#also it's not like he was choosing to give these things to qin su INSTEAD of to lxc because all marriage AU fics aside

[thatswhatsushesaid]

tags via @inappropriatewenning and @poorlittleyaoyao

I am kind of torn between "they never find out" and "they never marry" being the better "Jin Guangyao ultimate good life" option because the thing is. I do think he really, really, very very much wants to get married and have a respectable and respected heterosexual, 2.5 kids a dog and a white picket fence. And I also do think that he and Qin Su were stupidly in love. I just can't see him taking the risk of forcing his dad's hand on something this big otherwise. He has to want it badly enough to not only have premarital sex but be willing to expose that to his father and his father's best friend. As much as I also think he and Lan Xichen should be able to be happy together, I don't see Jin Guangyao being happy in a version of the story where he can't get married, and I don't think another person like Qin Su, who truly does not think less of him because of his background and is willing to fight for him, is going to be easy to find. Idk. That's part of what is so tragic. He gets everything he wanted and it's awful, and there isn't a way it could have been better, because he never had any control over why it was this way, and it all happened before he even showed up. Idk.

[bewareof12metersfrogs]

MDZS Nie Bros + Nieyao reincarnation AU where NHS is the only one who remembers their past life BUT it' romantic comedy instead of angst

So hear me out. They get reincarnated but NHS somehow is the only one who remembers their past life (maybe because he felt guilty? Because of his hatred? His desire to become NMJ's little brother again but better? His desire to protect his bro? Idk u choose), and he's determined to protect NMJ. It starts with dreams and then visions since he was a kid. The bros are gonna have a bigger age gap than in canon because of reasons and also tiny angry NHS is adorable. So instead of 5-6 years older than NHS, NMJ is like 8-12 years older. Maybe NMJ and MY/JGY can have a smaller age gap? Idk suit yourself.

Cue adorable little NHS going "NO! DAGE CAN'T GO!" and clinging onto his bro's entire body everytime he tries to go anywhere. After a few years, he remembers most of it but still in pieces--and it makes him absolutely loathe the short dimpled man clothed in gold who played cursed music for his dage (maybe he only remembers the face, the clothes, the music, and not the name? Idk).

But boy oh boy does life already have a short, sweet, smiling, music playing, golden loving, dimpled surprise for him.

Enters Meng Yao! (or maybe Jin Guangyao or even Jin Ziyao).

They meet somewhere, through Lan Xichen like in canon maybe? In college? At some coffee shop or store? I don't know but they meet somewhere and, like, are instantly attracted to each other because their bodies and souls are literally bound together inside a coffin for like a century. So yeah, they meet, talk, and after several exchanges of shy glances, awkward flirting from Mingjue, offerings (flowers, cakes, exotic and healthy treats for Baxia the cat and little trinkets for Huaisang, fancy dinner which means fancy meat) from Meng Yao, even more (slightly less) awkward flirting, and so many delicious lunches (which Mingjue absolutely makes with love and care) together, Nie Mingjue is ready to introduce his new bf to his little bro.

The big day comes and Mingjue tells Huaisang that they're gonna have a nice dinner together with his new bf. After preparing everything and sitting down, Meng Yao rings the bell and Huaisang answers it and--

All hell breaks loose :)

Huaisang screams ("YOU! HOW DARE YOU COME HERE! HOW DARE YOU TOUCH MY DAGE AFTER YOU KILLED AND DISMEMBERED AND BETRAYED HIM!") and tries to attack Meng Yao. Mingjue is horrified and also extremely confused. Meng Yao is mostly confused and only a bit scared because what's this tiny kid gonna do? Bite him?

Yes.

After a lot of screaming, crying, scratching, and biting, Mingjue can finally free his bf from the vicious clutch of his little brother. Dinner is officially ruined and Meng Yao is officially awed. Just, how can something so tiny contain so much energy and hatred? Also he falls deeper in love with Mingjue after watching him gently calming his little bro down and Mingjue falls deeper in love with Meng Yao after watching how gently he treats his demon spawn of a brother. So Huaisang's anger only "worsens" the situation.

After that, the comedic "little brother tries to sabotage his elder brother's relationship" part starts. Huaisang tries everything, from attacking and trying to murder Meng Yao (which he mistakes as playing and bonding, which is totally a normal thing to do between a normal child and their normal future sibling in law) to crying and begging Mingjue to dump his "stupid evil murderer boyfriend". Alas, Huaisang is a child and Meng Yao is scarily smart at picking and giving offerings (mostly because he's determined to marry the big brother so the little brother has to at least tolerate him).

After a lot of candies, paints, pretty fans, bird miniatures, an actual bird (prolly a cockatiel), going out to parks and petting zoos and whatever fun places that kids like, Nie Huaisang eventually starts to tolerate him (Mingjue's treats and heart-to-heart convos with him also help a lot). So, the "learning to forgive and move on to be able to build a new life" part starts.

It'll be comedic. It'll be wholesome. Maybe it'll be angsty cause nie bros and nieyao you know BUT it will have a happy ending. They're gonna have their happy ending.

(Wangxian still exists in the background, having playdates and petting bunnies. Jiang Cheng is still trying to kill Wei Wuxian but it's all platonic and full of love. Wen Ning is a gentle cutie and is trying to mediate between them. The elder siblings + Mian Mian (cause she's essentially Jin Zixuan's nanny + elder sister) have a group chat and are constanly sending pics of their baby bros and having a little "which little bro is the cutest?" competition with Mian Mian as the jury (Wen Qing and Nie Mingjue are odddly competitive). Nie Zonghui exists and is the bros' cool distant cousin cuz I love him. Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan have a plant store together and are living happily and several years later, they're gonna meet their daughter A-Qing. Jin Zixuan is less of an asshole but he still has negative game and he's trying his best. He and Jiang Yanli love each other so much. Mo Xuanyu, Qin Su, Meng Yao, and Jin Zixuan go out together every Saturday (I call this "Weekly F*ck Jin Guangshan Party"). Nie Mingjue, Lan Xichen, Jiang Yanli, Wen Qing, Mian Mian, and Qin Su (+ Song Lan probably) are bffs cause they rock and I love them so much. They're all happy.)

Also, the real star is Baxia the Monstrous Maine Coon, the only cast member with a braincell.

