#also if anyone has suggestions for what the Nie clan should be that would be appreciated

[tea-cat-arts]

Decided that for my mdzs creature AU, the Jins are going to be peacocks Phoenix, but I'm still debating whether I want to have Jin Guangyao to be a special little boy and be a Qilin instead or if I'm just gonna have him match the rest of his family

[robininthelabyrinth]

3. I have no idea if this time line would work, but MYX and XY get attached to each other, so when the time comes that MYX and XY need to leave Koi Tower, JGY helps them get married in secret and run away to Dongu. Anyways, a few years latter, JGY has a kid that needs to go and people in a removed location that owe him favors! Isn’t that a wonderful combination! A Jin(?) Rusong raised by Uncles Mo and Xue, or whatever they go by these days, would be very chaotic. Bonus: they start a relatively safe demonic cultivation sect, maybe with some guidance from the Nie (has NMJ never been killed by the Jin in this Au?), or more specifically, Huaisang. SL and XXC who got a happy ending decide to check out this no blood line sect (it looks slightly dubious, but surely can’t be to bad! Right?) A-Qing at least is enjoying her new friend -🟪🦋

Should Have Been Listening - ao3

“Let go of me.”

“I won’t,” Mo Xuanyu said, clutching Xue Yang’s arm. “I won’t, I won’t! You’re my only friend here!”

Xue Yang looked down at him in what he thought was mostly exasperation, but might have also been a little fondness – after all, if it’d been anyone else who’d grabbed him, he’d have stabbed them.

He still didn’t know why he didn’t stab Mo Xuanyu, too, but in all honesty, he wasn’t that interested in exploring it. He did what he wanted, and right now, he didn’t want to murder Mo Xuanyu.

Irritating as he sometimes was.

“Little brat,” he said. “I have important business to go do.”

“It’s not something that he ordered, though!”

“So what?” Xue Yang bristled. “I don’t just do what hetells me!”

“But that means he won’t cover for you, and that means you’ll get in trouble!” Mo Xuanyu argued. “How can I let you go all alone to get in trouble? You have to take me with you! What will you do without me? Who’ll keep you entertained and sneak sweets for you if not for me?”

Xue Yang’s lips twitched. Okay, maybe there was a reason he kept the brat around.

“You don’t understand,” he said. “This is something I’ve got to do – something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I’m going to kill a lot of people and get into a lot of trouble, more trouble than ever before. I’ll probably lose my life. How can I possibly take you with me?”

Mo Xuanyu scowled up at him. It was a very weak scowl – barely more than a pout. “You think that’s going to make me not want to come with you?”

Xue Yang’s eyebrows went up. “You cry at the sight of blood!”

“I cry at a lot of things!”

Xue Yang wasn’t sure how to respond to that. It was true, Mo Xuanyu cried at a lot of things.

“Maybe if I come with you, it won’t be so bad!”

Yeeeeah, Xue Yang wasn’t going to count on that.

“Or maybe you don’t have to go…?”

“I have to go,” he explained. “If I don’t go, I can’t get revenge, and I have to have revenge.”

Mo Xuanyu blinked up at him.

“I don’t really understand, but okay,” he said, and tugged on his arm. “Let’s go together, then. I promise I won’t cry!”

-

He cried.

He cried a lot.

-

“Stop fucking crying.”

-

“Just – ugh. Listen. You’re ruining the mood.”

-

“If you can’t stop crying, go away. Now. Or I’ll stab you!”

-

“Okay, see, look, I just killed the leaders, see? Just the old men. Everyone else is just locked in their rooms. Once the sect leader comes back, I’ll kill him too, and that’ll be all. Okay? Everyone else lives. I promise. Now stop crying, okay?”

-

“I don’t want to know,” Jin Guangyao said when they got back. “I don’t want to know at all.”

“Good,” Xue Yang grumbled. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Enough people heard about the reason for what you did that opinions are mixed as to whether your actions were the Chang clan’s just rewards for their former misdeeds or if they were actually wrong,” Jin Guangyao said. He looked irritated. “But you still killed high-ranking members of a sect, and you left enough alive that they’re demanding your head on a platter. You’re going to need to run away.”

Mo Xuanyu hesitantly gestured as if he wished to speak.

“Yes, you can go with him. Now that my father is dead, no one cares where you are.”

Mo Xuanyu beamed.

“You’re just going to let us go?” Xue Yang asked suspiciously. “That seems unlike you. What’s in it for you?”

“Oh, I’m not just going to let you go. I’m going to give you money, too,” Jin Guangyao said. “And all you need to do for me is one little tiny favor –”

Pity that that was when Xue Yang stopped listening, too busy staring at Mo Xuanyu’s delighted face and counting all the way he was in for it now.

-

“I’ve always wanted to take care of a baby,” Mo Xuanyu said happily.

“Good for you,” Xue Yang said darkly as he stalked through the streets.

He would rather that Jin Guangyao had needed a body buried and a death covered up or something – and judging by the baby’s perturbed expression, it probably agreed with him. Fuck, maybe Jin Guangyao had meant for them to murder the baby once they got it far enough out of the way. It was just as plausible as Mo Xuanyu's assumption that they were supposed to take care of it.

Damnit, maybe he should have been listening.

“Listen, neither of us are equipped to handle a baby. Go find a woman to help us – someone poor and helpless who doesn’t have any other choice.”

“Okay!”

-

Xue Yang shut his eyes. “What exactly,” he said slowly, “did you think I asked you to get us a woman for, exactly?”

“To…watch the baby?” Mo Xuanyu guessed. “When we’re busy or sleeping? Anyway, what’s wrong with A-Qing, anyway? She’s nice!”

“I’m not nice,” A-Qing said. The damn brat was smirking – and for once it wasn’t his damn brat, but some blind brat with a cocky expression. “I stole your wallet and you burst into tears and it was really embarrassing.”

“He does that,” Xue Yang said wearily. At least he’d noticed the theft this time – all of his lessons in ‘how not to be a sucker and get constantly taken advantage of’ were maybe having something of an impact. Maybe. “For some reason I’m apparently into it.”

He couldn’t explain it any other way.

“…loser.”

“I will stab you,” Xue Yang threatened. “I don’t care if you’re blind.”

“Won’t someone tell me why A-Qing isn’t a perfectly good babysitter?” Mo Xuanyu demanded. He was holding the baby in his arms again – the baby liked him more than it did Xue Yang, which meant that between Mo Xuanyu and the baby, the baby had better self-preservation instincts – and he was trying his best stern scowl which was of course barely more than a pout and a so-called ‘fierce’ expression that made Xue Yang want to laugh.

Not even Mo Xuanyu’s horrific make-up skills could make thatface intimidating. Or maybe it was just that the person behind the face was just so completely unthreatening that there was no help for it?

“Well? Tell me!”

Xue Yan opened his mouth, then shrugged and shut it again.

A-Qing patted Mo Xuanyu on the shoulder. “I’m too young. No milk.”

“…milk?”

“You know. The thing babies eat?”

“…milk,” Mo Xuanyu repeated, only now he looked absolutely heartbroken at having failed the mission that Xue Yang had assigned him almost entirely just to get him out of the way while Xue Yang collected some spare cash and threatened their way onto a ride out of this piece of shit town.

“It’s fine,” Xue Yang said hastily. “We’ll just get a goat or something, I don’t know.”

“Okay, I actually only came here to laugh at you,” A-Qing said. “But now I’m legitimately worried about this baby. Don’t you two know anything? How’d you even get a baby, anyway?”

-

“Stop laughing. It’s not that funny.”

-

“Seriously. Stop laughing, or I stab you.”

“Don’t worry, A-Qing,” Mo Xuanyu said. “He doesn’t mean it! Threats are just how he expresses affection!”

“It most certainly is not.”

“That is absolutely amazing,” A-Qing said, wiping her eyes. “Best thing I’ve ever heard., if by best I mean worse-but-hilarious. I mean. If that’s what he considers affection, what must his flirting be like?”

“No one is flirting with anyone!”

-

“Are you going to leave at some point?”

“Obviously not,” A-Qing said. She’d caught the same ride as them, using Xue Yang’s cash no less – Mo Xuanyu had insisted that it was the least they could do after the whole milk misunderstanding, which was stupid, she ought to be paying them for wasting their time. Xue Yang couldn’t wait to get rid of her, although he had to admit that she’d been pretty useful in terms of putting on the ‘poor sad blind girl and her two brothers all alone in the world’ act to get them a room at the inn at prices even Xue Yang felt comfortable paying. “Are you joking? This is so much funnier than walking by myself. Anyway, I enjoy watching people crash and burn.”

“Aren’t you too young to be such a bitch?” Xue Yang hissed. “And, I don’t know, blind?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t care what you –”

The sound of crying came from the other room.

It was quickly followed by a second set of crying.

Xue Yang felt the onset of a headache.

“…truce?” A-Qing suggested sweetly, as if she knew exactly how much it pissed him off and thought it was the funniest thing ever, which was…probably accurate, actually. “I’ll get the baby to stop crying if you do the same with Mo Xuanyu.”

Yeah, that was definitely a headache. The sort of headache called why do I like that brat.

Mo Xuanyu owed him so much candy for putting up with this shit.

“Fine,” Xue Yang said begrudgingly. “Truce. Temporarily. And then you leave!”

-

“So we live here now, huh?” A-Qing said, looking around the house they’d claimed. “That’s neat.”

“Why do you live with us again?” Xue Yang asked her, though by now he barely even meant it. A-Qing was clearly another one in the same mold as Mo Xuanyu: you just couldn’t say no to her…or, rather, you could, at length and top volume and with threats, only it just didn’t stick. “I definitely did not recall asking you to stay.”

Though it was nice to have someone else around that wasn’t going to get immediately ripped off by literally anyone who came their way. Mo Xuanyu’d started getting conned by the literal infant that they were taking care of – he was completely hopeless.

Also, questionably blind or not, at least A-Qing had no hesitation about beating people with her stick if they struck her the wrong way, which was a life approach Xue Yang agreed with wholeheartedly.

“She’s going to learn to cultivate!” Mo Xuanyu chirped from where he was applying his make-up. “Demonic cultivation, too! We had a whole discussion about it while you were out getting groceries!”

That made a certain amount of sense, Xue Yang supposed. You didn’t need talent to be a demonic cultivator – technically speaking, given his bloodline, Mo Xuanyu was more naturally gifted in cultivation than Xue Yang, which was just wrong on all sorts of levels – and it was certainly more effective a defense mechanism than A-Qing’s stick. If there were two of them, they could protect Mo Xuanyu and the baby more effectively, taking shifts when needed, and Mo Xuanyu, who was also going to learn demonic cultivation no matter how many times Xue Yang had to hammer it into his head, could be the last line of defense, largely since no one would ever expect him to be able to do…anything…and they’d be right, too.

So it wasn’t the craziest idea in the world, only…

“…who is she going to be learning from, exactly!?”

-

“Have you ever considered charging for your skill in teaching cultivation lessons instead of your skill in stabbing people?” A-Qing asked one day. They were lying on the ground and having the corpses they’d raised fan them to try to reduce the temperature – it was that sort of day. Also, Mo Xuanyu, who might’ve objected, wasn’t around. “You’re not actually that bad at this. Might be more profitable, and less work. Just a thought.”

“Shut up. I’m great at stabbing people.”

“Yeah, but then after a while we have to move because people get annoyed at that, and it’s getting a little annoying to have to pack up all the time.”

“We’d have to move anyway. We’re wanted criminals, remember?”

“We could be wanted criminals with a house. Besides, wouldn’t you like to be called Teacher Xue?”

“What? No. Gross.”

-

“So you see, it turns out that they were teaching demonic cultivation in a safe and organized fashion,” Xiao Xingchen explained enthusiastically. “They’d even gathered up their own little sect! And of course everyone heard what the Chang clan did, so there’s no need to worry about them going around and murdering people at random – it was a targeted revenge scheme.”

“We’re working on teaching them regular cultivation,” Song Lan agreed, nodding. “To help mitigate the negative effects of demonic cultivation…well, we started out by just teaching them.”

“It turned out that they’d been secretly teaching all of the local delinquents, too, or at least Mo-gongzi had been teaching a few and Mistress Qing was teaching a few others, and even Sect Leader Xue had a few disciples,” Xiao Xingchen said, politely omitting or possibly having not noticed the fact that Mo Xuanyu had been teaching his ‘friends’ (read: scammers trying to take advantage of him), while A-Qing and Xue Yang had each been trying to form competing gangs and/or obtain lackeys. Xue Yang didn’t mind the oversight, largely on account of the fact that A-Qing had been winning, damn her – he’d kept getting distracted by inventing new things. “And a few of them had real talent – and you know that Zichen and I have always wanted to start a sect of our own, with no bloodline ties –”

“We’re joining their sect,” Song Lan said. “We’ll be leading the orthodox side, while they lead the demonic cultivation aspect – safely, of course.”

“I guess it’s better than them being crazy,” Jiang Cheng said. He sounded dubious. “I don’t like it, but at least all the demonic cultivators can be in one spot, you know?”

He made it sound like they’d be dropping off new ones there in the future.

Like they’d opened up some sort of pet rescue and were taking in unwanted puppies or something.

“Agreed,” Nie Mingjue said. “To the extent that they aren’t causing active harm, containment seems an appropriate remedy here. Who seconds the motion?”

“I do,” Lan Xichen said, and smiled at the newly agreed-upon sect. “Welcome back to the cultivation world, Sect Leader Xue.”

-

“I don’t want to know,” Jin Guangyao said, glaring.

“Don’t worry,” Xue Yang told him. “This comes as much of a shock to me as to you.”

The glare intensified, but that was fine. Jin Guangyao’s facial expressions, however minor and generally overlooked, had been the only thing getting him through that awful, awful meeting just now where people kept trying to salute him and make him salute back and if he didn’t then he was letting down Mo Xuanyu (who would send him a sad look) and A-Qing (who would hear about it from Mo Xuanyu later and then find a way to step on his foot right when he was concentrating on something).

Not to mention their two new resident lovebirds, who looked so righteous and proper from the outside but who also may or may not have accidentally full-on actually resurrected some dead asshole cultivator more or less the first time they’d joined Xue Yang in his demonic cultivation laboratory – which would have been fine, you know, that happened in demonic cultivation though not normally to quite such a wow-is-he-actually-alive extent, except that the guy’s intermittent moments of clarity suggested that his two new sect members might have just brought back the Yiling Patriarch himself, which was going to make all of them wanted criminal again the second anyone found out about it.

Ugh.

Being called sect leader was completely not worth this shit.

Xue Yang comforted himself with the reminder that later today he was planning on publicly introducing Jin Guangyao to the Xue sect’s head junior disciple “Xue Song” and announcing loudly that the brat needed some lessons in manners, that he’d heard that that was Lianfeng-zun’s specialty, and nominating him to take care of the kid while they were visiting.

See how the fucker liked that.

“I always knew Xue-gege could do great things!” Mo Xuanyu said, clapping his hands as A-Qing rolled her (by now, Xue Yang was almost definitely sure not actually blind) eyes behind his back. “As long as I went with him!”

[xiyao-feels]

In this post I'm going to argue that the common position that LXC did not know JGY was going to kill the Wen he had with him in episode 23 is wrong. I think the evidence that he did know is considerable, and in fact the only evidence against that position is the framing which casts JGY executing them as being extremely evil. Although LXC and JGY's exchange after the sect leader discussion (the "Am I the evil?" exchange) is often taken as additional evidence that this is JGY's moment of no return on his journey to Evil, I think this is due to a misinterpretation of the exchange, which I will also argue below.

In Part 1, I show that LXC has unambiguously agreed to a plan which involves the execution of at least some Wen, and therefore the central question is whether he was expecting the particular group of Wen JGY brings in with him to be spared; I also argue that he has plausibly agreed to have even certain non-combatants killed. In Part 2, I contrast them with the Wen Jin Zixun is killing to argue that they are not, and also present the evidence that LXC has also agreed to the killing Jin Zixun is doing. In Part 3, I consider the lack of motive JGS has for having JGY, behind LXC's back, kill Wen he explicitly agreed with LXC he would spare. In Part 4, I discuss the "am I the evil" exchange, and in particular argue that the "evil" NMJ is opposed to is not JGS, as seems to be a common assumption, but the Wen. I conclude by examining the remaining evidence and arguing that it is insufficient to overcome the rest of the evidence.

Part One: What to do with the Wen remnants?

In episode 23, as WWX and LWJ discuss things, we hear distressed cries accompanied by calls of Kill them! and Kill them all! (This starts at about 17:47.) We are told that people are capturing the remaining Wen, and it is very clear what they are doing with the Wen once they catch them.

The next scene is JGS, NMJ, and LXC discussing what to do with the remaining Wen, joined partway through by JGY. I encourage you to watch it (link); it lasts from 18:09 to about 22:40 on YouTube. I have also transcribed the dialogue (including the dialogue from the 'am I the evil?' exchange), both English and Chinese, in a post here; the post also includes my attempt at summarizing the whole conversation. However, as the conversation does encompass more than just the plan about what to do with the remaining Wen, I am now going to summarize the discussion of that particular issue below.

JGS is initially pro- the capturing, and implicitly the extermination, of all the remaining Wen. LXC argues for letting the defenseless remnants—note, not the ones who can defend themselves—go. NMJ is initially on JGS' side, but relents in the face of LXC's disappointment and also argues they should let them go. JGS counters by reminding them of the threat the remaining Wen would pose should they get hold of the Yin Iron. NMJ bows and says that "Clan Leader Jin has thought about it very thoroughly" (金宗主所虑甚详); to my eyes he appears to be prepared to concede on the matter, but I freely admit that we don't actually know, as the conversation takes a slight detour and this is not resolved. We return to the issue of the Wen when JGY enters with his captured group of Wen and LXC asks him for his opinion. JGY suggests that they confine and monitor "the old, weak, and young"* as long as they stop making trouble, while those who killed a Sunshot cultivator will be executed; at LXC's prompt he provides a possible location for such confinement. NMJ observes brusquely that JGY is "really familiar with it" (你倒熟悉) (in context I think this is about JGY's knowledge of Wen places). LXC announces that they should do as A-Yao suggests; it is somewhat ambiguous in the scene whether he gets agreement, as NMJ leaves angrily rather than reply when JGS and LXC look at him, but as subsequent events seem to follow along JGY's suggestion, we can surmise that agreement was in fact reached.

*老弱妇孺. As ever, I don't speak Chinese; however Pleco gives 'the old and weak' for 老弱 and 'women and children' for 妇孺. In context, I think it is fairly clear that 'women' would not include, say, the Wen equivalent of Madam Yu, fighting cultivators with good cultivation power, who besides would probably have killed a Sunshot cultivator and thus would be sentenced to death.

I wish to point out a few things about this exchange. First, the default plan without LXC's interference is apparently to simply kill them all. Second, at no point does anyone including LXC argue in favour of sparing the Wen who aren't defenseless; if LXC were a Wen, it seems likely that he would be on the chopping block due to his cultivation power and martial prowess. Third, the plan LXC agrees to here /very explicitly/ includes killing some of the captured Wen. There is no way I can think of to interpret the conversation in any other way. At no point does LXC agree to a plan which involves sparing all of them.

