingered even after his guardian had departed.

The boy was wearing Nie colors in familiar styles – Nie Mingjue thought it might even be some of Nie Huaisang’s old clothes, which he’d found himself unable to throw away even after they’d long been outgrown. He’d ultimately ordered them to be stored in hopes of preserving it for the next generation - his son, or maybe his nephew.

The shape of the boy’s face wasn’t remotely Nie, though, so he thought perhaps he might be an orphan or something. Another person his brother had taken in, perhaps, the way he had the blind Xiao Xingchen?

Had his brother been forced to run the sect while he slept? He must have. That had been what Nie Mingjue had always intended for him, wanting his brother’s cool head to guide the next generation, but he had not thought that it would be so soon…he thought he would have time to help guide Nie Huaisang into being sect leader, to ease the way, to show him how things were done and what was important. To let him become the wonderful sect leader Nie Mingjue had always been sure he would be, the one their sect deserved –

He’d wanted to make the transition less abrupt than his own elevation to the position at his father’s death, to make sure the position of sect leader didn’t consume Nie Huaisang as it had Nie Mingjue, who didn’t have any hobbies or pastimes except for spoiling his little brother, Nie Mingjue who barely remembered what or who he was outside of the work he did.

He’d wanted to leave Nie Huaisang to govern their sect through a world of peace, not war.

Clearly he’d failed.

Despite these gloomy thoughts of his, he tried to smile at the child. “Hello,” he said. “Your name is – A-Song?”

The child nodded, edging closer – closer, but not too close, and the reason for his hesitation was clearly, upon further inspection, that he didn’t want to cross over onto the lines of the complicated array painted onto the ground around the bed. Nie Mingjue hadn’t seen it before, and he didn’t recognize it.

“What’s that for?” he asked, nodding at the softly glowing lines, which he could feel were full of spiritual power.

“It’s to make you feel better,” A-Song answered promptly in the know-it-all tone of a child who had clearly asked a similar question in the past. “Nie-er-ge repaints it all by himself every week, Xiao-gege helps keep it running, and I help, too!”

“You do?”

“Yeah! I’m the – the – I make it less boring!”

“Ah, I see! You’re the entertainment? That’s a very important job.”

A-Song nodded so rapidly that Nie Mingjue was slightly worried his head would come tumbling off his shoulders, and he had to suppress a smile at the sight. He’d always liked children, and this one seemed…strangely familiar, for all that Nie Mingjue was sure A-Song wasn’t a Nie.

“What’s your surname?” he asked, and A-Song frowned, scuffling one foot behind the other. “Don’t you know?”

“I know!” A-Song exclaimed. “It’s Jin! I’m Jin Rusong!”

Nie Mingjue could feel his eyes going wide in surprise, surprise and even shock that stabbed deeply into him. Ru- was the next generation’s name for the Jin sect, following after Zi- for the current generation and Guang- for the previous one – there had been much discussion of that towards the end of the last war, as it had been a clear insult framed as a compliment when Meng Yao had been offered the name of Jin Guangyao so shorty after the Nightless City.

Meng Yao -

The Nightless City, Wen Ruohan, Meng Yao…

Nie Mingjue remembered.

How could he not? In his memory, it had been only a few weeks before.

They had been mopping things up in the aftermath of Wen Ruohan’s death, and Nie Mingjue had been absent without leave from the medical tent more often than not, unable to refuse the calling of his duty even though his health (and any number of his subordinates) demanded he rest and recover. It hadn’t been easy: his mind had still been fuzzy from the aftereffects of the torment he’d suffered in and after Yangquan, the torture on the way to Wen Ruohan’s palace and again within it. The dizziness had impeded his ability to work, causing him to lose track of time or to grow abruptly distant and forgetful.

At the time, it had seemed that everything he remembered was unreliable – he’d thought, at first, that Meng Yao had done certain terrible things while he was in the Sun Palace, truly terrible and unforgivable things, the sorts of things that would make Nie Mingjue obligated to denounce him and Meng Yao worthy only of execution no matter what his good deeds might have been. But Meng Yao had said he was misremembering, that it hadn’t happened that way at all, that his mind was damaged from the torture and the fight with Wen Ruohan, and Lan Xichen had vouched for Meng Yao with all sincerity.