[perkynurples]

... May I ask you about the slow excruciating progression from Meng Yao to Jiggy?

also paging @holdmycaffeine and @cadencekismet, who asked me for the very same, and @acutebird-fics, who is my partner in crime deep philosophical discussions about these characters, and a great deal of this messy essay is informed by those

Tl;dr: JGY is a multifaceted character and the author struggles not to lose her mind trying to find the right words to describe that. Literally every single point of this rant is up for discussion, begging for it even, so please don’t hesitate to engage me, but, like... tomorrow, maybe. After I sleep it off.

Meta I used or referenced: THIS ONE explaining how JGS deciding to give him the name GuangYao is all kinds of wrong | THIS ONE talking about the red bindi-like Jin forehead dots, among other things | THIS ONE about his capacity for evil and his own recognition thereof

-

Alright, without any fancy preamble, here goes. Honestly, whenever I think about JGY for more than three seconds, it becomes painfully evident that there are two wolves inside me at all times - one wants to spend tens of thousands of words exploring his narrative, his choices, his abilities and his failings, his capacity for violence as well as his capacity for love...

And the other one just likes to call him a gremlin in chief in a fancy hat, and doesn’t want to go much further than that. I’m going to try and feed them both.

The thing that pisses me off about Meng Yao is just. The fact that he doesn’t stay Meng Yao, and we get to watch it happen in slow motion. You get a tiny little twink-ass kid who suddenly finds himself adopted into the Nie by the Sect Leader himself, and this is Meng Yao, the son of one of Jin Guangshan’s many mistresses, who doesn’t have a whole lot going for him aside from that, at that moment - his cultivation, weak. His opportunities, nonexistent. His dick, small. His political savvy, only just starting to show itself.

And this guy gets the chance of a lifetime presented to him on a Qinghe-silver platter. Like, we can argue about book canon and try and decide if he did anything at all to make NMJ notice him, but show canon makes it all the more hilarious (again, please refer to this gem of a post for a level of humor I’m sorely incapable of) - you’re seventeen, and the Batman of the cultivation world picks you up and elevates your status across swathes of societal norms, to a level you previously could have only dreamed of.

It’s interesting to me to try and imagine if this was the moment that Meant Something - in the grand scope of things, of course it did, because it started MY on the road to JGY, but also to Meng Yao personally, in terms of what he believed he could comfortably achieve. I do not for a second believe he started out wanting to murder people to reach his goal, or that he even had a good goal to begin with - being accepted by his father, maybe. Murdering the (at the time) greatest villain in the world, becoming a renowned spy, landing an incredibly beneficial sworn brotherhood, et cetera et cetera? I mean, the kid has wet dreams, but no way do they reach this far at this point in his life.

But so many things about him are unclear. Show canon changes his timeline, in that he met NMJ before he met Lan Xichen, and even accompanied NHS to the Cloud Recesses. Either way, his stint with the Nie is incredibly personally important to him. I firmly believe he loved and admired them, in his own way. He certainly flourished under NMJ’s tutelage and approval, but in the end, his motivations, his entire raison d’etre, clashed with NMJ’s too much. To Meng Yao, who’d gotten kicked down those infamous Koi Tower stairs for daring to ask for his father’s attention, murdering a guy for slandering him and his mother was a natural outcome of being slandered his entire life, and finally having had enough - to NMJ, it was unforgivable.

But this still isn’t where Meng Yao becomes Jin Guangyao, and it begs the goddamn question - how much of what JGY was perfectly willing and capable of doing to stay in power, had been present in Meng Yao that entire time? You see him make excuses that someone who isn’t NMJ, with his incredibly staunch morals and black-and-white view of the world, might have even accepted, but instinctively, you know - making excuses is just how it’s going to be with this guy.

Because Meng Yao, as well as Jin Guangyao, lies, and he is damn good at it. He is so good at it, that he lies his way to the very top of the Wen, all the way to Wen Ruohan’s side. His lying is what enables him to become Jin Guangyao. And like any good liar, he doesn’t only lie to the people around him - he also lies to himself.

And I can’t blame him, because - been there. Lying to yourself becomes absolutely necessary, when you want to keep everyone else around you believing in a mask you wear. You need to start believing it, at least a little bit, at least sometimes, for it to work.

At this point, you’re probably wondering - but Annie, what about the time he spent a year sheltering Lan Xichen? Did he lie then? Was he not just Meng Yao, a poor but cunning bookkeeper, then? I’m getting there, I swear. Slowly and in a roundabout sort of way, because honestly, I don’t know how I can start talking about the LXC of it all, without it turning into a novel.

Because whichever way you twist it, whatever canon you choose to follow, one constant remains - A-Yao’s feelings for Lan Xichen. I’m deliberately not calling him Meng Yao or Jin Guangyao, because it’s these feelings that divide the two, but also ultimately unify them, fatally so. But we’ll get there.

In one version of events, Meng Yao travels to Cloud Recesses at the behest of NMJ, and falls in love with a statue made of jade there. In another version of events, they meet during something LXC only describes as ‘the shame of a lifetime’. Both of those events lead to Meng Yao sheltering LXC, hiding him, saving his life and those precious Gusu Lan texts.

Whatever version of events you choose to see as the right one, one other truth also remains - Lan Xichen offers freely and without asking that which Meng Yao has had to struggle to attain, that which has been denied to him time and time again, based only on the circumstances of his birth: respect. Lan Xichen never looks down on him, never brings up his origins, and instead extends him respect and dignity in a way only he is capable of - no fucking wonder Meng Yao admires him. No fucking wonder, when this amazing guy, this perfect pristine handsome number one young cultivator, looks at him, smiles at him, and actually sees him, son of a whore or not.

No fucking wonder Meng Yao loves him, and Jin Guangyao continues loving him. No fucking wonder he never means to hurt him, but does so anyway.

But here’s the thing - lying to yourself to make things work only gets you so far. Do I think Meng Yao spends restless nights in cold sweat dreading who he’s becoming, thinking about all the lives he’s taken to further his goals? Absolutely not. Do I think he does good things, often even great things, because it helps him feel better about himself? Do I think he both loves Xichen and keeps him around because it’s beneficial to him, having the Lan Sect Leader in his pocket, but also personally speaking, having someone who so firmly believes in the goodness in him? You bet your overly adorned murderhat I do.

And frankly, reducing Jin Guangyao to one or the other - coldblooded murderer or a man plagued by his own insecurities, helpless and trying to be kind in a world that’s so evidently against him - is doing a character like him a huge disservice. You have to consider all sides, if you want to truly understand him. Hell, I myself am by no means claiming to truly understand him! He pisses me off daily, and I’m writing this stream-consciousness-y thing because he simply won’t shut up in my head.

