#and like half an hour later Jiang Cheng is just like a mess of a person and Nie Huaisang can't stop smiling | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ashayatreldai · 3 years ago

Text

His Face - Fic

Find this on AO3 or read it here.

Among Su She’s effects is found a bundle of sketches of Hanguang Jun, which inspires a lifetime of exchanges between Wei Wuxian and his husband.

***

Wei Wuxian yawned, barely remembering to cover his mouth with the back of his hand. It wasn’t as though Lan Wangji minded; he still marveled at his husband’s calm acceptance of his less than perfect behavior. And it wasn’t as if he were really tired. They’d been back in Cloud Recesses only a handful of days and most of that time Wei Wuxian had been able to rest, to wander the back hill, to play with the rabbits, to tease Sizhui and Jingyi, to play Chenqing to the birds and the rainbows the sun cast in the light mists of Gusu’s waterfalls. No, he supposed. He yawned because he was warm, well-fed, secure and safe, and in the best company a person could desire, let alone have all to himself.

Lan Wangji sat on the other side of the desk, and in spite of the hour was still working through the backlog of mail which had accumulated in his absence.

“What’s this?” A bundle of papers caught Wei Wuxian’s eye, and on impulse he reached and drew them out of the stack.

Lan Wangji looked up. “After the events at Gyanyin Temple, members of the Lan Clan disposed of the bodies, sealed the coffin in which Red Blade Master and Jin Guangyao are buried, and otherwise put the site in order. Among these activities, Su She’s body was searched and his personal effects catalogued. A quiankun pouch was found, containing an assortment of items. This bundle of papers was also in the pouch. I assume it was forwarded to me because I am the subject.”

Wei Wuxian leafed through the pages. It was a collection of sketches in a variety of media, all of Hanguang Jun’s face, mostly sketches of his eyes. They weren’t half bad: the artist had captured the micro-expressions which concealed everything but hid nothing of Hanguang Jun’s thoughts. But as he examined the pile, he experienced an increasing sensation of wrongness.

“I wonder what he was trying to capture. I mean, here’s ice, here’s anger. I think this one is arrogance or being haughty; and this one has to be indifference. And this,” he huffed out with a half smile, “has got to be ‘you are the scum beneath my shoe’.” That was a micro-expression Wei Wuxian had seen often on Lan Wangji’s face when they were young, as he kept poking and prodding until the carefully cultivated mask his friend wore finally slipped. He spread out the pictures, his eyes searching for the clues he knew he’d find. “Why would he want to draw these things and exclude others? I know a lot of people are afraid of you, Lan Zhan, because you look cold and imperturbable. But anyone who knows you and watches closely can see that there’s so much more to you than that.”

“Su She was cast out of the Lan Clan because he betrayed our secrets to Wen Xu. He was known for being desirous of imitating me – poorly. We can only speculate as to his motivations otherwise,” Lan Wangji commented quietly.

“Mmmm,” Wei Wuxian agreed. “He hated you, but he also idolized you. Who’s to say what came first? Whatever,” he said, shaking his head. “The fact he captured your eyes with these strong antagonistic expressions suggests he hated himself, and perhaps wanted to make you the one who hated him in his own mind. It’s easier to hate someone than to live with the pain of feeling rejected or not even noticed.”

“I never hated Su She.”

“No, I don’t think I’ve ever known you to hate anyone, Hanguang Jun.” Wei Wuxian felt a surge of protective affection for this dear man. “Not even those who deserve it. Su She unfairly judged you and didn’t know you at all. Still, when you think about what people say about me, the scary deranged Yiling Patriarch, anything’s possible in terms of what people do to themselves to justify hatred. Blargh!” He made claws with his hands and pulled a terrifying crazy Yiling Laozu face.

“Wei Ying.” There was amusement dancing in Lan Wangji’s eyes. “You do not scare me.”

Sometimes Lan Wangji could abruptly light a fuse in Wei Wuxian and leave him smoking. He laughed and crawled around to Lan Wangji’s side of the table, climbing into his lap to sit with one leg either side of Lan Wangji’s waist. His husband’s hands came up to support his lower back. He put both hands loosely around Lan Wangji’s neck.

Lan Wangi had removed his silver coronet and tendrils of hair that usually were wound up to hold the headpiece in place trailed either side of his face, making him look softer and younger and so much more vulnerable.

For some time they sat simply looking at each other. Wei Wuxian took in the flawless face, reaching one hand to trace Lan Wangi’s eyebrow, feeling the soft hairs brush beneath his fingerpads. He gently followed the line of an eyelash, delighting in the butterfly kiss as his husband blinked. Out over the swell of zygomatic bone, cupping around his perfectly shaped ear – he really was like exquisitely carved jade, warm, living, and here. He cupped Lan Wangji’s cheek, his thumb finding the hollow between nose and lip and the soft breath of life it held. And those lips, now quirked in a loving bow.

He pulled himself up to kiss the forehead ribbon, to plant gentle brushes of his lips over all the places he’d touched. When he came to Lan Wangji’s mouth, he finally let go, giving all his worship as they joined tongues, teeth, desire, losing themselves in each other.

They released the kiss, and held each other, Wei Wuxian’s head on Lan Wangji’s shoulder. Between them energy sizzled – it would be sated later, but it was sufficient for now to enjoy the beatitude of the moment, the closeness, words unnecessary to communicate the depth of heart each held for the other.

***

Wei Wuxian was traveling. His absence itched acutely just under Lan Wangji’s skin, a constant worry. He rued the duty which pinned him in his current dual roles: Chief Cultivator and Acting Sect Leader, keeping him grounded at Cloud Recesses instead of off night hunting with his husband.

It was necessary, he knew, for Wei Wuxian to move; the whole man was a study in movement, in ceaseless energy. He knew the staid and stable pattern of life at Cloud Recesses felt like a box to Wei Ying, and while he could endure for a season, he needed more than what life in Gusu offered, even with rabbits and a back hill to wander for hours.

But oh, he missed him. And he worried too: who would defend him when he had so little sense of self-preservation?

This journey, Wei Wuxian had set off to attempt to mend things with Jiang Cheng before making his way up to Lanling to see Jin Ling. One of the highest values for the Lan was family, and Lan Wangji understood the deep need his husband had for those connections – had encouraged it.

It was just as well Wei Wuxian had mastered the butterfly talisman (and enhanced it). Morning and night he would wait for the silvery wings to alight with Wei Wuxian’s messages of love and thought to whisper through his qi. Sometimes they were profound, poetry. Sometimes playful; sometimes just a kiss. Lan Wangji came to depend on those messages, and on being able to send some back himself: I love you, I miss you, come home soon.

He sighed. This morning had grown tedious. Today was the end of the accounting period for Clan matters, and while there was staff to manage the minutiae of bookkeeping, as Acting Clan Leader LanWangji was examining the records before tomorrow’s visit from the auditor. Not for the first time he lamented his brother’s seclusion, necessary though it was. Dealing with finances was the part of the role that least appealed to Lan Wangji; he felt a headache brewing and was contemplating taking a break when there was a knock on the door.

“Hanguang Jun, mail has arrived,” the disciple said, handing him a bundle.

“Thank you. Please ask the kitchen to send me some lunch,” he requested, taking the pile.

The disciple departed, and he began to sort the items: those about Clan matters, those for the Chief Cultivator. One letter stood out, a simple scroll tied with a red thread. Putting all the other mail aside he carefully opened the scroll and took a breath.

It was an ink painting of his eyes, creased ever so slightly in an expression of amusement. On his brow the forehead ribbon glinted silver, his hair loosely framing his cheeks. He instantly recognized the artist, tracing a finger over the brush strokes as if that touch could unite him with the hand that had made them.

“Wei Ying,” he said, infinite fondness filling him.

Throughout the rest of the day he kept the picture on his desk, glancing at it from time to time. And when it was time to turn his attention to other things, he gently placed the picture in his sleeve to take back to the jingshi.

Every couple of days another picture would arrive. This too became something Lan Wangji expected, an important and significant marker in his day, each picture a symbol that he was one day closer to seeing, holding, touching, tasting Wei Wuxian again.

***

300 years later

Clan Leader Lan Shuoxiao had come to the Forbidden Room in the Library Pavilion seeking a book she’d known had been here years earlier. Back then she’d been a mischievous girl seeking a way to prank Shufu, and she vividly remembered the green cover. Lan filing methods hadn’t changed in hundreds of years, so that wretched book had to be here somewhere.

She moved a pile of dusty scrolls, cursing under her breath when she knocked a stack of bamboo books which went tumbling over the floor. Patience, she told herself strictly. Breathe and control.

Feeling a little more composed, she bent to restore the mess to order. A red cover caught her eye on one of the lower shelves. She’d not seen that before, and she was sure she’d have recognized it if she had. It was quite distinct, a deep red, tied shut with of all things a Clan ribbon.

Intrigued, she opened the volume, carefully untying the ribbon and leafing through the pages. Page after page were pictures of a handsome man’s eyes: crinkled in delight, weeping with sorrow, dancing with affection, on and on they went. Sometimes the whole of the man’s lovely face was shown: in some he wore the elaborate silver coronet her ancestors had favored, in others his long tresses floated around his face, and the artist had clearly captured a treasured, private, and vulnerable moment.

Around half way through the volume the pictures changed: a spritely young man in black, his underrobe a vivid red (the same colour as the cover of the book, as it happened – and she wondered whether it was indeed cut from the same cloth), a red ribbon in his hair, holding a black dizi. This array of pictures had a different hand, a more understated eye which captured the young man’s energetic aura, as well as pensive moments – the youth had clearly been to hell and back, and Lan Shuoxiao could almost feel the immense love with which the person who’d drawn these pictures had made each stroke.

There were so many! Page sized varied: a compendium gathered together of odd scraps. The last page bore an inscription:

In loving memory of my parents, Lan Zhan, Lan Wangji, Hanguang Jun, and Wei Ying, Wei Wuxian, Yiling Laozu. The true faces of both, in their own hands. Love letters sent to dearest him who was, alas, away. Lan Yuan, Lan Sizhui, Chief Cultivator.

Clan Leader Lan Shuoxiao’s heart thumped wildly in her chest. Clan records declared Hanguang Jun’s partner’s name to have been Lan Ying, Lan Wuxian. How had they never made the connection before that “Lan Wuxian” was in fact the infamous Yiling Patriarch? Given that the two had Lan Yuan, Lan Sizhui’s name inscribed under theirs as offspring, Lan Shuoxiao and many others had assumed Lan Wuxian to be female.

She looked closely again at one of the pictures of the young man in black and red. He didn’t look like the evil dictator of legend. He looked mischievous and full of life, an impression caught in the laughing smile, and so… youthful.

Not that demonic cultivation was these days the issue it had been for her ancestors; these days cultivation was emphasized to be about harnessing the yin of negative energy and the yang of positive energy, holding them in balance and using each appropriately. She doubted the people who had so feared and hated the Yiling Patriarch would be able to recognize as righteous the way all cultivators now practiced as a matter of course.

As for Hanguang Jun… She flicked back to a picture in which his whole upper body had been captured as he played guqin, a study of someone completely caught up and focused on the music, almost in ecstasy. Another private moment revealing something about the essence of the man. He was so beautiful, captivating. And such a contrast from all the other images she’d ever seen of him. Hanguang Jun had a reputation even now, 150 years after he had Ascended, for being cold, somewhat forbidding, distant, just, merciful and benevolent, untouchable, unrivalled in almost all fields. That was how he appeared at the Gate of Gusu, carved of jade, opposite his brother, Zewu Jun, the famous Twin Jades of Gusu Lan now its guardians, their representations inscribed and infused with talismans and ward tethers. Rumor was that no evil could come to Cloud Recesses as long as the Twin Jades stood at the gates. How was anyone to reconcile that formidable image with this? This picture of a very human, vulnerable, gentle man, who was clearly so very much loved by the artist who drew him.

Lan Shuoxiao found herself on the edge of tears. It felt like an injustice, looking at these intimate sketches, that history had forgotten Wei Wuxian as little more than a footnote. And that the righteous Hanguang Jun had been immortalized as a stiff, cold and distant deity rather than someone’s beloved whose heart beat wildly in his chest in longing, and whose blood was warm and red and thrummed with reciprocated affection. She wondered how they had found one another, wondered about the history in which they must have been caught up: how did it affect them? What trials had they passed through before they finally found their way to each other’s arms?

She reverently closed the volume, her original mission in coming here put aside. Thoughtfully, she collected up the scrolls and bamboo books and reordered them, and then closed the Forbidden Room.

***

Several months later a new scene was depicted on the climbing path around the residences of Gusu: a beautiful, crowned Lan sat cross-legged in the back hill meadow, covered in a blanket of rabbits. His loving gaze was fixed on the figure opposite him under a peach tree in full bloom, who was standing and playing a dizi. The legend beneath read: Hanguang Jun and his cultivation partner Yiling Laozu, Lan Wuxian.

FIN

#the untamed #ao3 #mdzs #wangxian #lan wangji #wei wuxian #lan sizhui #myfic

38 notes · View notes

giftwrappingpaper · 4 years ago

Text

wangxian bakery au

prompt: "I'd love to enable a creator to write/draw that self-indulgent niche workplace AU they've always wanted to make."

Lan Zhan finds Wei Ying baking bread in the kitchen of a hole-in-the-wall bakery in Yiling.

-----

A low, all too familiar voice hesitantly calls his name. "Wei Ying?"

No fucking way. Wei Ying looks up, raised eyebrows wrinkling his flour-dusted forehead. Yep, that’s Lan Zhan alright; no matter how many years pass, Wei Ying could recognize that face anywhere. His sharp, meticulously perfect appearance makes him look like a high-fashion magazine model cutout slapped on a stock photo of yellowed plaster and secondhand baking equipment.

“No customers in the back,” Wei Ying advises before returning his attention to the dough in his hands. A picture of informality, with a small smirk playing on his lips — a half-hearted attempt to conceal the shock and surmounting panic bubbling in his gut.

How the hell did he find me? one side of his brain despairs, while the other side reassures that at least it isn’t Jiang Cheng.

Lan Zhan continues his stalwart breach of Burial Bakery’s kitchen. What a rebel. “Wei Ying,” he says again.

“That’s me.”

“You’re here.”

“Uh, yeah?”

“You’re in a...bakery. Baking.”

Wei Ying breathed in the calming smell of fresh sourdough and tangy levain. Thank the heavens he had been able to convince Wen Ning to take a lunch break, leaving Wei Ying to man the kitchen alone. This isn’t going to be pretty.

“That’s kinda what we do here, yeah,” he says, eyes trained on his workbench, crowded with floured bannetons and formless lumps of dough. “A helping hand would be nice. I’d appreciate that much more than the gawking.”

Lan Zhan blinks, jawing clenching and ears flushing. Wei Ying’s smirk lifts into something softer. Even after all this time, it’s still so easy to rile him up.

“How’d you even find me, anyway?” he wonders, stretching his dough flat against the workbench, stopping right when it’s about to rip. Gently, of course. Wouldn’t want to pop the gas built up after hours of proofing.

“The back door is open,” Lan Zhan answers faintly. His expression mirrors the face of a guy after finding a years-long missing sock long since chalked off as having been eaten by the dryer. “I saw you from the counter.”

A quick glance to the entrance confirms this. Wen Ning must’ve forgotten to close the door when he left. Damn, that’s no good. Can’t let the cold air flow in. Might mess with the dough proofing in the walk-in.

“Could you close that for me?” Wei Ying asks, briefly letting go of the dough to rub the back of his neck. When Lan Zhan continues to stand there, motionless like a beautiful, bewildered statue, Wei Ying tsks and says, “I’m not going anywhere, Lan Zhan. Gotta get yesterday's proofed loaves in the oven by the hour.”

Miraculously, Lan Zhan obeys. Wei Ying half expected him not to. He and Lan Zhan have never been the closest of friends; Wei Ying was an annoying student, and Lan Zhan has a zero tolerance for annoying classmates. But people can change, he supposes. It’s been over four years, and neither of them are the same people they were before Wei Ying packed up his things and gave up his cushioned life in the Jiang estate and his scholarship to one of the most prestigious universities in the country to start slumming it with the Wen siblings and A-Yuan in their closet of an apartment.

“Aw, thanks,” Wei Ying says when Lan Zhan returns. He belatedly realizes that he should’ve asked Lan Zhan to close the door behind him as he leaves the kitchen that he, as a non-employee, isn’t supposed to be in. Oh well; Wen Qing can chew him out for all the health codes he’s violating later. Isn’t she supposed to be manning the front? Lan Zhan must have snuck past her to get here, so she’s just as guilty.

“So you’ve been here the whole time?” Lan Zhan says, watching Wei Ying shape the dough. “Since you — left?”

“Basically.” Stitch the dough into itself. Then fold and tuck. Push the dough underneath itself with the palm of your hands to create surface tension, giving the newly formed loaf that tight, professional finish. Took Wei Ying ages to get the method down pat enough to be consistent. “Wanted to get out of the Jiangs’ hair, so I left soon after dropping out of uni.”

Dust the loaf with rice flour. Place it into a banneton, seam side up. Into the rack, then repeat. “A friend of mine had just inherited their family bakery. I volunteered to help out, and it eventually ended up becoming a full-time thing.”

Lan Zhan stands there without a word — not that Wei Ying minds. He hadn’t let himself dream they’d see each other again, hadn’t wanted to get his hopes up that he'd be lucky enough to see a familiar face again after all this time. Damn, he thinks, sneaking glance after glance between the loaves he’s shaping, he’s more handsome now than ever. Who knew the gorgeous teenager he’d harassed throughout two years of university would turn out to become a gorgeous adult who somehow stumbles into Wei Ying’s bakery? Even the unflattering cast of the yellow, flickering overhead light Wen Qing had been meaning to replace can’t wash out how black Lan Zhan’s hair is, how his skin is as smooth as a baby’s. How golden his eyes are, peering at Wei Ying as if he’s the sunrise after a long, cloudy night.

Bah. Where the hell did that come from? Maybe Wei Ying really is as self-centered as Aunt Yu claimed him to be.

“I wasn’t aware of your...baking aspirations,” Lan Zhan says, causing Wei Ying to choke out a laugh. He’d forgotten how funny Lan Zhan could be.

“Me neither,” Wei Ying admits. He sidesteps the kitchen mixer he’d spent the last year fixing up — he’d bought it in a sorry state, but Hobart engines are built to last a lifetime, and he couldn’t pass up the deal he paid for — to place another filled banneton into the rack. “But I’m not too mad at where I’ve ended up. Speaking of. How did you end up here?”

Lan Zhan's shoulders hunch suspiciously, and Wei Ying's eyebrows arch into fucking parabolas. “I wanted bread,” Lan Zhan replies defensively. “So I went to a bakery.”

Wei Ying scoffs, unimpressed. “A bakery all the way in Yiling?”