Nie Mingjue hadn’t been sure at first, had been so certain that he was right, that he remembered correctly and that Meng Yao was simply lying to him, but they had both seemed so sincere…and in the end Nie Mingjue hadn’t really wanted to believe that Meng Yao would do things like that anyway. He hadn’t wanted to think that someone he trusted would do that, that he’d so misjudged him. And that had made it – not easy, no, but it had made it make sense to accept their version of events over his own, even if it made him sick and anxious to think that his mind was so unreliable and untrustworthy.

Still, accepting it had meant that Nie Mingjue could agree to swear brotherhood with Lan Xichen and Meng Yao, as they both wanted so very much. It meant he could congratulate Meng Yao when he received the letter indicating that he would soon be his father’s recognition and the name Jin Guangyao. It meant that he could invite him to dinner at his camp to raise a glass together in honor of his accomplishment, to wish him good fortune and the best of luck for his new life.

It meant that when, in the middle of their dinner together, the wonderful news came that Nie Fengjun and Nie Xiaopeng had survived their injuries at the Nightless City, the ones that had kept them bedridden for so long getting infusions of spiritual energy and being fed drugs to keep them asleep so that they didn’t tear their throats open again by trying to talk, he could smile at Meng Yao – no, Jin Guangyao, he had tried very hard to remember to call him that and had still mostly failed – and tell him with joy that there were two deaths he no longer had on his conscience.

He could ask him to wait a while when he went to talk to them, promising to return soon.

It meant that he could take a few steps towards the door, Baxia far away on her stand and not in his hand, his back unguarded against the man who had sworn before all the world to be his brother.

It meant that he could feel the cold string of the garotte when it settled over his throat and pulled tight, cutting off his air – that he could hear the humming of a Lan battle-song in his ear, the spiritual energy that he had been freely sharing with Meng Yao only moments before suddenly turned against him and starting to riot inside of him – the weakness inherent in his blood, the ancestral Nie tendency towards qi deviation, abruptly pressed upon and galvanized from within –

If you yell, the first person through the door will be your brother and I will gut him like a fish, Meng Yao had hissed in his ear, and Nie Mingjue had stopped struggling for just a moment, horrified by the thought.

Horrified at being attacked by someone who knew his most dangerous weaknesses.

By someone he trusted.

The pause had been a mistake, of course. There’d been poison on the garrote, he thought, and the battle song and his rioting qi had let it in easier than it might have otherwise.

Meng Yao really was a perfect assassin.

But why me, why now, I don’t want to go so soon, I haven’t even had a chance to live yet, he remembered thinking, more fear and hurt than anger, and then there was nothing but darkness.

And now –

And now there was a child called Ru-, the next generation down from Zi-, and he was already two or three of age.

“How long have I slept?” he demanded, struggling to sit up. “How long has it been? Huaisang!”

How long have I abandoned you?

Xiao Xingchen ran back into the room not long after, looking horrified by Nie Mingjue’s burst of temper, pointless and impotent as it was. “Sect Leader Nie, please calm yourself,” he exclaimed. “I’ve already sent word out, and I’m sure your brother will be here soon. Please, stop moving – don’t damage the array…!”

Nie Mingjue forced himself to calm, his fingers digging into the bedding as he fought to control his temper –

Now is not the time.

– but he finally managed with a few deep breaths to stop feeling as if he was drowning in dark thoughts, in fears, in horror at himself and what he had inadvertently allowed, at what he had lost.

A few breaths later, and he stopped struggling.

At that point, it occurred to him that something was strange.

Based on his experience with being injured, and with his warlike sect he had plenty of that, Nie Mingjue would have expected that a fit like the one he had just had would have meant that he’d be swarmed by doctors. That was what was usual for this sort of situations, a giant bevy of doctors always just a few steps away, standing at the ready to force opinions down his throat about what he should and shouldn’t be doing – that had been what it had been like with his father, at least at first, and then later on it had been something he had been forced to accustom himself to as sect leader.

(First rule of being sect leader: don’t get knocked unconscious if at all possible. Not because the sect won’t manage without you, but because you’ll have to deal with doctors fussing at you for ages thereafter.)

Strangely enough, though, this time the doctors didn’t come. It was only Xiao Xingchen, dropping down to survey the array with his fingers, murmuring and infusing it with bright and pure spiritual energy that Nie Mingjue could feel soaking into his meridians, into his bones and muscles and bones.

Presumably this was the reason his body had not atrophied, in the – it must have been years since he –

He took another deep breath.

“Forgive me,” he said to Xiao Xingchen, and then again to Jin Rusong, who was hiding behind something. “I did not mean to scare you.”