This kid makes Choices, and here’s the catch - he doesn’t regret a whole lot of them. If anything, I’d like to think he regrets going along with his father’s plans for so fucking long before finally realizing that avenue won’t bring him what he seeks. Killing Jin Guangshan, by the way? Very sexy of him, that I’ll admit. Guy was a pig.

But even the obviously Good Choices he makes? Building those damn watchtowers? Letting Mo Xuanyu stay at Koi Tower? Seating Qin Su by his side at that same throne where his shitty father entertained concubine after concubine? (Frankly, please make up your own mind as to whether he was lying or telling the truth about learning about Qin Su being his sister before or after they’d consummated their marriage, I’m choosing to believe that he hadn’t known.)

How much of it really happens out of the goodness of his own heart, and how much of it happens because he wants to improve his own reputation, kintsugi away the minuscule cracks in his own image until he’s once again a perfect picture of Jin gold? Is he himself even capable of telling the difference, recognizing where his good intentions end and his desire to look out for number one begins? When you spend so much time crafting your own perfect mask, in your own head as well as others’, the lines blur real fast.

I think ultimately, he craves respect as much as he does pity, and those two never mesh well - the cultivation world never truly accepts him, his father certainly never truly accepts him, but Jin Guangyao is not Wei Wuxian, he can’t just look at all of these perceived injustices and slights, all of this gossip and slander, and say ‘Whatever’. No, Meng Yao takes one look at the world standing against him so very vehemently, and decides to fight it, fight tooth and nail for his place in it, until he comes out Jin Guangyao on the other side, gilded and pristine, ascending the stairs of Jinlintai to exact his revenge on anyone who dares not accept him.

The Guanyin Temple, in a way, is a perfect little vignette of his character - we observe him wildly oscillating between seeking out the aforementioned respect and pity, confessing boldly and laughing loudly one second, and pleading on his knees and clutching onto Lan Xichen’s robe the next. To him, that night, and everything leading up to it, is a series of footholds - the ground begins crumbling under his feet when he learns of the letter, and he has to act fast. 

He buys himself time, excuse after excuse, thinking on his feet, and here’s the thing - he’s not necessarily the best at that. Anymore. Up until that point, until the letter and Qin Su and WWX turning up, everything is going according to plan, and his plan at this point is, frankly, correct me if I’m wrong, sitting pretty at the top of his golden tower and making sure the truth about him never comes to light, which... Well, we all know the truth has a nasty way of coming around when it’s least convenient for you. 

And I think Jin Guangyao (not Meng Yao) is, at that point, unused to being inconvenienced. Everything he ever does, he calculates, he twists the public opinion of himself, he twists individual people’s opinions of himself, to suit him - nothing unexpected ever happens anymore, because he’s played the game long enough to foresee most things. Nie Huaisang beats him at that same game, not because he has a huge plan spanning decades of his own, but because he’s good at improvising, kicking the hornet’s nest and then knowing where to direct the fallout - but that is another essay all of its own waiting to happen.

For now, I feel like I need to wrap this up before I lose my mind. Personally (and please feel free to challenge me on this any time), I don’t feel like there’s a single defining moment, or even a handful of them, traumatic or otherwise, that irrevocably turns Meng Yao into Jin Guangyao. Sure, being kicked down the literal stairs leading to a better place for you a handful of times will have you feeling some kind of way. Sure, serving a maniacal warlord while playing an impossibly high-stakes game of spy poker will leave a mark or two. Sure, your sworn brother spitting in your face the very insults you’ve been hearing your whole life and never learned to shake off, will make one more vestige of patience inside you irrevocably crumble to smithereens. But.

Your whole life, you work very, very hard. You know to put your head down and get your hands dirty, but you also know that sometimes, the best way out of a hairy situation is turning on those puppy eyes and appearing just a smidgen weaker, a smidgen more frightened and helpless, than you actually are. And if, when you actually tell the truth and people still don’t believe you, lying becomes easier, becomes, eventually, so easy it feels as natural as breathing? Well. Might as well use that particular skillset to sneak your way through a war, am I right? Might as well use it to build yourself a nest among the very vultures who resent you, and whom you resent, and make sure that they have to respect you.

In the end, to me? Jin Guangyao is the guy who jumps from person to person, from callout to very personal callout, there in the Guanyin Temple, just to stall for time, just to regain some sort of foothold in the situation - he’s the guy who probably views losing an arm as a necessary sacrifice, shakes it off and still gets to work from there.

Meng Yao is the guy who wants to take his mother with, and who asks Lan Xichen the one question he’s dreaded knowing the answer to his entire life - not ‘will you stay and die with me?’, but the one that hides beyond that.

Is this what devotion is? Respect? Love? Is there, at this moment in time, enough of all of those things in your heart that you will, in fact, stay and die with me?

When Lan Xichen says yes, without words but still loudly enough to be understood without a doubt, Meng Yao is relieved, while Jin Guangyao is vindicated.

When Lan Xichen says yes, neither version of A-Yao needs to hear any more than that - the seventeen-year-old boy shooting a shot way above his station and loving a statue made of jade, who wants Lan Xichen to survive, and the man wearing the wrong name and the title of the first Chief Cultivator of his generation, who wants Lan Xichen to live with the weight of all his mistakes and misgivings, are both, for once, in accord. They’re both happy, and they both make that final push to save him.

In conclusion, if there even is one to this jumble of random thoughts... Jin Guangyao and Meng Yao are one and the same. Aspects of one can be found in the other, but neither feels remorse about his choices. Both of them, in turn, are capable of amazing things. Both of them are, in fact, capable of decidedly horrible things. One builds a wall around the other so thick, so impenetrable, you only catch glimpses, and only the ones he allows you to see. One learns very quickly that vulnerability is dangerous, unless employed proactively, and the other one perfects the craft.

Both of them believe they are perfectly justified in their actions. Both of them believe their own line of reasoning, their own excuses. Both of them want to be loved, for very different reasons, or for the very same ones, at the end of the day.

Both of them aspire to greatness, Meng Yao some vague idea of it instilled in him by his mother teaching him to believe his own worth, Jin Guangyao a more concrete vision of it, always one step ahead, one step higher up those gilded stairs. Both of them are willing to excuse a whole lot to reach it, too.

