#WWX is having a bad time at any rate

[wangxianficfinder]

I'm in the mood for...

July 31st

~*~

1. Hii I'm kinda new here but if you can help me it would be awesome!! So basically, I don't know if there really a fic like that exactly, but anything close is great. I'm looking for a fic where lan zhan locks wei ying (probably in the cloud recesses), and for some reason, wei ying can't see/has eye cover. The idea is based on the scene where lan zhan says he wants to take someone (wei ying) and hide this someone. Thanks a lot😁 @untamedlover

A Way Out by pinkquilts (E, 143k, WangXian, Angst with a Happy Ending, Living Together, Canon Divergence, Slow Burn, First Love, Locked In, Major Character Injury, Fluff, Sharing a Bed, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Unresolved Tension, Drunken Shenanigans, WWX misinterprets literally everything, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Eventual Smut, Fix-It, Injury) Lan Zhan takes an unconscious Wei Ying back to Gusu and locks him in a warded cottage in A Way Out so it's close to the request but not quite what they ideally wanted.

~*~

2. Hi! I would love recommendations for Wei Wuxian/Nie Mingjue if anyone has any! I loved “Better Things To Do With A Flute In Wartime” for the sexy times but mainly for the feeling like Nie Mingjue recognized that Wei Wuxian was more than just a troublemaker, he saw that Wei Wuxian was a strong, capable, smart man. Would love any recs people have for this duo! Thank you!

An Elegant Solution by giraffeter (E, 205k, niewangxian, canon divergence, arranged marriage, friends to lovers, fix-it, everyone lives au, courtship, polyamory, smut) unfortunately I don't have any nmj/wwx, it's nmj/wwx/lwj but I found the fic very enjoyable!

I’ll grow you a garden (in my fortress of stone) by Lyna_Mei (M, 16k, WIP, MingXian, Canon Divergence, CQL-Verse, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Cultivation Sect Politics, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Past Child Abuse, Self-Esteem Issues, Genius WWX, Inventor WWX, Not Jiang Family Friendly, JYL is Not Angelic, No MY redemption, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Slow Burn, Age Difference, Sporadic Updates)

When Night Falls by aspiratixxn (M, 28k, MingXian, canon-divergent, depictions of war, mild nudity, Slow Burn)

~*~

3. hi there. this is an itmf request for baoshan sanren coming down from her mountain and claiming wwx as her grandson/disciple. in front of gentry would be great, but other instances are also welcome. thanks for all your hard work!

Become Tomorrow by ShanaStoryteller (Not rated, 39k, wangxian, BSSR/LY, Alternate Universe, a story full of tragic pining gays, and one chaotic gremlin, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, WWX is BSSR’s disciple)

Can't Tell Me Nothin by natacup82 (T, 35k, wangxian, Canon Divergence, Everybody Lives, Family Feels, Communication, BAMF Women)

🧡 Ghosts Shouldn’t by ShanaStoryteller (Not Rated, 15k, WangXian, Grief/Mourning, Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending)

🔒Through the Storm by marhikit (T, 33k, WangXian, WX/OMC, Not JC Friendly, Canon Divergence, Not Madam Yu Friendly, Not Jiang Family Friendly, WWX gets big siblings that love and adore him, JZX ends up with someone different, No Golden Core Transfer, Creepy JGS, JZX & WWX Friendship, WWX in a different sect)

~*~

4. Hi!! 👋🥰

It's me! I'm on vacation finally, I missed you all so much, but I couldn't read fanfics during my exams (it's too distracting). But now I'm free again, so I'm here to ask a ITMF! Yey!

Lately I'd like to read fanfics in which:

A) LQ discover about the absence of WWX's core and decides to help WWX and the Wens. And bring all of them to Gusu.

B) LQ discover about the abuse of Madam Yu and decides that WWX will stay in Gusu. (I love when this happens during the Cloud Recesses Study Arc, but it's ok if this happens in other moment).

I like happy endings, and I prefer when the good people live (Wens, JY, JC...) and only bad people dies. Long fics if it's possible, but shorts are ok too. No modern fics.

Thank you for everything! 🤟🥰💕 @wangxiansgirl

4A)

Righteous at a Cost by thunderwear (G, 21k, wangxian, LQR & WWX, Canon Divergence, Fix-It, no one dies, LQR finds out about WWX’s core, WWX and LQR are friends??, In My Fic?, its more likely than you think, LWJ in the bg like whats happening?, Fluff, WWX goes to Gusu, Mutual Pining, Golden Core Reveal)

Weep You No More, Sad Fountains by athena_crikey (T, 59k, WangXian, LXC & LWJ, LXC & JGY, Canon Divergence, Fix-it fic, Whump, Curses, Fever, Delirium, Stabbing, Loneliness, Confessions, LWJ's emotional repression, WWX giving everything as always, LXC realising sympathy is not support, LQR Being an Asshole) Not quite the request, since it's LXC who ends up inviting WWX & the Wens to come to CR, but iirc LQR grudgingly agrees the Wens need help & can stay? So may be close enough to scratch that itch

Discordant Rhapsody by nirejseki (T, 49k, LQR & WWX, wangxian, JC & WWX, WQ & WWX & WN, LWJ & LQR & LXC, canon divergence, fix-it, hurt/comfort, trauma, politics, protective LQR, protective LWJ, protective WWX, LQR centric, whump, angst) 4a similar. It's been a while since I read the fic so I don't remember if there's an eventually Golden Core reveal, but it's not the reason LQR has for inviting WWX and the Wen to the Cloud Recesses. But hopefully this is similar enough that the requester will enjoy it anyway.

No Strings Attached by stiltonbasket (G, 3k, WangXian, NieLan,Canon Divergence, Fix-It, LQR is a good uncle, Smitten LWJ, Golden Core Reveal)

Righteous and Devoted by thunderwear (T, 7k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Golden Core Reveal, LWJ's POV, Barely Any Pining, thanks lqr, Fluff, lots of fluff, Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies)

4B)

Lessons relearned by Iamnotawriter (T, 44k, WangXian, LQR & WWX, Not Madam Yu Friendly, Time Travel Fix-It, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Inventor WWX, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, No Golden Core Transfer, YZY Bashing)

🔒🧡 rain falls and soaks into the earth series by RoseThorne (T, 57k, WangXian, WIP, Near Death Experience, Attempt Drowning, Madam Yu Bashing, Recovery, No war AU)

💙 Holding shreds by barisan (T, 5k, WangXian, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, No Sunshot Campaign, Body Swap, Not for sexy shenanigans, Chronic Pain, Hurt WWX, Hurt LWJ, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Abusive YZY, Bad Parent YZY, Bad Parent JFM, Good Uncle LQR, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Inaccuracies, POV WWX, Angst with a Happy Ending, Jiāng Family Bashing, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Getting Together, Smart WWX)

🔒 Warming up (to him) by barisan (T, 9k, LQR & WWX, WangXian, Hypothermia, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, Temporary Character Death, Medical Inaccuracies, YZY Abuses WWX, JFM Bashing, pre-wangxian, Good Uncle LQR, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort)

~*~

5. Hello everyone! I am on the search for case fics which are spooky and creepy! The kind of thing you would want to read to set the mood for Halloween, but it is actually July and thunderstorming and the wind is howling and you want to curl up with a scary story and a cat on your lap. Preferably everyone lives in the end, but I am down for angst or temporary character death in the in between. Thank you!!

You are what you eat by deliciousblizzardshark (E, 17k, WangXian, Graphic Depiction of Violence, Major Character Death, Canon Divergence, Eldritch WWX, Horny LWJ, Body Horror, Possession, of a sort, Cannibalism, kind of, Mild Gore, Teeth, When the eldritch abomination possessing you is less of a pining idiot than you are, I did not expect there to be so much fluff when I started writing a fic about an eldrich horror, Fluff and Humor, Smut, LWJ is so fucking thirsty, Oral Sex, Anal Sex, Monster sex, Switching, Light BDSM, Rimming, Self-Lubrication, Seriousness treated Crackily, Implied/Referenced Torture, Dead WWX, Podfic Available) Eldritch horror!WWX

build me no shrines by occultings (microcomets) (M, 54k, WangXian, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, First Time, Getting Together, Confessions, Sharing a Bed, Hair Washing, Sentient Burial Mounds, Case Fic, Post-Canon, CQL Compliant, Hurt/Comfort, Whump, Light Angst, Flashbacks, mild body horror, foot washing, Happy Ending, Non-Sexual Intimacy..., then sexual intimacy, playing fast and loose with mdzs lore, WWX learning to accept intimacy without deflection, occasional LWJ humor agenda, 🔒 [Podfic] build me no shrines by flamingwell)

in your skin by darkredloveknot (enheduane) (E, 10k, WangXian, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Getting Together, Horror, Body Horror, Blood and Gore, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, Non-Consensual Body Modification, kinda??, Reflections over death and self-worth, mentions of canon suicide, Near Death Experiences, 🔒 [Podfic] in your skin by flamingwell)

爱不释手; never let me go by yiqie (E, 68k, WangXian, Case Fic, Blood and Injury, Demons, Body Horror, [Podfic] 爱不释手; never let me go by argentumlupine)

lan wangji sees dead people by mountainrain898

~*~

6. Hi, I'm ITMF a fic where; (a) teenage wangxian meets adult wangxian maybe during cloud recess study arc and older wangxian time travel on purpose or accidentally and find themselves itn cloud recess (or something similar) (b) the other sects gather to plot against wei ying and they spy on burial mounds or find a way to view wei ying's memories (similar plot to seek and ye shall find) (c) do you know any au's where wangxian are professional gamers or play gaming competitions. @purplefuzzypickle

6A)

River Stones by littlesystems (M, 18k, WangXian, Time Travel, Post-Canon, Cloud Recesses Study arc, Junior Quartet, Oblivious WWX, Suffering LWJ, Voyeurism)

How did I end up with this Frozen Heart? by Grace_ShadowWolf (TaubeLePigeon) (T, 53k, WIP, WangXian, Time Travel, Fix-It, PTSD, Angst with a Happy Ending, YP!WWX, twin prides of yunmeng are horrified at the relationship between their future selves, YP!WWX has short hair, Canon Divergence, Self-Indulgent, wangxian get together early, Songfic, JC Bashing, LXC Bashing)

Timely by apathyinreverie (T, 8k, WangXian, Time Travel, Domestic WangXian, Fluff, Fix-It, Post-Canon, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, Mutual Pining, wwx is sunshine personified, Smitten LWJ, Genius WWX, Romance) I'll also throw in Timely which just has Lan Wangji's spirit traveling from his teen years to when he's married to Wei Wuxian.

6B)

💖 The Path by Seastar98 (Not Rated, 279k, WangXian, CQL Verse, Golden core reveal, Fix-it of sorts, Angst with a happy ending)

6C)

simping for hanguang-jun by defractum (nyargles) (T, 6k, WangXian, Modern AU, YouTubers WangXian, Fluff, Among us game, Streamer AU)

~*~

7. Hello, could you please recommend works where WY and LZ meet for the first time when they are older. For example over 30.

Thank you!

The Fault in Our Stars by Vamillepudding (T, 17k, WangXian, Modern AU, Getting Together, Romantic Comedy, Comedy of Errors, Misunderstandings, the title makes it sound like a cancer story, it's not a cancer story)

International Baby by AceBij (E, 21k, WangXian, Modern AU, Pilot!LWJ, CFO!LWJ, Regional Manager!WWX, CEO!LXC, CEO!JC, CFO!JYL, Secretary!WQ, Meet-Cute, baby!A-Yuan, baby!JL Mpreg, Anal Sex, Oral Sex, Carrier!WWX, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Mild Hurt/Comfort, WWX's canonical breeding kink, LWJ's Canonical Breed WWX Kink, Communication, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, It's only at the start and will not go into much detail, Love confessions)

Deep Dive by MimiSpearmint (E, 24k, WangXian, Modern AU, Twin Prides of Yunmeng Feels, Are Bad at Communicating, LWJ is a Panicked Gay, Therapy, Fluff and Humor, Getting Together, Angst with a Happy Ending, Career Ending Injuries, counsellor!lwj, give lwj friends agenda, background NieLan, Melbourne, Eventual Smut, Crack, Baby JL, domestic abuse is discussed but does not happen, Baby LSZ, Baby LJY, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Good Sex Practices, Implied Slight D/s, WangXian Have a Breeding Kink, Cameos by various minor characters)

Breathless by tiptoe39 (E, 69k, WangXian, Fashion & Models, Modeling, Getting Together, drunk lwj, Cranky LWJ, Model!LWJ, stylist!wwx, Happy Ending, WangXian Endgame, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst and then fluff again, Mustache-Twirling Villainy Just Off Camera, JYL Deals With So Much Brother Shit, LWJ Is Working Through His Own Shit, WWX is WWX, LWJ's Bunny Obsession, MianMian Is In Charge of Shoes, JC's Issues Have Issues)

不屈从于天 | not submitting to fate by starborst (E, 20k, WIP, WangXian, BAMF WWX, God!wwx, dream of red tower, Chinese Mythology & Folklore, but loosely based, there's a lot of oc characters & gods, Character Death, time skip, from when wwx was dead and also a god, lots of landscape description, it'll be really really slow paced) Technically it's god!WWX meeting reincarnated!LWJ bit if it's just about their relationship then this might fit! LWJ shows up at the end of chapter 3 and chapter 4 is basically just about their interactions in different situations. Might also fit for #10, seeing as LWJ is a reincarnation (I asked to make sure)

We Meet at the Thousandth Step by Admiranda, Rynne (T, 316k, WangXian, CSSR/WCZ, Canon Divergence, No Sunshot Campaign, CSSR & WCZ Live, Rogue Cultivator WWX, Different First Meeting, Night Hunts, Genius WWX, Inventor WWX, Plot, Romance, Drama, Fluff, Strangers to married, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Everyone Lives, Developing Relationship, Minor Violence, Case Fic, Mystery, Flirting, WWX's Canon-Typical Flower Flirting, Arson, There Was Only One Bed, Getting Together, First Kiss, Meeting the Parents, Resolved Sexual Tension, Resolved Romantic Tension, WWX Is a Good Big Brother, New Relationship Bliss, Chinese Mythology & Folklore, Blood and Injury, Yiling siblings, Married WangXian, Honeymoon, Wangxian's Baby Fever) I can't remember how old Wei Ying & Lan Zhan are in We Meet at the Thousandth Step but I'm quite certain they're at least in their mid- to late-20s when they meet.

~*~

8. itmf a wangxian fic where Jin Guangyao is forced to apologize to Lan Xichen for tricking into helping with Nie Mingjue's murder. Preferably a fic where wangxian comfort him afterwards. Any lxc ship is OK (xicheng, nielan, xiyao), I just want Lan Xichen to get a proper apology and for jgy to acknowledge how truly messed up it was and accept responsibility for being an asshole to poor lxc (and nmj tbh)

~*~

9. Hello! For your next ITMF, could you find me some baby trapping fics please? Whether LWJ traps WWX or WWX traps him 🤗

(and I'd love you forever if you manage to find a fic where Lan Qiren think Wwx is baby trapping his precious cabbage and either it's all Part of LWJ's Plan or the baby was a mutual decision from the both of them)

Thank you!!

truly a love story for the ages by sweetlolixo (E, 4k, WangXian, Modern AU, Dark LWJ, Dark WWX, Alpha LWJ, Omega WWX, Dark!Wangxian, Power Couple, Happy Wangxian Ending, slight daddy kink, Humor, Crack, Pregnant WWX) Of course I gotta rec the mutual baby trapping fic

~*~

10. Do you have a comp fic of reincarnation? If not can you make this for next ITMF? (No comp as of yet though it is on the list! ~Mod L)

不屈从于天 | not submitting to fate by starborst (E, 20k, WIP, WangXian, BAMF WWX, God!wwx, dream of red tower, Chinese Mythology & Folklore, but loosely based, there's a lot of oc characters & gods, Character Death, time skip, from when wwx was dead and also a god, lots of landscape description, it'll be really really slow paced) (link in #7) Technically it's god!WWX meeting reincarnated!LWJ bit if it's just about their relationship then this might fit! LWJ shows up at the end of chapter 3 and chapter 4 is basically just about their interactions in different situations.

the recluse at the end of the moonlit path by beesinspades (T, 28k, WangXian, Modern AU, Reincarnation, Post-Canon, Jack of All Trades Artist WWX, Immortal! LWJ, Mutual Pining, Light Angst, Reunions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Asexual Character, good vibes, [Podfic] the recluse at the end of the moonlit path by b_ofdale by Beria1021)

🧡 We Were Never Strangers by NeverEnoughWangxian (M, 36k, WangXian, Modern AU, Reincarnation, Modern Cultivators, POV WWX, (mostly), College Student WWX, Rogue Cultivator WWX, Immortal LWJ, Immortal LSZ, Dreams, Pining, Sharing a Bed, brief mentions of wwx's past death(s), WangXian.mp3, Getting Together, I guess getting back together technically, Happy Ending, Sexual Tension, Sexual Content)

🧡 All Old Things are New Again by The Feels Whale (miscellea) (M, 51k, WangXian, Reincarnation, Modern AU, canon still happened, extreme post canon, Sugar Daddy, Kink Negotiation, gentle dom!LWJ, canonical levels of consent play, Modern Cultivators, cultivators can recognize important people from previous lives, vaguely, this started out as a cute sugar fantasy and got just incredibly horny very fast, blame LWJ)

忘不了你的爱 (can't forget your love) by PorcupineGirl (G, 25k, WangXian, Time Travel, Modern with Magic, Modern Cultivators AU, Canon Divergence, Time Traveler WWX, discussion of canonical character deaths, a whole lot of handwaving, conveniently localized fires, Discussion of Canonical Suicide Attempt, mostly happy but slightly bittersweet ending)

Closer Than Eternity by Netrixie (T, 26k, WangXian, Modern AU, Reincarnation, an unhealthy addiction to starbucks, Immortals, cultivation is -kinda- commonplace, Self-Doubt, POV Alternating, Minor Original Character(s), Canon Compliant, Post-Canon, Temporary Character Death, Angst with a Happy Ending, not for jc fans, This is not a reconciliation fic)

Have We Met Before by thelastdboy (T, 7k, WangXian, POV WWX, Modern: No Powers, First Meetings, College/University, Reincarnation, Strangers to Lovers, Slow Burn, Getting Together, Developing Relationship, Love Confessions, First Kiss, CSSR and WCZ Live, WWX Has a Family, Older Sibling WWX, Queer Themes, Demisexual WWX, Parent-Child Relationship, Friendship, Heteronormativity, Pining WWX, Fluff, Madam Lan Lives)

living in my memory/living in my mouth by tardigradeschool (T, 32k, WangXian, Reincarnation, Canon Divergence, College/University, Modern with Magic, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Sharing a Bed, Nightmares, Light Angst, Epistolary, (sort of), POV Alternating, Mutual Pining, Friends to Lovers)

~*~

11. hi everyone! I am looking for modern cultivation aus where, this may sound redundant but ya know, cultivation is used in tandem with modern living. For example, I really liked in “The Shade of Old Trees” by Kryal how WWX used his cultivation to do sick tricks on a skateboard. Or in "Truth Will Out" by KizuKatana how the night hunts were filmed and uploaded to an internet forum. So yeah! Cultivation working with modern things, cool magic in tandem with modern science and tech. thanks tlm!!

speeding up my heartbeat by plonk (Not Rated, 24k, WangXian, Modern with Magic, Gyms) has cultivation specific gyms and sports, with WWX doing cultivator level parkour

🧡🔒Night of the Living History (an edutainment special!) by Aerlalaith (T, 51k, WangXian, Modern with Magic, Workplace Relationship, Fluff and Humor, Museums, living history, Some Plot, Slice of Life, Injury, a minor haunting) has cultivation working (or not, as the case may be!) alongside modern tech

A Different Yarn by donutsweeper (T, 1k, WangXian, Urban Fantasy, Yarn store AU, Modern with Magic, Modern Cultivation) it's really short but in it knitting and crochet is used for talismans

Hear a song this deeply by so_shhy (T, 87k, wangxian, modern cultivation, academia au, music, kid fic, action/adventure, canon-typical violence, canon-typical JGY behavior, slow burn, fluff & angst, happy ending) has modern cultivation history researcher LZ and municipal cultivation employee WWX working within (or not, on occasion!) modern day cultivation rules, laws, and customs

and so my heart beats wildly by lily_winterwood (E, 106k, WangXian, JYL/JZX, Modern Cultivation, Rivalry, Competition, Competition-Set Fic, Athletes, Multimedia, Miscommunication, frenemies to lovers, Rivals to Lovers, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Seemingly One-sided But Actually Mutual Pining, Oblivious WWX, Competitive Cultivation, Anal Sex, First Time, Angst with a Happy Ending, Olympics, Inappropriate use of an Olympic gold medal, Breathplay, Rough Sex, Food Porn, Tanabata, Lily's back on her Qixi bullshit, Switching, Bottom LWJ) has cultivation Olympics

~*~

12. Hi all! Im in the mood for Jiang yanli bashing! I want her to also be angry and entitled like Jiang Cheng and then get, well, bashed for it!

Dispersing Clouds by dreamingofcake (E, 283k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Genius WWX, Inventor WWX, Not Jiang Family Friendly, Abusive YZY, Canonical Child Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Eventual Sex, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm (Background Character), Background Character Deaths, child deaths, Canon JC, Good Uncle LQR, Accidental Baby Acquisition, Cultivation Sect Politics, Homophobia, Heteronormativity, Feelings Realization, WWX is Not Oblivious) I wouldn't say she's angry, but she very much expects WWX to be a doormat for the sake of keeping things how she is used to them being

Hua Xianle by Tiffany_Guinne (Not rated, 260k, hualian, wangxian, TGCF, canon divergence, not Jiang friendly, madam lan lives, WWX adopted by hualian, WWX with different name, overprotective hualian, hurt WWX, WIP) crossover with TGCF, Hualian raises WWX, plenty of Jiang bashing all around

~*~

13. for the in the mood for, may i have your most gutwrenching jiang cheng & wei wuxian sibling hurt/comfort please. preferably with reconciliation. 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

ransom by alessandriana (G, 3k, JC & WWX, Hurt/Comfort, Dizziness, Fainting, Character is Injured while Protecting Another, Yunmeng Shuangjie, Yunmeng reconciliation, [PODFIC] ransom by Gwogobo) 

love lies beyond words by acrosticacrumpet (G, 4k, JC & WWX, Post-Canon, Whump, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, canon-typical dysfunctional relationships, Yunmeng Shuangjie Reconciliation, not a completed reconciliation but the beginning of one, Twin Prides of Yunmeng Feels, Self-Worth Issues, WWX's notoriously poor self-worth vs JC's legendary rejection sensitivity: FIGHT, painful conversations with a tasteful smidgeon of, Cuddling & Snuggling)

we’re starting at the end by Miss_Enthusiasimal (M, 92k, WangXian, JC & WWX, Time Travel, Canon Divergence, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Golden Core Reveal, Burial Mounds, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Starvation, emaciation, Cannibalism, Self-Harm, Amputation, Suicidal Thoughts, Sunshot Campaign, let JZX and WWX be friends club)

JC and WWX's Get Along Sweater series by newamsterdam (T, 29k, JC & WWX, Trapped In A Closet, Cultivation as Plot Device, Reconciliation, Miscommunication, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Novel Spoilers, Post-Canon, Canon-Typical Violence, Night Hunting, Ghosts, Action/Adventure, Brotherly Love, Complicated Relationships, Yunmeng Shuangjie)

In The Dark Right Now by phnelt (T, 10k, WangXian, graphic depictions of injuries, trapped in a cave, Near Death Experience, fatalistic thinking, established wangxian, Family Feels, mention of unnamed illness of an offscreen character, Nobody dies in this fic, Alternate Universe - Modern AU, jc and wwx are caved in and lan zhan talks to them through the radio, Hurt/Comfort) if modern AU is acceptable

~*~

14. For the next itmf, can you please recommend to me some fics where Jiang Cheng raises both Jin Ling and Wen Yuan . Preferably where both or at least A-yuan knows his father is Wei Wuxian

What Remains After the War by Swan_Song (T, 44k, JC & JL, JC & LSZ, JL & LSZ, WIP, Canon Divergence, LSZ is a Jiang, Good Uncle JC, Cousins JL & LSZ, JC Needs a Hug, JC Needs Therapy, The juniors solve a mystery, Junior Ensemble Shenanigans, Good Uncle LQR, he tries his best, LSZ Needs a Hug)

~*~

15. itmf fics where instead of lan xichen, lan wangji becomes sect leader/king/emperor/etc. With happy ending for wangxian! Any length and rating works and if there's smut, can I get top plan wangji please? And nothing where lan wangji is with someone else romantically/sexually even for a bit in the course of the fic I don't have any other triggers/squicks!

The Wrong Man by Remma3760 (Not Rated, 103k, WangXian, WIP, Sect Leader LWJ, Evil JGS, Canon Divergence, Golden Core Reveal) Not exactly LWJ becoming sect leader *instead of* LXC, but does have LXC getting killed off in chapter 1, & LWJ becoming sect leader & instituting sweeping reforms. Still a WIP but the main story is over & is a happy ending (WWX is actually alive in this, so no having to wait for resurrection)

I Am Happy I Met You by Bhargavee00 (Not Rated, 34k, WIP, WangXian, Get a Happy Ending, Sect Leader LWJ, Chief Cultivator LWJ, Dragon LWJ, Top LWJ/Bottom WWX, Madam Lan Lives, Minor Madam Lan/Qingheng-jun, Qingheng-jun, Lives, Dark LWJ, Protective LWJ, Protective Gusu Lan Sect, Protective LXC, Protective LQR, Good Uncle LQR, WangXian Are Soulmates, WWX Goes to Gusu, Yunmeng Jiang Sect Bashing, Jiang Family Bashing, LWJ is So Whipped, Older LWJ, Good Older Sibling LXC, Sunshot Campaign, No Golden Core Transfer, WWX is a Lan, WWX is So Whipped)

The Straightest Path by meyari (T, 30k, WangXian, NieLan, MingLi, ChengSang, war and death, Grief/Mourning, Politics, plotting for neuroatypicals, Autistic LWJ, WWX Has ADHD, Non-Canon Relationship, No Yīn Iron, Sect Leader LWJ) LXC and LQR die leaving Lan Zhan to becoming Sect Leader

🧡 Discarded by teawater (E, 260k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Dying Lan children, Hurt/Comfort, YL WWX, Golden Core Reveal, Case Fic, Depression, Family Issues, Self-Esteem Issues, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Worth Issues, Angst with a Happy Ending, and it's not always dark, POV Multiple, BAMF WWX, dubious morals in the Lan sect Feels, Pining, Grief, Fix-It, BAMF LWJ)

golden when the day met the night by glitteringmoonlight (Not rated, 95k, slow burn, sugar daddy LWJ, light, angst, fluff, developing relationship, eventual smut, WIP)

Temptation by Karmiya (E, 23k, WangXian, JYL & WWX, WIP, Sect Leader LWJ, domestic abuse) LXC dies after the Sunshot Campaign and LZ becomes Sect Leader

~*~

16. Hii!! does this count as an itmf? if anyone knows a fic where LZ gets married or bethroted during the thirteen years but then WY comes back anything like that ?? if it doesnt it definitely should ill take anything similar tho @yesibest

patching the road with vague intentions by loosingletters (T, 39k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Humor, Developing Friendships, WWX Resurrected By Others, Trans WWX, Case Fic, POV WWX, POV LQR, Family, Good Uncle LQR, Hurt/Comfort, Golden Core Reveal, Slow Burn, Canon-Typical Violence, MXY Lives) To be fair, LWJs wife is the one who summons WWX into her body so it might not fully fit

Love Song In Reverse by timetoboldlygo (T, 237k, WangXian, Amnesia, Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Falling In Love, Slow Burn, agressively mixing and matching novel and cql canon, No Homophobia, Mentions of Starvation, Parental WWX) For 16, if what you're looking for is wangxian struggle with their feelings for each other post ressurection while lwj is already commited to someone else, you might like Love Song in Reverse where WY comes back but without his memories so he believes he's MXY and he and LZ navigate their feelings while LZ is still commited to his feelings for WY.