“It’s fine,” Jin Rusong said with a great deal of grace, and probably too much equanimity for someone his age. “I don’t mind. It happens.”

To so easily disregard such a show of temper suggested that the boy had either had a hard early life or very calm parents, or maybe both. Nie Mingjue did not like to think of it, although he himself had been quickly inured to such things, after his father…

Best not to think about that. Best not to think about how it might have – what might have happened to him, after Meng Yao’s surprise attack.

(He hoped that he had succumbed to the poison or the suffocation instead of the qi deviation, since Baxia had, he hoped, remained intact; he could not be sure of it, since the assassin had been Meng Yao, who had known how best to hurt him. He hoped that he did not linger - did not lose himself to rage - did not have to be put down - that Nie Huaisang had not had to make the choices he himself had long ago had to make.)

“You didn’t call for any doctors?” Nie Mingjue asked Xiao Xingchen, trying not to think about those foul memories and the dark suspicions that swirled in his mind.

“I have some medical skills,” Xiao Xingchen said. “Not…many, and not as many as I used to have, but some, if you’d like me to check you over?”

“I’m not concerned for me,” Nie Mingjue said, rolling his eyes. He’d propped himself up against the headboard, an activity that had drained most of his remaining energy. “I’m just – why didn’t you call any doctors?”

“Ah,” Xiao Xingchen said. “I see.”

“I’m glad that you understand,” Nie Mingjue said, eliding to mention the matter of sight. They were not on such familiar terms that he could make a joke over it, and it was clear from Xiao Xingchen’s occasional if very graceful clumsiness that the blindness was new. “Would you also like to elaborate?”

“Sect Leader Nie is off-limits to anyone without permission to enter,” Xiao Xingchen said, folding his hands in front of him. “Especially in the event that you wake up.”

“I understand,” Nie Mingjue said, and he did.

He had had some time to think about what had happened to him back then, about the timing of those two survivors from the Nightless City waking up and Meng Yao’s sudden attack – he still didn’t have any answers, didn’t understand why Meng Yao turned against him so suddenly, but he had his suspicions.

Suspicions - and regrets.

If he hadn’t chosen to believe Meng Yao over the evidence of his own eyes and ears, would he have ended up like this, leaving Nie Huaisang alone for years on end?

There wasn’t any point to that line of thinking, though. Might as well say that if Nie Mingjue hadn’t been conditioned for years and years by his sect to have a mortal fear of his own qi, filling him with terror that one day he would become like his father – sick, with a mind full of hallucinations tormenting him and leading him astray – then maybe he wouldn’t have been so ready to disregard his own perception in favor of another’s, and of course there was no one to blame for that.

“Your brother will be here soon,” Xiao Xingchen said. “And once he is, I’m sure he’ll want the doctors to look you over. It’s only, you understand, without him to supervise, he doesn’t – he –”

“He doesn’t trust anyone,” Nie Mingjue said, and felt a pang of grief. Nie Huaisang had always trusted more readily than he had, the extroverted younger brother to his introverted and even misanthropic elder. The differences between them had in large part been caused by Nie Mingjue’s elevation to sect leader – too soon, too fast – and the discomfort and distance that created between him and those he thought had been his friends. And now, to his regret, the position would have done its work on Nie Huaisang as well. “I understand.”

“I’m not sure if you do,” Xiao Xingchen said. “He trusts – quite a few people, I’d say. There’s his people in the sect, of course, his cousins and deputies and all that, but he’s also on very good terms with quite a lot of the cultivation world: Sandu Shengshou, Yiling Laozu, Zewu-jun, Hanguang-jun…almost all the important people, really.”

Nie Mingjue noted the absence of Jin Guangyao’s name or title.

Good.

“It’s just – you’re very important to him. More than you might think.”

“I raised him,” Nie Mingjue said. “From the time he was a child, he was my only family. The only things I had in life were my sect and him, and even my sect I wouldn’t have placed above him, and he knew it – I think I understand my importance to him. It’s the same for me, with him.”

“Perhaps,” Xiao Xingchen said, looking wistful. “Perhaps. That does explain rather a lot, I think.”

Nie Mingjue made himself more comfortable. “Who’s the child?” he asked. “He said he was surnamed Jin, but I assume the Jin sect is who we’re at war with?”

“You’re very perceptive,” Xiao Xingchen remarked. “How did you know?”