Lan Zhan glances away. “I travel a lot for work.”

Fine — he’ll let it go for now. “Well, as long as you don’t tell anyone back home about this, I guess it’s fine.” Wei Ying pauses. “You’re not gonna rat me out, are you?”

The thought should scare him, but a traitorously large part of him thrills at it instead. The Jiangs' are a key food supplier for the Lans' hotel chain, so Lan Zhan has to have some form of communication with them. Does Jiejie think about him from time to time? And Jiang Cheng...well. They’re still brothers, aren't they? Surely he must, at some small capacity, miss him.

But no brotherly love, whatever left there may be, could erase this: the cold silence that hung over the Jiang family table whenever Wei Ying would show up for dinner. Aunt Yu’s constant disapproval and Jiang Cheng’s wavering willingness to put up with it. The car ride. The screech of metal. The hospital said their Range Rover flipped four times. Wei Ying must have passed out after the first. But he was lucky: only a broken arm and whiplash. He had lied about being too hurt to attend the funeral.

It had been a good decision to leave. It had to be.

The back of his neck stings; a constant reminder. He hangs his head low as he stitches the dough.

“I’m not going to...rat you out,” Lan Zhan denies. He’s closer than he’d been since the last time Wei Ying looked up, his slack-clad hip brushing against the corner of Wei Ying’s workbench. “Not if you don’t want me to.”

“I don’t. Thanks.” Another banneton in the rack. Slower output than usual. He’s going to have to speed up to reach today’s quota. He gestures to the door. “Now, if you’re not gonna help out…”

Lan Zhan doesn’t take the hint. “You left. Without saying goodbye.”

“Must’ve forgotten to leave a note,” Wei Ying says, nonplussed.

“No one knew where you had gone off to.”

“Kinda preferred it that way.”

“But I didn’t —” Lan Zhan stops. Takes a breath. This is the most emotional Wei Ying has ever seen him, if mildly discomfited could constitute as emotional.

When he meets Wei Ying’s eyes again, his face is in its usual state of aloofness. “I was worried about you,” he tells him. “I wish I had known that you were alright.”

A block of guilt presses on Wei Ying’s shoulders. “Oh,” he says. “Sorry.”

Lan Zhan shakes his head. “Don’t apologize.”

“It’s just — with all that happened with the, the accident, and the handling of the estate —”

“You don’t need to explain anything to me you’re not comfortable with.”

“And my relationship with Jiang Cheng was down the fucking gutter —”

“He misses you.”

“I just felt that it everything would’ve been better off if —”

“I understand.”

“— I just left, y’know?”

At this, Lan Zhan frowns. “I fail to see how your sudden disappearance made anything better,” he says.

“Well, you weren’t there.” Wei Ying sighs, and what little fight he had to defend himself from the past drops to the floor. “I don’t want to argue with you.”

Lan Zhan bristles. “I didn’t mean to �� that’s not why I’m here.”

Then why are you here? But Wei Ying is done playing this game. “Look, it’s really nice to see you again. But I kind of have a lot on my plate right now, so if you don’t mind.” This time, his gesture to the door is clear. Leave.

Of course Lan Zhan doesn’t leave; he’s always been so damn stubborn. After a beat, he walks over to the empty sink — Wei Ying prefers to wash the dishes as he goes — and washes his hands. Dries them. Rolls up the sleeves of his button up, revealing forearms Wei Ying can’t help but swallow at. Makes his way to Wei Ying’s side, staring down at the lumps of dough like how a runner glares at the bottom of her shoe after stepping on a pile of dogshit.

“Alright,” he says, “how do I do this?”

Wei Ying blinks. “What?” he asks, like an idiot.

Lan Zhan experimentally cups the nearest dough mound with his palms. It sticks to his hands as he lifts them, streaks of the stuff already clinging to his slender fingers.

“Gross,” he says, monotone, pinching two ends to stretch it; an imitation, Wei Ying realizes, of his own technique.

Wei Ying stares. An incredulous smile spreads across his lips. “You’re —” He laughs. “You’re so weird, Lan Zhan.”

Lan Zhan squints at him, confused, hands still making a mess out of the dough. “You asked for my help.”

Perhaps all those years away from home was enough penance for, at the very least, this. “Yeah," he says, soft. "I guess I did.” Wei Ying sways closer to Lan Zhan’s side. He discreetly sniffs the air in a selfish bid to find...ah, there it is, masked between notes of wheat flour and sourdough starter: sandalwood aftershave, brushing past Wei Ying's nose when Lan Zhan turns to him with an expectant glance.

Wei Ying laughs again. “No, not like that. Like this.”

He lays a floured hand over Lan Zhan’s and, together, they get to work.

-----

also posted on ao3

promo post on twitter

fic commissions

#mdzs #wangxian #cql #the untamed #wei wuxian #lan wangji #mdzs fic #cql fic #mo dao zu shi #myfic

50 notes · View notes

loxare · 4 years ago

Text

More fics I should not be writing because I should be asleep! This one is post canon, sort of setting up a Yunmeng reconciliation? Descriptions of injuries. Lan Wangji gets yelled at. Other stuff happens.

Jiang Cheng stood outside the door of the sect healer, waiting, simmering with fury.

He had lost his sister to her own choices, and to the sword of a cultivator who had been trying to kill his brother.

He had lost his brother scant minutes later to his own choices, to a fall that any cultivator would have survived, to a fall that had killed his non-cultivator brother.

And now, now Jiang Cheng might lose his brother again. Just when he'd gotten him back. And he would have, if the group of disciples he'd sent to deal with a pack of fierce corpses hadn't finished early. If they hadn't found Wei Wuxian lying on the side of the road, bleeding.

The assistant who had come out a shichen ago for bandages and had subsequently been bullied until he answered his sect leader's questions had said that they were still working. That they were hopeful. But that if Wei Wuxian had gotten here any later, there would have been nothing they could have done.

And so Jiang Cheng seethed. He had seen the wounds, before he'd been locked out of the room. No bite marks, so not a fierce corpse, yao, or animal. Heavy bruising, which could be indicative of bandits, if Jiang Cheng didn't keep his roads clear and ensure his people all had enough to eat. And if it hadn't been for all the sword wounds.

Even with the small core Wei Wuxian had now, no non-cultivator would have been able to touch him with a blade. Jiang Cheng had seen him fight a war, surrounded on all sides by cultivators and holding them off - winning - with just his flute. Not even playing it, just using it to block strikes and hit pressure points.

Which meant that whoever had gone after him had been a cultivator. And a good one.

It made sense. Even now, when the blame for Jin Zixuan lay solely on Jin Guangyao's shoulders, people still hated the Yiling Patriarch. Even now, he had enemies. It was to be expected. Jiang Cheng knew that Wei Wuxian would have people who hated him or his methods until the day he died. Again.

So what had he been doing on a Yunmeng road all alone?

It hadn't been that long ago that Jiang Cheng had watched his brother walk away with Hanguang-Jun. With the way Hanguang-Jun looked at Wei Wuxian, there was no way he cared so little that he would abandon him to bleed on the side of the road. Which meant he hadn't been there when Wei Wuxian had been attacked.

Hanguang-Jun had left Wei Wuxian alone.

Alone, when anyone with a grain of sense knew that Wei Wuxian had enemies.

The door opened. Liu-daifu stepped out, wiping water off of her hands with a cloth. "He'll be fine," were the first words out if her mouth, because she knew her sect leader well. "I'm keeping him sedated until he heals up a bit, otherwise he'll undo all my hard work by trying to move, but we can wake him up in a day or two."

Jiang Cheng let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. "Good." He worked his jaw. He didn't want to know this. As a sect leader, he should know it, so he could plan Wei Wuxian's recovery training. Maybe find out who did this. And... hm. "What was the extent of the damage?"

Liu-daifu took a breath. "Most you know. Broken leg, punctured lung," from where someone had run him through, "several broken fingers," because someone had stomped on his hand, "various smaller cuts. Two floating ribs, which is why I don't want him moving, not until they set a bit more. I'd recommend at least two weeks on bed rest, followed by very light exercise for two months. If he's lucky and follows the stretches we give him, he'll retain full motion in his hand."

Jiang Cheng closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. It wouldn't do to yell, not now, no matter how furious he was. Liu-daifu would understand, but she wouldn't be happy. "Thank you. Excuse me."

Yan Xing was waiting for him in his office. "Zongzhu. I sent disciples in plain robes to various tea houses and inns around Yunmeng to listen for gossip. If whoever did this is nearby, we'll find out."

"Good." He sat at his desk and scribbled a quick note, waving the paper once he was done to dry the ink faster. "Get someone fast to give this to Nie Huaisang. If we can't find the bastard, he can." He rolled his shoulders. "I'm going to Gusu. I should be back before Wei Wuxian wakes. If not, you know what to do."

Dipping into a quick bow, Yan Xing left.

Jiang Cheng stopped only long enough to change into less bloodstained robes before he left. He didn't bother with formal robes because this wasn't a formal visit and also they would have gotten messed up in the flight over anyways.

He flew through the night, too agitated to land and rest. By the time he landed in Caiyi, it was close to dawn. He sent a message to Cloud Recesses, then stopped at an inn to rest for a few hours. It wouldn't do to be incoherent from exhaustion.

Exactly at midday, Hanguang-Jun stepped into the inn and the innkeeper led him to the private dining room Jiang Cheng was waiting in. The look the Chief Cultivator gave him could have curdled milk. Jiang Cheng was mildly surprised that his returning glare didn't set Hanguang-Jun on fire.

They exchanged pleasantries, which barely qualified for the name, and then Jiang Cheng threw a silencing talisman at the door. It was the strongest one he had. Wei Wuxian's design, of course. Then he took a deep breath. "What. The fuck. Is your problem?"

Hanguang-Jun raised an eyebrow.

Jiang Cheng grit his teeth, but fair enough. Hanguang-Jun had many problems. He would have to clarify. "I was under the impression, when you left Guanyin Temple staring at Wei Wuxian like he'd shot the suns from the sky, that you cared about his wellbeing."

Hanguang-Jun raised his eyebrow further. "I do."

"Then why," Jiang Cheng said tightly, every word forcing itself through the tight ball of rage in his chest, "did my disciples find him alone on a roadside in Yunmeng?"

"He can defend himself," was Hanguang-Jun's lukewarm excuse.

"Oh, so that makes it alright to abandon him then?" Jiang Cheng leaned in closer. "Whether he can or not is irrelevant. He was half dead, Hanguang-Jun."

Before he could even finish his sentence, Hanguang-Jun was standing, heading for the door. Zidian snapped in front of his face, forcing him to take a step back or lose his nose.

"Sit the fuck down, Hanguang-Jun," Jiang Cheng roared. "You are not allowed to leave until you account for your actions! You do not get to pretend concern when you left him to fend for himself!" Jiang Cheng stepped in close, crowding Hanguang-Jun closer to the wall, further from the door, Zidian sparking in his hand. "He was found with multiple sword cuts. This was no accident or monster attack. One of Wei Wuxian's enemies tried to kill him. And clearly, he wasn't able to defend himself."

"Enemies?" The word came out slightly higher pitched and breathless.

How had a man this stupid become Chief Cultivator? "Yes, Hanguang-Jun," Jiang Cheng said with exaggerated patience. "Enemies. Enemies who didn't disappear when his innocence was proven. Enemies who still hate him, and what he does, and what he did. So why the fuck was Wei Wuxian lying on the road dying without someone with him?"

Jiang Cheng had never been able to decipher Hanguang-Jun's facial expressions. But the guilt and discomfort would have been easy for anyone to see. "He said he wanted to travel."

"Great. Why didn't you go with him? Or send some of those beribboned goslings that are so besotted with him along?" If Wei Wuxian still wanted to travel when he was better, Jiang Cheng might do that with his own disciples. It would be good field experience for them.

Hanguang-Jun looked pained. "He said he wanted to travel alone."

Jiang Cheng froze. "Alone." He took a deep breath. Counted to ten. Twenty. "Alone? Wei Wuxian called you his zhiji, didn't he? And you think he wanted to travel alone?" It was so absurd as to almost be funny. "Wei Wuxian can't stand being alone. Oh, he enjoys sitting on rooftops with only the stars and a jar of wine for company, but he is incapable of going for more than a few days without someone paying attention to him, and you think he wanted to travel alone?"

More likely, that dumbass had thought he'd be in the way. Or he'd ruin Hanguang-Jun's pristine reputation with his proximity. Or, and this is the one Jiang Cheng was betting on, Hanguang-Jun didn't actually say, out loud, with words, that he wanted Wei Wuxian to stay, and so Wei Wuxian hadn't thought he was welcome.

He couldn't deal with this idiocy. He snorted at Hanguang-Jun's pained expression. "Whatever. I just wanted you to know how badly you'd screwed up. And now, you're going to pay the price. You can't have him back. Wei Wuxian is a disciple of Yunmeng Jiang. If you had taken better care of him, I would have been willing to let the two of you get married with minimal fuss." A modest bride price for one, and many lotus flowers at the actual ceremony. If his idiot of a brother had eloped, which was much more likely, he would have just let it go entirely. His brother's happiness was still important to him, even after everything, and not worth destroying just so Jiang Cheng could try and wedge himself into where he wasn't wanted.

Hanguang-Jun's ears took on a distinct shade of red at the word "marry". A spark of hope lit in his eyes.

He would take great pleasure in extinguishing that hope. Jiang Cheng took a step forward, Zidian crackling on his arm. "But now, if you want to take him away, you have to prove to all of Yunmeng Jiang that you can take care of him. If you try and marry him without my blessing, it will be war."

Then, leaving Hanguang-Jun still as a statue behind him, he tore his talisman off the door and left.

The flight home was quiet. Liu-daifu fused over him when he landed early the next morning, berating him for not sleeping, not eating, generally not taking care of himself. With Yan Xing taking care of all his duties for the day, Jiang Cheng allowed himself to be bullied into eating a decent meal and then bullied into bed. He awoke with a pounding headache that the food and tea waiting for him alleviated, and was feeling mostly alive when the healers woke Wei Wuxian.

His face was thinner than he remembered, something Jiang Cheng knew Liu-daifu intended to fix, but it still scrunched up the way it always did before he woke up. Wei Wuxian blinked his eyes a few times before they focused on Jiang Cheng's scowl. "Jiang Cheng? Oh, I mean, Jiang-zong-"

"Are you an idiot?" Jiang Cheng interrupted. "Dont answer that, I know you are. But have you become an even bigger idiot since you died? Did you leave half of what little intelligence you had in the grave? What the fuck were you doing dying in a ditch alone?"

Another slow blink. With every word out of Jiang Cheng's mouth, Wei Wuxian relaxed further and further into his mattress. "I was going to... Xiangyang. They've got water ghouls."

Jiang Cheng made a note of that. Both that there was a problem in his territory that he needed to send some people to fix and that the information had gotten to his brother who had been travelling before it had gotten to him. And then he made a note of Wei Wuxian's slurred voice and difficulty focusing on his face and said, "Get some rest dumbass. You're staying until you're healed, so I'll have plenty of time to yell at you after you've slept off your anaesthetics."

Wei Wuxian nodded exaggeratedly. "Mmkay Jiang Cheng. G'night. Love you."

That last bit was mumbled into his blanket, but Jiang Cheng still heard it. He froze. A blossom of warmth spread through his chest, one that had been so familiar to him years and years ago, one he thought he'd strangled into cold silence. He smiled and patted Wei Wuxian gently on his head. After everything, his brother still loved him. "Yeah. Love you too. Rest up. You've got lots of scolding scheduled for tomorrow."

Wei Wuxian said nothing. He was already asleep. Jiang Cheng went to get some more rest himself. Liu-daifu had been glaring at him even as she'd pulled the needles out of Wei Wuxian's neck.

Tomorrow, he'd shout his brother into oblivion. Maybe the day after too, depending on how he was feeling. After that, who knew. Maybe they'd be awkward and angry at each other for the entire two months that Wei Wuxian was recovering. Maybe this would all end in tears and fucking Hanguang-Jun would get Wei Wuxian back without a fight after all. Or maybe. Maybe they'd take their sister's advice and talk to each other.

And then wwx wakes up and gets yelled at a lot and does a bit of yelling himself and feelings are exchanged at volume but they are in fact exchanged. And then lwj, taking the easy road, does not take wwx away and marries into the Jiang sect, which pisses jc off even more.

#Untamed #Jiang Cheng #Wei Wuxian #Lan Wangji #I may be a bit too mean to lwj in this #eh #Loxie's fics

18 notes · View notes

mhalachai · 4 years ago

Text

advance snippet: Updating Wednesdays on Patreon (The Untamed)

So. Do I need to write an Untamed modern!AU with a college twist (Lan Xichen is a music professor in Canada) in which Wei Wuxian attempts to self-therapy himself by creating a graphic novel fantasy AU version of his life (aka the real story of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation) and Lan Xichen attempts to rebuild his life after a toxic relationship ended? I mean probably not but has that ever stopped me? here’s the intro snippet we’ll see how things go.

(Title is tentatively Updating Wednesdays on Patreon because i don’t know what to call this thing)

The first day of August finds Lan Xichen in a coffee shop, tinkering with the syllabus for his new music theory course, when his phone pings with a message.

> Lan Wangji: Brother.

> Lan Wangji: Wei Ying has asked me to inform you that he will be publishing the first collection of pages in his new graphic novel on Patreon this afternoon.

Lan Xichen smiles at Lan Wangji's tone. For all that his little brother is more verbose in electronic communication than verbal, he's always so exact.

> To Lan Wangji: Can't wait! What's it about?

The little cursor blinks for a while as Lan Wangji continues to type. Lan Xichen just hopes that his brother-in-law's creative enthusiasm isn't running up against Lan Wangji's sensibilities.

Finally, a reply appears.

> Lan Wangji: Wei Ying wants me to tell you that it is completely fictional.

This gives Lan Xichen pause. Why on earth would Wei Wuxian, or Lan Wangji himself for that matter, need to make that declaration?

> Lan Wangji: It is a high fantasy xianxia story.

Before Lan Xichen can ask why that is causing this odd message exchange, another notification pops up on his phone.

> Wei Wuxian: Lan Xichen! Lan Zhan types so slow! It's just a different art style I wanted to try out and it snowballed from there!

> Wei Wuxian: I know you follow me on Patreon so you're going to get the notification this afternoon so I wanted to warn you hahaha

> Wei Wuxian: All names and places are purely fictional. I don't really have a sword.

Another message arrives, with all the information Lan Xichen needs.

> Lan Wangji: This matters a great deal with Wei Ying.

Lan Xichen smiles at his brother's words. Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian have been together since their junior year of high school, through a great deal of personal difficulties on both sides, and are still as fiercely protective of each other as ever. He loves them both for it.

> To Lan Wangji: Thank you for the information. I'm sure it will be great.

> To Wei Wuxian: Can't wait to see it! Anything you do is always great.