~*~

17. for the next itmf what about a fic from when lwj and jc are searching for wwx when he was in the burial mounds

in our respective ways by Lise (T, 5k, JC & WWX, JC & LWJ, Missing Scene, Bonding, (sort of??), POV JC, Canon Compliant, that brief period of time when lwj and jc were solidly on the same page, JC's jealousy could be a third character, Twin Prides of Yunmeng Feels, Brothers, Canon Era, Not Friends to Still Not Friends, canon typical abuse of pows)

waiting, shivering by kornevable (T, 2k, JC & WWX, Introspection, Missing Scene, background wangxian)

~*~

If you didn’t get an answer to your ask here, don’t forget to make use of @mdzs-kinkmeme and MDZS KINK MEME on Dreamwidth. Authors actually do use them for ideas. You may get what you order!***Your prompt doesn’t have to be kink! Fluff, crack, whatever - it’s all good!***

[gentil-minou]

once upon a time, 很久很久以前

Once upon a time, there lived a magical boy who was lost far, far away from home… Wei Wuxian is perfectly ready to celebrate another mediocre birthday alone when a ten-year-old shows up on his doorstep claiming to be his son. This kid is convinced everyone in his town has been dragged away from their xianxia world and cursed to live as ordinary citizens in a mundane small town, and he's certain that Wei Wuxian is the key to saving them, his other dad, and their entire world. He sounds insane, but, well, Wei Wuxian likes him. Besides, what else can he do but follow him back home? (A Wangxian AU based on the show Once Upon a Time, no prior knowledge of said show necessary)

Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Transmigration, of the townwide variety, Amnesia, of the nearly everyone variety, Mystery, of the shenanigans variety, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn Has Self-Esteem Issues, wwx is sad and down bad, Single Parent Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī, except a-yuan runs away to find his other dad, Fluff and Angst, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Minor Character Death, Angst with a Happy Ending

Wangxian + A-Yuan + Minor Characters | WIP 4/? | 52K | Rated M

Preview under the cut

Once upon a time, there was a boy who believed he loved the world more than it could ever love him.

He would be proven very wrong.

~

Everyone loves the birthday boy.

They especially love him several shots in on Halloween night, wearing an outfit that’s little more than a couple scraps of fabric hastily sewn together in some approximation of a “Sexy Whatever”. Privately, Wei Wuxian calls it Dealer’s Choice, letting whoever he’s currently flirting with decide what it is.

It doesn’t matter; that’s never been the point of the night. Sure a birthday is meant to be spent celebrating, but that’s a bit harder to do when he doesn’t have anyone to celebrate with. It would be fine, as long as he could have as many free drinks as he could score and at least a passably decent fuck, he’d consider it a good night.

Really, when it comes down to it, it’s just another day. Halloween, yes, which makes it a moderately better one. But beyond that bit of fun that comes with picking up a pretty stranger at a bar, there really isn’t much else to look forward to. This is how Wei Wuxian expects to celebrate his birthday:

He’d saunter into how ever many establishments it takes until he finds a pretty enough stranger he can stand being around. The pretty stranger would look him up and down, dragging their eyes over his toned long legs and resting far too long at the slope between his narrow waist and wide hips. And for that one moment, he’d be the most important boy in the world.

He’d get a few free cheap drinks and eventually, they’d find their way to some back alley with its familiar stench of overripe garbage and piss. He’d let himself be pressed up against the brick wall, rough against his back; the perfect distraction from everything else. Then the pretty stranger would stick their tongue far enough down his throat so that he could pretend this day is just like any other.  

In between sloppy kisses and sub-par groping attempts, they’d get his name wrong while he’d have already forgotten theirs. They’d mutter a “Happy Halloween, Birthday Boy” like so many one-night stands before them, and he’d giggle and laugh like it’s the very first time. It’s never difficult to plaster a patented smile and play pretend. Then he’d drop to his knees and let the world fall away.

Finally, after however many drinks and strangers it would take to make him forget, he’d stumble back to his basement studio with just enough awareness to take off his shoes before passing out on his secondhand stained mattress. His dreams would be fast and incomprehensible, a mosaic of imaginary maybes and a dream of a life he’d never had.

This is how he’s celebrated the last several years, and it’s how he expects to celebrate this year as well. 

Because it’s not just Halloween and it’s not just his birthday. It’s the anniversary of his parents leaving their son behind in a dingy alley, wedged between a dumpster and a pile of soggy cardboard. Not even the barest hint of an afterthought, like maybe we shouldn’t leave this small defenseless child asleep and at the mercy of sewer rats?

But if the liquor is strong enough and the haze is just right he wouldn’t remember that until the next morning. That’s what the night is really for. Not a celebration or anything like that, but a desperate attempt at some peace away from this life of his.

Tonight will be his twenty-fifth birthday, and it might as well not be at all.

And then it will end, and November 1st will come around, and the world will keep turning like it always does.

But somehow, not one of those things goes according to plan. In fact, the universe has a completely different plan for him this year, it seems. 

Read more on Ao3

[jiangwanyinscatmom]

Hi~~ i wish you have a nice day, I love your blog.

I'm quite new to the mdzs fandom but i already fed up with them. Just now, i saw some fans said that lxc being a complete jerk towards wwx and lwj. I know lxc made mistakes as well but being a complete jerk? And then proceed to say that the jiangs treated wwx like a real young master eventho he's a servant's son 🥲

I dont know anymore~

I'm so sorry for rambling here, i hope you dont mind.

Good morning anon, no need to feel bad, it's what I'm here for at times.

Personally, no I don't agree with the many more critical takes regarding Lan Xichen. He is not meant to be seen as a major part of the problem(tm) as others within story. He is simply a protective elder brother that is unfortunately kinder and ignorant in a world that is against that very character in a stage that caters towards the politically corrupt and taking advantage of those characteristics. He is not a cruel leader.

His sect at any rate isn't meant to be politically motivated and this is reflective of his teachings. Culturally if you are that heavily based within doaist teachings, it is not actually meant to be used for the political world. There are sayings that to be a good doaist, you aren't a leader or one to be equivalent to an emperor. You aren't meant for politics essentially other than advisory. Can this be disliked, of course, doaism is supposed to be the divorce of human strife from enlightenment, good and bad are not supposed to shake you as neither extreme are complete harmony.

His point narratively is what this practice means for people in the thick of these human issues and the counterproductiveness of pacifism in the face of needing to come to term with punishment of humans and the hypocrisy of this at times you have to fight with personally.

Wei Wuxian as well. He was treated alright and enough for him to be thankful and happy at lotus Pier, but realistically he was not treated well by several there, it was just that he weighed the good against the negative and was comfortable staying to find his happiness with the situation. However, with the given world building status is flung against him as having become too arrogant given he was born a servant's son, and the expectations of him were to also serve as such and obey. This is used against him by his guardians themselves, Jiang Cheng and the world as recompense for having raised him as a cultivator, he also told his own self whatever sacrifices made by him for it, was of an equal sacrifice for having been taken in and raised as such. This is a theme regarding those that are lower class, they are expected to show full gratitude and repayment that those of higher status do not.

"Consider it a repayment of my debt to the Jiangs,” Wei Wuxian added.

Jiang Cheng raised his head and looked at him with bloodshot eyes. “…To my father, my mother, my sister?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

Wei Wuxian rubbed his temple. “Forget it. It’s all in the past. Let’s not bring it up again.”

This wasn’t something he liked to keep reliving. He didn’t want to be forced to remember the sensation of having his core cut out while he was still conscious, nor want to be forcefully reminded of what a sacrifice it had been and what it had cost.

Had this incident been exposed in his previous life, he would most likely have laughed it off. He would have consoled Jiang Cheng with, “It’s really no big deal. Look at me, haven’t I managed for this long without a golden core? I still beat up whomever I want and kill whomever I please.” But he no longer had the strength to keep up a nonchalant act.

Truthfully, he wasn’t unaffected. Could a person so easily resign themselves to such a loss?

Of course not. It was impossible.

Wei Wuxian’s own pride when he was seventeen or eighteen had been, in fact, on par with Jiang Cheng’s. He had also been someone with strong spiritual power and exceptional talent. Even when he’d fooled around all day catching fish and shooting birds, and

climbing walls and playing pranks at night, he had still been leagues ahead of his fellow disciples who actually studied hard.

But whenever he found himself tossing and turning in the dead of night, unable to sleep and plagued by thoughts of how he’d never again follow the orthodox path to the mountain’s peak, never again display the astounding swordplay that made people’s jaws drop…he would turn his thoughts around with a simple fact. If it had not been for Jiang Fengmian bringing him to Lotus Pier, Wei Wuxian might never have crossed

paths with the cultivation world. He would never have been conscious of such a mystical and magnificent realm. He’d merely have been the leader of some homeless street urchins who roamed the streets and fled at the sight of dogs—or perhaps herded cattle and stole vegetables in the countryside, playing his flute and living one day at a time. He’d have had no way of cultivating, let alone a chance to form a golden core.

And at that thought, he’d feel a lot better.

So he treated it as a repayment of his debt, or an atonement for his sins.Treated it as if he had never obtained that golden core to begin with.

After bringing himself around so many times this way, he was almost able to actually feel as wild and carefree as he acted on the surface. He could even half-jokingly praise himself for the state of acceptance he had reached, while he was at it.

But all that was in the past.

His rationale is very similar to what those in poverty or on the cusp tell themselves, be grateful for what is given to you, no more, and always repay what others have given to you despite anything. Don't whine, take it, be grateful, don't ask for more, and expect to pay back in full due to integrity. Note that this is also what Jiang Cheng insists on, but the goals have constantly shifted as to what Wei Wuxian owes him. First it was because of his parents raising him, next, what he owed Yunmeng Jiang due to being a disciple, then, what he made Jiang Yanli "lose".

You cannot repay something that is not tangentially there any longer, hurt feelings do not have closure unless you have to lay them to rest. Wei Wuxian had done his all to protect the Jiang's son as expected and more. Yet this still is not him bemoaning the situation as he rationalized it was what he needed to do based on the chance he was given. Not many else in the work bother to do more than blame others or shift blame and responsibility.

[drowningbydegrees-fanworks]

In This Life or Any Other - Chapter 11

FIC RATING: E WORD COUNT: 74,623 (current) RELATIONSHIPS: Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian WARNINGS: Graphic Depictions of Violence TAGS: Eventual Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Canon-Typical Violence, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Trauma, Politics, Intrigue, BAMF Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Angst and Humor, Additional warnings/tags in chapters as needed

SUMMARY: When his reconnaissance mission makes it clear that the Qishan army is marching on Cloud Recesses, Wei Wuxian knows they don’t stand a chance on their own. He reports in requesting military support, but instead of the backup he hoped for, all Wei Wuxian gets is an order to return home. He doesn’t actually know anyone from Gusu, really, but they’re still people. With destruction inevitable and every kingdom turning a blind eye, Wei Wuxian makes a choice. The only choice, as far as he’s concerned. If no help is coming, Wei Wuxian will just have to save them himself. Fooling Wen Ruohan’s soldiers into arresting him so he can stage a prison break? That’s definitely on purpose. Setting events in motion that could reshape the world as they know it? That… might have been an accident.

Read on AO3

Somehow, peace is the cruelest thing the Burial Mounds can give him. Whatever lurks here waits at the periphery, ready to ambush Wei Wuxian the moment he lets his guard down. They’re toying with him, he suspects - knows really - making the most of what might be the first entertainment they’ve had in years. After all, nothing comes out of the Burial Mounds, but nothing goes in either. Nothing, that is, except that which is unfathomably evil if the stories are to be believed. 

Something cold slithers down Wei Wuxian’s spine like melting snow. He yelps at the sensation, and then at the pain movement causes when he jerks around to look, but there’s nothing there. 

“Ghosts and monsters indeed,” Wei Wuxian mutters, trying, not for the first time, to stand up. Honestly, it’s remarkable that he’s even upright (that he’s alive at all is nothing short of a miracle), but what lurks out there probably won’t let him sit here on the cracked earth and tufts of dead grass indefinitely. 

So once again he tries, and fails, to get to his feet. Whatever healed him didn’t exactly do a bang up job of it, so while he’s not bleeding out, and the remaining damage looks like it’ll mostly mend, Wei Wuxian feels like he’s mostly being held together by thread and good intentions. What he can see of his body is more bruise than bare skin, but as alarming as the mottled purple marks are, they don’t hold a candle to the all consuming ache of trying to move in a body that is in no condition to do anything of the sort. 

Humiliating a predicament as it is, there's no one but the echoes of people long gone to witness him crawl his way over to the saddest excuse for a tree he's ever seen. It's hardly a tree at all, just a withered, spindly trunk that creaks dangerously when Wei Wuxian puts any weight against it. That it mostly stays put as he drags himself to his feet is an unexpected relief, but stay put it does despite all its threats otherwise. 

Getting up off the ground is one thing. Staying there is another entirely. Wei Wuxian takes one stumbling step and then another before hesitantly letting go of the tree. He huffs out a breath, darkly amused by how much he must look like one more dead thing in this graveyard, but even that small sound claws at his chest from the inside until he hunches in on himself, bracing against the pain. 

“No laughing, then. Got it,” Wei Wuxian says quietly when he can breathe again. There are worse things. After all, restraining his sense of humor isn’t really all that much of a restriction given the… well, everything. 

Whoever or whatever tried to fix him may have been awful at it, but they did at least manage to clear his head. What he briefly thinks is his vision gone blurry is only a dense fog distorting everything around him. If he’s absolutely got to choose, Wei Wuxian will take being unable to see over being unable to think any day. 

He’d like to think he’s proven himself good in a crisis, tactical enough when the situation calls for it. This definitely calls for it. Water is the most important thing. Dehydration will kill him, probably even before whatever else is lurking down here, either on its own, or by making him too out of sorts to protect himself. So, water first. The rest - food, shelter, an escape route - are more flexible. 

There are noises when Wei Wuxian listens, but none that sound like running water. In the mist, there’s no telling which way might lead him somewhere useful, so Wei Wuxian picks his direction mostly because he’s already facing that way and doesn’t have to fight his body into turning around. It’s not scientific and there’s no guarantee he isn’t making things worse for himself, but it’s what he’s got. 

If the shadows drawing in closer, blurry dark spots in the mist, Wei Wuxian stubbornly ignores them.

---

Hours might have passed. He thinks. The perpetual grayness of the sky overhead defies any effort to tell what time of day it is and his perception may admittedly be colored by the miserable state he’s in, but it feels like hours. On top of it, there’s a horribly distinct possibility that Wei Wuxian has been walking in circles because he has yet to find a boundary, and that just makes it worse. 

It takes a really very unfair amount of focus to stay upright, and the sound is muffled by whatever barrier keeps the humans out and the monsters in, so Wei Wuxian could probably be forgiven for missing it at first. There’s something though, a departure from the whispers and scuffing noises of whatever waits in the mist. 

“Hello?” He calls out when he recognizes that the sound is a voice. It’s a stupid thing, maybe, speaking up in a place like this. Wei Wuxian hasn’t exactly been subtle about his movements though, so at this point, it probably doesn’t matter. 

It comes again, still stifled but closer than before. His sense of direction is shot, but he tries to follow it, taking one painful step after another. If he’s lucky, it’ll be someone coming to help, and if not? Well, it’s not like this place can do any worse to him than he’s already managed. 

“Wei Ying!” And just like that, everything changes, because he knows that voice. This plan wasn’t for nothing then, if pushing Jiang Cheng through that portal made sure that his brother was the message Wei Wuxian couldn’t send. He has no idea how Lan Zhan puzzled out that he was here in particular, but a rescue is a rescue. For the first time since he watched his home crumble before his eyes, Wei Wuxian feels like he can breathe. 

“Lan Zhan! I’m-” Wei Wuxian pauses, wheezing as his lungs protest his attempts to yell. “-over here.”

“I can not see you,” Lan Zhan calls back. He’s still just a voice in the fog, but it’s a noticably closer voice, so progress! 

Wei Ying smiles even though his body threatens to revolt with every step. “Well, if you keep talking and I keep talking, we’re bound to run into each other eventually, right?”

When Lan Zhan doesn’t immediately reply, Wei Ying fills up the empty spaces. 

“You have no idea how happy I am to see you. Well, hear you, I guess. You know what I mean. Turns out getting tossed off a cliff isn’t actually the most fun I’ve ever had. Maybe don’t tell Jiang Cheng about that part, though. He’s gonna be pissed enough as it is that I tricked him into leaving, but no one is dead and you’re here, so at this point I think we should all agree I have the best ideas…” Uncertainty begins to creep in around the edges as Wei Wuxian realizes he hasn’t gotten an answer. “Lan Zhan?”

“Wei Ying?” Lan Zhan’s voice is closer than ever, soothing Wei Wuxian’s frazzled nerves. At first. “Wei Ying. Where are you?”

Wei Wuxian slowly moves towards Lan Zhan… probably. It’s hard to tell when his friend speaks so sparingly. “Can’t you hear me?”

In the confusion, Wei Wuxian stumbles backwards, yelping in alarm when he bumps into something and that something moves. Only a firm grip around Wei Wuxian’s shoulders keeps him from falling. The fingers Wei Wuxian sees when he looks down are decidedly human, much to his relief, and they withdraw once he’s steady on his feet again. They’re so close, Wei Wuxian can feel Lan Zhan’s breath where his shirt has ripped over his shoulder blade. “Wei Ying.”                    

“You’re going to have to tell me pretty much right now if you don’t want a hug because otherwise, you’re definitely getting one. But see? What did I tell you? We were bound to find each other eventually. We make a good team.” Wei Wuxian turns, already grinning as he turns to face Lan Zhan. The expression dies on his lips when he finally gets close enough to look.

For too long, Wei Wuxian stands frozen. The warm, golden eyes he’d expected to meet his are closed, but it does nothing to hide the leaking, bright red rivulets emerging from beneath Lan Zhan’s lashes to slide down his face. 

“Wei Ying.” It doesn’t sound like his friend any longer, it doesn’t even sound human. But it’s Lan Zhan’s mouth opening, Lan Zhan’s lips that blood spills over, Lan Zhan’s pristine white robe that’s becoming hopelessly stained as he bleeds from every hole in his head. It’s all red, red, red. So much more than any one person can afford to lose.

An anguished sound wrenches its way free of Wei Wuxian and he stumbles in his desperation to get out of the way as Definitely Not Lan Zhan reaches for him. His shaky legs refuse to hold him up any longer, so he scrambles backward, uncaring of the rocks digging cruelly into the palms of his hands as he does. 

“You’re not real!” Wei Wuxian shouts as the creature wearing his friend’s face continues to advance. It opens his mouth as if to reply, but he doesn’t listen. He cannot bear to. “Go away! You’re not real!” 

If the apparition even hears him, it gives no indication. It moves with all Lan Wangji’s grace, unhurried as it follows Wei Wuxian’s disjointed scooting along the floor of the Burial mounds. There’s no weapon at his disposal should it get bored of toying with him and attack, so he can only flee in a body that refuses, even now, staring a nightmare in the face, to cooperate. 

For one miserable moment he considers just giving up, lost and broken as he is. It’s in that moment though, that the heel of his hand finds empty air instead of the dried up earth he’d been expecting. Everything after that happens too quickly for him to be anything other than along for the ride. The lack of support makes Wei Wuxian teeter at an angle, sliding right off the flat ground onto an incline he couldn’t see. Momentum carries him none too gently downward, unable to do more than curl in on himself enough to try to ward off the worst of it. Not that it helps. The violent jostling aggravates injuries that have only barely begun to heal, and by the time he comes to a stop, slamming into a rock face, there’s blood on his palms where he’d had them tucked against the stab wound. 

The rock juts out overhead, not quite a cave, but at least offering some cover from the ledge above. He’s not optimistic enough to believe it will save him, but survival instinct makes Wei Wuxian bite down on the pained whimper that bubbles up as he tucks himself tightly against the rockface. 

With nowhere to run and nothing left to defend himself with, Wei Wuxian squeezes his eyes shut and waits for whatever monster is waiting out there to take him. Seconds pass, a minute, more than that until he’s lost track. When nothing happens, Wei Wuxian cautiously opens his eyes, peering as far as he can from where he’s hiding. 

He sees… nothing. The horrifying approximation of Lan Zhan is gone, but not only that. Wei Wuxian had skidded down quite a hill now that he’s looking at it, which he didn’t expect to see, but the fog is gone as well. Was it real? Was any of this real?

“What the hell?” Wei Wuxian mutters, slowly beginning to crawl out from under the rock ledge when he can’t identify any specific danger. 

It’s only because he’s being so careful not to make noise himself that he hears the quiet trickle of water somewhere nearby. Assuming it’s more real than Lan Zhan was, it’s the first good thing that’s happened since he was thrown down here. Braced for disappointment, Wei Wuxian crawls closer to investigate. 

Like every other sign of life in the Burial Mounds, what he finds is anemic at best. Runoff from somewhere further up the mountains spills across the ground in a sluggish trickle before coming to a stop in a tiny pool scarcely larger than Wei Wuxian’s spread palms. 

More mud than water, Wei Wuxian’s stomach turns just contemplating consuming it. But he plans to get out of here, and there won’t be any accomplishing that if his body shuts down first. That no one is there to witness him barely hold himself up on his elbows, dipping his head to drink, is hardly a comfort. Neither is knowing it’s probably not the worst thing he’ll have to do to get out of here alive.

---

Everything around him has been brought to ruin, like an entire city has been torn to pieces under his feet. Wei Wuxian knows this place like a memory, though he’s never seen it in his life. An inevitable end, something whispers from the shadows, a catastrophe with him at the epicenter. 

It’s as much a massacre as anything, he realizes, revulsion sinking like ice into his veins. Something horrific happened here for so many bodies to be littered among the rubble. They look… they look almost peaceful if one can ignore the blood still sluggishly dripping from the holes in their head. It’s like they all just… went to sleep. 

The mage. The monster who did this had to be the mage, he thinks.

“Hello?” Wei Wuxian calls out as he walks among the dead. It feels all wrong though, like shouting in a library. The only reply is a distant cawing of crows anyway. “Anybody?”

There are faces he recognizes among the dead. Wen Chao. When Zhuliu. Good riddance to both of them. They set up the makings of their own demise, after all. 

But not every face is a foe, and it’s not until he sees Wen Ning that he realizes he’s trapped in the scaffolding of a nightmare. Wei Wuxian tries to stop beside his friend, taken by some mad impulse to shake life back into the motionless figure, but his feet keep moving of their own accord, slow and inexorable. He reaches, or tries to, but his hands never leave his sides. Wei Wuxian can only look, grasping the depth of this calamity a little more with every turn of his head. 

All he hates has been reduced to nothing at his feet, but all he loves has crumbled with it. For every Qishan soldier, there’s someone that matters balancing the equation, and Wei Wuxian is helpless to do more than watch. This is the aftermath, after all. The damage has already been done. 

Even his body refuses to heed his demands. It moves when every fiber of his being wants to turn back. It stops when he wishes to flee this place entirely. He stands at the ridge of a hill, overlooking the graveyard he’d walked through. Only then do his hands move, reaching for his face. 

Wei Wuxian knows. He’s certain down to the the marrow of his bones even before he sees it. Knowing does nothing to quell the scream his body refuses to let out as his fingers pry something loose from his face. Knowing does nothing to soothe the horror, a punch to the gut as he finds himself staring at the inside of a golden mask. 

The monster is him. 

Wei Wuxian wakes up screaming after all, barely cobbling together the wherewithal to shove his knuckles against his lips to stifle it. Not that there’s been much of a point. There’s no hiding when half the time Wei Wuxian isn’t even sure what’s real in this place. 

The ghosts seem content enough to haunt him, letting him wither by inches. It’s hard to keep track of the days when the light barely changes, when it’s been so many that each one becomes indistinct. He had the right of it, he thinks, when he first woke up, deciding that living wasn’t the miracle it looked like. 

He’s not dead, but he’s certainly marching towards it. Through the ripped fabric of his ruined shirt, he can see his ribs and all the spaces between them, protruding under his skin. He hobbles along in a body still struggling to mend. That he only sleeps in fragments probably isn’t helping, but there’s nothing for it. 

With a shaky sigh, Wei Wuxian pushes himself to his feet, stumbling from the shallow cave he’d taken refuge in. Thumbing at the spear he’s whittled himself, he takes in his surroundings and breathes a sigh of relief that it’s no longer the burning image of Lotus Pier he’d fled from perhaps a few hours ago. Maybe the night will be kind to him for once. 

Of course, the night does no such thing. Wei Wuxian only sees the one at first, a glimmer in the air that would be pretty if not for the threat of it. He shakes his head and huffs irritably at it. “Finally sick of waiting for me to die, huh?”

It does nothing, but Wei Wuxian brandishes his spear at it anyway. Not that the weapon will hold up under any usage. If he’s very, very lucky, he might get one good strike in before the brittle, dead wood snaps under the pressure. 

He’s so busy watching the one spirit that keeps prowling closer that he doesn’t notice the others until he’s nearly surrounded. Over the course of his imprisonment here, Wei Wuxian has wished it were over more times than he can count. Somehow, actually faced with the prospect of his own demise, suddenly he has no interest in dying after all.

There’s no fighting all of them off with a stick better fit for kindling than self-defense. In all honesty, there’s probably no fighting off even one of them with it, so Wei Wuxian does the only thing he can. He runs. 

At least, hea means to be running. It’s still hard to walk for long distances, aching and wobbly, so it’s more of a fast, clumsy jog than anything. It’s an attempt at an escape is the point, as fast as he can currently manage. 

The ghosts are faster. 

Every turn he makes, Wei Wuxian finds himself hemmed in, flanked by the thing that was probably always going to get him in the end. He tries anyway, scrambling towards what might have been woods once, like he might lose them among the scraggly, dead trees. The escape is cut off, forcing him to pivot, and that’s finally a bridge too far. Twisting his ankle, Wei Wuxian stumbles to his knees with a pained yelp. He scrambles to face the creature, spear held in front of his face like the flimsiest shield. All he can do is brace himself as the ghost swoops in. 

He doesn’t really know how ghosts work. There are no teeth, no claws. Lacking any real corporeal form, perhaps a spirit can’t strike at a person physically at all, because only the terrible things they make him think he sees have ever touched him here. Maybe that’s how they get you, taking you apart from the inside out instead. What it comes down to is that Wei Wuxian doesn’t know what it’s supposed to be like when the ghost finally goes in for the kill. He just knows it isn’t this. 

A bright light erupts between them, forcing Wei Wuxian to squeeze his eyes shut, so he can’t see what it is that’s happening. He can hear it though, an agonized wail in his head that doesn’t sound like it’s his. Something touches him, but it’s nearly intangible, more like a gust of wind than a physical thing. There isn’t pain so much as a strange, fizzy sort of feeling. It’s not a state of being that Wei Wuxian gets much time to puzzle over though, not the way memory floods back in, like the breaking of a dam.