I'm hammering this point home because I think it is often overlooked. If the agreement is that all the remaining Wen are going to be spared, then obviously if any Wen are still killed this is a betrayal of that agreement. But that's clearly not the agreement that's reached! The fact that some Wen are killed is therefore not sufficient to constitute a betrayal of that agreement; the question becomes whether the Wen we see JGY kill are in a group protected by that agreement.

Before we look at these Wen, however, I want to look at the scene after JGY kills the Wen. Once again, we see LWJ and WWX discussing things. They are interrupted by cries and pleas from a group of the remaining Wen (at 26:56), who are being chased down and killed by Jin Zixun. It's hard to get a decent picture, but to my eyes they do indeed look like the old, the weak, and the young:

Moreover, WWX explicitly identifies them as such. "These are women, children, and old men. Are they also evil?" he asks, and the phrase is 老弱妇孺—the same phrase JGY used to identify those to be confined and monitored in the previous scene.

Is Jin Zixun's killing a betrayal of the agreement, then? But consider his reply:

It's Clan Leader's order that anyone who has concern with Yin Iron should not be alive. Nie-zongzhu and Lan-zongzhu also agreed. Does Jiang clan have any questions? 宗主有令 凡是跟阴铁有关的人 一个都不能留 聂宗主和蓝宗主也同意了 难道你们江氏还有什么疑问吗

Jin Zixun explicitly says that NMJ and LXC agreed to the killing of anyone who "has concern with Yin Iron," regardless, it seems, of whether they have power in themselves or no. It's not impossible Jin Zixun is lying; however, while he is certainly intent on provoking WWX, he does not seem to be worried about being caught in deceit, and indeed LWJ who is right there does not contradict him or seem to doubt him. Moreover, to the best that I can recall this does not come up again, as we might expect it to if Jin Zixun is in fact deceiving them; and while these Wen who know something about Yin Iron may be 老弱妇孺, they are nevertheless reasonably viewed as a threat, and it seems a fairly natural extension of the agreement we see the clan leaders reach. I'm not saying Jin Zixun would never lie, or anything, but there doesn't seem to be any indication that he's lying about LXC's agreement, while there is evidence that he's not.

Therefore, from the evidence available, it is entirely unambiguous that LXC has agreed to a plan that involves killing any Wen who have killed a Sunshot cultivator; I don't think there's any plausible interpretation other than 'execution' of what would happen to the old, weak, and young if they didn't stop making trouble, and again that's part of the plan we explicitly see him agree to; and it seems likely that he agreed to the killing of old, weak, and young Wen who "have concern with Yin Iron."

At this point I wish to pause to make a note. It seems likely that people will feel uncomfortable with LXC doing this and indeed perhaps with LXC in general because he did this; this is entirely understandable, and I'm not at all saying otherwise. However, I think it's important to note that LXC's intervention /is an improvement over the status quo/. If he had not intervened, the Wen would simply all have been killed. Yes, it's an awful and unjust agreement, and you could argue he should never have taken part in the discussion; but if he hadn't, the Wen would all have been killed. It is his willingness to "play the game" that saves lives.

(You could of course argue that he should have devoted himself to saving them entirely, by force if necessary. This has been discussed in other places and by many different people; for here I will simply say I do not think it was a viable option.)

Part Two: Which Wen?

It is clear, then, that LXC has agreed to the killing of at least some Wen. If we accept Jin Zixun's account, then even if the Wen JGY has executed are "the old, weak, and young," then that is not sufficient evidence to say that they were in the group that should have been spared! However, I think we can do better than that. To my eyes, they do not look like "the old, weak, and young":

While it is true that they are not all e.g. wearing Wen cultivator uniforms, from what I can see they all look like strong young men and women. Contrast Jin Zixun's group, which generally looks more elderly and contains a child! Moreover, while Jin Zixun runs his victims down with bow and arrow on the open road, the people JGY kills are heavily guarded, surrounded by men holding swords on them the whole time. I realize this is to some extent a matter of personal judgement, but honestly, especially combined with the contrast with Jin Zixun's group, they do not at all look to me like they are in the group that was agreed would be spared. If you disagree with this, I hope you will at least agree that they are not /unambiguously/ part of the group that was agreed would be spared; that is, it is open to debate.

Part Three: Motive

If the visual evidence is insufficient, let us turn to another question: why would JGY kill these people if he'd just proposed to LXC to spare them? The answer to that is in some sense obvious—he'd be doing it because his father wanted it—but that simply moves the question back another level. Why would JGS want JGY to kill these people, and in such an obvious manner, if he'd just agreed with LXC he would spare them?

I legitimately cannot think of a good explanation. His central goal is to progress on obtaining the Yin Iron, and to make sure no one else gets their hand on it—but the arrangement they agree to serves him just fine for that. We know he does in fact spare some of the Wen, so it's not the case that he is simply pretending to spare any of them while having them all killed. If he wants to reduce the number of people he's sparing for whatever reason, I suppose he might have JGY kill some of them—but we don't have any evidence he does want that, and why would he have JGY do it in such a public manner? They still haven't left Nightless City—they haven't even had the Banquet yet—and it's the middle of the day and there is blood on the steps:

So, what, he wants to come to an agreement with LXC and then betray it immediately for some random reason, and also do it in a way LXC is likely though not guaranteed to find out about??

In the interests of considering all the options, and the recognition that CQL does not always care about logistics when it's hitting emotional beats, perhaps we can say that the easily-discoverable nature of this is not meant to be taken literally. But there's still the problem of what motive JGS has to do this—and more than that, the question of the significant motive he has not to.

Consider the situation at the beginning of the discussion: NMJ is in agreement with LXC, united against JGS. By the end of it, LXC is readily agreeing with JGY, and NMJ is in some disgruntlement - and not even in a way that seems particularly directed at JGS! From JGS' perspective, it's very much a desirable outcome, and indeed we can see he appears quite pleased with it.

Endangering this gain would therefore have to bring some significant gain in return. And… what is there? NMJ might approve of killing the Wen but he wouldn't approve of telling LXC you're going to spare someone and then immediately killing them. If this were found out, it would entirely reverse the effect of the agreement, and you would have Lan and Nie together against the Jin—exactly what JGS doesn't want! And it's worth remembering that at this point they haven't even sworn the brotherhood oath yet, that's a few scenes on, so it would be an extremely stupid time to endanger LXC and JGY's rapport. JGS is absolutely an asshole, but he's specifically a power-hungry asshole, and especially in CQL a clever and focused power-hungry asshole; he's not going to randomly endanger political gain just because he wants to be Evil.

Part Four: Am I the evil?

I think that part of the reason for the belief that JGY killed the Wen is this exchange, or more specifically a common misinterpretation of this exchange. You can watch it here, from 22:39 to 23:45 (to 24:08 If you want to watch the blood on the steps); I have also transcribed the dialogue, both the Chinese and the YT English subtitles, into another post here.

In this exchange, LXC tells JGY not to take NMJ's behaviour to heart; it's simply that he "resents the evil and favours the good,"* and that he's simply worried that JGY has "made the wrong choice." It's honestly not clear to me if this is supposed to hit in English quite the way it does—is LXC talking about a specific, individual wrong choice JGY has made? However it does seem to be usually interpreted as this, and moreover, specifically as NMJ thinking JGY has made the wrong choice /in becoming JGY/, in becoming Jin Guangshan's recognized son and aligning himself with the Jin. In this understanding of events this criticism of JGY is then validated by his killing the Wen—look, he's being evil, just as NMJ said!

There is a problem with this version of events, however. NMJ dislikes JGS, to be sure, and disapproves of him and so forth, but I don't think he thinks he's evil or particularly disapproves of JGY working for his dad JGS qua JGY working for his dad JGS. It's worth noting that in MDZS, at least, NMJ releases MY from his obligation to him and sends MY to JGS with his letter of recommendation! But there is someone NMJ hates, or rather someones: the Wen. His antipathy towards JGY at present isn't based on JGY working for JGS; it's based on JGY having recently worked for WRH. Even in CQL, remember, in episode 27 NMJ speaks up against LXC and JC's defense of WQ and WN, notably aligning himself with JGS on the matter (link). Thus his displeasure that JGY is "really familiar" with Wen places. NMJ would not be impressed with JGY executing Wen he had agreed with NMJ and LXC not to execute, but killing captured prisoners, even non-combatants, is not something NMJ considers inherently evil. To be clear, I am not trying to make NMJ out as uniquely bad for this! This is true of most people in his society, and while NMJ is absolutely unusually principled, that doesn't mean his principles are the exact modern-day principles we might like him to have.

When LXC talks about "the evil," he is not talking about JGS; rather he is talking about the defeated Wen. His stutter in response to Am I the evil? makes much more sense in this light. It would be a much more obvious return from JGY, and indeed fairly close to an insult from LXC, if LXC meant that JGS—whom JGY had just aligned himself with, and who also is /JGY's dad who just recognized him/—were evil; on the other hand, if LXC is simply referring to NMJ's well-known hatred of the Wen, then JGY taking it seriously—as either a serious question about his own evil, or a question about whether NMJ now feels the same hatred towards /him/—is more understandably an unexpected conversational move.

Considering the exchange in this light, I think we should not see it as suggesting that JGY's next action is betraying LXC. If NMJ's hatred is based primarily on JGY's previous association with the Wen,† if anything to me the effect is to parallel JGY doing awful things under WRH with JGY doing awful things under JGS; in either situation, he is much constrained. I don't insist on that interpretation, of course, but I do think the "evil" here is very much the Wen and not JGS, and that this complicates the idea that this is the show telling us that JGY is Evil Now.

†There is the captain killing too, but he clearly does not wholeheartedly condemn JGY for it previous to meeting him in Sun Palace, and even expresses some concern for him in the interim; JGY's work with the Wen is much more significant here.

Conclusion

To sum up, then: LXC very explicitly agrees to a plan that involves killing some of the captured Wen; there is also evidence that he may have agreed to killing some of the non-combatants among the captured Wen, and I think it likely. Regardless of this last, I think the visual evidence (especially in contrast with the Wen Jin Zixun kills) suggests that the Wen JGY has executed are in the group LXC explicitly agreed to have killed. Moreover, I think that the common interpretation of the Am I the evil exchange as telling us that JGY is Evil now is flawed, and that it therefore doesn't suggest that JGY's next actions are evil beyond, like, the evil of executing captured prisoners even as part of an approach that saves some of them.

There is the matter of the framing of the execution; it does certainly suggest that JGY is doing something awful. My answer to this is twofold. First, that JGY is indeed doing something awful. Executing captured prisoners is bad! Like, I am not blaming him for not reforming society from the ground up, here, and I do tend to think it's the only option that he had, but that doesn't mean it's not a shitty option.

Second, that the show sometimes frames JGY's actions as Evil in a way that's not really justified by what's presented. If you consider the Burial Mounds flashback in episode 43 for example (link), then we see JGY being presented as evil when he is, objectively, being helpful and helping protect LWJ's reputation. His telling LWJ that LQR is there to pick him up is framed as worse than LQR having LWJ beaten is. I am not, to be clear, saying that framing can't be legitimate evidence; of course it can. Nevertheless, I think it's worth considering the issues around JGY's presentation in CQL more generally, and especially to consider whether the framing alone is sufficient to conclude that he is betraying an agreement with LXC, rather than simply executing captives, especially in the light of the evidence against this.

As a final note, I want to note that I suspect part of the reason for this take is the general reluctance to believe that the characters we like could be doing something bad/something we disagree with. With LXC, this very often tends to result in the belief that he didn't know JGY was doing bad things, despite the mass of evidence against this position; with NMJ in particular, I cannot count the number of times I have seen people simply assume that he is obviously against the destruction of the Wen. This falls into the intersection of both, reassigning the target of NMJ's hatred from the Wen, who have our sympathy, to JGS, who decidedly does not; and making it such that LXC is ignorant that JGY is going to have those Wen executed, because how could he speak with JGY so warmly beforehand otherwise? But NMJ hates the Wen, and will go on to position himself with JGS, against LXC!, against them; and LXC is indeed willing to treat JGY with warmth despite his doing awful things, as in CQL we will see him be warm with JGY at the Phoenix Mountain Hunt despite JGY having (due to the wishes of his father) ordered captured Wen out in front of the targets. Neither of them have, for example, CQL LWJ's exact set of beliefs.

*恩怨分明嫉恶如仇. Generally I hate to post about my thoughts on the translation, but I do think it's worth noting here that from what I can tell this seems to be two phrases, 恩怨分明 and 嫉恶如仇. For 恩怨分明, Pleco gives "know clearly to whom to show gratitude and against whom to feel resentment"; for 嫉恶如仇, however, it gives "hate evil like an enemy; abhor evil as one's deadly foes". This is the phrase that gets translated as "absolutely couldn't stand wrongdoings" in ch 30 (link), when WWX is wondering why LWJ didn't just go kill XY (ER translation):

Wei WuXian found this a bit strange. Although Lan WangJi looked as if he didn’t care about anything, from Wei WuXian’s past experiences with him, he absolutely couldn’t stand wrongdoings, possibly even more than Nie HuaiSang’s brother. Back then, the LanlingJin Sect had some dishonest ways of doing things, and Lan WangJi never bothered to be subtle about them. Even until now, he always refused to go to their sect’s Discussion Conferences. If two cruel massacres happened, the news would’ve probably spread over the entire cultivational world and Lan WangJi definitely wouldn’t have turned a blind eye to them. Why did he not go and give Xue Yang what he deserved?

Taming Wangxian gives it as "he hated evildoers to the core" (link), and MDZS Translation gives it "someone who hated evil with a vengeance" (link).

It's also 嫉恶如仇 that JGY repeats, rather than 恩怨分明. The Viki subtitles, for what it's worth translates this portion of the exchange as follows:

LXC: Brother Mingjue is precisely someone who is clear about kindness and grudges, and abhors evil as one's deadly foe. He's just worried you've gone down the wrong path.

JGY: "Abhor evil as one's deadly foe…" Am I exactly that evil then?

As ever, I am open to correction on this matter.

ETA: on the matter of Zixun, I think madtom's point is right; I replied here.

[ouyangzizhensdad]

I just saw a post saying nhs has an inferiority complex and I'm?? Confused?? I always thought he was fine with being weaker in terms of cultivation, maybe I missed something

Hi anon,

I have to say, I struggle as well to figure out where people are getting this from the text. I think, oftentimes, people don't actually pay attention to what the text provides us in terms of characterisation as a whole, but take elements of what makes the character or which happens to them and simply extrapolate how they themselves would feel in that situation as a means of understanding the character. I can easily imagine how a reader would think: wow, if I had low cultivation in a world that values it (and within a clan that values strength even more so!) and a brother who was not only super strong and admired but who wanted me to fit into that role, and then found myself having to fill his shoes after his sudden death, I'd feel some sort of inferiority complex. I think that's the same reason you see so much people insisting WWX has self-esteem issues.

The thing about NHS is that, as a youth, we never saw him value high cultivation or "academic" achievements (not sure how to otherwise call his time at CR but there is probably a better word for it) or brute strength. He's afraid of consequences from his brother for failing at the CR, as we see here:

Although the brothers were not born from the same mother, their relationship was quite solid. Nie Mingjue had always taught his younger brother with extreme harshness, particularly caring for his studies. This was why, even though Nie Huaisang respected his older brother, he was the most scared of Nie Mingjue mentioning his schoolwork.

and here:

Although he didn’t understand a single bit as he listened in class, Nie Huaisang worked as hard as a slave when the date of the test approached. He copied Virtue two times for Wei Wuxian, and begged before the test, “Please, Wei-xiong, if my grade is lower than yi, my brother would really break my legs! Stuff like telling apart direct lineage, collateral lineage, main clan, clan branches… For us disciples from big clans, we can’t even distinguish our relationships with our own relatives, randomly calling everyone who are more than two tiers away from us aunts and uncles. Does anyone have enough capacity in their brain to remember those of other clans?!”

After thinking for a few moments, an expression of envy and yearning appeared on Nie Huaisang’s face, “To be honest, Wei-xiong’s words were quite interesting. Spiritual energy can only be obtained through cultivation and taking great pains to form a golden core (金丹). It would take I-don’t-know-how-many years to do, especially for someone like me, whose talent seems as if it was gnawed by a dog when I was in my mother’s womb. But, resentful energy are from the fierce ghosts. If they can easily be taken and used, it would be beyond wonderful.”

[...] . If disciple from a prominent clan forms the core at a later age, it would be a disgrace to tell other people of it, yet Nie Huaisang didn’t feel ashamed at all. Wei Wuxian also laughed, “I know, right? No harm comes from using it.”

The only moment that I can find that could tangentially be used to suggest that NHS has an inferiority complex could be this one, where NHS wants to avoid LXC's questioning about how his studies are going (and WWX picking up on his cues like a good friend to redirect the conversation). However, when you consider the whole context of the scene, it’s not because NHS feels self-conscious but because he’s afraid LXC is going to report to his brother that he’s not working hard at his studies:

Lan Xichen turned to him, “Huaisang, a while ago, as I returned from Qinghe, your brother asked of your studies. How is it? This year, will you be able to pass?”

Nie Huaisang replied, “Generally speaking, yes…” He seemed like a wilted cucumber, looking at Wei Wuxian in a helpless way. Wei Wuxian grinned, “Zewu-Jun, what are you two going out for?”

[...] Nie Huaisang also wanted to join in, but he had been reminded of his older brother as he met Lan Xichen. Cringing silently, he didn’t dare to have fun, “I’ll pass and go back so that I can review…” With this act, he hoped that Lan Xichen would put in some good words for him to his brother.

NHS seems very industrious at finding ways not to have to do anything that relates to cultivation or to leading a sect, and that is linked once more to the fact that he does not want to do these things (so not a case where we could say he’s self-sabotaging because he fears failure):

Lan Xichen took Nie Huaisang’s saber into his qiankun sleeve, “Huaisang has been using the excuse that he left his saber at home. Now he will have no excuses for lazing around.”

or here

“Nie Huaisang!”

Nie Huaisang fell at once.

He really did fall to his knees from the terror. He only staggered up after he finished kneeling, “D-d-d-da-ge.”

Nie Mingjue, “Where is your saber?”

Nie Huaisang cowered, “In… in my room. No, in the school grounds. No, let me… think…”

Wei Wuxian could feel that Nie Mingjue almost wanted to hack him dead right there, “You bring a dozen fans with you wherever you go, yet you don’t even know where your own saber is?!”

Nie Huaisang hurried, “I’ll go find it right now!”

[...]

In a hurry, Nie Huaisang dropped a few fans on the ground. Jin Guangyao picked them up for him and put them into his arms, “Huaisang’s hobbies are quite elegant. He’s dedicated to art and calligraphy, and has no propensity for mischief. How can you say that they’re useless?”

Nie Huaisang nodded as fast as he could, “Yes, Brother is right!”

Nie Mingjue, “But sect leaders have no need for such things.”

Nie Huaisang, “I’m not going to be a sect leader, though. You can be it, Da-ge. I’m not doing it!”

or here

Nie Mingjue was on the school ground, teaching and supervising Nie Huaisang’s saberwork in person. He did not acknowledge Jin Guangyao, so he stood at the edge of the field, waiting with respect. Since Nie Huaisang was quite uninterested and the sun was bright, he was rather half-hearted, complaining that he was tired after just a few moves. He beamed as he got ready to go to Jin Guangyao and see what presents he brought this time. In the past, Nie Mingjue would only frown at such things, but today he was angered, “Nie Huaisang, do you want this strike to land on your head?! Get back here!”