No more messages arrive, so Lan Xichen goes back to considering how to change the quiz structure of his musical theory class to avoid a marking crisis with the evaluation of his ensemble class.

Finally, as Lan Wangji gathers up his papers to leave, one last message comes in on his phone.

> Lan Wangji: Thank you for your support. We all appreciate it.

Attached to the message is a photo taken of Lan Wangji's family, he and Wei Wuxian holding Lan Yuan between them. The toddler grins at the camera, his arms around Wei Wuxian's neck. Wei Wuxian's looks at the camera, dark circles under his eyes like he's working through the night again, while Lan Wangji only has eyes for his husband.

It's so wholesome and loving that a sliver of pain rakes through Lan Xichen's heart. He's happy for his brother. His brother deserves the world. Lan Wangji deserves being loved, and to love.

Not everyone gets that. Sometimes, that falls apart.

Sometimes, for some people, love is just an illusion.

Lan Xichen tucks his phone away and leaves the coffee shop.

He gets home mid-afternoon, and spends a while stowing away the groceries he picked up on his walk. The neighbourhood has several Greek and Persian markets and he's able to buy most of what he needs on foot, saving the Chinese markets in Richmond for his weekly dim sum brunches with Lan Wangji's family when he can borrow the use of Lan Wangji's sensible and economical mini-van.

He doesn't drive any more, not since—

Lan Xichen stops and puts down the bag of avocados. His mind is a funny place, bringing up the oddest things at the most inconvenient of times.

He doesn't drive anymore. He doesn't need to, using the bus and the odd taxi to transport his instruments up to the university for performances. The public transit system is so much better.

Safer.

He goes back to putting away the vegetables, pulls out a cookbook (new, spine uncreased, bought for him by Lan Qiren for his birthday) and opens it at random. He's never had coconut curry salmon before, but he has all the ingredients.

Trying new things. He's supposed to be trying new things.

The recipes says it will only take half an hour to make, so he goes up to his office and turns on his computer to check his work email. The message fly fast and furious, some about the new department head, some about class enrollment, a few from students asking if they can get onto his waitlist. He replies to the most urgent, files the rest, then checks his personal email.

The notification from Wei Wuxian's Patreon is up, so Lan Xichen clicks it.

Then he sits back, frankly impressed. He's seen Wei Wuxian's comic style progress since the boy was drawing silly cartoons to entertain Lan Wangji in history class, but even he wasn't prepared for this.

The art is gorgeous. Stylized figures, intricate period costuming, rich backgrounds – it's truly a work of art.

Then he gets a better look the two characters' faces, and laughs out loud. It's Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, clear as day, with long hair and flowing robes. Wei Wuxian's even managed to capture that exasperated-yet-fond look Lan Wangji has whenever Wei Wuxian is being particularly loud.

The introduction is even better. "Join our hero Lan Wangji and dashing rogue Wei Wuxian as they battle deadly monsters and forge a path with demonic cultivation!"

Wei Wuxian hasn't even changed their names. True, he uses his mother's surname professionally, so Cangse Ying can't be easily tracked back, but still.

Lan Xichen wonders for a moment if Lan Wangji is okay with this, but then he notices that the project text is available in both English and in Chinese, with the Chinese written in Lan Wangji's style.

They worked on this together, then.

Trying not to think about why that makes his chest feel funny, Lan Xichen opens to the first page--

-- Which features a bruised and bloodied Wei Wuxian falling off a cliff while a horrified Lan Wangji screams after him.

Confused, Lan Xichen makes sure he hasn't accidentally read the last page first. No, this is the first. Still a little baffled, he clicks to the next page, sees the stylized banner that reads six years ago and relaxes. This is Wei Wuxian's style of using flashbacks to interrupt the narrative flow. Lan Xichen spent most of Lan Wangji's university years hearing his brother's despair for Wei Wuxian's artistic choices in essay form.

But enough about the past. Lan Xichen settles in to read the first chapter of the story, where Wei Wuxian and his siblings (Jiang Yanli drawn lovingly, Jiang Cheng with a bigger frown and more menacing eyebrows than Lan Xichen remembers) traveled to the Cloud Recesses (the sarcastic nickname Wei Wuxian gave to Lan Qiren's West Vancouver mansion) for cultivator lectures. Lan Xichen is there on the page, too, drawn taller and far more imposing than he is in real life.

The first encounter between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji is fantastical and improbable and, according to Lan Xichen's recollection, almost completely accurate. Wei Wuxian had mouthed off at Lan Wangji at the weekend orientation camp for their new arts high school, Lan Wangji glared the boy into submission, then later that night when Wei Wuxian tried to sneak back onto school grounds with alcohol, he and Lan Wangji had gotten into a fight. Verbal, instead of with swords, and without the supernatural murder victims, but Lan Xichen remembered everything else from Lan Wangji's indignant recitation on his return home.

He keeps reading, enjoying the art and the lyrical narration, and keeps enjoying it right up to the scene when Nie Huaisang appears on the page to offer Lan Qiren a present, Meng Yao standing right behind him.

Lan Xichen doesn't remember standing up, but here he is, two feet away from his computer, heart pounding. He hadn't—Why—

What was Meng Yao doing in a story about Wei Wuxian's high school years?

Taking a deep breath, Lan Xichen makes himself return to his desk. As far as he knew, he was the one who introduced Meng Yao to Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, when the boys were in university and after he and Meng Yao started dating--

Lan Xichen can feel his heartbeat slow, as he tries to breathe. He needs to stop this foolishness over Meng Yao. They dated before living together for a while, that was all. They broke up. It happens to people all the time.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji were in college for most of that time, anyway, living their lives. They barely knew Meng Yao, even if Wei Wuxian's sister married Meng Yao's half-brother. They couldn't know how badly Lan Xichen had messed up their relationship, how terrible he had been to live with. It was his fault that—

Stop.

It's over. In the past. A story that has Meng Yao as a minor character isn't going to mess with Lan Xichen's head. He's not going to let it.

He exhales and makes himself look back at the screen.

Meng Yao only shows up a few more times. For some reason, he's the only character who isn't tagged with his own name. He's there handing over the present to Lan Qiren, standing in front of Nie Huaisang when the Wens arrive, then in two last panels in which he tells the on-screen Lan Xichen that he has to return to Nie Mingjue's side.

Lan Xichen's stomach sours. He and Nie Mingjue had been close, before Meng Yao came into Lan Xichen's life. After that, Lan Xichen hadn't had much time for anyone else. That was normal, Meng Yao always said. People in love only needed each other.

Lan Xichen picks up his phone, then puts it down. He can't ask Lan Wangji about this. It would be weird. Wei Wuxian must just be making artistic narrative choices.

The chapter ends soon after, with Wen Qing and Wen Ning welcomed grudgingly into Cloud Recesses. The next chapter is due up in two weeks, the page declares, and welcomes any comments or feedback. A few people are already posting, gushing over the art work and discussing the teaser from the opening page.

Wanting to be supportive, Lan Xichen writes a small review, complimenting the artistic style, the intricacies of the outfits, poses a query as to the different colour palettes between the first page (dark, red, menacing) and the flashback scenes in Cloud Recesses (light, airy, hopeful), then translates the comment into English and posts both versions up. If Lan Wangji is going though all the trouble of ensuring a bilingual experience, then he will too.

He should go start dinner, he really should, but some part of him is drawn back to the first panel in which Meng Yao appears. He's shorter than Lan Xichen remembers in life, the long hair and braids suiting his face.

It's been so long since Lan Xichen last saw Meng Yao. He's not sure what he's thinking. Is he wistful? Mournful? Sad?

He doesn't know. He never knows what he feels about Meng Yao, which was the problem. He's not normal about feelings. Even Lan Wangji, whose brain is a unique and complicated thing, looking for order and reason and patterns in an illogical and messy world, loves fiercely, feels passionately. Maybe he got all the love in the family, and Lan Xichen got stuck with the stunted and undergrown heart.

Stirring, he pages back to the first appearance of his on-screen twin. The Lan Xichen on the screen looks patient, kind, a smile hiding behind his eyes.

He hadn't realized this is how Wei Wuxian sees him.

He picks up his phone.

> To Wei Wuxian: What an incredible achievement! The art is amazing!

> To Wei Wuxian: Where is the story from? As it's a work of fiction and has nothing to do with your real life ;)

> Wei Wuxian: Oh hahahha the story is a collaboration of a bunch of ideas! I can't tell u more (sworn to secrecy by my collaborators) but so glad you like it!!!!!!

> To Lan Wangji: Did you do the writing? I love the dialogue.

> Lan Wangji: Wei Wuxian did most of the English. I made it better and did the translation.

> To Lan Wangji: Have you told uncle about this project?

> Lan Wangji: He prefers to speak of my composition achievements.

Lan Xichen puts his phone down and rubs his eyes. The old tension between Lan Qiren and Lan Wangji never goes away. It started in high school with Lan Qiren's disapproval of Wei Wuxian, continued into university with Lan Qiren's disapproval of Wei Wuxian as well as Lan Wangji's decision to attend a local university for musical studies instead of going to Julliard in Lan Xichen's footsteps, and outrage at the news that Lan Wangji asked Wei Wuxian to marry him before they even finished their undergraduate degrees.

The resulting years had been a long-standing cold war, with Lan Xichen trying to mediate in the middle. Even the arrival of Lan Yuan on the scene twenty months previous hadn't softened both sides into anything resembling ease.

If Lan Wangji doesn't want to tell their uncle that he and his husband are collaborating on a semi-biographical graphic novel, Lan Xichen isn't going to muddy the waters.

> To Lan Wangji: It sounds like you're enjoying the project.

> Lan Wangji: Working with Wei Ying on any project is enjoyable. I read that couples with young children should try to engage in a mutual hobby outside of parenting.

> To Lan Wangji: Very wise.

He wonders if he should ask about Meng Yao, types out a message to that effect, then deletes it.

> To Lan Wangji: I should start dinner – see you on the weekend for brunch?

>Lan Wangji: Yes.

Lan Xichen puts his phone down. The days are long in August and the sun still bright, but he's tired and he doesn't know why.

anyway that’s where this whole disaster is going. new fandoms are fun.

#the untamed #my writing #teaser snippet of a new story #i have 14000 words written #trying to get is mostly done before popping up on ao3

26 notes · View notes

ceilingfrogs · 4 years ago

Text

The Jiang Cat

part 1 (read on ao3 ; part 2)

There was a cat in Lotus Pier.

This was a problem.

Sect Leader Jiang was a dog person. There should be no cats in Lotus Pier. The mighty Sandu Shengshou didn’t like cats; he liked dogs. Everyone knew that, except for, apparently, this cat which was seated high up on the roof, glaring down at the disciples.

No one knew where the cat came from. No one knew how it got past the guards. No one had yet to find a conveniently cat-shaped hole in Lotus Pier’s infrastructure that could explain the cat’s presence. It had just appeared, and then refused to come down from the roof.

There was a cat in Lotus Pier that shouldn't be there that was there and that wouldn’t come down from the roof no matter how much fish Lu Tao, the head disciple, tried to entice it with.

This was a very big problem.

To the great relief of everyone involved, their impressively competent Sect Leader was not present that day to witness the impressively incompetent behaviour of Lotus Pier's disciples when it came to catching the cat.

It took them three hours to get the cat off the roof and out of Lotus Pier.

Three hours of disciples jumping from roof to roof, never quite managing to get close enough to grab it. Three hours of being outmaneuvered and outsmarted by a cat.

It was one thing to spend hours on night hunts, chasing down the world's evil, protecting the innocent, and being dashing heroes, it was an entirely different thing to spend all that time on a completely, embarrassingly ordinary stray cat.

Now, that would have been fine had that been the end of it. They could have pushed the experience to the back of their minds, never to be revisited. Never to think again about that cat having run circles around them. For three hours. They could have pretended it never happened.

But the cat came back.

There it was the next day, roaming the halls of Lotus Pier, strutting about without a care in the world, hissing at every disciple who crossed its path.

They got rid of it that time too.

Sect Leader Jiang had been conveniently in a meeting with Head Disciple Lu Tao during that time. A meeting that had definitely not been a distraction, that had definitely not held the purpose of keeping their Sect Leader away from any unwanted intruders. Lu Tao had unfortunately drawn the short straw (she had always had the worst of luck; it didn’t help that Disciple Shi Yun had rigged the straw-drawing).

Then, the day after that, the cat appeared again. It somehow sneaked past all of Lotus Pier’s very well trained disciples a third time. And then, a fourth time. And then, a fifth. No matter how many times they got rid of the cat, it kept getting back in. Again, and again, and again. This was a breach of security that Sect Leader Jiang would figuratively skin them alive for.

(It should be noted that Sect Leader Jiang was not in the habit of skinning his disciples alive, no matter how many times he threatened them and no matter how annoying he found them.)

After the sixth time the cat reappeared, Disciple Deng Hu’s nerves were so shot that he cried.

Really, they were all just lucky their Sect Leader hadn’t found out yet, though it was only a matter of time because Deng Hu was getting closer and closer to a nervous breakdown and their Sect Leader would definitely notice that.

They desperately needed a permanent solution.

* * *

Lotus Pier was a noisy place, its halls were never quiet. There was always sound, however small. Jiang Cheng had grown familiar with those noises. They weren't the same noises as the ones he grew up with (nothing could ever be like those days long since taken away from him) but they were similar enough for him to take comfort in them.

He didn’t like the quiet; those first few months after they reclaimed the remnant of Lotus Pier were quiet, empty. But that empty quiet had been chased away by his noisy, chaotic sect; he was grateful for that (not that he’d ever admit to it).

So many people living in one place, all that life, there was bound to be noise. The feet of servants rushing about, the head cook’s far off angry yelling from the kitchens, the clanging of swords during a training session, the unjaded laughter from junior disciples, the ceaseless chatter of people who should be working but who spent half their time gossiping.

Noise meant life, and life in Lotus Pier was a good thing.

Which made everything all the more disconcerting when Lotus Pier was quiet.

Jiang Cheng was in the middle of paperwork when he noticed the silence.

He put down his brush and left his office, a white-knuckled grip on his sword.

He came across no one as he walked through the halls. He walked faster. The longer he went without seeing anyone, the quicker his heart raced, the harder his lungs worked. It was too quiet.

Finally, he found two disciples, Shi Yun and Deng Hu. His breath did not go back to normal; two disciples were not a sect’s worth of missing people. These two should have been sparring out in the training yard with the others, filling Lotus Pier with the sound of swords that he could not hear, and not furiously whispering to one another.

There's been a lot of that of late; disciples grouped up, heads together, whispering amongst themselves only to suddenly become incapable of speech as soon as Jiang Cheng made an appearance. It was all very suspicious.

He had yet to deal with the obvious colluding, but the Sect was running smoothly for once and everyone was behaving accordingly which in and of itself was also suspicious.

"Shi Yun, Deng Hu!" Jiang Cheng called out.

The disciples spun around, Shi Yun with a shriek unworthy of a Jiang disciple. Jiang Cheng magnanimously ignored it. His heart was still beating too fast to worry about things such as proprietary (not that the Jiang Sect ever had much of that).

"Where is everyone?" Jiang Cheng asked.

The disciples did not utter a word, shifting on the spot, fidgeting with their swords, glancing at one another, begging the other to speak. Neither did.

It's normally a chore to get them both to shut up.

He waited, letting them wilt in the silence, but only for a moment; he was never known for his patience, and over the years it's only gotten worse.

"Very well, I shall have to find out for myself." Jiang Cheng pushed past them and marched towards the training yard where there was a suspicious lack of swords clanging.

The two disciples tried to catch up, maybe in the hopes of stopping him, barely worded protests coming out of their mouths. He ignored them and walked ever faster.

He found all of Lotus Pier in the training yard. It was a mess of disciples, elders, and servants alike, most of whom weren't meant to be there, all of whom were running around, tripping over one another and stamping on each other's feet in their haste, all the while trying to be as quiet as possible.

It took him a moment to notice the little furry orange creature dashing in between legs, just keeping out of reach of dozens of grabbing hands.

A cat.

There was a cat in Lotus Pier.

All this chaos was because of a cat. One singular cat.

He watched on as all of his supposedly excellently trained disciples tried in vain to catch this one singular cat. A more imcompetent group, Jiang Cheng had not seen. All those years of training, all that sweat and pain, all those carefully thought out field exercises and night hunts, and this was the best his Sect could manage?

(Shi Yun and Deng Hu stayed quiet beside him hoping in their heart of hearts that, if they didn’t move, Sect Leader Jiang would forget they were there and not direct his glare their way)

In all the confusion, no one noticed Jiang Cheng standing on the sideline. He made himself known.

"What the fuck is going on here?" The yard was so quiet, he didn't have to raise his voice; he raised it anyway.

All of his people looked over to him with widened eyes and no small amount of dread. Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. The wind itself dared not make a sound.

A cry broke out. The cat chose that moment to meow, the sound loud and piercing in the silence left behind by Jiang Cheng’s voice. The cat bolted towards Jiang Cheng, no hesitation, no fear in its heart. His disciples’ already wide eyes widened even more so, no one was fast enough to block the cat's path.

The cat leaped into Jiang Cheng’s arms. Reflexes forced him to catch it.

He stood there, tense with a cat in his arms. He looked down at the creature; it nuzzled into him. He stood still, not knowing what to do with it. He looked back up.

The whole of his Sect was frozen in front of him, their wide eyes watching him hold the cat that he did not know what to do with.

He hid his discomfort in the same way he usually did. By shouting.

"What is the meaning of this?!"

Again, quiet weighed down on the yard. No one spoke up. He directed his glare at Lu Tao; reliable, honest Lu Tao. She was too busy admiring the floor to look him in the eye. He waited. It took her longer than he had thought for her to crack under his glare which was admirable but she did in the end.

"The cat somehow keeps managing to enter Lotus Pier," she said, finally looking up at him. "We were attempting to put it back outside, Sect Leader Jiang."

"And this task requires all of you, does it?" He asked. No one answered. The cat started to purr; a sound that was most definitely not adorable. One disciple cooed; he pretended not to hear it. He was pretty sure it was Deng Hu. Jiang Cheng would deal with him later.

Before Jiang Cheng could do something to damage his reputation like also coo at the cat, he handed the cat off to Shi Yun, the closest disciple who was not Deng Hu.

The cat stopped purring and hissed instead causing Shi Yun to almost drop it.

Jiang Cheng glared his disciple down, silently promising unimaginable misery if Shi Yun dared drop the cat.

Shi Yun held on more tightly.

"Take the cat away," Jiang Cheng said to Shi Yun. He turned towards the rest of his useless Sect members. "Considering you all have enough free time to go traipsing after stray cats, today's training has been doubled." Nobody dared groan outloud, but frowns replaced their idiotic, wide-eyed expressions, so Jiang Cheng considered the punishment suitable.