-

“Are you really going to just stop on the off-chance that Wei Ying gets caught in the middle?” 

Wei Ying sits in the grass, picking wildflowers along the side of the road while they take a break in their travels. 

“It’s the only way. It’s not a spell, love. It’s a barrier, and it’s fragile.” His mother sounds insistent, but Wei Ying doesn’t really know what it is she’s swearing off of. “Besides, what did I marry you for if not to let you do all the… magicky stuff?”

“Is that why?” For a second, whatever tension has descended upon them dissipates as his father laughs. They’re like this, most of the time, fond and teasing even when they disagree. “And here I thought you loved me.”

As Wei Ying’s father scoops him up, his mother volleys back. “Ehhh, I guess you’ve grown on me. Mostly, it’s just very convenient not to have to do laundry.”

Just like that, whatever they were arguing over is forgotten. Autumn paints the world around Wei Ying in brilliant shades of red and orange, a burst of color before everything fades away for the winter. The road passes under their feet, one of his parents on either side of the donkey Wei Ying is sitting on. He doesn’t know that he ought to appreciate these moments, not yet. At this age, he can only assume all families love each other this much.

“Would it be so terrible if I were just… just ordinary?” It’s been long enough that the sun is shining on Wei Ying’s back instead of his face when his mother breaks the comfortable silence that’s fallen over them. 

Wei Ying’s father laughs, but his mother must not mind it because she’s smiling over the donkey’s head at him. “You haven’t been ordinary a day in your life.”

-

“Do I have to go to the school now?” Wei Ying scowls at the palms of his hands like the traitors they are.

“For mages?” It doesn’t seem like a question that merits a hug, but no sooner has Wei Ying nodded than his mother wraps her arms around him. “No. No, honey. You stay as far away from them as you can. Do you hear me?”

Wei Ying usually wants to know why, even about small things, but something in her voice makes him take his mother at her word. “Okay.” 

She kisses his forehead, her grip loosening a little. “They couldn’t help you anyway. They’re not like you.” 

Wei Ying nods very seriously, not that he quite understands what he’s agreeing with. “Are you like me?”

The quiet agreement she hums against his temple soothes the worry away. She is all the help he needs. Maybe she can teach him how to reach out and hold onto the world without tearing it apart. 

To his dismay, she pulls back after a moment, making Wei Ying meet her eye.

“I need you to listen to me, Wei Ying.” She’s so serious now, cradling Wei Ying’s face in her palms. “You can’t trust anyone that recognizes what you are. Not ever. They’ll only ever want something from you.” 

-

“Do you think he’s going to thank you for taking it away?” Wei Ying is supposed to be sleeping, so he doesn’t get up to look, but his father’s voice carries from the other room. 

“I’m not taking anything. I couldn’t if I wanted to.” His mother rarely sounds anything other than happy, but her voice is strained and quiet now. “I didn’t get a choice, but I can give him one.” 

-

She whispers as she tucks Wei Ying away in the corner of the closet. “You stay here, no matter what. Do you hear me?”

He jumps at the banging outside, loud against the door. The only thing he wants to do is run from it, but she’ll make things alright. She always does, so he whispers back, “Okay.”

“I mean it. You don’t come out until it’s morning or until I come back for you. No matter what you hear, you stay and you don’t make a sound.” If he wasn’t terrified before, Wei Ying certainly is now. Anything that could make his mother look afraid must be bad. He doesn’t move from his spot, but he holds his arms out until she hugs him. “It’ll be alright. I love you.”

She leaves him there, tucked in clean clothes and shadows. It comes so naturally, it almost looks like an afterthought when she slaps a paper on the bedroom wall, fingers touching a glowing circle in the center of it. The open doorway disappears, hiding the other room from view entirely. Even still, there’s a muffled commotion on the other side, like a battle under water. Wei Ying wants nothing more than to crawl out of his hiding space to help, but he does what he’s told and he waits. 

He waits all night, even when the house grows silent. He stays long past the moment the paper dims and then sputters out, falling to the floor, revealing the rest of the house once more. The sun is rising when Wei Ying finally shoves the clothes aside, cautiously peeking out into the bedroom.

Only silence greets him, so Wei Ying pads out to the room his mother had gone into. The peace the bedroom had offered is gone here. Even in the quiet, there’s chaos in the shape of overturned furniture and broken porcelain on the floor. 

His breath comes more quickly with each awful detail Wei Ying takes in, unsure what caused the mess, but understanding that it’s nothing good. The child crumples entirely when, somewhere amidst the scattered papers and spilled ink, he realizes the very worst detail of them all. 

Wei Ying is alone. 

-

He can’t stop thinking about the disaster he created, even as he’s being put to bed. “You told them you did it.”

“Yes.” Wei Ying’s mother smooths his hair back from his face, a faint smile creasing her lips like it’s something to be proud of.“I did.”

Given he always gets scolded when he lies, Wei Ying doesn’t think it’s something to be proud of at all. “But… it was me. It’s not good to lie.” 

He doesn’t understand what’s funny about that, but his mother laughs, as warm as she’s ever been. “Oh, darling. One day, you’re going to love someone so much that… that maybe they’re important enough to bend the rules for. You’ll see.”

He doesn’t see. Not yet. 

In the moonlight that filters through the window coverings, he stares at his hands, trying to make sense of them. Even now, hours later, Wei Ying can feel the echo of a sensation that was too big to contain. It built and built until it exploded, his palms serving as a focal point. They should be singed or something, but they just look like hands.

-

There are still tears in his eyes when Wei Ying’s mother sits him down, still cradling the injured rabbit in his arms. “It’s alright. We can fix it.”

The words are all garbled, even to his own ears, but he frantically reminds her that it was in a trap and it’s bleeding, and probably dying. At first, the fact that she’s smiling at him feels like an act of cruelty, but that doesn’t sound right because she’s the very, very kindest person he knows. 

“It sounds like he’s had a pretty rough day,” she soothes, holding her palms out toward the rabbit. “So, let’s make it a little better, hmm?”

She carries no bandages, and she doesn’t even touch the creature, so Wei Ying isn’t sure how she could possibly help, but he agrees anyway, clutching the little animal closer to his chest. 

“Careful. It might hurt him if you hold on too tightly.” As Wei Ying relaxes his grip on the rabbit, a soft light floods from her fingertips, like it’s bathing the rabbit specifically in a ray of sunshine. He’s only seen it a couple of times, but his mother is the most beautiful like this, aglow with something Wei Ying doesn’t quite understand, her hair and close fluttering in a wind he can’t feel. 

He’s afraid it won’t work, but sure enough, it’s only a moment before the rabbit’s leg looks as good as new. It wriggles out of his arms, hopping back off into the woods as soon as it’s mended, to Wei Ying’s delight. 

“Is it magic?” he asks as his mother stands and smooths out the dress she’s wearing. “Like a spell?”

“It’s not a spell.” She holds her hands out, pulling Wei Ying to his feet. “But it is magic.”

The answer satisfies Wei Ying, too young to recognize the contradiction. 

Only later, following his mother out of the clearing, does Wei Ying turn back to look into the forest after the rabbit. Where the first days of summer had made everything lush and green before, now brown leaves are beginning to fall around the dry, peeling trunks of the nearest trees. It’s all wrong, and Wei Ying can’t explain why it makes him so sad to look at it, but he can’t draw his eyes away.

Realizing that Wei Ying isn’t following any longer, his mother scoops him up, resting his weight against her hip. “Not very pretty, is it?”

It’s not, but it’s more than that. It feels like losing something important, something bigger than he has a word for. Frustrated that he doesn’t know how to ask, Wei Ying shakes his head.

“There’s always a price with magic. Even when you’re doing something good.” She tilts her head, affectionately bumping it against Wei Ying’s cheek despite how serious she sounds. “You have to remember that.”

-

Wei Ying likes these places best, the inns where the rooms keep them close together, where when he wakes up anxious in the night, he can see their silhouettes tangled up in the sheets and each other just a few feet away. The lamp is low now, and since the three of them don’t really fit on the bed, his father sits close enough that even Wei Ying’s short, childish limbs can reach far enough to touch. 

“Tell me a story?” He asks as much because he doesn’t want the night to be over as because he wants one. 

“A story, hmm?” his mother asks from her seat at the edge of his bed. “I think I can manage that.”

Stories are one thing Wei Ying knows both his parents are good at. It’s the most fun when they do it together, interrupting with funny voices and teasing each other with forgotten details. When he marries someone, Wei Wuxian hopes that they’ll tell silly stories with him like that. 

It’s just his mother tonight, but that’s fun too. “It’s a spooky graveyard now, but once, long, long, long ago, there was a village in the mountains near Yiling. And in that village, there was a girl.”

“Oh! I know this one!” Wei Ying immediately sits back up from the pillow, all but vibrating with excitement because he likes this story. The stories where the heroes win are the best ones, after all. “She wanted to help the village, so she made herself magic.”

His mother is nearly always smiling, so the fact that it drops away makes Wei Ying shrink back a little, even though she doesn’t seem angry. “Darling, who told you that?”

Wei Ying thinks about this, ticking his stubby fingers off one by one though he’s not really counting anything. Everyone knows how Aphetto Tower began, and why they’re heroes. It’s such a common story, he’s not really sure anymore whether it came from the children in the last town over, or the granny who watched him while his parents helped in town, or… “Lots of people.” 

“I see. And what else did they say?” 

“That she made herself… all wrong, and it took a whole army to save the world from her.” His mother’s mouth presses in a thin line, and she closes her eyes like it hurts, so Wei Ying pipes up, worried he’s hurt her feelings by interrupting. “But you could tell me again!”

All at once, she’s smiling once more, but the expression is strange. His mother’s eyes don’t crinkle at the corners the way they’re supposed to. She brushes her knuckles against Wei Ying’s temple though, dipping down to kiss his forehead, so all must be forgiven. “I will, but first, I’m going to tell you a secret. Are you listening?”

Wei Ying doesn’t know if he’s ever been given a secret before, but he beams up at her. His father always says you give secrets only to people you trust, so maybe he’s done something really, really good. “I’m listening.” 

“Most of the time, people hear a story the way the winner tells it, and they’ll always tell you they’re the hero.” The blankets are already pulled up around Wei Ying, but she adjusts them anyway. “But that doesn’t mean it’s true.” 

-

Wei Wuxian sucks in one gulping breath after another as time he hadn’t even realized he was missing rushes back in. It’s all out of order, a cacophonous deluge that leaves his head pounding, but it’s there. As young as he had been, even what he’s recovered is in fragments, leaving Wei Wuxian almost as many questions as answers, but there are answers.

He’s always thought himself resilient, and he is, he supposes. The thing about resiliency though, is that when you hold up more and more and more, the tipping point rarely makes much sense from the outside. For Wei Wuxian, it’s his knuckles of all things. His body has been remembering what his mind couldn’t since the first time Wen Chao attacked him with stolen magic, but he barely even notices the shield instinct had conjured up around him and his sad excuse for a weapon. He takes only the most cursory note of the way that the spirits here have all shrunk back in a way they’ve never done before. But his hands are still clutched around a glorified stick. Where he’d scraped them up earlier in the day, the skin is unbroken now, and Wei Wuxian stares and stares like he’s going to discover something new. Only when he gives up, putting them down to sit up, does Wei Wuxian notice that the ghost pursuing him is no longer there. Not retreating. Not watching. Just gone.

There’s always a price, his mother had warned, but she didn’t say he’d be the one to pay it. This was never a death sentence, he realizes with a sudden shocked laugh. It was salvation. Trapped as he realizes she must be to do the things she’s done, she still found a way to save him.

He’s not sure when he lets himself fall back in the dirt or when his hands come up to cover his face. He has even less of an idea of when the nearly hysterical laughter finally cracks and bleeds out into sharp, ugly sobs. Even grown up, it’s all so much, relief and sorrow and rage all hopelessly tangled. 

There’s no one alive to see, and so, in the lonely wasteland of the Burial Mounds, Wei Wuxian embraces all of it and lets himself fall apart. 

[robininthelabyrinth]

for @oneiriad, who requested WWX finding out that he and LWJ had been married in a ghost marriage during the interim

Ghost Marriage - ao3

It was meant to be the best way out of a bad situation.

In other words, Lan Qiren reflected, it had been a stupid idea the entire time, they had known it was a stupid idea, and they’d all collectively decided to charge straight forward into it regardless.

And the worst of it was: it had been his idea, too.

Perhaps in another lifetime he had been less stubborn about continuing to go out to night-hunt, an activity he had never particularly enjoyed to begin with and was strongly recommended against continuing given the state of his health after the Sunshot Campaign – perhaps he had been less worried about Lan Wangji, who had emerged from his healing seclusion wan and lifeless, unable to reconcile to the world, even quieter and more reserved than he had been before. Who didn’t respond to anything, not even little Lan Sizhui, who adored him, who neglected his duties as a teacher to the younger generation of Lan disciples in favor of seemingly endless meditation that was little more than moping, and who went out constantly on night-hunts, earning himself a reputation for ‘being where the chaos is’ that was widely praised as virtue, but which Lan Qiren feared was merely another form of self-destruction.

At any rate, in this life, Lan Qiren had seen Lan Wangji heading back out on yet another night-hunt less than a week after arriving back from the last one, and had impulsively announced that he would be joining him. It had been worth it at the time just for the expression Lan Wangji had made, resembling nothing more than a startled rabbit or a child caught breaking curfew.

That expression had more life in it than anything that had graced Lan Wangji’s face for months.

It had made it worthwhile for Lan Qiren to insist on it, despite all entreaties by others – Lan Xichen, his doctors, the other elders – for him to stay back and take it easy. After enough such entreaties, he’d even lost his temper enough to forbid them from sending attendants with them and headed out with Lan Wangji alone, something he swiftly regretted after the burst of temper had passed and his ill health reasserted itself with force. Not that Lan Wangji wasn’t solicitous and perfectly capable of caring for him, but Lan Qiren did hate to be a burden to his nephews. It wasn’t like he was actually contributing anything to the trip, either.

He’d thought, briefly, that his presence might be helpful when they ended up crossing paths with Jiang Cheng, out hunting down demonic cultivators again. Jiang Cheng’s mere presence caused Lan Wangji to bristle like a dog that had scented something bad, and it wasn’t much better the other way around. It was plainly evident that Jiang Cheng remembered Lan Wangji stealing away Wei Wuxian at the massacre of Nightless City, although he didn’t have proof of it or of the fact that he had been helping Wei Wuxian in doing so, and that he had noticed Lan Wangji’s absence during the siege that had followed; it was equally evident that he held it against Lan Wangji in the same way that Lan Wangji held Jiang Cheng’s participation in the same event against him.  Still, they hadn’t needed him; a testament to their increased maturity, they had both managed to remain civil enough, at least on the surface.

It wasn’t until they encountered each other again later, at the end of the night hunt – the events thereof having very unfortunately turned out to be caused by the same demonic cultivator Jiang Cheng had been chasing, rather than a wild yao the way the description had made it sound, and there had been a disagreement as to how to resolve the situation – that the simmering conflict between them had abruptly burst out into the open, and even if his name was never spoken and indeed was deliberately avoided, as if saying it would only highlight his absence, the cause of it was Wei Wuxian.

There was nothing to be done about it, Lan Qiren deduced quickly enough. All of them that were not Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng – all those who did not love Wei Wuxian the way they did, though Lan Qiren suspected only he and Lan Wangji knew the truth of the depth of Lan Wangji’s regard for the man – could only stand back and wait for the storm to pass.

“ – a coward like you isn’t the one who has to deal with him!” Jiang Cheng snapped, Zidian crackling to life around his clenched fist as all of his attendants pretended not to look at him. The fearsome Sandu Shengshou was notorious for his temper, and equally notorious for losing that temper whenever a demonic cultivator was involved. Seeing it in person made clear that the rumors were completely true – Jiang Cheng was a complete mess.

“There is no him left to deal with,” Lan Wangji replied waspishly, and Jiang Cheng hopped up and down as if he’d been stung by it.

“The stain he left behind is on my name!” he howled. “Who doesn’t know that my Jiang clan raised him! All those inventions, all those lookalikes and copycats, everything associated with him, it’s our responsibility to clean up! My responsibility! Do you think I want this piece of shit duty? Do you think I enjoy being left out of everything in the cultivation world because of it? Do you think –”

“You expelled him from your sect before he died,” Lan Qiren interjected, even though he knew it would be pointless.

Sure enough, Jiang Cheng waved him off dismissively. “So what? Do you think the ghosts of the victims of his self-named ‘disciples’ care about a couple of words? He never came officially to break ties. His soul, wherever it may be, is doomed to rest in the Lotus Pier forever.”

Lan Wangji pressed his lips together tightly. Anyone else might have thought it annoyance, irritation at losing an argument; Lan Qiren knew it to be agonizing pain at the truth of the statement – the fact that Wei Wuxian belonged to Jiang Cheng, who was tormented by the shadow of his shade, and not to Lan Wangji, who was equally tormented by the lack thereof…

It was, even at the time, a bad idea.

Lan Qiren went ahead and opened his mouth anyway.

“That is the case, but it need not stay that way,” he said, and Jiang Cheng looked at him in surprise. Everyone looked at him in surprise, including Lan Wangji. He folded his hands in front of himself, tucking them into his sleeves in his most proper manner, calling on years of teaching and being sect leader to garb himself with dignity meant to force them to listen to him. “Jiang Wanyin. You believe that my Lan sect wronged you by excluding you from the alliance set in place by the Venerated Triad, and that your association with Wei Wuxian was the cause of that exclusion, do you not?”

Jiang Cheng faltered at having it put so bluntly. “Teacher Lan…”

“You are correct. It may have been an unintentional slight, but you should never have been left out of the alliance between the sects; we are the four sects, unified, and if we are to prevent another Wen sect, unified we must remain. As we have wronged you, we should make reparations,” Lan Qiren said, ignoring him. This wasn’t actually about him, except in the way that it was, a little, incidentally. “You feel burdened by the weight of carrying Wei Wuxian’s spirit – so be it! Let that be our means of reparation: we will take him from you.”

“Take…take him from me?” Jiang Cheng echoed, staring blankly at him. “But…how? How can such a thing even be possible?”

“The same way families have sent off their children for a millennium or more,” Lan Qiren said, and tried not to look at the way Lan Wangji’s eyes had gone as round as saucers. “Marry him out to us in a ghost marriage. We will bear the stain of his crimes and cleanse them through our righteous conduct.”

“A – a ghost marriage?” Jiang Cheng asked, though he looked unwillingly intrigued. “To Wei Wuxian? You would impose such a fate on one of your own disciples?”

It did not take a genius to guess what would happen next.

“I will take upon this duty myself,” Lan Wangji said solemnly. “I will wed Wei Wuxian.”

Of course he would.

-

“I can’t even tell if it’s something you would have hated, or if it’s something you would have thought was absolutely side-splittingly hilarious,” Jiang Cheng said.

He was standing in the memorial hall of the Jiang sect, the one he’d prioritized in rebuilding even though they needed other things more, things for the living rather than the dead – his parents’ memorial tablets were here, and one for Jiang Yanli, too, even if her body was buried beside her husband’s back in Lanling. He visited them regularly.

He wasn’t visiting them today.

Today, he was in a small side room in the hall, a room with a door that was hard to find and even harder to squeeze into, what with all the arrays he’d put there to ward people off. It couldn’t be in the main hall, he’d always reasoned, because that would be an offense to those who were already laid to rest there –

But at the same time, he couldn’t not honor Wei Wuxian.

His father had loved him, his sister had loved him, his mother had…barely tolerated him, though she’d always approved of how he won acclaim for their sect. Wei Wuxian had helped avenge Jiang Cheng’s parents, his sect, and he had been like a brother to Jiang Cheng, once. They had once dreamt of being the Twin Prides, working together side-by-side, and Jiang Cheng had never wanted anything more.

No, Jiang Cheng couldn’t fail to honor Wei Wuxian, in his own way – by painting a memorial tablet for him, by putting Chenqing in pride of place beside it, by lighting incense for him and remembering him.

In the end, he loved Wei Wuxian, too, even if sometimes he also hated him.

“I mean,” he said, starting to pace again. He’d been pacing half the night at this point. “I mean, it’s Lan Wangji. The one you always enjoyed tormenting the most, even before the war! And during the war, too, you always fought the most with him…you’d probably think it was funny if he ended up being your spouse. ‘An old ice-block stone-face like him, married!’ – I can hear you even now. And to you!”

Jiang Cheng shook his head.

“I shouldn’t do it,” he said. “It’d get me benefits, to be sure, and help the sect, and in all honesty I think you’d like that..? The you you used to be would, anyway. It’d fix the imbalance in the cultivation world: not three sects unified against mine, with my tie to the Jin sect limited just to the fragile branch that is Jin Ling, but all of us bound together. Me to the Jin through Jin Ling and to the Lan through you…that would give me two allies, too, just the same as the rest, and I’ve always been on good terms with the Nie anyway, there’s nothing to fear there. Having the Lan on my side would also give me the strength to fight a little more equally for custody of Jin Ling…I mean, you’d probably agree to do the marraige just for that, wouldn’t you?”

Wei Wuxian would. Wei Wuxian had always been willing to do anything for Jiang Yanli, even if he wasn’t willing to do the same for Jiang Cheng, and that is why Jiang Cheng couldn’t understand how he could let her die like that, killed her like that through his own negligence and recklessness…

“But how could I sell you for benefits? You are – you were my shixiong. If you’d only said the word, if you’d only given me the time of day and tried to meet me in the middle, I would have done anything to defend you, anything and everything. Even after you left me behind, rejected me and my sect, didn’t I still try to speak up in your defense whenever I could, right up until the end when you went too far? Didn’t I do my best for you..?”

His best hadn’t been enough. In the end, Wei Wuxian had gone mad, and murdered countless others, and died.

“I just want to honor you,” Jiang Cheng said to Chenqing, to the memorial tablet that shouldn’t be there. “I just want you to be part of my family again for real, to be the person you used to be, for everything to be the way it used to be. But you…”

He shook his head, thinking of the Wen sect remnants. Thinking of the awful Burial Mounds that Wei Wuxian had apparently preferred over the rebuilding of the Lotus Pier.

“You don’t want to be here,” Jiang Cheng concluded. “Not really. The first moment you could, you ran away…you wanted to be anywhere else, even a place like that, as long as it’s not here.”

He was silent for a long moment, then turned away.

“Fine,” he said bitterly. “Fine. Let it not be said that I don’t want to honor you the way you want to be honored. I’ll grant your wish at last, and send you out of here for good. Go torment Lan Wangji to your heart’s content! Let everyone think I did it for benefits, let them think what they like…”

He closed his eyes and turned back to kneel once again, reaching out to re-light the incense that had nearly burned out.

“Just…be at peace, all right?”

-

“Shufu.”

Lan Qiren looked up at his nephew, surprised to see him standing there. It was late, and Lan Wangji had long been excused from assisting on patrols – though he had been doing much better this past month, color returning to his cheeks, appetite restored, his energy levels slowly recovering to something closer to what they had once been.

“What is it, Wangji?” he asked, beckoning him to come inside, which he did, shutting the door behind him. “Come and sit, have some tea. Is something the matter?”

Lan Wangji was silent for a long moment, but then he did sit where Lan Qiren had indicated.

“It has been difficult for you,” he said, and Lan Qiren blinked at him, not understanding. “Arranging my marriage. The other elders disapprove.”

Naturally they disapproved, and loudly and vociferously at that. When Lan Qiren had pointed out that there was nothing to do be done about it now, being as he’d already reached an agreement with another sect leader and revoking it now would lose face for the sect, they accused Lan Qiren of having lost his mind, of being less than impartial – of rampant favoritism, of forgetting righteousness, of flagrantly breaching any number of rules. There had even been murmurs that Lan Qiren was unwilling to yield up his power as interim sect leader and that his actions were an attempt to undermine Lan Xichen’s authority by making contracts on behalf of the Lan sect without authorization.

Ridiculous, of course, but the disdain of others was difficult to eradicate. There had been a reason Lan Qiren had taken such extraordinary steps to preserve Lan Wangji’s reputation even at the cost of his agony and pain; torn flesh healed in time, leaving only scars, but a blemished reputation followed in your heels forever, dragging you down like an anchor.

“It’s nothing,” he said. It wasn’t really nothing – he suspected he would be dealing with the repercussions of this act for years to come, and truly the rules were right about Do not act impulsively – but it wasn’t anything he minded doing. Even if the other side eventually won and had him sent to the discipline hall to bear any number of strikes on his own back as punishment for his transgression, even if he would be the next one kneeling before the discipline whip, he would bear it without complaint.

It would be worth it, just for having so obviously resulted in such an improvement for Lan Wangji.

“It is not. Shufu has exerted himself on my behalf, and for that I thank you,” Lan Wangji said, serious as ever, and even raised his hands to bow. “I only wish to know…why?”

“What do you mean?” Lan Qiren asked, stroking his beard and frowning. “Surely you know that I have always sought to act for your benefit, even when we disagree on what that is.”

“Of course. And yet…shufu does not like Wei Ying.” Lan Wangji lifted his head to meet Lan Qiren’s gaze, and his eyes were a little red-rimmed. “Why would shufu help me win him like this? Now that it is…that he is…”

Lan Qiren sighed.

“Wei Wuxian was a troublesome boy, and a terrible student,” he said, because those were true. “But he was brilliant, and he was well-meaning. His loss is a loss to the cultivation world at large, and to you personally. After what he did at the Qiongi Path, Jinlin Tower, then the Nightless City, with his madness and his violence, there was no question that righteousness demanded that he had to die. So he has died, and you have mourned him.”

Lan Wangji nodded.

“I can do nothing to change that now, and I do not regret my actions then. As I do not regret, I will not apologize, no matter how much it pains me to have caused you pain…but at the same time, there is little point in holding grudges against the dead. If it can bring you joy to have his name bound to yours, why not?”

“It does,” Lan Wangji said. “I do not know why, because it changes nothing, and yet…it does.”

Lan Qiren nodded, satisfied that he had achieved what he had wished, no matter how much it made him wince to think of Wei Wuxian’s spirit resting alongside his ancestors – or worse, having to put up with him when he, too, eventually joined them. It was worth it for his nephew, though, and at least he didn’t have to deal with Wei Wuxian alive.

Though there was one point Lan Wangji had gotten wrong.

“I would think that it changes quite a bit,” he remarked, and Lan Wangji looked at him in askance. “Now that Jiang Cheng has given his approval and the auspicious day has been set, the world will know that he is your wife. They will likely fail to understand the significance of such a thing; they may ascribe your actions to some stratagem, or laugh at your recklessness in thinking that you can expunge his crimes with your good conduct…but the fact will be known. Dare they then continue to speak ill of him then?”

Lan Wangji’s shoulders straightened. “Are you suggesting that I stand up for him?”

“You are certainly not to defend what he did – the murder of his brother-in-law and countless others is unforgivable. But at the same time, we are required to uphold our sect’s face. Are we to allow the cultivation world to mock our second young master’s wife?”

Lan Qiren had thought long and hard about what had happened with his unhappy brother and his even unhappier wife in the years he had spent running the sect in his brother’s name, and he did not wish to see such a thing happen ever again. He Kexin had been kept a secret, hidden away in a dignified matter, and that secret had become a burden upon them all. Rather than hide their shame and suffer alone, he would rather that Lan Wangji stood upon his dignity and insisted upon respect. Respect for himself, for his sect, and even, yes, for Wei Wuxian, now that he was one of them.

