#but mostly grandma yu kicking ass

[bloody-bee-tea]

Beetober 2021 Day 19 - Sandpaper

Nie Mingjue groans when he comes to. His body feels heavy, he’s uncomfortable all around, and when he opens his eyes they scrape together like sandpaper. Every blink hurts, and he decides that this can wait.

There’s no reason to see the world right now anyway, he’s sure of that.

Instead of looking around and putting more strain on himself, he tries to figure out where he is by using his other senses. The bed he is in doesn’t feel like his own, that’s his first—well, second if he takes into account how beat up he feels—clue that something is wrong.

Additionally to that he can hear the murmur of water in the distance and the disciples running around are much lighter on their feed than the Qinghe Nie disciples usually are.

So he’s not at home.

He carefully moves his arms, checking if he’s being restrained right now, but it doesn’t seem like it.

“You’re in Lotus Pier,” someone suddenly says and despite how it feels, Nie Mingjue opens his eyes.

“Wanyin,” he breathes out, when his gaze falls onto the younger Sect Leader and Jiang Cheng raises an eyebrow at him.

“So this is what it takes for you to call me by my name,” he muses and Nie Mingjue feels compelled to correct his mistake.

There’s a reason why he doesn’t normally allow himself that sort of intimacy with the other man.

“Sect Leader Jiang, I apologize, I clearly must have inconvenienced you,” Nie Mingjue says, to Jiang Cheng’s apparent dislike, and he tries to sit up.

“You will stay flat on your back or so help me,” Jiang Cheng says, without actually moving a muscle but Nie Mingjue stops with his efforts immediately.

“What happened?” he dares to ask and Jiang Cheng comes closer to sit on a chair next to his bed.

Nie Mingjue wonders if Jiang Cheng has spend a lot of time in that chair but he pushes that thought away before it can further develop.

“So you don’t remember,” Jiang Cheng says, playing with Zidian on his finger and Nie Mingjue has watched him enough to know that it’s a sign of him being agitated.

“I don’t,” Nie Mingjue admits after giving it some thought but the last thing he remembers is sitting down for dinner with Nie Huaisang.

He doesn’t understand how that ended up with him being in Lotus Pier and feeling like shit, but he’s sure that Jiang Cheng is going to tell him.

“You had a qi deviation,” Jiang Cheng says, and Nie Mingjue closes his eyes at that, sighing in defeat.

“I see,” he whispers.

They have gotten more violent over the last couple of months; they happened more often and lasted longer and Nie Mingjue knows that his time is coming to an end.

“Do you remember what you said when you came here?” Jiang Cheng asks and Nie Mingjue tries his hardest not to frown at him.

“I just said I don’t even remember how I ended up here and now you’re asking me about what I said?” he still snaps out, his temper getting the better of him and he takes a few deliberately deep breaths.

He shouldn’t snap this soon after a qi deviation. It’s not good for him, he knows that.

Jiang Cheng doesn’t seem put off by his temper though and steadily holds his gaze.

“You flew in here, yelling at me that this is the reason why we couldn’t be. I thought you were drunk at first,” Jiang Cheng tells him and Nie Mingjue’s stomach sinks. “Then you started bleeding.”

He never wanted Jiang Cheng to know about his qi deviations, or his feelings for him, but it seems like he failed spectacularly on both accounts.

“I’m guessing this is why you shut down any and all friendly correspondence,” Jiang Cheng says before his mouth twists. “I guess this is why you threw my courtship proposal back into my face.”

“I didn’t mean to—” Nie Mingjue starts but he can’t even finish that sentence.

Yes, he meant to. He did it in a way that would ensure that Jiang Cheng would never try again; would think that Nie Mingjue tolerated him for their Sect’s sake and nothing else.

Nie Mingjue can’t bear the thought to hurt Jiang Cheng with his death if he doesn’t have to, so he tried his best to keep him at a distance, no matter his own feelings on the subject.