And when Jin Guangyao finally stands in Koi Tower, properly this time, wearing that coveted golden peony, wearing that red zhushazhi and a much nicer version of the hat his mother always told him to wear, but also wearing the wrong fucking name, one that barely gives him a spot in the family he belongs to by blood?

All he needs to do is take one look in the mirror to see Meng Yao staring back, always there with him, always ready to remind him where he came from. He’s seventeen years old, and he just buried his mother, and somewhere out there, the rest of his life awaits. His smile is all dimples, and that, too, they have in common.

Time to get to work, Meng Yao suggests, and Jin Guangyao agrees.

[mercyandmagic]

Hi, mercyandmagic thank you for answering my asks... :D

Don't know if you remember, but I've asked before of your top 5 fav mxtx characters, and you've answered yours. If you don't mind me asking, can I ask you, why you like those characters (in a longer asnwer)? Sorry, if I ask you similar question again......

Yessss. This gonna be long. We’ll start from 5th and work our way to #1. 

5. Wei Wuxian

First, there’s just something incredibly refreshing about an untamed (ahem) character who says the thing everyone thinks but won’t dare say. It is my second-favorite character trope (We’ll get to the first). Plus, he has a great sense of justice and a self-sacrificing spirit... and yet he is capable of great cruelty, sadism, and hurting others to vent his pain (Nightless City, Wen Chao). Believe it or not, the fact that he has done great evil he cannot undo makes me love him more... because he knows it.  

In Chapter 68, when he’s confronted, he doesn’t deny killing Fang Mengchen’s parents, nor taking Yi Weichun’s leg. He doesn’t show anger at their valid pain; he merely points out that nothing he can do now will undo the damage he caused. 

He also has a low tolerance for BS and a high level of empathy. The fact that he scoffs at the cultivators gossiping against Jin Guangyao, the fact that he isn’t happy they have a new scapegoat, speaks a lot. Plus, he can easily understand why the Hook Hand’s final victim needs to scream (Ch. 124), why Jin Guangyao spared Sisi (Ch. 111) and made the Guanyin Temple (Ch. 110), why Nie Huaisang doesn’t want to admit what he did (Ch. 110), etc. Wei Wuxian is just great.

4. Qin Su

She deserves far more appreciation than she gets. She was involved in the Sunshot Campaign. When society judged Jin Guangyao and Meng Shi for their status, Qin Su never did. She loved the man who saved her life. She was willful enough to be the pursuer in her relationship with Jin Guangyao (Ch. 47), and was open to sleeping with him to ascertain their marriage (Ch. 106). She’s naive and trusting, despite losing her son. She’s loyal AF even to Bicao, even though Bicao literally sold her out for jewelry (ahem, Ch. 85). 

Qin Su. only has a short side role in the larger novel, but she’s a fully developed human.  That’s incredible.

3. Lan Wangji

I relate to Lan Wangji more than any of the other characters. Not being able to communicate, or being afraid to – relatable. Plus, having grown up fundamentalist Christian, I find the way in which Lan Wangji’s stubborn rule-following gives way to a willingness to break the rules when it does no harm or helps those he loves... inspiring. Like, he goes from having himself beaten for being pulled outside the Cloud Recesses (something this scrupulosity-sufferer relates to very well) to giving Wei Wuxian the Emperor’s Smile hidden in the Jingshi (Ch. 65).  

If I may add, I read MDZS around the same time I watched GOT Season 8. There’s a similarity in how Wei Wuxian and Daenerys Targaryen have murderous breakdowns after losing everything and everyone close to them. And yet instead of putting Wei Wuxian down like a dog (side eyes Jon Snow), Lan Wangji takes him away, tries to save him, still believes he is capable of good. In his own words, he’s “willing to bear all of the consequences with [Wei Wuxian].” Lan Wangji believes in redemption, in chance after chance. He’s refreshing in a world that believes one deed can stain you forever. I love him.

2. Lan Xichen

He’s just... good? Like, really good? He has to balance leading a clan with a society that is very Not Good, and this definitely leads to some gray points (The Wens, saying nothing in support of Mianmian, etc). But he, like Qin Su, refuses to judge people for origins. He always has to see the good in others – as Ch. 105 says, ��whenever he heard there might be hidden reasons, he just had to hear it.” Lan Xichen wants to know and sympathize with everyone’s reasons. That’s just... wonderful. 

It’s notable that his whereabouts for the First Siege of the Burial Mounds are unknown. Lan Qiren led the Gusu Lan Clan, not Lan Xichen (Ch. 68). Which makes me speculate that while he thought Wei Wuxian was done for, he couldn’t bear to participate in killing the man his brother loved.   

He’s a touch avoidant, as seen when he tells Wei Wuxian he does not want to know why his mother killed his father’s teacher (Ch. 64). (I will also defend him agains the charges that he was wrong to try to reconcile Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao – they were his friends and Lan Xichen believed in them. Those two made their own choices, and it was Not Lan Xichen’s Fault). 

Anyhow, he’s good. And he loves Jin Guangyao. I know MXTX said she did not write a romance with them, and I don’t think they ever would have cheated on Qin Su. But that does not diminish that Lan Xichen’s seclusion at the end of the novel, is described as “exactly reversed” from when Lan Wangji was mourning Wei Wuxian (Ch. 114).  

1. Jin Guangyao

My favorite character. trope, the sneaky bastard with daddy issues! What makes Jin Guangyao stand out even among all my favorite sneaky bastards is that... his actions are so very gray that IMO he’s not even really a villain.

For real, what did Jin Guangyao do? Kill his brother who tried to kill him first and was slowly losing his grip on reality and hurting him and Nie Huaisang anyways? (Ch. 49, 50) It was still wrong – and I firmly believe that the motivation was payback for ‘son of a prostitute,’  (as Wei Wuxian suggests, Ch. 104) and not safety – but my point remains. (Plus there’s the implication that Jin Guangshan willed it, too). (Ch. 106).

Married his lover after discovering she was his sister to keep her from being an unwed mother? (Ch. 106) In that situation, I wish he had told Qin Su so she could choose, too, but I fail to find anything condemnable in Jin Guangyao’s actions there. 

Furthermore, when writing “Sentiment” and now “Sunlit Jade,” what I’ve been struck by is that most of his misdeeds end with killing Jin Guangshan. 