Jiang Cheng turned away, back to his office, leaving his disciples to their training.

(Had Jiang Cheng stayed a moment longer, he would have seen everyone giving Shi Yun a wide berth as she rushed away, a displeased cat clawing at her clothes. Shi Yun was not having a good day.)

And, in Jiang Cheng's mind, that was that. He continued on with his paperwork and put today’s event away in some corner of his mind where it could be forgotten. He had more important things to think about than some random cat, after all. Even if the cat had been rather cute. And its fur had been really soft for a stray. And the sound of its purring had warmed some deep place inside Jiang Cheng.

Like he said, he had more important things to think about.

31 notes · View notes

zhuilingyizhen · 4 years ago

Text

agents of shield x mdzs au

This is the qUaLitY content y’all get from this blog. Also see me spamming friend about this AU. It’s junior-centered, with a dash of wangxian. This is basically a more in-depth version of what I gave my friend lol

After getting kicked out of SHIELD for questionable experiments involving Kree blood, Wei Wuxian was spying on Hydra (lead by Wen Ruohan) by infiltrating them as a scientist. However, being Wei Wuxian, he neglected to tell anyone since he got kicked out, so everyone thought he betrayed them.

So he’s at Hydra, befriending Wen Qing & Ning, and realizes that they’re good people.

But he got caught giving info to Director LXC, so Wei Wuxian makes his grand escape. He may have accidentally knocked over a terrigenesis crystal while trying to escape the Nightless City.

The terrigenesis crystal may have turned a little boy into an Inhuman (the first time anyone went through terrigenesis) and that little boy (Wen Yuan) may have accidentally burnt down the entire Nightless City.

At least, that’s how WWX explains it to Lan Wangji when he gives LWJ a child to take care of.

So, with Wen Yuan in SHIELD custody, Lan Wangji adopts him & renames him Lan Sizhui. He’s still a child (I don’t know why I keep referring to him as a little boy?? He’s like 12-ish??).

So Wei Wuxian goes off to re-join the remnants of HYDRA because they let him experiment in peace & he gets to keep an eye on them for SHIELD (even though he’s an ex-agent).

But before that, he vouches for WQ & WN to join SHIELD. And though many people there are suspicious, they do have a vacant spot for a doctor now that Dr. Wei is gone & WQ is quite good. They bring WN along too.

Meanwhile: Lan Jingyi is getting abused my his mother & his dad is working across the country so life is quite sucky for him.

Thankfully, his family has connections to one Lan Xichen (who learns about the abuse eventually) and Jingyi gets into SHIELD Academy. What he doesn’t know is that he comes from a line of people with Inhumans genes.

Which may or may not how been why Xichen was visiting.

Anyways, Sizhui & Jingyi meet at SHIELD Academy (both around 13-14?) and Lan Qiren is about to get more headaches.

Eventually, he (now 16) gets told why he was accepted on the first place & asked if he’d like to go through terrigenesis. He’s like “ok” and boom vocal mind control.

That’s actually inaccurate; he has the power to manipulate people with his voice. He has to learn how to control it though.

Wei Wuxian rejoins SHIELD! Lan Sizhui meets the person who saved him all those years ago. yay.

Little did they know, Wei Wuxian was expieriemnting with terrigenesis while he was gone but shhhhhhh-

Now onto Jin Ling’s backstory, cause his is a doozy.

Jiang Yanli got Inhuman genes from her mother. So did jc, but his powers & stuff come into play later. Wwx is their adopted bro, but due to circumstances that will be explained later, Wwx & jc are estranged.

Jyl and jzx raise jl for most of his younger childhood (until he’s about 7-8) when evil HYDRA people come in & kill jzx and kidnap jyl for Inhuman experimentation. Note, she has the genes but isn’t an Inhuman (yet).

Ling is very sad and Jiang Cheng swoops in to take him in. Jc actually worked at as a SHEILD agent back from before lxc was Director (coughxichengcough) but left when his sister was kidnapped so he could try to track her down & save her. Instead he gets his nephew.

Jc also takes over his parents’ buisness to get a source of income.

And jc goes through the woes of being a parent up until he also gets kidnapped by HYDRA. Jl also gets nabbed, but HYDRA separates them

Wwx may have been expierimenting but he tries to do it without hurting any of them, and he validates it because he prevented many people from getting cut open by explaining to the HYDRA heads that they’re most useful alive. It somehow works.

In fact, wwx is assigned to jl. The HYDRA people know wwx’s relation to jc & jyl, so they don’t tell wwx that they kidnapped jc & jyl or that they’re literally in the same facility.

Since wwx was assigned to jl, he basically helps him undergo terrigenesis and tries to determine his power.

Wwx also doesn’t know that jl is kinda his nephew. But he pities him, so he maybe helps jl escape, but in a way so that no one realizes it because he still has his cover to maintain.

(also, I forgot to mention: jyl’s kidnapping caused jc & wwx to become estranged).

So wwx may have had a very loud conversation near jl’s cell about some of the exits and also teaches jl the basics on his Inhuman ability. maybe the device he uses to control jl’s powers happened to malfunction in the middle of the night.

Ling, not knowing that wwx is helping him, uses his power (energy manipulation) to break out and makes a run for it.

He manages to escape (wwx had a very detailed convo about the building’s layout) and gets the hell out of there.

Jl’s smart enough to realize that since HYDRA knows where he lives, that he probably shouldn’t go back home.

He really wants to get his uncle back (and maybe his mom, but he’s not sure she’s still alive) but has like no idea how to use his power to do anything except bomb stuff. & that only works like half the time.

Jin Ling is about to kill a bitch but then he remembers that his uncle gave him an address to go to if anything ever happened (remember, jc is an ex-SHIELD agent so bad things happen quite a lot).

Meanwhile, despite his carefulness, wwx got caught and HYDRA is deciding whether or not he will die. Wwx, being the genius he is, takes all his stuff and gets the fuck outta there.

He decides to go visit his kinda-boyfriend (that he may or may not have been ignoring for like 13 years), lwj back at SHIELD. He also wants to see how the Wen siblings are doing.

So WWX goes back to SHIELD, only about an hour before Ling arrives. In jl’s defense, he had no idea that the entrance to a secret government organization was a quaint little music shop.

He just kinda... walks in, and everyone is freaking bc they have been breached but sees him and thinks “huh he kinda looks like jc” and then lxc thinks “oh no what happened this time”

Lxc introduces himself and jl (being the second best matchmaker here, second to only lxc) accidentally reveals that jc talked about him before.

Lxc is pleasantly surprised (gay) and asks jl to come with him into his office so that they can... chat.

On their way, they pass by the science lab. Wei Wuxian, who just came back to base, is happily walking along with Lan Sizhui, when all hell breaks loose.

Remember when I said that wwx was quite secretive about helping? And that jl is still upset bc he never got his uncle back and he can’t lose another family member, not to them?

So obviously jl does what anyone would if you saw the guy who forced you to undergo a life-changing event and was involved in the organization that kidnapped two of his family members and killed his dad: he attaccs.

If you also remember, I mentioned that jl has no fucking clue what he’s doing. All he knows is energy and boom boom.

And the mini-explosions only work in close range, from what he’s seen. So in his anger, he unlocks a new skill: energy shots.

Wei Wuxian took cover like the second he realized who was attempting to kill him and screaming at the others not to kill his assailant no matter how annoying he was.

Lan Wangji sadly wasn’t at base, but Sizhui was, and he can certainly hold his own against Ling, especially since Sizhui has had more time to train with his power.

Luckily, Jingyi swoops in & uses his voice to force jl to stop. They handcuff him and lxc drags him away into his office.

It’s safe to say that the science lab corridor is fried.

That’s basically how jl got introduced to SHIELD (he eventually joins and learns the truth about wwx, which makes all their past interactions quite awkward).

Now we have Zizhen, who comes into the story after the two Lans have become agents but before the whole Jin Ling fiasco occurs.

Sizhui & Jingyi were sent to see if Agent Ouyang Xingyun (@yoitsamy’s oc older sis of oyzz)‘a family knew where she was because she was on a undercover mission & didn’t check in with her contact last week. + she didn’t contact SHIELD so Director LXC was worried.

They look through the window and everything is a mess, so they kick down the door and try to find anyone. The whole place is torn apart, like people were fighting there.

In the upstairs bedroom, they find Ouyang Zizhen & four of his younger siblings huddled together in a corner, protected by a forcefield-like shield. Once they realize the Lans aren’t a threat, the go back to SHIELD HQ and put in a room there until they can figure out wtf was going on.

Apparently, Zizhen unlocked his powers w/o terrigenesis when they got attacked by someone who was looking for his sister and used it to protect his siblings. They hadn’t seen their big sister in weeks.

So the Lans have a new case to solve, SHIELD has two new Inhumans with off circumstances, and Lan Wangji is one Xichen away from killing Jin Ling.

73 notes · View notes

oneiriad · 4 years ago

Note

For the crossovers: how would the leverage gang get along with the mdzs fam?

Hmmm.

1. The target of the week is some sort of big hotel owner asshole. I have absolutely no idea what a capitalist hotel owner of bad repute, possibly in Las Vegas, might have done to earn the ire of Leverage. Honestly, it doesn’t really matter.

2. What matters is that there is a big conference - private event, lasts several days, workshops and shared meals and networking time - scheduled at the hotel and the Leverage crew decide that this “Bidecennial Cultivation Conference” is the perfect infiltration spot. So, Hardison hacks the hotel and inserts an extra “sect” - farmers really have some weird organization concepts these days - in the list.

3. A few details become very apparent very quickly when they actually arrive at the conference. Like the fact that whatever these guys are, farmers are - probably not it (though there is this fellow, Mr. Wei, who will happily chat with Elliot about radishes and potatoes for half an hour). Or the fact that, while it’s not like they are the only white or black faces, about 80% of the attendants are definitely of Asian extraction. Dress code leans toward very old school, and Hardison is convinced they’ve stumbled upon an hitherto unknown to him nerd subculture (he - is not entirely wrong?)

4. They soldier on, because they are good at improvising when required. The conference is very varied, and some of the lectures are downright - weird? And the hotel gym, which has martial arts facilities, is getting used for demonstration sword fighting like something out of certain Chinese monasteries (Elliot: “It’s a very distinctive style, but I can’t put my finger on it.”), and the food is delicious, even if Elliot’s new friend Mr. Wei complains that it’s too bland and talks a waiter into bringing an entire bowl of extra chili sauce.

5. The musical entertainment of the evening is a Chinese gentleman in white playing an antique string instrument and Parker might be about to choke, because a guqin in that condiition? Extremely valuable.

6. Of course, then there’s the detail the Leverage crew miss: that the cultivation world knows its own and nobody’s really fooled by this “Portland sect”. They are curious, though, and not particularly threatened, especially as several Immortals - including the famous Hanguang-Jun, the notorious Yiling Laozu, why even the Ghost General and Sandu Shengshou and others - have decided to attend this particular conference.

7. I am not saying that said Immortal cultivators deduce that the Leverage crew are Robin Hood conmen and decide to help them out. Okay, so NHS is still around somehow and deduce it. Everybody knows that that Nie is the sneakiest person anywhere he goes.

8. Wei Wuxian somehow makes friends with Elliot, despite his atrocious, downright offensive opinions about spices. Lan Wangji allows Parker to approach him, while Jiang Cheng pulls a “very important sect leader” to have Sophie attach herself to his arm, while Wen Ning sits down next to Hardison and asks about whatever nerdy merchandise he brought along, because you know. NHS, of course, is an utterly useless good-for-nothing spilling his drink all over Nate.

9. The cultivators observe and deduce and eventually realize the team’s actual target. They might even help out a little or let themselves get conveniently distracted.

10. Alas, the target of the week turns out to have considerably more resources and wherewithal than most targets, and possibly extremely unpleasant friends. As in, he turns the tables on the Leverage crew for real and things are looking very bleak - for them and the couple of poor, innocent cultivators that’s gotten stuck in the middle. There are guns and probably somebody has already died - some poor third party people.

11. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Jiang Cheng interrupts halfway through the villain monologuing his way towards a gangster style mass execution, because one massive hostage situation with a pscyho is enough for several millennia, thank you. And then Zidian comes out, and sweet, harmless, nerdy Wen Ning’s eyes go black and he roars to freeze the blood in everybody’s veins.

12. A bit later, a couple of Lans - don’t you just love those nice, strong arms - rip a door off its hinges, and in walks the Yiling Laozu, lowering Chenqing and blinking sheepishly. “What took you so long?” Jiang Cheng barks as he sweeps out.

13. (Wei Wuxian had been making out with his husband in a cupboard, on the general principle that a hotel conference requires at least one round of making out in a cupboard. He is not the least bit embarrassed about that, but he still gets stuck with clean-up duty.)

14. Clean-up duty mostly involves the bad guys getting back up and walking out to a cheery tune. Possibly a Disney tune.

15. Leverage crew are - mildly put shocked and definitely not used to their cases devolving into quite as much bloodshed. Also Elliot is standing in front of the lot of them in defensive posture, because he just saw Wen Ning take an unknown number of bullets without even slowing down and throw a desk that should have taken four men to lift, but he’ll be damned if he’s going to let these people - who obviously have secrets, big secrets, and no hesitation in killing - get to his friends without a fight.

16. “So,” says Nie Huaisang, walking in and daintily sidestepping a blood pool, “this is an awful mess, isn’t it?”

“Yes...”

(Possibly, very politely phrased mutual blackmail ensues. Well, mostly NHS basically threatening to have the entire mess pinned on the group of known felons hanging around at the hotel, infiltrating a cultural conference, and oh, he’s got this particular Interpol fellow on speed dial, funny that. Unless, that is, I mean, we’re all friends here, and it’s already such a terrible mess, nobody’d want any of this to get messier, would they? What happens in Vegas and all that, yes?)

#leverage #mo dao zu shi

54 notes · View notes

antiquecompass · 5 years ago

Text

Untamed Spring Fest Day 10: Rainbow

Wherein there are puddles and surprises:

With the birth of the twins, Jiang Cheng had found himself babysitting Jin Ling more and more often. He wanted to give the new parents a break, or at least a chance to sleep while the twins were sleeping, and he wanted to make sure Jin Ling still felt loved, cared for, acknowledged, and the sole center of attention for at least one adult in his life--even if it was only for a few hours. He never knew what it was like to go from being an only child to an older sibling, but he definitely knew what it was like to crave the attention of a parent.

There were some things he never, ever, wanted his nephew to experience. And while he knew he couldn’t prevent all the bad, that some bad and pain were needed in each life, that his sister and brother-in-law were loving parents, to each other and to their children, two newborn babies still won out over a four-year-old when it came to time and attention.

So Jiang Industries was just going to have to wait for him this morning. He had a little nephew to walk to the Public Garden, to see the Ducklings statue, to splash about in puddles and try to ‘catch’ a rainbow because after seeing one in real life just last week, Jin Ling had become obsessed with seeing another one.

The kid was going to turn into as much of a magpie as Wei Ying if they weren’t careful.

Though it was nice to know he could easily distract him, still, with shiny gifts.

It’s not like Jiang Cheng didn’t know enough artists through Xichen to get his hands on all different sorts of crystals and prisms.

It was still early enough when they entered the Public Garden that it almost felt like they had it all to themselves. The smell of fresh, wet earth surrounded them as they walked past the old trees, skirting the pond and the swan boats.

Jin Ling, dressed up almost like a little duckling himself in his yellow raincoat and boots, headed straight for the bronze statue of Mrs. Mallard and her eight ducklings. He patted each of them on the head and greeted them properly, before running back to Jiang Cheng and hugging his legs.

“Puddles?” Jiang Cheng asked.

Jin Ling nodded.

Puddles were a forbidden thing that Jin Ling only got to splash about it when his uncles were around. Jin Zixuan had probably never splashed in a puddle in his life and while Yanli most definitely had, she knew her husband was a fastidious peacock who didn’t like a mess unless it could be maintained in their own backyard.

Jiang Cheng would have to take Jin Ling back to the apartment for a wash and a change of clothes before bringing him back to his parents, but that was for later.

Right now was for puddles, and the joy of them, and trying to catch a rainbow.

*********

His condo smelled like breakfast when they returned. Jin Ling made a happy little sound as he spotted Pepper and ran towards her, only stopping to kick off his boots as he chased after the cat. Jiang Cheng laughed as he held Jin Ling's rain coat, only a little surprised when Xichen appeared.

“I thought you weren’t coming until this evening,” Jiang Cheng said as he hung up their coats.

Lan Academy’s Spring Break technically didn’t start until this afternoon when classes let out. Xichen's original plan was to arrive after the school officially closed.

“Uncle locked me out of my own office,” Xichen explained.

“That last cold did knock you out,” Jiang Cheng said. “He probably just wanted you to get more rest.”

“I was perfectly fine to return to work,” Xichen said. He tilted his head down and greeted Jiang Cheng with a kiss. “Good morning, my love.”

“Hi,” Jiang Cheng replied. “You brought breakfast?”

Xichen shrugged. “I knew you had Jin Ling this morning and figured with the rain last night it would be a puddle day.” He glanced down, eyes lingering on the wet hems of Jiang Cheng’s jeans. “Clearly he wasn’t the only one jumping through puddles.”

“We were chasing after a rainbow,” Jiang Cheng explained.

“Of course,” Xichen said with an indulgent nod. “And speaking of the eldest peachicks latest obsession.”

Jiang Cheng shouldn’t have been surprised that Xichen bought Jin Ling a rainbow prism. It was a simple toy, hardly an extravagant gift at all, and he knew Xichen was a thoughtful, caring man, and still it made his heart skip a beat. Xichen didn’t have to treat Jin Ling like family, and yet he always did.

Jiang Cheng tugged him down into a harder, deeper kiss. The kind that left them both gasping in the end.

"Later," Jiang Cheng promised.

Xichen nodded, taking a deep breath to compose himself again.

“Oh, Qingyang’s also called you out of work today,” Xichen said.

Jiang Cheng narrowed his eyes even as he wrapped his arms around Xichen and pulled him closer, not able to resist the temptation of having him here.

“Why do I feel like this was all planned?”

“You’re paranoid,” Xichen said.

Jin Ling reappeared with Pepper in his arms, the Maine Coon almost half the size of him.

“We were gentle?” Jiang Cheng asked.

Jin Ling nodded and then carefully set Pepper down. Pepper immediately ran for high ground. In her case, Xichen’s shoulders.

“Well, that’s painful,” Xichen grimaced. “You two get cleaned up. Then it’s time for breakfast.”

“We’ve already had breakfast,” Jin Ling said.

“Then it’s time for second breakfast,” Xichen said.

“What’s second breakfast?” Jin Ling asked.

“Something you’ll know of when you follow in the natural nerd footsteps of your entire family,” Jiang Cheng said as he picked his nephew up and carted him towards the bathroom.

“What does that mean?” Jin Ling asked.