“The seeds of a new war can be found in the end of the last one,” Nie Mingjue said. “It would have always been the Jin sect. I’m surprised that it actually came to a head so soon, that’s all – they’ve always preferred being subtle and sly, politicking to outright fighting. I wouldn’t have thought they’d declare open war.”

“Why do you assume they were the ones who’d declare war?”

Because of who was left behind, Nie Mingjue thought. Lan Xichen who tries to see the good in everyone, Jiang Cheng who is insecure about what he can and cannot be, Wei Wuxian with his armies of the dead that he so very clearly never wanted…and my brother, who knows better.

My brother, who loves peace and hates war the way only a child born into the thick of it would; my brother, who’s so terribly clever underneath all his laziness; my brother who knows that war is fought as much in the hearts of men as on the battlefield –

No, he wouldn’t be the one to declare war.

Not even for me.

“Weren’t they?” he asked.

“Well, yes,” Xiao Xingchen said. “Although in fairness, they were provoked.”

Nie Mingjue was sure they were. His brother, probably, or maybe Wei Wuxian – they were good at provocation. They could find something that even the Jin sect couldn’t tolerate.

From the way Xiao Xingchen turned his head towards Jin Rusong, an instinctive gesture for all that he couldn’t see the boy, it might have something to do with him. A small child surnamed Jin, and yet embarrassed to admit it…there was a story there that he would eventually need to learn.

Just as he would eventually need to ask the practical questions – questions like who’s leading the war effort, since Jiang Cheng was good at battle but shit at strategy, Wei Wuxian who was too reckless and reliant on flashy tactics that wore him out, Lan Xichen who was better as a courier than a general, Lan Wangji who was too independent, a lone wolf who’d never learned how to compromise enough to join a team, how are we paying for it, the eternal question of supply even more critical for three weakened Great Sects when set against the richest of them all, and of course how can I help.

But he was tired, and did not ask. He would gather the energy for war later.

For now, he would be satisfied with something simpler, more straightforward: his brother’s well-being, confirmed not merely with words but by his own eyes, which he really ought to learn to trust.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed before there was a noise outside the door, and Xiao Xingchen brightened in evident relief. “He’s here! A-Song, come with me, come say hello –”

They went out, and a moment later, the door opened and Nie Huaisang walked in.

Attuned as Nie Mingjue was to movement, that was the first thing he noticed: that his brother walked differently than he had before. It was more purposeful, striding rather than ambling, sharp, with as little wasted movement as possible – angry, always angry, but contained. It was not at all what he thought of when he thought of Nie Huaisang, who was usually more aimless and carefree, limbs tumbling everywhere; it was far more similar to the way Nie Mingjue used to carry himself, seemingly relaxed but in fact on guard against the world at all moments.

Nie Huaisang’s face, too, was different than Nie Mingjue remembered it being: it was thinner, sharper than it had been, with narrowed eyes and lips pressed together, his whole demeanor distrusting and forbidding. The last bits of baby fat had melted away, taking with it the impression of softness and tenderness that he had once exuded, the lazy and indolent air that had made him seem younger than he was.

No longer was he the feckless young man the Nie Mingjue had so carefully protected from the horrors of the world, and the thought sent a pang of pain through Nie Mingjue’s heart.

And yet, when Nie Huaisang walked into the room, looking irritated and exhausted, and his gaze fell upon the bed where Nie Mingjue had lain for longer than he cared to think about, when he saw Nie Mingjue propped up and awake, when their eyes met for the first time –

It all melted away, the child he had held in his hands abruptly recognizable once more.

“Da-ge!” Nie Huaisang wailed, and threw himself forward into Nie Mingjue’s waiting arms, heedless of the array that Xiao Xingchen has so worried himself over, heedless of the shocked expression on both Xiao Xingchen and Jin Rusong’s faces, heedless any residual injuries in his urgency. “Da-ge!”

All the questions Nie Mingjue had, and he had a lot – who is the Pallbearer what is the war who is fighting who have we lost what happened to me what happened to you – dashed out of his head at once.

There was only one question that mattered – are you safe – and the answer to that was in his arms. He clutched his baby brother to his chest with all his greatly diminished strength, tears springing to his eyes just as they filled Nie Huaisang’s, and they wept with joy to see each other again.

It’s time. At last.