(He still couldn’t believe that he himself had enabled such a thing.)

“Shufu,” Lan Wangji said, and his voice was thick with emotion. He seemed very near to tears.

Lan Qiren couldn’t resist reaching forward as he had when Lan Wangji was young, brushing the line of his hair beneath the forehead ribbon that he no longer permitted himself to touch; he had felt that he had lost the right to consider himself as Lan Wangji’s parent after they had had such a serious dispute. Causing such pain and refusing to regret having done it was not, he believed, the act of a parent, whose primary duty ought to be to love his child – and he did, too; he loved his nephews more than anything, only he did not know if they knew that.

“I only wish for you to be happy, Wangji,” he said, and then nearly forgot to breathe when Lan Wangji caught his hand and lifted it up to his forehead ribbon – forgiveness, he thought, nearly dizzy with relief, forgiveness in truth. “Wangji…”

“I will live up to shufu’s instruction,” Lan Wangji promised. “I will make you proud again. Thank you for this, shufu. Thank you.”

“Don’t say it so many times,” Lan Qiren said, retreating back into grumpiness like a shield. “What am I, an outsider? Go on, finish your tea and return to your room; you still require rest and food, to gather your strength. There are still tasks you need to accomplish…Sizhui has been asking whether you will resume your instruction of him in guqin language. Shall I tell him that you will be available?”

Lan Wangji nodded, and then added, “I can also assist with shufu’s classes, if that would be convenient.”

Anything that got Lan Wangji back into the daily life of their sect would be convenient.

Lan Qiren might not like Wei Wuxian – had never much liked him, would never much like him – but returning him to Lan Wangji had given him back his nephew, and for that, he supposed, he would begrudgingly agree to put aside his distaste for him and thank him. He might even burn a stick of incense in his honor.

After all, the rules did say Do not hold grudges…

-

“Hanguang-jun can’t be with Senior Mo!” Lan Sizhui was insisting as Wei Wuxian snuck by in search of some way out of the Cloud Recesses before anyone figured out who he was. “He wouldn’t!”

“Why not?” Lan Jingyi asked. “Just because of Second Madame Lan, you mean?”

Wei Wuxian stopped dead.

Lan Wangji…was married?

That old iceblock stone-face had found someone who was willing to put up with him?

…what must she be like?

Wei Wuxian shook his head firmly, and put it out of his mind. He put it out of his mind very effectively, which meant he only thought about it every few moments (married! Lan Zhan! Impossible!) and didn’t say a single word about it (sure, he quizzed Lan Wangji about the type of girl he’d be into, but that was subtle! He was so subtle! So subtle he hadn’t figure out anything useful, in fact…) and didn’t give a single hint that he knew, not one bit.

Which was, he supposed, what made the moment when Jin Guangyao backed him into revealing who he was quite so awkward.

“Wei Wuxian? It’s Wei Wuxian?” people were shouting. “It must be! Suibian wouldn’t respond to anyone – it must be him! It’s the Yiling Patriarch, back at last!”

Lan Wangji took a step forward and cleared his throat.

“Hanguang-jun, what are you doing? He must have been enchanted. He can’t possibly be defending –”

Lan  Wangji cleared his throat even more pointedly.

“Is he trying to say that he disagrees with our conclusion? That he doesn’t think –”

“He’s objecting to how you’re referring to him, obviously,” Jiang Cheng snapped, looking immensely put-upon. “If this is Wei Wuxian, then Hanguang-jun married him, didn’t he? You should be calling him Second Madame Lan!”

Wei Wuxian blinked and wondered when Jiang Cheng had lost his mind.

“That is correct,” Lan Wangji said, and – what? “The first person to seek to lay a hand on my wife dies.”

Everyone suddenly went very quiet.

Lan Wangji grabbed Wei Wuxian by the hand and walked out, head held high.

They made it all the way back to the Cloud Recesses before Wei Wuxian finally blurted out: “You did what? When?!”

His memory was bad, yes, but it wasn’t that bad!

“Who is making a racket out here?” Lan Qiren asked, the grouchy old teacher sticking his head out. “Wangji, Senior Mo – what’s the meaning of this?”

“The cultivation world has uncovered that Senior Mo is Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji said, with admirable boldness and absolutely no tact, given that Wei Wuxian was pretty sure Lan Qiren hated him. “We require sanctuary.”

Lan Qiren closed his eyes for a moment, looking like he’d just developed a sudden headache.

Just when Wei Wuxian was almost hoping for an explosion, if only because that would be normal, the old teacher heaved a long sigh.

“Yes, very well,” he said, then turned and barked at some nearby patrolling disciples: “Go raise the sect’s defenses, and monitor anyone who tries to enter. If you have any reason to suspect that they represent a threat to the Second Madame, don’t let them in.”

Wei Wuxian’s jaw dropped. Even Lan Qiren was in on this?

“At least he’s not actually Mo Xuanyu,” Lan Qiren said reproachfully to Lan Wangji once he was done barking out orders. “It’s one thing for you to enter a ghost marriage with Wei Wuxian –”

Lan Wangji had done what?!

“ – and to defend him to the cultivation world –”

He what?!

“ – and, as I assume you intend, to go on and claim that the marriage remains valid now that he’s been resurrected – ”

It was what?!

Wait. Did that mean…he was the Second Madame Lan that was married to Lan Wangji? Him? Currently?!

“ – but I would most certainly draw the line at infidelity.”

“Shufu,” Lan Wangji hissed, and even Wei Wuxian could tell that beneath his reserve he was hideously embarrassed.

“Do you know how worried we’ve been about this spectacle of you trying to take on a second wife?” Lan Qiren complained, completely ignoring his nephew’s distress. “The juniors have spoken of nothing else. They’ve been quite disappointed in you. Such a thing is beneath your dignity as a Lan…”

Wei Wuxian decided to be a magnanimous wife – er, that was, a magnanimous friend – and save Lan Wangji from expiring on the spot.

“Teacher Lan, you’re taking this whole thing remarkably well,” he interjected, smiling toothily. “Don’t you hate me?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think about you,” Lan Qiren said stiffly. “You never officially broke ties with the Jiang sect, having not conducted all the rituals necessary for such a thing. As a result, Sect Leader Jiang was well within his rights to give you away to Wangji as a ghost bride to win an alliance sufficient to protect his rights to help raise his nephew –”

Okay, Wei Wuxian could see that.

“ – and rid the Jiang sect of having to carry the taint of your reputation – ”

Also that. Jiang Cheng in a bad mood would be capable of anything.

“ – and since you have married into the Lan set, you are our responsibility and our responsibility alone. No matter who it is in the cultivation world, do they dare claim to be able to discipline our people?!”

“Shufu is right,” Lan Wangji said. “We will stand beside you.”

“Reluctantly,” Lan Qiren interjected, huffing.

“We will defend you,” Lan Wangji continued, implacable. “You will not be alone.”

Wei Wuxian stared at him.

“…but why would you marry me?” he asked blankly. “I wasn’t even – I was a ghost. Why marry me?”

“Oh no,” Lan Qiren said, suddenly sounding deeply alarmed. “I will not be forced to be present for this. You two are to go to the jingshi at once and deal with this little revelation yourselves. Do not emerge until you have resolved it between yourselves.”

(Later, of course, they were interrupted by the ensuing events, but ah, until then..!)

[21shotglasses]

My favorite MDZS fics

not in order cause i don’t think i could rank these if i tried. some i like better than others and you’ll be able to tell by what i say about them.

like speaking to my heart rating: T warnings: none pairings: wangxian

this is basically a “his dark materials” au. everyone has a daemon (an animal physical manifestation of their soul). this is the longest completed mdzs fic on ao3 and took me several months to finish. mostly cause i stopped reading it for a bit. it made me cry from happiness 3 times in a row. its basically a rewrite of canon with a lot of positive changes. from the tags “Canonical Character Death. Some people live! And some people still die in this fic it's just a matter of who STAYS dead and who is really dead ;)”. some of villains are more evil than in canon. without spoiling anything i can say that everything works out in the end. and its a super slow burn about 400k worth of slow burn. the summery is more of an excerpt and is pretty long so i won’t include it.

Everyone's Got a Theory about the Bitter One rating: E warnings: none pairings: Jīn Líng/Lán Sīzhuī

this one is just really sweet, its better than you think it will be

summary: Jin Ling is lucky. He’s always known that soul-names meant nothing. His parents matched, but that hadn’t protected them. They died tragically and young. He never saw Shenshen’s mark, but he knows that Xiao-shushu’s name was Nie, not Qin. They still married. It's better that his soul-name is dead, because he can't afford to be in love with him. He can't be in love with any man, but he definitely can't love a Wen.

the cruelty of fate rating: T warnings: major character death but its only wwx pairings: wangxian

summary: “Wei Ying,” he manages, a breathy croak, and peers past his eyelashes to watch those grey eyes widen. They swirl with more emotions than he can name at the moment- emotions that he has not seen in those eyes for years, and his heart aches further as he watches the other swallow visibly, trembling hands reaching up to tentatively hold his own outstretched one, though they pass through each other like the other is made of mist. “Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying breathes, and the shadows under his eyes darken as his face scrunches up, looking like he’s about to cry. prompt: The one where your soulmate's ghost haunts you when they die.

read my lips; it was only a kiss rating: E but you could probably get away with M. warnings: none pairings: OT4 juniors

I reread the first zhuiji kiss way too much (and the whole fic too tbh)

summary: Here was the thing. Jin Ling adamantly believed that all of his current problems could be traced back to Wei Wuxian. You know, his uncle who was currently in the body of his other uncle, who exposed his other uncle for his crimes against all of his other uncles— even just thinking about it gave Jin Ling a splitting headache. Or perhaps, it was all Lan Jingyi’s fault. It might have been possible that Jin Ling had spent most of his cultivation conferences sitting in the very back of the room, snickering inconspicuously and writing out hilarious and horrible mini stories with his friends. Stories about the everlasting love of Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian. See, this was all Lan Jingyi’s idea. Or the one in which the juniors write wangxian fanfiction and make out with each other; or Jin Ling's very bad day (year) caused by all his terrible uncles

your heartbeat, across the grass rating: E but you could easily skip the smut. most of the fic is T or M warning: none pairings: wangxian

summary: AU where A-Yuan is professional footballer Lan Wangji's biggest fan, and his babysitter Wei Wuxian wants nothing more than to forget his days as the photographer of their school football team, calling out to the captain from the stands just so he'd look around at him.

this mattress is a desert island rating: E but could also skip the smut and the other bits are mostly T pairings: wangxian

the title does not give credit to how amazing this fic is. i really think it’s one of my favorite mdzs fics i’ve read. it was so fluffy and so sweet. my heart was beating so fast. it’s like what if wangxian were not idiots during cloud recesses and it was omegaverse. i was really into omega verse and this just hit the spot perfectly. the courting is so sweet.

summary: Now, several months into his stay at the Cloud Recesses, he has a very good nest, even better than the one at home. It has something special, something his nests have never had before. An alpha’s scent. Or; Lan Wangji’s robes keep disappearing mysteriously. Wei Wuxian’s nesting habits may have something to do with it.

turn toward the sun rating: E warnings: none pairings: wangxian

lwj being very horny for wwx for 20k words, there’s only sex at the end but there’s sexual content throughout and its very sexually charged considering the setting.

Summary: Every student of House Mandrake is assigned a study partner, a counterpart from House Valerian. Lan Wangji suspects, with some outrage, that he's been given the troublemaker. Kushiel's Legacy fusion, you don’t need to know anything about those books except for what is explained in the authors note.

and time is but a paper moon rating: M warnings: graphic depictions of violence pairings: wangxian and qingxicheng (Wēn Qíng/Jiāng Chéng/Lán Xīchén)

i read the first chapter and i was already so happy and it just got better from there and now at the end i am crying and please for the love of jiang cheng please read this. everyone who deserves happiness gets it and everyone who does not dies. i’m gonna go reread the first couple chapter now. i reread this whenever im reading a particularly sad or angsty mdzs fic and i just want some fluff and some happiness. basically just the best time travel fix it out there. wwx does a spell that makes him start from the beginning of his life with all the memories he has now. which is all of canon and then some. everything works out and no one suffers any meaningful damage. its the 5th most popular mdzs fic on ao3

how to be a heartbreaker rating: E warnings: none pairings: wangxian

So good! I love sugar baby fics but I cannot stand daddy kink stuff. This barely has a daddy kink and it was fine for me. I really like fics like this where it’s a slow burn but they’re still together for a lot of the fic. This feels like a slow burn even though it’s really not.

summary: “Lan er gege,” Wei Ying sings out an old nickname, his lips curving up into a well-rehearsed smile. It’s adorable, and it’s pretty, and he knows it mesmerises anyone who lays their eyes on him. He has done it a million times—bewitching and convincing men who need to be convinced. He just doesn’t expect to hear the hitch in Lan Zhan’s breath, too, and feel the taller man’s grasp around his wrist tightening. He fell for it. A sickening thought suddenly enters his brain, and Wei Ying wonders if he should be so cruel. “Do you want to find a private space for us, Lan Zhan?”

try a little tenderness rating: E warnings: none pairings: wangxian

summary: "Wei Ying, have you never heard of aftercare?" Mutely, Wei Ying shakes his head. He has learned of many things, from all his guys. The word care has never been included. In response to a kink meme prompt: sub wwx who hasn't had a good dom before meets dom lwj. The story of three nights and a morning.

one good thing rating: T warnings: none pairings: wangxian

I didn’t cry but the twist and the bonding really makes this fic. I highly recommend.

summary: Wei Wuxian has been haunting his childhood home for three years. He's perfected the fine art of scaring away all the tenants, and has grown used to living with the dying flowers in the garden as his only company. When Lan Wangji buys the house, Wei Wuxian fully intends to drive him off too. Except Lan Wangji is beautiful, and interesting, and captivating company - even if he supposedly doesn't know Wei Wuxian exists.

hunters seeking solid ground rating: E warnings: none pairings: wangxian

this might be my most reread mdzs fic, not all of it but parts of it, especially the beginning. there’s some angst that i tend to skip over. I dont know if I’m just going thought it right now but I cried multiple times while reading this fic. Which is impressive cause its not even that long. But my heart was clenching but entire time and i cried so much. And it really broke but then it put me back together again. Cause wei ying has gone though so much shit but at least he still has lan zhan who loves him so much. There’s so much physical non sexual intimacy and that part was just so nice.

summary: “Hanguang-jun,” Wei Wuxian repeats. His heart clenches. He wants—but he’d really meant to have this nightmare stuff down before they met again, so he wouldn’t find himself relying on Lan Wangji’s nearness. He’s not supposed to go back yet. But he’s so tired, and his will crumbles. “Yeah,” he says. “All right. Take me back to Gusu with you.”

a little note for the summary its not wangji asking wei ying to come back to gusu with him. It becomes apparent when it happens but i found that a bit confusing. I really dont think this is a spoiler but It’s the juniors

build me no shrines rating: M warnings: none but there is a pretty graphic depiction of drowning in chapter 2 pairings: wangxian

I’ve been reading so many canon divergent with essentially the same plot of canon. And its gotten pretty boring because i already know what’s gonna happen so its nice to read a post canon fic where i dont know what’s going to happen and theres actually a plot I’m invested in. Plus this one was very good. It’s the same “wangxian are idiots who are so in love they can’t see the other is also so in love with them” thing but i really liked this.

summary: Wei Wuxian opens the letter and skims through, feeling his frown deepen with every line. “Oh. A request from Yiling. This man Tong Shen writes, 'I can’t explain what’s happening — you wouldn’t believe me if I tried. The hills are moving and they are hungry. Please send aid, Hanguang-jun, this humble one begs you.' Well, my curiosity is certainly piqued." A few months after the events of Guanyin Temple, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji take on a night hunt of an unusual sort: The Burial Mounds are spreading, quickly and with no apparent explanation. In Wei Wuxian, it brings old, long-buried things bubbling to the surface.

a stone to break your soul, a song to save it rating: M warnings: none pairings: wangxian

its long but i promise its worth it. it’s the most popular mdzs fic on ao3. the title is not a metaphor.

summary: When the entire cultivation world turns against Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng comes up with a plan to save him and arranges a marriage between his brother and the Second Jade of Lan, Lan Wangji.

The Absolutely True Story of the Yiling Patriarch: A Manifesto in Many Parts rating: T warnings: none pairings: wangxian

pretty sure this was the first mdzs fic i’d ever read and what a great first fic.

summary: Wei Wuxian’s hand jolts, spilling a drop of wine onto the tabletop. “Love?” he croaks, then clears his throat and tries again. “Lan Zh— uh, Hanguang-jun, in love?” “Have you not heard the story?” the other young woman asks, looking pitying. “You must, it is a truly heartrending tale of star-crossed romance and mutual pining — go to any storyhouse in town, everyone has been requesting a reading of this book.” “There’s a book?” Wei Wuxian says blankly. In which the junior disciples (namely, Lan Jingyi, Ouyang Zizhen, and a reluctant Lan Sizhui) turn to RPF in an attempt to rehabilitate Wei Wuxian's reputation so that he and Hanguang-jun can get together and get married and live happily ever after. It's... surprisingly effective. its the 3rd most popular mdzs fic on ao3

i got rid of the formatting of the summaries to try and make this shorter. sorry if that makes some of them confusing.

[wangxianficrecs]

I'm in the mood for a fic where...

Y'all have been so patient with the delay, most of these asks are still from May!  I’m getting a late start this morning, but it’s the weekend, so I’m sure you’re out there, raring to go!

~*~

1. HI AGAIN!! I really enjoyed the fics that you recommended, I felt well fed with all this luxury of fics, so, THANK YOU FOR YOUR HARD WORK!! ❤️ ❤️  I'll bother you again tho.... I wanted to ask if you or your other followers know fics where Lan Zhan goes crazy of grief or/and never got past WWX's death. I'm not too picky, if it has a bad end or good, all its good. I need angst ~ @nia-rarita

This one is angst-filled but more is a result of grief along with crippling injuries from the discipline whip: ❤️no new age by everythingispoetry (M, 146k, wangxian, my post)

softly through pine trees, the moon arrives by theLoyalRoyalGuard (G, 3k, wangxian, my post)

❤️Volition by Aerlalaith (T, 33k, wangxian, my post)

set your old heart free by words-writ-in-starlight (Gunmetal_Crown) (E, 42k, wangxian, my post)

~*~

2. Hey!! Mojo, do you or your followers knows any wangxian fic with emperor!!lwj and empress!!wwx? Like true gold fears no fire by defractum (nyargles) . I really liked the Au in which Lan wangji is the emperor. So Do u know anymore fic with emperor lwj? ( love the blog btw )

To Tread Upon Solid Ground by stiltonbasket (G, 7k, wangxian)

para bellum by roselaide (T, 2k, wangxian

The Emperor's Portrait by catbrainedschemes (E, 33k, wangxian)

Gotta die to come alive by Less_Ginger (M, 80k, wangxian, WIP)

The Jade And The Lotus by leenalee_witch1 (E, 104k, wangxian)

Lost in Diplomacy by Subtleladybird (M, 91k, wangxian)

Bound Only by the Sea by levament (E, 271k, wangxian, WIP)

Kingfisher Feathers by Anonymous (E, 83k, wangxian, WIP)

~*~

3. Do you or any of your followers have any fic recs of Nie Mingjue finding out how Jin guangyao is being treated at jinlintai, something similar to All men are the same by mostlikelytofangirl .

Moxiang Tongxiu Crack and Drabbles by JustAWanderingBabbit (M, 140k, various one-shots;  chapters 14 & 34 among others.)

Honesty by nirejseki (G, 1k, 3zun, truth serum), [PODFIC] by sisi_rambles

~*~

4. Hellooo! Do you know of any fics where everyone thinks that wy is attractive? Cause I know of a bunch where it’s constantly mentioned how handsome lwj is but idk of any with wwx 😁

❤️ Resolutions by incendir (E, 204k, wangxian, 14 works, Part 5, warning for attempted sexual assault, my post)

Transcend by covalentbonds (not rated, 8k, wangxian, WIP)

That Time Everyone Assumed the Yiling Patriarch was Ugly by tinitin (M, 5k, wangxian)

~*~

5.  Hello! May I just say that you are probably the best at finding fics that fit every mood. I’m looking for fics where the Golden Core transfer doesn’t happen (but JC still loses his core). Maybe this is because WWX doesn’t learn abt WQ’s theory or maybe WWX isn’t so fanatically loyal to the Jiangs. I feel this would be really interesting to see how the plot would change. ~ @dreams-lovereality

Ties by WithBroomBefore (M, 16k, wangxian, my bookmark)

The Song and Dance of Shadows by wangxiansmelody (masterofghosts) (M, 49k, wangixan)

dancing ashes under the sun (will cast their shadow when the winds rise) by paranoid_fridge (T, 23k, sangcheng, ...diverges earlier when JC was never rescued after distracting the Wens, but no transfer + interesting plot)

Author snowberryrose has a handful of fix-it au’s with either a prevention of the transfer or an alt version of it.

from the other side of sorrow by Sour_Idealist (E, 128k, jiang siblings, chengqing, wangxian)

~*~

6. Hello! Do you know fics where wangxian switched personalities? I'm kinda feeling the mood. Thank you  [Cool concept!  I have #bodyswap and #sharing a body and the one with speech swap... but no personality swap.]

Nonny says:  Not so much a rec as a fanart tip: Wang Yibo as Xie Yun in “Legend of Fei” and Xiao Zhan as Yan Bingyun in “Joy of Life” could provide useful illos for Wangxian bodyswap fics.

~*~

7. Hi Momjo!! I was wondering if you knew any fics where LWJ Has Friends. And they are friends that he made on his own, not through a connection with WWX (though I don’t care if they do have a connection with WWX, I just want LWJ to have made them without WWX). I always read fics where LWJ has no friends other than his brother and it makes me really sad.

picking up the pieces by KouriArashi (M, 111k, wangxian, jiang yanli & lan wangji, my bookmark)

kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight by AlfAlfAlfAlfAlf, tardigradeschool (T, 75k, wangxian, jiang siblings & lan wangji friendship)

❤️Where the nightingales are singing, and a white moon beams. by Moominmammashandbag (M, 52k, wangixan, jin zixuan & lan wangji, my post)

something like by silversshadow (T, 69k, wangxian, lan wangji & nie huaisang, my post)

❤️save a sword, ride a socialist by sysrae (E, 33k, wangxian, jin zixuan & lan wangji, my post)

The Light That Fails to Dim by glowingreverie (T, 311k, wangxian)

Darling, one of us should go by Leahelisabeth (fortheloveofcamelot) (T, 16k, wangxian, jiang yanli & lan wangji)

The Cloudweavers《云织之者》by Joythea (T, 38k, wangxian, lan wangji & OCs)

you’ve got to find a way, say what you want to say by Quixiote (T, 12k, wangxian, lan wangji & OC letter carrier)

first friendships by silversshadow (G, 1k, lan xichen, child lan wangji & child nie huaisang)

mianmian the disaster lesbian saves the cultivation world by i_kinda_like_writing (T, 28k, wangxian, lan wangji & mianmian)

level 50! by artsy_alice (G, 9k, wangxian, lan wangji & nie huaisang, 4th in series)

in the shadow of moonlit flowers by cl410 (T, 10k, wangxian, lan wangji & nie huaisang, WIP)

This Path We'll Walk Together by bread_and_tea (T, 132k, xiyao, lan wangji & meng yao, lan wangji & nie huaisang)

The Vermillion Ribbon by Unforth (E, 233k, wangxian, lan wangji & nie huaisang, my post)

~*~

8. so i read not unspectacular things recently and now i really really want parent trap fusions,,, please and thank you! <3

kick at the darkness ‘til it bleeds daylight by AlfAlfAlfAlfAlf, tardigradeschool (T, 75k, wangxian, my bookmark)

how to make your dad fall in love with your high school teacher in five steps; the complete and bulletproof guide by ravenditefairylights (T, 91k, wangxian, zhuiyi)

~*~

9. hello!!!! i was wondering if you know fics where wwx's golden core gets restored..... through dual cultivation or lwj's help? hehe ALSO I AGREE TO THAT PERSON WHO SAID U THAT U ARE THE BACKBONE OF THIS FANDOM [Oh, you’re so precious, thank you!]

nothing gold can stay by rikke (M, 10k, wangxian, my post)

I Walk Not Alone by Sporadic_Writer (M, 17k, wangxian)

when you're doing all the leaving (then it's never your love lost) by tardigradeschool (T, 26k, wangxian)

the breaking of your soul (upon my lips) by sunsandships (M, 41k, wangxian, my bookmark)

End of the Bridge by Shinocchi (E, 335k, wangxian, WIP)

24 Hours by tailor31415 (E, 6k, wangxian, featuring responsible Dom lwj and dual cultivation)

Bait and Switch by JustAWanderingBabbit (T, 15k, wangxian, 3zun, my bookmark, see link to author’s art)

~*~

10. Hello! This is a bit of an odd request, but I was wondering if you know of any modern au fics where wangxian are happily raising A-Yuan together, and the fic focuses on parenting stuff, A-Yuan at school, low-stakes drama relating to those kind of things, etc? Thanks! (and thanks so much for this blog, I've read so much fic in the last few weeks since discovering it!!) [You’re welcome!  The two fics I’ve recced below DO have some relationship angst, but are otherwise domestic parenting fluff.]

Let’s Play Pretend and Live Our Lives by Tassos (E, 51k, wangxian, my post)

❤️The Simplest Way Forward by harriet_vane (E, 71k, wangxian, my post)

your heart, two doors down by ghostsgf (G, 10k, wangxian)

~*~

11. Hey, Mojo! I was wondering if you knew of any fics where lwj's mom is alive and wwx interacts with her, or even just lwj bonding with her.  Thanks for the amazing work you do🖤

Magical Marriage Ribbons by starandrea (M, 476k, wangxian, series in progress) Madam Lan is a badass dragon in this series.

Molten Gold by jesso (M, 17k, wangxian, WIP, my post)

For Both Of Us (And Time Is But A Paper Moon) by sami (E, 65k, wangxian)

Sail Away, Sweet Sister by sami (M, 73k,wangxian,nieli) - both moms live!

❤️Time Charm by Jenrose (E, 141k, wangxian, wangxianqing, my post)

~*~

12. Can I request any kind of fic with Lan Qiren being a responsible adult who sees WWX is in a bad place and helps out? Either with regards to him being abused (espc by Yu Ziyuan) or the demonic cultivation. I just need WWX to have one competent, caring, and ACTIVE adult looking out for him as a teenager. 😭

Rediscovery, Reconstruction by ExtraPenguin (M, 27k, lan qiren & wei wuxian, MIND THE TAGS, my post)

Righteous at a Cost by thunderwear (G, 21k, wangxian, my post)

Swordless by WithBroomBefore (G, 32k, wangxian, part 2 of Minding)

rain falls and soaks into the earth by RoseThorne (T, 28k, wangxian, series in progress)

Company by WithBroomBefore (T, 30k, wangxian, my bookmark)

~*~

13. First off, your blog is a lifesaver. Im pretty sure it's become a habit for me to check this blog at least once a week for excellent content.  [Yay!]  Second off, do you have any fic of Yunmeng Trio Roleswap? For some reason I've been looking for it but can't seem to find any

Ties by WithBroomBefore (M, 16k, wangxian, my bookmark)

Keep Holding On by abCEE (M, 69k, wangxian, jiang siblings, WIP)

Mercy by jupiter_james (E, 64k, wangxian, xicheng, xuanli, WIP)

*Check #5 above, there will be some crossover in these fics*

~*~

14. Heeey. First of all, thank you for this blog. All ur recommendations are GOLD. Thank you so much!! uwu [You’re welcome!]  also, do you/your followers know any fics where (a.) wangxian doesn't end up together? ; and (b.) where a-yuan is wangxian's (birth) child and lwj only finds out later? I'm kinda in the mood for TEARS. Thank you!! Stay safe!