“Just that we’re very lucky your Uncle Wuxian didn’t re-name your cousin Frodo.”

#verse: lahl #fandom: the untamed #untamed spring fest #fic: hold me like you want me #my ridic writing

34 notes · View notes

jcs-writing-hell · 5 years ago

Text

@my lovely anon | thanks for requesting & sorry for the delay but when I got your request my app bugged & I couldn’t read what you wanted for like a day

Junior Trio/JL centered | Category: Hurt/Comfort | Keyword: Mishap/Slip of tongue(or so xD) | kinda deep & angsty | Word Count: 2441

Jiang Cheng had tried his best, Jin Ling was completely aware of that.

Other than what most knew of Jiang Cheng, Jin Ling had really started to see how his uncle truly cared for him.

It started almost instantly after Jin GuangYao died, the back & forth & pulling on Jin Ling. At the time he was around 16, his mental state a mess - yet with the mess the Jin Sect, once again, ended up in.. Who cared about his emotions? Well, Jiang Cheng did.

Jin Ling slowly healed, at least on the surface, while his maternal uncle tried his best to cover his back. Making up excuse after excuse, with them ranging from "He has just lost his uncle.", to "He is too young." & if anyone tried to dare say "But you were" Jiang Cheng made sure to clarify that the times had been different, that the youths nowadays didn't have the pressure and experience they had had back in the day.

Jiang Cheng had tried his best, Jin Ling was both thankful and aware of that.. yet sooner or later, of course, things couldn't go on that way. With 17 he had started to take extra lessons, less physical training, just to get the history & knowledge he needed to be the new leader memorized. And then, now, with almost 18 Jiang Cheng also had run out of plausible excuses. The last thing his uncle had managed was to invite his friends before his ceremony where he'd be first shown off as the "new face of the Jin Sect", "the person that'll finally, for real this time, bring a true change",..

Needless to say that Jin Ling was stressed. He felt exhausted, strangely enough growing more lonely by day - just like he'd been in his early childhood.

Even his friends, that were adults by then & had brought Emperors Smile in mass along, couldn't quite drown out the fact that.. Jin Ling felt like a toy & as the most important day of his life so far came closer fast without his parents..

Jin Ling didn't even take note of the fact that his friends had disappeared at first. They were camping out & he had one of his moments again where his heart ached, chest tight & air hard to catch in his lungs. Poking around in the fire, he couldn't help but question again.. If all of that was what he wanted with his life. That he shouldn't think that way, because even if his mind would say "no", he had no right to say so. How he was supposed to lead a sect so wrecked & scary as the LanLing Jin Sect.. If his fate was the same as the crooked one of his ancestors, which honestly scared him to death.

His friends had done a pretty good job over all so far though when it came to both distracting and comforting him - not that he really admitted what was going on, or wrong. Due to that, as Jin Ling finally noticed neither Sizhui nor Jingyi being around he grew understandably worried and got up to search for them. He also managed to find them within no time, yet.. what he heard really.. got his blood to boil.

,,Do you have an idea what we could try still, A-Yi? I don’t think we’re really being of much help..” Sizhui was clearly worried, Jingyi however acted and sounded a bit too much like his “jerk” self.

,,I know we wanted to help him.. I mean, we barely got to meet him for like a year now, but.. Don’t you think he has enough help already? Or in general, what are we supposed to help him with? I mean, you also don’t have parents, but to be frank - Doesn’t he have everything else one could dream off? Money, support from pretty much everyone, a bright future ahead of him.. What are the chances that we’d be able to do for him that he doesn’t have already?”

Sizhui was just about to give his friend a good beating as both of the Lan’s flinched quite hard when Jin Ling stepped - quite literally - out of the shadows, his tone full of betrayal, rage and frustration.

,,Do you think that’s what I want? Do you actually think that I want any of that, after all that our way of living caused? Don’t you think I’d rather have my parents, or just one of them, instead of all the money and maidens and luxury items on this world? You know what? Forget it. Who even cares. Thanks, thanks a lot.”

,,A-Ling-” Sizhui’s try to call out for the youngest lead nowhere; all the latter did was lift up a hand in almost a warning like manner as he had already turned and began to storm off. ,,That was really not necessary, A-Yi.. When will you ever learn to think before you speak?”

,,Stop acting like it’s not the truth that we can’t help him. That we can’t give him what he wants or needs either.” Jingyi snapped back as the oldest glared at him, only to get another glare directed at him before Sizhui walked off as well while saying in an upset tone.

,,What he needs right now are at least his friends with all the things that are missing in his life - that he should have in his life at such a moment in time. You could do at least that much for him without worrying about whether or not it’ll bear fruit before you even properly tried.”

~💙~

It took a while before the Lan’s found the other sitting in front of a lake against a tree. He looked worryingly gone out and upset, in truth though not half as much as he actually was. Pushing Jingyi forwards, the younger Lan spoke up in a tone so awkward and hesitant.

,,Uhm.. I.. I just wanted to say that.. I shouldn’t have said what I did.. not behind your back especially.. I.. I’m sorry.”

,,It’s not even really your fault.. It’s just..” Jin Ling started, only to stop a few words in - causing both Lan’s to exchange a worried look before Sizhui sat down; dragging the other Lan with him.

,,A-Ling.. What’s wrong? You’re not quite.. yourself, or more how you were a few years ago..”

Jin Ling only briefly looked at Sizhui, who spoke in a carefully gentle tone, turning slightly away from them at the end as he stared at his hand that was resting above the leg he had bend at the knee. A bit of time passed before he began to open up, not talking too loudly and with pauses here and there.

,,The problem is more.. What isn’t wrong? The closer my ceremony and 18th birthday come.. I don’t know, there’s just a lot of pressure.. Ever since I can think, even when at the time still both of my uncles sheltered and pampered me.. I was always.. The nephew of, the son of, the future sect leader..”

Both of the Lan’s heads dropped, but especially Jingyi didn’t dare look at either of his friends as he fiddled with a piece of his robe in such an ashamed manner.

,,I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with my sect, already now.. It’s so.. wrecked, cursed.. How am I supposed to lead this complete and utter mess with people around me that don’t care if it keeps running that way or not. Or with the only person I have left still living hours away, in charge of a sect of his own.. And in between they only keep adding pressure and pressure.. The first time someone gave me letters with maidens that would be good for my sect’s sake to marry was years ago, now they really want me to find a wife - if possible yesterday..”

Jin Ling turned his head as he heard a few muffled noises, only to see that Sizhui held his hand over Jingyi’s mouth - more than likely to stop the latter from saying something inappropriate yet understandable like “What do you even want with a wife already?”, or so.

,,And what do you want, A-Ling?”- To both of the Lan’s shock and surprise all the youngest could give as a response for quite a while were empty stares, then shrugging and shaking his head before he said what they could gather already at this point.

,,I don’t know.. There’s a part of me that when I try to think about it.. does its hardest to stop me from doing so.. Even if I would find an answer, what would it change or matter? I don’t even know who I am deep down inside, apart from the son and what not of.. Even looking back now, to how I behaved from early on.. I tried often to run away. And yeh, honestly even I can’t say A-Yi’s misstress nickname doesn’t somehow fit me.. but it wasn’t that, I ran to have some sort of freedom.. Only to ultimately hide behind what everyone always hides and excuses everything with when it comes to me - or even in front of me.. my title, my heritage, my role in life..”

Jin Ling paused, clenching the hand he kept staring at into a rather tight fist. ,,Who am I.. What do I want.. I know neither and I’m afraid to find a answer for both, knowing it doesn’t matter..”

Neither of the 3 knew what to respond to that and Jin Ling couldn’t blame his friends for being at a loss. He was himself, but more than anything he was so.. so incredibly confused and empty deep down inside.

,,Have you tried talking to your uncle before? .. I mean.. Wasn’t he in an even worse situation?”

,,The last thing I want is to sound childish and irresponsible.. even worse: make him worry, A-Yi.” The youngest said as he let out a breath far too heavy for a boy in his age. He didn’t know what to do, and even if Jiang Cheng had changed a lot to the better the past few years since the temple incident.. Jin Ling was still worried about how to approach his uncle, really not wanting to disappoint at the end of the day.

,,There aren’t all too many that know about this, but I was raised to take over the Gusu Lan Sect; just in case… Not that anyone dares to think of a nightmare huge enough to happen for Master Qiren, Zewu-Jun and Hanguang-Jun to die, but.. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is.. If this scenario would happen, and I’d be left with nothing but the ashes of my sect.. I would rebuild it entirely, change the things that are going wrong already in its core..”

,,That’s not a bad idea, A-Yuan.. If I got it right you were trying to say that our little mistress should completely clean up the mess his sect is, right?”

Sizhui nodded before looking at Jin Ling who looked as lost in thought as he was.

,,Maybe I should talk to my uncle after all..” Jin Ling then finally said, hesitantly turning back around so he could look at his friends that wore confused expressions - not that he could blame them. ,,I might not know a lot currently, but I know for sure that I don’t want to lead the LanLing Jin Sect how it is now.. It would be mildly risky, yet..”

,,Stop torturing us and speak properly already!” Jingyi whined, getting nudged in the side from the older Lan for that.

,,It might be quite the gamble, yet I know they won’t be able to disagree.. I will need some help though, definitely.. I think I.. I think I will set up this massive plan where I tell the elders of the LanLing Jin Sect that I will only take it over if it’s under my own terms. Be it the throwing out of disciples and so forth, close examinations of each member so what happened in the past will remain there.. Closer bonds to the other sects, more openness,.. I also have the birthright to decide how I want the relationship with Yunmeng Jiang to turn out..”

As half-confident as Jin Ling might’ve sounded, he could feel his heart race, hands shake and palms grow sweaty from all the nervousness; paired with this weirdly thrilling rush. His mind was going all sorts of places, no dark ones for once - to the point where he needed a minute or two maybe before realising that his friends looked at him.. like he had gone nuts, while they looked like they were in the process of doing so themselves.

,,But what if they-”

,,We will definitely help you, A-Ling! Whatever support you need, I know most sects will be willing to agree.”

Jin Ling felt his own lips and teeth hurt from how hard Sizhui had slammed his hand once again over Jingyi’s lips as the latter had tried to say something rather understandable - that could cause his mood to go downhill again.

At the end they all nodded.. before awkward silence spread between them as none knew what to do or say now.. Or well, at least until Sizhui spoke up again, his tone giving away that there’d be no chance to say "no", or even argue.

,,That calls for a group hug.”

,,Forget it!” For once Jingyi and Jin Ling were in sync, even sharing the same opinion.. just like a moment later when their expressions distorted into both fear and horror as Sizhui’s turned into one so spine-chilling similar to Lan Wangji’s.

,,Group. Hug. Now.” Even his tone was.. scarier than anything Jiang Cheng could manage - For the sakes of their young lives, the two younger ones then simply spread their arms in defeat as Sizhui pulled them together.. In one of the many group hugs he forced them into secretly; usually and mostly when drunk though.

A few moments into the hug Jin Ling glanced down at Sizhui who had turned out to be quite a bit smaller than him over the years.. and as guessed, the oldest looked up at him and winked. Jin Ling only smiled a shy one..

Yet as several minutes later they had returned back to their fireplace it was more than evident that the super glue of their group - Sizhui - had done a pretty good job at comforting him.. And Jingyi had also done his usual small amount, even if it was only provoking Jin Ling until he finally spilled what was going wrong; which Jin Ling couldn’t quite believe was accidental, neither that day or on any other.

Check out my MDZS Writing Game | Requests open anytime

#mo dao zu shi #mdzs #the untamed #the grandmaster of demonic cultivation #junior trio #jin ling #lan jingyi #lan sizhui #mdzs fanfic #mo dao zu shi fanfic

35 notes · View notes

ouyang-zizhen · 5 years ago

Text

A LingZhen Ranch AU OS

Yes, they still don’t have official titles because that’s how they’re named for now XD So, in this AU, City boy Jin Ling has to go lay low at his uncle Wei Wuxian’s ranch because his other uncle Jin GuangYao messed up and is now in prison, and being the heir of the infamous Jin Corp, the press was being heavy on him. Of course, Jin Ling doesn’t want to go on the countryside, but uncle Jiang Cheng didn’t leave him much of a choice. Farm boy ZiZhen, foster child of Wei Wuxian and Lan WangJi since he was thirteen years old, makes quite the impression on Jin Ling once he gets there.

In this OS, their relationship is established, Jin Ling went back to the city after things calmed down, and ZiZhen visits him for the first time. Enjoy!

The city’s light tumbled through his half-closed eyelids. He could only watch in amazement wherever they went. The neons, the skyscrapers, despite the night being advanced, everything was so alight and alive. So different from where he came from.

- Jin Ling! We need… we need to go see that movie! It looks good!

ZiZhen pointed to the giant billboard at the entrance of the nearest subway station. His words were slurred by a whole evening of them jumping from bar to bar, enjoying what he dubbed their “first official date in the big city”. Jin Ling had rolled his eyes, arguing that they’ve already had plenty of dates together, but he had to admit - albeit reluctantly - that his boyfriend’s looked too cute in his excitement to deny. After all, ZiZhen had only seen the city by day so far, so Jin Ling agreed to show him around the district that never sleeps.

- ZiZhen, love. That’s a perfume ad.

He looked confused for a few seconds before laughing at himself, and Jin Ling couldn’t help but smile and laugh too.

By around midnight, they’ve been to four of Jin Ling’s top 10 favourite bars and restaurants, and, seeing ZiZhen’s state already, he realized he might have been a little too ambitious with his plans. Despite his height and muscle mass, his farm boy was a real light weight when it came to drinking.

- Come on, he said, putting an arm around his waist, I think it’s time to go home.

ZiZhen agreed, but not before pulling his boyfriend into a kiss that left Jin Ling breathless. When they parted, he put a hand on his chest, voice hoarse.

- Okay, let me just call an Uber.

While they waited outside, underneath the awning surrounding one of the many theaters in that area, ZiZhen pulled his boyfriend into a warm embrace, his chin resting on Jin Ling’s head. The latter hugged back and smiled when ZiZhen rubbed his cheek against his hair. Despite the people coming and going on the street, the world was somehow quiet around them. When he saw a couple being photographed by a third party on the sidewalk, a couple of meters from them, ZiZhen remembered the conversation with Jiang Cheng’s a few weeks prior. The shovel talk had gone much better than he expected, but some of what he said that day still puzzled him. “Do you know who he is, to the public?”, he had asked, and ZiZhen had to admit that, besides being the now young CEO of Jin Corp, he still had no idea who his boyfriend was to the rest of the world, especially not to the media. But he knew one thing for sure.

- If I ever do something that makes you feel ashamed in public, you can break up with me!

Jin Ling pulled away and lifted his head up, absolute confusion written on his face.

- What?

- If you feel ashamed of me, ZiZhen repeated serenely, you can break up with me.

- Yes, that I heard, but where is this coming from? Why do you think I would break up with you? Why would I feel ashamed of you?

Jin Ling was now scowling, his tone irritated… and perhaps afraid? ZiZhen caressed his cheek and kissed the line that formed in between his eyebrows.

- Your uncle… When he gave me the shovel talk, he told me about your public status and -

- What did he tell you?!

Jin Ling’s whole body stiffen and he would have pushed away if ZiZhen didn’t hold him there. His boyfriend kept that same calm expression and smiled at him.

- He just asked if I knew about what the public thinks of you, and I just thought… If your public image is that important, I know I’m just a farm boy, and I don’t know that much about the city, so… if I ever do something that would taint your image in any way, you can leave. I love you, and I just want you to be happy, and -

He got cut off by Jin Ling’s lips on his, pushing him against the pillar of the awning.

- Idiot, he said tenderly when he pulled away, that’s not what Jiujiu meant.

Their Uber driver honked at them once, startling them. Before they climbed in, Jin Ling kissed him again.

- I’ll tell you another time. When I’m ready. And both of us are sober.

***

The car smelled like ice cream. That’s all ZiZhen could think about as they drove in silence through the city, Jin Ling’s hand in his. When they passed in front of the third board advertising yet another brand of ice cream, he turned to his boyfriend, startling him.

- I want gelato.

Jin Ling raised an eyebrow at him.

- We can have some tomorrow.

- It’s already tomorrow, ZiZhen insisted. I want gelato.

- The shops are probably all closed by now, Jin Ling scoffed, yet unable to completely hide his smile at his boyfriend’s eagerness.

- I know this place near 3rd avenue, it’s open 24/7, I can take you there if you want, offered the Uber driver.

- Yes please!

- Wait!

Jin Ling turned to his boyfriend.

- If we wait until tomo - later today, I can bring you to the best gelato parlour in town.

ZiZhen shook his head, imperturbable.

- I want gelato now.

Seeing his boyfriend’s unmoved expression, ZiZhen closed the distance between them and softly kissed his cheek.

- Please?

With a huff, Jin Ling turned to the driver and agreed to his suggestion, much to ZiZhen’s delight.

The gelato parlour was empty save for two seemingly high customers eating their share at one of the tables, laughing at a joke they made five minutes prior. Behind the counter, the tired but welcoming smile of the employee has long turned into an annoyed pout. ZiZhen has been staring at the flavours for the past fifteen minutes now. Jin Ling was already on his second serving.

- Come on, ZiZhen, just pick a flavour!

ZiZhen looked up, scandal written on his face.

- No! This is my first time having gelato, and I want it to be the best experience I can ever… experience.

Maybe, but you’re clearly not this poor girl’s first customer. Pick a flavour, and have yourself another serving if you want more.

- It’s not that easy!

Jin Ling slowly exhaled through his nostrils, exchanging a look with the clerk. He apologetically shrugged, mouthing “I’m sorry”, before taking another spoonful of gelato. Another five minutes passed. He ordered another one.

- Okay. I know what I’ll take, said ZiZhen.

- Fucking finally!

They sat down on the now empty chairs, ZiZhen carefully tasting the four different flavours in his extra large container. Jin Ling finished his and threw it in the trash can.

- So, how does it taste, Master Chef?

ZiZhen stared at his cup, spoon hanging between it and his mouth. He pouted.

- Disappointing.

- I told you we should’ve waited to go to the other place.

ZiZhen brought the spoon to his mouth and nodded.

- Can we still go tomorrow anyway?

Jin Ling smirked.

- You mean today?

ZiZhen lightly whacked his shoulder with his spoon and pulled his tongue at him, then quickly finished the rest of his gelato. After getting up, he pulled Jin Ling on his feet and held his hand, leaving a taste of coffee and caramel on his lips with a kiss.

- Let’s go home?

Jin Ling nodded.

- Ya. We can walk from here, it’s not too far.

They left the parlour, fingers intertwined.