If only Nie Huaisang were like Wei Wuxian and could feel how great Nie Mingjue’s rage was, he wouldn’t grin in such a bold way. He protested, “Da-ge, the time is up. It’s time to rest!”

Nie Mingjue, “You rested just thirty minutes ago. Keep on going, until you learn it.”

Nie Huaisang was still giddy, “I won’t be able to learn it anyways. I’m done for the day!”

He often said this, but today Nie Mingjue’s reaction was entirely different from his past reaction. He shouted, “A pig would’ve learnt this by now, so why haven’t you?!”

Never expecting Nie Mingjue to burst out so suddenly, Nie Huaisang’s face was blank with shock as he shrunk toward Jin Guangyao. Seeing the two together, Nie Mingjue was even more provoked, “It’s been one year already and you still haven’t learnt this one set of saber techniques. You stand on the field for just thirty minutes and you’re complaining that you’re tired. You don’t have to excel, but you can’t even protect yourself! How did the QingheNie Sect produce such a good-for-nothing! The both of you should be tied up and beaten once every day. Carry out all those things in his room!”

The last sentence was spoken to the disciples standing by the side of the field. Seeing that they had gone, Nie Huaisang felt as though he was on pins and needles. A moment later, the row of disciples really did bring out all the fans, paintings, porcelain from his room. Nie Mingjue had always threatened to burn his room, but he had never actually burned them. This time, though, he was serious. Nie Huaisang panicked. He threw himself over, “Da-ge! You can’t burn them!”

Noticing that the situation wasn’t good, Jin Guangyao also spoke, “Da-ge, don’t act on impulse.”

Yet, Nie Mingjue’s saber had already striked. All of the delicate objects piled at the center of the field erupted in roaring flames. Nie Huaisang wailed and plunged into the fire to save them. Jin Guangyao hurried to pull him back, “Huaisang, be careful!”

With a sweep of Nie Mingjue’s hand, the two blanc de chine antiques shattered into pieces in his palms. The scrolls and paintings had already turned into dust in a split second. Nie Huaisang could only watch blankly as the much loved items that he had gathered throughout the years vanish into ashes. Jin Guangyao grabbed his hands to examine them, “Are they burnt?”

He turned to a few disciples, “Please prepare some medicine first.”

The disciples answered and left. Nie Huaisang stood at the same place, his entire body trembling as he looked over at Nie Mingjue, pupil encircled by veins. Seeing that his expression wasn’t right, Jin Guangyao put his arm around his shoulders and whispered, “Huaisang, how are you feeling? Stop watching. Go back to your room and have some rest.”

Nie Huaisang’s eyes brimmed red. He didn’t even make a sound. Jin Guangyao added, “It’s alright even if the things are gone. Next time I can find you more…”

Nie Mingjue interrupted, his words like ice, “I’ll burn them each time he brings them back into this sect.”

Anger and hatred suddenly flashed across Nie Huaisang’s face. He threw his saber onto the ground and yelled, “Then burn them!!!”

Jin Guangyao quickly stopped him, “Huaisang! Your brother is still angry. Don’t…”

Nie Huaisang roared at Nie Mingjue, “Saber, saber, saber! Who the fuck wants to practice the damn thing?! So what if I want to be a good-for-nothing?! Whoever that wants to can be the sect leader! I can’t learn it means I can’t learn it and I don’t like it means I don’t like it! What’s the use of forcing me?!”

I'm not saying he didn't have a hard time during the first moment of him taking over a leadership role in the sect after the sudden death of his brother (ultimately we can wonder whether the yiwensanbuzhi persona originated then, as he could have felt overwhelmed and actually didn't have the answers needed for the position he didn't prepare for--or whether it was always a pure fabrication to serve his goals), but I don't think we can chalk it up to an inferiority complex.

In the past, Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang studied together, so there were a few things he could comment about this person. Nie Huaisang wasn’t an unkind person. It wasn’t that he was not clever, but that his heart was set somewhere else and used his smarts on other areas, such as painting on fans, searching for birds, skipping classes, and catching fish. Because his talent in terms of cultivation really was poor, he formed his core around eight or nine years later than the other disciples of the same generation as him. When he lived, Nie Mingjue was often exasperated by the fact that his brother didn’t meet his expectations, so he disciplined him strictly. Despite this, he still didn’t improve much. Now, without his older brother protecting and supervising him, under his lead, the QingheNie Sect declined day by day. After he grew up, especially after he became the sect leader, he was often troubled by all kinds of affairs unfamiliar to him and looked for helpers everywhere, mainly his brother’s two sworn brothers. One day he’d go to Jinling Tower to complain to Jin Guangyao, and the next day he’d go to the Cloud Recesses to whine to Lan Xichen. With the two leaders of the Jin and Lan Sects supporting him, he still barely managed to settle on the sect leader position. Nowadays, whenever people mentioned Nie Huaisang, although they didn’t say anything on the surface, the same phrase was written on their faces—good-for-nothing.

And after NHS pieced together what happened to his brother and set out on a path to revenge, I don't see how someone who is so sharp and deceptive and able to reach his goals while hiding behind a facade the entire time would feel "inferior".

[meltingheartsandcores]

I’m tired, I should be studying, instead I wrote this little ficlet that should probably be the prologue to an actual fic that I might get around to writing (fingers crossed).

We have Immortals, modern sects, and porn. Not entirely sure how else to explain it except none of those are explicit, lol.

Hope you enjoy the product of my mildly sleep deprieved brain!

Being invited to have tea with Zewu-Jun was a high honor, despite the immortal seemingly trying to downplay it as much as he possibly could. However, Nie Mingjue isn’t entirely sure what he’s done to earn the honor. It’s been a long time since either Twin Jade was the Sect Leader, Nie Mingjue has spoken with the current Sect Leader Lan Tengfei infrequently over the years when their sect business intermingled or there was a conference, but he wasn’t particularly close to the Lan Sect. And the Twin Jades enjoy their privacy. Enough so that there’s not a single photograph of either of them out there.

So it was very startingly to get the invitation.

Zewu-Jun treating him like an equal and friend is equally startling.

Somehow, not the most startling thing to happen on the trip. No, that would be the portrait of Wei Wuxian. Nie Huaisang’s husband. He thinks. Nie Mingjue isn’t actually sure if they’re married or just act like it. Although, knowing them, that’s how they want everyone to think.

Still, the clearly very old portrait of Wei Wuxian was a little disturbing. Especially with the name below being Wei Wuxian’s, correct characters and all. Even more so after Zewu-Jun noticed him staring at it and decides to give him some utterly terrible information.

“My brother’s husband, from his first life.” Oh. It was that Wei Wuxian. Yiling Lazou Wei Wuxian.

How is this getting worse?

“Oh?” Because screaming was undignified and not something to be done in front of immortals. Later. In his car. And then he’s calling Nie Huaisang to yell at him because of course his brother just had to shake up with the immortals husband. Maybe. Maybe it’s just a massive coincidence. (Nie Mingjue’s luck is never good enough for coincidences.)

“Yes, after the resurrection his core was never strong enough to cultivate immortality. When Wangji realized it, he tried to stop his own cultivation, but it was too late. Wuxian lasted nearly two hundred years, and not a day goes by that Wangji doesn’t miss him.” Oh, Zewu-Jun was sad. Nothing Nie Mingjue can say will make him not sad. In fact, he’s pretty sure anything close to the truth of what Wei Wuxian is doing now will just upset him. “The juniors find it, romantic, that he’s decided to wait for Wuxian to be reincarnated.”

Well. It does sound romantic.

But Zewu-Jun’s face, he’s irritated and upset, so clearly he doesn’t agree with the juniors. It sounds romantic, but the reality, “He must be very lonely.” Nie Mingjue guesses.

Zewu-Jun nods, “We have each other, but we were the only ones from our generation to cultivate immortality. There are many people we miss, and as time seperates us further from the present, it’s harder to connect with the new disciples.” Zewu-Jun admits. Nie Mingjue nods, he’s never considered that. How isolating it must be to have lived so long. The Nie clan, doesn’t really get immortals. Honestly, they’re lucky if they hit a hundred. Most top out at eighty due to their cultivation style.

“How would he know, that he’s been reincarnated? I mean, I think Huaisang’s said some things about faces getting reused due to limited genetics and the growing population.” Actually Wei Wuxian said that. Something to that effect at least. Nie Huaisang was better with people and manipulating situations. He does really well running the business side of the Nie Sect. Even if he refuses to accept any credit.

Zewu-Jun smiles a little sadly, “Well, I suppose we’ll know when we see him. Pictures work well enough, as we’re learning. We’ve found a few people who we knew in our first lives reincarnated.”

Nie Mingjue nods, he should tell Zewu-Jun. He really should. Maybe it’s just a look alike. Unlikely. Nie Mingjue’s never that lucky. Nie Mingjue’s started to pull his phone out of his pocket before remembering his manners and asking while holding it in front of himself, “Uh, do you mind if I?” Zewu-Jun furrows his brow but gestures for him to continue. Nie Mingjue nods and opens his phone, scrolling through the pictures Nie Huaisang had sent him. Not for the first time, he really wished Nie Huaisang wouldn’t send so many half-naked or fully-naked pictures of Wei Wuxian to him. Thankfully, it was not all Nie Huaisang sent to him, so he did come across a picture of a fully dressed Wei Wuxian. Nie Huaisang was also there, but they weren’t doing anything. Nie Huaisang had snapped it while they were out walking and Nie Mingjue had wanted to know where the fuck Nie Huaisang had gone at one am. “Just, uh, he seemed familiar.” Nie Mingjue explains, turning the phone around to show Zewu-Jun.

Zewu-Jun blinks then reaches out, hesitating a moment before taking Nie Mingjue’s phone. “That. Is definitely Wei Wuxian.” Zewu-Jun states, and then he starts touching the screen, which makes Nie Mingjue very nervous and uncomfortable. Because Nie Huaisang sends him very questionable pictures. Nie Mingjue is happy his brother is comfortable with his body, he just wishes he wouldn’t text him explicit pictures of his maybe-boyfriend that sometimes also have him naked in them. Nie Huaisang has always like pushing Nie Mingjue’s boundaries, and honestly, Nie Mingjue would rather he be pushing this one than certain other ones. Still. It makes him nervous when Zewu-Jun taps his phone and his eyes blow wide.

Yeah. That’s not good.

Zewu-Jun blinks and regains his composure, handing the phone back, “May I ask how you know him?”

“...How honest do you want me to be?” Nie Mingjue asks, shutting off his phone and pocketing it without looking at whatever Zewu-Jun saw. He’d like to be able to keep looking Zewu-Jun in the eye for this conversation.

Zewu-Jun raises an eyebrow, almost admonishingly, “As honest as possible. You don’t seem to type to beat around the bush.”

He wasn’t. He just really didn’t want to tell Zewu-Jun what Nie Huaisang and Wei Wuxian get up to.

“He works with my brother.” Nie Mingjue states vaguely, earning another raised eyebrow from Zewu-Jun.

“Is he a cultivator?”

“Used to be. He had a big falling out with the Jiang a few years back and kind of stopped.” Nie Mingjue shrugs, “He doesn’t talk about it.” All he knew about it was rumour. And the Lans don’t do rumours.

“Ah. So what work does he do with Huaisang?”

...Did he tell Zewu-Jun his brothers name? Nie Huaisang is almost as unknown to the world as the Twin Jades. Purposefully so. The Nie have always been rather private with their members, but when Nie Huaisang was old enough to have an opinion on a public presence and vehemently deny having one, nothing about him was released to the public. Not even other cultivation sects as Nie Huaisang wasn’t a practicing cultivator. He trained. As he was supposed to. But he didn’t do any night hunts. He had no connection to Nie Mingjue on the business end of the Sect either.

So, what?

“How do you know his name?” Nie Mingjue asks, making Zewu-Jun blink in plain confusion. “Huaisang’s name isn’t known to anyone outside the Nie sect. Not in connection to me.” Nie Mingjue states, now a little angry. Did someone tell Zewu-Jun? Who? How? Why would he even care about Huaisang?

“He’s in your phone.” Zewu-Jun states simply.

And that’d be a fine answer.

If Nie Huaisang was ‘Huaisang’ in his phone.

But he wasn’t.

He was Reuben. Courtesy of Wei Wuxian. (Wei Wuxian was ‘Stitch’, no Nie Mingjue didn’t understand the names and he didn’t really want to. He’s mostly worried it’s a weird sex thing and he prefers to be as ignorant as possible in that aspect.)

“I thought Lan’s don’t lie.” Although, Zewu-Jun wasn’t, technically, lying.

But he doesn’t deny it. “Could we sit?” Zewu-Jun suggests, gesturing to the table that had been set up for them. Nie Mingjue nods and sits opposite to Zewu-Jun, pouring them some tea. “I apologize for the deception, however I’ve never actually done this before.” He better not be suggesting what Nie Mingjue thinks he’s suggesting. “In the recent past, when we’ve discovered our reincarnated friends, we’ve more or less left them alone.” Oh. Good. He’s not being propositioned.

Wait.

What?

Nie Mingjue blinks, now thoroughly caught off guard, “Um. What.”

Zewu-Jun smiles gently, understandingly, “Due to certain aspects of your previous life, I felt the need to check in on you, make sure you were doing well. I, well, I assumed your family was the same. Hence, why I know Huaisang’s name despite you keeping him rather off the grid.”

“He’s not off the grid. He just has no public connection to me.” Nie Huaisang was almost constantly online. Especially with his ‘job’.

“Ah. So, what work does he and Wei Wuxian do?” Zewu-Jun asks before taking a drink of his tea.

Nie Mingjue considers what he knows about the Lan, and then realizes he really doesn’t want to have this conversation. Luckily for him (or unluckily most of the time), he can just show Zewu-Jun on his phone. “Um, you might want to put that down.” Nie Mingjue suggests, pulling out his phone and turning it on, quickly going to the app Nie Huaisang downloaded on his phone that he never goes on, and opens it up to Nie Huaisang and Wei Wuxian’s account. Sliding it across the table as Zewu-Jun dubiously puts down his teacup.

Zewu-Jun blinks, then sighs, “I can’t say, I’m particularly surprised with Wei Wuxian’s career choice.”

“...Seriously.”

“You did not hear them. I’m aware of the publics perception of us, particularly Wangji, but trust me. He’s not nearly as prudish as people seem to think.” Zewu-Jun states, sliding the phone back with a rueful smile and a familiar look.

Nie Mingjue exits out of the app before shutting off and pocketing his phone. He knew that look. The look of an elder brother who really didn’t need to know so much about their younger brother’s sex life. He knew that look well. “Right. Speaking of Hanguang-Jun, how would he react?”

Zewu-Jun purses his lips. “I can’t say he’ll be particularly favourable. Wangji’s always been quite, possessive.”

“Wei Wuxian is persuasive. I’m kind of curious as to who would falter first.” Nie Mingjue snorts, picking up his own cup of tea. It was good tea.

Zewu-Jun’s eyebrows were furrowed, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Wuxian’s not going give up his livelyhood. He enjoys it. Even if he falls back in love with Hanguang-Jun, I’m not sure he’ll quit it.” Nie Mingjue states, shaking his head. It was an understatement. Wei Wuxian loves his job. As he so often gushes. Nie Mingjue’s honestly just happy Wei Wuxian doesn’t give him details.

Zewu-Jun slowly nods, understanding dawning, “You think Wei-gongzi will convince Wangji to do porn.” Zewu-Jun winces, “I, hate that I cannot say it’s out of the realm of possibilities.”

Nie Mingjue snorts and then smirks, “Ah, Zewu-Jun, how about a friendly bet?”

Zewu-Jun’s brows pinch slightly, eye narrowing, before he smirks, “Only if you call me Lan Xichen.”

Ohhhkay. Zewu-Jun had said to at the beginning of their meeting, but Nie Mingjue had honestly kind of ignored it. Immortals are a big deal. But then again. He was about to gamble with one. “Ok, Lan Xichen, why don’t we make a bet in favour of our, brothers.” Nie Mingjue isn’t entirely sure what else to refer to them as. If Nie Huaisang was married, then technically Wei Wuxian would be his brother. If they’re not, he might as well be at this point either way.

“Are Huaisang and Wuxian married?” Lan Xichen cuts in, confused.

“I’m not entirely sure. Maybe. Not important.” Nie Mingjue shakes his head, “If Hanguang-Jun manages to convince Wei Wuxian to quit his work, you win, and if Wei Wuxian manages to convince Hanguang-Jun to do porn, I win.”

Lan Xichen nods, smiling with interest, “And what are we betting?”

Nie Mingjue smirks, this was going to be fun.

[franniebanana]

CQL Rewatch - Ep 26

Note: I will be critical of Jiang Cheng in these posts. If you can’t handle that, please feel free to scroll on.

The absolute what-the-fuck-are-you-doing-here look on Lan Wangji's face right now. I'm cackling. He's really not subtle at all. The genuine shock from this apparently grave impropriety is just written all over his face. In that situation, I'm definitely Lan Xichen. I'll quietly go to the host later and tell them that they really shouldn't have invited that guy. I mean, he's so nice about it, though, and I really do feel bad for Jin Guangyao, who just invited him because they're friends. Aside from all the shit they pull, he and Su She really do care about each other. You know, Jin Guangyao sees himself in Su She, and probably the opposite is true as well, depending on what Su She actually knows about him. It's no wonder Jin Guangyao selects him from the crowd as he does and kind of takes him under his wing. He knows the feeling of being unwanted very well.

He couldn't look more annoyed that Jin Guangyao is bringing up how the Jiang Clan has captured more prey than any clan in the history of these hunts. Part of it is that Jiang Cheng knows that he never would have brought in that many if Wei Wuxian hadn't used Chenqing to bewitch the beasts into the nets. I think the other thing that annoys him is that the whole situation was an embarrassment and now Jin Guangyao is drawing attention to it again, as well as to the fact that Wei Wuxian isn't even there. He's wandering the streets in the city below when he should be at Carp Tower. As I've said before, Jiang Cheng expects and desires Wei Wuxian to be obedient as well as subservient to him. It pisses him off that Wei Wuxian is such a delinquent and has no care for the propriety of the cultivation world.

And the way Jiang Cheng is all smiles to the Jins, toasting with them, being the perfect little clan leader. Like, he has to, right? Anything else would be weird and unorthodox, not to mention rude. But as soon as he sits down again, he's back to that nasty look on his face, brooding about where in the hell Wei Wuxian is and why he had to go and embarrass Jiang Cheng in front of all the other leaders.

Oh, speak of the devil! Here he is! Yeah, remember how Wei Wuxian found Wen Qing at the end of the last episode? Well, now he's really angry. At this point, it's over. Propriety and orthodoxy have been thrown out the window. The Jin Clan is out of line, and he doesn't care what he says and to whom he says it anymore.

I keep saying this, but this is one of my favorite parts. The absolute disdain that Lan Wangji has for this man that he won't even stoop to respond to him. He's seen what he's like on numerous occasions, I'm sure, but not least important when the man was criticizing Wei Wuxian right in front of him to the point that Jiang Yanli stood up to defend him. Lan Wangji is not giving this man the time of day, let alone breaking one of the disciplines just to please him. Lan Wangji doesn't give a damn whether this man deems him friendly or not. And I love all the reactions. Lan Xichen is just like, "He's never gonna do it." Nie Mingjue looks a little worried, like, "Oh, shit, what's he gonna do??"