Born to Blossom, Bloom to Perish by LadyMithiel (E, 99k, wangxian, WIP)

@porcupine-girl​ says, “Not A-Yuan but @drwcn​ has a series of ficlets and snippets with genderswapped ww, who gave birth to lwj’s baby (unbeknownst to him) while in the burial mounds and then gave her to JC to raise. A-Yuan still exists and was still raised by LWJ, although he’s not shown much in the ficlets.”

~*~

15. Hi! Do you have any recommendation where wwx suffer from hunger and/or poverty??? Thanks for your hardwork (✿❛◡❛)

bloom into the ground by tattletold (M, 58k, wangxian, my post)

❤️no new age by everythingispoetry (M, 146k, wangxian, 4th story, my post)

the red dark shifting by typefortydeductions (E, 16k, wangxian, my post)

❤️grow by cafecliche (T, 14k, wangxian, my post)

cherry lingers on the stone by ThreePlums (M, 27k, wangxian)

May I Breathe by GammaRays (E, 75k, wangixan, WIP)

~*~

16.  hi mojo! i've been scratching my head for a while and i hope you can help. i read a fic where the character overhears their love interest say they're not interested (but they haven't heard the full conversation) and angst starts yadda yadda and i wanted to find more fics with this trope, but idk what tag to look for. "misunderstandings" seems a bit vague, i've been looking for a while and haven't seen anything similar. it wasn't the focus of the fic, just what happened in a recent update, so there's no specific tag. please help!

Wholesome Life Usurp Immediately by Comfect (T, 103k, wangxian, qingli, yunmeng sibs)

a life in your shape by occultings (microcomets) (T, 9k, wangxian)

Tempo Rubato by Spodumene (E, 108, wangxian, my post)

baby let's take the long way home by plonk (not rated, 11k, wangxian)

I will be chasing a starlight by feyburner, sundiscus (E, 18k, wangxian, WIP)

~*~

17.  First, I'd like to say your blog is one of the best things that have ever happened to me!! thank you so much for all you do! [Thank you, darling!]  for the in the mood posts, do you know any fics where it's the anniversary of wwx's death and lwj is sad? and then wwx (or someone else) would comfort him? I'm really craving that kind of fic right now... Thank you in advance! Ɛ>

acoustic by hanguang-jacked (nasaplates) (M, 3k, wangxian)

藕断丝连 by RoseThorne (G, <1k, wangxian, lan sizhui & lan wangji)

Spring Blooms in the Cloud Recesses by tiniestawoo (G, 2k, lan sizhui & lan wangji)

~*~

18.  hello! thank you so much for you fic recommendations <3 I was wondering if there's any fics where wwx becomes distant and lwj becomes desperate to reconnect with wwx? maybe something similar to Echo, Murmur, Dream, Here by bluerainmist ? thank you! ~ @lwjsupremaxy

Lie Open To One Another by levament (M, 41k, wangxian, WIP)

~*~

19.  hi! do you know of a fic similar to Like A Light Gone Out by OnlyMeAndMyBones; or one where lan wangji dies, please?

bloom into the ground by tattletold (M, 58k, wangxian, my post)

Consideration by BurningTea (G, 41k, wangxian, my post, WIP)

Side By Side Suicide by scifigeek14 (t, 3k, wangxian, my post, both of them die)

I can hardly wait to be with you again by kiralyne (T, 13k, wangxian, WIP)

emptiness in harmony (homeward bound) by estel_willow( (T, 9k, wangxian)

the thing with feathers by RoseThorne (G, 39k, wangxian, WIP)

Setting fire to our insides by StarsAlignNomore (E, 106k, 3zun, minor wangxian)

Over the Rotted Bridge by vailkagami (T, 247k, wangxian, WIP)

~*~

20.  Hi mojo!!! I love your blog. If you could recommend some immortal wwx I would really appreciate it.😊😊 ~ @the-roses-are-dead-again

Running Our Hands Through Embers by MarvelousMar (E, 136k, xicheng, wangxian, my post – this one is jiang cheng-centric)

the recluse at the end of the moonlit path by b_ofdale (T, 29k, wangxian, my post)

If One for you, then One for us by KusakabeNAyako (T, 85k, wangxian, WIP)

Night of Sixth Magnitude Stars by Leffy (M, 23k, wangxian)

the path to heaven / immortal wangxian by lightningalwaysreturns (E, 51k, wangxian, series in progress)

love, in fire and blood by cicer (E, 360k, wangxian, my bookmark)

ridiculous future bullshit by sami (M, 27k, wangxian, series in progress)

~*~

21.  Hi mojo, I was just reading : TRAPPED IN AN OTOME GAME?! (GONE GAY) (NOT CLICKBAIT) by CursedBlessing and I absolutely love it so I was wondering if you have any isekai-ed wwx stories like that? [Wow, I just learned about a whole new category called otome isekai, which is very cool!] ~ @welliwannadie-alice

~*~

22.  Hi mojo, another ask, do you have anything where wwx is the one that's betrothed to jzs instead of jyl? Kind of something like Neatly Arranged by thunderwear or Between Fire and Ice by CaseNumber825?

watch what we'll become by glitteringmoonlight (T, 60k, wangxian, jin zixuan & wei wuxian, my bookmark)

~*~

23.  Ahaha, hello me again, just wondering you have any fics where wwx is friends and/or the one who saves or the one who is protected by Xue Yang? Something like thou child of my right hand by xxshigurexx (Shunou)? I highly doubt there's anything else to suit what I want but its worth a try. Thank you anyways!

sever a finger, find a home by deadbeatrefrain (M,6k, xuexian - wwx/xy, darkfic, mind the tags)

wei wuxian & xue yang tag on AO3

~*~

24.  Hi Momjo, you know that fic where LWJ is cursed to lose all of his senses one at a time? (He loses his hearing, then his sight, then his sense of touch, then his sense of pressure...I've been looking for it forever but I can't find the name of it). Are there any fics where something similar happens to WWX? Where he's cursed to lose one/many/all of his senses? Bonus points for LWJ taking care of him, of course. (Sort of a finder + mood request!)

❤️shadows in the sun rise by Yuu_chi (E, 25k, wangxian, my post) this is the one you’re looking for.

Linger in the Sun by etymologyplayground (T, 39k, wangxian, my post) has both of them unable to sense the other, with the juniors acting as go-betweens.

~*~

25.  do you have any fic recs that are jane austen inspired? i just read Tempo Rubato and now i have a massive craving!!

only the deepest love by occultings (microcomets) (T, 41k, wangxian)

Second Impressions: To See with Clearer Eyes by nockingarrows (not rated, 33k, wangxian)

An Uncle's Request by suzvoy (G, 2k, wangxian)

A certain step towards falling in love by allollipoppins (M, 30k, wangxian)

Perfectly Tolerable by stardust_and_sunlight (T, 46k, wangxian)

~*~

26.  Hi! Welcome back! Do you have any fics where Lan Wangji was sexually abused as a child? and thats why he doesnt want to be touched. Thank u!

I wished it was a dream by LFMH021 (M, 5k, wangxian)

~*~

[My ko-fi.]

[pocketfulofrecs]

Do you have any dadji fic rec?? I love lan wangji with his dad mode activated(like lan wangji taking care of a-yuan or juniors.) it's super duper cute uwu💗

Not gonna lie, this one was a little hard for us. I remember reading many fics like that when I got into the fandom, but I don’t trust past-Ju’s bookmarks.

Dadji is amazing, and he deserves all the good fics.

Here are some we found with the help from our discord bunnies (we haven’t read them all tho):

🐇 Gathered Herbs & Sweet Grasses by hansbekhart - [not rated | 19k]

🐇 Lan Yuan’s War by BurningTea - [general | 175k | wip | “cql and very angsty”]

🐇 like a folk song by norgbelulah (our post) - [general | 4.3k | “soft family time with Lan Sizhui”]

🐇 The seasons change (but I love you the same) by kdkdkd -[general | 7.3k | “LWJ fighting to be a-Yuan’s father instead of just HGJ”]

🐇 Their Happiness by qironvg - [general | 1.9k | “wangxian raising a-Yuan together”]

🐇 The Bad Dream Is Over Now by OnlyMeAndMyBones - [not rated | 1k | “more mentor-like, Sizhui is a teenager”]

🐇 Lanes in Libraries by neolith - [general | 1.1k | “cql canon”]

🐇 in love by domeeneec - [not rated | 1.1k | “modern au with teenager a-Yuan”]

🐇 chaos, grief, love and relief by GOODBOYS - [teen | 105k | “the first chapter is the 13 years before wwx resurrection with lots of LWJ-LSZ bonding”]

🐇 butterfly (series) by tunnelOFdawn - [general | 4.7k | “really sad, but LWJ is Dadji”]

🐇 grow by cafecliche - [teen | 14k | de-aging]

~

Recced by our followers:

🐇 paint smears on sunny days by SnowshadowAO3 - [explicit | 53k] recced by @gigglyramblings

~

Enjoy all the dadji! And if you think we missed some fic that fits this ask, reply and we’ll add it to the post! <3 (and thanks to all the bunnies that helped with recs)

[vermillioncrown]

As the F-22 commenter, I feel like I lost my point with said comment. My real interest isn't "haha fighter jet go brrr" so much as it is the complete strangeness of ZYX's life and understanding compared to everyone else. Sense I started reading DBD genre blind, I didn't know that dream/mind reading was a thing, and it fits the plot much better anyway. With that out of the way, I would love to hear more about ZYX's hijinks in the Rouge!zyx AU

it's kinda on me since that's the most obvious 'thing' that distinguishes zyx's modern skillset vs xianxia fantasy. bc lbr, any of us getting yote to the past - doesn't matter what we know because likely we'll only know of it. we don't understand wide-scale implementation of technology in a useful and robust manner (most laypeople).

(bc aerospace is my field, i do get a little grumpus and disillusioned with the excitement. i know the hard work it takes to bring a concept into reality, from the barebones physics to the detailed manufacturing. it's not enough for a single person to prove that they're different or smart or knowledgeable. but let's not bore you with that.)

zyx's weirdness is definitely not as well-hidden (??) as it seems from their pov in dbd. ostensibly, yeah, they can rely on their second life upbringing and patchwork cultural things from their first life, but if anyone takes a longer look past, let's say, the duration of good behavior at the cloud recesses, the cracks really start to show. (eventual hou-shifu and/or zhu yunfeng pov's will go into it)

ah, dream/mind-reading is ... not that common - at least mind-reading as we think of it from western fantasy. the uses in canon are more like permitted possession, another form of communing with spirits. dream-reading is a scum villain thing, and the dream fuckery a la incense burner is via very specific spiritual tools.

either way, you want people to know, huh? know the true depths of gremlin-hood that hide within zyx?

it will come out when it will come out 😎

=

OKAY, a little more on rogue!zyx...

oh fuck, i just realized that the whole golden core/"bssr's mountain" thing is going to go sideways.

no matter where rogue!zyx ends up post-self-expulsion, no one is blind, deaf, or dumb - we have an actual tangible connection to bssr roaming this fucking land right here right now.

(she's lurking near qishan, trying to find the xuanwu cave with no regards to the canon timeline bc time is a construct)

("how fucking bad can the vibes of the cursed sword be??" fucking bad, apparently)

bc of previous map fuckery, i will posit that yiling and the indoctrination camp are linked via a tributary of the yangtze (also linked to lotus pier), so it's just easy to end up in that area. a desperate wwx does bring up the core transfer w wq, and as they come up with the plan -

"we can pretend that bssr -"

"... wait... do we... actually have to pretend?"

(wq is def fighting between two low probability crossroads:

1) do the transfer w a 50% success rate. +: novel medical surgery; personal innovation; she can supervise the process entirely. -: failure means losing two cultivators; irreparable harm will be done to the donor regardless; lying; active action against wrh.

2) actually find bssr through her disciple, also a low success rate. +: responsibility is out of wq's hands; bssr's cultivation is much better; passive action against wrh that can be excused (thus protecting her family). -: no guarantee what bssr will do, what she'll ask for, or if she'll even help. loss of a chance to try something truly novel.)

they try to hedge their bets. wwx (supervised by wn) will go off to search for bssr/rogue!zyx while wq hides the yunmeng siblings in the 'dungeons'. if they don't find rogue!zyx by some deadline, the surgery will happen.

luckily, they find rogue!zyx nearby. unluckily, she doesn't have good news.

"no matter your mother, wei wuxian, you will not be allowed on that mountain. you are not her disciple."

"and you?"

"technically, i cannot go back either. if i were to return, it would be at great cost to myself. it would be me begging for your shidi's cultivation."

she does not ask wwx to beg her. he dares not (just barely) cross that line.

"if you transfer cores -" she casually brings up and wwx lunges at her, eyes wild and hushing her.

"how did you -"

she pushes him off. "ugh. rude." all hands, no composure - how do they expect anything to succeed with such clumsiness? "if you do a core transfer, it will work. however - it's not about the physical success. there is a mental aspect that will rely on your shidi."

as in, now that rogue!zyx knows, she refuses to let them go through with it unless they thoroughly prep jc. studying under someone closest to ascension, there are philosophies crucial to higher levels of cultivation that bssr knows, and that none of these family sect motherfuckers have (and it really shows). how stable can a man's cultivation be, one begotten through deception, insecurity, and lack of introspection and self-understanding? with unhealthy attachment to the material (not money, but power, reputation, etc), rooted in heart-demons?

it's lucky that canon-jc didn't blow himself into smithereens, and invoke heavenly lightning to destroy lotus pier for a second time.

(something something, there's a lot of heavy involvement with rogue!zyx in helping jc regain either a core (if he mentally can accept what it means and get over himself) or regain self-worth without cultivation)

(if going core-route... let's just say being a model cultivator isn't being a 'good person'. that core has to come from somewhere, someone.

as cultivators get closer to godhood, it's easy to see that a lot of a god's cruelty can be attributed to their indifference)

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 21, part one

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

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Reunions

All together in The Unclean Realm, The Yunmeng trio find a spot inside where they can sit down and have a proper Yanli-Wuxian reunion, while Jiang Cheng sits across the table watching them. 

For years Jiang Cheng has been rejecting Wei Wuxian's free and easy affection; now Yanli might be the only person Wei Wuxian offers to hug until Wen Yuan comes into his life.

Jiang Cheng is really going through it. He'll do nearly anything for Yanli--except, uh, stay in the goddamn inn with her when she's sick and the Wens are hunting them--and what makes her happiest is Wei Wuxian. He's brought them together, and so he's happy, even though he's excluded from their dynamic. This absolutely fucking kills me.

Here Jiang Yanli and Wei Wuxian are sweetly pledging to always keep the trio together and put each other first. Neither of them will keep this promise. 

Wei Wuxian will leave first, to take the Wens to the Burial Mounds. Jiang Yanli will leave second, staying in Lanling at Jin Zixuan's request instead of accompanying Jiang Cheng to retrieve Wei Wuxian. Jiang Cheng will be the last to let go.

(more after the cut)

Nie Huaisang comes literally running in, filled with joy at Wei Wuxian's return. When he goes to pat his shoulder Wei Wuxian flinches away.

I feel like something important is happening in this rapid sequence of glances and expressions between Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang. NHS is startled, and WWX realizes he's shown something about himself that he didn't want to show. He glances at Jiang Cheng and back at NHS before laughing and covering his slip with a squeeze of NHS’s hand.

NHS switches from shocked to cheerful just as quickly, helping with the coverup. It’s like they have a quick mutual agreement, rooted in their history of shared shenanigans, to not point out that something is wrong.

Meanwhile, Lan Wangji is wandering around the grounds, having feelings. At this point it's presumably been at least a couple of weeks since their breakup fight. 

He sees Wei Wuxian sitting contemplating his flute, and as he sees him he goes from sort of neutrally apprehensive to full on angry judging, complete with sword clenching. 

Part of this may be that his feelings are hurt over their fight, but the larger issue is his distress over Wei Wuxian's apparent heretical cultivation.  That, at any rate, is what's on his mind when he's selecting music, later in the episode, and when he's selecting flashbacks. 

Party Time

Later, the Nies host an excruciating party to celebrate Wei Wuxian's slaughter of Wen Chao return. Jiang Yanli is sharing a table with Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng is sharing a table with his crippling social anxiety. 

Everyone starts grilling Wei Wuxian about his sword, because that's suddenly all anybody cares about even though Jiang Yanli, Nie Huaisang, Meng Yao, and probably plenty of other people don't carry swords most of the time.

Wei Wuxian says "after the Wens caught me, Wen Zhuliu crushed my core, so I can't use my sword any more, too bad so sad, can we change the subject?" And everyone is very understanding and admires his resiliency. HA HA HA HA HA. Of course he doesn't opt for that simple lie, but instead mopes audibly without saying anything.

Nie Huasiang tries to change the subject by asking how he killed Wen Chao. Apparently "I had a sexy ghost mostly flay him" isn't good party chat, though, so neither Wei Wuxian nor Jiang Cheng opts to tell the story. 

Everyone lapses into awkward silence, all the more noticeable because there are no dancers, musicians, or entertainers of any kind at this event. OP has gone to audit-kickoff meetings that were more fun than cultivator banquets.

Moment of Clarity

While the awkwardness builds, we hear the sounds of the Song of Clarity. Lan Wangji is skipping the party, which is part of why Wei Wuxian is so mopey. But instead of sitting and stewing in his anger, Lan Wangji has shifted gears, and is starting to work on his "save Wei Wuxian's soul" plan.

This isn't the God-botherer version of soul saving, however. Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian disagree about correct practice, but they both are still practitioners within the same spiritual system, and the majority of their beliefs are closely aligned.

Lan Wangji has powerful magic at his disposal, and now he's taking a step back from his plan of forcing persuading Wei Wuxian to give up heterodoxy, and instead he's preparing to use his magic to offset the consequences of Wei Wuxian's choice.

He still isn't ready to accept that choice, but he's working on it. This is a big moment for Lan Wangji's relationship with Wei Wuxian. Lan Wangji is a deeply, deeply uncompromising person, as well as being super bossy, and he’s taking his first steps toward supporting Wei Wuxian’s free agency. 

Wei Wuxian leaves the party in the middle of Yao's toast, saying "I have to see you and your lover all over my tumblr dashboard but I am NOT going to listen to you talk!" He takes his wine to go roam around near Lan Wangji's quarters to pine and feel conflicted.  Lan Wangji has thoughtfully set up a projection scrim to catch his shadow and make the pining easier.

Jiang Cheng comes looking for Wei Wuxian, partly to reprimand him for rudeness and partly to see what the hell is wrong with him. Jiang Cheng is trying very hard to be pleasant. He's bad at it, but he's trying.

Wei Wuxian is trying to be unpleasant and he's pretty good at it. He won't say why he isn't using his sword. He’s obviously super fucking depressed about it, calling his former self childish for liking to spar, and only smiling once during the whole exchange.

He finally tells Jiang Cheng that he will always want to do the opposite of what Jiang Cheng tells him.  Jiang Cheng lets this go with an eyeroll.

(Point Break Quote Alert)

But actually this is a sign of trouble, right here in River City, with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for abandoning the Jiang Clan. Wei Wuxian has just told Jiang Cheng he has no intention of obeying him; not just about the sword, but in general. That's no way for a disciple to talk. 

OP has nothing to say about this gif. OP watches gif over and over and over and over

Wei Wuxian ends the conversation by tapping Jiang Cheng's chest with his flute and then walking away. The (still nameless) flute has no problem with this - does it, like Subian, recognize Jiang Cheng as an extension of Wei Wuxian?

The next day, Wei Wuxian is chilling in his room, looking ungodly sexy in his bold slashed robe, holy frack. I mean, he is sex-on-toast at all times, but the cut of his post-burial-mounds combo is particularly heart-stopping when he decides to stick a knee or two out. 

He's meditating and flashing back to being in the burial mounds, where he was also meditating. I admire his ability to fractally meditate about meditating. 

Chenqing

He didn't put a sock on the doorknob, so Jiang Yanli comes in and startles him. He brandishes his flute at her before calming down. The flute definitely does not see her as an extension of Wei Wuxian, because when she touches it, it smokes and then knocks her out of the frame so fast it's comical.

Did they put her in a jerk vest for that shot?

Wei Wuxian hides the flute from her, freaked out by its behavior. She, however, is unfazed, and gives him the first & only affirmation he's gotten about his new cultivation path, and says the flute is "like Mother's Zidian."  She kind of walks him through the whole "first class spiritual tool" concept, beaming with approval and telling him he must name the flute.  

Jiang Yanli is hardcore Jiang Clan, seriously. Freedom and impossibility. You survived 3 months of mystery trauma and now you're all fucked up? We'll roll with it. You have a demon flute now? Rock on. You're going to use necromancy to beat the other clans in a group hunt? Gold star for you.

He names the flute Chenqing, which @hunxi-guilai​ translates and explains in depth over here.

Bichen

Lan Wangji has finished practicing the Song of Clarity, and regardless of whether it's had an effect on Wei Wuxian, he himself seems much calmer. 

As Wei Wuxian contemplates Chenqing, Lan Wangji contemplates Bichen and remembers Wei Wuxian's assertions about resentful energy way back in Gusu summer school. 

This time when he grips his sword, it's loosely, as if he's made some progress with his anger.

Soup

Jiang Yanli sits Wei Wuxian down for some soup, and talks to him about what's going on with him, saying he's changed. He insists he's fine and works very hard to be convincing.

She's not convinced but says she won't press him, and then abruptly shifts tone and works very hard to act like everything is fine. She leaves, taking a lot of soup with her, and Wei Wuxian remarks that it's unfair she is giving so much to Jiang Cheng. But of course, some of it is secretly for Jin Zixuan.

Everything isn't fine, as Wei Wuxian scream-meditates with resentful energy just rolling off of him. He's got some of the dark energy stored in the Yin sword in his bag of holding, but I get the impression that a lot of it is just stored in his body.

Club Ruohan

At some point in the episode we stop in to check on Wen Ruohan. He and his wind machine are mad that Wen Chao is dead. 

Meanwhile, his interpretive dances with the Yin iron now turn his puppets into...Klingons? Sure, why not. 

Literal Stand-Up Meeting 

Jiang Cheng needs Wei Wuxian at games night a meeting and comes running to Jiang Yanli to find him. He is freaking out and she tells him to chill. 

No matter what fuckery is going on in the world, Jiang Yanli is going to find herself a nice little outdoor table and she is going to sit her ass down and have some tea and civilized lady activity. Queen.

This shot of the meeting is composed so nicely. The blocking (placement of actors) in this scene encapsulates the familial dynamics, and I’ll talk about that as soon as I finish admiring Jiang Cheng’s proportions. 

Here we have four clans represented by four family pairs around the game war table. The Jin cousins, despite their differing personalities, are side by side, matchy-matchy, in lockstep. Jin Zixuan lets Jin Zixun do the talking for him, so maintains his own rep as a reasonable guy.  

The Nie brothers are even closer together, also in matching greys, Nie Huaisang giving all of his attention to his brother/clan leader. You can see his careful watching of his brother's temper...not fearful for himself, but fearful for Mingjue.

The Lan brothers have a growing distance between them; they are in different colors (which is pretty usual for them), and Lan Wangji is standing well away from his brother and the rest of the group. Partly this is his personality, but it's also symbolic of his growing distance from his brother and other proper cultivators. He's carrying WWX-related secrets, and he's wrestling with what he's learned.  

While Nie Huaisang is looking at Mingjue, Lan Xichen is turning around to see what's up with his own volatile sibling.

Lastly you have Jiang Cheng, alone in the room, with his shidi nowhere to be found, and seriously feeling the heat because of his isolation. 

He's alone in his purple, but the color value (lightness/darkness) of his robes exactly matches Xichen's. 

And Xichen, bless him, makes a point of speaking to him respectfully as a fellow clan leader, gives him a path out of the "where is your brother" conversation, and is just generally his kind and helpful self with Jiang Cheng.

Next: Awkwardness Increases!

[watch-grok-brainrot]

CQL Characters as Teas I’ve Had

This started because @needtherapy knows I'm a tea nerd and wanted an idea for what tea would lwj tell wwx he is... So pick a tea that suits the characters well she basically told me... and this spiral out of control... oops. sorry not that sorry. this is another tea post no one asked for... except maybe needtherapy. but she didn’t ask for THIS MUCH of it. 

Wwx: onyx -- this is a tea i got at a tea festival last year from a guy based in chicago. it’s made from a white tea cultivar but made into a black tea. it’s really yummy and pretty deep. unorthodox for sure but still rooted in tradition and well crafted. 

Lwj: aged fuding silver needle white tea -- if wwx is a onyx, then lwj is the traditional tea made of the same stuff. delicious. traditional. respected. 

Jc: a young sheng puer -- needs to mature a little. Astringent. Need time make the edges soften some. the astringency sometimes make me think of zidian. 

Jyl: lotus scented fuzhan - mellow, smooth, round bodied and fragrant. Same feel as jyl's steadiness and kindness (fuzhuan is a heicha, same category as puer) it’s a scented tea so sometimes tea snobs will look down at it. but it’s REALLY good so their loss (i’m looking at you ep 3-27 jzxuan)

Lxc:  aged white tea cake, over 25 years old. it’s respected and almost legendary but not necessarily pretentious. 

Nhs: ducksh*t oolong - amazing tea. Ridiculous name. The farmer probably named the motherbush to deter buyers. kinda like nhs’ YiWenSanBuZhi title. 

Nmj: muzha tieguanyin - strong flavor, took a little time to grow on me, classic though (not to be confused with anxi tgy, btw. very different teas. same cultivar though, iirc)

Jgy: hunan bloolong - this is a tea made from a cultivar usually used to make oolongs that was processed as a black. A named coined by harney and sons in nyc. While the tea might be decent and the concept good, it's inevitably tainted by the inexplicably awful naming. Just like jgy is tainted by his evil deeds even if he had lots of potential.

Jzxuan: jinjunmei - modern and well received. Quality but also very pricey. sometimes i wonder if it’s worth the price... 

Lqy/mianmian: farmer’s choice baozhong -- i get mine from a shop in seattle. it’s a light oolong that’s floral and refreshing. i love this tea. i love mianmian. it’s not a particularly rare and definitely not pretentious. but it’s good and definitely one i love to drink.

Wq: there is a tea that i get from a vendor in chicago called “Black Dancong Champion” that’s made from a Mi Lan Xiang (Honey Orchid Fragrance) cultivar and allowed to fully oxidize. it’s a delicious tea that’s won best tea award at a competition before. wq is the best doctor of qi shan and definitely not 100% traditional so i think this suits her. also the cultivar has such a pretty name which also suits her. 