***

Home was farther than Jin Ling anticipated. They had been walking, hand in hand, for half an hour, and still, no sign of his apartment building. While they started walking at the same pace, now, Jin Ling had slowed a few steps behind, while ZiZhen kept ahead. But there was no way he would tell his farm boy how much his feet hurt. He didn’t spend these months on his uncle’s ranch to complain about aching limbs so soon. Jin Ling didn’t get to finish his mental pep talk when ZiZhen stopped walking.

- Are you alright?

Jin Ling frowned.

- Of course I’m alright, what would make you think I’m not?

ZiZhen looked at his boyfriend and smiled, understanding.

- You’ve been digging your nails in my hand for at least five minutes.

Jin Ling looked at their hands and loosened his grip, noticing the half-moon shape imprinted in ZiZhen’s skin. He kept his eyes on the ground, cheeks reddening.

- I’m sorry.

ZiZhen laughed, and pulled him closer. Jin Ling let out a scream of surprise when what he thought would be a hug became ZiZhen’s arms behind his back and knees, lifting him up from the ground.

- Hey! Put me down! You’re still drunk!

- I’m not, and your feet hurt.

- So?

ZiZhen laughed again.

- So, isn’t this more comfortable?

Jin Ling would have argued, but his pride left in a huff and he answered by weaving his arms around his neck, head dropping on his shoulder. The surprisingly steady rocking of the walk and the heat of ZiZhen’s body slowly lulled him to sleep.

***

He was on his bed when he opened his eyes, ZiZhen curled behind him, Fairy at their feet. Jin Ling turned around, careful not to wake him up and softly kissed the tip of his nose.

- Fine, you deserve another round of gelato, he whispered.

ZiZhen responded with an incomprehensible mumble and pulled him closer. Jin Ling laughed quietly and fell back asleep in the crook of his shoulder.

It’s important to note that none of the OS I’ve been writing so far would exist without my amazing 2 am brainstorm partner @demonitized-cultivation�� (otherwise known as @mistress-jin-ling). This one is no exception.

Huge thanks also to @eternalserenity, for her many insights and contributions to these ideas also!

@bi-the-wei, thank you for beta reading this with such enthusiasm!

@chi-zi, hope you’ll enjoy this one!

#ouyang zizhen #jin ling #the untamed #cql #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #fanfic #os #ranch au #modern au #lingzhen #jin ling x ouyang zizhen #rare pair

21 notes · View notes

lotus-mirage · 5 years ago

Text

The Untamed episode 39 + 40 liveblog

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

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

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

Bringing up the actor friend again

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

Wait, I thought she was a ghost already?

Guess not?

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

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

And he’s gone.

Oh, the girl has the puppet marks too?

Stabbed 3 times!?

Yeah I’d give Song Lan the final blow here

Oh, there is something weird with his finger

Kind of just yikes at Xue Yang’s whole monologue

:,(

Oh no

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

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

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

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

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

Who left the candy there while he’s dying?

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

I wonder how long there been there after that.

Where’d Song Lan go?

Oh they made a grave for her :,)

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

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

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

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

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

:,)

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

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

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

A second coffin underneath it!?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway !!!!!!!!!!

Awwww WWX flashing back to Wen Yuan too

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

!!!!

Just hands Lan Sizhui the lantern with no explanation, haha

Oh good he’s got his mask back on

It was headless!?

That is a lot of data points on the masked guy

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

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

And now for whatever the disciples are discussing, I guess

Ouch, Jin Ling

LAN XICHEN KNOWS, OKAY

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

End notes:

Okay. Okay that was a lot.

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

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

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

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

- episode 40 -

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

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

The staring as he asks for liquor, haha

Hahaha it just keeps going

He just stuck the chicken back in his friends mouth

Was that Wen Ning outside?

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

I love this episode

Ouch haha

Wait is LWJ planning to drink liquor again

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

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

Are we skipping right to the next month??

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

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

Jin Ling and his boatload of uncles

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

Oh right Mo Xanyu got thrown out of here

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

Is Nie Huaisang drunk?

Doesn’t seem to be handling things well

Awwww Jin Ling’s trying to defend him

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

Oh, teaching him a new move?

Hahaha he’s kind of an awful influence

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

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

There’s synth music I can’t

Is she scared of Meng Yao?

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

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

So it implied he got their son killed?

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

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

What’d he just do to her

That was a doorway?

Are those chains

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

I assume that’s the head?

Yyep

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

End notes:

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

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

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

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

#mdzs #the untamed #untamed liveblog #my thoughts

7 notes · View notes

curiosity-killed · 4 years ago

Text

a bow for the bad decisions: chapter 15

prev | start | next

(on ao3)

He doesn’t avoid her. He doesn’t have to avoid her; she’s a visiting physician and he’s the sect leader. Their paths rarely cross. For the first two weeks, the only time he sees her is at dinner with the other disciples. She sits at a table alongside Xiong Chunfeng and two of the senior assistants, and even in grey rather than blue, she fits. Jiang Cheng’s heart gives a funny stutter at the realization, the ease with which he accepts her place here. Her eyes flick up toward him briefly, and the small smile curving her lips freezes. Catching himself, Jiang Cheng turns away and continues on to his seat with Xingtao and Bujue. He carefully does not look her way for the rest of the meal. He doesn’t want her to feel watched, to feel like she’s under some kind of probation. The last thing he wants is her to feel that she’s a prisoner here. Resolved, he starts taking his dinners privately. There’s still plenty of work left for him to attend to, and taking a break for dinner only means that work is waiting for him when he returns. He starts sending for his dinner to be brought to his study instead. A month into this new routine, he feels someone come to a pause outside his study door and then a short, sharp knock.

“Not right now,” he says absently.

He’s going to take the first night hunt that crosses his desk, no matter how boring it is. The last three hours have been devoted to an absurd complaint between two dyers in Jiangling over the rights to a new mordant they developed together. Each belongs to a different guild, and he has missives from nearly every member of both guilds strewn across his desk; all of them are laden with such absurd jargon that he’s almost ready to give up and tell them to figure it out themselves. As much as he’d like to, though, he can’t let two of the largest textile guilds in Yunmeng fight indefinitely. Still. He’s going to find a night hunt as soon as he can and kill some godsdamned ghosts. Steps cross the floor, and he looks up in irritation in time to see the bottom of a tray before it’s set in the only empty corner of his desk. He blinks and finds Wen Qing frowning down at him. “You aren’t taking care of yourself,” she says shortly. “Your cultivation may be plenty strong for inedia, but neglecting your own care will only injure yourself and your sect.” “I—” Jiang Cheng starts, but he rapidly realizes he has no idea how to finish that sentence. He stares up at her instead, utterly baffled and mouth slightly parted. This is— He was trying to distance himself from her so she didn’t feel undue pressure. She wasn’t supposed to come seek him out over something as absurd as his own dining. “Um. Thank you,” he says before looking down, cheeks warm. She inclines her head slightly, and he finds himself casting desperately for a conversation, for a reason for her to stay even a moment longer. “Healer Xiong says you’ve started assisting with some of the assistants’ training,” he finally says. It isn’t really what he means to say, but it’s the first thing that he seizes on. It has been over a month since she was brought here, after all. Now is a perfectly acceptable time to ask after her adjustment here. “Healer Xiong has been most gracious in inviting me into her lessons,” she affirms. “And your rooms?” he prompts. “The accommodations and food have been to your taste?” Something like frustration crosses her face, a faint pursing of her lips. “Respectfully, Jiang-zongzhu,” she says, “I brought your meal here to encourage rest, not to provide more work.” Heat rushes up his cheeks. The chastisement in her tone is mild but firm, and he finds himself sitting a little straighter under it. She hesitates before sighing. One corner of her lips quirks up, a fleeting half-smile, before she turns a stern look on him. “I’ll provide a full report if you eat your dinner,” she says. It feels a little like he should be offended by her bargaining, and he scowls a moment. He’d expected her to give a terse answer and then leave, surely not wanting to stay around any longer than she had to. He can’t guess what motive she might have for staying, except, perhaps, it is just her diligence as a doctor. In that way, perhaps it makes sense. She’s clearly taken on her responsibilities in the physicians’ office fully, and he is, in that sense, her new sect leader. Of course she’d take this task with all the solemn dedication with which he’s seen her approach every other responsibility. Resolved, he inclines his head in acceptance and gestures for her to sit as well. While she folds down across from him, he sets about rearranging the tray on his desk. It really is only one serving, but there’s a pot of tea and a spare cup that was clearly meant for the sauce in a separate jar. He arranges the dishes so that the proper cup is before Wen Qing and his own is a little hidden by the bowls of braised fish balls and noodles. Though her gaze lingers briefly on the cup, she doesn’t mention it before pouring for both of them. True to her word, Wen Qing doesn’t start to speak until he’s started eating. Her report is brisk and thorough, a decisive run-down of how she’s been integrated into the medical staff and what research she’s begun with Xiong-daifu’s approval. For a moment, Jiang Cheng can see her alongside the rest of them in the war. Healing the wounded and tending the sick, yes — but also as an advisor, with her clear sight and pragmatic analysis. If he had managed to bring her back, persuade her to join their side, would they have lost fewer lives? Would the war have ended any more quickly? He brushes the thought away brusquely. She never would have abandoned her family. The only reason she’s here, after all, is because they’ve already been killed. She wouldn’t be here if every last one of them hadn’t been murdered on that mountain. They discuss the efficiency of the treatment processes within Lotus Pier’s infirmary as well as the state of medicine in the outer cities. Wen Qing frowns over the prevalence of marsh fever among farmers and non-cultivators, and briefly wonders if there might be a way to encourage immunity through spiritual energy infusions in qinghao teas. She pauses before shaking her head and deciding to confer with Xiong-daifu instead. It’s all the kinds of conversations Jiang Cheng dreaded when he was younger — the logistics and minutiae of administration. Instead of being bored, though, he finds himself enjoying sharing them with her. Where he has greater familiarity and experience with Yunmeng’s systems and challenges, she brings a critical eye and clear insight. By the time they both stir enough from their conversation to notice time passing, his dishes have long been stacked neatly back on the tray and set aside, and the teapot is empty and dry as bone. Between them sits a rough draft of a proposal for physicians to train in Lotus Pier before spending a year each serving throughout Yunmeng in villages without sufficient medical care. A junior disciple passes by to light the lotus lanterns, a solemn frown on their still-soft face. Wen Qing looks down at it, her left hand slipping over to cover her fingers. A faint pink flush has started high on her cheeks. “I apologize, I did not mean to take up so much of your time or add to your work, zongzhu,” she says. “No, it’s— I. You have—” he pauses, fumbles for words. “You have good insights. I uh appreciate your thoughts.” She pauses, looking up. There’s a moment where she looks surprisingly young, with her lips parted just-so as if to speak and the lantern light catching in the dark of her eyes. Then she glances down, composing herself and pressing her lips together as she dips her head in a polite acknowledgment. “I appreciate the opportunity to assist however I might,” she says. Of course. She’s used to being the leader of her family, a doctor, a member of the upper court in Qishan — to be forced into idleness would nearly be a punishment. Discussing these matters with him offers more information, more opportunities for her to stay busy. His heart sinks a little in disappointment at the realization. Still — he’s startled and pleased when she returns a few days later, when they start eating together and talking a few times a week. Neither of them make any mention of the new routine, but the tray now often bears two meals and always two cups for tea. After six weeks of this, Jiang Cheng receives reports of a demonic cultivator who’s killed an entire village. “Reports started a few months ago, but when we sent a party out to see to them, they couldn’t find signs of anything more than some restless dead,” Bujue explains as Jiang Cheng trades his formal overrobe for something more practical. “But a merchant passed by yesterday and all of Juxinghu has been massacred.” Tightening his bracer, Jiang Cheng steps around the privacy screen. Not having had to be in diplomatic meetings all morning, Bujue is already ready to go. “Massacred? And you’re certain it’s demonic cultivation?” he asks. Bujue hesitates, drawing in a thin breath, before he exhales and gives a short nod. “I checked the earlier reports and they point to a Qian Xiashui,” he says. “She was cast out of the sect there after she insulted Clan Leader Shi’s second son. They say she started cultivating the ghostly path and threatening to take revenge on the clan if they didn’t comply with her demands.” A sudden wave of fatigue hits Jiang Cheng, and he releases a sigh through his nose. This will end in blood. It always does, in cases like this. He’s so tired of it — tired of cleaning up this, Wei Wuxian’s worst mess, and tired of people taking the skills his brother was forced to learn through desperation and twisting them into something evil and vengeful. Wei Wuxian may have used his cultivation to take revenge on Wen Chao, but he hadn’t chosen this path just for that cause. It’s like all the stories he hears now, of the Yiling laozu’s terrible deeds: stealing babes from cribs, sacrificing virgins to many-handed demons. His brother has become a horrible myth, a cautionary tale. Everyone draws a caricature of him in their minds, and none of them reflect the truth. That Wei Wuxian was arrogant and sharp-tongued and brilliant and deep-hearted. He was a brat and a nuisance, a stubbornly loving brother and unshakeable bulwark. In any world, Jiang Cheng would miss his brother, but he thinks it must be worse like this. The hole in his heart is so often rubbed raw by frequent mention of Wei Wuxian’s name, and yet no one’s memory matches the shape of his cut. Juxinghu is only two hours away by sword, and they take a group of senior disciples this time. There’s no lesson here for the juniors to learn. They pass over the lake itself on the way, little more than a pond but still and clear; the sun hangs like a white cymbal in its flat reflection. Landing outside Shi manor, they step off their swords into an empty road. The gate is ajar, wooden doors hanging off their hinges as if struck by some great blow. The air is still and sticky, the sun a heavy warmth on their shoulders. Spiderlegs shiver up Jiang Cheng’s arms as he orders the group into a defensive formation around the manor. He can feel the resentment already, the slivers pricking at his veins. Qian Xiashui is waiting for them. He and Bujue take point, guarding each other’s open sides. Nudging the gates open, they step inside and stop short. Red. Everywhere — there is — the courtyard is watered in it, lush with scarlet, a summer downpour replaced with blood. Streaks splash down the pale stone walls, lakes puddle up in the divots between stones. The sun is reflected in the pools, a thousand miniatures of the lake beyond the manor walls. In the center is a throne. Tall and misshapen, it lurches up from the garden at odd angles, rounded here and cracked there. It takes a moment for the lines of it to resolve into bodies, into broken backs and twisted arms. Atop them sits a small figure in white. Blood dusts her hem, splatters across the hemp cloth. “Qian Xiashui?” Jiang Cheng calls. A smile cracks across her lips, and she folds her hands before her in a crooked salute. “Sandu Shengshou,” she greets, “have you come to see my work?” Her voice is almost childlike, all bright pleasure. It twists something in Jiang Cheng, tugs at the threads of his spine with innate wrongness. She’s thin and small, could pass for a child if it weren’t for the shadows under her eyes and the hollows in her cheeks. “Why did you murder these people?” Jiang Cheng asks. “For revenge? Because they cast you out?” Her eyes narrow, dark slashes in her pale face. “I didn’t murder anyone, Jiang-zongzhu,” she says, “I brought justice to criminals. I did your job for you.” “You massacred an entire family,” Jiang Cheng snaps, gesturing to the desecrated dead all around them. “What could they have done to you that deserved that?” Her small hands clench into fists, knuckles sticking out bony and white. The smile has faded, turned to something hard and snarling. Around him, he can feel the air shifting, condensing. His hand tightens around Sandu. “What could they do to me?” she echoes. “You think this is about me? You think this is petty revenge?” She stands, and there’s a wet crunch of bone and viscera beneath her feet. “They ruined her,” she snarls. “They took my jiejie and they destroyed her.” Jiang Cheng flinches, startled, even as the corpses start to stir. There is so much rage in her voice, so much wrath — and a chasmic, burning hurt. “Their young masters couldn’t stand her talent and so they ripped her down and they killed her,” Qian Xiashui continues, voice growing stronger as she descends from her corpse throne. “And then, when that wasn’t enough, they desecrated her body and broke her spirit so that she could never come home. So that she could never rest.” Her hand flashes out in the start of a seal, and it’s Bujue who stops her. He flings his sword out, a silver-blue arc. Scarlet spurts out of her wrist, and she stumbles, falls with the sword. It lands point-first, pinning her arm to the bloodied tiles. Caught, Qian Xiashui writhes. Her lips pull back to bare her teeth, expression no longer childish but animalistic. “Why are you defending them?” she screams. “They ruined my sister! They deserve it! They deserve it!” Her howls are ghastly, sobs torn out of a broken throat. Jiang Cheng swallows and forces his feet to move. “You should have reported it to a magistrate or to Lotus Pier,” he says. There’s an order to these things, even if he can’t quite believe it would have mattered. Even small sects like this are fiercely insular and hate intrusions from the larger sects. They would have brushed off any inquiry from Lotus Pier and claimed Qian Xiashui was lying to save face. Now, Qian Xiashui stills, her wrist still pinned to the stones by Bujue’s sword. Her head tilts, brows flattening into a black line and dark eyes disbelieving. Her lips tremble, but not with tears. “I did,” she says, voice even and controlled. “I went to Lotus Pier and was turned away. I told the cultivators what they had done and they said it was none of their business. I waited and they never came.” Her voice rises, turns to a roar as she speaks, and with it, the resentment suddenly picks up. She’s faster than he expected; her hand flicks through her own blood in a simple seal before he can reach her. There’s a snarl and then Bujue’s gasp. Jiang Cheng twists, shoves Bujue behind him. His sword’s still pinning her wrist, still out of reach, he’s unarmed— Jiang Cheng chokes as a clawed hand rips into his side. “Zongzhu!” Laughter rises behind him, wild and off-key. Gritting his teeth, he brings Zidian down in a searing arc to cut the corpse in half. It sways before toppling in a wet thud to the ground. “You’re all the same. All you great houses think you’re so noble. You think you are better than us because you have a foot on our throats.” All around them, the corpses are stirring. Qian Xiashui stands in the center, wrist dripping red, and she burns. “They deserved what they got,” she says calmly. “And now you, noble cultivators, will get what you deserve.” Blood lines his teeth as Jiang Cheng turns back to her, Zidian live in his hand. Bujue has recovered his sword and holds it defensively, guarding his opened side. There are twelve corpses shambling toward them, but that’s not what has Jiang Cheng’s eye: Qian Xiashui holds a talisman in her good hand, and red smoke has started billowing around her. “Fuck,” he hisses. “Qian Xiashui, stop this! You can’t control it. It won’t give you what you want, it will just kill you.” She cocks her head to one side, fury writhing across his features. “I don’t care,” she spits. “I want my sister back. What’s the point of living if she’s not here?” The spirit manifests, all long claws and screaming face. Dismay sinks through Jiang Cheng like a stone but he forces his hand up into the air, a spark of qi enough to send the signal. His disciples descend before Qian Xiashui has a chance to command the spirit. It’s quick work in the end. Most of these cultivators fought at his side in the war. Many of them were there for Nightless City, others still for the siege of the Burial Mounds. Twelve corpses, a single spirit, and a half-crazed demonic cultivator are hardly a stumbling block. The suppression array they’d formed outside the walls bursts into violet light and flattens the corpses, pinning them to the ground. Qian Xiashui screams in anger and the spirit shoots toward Bujue. Jiang Cheng cuts behind it, slides Sandu through her chest. She gasps, gurgles as blood spills into her mouth. Her eyes flick up to him, wide and surprised. Childlike. She has to be close to his age, older than he was when he first went to war. Older than Wei Wuxian was when he died. “You…you killed me?” she says, and her voices comes out soft and shaking. They work together to cleanse the manor, liberating and suppressing what spirits they can. No one will ever be able to live here again. The whole town will need a more thorough cleansing later, something like the music of the Gusu Lan to properly disperse the resentment. He’s too tired now to think about the logistics of that. All of them seem subdued, after. They walk outside the perimeter of the manor and mount their swords in heavy silence. Jiang Cheng holds his side closed and does not think of his brother, does not think of wide eyes and blood on trembling lips. Qian Xiashui was not Wei Wuxian. She was crazed and vengeful. She wasn’t protecting anyone but seeking to destroy. Her death was necessary. The trip back to Lotus Pier is not long enough to make himself believe it. Three other disciples are injured, and two of them support the third, whose leg seems to bend the wrong way at the knee. Xiong-daifu breathes in sharply at the sight of them but doesn’t recoil or fuss. He’s always appreciated that about her. Instead, they’re each delivered to their own spot in the hall, with Jiang Cheng relegated to a private corner due to his rank. It feels silly, to be separated now when they were just equal in bloodshed. Still, he’s a little grateful when he’s pulled off his bloodied robes and hears footsteps round the privacy screen. He’s too tired to feel anything more than resigned at the sight of Wen Qing. He’s sure the mortification will rise up later, when he’s trying to get some sleep. “Fierce corpse,” he says stiffly. “Doesn’t seem too deep, just bloody.” Hurts like hell, too, but it’s hardly the worst he’s had. Adrenaline had kept it from immobilizing his arm, at least. “I’ll be the judge of that,” Wen Qing says. He lets her turn him and start cleaning the injury. Each gentle brush of cloth stings, and he clenches his hand in the bloodied fabric of his skirts. Distantly, he’s almost glad it’s Wen Qing. She’s seen this before, back when they were stuck in Yiling and he was waiting for his body to die. The first time he got injured after the war, Healer Xiong’s eyes had widened and grown wet at the sight of the scars across his back and chest, from where Wen Chao had gotten bored and wanted to see how Jiang Cheng reacted to Wen fire. Wen Qing makes no comment on the scars, doesn’t hesitate to adjust him as she needs to tend to the entire wound. He lets himself drift a little, turning his mind away from any thoughts at all and simply listening to the soft hum of her qi beside him. It’s quieter than most his senior cultivators — not quite as aggressive and thrumming as the golden cores of those who cultivate the sword path seriously. There’s a strength to its quiet, a firm surety in its hum.