#mdzs #nie mingjue #xiao xingchen #nie huaisang #jin rusong #my fic #my fics #unfettered

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somepinkthing · 5 years ago

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@angstymdzsthoughts part 2 of the YZY ultimatum AU!!! Finally!!! I have no idea why JYL gave me so much trouble to write lol

[Part 1]

---

“Madam Yu, has my disciple offended you in some way?”

Madam Yu whirled around to face Nie Mingjue as he entered the room to the disciples’ quarters. His younger brother--who had run out of the room when he had seen the lady of Lotus Pier enter in a rage--trailed in behind him. She grit her teeth so hard that Wei Ying could hear them grinding against each other. Her vice-like grip on his arm didn’t loosen either.

“If he has, release him and I will see him properly punished,” Sect Leader Nie commanded. Wei Ying was surprised. In all the time he has spent under him these past two years, he had never known Sect Leader Nie to be so sarcastic. As if he didn’t know that it was Wei Ying’s entire presence that offended her.

“What is the meaning of this, Sect Leader Nie?” Madam Yu finally managed, “Why would you show my sect the disrespect of parading this boy around for all to see?”

Nie Mingjue raised an eyebrow. Even Wei Ying was surprised. It was one thing for the madam to take her anger out on a mere disciple, it was another to announce this a matter of politics and to take it up with a sect leader so directly. Madam Yu was harsh and blunt but never to the point of being disrespectful to another sect, especially not one as powerful as Qinghe Nie. She hated Wei Ying more than even he thought.

“If I remember correctly, Wei Ying parted with your sect in peace. He has committed no crime and therefore I see no reason he should not be allowed at this event. Despite your sect’s presence.” Sect Leader Nie truly was in a mood. Wei Ying winced from hearing his tone alone… and from the feeling of Madam Yu’s nails digging even deeper into the flesh of his upper arm.

“He is our head disciple,” Huaisang stuttered out from behind his brother, “Please, Madam Yu, show some mercy, I beg you!”

Madam Yu’s face only twisted more. She scoffed dismissively but did release her hold on Wei Ying’s arm. “To name the son of a servant the head disciple over your own heir,” she said with a sneer, “You are young, Sect Leader Nie. Perhaps you don’t quite understand what kind of message that sends?”

It was a jab, an obvious one. Nie Mingjue sneered right back, ready to meet this challenge head-on.

To everyone’s shock, it was Huaisang who responded first.

“My brother, like our father and your own revered husband, runs our Qinghe Nie on the basis of merit and effort. If there is a disciple who proves himself talented enough on the field and who has shown us his dedication to our cause, why should he not be given the chance to shine?” Huaisang didn’t raise his voice at all, but his blank tone spoke volumes. His stuttering was completely gone.

Then, seemingly coming to his senses, Huaisang bowed his head and his voice took on a self-deprecating lilt when he continued. Still, he didn’t stutter. “Your guidance and concern is much appreciated, Madam. But, with all due respect, while my cultivation may not be the strongest, my sensibilities are not so fragile. As long as Wei Ying deserves his title, all I can do is the right thing. That is to say, I can only back down graciously and improve on my own weaknesses.”

Polite, softly spoken, almost ladylike. Just subtly insulting enough to be a jab, just polite and submissive enough that rage could not be considered an appropriate response. And even though Wei Ying could hear the challenge in his young master’s tone, he knew that no one else in the room had the talent to rise up to it. It was masterful work. Wei Ying didn’t know whether to be impressed or horrified. On one hand, his young master had balls! On the other… this was Madam Yu. This level of disrespect was nothing Wei Ying could ever remember her being shown. Even in the face of Nie Mingjue, could she let this stand?

Madam Yu’s face turned a particular shade of puce. Wei Ying knew he had to think fast.

“Madam Yu, I-”

“A-Xian?”

Wei Ying’s mind blanked out. What was she doing here?

“A-Xian, so it really was you!” Jiang Yanli cried, stumbling towards Wei Ying with tears in her eyes. “I had thought so, but I didn’t dare hope—”

She was cut off my a small cough. Huaisang covered his mouth with a fan and his eyes locked onto Wei Ying’s.

Wei Ying had been stepping towards her without even realizing it. He hadn't even realized that Madam Yu had let go of his arm when shijie entered the room. It was like the room had melted away and all there was left was shijie. His shijie, she was here. But he couldn’t afford to-to hug her. He couldn’t hold her. Her mother was right here. And, furthermore, so was Sect Leader Nie. Wei Ying couldn’t lose face for his sect leader like that--not when the man had so graciously plucked him from the streets as a disgraced ex-disciple and protected him, almost like an older brother would, with no regard to his own reputation. He couldn’t fall back into the arms of the lady of Yunmeng Jiang right before his own sect leader.