The possible exception is Jin Rusong (and since our main source for the idea of cold-blooded filicide and framing of an innocent clan leader is Clan Leader Yao, I am highly skeptical). And Xue Yang remaining alive, but again, we don’t know if Jin Guangyao chose to let him go with a warning/beating severe enough to disable his leg, or if Jin Guangyao truly meant to kill him (I favor the former position, but it’s open for interpretation).

Now, how Jin Guangyao kills and the fact that he does kill his father is wrong. Burning the brothel? Wrong, though I understand his hatred of that place and the people there. Killing the He Clan? Wrong, but 1) it’s on his father’s orders, and 2) he has a rather intriguing reaction when Xue Yang shuts He Su in alive with the corpses. (Ch. 118). 

He looks for something to “comfort” himself. 

This is strange, because he’s previously been a torturer (Ch. 47). What is more torture to him? 

I don’t know the answer, but it speaks to someone who suffers a lot, who did a lot of terrible things in pursuit of a love from his father that never came. And someone who, once he gains power in the position of Chief Cultivator, implements a program to save more commoners’ lives than ever before (Ch. 42).

That’s not the action of a villain.

[Sidenote, and based off a comment that wryhun on AO3 once left me: What I love the most about Jin Guangyao, and MDZS as a whole, is depending on the perspective you take, anyone can be an antagonist or a protagonist.

Jiang Cheng can be Wei Wuxian’s tsundere shidi (reader perspective), or he can be the serial killer of demonic cultivators who refuses to help commoners with spirits unless people have already died (Innkeeper’s perspective, Ch. 92).

Nie Huaisang can be the avenging didi (often a fan’s perspective), or the person who treated the juniors like fodder, killed cats, and sliced up a woman’s body just for revenge (Wei Wuxian’s perspective in Ch. 110, Jin Guangyao’s perspective in Ch. 108).]  

Jin Guangyao is an antagonist because his goals conflict with Wei Wuxian’s. But he’s really no worse than many of the other characters, and in fact, while all have suffered, he’s arguably suffered some of the worst circumstances of all. 

He makes poor choices, although he insists he doesn’t have a choice. I believe that he believes he has no choice... but he does. And that is so very, very tragic. 

I love him and want the world (or really just Lan Xichen) for him. 

[stiltonbasket]

chancellor of the morning sun: first meeting, xichen (childhood)

In which Lan Xichen stages a rescue and meets her intended husband; or, part 3 of the nielan au that has completely taken over my brain.

Part 1 | Part 2: Lesson (Youth) | Part 3: First Meeting, Mingjue (Childhood) | AO3

“Where are we going, A-Jie?”

“We’re just walking, A-Zhan.”

Her little brother looks doubtfully up at the sky and clutches her hand a little tighter. 

“Jie, wasn’t the leisure hall that way?”

“No,” she says gloomily. “That’s the building where Wen-zongzhu keeps his biting lizards.”

In a manner that rather forebodes ill for the rest of her stay in Qishan, eleven-year-old Lan Huan, first heir to the Gusu Lan clan and courtesy name Xichen, is completely and utterly lost in the immense gardens of the Nightless City’s Sun Palace. She hadn’t meant to get lost, of course; Shufu went off to join the day’s more important audiences with all the rest of the sect leaders, so Xichen and A-Zhan were supposed to stay with the women and children in the leisure wing and enjoy the entertainment Sect Leader Wen had provided for them.

But then one of the boys from the Jiang clan decided to steal the flowers from the vases standing about the room and throw them at A-Zhan, which bothered her poor baby brother so much—both at the sheer shamelessness of it and because the flowers were being wasted—that Xichen led the child back to his mother and bundled A-Zhan off for a walk in the grounds to settle him. And then the two young masters of the Wen sect appeared out of nowhere, offering to show Lan Huan and Lan Zhan around the palace, but Shufu drilled the importance of never being alone with a man she didn’t know or trust into her head so many times that Lan Huan said she was going to join Madam Jin outside and fled as fast as she could. 

She would have suffered the invitation if it had been just Wen Chao, but Wen Xu is past sixteen and nearly as tall as her uncle, and the thought of being alone with him put her on edge.

Shuoyue is not and never has been for show, even if Lan Huan is only eleven, but it has never been proper for a young master older than fourteen or so to invite a strange young maiden to accompany him somewhere without a chaperone. Wen Xu certainly knows that, even if Wen Chao might not have been told just yet, which means the boy is probably untrustworthy in some way or other.

“Will we go see Madam Jin?” A-Zhan asks, tugging at her hand again. “That’s what you told Wen Xu.”

“We can’t,” Lan Huan says regretfully. She met Jin Zixuan briefly at a banquet in the Cloud Recesses last year, and the boy asked his father if he could “marry Maiden Lan instead, since she is prettier than Jiang-guniang,” the moment he thought Lan Huan was out of earshot—which she wasn’t, since all she had done was walk into the next room to have tea with Madam Qin and her daughter, Qin Su. 

Jin Guangshan remarked that it wasn’t a bad idea (which would have stopped Lan Huan’s heart in its tracks, were she not already betrothed to the unknown but not yet insufferable Nie Mingjue, and not fully aware that Shufu only let the engagement stand because he knows her intended’s father is a good man) and asked Jin-furen if they might talk to her uncle about a future courtship. But then, Jin-furen snapped at her son for chasing the first pair of pretty eyes he saw—whatever that meant—and gave Lan Huan nothing but dark looks until the banquet was over. 

So Madam Jin is out of the question, and for a very good, if unfortunate reason. 

“As if I would ever marry Jin Zixuan,” she mutters to herself. The boy isn’t a bad sort, exactly, but very sure that he is the most important person in every room that doesn’t already have his father in it, and Lan Huan has had far too much of that in her time—especially for a girl who refuses to live and cultivate on the women’s side of the Cloud Recesses, and ends up in front of a panel of concerned elders every other month to discuss her unmaidenly behavior, Young Mistress. 

It is at this juncture—when Lan Huan is revisiting the memory of Jin-furen’s determination to keep Jin Zixuan away from her and close to Jiang Yanli while they were all still together in Wen Ruohan’s leisure hall, and seething a little at the thought that Madam Jin seems to believe Lan Huan might fall prey to her son’s nonexistent charms—that A-Zhan tugs at her arm for a third time, and points to a suspicious-looking disturbance on the surface of a nearby pool. 

“Someone fell in, A-Jie,” he says, staring intently at the splashing water before gazing up at her in distress. “Someone small, like me.”

She squints, and then cries out in horrified surprise when a tiny hand flails above the side of the pond before sinking back down again. “Stay here, A-Zhan!” 