And my favorite part, where Lan Wangji looks so so thirsty, and there's a tall drink of water right in front of him. Not to talk top/bottom dynamics (but I'm gonna briefly), but this is when I knew CQL Lan Wangji was a bottom. Those eyes just say "fuck me," and I really won't hear any arguments on this.

But another thing I want to say is that this is one of those moments where Wei Wuxian does something rather heroic. Not all of his actions have to be big and grand to be important. Lan Wangji definitely felt rescued here. I think I remember hearing Xiao Zhan complain that he didn't get to do enough fight scenes and he didn't get to run around and rescue people--he felt useless on the battlefield, while Lan Wangji got to do all the saving. But these moments feel more special to me, when he was there for Lan Wangji. Just like I don't really remember the moments where Lan Wangji knocked a sword out of the way, but I do remember how he looked when Wei Wuxian collapsed in his arms in the Nightless City, and I remember how he insisted on Wei Wuxian letting him help him, and I remember how he sang to Wei Wuxian in the cave. Sometimes it's not the big, grand gestures, but the small, quiet, unassuming ones.

I mean, at this point, is there anyone who doesn't want Wei Wuxian to murder this guy? It is kind of amusing to me that Wei Wuxian just moved on from one Jin to another. He's sort of forgotten about Jin Zixuan, who's definitely the less annoying of the two, and now he has turned his attention to Jin Zixun, who is just a gigantic asshole. The guy is just here to antagonize Wei Wuxian, seemingly, by the way he is taunting him here about how long the banquet is going to last.

While he's pretty rude to Jin ZIxun (who cares), Wei Wuxian clearly and calmly explains to Jin Guangshan what the situation is. Not only that, but he's very polite to him. The situation is simple: Wen Ning was kind to him and he wants to return the favor. I feel a bit like CQL didn't do enough to develop the relationship between Wen Ning and Wei Wuxian, even with the added scene with the dog, but even if you just look at what Wen Ning and Wen Qing did for Jiang Cheng--based upon that alone, I think Wei Wuxian would want to save them. Jiang Cheng would be dead right now if it weren't for them. It's interesting how that's reason for Wei Wuxian to save the Wens, but Jiang Cheng wants no part of that. He seems to value looking good in front of the other clan leaders over repaying a life debt. Even without knowing about the Golden Core thing, they still saved his life. Wen Ning brought him out of Lotus Pier on his back. Both Wen Ning and Wen Qing suffered at the hands of the rest of the Wen Clan because of what they did--hello, it's treason. They committed treason for two people they barely knew. And Jiang Cheng doesn't even have the balls to stand up for them now?

Oh, boy, now he's gone and done it. Suggesting the Jin Clan just moved in as the reigning Clan, the one who is better than all the rest, the clan in charge of the others. In other words, the Jin Clan is no better than the Wen Clan--these are the sort of actions that lead to the kind of hubris that they had. And considering the Jin Clan helped the least during the Sunshot Campaign, it's pretty interesting. But, of course, they have a lot of money, they have a lot of men, they were basically untouched during the war. It only stands to reason that they would sort of slide into the place that the Wen Clan carved out. Of course, Jiang Cheng is mortified that Wei Wuxian would suggest such a thing. I mean, in his situation, rightly so. Wei Wuxian is part of the Yunmeng Jiang Sect, so his actions and words reflect poorly on all of them. But the sticking point for me is that Jiang Cheng doesn't attempt to understand where Wei Wuxian is coming from. He doesn't try to look at how Wei Wuxian is trying to save the people who saved them--he doesn't see that as a valid reason. Considering CQL is trying to sell that Jiang Cheng has (or had) feelings for Wen Qing, he doesn't seem to care about her very much. Why isn't he disturbed about this news--why is he only angry that Wei Wuxian is being improper? I get what Jiang Cheng is doing here, but what I'm trying to say is that I don't think he's struggling at all with it. I think, for him, it was wham, bam, thank you ma'am, in a sense. He was saved, he got healed, and now he doesn't really have to think about Wen Qing or Wen Ning anymore. They were, in a way, stepping stones on his rise to the top. They were willing volunteers to help him be a better person. He doesn't owe them anything in return. Because, I think, if MXTX or the CQL writers had really wanted us to believe that Jiang Cheng wasn't selfish and narrow-minded, I think he would have gone with Wei Wuxian to try and find Wen Ning.

Me counting down when my toddler is goofing off before bed time.

I think at this point, both Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji know that he can't come back from this. After what he just said, then threatening to kill Jin Zixun, then essentially saying he could kill anyone and no one would be able to stop him--there is just no coming back. There's no apology he could give, no words he could say that would convince him to let him back into the fold. It's a moment of desperation, both for Lan Wangji and for Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian is going to save Wen Ning and Wen Qing, even if it means sacrificing what is left of his life. Again, he's willing to give up everything for someone else. Lan Wangji doesn't yet understand, and Jiang Cheng certainly doesn't understand him, even though he is the one who should understand him the most.

Lan Wangji has no choice but to go after Wei Wuxian. Even his brother knows and immediately gives his blessing to do it. Why is it that two people from a different clan are willing to go into the lion's den, but someone who is essentially Wei Wuxian's brother won't do anything? We see Lan Xichen having more concern for Wei Wuxian than Jiang Cheng. To be fair, he's also thinking about his own brother here, knowing that Lan Wangji wants to go, knowing that he wants to help Wei Wuxian. And given that, we have another good contrast to Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian. The Prides of Yunmeng, indeed--both are indeed proud, so proud that they sometimes forget to even care about each other.

This part gets me every time. It's so heartbreaking listening to her scream out for her brother--even in a valley full of the dead, she calls out for him as if he can answer. Truly heartbreaking. And then the silence that washes over her when she finally sees him.

I kind of wonder why Wei Wuxian doesn't immediately help her search the bodies. Part of me wonders if it's because he does not really accept that Wen Ning is dead. He expects that Wen Ning will answer the call, or that he will pop up somewhere, having been hiding. It's as if he starts searching only when he begins to realize that Wen Ning may actually be dead.

I think what we get between Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian is a bit of a peek into what may have happened if Lan Wangji had been there when Wei Wuxian decided to give up his Golden Core. More likely than not, Lan Wangji would have tried to stop Wei Wuxian from doing it. I can't really imagine him just standing back and saying, "Go ahead. It's your body." Lan Wangji is always thinking one step ahead, always thinking about the consequences--what would it mean down the line?

Lan Wangji, bottom line, doesn't really understand Wei Wuxian yet. He knows him well, yes, possibly better than anyone else, even given that Wen Qing and Wen Ning know about the Golden Core transfer. He doesn't understand how Wei Wuxian feels indebted to the Wens--but it's not even that, I don't think. I think it's a mix of that and just protecting the weak, doing what's right--I think that's why he has to stand up for the Wens here. He sees the injustice going on, and he has to stop it. And recalling the oath that they made that evening, Lan Wangji knows he has to step aside. He knows that Wei Wuxian has to do this--needs to--wants to--even at the expense of giving up his cultivation status, his life, even going against everyone else in the orthodox world. And Lan Wangji lets him go. It's probably the hardest decision he's ever made in his entire life. But he was faced with a choice too: go with or stay behind. Hold onto Wei Wuxian or give him up. Be with him, or never see him again. Indeed, the implication here is that you aren't supposed to talk to Wei Wuxian after this. He's been ostracized of his own doing, he is a rogue, a villain, dangerous, not to be trusted. No one in the civilized cultivation world would have anything to do with him.

Other episodes: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | Or just check out the #CQL Rewatch hashtag

[baoshan-sanren]

Chapter 23

of the wwx emperor au I’m thinking of calling Lan QiRen’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 Part 1 | Chapter 8 Part 2 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 Part 1 | Chapter 15 Part 2 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 Part 1 | Chapter 22 Part 2

The Peach Blossom Pavilion is heavily guarded. 

However, the guards are clearly focused on the outside threats trying to find their way in, not the Emperor attempting to sneak out. Wei WuXian’s hand is warm in WangJi’s, squeezing lightly to signal when they must be still, pulling him along when it is time to move. In the darkness, every stretch of cobblestones looks identical to the next. They cross two courtyards, both pitch black, nothing to distinguish them from one another except the faint scent of chrysanthemums. It is not long before no guards can been seen or heard, but Wei WuXian’s hand is still wrapped around his own, his thumb a hot brand on WangJi’s knuckles.

WangJi remembers that same hand coated in blood. Pressing against the arrow wound. Gracefully extended, so someone else’s fingers may rest lightly on its wrist.  

Somewhere in the Immortal Mountain City, there is boy lying wounded, because he had been willing to give his life up for the Emperor. And for a few moments, WangJi had forgotten that he even exists.

“Nie HuaiSang,” he says softly.

“Recovering. He lost a great deal of blood, but there will be no lasting damage. The assassin has not been caught yet,” Wei WuXian’s voice hardens, “but he will be.”

WangJi is relieved to hear it, but this is not the only reason he had said the Royal Companion’s name. Sneaking past the guards, depending on the pressure of Wei WuXian’s fingers to lead him, he could pretend that such contact was necessary. Now, he feels an imposter, holding on to something that does not belong to him.

Gently, WangJi attempts to disentangle their fingers. Wei WuXian’s grip tightens.

“A-Sang is my brother,” Wei WuXian says, “The rumors you hear, they have their advantage. But there has never been any truth to them.”

“Gossip is forbidden,” WangJi says, his face heating.

He can feel his heart beating in his chest, and his steps suddenly feel lighter, as if some pressing weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

Wei WuXian laughs softly,

“If I were to forbid gossip, the next person to try and assassinate me probably would be A-Sang.”

WangJi is not sure how to respond to such a statement, and Wei WuXian does not give him a chance to try.

He tugs WangJi to a small door, its shape almost indistinguishable from the wall in which it is set. The door appears to be very old, but its hinges do not creak, soundlessly allowing them over a small stone threshold and into a courtyard. Although the plaque above the door had faded with age, it is still legible.

The outside of the Six Fans Pavilion looks forlorn.

The window holes are covered, the courtyard swept clean but depressingly bare. A long time ago, someone had tended its gardens with care. WangJi thinks that the wide planters out front must have once overflown with flowers in full bloom. Now, star jasmine has grown wild and sprawling, smothering every other sign of life.

He expects that the inside of the pavilion has not fared much better. Everything about the peeling paint and fading colors tells a tale of a place that is dusty and forgotten. Instead, the entry is bleak, but clean. The floors seem recently swept. There are no curtains or rugs, no decorations on the walls, no cushions on the seats. Each room looks stripped to its bones, the elaborately carved shelves gaping empty, tables bare, beds nothing but stark skeleton frames.

Wei WuXian leads him through, looking neither left nor right, until they reach a room that shows some signs of use. A few books are piled in the small cubbies behind an old desk. The desk surface is polished but rough, as if it had served more than one owner. The seats have cushions, although they seem old and threadbare. An old bronze brazier sits in center of the small space. Wei WuXian lights a fire with quickness that would suggest he has done this often.

“The Iron Palm Palace can be suffocating sometimes,” he says, and does not elaborate.

He does not need to; WangJi thinks he understands. It is a refuge, this place. WangJi has his own, at Cloud Recesses. He can appreciate the need for a space where one can just breathe in solitude and silence.

“How much do you know about Lan ZhongYi?” Wei WuXian asks, settling on the floor next to the brazier.

WangJi has always had a reflexive reaction to that name. Anger, distaste, guilt, shame.

He lowers himself not too far away, wishing he was properly dressed. Somehow, speaking of Lan ZhongYi would be easier, if he could hide behind the traditional trappings of Sect and clan.

“Lan ZhongYi was a Lan Sect member. Son of my father’s uncle. He was banished from the Sect for improper conduct. Less than a year after his banishment, he assassinated the Empress and the Emperor Consort.”

The words come out stiff and unnatural, a recitation of something memorized long ago.

“I know this is all that the Lan Sect teaches about him,” Wei WuXian says, “but have you never searched for more? Have you never wondered what this improper conduct was? Why he did what he did?”

“No,” WangJi says.

He cannot see what difference it would make.

“Did you know he had married at seventeen?” Wei WuXian says.

The question lands heavily between them.

WangJi did not know. He does not want to know. Why does it matter?

But Wei WuXian goes on unprompted,

“He married a rogue cultivator from the ShangWu Temple. Her name was Xu XiaoYun. This was some years before my mother took the throne, and the Empire had already begun descending into chaos. Most of the great temples were destroyed in the years that followed, never to be rebuilt. The ShangWu Temple was one of them. Xu XiaoYun’s brothers, sisters, teachers, not one of them survived. For years, I have searched for some information about her, hoping for anything, even a word of mouth. But I think her entire life burned in that temple, and there was only Lan ZhongYi left.”

The firelight is playing across Wei WuXian’s face, shifting his expressions from moment to moment. WangJi cannot guess what he is thinking. He cannot guess why this is the story that Wei WuXian thinks WangJi should need to know.

“She was pregnant when YanLing DaoRen killed her,” Wei WuXian says calmly, “on a day he had not even set out to kill anyone at all. It appears to have been a spur of the moment slaughter. There are no records showing what might have set him off in the middle of a peaceful trip through one of the MoLing’s marketplaces. But Xu XiaoYun had been nighthunting in the area.”

Silence falls between them, thick and unyielding. WangJi feels as if he had been given something he did not want, and cannot give back.

He thinks he knows why Wei WuXian has told him this story. Perhaps to the young Emperor who had lost his parents, it is important that Lan ZhongYi be a human being, with purpose, and feelings, and grievances. But WangJi has never wanted to feel pity for this man, whose actions had doomed all the generations of Lan to come.

Lan ZhongYi’s motivations do not excuse his crime.  

“The Empress did not kill her,” he says finally.

“And you did not kill the Empress,” Wei WuXian counters, his voice gentle.

He is right, but he is also wrong. WangJi is too agitated to address how both can be true at the same time.

“The Wen are not hostages here,” Wei WuXian says, slicing the agitation neatly in half.

Before WangJi can adjust to the fact that the previous subject is being abandoned, Wei WuXian is already explaining in a rush, as if afraid that WangJi will refuse to listen.

“After the rebellion, the Sects demanded that Wen RuoHan pay for the lives that were lost. They wanted this payment in blood. Wen RuoHan was to deliver one of his sons for execution, or the Sects were going to burn the Nightless City down, and slaughter every Wen in the Empire. Looking back, compared to the damage YanLing DaoRen had done, and the lives he had destroyed, the Wen rebellion was fairly insignificant. I have often wondered where this viciousness had come from. The Sects will say that their grief over my mother’s death gave it birth, but they seemed to hold little interest in offering support to her son. Perhaps this viciousness was left over from YanLing DaoRen’s reign, just waiting for a more vulnerable target.”

Wei WuXian waves his hand, his eyes locked on the flickering flames,

“It does not matter. Wen RuoHan did not deliver his son. Instead, he delivered fifty-six members of a small subdivision of the Qishan Wen Sect. An entire clan, led by his own thirteen-year old niece, to be slaughtered in exchange.”

WangJi’s stomach turns, propelling bile to his throat.

“My uncle,” Wei WuXian grins humorlessly, “had made a reputation for himself as a holder of no strong opinions, a man who may sway slightly whichever way the wind blew. This reputation helped delay the decision. In the meantime, I placed the Wen in the dungeons, to await their fate.”

“You-- you were going to--“

No other words will come. WangJi cannot ask the question.

He thinks a wrong answer might shatter something he had not yet given name to, something he still does not fully understand, but desperately wants to keep.  

“No,” Wei WuXian says, “I was young, and angry, and more than a little stupid, but I was not going to execute fifty-six people because the Sects demanded it. But I did put them out of my mind. I was twelve years old, sitting on a precarious throne, all of my power just a pretty illusion. There was a list of issues that had to be addressed, and somehow, the Wen would always move to the bottom of that list. This was another one of my uncle’s tactics, although I did not know it for such back then. Delay, delay, delay, and hope they forget. I almost did forget. Many times.”

Wei WuXian flashes him a bitter smile, and WangJi feels his chest tighten. Not so long ago, WangJi had thought his own burden too heavy to carry. He cannot imagine how Wei WeXian must have felt. He cannot imagine how heavy the weight of the Empire must feel to a twelve year old boy.

“They were willing to let me forget,” Wei WuXian says, the bitterness from his smile coloring his voice, “My uncle, the Council, my advisors, not one of them ever bothered to mention that an entire clan cannot forever live in the dungeons, that some decision must be made. If it were not for shijie, they might have lived and died below the palace floors, forgotten by all. She took me to the dungeons. She went among them as if they were family, passing out medicine and food, speaking to Wen Qing as if they had been sisters their entire lives. And then she put A-Yuan in my arms.”

Wei WuXian’s voice falters for the first time.

He shifts slightly, and clears his throat.

“His mother had been among the fifty-six. She had died in childbirth. In the dungeon. While the Emperor sat on his gilded throne, nodding at everything the Council said. I had been the Divine Ruler for a single season, and I had already created an orphan.”

WangJi’s chest squeezes tighter. He wants to reach out, but he had never learned how to offer comfort. Everything he can think to say is woefully inadequate. Every gesture he wishes to offer seems clumsy and awkward.

“And so they became hostages,” Wei WuXian says, fingers now nervously tapping against his knees, “the Sects were told that the fifty-six Wen who can be slaughtered at the slightest provocation were infinitely more valuable than one dead descendent of Wen RuoHan. They were not happy. For some months after, I was certain that another rebellion would take place, and that this one would end the Dynasty for good. Once it became clear that the Sects would do nothing worse than send assassins through my windows and stuff scorpions into my bed, I started to work on their resentment. I did not want the Wen to always carry the stain of that rebellion. I had already grown attached to Wen Qing and her brother, to Granny, to Uncle Four and A-Yuan. I wanted to protect them.”

He moves to face WangJi, his hands now curled tightly in his lap, something in his eyes hinting at desperation.

“I thought I knew resentment. Mine had always been a fleeting thing, so I believed everyone else to be the same. No one had bothered to tell me that removing one target would only exaggerate the other. I spent years trying to shift their perception of the Wen, but never understood the simple fact that your uncle had grasped in a single season of drought. The river must flow somewhere. And all the resentment, no longer flowing to the Wen, had simply shifted to the Lan Sect instead.”    

If not for Wei WuXian’s pained expressions, WangJi would have immediately declared his words to be utter nonsense. WangJi’s burden does not exist because Wei WuXian had placed it on his shoulders. The Lan Sect would have never relinquished its responsibility for the wrongs one of their own had committed, regardless of whether the Emperor had shown them favor or neglect. Even if everyone else in the world were to forget the sin he carries, WangJi would have never been allowed to do the same.

A part of him does wonder if the Emperor’s favor had gone to the Lan Sect instead of the Wen, how many of their circumstances might have been changed for the better? Would it have created a world in which his uncle is still allowed to teach?  A world in which the Lan Sect disciples are allowed into the Immortal Mountain City, to mix among the others? A world in which his brother smiled more often?

But even if this was the case, if he were to take Wei WuXian’s words as absolute truth, and the river of resentment truly must flow somewhere, then better circumstances for the Lan Sect would have meant worse circumstances for the Wen. WangJi would never demand his burden be made less; not even if the cost was a single life of an absolute stranger, not to mention an entire clan of people who had done nothing wrong.