“What happened?” He stirs a little, roused by the question. Her hands are steady as she threads neat stitches through his skin, but Wen Qing glances up at him with a furrowed brow. He shrugs his opposite shoulder and swallows. “It lunged for Bujue,” he says. “He didn’t have his sword.” Wen Qing’s hands fall still. Her gaze is still down, eyes hidden by the angle, but he can see the tension in the back of her jaw. He frowns. “So you decided your body would make a good shield,” she surmises, sharp. Her hands start up again, and this time he winces as she yanks the sinew through. “That the sect leader of Yunmeng Jiang should sacrifice his own well-being instead of trusting his lieutenant to protect himself.” His hackles raise. It’s not like he died or abandoned the sect. How could he have let Bujue get hurt? He’d been disarmed, defenseless. Jiang Cheng knew he could take the hit, after all — he’s fought through much worse. “He was disarmed,” he snaps. “I fought in the war; I’ve walked off worse.” “Surviving doesn’t make you invincible,” she shoots back. “It could have taken off your head or disrupted your meridians. This is deep, Jiang Wanyin. As it is, you won’t be lifting this arm for a week. Two weeks, at least, before you can use it for any training.” He recoils and then winces when the needle tugs at his skin. Her hand clamps down hard on his shoulder as she lifts her head to shoot him a venomous gaze. “Don’t you dare move or I will knock you out and make you rest for those two weeks,” she threatens. “I’m not a child,” he says. “I did what I thought was right. I couldn’t let Bujue get hurt, not if I could stop it. He’s family.” “And what if you had died?” Wen Qing snaps. “What if you had died for him and he’d been left? Knowing that you had sacrificed yourself for him, knowing that he was the reason you were dead? What would you have done, if Wei Wuxian had been the one to take the hit in your place?” Flinching, he stares at her with wide eyes even as his hands curl into fists. Wei Wuxian had done the same, had taken a hundred hits for Jiang Cheng. The spring before they went to the Gusu lecture, Wei Wuxian nearly died taking an attack that was meant for Jiang Cheng. He can still picture it: the set of his jaw, the blood running down his chest— Shoving the memories away, he clenches his jaw and scowls back at her. The answer is obvious, of course. He’d hated when Wei Wuxian did it. He still hates him, a little, for dying and leaving him now. Bujue’s always been kinder than him, quicker to forgive, but— Disgruntled, he turns back to the front and doesn’t look at her as she finishes stitching the wound shut and sets to wrapping it. “I didn’t— I’m not trying to. To leave or whatever,” he finally grits out. Wen Qing doesn’t pause as she smooths down the bandage and tucks the end into the wrapping. She doesn’t give any sign of hearing him at all, and irritation rises up Jiang Cheng’s back. What right does she have to judge him for protecting his own? Where does she get any authority to scold him? “There. Don’t jostle that shoulder,” she says, all brisk and professional once more. Gathering his ruined robes around him, Jiang Cheng can’t fight down the sullen frustration still lingering his veins. “I have some tea that will help with the pain,” Wen Qing says. “I’ll bring it with dinner.” She’s carefully not looking at him, and Jiang Cheng can’t quite help the way he perks up at that. There’s nearly a question in her tone, as if she isn’t quite sure that’s welcome. It takes all his restraint to keep from blurting out his relief. Clearing his throat, he tugs his robes closed and shrugs his good shoulder. “Alright,” he says. Wen Qing glances up from where she’s cleaning his blood off her hands. She narrows her eyes at him. “If I found out you’ve been working before then—” she starts. “You’ll stick me full of needles and drop me on my bed,” he huffs, flicking his hand. “I know.” A small smile quirks the corners of her lips before she suppresses it and straightens. Even toweling her hands dry, she looks regal as she lifts her chin to meet his gaze. “As long as we’re on the same page,” she says. “I’ll see you in an hour, zongzhu.” Despite himself, Jiang Cheng leaves the infirmary feeling almost like smiling. He can’t quite make sense of it, shies away from looking too closely. Still it’s…it’s good, he thinks, that Wen Qing came to Lotus Pier. For a few moments, at least, short weeks that stretch into months, he can forget Qian Xiashui’s rage, his brother’s terrified eyes. Something new and bright starts to grow over the deep rot of hurt and guilt and grief in his chest. There is so much wreckage left behind, but saplings are starting to grow through the ruins at last. Looking out over Lotus Pier, Jiang Cheng draws in a deep breath and lets himself feel the first brush of hope. Then, Lan Wangji returns.

#mdzs #cql #the untamed #untamed fic #chengqing #jiang cheng #wen qing #my writing

4 notes · View notes

alipeeps · 5 years ago

Text

Whumptober Prompt #7 - Isolation

(I’ve started compiling these fics into a multi-chapter fic on AO3 also, with 1 chapter for each prompt, if you’d rather read them over there)

The Untamed ( 陈情令 ) Ficlet - Wei Wuxian whump

Wei Wuxian felt horrible.

When news had reached Lotus Cove of a nasty flu-like virus spreading through the local population of Yunmeng, Madame Yu had naturally taken precautions to ensure that Lotus Cove remained free of the disease; servants and disciples were confined to the enclave, visits to the nearby town forbidden, arrangements were made for local merchants to deliver food and supplies to the enclave, leaving them outside the gates, and a curfew was imposed. Naturally, it was Wei Wuxian who had chosen to break both the curfew and the isolation order, his carefree nature chafing at being confined to the enclave, the lure of the town’s inns too tempting. So he had no-one but himself to blame when he awoke a day or so later with a barking cough and a high temperature, and blame him Madame Yu did.

She was, of course, furious. She ordered Wei Wuxian into isolation, confining him not to his usual quarters, but to a seldom-used room at the far end of the servants quarters, far away from the family residences, with the servants assigned to care for him ordered not to approach him closely unless absolutely necessary. Despite their protests, Jiang Cheng and Shijie were forbidden to go anywhere near him.

The symptoms weren’t too bad at first, mostly just leaving him feeling miserable and achey… and extremely bored and lonely. Wei Wuxian wasn’t good at inactivity or isolation. He liked to be around people – which was of course exactly how he’d gotten into this mess in the first place. But as the day went on, he began to feel worse and worse. His head felt hot and heavy, his thoughts sluggish. All his joints ached, and every cough made his throat hurt and his breath wheeze in his chest.

Fatigue made him take to his bed far earlier than his normal hour but his sleep was restless and broken; the painful cough kept him awake, and what sleep he did manage to get was shallow and fitful, plagued by disquieting dreams, and every time he shifted in his sleep the pain in his joints woke him up.

The early morning sun found him blinking wearily at the ceiling, his eyes dry and gritty, the bedsheets damp with sweat, his thin inner robes clinging uncomfortably to his skin. His head felt hot and swollen, his limbs heavy and uncooperative.

He was thirsty.

With an effort, he lifted his head. The servants had left him a pitcher of water but, true to Madame Yu’s instructions, they had ventured into the room as little as possible, leaving it by the door. He let his head fall back with a sigh.

Sitting up took more energy that he had thought possible and left him dizzy and nauseous. He sat on the edge of the mattress for a long moment, elbows on his knees, his head hanging down, waiting for the dizziness to pass. It didn’t. Great.

Gritting his teeth, he pushed carefully to his feet, steadying himself with one hand on the mattress as he wobbled and listed alarmingly. He managed to straighten up, hugging his arms around his midriff, trying to literally hold himself together as he attempted to get control over his body. It felt like the floor was tilting under him, making him feel like he was falling forwards even though he was standing still. It was a nauseating, disorienting sensation. He took a step forward and almost immediately staggered sideways, barely catching himself with a hastily thrown out hand on the bed frame. Okay, that was a bad idea. He took a moment to breathe, and then to cough harshly, his chest aching with the force of it, before pushing himself upright again.

This time he kept his steps small and shuffled, not lifting his socked feet from the floor. The floor still felt like it was dipping and swooping under him, but he kept his gaze fixed on his goal – the pitcher of water, a fixed point to aim for – and ignored it. By the time he reached the pitcher he was exhausted and shivering, his hands shaking so much when he picked it up that the water sloshed and spilled as he poured some into a bowl. He drank quickly and messily, rushing the bowl to his lips before his tremors could spill too much of the contents. Still half the water missed his mouth and ran down his neck.

He gasped, the cool water a relief to his dry and aching throat. He gulped down a second bowl, spilling a little less this time, picked up the pitcher and wobbled his way back to the bed, dropping onto the mattress with a sigh of relief. He was shivering more than ever now, his teeth almost chattering, and he huddled himself under the blankets, hunching his body up into as a small a shape as he could manage as he tried to get warm.

He lay there shivering and coughing and feeling miserable, until eventually exhaustion won out over discomfort and he drifted into a restless sleep. He dreamed of being on fire and when he woke up he was bathed in sweat, the covers thrown aside, his skin feeling too hot and too tight. He groaned.

He struggled to raise himself on one shaky elbow long enough to take a drink from the pitcher before flopping back down onto the mattress. The light shining through the windows had taken on a warmer, golden hue. He guessed it was mid afternoon. As though awoken by the drink of water, his stomach gurgled noisily, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since some time the previous day. He grimaced. Mustering up enough energy to lift his head, he looked over to the door and yes, there was a tray of food sitting there. He let his head drop back down to the pillow. He’d slept though the sound of the servants bringing the tray… and they were obviously keeping to Madame Yu’s orders to keep as far away from him as possible.

He lifted his head to look again. It took far more effort than it should have done and the tray of food seemed very, very far away. The thought of trying to get up and walk that far… he experimented briefly with trying to sit up, only to find his head spinning dizzily and his arms shaking like willow trees in the wind, barely able to bear his weight.

He all but collapsed back to the mattress, gasping for breath as though he’d just run a sprint race. “Maybe later,” he thought woozily. “I’ll get some food later.” The nausea that accompanied the dizziness seemed to agree with that idea.

He lay unmoving for a while, just breathing, and coughing, his mind drifting fuzzily, his head weighing heavily on the pillow. Sweat trickled down the side of his face and the heat of the mattress, warmed by his own body heat, was unbearable. The fabric of his robes clung to his skin. He began to daydream longingly of the cold pond at Cloud Recesses. The thought made him laugh weakly. Who would have ever thought…?

A coughing fit pulled him from his introspection, his chest heaving with ragged coughs, one after another after another, until he was gasping for breath, his head pounding, tears streaming from his eyes.

The spasm finally eased and the tension fled his body, leaving him weak and shaking. No, not shaking… shivering. A tremor ran throughout his entire body, his limbs jittering uncomfortably. He moaned weakly. For all his longing thoughts of the cold pond just moments before, he now felt like he’d been dunked in it. He fumbled a shaking hand to his forehead and frowned. His skin was still hot to the touch, damp with fever sweat, but he felt cold as though he were freezing to death.

He struggled to sit up enough to fumble for the bedcovers, gritting his teeth against the dizziness that side-swiped him the moment he was vaguely upright. He pulled the covers up over his shoulders, tucking them awkwardly around himself, and tried his best to curl into a ball, whimpering a little as his aching joints protested. It didn’t help. He couldn’t seem to get warm at all. He lost track of how long he lay there trembling and coughing miserably. The shivering was nearly constant, making his muscles ache and his joints complain, and his jaw began to hurt from clenching it to try and stop his teeth from chattering.

The sound of the door opening pulled him from his misery and he raised his head groggily to see two servants hovering uncertainly in the doorway; they had scarves tied over their nose and mouth and one of them was carrying a tray of food. They looked at him awkwardly. Wei Wuxian was good friends with all of the household staff. Well, except for Madame Yu’s two attendants; they looked at him with the same disdain as she did. But he knew well that Madame Yu’s orders would take precedence over any friendship the servants may feel towards him and he understood that. He did. He knew all too well the price of Madame Yu’s displeasure.

The servants offered him an awkward bow and, without stepping further from the door than they had to, laid the fresh tray of food down on the table. They took the untouched tray with them as they left, closing the door firmly behind them. Wei Wuxian let his head drop with a defeated sigh and huddled further into his blankets, for all the good it did.

It was dark outside now, evening time already. His perception of the passage of time was patchy and disjointed. The hours blended into each other meaninglessly, lost in a heavy-headed fugue of misery, his body alternating between painful, aching shivers and flushed feverish heat. Sleep came to him in fits and starts, plagued by unsettling dreams, broken by aching, painful joints and coughing fits that left him gasping for breath.

The sound of the door opening startled him from a restless half-sleep and, lacking the energy to raise his head, he listened dully to the servants muffled whispers, the sounds of another food tray replacing the one he hadn’t touched. The door slid shut. It must be morning. He shivered fitfully, his joints aching fiercely. He shifted weakly on the mattress, trying to fit his body into a comfortable position, but comfort eluded him, and every movement brought sharp twinges of pain. He gave up and lay still, just breathing, existing. It was all he could do.

It was some time later – mid-morning from the light filtering in through the window - when the awareness of thirst roused him from his stupor. He couldn’t be sure if he had slipped in and out of sleep at all or had been simply lying for hours lost in the fog of fever; awake and asleep had begun to lose their distinctions, everything blurring together into an endless miasma of discomfort. He reached for the water pitcher with a shaking hand, barely able to lift his head enough to take a drink. His hair was plastered uncomfortably to his face and neck, sticking damply to his skin. He lay back with a ragged sigh, the effort of just taking a sip of water having exhausted him. His stomach was aching fiercely, and he thought with a vague longing of the tray of food sitting by the door. Just the thought of sitting upright, let alone getting to his feet and walking that distance, was exhausting. He blinked rapidly, suddenly feeling on the brink of tears, a wave of loneliness and isolation washing over him.

How he wished for Shijie to brush the hair back from his face, lay a gentle hand on his forehead. Or even for Jiang Cheng to berate him for his foolishness in breaking the curfew, and tell him again how it was all his own fault that he was feeling so awful. He shivered, curling into himself miserably, trying to ignore the growling emptiness in his stomach.

Sleep must have claimed him at some point because when he next awoke it was from a nightmare; he came back to himself with a hoarse shout, his chest heaving as though he’d been running for his life, his face wet with tears. He shuddered, gasping for breath, his heart pounding in his chest, his throat aching and raw, and lapsed into a coughing fit that stole the breath from his body, left him seeing stars.

He let out a desperate groan, blinking up at the ceiling, waiting for his pulse to stop pounding in his ears, his breathing to even out. It seemed to take an awfully long time. He rolled his head on the pillow. It was dark outside. Evening? Middle of the night? He realised he had no idea. His sense of time was hopelessly jumbled.

His stomach clenched painfully, making him moan. He needed to eat something.

Gritting his teeth, he mustered what dregs of energy he could and made himself move. Sitting up made his head swim dreadfully and he honestly couldn’t tell if it was from the fever or from the lack of food. His limbs trembled, his arms barely able to push him upright, and the effort of swinging his legs over the side of the bed left him breathless, his breathing ragged and shaky. He looked despairingly at the tray of food. It was so far away. It might as well be in Gusu. He sighed breathlessly.

“Come on, Wei Wuxian,” he tried to lecture himself. “You can do this.”

It took him three tries to get to his feet; on the first two attempts, his legs shook so much that he fell back to the mattress almost immediately. On the third go he clung onto the bedframe desperately, trying to bear some of his weight on his arms while he got his feet under him enough to get his knees locked. He stayed like that for long moments, his arms and legs trembling dangerously, his breathing fast and shallow, his head hanging low. He screwed his eyes shut, trying to ignore the swooping dizziness that made the floor tilt and spin under him. He could do this. He could.

Opening his eyes, he forced himself to straighten up, one hand still gripping the bedframe tightly as he tried to find some kind of centre of balance. He breathed through his mouth, nausea roiling in his empty stomach. Come on. You can do it.

He managed a shuffled step forwards, keeping his knees locked, still holding onto the bedframe. And another, his breathing rasping with the effort. Tremors shivered through his entire body and he whimpered. Come on.