Wn: so... this is a weird tea story but i have a tea that my dad’s high school buddy picked in yunnan. the best leaves were made into something i can’t afford. he had some cast-off leaves that he asked the tea master to process anyway. and then when we were in chongqing in 2017, he gave me about 300g of it. it’s PHENOMENAL tea but he kinda waved his hand at it saying it was second rate stuff anyway. that’s kinda what wen ning is. he’s amazing as a character -- loyal, interesting, sweet. but the cultivation world as a whole doesn’t appreciate him. it doesn’t make him any less good though!

Lsz: modern chinese lapsang suchong. The name suggests strong smoke (aka the Wens) but it's actually really soft and fruity.

Ljy: high grade jasmine green made from tender buds from an early spring harvest with jasmine flowers added and sifted out at least seven times. i love this tea even if it’s “flavored”. i like its personality! 

Jl:  pre-qingming dragonwell - soft green tea. maybe described as nutty in flavor? you don’t get too many brews from it. first flush (hence the early spring picking) and tender. i think in a lot of ways this tea shows how young the leaves are -- just like jl shows how young he is in many parts of the story. 

Oyzz: lychee tea blended with rose buds and honeysuckle buds. He's simple but delightful. (idk if this is a blend people can buy? i take cheap grocery store lychee and blend in rose buds and honeysuckle buds i buy when i’m in china... i really like a good rose and lychee combo but it’s a bit too sharp when blended and the honeysuckle does a good job of mellowing it out... this is also the ONLY tea i blend myself.. it’s just a thing for me. idk why)

Sl: aged glutinous rice scented puer - i like the texture of the tea and i also like how it ages well. 

Xxc: jinxuan/milk oolong -- a cultivar that makes a really nice round tea. it’s slightly creamy in mouth feel and scent. there are milk oolongs have have milk flavor added. THIS IS NOT THAT. This is WAY BETTER. 

Xy: unaged ripe puer - some people like it i guess? idk why. seems like a bad idea. 

A-qing: london fog (Earl grey latte with vanilla and sugar) -- soft and yummy but don't screw it up or it may not be good. also not actually pretentious tea. 

And for the antagonists:

Wzl: twinnings or bigelow earl grey. passible. doing the minimal work to get purchased. i don’t hate it but i also don’t love it. acceptable go to in hotels and restaurants when i forgot to/can’t bring my own tea. 

SuSh*t: lipton. He's not good tea. Passable cold brewed I guess. 

Jxzun: instant tea mix. >.> probably flavored. i’m not sure if i would even consider it tea... (i’m thinking a beverage like crystal light peach tea. i mean, i used to drink it and i’m not gonna judge people for drinking it but it’s not really a thing i would choose to consume anymore... but i’m a tea snob now...)

[wangxianficfinder]

In the mood for...

Sep 15th

~*~

1. hi, hope you’re doing well.

i’m looking for post-canon fic recs with wangxian living in their own home (not at the cloud recesses)

or they could be travelling cultivators like songxiao.

thank you in advance 💖

❤️ Attempting the Impossible by Ariaste for williedustice (T, 36k, WangXian, JC & WWX, Post-Canon, Yunmeng Bros Reconciliation, Adoption, Family Fluff, Kid fic, Family drama, Fluff, 🔒[PODFIC] Attempting the Impossible by Ariaste by lunatique)

🔒To heal and nurture by Aki_no_hikari (G, 11k, WangXian, Post-Canon, Memories, Married Couple, Domestic Fluff, Festivals, Healing, Trauma Recovery, Light Angst)

~*~

2. hello, do you have fic recs for yunmeng jiang head disciple wwx? him being a mentor, a kind and reassuring presence by his juniors’ side.

Dispersing Clouds by dreamingofcake (E, 283k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Genius WWX, Inventor WWX, Not Jiang Family Friendly, Abusive YZY, Canonical Child Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Eventual Sex, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm (Background Character), Background Character Deaths, child deaths, Canon JC, Good Uncle LQR, Accidental Baby Acquisition, Cultivation Sect Politics, Homophobia, Heteronormativity, Feelings Realization, WWX is Not Oblivious) WWX does quit the Jiang sect in this one, but the earlier chapters do show him going about his duties as head disciple & generally being good at it

~*~

3. hi! ITMF wangxian fic where wwx is a clan leader of the wen remnants, preferably finished:D i dont mind any lenght or rating @brokensvndown

body and soul by TooSel (E, 41k, wangxian, Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Marriage Proposal, Everyone Lives AU, Cultivation Sect Politics, Yílíng Wèi Sect AU, Adoption, Smut, Friends to Lovers, Angst with a Happy Ending)

Grave dirt by esama (T, 92k, WangXian, canon divergence, yiling wei sect au, demonic cultivation, farming, found family, pre-slash, politics, fix-it of sorts)

~*~

4. ITMF request! I guess this falls under CQL/Untamed than the novel, but I'd love any fics where WWX gets found/raised by/raised with Xiao Xingchen (and/or Song Lan!). AUs okay but please no Jiang bashing. Thank you so much for all you do for us!!!!

Become Tomorrow by ShanaStoryteller (Not rated, 39k, wangxian, BSSR/LY, Alternate Universe, a story full of tragic pining gays, and one chaotic gremlin, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, WWX is BSSR’s disciple) link in #15A has WWX as BSSR's disciple and XXC shows up later in the fic

Frost moon's sun by RenaFair (T, 116k, WangXian, XXC/SL, Slow Build, Childhood Sweethearts, Angst and Feels, Fluff, Family Feels, Canon Divergence, Mentions of Smut, Attempt at Humor) link in #15A

I Will Call You By Name by DisasterMages (T, 73k, WangXian, WWX raised by XXC, Canon Divergence, Family Feels)

~*~

5. I'm looking for fics where wwx is assaulted (SEXUALLY OR NON SEXUALLY, DOESN'T MATTER) and there's AFTERMATH AND PUNISHMENT for the assailants.

Last time I asked, a single fic was rec'ed. After that I went to Ao3 to filter search myself. But I was disappointed by a lot. Under r*pe/non- con (rape) tag it's actually pwp fics. Under aftermath tagged fics, there's isn't actually any aftermath , like one I read was so unrealistic and.... that it hurt.

Please help.

🧡 Heaven Has No Rage by flipfloppandas (M, 51k, WWX & YZY, JFM/YZY,  implied wangxian, WWX/WC, WWX/others, rape/non-con, modern, hurt/comfort, protective YZY, good parent YZY, hospitals, medical procedures, vomiting, trauma) Madam Yu finds WWX in the aftermath of SA, and stays with him thru the hospital visit and talking to detectives. Ends with her being determined to fuck his attackers up, has lots of good bonding moments as she makes up for her bad parenting and gets protective of him. Very emotional and cathartic, 10/10

a rumination of things by AvoOwO (M, 89k, WangXian, JC & WWX, JC & LWJ, LWJ & LQR, LXC & LWJ, LQR & WWX, JC & NHS & WWX, NHS & LWJ, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, Fluff and Angst, Cutesy, LWJ Has a Crush, POV LWJ, Protective LWJ, Pining LWJ, LWJ Has Feelings, Courting Rituals, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Poisoning, Dorks in Love, Love Confessions, First Kiss, Mind Manipulation, Manipulation, JC & LWJ Dislike Each Other, Good Sibling JC, Rabbits, Feels, Emotional Hurt, Supportive LXC, Good Uncle LQR, LQR Metaphorically Qi-Deviates, Blushing, Fainting, Soft WangXian, Cute WangXian, Laughter, Dubious Consent, Kissing, Feelings Realization, Hurt/Comfort, Hurt WWX, Hurt LWJ, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Drowning, Torture, Threats of Violence, Death Threats, Choking, Stabbing, Major Character Injury, Smart LWJ, Smart WWX, Murder, Kidnapping, Gags, Vomiting, Literal Sleeping Together, WWX Has PTSD, Food Issues, Sharing Clothes, Hair Brushing, Hair Braiding, Heavy Angst with a Happy Ending, Holding Hands, Angry WWX, Protectiveness, Caretaking, Crying, Food as a Metaphor for Love, the mortifying idea of being known, Suicidal Thoughts, Angry LWJ, Night Hunts, Protective JC, WWX Has Issues, Aftermath of Violence, Blood and Gore, Cannibalism, Graphic Description of Corpses, Corpse Desecration, Trauma, Body Horror, Cannibalistic Thoughts, Case Fic, Dead CSSR, Memories, Emotions, Past Child Abuse, Canon Divergence, Painting, Temporary Amnesia, Date Rape Drug/Roofies, Drink Spiking, Victim Blaming, WWX is a Mess, Politics, Protective LXC, Good Sibling LXC, LQR Tries, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, WWX Needs a Hug, someone gets punched a lot, LWJ contemplates murder for a moment, JC almost gets it done, not quite about romance as much as romance elements there, more so about the small things, LWJ loves how WWX smells, some nasty things are said, WWX def needs a nap, he gets one dw, LQR Gets Shit Done, NHS is a Little Shit, Scheming NHS)

Silenced by Tasharene (M, 63k, WangXian, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, PTSD, Temporary Blindness, Aversion to touch, Fear of crowds, Panic Attacks, Post-Canon, WWX Whump, Hurt WWX, Whump, Angst with a Happy Ending, world-class troll LXC, see the archive Warnings BEFORE you accuse me of not tagging things!!!)

And Time Is But a Paper Moon by sami (M, 138k, WangXian, XiChengQing, Time Travel, Fix-It, Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Healing, Mental Health Issues, PTSD, Hurt/Comfort, Depression, BAMF WWX, BAMF JC, BAMF LWJ, BAMF JYL, Getting Together) There's an arc from Ch. 28-33 where WWX is temporarily kidnapped and tortured. Chapter 28 includes the initial attack and some very swift justice/revenge, followed in Chapter 33 by further apology & recompense. Intervening chapters are wwx receiving medical attention and recovering. I also suggest trying the "Rape Recovery" tag if you haven't already.

Dream a little dream of me by Moominmammashandbag (M, 60k, WangXian, SangYu, Prison, Hair Washing, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, mentions of torture, Mention of dismemberment, Coming Out, Anxiety Disorder, Anxiety Attacks, goose!NMJ, Reincarnation, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Incest, Dreamwalking, Angst with a Happy Ending, JZX Lives) instead of being dead, wwx is imprisoned & tortured under koi tower during the timeskip. he's rescued and heals and there's a big trial at the end where he (& nmj) get justice.

clean from the war (your heart fits like a key) by sysrae (E, 28k, WangXian, Modern AU, Reunions, past xy/wwx, xy is fucked up but not evil because it's a modern AU and I said so, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, past wwx/jfm, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Abuse, Rape Recovery, transphobic violence, Victim Blaming, Past wwx/others, allusions to past self-harm) tagged past jfm/wwx (wwx runs away and has trauma)

I searched for another fic but couldn't find it--wwx gets drunk and gets taken advantage of but thinks he has cheated on lwj and is broken up about it. It had very well-written exploration of both wwx and lwj figuring it out.

~*~

6. Hello,

Do you know any lwj-critical fics?

Not condemning but discussing his inactions when he was actually known for being stubborn and "righteous".

Something like that. Itmf

Thank you!

New Perspective by mrcformoso (T, 8k, WangXian, LSZ & LWJ, Major Character Death, Angst, Hopeful Ending, Fatherhood, Regrets, Flashbacks, POV LWJ, LWJ-centric, Canonical Character Death - WWX, Pining LWJ, LWJ Has Feelings, LWJ Needs a Hug, Character Development, Dead WWX, LWJ deals with the death of his love, And learns to be a father along the way, Introspection, Feelings, LWJ is Bad at Feelings, Character Study, WWX’s death in The Untamed was too raw, Regretful LWJ, Breaking Toxic Cycles, Canon Compliant, LWJ in Seclusion, Post-LWJ in Seclusion, Child LSZ) does being critical of himself count? Hahaha

Arrayed by FirefliesNLightningBugs (M, 5k, wangxian, angst w/ happy ending, LSZ found by LXC, LSZ keeps his memories, alive JYL & JZX, canon temporary character death, WIP) kinda does this with an outsider pov referencing how lz tried to report true info and take action but he wasn't believed and prevented from acting (with the outsider pov of lxc slowly realizing that lz had the right of it)

~*~

7. Hello, this is for ITMF, are there any fics where WWX is a doctor or a health professional? It can be both modern or not. I have read one before, and hopefully there are more. Thank you 😊. @suibianxjiangui

Anginal Equivalents by fakeplasticlily (E, 23k, WangXian, Modern, Medical Residents AU, Childhood Friends, Mutual Pining, Oblivious WWX, Sexual Content, Podfic Available)

🧡 Like a House on Fire by KouriArashi (T, 82k, WangXian, Modern au, Paramedics, Firefighters, Light angst, Mutual pining, Kid fic, Past drug use, Past child abuse, Families of choice, Domestic fluff)

trust your fingertips by plonk (Not Rated, 15k, WangXian, Aphrodisiacs, Medical Kink, Canon Era, Different First Meeting)

plant a little happiness (let the roots run deep) by fleurdeliser (E, 47k, WangXian, Modern AU, Car Accidents, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Non-Explicit References to Injuries and Death, References to Addiction, Doctors & Physicians, Falling In Love, soft romance, background 3zun, [Podfic of] plant a little happiness (let the roots run deep) by knight_tracer)

To lurk, to lie in wait by trippednfell (M, 124k, WangXian, Modern AU, strangers to co-parents to lovers, Strangers to Lovers, Kid Fic, teenage juniors, background NieLan, Angst with a Happy Ending, Case Fic, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Not Really Character Death, If there is main character death it's very temporary, Fox Spirit WWX, Dragon LWJ, Blood and Injury, Additional Warnings In Author's Note)

Nursery Rhymes by manaika (M, 96k, WangXian, NieLan, Modern AU, Inexperienced WWX, Experienced LWJ, Reconciliation, Budding Love, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Unreliable Narrator, Medical Inaccuracies, Slow Burn, Past Character Death, Childhood Trauma, Found Family, Past Injury, Nurse! WWX, Doctor! LXC, Teacher! LWJ, Character With A Heart Condition (Major), Past Incarceration (Major Character), Underage Character With Leukemia (Minor))

To Deliver an Heir by cerbykerby (E, 49k, WangXian, slight dubcon/noncon but wangxian are into it, A/B/O, Alpha LWJ, Omega WWX, Heat Sex, Knotting, Royalty Medical, Emperor LWJ, Physician WWX, Mpreg, Postpartum Depression, Breeding, Creampie, LWJ literally cannot stop himself from coming in WWX, Breastfeeding)

Eyes by SplitGirl28 (M, 60k, WangXian, WIP, Adopted WWX, Adopted by Doctor, WWX Isn't Adopted by the Jiangs, Cultivator Apothecary WWX, No Golden Core Transfer, Meet Different, WWX has a secret, Secret BAMF WWX, Pining LWJ, Oblivious WWX, WangXian Get a Happy Ending)

Operation Old Men by Chiharu (Not Rated, 37k, WangXian, JL & LJY & LSZ, JYL/JZX, Modern, Boarding School, Single Parents, Everyone Is Alive, Matchmaking, Family Dynamics, Hospitals, Meet the Family, Family Vacation, Weddings, School Reunion, Happy Ending)

~*~

8. Hii , im currently ITMF a fic where lwj and wwx have a heated fight or a fic where they have a nasty breakup in their teen. Thank you

Tempo Rubato by Spodumene (E, 108k, wangxian, modern, angst w/ happy ending, romance, persuasion au, separations, pining, miscommunication, depression, self-harm, reconciliation, smut)

Couldn’t Scream Couldn’t Shout by mermorgie (T, 42k, WangXian, LXC & WWX, LXC & LWJ, LQR & WWX, JZX & WWX, WWX & NHS, LWJ & NHS, WIP, Not for JC stans, Muteness, Sign Language, references to selective mutism, Homophobic JC, canon JC characteristics, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Anxiety Attacks, Pining, LWJ is a Panicked Gay, Supportive Sibling LXC, JZX Tries, LQR Tries, Protective JZX, Scheming NHS, Bisexual JZX, LWJ is Bad at Communicating, WWX Has ADHD, Autistic LWJ, WWX Has a Fear of Dogs, Jiang Family Bashing)

~*~

9. Hi! Firstly, thank you for all you do, I've got so many of my favourite fics from looking through your posts! Secondly, for the next ITMF, I'd love to read something about post-resurrection wwx finding out about lwj's punishment and going OFF at the lan elders. Preferably not too lxc bashing but i'm not too fussed. Bonus points if it's pre-wangxian and wwx's yllz-esque rage on his behalf *does things* for lwj @scenicpixie

~*~

10. Hi so I'm looking for a fic that has wwx kind of doing gymnastics not in a modern era but like he's super flexible and he does kind of something like gymnastics to dodge or in a fight I just want him to do gymnastics too you know impress everyone not like he's showing off it's just that he's doing it because he wants to I don't know I thought it would be a great idea for a fact that I really wanted to read one if you can find one that would be great

The Darkness Before Dawn by PsycheStellata707 (M, 113k, WIP, WangXian, Angst with a Happy Ending, Time Travel Fix-It, Canon Divergence, BAMF WWX, Time Travel, Attempt at Humor, PTSD, Oblivious WWX, WWX-centric, Blind WWX, Sentient Burial Mounds, Self-Indulgent, Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Oblivious Pining, Not Canon Compliant) flexible wwx dancer moves to fight, I think darkness before the dawn on ao3 is the one where he's raised by a traveling performer group and incorporates fan dancing and other skills into his own martial art style. In it wwx is blind and its a time travel fix it, where "the price of seeing the future is the inability of seeing the present"

~*~

11. hello! I think this qualifies as fic finder? (ITMF is probably better because I don't really know the specifics or what fic I'm looking for exactly). I just remember scrolling passed it in once in the old ITMF posts where it's a !nie WWX in modern setting. So just give some recs of !nie WWX not on the non-yummeng wwx compilation list if possible because I've read all those (both canon and modern setting are okay!), thank you!! :D

~*~

12. hi, i’m looking for fanfics

a) where wwx is kicked out from lotus pier after punching jzx

b) wwx is best friend with nie huaisang and jwy behaves like in canon

c) people discover madam yu’s abuse on wwx

12A)

Cultivating immortality by KizuKatana (E, 231k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Rogue Cultivator WWX, Mutual Pining, BAMF WWX, BAMF LWJ, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, unreliable narrator, Found Family, First Time, novel canon relationship dynamics)

🔒 crying like a fire in the sun by Reverie (cl410) (T, 10k, WangXian, SongXiao, BSSR/LY, Runaway WWX, Canon Divergence, Everyone Lives/Nobody Die, rogue cultivator WWX, Angst, Post Cloud Recesses, Not YZY Friendly, Happy Ending, BSSR is WWX’s grandmother instead of grandmaster) link in #15A

💖 Xiao-Ying of the Third Refugee Village by abCEE (T, 31k, wangxian, WWX banished from Jiang sect, not Jiang friendly, found family, mpreg, fluff, flirting)

12C)

🔒🧡 rain falls and soaks into the earth series by RoseThorne (T, 57k, WangXian, WIP, Near Death Experience, Attempt Drowning, Madam Yu Bashing, Recovery, No war AU)

🧡 To have and to hold by Moominmammashandbag (M, 78k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Major character injury, CQL verse, Happy Ending)

🔒🧡 Company by WithBroomBefore (T, 29k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Pre-Relationship, Getting Together, POV LWJ, Fix-It, Pre-Canon, at least to start, WWX goes to Cloud Recesses, But Not In The Usual Way, fear of character death, Everybody Lives, Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, Light Angst, good teacher LQR, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, brief discussion of past minor character suicide, Kitten, Not YZY Friendly)

🔒 Warming up (to him) by barisan (T, 9k, LQR & WWX, WangXian, Hypothermia, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, Temporary Character Death, Medical Inaccuracies, YZY Abuses WWX, JFM Bashing, pre-wangxian, Good Uncle LQR, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort)

🔒💙 Holding shreds by barisan (T, 5k, WangXian, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, No Sunshot Campaign, Body Swap, Not for sexy shenanigans, Chronic Pain, Hurt WWX, Hurt LWJ, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Abusive YZY, Bad Parent YZY,  Bad Parent JFM, Good Uncle LQR, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Inaccuracies, POV WWX, Angst with a Happy Ending, Jiāng Family Bashing, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Getting Together, Smart WWX)

Like stones on an unseen board by Vir_Abelasan (Not rated, 11k, wangxian, Canon Divergence, Dark LWJ, Older LWJ, Teacher LWJ, dark twin jades, Age Difference, Manipulation, Protective LWJ, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Corporal Punishment, Relatively canon-typical abusive Jiangs, WWX Get a Happy Ending, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, Not JC Friendly, Not Jiang Clan Friendly)

~*~

13. do you have any recs for fics with wangxian exploring intimacy and/or sex together? i read a really good modern au fic about it but i was wondering if there are ones set in the canon universe. tysm!

To Know, To Be Known series by cqlorphan (E, 38k, wangxian, Cock Warming, Multiple Orgasms, Marathon Sex, Under-negotiated Kink, Porn with Feelings, Aftercare, Dom/sub Undertones, Established Relationship, let LWJ get railed agenda, LWJ Learns Some Things about himself, sex tears, gratuitous use of names, Begging, Kink Discovery, Post-Canon, Bottom LWJ/Top WWX, Top LWJ/Bottom WWX, Switching, Light Bondage, Blow Jobs, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Let wwx get tied up but also let lwj railed, Repressed LWJ, and his journey to sexual abandon aided by, Inventor WWX, Cock Rings, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Dirty Talk, Rough Sex, Dildos, Rimming, Edging)

the hidden source is the watchful heart by o_honeybees (E, 10k, WangXian, Post-Canon, Getting Together, Domesticity, Touch-Starved, Grief/Mourning, Misunderstandings, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Unresolved Sexual Tension,Eventual Smut, reflections on selfishness and selflessness)

hunters seeking solid ground by Attila (E, 23k, wangxian, Canon Compliant, discussion of canon character death, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, bed sharing, Getting Together, Yearning, Literal Sleeping Together, Really Excessive Amounts of Hurt/Comfort)

Tripped at Every Step by brooklinegirl (E, 28k, WangXian)

~*~

14. Hello, can anyone give me some recs of canon divergences that start after Wei Wuxian’s 3 months in the burial mounds? Thanks! :) ♡ @menimimimeni

🔒 A Heart Undying by NonsensicalRambling (M, 114k, WangXian, Undead WWX, Canon-Typical Violence, canon-typical dead things the burial mounds, Fix-It of Sorts, Canon Divergence, Eventual WangXian, No Yīn Tiger Seal, Morally Gray WWX, Animals Eating People, WWX’s questionable choices, Morally conflicted LWJ, Oblivious WWX, WWX Creates a Sect | Yiling Wei, YLLZ WWX, Sect Leader WWX, LWJ & WQ have an Understanding) WWX dies in the Burial Mounds & is undead

we’re starting at the end by Miss_Enthusiasimal (M, 92k, WangXian, JC & WWX, Time Travel, Canon Divergence, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Golden Core Reveal, Burial Mounds, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Starvation, emaciation, Cannibalism, Self-Harm, Amputation, Suicidal Thoughts, Sunshot Campaign, let JZX and WWX be friends club) WWX time travels without realising to when he was thrown into the Burial Mounds, & thinks he's dead, so instead of leaving on his own he's rescued by LWJ & JC

Return to Me by Dragon_Scribe (T, 1k, WangXian, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Fierce Corpse WWX, Angst, Music, Violence, Blood and Gore, Crying LWJ) WWX dies in the Burial Mounds & emerges as a fierce corpse

🔒 Heart of hearts series by apathyinreverie (M, 40k, WangXian, Dark LWJ(Ish), Amnesia, WWX gets to be Not Okay after the BM, Hurt WWX, Recovery, Caring, Protective LWJ, Possessive LWJ, some definite manipulation but not everything is as it seems, not nearly as dark as the tags make it sound, Canon Divergence, Golden Core Reveal, Golden Core Transfer Fix-It Kind Of, Domestic WangXian, Fluff, WWX Goes to Gusu, Possessive WWX, WWX happily atticwifing away, Sunshot Campaign, BAMF WWX, BAMF LWJ, ridiculously self-indulgent, Not Cultivation World Friendly)

Cloudy Memories Recessed by FirefliesNLightningBugs (M, 7k, WIP, JC & JYL & WWX, Adopted Sibling Relationship, Sunshot Campaign, Good Person JZX, Good Sibling JC, Good Sibling JYL, Amnesia, (kind of), Weird Magic, Demonic Cultivation, post wwx disappearing during sunshot campaign, POV Alternating, POV JC, POV JYL, POV WWX) cloudy memories recessed is a diverging au after wwx escapes bm. Wip where he comes out not fully aware of his surroundings and is initially mistaken as a fierce corpse by cultivators cause he's in such bad shape

Tether by WithBroomBefore (T, 40k, WangXian, SangLi, WWX’s passive suicidality, Canon Divergence, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, WWX Lives, JYL Lives, Golden Core Reveal, Minor Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, POV JYL, Grief/Mourning, Sunshot Campaign, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, LWJ makes friends, Fix-It, Happy Ending)

~*~

15. A) Hello mods! Thank you for being absolute gems and doing this all! Itmf fics where wei wuxian is/used to be baoshan sanren's disciple, got raised by SongXiao (one or both), wasnt adopted by anyone/raised on the streets on his own and was raised by the Wen clan/wen ruohan himself. thank you!