Instead, Wei Ying sunk into a deep salute. “Jiang-guniang, you look well.”

It felt like he was choking. It felt worse when Wei Ying picked up his head and saw heartbroken tears streaming down Jiang Yanli’s gentle face. He couldn’t stop himself from reaching out a hand in some attempt at comforting her.

She stepped back from his reach and shook her head, somehow managing a watery smile.

“It’s fine as long as you’re healthy. As long as your healthy, your shijie is very happy.”

Wei Ying felt tears prickling his eyes now. He had missed her. He’d missed her soft voice, the way she smiled and cried without reserve, the way she loved with all her heart. He’d gotten used to the warmth that the Nie brothers exuded--protective and enveloping. His new guardians had given him so much that he’d almost forgotten how much he missed her softer, supportive warmth and her gentle presence.

Apparently having had enough of this crying, Nie Mingjue marched forward and planted himself sternly between Wei Ying and the Jiangs.

“Madam Yu, Jiang-guniang, is there an official complaint you would like to file about my disciple?”

Jiang Yanli’s eyes widened in confusion. “Mother? Complaint? What complaint?”

With nothing but a backwards glare and a quick, mumbled farewell, Madam Yu grabbed her daughter and vacated the room. Jiang Yanli tried to tug back her arm but it was futile. Wei Ying waited until the two of them were out of sight before pressing his face into Nie Huaisang’s shoulder. A few tears slipped free involuntarily but he knew his friend wouldn’t say anything about it.

Sect Leader Nie looked as if he wanted to ask what precisely happened, to ask what exactly was said in the time that Wei Ying and the madam were alone, but, thankfully, thought better of it and stopped himself short.

“Give her a wide berth, Wei Ying,” Sect Leader Nie ordered gruffly, “Do not approach the Jiang Sect anymore. I mean it. And take Huaisang with you when you go wandering.”

To anyone else, it was a reproach. But Wei Ying had trained directly under the man for years now. He could hear the rough concern that bled into his sect leader’s voice. That’s right, he had a sect now. Sect Leader Nie had made a lot of concessions by taking him, a wandering ex-Jiang disciple, in as his head disciple. And that’s not even mentioning everything else him and his brother had done for him. Wei Ying couldn’t go around causing them trouble like this, crying at the mere sight of Jiang Yanli and casting doubts as to where his loyalties lay.

“I’ll stay with him!” Huaisang assured his brother before laying a gentle hand on Wei Ying’s head, which was still buried in his shoulder.

...He shouldn’t worry these people so.

“Understood, sect leader.”

---

Nie Huaisang took one look at Jiang Cheng and went sprinting back to his brother. He’d looked him right in the eyes, blanched, and turned the opposite direction.

It was a bit of an overreaction, right? It was definitely an insult, right? The only thing that kept Jiang Cheng from chasing the boy down and demanding an explanation was the memory of his parents’ expectations.

“Try to make some friends, A-Cheng,” his father had said before waving him off on his journey, “You are always with your sister. It’ll be good for you to know some people your own age.”

“Do not lose us face,” his mother had commanded during one of the rare times they spoke nowadays. “Mind your manners and give the other sects a good impression of us. Remember who you represent.”

As loathe as Jiang Cheng was to admit it, the truth of the matter was exactly as his parents feared. His father was too genteel and distant to say it frankly and his mother was too stubborn to admit that her flesh and blood could have such a gaping flaw, but Jiang Cheng was not a popular boy. He didn’t need his parents subtle hints, he’s known for a while. Simply put, he didn’t have the skill to be popular.

He’s tried to talk to others! He always tried to make a good impression. But, somehow, he always managed to say exactly the wrong thing. That is, assuming he managed to say anything at all. He just didn’t understand the point of small talk though, it was so… pointless! And, in the end, his frustration always built up until his thin temper inevitably snapped. Every. Single. Time.

People were just so testy and loud and… and, well, they didn’t tend to like him.

Jiang Cheng hadn’t imagined his new classmates would be any different.

That being said, Nie Huaisang’s reaction seemed a bit harsh. Jiang Cheng wasn’t even given the chance to say anything this time!

It wasn’t until he heard that ringing laugh that he understood.