“You’re the worst fucking idiot I have ever met,” Jiang Cheng hotly says. “Has it never occurred to you that people might be able to help, if only you would let them?”

Nie Mingjue moves his jaw to swallow his first instinctive response to that.

“I asked for help,” he then tells Jiang Cheng, trying to keep himself composed. “Xichen is playing for me. It doesn’t help.”

“And the cultivational world only consists of Qinghe Nie and Gusu Lan,” Jiang Cheng mocks him. “So clearly you exhausted your resources already.”

“What do you want me to do, exactly?” Nie Mingjue asks, his temper finally getting the better of him. “This has been going on for generations!”

“And how many of your ancestors asked for help? How many of them thought to seek help beyond their own city boarders?” Jiang Cheng shoots back and Nie Mingjue is now agitated enough to push himself up.

“And who is going to help another Sect leader? You?” he asks, refusing to admit that he’s panting from just that little bit of movement, and he glares at Jiang Cheng, daring him to lie straight to his face.

“Of fucking course, you idiot,” Jiang Cheng snaps back. “I thought with Wen Ruohan’s death we got past this ‘every Sect for themselves’ bullshit.”

“What could you even do?” Nie Mingjue asks, mostly out of curiosity, but he keeps his mean undertone, just so that Jiang Cheng doesn’t get any wrong ideas. “The Jiang’s aren’t healers.”

“No, they are not,” Jiang Cheng readily agrees. “But the Yu’s specialise in poisons. And do you know what you also have to specialise in if you choose poison as your main weapn? Antidotes. Healing. As far as I understand it, your qi is poisoning your body. There must be an antidote for it.”

“You make it sound so fucking easy,” Nie Mingjue grumbles. “It’s not as easy as that. Our cultivation—I’m not going to give it up.”

“I don’t see how your cultivation has anything to do with this, but here’s the deal: you tell me about it, I contact my grandmother to see what ideas she has and then you finally let me court you, you idiot!”

Nie Mingjue blinks at Jiang Cheng at that, processing his words, but in the end he shakes his head.

“No. I will not let you court me if I could still die of qi poisoning.”

“You stubborn, stubborn man,” Jiang Cheng hisses. “Fine. I’ll heal you. I’ll find a way to heal you. See what excuse you can come up with then,” he snaps out and leaves the room with billowing robes.

Nie Mingjue can only stare after him and wonder what he just unleashed unto the world.

~*~*~

It turns out that, first and foremost, something got unleashed unto Nie Mingjue. Grandma Yu—as everyone seems to be calling her—is a force to reckon with and almost makes both Nie Mingjue’s and Jiang Cheng’s temper pale in comparison.

“So you’re the man little Wanyin has his heart set on,” she greets him with the first time they meet and Nie Mingjue can’t get over how she just called Jiang Cheng ‘little Wanyin’.

He’s already too scared to not answer her, though.

“It seems so,” he admits and flinches under her glare.

“And it seems like you’re a bumbling fool, because you didn’t agree yet. We’ll see if you are actually worthy of him,” she goes on, and then simply grabs his arm. “Mh, even more of a fool. A full-blown idiot even, going after that cultivational style without proper counter measures.”

“There are no counter measures,” he tells her and then pales when she glares at him.

“Let’s hope you at least manage to get back your status of fool, otherwise you will not be allowed to marry my little Wanyin,” she tells him and then seals his mouth shut with the Lan spell.

Nie Mingjue is too scared to even dare to ask her where she learned that from, even once the spell wears off and he’s honestly glad when she leaves him be.

“How did it go?” Jiang Cheng asks as he steps into the room and Nie Mingjue stares with wide eyes at him.

“I’m scared of her,” he admits and Jiang Cheng nods.

“Good choice,” he tells him. “We call her Grandma Yu, but I think she’s actually immortal. You would do well to be scared.”

“She knows the silencing spell of the Lans.”

“She can also melt your core, so I’d be careful not to upset her too much,” Jiang Cheng flippantly gives back and then leaves Nie Mingjue to his thoughts.