B) OMG i forgot to add this one and sent my previous ask ugh but also wangxian in opposing roles AUs...like police/criminal, doctor/patient, teacher/student, lawyers for two parties on the same case etc

P.S. yes, i am looking for fics of all the above mentioned types! @yiling-laozu-is-loml

15A)

Heliocentric by Coolio101 (T, 8k, WangXian, in which WWX is born as part of the Wen Sect, Mutual Pining, LWJ and JC are friends....kind of, Wen Sect WWX, Fix-It, LWJ has zero chill and is always 2 sec away from throwing hands, but that's basically canon, also WRH is still an asshole, so if you were expecting redemption fic this might not be for you, Canon Divergence)

Sunset, Sunrise by Ariana Deralte (ArianaDeralte) (T, 57k, WWX & WRH, WangXian, WIP, Time Travel Fix-It, Crack, Temporary Character Death, sorry I killed a-Yuan for a few paragraphs before the time travel, WWX is a Wen, Genius WWX, WRH gets to rewatch the series as a treat, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, in this house we acknowledge that all the sects have flaws, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, WWX Has ADHD, Bad Parents JFM & YZY, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Autistic LWJ)

Scars of Lightning by The_peregrine_falcon (T, 6k, YZY & WWX, WWX & WRH, WangXian, YZY’s A+ Parenting, Canon Divergence, Not Canon Compliant, Wen WWX, zidian, YZY is a bitch, Canon-Typical Violence, Blood and Injury, Major Character Injury, Heavy Angst, Lotus Pier, Nightless City, Young WWX, Muteness, Hurt kind of comfort)

All Things Belong by kuroi_atropos (M, 65k, WRH & WWX, wangxian, WN & WWX, Wen WWX, abuse, whipping, manipulations, smart WWX, possessive behavior, implied/Referenced rape/non-con, past rape/non-con, WIP) Wen Ruohan realizes teen Wei Ying is his grandson & tries to lure him from the Jiang

A Thousand Things by tickertape (M, 108k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, WWX Isn’t Adopted by the Jiāngs, Developing Friendships, lots of OCs, miscommunication and misunderstandings (they’re idiots your honor), Nightmares, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Cloud Recesses Shenanigans, Slow Burn)

Frost moon's sun by RenaFair (T, 116k, WangXian, XXC/SL, Slow Build, Childhood Sweethearts, Angst and Feels, Fluff, Family Feels, Canon Divergence, Mentions of Smut, Attempt at Humor)

Become Tomorrow by ShanaStoryteller (Not rated, 39k, wangxian, BSSR/LY, Alternate Universe, a story full of tragic pining gays, and one chaotic gremlin, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, WWX is BSSR’s disciple)

Going on charmingly by scribbet (T, 21k, WangXian, Teenage LWJ, Cloud Recesses Shenanigans, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, WWX is BSSR’s Disciple, Genius WWX, Petty LWJ, Meddling LXC, What if LWJ didn’t have an excuse to instantly write WWX off?, Canon Divergence, JFM Doesn’t Adopt WWX, WWX minus canon sense of obligation, but still with an inability to shut up around LWJ, I swear LWJ’s inner voice was no quite so snarky when I started this, JZN is unfortunately present but only to lose face, LQR’s inconsistent adherence to the Lan clan precepts, writing the effective Lan education you would like to see in the world, Technically pre-relationship, but in the typical Wangxian way of them being in deep but just not acknowledging it yet, POV LWJ)

🔒 crying like a fire in the sun by Reverie (cl410) (T, 10k, WangXian, SongXiao, BSSR/LY, Runaway WWX, Canon Divergence, Everyone Lives/Nobody Die, rogue cultivator WWX, Angst, Post Cloud Recesses, Not YZY Friendly, Happy Ending, BSSR is WWX’s grandmother instead of grandmaster) Bonus: Wei Ying gets kicked out of the Jiang's & he learns BS is his grandmother

15B)

mission report by bosbie (T, 13k, WangXian, Modern AU, superhero AU, Fluff, Humor, Getting Together, First Meetings, Falling in love, Spanish Translation)

Wei Wuxian, worst supervillain by antebunny (G, 3k, WangXian, WWX & WQ, WWX & WN, Modern, Superheroes/Superpowers, Fluff, Attempt at Humor, Light Angst, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Crack Treated Seriously, superhero LWJ, supervillain WWX, but it's stupid)

This Tornado Loves You by FeelsForBreakfast (M, 8k, WangXian, Horror, modern cultivation au, Pizza Hut, Humor, Mistaken Identity, Modern with Magic)

Fight Me? by Witch_Nova221 (G, 5k, WangXian, Romantic Comedy, Hospitals, patient LWJ, Nurse WWX, Medication, Minor burns, under the influence of medication, Funny, Silly)

~*~

16. Hello! I just want to start off by saying you’re doing a thankless job running this blog so seriously thank you for helping us poor folk. I was wondering though if you have any possible possessive or possibly simp Lan Zhan fic recs? I want that man to be obsessed with his husband. Please and thank you 🙏 😭

🔒 At heart by apathyinreverie (M, 36k, WangXian, WIP, Dark LWJ(Ish), Amnesia, WWX gets to be Not Okay after the BM, Hurt WWX, Recovery, Caring, Protective LWJ, Possessive LWJ, some definite manipulation, but not everything is as it seems, not nearly as dark as the tags make it sound, Canon Divergence, Golden Core Revea, Golden Core Transfer Fix-It, kind of, Domestic WangXian, Fluff, WWX Goes to Gusu, Possessive WWX, WWX happily atticwifing away, Sunshot Campaign, BAMF WWX, BAMF LWJ)

Do not take that which does not belong to you by Selene210 (E, 7k, WangXian, LSZ & WWX & LWJ, dark LWJ, YLLZ WWX, Canon Divergence, Protective LWJ, Possessive LWJ, Jealous LWJ, Possessive Behavior, Possessive Sex, Kidnapping, Murder, Blood and Violence, WangXian married and have a son, Explicit Sexual Content, Biting, Marathon Sex, Multiple Orgasms, Bath Sex, Rimming, Anal Sex, Anal Fingering, WWX has an angry LWJ kink, WWX Has a Breeding Kink, Wangxian canon breeding kink, LWJ’s canon massive dick)

🔒💖 Advisable Lan rules and other shenanigans by apathyinreverie (G, 4k, WangXian, Humor, Canon Divergence, Fix-It, as in utterly unapologetic fix-it fluffiness, Drunk LWJ, exasperated WWX, Smitten LWJ, Soft WWX, Gusu Lan Sect Rules, Possessive LWJ, In Vino Veritas, Drunk Shenanigans, Fluff, Перевод на русский | Translation in Russian)

🔒 Something is wrong with A-Zhan! by HeloSoph (M, 15k, WangXIan, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage, Canon Divergence, Time Travel Fix-It, Sort Of, Dark LWJ, Morally Gray WWX, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, WWX Isn't Adopted by the Jiangs, WWX is a Lan, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, JC Bashing, Smitten LWJ, Possessive LWJ, Engaged WangXian, because of course, though this part comes later, Blood and Violence, a lot of people die, LQR Metaphorically Qi-Deviates, because of, Shameless LWJ, LQR Tries, to fit into the following tag, Good Uncle LQR, Semi-Public Sex, or at least wangxian's version of it, Scheming NHS, POV NHS)

A Matter of Time series by mrcformoso (E, 84k, wangxian, time travel fix-it, graphic depictions of violence, underage, LWJ pov, JC pov, dark LWJ, manipulation, grooming, teen body adult mind for LWJ, happy ending for wangxian, problematic consensual underage sex, blood & violence, insane LWJ, manic LWJ) Read all the tags and warnings!

~*~

17. Hi, itmf fics that explore wwx belief that he won't ever get a family of his own (due to position in Jiang household, social status etc) and his cottagecore fantasies.

Thank you!

🧡 Stunted, Starving Juvenility by TomatenMark (E, 859k, WangXian, WIP, Fix-it of sorts, Talisman master WWX, Not JFM Friendly, Study Arc, Getting together, Fluff and Angst, Engagement) There's a few scenes in the early chapters where WWX ponders how LWJ is out of his league due to their relative statuses & that he'd rather not marry at all if it was someone other than LWJ

~*~

If you didn’t get an answer to your ask here, don’t forget to make use of @mdzs-kinkmeme and MDZS KINK MEME on Dreamwidth. Authors actually do use them for ideas. You may get what you order!***Your prompt doesn’t have to be kink! Fluff, crack, whatever - it’s all good!***

[gentil-minou]

Wangxian fanfic recs wanted! ♥

Anon what are you interested in 👀👀👀

I have a bunch of fics in my bookmarks which you can get here but I have like...almost 100 at this point. Most of them tend to be long fics or rated E but I got some shorter ones there too.

Some of my faves have been:

live from new york by varnes (E, 100K, an snl au i finished this week that was INCREDIBLE and worked sooooo well)

Pentimento. by orange_crushed (E, 73K, some of the most beautiful writing I've seen in any writing ever)

box your errors by mellowflicker (T, 42K, a sweet fic about wangixan and a-yuan that felt like getting a warm hug

The Right to Care by travelingneuritis (E, 62K, made my friend cry and scream at me for reccing this to her but it's SOOOO good)

I will be chasing a starlight by feyburner, sundiscus (E, 71K, a star trek au I read over a month ago that I have not stopped thinking about)

Seen and not heard by eatmyass (E, 50K, the author's name made me giggle by my god...this fic was so wonderful and incredible and just wwx being the best dad to all the orphans and lwj loving all of them i lose it okay)

总有一天; a place to hide (can't find one near) by yiqie (E, 76K, MIND THE TAGS, the fic starts with a suicide attempt by wwx and walks through his healing journey. made the therapist cry (but still so so so good))

take me back to a time by DizziDreams (T, 140K, time travel fic that was just so much fun and interesting)

Tempo Rubato by Spodumene (E, 108K, I read this in November and I'm still having many many feelings about it. Everything this author writes is incredible)

Life is Like a Stranger by through_shadows_falling (T, 70K, I'm an absolute sucker for wwx growing up in cloud recesses fics and this one was super sweet)

The Simplest Way Forward by harriet_vane (E, 71K, BASICALLY ANY TIME I GET A-YUAN AND HIS DADS IN A FIC SIGN ME UP but this one was just so cute and sweet I love it so much)

grow by cafecliche (T, 14K, one of the most popular fics and for a good reason!!!! post canon wwx gets turned into a child and there are a lot of wwx and sizhui feels and i read this when I have a bad day because it makes me very warm and happy)

Like I said I have almost 100 fics bookmarked dfhsj so if there's something you're specifically interested in let me know!

Also I have to plug these two amazing blogs, @wangxianficfinder and @wangxianficrecs because I've found soooooo many great fics from them they're honestly incredible

(also share your recs too pls i love fic so much)

[demoniqt]

WWX NOVEMBER MAYHEM DAY 30!

Title: Dragons in Motion

Rating: General

Status: One shot (Complete)

Relationship: Wangxian

Prompt: Dragonxian

Summary: Dragons like shiny things and Wei Wuxian was not any different in that regard.

(A twist to the usual Dragon! Lan Wangji trope)

Dragons like shiny things and Wei Ying was not any different in that regard.

He may not care for gold like some of his other kin, but he is still a dragon at heart and shiny things like silver and white gold catches his attention just as well.

His hoard was hidden under a large pond in Yunmeng as it had been his chosen home for centuries, so he had never had found it necessary to go to Gusu.

And given that Gusu was home to the celestial white dragons, natural enemies to black shadow dragons like him, it really was inadvisable for him to go there.

But his charge, a young boy named Jiang Cheng that he had befriended after he fell into Wei Ying's pond, was going there to study for a year and Wei Ying became curious after listening to the human talk about Cloud Recesses.

So, for the first time in centuries, Wei Ying packed up some of his things, sealed his hoard, and traveled to Gusu in human form with young friend.

On the way, they had some questionable adventures that were mostly instigated by a curious Wei Ying. But Jiang Cheng readily helped him out of a few awkward situations that would have turned out pretty bad if he had transformed in public, so he was grateful for the young human's assistance.

Then, they got to Cloud Recesses.

And Wei Ying immediately regretted coming.

Because even though the pretty young man in silver and white that greeted them at the front gate was very eye-catching and so very tempting to him, (so much so his mind was telling him to hoard hoard hoard) it was clear that it had been an extremely bad idea for him to come here.

Firstly, there were over three thousand rules. There was absolutely no way Wei Ying, who had lived his whole life free and unrestrained, could ever follow so many rules. Heck, it seemed as if even breathing was breaking a rule amongst these uptight Lans.

Secondly, apparently these Lans had celestial dragon blood in them. Diluted, sure, but it was still strong enough for Wei Ying to pinpoint it out immediately. No one ever told him because no humans in other sects knew and the Lans hid it well. But the very minute he met Lan Wangji, he knew. Oh, he knew. The way the hair at the back of his nape stood straight told him immediately the danger he was in.

Because lastly, and most importantly, Lan Wangji, a partial celestial dragon, was about to go into rut.

And he had set his eyes on Wei Ying.

Fin.

[wangxianfics]

Hi, sorry to bother but do you have any fics where wwx gets adopted by someone else, It would be great if its hualian from tgcf or maybe Bingqiu from svsss thank you!

Hi @euphoria3me! 

Here’s all the MXTX Verse Crossover Adoptions of WWX fics we know of :

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

Bingqiu & Hualian-Adopted!WWX :

Way Back by Little_Dimples (20K, Teen)

(Crossover, De-Aging, Kid!WWX, Hualian-Adopted!WWX, Bingqiu-Adopted!WWX, Time Travel, Family Dynamics, WWX has a lot of dads, Action/Adventure, Curses, Gods, Everyone Loved Wei Ying)

In which Wei Wuxian gets turned into a child- gets thrown through three different universes and ages up in each of them but still manages to find his way back to Lan Zhan. 

Detailed comment here

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───── ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Bingqiu-Adopted!WWX :

A Guide on Parenting a BL Novel Protag by BingQiu by anatheme (75K, Not Rated, WIP - 17/20)

(Bingqiu-Adopted!WWX, Fix-It, No System, Fluff, Crack, OC bingqiu and moshang kids who play vital roles in fucking up the plot and raising wwx, Pining!WWX, Oblivious!WWX, Misunderstandings, Crush to Best Friends to ???, Soft Sweet Tender Wangxian, Kinda Royalty AU but not focused on it)

First, find the protagonist. Second, adopt him. Third, provide the protagonist with the loving and supportive family he deserved. Fourth, face slap the villains away before canon timeline happened because canon was already an angsty shitshow. Fifth, let the protagonist meet the main lead and watch their romance bloom in real life.

Thousands of years passed after the conclusion of the main storyline and Cang Qiong Mountain Sect's disbandment, their tales had long been forgotten and only tidbits remained as new sects rose to replace them.

While enjoying their happy ending without the SYSTEM blaring out orders and deducting points left and right, it should be easy for experienced transmigrator and already a parent to three Immortal Peak Lord Shen Qingqiu and his husband, Demon Emperor Luo Binghe, to raise a baby A-Ying whom they saved from the streets.

'Til the Sun Grows Cold by xnemone (73K, Mature)

(Bingqiu-Adopted!WWX, Pre-Canon for MDZS, Post-Canon for SVSSS, Childhood Friends, Childhood Trauma, Mutual Pining)

Long after Cang Qiong Sect was burned to ashes and the world had all but forgotten demons, there lived an immortal who had not ascended to the Heavens and a Demon King who stood beside him. They taught a small sect, powerful in their few numbers in a world where a new reign of great sects conquered the region. Though they did not hunt for title and gain as the four great sects did, their name held weight to the kingdom’s people. Those protected by Master Shen and Lord Luo live lives free of fear.

When the child raised as the lords’ own son is sent abroad to appease a tyrant, there is little anyone can do but pray for mercy on those who would dare hurt a hair on little Wei Wuxian’s head.

His fathers are not the forgiving type.

@aniimone

[New Mission – Parenting] by Forgotten64  (90K, Mature, WIP - 18/?)

(Bingqiu-Adopted!WWX, Post-Canon for SVSSS, Kid!WWX,Found Family, OP!WWX)

Centuries have passed by and Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe are living peacefully up in the mountains. The once proud and strong peak sects no longer exist but have been replaced by cultivation sects. One day when the two immortals wander down their mountain into a small village is when Shen Qingqiu hears a voice he hasn’t heard in years. The annoying Google translate voice of the System!

[New Mission: The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation… Do you accept?]

In which Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe obtain a child known as Wei Ying. Chaos ensures

Destined by KNBSnkLover (35K, Explicit, WIP - 7/9)

(Canon Divergence, Drabble Collection, Modern AU, Fantasy, AU, Soulmates AU, Reincarnation, Sibling Incest, Angst)

A series of drabbles featuring Shen Yuan and Luo Binghe as the adoptive fathers of Wei Wuxian. In each and every lifetime, Wei Wuxian is welcomed into a loving home and fated to be their son. However, it seems like that Wei Wuxian is also destined to be with Lan Wangji in every reincarnation as well. Regardless of the universe, can Wei Wuxian's fathers accept Lan Wangji's love and possessiveness of Wei Wuxian, no matter where that possessiveness may lead them?

{Some stories will feature Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji as brothers} Ratings will vary per story from G to E.

Inspired by [New Mission – Parenting] by Forgotten64.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───── ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Hualian-Adopted!WWX :

A Morning of Fallen Stars by constellationqueen  (100K, Mature)

It's common knowledge in the Heavens that gods are not supposed to interact with humans outside of answering prayers, and they're definitely not supposed to show up in person and talk to a child. But Xie Lian isn't afraid of breaking rules that he's already broken, so he does it anyway. In fact, he takes it one step further and brings the child home.

Basically, Wei Wuxian's parents died in a night hunt when he was five, but he ends up being adopted a year later by a god and his ghost king husband, so it's not all bad.... In fact, it's probably better than it should be.

(Welcome to one of the rare times I try to avoid angst as much as possible. Wei Wuxian deserves happiness and I will give it to him.)

*~discontinued after chapter 15/outline summary of the remainder in chapter 16~*

@xiielian​

Love Like You by HisRedEmpress (72K, Teen, WIP - 10/15)

(Hualian-Adopted!WWX, Post-Canon for TGCCF, Kid!WWX, Found Family, Love At First Sight, Heavenly Officials and Ghost Kings alike wrapped in Wei Ying's fingers,

Wei Wuxian is spoiled, much more than jiejie's betrothed, Jin Zixuan. The difference between the two is Jin Zixuan is arrogant about it, while Wei Wuxian is oblivious to the boundless extent he can get away with everything he does.

Jiang Cheng is so thankful Wei Wuxian sees him and jiejie as his family.

With that, Jiang Cheng can be assured that if Wei Wuxian decides he wants to have the world, he and jiejie will sparingly be safe when his Supreme Ghost King father and Heavenly Martial Emperor father, not to mention his other Ghost King uncle and grandfather, heavenly official uncles and aunts plus wrath level ghost uncles and aunts, would turn heaven and earth upside down just to give him what he wants.

(or the one where baby Wei Ying is adopted by Hualian)

let this soul be your whisper by merthurlin  (19K, Teen, WIP - 5/?)

(Hualian-Adopted!WWX, Post-Siege of the Burial Mounds, Post-Canon for TGCF, Kid!WWX, Found Family)

“I think…” Xie Lian says slowly, not taking his eyes off the bag. “I think I knew this person. Who this soul used to be.”

He can hear Hua Cheng suck in a breath. “Gege, maybe it’s better if you don’t—“

But Xie Lian ignores him, and reaches out with one trembling hand to touch the bag. A second passes, and then another, and Xie Lian almost lets out a breath in relief, before he feels something in the bag reaching back.

“A-Ying?”

-

Once upon a time, Xie Lian took in an orphan, and gave him a home and a family. Twenty years and a godhood later, he finds he still has more in him to give.

[robininthelabyrinth]

LXC offhandedly says something about his relationship with NHS that would be totally innocent from *anyone* else, but sounds scandalously filthy coming from *him*. Bonus points if it's around LWJ and/or WWX and they are floored. Double bonus points if he did it on purpose for revenge over having to listen to *them* all the time. - 🦇

Petty - ao3

The first time was an accident.

No, that wasn’t right. More accurately, the first time was entirely Wei Wuxian’s fault.

(Lan Xichen sometimes thought, not very kindly, that many things were, more than Lan Wangji would necessarily admit to. He had not yet settled with himself if those were his actual thoughts or if it was merely bitterness about everything that had happened and in which Wei Wuxian had played chief role, but that was one of the things he was working on, for himself.

After all those years of being deceived, it was important for him to get to know his own mind, his own thoughts, and to be sure about them.)

“It’s good to see you out and about,” Wei Wuxian said warmly to him when they met again, as if Lan Xichen had only been confined at home with a brief illness rather than in strict seclusion for over a year.

Lan Xichen thought, perhaps, that Wei Wuxian was attempting to translate for Lan Wangji, standing beside him, practically radiating welcome and hopefulness and other such things that Lan Xichen honestly wasn’t equipped to deal with at the moment and had been purposefully ignoring. If so, it was not a very accurate translation, and unnecessary – no one knew his brother better than him.

Certainly not his brother’s long-dead lost love, who hadn’t even known.

“Indeed,” he said, not smiling, and Wei Wuxian’s own smile faded a little, as Lan Wangji’s own hope already had. “Nie Huaisang will be coming to visit me, and I plan to host him at the hanshi.”

That might also have been at Lan Wangji’s request, although only obliquely, if at all – even when he had appeared at his weakest, his most fallible and pathetic, Nie Huaisang had always been as stubborn as an ox (as stubborn as his brother), and no one could make him do anything he didn’t want to do.  This included running his own sect, no matter how much they had tried, and it also included actually listening to the people he’d just begged to solve problems for him. Lan Xichen could remember all the countless times Nie Huaisang had sobbed on his shoulder, and Jin Guangyao’s, too, until they’d given him advice, at which point he would thank them effusively and merrily go along and do whatever he felt like doing regardless. He was very good at getting his own way in the end.

As subsequent events had shown.

Lan Xichen could tell from the expression on Wei Wuxian’s face that he didn’t understand why Lan Xichen would choose to break his seclusion to host Nie Huaisang of all people, especially when he had declined all similar efforts by Lan Wangji, but he wasn’t especially inclined to explain.

If he even could.

How to explain that contemplation had shown that he had been the one to fail Nie Huaisang and not the other way around? Long before they’d ever sworn brotherhood, he had promised Nie Mingjue to watch over Nie Huaisang and aid him whole-heartedly in all his endeavors. Nie Mingjue had always worried, first and foremost, that Nie Huaisang not be lonely, knowing that his brother, born with a weak body, had long struggled with finding his place in his martially-inclined sect – everything else was secondary in Nie Mingjue’s mind, even Nie Huaisang’s personal safety. He’d always said that Nie Huaisang was a proper Nie in that fashion, that he would devote every part of him to the things he loved no matter if it meant death, and there was nothing anyone could do about it; all he’d ever wanted, instead, was for Nie Huaisang not to be alone as he did so.

Lan Xichen had sworn to be there for him.

He hadn’t been.

He’d sworn to stand beside Nie Mingjue, too, promised it in his heart and in the eyes of all the world, and he’d even meant it when he’d done so. And then, despite it all, he’d spent nearly half his life supporting and shielding his murderer – he’d broken so many promises. To the Nie, to himself. The only thing Lan Xichen could do to atone for those failures was to try to do better: to learn from what he’d done, to teach himself what he’d lacked, to make up for his deficiencies. To live up to what little remained of those promises.

And so, if Nie Huaisang wanted to see him, he would see him, even if he had seen no one else.

Wei Wuxian didn’t understand that.

Couldn’t, maybe.

Wei Wuxian was his brother-in-law, he made Lan Wangji happy, and Lan Xichen was grateful for that. He was even grateful, in a painful, agonizing sort of way, for Wei Wuxian’s help in revealing the truth about Jin Guangyao and his dark deeds. But Wei Wuxian forgot pain as soon as it happened and believed everyone else ought to be the same: they were together now, so never mind about all those years Lan Wangji spent alone and in mourning; Jin Guangyao had been a murderer, so never mind about all the good things he’d done or the good times they’d shared; Lan Xichen was out of seclusion, so clearly he’d gotten over everything that had happened.

At least for Lan Xichen, pain did not work that way.

“Well, that’s nice,” Wei Wuxian said after a while, when the silence had gone from merely familiar to actively awkward and Lan Wangji was staring at the ground, his hopes dashed to bits, even though that had not been Lan Xichen’s intent. He loved his brother very much, but he couldn’t heal himself fast enough to assuage Lan Wangji’s guilt at winning his happiness at the expense of Lan Xichen’s pain, nor did he intend to try. “I didn’t know he was coming.”

Lan Xichen did not point out that he was Sect Leader, not Lan Wangji, and that his word was final regarding who did and did not have the right to enter the Cloud Recesses at any time. It would be petty.

He was trying not to be petty. It was very hard.

“I hope to spend some quality time together with him,” Lan Xichen finally said, some meaningless filler designed to let them get out of the current conversational impasse, and was bewildered when Wei Wuxian, possibly inspired by the high tension of the moment, burst out in raucous laughter, reaching out to elbow Lan Wangji in the side.

“I bet you will,” he said, his tone almost jeering. “Quality time, yeah? Just the two of you together in the hanshi and everything.”

It wasn’t until Lan Wangji’s ears reddened slightly that Lan Xichen comprehended what Wei Wuxian was implying. That he had left a year’s seclusion because, what, he wanted to hop into bed with Nie Huaisang?

The mere notion was so puerile that it could barely be considered as rising to the level of a joke, the implication not only crude but actively cruel and disdainful of all the work Lan Xichen had done to put himself back together over the past year, and Lan Xichen had absolutely no idea how he was supposed to respond.

He glanced at Lan Wangji, wondering if his brother would say something – apologize, maybe – but he was clearly unable or unwilling to help. Finally, he shook his head and walked away.

That was the first time.

-

The second time – and many of the other times thereafter – were not accidental at all.

Talking with Nie Huaisang had been wretchedly painful but cleansing, necessary, just as his silent and extended contemplation in seclusion had been. They had not wholly forgiven each other for everything that had happened, whether the harms they had knowingly or unknowingly inflicted or for the agonies they had each suffered, but they were on a path to get there together – each one of them agreeing to learn from what had happened, to try to extend trust to each other, real trust, so that neither of them had to continue on their lonely roads alone.

It might be nearly two decades late, but Lan Xichen was determined to make good on his promise to Nie Mingjue, and Nie Huaisang equally determined in his own way to live up to what his brother would have wanted now that it was an option.

One unexpected aspect of this, interestingly, was how the clash between their values – Lan sect rules, Nie sect principles – gave rise to any number of very interesting analytical conversations. Nie Huaisang was a poor scholar for rules that required rote memorization to learn, but he understood his sect’s moral code down to his bones, well enough to be able to fashion himself a path within it. When pressed for his thoughts on any given subject, his arguments were well-fashioned, logical, and difficult to refute.

Lan Xichen had not enjoyed himself so much in years.

Even in the days when he had wholly believed in Jin Guangyao, his former friend was simply too facile to have a proper back-and-forth with: he would always yield, or seem to, or else dance around the main subject until they were on another on which they could agree; he had always prioritized good feeling over intellecutal growth. He’d never understood what enjoyment could be gotten out of standing your ground on some theoretical or philosophical issue.

At any rate, one of the points Nie Huaisang had won, curiously enough, was in regards to the subject of pettiness: bad in large doses, but acceptable in small, in his view. He compared it to venting frustrations or to understanding and indulging oneself in the positive sense – if you’re a petty person, he said matter-of-factly, you can try to improve yourself, but you’re not going accept yourself unless you just admit it. If that’s the sort of person you were, you wouldn’t get anywhere constantly resisting the urge to fight things out in petty, stupid ways.

Sometimes you just wanted to get into it over something stupid because otherwise you’d get into it over something important, and that was, in Nie Huaisang’s view, not a bad thing: if someone got in your face, get back in theirs.

Lan Xichen was, in many ways, a petty person.

“So, how is Nie Huaisang doing?” Wei Wuxian asked when lunch was not entirely over. Etiquette dictated that Lan Xichen had to respond, and family rules that he knew Wei Wuxian knew made clear it was impermissible to talk over meals: the only acceptable solution, therefore, was for him to consider his half-eaten meal as already complete, respond, and wait until dinner to fill up. And all because Wei Wuxian simply couldn’t wait another half-ke to blurt out his question, because he was too free and unrestrained to honor the rules of the family he had married into just because he personally didn’t think they were important. “Where is he, anyway? I would’ve thought he’d be here with us.”

Lan Xichen put down his bowl with just a little extra more force than he should, enough to make it clink against the table, and Lan Wangji’s eyes tightened a little at the unusual display of irritation.

“He’s still in bed,” Lan Xichen said mildly. “I’m afraid I rather wore him out last night.”

Wei Wuxian choked, misunderstanding, just as Lan Xichen had intended him to.

They’d gotten onto an interesting subject of conversation and had ended up talking most of the previous day’s afternoon and evening, as it happened, and Nie Huaisang was still a sect leader, with important business to attend to; Lan Xichen was fairly sure that after he had retired at the usual time for his sect, Nie Huaisang had worked until nearly dawn. Anyway, Nie Huaisang wasn’t much for set meal-times, not even by Wei Wuxian’s lax standards; he’d shared an early breakfast with Lan Xichen before going to sleep.