His sister had told him that Wei Wuxian was happily living with the Nie’s now. Jiang Cheng had tried his best to put the image of Wei Wuxian living a whole other life out of his mind. But here was the truth dancing around in forest-green regalia right before his eyes. Here was Wei Wuxian in the flesh.

Wei Wuxian in green and gold.

So, he really did flee to Qinghe then. Rather than come home, rather than answer any of Jiang Cheng’s multiple attempts to find him, he fled to another sect. He found a new family too, by the looks of it.

Jiang Cheng watched as Wei Wuxian snatched Nie Huaisang’s fan from his hand, keeping it just out of reach when the other boy lunged for it. He hadn’t changed one bit. Apparently, it didn’t matter where he lived or who he lived with. Apparently, so long as Wei Wuxian could laugh loudly and mess around as much as he wanted to, it made no difference to him what colors he wore.

Apparently, Jiang Cheng had been playing the part of the fool, still keeping robes that didn’t belong to him waiting in a closet. Apparently only one of them was moronic enough to believe that Wei Wuxian would ever don purple again.

Green robes fluttered in the air as Wei Wuxian dodged yet another attempt to retrieve the fan.

“Give it back, Wuxian!” Nie Huaisang moaned with a pout.

“Nuh uh. Tell me what’s got you so in a tizzy first. What do you mean I ought to go home? Who was it that bugged your brother into sending me with you?” Wei Wuxian laughed, twirling the fan around in his hands as he easily danced around the slower Nie Huaisang.

“That was then and this is now! Go back home with my brother!” Nie Huaisang ordered with as much authority as he could muster. Which wasn’t a lot, if Jiang Cheng was being honest. It certainly wasn’t enough to move someone as facetious as Wei Wuxian.

“Huaisang, I flew for three days to get here. I packed for two days before that. And now you’re telling me to turn around at the gates? After all that, I’m not to be allowed to enjoy the splendor of the legendary Cloud Recesses from inside? Young Master Nie, you are a cruel one!”

He looked so happy.

“Wei Wuxian,” Jiang Cheng called out before he could even think about what he was doing. He hadn’t yelled, but Wei Wuxian’s head snapped up all the same. The teasing smile slid off his face and all the color drained from his cheeks as he turned towards Jiang Cheng.

“Jiang Cheng,” he croaked, mouth opening as if he had more to say but couldn’t quite force out the words.

“Wuxian…” Nie Huaisang murmured. He twisted his sleeve nervously, glancing back and forth between Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian as they stared at each other.

“Young Master Jiang, we had no idea you’d be attending,” Nie Huaisang warbled out when the silence got to be too much. “Is your father with you? I’m sure my brother would love to greet him.”

“He had other duties. He saw me off at the pier,” Jiang Cheng answered automatically. He hadn’t meant to sound so short, but he couldn’t particularly be bothered with small talk at the moment. He could hear the blood pounding in his ears and he felt a bit lightheaded.

He had a million things he wanted to say and, yet, none of it felt appropriate anymore. He wanted to beg Wei Wuxian to come back, but how could he? He wanted to yell at him for leaving in the first place, but what could have been done about that? That his mother had been wrong? That their family was closer to the breaking point than it had ever been before? That they needed him back? No, there was no way Jiang Cheng would allow himself to say any of that. He wasn’t that desperate. And, pride aside, there was one other thing that he wanted to say first. He wanted to tell him…

What? What exactly was it that Jiang Cheng wanted to say? The longer the silence lasted, the less Jiang Cheng knew. All he did know was that he was dangerously close to blurting out something ridiculously sappy, something he’d never allow himself to say to the man who abandoned him.

And why the hell wasn’t Wei Wuxian speaking? Wasn’t that his best talent? Wasn’t his mouth supposed to be his defining feature?

“Wei Wuxian, what’s the matter with you?” Nie Mingjue asked, having realized something was wrong with his head disciple and coming over to check things out.

The hulking figure of Nie Mingjue blocked Jiang Cheng’s view and, just like that, the moment was over.

Jiang Cheng flipped his sleeves and turned the opposite direction. He saw Nie Huaisang sag in relief when he did.

Fine. He could take a hint. Wei Wuxian wore green and gold now and Jiang Cheng had no business poking at him anymore. Understood.

Jiang Cheng headed towards the gates of the Cloud Recesses and didn’t turn back once, not even as he remembered what it was he had wanted to say.

...

“Wei Wuxian, I’ve missed you.”

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