Lan Huan throws off the outer two layers of her robes and runs towards the tiled pond so quickly that she nearly trips over her own feet, vaulting over the short stone wall and tumbling into the water just in time to hoist a little bundle of grey and white cloth up against her chest so it can breathe properly again. The pond is less than a foot deeper than she is tall, but the tiny child in her arms can hardly swim, and clings to her neck in terror as she paddles them slowly back towards the water’s edge—Shufu taught her never to cling if someone tried to rescue her from the water when she was very small, but no one seems to have told this baby that, so she fights for breath as best she can before splashing back to the tiled wall and hauling herself and the child out. 

“Don’t cry,” she rasps, vaguely aware that her little charge is wailing into her wet clothes, and that a pair of older boys seem to be running towards them from the far end of the gardens, while also wailing at the top of their lungs. “Can you get your breath, little one?”

“There was a frog!” the small boy sobs, shoving his face against her stomach and hiding it there. “And I chased it, and then I slipped and fell in!”

At least he can breathe, if he’s crying so much, Lan Huan thinks wryly, before sitting up and peeling the child out of his sodden gown. 

“A-Zhan, bring my clothes here,” she instructs, as her brother picks up her fallen white robes and hurries over to her side. Between the two of them, they manage to get the little frog-hunter dry with one of her gowns and warmly wrapped up with the other one, which is when the shrieking boys from earlier—one wearing black and silver, and one in Lanling gold—finally dash down the path and skid to a halt in front of them. 

“Huaisang!” the older one chokes, almost crying himself as he reaches her. “A-Sang, you—”

“I fell in, Gege!” Huaisang squeaks (Nie Huaisang, Xichen realizes) before bursting into tears again as the tall youth falls to his knees in the grass and cuffs him around the ears. “Gege! You’re so mean! I almost died before this jiejie pulled me out, and now you’re hitting me!”

“I’ll hit you again in a minute, just wait!” the boy screeches. “What did you think you were doing, wandering off on your own when I told you not to let go of my hand unless we were back with Father? You could have drowned, A-Sang!”

“That was very foolish, Huaisang,” the second boy says, and Lan Xichen stifles a sigh of despair when she realizes that the new young master’s companion is none other than Jin Zixuan—because today hasn’t been bad enough, apparently. “Nie-da-gongzi was ready to tear the gardens apart when he realized you were gone.”

Nie-da-gongzi. 

This shouting, trembling youth in front of her, clutching his little brother to his heart and berating him at every other breath,  is none other than Lan Xichen’s intended, the person Xichen will bow to earth and heaven beside when she comes of age. 

(How strange it is that they have met in such a way rather than at the banquet scheduled to take place later tonight, as Shufu and Nie-zongzhu both planned.)

“Maiden Lan,” Jin Zixuan blurts out, going a little pink in the cheeks as she spares him a cool, disinterested glance. At her side, A-Zhan squeezes her hand and glares up at the older boy, who takes a few involuntary steps backward before remembering that her brother is only seven years old and wouldn’t hurt a fly. “That was a very brave thing you just did.”

The older Nie-gongzi freezes on the ground, finally looking at her and A-Zhan for long enough to register the blue silk ribbons on their foreheads, and then at the delicate beaded clouds sewn onto the lace-trimmed gown bundled around Nie Huaisang’s shoulders. 

And then, after his mind catches up with his eyes, he looks up at Lan Xichen and prostrates himself at her feet so forcefully that he strikes her damp shoes with his forehead. “Maiden Lan!” he gasps. “Forgive me, I did not see your ribbon, but—I cannot be grateful enough, Lan-guniang, that you saved Huaisang! I and my clan are forever in your debt, a debt that can never be repaid if we tried for a thousand years, but—”

“Give.”

All three of the older children assembled (and Nie Huaisang, now suspiciously cheerful again as he snuggles into his borrowed robe) look around for the source of the reproof before realizing that Lan Zhan had spoken, pointing straight at Nie Mingjue with his tiny forefinger outstretched in threat like one of Shufu’s discipline rulers. 

“Ah, what?” Young Master Nie says gently. “What should I give, Lan-xiao-gongzi?”

“Give Jie your robe. She’ll freeze if you don’t.”

The weather—yet another nail in the coffin of Lan Xichen’s afternoon, though coming face to face with her betrothed has been one of the few tolerable things about it—chooses that moment to send a frigid wind over the gardens, making Xichen shiver despite herself as Nie-gongzi straightens up and takes off his outer gown. Jin Zixuan seems to realize then that Lan Xichen is only in her inner garments, turning his face away in embarrassment while Lan Zhan takes the robe from Nie Mingjue and helps his sister into it. 

“Thank you, Nie-gongzi,” she says, tying the wide sash securely around her waist. “It would have been strange to walk all the way back to the guest quarters without my overgown. Shall I return this to you in the morning, after I have the time to have it washed?”

“Oh, there’s no need!” Nie Mingjue cries, waving his hands in the air as Jin Zixuan turns to stare at him in disbelief. “That’s a talisman robe, so it’ll be fine even if your inner robe isn’t clean after the pond water. And it’ll dry your inner robes off too in a minute, so you can be warm on your way back to the palace.”

He dithers on the spot for a moment, and then bows low at the waist. “May I see you and the little young master safely back to your uncle, Maiden Lan?”

“You may,” Lan Xichen agrees, moving to take her brother’s hand before running back to fetch Shuoyue, which she dropped into a flowerbed some thirty feet away when she removed her two outer garments. “There, I’m ready. Come along, A-Zhan.”

“That’s a beautiful jian,” Nie Mingjue remarks as they set off down one of the garden paths—he seems to know where he’s going, to Lan Xichen’s relief, which will hopefully squash their chances of having another unfortunate adventure between here and the Sun Palace’s guest wing. “I like the jade stripe down the middle of the scabbard. Did you choose it yourself?”

“Yes, I did,” she smiles, rather glad at the prospect of someone liking Shuoyue. The elders insisted that eleven was too young to carry a sword in public, even though her core was so advanced that she had gained enough control over it to fly on a jian by the time she was six—so wearing it to gatherings often feels like an act of defiance, and one she wishes she never had to perform. “It has a white-jade handle too, see?”