“By the time I realized why the rancor toward the Lan Sect kept growing, even as the resentment against the Wen dwindled, it was too late to turn the tide,” Wei WuXian says miserably, “Trying to stem the flow only seemed to make things worse. Your uncle-- each time I tried to extend a hand, he would slap it out of the way. He does not want my help or favor. He does not trust me to do right by the Lan Sect. And considering that someone has already tried to kill you, and frame the Lan Sect for another assassination, I would not be surprised if he blames me for all of it.”

WangJi struggles for a few moments, trying to find the right words. It does not help that Wei WuXian is much closer now, his face flushed from the brazier, their knees nearly brushing.

“The Lan Sect would not wish to relinquish its burden of responsibility at the cost of others,” WangJi finally says, “and uncle would not blame you for the assassination attempts. He would consider it just another burden that the Lan Sect must carry, one that must be borne with courage and dignity. Uncle is-- proud, and stubborn. He perceives your favor as charity, and each time you imply that he may need this charity, he will only resent you more. There is no need to keep trying.”

“You are saying that there is nothing I can do,” Wei WuXian says, frustration coloring each word.

“You can do whatever you wish,” WangJi says, “You are the Emperor.”

“But he is going to hate me no matter what I do.”

“You are the Emperor,” WangJi says again, “I am sure my uncle is not the only one who hates you.”

Wei WuXian gapes at him, then seems to choke on nothing but air. He bends over, coughing heavily, and struggles for so long that WangJi wonders if he should perhaps try and find him something to drink. Only when he looks back up does WangJi realize that the cough was actually stifled laughter.

“You are something else, Lan Zhan,” he says, “I really like spending time with you.”

WangJi’s heart trips twice, painfully, as if Wei WuXian had reached through his chest and pushed it off course.  

He does not make a conscious decision to stand up, but suddenly, he is on his feet, trembling with a thousand emotions he does not want to acknowledge. Wei WuXian scrambles up as well, his expression startled.

“I must go back,” WangJi says, cursing his voice for wavering.

“Oh,” Wei WuXian says, “Of course. Let me put out the fire, and I will take you back.”

“No need,” WangJi says quickly.

He needs to be alone. He needs to think. Wei WuXian had given him a great deal of information that requires careful examination. 

I really like spending time with you, his mind offers unhelpfully. WangJi feels as if he had pressed his entire face directly to the brazier.

Wei WuXian’s expression seems hesitant now. WangJi desperately wants to see him smile one more time before he leaves.

“Use the door tomorrow,” he says.

“I-- what?”

“Tomorrow,” WangJi says firmly, his heart now beating in his throat, “Do not lounge on the rooftop, or hide in the dark. Come to the door.”

The slow smile that spreads across Wei WuXian’s face is devastating.

WangJi says nothing else. 

He runs.  

[wuxian-vs-wangji]

So like you said, in the show they say flat out that Wei Wuxian didn't die, he was injured by the fall instead and the sacrificing curse used Mo Xuanyu's life force to heal him completely (even his scars other than the four slashes). Why do you think Nie Huaisang kept Wuxian in a coma for so long without trying to heal him?

Hum...

First off, highlighting this ask is about the S-H-O-W (that means *not* the novel)

So just to state it a little more clearly:: In Episode 42(?) when Wuxian unsheathes Suibian in the Jin treasure room, Jin Guangyao says he remembers an old scroll written by Wei Wuxian himself showing a spell in which “a severely injured person can be healed” by someone else’s sacrifice.

Making this change has a cascading effect on the story, since Wei Wuxian does not resurrect into a different body but back into his own (thank god, because we got to keep staring at Xiao Zhan an extra 19 episodes). In general what I think happened is that Huaisang was either instructed by Mingjue to stand in wait or that he just was watching from afar when the Battle of Nightless happened. If anyone understands the dangers of out-of-control resentful energy it is a Nie.

The writing was on the wall, they couldn’t stop Wei Wuxian’s death even if they wanted to. He was going to die sooner or later- by execution, suicide, his own magic destroying him, etc. 

So the Nie- probably unknown to anyone else- were prepared to contain his soul and the resentful energy therein as they do their ancestors. No other sect deals with explosive resentful energy, it was always going to be on the Nie to handle that one (but not in a way the other sects know about because that would risk  exposing the Saber Tombs).

Now, in the NOVEL- putting little clues together- it looks like Wei Wuxian was contained in a Spirit Trapping Pouch, like what Xiao Xingchen’s soul is contained in. He’s bound in some way- no one, not even Wangji, could reach him with any form of spirit inquiry.

So since his body wasn’t destroyed in the SHOW, context clues here say that Huaisang found Wuxian around the same time Jiang Cheng came down the side of the cliff to look for the body. Jiang Cheng has Chenqing at the showdown in Guanyin Temple- so he found the flute. Again, a Nie knows how dangerous resentment is, and they’re EXPERTS at containing spiritual weapons. That Huaisang took Wuxian but didn’t/couldn’t search thoroughly enough to find Chenqing suggests he was rushed.

Wei Wuxian was presumably on death’s door. He burned away the arrow wound to his heart, but I’ll dip to the novel to say that it clarifies that the Stygian Tiger Seal drains Wuxian’s spiritual power VERY quickly. Between that and just how long his attack on Nightless ran, the boy’s batteries were on empty and he probably couldn’t heal a granite belly-flop.

================================

So, Huaisang leaves with Wuxian’s body (probably with Mingjue’s knowledge because Huaisang couldn’t do this all on his own), then what happened? I straddle the line between two schools of thought on this one.

#1 :: Keeping him in a coma was the safest way to contain him

If Huaisang somehow froze Wei Wuxian so that his injuries neither healed nor bled out, it would be like entombing him in his own body. Generations of Nie went insane at the end of their lives and turned into violent rage monsters. Huaisang- and probably Mingjue because, again, you’d need the Clan Leader on board for this- wouldn’t look on Wuxian in the same light as the others because of Nightless. They don’t consider their father/grandfathers/etc. any less because of how their lives ended, they’d understand Wei Wuxian wasn’t the problem, the Yiling Patriarch was.

Wuxian was so lost and so powerful, he was going to be HARD to contain when he died. If that was possible at all. So while they looked for a solution or delayed the inevitable, it is safer to prevent Wei Wuxian’s death at all. If there is a way to freeze someone (that time stop spell Wuxian uses but on a long-term scale), they could pin him at his last breath to buy time.

Then Mingjue disappears, Huaisang keeps Wuxian sealed away, and eventually Mo Xuanyu brings up the sacrificing curse and Huaisang realizes that unleashing Wei Wuxian might be the way forward against Jin Guangyao. 

******* Click HERE for my post arguing that Mo Xuanyu might be the original mastermind (Though “Fatal Journey” rendered some of it moot, the overall logic is still sound)  *******

I also want to note just somewhere in this whole answer that Nie Huaisang seemed supremely confident that Wei Wuxian wasn’t going to go full Yiling Patriarch when he emerged, either because Wangji was nearby with baby Lan or he trusted that Wuxian wasn’t the monster he was painted to be. Either via a friend’s intuition (Huaisang never seemed to really fear him) or perhaps he had someone playing something like Cleansing over his body to make sure he was calming down. IDK, but the boy doesn’t seem worried in the least. He’s even right next door throughout the resurrection and Saber Spirit Attack, not worried about getting away from the crater in case Wuxian goes nuclear again.

OK, back to my answer---

#2 :: Sometimes they just don’t wake up

Xiao Xingchen had no will to live, even trapped in the soul pouch. Wei Wuxian was very much in the same state mentally.

Physically though, it might not have mattered WHAT his mental state was, he was simply too injured to ever regain consciousness on his own. Even if Huaisang tried from Day 1 to heal him, helped re-set bones and stitch his wounds closed, Wei Wuxian’s body was too shattered.

It is possible for someone to simply sustain too many injuries or suffer too great a trauma to wake up from a coma. It happens IRL too. People will even wake up after YEARS in a coma. So Huaisang might not have intentionally kept Wuxian out of it, he may simply have been unable to wake without massive healing work to re-set the body to where it was when it was first injured (like if Wuxian was brain dead).

I will say this theory has a flaw, IDK how fatal it is though:: Jin Ling isn’t dead yet, but Wangji still reaches his soul via Inquiry in the Saber Tombs. So if Huaisang healed Wuxian and just let him lay in a coma undisturbed for 16 years, Lan Wangji should have been able to reach him. I mean, even if it’s hard and the odds of success are terrible, he played Inquiry every single night for 16 years. Even a blind squirrel finds nuts sometimes (unless distance played a factor, or any other protections the Nie had up, which is why I say this may not be a fatal flaw).

===============================

**I do want to make a note about the Sacrificing Curse as a healing tool that wipes out ALL of Wei Wuxian’s injuries. Watch the Doctor Who two-part episode set “The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances” (from Season 1 of the reboot). Sorry, but to make my point I need to spoil the big twist:: The “monster” wreaking havoc on London during the 1940s Blitz is actually a crashed medical ship with healing drones who find a dead child but aren’t programmed to human DNA, so they create terrifying creatures with gas-mask faces because that’s how they think humans are (they save the child, don’t worry).

At the end of the 2nd part, the Doctor reprograms them with human DNA so they burn themselves out healing the individual people and turning them back to normal. There is a line where a physician is approached by a patient who shockingly says her long-missing leg has even grown back.

It is wrong to say the Sacrificing Curse healing all of Wuxian’s injuries- even his scar- is “convenient” (as some people did on a previous post of mine). I think it’s like the drones in the Doctor Who episode- you tell them to heal, they’ll heal abso-fucking-lutely everything that is imperfect or incorrect. Think about it- Wei Wuxian even got a Golden Core out of the deal. The curse used whatever it needed from Mo Xuanyu to heal Wei Wuxian. No exceptions. If he had a PAPERCUT it would treat it as an imperfection no different from a crushed skull. 

A powerful healing spell like that is powerful precisely because it works on a massive scale. Mo Xuanyu was dying to save Wei Wuxian, so he was going to get his money’s worth. Yeah, Wuxian’s burn scar disappears. IDK why that’s so hard for some people to process when they can easily accept that he’s no longer puddle-shaped.

TL;DR:: IDK, but I’ve put a ton of thought into it.

[ibijau]

part 5 of the Nomad Nie AU // On AO3

Huaisang has a surprise for his husband (mild warning for a very brief mention of miscarriage and suicide)

It was hard at first to live with the Nie. Khan Mingjue decided that Lan Xichen would have to work, like everyone else. It sparked something of an argument between the Khan and his brother, which the Khan ultimately won. As soon as the festival ended and the other clans had left, Lan Xichen was sent out to milk animals and gather their droppings as fuel for the fires.

Only children and those of lower rank took care of those chores. Lan Xichen was briefly upset when he realised that, but quickly decided that it wasn't such an unfair situation. He really was like a child when it came to living among the Nie, with still everything to learn. If anyone had a right to complain it was not him but poor Meng Yao, still confined to these lesser tasks even though he had been there for a few years.

Meng Yao did lament plenty at first, clearly hoping to get Lan Xichen on his side. It was a near success, especially since Lan Xichen's spirit was dampened by tiredness and an upset stomach. The food really wasn't agreeing with him, and he wasn't used to such physical work. But the worst passed, eventually. The Nie showed him how to do the work more efficiently, once they got over their initial suspicions against him, and Meng Yao told Huaisang about his husband feeling unwell, so he was given medicine to help him digest while his body adapted to the new diet. 

Huaisang scolded Lan Xichen for not mentioning that he'd been getting sick. It was a surprisingly effective scolding, for all that it happened in Huaisang's broken Hanyu. Even with his lacking vocabulary, he managed to make it quite clear that he didn't want to see his husband die out of something stupid. 

"Well, he did lose a lot of his family to small accidents," Meng Yao told Lan Xichen the next day as they milked the cows. "His father… they say it was a curse, but more likely it was a heart problem, from what Huaisang told me. And he'd lost his mother the year before. Miscarriage, as I understand. She started bleeding one day and didn't stop until both her and the child had died."

Lan Xichen bit his lip, unsure what to answer. He'd lost his mother too young as well, to something adults wouldn't talk about at the time, and which they still avoided mentioning to this day. He'd always suspected either miscarriage or suicide, so knowing that his new husband shared the same loss hit hard. 

"Of course that was all long before I came here," Meng Yao added, "and it's just what I think happened, from what I pieced together. They respect their Khan too much to gossip about his family, and Huaisang isn't very chatty on that particular subject."

"I imagine he wouldn't be," Lan Xichen sighed. He also didn't speak about his mother, after all.

Having finished milking that cow, Lan Xichen stood up and grabbed his bucket to take care of the next one. He was still rather slow at this, but he didn't hate it as much as he initially did. 

"Zichen!" 

Turning to look at his husband, Lan Xichen smiled and bowed slightly to greet Huaisang. 

According to Meng Yao, Huaisang had never been helping around with menial chores as much as he had since marrying Lan Xichen. Certainly, the other Nie always looked a little surprised to see him around animals other than his dear horse. Other young men of his age and rank had the excuse that they were practicing wrestling or mounted archery, but even after over two weeks, Lan Xichen still wasn't sure what Huaisang did all day long when not checking on his husband. He didn't join other men's trainings, didn't go hunting, didn't leave his brother's ger much at all in fact, or only to see Lan Xichen or follow his brother. 

"Zichen busy?" Huaisang asked, as if the half full bucket and the cows around weren't an answer already. 

"A little. Do you want to help?" 

Huaisang shook his head. "Zichen not busy," he announced. "Zichen come see horse."

"But the cows…" 

With an impatient gesture Huaisang cut him off, and ran to say something to the other Nie working there. Lan Xichen felt a little puzzled, but when he turned to look at Meng Yao, his friend smiled knowingly. 

"I suppose the time has come," Meng Yao said, rather unhelpfully. "It took longer than I expected, I suppose Huaisang must have made a very unreasonable demand again… ah, Huaisang !"

Seeing the young man come close again, Meng Yao warmly asked a question in the Nie language which Lan Xichen thought was a request to come along, only for Huaisang to cheerfully shake his head as he answered. Lan Xichen was starting to know Meng Yao enough to notice how tight his smile became at that refusal, but before he could intervene in favour of his friend, Huaisang had forced him to put down his milk bucket and was pulling away. 

"Where are we going?" Lan Xichen asked as they walked together.

"No say," Huaisang brightly replied. "Zichen see. Zichen happy, I know!" 

It was all Lan Xichen could get out of him. Their direction quickly became clear, they were heading toward one of the herds of horses, the same one that Huaisang's horse was a part of. As to the intention it remained obscure, but it had to be something important, because Khan Mingjue was waiting for them. When they reached him, Lan Xichen bowed to the Khan who only crossed his arms, clearly annoyed with whatever was happening. 

Huaisang, for his part, was getting more and more excited, his face illuminated by a large grin. He grabbed both of Lan Xichen's hands, and placed them over his husband's eyes. 

"Zichen no see," he ordered. "Zichen wait." 

A little worried now, Lan Xichen still obeyed. He remained still for a long while, even after he heard Huaisang run away, even when he felt something large approaching him. He couldn't be in any danger, not with Khan Mingjue right there, but he still felt a little nervous. 

"Zichen no see," Huaisang ordered again. 

Lan Xichen nodded and closed his eyes, swallowing nervously. He shivered when Huaisang took one of his hands and directed him to touch something warm, covered in short hair. 

"Zichen see," Huaisang allowed at last. 

It was no surprise for Lan Xichen to find a horse in front of him, but this one was really more beautiful than he would have expected. The animal was as short as the other Nie horses, but its body was a perfect black all over, except for a small sliver of white on its head. 

"It's beautiful," Lan Xichen gasped, patting the animal's neck. 

"Zichen like?" Huaisang asked excitedly. 

"Hm. Good horse. It's beautiful… is it Khan Mingjue's?" 

Next to them, Mingjue huffed dismissively, and Huaisang quickly shook his head with a happy laugh. 

"Zichen like, then Zichen's horse," he explained. "Zichen don't like, Huaisang find good horse, more good. But this, good horse. Strong, fast, run long. Good horse. Good head, good for Zichen. Zichen like ?" 

Lan Xichen nodded immediately. Then, remembering some advice that Meng Yao had given him for when this day would come, he took a moment to think. 

"Can I ride it before I decide? Xichen ride horse?" he tried to say in the Nie tongue. 

It was the right thing to ask. Huaisang looked happy at the demand, and Khan Mingjue's annoyance lessened slightly. Lan Xichen felt proud to have done this right, until about five seconds later when Huaisang moved to help him get on the horse, and he realised he’d have to ride the animal without a bridle or saddle. It was a bit of a struggle to get on, and not exactly comfortable either. At first Lan Xichen worried about the horse throwing him off, but it quickly became apparent that Huaisang had chosen a mild tempered animal for him, probably guessing that he wasn’t the most experienced of riders. Even when the horse started walking, guided by Huaisang, Lan Xichen’s only problem was the mild discomfort of being without a saddle.

“Zichen happy?” Huaisang asked, walking at the horse’s side.

“Very happy. It’s a good horse, thank you.”

“Huaisang good husband,” the younger man proclaimed in a teasing tone. “Huaisang make Zichen happy. Ah! Zichen want, ride horse with Huaisang?” Huaisang suggested, pointing toward the plain, away from the gers.

“I’ll need a saddle then. But I would like that, yes.”

If Lan Xichen had offered him a jade palace, Huaisang couldn’t have looked happier than he was then, simply at the idea of riding together. Because Lan Xichen had been set to work, they hadn’t had that much time together so far, and when they did, either there were others around them, or it was night and Lan Xichen would fall asleep quickly. At first it had been a good arrangement, because Lan Xichen still wasn’t sure how to feel about his marriage and he’d not been feeling very well in general. Now his stomach wasn’t such a constant problem though, and he was able to think more clearly again.

He thought, for example, that Huaisang had been true to his word and had never again tried to kiss him, nor indeed to touch him in any manner. It wasn’t for lack of wanting: sometimes he’d still catch Huaisang looking at him with that same hunger he’d shown on the first two nights, but his husband always looked away if caught like that, and respected the boundaries set by Lan Xichen.

Lan Xichen wanted to see if that respect would remain, should they be completely alone, with no one around who might intervene if there was a problem. And maybe, just maybe, he might have started thinking that he would not mind too much being kissed by Huaisang, when the right time came. They were married after all, so why not enjoy the perks that came with it?

“I ask brother!” Huaisang chirped, his voice so high with excitement that it slightly startled the horse. 

It really was a good animal though, and other than raising its head and huffing, it didn’t do anything. Lan Xichen, half fond of his horse already, patted the side of its neck. He’d call it Shuoyue, he decided, because that sliver of white on its head really looked like the new moon. Maybe the Nie didn’t name their horses, but he wasn’t a Nie, and he liked for things to have a name.

Almost vibrating with joy at the idea of riding together, Huaisang made Shuoyue turn around and walk back toward Mingjue who hadn’t taken his eyes off of them the whole time. The Khan nodded approvingly when hearing that Lan Xichen truly liked the horse, but quickly frowned when his brother started asking for permission to go out with his husband.

“No,” Khan Mingjue snapped.

Huaisang’s smile dropped, and he snapped back at his brother something that Lan Xichen couldn’t quite understand. Utterly unimpressed, the Khan replied in kind, and before long they were having a full blown argument in front of Lan Xichen. He caught his name being mentioned a few times, as well as the words 'dangerous' and 'stupid', both of which he’d learned pretty fast while learning to be around cattle. He also heard the word 'busy' being thrown around by Mingjue a few times when Huaisang, realising that anger wasn’t getting him anywhere, started pleading instead. That new strategy didn’t have any more success than the first. In the end Huaisang, with tears of frustration, lowered his head in obedience, his fists clenched at his sides.