“Perhaps you can speak with him later, if you need him,” Lan Xichen said, folding his hands in front of him. “I will pass along your regards when I return to the hanshi. Which I should do now, in fact: I have some correspondence I need to attend to.”

Lan Xichen wondered if Wei Wuxian even noticed that his words signified Lan Xichen’s graceful removal of the work of sect correspondence from Lan Wangji, returning it into his own hands. Lan Qiren and Lan Wangji had managed sect business between them during Lan Xichen’s seclusion, and both had recognized that even though he had emerged from that seclusion he was still very much in the midst of his recovery and neither had tried to push him back into the role of Sect Leader. His announcement that he needed to attend to correspondence indicated that he was shouldering that burden once more – moreover, it was, by Lan sect standards, a rather vicious snub to make the announcement of the transition a public one, however subtle the wording, especially when he did not similarly make any sort of announcement regarding the work his uncle was managing on his behalf.

Petty.

Unnecessarily petty, really – it wasn’t Lan Wangji’s fault that he’d married a man who couldn’t even after all this time comprehend that sometimes you valued something because someone else did, even if you yourself didn’t care for or understand it.  

It was, however, his fault in not putting a stop to Wei Wuxian’s rudeness.

It wasn’t actually hard for a grown man to at least try to respect a rule as basic as do not speak during meals, or for that matter the one about not making tremendous noise late at night when you knew everyone else was sleeping. Having previously been in seclusion, Lan Xichen wasn’t aware of how bad it had gotten, with disciples rearranging their living quarters further and further away from any place Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian might be found breaking the rules against excessive promiscuity – and really, Lan Wangji should know better. No one was asking that he refrain from being in love, even extravagantly so, but they did live in a community, and he ought to have basic respect for others, even if it meant occasionally saying no to his beloved long-lost and miraculously reunited lover.

Lan Xichen knew how hard it was for him to say no, of course; he suffered from the same generosity of spirit as his brother. But hadn’t everything that had happened a year ago shown the folly of always saying yes?

-

“Ah, Wei-xiong,” Lan Xichen said a few days later when they crossed paths in the middle of the day. “Are you on your way to the apothecary? Could I ask you to pick up a few items for me?”

Wei Wuxian shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, presumably still aching from the bout of early afternoon delight that he and Lan Wangji had been indulging in over by the cold spring – which was meant to be a place for cultivation for all, not a private garden in which the young master of the sect could frolic like one of his pet rabbits. It would have to be cleaned before anyone else could use it, and Lan Wangji was undoubtedly back there giving those orders now, his forehead ribbon no doubt askew from having been utilized in private activity before being hastily replaced.

“Certainly, Xichen-xiong,” he said. “What do you need?”

“Some ointments of the sort used for stretching and to ease pain,” Lan Xichen said. “Huaisang has been complaining of soreness and stiffness as of late.”

He had, of course – among his misfortunes, Nie Huaisang had been born with something of a crooked spine, and his lower back would sporadically spasm, causing him great pain. Not that that was what Wei Wuxian was thinking of, of course.

“I’ve tried using my hands on him,” Lan Xichen added, allowing himself to sound regretful – which he was, as he hated to see Nie Huaisang suffering. “But he says it’s not enough, given the, ah, magnitude of the issue. I want to get him some relief and make sure he’s comfortable…I’m sure you understand.”

He was sure Wei Wuxian did not.

“Uh, sure,” Wei Wuxian said, barely bothering to hide the fact that he was giggling under his breath. “I’ll grab some for you, no problem…you should really ask Nie Huaisang to give you some, uh, books. To provide you with some guidance.”

“He’s provided several,” Lan Xichen said peaceably. Nie Huaisang was extremely fussy; naturally he would ensure that Lan Xichen was well supplied in guides on massage before allowing him to tend to him. “But thank you for the suggestion.”

Wei Wuxian nodded and saluted briefly, clearly ready to move on.

“Oh,” Lan Xichen said, as if only just remembering. “And tell Wangji that he doesn’t need to come to the meeting this evening – I know the two of you have better things to do with your time than having him listen to interminable reports on agriculture.”

Wei Wuxian actually smiled at that, as if the quarterly agricultural reports from the farms that fed the entire Cloud Recesses weren’t one of the most critical duties for Lan clan members to attend to and one that Lan Wangji had been assisting with since the age of twelve.

That task accomplished, Lan Xichen returned to the hanshi, where Nie Huaisang was scowling over the initial reports that had come in from the furthest farms in writing – he’d already offered to supplement any harvest shortfalls with the excess from Qinghe’s own extremely productive fields, but any shortage in one area could lead to shortages in others; no one wanted another famine among the common people the way there had been during the Sunshot Campaign and the hard years thereafter.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” he asked doubtfully when Lan Xichen mentioned that he’d excused Lan Wangji from attending that evening and would therefore be doubly reliant on Nie Huaisang’s recollection of the meeting afterwards. “Lan Wangji may think you’re punishing him for marrying Wei Wuxian, which you’re not.”

“I’m not,” Lan Xichen agreed, because he wasn’t. If anything, he’d encouraged them to get together, and no matter the cost to himself, he was happy that Lan Wangji had achieved his heart’s desire after wanting it for such a long time.

“He may also interpret it as you punishing him for failing to control his spouse.”

“I don’t want him to control his spouse,” Lan Xichen said. “I want him to have some self-respect. Wangji has always greatly respected the rules of our sect and, until now, has always thought carefully before choosing to break them, accepting the consequences for doing so no matter how harsh. If I believed that Wangji truly disagreed with the rules, I would be willing to engage with him on the subject in good faith, but that isn’t what’s happening. He still believes in the rules.”

“He just doesn’t have the balls to tell Wei Wuxian that he wants him to stop stamping all over them?”

Lan Xichen huffed lightly. “I wouldn’t have put it that way.”

“But it’s what you think,” Nie Huaisang concluded.

“It is,” Lan Xichen said. “They’re going to spend the rest of their lives together – is Wangji planning on letting Wei Wuxian to win every argument without fail, no matter the cost to himself? Is he even planning on informing with him what the cost of his actions is? To always give and never take is not an equal relationship.”

“And your increased sensitivity on the subject of keeping secrets from your loved ones for, purportedly, their own good is completely beside the point, I assume?”

“The fact that I’m sensitive doesn’t make me wrong,” Lan Xichen said. “If Wangji is keeping secrets from Wei Wuxian, if he’s unwilling to rely on him or share his troubles with him, if he intends to one-sidedly sacrifice everything for him without even consulting with him as to whether he would be willing to accept such a sacrifice, then what they have isn’t a marriage.”

There was a house filled with purple gentians in the Cloud Recesses that stood as the eternal reminder of what that sort of marriage looked like, a terrible sacrifice that eventually became as much of a shackle on the recipient as it had been on the giver. Lan Xichen wouldn’t allow Lan Wangji to make that mistake.

And as for Wei Wuxian...if he truly oved Lan Wangji, he wouldn’t want it, either.

Lan Xichen certainly hadn’t.

Nie Huaisang sighed gustily. “All right, fine, fine. You know me, I’m always in favor of people standing up for what they think is the right thing even when it’s hard –” This was an almost grotesque understatement, but the friendship they were forging now was in some large parts based on the gallows humor emerging from their shared traumas. “– so I will reluctantly endorse your actions and, even more reluctantly, attend your meeting with you to take notes for later.”

“I appreciate your help. And your endorsement, of course.”

-

“Nie Huaisang has gotten much better at playing the xiao,” Lan Xichen remarked to Wei Wuxian on the day he removed Lan Wangji from the teaching roster and disqualified him from accompanying the juniors in night-hunts. “He’s a very – hands-on learner.”

Wei Wuxian snorted.

“I’ve been demonstrating the proper technique for him. Breath control is paramount, naturally, but of course you also have to know what to do with your tongue…”

Wei Wuxian was full on sniggering. “Oh, I bet,” he said salaciously. “I’m sure you’re a very hands-on teacher, eh, Xichen-xiong?”

“I want him to excel,” Lan Xichen agreed. “And that means plenty of practice…oh, I’m sorry, Wei-xiong. I shouldn’t have interrupted you – you were running somewhere?”

Right in the middle of the main pathways, no less, where the quick footfalls and sudden movement had startled countless people into very nearly raising an alarm before they realized there wasn’t anything to worry about. There were too many of them that remembered the war.

They had taken comfort in the enforced tranquility of the Cloud Recesses, before.

“Oh, no, don’t worry about it,” Wei Wuxian said breezily. “Just had an idea and wanted to get back to my workshop as quickly as possible, that’s all.”

“I see,” Lan Xichen said. “I won’t stand in your way, then.”

He actually was teaching Nie Huaisang how to play the xiao, at his request – he’d made some comparisons to it while debating a matter of ethics, and Nie Huaisang was determined to learn just enough to argue back in kind.

Lan Xichen didn’t have any illusions that Nie Huaisang would stick with it any more than he’d stuck with any other type of cultivation – he’d first tried teaching him musical cultivation when he was a child without any success at all, and Jin Guangyao’s example had definitely not endeared Nie Huaisang to the concept – but it was rather nice to discuss music without necessarily focusing on the backdrop of cultivation within it.

Accordingly, he continued the metaphor with Wei Wuxian for several days running. He talked about how energetic a student Nie Huaisang was –“He’s wearing me out,” he said, shaking his head. “Draining me dry…” – and mentioned that they were having an interesting time going back and forth on the subject of fingering, despite Nie Huaisang’s claims that his weak fingers weren’t nearly as suited for quick, assured movement as Lan Xichen’s.

“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” Lan Xichen had said, even as Wei Wuxian had nearly cried from laughter. “His fingers are very flexible, and I get a great deal of enjoyment from his enthusiasm. Skill comes later.”

“Definitely something you have to work on together,” Wei Wuxian said enthusiastically. “It gets better as you go, doesn’t it?”

In the past few days, he had brought alcohol into public places, rather than leaving it in the jingshi where the breach would be a minor one, and tried to encourage the juniors to share it with him, although they’d refused; he’d even tried to bully them into doing so using his superior age and the respect they’d owed him until Lan Xichen had intervened with ‘urgent’ tasks for the juniors instead.

He had loudly speculated regarding one sect elder’s marital affairs after the man had refused to speak with him following a disagreement, breaking both the rules against malicious gossip and those against disrespecting the older generation all at once. He had gone hunting and fishing right outside the boundary line of the Cloud Recesses in clear sight of the disciples, including several who were attempting to practice cultivation based on compassion for all creatures; several others were pulled from their usual tasks to go purify the ground according to their customs, including a careful check of their wells to ensure that the blood and viscera had not seeped into the groundwater that ran so high and near to the surface.

In return, Lan Xichen relieved Lan Wangji of his requirement to go patrolling – “You’re married now, after all,” he’d said to Wei Wuxian, as if it wasn’t a duty shared by adult every sect member, “I’m sure you want the benefit of his company at night. Isn’t that right?” – and revoked his access to the restricted areas of the sect, including the discipline hall of which he had had sole charge since before the age of fifteen. He asked his uncle to resume the full schedule of teaching, including the classes which had previously been shifted in part over to Lan Wangji – his uncle agreed, understanding his motives, although he looked sick to his stomach with anxiety the way he always did when Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji were fighting – and had publicly chided one of the juniors for “bothering” Lan Wangji with questions regarding his cultivation.

“Aren’t you so old already?” he scolded gently, a smile fixed on his face and his eyes firmly on the junior instead of his brother standing beside him. “You can’t go running to Wangji with every little issue that comes to mind. Reflect on yourself, and take pains not to be a burden to others.”

The junior appeared very nearly on the verge of tears, and he was not the only one. He, at least, understood the significance of Lan Xichen issuing the reprimand in public – if the junior in question had truly been pestering Lan Wangji with too many questions, it would have been a tremendous rebuke to him personally; as he had not, and everyone knew he had not, it was a clear order from the sect leader that no one was to bring any questions to Lan Wangji.

“Brother,” Lan Wangji said, his voice low and hurt.

“I know you must be tired, recently,” Lan Xichen said, looking back at him with a steady, unflinching gaze. “I understand that you and your husband have been taking long walks at night.”

Through residential areas, no less, and Lan Wangji knew better. Perhaps their sect was too strict with the rules about waking and resting, strict enough that the other sects laughed at them over it, but the rules were in place for a reason. Even if Lan Wangji himself was feeling restless enough to wander at night, there were places he could go that were designated specifically for that – gardens, mountain paths, what have you – where their wanderings would not bother others who had already gone to sleep.

Lan Wangji hesitated, his shoulders rising to his ears, but he dropped his gaze to the ground and nodded, conceding the point.

He knew better.

He knew better, he cared about doing better, and he let Wei Wuxian walk all over him anyway.

“It must be difficult to go walking at zi hour and wake at mao,” Lan Xichen said. “Perhaps waking at si hour would suit you better.”

Lan Wangji looked stricken. After over thirty years of waking at the appropriate time, he would have to be suffering from true bone-deep exhaustion for him not to rise at mao hour per their rules; Lan Xichen’s suggestion, if he enforced it, would do nothing but restrict him from leaving the jingshi until that later time.

Confinement was not a punishment Lan Xichen inflicted lightly on anyone, least of all his brother. His brother, who had suffered just as much from what had happened to their mother as he had.

“Perhaps you can use the additional time to talk to your spouse,” Lan Xichen said.

Tell him that you don’t like how he ignores all our rules like he’s trying to make a contest out of it, he meant. Tell him that you wince every time he puts his foot in it, every time he offends someone he didn’t have to, every time he disrespects our ancestors and all but spits on everything they cared about. Tell him that you’ll compromise on some rules, the ones that are genuinely hard for him, but that you want him to follow others out of respect for the fact that they mean something to you.

He would do it for you, Wangji. He loves you. You don’t always have to be the one to sacrifice.

Just tell him.

Lan Wangji’s lips pressed together.

Another refusal. It wasn’t that Lan Xichen didn’t know how stubborn his brother could be, especially in matters relating to Wei Wuxian, and he didn’t really want to match wills against him – he never really had, not in all their life. He loved his little brother so very much, and so Lan Xichen always been the one to yield, the one to give in, the one to make up the difference between them. The one to encourage him, the one to look the other way: whatever Lan Wangji had needed or even wanted, Lan Xichen had sought to give him.

Even the dreadful punishment with the discipline whip had been something Lan Xichen had sought to avert, and would have, if only Lan Wangji had not so self-destructively insisted upon it.

He had allowed it to proceed only because he thought that the physical pain would give Lan Wangji some measure of relief from the enormous emotional pain he was suffering from.

But now – this wasn’t just a temporary physical pain that Lan Wangji was trying to choose.

This was the rest of his life.

Lan Xichen was not going to back down over this.

“Si hour it is, then,” he said with a sigh. Nor would he revoke the instruction he had implicitly given to the juniors that Lan Wangji was no longer an acceptable advisor, unable to guide them in the Lan sect rules that he was constantly defying by proxy. “It’s for the best, I suppose. It’ll help habituate you.”

Lan Wangji looked up sharply.

Lan Xichen met his gaze head on. His brother, he reflected, was for once the one underestimating his stubbornness.

“I understand,” he said, his words very slow and very deliberate and very carefully chosen, “that rising at si hour is customary in the Lotus Pier, if a little late. That’s where Wei Wuxian picked up his habits, was it not?”

Lan Wangji’s eyes were wide as if he couldn’t believe Lan Xichen was saying what he was saying.

Perhaps he had become infected by Wei Wuxian’s obliviousness and needed things to be said flat out.

Very well.

“The Cloud Recesses is the home of the Lan,” Lan Xichen said. “Our lives are here, guided by our rules that are laid out on the Wall of Discipline for all to see. It is the life we have all chosen, freely and without coercion – but I know it is not the life for everyone.”

“Brother!” Lan Wangji exclaimed, and he actually looked viscerally upset, the expression clear enough on his face that even Wei Wuxian ought to be able to tell what he was feeling.

“You don’t have to follow them if you don’t want to, Wangji,” Lan Xichen continued, inexorable. He, like most of his sect, disliked this sort of straightforwardness, but he was Nie Mingjue’s sworn brother and Nie Huaisang’s brother by proxy; he knew how to wield his words with the brutality of a saber as well as the grace of a sword or the gentle lilt of the xiao. “But I will not allow you to continue making a mockery of them. Not here.”

Lan Wangji looked as if he’d been stabbed.

No – Lan Xichen had seen his brother get stabbed. He had taken that better than this.

“I will write to Sect Leader Jiang by the end of the week,” Lan Xichen said, and clasped his hands behind his back to keep them from trembling. Tell him before then. Please. “Between the two of us, I’m certain that we can find somewhere to suit both you and your husband, so that you may live as free and unrestrained as you wish.”

He did Lan Wangji the honor of not looking back as he walked away.

He knew his brother wouldn’t want him to see the tears.

-

It was, if anything, a pleasant surprise when Wei Wuxian burst into Lan Xichen’s home less than a day later. Lan Xichen had thought it would take at least three.

“What is wrong with you?” Wei Wuxian shouted, slamming his hands down on the table in front of Lan Xichen. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Is it me? If it’s me you have a problem with, say it to my face directly!”

Lan Xichen finished swallowing the tea he’d just sipped. “Not everything is about you,” he said, feeling tired. “This is about Wangji.”

Wei Wuxian’s eyes were red-rimmed as if he, too, had been crying.

“You’re not seriously planning on kicking him out of the Cloud Recesses because I broke a few of your rules, are you?” he asked, biting off each word individually. “He’s your brother. He’s a perfect Lan – he ran your sect for a year!”

“Our sect,” Lan Xichen corrected. “Wangji will always have a place here, as will you.”

Wei Wuxian crossed his arms over his chest. “Then why is he convinced that you want him to go?”

Lan Xichen sighed.

“I’m sure his knees hurt,” he said.

“…what?”

“His knees,” Lan Xichen said. “From all the kneeling he’s been doing.”

Wei Wuxian looked truly bewildered now. “Are you – making a sex joke?” he said. “Now?”

“No, though I’m unsurprised you took it as one,” Lan Xichen said, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “I’m referring to all the kneeling in penance that my brother has been doing to atone for all the rules he has been breaking on your behalf. You wouldn’t have noticed it, as I assume he’s been deliberately hiding it from you.”

Wei Wuxian stared at him. “He’s been kneeling?”

“Wangji cares very deeply about our sect’s traditions,” Lan Xichen said. “He would never have been made the head of the discipline hall if he didn’t. He knows them backwards and forwards, better than anyone except for my uncle and the sect elders that specialize in it. They’re important to him.”

“But –”

“He keeps track of every rule you instigate him into breaking,” Lan Xichen said flatly. “Every single one, large and small, major or minor, and he tries to do his best to pay for what he’s done because he’d rather kneel all night without getting any sleep, rather hurt his hand copying out rules, rather endure a beating or two if it means he doesn’t have to tell you to stop.”

Wei Wuxian’s mouth was slightly agape.

“Do you remember the story I told you about our parents? I shared that story with you for a reason, because I wanted you to better understand Wangji. We all carry the scars our parents left on us, and he’s no different. He’s so afraid of imprisoning you the way our father did our mother that he has decided to follow in our father’s footsteps by sacrificing everything for you.”

“I don’t – I don’t want him to sacrifice anything for me!”

“I know,” Lan Xichen said simply. “That’s why I said that this wasn’t about you. Yes, now that you live here, you should follow our rules, or at least respect them – and respect means respect, not playing around to see how many loopholes you can find in them. Do you think we don’t know about them? That no one in the history of our sect has ever figured out that ‘do not take life within the premises’ could be subverted by taking a life directly outside of it?”

Wei Wuxian was silent.

“We follow the rules because we want to,” Lan Xichen said. “They’re the rules our ancestors put together and handed down. They are meaningful to us, even when they are awkward or seem pointless. Even when other people laugh at us or belittle us or act like we’re stupid for choosing to behave the way we do.”

Wei Wuxian winced.

“Your conduct would be a problem if you were a guest,” Lan Xichen continued. “But you are not a guest. You are Wangji’s husband, my brother-in-law. You are family. If you do not wish to obey the rules, you do not have to, and you will still be welcome here. But Wangji wants to obey the rules – it is only that he fears losing you more.”

“How long have you been having this argument?” Wei Wuxian asked, because he wasn’t actually stupid, merely oblivious.

“I started taking away his responsibilities on the third day following my exit from seclusion,” Lan Xichen said. “I have steadily escalated it with every rule you have incited him into breaking with you since. And still, he refused to speak with you.”

Wei Wuxian’s hands were clenched into fists. He looked down at them.

“I know how much you love my brother,” Lan Xichen said. “If he had told you that it mattered to him, you would have found a way to reach a compromise with him – of that I have no doubt. But if it wasn’t the rules, it would be something else; some other thing that he would choose to sacrifice, another situation where he would choose to endure agony over having a mildly uncomfortable conversation with you. That was why I couldn’t just reach out to you directly. It had to be him; he had to be the one to tell you.”

“I understand,” Wei Wuxian said. “I don’t…I’d rather find it out over this than have him throw away his life instead of telling me I was being stupid.”

Lan Xichen nodded. That had been his fear as well, and the reason that one of his first moves had been to restrict Lan Wangji from going out on night-hunts.

“I’ll talk to him,” Wei Wuxian said, and scrubbed his face. His eyes had started tearing up again. “I’ll – I’ll talk to him. I’ll make him understand that it’s not – he can’t just do that! He didn’t even ask me if I wanted him to give all of that up for me; he knew I wouldn’t want him to, that’s why he didn’t ask, and he just went ahead and did it anyway. He didn’t tell me that he was suffering, that you were taking away his responsibilities! He didn’t say a single word, and I just blithely carried on thinking everything was fucking all right and all the while he was suffering, and – and he – he…oh, fuck. Fuck. Fuck!”

Lan Xichen blinked.

“I did the exact same fucking thing to Jiang Cheng!” Wei Wuxian exploded. He leapt to his feet. “I’m such a fucking idiot! Lan Zhan and me, we’re both – we’re really well matched, aren’t we?”

He shook his head.

“I’ll talk to Lan Zhan,” he said again, and he looked grimly determined the way he had in the war, the same expression shining through even with a new face. “Don’t worry, Xichen-xiong. I’ll make him understand.”

He turned on his heel and marched out of the room.

Lan Xichen watched him go, thinking to himself that he might have inadvertently done something good for Wei Wuxian as well through all of this. And perhaps it would help Lan Wangji’s own crisis to see Wei Wuxian going through the same – because Lan Wangji’s crisis had already taken place.

He could have lied to Wei Wuxian’s face over why they were leaving. He could have chosen not to tell him that Lan Xichen was forcing him out, cutting him off; he could have kept it secret, hidden, could have come up with some story or just left it all unsaid. If he was truly determined to never let any of his pain onto Wei Wuxian’s shoulders, he could have done that.

He’d chosen to come clean instead.

Maybe now they’d be able to move forward as equals, as partners.

(And, if they were really lucky, maybe finally reaching agreement to stop breaking all the rules all the time would mean that they’d stop having sex on every possible available surface and keep it to the jingshi and a few gardens. No one else needed to see that. Really.)

-

“I see that Wangji-xiong and Wei-xiong are now even more disgustingly in love than ever before,” Nie Huaisang said. “And that Wei-xiong seems to have finally gotten over his obsession with defying authority through violating each and every one of the Lan sect rules. I was only away at the Unclean Realm for three days, you know.”

“I work fast,” Lan Xichen said with a smile.

Lan Wangji had come to him, eyes red, and put his head in Lan Xichen’s lap the way he used to as a child, and they’d talked. For hours, they’d talked, in the slow and halting way they had – where each word was carefully considered, each emotion analyzed, and only a quarter of conversation was said out loud – and at the end of it, they were both completely wrecked, but stronger for it.

They’d talked about their parents, which they had never verbalized before; they talked about Jin Guangyao, and Nie Mingjue, and Wei Wuxian, both past and present. They talked about their ruined expectations, their hopes, their guilt; they talked about the rules that bound them both, the ones that served them as both strength and weakness, the foundation on which they relied in their times of doubt. They talked about love, and fear, and anger.

They’d promised to never to need to have to have this conversation ever again, and they were both very determined to keep that promise.

Lan Qiren had agreed to work with Wei Wuxian regarding which rules could be bent and which ones ought not be – finally giving him the full version of education he’d missed out on when he’d been returned home too early by Jiang Fengmian all those years before, because copying rules didn’t mean understanding them – and Lan Xichen had returned to Lan Wangji all the responsibilities and privileges he’d taken away from him, much to the relief of all the juniors that had been suffering through their fight.

(Lan Wangji confided in Lan Xichen that he was relieved that Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi had been away on a long visit to Lanling Jin throughout the entire debacle, and Lan Xichen wholeheartedly agreed.)

“That you do,” Nie Huaisang said. “Did being straightforward help?”

“More than expected,” Lan Xichen conceded. That had been one of the things he and Nie Huaisang had been discussing these past few weeks, the merits of straightforwardness against obliqueness, and they’d both argued both sides of the issue, given their personal experiences. “I will grant you that it served its purpose well in this situation.”

“Good,” Nie Huaisang said, and put his chin into his hands. “Now tell me, what’s this I hear about you and me being the subject of a series of apparently godawful sex jokes?”

Lan Xichen froze.

Nie Huaisang grinned.

“It was…a metaphor?” Lan Xichen tried. “A means of communicating with Wei Wuxian while not acknowledging the ongoing situation, and a message about paying attention to underlying meaning.”

“Try again,” Nie Huaisang said gleefully. “You could’ve done that without invoking my name.”

“Who else could I invoke? I spend all my time with you!”

All the time he wasn’t being Sect Leader, that was. If there was one good thing that had come out of this entire debacle beyond his heart-to-heart with Lan Wangji, it was that Lan Xichen had been so anxious over Lan Wangji that he had forgotten his own fears about resuming his position, and now that he was back, it didn’t seem as scary as it had when he’d been alone in his room in seclusion.

Nie Huaisang did not appear especially moved by this eminently logical argument. He put his hands over his heart and fluttered his eyelashes, saying in an affected, almost operatic voice, “And all this time I never knew you felt like that, Xichen-gege –”

Lan Xichen choked.

“To think that all of this time that we spent cloistered together, pure as virgins, we could have been doing all sorts of things – using my, what was the term used, ample assets –”

Lan Xichen wondered if it would be possible for the ground to swallow him up at this very second. Failing that, a sect emergency would do.

Possibly an invasion?

“– and this, of course, refers to my extremely large…stock of picture books.”

“Huaisang…”

Nie Huaisang laughed at his face and settled down across from him. “I’m not ready to court or be courted,” he said. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

“No,” Lan Xichen said. “I’m not either, I don’t think.”

He was starting to think that he might be one day, though. That there would be a day – a distant day, far in the future, just barely coming into view – where his days would be more all right than not, where he could make decisions and be confident that he was making them for himself and not to cover up some mess of trauma.

And maybe, when that day arrived for him, it would also arrive for Nie Huaisang, who was himself digging himself back out of the deep pit he had made in his soul seeking his lonely vengeance.

“Still,” Nie Huaisang said thoughtfully. “Since Wei-xiong and Lan Wangji are on their way here right now to join us, and given that I’m already crushing your hopes and dreams…”

Lan Xichen foresaw a great deal of mockery in his future, and he was almost looking forward to it.

“…do you want to pretend to be making out on the table that they’ll have to drink tea off until they catch us and plead for mercy?”

Well.

Lan Xichen did always say that he was petty.