“Marvelous,” Nie-gongzi agrees, sounding a little breathless as he gazes at the weapon with stars in his eyes. “You know, all of the swords I’ve seen from the Lan clan are decorated with white and silver finishings, but the green jade on yours looks wonderful. It’s like—like a pine tree, and the white jade at the handle looks like snow.”

He takes in a breath and gathers himself up, and then—

“Do you like sabers? I have a very good one. She’s called Baxia.”

“Baxia, like the sihai longwang’s eighth son?” Lan Xichen frowns, trying to remember exactly which son of the dragon god of the four seas shared the saber’s name. “Or was it the sixth, the turtle-dragon?”

“Baxia’s name is split between them both, actually,” Nie Mingjue says shyly. “The sixth one is called Bixi, too. It’s about the only piece of legend I know by heart, since I don’t read very much, but of course I had to learn the story behind my dao’s name so I could tell people about it.”

“It’s a very strong name. And fitting, since the figure of the eighth son guards bridges, and the Unclean Realm is said to be a great fortress with many raised terraces over the lower courts for archers.”

“That’s exactly why I chose it!” he exclaims. “We have statues of Lord Baxia all over the stronghold, but no one’s ever called their saber that before.”

The conversation proceeds in much the same vein all the way back to Shufu’s rooms, and by the end of it Lan Xichen has learned more about the Nie clan’s cultivation than she thought she would ever have the chance to, since none of the five great sects like to share their secrets with outsiders. In return, she tells Nie Mingjue about the chord assassination path, and how likes cultivating with Liebing better because the xiao is useful even outside combat—and the boy’s eyes go even rounder as she plays a few notes meant to relieve sore muscles and cure headaches, wiping away the little furrow between his brows as his shoulders finally relax.

“Our clan prefers an honorable battle to settle matters,” Nie-gongzi admits, as they reach her uncle’s door. “But healers are far superior, because they must mend the hurts that warriors leave behind.”

Shufu throws the door open before Lan Xichen can reply, ushering her and A-Zhan over the threshold before realizing that Xichen is dressed in the colors of a young master from Qinghe instead of Lan blue and white; and then he notices that Nie Mingjue is missing his fourth layer, and that the child in his arms is wearing Lan Xichen’s outer robe, and then that Lan Zhan is carrying her second one, since they used it as a towel to dry Nie Huaisang. 

“Xichen,” he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Would you care to tell me what happened here, and why you are over an hour late back to our quarters?”

“A-Zhan and I got lost on our way back to the leisure hall, and we found Young Master Nie after he fell into one of the pools in the garden,” she says, studiously ignoring the puzzled glances Jin Zixuan and Nie Mingjue exchange behind her back  at the mention of her courtesy name. “I pulled him out and gave him one of my robes to keep him warm, and so Nie-da-gongzi gave me his. This niece is most sorry for worrying you, Shufu.”

Her uncle frowns and opens his mouth—probably to scold someone, though she can’t be sure just who yet—but then Nie Huaisang’s stomach rumbles from his perch against his brother’s shoulder, and Lan Xichen (trained by over half a lifetime of looking after A-Zhan, since she had to be his mother in A-Niang’s place because A-Niang couldn’t) finds herself reaching for one of the qiankun pouches in A-Zhan’s sleeve before passing it to Nie Mingjue.

“Thank you, Maiden Lan,” he says, confused. “I will...I mean, this gift...uh, what is it?”

“I baked a batch of red-bean pastries for the trip, since Shufu and A-Zhan like them,” Xichen replies, watching with a warm glow in her stomach as Nie Huaisang reaches over to undo the drawstring and squeals in delight when his hands close around a pile of fresh buns. “A-Sang should eat as many as he likes—he just fell into cold water, after all, and I always carry food in talisman pouches to keep it warm.”

“Lan-guniang,” Nie Mingjue gasps. “This is too much, we couldn’t possibly—”

“You five missed the lunch banquet, and there will be no more food for any of you until dinner,” Shufu snaps at him. “Take it, Young Master Nie, since my niece has offered, and get that child into a hot bath before he catches his death of cold. Now, I bid you good afternoon, for heaven’s sake try to come to the evening feast with the full four layers of robes on your shoulders.”

And then he slides the door shut in Nie Mingjue’s face, turning on Xichen and Lan Zhan with a scowl that melts into a thoughtful sort of look before either of them have time to do much more than wilt in resignation for the lecture ahead. 

But then he sighs, and tucks his hands behind his back before smiling at Lan Xichen. 

“So you have met your betrothed, A-Huan,” he says, sounding as if he might laugh, for some reason. “What do you think? Do you like him?”

Lan Xichen would have liked to say something along the lines of yes, he seems all right, Shufu, or I’m sure he and I will get along well when we’re older—but her tongue betrays her, in the end, and all Xichen can find words for is this:

“I do like Nie-gongzi, Shufu,” she confesses. “I like him very much.”

[somepinkthing]

and at last, we grieve

Xichen’s body shook as he stood and towered over Huaisang’s frail form. It didn’t make him feel any stronger. Perhaps it was due to how Huaisang didn’t shrink away for once or the steadiness with which he lifted his head to look at Xichen but, despite Huaisang being just as dainty as ever, Xichen felt as if he couldn’t possibly take down the man seated in front of him even if he mustered all the strength he had left.

Huaisang smiled a sad sort of smile. “Zewu-jun you are still rather shaky on your feet. Please stay seated.”

Xichen couldn’t think of any reply to this but his own pride made it impossible to sit down despite his apparently obvious shakiness.

“Why did you do it like that?” Xichen asked instead, not even bothering to clarify the change of topic. The other would understand. “Why choose that method? Why choose a method your brother would have hated?! Why lie to me?!”

With every word he increased in volume. By the end, Lan Xichen was practically roaring. And yet, all Huaisang did was give a dainty jolt when Xichen started yelling and gave nothing else away after. His face remained impassive as he waited for Xichen to catch his breath.

“Zewu-jun, do you think me stronger than my brother in any way?”

The question seemed to come out of nowhere and caught Xichen off guard.

“What?”

Huaisang shook his head and waved off Xichen’s confusion. “It was rhetorical anyways. I know you don’t because I know I’m not. My brother was my protector, he was always the strong one. He could be a mess sometimes but at the end of the day he’d always stand in front of me and show me the right path. He’d always do the most upfront and honest thing. That was who he’d always been and it was who he still was when he faced down Jin Guangyao.”

Huaisang turned to stare down Lan Xichen before continuing.

“He went to you then, didn’t he? He did everything that there was to do within his moral code. And what happened to him anyways?”