Guessing what that had been about, Lan Xichen got off Shuoyue, awkwardly patting its neck. It was a shame, he thought. Huaisang’s excitement about going for a ride had been contagious, and now he too found himself disappointed. Still, if the Khan refused, he had to have his reasons, so Lan Xichen just accepted it.

“I go cows?” he asked, guessing his break was over.

Huaisang pouted at the question, then glared at his brother. Having won one fight, Khan Mingjue appeared to feel as if it would be too much of a hassle to get into a second one right away. He muttered something which made Huaisang’s smile return triumphantly. Mingjue rolled his eyes, but didn’t insist and left them alone with the horses.

“No cows?” Lan Xichen guessed, still wanting to practice speaking his husband's language.

Huaisang happily nodded. “Not today. You stay with me today. What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know,” Lan Xichen replied, one of the first things he’d learn to say, and one of the most useful ones as well. “Huaisang has…” he hesitated, looking for a word. “Huaisang has want?”

His husband snorted at the question, a touch of colour appearing on his cheeks, and turned away to try and hide his laughter.

“Huaisang has many wants,” Huaisang claimed with a chuckle. “But I can wait. Hm… Xichen worked a lot. You want to rest? We go to the ger, you rest.”

With some embarrassment that he had been getting so tired from doing what was only normal work for the Nie, Lan Xichen nodded. Huaisang expressed no judgement though, and after a few more pats to Shuoyue, they allowed the horse to return to its herd while they headed home.

“Why Khan say no?” Lan Xichen asked as they walked.

“Brother is a…” Huaisang used a word that Lan Xichen didn’t recognise, but could guess wasn’t a compliment. “Brother thinks I’m a baby. You understand, baby?” he asked, miming the gesture of rocking a child in his arms. “Brother thinks I’m a baby, and I’m weak, and I can’t do anything.”

Lan Xichen nodded knowingly. He was like that too with his little brother sometimes, even though Lan Wangji had more than proven that he was a competent young man who could take care of himself. So with Huaisang, who did look rather more frail than other Nie, who didn’t show any interest in the normal occupations of a young man his rank, and with the nomad’s world seeming rather more dangerous than Lan Xichen’s hometown… of course Khan Mingjue would get a little protective

“Huaisang make… make Khan see not baby?” Lan Xichen suggested.

“I’m married, he knows I’m not a baby. He’s just…” what followed was another string of new words, which again Lan Xichen figured weren’t exactly flattering. “I know I’m not strong, but it’s not fair. I don’t like not doing what I want! Just because I’m…”

Huaisang bit his lip in frustration, and stomped his foot on the ground. It really did make him look a little childish, though Lan Xichen kept that opinion to himself. He wasn’t quite sure how old his husband was, partly because Meng Yao didn’t know either, partly because he hadn’t yet learned how to ask that, but it seemed to him that Huaisang was younger than him by a few years. If Lan Xichen had been forced to guess, he’d have said Huaisang was seventeen or eighteen, perhaps nineteen at most, for Lan Xichen's twenty. Being of such a venerable and reasonable age himself, he looked back on his own faraway youth with some embarrassment, and understood that it had to be a difficult period for Huaisang as well.

“I see Huaisang not baby,” Lan Xichen said, hoping that his opinion mattered. “Not weak, not baby. Huaisang learn me, help me, yes?”

That seemed to help somewhat, and by the time they reached the ger, Huaisang’s mood was better again. Since Mingjue was busy elsewhere, it was only the two of them inside for the rest of that day. After resting a moment and watching Huaisang work with leather and repairing some every day items, Lan Xichen eventually asked for a language lesson. Huaisang, of course, easily agreed, and set out to teach him every single insult he knew, which certainly did help expand Lan Xichen’s vocabulary. Lan Xichen did his best to return the favour, and they ended up both giggling as they tried to come up with the most atrocious insults they could think of and then had to make them be understood through elaborate pantomime. They were still laughing when Khan Mingjue returned, and Huaisang took great joy in refusing to share the reason for their hilarity, claiming that it was private marital business.

It was, quite likely, the most fun Lan Xichen had had in many years.

[paradife-loft]

Hi! I absolutely love the meta about NMJ's Empathy memories being unreliable, and it's got me wondering about how his qi deviation and death actually went. Since LXC says he saw the qi deviation (and Fatal Journey says it was in public), what's your take on how JGY got NMJ into his secret room so he and Xue Yang could use the Tiger Seal (and eventually kill him)? Fatal Journey has the Nie sect holding a funeral for him, so presumably NHS had /soneone's/ body to bury, but then in The Untamed LXC later says something like he 'hasn't heard from' NMJ in years and had feared the worst, so things... don't seem to add up? What do you think?

Aaah, okay, so: first off, I’m incredibly sorry it’s taken me so long to answer this, and I nonetheless  very much appreciate your interest in my opinions here <3 If you’re still hanging around/following me/reading my blog, anon, idk how obvious it’s been that I’ve… not been having the best few months brain-wise, but that’s basically all I can offer as an excuse for why this reply is coming so late. Thank you for your patience!

So, okay, I think I’m going to try and tackle this question from a couple different angles. First of all, I think it’s worth looking at the material provided in the contained story of the 50 episodes of The Untamed on its own, to see what that suggests, before bringing in outside or supplemental sources, which is what for this purpose I’d consider spin-off movies, details in other versions of the broader MDZS story material, etc. to be. Also, I want to note upfront that while I do tend to incorporate different details and versions of events from both CQL and MDZS into my personal headcanon, what I write in my fic, etc. because I think they tend to provide interesting possibilities, elaborations, and what-ifs for a broader composite MDZS-adaptation-universe – for the purposes of this post, I’m going to stick to material from The Untamed and Fatal Journey only. Mostly, my reason for that is that there’s a few logistically distinct details of how the qi deviation happens in MDZS compared to CQL – one being, it happens at Qinghe rather than Lanling – that I believe affect the timeline of what Jin Guangyao is doing with Nie Mingjue’s corpse in the first place.

Alright so, in The Untamed alone, the evidence such as we have includes: the Empathy sequence involving the qi deviation in episode 41, and Lan Xichen’s statement in episode 39 recounting that he saw it happen himself at Jinlintai, and that after hearing nothing from/about Nie Mingjue since, he’s been “mentally prepared” - presumably, for the news that he’s dead. What I’m inclined to take from those two pieces of information, is essentially a story like this: NMJ qi deviates, very publically, and at some point while this is happening, he makes a break for it and leaves Jinlintai, and whatever presumably messy trail he leaves in the process ends up going cold for anyone trying to follow, with no NMJ around to be seen. With various factors at Jinlintai invested in retrieving him for attempting to turn him into a controllable fierce corpse, it’s pretty easy to imagine that, besides whatever above-board search party tried to follow him, there would also have been another party closely watching his movements for an opportune moment to slip in and scoop him up to bring him back to the secret treasure room for fierce corpse experimentation – hence why the trail would’ve gone cold.

Now, the actual scene showing the qi deviation itself doesn’t include multiple elements I’m positing or including here – specifically, the presence of a bunch of third parties actually witnessing it, LXC included, and then also the idea that NMJ ever left that one landing at the top of the stairs during the qi deviation at all. But, since we see in other parts of the Empathy sequence that the events shown can be… a bit more impressionistic than accurate; and furthermore since it seems reasonable to posit that the memories of the time when he has a literal break with reality might be even less literally reliable than the rest of them – I think those aspects can be reasonably explained away as that scene portraying more of what the qi deviation felt like from the inside, than what an outside observer would’ve seen. Nie Mingjue’s focus is Jin Guangyao, so Jin Guangyao is all he sees – up until Nie Huaisang breaks through that monomaniacal focus and is seen, finally, as himself.

(If you particularly want to pull out some feelings, I might even suggest the idea that finally seeing a distraught NHS was the thing that pulled NMJ sufficiently out of his rage to be lucid enough to flee – and that he booked it in part because he was terrified and ashamed to possibly hurt his younger brother, whether physically or emotionally by letting him see NMJ in such an awful state.

So then, aside from that: the question of what we see in Fatal Journey. I’ve actually been trying to find an answer about what kinds of mourning customs would be followed or even possible if a family didn’t actually have their loved one’s body on hand to bury, but thusfar my internet searching hasn’t really gotten me any useful information one way or another – if anyone reading has an idea or some good sources to point me to, I’d love to hear them! Everything I’ve read so far seems to very tightly marry the performance of appropriate rites and the presence of a body together.

That said, looking back through the actual funeral scene in Fatal Journey, I also wasn’t able to notice the presence of a coffin anywhere in the set, either? We see a memorial tablet, set up in the front of the throne room at Qinghe, and what looks like a brief shot of some offerings, and NHS stoking the fire, but in the couple brief scenes of the inside of the hall, I don’t think there was a coffin set up there? (Or, for that matter, out in the courtyard which we get a longer look at, either.) Compared to what I at least assume is a coffin with Jin Zixuan’s body inside during the mourning scene in episode 32, I feel like it’s reasonable to guess that, even with Fatal Journey included, whatever mourning rites took place at Qinghe after NMJ’s death, they may simply have not involved a body or a burial at all.

- And actually, now that I’m thinking about it, taking Fatal Journey into consideration overall suggests that it might ultimately be the norm at Qinghe to hold mourning rites without a body present – because per the lore additions in the movie, the Nie sect leaders go down to die on their own at the bottom of the saber tomb, and it sure doesn’t look like anybody had been going down there to retrieve them once they did? So, I don’t know, maybe there’s some sort of symbolic burial of something associated with the sect leader as a Nie custom, to keep things looking a bit more normal and less “we build a tomb for these resentment-filled blade spirits that eat our sect leader’s sanity”, and that’s also what ended up being done for Nie Mingjue?  But, yeah, there’s no real confirmation happening even in the movie that NHS was able to come back with a body to bury, so I don’t think that necessarily contradicts the idea that NMJ could have gone missing during his qi deviation and never been properly recovered for a 100% confirmed death.

(That said, I personally don’t tend to incorporate, oh, most of the specific events or points of lore from Fatal Journey into my own readings on various elements of the story? Like, quite frankly, I don’t really like the movie that much, and I think it opens up a lot more unnecessary character and worldbuilding questions without doing a good job of integrating them back into the rest of The Untamed’s continuity (er, such as it exists XD). So I don’t necessarily have an opinion on whether “the Nie sect generally doesn’t do bodily burials of is clan leaders” is an idea anyone should pick up for The Untamed canon; merely that if you do take the events of Fatal Journey as canon, it certainly seems like it could be a possibility.)

(And again, big, big big disclaimer here that, e.g. if holding any kind of mourning rites without a body present is actually super Not Done, then what I’m saying with this part might be totally moot, and then well…. who knows, there’s plenty of speculation that could be used to cover that gap up – maybe “they never found the body” wasn’t actually widespread knowledge, but rather just information LXC had special access to due to the relationships he had with the people involved? – and some set of people depending on your preferences conspired to get another body to stand in for NMJ’s to allow them to hold a funeral? ….Which honestly sounds incredibly sketchy to me on its own, but considering all the other professionally Yikes-style desecrations of bodies that happen in this story…. who knows? I’m really just tossing out ideas here at this point, not saying I necessarily endorse any of them outside of “I think this could potentially work in some way without being out of character for anybody”.)

Anyway… I hope that answers your question, anon, and is otherwise interesting for everyone else reading? Thank you for the ask, and apologies again for taking so long to respond! <3

[songofclarity]

i hc that nhs went to cloud recesses early bc nhs used to be ahead of the curve in certain areas of academic development (ex. his interests in astronomy and poetry—not anything martial, but cloud recesses is a scholarly place after all), but when he got to cloud recesses he didn’t have his standard structure and without that structure (in true adhd fashion) he kind of fell apart, and then it was easier to own it as “laziness” and make that a personality trait than admit that he really had Tried and Failed (can you tell i’m projecting lmao)

Oho, that's a good headcanon, Anon!

The fan is the sign of the esteemed gentleman, but now you’ve got me also thinking... the most beautiful fidget toy

I like how you specify astronomy and poetry, once again the subjects of a refined gentleman, because by all means he could still be ahead of the curve in those areas! It’s just they’re never talked about because that’s not what he’s at Cloud Recesses to learn. Although I feel like I’m going to completely deviate from your headcanon in a moment, projection is just one way we show our love for characters so keep it up, Anon, you’re doing great!

My understanding is that Cloud Recesses is what was supposed to give him structure. The structure back in the Unclean Realm was likely, “I do whatever I want when Da-ge isn’t looking, and then I do whatever I can to slip away” judging by how he behaves when we finally get to see him in his natural habitat lol

So Cloud Recesses is, practically by it’s definition, structure. And the dilemma I see with measuring Nie HuaiSang’s academic success/intelligence here is that, by what I recall, Cloud Recesses doesn’t teach science or art to these 3-month-long guest students. It’s a cultivation sect and it provides instruction to young cultivators about clan history, clan politics, historical cultivators, etc.:

Lan QiRen’s lessons were not only tediously long, but everything was also tested on. The generational changes of important clans in the cultivation world, the division of their areas of power, famous quotes by famous cultivators, family trees…

Although he didn’t understand a single bit as he listened in class, Nie HuaiSang worked as hard as a slave when the date of the test approached. He copied Virtue two times for Wei WuXian, and begged before the test, “Please, Wei-xiong, if my grade is lower than yi, my brother would really break my legs! Stuff like telling apart direct lineage, collateral lineage, main clan, clan branches… For us disciples from big clans, we can’t even distinguish our relationships with our own relatives, randomly calling everyone who are more than two tiers away from us aunts and uncles. Does anyone have enough capacity in their brain to remember those of other clans?!” (Ch. 14, ERS)

So it’s necessarily that Nie HuaiSang is unintelligent or a bad student but rather the subjects being taught are really... well, boring for someone who prefers science and art! He’s not even lazy about his learning. He still listens in class. It’s just that it all goes in one ear and out the other.

In that way, I’m not sure I see any signs that "he kind of fell apart" when he arrived at Cloud Recesses. From the sound of it, he had the same struggle at home and that didn’t change: he can't memorize the lists of names of these aunts or those famous cultivators, and he can't remember the birthdays of all these cousins or when all these random famous people were born, either.

(The people in his p*rn books begin and end with the shapes drawn on the page! Please don’t make him think too hard about genealogy and politics!)

He’s getting the education he needs, the kind of education he absolutely wasn’t getting at home, and he flounders because it’s a type of learning and thinking he hasn’t been forced to do, and that alone is a struggle to overcome.

Now I’m gonna bring Bloom’s Taxonomy into this because I can, but the school at Cloud Recesses focuses on remembering, understanding, and applying. It explains why Lan WangJi is so unwilling to bend against the rules. They say remember this rule, understand that it is important to live by this rule, and apply this rule to every day life.

Meanwhile analyzing, evaluating, and creating involve taking that information and making it one’s own.

[Disclaimer that Bloom’s Taxonomy is based on Western thought and may or may not have a proper place in a collectivist society like the Fantasy China which MDZS is based on. This is NOT to classify higher order skills as being more intelligent or better than lower order skills. It’s just to describe how much mental manipulation is done to the subject matter. Geniuses on Jeopardy are masters at Remembering! The brain shows physiological changes and develops new neuron pathways regardless of learning method. Nonetheless, for our independent thinkers like Wei WuXian and Nie HuaiSang, this kind of scale seems applicable.]

Consider when Wei WuXian ponders the benefits of demonic cultivation at school. He takes the application of current techniques and the knowledge of the known world and creates something by blending the two. It doesn’t go over well in the classroom:

Another book came flying from Lan QiRen. He spoke harshly, “Then, let me ask you again! How do you make sure that the resentful energy only listens to you and does not harm others?”

Wei WuXian ducked while speaking, “I haven’t thought of it yet!”

Lan QiRen raged, "If you thought of it, the cultivation world would not allow your existence! Get out!" (Ch. 14, ERS)

This is a case in point for no analyzing, evaluating, or creating allowed. It’s sit down, listen, memorize, and obey.

(Note that Demonic cultivation is dangerous to everyone, as we later witness, so Lan QiRen is not wrong to be furious and having no tolerance for this line of thinking. Wei WuXian is literally talking about desecrating people’s graves and bodies and using them as weapons. This is so far out of line with Gusu Lan teaching, but it still deprives Wei WuXian of hypothesizing other ideas with the material he’s being given.)

And, it should be noted, Nie HuaiSang is the only person who not only understands where Wei WuXian is coming from but builds upon it. The same Nie HuaiSang who has to beg Wei WuXian to help him cheat when it comes to clan heritages and family quotes is the one who realizes ANOTHER use for Wei WuXian’s idea all on his own.

Wei WuXian suggests using demonic cultivation to fight evil with evil, resentful energy vs resentful energy.

Nie HuaiSang suggests using demonic cultivation as a possible power source -- for people who don’t have a core:

After thinking for a few moments, an expression of envy and yearning appeared on Nie HuaiSang’s face, “To be honest, Wei-xiong’s words were quite interesting. Spiritual energy can only be obtained through cultivation and taking great pains to form a golden core. It would take I-don’t-know-how-many years to do, especially for someone like me, whose talent seems as if it was gnawed by a dog when I was in my mother’s womb. But, resentful energy are from the fierce ghosts. If they can easily be taken and used, it would be beyond wonderful.” (Ch. 14, ERS)

Nie HuaiSang has analyzed, evaluated, and then created a new place in the world for demonic cultivation. And the notable element is that he thinks in regards to himself.

And despite how this appears, this is not egotism. It falls quite soundly under Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development for Nie HuaiSang’s age group: Identity vs. Role Confusion. Poor, self-deprecating Nie HuaiSang is trying to find his place in the world where his brother won’t yell at him for his grades lol He’ll take whatever help he can get!

(But it’s not Nie HuaiSang who has to put this theory into practice)

I think what I’m trying to get at is that Nie HuaiSang is perfectly intelligent, perfectly active in his learning, but his talent lies outside of cultivation -- and saber practice:

[Nie HuaiSang,] “I can’t learn it means I can’t learn it and I don’t like it means I don’t like it! What’s the use of forcing me?!" (Ch. 49)

And yet we always see him try, until he has to try something else:

Nie HuaiSang also wanted to join in, but he had been reminded of his older brother as he met Lan XiChen. Cringing silently, he didn’t dare to have fun, “I’ll pass and go back so that I can review…” With this act, he hoped that Lan XiChen would put in some good words for him to his brother. (Ch. 16)

“WITH THIS ACT” -- Nie HuaiSang is so sneaky but he’s so obvious about it, I love him. This is the mind that’s going to bring down the Big Bad in the end. Keep up the good work, Nie HuaiSang!

[mewbrilysis]

MDZS Jiang Cheng Character Ending Analysis (Novel/Drama Spoilers) - BY BRI >v<

If I asked you to change the ending of mdzs, without completely impacting the actual plot, by removing one character from the story, who would you choose? Obviously, removing any major character would change the story completely, and removing a character post-reincarnation wouldn’t affect enough to change anything, since most of the cultivational world would still despise and fear Wei Wuxian, which is an important plot point. Nie Huiasang and Mo Xuanyu also carry a major role, since they are the catalysts for the post-reincarnation storyline. So now you may be considering minor characters pre-reincarnation, such as one of the clan leaders or a sibling such as Lan Xichen or Jiang Yanli. These answers, granted, would change the storyline, but they wouldn’t result in much of a better ending, if a good ending at all.