He didn’t know one old lady could be this scary.

~*~*~

“There’s an easy solution to your little problem,” Grandma Yu announces three days later. “You have to stop cultivating the saber.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Nie Mingjue shoots back, because he’ll do a lot, but he will not give up that.

“I thought so,” she grumbles under her breath. “Idiots, the lot of them. Men, honestly, so stupid in everything they do. Can’t even come up with another cultivational style. Fumbling baboons, all of them.”

Nie Mingjue doesn’t dare to object, but he watches how Jiang Cheng has to bite back a laugh and it makes the insults a little bit easier to bear.

“Is there another solution?” he dares to ask once she falls silent and he shrinks back when Grandma Yu glares at him.

“Of course there’s another solution. There is no problem in this world that only has one viable solution. Who even allowed you to be Sect Leader?”

“Wen Ruohan, when he killed my father,” Nie Mingjue shoots back and that at least makes Grandma Yu pause for a bit.

“Ah, yes, I remember the child,” she agrees and Nie Mingjue shares a concerned glance with Jiang Cheng.

No one remembers Wen Ruohan as a child; he was approaching at least his second or third century when they managed to kill him.

“Always too ambitious for his own good,” she goes on and then slaps a vial into Nie Mingjue’s hand.

“You put one drop of that onto your saber every day and polish it in. You will manage at least that, right?”

“That—of course,” Nie Mingjue agrees. “But that’s it?”

“The problem comes from your cultivational style, right? There’s no use to look for the problem in you; it’s your saber that’s causing you pain so the solution is this. Use it or die.”

“I will use it, of course, thank you!” Nie Mingjue is quick to answer but Grandma Yu shakes her head.

“Honestly, little Wanyin, you couldn’t have found someone better? Someone more intelligent? This one will make your kids stupid.”

“Sorry, Grandma Yu, but I set my heart on him,” Jiang Cheng says with a smile and leans obediently down so that she can pet his cheek.

“Fine, if the heart is set, there’s nothing one can do. If he doesn’t treat you well, you tell me.”

“I will,” Jiang Cheng promises. “You want to come for the wedding?”

“Hey!” Nie Mingjue objects because he didn’t agree to anything yet.

“You agreed to let me court you if I find a solution. My solution was Grandma Yu. A deal is a deal, Mingjue,” Jiang Cheng tells him.

“I’m not—we have to try it first,” he says and rushes to go on when Grandma Yu glares at him. “Not that I don’t trust that it won’t work, but I don’t feel too good and we need to try it out first, right?”

“Excuses, nothing but excuses,” she mutters. “If this doesn’t work, I will drop dead on the spot. You—” she points at Nie Mingjue “—never contact me again unless it is to tell me you decide you want kids with little Wanyin. And you—” she turns to Jiang Cheng “—will write to me more often,” she says, suddenly softer than before and Jiang Cheng agrees with a smile.

“I will, I promise.”

“Good. Now go court your idiot, before he manages to find another way to kill himself,” she tells him and leaves without a look back.

“There will be no more ways,” Jiang Cheng decides and steps close.

Nie Mingjue is still loosely holding the vial in his hand and Jiang Cheng gently closes his fingers around it.

“I found a solution. Now it’s your turn to uphold your end of the deal.”

“I didn’t refuse you because I don’t love you, or to be contrary,” Nie Mingjue manages to say. “I was going to die. Soon. I didn’t want to hurt either of us like that.”

“Understood,” Jiang Cheng softly tells him. “But things are different now. So what do you say?”

“Jiang Wanyin, will you let me court you?” Nie Mingjue asks and his heart flutters at the wicked look Jiang Cheng throws him.

“Mh, yes, I think it’s time for you to put in some work,” he agrees and bends down to steal a kiss. “I’m looking forward to your first courtship gift.”

With that he leaves a dazed and stunned Nie Mingjue behind and he wonders just what he got himself into now.

Not that he’s complaining.

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