He’s dead. It was a fact that lay heavy between the two of them.

“And me?” Huaisang continued with a feather-light laugh, sounding almost giddy, “I’m weaker than him by a long shot. I couldn’t have taken anyone down physically nor do I have the reputation needed to sling those accusations around. But then, neither did I have such a strict and binding code of conduct. I had to take advantage of my weaknesses if I wanted to have my revenge.”

“And I wanted to have my revenge, as you can well see,” Huaisang finished, his voice dropping low and soft at his last sentence.

Xichen laughed a dry, enraged sort of laugh. “So you’re saying you had no choice?”

Huaisang wryly smiled back. “If I wanted to win, then I had very few routes I could choose from. But that’s not to say I had no choice at all. I was raised better than to believe that. I had many choices. I could have chosen to stubbornly do things my brother’s way–even though victory wasn’t guaranteed, neither was failure. I could have chosen to simply ignore it and go on with my life–killing my brother’s killer was never going to make losing him any easier and I knew that. I could have shown more patience, used less people, trusted more people, been sharper. I know I can’t prove it but even I didn’t imagine that he’d try to wipe everyone out. I mean, talk about an overreaction. As is always the case, things could have gone better.”

Hearing him say it was like a knife to the heart for Xichen. Could it be that all his suffering was simply due to some oversight Huaisang made? Could he have lived on peacefully if he hadn’t been forced to realize? Did he want that? Did he wish Huaisang had put more consideration into his plot and had simply left him out of it?

“Then why chose this?” He had to know.

“Why do we make any of the choices we do?,” Huaisang replied, “Probably because at the time it seemed like the best way to do things. Or because it was the first thought that occured to me. Or because I was so angry that everything else failed to matter. And it’s as simple as that. I won’t claim to have no regrets or guilt nor will I claim that I would undo it all if I could. I did what I did and regretted my mistakes afterwards like any normal person.”

The entire time he spoke, Huaisang’s voice remained almost forcefully steady, never straying too far in tone or volume.

“Zewu-jun, does knowing that make you feel better or worse?”

The question pierced Xichen through the soul and he collapsed. He fell to his knees and sobbed without any care for his audience.

“Are you telling the truth? Or just another composed lie?” Xichen demanded between heaves.

Huaisang sighed. “I am being more honest right now than I have been for over a decade. And I’d hardly say I’m acting composed. Truthfully it’s all making me feel a little lightheaded. I feel like all I can do is talk and keep myself upright.”

Xichen wanted to make him leave. He wanted to push him out. But he also wanted to push for answers. It’d been a whole year already and he still felt as if he was stuck in that temple. He wanted freedom from the one person who was still alive to give it to him. He didn’t want to ask, didn’t know what to ask next. His mind was still in a jumble. It had been for over a year now.

“Why me then?” he demanded, settling on a question at long last.

“It didn’t exactly have to be you,” Huaisang answered, "After the poison failed, I just needed someone to deal the blow."

“But you wanted it to be,” Xichen accused, “You wanted it to be me who killed him.”

“Yes.”

There had been no hesitation in Huaisang’s response, just cold acceptance. To Xichen, it felt incredibly cruel to have all of his pain and regret surrounding that one moment wrapped up neatly into an easy admission of guilt.

“Why? Why would you do that to me?”

Huaisang paused then. It was the first time since he’d gotten here that he’s been so obviously hestitant to answer any of Xichen’s questions. For some reason that only made Xichen want to push for it more.

“Why?” he demanded, “Tell me why!”

Huaisang’s eyes widened at the anger suddenly pouring out of the man kneeling on the floor. Xichen could tell he was shocked and hurt. Instinctively, Xichen almost reached out to provide comfort before Huaisang started to cry.

But he didn’t cry at all. Xichen watched as something almost unbelievable happened: Nie Huaisang answered rage with rage. Xichen watched his placcid persona collapse and twist into anger.

He looked so much more like Nie Mingjue this way that it hurt.

“Why did you make my brother swear with that man? Why did you not believe him when he went to you? Why did you tell everything to Jin Guangyao?” Huaisang asked back, venom rapidly working its way into his previously blank tone of voice, “Why did you protect him even after learning of the details of my brother’s death? Why did you think that I wouldn’t want him dead? Huh?! You answer me first, Zewu-jun! What did my brother do but love and cherish you? How did he ever hurt or disrespect you? Why did loyalty mean so much more coming from Jin Guangyao than it did from him?!”

“It mattered!” Xichen couldn’t help but counter. He’d loved his sworn brothers, both of them!

But Huaisang seemed to disagree.

“There are many people who get to judge my actions, Zewu-jun. Your brother, for one. Jiang Wanyin has killed thousands of cultivators in war and hundreds of innocents in cold blood at this point and he still gets to judge me. And I don’t even have to mention all the people Wei Wuxian has hurt, directly or as collateral, and yet he gets to judge me too. I dragged them into a problem that wasn’t theirs. I placed them in danger to fullfill my needs. I placed their children in danger! And two innocents, Qin Su and Mo Xuanyu, died inadvertantly due to my own actions. I imagine I’m due in for a bad time in my next life if these people have anything to say about it. But you? You have nothing over me. You and I owe each other no apologies anymore. Any apologies we might want to give each other can go to my brother now.”

And what could Xichen say to that? How could he retort when Huaisang said out loud the same thoughts that had been swimming through Xichen’s head since he first learned of A-Yao’s betrayal?

Huaisang’s last admission took the wind out of both of them. The last remaining vestiges of pride escaped and Xichen bent over onto the cold floor, openly sobbing and sounding like some wounded animal. He didn’t try to speak or ask any more questions, he wouldn’t have been able to manage any words even if he could piece together his thoughts. Huaisang didn’t seem to fare any better. His face was now hidden behind a large fan but his delicate little hiccups and the occasional shuddering of his shoulders gave him away.

They cried together for what must have been for hours. Neither of them spoke, neither of them had any ability to speak. They cried until they were dried out and then, instead of stopping, proceeded to sob tearlessly after that. For anger. For regrets. For all the people they’d hurt. For all the people who had hurt them. For Nie Mingjue. For Jin Guangyao. For each other. For themselves. A lifetime of grief poured out of each of them, two oceans colliding against one another in this tiny room, and neither had any reason to hide it anymore. No one would care if they crumbled anymore.

Finally, when they were both a tiny bit more composed, a thin voice rang out between them.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”