In my opinion, the sole reason mdzs arguably has a very bittersweet ending (one that leaves some readers with a sense of unfulfillment) is: Madame Yu.

The saddest part about the ending of mdzs is arguably the lost friendship between Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian. The story begins with them as brothers and ends with Jiang Cheng being the cause for Wei Wuxian’s death during the siege of Yiling (novel pre-reincarnation ending). One of the things that makes mdzs so captivating is trying to discover why this happened (a plot point the drama highlights more than the novel). Before diving into why Madame Yu impacts this story so much, let’s review some important aspects of Jiang Cheng’s and Wei Wuxian’s character.

Jiang Cheng is born with an older sister and is destined to become a clan leader one day. At a young age, a young boy is adopted by his family and they spark a friendship. However, as they grow up, it is noticeable how different the two are. Wei Wuxian is mischievous and seeks danger and adventure, he doesn’t like listening to rules that he finds too strict or unnecessary, and he has a habit of exploiting qualities people are shy about so he can tease them about it later (good-heartedly, of course, but something that is clearly bound to get him in some trouble). Jiang Cheng, however, is more serious and respectful with a habit of joining Wei Wuxian in causing trouble, after all, he is a teenager (and the Lan Clan rules weren’t going to stop a group of teenage boys, lmao, let’s be honest).

They are obviously very close, something that the Donghua seemed to focus on a bit better than the drama. However, it is also noticeable that he gets treated differently from Wei Wuxian when it comes to punishments. There are several points that explicitly suggest that Wei Wuxian tends to receive lesser punishments from Jiang Fengmian compared to Jiang Cheng (something Madame Yu likes to bring up every argument). Jiang Fengmian also seems to praise Wei Wuxian more than his own son, and seems to compare the two more than he should (such as when he reprimands Jiang Cheng for encouraging Wei Wuxian to think selfishly about his survival rather than the lives of others). And so, Jiang Cheng has something plaguing him: inferiority. It is arguable by some people that he has an inferiority complex; after all, despite being the next clan leader, he is not head disciple and pretty much always falls short of Wei Wuxian.

However, I offer another theory: he hates being humiliated. Yes, a quality that pretty much every person on the face of the planet has. Yes, I am saying this is the underlying cause of why everything else happens.

The reason I say this is because Jiang Cheng doesn’t seem to care that Wei Wuxian succeeds, but rather that he himself doesn’t receive the same recognition when he does something similar. When Wei Wuxian along with Lan Wangji defeated the Tortoise of Slaughter, Jiang Cheng isn’t particularly mad that Wei Wuxian killed the tortoise, but rather his words reflect: 1) worry, and 2) anger at himself. He was mad because Wei Wuxian, someone who he clearly sees as a brother figure, put himself in danger because he wanted to save people, and not just in any danger, but a life-or-death situation. Jiang Cheng makes it clear that he spent days without rest or break running to get help so that he could get back to Wei Wuxian as fast as possible, even while injured from the fights with the Wen Clan, who guarded the outside of the cave and attacked everyone who escaped thanks to Wei Wuxian’s efforts (novel scene); he even passed out the second he found people to help. Yet, when they went to save Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, everyone only praised their valiance in defeating the Tortoise of Slaughter, and Jiang Cheng’s actions were overlooked.

So, why did he get so mad at himself about this? BECAUSE OF HIS HEADASS MOM, DUH, I’VE BEEN LEADING YOU TO THIS CONCLUSION!!

Imagine, you are next in line to be clan leader, yet you aren’t head disciple, and now your mother is breathing down the back of your neck because your father is praising someone who is doing better than you. On top of this, you don’t even have the chance to speak to your father about how you feel upset that he treats you differently, because every time the topic of your father being more strict and less praising of you comes up, your mother takes the reigns and doesn’t give you the chance to speak for yourself. Now, all of a sudden, your mother is yelling at your father, saying he doesn’t love his own son and he prefers your adopted brother, and she is also yelling at your adopted brother because he is better than you, and all this is happening IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES ALL. THE. TIME!!

After putting that into perspective, are we really surprised Jiang Cheng turned out the way he did? This entire ordeal must have been HUMILIATING for him, and you KNOW it happened all the time.

Jiang Cheng grew up with this happening, and Jiang Fengmian was only stricter with him because he was going to be a clan leader, and, granted, we can all acknowledge that Jiang Cheng said some shit that his dad was justified in reprimanding him for (such as the whole thing where he told Wei Wuxian he never should have put the lives of others over himself and their clan). Of course, we should also acknowledge that Jiang Fengmian had his faults, and he should have been stricter with Wei Wuxian. As much as we all love this mischievous boi, he was the head disciple of the Jiang Clan and was far too undisciplined and unruly for the position he represented, especially while he was a disciple at Gusu and during the Archery Competition hosted by the Wen Clan (novel scene). And for real, the shit he told Lan Qiren when he asked about why Wei Wuxian was like this, this boy really replied, “It’s just the way he has always been.” That type of response wouldn’t even pass in modern era!

Of course, after all this, Jiang Cheng was going to hold some resentment for Wei Wuxian.

However, the real kicker is Madame Yu’s final words before she sends Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian away… THE WOMAN TAKES A GOOD FEW MINUTES TO JUST STRAIGHT UP YELL AT WEI WUXIAN AND BLAME HIM FOR EVERYTHING!! LIKE WTF!! Look, I’m sorry, MAAM, but the Wens were kind of trying to take over the entire cultivational world, I promise you that Wei Wuxian’s existence affected that all of zero percent. She said that he was the cause for the fall of Lotus Pier, but let’s consider how, oh yeah, LITERALLY EVERY CLAN WITHIN 100+ MILES OR SOMETHING OF THE WEN CLAN WERE INVADED AND FORCED INTO SUBMISSION NOT THAT LONG AFTER; THEY WERE GONNA DO THIS NO MATTER WHAT!! Sure, the Wens may have decided to go after Lotus Pier a bit early because they hated Wei Wuxian, but it’s not as if him not being there was going to stop any of this…? They literally went after GusuLan first, I don’t understand how Wei Wuxian can be faulted for any of this.

But, of course, Jiang Cheng is not here to listen to reason, he just lost both his parents, and years of lowkey (highkey) verbal abuse finally caught up, especially since some of his mother’s last words were blaming Wei Wuxian for everything. This is the start of our downhill slope.

I would like to take a moment and review how Jiang Cheng really received no closure with his father. His father died before Jiang Cheng ever got the chance to speak for himself and just communicate with him, and after all the arguments his mother had with him, it is clear that Jiang Cheng will always carry a part of him that believes his father didn’t truly love him.

But this is something the reader can view as misjudgment. His mother seemed to use Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian as a way to argue with Jiang Fengmian, and in Jiang Cheng’s eyes, this may be viewed as his mother standing up for him; however, looking at this as a whole, the situation isn’t so straight-forward. Quite honestly, it is hard to even tell whether Madame Yu loved Jiang Cheng, or whether she just wanted a reason to argue with Jiang Fengmian. There are points in the story that say Madame Yu ‘forced’ (I use this term loosely, but this is the term the rumors seemed to hover around) Jiang Fengmian into a marriage, and this may be her way of consistently reminding him that “You can’t leave, you have a child to raise.” If anyone has the inferiority complex, I think it can be argued that Madame Yu likely has a slight case of it. BUT! The point is that Jiang Cheng viewed his mother as “the only one on his side,” in a sense, even his own sister fought tooth and nail to be able to see Wei Wuxian even when he was shunned by the cultivational world.

Now, Wei Wuxian doesn’t exactly help his case when he turns down the path of demonic cultivation.

We all know the reason he did it, and many may argue that Jiang Cheng is a fool for thinking for even a moment that BaoShan Sanran could return his golden core, let me remind you of this:

BaoShan Sanran is very mysterious, no one really knows anything about her other than that she has reached “Enlightenment” (a term derived from Buddhism to describe someone who has found the truth of life and no longer is reborn). She is described in the book to be viewed as “immortal” and once a disciple leaves her mountain, they are forbidden from returning. The only people who know anything about BaoShan Sanran are the disciples, and even the ones that have left the mountain don’t spread much information on her. So, in essence, everyone just knows she is powerful and not to mess with her. So, please, excuse Jiang Cheng for having even a shrivel of hope. I am positive that, in his mind, being able to ‘re-grow’ your golden core was just as possible as being able to ‘trade’ you golden core (both of which he believed to be outside the realm of possibility, so yeah, both sounded insane, but he had hope, and no one suggested that ‘trading’ was even an option, so ‘re-growing’ was already mind-boggling).  So, Jiang Cheng is happy because he has his golden core back, but when he goes searching for his brother, the man is gone and no where to be found for three full months, and when he does reappear, he is using demonic cultivation and is more closed-off.

Jiang Cheng has gone through the literal worst whiplash of emotions in his life: his parents and entire sect were all brutally slaughtered; he lost his golden core; he got his golden core back, but his brother was no where to be found; his brother is back, but he is using demonic cultivation and won’t discuss the reason with him.

Now, this is where the past ‘abuse’ catches up with Jiang Cheng. He has now been forced into a leadership position in the middle of a war, and now the war is over, but his brother is still…yeah. But now, the other clans are talking and saying that he should be reprimanding Wei Wuxian, but no matter how he tries, the man doesn’t listen to him. This is, no doubt, HUMILIATING for Jiang Cheng, especially when all the other clans are constantly saying he needs to take action against Wei Wuxian because the man was becoming ‘too arrogant’ and etc. When Wei Wuxian finally stands up for the remaining Wens, Jiang Cheng is so humiliated that he didn’t want to stand up for his brother because he knew he would be shunned the same if he stood by Wei Wuxian’s side, especially since it would be as an ally and not the leader in this movement. This is the ‘herd mentality,’ in which the few vocal people in the room speak up for an argument, creating a big fuss, and even though the majority actually agrees for the other side of the argument, everyone remains quiet against this front, making it seem (and, in term, making them believe) that they are the minority and should just stay quiet. It was obvious that the Lans, Nies, and Jiangs all didn’t agree with how the Wens were being treated, but with how loud the Jin clan and co. were, they didn’t want to say anything, especially when they were all still weak and rebuilding after the war. Then, the clans started encouraging Jiang Cheng to go and act against Wei Wuxian and, fueled by the humiliation of not being able to control his subordinate, that’s exactly what he did.

I would also like to point out that Jiang Cheng only ever listened to the information the other clans were feeding him in regards to Wei Wuxian, he never actually knew what was true like we, the readers, do.

AND NOW, this is why I say Madame Yu has ruined Jiang Cheng. Let’s say that she had died a year prior to the entire war. Jiang Cheng wouldn’t have her final words in his head blaming Wei Wuxian for everything; he likely would have been able to reconnect with his father and speak for himself; he would have grown closer to Wei Wuxian without his mother breathing down his neck and would go a full year without hearing an argument about why he was inferior to Wei Wuxian.

In every story, there is a ‘climax.’ In a long story like this, there can be many ‘climaxes’ especially when it comes to different characters. A climax is defined as ‘the point in the story where one decision can change the course of the rest of the book,’ or ‘the decision that alters the ending,’ as my AP English Literature teacher defines it. For Jiang Cheng, the point in the book that alters his ending is the moment he decides to trust the clans over his brother, something that makes him so clearly different from Jiang Yanli.

Yanli never stops believing in Wei Wuxian, even to her dying breath she cared for him and believed he was good. This is from the perspective of someone who literally only knew what was going on based on hearsay, never seeing Wei Wuxian and speaking with him about this. She just knew nothing was as it was told.

I truly believe that if Madame Yu had fucked off a cliff or something before the war, Jiang Cheng could’ve been just like Yanli and would have sat down and given Wei Wuxian a chance to explain his side of the story. He may have even fought alongside Wei Wuxian, because now he wouldn’t be worried about “glory” like his mother egged him to believe, but rather, he would believe more in his father’s belief that they should stand for “justice” for all people. Wei Wuxian likely would have still died, but maybe seeing the Jiang Clan fight alongside Wei Wuxian could have inspired the Lan Clan or Nie Clan to also stand with them. Imagine THAT ending, an ending in which Wei Wuxian stood alongside his brother to fight for the innocent, allying with the Lan Clan and Nie Clan against the Jin Clan, and then they win and Wei Wuxian wouldn’t have even had to die and he could’ve just gotten married to Lan Wangji right then and there and save us all the angst 200k fanfiction. LMAO, I actually think Jiang Cheng might’ve still kept his mouth shut in front of the clans, but lowkey stood up for him, and then maybe Wei Wuxian would die a different way, not by Jiang Cheng’s hand. Then he would return and everything would go as usual, but this time :((((((( Jiang Cheng is happy to see him :((((((((( and he raised Jin Ling :(((((((( like Lan Wangji raised Lan Sizhui (yeah, I think the Wens would encourage him to train him under GusuLan) :((((((((( and Jin Ling would be happy to see Wei Wuxian :((((((( and so would Lan Sizhui because he would already know he is a Wen and was raised a bit by Wei Wuxian :(((((((((( and happily ever after ;-;

You can argue that this is a reach, but I don’t think it is at all. Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (novel author) created a character that was so terrible, she single-handedly ruined the ending for her own son.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Spilled Pearls

- Chapter 29 - ao3 -

“In the future, you should send your children to the Cloud Recesses for me to teach,” Lan Qiren said. He was sitting with Wen Ruohan on one of the rooftop gardens in the Nightless City, watching the moon and stars from a pavilion placed there for that purpose; their bodies were pressed close together, and it felt as if they were far away from all the things that were familiar. “You and Lao Nie both, and naturally I’ll come visit with you often as well, bringing my nephew. Between the three of us, we might even be able to teach them how to be proper human beings.”

Wen Ruohan laughed in his ear and pressed his lips to his cheek – he had taken to kissing him at random, spontaneous, as if still overwhelmed by the fact that he now had the right to do it.

“I will,” he promised. “I agree, I think they’ll turn out better that way…you would really have me educate your precious little A-Huan?”

“If I’m willing to entrust myself with you, why not him? Anyway, I can teach him music, and with the aid of the other teachers in my sect the sword in the Lan sect style, but you can teach him much more than that. You know how to look at the world and see it for what it is, and then bend it to your will, make it sing to your tune. He’ll be sect leader in the future; he needs to learn that, and you can teach it to him.”

“I can, and I will,” Wen Ruohan said, then thought for a moment and asked, “What does Lao Nie bring to the table?”

“Flexibility, mostly.”

Wen Ruohan barked out a laugh. “He certainly has that.”

He didn’t even sound bitter about it any more.

Lan Qiren smiled.

“In the meantime, I will handle the rest of it,” Wen Ruohan added, and Lan Qiren looked at him in silent question. “Come now, Qiren. Did you really think that I would allow you to remain caged in the Cloud Recesses your whole life?”

Lan Qiren paused. That was the sorest part of his heart, his most painful misery, but he didn’t think Wen Ruohan would bring it up casually. If anything, he was a bit more afraid of what Wen Ruohan might get into his head to do about it – there was very little Wen Ruohan wouldn’t dare.

“Da-ge –” he started warily.

“No, no,” Wen Ruohan said, lightly scolding. “Little Lan, be serious! I already rejected the opportunity to cage you here at the Nightless City, playing only for me, despite how much I longed to do so. I refused to do it – me, refusing myself – because I knew it would only make you sad. Do you really think I would allow other people a privilege that I have denied myself?”

Lan Qiren did not laugh, but he dearly wanted to. It might be the first time he’d ever wanted to laugh about his situation – not even Cangse Sanren had managed that. “Has anyone told you that you are extremely self-absorbed?” he asked instead. “Arrogance is forbidden. Do not be haughty and complacent.”

Wen Ruohan smirked back at him. “All true, little Lan, but don’t forget your favorite: Do not tell lies.”

Self-absorbed, narcissistic and arrogant, Lan Qiren concluded, and there was no helping it. It was clearly a terminal case.

He used his sleeve to hide his laughter.

“What are you planning, exactly?” he asked once he had recovered. “If you harm my sect, whether directly or indirectly by denying them my services, I would be even more upset than if you tried to lock me away in here.”

Wen Ruohan waved a hand dismissively. “Do you think me so incapable? I have already begun making arrangements. Discussion conferences may only be once or twice a year, being as they are tremendously irritating to arrange, but there’s no reason that we of the Great Sects should not recognize our greater duty towards the smaller sects, and not to mention our obligations to protect the mortal world –��

“You know that it exists, then?”

Wen Ruohan ignored him. “The resources of cultivation clans are limited, and the world large. There are many places which would benefit from aid that do not see any simply because they are far away or tucked in inconvenient places, and no sect lives nearby – naturally, it is our duty to fight evil no matter where it is encountered. Lao Nie has already agreed that it is critical that the sect leaders demonstrate our sincerity by fulfilling this duty in person, leading by example.”

Lan Qiren’s heart had already felt as if it were overflowing with warmth, and it felt even more so now, almost squeezed to pain by how much joy was there. More than he had known he could contain.

Bad luck in brothers, he thought to himself - but oh, he had such good luck in friends!

“I see,” he said, thankful that his usual neutral tone concealed how happy he felt. “And naturally, where you and Lao Nie go, Sect Leader Jin cannot be far behind in his eagerness not to lose out, and where three of the five Great Sects lead, naturally the rest cannot be far behind. So I, too, will be obligated to...what? Go out on night-hunts in inconvenient places?”

“The world is too large, and the number of cultivators too few – and at any rate, there’s no point in setting up a full night-hunt which draws in every person from a thousand li for a few paltry fierce corpses or a ghost or two. I propose, instead, that we would send cultivators out alone, in pairs or in small groups, to wander for a few months through the remote places in the world and clean them up. Then, at the next discussion conference, the Great Sects could jointly agree that whoever was most enterprising would receive a reward, and naturally, stories of various exploits could be exchanged – ”

“Ah. Another reason for young men and women to gather and boast of improbable exploits.”

“Think of it as giving them more opportunities to win glory,” Wen Ruohan said. “And stop talking down about ‘young men’; you are a young man. Naturally you are also qualified to go out to do such things. Required, even: if our Great Sects do not set a proper example, who will?”

“Mm. A proper example. Even if I coincidentally happen to spend more time playing music than hunting demons?”

Wen Ruohan’s eyes were bright. “Even so. And naturally, you could always bring along someone more powerful to do the demon-hunting for you…”

“How convenient.”

Wen Ruohan smirked. “Do you doubt that I will be able to make it happen, little Lan?”

“No,” Lan Qiren said, then added, honestly: “I think you could take over the world if you wished.”

“Naturally! But it would be quite irritating, I think, if I had to also ensure that both you and Lao Nie did not disapprove of my methods…” He paused, lips twitching. “By coincidence, while we’re discussing convenience, I was thinking that it would be dangerous to send all those wild and reckless young men out there without proper support. Surely it would be only reasonable to set up a few convenient places here and there, not so far away, to provide them with supplies and a place to rest and recover –”

Convenient places that would fly the Wen sect’s flag and spread its influence, Lan Qiren presumed. Lanling Jin would be furious – using wealth to buy influence was their favorite technique, and they resented other people copying it – and would immediately insist on establishing their own set of “supply stations”, and then the rest of them would have to catch up and make their own. Yet another expense, and the Great Sects would need to do more than most; it would probably wreck havoc with the Lan sect’s annual budget.