Biting his lip, he let go of the bedframe and took another unsteady shuffle forwards. His legs were literally shaking under him. He took another unsteady, trembling step. And another. And then his legs simply gave way under him and he dropped like a stone, crying out as his arm and shoulder slammed into the floor, his head cracking on the hard wood with an impact that made his vision go dark for a moment.

Pain spiked hot and angry, throbbing through his shoulder, stabbing sharply in his head. He moaned weakly, tears welling in his eyes. He lay helpless on the floor, breathing shakily through the pain, waiting desperately for it to subside enough for him to think straight. Eventually, he breathed out a ragged sigh, took a deep breath, and tried to push up off the floor with his arms. It didn’t work; his arms were trembling too much to bear his weight. He sank back to the floor with a gasp.

Maybe… maybe if he could reach the bed, he could pull himself up? With a grunt of effort, he lifted his head and managed to get his arms under him, using his forearms to drag himself forward. His head throbbed angrily and his arms shook under him. Everywhere ached. Nearly sobbing with the effort, he pulled himself forward again, and again… until he could reach out a trembling hand and grab onto the bedframe.

He let his head hang down for a moment, spinning dizzily, while he caught his breath.

He tried to pull up, struggling to push up with his other hand, trying to draw his knees up under himself…. he strained and shook, his muscles shivering and twitching with effort . It was no good. There was no strength left in his muscles, his body fever-weak and starved of sustenance. He curled up on the floor miserably, tucking his arms around his aching stomach, shivers racking his body. His head was pounding horribly.

He drifted for a while, his awareness wavering between an exhausted, dizzy, delirium and an uncomfortable semi-wakefulness brought about by bouts of painful coughing, the angry growl of hunger in his stomach, the hot aching of his body laying heavily on the cold, hard floor, and throbbing spikes of pain in his head.

He drifted in and out of fitful sleep, dreaming of wandering hopelessly lost under burning desert sun, staggering blindly through raging blizzards, waking doused in fever sweat or shivering violently. Eventually exhaustion won out and he knew nothing more.

He awoke to the feel of a firm mattress under him and the blissful sensation of a cool cloth being pressed to his forehead. He blinked his eyes open blearily, struggling to focus, and found himself looking up into a familiar pair of eyes. The rest of the face was hidden behind a scarf tied across the mouth and nose… but he would know those kind eyes anywhere.

“ShiJie,” he croaked, unable to hold back a smile. It was so good to see her, so good to…

He frowned, shaking his head weakly, “No… no… you shouldn’t be… you’ll catch it…”

He turned his head on the pillow, facing away from her, trying not to breathe on her. The effort to control his breathing aggravated the tickle in his throat and he tried desperately to get a hand over his mouth as he coughed and coughed and coughed, tears leaking from his eyes, his chest wheezing horribly.

“A-xian!”

The cool cloth followed him, pressing to his forehead, his temples, wiping back his sweat-soaked hair.

He kept his head turned away, his hand pressed over his mouth, as he tried to get his breathing back under control.

“You can’t be here, Shijie,” he rasped miserably, his voice muffled through his hand. “You’ll catch it. Madame Yu will…”

“Mother’s orders are wrong,” Shijie said firmly, pressing the cloth to his neck. Oh, it felt so wonderful against his heated skin. Her voice softened, and he knew well the tender look he would see in her eyes if only he were to turn his head to look. “A-xian, you are sick. It is cruel to isolate you like this. How will you get better with no-one to care for you?”

Wei Wuxian blinked rapidly, trying to hold back the tears that welled in his eyes. Still, he would not turn to face her. “You’ll catch it too,” he moaned sadly. “It’s my own fault I’m sick. I can’t… I can’t make you sick too. Please Shijie…”

“A-xian… the servants tell me you haven’t eaten any of the meals they’ve brought you…”

He swallowed, feeling guilty at having caused his Shijie to worry, not wanting to upset her further by admitting that he’d been too weak to even get to the food.

“And they came to me in a panic this morning because they found you unconscious on the floor.”

Oh. He closed his eyes with a wince.

“I will look after my A-xian.” Shijie’s tone brooked no refusal. “And I will accept Mother’s punishment for breaking her rules.”

Wei Wuxian couldn’t hold back a tremulous smile. Where would he be without his Shijie? She was too good to him. He had no doubt that Madame Yu would be angry at her… but he also knew that she wouldn’t punish her harshly. He, however, would almost certainly catch it in the neck at some point for being a bad influence and leading Shijie to defy her mother…. But he could live with that if it meant spending a little longer with his Shijie.

“Now come on, let me help you sit. I’ve brought you some medicine… and I’ve made you some soup.”

That at last did get him to turn to face her, and he couldn’t help the hopeful look on his face. He really didn’t want to get Shijie sick though, and he kept his hand over his mouth. Shijie eyes lit up at the sight of him and he knew that under the scarf she was smiling, that indulgent smile that she kept only for her beloved brothers. His answering smile was hidden by his hand but he knew she would see it in his eyes, as he did in hers.

“Come, come..” She leaned over him, sliding her hands under his arms and helping him to sit. Even with her help, it took almost all his energy, the effort leaving him gasping and trembling, and being upright brought with it the expected dizziness, compounded now by the throbbing pain in his head that made him wince.

He closed his eyes, trying to breathe through the dizziness and pain. A gentle touch made him open them again; Shijie laid the back of her hand gently against his forehead, a frown of worry on her face.

“A-xian! You’re burning up!” she fretted.

She turned to the table beside her and from a box took out a small bottle.

“Come,” she ordered, “this medicine will help reduce your fever.” She poured some out into a bowl and held it out to him. One hand still over his mouth, he tried to take the bowl from her but she took one look at how badly his hand was shaking and held it out of his reach. She looked pointedly at the hand covering his mouth. He hesitated. He really didn’t want to get her sick.

“A-xian…” she chided softly, and with a pout he reluctantly lowered his hand.

Nodding gently, she held the bowl to his lips, tilting it carefully as he swallowed down the liquid. He grimaced; it tasted dreadful. He felt the tickle building in his throat as she moved the bowl away and hurriedly put his hand back to his mouth, turned away from her as a series of ragged, painful coughs shook him. He was vaguely aware of her hand moving in soothing circles on his back.

When the coughing finally passed, leaving him shaking, his breath wheezing unevenly, she helped him to sit back comfortably, stroked the hair back from the side of his face as he closed his eyes, trying to catch his breath. He leaned into her gentle touch.

“Can you eat some soup?”

He opened his eyes to say yes but his stomach chose that exact moment to gurgle loudly enough for them both to hear, and their eyes met in shared mirth as both of them tried to stifle a giggle.

“I think that’s a yes,” she said gaily, her voice rich with laughter. He nodded carefully and watched with anticipation as she reached into the box and lifted out a covered bowl and spoon. Removing the lid, she gave the contents a stir and the lifted a spoonful to his mouth. The smell was immediately familiar and comforting.

“Lotus root and pork rib?” he asked weakly, breaking into a watery smile as she nodded. His favourite. He beamed at her gratefully as she fed him a careful spoonful. It tasted incredible, better even than usual. He swallowed and eagerly opened his mouth for more. She fed him, spoonful by spoonful, until the bowl was empty and his stomach, for the first time in days, felt comfortable and full.

A yawn caught him by surprise as she packed the empty bowl away. He felt suddenly drowsy, his head wobbling heavily on his shoulders. Shijie’s eyes were full of tenderness as she helped him to lie down.

“Sleep,” she told him. “It’s what your body needs to recover.”

He blinked up at her tiredly, his eyelids growing heavy. It was so good to see her, he’d been so alone…

He frowned anxiously, reaching out shakily and taking her hand in his. “Shijie,” he whispered roughly..

“Shhh..” She squeezed his hand gently. “Rest A-xian. I will be here when you wake.”

He smiled at that, his anxiety melting away. His eyes slid closed and he let his head sink back heavily on the pillow, her hand still clasped in his. He still ached all over, still felt weak and shaky, alternating between shivering cold and sweat-soaked heat, his head still pounded and his cough still hurt… but it was amazing how much better he felt just to have his Shijie with him, just to not be all alone.

#whumptober2019 #prompt no. 7 #fanfic #my fanfic #whump #wei wuxian #wei wuxian whump #hahahahaaa these short fics are getting longer and longer!#this is getting ridiculous!#Concise? Nah I don't know her #aaaaanyway #the next installment in my increasingly behind schedule attempt at doing Whumptober #but what the hey #I'm having fun #I'm whumping Wei Wuxian #and I'm actually WRITING so this is A GOOD

7 notes · View notes

bloody-bee-tea · 5 years ago

Text

The brushed-out waves

Title from the poem Braid by Susan Stewart

Nie Minjue is laying in bed, one boyfriend at each side, and staring at the ceiling. He never sleeps well when he’s away from home, and this night is even worse than any other. But it’s the middle of the harvest season for Jiang Cheng and his people and it would have been unreasonable for them to make him leave Lotus Pier.

So Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue had gone there, desperate to finally spend some time with the three of them together again, but also more than ready to help Jiang Cheng.

Nie Mingjue especially had thrown himself into the hard work; he isn’t a stranger to this kind of work and he had hoped that it would tire him out enough so that he could get some sleep in the night.

But neither the hard work nor his boyfriends by his side are any help. He usually slept better with both of them safe in his arms, even when he was away from home, but even that didn’t seem to help this night.

It is almost morning, and yet Nie Mingjue is still following the texture of the ceiling beams with his eyes. He could probably paint them by now, if he were so inclined, but they aren’t of any help to him.

Nie Mingjue sighs and presses a kiss first to Lan Xichen’s head before he turns to do the same to Jiang Cheng, willing himself to at least doze a little, but even that evades him this night.

He’s going to be cranky all day, he just knows it, and he will have to apologize to his boyfriends in advance. Maybe he should just stay out on a field today, and only come back for dinner.

Jiang Cheng is stressed enough, he doesn’t need Nie Mingjue snapping at him as well.

Lan Xichen moves slightly on his chest, and Nie Mingjue knows it’s a dead give-away that he’s about to wake up.

He quickly closes his eyes, hopes to fool Lan Xichen, and maybe even himself into falling asleep, if only for a few hours, but Lan Xichen shifts on him, and then lets out a sigh.

“Mingjue,” he whispers, careful not to wake Jiang Cheng who needs every minute of sleep he can get these days.

Nie Mingjue doesn’t answer, but he does open his eyes and looks down at Lan Xichen, who has his chin propped up on his chest.

“Did you not sleep at all?” Lan Xichen asks and Nie Mingjue can already see the worry lines around his eyes.

“I woke up early,” he lies straight through his teeth but Lan Xichen seems to believe him.

At least right until Jiang Cheng let’s out a snort and lightly slaps Nie Mingjue.

“Lying is forbidden,” Jiang Cheng grumbles and snuggles closer to Nie Mingjue, reaching over him to thread his fingers with Lan Xichen’s. “He didn’t sleep at all,” Jiang Cheng tells Lan Xichen, and now the worry lines deepen.

“Betrayed by my own heart,” Nie Mingjue laments, tries to lighten the mood, but Lan Xichen and Jiang Cheng silence him with a glare.

“Is something plaguing you?” Lan Xichen carefully asks and brushes his fingers over Nie Mingjue’s temple as if he wants to chase any bad thoughts away.

“No, I’m happy,” Nie Mingjue gives back, and it’s the truth, too.

He doubts anything could plague him when Lan Xichen and Jiang Cheng are right by his side.

“Is it the new environment? I know we’re not here often, and the constant murmur of the water can be upsetting at first,” Jiang Cheng says as if his home isn’t the most beautiful and peaceful of them all.

“I love it here,” Nie Mingjue gives back. “The water is actually excellent background noise to get lost in,” he tells Jiang Cheng and follows it up with a quick kiss to his forehead.

He had gotten lost in the small, quiet sounds of the water more than once, more meditating than sleeping, and he guesses it’s the only reason he doesn’t feel dead on his feet already.

“What is it, then?” Jiang Cheng wants to know and mimics Lan Xichen’s gesture as he brushes his fingers over Nie Mingjue’s temple.

“I don’t know,” Nie Mingjue says with a small shrug. “Sometimes I just don’t sleep well when I’m not at home,” he admits to the searching and questioning look of his boyfriends.

“Ah,” Lan Xichen says, because even though he never suffers the same fate, he can understand. “Like our heart when he’s too long away from Lotus Pier,” Lan Xichen guesses, turning his soft gaze onto Jiang Cheng.

“I worry, okay?” Jiang Cheng snaps back, and Nie Mingjue smoothes his hand over Jiang Cheng’s back, wills the tension to leave his body again.

“And no one is holding that against you,” Nie Mingjue quietly tells him.

He understands that worry, to a certain degree. Lan Xichen can feel safe in the knowledge that Lan Qiren and Lan Wangji will lead the Sect in his absence. Nie Mingjue has enough faith in Nie Huaisang to know that he won’t lead the Sect into certain doom if he’s gone for longer than a week, but Jiang Cheng has no one to fall back on.

Of course he would worry. They never would hold that against him.

“You better not,” Jiang Cheng grumbles, but then he softens again, when he looks at Nie Mingjue. “What do you need?” he asks, clearly ready to give whatever is in his power to Nie Mingjue and Nie Mingjue smiles at him.

“You two, right here,” he gives back and Lan Xichen huffs out a laugh.

“You have that, and it didn’t help. Try again, my soul,” he cajoles him and Nie Mingjue rolls his eyes.

“Fine,” he grumbles out and Lan Xichen laughs at how reminiscent it is of Jiang Cheng.

“Tell us,” Jiang Cheng coaxes him gently and Nie Mingjue finds himself thinking—and not for the first time—that he wants to spend every morning like this.

“Can I braid your hair?” he asks them, knowing that the familiar motion would at least have an effect not unlike meditation, and Lan Xichen lights up at the prospect.

“Of course,” he immediately agrees. “Wanyin would look amazing in your style,” he says as he already clambers out of bed to get a brush.

“You want to do mine first?” Jiang Cheng asks him as he pushes himself up, his hair falling over his shoulder and onto Nie Mingjue’s chest.

He loves seeing Jiang Cheng like that; his wild hair unbound and spilling all around him, and Nie Mingjue finds himself thinking that it would be a shame to braid it all up.

“Yes,” he still says, because he can do two small braids, and secure them at the top of his head, while leaving the rest of his hair unbound and free.

Jiang Cheng will complain about that—he gets too hot in the sun like that—but Nie Mingjue finds he doesn’t mind if Jiang Cheng puts it up later.

But for now he wants to see him like this.

He pushes himself up, too, scoots around until Jiang Cheng can sit in front of him between his legs while Lan Xichen plasters himself over Nie Mingjue’s back as he gives him the brush.

“I want to watch,” Lan Xichen whispers into Nie Mingjue’s ear and a shudder goes down his back.

“Okay,” he croaks out and gets started on Jiang Cheng’s hair when he makes an impatient sound.

Nie Mingjue finds himself thinking that one day, he’s going to braid the entirety of Jiang Cheng’s hair, just to make him sit still for that long and the thought makes him smile.

“You’re too impatient for this,” he chides Jiang Cheng, when he subtly starts scooting around half way into the first braid.

“I’m not good at sitting still, you know that,” Jiang Cheng gives back, but he does sit still for the rest of the time, and let’s Nie Mingjue do what he wants.

Since it’s just the two braids, Nie Mingjue is done rather quickly and once he has secured the braids on Jiang Cheng’s head, he trails a hand down his back, making Jiang Cheng visibly shudder.

“I’m all done,” Nie Mingjue whispers, as he sweeps the unbound hair out of his way and presses a kiss to Jiang Cheng’s nape.

“You know it won’t stay like that,” Jiang Cheng says, but he leans into the contact and doesn’t immediately put his hair up.

“Yeah,” Nie Mingjue says with a sigh. “So let me enjoy this for as long as I can,” he mutters, dragging his lips over the sensitive skin on Jiang Cheng’s throat and Jiang Cheng tilts his head to the side to give him better access.

“You can’t mess his hair up already,” Lan Xichen chides them, and Nie Mingjue briefly pulls Jiang Cheng close to his chest before he lets him go.

“You’re just impatient to get your hair done, too,” Jiang Cheng says to Lan Xichen, even as he leans down and captures Nie Mingjue’s lips in a soft kiss. “Thank you,” he says and then moves to take Lan Xichen’s place, draped over Nie Mingjue’s back to watch him work.

Lan Xichen settles down in front of Nie Mingjue, seemingly eager to have his hair done, and Nie Mingjue knows how much Lan Xichen enjoys having his hair brushed so he takes his time with it.

Lan Xichen has infinitely more patience than Jiang Cheng, so Nie Mingjue can work one of the more intricate braiding styles into his hair, but even that ends too soon for Nie Mingjue’s taste.

“Our light is so beautiful,” Jiang Cheng whispers when Nie Mingjue secures the last braid and Nie Mingjue only smiles in response, because Jiang Cheng is entirely right.

“Now let us do your hair,” Jiang Cheng suddenly says and when Lan Xichen turns around his eyes are shining.

“Can you do your style?” he asks Jiang Cheng as he leans in and brushes a feather light kiss over Nie Mingjue’s lips. “Thank you, my soul.”

“Of course I can,” Jiang Cheng says, with a small peck to Nie Mingjue’s ear, before he moves so that he can access Nie Mingjue’s hair better.

Nie Mingjue hadn’t bothered to undo the braids in the evening, so Jiang Cheng’s clever fingers get started on that.

Lan Xichen watches them for a few moments, before he sighs and leans back against Nie Mingjue, safely tucked into his arms and propped up by his chest and he seems content to just stay there.

Nie Mingjue rewards him with another kiss to his temple and then leans into Jiang Cheng’s touch. He undoes the braids, quick but careful to not tug on them, and it’s not long before he gets the brush.

Nie Mingjue can feel his eyes drop at the steady motion of the brush through his hair, and when it simply doesn’t stop, Nie Mingjue suspects Jiang Cheng is brushing his hair long past the point of necessity.

“What are you doing?” he asks, and he’s surprised when his voice comes out slurred, his tongue heavy with sleep.

“Shhh, my soul,” Jiang Cheng whispers, barely audible over the brush against his hair, and Lan Xichen tucks his face into Nie Mingjue’s neck, peppering his throat with featherlight kisses.

“Sleep,” Lan Xichen murmurs and Nie Mingjue wants to protest, wants to tell them he can’t, it’s too late in the morning now, they have things to do, but words are suddenly hard to come by.

So he allows Jiang Cheng to tilt him slightly back, just far enough that he can rest against Jiang Cheng’s chest and the last thing Nie Mingjue knows are Lan Xichen’s fingers trailing up and down his chest and Jiang Cheng’s lips moving against his hairline.

{Buy me a kofi}

#bt writes #the untamed #mdzs #mingxicheng #anon #established relationship #soft #fluff #hair braiding #insomnia

134 notes · View notes