On the other hand, well the remote parts of the world really did need the help. One of the Lan sect’s newly recruited guest disciples had been talking about a place not far from his hometown that specialized in making coffin goods; it was, according to him, the most inauspicious place that could possibly be imagined…

Not a place anyone might want to go, unless they truly were intent on traveling.

Lan Qiren smiled once again. He thought he might never stop smiling.

“Indeed,” he said, trying to sound dry and rational. “Very coincidental. No one will doubt that this is nothing but a scheme to expand your reach and power, rather than any personal motive.”

Wen Ruohan did not answer, but instead, matching a smile of his own to Lan Qiren’s, pressed his lips against Lan Qiren’s once more.

After a little while of silence, Lan Qiren cleared his throat and asked, “Do you intend to tell people?”

He was not referring to Wen Ruohan’s plans for the future.

Wen Ruohan understood.

“In time,” he said. “As much as I would love to shout that you are mine and I am yours from the rooftops and perhaps have bulletins be posted to every town -”

Lan Qiren grimaced. It would be one thing if he thought Wen Ruohan was exaggerating for romantic effect, but unfortunately it would be just like him to engage in that level of over-the-top grandstanding.

“– but your position is not yet certain, and my reputation is too questionable. People would make assumptions and spread malicious gossip, and I – I would not harm you to please myself.”

“Sweet-talker.”

“It’s not sweet-talking when it’s true,” Wen Ruohan protested, although he was chuckling. “When you are more renowned as a teacher than a sect leader, when little A-Huan is old enough to have passed the worst stretches of childhood – then we will announce it, and let the rest of the world choke on it if they like. You, me, Lao Nie…hmm. Jin Guangshan will probably think we’re concealing a conspiracy and ask to join in.”

Lan Qiren gagged. “I refuse,” he said. “I don’t care if I’m not physically involved, neither you nor Lao Nie are allowed to even think about it. That man has visited so many prostitutes that one might be forgiven for thinking he believes that the road to immortality is paved with venereal disease.”

“…thank you, that was an image I did not require.” A pause. “Jiang Fengmian –”

“Remember when he punched me in the face in a fight over a girl I didn’t even want?”

“It wasn’t a serious suggestion.” Wen Ruohan chuckled once more and pressed another kiss to his cheek. “Some years ago now, I swore to your Cangse Sanren that I would do right by you. I ought to invite her here and show her that I’ve made good on it.”

“You haven’t made good on it.”

“I haven’t?”

“No. Such a promise is fulfilled through the keeping – if you want to do right by me, there is no one singular moment that would qualify, but rather a continuing obligation.” Lan Qiren smiled up at him. “I’m sorry, da-ge. You’ll have to continue to do right by me for the rest of our lives.”

“I will,” Wen Ruohan said, and smiled back. “It would be my pleasure.”

-END-

[xiyao-feels]

For the meme, LXC?

How I feel about this character: Oh god, I love him so much. So so much. He's truly fantastic!!! He's intelligent and competent, and...kind, not just in the way of having the impulse to kindness but he's /competent/ at it. He's considerate!!! He's certainly willing to kill, but especially given his society he's quite astonishingly—well, he's one of the only characters I think wouldn't kill for revenge. He thinks JGY is completely fantastic (correctly!!!) and really, honestly respects him; he supports him and consistently wants—to give him more resources, basically? To help JGY be the person he wants to be!!! He must have thrown his political weight into the watchtower project, considering, and I think it really mattered to him—I think there is a way in which he cares about, like, random people that JGY doesn't really (even as JGY has more actual relationships), but the numbers and the scale matter to him too! And he really understands that in shitty situations sometimes you don't have any good options!! He's an incredibly competent clan leader, he's a supportive and dedicated older brother, and he's a wonderful partner to JGY—in general, but especially given the contrast of the rest of their society!!! I don't even mean romantic here—obviously I do think they were in love, but whatever else you want to say, they were absolutely partners, and for each other in a way neither was with anyone else. God, I love him.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: JGY!! They really are absolutely special to each other, and they care about each other in a way neither does for anyone else—I mean, I think LXC cares about LWJ as much/more, but it's in a very different way, and that's the only other contender, for him. And even then it's like—well, if he had to pick whose life to save, it would be LWJ, but if he were picking who to see every day and he had free choice, it would be JGY. Really and truly, no one else compares.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: LWJ! As above, it's the only other relationship that's important to him on the same scale as his relationship with JGY (both of which stand out significantly among his already very small pool of actual personal relationships).

My unpopular opinion about this character: I think even pro-xiyao people often underestimate the degree to which he /agrees/ with JGY's opinions/choices? Like, sometimes, yes, he definitely thinks JGY acted understandably but incorrectly—you can see this when NMJ tells him about MY killing the Nie captain, and I think you can see some of that even in his reaction to JGY talking about how his dad behaved...but sometimes he just agrees with him. Like, people talk about him being in denial about JGY having done awful shit with the Wen, but:

“MingJue-xiong, he was undercover in Qishan, and sometimes there would be some things that… could not have been helped. When he was doing these things, in his heart he was also…”

He really does know. And for example, I don't think there's anything that suggests he doesn't /agree/ with JGY's assessment that he had to kill the Nie cultivators? Or when they're talking about what JGY did, in the temple, he explicitly agrees that JGY had no choice but to marry QS. That's not actually the same thing as thinks JGY made an understandable mistake, you know?

Even when it comes to killing XY—iirc, the only thing LXC says that suggests he thinks JGY should actually do that is this last part of what he says to NMJ at the stairs: "For the time being, let us not force him with too much assertion. I trust that he knows what he should do, as long as we give him some more time." And I mean—one, that's remarkably unspecific (what /should/ he do, exactly?), and two, it's part of what he's saying to NMJ to calm him down from homicidal fury. I don't think he's lying, but he's certainly capable of carefully shaping what he says. Like—I'm sure he doesn't want XY to go free! But he doesn't think that JGY dying to kill him is a good trade, or one that JGY should be forced to make, and he gets that that's pretty much the trade on offer.

I think because LXC was never in similar positions himself, and because there are definitely times he thinks JGY acted understandably but wrongly, people underestimate the degree to which he agrees with JGY? But he really does actually, honestly, seem to agree with JGY some of the time—not that he acted understandably but incorrectly, but that he actually /agrees/ that JGY didn't have a choice.

(also I think people lean way too far into the idea that LXC didn't realize that JGY had done terrible things, but that's a separate opinion.)

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I don't actually want to change the ending—it would be too much of a different story, I think, and thematically the fact that it ends the way it does is very important!! hmmm. I do wish we were able to see more of him and his relationship with JGY during the timeskip, especially after JGY became Jin-zongzhu!! I think people, entirely understandably, tend to focus on the parts of their relationship we actually see, but there are so many years—so many very important years, to their relationship!!!—where we don't see them at all. I would really love to have more of a look at what those years were like, for them.

[huanglaoshu]

I’ve been thinking about the Jiang Cheng/Jingyi ship. I look at it and go, “this should work” but I’ve been bouncing off a lot of the stories that have been written for it. Not sure why. The last one I think was because Jingyi was hero-worshiping Jiang Cheng and then embarrassed himself and I hate, hate, hate second-hand embarrassment and run away.

Anyway, the age difference makes it a little bit of a challenge. Jingyi is Sizhui’s age and Jiang Cheng is what, 20? when Sizhui is 4, so 16 year age difference. And then I remembered what other story has a 16 year age difference between love interests.

May I present: Emma AU

Emma -- Lan Jingyi

Mr. Knightley -- Jiang Cheng

And then we need their family members

Mr. Woodhouse -- Lan Qiren (he is now Jingyi’s dad, had him late)

Isabella (Emma’s sister) -- Lan Wangji (he can still be Jingyi’s cousin)

Mr. John Knightley -- Wei Wuxian (they’re off in London -- Yiling? Doing cleansing rituals? Only come by for New Year’s?)

I had a little trouble figuring out where to put the rest of the juniors. First I thought they could be Miss Taylor, Jane Fairfax and Harriet Smith, but then I disliked that I would have to pair each of them with someone random. But Sizhui is OBVIOUSLY Jingyi’s best friend since childhood, and Ouyang Zizhen really makes sense as the horribly, dramatically romantic one, so....

Miss Taylor/Mrs. Weston -- Lan Sizhui

Harriet Smith -- Ouyang Zizhen

Robert Martin -- Jin Ling (he goes to Jiang Cheng for advice! Probably not still his nephew, but maybe)

Then we need a Jane Fairfax/Frank Churchill with Mr. Weston as his dad. At this point I was going, why are all you people related to each other, where do I get some unrelated people?? And decided:

Mr. Weston -- Nie Mingjue (Sizhui is his second spouse)

Frank Churchill -- Nie Huaisang (okay so Nie Mingjue married into the Nie Clan and then his wife dies and the clan is like, okay thanks for the kid, we’ll keep him, you go do your thing, you can visit whenever, and now Huaisang is in the junior generation, also he lives way far north most of the time, it works!) (I think he’s probably a good Frank Churchill -- charming, lazy, tricky)

Jane Farifax -- Lan Xichen (no longer related to Wangji, mostly because I like Sangcheng and Xisang and Jiang Cheng is taken -- but I think it works! Jingyi would hate how very perfect Xichen is because it rubs his face in how not perfect he is)

And now we just round out the cast. I am not attached to any of these.

Mrs. Bates -- Song Lan (doesn’t talk much, is poorer than the rest of the cast)

Miss Bates -- Xiao Xingchen (can’t separate him from Song Lan)

Mr. Elton -- Su She (because of who I picked for Mrs. Elton)

Mrs. Elton -- Jin Guangyao (because she’s like, oh, I will adopt poor dear Jane Fairfax and completely get on her nerves, and I enjoyed imagining JGY & LXC in that relationship)

I could also pick Mr. Elton based on who it would make sense to be wooing OYZZ and LJY. Like A-Qing! Then I’d have to pick someone nice for Mrs. Elton, A-Qing deserves nice things.

If anyone has different suggestions of who maps onto who, I’d love to hear it.

I’m not sure if I want to write this or not. But I did want to share!

[bloodgarnet]

MDZS Original Mystery Fic Idea

So I came up with this idea for a mystery plot since I was so impressed with all the fic until I read the novel and realised most of it was just minor alterations on canon :/// (still impressive though). I got pretty far in the outline before I realised it would need a lot of minor character interactions and cultural knowledge which I respectively can’t be bothered with and don’t know shit about lol. The premise was also meant to have a lot of happy trolling WWX but most of the scenes turned out pretty serious… There’s probably a 99% chance I’m never going to write this so posting it publicly as free real estate.

Tags: Case Fic, Memory Alteration, Mystery, Plot Heavy, Romance, True Love

Title: Fortune’s Memory OR One Thousand Worries (*from Chinese proverbs)

Summary: Wei Wuxian successfully manages to convince everyone that he is Mo Xuanyu… through absolutely no merit of his own.

Prologue: WWX reflects after his resurrection that even if MXY forgot to state his wishes, he still did a pretty good job—after all, with a totally untested ritual from the branch of cultivation that he invented, who knows how many things could have gone wrong. /foreboding

WWX’s wrist held by LWJ as JC and he argue. Unexpectedly, JC says this is giving him a headache and decides to leave (jin ling says you too, uncle? JC like you ARE my headache, child). LWJ says WWX is coming with him to gusu but WWX argues it and says he doesn’t want to go to such a place with LWJ, whose eyes go cloudy and he suddenly releases WWX, confused. They part ways, but WWX wonders what the heck just happened—unexpectedly lucky! He’s still interested in all the weird things happening though and decides to meet up with wen ning elsewhere.

Meanwhile, LWJ inexplicably feels a profound sense of loss.

JC goes back to Yunmeng with Jin Ling and has trouble remembering things. He tries to recall the culprit of the ghost general incident but can’t picture his face. He tries to scold jin ling but can’t remember what for; jin ling also has trouble remembering. He tells jin ling to go to his room and if he wants sympathy, go to his mother for that. Jin ling freezes and says what are you even talking about. Jiang Cheng blacks out as jin ling screams.

Lan Xichen talks to Jin Guangyao about how both Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang have come down with a mysterious illness which affects their memory—possibly a targeted curse at clan leaders, though perhaps a small smattering of rogue cultivators have also been affected. Sadly, it has even affected the Jin heir, Jin Ling, though his is a bit better. JGY reflects since it’s the opposite way, it can’t be the strength of his golden core but rather maybe his youth that makes him resistant as some spells operate that way. LXC thanks him for the advice and worries that LWJ was recently in contact with JC and JL. JGY comments that these unexpected events are the most dangerous.

WWX meets up with wen ning and they discuss what to do: he frees wen ning from chains and needles and says he could go live life if he wants, but WWX is interested in the ghost arm incident. They get wen ning a disguise and hear from locals that nie huaisang and JC have come down sick. WWX frowns and wonders about the current political climate, who knows how many people would want to take down the sect leaders. Then he hears that LWJ is possibly also ill and feels really bad about it for some reason—that’s what makes him decide to investigate himself, putting this over the ghost arm incident. Wen ning asks how to do that and WWX says they need information now more than anything—they must prepare for the upcoming conference which will discuss what is happening.

JGY attends the conference and notices a strange bird outside. He’s seconds away from touching it when LXC calls him and it flies off. They go inside and discuss the potential epidemic; LXC confesses LWJ seems to show preliminary signs but Clarity seems to be helping him remain stable for now. They discuss it’s potential as a contagious epidemic and agree to have healers share findings as well as a group of famed Lan healers (?) visit the other sects with a small entourage in order to compare patients directly. JGY notes that this subject has totally eclipsed the issue of the ghost hand, which tried to escape Gusu Lan but was caught at the barrier with no casualties but many injuries. Also JC has woken and has a clean slate memory and just seems to be much happier??? They decide to keep the whole thing quiet from the public for now to prevent panicking. Conference ends with JGY accidentally revealing that he’s forgotten something important, so he’s infected too, to LXC’s shock. The bird flies away.

Wwx discusses the situation with wen ning at a restaurant (where wen ning is like thank god my tastebuds are dead lol). Wwx says that the situation is bad but not killing anyone so far which is good. Explains to wen ning that the healers probably know this but it can’t be an epidemic because it hasn’t spread enough; it’s far more likely a targeted attack since it’s really only affecting important people. Lan Sizhui and Jingyi enter the restaurant and WWX hides his face by faceplanting in his noodles lol. WWX and wen ning eavesdrop on their plans to escort the healers back from Nie territory to Gusu Lan, noting that LWJ may have gotten worse in the time they were gone. WWX worries and decides he needs to steal a jade token, but for now they have a convenient target for a little spy.

Sizhui and Jingyi report to LXC with the healers who explain that it IS contagious, a qi transmitted virus, but only from the carrier—likely only one since it hasn’t spread far: so it must be someone who has come into contact with all of the people affected fairly recently. Also it seems like an imbalance of energies causing qi deviation. Sizhui reflects this will be hard since the victims don’t remember anything. LXC says that’s somewhere to start, though, and gets disciples/servants to fetch LWJ from seclusion since it’s not contagious. LWJ joins (sizhui happy!) and says that his illness has not progressed at all. LWJ says that the number of potential carriers is too many but to retrace his steps he might as well seek out the rest of the ghost hand’s body as the hand has conveniently pointed in that direction. Sizhui and Jingyi volunteer to go with him along with some other junior disciples; justification that it can be a low-stress learning exercise if nothing else(?) which is what LWJ was doing originally. Then takes out his sword and strikes down the hidden bird which was trying to steal his token – LXC marvels that LWJ broke a rule (no killing) but LWJ says the bird was already dead.

WWX says, “Shit.” WWX talks to wen ning and says that chasing the hand’s body now is dangerous since LWJ will be there—he wants to investigate the victims too in case there’s a demonic element but has an inexplicable bad feeling. Laughs off concerns about memory because his has always been bad. WWX says that his expertise in this area is lacking though and what they really need is a healer who knows about demonic cultivation and wouldn’t run on sight… oh. Wen Ning is like I mean. WWX like would she kill us?? Hmm. They head to Yiling Burial Mounds.

Dead bird makes everyone realise it’s related to demonic cultivation

Filler scene…? Maybe LWJ POV? Tiger seal? Body parts?

Sizhui and Jingyi realise that someone LWJ met right before this happened (along with JL and JC) is MXY, so they should find him!

Wwx and wen ning arrive at the burial mounds and talk while wwx makes chenqing 2 (joke that’s a JC name! But I can’t think of one now lol). He uses it to summon wen qing with inquiry and ask her about it. She says it’s hard to say but given that no one’s died, it may not even be intentional, maybe just a side effect or symptom of something else. WWX says since there’s no change in political power. It does weaken the sects affected temporarily but a widespread attack like this isn’t so good tactically so it could fit. Wen Qing says she’d need to examine a victim herself but would need a body for that and hers is long gone. WWX like wait you would be okay with me getting yours back? Also idk how to do that?? He explains the ritual he used to come back and she frowns. WWX like to accomplish what you suggest would need more power than I currently have in this body… perhaps by repurposing the tiger seal???

And this is where I stopped because I legit can’t remember what happened to the tiger seal at this point in canon. Probably something about Xue Yang but I skipped over his chapters because I wasn’t interested lol. Since there wasn’t really a point to bringing Wen Qing back, I imagine their plan fails but it brings them into the fold with the other characters, and she stays a ghost and has a tearful goodbye with WN at some point near the end or something. Also having to figure out exactly how the whole Nie Mingjue thing would fall apart with both Nie Huaisang and JGY incapacitated, as well as the whole Qin Su thing... blah. Wanted to change the dead bird thing since I was annoyed at myself for copying a fandom trope but couldn’t think of anything better.

Basically the points I wanted to reach were:

Sizhui and Jingyi note that the spell reveals your ‘true colours’ lol

WWX is eventually caught and interrogation reveals that he also has the virus even tho he has a very weak golden core and they realise he must be a demonic cultivator; some pity because he seems so happy without memories of abuse (his happy antics are even kind of familiar... hmm)

Full clarification that WWX is the virus carrier: it’s a golden core imbalance caused by the imperfect resurrection which infectiously causes qi deviation for people who come into contact with his demonic cultivation and triggered by emotional upheaval which is why JC gets the full thing IMMEDIATELY lol

WWX was trolling at first but then actually DOES forget everything (caused by something with LWJ? Maybe a gay panic lol), but still knows his shit and explains that if it’s an imbalance then the opposing yang/yin energy must be demonic in nature so they should just huff a demonic seal or something lol

^ political statement that demonic cultivation isn’t evil, just ~opposite~

Jin Ling has recovered a bit and says he will talk to MXY but is like wait that’s… not him?? like yes I know he forgot everything but it’s really, really Not Him???

Interrogation of JGY’s spotty memory leads to deduction of what scrolls of WWX’s MXY learnt—body sacrifice and summoning

The cure is demonic energy + confessing your sins and being happy you fucks

And then like the one scene I actually had in mind when I wrote this: WWX confused but yelling MXY is not my name!!! And LWJ, on the brink of forgetting everything, still says, “Wei Ying,” recognising him immediately despite everything. Much shock, so drama.